The landscape of professional wrestling has been changing for a while now. Over decades, we have seen some gradual shifts. The WWE established and, for a long time, maintained their position as the top promotion in the industry. Of course, there were other promotions that were quickly becoming quite prominent and respected – think of NJPW, ROH, and the British indie scene. Most of those promotions were already established and carried their own weight, in terms of their contribution to wrestling history but there was definitely an increase in the amount of attention and appreciation for those promotions. In addition to that, we saw new promotions emerge, which meant something new and exciting. The year of 2020 saw all spheres of the sports industry be forced to be innovative, so as to keep the fans entertained whilst continuing the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Wrestling was no different, and it faced the same challenge but, as a result, we got to witness a different product altogether.
Fast forward to now in 2021 where, for the most part, there’s a sense of a return to normalcy of sort. Right now, there’s so much hype and excitement because, well, we missed being in attendance at live shows! Just being in the immediate surrounding of a wrestling show brings about a feeling of glee and (after the year that we have had) a bit of gratitude – I’m sure other sports’ fans can relate. That excitement does not cancel out the main issues within wrestling though. Just being on Twitter as a wrestling fan allows you to identify a slew of issues that people have with the industry. Some of those issues are more popular, whilst others aren’t. Some are directly to do with one promotion, some are just across the board. Regardless, they tend to be recurring amongst fans from all over. At one point or another, almost every wrestling fan gets to a point where they take a step back from wrestling. This usually is driven by frustration, or even just a need for a break.
A mutual of mine on Twitter, who goes by the name Wrestling Jebus (@WrestlingJebus), posted the above tweet on July 20th this year. Believe me when I say that I have never been so fast to hit the retweet button, and that’s because I related to the tweet on such a deep level. In the second line, he says, “Don’t get me wrong – I love wrestling.” That was felt. For a long time, I was really scared. I feared I was falling out of love with a sport that I grew up with and, by account of many of my friends, had basically become a part of my identity. I hated the feeling of not being excited to watch a wrestling show. It felt like I was losing a part of me, and that’s never a comfortable or enjoyable experience in life, I guess. I also felt alone because, for a long time, I never really quite fit in most spaces. With my fellow wrestling fans though? I belonged. So, because I wasn’t really seeing anyone else pulling away from wrestling like that, I feared I was losing my love – wrestling. Upon reading through the comments section, the quoted retweets, as well as other people’s experiences, I realized that I’m not alone and it’s okay to take a step back. Falling out of love is okay-ish – because you can always take a step back then fall back in love (perhaps that could be applied to real life as well?) At the end of the day, I still love wrestling. I mean, it’s given us iconic moments and just been a source of happiness (and frustration at times, I’ll admit) so that should be good enough, right?
Last weekend was SummerSlam weekend but, perhaps not-so-surprisingly, the pay-per view wasn’t even the thing most of us were looking forward to. For weeks on end, there had been rumblings of a certain Pepsi lover making his return to the squared circle. This was obviously a big deal because, well, do I need any other reason except it being CM Punk? Of course, AEW is on it’s third year so it’s still quite young in the industry but, looking at how much buzz it has generated, it has made quite a name for itself already. So, the prospect of CM Punk making his wrestling return at the promotion was one that many of us were excited about. AEW Rampage produced The First Dance, and it started with a bang! The show opened up with chants of “C-M-Punk!” repeatedly. The Voice of the Voiceless immediately answered and was welcomed back to wrestling with tears and screams of joy. Honestly, it was one of wrestling’s worst kept secrets ever but it was amazing. Was I in my room at 4am on a Saturday morning with tears streaming down my face because of a wrestler? Yes. Yes, I was. It was amazing. I felt so happy and so grateful because this was the moment I had been waiting for – I was falling back in love with wrestling! I felt this guy on a personal level:
I don’t know how or why, but it seems that Punk’s return is the start of great things in the world of professional wrestling. Things have certainly picked up and, now more than ever, we have a plethora of wrestling content choices available to us. Now, some people might look to compare, which is honestly natural, but we need to keep in mind the bigger picture here: We, as wrestling fans, are winning – big time! The amount of wrestling available for one’s enjoyment is insane, and if you do not like certain content, you can now always have some sort of alternative. Obviously, there continues to be issues and certain aspects we wish would/could change but now, for the first time in a long while, it feels so good to be a wrestling fan. I love wrestling, and the changes that are happening right now are very exciting. More and more promotions are proving their worth and are just striving to put on the best shows for us. It’s just an amazing time to be a wrestling fan, whether you’re loyal to one promotion or a fan that likes all programming. Right now is the best time to fall back in love with pro wrestling.
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