What has become of wrestling fans

[THE Great GAMMA]

This is something that I've been thinking about for a long time. What with the leaked news of returning stars or new signings. And discussions and rants about how poor everything is. When did we as fans stop being fans and start being overly critical pompus viewers.

People say that certain eras are better and how its boring tv today. And how creative is bad etc etc. But really??? In the 80s the then WWF and NWA did not have a weekly episodic TV show and maybe one or two pay per views a year. It was all live events. There wasn't any internet and they made it huge. The 90s came about and the WWE had RAW and WCW had NITRO. And things were great. And we would tune in every week to see events transpire and not think too much of it.
Now we are flooded with products and shows and we have the IWC griping about almost everything that happens on television. And we have teenagers wanting the attitude era back because the watched clips on youtube or found their dad's old vhs tapes and felt like going retro.

I mean we have people on here complaining about the title changing hands to much and that devalues the title and then if a champion has an extended run they complain that he has had the title to long. If that was the case back in the day hulk hogan in his prime never would of made it. He held the belt for years. Same can be said for Ric Flair.

We cannot blame a company for the changes they make to the product when the audience changes. The main focus of wrestling has usually always been people between the ages of 7-24. And that age group today differs immensely from the same age group from the mid 90s and the 80s. The average kid (and this is scientific fact) has the average attention span of 20 minutes compared to 45-60 minutes of people of the same age group from the 90s and those people from the 90s have a significantly lower attention span than the people from the 80s.

You ask why there isn't more wrestling on tv and why WWE is more entertainment based well is because after about 10 minutes of a match no matter how much work the guys put in the fans just lose interest. There is no way in hell John Cena would of been as big as he is now in the 90s or the 80s but his formula works because he gives the fans what they need to be interested and that's instant gratification.

Am I the only one who feels this way? What has become of us???

 

[Stuntz]

The ideal Demographic in the infamouse attitude ara was males 18-35 and both WCW and WWF(E) hit it big with that demographic back in the day. Since then (add about 12years estimated since the end of the era. Those males are now 30 -47. Not all but over half of anyone there over 40 probably dont watch anymore, of the others left they are starting families and or working their asses off and dont have time so your losing those people.

What WWE failed to do when they bought WCW was create new and interesting stories other than the original invasion angle. After they finished off the invasion it got stale and people lost interest in the programming due to no more interest. Along comes Cena as a bad ass rapper got some teens interested and back watching again then he turns all goody 2shoes and the kids love him. Introduce Rey Mysterio and the PG era. Guess what makes more money than you think for the WWE? You guessed it "Merchandise", and Vince starts pandering to the kids.

Currently I think WWE is aimed at the broadest audience they have ever offered themselves to. They love the kids and women pandering to their every request with Cena and finally Punk is kicking it up several notches to get the older males back into the program.

The issue back then compared today is there was so much unpredictability it was scary and you had to tune in to find out what was going to happen next. Nowadays until very recently Raw and Smackdown have been overly predictable and they have finally thrown a curve at us worth swinging at and fortunately for them we swung and missed.

Was the attitude era better? Yes it was only because it was so unpredictable and interesting throughout the majority of the show.

The attention span has a little to do with it because if you truelly pay attention to the programming most of the matches and or promos are 20 minutes or less so whomever they are aiming that particular 20 minutes at, they will pay attention and watch it. And yes alot of people want to be satisfied now and thats the problem with programming today(other than Punk story at this time) there is no anticipation factor that make people want to change the TV to USA(or whatever station your country has it on) every monday night.

Me, Ive been watching WWe since the early days of Saturday Morning Superstars and have stuck with them since and will always watch. I can thelp but be a hardcore WWE Mark since my childhood was spent watching as much of it as I could.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Actually the WWF in the late 80s was targeting the exact audience they target now. Here's what I've heard Hogan say to describe Vince's idea "why only target one guy in a household when you can get the whole family to come out? Instead of dad coming to see us we get dad, mom, brother, sister, grandma, grandpa, that's 5 more tickets per household". It works. Who gives a shit if white trash teens and young adults don't like it. Sponsors do and a wider audience does.

Also, there wasn't so much unpredictability in the attitude era as there was just random nonsense. Ever go back and watch that shit? My girlfriend was like "okay....what the fuck?" because it doesn't make any sense. Just titties, beer, blood, run ins, and turns. I hated the attitude era and so did a LOT of people actually. In fact, harley race's indy promotion's slogan at the time was "shut up and wrestle". A lot of old school guys hated it, sponsors hated it, parents hated it. The ONLY people who really liked it were males 15-30 and most of them were lower income.

As far as the whole PG thing. The attitude era hurt the WWF's reputation and then Benoit murdered it (among other things he murdered). Believe it or not, even though people though the WWF was hokey and fake, they still thought it was "good clean fun". In the attitude era people though it was hokey and fake and also vulgar and crude.

I think wrestling fans in general are good people. Most of them lower class but good people. The IWC (more importantly, the "bitchers") are stupid. Absolutely no business sense or the ability to seperate what YOU like and what makes sense for the company. They just bitch and bitch and bitch but their arguments are pretty much based around the basis of what THEY personally like. Not what would actually be good for the company or what the company should actually do.

 

[Shadowmancer]

Overall what happened to wrestling fans is that they became jaded and the quality of the product didn't match up with the opportunity cost of what else they could be watching or doing. It is a very clinical description but it is fairly accurate. Wrestling as a whole has always been a "what have you done for me lately" industry. Nothing is going to change that.

There is also more options available for people to record current wrestling shows and skip to where they want to go, there are free options than to paying for PPVs. There is also something that people didn't really have an option for in the 80's and 90's and that is instant access to any match that they want to watch from the past. So the hardcore wrestling fans can go back and be nostalgic about the Wrestling that they like to watch rather than that of the current crop that they may not like.

There is also a few issues with the backstage that leaks into the product that people do not like how things go, for whatever reason. (By that I mean storylines)