Your most "Against The Grain" opinion on wrestling

[Tom Guycott]

Originally Posted by BigCrippyZ Agree with both Maluco and Noid here. I'd also say that everybody coming up these days are all pretty much similar in look/build/body/style, with a few exceptions, but nobody really has that larger than life look anymore. I'm not saying that I want to see everyone look like they're on the juice or just left the gym but I think they've gone to the other extreme. Since CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, now almost everyone looks too average and they all seem short as hell, like all the talent they just pulled in off the street or a couch somewhere. Hell, even HBK and Austin were more cut/built than a lot of the guys today. Sami Zayn, Bray, Owens, Balor, Corbin, Enzo, they're all either short or look like they spend most of their time on a couch or both.

But one of the problems was that *everyone* had to have that "larger than life" look- like obscenely tall bodybuilders- , and it made decent sized people like the guys you mentioned seem comparatively smaller and smaller until it became problematic. Now, since you've seen so many big men over time, you're inclined to think "smaller" guys all look like Taz, even if someone is like 6'1".

I said before if WWE had some magic anacroistic ability to pull some of the more notable big men in history into the early 80's (tall like Taker, Nash, Show, Khali, El Gigante, or Nathan Jones, or meaty like Earthquake, Tugboat, Mark Henry...) Andre wouldn't seem nearly as impressive, because he wouldn't be a lone giant in a world of normal sized folk. He still had his intangibles, sure, but his immediate attention demanding presence wouldn't command nearly as much because there would have been others like him. The perception of size has slowly been swayed over the last 40 years to a cartoonish degree, and now it looks "weird" that there is an attempt to correct that with an influx and focus on more normal-heighted people.

Then, you also have to reconcile the fact that even "small" has to sometimes be justified. It is downright insulting to some still that DB or Punk were World Heavyweight Champsions, but will fondly remember Hart or Michaels, who really weren't all that fucking big themselves. Guys like Piper or Jake Roberts never really had a "ripped" physique. Look back at a guy like Harley Race, who is arguably considered both one of the all-time greats AND one of the toughest motherfuckers to walk the planet, and he didn't exactly look like he was chistled out of granite. He looked like a middle manager who had a bad day at work, had a few beers, a couple cigars, then decide he was going down to the arena that night to let off some steam.

We've been told so much, directly or indirectly, that for someone to be World Champion material, they have to look a particular way, that when people come along that might have what it takes except a particular set of genetic, they get arbitrarily rejected. And when I say World Champion material, I don't mean they immediately get the belt and get a Hogan run... I simply mean that when the next "OH MY GOD, SO MANY INJURIES/ABSENCES" tide rolls around, they won't be trying to suddenly elevate people into higher echelons out of necessity that nobody is buying because they didn't take the time before to even TRY to sell them to the fans.