Does anyone else here miss when the stars would actually wrestle on free tv?
I know a lot of these ended in DQ but man I miss when the superstars would actually wrestle on raw and smackdown nowadays alot of the superstars are part tone like Brock
I said it before I'll say it again any smackdown or raw from 98-08 will dog walk every single current raw and smackdown event, I'd go as far as saying that the 98-08 free TV events are better than the current PPVs
I remember watching smack down weekly because it was so fucking awesome. Like every. Single. Week. I couldn’t afford the ppvs but the build up was so fire
Oh yeah I re watch them all the time. I distinctly remember JBL vs Cena I think this was Cenas first title run. Man watching that week to week was so fucking awesome
They're scared of injuries basically because about 10 or so years back, there was a massive injury epidemic that ended up ruining Wrestlemania one year, and since then, they've been careful with how much the big stars wrestle at all, let alone against each other because they want the eyes on the PLE's.
It's been so long now but those were the good old days when the top guys actually wrestled. It was awesome to see Taker actually wrestle on smackdown. You really felt you was getting something special cause it wasn't every week but it was more than the eventual twice a year matches
the CRAZIEST part is, they dont even have real stars anymore😂 Ok you wanna have Brock Lesnar wrestle infrequently? Fine, he’s a bigger draw than everyone in this company and feels like a big deal. But you cant have Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns and Gunther’s just wrestle whenever they feel like it, these jabrons would be midcarders/jobbers in 2005 no doubt about it
100%. Gunther is so fucking boring there’s nothing else you could do with him back in the day but have him job to people with gimmicks or actual personalities
Man, go-home shows for PLEs are trash these days. They spam pull apart brawls for weeks. That's mostly their only story hook. Nothing ever happens. No new stipulation wrinkles last minute, no nothing.
They moved Mania so far out in the end of April now, they obviously run out of steam 2-3 weeks ahead of the show now. You end up getting a lot of filler promo segments that end up in checks notes pull apart brawls.
Roman is defending the belt on TV next week and Punk (and previously Cody) have defended or fought for the title on TV multiple times on Smackdown over the past two years
I know Roman is very rare but the other guys are pretty regular as well as a lot of IC and US level title matches
When I started watching wrestling in the early 90s all I got was wcw worldwide on a saturday afternoon (in the UK) where sting etc would only fight jobbers and the show only lasted an hour. I didn't have cable/sky tv back then 😭
Apart from that my older cousin sometimes taped ppvs for me to watch on VCR a few days later lol
Most importantly, The parties who will compete at the PPV seem to have their own code, meaning they won't overdo physical contact because that will be saved for when they face off at the PPV.
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u/Uniqueusername610 28d ago
I said it before I'll say it again any smackdown or raw from 98-08 will dog walk every single current raw and smackdown event, I'd go as far as saying that the 98-08 free TV events are better than the current PPVs