At the peak of my passion for being a wrestling fan in the summer of 2002, everything I watched inspired me to write, talk, and breathe about the sport of professional wrestling. This got to the point that my viewing was almost obsessive rather than being a fan. The dirtied waters of WWE had yet to depress me with the product so much that I simply stopped watching and the two newest promotions Ring Of Honor and Total Non-Stop Action were brimming full of potential. In my youthful exuberance, I thought things could only get better. After a brief blip through the beginning of 2002 where the business seemed to be teetering on the brink of an abyss, when mid-summer rolled around I didn't expect it to fall into a bottomless pit. Oh how wrong I was….
Four years on I am at the point that the only thing that keeps me watching pro wrestling is my Internet connection so that I can download the latest Pro Wrestling NOAH shows and measly paycheck from a job that I can hardly stand, just so that can lay my hands on the only entertaining promotion left in North America namely Ring Of Honor, the promotion that still convinces me that good wrestling in the traditional sense can be promoted to mainstream America if it was only given the chance. Whilst Total Non Stop Action seems to rather live in the past and fight wars that their supposed opposition doesn't care about, Ring Of Honor is more worried about encapsulating the passion of the droves that have turned away from WWE.
Despite a large quantity of my favorite workers still based out of Orlando and New York, even their unquestionable talents don't have me itching to tune into RAW, SmackDown!, ECW, or iMPACT! every week. Gone are the days when I simply tuned into the RAW because it was live! Something always nagged in the back that if I missed RAW, I was going to miss something important. Now RAW just seems formulaic and as if the wrestlers are painting by numbers. Promos don't intrigue; rather they have me reaching for my ears to stop the pain of listening to the idiocy.
In a day and age where bigger is apparently better, I am filled with more inspiration for the future of pro wrestling by watching Ring Of Honor entertaining a couple of thousand people in the Liverpool Olympia than I was watching WWE promote 2 shows (RAW & ECW) from the most famous arena in the world, Madison Square Garden, at the beginning of September. This was ECW's debut in the Garden and it just felt as if I was watching a bad episode of Heat rather than something that was resurrected to be an alternative. The vibrant fan chants of 2005 had been evaporated by the ailing ECW on Sci Fi show and the only person that lit up the arena was CM Punk, hardly a fitting debut of a future main eventer in the hallowed halls of MSG.
In years gone by, the Madison Square Garden show was supposed to be this wonderful show that came every couple of months that included memorable angles, great matches, and classic feuds. This was a place that wrestlers were made into stars, stars whose careers were etched into legend. Does anyone really believe when looking back in twenty years time people will be in awe of Cena the way a lot of people view Hulk Hogan now? Back then, who cared if Jimmy Snuka and Don Muraco couldn't work a lick? Because in 1983 when Snuka dived off the cage it was as legendary as Mick Foley being thrown off the cage in 1998. Moments like these are inspiration to watch and get an adrenaline flowing where you forget the outside world and you are subsequently encapsulated in the world being broadcast from your television. Nowadays it's been done, it's old hat; the WWE have educated their fans to expect controversy and jaw dropping moments so much so when they can't deliver and the adrenaline of entrances evaporates quicker than water in the Sahara.
In retrospect, it's a little disturbing that in the fifteen years that divide those two revolutionary incidents that the business changed in such a way that within two years wrestlers had to fall off titan trons, suplexed through glass stages, and continually being mutilated by barbed wire. This is a huge part of why nothing seems sacred in the business anymore. At first it seemed awesome, but then when it's happening every month what's the point? In 1989 when Terry Funk piledrove Ric Flair on a table, his career was in 'jeopardy' and he didn't work for six weeks. In 2006 when Randy Orton & Edge were beating the holy hell out of Ric Flair, Jim Ross made it seem like he was being murdered and two weeks later he was back in the ring with DX making the heels look like geeks.
When I first saw Too Cold Scorpio do a moonsault, it was awe-inspiring. It was even more awe-inspiring when Jack Evans broke out a double moonsault from the top of cage at Ring Of Honor's Main Event Spectacles in 2003. But what happens when it's physically impossible to do anymore flips? Is someone going to break their neck in an attempt to quench the thirst of people who love acrobatics?
I feel the problem is that there comes a time when there are no more barriers to break. Because of this, it becomes important to produce a show that is fundamentally spot on. This can make up for an audience that has become jaded by a product that has crossed the line and then fallen off the edge of the cliff of insanity. It's almost an un-talked of fact that people won't believe in the antics that captured the imagination of wrestling fans twenty years ago. Simply because in this era we have been told to believe the unbelievable and it is more important to be 'edgy' and 'wacky' than producing a product that hardcore fans will be happy with. Whether WWE wishes to acknowledge the mess they're in is neither here nor there because it's blatantly obvious when an arena starts chanting another promotions initials (namely in this case TNA) that the WWE is in mess. They're more worried about making money by spinning out merchandise and cheesy movies than having four or five extravaganzas that have people talking these events into hyperboles.
More is apparently better and with the continuous addition to the WWE product on TV; nothing can be perceived as small, everything has to be special and in doing so nothing feels special anymore. So with the continuous stream of big events apparently worthy of our passion, are we supposed to give our emotions unconditionally? To a product that presents wrestlers painting by numbers and never mixing it up to be something different in the ring?
I'm not saying that every WWE match is awful, but when I watch films I don't always watch dramas. When I listen to music, I never listen to indie music. It seems to be a modern day misconception that each promotion should have one style and not deviate from formulaic matches in case they confuse their fans.
This is perhaps the fundamental problem with the sports entertainment philosophy. Maybe the people who wish to create international conglomerates get more joy out of the money in their pocket than producing the product that they loved when they chose their profession at the start of their career. I'm sure that when Bill Watts retired from the wrestling business there were very few things he regretted and whilst he broke all money-drawing records in the Mid South Area, he let the world see a product that he could look back on with pride.
Ring Of Honor has proven that it can push the boundaries of what pro wrestling has become and fill their fans with a passion from their product. Ring Of Honor is based on respect, respect of opponent, respect of official, respect of fans, and most importantly, respect of the business. One word can describe this and it is simply sportsmanship. I'm not going to insult the intelligence of anyone reading this: we know the business is a work. However, in its most entertaining form, it's closely perceived to be a shoot. So as in any walk of life you get people who stray from what their livelihood is based upon.
This idealistic conception of wrestling can encapsulate anyone's passion for watching wrestling. This was proved eleven years ago when Brian Pillman seemingly snapped and for the following two years of his life every one believed Pillman had gone crazy and had become a loose cannon.
So I'm left with the inescapable conclusion that the lack of will to build a promotion actually worth watching nowadays is to appeal to one type of fan. Namely a fan who has the capacity to have their mind pushed to its boundaries, but never break those boundaries. No one can every make everyone happy. That's why WWE's ratings are dwindling, that's why the ECW house shows collapsed. Every ten years we might get a Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold Steve Austin, but it's impossible to try and manufacture two bona fide superstars & mainstream celebrities, and the pursuit to do so has evaporated any passion I ever had for the WWE. At the end of the day, if you can make wrestling fans believe in a product, you can harness their passion for the wrestling business. Ring Of Honor has done this on a regular basis for the past two years.
So when I ask the question of Where Has All The Passion Gone? It's not down the toilet as Douglas Nunnally told me when I told him I was writing this. It's going to be at Expo Center in Hartford, CT and the Manhattan Center in New York over the weekend of December 22nd & 23rd.
Quote Of The Week: Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say and say it hot. - D.H. Lawrence
Thanks for enduring my thoughts for the time being. If you want to agree, disagree, shout or laugh at me for what you've just read you can contact me at:
mattgreeniow@hotmail.com
or
AIM: mattgreeniow
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