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For anyone who loves professional wrestling, being a fan requires putting up with a lot of things that can make your brain implode. Whether it’s an absurd spot that brings time to a standstill, a sequence where communication breaks down, a cartoonish storyline that crosses the line into self-parody, or simply talent on screen you don't enjoy, these frustrations are inherent to the business. Yet, there are concrete steps that promoters and talent can take today to improve the presentation of professional wrestling and restore its physical credibility and narrative integrity, especially as it appears everyone is trapped under the weight and responsibility of producing a ludicrious amount of content per week.
Think about this the next time you watch weekly pro wrestling TV: "Does Anybody Really Try to Win a Match Anymore?"
The single biggest flaw in modern professional wrestling to me, today, is the complete absence of in-ring urgency for the majority of the presentation. When I began watching wrestling in the 1980s, the core magic rested on a fundamental premise: two competitors were actively trying to win an athletic contest. When wrestlers tied up in a collar-and-elbow tie-up, they fought to outmuscle each other. When a pinfall was attempted, no matter how early in the bout, it carried intent, leverage, and aggression. Near falls were treated like, "Oh crap, he nearly got him!" When a submission hold was applied, it was cranked with every ounce of strength the wrestler possessed. Bret Hart never locked in a Sharpshooter in a lazy way. The figure four leglock was treated as instant pain for the person locked within it. Back when heels worked over babyfaces, they did it in an aggressive, visceral mannerm whether punching, kicking, biting, or choking. It was never meant to give you anything other than the illusion that this was a real fight. That forced the babyfaces to truly dig in to overcome the villains.
There are too many matches today that exist purely to be performative, where a rush of things happening in the ring happen and then we move on to the next match. That isn't to say the athleticism isn't impressive, but the performers are not attempting to actually defeat each other within the context of the show, so the audience waits and reacts to the big spots or the run-in, treating what should be perceived as the meat and potatoes of the show as the parsley on the plate.
This isn't news to anyone, but ninety-nine percent of the adult audience knows pro wrestling is a scripted work, but they do not want to be reminded of it. Just like going to a movie where you accept the internal logic of superheroes against supervillains once the lights dim in the theater and the Marvel logo appears, wrestling fans want to immerse themselves in the internal logic of the show once the first bell rings and that's something that needs to be worked on, because everything seems so haphazard in presentation up and down the board.
Something as simple as punches need to mean something again. The punch was literally the hallmark for Hulk Hogan and Jerry Lawler in the height of their fame. Instead today, so many matches have that back-and-forth "yay/boo" strike exchange that exists solely to elicit a canned audience response rather than reflecting the logic of a real fight. If punching someone back-and-forth isn't working, a believable fighter would try something else, right? One of the reasons current day WWE's version of AAA works is that when punches are thrown, in most instances, they are meaningful and they are presented like they are weapons being used in battle. It takes time to get those little things back over and I understand in the crunch of production, time is a commodity that isn't offered when your back is against the wall, but at some point, the scales needs to be adjusted or else pro wrestling will one day evolve into looking like a knockoff painting instead of a Rembrandt.
Modern wrestling features higher-impact athleticism than at any point in history, yet individual moves mean less than ever because they are so mundane and overused. On standard weekly television, suicide dives and apron bumps should be severely restricted or outright banned on the undercard. When high-flying maneuvers are spammed in opening matches, it strips the main event of any dramatic payoff. The same can be said for near falls. I've been to tons of live shows where the opening match had 15-18 near-falls and then you have to wonder, what is left for the rest of the show to do?
In many cases, the importance of working holds has been downgraded into passive "rest holds." There is a vast difference between grabbing a casual front facelock to catch one’s breath and applying a snug side chinlock that looks like active strangulation - and the audience sees through the difference. Talent who understand how to work holds can build a story based around the physicality in the ring without needing to rely on massive high spots just to pop the crowd. Look at Roddy Piper’s work in the 1980s. Piper never left his feet for a dive or a springboard, yet he pulled audiences into his matches using punches, kicks, eye pokes, and sheer psychology. His match against Bret Hart at WrestleMania VIII remains a masterclass in how physicality and psychology can outshine pure theatrics, because the physicality and the psychology WERE the theatrics. With the exception of a GUNTHER, how many people can lock on a sleeper and the audience believes it could be the finish in 2026?
In my mind, every compelling character in professional wrestling should stem from one of three core motivations:
A) I want to win the match, because I get paid and become successful.
B) I want to become/remain the champion, proving I am the best.
C) I want to get revenge for the crime committed against me. (or if they are a heel, I want to be a bastard and commit those crimes.)
If the characters are not pursuing A, B, or C, they are floating aimlessly in the alphabet soup of professional wrestling, giving the audience zero reason to care about them long-term, which is wasted time in the ring for the talents and more importantly, the audience. If they aren't trying to accomplish these things, why do they even care to enter the ring to begin with? Why do we care they are there in the ring?
Television time should never be used merely to fill segments and kill time, because what is really happening instead is it's killing fan interest in spending their time watching wrestling. Most fans don't want needless moves and matches, they want character continuity. Talents should be clearly defined as heroes or villains and their appearances should matter. Talent should never disappear off television without an explanation. Unexplained absences, like Rusev in WWE or Xia Li in TNA disappearing for months without a word, that just tells the audience that these characters don't actually matter, almost as much as those characters losing every week does. Every single segment and match from bell to bell should be designed so that the audience believes in the stakes and cares about what happens next week, not just tonight.
If someone is on the undercard, they should at least be believable enough that we can invest in the idea that perhaps one day they will make their way upwards. Other than Chad Gable, who has broken through the glass ceilings that previous booking had created for them in recent years? Plus, remember. Gable needed an unfortunate real life injury and someone else taking over as El Grande Americano to set the stage for that! We should have at least plausible reasons to believe someone who's fighting on the undercard is a formidable fighter, or else why would they be there in the first place?
While WWE specifically has perfected theatrical action-adventure for their main roster, the presentation beneath the main event frequently suffers from scripted jargon and bad acting that feels like a low-budget 1980s camcorder f. movie. The audience knows when a segment is just "eh", then so should the people producing it, especially in pre-tapes. If something is live in the moment, there's always a chance it won't work as conceptualized, but we've all seen taped segments that go nowhere, show silly comedy or stilted acting and it's just a wasted moment for all involved - and what's the point of that?
Pro wrestling benefits immensely when it embraces the feel of a legitimate athletic broadcast. Announcers should treat babyfaces and heels as legitimate competitors. When a wrestler enters the ring for a heated rivalry, they shouldn't be smiling, dancing, or posing for their music. They should have blood in their eyes, biting down on their teeth, ready to right a wrong. Opponents should have believable ring posture. They should eye each other with intensity before the bell rings, preparing for battle rather than casually chatting with the referee or goofing off waiting for the bell to ring. If it's squash match, sure, the star knows it's an easy night, but certainly there's 100,000 indy shows where talents are acting as if they are in a school play about to go out on stage, not entering what is supposed to be a combat sport. There is always room for levity, but we should believe in the sanctity of what is happening inside the ring - it should be a sacred place where titans clash.
Studying the footage of legends like Johnny Valentine or Billy Robinson reveals a template where physical credibility was never questioned and there are lots of others who brought that sort of credibility. I'm not arguing everyone Xerox Terry and Dory Funk Jr, or anyone else, but there are aspects of what worked then that can be resurrected and used by others, with their own spin, to make fans believe in the moment and enjoy themselves. While colorful, larger-than-life acts like Danhausen certainly have a place as special attractions or characters, the foundation of a pro wrestling roster should, in theory, consist of believable fighters who treat the ring like a high-stakes chess match, because when they do, it makes the uniqueness of a Danhausen even more vibrant and important, because it's so different from the norm.
Talents are great at playing out to the audience, but they also need to use the physical act of what they are doing - wrestling - the name on the marquee for every promotion, to pull the audience in. When fans truly believe in the fight taking place inside the ring, everything else in professional wrestling falls into place - ticket sales, pay-per-views, streaming, merchandise, etc. When fans believe, they fall in love. When they fall in love, they support.
We live in a world today where everything is sadly melted down into quick TikTok videos or YouTube highlights, but perhaps if pro wrestling reintegrates what made it so vibrant and unique to begin with - the traditional physicality, presentation and realism - some of that will break through the white noise. There is more content than ever, almost to the point where if you truly wanted to watch it all, you'd need to give up a good part of your life - but what is needed more than ever is not just pro wrestling programming, but content that when it's boiled down to its base essence - what is taking place inside the squared circle - is content that can hold up to scrutiny of great athletics, believable characters and worthwhile drama.
Nothing can ever be perfect, not even pro wrestling, but that doesn't mean that everyone involved can't strive for improvements in pursuit of that impossible.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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