wrestling / Columns
The Tiger’s Take 5.26.10: ‘Live in the now, 8-Bit, live in the now!’
Those were the famous words that Delirious gave to Player Uno during a very memorable Chikara tag team match, along with some sad news about Princess Peach. But honestly, that’s something that a great number of wrestling fans also need to start doing as well. No, I’m not talking about remembering nor appreciating the past. I’m a firm believer that, despite what the nWo may have told us in 1997, tradition does not bite. I, for one, love checking the video reviews of 411 and seeing various old episodes of WWF TV and Saturday Night’s Main Event specials from Adam Nedeff and I was jazzed when I saw that Matt Peddycord reviewed Superstars on the Super Station. So I’m not trying to say that we need to forget the past. But we need to forget about the wishful thinking that wrestling is somehow going to come full circle and will be just like the “glory days” of wrestling. Be it the territory days or the era of the Monday Night Wars.
If one looks at the way wrestling has changed over the years, it’s a matter of evolution, not just of wrestling, but of how one was able to view it. First there was the territory system, where, unless one read the magazines or lived in a geographic anomaly (which I actually did as a youngster) and was able to pick up TV stations from multiple cities, it was rare that you’d see wrestling from any other area in the country. Fans in the Mid South area didn’t see Memphis TV, fans in Florida didn’t see Portland, you get the idea. That changed in the 1980’s with the advent of cable TV.
Contrary to what you’ll hear on any WWE DVDs, Vince wasn’t the first to take advantage of the technology of cable. Before Vince’s national expansion, Georgia Championship Wrestling was being broadcast almost nationwide. This enabled GCW to tour places like Ohio and Michigan, but they were still GCW at the core. Where Vince does deserve credit is being able to take it a step further. He not only took the WWF all over the place thanks to the exposure he got from cable TV, but also marketed the WWF as a national wrestling promotion, not simply a regional one. They’re called the WWE now, and, to this day, the letters WWE are synonymous with pro wrestling in the United States. Despite being based in CT, WWF was always thought of as “New York” and you don’t get much more mainstream and impressive sounding than New York City.
The main competition to WWE was WCW. The strongest regional promotion was Jim Crockett promotions. They were forced to go national as well to stay in business, and after a few years they were unable to sustain the costs of it. Ted Turner purchased the company in 1988 and it became WCW – World Championship Wrestling. Like the WWF, WCW had its own distinct brand that it attached its name too. Whereas the WWE was all about spectacle and being mainstream, WCW tried to stay true to its rasslin’ roots. For every silly angle or gimmick like the Black Scorpion, there was a great match from Brian Pillman, Ricky Steamboat, and others.
WWF and WCW, what do they have in common? They were both simple regional promotions, just like countless others, but they were both able to evolve and change with the times to stay relevant in a changing world. Vince due to his willingness to take the plunge and Crockett had to follow suit out of necessity when Vince was successful.
This is why TNA will never be a legit competition to the WWE. They were more or less formed because Jeff Jarrett knew he’d never be welcomed back into the WWE and he started his own company. They were about to go belly up when Panda Energy bought it. What exactly is the TNA brand? WWE rejects and castoffs, wrestlers that the WWE will probably never be interested in, and names from long ago. That’s not a winning formula to go against a major powerhouse like WWE and come out on top. If it was, then Impact would still be on Monday nights. They had the right idea, once upon a time, to market themselves as an alternative to the WWE. However, marketing as an alternative and actually being one are two distinct things, and TNA failed to be a genuine alternative.
Not only will TNA never be a legit competition to the WWE, but, in my lifetime, nobody else will either. Because WWE has the market cornered on the mainstream, anything else is going to wind up looking bush league in comparison. I’m not saying that no other promotion *can* do it, but I think it’s very doubtful, because they’d need the mainstream attention, as well as something to look like a pure alternative, and although those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, it’s a very hard combo to get right. For proof, look at how well ROH did on PPV.
However, that’s not to say that it’s useless to watch other feds or it’s useless for other feds to exist unless they’re trying to be legit competition to the WWE. There have been plenty of other feds who have been great alternatives to the WWE. Jim Cornette’s SMW is a great example, they were true to their roots, like WCW tried to be, but they didn’t have to deal with the mess of being owned by an actual corporate entity. Their problem, as Cornette himself has stated is that they came about in the wrong time and got too big to be small and too small to be big. ECW and ROH started out as great ideas for an alternative, but they both tried to grow into legit national powerhouses and neither especially succeeded. It’s not all their fault, ECW had no support from TNN, and Time Warner dropping HD Net took away a good chunk of potential ROH viewers. But the lack of Heyman’s business sense and lack of marketing on ROH’s behalf also were big factors on why ECW failed and why ROH is failing. Currently, SHIMMER with its approach to serious women’s wrestling, and Chikara, with its approach of being literally a circus at times, are two great examples of feds to turn to for a genuine alternative.
An alternative is just that though, it’s an alternative. It’s not supposed to be a permanent replacement, because long after Chikara and SHIMMER leave us, I’m sure the WWE still be alive and kicking. Maybe they’ll even kiss and make up with the Panda Bear and be the WWF again. I’m sure if someone threw millions of dollars at Mike Quackenbush to take Chikara national and be on a major TV station, he’d do it. But, Los Ice Creams vs. The Colony doesn’t play well to a mainstream audience, so he’d be forced to change things up, which would make Chikara no longer be Chikara, or they’d quickly flop.
The ongoing evolution of technology is also affecting the Indy feds as well. Unless it was filmed or someone in the crowd snuck in a camera, it used to be that the only way to see an indy show was to be there. Now DVD and internet marketing allows for groups like Chikara and PWG to not only make money off the live gate and merchandise stands, but also by selling their shows on DVDs to people potentially all over the country. Web sites like 411 and youtube allow for more exposure of these groups to new people and potentially create new fans as a result.
Temporary Stagnation Or The Same Old Shit?
In short (too late!), if you think that the current stagnation of wrestling is only a temporary thing, you might be right. But that’s going to be predicated on either the WWE really getting good (which is possible) or TNA getting their head out of their ass and completely changing themselves (also possible, but extremely unlikely at this stage). The odds are much greater that the stagnation continues for a very long time. Enjoy the alternatives, but don’t expect them to ever be anything more. Unless an atomic bomb falls and destroys every cable signal known to man, don’t expect wrestling to ever be regional again.
I’m Mike Campbell, and that’s my opinion.
