Reasons why vintage is better?

briany

I was just watching some old WWF/Memphis/ECW clips on youtube and with so many things i dont know if its nostalgia or not but i just think it's in a whole other universe compared to the WWE's product today and TNA or ROH for that matter and I wonder what exactly it is that makes it so much better?
Its not that ill watch any old matches, alot of WWF stuff from 93-96 can be hard to take but is there really anything of today that can compare to say the Undertakers entrance at king of the ring '98 for just one example?

DM_7

Its much easier to look at an old match and enjoy it. You are taking the match on its merits and not counting the storyline leading into it or the recent performances of the charachters.

For example Orton v HHH. Few people have interest in the fued or the storylines. But if you look back on one or two of the matches in a couple of years you may find yourself enjoying one of the matches or HHH breaking into randy's house.

geeky

The good matches that tend to remain on youtube or get released on DVD. It's the same reason there's a perception that film was better in the 50s or 60s - there were in fact just as many stinkers as there are today, they just aren't remembered. Same with some of the many god-awful matches in the 80s and 90s.

That said, I do think that some of the talents were genuinely better: I don't think anyone can wrestle as well as Bret Hart in his pomp, or work a crowd like Jake the Snake. Chuck in guys like the Macho Man , or Rick Flair and the Undertaker before all the injuries, and you realise that the late 80s and early 90s arrived at a time of special talent.

Vince135792003

In 15 years time, the 10 year old of today will be telling people on a message board how Edge, Mysterio, Hardy, Cena and Orton were way better than anything that's on tv today.

geeky

Vince135792003 wrote: »

In 15 years time, the 10 year old of today will be telling people on a message board how Edge, Mysterio, Hardy, Cena and Orton were way better than anything that's on tv today.

And they may well be if the business keeps in decline, and more promising athletes realise they can make more money in MMA or whatnot.

Vince135792003

geeky wrote: »

And they may well be if the business keeps in decline, .

Read WWE's quarterly report. They are not in decline.

If you mean in terms of wrestling, I don't think they lack talented guys.

geeky

Vince135792003 wrote: »

Read WWE's quarterly report. They are not in decline.

If you mean in terms of wrestling, I don't think they lack talented guys.

They're still profitable, but ratings and PPV buy-rates are falling. Between January and August of this year, the ratings for SD (arguably the best wrestling show on TV right now) declined by 16 per cent. Even allowing for the summer factor, that's still a meaningful fall at a time when more people are supposed to be staying in and watching TV because of the recession. The overseas revenues have also taken a hit after years of growth. UFC 100, meanwhile, roped in 1.5m PPV buys. 1m buys for UFC 101 was seen as a let-down. Wrestlemania 25 managed 970,000 buys, a fall of 35,000 on 24 (which was itself a decline of 20,000 on 23).

Numbers don't lie. I'm not saying the business is going to collapse in the morning, but the industry isn't exactly on an upward curve right now.

Vince135792003

geeky wrote: »

Numbers don't lie.

Your posting 1 side of the story. I can post a paragraph of figures that gives the upside especially when you factor in the worldwide recession (Raw rating average being up, house show attendance up, television rights fees up, merchandise at live events being up).

Like any business there are always issue particularly when the ecoonomy is bad and I am not for a second saying they don't have areas of concern.

However they are still very profitable and are on very, very solid foundations because of the multitude of revenue streams that they have created in their business model.

1m buys for UFC 101 was seen as a let-down.

The ppv number is not back for that show but the UFC ado not expect to reach anywhere near that number.

geeky

Vince135792003 wrote: »

Your posting 1 side of the story. I can post a paragraph of figures that gives the upside especially when you factor in the worldwide recession (Raw rating average being up, house show attendance up, television rights fees up, merchandise at live events being up).

Like any business there are always issue particularly when the ecoonomy is bad and I am not for a second saying they don't have areas of concern.

However they are still very profitable and are on very, very solid foundations because of the multitude of revenue streams that they have created in their business model.

Raw is up by 3 per cent. And that's having brought out the big guns of Shaq and Trump. How much is house show attendance up by, and have ticket prices remained where they were?

WWE altered their timing on this quarter's accounts, making comparisons with the 08 data difficult - IIRC, they factored in Wrestlemania revenue or something like that, but it's in the statements.

I'm trying to put together earnings per share stats (the actual earnings, not the estimates) and so far have found two years, 2007 (0.72c) and 2008 (0.62c). That drop I'm more than prepared to write off as recession-connected, but I'll post again when I've found the trend from 2000-2006.

However, that may be some time - I'm meant to be doing work that pays right now! I'm not saying for a second that business is spiralling downhill fast but, if an exceptional athlete is comparing the prospects of MMA and wrestling today, I think he's going to take a longer look at the former.

rossie1977

geeky wrote: »

The overseas revenues have also taken a hit after years of growth. UFC 100, meanwhile, roped in 1.5m PPV buys. 1m buys for UFC 101 was seen as a let-down. Wrestlemania 25 managed 970,000 buys, a fall of 35,000 on 24 (which was itself a decline of 20,000 on 23).

your numbers are wrong for one, WM23 generated 1.25m buys (a record for WM, rock/austin at their peak couldn't generate that number), its no shame that mania 25 did less than that, many people were expecting 600k tops buyrate for that ppv, there was only 2 matches on that card that generated any sort of interest or hype

UFC and wwe ppv buyrates are not really comparable, for one wwe gives away 6 hours of free tv every week 52 weeks a year, and only about 15% of wwes total revenue comes from ppvs

in terms of gate revenue:
WM23 $5,380,000
WM24 $5,854,590
WM25 $6.9 million

rossie1977

geeky wrote: »

if an exceptional athlete is comparing the prospects of MMA and wrestling today, I think he's going to take a longer look at the former.

exceptional athletes don't really belong in american tv pro-wrestling in fairness, if you have amazing charisma, great mic work, ability to captivate an audience and be able to put on a half decent match you will become a top star in pro-wrestling, hogan or austin were not exceptional athletes, rock was a decent football player in his youth and a failed cfl player in canada but cena was a 3rd division college player (ie a nobody)

sports like nfl, nba etc will get the better athletes long before MMA anyways so your other argument is flawed

MMA organisations are dropping like flies as it stands, pride, elite XC, Affliction all gone, strikeforce on their last legs, even UFC who are extremely profitable are owned by station casinos who have a $10 billion debt hanging over them after the Fertitta brothers took them private a few years ago paying well over the odds, i have no doubt UFC will survive even if it means new ownership, but its far from certain how any of the others will do

geeky

Ty to previous poster who noted my mistake on the decline in PPV buys. Yes, it's ten times what I said, from 1.25M at WM23 to WM25.

There are healthy spots and negative spots in the industry - and in MMA. But I think you need to be on a special kind of cool-aid to claim wrestling is on an upward trend as an industry right now. I'm at the risk of sending this thread completely off-topic, so I'll pipe down until I've dug up enough to argue my case correctly on another thread. But my belief is that wrestling won't be seen as a promising avenue for exceptional performers - for athletes or for those with incredible charisma - and the quality of wrestlers/wrestling may well decline in the next ten years..

briany

geeky wrote: »

The good matches that tend to remain on youtube or get released on DVD. It's the same reason there's a perception that film was better in the 50s or 60s - there were in fact just as many stinkers as there are today, they just aren't remembered. Same with some of the many god-awful matches in the 80s and 90s.

That said, I do think that some of the talents were genuinely better: I don't think anyone can wrestle as well as Bret Hart in his pomp, or work a crowd like Jake the Snake. Chuck in guys like the Macho Man , or Rick Flair and the Undertaker before all the injuries, and you realise that the late 80s and early 90s arrived at a time of special talent.

Yeah this is true. What I can't get over is how flat the audience reaction is to even the great matches nowadays like they just dont really care all that much. I was watching a live interview segment with macho man and sherri in the 80's and the boos coming off the crowd were immense. The rock's "rock concert" segment from 2003 or 2004, the booing was some of the loudest i think i've ever heard. Also hulk hogans pops during the 80's and the undertaker's entrances during the latter half of the 90's were always spine chilling. I just amn't finding that same kind of atmosphere today by and large.

geeky

briany wrote: »

What I can't get over is how flat the audience reaction is to even the great matches nowadays like they just dont really care all that much. I was watching a live interview segment with macho man and sherri in the 80's and the boos coming off the crowd were immense. The rock's "rock concert" segment from 2003 or 2004, the booing was some of the loudest i think i've ever heard. Also hulk hogans pops during the 80's and the undertaker's entrances during the latter half of the 90's were always spine chilling. I just amn't finding that same kind of atmosphere today by and large.

That much is true. A lot of the energy around the attitude era (and Hogan's dominance) was self-reinforcing: you wanted to yell along with the rock and stone cold because everyone else was too. Today, if someone at, say, Dolph Ziggler's level started banging on about 'the Ziggler's show' or 'Ziggler 3:16 says I just kicked your ass', I'd expect a kind of bafflement. While heels are getting over and the kid faces (Cena, Hardy and Rey) are still getting a decent reaction, the crowd are flat for many faces. Even leaving aside the awful promos (hell, the Hardys didn't speak much when they came on the scene) someone with moves like John Morrison would have people going batsh*t ten years ago.

Vince135792003

geeky wrote: »

I'm not saying for a second that business is spiralling downhill fast

Cool. The tone I took from your first response was that you were and it would be irrational to think that.

Of course the WWE need to be concerned about certain trends (a lack of fresh main event talent, ppv buyrates) and the comparison to UFC growth is a valid one. However sometimes fans on the internet tend to combine their lack of interest with a general decline in the WWE business and that isn't the case in many instances.

The WWE business model is solid.

Just on people being attracted in to either MMA or pro-wrestling, I really think it's not black and white issue. For every star amateur wrestler that goes into MMA, there are other athletes out there that could go into wrestling who would not have an interest in getting involved in combat sports and decide on a career in wrestling.

Bret Hart is the perfect example of this in that while he respects MMA, he says he would still have gone into pro-wrestling as the art of making it look real rather than it being real was the attraction for him.

flahavaj

Nostalgia is usually overrated. Its easy to pick out matches from a particular era like they do in that Vintage Collection and give the impression that an entire era was amazing, when in reality it wasn't. Even myself I often go on about how great the WWf was in the 80's. But then I sit down and try to watch a PPV from the era and I can barely keep my eyes open throughout, what with 90% of the matches being rubbish and the abundance of terrible gimmicks. The present day product, much maligned and stale as it is, easily blows the socks of it for the most part, from a workrate point of view at the very least. Even a lot of teh Attitide Era RAWs and PPV's haven't aged well. Take 1999 for example, what a sh*tty year for PPVs that was.:eek:

The exception of course is the old Mid South and Memphis stuff which I'm currently watching. That stuff was f*cking brilliant.:pac:

rossie1977

flahavaj wrote: »

The exception of course is the old Mid South

i could watch that all day and the wcw cruiserweight action circa 1996-98 too

rossie1977

geeky wrote: »

There are healthy spots and negative spots in the industry - and in MMA. But I think you need to be on a special kind of cool-aid to claim wrestling is on an upward trend as an industry right now.

nobody is saying it is, pro-wrestling is in a kind of lull period at the moment but wwe for one are in a much stronger position today than say 1996 when they were on the brink of going out of business, they are also in a better position than many others in the us entertainment industry that are really feeling the pinch at the moment, wwes share price has remained steady enough too despite the market absolutely tanking in the states and many owners of very big companies losing billions

orestes

How did this thread become a discusion of UFC/WWE ppv buyrates and the likes? The topic of the thread is nostalgic wrestling viewing, if you want to discuss the other stuff feel free to start a thread and I'll move the posts from here into it, but please keep this thread on topic folks

chopperbyrne

You can pick and choose vintage stuff, so you're unlikely to see bad matches.

When you're watching "weekly episodic television" however, you get the good with the bad.

As much as I like WWF from mid 80s to late 90s, there's a lot of crap from that time period too.

briany

But are the high points of the older days in wrestling higher than the high points of today?

chopperbyrne

Some are and some aren't.

Nostalgia plays a big factor too.

rossie1977

briany wrote: »

But are the high points of the older days in wrestling higher than the high points of today?

i dunno, undertaker/michaels this past wrestlemania is as good a match as any wwf put on in the 1980s, the only one that could rival it would be probably steamboat/savage at WM3

when you compare vintage to today you need to be more specific, like pick a year, if you don't do that you are comparing a decade or maybe 2 decades of stuff to today which is totally unfair

Otis Driftwood

Snakeblood

briany wrote: »

I was just watching some old WWF/Memphis/ECW clips on youtube and with so many things i dont know if its nostalgia or not but i just think it's in a whole other universe compared to the WWE's product today and TNA or ROH for that matter and I wonder what exactly it is that makes it so much better?
Its not that ill watch any old matches, alot of WWF stuff from 93-96 can be hard to take but is there really anything of today that can compare to say the Undertakers entrance at king of the ring '98 for just one example?

I'd like Michael Cole to weigh in on this.

Cactus Col

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Nostalgia plays a big factor too.

Absolutely, when watching older matches, I'm far more interested and receptive to the periods I was watching wrestling. So the Hulk / Macho Man / Ultimate Warrior WWF and anything from 99 onwards I always enjoy.

However, anything that features sid, or Vader, Deisel, Razor Ramon, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, The Patriot, etc, I'm don't enjoy as much. Basically from the period I didn't watch wrestling. I don't know all the stories and whatnot.

Don't get me wrong, a great match is a great match, but nostalgia certainly makes an ordinary match seem good, and a good match seem very good.