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WRESTLING COLUMNS

Reviving the Wrestling World
January 22, 2005 - by Robbie C Extreme

So wrestling, or more so the WWE, is going through a bit of a slump at the moment, low buy rates, sinking television ratings, fans bitching about characters and storylines that don't quite live up to what they expect, maybe some people won't remember this, but wrestling has been through it's slumps before hand and something was always there to bring the fans back and gain wrestling some mainstream notice again.

Let me begin with what kicked it all off for the Professional Wrestling world, Hulk Hogan, whether love him or hate him, under Vince McMahon's vision Hogan gave wrestling the boost it needed. Sure Hogan wasn't what you'd call a pretty boy, nor was he the most talented man to step between the ropes, in fact Hogan was quite the opposite, he was a balding man with a repertoire of maybe eight or nine moves, the bottom line is the fans what absolutely crazy for the guy, he was fed monster heel after monster heel in order to make him seem more and more impressive, when Vince ran out of Andre the Giant's and King Kong Bundy's he resorted to using more talented guys to make Hogan appear god like, the Ted Dibiase's and the Randy Savage's carried Hogan to new heights, with each victory Hogan's fan base grew and grew, the fans continued to eat up everything Hogan did but even more importantly, he caught the eye of the media. So what if most of his movies sucked, the man was a huge draw that brought even more money spending children into the then family friendly WWF, wrestling was certainly on a hot streak.

All good things come to an end and Hulk-a-Mania was no exception. With Hogan heading into "retirement" it left wrestling with a gap that needed filling, sure we still had stars like Bret Hart, Ric Flair, Sting and Vader, but for everyone of those there were the Repo Man, Bezerker, El Gigante and Shockmaster, even a return by Hogan to the WWF and then a jump to WCW didn't do a lot to revitalize wrestling as a whole, but once again there was something around the corner that was going to give wrestling that much need kick in the ass to get going again. WCW Bash at the Beach 1996, Hulk Hogan makes a shocking heel turn and formed the New World Order with former WWF stars Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, this brought a lot of fans, new and old, into the wrestling world and gave WCW the boost it needed to overtake Vince McMahon's product and add another notch to the vicious power struggle that was the Monday Night Wars.

WCW hit a slump itself after many stupid decision and frequent attempts to recapture the magic that was the original nWo, it feel to the WWF to pull wrestling out of another slump, and this time it was going to change the face of the wrestling world forever. Steve Austin had a decent run in WCW being a former Television, Tag Team and United States Champion, ultimately he was fired though while on the injured list by Eric Bishcoff, who never saw any potential in Austin above the midcard, how wrong he was. After being saddled up with the Stone Cold name Austin was told to be as crude and vulgar as possible, well without getting the show taken off the air anyway. That's exactly what Austin did, middle fingers, cuss words and savage ass kickings all round, Stone Cold brought forth the Attitude era of wrestling and once again fans where taking notice, it gave the WWF a push that once again got it ahead of WCW in the ratings and brought forth a new golden era to the professional wrestling world.

So you can see that wrestling has been through its ups and downs before and now is no exception, sooner or later that one big storyline or even the next Hulk Hogan will come along, bring new life back to the sports entertainment we love so much and send wrestling onto it's next golden age of high television ratings, top notch angles and characters with buy rates as far as the eyes can see. Until then make due with what you actually enjoy out of today's standard and if that doesn't fulfill your needs then go and watch some old school tapes of WCW, ECW and the WWF, or even go find yourself a nice indy fed to get hooked on like ROH or 3PW.

by Robbie C Extreme


BrakY2J wrote:
In my opinion, the only way the Wrestling Industry can get out of the slump it's in is for TNA, or some other promotion, to get some popularity and start to compete with WWE. If there's competition, both sides will strive to beat the other, just like in the late 90's boom period. It looks like the next "Big 3" are going to be WWE, TNA, and ROH, and I think if TNA gets more notoriety, (maybe a better TV Deal, some sponsors, etc,) then ROH, being the third biggest, will benefit. WWE and TNA fans could see ROH's wrestling, which I and many other fans agree is better than WWE and TNA's wrestling, and get hooked to that. The next boom period is on it's way, it's just a matter of time until it happens.
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