There is a bitter sweet feeling when I watch a Japanese wrestler or a Luchador get signed with WWE or AEW. With exception (there are more than a few. Classically Rey Mysterio and more modernly, Asuka), you often realize their best work is behind them. But you also know someone is getting a big payday. You can't work super hard forever so slowing down in the places that pay more seems much preferrable.
But it often feels like tourism, or getting food at all you can eat buffet. Sure it's steak but it's steak at a buffet. It's a shadow of steak anywhere else. The foreign wrestlers are just a piece of 'variety' for the whole show. So, if you're like me, you're always a little sad when a wrestler from a rich foreign tradition ends up jumping shit and you just generally hope they're happy, fulfilled, and well paid.
... But something bothers me when I read other people talk about this. "Oh god I really really hope WWE signs Giulia" and just from a general wrestling watching perspective, why would you wish for that?
Wow this amazing wrestler who is carrying one of the best womens promotions in the world, in feuds where she has great matches and has tons of chemistry and history with everyone? God it'd be sweet if she was yanked out of there to be a side show attraction on my Televised English television show!
Like if you know enough about Giulia to want her in WWE you should know enough to not want her in WWE (or lol ESPECIALLY AEW). There are shows you can watch right now. You don't have to eat off the same plate for your whole life. You can watch Lucha on AAA or CMLL shows. You can watch so much great wrestling instead of trying to cram everything into the same pot of gruel. Like sickly lions dragged across the world to be stared at in some zoo. Iyo Sky is great? Well Io Shirai had better matches in 6 woman tags in a black building in front of like 300 people back in Japan. You didn't need to wait to be spoon fed. She was there. And maybe she's happier now. She's probably making more money for her bumps, she's likely proving something to her self -- that she can get over anywhere. And if those are her goals, I want her to succeed at them. I know Kairi has said she couldn't keep up the Stardom style forever. Luchadors in Mexico often get paid shit. It's fine to appreciate them wherever they go to make a living. But this big US televised big arena mindset kills me. That being a B or C player in a big US company is better than being a thriving star in a smaller company. That big a cog in a giant corporate machine is more impressive than legitimately drawing and supporting a company.
God I'm so excited for something beautiful to be destroyed so it can be more convenient to me.
That's all I see when people wish for these people to get signed.
