The rise of social media has affected every business and wrestling is not any different. What once used to be a business of huge attractions has turned into an industry where people are competing to get the attention of the fan base by doing the most insane things and breaking limits that have never been touched before.
AEW star Chris Jericho who has experienced this change firsthand in his 3 decade-long wrestling career recently spoke to MSN about the effect of social media on wrestlers.
The former AEW Champion first discussed how young wrestlers don’t get the time to perfect their art away from the limelight because social media puts them in front of the world almost as soon as they enter the business. He also explained that the very biased opinion of loud fans can affect a person’s perspective about what’s good and what’s not:
“One of the trends is younger guys and girls will go on Twitter or Instagram or whatever after the match and look for the comments to decide whether their match was good or not. You know here, in your heart, the moment the match ends, if it was good or bad.”
Tough it’s not all bad and there are some good aspects of this change too. Chris Jericho mentioned that if you are a good wrestler, then social media can help you get discovered much faster compared to the old days:
“One of the benefits is you can be seen on YouTube and if you’re really good you can suddenly create a real big buzz for yourself much faster than back in the day. In the early days of my career, it was more done by word of mouth, magazines, the different territories that you’re working in Japan or something you could build an image and then come to the States.”
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Chris Jericho made his wrestling debut back in October 1990. He competed for many smaller promotions such as Smokey Moutain Wrestling, CMLL and ECW before being signed by WCW in 1996. It took Jericho almost another 5 years to break into the main event scenes and win his first world title at No Mercy in October 2001.
