Here's the PROBLEM With Wrestling Today... Al Snow Shoots on What's WRONG With Today's Wrestlers
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- Here's the Problem With Wrestling Today... Al Snow Shoots on What's WRONG With Today's Wrestlers
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Al sounds like the voice they use to mask a person's voice in a crime documentary
I was wondering what's up with that.
Lol. Sure is!
@@chrismorgan7494 Steroids
@@chrismorgan7494 he had hiccups that wouldn't go away for 3 weeks and it damaged his vocal chords
@@zachary_attackeryshit… I was wondering that. That sounds like total hell.
Major problem. Finishers no longer mean anything. If someone can eat your finisher "ten" times a match, it loses all status as a special move.
Also when the first match involves chairs, broken announce tables and a red bump, the rest of the matches have to try to overcome all that to make them interesting. It doesn’t always work.
And yes, I hate when finishers are constantly ignored.
well said. I remember when Macho Man took multiple DDT's from Jake and you literally thought he might have killed him. Now they take 5 finishers and lose when someone rolls them over.
Not seen AJPW in the 90s
@@lloydhinshelwood That's slightly different because King's Road (or whatever it's called, I forget) style was about wrestlers going beyond their capacity and fighting basically with 1HP left and having to be nearly carried out afterwards, and the wrestlers portrayed it as such. Nowadays no one sells anything anymore, on top of finishers losing their meaning if everyone can kick out after being hit with them repeatedly.
Agreed on this. The max times someone should be able to kick out of another persons finisher is two, and even then, it should be something that only happens once every few years or so.
In the past, being a professional wrestler was the end goal, now it is seen as a stepping stone to something else.
Jesse Ventura said “you get into the business to get out” but it seems people today are parodies of wrestlers
It's getting that way in legit sports too. Guys use their place on the team to build a brand through social media, with the team being secondary. The most glaring case is Antonio Brown live streaming on Facebook while the coach was addressing the team.
If you wrestler for ever you're gonna be crippled
This. Very few guys actually like wrestling or like being a wrestler. Theyre just in it for fame and something else.
Al very eloquently defined what a "worker" is and how frequently the term is misused these days.
True. So much terminology recognized as "wrestling terminology" is just carny speak that was about putting on a show of some sort, yes, but with the intention of outright scamming people or otherwise deceiving them for a profit.
Cornette will fall asleep listening to this clip on repeat and saying to himself “FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT BETTER THAN ME!”
The voice of reason and one hell of an interview. All sectors of business need a guy like Al Snow.
Does Al Snow have like a weekly podcast or something? He is able to break things down like no other wrestler I've ever seen. I could listen to him talk all day.
I really like Al but he needs a lozenge or something. Then I could listen for hours.
yes on Vince Russos one they break dowb this type of stuff every week
yeah on Vince Russo's network but you have to pay for it
He's on Russo's channel every week. They only show short clips on YT though.
@zachary_attackery4939 it's subscription only?
a lot of the guys i see today look and act like Cirque du Soleil acrobats not wrestlers. You have some guys who definitely hit the gym (and other things not exactly legal, but we know that's the deal) and know how to do a headlock but couldn't carry Rick Steamboats jock strap when it came to real wrestling talent. Watching them I don't see the wrestling moves of the 70s and early 80s. I remember seeing guys like Dean Malenko and Curt Hennig who were tremendous in-ring talents. Hogan always gets a bad rap, people (myself included) used to say he only knew 4 moves like Warrior etc......, but i got to see some of his matches from Japan and Hogan could seriously wrestle when he needed to.
i have said that if aew fans went to a show and they announced that there will be no wrestling tonight but your favorite aew wrestlers will be joining the cast of cirque du soleil to do a performance those weirdo fans would be fine with it 🤣
I agree the glory days the golden ear of wrestling in the 80's wrestlers looked like wrestlers
@@bb-gc2tx same with the WWE....they both fucking suck.
"You Don't go to the Gym You Don't even Know a guy called jim" lol
The way Al described a "worker" is the way I've always thought about Jake Roberts through the early 90s. I believed his performances every single time.
Yep sometimes gatekeeping is necessary especially when it comes too entertainment in general
Every time, not sometimes
@@jabrockobiden9434 depends how defensive one is with it.
The older I get, the more I realize a certain level of gatekeeping is needed in some things.
The problem is nobody gets beat up
I started this video with zero intention on finishing it but after a few minutes I was hanging on every word the entire interview
I could listen to Al Snow talk about any aspect of professional wrestling for hours and never get tired of it.
He is completely right
The problem with professional wrestling today is that it's not professional wrestling.
Simply put.
Then watch sports wrestling
Game, set, & match
@@The80sWolf_This has to be the most retarded thing I've seen someone say all day. Congrats.
Indeed. It’s turned into circus olay.
I could listen to Al talk forever. Such a genius mind for the business.
Yeah his voice is annoying! When it goes so deep it's basically vibrating! So annoying but he dose have a great mind for wrestling
@@tysoncarpenter8628It's raspy as fuck now. I can't even listen to him
@@akgstone right!!!!!
Yall funny😂😂😂😂
"What's the risk of working on a dead person? They're dead." This is why I love Al Snow! 😂
He didn't really think that analogy out though as dead bodies can still transmit disease. You do need proper training to do things like clean and embalm a body, lol.
He’s 100% right, kids see these moves on the show and think they can do it then they don’t take the factor of injury into it.
I never knew Al Snow could be so insightful. Fantastic interview.
Before he even answered the first question I knew he was gonna say after the Attitude Era. He's right because even though the Attitude Era had its stars, you really got the sense the entire locker room was working together like a troupe and not 30 people all out for themselves. It's because they all had a common enemy in WCW and if they lost the Monday Night War, they all thought they might be out of a job.
So they all worked together like never before. Sure you had bigger names but I can't think of another time when there was at least a dozen guys that might be main eventing any given week. You didn't have that before the Attitude era and you sure don't have it now.
It was just the WWE. You had WCW, ECW, USWA, etc.
The reason things went bad is that independent wrestling was taken over by marks. If we expect the next generation of talent to come from the indies, we'd hope they'd have good places to learn how to do the job - but they didn't. All the great indie promoters like Jim Cornette, Les Thatcher, Roland Alexander, Rick Bassman, etc. had all but closed up shop. Fans with money started to become wrestling promoters. Fans also started becoming wrestlers. With no real leadership or guidance, the new wrestlers just copied what they'd seen on TV and goofed off. The new promoters let it happen because no one was interested in making money anymore. It was all about living out your fantasies. Indie wrestling is still like that today - maybe worse.
It was also written better back then. When Raw was written by Ferrara/Russo from 97-99 the whole show had rhyme & reason to every segment. Building to a cliff-hanger. Formatted to perfection.
You're kidding, right? Russo was responsible for some of the worst segments in the history of the pro wrestling business.
It was also the end of the era where you still had guys who worked in the territories or were at least trained by and worked with guys who were from the old school territory era.
Today you’ve got guys who were trained by guys who were trained by guys that were trained by indie mudshow guys.
I feel like wrestling got a lot worse when they stopped trying to make it look like a real fight. And that seems like it ended with bret heart.
You're right. Although it didn't end with Bret, it is very rare to see today.
Austin, Rock, Kurt Angle, Lesnar, Triple H, and the Undertaker all tried to make their matches look genuine in my opinion.
Even Cena, who a lot of people crap on, threw punches and kicks and didn't do the flippy choreography stuff.
I wish someone could get Al to say "Vroom Vroooom".
It's like what Dutch says about wrestlers, "First rule like doctors, do no harm". Al made a good point about state accredited schools or trainers to teach performers.
No, once you get the government involved, it sucks. Do you realise that there are now government accredited courses for retail? Yes, that's right, many workplaces have been conned into hiring people based on them doing a government certified course in retail. If those folks are the only ones being hired, then more people are forced to do the government course so that they can find a job. It's a scam. I learned retail on the job. Doesn't take much to operate a cash register and be kind to customers.
If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that the government can't been trusted--and I've known that for a lot longer than a few years. Snow just comes across like a moron here. Asking the government to regulate wrestling is like asking the government to regulate garage sales--which, by the way, they already do. So, you need government permission to sell things from your own front yard, which is ludicrous. Snow has been in wrestling his whole life, it's clear that he understands little outside of it.
Thank you! About time someone says how bad today's wrestling is. "Workers" today all care about being spot monkeys and never really learn pro wrestling! Thank you Mr. Snow!
This is so true! That's why back in the day you cared about almost the whole card, because they were all good workers and they all had the same mentality and work ethic and knew what they had to go trough to get there. Now they barely make you care about 1 match.
Al Snow has so much wisedom. He is like the Yoda of Pro-wrestling. He even is starting to sound like him too lol.
Millennials and Gen Z wrestlers are simply mundane AF.
Thats a perfect word to describe them.
Agree! These Wrestlers nowadays are just soft
Al Snow at points imitating Kane's voice box.....lol.
He hit the nail on the head about this generation of both wrestlers and fans having no idea what being a good “worker” is if you ask someone that’s on the AEW roster or probably even most the WWE roster or any fan that actually believes that we live in an era of the best wrestling they will probably tell you a good worker is somebody that can do a lot of moves SMH
It's like figure skating or gymnastics - because everyone knows wrestling is a work and no one gets invested into the story because it's a work everyone instead focuses on how many fancy moves a wrestler has and how flawless is their execution. Which is completely besides the point of pro wrestling but what can you gonna do, you can't take something seriously when said thing openly states that it isn't serious.
It was honestly the video game boom in the early 2000s i think that did it. Cause the video game wrestling was about doing fun, holy shit moments with your friends.
You definitely see modern wrestlers putting on video game matches , often.
It's like they're trying to emulate SF and Mortal Kombat. Which of course use over the top ridiculous moves that have no basis in reality.
Just like Tony Hawk did for skateboarding, wrestling games made it so the fans knew every move and wanted to see more, but id rather blame the attitude era for killing wrestling for good
That's actually a pretty interesting and original observation. I can definitely see there being some truth to this.
Al, you were the most underrated and unused in the business. Miss watching you.
I agree. A real professional
Stevie Richard's too. But he could never get a pop so it might have been a personal problem
4:33 Kevin Owens being the perfect example
Why? Because he doesn't look like a bodybuilder?
I've never seen Owens look gassed out.
You're not one of those who believe CM Punk has a good physique and athletic ability, are you? LMAO.
Once again, I agree with Al. My favorite workers are guys like Hulk Hogan, John Cena, and the Rock. Those dudes made millions of dollars with a few very basic moves. Hogan was so good he got a leg drop over as a finish. Rock got an elbow drop over as a finish. That is a worker.
None of these guys want to acknowledge the rise of mma… wrestling could no longer hold any semblance of kayfabe… I hate the old head wrestler quote “none of these guys look the part” people could watch a ufc card and see a 155lb guy that would smoke 90 percent of the locker room in an actual fight. I think there is room for both. Old school wrestling still has its place. As does new school spot fests
@@adamjaniszewski8480 Not necessarily. Most UFC fighters can't box, now if they grab you and take you down then you would have problems but standing up is a different story. Now before you say anything about KO's in MMA, if you got 2 people that can't box swinging wildly at each other, someone is bound to get a lucky shot in just like any street fight. Ask Rhonda Rousey about mixing it up with someone who got hands, TWICE.
@@adamjaniszewski8480 Kayfabe was dead years before mma came about.
@@korywilliamsO.G.1 what in the world are you talking about….
Ronda was convinced by an idiot she was probably sleeping with that she could box elite boxers when the fact is she couldn’t really box competitively at all.
I am old in my mid 50s middle aged man . I loved pro wrestling as a little boy in the 70s and in high school in the 80s . My take on it back in the day there was a mystique to Pro wrestling . I personnally figured out it was not real at about age 12 . I loved it anyway . I would say back then in those days most at the matches actually believed it was real . In those days the term mark was not an endearing term the crowd in most cases was in my view kind of low class wrestlers looked down on the fans . I was an athlete plyed football in school wanted to break in as most young guys back then pipe dreams looking back lol .However in those days there was a business breaking into pro wrestling was tougher than breaking into the mafia . There was a business and they protected it . Absolutely no pro wrestling schools or they were very rare . Fast forward to the end of the 80s suddenly the pro wrestling business was exposed as i recall on 20/20 in my opinion that killed the business all of those that actually believed stop going the mystique was gone wrestling schools on every corner . Everybody and there mother were now pro wrestlers I would say that started around the early 90s maybe 94 or 95 . The business had been over for a while they re educated the fans but everyone was a pro wrestler people paying big money to train at the schools but no where to work after they got out . Conning the public the fans were now wrestlers the business was over . Think about it if the NFL started letting anyone in you would know the business was over . That in a nutshell in my view sums up Pro wrestling and what happened to it . Everyone and there mother are pro wrestlers with no place to work . The reducating the fans worked for a little while but today and I realize it is ratings now but you could not give tickets away sure there is wrestlemainia and such but unlike territory days when there was still a business today there is not a business people just throwing there money away in a business Pro wrestling is dead and it is never coming back . Pro wrestling and the Pro wrestling business is dead and there is one thing in pro wrestling that has always been done make everything seem larger than it is . At the end of the day to the young people go to school get an education there is no money in pro wrestling . That is my take or just some of my take on it for what it is worth .
The internet killed kayfabe. One minute they're fighting and next you see them hugging and taking pics with families online.
Worst no-no ever.
@@futureisyours3016 I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
The Attitude Era was the beginning of the end for pro wrestling. I knew it then, and I know it now.
A lot of people stopped watching during the Attitude Era. Some people ate it up with a spoon, yet others just didn't buy McMahon as a bad guy, as odd as that may sound. That's the problem with wrestling: we hear only from the people who enjoyed the Mr. McMahon character. We don't hear so much from the people who stopped watching because of him.
Those missing fans were replaced, briefly, by bandwagon jumpers who wanted something to talk shit about with their friends at school on Tuesday morning. Those people weren't long term fans, they were just flavour-of-the-month types. When the next things became hot (the rise of UFC, the Marvel movies boom that started in with the Spider-Man trilogy, and the revival of the Star Wars movies that started with Episode One in 1999), they went to that. Wrestling wasn't hip anymore. The bandwagon jumpers left, and the fans who had left earlier didn't return.
Back in the late 1990s, it was common to see wrestling t-shirts being worn and sold in shops. Nowadays, it's all Marvel and Star Wars. Adult used to wear Austin 3:16 t-shirts. Now adults wear comic book t-shirts.
Remember that wrestlers would appear in movies and hang out with the co-stars. On wrestling shows, they were evil brutes who rarely smiled and didn't get along with most people. Now these same wrestlers were reciting lines in movies and taking orders from directors in Hollywood? King Kong Bundy did a computer ad, for crying out loud. Compare his promo with the ad. I believe that many people knew that these wrestlers were doing an act:
ua-cam.com/video/noHbKuPwA6c/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/8xWca74FyTQ/v-deo.html
@@markv1274 he really pitched for those guys Vendex Guys!!!
Also shows he was brain and notvall brawn.
It's sad, that as time goes by, we learn that everything was make believe. Love is a lie. Your spouse is a lie, yours parents lied, God is a lie, religion is a lie. Every sport is fixed.
Altruism is lie.
Patriotism is a lie.
Only thing that matters is ....fiat money another lie.
@@futureisyours3016 - Eric Bischoff said that "Cowboy" Bill Watts (once the head of WCW, like a Jim Herd) wanted the "Faces" and the "Heels" to fly on separate airplanes.
Speaking of physical appearance, I watched Smackdown recently, for the first time in years, and one thing I couldn't shake was how small the wrestlers looked compared to the ring. I mean, I grew up in the '80s, when wrestlers looked bigger than the ring, bigger than life in fact. Now, it seems as if they might be hiring smaller guys so the female wrestlers look more equal to them, which is opposite of when Chyna jumped into the ring and competed with the men because she was that big and strong.
Also, I didn't care for how much visual movement there was during Smackdown. It seemed as if every flat surface was a screen displaying some graphics or message. It was just too much; it was overload. I think the best thing wrestling can do right now is go back to basics. That episode of Smackdown I saw certainly didn't make me want to watch more episodes.
I think k the size thing may be connected to less steroid use tbh... the 80s and 90s wrestlers were all juiced up and massive.
The problem with wrestling today is the relatively younger generation is trying to move it forward and he has been old peoples home, try to hold it back equivalent to the old “get off my lawn” stereotype.
Al Snow's always droppin' truth bombs on the current wrestling biz. I listen to him on Russo's show.
Al is the best mind in the business today.
And the best voice lol
One of them. Him, Cornette, J.R., maybe Booker T.
As much as I like the Attitude Era when someone goes extreme someone else will only pick up the bad traits of the extreme acts.
It was abysmal. Killed wrestling for good.
AEW in a nutshell really.
The thing with going extreme is that like with drugs you build up a tolerance over time and need a bigger dose for the same effect.
One of the best shoot interviews ever. And it's from a guy that used to carry around a mannequin head. lol
He said alot of interesting things here. The base principles he laid out fall in line with pretty much everyone that has worked to protect the business for all of these years. That being said,I think he differs from a lot of other people in the business on Hulk Hogan as well as how bookers can impact a wrestler’s performance in an angle or match
Wonderful points made here. My 13 year old son commented how today's wrestlers look small and weak, they are unrealistic in what they do in the ring and look unable to kick ass. No wonder wrestling is slowly waning.
Everything Al said was very clear and made sense except one thing and I don't think the 'If you're watching Raw, and it sucks... it's on the wrestlers' part is true, at least all the time. There are wayyyy to many examples of really talented wrestlers given some shitty thing Vince, the writers or whomever gave them and it would've sucked no matter how talented they are or hard they tried. The Old Day? Suckering Succotash? I could go on and on but some stuff sucks, and the wrestler/worker whatever you wanna call them couldn't have done anything about it but the boss who signs the checks, wanted it.
I have known Al Snow for 25 years, He is the only guy that I have agreed 100% of the time. in 1983 I was told know by Lars Anderson, Twice, Lia Miavia took my money, they beat the shit out of me for 6 weeks, so IF I left I would tell everyone it was Real. After 6 weeks they “Let” me in the beating stopped & the trained me. Siva Afi took me under my wing forty years later we still communicate, then in 1988 I spent 8 months with Lou Thesz, he ran me so hard I puked every day for 2 months, the difference was Lou was regimental in his training. Thanks @Alsnow
Love Al snow. He is wrestling. Wondering when his voice took a turn for grumble monster man haha got some real bass in there Al
I agreed with everything that he said until the end. Bad booking does not fall on the wrestlers. The wrestlers are handed something and they have to try to sell it to the viewers. A lot of times we fans don't buy that and we respond with decreased viewership and decreased attendance.
“Less is more” isn’t always true. But the ability to do more with less is something that the previous generations had. You don’t have to risk your neck or your life to impress 100 people in a high school gym.
Yes it is, always
@@jabrockobiden9434Undertaker vs Giant Gonzalez?
Dave Meltzer, Conrad Thompson for indirectly overpromoting Meltzer, and Kevin Dunn camerawork
(Zoom In-Zoom Out on a wrestler executing a finishing move, shaky back and forth camera movement of wrestlers brawling).
I don't understand the camerawork that has become common in wrestling these days. Unfortunately, a number of Japanese promotions do the same thing. It spoils the illusion, it's like the camera operator knows what's about to happen in the ring. Look at Kazuchika Okada when he extends his arms and gestures to the crowd for The Rainmaker. There's the dramatic zoom-out which just looks utterly hokey. It's the sort of camera work that honestly almost makes me want to stop watching and do something else.
Al Snow sounds like his boss is Megatron, and he's got a few cassette tapes inside his chest.
1:23 it also could be said that these smaller guys with unconvincing body types and statures are were more passionate and cared about wrestling more than the big guys who simply thought being big was enough.
Respect to Al Snow always. The fact he owns his own promotion and has a excellent insight into Pro Wrestling and treats it with respect speaks volumes ❤
Im 27 . Alot of wrestlers from my era the ruthless aggression and attitude era we had the best wrestlers now that their older i love the stories they tell
A big issue is that wrestling has evolved (devolved, really) to where the crowds largely want to see high pace, high risk, spots, flips, dives, etc. The smaller feds and then eventually the bigger promotions catered too much to this and still do.
Instead of the workers, and perhaps more importantly, the promoters saying 'no, let's pull it back and bring the focus back on the story, the emotion, the drama.. and actually making it look like a fight', they have let the crowds dictate too much.
The result is an over reliance on spots and high risks rather than actually working, and selling. Unfortunately, crowds have now conditioned themselves into thinking that matches that slow the pace down, have rest spots, utilise selling, or aren't filled with career shortening bumps are boring.
This is not every fan, or every crowd, but by and large.
Add to that what Al said about 'anyone being able to get in' and yeah, it's easy to see why the sport, the art of pro wrestling has declined so severely over the last 20 years.
Not really people are waiting for those charismatic characters to come back just look how hot LA Knight is people want to see him over all these guys that can kick and do flips charisma and mic skills will always win at the end of the day.
The thing is, back during the Monday Night Wars, when the WCW Cruiserweight division was putting on amazing matches with all those spots, it was the first time fans were being exposed to that style and it was a breath of fresh air after all of the cartoon characters of the late 80s and early 90's. Here we are 25 to 30 years later and all those spots are done to death. Over the years, the bar kept getting raised trying to outdo those matches and now it's just outside of the realm of reality so it breaks your suspension of disbelief. The same spots that awed me in my younger days get no reaction from me anymore other than me thinking how irresponsible and dangerous it is for how often it is done.
The other problem is that the Indy guys don't feel the need to work in the sense that Al uses the term because the cat is already out of the bag and they think being able to go in the ring is all that matters now.
Yeah but you have to consider that most fans today still think pro wrestling began in 1997. So they’ve been conditioned to think good wrestling is spots and angles and comedy.
@@unklesalty3732 Yeah things are being made for a different audience now. Same problem I have with most of the stuff coming out of Hollywood too. Every day I'm made more keenly aware of my age and how out of touch I am with what today's younger people enjoy.
Ironic comment since Vince doesn't really like the high flyers. Ricochet, Lio Rush, most cruiserweights. Hell, the cruiserweight division is an afterthought to placate fans.
The biggest thing is that the Internet attacked the audience that was watching bum fights and backyard Wrestling. Which those turned around and became either independent wrestlers or podcast journalist.
Damn what's up with Al's voice? He sounds like he's speaking through Kane's old voicebox
probably has an opinion on everything so never shuts up. killed his voice. The only ppl who know what over is are the ones who can be named by ppl who dont watch wrestling.
You are a loser
Wow you got a shoot with the marty janety of the new rockers.
There is so much gold in that clip I feel like I should have paid $1,000 for attending a wrestling seminar!👍
Fascinating must see characters in modern pro wrestling. Name em.
Top guys now would be C tier performers in the attitude era. Again taking the character performance into account.
I'll take Paul orndorf and Roddy piper trading sloppy punches in a wild brawl ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.
Not a single person bought a ticket to watch Al Snow
Love this. Sums up my loss of interest in wrestling perfectly
Internet has killed the mystique,too many spoilers,wrestlers on instagram.
Rise of the Ufc making wrestling look very unrealistic.
Too many channells,options,such as netflix,social media,streaming,etc.
Attention spans are not the same.
And wrestlers dont generally look like superstars anymore,they look like guys who go to the gym.
I can listen to Al speak about pro wrestling all day. It's also hilarious when he works himself up. You can tell what he pisses himself off with a point LOL
People want to say "wrestling is fake"
There's nothing fake about being suplexed off the top rope and landing on your back from 10ft in the air
I tend to see it like this:
In a real fight, you must protect yourself at all times.
In a wrestling match, you must protect yourself *and* your opponent at all times
Taking that out, there's little difference between them
There is plenty fake about what you just mentioned, especially with current wrestling. The whole premise of protecting oneself at all times is totally undermined by "being suplex off the top rope and landing on your back from 10ft in the air" the focus on spots like you mentioned does not give wrestling legitimacy and realism, it does the very opposite. In a real fight no one would allow such a thing to occur nor is it remotely realistic to preform such spots, it totally clouds believability. I am not attempting to say what they do is not physically taxing. Sadly, as time has gone on, wrestling has moved further and further from anything resembling a real fight. The announcer could tell everyone the match was predetermined on loudspeaker as the guys entered the ring, and people would not call it fake if the focus centered on working stiff in conjunction with a simple but realistic repertoire. It only becomes fake when the match no longer mimics reality, when outlandish moves/spots are added in to appease the neckbeards that somehow think acrobats belongs in fighting.
Everything in professional sports is a work, every outcome is predetermined, the “work” is getting people to believe
Are you listening, Orange Cassidy?
RIP Pepper.
Tape trading caused a shift. I remember the specific date and VHS cassette that turned me from a WWF mark to a Puro/Lucha mark that cared about the moves more than the storyline or angle or what have you.
Al Is a wealth of knowledge and always a joy to listen to, love his perspective on the “business” of professional wrestling.
I Don’t know why Mick Foley hate him that much!
Just kidding, always enjoyed Mick’s digs on Al 😆
Mr. AL is doing what modern professional wrestling is today. Modern wrestling is slamming his outdated era and he's no selling it to perfection which is super awesome. But can he finish or can he take the most bizarre ender of them all?
I don't think he can. He's lost his head!
Al is probably gonna piss a lot of people off with this one lol. He's totally right though. If you look at it from Al's perspective, Hogan is arguably the greatest worker who ever lived. He didn't do shit but no one cared! You believed it all and you loved the "ride" he took you on. Omega isn't a worker. He's just some guy who does moves
Al Snow and Billy Corgan definitely need to align, which OVW would be under the NWA.
Al Snow, Austin Idol, Tim Storm, Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Rodney Mack & Jazz be the writers , bookers and Executive Presidents of the NWA.
What makes you think that *any* of these people can write?
Everything
This is absolutely awesome! I dont watch wrestling like i used to but its always so cool hearing wrestlers perspectives whos been in the business for so many years. Cool to see Al snow is still in great shape both physically and mentally. The man looks and sounds fantastic. Good for him!
He sounds a bit like Kane when he was using his speaking device.
Agreed up until the Licensing BS. Do uk how many people are held back because of fees and licensing?? Give a look into the fight just to braid hair without registering or licensing. It's ridiculous
There are several reasons why but another is the squash matches or matches with great jobbers. Mike Sharpe, Barry Horowitz, Brooklyn Brawler, Lanny Poffo, George South, Sd Jones, Johnny Rodz, etc... These were good workers/wrestlers who knew how to get people over.
tl;dr professional wrestling does not have that much gatekeeping as it used to and that may compromise the quality of the product and safety of the performers.
It's sad that with amazing minds alive and well that so few of the performers under the age of 40 or so are doing what they do at the highest of levels. Truly makes ya wonder if more than just a handful of guys actually listen to the priceless wisdom guys like Al, Jake, Jim etc drop for free. If more guys shut up and listened to what they're saying the business would be in a better place
You know it's bad when people walk by the TV and go "I used to watch that.; but, damn look at that guy, they'll let anyone in now won't they?"
The only thing I disagree with Al is that Vince destroyed the Territories on purpose and nobody is going to convince me otherwise.
Of course he did
He clearly wanted to destroy the territorial system. Idk why Al would think otherwise.
I don’t always agree with everything Al says but I respect the hell out of him. He’s a straight forward guy, no bs.
I love listening to Al talk, cause he’s a man of common sense. Plain and simple!
This is a very enlightening and informative video from Al Snow, whom I fondly remembered as the professional wrestler with the mannequin head. It's so incongruous but this world is wondrously strange.
I blame the WWE promoting Superstars and not pro wrestlers. No one wanted to work, they all just want to be "stars".
You're interviews are the best. Thankyou
I was on the fence with his take on conditioning until a fat "vet" who's been wrestling for a long time and never got on TV spiked me twice during a match then complained that I botched a spot. Now, no one picks me up in the ring unless you are 240 and in shape.
Al snow sounding like a decepticon lol
Hogan is the GOAT of wrestling. It's not even close.Not only did he have the mega Hulkamania run, but also the mega NWO run.
It's subjective. Not saying your wrong but for me it's Austin.
Hulkamania run was spread out longer with less tv. Austin had to bring it every week.
Hogan was great as a heel but he piggybacked off a hot idea that was taking off anyway.
I'm not down playing Hogan. He was great. I think Austins run was just a hair more impressive.
@@josereyes1148 I hear what you're saying. Austin probably had the greatest peak. But he was a midcarder just as long as he was a main-eventer. His peak only lasted about 5 years. If you are old enough to watch Hogan's run you would know just how popular he was. For a major television network to air wrestling back then was as big as you could get. They took SNL's slot once per month...and NOTHING was more popular than SNL back then. But I would would put Austin #3 behind Flair.
Another test I do is ask my parents. They have zero clue about anything pop culture. They have no idea who Stone Cold is but they absolutely know who Hulk Hogan is. Of course, someone could say...yes, but by that rational The Rock would be #1. But they only know who The Rock is because of his movie career. They knew who Hulk Hogan was because he was a wrestler...not from his movies.
@@ninjaaitools I hear ya. I don't think the parents test works here though. They definitely should know who stone cold is. lol. I could use that test with my parents too because they know nothing about wrestling. They definitely know who Austin is. Maybe it has to do with our age? If you were young during hulkamania and older during attitude era, maybe they were more in tune with when you were a kid. I was a kid during attitude era and my parents definitely see Austin as a mainstream star. Not saying you're wrong. It's an interesting conversation though.
Also, Al was a workrate wrestler and was not big for the time period and I never believed Shawn Michaels could beat people up, even people smaller than him and less muscular.
I'll always listen to AL SNOW. He's the man.
The WWE product died around 2005. Today in 2023 its simply unwatchable. Attitude Era was proper world class elite storytelling wrestling talent.
Well said
Please remove your rose-tinted glasses. Even in the Attitude Era, you had awful matches, poor storylines, wrestlers that nobody gave a shit about, bad announcers, and so many other maladies that made it difficult to watch. A lot of people who watched wrestling in those days were bandwagon jumpers. You'd be surprised to learn how many people stopped watching wrestling in the late '90s.
I totally agree.
The people who like modern stuff are bandwagoners too. Like you.
Great interview James looking forward to more clips
I need to believe there is a CONTEST. The modern product forgets this.
He is 100 percent right I want to see wrestlers that look like kerry von erich,road warriors ,undertaker and Austin not young bucks
I've said it before and I'll say it again... Al Snow sounds like Kane when he had his voicebox...
Al Snow should quit wrestling and start voicing The Thing in an animated Fantastic Four.
18:23 I agree with everything but this. Yes, the wrestlers have to do their job but, booking/writers are equally important. They have a job to do to. I don't care how well someone works. If the story sucks I don't really care that much. And if the booking is bad I'm going to lose interest over time.
The industry is over exposed, it’s as simple as that. Hard to take it serious as a fan or invest in your character as a wrestler when the whole charade is up. Fans talking about “spots” and “putting people over” was the death of the industry. Also, the diva “revolution.”
You were fine until your last point.
@@stevenhenry5267 Your opinion. My opinion is the females have half the talent the males do and are force fed to an audience of man children. It’s pandering at its finest. Name one female who can do what even a mid-card male can do haha.
It's like watching a bunch of children practicing gymnastics