Remember when WWE was cool?

[FromGlasgow]

Other than the tightly scripted promos today's format is near carbon copy of the 80s wrestling boom, at least in WWE (the NWA programming split between the kid friendly cartoon stuff and some more mature content, very little, but featured much better matches). And wrestlers still cross over to mainstream shows like Good Morning America, Tonight Show, etc, and still get occasional pop culture references, fact is it was cool mainly with kids in the 80s and viewed with disdain from adults and that is the same today.

I can't agree it felt like during the 80s the WWE was able to sucessfully appeal to both demogrpahics of adults and children as having actually lived through the 80s it seemed to me a mix of adults and kids enjoying it, I knew loads of families that watched it together.

Comparing the TV ratings for a start I think during the 80s for the saturday nights main event and main event shows where doing around 15. something in the ratings, For the whole of this year I don't think the WWE have even went over the 3.0 rating for any of their tv shows.

Back then they seemed to have the huge names from all different territories competing in the one company and most of them being household names during the 80s comparing to pretty much unknowns coming into the WWE now wrestling the same style of match giving the same generic interview, How many wrestlers can the average non wrestling fan name nowadays compared to during the 80s.

 

[FlairFan2003]

I can't agree it felt like during the 80s the WWE was able to sucessfully appeal to both demogrpahics of adults and children as having actually lived through the 80s it seemed to me a mix of adults and kids enjoying it, I knew loads of families that watched it together.

Comparing the TV ratings for a start I think during the 80s for the saturday nights main event and main event shows where doing around 15. something in the ratings, For the whole of this year I don't think the WWE have even went over the 3.0 rating for any of their tv shows.

Back then they seemed to have the huge names from all different territories competing in the one company and most of them being household names during the 80s comparing to pretty much unknowns coming into the WWE now wrestling the same style of match giving the same generic interview, How many wrestlers can the average non wrestling fan name nowadays compared to during the 80s.

It's unfair to gauge ratings from the 80s because there were far fewer TV channels, viewers had very little option outside the three networks and TBS, USA, and ESPN. Most of the rest was premium pay and even then there wasn't near as much.

Fact is, WCW Sat Night on TBS was the most watched show on Cable in the 80s and drew much bigger numbers than RAW today but how much of that was because of the lack of viewing alternatives ?

As far as average people, non wrestling fans in the 80s....everyone knew Hogan, he was huge....after that you would get small amounts of people who knew Andre The Giant, and to a lesser extent maybe Savage & Flair....the vast majority of non watchers really didn't know many names outside Hogan. You wouldn't find non fans who knew Kamala, Hercules Hernandez, Koko B Ware, etc....I would say Ultimate Warrior caused enough fuss to get some small attention from non fans at his zenith

Today John Cena is an obvious one, outside of that Lesnar....and maybe HHH as he has been around forever and done commercials, etc, and Taker there is some basic familiarity with (as evidenced by John Stewart mentioning The Streak on "The Daily Show" earlier this year).

 

[whoopin' ass]

It isn't that they try and think of lame characters, it's that they actually think these characters are cool. Austin, Rock, even Taker to an extent were created by the person playing them so they had layers. Today, most are wwe creations and not allowed to think. Ryback is wwe's version of Goldberg, just lamer. There is such a limited amount of real character that they all start to blend after a while and anyone with some character seems to get ignored. Plus wwe doesn't know how to push anymore. Wyatt is a joke yet wwe keeps pushing him. A little work and you could have an interesting character instead of someone who acts like he has watched one too many horror and suspense movies.

 

[FromGlasgow]

It's unfair to gauge ratings from the 80s because there were far fewer TV channels, viewers had very little option outside the three networks and TBS, USA, and ESPN. Most of the rest was premium pay and even then there wasn't near as much.

Fact is, WCW Sat Night on TBS was the most watched show on Cable in the 80s and drew much bigger numbers than RAW today but how much of that was because of the lack of viewing alternatives ?

As far as average people, non wrestling fans in the 80s....everyone knew Hogan, he was huge....after that you would get small amounts of people who knew Andre The Giant, and to a lesser extent maybe Savage & Flair....the vast majority of non watchers really didn't know many names outside Hogan. You wouldn't find non fans who knew Kamala, Hercules Hernandez, Koko B Ware, etc....I would say Ultimate Warrior caused enough fuss to get some small attention from non fans at his zenith

Today John Cena is an obvious one, outside of that Lesnar....and maybe HHH as he has been around forever and done commercials, etc, and Taker there is some basic familiarity with (as evidenced by John Stewart mentioning The Streak on "The Daily Show" earlier this year).

I would get your point if the ratings went from like a 15 to a 10 but 15 to a 3 is a ridiculous drop completey on the basis of more channels.
I'm not surprised not everyone knows the names of Kamala, Hercules Hernandez and Koko B Ware as they were almost jobbers in the WWF during the 80s a better example of household names in the 80s to me would be The Road Warriors, British Bulldogs, Iron Sheik, Jake the Snake Roberts and Roddy Piper off the top of my head are I would say better known than the 3 previous.
I'm not knocking todays wrestling as I'm still a fan but I think in popularity wise at the moment the WWE is at a low point but its went low before and increased during the attitude era so I think it could increase again.

 

[Y2JBL]

Similar to some other comments in the thread already, it was never exactly "fully" cool and socially accepted in the circles I traveled in either. But of course I understand what the thread is referring to, 15 or so years ago when the ratings were huge and wrestling merchandise was everywhere.

But aside from being accepted in mainstream society, there's still the question of whether or not it seems cool while you're watching it. I just made some comments like this in the thread about Shotgun Saturday Night. The programming just used to have some edge to it. Some atmosphere. I'll even say "attitude" but I'm not specifically referring to cursing and sexual references. It just used to feel like a traveling fight club of badass characters. The focus was on the competition. I HATE the look of everything being overly-produced, glittering HD screens these days. Raw used to be a Titantron, red curtain, and steel towers. I was just playing Day of Reckoning 2 on GameCube last night and was reminded of the old PPV stages like Backlash and No Mercy where they would build those incredibly creative set pieces of out steel that looked monstrous. Now it's always just a different flavor of the HD screens. Being new years eve, I was reminded of New Year's Revolution yesterday and really miss that PPV too. So many tangible and intangible aspects of the programming just used to be so much better.

The ultimate judge of whether it's cool or not is just how I feel while watching it. Today's programming is literally the type of stuff that can make you feel embarrassed to be watching it when you're ALONE.

Bottom line, it's not cool these days because we are all technically watching a show aimed at children. Being a publicly traded company does not help things either.