Yeah, blading was always part of normal matches, even without it being hardcore. The problem now is that they still do the hardcore style matches, but with no blood or chairshots to the head so it looks strange.
There were just too many injuries from chair shots, and bleeding isn’t PC. The PC aspect is a big part of the problem. Wrestling is a non-mainstream venue that’s being shoe-horned into mainstream media.
For years on end wrestlers would enter the ring swinging chairs and rarely connect with another wrestler. The tendency of one-upping dangerous moves led to the current state of banning chair shots to the head and pile drivers. Part of the problem was the lack of skill in wrestlers in delivering and receiving, but too much of it were the attempts to get over on the crowd with more and more dangerous stunts.
Superfly Snuka was never WWE champion.
Owen Hart was never WWE champion.
Roddy Piper was never WWE champion.
Today there are some guys doing some pretty good entertaining who have never been WWE champion, but casual fans don’t think they’re “big enough” stars.
I grew up when wrestling was for the most part local. I recall watching the Von Erichs in the Sportatorium in Dallas. They did do the trash talking, but it wasn’t the “show” it is today. I recall hearing that the performers were on a circuit and when they were out of town, they could have different personas. I recall being surprised that the Von Erichs were the “bad guys” in other markets, like Houston.
Now, whenever I flip through the channels and land on wrestling I don’t see any wrestling. I just see guys screaming at each other in the ring with fireworks and flashing lights. Unfortunately, with so much else the show and glitz has taken over and what used to be fun pastime.
Although I agree there’s too much talking, I like the crazy intros. HBK and The Undertaker have better intros than a lot of people’s matches!
Owen Hart should have been champion at least once. Same with Bulldog. I could see Snuka as champ, but Piper never did it for me in the ring. He was good at talking though, like The Rock. I hate watching him wrestle. It’s like a smoothed over Hogan, almost the same moves and everything. He’s funny though.
Actually they’ve been pretty good lately at pushing good talent. Mark Henry was given a nice but brief run, Daniel Bryan, Punk, Miz, among others have gotten their shots. The days of unbeatable champions have ended and there’s a more competitive atmosphere now. It’s a big change from the model of the past where champions held their titles for years.
Owen would have been champion, had it not been for his untimely death. The Bulldog was supposed to have been champion on three or four occasions, but backstage politics (and his own demons) held him from the title. I believe he and HBK were supposed to trade the title between the in 1996., but Michaels backstage clout prevented that. And he was supposed to be briefly champion in 1999 and this time HHH decided to sleep with the boss.
I doubt Owen would have ever been champion for longer than a day. He was a talented wrestler, but he couldn’t sell tickets if he did a donkey show in the ring. His constant search for a gimmick untimed his death.
Right–Chris Benoit is a good reason why impacts to the skull are rather frowned upon.
For the blood and such–have you seen Ric Flair’s (or even HHH’s) forehead now that everything’s in HD? It really pushes home the fact that people were being asked to literally mutilate themselves for our entertainment–which I can’t say I’m sorry to see less of. And Bob Orton not mentioning that he had Hep C before he bled all over the Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match a few years ago probably didn’t help.
And as for talking vs wrestling–from my memories of World Class (and the occasional AWA rerun when I had ESPN Classic), yeah, they may have had les talking and more wrestling, but it wasn’t quality wrestling–it was jobber matches. I’m not sure the earlier way was really better.
Any love for TNA / Impact instead?
Maybe it’s because I was just the right age at the time, but I personally miss the “Rock & Wrestling” era of the '80s and the early '90s, when the faces (like Hulk Hogan and Lex Luger) were all-American superheroes, and the villians had ridiculous gimmicks like “wrestling tax attorney” or “wrestling voodoo priest” or “wrestling Iraqi sympathizer”. They had trash-talking and storylines back then, but the storylines existed to justify the matches, not the other way around. Maybe the wrestling wasn’t as technically impressive as some of the stuff the luchadors introduced in the '90s, but it was good enough for me when I was a kid.
PS: I will award one million points to whoever can identify the villians I just described.
^
IRS, Papa Shango and Sgt Slaughter circa 1990-1991.
I award you one million points. Try not to spend them all on old hats and hobo dirt.
Irwin R. Scheister was the tax attorney. Voodoo priest…Papa Shango? The Iraqi sympathizer could have been the Iran Shiek or even at one time Sgt. Slaughter.
ETA: Damn, only an hour late for those one million points.
The upcoming HIAC with Taker/HHH at Wrestlemania better be an exception. I suspect it’ll be Taker’s last match ever, and likely HHH as well, and I really hope they go all out.
There are certainly some real talents. CM Punk has been killing it for months. Ziggler and Cody Rhodes are ready to hit the big time. Cena can really bring it when he wants to. There are rumors of Tajiri returning. Daniel Bryan is incredible. Jericho is back and as good as ever; his match with Punk is reason enough to buy Mania (well, not quite, but close).
Of course, they’ve also all but abandoned tag-team wrestling, which is a shame. Women’s wrestling…sorry, Divas…basically consists of Beth destroying the world, Natalya’s talent being wasted on farting, and a lot of models.
Frankly, the state of the WWE is one of the reasons I love DVR. I can watch an episode of RAW in about 40 minutes by fast forwarding all the crap (like the Otunga/Ezekiel Jackson match last Monday…seriously, someone thought this was a good idea).
Bring back guys like Ivan “The Polish Hammer” Putski! Back in those days men were men!
And even when they do show past matches where somebody “wears the crimson mask”, almost always the video changes to black and white whenever there’s more than a trickle of blood. (This is even when WWE Classic airs ECW (the “real” ECW, not the one WWE tried to do), even though the show starts with a disclaimer along the lines of, “This show is meant to be viewed by adults and should not be viewed by children.”)
Also, there’s a relatively new policy where, if someone gets cut open, they stop the match temporarily while a trainer comes out to stop the bleeding.
I don’t want to quote several people, so I’ll just respond to several points.
I think Hep C is one of the big reasons the blood is gone. The 123 Kid has it and so do several others. I don’t mind that it’s gone, but Hell in a Cell isn’t really Hell in a Cell unless there’s blood everywhere. The recent HIAC PPV sucked. If the Undertaker wants to go out in grand fashion, he better bring it all. I’d rather see him wrestle someone like Jericho or Punk, as I’m not a HHH fan, but I don’t get to book matches.
I was never big on tag teams. The tag teams I did like were because I liked the 2 singles wrestlers that were thrown together to make a team, like HBK and Diesel or Owen and Bulldog. I did like the Hardy Boys, but that was because of Jeff’s spots and I liked him better as a singles wrestler. I liked the APA, but it was because of their “Use the door!” policy in their skits and stuff like that.
The Diva division could become decent if they allowed it to. They need to use wrestlers instead of models. Beth and Tamina was pretty good the other night. One big problem is that they keep doing tag matches with 4 or 8 people and giving them 3 minutes to get everything in. The EC Diva match actually got time to let them work a full match and it turned out pretty good. I’m hoping the Beth vs. Kharma rumors for WM are true. Those 2, plus Tamina and Natalya could make a strong division. I hate Natalya’s current gimmick.
There’s supposed to be a best of ECW DVD coming out this year. Not Vince’s ECW, but Paul’s. Hopefully they do it right. I don’t mind if they censor the language, but they need to keep the blood and everything like that. I assume they’ll remove all of the music too, but I’ve never seen how WWE handles old ECW stuff.
That, and related health concerns are one main reason, although not so much for health reasons as liability protection. Wrestlers aren’t a closed society anymore, and suing promoters is common now.
As I mentioned before, it’s also part of mainstreaming wrestling, which I detest. Linda McMahon’s political ambitions play a part, but so does securing quality air time, and avoiding notice by the ‘nanny state’ and ‘civility nazis’.
This probably would never have been a problem if not for the overuse of blood and drugs.
I’m not sure that making it mainstream is contributing to it being lame though. They’ve always had the evil Tax Agent, Pirate, Clown, etc. I remember in 1994 or 95, Bret Hart had a feud with the pirate because his ring jacket was stolen. Or when he feuded with Lawler’s dentist after supposedly getting a cavity from the “kiss my foot” match.
When I started watching Raw, it always seemed like there would be a tag match, 2 midcarders, then HBK killing some local jobber. 1 hour and 3 cheesy matches. Once in awhile we would get something good like HBK vs. Owen or something like that. It wasn’t until Nitro came along that good matches started coming to Raw.