Val Venis Says There’s No ‘Emotional Connection’ To Mexican Wrestling

Val Venis spent some time in CMLL before he came to WWE, and he recently talked about why he’s not a big fan of Mexican wrestling. Venis worked as Steele in CMLL and held the CMLL World Heavyweight Championship in 1997 before he left for WWE, and he spoke on Stories With Bradshaw & Brisco about his time there.

“When you watch Mexican wrestling, you get a lot of the ‘Ooh, ahh’ and the pops from great-looking moves,” Venis said (per Wrestling Inc). “But there’s no emotional connection from the fans to the talent. You get a guy at the water cooler the next day, and they’re talking about the match they saw the night before. ‘Oh, did you see this match? It was incredible. Double moonsault with three half twists, and he landed on the guy. It was great.’ ‘Oh, what was the guy’s name?’ ‘I don’t know, but it was a great-looking move.’ You know what I mean?”

He continued, “There’s no emotional attachment. They don’t care about the wrestler’s name, they don’t care about the wrestler’s character. All they remember is the move. But because there’s no selling behind it, there’s no emotional connection…when you get somebody that goes down there and begins to sell and starts to develop an emotional connection with the fans, you can make big money down there doing that.”