Velonica's World: The War of the Generations

In the wake of the rhetoric that both Brian James and Glenn Gilbertti has presented in regards to present day's talent, I would happily love to dismiss the foolish assessment over today's talent. The fact that a guy that was never over and a guy that couldn't get over until he joined a stable that in my personal opinion happens to be massively overrated can come up here and dismiss the work that this generation puts out is a ongoing issue with today's wrestling landscape. Pro wrestling has become what rap music is today as far as the past generation and the present generation's differences in regards to the content that is presented in today's landscape compared to the work that paved the way, the only difference is that in wrestling, I consider the "old heads" to be wrong where in rap it is the younger generation that are mostly the disrespectful ones. 

And I understand, wrestling is far from being as big as it once was but there is a reason for that that is far beyond their control. It is also pretty ironic when guys like Lou Thesz & Karl Gotch, two of the most renown shooters in the history of the sport used to openly criticize guys like Harley Race and Shawn Michaels who are considered by most to be the standard of how things are judged and presented not just today but of the two generations prior to this one. I am pretty sure there were a lot of fans that still to this day disagree with their takes, but let's not ignore that these people like to push their standards and taste on wrestling while ignoring the flaws and hypocrisy in their takes. A lot of people these days love to make outrageous statements on how wrestling is supposed to be presented when some of these elements weren't created until the 1950's and how do you think the wrestlers of the past viewed that? Not as well as most would think, they saw it as scripted tumbling nonsense and that was making a circus out of the sport. Sounds familiar, right? Kevin Nash recently on his podcast was talking about his experience observing the kids in the PC and Shawn Michaels looked at him and said "That slowing down is not the style today" which has some truth to it but it kinda makes you wonder how in depth Shawn's feelings on the modern style is and he was in the position that The Young Bucks are in today.

Now back the matter of what draws and what doesn't. You see as much as those legends paved the way for the industry we see today, they did not like the vision but it was more of their personal feelings and not so much of assessing the industry as a whole(Meaning more than just the US) because they would acknowledge that the style was box office and lead to a new era in the business, it became more than just the shooters, they started to adopt more of the theatrical style of a Edouard Carpentier, Buddy Rogers or Gorgeous George and the fruits of their labor is what got us to the pro wrestling that we grew up loving. It added a new layer to the business, altered the stories that were told and drew record setting numbers that kept the industry alive and that legacy was carried on by the likes of Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Billy Graham, Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, The Undertaker, Great Muta, Big Daddy, Junkyard Dog and plenty of the other cast of characters in pro wrestling. These people were either from the generations of wrestling that names like Jim Cornette, Road Dogg & Disco Inferno were brought up with or the generations they grew up on and depending on their relationships with those individuals whether it be personally or professionally, these are still people that they praise and view as stars in their book. So why is it such a hassle to recognize that a generation of people whose popularity helped create a company that has done much better business than the companies they helped run in response to the WWE?

It may be a tough pill to swallow depending on the way people look at it but they are those dinosaurs that Road Dogg used to talk about, funny enough is that they don't know what it is that gets people over. They can kiss the rear ends of people like MJF & FTR who wrestles the way they came up but there is a reason why The Elite, Orange Cassidy, Jon Moxley, Roman Reigns, 4HW, Asuka, The Lucha Bros, Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Seth Rollins, Cody Rhodes, Bray Wyatt, Bullet Club and all these people are so over today. It is their game now. You can just ignore record breaking ticket sales, merchandise being moved and the business being in the healthiest state it has been in since they took charge in their executive roles. It ranges from not understanding to pure jealousy to holding grudges. Taking metrics that has long since altered to measure the way the business and how it is doing makes you come across as foolish, ratings are far different now compared to the past but there is a company in the US that is drawing $10,000-$20,000 now, the largest company in the world is a billion dollar company drawing record attendance compared to yesteryear. 

The television industry is far different to the point where it is very less likely to have a Black Saturday situation especially when one is on streaming and the other is on PPV, which was the whole reason that situation was brought about. And I know that Disco Inferno is not talking because he was in a company where despite beating the WWF 83 weeks in the ratings with their stars who were over, they did not make any profits necessary to keep them in business or on the same networks that AEW resides and have a very positive relationship with. The point of the industry is to make money, like they said...right? So why is it an issue when they see these young kids shining and doing the things they simply failed to do. They were all together in TNA, right? Why did TNA go nowhere? Surely they are still in business but trying to reinvent the wheel did not go as planned in 2005-2014 now did it? Road Dogg thinks he is excused now being in a high position of power in the WWE but we aren't going to pretend like Voodoo Kin Mafia didn't happen. 

And it is crazy because I am a big fan of the previous generations and would like some of the things implemented in the past become a thing in this generation, but if I were to sit up here and make ridiculous statements like "95% of this generation have no clue how to get over", I'd like pretty stupid especially if I was a wrestler that has never been over. You know where Disco Inferno was doing during the Monday Night Wars? He was a prelim to middle of the card act on the level of someone like Madcap Moss or The Factory and was given titles that the WCW didn't care about for less than 2 months to a couple of weeks. He couldn't get work anywhere but a minor league indie promotion or TNA and his level of overness was the fans dancing during his entrance...you know who else did that? Fandango and The Oddities. It wasn't like the Bryan Danielson situation in the WWE where he got the "YES!" chants and was still over and drawing without those chants dictating his career, he had a passable fad, people joke on Buff Bagwell but Bagwell was way more over than he was and was a much better worker. Hell, Alex Wright was his partner and outshined him in all areas during their run together. So it is crazy how he is one of those guys that are so passionate and vocal about this stuff. Cornette doesn't get ragged on in this nearly as much as the other two because he is still a top tier historian and has been places in the industry but that does not change the fact that he is the angry dinosaur with clouded judgement that buries everything in his path despite the rich knowledge he possesses. 

                                                          (Fun fact: I am in this photo)

Are there terrible things that happen in this era? Of course they are. I for one, am very vocal about my dislikes from every company and wish there were steps made to fix those particular issues but let's take off our nostalgia glasses and tune back into our favorite eras and there are gonna be lots of things that your are not gonna view the same or you would've buried had you fully understood what was going on back then. If this generation was so bad, why not take people under your wings instead of using your platforms to bury them? It is ok to have a specific preference, I would respect it more if that was how they describe there opinions, but to get up on these platforms and tell these people that they're doing the wrong things because it is not to your liking is just asinine. There is a lot of ignorance and I won't just chalk it down to them because there are indeed a lot of younger guys who in fact does not have any idea of how to get over, nor do they conduct themselves in a respectful manner when it comes to the past generation, what I am saying is that for all this judging, there could be actions taken to make this generation much better instead of everyone being so cutthroat even in retirement.