I wanted to start by thanking everyone who has been reading the blog and passing it along, I really appreciate the support. I also want to thank everyone who has sent me ideas of things to talk about. Feel free to contact me at www.facebook.com/TheRockshowErnieBallz , www.twitter.com/ErnieBallz , or ernieballz@hotmail.com . Today's post is actually going to be one of these topics sent to me by an anonymous source. The person did not leave their name at all, but the topic is a good one, so thank you.
The topic that was given to me is "why do you feel that pro wrestling is not as popular as it once was?" This is a pretty broad question, but I am going to do my best to give my opinion on it. Obviously, WWE is the monopoly of pro wrestling, but I feel that with the right business decisions, ROH could be a big contender eventually. TNA is a lost-cause in my opinion and I will talk about that.
So, wrestling hit it's boom in the Attitude era when the Monday Night War was going on. The reason why is because WCW pushed the envelope and forced WWE to do the same. It was a constant question of "what will happen next?" THAT is why wrestling was so popular then. It was exciting and something new every week. People were jumping from WWE to WCW, ECW was the land of misfit toys that people wanted to get behind. It was amazing, but is something that will NEVER be duplicated in my opinion.
Let's talk about some of the problems with the business currently though. WWE definitely has a monopoly over the entire business of pro wrestling. They bought out all of their competition in 2001, which was probably to dumbest move they could have ever made. Without competition, there is no alternative, which means that there is no one else pushing your company to be better. That's why wrestling went down the crapper from the longest time.
WWE's main 2 issues are the fact that everything is about merchandising and money, and that they hold down younger talent. I am sorry, but maybe you should spend more time accentuating the second W in your name, which stands for WRESTLING, rather than selling multi-colored wristbands to 10 year old children. I understand it, I really do, but it is wrestling, so do some for a change. I think that they are starting to with people like Punk, Danielson, and Ziggler, but I think they need to pick it up company-wide.
My second issue with WWE is that they hold back a lot of their younger talent. There are tons of AMAZING talents that are either currently in development, or have been down there in the past, that should be given opportunities. It almost seems to me like they are afraid to bring these guys up to the main roster because they think that they are going to fail or something. Here's an idea, if a guy sucks, FIRE HIM!!! There are guys on that roster that are hella-nice people, but they are dumb as a box of rocks. If they don't know what they are doing, then get rid of them and hire someone else to a development deal that actually deserves to be there. I can think of countless people off of the top of my head that should be in development right now. Chris Hero, Sami Callihan, Roderick Strong, the list could go on and on. These dumbass guys that don't know anything about the business get put onto TV and take away spots from guys that really know what they are doing and would be 10 times as entertaining.
There are guys that have sat in development for years and were never really given a chance at all. There are guys donw there right now that I do not understand why they are not on TV. I have an ongoing discussion with many people about how WWE guys have no idea what to do other than what they are told to do. What are we going to do 20 years down the road? Who are going to be the top guys? Who are going to be the road agents that help the younger talent? Half of these guys now don't know what the hell they are doing. Give the younger guys that have been on the indies a chance. In the long-run, I feel it will help the business overall.
That's as far as I am going with WWE. They are the top of the heap for a reason, I just feel that there are little changes that could make it that much better. Let's talk about the train wreck that is TNA/Impact Wrestling. TNA is like the dog in the movie UP...they will be doing their thing, then all of a sudden...SQUIRREL!!! It's like A.D.D. Wrestling. One thing will be going on, then the next week it all changes. Generation ME/The Young Bucks are a perfect example of this. They starting off tagging with each other, then they turned on each other, then they were fighting, then they were back together like nothing ever happened. Makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever.
I also feel like TNA has the WCW Handbook to Booking in their back pocket. "Let's bring in all of these old bastards that no one cares about anymore, and build our entire company around them." I can understand using people like RVD, Jeff Hardy, Ken Anderson, because all of these guys can still wrestle and have something to offer to the company. Sting as a GM? Mostly drunk Ric Flair? Hogan in Affliction-esc shirts? Really? They are paying these "legends" a shit-ton of money to do nothing but show up on TV. Sting just comes out dressed like a jackass saying "it's showtime" and "I'm the boss." Well I am sorry Stinger, but Tony Danza is the boss. Flair comes out half drunk and just shouts nonsense. Hogan comes out dressed like a 21 year old Jersey Shore cast member and just says "brother" 20 times a night. I often think of what kids think of Hogan. They were not around for him when he was a big deal. They probably see him and say "Mommy, it's that guy from the Rent-A-Center commercials who is on that other show with the midgets!" No one cares about either of these guys. Can you imagine the amount of money that TNA could save by getting rid of them? Ridiculous.
Other than using guys from the retirement home on their shows, TNA has two other things that have completely ruined their product over the years. The two dumbest things that TNA ever did was 1.) getting rid of the 6-sided ring, and 2.) not focusing on the X-Division. These are the 2 things that made TNA different than any other wrestling product on the market and they just got rid of it. Why would you do this? If you are a sandwich maker and you have a sandwich that no one else can make quite the same way as you do, why would you take it off your menu? Stupidity, that's why. TNA brought in Hogan and Bischoff thinking that they were going to be able to do something for the company. The first decision they made was to get rid of the 6-sided ring, change the name of the company, and make their entire set look like Smackdown. WTF? So let me get this straight...you are going to take everything that has established this company, hit the reset button and just start all over again? Ok. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
TNA is just a mess overall, I could go for hours about them. Let's move onto ROH. Personally, I feel ROH is going to be the next big thing. They have a great show, that is the perfect mix of wrestling and entertainment. ROH's main downfall is that they are not on a good network. HDNET was not picked up by normal cable companies, so no one saw the show. This Sinclair crap that they are on right now only gets picked up in certain areas also. I am in Cleveland, OH and we do not even get it here. ROH needs to just keep their noses to the grindstone, find ways to make money, and take opportunities ASAP. I really do feel that ROH is a better product than TNA overall and feel that they could really do something. The problem that they have begun to run into is that some of the talent has moved onto WWE and TNA, mainly because they are going to get more exposure and money there. If ROH can find that perfect mix, they will be a major threat.
So that's it. I think the overall point is that wrestling needs to be about wrestling. There has to be an entertainment factor there as well, but I think that the wrestling is the most important part. Younger talent needs to step up to the plate and start showcasing themselves more. Whether these talents are signed or not, it doesn't matter. It's all about getting yourself out there and showing what you can do.
Here's a tip: if you type your blogs directly in Blogger or use Google Docs to type them, you won't lose unsaved data (both save automatically).
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