Wrestling is in serious trouble

[Nick]

Bump.

I felt like I need to revive this dead thread and say some things.

Wrestling has been in serious trouble since Kurt Angle and JBL left back a couple years back, followed by Jeff Hardy, Batista, Edge, Matt Hardy being released, and Shawn Michaels. This is most likely Taker's last year with the WWE, seeing as he'll go out with a bang with a 20-0 undefeated streak. Triple H is probably done with in ring wrestling for a while, considering he's working back stage with Steph I believe. And Rey-Rey's got a little fight left in him. Randy and Cena probably will leave within the next couple of years. But shit's going downhill once Undertaker leaves, cause most people probably watch SmackDown just to see him. I'd say a good 45-50% of the Smackdown audience wants him to appear solely. Once he leaves, Smackdown's TV views will plummet causing RAW to be the only main show, hopefully bringing all the superstars together and getting rid of this stupid roster bullcrap.

Wrestling in the past 3 weeks has been great. C.M Punk dude, oh my god. Probably the best man on the microphone in a long ass time. I use to give the Miz a lot of props when it came to microphone skills but Punk buried it. The fact C.M Punk is most likely retiring makes me wonder if that's the reason WWE let him say the shit he did for 3 weeks. If not and he signed some secret contract with Vince also makes me wonder if he'll continue to make great promos like the last ones he's had.

[Ed Burns]

With what Punk's done on the mic the last 3 weeks, the WWE has the Golden Goose on their hands here, and they should do everything they can possibly do to keep him... I truly believe he's by far the absolute best promo in the business right now. He's buried anything Jericho's done the last couple years... He's buried everything the Miz has done the last year... This guy's had excellent promos in the past, but now that he's saying things that I'm sure other guys want to, and have wanted to say, it's put him in another league as far as promos go... I'd rate him on par with Austin in the shoot promo department...

Is wrestling in trouble? Maybe... Facts are, WWE's got some excellent talent to work with right now... The problem is their growth has to accelerate considerably... Once Taker retires, Cena, Orton, and others leave, there's a huge void at the top... Back in the day, the Territories were great for young talent to put the finish on their gimmick, then get called up to the big leagues... Right now, with the Territories extinct, FCW, Impact Wrestling, and WWE's really it for wrestlers to ply their trade... OVW isn't what it was... ROH Wrestling, though quite good, doesn't have the name power... I don't think WWE's in trouble based on the fact they continue to roll out talents, but the issue will be who will they put in the top spot, and how over will these guys be??? If they can't get any type of crowd reaction, then WWE's definitely gonna be in trouble...

[Shadow Soul]

If you look at the older generation of wrestlers ie Taker, HBK, JBL and Austin to name but a few they all came up via the territories. They learnt their trade by wrestling EVERY single night...it might have been in front of just a handful of people out in the sticks or to a full crowd in a major arena.

Nowadays a young up and coming wrestler does what...3 or 4 a month in the independents if they are lucky, sure everyone likes to blame VKM for destroying the territories but they were dying anyway due to them not being able to cope with the likes of both the WCW and WWF, both of which had major TV deals and almost bottomless pockets when it came to poaching new talent, all Vince did was put them out of their misery.

It might well be a little too late to put a halt to the dip that will come, but eventually the wrestling business will pick up it always does.

The WWE seems to have realised that there is a void being left by wrestlers leaving in whatever way...should they have anticipated this...yep and I blame those that work for Vince for not pointing out to him in letters a mile high, that if he didn't expand on the likes of FCW and OVW (when they had it) that sooner or later they would start to struggle.

So instead of a rookie being able to learn the ropes over several years by working their collective ass's off they now find that should they show the slightest spark of promise they are snatched and thrust into the spotlight...and I'd say about 80% of the time it's too much too soon and they burn out or just panic and thus end up being FE'd only to go join either TNA, ROH or one of the other independents and then return a while later..a little less green.

As long as people are still putting down hard earned cash and the gate money isn't falling..then no the wrestling business isn't in any real trouble.

[Ed Burns]

Bump...

I'm bumping this thread forward due to the fact I found a video of an amazing match fro ROH Wrestling... I've read variosu articles about Davey Richards, and how good he is... I looked up some videos, and found a match between Eddie Edwards, and Davey Richards... I'd like to say that this was probably the best match I've seen in quite some time.... From a pure wrestling standpoint, the pace these 2 guys kept was incredible, and the moves performed were executed to perfection... The match went over 36 Minutes... The video I'm posting has 7 minutes of action to it... I will be posting the entire match up when I find it. Here's a mash up video of the match...



I will also say, based upon viewing this match, that companies like ROH give me hope that Wrestling is not in serious trouble... I'm also glad ROH's got their first taping coming to TV the latter part of next month, on September 24th... Trust me, if I can find a video of these guys throwing down like they are, then I'm quite sure WWE's already seen this match...

[Insanity_X]

Ugh indie style wrestling can go die in a fire. It's all about doing impressive looking moves instead of storytelling and doing shit that makes sence. That's why Leo Kruger shits all over Seth Rollins in the ring and Punk vs Cena got five stars from pretty much every internet reviewer on the planet while drawing more money than Davey will in a lifetime.

Sidenote: most wrestlers can do more moves than they show off. Hell Wade Barrett's capable of doing a 450 splash and has won submission wrestling tournaments. Just because a wrestler can do amazing moves doesn't mean they should.

[Ed Burns]

Needless to say I was still impressed with Richards/Edwards. The video snip-it was only a 7 minute highlight reel of the match... The match went 37 minutes...

[Insanity_X]

I was speaking in general. I haven't exactly seen the highlight reel. ROH got it pulled.

[Ed Burns]

There's other videos of it out there... The quality of those videos suck ass. I had the best quality video up I could find when I posted it... Supposedly it's gonna be featured on a ROH TV Taping.