Wrestling Entertainment - we know, you don't have to tell us!

[Bigdoggsteel]

17 hours ago, DE. said:

You could literally apply kayfabe to anything by that logic, including movies and TV shows. Kayfabe is at its core 'protecting the business' by making it seem real to everybody outside the business. Beyond children there is no kayfabe anymore*, wrestlers are more akin to incredibly athletic soap opera actors nowadays and the vast majority of people watching it know that. The only 'real' part of the business has always been backstage politics, which have often been more fascinating than the show itself.  

As for peaks, wrestling has had two. The Wrestlemania/Hogan years in the 80s and the Monday Night Wars boom in the mid-to-late 90s. I doubt we'll ever see it become that popular again. 

*Exceptions for places like India where a significant amount of people are still wrapped in the innocence of kayfabe.

There are a few docs on YouTube about Ring Ka King, a promotion in India run by TNA. They are worth a watch. There are some clips where Scott Steiner gets into the crowd after the fans, adults, you should see them scarper 🤣🤣🤣 It's definitely not part of the show and they definitely aren't in on it. They think it's real for sure. 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I can’t do links but in today’s Sunday Observer New Review there’s a photograph taken of the audience at a wresting event at King Georges Hall in Blackburn on the 27th of November 1987. Along with the obligatory little old ladies there are a couple of people who may recognise themselves.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[Mike E]

On 13/03/2021 at 12:49, Chernosamba said:

I was baffled that adults still watched this , however I listened to a podcast recently ( blindboy ) he was taking about the ‘kayfabe’ in wrestling . The way that the fans accept what is presented to them as a truth and how it’s mirrored in Modern politics particularly since 9/11 ( when irony disappeared) and how Donald trump is a master of kayfabe . Ironically There is a terrific story that there was a line in the wresting where something happened to the main man , vince something , he was a friend of trump who called the wwf to check he was ok . 
blind boy podcasts are great by the way . Some would say it’s conspiracy theory , firstly I don’t think many people can distinguish between conspiracy and conspiracy theory , secondly all he does is present factual situations and suggests you consider them differently . 

There's definitely some truth in Kayfabe being around modern politics. Donald Trump is a WWE fan, appeared at WrestleMania 23.

In my opinion, it explains why he's so keen to give his opponents nicknames like 'Killary' and 'Sleepy Joe', to create 'characters' out of them.

People lap it up, which is why wrestling is still going strong making record profits even outside of boom periods.

[DE.]

In fairness the only reason WWE is making money at present is because they lucked into a TV landscape absolutely desperate for live events that a decent amount of people will watch. The vast majority of their other metrics (attendence, audience engagement, ratings) have been trending downwards for years and continue to do so. 

The big thing wrestling has going for it is the fact it's cheap programming. It doesn't cost much for a network to have wrestling on the roster, and historically it's always pulled in a core audience of loyal fans. Even TNA in its better years was averaging a million viewers a week. 

Traditionally wrestling's biggest hurdle, as far as TV is concerned, is that it's considered low-brow entertainment with a largely poor, working class viewing audience. This makes it less attractive to advertisers, as even though wrestling pulls in a solid audience, it isn't the type of audience major companies have much interest in. I'm not sure how true that perception is in modern times, but it's definitely still there.

Up until the past few years it's been virtually impossible for any company other than WWE to get a remotely decent TV deal. When TNA left Spike they were in the wilderness for a long time, landing on barely known channels despite having a track record of pulling in over 500k viewers a week, even during their down periods. ROH only got on TV because they were literally owned by a TV company (Sinclair). 

The sudden demand for live entertainment that people will tune in to watch means there's been a sudden interest in getting wrasslin' onto network television again, allowing the likes of AEW, MLW, Impact and NJPW to get TV timeslots. In terms of audience wrestling has not really recovered compared to past peaks - WWE only manages just over 2m on prime time FOX, whilst Raw is trending down to 1.6-1.8m a week on average. AEW tends to be just under a million viewers on TNT (TNA got more viewers on Spike in the late 2000s), whilst NXT manages between 500-700k. The other companies are in the 100-200k range weekly.

Obviously there are some caveats, particularly the fact TV viewing habits have changed dramatically in the last decade. Streaming and TiVo are eating into regular TV viewing metrics, so it isn't really fair to judge shows based on ratings from over a decade ago. With that said there's definitely a difference between the profits being made during the Attitude Era, for example, and the profits WWE makes now. In the 90s they made money because the product was hot as hell and managed to perfectly tap into the cultural mindset of the time. Nowadays WWE make money because they are a niche form of programming with a very loyal fanbase that will watch the show live, and TV execs want that more than anything right now. IMV they make money in spite of the product they put out, rather than because of it. Smackdown is decent for the most part, but Raw is fucking tragic. 

[DE.]

As an aside, NXT is apparently moving to Tuesdays after WrestleMania. Great news for them. 

[Mike E]

10 minutes ago, DE. said:

As an aside, NXT is apparently moving to Tuesdays after WrestleMania. Great news for them. 

And for AEW and possibly wrestling in general. Potentially stopping around 1.5m fans having to choose, it gives both shows the chance to try and pull the full 1.5m viewers.

[DE.]

10 minutes ago, Mike E said:

And for AEW and possibly wrestling in general. Potentially stopping around 1.5m fans having to choose, it gives both shows the chance to try and pull the full 1.5m viewers.

It'll be very interesting to see how the numbers pan out. Unopposed shows suggests both audiences are loyal to their respective brands, with AEW viewers more likely to tune into NXT than the other way around. I think there's a good chance for AEW to regularly get over the 1m a week mark, but I think NXT is likely to benefit more from the schedule change.

[Bigdoggsteel]

14 hours ago, DE. said:

As an aside, NXT is apparently moving to Tuesdays after WrestleMania. Great news for them. 

Because it won't be clashing with AEW? 

[DE.]

On 16/03/2021 at 12:59, Bigdoggsteel said:

Because it won't be clashing with AEW? 

Yeah, I think it'll see NXT's ratings go up and take the pressure off to try and compete by hot-shotting Raw/Smackdown wrestlers onto the show for no reason other than to grab a bigger slice of the audience. 

[DE.]

Just finished WrestleMania. My main thought throughout was that it really, really doesn't need to be two nights. It just bloats the show with matches that could have been on Raw or Smackdown. 

It was cool to see a WWE event with crowds for the first time in over a year. A shame they piped in annoying crowd noise which generally made it hard to hear the authentic live crowd's reaction to things.

Night One

The weather delay was unfortunate, but at least it only delayed the show for 40 minutes, and we got to see some unscripted promos which is rare. With that said Shane was pretty bad, and Braun wasn't much better. 

Hogan getting booed on both nights, fucking lol. Vince is absolutely obsessed with bringing him back, despite his name value adding very little to WrestleMania these days. Did anybody buy WM37 because Hogan was guest hosting? No. So why put him out there at all when there was the risk of a negative reaction? They tried to drown out the boos with their obnoxious crowd noise dubbing, but you could still hear it. 

Speaking of fucking lol, Drew losing in the opener against Lashley? Really? The first show with a major crowd in over a year and the premier, tough-talking, fighting babyface loses in the opening match? I mean, Lashley is somewhat over so the crowd were still fine with it, but this company really does baffle me at times. 

The women's tag turmoil match was fucking awful. The only memorable part was Mandy Rose slipping on the ramp. 

Seth Vs Cesaro was a good match, but I don't understand why they were laying it on so thick at the end of the match, or why Cesaro was getting so emotional over winning. I know it's his first singles match at WM, but it wasn't for a title or even a #1 contender's spot. It's not like he's a rookie at his first WM either, he's been around for ages. Just made zero sense to me. Match itself was good though. 

Kingston/Woods Vs Styles/Omos was more backwards booking bullshit. Everyone wanted to see Omos get into the ring, so instead of cheering New Day, the fans were cheering the heel AJ Styles just because they wanted him to tag in Omos. As far as Omos is concerned he didn't really do anything impressive, but he sure made the New Day and by proxy AJ Styles look like chumps. No idea what their plans are for the big man but the people like him.

Shane Vs Braun - amazing how they've ruined Strowman. I haven't been watching WWE regularly in the build up to WM, but I've seen clips of these two from Raw and am reminded why I haven't been watching. The match was... fine, I guess? Crazy bump from Shane off the top of the cage. Think the feud as a whole has weakened Strowman. 

Bunny/Priest Vs Miz/Morrison... first thing's first, even though I have no idea who he is, Bad Bunny did a good job as a celebrity wrestler. Not sure Damien Priest has gained anything from this feud in all honesty. Miz & Morrison are turn the channel bad for me. The match was OK. Nothing more to say.

Banks/Belair was a fantastic match and well worthy of being the main event. Sasha's green-haired look was... interesting. Whilst I do like Belair and she's off to a good start, she needs to evolve from the happy-to-be-there, bubbly, smiling, clean cut babyface ASAP. That kind of gimmick dies a very quick death these days. She's kept her momentum going up until now, but it's time to switch gears now and establish a proper character. 

Night Two

I think I've already established I fucking hate the stupid Fiend/Orton bullshit. This was more of the same. I don't care about any of this and find it silly beyond being able to enjoy any part of it. Also the same Fiend who is well known for kicking out of a thousand finishers and all kinds of punishment gets dropped and pinned by one RKO? Sure. I don't know if the end means Alexa is possessed by Sister Abigail or whatever... but shit like this is a big part of the reason I stopped watching Raw. Obviously the show being insanely boring was a fairly significant factor also.

Nia Jax/Shana Baszler Vs Tamina/Natalya - poor Shana. What have they done to her? The match wasn't terrible or anything, but 15 minutes? Come on. 

Owens Vs Zayn - I'm so out of the loop regarding WWE that I had no idea this match was even on the card. Would have been a dream WM match a few years ago. I guess it still kind of is, but WWE have WWE'd Sami Zayn, so... not so much now as it would have been back then. From the video package this actually does look like one of the better feuds that's been built up, albeit there isn't much competition. Zayn's conspiracy theory gimmick seems quite well done, and Owens seems to have played the exasperated friend role well. Not sure why Logan Paul was required and don't think he added to the feud in any way (also didn't move the needle for Smackdown at all, because WWE's audience couldn't give any less of a shit about a YouTuber). Match itself was good, as you'd expect from these two. 

Somebody in WWE creative must fucking despise Riddle. Imagine being booked to be a totally obnoxious, oblivious idiot who is tolerated at best by everybody around him. Your character is basically that you're stoned out of your mind 24/7 and have no redeeming qualities. That's Matt Riddle on the main roster. It's sad because Riddle is actually good in the ring and the match wasn't bad. Good to see Sheamus still going strong, as there were rumours of him being forced to retire not too long ago.

Big E/Apollo Crews - I had forgotten Apollo is now doing a Nigerian royalty gimmick. Better than his previous gimmick of smiling a lot and doing a back flip splash in every match, at least. I don't even watch Raw very often and I remembered Babatunde/Dabba-Kato, so not sure why the commentators were acting like they'd never seen him before. Did they really think everyone would forget this massive dude that they hyped up pretty big on Raw Underground only a few months ago? And now I remember Raw Underground. Wow, what a stupid idea that was.

Asuka and Rhea Ripley had a decent match, but the match seems to have had barely any build, and Asuka always loses at WrestleMania, so... meh. It's cool to have two fresh NXT callups holding both the women's titles, anyway. 

Didn't need to see the Bella Twins on the show, that's for sure. I hate how they are eulogised these days by WWE and fans who grew up watching them. Brie is one of the worst women's wrestlers in the company's history, and Nikki wasn't much better. Brie was also an awful promo - Nikki got better over time. Of the two Nikki was definitely much better, but neither are anywhere close to the level of the women that came after them. 

Reigns/Edge/Bryan was a very strong main event, as you'd expect. Thank god Roman was finally turned heel - the role fits him like a glove. Interesting to have WM ending with a heel victorious. The only thing I didn't like about the match was Uso interfering at the end. It made sense at the start, but Uso playing so heavily into the finish just made it feel less like a WrestleMania main event.

Overall - two nights is too long, WWE still seems quite boring to me, and WM hasn't convinced me to start watching it again. If anything it's made it even less likely. AEW has plenty of flaws but WM made me realise how grateful I should be for a genuine, big name alternative. It's little wonder wrestling viewership has dropped massively over the past 15 years with WWE putting out a product that's become consistently less interesting over time and no viable competition for anybody to turn to.  

[DE.]

Wow, 1.2m audience for the first unopposed Dynamite! I genuinely thought it'd shift to 900k at best. Amazing figure. 

NXT got 805k for their Tuesday show which is also up from where they have been lately. Looks like this move will work out well for both companies. 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, DE. said:

Wow, 1.2m audience for the first unopposed Dynamite! I genuinely thought it'd shift to 900k at best. Amazing figure. 

NXT got 805k for their Tuesday show which is also up from where they have been lately. Looks like this move will work out well for both companies. 

Don't know why they didn't do this ages ago. There's nothing to be profited from a copy 'war' from years gone by. Operating on the same night was always silly for both companies

[DE.]

Just Vince being Vince. He's always tried to snuff competition out before they even get going, whether that's by signing up talent or pivoting shows in certain TV slots.

He wanted to hurt AEW and cut their momentum by eating into some of their audience - and it's clear that to some degree this worked. In the end though all it did was hurt both companies, and particularly NXT. 

Maybe he's finally realised AEW isn't a threat to WWE. I mean, he just let Jericho onto Stone Cold's Broken Skull Sessions, where he specifically discussed AEW multiple times. Very unusual behaviour for Vince. 

Can't believe WWE have cut Samoa Joe. I know he's had a lot of injuries, but they dropped the ball with him even when he was active. Hope he goes to NJPW or AEW and reminds everyone just how good he is.  

[Blue blood]

Good preview @DE. A lot of that mirrors my own Wrestlemania thoughts. 

I think I'm not opposed to a 2 night WM. I think it worked for the NXT Takeover and if the the quality is there it allows more matches and stars on the card. For example at a Takeover you can only really have 4-6 matches whereas you may well have potential for more quality matches and stars. The idea isn't flawed - it's the execution imo. 

Speaking of execution I agree with most of your ratings. One of the things that irritated me most was the Fiend stuff was killing the character again - even when they have wiggle room WWE snuff it out. 

A few areas where I differed slightly - the lack of strong storylines lessened some of the best wrestling for me. For example the silly storyline for Zayne and Owens - the match was great but imagine if it had a bitterness stemming from their NXT days rather than a YouTube star and conspiracy? Or if either of the women's title matches had been built up better? I really enjoyed both btw - and thought both marches were great. Big E and Apolo should have got longer. 

I think having both Lashley and Reigns win was a mistake, especially the latter needing Uso so much to help. but if that makes him unbeatable I can stomach it, and Reigns is doing well in that role so am fine with him crushing the dreams of Bryan and Edge IF there is a good payoff later on when he finally loses it. The triple threat match itself I thought was the best match on the card. 

I will confess I quite liked the women's tag title match until the finish in spite of myself. It was stupidly obvious Jax wasn't legal which detracted from a match where they won me over. And that sums up to me my issues with WM and WWE in general. Every little hinders. Even with stuff that is good, they make decisions that lessen the impact of it. If the women's title matches had more story, if Zayne Owens had a less comedic edge, if the women's tag title match hadn't had a sloppy finish, if Big E and Apolo got a bit longer - we would be talking about a very good mania. Sure a few bits need to be canned (The Fiend) but overall they weren't far off and minor changes would have made a huge difference. 

One final thing - the use of NXT stars is horrific in too many cases. You mention Riddle and that is absolutely the case. He is a good wrestler and has succeeded in NXT both with a serious and more comedic bent. He could be used so much better. There are so many others too who haven't been used properly. My biggest frustration being Ricochet who can do amazing stuff and is pretty unique in that regard. A good wrestler who is criminally underutilized. WWE shouldn't ever struggle because there is so much fresh quality coming out of NXT that if used properly keeps the standards high and a freshness to the product that is needed. Yet they waste one of their best assets. 

 

[Bigdoggsteel]

On 16/04/2021 at 12:39, DE. said:

Just Vince being Vince. He's always tried to snuff competition out before they even get going, whether that's by signing up talent or pivoting shows in certain TV slots.

He wanted to hurt AEW and cut their momentum by eating into some of their audience - and it's clear that to some degree this worked. In the end though all it did was hurt both companies, and particularly NXT. 

Maybe he's finally realised AEW isn't a threat to WWE. I mean, he just let Jericho onto Stone Cold's Broken Skull Sessions, where he specifically discussed AEW multiple times. Very unusual behaviour for Vince. 

Can't believe WWE have cut Samoa Joe. I know he's had a lot of injuries, but they dropped the ball with him even when he was active. Hope he goes to NJPW or AEW and reminds everyone just how good he is.  

You would have to think Joe's finished in ring? 

[DE.]

11 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

You would have to think Joe's finished in ring? 

Depends - wouldn't surprise me if Joe wanted to continue wrestling but WWE just wanted him to do commentary going forward. Not too dissimilar to the Macho Man situation back in the 90s. I guess we'll have to see where Joe lands and what his next role is.

On 18/04/2021 at 10:16, Blue blood said:

One final thing - the use of NXT stars is horrific in too many cases. You mention Riddle and that is absolutely the case. He is a good wrestler and has succeeded in NXT both with a serious and more comedic bent. He could be used so much better. There are so many others too who haven't been used properly. My biggest frustration being Ricochet who can do amazing stuff and is pretty unique in that regard. A good wrestler who is criminally underutilized. WWE shouldn't ever struggle because there is so much fresh quality coming out of NXT that if used properly keeps the standards high and a freshness to the product that is needed. Yet they waste one of their best assets. 

Generally speaking yeah, NXT stars tend to be heavily misused on the main roster. Vince doesn't seem to get what makes these wrestlers work in NXT and either waters down or flat out changes a character to suit his increasingly questionable personal taste.

In regards to Ricochet, his biggest issue is his mic work. He's just not a good talker - combine that with not being a big, beefy dude and you're 0/2 as far as Vince is concerned. 

[Bigdoggsteel]

3 hours ago, DE. said:

Depends - wouldn't surprise me if Joe wanted to continue wrestling but WWE just wanted him to do commentary going forward. Not too dissimilar to the Macho Man situation back in the 90s. I guess we'll have to see where Joe lands and what his next role is.

Generally speaking yeah, NXT stars tend to be heavily misused on the main roster. Vince doesn't seem to get what makes these wrestlers work in NXT and either waters down or flat out changes a character to suit his increasingly questionable personal taste.

In regards to Ricochet, his biggest issue is his mic work. He's just not a good talker - combine that with not being a big, beefy dude and you're 0/2 as far as Vince is concerned. 

It's mad Joe only won the TNA world title once. Watched some stuff on YouTube, he really had an up and down time there. His feud with Angle was as good as you will get anywhere. 

[DE.]

From memory Joe had some weight issues in TNA which were part of the problem. Dude was pretty huge at one point, and not 'intimidating' huge, just straight up out of shape.

He was a beast in the mid-to-late 2000s though. I remember watching a match between him and AJ Styles back in 2005 and just being like WTF. Not only was it an awesome match, but Joe's offence looked way more brutal and real than anything I'd seen up until that point. Turns out that's basically because Joe was being stiff as fuck, but nonetheless. 

I think it may have been this match... those kicks at the 05:05 mark ffs 😂 it gets pretty brutal from that point onwards for poor AJ tbh. 

As Joe's TNA run went on he got fatter and more demotivated unfortunately - can't blame him for the latter, as especially towards the end they just put him in stupid angles like "the nation of violence" where he was going around holding knives to people's throats.

[Bigdoggsteel]

15 minutes ago, DE. said:

From memory Joe had some weight issues in TNA which were part of the problem. Dude was pretty huge at one point, and not 'intimidating' huge, just straight up out of shape.

He was a beast in the mid-to-late 2000s though. I remember watching a match between him and AJ Styles back in 2005 and just being like WTF. Not only was it an awesome match, but Joe's offence looked way more brutal and real than anything I'd seen up until that point. Turns out that's basically because Joe was being stiff as fuck, but nonetheless. 

I think it may have been this match... those kicks at the 05:05 mark ffs 😂 it gets pretty brutal from that point onwards for poor AJ tbh. 

As Joe's TNA run went on he got fatter and more demotivated unfortunately - can't blame him for the latter, as especially towards the end they just put him in stupid angles like "the nation of violence" where he was going around holding knives to people's throats.

Stiff is the word 🤣🤣🤣

[DE.]

Joe's old matches are a thing of beauty. He actually faced off against Jushin Liger in 2005 as well.

Not a great match necessarily, but I do give TNA props for having an authentic Japanese style entrance for Liger, including his OG theme song.

Since I'm posting Joe matches I'd be remiss not to include the three-way between Joe/Styles/Daniels at Unbreakable. Probably the best match TNA ever put on.

Also gotta throw in Joe's shoot promo after Scott Hall no-showed a PPV. 

 

[TheRoversReturn]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before in this thread (it's quite long at 52 pages) and I'm no longer a wrasslin' fan but back in 90s Monday Night war times I was. Anyway, I highly recommend "The Death of WCW" book. I got the Audible and I have to say...it was hilarious at times, especially toward the end when it related all the comically bad decisions leading to the demise of WCW (the highlight has to be the super shit Vampire Blood "storyline") and there's also some interesting takes on kayfabe including, of course, the Montreal Screwjob. Anyway, it has to be one of the funniest books I've experienced recently in any genre and it also seems a different world...remember how huge the NWO were for like...two minutes? Lol...strange as it seems, but WWF (or was it WWE by then?) was VERY VERY worried for some time.

Good docu on the same lines here - WWE The Rise & Fall Of WCW

Edited May 12, 2021 by TheRoversReturn

[DE.]

I bought the original Death of WCW book something like 15 years ago, then got the updated version on kindle somewhat recently. It's definitely a great read and very funny. If you've ever listened to Bryan Alvarez on Observer radio, the writing style is very familiar. I actually think he narrates the audiobook, if I remember correctly.

There's a more factual book about WCW called "NITRO: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW" by Guy Evans which is also really, really good. Goes into depth interviewing various people involved with WCW at the time, including Turner execs and television people. 

As for the nWo, still popular to this day actually. I went to LA in 2013 and wore an nWo shirt to a theme park there... fair to say a lot of people still have fond memories of those times! I was kind of shocked by the amount of attention the shirt got. 

 

[Dreyski]

New Jack dies aged 58.

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1393398616765702145

Somewhere in the beyond, Mass Transit is shitting himself.
RIP you crazy, nasty bastard.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Dreyski

[DE.]

His Dark Side of the Ring episode is definitely worth a watch. 

[Dreyski]

Nice to see Mae Young's child still getting work: