[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by molson

You sound like Verne Gagne.

Wrestling is not the future - it will survive in smaller arenas, but in an MMA world, why are people going to care about fake competition and fake titles taken super seriously? WWE is intentionally focussing on what makes it different from MMA.

So the business plan is to drive off their core and most sponser friendly audience in exchange for.........?

What a horrible way to look at things. We can't survive being good at what's drawn money for over a century. People have always known it's fake, it has nothing to do with fake vs real, it has to do with making people want to see something. People wanted to see Lawler kill Cole, people wanted to see The Rock kill John Cena. 70,000 people jumped out of their seats when HHH tombstoned Undertaker because they thought....wait for it.......that he was going to BEAT him.

Originally Posted by molson

When you did have a longer main event match, it was done in the "WWF main event style" of the era - interference, weapons, tables, dramatic twists and turns, guest referees - certainly not a lot of stepover toeholds.) THAT'S the kind of pro wrestling that makes big money.

Really? Cause regional promoters made crazy money for decades doing it another way. Flair made crazy money doing it another way. Hogan made insane money doing it yet another way. And in the end it all came down to people caring about who might win and who might lose. Styles come and go and come around again, it isn't about styles. The constant is caring about the finish.

Originally Posted by molson

If you grew up on WWE in the 80s, you should still be in shock about how much wrestling is featured in that organization now. Go watch wrestlemania 2 and try to find the wrestling. People talk like their profits will explode if we get Bryan Danielson v. CM Punk for 60 minutes every week. But you know what, they did that match in ROH for years. That doesn't draw mainstream, million-dollar company kind of money.

See, your takin an adverse reaction to what are clearly ridiculous memes and unfunny jokes and bad writing & storytelling and creating some sort of strawman. "You wanna see 100 minutes matches go watch flippy floppy Dragon Gate, grrrrrrr."

That's not what I or most people are asking for although I guarantee in a one hour match they could tell a better story than a WWE writer could in 3 months. But that's neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that my group of 6 die hard wrestling fans do get more excited about watching a ROH IPPV than just about every WWE PPV. And our once die hard group of 6 dwindles to about 3 for the lesser shows because we just can't be assed to even spend $7 or 8 some months to watch shit just for the sake of watching shit.

Originally Posted by molson

Their collapse was simple and predictable. They had ridiculous talent contract committments that could never be sustained over time (they had something like 200+ people on the roster at one point, and many people making millions to sit at home and do nothing). Their collapse wasn't because of wookrate or flawed character development. They wouldn't have been saved by more wrestling on the show, or by taking the titles more seriously.

You're simply wrong again. Their payroll was absurd yes, but WCW ended because Jamie Kelner didn't want it on his station, pure and simple.

But moving that point aside, let me ask you this. What exactly drove away so many people from WCW in those 5 years? Did people think about tuning in and say to themselves "Kevin Nash makes 10 Million dollars a year, I don't wanna watch him". Or did they say "Jesus Christ, these storylines and matches suck, why am I bothering to watch this shit"?

And my final point. I'm not saying what they're attempting to do will not work. As a person with an IQ over 90 I don't understand how it will or is supposed to work, but i'm not saying it wont. What i'm saying is you have a core audience that you're TRYING to drive off, in the hopes of building another core audience, while much of the evidence suggests that you arn't doing very well at it.

At some point these kids they're targeting will look at Cena and say, "damn man, he's really not very cool is he?" And what the fuck will they be left with then?