How can wrestling appeal to educated people with money?

[Matt D]

There's a similar note over at DVDVR and the most interesting stuff there has focused not necessarily on WRESTLING appealing to people with money but instead the WWE brand doing so, creating an umbrella of product that appeals to multiple demographics utilizing all elements of their brand that they can then market together. Basically, more Total Divas and Blackman's Bounties and Scooby Doo. Not necessarily the WWE movie brand but instead something that utilizes their colorful characters in completely non-wrestling settings. Use wrestling as a R+D engine to debut and create characters and then spin them out into non-wrestling venues which will be all that the broad public actually sees.

[fakeplastictrees]

WWE likes to hire the former writers of popular television shows/movies, but fails to use them to their full potential. You have guys who took months/years to come up with a tv/movie idea and now these same guys are expected to come up with something EVERY WEEK? I honestly believe WWE could attract different viewers if they went to Seasons (Say SummerSlam to WrestleMania) and made a big deal about who is writing and producing the show.

Example: Emmy Award winning writer BLAH BLAH BLAH and the co-creator of the hit tv show BLAH BLAH BLAH team up with the guy who brought you BLAH BLAH BLAH and the team executive producing team behind BLAH BLAH BLAH to bring to you the longest running episodic television show in history....Monday Night Raw.

 

Just with the intro alone it comes off big and the fans of those TV shows will most likely tune in to see what's going on. I feel WWE would have to ton down on the outlandish gimmicks (which would be unfortunate in some cases [ no more WeeLC] ) and focus on guys who are less gimmicky and very entertaining. CM Punk, The Shield, Mark Henry, Daniel Bryan, Ceasaro, Big Show, The Wyatts (minus the demon kids, etc). The terrible commentary will have to go as well. I think these people who feel they are 'too good' for wrestling will turn the channel if they see Cole dancing, King making his terrible jokes, and have to put up with JBL being JBL (he is fine sometimes...but shit). Bring in someone like Mike Goldberg and Mike Hogewood. Hell, what is "The Voice" doing these days? Rene Young is a step in the right direction as is the very corporate looking and sounding panel of Justin Roberts and Alex Riley.

 

WWE will also need to have its hands on the pulse of what is hot right now and what people are watching. Shelton Benjamin singing Hootie and The Blowfish is NOT hot. Rosa Mendes chasing a tiger with a golf club (while topical) is NOT hot. Not only if it not hot, but its not funny. If I were WWE I would get someone like Kenny Page, David Cross, Louis CK, etc. to handle the comedy aspect of the show and save the comedy ONLY for certain wrestlers. There will be a CLEAR divide. When you see Santino on the screen- you know something funny is about to go down. When you see The Shield...not so much. There should also be less dancing and 'having fun' gimmicks as a lot of people on this board (myself include) see it as just stupid and complete overkill. If you have a Fandango...cool. Just build him as a So you Think You Can Dance reject and go from there. Hell WWE has so much clout I am sure they can go to these competitions and have something on the side filmed for the guy to give credence to the gimmick and make it less cringe-worthy.

[cm funk]

I was listening to part 3 of the 4 part Steve Austin-Eric Bischoff interview (highly recommended listening) and Bischoff hit on a very good point about bad comedy in wrestling. How....wrestling should always have comedic elements....but the bad comedy skits are just....bad....and they make you walk out of the room or change the channel....because they are just bad comedy. And that is so true. Bischoff talked about how Steve had some hilarious comedy in his work.....but it wasn't cheesy over the top bad comedy....it was little things and it was good and it worked because we cared about the Stone Cold character and and we could laugh with him, or laugh at him sometimes if he showed a little ass, but the audience got it and was in on the joke. A lot of the bad WWE comedy stuff is just bad. Not all of it, and I have a higher tolerance for it as a life long wrestling fan, but there's at least one thing a week that makes me cringe and embarrased to be watching this crap. Austin made the point that he wishes wrestling could be treated more seriously top to bottom, and not have "cool off" comedy segments mixed in with serious stuff.....where the tone of the show is all over the place and it makes it harder to take the more serious stuff seriously. I agreed with everything both of them were saying.

[Migs]

One thing lost in this conversation is the ability of wrestling generally to appeal to a more educated fan base. WWE has limits on what it can do because it's a big company that needs to maintain a certain level; it can't take risks. But smaller companies absolutely can. I don't watch Chikara, but the idea of a deep, long running story arc that could be watched as a "season" is something that definitely could be sold as akin to a Breaking Bad or the Wire. And the way Quackenbush talks about wrestling, as "performance art" is absolutely the right verbiage. In fact, don't know why more independent promotions haven't tried to go this route.

 

"Hipster #1, I can't believe you watch wrestling?"

"Oh man, you don't understand! it's just as good as Game of Thrones... it's really performance art, when you think about it."

[Matt Farmer]

After watching Raw monday with a non fan, I do not see how they plan on attracting new fans with that garbage. Sure The Sheild and Evolution is great, and yes there was a few good matches. But there was plenty of channel changing garbage. The Adam Rose stuff is the drizzling shits, and I was embarrassed to be a fan watching it.

 

It has such a Nickelodeon feel to the show, I feel like I'm 12 watching an episode of Double Dare during most of the show. Even Bray Wyatt skits come across poorly. And John Cena for as good as he is has a bad knack of killing any suspense of belief during an angle.