Is wrestling dying?

Larry

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This.

Lately, there has literally been a wrestling related program on every night of the week except Saturday. There's more companies that people are paying attention to than there was 20 years ago when WWE's only real competitors went under. Is it 80s boom popular? No. Is it Attitude Era popular? No. But "dead" or "dying" is far from the truth. When WrestleMania can't fill a stadium, when these TV shows are getting canceled, when these companies are facing bankruptcy, we can ask this question.


Between WWE and AEW alone, they’re bringing in almost 6 million live tv viewers per week
 

supertrekker

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Let's get it out of the pandemic era first before we start to dig the grave.

It seemed like it was dying in the early/mid 90s as well. :yeshrug:

Early/mid 90's still had star power. Wrestling was still drawing fans just not in big numbers compared to the 80's. A lot has changed since then and wrestling will never have big mainstream stars again.
 

DANJ!

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Early/mid 90's still had star power. Wrestling was still drawing fans just not in big numbers compared to the 80's. A lot has changed since then and wrestling will never have big mainstream stars again.

"Never" is a long time to make a prediction like that... especially when the only thing people base these kinda things on is "ratings"... there was a time we didn't even know what the ratings were because we weren't paying attention to that, but I can't imagine the ratings in '94-95 were super impressive either, even with these "stars" that only wrestling fans cared about. The stars then were guys who were still around from the boom and hadn't retired yet. It took awhile before there were new actual stars that drew new viewers and brought old ones back.
 

supertrekker

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"Never" is a long time to make a prediction like that... especially when the only thing people base these kinda things on is "ratings"... there was a time we didn't even know what the ratings were because we weren't paying attention to that, but I can't imagine the ratings in '94-95 were super impressive either, even with these "stars" that only wrestling fans cared about. The stars then were guys who were still around from the boom and hadn't retired yet. It took awhile before there were new actual stars that drew new viewers and brought old ones back.

They based the business being down then on PPV buyrates and house show attendance. Wrestlemanias were in smaller venues too and still had empty seats. TV then was used to promote PPVs and house shows.
 

DANJ!

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They based the business being down then on PPV buyrates and house show attendance. Wrestlemanias were in smaller venues too and still had empty seats. TV then was used to promote PPVs and house shows.

And yet, with all that shyt at a low, the business survived... so ya know what that means? It's gonna be alright. It's been a rough year because of the pandemic but shyt's still about to be doing better now than it was then.
 

supertrekker

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And yet, with all that shyt at a low, the business survived... so ya know what that means? It's gonna be alright. It's been a rough year because of the pandemic but shyt's still about to be doing better now than it was then.

The business was going to shyt before than pandemic and with most of wrestling's age demographic being in the 30-50 age range it's not gonna survive much longer. What will happen if Vince does sell the WWE.
 

DANJ!

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The business was going to shyt before than pandemic and with most of wrestling's age demographic being in the 30-50 age range it's not gonna survive much longer. What will happen if Vince does sell the WWE.

Yall gotta get off the internet, breh :pachaha: the doom and gloom really got you thinking some shyt that's still packing stadiums every year is near death... how, Sway?!?? Old wrestling fans keep speaking this shyt into existence but it doesn't coincide with reality. All this demographic and rating talk doesn't translate to the money being made.
 
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KingBeez

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Mainstream wrestling is living off the corpse of the attitude and ruthless aggression eras. The kids who grew up in the early 2000s like myself, are now your target demo, and the wrestling content is nothing how it was back then.

In the early 2000s, vince treated the fans like human beings who want excitement, surprise, and different matches, now we get 50/50 booking, and half written stories that were written a hour before the show started. They need to stop treating their fans like we don’t know about continuity, and start using logic in storylines.

AND STOP CATERING TO KIDS!! Kids watched wrestling in the 2000s because it was something refreshing that didn’t baby or cater to them. Now the product now panders to children, even though their main audience are 30-50+ year old men, which is weird as fukk.

I’m not saying that you have to be the attitude era all over again, but Jesus Christ, treat the audience like their actual age.
 

Thavoiceofthevoiceless

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Can't go by ratings, everything on TV except maybe news and sports is at an all-time low.

Wrestling as we knew it pre-Broadband internet is dead though. Not only is kayfabe dead but we know about wrestlers real lives now.

News ratings have been on a decline themselves since Trump lost the Presidency.
 

Tom Foolery

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I would say it hit its Peak and can't reach it again.

It's near impossible to reach the 80's and 90's popularity, but that doesn't mean it's dying.

Plus it's different society know. Can through an Iron Sheik or GoldDust character out there for cheap views.
 

Metal Face

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Jay-Z called WrestleMania bigger than the Super Bowl

It's still breathing :wow:
 
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