The old guard is the wrong way to go about this

[Lee]

Think of the attitude era, certain stars spring to mind.

WWF: Austin, Rock, HHH, Undertaker, Kane Vince and at the start HBK and the Hart foundation. Add to that the stables of DX, minstry, corporation. The tag teams of Matt and Jeff Hardy, Edge & Christian.

WCW: nWo, Hogan, Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Nash, Hall, Waltman and of course Bischoff to name but a few.

ECW the third promotion that essentially kicked started the attitude era had the likes of RVD, Dreamer, Sandman, Stevie Richards and Raven.

Looking at that list there are people confirmed to appear and people rumoured. Rumoured I have made in italics, confirmed I have put in bold. Plus the likes of Jarrett, Foley, Jericho and Angle.

Of that list (official/rumoured returns etc) only Edge, Christian and Matt Hardy, Angle and Jericho are those that can be classed as those not out staying their welcome (age wise).

So I ask:

Is it a good thing that there are so many old stars coming in from the old days, or is it a bad thing?

I personally think initially it's a good thing, people who stopped watching wrestling (about 3.0 missing in the ratings) may here about the likes of Hogan, Hart etc and tune in.

If this stays long term however we have a problem. You have the young guys like Cena in WWE and Styles in TNA. You have the mid card that will build the long term future of wrestling. It is these guys you should be building up long term, not Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart.

 

[Suneeboy]

Age doesn't mean anything as long as you can still work and as long as you can still draw. Age shouldn't be taken into account when those to skills are still present in a wrestler and his character.

I would not say it is a bad thing at all. It is a bad thing when you have old guys hobbling to the ring fat and out of shape at the top of the card, but it is a good thing when you still have great workers like the Undertaker and HBK still at the top, and still great performers and draws.

 

[Kanye South]

The problem about this is that TNA and WWE have to bring out the senior citizens to have a decent show because to be quite honest, nobody gives a flying monkey shit about Styles or Cena. They don't entertain us like Rock, Austin, Hogan, Hart, and others did. They're bland and stale. It's not their fault because they're given a script. The reason reality TV is so popular is because it's real-life people acting like jackoffs. Let everyone on your roster improvise promos, and that way we don't have to worry about missed lines or the "cue card" look. Anyways the point I'm trying to make is that most episodes of Raw from 2009 are about as entertaining as live lesbian porn. Actually, that would be very entertaining. But what I'm trying to say is that Raw isn't very entertaining. But most Raws from the Attitude Era are very entertaining. So until they can make Raw entertaining again, they must use the people that brought them to the promised land. Same with TNA. Now who wants pie?

 

[NSL]

I don't think it's the "wrong" way, but it's certainly not the "right" way. You may get a few older viewers to come in and watch, but after they see that those guys are running on empty, and that the booking has gone to shit, they'll never tune in again.

They could really use this exposure to put over the "new" guard, and get the teenagers and 18-21 year old viewers that don't watch, or have never watched. There's no long term fan base in hooking in 40 year olds, but it couldn't hurt to get them for a short while.

 

[Super Crazy]

The only thing bringing in the older talent does , is draw in older fans based solely off of name recognition alone. Once they tune into the show and see these guys hardly able to move and hardly getting around in the ring, they'll never tune in to it again. Now, if you bring in the older guys who still have some gas in the tank, and have them put over the younger talent, then, and only then, I think TNA will succeed.

I've always felt bringing in these older names was not always the best move for the business. I loved TNA when they first started up because they were using what they had to get over. They no Hogans, Angles, Foleys, Bischoffs, Nashs, they AJ fucking Styles, and Samoa Joe. They had these young guys, going out there, busting their asses to put a show and entertain the fans. Now , a lot of what I see is these older guys coming back, just to earn a buck, and really, it frustrates me. I really hate that the only people to really old the TNA World title before AJ were people that weren't with TNA from day one.

I understand TNA could use the exposure the name recognition of these older guys brings, but at the same time, it could be their downfall. No one wants to really see Hogan in the ring anymore. The fact that there are even talks of Flair coming in is ridiculous.

I hope TNA survives the coming issues that all this stuff with Hogan brings, because honestly, it's beginning to shape up to be the end of the company.

 

[psykohurricane]

For now, it's the right way to go because it does bring older fan out, but if they stay for to long, then you got a problem. Look at the monday night wars back in the late 90'S. WCW had all the old WWE stars while WWE only had Undertaker, Diesel(who jump to WCW), RAzor Ramon (Who Jump To WCW), Bret Hart and HBK. So sure WCW won the monday night wars, When Scott Hall and Kevin Nash went to WCW, they were still consider by the fan WWE guys and that made them popular instantly. The NWO gimmick and all the old guys coming in made WCW popular for 2 years until Bret Hart went to WCW and it was painfully obvious to everybody that if you watch WCW you wouldn'T see any new stars in the main event spot so most fan switch to the WWE were new stars where being created. Guys like Steve Austin, The Rock, Mankind,HHH,Kane were becoming big name guys because that what the fans wanted. They wanted to see new guys on top and they got them.

I'm saying this because we are there once against, we are at the stage were the fans want to see new guys in the main event level, THE WWE is getting it and are starting to put new guys on the main event level, in the last year, C.M. Punk, Sheamus and Kofi Kingston got a push to the top of the card. In TNA, who got a push, nobody. A.J styles is still a young guys but he's one of those guys who is consider a veteran in TNA because he'S been on main event level for most of his TNA career. Samoa Joe is in the same boat has A.J. The rest of the main event guys are familiar faces that while they are still worthy names, since most of them can wrestle anymore will get boring really quickly especially if TNA don't advertise them and continue putting the type of show they are putting right now.

For the next couple of month, it might help TNA to focus on the old guard but it will get old real quick and by next summer TNA will probably be back were they were last year without Hogan & friends and without a lot of money that could have been put in marketing that talent that you already had and promoting your house shows.