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Has your interest in wrestling ever been lower?


tiger_rick

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It seems from the reaction on here to PPVs and Raws these days (barely anyone seems to be watching Smackdown or TNA) that interest in wrestling is at a real low ebb. How is it for you?

 

I've been worse. From 2008-2010 I had a few sabbatticals where I didn't watch at all. About six months at one point. I didn't even read this place or any websites. I just couldn't be arsed with it.

 

My interest in wrestling isn't low at the moment. I'm loving the Network, the PowerSlam book and the SCG and NBR podcasts. I'm just not overly interested in WWE. The one thing keeping me watching is the fact that both my brothers have started watching again after years away (a decade actually) and it's nice to have someone to chat about it to. I'm struggling to maintain enthusiasm for it though, if I'm honest. I have to fast forward a lot of matches to make it through TV every week. I can't abide the rematch for no reason formula.

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I stopped watching between 2008 and 2012

 

I thought I grew out of it (pretentious twat), and the Benoit stuff just gave me a uneasy feeling about getting too invested in these guys.

 

Fast forward a bit, with basically paying no attention other than CM Punk's pipebomb and a couple of Taker's Mania matches, I return and it's 'oh nice, wellness policy. About bastard time' and 'fucking hell, didn't realise American Dragon was in WWE'. Really intriguing scene nowadays I think and I'm more active checking wrestling from the past than ever. WWE is obvs extremely hit and miss, but  just in different ways to first time I watched tbh. I quite enjoy trainwreck wrestling so I usually give Impact a spin (though I'll stop the moment EC3 leaves the company), enjoy NXT and love the PPVs, enjoy ROH though it's nowhere near as good as it used to be, and ofc NJPW is just the shit atm though I only watch their main shows

 

I got hooked in by 2004 SmackDown, it's safe to say I'm a fan for life.

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yeah it's been far far lower I stopped watching 04/05 - 2011 (or whenever the Rock came back on Valentines day) with the exception of Manias, some of my mates didn't watch properly again till this year. The talent is better than it has been for a long time they just need a bit better creative direction

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I stopped watching all but the free PPVs when the WWE first bought in 'pay' per views in the UK. I caught the occasional RAW but stopped watching Smackdown with only fluctuating interest if there was a specific thing I liked the sound of. 

 

There were a few reasons, mainly the fact I couldn't see the PPVs without paying for them and not liking to download shitty quality copies from online. Then we got into the Orton/TripleH/Cena run where every possible variation of the feud took place and I have never been a big fan of Cena or Orton anyway. Then the general stop start pushes and watered down prestige of the titles did little to help.

 

It was only when I got the WWE Network to catch WrestleMania 31 that my fandom came back with a vengeance. I had planned to get The Network only to see that show but it turned into months and months of watching. I skip when I dislike and watch what I enjoy. 


I stopped watching all but the free PPVs when the WWE first bought in 'pay' per views in the UK. I caught the occasional RAW but stopped watching Smackdown with only fluctuating interest if there was a specific thing I liked the sound of. 

 

There were a few reasons, mainly the fact I couldn't see the PPVs without paying for them and not liking to download shitty quality copies from online. Then we got into the Orton/TripleH/Cena run where every possible variation of the feud took place and I have never been a big fan of Cena or Orton anyway. Then the general stop start pushes and watered down prestige of the titles did little to help.

 

It was only when I got the WWE Network to catch WrestleMania 31 that my fandom came back with a vengeance. I had planned to get The Network only to see that show but it turned into months and months of watching. I skip when I dislike and watch what I enjoy. 

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in terms of modern wrestling my interested is pretty much in the toilet, i keep tabs and watch bits and pieces but i don't really care for it anymore. My interest in going back and watching old stuff and listening/reading about the business in general isn't. There's so much stuff at our disposal these days that we're a bit spoilt, im constantly finding new (old) stuff to watch.

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I dipped out for 2010 - 2013 so that was easily the lowest.

 

I haven't been this engaged in ages. PPVs are generally good to great, while the weekly TV is forgettable. The Network allows me to cherry pick stuff I feel like to kill an hour. But the clincher is NXT, a perfect TV show which I enjoy with the eldest, while the UK wrestling scene is very healthy.

 

Edit: I forgot about 1995. Just an awful, awful year. If you dislike Bret AND Shawn as I do there was no saving grace.

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Mine's probably higher than it's been for a while, pretty much entirely thanks to the Network. I'll watch NXT every week, and I haven't watched a wrestling show every week since the heyday of the Wrestling Channel probably. Night Of Champions is the first PPV this year I haven't seen, which, again, you'd probably have to go back to 2004 to find the last time that happened. I couldn't watch Raw or SmackDown every week, let alone both, but an hour of NXT a week (with the Fast Forward 30 Seconds option on the Network phone app to skip the adverts and Dana Brooke I can generally get through that before work on a Thursday morning) and three hours a month for the specials is enough for me. 

 

Early 2008/just after WrestleMania XXIV until… probably around early 2011/WrestleMania XXVII was when my interest was lowest. Could barely tell you anything that went on during that time. Possibly it could have all been summed up by the Cena/Orton/Triple H serieses mentioned above.

 

As said above, I liked SmackDown in 04 so I'm a fan for life, but I can happily not actually see any wrestling for ages at a time.

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Colour me invested, too. I got out of the game after Eddie Guerrero died and drifted back last autumn. Since then I've grown to the point where I'm watching all the WWE shows, and all the New Japan shows, as well as AAA every week (and I was doing Lucha Underground, too). In addition, I'll watch whatever DDT, Big Japan & All-Japan I can find. That I can watch it live or even days after it happens is AMAZING.

 

I've also gone to a ton of British shows, and enjoyed all of them. It's an amazing time to be a wrestling fan, it's just a sucky time if you like sensible booking in the big one.

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It's been years since my interest's been so low for so long. I don't think I've watched anything this year since Wrestlemania. I've listened to the odd wrestling podcast and semi-regularly checked this place out. It's not really the product that's turning me off, it's just that I find it more and more difficult each year to find the time to watch it on a weekly basis. I've even tried cutting down to just watching PPV's but without watching Raw I forget when they're on. I didn't even watch SummerSlam this year.

 

I was such a big fan back in the day that, like others have said above, I'll probably always follow wrestling in one capacity or another. I would like to catch up from where I last watched Lucha Underground and I'd like to start watching NXT on a weekly basis again. But three hours of Raw is just too off-putting, and Smackdown is a waste of time.

 

Regardless, I'll be watching the Rumble to Mania corridor again once we get around to it.

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When I returned I was gutted The Wrestling Channel was no longer, what happened? Would just sit in-front of that for half of the day. When I'm infront of a sky TV my mind still thinks 'channel 427' to this day

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Mine has been lower at times, mainly because of life circumstances though. Right now, I can watch wrestling easily enough, so I do. I skip through a lot of Raw though, and that's the only wrestling show I watch every week. I catch Smackdown most weeks, but it's hard to stay interested in that. I've lost interest in weekly NXT, and I've no inclination to watch any TNA etc.

 

Redoing everything so many times has killed my enthusiasm for it. But I think we'd all be moaning just as much regardless of what they do. They've ticked pretty much everything on the Internet wishlist and none of it has stopped the crying.

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My interest in WWE has never been lower. I still watch the two main shows, but I fast-forward or skip through 90% of the matches and, quite honestly, I'm really happy when I'm done with it for another week. I'll watch all the PPV's and mostly enjoy them, but I'm just kind of done caring about the carousel of pointless matches in-between. The show is too long and almost everything feels like inconsequential filler. I feel like I'm literally missing nothing by watching a three hour show in forty minutes or less, and that's depressing.

 

On the other hand, my disillusionment with WWE has me regularly watching another company for the first time in about a decade, and I am genuinely enjoying Ring of Honor. I just love how compact it is. It dawned on me that Seth Rollins is often on TV for longer during a single episode of Raw than a whole week's episode of ROH lasts. And I love that while it's on it's about 80% wrestling and the stories are told that way. If you employed an "only watch the promos" technique like I do with most Raw and Smackdown episodes, you'd get nothing. The vast majority happens in the ring, it's all paced very nicely and it's really hard to get bored of anyone because almost no-one is on the show every week. It's economical in the extreme and it's exactly what I'm looking for at the moment.

 

So, anyway... the blah, blah, blah about ROH is more to say it's the first time in my life where I can say that I'm starting to explore/accept the idea that "wrestling" doesn't have to mean WWE. My interest in WWE is at an all-time low but I'm probably more excited about wrestling in general than I have been in a few years.

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My interest was lowest from 2005-2009, as I didn't watch wrestling at all during these years. Stopped after Mania XX and didn't get back into it until the Nexus invasion in 2010.

 

However, since getting back into it, this is definitely the lowest for me, interest-wise. I was full of optimism over a year ago when you had The Shield and Wyatt Family in particular keeping things interesting, Brock destroying everyone, a solid mid-card, decent tag division and Daniel Bryan ruling the world. Plus, you had (and still do, of course) NXT being superb too. I couldn't give a fuck about anyone now, nobody interests me. Rollins is on another level of boring, Ambrose and Reigns could vanish and I wouldn't notice, Bryan is finished, Cena is having too many indie epics, Rusev is faffing about with that terrible self-mark and fucking Kane is in the main event picture.

 

Wake me up in January, lads.

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