Things I Want Eliminated From Wrestling

So it’s Elimination Chamber season (is that a thing?) and that means the focus is on the concept of surviving on the way to the biggest show of the year. With that in mind, and the fact that I’m trying to come up with something to talk about here, we’re going to look at some things I want to eliminate from the wrestling world. 

In other words, this is going to be a list of things that get on my nerves in wrestling. They’ll be listed in random order, save for my absolute least favorite thing in all of wrestling at the end. Let’s get to it.

Focus On Guest Wrestlers

Let’s get the important part of this out of the way to start: having international stars show up every so often is fun. It brings in a different style and fresh names who can do some unique things. That’s all well and good. The problem comes when these guest stars are around so often that they basically become a focal point of the show. Let’s take a quick look at how this can be done right or wrong.

On the good side, you have someone like say Mr. Iguana in WWE. He’s fun, he’s different, he shows up every so often for a random tag match or a spot in the Royal Rumble and then leaves without making any kind of a big impact. That’s perfectly fine and doesn’t really disturb anything whatsoever. Oh and he probably sells a bunch of merch because he’s someone designed for kids, which is always going to work.

On the other hand, you have stuff like New Japan and CMLL and whomever else AEW brings in for multiple guest appearances. Some of these things are perfectly fine (Tomohiro Ishii as part of the Conglomeration for instance), but then you have periods where they’re around every single week and take up quite a bit of time. In short, I’m watching AEW to watch AEW, not to see who they bring in from outside. If I wanted to watch New Japan or CMLL, I’d watch New Japan or CMLL. Use these guest stars either sparingly or in the right spots and it can work, as both companies have shown they know how to do.

Violent/Chaotic Matches Being Overdone

This comes in a variety of forms, as it might be called a Street Fight, a No DQ match, a Texas Tornado match, Falls Count Anywhere or whatever else. What matters is that we’re going to have a bunch of weapons, all kinds of violence and little in the way of wrestling, as it’s more about getting to whatever the next pre-planned spot is going to be. This is another case of too much in wrestling and it’s around all the time these days.

Much like the previous entry, there is a place for this kind of thing in wrestling. Having a wild, violent brawl can often be a great way to wrap up a feud. The problem is when it happens after about two weeks and maybe one or two matches. There’s no build towards or anticipation about the match and it’s more about just doing something because that feels like the next logical step.

It also doesn’t help that you get the same stuff in almost every match. You know you’re going to see a trashcan, kendo sticks and, upon audience request, a table (plus whatever is in a bag that is poured out). While there is a point to this stuff, it has happened so often these days that it feels almost like a cliché, and that takes away the whole meaning of this kind of match. Save it for special occasions and let the fans get used to it being a treat again for a change.

Open Challenges

This is a concept that has been around for a long time and pops up every so often. Now it is becoming a regular thing, especially for the United States Title on SmackDown, where Ilja Dragunov, Carmelo Hayes and Sami Zayn have all done them on a regular basis. Almost every week, someone gets a US Title shot, seemingly at random. This is the majority of the title’s activities at the moment and that needs to change.

The problem with open challenges is that it basically boils things down to pulling names out of a hat. It’s a fun idea every so often, but when you make it a regular thing, all of the interest is lost. The point of wrestling is to build up a match over time as you want to see two wrestlers face off. Instead, the idea of open challenges gets rid of the build and instead just banks on the idea of “oh, that should be fun”. This can happen on occasion, but that only gets you so far.

This is a concept that has gone throughout the wrestling world, especially in WWE and AEW, and it lost its charm a good while ago. What is the point of watching week after week if there is no story to follow? Instead it’s just “you get a title match” over and over. What’s the point in non-title matches if someone can just be the first to sign a paper (or however you get one of these things) and get a chance to be a champion on little more than a whim? Cut these things out already, or better yet, close the challenges.

Shows Going So Long

Here we have something that pretty much speaks for itself. There is a lot of wrestling to be seen today and that means it can be difficult to keep track of everything. While some of it can be a lot better than others, there will always be shows that overstay their welcome. That can make any good show take too much time and that has become quite the issue these days.

This is one of those situations that is a problem for both major promotions at the moment, along with places like Ring Of Honor. SmackDown goes on for three hours every week and AEW’s pay per views, counting the pre-shows (which do count), can often approach six hours. It isn’t even that the shows are bad, as they often aren’t, but more that they go on so long that the positives start to be diluted. At some point you just want to watch something else and wrestling certainly isn’t immune from the situation.

I get that the weekly TV shows have so much time to fill and are well paid for what they put on, but it would be nice to find a way to stretch it out a bit. Three hours a week is too long for any weekly show and that was shown during the long stretch of Monday Night Raw. At the same time, pay per views going so long isn’t much better, as it would be simple to just chop some time off here and there. For now though, this is what we’re getting and that doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon.

There Are Too Many Championships

When I was growing up, the WWF had three major championships: the WWF Title, the Tag Team Titles and the Intercontinental Title. That’s it. Four champions over three championships (and of course the minor titles that popped up here and there). Then the roster began to grow and as a result, some more titles were added. That’s fine, as it almost had to happen at some point. Unfortunately, and as usual, it went WAY too far.

Flash forward to today. There are now ten titles on the main WWE roster, seven more in NXT, two in Evolve, and the Women’s Tag Team Titles floating around on all shows. Then you have AEW, which has ten titles on its own, plus whatever other titles they bring in from time to time. There are so many titles that a lot of people hold multiple championships. In AEW’s history (less than seven years), there have been six instances of someone holding three or more titles at once (Kenny Omega, Mercedes Mone, Kazuchika Okada, Dustin Rhodes, Eddie Kingston, FTR) and several more instances of someone being a double champion.

It’s just too much. AEW has more midcard titles than it knows what to do with, WWE has two Tag Team Titles which are barely used and Ring Of Honor is a mess in and of itself. It feels like the solution to a problem is just to throw another belt at it, which doesn’t work if the titles don’t matter. This is a case of less being more and for some reason, modern wrestling does not understand that whatsoever.

Money In The Bank & Other Instant Title Matches

Let me make this clear: I hate these things. I really hate these things. If I had the chance, I would rip them to pieces, burn them to ashes, bury them deep under the ground and then salt the earth so that there could be no chance of them ever returning to darken my life again. This is the dumbest, most annoying, irritating concept in wrestling and I absolutely dread the time of year when they come back around.

The idea of a title match is that a challenger is built up to come after a champion and having a showdown between the two of them. That has been the case for... oh about ever in wrestling and the whole thing worked fine. Then someone decided “hey, what if we just DIDN’T do that” and Money In The Bank became a thing. It has worked well a few times, but those days are long gone.

Now you have what amounts to a wrestling cheat code. Need to get a wrestler to the title picture but don’t want to actually put in the time? Just have them win a ladder match (another concept that needs to go away for a LONG time) and then you can skip everything else to get them where you want to go. So what if the fans don’t buy it because the wrestler hasn’t earned there way into that spot? They won a ladder match, often months ago, and that’s good enough! It’s stupid, it’s overdone, it’s not unique anymore and almost every company has its version. Do us a favor and eliminate these things for good.

Wrestling is far from perfect but the good outweighs the bad far more than often. It can be incredibly annoying to see what happens when some of those bad ideas get too much of a focus and these are the ones that drive me the craziest. While they aren’t likely going away anytime soon, it would be nice to see some of them toned back a bit. Except for instant title shots. They need to be completely eliminated for the good of all mankind.