Even with the challenge of TNA to WWE’s superiority, professional wrestling has gone through what Sigmund Freud would probably refer to as the latency period. In psychoanalysis, where Freud believed everything was about sex, the latency period was a time of life from about ages 6 to 11 when not much happened. Ever since the beginning of 2006, I believe that wrestling has gone through an equivalency of this.
Now, I am not saying that there’s not a lot of sex in wrestling. For my tastes, there is way too much. I would appreciate it more if these overtones were actually undertones. I doubt that will be the case though.
What I am saying is that there has been a lack of excitement in the sport and I think that’s bad. A little over a month ago, the biggest wrestling story of the year hit many of us like a surprise. Kurt Angle decided to sign on with TNA. That was a dream come true for many fans who would like to see him wrestle some of the more amazing wrestling in the business today; most of these are in TNA.
Since this revelation, not much has really happened, however. Yes, Sting has wrested the NWA World Heavyweight Championship away from Jeff Jarrett. However, did anyone really doubt that this was going to happen? It was extremely predictable, as is often the cases with championship versus career matches. Even before that, though, back when Jarrett won the belt again, it was obvious that this match was being set up for Bound For Glory. It took the passion out of it for me.
The rest of the year has been rather slow. The Cena show was tired in my view over a year ago, ECW has already used up the small reserve of excitement that it had going for it and Smackdown is just… well… Smackdown.
So, getting to my point, the few things that have been making me very happy in the past months on RAW have been the reemergence of older wrestlers whom I watched all the time in my youth. As loyal as I am and as much as I love the sport, I very often long for the days when Ric Flair was ruling the NWA, Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were the big thing in the WWF and ECW really hadn’t been heard of yet. In those times, it was easier to get excited about a wrestler without the big production of their ring entrances.
A few weeks ago, I was rather thrilled to see Money Inc. back on RAW. Sure, Ted Dibiase is old and no longer evil and it looks like IRS has put on quite a few pounds, but it was still great. The only thing that would have made the situation a lot brighter for me would have been to see Dibiase put the Million Dollar Dream on a member of the Spirit Squad.
Tonight on RAW, I got to see Sgt. Slaughter, Roddy Piper and Dusty Rhodes stand beside my all time favorite wrestler Ric Flair. It was good to watch, even though every single one of them are way past their prime. Other than Flair, none of them will be able to still hold their own in the ring. The match at Cyber Sunday may end up being some sort of nightmare. I hear Dr. Freud calling again.
Still, there’s not a lot to hold onto now. None of the champions in TNA nor WWE are thrilling me much at the moment. I definitely think Big Show and Booker T deserve the title reigns and it may be their respective last reigns (Show is still rather young, but he has been around for quite a long time. Unless he jumps to TNA and wins the NWA belt, this may be his last run with gold), but neither of them inspire me much to look up from my homework.
In spite of all this, I looked up to see some of my old favorites. I recalled a day before Titantrons, Divas and old DX members. It felt really good and I thanked God for the invention of tapes and DVDs. I am sure that wrestling will soon enter another period of excitement, but watching some of these older guys made me remember that I have them immortalized in tapes to keep me busy until things pick up
Here’s hoping that Vince will keep reminding us of these great legends of the sport. It may not be great to see them wrestling at this stage of their lives, but it’s always good to remember what wrestling was like when I was younger.
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