"This was the truly one WWE. I was born in 2001 but the modern WWE? Boring. I prefer the one from your times..."
I tried watching the WWE a few months ago after not having watched for several years now, and I really couldn't get past a few minutes of it.
I used to always say that it was a soap opera for guys, but it really is nothing but a soap opera now with some wrestling thrown in as filler. Just an overly plastic soap opera with no personality or soul beyond glitzy gimmicks. Just a whole bunch of talking, and so completely scripted. Even though it was always scripted, at least they was some originality and input from some of the wrestlers. People like Roddy Piper, Jesse Ventura, Ric Flair, Kurt Angle, Edge... They were poets, genius with the word.
Randy Savage used to bring little props to every interview. Every single interview with Gene Oakerlund. A stuffed orangutan... One time you said to Gene, "Here hold this," and he hands him a bag of candy. So he's talking about this upcoming match and then he goes, "It'll be just like taking candy from a baby," and he plucks out one of them them from the bag. That's it. A big bag of candy just so he can pull one out in the Macho Man Randy Savage way. It was glorious.
I always figured that the Iron Sheik was just a doofus exploiting stereotypes, but then I started realizing with Gene Oakerlund interviews that the guy was actually funny. He was seriously funny.
Razor Ramon... A week before he started wrestling for the WWF, they had promos of him, walking around and bothering Cubans in Miami. I had no idea what this guy was, but it was the funniest thing ever.
The decline started in the '80s, it seemed like at one point that they weren't even having names anymore, just titles. Rick Martel became The Model, Tito Santana became the Matador. Mike Rotunda became IRS.
Speaking of which... The last good thing they did have in the WWE was someone more from that era in the past, namely Rotonda's son, Bray Wyatt. The last of the genius poets, and the first one in a long time. I liked him since I saw him in NXT. He always had this wily bratty look about it.
Him and the Wyatt Family, it was like the '80s again, only the better parts of it. That's how far from wrestling I had gotten, that I didn't know until last year that he had passed away. I was going to post something about it, but I couldn't because I just was in shock. I still am. So young. So sad.
To him and the others I mentioned who had passed away, R.I.P.