The little things, What do you miss?

[PLANETstasiak]

I miss Joey Styles on Commentary
I miss Bobby the Brain Heenan on Commentary
I miss Dusty Rhodes on Commentary
I miss The Franchise
I miss out of control story-lines like pillman / austin, bossman / big show golddust / piper
I miss foreign objects like the shock stick, the atomizer, and the slapjack
I miss ethnic gimmicks like El Matador
I miss Luchadores
I miss the big 4 pay-per views
I miss mid level title relevance
I miss WCW
I miss War Games
I miss The Muillion Dollar Man shoving $100s in jobbers mouths
I miss Tag Team Wrestling
I miss a methodical match pace
I miss the Abdominal Stretch
I miss KoKo B. Ware
I miss excessive bell ringing
I miss the ring filling with "officials" when a brawl breaks out
I miss King of the Ring and the ridiculous crown
I miss Samoan wrestlers all using the same gimmick
I miss Kamala
I miss Michael Buffer
I miss The old Raw opening the War Xone
I miss the newer raw intro with Union Underground
I miss promos
I miss Mean Gene Okerland's interviews
I miss women who could put on a match in the ruing like Ivory Molly & Jazz
I miss heel Teddy Long w/ Rodney Mack
I miss irresistible forces vs immovable objects
and most of all I miss EC F'n W

Last Pay-Per View I spent money to watch was ECW One Night Stand 2005 brought to you by Destroy All Humans. and it was worth every penny
I miss

 

[Kitten Cutter]

Aw, man...reminiscing on what I miss actually brought a tear to my eye...

- I miss Jim Ross. I just got no respect for Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler. Jim Ross knew how to properly build up a wrestler, build up a match, and really sell the brutality. One moment I can think of right off the top of my head was when Umaga had Maria sitting in the corner and he did that running butt smash to her. She was obviously safe but she went completely limp and Jim Ross said, "Oh, Jesus Christ," and that moment stuck in my head even to this day. He knew how to sell when someone took a move and made it sound like they were getting crushed.

- I miss wrestlers high-fiving the fans. The ramps take that away and now people sitting in those spots get short-changed. Remember how people would have their hands sticking out like crazy, and the heels would either smack them away or ignore them, while the faces smiled and touched their hands and made their day? That's gone. Another memory: Jericho grabbing signs in WCW and ripping them up after posing with them.

- I miss the integrity of the mid-card titles. Nowadays the U.S. and Intercontinental titles mean nothing. The champions lose to others every week and nothing happens. Remember when it was a HUGE deal that Razor Ramon was a 3-time Intercontinental champion? Also remember that the guy almost never lost a match? I remember thinking it seemed IMPOSSIBLE to beat him, and was usually in shock when he did lose. The Intercontinental belt made so many WWF Champions, and was a highlight for so long, and it kills me that the belt means nothing.

- I miss WCW and ECW for the competition. Sure, we got TNA, but remember when there was a LOT of wrestling? You could watch RAW or Nitro, record the other, and find out when you could watch ECW. There was RAW, Nitro, Thunder, Smackdown, ECW before TNN, Clash of the Champions, PPVs. You could always watch wrestling, and because there was competition, you could see EVERYTHING. Cruiserweights, Super-heavyweights, Hardcore, promo guys and hype men, rookies, veterans, mid-card guys, main event guys. Back when you could watch nothing but wrestling all week, catch up, and be excited for the next set of shows!

- I miss real women. Not Divas. Not Knockouts. Women! I miss Sunny. I miss Debra. I miss Sable. (although I never really a fan of hers, she was light-years better than what's out there now) I miss the women having personalities. I miss them having a reason to care about the Women's title, and using the men to their advantage if they couldn't wrestle (ala Sunny, Terri Runnels or Stacy) for the belts. We have a good amount of brainless models who are athletic with barely a personality. Why do you think A.J. became a huge hit so quickly? What happened to Trish Stratus fighting for her career vs. Victoria? Or Jazz actually being scary?

- I miss brutal finishers. Dolph Ziggler's Zig Zag is pathetic as shit (it's basically the physical version of "I-pull-you-down-violently!"), and he's the World Champion. John Cena does a fireman's carry slam that Kurt Angle does better in the first minute of his matches. The Shell-Shocked is a great display of strength, but 3 Minute Warning's backdrop into a Samoan Drop looks just as brutal. The Crippler Crossface got neutered into a resthold. No more real DDTs, no more piledrivers, and barely even any top rope finishers that work consistently. Remember when The Undertaker finished off Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 26 with a jumping Tombstone Piledriver? Seems like only the old school wrestlers knew about what a real finisher should be and the impact it should have.

- Lastly, I miss good faces! I'm an old school fan, and I actually like cheering for the good guy to win. Sure, I absolutely respect and appreciate The Shield, Damian Sandow, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler and the rest, but where are the faces that make people cheer? When someone is getting beat down, do we really cheer for Cena to save them? For Orton or Sheamus? I remember at Wrestlemania 9, when The Undertaker got chloroformed by Giant Gonzalez, and the crowd chanted for Hogan (of all people!) to save him. Or when Stephanie McMahon was in danger from The Ministry, who did the audience chant for? Austin! (again, of all people!) There are almost no babyfaces to cheer for in the WWE (and really not even TNA either, since most of them have been neutered or watered down) except maybe Daniel Bryan, and his path seems to be pointing back toward heeldom. Overall, one of those creative teams needs to figure out how to make their heroes as cool as their villains, because if they remember history, that was the downfall of Eric Bischoff and the NWO.

 

[shalliin]

I miss watching a wrestling show and seeing wrestling matches. Now a 3 hour raw is 30min or wrestling, an hour of people bitching about each other, an hour of other people trying to act like all the backstage crap is real, and 30min of bad or repetative highlights. I MISS WRESTLING! If I want to watch that soap opera based shit, I'll watch an actual soap opera. I remember hour and 2 hour long shows that would have nearly 80% of the show be wrestling, 10% be commercials and the other 10% be interview/promo/highlights. I miss a real tag team divison and the women's division that was destroyed by the pathetic Diva's division.

I also miss the mystery. I miss not being able to take 5 mins and search online and find out the next 5 weeks of programming plans. I miss the fun of not knowing if the person on screen was really from Uganda or just some schlub from Michigan. I miss the variety of characters and looks, instead of the bland watered and prepackaged copies that they have now.

I miss Vince McMahon. Not MR. McMahon, but Vince, the announcer and interview guy.

I miss when you could have a match between two guys and neither was cast as a heel, it was just a series of matches to showcase their talents.

I miss consistency in their own actions. I mean, not long ago, wasn't there a point Cena was hurt while he had the title and the GM was threatening to strip him if he didn't defend the title within the 30 day defense clause? and Now people are arguing that Ziggles shouldn't be stripped just because it wouldn't be fair to him to have won MitB and cash it in 9 months later only to have to give up the title because he got hurt? Let's have some consistency in your own bullshit please. Even in a fake world you have to have a consistent set of rules that apply all the time, or no one will buy any of what you are trying to offer.

ie: In DC, there is Superman. I will give you he is an alien who came to earth as a baby. I will accept that he has all the powers he has (strength, flight, invulnerability, xray/heat vision, super breath, hold breath for up to 20min, fly in space without equipment) but I won't buy if all of a sudden he can teleport to different planets and make plants grow with a thought, but only for this short period because we ran out of ideas and are unable to think on our feet when a new situation comes up so we have to change everything to fit the screwed up situation instead of trying to avoid the situation or deal with it within the confines of our own universal rules.

But unlike a lot of people, one thing I don't miss is JR. I was never a fan of his work. For the first 2-3 years with WWF sure, he was new and exciting and different, but he grew stale fast and fell into the same trap people bitch about Cole and Lawler now. He is repetative to the point of distraction and I am glad I don't have to hear him shout about a match being a slobbernocker every 2min of every match.

 

[toon126]

I miss story lines. Proper story lines. I miss being emotionally involved in every wrestler from top to bottom, when every segment mattered.

I recently watched some old WMs and can't believe how over Al Snow was, Jeff Jarrett, even Sable/Mero v Luna/Goldust from 14 was massively over because the execution of the rivalry was so well done.

I miss Raw ending and thinking "NOOOOO NOT YET!!!! F U DON'T FINISH!!!!"

I miss how hot the Attitude crowd was. Makes me wonder why the WWE prefer the younger audience today than the wild adults, because they're the ones that can emotionally invest in characters, and follow long story lines full of twists and turns. Just screams of lazy from WWE to avoid doing that work again.

God I miss ~15 years ago.

Oh and I miss controversy. The show NEEDS controversy!
And the more intimate arena set ups that helped enhance the emotion.

 

[keith hall]

I miss the production quality of the attitude era...it looked amazing!!!
yes it was old looking...but still...todays product looks almost to polished...in the attitude era it literally looked like anything could and would happen...today it looks (pardon the pun) too scripted

 

[thebowtiekiller]

i miss the grittiness of the attitude era it had a great atmosphere even the intro was metal it gave the impression some cool stuff was about to happen the crowd usually appeared to be having a really good time aswell which always makes a show better as opposed to most crowds nowadays that seem to sit there with there arms folded wwe try too hard to be cool now with there pop music themes,the trending on twitter thing they do,and the did you know stuff it just seems tacky sometime.i also miss the smackdown fist set that looked pretty bloody cool there are quite a few more but it looks like most have already been covered

 

[MikeyTheAwesome]

I miss how RAW and SD had their own titantrons and sets. I miss the red ropes for RAW, the blue ropes for smackdown.. I miss The spanish announce table at ringside every RAW. I miss the attitude that wrestlers brought to their promos and matches. Like someone stated, the product just seems way to polished and at times corny.

I miss 30 man battle royals. World title matches main eventing a pay per view no matter who was champion, Title feuds involving 3 or more men. The draft, brand vs brand, single brand pay per views, 6-10 man tag matches. Two tag titles. The hardcore championship.

BLOOD

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

BLOOD

Yup.

I miss blood in professional wrestling. I miss the days of blading. I miss the days of bleached blond hair turning red by the end of the match, and the phrase "a crimson mask".

Blading has fallen to the wayside, and the only way there's any blood anymore is unless someone get cut hard way. The problem is that it has killed a lot of exciting matches for me, particularly steel cage matches. It used to be that a steel cage match was a threat. You knew it would be brutal, it would be dangerous, and one, if not both, wrestlers would be bloody by the end of it.

 

[EastCoastFan]

I miss there being more than just WWE for pro wrestling. When I first started watching wrestling, my area had WWF, AWA and JCP/NWA (they also had GLOW, if you count that), plus I used to read PWI all the time, so I got to know about Memphis, Florida, Continental, Mid-South/UWF, World Class, Pacific Northwest, Stampede, and others. Now it's WWE with TNA a VERY distant second.

I miss pro wrestling where it was portrayed as a real athletic encounter, even though you knew in the back of your mind it wasn't.

I miss Saturday Night's Main Event and Clash Of The Champions. Those shows were special and you felt you had to watch them. Then Raw and Nitro came into the picture. Now with wrestling on prime-time TV opposite each other every week, both companies stacked their lineups for every show in an effort to grab ratings. It raised the profile of pro wrestling, but it also raised the bar of what's expected so high that now they can't deliver regularly.

The pro wrestling business has changed over the years, but I'm not sure if it's really changed for the better.

 

[MCMG]

I miss Jim Ross. He was such a great commentator. I was watching some older matches and him with Jerry Lawler as a more of a heel character was fantastic. I wish we could have him on air more often. Listening to him on a HHH, Undertaker, or Steve Austin match as always been perfect. JBL is good, I prefer old Lawler and Michael Cole is bearable.

 

[tvcolosi]

I miss there being more than just WWE for pro wrestling. When I first started watching wrestling, my area had WWF, AWA and JCP/NWA (they also had GLOW, if you count that), plus I used to read PWI all the time, so I got to know about Memphis, Florida, Continental, Mid-South/UWF, World Class, Pacific Northwest, Stampede, and others. Now it's WWE with TNA a VERY distant second.

I miss pro wrestling where it was portrayed as a real athletic encounter, even though you knew in the back of your mind it wasn't.

I miss Saturday Night's Main Event and Clash Of The Champions. Those shows were special and you felt you had to watch them. Then Raw and Nitro came into the picture. Now with wrestling on prime-time TV opposite each other every week, both companies stacked their lineups for every show in an effort to grab ratings. It raised the profile of pro wrestling, but it also raised the bar of what's expected so high that now they can't deliver regularly.

The pro wrestling business has changed over the years, but I'm not sure if it's really changed for the better.

I was at the return on SNME back in 06 with the HBK/Shane street fight. I thought they were all going to be good, but I cannot remember any others that were good. TNA needs 2-3 CotC type a year now that only run PPVS. Find a way to make then Commercial free, and run on a Saturday free of college football and babketball

 

[tvcolosi]

I just thought of another one, Announced time limits, and the special time limit for the main event. I guess the latter was invented by Bill Watts in the 70's. But I started watching WWF in late 1997 and they were doing in and I do not remember when they stopped. To this day I still remember Tony Chimmel announcing

"The following contest is scheduled for one fall, with TV time remaining."

Mid-South would sometimes go off the air with a match in progress meaning you had to tune in next week.

One of the first Raw's I watched was main evented with HBK vs HHH for the European Title. Jim Ross saying something like "We just got off the phone with the USA network and they are going to stay with this match in its entirety." I was 14 and I didn't have internet access yet so I had no idea that it was a taped show, and HBK laid down for Hunter but I remember being so excited it was going to go late.

Not to go off topic but this is the reason I like that WWE PPV's sometimes end at 10:45pm. PPV's are scheduled to go no more than 3 hours on the channel guide, as are MLB, NFL, and NBA games. Sometimes a baseball game goes 2.5 hours. Sometimes they go 4. Many a time when I watch a TNA PPV they go into false finishes at 10:55 pm so it ruins the suspense of "when is this match going to end?"

 

[Diet Soda]

Pyro.

There's little more than can get me excited for a show beginning (TV or PPV) than a big fireworks display, indoors. I know WWE cut down on the pyro for cost reasons, but when they even get rid of it for the opening of Wrestlemania, it makes me a bit sad and nostalgic.

That, and when Raw opens and the main event is already decided, and the graphic reveal shows up with some awesome tag match that hasn't happened before. Nowadays, it seems there is nothing in the first 15 minutes of Raw that inspires me to stay the whole show.

 

[Revenant87]

I miss the intros/themes from Raw and Smackdown back in the day when they actually had a sense of menace and edginess about them.

 

[M]

I miss them showing little snippets of the highlights of PPVs on the RAWs after the shows instead of the crappy slideshow you get now. My timezone means that during the PPV it's around morning/midday the next day over here, so during school months it's impossible for me to watch the PPV as I'm being a good little boy and learning how numbers work. Those little pieces of video they'd show were the only bits of a PPV that I'd be able to see without being a rebel and stealing them off the internet

 

[Perfected123]

Definitely miss well thought out, prolonged storylines. Now look, I know there is so much programming in mainstream wrestling these days that it is harder, but the Jericho-HBK feud from 2008 proves that it can be done when you put the effort in. Actually, I bet anything that it was Jericho and Michaels themselves came up with the ideas for that storyline, similar to the Generico-Steen feud from ROH in 2010 which is probably the best feud of the last 10 years in wrestling, thus proving that there is too many hands in the pot in WWE creative currently.

Another I miss are the 80's style, short, sweet & to the point backstage promos. So much more effective in delivering a message and telling that story than the 20 minute long in ring promos you see these days (i'm looking at you Hunter).

One thing I absolutely wouldn't miss if it went away is GM's coming out at the start of a night to announce matches & the main event of the evening. Was that needed back in the day? Everyone knows these people don't actually make these matches, ludicrous if you ask me. In fact, i'm so sick and tired of GM's in general, it is so played out. God, I hate Vickie Guerrero & Teddy Long.

 

[Hard Hit Prince]

The things that I really miss is the "selling" aspect of professional wrestling from the old times. Nowadays we have that hybrid style of wrestling, we have a lot of cool spots given out on free television and the "selling" aspect has been lost a bit. It's like a "powerbomb" doesn't beat you anymore, a punch isn't even a scratch on your face so, sometimes I really do miss that things, specially when I'm watching a "Golden Era" match and quite frankly being more pulled to the storytelling that they are telling me than the "wow" moments they give me now.

I also miss those interviews before the match, you don't need to do it every time but it would be cool to have on PPV the two opponents showing in a promo why they hate each other and why I should care for that match. Also, believe it or not, I miss catchphrases because it made people react and actually having fun on a live event. I mean, how eager would a guy be to see the New Age Outlaws coming out, or hell, even Val Venis? It was cool and entertaining to watch.

I enjoy the current product, as I feel the current wrestlers are very talented and very athletic everywhere in the world - but wrestling needs to return to it's basics sometimes, ROH had success with that so I think they can pull it off again for instance. Also I enjoy General Managers, but I don't like to have a General Manager, a COO, a CEO's daughter and the CEO destroying the purpose of the character.

 

[mr.davidson]

I miss Hulk Hogan having a Tittle

Sry to say this, but when Hogan has a Tittle wrestling just seems more entertaining


Remember when he would actually be world champ, 1. the tittle just looks great on him and 2. the tittle means so much more.

Whenever he holds that belt its just amazing how much the tittle then becomes relevant

U guys may hate hogan as he is still around and doing his thing. But i bet if he held the TNA tittle for even 3 months, it would mean more then one of john cenas boring tittle regins that lasts years...

U guys miss the good times and want them 2 return... the answer is simple... give Hogan another tittle regin!!!!

 

[Waylon Mercy]

I miss the Monday Night Wars. Truly - wrestling was at its peak when Vince had real, viable competition. Nitro was must watch television for a long time, and Vince in his desperation ended up ramping things up on Raw with the Attitude Era. The two companies went nose to nose and produced some of the most memorable story lines and characters the wrestling world has ever seen. Since Vince bought out WCW, Vince hasn't had that extra drive and motivation to invest wisely and fully into his product.

 

[The Warlord]

I miss waking up on Saturday morning in the early 90s not being able to wait to see which guys were going to wrestle on Superstars. Or coming back from my little league baseball game and playing back the VHS.

I miss the summer nights after playing baseball in the cul-de-sac and swimmin in the pool all day jumping off the diving board pretending to be Macho Man doing the elbow. Then having our parents take us to Blockbuster to rent a WWF Coliseum video on VHS.

I miss going over to my friends house...pumped up all day about Wrestlemania and then "listening" to it on scrabbled ppv screaming and hollering that Warrior won the title.

I miss my childhood.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I miss more than anything the talent regularly switching companies without the internet breaking the news first and it actually being a big deal to regular fans, not just the IWC. Everyone already knows who has signed a contract with who these days, weeks before they debut.

For example, when the Radicalz (Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Perry Saturn) showed up on Raw unexpectedly, it created a huge buzz and noone knew it was coming, everyone was shocked. Another example is Lex Luger appearing on the first edition of Nitro, or even X-Pac returning to the WWF to join DX after being in WCW for a while. Of course, the most famous example is Scott Hall (and later Kevin Nash) appearing on Nitro with people actually believing that they were still WWF employees, things like that just dont happen any more.

The only shocking examples I can think of in recent years that come close to that is Kurt Angle signing for TNA when barely anyone who even worked at TNA knew that was happening, Brock Lesnar returning to WWE (and even then WWE tweeted about it) and the random Royal Rumble return of Diesel.

With TNA being nowhere near the level of WCW in popularity, and alot of casual wrestling fans not being particularly familiar with the likes of Roode, Aries, Joe, Styles etc, them suddenly appearing on Raw wouldn't have the same buzz as it did back in the Monday Night Wars.

 

[Wolf Pac]

I know this thread is nearly a year old now, but I was just reading back through this thread cause I'm feeling so nostalgic right now, and I realized something else that I miss in pro wrestling - the use of classical music. They were always used in pre-match video promos, opening video promos recapping the previous week's episode of Raw, opening PPV promos, even as PPV themes sometimes. I don't know if WWE still use classical music for any of these things, I don't really pay attention anymore to any of their video packages ever since they started using songs from bands in them and as their PPV themes, if they still do, they're not as catchy as the classical themes back then. The classical themes used back then, made video promos feel more powerful and more dramatic. I'll post some of my favourites.

Spoiler

I wish the WWE would bring back some of these songs.

I'm interested in reading any new responses in this thread, if there are any.

 

[The Fabulous Rougeau's]

I miss the old school early 90s WWE Magazine. As a kid I thought they were the coolest looking thing ever. Really looked forward to the issues that had the pictures and PPV results because while I became a fan earound the late 80s/early 90s I didn't get to watch my first live PPV event till SummerSlam 93. Below is a pic of one of my favorite covers from that time.

 

[whoopin' ass]

So much but if you want little things, it is a guy walking out to the ring in his jeans and a shirt to fight. Today, 2 guys are in the ring in full gear arguing before their match is even announced. Why are they all geared up if they don't have a planned match(why are they even there too)? It is little things like that which added to the realism instead of making it seem so scripted like today.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The biggest thing I miss about the business and wrestling is the days of NOT knowing every piece of information or what is going to happen, or even having any clue... it's a combination of ignorance being bliss, kayfabe, the mindset of knowledge being a currency and my own experience of learning to wrestle, having matches and the realities of that.

I miss that wonder when I first started watching, when WWF had one saturday in 4 on World of Sport... I miss staying up till 11pm to watch WCW on ITV (and being happy when it was moved to 1pm on Central TV, watching it with grainy signal as we were Anglia region), I miss not having Sky so having to beg, cajole and sometimes bully people into recording the PPV's for me then driving my dad crazy by making him sit through them ... my nan being secretly enjoying it even though she was missing her soap operas cos she knew what I knew even then... it IS a soap...

I miss that feeling of knowing something more, cos you found out when others didn't know... like Jim Hellwig being the Warrior, Curt Hennig being AWA World Champ and that Owen Hart was the Blue Blazer and the shock of hearing that Bret had become World Champion, to the point I called the person who told me a liar and had to eat crow after for a bit...

I miss not having a clue as to how shows would turn out, if a debut or return was going to happen... That ended around 93 when I began training seriously and was "smartened up" on a lot of stuff...

I miss having to hustle to get tapes from round the world or VCR to VCRing PPV's from Blockbuster when I was old enough to have a membership... That library of tapes was eventually thrown out by my dad...but it ran into the hundreds by the end...Japan, ECW, SMW...

I miss a death in wrestling being a major shock and saddening thing rather than having a wrestler in your "Dead Pool" each year (I won with Randy Savage... just had a hunch) or having seen so many go that its no longer shocking to see a hero die...it's expected.

There is a lot to miss...

But then there is a different side to things now... There is a community of people brought together by the Internet and wrestling. I started E-Fedding in the late 90's and running my own successful E-Fed, it fed my creativitiy and we had graphics, logos etc long before anyone else... I took what I'd learned and applied it to the point where I made friends for life through that game and I am sure at least some of our ideas may have been used at some point lol... Triple H of today was my character 13 years ago running that game...even last week me and one of the guys were chuckling how Miz had become his character...

Had that innocent time I miss not ended, I wouldn't have those friends, good memories or a place to talk about it in the way we are here... Sure a lot of posts and posters on these sites are garbage at times, but being able to talk passionately, to have people care to read it is a buzz... WZ was one of my first "proper" writing gigs... I miss that, being on the main page and people making a point to read... but here on the forums is just as good... from the feedback I get...

It's great to miss stuff about the past, about wrestling cos it's those things that made you fall in love with it enough to care... but don't miss them too much cos those things aren't fanning the flames of that passion...even if Davey Boy Smith or Koko B. Ware or Bastion Booger were your favourite at 10 they're not now... Whatever is actually working for you today is...

So much as I miss Attitude and TV14, I can see enough in the product WWE puts out to interest me... I can see the strides the training has taken (what I wouldn't give to have trained THERE instead of an old Working Mens Club in Northamptonshire), that ideas I thought would work back in the late 90's early 2000's were also thought of by others and have happened and are working in how things are presented... I can see guys my age or slightly younger, who would have grown up similar to myself actually not only in the WWE but main eventing like Wade Barrett, Adrian Neville and Sheamus. Today it IS possible for someone to make it... it wasn't back then, so I'll never miss that.

The little things are whatever you make of them, they stay with you but they are only a small piece of the puzzle... no one stopped watching cos they stopped doing the Atomic Drop as a serious move or cos the Fink doesn't ring announce more than once a year anymore...