Before COVID-19 hit the world, independent wrestling was in an all time high in popularity and independent wrestlers could make good money on the scene without working on the larger promotions.
Now, everything has changed. The rise of AEW and the “war” they have with WWE has changed a lot the landscape of independent wrestling. WWE is now signing left and right independent talent to prevent them from going elsewhere. The indies are slowly losing a lot of talent.
This exodus of talent to the major promotions is creating desbalance of serious wrestlers and those with a more comedic character. Major promotions for the most part sign wrestlers with a more serious character due to them being the easier of the two to market to fans and push. The biggest exception to all this is Orange Cassidy with AEW.
Orange Cassidy is quite the character, is easy to understand and very likable and that help him translate easily to TV. Is the Orange Cassidy character going to be a main eventer or world champion in AEW? That’s the million dollar question, and by the look and pattners of the AEW booking the answer is no, but Orange Cassidy could easily be a great TNT champion someday.
Not all ironic characters on the indie scene are like Orange Cassidy and unfortunately for these wrestlers and that’s a major problem. These wrestlers are great and are very talented, but not many would translate correctly on TV or on a major promotion.
Everything in life needs a proper balance. Too many “serious” wrestlers would take away the joy and wonderful experience indie wrestling is. Right now we are seeing the scale going the other way around and up and coming indie wrestlers will try for more ironic characters rather than helping create a balance between both sides.
This may seem like I hate ironic and funny characters in wrestling, but that’s not the case, I love these types of wrestlers and they are fun to watch, but indie wrestling needs to have a balance rather than falling heavily to one side and ignoring the other.
Indie scene is a conundrum right now and only time will tell what the state of indie wrestling be once things are normal and the wrestlers left on the scene.
