By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
JWeinCom on 11 January 2022
Edit Thread
Jumpin said:
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 The same sort of outdated model that worked in the 80s when they had a virtual monopoly, but failed in the 90s when TV viewers got access to better quality wrestling.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 think their wrestling is actually pretty good. The quality of the guys on the card in terms of in ring ability is probably far better than at any other time, especially when you consider the womens division used to be either non-existent or served solely as masturbation material that is completely unneeded in the age of pornhub. 

What my comment is getting at is not to criticize the overall product. Raw and Smackdown have their place. They have to appeal to broad demographics, so maybe it's not going to appeal to 30+ year old wrestling fans who have already kind of seen it all. That's where something like NXT could be useful.

Didn't bring up AEW, but I don't think that anyone NXT got rid of will help them. They already have tons of great minds, but they're not the ones doing the booking. Don't see that changing.