How Wrestling's Present Brilliance Has RUINED Its Future
That may be because the wrestlers you watch now went on a similar journey, whether they were in it early enough to trade tapes or wanted to see what else was out there on the torrent sites after a once-hidden past. The digital unlocking of every style, of so much brilliance, the international scope of the form available within seconds, informed the brilliance of pro wrestling's incredible artistic modern era. The very recent past was seminal, the present day yields great work weekly - but the future looks decidedly grim.
This process started a long time ago - the original Tiger Mask fused together two disparate styles, while the Great Muta was a breathtaking fusion of the junior and heavyweight disciplines - but it began to accelerate in the 1990s with the formation of Michinoku Pro Wrestling, nothing like which can ever really exist again. That "puro-lucha" blend, improved upon by the electric pace of Dragon Gate years later, was a breathtaking experience: the best of two forms alien to the US fan mashed together to extract the maximum excitement. What forms can be spliced together now that, not to be too reductive, almost every form has slowly bled into one another?
The best generation of independent wrestlers - that first wave of ROH geniuses - borrowed liberally from the high-end '90s Japanese scene and/or took their beloved WCW cruiser division to new, literal heights. There was no point in working WWE-style matches in front of a hardcore crowd in desperate need of an alternative. What those legends didn't know is that they too would be imitated to the point of dilution.
Rip Rogers was dunked on for his tired grifter "...dive" rant a few years ago. It was an inarticulate, reductive and desperate bid for relevance - but it wasn't without a kernel of truth. A lot of modern pro wrestling, the unreal execution of which notwithstanding, resembles itself to a numbing extent. Standing, defiant, turn-taking chop exchange premised on the idea of machismo. A wicked suplex variation that isn't sold, because the wrestler who just took it uses the adrenaline to pop back up and return the favour before eventually collapsing to the mat, expecting a "This is awesome" chant on the double-down. You do in fact see it all the time.
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