Pretty sure this is February next year. Possibly March.

I think an additional component is the overuse of branding jargon and silly phrases all the announcers and wrestlers are required to use.

There's also the fact that they are essentially using the same show format that they have for decades, which I think makes things extra stale.

Recycled characters like the heel authority figure, and extra-contrived storylines (even by pro wrestling standards) seem also to be an issue to me.

...all of which really hurts my enjoyment, in addition to some of the things people already said. But at the end of the day, I just don't care about many of the characters.

The bolded just isn't true.

You can argue that the psychology/storytelling aspects are way down, and I might agree.

The biggest problem with WWE right now (and I say WWE because I think it's a WWE-specific problem) is the talents are not allowed to organically portray their characters. It's overscripted, overmanaged nonsense that has no real hope of ever working. And yes, Vince is a major part of that issue.

If WWE let its talent do their things with less oversight, it would quite possibly be better than anything any company has ever done. They have SO MUCH talent.

First bit times million.

I dont even agree with the second bit bar maybe top matches going a bit silly on the tropes.

I grew up watching the local NWA promotion and then when we got cable, I watched wrestling from Georgia. I started watching WWF off and on sometime in the attitude era.

The wife and I used to watch RAW and Smackdown religiously. We have been to a number of televised and non-televised events including a ringside and a VIP experience.

Now, it is no big deal to me if we watch or not. It has gotten to be a soap operatic absurdity.

From me on 6/29:
Since then, those things aren't a thing anymore which is awesome:

The "no wrestling during commercials" lasted 3 weeks.
Baron's depushed.
Lacey hasn't been seen since the ppv prior to SS.
Roman missed SS and RAW which shows he's no longer the focal point of everything.

SummerSlam was good. RAW was alright and SD! was damn good. Things have been improving over the last couple of weeks.

Baron is going to win king of the ring though, you know that right?

King Corbin.

Bring back ham and eggers

Showing my age a bit here. I miss the territory days. There are a couple of parts to this. The first is that the current (essentially WWE) product is blandly uniform. When things were more separated, each territory had its own feel, so you could watch wrestling from around the continent, and get a different experience with each. The second part is that titles are essentially a territory thing. You put a belt on a guy, then toured him around, having him take on the local wrestlers. It was great for the fans. Titles have much less use/legitimacy these days.

I think wrestling is not even that bad at the moment.
I remember watching in the 80s and everyone went crazy when Hulk Hogan or Koko B Ware walked into the ring, but in all honesty 90% of the matches someone like Adrian Adonis had or Mr Perfect had where against guys like Nick Jones or Peter Daniels... Absolute jobbers that could have been taken out of the public to take a beating for 2 minutes and that was it.
Just because there was not much wrestling people went crazy to see the "superstars" in action even against low level opponents.
This leads me to the biggest problem i have with wrestling (and UFC) right now....There is just too much of it...
I could get behind 4 super ppv's per year and even 1 per month (UFC) i could take, but 1 every weekend just does not do it for me... Raw and Smackdown? Fine... now there is like NXT, NXT UK, Live 205, QOEWFORF and QWEIRIWW and TIRTIR every week and god knows what else....
Cant and dont want to keep up with it all.

I think the biggest thing is you have to turn people heel.

Hogan went heel
Rock went heel
Austin went heel

One of the current best things they have got going is Daniel Bryan heel.

But the cowardice to not turn Cena or Reigns heel...both could have been good heels

Going forward...we need someone from New Day to turn heel

Austin turning face at WM 13 is what led to WWF defeating WCW in the MNW. His heel turn in 2001 literally destroyed WWF's business at the time.

To Gobbo's point, in October there'll be 9 hours of wrestling per week between WWE and AEW. At least one weekend of the month, there'll be 13 hours and possibly twice in a month if AEW does a ppv per month. Who can possibly want to watch all of this?

I think AEW have said they are doing 4 PPVs a year?

I think the problem isn't that there is too much wrestling. I think that's a bit like saying there are too many tv shows, it's that in WWE you have to watch so much of it for any of it to make sense. If Raw was self-contained then it'd be fine, same with smackdown but they are linked so that's 5 hours every week over two days. Then add on the fact that they **** about with continuity and story lines regularly so it still makes no sense and there is little reward for huge effort on the viewers part.

I'm hoping that is why 2 hours of NXT will be good. Once a week you watch two hours it's mostly self-contained and a handful of PPVs a year. Lovely.

Along these lines, while I wasn't around for the territory days, I really enjoy reading about them and think I would be willing to potentially support something like that.

I've not really watched PW since the early/mid 90s, but even as an adult I'd be willing to suspend disbelief and enjoy a show if I felt like the guys/gals were taking it seriously. In the post Kayfabe era, it's sort of hard to get into for me when the wrestlers can't even be bothered to try.

In the territory days, Faces and Heels came out of seperate locker rooms, they didn't ride together. I know it's all a work, but the work doesn't have to stop at the curtain. Continuing to sell (or hell, even going back to selling during matches) would encourage me to watching again. Then again, maybe in my 30s, I'm just too old for whatever wrestling is now, and that's ok too.

Reading magazines was how I learned about different areas and different wrestlers. I would read all the time about Jerry "The King" Lawler, or the Von Erichs, but never saw them, and it made me want to watch them wrestle (but I never did, back then). I would also read about wrestlers I did watch, and their matches from around North America against other wrestlers I didn't know, or had never seen. It really hyped the sport for me.

Most of my viewing had been from promotions based in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, and later Calgary. It was fantastic to see a wrestler from another region come in. I still remember the first time I saw "Incredible" Hulk Hogan appear in a promo on a local show. As a young teenaged mark I was beside myself. Might have been a preteen, but whatever.

When WWF began to really dominate, and the territories fell away, it really changed. Partly me growing up, I'm sure. I still enjoyed the 80s and early 90s, but the magic wasn't there. There was no awe around wrestlers coming to town, because you had seen them two weeks ago.

To this day, my favourite wrestlers were a young Dino Bravo (before becoming a roided heel), and Luis "Arriba" Martinez. I have liked several others since, but I haven't seen anyone interesting in the last 20 years, and I blame it on homogeneity.

Sorry for going on, but this thread has brought out some old feelings and memories.

OMG.... Luis "Arriba" Martinez. my favorite wrestler ever

i loved George Cannon's Superstars of Wrestling... not sure that show even had live events but i thought it was great.

one huge difference is fans suspended their rational belief and effectively believed in the characters. someone like the sheik, abdullah or even sailor white were legitimately frightening to people even when we "knew it was fake"

attending wrestling today is more like going to a rock concert than old time wrestling

Oh yeah! Sailor White, with his fishing hook. And Hartford Love was another big heel.

As for Luis, I never knew until much later that he had a long career before I saw him.

I have found myself actually enjoying Main Roster WWE for the first time in what seems like forever, it's actually kind of weird