Wrestling Fans Being Spoiled

Wrestling has gone a long way since the early days, and such evolution has incorporated a variety of styles and outsider disciplines to the business, with some of them turning into "must have's" in any wrestling promotion or even individual wrestler. 

Wrestling fans are used to watch old school wrestling, pure greco-roman technical wrestling, American/ Canadian high-flying styles, lucha libre, martial art techniques, MMA techniques, brawling, hardcore/bloody wrestling with prominence in the use of foreign objects, flashy submission wrestling, etc. Some have a preference for one or several of these, others appreciate most or all of them. 

While watching Triple H VS Vladimir Kozlov for the WWE Championship at Survivor Series 2008 (RIP), I noticed something disturbing. Kozlov and Hunter were performing a match with a lot of emphasis on pure wrestling, combined with brawling and some Sambo techniques from Kozlov. About 3-5 minutes into the match, the "boring!" and "we want Hardy!" chants started to pop.

A similar thing happened during Eddie Guerrero VS Chris Benoit at Armaggedon 2002. The match was what it was supposed to be: a technical wrestling master piece. A couple of minutes into the match, "boring!" chants from the crowd.

Why? Why are this fans unable to appreciate a match that may be slow-paced, but showcases something that can be considered almost extinct: pure wrestling, old-school technique, a couple of guys working the canvass and building a match like they used to do 100 years ago.

The business has to evolve, survive, incorporate other disciplines and styles to have a sense of variety to every wrestler and thus more entertainment for the fans.

The 90's saw a huge change in USA Wrestling when high-flyers were able to truly showcase their skills, lucha libre hit the ring, hardcore wrestling became awesome and high spots gained big prominence in matches.

Right now, high-flyers are loved by the crowd; wrestlers who are tenacious enough to deliver high spots or bleed their guts out earn the crowd's respect and admiration very fast. Indy wrestlers who are talented enough to make technical wrestling look flashy are idolized by those who've seen them. This might expand the business but it may also narrow down the interests and likes of wrestling fans.

I know, many people appreciate and support wrestlers as long as they are good performers and are willing to deliver exciting matches, no matter how, but many other fans have a very limited definition of the term "exciting match". It may be limited to ONLY high spot after high spot, guys jumping/flying around like if their feet had springs or jet-boots, foreign objects constantly involved, unnatural amounts of blood or sick submission holds in which you can barely differ between who's holding and who's being held.

My point is: we're being spoiled.

Sometimes wrestling promotions are forced into showcasing "excessive" performances in order to please us. Someone around here wrote about X-Division wrestlers losing their in-ring psychology and being forced to jump around like some circus act. Old-school wrestlers complained about ECW being too focused on blood 'n' guts (then Guerrero, Malenko and Benoit came in...); as "wrestly" and wonderful ROH matches are, the few I've been able to watch are too over-the top sometimes regarding the action.

The product needs to improve and this guys accelerating the pace and doing more wicked stuff every time is part of such improvement, but fans may get too used to it, and those who are not educated enough to appreciate the art of wrestling bring up the "boring!" and "we want (high flyer guy)" chants when things don't follow such path.

Education is the key concept right here. Fans need to educate themselves in wrestling history and technique if they want to appreciate any good match or wonderful performer independently of their style. WWE has a ton of DVD's that cover past wrestlers, promotions and events; the Internet is a monster in terms of information; videos can be found if looked for intensely.

These things  above might solve the problem, yet with education I don't mean "USA wrestling only". Learning from promotions and wrestlers in Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Canada, Europe, anywhere is more like it. I don't know much about wrestling as a whole, but I'm willing to learn, especially from Japanese wrestling and my very own country.

It takes time, effort and not everybody's willing to do it, because many people don't mind about being educated in this subject or limiting themselves to the point they started watching wrestling, but an education might help in the appreciation of the craft or just as a way to know something new.

I feel terrorized about a future in which wrestling is way too flashy to be believable, matches will need to be worked at 88mph with high spots every half-minute, and/or wrestlers who actually stick to the traditional craft will be low-card performers or mid-carders that will never make it.

That's my opinion though.

Thanks for the read.