I enjoy watching TV wrestling. I like how they have story lines and feuds that ultimately get sorted out in the ring (with a scripted ending to suit). I also enjoy other forms of drama (the NCIS series; the Marvel Universe of TV and movies, etc), but ever since I saw wrestling as a child on that fateful night that Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man Randy Savage broke up over Elizabeth – I was hooked.
Throughout the years, the WWE has gone under several face lifts – from the slower, methodical paces of the past to the quicker, speedier contests that you are likely to find today. A lot of the constants remain – bad guys and good guys with the ultimate pay-off being that the good guy wins the feud overall. They also went from a child-friendly environment to a more adult-friendly environment (swearing, glaring sexual references, more violent by way of displaying blood from blading, etc), but have recently gone back to the child-friendly environment. I’m not too fussed, I still have that level of enjoyment from what I see.
However, one of the things I do miss that used to be prevalent all those years ago, is that a match between a Hulk Hogan and Macho Man would take months worth of dialogue and activity to build to, with the ultimate payoff being that match at Wrestlemania. In the interim, they would get fights every now and then against no-namers as an opportunity to showcase their repertoire of moves so the audience would get used to the move-set of each guy. For example, Bret Hart had moves such as the side Russian leg sweep, second-rope elbow, atomic drop, etc, and you knew each of these moves was designed to “soften” the opponent up for the eventual use of the Sharpshooter submission hold for the win. The no-namer would get little-to-no offense in, and the matches would normally end in a few minutes.
Now while these no-namers would just get the backsides kicked all over the ring, they served an even greater purpose. Having those guys as cannon fodder for the big names meant that when it came time to watching Saturday Night’s Main Event or any of the big 4 PPV’s back in the day (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, SummerSlam and the Survivor Series), it was actually special to see the big names facing each other. You would still get the moves repertoire for each of those guys, but now they were performing with name recognition guys. The months spent building up the reasons why guys didn’t like other guys was culminating in this moment. This was wrestling. This was WWE.
Nowadays, it is not unusual to see John Cena versus Randy Orton about five or six times a year. It’s not unusual to see a Mike Mizanin versus Jey Uso every single week (be it singles or tag competition). I could continue to pick match ups that you would’ve seen a lot of in the past few years. Don’t get me wrong, the caliber of matches is pretty good; for the most part, they’re certainly not one-sided unless you are establishing true beasts (Lesnar versus Cena at SummerSlam last year for example, or Baron Corbin in the NXT shows). However, if we are seeing John Cena versus Randy Orton in May having a fight and then having a return match-up in June because of rematch clauses or the unsatisfactory ending of a story line and all the while have them involved in tag matches every week on Raw/Smackdown in between PPV’s, does it not get stale, boring and repetitive to see them all the time? Where is that surprise factor of finally seeing them in the ring after months of build-up work?
No-namers, jobbers if you want to use the industry vernacular, were not that talented in the sense that they would eventually go on to bigger and better things after constantly getting beaten down by headliners. That being said, they served a greater purpose. They were that buffer between big events that allowed the big names to get over and to keep it fresh for when the big names had their moment to settle their differences and to make those encounters feel special. Don’t get me wrong, we still get these guys every now and then (Ryback got a tonne “fed” to him; The Ascension had a few as well, and NXT does it nicely), but it’s not like it used it be. Yes, times change, and why not utilise the talent base to full effect, right?
Maybe I’m just getting older, but the entertainment value is fast sinking with me.
Thinking Out Loud 