WWE Losing Its Faithful
If youve been reading this blog and enjoying it you may have noticed the lack of updates recently. Why? Because we're trying not to be negative here. But sometimes that which you love needs a slap upside the head.
I've made the decision to no longer watch Raw live. I may tape it but that fast forward button is going to be used. A lot. I still love wrestling but I am burned out on WWE.
Todd Martin's Raw review this week has a lot of commentary at the end that really says what I've been feeling. Here's a snippet:
Then you’ve got a promotion which for the past month has just been
hotshotting whatever they can think of. There is no discipline, no
stability, and no greater philosophy. This reminds me of the October 1995 In
Your House. After the card failed on so many levels, and the promotion felt
in serious problem, Vince McMahon threw a fit in front of the audience after
the show went off the air. Things started to get better after that.
So why isn't this happening now? The shows are obviously horrible. Are Vince's rose-tinted glasses a little too tinted? It's no secret that his daughter, Stephanie, has been in charge of the creative aspects of the company. And in that she has been a miserable failure more time than not. How many times now has her handling resulted in Austin or another incredibly talented performer to leave the company? Quite simply, if this really were Hollywood and she delivered this many bombs and animosity among talent then she would not have her job.
But it isn't even all her fault. Add to it JR retiring from his position as head of talent relations and the promotion of Johnny Ace to the job. You know the guy: the one who helped piss off even more of the wrestlers in WCW. In an admittedly biased column, self-proclaimed JR loyalist Dr. Tom Prichard said this about Ace:
Of course he did a lot of great things with WCW and his instituted dress code along with handing out fines for guys who were even two minutes late made him show the corporate brass at Time Warner that he was a man they could count on to get those no-good, degenerate wrestlers in line. And boy did he ever! He turned that company and locker room morale around like nobody's business! I guess that still holds true today...
I have heard so many negative things said about Ace and his recent firings, finings, and dress code. All he's trying to do is make the company, and in the process the boys, a classy and better perceived product. Just look at the results so far.
Is this what they mean when they say "westling is cyclical"? I think there is an element of truth to that little cheap shot. Wrestling is, was and always will be a boys' club centered more on politics and loyalty. The workhorses get sent to the glue factory while the pigs in fancy dress and slick way of talking get to move into the house. Why would you want people who get results to be the face of the company when you can get the smooth operator?
Something that Vince and the WWE do not understand is that wrestling isn't seen as being that low brow anymore. You had this huge war between to companies that got international attention and drew in just a massive fanbase. You have college professors openly admitting to being fans and writing articles on the product. You have crossover stars like the Rock who people will always remember as being a wrestler.
The problem is not the image! The problem is the handling. There is no need to micromanage every aspect of the company. Look at the results so far: lower ratings, lowr buyrates, lower gates, less merchandising (with exceptions to all of course). What brought in more people was the unpredictability of the product. It was not an attempt to emulate a soap opera. The long speeches delivered with all the skill and emotion of an Emmy acceptance speech is not going to keep people around.
The WWE, to put it simply, is just trying to hard in every single way it is not needed. They have a huge talent base between their two brands and their two developmental territories. Use them! Give them the chance to get over. And if they look like they will, and this is important, LET IT HAPPEN! The company had a huge star waiting to happen in Christian. WWE essentially did to him what WCW did to Chris Jericho: depush, devalue, underutilize, lowball. What does the company have to lose by allowing somebody to get over because of their own creativity and work ethic?
Rather than focusing on non-sensical melodramatics and professional dress, the company needs to do what all entertainment companies need to do: put out work that captivates the current and potential audience. Forsaking the current audience for the potential is never a good idea. In the comic book industry in the 1990s, you had a ton f publishers doing gimmicks like holograph covers, variant covers, near naked women books, and just a complete flooding of the market. And the end result? It crashed. Big time. Why? Because inside these shiny devices the product was hollow at best, outright attrocious at worst.
Redressing your product for the speculators may work temporarily but that is a very fickle fanbase. They'll get up and move to the next "in" thing. That's why you don't focus on them. Focus on the core. Appease them. When the buzz is back then the speculators will return. During the height of the Monday Night Wars you had around 10 million people watching any given week. That means there are about 6-7 million people who at one time enjoyed professional wrestling. Pretending the product is something that it isn't is not going to bring them back. They know what you are. So stop being bullheaded and just fucking do it.
I've made the decision to no longer watch Raw live. I may tape it but that fast forward button is going to be used. A lot. I still love wrestling but I am burned out on WWE.
Todd Martin's Raw review this week has a lot of commentary at the end that really says what I've been feeling. Here's a snippet:
Then you’ve got a promotion which for the past month has just been
hotshotting whatever they can think of. There is no discipline, no
stability, and no greater philosophy. This reminds me of the October 1995 In
Your House. After the card failed on so many levels, and the promotion felt
in serious problem, Vince McMahon threw a fit in front of the audience after
the show went off the air. Things started to get better after that.
So why isn't this happening now? The shows are obviously horrible. Are Vince's rose-tinted glasses a little too tinted? It's no secret that his daughter, Stephanie, has been in charge of the creative aspects of the company. And in that she has been a miserable failure more time than not. How many times now has her handling resulted in Austin or another incredibly talented performer to leave the company? Quite simply, if this really were Hollywood and she delivered this many bombs and animosity among talent then she would not have her job.
But it isn't even all her fault. Add to it JR retiring from his position as head of talent relations and the promotion of Johnny Ace to the job. You know the guy: the one who helped piss off even more of the wrestlers in WCW. In an admittedly biased column, self-proclaimed JR loyalist Dr. Tom Prichard said this about Ace:
Of course he did a lot of great things with WCW and his instituted dress code along with handing out fines for guys who were even two minutes late made him show the corporate brass at Time Warner that he was a man they could count on to get those no-good, degenerate wrestlers in line. And boy did he ever! He turned that company and locker room morale around like nobody's business! I guess that still holds true today...
I have heard so many negative things said about Ace and his recent firings, finings, and dress code. All he's trying to do is make the company, and in the process the boys, a classy and better perceived product. Just look at the results so far.
Is this what they mean when they say "westling is cyclical"? I think there is an element of truth to that little cheap shot. Wrestling is, was and always will be a boys' club centered more on politics and loyalty. The workhorses get sent to the glue factory while the pigs in fancy dress and slick way of talking get to move into the house. Why would you want people who get results to be the face of the company when you can get the smooth operator?
Something that Vince and the WWE do not understand is that wrestling isn't seen as being that low brow anymore. You had this huge war between to companies that got international attention and drew in just a massive fanbase. You have college professors openly admitting to being fans and writing articles on the product. You have crossover stars like the Rock who people will always remember as being a wrestler.
The problem is not the image! The problem is the handling. There is no need to micromanage every aspect of the company. Look at the results so far: lower ratings, lowr buyrates, lower gates, less merchandising (with exceptions to all of course). What brought in more people was the unpredictability of the product. It was not an attempt to emulate a soap opera. The long speeches delivered with all the skill and emotion of an Emmy acceptance speech is not going to keep people around.
The WWE, to put it simply, is just trying to hard in every single way it is not needed. They have a huge talent base between their two brands and their two developmental territories. Use them! Give them the chance to get over. And if they look like they will, and this is important, LET IT HAPPEN! The company had a huge star waiting to happen in Christian. WWE essentially did to him what WCW did to Chris Jericho: depush, devalue, underutilize, lowball. What does the company have to lose by allowing somebody to get over because of their own creativity and work ethic?
Rather than focusing on non-sensical melodramatics and professional dress, the company needs to do what all entertainment companies need to do: put out work that captivates the current and potential audience. Forsaking the current audience for the potential is never a good idea. In the comic book industry in the 1990s, you had a ton f publishers doing gimmicks like holograph covers, variant covers, near naked women books, and just a complete flooding of the market. And the end result? It crashed. Big time. Why? Because inside these shiny devices the product was hollow at best, outright attrocious at worst.
Redressing your product for the speculators may work temporarily but that is a very fickle fanbase. They'll get up and move to the next "in" thing. That's why you don't focus on them. Focus on the core. Appease them. When the buzz is back then the speculators will return. During the height of the Monday Night Wars you had around 10 million people watching any given week. That means there are about 6-7 million people who at one time enjoyed professional wrestling. Pretending the product is something that it isn't is not going to bring them back. They know what you are. So stop being bullheaded and just fucking do it.
posted by Stefan at 10:41 AM
2 Comments:
I've been burned out for awhile with WWE, but post-WM21 it's really sunk in. I went from watching the whole 2 hours of raw to nothing for the past 3 weeks. Now my wrestling consists of watching selected matches on Bitorrent, the occassional TNA, and ROH DVDs.
I feel like Vince & co. has finally grown so out of touch with the wrestling fanbase, but that may be their goal. I know they're aiming at making WWE TV into a mainstream venue to stand side-by-side with other entertainment, but it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Chris Arrant
www.chrisarrant.com
Spot on, old bean, spot on!
The trouble is FunkyM thinks a lot of people will keep on watching regardless of how pukily booked WWE is just to see a few of their fav individual performers. Guys they know they can count on to occasionally deliver a good match and/or consistantly give good promos.
Also people like to complain, especially on the net. We're hip like that!
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