A thought

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Was wrestling better or worse without the IWC? Not the quality of wrestling or stories, neccesarily, but were you more or less of a fan 10 years ago?

 

What makes it such a debate, I feel, is the element of surprise.

 

It's easy to say "Oh, pre IWC for sure, there were no spoilers or surprises." At the same time, how often was pre IWC wrestling a series of squashes and promos, saving for a huge PPV.

 

Then again, the huge PPV and marquee theory could shoot any post-IWC argument in the foot.

 

Thoughts?

[Guest *KNK*]

It's hard to really honestly say.

 

As for WWE? Less of a fan but knowing why the show is so shitty makes it more entertaining in the train wreck context.

 

However the IWC opened me up to ROH and other sources like puro which increased my fandom of wrestling to newer levels.

[Placebo Effect 0]

Ten years ago, even with Diesel vs. King Mabel, I had fun watching the product.

 

With or without the IWC, I wouldn't be saying that about the WWE right now.

[cabbageboy 0]

I can't really say the same. I had no internet back in 1995 and no insider knowledge, but even I knew something was truly screwy behind the scenes. I think the main reason is stuff like Diesel getting the title pretty much out of nowhere, despite not remotely being popular enough for it. And of course Michaels being pushed down everyone's throats. Hell, my dad and I used to joke back then about Shawn maybe being Vince's gay lover in order to get pushed.

 

Combine this with WCW pushing old WWF retreads constantly rather than the guys I associated as being WCW guys during the 1992-93 time period and it wasn't a real great time to be a fan. There was no ECW in my area until 1996, SMW wasn't shown either, but there was always USWA to keep me amused.

[Art Sandusky 0]

I felt wrestling blew in the mid-90s without any kind of smark knowledge outside of "it's fake." Last time I really liked it before Austin came along was up until Bret lost to Diesel.

[Black Lushus 0]

I agree, between 93 and 97, wrestling hit a real lull and I didn't get into the IWC until 98ish...there were some hot points in that stretch, of course, Bret Hart, HBK in late 94/95 was good, but, and I can't say this enough, I loved 97 and that really got me back into it again...to me, it hit that lull again between 2001 and 2004. Personally, for me, it was probably because my internet access was limited at the time, financial strapping forced me to not order too many PPVs and, of course, the WWE product wasn't all that good...2004 was a pretty good year, IMO, but now 2005 is starting to get back into that lull area...I will always be a mark of 80s up thru 92 wrestling, but I will say that it's hard to watch that stuff these days (like on WWE 24/7, old tapes, etc.) after getting so accustomed to this current era of high spots, garbage matches, etc.

[slabinskia 0]

I liked it more before I had the internet.I didn't get the internet until 99 which is long after everyone else.

 

This question was regarding wwf/e but I will go another direction.If you didn't have the internet in 1996 when the nwo first started,it was must see tv.Sure,everyone knew hall and nash were part of wcw and it was an invasion angle,but the question became,who else was going to jump from wwf to wcw to be part of the invasion ?

 

With the internet,the nwo storyline would not have been anywhere near as exciting as it was.

[Black Lushus 0]

yup, what you said...I had no idea about Hall and Nash leaving the WWE, then when they showed up on Nitro I was like Holy Hell!