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The State of Wrestling

Most people would tell you that wrestling is in the biggest boom it's experienced since the mid-eighties. I, however, think that wrestling could be falling into the same recession that it experienced from around 1992 to 1995, the years widely considered to be among the worst for both Federations.

WWF is getting record buyrates with nearly every PPV, and record ratings seemingly every week on RAW, along with incredible merchandise sales and above-average ratings for Heat. They've expanded the WWF TV empire with another weekly TV show, and have upgraded the 7 In Your House pay per views to more marketable "name" PPVs like the Rumble and Wrestlemania. They've begun to put more wrestlers on TV shows and talk shows as exposure to the general market. Vince McMahon has put around 20% of the WWF's ownership (the real ownership) up for grabs with an IPO. The WWF sells out most, if not all, of its house shows, TV tapings, and pay per views. WCW isn't doing quite as well, but it's weekly shows are still among the top 10 rated cable shows, and they have maintained a rather large fanbase, despite the declining quality of the product that they deliver. The third company of the big three has finally broken into the national level of promotion with a deal with TNN. Wrestling, as a whole, is arguably bigger now than it ever has been, the only possible exception being the Hulk Hogan Rock'n'Wrestling connection of the mid-to-late eighties.

However, wrestling is becoming overexposed. The saturation of the market is going to be the downfall of the current boom that it's in right now, just like it was in the 80's. Wrestling is overexposed. There are 5 hours of WWF programming on TV each week, not even counting the weekend recap shows. WCW has over 7 hours, counting Worldwide. WWF will be expanding to 7 hours as well, once Smackdown debuts on UPN. Also, wrestling is in the news time and time again. Sable was a big news item during her brief lawsuit against the WWF. Owen Hart's death put WWF on the front page of some papers. Jesse Ventura is going to be at Summerslam, and the clips from the "press conference" were aired on local news stations. WWF is scheduling the release of 2 CDs, and WCW is working on at least that number. Cross-promotional deals are giving wrestling even more exposure- WCW has hired on Kiss, Dennis Rodman, and Master P recently, and WWF has had Motley Crue, Insane Clown Posse, and Mike Tyson in their employ. It seems that no matter where you turn, you read about wrestling- even if you're just a casual observer. This helps them get new fans to check out their product, but if you are already a fan it gets to be too much. That's where the problem comes in.

This is the problem in a quick summary, but each federation has it's own individual problems.

WWF

The WWF is easily the biggest wrestling company that the United States has ever seen. Vince McMahon single-handedly brought wrestling into the mainstream entertainment world with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T back in 1985, and then brought it back again in 1998 with Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, and Mike Tyson.

The problem with the WWF right now is that it hasn't really changed since March of 1998 when Austin won the WWF title. Since March '98, Vince decided that he wanted the title off Austin, and succeeded. Of course, Austin prevailed again, and won the title. and so the story went until July '99 when Austin finally won a match that got Vince out of WWF forever. Or so the story goes.

Austin remains the lead man for WWF because his merchandise sells like hotcakes, seeing him walking on the TitanTron can get an entire arena to pop, and above everything else, it's what the people want. That sounds good, but how long will the people continue to want it? The Rock is starting to get bigger pops than Austin is, and a good portion of that is simply because the Rock is something fresh, at least compared to Austin.

WWF's change to sports entertainment has been the thing that brought it back into the mainstream entertainment industry. It's also the thing that will eventually alienate the fans that want real wrestling. The average RAW has around half an hour of wrestling, which pleases the fans, but really gets old. RAW today seems to be built around the MTV theory of a commercial every 5 minutes and constant bright flashy lights. This is great for the 'mainstream' fan, but what about the true fan? What about Raven?

When society in general gets tired of watching RAW, Vince is going to be faced with a choice: bring back the wrestling of old, or keep up the dream of sports entertainment. Odds are, seeing as history repeats itself, he will keep up the dream as long as he can, but once he realizes it's going to fail, he'll end up going back to quality wrestling. It's what happened during the 1992-1995 period- he tried to keep up what worked in the 80's, and no one cared. When he put on quality wrestling, the fans began to come back. As he figured out what fans of the 90's wanted, and put it on TV, the fans came in huge numbers.

What Vince needs to do is predict what his viewers and fans want before they want it, not adjust to what they want after they decide they want it. Also, Vince is doing a pretty good job now of telling fans what they want to see, but that won't keep up forever. Eventually all the sheep that call Vince "asshole" every week and love Austin because he's the "toughest SOB" are going to wise up eventually. Sure, it'll take them about a year longer than the Internet fans, but look at what happened to WCW. around mid 1997, Internet fans got sick of the whole New World Order angle, and it finally died around early 1998 when everyone else got sick of it.

I think this is the beginning of another Internet revolution. You can feel free to quote me on this- I think that WWF's ratings and popularity will begin to decline around the turn of the century, and by 2001 WWF will be in the position that WCW is in now- they still make money, but they can't sell out 45,000 capacity arenas anymore.

The only way to prevent this eventual downfall is for Vince McMahon to throw out a change-up to the fans and switch things up. The time has come for Austin to turn heel, and allow The Rock, The Big Show, or Mick Foley to spend some time in the face limelight. This is the ideal time to do it, too, because without Vince and the Corporate Ministry there's no major heel to draw all the heat. I think that a well-written angle where Austin joins McMahon could get Austin some solid heat, and get Vince back into the WWF. After all, Austin's lawyer's saw the contract, but Austin's fans sure as hell didn't. Sounds far-fetched, but no one saw Shane turning heel back at Survivor Series '98, did they?

The other thing that the WWF needs to do to hold on to a strong audience once the trend dies down is to put more quality wrestling on TV. The August 3rd RAW had some really good matches (example: Edge and Gangrel, which went for around 7-8 minutes). With Jericho and the Dudleys coming into the WWF, there is lots of potential for excellent ring action. WWF needs to deliver a few more quality matches on RAW each week, because the fans can be taught to enjoy a long match. Sometimes you'll get a "boring" chant, maybe even lose a few viewers to Nitro, but most of the fans will stick with it and begin to like it after a bit. After all, it's why a good number of fans watch wrestling- the pay per view buyrates show that people enjoy the wrestling too.

WWF has a lot going for them, and with some good business sense and some excellent booking they can keep themselves popular for at least another 2 or 3 years. However, if they continue the track that they're on right now, I don't think they'll hold 5.0+ ratings through Wrestlemania 16.

WCW

WCW has been in a downward spiral ever since Hogan, Nash, and Hall formed the New World Order. The angle was an excellent idea for it's time, but WCW did exactly what the WWF is beginning to do with Austin/McMahon- they ran it straight into the ground. The black and white express is a sad parody of what it used to be, and only Hogan and Nash still wear the t-shirts, and not even Nash uses the catchphrases.

WCW seems to think that by hiring celebrities and re-designing all their sets, they can bring back an instant ratings fix. The thing that Bischoff and friends needs to realize is that there is no instant fix. Becoming #1 in the ratings takes time. The entire Hogan fiasco was close to an "instant fix", but WCW didn't win over all of WWF's fans the Nitro after that pay per view- it took time, and an excellent storyline. WWF didn't beat Nitro in the ratings by putting pay per view quality matches ending in screwjobs on RAW week after week. It takes time.

The other thing that WCW doesn't have that is required to get the ratings boost that they need is morale. None of their wrestlers really love to come to work each day, and all of them are as lazy as they possibly can be. Hogan defends the belt on pay per views, at the most, while Austin manages to defend it two or three times a week on house shows! It's obvious that the higher work ethic in the WWF is one of the major things that draws people to the product. Another big draw to the WWF is that you never know who will lose. The big stars are willing to do the J. O. B. because they don't have a choice. Vince and Jim Ross don't allow big egos to get in the way of the company, because the company is far more important than the sum of it's parts. WCW's wrestlers don't realize this, and that's why everyone but Sting, Flair, and DDP refuse to job to anyone in WCW. Of course, those three manage to get jobbed out simply because they're the only people that will.

WCW is far from actually losing money, and they can turn things around in three easy steps. First off, they need to get a competent business head. I don't know much about the inside workings of Turner's company, but I have a feeling that Bischoff is a yes-man for Turner's eccentric wishes, and thus WCW gets run into the ground. Second off, they need to get a much better booking team. Dusty Rhodes cannot book, for proof, see WCW circa 1993. A wrestler cannot book his own storylines, see the title reigns of Nash during his primary booking time, as well as Hogan's dominance of the WCW title the entire time he was healthy. If they get people like Jimmy Hart and Terry Taylor (who of course they no longer can get) booking their stories they may be able to turn things around. It's obvious that Rhodes' idea of a good story is flat out retarded (see Cheatum the Evil Midget). Finally, they need to find a way to convince all their stars to do the big JOB and quit putting all the old guys over the young guys. Even Sting should be getting a title before Hogan or Savage.

ECW

Like I said before, out of all of the big 3, ECW may be the one with the brightest future. Vince seems to be ready and willing to repeat the future, and I really don't think that WCW stands a chance in hell of coming back until Austin, Undertaker, HHH, and Mankind are ready to work 1 day a week for 5 times the money- and .5 times the push. ECW has hard workers, a solid fanbase, and finally, a nation-wide audience. ECW is set to really break through to be the big 3rd that they never have been before- and maybe even the big 2nd after WWF, the way things in WCW are going.

I don't really know much about ECW since their syndicated show has never been available in my area, but I did buy one of their PPV's once and I was impressed by, if nothing else, the quality of the wrestling. From what I understand, ECW has existed thus far as the AAA farm team of the big two, with small indy feds being the single A teams. I think that with the national TV deal and a few new names in the fed, they can easily be known as more than just the minor leagues of wrestling.

ECW will have to make some changes before they can be over in the mainstream market. They're a bit 'hardcore' now for the average Joe's tastes, in both the language and in the wrestling. But with a few minor changes they can get the same point across with much less profanity and probably a little less violence (like the choke-out with barbed wire, that's a tad bit on the extreme side..)

The Final Thought

There's a lot looking up in the future of wrestling, but it's also pretty easy to watch RAW, then watch a tape of Nitro, and end up really depressed. RAW seems to recycle the same material week in and week out, and Nitro manages to come up with something new each week- and it's stupider every time. I don't get ECW here, so I can't comment on their show, but hopefully that will change soon.

It's possible that the debut of ECW on a national scale will also encourage WWF and WCW to try just a little bit harder, since they have a 3rd to compete with. ECW only has an hour slot on Fridays (I think) but it's still something to attract viewers and within a few years it could become part of the Monday night wars. You never know.

Hopefully someone important at Titan will read this, and maybe even someone in Atlanta, and realize that there are a few good points in here. Both feds need to mix it up a little. Hopefully the arrival of the 3rd fed will make them realize that.

Fett9025
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Guest column text copyright (C) 1999 by the individual author and used with permission