Jun 26, 2021 15:16:34 GMT KING KID said:

I also wonder how bad the brand split was for wrestling. I was never a big Smackdown watcher. Hard to when they keep switching the day it’s on. I would watch it when it originally aired on Thursdays but then it would bounce around and Friday wrestling is a no no for me. It’s hard to keep fans interested when the wrestlers are split on to too many shows. Also; maybe we had too many wrestlers on one company to follow. Maybe all these cuts are good for the company? Doubt it’s for the betterment. A buy out is coming.

Not as bad as turning Austin heel, the Invasion angle, Chris Jericho's title reign or the nWo.

It was one of those situations where creative completely messed up and they desperately needed to hit the reset switch. I think it was a novel idea and made for a better show at least initially. However they stretched the roster too thin and devalued their product.

Going back to the OP, UT mentions WM1 and WM3 as shinning examples of the old style. That made me think that external factors also come into play.

The rise of the internet and the death of kayfabe. When people still believed that wrestling was real and secrets were able to remain secret, it was much easier to sell matches like Hogan vs Andre and get people invested. Try to do the same thing with Cena vs Strowman in the 2010s and nobody really cares. People are too savvy about booking, they know the WWE patterns, it kills interest.

The really over stories in recent WWE; the CM Punks, the AJ Lees, the Daniel Bryans, all these storyline to some extent played on the fact that the fans know it all (or think they do). Major smark appeal.

The death of kayfabe was accelerated by things like the Fingerpoke as mentioned, which makes it much harder for fans to buy into storylines, and that was pre-Internet.

So that may be another factor why the focus shifted to the work between the ropes: it became impossible to captivate the average fan with the type of product that worked in the 80 and 90s.

Which is why the internet ultimately is to blame.

Though it’s weird and I’m sure nostalgia is a huge factor but I can go back and watch the Mega Powers build or a bunch of the WM1 stuff or even the Austin OG run and still get that feeling and love it - because of the characters.

I’d be hard pressed to throw on any amazing match from the past 5 or so years. Perhaps the best the WWE has done in that regard was The Shield build for me - and of course the YES movement which played on the knowledge of the fans.

The death of kayfabe is such a huge part of everything I really should have mentioned that.

Does WWE really have that much of an extra emphasis on ring work compared to the 80s and 90s?

Hard to say for me because I haven't watched a full WWE show in years, but it seems that although the average TV match is longer than before, that's a consequence of the longer shows. There's still an awful lot of promos in WWE.

If anything is the problem, it's a lack of characters who can grab the audience, a consequence of WWE management and their approach to writing.

I would say definitely. Not only that but the pressure to perform is crazy now too - the guys and girls are performing spots on a weekly basis that should be saved for something. It’s also why so few things seem special anymore.

Again though on a given week there 10+ hours of time to fill. It stands to reason they would emphasize killing that time with matches. Just so happens that (IMO) they kill their product by doing so.

I remember a few years back when they did the Cesaro and Sheamus Best of 7 series. The dumb thing was they already wrestle probably 4 or 5 times in a month leading into that. It was crazy and got so boring.

I don’t even know how it would ever get fixed. The WWE or anyone isn’t giving up the TV money.

Jun 25, 2021 1:26:42 GMT Baker said:

The change was a slow burn thing taking place over a long period of time with many individual moments you can pinpoint as catalysts.

Kilgore went out and named them. Even included a few I hadn't thought of.

I also agree with the poster(s) who said you can't go back. The genie is out of the bottle. This is why Strobe and I once agreed that not only is the business incapable of being saved, it shouldn't be saved. Let it rot. The best we can realistically hope for is something like pre-pandemic NWA Powerrr where the fans are willing to play along with the characters and slower, "old school" builds. 

Also agree with the poster(s) who mentioned the dwindling fanbase being another factor. Catering to the hardcore 1.1ers does make sense when they're the only fans left in an increasingly niche industry.

Which brings me to another thing I don't really get. The smarks won! You'd think they'd be loving modern WWE where so many of the stars are indie heroes they idolized while their beloved workrate style has now become the house style in nearly every promotion in the world. Yet they probably complain more now than ever before as wrestling continues to hemorrhage viewers. Moral of the Story: Catering to them gets you nowhere.

Jun 26, 2021 15:16:04 GMT Big Pete said:

Jun 26, 2021 14:59:22 GMT UT said:

Fair but people at least still cared about the titles and certain accolades or victories. Now none of that really matters because everyone has someone different in mind for who should be champion.

I know people disagree, especially those who don’t love Brock but, his title reign where he only showed up for bigger occasions and defenses was the best the WWE has booked the title in forever. It made the title feel special for a brief moment.

Now that treatment of the titles probably falls more on the AE than anything and the perceived need to spike ratings each week but I don’t think it works now.

It also just boils down to exposure too of the whole product. Guys could wrestle 25 times a month back in the day and it would still work on TV or PPV because it wasn’t on TV and no one was seeing it. They almost run the same formula, now only it’s on every Raw and PPV and special and even the net if you want to look for it.

It was a case of diminishing returns. While fans may have cared about Austin beating Rock at Wrestlemania X-Seve when Jericho became the Undisputed Champion and later on JBL won the WWE Championship fans were beginning to lose interest. As those wrestlers began to age out, a new generation was introduced that was victimized by really poor booking.

In other words, it's a downward trend that's culminated into this current era.

When JBL won the WWE title, that's what caused me to sour on the product.

Jun 27, 2021 2:33:11 GMT Ed said:

Jun 26, 2021 15:16:04 GMT Big Pete said:

It was a case of diminishing returns. While fans may have cared about Austin beating Rock at Wrestlemania X-Seve when Jericho became the Undisputed Champion and later on JBL won the WWE Championship fans were beginning to lose interest. As those wrestlers began to age out, a new generation was introduced that was victimized by really poor booking.

In other words, it's a downward trend that's culminated into this current era.

When JBL won the WWE title, that's what caused me to sour on the product.

See and to JBL was a nice throwback. Over the top character but genuine heel work - also didn’t have to worry about him going out and crushing the work rate.

Which brings up the next point of made up terms like “X-Pac” heat. It just wasn’t good enough to not like someone anymore - we now had to make up different kinds of heat. It’s really a weird dynamic that only fickle ass wrestling fans could come up with for a reason to bitch about someone without giving them credit.

All do respect to Baker, X-Pac Heat should really be called Jeff Jarrett Heat, the Least Valuable Player of the Monday Night Wars.

This doesn't have much to do with the topic at hand, but it's close enough, it's been my belief that the Monday Night Wars killed traditional heels. Besides being an era that was ruled by "cool heels," which has a very different goal than traditional ones, it makes total sense as a lot of traditional heel tactics would tempt people to change the channel. Imagine Larry Zbyszko doing the amount of stalls he did in his time, if that was happening on Raw, you'd switch to Nitro, and vise versa. A cool heel, trying to win over some part of the crowd with cool heeldom, is doing the same to the television audience, thus less likely for them to switch over.

Now is this a small part of the wrestling change where heels go for just as many high spots as babyfaces? Maybe. Would that have happened regardless due to the Indy Wrestling Boom? Probably.

I grew to enjoy the JBL championship reign as well but when he initially won the championship it really diminished the value of the championship.

Everybody points out how sudden the change was from appearing in a throw-away tag team match at Wrestlemania XX to the star of SmackDown but also I'd argue that Eddie hadn't been established as a credible champion. Eddie was still a career mid-carder who got over with the fans but in kayfabe was still treated as a less than compared to Brock and Kurt.

Further to that point, having Hardcore Holly challenge for the title on a major PPV also hurt the prestige of the title.

Jun 27, 2021 3:38:07 GMT Big Pete said:

I grew to enjoy the JBL championship reign as well but when he initially won the championship it really diminished the value of the championship.

Everybody points out how sudden the change was from appearing in a throw-away tag team match at Wrestlemania XX to the star of SmackDown but also I'd argue that Eddie hadn't been established as a credible champion. Eddie was still a career mid-carder who got over with the fans but in kayfabe was still treated as a less than compared to Brock and Kurt.

Further to that point, having Hardcore Holly challenge for the title on a major PPV also hurt the prestige of the title.

Yeah but it was the Rumble. I mean it was dumb that it was Holly but at least it wasn’t even close to the feature attraction.

I just watched the X-Pac interview with Van Vleit last night where they brought up X-Pac heat.

One thing that gets glossed over is the role the Invasion angle had. Primarily team WWF was made up of babyfaces while the Alliance were heels so having X-Pac in the babyface group confused people because he was still heel. So X-Pac was coming off of X-Factor which didn't really get over but it wasn't like they were pushed all that hard either. So when X-Pac became the Cruiserweight Champion as a representative of Team WWF it threw a lot of fans because he was still drawing heat - leading to fans coming to the conclusion that he had go away heat.

So basically fans were stupid and got worked by a mid-card guy.

Also I'd genuinely recommend Tajiri/X-Pac from SummerSlam 2001. I thought maybe an aspect of X-Pac Heat was Pac phoning it in but the match is as good as you'd expect it to be and further cements Tajiri as one of my favourite 2000s guys.

Jun 27, 2021 3:46:48 GMT UT said:

Jun 27, 2021 3:38:07 GMT Big Pete said:

I grew to enjoy the JBL championship reign as well but when he initially won the championship it really diminished the value of the championship.

Everybody points out how sudden the change was from appearing in a throw-away tag team match at Wrestlemania XX to the star of SmackDown but also I'd argue that Eddie hadn't been established as a credible champion. Eddie was still a career mid-carder who got over with the fans but in kayfabe was still treated as a less than compared to Brock and Kurt.

Further to that point, having Hardcore Holly challenge for the title on a major PPV also hurt the prestige of the title.

Yeah but it was the Rumble. I mean it was dumb that it was Holly but at least it wasn’t even close to the feature attraction.

I get that but it's still the second biggest show and they made the WWE Championship match look like a joke.

So you essentially had three career mid-carders challenge for the title all at one time.

Jun 27, 2021 3:20:22 GMT UT said:

Jun 27, 2021 2:33:11 GMT Ed said:

When JBL won the WWE title, that's what caused me to sour on the product.

See and to JBL was a nice throwback. Over-the-top character but genuine heelwork - also didn’t have to worry about him going out and crushing the work rate.

This brings up the next point of made-up terms like “X-Pac” heat. It just wasn’t good enough to not like someone anymore - we now had to make up different kinds of heat. It’s really a weird dynamic that only fickle-ass wrestling fans could come up with for a reason to bitch about someone without giving them credit.

I'm a huge Eddie Guerrero fan. To see JBL, who at the time just became JBL get a super-push, suddenly winning the title upset me. You had wrestlers like The Undertaker, Kurt Angle, Christian, Booker T & Eddie. They were all pretty over. To see them get put on a plate to make JBL look strong was a turn-off. I never bought JBL as the main event superstar. That was 1 of the 1st times, maybe the 1st time I saw a heel make most of his babyface opponents like jokes. Via comparison, it's way worse today in WWE. Heels are almost always made to look like world-beaters. While babyfaces are made to look like buffoons. That's what changed WWE for me.

Jun 27, 2021 0:03:15 GMT Baker said:

Jun 25, 2021 1:26:42 GMT Baker said:

The change was a slow burn thing taking place over a long period of time with many individual moments you can pinpoint as catalysts.

Kilgore went out and named them. Even included a few I hadn't thought of.

I also agree with the poster(s) who said you can't go back. The genie is out of the bottle. This is why Strobe and I once agreed that not only is the business incapable of being saved, it shouldn't be saved. Let it rot. The best we can realistically hope for is something like pre-pandemic NWA Powerrr where the fans are willing to play along with the characters and slower, "old school" builds. 

Also agree with the poster(s) who mentioned the dwindling fanbase being another factor. Catering to the hardcore 1.1ers does make sense when they're the only fans left in an increasingly niche industry.

Which brings me to another thing I don't really get. The smarks won! You'd think they'd be loving modern WWE where so many of the stars are indie heroes they idolized while their beloved workrate style has now become the house style in nearly every promotion in the world. Yet they probably complain more now than ever before as wrestling continues to hemorrhage viewers. Moral of the Story: Catering to them gets you nowhere.

You just summed up the actual appeal of Powerrr.

So after watching some old WCW/NWA or whatever you want to call it today and the fact that it always WAS more wrestling based than the WWF - even on their lesser shows. And all this at a time when WCW was clearly the jobber of the two - is it safe to say that wrestling doesn't actually draw?

WCW didn't really overtake the WWF until they became a bit more outlandish and storyline based with larger than life characters in the main event. Sure they relied on the undercard for some of the wrestling but overall the draw or the reason they beat the WWF for awhile was ring based. Hell their greatest homemade star of that era was a 2 minute specialist.

It's probably more of a balance than I'm giving it credit for but it's weird to me that wrestling in professional wrestling is one of the least important factors.

Jun 30, 2021 22:20:42 GMT UT said:

So after watching some old WCW/NWA or whatever you want to call it today and the fact that it always WAS more wrestling based than the WWF - even on their lesser shows. And all this at a time when WCW was clearly the jobber of the two - is it safe to say that wrestling doesn't actually draw?

WCW didn't really overtake the WWF until they became a bit more outlandish and storyline-based with larger-than-life characters in the main event. Sure, they relied on the undercard for some of the wrestling but overall the draw or the reason they beat the WWF for a while was ring-based. Hell, their greatest homemade star of that era was a 2-minute specialist.

It's probably more of a balance than I'm giving it credit for but, it's weird to me that wrestling in professional wrestling is one of the least important factors.

That's why I believe the NWA was the worse TV product for wrestling. Meaningless matches that led to amazing house-show matches. Those were NEVER shown on TV.

Jun 30, 2021 22:20:42 GMT UT said:

So after watching some old WCW/NWA or whatever you want to call it today and the fact that it always WAS more wrestling based than the WWF - even on their lesser shows. And all this at a time when WCW was clearly the jobber of the two - is it safe to say that wrestling doesn't actually draw?

WCW didn't really overtake the WWF until they became a bit more outlandish and storyline based with larger than life characters in the main event. Sure they relied on the undercard for some of the wrestling but overall the draw or the reason they beat the WWF for awhile was ring based. Hell their greatest homemade star of that era was a 2 minute specialist.

It's probably more of a balance than I'm giving it credit for but it's weird to me that wrestling in professional wrestling is one of the least important factors.

It's an interesting thought.

Ultimately it's a star driven business and whoever exudes the most amount of charisma and gains enough publicity is going to be the most valuable 'wrestler' because it's entertainment.

With that said, the most important lesson to take out of Black Saturday is that McMahon's wrestling wasn't for everyone and there was a real divide between the north and the south when it came to wrestling. Fans down there HATED the WWF presentation and stopped watching the product despite it being one of the biggest shows on the Turner station.  Jim Crockett Promotions around that time enjoyed a lot of success but it was short-lived due to mismanagement and some unfortunate setbacks like losing their emerging star Magnum TA right before he was about to explode.

However, I wouldn't say it's the least interesting because at the end of the day you do need that pay-off and if the guys can't wrestle it dies quickly. Sure, you could pop a buy-rate like Jay Leno did but then you have to suffer the consequences where the following shows fail because of how poorly the main event delivered.

While the WWF didn't always produce classic matches up and down the card, typically the main event would always be a highlight on the show. That was certainly true of the Attitude Era where WCW would destroy them in the mid-card but the opposite was true in the main events - and that ended up mattering more because those performers had far more screen-time on the show.

I also think Vince Russo having all the power changed WCW for the worse.

WCW seemed like a case of a household being ran by the most responsible teenager. Was just doomed until Mom and Dad (AOL) came home and ended the party.

Well, this is going to be controversial. 

The Deaths of Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. 

This is when the industry and the culture around it is suddenly held to account in the worse possible way. 

WWE knows now, drugs are bad. Or it begins to understand the impact of a two-decade plus love of drug use. Whether it's recreational, pain relief and/or performance enhancing - it highlighted a pandemic that really reared it's ugly head in the worse possible way - the lose of one of the greatest performers of his day, in his prime and a double-murder/suicide. As a result, WWE would introduce the Wellness policy in 2006, and begin to tighten it in 2007 with a tonne of suspensions in the next few years, all while an already extensive list of premature deaths in the industry throughout the 2000s is growing. 

WWE also begins to take medical advice seriously. In the wake of all the above, WWE implements as part of it's Wellness Policy a focus on the medical condition of it's wrestlers. Wrestlers not only need to pass a medical to sign with the company ie; Nigel McGuinness was one of the first high profile test failures, but returning talents need to pass one also ie; Edge, Daniel Bryan, etc.. this is to save wrestlers from themselves, and stop them working hurt - a poor example prior to this is Kurt Angle quitting the company in 2006 after not being granted time off to heal, despite many speculating at the time, his refusal to go to rehab for his substance abuse problems. If you take a trip down memory lane, note his limited neck movement and Paul Orndorff-like arm. 

WWE was now in the doghouse in 2007 after the Benoit incident and in true form, being the marketers they are, WWE launched a campaign designed to reposition their battered brand. The 'Be a STAR' initiative was a step into countering bullying amongst young people. And how do we do that when we have heels and villains and bad people on screen? - we begin to tone down the product. The WWE PG Era begins in July, 2008 after its programming received a TV-PG rating from the TV Parental Guidelines. The content is changing. 

Wrestling changes also. Head shots, chair shots, high spots, blood, etc these things begin to dry up as suddenly we now know, they are also bad for wrestlers - due to the above noted bad things people do to subdue the pain their bodies are in 24/7. The tone changes as a result, the noted aggression is disappearing, the violence is becoming a lot less frantic and despite being better athletes today and capable of moving quicker - the work-rate becomes slower, albeit safer. 

But what does a toned-down PG product mean? The Answer: An incredibly profitably brand to market to children and families. And we've been there ever since. 
 

I felt like the early to mid-2000s was when the change occured. Many of the guys during the Attitude Era still had the mindset of "I don't want to have a 5 star match, but a 4 zero match" (i.e. I'd rather get a big bonus check from the promoter than be put on a high pedestal in a dirt sheet), even with the guys like Benoit, Guerrero, and Jericho, who could put on great in ring performances. It may have been companies like ROH and PWG showcasing that style of wrestling to help make it more important (though ROH was more serious in the ring than PWG).

Jul 4, 2021 23:43:22 GMT @ME said:

I also think Vince Russo having all the power changed WCW for the worse.

With that being said, WCW was mismanaged from the start. So the demise of the company was inevitable.

I saw a snippet of a clip from 2002 with Bobby Heenan, he basically said then, the business was dying. And it wasn't the product per se, it was the fact the industry had pulled back the curtains, kayfabe was dead, the magician had basically let the marks in on how they did the tricks.

I'll have to find it when I get home.

Acting like the internet didn't exist in the 90s and you didn't have people on message boards calling Austin overrated and overpushed while he was the most popular act in wrestling, or that Mick Foley didn't talk about hardcore fans burying the Mankind gimmick in his literal first book, is the dumbest "I hate young people" shit in the world.

Wrestling changed when it started to actively hate its audience. They've lost six million fans in the last twenty years and the brilliant strategy of the Triple Hs of the world and their Bannermen like Seth Rollins is to shit on the ever-shrinking fanbase who still watches no matter how shitty the product is, regardless of whether they complain or not. Wrestling became boring when it became a cyclical, miserable, self-referential stew that does nothing except reflect on itself and the times it was more popular and constantly books the same matches over and over and over again.

It's why AEW feels fresh and new and has a passionate fanbase, because it does something different and it features and platforms different people and gives them an opportunity to succeed. It's why the indies are the most interesting they've been in a while, because they're more diverse than they've been, giving new talents room to flourish and allowing those fans to reach more people who might not have been interested. It's how you get hundreds of people to come watch multiple wrestling shows called "The Big Gay Brunch."

It's not that wrestling's changed, it's that it HASN'T changed.

Acting like the internet and social media was the same in the 90s as it is today is the dumbest shit I have ever heard. Don’t even need to narrow it down to a generation - it stands on its own as the dumbest shit I’ve ever fucking heard.

It's a thing I see constantly on twitter and it's no different than the argument you're making here. Dipshit fake wrestling journalists mining for reactions and retweets by acting like the concept of "marks" and "the internet" weren't invented before 2018 and pointing to all of the failures in ratings and drawing crowds and holding fan attention aren't the fault of bad writing and a shitty, stale, overproduced product, but of those stinky, awful, know-it-all smarky wrestling fans.

"*Scoff!* Can you imagine if TWITTER was around when [This thing you really liked as a child] happened? They would have shit all over it and we never would have had [revisionist history about a thing that absolutely, 1000% did not happen]!"

I had 4 channels growing up, then 5. When I was 16, we had maybe 40 on satellite here in Australia. Fast Forward 20 odd years, I literally have access to an infinite amount of content without leaving the couch.

As good as wrestling could be, there is just too much alternative content to watch regardless if I was a wrestling fan or not.

And you Americans continue to limit the ratings based your own borders. I'd guarantee there's more people watching WWE today globally than during the Attitude era due to how further WWE's reach is.

Jul 16, 2021 7:05:45 GMT KITN said:

It's a thing I see constantly on twitter and it's no different than the argument you're making here. Dipshit fake wrestling journalists mining for reactions and retweets by acting like the concept of "marks" and "the internet" weren't invented before 2018 and pointing to all of the failures in ratings and drawing crowds and holding fan attention aren't the fault of bad writing and a shitty, stale, overproduced product, but of those stinky, awful, know-it-all smarky wrestling fans.

"*Scoff!* Can you imagine if TWITTER was around when [This thing you really liked as a child] happened? They would have shit all over it and we never would have had [revisionist history about a thing that absolutely, 1000% did not happen]!"

As opposed to retarded know it all dip shits acting like the wrestling they bitch about every day was influenced by them. If you truly think the internet had the same influence and reach on wrestling 20+ years ago today than you’re a moron and delusional and clearly 12 years old.