Loss

It definitely makes sense. I think that type of fan still exists. It's just that some of us were there at one point and we're not anymore. It's possible that it's not so much that scene has changed as much as where we are in it has changed.

I agree that you are both right. Parv is right that there was a 1%, in that there were a huge number of people who were interested in seeing international and territory footage and kept up with the opinions but simply didn't have the money to purchase footage. Even those that did purchase footage often had to be selective because it was so expensive. What has happened since 2006 or so has been YouTube democratizing a lot of wrestling footage and making it more accessible for everyone, along with DVDs becoming a popular medium, which are cheaper, quicker to copy and more conducive to practical storage than bulky videotapes. So lower cost and improved technology has let more people into the conversation that could only observe before. All of that said, I don't think John is arguing anything contradictory to that. John is right that there were multiple corners of the Internet with pretty divergent viewpoints on things almost as long as it's been around. People who use the term "IWC" are typically people that only follow(ed) the major promotions in America. I find that there tends to be - and always has been - more challenging of conventional wisdom among people who watch wrestling from all eras and all countries. People who stick to the mainstream American promotions sometimes think that their bubble is the only one that exists when it's actually just the only one that interests them. And there's nothing wrong with that except that a lot of this revisionism isn't so much new as it is new to us. You're probably not going to find someone who was a big fan of BattlARTS or Michinoku Pro in the late 90s using the term "IWC", I think because they are more likely to realize that they had their own niche-based space. Current and American are what got the most attention, but that still rings true today.

No way Strongbow could get over somewhere where Wahoo had already worked and gotten over. I think the reason he is remembered fondly is because most people who were really into him hadn't seen an Indian gimmick before. And there's nothing wrong with that - being different is more key in getting over in wrestling than being good.