Wrestlemania: Oversaturation of Wrestling???

[Shocky]

Simple question, is the business over saturating itself with Wrestlemania this weekend. From what I've seen, not only is the WWE trying to push as much as they can into the buildup for this event, but other Federations are slowly starting to ride the coat tails of this event as well.

WWE: When you look at the WWE, they should be the company that pushes itself behind Wrestlemania. This week alone, you have fan axxess, you have the Hall of Fame, and you have Mania, not ot mention the 5 other hours of programming this week that leads into Mania.

Then you get to the other part of the situation, merchandising. In the last month alone, the WWE has put out Legends of Wrestlemania, the Game. The WWE Encyclopedia, The No Way Out DVD, The first two parts of the Summerslam Anthology, and released a movie starring John Cena. So if you were add that up, you're looking at $60 for the Game, $45 for the Encyclopedia, $15 for No Way Out, $35 a piece for the Summerslam set, and at least $10 for a movie ticket (not including what you would pay for food at a theatre.) So you're looking at the WWE releasing at least $200 dollars worth of merchandise in the weeks leading up to the event, and the event itself being $55 dollars at least in most areas.

And you get the rest of the business as well. Booker T and his Houston based Federation, mostly including TNA stars, are running events all weekend in Houston, and ROH is running shows on the Friday and Saturday before the event as well.

So is all of this exposure good for the business, or is it simply over kill at this point. Wrestlemania is considered the Superbowl of Wrestling, but is this simply too much for even the most die hard fan to absorb?

 

[Tastycles]

It's an interesting point, but you can't blame WWE for acting the way they do. They have to have things like Fan Axxes because there will be people who travel to Houston for the weekend and they are almost obliged to put something on for them.The WWE get more publicity at this time of year than any other, so again you can see why they want to release the games and films at this time. You can't exactly blame TNA and ROH for capitalising on a city full of wrestling fans either.

That being said, the company should perhaps think about its fans, many of whom are children in putting out all of this merchandise. There's no reason why WWE have to saturate the market before the event, they could ride some of the event's popularity afterwards and that would hit their fans pockets a lot less.

 

[GrkVenom]

That is a very interesting point, but do you think that by doing this the WWE hurt something else. Does anyone think that by trying to push all of this merchandise and get it out that they actually ended up hurting Wrestlemania. Let me explain, the WWE produces a lot of DVDs I understand that but what if Vince just didn't have time for creating a build up. And I know that there is creative to do that job, but guys, creative hasn't done a good job on any feuds for a while except for HBK vs. Jericho, HBK vs. JBL, Jericho vs. the legends, namely Steamboat, he's still got it(didn't like the ending but I wasn't expecting the Ram I mean Rourke to get put in the Walls either, I don't like the WWE using stars either but I'll explain that later)and again HBK vs. Undertaker. Now I know what you guys might think that I love HBK and Jericho, but yes I do love Jericho and I don't like HBK so much but I can't take anything away from him as he truly is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time and is mind boggling as to why Michaels isn't the Champion because what he has done with JBL, Jericho, and Undertaker are storylines that if you stuck Cena in they would have been halfway decent because Jericho, JBL, and Undertaker would have been in it, but I digress. As I was saying creative hasn't done that well, plus don't forget a lot of these DVDs are finished at least 4 months before that are massed produced and shipped out, and not only that but you have to come out with the No Way Out DVD in 4 weeks and have it shipped out, and having to find a Hall of Fame class of 2009 by March. In my Humble opinion, I think with everything involved it just turned out to be way too much and in the end they had to throw together matches with not that much build up and it ended up hurting the product in the end. That reminds me one more quick thought on what hurt the Wrestlemania Championship matches and I'm done. Why on Earth are you going to have the Elimination Chamber at No Way Out. I understand the WWE is trying to add meaning to the PPV in an otherwise meaningless event, but this is the PPV that needs to be the precursor to Wrestlemania. This is the PPV where storylines take a twist like revenge for a title won under questionable tactics type of scenario...does anyone else think so? Thank you for your time.