What does wrestling need to get hot again?

[marrklarr]

A booming economy would help.

 

Is this not the key to everything? You don't have to be an economic determinist to think so.

 

Take the boom and bust cycles of the last 30 or so years and overlay the nation's economic data. It syncs up pretty neatly.

 

The Hulkamania Era happens just as the Go-Go '80s business boom picks up steam and peters around the time of the early '90s recession.

 

Wrestling comes alive again just as the mid-to-late '90s tech era bubble economy hits its stride and falls off a cliff in the early '00s when the bubble bursts.

 

In the years since, the business has been alternately losing ground and treading water; just like the American middle and working classes, which make up wrestling's target audience.

 

Seems reductive to chalk it all up the economy, but the economic factor is undeniably present.

[Smack2k]

To me, they'd need the following, unrealistic things, to happen to get it back to BOOMING like the 80s and 90s

 

1. Less "outside interference" - The fact that there is SO much intrusion in backstage goings on, financial information, wrestler's personal lives, takes away from their mystique and makes them pretty much athletic actors that we all know aren't those guys...Even in the 90's, the internet and other avenues didn't have as much inside information on everything going on...the internet is to blame as well with the ease of access of so much stuff, wrestling is just another thing.

 

2. Less Channels available on TV - We have 100's of channels now to choose from, we had like 13 in the 80's and maybe in the 50's in the 90's...too many choices

 

3. A change in personality - We need a cultural change to get away from this jumping all over each negative thing and burying it when its the least bit offensive to ANYONE...Today's America would never allow it to be that HUGE again, someone, somewhere would be offended by something and sue or make a HUGE stink that with soo much news penetration would be heard by many and the bandwagon would begin and it would be pushed back down to where it is now, just kinda there and part of life, but nothing special..If wrestling was as big and mainstream as the 90s right now and ONE kid got hurt playing with another, they'd be attacked by EVERY major news outlet and garnished as bad and "hurting our kids"....but that is part of my hatred for the way a lot of things go today....

 

4. Go back to private...being public prevents you from taking a LOT of chances...chance that could pay off in a BIG way, but also could have crashed and burned.

 

So I don't think it can happen and be that big again...its not "safe" enough for the general public to accept it in their homes as regular viewing....

 

For realistic thigns to make wrestling better and be the fun, MUST see it was back then...to me, 1 thing,...COMPETITION...REAL COMPETITION....WCW style COMPETITION....that's it, that's all....the rest would all come with it.

 

 

That is my opinions anyway..........

[JaymeFuture]

Would like to thank everyone who replied, the podcast discussing the different thoughts is now up in the Publications and Podcasts forum.

[Mad Dog]

I don't think it can personally.

 

Look at the nWo angle which started the last boom. That angle was so outside the box of anything that had come before that it grabbed people's attention. I've been rewatching that 1996/1997 era of WCW and even my non-fan wife has been grabbed by how different those video packages were. She even asked me at one point why no one has figured out how to repeat that formula. I think what it really needs is for an outsider to come in and get significant creative force with the WWE or maybe Jarrett's new company and just go completely out of the box with some big angle.

[benj]

Internet kill switch.

[JaymeFuture]

That's a whole podcast unto itself (which I do want to do at some point in the very near future).

 

The one thing I didn't get into in the podcast that I think is pretty interesting is that in talking about who the next top star is going to be, is that Hogan, Austin and Rock got huge because their characters were perfect for the time, and came across as larger than life and cool as fuck.

 

Looking at other TV shows today, in particular the major successes (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc), a lot of the central characters or main protagonists that click in a big way are fairly complex with dislikeable traits. Meanwhile in WWE you have the flawless babyface John Cena, and waning adult interest. But Wyatt and Ambrose are really starting to click, and fit the aforementioned bill almost to a tee. I just wonder if that can translate to mass appeal with the wrestling audience.