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If you are a fan of pro wrestling, you have many more options in which to feed your appetite for the sport. We are living in a time when there are no shortage of good promotions and no shortage of quality wrestling.
Being a fan of just WWE is typical of many wrestling fans, but if you aren't checking out other promotions, then you are missing out on the rest the business has to offer.
While WWE likely ruled the stage once it purchased WCW and essentially put it out of business, things have changed drastically over the last five years or so.
There was a time when WWE wouldn't sign almost anyone from Impact, but on today's roster, you have AJ Styles, Bobby Roode, Eric Young, Samoa Joe and EC3 (just to name a few).
And while losing wrestlers like the Colons or Mojo Rawley might not have hurt the WWE as much 10 years ago, today they are very adamant about keeping talents so that they cannot depart the company and hurt it when they join a rival promotion.
Since so much has changed for the better in the business, we are currently in a boom period for the sport. Here are five reasons why we are in a golden age of professional wrestling.
#5: Access
Back in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, the main way to experience pro wrestling, and mainly WWE, was on weekly television, monthly PPVs or attending a show live.
But with the boom of the internet and constant technological advancements almost on a yearly basis, fans of pro wrestling can now access a lot of history of the business via the WWE Network.
For the rate of $9.99 a month, you can watch every PPV, weekly shows like NXT, NXT: UK and 205 Live on the network. You can also access histories of former promotions like ECW, WCW and Deep South Wrestling.
If you don't have the WWE Network, chances are you can find some way to get any news you want on the internet or YouTube or other streaming sites.
And this extends to Ring of Honor with HonorClub, New Japan Pro Wrestling with NJPW World and practically any other company that might have its own streaming service.
Basically, if you have access to the internet and have to have a way to watch all of your professional wrestling, there are more than enough ways to sate your appetite. The same goes for being able to stream a wrestling show on your phone. Who would have thought we would have been able to do that in 2000?
#4: Diversity
If you are a fan of WWE, then that's great. But a lot of fans of WWE are fans of professional wrestling as a whole, like me and possibly you.
A lot of promotions that are currently in existence were created to be alternatives to WWE. Among the other promotions wrestling fans may follow in addition to WWE include Ring of Honor, NJPW, Major League Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerilla, Rev Pro Wrestling, AAA, CMLL and hundreds of other promotions worldwide.
While CMLL, NJPW and AAA have been around just as long as and sometimes longer than WWE, wrestling has always been a worldwide sport.
There's also Lucha Underground, which tapes a whole season at once but has its own storytelling devices where characters can actually 'die'.
If you are a fan of character development, you can watch ROH, WWE, LU or Impact Wrestling. More of a fan of just the wrestling? Then AAA, CMLL or various promotions like NJPW are perfect for your tastes.
There are also several promotions just for female wrestlers, like WOW, Shine, Shimmer, WSU and Stardom.
While a lot of fans/people hate on WWE for 'monopolizing' the business in many ways, if the huge company didn't exist, the need to create alternatives to it wouldn't have sprung up practically every other wrestling promotion.
#3: Quality
The quality of wrestling has certainly improved by leaps and bounds over the last two decades. Instead of too many muscle-bound wrestlers attempting to carry on good matches, now we have many wrestlers, no matter how big or small, who are able to put of fantastic matches.
Most companies pride themselves on the quality of their product, and companies like ROH, NJPW, WWE and many others are at the forefront of this.
While WWE still has some matches that might lack quality, keep in mind that they don't treat every match like a wrestling clinic. Storylines often trump what a match might be like. Also in terms of quality, there are numerous styles of wrestling if a particular style or promotion turns you off.
Like 'Strong Style'? Check out NJPW, Pro Wrestling Noah or any of the numerous British promotions that have cultivated their own version of the style.
Hardcore fans can follow CZW, House of Hardcore or the occasional match in MLW. The quality of women's wrestling is also light years ahead of where it was even eight years ago. This was something that led to promotions like Shine, Shimmer, Stardom and WOW being created for women to hone their crafts.
A big onus has been placed on the 'Women's Evolution' by WWE over the last five years or so, but other companies have been putting out quality women's wrestling for the last decade in the least.
#2: Mainstream Appeal
If you do a Google search for a rumoured story or simply a news story about an upcoming wrestling event, chances are you'll find a mix between news sites but also some of the bigger companies like ESPN and CBS covering a WWE story.
Whenever someone leaves the UFC or WWE or vice versa, several major news outlets will cover a story if an athlete leaves one sport for another as Brock Lesnar does yearly.
If Fox didn't see the potential in success by reaching a new TV deal with WWE to air SmackDown Live, they wouldn't have joined up with the biggest wrestling company in the world.
Vince McMahon loves the crossover and mainstream coverage any time something his company does pings a major news outlet.
When Ronda Rousey debuted at last year's Royal Rumble, sites like Sports Illustrated, NBC, CBS, ESPN and MMAFighting all covered the news. Any time Lesnar has made a move, major sports outlets have run stories. Even Forbes has a section dedicated to professional wrestling.
#1: Competition
As stated on several of the other previous slides, there certainly isn't a shortage of wrestling promotions in the world. With so many now vying to sign as many talented wrestlers as possible, the competition beckons back to the 1990s when ECW, WWE and WCW all battled for supremacy.
Even though WWE shows are on basic cable, if you have specific channels in your cable package, you have a chance to catch Impact, NJPW, ROH, WOW or MLW.
Since so many promotions want to outdo the others, it helps create a system where the wrestler is more in demand, thus driving up their values.
The competition also usually drives up the quality of the product as each side ponders what they can do to surpass their rivals.
With little or no competition, things become stagnant like the mid-2000s when WCW and ECW both went defunct. NJPW was still a viable promotion, but it wasn't as nearly as accessible as it is today.
And since All Elite Wrestling is now a real thing, it should hopefully force WWE to up it product and storylines.
They've already started to answer Impact's claim to be edgier with the recent segments on Raw (with Alexa Bliss backstage) and SmackDown Live (Naomi and Mandy Rose hotel fight).
In addition to wrestlers, fans of the sport are also true winners. If you love the sport, you can follow it in numerous ways from streaming, to subscriptions to wrestling sites to TV. It truly is a great time to be a wrestling fan.
