There is the Vince McMahon mark talking again.
I will give you that 2000 was a very good year in WWE. I was enjoying it so much that I actually attended 6 of the 12 PPV's that year. However, by this point, the McMahon/Austin feud had passed and McMahon was onto The Rock, which wasn't quite as entertaining as McMahon-Austin. So I would argue that 1998 and 1999 were more entertaining years for me than 2000.
Now,as I believe I asked in another thread, since Russo and Ferrara left WWE, and when Vince McMahon served as the Lead Writer for Raw, how impressed have you been with the quality of television over the years .... especially the last two-three? I think it has been absolutely horrendous, overall ... with very few exceptions. Not only have the shows themselves been stale and boring, with the feeling given that you are essentially watching the same show every single week ... but Vince has done a terrible job over the years of growing and developing talent, something Russo and Ferrara were ten times better at. And that was because while Russo focused on the Main Event, Ferrara's job was assigned to give everyone something to do in the Mid Card. Therefore, this made the audience care about all aspects of the show, and not just the Main Event.
McMahon, instead, focused solely on the Main Event over the years, because he adopted the philosophy over the years that "only the Main Event matters". He basically told his audience that the Midcard doesn't matter, and destroyed the Tag Team Division in the process. He has failed to develop any significant new stars to the Main Event over the years, since 2004 when he brought aboard Cena and Orton ... and their debuts were also mismanaged, especially Cena since he was rushed to the Main Event, and the fans didn't perceive him as credible.
So I would argue for the most part since McMahon has been running things, the product has taken a turn for the worst, especially these past several years. Hell, there was a report that even stated that he was frustrated in that WWE couldn't create new stars, when he is the Lead Writer and responsible for the shows. Therefore, he has nobody to blame but himself for his failures to do so, over the years. And that is because he lost track of the overall picture.
Now, if someone like this is going to serve as a filter, what good is he?
Sidious, while many of your points have a TON of validity (as they normally do), I believe that while you call us Vince-marks, we can call you anti-Vince. That being said...
Once again, 1998-2000 were tremendous years for the WWE and were split (creatively) between Russo/Ferrara and Vince. But then again, the entire company was in a different direction back then. This was the Attitude Era... and Era that drew huge rating but also killed the product in the long run. Russo and Ferrara had the freedom to make most of their racy storylines come to life on WWE programming. Vince would've done anything to battle WCW at the time. The bar was raised too high, and not in a good way. The show was racy, innappropriate for anyone under the age of 15, despicable at times, and was a desperate attempt to battle a company run by someone that pushed the product to the limits of what was allowed on cable television. While the WWE and WCW gained a huge portion of an audience over the age of 15, they lost their younger viewers because parents didn't want their children watching the product. In recent years, Vince has made himself aware of this and has changed his entire format so he could stop breeding for the "right now" fan and begin breeding fans for the future. He feels that without these changes, his company has no future.
We could look at it two ways... Vince could've stayed on the same path that he was on in the Attitude Era by creating product for an older, more mature audience. Instead, he is choosing to market to the younger, new breed of professional wrestling fans. And while it didn't work at first, it's beginning to grow right now. Ratings (though a bit slowly) are rising and the product is breaking into the mainstream, becoming accepted by everyone in the world the way it was in the 1980's. That is Vince's goal. Sure, things will not change overnight, but just like TNA is doing right now, the correct formula is in place and things are finally heading in the right direction.
Now, one thing that I can't disagree with Sidious about is how the midcard was completely ignored over the past few years. The main event took center stage more than it should have. And we can speculated up and down what was swimming through Vince's head at the time. Maybe he believed that his main event card is what sold the merchandise, tickets, and PPV sales. Maybe he didn't have confidence in the midcarders. Maybe he just didn't have time to deal with more than one thing, since he was so focused on the main event of his television shows. And since he didn't have a Ferrara, he had no way of dressing up the rest of the program. But the fact of the matter is that Russo and Ferrara played a major role in severely hurting the professional wrestling industry for (no pun intended) crossing the line with their creative ideas.
Sidious, we all know you're not a fan of the current product. However, like it or not, this current direction that both the WWE and TNA are heading in is more beneficial for their companies' futures. As long as their companies are not losing money, they're doing the right thing. TNA is obviously not losing money right now. Their ratings and earnings have grown throughout the years, more than doubling their ratings when they first began 7 years ago. This is a perfect indication that they're doing something right. And it may take years to catch up the the WWE... hell, it took WCW 14 years (if you include years before they gained the WCW moniker). However, what matters most is what will bring longevity to their companies and what will allow them to survive, even during our country's current hard times.
Things are definitely not as bad as most people think... as a matter of fact, things are looking up.
