At their PEAK, what was bigger competition to WWE...ECW, TNA, NWA or AEW

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

Man, just say y'all young as hell and be done with it.

It's NWA and it's not even like close.

NWA falling is the only reason Vince is a billionaire now.

NWA falling is the only reason any of these other feds exist

Look at the houses fukking Flair, Race, and all those dudes were doing in the' 70s & '80s

Promoters used to actually underreport how much they were making just so they didn't have to pay the boys as much and even then, guys were making bank

Like NWA falling changed wrestling's history & it's landscape.

ECW, TNA, and AEW failing didn't/wouldn't change all that much about wrestling history.

 

[prophecypro]

Crockett

I remember reading that they drew well in some cities as much as WWF (not all obviously but basically that was always a tough territory to break for Vince) and obviously things did to expand the PPV calendar were as a result of competing with Crokett (Creating Survivor Series as a response to Starrcade and giving pay per view carriers an ultimatium)

 

[TheAlbionist]

The only real "threat" they've ever had was WCW. WWF/WWE has never been threatened by any of the others.

And they were largely threatened by WCW because Ted Turner decided to go Kamikaze with a rival company without caring if there was an industry left to broadcast at the end of it. I doubt we'll ever see that again, WWE are too established worldwide for anyone to bet on it - even if someone beat them in the US ratings, they still wouldn't be touching them in the Middle East and India.

All the others served as fires under their asses for periods of time though - ECW showed them a new take on the product so they quietly bought in and let it fuel the Attitude Era.

TNA part-filled the spot AEW fills out slightly better these days - they're not threats in any way shape or form but they are less risk-averse organisations pushing similar products, so of course WWE is watching them like it did ECW to see what works and what doesn't.

 

[Neuromancer]

NWA is the only real answer. Crockett was wrestling.

 

[Neuromancer]

@Ed MOTHERfukkING G just realized you put JCP/NWA in the poll but not in the thread title

They are clearly the winner there. They forced Vince to take chances, fukk people over and do an incredible job at promoting to finally put them to rest. He never saw more competition than 84-87 until Nitro started gaining steam a decade later.

Didn't they force Vince to go while hog on Wrestlemania?

 

[br82186]

WCW, too early to tell with AEW because WCW was in somewhat of that same position pre-Hogan.

All it really takes is one legitimate storyline to bring people and the ratings in. WCW with the NWO, WWE/F with DX/Austin v McMahon and now with the Bloodline

 

[RammerJammer]

JCP era NWA.

At the time, wrestling was still somewhat regional and they had a chokehold on the South. Ted was the only one to really have Vince shook like that. Also, they were doing that shyt during a time when the WWF was popping too.

Prime TNA was fantastic but it never really felt like they were going to supplant WWE even with WWE being trash at the time.

AEW has been the closest since the WCW/NWA days when you look at attendance/ratings/roster, etc. I think TNA’s biggest gate was 8k, which AEW has eclipsed multiple times. That said, so far, post-Vince WWE has stretched the lead on AEW to point where I think they’ll be solidly in the #2 role for quite sometime. AEW benefited from a very bad WWE and I don’t think TK knows how to combat a hot WWE, although their product is much better now than it was last year imo.

 

[FakeNews]

I’ve heard about it but why was Starcade 87 so damaging to JCP? If it doesn’t happen I wonder how much more JCP/NWA could have challenged the WWF back then? It seems like after that it went downhill and a lot of their top guys left within a year

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

I’ve heard about it but why was Starcade 87 so damaging to JCP? If it doesn’t happen I wonder how much more JCP/NWA could have challenged the WWF back then? It seems like after that it went downhill and a lot of their top guys left within a year

It was damaging in several ways. The booking had gotten stagnant and in some ways started pissing people off. For example, nobody wanted Ronnie Garvin as champion even though him and Flair had some great matches. Garvin just didn't have much personality. Secondly, the show was in Chicago and they did a "Dusty Finish" with the Road Warriors against Arn and Tully. They should have just given the belts to the Road Warriors then. That move killed Chicago as a big city for Crockett.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Crockett was spending money hand over fist on some failed projects including buying UWF from Watts. You see a lot of the UFW talent on Starrcade, the only one who would really become a big star from there was Sting but that was a couple years down the road and by that point Crockett had sold to Turner.

The biggest issue for Starrcade that year was Vince threatening the PPV providers. A lot of PPV providers caved and didn't show Starrcade in fear of losing WrestleMania. They should have called Vince's bluff because the providers that showed Starrcade obviously didn't "lose" WrestleMania. Lol.

But imagine your biggest show of the year having all of those issues while you are losing money on failed projects.

 

[The Great One]

Advertisers/cable networks clearly do. Also, you skipped over the part about attendance numbers and PPV buys

Advertisers don't give a flying fukk about ppv buys and attendance. They care about numbers. And Demos. And AEW sucks in those departments in comparison to TNA or even like Jersey Shore lol. Its really really embarrassing.

 

[StatUS]

Advertisers don't give a flying fukk about ppv buys and attendance. They care about numbers. And Demos. And AEW sucks in those departments in comparison to TNA or even like Jersey Shore lol. Its really really embarrassing.

Peak TNA was doing better numbers than Raw today

It's a different landscape.

 

[Cattle Mutilation]

Peak TNA was doing better numbers than Raw today

It's a different landscape.

Raw’s numbers from today transplanted into the 90s and early 2000s would be horrendous. Hell even 10 years ago it would be bad.

 

[Cattle Mutilation]

Look at this

Drop Raw’s current tv numbers on average to Christmas week 2003 and Raw maybe beats ONE on 119 program on broadcast TV. And you know those Christmas week numbers are going to be lower because you know CHRISTMAS.

Fine, let’s look at cable only. Raw 2024 numbers would have it be getting blown out by Nickelodeon cartoons and Queer Eye

Broadcast & Cable Nielsens: Week Ending December 21, 2003

Below are the Nielsen ratings for the 13th week of the 2003-04 television broadcast season; most reruns are excluded from the list. Final ho...

www.ratingsryan.com

 

[The Great One]

Peak TNA was doing better numbers than Raw today

It's a different landscape.

No. They never were lol. TNA popped a 2 maybe once. that was it. They hovered around 1 million though, and AEW never gets that. Ever.

 

[StatUS]

No. They never were lol. TNA popped a 2 maybe once. that was it. They hovered around 1 million though, and AEW never gets that. Ever.

Are you intentionally being obtuse lol. I said their peak ratings was doing better than Raw at this time. Which shows that the cable landscape was different because Raw was sold out in a major arena while Impact was barely able to pay rent at Universal Studios.

AEW in 2019 and 2021 did over a million many times. But once again, TNA wasn't able to maintain a traveling show and have a successful ppv business in the way AEW does.