Smith Hart comments on the state of wrestling

[Stopspot]

Smith Hart, oldest brother of Bret Hart, will be writing articles on Pwmania.com, which is a professional wrestling news source. Below is his first, and his thoughts on what's wrong with professional wrestling today.

To be honest with everyone I myself am a huge fan of the work of men like Antonio Cesaro, Tyson Kidd, The Shield, Daniel Bryan & CM Punk. My comment was actually searching more for a deeper problem associated with the business today; one completely out of the hands of WWE officials.

This problem can only be solved by the fans of professional wrestling. Wrestling today is built on 2 primary demographics, youth and adults. Much of the die-hard, internet wrestling audience falls under the latter. WWE has a long history of publicly stating that they do what they do for the fans. That when the fans speak they listen!

Although many of today’s wrestling fans would scoff at that notion, it does remain much truer than they could ever realize. The WWE as well as their distributors for both TV and PPV have very sophisticated instruments and have specially designated employees to cipher the viewing habits of the fans to see which superstars are drawing and which storylines are getting over.

It is quite evident and even blatantly obvious that piracy is bringing the bottom line down. Perhaps not to a totally dangerous level yet, but more and more with each passing year. The logic in my original statement is pretty obvious. Many John Cena fans are well-noted to be a younger audience, who are likely to ask their parents to order the monthly PPV events to support their hero.

Meanwhile fans of Punk & Bryan are more adult fans who find it hard to justify in today’s economy the purchase of a PPV event when illegal streaming is so readily available. WWE is a business, with hundreds of employees, licensees and investors that they are accountable to.

So at the end of the day their bottom line is the most important factor to deciding the direction of programming. When Cena fans are the ones paying for the product primarily, their voices are the loudest heard by Titan Towers. In simpler terms, if you do not show your support by paying for the PPV’s, your opinion of the product does not matter to anyone more than yourself. It’s like voting in political elections. If you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to complain about the result.

At the end of the day I’m a huge fan of all of the above internet darlings just as I am a big fan of the work and dedication of John Cena. But in addressing this issue a bigger and much more disturbing issue came to light. Can WWE find a new top star with the rise in piracy and if not, where will this business as a whole be in 5 years.

 

[Aids Johnson]

When you put out shit ppv's like i've been seeing (only as of the last 3 months now) It makes it should also be noted that if streaming it wasn't an option, i would quit on the product altogether. The issue really is simple, there are plenty of internet companies that work with advertising and other sources to create money from online downloads and even torrents. I won't disagree that piracy is an issue for any company, but one sitting at the place WWE is at, I see no issue with it.

In fact, i'd honestly like someone to break it down for me, on why and how the price of PPV's have been so consistent? Why am i dropping 60$ today when it was the same fucking price 15 years ago when i was 12?

ETA: I feel i came off as hating too much. I do respect his opinion, as someone who has been in the industry for such a long time. I just don't see how comparing the 12 year old Cena fan who has to beg his parents to see the PPV to the adult who actually has to earn the money makes any sense. I could have a bunch of my friends come over some night and order the ppv and make a deal out of it, splitting the costs, but honestly...why? When ppv's adapt to this day and age and move to a realistic price, then great, i'll buy. Until then, thank you to the 12 year old Cena fan whose parent paid for it, and is streaming it for me to also enjoy. :awyeah:

 

[Senhor Perfect]

Smith Hart is [aids font]Irrelevant[/aids font]

 

[Aids Johnson]

Smith Hart is [aids font]Irrelevant[/aids font]

just make sure the font isn't piss yellow.

 

[Lockard 23]

He makes a good point about Cena appealing more to children and Bryan/Punk appealing more to adults (not that it wasn't obvious, anyway) and how adults are the ones more likely to stream PPVs illegally. It's what I find funny about people who are fans of guys like Punk and Bryan, people who stream the show illegally instead of paying for it but then turn around and complain anyway when lower buyrates like the Summerslam one are reported.

 

[Senhor Perfect]

just make sure the font isn't piss yellow.

Piss yellow mixed with blood red.

 

[Aids Johnson]

Piss yellow mixed with blood red.

sounds about right. :tyson:

 

[Snowman1]

PWInsider wrote that WWE is more focused on ratings than PPV buys now, and I'll bet that comes from the streaming issue (although it could just be the dirtsheets justifying the 12 man tag on Raw that cost them a whole bunch of money, but I digress). But fifty bucks for a PPV is a whole lot of money, period. Would you rather buy Survivor Series to watch for 3 hours or get a years' worth of enjoyment out of Grand Theft Auto V and get the same show on stream? To the adult consumer it's hard not to understand.

I'm sure a lot of it is Vince still being butthurt about communal viewing that he blamed a long time ago, when someone and his friends would chip in $5 each to buy the show (he said so in a conference call recently iirc) but there's simply no way to justify the high prices. Even with Summerslam (who they hated the buyrate so much for) I'm sure there are some "internet fans" would have been fine shelling out $20 for the show to support it. But $60 is just obscene when there are free outlets we know about. Even if WWE wants to lower the price, they'd probably have to add an extra incentive to the shows to get you to not stream them, like getting discount merch for a month or a classic DVD or something on top of the better video quality and knowing that you'll be supporting the current direction of the product.

Maybe there's some sort of light at the end of the tunnel since they're wanting to move all the B-shows to the WWE Network (thank goodness) but who's actually going to order it? That may not fix the problem, but at least it's some acknowledgement that it exists.

 

[Leo C]

Well, I don't even think they sell PPVs here so for me buying them is out the window (that's why I stream/download them, personally). But 60 dollars sounds like a lot of money.

 

[Cloud]

Not having Sky is the issue for me if there was a way to buy PPV's on freeview I would be inclined to purchase more often. As it is I'm not buying online and watching on a poo laptop screen or faffing to get it on my TV.

 

[Shadie T]

I refuse to pay 30-45 pounds for Sky Sports to watch wrestling when Hoss has a site ready to go, I also refuse to buy PPVs with shitty build and card, If there is a PPV I am really looking forward to like this year Royal Rumble, MITB, Summerslam etc I will buy it but PPVs like HIAC, Battleground, NOC etc I can't justify buying them.

 

[seabs]

I'm too much of a tight cunt to pay for it.

 

[Samalan]

This is how I see it. They charge about $50 for a PPV to watch on your TV live. If you wait a week or two, you can buy it on DVD for about $10. If it is in your local area, you can go to the arena and have a lot more fun for $20. If you have no money, you can watch it online easily and the stream doesn't expire after a week. Lesson: Don't buy it live and save your money. Also, you could spend that money on upgrading your internet for improved streaming

On the other hand, they are a business and they need to make money so I guess this is their only option.