Do you long for days when ........

[Bradshaw0012]

sittingstill, you preach the gospel.

I agree with most of the points made...so here's my rant of random thoughts.

I miss the days when the matches meant something.
When fans cared about what happened in the ring, and not trying to get themselves on television.
I liked it when I got chills up my spine whenever "Iron Man" played.
I miss seeing Crockett, Dallas, Continental, Florida, AWA, Memphis and even the WWF all to once, becasue each place was different.
I miss the big blowoff match.
I wish a big show was still A BIG SHOW.
I miss the fact that I had to be at the arena to see what happened.
I miss the days when my town was important.
I wish we could have wrestlers who cared about their performance in every match.
I miss not being insulted as a fan.
I wish I could still wonder "What is actually UNDER the ring?"
I don't want to watch TV or a match and be able to guess what's going to happen....and be right.
I wish a championship actually meant something.

I could come up with more, but the bottom line is that I just miss WRESTLING.

[flairfan]

amen brother. what i wouldnt give to see one more old school mid atlantic show at the richmond coliseum. just one i guess to have some closure to it being over.

[sittingstill]

Amen, indeed. Good to see you back, brother Bradshaw....

Also lets put this into context. In 2 weeks I'm coming back to America for Fanfest - it'll be my third U.S wrestling trip in one year - and I make no bones about it: it feels like we are celebrating the past, something that is really dead. It really does feel like wrestling is dead, that people just aren't willing to have that much fun anymore, and all the years of crap killed it.

So just imagine if I came over from the UK for a summer wrestling trip in 1986 not 2006, just for two weeks. There would still be top main event wrestling in Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Memphis....not to mention all the smaller Southern territories that still existed under the NWA at the time....even Florida was still alive then, but it was on life support....The Freebirds were flying high and the Horseman were still in town (at the penthouse at the Marriott)....

But now, sadly - its just dead and gone....and maybe it'll never be like it was again....

[Baltimore Jack]

I'm rehashing what others here have already said more eloquently than I say now, but weaverlock's original point is so true! Those old holds really meant something, and as a result, the matches, cards, feuds meant something too. It was easier for the wrestlers to work, and easier for the fans to get into. Today, it seems it's "can you top this", not only in terms of tables and ladders and fire and thumbtacks and all that non-sense, but in terms of otherwise excellent matches between for example Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle where they suplex the living crap out of each other, sometimes a series of something like 8 or 10 straight german suplexes, and then they just keep going. It was just another move, just another spot.

This didn't start with ECW or the late 1990s lucha influenced acrobatic style you see in WWE and TNA today. In my opinion, this started with the Road Warriors in the mid-80s, when Hawk would immediately jump up from piledrivers and the like. I hate saying it, because there is much I love and miss about the mid-80s, but I clearly remember thinking at the time that it was the beginning of the end for a style of wrestling and an approach to working that I really enjoyed and hasn't been the same since.

[superworker]

I agree ..Road Warriors not selling moves and many other factors as well. Remember when the "Powerslam" was a finish. Buzz Sawyer( RIP) had a great one. The thing about kayfabe wrestling was no matter what if you believed or not YOU always wondered if it was real. Now the suspense is gone. Like I told a friend of mine in a pm...in my day if anyone from the "office" caught you in the same bar or riding together...you were fired immediately ..no questions asked. Bill Watts would even fine you for being late because some of the guys felt they could show up when they pleased. I just miss the whole aspect of my era. I think Kurt Angle and Benoit would fit in back then but not many more because they have been brainwashed by McMahon!!

[sidney]

I remember Danny Miller using the "chicken wing cross face" which is never seen anymore.
Dory Funk, Jr. used the spinning toe hold.
Rip Hawk used the shoulder breaker in addition to the neck breaker and pile driver.
Harley Race used the suplex for a finisher, and now days it is never a finisher.
Haystacks Calhoun and Two Ton Harris had the big splash.
As managers, General Homer O'Dell had his cane, and J. C. Dykes used a water canteen that he would water the Infernos with, and use as a weapon. Although not finishing moves the cane and canteen did finish alot of matches.