How long should a wrestling career last?

[xCompackx]

Taking inspiration from the "please retire chants" thread and the fact that guys like Kane and Big Show constantly garner criticism for still being on TV, how long is "too long" for a wrestling career?

[The Kevstaaa]

It's tough to say. Many factors come into play. For example, if you're on TV every week, you'll get stale quickly. In the past, a career could stay fresher for longer due to the lack of TV. If you're in good shape, you can clearly go longer than those that aren't. Another factor for me is what you do in your career. If you keep your act fresh, you can last longer. If you're the same stale character for years, it gets boring quickly.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Jan 4, 2016 15:27:52 GMT -5 The Kevstaaa said:

It's tough to say. Many factors come into play. For example, if you're on TV every week, you'll get stale quickly. In the past, a career could stay fresher for longer due to the lack of TV. If you're in good shape, you can clearly go longer than those that aren't. Another factor for me is what you do in your career. If you keep your act fresh, you can last longer. If you're the same stale character for years, it gets boring quickly.

Yeah. For Big Show, roughly his entire career has been spent as a top guy on national television. That's why he's stale.

[Deleted]

I personally think 20 years. You can have like one guy on the roster who has been around longer, but he has to be someone that can still go and isn't the main attraction. Sort of a Terry Funk in ECW type.

And when I say 20 years, I don't mean in that company necessarily, I mean since their first match in a high school gym somewhere.

[Allie Kitsune]

I mostly think a wrestler should probably be done as a full-time active wrestler in any major company by the time they hit 46.

[Raskovnik]

As long as you feel like it, if you're Minoru Suzuki, who doesn't need to take bumps and can still put on five star matches when he feels like it. That's really it for me. If you can still go out there and tear it up, it's fine with me.

[Magic knows Black Lives Matter]

In all seriousness, it depends. Really, it does.

Everybody is different. Some guys are more injury prone than others. Some guys are more durable. Some guys are straight up freaks of nature. Some guys are clearly past their prime by the time they are 40. Others go past that age and are STILL regularly having one the best matches of the night. FFS, people in WWE were saying Kurt Angle was gonna die in 2006 (understandably so based on the circumstances) and he had ****+ matches for years in TNA afterwards.

Intelligence also plays a role. Guys that are stubborn will insist on working the exact same style their entire career which ends up shortening it in the long run. Smarter guys adapt their style to fit the physical limitations they are experiencing as they get older and become better performers because of it.

There's a bunch of factors that make it impossible to set a real time frame on when somebody should retire beyond knowing your body and keeping track of your physical health.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

When veternas like late-2000s Finlay can put on good showings and make the guys they wrestle with look good, while someone like Randy Orton can feel like he's stale after having simply done everything so much that by his early 30s he has nowhere else to go, I don't think the issue os setting a general time frame so much as it is just when they've outstayed their welcome if they don't have something fresh and revitalizing to bring to the table.

[chazraps]

How long should any career? We're all human! Just human beings.

(language warning)

[Jimichiro Likes Erick Rowan]

It really depends on your style. Guys who were brought up in the territory era could wrestle longer because they tended to work a slower & simpler match. Nowadays with so much emphasis placed on workrate and athleticism, it's much more taxing on the body.

If someone started today at 21 and wrestled today's workrate heavy style, they should probably hang up their boots in their mid 30s because of how beat up their body would be.

[Deleted]

Big Show debuted when he was 23 and was in the upper tier of the card from day one, so a little different from dudes who start at 30ish and spend a few years building a following before starting to get a strong push.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Thing is, Big Show is a once in a generation talent. Genuine giant. Can wrestle when he needs to. Can do face or heel. Great on the mic.

And you know what? It wasn't even WCW that f***ed it up.