Talk or Wrestling?

[Rayne]

A thread in the RAW section got my attention. The content wasn't much; it was one of our firmly-TNA posters going over to bait the RAW posters over what he viewed as a lousy RAW, but it was the way he chose to frame his debate that got me thinking.

RAW this week had three matches this week, if you count a Divas match. (It's getting so hard to call that either wrestling or entertainment with a straight face.) The amount of wrestling was down sharply from prior weeks.

Which leads to the question of this thread- what's more important, acting segments or wrestling segments? Where should the balance between the two lie? What are your personal thoughts about where each belong on a televised wrestling program?




My personal thoughts: I think that the age of the wrestler is a dying one, and will be a dead one by the end of this decade. Whereas fans used to tune in for a entertainment masquerading as an athletic competition, those days are done for a number of reasons.

One would be the rise of the UFC. A fan can watch a real fight now just as easily as he can watch a fake one, and the real fight has plenty of the same pagentry without the elaborate stories. (Storytelling still plays a part, as it has for fight promoters since Gotch. People like to see grudges being fought more then they do two guys who like each other.)

Second would be the rise of cable television. The WWE's competitors aren't just other wrestling organizations; they're other television shows that people in their demographic would want to watch. They're competing against reality stars and scripted drama; the WWE has had to amplify the acting portion of their product in order to attract the fans interested in reality and scripted drama.



What are your thoughts on this?

 

[therockiswwf]

Acting segments are way more important because without them, you don't get a reason to watch. They make you care about this or that guy.

I think there was more promo time because it is getting close to Mania and I don't remember too many shows that were wrestle heavy before Mania. Usually they super build Mania which usually hampers wrestling time. I actually liked Raw this week because even though it was talk heavy, the talking was very good and most of the talking was focused on Mania. I do like wrestling and the WWE hasn't focused on it that much as of late, but as long as it is interesting and the promos serve a purpose, I see nothing wrong with it (unless they keep doing it over and over again). The WWE has been amplifiying the drama stuff more than wrestling for a long time now (nothing wrong with that).

Are you implying that the WWE's days are numbered because if you are then and if I just mis-understood what you put then

UFC bores me because there is nothing there that makes me want to see the fight. I have watched 3 UFC matches and I just quit after that.

 

[Strong Style X]

As far as American "Sports Entertainment" style? Talking is the key. That much is obvious. Most WWE and TNA athletes don't get enough time to tell a decent story in the ring or don't have the ability to do so even if they're given the time to. When you can't sell a story in the ring: you turn to telling stories on a microphone verbally. And quite frankly, that's what it's boiled down to as far as the "Big" 2 in North America are concerned and quite frankly it's the reason I stopped really caring about the "Sports Entertainment Style" of wrestling in general.

 

[Rayne]

Are you implying that the WWE's days are numbered because if you are then and if I just mis-understood what you put then

For the clarification, I definitely do not think the WWE is running on borrowed time. They might be in a bit of a creative nadir right now, but that hasn't affected their business.

 

[Slapjack3k]

Pro wrestling is a great athletic display (pretty much the only reason I watch it), but the key things that I feel are missing at the moment are logic and suspension of disbelief. These grand machiavellian schemes about power struggles and court cases are just so silly in this day and age. Does anyone think holding a promotions belts help you in a court case? Does anyone think a judge would award custody of children to someone because they won a wrestling match?

Don't get me wrong, you need context for the action in the ring otherwise it's just some guys in shorts rolling around. Theres no reason a promotion should showcase someone killing another guy with a nailboard, or torturing someone in a basement. It just ruins a product, the whole point of which, is to come across as a legitimate sport.

I think the key is not so much less storylines, just give me simple logical storylines about why these guys are fighting.

 

[Calderownz]

It's like everything else, you need a balance.

If they don't talk, then you don't know what/why you're watching this. If they don't wrestle, then you get agitated with the talk because it leads to nothing.

Personally, I prefer the talking with the shows and the matches on PPV. PPV is to settle the score. The weekly shows are to set up the contest. However, both need a little of both.