Editorial: Back to the Future

This blog has been up and running for a few days now and it has somewhat veered from its original purpose and has become lost within the unfocused inspirations which led to its birth. This blog was intended to offer insight and perspective and in our endeavors to offer up to the moment industry news and analysis, we have failed to deliver on our main point.

It is the intent of the team here at PWU to be the wrestling industry's minuteman, observing the world in all of its uglyness, in all of its stale non-inspired brilliance as it veers ever closer to the dark side of the sun, waiting in silent anticipation for that one moment that will end it all. We all know that a long time ago (allowing for differences due to the time-space continuum and the dependancy of the Doc's flux capacitor) in a galaxy far far away that Darth Vader is at this very moment setting up Earth for death-star laser beam annihilation. We can only hope that Vince stops getting the shakes and can get the damn Delorian to 90 miles to stop it all before its too late.

What is my point one might wonder. Is this just another hate blog amongst the endless slew of hypocrisy and misled idealism that plagues the internet wrestling community? Where everybody thinks they are an authority and that their opinion is of a higher value than that of their counterparts and peers. Well yes and no. But we shall let that spell itself out over the tenure of this here blog. My point for today is back to the future.

In one day a champion is born, witnessed, killed and celebrated. His celebration is, subsequent to his deed, eternal. Like Jesus, like Caesar and in a much different and perverted way like Paris and Britney, a champion is forever. Our last and recently celebrated champion was Steve Austin. I won't patronize our readers with who Austin was and what he did for this business, but the point that I try to make with Steve Austin is that he was the usher of revolution and of evolution - born of opportunity and seizing the day. With him came "Attitude", and with him came a whole new wrestling world; but a world that has gotten a little too carried away.

Wrestling has always been about entertainment and nurturing the keen tastes of man for theatrics in an age without a mythology, where the gladiators of the squared circle could be born to legend and become the great heroes of our generation and of our time. Nobody understood this better than Vince McMahon. He knew that wrestling was not a sport and it wasn't meant to be a sport. It had a different fate. It was the great story of our time, the next legend; an opportunity for modern man to vicariously live his own emancipation through the fables and mythos of his heroes in the ring. The ultimate Rocky story over and over.

But I fear that perhaps he has gone too far. Perhaps Vince has lost his way. Perhaps somewhere along the way, in trying to find and birth the evolution of this great proverbial hero, he lost sight of the holistic picture. Perhaps his solipsism and persistence with antiquated ideas and concepts, absent of the fundamental elements which underly its being, have cannibalized the industry's value.

Vince is the lead horseman in what has lead to the post-apocalyptic baron wasteland that we call the modern wrestling industry. It all sounds a bit dark and morbid but its rather rosy and peachy. And herein lies my issue - its a little too rosy, a little too peachy, a little too melodramatic and a little over the top immature and pointless. I don't ask that entertainment be forsaken in the name of pure wrestling - that time has come and gone and it has no place in the modern product. But am I the only one that thinks that perhaps it has gone too far? Am I the only one that thinks that perhaps these two worlds cannot meet? Is the brilliance of Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker in the presentation and build-up of their feud and the culmination of that at WrestleMania - in many ways a throwback to traditional wrestling and the telling of a story through in ring action - not a path to this industry's redemption and revival?

The wrestling industry needs to go backwards, and re-identify and recognize itself, in order for it move forwards. We have gone too far in the opposite direction that we can't remember what it is we are supposed to stand for.

I welcome any comments and feedback.

Thank-you.