Pretty all encompassing subject to kick things off, huh?
Let's be honest, it's an incredibly frustrating period of time to be a wrestling fan, for a number of reasons. Originally this premiere FFS was going to centre around TNA, the single most absurd and inept collection of human oddities ever assembled behind the curtain, but the sad fact is that I feel like the slowest lion to make it over to the rancid carcass at this point. But with the news of the WrestleMania buyrate coming in dishearteningly low this past week, the bigger issue is clearly the one to discuss. One that, truth be told, is a scary one to think about.
The people in charge of the WWE and TNA are out of touch.
885,000 buys, worldwide, for the biggest show of the year. If there was a headset to be thrown or a stack of papers to slap around, I'd be certain it felt the wrath of Vincent K, if he probably wasn't filling the pit of his stomach and the back of his brain with denialism instead. For those unaware, the WrestleMania number this year was projected to break the all time record for wrestling PPV at 1.3 million. However, it also faced the scary (to those with a clue) prospect of coming 24 hours after a heavily hyped UFC Pay-Per-View, headlined by top star George St Pierre. The belief that the name value of WrestleMania would be granted immunity from the significant chunk of the market UFC bites out of their Pay-Per-View proved as correct as Vince Russo at a spelling bee given the word "continuity".
The build-up for WrestleMania this year was a mixed bag. But even when evaluating the peaks of the fantastic performances from Shawn Michaels and the video work for the Streak Vs. Career main event, as well as the absolute fumbling of the can't miss Bret Hart Vs. Vince McMahon angle, there was a general feeling that this year, the buzz was there. This one would be big.
885,000, the lowest Mania number in years. When this number was announced, Vince was adamant that the UFC had no effect. He said they draw from the boxing audience, not the entertainment audience.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
It's been known forever that Vince McMahon is ashamed to be "just a wrestling promoter", sugar-coating every wrestling related element of his product, fooling himself and maybe the five biggest schlubs surrounding him that they're something they're not. But look in the mirror for crying out loud. What's most amazing is that the elements that worked for this year's WrestleMania build are the things that UFC stole from WWE to begin with, and WWE reinstituted to great effect. The "Running Up That Hill" and "Ain't No Grave" video packages for Shawn and Taker, the history videos on Bret and Vince, the straight up promos explaining who they wanted to fight and why. And what didn't work? Bret Hart fooling Vince McMahon by hiring a woman to break his leg with a car. That's not teen spirit I smell, that's the odorous stench of...wait for it!...sports-entertainment. And this is the second year in a row where WWE took a raging erection of an angle and rendered it into a limp, pale, laughing stock. Do we need to ruminate on the proposterosity of the Triple H breaking and entering angle to hype Mania 25? I didn't think so.
It's the most bizarre paradox, one that makes you wish for 30 seconds of the man's time to just scream in his steroid-fuelled vicinity. If you just be what you are...people get what they want. Because the second they realise what market they're in, the second they do the things that work better than anybody else can.
But really, at least they made money.
TNA has largely been a boat with a hole in from the day useless club-footed bastard Vince Russo came aboard. However, when the Orange Goblin himself and his car salesman sidekick joined the team, internet wrestling fans salivated at the possibility that we'd be transported back to 1996, a time when the wrestling world was filled with excitement and hyper-competitiveness. Instead, if the original Monday Night Wars was the Great Train Robbery, Round 2 resembled the efforts of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in Home Alone. We were transported to 1996 alright.
The story has been told. A product nobody wanted to see, emphasis on stars that have no business being on television in the 21st Century, and every stereotypical aspect of Vinnie Ru booking compact into one, big, festering shit sandwich. It didn't even last two months.
I've vented verbally on the cluelessness of Russo and equally to blame Dixie Carter many a time, to the point I barely have the inclination anymore. But when the announcement was made that TNA was hobbling on its one leg back to Thursday nights, the inherent danger of TNA being out of touch in 2010 on the bigger picture of pro wrestling struck hard.
What happens to the next startup company if TNA dies?
Who in the world would funnel millions of dollars into a company that needs years to recover it? What national cable television station would give an hour or two of broadcast time to an unproven start-up with the stench of the Total Nonstop Assholes lingering in their sinuses? Better yet, how much will the wrestling audience, that is currently being conditioned to not care about wrestling enough, or care more than UFC in WWE's case, to spend money on the product, be captivated to follow it enough to make it profitable should something worthwhile spring up?
Don't get me wrong, wrestling has been through darker times. The popularity and the product was so, so much poorer in 1995 that it makes Ethiopa look like the fuckin' Shangri-la. But it may not have been in more dangerous times. We have the market-leader with a complete lack of understanding of their audience and a seeming inability to make new stars, and a company vying desperately for success that couldn't stick its thumb up its ass on three tries.
There needs to be movement. The firing of Russo is long-overdue, but lets not fool ourselves into thinking it's the answer. Dixie, bless her empty head, doesn't know good from bad, and even if our prayers our answered and Paul Heyman somehow lands in charge, he's got to fight every single day to barge past the several layers of a chaotic power structure in order to be the genius that produced Hardcore TV and revolutionised the industry.
WWE needs a reality check. Sadly, they're so profitable by being a well-run business that a low buyrate won't do it. There's enough crotch-sniffers to validate Vince's twisted vision that if reality bit him on the balls, they'd lick the wound dry before the blood even hit the surface. But it needs to come soon, so that the company sees what works for itself before the inevitable happens and Vince isn't around.
And then we're really in the shit.
