Serious question: I genuinely struggle with the overly shoot oriented presentation of UWF/RINGS/Pancrase/GLEAT mainly because it occupies a strange spot in terms of stakes to the fight, if that makes any sense. My care about the wrestlers on these events rarely goes beyond being impressed with their technical abilities and how crisply realistic they make their matches appear to be, as I fail to grasp what story is being told or rather why it's being told. My mind pushes me towards watching something with an extra focus on rough yet bombastic storytelling (AJPW/AJW) with defined characteristics, or directly going for straight up MMA. I already have issues with the latter due to the deceptive nature of the "work" and how prevalent it is in the sport, but end up being won over by the presentation. It probably has to do with how I got hooked into pro wrestling as a child in the first place, and how I lean more towards theater than pure sport. I just find it so cold and emotionless.
Basically, I want to ask you boys how you wound getting past the, for lack of a better term, vanilla surface of these promotions, and what is it that sincerely keeps you exploring their output so passionately?
