Homogenization of wrestling styles

[Loss]

I'm six matches in on the 2013 MOTYCs. My CMLL is more American and Japanese influenced than I remember it being. My New Japan has a lot of American style gimmicks and WWE style match tropes. I don't want to overreact to a small sampling, but is it fair to say the wrestling styles around the world aren't as distinct as they used to be? It sure seems like the contrast between the styles isn't as sharp as it once was, which is a shame.

[El-P]

Call it the global WWE influence I guess. It's only logical. Less major promotions around the world, less place to learn different style.

[pantherwagner]

I think that has been the case for a long time. WWE being around globally has been mentioned and young wrestlers having access to DVDs/youtube is a big factor too. During most of the 90s the WWF wasn't popular at all in Mexico or Japan so you had all the distinct styles more or less untouched.

 

But even a decade ago newer fans were raving about "great lucha matches" with Mistico and Averno that looked more like US indy wrestling than like Santo vs Negro Casas.

[Ryan Faulconer]

That Robert Bihari fella is the real mastermind behind the great Mistico spotlight of 2004-2006. That was a fun time for acquiring lucha.

 

With my eyesight Mistico does look a lot like Santo on a second or third generation VHS tape viewed on a 14 inch screen.

 

The trios matches from that period were always so much better than the odd singles match that made tape. Late 2005 it looked like even the older guys like Atlantis started working more like Chikara and less like great CMLL. By the time early 2006 started getting distributed amongst the lucha buying circles the CMLL matches were often shorter than the commercial breaks. I ended up trading most of the 2006/2007 CMLL DVDs I had for 1990s CMLL. Some of it I hadn't seen before and the rest replacing the boxes of useless VHS tapes that don't travel well or stand the test of time.

[Zenjo]

I've felt this has been the case for a number of years now. It's not like wrestlers even have to tour overseas anymore to pick up aspects of another style. There's such ease of access to promotions in the big 3 countries. It's not like there wasn't gradual convergence in the 90's and early 00's, but the last 10 years it's sped up the process rapidly.

 

In theory this should've lead to a wrestling utopia, right? The best of all worlds. I'm sure some fans think so. I will say that US wrestling has clearly got the best end of the deal if you want to compare the quality level now with 20 years ago.

[Timbo Slice]

The main bridges were the indies that felt the need to offer a different style to combat the big dogs, so you had ECW go with lucha, the japanese styles, death matches, etc. APW out on the west coast with the New Japan Juniors style, and then ROH upping the stiffness and turning into a true "Japanese-style" promotion.

 

Then WCW took ECW's ideas on the work, WWF took ECW's style on the attitude side of things and about a decade later, with ROH being the indy hub for so many, that style integrated into the WWE almost by default.

 

It's just a reactionary business. People see what works and want to see where it goes.

[tim]

Definitely agree that there has been a leveling in the style. Seems like everything is now an heir to workrate juniors style. The genealogy of that would be interesting. This is just stream of consciousness but it seems like the WCW Cruiserweight division played a role in that. Workrate juniors style in the US was very different before and after that. How important was the Smackdown Six? When did the change really start in Lucha? You can see El Dandy wrestling pretty juniors-y on the Lucha Set.

[Matt D]

I feel like the last few years of WWE, except for maybe the top top main event style matches at the big PPVs, have actually been a move away from some of that.

[pantherwagner]

That Robert Bihari fella is the real mastermind behind the great Mistico spotlight of 2004-2006. That was a fun time for acquiring lucha.

 

With my eyesight Mistico does look a lot like Santo on a second or third generation VHS tape viewed on a 14 inch screen.

 

The trios matches from that period were always so much better than the odd singles match that made tape. Late 2005 it looked like even the older guys like Atlantis started working more like Chikara and less like great CMLL. By the time early 2006 started getting distributed amongst the lucha buying circles the CMLL matches were often shorter than the commercial breaks. I ended up trading most of the 2006/2007 CMLL DVDs I had for 1990s CMLL. Some of it I hadn't seen before and the rest replacing the boxes of useless VHS tapes that don't travel well or stand the test of time.

 

I don't know about your first sentence. For every praising review by Rob there were two or three Schneider/Tom K./Dean reviews shitting all over the matches. Rob was (is?) very defensive of his opinions and he had a knack for driving people away which is a shame because he was ahead of pretty much everybody else outside of Mexico in discovering new young talent that had a chance to make it big.

 

Ultimo Guerrero and Averno are as guilty as anyone else for NewJapanising lucha libre. You can trace it back to Dr. Wagner Jr. making it big over there in the late 90s/early 00s., and everybody trying to wrestle the big move style to score lucrative Japan tours.

 

At some point in the mid 00's, and for its first time in history, CMLL match falls had to be fitted in certain timeslots for TV to smoothly go through commercial breaks. That's when I started losing interest in modern CMLL. Matches became rushed with no build and as a result I have watched probably less than 20 hours of CMLL during the last 7-8 years.

[pantherwagner]

Definitely agree that there has been a leveling in the style. Seems like everything is now an heir to workrate juniors style. The genealogy of that would be interesting. This is just stream of consciousness but it seems like the WCW Cruiserweight division played a role in that. Workrate juniors style in the US was very different before and after that. How important was the Smackdown Six? When did the change really start in Lucha? You can see El Dandy wrestling pretty juniors-y on the Lucha Set.

 

For whatever reason I have stuck in my mind this Tony Schiavone quote about DDP being influenced by Rey Misterio Jr. after he used a plancha outside the ring in some random match.

 

What we have nowadays in WWE is a mix of that high flying late 90s WCW style + the table breaking/hard hitting/big finishers attitude era style + the early 00's "finisher reversal" techniques used by people like Jericho to give the impression that you are seeing a classic match when you are really not. I stopped watching US wrestling regularly right after WCW's end but it's likely that it was the Smackdown Six and Heyman who put together those elements.

[Loss]

I haven't seen very much NOAH in the last few years, but I'll be curious when I see some from 2013 if it follows the same pattern. Setting aside the issue of quality, it felt like a continuation of the All Japan style and I'm wondering if that has changed since Misawa died. I hope it hasn't.

 

How did New Japan's style change so much? When I look at the names on the Best of 2000s project that keep popping up in that promotion, it's guys like Yuji Nagata, who worked a style fairly in line with the traditional New Japan style. So when did the change happen where they started doing more American babyface/heel stuff and more patterned playing to the crowd?

[ohtani's jacket]

Lucha evolved over time. As tim mentioned, it became very junior-esque in the late 80s as workers like Dandy, Atlantis, Emilio Charles, Pirata Morgan and Satanico began upping their workrate, particularly in the third caida of both hair matches and title matches. AAA pushed workrate even further, and there were already Japanese influences by the mid-90s brought back from the workers who went over there. Look at the elements that Santo brings to his CMLL bouts after his return in '95. Where it seemed to escalate was with the generational change at the end of the 90s, where the Emilio Charles Jrs of the world were too banged up to carry the load anymore and you got young workers like Shocker, Mr. Niebla, Rey Bucanero and Ultimo Guerrero, who were fundamentally solid to different degrees, but didn't carry on the torch of traditional lucha libre wrestling. As I've mentioned a million times on my blog, the lineage of classic lucha was Lizmark to Atlantis to Angel Azteca, but that lineage died with Azteca. And workers like Casas and Panther know what their meal ticket is and adapted to the new style. The shortened falls and formatting changes for TV also took their toll, and just the whole look of the reconfigured Arena Mexico has the crowd further away from the ring and everything is too bright (or was until the stopped lighting up the crowd.) The ring girls, the ramps and the big screen TVs are other changes that make it look homogenized.

 

Having said all that, CMLL is going through a down period at the moment, which has greatly increased the quality of the matches. You get longer, more traditional style bouts a couple of times a year.

[ohtani's jacket]

NJPW I still think has a Japanese quality to it. It reminds me a lot of 90s Joshi. I don't think the big finishing stretches and mounting nearfalls are a WWE trait.

[Loss]

It's not so much the big finishing stretches. The increased outside interference, stables, more traditional heel/face alignment and camera work for Okada's playing to the crowd feel very WWE to me. I can see how the first few things also feel very AJW though.

[ohtani's jacket]

That's all true, but don't forget there were things in the late 90s like the big nwo Japan storyline that we tended to ignore.

[Ryan Faulconer]

 

That Robert Bihari fella is the real mastermind behind the great Mistico spotlight of 2004-2006. That was a fun time for acquiring lucha.

 

With my eyesight Mistico does look a lot like Santo on a second or third generation VHS tape viewed on a 14 inch screen.

 

The trios matches from that period were always so much better than the odd singles match that made tape. Late 2005 it looked like even the older guys like Atlantis started working more like Chikara and less like great CMLL. By the time early 2006 started getting distributed amongst the lucha buying circles the CMLL matches were often shorter than the commercial breaks. I ended up trading most of the 2006/2007 CMLL DVDs I had for 1990s CMLL. Some of it I hadn't seen before and the rest replacing the boxes of useless VHS tapes that don't travel well or stand the test of time.

 

I don't know about your first sentence. For every praising review by Rob there were two or three Schneider/Tom K./Dean reviews shitting all over the matches. Rob was (is?) very defensive of his opinions and he had a knack for driving people away which is a shame because he was ahead of pretty much everybody else outside of Mexico in discovering new young talent that had a chance to make it big.

 

Ultimo Guerrero and Averno are as guilty as anyone else for NewJapanising lucha libre. You can trace it back to Dr. Wagner Jr. making it big over there in the late 90s/early 00s., and everybody trying to wrestle the big move style to score lucrative Japan tours.

 

At some point in the mid 00's, and for its first time in history, CMLL match falls had to be fitted in certain timeslots for TV to smoothly go through commercial breaks. That's when I started losing interest in modern CMLL. Matches became rushed with no build and as a result I have watched probably less than 20 hours of CMLL during the last 7-8 years.

 

Oh I should have been a little more direct about my first sentence. I meant it more as a bit of a joke since Rob was always the guy that helped me get into a lot of different styles of great lucha through various trades over the years.

 

Mistico did have quite a backlash with some posters. TomK would be a bit more diplomatic while PhilS would be a bit more to the point. There were a lot of long and varied lucha watching threads over at deathvalleydriver's lucha section that are long gone. Those short matches starting in 2006 really made me want to see more older 90s lucha from anywhere. It really felt like the increased speed of workrate along with some of the moves they saw on tours or trips to the US just cut back or removed entirely what separated lucha from American wrestling on the independent level.

 

A lot of younger wrestlers did seem to mix a jangly-hybrid of styles together all over North America. The indy commentators would talk about someone working "the All Japan Strong Style" or some other amalgamation of styles that didn't have as much in common near the turn of this past century. I remember the ROH guys back in 2004 using the setups for double team moves that they either saw direct from lucha or from Dragon Gate or Michinoku Pro. It didn't look right at all to see Generation Next grabbing an opponent with each arm and then rolling them backwards into a double team set up move. It made so little sense.

[Steenalized]

Aren't Jado/Gedo supposedly big, big fans of American wrestling? That could explain a lot of the little things you see in NJPW that you would never see before. The heel faction interference, well the entirety of the Bullet Club really, the camera work, etc.

[Ditch]

Aren't Jado/Gedo supposedly big, big fans of American wrestling? That could explain a lot of the little things you see in NJPW that you would never see before. The heel faction interference, well the entirety of the Bullet Club really, the camera work, etc.

This, plus Yukes owning them instead of Inoki, plus the utter failure of the Nagata/Tenzan/Kojima generation to live up to the Musketeers as stars. Okada/Tanahashi/Nakamura aren't drawing like it was 1995, but they definitely feel like a big deal, and NJ is building around them rather than trying to stuff them into being new versions of old stars.

[KrisZ]

The young generation of luchadores and fans (30 and younger) have definitely grown up in the internet age and they lean towards a CZW style of spotfests/hardcore matches instead of traditional lucha libre. EMLL's guys are different because they are taught more by traditional types but AAA brings in guys from the indies who work that CZW style mainly.

[El-P]

(threads like these are why I love this board BTW, and why I still enjoy to read/talk about pro-wrestling in 2014, well after it has effectively passed me by)