Cruiserweight Title

[tiger_rick]

I wouldn't know where to look for statistics on this, but I'd be willing to bet that more people go and see wrestling live every week, both in the US and Worldwide, than they did in the 70s.

I'd take that bet. One of the things I've always been sure of when it comes to McMahon's monopoly in North America is that regardless of the pluses, the negatives are that there are fewer people who watch live wrestling each week and way fewer people who make a living from it.

[Dirty Eddie]

I'd take that bet. One of the things I've always been sure of when it comes to McMahon's monopoly in North America is that regardless of the pluses, the negatives are that there are fewer people who watch live wrestling each week and way fewer people who make a living from it.

 

And you can apply that for over here too. Before the WWF came along and made our stuff look small time on TV, there were loads of full-time brit wrestlers making good money, and decent sized crowds for shows on a weekly basis all over the country. It was a television institution for years, pulling big ratings.

[Loki]

I wonder if wrestling mega-brain J Lister can find statistics for this? Otherwise we're all just pissing into the wind really about this.

[Kenny McBride]

I wouldn't know where to look for statistics on this, but I'd be willing to bet that more people go and see wrestling live every week, both in the US and Worldwide, than they did in the 70s.

 

I don't have hard figures to hand, but do some simple maths in your head and see what you come up with. Memphis in the late 70s and early 80s, for example, had crowds of 10,000 every week (and utterly ludicrous TV audiences, like a 90% audience share and stuff like that). Dallas was packing out the Sportatorium. The Olympic in LA was busy. The Omni in Atlanta was full. JYD could do huge crowds at the Superdome in New Orleans. And that's just the major town in each of just a few territories. JCP was going great guns in towns that would barely even be considered secondary markets for WWE today.

 

Meanwhile over here, Joint Promotions were running up to 15 shows every night, most of which would have been busy, if not necessarily sold out. Something like 40 towns had weekly shows. And that's not to mention having bigger TV audiences that any comparable territorial area in the States.

 

Bear in mind too, that only ten years ago we had WCW. When WCW shut down, something like three million regular viewers of televised wrestling turned off and NEVER watched wrestling again.

 

The facts are there. The industry as a whole has shrunk under McMahon's leadership. It's become a bigger money industry for a few people because all the wrestling money in the US, Canada and Europe is flowing into the same pockets rather than being spread around dozens of promoters and local wrestlers. Also, prices are generally higher these days even after you account for inflation so people are paying more, but that's true of all entertainment genres. Overall, the numbers of people watching and paying for wrestling has been on a nearly continuous decline since Vince McMahon took over Capitol Sports, with the only real exception being the late 90s boom period.

[David]

Well out of order and not the first time. See you in a week.

Despite the fact Kenny made the first dig?

 

It appears that it pays to have friends (or be a kiss-arse) around here.

[HeavyT]

Who?

 

 

What style?

 

I'm assuming you mean WWE employing loads of Tuggy McSomersaults and letting them do a flippy, storyless style. If there's ten other wrestlers doing that, Sin Cara and his two left feet seem even less special. That's the thing with wrestling. If you've got no character and your only strength is your technique, you'll stand out more if you're not surrounded by a roster of wrestlers with the same technique as you.

 

 

 

Nobody cares about the US and IC titles as it is. Doing something with those belts to make people care should be more important than adding another belt purely for Dem Wans to masturbate over for a second and then complain that it's being underutilised.

WWE, obviously. Spazz.

 

The Lucha Libre/High Flyin g style that got the CWs over in ECW, WCW, every other promotion with a light heavy belt...

 

I havent watched too much WWE recently but my point was it should be regarded as a "world title" in a sense, and thus higher up the card than the "regional" belts. You could have guys working there way through the IC scene and taking out the big men, then securing a shot with the best small man in the world if they wouldnt be beleivable in a main event role... I think WWE could make it work, if they were willing to stick to a long-term plan. I know they wouldnt give a shit and its not going to happen, but I think it COULD work. Develop some meaningful characters, put a 220lb cap on it so bigger small guys can jump between the two weights quite easily.

[Kenny McBride]

Despite the fact Kenny made the first dig?

 

It appears that it pays to have friends (or be a kiss-arse) around here.

 

King PITCOS doesn't have friends? Really?

 

I called him stupid because I thought his point was stupid. He took a cheap pop at me which someone else reported and he got suspended for it.

 

Geez, if you're going to post conspiracy theories then at least make sure the pieces fit together somehow.

[David]

Geez, if you're going to post conspiracy theories then at least make sure the pieces fit together somehow.

I was just asking a question and making an observation. You made the first dig at him from what I could see.

 

I got no beef with you Ken.

[The Cum Doctor]

Maybe if it just stayed as a silly tit for tat, nobody would have been suspended. It didn't though.

 

Of course, this was already made pretty clear in the previous page.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

And you can apply that for over here too. Before the WWF came along and made our stuff look small time on TV, there were loads of full-time brit wrestlers making good money, and decent sized crowds for shows on a weekly basis all over the country. It was a television institution for years, pulling big ratings.

And something better came along and finished it off. If you look terrible by comparison, its not WWF's fault. If British wrestling was worth watching, it wouldnt have got throw under that moving car that was mid-1980s WWF. Birds of a Feather was good as well. Then The Royal Family came along in its timeslot and everyone forgot about it. Cant blame WWF for then looking far better than anyone else in the UK. Pat Roach in a mini-ring didn't hold a candle to the steroid bodies and the colourful outfits in the 80s.

 

I always think without WWF, the business was going to fall off a massive cliff anyway. Can anyone really see in the late 80s, 90s and the present day a company where some people still think its real? And all the characters walk about pretending its real? Pop culture evolved. Hogan, Warrior and Savage rolled off the tongue with Arnie, Stallone and Van Damme. WWF's cartoon era was of its time. It needed exposing going into how things were at the time. America evolved. People wanted Tyson and the Terminator. It needed a wink to the casual audience, not someone pretending it was all real.

[Dirty Eddie]

And something better came along and finished it off. If you look terrible by comparison, its not WWF's fault. If British wrestling was worth watching, it wouldnt have got throw under that moving car that was mid-1980s WWF. Birds of a Feather was good as well. Then The Royal Family came along in its timeslot and everyone forgot about it. Cant blame WWF for then looking far better than anyone else in the UK. Pat Roach in a mini-ring didn't hold a candle to the steroid bodies and the colourful outfits in the 80s.

 

I always think without WWF, the business was going to fall off a massive cliff anyway. Can anyone really see in the 90s and the present day a company where some people still think its real? And all the characters walk about pretending its real? Pop culture evolved. Hogan, Warrior and Savage rolled off the tongue with Arnie, Stallone and Van Damme. WWF's cartoon era was of its time.

 

 

If the WWF hadn't have come over to the UK, there is absolutely no way to know what would have happened to the domestic scene, but I very much doubt it would have been almost wiped out over a ten year period.

 

Without the WWF to compare it do, UK wrestling might have progressed the same way all UK TV did. Everything on telly looked a bit shit in the 70s and 80s, but technology and budgets grew. It's ratings were still alright when it got canned.

 

My point was though, that thousands went to UK shows on a weekly basis in the 60s, 70s and 80s, but after Hulkamania came along it was down to hundreds, if they were lucky. I don't think that was coincidence, so rightly or wrongly, WWF killed our home scene.

[Carbomb]

British wrestling WAS worth watching. TV values aren't the be-all and end-all. Pat Roach may not have been roided to the gills, but he was an absolute beast of a man, and very much like the guys who showed up in Memphis.

 

It's Dixon's and the Crabtrees' fault for refusing to update their format and presentation (and for endlessly pushing Daddy to the detriment of everyone else), but the wrestling itself was perfectly fine.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

If the WWF hadn't have come over to the UK, there is absolutely no way to know what would have happened to the domestic scene, but I very much doubt it would have been almost wiped out over a ten year period.

 

Without the WWF to compare it do, UK wrestling might have progressed the same way all UK TV did. Everything on telly looked a bit shit in the 70s and 80s, but technology and budgets grew. It's ratings were still alright when it got canned.

The fact they didnt change with the times was the reason they got wiped out. Technology did grow. You couldnt see WWF every week at your local empire, but British wrestling didn't go away. It was still there. It just got shown up for what it was and exposed. The Americans did it far better than the boys from blighty and the British public saw this.

 

My point was though, that thousands went to UK shows on a weekly basis in the 60s, 70s and 80s, but after Hulkamania came along it was down to hundreds, if they were lucky. I don't think that was coincidence, so rightly or wrongly, WWF killed our home scene.

WWF never killed the UK scene. WWF came on TV, and was better and more attractive to a wider audience. If WWF promoted a show every night in the UK, audience's wouldn't have died off. What killed the UK scene was that the UK scene was rotten by comparison. It fell behind and a bigger company spotted this. You cant just take someones audience. You can only do that if you have something better to offer that audience. The promoters didn't have fresh ideas to compete with the challenge of the WWF. So they went away forever. Then Greg Dyke stepped in and cut the chord.

[Dirty Eddie]

The fact they didnt change with the times was the reason they got wiped out. Technology did grow. You couldnt see WWF every week at your local empire, but British wrestling went nowhere.

 

 

WWF never killed the UK scene. WWF came on TV, and was better and more attractive to a wider audience. If WWF promoted a show every night in the UK, audience's wouldn't have died off. What killed the UK scene was that the UK scene was rotten by comparison. It fell behind and a bigger company spotted this. You cant just take someones audience. You can only do that if you have something better to offer that audience. The promoters didn't have fresh ideas to compete with the challenge of the WWF. So they went away forever. Then Greg Dyke stepped in and cut the chord.

 

Comparison, right. So compared to the WWF, the UK scene looked shit.

 

Before WWF came along, audiences still went to shows and fans still watched on TV. Then WWF came along and they all wandered off. The WWF pretty much killed off the older uk wrestling fans, who at the time despised the showy American crap. Kids loved it and got to watch it on TV, but without the telly to build up local Stars, the older uk fans tuned out forever, and the kids had to make do with a WWF tour once a year.

 

Surely we are in agreement then? That's what this discussion is about; whether the WWF means more people watch live wrestling or less, and in the UK, since they came along, the answer is much less.

 

 

You said if the WWF ran shows every week then the audiences wouldn't have died off. Completely correct. But the WWF didn't run shows every week, so the audience (live draws) DID fall off.

[Loki]

Greg Dyke killed the UK scene, not Vince McMahon. He didn't like wrestling, and chucked it off the channel even though it still got decent ratings. British wrestling failed to then change, as Ian has said, and failed to get tv elsewhere whilst the WWF on Sky went from strength to strength.

 

You may well be right about the US market though, Kenny. But that's surely compensated by the audiences the WWE reaches, both live and via TV, worldwide.