Can professional wrestling be kino?

During the attitude era it was. Not so much now that I'm older.

Eddie Guerrero is his biological father

>>212607622 (OP)
Not anymore, but from around 1985 to 2005 it was pretty awesome

for me? Razor Ramon

>>212607658
>1985 to 2005
Make it 2008 (the start of the PG era) and you're right. Vince killed the product forever on that day. He made it into unwatchable sterile dogshit that led to shit like this guy

>>212607622 (OP)
occasionally

>>212607622 (OP)
Late 98 to Q1 of 01 it rivaled NFL in popularity, then fell off a cliff. In the 90s there was still just a small sliver of kayfabe still left. Fans actually believed Stone Cold Steve Austin could realistically have a chance fighting Mike Tyson. When Austin became a chickenshit heel & Taker became a gay bike rider is when kayfabe completely imploded & pro wrestling would never be the front & center of western pop culture ever again

of course. my favorite is kevin nash getting btfo time and time again.

YES

>>212607798
god she was perfect

>>212607852
Is it true?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruWL_3C81YE
kino

Attitude/Aggression era WWE was far more entertaining and worthwhile than any gay movie. Larger volume of content and much more entertainment value than any Hollywood movie. The "WHO RAN OVER STONE COLD" storyline alone is better than any stupid movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX8CLNzg-M0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwVZa7zx1HI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI6DIc981VI

>>212607707
team hell no was kino fuck you

>>212607707
always hated Daniel Bryan
>OM MY SCIENCE HE'S SO HECKIN WHOLESOME"

Bron Breaker is a golden star. What in THE fuck, Hatch?

Wrestling used to be so good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuyrzjNaTTk

Pro wrestling and television grew up together. When the medium was first invented, it was difficult to make out the images on the screen due to the primitive tv sets, transmitters, and satellites. You coudn't make out the players on a baseball pitch because the image was too fuzzy. In wrestling, the arena was dark except for a spotlight beaming down on a bright white canvas in the ring. The picture was great and the action was hot. The mediums compliment and are made for each other, with wrestling being so cheap to produce and is live content, which is what all networks want, particularly in sports.

I dream of a docudrama series depicting several stories and key events in wrestling history, from the carnival days to the embryonic cable television days, and so on. Yes, it would make for untold amounts of kino with heartbreak and tragedy, drama, comedy, action; everything one would want in a series.

Yes, wrestling is kino. The thing about it is that its much like the horror movie genre: it never dies, it just goes to sleep.

>>212610739
Great post. But what do you make of the fact that sponsors, ads and all that, which come with being a televised program, has hampered wrestling (the infamous PG era debacle) and its ability to produce storylines. Do you think it's time that wrestling moved to streaming where, it stands to reason, they have more freedom over the maturity of their content?

hotdog earned

>>212610953
Women can't be touched in today's awful product. Not even as an angle on a storyline meant to further a heel.

Maybe not kino but the style of campy humor that 90s and 2000s and probably earlier wrestling had was one of a kind. Idk who the mind power was behind of it but the shit they came up was next level

>>212607707
wwe truly died when eddie and chris benoit died

>>212607849
This.

>>212611093
this is why you don't let indians into the arena

>>212611078
Y2K was the last good time to be alive on this earth.
>>212611090
Indeed, directly led to the PG era. Yes, there have been some decent storylines (I liked Hunter vs Orton in 2009 and the whole Veiper angle) but it's been nothing but putrid mediocrity ever since.

Logan Paul was kino as shit tonight when he interrupted this fag tattoo covered country singers song and then destroyed his band's equipment, simultaneously Drew mcintyre ambushed Randy Orton which was kino too

We love the Codester here, don't we?

>>212610931
The beauty of professional wrestling is its grassroots origins and how it will always fall back to it.
Advertisements are a part of CMLL's product where they are everywhere, but it never seems to hamper the product nor does the action in the ring draw your attention to it. New Japan's rings are covered in them as well but as said, the action supersedes the distraction, at least it ought to.
As for wrestling's ability to fall back into its grass roots origins, ECW was a great example of this. It came up during a time when pro wrestling was seen as a hokey colourful cartoon for children by the masses and the die hards felt that the stuffy and outdated National Wrestling Alliance which missed out on the boom of the 80s and upcoming boom of the 90s was passe. ECW's violent and extreme content was not something for mass consumption because of how against the grain it went. The philosophy was simple:
>Accentuate the positives, hide the negatives
The negatives were that they couldn't compete with the major feds in terms of lighting or pyro. So why go there? Hide it! Accentuate the positives: best interviews, hottest babes, wildest brawls, bloodiest actions, fastest cruiserweights.
Wrestling fans know that the movement is like heavy metal: there's the stuff for the masses, but there are so many genres and subgenres that don't see the light of day the covers everyone's niche pallets that simply get drowned out from the nosie the major promotions make and the massive hype and propaganda machines behind them. What is niche and the best thing going today in wrestling just hasn't been discovered by the big leagues.

Streaming is still in its infancy in terms of what wrestling content it can make, so much has yet to be seen. Television and the internet so far have been beneficial.

Reminder that Kevin R. Nash was raped in the white hot summer of '92

Remember that time bob costas made Vince look like an absolute fool

https://youtu.be/fzjW0ylyfNk

>>212611720
'zis true?

>>212611407
>looks up his wife and kid
No, we don't.

>>212611733
Was it Botox treatment or pink eye, Bob?

>>212611768
What's wrong with a black man marrying a black woman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zFbtQ53Sms

>>212611859
>E under Steph and Hunter is so bad that they bring back Cody Rhodes of all fucking people and make him a top carder and main eventer
the state of this fucking product man..

>Can professional wrestling be kino?

>>212611407
I'm into a lot of modern WWE actually but Cody Rhodes is not part of that, I just got back into it but I don't think I would've been into him when he was newer either, Cena recent rant against Punk was classic though

>>212607622 (OP)
The comments are correct, none of them get it and wouldn't have the balls to perform well even if they understood how. Nothing lasts forever. It's ok.

>>212607622 (OP)
it still is kino when Stone Cold Stove Austin is on the Pawdcast
https://vocaroo.com/1ixqvGWe9AnF

>>212611093
This is so insane that I genuinely thought it was AI at first

Wrestlin'?

>>212611277
I could tell the day after 9/11 that things were fucked, and they would get worse and worse for a long time. Bin Laden nearly broke Pax Americana and we are trying our level best to finish the job

>>212609251
fraid so

>>212612968
kino

>>212611023
A deathrider woman was hit by a man in the last couple weeks?

>>212610953
Yeah, I don't think that guitar was a prop. The hit looks way too impactful

>>212611065
Shawn Michaels goes way too over the top with that reaction. TOPKEK

The era of kino wrestling died when WCW died. No competition = bad. Even Vince McMahon himself admitted this later on.

>>212611065
>>212615928
>Shawn Michaels uses backstage politics to get the matches to end in his favor
>Hogan shows up with even more pull than Shawn and he uses backstage politics to get the match to end in his favor
>Shawn oversells like a child

>>212611407
Cody is one of the few bright spots in WWE of course they booked him like shit after he won the belt. It's a story as old as WWF if your name isn't Hogan, Rock, Austin or Cena

>>212612542
Cute Tink

>>212607707

The planets champion was a fun gimmick

>>212615859
she actually died not long after that

>>212616860
I legit hate what wrestling has become. Shawn and Bret must be in tears watching this fucking garbage.

>>212617118

>>212617137
This is a million times better than the garbage from the last 15 years

>>212610327
>The "WHO RAN OVER STONE COLD" storyline alone is better than any stupid movie.
This is literally one of the worst storylines in all of wrestling with one of the worst payoffs. Only the Higher Power and Starrcade 97 are worse

>>212607622 (OP)
No. Wrestling itself is extremely stupid and boring, regardless how it's done.

>>212607622 (OP)
I hadn't watched wrestling since the early 90's, but over the last few years my friend would invite me to the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania, so we'd pick wrestlers and just party. It was essentially during the entire Roman Reigns championship.
Then there was the even when The Rock was a heel and helping Roman during his match with Cody Rhodes. At the end when The Rock came out and was helping we were all wondering if someone would come to Cody's aide and some of us thought it would be Stone Cold...but when the bell chimed and the lights went out and behind the Rock appeared THE UNDERTAKER...we all lost our minds! I'm getting chills just thinking about it. Choke slam and finally a new champion and a legacy champ at that. That was KINO.

>>212607849
Coincidentally that was around the same time Pokemon was really popping off
https://youtu.be/M0IUewEU9XU?si=fBxvUtiTCveeYqEU

This one event literally killed wrestling, kayfabe

>>212616132
If the AOL time warner merger never happened and Monday night Nitro was still airing to this day.
No TNA becuase Jeff Jarret keeps his wcw job and no AEW because there is no need.
I guess it depends on who is booking but wcw ratings would pick up in the wwe PG era
and 2010s dementia Vince McMahon booking

>>212616860
What the fuck is this crap?

>>212616860
This is the problem with modern wrestling, how did we get to this point where the majority of the talent are a bunch of manlet fags that seem like they were bullied in highschool? Wrestlers need to be steroid freaks, violent hillbillies, and failed NFL players again if it's ever going to reach it's former popularity

To the folks who don’t watch wrestling anymore:
WWE started getting good again around 2022, kept that momentum going in 2023, and honestly peaked in 2024. Last year was pure kino — probably the best WWE has been in like 20 years or so. But this year? It's been kind of a mess. Hopefully, they pick things back up again.

That said, at least it’s watchable now. The PG era downfall is long gone, for those wondering. Overall, it's a much better product these days.

>>212607622 (OP)
Where my Janellamaniacs at?

>>212617599
If Time Warner still owned WCW it would currently be the most valuable entity in their entire media portfolio. Those retarded faggots fucked over the fans, wrestlers, and themselves all the at same time.

The Attitude Era was garbage and ruined wrestling. Russo should kill himself. The only reason this era is so glazed is because wrestling was at its most mainstream and pop culture relevant during that time. It was like Season 6 of GoT or the MCU of comic books.

The 1980s were the real peak of professional wrestling. So much great stuff was happening: peak JCP with Flair’s world title run, his feud with Dusty Rhodes, the rise of the Four Horsemen, and classics like Tully Blanchard vs. Magnum TA. Peak Tag team wrestling like Midnight vs. Rock n Roll, the Fantastics, etc. Other legendary feuds like the Von Erichs vs Freebirds in wccw. Memphis was wild with storylines like Lawler vs. Kaufman (arguably the greatest wrestling angle ever) along with Lawler’s battles with Dundee, Idol, Funk etc.

Meanwhile, in Japan, you had Tsuruta vs Tenryu, the UWF invasion angle in NJPW, iconic matches like Dynamite Kid vs Tiger Mask. And that’s just scratching the surface.

>>212617848
Hey, Cornettey. Who's plowing your hog wife these days?

>>212617721
>WWE started getting good again around 2022, kept that momentum going in 2023, and honestly peaked in 2024.
It didn't. It was just slightly better than the absolute garbage of 2017-2020 (particularly 2019).
Modern WWE has too many fucking problems
>Raw, Smackdown and PLEs all look the same with no pyro and LED screens everywhere
>wrestling is just a spot fest
>storylines and rivalries are shit (Cody/Roman/Rock is the exception but they botched that with this years mania)
>they are not technically in the PG era anymore, but they are nowhere near the Attitude era so it might as well be the PG era
>2 World title belts will always be the stupidest shit ever
I've watched lots of New Generation recently and there's lots of bad, but the good is top tier. NuWWE doesn't have that. It's just shit or less shitty.
>That said, at least it’s watchable now.
Who the fuck can watch 2.5 hour Raw, 2 hour Smackdown, 30 PLEs a year, and 4 Saturday Night Main Events. Not to mention the important shit that only airs on youtube?

>>212617848
>The Attitude Era was garbage and ruined wrestling
You're a faggot that wasn't there. Every ep of Raw as must see tv.
>. Russo should kill himself
He was the right guy, in the right company at the right time. Nothing WWE has done has been better than the Attitude Era.
>The only reason this era is so glazed
zoomer detected
> It was like Season 6 of GoT or the MCU of comic books.
Nobody liked Season 6 of GoT. Attitude Era is remembered for lots of great storylines. Match quality wasn't great, but that's tough when you lose Bret and Shawn within a few months and Austin has to brawl because he got dropped on his head.

>>212617891
>Hey, Cornettey. Who's plowing your hog wife these days?
Cornette is a legit retarded faggot. There's plenty of shit to dislike about Russo and his booking, but this faggot refuses to admit that Russo took the WWF ratings and relevancy to monumental heights.
Cornette in the last 90s tried to do an NWA Invasion angle that was one of the worst angle ever conceived and it was so bad it was pretty much just forgotten.

>>212618110
>no Slim Jim ad on the table

>/tv/ wrestling threads are 100000% better than /pw/ wrestling threads
How do we keep doing it, bros?

>>212607622 (OP)
sure
plenty of epic things have happened, and continue to happen.

since it's based in reality (it's quasi-scripted, but still performed live) the moments that "hit" really tend to "HIT" in a unique way (pun?)

I just wish the crowd WHAT?! would stop WHAT?! with the lame WHAT!? Stone WHAT!? Cold WHAT!? yelling of WHAT?! "what" during the WHAT?! in-ring promos. it's not funny or cute anymore, it's just plain annoying. the crowd knows that Stone Cold isn't there anymore right? (the crowd can keep the "WOOOO!" whenever someone does a chest slap, that part is still fun!)

>>212618110
I couldn't believe when I was going through Nitro episodes and fucking Sabu appeared.

>>212618290

The Euro crowds are unironically better than American crowds.

>>212618168
You shouldn't and you should shut the fuck up about it. The LAST thing this board needs is an invasion from those fucking autists containment site. These threads are a breath of fresh fucking air, because we are able to talk about WRESTLING and the product itself in terms of kino, cinematic quality, nostalgia, memories good and bad, entertainment and television history. I'm not saying that /tv/ is known for its high quality discussion and intellectual stimulating memes; I'm saying that the infrequent, low-key and CALM and QUIET discussions about pro-wrestling that are had here are something to be cherished and not have it be a regular thing or broadcasted. No Hogwheels, Bitchtits, Ojama, or that fucking pedo Wolfbitch stinking this place up with the ilk they drag with them.

I say this board keeps wrestling threads to once a month minimum, maybe once every three months.

>>212618290
Wrestling crowds used to be families, chads, stacies, etc. Now it's fucking fat onionfaggots that want to scream "WHAT?" "THIS IS AWESOME" and "YOU DESERVE IT" when they aren't fucking tweeting or instagramming during the event.
HHH goes into the ring and brags about how the gate for the event was the highest ever and these retards cheer (basically they are cheering that they are being price gouged).

>>212618396

They barely even do that shit anymore, you look at something like Wrestlemania now and there's barely any reactions, audience are just zombies because only super rich idiots can afford the tickets

>>212618359
You're right, bro. I would be thankful for a good wrestling thread once a month on /tv/. Keep those other faggots in their containment board.
>No Hogwheels, Bitchtits, Ojama, or that fucking pedo Wolfbitch stinking this place up with the ilk they drag with them.
As bad as these faggots are, you have a massive contingent of posters that will call any anon Hogwheels or Wolftits if they express any valid opinions.

>>212618430
>e, you look at something like Wrestlemania now
That's a once a year event. Those cheers are still happening at Raws and Smackdowns.

>>212618028
Attitude Era was basically a wrestling product for people who don’t like any of the best parts of pro wrestling. Russo turned wrestling into trashy reality TV. He was never a wrestling fan, just a production guy who dumbed everything down. A guy who never understood pro wrestling in the first place.

>You had to be there
Exactly. You just proved my point. You loved being there more than the actual product. Wrestling was everywhere back then. It felt like a weekly festival.
Yes, the characters were iconic. Yes, the TV was fun at the time. But let’s be honest: most of it was just dumb, phony shock-factor garbage. And it wouldn’t work today. Not because of “cancel culture". You yourself would call it cringe if it happened now.

I mean, how can you even fumble an invasion angle ffs?? That alone should tell you everything. McMahon's ego ruined what could’ve been the biggest storyline in wrestling history.

This whole era is the reason why we see the “Wrestling doesn’t matter in wrestling" retards everywhere. Absolute brain-dead consequences. It’s really not that hard to put nostalgia aside and admit the era was a slop or at the very least, that it led to wrestling devolving into slop, even if you still have fond memories of it

>>212618443
Yeah well, let them spin their tires into redundancy over that kneejerk reactionary lizard-brained behaviour because Hogwheels and Wolfclit never had a valid opinion on anything, ever.

>>212607683

It is common knowledge that they ripped the character off Tony Montana

>>212618476
>Attitude Era was basically a wrestling product for people who don’t like any of the best parts of pro wrestling.
Not really. It just upped the wow and shock factor.
>Russo turned wrestling into trashy reality TV.
And it hasn't been as good since.
>He was never a wrestling fan,
He was, retard.
> just a production guy who dumbed everything down.
He worked for the magazine, not production. You are legit fucking retarded and uninformed.
>A guy who never understood pro wrestling in the first place.
Yeah and guys like Cornette and Pritchard did, right? Raw was getting obliterated when they were in charge. Russo wasn't perfect, far from it, but he made 2 hours of tv every week must watch.
>>You had to be there
>Exactly. You just proved my point.
I literally didn't say "You had to be there' you lying faggot. I said "you weren't there" because if you were you would know that it didn't ruin wrestling, it made it stronger.
>You loved being there more than the actual product.
No, I've been with the product after AE and it fucking sucked. I would rather forget about the AE have good wrestling delivered right now.
>But let’s be honest: most of it was just dumb, phony shock-factor garbage.
Yeah, nothing dumb and phony about eras before or after that...HHH fucking Katie Vick, Doink the clown, etc.
>You yourself would call it cringe if it happened now.
AE was 100000x better than anything done in the past 20 years. If they advertised "The Attitude Era is back" I would watch every week if they delivered on that promise.
>I mean, how can you even fumble an invasion angle ffs??
That's NOT Attitude Era, retard. Russo was gone by that point. The AE era ended with WWE bought WCW.
> McMahon's ego ruined what could’ve been the biggest storyline in wrestling history.
It wasn't his ego. Most of WCW's top stars were under huge contracts for multiple years and it made zero sense for Vince to offer them more money to break those contracts to come to WWE.

>>212618476
yeah attitude era was kino because you didn't have be 10 years old or a manchild wrestling nerd to enjoy it

>>212618476
>This whole era is the reason why we see the “Wrestling doesn’t matter in wrestling" retards everywhere.
No one says this. I will agree that most don't want some 45 minute match where it's mostly holds, lockup and submissions, but nobody wants this modern flippy shit spotfests either. Wrestling from the 80s (never saw much pre80s stuff so can't give an opinion on it) to around 2010 was for the most part rock solid and well paced. A good blend of fake fighting, theatrics, and slick moves.
>It’s really not that hard to put nostalgia aside and admit the era was a slop or at the very least,
Nothing better has come after it.
> that it led to wrestling devolving into slop, even if you still have fond memories of it
You're so fucking retarded. Everything post AE has been the opposite of AE. Bland storylines, production looking like sleek corporate garbage, matches being flippy shit borefests, no interesting characters that take any chances. Most guys today are "I work hard and should be champion" or "I'm Samoan and should be champion".
You're just a zoomer retard that can't accept the fact that the best happened before you were born and it will never be as good

>>212618660
>It is common knowledge that they ripped the character off Tony Montana
Scott Hall said that Vince never saw the movie and when Hall did the character Vince thought he was a creative genius.

>>212618783
so many wrestlers in the 80s and 90s just stole their gimmicks from movies

So it seems, so it seems.

>>212618804
A wild business of carnies and drug addicts just trying to make a buck is what made it entertaining. Professional wrestling has been ruined by becoming TOO professional.

>>212618924
>A wild business of carnies and drug addicts just trying to make a buck is what made it entertaining.
I saw an interview with Al Snow where he said "Back in the day if these guys weren't making a living in wrestling they would be criminals or in jail."

>>212618861
It's kino stuff like this that anti-AE faggots are putting down all the time.

>>212618760
>No one says this. I will agree that most don't want some 45 minute match where it's mostly holds, lockup.....
They do. People today just don’t get wrestling. That’s why terms like “rest holds” even exist. They don’t like actual wrestling in wrestling. You show them anything from the pre 80s or even 80s, and they call it borfest “rest hold mania".

Wrestling at its core was about control. One guy trying to hold the other down, and the other trying to escape. It wasn’t even about hurting initially, it was about outsmarting and outmaneuvering. I’ve been watching stuff from the 50s and 60s even, and those holds are fascinating. It keeps you thinking, how is he gonna get out of this?

But show that to a Zoomer, and they’ll say “No one wants to see headlocks for 10 minutes”. Well If it’s as intriguing as a Dory Funk Jr. or a Thesz match, I absolutely do.

>You're just a zoomer retard that can't accept the fact that the best happened before you were born and it will never be as good
You're just a millenial who can't accept the fact that the best happened before your glorious Attitude Era and it will never be as good.

aew all in texas on in about 12 hours. It's gonna be kino!

>>212619792
KWAB!
No the fuck it isn't.
Fuck your tranny rodeo.

Yes, wrestling absolutely can be kino.
It's not a sport, its a movie about sports.
Like sports, there are highs and lows, thrills and chills, triumphs and failures, has-beens and never wases. Like in sports, there are those whose careers get cut short due to some unforeseen circumstances in their prime before they can take off to superstardom (Magnum T.A.), there are those whose careers end just as tragically in the ring (Owen Hart, Hayabusa, Mitsuharu Misawa), there are those matches that must see's (Hart vs. Austin, Austin vs. Rock, Undertaker vs. Mankind), there are hidden gems (Angle vs. ANYONE, RVD vs. anyone) and there are the sleazeballs, the crooks, the heroes and the villains, both real and imagined. Tales of debauchery, sex, drugs, violence, insanity, fights, injuries, redneck shittery; It is an absolute batshit shitshow of a world both inside and out. The stories about and of the business, from the top of the industry to the mudshows at the bottom, would make for volumes of films and epic series. Wrestling thrives on that sort of storytelling. And its not like it always relies on the deepest of psychology either. Entire feuds existences can be boiled down to:

>Good guy (Babyface): I respect you as a man and as an athlete.
>Bad guy (Heel): "To hell with that shit; your mothers a whore."
And then you sell tickets for what you want to see: two tough guys in a fight. Unlike real fights though, you're only as strong as your balls and eyes, so 2-3 minutes max. In wrestling, you get to see the drama, the speed, the tension, the story and most importantly, the action. Another interesting aspect of wrestling is how its somewhat of a secret society, akin to the mob. You couldn't run venues like MSG without running into mafioso.

The ancient Greeks would have TOTALLY got professional wrestling. They would look at the undercard and say, that's us. They are the mortals. The upper card would be the demigods and of course the authority figures would be the gods.

>You drive down the side of the road
>You see two guys on the side of the road is a hell of a fight
>You wanna pull over and see what's gonna happen, right? And there's a big guy and a little guy
>And the big guy's wailing on the little guy and you're like "boy he's getting the shit kicked out of him but that big guy, he looks too much for me so I'm not gonna mess with this"
>But then, because you're human, and it's human nature, the little guy comes off the shoulder of the road and starts firing back
>And now the big guy is getting the shit kicked out of him and you go "Yeah! Hit him again"
>You don't know who these people are, but you see it you get with it
>Now imagine, if you know that little guy, who he is, and that you like him, and that he's your hero
>And that big guy, what a prick he is, he's an asshole, he says horrible things to everybody, I hope he gets the shit kicked out of him
>Now instead of just driving down the road and stopping, you might want to pay 5 dollars or 10 dollars or whatever it is, to see that fight, to see whether the little guy can kick the shit out of the big guy
>and get even FOR YOU

I'm fairly sure you could play that 60 seconds Jim Cornette clip explaining what wrestling is in every cinema and kill the movie industry in a week

>>212617721
I watched the last few WrestleManias. It was full of influencers and advertising mascots. You're a fucking moron. Wrestling has never been gayer and it was extremely homosexual to begin with.

>>212617848
Pretending wrestling was real and an actual sport was always stupid. I've watched those old wrestling matches. They were beyond cartoonish and fake looking. Only the most dumb fuck rednecks were entertained by it. The Attitude Era was good because it focused on the entertainment aspect of the freak show and abandoned the stupid "this is a totes real sports division" wrestling aspect of it to have demons from hell lighting caskets on fire, rednecks beating the hell out of their boss and hosing him down with beer, strippers and sluts jiggling around in thongs before getting drop kicked off stairs, old ladies getting pile drived through tables, a mentally ill asylum patient getting hurled 30 feet off a steel cage and broken in half.

As soon as Vince won and the WWF went back to business as usual focusing on pretending they were a real sport everyone rolled their eyes and stopped watching and rightly so. Professional wrestling is very, VERY stupid - infinitely more so when everyone knows it's fake and wrestlers are now on podcasts as their real selves talking about everything in the business - and only brainlets garner any entertainment out of watching two dweebs play fight.

>>212620776
How is it any different from a theatre play or an action movie though?
Do you think the actors are actually fighting in a movie?

kwab

>>212618660
Tony Montana was a ripoff of Tony Camonte from the original Scarface

>>212620776
That's how modern stupid wrestling has taught you to view it.
You're exactly the kind of fan I was referring to. Someone who never truly liked wrestling for what it was. You needed more 'entertainment' to get into it, and that's precisely the audience the Attitude Era catered to.

Do yourself a favor (which I know you won't cuz you dont really like wrestling): go back and watch wrestling the right way —starting from the 50s all the way to the 90s. Study how it evolved over the decades. You’ll start to see just how far it’s fallen. Wrestling used to be rooted in logic and believability (not realism), yet it still managed to be incredibly entertaining.

The core issue isn’t just that it became more entertainment-driven than sport-based — it’s that, in doing so, it's that it lost all logic and meaning along the way. Storytelling elements became tropes, tropes became routine, and now those routines are either abandoned or they don't work anymore because they only worked when a certain set of logic and rules were present.
If they had maintained the sensibility and authenticity of earlier days while elevating the entertainment value, things would be in a much better place.

I was a victim of the modern (and post modern) mindset too. It depends on how you were raised to consume it. Modern sports entertainment and indie-style wrestling change the way you even view wrestling which is frankly a much shallower way.

It doesn’t have to go back to being purely sports-based, but it should at least maintain some level of logic and immersion. Right now, that gets shattered instantly by all the ridiculous stuff. And what I'm saying has nothing to do with kayfabe.

>>212611065
shawn is a real piece of shit, but this is funny as hell

>>212620637
>full of influencers and advertising mascots
So you never really watched WWE/WWF before?

>>212611093
looks AI. they went overboard with that shit bath.

>>212617813
lol he killed Sabu

>>212618804
How did WCW and Sting get away with copying The Crow 1 for 1?

>>212611090
Benoit and Eddie were never top level stars, very good workers but they're overrated due to untimely and tragic deaths.
The ONLY metric by which to measure WWE's death is when they stopped using it as a vehicle for softcore featuring fit women with big fake tits

>>212618110
they should've given him the terrorist gimmick instead of Daivari and Hassan
he would've gotten that shit over

>>212622738
I'm a leg man because of Stacy Keibler. Good god I just want her to wrap them around my waist and squeeze me till I pop like Xenia in Goldeneye

>>212618440
He and Taker are the true GOATs.

>>212622709
didnt wcw also have a guy who was just sub zero from mortal kombat lmao

The muh old wrasslin fag acting as if the golden era wasn't cartoony as shit

>>212607622 (OP)
Between 89 and 94 it was

>>212620564
>>212620274
Even its lowest lows, wrestling is still head and shoulders above other mediums of entertainment due to the sheer level of craftsman ship even in lower ranks. I never regretted getting into wrestling and championing it when other people questioned my love for it. I once went to an indie show and we all stood around the ring like kids around a campfire immersed. It's the purest/primitive form of human art/storytelling: using your body and form to tell a story.

>>212611065
Man I love Shawn even when he is an asshole.
Hogan is the king of sandbagging anyway.

I've been wanting to watch old matches for a while, is there any website I can use for recommendations or listings?