Word from the old guy...

[Iceman]

So do you all like the return of the Rock? How about Foley on Raw? The days of catch phrases, 20 minute promos, and All- American hype may be a memory of your glory days. You may be thinking...what about the Attitude and Stone Cold...bring back the good ol days. This past Monday you may have enjoyed the blast from the past atmosphere, yet I found it slightly painful.

Entertaining??...sometimes. Funny??...occassionally. Wrestling??....not so much...

What this past Monday night stands for to me is the day wrestling changed. Quick wits and sharp tongues replaced the wrestling that I paid to see. These mammothly muscular individuals replaced the pure wrestling tactician.

I know most of you are young. You enjoy smack talk. Comedy may have been forever part of your show. Starting off Raw with 30 minutes of bull spew is a way of life. Divas make a name and then do Playboy. This is your world. This is the evolution of a business. This is the 21st century. You are ready to stop reading this dinosaur-like post faster than Kevin Nash can break a hip.

Probably nobody here remembers Prime Time Wrestling on USA Network. A quick intro and off to the matches. Yeah...we actually had jobbers...amazing. The main event was a dream match for many of us. The individuals struggle was part of the show. You probably don't recall Ric Flair before he went insane. When he was smooth and slick. You don't understand the fact that he would defend his title against 4 different challengers in a week instead of the same guy every night. Rivalries were actually carried for months and sometimes years without the constant fence jumping. When somebody took out a chair...yeah that was serious. The announcers were actually announcing instead of trying to take over the show. Glory days...yeah that was before Foley and Rock.

Anybody here watch wrestling from Japan and Mexico? Great stuff...I like not knowing what they are saying. Not worrying about how much promo time vs wrestling time is on a show because they do a good job. ROH?...haven't seen it since it left HDNet. However, they had a good thing going.

Am I just doing my "bitter post" bit. Yeah kind of. Just got stirred up again on Monday. In a day where athletes are bigger, better, stronger faster and more innovative...shouldn't the shows be better? Shouldn't a 15-20 minute match be captivating with the skills wrestlers have today? I'm not totally uninterested. I'm saying it can be better...it should be better.

[kiel297]

I totally understand where you're coming from.

But hey, we've got guys like Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler and Daniel Bryan currently on the main roster, and FCW is currently home to the absolutely amazing Dean Ambrose.

All four of these guys, to me, represent a professional wrestler who knows how to entertain THROUGH wrestling. They can all talk, and that's all well and good, but they can all put on a match that has me on the edge of my seat and screaming at the TV, and that's why I refuse to give up hope as far as the wrestling industry is concerned. The Rock's less than stellar returns? Temporary. John Cena is 34. This is the peak of his career, and in a few years time he'll be winding it down. Guys like Mason Ryan, with no talent whatsoever? Wont be around for long.

Ziggler, Bryan and Rhodes are all rapidly ascending to the top of the WWE ladder, and Ambrose will be some time soon. Their time is yet to come, and I have plenty of faith that when it does, professional wrestling will be better than it has been in a very long time.

[Aggro]

I 100% totally agree with you Iceman. I switched on Raw this week to see Cole and J.R having a dance off. I left the room and came back later to see Mick Foley hosting This Is Your Life for Cena. Thus the TV was switched off.

I also remember Prime Time, along with Wrestling Challenge and the original Superstars. Yes they had jobbers, but feuds between the likes of Jake the Snake and Ted Dibiase Snr still managed to be entertaining because of the pure talent of the wrestlers involved. They only needed one small segment on each show to their thing then it was on to the next show. Then we would have a Saturday Nights Main Event to bridge the gap between the FOUR ppv's!

Oh well, maybe we're just becoming old and miserable!

[Rabid619]

Unfortunately these days, some episodes of RAW, SmackDown & Impact focus mainly on talking. This weeks RAW hurt the in ring time where they could have used the first segment to put on a match. The dancing thing was completely unnecessary. Impact a few weeks ago had 7 total minutes of wrestling in a 2 hour show which included a world title changing hands.

To see a show with little promo time dedicated to just wrestling, Superstars is where you'll find it. There you'll see divas getting time for matches to show they're more then getting rollups for wins AND the main event is a good match that doesn't involve the likes of Orton or Cena. WWE maybe be full of "entertainers" but Superstars show cases the guys who don't get the spotlight on RAW or even SmackDown AND they do it in the ring without a mic. A while back when Superstars was aired on TV, i used to see the numbers put up of RAW & Impact which are typically two hour shows compared with Superstars which is only an hour. Times were about the same, in fact it wasn't rare to see Superstars have more in ring time then RAW and it usually beat Impact.

I honestly don't blame anyone for being angry about the lack of wrestling and abundance of talk on this weeks RAW. I disliked the fact that 20 minutes into the show they hadn't even started a match yet. It's a wrestling show, they should start saving some of the promos for WWE.com or something. ROH does that sort of thing or at least they used to before they started their new show where they'd leave majority of the promos for their website and just wrestle.

[Serujuunin]

Unfortunately these days, some episodes of RAW, SmackDown & Impact focus mainly on talking. This weeks RAW hurt the in ring time where they could have used the first segment to put on a match. The dancing thing was completely unnecessary. Impact a few weeks ago had 7 total minutes of wrestling in a 2 hour show which included a world title changing hands.

To see a show with little promo time dedicated to just wrestling, Superstars is where you'll find it. There you'll see divas getting time for matches to show they're more then getting rollups for wins AND the main event is a good match that doesn't involve the likes of Orton or Cena. WWE maybe be full of "entertainers" but Superstars show cases the guys who don't get the spotlight on RAW or even SmackDown AND they do it in the ring without a mic. A while back when Superstars was aired on TV, i used to see the numbers put up of RAW & Impact which are typically two hour shows compared with Superstars which is only an hour. Times were about the same, in fact it wasn't rare to see Superstars have more in ring time then RAW and it usually beat Impact.

I honestly don't blame anyone for being angry about the lack of wrestling and abundance of talk on this weeks RAW. I disliked the fact that 20 minutes into the show they hadn't even started a match yet. It's a wrestling show, they should start saving some of the promos for WWE.com or something. ROH does that sort of thing or at least they used to before they started their new show where they'd leave majority of the promos for their website and just wrestle.

I entirely agree. I got so frustrated watching RAW, as did my best friend who was watching it with me, because there was no wrestling! Seriously, it got so bad I muted it and went and did something else until wrestling came on.

Superstars is my favourite show right now because all my favourite guys are on it, and are actually wrestling and getting a chance to show their skills. Justin Gabriel, Alex Riley, Drew McIntyre... Guys that don't get TV time on RAW or Smackdown put on fantastic matches on Superstars and the quality of the matches are usually better than the ones on RAW or Smackdown. Definitely worth tracking it down online.

RAW and Smackdown are beginning to disappoint me.

[Big Red Machine]

Can't disagree with a lot of your points, but I will say that, in recent years, I think that WWE and CHIKARA (and, to a lesser extent, ROH) have done a good job of trying to make chairshots meaningful again.