Then vs. Now

[klunderbunker]

So I was reviewing the first Survivor Series and it occurred to me that there were 50 people wrestling that night. Three matches with ten people each and a fourth match with 20 people each. That's likely more than are on most Rumble cards. As I was watching, I got bored during the main event and started thinking about how many titles there were in this whole show. The following is an excerpt from my review and the data that I found. Since it's a review, the tone will be a bit odd.

Note: this is accurate as of August 11th. Now, I did a bit of research here and I found something that illustrates a lot. As I said, there were 50 wrestlers in action tonight. For the sake of this, we’ll factor out the women’s match and say it’s 40. Let’s compare this to a match from last year’s Survivor Series, in this case Team Orton (Orton, Shelton Benjamin, William Regal, Cody Rhodes, Mark Henry) vs. Team Batista (Batista, CM Punk, Matt Hardy, Kofi Kingston, R-Truth). Now, that’s 40 guys compared to 10 guys. In total, the 40 men on tonight’s show won 60 titles in the WWF. That’s a lot. By comparison, the 10 guys in the modern match have won 54 (excluding the hardcore title reigns which would put the modern team over). Think about that for a minute. ¼ of the people won 90% of the amount of tag titles. Also, R-Truth as of this writing has never held a non-hardcore title. I’m also considering any tag title reign as separate reigns, so Neidhart and Bret Hart, three time tag champions, account for 6 of those 60 titles. That tells me a few things. First, there are FAR too many titles today. Second, it’s not as hard to become a champion today. Look at two main event guys in the 87 show: Bigelow and Orndorff. Neither won any titles in WWF, yet they main evented shows, yet Matt Hardy and William Regal have never main evented any PPV that I remember (they may have but off the top of my head I’ve got nothing) and have a combined 22. Now Hardy is probably a bigger star than either of them, but Regal simply isn’t bigger than Bigelow, plain and simple. Therefore, third, it says that title reigns don’t mean that you’re a star. Either way, there’s a huge difference between the eras and the title scene now is just ridiculous.

So am I right? Is this absurd? To have 40 people (excluding the Women's match) be comparable to one match as far as the amount of title reigns goes is ridiculous to me. Am I on to something here, or is it just a generation thing?

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

Back then it was common to see wrestlers who didn't have as many titles headlining pay-per-views. It was more about wrestling back then than it is now. Nowadays you will never see somebody like Matt Hardy or R-Truth main-eventing PPV's or even RAW or Smackdown. There are simply too many titles and there is always talk of adding more. Add that to the fact that there are title changes like every month it is hard to build storylines that last more than a month.

They did unify the tag team titles so that's one good thing but I don't see any other subtractions but possibly additions down the road.

 

[Milkyway!]

While I certainly see what you're getting at. Theres a few factors you seem to be forgetting here KB. The men back then only had 2-3 hours of TV time to entertain the fans with, along with only having 4 pay per views a year. As well as, it was fairly uncommon for a title to change hands on TV, simply because enough people were buying the PPV's and buying the television product enough so they didn't have to have titles changing hands to entertain the fans on television. On top of back then there were only 3 titles, 4 considering you counted the tag titles on each wrestler.

Today there are 7 titles, 9 if you count the unified titles into four. Theres 12 Pay Per Views a year. Theres 7 hours of free television weekly that the fans watch, 10 on a Pay Per View weekend. Then theres the fact that the target of the product has changed its viewers. Adults can sit and watch a four year title reign like Hulk Hogan had, and be perfectly content with themselves. The WWE is going for children these days, as you know. Now, I don't know a single child thats going to be willing to watch the same program, with the same champion for a long period of time. Theres something always changing, always happening, its like they're setting children up to be ADHD or something.

Children won't watch the show on live television, unless things happen on the television. Like a title changing hand, for example.

 

[scott_keystone]

Adults can sit and watch a four year title reign like Hulk Hogan had, and be perfectly content with themselves. The WWE is going for children these days, as you know.

the wwf and hulk hogan were aimed at kids back then. i think its more of a generation issue. 80's kids weren't overloaded with so many hours of free tv product. we were happy just to see honky tonk man in a squash match.

 

[Wrath]

Yes you're right. When you see something less you would be curious about it more. World title matches are one of the examples of it. Hogan was a champion for 4 years but he didn't use to defend his title like John Cena every week after week so when Hogan was defending his title it was like a WM main event to everyone even though the match took place in SNME. Even IC title was considered like a world title. The biggest question we should ask is why wrestling is not booked like it used to.


The biggest reason is right now people have too many alternatives so they don't need to have patience for product. There are lots of networks,reality shows,sports,series etc. So in the minute someone bored they can change the channel. So in order to keep them watching you always have to keep action alive. Thats why there have been lots of titles and they change hands very quickly. Even Cena fans turned on him because of the length of his reign.


Everyone thought how Monday Night Wars was great for wrestling business. I can't deny the facts that because of MNW we've been introduced with whole new stars but it also hurt wrestling business in many ways. One of them was being killed of patience. In MNW we started to got everything on tv even Hogan vs Goldberg match had happened on tv. So it killed the patience of wrestling business. Look at the Mankind vs The Rock or The Rock vs Triple H feud those title changes were not really needed. Why did we get all those things because people had alternative.


So it's unfair to compare to very different time periods. Right now you have to keep people tune in all the time when they don't like a segment 250.000 people suddenly changes the channel. To keep people watching your show you have to always make something happening. Thats why there has been lots of title changes and there are too many titles. So as long as tv business grows we won't be seeing old school feuds,build ups and title reigns anytime soon.