I'm not talking about recently but in the 80s and 90s. Not so much by the product but via killing off the territories.
They claimed they made it bigger but they sort of monopolized it. Short term that was great and in the 90s they were still running on the territory fumes.
Virtually all the top stars were veterens of AWA, NWA etc. WCW was the last remnant. Austin, Hogan, Taker, Shawn, Bret, HHH all originated in the territories. The Rock was the first homegrown Megastar.
They did notice this a few years ago setting up NXT.
But a generation later after the local scenes died off the local crowds just don't exist any more. Less people watch wrestling now than the 80s and 90s despite more money than ever.
AEW is only rating a fraction of what WCW was getting in 2001 right before it died. It seems WCW fans didn't migrate over to WWF after they won, ratings went down as the AE wound down.
Also consider the USA population is almost 50% bigger than the early 80s.
Even the maligned new generation was better than what we're getting now IMHO.
They claimed they made it bigger but they sort of monopolized it. Short term that was great and in the 90s they were still running on the territory fumes.
Virtually all the top stars were veterens of AWA, NWA etc. WCW was the last remnant. Austin, Hogan, Taker, Shawn, Bret, HHH all originated in the territories. The Rock was the first homegrown Megastar.
They did notice this a few years ago setting up NXT.
But a generation later after the local scenes died off the local crowds just don't exist any more. Less people watch wrestling now than the 80s and 90s despite more money than ever.
AEW is only rating a fraction of what WCW was getting in 2001 right before it died. It seems WCW fans didn't migrate over to WWF after they won, ratings went down as the AE wound down.
Also consider the USA population is almost 50% bigger than the early 80s.
Even the maligned new generation was better than what we're getting now IMHO.
