So I've lately been going down a wrasslin' rabbit hole along a couple of vectors. Scott Hall passing, and then through morbid curiosity about the Pat McAfee thing. Where I was kind of aware he was in the wrestling world but for instance didn't actually know he was an announcer on Smackdown. So I watched his part of Wrestlemania, which I thought was surprisingly okay until Vince McMahon and Steve Austin showed up. First off jesus christ what the hell happened to Vince McMahon? He's a roided up 80 year old?
Okay to backtrack for a second my previous wrestling fan history, such as it is, was as a kid in the early early 90s... We'd occasionally rent Summerslam or various Wrestelmanias from Blockbuster, which was always epic because they came on two VHS tapes. Meanwhile we'd also watch occasionally whatever they had on the weekends on USA Network I think... so Razor Ramon, early Undertaker, Doink the Clown.... Monday Night Raw started somewhere in there, then I think we moved and kind of fell off wrestling completely for whatever reason. Then in high school I stumbled across the NWO stuff in progress... I want to say in early 97 or so? Anyway, got caught up in all the info you could get on the Internet at the time about what was going on in the industry... I followed the Monday Night Wars in ratings as if it mattered... watched WCW drag out the NWO thing waaaaay too long. I mean holy shit it felt like years that OMG IT'S STING COMING FROM THE RAFTERS was the standard Nitro ending. As an aside holy shit Sting is still hobbling around dressed like the Crow hitting people with baseball bats in AEW?
So yeah then I went off to college where watching pro wrestling was not a priority at all, WCW straight up died and got absorbed by Vince McMahon like it was anabolic steroids and uhhh yeah, I completely ignored wrestling for the last 20+ years. Christ time flies.
I see the vibe here is that AEW is kind of waning. Is there any way to watch all their stuff legally on the cheap in the US? It hasn't been around that long so it seems like I could just do a full catch up. For now after reading up a bit about Cody Rhodes I just went to the last Revolution PPV and downloaded some of the weekly shows to check it out. Peacock has a crazy backlog for WWE where I'm currently checking out the first episodes of Nitro (truly dreadful) and can hopefully hold out until it gets kinda awesome with the NWO. I might try to check out the competing Raw stuff as it goes into Steve Austin and the Rock who I always hated and kinda ignored. But just from some random YouTube clips I have to admit the Rock is pretty gifted on the mic.
I realize I'm already in wall of text territory, so I'll just end with a couple of observations. They seem to have really pushed women's wrestling while I was away. They always kind of tried to push it. But now there's a lot. I don't get it. It still looks terrible to me. The moves aren't very impressive and yeah I just don't know. Rhonda Rousey has zero charisma, I didn't get into MMA so I guess I just have no idea what anyone sees in her.
Oh and now that I'm in my early 40s... my god does everything look like it hurts. Any good YouTube stuff about I don't know... wrestling technology? How they don't kill themselves.
After watching some of both recent AEW and WWE I like the AEW vibe more overall. Seems more fun. The guy doing the Major League Wild Thing entrance is kinda fun. People singing along with Cult of Personality is pretty cool (fun note, I thought John Cena and CM Punk were the same person for some reason.... see what I'm saying about being totally away from wrestling?). I even like the Tarzan Boy thing. And Chris Jericho sing-a-long, lol. I hated "Lionheart" Chris Jericho back in the day, and really the whole Cruiserweight thing in WCW. I mean I read on the Internet that I should like it. I just couldn't.
Overall I think Seth Rollins is my favorite though. The guy is great. I kinda like Cody Rhodes too though. Aside from that WWE has just the stupidest shit. The 24/7 title might be the stupidest thing I've ever seen in any context during my time on this planet...
And tag team matches seem pretty good these days. Back in the day it just seemed like a way for Wrestlers to do half as much work. These guys are kinda bonkers these days.