How can pro wrestling be improved/updated?

[mikde_]

Right so for this i'm talk about Professional Wrestling as a whole and not narrowing it down to certain company's.

The way i see it, In it's current form, pro wrestling can never be a socially and relevent force again like it was in the 90s when it was the "In" thing. I do however think wrestling can reach that heights again wether or not it needs to or should. However, i can not see it becoming such a force again under the basic pro wrestling/sports entertainment guidlines that every company follows to a certain degree.

Hardcore Wrestling has been done to death so thats out. The soap opera storylines and good vs evil has been done to death, so thats out also. I thought TNA might have been the ones to change pro wrestling a few years back when their product was so different to anything we have seen before. The X-Division, Exciting matches, The 6 sided ring...It just seemed new and fresh but something went wrong along the way.

So what i'm asking is what would you change or add to a pro wrestling product that could add something new and exciting. You can be as brash and risky as you want.

Personally i think employing a more competitive outlook on matches. Work off of real life tensions between wrestlers and maybe add a little MMA/Boxing flare to the fight build up. Dont play the wrestlers up as characters or gimmicks but as themselves. Ditch the catchphrases and generic promo's used to just fill up time. Ditch the good vs bad angles and let the fans choose who they like, The guys that are destined to be heels will fall into that role and the same with the faces, it doesnt need to be forced.

So what are your ideas....something new or something revamped...your call!

 

[scomvp316]

I don't think we will ever return to the MNW. I do think as much as a WWE fan I am the WWE product is holding alot of things back. Its alot like when you think of baseball you think of NY Yankees and the negative impact they have had on the sport since the mid-90's. Wrestling needs to get back to just that wrestling. For the most part ROH doesn't have faces vs heels they like to keep the reality character thing going similiar to what Heyman and Bisch had created with ECW and WCW. Let the fans decide who is their favorite and not jam one type of character down the throats of the majority of the audience who boo's that particular character. Storylines in every promotion has been re-hased to death so continue the storytelling but have greater matches even on free tv!

 

[mikekinkade]

Wrestling Matches:

The actual wrestling could use an upgrade. Certain parts need to be brought up to speed with the times. MMA is popular, and fans are starting to understand how dangerous submissions really are. I would like to see a greater sense of urgency when any type of hold or submission is applied, even early on in the match. Using it has a rest period IMO is obsolete.

More unpredictability in the wrestling matches. Sometimes a quick finish can be good to spice things up. Once again, you can borrow from MMA/boxing and use more flash KO's and even ref stoppages. For example, during Ryback's push was it really necessary for him to pin his opponents. I thought it would of been cool if the ref just said that's enough and call the matches.

Storylines:

I believe TNA is on the right track with the aces and 8's storyline. It's an overarching storyline that encompasses everybody on the roster. This means there is an unpredictability factor throughout the show. You never know when they will strike. Having a storyline that involves the whole company is always good. It gives you a reason to sit through the entire show, especially if they properly tease sneak attacks and backstage fights throughout. This is very helpful for the fans, because sometimes you will have matches that are just awful.

Wrestling isn't just about wrestling:

Once an entire company understands this concept, it will help lead to more compelling story-lines and promos. Wrestling is a medium to deliver a message to the public. What was the theme of WWE in the 90's? It was counter-culture and standing up to authority. In WCW, it was about dealing with corruption with the NWO. There is no real theme being translated with the WWE and TNA. Both companies are bits and pieces of story-lines and promos that don't mesh together or flow from the start of the show to the finish (recently TNA has been more focused but it still tends something that translates to the masses). You have adult orientated moments with Paul Heyman and Brock, but then will have kids moments with Santino trying to find the three stooges backstage.

 

[scottyshowman82]

It's art. Pro wrestling is an art form, like movies, like music, like cooking like so many things and look how much variety and layers and revolutions all of those mediums have went through. I think they haven't even scratched the surface of what pro wrestling can do.

 

[DirtyD79]

First and foremost STOP TRYING TO REDO THE ATTITUDE ERA!!! By that I mean stop trying to do the whole evil authority figures and stables trying to take over the company storyline. We've seen all there is to do with them. When the nWo invaded WCW and Vince McMahon was feuding with Stone Cold Steve Austin it was cool because it was fresh and it was something most fans had never seen before. Nobody expected it. But now it's been done to death.

Second take a look at MTV. What do you see there? You see young hip people on their shows. This is what wrestling needs on commentary and handling the interviews. Not nerdy guys like Michael Cole and Josh Matthews or old farts like Mike Tenay, Jim Ross, and Jerry Lawler. Watching a man in his 60s making pop culture references or talking about Twitter looks like Abe Vigoda playing a surfer.

Which leads me to the characters. Like it or not the fans decide who gets over and who doesn't. Shoving somebody down our throats no matter how much we boo them is not going to make us like them. Once again let the wrestlers have some leeway to adapt their characters and give them more freedom on promos. That's how guys like The Rock and Stone Cold got popular. Too many promos these days you can picture pretty much anybody saying it. And that's the problem. They're not saying it in their own voice and bringing something of their own personality to the promo, they're merely reading lines. A young hip guy is going to have a much better grasp of the audience than soem nerdy middle age guy who used to write sitcoms or some guy in his 60s who still thinks ZZ Top is relevant. Also when you turn a badass heel face don't make him into a grinning wisecracking dipshit like with Sheamus. Let him continue being a badass only have him beating heels instead of babyfaces. Fans want to see badasses not just clowns.

Finally it's time to focus on the action inside the ring. Sure you can do a few interviews, promos and backstage segments but most of the action on a wrestling show should be wrestling. People want to see the wrestlers wrestling each other. Not Moments Ago, the slam of the week, or what some hayseed on Tout has to say about the price of cheese. A big moment stops being impressive when you've seen it over and over 10 times in the past week.

 

[braveh]

I see two trends that could potentially save wrestling
1. The stiff mma-inspired wrestling we saw @ extreme rules in the Cena vs Lesnar match. I think the wrestling has to be more real. Not necessarily more brutal or bloody but it has to get stiff and hurt because the kids that watch MMA don't buy Punk's kicks or Cena's submission holds

2. The spectacular high-flying of wrestlers like Sin cara, AJ Styles and others. The X-division circa 2005 is kind of what I'm looking for because it was also fast paced back then.

 

[Slyfox696]

I think the biggest improvement which could be made in professional wrestling is automatic banning of any wrestling fans who act like jackasses. This includes:

1) Cheering for heels
2) Booing faces
3) Chanting "What"
4) Chanting the wrong names at wrestlers (Tensai getting Albert chants, Ryback getting Goldberg chants, etc.)
5) Waving your arms frantically trying to get everyone to look at you when you see yourself on the Titantron
6) Bringing in obnoxious signs and never putting them down
7) Chanting boring when wrestlers are working a hold


I'm sure there are others. The problem I have, more than any other, is the incredible disrespect wrestling fans show professional wrestlers. I understand pro wrestling has always attracted bottom of the barrel human beings, but at least in the old days, they didn't mind pretending it was real. Now you see a bunch of jackasses being annoying simply because they think it's funny to be a jackass.

Fix the crowd, and so many other things which need to be improved in wrestling (like the pacing of matches, for example) can begin to be improved.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I think Sly touched on some of wrestling's truly biggest problems. To me, a lot of what drags wrestling down doesn't lie so much with the product as it does with the fans themselves.

I can't count the number of comments and threads in which fans consistently bitch & moan about one thing or another. Among the most common complaints I constantly read about pertain to wrestling no longer being unpredictable or filled with surprises. It's a completely impossible standard to meet when these same fans spend their time trolling the internet looking for spoilers to upcoming wrestling broadcasts, possible feuds, possible pushes, possible angles looming over the horizon, spoilers on who's in line for a title shot, backstage reports on which wrestlers are getting heat from upstairs, reports on when a wrestler is debuting & with what name they're using, etc. If your average internet smark stayed completely away from dirtsheets and forums or away from Twitter or Facebook for a couple of months, generally kept himself out of the internet loop, then I think there'd be plenty of happenings that would he'd find very surprising or unpredictable. It's much easier to be surprised when you're not trying to do everything you can possibly do to NOT be surprised.

As for the fans that chant What? and cheer for heels while booing for faces, it can get bothersome at times. The What chants especially irritate the snot out of me. Fortunately, I don't hear them nearly as much as I used to. They're still out there, but they don't dominate promo segments the same way they used to in which the whole friggin' arena would join in.

As for cheering for heels and booing faces, that doesn't really bother me as much as it used to. Ultimately, if it adds to your enjoyment of watching the live show, then I can see that part of it at least. Whenever I go to live shows, I always boo the heels and cheer the faces. Just makes the whole thing feel more authentic to me. It also bugs the piss out of me to hear a boring chant whenever wrestlers aren't leaping over the top rope in one suicide dive after another. Matches filled with little more than high spots don't do much for me. They can be entertaining for what they are, sometimes, but they also tend to be filled with the least memorable wrestlers.

I'm not saying that there aren't times in which a wrestling company's product doesn't suck. Up until about this time last year, TNA was damn near unwatchable in my eyes. However, contrary to what you might hear, things weren't perfect back in the oh so glorious 80s or the Attitude Era. Not by a long shot. For every great match you saw on television in 1985 between Ric Flair and Kevin Von Erich, you had ten matches featuring the likes of Greg The Hammer Valentine vs. Iceman King Parsons. For every guy with the overall talent of a Ric Flair, Macho Man Randy Savage or The Rock; you had ten guys like Sam Houston, Tito Santana, Steve Blackman or Doink The Clown.

Suspension of disbelief is a big part to enjoying pro wrestling. Not allowing yourself to do that just makes it all the more difficult.

 

[GrandSword]

I actually liked Steve Blackman hahaha...

I agree with the fans who go looking for some way to be "smarter" than everyone else and then complain about not being surprised also.

Going back to the product itself though there does need to be some changes to the business due to the way society has changed.

Paul Heyman stated years ago that he did what he did with ECW because at the time pop culture was changing. He used the example of the early ninties and rock music. WWF was like the "hair rock bands" but what was happening was the grunge movement was taking over. So it was all about being dark and edgey and that's what he did. Sex, violence, darker characters etc. And the other two major companies followed suit (IMO only). This could be seen in all sorts such as comic books where Wolverine and The Punisher who would kill bad guys unlike the Superman's of the genre wouldn't were getting the big sales.

TNA hit gold in the mid 2000's with the X Division, at the time, much like Hardcore wrestling in the 90's was what drew people in as Jarrett said he wanted them to go out and perform like a video game, which was huge (maybe still is) when the X-Box and PS2/3 were battling for supremacy...

What is today's pop culture? I guess superhero movies are all the rage at the moment with the TDKR and Avengers topping the box office, and maybe that is why Cena is booked the way he is... maybe WWE are on top of things...

Also our lives are run by Facebook etc. I think the Touts and making the WWE more fan interactive is heading in the right direction, but showing all the touts etc. on the show is probably overkill, there has to be some kind of happy medium. But I guess some of might think that of they were shown on Raw speaking their mind, they might think it was pretty cool... I don't know.

I do agree with an above poster about getting some fresh faces in fopr commentary etc. Michael Cole, Mike Tenay etc. are not cool, they are not easy on the eyes for a tv show etc. They need to get some people in that can compare a show and are not up with the current trends.

As for the storylines, I think if the top companies are going to run storylines then they have to learn to have a big pay off which they all seem to fail at. Last year, Nash's conspiracy, the Walk out, Punk takes the title hostage, Miz/Truth running riot, Johnny Ace taking over both Raw and SD... all just fell flat. Same goes for the 10.10.10 They stuff for TNA. I'm hoping the Joseph Park and Aces and 8s that TNA have invested a huge amount of time in, will have a good pay off because as well as they are going now, if it doesn't pay off, then they could have many fans walking away from the product after all the hard work they have put in. WWE can afford to do this, but TNA at this stage cannot.

As for the in ring component of the show, I'm no expert, but the MMA stuff is popular at the moment, or it was, maybe that even is as big as it was even last year. Is the X Div/computer game stuff cool any more? Is reality tv cool still? Has Gut check kind of missed the boat on it all? It's all something that the companies need to be really on top of to not only provide the whole show but what happens in the ropes. I think that's why the late 90's was so huge because they were able to catch lightning in a bottle.

Somehow they just caught onto what was really hot at that exact time. It's what wrestling companies need to do again. It may never be as big, now with youtube, internet, torrents all sorts of stuff going on, but they can no doubt try to do so.

One of the things I think everyone does need to look at is the talent. In the late ninties it seemed there was just this peak of extraordinary wrestlers out there. Guys who had honed their craft from all over the world or working in many different territories. Jericho, Guerrero, Beniot, Mysterio, Regal, Finlay, Michaels, Hart, Bulldog, Sting, Steamboat, Austin, Foley, Vader, Muta, Luger, Savage, etc etc etc etc... I mean just huge talent, all working with guys like Hogan, Flair, Dibiase, Piper, it was insane.

I'm not saying that the new crop wont reach to the heights of these guys, but WWE doesn't seem to have any faith in them, as HHH, the Rock, HBK and the Unertaker are still in top spots at WM. When the Attitude era broke out, the the only real guy left was Undertaker, everyone else had to step up, Austin, Rock, Foley, HHH all had to go right to the top and they did it very well. With all the talent available now the glass ceiling is possibly keeping guys from taking it to the next level, although WWE and TNA are doing better at the moment, with Punk, Bryan, Sheamus, Del Rio in the title pictures, and Roode and Aries for TNA.

I can go on and on, but I'll just say that maybe everyone can just look at why Daniel Bryan caught fire earlier this year and maybe move towards using it to elevate the business...

 

[New Hot Fed]

I think the biggest improvement which could be made in professional wrestling is automatic banning of any wrestling fans who act like jackasses. This includes:

1) Cheering for heels
2) Booing faces
3) Chanting "What"
4) Chanting the wrong names at wrestlers (Tensai getting Albert chants, Ryback getting Goldberg chants, etc.)
5) Waving your arms frantically trying to get everyone to look at you when you see yourself on the Titantron
6) Bringing in obnoxious signs and never putting them down
7) Chanting boring when wrestlers are working a hold


I'm sure there are others. The problem I have, more than any other, is the incredible disrespect wrestling fans show professional wrestlers. I understand pro wrestling has always attracted bottom of the barrel human beings, but at least in the old days, they didn't mind pretending it was real. Now you see a bunch of jackasses being annoying simply because they think it's funny to be a jackass.

Fix the crowd, and so many other things which need to be improved in wrestling (like the pacing of matches, for example) can begin to be improved.

I actually think the opposite, I think wrestling should do away with heels and faces and let the fans cheer for who they like. That would make an interesting alternative wrestling promotion.

But here's the thing, Kevin Kelly raised a similar concern how wrestling is not a hot topic of discussion anymore. It's never been more down. Here how I would change things:

First I think you need two big promotions in the US for it to be healthy. The WWE average 3s points ratings on a regular basis and while it's not great compared to the 5s and even 8s they were getting in their prime it's good enough to be one of the leaders in cable ratings. You need another promotion to hit this type of ratings. TNA won't do it. But WWE could do it on their own by making another show as strong and successful as RAW is. How they could do this? Bring back as many stars to the WWE as they can, stars from the past and pay them well whether it's Rock, Austin, Goldberg, Warrior. They could even bring in guys from TNA like Jeff Hardy, Sting, Bully Ray. Give them creative control if they want. Then when you have all these guys, cancel Smackdown. And make one show pretty much a star-studded event every week. Then when RAW reachs the 4s again and beyond, do a second night of RAW on Thuesday. And then finally do a roster split where one day would be WWE and the other day would be WCW. And let the former WCW guys handle everything from booking and so forth. It would be like another promotion. All this would be designed to create two big promotions in the US.

Secondly while WWE/WCW would get all the big stars we know, there would be a sort of trade where CM Punk would go to TNA where that company would become a sort of heaven for great wrestling and great wrestlers. But that's where the fun comes in, like Kevin Kelly talked about promotions helping each other, with most of the stars having left, TNA would rejoin the NWA family. But in a new transformed NWA. With ROH dropping from sight, they would welcome a stronger association with TNA. I could see Hogan and Bischoff not being there so it would be easier for Cornette to deal with that company. I could even see Jerry Jarrett taking control back. I'm thinking their could be an association with 5 other small promotions in the US and Canada. ROH could represent NWA East, New Japan could represent NWA Asia, there could be other promotions with maybe one in Canada representing NWA North and so forth. I'm thinking having only 5 NWA branchs but all of them having a strong base. And to be illegible would have to have a tv deal. With of course TNA being NWA South. And every shows would talk about all the other NWA branchs on tv so it come across as a global association that it should be.

Third, this would be something more innovative, Dixie Carter and the owner of Bellator already have a great relationship and they would create a new form of wrestling, a wrestling promotion based on the concept of MMA fights. The thing TNA is doing right now with the BFG series? It would be done every week, yearly and it would present wrestling as a competitive sport where wrestlers gets points or lose points on regular basis and the results would be displayed on a chart. This promotion would be the place of innovations and they could be an even more interactive nature to them with fans maybe deciding what the matchs will be by voting. WWE/WCW would be the place for big stars and big storylines with faces and heels, this new thing would be seen as something completly different with no heels or faces. It would be the perfect place for mat wrestling specialists like Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar, Samoa Joe, Lowki, Daniel Bryan and maybe former MMA fighters than wants a crack at wrestling. Because you need well-known figures for this to get off the ground.