In the late '80s there was an established wrestling promotion, with all the biggest names in the business. This company was known as WWF. Than a new company came along, with huge ammounts of money, WCW. They started to bring in the bigger names from the WWF, throwing massive ammounts of money into better production, new PPVs. Then they went into direct competition with the WWF's biggest weekly show, Monday Night Raw.
The biggest names in WWF went to WCW for the promise of more money and an easier schedule, forcing WWF to create new stars, often using wrestlers frustrated with being stuck in the lower leagues of WCW.
After years of battling, WWF won the war, and WCW went out of business.
Fast forward 10 years. WWF has become WWE. Now they are the big company with all the money. They have massive production values, the biggest stars in the business. There is now a new, smaller company, lead by two of the biggest faces in WCW, Hogan and Bischoff. They make a lot of heir own new stars, and take lot of mid/lower card wrestlers from the other company, and make them into stars.
Now they have gone into direct competition on Monday nights.
10 years ago, the richer, arguably bigger (at the time) company went under, due to bad management, poor storylines, and focusing too much on ratings instead of the actual product.
We all know that Vince doesn't see TNA as a huge threat at the moment, but he has never liked any form of competition. My question is, Could WWE fall foul of the same fate as WCW, and lose to the hungrier, forward thinking, developing company that is TNA? Or could both companys survive, and even thrive, when in such a competitive environment?
I wouldn't agree with this whatsoever. Just because WWE is has all the money, and is producing sub-par storylines (however nowhere nearly as bad as WCW ever has), doesn't mean by one bit that they are going to go under.
Eric Bischoff may be hailed as one of the smartest men in the business, but he's also got one of the hugest egos working right beside him, Hulk Hogan. People blame Vince Russo for destroying WCW, but it was just as much Hulk, Nash's and anyone else involved in putting themselves first before everyone else that took a toll on the company. Since Bischoff let all that happen and didn't do a thing to stop it, I wouldn't consider him as great as people sell him to be. Fast forward to TNA, you've got Hulk bringing in all his friends, guaranteeing them jobs and paychecks, and thus far in most areas with these old guys completely tarnishing the product, but in other ways helping out the young guys.
WCW looked ridiculous every time they called out WWF on any broadcast. It made them look smaller and far less professional of an organization. Take a look at TNA, and what do you see? Nearly every impact someone in TNA has something to say about WWE. Hulk can't cut a promo without mentioning those three letters, and it doesn't bring anything positive to the product the public is viewing. It makes TNA look bush league, and truly shows why they are smaller.
I will give Hulk credit, he's building up the young guys like he's promised, but some of them are just forcing themselves into roles they shouldn't be in, like AJ Styles. It's not believable to any fan that he's the "'Lil Nature Boy", whatsoever. He doesn't look comfortable in the role and it makes for cringe-worthy TV when they are in the back doing some sort of acting segment.
Vince has always been a survivor. I truly hail him as the smartest man in wrestling history because he stuck to his guns when WCW was trumping them in the ratings. When things started sliding for WWF, Vince pulled his pants up at the end and started producing great television. Feuds were great, the TV was watchable, and the product was overall entertaining. WHY? Because Vince had the competition he needed to motivate him to put out the best product possible. However all of this took a toll on his talent, and he knows that, so he's found that fine line between good entertainment and longevity of talent; he's got to protect his stars to ensure they are around to entertain.
It makes no sense to put your wrestlers in damaging and brutal matches like WCW and ECW did (forcing Vince to have matches nearly every monday where someone was going through the announcers table). As it stands, TNA is still no threat to WWE. Before Hulk came in, Impact was barely a threat to ECW, Vince's third, cut rate show that he didn't invest any of his own time in. Now that Hulk is there, it's still not that much of a threat, .3 marks in the ratings means absolutely nothing to Vince. Now, with NXT, I truly believe that show will also out-rate impact as well (however it has only been 1 episode, so it's hard to judge). So this doesn't bode well for TNA
Maybe if TNA was getting solid 3.0's (like Hulk Promised it would be) Vince would be getting a little worried, but TNA has done absolutely nothing in the way of good television itself to make more fans want to view the product.
Now I'm not bashing on TNA, I'm just saying that people have to quit looking at Hulk Hogan like he's Mr. Wrestling-Booker-Encyclopedia, because let's face it, he had much to do with the ratings decline in 99 as Kevin Nash and Vince Russo did. I really do not believe Hulk understands the entertainment side of the business as much as he thinks he does, and Eric Bischoff is really only a guy that knows how to spend other's money like it's his own. He's a great mind when it comes to marketing and brand recognition, but he's done nothing in TNA that even supports that aspect of his past.
I'd love to see TNA go head to head with RAW in a competitive manner, but until they pull their socks up and start putting on great entertaining TV that non-wrestling fans can connect with, they're not going to get anywhere very fast. The IWC Hails TNA because of it's superior ring-work, but that's about all TNA has. They don't have entertaining TV in the way of storyline and drama and cliffhangers the way the general public needs to have in order to get hooked.
