en-us http://www.keithwatanabe.net/index.php Keith Watanabe's Website http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/7/4/e62910e8f19d53a80728c74b850a8348.html
Of course, there are incidents where wrestlers are in the positive light such as helping kids, charity work, visiting the troops in the Gulf. these aspects get left out of the media, which is probably a point that rings sore for JR. then again, i work in an office where i play superman (or rather Spiderman since Peter Parker is more like me) and I get zero recognition for my efforts. So I don't see why wrestlers, despite being famous, really need to amplify their side PR charity duties in that manner.

But I think one thing that JR doesn't want to admit is that the WWE is, for all intents and purposes everywhere, except for Japan and Mexico, synonymous with pro-wrestling. WWE has a clear distinction of defining the direction of pro-wrestling and therefore must take care in their social responsibilities with how wrestlers and wrestling is portrayed. That leads to my point that the WWE has, for the most part, distanced itself outwardly from a pure sports entity and has labelled itself as "entertainment." As a result of this distinction, the media has traditionally never taken wrestling seriously since common sense dictates what they do is a joke (where I emphasize that the "common" in common sense implies people's general assumptions about what pro-wrestling is).

In this sense, it's hard to completely take sides with JR, especially as he is a person within the industry for a cited 30 years, he has his own preferences that creates a sense of partiality and passion for what he does. That's fine, but again the reality is the media will continue to portray pro-wrestling in a negative light as long as 1) pro-wrestling continues to be synonymous with the WWE; 2) pro-wrestling continues to portray itself as a staged form of entertainment.

I'm never going to contend that there is nothing athletic about pro-wrestling. I've had friends involved in pro-wrestling and have a great deal of respect for it. However, my argument stems from the general portrayal of pro-wrestling as an industry and the key representatives that continue for the most part to focus on idiotic representations that mock itself (e.g. Vince's death, etc.) which will continue to haunt and stigmify wrestling.

Part of the good thing about recent pro-wrestling is that athleticism is more emphasized, especially with guys like the X-Division or Cruiserweights. That part has gained a huge amount of respect from the average bloke, who now can consider pro-wrestling very stunt oriented. Still the notion of competition and non-randomness is lacking, which makes pro-wrestling not-so sports like to the average person (of course, competition does exist in the industry in that the people on top are defined to be those who can draw based on charisma and other factors, BUT NOT TO THEIR ABSOLUTE IN-RING ABILITY THAT MAKES A BOUT RANDOM). Again, until the later aspect is changed, people will still say bad things about wrestlers and the industry as a whole. ]]> Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:18:31 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/7/4/e62910e8f19d53a80728c74b850a8348.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/7/27/b32a836952b2bb92ed900b011ef3eb42.html Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:22:32 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/7/27/b32a836952b2bb92ed900b011ef3eb42.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/9/2/40ec0d1625cda55453ec6f6236213f10.html
While I doubt pro-wrestling will ever be totally removed, the damage done now has to force a company like the WWE as well as many people watching to re-think their strategy as a business. The suspensions are just public lip service to demonstrate that the WWE is taking the current situation seriously. However, it does not resolve the root cause of their problem, which is the product they are attempting to sell: larger than life people who can perform insane stunts.

Although it is true that the WWE has moved mostly towards entertainment, the chief selling point in the end is a dramatized version of virility. Towards that end, they must cater their image regardless of the outcome of the court orders. And even the dramatization of what they do must be limited as the end product still is wrestling.

Yet I have to extend what's going on to TNA as well as they attempt a similar line of business. Certainly, the barriers to entry are smaller than the WWE. However, they still perform a great deal of stunts that are equally (if not moreso) injury inducing than the WWE. I cannot see anything but some form of medication being utilized for their business to continue.

And of course independents also would feel the crunch here as they might be less advertised versions of TNA. Overall, for me at least, this implies that the model of pro-wrestling needs to change somewhat. The boundaries on stunts and appearances have been pushed so hard in order to define the perfect notion of a pro-wrestler and a match that it's kinda like Yngwie Malmsteen going overboard on guitar and supposedly putting the proverbial nail in heavy metal's coffin with his overindulgence in virtuousity.

I'm a heavy believer in simplicity. I think that obviously we cannot go back too far in the history of pro-wrestling as most fans would just find it a massive turn off and move towards something else. However, I think that if we pinpoint an era of wrestling and aspects of wrestling that seem appealing, perhaps pro-wrestling as a sports genre could be saved.

From an in-ring paradigm, I think that the 1993-1995 era of the NJ Juniors are probably idealistic and acceptable to most wrestling fans. Good match build, good wrestling with storylines and still exciting content. No real need to pull out a ladder or table every other match to satisfy one's violence lust. Combine that with AJ's heavy style of 1994-1995 and I think you could have perfectly acceptable wrestling.

From a storyline perspective, I've been partial to the NWA between 85-87. Mix some of 88-89 and you still have a relatively interesting product. You can have interesting wrestling characters just as long as they're not too over the top. I think a good wrestling character ought to mix their monicker with an idiom that they have in the ring. That's all you really need. Keep the interviews consistent and relevant surrounding their character. I think the characters from 91-93 WWF were quite good for the most part. Look at Mr Perfect, Big Bossman, Texas Tornado, and even Rick Martel. Like selling a movie, if a wrestler cannot describe themselves in more than one line, they probably have a bad gimmick.

This all, of course, is just a way to save pro-wrestling as we know and love it. I think if the industry wants to progress, it needs to re-invent itself and assert a new sense of identity. The glorified stuntman gimmick doesn't really do it for me. Might as well work at Universal Studios. I think pro-wrestling should move towards something that no one really thought was possible: realism. Of course, people say that this is K-1 or UWF. But I think to some degree, everyone still wants to see a piledriver, dropkick, powerbomb, or clothesline. Yet I think something simple like making wrestling more interactive, more random and less contrived is where the industry ought to change. My biggest beef with pro-wrestling is that it's too contrived and the results never are what people really want. I feel that there's no vision for these companies on what they want to achieve in the end. TNA, for instance, has some randomness but not good randomness. Matches are too predictable and their hasn't been any building of someone since Samoa Joe. But the outcomes of the matches are random in that they involve some crappy booking decision that seems pulled out of thin air just to make certain individuals in the locker room content. They did some good recently in allowing wrestlers to mix up their matches a little more recently, but there's no one to rally behind anymore. And they have no upcoming talent.

I think the WWE suffers from the obvious right now, which is that they're losing their wrestlers to attrition of their own wellness program. Can't really help that since they're under the gun. But they have to work on their overall business strategy. The wellness program is just duct tape over a massive wound, which again is their vision for their product. This will sound strange, but I miss the days when some fat slob could just walk in and call themselves a wrestler. Get a Dick Murdoch, Jumbo Tsuruta, Terry Gordy, Stan Hansen, Harley Race, etc. to show people how to wrestle a good match. You don't need the world's best body; you just need some brains and sense to know how to make people react. The body builder types should be special since few people probably can achieve such physiques without the use of some sort of enhancement. I just want a good match, with some fun interviews and a bit of build in between to create a feud.]]> Sun, 02 Sep 2007 10:11:55 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/9/2/40ec0d1625cda55453ec6f6236213f10.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/11/22/392dd6a46a8e9edbbd0192c73623e9e7.html
Without Benoit, Angle, and Guerrero, the WWE is somewhat hardpressed to find extremely high caliber wrestlers in the top position. There are some with potential but I still see the majority of WWE's homegrown talent as "5 move wrestlers." Jericho is smart, probably one of the smartest guys in the industry for his position. With recent intereviews saying he has some new moves and a new finisher, it'll be interesting to see what his moves in the WWE will be. Obviously, he's going after the main title. Hopefully, they'll let him take it. He's a good foil for Randy Orton and hopefully can teach the guy a thing or two in the ring.]]> Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:16:20 -0700 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2007/11/22/392dd6a46a8e9edbbd0192c73623e9e7.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/2/14/d11a66ff0215331a48760fbbe1d727d0.html
At work too, I noticed most people don't care about puroresu and that the whole puroresu vision has become skewed in that most people consider it just a silly show. Hustle and the WWE have done quite a bit to hurt the perception of wrestling in Japan so now people simply more realistic fighting shows like the K-1.

Of course, there are more traditional fans (outside of myself) here that still enjoy wrestling. But the fact that it's viewed as more of a stunt show or (worse yet) a talk show demonstrates that the whole overemphasized skit segments have irrevocably damaged the credibility and more importantly, the believability in wrestling.

It's obvious that the WWE will never move back towards the more purely athletic aspects of pro-wrestling. However, I think TNA should really start re-examining their product and realize the silliness produced simply undermines fans' confidence in the business.]]> Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:08:38 -0700 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/2/14/d11a66ff0215331a48760fbbe1d727d0.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/2/21/a32c2886440c18e56e7ec6844671a9dd.html
In some ways, I think this segment is representative of how McMahon approaches life and perhaps even perceives life. Think back to the 80's and early 90's of the WWF where you had pure squash matches. In other federations, matches seemed more competitive where you would have some level of competition between wrestlers. In the WWF though, the only competition would occur during big events or house shows. During TV segments, it was mostly jobber vs oversized star bouts.

But I kinda think that the psychology in those matches actually went beyond the cannon's view of how they were tools to make their key wrestlers look like stars. I seriously think that those matches were McMahon's demonic visions of how he wanted to conquer the world. In some ways, it reminded me of those bizarre anime shows where you'd have this monstrously dominating force/evil doer against some tiny hero. The tiny hero ends up getting the duke because they were symbolic of Japan's small stature against the world (especially America). But I'm certain likewise, the animators probably felt some sadistic glee in coming up with these bad guys who could decimate nations with their immense arsenal (and ego).

Nonetheless, you gotta wonder why McMahon has such a fascination with huge wrestlers. Some people attribute it to his love of body building. Others describe it as him only being able to respect people who are bigger and badder than him. I see it as him living vicariously through these wrestlers squashing other people.

Anyway, that segment was quite entertaining for me. I had my pay off, which was to see some little short guy get beaten up. Pretty funny. Too bad Finlay was involved because he's cool. Hopefully, this leads to a good match some place for him.]]> Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:41:23 -0700 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/2/21/a32c2886440c18e56e7ec6844671a9dd.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/2/29/343bd439cafe2497b385c929d28ee039.html
However, his constant injury puts him as a risk for being unreliable. And honestly, he cannot change styles again since he's too small for anything else. More importantly people expect that risk taking style from Rey. So I don't see anything positive to come out of him. Within the WWE, his only option is to remain as someone to put future champions over or move to ECW. But again it's only putting difficult expectations upon him.

Rey still is young and can do something else. But either way, it just doesn't look good for him. He's had his time, albeit a short, memorable one. So now it's time to move on. Sorry Rey, but do yourself, your and your family a favor.]]> Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:59:17 -0700 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/2/29/343bd439cafe2497b385c929d28ee039.html