Al

I think the biggest issue wrestling faces is the exodus of name stars. Within the last five years, Hulk Hogan, Bill Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Steve Austin, The Rock, Sting, Mick Foley, Dallas Page, and others have ceased wrestling full time. You can blame the lack of quality booking for the failure to create new stars, but I cannot recall another time when so many top wrestlers departed the industry at the same time. You simply cannot create many new stars so quickly. The departure of WCW hurt most in the regard. The Monday Night Wars made the top stars independantly wealthy. When the bubble burst, salaries plummeted, and since the top guys did not need the money, they felt no need to stick around. The lack of wrestling competition has hurt in that there is little wrestling activity outside of WWE. TV shows are one thing, but the only local wrestling one can see comes from rare WWE shows or small time Indies, unless you live in Philadelphia. The lack of live wrestling shows hurts fan interest. There is a silver lining, I think. The Attitude era created a boom in wrestling popularity, and yesterday's viewers could become tomorrow's superstars. There are likely some guys working their way through wrestling schools and small-time indies, and a few of them could become big time stars some day.

It's one thing with Stacy and Torrie, but when you have these nameless Diva Search candidates, it is a waste of time.

I think the HOF is more of a good-time gathering than any real ward. But "Cowboy" Bob Orton was a good wrestler, so its all good.

They ran a WWF/All Japan show in 1990, so its certainly not unheard of. Running overseas shows is a good way to keep up business when U.S. business is down.