It's hard to get on any one wrestlers case about their lack of talent in certain areas when every aspect of the WWE presentation has gone severely downhill. When I hear people dogging a guy like Ziggler for throwing in the towel it annoys me because everyone is aware of the state of the WWE creative team. They sink these guys and discourage them. How can you get mad at a guy for doing what he's told to do? The performers are controlled top to bottom. Anything out of character puts the wrestlers to the back of the line. They all want a decent paycheck so they do what the company wants them to do. Ryback might be another guy who, with the right training, could be a hell of a character, but we'll never know. It seems like even the quality of the wrestling is decreasing. Everyone learns to be great outside of the WWE then they bring their talent into the company and its all over. I'm finding it hard to even blame Reigns for his position because they flat out refuse to give him the character that fits him. We'll never know how great a heel he could be until Vince admits he was wrong.
It's a very stifling, rigid environment these guys have to work in where they have little to no control over their characters, promos and the style of wrestling they use. If the management would just relax their control slightly things would improve fairly quickly but as long as Vince is in charge the micro management insanity will continue.
I am with you mate, I rarely criticized performers, because I am fully aware they could be a lot bigger with backing from a proper management (see LU).
I detect sarcasm and agree with it. So many of the so-called 5* matches I've seen were just stupid. Wrestlers just trading big spots (no one selling), bland characters, the ref forgetting he's there to do more than just declare a winner, and no pro wrestling moves used. The last of those being the worst. A 20-minute acrobatic/faux MMA display is not a pro wrestling match.
Kyle O'reilly is the poster child for what I'm talking about. The last time I watched Redragon I kept track of how many actual pro wrestling moves he used during the match. After a 20 minute match he had used one (vertical suplex...while Fish tried to kick the guy in the head and missed by a foot during their finisher). The rest of the match was kicking and thrusting as if he was in an MMA bout and spamming an arm bar.
These matches are beyond stupid. Two guys taking turns killing each other and neither selling. It looks like shit and I have no idea why some fans eat it up like it's cheesecake. The same people go on about realism while advocating a type of wrestling that's anything but.
Since wrestling in WWE is more about entertainment for me, I really go more by promos etc. And when I feel like it, I'll watch the match but others I just ignore it.
Matches aren't nearly as entertaining ever since Eddie Guerrero would try to steal the show.
As for good wrestlers... it's those guys who makes the matches exciting.
I feel like if you enjoy someone's matches they are good if you don't enjoy their matches they aren't. Obviously that's over simplifying it and leaves it up to everyone's opinion. But you seem to be over complicating it. There's no formula for good wrestler. Either you enjoy someone or you don't.
I don't buy the "WWE hampers them" shit either. A truly great talent should be able to make greatness happen in the ring even if they don't have total freedom.
I think about it kind of like basketball in that sense. Being able to succeed in a system with boundaries is just as if not even more impressive than succeeding in a do whatever you want environment.
WWE has a good balance of feuds right now that compliment weaknesses, Miz as IC champion is able to wrestle high-quality wrestlers (like Cesaro) because Miz can add the charisma to the feud giving it a good balance. The reason the US title was falling flat on the Pre-show was because Kalisto is a wrestler who needs a charismatic wrestler to balance him - Ryback attempted this with his Big Guy gimmick and now Rusev will step in to continue the promo-style.
Where it's fallen a bit flat for me simply because they are both similar characters with charisma & wrestling are Ambrose & Jericho but it works well for AJ/Anderson/Gallows and Usos/Reigns as they have the right balance where every character's strengths are brought forward while weaknesses are covered by the other opponents.
It's too easy to blame WWE for your favorite guys underperforming. If your guy isn't having great matches it's because WWE limits their movesets but Cesaro is allowed to do 90 moves every match; if your guy isn't cutting great promos it's because WWE's scripts suck but New Day is allowed to go out there and say whatever they want.
Some people have more freedom than others because they speak up backstage and they do it the right way: Bray started writing his own promos and storylines and took them to Creative to get approved; after a while they started letting him go unscripted. New Day came together on their own and started filming vignettes in their free time and pitching to Vince every chance they got.
WWE doesn't assign gimmicks in most cases or movesets, just promos, so what's really stifling these guys besides dumb booking?
To this day i don't think Shawn Michaels was that good and i know that is sacrilege to a lot people.
Yet i thought Scotty 2 Hotty was great, I genuinely would have been happy with him as World champion in the early 00's
Certainly from my standpoint a lot of it is just warming to the character and how much you are invested in them.
Go and watch Warrior VS Hogan, Big Daddy VS Giant Haystacks, They certainly are not the greatest matches you will ever see but people where invested so it didn't really matter.
Its about having a connection with the fans and that is something a lot of wrestlers don't have these days.
Ae wasent great matches all the time. But from low card to me. The wrestlers all connected. Enzo and Cass remind me a bit of Billy Gunn and Roaddog. New Day do too. Rock is not a indi junkie. But he had psychology. While technically today matches are better. Theirs little to no psychology. All you've got is spot after spot. Only one I see whos an exception is Bray Wyatt. But other then that.
I have to stay its definitely about the connection of the storyline and that of the fans. However, sometimes you can have a flop of a storyline. The Dean and Brock was such a flop even though there was a lot of fan investment into it.
If you're entertaining me, you're a good wrestler, IMO. It's the same criteria that makes up any form of entertainment. I can be just as entertained by a 30 minute sitcom like Brooklyn Nine-Nine as I am by a blockbuster film like The Avengers. That same logic applies to wrestling, whether it's Goldberg's intensity for his 2 minute squash match or Shawn Michaels' weaving a 30 minute masterpiece.
I'd rather watch Doink vs. Marty Janetty than most matches on Raw. The style just dulls my brain. But once in a while a match still grabs me, like the Payback main vent.
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