Jake Roberts on his issues with today's wrestling [Archive]

BestSportsEntertainer

07-21-2018, 04:23 PM

http://wrestlingnews.co/wwe-news/jake-roberts-explains-his-issues-with-todays-in-ring-style-of-wrestling/

Apparently, Roberts is not a fan of today's in-ring wrestling matches. He said:

“That’s what I don’t get about the young talent today. So many matches are the same. Don’t they get bored? It’s ridiculous what they waste, and they don’t even know they’re wasting it. I blame that on the new way of wrestling; if you come up now, you can be in the main event within a year. In my day, you had to learn. We had the territories that forced us to constantly grow and change. Another problem is this, everybody wants to get to the top and they have no problem sacrificing their life to do it. It doesn’t take a great wrestler to jump off the top of a cage. How many times can you do that before you miss? How many times can you do that before you’re crippled? Longevity is a key to success. I had six moves. I knew when to do them and I did them absolutely perfectly, and people believed them. Teaching this class, I’m going to make people think differently. The truth is in what you’ve done and where you’ve been, and there are not many people who have done more than I have.”

Wrestling has certainly changed a lot since Roberts' era. Matches are much faster paced and feature smaller guys. Ultimately I think it's for the better. The average match is much more enjoyable than it was in the 80s and 90s. However I can see Roberts' point in a way. When wrestlers are just doing moves for the sake of doing them and there's not much of a story, they're mostly not very interesting.

Do you agree with Roberts? What do you think of today's wrestling matches?

Edit - I'm not sure why the emoji appears next to the title lol

Jack-Hammer

07-21-2018, 05:40 PM

I still like and respect the guys from my childhood but I think that too many of them come off as grumpy old codgers with all the various "back in my day" speeches they give whenever someone interviews them.

This is not 1987 and modern fans aren't going to tune in and/or pay their money to watch guys have wrestling matches where they trade side headlocks, armbars and reverse chinlocks for 10 minutes. Jake said something to the effect that he used like 6 moves and that was all well and good....back in his day but it's an approach that, generally speaking, won't work the same way in this day and age. In modern wrestling, just about the only way you can get away with a heavily limited move set, at least when it comes to pace and athleticism, is if you're someone like Braun Strowman and I don't just mean a big guy; you have to be a big guy in the sense that you're muscular, athletic and or willing to do moves that aren't common for big guys. The days in which fans are impressed by watching guys who're 350 to 450 lbs. of slow, lumbering blubber are over. If a 30 year old Jake the Snake Roberts debuted in NXT this Wednesday with the same schtick, I think the immediate impression a lot would have would be something like "well, he's got a good presence, a quiet sort of intensity about him despite an average body & look, a distinct lack of athletic ability and below average in-ring ability." This is 2018, the mystique of professional wrestling is gone, fans know a lot about what goes on behind the curtain and a whole lot of what worked in matches when I was 5 years old just won't cut it these days.

As far as big spots in matches, they're necessary sometimes. I get the arguments that the indie scene relies way, way, way too heavily on high spots with little emphasis on characters, psychology and storytelling because...well that's because that's pretty much what happens in a LOT of indie companies. I've read some interviews given by Flip Gordon of ROH and the kid is someone who genuinely seems to have a good head on his shoulders as he's acknowledged the issue, says it has merit but also brings up the fact that indie wrestlers have to try to do something to get noticed. What Jake and a lot of old timers don't seem to realize is that the indie scene isn't like the days of the territory system; if things weren't working out for you in Memphis 40 years ago, you had a number of high profile territories you could go to in order to get a fresh start and potentially make some good money. If you were bombing in Memphis, maybe you'd head to Portland, Oregon and see how that worked out, or maybe down to see Eddie Graham in Florida, or Fritz von Erich in Dallas, etc.. My point is that those promotions all had shows once or twice a week, they had local TV deals and they played to packed houses where guys could make money. Today, for every company like Ring of Honor, you have like 30 small federations who, if they're lucky, are able to put on a single show every month, have no sort of TV deal and drawing a few hundred fans is considered a great night for them. For me personally, I just can't get into matches where the pace is like 90 mph from the opening bell, where there's little selling, no real storytelling or psychology because everything is being devoted in order to set up the next spot or high impact move but I get why they do it.

What I'm more concerned about are wrestlers who're just plain sloppy, reckless or flat out dumb. You can perform spots that are impressive looking, yet still offer a large degree of protection for all involved but there are wrestlers who are more and more interested in popping the crowd than anything else. For instance, you've got guys all over the place taking dragon suplexes off the top rope and landing right on their heads and necks, powerbombed over the top ropes through tables that either don't give or do nothing to cushion the blow, wrestlers breaking fluorescent light bulbs on each other even though those things are loaded with cancer causing carcinogens, taking shots to the head with fists, kendo sticks or even some one else's head, etc.. Pro wrestling is about making it look like you're beating the crap out of each other, not about actually beating the crap out of each other. Injuries can and will happen regardless but I don't like or respect reckless and stupid wrestlers no matter how big or small the promotion they work for.