After a long ard think about influences in todays wrestling, I have come up with this..

Now I know this is going to upset and pi$$ several people off, but this is how I feel and a lot of other people too.

People go on about the new school old school, the old school clasification goes back to the 70's and early 80's, now wrestling (old school) came to an end because it was not entertaining anymore, two people in the UK wanted all power in wrestling and unless you arse licked you were not getting in. Many wrestlers were not happy at the so called golden boys of wrestling who basically would not bump, or put anyone over. the old we are the best and you are nothing syndrome.

It was going stale, why do you think audiences fell to all time lows, why did ITV kill it? Come on lets get real here, it was killed because it was poor, people were switching off, people did not want to see the same old faces winning and the up and coming talent basically jobbed the hell out of.

I for one am sick of people going on about how great it was, how it was the best thing ever. If that was the case we would not be in the situaltion we have now. RBW go on about they are old school, they still have high flyers jumping off the ropes, and flying to the outside. They mix it up a bit, because they have to. If they were total old school how long would it be before people stopped coming. I am only using RBW as an example here, I love what they do and have seen a few video's of shows and they are good. Same with every promotion in the UK, you have to move with the times. Yes a lot of UK promotions mine included would rather use the american influences rather than the Old School (I hate that word, because its not old school). The youth of today want match _base_d psycology, in a different form to how it used to be. They want to see some crazy stuff, they want to see some solid stiff mat _base_d wrestling. Basically they want to be entertained, the old showman ship is still needed to make the younger ones understand whats happening as they don't care about the moves, they want to be told a story, good vs bad....

Times change, they do in everything in life. Look at boxing now, its more of a pantomime than Little Red Riding Hood, but it draws bigger audiences than ever before. Pop & Rock concerts now have to spend millions on stage sets and production, its not a case of 1 truck pulling up the roadies setting up the music gear and that was it. Now it takes 100's of roadies, 10's of wagons to make a show.

Finally, Its about time that people realised the cycle wheels are turning and the so called days Great British Wrestling back int he 70's were not as great as some people like to make out. I have spoke to many people who were on the road 4 nights a week with the likes of the crabtrees and some of the stories they have told would make you shake your head in disbelief. But all that when the book is finished....

Gary

N/A.

I totally agree,I honestly thought I disliked wrestling for years as a kid because of the boring stuff on ITV years ago,but then I happened upon the WWF with its glitzy characters,which as a kid appealed to me..now Im more interested in the backstage goings on of the WWE than the product...

Of course there is. From a business perspective, wrestlers and promotions "have to" give the crowds what they see on TV and what is their (the crowds) definition of pro-wrestling. That means exagerating the face/heel dynamic, plenty of quick-paced spots (usually at the expense of the "substance") and whatever. It's amazing how, to many people, without the gimmicks, the promos and the angles, pro-wrestling apparently becomes amateur wrestling :|. No, I'm not making that up, either.

Besides, when you're barely breaking even with your travel when working a show, you're going to give the easiest, most effort-less match you can. That means either All Star's pantomine _style_, or the "new school indy" _style_ of spot-fest. You can't expect people to give a shit if they're going to be losing (or making very little) money doing it...

I think Gary has almost hit the nail on the head. However i do differ in some of his points.

Now World Of Sport wasnt excactly bad, hell it did have some very good wrestlers but it didnt change with the times. ITV killed itself when it started to add WWF to its programme because instead of seeing fat man in spandex they saw Hulk Hogan, who at the time was in amazing shape, had bags of charisma. It just made people like Big Daddy look like complete jokes. All of a sudden the british public saw that British wrestling wasnt the only thing going and demanded more from World Of Sport.

World of Sport didnt deliver. Daddy and Haystakes were still clogging the main event instead of being a novilty act like they should have been and nothing was evolving. From the production standards to making wrestlers better themselves (physically). World of Sport was old hat. (Sounds abit like the end of WCW dosnt it?)

Now to the subject in hand, i think theres elements of both countrys _style_s and attitude that have their advantages.

I think any british show which has the production quality of an American show has an advantage straight away. I think the traditional ring in the middle of village hall setting is slowly starting to die off and so it should. To me it gives a small time impression. (even know i went to a Premier show a few weeks ago and the quality of wrestling made up for it)

Wrestling _style_ wish? I think too many new wrestlers try and copy the american _style_ of move after move and it limits them so much as wrestlers. I think British audiences like to see high impact moves however i think British wrestling audiences are more patient and can sit through 20 minute + matches with rest holds and actual wrestling.

Crowds over here as well like to interact with the wrestlers alot more, love it or hate it. British wrestling fans like to boo a baddy and cheer a heel in the old fashioned sense of the word.

Thats my 2 cents anyway

Crowds over here as well like to interact with the wrestlers alot more, love it or hate it. British wrestling fans like to boo a baddy and cheer a heel in the old fashioned sense of the word.

One thing I've said before a number of times is how limiting your average British crowd is on what wrestlers do in the ring. I don't see the point of really going in-depth with the point since it's hardly something people are going to argue against. It can get really insulting, really quickly, though, if there has to be a "baddy" and a "goody" in every match though. There should be *roles* in a match, of course, but they should after all make sense.

Why a much bigger, stronger wrestler backs off and stalls from his smaller, weaker opponent simply because he's playing the heel is beyond me. And that's a genuine example from the All-Star show I saw last year. No intelligent crowd will ever buy something if it doesn't make sense.

Why does Alex Shane do some horrible, contrived, business-exposing chain wrestling with an opponent 8 inches and 50 pounds lighter than he is instead of just mauling him and throwing him across the ring? If he wants to show he's "more than just another power fighter", show it with smart wrestling, play the monster, study Aja Kong's work or somebody else. Not with sloppy and horrendously fake-looking wristlock flip-flop. Even he wants to do the wristlock stuff, why not just reverse it with his strength/power advantage rather than rolling?

OK, rant against Alex Shane's stupidity over.

So, yes, your average British crowd is very limiting to what wrestlers can do, and not just in "forcing them" to work a familiar _style_ (sports-entertainment/spotFU/panto, take your pick). They also greatly limit the amount of stories wrestlers can tell (not like most bother... but maybe that's the reason other than they "can't" or "they wish to entertain" :|) and as such, the amount of variety a show can have. Many people say shows need a great deal of variety, but you don't need to shove in a high-flying spot-monkey-a-thon from Jody Fleisch or someone to do that. You can have all kinds of variety with the stories wrestlers tell and, HEY, WHADDAYANO!?!? the work might also be able to make sense, too.