I can't remember if I read it in here or heard it on a podcast, but the perfect description for modern wrestling moves if that they are innovated on basically the same way skateboarding is.
It is 'ok lemme get my shit in' vs 'ok let me get my shit in next.' The comparison I like to draw is the same one from the Plinkett reviews. Darth Maul vs the Jedis. It's a fancy flurry of moves, but there's nothing to it. It's just moves, moves, moves, moves, moves. No emotional resonance, no nothing. And you don't have to set that up in promos or backstage. You can carry that all the way from the start of the match to the end of the match. It's nothing to do with stiffness, it's everything to do with how the match is set up, how 'on the spot' it looks, how the opponent sells. Everyone loves a perfectly choreographed match, but I think it takes away from the match. One of the reasons I prefer Rude/Steamboat to Savage/Steamboat is the way Savage sets up matches. EVERYTHING is planned. It looks so incredibly planned that you instantly snap out of it and go, 'this isn't real. this is fake.' Where as the Steamboat and Rude match have so many spots where one guy goes for one move and hte other goes for another and it kind of looks like a botch but not really because they're veterans and they just lead into a new spot. My biggest problem with a lot of modern wrestling is it looks like a testament to working cooperatively, not competitively. Now professional wrestling is ideally a cooperative thing, but it's supposed to LOOK competitive.
The problem is I don't buy any of the current feuds in WWE as feuds, and I buy very few people as 'real.' People were talking about Luke Harper, and I like Luke a lot, but I think Brody is a much better wrestler than him. Not in a technical sense but because of the world he existed in and the image he built up for himself. I am using the all encompassing 'professional wrestler' term because promos and mannerisms and characters are not just something Vince McMahon came up with when he started calling it Sports Entertainment. And this isn't Harper's fault at all. The guy's conditioned, he's REALLY good and could be a star if things work out, but the modern WWE has such a struggle booking a feud that's believable. I don't believe Bray Wyatt hates John Cena. I don't believe John Cena hates Bray Wyatt.
In the last few years, the only match that gave me this feeling was Brock vs Punk. The ultimate compliment is to make me think for one second, 'Do they know this is supposed to be scripted?' because of how the match carried itself. Because the two wrestlers in that match were very type A personalities, and it translated. Because Punk did the right thing and accepted that Brock was huge and that he needed to look like the underdog to sell its believability. Because of Brock's past. Because of Punk's expressions. It worked. It made me a mark for a moment. And nothing in the WWE since then has done it. The closest I can think of is Triple H wrestling Daniel Bryan because even though we know how Triple H is, his character has existed so long that you can buy him hating some 'midget indie geek.'
Shibata vs Tanahashi is another one I really enjoyed because I KNOW they hate each other. I kind of get that sense of resentment too between Suzuki and Sakuraba, and it makes me incredibly hyped for that match. Not because of their technical skills but because they come off as incredibly credible. Even Yujiro and Naito do a REALLY good job of selling me on them not liking each other anymore(even though they're close friends irl). I just don't think the majority of modern wrestling cares about how credible they look. It's more of a display of athletics than a display of story, and it bums me out.
And it's not a nostalgia thing because honestly? The majority of my youth spent watching wrestling was 1996+ WCW all the way to the end. And I have posted on here as much stating how much I think that shit sucks now.