When it comes to today’s wrestling compared to old school wrestling, there are as many differences as there are similarities from the in ring style to how scripted the shows are.
Wrestling has always been about storytelling in the ring and out of the ring through promos, and that’s remained constant to one degree or another.
The problems arise when writers are brought in to script out everything, leaving the wrestlers as actors playing a part instead of wrestlers.
In 2014, Jim Cornette took part in a live interview with Inside the Ropes where he talked about this, and his terminology was pretty simple. There’s wrestling and then there’s sports entertainment.
Separating the two
During the interview, Cornette laid out the differences between the two pretty clearly.
In wrestling, by our understanding, things started out pretty simple and basic, such as having different personalities facing each other and allowing them to work off their differences to draw the fans in.
They would then fight for the title, more money, or prestige. This was handled by bookers that built on the basics of human nature to create feuds and draw the fans in emotionally.
In sports entertainment, he attributed it to the hiring of television writers and using storylines like this guy burned down another’s house or ate their dog and so on.
He cited Ed Ferarra, and pointed to a storyline during the Attitude Era when Marlena was supposed to be pregnant, and was knocked off the ring apron. The fall resulted in her having a miscarriage in the storyline.
The problem here, as Cornette pointed out, was Ferarra and others beat to death the fact wrestling was fake, so chances are few believed she was pregnant, so they wouldn’t buy into the miscarriage angle.
Add to that it was in poor taste as parents with children or expecting them would be turned off by the storyline, as would women, along with their families, that suffered miscarriages.
But it was provocative and the Jerry Springer Show was the muse behind it and Attitude storylines in general, so it worked for the college kids and Springer audience Ferrara and Vince Russo were trying to attract.
When is it too much?
I remember that storyline, and while I didn’t like it in general I know others that didn’t due to the context, but we understood it was for chock value.
But it also brings up a valid point in that just because it works for prime time shows doesn’t mean it works for wrestling, and while it can be argued the product is bigger than ever before, televised ratings would suggest otherwise.
Going from 4, 5, 6 million weekly viewers to barely breaking 2 million if that many weekly is a huge drop off and shows those types of storylines are connecting anymore aside from die hard wrestling fans.
And even those fans vary from company to company.
While this interview in 8 years old, it still stands up as solid reasoning given how far many consider the WWE have fallen over the last twenty years.
What do you think? Is wrestling too entertainment oriented? Let us know in the comments below.
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