How does wrestling become culturally relevant again?

Easy, move away from PG. In saying that, there is no way Vince will ever do it because of sponsors and merch.

Oh, and stop pushing Roman

Wrestling is finished

Having Steve Austin and The Rock in their primes at the same time actually killed the business. If one came ten years later than the other, they could have stopped this ratings freefall

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>>2001122
Memes

>>2001127
The funny thing is, The Rock was still relatively young into his career when he left for Hollywood. He could've been the face of WWE until atleast 2010, maybe even later.

>>2001122
MMA has to die first.

>>2001126
Doesn't have to be edgy to be good. Look at Bryan's rise, people just need someone to get behind and the WWE refuse to push anyone to that level not named Roman Reigns.

>>2001141
NEW QUESTION EVERYONE

>how do we kill MMA?

>>2001122
>live show
>hasn't even started yet

At least cherry pick a picture of a show during the action

>>2001127
I think the WWE has to be in a similar position that created Austin and Rock in the first place in order to replicate that success. If you'll recall, WCW was breathing down Vinces neck which forced him to take chances on guys like Austin and Rock.

IMO the lack of legit competition is what got us where we are right now with a mediocre product.

>>2001153
This is mid show ya fuckin turkey.

>>2001144
>Bryan's rise
Literally nobody who doesn't watch wrestling knows about Daniel Bryan or the 'Yes' chant. People need to be entertained and people have always been entertained by controversy, i.e The Attitude Era.

>>2001147
Death of high profile fighters in the ring due to company negligence

give ambrose the push he deserves

put all the titles on goldberg

>>2001147
shane mcmahon vs dana white in an octagon steel cage buried alive match

>>2001166
>record lows from all shieldettys

18+

>>2001144
No casual knows the name Daniel Bryan. Comparing him to the Rock or Steve Austin is ridiculous.

>>2001137
I'd say it's more that the two left abruptly when they were more over than the wwe brand. Now Vince owns the rights to everyone's name and makes them sign ridiculous non compete clauses to make sure they can't make a living anywhere else. The brand has to be over, not any individual(s), which is ass backwards if you think about it. That's why all promos are scripted and everything and everyone is so micromanaged and protected.

>>2001156
UFC is not only challenging WWE right now, but outright destroying. If that isn't motivation, then nothing is.

>>2001297
Certainly UFC is doing better but UFC sells a different product, and I don't believe that MMA and puroresu are in direct competition with each other. WWE is more based on theatrics and narrative in such a way that UFC isn't.

>>2001325
Ask any casual and they'll say WWE is fake and that they would rather watch UFC

>>2001350
right. because there's no interesting storylines or any reason to watch anymore

>used to have wrestlers with cool finishers
every match has 6 or more near falls with guys no selling finishers. no psychology whatsover
>used to have hardcore matches
if we're lucky we'll get one kendo stick in a ppv
>used to have hot as fuck bimbo chicks
we have """"""""""women's wrestling""""""""" now
>used to have big guys
almost all indie shitters and dweebs now
>used to have unscripted promos
we have vanilla characters fumbling their lines now
>crowd used to be a bunch of high energy drunken chads
it's parents with their little jimmies and neckbeards now.

why would any casual tune in on purpose anymore?

They blew their chance when they fucked up the summer of Punk angle.

>>2001431
Hey Phil hows the ufc rematch talks going?

>>2001365
>used to have hot as fuck bimbo chicks, we have """"""""""women's wrestling""""""""" now

Chyna and Blayze were beating men for tittle when pro wrestling was most popular

>>2001144

It doesn't have to be "edgy" to be PG-13 (or TV-14 or whatever).

But PG-13 is needed to help the audience suspend their disbelief. I can't take seriously the premise that two large, adult men are competing it what is ostensibly a blood sport when they say things like "Win the whole fudging thing" and don't occasionally bleed.

It doesn't even half to be some Abyss tier retard bloodbath, but when you curbstomp someone through a "cinderblock," that man needs to bleed. And if someone gets bloody hardway, just let it go. Don't go to a commercial and stop the match in order to patch up Cesaro's bald head.

Of course, there's lot of stuff wrong with the WWE's product that has nothing to do with the PG rating.

>>2001250

>The brand has to be over, not any individual(s), which is ass backwards if you think about it.

This is a huge problem, and why there's no one to get behind, and hardly anyone to be against. Everyone is the same generic douche going on and on about THE WWE UNIVERSE and bullshit. The Company is the only character that's allowed to matter, every other wrestler is just falling over themselves to be The Company's favorite. Hardly anyone just says "You know what? I'm going to fucking win this match and all the others because I'm goddamn better than my opponent."

It's always "You know what? I'm going to go out there and do what I do best, entertain the WWE Universe because I am the best Sports Entertainer in the world!"

And, surprising exactly no one outside of Vince's idiot bubble, no one goddamn cares about the latter.

No one watches this shit to see a senile old narcissist jerk himself off.

>>2001452
Chyna was over as fuck though. Blayze on the other hand was WCW's way of attempting to recreate Chyna.

>>2001479
this. and they didn't feel the need to dedicate 45+ minutes to pretending to give a shit about including women in wrestling to appease feminists and numales (who don't spend any money on wwe products anyways).

>>2001479
Wasn't blayze pre chyna and wwf

>>2001489

Yes she left and dropped the wwf women's title into a trash can on Nitro

You don't, wrestling is a dying business. The best chance you could probably have would be cloning a young Rock or Austin and modernizing them

>>2001478
Honestly, if they just stopped forcing everyone to say "wwe universe" and shit like that the product would improve immediately. I didn't forget what fucking company I was watching, guys. They are fans and wrestlers, and this is wrestling. If Ambrose is talking about his title match, he doesn't need to say DOUBLE E HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPNSHIP ten times.

they honestly cater too much to hardcore fans like us.

they need to go back to writing better back stage segments and giving the mid card push to people who can act well on TV.

>>2001494
Haha, yeah. Then became madusa and had a swimsuit competition with missy hyatt. Good times

>>2001523
this is much more the reason people say it's fake, much more than the actual wrestling. it feels fake because this kind of dialogue insults our intelligence. there's no heart in anything anyone says. they're not even pretending to care about winning a title, they're just shills towing the company line. vince not letting anyone actually go over the brand leaves every wrestler dead in the water. they're all fucked before the even walk down the ramp with no hope at all of going over.

>>2001523
This honestly annoys the shit out of me in promos, because it seems like every single one has at least a few of the following

>DUBLYA DUBLYA E whatever CHAMPIONSHIP
>WWE UNIVERSE
>[CITY WE'RE IN]
>I WORKED SO HARD TO GET HERE

etc

>>2001365
I agree with all of this and would add:

Raw needs to go back to 2 hours

A legitimate competitor to WWE wouldn't hurt

There needs to be at least 1 or 2 guys that can fill the void left by Austin and Rock; I don't know if there is even anyone in the industry that can.

The only person that I can think of - and I know it sounds crazy and will definitely never happen given his age, other commitments, willingness to put others over, and HHH's jealousy - is Jericho. But just imagine if he got a mega push with some creative control and was heavily featured, it might not save the business, but it would be entertaining and make wrestling cooler than it is now

It can't. Just let it die.

>Kevin Owens talking about getting fat

>>2001595
Jericho is easily one of the most charismatic and entertaining on the mic and probably is historically underused given his skills, but it might be just a little too late to give him that megapush considering his age.

IMO the guy they should take a shot on is Big E.

>>2001122
let guys actually do more TV shows and movies and not just block them 90% of the time.

>tfw you hated Cena as a teenager
>tfw you respect the fuck out of BMJ now

>>2001829
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kj2rzRAYVg

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>>2001126
>stop pushing Roman
>someone not in the title picture anymore
I get that you neckbeards loathe him but you can't use that excuse anymore.

>>2001297
We need a company who is going to steal Vince's wrestlers and put on a better show than him. Wrestlers need to be able to say fuck you to Vince and walk onto another wrestling show like WCW, they can't do that with UFC

>>2001968
We won't get le billionaire meme because no rich people give a fuck about wrestling

>>2001127
If The Rock came around 10 years later, he never would've been star.

He would've been Smilin' Blue Chipper forever.

>>2001160
>>2001172
No "casual" knew who Steve Austin was until he ~feuded~ with Tyson.

18+

>>2001866
>someone not in the title picture anymore
Well, so much for that one.

>>2001692

Rollins could be a REALLY good face if they just let him be a face, instead of making his "face turn" whining about not being Triple H's favorite anymore.

AJ carried a company as a face. Sure, it was kind of like carrying a deer carcass, but he's a great face, and still has years left in the tank. He was also the most over man in the world a year or two ago.

Ambrose SHOULD be an amazing heel. His heel promos and heel wrestling in the SHIELD was about as good as it's possible to be. AND the Le Wacky Man gimmick would be a lot better as a heel, especially if he were allowed to do PG-13 stuff.

Zack Ryder had enough charisma to get over without being on TV. He's probably not good enough in the ring to be The Guy, but he should have been world champ at least once, for one decent run by now. That he hasn't proved this company hates money.

All of these guys, and probably others, could be "Mainstream" draws if the WWE would stop sabotaging them, their characters, and burying them under retirees. Of course, it would also take Creative and the like being able to put together storylines and shit that don't insult the audience's intelligence with broken continuity, wildly inconsistent characterization, and plot holes that could swallow a truck.

Appeal to the ever growing social nerds that play video games, watch dr who and superhero movies

>>2004393
everyone watches superhero movies

>>2001543
The problem is, Vince knows that they'd do bigger business if he let wrestlers have more freedom and control. He thinks having that control and leaving his wrestlers with nowhere else to go because they aren't draws is preferable, because it gives him all the power. In the current era it doesn't matter if Stone Cold takes his ball and goes home, nothing will change.

>>2004159
if they'd have given bray one decent run instead of jobbing him out to everyone he could've been the top heel for a decade. He's completely dead in the water now

>>2004424
Cape shit faggots watch superhero movies

>>2001122
Wresting is still popular with kids

>>2001122
Let go of the kid-friendly filter, these are grown men and women; let them act like it. Vicious competition is also welcome (less flippyshit choreographed moves, more chair shots to the head, more beating the crap our of each other).

Also, story lines are so stale man. I don't give a shit about some list and best friend shit, I care about two grown men ready to slit each other's throats because they want to be the best. Basically make story-lines with a little edge in them. Never hurt anybody.

>>2004716

Yes, though I don't think he'd ever get super mainstream like Stone Cold or The Rock did. He could have been that Undertaker type where the average schmuck on the street might vaguely recall hearing the name, but even the most casual fan would know exactly who you're talking about.

But they fucked that up because CENAWINSLOL and TAKERWINSLOL

>>2001692

Big E?

>>2004159

Rollins could be a great face if it was more based on his ring work than his mic work. He could be like Jeff Hardy was in his last WWE run

AJ could be the #1 face or heel

I like Ambrose but if he turns I hope he is more like the Shield Ambrose than the angsty teenager he was on the indies

If you knew what you were talking about, you would know Ryder [and Hawkins for that matter] is great in the ring. His de-push was because they didn't like that he got over on his own

>>2005638
>Big E?

The guy has gotten a lot better on the mic, is charismatic, and has a great physique. To me he is what Vince thinks Roman is, minus the strapping 'MILFs can't get enough' good looks.

One thing the Stone Cold and Rock had that is lacking today is opponent's with star power and/or credibility / physically imposing heels

Back then they could establish themselves by going over the likes of (in their primes) Undertaker, Kane, Jericho, Angle, HHH, Hart, HBK, Mankind, etc. Even most guys in the midcard were jacked, unlike today - Test, Shamrock, Venis, Mr. Ass

>>2005099
>chair shots to the head
not going to happen before vince is almost out of business or retired

you're better off watching CZW or something

>>2007229
I'm pretty sure you know already, but if you don't, a "chair shot to the head" is really a chair shot to the rear delt or upper back. Even so, they could just have the wrestlers sign a waiver before the match to absolve wwe of injury as a result of weapon use

>>2007390
that's not the issue, they still do chair shots to the back. the problem is that they don't want the little jimmies imitating it, notice how rollins can't do the curb stomp even though it's one of the safest moves ever?

>>2007419
I hear you but if they don't want the little jimmies imitating, they should just stop wrestling all together

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>>2007462
i'm pretty sure this is the exact reason 205 Live is on the Network. they don't want little kids doing even crazier moves that the cruiserweights do. that and maybe the networks don't want to be a part of that if some kids attempt the moves and injure or kill themselves.

>>2002037

All we really needed was a bare minimum of competency out of TNA back when they still had the easy money SpikeTV contract.

Instead, we got Russo, Hogan, Bischoff, and Nash. The fucking four horsemen of the apocalypse for any wrestling promotion.

>>2005638

>If you knew what you were talking about, you would know Ryder [and Hawkins for that matter] is great in the ring.

I don't mean to say he is bad. He isn't. He's just not as good as other potential Top Guys, like AJ, Rollins, or Cesaro.

Cesaro is another one they TOTALLY missed the boat on.

>>2007599
I remember watching it when I was getting back into wrestling and liking it better than wwe, having not watched or even talked about wrestling since 2003. Beer money, motor city machine guns, whatever group aj styles was in with ric flair, abyss being fat kane fighting the pope, bretty gud shit

>>2005666

Angle is something like 6' and 220 lbs. Jericho isn't any bigger. Foley was bigger, and taller at 6'3'', but he was kind of just fat, especially towards the end of his WWE run.

The thing is, the writing, angles, and booking generally all played into making these men look like utter badasses. They weren't being emasculated by Stephanie McMahon.

The WWE nowadays seems insistent on treating goddamn EVERYONE who isn't the subject of some weird obsession from Vince (basically everyone except Cena and Roman) as a geek. You look at the character AJ Styles right now, and you feel like you could flip him like an omelette.

Meanwhile, on Lucha Underground, PJ Black is basically a jobber but you get the impression that he would flatten your average schmuck before anyone could blink.

>>2007651
this.

>yfw steph is literally dixie carter with a wider safety net

>>2007629

The Ric Flair/AJ Styles thing might have been Fourtune. Get it? Because there was four of them. And then the fucking idiot writers ruined even that by shifting the group numbers so there was no longer four of them.

It still lead to a pretty good program with Heel-Flair-Immitation-AJ and Ric. The problem was that Ric kept going over, when he was goddamn 60. The man buried Jay Lethal. That sort of shit is part of what killed TNA.

They also completely wasted the Motor City Machine Guns for long stretches of time, and similar shit.

Beer Money was fucking great, their break up over the TNA Heavyweight Championship was great and they even managed to fuck up large parts of that. Angle was in really rough shape and needed to drop the belt and rest up, so the plan was to have Roode win the Bound For Glory series to get a title shot at the Bound For Glory PPV, then win. It was all set up really well and the TNA fans were really excited to see babyface Roode finally win The Big One.

Then Hogan pulled a Hogan (how anyone can say this man as had a net positive affect on pro wrestling is beyond me) and Hogan'ed about how Roode wasn't Hogan (big, slow, full of shit, weirdly charismatic), and no one at TNA told Hogan to fuck off so Angle won at the PPV.

Angle was still in bad shape, and I'm 99% certain Russo had been demoted from head writer to an assistant writer, so competent people tried to make the best of the Hogan (read: shit) sandwich. Storm won the belt off Angle, clean, in what was really a nothing match because Kurt wasn't capable of anything else on the next IMPACT.

The next week, Roode beat Samoa Joe (who finished with MINUS TEN POINTS in the BFG series because TNA will never stop fucking up at least half of what's going on) in a #1 Contender match. THE NEXT FUCKING WEEK, no slow build, no building suspense or fucking anything, Roode cheated to beat Storm to win the championship, turn heel, and break up Beer Money.

>>2007772
>Hogan pulled a Hogan (how anyone can say this man as had a net positive affect on pro wrestling is beyond me

the fact that he's the only person in history to start two wrestling booms for one

>>2007772
That's a nice recap. I was barely paying attention and it was 6 years ago. I remember seeing that shitty flair/Foley match where they busted out the tacks and being sad and never watching again.

>>2007772

How they actually worked the finish of that Roode v Storm title match was surprisingly good though.

The two faces had been wrestling clean for the duration of the match, until the ref had to jump out of the ring to avoid Roode charging at Storm, and hurt his knee doing it.

So the ref is rolling around outside, grabbing his knee. Roode had also tumbled to the outside area when Storm dodged his charge. As Roode tried to get his bearings, he sees Storm's beer bottle on the steel steps. The camera, from behind Roode, shows him looking at the beer bottle for a moment, before he turns around to look towards the camera. They change angles to show Roode looking at the ref for a moment, plotting. He turns back to the beer bottle, grabs in, and as Storm grabs him to pull him back into the ring, Roode smashes him with the beer bottle, and covers Storm as the ref hops back into the ring to count the pin.

Beloved babyface, Bobby Roode, turning on his friend like that drew some of the best boos they ever managed to get out of the IMPACT Zone.

They feuded on and off for a full year, featuring some questionable and truly stupid booking and writing decisions, but it was mostly good and was blown off very well when, at the next year's Bound For Glory, Storm finally beat Roode in a No DQ match by, fittingly, smashing Roode with a beer bottle.

TNA, for ONE FUCKING ANGLE, got it largely right. If they could have done that more than once every third year, they wouldn't be on death's doorstep right now.

>>2007782

>the fact that he's the only person in history to start two wrestling booms for one

And killed both of them, AND a third company. Nice work.

>>2007802

Oh yeah. The problem with that Flair v Foley match was that they were both WAY too old and broken down. A health Angle managed to shoulder most of the workload in a pretty solid match with Foley, and Jay Lethal managed to do the same for Flair.

But having both halves of the match too goddamn feeble to work was doomed from the start.

>>2007822
>Hogan killed WWF

that's a new one

>Hogan killed WCW

Eric Bischoff is probably the biggest mark in the history of wrestling. Any top guy would dream of having the boss wrapped around his finger, and if it wasn't Hogan, Nash would have taken his spot in an instant. Reading stories of WCW backstage during that time is insane, everyone played Bischoff like a fiddle. The fact that people blame Hogan/Nash/Time Warner/whoever else instead of Bischoff is insane to me, he spent an entire career trying to be "one of the boys" and doing anything possible to please them

>TNA

see above

>>2007706

Dixie is just managerial incompetence. She GENERALLY didn't make a habit of appearing on TV to utterly bury the actual talent with no payoff ever occurring.

An exception would be that AWFUL angle where she didn't want to give AJ Styles a new contract because he was a small fish "in any pond." Truly fucking awful.

But, as a heel, she usually either let ECIII do her enforcing, which at least made HIM look credible, or got her comeuppance, like when Hogan punked her out or when Bully Ray put her through a table.

Shame the bumbling imbeciles started an weeks/months long angle were the potential payoff was that Bully could put Dixie through a table at any show, if he could only get his hands on her, only to have the retards release spoiler VIDEOS FOR FREE ON THE INTERNET for their own show ahead of when he actually did it, and no one bothered to watch.

The point is, Stephanie is SO MUCH WORSE than Dixie, at least as an on-screen character.

>>2001866
>someone not in the title picture anymore
Are you retarded?

>>2007830
Bischoff let DDP fuck his wife and vice versa, he's a one trick pony who had no clue how to run a company. If Scott hall didn't come up with Crow Sting and if Kevin Sullivan didn't come up with goldbergs streak they would have been dead even faster

>>2007830

He killed the 80s wrestling boom with his bullshit. HOGANWINSLOL was a large part of why early 90s wrestling was so goddamn awful until he, unlike Cena, turned heel.

Then he killed WCW. Which isn't ENTIRELY fair to say, because, as you say, there was more than one player in that tragedy, but Hogan was on the Mount Rushmore of WCW's death. His politicking, spotlight hogging, and refusal to let anyone else go or get over killed the upper card of pretty much every PPV he was in. Nash was also a problem in this regard.

Bischoff was a fucking idiot with some of the worst money management skills ever witnessed by humans (spends tens of thousands of dollars to bring a guy to the show and then not put him on the show? WHY NOT?), horrible locker room management, and just general incompetence. It's fucking baffling that this buffoon ever managed to get Goldberg over.

Russo and his uniformly terrible writing never helped matters.

Those four men killed WCW dead.

It has to die for a decade or so.

Then come back fresh

>>2007853
>He killed the 80s wrestling boom with his bullshit. HOGANWINSLOL was a large part of why early 90s wrestling was so goddamn awful

The second he put over Warrior, business tanked and he had to be rushed back as the top guy. Warrior being pissed at him kicking out of 3.000001 and handing him the belt made no sense to me, if Hogan just stayed down and disappeared to go make a movie the crowd would have hated him for killing Hulkamania. It was like an 80-20 Hogan crowd by the end of the match.

The only other candidate was Savage, and I agree, a heel Savage as champion with a face Hogan chasing him around at house shows post WM5 would have been money. But to me, Randy seemed too paranoid to be positioned as "the man" and given 100% backing from the company. I can't see Savage for example doing all of the PR and public appearances Hogan did. As for "HOGANWINSLOL", even the infamous WM9 finish got a huge pop from the crowd. The guy just stayed over, it wasn't until WCW where he was getting booed every week.

He was a big part in WCW dying or at least why they never regained momentum again, agreed, but the fact is the second he let up someone would have been there to take his spot and politic just as much as him. The inmates ran the asylum.

At the end of the day, he started two wrestling booms in completely different eras. I'd say he left a positive impact on wrestling, not the industry. People are still using his politicking tactics today, like Triple H waiting until NFL season ends to appear on TV so it looks like he brought up the ratings kek

>>2007853

>being a smark

does anybody really care about this shit? is it even relevant? i know i didn't watch wcw but that's because wwf was the better product. i didn't know who was writing what or what shenanigans were being pulled back stage. hell when i was a kid in the 80s, hogan was a part of the reason i watched because of his tv character not because of his politicking.

and if WCW didn't die then WWF would've died. is that what you want? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT!!!

>>2007868

What I want is for Hogan, Bischoff, Nash, and Russo to fuck off and stay fucked off.

About a decade past when it might have made any fucking difference, I might finally be getting my wish. All we need is for Nash to go.

>>2001122
It doesn't. Ufc has taken the casuals for good. Wrestling is a joke

>>2001122
Non-wrestling fan here that used to watch in the Stone Cold Steve Austin days, but stopped after WCW went out of business (i.e. when everyone stopped watching).

I'm the exact kind of person that you're talking about getting back into wrestling, so I think I can answer your question better than the wrestling fans in this thread who might be a little out of touch with the general public.

You want to know what'd make wrestling popular with the average TV watcher again? I'll tell you. Here's a list:

1. Stop promoting faggotry. Figuratively speaking of course. Stop using wrestlers that are wimpy looking and don't seem like badasses. Wrestlers MUST seem like badasses to appeal to the mainstream.

2. Stop promoting faggotry. LITERALLY. Cut all the weirdly gay shit out. Everything I see of modern wrestlers sets off gaydar BIG TIME. They all seem like fairies and it seems like they're doing it on purpose whether they're actually gay or not.

3. Go back to it being a fake sport. You don't have to stay in character during irl interviews, but no one wants to watch a soap opera. It should be about guys fighting for title belt or whatever.

4. No more campiness. I don't know if Vince McMahon just thinks camp humor is funny and only does it to make himself laugh or not, but the public does not enjoy camp humor. You'd think Joel Schumacher was the new owner of WWE. It's embarrassing. Stop it. This might even be the single most important change that needs to be made.

5. No political shit. Y'know, actually, THIS is the most important part. I heard that WWE is going to start having "trannie storylines" or some shit like that. I don't even know what this is about, but politics is what killed TV and is currently killing video games. It'll be the final nail of wrestling if they go this route.

6. Stop using weird terms for everything and call it what normal people call it. Stop avoiding saying "wrestling" or other words that everyone else says.

>>2007992
7. THIS ONE IS THE LEAST IMPORTANT BY FAR SO IT'S MORE LIKE A SUGGESTION THAN A REQUIREMENT, but wrestling currently has an image problem. The average person thinks that a wrestling fan is either a 8 year old wigger or a 800lb neckbeard mega nerd. If you can make wrestling seen as something that a normal person would casually enjoy in mixed company over beers and conversation then it'll do a metric fuckton to repair wrestling's image problem. I have no idea how to achieve this one other than just stop catering to those groups.

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>>2007992
>projecting your closeted homosexuality this hard

>>2008004
This is the kind of guy I was talking about when I mentioned wrestling's image problem.

Every time I see adult wrestling fans they're always the biggest nerds I've ever seen. Like the kind of nerds that even other nerds look down on. The sort of dude who some Steve Urkel looking nigga would have beat up and stolen their lunch money when they were a kid. How did so many of you get like this? And why are you all attracted to wrestling? You guys might actually be lower on the social ladder and have worse hygiene than /mlp/. You make everyone else not want to watch wrestling by association.

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>>2008035
>getting this upset at a guy on a korean chess forum who doesn't even watch wrestling

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>>2008002

>palindrome chekt

Wrestling has to return to its roots. Stop cattering to casuals and anti-smarks.

>>2008162
Are you living in bizzaro world?

Take one look at the current champs and tell me it's "catered to anti-smarks"

Times when WWE use gimmicks are more successful when they try to focus on workrate. Just look at the difference between the golden era of Hogan vs the manlet era with Shawn and Bret

>>2007864
>It's a Hogan apologist who isn't a complete mark and has some objective points

Wow, a rare breed

>>2008384
Based HoGOAT still working the smarks all these years later

Wrestling will eternally be culturallly relevant for 2-14 year olds. Beyond that there's nothing you can do.

>>2007992

>3. Go back to it being a fake sport. You don't have to stay in character during irl interviews, but no one wants to watch a soap opera. It should be about guys fighting for title belt or whatever.

This is a good idea and should be expanded upon. They have GOT to stop breaking kayfabe all over their actual programming. It doesn't matter what they do off-camera or on non-WWE shows, but they have got to stop ruining heels by having them support "charity" and the like on RAW.

Seeing a heel wax lyrical about breast cancer awareness would be like seeing Walter White take a minute during an episode of Breaking Bad to lecture us about how drugs are bad. It COMPLETELY kills an suspension of disbelief casuals didn't even know they had before it was shattered, and bores them, and everyone else, to goddamn tears.

4-6 are also super agreeable. Though they might be able to do "political shit" if they were far, FAR more subtle about it.

They recently just shoved Sasha Banks vs Charlotte into the main event of the Hell In a Cell PPV. Why? Because women were having a REVOLUTION or some shit and since they're SO fucking EQUAL and shit they totes should main event this PPV and have a HIAC gimmick to boot. Never mind that the whole "equality" schtick was constantly undercut by absolutely fucking everyone in the company was going on about what a big deal it was that women were capable of doing things. These imbeciles never gave us a reason to care about Sasha, or Charlotte, or why they were fighting or why we should care that they were fighting. They also never did a single goddamn thing with the feud to justify it being in a Cell.

If they took the time to build the characters and the feud, and didn't book the actual match so badly, they could have just let the Womyn's Lib angle come about naturally and people might have fucking enjoyed it.

>>2001479

>Blayze on the other hand was WCW's way of attempting to recreate Chyna.

That was Asya.

>>2008162
>>2008169
The problem is they aren't catering to Marks or Smarks, they're catering to nerds and hipsters.

>>2008492
>nerds and hipsters

Is that code for "people who like guys that I don't"?

WWE has to die.

they are content to sit at the top and put out garbage that smarks gobble up no matter what, while the rest of the world cringes at how low rate it is.

WWE dies and the industry becomes exciting again.

>>2008604
I agree mostly. It won't be all good news obviously, but if the right things are in place, WWE at the very least becoming smaller and having other companies at the top would be fantastic.

>>2001122
Culture is too democratised for another "wrestling boom". Most normies just watched wrestling as a kid because there was fuck all else on at the time, now media is so saturated WWE is lucky they can compete at all in ratings.

To make it relevant you have to market the product as cool. No one on WWE television is cool in a modern way. The closest they have is Rollins and even he is a bit of a geek with a small pecker. But Rollins is a step in the right direction in that he can engage with fans online without it seeming cringey and forced, he's good at intefviews he has alt interests that people can project on and live vicariously through him. They need a personality they can market that isn't "Boy, I love wrestling." They have to be universally relatable characters.

I would argue they need better ways of generating heel heat for a modern age. It's too cutesy and comedic these days and we really need someone to HATE. I think The Miz can fulfill that niche if they allowed him to but even someone more imposing. Don Muraco type level.

>>2008682

>To make it relevant you have to market the product as cool. No one on WWE television is cool in a modern way. The closest they have is Rollins and even he is a bit of a geek with a small pecker.

I know the consensus on here is to shit on him after he left and embarrassed himself, but Punk really was the best chance they've had of doing this and they squandered him by always making him feel a level below the real top guys. He was cool, charismatic and someone teenagers and young adults could like.

>>2008686
I agree and I would contend that it was just bad timing on WWE's part. 2011 was notoriously PG to the point of parody so any chance of him being a top guy just went out the door. If he stuck around he could have been the top guy, especially seeing how Cena barely works now and Shieldetties are squandering their chances.

remove PC
remove PG
remove guys the crowd doesn't want to see like Roman

make it offensive, full of naked women, stereotypes, sex jokes

>>2007651
>1st paragraph

thats why i said "star power and/or credibility / physically imposing" - note the "and/or" and the "/". Angle had credibility, Jericho and Foley had star power.

If you wanted to build a new top star today, eventually you would want him to go over already established stars like Cena, Lesnar, Undertaker, Goldberg, HHH, or The Rock. Notice how those guys are all part timers and almost always win. Maybe you could add into that list the Shield guys and Styles.

But WWE does not seem willing to do that. No one is going to become a star that will make wrestling culturally relevant again by overcoming the likes of Bray Wyatt, Sheamus, and Rusev

>>2008714
>make it offensive, full of naked women, stereotypes, sex jokes
I would watch it more if it returned to that. Wrestling used to be cool with all the over the top shit that came with the stiff wrestling and badass characters.

Now it's just catered to nerds who like watching other nerds doing a choreographed dance. Sure their more athletic and healthy than the past generation, but they look like absolute pussies.