Official Pro-Wrestling Thread (WWE, TNA, ROH etc.)

[GIMH]

duffer, didn't you mention starting a UFC/MMA thread? I wouldn't mind checking that out, don't really know anything about it and a CW thread would be a good way to start

 

[sledger]

Seth Green is going to be Guest GM of RAW next week.

Haha, steaming pile of horse crap.

 

[masterblaster]

Professional wrestling seems to have a lot of problems at the moment and this is being compounded with the rise of MMA and the UFC. Ageing stars, soap opera writing and a lack of new fresh talent that can take the place of the established stars is really worrying.

It seems that WWE and TNA are trying their best to be innovative and fresh but it's really not getting the fans to watch. The entire industry is crying out for something that is fresh, new and revolutionary so that interest can be revived.

While WWE does a lot of things right (anything involving Chris Jericho, Edge, CM Punk and Smackdown on the whole) it also does a lot of things wrong (Lame celebrity storylines, the same main eventers on top, stale and repetitive storylines).

I do think that the art of story telling in professional wrestling is long gone and that the product we have now is contrived, predictable and very formulaic. It's crying out for a new, innovative and fresh way of being presented to the public. I don't know what this could be, but with whatever they are doing at the moment, it isn't really attracting a lot of viewers.

 

[duffer]

It can't compete with MMA anymore because it will never be afforded the same sense of legitimacy that they are getting. On ESPN, Yahoo etc they are talking about the UFC having potential to be the 4th biggest sport in America down the line which a decade ago was pure crazy talk and something Vince could never dream about. 100 is being forecasted by some people to do over 1.5 million American buys, smashing all PPV records, and in a recessionary economy to boot.

It's a meritocracy which is far less dictated by the whims of a few egomaniac performers and bookers and it is far more fan orientated than the WWE will ever hope to be. Kids will always love the WWE, problem is adults who buy PPV's are being turned off in droves and have a new, proper, legitimate and cool obsession.

I'd still download pro-wrestling matches if the performers were putting on truly world class shows but I doubt I could ever get excited by "Sports Entertainment", if you guys get the distinction I'm making. It's not entertaining and I just got turned off by the constant piss taking that Vince, HHH and co have indulged in for years now. While they had no competition it was fine, they knew the smarks who they ridiculed were a captive audience and couldn't go anywhere else. However, the entire landscape has changed over the last 3 years but reading TV reports and spoilers every once in a while it doesn't seem like much of the product has done so.

Mb has got it right in saying that the sense of artistry in performances has been more or less eradicated but when you consider how rushed and incomplete storylines and feuds are built these days and how creative can seemingly completely contradict themselves one week to the next I'm not surprised this is happening. People are being pushed for reason which have nothing to do with their in ring ability and the constant spoon feeding of mic work is more detrimental to their development in the long term than anything else.

Pro Wrestling will always be popular, but they face a ridiculous struggle to maintain what they have now because the marketplace is just so fierce. The young adult market is where they are being hurt big time and that is their key demographic with regards to competition from MMA. I watched the PPV replay today with a bunch of people who had never seen a show before and they all wanted to organise something for UFC101 and wanted to know when the next season of Ultimate Fighter was on so they could get more into it. The growth is remarkable, the WWE need another Rock or Austin or something which has more than niche appeal to catalyse their business or it'll be swallowed up.

 

[Majin]

Definitely agree with most of what Duffer said there. Have found myself being slowly converted out of Wrestling and into MMA in the past year. I've always been interested in MMA like the K-1 style stuff, but it took me a while to get into the full blown standup+ground+everything in between MMA. But for mine, wrestling has been largely **** for years being carried by a few geniune stars, but as mentioned we've seen it all now.

I feel like the only thing that could get me back to watching wrestling regularly again is if they either did get a new Rock or Austin (something I find highly doubtful for the foreseeable future), or if they did a throwback to one of my favourite times of Wrestling and had loads of stables form and have a few stable on stable wars. I think that's where they should be focusing anyway. You can do all the crazy soap opera dramatic storylines you want but at the end of the day, for 1-on-1 fighting WWE will never be as entertaining as MMA. They should focus more on doing the things the UFC can't do. Hell even if they just revived the tag team division and stopped lumping two random dudes together but actually bought new, talented guys as teams and built them into stars from there, think back to the Hart Foundation, The Rockers, Edge and Christian, The Hardy's and countless others. I'd love it if they had some quality tag team action going on again.

As it is these days I usually turn the channel over whenever Jericho or Edge aren't on screen. Randy Orton's character is becoming incredibly stale to me just because he's been doing the same thing with the same person for what seems like a year. Wrestling is pretty blah at the moment.

 

[sledger]

Agree with a lot thats been said here, I also rarely watch unless Jericho, Edge, Christian or Punk are not involved. Though I think it's important not to draw too many comparisons between the WWE and UFC, as in essence they are very different indeed. Something is certainly needed to revamp pro wrestling, I agree, but I don't think its a problem with the workers available, there are plenty of massively talented guys at the disposal of the WWE, and indeed TNA, but like MB has said, its the formulaic feud building, promo cutting and even match structuring that brings it down in my eyes, the amount of times I can watch a match, predict exactly what spots we are going to see and more or less exactly how the match will end aren't exactly as rare as hens teeth.

 

[GIMH]

I think the problem is that the wrestlers don't get to call their own spots enough these days. Too often the agents tell them what should happen from point A to Z. How many classics have been planned out from start to finish in the past? That I know of, there is randy Savage V Ricky Steamboat, which was rehearsed, and the first E&C V hardyz ladder match at No Mercy 99, where they planned out every second of the match (and you see in both of these cases that it was the wrestlers not the agents who did the planning). But traditionally great wrestling matches have an agreed finish and maybe the odd pre-prepared high spot, and the rest the guys work out on the fly. I get the feeling that that is happening more on Smackdown these days as the matches are so much more believable, and Smackdown has at least one PPV quality match each week. TBH I am not concerned about the state of wrestling at all as I genuinely believe that Smackdown is the best wrestling show of the last decade in its current form (though it will be a challenge to maintain that without Edge).

 

[sledger]

Tbh another problem and something that irks me greatly is the amount of time taken up on shows by non-wrestling segments. I mean, it's so often that you see about 20 minutes of stupid backstage campy skits involving nobodies like Eugene and Hornswoggle etc... which seem to go on forever. Then finally once it's over you see a match which often lasts 3 minutes of less where someone like Umaga will come out and squash someone like Brian Kendrick (for no obvious reason) and then we get a boring 20 minute promo involving someone like Randy Orton or HHH speaking about how great they are etc...I know it's "sports entertainment" but come on, it is still a "wrestling" show.

 

[GIMH]

Again, this is why you need to watch Smackdown more. The backstage segments are generally good and relevant (aside from Cryme Tyme's awful segment). Smackdown generally goes like this:

-Promo from CM Punk/Hardy/Jericho/Edge/RMJ
-Match
-Match
-Segment in Teddy's office
-From the Vault
-Match
-RAW Recap
-Segment in Teddy's office
-Match
-Promo
-Main Event

 

[sledger]

Agreed on the Cryme Tyme segment, it's so bad, which is a shame, because they actually have the charisma and ability to cut very decent promos.

 

[GIMH]

yo yo yo, it's cryme tyme

 

[sledger]

Wish they would also actually be given a proper program as well, as both of them are decent in ring, but yet have never really been given any sort of feud whatsoever.

Edit: I suppose they may still be in the dog house for the incident that led them to being fired all that time ago, but all the same, surely enough is enough, and with the tag team titles unified there is a strong division ready and waiting for them.

 

[GIMH]

They are just treated as a joke basically. Had a couple of decent matches with the Harts though.

 

[sledger]

Victim of their (incrediby stupid imo) gimmick I guess. Ah well, reckon JTG could make an impression in TNA in the X division over there if he ever got the chance. Imagine if Shad plays his cards right he will probs end up at the top of the card in WWE, seems to fit the bill for the kind of guy Vince likes as a maineventer (i.e big).

 

[duffer]

Agree with a lot thats been said here, I also rarely watch unless Jericho, Edge, Christian or Punk are not involved. Though I think it's important not to draw too many comparisons between the WWE and UFC, as in essence they are very different indeed. Something is certainly needed to revamp pro wrestling, I agree, but I don't think its a problem with the workers available, there are plenty of massively talented guys at the disposal of the WWE, and indeed TNA, but like MB has said, its the formulaic feud building, promo cutting and even match structuring that brings it down in my eyes, the amount of times I can watch a match, predict exactly what spots we are going to see and more or less exactly how the match will end aren't exactly as rare as hens teeth.

They aren't but the problem is they are more or less direct competition for their key demographic(Males 18-35). Which is why me and Majin I guess decided to compare them as such. I think your next post down sums up why I stopped watching tbh.

Tbh another problem and something that irks me greatly is the amount of time taken up on shows by non-wrestling segments. I mean, it's so often that you see about 20 minutes of stupid backstage campy skits involving nobodies like Eugene and Hornswoggle etc... which seem to go on forever. Then finally once it's over you see a match which often lasts 3 minutes of less where someone like Umaga will come out and squash someone like Brian Kendrick (for no obvious reason) and then we get a boring 20 minute promo involving someone like Randy Orton or HHH speaking about how great they are etc...I know it's "sports entertainment" but come on, it is still a "wrestling" show.

It doesn't seem like a wrestling show for me anymore. It seems completely out of whack with what I expect a wrestling show to be. Just feel MMA is more geared for what I expect in entertainment and the fights can't even compare anymore. I don't think I've ever been as nerve jangling excited for a wrestling match as I was for GSP-Alves on the weekend or as emotionally vested in it as I was for Brock-Mir.

 

[sledger]

According to the pay-per-view schedule on WWE.com, No Mercy has been renamed Hell in the Cell. The event will take place on October 4th at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.

Oh dear.

 

[sledger]

They aren't but the problem is they are more or less direct competition for their key demographic(Males 18-35). Which is why me and Majin I guess decided to compare them as such. I think your next post down sums up why I stopped watching tbh.



It doesn't seem like a wrestling show for me anymore. It seems completely out of whack with what I expect a wrestling show to be. Just feel MMA is more geared for what I expect in entertainment and the fights can't even compare anymore. I don't think I've ever been as nerve jangling excited for a wrestling match as I was for GSP-Alves on the weekend or as emotionally vested in it as I was for Brock-Mir.

This is something GIMH and I spoke about on MSN a bit earlier. It suddenly occurred to me that how back in the day, as little as about 3 years ago, and certainly before then the shows were genuinely just "wrestling shows", with the storylines and backstage angles etc..being used to help build the matches. Nowadays it seems that the matches are almost a side dish, almost being used as something to decorate all the backstage antics and stupid story telling, which is really not a good thing. Really needs a way of being freshened up, though that said, I'm at a bit of a loss as to suggest how.

The thing with MMA and UFC etc...for me personally anyway, is that it offers a very different attraction than pro wrestling. I enjoy MMA and UFC, but I watch it for totally different reasons than I ever would WWE. If I sit down to watch MMA, I sit down with the mentality and anticipation of actually watching genuine "sport", with WWE I just want to be entertained in a different way completely. I love the show of the WWE, the sporting theatre etc... and marking out for all the genuine athletes who make it so enjoyable to watch, but I've never tuned in because I wanted to see physical competition. Thats just my personal opinion, and I'm sure there are those out there who would disagree, but for me personally, though pro wrestling and MMA/UFC have similarities, their appeals to me as a viewer or a spectator are very different.

 

[masterblaster]

This is something GIMH and I spoke about on MSN a bit earlier. It suddenly occurred to me that how back in the day, as little as about 3 years ago, and certainly before then the shows were genuinely just "wrestling shows", with the storylines and backstage angles etc..being used to help build the matches. Nowadays it seems that the matches are almost a side dish, almost being used as something to decorate all the backstage antics and stupid story telling, which is really not a good thing. Really needs a way of being freshened up, though that said, I'm at a bit of a loss as to suggest how.

The thing with MMA and UFC etc...for me personally anyway, is that it offers a very different attraction than pro wrestling. I enjoy MMA and UFC, but I watch it for totally different reasons than I ever would WWE. If I sit down to watch MMA, I sit down with the mentality and anticipation of actually watching genuine "sport", with WWE I just want to be entertained in a different way completely. I love the show of the WWE, the sporting theatre etc... and marking out for all the genuine athletes who make it so enjoyable to watch, but I've never tuned in because I wanted to see physical competition. Thats just my personal opinion, and I'm sure there are those out there who would disagree, but for me personally, though pro wrestling and MMA/UFC have similarities, their appeals to me as a viewer or a spectator are very different.

I agree with this. Pro wrestling has always had the great personalities, the theatrical aspect and the fact that you can become interested in a feud or storyline. If you do want to see legitimate competition than UFC is definitely the thing to watch. But if you want to see amazing athleticism, characters and storylines then pro wrestling is the thing that would appeal to you.

Although I wouldn't mind WWE and TNA cutting down on their lame backstage skits and concentrating more on their in ring product. WWE seems to have taken a cue from MMA/UFC and have made Smackdown and ECW their wrestling heavy shows. The influence of MMA on Pro Wrestling is undeniable though as guys like CM Punk, Samoa Joe and Jack Swagger are on top and each of these guys have incorporated the MMA style into pro wrestling.

But I agree on the whole that MMA/UFC and pro wrestling cater for two completely different audiences and are vastly different. I don't think that's a bad thing, but there are elements that pro wrestling can pick up from MMA/UFC and use it to make their product better.

 

[sledger]

We can't confirm this just yet but a source backstage at RAW today is under the impression that the main event for tonight is Triple H, John Cena, & Seth Green vs. The Legacy.

 

[masterblaster]

That'll bring in the ratings.