JUST AN AVERAGE FAN'S POINT OF VIEW: The Product

I guess I will watch pro wrestling now.....at least, World Wrestling Entertainment...and more than I have been watching.

I reintroduced myself the product a few weeks ago and it wasn't horrible.    It's not as good as I once remembered it, but I didn't really expect it to be.

Thing is, in the few weeks I have tuned in to Netflix for RAW, I don't recall seeing any good matches.  There were personalities or "superstars" who stood out, however, no matches.  Rhea Ripley lost her match and her title to Iyo Sky.  The match was ultimately nothing but to set up a triple threat match between the two and Bianca Bel Air, whose presence at that match helped Ripley lose.

There were a few matches involving Bron Brekker, the very impressive son of former pro wrestler Rick Steiner and the Judgement Day, but the matches themselves were  pretty much just okay events to showcase Brekker.

Match-wise, nothing else stood out.  There were some very good promos though.   CM Punk, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes and John Cena kept you engaged in their matches and feuds.  Even the Ripley-Sky-Bel Air encounter was good.  But the program is still about wrestling. 

Bret Hart recently made a statement regarding the state of today's pro wrestling and basically said that a lot of the talent today are people acting like wrestlers.  He mentioned that so much emphasis is on skits and promos.  Later reports stated that he was referring to AEW Wrestling, but I think the statement is true, even for the WWE.    It's no secret today that the matches are booked.  They always have been.  However, years ago, a significant effort was made to let a good story be told inside the ring.  Undertaker matches, Bret Hart matches, Ric Flair matches, Kurt Angle, Steve Austin, etc., etc., were thorough and didn't look like someone just running through the motions.  During the wrestling wars in the 1990s, I could always get a great cruiser-weight match involving Rey Mysterio, Dean Malenko or Chris Benoit.  Or I could tune into ECW and see some excellent matches...and some violence.  Not today.

I will still watch RAW...or parts of it , from time to time.  Otherwise, I would rather tune into Jim Cornette's podcast on Youtube and get the dirt there.