JWeinCom said:
Stupid decision IMO. The market for people who watch Smackdown and Raw for five hours a week and still have the time/desire for another two hours of the same wrestling with lower production values is pretty small. The market for people who want a more indy style of wrestling program is larger, and they're kind of giving up on that market. |
Which is kind of why WWE has been off my radar since jumping back into it. I loved NXT back in the day, would check in on the main roster from time to time - although I only ever found their women’s division and Bray Wyatt promos to be remotely interesting in that time.
WWE grasps for a model of pro-wrestling that’s been decaying for 20 years now. Their best replacement idea is to adequately train up a bunch of large sized athletes. The same sort of outdated model that worked in the 80s when they had a virtual monopoly, but failed in the 90s when TV viewers got access to better quality wrestling. Sure, some say smaller guys like Bret couldn’t draw, but he outdrew all the lumbering roid machines like Kevin Nash and Sid Vicious. Yeah, they had big guys like the Rock, Kane, and Undertaker, but they had way more going on for them than their size—even tiny guys like Crash Holly, 2 Cool, the Hardyz, Guerrero, and that unnamable Canadian guy who was friends with Guerrero, were drawing like DaVinci in the ~2000 era.
On the bright side, WWE at least let go all their best ‘wrestling show’ talent. They’ve handed AEW a top shelf selection of some of the best trainers, talent scouts, and bookers in the industry today.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
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