What will spur wrestling's next big boom?

[Guest Phenom]

Ted Turner buys TNA. It's the only way.

 

ROH too, if possible.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Is there any chance Turner gets involved when his no compete is up in March of 2006?

Virtually no chance at all. When he asked about the start up costs involved in creating a new promotion, he balked at the amount it would take.

 

As for him buying TNA, the same thing goes. It would cost more money than he is willing to lose in order to make TNA any kind of threat to WWE.

[BUTT 0]

It's not even like Turner was a big wrestling fan or anything. He just like having it on his network because it's what had brought him ratings in the first place. Now that he has no network, don't expect to see him get back into wrestling.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

It's not even like Turner was a big wrestling fan or anything. He just like having it on his network because it's what had brought him ratings in the first place. Now that he has no network, don't expect to see him get back into wrestling.

He might not have been a big fan in the traditional sense, but he was fiercely loyal to it. Before the merger, and I don't remember the exact timeline, there was a board meeting of all the top Turner brass, and a bunch of them recommended that they dump WCW. Turner had other ideas, said that as long as he was around WCW would stay, and he flat out ordered to never bring the idea up again.

[Guest JebusNassedar]

Benoit is 5'10". Angle is 5'10". Michaels is 5'11". Hell, Eddie's 5'8". Rey's 5'4".

 

The last four are very charismatic, yes, but so is Austin. Austin Aries' entire ring presence is intimidating, much more so than someone like Heidenreich. While Heidenreich is big and scary, Austin Aries looks like the kind of guy that you would see in a bar who would just generally ruin one's shit. He has a very unique look, and amazing psychology, as well as body movement. He also knows, to quote Cornette, "When to kick it in like a crazy man and when to back it up like a chickenshit." He does small things that take noticing, but are so realistic, they're scary. Take Joe Vs. Aries for instance. In one part of the match, he gets hung across the top rope and kicked square in the gut. HE rolls away, not knowing he's in the ropes, then instinctually throws his shoulder up, to kick out. Then there's the way that he'll always cling to the ropes when in a hold that is extra torturous, but yet allows him to get to the ropes, and how he'll sometimes yell "Ropes" almost desperately.

 

Aries has the look, style, and knowhow to become something special in pro wrestling, and while you may say "So does London," unfortunately, London couldn't find charisma with two hands, a map, and a Charisma Detector. Aries has it. In the way he walks, the way he moves, and the especially the way he acts.

 

Watch. Five to seven years from now, I'll be right.

[Guest Ray]

Ric Flair and Steve Austin weren't really huge either. I think it's possible for a mid-sized to smaller-sized wrestler to get over on top if he has enough charisma.

Uh, Loss - it's not exactly a good idea to use two of the most charasmatic wrestlers and best talkers ever to prove this point. ;-)

 

A Benoit would be a better comparison.

[res37618 0]

Wrestling may not be in the boom stage right now, but it is in no means in the slum stage.  They still have one of the top 3 highest rated cable shows week after week.  PPV numbers are not as strong as before, but still hold thier own vs. other ppv numbers.  We as smark fans are just bored and think things are alot worse than they really are.  The slum stage is when they are doing thier house shows at local highschool gymnasiums. 

 

As far as the next big boom, I agree HHH holding the majority of power will hinder it from happening.  Unless TNA blows up, I think we are stuck with the WWE happy with what they have stage.

I completely agree with you here. While wrestling's not as big as it was in '98-'01, it's definitely not reached the lows of '93-'96, in fact, it's nowhere close. Once Vince starts having RAW and SmackDown at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center or in Lowell, MA again every week, then we may have something to be concerned with. But for now, even with attendance down, the numbers aren't that bad at all. WWE is still a profitable company, and they'll do what they have to in order to stay that way. And though it looks like PPV buyrates are down pretty badly, if you'll add up the total # of PPV buys in a year, it's probably pretty close to "normal range" for any given year. There's just more PPV's to choose from and people can be more selective in what they order.

 

Will there be another boom? I think that's really hard to say. It's gonna take another breakout star, and a change in philosophy - Vince has gone back to a somewhat more "traditional" approach - slower matches, not as much high-risk athleticism, etc. I think the same thing could've been asked back in '94 or so, and look at how big of a boom we experienced just a couple of years later.

 

And to agree with a couple of previous posts, Austin Aries is definitely star-quality material. I haven't seen much ROH, but from what I have seen, Aries is the man. Quality promos, great matches, very charismatic, he's definitely got a ton of potential.

[Some Guy 0]

They need to shake things up and start putting on quality shows first and foremost. They need to get behind one guy on each show and push him until it works like they did with HHH. They need to put said guys over HBK and HHH on the Raw side and Taker, Angle, and JBL one the SD! side. I think Shelton is the guy for Raw, give him a decent finish and a slightly better look (new ring attire) and clean wins with his finish over Shawn and HHH and oyu've got a superstar. On SD! I have no idea who the guy would be. I'm not at all sold on Cena, he's an average worker at best and has a midcard gimmick. And he's supoosed to be a rapper but he doesn't even rap anymore that I've seen. His promos/freestyles used to be funny and rhyme now they are not funny and don't rhyme, plus rather than tryign to be a better worker he's too busy pumping his sneakers, plus his finish sucks, it's a Fireman's carry slam, if he did a DVD proper then it would be believable. Bringing back Brock is might help but he didn't set the world on fire his first time around.

 

I don't watch RoH so I have no idea about their guys but from what I'ce heard they're all too small to be taken seriously by WWE and TNA has no one close to ready for a top spot in WWE. Monty Brown is reaonably charismatic but a craptastic worker with a stupid finish, the rest of TNA is WWE washouts and cruiserweights.