Wrestling is at the best it’s ever been in 2024 – Let’s enjoy this peak

Saturday morning in 1988, eight year old me was lying on the living room floor watching Saturday morning cartoons. As the 10:30 airing of Transformers came to an end, what came on next caught my attention. I was mesmerized as I was introduced to wrestlers like Big John Studd, Big Boss Man, Hulk Hogan, Mr. Perfect, Rick Rude, Red Rooster, and most importantly Randy Savage. No longer was Saturday morning excitement about cartoons, it was about “WWF Superstars of Wrestling”. Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura became the voice of my childhood and a lifelong wrestling fan was born.

In almost forty years since, even at its worst, I always come back to wrestling. In the mid 90s I started to move away from wrestling, then DX and nWo reinvigorated me. I fell in love all over again. Steve Austin had me glued to my television every Monday night, then as soon as Raw was over I’d watch the replay (Nitro played a replay immediately after the live airing) of WCW Nitro where Sting graced my television set.

It’s always been a cycle; I love wrestling but I either grow tired of the product or it becomes something that’s played out and no longer interests me. But something always brings me back in. After the Monday Night Wars, as I grew disillusioned with wrestling, TNA brought me back into wrestling. Then it was John Cena, Randy Orton, Dave Batista, and Brock Lesnar that brought me back to WWE. Rinse and repeat.

Most recently, it was AEW. I had grown tired of wrestling. I felt that when I was watching it was more out of habit than anything else. Repetitive booking and poor character choices with WWE had me bored mindless. The Japanese style, while I understand the love, isn’t my forte. RoH was hard to find in my location. My connection to wrestling was through YouTube only as I watched highlights of the small handful of WWE wrestlers I truly cared about. But when AEW was announced, being a huge fan of Cody Rhodes since the days of Dashing Cody, I was, no pun intended, All In.

It rejuvenated me. While a lot of what was done in AEW did not and does not play to my tastes, there was enough to get me excited; Cody Rhodes (first and foremost), the character work of MJF, the feel of something special in Wardlow, the evolution of Britt Baker. As things blew up in my mind and I grew disillusioned with AEW, they had forced WWE to do something different. Triple H began to find himself as a booker, and I could see a renaissance in WWE. Now, as always, I find myself back to soaking in all WWE programming as it’s become don’t miss TV.

The point of all of this is this; right now wrestling is at the best it’s ever been. Wrestling has always been a business of ebbs and flows. It doesn’t matter if you religiously watch AEW, spend your money on WWE, or live and die by New Japan or any other company. The tribalism with the company aside we all share something the same; we are wrestling fans first and foremost and wrestling is at a peak. Right now we have more wrestling available to us than ever before, right there at our fingertips. We have athleticism, story telling, larger than life personalities, and so much more.

So who cares if someone doesn’t like WWE and what it offers, but will bleed for AEW? Why does it matter if I prefer what WWE has to offer and what AEW does to be a bit too much? What people fail to realize or refuse to understand is there is no competition. They are two sub-genres of the same type; death metal and thrash, slasher or ghost movie, college football or NFL. A lot of crossover, but also a very different fan base.

So who cares? Who cares which company you watch or what product you prefer? We all love wrestling, and love it passionately. Let’s enjoy this peak in wrestling and countless options. Let’s fantasy book, debate and discuss, love and hate this industry like only a rabid fan can, but let’s do it all together rather than to make even wrestling an us vs them dynamic. Let’s enjoy it together, but because it’s far more enjoyable when you can share that passion with someone else.

Let’s do it together.