When I gave out my Bloggies last year, my Worker of the Year category had a winner and four runners-up. Of them, only one wrestler, Bryan Danielson, worked primarily away from the WWE blanket. Ten of my 26 top matches from last year came from the WWE, not a trivial number, especially considering zero of those matches came from TNA and that I missed a good chunk of WWE PPVs as well as Smackdown telecasts from the summer (meaning I missed out on probably three or four Jericho/Mysterio matches that would have made the list). Eight of my top 10 and 13 of my top 20 on my A1W 100 ballot were from the WWE. Why am I saying this?Well, the narrative on the Internet is that the WWE doesn't have good wrestling anymore. The narrative from the chairman himself is that it's not a "wrestling" company but an "entertainment" company. For all intents and purposes, the WWE should be putting out shit compared to the indies and TNA. The truth is, I don't think that's the case at all. In fact, I think the best wrestling you'll find in North America, at least the style that leads itself to the best high-end matches and most consistent TV faire week-in and week-out, takes place in the WWE.
To the unaided eye, this is a bald-faced idiotic statement. "zomg wwe guyz duzznt haz moves!!1 no flipz!!!11" Well, that is true. The average WWE
However, what most seasoned WWE wrestlers "lack" in moves, they more than make up for in the other things, the more important things, that make a match great. There's selling and psychology for one. More often than not, you're going to see people sell moves and body parts and have it figure into the finish of the match. The primest example I can think of comes from the much-lauded Christian/Jack Swagger match on ECW last February for the title. Swagger kayfabe-injured Christian's arm early in the match, and Christian sold it like a Champ the entire length through the finish. In fact, the arm in question was a big reason why Christian couldn't land the Killswitch and finish Swagger off. Sometimes, the injuries are sold into the next week's matches, although sometimes, they're more sold by the announcers than they are the wrestlers themselves.
Secondly, WWE top-tier wrestlers have more or less mastered the art of dramatic pacing. Yes, while there are certain wrestlers in the indies who also have that kind of storytelling flair down to a science, the strengths of indie matches tend to lie in high-spots, feats of acrobatic prowess, big moves and finishes. Too often I watch a low-card match in ROH or any match in TNA and see that it's just a string of moves done in rapid-fire succession like it was all choreographed. Nothing makes wrestling look faker than having that kind of pace without any kind of selling or pacing in between moves. Generally in the WWE, you find that kind of pacing in nearly every match. That doesn't make the match good if you have slugs in there, but when the participants in the match are guys like Swagger, Christian, Rey Mysterio, CM Punk, Batista, Undertaker, Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Edge and especially John Cena and increasingly, Sheamus, well, you know you're getting a well-paced, logical and most importantly, realistic looking match outside of a few incredulous spots like Cena's Five Knuckle Shuffle which is there for the kiddies, or the contrived set-ups for Mysterio's 619, which truthfully are the only flaws in his ring resume.
What I mean by well-paced is that these guys know when to ramp things up and when to cool things down. Counters are usually done at the right time and look organic. Disregarding the things that are inherently unrealistic about wrestling, what you see is more likely to draw you in and make you think "Wow, is this real?" even if it's just for one second.
Thirdly, to expound on a point I brought up earlier, WWE wrestlers actually work with some semblance of intelligence. Again, I bring up Christian, who is the best example of this. In his match against Kofi Kingston last Friday, there were points where he keyed out Kofi's signature spots and telegraphed them, including the Boom! drop. Dolph Ziggler did the same thing two weeks ago, actually. In the match last night, Edge and Christian kept sensing each other's signature spots and countering them, telling a full, rich story about how the two former best friends knew each other so well that they couldn't land any of their familiar offense until they had worn each other down to the point where their reflexes weren't as sharp. That's great storytelling. That's great in-ring intelligence.
Contrasting that, the AJ Styles/Kurt Angle match from the 1/4 Impact special? It was lauded, but why? Yeah, it was fast paced and it lasted a long time, but instead of countering finishers, they just kept hitting finishers on each other and kicking out, which does more to kill a move's credibility than it does to put over drama in the match. I mean, if I wanted to watch ballet, I'd fucking watch ballet, you know?
But that's not to say that there isn't a place for every style in the world, and I do enjoy good wrestling no matter what style, type or genre it happens to fall under. If not, then I wouldn't have reviewed King of Trios so glowingly, although to be completely fair, Chikara seems to be the place where I find a style that is most similar to that in the WWE. With Mike Quackenbush and Claudio Castagnoli as primary trainers, it's no surprise that these kids are learning how to wrestle the right way. However, it is an indie fed and a lot of the roster is a bit green. I also appreciate ROH and enjoy myself whenever I watch. Same with PWG. Same with puroresu. Same with DGUSA. With TNA, they do have good matches, but the pacing and style doesn't lend itself to quality all that often.
That's also not to say that the only good wrestlers are WWE wrestlers. Honestly, I think if any number of guys on any circuit today went to the WWE, they'd fit in or in some cases improve. Take for example Frankie Kazarian. The guy can work a match. I know this because I've seen a few matches where he was doing all the right things, working parts, pacing the match well. One was in PWG where he wrestled a phenomenal steel cage title match against then-Champion Adam Pearce. Another was just a few months ago against Shannon Moore in a time-limit draw. However, in other TNA matches he's had, he has a tendency to trade moves and start getting into choreographed dance fight sequences. I think if he went to the WWE and spent some time with their road agents, he'd turn into a top 10 wrestler in America. On the same token, Kurt Angle, who used to be one of the top 5, went to TNA, and while he's still really good and entertaining to watch, he gets into fits where he just starts doing MOVEZ~! without selling or any ear to psychology. That's why I just laugh it off when people start busting my balls for pimping John Cena so much and then mehing the crap out of Angle. It's not that I don't value their opinion... I think it's just that we're looking for two very different things.
Honestly, all I really want out of wrestling is to get lost in the moment and not have to pull a smark card every time I watch a match. If you notice, the matches and events that I tend to review very favorably on here, i.e. King of Trios '10, WrestleMania 26, the Royal Rumble from this year, the first DGUSA show etc., are the ones that provide those moments of "holy shit, is this real?". When it comes to matches, while other feds give me what I want, they're either inconsistent with it, or they don't run as frequently as the WWE. Titan, however, is going to give me at least two or three really good matches a week and at least one or two MOTY candidates a month. I truly believe that it's the style that lends itself to that kind of track record. It's that combination of quality workers and system that's set up for them to succeed that makes the WWE most satisfying even if the booking and bad comedy is wonky at times.
Photo Credit: WWE.com
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