Death of Wrestling: Forgetting the Good Stuff

Greetings to all… It’s David Davis with my weekly blog: Death of Wrestling. For all of those who read this regularly, you will know that this is not a blog about bashing wrestling; it’s a blog of a frustrated fan, who loves the business and wishes that each week it could be a little better.

So… Battleground… sigh… bigger sigh… But I don’t want to dwell on the bad stuff. I’ve spoken before about pointless gimmick PPVs and I’m sure I will again. I’ve also spoken about bad finishes to matches, and I’m sure I will again. And I’ve also spoken about PPVs feeling like an extended episode of Raw and, once again, I’m sure I will again… But despite all of this, the real DoW will come when us fans forget why we love wrestling in the first place, and believe it or not, Battleground did this for me…

To be precise, the booking of the Shield vs. the Rhodes family did this for me. The end of that match had me jumping up and down like the mark that I am. It was the essence of wrestling: good vs. evil… but, more importantly, it was the triumph of good vs. evil… It was a true wrestling classic storyline and it made me think about some of the other storylines that I’ve loved over the years…

HBK is probably one of my favourite wrestlers of all time, and Bret Hart was one of the wrestlers that I hated the most… I know that Bret is a legend and what he’s done for this business cannot be denied, but the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be, just never has done it for me. So I jumped for joy at Wrestlemania XII when the Ironman Match was restarted and good ol’ HBK sweet chin music’d his way to the WWF Championship…

The attitude era rivalry between Vinny Mac and Steve Austin is now legendary. And the best bit of this for me was the Corporate Ministry. The Undertaker went on a demonic campaign that even included the abduction of Stephanie McMahon, and the only person Vince could turn to was his nemesis Stone Cold… But the Undertaker served a ‘higher power’ that was ultimately revealed to be… Vince McMahon himself – it was all an elaborate scheme to ultimately undo the legend that is Stone Cold Steve Austin. Brilliant.

Chris Jericho beat the Rock and Stone Cold in the same night to become the Undisputed Champion. The following Royal Rumble, Jericho defended the belt against the Rock, and there were a series of back stage segments where everyone went up to the Rock and declared that after they won the rumble, they would beat him for the belt at Wrestlemania – basically no one gave Jericho a chance in hell of retaining the strap, but he did and it was epic – no one has ever played the ‘beatable champion’ better than Y2J.

Mark ‘Sexual Chocolate’ Henry got Mae Young pregnant and she gave birth to a hand…

Like I said before, the Death of Wrestling will truly come when we forget what we love about it in the first place. For me, it’s the storylines, but for you it might be the individual wrestlers, the tag teams or last, but by no means least, the matches. If you want wrestling to survive, comment, Facebook or Tweet what you love about it and let the whole wrestling community share your passion too!

That’s all folks… As always, post your comments, thoughts and opinions below! Or message me on twitter and let me know what you think the ‘Death of Wrestling’ is and I might just blog about it!!! Peace and I’m out…