Levin: Pro Wrestling Today Sucks

Professional wrestling today sucks.

There’s nothing exciting about it—same types of matches, scenarios, even the same spots wrestlers used over a decade ago. Everything is stale, used, and for the most part, abused.

Wrestling is no longer about standing Drop Kicks and Abdominal Stretches anymore. It’s become big business, so big it’s gotten in the way of itself. It was once about Saturdays on the couch with my dad as a youngster, and the names Baron Von Raschke and Dusty Rhodes would sit next to Gordon Solie, bestowing the virtues of Good versus Evil on a four-channel box. Those men were “alive” in my generation, quickly becoming part of my lexicon of activity at such a young age.

Today’s squared circle is too manufactured; too fractured by a culture that evolved too fast, too quick. The Vince McMahon who changed the culture of “wrestling” to “entertainment” should be fired for insulting us “purists” into trying to make think someone is throwing their bodies through the middle of the ropes, landing on a mat, and then Pile Driving someone through an announcer’s table.

“They” call it wrestling. Gordon Solie is spinning in his grave right now.

To steal a phrase from the 1980’s, “I want my wrestling back.” I want to watch it, talk about it with my friends, and most of all, drink it all in. Not the Attitude Era or something that looked like a bunch of ideas were thrown on a wall to see what would stick. I want Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat in a 2-out-of-3 Falls match. I want Terry Funk and Bobo Brazil in a 30-minute match. I want blood—real blood.

I want a Cage match and the Texas Bull Rope. I want some semblance of my childhood that is lost.

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