Okay, so the quick snapshot I took indicates that there are just as many power guys within WWE has their always has been. But that isn't really fair. Look at the names from the 1989 rumble and compare it to the names from the other two. Obviously, JBL and Kevin Nash are one-time guys so they shouldn't really count. But even so, the names on the first list seem a lot more prominent than the names on the second and third lists. With perhaps the exception of Ron Bass, all those names were serious competitors, champions, guys who were viewed as being very legit. The second and third lists have an awful lot of jobbers and lower-tired guys filling up the ranks.
So, I have come to this conclusion: While power wrestlers are numerically still well-represented, their value has greatly diminished. Why is that? I believe that since wrestling has moved into a much faster, more athletic and technically sound pace, that it leaves the lumbering big men from generations past flat on their feet. Today, it isn't enough just to be big, you have to be big AND athletic. 25 years ago, The Great Khali's work would still have been bad, but he would have been able to keep up with the pace a lot better than he does today. 25 years ago, the WWF didn't have guys like Seth Rollins, Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler always flying around the ring, it focused on a much slower, more ground based style, that played into the hands of the big men. Today, it would leave a lot of them in the dust.
What does the future hold? Mose likely, a greater trend towards guys like Big E and Rusev. Guys might not be as ridiculously cut as they were in the past, but they are a lot more athletic than they used to be. And as pro-wrestling descends more and more into reality and less and less from the cartoonish world it once came from, a greater emphasis on skill has and will continue to be placed on talents rather than look. In real sports, the guy that is the most cut generally isn't the best at their sport, the guy with the most skill is, just take a look at Kevin Durant. A guy like Daniel Bryan wasn't able to ascend to the top because of his look, but rather because fans believed that he possessed enough skill to reach the top.
One guy I'm looking forward to seeing in WWE one day is Michael Elgin. Elgin has a build similar to Rusev and Big E, but he is a really good technical wrestler, perhaps one of the ten best workers on the planet today. He is still in his mid-20s, and I think if he gets to WWE and gets the right character going, he will become a huge star.
Read more at http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2014/0724/579332/views-from-the-turnbuckle-power-wrestling-in-2014/#W0Ott29uD8R3tbiw.99
No comments:
Post a Comment