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| Alexander may not be the best example, but you don't need WWE to do well in wrestling if you're good enough Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Cedric Alexander is a bad example, as would Gran Metalik be, because they're cases of major companies that would be able give people opportunity to make a living whiffing on them even outside of WWE's influence. Alexander spent how long in Ring of Honor and floundered not because he did anything wrong, but because Delirious or whoever was booking that week couldn't figure out how to utilize a charismatic wrestler of color? However, the argument that the best wrestlers don't need to go to WWE has merit. History is littered with examples of wrestlers who flourished in other viable companies, from Chris Harris and Monty Brown in TNA to Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows right now. It sucks no other company has the same combination of pay ceiling and exposure WWE has, but staying away from WWE for guys like Kenny Omega, the Young Bucks, Kazuchika Okada, or any other name guys may not be a bad idea.#Tweetbag Is Cedric Alexander a really good example of why not everyone needs to go to the 'E?— Okori Wadsworth (@OkoriWadsworth) August 30, 2017
I know horror in wrestling can still work because WWE almost made House of Horrors into something viable, chilling, and entertaining. I laid out the problems with it in Vol. 185 (skip to @Matt_T's question), and they're all easily remediated problems. If WWE, the blandest, most mass-produced wrestling product in the world, perhaps in history (depending on how one views death agony era WCW), can come close, then any wrestling with an ear for artistry could pull it off. Lucha Underground already does fantasy/B-movie action well, and one could argue it has quite a bit of horror elements to it, albeit more in the From Dusk til Dawn vein rather than classic Tobe Hooper/George Romero style. The problem is that I don't know if promoters and bookers would want to give it a shot since it's so on the edge, and anyone with money is so fucking carny that they just wanna reinvent someone else's wheel. But again, I think it could be done.Can pro wrestling ever achieve the level of horror that the recently departed Tobe Hooper attained? Does/can horror in wrestling still work?— brock obama (@NotBrockJahnke) August 30, 2017
I can't think of any for the latter, but the former happens all the time on WWE television. You get two guys working a match that goes past the commercial break, and they hit a groove, like a "hey, I'd totally dig this if it were on a pay-per-view" vibe, and then BOOM, you get this bullshit finish that might make sense, but totally crushes the groove of the match. It happens at least twice a month on free TV, which I guess is fine. But when it happens on pay-per-view is when it drives me nuts, and the best example I can think of is the Miz/Dean Ambrose Extreme Rules title-can-change-hands-on-a-DQ Intercontinental Championship match. Like, the match was great up until the circus finish, which was just overdone to hell and way too extra for what they laid out before. I'd also say the Backlash United States Championship match between AJ Styles and Kevin Owens, but that match wasn't very good BEFORE the shitty finish.Do you have a good example of a great match tarnished by a garbage finish, or a great finish saving a garbage match? #TweetBag— Star of Savage (@StarOfSavage) August 30, 2017
I subscribe to the "ain't broke, don't fix it" model of thinking. The Cruiserweight Classic drew rave reviews for everything about it: announcing, presentation, in-ring action, and the live finale. One would think that the Mae Young Classic should've been presented in the same exact way, right? I guess that's why you and I aren't brain geniuses like Paul Levesque or Stephanie McMahon or whoever was in charge of planning and rolling this thing out. If you're WWE and you wanted to experiment with bingeable content, okay, I get you, but you had several other avenues in which to do it. Maybe that's how you mobilize Southpaw Regional Wrestling from YouTube fuck-around thing to actual in-ring product. Maybe that's where you try to blur lines a bit, add some production value, I don't know. But the tournament thing has precedent, and the precedent is actually good. Use it until it runs dry. I mean, that's WWE's creative mantra, and it continues to be even with diminishing returns. But again, I'm not a brain genius working in Stamford at Titan Towers so...What's the best way WWE could've released the MYC: their current schedule, the CWC weekly one, or some other third one?— Butch Hussein Rosser (@butch619) August 31, 2017