The WWE is officially lame.

[Jonnie Walker]

They seriously should have some blood,or if they do don't fucking make shit black and white!It pisses me off.It's blood.Everyone has it,and if you don't want your 9 year old daughter to see Cena bleed,then don't let her fucking watch it.Don't ruin it for us if we want to see a little bit of red.It's fucking bullshit.

 

[Nev]

You say that worked fine at the moment because you were a kid back then. If there were internet forums back then a lot of adults would have probably been on there complaining. You wouldn't have cared because you were a kid enjoying what you were seeing. One pet peeve of mine is when people say it was ok to market towards kids back when they were kids, but not now. Just because you're not a kid anymore? What about today's kids? Why not let them enjoy WWE now like you did when you were a kid?

Good point. I am currently 19 years old and I loved the 'attitude' programming when I was a kid.

I was also reading an old forum back from 2001 talking about how the WWF was stale and boring. Most of the users were WCW fans, talking about how repetitive the story lines in the WWF were. An example being about how Vince and the McMahon's would always turn on the faces each and every month. Some users were also complaining about how wwf fans are all marks, no real wrestling fans, & all of that crap. Pretty much the outside of sports entertainment's version of "bandwagoners".

These were obviously "die hard" WWE haters, but they prove a valid point. Most of the fans back then were fans of realistic drama, in my opinion. Any fans left, that started watching the WWE from '97-'02, are 'real' wrestling fans.

I started browsing wrestling insider sites since I was 12, which was around 2002-3. The best of memory I can tell you, was how everyone wanted the ratings back & how RAW lost its 'anything can happen feeling'. I believe the drama and 'shock' aspect of the show ended 7 years ago. Blood and gore does little to help that. I also remember how Spike TV would censor the blood on RAW with B&W, but nobody is complaining as much as they are doing now.

I'm happy if wrestling matches include bleeding rarely. We don't even know for sure if the WWE is content on censoring blood in the first place.

 

[WWF Wrestling Fan]

Ok let me say this Cole needs to be put back on Smackdown and JR put back on RAW I miss the chemostery of Lawler and Ross Cole dont have that with Lawler another thing this is 2009 not 1989 WWE needs to leave shit alone like Renameing a Fuckin PPV i hate that your so use to saying WWE Cyber Sunday or Taboo Tuesday now in the past 3 weeks they changed there minds on the name of the fuckin ppv i know there tryin to make it family freindy/kid freindly i get that but what the hell dose it have to do with renaming fuckin ppvs i understand One Night Stand PPV thats the only one they should have changed no other ones heres a nother thing that pisses me off about the WWE this whole be a Raw GM For the Night it works great if your an ex Wrestler what the hell does it have to do with Seth Green or ZZ Top honestly WWE is a fuckin joke now i'll still watch it cause iam use to watchin it every monday night but they really need to sit back and think some of this stuff is fuckin pointless and stupid and WWE needs to stop with this whole Hornswoggle stuff i think this way alot of fans quit watching it me i am die hard fan of WWE i been watchin it sence 1984 when i was 2 years old and I have seen it change so much that i can honestly say WWE went back to 84 - 85 when Vince him self said '' I Like Change the fans want to see new things in the WWF / E''.

 

[Kronik711]

Hello everyone. I have been setting back reading your forums waiting patiently for a thread i want to respond to so finally here we go.

I agree there doesn't need to be blood in every match but I believe blood is a part of wrestling especially if your looking for the realism in it. I mean I dont know about ya'll but when I've been in a fight in real life it usually doesn't end until someone is bleeding. Does it happen with one punch? no but usually someone bleeds. So if I'm watching wrestling and pretending it is real like I try to do then yes bleeding after an ass kicking is what I want.
I will agree also with the fact that this era to me is basically like the Hogan era and eventually there will be another "Attitude" era when the fans of today, I.E. the kids will be older and want to see it.Is it what I want? No but hey thats why I watch T.N.A. over WWE any day. I do believe that WWE is lame also but for so many more reasons than just the blood issue, although that does add to it. I see no need to cut back on something there's not much of anyway now days.
Now I'm sure we'll see occasional bloodshed but still after a good brawl I wanna see a little blood, if it is needed.
In "if needed" I mean- If it is a good tech match and it's all straight wrestling no problem ok no blood, BUT if some continuously beats someone in the head with punches or smashes them with a foreign object... let there be blood.
I really don't think Lariat was saying everyone should just come out and start bleeding for no reason but that seems to be the way most of you are taking it. Plus it his opinion (which I agree with) That WWE is lame. Why get so defensive, its true, it has gotten weaker as far as good ol fashion violence goes. But does violence make wrestling good? Thats for another thread but it all depends on your opinion.
BUT VKM caters to whatever is gonna make him money. Right now he knows that parents buy stuff for there kids. Therefore he must appeal to both of them and especially make sure "normal" parents find the stuff acceptable.
It's not what i particularly want to see but, oh well I'm not the one he is appealing to now days.

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

I'm going to go ahead and clear a few things up...again.

1) If anyone in here thought I'm bloodthirsty and enjoy blood so much, you're wrong. Personally, I think that as long as it's appropriate, I'm fine with it. A cage match, a hardcore match, and a street fight need blood. Regular matches don't. Vince McMahon's phasing out blood all together. Remember the era of Hogan in the WWF? I don't remember an instance where blood was used...except for most of Flair's matches when he was there. Other than that, none. Suddenly, gimmicks became stale, and a few years later, the ratings and buyrates for PPV's became abysmal. Just like they're about to do right now. Sure a 3.5 is great. Even in doing that, they're still a highly rated TV show.

2) I'm a true wrestling fan, which is why I stick it out most of the time for Raw. But as a favor, on Crave Online's website, Paul Heyman has a blog that entails my thoughts to a T. Read that. You should.

3) The WWE's lame because it's pandering to an audience that really doesn't make that much money for them. Think about this. Let's say a WWE fan has a 10 year old who likes the WWE. You really think that fan's going to support the WWE by buying their merchandise, when that dad was more than likely a fan during the Attitude era and realizes that even though the WWE's watered down, they might bring back some of that stuff and in essence, risk their kid being exposed to something they shouldn't see? C'mon.

4) Vince McMahon doesn't care about the fans. He cares about making himself the most money no matter how much the fan would like to see something different. And nothing will change until they see a significant decrease in ratings. We're talking WCW 2000 kind of decline in ratings.

 

[RVD420]

Now, normally I'd read everybody's post before mine before I share my opinion. However, in this case, I've actually been thinking about this myself and I've come to a few conclusions:

1. Back in the 80's and early 90's the product was geared more towards children and cartoony gimmicks. Wrestling gathered a large number of fans and then brought it into the attitude era in the late 90's and began offering a more edgy product which increased the number of viewers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that there is ever going to be another attitude era......it can never be duplicated and should never be. But if you look at the current product, its geared more towards children again. Cena = Hogan. The world of wrestling changes all the time and it will definately become more edgy somewhere in the future.

2. As for the blood situation, anybody who's read Bret Hart's book knows that blood was banned in the early to mid 90's but the wrestlers took it upon themselves to bust somebody open the hard way if need be or, in Bret's case, blade themselves so well that not even McMahon knew that it was intentional. In my opinon, blood definately adds to the story during a match, but as with anything, too much of a good thing........eventually it loses its luster and becomes the norm.

Basically, just because they've phased out blood, doesn't mean that a wrestler isn't going to make it happen anyways. And lets be honest, if Cena or Triple H were to blade themselves or let somebody bust them open the hard way, do you really think Vince would have THAT much to say about it?

 

[The Brain]

3) The WWE's lame because it's pandering to an audience that really doesn't make that much money for them. Think about this. Let's say a WWE fan has a 10 year old who likes the WWE. You really think that fan's going to support the WWE by buying their merchandise, when that dad was more than likely a fan during the Attitude era and realizes that even though the WWE's watered down, they might bring back some of that stuff and in essence, risk their kid being exposed to something they shouldn't see? C'mon.

Kids don't make much money for them? Kids are gold. Take a 10 year old fan for example. He wants to go to a WWE show. He's not going alone. He is one ticket. His mom and/or dad is at least another ticket. He's probably going to want to bring a friend. There's another ticket. Kids get their friends into things they like potentialy creating a lot of new fans.

When Christmas and birthdays roll around parents are searching for good gifts for their kids. Ching Ching. Action figures, t-shirts, posters, dvds, and whatever else is on shopzone these days.

I think it's just as likely their dad was a fan during the Hulkamania or New Generation era than the attitude era. If you're suggesting returning to programming like the attitude era that dad won't let his kids watch. As a result it would be harder to create new fans.

I've been watching WWE for a long time. I know a lot of people who watch. I don't know anyone that started watching as an adult. If someone is over 25 (probably 20) and hasn't ever been a fan, it's a long shot he will ever become one. At least not one who is going to stay one for any length of time. WWE has to get these fans when they're young. Get them hooked at a young age and you've got them for life.

 

[Southwind]

I certainly do not think the WWE will be out of commission in 10 years as the thread starter said. BUT I do think by the WWE doing this that they are building a ceiling as to how much they can climb as a company lets face it raw is doing 3.4's etc regularly now in the summer what happens when Monday night football comes they will be doing low 3's maybe even high 2's. The reason this is true ? it's simple kids while the product is more kid friendly parents will NEVER let their kids stay up until 11pm regularly not with school.

Point is the WWE is toting a fine line here and I think it could ultimately bite them