Is wrestling dying?

[drifter]

It ain't living & breathing that's for sure

Stagnant, slow decline are better descriptors if it isn't dying. And looking through the replies in the thread, I'm convinced that nobody actively watching wrestling in 2021 has an opinion on this topic without bias

Compared to the boom era wrestling is either dead or on life support. Interest in it is at an all time low even when compared to the limited resources of the early days, at least you had larger than life characters to draw eyes in. Who on the active roster has the same appeal and if they have it so strongly, why does the WWE keep digging up Rock, Austin, Bret, Goldberg to milk them the same tired ass cow utters for the 100th time? Why does it seem like wrestling is waiting for Cena to come back? It ain't like it's 05 Cena, it's this news anchor toupee, weird dad version. You'll take any version you can get, that's how bad current stars are.

As much as this board can hate Cornette and as out of touch he can sound on things like women's wrestling/Sasha, he is 100% right about everything wrong with wresting. Sums everything up in ways those of us who don't watch anymore can get behind, at least for me anyway.

shytty booking, overuse of spots, marks now wrestling in the ring, are all contributors to the decline. The new connected world ruining kayfabe hurt wrestling the most though. In the old days you had no idea in real time just how racist, corny, sensitive your favorite wrestlers were, now you've got Jericho dropping off Trump ballots and going over his hairline in MS Paint before hitting send.

Ask this again after NBC buys WWE, that should give us an indicator of wrestling's longevity. Most fingers are pointed at Vince for the current state, once he and his family are out of the picture and things don't pick up, we have to start honestly looking at the expiration date on that carton of milk.

 

[Elim Garak]

Y’all look back at nostalgic wrestling with rose colored glasses


The same problem of silly booking choices, goofy writing etc. existed then the same as now. Its the reason wrestlecrap exists. If the golden era of wrestling coincided with today’s internet age, you nikkas would be on here overly criticizing everything the same way ya’ll do now


There would be stone cold unappreciation threads and all lat



nikkas were just younger and want that old feeling back, but it’s gone

Nah shyt's trash. I'm 35 and enjoyed the ruthless agression era well into adulthood shyts unwatchable now.

 

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

The booking is the problem with wrestling. The industry needs competent people with fresh ideas to draw more fans.

Right now it seems like the wrestling fanbase consists of old WWE fans and weirdo male and female neckbeards.

I've been saying this.

The fans are the biggest problem because wrestling fans are nerds now and the wrestlers are nerds now too.

Everybody got mad at what The Undertaker said about guys playing videogames now, but they weren't getting what he was really saying.

He was saying that wrestlers used to be the genuine badasses in real life and it led to a certain level of believably in the product

Now, guys are talking about fukking action figures and anime and instead of it being ridiculed by fans, they love it because these motherfukkers are into "My Little Pony" and shyt like that, too.

Y’all look back at nostalgic wrestling with rose colored glasses


The same problem of silly booking choices, goofy writing etc. existed then the same as now. Its the reason wrestlecrap exists. If the golden era of wrestling coincided with today’s internet age, you nikkas would be on here overly criticizing everything the same way ya’ll do now


There would be stone cold unappreciation threads and all lat



nikkas were just younger and want that old feeling back, but it’s gone

Nah, that aint it.

Wrestling had a much higher batting average 20 years ago than it does now.

I can still watch old shyt from the late '90s and be excited by it because of the talent of the performers.

Now, most wrestling is unwatchable .

 

[Wacky D]

Lol ok, WOAT poster of the year

that title doesnt even make sense.

besides, i searched these threads and im never close to the most votes.

you wasted days carrying on a lie about some chit thats not even on my radar and i dont even care about.

Breh has made near 5k posts that

didn't get a dap but keeps popping off like he's dropping knowledge

i never said i was dropping knowledge. apparrently, thats how you feel about my posts tho, SO THANK YOU.

besides, most daps on this board revive around jokes & gifs.

hence, the reason why the people who dont like me, are always resident retards like you three imbeciles.

nikka, you think I’m scared to @ you?
Lmao the nerve of some of you internet nikkas. What you gon do, type some words back at me?
A nikka with 40k post telling me to get a life

you should ask yourself the bolded.

and it takes mere seconds to post something. this isnt taking time away from my life at all, especially when half of my posts are mobile.

but hey, dont mind me. carry on with your outdated insults and continue to purposely keep your post count low, in hopes of the TSC viewing you as a playa IRL.

 

[Rayzah]

This is a lot to answer, lol... but my point wasn't to compare The Undertaker or the Attitude Era, it was to say that WWE, as it stands in 2021, still gives us both good and bad things. A lot of people would only prefer to focus on the bad, but that's another story. What I am saying is, most agree that Smackdown is a well-run show that is usually more hit than miss... Raw these days has been more miss than hit. Still, the same person is making the final decision on the both of these shows, which has been the case forever... which means just like we got Undertaker AND Gobbeldy Gooker, we get this dope Roman/Uso storyline AND this boring ass Rhea/Charlotte stuff... because even in his best days, he was still givin us good shyt and some awful shyt that he thought was also good. So for me, I don't always get why it gets treated like the end of the world every time there's a shytty show or a dumb ass match or gimmick, or these hokey ass skits and shyt. This ain't some brand new senile Vince losin his mind, 40 year old Vince woulda done the same goofy shyt!

naw the criticism is deserved, while they stumble upon some entertaining shyt sometimes they do a lot more horrible dumb shyt that appeals to nobody.

The business went to shyt when it became obvious the WWE wanted to be a major corporation and not a wrestling company anymore. Business or creative has made the product safe (pg-era) and too predictable. They do shyt now just to please their shareholders. They acknowledge they suck and make a change for a few weeks just to make it look like they are trying. No era has ever been like this. They released talent that were in the middle of pushes or coming off WM matches just to “save money “ despite continuing to turn a profit. It’s not that they have never had shytty ideas before. It’s that there was always more good then bad, you had two of the greatest personalities of all time on one show when Mae young gave birth to a hand. So it was easy to ignore that bullshyt, now there is more stupid shyt like that and between 3 shows only one guy that’s close to as entertaining as rock and stone cold. There is no balance.

They are not in tune with pop culture like they was in the 80’s and 90’s. They don’t even want a crossover star because Vince wants WWE to basically be like the NFL and. Not like the nba where the stars are the faces of the league.

The good ideas are good to pretty good and the matches can be great but the bad ideas are embarrassing and make you wonder why you even waste your time. It’s never been this consistently bad before and even nxt which was good, has since kinda gotten stale because now you have lifers who know the minute they get called up their wwe run will turn to shyt and eventually get let go and put under a 90 day no compete.

 

[Carl Tethers]

*weirdo babble*

 

[Rell84shots]

This is why being a wrestling fan sucks now

Seriously who in their right mind actually thinks Alexa is better in the ring than Bianca or Rhea? These geeks are the reason why the wrestling community is so toxic now. Any time a casual fan tries to get back into the product, it's these people who chase them away. I knew it was bad when I saw a grown ass man tell a kid to shut up because he was cheering for Cena.

 

[Larry]

@Wacky D you ain’t gotta explain to me why you post so much



it’s okay beloved


I ain’t finna argue wif you and trade insults. Thats shyt birds do. I just think ya posts be super duper ass my g, love you tho





nikka really think muhfukkas scared to at him like he gon spin the block like Omar. Lmao nikka we on a wrestling sub board, fukk out

 

[Wacky D]

Also I know this has been mentioned before, but when will we ever see a black wrestler (male or female) be champ and be dominate? With a long title reign?
The current heads of these companies won't do it and seem to have excuses for it.

it looks like bianca & lashley are doing it right now.
plus lashley just did it multiple times in TNA.
we also had great runs from jay lethal in ROH and shane strickland in MLW in recent years.

 

[DANJ!]

The business went to shyt when it became obvious the WWE wanted to be a major corporation and not a wrestling company anymore.

So you mean like, in 1985?

Because it is well documented that Vince has moreso always had the mentality that while the key product is wrestling, he wasn't looking to run it like Crockett, Gagne, Von Erich, Watts, etc... people have been callin WWF/E the "circus" since the 80s... all that shyt with the toys and cartoons and albums, etc... that's not "I run a wrestling promotion" stuff, that was "I'm in the entertainment business" as the quote goes. Stuff like this has been our faces since we've been watching. If you think Vince just started being interested in being a major corporation these last 20 years I don't know what you were watchin'

 

[Wacky D]

people too stuck on the WWE in this thread.

most of yall dont care about wrestling. you just want WWE nostalgia from your childhood.

most of the WWE's product isnt really even geared for adults. dudes should be moving on to other promotions by now, or at least just not putting all your eggs inton that one basket that doesnt really cater towards you.

 

[DANJ!]

Y’all look back at nostalgic wrestling with rose colored glasses


The same problem of silly booking choices, goofy writing etc. existed then the same as now. Its the reason wrestlecrap exists. If the golden era of wrestling coincided with today’s internet age, you nikkas would be on here overly criticizing everything the same way ya’ll do now


There would be stone cold unappreciation threads and all lat



nikkas were just younger and want that old feeling back, but it’s gone

Pretty much!

And nothin is even wrong with nostalgia, I'm a nostalgic MF to be honest. But because I know about all that old shyt, I also ain't gonna play this role like all that shyt was dope. There's even stuff I liked as a kid that I can look back on and realize was actually wack. Like you said, there's literally a website that's been running for almost 20 years DEDICATED mostly to terrible gimmicks/storylines/events from the 80s/90s/00s. There's TONS of em, so many that we've forgotten about a lot of em. But we didn't act like they were the death of the entire industry. Or at least, no one in our age group did at the time. But man, let a bad gimmick/storyline happen now... MFs our age have a whole cardiac episode like they didn't watch Bret Hart feud with a pirate over his jacket

 

[Rayzah]

So you mean like, in 1985?

Because it is well documented that Vince has moreso always had the mentality that while the key product is wrestling, he wasn't looking to run it like Crockett, Gagne, Von Erich, Watts, etc... people have been callin WWF/E the "circus" since the 80s... all that shyt with the toys and cartoons and albums, etc... that's not "I run a wrestling promotion" stuff, that was "I'm in the entertainment business" as the quote goes. Stuff like this has been our faces since we've been watching. If you think Vince just started being interested in being a major corporation these last 20 years I don't know what you were watchin'

I should have said since they went public

 

[Elim Garak]

Lol at people denying reality shyts dead.

 

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

So you mean like, in 1985?

Because it is well documented that Vince has moreso always had the mentality that while the key product is wrestling, he wasn't looking to run it like Crockett, Gagne, Von Erich, Watts, etc... people have been callin WWF/E the "circus" since the 80s... all that shyt with the toys and cartoons and albums, etc... that's not "I run a wrestling promotion" stuff, that was "I'm in the entertainment business" as the quote goes. Stuff like this has been our faces since we've been watching. If you think Vince just started being interested in being a major corporation these last 20 years I don't know what you were watchin'

They only went public in like 2000.

You know what the breh meant.

Pretty much!

And nothin is even wrong with nostalgia, I'm a nostalgic MF to be honest. But because I know about all that old shyt, I also ain't gonna play this role like all that shyt was dope. There's even stuff I liked as a kid that I can look back on and realize was actually wack. Like you said, there's literally a website that's been running for almost 20 years DEDICATED mostly to terrible gimmicks/storylines/events from the 80s/90s/00s. There's TONS of em, so many that we've forgotten about a lot of em. But we didn't act like they were the death of the entire industry. Or at least, no one in our age group did at the time. But man, let a bad gimmick/storyline happen now... MFs our age have a whole cardiac episode like they didn't watch Bret Hart feud with a pirate over his jacket

Who's saying that EVERYTHING was dope 25 years ago?

Who's making that argument?

You're like those dudes who acts like The Simpsons is just as good today as it was 20 years ago and it's just us who are

Guy, things get worst when the people who make them get old and lost their instincts, it's just what it is.

Like I said, the best comparison with Vince McMahon is with Al Davis.

Were The Raiders good every year when Al Davis was younger?

No.

Were they good most of the time?

Yes.

Were they as bad as they got at the end of his life?

No

He was a genius in the early days and terrible at the end.

Just like Vince

It's not rocket science

Don't gas light us, dudes know what they're watching.

Just because some things were terrible in the '90s doesn't mean that you had whole decades of awful shyt like we're at now with just a few decent things thrown in.