How can wrestling appeal to educated people with money?

[Loss]

Let's give this a shot. If your answer is "it can't", don't bother posting in the thread. Realistically, are there changes in wrestling's presentation that could happen that would result in upper middle class college graduates watching in greater numbers? If so, what are they?

[tim]

Less overwritten cheesy stuff like the Wyatt/Cena feud (much, much less). More simple and effective stuff like the Shield -- bring in charismatic guys who can go in the ring and give them simple but unique presentation. More emphasis on ring-work, move more towards a 1990s Japan style -- not in terms of wrestling style but in terms of presentation. Show it as a serious competition with legit-seeming wrestlers and build strongly to "big matches." No one has to believe it's real of course, they just have to be entertained while watching it and excited to see big match-ups. Maybe more self-consciously goofy stuff like Adam Rose but the writers need to know where the line is on that stuff.

 

Take the Women's Division (and for the love of god call it that rather than the Divas Division) more seriously. Give them more emphasis, real angles and bring in women who are good in the ring.

[Loss]

I think the biggest issue is that people who don't watch wrestling think people who do watch wrestling think it's real. How do you get the message across to advertisers and TV executives that wrestling fans are in on the secret?

[The Chief]

They need to get rid of the groan-inducing comedy. They can still have some comedy, but some of the stuff is beyond low-brow. You know the stuff you're embarrassed to be watching if someone else is in the room? They do that way too much.

Example, when Brock Lesnar came back a couple years ago, I had some lapsed fans watch with me. They enjoyed Cena and Lesnar beating the shit out of each other. Then, in the same show there's a segment where Hornswoggle is biting Vickie Guerrero's butt. They all said stuff like that is why they don't watch anymore. That's all it took, interest was killed dead. Honestly, who would find something like that funny besides hillbillies?

[anarchistxx]

Not sure this is possible, unless they get really cerebral and push boundaries with the writing, which won't happen because they have to push it to kids. Soaps don't appeal to these people either, and if they did they'd have to change the style so much they would no longer be soaps. A more 'pure sports' atmosphere might help, pushing the athletic side, and having major storylines with a lot more depth and complexity and better writing, with a bogger proportion of the show dedicated to storyline progression, with less matches and the matches they do have meaning more. If they run Batista vs Roman Reigns on SD it means a lot less as a PPV main event down the line. Shorten the show, wealthy people are busy and don't have the time to sit through three hours.

 

 

 

They need to get rid of the groan-inducing comedy.

 

This as well. Nobody in the world does comedy worse than WWE.

 

Agree on the cheesy characters and storylines as well, the likes of Bray Wyatt and the recent Kane stuff are pretty embarassing to grown adults who aren't stuck in the wrestling bubble.

[Death From Above]

If TV has proven anything during the history of itself, it's that quality of the show is utterly irrelevant in this sort of discussion. Quality of show has never shown any sort of direct connection to drawing an audience. Issue you're fighting against isn't "is the show any good" it's the stigma that pro wrestling is pro wrestling. The uncool factor it had during every era that wasn't the Monday Night Wars (and even then your audience was more high school and college kids than their parents). That's a hard barrier to break.

 

Then again there was a time the idea of a prime time network cartoon was considered impossible, before The Simpsons happened. So what would be wrestilng's Simpsons? I really can't think of what it would be offhand but it's interesting to consider.

 

Vince's idea about "sports entertainment" was to move away from the idea of calling wrestlers legit athletes because he realized in comparison to legit athletics he has nothing to sell. Figured he had a much better shot selling it like any other TV show. Would changing that help now? I don't know. And even if you want to change, I'm not sold on which direction (more towards "regular show" or more towards "sports") would be better.

 

I would never say never though. TV has thrown some weird curves in terms of trends. Did anyone ever see Dancing With the Stars coming? Hell's Kitchen? Is wrestling in any meaningful way worse than those in a contest of intelligence? Probably not.

[fxnj]

I don't know about right now but back in the 90's puro definitely had some appeal to the upper-class. One of my favorite things about the 90's AJPW big matches is that, if you look in the crowd, there's loads of well-dressed businessmen that you can easily imagine coming there to have some fun after a stressful day at work. It's like night-and-day with the families and hardcore fans usually drawn by American wrestling. Provided it goes with the proper level of promotion, I don't think it's that complicated to draw those people. Just copy boxing's model by going for a more straight-forward presentation built solely around the matches rather than using stupid gimmicks to get guys over. A more physical style also couldn't hurt matters. It doesn't help anybody to build matches around cheesy heel shenanigans and interferences that only lowest-common-denominator fans fall for. If I wanted shit like I'd just watch a soap opera. Brutality is wrestling's only universal language

 

On the subject of it being "real," I think we should analyze exactly what that word means. Under the terms cited of discounting wrestling as being real in how it's cooperative and predetermined, boxing wouldn't be that real either since you often do see showcase fights getting booked with judges that are often absurdly biased for the fighter promoters want to win. Floyd Mayweather even pretty much said after his recent fight with Maidana that he was trying to entertain the fans and that he could have made it a one-sided and boring fight if he wanted, so it's really no different from how you see wrestlers working together to have great matches. Yet the fans looked past all that and called it a great fight and there's big anticipation for a rematch. I definitely don't think the appeal of boxing is in its sportive aspect, otherwise you'd see more than marginal stateside interest for Wladimir Klitschiko fights. The appeal is in the excitement, which is in-turn derived from how well it simulates idealized reality. That is, fans watch boxing to see intense conflicts of guys taking brutal punishment and showing heart in fighting through it. The fans know in the back of their minds that the guys are sacrificing some "real" skill to please the fans and they don't care because they'd rather have an exciting simulation over the boring reality of true top-level boxing. When that mentality bleeds over into what's promoted by the network, the result is that the simulation supersedes the "real" and it's the simulation that's viewed as true boxing while the technical displays are seen as jokes.

 

Modern WWE fails to achieve the real effect seen in boxing. Instead of drawing from conceptions of an idealized real sporting event, it draws from fake Hollywood movies. It gets mocked as fake not because it's not real, but because it relies on goofy shit that don't even fit with anything people would expect from the real. That 90's AJPW I referenced, though, definitely was as real as boxing as you had the same levels of physicality and stupidity like blatant heel characters downplayed (but not eliminated) in a much better approach of guys simply molding their own characters and having fans cheer who they want. Only by becoming real in that way can wrestling reach its full storytelling potential and appeal to that upper-class crowd. I don't see that ever becoming widespread in American wrestling, though, simply because of how deeply ingrained those awful stereotypes are of what wrestling should be as something self-consciously fake, going back to the Hulkamania boom period.

 

tl;dr: wrestling should be real

[dawho5]

I would say that you need serious competition to Vince McMahon before that can happen. He's very clearly stuck in his own view of what wrestling "ought to be" and the only thing that will change that is less money coming through the door. Maybe if you did get a major promotion coming up on his heels that could financially compete for the more athletic/skilled wrestlers and made it more of a serious competition-style atmosphere without too much nonsense, Vince might start to come around. But when you're the only game in town you don't have to change in the wholesale manner that would be necessary for what you're talking about.

[Matt Farmer]

Haven't read all the responses but here it is. It used to, yes many years ago it use to appeal to everyone.

 

The problem is Vince and company have spent the last 30 years dumbing down their audience. They have also conditioned their audience to have a quick turnover rate.

 

Then you had the "Attitude Era", which was one of the worst era's for hotshotting and crash TV. Well during this era while they were pissing off advertisers with their only concern being to pop a big quarter hour. They forgot, those adverstisers have memories. The ones willing to spend big money for commercial time are pushed away by the company they were paying.

 

While Vince was busy entertaining himself with stupid gimmicks and yuk yuk along with necrophilia angles. Guys pulling hands out of vaginas of old women and hundreds of other fart jokes. People were watching, and so were the advertisers.

 

There are hundreds of examples of why. But all you have to do is watch an episode, it happens every week when I roll my eyes at what I'm watching and tell myself I'm not watching anymore.

[funkdoc]

i actually think stuff like bray wyatt would help a lot...if it were executed properly as an overall package. my parents saw the wyatts' entrance and thought that & their look was rad as heck, and the concept sounds cool on paper, but i know they would roll their eyes if they ever saw one of bray's promos. if you gave him a real motivation that has meaningful connections with the audience, he could absolutely appeal to people who watch shows like the walking dead...but given that this is WWE that ain't happening. we'll be stuck with acts that have some of the pieces of a great character but lack the cohesive whole.

 

really, a lot of the fundamental problems here boil down to the fact that WWE has never been able or willing to attract good writers. their best stuff is still "booked" rather than "written" if you will, and only hardcore audiences appreciate great booking. for example, the awful comedy segments are about the best repellent to "the normal human being" (tm Jim Ross) you could possibly come up with, which is a shame since a more comic tone could help if done well. i think nowadays people really want the spirit of unabashed goofy fun in their entertainment, while wrestling is still somewhat stuck in the 90s habit of taking itself waaaaayyyyy too seriously.

 

focusing on kids hurts a lot in this regard as well, along with the man they picked to do that job. i remember a few years ago, someone on deadspin(?) said something like "I always wondered why hipsters don't watch wrestling, it seems like such a natural fit. I mean, you get to NAME YOUR FINISHING MOVE, who wouldn't love that? Then I remembered that the face of the company is a shitty white rapper in jorts who makes farty poopy gay-bashing jokes, and it all makes sense." says a lot in a couple sentences, doesn't it?

 

furthermore, as i have discussed elsewhere on here before, the bodybuilding look is downright creepy to most people and doesn't suggest toughness at all. i laugh when i see meltzer say randy orton carries himself like a star - to me he carries himself like a guy TRYING to carry himself like a star, if that makes sense. guys like him & batista make me think of all the obnoxious bros with crappy tattoos and tapout shirts who would never win a real fight, and i am far from the only one who feels that way. MMA has shown millions of people that you don't need to be 250 pounds with six-pack abs to be a legitimate badass, so it's a shame that cooler heads haven't prevailed over the mcmahon fetishes yet.

 

i think more guys like punk & bryan are who you need to attract a different crowd. they look like relatable human beings and tend to act like relatable human beings (more than others in WWE, at least). being interesting on social media is a huge, huge plus in this day & age, which is why i still think big e could be a monster if he ever got to show that part of himself on TV...

 

there's also the lack of long-term planning on multiple fronts. the funkasaurus character had started catching on with friends of mine who would fit the description in this thread (remember what i said about the spirit of fun?), but they got bored with him doing the exact same squash match every week and weren't surprised to hear that he was turned into another random loser. summer of punk is a much more significant example, of course, and it makes it hard to stay invested.

 

the sheer amount of content is impossible to keep up with if you have a life, too, and makes it far too easy for viewers to get burned out. this has been a major problem ever since smackdown was added, and they have yet to learn. even if this superficially makes money, i suspect there would be more buzz around the WWE if they only had 1 "main" show and 1 "shorter, good, but not essential" show per week (raw & main event, basically). along similar lines, i think it could also do them well to have brief "offseason" periods. people talk about how WWE always sucks in may & the fall (post-WM and post-SS p. much) and their business dips then, so why not use those times to give everyone a much-needed break? part of what keeps interest high in pro sports is the fact that they're only on during part of the year...though WWE may need some sort of non-wrestling event a la the draft to keep the hardcore fans talking.

 

this was pretty all over the place and i apologize for that! just wanted to give the perspective of someone who's younger than most on this board and knows plenty of the people we're talking about here =)

[Stiva]

I don't think pro wrestling is something that appeals to solely uneducated people. I mean, you've just got to look at places like this for really insightful, intelligent discussion and you realise pretty quickly that this is something you can approach from a ton of different ways, incorporating a ton of cultural influences along the way. I think the point about awful comedy is important because, for better or worse, pro wrestling in North America and, to an extent, Europe/UK is WWE and, as much as their in-ring product can be brilliant, their general booking, presentation and writing is fairly embarrassing. Too many comedy characters and, indeed, too many serious characters played for laughs to fill up a 4 minute segment on Raw.

 

I think wrestling will always have the reputation it has but, for those who enjoy it on the level that we here do, there'll always be places to discuss it in depth. I look at it like any other fringe interest; it may not be a conversation starter among friends but if you look hard enough, you'll find a community that you can sink your teeth into. Obviously, WWE being a multi-million dollar "Entertainment" company means it's in the public eye more than others but we all know that there's a whole other world, or worlds, of wrestling out there to love.

[Bix]

I feel like the only real shot they have is by completely embracing the geek culture aspects of the business that have been creeping up for the last 15 years or so. You can point to that part of the fanbase as having disposable income and not being dullards who think it's a real competitive sport. It's not the solution, but it's a start and I can't think of any alternatives.

 

I don't know about right now but back in the 90's puro definitely had some appeal to the upper-class. One of my favorite things about the 90's AJPW big matches is that, if you look in the crowd, there's loads of well-dressed businessmen that you can easily imagine coming there to have some fun after a stressful day at work. It's like night-and-day with the families and hardcore fans usually drawn by American wrestling. Provided it goes with the proper level of promotion, I don't think it's that complicated to draw those people. Just copy boxing's model by going for a more straight-forward presentation built solely around the matches rather than using stupid gimmicks to get guys over. A more physical style also couldn't hurt matters. It doesn't help anybody to build matches around cheesy heel shenanigans and interferences that only lowest-common-denominator fans fall for. If I wanted shit like I'd just watch a soap opera. Brutality is wrestling's only universal language

 

On the subject of it being "real," I think we should analyze exactly what that word means. Under the terms cited of discounting wrestling as being real in how it's cooperative and predetermined, boxing wouldn't be that real either since you often do see showcase fights getting booked with judges that are often absurdly biased for the fighter promoters want to win. Floyd Mayweather even pretty much said after his recent fight with Maidana that he was trying to entertain the fans and that he could have made it a one-sided and boring fight if he wanted, so it's really no different from how you see wrestlers working together to have great matches. Yet the fans looked past all that and called it a great fight and there's big anticipation for a rematch. I definitely don't think the appeal of boxing is in its sportive aspect, otherwise you'd see more than marginal stateside interest for Wladimir Klitschiko fights. The appeal is in the excitement, which is in-turn derived from how well it simulates idealized reality. That is, fans watch boxing to see intense conflicts of guys taking brutal punishment and showing heart in fighting through it. The fans know in the back of their minds that the guys are sacrificing some "real" skill to please the fans and they don't care because they'd rather have an exciting simulation over the boring reality of true top-level boxing. When that mentality bleeds over into what's promoted by the network, the result is that the simulation supersedes the "real" and it's the simulation that's viewed as true boxing while the technical displays are seen as jokes.

 

Modern WWE fails to achieve the real effect seen in boxing. Instead of drawing from conceptions of an idealized real sporting event, it draws from fake Hollywood movies. It gets mocked as fake not because it's not real, but because it relies on goofy shit that don't even fit with anything people would expect from the real. That 90's AJPW I referenced, though, definitely was as real as boxing as you had the same levels of physicality and stupidity like blatant heel characters downplayed (but not eliminated) in a much better approach of guys simply molding their own characters and having fans cheer who they want. Only by becoming real in that way can wrestling reach its full storytelling potential and appeal to that upper-class crowd. I don't see that ever becoming widespread in American wrestling, though, simply because of how deeply ingrained those awful stereotypes are of what wrestling should be as something self-consciously fake, going back to the Hulkamania boom period.

 

tl;dr: wrestling should be real

I've been hearing CLEARLY THIS PERSON WOULD WATCH WRESTLING IF WORKRATE AND KOBASHI for something like 20 years now. It's never happening. Ever.

[Sean Liska]

My theory is the thing that really killed wrestling to normal people for a long time is one thing that old-school fans hold in high regard - kayfabe. When you tell people you watch wrestling, do they say - "How can you watch that stuff with the poorly written characters and bad comedy?" No, they always say, "You know that stuff is fake, right?" I really believe that pro wrestlers going in public for so many years and steadfastly maintaining that wrestling was real, when anyone with half a brain could tell otherwise, was so absurd and insulting to the average person that we're still dealing with the effects.

 

If what you guys suggest were really the issue, then Mid-South wrestling would have had a white collar audience with a bunch of disposable income. Or 1992 WCW. Anecdotes and footage suggest that was not the case. There's something inherent about two dudes in tights pretending to fight each other that draws in a certain demographic and has for most of the last 40 years. Heels in the old territories didn't have to worry about getting their tires slashed because a bunch of doctors and lawyers were out back at midnight still emotional about an absurd scripted show.

[Matt Farmer]

Bray Wyatts gimmick is a perfect example of what it wrong with WWE's creative for attracting a higher income level of fans. His appearance and mannerism if fine. He works well and comes across serious, but then creativefeels the need to add a supernatural or a comedic spin on everything. You almost feel ashamed watching it, for instance when the little kids came out I heard so much about how offensive that was. WWE loves to book go away heat. Bray's character is fine, heck there are real people that act like that but it is all the extra stuff that turns people off.

 

Look at the gimmicks introduced in the last few years....Fandango, Adam Rose, Rusev, Matadors, Damien Sandow, Emma, Brodus Claw , Tensei and I know I'm missing a ton but those are all comedy characters. And not good characters, it reminds me of the horrible early 90's with Repo Man, Tugboat, Nailz, Mountie etc etc. How can anyone over 14 take it seriously? Why would Cadillac or Lexus or Mercedes want to run ads (in primetime) for that?

 

Seriously I get it, it's fake but now not only is it fake but it's a joke and a bad joke at that.

 

Look at all the hottest programs in wrestling history and look at what they had in common. People believed in whomever or whatever they were watching. Dolph Ziggler wonders why he can't work on top? Maybe he needs to learn how to work, as a main eventer aka a wrestler the fans can believe in. Instead of doing silly bumps and a goofy gimmick, tighten it up and add some of your legit amateur skills into the mix. Instead of pushing too many highspots, learn how to brawl and figt from underneath.

 

Everything is silly, as a life long fan I'm often embarrassed when non fans watch. And it' not because I'm a fan it's because of what were watching.

[Loss]

I feel like they need to go more over the top in admitting it's fake, even using the word FAKE. FAKE FAKE FAKE. Not "form of entertainment", but FAKE. Again, the issue is that advertisers and television executives that don't pay close attention to wrestling but make huge decisions that impact wrestling think fans are so fucking stupid that they don't understand that wrestling is fake.

 

I think WWE should do an ad campaign with two people discussing a TV show. One responds like a typical non-wrestling fan. Here's an example:

 

"Did you see Game of Thrones last night?"

"Oh, I don't watch. You know that's fake, right?"

 

Continue dialog about how the fight scenes involved stuntmen and that the actors probably went out for drinks after.

 

I think getting people to wrap their heads around the fact that people know it's fake and don't give a shit because the enjoy it anyway is important -- far more important than any issues with product.

[Loss]

It's also worth noting that it's not like wrestling attracted educated, wealthy fans before Vince McMahon. The issue pre-dates him.

[dexstar]

I think that your "educated" consumer already views wrestling as a joke and isn't going to tune in for "pure sports" type stuff. I'd go the other direction - a self-consciously goofy comedy/action hybrid with 80s gimmicks and such. Really, I think something like a big budget CHIKARA has a better chance of attracting this type of audience than an updated port of 90s puro. When I show people CHIKARA, they usually think it's great and creative and fun. Now, that's in low doses. Are they gonna stick around long term? Probably not. And I wouldn't go quite as comic book nerdy as CHIKARA with all the time travel and stuff. But a fed that embraced all the silly "rules" of pro wrestling and tried to come up with a clever joke of, for instance, why clear felonies aren't prosecuted as assault and why things happen the way they do in wrestling could be one angle. Showing vignettes of crazy characters interacting in the real world, within the show, and letting the guys just completely drop gimmick and such outside of the "universe" that's established.

 

I'd also suggest sticking to 1 hour episodes and only running for like 20 weeks, similar to a real sporting season.

 

Asking the educated, mainstream, whatever we call it, fan to invest in wrestling is asking A LOT. Too much content, too much history, too much stuff to learn. Asking them to get into the workrate/pure type stuff sounds good in theory, but these new fans are still going to be confused as all hell by a lot of that, and not understand why what they see is "good". Asking them to embrace a weird, goofy, fun atmosphere with lots of easy to understand spots would be my direction.

 

The single biggest hurdle is putting together the right people to write it. One man's cringe is another man's treasure.

[dawho5]

For the most part, yes it has mostly been low income fans in the U.S. Flair might be an example to the contrary. Someone who was charismatic, a character that appealed (in one way or another) to most everyone and delivered in the ring whenever he wrestled. It wasn't like he didn't have comedy either. Just when he did things, he knew when and how much.

[Sean Liska]

I like where Bix is coming from with the geek culture thing. Going to Mania is a very different experience than any other wrestling show - it's an impressive collection of young guys with a lot of disposable income who are so passionate about the product. A very different demo.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I am confused by the original premise are we trying to get college educated with disposable income to watch wrestling or are we trying to get TV exces and advertisers to buy into wrestling as a appropriate medium to sell their products. The latter I think WWE already has on lock so I don't understand why those folks need to be retrained. The former would require the WWE needing to be written more in the style of HBO/AMC/Showtime shows that are popular. They would need to write better episodic TV from week to week with longer story arcs and actually have events all connected in a common continuity thread. They need to cut way back how much original programming they deliver. They need to trim the roster down to about 16 key members and have a lot more enhancement talent. I think you could do it 52 weeks a year, but it probably would help if they had seasons. To me the biggest thing they need is Women.

 

If you think of wrestling's core demos in the past and now it is kids (girls have catooies!), geeks (who needs girls anyways), meat heads (women belong in the kitchen). In every other TV show and movie and hell in real life, what is the main driving force: Love. The very first story ever told was because some sneaky dude stole another dude's woman and a big fuckin war happened aka The Illiad. Beyond Savage/Hogan/Liz (I would say the most well-known angle amongst casual and non-fans), wrestling has shied away from women being diving forces in wrestling. I think you have to run at least one angle a year that featured women being fought over or using men to their personal gain or a women's revenge storyline.

 

I don't want to shit on this thread because it is an interesting thought experiment, but the day wrestling actually tries to appeal well-to-do people with a degree is when it dies to me. I want ridiculous. I want campy. I want outrageous. I want color. If you asked me what wrong with wrestling, I would go the exact opposite of what I just said. It needs more color. It needs to be more fun. My non-wrestling hero, David Lee Roth said it best "Wrestling is ultimate wish fufillment". I am a nerd. I don't want to watch a bunch of nerds. I work with a bunch of nerds. I am friends with a bunch of nerds. I like nerds. But I need a break. I want to watch Ric Fuckin Flair and Randy "Macho Man" Savage. Keep wrestling ridiculous, fun and shallow. Leave the pretentiousness at the door, if you don't fuck you.

[Matt D]

I think it's more of a business analyst/intellectual exercise. Past "Better storylines" I don't think most of us would be happier with a more mainstream product. But here we're crafty enough to put that aside for the sake of stretching our brains.

[Timbo Slice]

It really comes to whether or not the educated fan wants entertainment or athleticism. I'm not saying it has to be all work rate-y and moves-y or whatever. I'm saying that there has to be an understanding with those types of fans. You can't insult their intelligence. You have to give them a product that makes them want to come back.

 

The reason why the Bryan stuff worked for a few months is because it was the best wrestling trope there is: an underdog overcoming adversity. That didn't have to do with whether an educated person with money was a wrestling fan. That's something anyone can get behind regardless.

 

But stuff like Bryan going up against Kane like he is doesn't work. Those types of personalities just aren't appealing nowadays to those types of fans.

 

Unfortunately, like others have alluded to, for "outside the box"-type fans to want to watch, the people making wrestling happen would have to completely change the way they do business. With Vince still around, that's not going to happen, and even when he's done, I don't think you'll see Trips stray too far away from that, either.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I really doubt that anyone, despite their education or financial status, is going to decide to start watching Pro Wrestling as an adult because it ditches crazy shit and becomes more like a real sport.

[artDDP]

Loss, I love your commercial idea. It sounds like something WWE should run during the Super Bowl as part of a re-branding campaign.

 

The first thing that leaps to my mind is to ditch the toilet humor. Camp is great and a little bit of "wink, wink" humor that us fans would get is needed. But to broaden your audience you have to ditch the toilet humor, which, sadly, seems to be a mainstay because Vince hates "snobby elitists".

 

Institute a little logic to storylines. Steve Austin should have been arrested on warrants for failing to appear in all the cities he was arrested in. I know he had court dates he couldn't make because he'd be appearing in another city that night. Then he'd come back to St. Louis or wherever six weeks later to murder Triple H or something with no repercussion.

 

And things like Triple H coming back a week after being murdered from being dropped from a crane. How can anyone invest in anything if they feel there's no reward for paying attention? You can tune in and out at will and really not miss anything with the constant resets.

 

 

Off the top of my head I can't think of much beyond that.

[southofheavy]

I don't think wrestling or anyone involved in it should even be worried about it.

 

There are a metric ton of improvements that can be made to what's currently going on which could lead to expanding the audience. Pretty much all of them have already been laid out in this thread.

 

That said, the mainstream is never going to fully embrace wrestling, and that's totally okay. It can exist on its own. It could be existing far better, but it doesn't necessarily need to move into a higher tax bracket to make it so. Embrace what brought ya to the dance.