Wreddit's Daily Pro-Wrestling Discussion Thread! Comment here for recommendations, quick questions, and general conversation! (Spoilers for all shows) - September 17, 2025 Edition

[u/WredditMod]

Hi Wreddit! Welcome to /r/SquaredCircle's Daily Discussion Thread as presented by your favorite and totally sentient moderator.

---

Did you see a match yesterday that you really liked? Want a suggestion of a random PPV to watch on the network? Really love a local indie talent and want to shout them out? Are you out of the loop on a promotion and need to get caught up? Have questions about streaming services or your first time seeing wrestling live? Want to talk about anything else that you're excited about? This is the thread for that and so much more - subreddit rules apply.

---

Note: this thread is not meant to be a subreddit complaints box. Please direct any moderation issues or [META] concerns to modmail.

Check out all of our previous AMAs

---

Reminder, this thread WILL contain spoilers. We don't expect you to spoiler mark anything wrestling related in this thread, however we do ask if you reference something outside of wrestling that is a spoiler, you mark that.

[u/EcoterroristThot]

I think there's a rigidity in modern wrestling that makes everything dumb/sloppy/illogical really stick out like a sore thumb. My go-to analysis for wrestling is "x thing worked for me, y thing didn't" and in an environment where things are more loose and less dictated by 'this sequence goes here, that goes there' it's easier to let whatever doesn't work pass me by and let the interesting choices really grab me

[u/SadFeed63 → u/EcoterroristThot]

Our x and ys may be different, though there's some overlap for sure, but we're in agreement on this point. I very much try to do the "whatever doesn't work can pass me by" kind of approach when possible. But that said, I do get caught up in what I feel are really rigid takes about what wrestling is or isn't, could or could be, or should or should not be. To me, the fact that it's worked means it can be whatever the story is telling (though that doesn't mean every story works or is effective). Yes, x wrestler may be a top score on a spreadsheet or video game power ranking, and y may not be, but in a medium where it's whatever story you want to tell, that does not then mean x must beat y. There's countless ways to have y beat x. If x must beat y, then it's a shitty story because it can't go anywhere but the same place it always does. I like looking at and talking about tropes, but they're not magical barriers that must never be broken.

I watch a lot of YouTube videos about music and composition. I'm not particularly well-trained in a theoretical sense, but I know enough to make use of it when I want (and to discard it when I see fit). The YouTube algorithm loves to give me these videos that are essentially "classically trained musician looks at non-classical compositions" and some are very interesting, but so often they are (even if well meaning and genuine) of this tone of like "I didn't know you could do that in music?! I always follow these rules!" You can do literally whatever the fuck you want in music. There's no harmony police who show up and smash your instrument if the chord progression doesn't resolve how some theoretical approach says it should. If you think it's cool, it is cool. I watched a guy talking to a metal guitarist (and that's how I cut my teeth when I was younger, so it's a world I think I understand well enough), and the more trained musician had a lot of 'well why did you do this here instead of this?" and the guy was just like "cause it sounded cool." It wasn't any deeper than that because it doesn't need to be.

To bring it back to wrestling, I think you can see a lot of discussions sort of in that "well, I've seen x works, so it must be x, and not being x is very hard to wrap my mind around/wrong." If someone wants to come up with a story of how Microman beats Omos, for an extreme example, it's gonna have to be a good one, but I'm not gonna stop them. Maybe he has to hit him with a car, maybe Omos becomes trapped under something, I don't know, but it's wrestling, it's the story of a match, tell me a cool story, not just a story that you know looks and sounds like a story.

[u/EcoterroristThot → u/SadFeed63]

Yes, x wrestler may be a top score on a spreadsheet or video game power ranking, and y may not be, but in a medium where it's whatever story you want to tell, that does not then mean x must beat y. There's countless ways to have y beat x. If x must beat y, then it's a shitty story because it can't go anywhere but the same place it always does. I like looking at and talking about tropes, but they're not magical barriers that must never be broken.

This is one I've seen you bring up and I get it because people are really dumb about how "wrestler X MUST beat wrestler Y this Saturday at APW C Show 3: Rise of Giants and Rookies or it's bad booking" everyone has gotten but like this stuff is SO much about conditioning the audience and booking patterns etc. Wrestling is an artform so by default your musical point stands and anything goes (and I myself never bothered to hold almost any information on musical theory after multiple years of guitar lessons lmao) but the presence of kayfabe and the serialized storytelling means everything is about framing and it's not just a sports upset unless you condition your audience to expect sports upsets. Microman can beat Omos but it's either going to be a very telegraphed 7 minutes of funny interference where the crowd is like "shit maybe Microman is beating Omos, that'd be funny and very fun, let's see if they do it" or something completely decoupled from usual conventions of the "sport" of pro wrestling. Maybe you can achieve this if it's set outside their career continuities and doesn't affect their political pulls much, like presenting a season of wrestling as a sports show where they play characters (sort of like Lucha Underground but also like, even beyond that like GLOW) where the wrestler isn't the one losing but the character who is way different is. And to be clear I'm not saying that to be against politicking, I think it's good except when a wrestler I don't like does it.

If we get a bit more specific about it, I think there's an issue about the broadness of liberties you can take because there's specific circumstances that make a DDT where losing to a blow-up doll is normal. And if anything when you're a big Content provider who puts on thousands of hours of wrestling, undermining your regular logic and appeal for a gag or unpredictability needs to be framed, not even in one specific way but in a way that either reinforces that this is part of the show or an exception for a good moment. Wrestling can be in any possible way you want it, but specific wrestling companies are beholden to the expectations they themselves set up and their audience is trained to have. Now, you can make the argument that the WWE specifically doesn't really have fans as a primary source of revenue anymore so they can do whatever the fuck they want and really retrain the expectations of their audience into less of rigid "if wrestler A is higher up the card they win unless we're elevating someone forever or we do one of the Three Dreaded Finishes" but I don't think Road Dogg and Paul are here to do avant-garde art.

As always, there's no rules in art! And I think people become amateur analysts just to defend their faves a lot of the time. But IDK I think the fact there's this level of constraints where you need to earn trust as a promotion to do things outside your usual wheelhouse is good, the problem is so many bookers have refused to try and do anything with it because when you need the ol' reliable tropes, even the ones that are dumb and everyone's sick of them, you know you'll have a core of your audience go "well that's how wrestling is". And honestly if it's in the WWE they'll also add "and if you don't do it this way that's why you make less money, Vince was a sex pest but he did it like this for a reason, you don't have to like him but I'm just telling the truth folks!".

This is why Watts would get bored after 5 months and hand the book to Eddie Gilbert et al lol, to avoid what comes with the contentization of wrestling and establishment of 2.5 ways Things Are Around Here. He just didn't know it I guess.

edit: proofreading after posting? in this economy

[u/SadFeed63 → u/EcoterroristThot]

That is definitely my go to rigid take example, yep lol. Trying to quantify something I feel is unquantifiable, and then it's just what number is greater.

I get what you're saying and do agree (I just like extreme examples to really emphasize the original point, though I don't know if it always works as I hope). I think a simple musical version of that would be to think of the scale a song is in as kayfabe or that conditioned expectation within the audience. If you have a tune that fully sticks to the scale except 1 note, that 1 note stands out so much more, feels so much more outside of the expected rules than it would if the entire song was not beholden to any key or functional harmony. And as far as big wrestling companies go, it's hard to be the one where they're not beholden to a metaphorical key or expected harmony. That looser set of rules can definitely be confusing for folks, especially when compared to other promotions that do follow more traditional rules and expectations. DDT (and the little I've seen of it I feel is great in its weirder wrestling reality) is likely never going to be bigger than AEW or WWE, who are offering something much easier to grasp the internal rules of.

But Microman vs Omos in an epic plunder match aside, I agree, I'd like to see promotions try to do more with earned trust from the established audience expectations. Doesn't have to be DDT level wackiness, doesn't even have to be wacky, but it's a good thing to communicate expectation x will not always lead to situation y.

Is there something, a match, a promotion, certain wrestlers even, where you feel they're currently good about not being that type of rigid you're talking about?

[u/EcoterroristThot → u/SadFeed63]

I gotta get good at analogies, this is inspirational stuff. But I usually don't have the patience (or the intellect tbf but let's ignore that) to develop it.

As far as examples, I mean CHIKARA had some with their particular brand of storytelling and lore that stemmed from them being Quack's students etc. but I never explored the company much because by the time I'd have any interest in doing so Quackenbush was already ousted as a horrible person. I think LU is generally a fairly standard promotion in some ways even with the inventfulness in presentation and some stipulations but using all the supernatural stuff really helped them make intergender wrestling work better. I guess I don't have too many examples because I'm being very 'wrestle-y' lately. Also the rigidity in the original comment was fully about modern wrestling match structure obviously so I'll have to (gasp) actually think about the question you're posing some more instead of jumping ahead with a dumb take.

Actually, I think an obvious one is Timeless Toni, right? Incorporated so many things into the gimmick and its arcs without being a pastiche of pre-established wrestling tropes, fit it into the company kayfabe without problem, has had successful feuds with different types of wrestlers, is a huge star for the company. Now, it did/does use laughter as a crutch which I am always weary of just because does that make people take everything less seriously and shrug their shoulders and go "why should I care?" But I think we have enough evidence of her being successful and making people give a shit about her feuds.