Editor’s note: While we here at With Spandex pride ourselves on our pro wrestling acumen and expertise, we found the following pitch too good to pass up. One of our UPROXX Sports writers wanted to dip his toe back into the wrestling waters after being out of the game for over a decade and spend a summer with the squared circle, so we were fascinated at what a lapsed fan would think to look at wrestling in 2016 with completely fresh eyes. Please enjoy Chris Morgan’s two-part summer journey, which begins below.
Sometimes, we leave our loves behind. When I was a young boy –and hell, when I was a young man — I was really into professional wrestling. I started watching it when I was five years old, give or take, and I loved it in my childhood.
I didn’t just watch Raw and Nitro, I watched Smackdown and Thunder and even WCW’s Saturday night show. Locally, I had a station which showed a couple of WWF/WWE shows — Shotgun Saturday Night and such — along with ECW, at 11 p.m. on weeknights. Even when I had school, I would stay up and watch them. I saw so many ads for Dear, John. You know that infamous match where Perry Saturn roughed up a jobber and then, in turn, was given an angle where he wore a dress and was in love with a mop? I saw that match as it happened.
I owned basically every wrestling video game ever made. There was a play-by-mail game called the Imaginary Wrestling Association, where you could create wrestlers and compete with other people. I played that from the ages of nine through 12. I visited wrestling message boards. I was super into it. I still have a Latino World Order shirt that I wear occasionally.
I wasn’t a passionate fan through this entire time frame, admittedly. My dedication to wrestling would ebb and flow a bit. I started to get a little less into it in sixth grade, but when I was in seventh grade, the Attitude Era was in full effect, so naturally I got super into it again, because it was cool. Then, in high school, I wavered a bit, started watching again ironically, but then got sincerely into it once more.
In 2007, when I was 20, I started to lose interest. By this point, I was a bit older, a bit more mature, and I started to have actual qualms with wrestling. I didn’t think WWE, which, by this point, was really the only game in town (I tried watching TNA briefly. Briefly.), was properly concerned about the health and well-being of its performers. I distinctly remember the last wrestling show I watched, because it was the tribute episode to Chris Benoit.
Since then, I haven’t paid attention to wrestling much, if at all. Most of my positive memories about wrestling are ironic, or involving Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, who was the best. However, it seems like in recent years professional wrestling has created even more visibility for itself. I see stuff about WWE on ESPN. I hear about it from time to time. I hear that the company is more serious about stuff like concussions now, and that there is a legitimate women’s division. I started to get an itch. I started to develop a curiosity. What’s going on in the world of WWE now? I wanted to know, and so, after almost a decade away from pro wrestling, I decided to watch it again.
The summer seemed like a good time to engage in this experiment. Most of the major sports leagues weren’t around to steal my attention away, and there isn’t much on TV outside of sports either, aside from Match Game, of course. Plus, unless wrestling has really changed, I knew that SummerSlam was the second biggest pay-per-view of the year, following WrestleMania.
So I decided I would watch a couple of cycles of pro wrestling, from Money in the Bank (June’s pay-per-view) through SummerSlam. I would watch Raw every week, and I would dip into Smackdown if I had the chance. I had only a passing idea of anybody in the world of pro wrestling. I didn’t do any prior research. I wanted to go into this fresh. I didn’t want to know what I was getting into.
Would I enjoy wrestling? How much has it changed? What is WWE like in 2016, when to me much of what “wrestling” means is a 1995 Hulk Hogan shill Pastamania before wrestling Big Bubba Rogers? I spent over a decade of my life watching pro wrestling. Could I learn to love it again?
The journey began in earnest on June 20 with Raw, the night after Money in the Bank. This would be the first wrestling show I had watched in years.
The first wrestler I saw was a man in jeans and a leather jacket almost leaving the WWE title in a taxi. This man, it turns out, is named Dean Ambrose, and he just became champion through cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase. When I still watched wrestling, Money in the Bank wasn’t its own PPV, but it was a thing, and it seemed like every time somebody would win, they would proceed to almost immediately turn around and cash it in by beating up someone who was tied or unsuspecting. Nothing has changed, which was kind of a relief.
The episode spent, like, 20 minutes with people talking, and not wrestling, which seemed like a drag. I was introduced to the key players in WWE now. There is Ambrose, who is sort of a “cool” guy who I think is supposed to be funny, but he wasn’t. Then, there was Roman Reigns who was big and bad on the mic and apparently nobody likes him. Or, at least, some of the fans were chanting “You can’t wrestle,” and I immediately knew this was the big babyface of the company that has the look, but people don’t think he “deserves” his success. Fortunately, the main heel of this trio, who were apparently all once some sort of stable, Seth Rollins, had enough energy to spare. The whole thing was really dragging until Rollins showed up. He immediately became my favorite wrestler because, at this point, I was only aware of three wrestlers.
The first recognizable face was Shane McMahon, which took me by surprise. He set up a No. 1 contender match between Rollins and Reigns for this evening’s main event. I thought the match was quite good. I do not agree, based upon one match, that this Reigns guy can’t wrestle. Sure, Rollins was a very athletic guy who was a more dynamic performer, and maybe he helped Reigns put on a good match, but I enjoyed it, even though it ended in a double countout and set up a triple threat match for the next PPV — the first PPV I watch in well over a decade. I literally can’t remember the last PPV I watched before this project. I think it was a WCW PPV, which should tell you everything you need to know.
Other than Rollins, only one other guy made a really good impression on me right away, and that was A.J. Styles. He had a match with John Cena at Money in the Bank wherein his buddies Karl and Luke showed up and interfered and the “question” was whether A.J. knew. It quickly became clear that Styles was playing the role of a smarmy, scheming heel, and I really enjoyed it. It is rare to see a professional wrestler whom I enjoy hearing on a mic, but Styles was a lot of fun.
Speaking of guys I enjoy on the mic, I was pleasantly surprised to see Chris Jericho. I loved Jericho back in the day. In WCW, when he was a doofus heel hanging out with a guy named Ralphus and doing Spinal Tap bits. And he was the rare person in wrestling who was genuinely funny.
Beyond that, there was not a ton to recommend from this first foray back into wrestling. There is this guy called Sami Zayn who appears to be very ska flavored, which I found delightful, because that’s weird. There were also these guys called The Vaudevillains, who are a tag team that seem to be old timey. I like that as well. So, mostly what I was enjoying my first night watching wrestling was stuff that didn’t seem to be taking itself seriously. Goofy stuff. However, I don’t remember wrestling really trafficking in goofiness. Alas, The Vaudevillains were squashed by a tag team who seemed to be nothing but tics and catchphrases. The fans loved them, but I found them annoying. Oh, and I saw Fit Finlay in a backstage thing!
One thing I was not certain about, after one show, was this guy Bray Wyatt. He seemed to be some sort of weirdo. He reminded me of Waylon Mercy, but I feel like this guy is more successful. He was good on the mic, though his schtick was a bit much. The Wyatt Family were a dream compared to these guys The New Day, though, who were unbearable.
The one other thing I feel it is important to discuss is the women’s wrestling on the show. It only makes sense, as my distaste for the role of women in the company back in the day is part of what drove me away. I am happy to report that I saw several female wrestlers and none of them were involved in a strip poker segment with Balls Mahoney. The champion is Ric Flair’s daughter Charlotte. That makes me happy, even though she does not have her father’s mic skills. She and this woman named Paige, who is the palest woman I have ever seen, had a good match. After the match, which featured Charlotte’s “protégé” screwing up putting Charlotte’s foot on the bottom rope to break up a three-count, a woman named Sasha Banks showed up to fight, and the crowd seemed happy. Two more women got a backstage segment. That’s six female wrestlers in one show!
My main takeaway from my first Raw was, “Jesus, this thing is three hours long!” It did not make me want to spend much time watching Smackdown each week, because that’s a ton of wrestling. I thought it was fine. It was a lot like how I remembered, albeit with less wrestlers who had side jobs, such as Duke “The Dumpster” Droese, Henry O. Godwinn, and The Goon. However, I also found out that WWE was doing another one of their drafts, where they split up the show and put people uniquely on Raw or Smackdown. After hearing this, I realized I could follow my favorite wrestlers to the show most of them ended up on. Perhaps this would actually be good for me.
Things rolled on from there, so I won’t overly bore you with week-by-week details. However, there was one thing, from the first episode of Smackdown I watched, that did connect … and on a strangely emotional level. There was this woman who goes by the name Billie Kay. Her real name is Jessica McKay, and she is pretty new with the company, I learned. She was making her WWE debut after spending time down in NXT, which I gather is sort of the AAA of WWE. I knew Billy Kay was there to be beaten by Dana Brooke. She didn’t even get an introduction before the match. She was just there in the ring. Despite all that, I was so … happy for her. She was debuting on the main roster and was on TV. I presumed that she had put so much work in, and here she was. She had gotten a break, and that made me feel weirdly happy. I knew nothing about this woman, and I had only just started watching wrestling again. Yet I felt a real emotional connection to her as a person. She did a good job too! It wasn’t a squash match, and she got some good moves in and sold Dana Brooke’s moves as well. It was the most enjoyment and happiness I had gotten from any of my wrestling watching at that point.
Here’s the other thing that became clear to me after just a couple weeks of watching wrestling again. There are a lot of people with only one name, and I find that strange. Because, clearly, verisimilitude is much more important in pro wrestling now than in the past. It’s supposed to be somewhat realistic. There are no wrestling plumbers or wrestling dentists. There are no magic characters. Kane did wrestle on Raw, but he doesn’t seem to be magic anymore. People have gimmicks, but it’s more like they have personalities. Thus, they just have normal names. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and so on. Sure, there is a guy called The Miz, but that’s more like a nickname than, you know, The Goon or 1-2-3 Kid.
However, there are all these people with just one name. Cesaro. Rusev. Paige. Natalya. It just feels weird. Why don’t these people have first names and/or last names? If I had a say, everybody would have two names like a regular person. With all due respect to Cesaro, he’s not Prince, or even Madonna. Also, remember when Prince Iaukea became The Artist Formally Known as Prince Iaukea? That was stupid. And I loved it.
I need to include the Fourth of July edition of Raw, for a couple of reasons. It began with a massive food fight featuring a ton of wrestlers. There were all sorts of comedy bits and hijinks. People got pies in the face. This transitioned, decidedly not seamlessly, into the singing of our national anthem, as video of things such as flying bald eagles. I mention this all because it really speaks to something at the core of the way WWE, and pro wrestling works. It’s very sincere and earnest. Pro wrestling is insane. It requires so much buy in. Even though it is less silly than it used to be, and more “real,” this in a way makes it even more ridiculous. We have to accept that these are real people and that they beat each other up and stuff and it just happens. Like, there are times when somebody will be attacked and beaten up backstage, which is a clear and severe case of assault and battery. Pro wrestlers would be getting arrested left and right. WWE is a place where they can do a big slapstick food fight and believe it is a good bit of comedy, and then sincerely be uber-patriotic because it’s the Fourth of July.
This is where I always find myself butting heads with pro wrestling. I want more of a wink, more of a tacit acknowledgment of the absurdity of what’s going on. I want it to be more fun, and to take itself less seriously. It’s the moments when that sort of stuff shines through that wrestling speaks to me, and those moments are rare.
The second thing that struck me was how many old wrestlers I saw on this particular show. Goldust is still wrestling! The Big Show! Mark Henry! Also, Kane and Chris Jericho, but I had seen them around before. It was kind of amazing. Jericho did the bit where he pins a guy by standing on him with one foot, flexing, and yelling “C’mon, baby!” I was filled with joy for a moment.
One week, at the end of a show, Vince McMahon made an appearance. When I watched wrestling, Mr. McMahon was a massive onscreen figure. At first, he was just the guy doing play-by-play, but I watched wrestling when the Montreal Screwjob happened. I watched him transform into a character. I watched him get really preoccupied with getting his ass kissed during the Attitude Era. However, I have always said this about Vince McMahon; he was always willing to get as good as he gave. He asked a lot of his wrestlers, physically and mentally. They were asked to do a lot of weird, gross, and kayfabe demeaning things. When the time came, though, McMahon knew that the best payoff was for him to get completely throttled, and he was always up for it. Vince McMahon put himself through hell for the sake of his audience, so it never felt unfair or exploitative when he asked the same of the other people on the roster.
Those days are gone, though. The Attitude Era is over, and Mr. McMahon apparently isn’t as involved now. People in Detroit seemed happy to see him, but then the evening ended with Vince, Shane, and Stephanie just talking. No big finale, just a bunch of talking and family squabbling. Also, Stephanie really has trouble reading a moment and planning an interjection. Any feelings of positivity that I felt from seeing Mr. McMahon for the first time in years went away after a few minutes.
That’s the nature of nostalgia or reminiscing about the past, I suppose. When that first rush is over, what’s really left? At this point, I was just waiting for the big draft.
I had no idea who Daniel Bryan was. This led to perhaps the most jarring example of how much I had missed in my time away from wrestling. The night before the big draft, Stephanie and Shane introduced their respective GMs for their respective shows. Stephanie chose Mick Foley, and this resonated with me. I remember Mick Foley fondly. I remember when Mankind debuted, and I was young enough I had no previous awareness of Foley, and so I was mildly weirded out by this man and his missing ear. Then, Shane introduced the Smackdown GM, and it was Bryan, and the crowd went absolutely nuts. Everybody was so excited to see this guy. They were doing this thing with their fingers and chanting “Yes!” over and over.
To me, this was all completely foreign. I had no real sense of Bryan. I still don’t, to be honest, I only know what I learned watching wrestling this summer. It makes me wonder what else I missed in that decade away. There were probably successful, popular wrestlers who had their entire run in that time, and they haven’t come back, and they are a total mystery to me.
As for the actual draft, it was fine. It allowed me to see more wrestlers and to not see the same storylines two nights a week. Watching wrestling up to this point, it did seem clear to me something like this was necessary. There are so many people in WWE and they added some NXT people as well. One guy, Finn Balor, was drafted very high, so I made sure to keep him in mind going forward. I presumed he was in for a big push. Would I get a chance to see the next generation of main eventer born?
I got the WWE Network, and I watched Battleground. Let’s talk about Bayley. She was Sasha Banks’ surprise tag team partner in the opening match. People went nuts. I like her, too. She appears to be some sort of arch super babyface. She’s the ultimate good guy. She hugs people. That appeals to me, because it is an example of wrestling not taking itself too seriously.
I realized, watching Battleground, that WWE’s storytelling is actually pretty good. I blanched, a bit, at how things could get kind of repetitive week-to-week, and that will likely remain the same. But the pay-per-view made it all make sense. Before all the matches, they reiterated the storylines, and then we get to watch them culminate. We get to watch Xavier Woods face down Bray Wyatt. I saw all sorts of backstory for the Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn feud I was not aware of.
All in all, I enjoyed Battleground. It felt like a real milestone in my wrestling watching. I had completed the first part of my journey.
