"Complaining About Wrestling Is A Hobby"

[Guest TheGame2705]

I personally started watching more regularly when A-Train started to get more airtime. Jago brought up a VERY VERY VERY valid point. How do we know what everyone wants? I personally want less of Los Guerreros and Kane and more of Benoit, Train, Show, and Mattitude.

 

The attitude/NWO era had less matches than now I believe. I may in fact be wrong but it wouldn't be that wild of a guess. If today does have more matches, then one could make a case that alot of people didn't watch for matches.

 

Everyone knows wrestling's popularity was slipping but I firmly believe the split killed it. Sure there's more time for everything. More time for crap. SD has provided time for Nathan Jones. Jones makes me ashamed of big men. I was a firm Kevin Nash fan but he can't do crap now. I felt literally nauseated from RAW because it was so unintriguing. They've made me become bored of two of my oldest faves, HHH and Nash. Right now I'm starting to go along with building new stars but ONLY because now it's necessary.

-Triple H has been made to become so devoid of entertainment whether through his own decisions of through Vince's ideas

-Kevin Nash has crap for knees. He plays a heel when he's supposed to be face.

-Ric Flair looks like a greasy rat and should have retired after the last Nitro

-Kurt Angle is pretty much done

-Austin gone

-The Rock will never be on a full schedule again

-The Undertaker's heat was killed, can't see it being built up too soon

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Consumer Confidence is perhaps the most difficult issue for the WWF to focus on. It relates to how the consumer sees the product and their 'faith' in the WWF to 'do the right thing'. Every time the fan gets 'screwed', their confidence in the product drops. Every time an angle fails, they lose confidence in the product.

 

Look at all the 'failed' angles. The WWF's decline really began at Summerslam 2000. What was the major storyline at this time? It was the "HHH/Stephanie/Kurt" love triangle. This angle did not pay-off the way it was supposed to. Kurt Angle was supposed to break up HHH and Steph - HHH becomes the uber-face, Steph leaves television, and Kurt gets elevated as a heel. This didn't happen. HHH and Steph got back together, HHH went face for a month, and the Kurt/Steph relationship just fizzled. There was no real pay-off, no defining end to the feud.

 

Then what happened after that? The "Who hit Austin" storyline. After weeks and weeks of time dedicated to the angle - it turns out to be Rikishi! And if that wasn't a bomb, we find out that HHH 'arranged' it and the focus got taken off Rikishi almost immediately. These were two storylines that had A LOT of time dedicated to them and delivered no satisfying pay-off in the end. I consider these two angles to be the beginning of the end for the WWF.

 

Then came WM 17 - a HUGE success as we all waited to see Rock vs. Austin...And what happened? AUSTIN TURNED HEEL. God, if that wasn't a stupid move, I don't know what is. The WWF gave us a screwy ending when it should have been clean. It was an epic match which had a horrible ending that made everyone groan. And to add more fuel to the fire, whom does Austin align with? HHH: The guy with whom he had been feuding with heavily for the past 4 months. Right here, the WWF is saying "We want you to FORGET the past 4 months - they were meaningless." How do you think this effected consumer

confidence? This said to the fan, "What you watch right now will be ignored in the future " - so this brings up an important question to that consumer: Why watch?

 

After HHH got injured and the Austin/HHH feud that was supposed to last the summer got screwed up, Vince decided to play his trump card and bring out the WWF vs. WCW feud. Of course, it bombed... Horribly... And it couldn't even last a full year - though the Monday Night Wars lasted 5. This was the straw that broke the camels back - this was the thing that made consumers say "Hey, the WWF fucked up a WCW vs. WWF angle - they put all the focus on WWF guys and the McMahon's, they didn't even bother hiring Hogan, Nash, Flair, Bischoff and anyone else that mattered - they just thought we fans would be stupid enough to accept it as the real thing. Fuck this."

 

The WWF tried to bring Foley back - they dropped him soon after - they brought Flair in as a 'Co-Owner' and that didn't last long - and then they brought in the NWO. This lack of direction KILLS consumer confidence - especially after the bombing of the InVasion angle. This tells that consumer "Hey, we have NO IDEA what we are doing or what you want from us".

 

And this leads us to right now. The return of Crash-TV. Katie Who? Billy and Chuck had a wedding? The WWF tries these attention grabs - they don't work - and are forgotten about a week later. It kills consumer confidence, lowers the product, and doesn't benefit ANYONE - yet the WWF insists on doing it. They have always been that way - and in a view years they will try to poke fun of themselves by mocking the Katie Vick angle like they did with the Mae Young hand angle - the only thing is, no one will laugh because we were the ones who had to *suffer* through it.

 

The fans' faith in the WWF is still falling and won't bottom out until each individual fans' "trust" in the WWF is gone and no one watches any more. Believe me, it could happen. Look at WCW - they changed direction countless amounts of time, they screwed the fans more times than I can remember, they never paid off their huge build ups/angles and Consumer Confidence in the end was non-existent - they were just one big joke. When you hear the word 'surprise' or 'mystery' on WWF TV, do you groan or say 'oh boy!'?. I groan because the WWF's mysteries never pay-off. When there is a big title match are you expecting a cheap finish? I am - and the crowd is too as they look to the entranceway for a run in at the climax of a match. This reflects poor confidence in the company's ability to 'do the right thing'. This is what the WWF needs to fix. They need to bring that trust back into the relationship with its fans

[Guest The Czech Republic]

If we didn't have all those trailor park white trash bastards showing up at all the wrestling events with signs like "Will you Marry me?" & "Your Next" (as opposed to you're next) than maybe sports entertainment wouldn't be the laughing stock of the planet.

You spelled "trailer" wrong.

 

credibility

[Yuna_Firerose 0]

 

Jubilee sucks.

 

Replace her with Colossus and your sig is perfect.

I know I'll sound dumb, but......who? I put Jubilee in there because it looks cool beside the Iceman and Pyro icons.

 

And, yeah, that was an LOP column that I posted for the hell of it.

[Guest Hogan Made Wrestling]

The guy makes a valid point about how people treat complaining about wrestling as a hobby. It's not enough for some people to stop watching it, like a normal person would do with a TV show they suddenly don't find interesting, but a lot of wrestling fans feel some need to let everyone know that they arn't watching it, then read about what's happening and bitch anyway.

 

For instance, I don't watch new episodes of The Simpsons anymore because I think it's run its course and no longer an interesting show to watch. That doesn't mean I go to fanboards, run down shows that I didn't watch (just read recaps for), advertise the fact that I am not watching this week, and pollute threads on this week's episode with continuous updates of some dumb sports show I'm watching.

[Guest Cover of Darkness]

 

Jubilee sucks.

 

Replace her with Colossus and your sig is perfect.

I know I'll sound dumb, but......who? I put Jubilee in there because it looks cool beside the Iceman and Pyro icons.

 

And, yeah, that was an LOP column that I posted for the hell of it.

Colossus is the big metal Russian dude. In the comics he's a bit like Nightcrawler because he's so upbeat and naive, but they never really explored his charcter in the movie. He just saved those kids, remember?

 

He's on just about every X-Fan's list of "beloved" characters, and it was REALLY shitty when they killed him off. Plus, he does this thing with Wolverine called the "Fastball Special" where he literally throws Wolverine like a baseball at the enemy.

[Guest Cerebus]

I got to agree with MH...a few years ago, you could strike a conversation with just about anyone about what was going on in the WWF. Nowadays, those same people simply have turned away from wrestling for a variety of reasons.

[Guest Sakura]

The guy makes a valid point about how people treat complaining about wrestling as a hobby. It's not enough for some people to stop watching it, like a normal person would do with a TV show they suddenly don't find interesting, but a lot of wrestling fans feel some need to let everyone know that they arn't watching it, then read about what's happening and bitch anyway.

We care too much to just go away.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I still complain about the simpsons and I haven't watched in 4 or 5 years