Dave Meltzer On Change, A Story As Relevant Today As It Was Then

Dave Meltzer:

“There really is a lot to learn from this business that relates to far more than just pro wrestling. The most important thing about wrestling, entertainment in general, and really life, that I've learned, is that the minute you think you understand it completely, it means that time has already passed you by. You're done. It's always changing. It has to always change, because the world always changes and time doesn't stand still. If you want to stop paying attention to the present and don't care to open yourself up to accept new concepts relating to both the present and the future, the door is there on the left. This business has changed completely over the past ten years. The next ten will bring changes probably just as significant. Don't decry these changes because you long for the way things were in the past. Not only does time, particularly in the entertainment world, not stand still, but it definitely doesn't go backwards. Decry the changes when you believe they aren't for the better, and many of them aren’t and many more won't be. But don't close your mind to them simply because they are new.”

The more things change.

By the way, I wrote this 24 ½ years ago. I probably could have written it 40 years ago as well. And yes, there was a mentality from some at the time it was written that Jushin Liger and Eddy Guerrero were the spot monkeys who didn’t know how to work because they did moves that you’d never do in a real fight and that they’d be flashes in the pan because their bodies would be destroyed by the time they were 35. 40 years ago the names would have been Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat. The people saying it spent their careers doing moves that you’d also never do in a real fight, and the vast majority of them are long since forgotten.