The Undertaker Points Out 'Huge Problem' With Today's Wrestlers

Perhaps no one in professional wrestling carries more authority than The Undertaker. So when he takes issue with a current industry trend, it's our duty as wrestling fans to at least hear out The Deadman.

During a rare interview with Onnit, The Undertaker discussed the state of today's wrestling. To him, there are a few issues with how wrestlers put together their matches in this day and age — specifically the expanding use of high-octane maneuvers. From Taker's perspective, this generation of wrestlers is too focused on outdoing each other's stunts rather than focusing on basic in-ring psychology.

"Sometimes you have to set the angle within the match, but you gotta give a reason for one guy to be loved and one guy to be hated," Taker said. "At the end of the day, whatever you're doing in the ring, you want it to look real, and genuine, and authentic. And I think that's a huge problem, everybody acts the same way, everybody overplays to the audience, and it's just like, 'OK, what do you do next?'"

Taker is echoing what many wrestlers of his generation have already said: the use of high-risk moves is a slippery slope. To Taker and his peers, the more acrobatics involved in a match, the less sustainable things become.

"Everybody's calling, they want to backflip off this and into that. Once you do that a couple of times, it's like, 'OK, what do you got now?' Well, now I gotta do two flips into that, then two and a half. When they get used to that, what do you do? Instead of learning the finer nuances of what we do, and that's tell stories. Granted, physical, painful stories, but stories nonetheless," he said.

Without question, today's wrestlers are exponentially more physically gifted than their predecessors. However, their quest to put that athleticism on full display night in and night out may be too demanding. While we all love a high-impact move, we probably love healthy wrestlers more. And as fun as it is to see these creative spots in a match, if they happen every two minutes, then they begin to lose their effectiveness.

This has been an argument that has fueled no shortage of internet discussion. Wrestling looks a lot different than it did 20 years ago. While that's inherently a good thing, there are foundational elements of the sport that should remain intact. And to Taker nuanced storytelling will always be a better way to connect to a crowd than a moonsault.