Is wrestling today still as bad and atrocious as the peak of the mid to late 2010s PWG Young Bucks Will Osprey-esque super indie spotfests or has it somehow gotten even worse and more self indulgent?
Don't know, I haven't watched wrestling in more than a decade.
its gotten better unironically, there was a bit of a backlash to the pwg/nxt style. i mean that style still exists and its still bad but its way less prevalent than it was in like 2018
>>19783143>Is wrestling as bad as when it was at its bestRetard
>>19783143Wrestling is better than it's ever been across numerous companies (including WWE) and I'm getting a bit tired of retards around here trying to pretend otherwise.
Dronies are so embarrassing
>>19783162>Wrestling is better than it's ever been across numerous companiesnah only CMLL is
>>19783167Not true, we've got some of the biggest legends ever to grace the sport. Buddy Rogers never got the pop Roman Reigns does. Saya Kamitani is a bigger deal than Antonio Inoki and all Four Pillars put together.
>>19783143it's completely reversed now, WWE and AEW are the ones making boring redundant slop while some of the smaller companies are the ones doing interesting and original things. Japan is hurting but stable and improving, AAA is still a mess and CMLL is still very stable.
>>19783165>I am embarrassingoof anon learn to love yourself ok
>>19783238What makes you think that poster is an e-Drone?
The only people who say wrestling is bad right now are posters who don't even watch and just come to this board to shit on wrestling fans.
>>19783275stop thinking and start knowing
>>19783143It's kind of reached a weird midpoint where a lot of schizovince's retardation and the opposite end of retardation reached a logical middle ground.Idk just watch a Rumble and see if you like the current landscape, that's what I do each year.
>>19783162good bait
>>19783316Where's the lie?
Worse cause wwe is more or less doing that style too. But no one anywhere is wrestling regularly enough to be able to consistently pull off the moves so botches and awkward and obvious cooperation are everywhere. From the indies to wrestlemania mainevents, doesn’t even matter if a match is rated above 5 stars. There will be at least one moment that would have got you bood out of the business 20 years ago.
>>19783143WWE has pushed back against that style in the last handful of years. AEW has doubled down on it
>>19783714It's fair, but do we really watch pro-wrestling for hyper-realism in 2026?We know it's a fake sport. We don't want people actually hurting each other. They're mostly working safer and the point is entertainment so we suspend disbelief a little more than we might have done in the past because they're just putting on a stunt show. When I'm watching, I see a botch and just move on with the match, I care more about what's happening in the larger context of things.I think people hyperfocus on nitpicking things instead of just enjoying them for what they are and that's the real problem with pro-wrestling today.
>>19783156Bait
>>19783143The indies and other promotions were great at that time, before TK and the elite killed the whole scene
>>19783162This is too retarded to to work as bait. Do better.
>>19783773The only people who care about hyper-realism are stinky workrate smarks and that's a shoot.
>>19783785Let me correct that - stinky workrate smarks and trolls who don't watch wrestling at all and who just want to shit on it.
>>19783723I don’t think it’s a nitpick for wrestlers on television actually be locked in and engaged with their match. I don’t know if they rotted their brains with video games or if they’re just thinking about being back on their phones. But this isn’t an issue with realism, especially in a post mma world, it’s an issue with that they can’t do half the shit they want to do and insist on still doing it. We’re also seeing less innovation and variety. Not every match needs to ape chopfest 05, your heatless match up doesn’t need ring side brawling.
>>19783808This I actually agree, these are good counterpoints.I mostly watch Japanese wrestling. I prefer the undercard matches. They're not balls to the walls spotfests. I'm okay with botches here and there.
>>19783143You should give AEW a try. It finally restored the soul and excitement in pro wresting after years of watered down normie bullcrap.
Are you still judging an entire form of entertainment over something you didn't like 15 years ago?
>>19783816Botches are fine, just react accordingly. If your opponent slips off the top rope act like they slipped, don’t throw yourself down cause that was the spot. If a dive misses act like the dive missed don’t just bump any way, that’s a real big one. Like this became and iconic moment at the time. Millions of smarks spent half an hour downloading the botched dive on real player https://youtu.be/ZPPFuSg0ePQ?si=ZGgzxLDBtJr774ju But if Mikey had taken a bump cause that was the planned spot, Ala every dive for the last 5 years, the footage would have rightfully never aired and you’d probably have killed that town. Likewise arguably the most iconic moment of any super j was when sasuke ate shit trying to do a spring board, liger mocked him and got flash pinned as a result.
>>19783874Didn’t WWE do a similar spot with Moxley in 2014?
>>19783906I’ll add another one, I was literally yard tarding with my brother and we accidentally rolled through on a crossbody, he was about to stand up but I held him on top of me and we made it the finish cause we weren’t going to top it. Even me, at age 10 with no training, had better in ring instincts than any wrestler working today.
>>19783906Billy Gunn is a pro at doing this, was never a fan of his but seeing him deal with those AEW botch machines showed me how much of a pro he is
>>19783906100% agreed, I take back my earlier statement.
Yeah it's pretty much the same flippy bullshit with midgets who look like 90% of random construction workers would kick their ass in a shoot
>>19783785LMAO. I'm a work rate smark despite Hulk Hogan being my favorite wrestler? Hogan's work was 10x more believable than modern slop too. But work rate smarks hate Hogan and love the modern style. Go figure.
>>19784145Eh, I ended up agreeing with this guy - >>19783906There's botching and then there's botching. Mistakes happen, especially when you work safely (I'm not saying all botches happen as a result of that, but some do - I can forgive a guy selling a kick that was off by an inch, for example). I watch Japanese wrestling, botches happen, you go on with life. The real problem is when they're the result of shit people shouldn't be doing in the first place or from just being lazy (going down when it's obvious the other wrestler didn't come anywhere close to you, for example). As an aside, Hogan's my favorite too brother. Ichiban Hulkster.
For me it’s when they do apron spots or head drops in cold matches. you aren’t mad at this dude, why are you trying to paralyze each other? Are you bad wrestlers who can’t win any other way? You must be cause you spiked that guy on the hardest part of the ring and he’s back at in control a minute later.
>>19783143it is getting worse, kikeltzer plan to kill it's finally in full effect.
>>19783143A big part of the problem comes from Meltzer and Cagematch, even though I don't necessarily hate either of those personally.Wrestling isn't a thing to be rated. A match is either good or it isn't - it entertains the fans and tells a story or it doesn't. Attaching ratings puts pressure on wrestlers to make an extravaganza out of everything, and that's exactly what's happened. Even midcard matches try to be extravaganzas.An extravaganza every once in a while is good. But when everyone's doing it no one's doing it. And worse you get guys who can't do it trying to do it, which is the bulk of the AEW roster.I don't know. I don't blame Meltzer and Cagematch directly. They're useful resources for figuring out whether something is worth watching or not. But the real shame is how much importance that's been attached to them and the degree to which companies try to cater to those tastes.
