Would it be so bad if the WWE died ?

[Guest Midnight Express83]

RRR, good point.

 

WWE won't die anytime soon. So these threads of "woulda, coulda, how could, when, blah blah blah...WWE died" threads are pointless because WWE is in a downward of a cycle. Wrestling has been in these boom bust peroids and you can go through times and see when it has been up, and when it has been down. It isn't nothing weird, Wrestling is only hot for about 5 years and dead for about another 5.

 

North American wrestling ends and begins with the WWE. All other feds are just side dishes to the WWE. WWE will forever be in the minds of North American wrestling fans. It isn't like Japan that has had many feds in the big leagues and in the Indies. WWE has been the main fed in American's mind since the 80s and that is going to be hard to erase.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I think the dropping of WWENY had more to do with stopping the losses than the WWE not being able to cover it.

 

WWE didn't make money because of the World. When I said 'cover it' I meant 'made enough money to still be profitable. To cover the $30 mil dollar hole.

 

Theres definitly a lull in business, but house show revenue is going up and ppv will probably increase with the extension(if only due to the amount of cards).

 

House Show revenue is going up because of international tours and increased scheduling. Overall domestic attendance has gone down by 3000 fans per show.

 

The losses hopefully will help to surgically remove Vince's skull from rectum.

 

Nope. It will just tell him to do more cheap stunts like the last quarter did. "We posted a loss SIGN GOLDBERG!" "We posted a loss, GIVE THE TITLE TO AUSTIN!" "We posted a loss, BRING IN DAVID ARQUETTE!" Vince will do anything OTHER than change to make money.

 

I do not want the WWE to die, Ive been following religioulsy for 15 years.

 

I do. The WWE has treated me, the fan, like shit. You give them 15 years and what do they do? They forget about you. They insult you. They spit on you. I have MMA now to fill the gap, let the WWE burn.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Nope. It will just tell him to do more cheap stunts like the last quarter did. "We posted a loss SIGN GOLDBERG!" "We posted a loss, GIVE THE TITLE TO AUSTIN!" "We posted a loss, BRING IN DAVID ARQUETTE!" Vince will do anything OTHER than change to make money.

But he's changed once, so there's still a glimmer of hope he can do it again.

 

 

Except he's older and curmudgeonlier now.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

WWE won't die anytime soon. So these threads of "woulda, coulda, how could, when, blah blah blah...WWE died" threads are pointless because WWE is in a downward of a cycle. Wrestling has been in these boom bust peroids and you can go through times and see when it has been up, and when it has been down. It isn't nothing weird, Wrestling is only hot for about 5 years and dead for about another 5.

 

That's right.... The WRESTLING INDUSTRY is cyclical.... If a company is strong enough they can weather the cycle - but they are merely a company, not the industry. *WCW* brought the Wrestling Industry out of it's funk, remember that. The WWE's boat is sinking and there are a lot of holes to fill - and it doesn't look like they are making much of an attempt to fix it.

[Invictus 0]

RRR, how do you know that, if the WWE were to die a terrible death, that the federation that steps in to take it's place wouldn't be just as bad to it's fans? It's comfortable at the top, and WWE has grown complacent and doesn't feel the need to expand or improve because they are top dog, there are no other federations to run to.

 

Smaller feds are always willing to cater to the fans in every way they possibly can just to keep business up and try to steal/share some fanbase away from WWE. They will bend over backwards for the fans simply because they can't do the same thing as WWE and get away with it. If they became the only big federation, I'm certain they would do the exact same thing WWE is doing right now.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

And there is no way in hell the indies could possibly handle the influx that the death of WWE would create. They don't have a quarter of the resources of WWE, they have no TV contract, nothing. Only die-hard fans would seek out the shows, and that would just lead to a slow death as no new fans would gain exposure to the product.

 

The indies are alive today INSPITE of the WWE. The WWE dying would only add more stars to the indy shows and get more people interested in them.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

RRR, how do you know that, if the WWE were to die a terrible death, that the federation that steps in to take it's place wouldn't be just as bad to it's fans?

 

Because thats nearly impossible. The WWE is so bad to their fans - they shouldn't be alive at all with the way they treat them, but because it's wrestling people still watch. They do everything wrong.

 

Smaller feds are always willing to cater to the fans in every way they possibly can just to keep business up and try to steal/share some fanbase away from WWE. If they became the only big federation, I'm certain they would do the exact same thing WWE is doing right now.

 

If the WWE died no one company would gain supremecy though. In 10 years time you would get various companies growing up together all around the US.

[Invictus 0]

Hmm, that would certainly be interesting, I will admit. But another issue comes to mind with that future: Would all of these feds gain television exposure or not? Or maybe just some of them. It seems to me at least that the federation(s) that did gain a television contract would have a distinct advantage over others and we could very well see the same thing all over again.

 

Another thing, if the WWE were to die, it may leave a bad taste in the Network's mouths and it could end up that no network would want to pick up a wrestling program for a good, long while after the death of the WWE (maybe even 2 or more years) which could cause a lot of damage.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

The Networks already have a bad taste in their mouths about wrestling. Why do you think WCW was sold to Vince? Why do you think TNA is on PPV? If the WWE dies it would take A LOT longer than 2 years for a company to get TV because the demand would be nearly non-existant.

 

Each promotion would have to grow regionally at first. If they put on good enough shows the 500 people who go will tell their friends. Their friends will go. Now you have 1000 people. Those friends tell their friends and family, they bring their children, now you have 2000 people. Then it goes beyond being a regional and into a multi-state promotion. Word-of-Mouth is a very strong thing.

 

And you are forgetting one KEY thing... The Internet. Word-of-Mouth just got a lot stronger. More people are logging on each day. To the WWE smarks make up a small % of their mass audience, to an indy smarks ARE the audience. And even then, how many people on this board goes to an indy? How many hardcore WWE fans go to an indy?

 

Once a promotions popularity grows to where they have tens of thousands of fans (it's possible, ECW did it) then networks will start scratching their chins and realise that money can be made from it. They will remember the popularity wrestling once had with the WWF and see how much money the WWF once made. Promotions will get signed to local deals and then maybe if they have the right owner, a national deal. The WWE has set the precident - something the territories didn't have back-o-when.

[Invictus 0]

Yes, word of mouth can be a very powerful thing, especially because of the internet. But for someone like myself who lives somewhat up in the sticks, where wrestling promotions rarely (and I do mean rarely) come, for someone like myself I would really have no options until another wrestling program was picked up. And by that time many people in my situation may give up and forget about wrestling altogether.

 

Either way, it would be an interesting state of affairs should the WWE pass on. I don't see it happening within the next 5 years personally.

[Guest Retro Rob]

I don't see what would be so great about the WWE dying. There would be no wrestling on free TV. Right now we get seven hours of original programming a week from the WWE for nothing. I would rather that than have to pay in order to watch every TNA show.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I can. 3-5 Years at this rate, the WWE is outta here.*

 

*Depending on the advancement of MMA and the WWEs ability to capitalize on its growth.

 

Of course, independant wrestling would be strictly located in urban markets. I'm not saying that, for the short term, it won't be rough. But you have to start from somewhere. If wrestling fans stop being wrestling fans after the WWE dies, it's something the promotions have to look at. It can be seen as a problem or an opportunity - it just depends on what they do with it. If they see that fan as a 'lost fan' because they stopped watching then they won't get that fan. If they see that fan as a 'potential fan' because that fan DID watch before and was willing to suspend their disbelief then they can get that fan.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

There's no such thing as Free TV.

 

You give your Time. You give your interest. You allow them to feed you advertisements. You pay a cable bill. You buy a TV.

 

There is greater value in paying for a $10 (Japanese, Indy, Best of, whatever) Tape than watching 'free' (Crappy) WWE.

[Guest Nanks]

In YOUR opinion RRR. What you want is a dominant fed that runs the stories and follows the style that you/smarks want. Go beat over ROH. WWE has been entertaining the large numbers for as long as it has because that is what has developed and come through as what people want. If it dies, the national wrestling scene goes with it, for a VERY long time.

[Guest Spaceman Spiff]

There's no such thing as Free TV.

 

You give your Time. You give your interest. You allow them to feed you advertisements. You pay a cable bill. You buy a TV.

 

There is greater value in paying for a $10 (Japanese, Indy, Best of, whatever) Tape than watching 'free' (Crappy) WWE.

That's a bit faulty, there. You're already paying the cable bill regardless of whether you watch WWE. You'll watch something else on TV, which means time, interest, advertisements, so in essence it is free. Unless you cancel your cable and never watch any programming.

 

Buying tapes means you're spending $10 on top of what you would already be paying, WWE or no WWE.

[Guest snuffbox]

I honestly dont think MMA will ever put the WWE out of business. I remember that being said in 1995 when UFC was starting to take off. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree RRR.

[Guest Brian]

It's an accounting fundamental. Once you've paid for something, the cost is sunk. Therefore, the cable bill is a sunk cost. But the amount of time you put into watching the shows is a real cost.

 

Anyways, I don't think the indies are strong enough at this point to support both the stars and develop into territories. There's no longer the hotbeds that there once were. There's not a great deal of money going around.

 

The reason UFC didn't take-off fully the first time was because it ran into far too much trouble outside of the promotion. They were doing stronger buyrates than WCW and WWF for a time, before all the bans came down. Their attendance right now is strong, but they're in a rebuilding with a business that's somewhat uncontrollable. But it could feasibly happen (and I think PRIDE if produced and advertised to a good extent could fill that void).

[Guest Angle-plex]

I am talking about whether he loves the sport that he would be working small shows when his carreer in the WWE has gone. Face it he is a WWE creation who would never work anywhere else for a love of the sport.

 

Didn't Angle work a UPW show right before he won his first WWF World Heavyweight Championship in 2000? And what about when he came back from the concussion he had on SummerSlam 00? Was that just because "he doesn't love the sport"?

 

EDIT: And I think it's safe to say The Rock loves the sport too. The guy doesn't have to be back right now. He could be spending time with his wife and kid. Instead he's out there putting over the Hurricane and Booker T.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

There's no such thing as Free TV.

 

You give your Time. You give your interest. You allow them to feed you advertisements. You pay a cable bill. You buy a TV.

Yes, but I would never spend money for wrestling and wrestling only, except in the case of *really* hot PPV cards.

 

For this cable bill, I'm not only getting Raw & SmackDown, but riding through Iraq on a tank and getting to see what American Idol is all about, etc.

 

And some videos (RoH, I'm looking at you) just ain't cheap.

[Guest El Psycho Diablo]

In YOUR opinion RRR.  What you want is a dominant fed that runs the stories and follows the style that you/smarks want.  Go beat over ROH.  WWE has been entertaining the large numbers for as long as it has because that is what has developed and come through as what people want.  If it dies, the national wrestling scene goes with it, for a VERY long time.

 

I'm going to rip off your bold-quote thing RRR..because I'm too lazy to use the qoute function more than once.

 

That's just wrong.

 

Very, very wrong.

 

What you want is a dominant fed that runs the stories and follows the style that you/smarks want

 

So what if we're "smark" or "smart" fans? Here's the thing the WWE wants to deny..we ARE fans too. They take oppertunities to bash the "smark" user-base whenever possible. Why? Because we aren't afraid to say what we don't like. We aren't afraid to bash or reject things that Vince McMahon likes. What about the Katie Vick angle? People complained about that..smark and marks alike. What happened? Vince thought we were insane. The angle kept on going, despite bad reports, comments, emails, and ratings drops. We aren't the blind sheep he wants, and he hates us for it. The WWE has ALWAYS prefered the casual, "easy" fans over the hardcores. When the product is hot, they buy crap more easily..but when it's not, Vince tries to get them back by any means necessary.

 

WWE has been entertaining the large numbers for as long as it has because that is what has developed and come through as what people want.

 

That's not true.

 

The only reason the WWE is alive today is because of two hot properties: Hogan, and Austin. Both drew heavily in their time, and made the WWF/WWE mass ammounts of money. Both were also ran into the ground until they were played out to the fans, who ceased to give a shit. Vince has shown that he dosen't have what it takes to make stars, or RUN A WRESTLING COMPANY. He's only made money on the blood of people who work for him, who are promptly thrown to the side of the road when they're no longer in use. He denies what made him big.. -wrestling-. He's taken any mention of the word off TV, and tried to take the focus off the in-ring work as much as possible, which has failed. His 'comedy' segments fail, and his 'shock tv' has failed. He's been forced to bring back a lot of big names in the last year, none of which worked very well.

 

Why?

 

The fans have seen it before, over and over. How the hell do they think they're going to revitalize the company while ignoring and blasting the fans for having their own brains? *spits*

 

The only thing Vince is doing..is throwing things against the wall until something, ANYTHING strikes Austin/Hogan big.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

UFC has a different marketing strategy now, they have better fighters and better fights, and the government isn't out to screw them. The potential of Pride coming over to America is something that will give a shot in the industries arm. UFC had their biggest house and buyrate at UFC 40 btw.

 

In YOUR opinion RRR. What you want is a dominant fed that runs the stories and follows the style that you/smarks want. Go beat over ROH. WWE has been entertaining the large numbers for as long as it has because that is what has developed and come through as what people want. If it dies, the national wrestling scene goes with it, for a VERY long time.

 

My opinion on what? That the WWE will die? Everything dies, it's just a question of 'when'. The current trends show the WWEs death sooner rather than later. The WWE spitting on their fans? That's fact. The WWE doing everything wrong? Well, they don't do *everything* wrong, but I'd say a good 95% of what they do is against every business principal I know.

 

I want a good product. Sue me. I want a company to actually appreciate their fans. I know, it's kooky. I want my intelligence to be respected, not insulted... That's just downright wrong, isn't it?

 

The WWE has been entertaining large numbers? So the whole 'fanbase cutting in half' thing just means, what? The 'large numbers' who were watching in the mid-90s when the WWE was near bankruptcy means what? Sure, their product once was hot, now it's very very cold. And they aren't doing a single thing to get back on track. They're completely clueless... Or should I say, Vince McMahonis completely clueless.

 

That's a bit faulty, there. You're already paying the cable bill regardless of whether you watch WWE.

 

But you STILL are paying to see the WWE. If you didn't pay the cable bill you wouldn't get to see it, correct? You paying your cable bill is an integral part of the WWE's business. It allows you to view advertisements. Advertisements by companys who pay the WWE to put their commercials on TV or put them on PPV. Summerslam is brought to you by...

 

You'll watch something else on TV, which means time, interest, advertisements, so in essence it is free. Unless you cancel your cable and never watch any programming.

 

You don't think very highly of your time do you? Not to be insulting, because almost everyone thinks time is expendible. It is not. Time is finite. Especially YOUR time. You give your time to the WWE at a cost of doing something else.

 

Buying tapes means you're spending $10 on top of what you would already be paying, WWE or no WWE.

 

But the quality it gives you is MUCH greater than the WWE. Retro said the WWE was 'free' - it is not. It comes at a cost. Not necessarily a monetary cost, but a cost nonetheless. Value does not have to be monetary either - it relies on your satisfaction. On a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being lowest) the satisfaction I get from (free) WWE programming is maybe a 2, maybe a 3. Sometimes it dips into the negative column where I am disatisfied and feel my time could have been spent doing better things. On a scale from 1-10 (1 being "free" and 10 being, oh say $40 - the amount a PPV would cost) RAW or Smackdown is a 1.

 

A tape, however, would give me a 10 in satisfaction and a 2.5 in price. The Value here is well worth it as my satisfaction goes up 5x's while the price only goes up 2.5x's. The value is actually doubled.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I honestly dont think MMA will ever put the WWE out of business. I remember that being said in 1995 when UFC was starting to take off. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree RRR.

 

I didn't say that MMA would put the WWE - I said that MMA could HELP the WWE since there is a thin-line between the products. The WWE could capitalize on the popularity of MMA and adjust their product accordingly and do a better job.

[Guest Brian]

They've been doing good houses but UFC 41 estimates have unfortunately not been as good. The marketing has improved and so have the fighters (which is more a statement on the evolution of the sport). The problem with UFC though is being able to control things like you can with a wrestling promotion.

[Guest snuffbox]

Yes...i agree, the WWE needs to change its style.

 

Ive been rambling on about that for awhile. North American fans have been exposed to workrate/strong style wrestling with the WCW use of cruiserweights and the exposure of Benoit, Malenko, etc and the Japanese guys in the States.

 

But Vince still thinks its 1987.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

They've been doing good houses but UFC 41 estimates have unfortunately not been as good.

 

Yeah, I agree. They really need a TV deal to help promote their shows and fighters.

 

The problem with UFC though is being able to control things like you can with a wrestling promotion.

 

That's true and it's not true. Everyone looked at Pride 25 and said "This looks like it's going to Rock" and it did. Smart Match Making can produce some really great cards, it's just a matter of promoting the fights, educating the fans, and making the fighters aware that they also have to entertain (Linland and Baroni for example). You can't work it, but you can manipulate it. (I think they should have worked Victory in Vegas - it was an integral card.)

[Guest JMA]

Besides WWE (developmental territories included) and NWA: TNA, what's the biggest wrestling promotion in North America?

[Guest snuffbox]

RRR, whatever happened to UFC on FX(i think that was it)?

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Define 'biggest'. Revenue? Attendance? Does the UFC count?

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Shit, double post.

 

If you just want to know who is the next company in line, I dunno. What are the avg crowd sizes? I believe CZW gets an avg of 700 people a show, but I am not totally sure on that.

[Guest Brian]

In term of putting guys over though at the right time, it's tough though.

 

They don't need to eliminate the WWE style. Alot of guys work better under it. Look at RVD, who condensed his work and cut out much of the extra. Look at Angle, who totally flourishes with the set pacing, move structure, and basic psych.

 

What they need to do is open things up. If someone like Benoit wants to open up his moveset, let him. If Rey wants to work faster paced matches with more highspots and a lucha influence, let him. If Regal wants to brawl and do chain-style, let him. If Knoble wants to kick it to the mat, let him. Take off the harnesses, but don't shift styles. Set styles prohibit, and the workers don't need that. They need to be allowed to do what they're good at rather than be restricted.