Amount/Quality of Wrestling...NOT THE PROBLEM

[MattHardyV1]

Ok I was just on daily motion looking at some old episodes of raw...right around Wrestlemania 2000....now back in these days WWF Raw is Wars Ratings were going through the roof....99-00 had 6.0s most of the time...even sunday night Heat was getting 4.0s!!!!! And something I have noticed......THE WRESTLING SUCKED!! I have not so far seen one match that lasted over 10 minutes..most of them have lasted under 5 mintes...all of it is for storyline purposes...

Moving on...alot of you guys say today that the reason WWE is failing atm is due to lack of wrestling...well my statement ^^ obviously throws that theroy down the drain...The reason people watched back then imo..is not because it had quality wrestling, nor is it because they had better stories....Imo the reason WWF was so popular in the 99-00 era was because it was the cool,new,exciting thing to watch for kids/teens....God If I dont remember how many people I knew that watched wrestling every day and night back in that era....and none of them knew about good wrestling..all they knew about was The Undertaker or Stone Cold..all they remember is the promos and moments,not the matches as a whole...

The quality of wrestling today on Raw and Smackdown is 10X better than it was back in that era....The story lines werent too diffrent either....The only explination I have is that people were in to it...It was the cool,rebellious, fun thing to watch...I dont what to compare it to these days...but yeah I honestly dont have an explination for these outstanding Ratings WWF used to get...All I can tell you is that on Raw/Heat/Smackdown...It was definatly not the quality of wrestling that attracted so many fans...so if you still to this day think that the Wrestling needs to be good in order to be a good show...you are horribly mistaken.

 

[Travis40]

:clap:, I completly agree, this is what I've been trying to say, and I hate the TNA Sheep going "TNA is real wrestling" "In 2 Years TNA will take over WWE". And those are the same people that tune into Raw every single week and says that it sucks.

 

[Mazz]

Yeah seriously, Cena vs Orton will be just as good of a feud as Stone Cold vs Bret Hart :disgust1:

I heavily disagree with the "wrestling quality is the same" seeing as in the mid 90s WWF had guys like Owen Hart,Bret Hart,SCSA,Razor Ramon and many other wrestlers who could actually pull off a decent match,while now its basically just roid monsters.

But you are right about the "Quality wrestling doesn't draw" thing, because marks and little kids don't care if your a world class athlete,they just wanna see action heroes or supermen or something similar.

 

[Edge+Bret Hart]

Well…. back then we had The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Jericho and many many more. These guys attracted fans from all over! Back then there were actually storylines unlike now, many people mix up a storylines to a feud. Kane was actually used right. Wresters didn't get injured like they do now. There were no wrestlers killing themselves and their families! That is why it got good ratings! Also the matches weren't very pedictable

 

[dean28]

ye think your right but i thing its because the amount of the top stars and the upcoming talent

 

[Rell]

What most people fail to realize is Wrestling ratings have declined for the simple fact that wrestling isn't, and probably will never be as popular as it once was. Due to a number of circumstances, wrestling just isn't popular anymore. This could be from a number of things, including our beloved Internet. The Internet has changed the way wrestling fan view wrestling. Hardly anything is kept a secret, the shock value is completely gone. However, I do believe the quality of wrestling is at an all time low. It may not be the reason why wrestling ratings have suffered (I already pointed this out) But I disagree with you in the sense that the wrestling quality is still the same, if not better. I have been watching wrestling since I was about 7 years old (I'm 17 atm) and I can clearly see a difference in the product I see now, and the product in the past. During the 90's we had WWF, WCW, and ECW as the "big three" promotions. All three companies were competitors. The competition made wrestling more enjoyable. Wrestling fans tuned in each week wanting to see which company was on top, who was signing with who, etc. This is something wrestling lacks at the moment, sorry TNA & ROH fans but WWE doesn't have a legit competitor.

 

[the dark knight]

^^welcome back.

go read kaedon's column :gun_rifle:

1)the 10 mins matches were not predictable like these days' matches. same goes with storylines.
2)like kaedon said, wrestling psychology takes part there. and, the matches were NOT bad. infact, some of the 10 min matches before were better than any 30 min MVP match i watched this year.

edit- welcome back = meant for DEAN

 

[JJdaBuckeye]

Charisma/Promo >>>>>>>> Wrestling

Thats whats wrong with WWE and wrestling today. Very few people can pull a good promo. And those that do just go down to the ring and talk smack about their opponent. We need people who can make amazing promos like SCSA and Rock. Not pieces of shit like Cena or Noble.

 

[the dark knight]

^^and thats the reason i rated last raw the highest yet! people said "we didnt get enough wrestling" which we dont really need right now. wrestling belongs to PPVs, we only need 1 good match every week. let the rest be average...

 

[MikeRaw]

I made a similar post before but it had other points...This one focuses just on this and thats cool./...I agree man,stone cold had like 3 or 4 moves and was one of the biggest guys.And back then they had shitty werestlers who could still perform and ntertain,good wrestlers who only wrestled and guys like Bret Hart,Own,Bulldog,Rock,HHH and others who did both.So even though the wrestling is better now one thing seperates then from now...The storylines!
Dont get me wrong,the main feuds and all are the same as back then basically,because they cant change.And nowadays WWE seems to be giving some good storylines and all but back then,the product they had just drawed more fans.Also The Monday Night Wars got mainstream attention,helping the ratings.So basically,its true that the quality IS NOT the problem.Good post v1...

 

[straight_edge76]

I have said this before, Wrestling was wayy better with the Monday Night/Thursday Night Wars. WWE had competition, sometimes I actually prefered ECW over wCw or WWF. I have been watching wrestling since I was a baby. I was bred into a wrestling fan; everyone from myself to my grandmother watched/watch it. in the early 20o0's (2000-2003) you never knew what was going to happen; but now there is no Excitement; except for when HHH was WHC andwas beating everybody from RVD to Kane.

In 2000 Kane was still being pushed as a Monster, Taker was a biker (I actually liked that gimmick), SCSA & Rock were the big faces of the company,we had Angle/Jericho as the comic relief. In 2000 also had The Radicalz showing up; a huge suprise at the time. WWF was stacked with drawns in 2000; there was Austin,Kane,HHH,Foley, Rock,Taker,Angle,Radicalz,Jericho,Rikishi, 2 Cool etc.

wCw in 2000 was around the Time the New Blood angle was going on right? wCw also had its fair share of stars in Jarrett,DDP,Hogan,Sting,Steiner,The Luchadors,Hart,Sid, Nash etc. The also had Biscoff & Russo booking; two of the best in the biz IMO. The New Breed/ECW originals feud earlier this year was a ripoff of the New Blood/Millionares Club feud in wCw.

ECW was sort of a sinking ship at this time but I loved it. There were guys like Rhino & Tommy Dreamer. Always my favorites in The Land of Extreme.

From 1998-2001 wrestling was the best because there was so much competition between the big three. No offense TNA & ROH but you guys can't compete...yet; I think in 4-6 years TNA might be able to but I dont see ROH ever doing it without a major TV deal; I don't know much about them other then what I have seen on Youtube.

 

[Y2Jasmine]

I think that before wrestling went mainstream, it relied completely on in ring ability and athleticism. Then maybe a little while before the attitude era got started, and wrestling got real popular, the WWE noticed that as long as the superstars were popular with the crowd and had a good gimmick they didn't need to know more than 4 or 5 real moves to get over. So basically they made a ton of money being lazy and doing very little in the ring, and more than half of the show focused mostly on promos and the storylines. Although I can't pretend that some of my favorite superstars didn't come out of that era.
So after that time and wrestling wasn't so popular anymore, now the company is left with alot of superstars who don't really know squat about how to be a wrestler. They've got a few big names left who they have been relying on to carry the company and yet they are still churning out wrestlers who are trying to get by only on their gimmicks. They keep pushing these superstars hoping they'll get over and start the second coming of a new attitude era instead of focusing on the new up and coming stars with a decent gimmick and good ring skills.
They need to realize that to those of us still being loyal to them that being able to put on a good show and actually DO some wrestling, is just as important to us as having a good gimmick and a decent storyline. Plus with all the brands and injuries right now they have very little good talent to spread around so they keep throwing these outrageous storylines at us hoping we don't notice, instead of trying to push the good mid-carders they have. I don't know aout you guys, but I can appreciate a nicely showed cruiserweight or tag team math just as much, if not more than, a heavyweight match. If they used what they have and stop looking for the next Rock, or Stone Cold, or John Cena and trying to stuff them down our throats right away, instead let the characters evolve, we may get something better than the attitude era. The Rock and Stone Cold did not just one day appear and become the stars they were. It took a long time and actually listening to what the fans liked and taking that into account.

75% ability + 25% storyline = a good show

 

[Montana]

I kinda disagree. The Storylines are still here now, despite them not being as good. Me Personally think the slow decline was due to the characters. I really think their ups adn down were based on their charaters. In the early 90's the characters werent as strong, and by 93-95 the storylines were really good, but the wrestlers/characters sucked. It took the older generation guys from teh 80's returning to wcw, to get a lot of old fans back into wcw, but then they kinda flipped back and forth, and realized the wwe had new stars. So the attitude era was enriched wtih stars.

But now, who is left? John Cena.....Edge..... Batista..... The talent just isn't there for 3 shows. The talent is, but the characters that people enjoy watching are not. That is why the wwe is having a difficult time making faces.

 

[Nancy Di Loreto]

People are tuning out of wrestling now because it hasn't brought anything new to the table for a while now. The return of D-X could have been huge, and could mark a new era, but instead it wasn't put to good use. Think how much influence on insults D-X caused?

Although I must agree on the fact that RAW doesn't have as much wrestling as it should have, and is watering down its workers, its trying to replicate an era where backstage interviews were classic, and promos were what put WWE at the top. Instead, if anyone here has watched Heat for the past few months, you would've noticed that the wrestling on Heat is better than RAW's. I had jumped to the conclusion that RAW had watered down Londrick, but instead they had only put them on a different show. An 8-Man Tag was featured on Heat, not too long ago (Which the Coach stated it was first since 2001), and it was one of the finest matches of this year. Cade & Murdoch with the WGGT, taking on Londrick & Highlanders. It sounded like another RAW dud, but instead it was a great match. This proves that the WWE is concentrating on wrestling, rather than storylines, but just on a different show.

I rest my case...

 

[Truth]

I kinda disagree. The Storylines are still here now, despite them not being as good. Me Personally think the slow decline was due to the characters. I really think their ups adn down were based on their charaters. In the early 90's the characters werent as strong, and by 93-95 the storylines were really good, but the wrestlers/characters sucked. It took the older generation guys from teh 80's returning to wcw, to get a lot of old fans back into wcw, but then they kinda flipped back and forth, and realized the wwe had new stars. So the attitude era was enriched wtih stars.

But now, who is left? John Cena.....Edge..... Batista..... The talent just isn't there for 3 shows. The talent is, but the characters that people enjoy watching are not. That is why the wwe is having a difficult time making faces.

Exactly, the Attitude Era was so successful because it had amazing Pay Per Views and Great Characters. It brough in a whole new generation, people who are now 14-17, and still watching. But you look at now a days, there is a huge lack of characters and the WWE isnt bringing in much of a new audience, there relying on there older guys like Taker, HHH, HBK and relying on tehre older fans. Think about why the Attitude Era was so successfull. Characters like HHH in prime, Cactus Jack, The Rock, Stone Cold, Undertaker in prime, Steph McMahon Helmsley, Vince in prime, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, and more. This was also the point in tiem of the Ratings War which means that the WWF was trying as hard as they could to get really good ratings, they have no competition to push them now a days. They dont have many good characters this era, Cena, Batista, Edge, Orton, Carlito, Kennedy, as far as Main Eventers go. Burke, Punk, Morrison, MVP, Regal, Marella, Umaga as far as Midcarders go. And Taker, HHH, HBK as for old guys who will leave soon. This is not enough and they really need to focus on the new era in OVW to establish a great character.