These 'Modern' Versions Of Classic WWE Promos Will Make You Cringe

Back in January, WWE gave Monday Night Raw an updated theme and sharp-looking graphics, breathing some new life into their quarter-century-old flagship show. Not to be outdone, Smackdown Live started adding cheap CGI jail cell graphics and sound effects during Uso promos. Seems like a fair trade!

But one of the most … interesting creative decisions on both shows has been the choice to overlay gigantic text on top of backstage promos, ostensibly to try and recreate the feel of Snapchat or Instagram Stories (I guess?). It’s entirely possible younger kids enjoy this new addition to WWE programming, but older wrestling fans likely feel confused and angered by one more goddamn thing cluttering up the screen, having already begrudgingly adapted to hashtags in the corner and a bottom-screen crawl of 13-year-old John Cena fans livetweeting along with his “fine speech” promos. (Maybe I’m just projecting here.)

Anyway, Wreddit – as it is wont to do — has taken to reimagining some of pro wrestling’s most famous promos of all time as if they were airing during present-day WWE programming. Up first is Dusty Rhodes’ all-time classic “hard times” promo:

Next, we have CM Punk’s legendary pipebomb promo. And honestly, wouldn’t it have been a lot better had we been able to tweet along with it by using #GetOffMyChest?

Not to be outdone, here is Stone Cold Steve Austin’s star-making moment from King Of The Ring 1996, modernized not only with superfluous text but plenty of excess audience cuts and and — well, I don’t want to ruin the ending for you:

Not to be outdone, wrestling Twitter has also gotten in on the action a little bit. Here are some of the better ones floating around: