The state of professional wrestling has “never been worse” than it is right now, according to self-described wrestling historian Brad Menderchuk, who has uttered variations of the same lament every year for more than a quarter-decade.

“WWE has become a mockery of its former glory,” Menderchuk wrote in an online forum yesterday — as well as in 1998, 2003, 2007, 2012, and thrice in 2015.

Menderchuk then insisted, as he has done on a near-daily basis for his entire adult life, that “Vince (McMahon) has completely lost touch with what fans want.”

wrestling fan
Wrestling is “not as good as it used to be,” according to this man who has never liked any era of wrestling.

Despite his repeated threats that he will “boycott” WWE programming, 42-year-old Menderchuk has never missed an episode of WWE Raw or SmackDown; and in spite of his vehement statements to the contrary, he is an avid viewer of Total Divas.

Whereas many fans accept the cyclical boom-and-bust nature of professional wrestling, Menderchuk has lamented even the genre’s most p0pular periods.

The explosion of Hulkamania and WWF’s rapid national expansion in the 1980s was “too cartoonish” and “killed the territories,” he complained. The Monday Night Wars were “too ratings-driven,” and the Attitude Era was “nothing but puerile vulgarity for shock value,” he said.

“And don’t get me started on the current era,” Menderchuk said this week, last week, last month, last year, and annually for the past several decades.

 

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