{"id":68231,"date":"2020-05-11T15:00:49","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T19:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=68231"},"modified":"2020-05-11T15:00:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T19:00:49","slug":"lets-talk-about-cinematic-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/05\/11\/lets-talk-about-cinematic-wrestling\/","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s Talk About Cinematic Wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This is an opinionated piece about cinematic wrestling, all views are that of the author and not Last Word On Pro Wrestling<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Cinematic wrestling is the new craze in wrestling.\u00a0 Following WWE&#8217;s controversial Boneyard and Firefly Funhouse matches we have seen\u00a0<strong>IMPACT! Wrestling\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<strong>All Elite Wrestling\u00a0<\/strong>dabble in the more cinematic style of wrestling.\u00a0 Some people love it and others like me do not.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s talk a little bit about cinematic wrestling and where I stand on it.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Emphasizes The Weaknesses Of Wrestling<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Professional wrestling is inherently a very strange medium of entertainment.\u00a0 Grudges are settled in a match where you pin your opponent for three seconds even if said opponent attempts to murder you at some point.\u00a0 People will run in on a match and force a DQ 30 minutes into a match rather than y&#8217;know at the start(!) and people cut promos on one another in the same ring even if they supposedly hate one another.\u00a0 It&#8217;s all pretty ridiculous but it works, the energy and investment of the fans, the shocked faces, the loud cheers or boos, it all comes together to make something totally unbelievable work.\u00a0 These cinematic matches only serve to emphasize the worst aspects of wrestling, any actual wrestling looks like a poorly done fight scene from an action movie.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano: WWE NXT, April 8, 2020\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P1UzaBYhyp8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>One needs only look at the end of the\u00a0<strong>Johnny Gargano\u00a0<\/strong>vs\u00a0<strong>Tomaso Ciampa <\/strong>match to see how poor this can be.\u00a0 The over the top monologue from\u00a0<strong>Candice LaRae<\/strong>, the swerve heel turn, Ciampa saying &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, it&#8217;s over&#8221; it all looked like something out of a poorly acted soap opera, it bordered on unwatchable at times.\u00a0 In a normal capacity, this turn could&#8217;ve been a well-executed and shocking turn, instead it served to sour the ending of many people&#8217;s favorite NXT feud of all time.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Only Works In Certain Settings<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_35807\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35807\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-35807 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/Lucha-Underground-logo-e1589221406279.jpg\" alt=\"Cinematic Wrestling\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-35807\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Lucha Underground, El Rey Network<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Lucha Underground built their entire brand around a very cinematic presentation with over the top characters and cinematic angles aplenty, it was shot like a TV drama show built around an underground fighting rig.\u00a0 The Final Deletion to some extent also worked because Hardy managed to build up a lore throughout the match and it was established that the match was taking place in a very different setting to the rest of IMPACT!.\u00a0 When it comes to Lucha Underground they could get away with anything their universal kayfabe was that they existed in a fantasy land with <strong>Dario Cueto\u00a0<\/strong>stirring the pot between dragons, monsters, hunters, time travelers and everything in between.<\/p>\n<p>In WWE we&#8217;re meant to believe that the competitors are human, that they feel pain like we would, that they can get injured like we do.\u00a0 For them to have\u00a0<strong>The Fiend\u00a0<\/strong>who can supposedly get inside\u00a0<strong>John Cena&#8217;s\u00a0<\/strong>psyche and take him on a mental trip through his insecurities and break him from the inside on the same show as\u00a0<strong>The Miz\u00a0<\/strong>is just ridiculous.\u00a0 If The Fiend can get inside his opponent&#8217;s minds why does he ever lose? why would he even lift a finger?\u00a0 Some people can suspend their disbelief and honestly more power to them I hope they enjoy what they&#8217;re seeing but to me this stretches things too far.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>You Can&#8217;t Have Both<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>My main takeaway is that you either have to embrace the weirdness of the cinematic match or don&#8217;t do it at all.\u00a0 Take\u00a0<em>Money In The Bank\u00a0<\/em>for example, we went from\u00a0<strong>Bayley\u00a0<\/strong>working over\u00a0<strong>Tamina&#8217;s\u00a0<\/strong>knee which she sold like a regular person, to\u00a0<strong>King Corbin\u00a0<\/strong>THROWING PEOPLE OFF THE ROOF OF A BUILDING!!\u00a0 Are we just supposed to believe that\u00a0<strong>Rey Mysterio\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<strong>Aleister Black\u00a0<\/strong>are dead? and if they ARE supposed to be dead why isn&#8217;t anyone doing anything about it? How are kids supposed to react to seeing their heroes murdered like this? If it turns out that Black and Mysterio survived, which it likely will, then is that not just telling your audience that what you do is fake?<\/p>\n<p>Honestly I have no issue with them killing people or throwing them off roofs but you can&#8217;t have that and someone selling their knee like death on the same show.\u00a0 You can either go all-in on the cinematics and craziness or you stay away from it altogether.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Is It Already Overdone\/ How Will Crowds Respond<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>This is a twofer but both are valid questions.\u00a0 Cinematic wrestling is fine for a show that&#8217;s televised only and doesn&#8217;t have any fans in attendance, once fans start being allowed back in venues will they be happy to pay a ticket to see half of a show live and watch the rest on a screen? That crowd at the Manhattan Centre for RAW 25 can probably answer that one for you<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Angry Crowd at Manhattan Center Raw 25\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hvgX_fDWrIw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the end of the day if these matches are a rarity then most of us can stomach them.\u00a0 If AEW does the one crazy street fight and doesn&#8217;t touch this style again then their attempt will be looked back on fondly.\u00a0 The issue is with WWE\/NXT where we are seeing more and more of these cinematic matches and they&#8217;re generating less buzz as time goes on.\u00a0 People will always like what&#8217;s new and what&#8217;s different, heck I&#8217;ve watched and enjoyed a match where a woman wrestled a giant inflatable panda, but if everything is wacky and different then nothing is different and in the end, it will all just blend together just ook at the original ECW for example, there&#8217;s only so many balcony dives you can do before the audience is desensitized to them and you have to get more and more creative\/dangerous.\u00a0 To me that&#8217;s the real issue here, if WWE did the Boneyard match and Funhouse match and left it there it&#8217;d fine but they seem to believe there&#8217;s a hunger out there for this content and look set to continue producing it with the results being less positive with each passing iteration.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.\u00a0<\/em>WWE fan? You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is an opinionated piece about cinematic wrestling, all views are that of the author and not Last Word On Pro Wrestling Cinematic wrestling is the new craze in wrestling.\u00a0 Following WWE&#8217;s controversial Boneyard and Firefly Funhouse matches we have seen\u00a0IMPACT! Wrestling\u00a0and\u00a0All Elite Wrestling\u00a0dabble in the more cinematic style of wrestling.\u00a0 Some people love it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2013,"featured_media":66281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4677,2,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aew","category-featured","category-north-america","category-wwe-universe"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}