WWE Brain: Defining and Changing the Melodramatic Narrative

[Embrodak]

1 hour ago, Migs said:

I think one of the fundamental WWE Brain things, which feeds into some of the things on this thread (re: casuals, what works on TV) is that the number one goal of a wrestling company is the broadest amount of success possible. Whatever has the most views is empirically good, and every decision of other companies (AEW most freqently, of course) is viewed through that lens. Which... is not really how art works? Nor is it even true from a business perspective when you're not a public company - the only real goal is for the owner to be making enough money to justify continuing ahead. If Tony Khan wants AEW to do some things that turn people off it fulfills his artistic vision - he can! And we can judge if its good or bad not based on the ratings but based on our subjective tastes.

(Of course, Vince also turned a ton of people off with decisions that were focused on his preferences and not those about what drew, but that's been covered elsewhere.)

Wrestling is different from most other art forms in that 1)more popularity/more people being there really does improve it, in that you can get hotter crowds, and 2) when something you like makes money, it is in some sense “proof” that, at the very least, the company should do more of it, since making money is the primary goal of wrestling and pretty much always has been.

[funkdoc]

On 9/2/2022 at 10:35 PM, Embrodak said:

I mean weight classes are a thing in real fighting for a reason. It’s one thing to say that one can allow a degree of flexibility for a Rey Mysterio or Daniel Bryan or Shawn Michaels, a generational talent, but “small guy who can hang with heavyweights” should also probably be used sparingly if one is to maintain any pretense that this is worked combat, rather than an athletic burlesque that has combat as a loose theme.

 

I can sympathize with some of this thread, but there does seem to be a converse “AEW brain” where rules of thumb and best practices that have guided the business (not just WWE) for decades are just not applicable at all if they come into conflict with enjoyment of the product.

My feelings on this are:

1. "Pretense that this is worked combat" is fundamentally impossible anymore and the Internet & the popularity of MMA were always going to make it that way in the long run.  We know that even the bottom-feeders of UFC would destroy virtually any pro wrestler in a real fight, and really that's been apparent since the collapse of Japanese shoot style in the 90s.  Wrestling at its core is a nerd fandom anymore, and nerds want athletic burlesque.  Hell, my own watch group is into stuff like DDT/TJPW/Hoodslam/Effy's Big Gay Brunch that makes the "burlesque" part literal at times!

2. If you want to win over millennials & zoomers & whoever comes after, you *are* going to have to throw out a whole lot of what worked for even the Gen Xers.  Again, i think the Internet has been the single biggest cultural gamechanger since at least TV, and any time before that feels like the Stone Age at this point.

Here's an example of what i'm getting at: the infamous Sammy Guevara cum belt promo.  A big reason that bombed so hard (besides the obvious) is that he was supposed to be a babyface when he did this.  A ripped guy bragging about banging a hot chick could have gotten face pops in a prior era, but a key difference between then and now is that now we don't want our heroes to be the people we secretly wish we were.  We want our heroes to be relatable, and that Sammy promo was the polar opposite of relatable to the core pro wrestling fanbase.  There's a reason Hangman Page connected so strongly after initial skepticism of his push, and it's the way he felt like one of us with his depression & alcoholism & the audible lack of confidence he gave off in his promos.  THAT'S what gets the non-boomers attached to you.

[Dav'oh]

14 minutes ago, funkdoc said:

1. "Pretense that this is worked combat" is fundamentally impossible anymore

The ropes, the referee, the ring, the rules, the titles, the intros are all part of that pretense. Take stuff like that away and it's just free-form gymnastics. Walter vs Seamus is not fundamentally impossible, either.

The pretense is in the very name, "Pro-Wrestling".

[Strummer]

Maybe 3-5 years ago there was a discussion here about wrestling becoming part of nerd culture.  Whether you think it's had a positive or negative impact is obviously a personal choice but it's a pretty huge deal that probably isn't discussed enough.

even wwe has tried to placate the nerd crowd while still trying to please a general audience.

[Embrodak]

Wrestling being subsumed into nerd culture is surely the definitive difference maker here, and it’s really a question of how much you can stomach that and in what quantities and combinations. I personally find the stuff that is pure sports entertainment and burlesque cringy and embarrassing, whether it’s Effy jacking off while Mox chokes him, The Elite dressing up like Ghostbusters and getting beaten up by Adam Page in a Staypuft marshmallow man costume, The New Day when they turned face and became memelords, or guys doing Thriller in the middle of a match, but it’s also impossible to argue that these things aren’t a logical progression of the art form post-Monday Night Wars.
 

The real problem is that *any* particular style or aspect of wrestling is basically niche at this point, and it’s only by doing them all that you really get everybody that you can get under a single, financially viable umbrella. However, it also renders the final product a little incoherent. Most modern fans don’t mind that, there’s a heavy layer of irony that goes into wrestling appreciation anymore, but it does have a self-undermining tendency that I think is evidenced in the Adam Page reign. You can have a guy get over by being relatably awkward and anxious in a way that a nerdy crowd will pop for, but then when he finally does get the belt, he’s not really used to acting like and projecting that he’s a big deal, so his reign kinda flounders. Big E kinda had the same problem, where he spent so long being a merch-pushing midcard goof that he wasn’t really in a position to transcend “eh” booking of his actual reign.

[DMJ]

On 9/4/2022 at 10:42 AM, Embrodak said:

Wrestling is different from most other art forms in that 1)more popularity/more people being there really does improve it, in that you can get hotter crowds, and 2) when something you like makes money, it is in some sense “proof” that, at the very least, the company should do more of it, since making money is the primary goal of wrestling and pretty much always has been.

This is true...but the WWE routinely held shows during the 2000s and 2010s where they'd have 15,000+ fans in the arena, but it sounded and looked like nobody was having a good time and most of the wrestlers in the ring got no reactions (remember when fans were tossing beach balls around and there was a weekly Wave going on?). The WWE was never more profitable, but, man, there were some really dreadful shows running during extended periods of the past two decades.

Meanwhile, the original ECW may have been lucky to have 5000 fans (or less) in one place, but those crowds were electric. "Bigger Crowd = Hotter Crowd" is far from a guarantee.

Also, while I agree that wrestling companies should be trying to broaden their fan bases, I also think the idea of getting "casuals" to watch is not how wrestling ever increased its popularity in the past. To me, its all about "buzz" and when a show or company has buzz, that is what draws in (or brings back) eyeballs. CM Punk in 2011 and Daniel Bryan a few years later had so much buzz that I had non-fans (who knew I was a fan) asking me what the deal was. The hubbub didn't happen because CM Punk or Daniel Bryan had done anything revolutionary to draw in "casual" fans - it was that they got the hardcore audience so excited that the casuals had to turn around and ask "Wait, what's happening over there? Sounds cool." 

The same thing just happened this summer with Vince's departure. It made people who don't usually take notice take notice. And it wasn't a scripted storyline designed to make non-casuals tune in. It was buzz.

For those of us old to remember, the same was true in Austin in the 90s. Bret Hart wasn't some Nostradamus. I was 12 years old in 96' and even I knew, based on his work in WCW, based on the buzz from his ECW run that found its way into nascent internet chat rooms and RSPW, that Steve Austin was awesome. Then King of the Ring happened. Then it was the feud with Bret. All along there were the promos. Steve Austin wasn't some manufactured gimmick designed to appeal to "casuals" or fans who wanted to relive Hulkamania from the 80s. He was a pro-wrestler who became so beloved by pro-wrestling fans that non-pro-wrestling fans turned their heads and asked, "Wait, what's happening over there? Sounds cool." And to paraphrase Guided By Voices, "And shit yeah, it [was] cool."

So what AEW should really be focusing on is fans like myself who watch the weekly programming, but still have yet to actually make that $50 PPV purchase, who enjoy the product but aren't gaga over it right now. Fans like myself who are watching the shows, but maybe not going that extra step to help generate more "buzz" that translates to more money in their coffers. There are 100s of 1000s of us. We know this to be true because the # of PPV purchases are far less than the weekly viewers. They don't need to expand the audience, they need to make their current audience even more passionate about it. 

Which is also why - and I apologize for the tangent - it blows my mind that people are now on Twitter/reddit/Facebook saying that Omega and Bucks have never drawn a dime. Like...who does everyone think actually drew the original gates and drummed up the online excitement for AEW in the first place? Are we already retconning/revision historying that Cody Rhodes was able to sell out 20,000-seat arenas single-handedly? Or was Nick Aldis just that over? I'm not saying Omega and the Bucks were 1998 Steve Austin-level draws, but to say the Elite didn't have a sizable fan base that was absolutely showing up in respectable numbers and passionate about their brand is just ignorant.

[sek69]

24 minutes ago, DMJ said:

Which is also why - and I apologize for the tangent - it blows my mind that people are now on Twitter/reddit/Facebook saying that Omega and Bucks have never drawn a dime. Like...who does everyone think actually drew the original gates and drummed up the online excitement for AEW in the first place? Are we already retconning/revision historying that Cody Rhodes was able to sell out 20,000-seat arenas single-handedly? Or was Nick Aldis just that over? I'm not saying Omega and the Bucks were 1998 Steve Austin-level draws, but to say the Elite didn't have a sizable fan base that was absolutely showing up in respectable numbers and passionate about their brand is just ignorant.

That reminds me, another WWE Brain symptom is either ignoring Japan exists or when they do pretending that nothing happening there matters.  You can dislike Omega all you want but you can't deny he was a big part of New Japan coming back from the Dark Times and getting big (non papered) New Japan crowds.  

Also the Bucks made ROH as relevant as they ever would be, so again trying to claim they never drew a time is just disingenuous.

You can dislike them all you want, but the moment someone tries to claim those guys never drew a time you can discount anything else they say.  

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Wow, I am glad to not be in spaces where people say the Bucks or Omega never drew a dime.

[Migs]

13 hours ago, Zoo Enthusiast said:

Wow, I am glad to not be in spaces where people say the Bucks or Omega never drew a dime.

Yeah, I hear CM Punk's head is a scary place.