Have to agree.

OOOOOORTMMMMAAAAGGGAAA!!

What.

http://i.imgur.com/35Coq.gif

TNA.

swear to god TNA "ripped off" Power Slam when they made that logo

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile...8_658819_n.jpg

Does Sting have people in clown masks working for him now or something?

http://i.imgur.com/5sv2y.gif

That may be going a bit too far with The Joker thing.

http://i.imgur.com/MUQ2P.gif

TNA = Total Non-Stop Flipping

It's Destor's favorite wrestler, Jack Evans.

I figured if anything will make Destor come back, it's claiming he loves Jack Evans.

http://derrickbateman.net/wp/wp-cont...011/07/020.jpg

Why would Sting want to kill the guy next to Daniel Bryan :shifty:

Umaga was an Orton guy.

Attitude Era fans grew up and found something real. How is that a stretch?

:lol:

For once, I think I agree with Gertner. Personally I know A LOT of MMA fans who watched wrestling during the Attitude Era that don't watch anymore. I think it's totally probable that those who watched wrestling for the thrill and excitement just don't see it there in wrestling anymore. MMA on the other hand has it even in the undercard fights.

To some extent, I can see the point. Wrestling has become too stale and predictable as it is right now. There's no excitement anymore. It's why stuff like Punk's promo, the Nexus debut and The Rock's "return" got so much attention. They were unexpected and exciting. Sadly, 2 of the 3 faded fast and the third is still in progress.

But I don't think getting them back is impossible, it's just gonna require a majore step away from what the WWE is right now

I think you're right, Feared, with more of an emphasis on your latter statement that getting those viewers back isn't impossible and needs a lot of work.

The WWE had to fuck up to lose those fans. And that demographic is not the only one that exists contributing to the empty space left by all those viewers.

MMA has been around for a while now. Yeah, it's bigger now, but honestly, the only factor it could really play is in the absence of a good product. You could simply watch both.

MMA also cannot speak to every reason people in that demographic or any have watched or stopped watching wrestling.

And just as a tidbit, if I understand correctly, a big part of the emergence of staged wrestling was because original wrestling began to get stale and boring.

I also don't mean to come off as disrespectful to anyone, not that it really matters if I do, I just find a big hole in the things people say in justification that everyone should be satisfied with the Attitude Era being over. There isn't any disconnect with reality here, we all know it's over. It is not just simple bitterness about that so much as being surprised at how low expectations have plunged. This is also because a few people have even gone as far as to call nostalgic folk idiots for praising Attitude over what's going on today years later. I happen to think the opposite, that you have to be an idiot to think it's even close.

I could stop watching wrestling if I didn't like it, and I did for a few years. I got made fun of for sticking around because of Bret Hart, which was around when I got back into it. I understand that Bret can no longer wrestle.

But being ridiculed for watching because of Hart is just as confusing to me as people apologetically defending what is usually not even half as good as a little over ten years ago.

Bret Hart almost invariably had excellent matches. Today, a lot almost invariably have lackluster to bad matches.

Peh. I dunno. I'm still going to call a shitty match shitty. I'll hope for the good stuff to keep coming. But I won't embrace the notion that because the Attitude Era is over that you should just sit back and "enjoy" the parts that suck. I don't care who is doing their best, or whatever.

The truth is, if changes were made, the ratings would be a lot higher than they are now.

Also, people bitched about what was stupid back then as well. There was a big period of time where we swore to God that HHH was the bane of the WWE/F title. There were tons of things "we" bitched about.

Just seems like there's a lot more to bitch about now, and that isn't my fault, it's wrestling's fault.

All I could come up with is now that Flairs out they wanted to make a joke out of the new-new-new-new-new-new-new-new Four Horsemen.

For some reason I cant wait for the TNA show on Saturday Im going to even though its gonna be about 100 degrees. Front row seats though.
Might get on TV with the Bound For Glory recaps they show on Impact so I might take a sign..

I think that is the top reason why ratings are down now. Everyone wants the shows to be edgier like they were before. Being PG doesn't help the shows out if most of the audience are adults. If you want PG, do it on Saturday or Sunday mornings like they used to do with Superstars. For all the claims that being PG helps WWE, I've never seen the proof. Limiting the shows and targeting kids makes no sense for a primetime show, when most kids are asleep. All it does is piss off the audience and make the shows more stale...

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RuRNmKhuogc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

:lol: the title of this mashup.

Bring back Steven Richards, epic heel of all time~

Dana White visits WWE Headquarters
 

UFC President Dana White made a visit to WWE headquarters. Word is that Dana visited to sit down with Vince McMahon. Their meeting was described as more of a friendly social visit where Dana visited WWE HQ for the first time and met one-on-one with Vince. Apparently the potential business deal with WWE and Brock Lesnar that we've reported on was not why Dana visited Stamford.

White's tweet was: "I was there a couple weeks ago and checked out WWE hq's. It was cool."

--------------------

Was gonna make a thread for this so people can speculate as to why he was there, but then I thought of all the annoying "Anti-MMA" wrestling fans that frequent this site, so I'll just post it here

I'll never understand how professional wrestling fans can accuse MMA of being "two guys groping each other on the ground" or essentially calling it gay. Biggest case of the pot calling the kettle black there ever was.

I mean, it's fine to not like MMA, but calling it gay and boring seems like a bit of a stretch

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but when people claim that going PG helped WWE, they mean sponsor wise...they were going to begin to lose a lot of sponsors if they continued with the TV-14 content.

I don't necessarily buy this argument. Would they have lost SOME sponsors? Sure. Especially if they had pushed the limits of TV14 and started to go really beyond into some seriously adult content. However, I don't recall any significant trouble with sponsors from 1998-2002. If anything they had more problems with parental/television/violence organizations, like the Parents Television Council, but not with sponsors. I recall numerous adult brand/product sponsors during the Attitude era.

Now, did PG help them get bigger, better paying upfront sponsors and other financial opportunities? Sure, but at the cost of their own content, content control, ratings and fans. Sure, now they have a large line of toys and more toy sales compared to what they had in the Attitude era days, and I'm sure they get a larger sponsorship and royalty check too from Mattell.

I get it, I truly do. Almost all major companies eventually sacrifice financial profit and growth over consumer growth and loyalty, in some form or fashion. It doesn't mean I have to be happy about it though. Especially when it comes down to profits vs poor product.

well they do spend an awful lot of time on the ground pressed against each other, just like "real" wrestling. then again every time someone does a gorilla press one of his hands is on the other guy's junk

Didn't Dana White once verbally attacked the WWE or wrestling in general around the time UFC got really popular in the mainstream?

I know he previous attacked boxing and tried to get viewers away from that sport but I believe he tried the same thing with wrestling. I think there was even a report one year of how less people were signing up to be wrestlers since MMA was the new big thing to do.

I'm not the biggest fan of MMA, but I don't bash it. Seems silly.

I don't know why I can't get into it. Maybe because I don't really know who anyone is.

Feel like that shouldn't deter me so much, though.

That's probably the most well thought out, insightful post I have seen since posting here. Ppl always say get over the Attitude era, but you can't argue with success, the fans, and extremely high ratings. If WWE paid more attention to their past success, then maybe they would be more in touch with the fans now. And again, numbers don't lie. Losing millions of viewers pretty much speaks for itself.

WWE using the PG direction not only screws the product up, but limits everything. Obviously, if the current product were more like the Attitude era, then the fans would be watching. There's a reason the business boomed so much back then. B/c they had cutting edge characters, storylines, and actually listened to the fans. You can't ignore your fans and keep your audience.

You hit the nail on the head too when you said if changes were made, the ratings would be higher. It's very apparent a huge change in direction is needed to freshen up the shows. Until that happens, the ratings will continue to reflect negatively...

It's funny you say that. WWE never had a problem with sponsors back during the Attitude era. If the sponsors were gonna walk, it would've been back when they were pushing the envelope. Sure, being PG makes them more attractive to sponsors, but WWE would find sponsors regardless. Did having DX make them unattractive to certain sponsors? Yes, but they also kept drawing in sponsors who knew WWE was popular enough to make them money. Success equals money, PG or not...

Ok.

People are posting out of their ass and it's time to step in on my post.

WWE went PG around the time returning to USA Network.

You think that is a coincidence or the fact that USA Network is a lot more influential and reaches many more households then it did when WWF was airing before TNN/Spike.

I know WCW seemed like the PG Show back in the day compared to WWF but they still had Nitro Girls, and Factions/Tag Teams to give it the edge that was needed.

You don't need ECW style storylines to give the show edge, just better, more unbelievable storylines, not just crap like in TNA right now.

Cage Matches that have no doors, TLC Matches, Backstage Brawls, actual edgy wrestling with risk, not scripted garbage.

WWE has gone to the Entertainment aspect which is why it can't go back to a Pre PG show.

You have Congress breathing down the necks of NFL for concussions and WWE for sterioid use. WWE wants to walk a fine line between scripted matches and insane storylines or actions like Daniel Bryan with that chord.

Turning Cena heel and giving CM Punk and Cena a stable to take on the whole WWE could give it more of a directive to edgyness.

I also wouldn't mind seeing Orton involved in some way, but I'm not sure how that'd play out with him on Smackdown.

I enjoyed his Viper role on Raw, where he would punt anyone and was like Stone Cold Steve Austin, unpredictable.

I think Cena not getting drafted to Smackdown and not being fired just goes to show how PREDICTABLE WWE has gotten when their poster boy always comes out on top every week with the same old shit.

I can't get into it because it is totally homosexual.

I like to watch MMA from time to time. Anytime I watch it with a group of friends they try to educate me on the fighters and such but I don't care. I just want to see these dudes beat the shit out of each other. And if the fight ends in anything other than a KO I feel like I wasted my time