joeg

Dude... you invalidated anything you were going say when you opened up by making it political in a place where political discussion is discouraged. Then you went all in with duce seven off suit by claiming that Pedro wasn't the top guy. And you keep going. Just stop. Stop. If this debate were in a bar, it would have ended hours ago with me walking away and you continuing to follow me around until the bartender cut you off and the bouncer tossed you out. Please stop.

@blueminister You show up here once every year or two, say something ridiculous, start a fight, then disappear. Now please disappear.

If they do run Cody vs Shaq in a singles on PPV or Big Show vs Shaq on a PPV and don't mess things up (its AEW anything good or bad is possible) That would be the sort of event I could see drawing some eyeballs from outside the core audience. But its the freakshow audience that tunes in to see Logan Paul box Floyd Mayweather. They aren't real wrestling fans, they are just there for one event, its keeping them for the next one that will be a challenge.

Bingo. I know A LOT of lapsed fans and a lot of people who like the live experience but find what's on TV now a chore. For one reason or another they all stopped watching in the last 20 years. They came back during Daniel Bryan's run. Then gave up on it again. They gave AEW a chance and gave up on it again. They will go to an indie show now and again or maybe a WWE house show if the ticket price is low enough. But as long as wrestling continues to be what it is, I'm going to keep hearing things like "well my kids just aren't into it the way we were as kids" or "I haven't been into it since the Rock, Stone Cold, and Booker T left" or "I'll check out the Rumble and Wrestlemania but that's about it"

No. Because you are wrong. The numbers are the numbers. That is a fact. The audience is what it is. Thats a fact. My opinion of how they got there is that wrestling as a whole (WWE, TNA, AEW) hasn't even tried to appeal beyond their core audience. My evidence is that the last African Americans to be top guys were the Rock and Booker T in the late 90s. The last good looking young babyface on top was HBK maybe? Wrestling haven't had a top guy under 30 since Orton and Cena were first pushed. There hasn't been a person of Hispanic heritage successfully pushed on top since Rey Jr in 2006, and even that was a half hearted effort. The last guy who might appeal to a younger, wider audience was Daniel Bryan and he got the rub like 8 years ago. I've laid it all out here and in other threads about similar topics. Its nearly 20 years industry wide of not giving a fuck. First you throw some political attack. Then you argue that the audience hasn't gotten older. That it isn't gotten whiter or more male. All of which it has. That can't be disputed. Then as your evidence you say Pedro wasn't the top guy. Or that Mascaras wasn't a draw in Texas. Then you use acts that never got over for various reason as WWE's attempts to appeal to a wider audience.... get the fuck outta here with that weak shit.

If the way WWE has pushed Mustafa Ali, the New Day, Bobby Lashley, Jinder Mahal, Del Rio, and Roman Reigns are the examples given of trying to appeal to as a wider an audience over the last decade no wonder wrestling as a whole is where it is. Half of those guys absolutely suck and were never capable of drawing a dime. The other half WWE hamstringed with lazy booking and bad promotion. I think you made my point for me better than I could have.

ESPN is also facing the same problem in terms of an aging fanbase. I'd argue that young people don't consume their online sports content from ESPN. Barstool, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, SLAM, Maxpreps, The Athletic, Sirius XM, etc. all do a better job producing online content that would appeal to a younger audience than ESPN.

Ok... so a 3 year title reign that did better attendance numbers at MSG than ANYONE EVER not just in wrestling. But better than anybody else in boxing, basketball, music, etc until MSG was remodelled in 89.... that's not a top guy? Get the fuck out of here. TV demos say it all. The average age of somebody tuning into watch wrestling now is 45 plus. They are almost all men. They are mostly white. Anecdotal evidence like when the camera gets a shot of the crowd at a live event confirms this. It is what it is. You can't say any different. That wasn't the case 25 years ago when wrestling had 4 to 10 times the viewership. Numbers are numbers and facts are facts. I love debating the hows and the whys of the way things are with people who had a different viewpoint or opinion than I do. I often find it informative and enlightening. However I can't argue with a guy who disputes simple facts. Facts like Pedro was a top draw in New York City in the early 70s or Mil Mascaras increased the gate in Texas market. Numbers are numbers. Case closed. Edit: I was wrong. Ali vs Frasier 1 drew more than Pedro. Elton John drew more then Pedro. Bill Joel drew more than Pedro. The Rolling Stones drew more than Pedro. Other than that nobody drew more at MSG from 68 to 89.

@blueministerLOL I don't know if you are trolling or what. Coming to a place called prowrestlingONLY and trying to make things political with the most apolitical person on the board. Its got nothing to do with progressive politics. It got everything to do with old school wrestling/boxing promotion philosophy i.e. Vince Sr, Bill Watts, Bob Arum. Its having Bruno and Pedro as the champions in New York. Its having JYD as your top babyface in New Orleans. Its bringing in Mil Mascaras to pop attendance for a spot show in Houston. Its Golden Boy scheduling a Canelo fight every Cinco De Mayo. Its Top Rank having Mickey Conlan fight at Madison Square Garden every St. Paddy's Day. Get the fuck out of here with that political bullshit. I look around and see a very monolithic fanbase that continues to dwindle in size while becoming more and more passionate. The fanbase 25 years ago was incredibly diverse, exponentially greater in quantity, and far less obsessive. My worry is that in another 25 years the DVDR/PWO types will be the only fans left, and 25 years after that there will be no fans as we will have all died off. They aren't drawing young people. They aren't drawing minorities. They aren't drawing women. This is a trend over the last 15 to 20 years. Is it because nobody in the Royal Rumble was under 35? Is it because nobody with a legit shot of winning the Rumble or the Elimination Chamber was a minority? Is it because none of them are a young good looking whitemeat babyface? When AEW only has skinny nerdy white guys in their 30s top and the the other wrestling show is mostly guys over 40, well then yeah no duh the industry's fan base is going to be exactly that. Its not progressivism its common sense. Its why Bill Watts tried so fucking hard to find the next JYD. Its why Vince Sr. changed Terry Boulder's name to Hulk Hogan to appeal to an Irish fanbase as they were running Boston Garden more often. This isn't rocket science. The biggest matches this year are probably Edge vs Roman Reigns and Omega vs Moxley in a deathmatch. That means nobody is even trying to expand their fanbase past the absolute diehards and appeal to a wider audience. To steal a cliche from politics since you made this political, its all about turning out the base instead of casting a wide net. Its been that way for a long time and that is the definition of leaving money on the table and its hurt the product in the US for a long time.

So your argument has changed from I'm wrong to they aren't actually doing anything to appeal to any audience at all? That I would agree with.

Bingo.... They aren't just fighting for TV ratings against the other wrestling company the way it was when I was growing up. You are fighting for attention with everything else on TV. Everything else available on every single streaming service. AND everything available on the internet. They got to do better than a Bad Bunny cameo.

The thing I love about this board is that if you say something you're expected to back it up with evidence... I've laid out my evidence in other threads. To summarize- there hasn't been a minority pushed as a legit top guy on US TV since The Rock and Booker T. That's true. And it has been a long time since there was a handsome, young, whitemeat babyface in a top spot to appeal to a female audience. Also true. Because of this every company that has had a major TV deal in the last 20 years has left money on the table. Provide your counter argument.

Bingo. Well said. He was in his mid 40s and a shell of who he was a decade prior. Despite this he regularly made guys 20 years younger than him look physically inferior or equal when working them. Jumbo tapped out to a crossface! At no point did Misawa work a match like he was physically less than or weaker than his younger counter parts. To me its not even that Misawa was selfish in his booking or how he worked as he got older, he was just short sighted. At some point he would need somebody to replace he and Kobashi, you can't wrestle forever, and he never prepared for that.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Jungle Boy, MJF, Adam Page, Marq Quen, Darby Allen.... all young and talented. All could appeal to a younger fan base. All are greener than goose shit. The closest to being ready for that top spot is Page and they've misused him from day one.

I never bought into that. Misawa had some authority of the booking as early as 1996 when he pushed out Baba's wife. He had complete control over the booking when Baba's health faded in 1999 and Jumbo left. Then in NOAH he owned the company, was its promoter and lead booker. At no point did he get Akiyama over. At no point did he even try to get Omori over. At no point did he try to get Taiyo Kea over (then Mossman). Same with Riko. Same with Morishima. Same with Shiozaki. Takayama only got over because of the Don Frye fight in Pride, had he stuck with Misawa in NOAH and not gone freelance he would have ended up just like Omori or Kea. There are just too many talented guys during his time having control over booking and/or promoting who's careers never reached their full potential. Either they all had incredibly bad luck or the booking that never allowed them any higher than that #2 spot while keeping Misawa on top was intentional.

But like that's what they were already lol

This made me soooooo happy, but I thought Fukasaku was more inspired by French New Wave.... I don't see how Choshu is anything like Gilbert Cesca

As much as I expected this, I still wonder how does Marty Scurll have a job? He admitted to sleeping with somebody half his age. Publicly. On tape. And he's been on Buddy Rose's diet plan lately. And he's not very good. And his gimmick is stupid. Are drunken one night stands with teenagers culturally acceptable in Japan? It's the only way this makes any sort of sense.

Yeah I've talked about it else where on the board. The wrestling business has done very little in the last 20 years to appeal to young people, women or people of color. And that's why the fanbase is what it is, a bunch of late 20s to mid 40 something straight white dudes with beer guts and neckbeards who grew up in the 80s and 90s and have stayed around. I hoped AEW would try to reach out to a wider audience but they seem to just be doubling down on giving the die hard internet fans (i.e. us) what we want instead of reaching a wider, younger audience. Last week I was watching an interview with Christopher Jackson (the guy who played George Washington in Hamilton) and he talked about how important it is for young people to be able to identify with and relate to those they see in the arts. There is no top guy right now in wrestling that is relatable to kids. Nobody who speaks their language, looks like them, dresses like them, etc. AEW's top guys are only relatable to skinny white guys in their 30s who are obsessed with wrestling. I think Eddie Kingston is relatable to teenagers but he's not a top guy really. I knew a lot of Eddie Kingstons growing up, and still do. Haven't seen any of them since COVID as I haven't been going out much let alone to the sort of bars that sell $3 dollar boiler makers. WWE doesn't have top guys and if they did none of them would be relatable to anybody. I think Matt Riddle could be relatable to teenagers. Every high school and every frat house has that lovable dumb jock who is all about partying hard and getting high. But WWE has managed to mess that up by making him a caricature of Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventures. I make a living teaching in a title one middle school, coaching sports at a high school, and have run after school programs in some rougher parts of town. Because of that I like to think I'm more in touch with youth culture than your average 35 year old, that I'm more "woke" than most. And I can tell you very few of the kids I work with watch wrestling. And the few that do watch are more likely to follow AAA or CMLL on twitch and youtube than they are to watch WWE. Lucha is what their parents grew up watching, its part of the cultural heritage in a way, the wrestlers look like them and are from where they are from, and kids are far more likely to be on twitch and youtube anyways. So lucha is more relatable and accessible to these kids (at least in the community I work in) than WWE despite WWE's dominance of the market place.

WWE has some sort of ties with Progress in London, WXW in Germany, Evolve in the US, and ICW in Scotland. All of those indies have had their shows during the pandemic end up on the network. Doesn't AEW some sort of working relationships with a lot of the stronger regional indies? Places like Game Changer Wrestling, PWG, House of Hardcore, etc.... all of their underneath talent still was working those places regularly, especially prior to the pandemic. Some of their top guys do to, just this weekend Moxley worked GCW. MLW has a working relationship with The Crash in Tijauna, if the Crash is still in business, they haven't ran a show in a year. ROH has a working relationship with Maryland Championship Wrestling as does Evolve. Big Japan had a long working relationship with WXW before the pandemic. They also worked with GCW and DTU on garbage shows. And in Japan everybody other that New Japan seems to be using guys from every other company because nobody has enough depth on their roster to fill out a whole show.

Hey question... what's the Village Green Preservation Society

LOL agreed rookie year Detroit championship run Darko was way more over than Matt Morgan ever was...

LOL... there really isn't any overlap between sports and wrestling fans is there... Darko was the 2nd pick in the NBA draft in 2003... At the time he was the youngest player ever in the NBA. He was 17 years old, 7'1" could run like the wind had great hands, a nice jump shot, and picked in front of 4 future Hall of Famers. Despite being faster, younger, and taller than everybody else in that draft, Darko never really had a successful career. And every couple of years a different team in the NBA would sign Darko to a big contract with the belief that Darko's failures were the result of his previous team.... He never had a good season but he did manage to to get signed to several very lucrative contracts and have a long yet unsucessful career... a lot like Matt Morgan.

You totally didn't get the Darko Milicic reference did you

I think in 2007 you could look at Matt Morgan and chalk up him not working out in WWE to that being the WWE's fault. It's 2021 and I still don't understand how he never was able to draw money anywhere for anybody. He is charming and well spoken enough to be elected mayor of his hometown. He was athletic enough to have played D1 hoops and been an American Gladiator. He's 7 foot tall and 300 plus pounds. And he's good looking. I'll never understand how the guy didn't have a more successful career. Matt Morgan is like the Darko Milicic of pro wrestling.