What makes Old School wrestling so special?

[It's...Baylariat!]

This is a straightforward question with no real wrong answer. What makes the older days of wrestling so special? Some say it was Hulkamania, some say it was the quality of wrestling, some even say it was the fact that we didn't know as much as we did now about the sport.

Think about it, back in Hulkamania's heyday, there was no internet or any kind of medium to get instant backstage information on the business. Wrestling was sacred and it's backstage activities were even more sacred for kayfabes sake. Now, with the internet, dirt sheets, and rumor websites, wrestling's backstage knowledge is commonplace. To me, what makes Old School wrestling so special is the excitement I had watching Hulk Hogan, Sting, Ric Flair, Terry Funk and others. I didn't know if Flair liked Dusty Rhodes in real life, or what Hogan did backstage. I just knew that Flair was rich, Hogan loved the fans, and that the action was great. I could suspend disbelief.

So what makes Old School wrestling so special in your eyes?

 

[Okay Fabian]

For me, a great deal of my fondness for "Old School" wrestling stems from when and where I got into pro wrestling. I, like many others, started watching with my father and grandfather when I was a kid. I viewed the business with childlike wonder until I was about 10. And then I became a "smart fan". Not many people make that transition as seamlessly as I did, many people become disenchanted with pro wrestling when they find out it's worked. But at the time I realized it was fake and started to pull away from wrestling The Attitude Era exploded onto the scene. So, a lot of why I look back to the Old Age of wrestling, is because when I watched it then, I wasn't a smart fan, I was just a mark, and I bought it hook line and sinker. So, for many young fans this "PG Era" will become the "Old School" wrestling that they want to harken back to as well.

 

[trinerigelado]

The fact that on any week I could watch AWA, World Class, WWF, NWA Mid Atlantic/WCW, and Mid South/UWF. Seeing guys switch from different territories with there unique presentations and ring styles kept things fresh. You rarely saw someone in the same company for plus years back then.

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

Three words: Rose Colored Glasses.

Old School wrestling is boring as hell compared to today's standards. Now, I'm not advocating that every match should be a spotfest, but it was a HUGE move back then to body slam someone. You had a bunch of overweight, slovenly looking "rasslers" dancing around the ring in the most fake looking shit possible. OS is low rent, sloppy, bland...

The only reason old school wrestling gets most of it's praise is because of the RCG effect. If you grew up in that time period and you liked it, then when you're older, you're going to say that it's not as good as it was when you were a kid. The same applies for my age range with the New Generation and Attitude Era to a degree. And for some reason, there's also the people that didn't grow up with something but they just have an affinity for older things. This is why many people will never allow themselves to pick newer movies or TV shows to be placed on their "best ever" lists, because they feel they haven't earned vintage status yet. So you've got some people that automatically assume "golden ages" of things are better. To them, Wally West sucks in comparison to Barry Allen for some reason lol.

Old school wrestling was simpler and it was for a simpler audience. People back then were more easily pleased with concepts that seem rundown and weak in today's society. Old television was RIDICULOUSLY simple and generic but they loved it. Audiences would go apeshit over obviously painted scenery, because they didn't get exposed to something along the lines of today's CGI. The Lou Ferrigno Hulk was "awesome" because they had never seen the Edward Norton Hulk. When you haven't been exposed to the spectacle we have in wrestling today, with HD cameras, clean looking sets and arenas, pyrotechnics, lighting effects, personalized entrance music, special ring attire, incredible athletics, then it's easier to like something that doesn't match up in comparison.

That's not to say that we don't have our faults with this era of wrestling. Look at how ******ed some of the storylines are and how much they're struggling to get decent writers that know how to flesh out feuds and create interesting characters. But if you were to look at old school wrestling through the same judgmental eyes in the same scope, there would be much less to be excited about, rather than simply cherry-picking certain needles in haystacks. That's what makes people from my generation remember WrestleMania 12 for Hart/HBK but never really mention the horrible Goldust/Piper segment and the other aspects that made WM12 complete shit outside of the Iron Man match.

Old school wrestling praise = 1) a fondness for the old, 2) rose-tinted glasses, 3) resentment towards today's product and making up delusions about how it used to be so much better, 4) an inability to process more complexities or a dislike of more complex entertainment

 

[Mr_billy]

Mic Skills, you'd watch a promo and go awesome, this guy rules. Compare anyone today compared to an Old Flair, Blanchard, Hogan, or Savage promo. Characters, just look, everyone had a gimmick, if you liked it or not, colorful characters like Kamala or Andre, and the Showmanship from the ring attire to the show boating. If you watch some of the old wrestling, it's a lot of headlocks, clotheslines and chops, suplexes, and you couldn't even throw some one over the top in NWA/WCW but the wrestlers told a story, but I do not consider Attitude era as Old School, maybe the birth of the new school, but not old school. Some of the Spot moves are unrealistic, even though I enjoy them. But old school is all about story telling, like Theatre.

PS. Are we killing wrestling by posting so much, just like revealing a magicians tricks.

 

[Kliq]

It was the fact that the golden days were all about MEN. Macho men with facial hair, body hair. It was a conflict between a couple of big tough guys. It was cool to want to see two older men want to beat the shit out of eachother in a cage. Now it's all about baby oil boys jumping off the top onto eachother. It's not as cool. We're in an age of boys.

 

[classicviolence]

Old school wrestling to me was trying to make the sport look as real as possible. Going back to the 70s and early 80s, it was treated as such. The Wrestlemania era wrestling changed the way the public treated the sport and brought a more family friendly aura to it.

Crockett run NWA was the gritty alternative and treated wrestling as a sport unlike WWF at the time and did well for a period of time. The original ECW further brought back realism to the sport and showed the NA public that pro wrestling is gritty, technical and world wide (bringing in Luchadores and puroresu stars.)

ROH and TNA to an extent brought back realism to pro wrestling during the 2002 era and was a great alternative to the fantasy world of wrestling produced by WWE.

What makes it great and in my opinion superior is the hard fought battles that show that its all about the desire and will to produce the best match possible whether its 500 people or 20,000 people.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Have you ever heard an elderly person say "Things were much better back when I was young"? To some degree, that applies very much to Old School wrestling. Now, does that mean that there weren't great matches or stars? No, of course not. However, people do have an unconscious habit of trying to make things sound better than they actually were sometimes. For instance, I'm sure you've heard someone say that Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant at WMIII is the greatest wrestling match of all time. Well, let's look at that for instance. How old was this person when this match took place? Were they still a child? Were they big Hulk Hogan fans? Were they watching the match take place while sharing a Pepsi with their grandma and grandpa? Personally, the match in and of itself was absolute crap in my opinion. However, the memories and experiences some felt while watching that match, I think, are primarily what they're thinking of and they transfer the feelings of those memories onto watching the match in and of itself.

When you look back on a lot of old school wrestlers, matches, storylines, etc. some are just not nearly as good as some think they are or, sometimes, even we ourselves like to think they are.

 

[Davi323]

Certainly plain ol nostalgia plays into it, but, I think it is a great disservice to discount the reasons why old school wrestling is so different than wrestling today. Were the matches more exciting? Thats all point of view. If you were to ask, was there more "action" then, obviously, no. Today's wrestling has a lot more "spots" than wrestling in the 70s/80s did. But, those spots have diminished the effect of ring psychology. Matches now are more about simply progressing from spot to spot, and trying to work in as many exciting finishes as you can. There is something to that, everyone likes excitement. But, what today's matches don't have, that old school matches did, was in-ring psychology. Where are the intimidation tactics? Where did selling injuries go? People get their legs worked and worked and worked over, and its like they forget all about it...back then, if a wrestler worked over another one's legs, he remembered it was supposed to be hurting, and if he tried to do a power move that required leg strength, it would "give out". Nowadays, a finisher is anything but a finisher. Everyone can kick out of them, even if its been used multiple times. Finishing moves have been incredibly weakened, because of the very spot to spot structure of today's matches. Jake the Snake Robert's DDT was once one of the most feared finishing moves of all time...now, if you don't see at least 5 DDTs a match, you feel ripped off. The moves MEANT more then, in terms of their effects. A bodyslam hurt, it wasn't something you bounced immediately back up the mat from. Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat played off of one ring bell strike to the throat for months. Steamboat wore neckbraces, talked scratchy, made it look like he was really injured. Now, a chair shot, bell shot, going through a table, etc is just an every week thing, wrestlers don't get hurt like they used to. (hurt for storyline purposes, not legitimately)

I miss old school wrestling, because moves meant something more than they did today. I miss finishing moves that actually finished people, I miss chair shots being devastating. I miss tests of strength in the middle of the ring, I miss actual grappling, I miss managers (You could never have a Bobby Heenan in today's wrestling). Basically, old school wrestling was more genuine looking.

 

[Greenlight13]

Yeah I'd go for a combo of nostalgia and the internet. With almost anything people say how the old days were so much better. It doesn't matter how many records get broken or how many better statistics are put up by current versions, they'll just somehow never be as good as the legends of old. Say LeBron James eclipses all of Michael Jordan's accomplishments (just for argument's sake), people would still say MJ is the best of all time.

When you are a child wrestling seems so magical and wondrous and of course nothing in your adult life could match that. The kids of today think John Cena is the greatest guy in the entire world and when they grow up and some new wrestler is all the rage they'll complain about how good Cena was in comparison. That's not to say that the old school wrestlers weren't amazing, but I think they're given an extra level of mystique based on the nostalgia factor.

Throw in the fact that 90% of the crowd thought it was dead real because of a lack of education about wrestling and a lack of the internet leaking spoilers ahead of time for good measure and that to me is why old school is so special.

And of course let's not forget that a lot of wrestling wasn't televised so people would go and see the same show that had been run in a different area and not even realise. Ric Flair could do his cheating spiel in every city in the country and every time the people would think it was the first time, so word of mouth and eye witness accounts made him into this legendary champion.

 

[PrinceCharming]

They weren't afraid to be cheesy and let wrestlers be unscripted and show personality. That's why even mid card faces were over with the fans like Tito Santana or Koko B. Ware. You could see each person as an individual, whereas that's harder now for wrestlers who don't physically or on the mic stick out in some way.

Also, feuds had more build then, not a PPV every month. That allowed more breathing room and more feuds to build, you could have a nice midcard feud, like between Tito Santana and Rick Martel.

 

[Slyfox696]

Three words: Rose Colored Glasses.

Old School wrestling is boring as hell compared to today's standards. Now, I'm not advocating that every match should be a spotfest, but it was a HUGE move back then to body slam someone. You had a bunch of overweight, slovenly looking "rasslers" dancing around the ring in the most fake looking shit possible. OS is low rent, sloppy, bland...

The only reason old school wrestling gets most of it's praise is because of the RCG effect. If you grew up in that time period and you liked it, then when you're older, you're going to say that it's not as good as it was when you were a kid.

I disagree, not that we don't look to our own age of wrestling as more enjoyable, but that older wrestler is inferior to today's. In fact, Old School wrestling was actually BETTER than today's.

Today's wrestling is completely unrealistic. Wrestling has ALWAYS been built on the concept of believability, the idea that two gladiators were really trying to pin each other in the ring. Even when wrestling was the worst kept secret in entertainment, the illusion was still there because the wrestlers cared about it.

These days, wrestlers don't seem to care, or don't seem to understand, about that. It's all flashy moves, and playing to the 3 second attention span of the idiots who watch it, so it doesn't hurt their ratings. THAT is what is boring to me. You mentioned about how a body slam used to be a big move...uhh, duh?! You pick someone up 5 feet in the air, and throw them violently a large square piece of wood. Of course that would hurt, it SHOULD be a big move.

Old School wrestling was better, not because I grew up watching it in the late 80s and early 90s (which I don't really consider Old School, but whatever), but because the wrestlers themselves were better, and more demanding of themselves that the illusion of believability was there in their matches.

 

[proofinlife]

I wouldn't consider the Hulkamania Era to be "Old School" wrestling by any stretch, whatsoever. In fact, I would consider that era to be the end of the Old School mentality and the beginning of modernized wrestling.

My Great Grandfather, Great Uncles, and older Uncles were all around to watch guys like Buddy Rogers, Killer Kowalski, Stan Hansen, and guys that I can't even remember off the top of my head that they all drilled into me and my cousin's head as being the "best of their time". Aside from the fact that all of them could hold crowds in their hand seemingly at a breath, there were other aspects to Old School than just how the matches were put together.

Back then, wrestling was considered a REAL sport. It was alongside baseball and football, and all the top guys were literally celebrated names everywhere they went. People believed wrestling was as real as any legit sport. Through depressions and the worst of economic recessions everyone did what they could to see a wrestling match or show. Where the Major Baseball League and National Football League nearly went under from nearly no attendance, wrestling was alive and well. It had nothing to do with "workrate" or "mic skills" or whether their gimmick was "over"; the fans didn't understand that aspect, not one fan. These guys were "legit" tough men that made weight lifters look like wussies.

Fans took to characters in more depth than any fan can say they do today. When you see an old man get mad at modern wrestling because it's "utter garbage" compared to what it used to be, and you question him, you get a waterfall of stories and reasons why classic wrestling was so different from today's products.

They succeeded with characters like no promotion could today. No eric bischoff or vince mcmahon could even parallel how wild and awesome some of the acts were. I'm not going to call up my grandpa to ask him the name, but he constantly reminds me of a wrestler back in the 50's and 60's that can be directly attributed to "Festus", except he was way more awesome. He used to come out to the ring with a manager, he was a braind dead oaf that did nothing until his manager blew his whistle. The guy would go berserk and tear apart everyone in the ring. After he was done the manager would blow his whistle, he would be torn between killing the guy and stopping, so it'd force him to go nuts in the middle of the ring, grabbing his head, screaming, and the whole deal. Eventually they started selling whistles at the canteens and the whole arena would blow their whistles every time the manager teased them, and the wrestler would go nuts. It eventually became a show in itself because people started bring whistles just to make this guy go nuts and not allow him to tear apart his opponent.

Now you might think the above would be so droll and boring by today's standards, but think of the 50's, 60's, and early 70's before wrestling was televised and there were any major shows on TV. This entertained people in ways they'd never known it before. Gimmicks like these brought people in by the swarms just to pay to literally watch a guy like this get his ass kicked for their own pure enjoyment. It was simple, uncomplicated entertainment that didn't need someone going through a table, a pair of tits, or swearing on TV to get an audience going.

I listened well to all my great grandpa, grandpa, and uncle's stories, and I truly do wish I could've seen at least one of those matches, because I know it would've been something else to witness.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Nostalgia is a very powerful thing. If something had a big enough impact on you when you were younger, then you will likely always remember it. Bad things are nostalgically inflated to seem worse, while good things are nostalgically inflated to seem amazing. Not all memories end up like this, but several do. This concept of nostalgic inflation is seen on this forum daily. I'm talking about people who post rants on how wrestling sucks now compared to the Attitude Era or the Hogan Era. In roughly 10 years we could be seeing people make the same remarks about wrestling THEN compared to today's shows. I happen to enjoy today's wrestling shows, but at the same time miss and remember the good old days, so I see this issue from both sides. I think that Nostalgia, more than anything, is why oldschool wrestling is viewed so positively compared to today's product. Everyone sooner or later gets nostalgic at some point when they are adults about something. As wrestling fans, for us chances are likely that we get nostalgic for older days of wrestling, what we watched and liked when we were younger.

The second reason is the influence that the internet has had on wrestling. When most of us were little, the internet was not around to provide sites like wrestlezone where we could find out what was going on in the federations outside of kayfabe.... that also meant far less spoilers on who was getting pushed and who was to debut at what point. I guarantee you that many more "special moments" would have come out of the past decade if it weren't for the internet. This of course is a two sided issue though because without sites like wrestlezone we wouldn't have forums like this one to come together and have great discussions like this one. The "bad" from spoilers is canceled out by the "good" of being able to interact as fans on here.

So.... with all that being said.... what makes oldschool wrestling so special in my opinion is a combination of nostalgically inflated happy memories that we cling onto since many people like good memories, alongside the fact that the internet was not spoiling rumors as much back then because fans know more than we should about the product today. Long live the good old days!

 

[Tastycles]

I think wrestling in the olden days certainly thrived of believability and a degree of secrecy, but I don't think it'd work like that these days. I think the big thing that has changed is that we live in an instant culture, but even more to the point, we live in a world were everyone is easily bored. People aren't prepared to sit through 10 minutes of headlocks now, and it is the purists who miss that believable aspect of it.

Hulkamania was so successful because Hogan wasn't like the other wrestlers. As well as his obvious charisma, Hogan heralded a period when people would just win wrestling matches from nowhere, and the realism started to sap away. That's the number one difference between then and now, is that patience has completely evaporated from society.

 

[Lauren Coughlin]

Wrestling was real in the 50s. My grandmother got hurt all the time in the ring. I think all those hits in the head were apart of the reason she got Alzheimer's. Those days have definitely been romanticized, but they were absolutely honest and real.

 

[jpickens]

What makes that era so great is that wrestling was the main focus not like todays wrestling where you have a two hour program with 90 minutes of segments and long winded promos and twenty minutes of rushed wrestling where as in the old school era you had a 60minute show entirely focused on wrestling. Plus it was actually called a sport not sports entertainment and the wrestlers were referred to as wrestlers and not as entertainers or superstars just wrestlers.