[BackLash]

"What he hell has the WWE done now?!" I have heard these words too often. When I hear them on the forums, from my non-online freinds and even my mom who loves action and used to like wrestling, I know something bad is going to come from some form of WWE Progam. In the past two years World Wrestling Entertainment bought WCW, lost it's landmark name to a bunch a wildlife freaks, Have men hurt women, gay themed shows, gay themed gimmicks, gay themed marrages, pretending to have sex on a table, having sex with a courpse (we all know that was a dummy), insulted Mr. Rogers and John Ritter after they passed away, geared the shows to the American Audience and no one else, show women brests, and worst of all HLA.

While Vinnie K-Mac and the writers and big wigs of the WWE are responsible can you blame the for trying? I mean look at other primetime TV shows, they can get away with most of this bull crap. Hollywood disses the WWE for the stuff they do, but most of the time non-wrestling wise, they are trying to emulate Hollywood, so they can get raitings.

Examples:

Because of [b:post_uid9]Jackass[/b:post_uid9] and [b:post_uid9]Fear Factor[/b:post_uid9] - We were treated to Tommy Dreamer injesting cut hair on the floor of the barber shop, Barbicide, a hot dog dropped on the floor, and some other dood's beer.

Because of [b:post_uid9]NYPD Blue[/b:post_uid9] [b:post_uid9]CSI[/b:post_uid9] and other Dramay Dramas like that, their innsinuation (some times more)of Women being abused by men, the idot writers try to make it acceptable in the WWE.

Because of [b:post_uid9]Jerry Springer[/b:post_uid9] and [b:post_uid9]Girl's Gone Wild[/b:post_uid9] The WWE always wants to show T&A on their programs as well as exposing Breasts and buttocks of women to the public. Not Cool. Also it brought everyone's "favorite" segment HLA!

Because of [b:post_uid9]Will & Grace[/b:post_uid9] and [b:post_uid9]q**r Eye[/b:post_uid9] they made Billy and Chuck do all this uncofertable backstage promos,with the stretching and whatnot leading up to that weeding. That gay rights group and Hollywood had no reason to bitch about the fake wedding. They looked at it as WWE pulling their chain, but c'mon if a sitcom did that kind of crap they would applaude it. If you want to get angry a staight people pretending their gay the by all means cancel Will and Grace becaue Eric McCormack, Sean Hayes and 9/10 the actors playng gays are not.

The WWE has no one to blame but themselves for the necropelia angle.

However because of Hollywood the WWE is loosing raitings. These shows get ratings for doing all this atrocious crap and take the WWE's ratings but if the WWE attempts to do what the other shows does they get blasted for it and to me that stinks.

In conclusion while the WWE does self inflicted dammage on themselves, Hollywood is to blame for some of the blasted awful promos and gimmicks done. My point is when Hollywood finally goes too far the WWE will spare no expense and go father. If they do that the WWE will almost certanly cise to exist.

-Thoughts?

[Drunksader]

I wouldn't blame Hollywood as much as I'd blame Vince's fascination with pop culture.

Vince has always sought to bring entertainers into WWE programming, going back to Wrestlemania's early years (i.e., Liberachi, Arnold, and other random celebrities) and continuing onward - i.e., Mike Tyson. In an effort to make WWE more mainstream, Vince has tried to link in storylines that are more reality-based than the traditional off the wall angles and gimmicks. He's certainly done it with music - rap, for example, came in the form of Men on a Mission, The Oddities (w/ICP) and now John Cena.

'Lash, you raise several great points, but you're just scratching the surface here. The face of WWE fully began to change, in my opinion, when the Radicalz entered the scene. That signaled the end of gimmick names, and since then WWE has become more and more like a professional sport (with everyone sporting their real names.) Since then, Vince has equated ratings with current trends in pop culture, several as you have pointed out.

But this isn't something just related to Hollywood - Vince aims wherever there's potential to ride an already established wave of sentiment. Take La Resistance, for instance. What about Right to Censor? All of them are ratings ploys. This grafting of public issues onto WWE programming has succeeded only in creating a multi-headed monster with no aim, direction, or coherence.

I've expressed my belief that WWE needs to return to more over the top and wacky storylines, because that's what entertains. The business has done everything it can to resemble a legitimate sport - managers, wrestlers with "real names", drafts, inter-brand competition, lots of promos talking about training, etc. (this last bit isn't bad, but what would you prefer - an old school Undertaker graveyard promo, or another scene of Rock doing clean n' jerks?).

Look at where the ratings started to decline - I'll argue that it was around the crux of the McMahon-Helmsley era, right around Foley's feud w/HHH. While there are multiple reasons for the ratings decline, I'm going to declare that the fundamental shift away from "Entertainment" and more to "Sports" (which began, ironically, right around when the XFL kicked off, no?) is when WWE began going down the tubes.

I understand this is a far-fetched argument, so anyone who has counterpoints, please feel free to make them.

[Anonymous]

Great posts. I'm new here, though I've watched Wrestling since the late 70's - right after Bruno lost the title to Superstar Graham. Great board & discussions.

I agree with much of what you say. Really, I don't know what I disagree with.
[quote:post_uid14]Because of NYPD Blue CSI and other Dramay Dramas like that, their innsinuation (some times more)of Women being abused by men, the idot writers try to make it acceptable in the WWE.[/quote:post_uid14]
Starting @ the top (or bottom), this is my largest turnoff with the WWE. I don't "get off" on seeing women abused by men & I am a man. I have written comments on the WWE site several times asking what "demographic" they are pandering to with this? When I see it coming, I change the channel. Monday's to Football, whatever it is off of the WWE. This type of garbage sickens me. I also don't like to see the women hit the men, that is a line that shouldn't have been crossed.

The rest is in no particular order...

[quote:post_uid14]Because of Jackass and Fear Factor...[/quote:post_uid14]
It's goofy, I think unnecessary. I don't get a thrill watching any person vomit, real or contrived.

[quote:post_uid14]Because of Jerry Springer and Girl's Gone Wild...[/quote:post_uid14]
I like looking @ beautiful women, am no prude, & have prurient interests sometimes, but let's leave some mystery. I't getting where I do not let my 15 yr old watch when the descriptions get too detailed. (I know he knows quite a bit, but there should be some boundaries set.) Bring back the innuendo!!!

[quote:post_uid14]Because of Will & Grace and q**r Eye...[/quote:post_uid14]
Some would be surprised @ the gay following wrestling has, it's natural that this demographic would be acknowledged. In the past, it was always some "flaming queen" who pranced around & then kicked butt quite well. I certainly don't want to see homo or bi-sexual angles. I didn't watch the smackdown where the couples were in bed. I'll turn the channel if there is a gay kiss or grab. Much as I may have wanted to watch, I turned it when HLA came on & the Torrie/Dawn lesbian scene.

[quote:post_uid14]The WWE has no one to blame but themselves for the necropelia angle.[/quote:post_uid14]

What demographic were they pandering to there??? I think, though, perhaps the writers were portrayed in the re"butt"al scene, Hurricane as HHH, with the head being pulled from the rectum.

I realize we won't go back to the days of the regional promotions, & we are to "sophisticated" for the Rock & Wrestling stuff, but it can go too far. I would like to see good guys v. bad guys, with a turn here & there. I used to be able to defend watching wrestling because that was where good fought bad. Now there are so many changes that the good guy who was unbeatable (unless they cheated big time) turns the next week in the the bad guy who has to cheat to beat almost anyone.

Vinnie Mac. seems to be unable to keep from interjecting himself into situations where he really isn't needed. The current family fued with Stephanie is a glaring example. That stuff is "Toxic Avenger" disgusting, completely gratuitous. I have committments the keep me from Smackdown, if I could watch I would definitely turn the channel.

I want to look forward to watching a full espisode of Raw or Smackdown again...

[Y2J The King Of The World]

Cool topic...very well thought out.

I agree with a lot of what Backlash is saying here. WWE is simply trying to plug in with what they perceive as being popular and cutting edge. That's why we've seen what we've seen over the last couple of years.

The single biggest thing that WWE needs to look at is what brought them to their high point in the late 90's. It wasn't following what they was already popular, it was breaking new ground themselves and having others follow their lead. Stone Cold vs. Vince was innovative. DX was innovative. The era of stable wars was innovative. Now, each of these concepts has been beaten to death to the point that they won't bring them back to the big leagues. Yet, they keep trying them, while integrating what other people in the entertainment business are doing...and it doesn't work 9 times out of 10.

Also, I hadn't thought about the move towards a more realistic presentation, as mentioned by Drunksader. It's true that the days of the over-the-top gimmicks are pretty much forgotten, with a few exceptions (mainly, Goldust, Hurricane & Rosey). I think that they've moved so far away from those days that everyone is pretty homogenous.

I don't think that they necessarily need to return to the days of Doink, the Gobbeldygooker, the Red Rooster, and Duke "The Dumpster" Droese, but they don't need to use every guy's real name. How many guys who have debuted in the last 3 years have a nickname that becomes a part of their gimmick? Only a handful...if that many. You say "Stone Cold" and people think Steve Austin. A lot of people probably don't remember the last time that The Rock was called Rocky Maivia. That's a little marketing concept called [b:post_uid0][i:post_uid0]branding[/i:post_uid0][/b:post_uid0]. That's how you draw in the masses - differentiating between an anybody and a somebody. Back 15 years ago, the only guys without some kind of nickname or gimmick were the jobbers. That's a stigma that I don't think has died over the years. If the promoters and bookers don't care to give the guy a gimmick, it seems that he isn't important enough to watch or care about...plain and simple.

While I'm going, another big thing that made them so huge back in the day was that each show was very complete. Every character had a storyline, a feud, [i:post_uid0]something[/i:post_uid0]. Look at things now: Christian, Chris Jericho, and Rob Van Dam - three of Raw's best guys - had no storyline going into Unforgiven, so they just threw them in together since they had nothing better going on. That kind of stuff didn't use to happen during WWE's heyday. I think that WWE needs to focus on making storylines for all of their talent, not just making two huge, over-the-top storylines to run each show, and then leaving the rest of the guys with a half-assed angle if they're lucky. Big storylines only draw for so long, and once they've run their course, they're left with nothing. If viewers knew that they'd get 2 hours of solid storylines and entertainment, they'd stick around and the ratings would be more consistent. Now, we see spikes and dips every week, depending on how hot the big storyline is that week.

I think my point here is that WWE isn't paying close attention to why people liked them in the first place. People want to be entertained...not to be given shock TV 24/7, not to believe that everything they watch on Raw & Smackdown is 100% real, and not to watch meaningless, gratuitous sex-related angles. These things are popular on a niche level, and that's all they'll ever draw. The reason why Austin/McMahon and DX were so over was that they had a common [i:post_uid0]theme[/i:post_uid0] of rebelling against authority - something that everyone in one way or another can relate to. WWE needs to find something new that the general mass can relate to, plan it out into a thoughtful, well planned theme ([u:post_uid0]not[/u:post_uid0] a storyline), and then use it to build their next year or two's worth of shows and storylines around that. Don't just write the story for two guys, have it run 2 months, and then drop it. Give it depth, integrate other guys so that it makes a whole show - not a spotty hit-and-miss mess like they've been putting together for the past 2 years. That, I believe, will be WWE's key to renewed success.

[Miakal]

Y2J if I wasn't so lazy I would get up from this chair and give you a standing ovation.

Genius stuff.

[joebrian]

I vote thread of the week....

A lot of good points made here. I think the WWE will always have some crap going on, it always has. Even during the golden age of Attitude, there were gimmicks like Beaver Cleavage. The REAL problem, and y2j mentioned this in his PPV review is that the matches are horribly predictable. I also think a BIG problem is that every title match seems to be booked the same, some sort of ref bump, some interference, some cheating, and then the end. PPV matches should NEVER end on a DQ or count-out unless its an actual good fued and this will help build it.

Plus, I have to say, with the lack of entertaining storylines, it leaves me watching a match like HBK and Orton thinking, Gee I bet Orton will win because it will help his push, as opposed to the better way of "Go HBK! Kick that punk's ass!" Man, where is my suspension of disbelief?

[Drunksader]

Already a few steps ahead of you Joe, let's do it PWA style

*Drunksader comes down the ramp to his music and pyro*
*Drunksader enters ring, poses for crowd*
*Drunksader puts thread in "KYN Thread of the Week" deathlock*
*1....2....3!!!*

We have a new thread of the week.

[Like Iron Skin]

to get better story lines they need competition. true i hated WCW but when WCW was WCW and wasnt WWE's WCW then the story lines were awsome austin/macmahon Undertaker/Kane old DX austin putting the bullseye on himself at the 98 royal rumble. stuff like that oh i would love to have Undertaker get ride of this f**king biker gimmick it doesnt work with his name he has to going back to being the deadman. so what if it was cheesy WWE has always been and thats why i watched it. it shouldnt worry about what the rest of the world is doing like Hollywood and such it should do its own thing cause thats what makes them different. sure bring in celeberties here and there like i loved pete rose getting his ass kicked by Kane @ WM i miss that when WM 17 hit then he never came back. what they need is a real match Pete Rose vs Kane to settle the feud not just kane kicked his ass and never is coming back.

[Y2joey]

There are double standards, but thats not why the wwe are losing ratings, its the storylines. They need to be fresh and in good nature.Personally, i just dont look forward to wayching raw anymore because of the same tired angles, matchs and the gross out tv they try to sell me. It just doesnt work. Smackdown is watchable, and is leading raw by miles.

I do watch raw anyway, but with dead wood like test, an overweight rosey, A slow7 foot idiot like kevin nash and JR, i find it hard to watch. For example at unforgiven, i was in pain watching JR try to wrestle, he should be banned from the ring for that performance, but the wwe puts him and another non wrestler in a match on monday. I think a heel coach commentator would be interesting seeing as the old formula of the king and JR has in my opinon gone sour.

Also at the raw brand ppv, i saw test battle scott steiner for the millionth time. I hated there first match and i hated that match. Steiner was good in his prime and as for test, he is raw's version of the a train. Now we have steiner as test's bitch, where will it end. Sacked test and give steiner one more go, he deserves it.

At least one good thing happened on the ppv, hhh lost the title and seemingly has stepped down as the top heel of raw for now. Dont get me wrong he is a great wrestler and a great character, he just needs a new direction in his career. maybe a move to smackdown.

Chris jericho finally has his first decent angle since his bout with goldberg at bad blood and maybe this christan - rvd ladder match will restore some pride in that ic title. If rvd wins that is. Garrison Cade and Jinrdak are being pushed as well as randy orton and maven. I smeel a heel turn with the young bald guy btw. Hopefully shawn michaels will get some more airtime also. More decent talent is needed like maybe rey rey, he would liven up raw for sure as would john cena.

I did stray from the topic didnt i.

[Cowboy Bob Orton]

This ain't the thread of the week dude.
That very first post was moronic, idiotic,
and falt out stupid. WWE has nothing to
do with pop culture or TV, it has only to do
with whatever goes on the McMAHONS
world. Hence the STRAP is on hold with
Goldberg til Trips gets back from pumping the
bosses daughter full of his stuff. Then that
will also be back in the McMAHONS world.