Wrestling Evolution Quotes

We just get comfortable in our routines, and that's how it worked before, but now you can see wrestling from around the world and all the promotions, and everyone has something online you could see. And many years ago, you could do these routines, and they weren't routines to the fans because they didn't see them as much.

I think the climate of wrestling has changed. I think the big guy, The Giant, The Big John Studd's of the world are an endangered species because the business has become smaller.

If we're talking about guys who set the tone, you've got to go way back. But if we're talking about guys who made it possible for guys like A.J. Styles, Shawn Michaels kind of opened that door, along with Daniel Bryan.

If you look at wrestling when I started to get my big break back in 1992, I changed wrestling from the cartoons of Hulk Hogan and Iron Sheik and the matches with the leg drop and the hand behind the ear and the playing to the crowd. They were just cartoon characters if you ask me.

Wrestling went from being sometimes comical to very serious, and there was a lot of depth regarding the vastness in which people performed.

I remember when I had just left WWE and I was wrestling in England and Germany, I could just tell that this influx of this new wave of wrestling was coming much like it felt when I began wrestling back in '99.

Wrestling continues to evolve and change, and we plan to stay ahead of the curve, beginning with 'Slammiversary.'

I came up in the U.K., which is a very catch-as-catch-can style, and then I somehow ended up in Japan and spent eight years there learning strong style. I got to spend some time in Mexico learning the lucha libre style, and the WWE is a hybrid style of everything mixed together.

You look back at the Attitude Era and the level of entertainment we put in the ring now. The Attitude Era doesn't even come close. I'm not afraid to say that, either.

'Lucha Underground' is a combination of new psychology, new moves, and a new take on wrestling: an evolution of wrestling. In my opinion, it is entertaining. It is the kind of wrestling I want to watch. It is the kind of stories I want to tell, which is why I intend to be part of it.

We're changing the way people are going to look at wrestling, women's wrestling, forever. Forever. And we're at the start of it? That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable! Unbelievable.

My goal is to make wrestling more like mixed martial arts.

It's the fans that dictate what wrestling is. That's the one constant from 1917 to 2017.

I grew up in the early 2000s, being one of the first-generation wrestlers to have access to the Internet and watch independent wrestling. We usually didn't have to trade tapes anymore. We could just get online and search A. J. Styles or Low Ki.

My goal isn't just to make wrestling into a bigger show and make good money, but it's also to evolve pro wrestling to where I think it belongs.

Wrestling used to be interesting. There was a bit of sham involved, of course, but there was some real wrestling involved. They're just characters now. It's unrecognizable. There's no fighting in American bloody wrestling. They just yell at each other and jump around like overweight ballet dancers.

'Lucha Underground' is the evolution of wrestling. It's high-style, high-flying, fast-paced hybrid style wrestling, and we're actually paying homage to lucha libre for the first time.

My favorite part of working with 'Lucha Underground' is learning more Lucha, combining that with my WWE psychology, and taking wrestling to a place we've never seen before in the evolution of wrestling.

The game has changed since the '80s, where you could punch and kick and headlock and do one suplex, and that's a 25 minute match.

I understand that wrestling now has changed as opposed to what it was when I worked, but I still think you can apply some of the things that I talk about and just put your 2018 twist on it and still make it work.

Wrestling has progressed to the point that the fourth wall has been broken. People would enjoy more seeing what is behind the superhero that they watch on TV.