Seth Rollins Declares This The Golden Age of Wrestling, Is He Right?

Seth Rollins hasn’t exactly shied away from making declarative or controversial statements on social media in the past, and he did just that once again on Thursday. Previously, Rollins has made statements about the superiority of the WWE product to other pro wrestling companies around the world, but this time, he seemed to take the entire industry as a whole and heaped praise on all of it. Rollins wrote, “From coast to coast and sea to sea, I don’t know if there’s ever been this much incredible wrestling going on at one time. Taking nothing away from past generations— they inspired & paved the way— but we’re damn sure keeping up…and then some. #ironsharpensiron #thegoldenage“

This led to quite a bit of discussion among fans and journalists about whether Rollins was correct in saying that this is the golden age of pro wrestling. When one looks at the shear amount of good wrestling available across the globe, from multiple companies, over the last several years he certainly has a point. If you’re preferred wrestling style is athletic, acrobatic, and quick, there really hasn’t been a time in history with this much great action between the ropes. The amount of mind-blowing matches during the 2010s, and surely moving into the 2020s, has been spectacular.

Others were quick to point out the, shall we say, lower level WWE creative in recent years. WWE’s storylines and television have certainly not been near their peak in quite some time, which has been reflected in collapsing live attendance (well, when there were crowds) and shrinking television ratings. So from a creative standpoint, you’d be hard pressed to justify that this is anywhere close to the golden age of the sport. There have been many periods in wrestling history that were light years better than what we are seeing right now in that regard.

So what it really comes down to is, what do you watch wrestling for? Do you watch for the quality of the matches, do you watch for the quality of the overall stories, or a little of both? It makes for an interesting debate. But as mentioned earlier, when it comes solely to the ring work in the wrestling industry today (the wrestling itself), right now is among the best time periods that the business has ever seen.