Few things are more painful than watching some of the newer opinions when it comes to i-ring action. As a wrestling fans going back to the 1980s (my first ever exposure was WrestleMania 1), I’ve seen the then and now styles. I honestly enjoy the hybrid style combining Japanese Strong Style, Lucha Libre, and traditional. It makes this fun, exciting, and athletic. The problem comes when we see the exact same acrobatic moves several times a match by different people. It belies the WWE’s predictability at all levels.
To be clear, I’m not just singling out the WWE for this, as AEW and others do it, too. But doing too many big moves, or video game wrestling as I call it, takes away from the impact of seeing them occasionally. Just like hitting several finishers in a match takes away the impact of those moves.
Same content, different matches
The problem comes from constant athletic and big moves are often labeled an “Indie thing” that Indie wrestlers do to help the major promotions recognize them.
The WWE is supposed to be above that. It’s what the Performance Center and NXT are supposed to be able. They’re supposed to train their wrestlers how to do thing “the big company’s way.” In this case, rely more on telling a story than big move after big move. Randy Orton recently spoke on this, then went on to have a match like this with Edge at Backlash, where the final ten minutes were ten minutes of exchanging various finishers. It wasn’t dramatic, and it wasn’t interesting by that point.
And here’s the thing, when watching NXT, Raw, Smackdown, and any pay-per-views, we see the same moves in the same situations. These are a few that show WWE predictability
One is the belly flop/desperation dive in tag matches.
While this has declined with fewer actual tag teams in action, it was repetitive to see the same people make the unnecessary dive at least once a match. It used to be saved for a desperate moment every so often. Now, it’s a regular occurrence and it’s lost any excitement the move once held.
The handstand into the ropes.
This is a very cool move, but when we see it in every match, and often my multiple people, it loses it’s flair. Now, instead of lightweights doing it, we’re seeing the larger guys do it as well, and that’s a recipe for disaster.
Suicide dives.
Seriously. At least once every match. Like above moves, this used to be what a couple of wrestlers would do. Sometimes, someone like the Undertaker or Brock Lesnar would do it as a changeup. But now nearly everyone seems expected to do it at some point.
Fake finishers.
Every once in a while, we’d have a match of such great importance that someone would kick out of a finisher or two. But now it’s every. Single. Match. There really are no finishers anymore. It used to be once a finisher was hit, the opponent was done. Now, we know it’s going to have to be hit three or four times, and then maybe the match will be over.
There’s no surprise or suspense any more
And this is the problem with WWE predictability and something we hear constantly from fans online, and various promotions try to keep their matches and/or ending secret. But it’s the matches themselves that hold no surprise of suspense.
We know the big names will kick out of several finishers. We know they’ll each most likely dive through or over the ropes, and we know the announcers will scream like it’s unbelievable what they’ve survived.
What’s unbelievable is that no one looks at the matches and says, “No, don’t do that. Change it up,” and it sticks. If Vince McMahon or Triple H would point that out, people would listen. But it seems as long as the fans react to every big move, it doesn’t matter that nothing in the match stood out as memorable.
The one plus side to this is the match of the year was between Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles on Smackdown for the Intercontinental Championship. It was a mix of old school and new school, and a showcase on how to do it right. Those that say the old style doesn’t work anymore were probably cheering throughout that match and didn’t even realize it.
We just ask to change things up so every match isn’t like every other match on a card. Is that too much to ask?
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