People come on wrestling websites like this one all the time and post their opinions, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, sometimes in between. I find there is typically a lot of Sidious-like negativity which permeates through a lot of the various topics. What I was wondering is this. If the Internet was in existence back in the 80's, back in the glory days of the WWF, back when Hulkamania was running wild, brother, etc., would there have been this type of widespread negativity, or were people more satisfied with the product back then?
Let's face it, professional wrestling is enormously more visible today than it was back then. Between RAW, SD!, ECW, Superstars, TNA (Impact and the new show debuting soon), DVD's, PPV's, online streaming, YouTube, RoH, other smaller indy organizations, etc., professional wrestling is subject to far more scrutiny today than ever. Back in the day, before such things as live episodes of RAW, wrestling was only on TV for a couple of hours (maximum) per week. It consisted of star versus jobber predominantly. The end result was not nearly as good. And people didn't have the same avenues available to bitch and complain about it. Other than word of mouth, there wasn't much capacity for negativity. You either watched the product and liked it, or you shut the hell up and didn't watch.
What if the Internet was around back then? Would fans have moaned and groaned that Hogan only knew 4 moves? Or that he wouldn't put the younger talent over? When young tag team guys like Bret Hart were ready to jump into the main event in singles, would people have complained that they "weren't ready?"
In short, was the product really that much better back then, or was it simply that it wasn't exposed to the same level of scrutiny, and not subject to the same ease and degree of criticism by the IWC?
Let's face it, professional wrestling is enormously more visible today than it was back then. Between RAW, SD!, ECW, Superstars, TNA (Impact and the new show debuting soon), DVD's, PPV's, online streaming, YouTube, RoH, other smaller indy organizations, etc., professional wrestling is subject to far more scrutiny today than ever. Back in the day, before such things as live episodes of RAW, wrestling was only on TV for a couple of hours (maximum) per week. It consisted of star versus jobber predominantly. The end result was not nearly as good. And people didn't have the same avenues available to bitch and complain about it. Other than word of mouth, there wasn't much capacity for negativity. You either watched the product and liked it, or you shut the hell up and didn't watch.
What if the Internet was around back then? Would fans have moaned and groaned that Hogan only knew 4 moves? Or that he wouldn't put the younger talent over? When young tag team guys like Bret Hart were ready to jump into the main event in singles, would people have complained that they "weren't ready?"
In short, was the product really that much better back then, or was it simply that it wasn't exposed to the same level of scrutiny, and not subject to the same ease and degree of criticism by the IWC?
