In EFFY's estimation, modern wrestling has become the real-life embodiment of the 'Double Identity' Spider-Man meme.
Ahead of GCW's seminal The WRLD On GCW event, EFFY sat down with Brandon Walker of Barstool Rasslin' to discuss a number of topics, including his take on today's wrestling scene. According to the indie star, GCW is trying to do things differently, but it's impossible to please everyone. Furthermore, he posits that wrestling is caught in a perpetual cycle where it is written and produced by the same people, continually offering up the same thing, and as a result, struggles to compete with everything else vying for the public's attention.
"Well the wrestling we make is sometimes a little too violent for people, right? It's a little too gay for people. I've often referred to it as really HBO Max of wrestling. We're in this modern era where wrestling is trying to imitate wrestling. Like oh, let's do the same thing we did over and over wrestling is, supposedly, an imitation of a fight is what I've heard, right. But a lot of the television wrestling is an imitation of wrestling. It's the same guys from the 90s writing it, it's the same dudes doing it over and over. A perpetual cycle is a perpetual cycle and sometimes you lose sight of the bigger picture when you're in this bubble. Because you go, ‘I'm competing with wrestling.’ We're not competing with wrestling anymore. We're competing with the scarcity of time. So if you've got a bong at your house, you've got a dog at your house, a full fridge, beers, food, snacks, it's cold. How do I make you give enough of a fuck to leave your house?," EFFY said.
He continued on to say that taking chances and doing things differently has a better chance of pulling in new viewers than offering up the same thing people have been seeing for their entire lives. Wrestling needs to evolve past the old comfortable clothing that we've been wearing it as.
"We're competing with all of that and if we can give you something that is beyond what you expected from pro wrestling, whether it be in the story, in the violence, in the outlandishness of it, in the not-safe-for-workness of it, that version is going to pull more people in that are feeling authenticity versus, ‘Well, yeah, this is pretty decent wrestling. We used to watch Eddie Guerrero. It looks like it used to look. SmackDown looks the same like it used to look.' So there's a difference in that. You're evolving past the old comfortable jacket that we put on when we're wearing wrestling." he said.
Up next for EFFY is a showdown with Jeff Jarrett at The WRLD On GCW. Though he was hesitant to face the Hall of Famer at first, EFFY had a change of heart after Double-J attacked Allie Katch at last weekend's GCW Say You Will Event.
The WRLD On GCW is scheduled to take place this Sunday, January 23 at the sold-out Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. The kickoff show is streaming free on the GCW YouTube channel while the main card can be purchased on FITE and traditional PPV. The full card can be seen here.
Fightful will have coverage of The WRLD on GCW on Sunday, January 23.
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