This is just one of the reasons why wrestling was so much better in the 80's. I blame Eric Bischoff. I personally hate the man and blame him for ruining wrestling. I could go on a very long rant but I will stay on topic.
While you make some good points, I respectfully disagree on others, while I grew up watching the 80s product, and don't get me wrong, I loved it. The 90s product was very good too. Granted, they did add more superfloulous events to the PPV calendar there is no denying that. However, I am not putting sole blame on Eric Bischoff at all, because it would be silly and completely close-minded to do so. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy the guy ended up phasing out the Clash Of Champions specials, it was very much in the same vein as how Vince jettisoned Saturday Night's Main Event. I was not pleased at all with the elimination of such events, but sadly these things do occur.
Back in the day, the WWF knew how to promote an event and build suspense. By the time the event came around, people couldn't wait to see it. Now the pay per views are no more exciting than Monday Night Raw. Again, this is Bischoff's fault. The wars made ratings more important that PPV buys.
The WWF and JCP/WCW both knew how to hype some events (sure WCW had some clunkers like Robocop, but let's not forget the Gobbledygooker either). Anyway, yes I do agree the WWF knew how to promote events incredibly well, I mean go back to 1991, and although wrestling was not at its best commercially, the way they hyped Hulk Hogan and Sgt Slaughter, well that was a match ahead of its time in terms of production values, in my opinion.
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But it takes two to tango, and Vince in order to compete had to up the ante with the pay per view events, I understand that. But after the Monday Night Wars ended, and there was no WCW left, Vince not only continued his exorbitant number of pay per view events, he added to them. I can't and won't blame Eric Bischoff for WWE's continued lack of commitment to quality. Again, I don't like the fact that WCW staples like Clash Of The Champions were eliminated, but the WWF/E has found plenty of ways to disappoint me in their own right, and they continue to do so to this very day, even when we are a decade plus removed from WCW being acquired by the then-WWF.
All the big matches were given to us for free so there was no reason to look forward to the pay per view. But we all have the idea that the pay per view should be much better than the free show, and rightfully so. But that can't happen. Wrestlemania isn't even special anymore. Can anyone honestly name a match that would be a big draw that doesn't involve bringing someone in from outside the company? The only one I can come up with is John Cena vs The Undertaker.
To be honest, getting a free match on TV doesn't bother me like it did when I was a kid. Because honestly with the fact that you have all these pay per views on the calendar, I am not that big of a fan like I was once to justify spending $40 plus to watch these events. Sadly though, they are a major money maker for the company, even the ones that underperform and are redundant (i.e. Hell In A Cell, Money In The Bank). But what are you going to do? The market dictates that WWE can do this and stay profitable, so all the power to them. I guess their other revenue sources that they didn't have twenty years ago or just weren't as strong like their WWEShop site, their even bigger video library, and expanded merchandise lines aren't enough for them to justify their financial bottom line.
Saturday morning wrestling was great. You got to see some great wrestlers and we were given some great story lines that had time to develop. Now it's four weeks to develop a story then on to the next story that we have already seen. It makes it hard to turn in every week because nothing new happens. I don't know if cutting down the PPVs will help, because the WWE would just put the matches on TV for free anyway.
I agree on that front as well, the events are hasty and rushed and just rashly put together. I'm not a fan of that format myself. But I mourn with ya for the days of old in wrestling, I don't deny ya that man. But like I said, WWE is just continuing to piggyback off the trend that was started in the 90s and while we can both agree on not finding favor with what Bischoff did, Vince had no issue in following.
Now if/when the WWE Network gets off the ground, in my opinion I feel that the remaining PPVs outside of the big four should be jettisoned and that the Saturday Night's Main Event program be resurrected once again and on those months we'd have a filler PPV like Money In The Bank, put these events on the network. In my opinion, the four PPV format should be resurrected and this is how I'd like to see it happen, the way I'd envision things would be like a sports season.
SummerSlam - This is the payoff basically to storylines that you could develop post-WrestleMania. You can use the first month or two after Mania to try to resolve some storylines that might have a little more left to offer. However, a new focus for the next series of storylines should really get its shot in the arm here.
Survivor Series - This would be like the All-Star game for WWE, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be an important match like a World Title match and whatnot, but this event should go back to its original format and have the four on four (I never cared as much for five on five) team setup. Or if that doesn't work, maybe for a main event bring back War Games to reinvent the concept of the Survivor Series name.
Royal Rumble or Money In The Bank - This right here might sound controversial, but with the fact that Money In The Bank has taken off and done so well, maybe it's time to just forget the Royal Rumble or treat it more as a novelty and put the event on the WWE Network, and let Money In The Bank have its moment to be the penultimate step on the Road To WrestleMania. In fact, I look at this being an event that you can tailor to be the pennant race in WWE. I'd change the aspect of it being where someone can just cash in the title shot at anytime, and make it a title shot only valid at WrestleMania. But I envision this scenario for a WWE where the rosters are completely reunified and there's only one World Title. Because honestly, the two World Titles are redundant as well.
With a tweaking, the Money In The Bank PPV could serve a better purpose. The Royal Rumble is a fun and entertaining match, but we all know that out of 30 men, there's barely a handful that are realistically going to be booked to win it. With MITB there is more suspense and intrigue. Despite my conservative stance on the number of PPV events, I can see where some concepts need to be reinvented and evolved. This is one of those cases where I apply such thinking.
WrestleMania - It goes without saying, this is the World Series, SuperBowl, Stanley Cup, and so on. Everything that happens at the preceding PPVs and other programming in between should all come to have their pay off here. Maybe it's wishful thinking but for years we've had to see this event get stifled as far as its buildup goes with bloated and overdone concepts like the Elimination Chamber (another event that has undermined the Royal Rumble).
While commercially this event (especially this year) was not hurting. Critically, it'd be nice to see there be that old meaning get restored. And there's nothing saying that it can't have that. For years, and this is going back to the 90s and early 2000s, the Royal Rumble winner always got their shot to be in the main event at WrestleMania, whether or not they won is another matter. But the idea of Royal Rumble winners opening the show at WM while people like Snooki wrestle in the second to last match is a storyline farce, and just ridiculous.
Back on point though, this would be the way to more or less end all the major storylines that started previously and got their momentum from SummerSlam. I don't think it's too much to ask a wrestling audience to become engaged for that amount of time, again I could be wrong, but at this point, I don't know what the company would have to lose if something like this was implemented. However, I do realize that as a fan just ranting there are probably several reasons why this wouldn't work but f'n a, I'd like to see what everyone else here thinks.
Again, this is all just wishful thinking on my part, but you can't blame an old school fan for wanting to see some of the spirit and essence of what he grew up on restored, can ya?
