I admit I am a fan of professional wrestling. I don't need a lecture of what it is and what it isn't. The phrase "Professional Contact Acting" comes to mind. I don't watch the current product and haven't for about three years. It's gotten so far away from what it used to be that I see no reason to spend time watching that form of entertainment.
I have been listening to audio by Jim Cornette lately. He's been in the business for years and has worked in several promotions. He's been a manager of wrestlers on various TV programs and definitely has a gift for gab. I don't agree with everything he says, but on one thing I do agree. Through the years I've heard Jim talk about how the "sport" has been ruined by over the top storylines and matches and by exposing the business.
I think when WWF was going through the steroid controversy of the early 1990's, they basically admitted it was all scripted. The performers are athletic and do get injured, but they are in the ring to sell you the idea that they are really hurting each other. For years, they went so far that the good guys and the bad guys didn't even share the same locker room.
Through the years, there have been gimmicky wrestlers and silly plots. When Vince McMahon took WWF national, he amped up the cartoon aspect, but you still got good matches in the ring. The NWA territories were still presenting traditional professional wrestling. Because WWF, NWA and AWA were seen on National TV, pro wrestling was riding high in the 1980's. There was also the whole "Rock & Wrestling" connection.
In the 1990's, WWF was reeling from the steroid controversy and sort of transitioning. Ted Turner bought Crockett Promotions and was building WCW. Turner felt wrestling had a positive impact on his network's ratings. Everything was still okay until Eric Bischoff started running WCW for Turner. People say he killed WCW. I don't blame Eric or even Vince Russo for that matter. However, I love listening to Cornette go off on Russo on his podcasts, because he is on the mark on quite a bit of what he says.
Bischoff was in charge of WCW at a time when wrestling was riding higher than it ever had. They had Hulk Hogan, The New World Order and Bill Goldberg, and ratings were huge. WCW was beating WWF in the ratings, and McMahon had to change with the times. They also had ECW as a third and more hard core alternative. The sport rose above it's niche and appealed to casual fans who just wanted to see what would happen next.
There was a price for that rise in popularity. For one thing, WCW started giving away Pay Per View quality matches for free on the regular show, forcing WWF to do the same. People also tuned in for the very real feud of the promotions. Wrestlers were jumping back and forth, so you never knew who would show up where. People tuned in for the surprises.
ECW was so extreme in the things that their wrestlers were doing that something that would be a feud ending move years before, even if done at all, was just a regular occurrence now. Wrestlers had to do crazier and crazier things to keep the fans entertained. There were regular swerves where a good guy might turn against the fans or a bad guy might become good. It happened so much that it wasn't unique or special. However, it all got ratings.
Eventually, the bubble burst. It was only about a three year run where this was bringing in many casual fans, and then those fans left. The things that the promotions were doing to get those fans to watch didn't work anymore, because they didn't care. Then, WCW was a victim of the AOL-Time Warner merger. ECW ended. WWF was what was left at the end of the wrestling wars, but it didn't keep all of the fans. The WCW and ECW fans tuned out. Somewhere along the way, Vince McMahon began promoting the idea that what WWF/WWE was was Sports Entertainment, rather than professional wrestling.
Cornette basically says that the top promotions hot shotted things so much that they left themselves nowhere to go. Nothing surprised the fans any more. He further added that the promotions all exposed the sport so badly that they turned it into a joke. He's right. Now, the wresting fan is left with WWE to tell them what wrestling is, and all other promotions struggle for attention. If WWE is "too phony" in the way they present themselves, too bad. That's what you get. You have no choice.
I don't think it's fair to say they are not athletes and that WWE wrestlers don't put on a good match when they finally cut out the talking and crazy skits. They have good performers, and it takes skill and conditioning to do what they do. However the art form isn't what it used to be. The matches don't have the same feel they did. It's not presented in a way that people believe anymore, and the championship belts have become the props Vince Russo once labeled them to be.
Some people say they'd like to see the sport come back to what it once was or at least close to it. You will hear people say you can't put the tooth paste back in the tube. You can't go back. But, I think you can. We have way too many channels to not have some place to put a show. There are fans who will buy tickets. You have to make that commitment, that is if somebody wants to make the investment.
Vince has no reason too do it at WWE, but somebody could. What they have to do is just define what their promotion means and run it in a more old school way. You can go hard core when needed to in a particularly ugly feud. WWE and NWA even did it. The key is giving wrestlers a reason to do it, not just to beat the crap out of each other in a brutal way for the heck of it. It can be done, and some people would still watch.
Will it ever happen Probably not. Cornette suggests that it could cycle back around via MMA. Perhaps he's right about that. WWE is a corporate entity, and they aren't going to do anything that upsets the market. No drastic changes. The only way they will get involved in this movement is if somebody else does it and has success. As long as WWE is still around, we'll have something that passes itself off as wrestling, or Sports Entertainment as they call it. It's unlikely that the current product will ever inspire the popularity this form of entertainment had 20 years ago. Then again, you never know.
