*I’ve been thinking about this Adam Pearce as booker of ROH for so long that I’m losing sleep. It’s my understanding that he wants to use 70’s style wrestling. I guess that means no ring music and that fans will be allowed to smoke in the building.
But seriously, maybe the fans are misintepreting what the guy wants to do. The ROH crew, and ALL wrestling crews for that matter, should be forced to watch 70’s style wrestling, and learn how to work. “Working” isn’t jumps and flips and dives. “Working” is properly selling arm bars, headlocks, and chinlocks. When did the ridiculous term “rest hold” integrate itself into this business, anyway? The working starts when the opponent puts you in a hold.
Go grab a friend of yours in a shoot headlock. What does he do? Put a shoot arm bar on a friend of yours. What does he do? Same goes for waist locks, chin locks, etc… Wrestlers who now live in this MMA day and age of wrestling wonder why the business isn’t taken seriously. Well, that’s because they make the business look so fake when they’re “resting” while being put in moves that submit real fighters.
I used to think that old school wrestlers never did anything in their matches. But then I started paying attention to some of the stuff they did and realized that they worked harder than any of the boys today. Because they worked harder at making the little things, like punches, headlocks, chinlocks, and kicks, look far more realistic than most of the guys today.
I guess since we’re not wrestlers anymore, and just entertainers, it doesn’t really make a bit of difference in the big picture. The old school guys that know how to do the stuff are far too old to invest the time to teach a bunch of up and coming indyriffic japanese tape traders turned wrestlers how to do it.
But than again I may be wrong about this whole Adam Pearce thing. Maybe he’s just another one of those guys that thinks he has all the answers on what needs to be done to change the business. I personally don’t think going backwards is the answer. The only way wrestling is going to evolve is through the emergence of another Rock or Austin. Guys whose promos are so good that they get people that don’t like watching the matches to watch the show to just to hear them talk. The closest thing ROH has to that is Jimmy Jacobs.
*I think one of the main problems TNA has with their ratings is the fact that the company operates out of Nashville, TN. If they want their product to gain some exposure they need to relocate to L.A., where all the other tv shows are.
*I’m gonna speak up for Mark Madden’s favorite whipping boy, DDP. For all of his faults there’s one thing that you can’t criticize Page for. Despite what people think, Page was never really handed anything. He worked harder than anyone I’ve ever met to improve at the things which make you succedssful in this business.
Page spent countless hours studying tapes of great workers and then getting in the ring and repeated their moves over and over. He was one of those first one to enter last one to leave type guys. Then when he’d get home he’d work for hours studying promos, something I imagine hardly anyone in this business does today.
I think by his own admission when Page looks back on his career, he’ll probably be able to admit that as he was in the learning process he became a teacher in his own mind way too fast. Not that he didn’t know what he was talking about, it’s just that the perception was that you should get the knowledge that he’d give from somebody higher up on the food chain.
If Page ever wrote a guidebook on the amount of work and effort that must be endured to become a success in wrestling, it would be a must read for everyone that hasn’t accomplished their goals inside the squared circle.
*I’d like to challenge the writers that give their weekly Impact reviews on the news sites to give a critical commentary on the first two hour episode of 24. If they get confused, it would be understandable, since the show moves at lightning speed in real time. If they’re confused with wrestling, I would doubt that they’d get past the first eight minutes without having a nervous breakdown. If they can watch the whole 2 hour episode with a general understanding, then i’ll give them a hundred bucks.
On a side note, I still have an open challenge to anyone that’s never seen an episode of 24 to put the first episode of seson one on dvd into their player. If they can watch that, and not watch the rest of the first season, i’ll give them a hundred bucks.
*American wrestling needs to use more referees in the matches, like Mexico. Seriously, if wrestling is predicated on the assumption that it’s real, how could this business answer the legitimate complaints from fans that the refs miss SO MANY calls? Just add a referee outside the ring to stop interfernce. Add another one in the ring to enforce legal tags and such. Like one referee can actually handle a six or eight man tag?
While we’re at it, let’s put these wimpy little refs in some protective gear. Why wouldn’t they wear a helmet? They get the living crap knocked out of them on so many occasions, that if this was realistic they’d be foolish to continue to risk their health.
This is just an idea, but let’s not forget that my ideas don’t usually die from from loneliness.
*Let’s add some judges for the matches while we’re at it. Every show on tv today has judges. Boxing has judges. MMA has judges. Judges have their own tv shows. It’s just another added crowd reaction to a match, and a way to build storylines, if the result goes to the judge’s score cards. The only drawback would be that on TNA you’d have to listen to David Penzer more often when they announce the judges’ decision.
This is just another idea, but let’s not forget that my ideas usually don’t die from loneliness.
Come to think of it, neither do my insightful, intelligent, well-written articles.
