Recently, Randy Orton critiqued NXT’s wresters, and it’s touched on what many fans and older wrestlers have been saying for a while now.
For years, there’s been a near constant back and forth between the old school and new school wrestlers about what works. A lot of it comes from the wrestlers themselves, as the older ones say that’s not how it’s done, and the younger ones saying they don’t understand the new style. Fans are at opposite ends of the spectrum as well. While there are plenty that understand wrestling, like anything, evolves, there is a balance to be maintained.
The problem is, any attempt to critique or explain can be met with stubbornness and the claim “you don’t understand” that we see so much of in society when people don’t want to acknowledge they may be in the wrong or think they know everything. It’s something that happens on both sides of a discussion, and often comes down to the individual being willing to listen and learn.
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Orton offers critique
If there’s a wrestler that’s capable of offering a balanced critique of ring psychology, it’s Orton. He and Triple H are two of the best from a previous era both from a wrestling and ring psychology standpoint. Triple H is super busy and could may not be able to have as much input since his promotion, demotion, title change, whatever it was.
So a fresh pair of eyes could be needed, and Orton’s the perfect set. He offered his thoughts on After the Bell, and special thanks to @heel_vs_face for the transcript.
“I’ve been watching a lot of NXT which I didn’t do before. They have so many guys who are talented. I don’t wanna bury anybody — well I do, but I’m not — I saw a match between two guys that did so much cool sh*t and as I was watching it I was just thinking in my head, ‘Oh if they would just let that breathe, you know what I mean? Let the fans at home get with it, it’s hard. Like we were talking about with no fans.
“When the match was over my wife looked at me and she’s got a good eye for this sh*t too. She goes, ‘you know they did so much cool sh*t, but I can’t remember one thing specifically that they did. I was like, ‘yeah, that’s it!’
“It’s building to those moments and doing cool sh*t when the time is right. It’s not cool sh*t, cool sh*t, cool sh*t, finish.”
It’s an Indie thing
While Randy Orton has said what many wrestlers and fans have been (I’ve called it video game wrestling on several occasions), it may go a long way to solving the problem if they take him seriously.
The problem with this is, it’s been called an Indie thing on several podcasts because on the Indie circuit they’re trying to be noticed. Everyone’s vying for a bigger pay day. It’s similar to what professional sports have become where it’s more about the individual highlight reel and bigger contracts than the overall team, or in professional wrestling’s case, the match.
It’s a simple concept: make a bigger splash than the other guy, get a bigger pay day.
Disco Inferno and Konnan’s podcast, Keepin’ It 100 Official, has said this numerous times as they’ve gone after both the AEW and WWE for these practices.
The funny thing is, this is pretty much the reason new signings go through NXT, to fine tune their skills so they can put together quality matches, yet it seems to have permeated from the predictability and reliance on big moves to carry the match instead of personalities and storytelling.
Of course, the WWE could just be using this as away of furthering an Orton and Tommaso Ciampa feud that was reportedly started organically with an exchange of insults that Vince McMahon wasn’t happy about it. As they’ve shown with Jeff Hardy’s current storyline, there’s nothing the WWE won’t stoop to use.
What are your thoughts? Is Randy Orton Right,and is this setting up a feud with Ciampa after Edge?
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