Where would a new fan best start with wrestling? The answer surprised even me | Opinion
I was recently posed with the eternal question from a new wrestling fan: Where do I start? With AEW, WWE, AAA, TNA and NXT all having readily accessible shows on streaming and TV, it’s actually kind of a difficult choice.
What’s great about wrestling is there is pretty much a new entry point every week. If done right, new viewers can be caught up to speed on the immediate stories and plot lines right in the shows themselves via commentary and recap packages. That doesn’t however always translate to the best experience for a potential new fan who is just getting into wrestling.
I thought long and hard about what I would show someone to get them into the wild ride we call professional wrestling. It’s a much more nuanced decision than “what match would I show them” or “what promo would do it.” After I’d considered the variables, I was quite surprised with where I landed.
WWE is the best known choice, but…
The obvious instinct would be to show a newcomer some WWE. It’s the standard bearer and the company most people think of when they think of wrestling with big names that are well known in pop culture circles. The problem is that WWE’s programming has been so flat lately and everything moves so slowly that I just don’t think someone new to wrestling would have a good experience with it.
NXT unfortunately is currently a bad TV show. Segments bleed into other segments, commentary barely talks about the matches, and we spend more time in Robert Stone’s office than we do in the ring. It’s a far cry from the classic Black & Gold days. It oddly seems both overbooked and not well thought out at the same time. The talent is good and the matches can be fun (Tony D’Angelo vs. Naraku at Great American Bash) was great, but it’s almost impossible to know what’s going on, and I say that knowing what’s going on.
The best possibility of the WWE “brands” for a newcomer would be AAA as it’s a fast-paced, fun and exciting show. The mask vs. mask match is still a frontrunner for Match of the Year in my mind, but the show itself is a lot to take in for new viewers. I think they would be amazed at what they saw, but wouldn’t really know what’s going on without taking in a few episodes. The shorter length works in its favor, but I think that I would be more likely to show them select matches from AAA as opposed to full shows.
AEW is where the best wrestle…a lot
Showing someone interested in wrestling an episode of Dynamite or Collision might stir up some interest, but I think that AEW has two factors that make it less accessible to a new fan.
The first issue is that AEW programming tends to be very “inside baseball.” There are so many callbacks, nods and references that us veterans of the Wrestling Wars appreciate, but a new person probably wouldn’t get. Guys like Chris Jericho or even MJF might bring some people to the table, but even though they tore the house down at Forbidden Door, I doubt a new wrestling fan would be as invested in a Will Osprey or Swerve Strickland.
The other aspect is that AEW programming is so jam packed with matches back-to-back-to-back that even though they are usually really good matches, I think that someone not used to that might just gloss over and lose interest. It’s kind of like trying to watch the Lord of The Rings movies all in a row. By the start of LOTR: The Return of the King, you’re so exhausted as a viewer that you don’t really care who makes it to Mount Doom.
The AEW-run Ring of Honor has all these issues in spades. Even though it’s got some fantastic talent putting on great matches week after week, there’s no hook for a person who’s just coming into it. It lacks consistency in its programming and I think that would turn people off.
Maybe they need to go where the action is Total and Non-Stop…
In thinking about all this, even I was surprised to find myself in the Impact Zone. But bear with me here because there’s some reasoning behind what I’m going to say.
I think TNA would be my choice.
TNA has been through its ups and downs; there’s no denying that. But when I watch the shows today, even though there is a lot of goofy stuff and cliched segments, TNA has all the elements of what people on the outside know about wrestling. That is to say, it’s the closest thing to what a lapsed or new fan might be expecting from a wrestling program.
In TNA, the champions actually work. In the last few months, Mike Santana carried the World title and did so by actually being on the show and actually wrestling. He defended the belt against Eric Young and participated intTag matches. World champions in WWE or AEW are rarely doing anything outside of talking on a week-to-week basis.
There is also a good mix of new and veteran talent in TNA. While wrestlers like Xia Brookside or Leon Slater might not be household yet, names like The Hardys, Santino Marella and Dolph Ziggler (even though he goes by Nic Nemeth) are recognizable to people who have ducked in and out of wrestling over the years.
Finally, TNA puts everything on front street on its weekly shows. Sure, they build to PPV events, but they also put things like a Wicked Garden match and the Leon Slater vs. Cedric Alexander X-Division title match on their weekly TV. I feel like a new wrestling fan would fall in love with the X-Division and the things that we wrestling fans find cliched would be endearing and familiar to a new viewer.
While TNA shows are far from perfect, I think they would feel like wrestling to someone watching for the first time, and pretty decent wrestling at that.
Weird, right?
Jeff Moss is a writer, creator and developer in animation, comics and pretty much anything else he can get his mitts on. Pro Wrestling has always been his passion for reasons even he doesn't understand.