Could wrestling ever "die"?

[Blade]

Ok, so wrestling's popularity has never stayed in one place for very long. There have been times where it's mainstream and times when it's embarrassing to be a fan. Some champions have been able to draw millions of fans while other have been... Well, The Great Khali.

But I'm here to ask you... Could wrestling ever disappear off the face of the planet for good?

It all comes down to how you see wrestling.

If you see wrestling as a sport: Then it will be around forever. Sports that have the popularity of wrestling never really go away. Football, Rugby, Boxing, Baseball, these have been around for hundreds of years. While their popularity has fluxuated up and down over the years, there will always be someone playing these sports professionally. Just like if pro wrestling is considered a sport, it could go on forever (within reason, I mean).

If you see wrestling as a business: Then it's quite likely it will die at some point. All businesses and companies die at some point, it's just how the business world works. And industries that were once wildly successful such as companies making CD's, Video tapes and cassettes, typewrites, etc. all disappeared. Although the reason these things disappeared were due to superior technology being created, who knows if something that people think is superior to wrestling will come along to destroy the wrestling industry, MMA for example.
Not to mention that Raw, Smackdown, iMPACT, ROH's show on HD net... They're all television shows. All television shows will be cancelled at some point, regardless of whether they're the "longest running weekly episodic television show" on air. These shows will eventually be cancelled. Fact.

So what do you guys think? Could wrestling ever die or is it here forever?

 

[Billie Jean]

But I'm here to ask you... Could wrestling ever disappear off the face of the planet for good?

I don't think so. Anything can happen and I don't think we should ever count anything out, especially when it comes to professional wrestling. But I feel that even if it were not at the Olympics, or not on TV like WWE, TNA, there will always be indy promotions going round the circuits, like the ROH that we have today. South Park used it well by showing that although not popular or well known anymore, real wrestling still goes on in schools around the country.

If you see wrestling as a sport: Then it will be around forever. Sports that have the popularity of wrestling never really go away. Football, Rugby, Boxing, Baseball, these have been around for hundreds of years. While their popularity has fluxuated up and down over the years, there will always be someone playing these sports professionally. Just like if pro wrestling is considered a sport, it could go on forever (within reason, I mean).

Yeah I completely agree with this. No matter what, it will still occur. Like the South Park reference I made above, most sports will not die and it will still have some sort of circuit going around no matter what. But even if it did decrease hugely in popularity, I still think it would be considered as an Olympic sport as it just has such a prestiges line of history.

I don't think it will ever diaper, but like you were saying about a company closing, WWE or TNA could close down sometime in the distant future. Someone would just come in a take their place.

 

[The Kingpin]

No and for many reasons.

Too take one point, wrestling, as in WWE, TNA, ROH and now EVOLVE wrestling companies are all "Fake Wrestling", there Sports Entertainment not Sports. Wrestling wrestling, as in Olympic wrestling is the Sport of wrestling, not WWE etc.. so companies like WWE and ROH are, for the sake of my post, going to be considered as a Business.

Now to take some of your points.

Companies like Tape Cassettes, Typewriters and such were once the top dog of there respective end of the spectrum at some point or another and as we evolve newer technology is created and thus creating better forms of doing the things that the Typewriter and such once did. Now what you fail to realize, and not to criticize you, is that WWE is a "Human" business, not a "Object" business, meaning it uses people as its seller. Thus meaning the only way to beat it is to have another company beat it out using the same thing. I.E TNA trying to beat WWE. Now because of that, you can't really have it "die" because you're beating it with the same thing.

Now you brought up MMA, this is the "Real Life, Knock Out, Tape Out, Screw You Wrestling" type company that I for one am a huge supporter of, but can MMA companies like UFC and WEC beat what is known as WWE and TNA, maybe in ratings and PPV buys, but that doesn't mean that the wrestling world will die. Major example is Boxing, boxing has been taken out of the spotlight for about 3-4 years now being beaten by WWE and now UFC, have passed by it in the ratings and PPV buys, but that doesn't mean in 5-10 years it wont be back on top or completely die, it'll still be around, it'll still be there, waiting for its chance to regain the spotlight.

For your last point of WWE, TNA, ROH all being TV Shows, yes they are, but I mean come on you don't think that if USA Network dropped WWE that WWE wouldn't be able to find a new network within the hour? Not to mention I truly believe that in the near future WWE will have its own network so that destroys WWE from ever going away and with TNA wanting to compete I believe if there not gone within the next 5-10 years then they will also have there own Network if Spike besides to drop them. Wrestling is not your average TV Show, its not Friends or Two and a Half Men, this is, for WWE at least, a Multi-Million, Multi- Hundred Million dollar business, not a show.

So to answer your question, no I don't think WWE style wrestling will ever die, so therefor Wrestling will never die.

 

[The Hiphopapotamus]

Yes and no.

If you look at wrestling from a sports point, as you said, it won't ever die, because Sports don't die, no matter what. But the think about that, it's not a sport. Simply put, sports survive based on a culmination of reasons, whether it be because of:

1: Legitimate competition. Sports, unlike wrestling, are competitive in the sense that both teams go out to win. Wrestling, as everyone knows, is pre determined, hence the competition aspect gets thrown out the window. But I hear you say, you still don't know who's going to win. False. Sometimes, you might not know, but a lot of the time, you know who's going to win. Whether it be based on storylines, pushes, whatever.

2: Sports teams generate more excitement. Teams will never fail to get over. People will always support their team. No matter how bad they suck, I will always love Manchester United and Monaghan. No matter what. The same can't be said for wrestlers. If someone sucks, noones going to give a shit. It's also better in terms of rivalries, in supporting different teams, in having arguments with your friends. While in wrestling, you're almost told who to like and who to not.

3. Sports can be replayed and done at home easily. Whenever I want, I can play football. The same can't be said for wrestling. And if you can do something regularly, you tend to care about it more. his also means that there will be a steady growth of young wrestlers.

Now, no matter how bad sports become, they will always be popular due to these reasons. People will always turn up and see them. They'll always turn up and support their team. The same can't be said for wrestling. If something isn't popular, if it isn't good, like any TV show, people just won't watch. If House just became shit, I'd stop. But not if United did.

Wrestling is based off what people decide. The creative team decide what to do, who wins, how it happens, etc. So while this has good points, like almost guaranteed drama, it also has it's bad points. Because human error happens. Times like the katie vick angle, the baby hand, Vince vs God, these things were mistakes. Things that were bad for everyone. Unlike sports where mistakes do happen, but will always have a good effect for someone else.

Wrestling can at times be better than sports, but is also a lot less consistent. wrestling has booms, while sports never do. they always maintain that level. And there is an allegiance to sports unseen with wrestling, die hard fans who'll stick with their team through thick and thin. Wrestling doesn't have that. So if you look at it that way, wrestling will, eventually, die.

But, using an economic viewpoint, there's simple supply and demand. There is a supply of young people who want to be wrestlers. There are thousands to choose from in the US alone. So they'll never run out of talent. If there are people there to be used, they'll be used. And there's a demand. The public, well those who like wrestling, want to watch. So there will be an audience. And looking at it that way, wrestling will stay alive.

All in all, based on what I said, I foresee wrestling to stay alive for years to come. Whether it be in the form of one company or another. But inevitably, like all great things, wrestling will fall. But gradually and steadily. With a whimper.

 

[johnbragg]

Professional wrestling is a hybrid of many things, and a critical failure in any one of those things would kill it. It is a live touring show, it is an athletic performance, it is live dramatic theater, it is “weekly episodic television.” And, of course, it is a business. If any of those factors fail badly enough, the entire enterprise collapses. As there is one dominant wrestling company, there is one point of failure that could bring the whole industry down.

Right now, it is an ecosystem centered around one company, WWE. Everyone else in the US is ultimately dependent on WWE. The talent starts out dreaming of WWE stardom. The fans start out as WWE fans. The investors think that they can get in on a piece of the WWE’s pie. Spike TV is supporting TNA because they think they have a shot at getting WWE/WCW level audiences.

Think of it as an ecosystem. Young aspiring wrestlers almost all start out aspiring to reach the pinnacle, which thirty years ago was the local territory. Remember, territories weren’t indy feds as we know them--they ran their big shows in major league arenas, they were on legitimate TV when there were only four or five channels per city. Ten years ago that pinnacle would have been WWF or WCW, or a mix of both according to the fantasy. Today, a kid’s first dreams of wrestling glory are of headlining Wrestlemania and being the next John Cena, end of story. As he gets older and more savvy, he may move on to other dreams of being the next Chris Daniels or Jimmy Jacobs, but in his embarrassing hidden past is a John Cena fantasy.

WWE TV programming is the “gateway drug”, what the newbie wrestling fan starts with. All other wrestling companies draw their audience either from the WWE fans who want more or from ex-WWE fans. ROH, TNA, local independents—their crowds and supporters all started out as fans of either WWE or (if they’re old enough) WCW or a territory.

So if, somehow, WWE were gone tomorrow, that all collapses. Athletic, charismatic kids dream and follow different, non-wrestling related dreams. Boys follow UFC and DragonBall Z or whatever instead of Raw or Smackdown. The tradition dies as it is not handed down, petering out with sad spectacles like the Australian Hulkamania tour, curious relics of a strange past. (Why did that HHH man put that other man's head between his legs before dropping to his knees? How is that supposed to hurt, Daddy?)

Let’s run a thought experiment. I don’t think that what I’m about to say is possible because WWE is a publicly traded stock with honest financial numbers that get checked by independent sources, but that didn’t save Enron or WorldCom or Citbank. So here goes—imagine that WWE has been secretly losing $20-40M a year since 2003, and lost $100M last year. That wipes out their cash cushion, and when that comes out there’s an SEC investigation. Vince, Linda, Stephanie, Shane and Hunter are out of the company and on an SEC blacklist and spending lots of time with very expensive lawyers. The shareholders have been defrauded, the stock is worthless as the company owes a lot of vendors and partners money that it doesn't have.

Usually when something like that happens, related companies who would lose money from a liquidation step in. What company outside the wrestling world has enough at stake to step in and try to run WWE, or fund WWE while someone else runs it, even on a temporary basis? Who’s going to lend the bankrupt, Michael Hayes, Jim Ross and Dusty Rhodes-run WWE the money to operate temporarily? WWE’s biggest corporate partner is NBC-Universal (USA Network), and USA got along just fine for five years without WWE. They’d like WWE Raw to stay on the air, but they’re not going to bet tens of millions of dollars on catching that flaming piano falling from the building.

MyNetworkTV has less than a year left on their Smackdown deal, and I’d liquidate MyNetwork TV before my conglomerate assumed responsibility for WCW-style operating losses. WGN would go back to showing Green Acres or whatever the hell they put on at 8pm before Superstars. No arena or group of arenas depends enough on WWE shows to make that much difference. The PPV providers would take a hit, but they’re spread out between every cable company in the US in a complicated network not conducive to taking this kind of risk.

So WWE goes down hard. The talent can't be paid, the shows get cancelled. Titan Towers is sold. The tape libraries and trademarks are up for grabs in the bankruptcy auction. They could be sold as a block or in pieces, depending on who wants them for how much. If I’m TNA I want the whole package, but how much cash can they put up? USA network may want the Raw name and the WWF/WWE archives and trademarks. Disney may make a bid to put the stuff on ESPN Classics. Maybe bidders I can’t think of.

Can anyone put Humpty Dumpty back together again and run a national wrestling promotion? People would try. TNA’s ratings would go way up, as they move to Monday nights and sign whoever they want to, inheriting at least some of the audience automatically. Maybe USA network would try to put Raw back together under new management. Dwayne Johnson might sell his bosses at Disney on a huge opportunity to get into a kid-friendly market for “Marvel TV”, a boys 6-12 focused channel under the Disney umbrella. Heymann, Bischoff, the Jarretts, Sapolsky, Cornette are all more or less available to run things. Maybe MTV would take a third crack at a pro wrestling show after Heat and WSX, something dark and violent and all to run at midnight or something. But the cable conglomerates will not be tolerant of big losses in a quest to become a player in an industry that just went belly up.

Would anyone be able to simultaneously produce a live arena show, television broadcasts and a weekly episodic action drama without losing so much money that the billion-dollar corporations in charge pull the plug? While building essentially a new company from scratch? Hiring talent with no real idea how much revenue WWE stars are going to produce outside of the WWE machine? Attracting TV audiences while breaking in new writing staffs? (That’s much harder than keeping an audience.) Running live events with starting-from-scratch production crews?

That’s a lot of vases to juggle.

Vince McMahon may be Emperor Palpatine, but there is an argument to be made that the real future after Return of the Jedi was not a happy hold-hands-and-return-to-the-Republic, but a hundred-sided civil war between every Imperial officer bold enough to call himself Emperor.

 

[TSG]

No, wrestling will never die. I think that certain companies like TNA or WWE will die someday. But there will always be a new promotion to replace it. If not we may relapse into day of regional territories, or even fall low enough to just have local shows. But, trust me, there will always be wrestling. And I'm pretty sure there will always be one leading company, and at least a second place company to take it's place if it dies.

 

[kerplin]

Wrestling probably isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon. The companies may cease existence, but the sport itself will still exist.

Will it be as mainstream? Time will only tell. But how bad would it be if there were only an Indy circuit? The Indies have some of the best wrestling action anyways, and it would be a throwback to territory days. Probably increasing the basic amount of promotions just out of the idea that the owners can be the ones to bring it into a spotlight again. It just becomes more underground. And eventually it will be built back up to what it is now.

Wrestling is essentially a carny attraction as it is. And much like carnivals, if you have over the top characters, violence, sideshows, and the occasional prize, people will always be drawn to it.

 

[Leafy]

Yes. Any business can die out depending on the interests of the audience. We may say we're in a slump for wrestling but look at other sports that have died out or now have a very small fan base. Look at such sports such as real wrestling. The wrestling business was booming in the early 90s but the fan based slowly dwindled to what is today.

Sports are almost trends, we have a sport in the spotlight for a few years then another takes its place. Look at America, we had wrestling, baseball, and now we are in a football phase. The then lesser sports are put to the side and slowly dwindle to what they are today.

Now today's wrestling is not just another sport, or even a sport the way you look at it, but it is a type of entertainment. But entertainment goes in phases as well. People are entertained by different things in different eras. Now people are interested in reality TV and new technology. If wrestling wants to survive in this new era they must adapt to the changes.