There has been a lot of discussion here, and Im guessing other places about how terrible wrestling currently is. It also seems that the crux of the debate is what exactly has placed the business in its current shape, and what can be done to fix it. After reading what a lot of people have written and looking at it myself I think I have an idea. Unfortunately like most things in life, it isnt one thing that has led to this. I think it has been a series of things that added all up has brought us to the prodeuct that we currently watch. And I also think that everyone is to blame in some way, and when I say everyone, I mean WWE management, the wrestlers, and even the fans. So without further adieu, I give you my way too long and rambling thoughts on the problems. If you can actually force yourself to read this mess, I would like to read what you think.

Lets start with WWE management. But before we begin, I know there is more to wrestling that the WWE, but they own the vast majority of the market, and #2, TNA, is pretty much a carbon copy, so when I say WWE, I mean mainstream wrestling. As we all know, the WWE has completely changed what us older people knew as wrestling into sports entertainment. That on its own is fine, but if they are going to go that route, they need to go all in and completely eliminate all traces of what they deem "old school wrestling". I think in their quest to try and please a wider audience they havent committed to it and this hybrid thing that has evolved is just terrible. When I watch the current product, I get the feeling they have kept some aspects of wrestling and have tried to make other aspects just disappear. Unfortunately for the fans I think they have made the more entertaining aspects disappear, but the ones they have kept were either the less important ones, or they need certain things that are ignored. For instance as was discussed in another thread, the idea of not having top faces tapping out is an idea that I think most would agree is good. But when you do that on one hand and then on the other hand have the faces constantly in those positions, it waters it down to being a cliche. Back in the day the top faces were very rarely put into the situation where they either had to break the hold or pass out.

That also leads me into my next point. The lazy booking is just killing the product too. And when I say lazy booking, Im talking about the DQ finishes or countouts that really dont advance a storyline. I think this happens because for whatever reason the idea of wins and losses seems to mean something. I cant for the life of me understand why there is so much emphasis on wins and losses. In the grand scheme of things they really dont matter and it is possible to look really good in a match and still lose it. If you dont believe me ask X Pac or Steve Austin. Both of those wrestlers made a lot of money because of matches in which they lost. But apparently now a days that is all that matters so we get DQ finishes or countouts that are unsatisfying. I have an idea. How about they bring back time limits and have a draw instead of a double countout. Also I think the layout of the matches themselves are lazy too, but that is also on the wrestlers themselves. How many times do we need to see wrestlers kick out of finishers? And can we stop calling them finishers since they dont finish anybody anymore?

I am going to stop here for now. I will get into the wrestlers and the audience at a later time, but would like to hear your thoughts on what i have written thus far

I think that there actually used to be MORE DQ/s countouts that "didn't advance the storyline" than there are now.

I think the biggest problems that require a lot of adjustment by everyone are:

1) There's no more mystery in this stuff any more. Surprise Royal Rumble entrances? Good luck with that, there are 74 people tweeting they saw Batista at the airport, and 65 of them will have grainy photos. Unlikely title changes? Just check Bovada before the match for the latest odds. We know too much to be able to suspend disbelief.

2) Timelines for everything are so compressed. Let's take, for instance, these results: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturda..._Event_results and just look at the first few from the "Golden Age". First of all, note that 3 of the first 9 matches ended by DQ or double countout, so, bleh. Second, look at the match times on this stuff. You have to go to SNME #5 to even get ONE ten minute match - and that was a tag match. The first singles match to go 10+ minutes and not end in a DQ was in the NINTH SNME.

Nowadays you have 5 hours of programming to fill in A WEEK. That was probably like three months of old style programming. A three month feud now feels played out, because they've had 7 or 8 matches or altercations that you have seen, because they have to have programming. I mean, you had an epic Flair/Steamboat trilogy play out over the course of three months where they wrestled each other a total of three times in matches that you could see, because that's all the TV there was. If you had the same thing in the same ratio of time to TV shows that you have now, that would be like a month, tops, and then it's on to the next feud.

3) PPVs are the only thing that matter. How many truly meaningful matches have there been on regular TV in the last year? Surprise returns, title changes, shocking developments (turning Big Show or the Bellas doesn't count)? Probably less than five? So, every 3 months of TV programming, something interesting happens. The rest is just supposed to make you buy the PPV (or, now, the network) to see what happens, because the endings are always there.

You're also right about the lazy booking on a lot of stuff, of course, but they are somewhat handicapped by having to constantly keep certain things fresh. I think they could do a better job than they do but it's a harder job than we think.

WWF had around 5 hours of TV programming a week in the Golden Era. Prime Time Wrestling, Wrestling Spotlight, Superstars of Wrestling, Wrestling Challenge. WCW had the same around 1989. A Saturday Night show, a Sunday evening show, a show on Saturday morning and Sunday morning on TBS, and a syndicated program on non-cable tv. It is about how they use the programming.

TNA isn't that much like WWE anymore. For awhile they were WWE lite, and naturally you will always have similarities. But TNA gives midcarders mic time and storylines and has a ton of stables now.

I think Dwe is really on to something with point 1) and 3). I have some ideas that I will discuss later.

I was going to address the too much TV weekly issue. There used to be 2 hours a week of meaningful WWE programming. Now as you pointed out, there is 5. But somehow with 3 extra hours we get what appears to be less meaningful wrestling. I think that if management had their way, RAW would be 2 hours, but USA wants 3 hours, so they get 3 hours.

I also think a problem is that 12 PPVs a year us too many. Now I would be stupid to think that they would just give up 6 pay days a year, but when they eventually move to PPVs on the Network, cutting out half would make everything feel more important. You could have RAW matches mean more, and the buildup to bimonthly PPVs would be a lot better than monthly builds.

But the only show I would really compare to RAW today would be Wrestling Challenge. The rest were basically filler that recapped things or showed house show matches. They also showed a lot of squash matches against enhancement talent which is another thing I think the business misses. Instead of showing me two "Superstars" in a match which is rushed so they can both get their stuff in, show me two squashes where the same can be accomplished.

The total destruction of midcard titles is more than just me looking longingly back at the good ol' days; it really has a significant negative effect on the modern product. Almost everyone who eventually went on to the world title had a midcard singles title reign on the way up, to kind of test out how over they could be and how well they could carry a certain level of the card as its standard-bearer.

1997: This Rocky Maivia guy is really going to be something. Let's strap the rocket to him. Alright, first up, IC Title. ... Oh. Definitely not ready for the main event yet. ... Let's work on some things and try this again.

2014: This Roman Reigns guy is really going to be something. Let's push him as quickly as possible into the main event and then see if he can handle it once he's already here.

I like this guy.

I don't think any of them were quite like Raw, or exactly like you are explaining them. On Superstars or Prime Time Wrestling or Challenge, you could see Superstar vs Superstar matches, or a heel or face turn (or part of a heel or face turn that was completed over a few more shows) Or you might see all jobber matches and promos that week. The squash matches made everything else feel special; like a treat.

I will give WWE credit here and say I think they recognize this and that is why we have the current U.S. And IC title holders we have. They will both restore credibility to the titles and then maybe they can be used they way they are supposed to.

What I meant by Challenge being the equivalent of RAW was that most of your storyline progression took place on Challenge like it does on RAW today. The other shows were more like Smackdown or Superstars or Main Event are today

I agree with the major points here (too much TV time per week, not enough jobber squashes, bad treatment of mid-card titles).

Only things I see missing from the discussion are:

• Commentary. It cannot be overstated how bad it is right now.
• Edited crowd reactions. This tilts me to no end. Thank **** they're not doing it with NXT.

I think you've said there was a big gap in your watching. If so, I'll just say: don't get your hopes up. There have been many, many teases of restoring the midcard belts that just get totally forgotten after 1-2 months.

I hope you're right this time.

i also think another huge problem is that there are very few true heels anymore. It seems like everyone is more worried about t shirt sales than doing their job correctly. How many real heels are there that aren't afraid of getting booed? 2 maybe 3? And how any of them are top of the card wrestlers? Seth Rollins is the only one I can think of. Unless you consider Sheamus top of the card, than I would say 2. Everyone else is either mid to bottom tier guys who are doing whatever they can to stay on the roster, or they are too busy trying to be the "cool heel". There is no such thing as a cool heel. At best you are a tweener, and that is just so meh.

I think that is another thing lacking today. There is no good vs evil, because there is no real evil anymore. As long as there is a dearth of true heels at the top there will be a lack of compelling entertainment. Look no further than the Olympics for an example. Ever since the USSR went away, the U.S. doesn't have anyone to root against and the popularity in the Olympics has dropped immensely. The same will continue in wrestling until they get enough top talent to care more about entertaining than how much merch they can sell

You touched close to another big issue, that being that WWE is obsessed with jamming every top face they have into a heavily sanitized cookie cutter. You play some variant of the same really safe character, and that's that.

Their insistence on not allowing for a wider variety of characters really limits their creative ability. It's not that the smark crowds of today truly WANT to just be anti-face and pro-heel. Faces and heels in the Attitude Era and the Golden Era got cheered and booed respectively, and it was because the crowd respected the characters. Today's characters...meh.

Tied to this, the fact that they script every damn promo word-for-word instead of letting the workers have a lot of input and inject themselves into the characters, that's a big problem too. But micro-manager Vince has just sort of slowly let his control freak sensibilities take over more and more of his actions over time, and as you stand back from the timeline of it the difference between the start point and the end point is significant.

I wonder what percentage of tv matches in 1985-1990 were storyline relevant. For storyline relevant I'll count squashes that build a guy up but not "Randy Savage beat the Brooklyn Brawler in 4:21 by executing his one move of doom" stuff.

It's probably not as big as we think, but, again, in those days it was "wow I get to see Macho Man in action!" and not "lol why am I wasting my time, we know Macho will beat him with a flying elbow from the top rope" like it is now.

The biggest thing that is wrong with wrestling can be summarized as: The companies are unwilling, or unable, to make things seem special and worthwhile. Or, to put it differently, they don't understand and implement psychology properly.

The bad announcing, the bad building of wrestlers, the boring stories or lack thereof, the making of all the wrestlers into clones with cookie cutters, the matches that are technically good but nobody really cares much about. All individual problems, but all traceable back to, and instances of, the main problem.

i watch every raw and every ppv and im not as negative as most of you nor am i as into wrestling as most of you. for example i really enjoyed the raw segment with randy orton and seth rollins this week (4/20/2015) and i things like that.

i do feel that every week is pretty much the same stuff being re-used and occasionally the unexpected plot twist i did not see coming because i don't follow any wrestling stuff besides these forums and always after i saw raw/ppv. it pretty much feels like the have a build for 4 weeks using raw have some silly matches (silly as in pretty predictable and semi boring because every time the same sequence). also on a ppv everyone suddenly is able to kick out of finishers (besides people like john cena who can do it on raw too).

i think building people strong or weak could mean kicking out of finishers even on raw. for example if ryback, who looks decently strong now, only kicks out on a ppv it actually takes away some of the entertainment as it becomes boring and predictable, since he would just lose on raw when someone does his finisher and kick out once or twice during a ppv. actually showing a wrestler improve (reigns for example) seeing him become stronger every day and eventually beating cena for example would actually be exciting since they could plan the ppv that he does some unexpected stuff and not just get crushed on raw to kickout every ppv (not that reigns loses a lot).

i could be way off because i consider myself just a fan (not like you guys who are way more into wrestling than i am).

ps: when i saw your nxt thread it got me curious and i had to admit, that the moves they do are actually pretty cool and look better than most stuff on raw (especially neville is awesome :P )

ps2: hope i made some sense

edit: wrestlers also seem pretty dumb because i've seen some guys get "screwed" the same way every time and it becomes super predictable.

i did like the move from xavier woods who was hiding beneath the ring and prevented a lucha dragon member from entering the ring resulting in a count-out. i liked it because it was legitimately smart and i didn't saw it coming, whereas you sometimes see guys fall for the same obvious stuff every time... seth rollins actually looks like pretty much the only "smart" wrestler because he seems to be not falling for obvious bs

Finisher kickouts are in themselves not the worst thing ever -- conceptually, a "finisher" should pretty much be something that takes them out most (but not all) of the time).

What's the worst are that roughly 96.4%* of all finisher kickouts are on PPVs, because PPVs magically make people tougher (but don't make people's ability to use finishers any better apparently). Which goes back to just lazy booking. "How can we make this match longer and more dramatic?" "They'll never expect a finisher kickout!!!!!!" is a conversation that must have been had in the writer's room at least 4,724* times in the last five years.

But yes, have more kickouts on Raw and less on PPVs and it would be "fine".


* These numbers may be low.

Other cliches that have been beaten to death (and are more prevalent on Raw than finisher kickouts are on PPVs!) include the distraction/rollup or distraction/finisher. It's scientifically proven that rollups are 2450%* more likely to succeed if someone was previously distracted, even if they've taken no damage, and that finishers are 3500%* more devastating when a random rival's music plays before it.

* Ibid

No, the finisher kickout in a vacuum isnt a bad thing, and if used properly can actually be a good thing in terms of story telling, but when you do it 10 times in the same PPV they become ridiculous and actually take away from the match. It wasnt that long ago when if you saw 1 finisher kickout in a single show that was a lot and it was usually the top face or heel doing it. Now it sometimes takes 2 or 3 finishers to polish off a mid carder. It has been over done and now every time it happens it just brings down the over quality of a match

regardless of the finisher kickout thing it still feels like raw is filler between ppv's

They should sincerely not have a single finisher kickout again until the year 2017. They should put themselves on timeout for ruining the concept. They should admit to themselves that they are powerless over finisher kickout usage, that they cannot handle it, and that total abstinence is the only way to move forward.

It's absolutely filler. Which is all the more reason that it should be loaded with squash matches.

I also want to expand on my lack of heels in the WWE point. I dont put the blame all on the wrestlers for this. I think a big part of the problem is the fact that there are no more rules to break, or there appears to be no consequences for the rules that are left. If heel cant get heat by breaking the rules, then how can be a heel? And the faces need to stop breaking the rules too, this also limits the amount of heat a heel can get when the face does the same thing a heel is doing

but that creates another problem -> hit finisher -> win match

it's actually exciting to see someone occasionally kick out of those

the thing is that it isn't properly balanced between raw and ppv's (unless you're cena you always kick out )

i actually think kicking out of finishers more often or at least balance it between raw and ppv's more properly actually creates more excitement because it takes away predictability since you won't know when someone is kicking out/beat unlike how it is now