Welcome to pro wrestling!
I’m glad you have been watching this for however long you have. We at Voices of Wrestling won’t judge you if you are new, even though we are in the business of directing you to essential matches to watch.
Pro wrestling has been kind of strange lately, especially in the United States. We have murderers, nonsensical authority figures, wrestlers obsessed with bracelets, mid-match promos, magic, wrestlers afraid to use finishing moves, never-ending struggles about heads of tables that lead nowhere, romance, and all kinds of shenanigans. Plot holes are all over the place.
Hell, in 2023 AEW was powered by the power of friendship over everything else.
If you are new, you might be like, “That is what pro wrestling is all about! Drama and comedy with matches sometimes.”
Well, we need to have a chat.
It seems that pro wrestling has lost its way due to the chase of the almighty Story.
I even feel some of the old fans and promotions have forgotten what it is all about at its core. So, I want to do a quick explainer about this, and at the end, I promise to reveal where you can find the Story of it all.
Let’s start with the basics:
What is pro wrestling?
It is a pseudo-sport in which two or more people beat each other to find out who is the strongest and the best at their craft. Sometimes, it gets too personal, things get out of control, and feuds happen. Sometimes, these feuds get bloody, but this is all a normal part of being in a competition.
And just like any sport, there are variations. Some wrestlers prefer hardcore matches, other technical, and others prefer styles from other parts of the world. It’s a fun potpourri of styles! An ice cream store, if you will.
At its core, it’s people trying to beat each other up while being a good sport about it.
There.
Simple.
But let’s explain a bit more.
How do you win at pro wrestling?
The way to win is to incapacitate your opponent for three seconds or to make them submit or knock them out.
Some matches have different ways to win. Just like different sports have different variations with their own ways to win, pro wrestling is no different.
What is the end goal?
Money! Pride! And a beautiful shining belt that says you are the best!
See, sometimes fans complain about a match not having a story, but have you ever thought that maybe the wrestler does it because it’s their job? What about taking pride in your craft? I don’t see fans asking, “Why are the Yankees playing the Reds? They don’t have a story”. I don’t see plumbers going, “I’m not doing that house. I only take care of apartments”.
Do you know what else does not have a story? Most Olympic events. And your company’s softball game.
But back to pro wrestling: wrestlers want to compete and beat as many opponents or important wrestlers as they can because the higher they are in the card, the more money! Winning equals more bookings, which is more money and exposure of your craft!
And you know what guarantees the most money and pride? Being a champion!
Being a champion is a guaranteed spot in an important part of the card, which in turn is more merch sales, more popularity since you are being exposed to the whole world, and you are more important to the company, which comes in handy in those contract renegotiations.
But not all wrestlers are the same.
Why are some wrestlers good and others bad?
Some wrestlers are fair and have a lot of love for it. They take pride in their craft and in being the best either in their promotion, the country, or the world.
Others are like you at your work: want to do the bare minimum, like reading wrestling columns at work, or writing a column instead of working, and get more.
These wrestlers do the bare minimum by cheating and using help to try to get up in the card and win a championship. Since they know they all need wins to advance, they get a manager or a couple of other cheaters to help out. Or maybe they are just unsportsmanlike, and that helps them win.
Then being a champion changes people.
Sometimes they are desperate to keep a hold of their spot and become unsportsmanlike assholes. Others think it’s their duty to be as fair as can be and want to give others opportunities. And they switch their thinking sometimes.
They are human beings, just like you and me. Dumb people that hurt themselves for a living, but we love them.
Those are the basics of pro wrestling.
We have been straying away from it for a while, especially in the United States. Sometimes it seems like even the wrestlers don’t know why they wrestle.
We have murder clowns who have magic, yet they never use it in their matches or explain why they are in pro wrestling instead of, I don’t know, a Las Vegas show, which is way more profitable.
We have wrestlers stopping their matches and doing soliloquies, giving time for their opponent to recuperate. Have they never seen a spy movie? Telling the whole plan and explaining everything never works. Or maybe the promotions doing these things think their fans are dumb and need an explainer all the time.
Some are afraid to do finishing moves, which is the antithesis of pro wrestling. It’s like you’re playing baseball, you play against your friend’s team, and are afraid of doing a home run because you don’t want to embarrass your buddy or hurt your enemy too much. These are wrestlers who are afraid of making money and being the best in the world. Maybe they are afraid of having too much success. An imposter syndrome, if you will.
We have wrestlers committing crimes on TV all the time, cameras in places they normally aren’t, bad comedy, all in the name of overcomplicating shit. Of chasing the all-mighty “Story.”
People forget that what makes wrestling special and awesome is that it’s simple. It tells a story with the wrestlers’ bodies and on the mic with promos designed to get you pumped to go to the arena. That is the magic of it all. That is what makes pro wrestling a different art form from cinema.
Now, sometimes you can do more complicated stuff, but wrestlers need to behave like human beings and must be logical. It is okay to subvert the basics of pro wrestling, but the problem we have now is that what was the subversion became the norm, and now basic pro wrestling is the subversion.
At the end of the day, wrestling ain’t that complicated. We don’t need to make it complicated. You probably got caught up in here alongside the rest of us because you saw something cool one day on TV or on YouTube. That is what grabs the attention of anyone.
Keep enjoying the show.
We are glad to have you here.
Just remember the basic tenets, and hopefully, the promotions will remember them in the trying times when they go looking for the Story.
At the end of the day, the “Story” has been inside the ring, between the wrestlers, all of this time.
