Where has the magic gone?

I grew up at the perfect time to be a wrestling fan. Much to my fathers chagrin I would spend my Saturday mornings faithfully glued to the TV, watching musclebound men in tiny speedos grapple and pin one another. But it wasn't all about the actual fighting, and to my fathers relief, not about the near naked musclemen (though their physiques played an important role). The story lines, gimmicks, and persona's were aimed directly at a young child (at ME). What you were watching was a close as you were going to get to real life superheros and villains. Some even had supposed super powers, the Undertaker was an undead monster, Papa Shango was a witch doctor, Hulk Hogan had super strength and The Ultimate Warrior was a friggin maniac.

For a boy who loved comic books, and action figures, this was literally the greatest thing ever. The story lines were so fantastical, and the characters so epic, and yet real, that it made for the very best hour of television. There was something special during this time that has been completely lost today.

"special"

One could say that wrestling actually grew up along with my generation. So instead of catering to a child demographic, professional wrestling now caters to legions of grown children, Men (and women) who still buy into this shit, and have forced wrestling to evolve into the cluster fuck that it is today. Instead of having cool inventive gimmicks and persona's, aimed at children, wrestlers today have lame realistic gimmicks seemingly aimed at grown men (and women). Somewhere around the late 90's, wrestleing changed from naive entertainment aimed at a young audience, to a redneck soap opera, with the kind of imaginative characters who wouldn't look out of place, head down at a bar, complaining about their job. Characters ranging from Biker, to Rapper, to uh.. er.. tough dude.

pretty tough

That's not to say that these types of characters didn't exist before, Razor Ramone was by far my favorite wrestler, and he more or less played a tough dude. However his character was unique at the time, still had style and fit in perfectly, maybe it was simply because he was the only "anti hero" at the time? He was also funny, and entertaining, and didn't take himself too seriously, I eman looking back, his character was a bit ridiculious, but such were the times. Today the roster is flooded with characters who are more or less simply tough dudes, and they all have some very serious personal issues. I'm not talking being a womanizing machizmo eater, or a walking dead, but fabricated personal lives which reflect the problems of their adult viewrs. A child certainly doesn't get into a storyline focased on cheating wives and sexually transmitted diseases the way they would say, pumping up a hulk out comeback, with their collective cheers.

the best the best

I know this was all fostered in during the "attitude era", when the WWE realized it could make oodles of money by playing to the secret desires of its audience ie: having a redneck tell off his boss night after night. But this shtick is more worn out then a hookers knees, and it all but destroyed the WWE of my day. It traded in hero's for anti heroes, clever one liners for cursing, and a naive homo eroticism that we all could laugh at, for ball flexing testosterone. Like most things, wrestling has been ruined by greed, broadening its audience while all but forgetting the fun in what it used to be.