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| Is pro wrestling making a comeback? | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 11 2015, 09:46 AM (284 Views) | |
| Kraul | Feb 11 2015, 09:46 AM Post #1 |
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I've been thinking about this a lot lately. While I wholeheartedly believe pro wrestling will never repeat the massive booms of the late 90s or the mid-80s again, a case for pro wrestling making a comeback seems to be getting built stronger each year for awhile now. I have my own opinions on WWE, but outside of them it feels like this is the healthiest pro wrestling has been since 2000. The indy scene is doing the best its maybe ever done with several very popular companies putting on regular shows with production values most indy feds of ten years ago would've dreamed of. Japanese wrestling is beginning to find an increased place in the US market, with the slowly building GFW kind of piggybacking on it while it awaits officially opening the doors. A new kind of wrestling show/market has found great success in the ironic/tongue-in-cheek style of wrestling shows seen in companies like CHIKARA or Lucha VaVOOM. Other than the occasional scandal, pro wrestling in the mainstream media has had more positive coverage and memes. It seems like pro wrestling is finally beginning to make a comeback from the much bleaker scene through the 00s after ECW and WCW folded, seemingly constant negative stories hitting the mainstream about wrestling deaths and steroid controversies, a barren landscape of companies to work for, etc. I guess I'm less asking if pro wrestling is making a comeback and more asking if anyone has any opinions on how far they think the comeback might go. I don't think pro wrestling will ever be able to be taken as a totally serious thing in the US again after the rise of MMA, but wrestling seems to definitely be finding its place again as a kind of fun entertainment that helps people take their minds off of the constant waves of negative news stories, cheating/drug scandals in legit sports, and neverending stream of mostly mediocre Hollywood reboots. But where's the limit? Am I wrong in my opening line, and can pro wrestling get to the heights seen during the peak of Hulkamania and Austin 3:16 once again? Can it surpass it? Or do you disagree with wrestling making a comeback altogether? |
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| Cybrus | Feb 11 2015, 03:38 PM Post #2 |
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STAY HYPED!!!
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Jeff Jarrett? Is that you? When did you join 6SW? Talking about your verge of another boom period and such!!I don't see any reason why there can't be another boom period for pro-wrestling. I've never understood that particular argument. It comes down to finding that one focal star that transcends the normal hardcore fan and brings in the casual fan again. Hulk Hogan was that star in the 80s and 90s. Austin was that star in the 90s. When that next exciting star is found, wrestling will be mainstream again. The problem is that wrestling is a monopoly. It's WWE in first place and everything else is a very, very, very distant second. I understand that people like to look at the current landscape and say it is healthier than it was 14 years ago when the monopoly started, and that is true. However, the distance between the new rising companies and WWE is so great that it's going to take another 15 years or one really, really rich guy to ever see that gap come close to closing. Consider this: ROH and TNA both have TV shows. WWE lost about 600K viewers between last week and this week for Raw. That number probably isn't even a blip on WWE's radar. They may look at it, but they'll gain that back next week. And even if they didn't, the rating is strong enough that no one will complain if those 600K viewers never return (they will). Yet neither ROH nor TNA have 600K viewers total for any of their shows. WWE can lose that many viewers and not even really feel it and while the closest competition can't even get that number at all. Another point to consider. I know a lot of people online like to call the WWE Network a fail or label it struggling because WWE didn't immediately hit their goal. While most people (in general) would agree that any new venture will take a year or two worth of growing pains (even Netflix wasn't profitable the first few years), wrestling smarks (not all) like to look at the fact that WWE didn't hit 1.5 million subscribers immediately and consider the entire thing a fail. WWE had to make a few budget cuts and make adjustments during their growing pains and smarks treat that like the fall of an empire. I don't know what the break even point for the Network is. Some say 1 million. Some say 1.5 million. I'm not sure which number takes into account that WWE still sells traditional PPVs even if the numbers are lower now. But the point is that WWE, even with all the bad attention after the Rumble, just announced they hit 1 million subscribers. How long they maintain that number is anyone's guess, but they hit 1 million subscribers. The closest competition the WWE Network has is NJPW's version variation called "New Japan World". For all the love that the smarks like to give NJPW and for all the attention GFW gave them (and I say that as a positive for both NJPW and GFW), the fact remains that New Japan World released their subscriber count at 20,000. As you can see, the gap between the two companies is so significant that it's going to take a lot more than online swooning to change things. So while I do agree that wrestling is on the upswing, that wrestlers now have more options and better chances of getting big pay (I've read names like the Young Bucks, AJ Styles, and Alberto El Patron are making more on the Indy scene than they would if signed with WWE?), the gap between these companies and WWE is so great that their isn't going to be any serious competition any time soon. And true competition is what is needed to create another boom period of popularity. WWE has no reason to change anything as long as WWE is continuing to make profits and keep their status quo. An example: Daniel Bryan is possibly the most popular wrestler WWE has had since Stone Cold or the Rock. If they fully embraced Daniel Bryan and made him the true face of the company, gave him the big wins, the PPV headlines, the title, the merchandise, he could possibly be a name that drew in casual fans. However, WWE seems more interested in using Daniel as a safety net while they continue to force the names they want. They wanted Batista. The fans revolted. Daniel Bryan saved them. WWE wants Roman Reigns and are going to make us accept Roman Reigns either as face or heel. Daniel Bryan is there to placate the fans until they accept Roman Reigns. If WWE had any true competition, maybe they'd try riding Daniel Bryan's hype train and seeing what it'd get them. Instead, they are very much content with doing whatever they want...because, there is truly no real competition for the fans to go to. Smarks will complain, but still watch. |
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| NWO | Feb 11 2015, 05:58 PM Post #3 |
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A wrestling boom happens when you have stars that transcend wrestling and enter mainstream culture. I'm a bit surprised the interest in wrestling during the Attitude Era didn't produce more kids/teenagers wanting to become wrestlers and going to wrestling school. I don't sense we are on the verge of any kind of boom. We are probably as far removed from a fresh top draw than we have been in wrestling history. It does seem that we have more alternatives today than we have in a while. Perhaps wrestling will become more fragmented with more options for hardcore fans and more places for wrestlers to work and make real money. ADR is a special case because he can make money as a superstar in Mexico and supplement that with Lucha Undergound, an offer from TNA, American independents, Japan and probably even MMA eventually. But guys like AJ Styles and the Young Bucks are proving that you can make a really good living and stay independent in modern wrestling. A lot of that is because of WWE's policy of requiring everyone to go to NXT. There's just not the money there that there is on the main roster. The Young Bucks would have to gamble and take less short term money on the hopes of making more long term. Ditching the hottest run they may have in their entire career to go to developmental and hoping to make it in WWE when tag team wrestling is an afterthought is a difficult choice to make. AJ Styles is a different case because at 37 he doesn't have a ton of hope for the future in WWE. I believe he received an NXT offer that wasn't for appreciably more money than their pay scale. Betting on the WWE to do enough with him to make real money when he won't break onto the main roster until he's nearly 40 is probably a losing proposition. Making money as a top guy in Japan while doing the best work of his career and supplementing that with high priced independent dates seems like a much more attractive option. Whether these alternatives will grow or even maintain their current level of popularity remains to be seen. New Japan is hotter than it has been in a while, but still isn't close to how popular it used to be. Their television deal with AXS is nice, but old matches being televised on a low rated platform won't do much for them. Lucha Underground is great, but gets incredibly low ratings that I can't imagine justify the money El Rey dumps into it. Wrestling is hot in Mexico at this moment, but I don't see them breaking into the US market and there are almost no opportunities for American wrestlers. The state of the second and third most popular companies in the United States provides a more bleak picture. TNA is doing well on Destination America, but that still means about half of their former viewership and significantly less in rights fees. They have failed to sign a lot of their homegrown and proven talent. Ring of Honor operates on a limited budget and it seems that Sinclair Broadcasting is happy with ROH being what it is and nothing more. It will never grow to be more than it is now under current management. It will maintain it's status as a good place to work and make decent money, but the goal for wrestlers will always be to get out of Ring of Honor and into the WWE. The most worrying thing for any alternative is that there doesn't seem to be much interest in wrestling on television. Spike has been a tremendous partner for wrestling for a long time and now seem to be totally out of the wrestling business. TBS/TNT want absolutely nothing to do with the wrestling business. ESPN and Fox Sports have both rejected wrestling as an option on a legitimate sports channel. It's frightening that USA seemed to be the only high profile cable channel even bidding on the rights to WWE television last negotiation. I don't think the last WWE TV contract gets enough attention. It was an indictment on everything they have been trying to do for the past two decades. They were rejected as being worthy of the insane rights fee increases that live sports programming has been getting. They have been trying to become more than just wrestling for so long but the entire television industry told them that is all they will ever be. It doesn't seem that any major cable channels are going to work in concert with wrestling to increase their station's profile and provide a quality platform to the wrestling company. The next competitor to WWE, if there is to be one, won't be grown over a gradual period of time. It will happen almost instantaneously I believe. You need two things to compete with the WWE: a lot of money and a place on television that is comparable to USA. No wrestling company is going to grow into it. It will require a corporation deciding they want to be in the wrestling business and providing television time on their channels. That could happen tomorrow or it could never happen at all. But if it were to happen I have no doubts they could compete with the WWE in short time. There's more than enough talent available. You just have to make the right choices on the infrastructure, which to be fair has proven to be almost impossible for anyone that isn't Vince McMahon. But I do believe the future course that professional wrestling in the United States takes will ultimately be that of fragmentation. With many different companies offering different styles of wrestling. Wrestling fans are a tremendously passionate and dedicated audience. There are enough hardcore fans to sustain this fragmentation of wrestling. I just don't know what the scale of that fragmentation will be. It may be entirely on the Internet outside of the WWE. It may be on lower profile cable stations. Wrestling can succeed on television. It just requires a commitment from the television industry that they haven't been willing to make since WCW went out of business in 2001. That fragmentation will provide more options for fans and more places to work for wrestlers. Even if wrestling never reaches another boom period - it does appear that wrestling outside of the WWE is as healthy as it has been since WCW went out of business. Edited by NWO, Feb 11 2015, 06:12 PM.
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| Kraul | Feb 12 2015, 12:29 AM Post #4 |
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Are you talking more in the present with the nostalgia of the Attitude Era, or the original audience of the Attitude Era? If its the latter, I'd argue that it did inspire a ton of people to get into wrestling. But by the time most of them either entered wrestling or were close to starting training, there wasn't much of a wrestling business left for most of them to do much in outside of mostly barely there indy feds.
There's no doubt that wrestling isn't as in demand on television as it was years ago, but I wonder how much of that is affected by television slowly becoming more irrelevant with time - if it affects it at all. A quick Google search will show countless examples of how TV audiences are on a steady decline, with a growing trend of some younger audiences - the same audiences that usually have been the main supporters of wrestling - not even owning a television/television with a cable/satellite feed. With the preferred mediums changing, maybe its time more wrestling companies look further into alternate avenues to get their product out there? YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc. Its going to have to happen eventually when TV goes the way of radio. It won't enable gigantic budgets, but it'd be a start. I definitely agree that anybody looking to directly challenge WWE will likely have to start out on a similar massive level, which is kind of what WCW did when it formed. The problem for those eager competitors is that the starting level is much higher than its ever been before and WWE is synonymous with pro wrestling for so many people that even with all the support and money in the world, they'd still be starting with a massive handicap. Partially because of that and the changing viewing methods of audiences everywhere, I think wrestling companies will be stuck on a smaller level than people would hope but that doesn't mean they can't succeed. It might just take some massive reimagining of what a successful wrestling company is and how they get their content to consumers. It might be time to change the rules of the game; evolve, or die trying. I think the potential audiences are there - even if they're never as big as they used to be, they just have to figure out how to best maximize their ability to snag their attention. |
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| NWO | Feb 12 2015, 01:08 AM Post #5 |
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This definitely has some affect currently and will have a massive affect on how the wrestling business changes. But TV is still how you promote wrestling and there hasn't been any evidence that any other way works. It will be interesting to see if GFW had any success promoting Wrestle Kingdom without television. There are only a few limited options for cable television really. There are and will always be small stations like Destination America or El Rey, but USA (and NBC Universal as a whole) seems to be the only high profile station with an interest in wrestling. Turner is out of wrestling completely. Spike/Viacom seems to be out of wrestling now. ESPN and Fox rejected wrestling at a time where they really need programming. Wrestling will probably be promoted through the Internet and streaming methods at some point. But there's been no signs that is successful as of now. It will be interesting to see how that affects the future of the wrestling industry. WWE is very smart to be in the network business early. On the first point I meant that you would think a greater interest in wrestling would mean more people wanting to be wrestlers and thus more superstars. We haven't had a true superstar that watched as a kid during the Attitude Era yet. I just think it's strange that there hasn't been any correlation between that boom period and a new one. |
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| Kraul | Feb 12 2015, 01:21 AM Post #6 |
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I don't know, if you watch those WWE specials with the sit-downs by WWE superstars you get a lot of comments from guys like Kofi and The Miz talking about watching Raw and/or Nitro during the Monday Night Wars and the like. CM Punk was one, although he was a bit of a blend of the late 80s and the entirety of the 90s in general in his fandom it seems. There just might not be as strong of a wave as one might have expected because wrestling fell out of popularity hard in the early 00s compared to the previous years of the Attitude Era, so a lot of people who were interested and could have been future superstars probably stopped watching altogether. And with it being harder than ever to actually become a WWE superstar - with older stars sticking around for much longer, less chance to get attention from WWE, WWE more likely to pass on someone quicker, etc - it filters the potential superstars that were Attitude Era fans even more. Combine all of that with a completely changed world, the rise of MMA, the change in mainstream perception of what pro wrestling is (not badass fighters fighting or raising hell, but scripted oddball entertainment), etc and it might just be that the opportunity simply isn't there for another big boom off the backs of the kids who watch the Attitude Era happen and were inspired to wrestle because of it. |
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| Nubochanozep | Mar 11 2015, 09:51 AM Post #7 |
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I have nothing to add to this stellar conversation. I just wanted to say that it was great to read all of that. Kudos, fellas.
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verge of another boom period 


7:19 PM Jul 11