Nostalgia and Wrestling

November 28th, 2011 ~ Permalink ~ 3 notes

• CHIKARA
• WWE
• TNA

It’s okay to be a little nostalgic at times. I believe that, at one point or another, everyone gets nostalgic about their childhood—and it’s good to feel that way every so often. The wrestling industry likes to play on nostalgia every so often, and I believe that’s a good thing, too—so long as fans don’t let their nostalgia taint their view of the current product.

Wikipeda defines “nostalgia” as a term which “describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form”. When people talk about movies and television shows they watched or music they listened to as a child, they are being nostalgic about those experiences—they remember those movies, shows, and songs fondly because said media is tied to past experiences and moments in life. I’m nostalgic over 1980s movies and music because I grew up in the 1980s; even if I didn’t see or hear a lot of the movies and music that came out in that decade until later in life, I still have a connection to that media because it represents my childhood.

The issue with nostalgia, however, is that it can shape the future as well as the past. When people wax nostalgic over old movies or TV shows that they remember from their youth, they tend to gloss over the flaws while gushing over the best parts and how those moments made them feel at the time (or how it makes them feel now). Putting on “nostalgia goggles” can blind people to the flaws of the things they loved in the past…and it can also lead to their perception of current media being warped. “Why don’t they make movies like this any more?” is a common question that people who grew up in the ’80s—like I did—find themselves asking of modern-day cinema. Those who ask questions like that tend to forget that for every good movie that came out in the ’80s, there were plenty more that stunk up box offices—and not all of them managed to become “cult classics”. The same goes for television, music, and any other entertainment medium—including professional wrestling.

I got into wrestling through the Attitude Era, as did a great many other fans. I loved watching Steve Austin delivering Stunners, The Rock laying the smack down, and Kane chokeslamming people left and right. I cheered for Mankind when he won the WWE Championship, and I was heartbroken when he lost his Hell in a Cell “retirement” match against Triple H. I remember that period fondly because it’s what got me into wrestling—but I don’t let that nostalgia blind me to the truths of both that era and the modern era. For every entertaining segment or match, there were five that were completely awful surrounding it. WrestleCrap’s induction list is overrun with the horrible ideas that the Attitude Era brought about—both from WWE and its chief rival, WCW—and having sat through a number of them as they happened live, I know how bad a wrestling product can get. The modern product is no different, and I believe that it’s nostalgia about the Attitude Era and its raunchy content that makes fans of that era decry the modern product as “too PG” or “too watered down”.

It’s the yearning for the past—for something “better” than what’s going on right now—that damages the industry. Fans cling to the idea that WWE will someday start the Attitude Era again, oblivious to the fact that the Attitude Era was a desperate gamble by Vince McMahon to bring in enough viewers to topple WCW and save WWE from bankruptcy. These fans are the ones who decry the “PG” direction of the company, even though the content rating has little to do with the quality of the content itself. (As a comparison: CHIKARA, which is considered one of the best independent promotions in the United States by critics and fans alike, would probably rate “PG” if it had a television show.)

Nostalgia is what’s gotten TNA into a number of problems in its recent history. One-off appearances of “legends” like Jim Neidhart aside, TNA made it a point to hire “legends” and make them the focal point of the company’s programming for years. Kevin Nash, Scott Hall (when he showed up), Sean “X-Pac” Waltman, Sting, Ric Flair, Scott Steiner, Booker T, Mick Foley, Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer, and the incomparable Hulk Hogan were all, at one point or another in the past four years, one of the focal points of the company’s top storylines. The issue with TNA putting these “legends” on top is simple: they’re not spring chickens any more. While some of the wrestlers on that list can still have matches ranging from “watchable” to “good”—as Waltman proved at CHIKARA’s King of Trios 2011 event—the rest have been slowed down by age and injuries. While fans are right to remember these men as great performers, “nostalgia goggles” often blind these fans to the fact that these “legends” aren’t the men they used to be. Instead of using these performers sparingly and letting the next generation of stars climb the ladder, TNA ran off of nostalgia and put the “legends” into a spotlight that they shouldn’t have been put into in the first place.

No other company has been the victim of nostalgia more than “The Little Promotion That Could”, ECW. In its glory days, ECW was an underground force that changed the way wrestling was presented in America. Hardcore wrestling and “shades of grey” characters that weren’t “too good” or “too evil” are two of the things ECW is remembered for introducing to the American wrestling landscape—for good or for ill—and the company still has a loyal following to this day. Other promotions have tried to exploit this nostalgic following for their own gain since ECW’s demise; WWE (which owns the ECW trademarks and video library) held two ECW One Night Stand events before relaunching ECW as its own brand, and TNA gave ECW alumni their own pay-per-view in 2010 (the widely-reviled Hardcore Justice). ECW’s legacy has been tarnished by these nostalgia-tinged cash grabs, and it’s disheartening to see any modern company try to recreate that moment in time by tossing out a few ECW “legends” and counting on the Mutants to watch for one more taste of “the old ECW magic”.

I’m not here to argue that wrestling companies should never use nostalgia to their advantage—but the trick is using it correctly and sparingly. “Legends” should be used to help build up the performers taking their place, not to make each other look good (I’m looking at you, Kevin Nash and Triple H). Wrestling promotions should be trying to get fans interested in the current (and future) product with smart usage of nostalgia; the Piper’s Pit segment on Retro Raw last year with Roddy Piper, John Cena, and Wade Barrett did more to sell that year’s Survivor Series event than any segment that had come before it. Wrestling companies making fans happy with the current product is a far better prospect than making them nostalgic for the days when wrestling was “good”.

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