[SPLIT TOPIC] Today's wrestling vs wrestling from the past (From Lawler GWE thread)

[ohtani's jacket]

Isn't the generation who thought those things dead?

[PeteF3]

Well, they thought we were soft in the '80s.

[JerryvonKramer]

This is why the volume of good & great matches today blows away any other era. There is more great, exceptional worldwide talent now than there was 20, 30, 40 years ago, and it isn't even close. The acceptable standards of a major league pro wrestling show have been raised greatly from the opener to the main event. The raw workrate is higher. There are matches on early Starrcade's that would be embarrassing on a small indie level today.

This is a staggeringly misguided post on so many levels that I don't even know where to start.

 

- The idea that the talent pool is wider or deeper now than when there were 40 active territories doing good business around the US and Canada (not to mention what was going on in Japan, Mexico and Europe) is absolutely laughable. How can you even think that? I'm not even having a go, I'm just completely baffled as to how anyone can actually belief there is *more* "great, exceptional worldwide talent" now than in the heyday of the territorial system. It's bonkers.

 

- The reasons for this are not very hard to see:

 

1. By the time a guy who came up through the old system of 30, he might have legitimately worked big shows in Georgia, the Carolinas, the Twin Cities, Florida, New York, St. Louis, Memphis, Portland, LA, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Tokoyo. That's big shows, in front of big, paying crowds.

 

2. Each of these places was run by wrestling people who knew their shit. Guys like Eddie Graham, Sam Muchnik, Vince Sr, Verne Gagne, Bill Watts, and so on -- they could put together finishes, they had guys who knew how to put a match together, they understood psychology.

 

Compare any of those guys to your standard indie promoter and the latter is blown out of the water in terms of knowledge of the audience, practical know-how, knowledge of wrestling, knowledge of work. etc.

 

3. Talent could gain experience working in front of different types of crowds. Working at MSG was different from working at the Omni was different at working at the Mid-South Coliseum was different to working at the Kiel in St. Louis. Different crowds legitimately raised on different products.

 

Today, the indie crowds are nothing like that. No indie promotion has "raised" its audience. The indie fan in London is the same as the indie fan in Texas. Why? They all grow up watching the same product. Even your diehard hardcores into ROH still have only that as their real basis of comparison. "THIS IS AWESOME". "Holy shit! Holy Shit!" etc.

 

So the idea that that generic indie environment can give you the same sort of on-the-job training as the old territories is totally nuts. Totally.

 

5. Instead what you get is guys watching wrestling on TV, getting some basic training in how to throw a suplex and do a moonsault, and other such spots, and then going in like headless chickens trying to copy their favourite Japanese stars (or whatever).

 

Let's say a guy is lucky enough to get a contract with WWE developmental. With the best will in the world, do you think that the training they are goinig to get is going to compare with working in front of 10,000 people on real, paid for shows? Seriously?

 

6. Even if you allow for idea that "raw workrate" today is more than it was in the 70s and 80s, how are you replacing the knowledge and experience? Where does the psychology come from? How can someone accrue the hours in the ring in front of real crowds necessary to acquire a real FEEL for the crowd and how to work them? How do you create ring generals? "Raw workrate" can't substitute for any of that.

[Sean Liska]

Sometimes I think we overrate the idea that guys have to spend years bouncing around the country to become any good, though. How many places did Jerry Lawler and Kenta Kobashi work before they became great?

[Migs]

I'm more interested in comparisons to 1990s when both the athleticism and heat were present. Let's use 1997. Has anything that has happened in WWE this year touched Bret/Austin, the 10-man at Canadian Stampede or Shawn/Undertaker in the first HIAC? Can anything touch the heat at One Night Only? And do those matches really look all that passe? Yes, your random undercard match today is probably going to be technically better, but I don't think wrestling is as capable of peaking high as it was 20 years ago.

 

Two of the examples used here (One Night Only and Canadian Stampede) are basically the last gasp of jingoism as a legitimate angle - the Harts were playing the national hero angle, and far better than anyone has against Rusev.

[FedEx227]

Didn't Punk have a couple of incidents in some house shows when he was doing the SXE Society and didn't WWE asked him to tone it down or something like that?

 

Are you referring to this?

 

[KrisZ]

Sometimes I think we overrate the idea that guys have to spend years bouncing around the country to become any good, though. How many places did Jerry Lawler and Kenta Kobashi work before they became great?

 

Lawler worked Knoxville, GCW, & CWF on top before becoming the King of Memphis so he bounced around.

 

Kobashi was the first AJPW homegrown to become a star and not work anywhere else before it.

 

Meanwhile I've finally gone through this thread for the first time and after the whole standards thread this thread just puts this picture in my mind.

 

 

Everyone is making the same arguments over and over again and opinions aren't changing because some in this thread are either too closeminded to things or the fact that they are trolling for attention.

[W2BTD]

 

This is why the volume of good & great matches today blows away any other era. There is more great, exceptional worldwide talent now than there was 20, 30, 40 years ago, and it isn't even close. The acceptable standards of a major league pro wrestling show have been raised greatly from the opener to the main event. The raw workrate is higher. There are matches on early Starrcade's that would be embarrassing on a small indie level today.

This is a staggeringly misguided post on so many levels that I don't even know where to start.

- The idea that the talent pool is wider or deeper now than when there were 40 active territories doing good business around the US and Canada (not to mention what was going on in Japan, Mexico and Europe) is absolutely laughable. How can you even think that? I'm not even having a go, I'm just completely baffled as to how anyone can actually belief there is *more* "great, exceptional worldwide talent" now than in the heyday of the territorial system. It's bonkers.

 

- The reasons for this are not very hard to see:

 

1. By the time a guy who came up through the old system of 30, he might have legitimately worked big shows in Georgia, the Carolinas, the Twin Cities, Florida, New York, St. Louis, Memphis, Portland, LA, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Tokoyo. That's big shows, in front of big, paying crowds.

 

2. Each of these places was run by wrestling people who knew their shit. Guys like Eddie Graham, Sam Muchnik, Vince Sr, Verne Gagne, Bill Watts, and so on -- they could put together finishes, they had guys who knew how to put a match together, they understood psychology.

 

Compare any of those guys to your standard indie promoter and the latter is blown out of the water in terms of knowledge of the audience, practical know-how, knowledge of wrestling, knowledge of work. etc.

 

3. Talent could gain experience working in front of different types of crowds. Working at MSG was different from working at the Omni was different at working at the Mid-South Coliseum was different to working at the Kiel in St. Louis. Different crowds legitimately raised on different products.

 

Today, the indie crowds are nothing like that. No indie promotion has "raised" its audience. The indie fan in London is the same as the indie fan in Texas. Why? They all grow up watching the same product. Even your diehard hardcores into ROH still have only that as their real basis of comparison. "THIS IS AWESOME". "Holy shit! Holy Shit!" etc.

 

So the idea that that generic indie environment can give you the same sort of on-the-job training as the old territories is totally nuts. Totally.

 

5. Instead what you get is guys watching wrestling on TV, getting some basic training in how to throw a suplex and do a moonsault, and other such spots, and then going in like headless chickens trying to copy their favourite Japanese stars (or whatever).

 

Let's say a guy is lucky enough to get a contract with WWE developmental. With the best will in the world, do you think that the training they are goinig to get is going to compare with working in front of 10,000 people on real, paid for shows? Seriously?

 

6. Even if you allow for idea that "raw workrate" today is more than it was in the 70s and 80s, how are you replacing the knowledge and experience? Where does the psychology come from? How can someone accrue the hours in the ring in front of real crowds necessary to acquire a real FEEL for the crowd and how to work them? How do you create ring generals? "Raw workrate" can't substitute for any of that.

 

 

I don't think the talent pool is necessarily deeper or wider, but I know it's better overall. Especially in the United States.

 

And all of this...

 

Today, the indie crowds are nothing like that. No indie promotion has "raised" its audience. The indie fan in London is the same as the indie fan in Texas. Why? They all grow up watching the same product. Even your diehard hardcores into ROH still have only that as their real basis of comparison. "THIS IS AWESOME". "Holy shit! Holy Shit!" etc.

 

So the idea that that generic indie environment can give you the same sort of on-the-job training as the old territories is totally nuts. Totally.

 

5. Instead what you get is guys watching wrestling on TV, getting some basic training in how to throw a suplex and do a moonsault, and other such spots, and then going in like headless chickens trying to copy their favourite Japanese stars (or whatever).

 

...sounds completely ignorant, because it it is. You are someone who hasn't bothered to watch modern wrestling, so you are talking directly out of your ass.

 

Another thing. This idea that psychology was sooo much better in the past is another giant pile of bullshit. Simpler? Sure. Better? Matter of opinion. Just as athletic standards move forward, so does everything else. Psychology that worked in 1973 might not work today, for a million different reasons. The High Flyers & Santana/Martel exchanging side headlock takeover for 20 minutes, or Lawler hiding a chain and playing hide & seek with the ref may have worked great in its time, but now matches like that are largely antiquated. Adapt or die. Or, keep holding on to 1982 while the rest of the world adapts. Both are options.

[JerryvonKramer]

Okay ... care to tell me what the modern indie equivalents of Mid-Atlantic, Georgia, Memphis, Mid-South, Florida, and Portland are then?

[W2BTD]

Okay ... care to tell me what the modern indie equivalents of Mid-Atlantic, Georgia, Memphis, Mid-South, Florida, and Portland are then?

 

Chikara, PWG, CZW, NWA SAW, ROH, etc , etc

 

I would argue that my group is more diverse than your group. Chikara is a family friendly character driven living comic book, CZW has toned down over the years but is still a very adult oriented promotion that will break out the blood a good deal, PWG is a super fast paced small room workrate promotion where everybody is constantly trying to top themselves, NWA SAW is traditional southern style, ROH is the progression of the indie style of a decade ago, etc.

 

There is no way you can confuse any of those promotions for one another, the styles are very very different. I am from the east coast, and moved to Texas. The wrestling I see down here is vastly different than the wrestling I was accustomed to in the Philly/NY area.

 

The old territories had the advantage of offering more full time work than today, that is for sure. They also offered a chance to work in front of bigger crowds. But the diversity is still there, and I would argue today's wrestling is even more diverse. A guy like El Generico worked everywhere, and it shows.

 

There is also the differences between working small rooms and large arenas. It cuts both ways. I constantly see ex-WWE wrestlers struggle to adapt to indie style. WWE sends everybody to NXT regardless of skill level for that same reason, but in reverse. It;s not to "teach them how to work", it's to teach them how to work WWE. There is no one set of "proper" wrestling psychology. I think that is a major, major disconnect in these discussions.

[Jmare007]

 

Didn't Punk have a couple of incidents in some house shows when he was doing the SXE Society and didn't WWE asked him to tone it down or something like that?

 

Are you referring to this?

 

 

 

Nope that's his Nexus days.

 

It was some old lady trying to hit him because he wasn't Jesus and other kinda funny shit at house shows. Not riots or anything but Punk was clearly getting in some people's nerves during that run.

[FedEx227]

Sorry, I misinterpreted your original post and wasn't sure if you were mis-remembering what stable he was in at the time. But anyway, yes I seem to recall something like that happening but can't find any specifics.

[anotherspammer]

Punk told the story about some old lady flipping out on him during his SES run on his DVD.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

Okay ... care to tell me what the modern indie equivalents of Mid-Atlantic, Georgia, Memphis, Mid-South, Florida, and Portland are then?

Chikara, PWG, CZW, NWA SAW, ROH, etc , etc

 

Sorry but are you trolling me? I honestly can't tell.

[Ricky Jackson]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarrel_of_the_Ancients_and_the_Moderns

[JerryvonKramer]

Is it true Chikara's record gate is 864 fans?

 

I just don't understand how anyone can think that that is in any way comparable to any of the old territories I named. Even in Portland, which was one of the smaller ones, there is evidence of gates over 10,000.

 

As far as I know, even ECW never had gates over 10k.

 

Are you seriously suggesting that PWG running less than 20 shows a year averaging less then 200 people in attendance is broadly the equivalent of GCW or Mid-Atlantic? Are you fucking crazy?

[W2BTD]

Is it true Chikara's record gate is 864 fans?

 

I just don't understand how anyone can think that that is in any way comparable to any of the old territories I named. Even in Portland, which was one of the smaller ones, there is evidence of gates over 10,000.

 

As far as I know, even ECW never had gates over 10k.

 

Are you seriously suggesting that PWG running less than 20 shows a year averaging less then 200 people in attendance is broadly the equivalent of GCW or Mid-Atlantic? Are you fucking crazy?

 

 

We're talking about two different things here. You boiled down indie wrestling to unskilled spot moneys doing movez & flipz and badly copying Japan. I was pointing out that there is major, major variance in style & feel in indie wrestling. That is what I thought you were asking about.

[JerryvonKramer]

The key takeaway from me wasn't my casual diss about the stereotypical indie style (for which I apologise, I realise that there is more than just that out there if you look for it).

 

The key takeaway was the idea that working the indies is in NO WAY a substitute for the on-the-job experience a guy would get from working the old territories.

 

Let's pick someone at random: Roddy Piper. Piper paid his dues in LA and Portland. After that he went to GCW and then Mid-Atlantic. So by the time he reaches WWF he has almost a decade's experience working proper shows with seasoned pros.

 

You can do this with pretty much anyone from that era who made it.

 

Indy promotions, regardless of their style, don't run 300 shows a year. They don't tend to play to crowds bigger than a couple of hundred.

 

And -- as I said -- they don't "raise" their audiences. Whatever your diehard Chikara fan thinks, he's not the same as the guy who has been going to see the wrestling every week in Memphis or every month in St. Louis for the past 20 years. The choice to watch Chikara is a bit like buying a chocolate bar. "Do you want the one with nuts in it or do you want the caramel one, sir?" So great, they've got a solid brand identity, but don't try to palm that off as being the same as a territory with a 50+ year history tied to its particular region.

 

This little exchange started when you made this ridiculous claim:

 

There is more great, exceptional worldwide talent now than there was 20, 30, 40 years ago, and it isn't even close.

Now don't talk complete and utter shit.

 

Are you really telling me that the rosters of Chikara or PWG can compare with the rosters of those old territories? Serious?

 

A while back Dylan, Kelly and I did five podcasts when we went through analysing and rating the rosters of all of the US territories from 1981. All of them, including the outlaws like Angelo Poffo's ICW.

 

Not every roster was stellar, there were some really shit ones (e.g. Central States). But I wonder where the very best indy roster of 2014 would rank in that field.

 

I mentioned Poffo's ICW.

 

In 1981 they had Randy Savage, Ron Garvin, Bob Roop, Bob Orton Jr, One Man Gang and Pez Whatley with special attractions like The Sheik or Thunderbolt Patterson coming in for spot shows.

 

This was one of the thinner rosters we looked at.

 

How many times are you going to try to tell me that Mike Quackenbush is better than all of those guys? Which indy promotions exactly have got rosters to compete even with Poffo's ICW from 1981 -- a promotion that wasn't a proper territory on the very fringes of pro wrestling?

 

Now let's do Mid-Atlantic who had Flair, Piper, Ivan Koloff, Ole Anderson, Ricky Steamboat, Wahoo McDaniel, the list goes on and on. Now let's do GCW who had Tommy Rich, Terry Gordy, Ted DiBiase, Ken Patera, Butch Reed, Bill Eadie, Bobby Eaton ... we can keeping going. How's Mike Quackenbush faring?

 

As I said, that statement you made is complete and utter nonsense.

[W2BTD]

First of all, i'm not a Chikara fan. Far from it.

 

With that said, i'd take Quack over half the guys you listed, but that's neither here nor there. That's a matter of taste. You picked a bad example of an "indie geek spot moneyyyy", because Quack is (well, was because now he's retired) insanely talented. He's also an odd example of a top indie guy, since he hasn't wrestled in years, but I would expect someone who doesn't bother with contemporary wrestling to choose an example that was fresh & topical in 2004, so fine.

 

Also, the territories essentially still exist, just not in the same way they used to. I'll use Texas as an example since that's where I live.

 

Guys like Carson, Mike Dell, Byron Wilcott, Lance Hoyt, James Claxton, etc are essentially working full time schedules, they are just doing it for different "offices" every night. Carson might face Dell as a face on Thursday, a heel on Friday, team with him on Saturday, and then team against him on Sunday, for four different shows because they all run their own individual storylines. Even just within the NWA promotions, Mike Dell is a babyface mid carder in Houston, a heel junior heavyweight in the top heel stable in San Antonio, and the babyface heavyweight champion in Austin. It's basically the same crew working everywhere, there just isn't a central office anymore.

 

This is the same everywhere. Los Angeles has CWFH, PWG , etc. The Northeast has NYWC, PWS, JCW, NEW, etc. Florida has there promotions, the Midwest has a million places (AAW, AIW, Dreamwave, etc) with the Midwest crew (Matt Cage, Reed Bentley, Shane Hollister, Christian Rose), etc etc etc. The top names in each "territory" are all working 12-20 times per month, against the same crews of guys, just like the old territory days. So Texas still has a "crew", so does Chicago, so does Florida...but you wouldn't know that, because you are stuck in a time warp with your 1981 Continental tapes.

 

And just like the old days, the cream of the crop (Young Bucks, ACH, Johnny Gargano, Ricochet, Drew Gulak, *insert top indie name here*) work nationally and get booked everywhere.

 

Another thing that is similar to the territory days, is that each "territory" now has a distinct style. In Texas, particularly the NWA groups, it's hard hitting traditional Texas wrestling. I go to shows filled with ranchers & bikers & chaw spitting lawmen. They aren't there to see flipz, brother. They're there to see hoss fights and minority heels "get what's comin' to 'em" (Satoshi Kojima nearly caused a riot when he beat Carson in Houston, and the hayseed sitting next to me turned to me and said, "Ahh, I thought that boy had 'em. That god damn Jap!". The northeast uses a lot of older ex-WWE guys and is character driven. Lots of southern indies resemble the old grimy southern territories. The Chicago area is traditional modern indie style. In south Texas along the border, there is a whole lucha crew that works the border towns. That's where ACH came from before he got noticed by the people in Austin. Your top indie names work all of these places and have to adapt to each style, just like 1977.

 

You also sound absurd & crazy out of touch with your "raising fans" nonsense, especially by using Chikara of all places as an example. Chikara has perhaps the most loya brand specific fan base around, and they have "raised" there fans in the precise way that you are implying they haven't. But again, you wouldn't know. You're busy watching Bob Roop matches from 35 years ago, so you don't know what you're talking about.

 

The only difference between the "territories" then & now, is no central office in each region, smaller crowds, and nobody is making any money. The amount of work, the varying styles, the traveling national stars, the same crews working together every night, none of that has changed.

[W2BTD]

The key takeaway was the idea that working the indies is in NO WAY a substitute for the on-the-job experience a guy would get from working the old territories.

 

Let's pick someone at random: Roddy Piper. Piper paid his dues in LA and Portland. After that he went to GCW and then Mid-Atlantic. So by the time he reaches WWF he has almost a decade's experience working proper shows with seasoned pros.

 

You can do this with pretty much anyone from that era who made it.

 

 

Let's pick someone at random: Sami Zayn. Zayn paid his dues in Canada and ROH. After that he went to DDT in Japan, and then DGUSA/EVOLVE. So by the time he reaches WWE, he has almost a decade of experience working proper shows with seasoned pros.

 

You are out of touch, my friend. You simply have no idea what's going on these days, because you aren't paying attention.

 

I'm not knocking the territories. That was a great set up to move around and learn. What you don't understand, is that it essentially still exists. The top guys today who end up being signed are all well traveled internationally, have worked tons of styles, and worked with plenty of "seasoned pros". If you bothered to pay attention, you'd maybe gain some appreciation for the talent that is out there. 200 fans in a building doesn't mean the talent in the ring isn't any good.

[FedEx227]

The recently-debuted Prince Devitt is a great example as well. He cut his teeth in Japan with NJPW but in the past 3-4 years has worked everywhere from CMLL, New York/East Coast (NECW), California (AWS/PWG), Canada (CWF) and all over the United Kingdom and Europe (PROGRESS, RPW, ICW, wXw in Germany). Each and every one of those has a distinct style, distinct fans, distinct presentation and the like. Devitt doesn't work the same in CMLL that he does in PROGRESS. Shit, he didn't work the same in PROGRESS as he did in ICW. PWG is a lot different than NECW.

[Loss]

Would you agree that the type of match a wrestler works to get noticed by WWE is a much different match than a match a wrestler works to get himself over as a big star in a way that helps sell tickets to a future show in that specific market? Current day is the former, and older day is the latter. I do think guys like Zayn and Bryan have showed up in WWE with a great understanding of how to get themselves over in very different places, so I think the comparison has some merit. But I do think there are also learning advantages to having pressure put on you to draw a big house in the same venue week-after-week, where you have to change up your act regularly to avoid being repetitive for the live crowd. And I'm not quite sure how to articulate this, but I think the pressure to put on good matches (which is definitely there) is a different kind of pressure than the pressure to keep people coming back. Maybe they are one and the same now. I don't know. Is the type of match that sells DVDs the same type of match that packs a venue? I don't really understand how the landscape works anymore and I freely admit that. I just know that I like strong heels that genuinely piss people off.

[Childs]

I actually think a compare and contrast between the indies of the last 15 years and the territories is interesting subject matter that need not get into a nasty battle about the past or present being demonstrably better. I do think there were more avenues to make a decent living in the territory era, which probably kept more guys around to become experienced workers. But I also have to agree with Joe that the indies haven't exactly failed in producing top-shelf workers more recently.

[W2BTD]

Would you agree that the type of match a wrestler works to get noticed by WWE is a much different match than a match a wrestler works to get himself over as a big star in a way that helps sell tickets to a future show in that specific market? Current day is the former, and older day is the latter. I do think guys like Zayn and Bryan have showed up in WWE with a great understanding of how to get themselves over in very different places, so I think the comparison has some merit. But I do think there are also learning advantages to having pressure put on you to draw a big house in the same venue week-after-week, where you have to change up your act regularly to avoid being repetitive for the live crowd. And I'm not quite sure how to articulate this, but I think the pressure to put on good matches (which is definitely there) is a different kind of pressure than the pressure to keep people coming back. Maybe they are one and the same now. I don't know. I don't really understand how the landscape works anymore and I freely admit that. I just know that I like strong heels that genuinely piss people off.

 

Kevin Steen in an article on wwe.com talked about how adjusting to the WWE style will actually be easier for him than adjusting to the ROH style. ROH fans want more more more, you have to work faster, you need to be more cutting edge, "same old shit" won't fly forever, etc. His stance was slowing down is easier than speeding up, narrowing your moveset to 3 or 4 recognizable key moves is easier than coming up with new creative spots every show. So from that aspect, I think working the high level indies (high level meaning where the top indie talent ready to take the next step is working, not necessarily "the best" indies, before someone gets offended and this splinters off) is tremendously difficult in terms of staying over, both due to competition from other people who are all national TV worthy, and also satisfying more demanding fans.

 

Two examples of guys who struggled to speed up after working in WWE or so long are Trent Barreta & Curt Hawkins. Hawkins was booed out of PWG. Trent took months to acclimate himself to high level indie style.

 

There were obvious advantages to the old territories. Bigger crowds, for one. Today's guys don't work big rooms unless they go to Japan or Mexico. That's why they work faster these days, because small room wrestling needs to be faster. Not because they "don't know how to work". This is why NXT is vital, even for a guy like Zayn or Steen who are obviously major league quality. Work on arena wrestling, work on presenting yourself for TV. They aren't being taught how to work, I hate when people say that and get "insulted" about guys going to NXT. It's not an insult, it's not retraining, it's getting TV ready.

[W2BTD]

I actually think a compare and contrast between the indies of the last 15 years and the territories is interesting subject matter that need not get into a nasty battle about the past or present being demonstrably better. I do think there were more avenues to make a decent living in the territory era, which probably kept more guys around to become experienced workers. But I also have to agree with Joe that the indies haven't exactly failed in producing top-shelf workers more recently.

 

There are differences for sure, and both have advantages & disadvantages. I'm not knocking the territories at all. What i'm trying to get across, is the old territories & the indie scene aren't as different as some people may think.