“Road Dogg” Brian James was the special guest on this week’s episode of X-Pac 1 2 360, with James comparing the current roster to the talent he competed with during the Attitude Era. James says today’s roster is more talented from an in-ring standpoint, and said there are still plenty of characters in wrestling today, but the field is still moving towards a more sports-oriented feel.
“I actually think they are much more talented especially as far as the work rate and the athleticism and just how fast they go, how long they can go…If you go back and watch the Attitude Era to be quite honest with you it was a freaking mess. I can’t even go back, like I’ll watch our matches every now and then, I will, but there would be a match going on and all of a sudden two other guys would fight out on the stage and they would go down and fight the guy on commentary it was just like, ‘what is going on here?’ It was very hard to delineate the storylines or the story progression so I think it was kind of a mess. But for the time it was really cool, and it was a must see, I just think there were some good characters back in the day. Today, I think the industry, that evolution that you talked about is kinda going more towards a—there’s still characters but it’s more of a sporting direction and a kind of a competitive direction and there’s no way in hell the New Age Outlaws were gonna be in that conversation.”
James says as much as he wants to be ‘bitter’ about it, it’s a great time to be in the wrestling business as talent and a fan, and we’re starting to see a shift in how matches are presented.
“We are in the midst of the evolution, whether our old bitter asses like it or not. We’ve actually spent a lot of time in the past two weeks talking about that evolution and it’s not only in the business, I think what we’ve talked mostly about is not the business aspect of it but that it is a great time to be a professional wrestler or sports entertainer and it’s also a great time to be a fan…But what we’ve talked about down here a lot is the evolution in the work rate itself. And the evolution of the old guys saying slow down and the young guys kinda working at a quicker faster pace. I am torn inside my head because I want to be that bitter guy…but I do think that’s where we’re at. So yeah it’s an evolution in the industry all the way through, across the board, so great time to be a wrestler, great time to be a fan.”
The full episode is available to watch below; X-Pac 1 2 360 is also available on iTunes and Spotify.
Related: Road Dogg Explains Why Some Talent Is Scripted, Talks About Earning A Level Of Trust With Promos
