What happened to Wrestling

[cmedge]

I still watch the current WWE product and there are some wrestlers I still like such as The Miz, John Morrison, Alberto Del Rio, Sheamus, Wade Barrett, John Cena, Dolph Ziggler and of course HHH and Taker. But I noticed something, there was a point where everybody talked about wrestling. Around the golden age of the WWE (WWF) with Hogan, Warrior, Savage, Piper, Flair, Perfect, Ted DiBiase, Jake The Snake, Andre The Giant and etc. Around The Golden Age of The WWE it was a must to watch Wrestling everybody talked about it. Even when we had guys like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker, Diesel, Razor Ramon, Psycho Sid, 123 Kid and etc.
Of course also the Attitude Era with Stone COld, The Rock, Triple H, The Undertaker, Kurt Angle, Kane and etc. Wrestling was so important in the past. Everybody loved to watch wrestling. Wrestling was so popular you would hear about it everywhere you go. But now in 2011 I hear nobody talk about Wrestling like ow they use to before. Unless you go on Wrestling forums and sites and videos. What I`m trying to say that Wrestling had an amazing popularity with everybody. I`m not saying that nobody watches it now because Raw still does recieve some ratings but what I`m trying to say that nobody loves it as much as they did at one point. We all know that Wrestling was better then but I want you to tell me why WWE`s current product isn`t as good as it once was. Name some reasons why you think it`s not and how to improve the quality of the product.

One reason I believe why wrestling isn`t as good as it once was is because of the quality of characters. At one point in the WWF we had all these larger than life characters. Gimmicks were so great espically Razor Ramon`s. Everything about his character stood out from the way he walked to the way he talked. Even Shawn Michaels when he was still a heel. Everything about his character stood out. Or the 1900`s Taker who was a complete monster who dominated everyone. Everything about his character stood out.

There are no more characters in Wrestling there`s only a couple I could name.
The Celtic Warrior Sheamus, The pope, Cm Punk Straight Edge Messiah Character, Alberto Del Rio Mexican Royalty and Cody Rhodes.

I would like to see everybody have a distinguished character or even exaggerated versions of there personalities such as Stone Cold or Ric Flair.

What I liked about the WWF was the unique character perfromances. We had so many larger than life characters.

Nowadays we have many generic heels such as Drew McIntyre and etc.

Don`t get me wrong I mean Drew is talented and most the talents today are very talented but I think proper gimmicks and proper buildup would make the WWE once like it once was.

So I want to know what`s missing and how to fix it.

 

[GW_Hart86]

Well, I think you hit the nail on the head with your views on why it isn't as popular as it once was. I am in total agreement with you about the lack of characters that there are nowadays, there is more wrestlers now without gimicks/personalities than I can ever remember.

I think the talent that is currently there are all more than capable of producing and pulling off certain new characters/gimmicks. The WWE creative team really needs to get their finger out and earn their money because there is clearly a problem here that many fans have highlighted.

 

[marklouis]

While I appreciate your opinion, I have a difficult time taking it seriously when you say that one of your favorite current wrestlers is The Miz. The Miz personifies everything that is wrong with pro wrestling. He has no wrestling ability, he is a classic "generic heel"-a cocky asshole who thinks he's better than everyone else. And as for his supposed mic skills, every promo is the same. He says "really" 10 times and proclaims himself to be awesome. I don't want to make this about him, but I don't really see how you can complain about the state of wrestling but then be a fan of The Miz.

The biggest problem with wrestling is a lack of creativity. Writers don't have it, wrestlers don't have it. The product is incredibly bland. Part of this also has to do with the fact that Vince McMahon has no real competition. I watch TNA & enjoy parts of it, but they aren't pushing Vince to take risks. That's what made the Attitude Era great-Vince had to puch the envelope, or there was a real risk that he'd go out of business. Now, he knows that he owns the business, so why do anything risky? He'll just keep putting out the PG product & making his millions.

 

[futurediva15]

Absolutely true! The other day I was in class and this girl said "who the fuck watches WWE wrestling anymore?" I watched the Hart Family DVD and wrestling was so popular! But now I do believe it is getting generic, and one reason is because it used to be personal. People don't put passion into it anymore, it's just doing their job. When Stone Cold have The Rock the finger, when CM Punk scared Rey Mysterio's daughter, that was when it was personal. The Edge, Matt Hardy, and Lita storyline, the Hart Family being divided, the Montreal Screwjob for the love of the lord, these things were all personal! And now the storylines are dry, they don't last and there's no meaning to them except for "you punted me TWO YEARS AGO" make the people want to watch, give them a reason to pay attention, and then maybe it will gain the popularity that it did sooo long ago.

 

[Caitiff]

The simplist answer to your question is "we happened to wrestling." Once the crowd changed from chanting for wrestlers, and began chanting the company name..... Once we began talking about how one wrestler should win "because he's a better worker....." Once we started to genuinely hate the guy who, by all accounts, SHOULD be the hero in any of these stories, because he's a damn good role model.... We fucked it up.

When we were kids, it was commonly accepted that the "better wrestler" was the one who won the match that night. Championships stayed on one guy for a while, because that guy was generally accepted as being the best wrestler. How long was Bruno champion for, again? 8 years? Hogan had it for 4 years once. How long was Dolph Ziggler champion? 6 minutes?

We demanded an aura that "anything can happen." And, solely to meet the damands of the ADHD viewing habits that the internet has spawned, wrestling companies changed a formula that had been proven for generations..... Because WE would have driven them out of business if they hadn't.

And, frankly, as much as I hate to admit it, we're partly responsible for Jeff Hardy, and people like him. We're partly responsible for Chris Benoit. We weren't satisfied to see a solid wrestling match that told a story. We had to see people being put through things that, quite frankly, the human body was just never meant to endure. It doesn't take a genius to know that a person isn't supposed to get hit in the back of the head repeatedly. People aren't supposed to jump off of ladders, and land of the back of their necks. But, to placate us, that's exactly what McMahon, Bischoff, Heyman, and Dixie all had their people do.

I don't think any of us ever watched a movie, and said anything on the lines of "I hope Two-Face wins, because Aaron Eckhart is a better actor than Gary Oldman." That attitude ONLY occurs with wrestling fans. And, it's our fault.

 

[bjarvis]

I remember when in the late 90s people would be so happy with the gimmicks and stories but they would complain about the quality of the wrestlers. Obvious we had Angle, Taker, Triple H, Rock, Austin, Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, etc. guys who could wrestle but we also had guys like Droz, Henry, D'Lo Brown, Road Dogg, etc. who in my opinon sucked.

Now we have better wrestlers than ever. We have an awesome mid-card to main event of talent. Bryan, Ziggler, Miz, Barrett, Sheamus, Rhodes, Cara, Del Rio, Slater, Gabriel, Kingston, Morrison, Swagger. Plus we have Edge, Christian, Kane, Jericho (potentially returning), Triple H & Undertaker (a little old but can still wrestle a good match) and Big Show (for his size he can wrestle well). Hell, even guys like Ryder, Santino and Tyler Reks can damn well wrestle. Its just that they lack personalities.

Ryder and Reks have great gimmicks. Reks is brooding. In the Attitude Era he would have been great. But the WWE have to be careful not to cross the line. Everyone loves Ryder. He's got the great gimmick going which I can't even explain.

Rhodes has taken a pretty boy gimmick, given to him when it looked like he had no hope of being pushed, and changed it into something else. He now looks like he will be heading up the card. And its through his hard work.

But guys like DiBiase Jr, McIntyre, Swagger are lost in the midst because they are just generic heels. Hell, without his two Stables, Barrett would just be a generic heel. Jericho at least had attitude and a persona when he was in his second heel run. And he was easily the best character each and every week because he took control of his heel persona and gave him more character.

 

[MoRtAnDaD]

We cant expect too much wrestling when the biggest wrestling company in the world doesnt want to be referred as a WRESTLING company anymore.

As far as WWE concern, NO more wrestlers, NO more wrestling. Only superstars.

So... that pretty much resumes everything.

 

[WunNightStan619]

You hit the nail right on the head. There is a serious lack of characters to take seriously. I feel like the WWE has ran out of ideas as far as creating new characters go and thats why we have guys like John Cena, The Miz etc..wunce they come back with the larger than life characters and interesting storylines people will start taking wrestling seriously and respecting it again

 

[themanof2andahalfholds]

the Golden age of wrestling was so popular because people actually thought wrestling wasnt scripted remember when vinnie mac had to convince a court that it was fake
the attitude era was popular because everyone wanted to be The Rock or SCSA they lived through it

 

[cmedge]

While I appreciate your opinion, I have a difficult time taking it seriously when you say that one of your favorite current wrestlers is The Miz. The Miz personifies everything that is wrong with pro wrestling. He has no wrestling ability, he is a classic "generic heel"-a cocky asshole who thinks he's better than everyone else. And as for his supposed mic skills, every promo is the same. He says "really" 10 times and proclaims himself to be awesome. I don't want to make this about him, but I don't really see how you can complain about the state of wrestling but then be a fan of The Miz.

The biggest problem with wrestling is a lack of creativity. Writers don't have it, wrestlers don't have it. The product is incredibly bland. Part of this also has to do with the fact that Vince McMahon has no real competition. I watch TNA & enjoy parts of it, but they aren't pushing Vince to take risks. That's what made the Attitude Era great-Vince had to puch the envelope, or there was a real risk that he'd go out of business. Now, he knows that he owns the business, so why do anything risky? He'll just keep putting out the PG product & making his millions.

The main reason why I like The Miz is because he has a life story, a real story on how nobody accepted him and how he worked his way through. I like him because his story. Miz has great mic skills as well and his in ring skills have been improving for a while. He is no Jericho but he could put on a decent match. Look at his extreme rules match with JoMo. However I dislike how he got no real buildup before winning the title so he doesn't look like a real champ and I dislike his catchphrase "I'm awesome". I mean it sounds so childish. What's going to be the next catchphrase for a main eventer? "Hey How Ya Doing"? The catchphrase takes away from his decent mic skills.

I agree with you on what you had to say about Vince. He has no competition. Competition makes money. Jericho said in an interview that he and even Vince wants Tna to become a real challenge for the WWE.

 

[mrmachinegunn]

The 1st reason i believe wrestling aint as good anymore is finishing moves when i was brought up they were exciting as when they were hit that was it the match was over but now everyones finisher has been kicked out of ruining the whole meaning of it and the excitment involved.

The other reason which is more believable is the greed of the wwe with too many pay pay views they have lost meaning and dont have a big event feel anymore every story seems rushed and without meaning i firmly believe if there were less pay per view and more thought out storys the wrestling buisness would boom again as you wouldnt be paying for sumthing you have seen the past few ppvs and more interest would be generated.

 

[cmedge]

Absolutely true! The other day I was in class and this girl said "who the fuck watches WWE wrestling anymore?" I watched the Hart Family DVD and wrestling was so popular! But now I do believe it is getting generic, and one reason is because it used to be personal. People don't put passion into it anymore, it's just doing their job. When Stone Cold have The Rock the finger, when CM Punk scared Rey Mysterio's daughter, that was when it was personal. The Edge, Matt Hardy, and Lita storyline, the Hart Family being divided, the Montreal Screwjob for the love of the lord, these things were all personal! And now the storylines are dry, they don't last and there's no meaning to them except for "you punted me TWO YEARS AGO" make the people want to watch, give them a reason to pay attention, and then maybe it will gain the popularity that it did sooo long ago.

The storylines are stupid I agree. Remember Batista and Rey? Hey Your Not My Friend anymore! That's so childish and stupid! I was at lunch with my friends a couple of weeks ago and WWE programming was on TV. The guys said "Who watches Wrestling" and said it was better before. That's how you know wrestling is nothing like it once was before. At school it's "gay" to watch wrestling people say.

 

[The Brain]

I’ve said it a million times. What happened is we grew up. These days you refer to when everyone was talking about wrestling were probably during your childhood. Kayfabe was probably still alive in your young mind and wrestling seemed like a really big deal. I bet if you go to an elementary school now you’ll find a group of kids on the playground talking about how great wrestling is. Twenty years from now they will be saying wrestling isn’t as good as it was when John Cena, Randy Orton, and Miz were the top guys. As we grow up other things occupy our minds. We become interested in dating, get a drivers license and a job, have bills to pay, and adult lives to live. Eventually fictitious feuds in the WWE are not the main thing on our minds. WWE can still be fun to watch, but it’s not the priority it once was.

The storylines are stupid I agree. Remember Batista and Rey? Hey Your Not My Friend anymore! That's so childish and stupid! I was at lunch with my friends a couple of weeks ago and WWE programming was on TV. The guys said "Who watches Wrestling" and said it was better before. That's how you know wrestling is nothing like it once was before. At school it's "gay" to watch wrestling people say.

I don't see how Batista turning on Mysterio was any different than Paul Orndorff turning on Hulk Hogan in 1986. That kind of story has been around forever in wrestling. Never once during my entire time in school was it considered cool to watch wrestling. Of course there were kids who watched and people with similar interests would naturally come together and be friends. However, the vast majority of people thought wrestling was lame. That's the way it's always been. It's nothing new and not a reflection of today's product compared to the past.

 

[tripleddd]

I was fortunate to start watching wwf/e in the attitude era, and for me at the time was must see tv, now i can't be bothered. And in my opionion wrestling and the wwe has changed .
in the attitude era the wwe was blessed that it had great characters The Rock, Austin, Hbk, etc etc but it also had great feuds going on not only for the wwe title, no 1 contender spot , tag team title , right through the card plus the many other non title matches. Great writing was also the key along with great promos - it was like a soap opera with fighting . but also remember wwe was fighting with wcw , so one was also outdoing the other.
Having the two independent brands doesn't help , neither does not having one main title , the writing i feel is woeful and i think its an excuse to blame the pg era , the stories can be built quite easily around that - there isn't a natural up and coming face to replace john cena, tag teams - have gone off the radar and where is a decent stable oh yes nexus/core got beaten up single handedly by jc and now orton. Why? one minute john Cena was fighting nexus , then he had to join them then he was fired and popped up next week to errr fight them again. Thats a prime example of Lazyness in writing.

 

[FightOwensFight]

I have to echo what The Brain said. It is all about perspective. Of course, now that we are older (would have to be to be thinking back to the glory days) wrestling seems less impressive. Everything was larger than life when you were a kid. Now, we dissect everything on these pages; anticipating every possible storyline, analyzing matches that haven't happened yet, looking into backstage politics (when you were a kid, did you ever hear the term "lazy booking"?), and the list goes on.

That's really all it comes down to. A change in perspective.

 

[GW_Hart86]

The younger talent that is currently there is very good and The Miz is one of the best characters in the current roster. His mic skills are superb and his in-ring ability is of an adequate standard as well. It's guys like this that we should be trying to get behind instead of comparing them to old gimmicks and talkin bout how crap wrestling is these days.

Yes, there is a lack of characters and gimmicks in the WWE at the moment, but I believe given time the WWE can rectify this problem. The product at the moment even without these "missing" characters and gimmicks is still pretty good, so lets have some faith in what they can do.

 

[Fenris]

Well three things happened to wrestling, the first being Vince McMahon. Now before anyone jumps the gun on that one hear me out. Vince has a certain comfort level and a certain way of doing things and he does NOT like having to leave that comfort zone. He likes appealing to kids. As kids we didn't mind that, but even after it started getting old in the early 90's he kept on with that formula. Even when it continued to fail.

He also has a certain formula for matches, he isn't a fan of giving PPV quality matches away on TV. He prefers warm up matches and blow off matches for the TV shows. He's never been a fan of hotshotting titles or having regular title changes on his TV programming. Vince also likes the formula of having one face of his company at a time. In the 80's it was Hogan with a few changes here and there to break the monotony, in the early to mid 90's it was Bret Hart and since the end of the promotion wars it has been Triple H and then John Cena. He also has a preference for large bodybuilder types on his roster.

In a way who can blame him? His greatest success came with that formula. The problem is those fans from that era grew up. But back to Vince, any changes we have ever seen him make he was forced by others to make. During the Hogan era the young kiddie fans forced him to make Ultimate Warrior the guy. In the early 90's the now a bit older and teenage fans let him know we dug The Undertakers gimmick moreso than prayers and vitamins. The Steroid trials forced him to abandon the stereotypical 6'4"+, 250+lb bodybuilder WWF Superstar instead going with the more Athletic Bret Harts and Ric Flairs. WCW forced him to take drastic action to stay in business and caused him to paint himself into a corner by the time Survivor Series '97 went off the air. He no longer has external forces to force him from his comfort zone and he's the only major game in town.

The second thing to happen to wrestling? Overexposure. The business went from five hours of TV per week to 15 hours per week to 16 hours in the final few years of "the war". From 6 hours of live TV programming PER YEAR to eight-ten hours of live wrestling PER WEEK. From eight PPV's to 16 PPV's to 24 PPV's to 28 PPV's per year. We had alot of freakin' wrestling during the last great era.

The great thing about that era, and the bad thing about that era is the promotions had to throw out TONS of new things to keep viewership. Due to that amount of exposure we had title changes given away on TV monthly, we had PPV quality matches on TV, we had new feuds erupting constantly and we had half a dozen main eventers to choose from. WCW was throwing things against the wall hoping they'd stick, WWF was throwing things against the wall hoping they would stick. Real life issues started playing themselves out on TV. You never knew when a WWF guy would walk out on a WCW broadcast nor when a former WCW talent would show up on RAW and shoot on WCW.

It was great stuff, huh? Indeed it was. The bar was raised. That's what millions of us came to expect and we're not getting it anymore. As I said above, that isn't McMahons comfort zone. He's returned to his old formula and that isn't enough for most of us who experienced the previous era. Year long title reigns, the kiddies champion, having to buy a PPV for a good match or to see a title change just doesn't excite the fanbase that was exposed to a different level.

The third? Every boom period in wrestling had great gimmicks. In the 80's WWF you had Hulk Hogan, Macho King, Demolition, Ultimate Warrior, Jake The Snake, Andre, the Million Dollar Man, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, British Bulldogs, Hart Foundation, Honky Tonk Man, Ravishing Rick Rude, the Dragon ect. Colorful, out there characters. NWA/WCW had The Nature Boy, Sting, Lex Luger, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, 4 Horsemen, Babydoll, Road Warriors ect.

The Promotional wars era WCW had Hollywood Hogan, Crow Sting, Goldberg, DDP, the Luchadors, New Japan crossovers, Raven, Saturn, Public Enemy, Harlem Heat, Big Poppa Pump, nWo, Buff Bagwell, the Outsiders, Chavo & Pepe, Psycho Boy Ric Flair, the Total Package, Ultimo Dragon, Lionheart Chris Jericho, Nitro Girls, Shane Douglas, asshole Eric Bischoff ect. WWF had Stone Cold, The Rock, Triple H, The Headbangers, Val Venis, the Nation, DX, Y2J, Undertaker, Mr. McMahon, daddies spoiled brat Stephanie, Sable, Trish, New Age Outlaws, L.O.D. 2000, Droz, Test, Golddust, Edge, Gangrel, Chyna, the Black Hart, Kane, Hardy Boyz, Cactus Mankind the Dude Love, Kurt Angle, the Radicalz, Too Cool ect.

In every instance the characters were wildly different from one another and unique. Each one had their own individual look, music, style. The each represented something of their own. Alot of real world stuff was interwoven into some of the gimmicks and characters blurring the lines. Nowadays alot of the characters look alike, look forced and fit the corporate look the WWE is going for. It's boring to most people and especially fans who came in prior to 2002.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I think it's high time that we dispell a myth about professional wrestling from our youths. The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how nostalgic we might feel, no matter what sort of memories that we might have about sharing a beer with our dads while watching Bret Hart wrestle the British Bulldog at Wembly Stadium in 1992, no matter how great it was hanging out with our friends on Monday nights in the late 90s, wrestling was NEVER as good as we remember it. What's happened is the fact that we've grown up and that we have so much insight into wrestling today via the internet that wrestling simply doesn't have the same magical feeling about it. Of course there were great things that happened but if you listen to the complaints of many internet fans, everything was some sort of incredible happening. The truth is, it wasn't that way at all. Just as we do today, we had feuds that were lousy, guys that couldn't cut promos and guys that really couldn't wrestle.

When I was a kid during the 80s and watching wrestling on television, everything wasn't exactly some sort of epic happening. When I was 8 years old, we wouldn't see stuff on television like The Miz vs. John Morrison. We often wouldn't see competitive matches of that caliber. More often than not, we saw a star spend about 5 minutes beating the shit out of and toying with a jobber. We didn't see suicide dives or moonsaults, rather we tended to see side headlocks or arm bars or bear hugs that lasted at least a good 5 minutes.

Now, of course, there were times in which we saw a lot of great stuff when we were kids and teenagers but the formula for lots of what we saw then remains almost exaclty the same as now. The storylines of the Attitude Era weren't examples of Shakespearean greatness with plot lines that kept people on the edge of their seats. They were angles that were very much similar to what we've seen for years and were just fine to our oh so sophisitcated 16 year old minds.

Our perspective during the 80s and 90s, when many of us were growing up, was that everything was great. We liked what we saw and we were entertained. Fans that are growing up these days are far ahead of where we were when it comes to general exposure and availability of knowledge in wrestling. In 1995, we didn't really know what was what or what was going on apart from what we saw with our eyes. By 2005, the internet provided us with backstage passes that allowed us to find out what was what and how it got to be that way. How could your perceptions possibly not change?

Professional wrestling is all about suspension of disbelief. Now, of course, there are going to be things that we see that just outright defy logic and we might not be able to just sit back and enjoy that. That's all well and good, after all nobody can like everything that goes on. However, if you're not willing to suspend disbelief and just allow yourself to be entertained and get into what you're watching, then there's no real reason for you to continue watching professional wrestling any longer.

 

[achromat666]

I've touched on this before, up until WCW and ECW went under there was always another promotion to compete with. The gimmick/character correlation the OP makes was very often a reflection of either something another promotion was doing, or an attempt to put something up that no one could do. The hardcore style of ECW brought about the Hardcore division, (In both the WWE and WCW actually) The risque nature of the attitude era reflected a lot of what both WCW and ECW were doing and all 3 thrived off of the competition.

Vince has no rivals, Even bad writers could make something interesting based on the work of another big promotion (Russo did work for Vince before WCW or TNA) and I've seen the company as being fairly aimless without someone to help define it.

Another result is the lack of a talent pool. WWE is growing more and more of its talent and getting more of it from the indies which lack the exposure and the ability to create the complete wrestlers that better transitioned to the WWE from say the AWA or NWA/WCW. The difference between those promotions and the current one is WWE (WWF or WWWF), AWA and NWA all developed on TV and around the country at with similar types of stars for many years before the Rock and wrestling era. Jake Roberts, Curt Hennig, Rick Rude, Bobby Heenan, Hulk Hogan, and Rick Martel all came from either AWA of NWA, in this case I believe all were AWA talents. this helped to shape the WWE's direction into the 80's era. Another influx later came with Steve Austin, HHH, Brian Pillman, Mick Foley, Vader, Sid Vicious, Ron Simmons, Ray Traylor (Big Bossman, Big Bubba Rogers) and others came along to cement the era of Attitude.

The last boost the WWE got was at the end of ECW and WCW when both companies went under and a bunch of the talent had come over beforehand. Saturn, Raven, Benoit, Jericho, Malenko, Guerrero, Mysterio, and a slew of others made up the WWE's roster and became the backbone of the company for a lot of years since.

Over time, the numbers have whittled, the stars have moved on retired or passed away, and now we only have the indies or TNA to draw from. TNA isn't developing talent as much as it's using existing talent so the pool isn't that large there and attempts with some success have come recently (Bryan, Vance Archer/Lance Hoyt, Ron Killings/R Truth/K Kwik, Chris Harris, Tyler Black) but the wealth of competition and developed talent is simply not there anymore.

not sure if there is a solution, but it is definitely a problem.

 

[Nada]

If you watch ILoveWrestling podcast (link ofted featured right here on WZ) former writers talk about how, nobody almost in WWE at this moment knows anything about current mainstream culture. They simply do not have a clue what young people, especially young males (their core audience) do and want to watch these days.

Thus it is very difficult for them to connect to the mainstream when they all live in a bubble. This makes it very difficult to find mega stars like a certain Rattlesnake and Rock to appeal to that crowd. In the 80's comics were very popular, thus all the wrestlers talked almost like they came from a comic book, had colorfull attires and cheesy 80's music. Hulk Hogan, Savage, Warrior all look and sound like comic book heroes, the villains were the heels, it worked.
90's were a different era, comics were on their deathkneel, TV changed, people wanted reality now instead of fantasy elements, they did not want some superhuman beast. They wanted someone who represented them and who they were.

Few wrestlers today even have a streamlined persona, their biggest star is a Superman, rapper, marine, moviestar, thug, gang leader, vanilla ice impersonator, body builder, company man etc

It is simply all over the place, there is no clear definition on who this character is suppose to represent, if anyone.

 

[xcoN]

Their are still a good amount of promotions that have just wrestling and good wrestling at that. WWE/TNA are wrestling entertainment. They won't focus around match quality like others would. Not saying they can never give us a good match but its rare now. I'm a big ROH/NJPW/PWG fan so if I want straight up wrestling thats where i'll go. WWE and Vince just thought going fan/family friendly was the smart move. Money wise, it probably was. I don't see this company folding anytime soon. TNA has been in trouble lately and I just lost hope in TNA so I stopped watching. As for HHH and Steph taking over, I hope HHH doesn't just focus on "big guys" and actually gives others a chance.

 

[Italian9979]

I have 5 top reasons I think that has caused the product to become stale...

1. What I noticed about a lot of posts I just read on here everyone remembers the characters of their youth that were larger then life...the personalities were incredible...nowadays there just isn't anything that interesting about the current roster that drums up that same interest...and to answer people on here that said wrestling is better now then ever...

I dare you to watch Randy Savage take on Ricky Steamboat and say they have seen matches of that caliber...and to move it even closer to home tell me the last time you saw a ladder match on par with Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania...

If you want to talk about larger then life personalities then you tell me how they can replace wrestlers like from the 80s like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Ric Flair, Sting, The Road Warriors and the like...If you wanna talk about technical wrestlers then you tell me out there who was better the Ricky Steamboat, Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho...

2. Today's top talent is either a dinosaur as in the case of Hogan, Flair and Sting or past their prime such as Taker, HHH, and Angle or semi to fully retired such as The Rock, Stone Cold or Shawn Michaels...

Please, Please, PLEASE don't try to tell me that the current roster of stars gives you any type of enthusiasm that the men before them gave you each and every week...they all seem like interchangable generic cookie cutouts without anything that really makes them indistinguishable from each other...

3. Another contributing downfall to the current wrestling landscape is the abundance of PPV's...PPV's were spread out all year round so as not to oversaturate the market....in their prime the WWF employed 5 seasonal PPV's...you had Royal Rumble in January, Wrestlemania in March, King of The Ring in June, Summerslam in August and Survivor Series in November. WCW had 6 annual PPV's...SuperBrawl in February, Slamboree in May, Great American Bash/Bash At the Beach in June, Fall Brawl in September, Halloween Havoc in October and Starcade in December...which brings me to my next point...

4. No more competition...In the Golden Age of Wrestling you had competition...stars could bounce back and forth from one company to another...someone could actually appear on WWF and WCW television in the same night (see Rick Rude)...the bottom line is that the companies pushed each other to compete for our money and adulation and we were the big winners because we reaped all the benefits...TNA is like WCW lite in its downfall years...no competition so therefore no real incentive to wow the audience...Vince figures where are we gonna go...watch TNA with 60 year old Flair and 50 year old Hogan highlighting the show?

5. The internet has taken the dirt sheets to a whole-nother level...we dissect and analyze everything...right now there are instant updates telling us who won what or did what seconds after its happened...the rumor mill is on steroids and everyone knows an insider somewhere thats inside info gets poured out and dissected in seconds...we have become an ADHD society and there are no suprises anymore...for every person that says oh i never saw that coming there is another that posted it would happen the day before...

these are my reasons as to why I have lost a lot of interest...feel free to agree, disagree or anything in between...this is just my 5 cents lol...

 

[Austinfan87]

What happened was, imho of course, and what has ben happening for years is...nobody is around to give the younger guys their pushes. Look back to the late 90's, Austin had Bret Hart to give him his push, The Rock had Austin to push him, HHH had Austin and The Rock, Mick Foley had The Undertaker.....my point is they all had people to fued with that the audience actualy wanted to see...and the writers back then made the storylines so interesting and they knew how to make you hate the heel and you couldnt wait for your hero to get his revenge ....but now you have guys like ortan and cena...who had really nobody to put them over...i mean could you have imagined a austin/ortan fued or a rock/cena fued back in 2003?..that wouldve catipulted cena and ortan to new hights.....but instead now you have cena who is supposed to be the face of this era and yet the minute the rock comes back...in a matter of 5 secs hes getting booed out of arenas..randy is not even a main eventer anymore...and i dont blame the wrestlers because these guys are trying their best and busting their asses......i blame vince mcmahon.....after vince bought wcw and ecw...he just flat out did not give a shit anymore...he buys these two companies and misuses every big star those companys had...you couldve had an austin/goldberg fued in 2001...couldve had a austin/hogan fued in 02....instead what they gave us was complete garbage.I really think its too late and i fel bad for this current generation because they will never get to experience the magic of what the 80's and 90's had