Over the past few years, I have watched plenty of matches from many indie promotions across the country like Ring Of Honor and those from different parts of the world like Lucha Underground.
The WWE is a massive multi-billion dollar company that’s had this vicious monopolistic stranglehold over the wrestling industry ever since WCW went out of business in 2001. Some of their (WWE’s) business practices to maintain their monopolistic stranglehold over the wrestling industry are down right corrupt and criminal such as paying ECW legend Tommy Dreamer in an attempt to get him to shut down his indie “House Of Hardcore Wrestling” promotion in a desperate attempt to kill indie wrestling because The WWE definitely hates indie wrestling.
Here are several things that indie wrestling does better than WWE.
1. Using Nostalgia In A Better Way - The WWE is notorious for its over-saturation of nostalgia which often leads to too many time spots being taken away from the younger full-time performers and many burials of young full-time performers as explained in an article that I previously wrote called “Top 5 Reasons Why The Nostalgia Factor Is Killing The Current WWE Product”. When Monday Night Raw had its “Raw 25” episode early this year, it was littered with so much nostalgia from DX, APA, to Undertaker and The Revival being buried by WWE for the sake of nostalgia in the same episode. Indie Wrestling on the other hand uses nostalgia in a much better way by having certain old guys like Bully Ray come in and put over the younger guys and younger indie wrestling stars like Kenny Omega paying tribute to an iconic figure like The Terminator and one of my favorite wrestlers in Rey Mysterio paying homage to the Marvel Comics character Wolverine at this year’s “All In” event.
2. Pushing Fan Favorites - One thing that I’ve noticed about The WWE is that they hate their fans in the sense of refusing to push performers that got over with fans without the help of WWE’s bad booking. Daniel Bryan once said this truthful statement in 2010 when he was in NXT that WWE likes to “push their guys” like Batista, Randy Orton, John Cena, and Roman Reigns. The performers that have been victims of WWE’s refusal to put them over on the main roster are Rusev, Becky Lynch, Ty Dillinger, Sasha Banks, Ember Moon, etc. On the indie wrestling scene however, the promoters actually listen to their fans and give pushes to those that the fans have gotten behind and want to get pushed because this has allowed indie wrestlers to maximize their potential and talent in the ring to put on the best matches that they can put on in front of a much smaller crowd of people.
3. They Value Quality Over Quantity - One of the main things that I greatly enjoy about indie wrestling nowadays is that they greatly value quality over quantity. In the indie wrestling scene, you always see different wrestlers wrestling against one another in different matches at the indie house shows that keeps fans emotionally invested in the indie wrestling matches whereas on the main roster in The WWE especially on Raw, you see the same old tired repeated garbage filler matches every single week like Bayley/Sasha Banks vs The Riott Squad and Bobby Roode/Chad Gable vs The Ascension have been going on throughout the entire year almost and this is so overkill. WWE = Quantity over Quality.
4. They Utilize Their Talent Well - Another great thing about the indie wrestling scene nowadays is that they utilize their talent in a way that not only helps the promotion in terms of bringing them more money and exposure, but it also helps the indie wrestlers themselves by helping them get over with the fans by showing their amazing in-ring talent. The WWE on the other hand currently has the largest roster depth in its history, but more than half of the talented performers on the main roster like Ember Moon, Sasha Banks, Asuka, Apollo Crews have been heavily wasted and buried on the main roster by the WWE’s bad booking of them which is very indicative of WWE’s inability/refusal to utilize their talent to their maximum capability in the ring.
5. It’s Growing In Popularity - Back in the 2000s, indie wrestling was in its infancy in which only a very small number of people would turn up for the shows. To me personally, 2018 is the year when the indie wrestling scene had reached its peak with the huge success of The “All In” PPV event that had an amazing card as well as amazing matches from the beginning to the end of the event despite the last match on the card being rushed due to time constraints. The All In indie wrestling event was also the first non-WWE event to sell out in 25 years. The event was greatly received by even the loyal WWE fans that are currently disgruntled with the current WWE product. “All In” was the first wrestling event that made me truly happy about watching wrestling for the first time in over a decade.
Note: One of the biggest misconceptions that a lot of people particularly the WWE apologists have about indie wrestling is that it’s nothing more but a “glorified flip-n-dive spectacle” when in reality it’s far from it because many matches on the indie wrestling scene and the chemistry and ring psychology is way better than what’s shown on the WWE main roster nowadays and that’s a fact. I watched an inter-gender match between Adam Cole and Candace LeRae had one of the best inter-gender matches that I’ve ever seen because the chemistry and ring psychology was absolutely amazing!!!
The Conclusion - Despite The WWE’s vicious attempts to kill indie wrestling, indie wrestling is growing and growing and it could definitely overtake The WWE one day in terms of fans, popularity, and match quality.
By Kwame Shakir
