This morning on Twitter when answering questions from fans on Twitter, Dolph Ziggler had an interesting response to a fan asking what’s the most important thing Ziggler has learned in his time with the WWE:
wrestling is the least important thing about the wrestling business https://t.co/ec4BT1tPTC
— Dolph Ziggler (@HEELZiggler) November 3, 2015
It seems like a lot of wrestling fans are making a big deal about this statement, as it goes against what a lot of people feel what pro wrestling is all about. Ziggler further elaborated his point when someone claimed that’s why he isn’t in the main event, with Ziggler saying that wrestling is more than just moves.
@Heeltown_USA @NewAgeInsiders nah. Don’t be a bad mark. It’s More like, why I’m still here. There’s way more things to know than moves. — Dolph Ziggler (@HEELZiggler) November 3, 2015
While it feels like I’m making light of it all, Strong Bad from Homestar Runner actually made this argument years ago on Strong Bad Email:
Quote: STRONG BAD: {typing} Well Gardenboy, as a crafty ring veteran, I can let you in on a little secret: being an awesome wrestler has nothing to do with awesome wrestling moves! {clears screen} It’s all about awesome costumes, gimmicks, and dinosaur tranquilizer fueled ranting and raving!
The Strong Bad email was a way to move into jokes about pro wrestling gimmicks and silly promos, but Strong Bad was right. Just as Dolph Ziggler is right today.
While it makes me sound old and archaic, today’s pro wrestling product has an extremely heavy slant on athleticism over storytelling when it comes to the wrestling in the ring. Today’s wrestlers in the WWE generally get called the best group of pro wrestlers the company has ever had. What people really mean is that it’s the most athletic. Do the wrestlers today tell better stories in the ring? Nope. Do the wrestlers today sell better? Not a chance. They are capable of doing more, but they are not capable of saying more with their arsenal.
In previous generations, your ability to tell a story always meant more than your ability to do something fancy. Nothing wrong with fancy, either! The grace and execution of Lucha in Mexico and wrestling influenced by Lucha can tell wonderful stories, and is by no means the backhanded comments given to it in the 90s as being just acrobatics. But even Lucha has to tell great stories, as evidenced by the critical acclaim of Lucha Underground.
Storytelling is missing in the current WWE product by a dramatic amount. For all of the complaining of WWE Raw being a boring show due to being three hours, the real issue is that the stories being told do not keep your interest for 180 minutes with commercials. When wrestlers goto the ring for a match on Raw or Smackdown, it’s rare for the match to mean anything other than filler. Even main events tend to use 30 minutes to set up and execute when only the final two minutes were important to the story being told. This is not the only reason why Raw ratings are declining, but likely a large part. WWE is one of the most successful YouTube channels on YouTube. Why? Because fans now know that all you need to watch to keep up with the WWE is the action clips posted on YouTube after an episode.
Dolph Ziggler is a phenomenal athlete in the ring, capable of bumping and executing wrestling moves with extra mustard. Ziggler, however, has a limited resume when it comes to great storytelling. Last year’s performance at Survivor Series was the best he had done in his entire career to sell the match to the audience, and it’s why the fires burned hotter than ever for him to be elevated to the main event. Ziggler didn’t follow it up and instead went back to being a bump machine. Looks like he realizes that more than ever.
I hate to be so harsh on Ziggler, but he’s a great example of a wrestler fans which fans confuse as being a great seller instead of what he is, a great bumper. Fans clamour for Ziggler to be in the main event, even WWE champion, but he’d be even lower on the card during the Attitude Era. Not because of size but because of the totality of his wrestling character. He isn’t very interesting. He doesn’t stand out physically. He reminds people of Shawn Michaels without doing anything to put him on Shawn Michaels level (as opposed to Chris Jericho, who was a great storyteller and created a persona that did not feel like a facsimile) and while he might have matches that entertain you, he rarely has matches you remember in a week. That’s not Ziggler’s fault entirely. That’s the nature of the business today. That’s what is popular. What is popular today also has declining market value.
So what about characters and promos? Jim Ross and Stone Cold Steve Austin stress on their respective podcasts almost every week that the most important part about being a great pro wrestler is connecting with the audience. Great wrestling can connect to the audience, but not in the way great promos can. Not in the way a great character can. Not in the way a great story can. If you can have all of them at the same time, you can be the biggest drawing wrestler in the business, like Stone Cold Steve Austin. If you can only say, “Hey, I’m a great wrestler” and you really mean you’re a great athlete, you’re only going to connect to so many people.
I hope more wrestlers recognize what Dolph Ziggler has, and do something about it before they’ve already staked a career that’s tough to turn around. This is a tough concept for people to accept since our education on the wrestling business has been mixed at best. Too many people read stuff like this and say, “What about Brock Lesnar?” instead of thinking about why Lesnar can connect with an audience in ways Ziggler has been unable to since day one. We need to realize that at the heart of this discussion is why we’re wrestling fans. We’re not wrestling fans because of the moves or the gimmicks. We’re not wrestling fans because of the wrestling or the promos. We’re wrestling fans because of the stories, and the wrestlers who connect us with their stories.
In a way, both sides of right. It’s all about understanding that the physical application of wrestling is the least important part about the wrestling business, but the storytelling of wrestling is the most important part.
