Can WWE ever get back to the glory days?

flahavaj

Machismo Fan wrote: »

The overall standard of wrestling today is vastly superior to the attitude era - much less shortcuts and in much larger quantities. Past eras are over romanticised and in five years time people will say that 'it's not the same' or 'it's not as good' about wrestling then in comparison to what we have now.

This is a very good point. For all the talk of the talent on the WWF 1980's roster, the wrestlig was awful. Watch an 80's PPv and you'll eb lucky if you get one Savage or Steamboat match that semi-decent, the rest would be laughed out of arenas nowadays.

Similarly, there was a lot of muck on Attitude era shows as well from an in-ring perspective, the likes of Taker (during that era), Rock, Austin's punch-stomp style could put on some pretty poor stuff from an in-ring POV. The electric atmosphere masked a lot.

jaykhunter

Everyone will agree that the general wrestling standard of today is much higher than the Attitude Era and Hulkamania Era. But what would sell a PPV and keep the masses watching each week - ie what wrestling fans in general want - a Danielson match or a Rock promo? Who needs amazing wrestling when you have fresh, incredibly over talent cutting fantastic promos? (not 99% of wrestling fans!!)

Ridley

jaykhunter wrote: »

There's definitely a drop in quality from the top eras to today; and to say it's unfair to compare pretty much admits that today's product is inferior.

Well I'm saying no-one is like Mick Foley when it comes to finding legitimate reasons for his characters to do the things they do.

My argument would be that the wrestling is better now but the storytelling isn't but that's your stance aswell.

Today's product is a collision between the Hulkamania/New Generation style and the Attitude era. WWE wants kids behind Cena as a Hulkesque mega power but is still trying to keep everyone else invested. I think the Raw guest hosts were a weird mix of WWE entertaining themselves and bringing in people to appeal to the old crowd (and getting anyone they could).

Unless I grossly underestimated the childen of this millennium's investment in Cheech and Chong.

DM_7

But if Rock never left and he was still cutting promo's would he still have the same attention from the fans? Probably not.

Wrestling fans are like soccer fans, they love to bitch and moan, they love to see new people come on the scene and be successful, after a while they get bored of the successful guy and don't appreciate him till he is gone. They will also talk up the past and most don't see the positives in the current team/show. Not sure how relevant that actually is........

flahavaj

jaykhunter wrote: »

Everyone will agree that the general wrestling standard of today is much higher than the Attitude Era and Hulkamania Era. But what would sell a PPV and keep the masses watching each week - ie what wrestling fans in general want - a Danielson match or a Rock promo? Who needs amazing wrestling when you have fresh, incredibly over talent cutting fantastic promos? (not 99% of wrestling fans!!)

I'm not that sure the Rock ever sold PPV's in his own right though.

parker kent

jaykhunter wrote: »

Agreed Parker, WWE isn't doing the best it can with what it's got; an old storyline done well can be great (see Nexus June-November) but in general we still get crap storylines (see Edge/Kane) and go-nowhere unproductive feuds (look at how Miz is being booked) but even if WWE were having fantastic storylines and making the best of their talent we still wouldn't be back to the heyday of the Attitude Era/Hulkamania. You can't book the talent that's not there. There is no Rock/Austin/Foley etc.

Who would have though that Rocky Maivia was going to be so big? Comparing The Miz at the minute to The Rock when he joined NOD is not actually that crazy. Fans were not saying Rocky Sucks for no reason. He was genuinely disliked even though he was a face.

Or The Ringmaster? Don't forget before Austin was saddled with that horrible gimmick, he had been fired by WCW. In 1995, nobody could have envisaged what was to come. Or when Foley left WCW, who thought that Mankind was going to lead to the career he had in the WWF?

My point is that you are comparing people at their very peak to people who are on the way up. A much fairer comparison is the the WWF of 1995/96 or in 1984.

Jazzy

in short - no
in long - noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

jaykhunter

Flah a quick google of "biggest wrestling draws of all time" Rock is #8, really impressive for a guy who was only on top for about 3-4 years, much like Austin. (Before anyone denigrates Dave Meltzer, if you have more accurate figures, please post them!)

That's an interesting point Parker. I hope Miz and co at their peak (I imagine Orton and Cena are at their peak now) will be just as big as Rock/Austin/Foley etc but it's hard to think so as whenever those Attitude Era guys were showcased they went over huge; and despite Miz being showcased I don't see him ever getting that big. Early days of course I really hope he proves me wrong.

We're definitely in some kind of slump but I fear we're not in enough of a slump for really creative booking and talent to really shine.

Definitely WWE will be in a much better place in 5 years (considering the amount of building they're doing now) but until then it's still quite a work in progress.

Watching WrestleMania VIII right now. Marked out to Piper's promo on Bret, and then Mountie and Repo man. And they're mid-carders. Definitely some nostalgia-goodness but I wish I felt like that about the current mid-carders; I hope the current general wrestling fan is as happy with the product as I was. Doubt it though

parker kent

jaykhunter wrote: »

That's an interesting point Parker. I hope Miz and co at their peak (I imagine Orton and Cena are at their peak now) will be just as big as Rock/Austin/Foley etc but it's hard to think so as whenever those Attitude Era guys were showcased they went over huge; and despite Miz being showcased I don't see him ever getting that big. Early days of course I really hope he proves me wrong.

But as my post says, it is often the currently over-looked mid carder that will be the long-term top guy. When Austin was The Ringmaster, guys like Mabel were being pushed as stars. So somebody like Morrison (not saying he will, just using him as an example) could break through in time.

All it takes is the WWE to fully get behind the right person at the right time. It took Shawn Michaels a long, long time to break through into the main events and he is the greatest wrestler in WWE history.

partyndbs

nobody except some people(take wrestling 2 seriously) care about actual wrestling? i want hot slutty girls getting used...insane edgy angles...explosive matches....give me all of it over some roh snore fest anyday

jaykhunter

partyndbs wrote: »

nobody except some people(take wrestling 2 seriously) care about actual wrestling? i want hot slutty girls getting used...insane edgy angles...explosive matches....give me all of it over some roh snore fest anyday

You should check out TNA. Sounds perfect for you!

flahavaj

jaykhunter wrote: »

Flah a quick google of "biggest wrestling draws of all time" Rock is #8, really impressive for a guy who was only on top for about 3-4 years, much like Austin. (Before anyone denigrates Dave Meltzer, if you have more accurate figures, please post them!)

Austin was the real draw at that time.

partyndbs

jaykhunter wrote: »

You should check out TNA. Sounds perfect for you!

have u seen the crowd at that? awful but put tnas product with wwes appeal and ye it wud be perfect

jaykhunter

flahavaj wrote: »

Austin was the real draw at that time.

Especially in 2000!

parker kent

partyndbs wrote: »

nobody except some people(take wrestling 2 seriously) care about actual wrestling? i want hot slutty girls getting used...insane edgy angles...explosive matches....give me all of it over some roh snore fest anyday

This 10 year old boy is why PG is needed :pac:

But yeah, excellent way to misconstrue what absolutely everybody here has been saying.

flahavaj

jaykhunter wrote: »

Especially in 2000!

Even when he wasn't there it was still the era that Ausitin built, the rest were lucky to be around when they were.:pac:*

*Slight exageration.

flahavaj

partyndbs wrote: »

nobody except some people(take wrestling 2 seriously) care about actual wrestling? i want hot slutty girls getting used...insane edgy angles...explosive matches....give me all of it over some roh snore fest anyday

http://www.gorgeousladiesofwrestling.com/

Sounds like your cuppa tay....

flahavaj

Also the answer to the OP, is no, because MMA is here to stay.

Exclamation Marc

I think there are a number of things mean that WWE will never get back to the glory days.

1. The PG era. I'm not talking about hardcore violence or bleeding every five minutes, it's just the "edge" that WWE used to have, and the "edge" that promos used to have, is now gone. It's hard to feel like person A hates person B when the best term they can use for them is "CM Sucks", whereas ten years ago person A would call person B "a son of a bítch or an a$$hole", things regular people do. It's too corny now and sliding into the power ranger zone of just OTT cheese and cornyness that wouldn't seem out of place on Nickelodeon, which is not believable. I mean TNA is no shining example of a company, but when Bischoff turns around and calls some guy a "scumbag piece of BLEEEP" for crossing him over, it sure as hell sounds more 'real' than using the word 'poop' or 'sucks' in your 'rage'. It's not all down to the 'PG' era, but you can see that a lot less risks are taken, and maybe its a product of our time now that nobody wants to offend anyone, but it just seems so safey safey now.

2. Short term memory. Everything in WWE now seems so short term. People are praising CM Punk for bringing up something that happened 2 years ago between him and Orton. And they shouldn't really, it should be the 'done thing', because that was how it used to be. Everyone had a history that stretched way back with long backstories which were referred to, whereas now WWE wants us all to think as if everything began 6 months ago. There's no historical element to anything anymore.

3. Short term vision. Feuds seem to be fast tracked a lot these days. Personally I think Barrett and Cena (just one example) could have had a better payoff and a longer back and forth, but to me it felt rushed at the end and Barrett was bagged off and forgotten about. Years ago, that feud would have lasted so much longer and Barrett would have gotten much more of an upper hand. Even look at Austin feuds, whilst he may have come out on top at the end, the other guy generally got the upper hand at certain points. Imagine Austin had torn through Undertaker in two months. Look at Austin and how in a couple of years he didn't have an enormous amount of feuds outside of the Rock/Taker/McMahons/HHH, he had a couple, but he wasn't moving from person to person each month like it seems happens now.

Also, EVERYTHING is booked from month to month. One PPV ends and the next day, its like a scramble to announce the next PPV. Followed by 3 shows of build up (as opposed to 6-7 in the glory days-with Smackdown and/or spread out PPVs) which you can never make feel special. You just can't build up a big deal about a fight if its taken only 3 or 4 weeks to make. In the glory days, feuds took months to pan out. Look at mid-card feuds like Bossman v Al Snow which took months of different (sometimes awful) matches and vignettes to finally pan out. Now its a 3/4 week rota and it sucks.

4. The internet. In fairness, we all know about surprises before they happen. Booker T and Nash in the Rumble were the big surprises and we all knew about them. In the glory days, surprises were surprises. Long term plans were only found out over time, whereas now we know about them from reports. We know about returns before the show has even started whereas before we'd know about them when the music hit. I had no idea McMahon would help Austin out at Mania 17, but if it were to happen now I'd probably have heard about it weeks in advance, which kinda sucks.

5. Crap characters. This probably all falls back to the PG era, but its hard to make a character actually believable and enjoyable when they're so cheesy. I mean Orton is meant to be their most vicious character and he's a boring OTT charicature of a snake, whereas in the glory days you had guys like the APA, Austin, Taz etc who were guys who actually gave off the impression they could beat the life out of you without being elaborate or OTT in their ways. And then you have this mixed bag of generic characters who you could literally interchange and nobody would notice. Cena was actually enjoyable as a loud mouth rapping heel who trash talked opponents, but now he just wears the clothes, thats the extent of his "character". People are either this OTT extension of a charicature like Orton, Miz, Rhodes etc, or they're just bland and interchangeable. Even Sheamus is starting to be normalised into just another guy. Back in the glory days, there'd be mid-card feuds I'd almost tune in just to see as fights like Shane v Blackman or Owen v Shamrock, even Test v Shane, or the RTC v anyone really, as they had been built up so well and these guys would really build feuds well.

6. Brand extension/too many wrestlers. Kind of the same thing but with only 2 hours programming a week for 30+ characters (rough guess) there's very little you can do to develop characters when the top 5 or 6 guys get most of the screen time. Also, everybody seems to be on their own (except Nexus/Corre and the couple of tag teams) whereas in the glory days there was the Corporation/Los Boricuas/RTC/The Ministry/DX/DOA/Nation of Domination/Harts etc etc and then loads of tag teams like the Headbangers, Hollys, Hogg farmers, Bodydonnas, APA, Outlaws, LOD, etc, all of which stuck around for a good amount of time to develop personalities. Now good teams and groups get broken up so bloody fast. Hart Dynasty was broken up seemingly to bury them individually, Nexus was split up and divided, Usos buried so much they dont even get a TV entrance etc.

They either need to end the brand extension or limit the on-air talent because its too crowded for anyone to get a personality or anyone to get the crowd actually caring about them unless they're one of the top guys.

7. Promos. Nobody can cut a decent promo anymore. Jericho, Rock, Foley, JBL, Austin, McMahon, Taker etc could all cut a killer promo. I watched WM17 build up the other week and the promos of Austin and Rock sitting down talking about their match, and Austin saying in such a believable tone that "I NEED to beat you Rock, its all I want and I gotta do it", and the Rock retorting that Steve Austin will be getting the goddamn best of the Rock at Mania and there is no way in hell that he could beat him. There was nothing in that promo that can't be said now (back to my point that its not all PG) but nobody can pull it off anymore and actually be believable. I watched that promo and I really felt that Austin NEEDED to win, I believed. Now, no promo catches my imagination or sucks me in. It's all the same OTT stuff week-in, week-out. Good promos made the Rock-Hogan match what it was, not fantastic wrestling. I know those two were the premier promo men, but nobody around today is fit to lace their boots in the promo world, its all so predictable and so samey and so OTT corny and cheese. Catchphrases are forced and rammed down our throats.

So anyways, they're just some of my thoughs, you probably agree and disagree with parts but they're the ones that spring to mind.

rossie1977

FireballPitcher wrote: »

3. Short term vision. Feuds seem to be fast tracked a lot these days. Personally I think Barrett and Cena (just one example) could have had a better payoff and a longer back and forth, but to me it felt rushed at the end and Barrett was bagged off and forgotten about. Years ago, that feud would have lasted so much longer and Barrett would have gotten much more of an upper hand. Even look at Austin feuds, whilst he may have come out on top at the end, the other guy generally got the upper hand at certain points.

in fairness that barrett and cena feud did go on for 7 months and barrett did get the upper hand, he did beat cena which forced him to be his slave, he did make cena retire

problem with longer feuds these days is fans complain about them too, look at cena and orton, terrific feud at the back end of 2009, some great matches but what were the majority of the iwc saying "not another orton cena match, enough already" and that was 3 ppvs in

i agree throwing barrett on sd was completely wrong and killed his momentum (at least for now)

Now its a 3/4 week rota and it sucks.

the recent mysterio/del rio feud shows that the old way is still in evidence, i think writers are just too lazy today

. The internet. In fairness, we all know about surprises before they happen. Booker T and Nash in the Rumble were the big surprises and we all knew about them. In the glory days, surprises were surprises. Long term plans were only found out over time, whereas now we know about them from reports. We know about returns before the show has even started whereas before we'd know about them when the music hit. I had no idea McMahon would help Austin out at Mania 17, but if it were to happen now I'd probably have heard about it weeks in advance, which kinda sucks.

depends, i knew glen jacobs was going to be kane months before it happened by reading non kayfabe mags and fanzines back in 1997, i knew nash and hall were leaving wwe as early as feb/march 1996 thanks to powerslam mag, pretty simple solution don't read wrestlings threads/forums in the week leading up to a ppv or raw

. Crap characters. This probably all falls back to the PG era, but its hard to make a character actually believable and enjoyable when they're so cheesy.

sorry but no way, some of the greatest wrestling characters emerged from wwf in the 80s, piper, mr perfect, bobby heenan, jake roberts, million dollar man, rick rude, fantastic characters in pg, you saying movies like raiders of the lost ark and back to the future were cheesy those were pg

7. Promos. Nobody can cut a decent promo anymore. Jericho, Rock, Foley, JBL, Austin, McMahon, Taker etc could all cut a killer promo.

plenty of good promo guys in wrestling today in wwe you have punk, barrett and miz who are top class, you also have some under-rated promo guys like danielson who cut a superb promo on michael cole last year on nxt

briany

Vince Mcmahon is simply doing what needs to be done for the time and place his company finds itself in. If the majority of hormonal 18 to 30 year old males have moved on to MMA for their fight fix, how would some pretend fighting ever hope to compete? Just because some die hard fans wish some imagined old days to come back does not mean that the WWE will go running back to something that worked for them years ago.

I miss old time wrestling things too but that's what Youtube is for and even then, a lot of it is not as good as I thought I remembered.

What was catagorically better was the crowd reaction. When the crowds back then were hot, they were hot and they were sometimes just buzzing the whole way through a segment which is so rare now. Is that a symptom of today's shorter attention span? Yes would be my guess.

It is also my guess that even a charismatic wrestler would have a serious uphill battle if he came into the fold looking like Cactus Jack and that's tragic because it's only recently that it seems like all wrestlers in the WWE have become perfectly sculpted Adonis like characters. It doesn't seem to leave much room for anything else. That samey-ness leads to quite a dry atmosphere when you have crew cut muscular Chad Rogenson coming out to "Devil Holler" by Kinex in yellow spandex "This kid is really something. He's an ex-marine and trains in Jiu Jitsu." and he's fighting Josh Chadson, coming out to "Stone broken" by Engine Red, an NXT winner and in blue spandex with a bald head and slightly less muscular but a little bit more tanned, a former linebacker and two time U.S. champion. Kick, punch, Irish whip, dropkick, fancy special move (Had by Chad). Tune in to next week's US title match between Chad Rogenson and 20 year old Evan Joshcastle! How are we supposed to get emotionally involved in this kind of match? Where's the personality, the psychology?

Ridley

rossie1977 wrote: »

sorry but no way, some of the greatest wrestling characters emerged from wwf in the 80s, piper, mr perfect, bobby heenan, jake roberts, million dollar man, rick rude, fantastic characters in pg, you saying movies like raiders of the lost ark and back to the future were cheesy those were pg

Dashing Cody Rhodes is cheesy as hell and he's in no way a bad character.

orestes

Ah christ, I take a year off from this place and come back to the same old arguements?

In my opinion the WWE will get back to the glory days, and go beyond them, but not in the minds of the fans who were there at the time. It was just one of those things of perfect timing and the stars coming into alignment, literally. Kayfabe was coming to an end and so was the generation that had grown up with it.

The generation that had made WWE (hulkamaniacs, warrior fans, etc) were suddenly disenfranchised teenagers (not saying they were just disenfranchised with WWE, thats just a teenagers attitude to the world in general). In a kick back to all of that the WWE recreated itself to suit the attitude of the day, hence the attitude era. From Hogan telling you to say your prayers to Austin giving the finger. Their fans were growing up so they needed to grow up with them and give them characters they could relate to as people rather than gimmicks, and every 20 year old would fukking love to whack their boss with a steel chair, no matter how many old Hogan shirts he owns. DX, Austin, Rock (the guy every guy in their twenties wished he had the confidence to be), Foley (cos every pissed off guy loves a victim finally making it), they were all the personifiaction of facets of the mind-sets of WWEs key target audience at the time, p*ssed off dissilusioned white young males. Sure, there were some great matches, but are they really what you think of when you think of the attitude era?

Another point Id like to make is net boards have spent year giving out that WWE wont give young talent a chance, Cena, HHH, wah wah wah. Look at their roster right now. Alberto Del Rio is going to WM, The Nexus gave a bunch of guys a break, and then there are people like Kofi, Ziggler, Morrisson, Ryder going way up too. Fukk, the Miz is champ ffs! If you're gonna complain that the WWE isn't giving the new guys a chance, it's hardly fair for you not to give them one either

grames_bond

^^^ Spot f*cking on mate!! couldnt agree more!

Im a big fan of the youth movement of today, i can really see the likes of miz and ziggler etc being absolute stars! (and jo mo when he learns how to speak)

Orestes - welcome back btw!!

orestes

grames_bond wrote: »

Orestes - welcome back btw!!

Who the fukk are you?!

*hic*

orestes

flahavaj wrote: »

Also the answer to the OP, is no, because MMA is here to stay.

Missed this, my apologies. I agree MMA is defintely here to stay and will take a massive chunk of the WWE market (see my comments in my post above about p*ssed off males, these days they dont wanna see guys pretending to beat each other up, they want them to see them knock each other out for real), but for some reason I cant help but think that WWE will last. Again, the thing about that era that people remember isnt the numbers or the matches imo, its how engaging it was so they keep coming back, and thats where I need to get out my calculator

jaykhunter

I don't know what Boards was like a year ago but everyone in this thread is pretty much in agreement, some more optimistic than others.

It's a fair point to say that WWF properly reflected society at the time (or what people wanted in their wrestling) but having a confluence of talent like in the Hulkamania Era or the Monday Night Wars can't be recreated now that WWE are playing in the sandbox all by themselves. Judging by today's conventions, are p'd off teenagers clamering to have a 5-round legitimate sporting contest with their boss? :pac: Something tells me 2011 Cena/Orton and co doesn't resonate as deeply as Rock/Austin etc did.

When WWF went national (and international) the slate/book on wrestling was pretty much wiped clean and re-written, and the Attitude Era brought shoots, dissolution of typical heel/face, fresh storylines/gimmicks/match stipulations/hardcore wrestling etc. I've no idea how WWE would contend to re-write the rules once again; unless it's just waiting for the current crop of fans to go away and start fresh with a new crop of fans.

I wonder if there's any corrolation between # of legitimate places to work in the US and the popularity of American wrestling. Whenever Rey goes that'll be the last of the "world-trained" wrestlers like Benoit, Jericho etc. I also wonder if WWE/Triple H didn't sabotage careers in the early 2000s (RVD, Kane, Goldberg, Umaga, Booker T etc) we'd be in such a rut now.

Nowadays we have one company that was terrified of change and would rather slowly lose their fanbase than get fully behind new stars (2005-2009). Thankfully 2010 has seen WWE really try to make new stars, even if practically every star they elevate (Miz, Kofi, Swagger etc), WWE have sabotaged. (Which is a booking problem, not a talent problem, but there is a talent problem too)

We'll just have to "hold out" until the aforementioned are established, have experience and get really good. Maybe in 5 years when everyone working in the established main event now is actually retired, hopefully we'll be in another golden era. How you'd expect to do that by yourself when your company's still making > $30,000,000 profit is beyond me though.

jaykhunter

I forgot to mention, but back in the Hulkamania Era and going into the Attitude Era, WWF had only 2 hours of programming per week. Now we have 4 main hours (RAW/SD) and 2 extra hours (NXT/Superstars); numerous 3 hour specials and 14 (now 13) PPVs/year. That kind of oversaturation can hardly lead to another boom period - whatever catches fire will be gobbled up and ran into the ground fairly quickly.

Orton and Cena squaring off at the Rumble, pointing to the WM sign --and only crickets responding-- was evidence of that.

The average age of the roster (20s, early 30s at best) has something to do with it, as it takes many years (if not possibly decades) to get really good. Insteading of poaching ready-made seasoned talent (from the territories, or later from WCW); WWE are building stars from the ground-up. So we are seeing them when they're at their most crap.

I really hope for a return to gimmicks as well (more Dashing please) as the "i'm a bad-ass who wears plain black trunks just like Austin did" is completely played out. I'm so glad most of the roster try to have an interesting outfit. Just less stupid names like Dolph Ziggler or McGuillibuddies.

ricero

was looking back at the invasion angle and before that they were great stories. i loved the stalker and undertaker storyline

Exclamation Marc

jaykhunter wrote: »

I forgot to mention, but back in the Hulkamania Era and going into the Attitude Era, WWF had only 2 hours of programming per week. Now we have 4 main hours (RAW/SD) and 2 extra hours (NXT/Superstars); numerous 3 hour specials and 14 (now 13) PPVs/year. That kind of oversaturation can hardly lead to another boom period - whatever catches fire will be gobbled up and ran into the ground fairly quickly.

Orton and Cena squaring off at the Rumble, pointing to the WM sign --and only crickets responding-- was evidence of that.

The average age of the roster (20s, early 30s at best) has something to do with it, as it takes many years (if not possibly decades) to get really good. Insteading of poaching ready-made seasoned talent (from the territories, or later from WCW); WWE are building stars from the ground-up. So we are seeing them when they're at their most crap.

I really hope for a return to gimmicks as well (more Dashing please) as the "i'm a bad-ass who wears plain black trunks just like Austin did" is completely played out. I'm so glad most of the roster try to have an interesting outfit. Just less stupid names like Dolph Ziggler or McGuillibuddies.

Great post.