Any wrestling fan from the 1990s will remember Al Snow and his run through WWE. You remember, he was the crazy wrestler who carried a mannequin head everywhere and had Help Me written backwards on his forehead. He was quite the character, a memorable character, who resonated with the fans.
Well, Al Snow was talking on a recent episode of the It’s My House Podcast, where he had some harsh words about modern wrestlers and their lack of connection with the fan base.
“The talent isn’t performing for you anymore. That’s a fact,” Al Snow said. “They’re not going in the ring and wrestling for you. Your opinion doesn’t matter. They are wrestling for each other, trying to impress each other, and they are wrestling for that small group of people that write a report and give them critical acclaim and say either it was really a good match, or it was a bad match. That’s the truth. That’s why the talent is so caught up in today and in the locker room calling every single second. They’re not living in the moment, not reacting to each other, to the referee, not interacting with the audience like they used to. They’re so concerned that they’re gonna forget the next thing that’s coming up, and they’re scared to death that they’re going to make a mistake.”
Al Snow Feels Wrestlers Are Too Focused on Ratings than Performances
As part of his rant, Al Snow made big references to the journalists and writers. Those who give the ratings and award merit to stars that put on the best show. Claiming that the need to be pure and faultless is pushing wrestlers to forget the fans, and in many ways, forget about wrestling. Preferring to focus on delivering a flawless performance rather than a real one.
“It’s not that you’ll notice it because you won’t. It’s that somebody in the back will notice it, and we’ll call them out on it. Or someone who’s writing a report will notice that they made a mistake, or they did a botch. You can’t botch anything unless you expose the wrestling, the lie. If you ruin the illusion, that’s the only way you can make a mistake, otherwise, there’s no way to do it.”
Al Snow is clearly still passionate about wrestling. While his words may not ring true for everybody, his general assumption was that when wrestlers cared for the fans, you could identify the star with a single short sentence. Nowadays, however, with everybody out to impress rather than connect, that is getting harder and harder to accomplish.
