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Kunabomber posted:The Canadian Destroyer got popular as piledrivers were banned from WWE. does modern wrestling sell well? the old time guys all say wrestling is less popular than ever.
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Apr 12, 2021 16:03
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Mulaney Power Move posted:does modern wrestling sell well? the old time guys all say wrestling is less popular than ever. The WWE alone is a billion dollar company that's making more profit than ever. Old time wrestling guys are just sad, bitter old men who often have severe brain damage. Or sometimes they're just fuckin morons, like Cornette.
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Apr 12, 2021 16:10
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all my friends are lining up to buy $5 memberships to the NWA package on fite.tv edit: if you want shootin' and hollerin', you watch UFC, the promo and storybuilding is lifted straight from wrestling promo tactics except the fighting is real
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Apr 12, 2021 16:14
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wwe making profit isn't the metric to use if we're talking about popularity in itself
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Apr 12, 2021 16:15
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I don't care if wrestling isn't popular or if olds don't like kids doing flips I like watching the gymnastics and occasionally Moxley beats the crap outta one of themRarity posted:You can have a million dollars or you can exchange for what's in this box I stopped watching WWE in like 2016 so learning that Bray Wyatt's intros just continued to get more and more complicated leading to this seems like a logical conclusion. Stick Figure Mafia fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Apr 12, 2021 |
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Apr 12, 2021 16:16
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You can also listen to Jericho talking about the evolution of the product - he came from Smoky Mountain Wrestling and he always says Cornette is full of poo poo and the business just can't be successful that way anymore.
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Apr 12, 2021 16:17
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Mulaney Power Move posted:wwe making profit isn't the metric to use if we're talking about popularity in itself Everywhere that isn't WWE was at the beginning of a boom period before covid started. Like, billionaire Tony Khan would not have started AEW were there not a demand for it.
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Apr 12, 2021 16:22
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I love this type of conversation. Often I enjoy learning about wrestling more than watching it. The book I read pointed out that, despite TV metrics being completely pointless in 2020+, wrestling fans still cling to them like some sort of vestigial organ, leftover from the late 90s when ratings were king. In a massive shift from the old days, house shows and PPV are no longer the bread and butter. It used to be that the TV was just a device used to generate enough interest to get butts-in-seats at shows. Now WWE is considered a "content company" (interpret that as you like) who are just creating product to be purchased and used by companies like NBC Universal to drive their own services. Despite having a killer app with the WWE Network, they never got much more than a million subscribers and had to deal with the technical upkeep. As opposed to making a billion bucks from just selling their content to NBC. Probably the key reason wrestling was always a TV staple and still works well in the wasteland of live cable/network TV is that they are one of the only non-network companies who were offering 52 weeks a year of new content, as opposed to getting, say, 12 episodes of a sitcom. Is wrestling less popular than ever? Maybe. Maybe not. On one hand, it's nearly impossible to tell without TV ratings being the sole metric, but we do know that there are SO many entertainment options these days that will dilute the fanbase. On the other hand, content is easier than ever to find, and the world population has increased, so worldwide, wrestling may have more fans than ever before, but just not necessarily watching it on TV at 8pm (7pm central)
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Apr 12, 2021 16:33
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I dunno, AEW was literally borne out of a bet, where it was stated that an indie wrestling show couldn't sell out a 10,000 seat venue and The Elite wanted to prove it wrong. There's demand - maybe not by the general public, but I think with the hyper-targeted advertisement strategies nowadays, a dedicated core fanbase might be more of a selling point.
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Apr 12, 2021 16:40
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Wrestling was super popular in the 90s for two reasons: 1) the trashy vibe of the Attitude Era matched the social zeitgeist and 2) AKI made a bunch of banging video games that went mainstream. It wasn't successful because it was pro wrestling, it was successful in spite of being pro wrestling. That's never going to happen again, especially in modern culture where media is so bisected and there are so many things competing for your attention (not just other TV shows but video games and social media and streaming and Youtube). And even wrestling is bisected, 10 years ago all wrestling fans watched WWE because it was the only choice but there are so many viable alternatives that you can never watch WWE and still watch dozens of hours a week. Apart from WWE the industry has definitely been growing over the last few years with AEW starting and New Japan making moves into America and the indy scene thriving thanks to IWTV and hell even Impact's grown a little bit. You can't judge the industry on one company.
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Apr 12, 2021 16:46
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Regardless, Lucha Libre is superior https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpOPHiSn5yI
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Apr 12, 2021 17:00
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Kunabomber posted:I dunno, AEW was literally borne out of a bet, where it was stated that an indie wrestling show couldn't sell out a 10,000 seat venue and The Elite wanted to prove it wrong. There's demand - maybe not by the general public, but I think with the hyper-targeted advertisement strategies nowadays, a dedicated core fanbase might be more of a selling point. My problem with this (not you) is that when your "indie" is started up by a literal billionaire who hires world-class talent at their asking price you're officially not an "indie". Don't get me wrong. AEW is cool and I'm glad it exists for a lot of reasons. My favorite thing about the modern world in terms of wrestling is that the internet has allowed me to watch a lot more Japanese wrestling. 20 years ago I had to find bootleg DVDs of Keiji Mutoh matches taped from TV and burned to a disc and now I can watch all kinds of crazy poo poo from pretty much every promotion over there and it owns. Like someone else said you can never watch WWE again and still have all your free time filled up with wrestling from everywhere else.
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Apr 12, 2021 17:02
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Elephant Ambush posted:My problem with this (not you) is that when your "indie" is started up by a literal billionaire who hires world-class talent at their asking price you're officially not an "indie". All In wasn't AEW yet, it was just the elite. It's the event that caused AEW to happen though, so a lot of people count it as the birth of AEW even if it technically wasn't.
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Apr 12, 2021 17:05
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Yeah All In happened because Dave Meltzer made a bet that no one could fill a 10,000 capacity arena and the Elite decided they'd liked a bit of that action. They put it together off their own backs and marketed it through their Youtube show. Tony Khan had nothing to do with it (although I think AEW's now paid to the rights to show the event)
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Apr 12, 2021 17:10
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Sorry, I should've been more clear that All In was the catalyst - it proved that there was a large market for non-WWE wrestling.
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Apr 12, 2021 17:11
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Well poo poo I learned something today. Thanks 
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Apr 12, 2021 17:26
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Rarity posted:Yeah All In happened because Dave Meltzer made a bet that no one could fill a 10,000 capacity arena and the Elite decided they'd liked a bit of that action. They put it together off their own backs and marketed it through their Youtube show. Tony Khan had nothing to do with it (although I think AEW's now paid to the rights to show the event) Wasn't it a big deal when ECW filled a 10,000 seat show on a shoestring budget and no advertising? I'd put them (pre-WWE mingling) as fairly indie.. Or is the Meltzer bet about doing it in today's market?
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Apr 12, 2021 17:47
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 https://twitter.com/bryanalvarez/status/1381404269673259013?s=20
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Apr 12, 2021 17:48
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Rarity posted:You can have a million dollars or you can exchange for what's in this box Someone should gif this so it's just Alexa spinning the crank over and over.
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Apr 12, 2021 17:52
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They boo'd that poo poo SO hard at the end. Lol
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Apr 12, 2021 17:54
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Eclipse12 posted:Wasn't it a big deal when ECW filled a 10,000 seat show on a shoestring budget and no advertising? I'd put them (pre-WWE mingling) as fairly indie.. Or is the Meltzer bet about doing it in today's market? Yeah it was much easier to do it when ECW was around
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Apr 12, 2021 18:03
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Mulaney Power Move posted:does modern wrestling sell well? the old time guys all say wrestling is less popular than ever. The business model has definitely gone from 25 twelve-year-olds paying $10 a year to 1 fifty-year-old paying $500 a year, although some of that is old men waxing nostalgic based on a highlight reel of stuff that happened in the 80s and pretending that every week looked like that I mentioned way upthread that this is the same thing that's apparently the case for the comic book industry, and it's going to be a big issue in twenty years when gen-x starts shrinking and no-one comes along to replace those fans Eclipse12 posted:suspension of disbelief You've not seen anything until you've seen Ricochet and Will Ospreay demonstrating that yes, they did do gymnastics in high school The problem you're always going to have is that MMA exists and will continue to exist, for anyone who wants to watch legitimate fighting, but also that from 2001 until very recently there were ~100 people working for WWE and everyone else struggling to be noticed and/or doing fetish porn to pay the bills. And the best way to make a name for yourself in front of a crowd of people who all own fifty wrestling DVDs is: a) an elaborate tumbling routine where you use your opponent as a pommel horse b) getting powerbombed through a car windshield, kicking out at one, and then giving your opponent a canadian destroyer from the roof of the car to the floor c) wacky Deadpool comedy where you subvert the meta or go into active farce (invisible hand grenade; Kenny Omega vs schoolgirl; time-travelling knight Lance Steel vs the future version of time-travelling knight Lance Steel in a "Loser Leaves The Present" match) Like, most of those things are cool and fun in the right context and I'm not mad about them (Jim Cornette is super mad about them and will spend a full hour shouting about how things were better in the 80s and all of these people should get colon cancer) or even sure exactly how you work around them, but it does definitely lead to a thing where the entire industry is based around making a profit generating novelty content for twenty-year fans to the exclusion of everything else and where there are only a handful of wrestlers with the ability to pick up a microphone and sell tickets, despite that being basically the thing that turns a wrestler into a household name. Although, in fairness to the wrestlers, that isn't helped at all by the fact that somewhere along the line, WWE decided that they were a TV show and should have TV writers, so if it ever sounds to you like two aliens reading out scripted dialogue written by someone who worked on King Of Queens, that's because that's exactly what you're watching. This despite the fact that the biggest star WWE ever made was almost completely by accident from letting some cranked-up Texan midcarder go hog wild on the microphone. FullLeatherJacket fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Apr 12, 2021 |
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Apr 12, 2021 18:13
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Funny thing is that Stone Cold Steve Austin only came to being because he was let loose to develop his character within the freewheeling style of ECW over the course of like, 2 weeks.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:21
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Unlike comic books little kids still love wrestling though. E: or at least did till recently. Cena was friend to all children. Vince MechMahon fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Apr 12, 2021 |
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Apr 12, 2021 18:23
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I probably wouldn't be comfortable letting my kid watch AEW.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:27
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Kunabomber posted:I probably wouldn't be comfortable letting my kid watch AEW. Well it's TV-14 so if your kids are too young for that rating then congrats, this just makes you a good parent. WWE is PG because young kids are the only ones dumb enough not to realize how much it sucks.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:29
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That's definitely true. WWE still skirts around the boundaries, and since AEW started they've been pretty close to just dumping those PG guidelines into the trash with the language at least.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:32
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I also don't think there's anything apart from the violence, which they usually keep quarantined in specific gimmick matches, that's worse than any Marvel movie in AEW. They say poo poo sometimes, but this isn't 1950 so who cares.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:33
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Me, on a Saturday morning in 1990: holy poo poo that snake just bit macho man this is cool as hell, get rid of that censored X you cowards Me, in tyool 2021: oh man they have bad language I know, I know, I've become what I hate
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Apr 12, 2021 18:35
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I'd probably rather have my kids watch AEW than WWE but not BTE, they would never be allowed to watch BTE, I don't need to be explaining the Good Brothers or Five's literal shrimp dick
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Apr 12, 2021 18:37
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Vince MechMahon posted:Well it's TV-14 so if your kids are too young for that rating then congrats, this just makes you a good parent. WWE is PG because young kids are the only ones dumb enough not to realize how much it sucks. The average age of a WWE viewer is like 58 lol
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Apr 12, 2021 18:39
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i was let down because i was hoping aew was going to be more serious and sports based. i guess that's what japan is for, well except for the japanese promotions that are like schoolgirls wrestling a guy in an octopus costume or some poo poo.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:40
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we've been trying to explain that it's all punchkick theater now edit: always has been Kunabomber fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Apr 12, 2021 |
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Apr 12, 2021 18:41
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FullLeatherJacket posted:The business model has definitely gone from 25 twelve-year-olds paying $10 a year to 1 fifty-year-old paying $500 a year, although some of that is old men waxing nostalgic based on a highlight reel of stuff that happened in the 80s and pretending that every week looked like that An interesting write-up and reflection. WWE's shift to pure scripted promos was definitely a result of WCW dying. Stars like Austin and Rock won't come about as necessity because WWE is clearly in safe treadmill mode. Interesting you mention MMA because I totally left wrestling as a hobby in 2003ish because of UFC and proceeded to watch literally every UFC PPV for years in a row. Coming back to wrestling is still jarring at times, especially in the 90s era in WWE where tapping during a submission meant "ow" not "I quit" (I see that had since changed)
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Apr 12, 2021 18:52
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Kunabomber posted:I probably wouldn't be comfortable letting my kid watch AEW. I have a 12 year old who isn't particularly interested in wrestling (outside of Orange Cassidy and matches with lots of plunder), but outside of a very occasional curse word and a handful of terrible booking decisions which they've generally avoided repeating (Dustin kissing Hagar's wife) there hasn't been anything that really raised my eyebrows. There's a chance of the kid seeing a legit injury, but that's true of all sports.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:53
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Ah, my kid is 6. Way different in terms of processing what's on screen right now.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:54
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Kunabomber posted:Ah, my kid is 6. Way different in terms of processing what's on screen right now. Oh, yeah I wouldn't let my 6 year old watch wrestling either, or at least not without me having pre-screened the content. I think the pure workrate stuff is mostly attractive because of the athleticism. 6 might even be too young to appreciate on just that level, though you're getting close to the point where it depends on the kid / their interests. My son was in gymnastics at a young age and I think he would have appreciated some of those elements, even if I don't think I would have shown him a full match. Jordan7hm fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Apr 12, 2021 |
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Apr 12, 2021 18:55
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Yeah I watched wrestling when I was about that age, and it was literal superheroes with Hulk Hogan playing guitar on Nickelodeon. Not quite so anymore. Although if you watch some promos that Jake the Snake was putting out... holy poo poo
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Apr 12, 2021 18:57
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Kunabomber posted:Yeah I watched wrestling when I was about that age, and it was literal superheroes with Hulk Hogan playing guitar on Nickelodeon. Not quite so anymore. Ehhhhhhh I think it was a lot worse than what you remember as a kid.
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Apr 12, 2021 18:58
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Kunabomber posted:Yeah I watched wrestling when I was about that age, and it was literal superheroes with Hulk Hogan playing guitar on Nickelodeon. Not quite so anymore. lmao take off your rose tinted glasses and read the raw report in this very thread
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Apr 12, 2021 19:00
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