You know I still haven't watched The Exquisite Corps, Die Another Friday, Project B.E.A.S.T., or even the Persona 4 Endurance Run, but there's no time when I have to catch up on the latest releases of Building With Brad!
I just got back from an absolutely atrocious show outside of Greensboro, North Carolina by a tiny (but historic) local indie promotion called Carolina Wrestling Federation Mid-Atlantic. What struck me is how the booking, the characters, and the structure of matches were made totally under the shadow of WWE. Vince McMahon's terrible ideas have been so persistent that modern wrestling fans and even promoters can't imagine a world without them. Each show has to have fifteen ref bumps, seven heel turns, and three stolen belts.
I appreciate the Bomb crew's insight into wrestling so much, and I agree with the optimism about AEW! What I find strange is the reading into tea leaves, trying to predict an already-defined future. "Would Orange Cassidy work in AEW" is a bit of a silly question, because it presupposes that all weekly television functions just like WWE. And what that question really asks is "Would Orange Cassidy work in WWE," and the answer is absolutely not. That's not because Orange doesn't have a place, and it's not because Orange can't work on television. It's an indictment of WWE, and how WWE has totally shaped our notions of weekly televised wrestling. What we find possible or probable is really a cleverly-dictated ideology spanning forty-ish years from exclusively one man. Five years ago it would've been shocking to see New Japan on AXS TV and selling out Madison Square Garden, but here we are. It also would've been shocking to hear The Young Bucks selling out a 10,000 seat arena based on Twitter and Youtube, but here we are. WWE has let popular culture (especially on social media) pass them by, and suddenly I've dropped the Network subscription and used my money for IndependentWrestling.TV. Impossibilities were just deliberately-withheld realities. You can definitely go back pre-1984, pre-Hulkamania and see massive crowds selling out giant stadiums going nuts for wrestlers that McMahon never would've considered superstars. WWE shrank the entirety of wrestling's popularity just so they could have more of the pie. I believe what we've lately seen is reversing this effect.
I caution against lending too much weight to Eric Bischoff's, Bruce Prichard's, Jim Cornette's, or Vince Russo's opinions and podcasts. While they may have interesting stories to tell, it should be noted that these men are colossal wrestling failures. We like to remember their successes but rarely recall their failures, from WCW to TNA to early-2010s ROH. It's interesting how WWE wants to rely on these past failures rather than move forward by bringing up talented new showrunners from the independent circuit. The last people I would trust to right the ship are the ones who helped to steer it wrong in the first place. Anyway, Biden 2020.
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