It's much worse today. In the last week I have watched a few matches in WWE and AEW and both products are almost unwatchable. These guys need time to develop before being put on TV and that had much more of that in the territory days. Mic skills awful as well.
I'm curious on your take on this because I just can't sit though a full WWE broadcast to evaluate correctly, but I randomly saw this WWE "top 10 raw moments" and was kind of impressed. The psychology, wrestling and mic skills seems a bit better. Look at the pin at 2:50. That's a nice small package pin. The crowd buys it.
They seem to also realize that the psychological stuff is better with the women, as you have sex, drama, butch dykes vs. pretty girls and so they are pushing the females hard. Look at 3:42, the chick realizes she didn't hook the leg so grabs it. That's a bit of professionalism.
Then some Iranian dude now has a "cervical clutch"(all sorts of hidden meanings with that name) where he bends him sideways to give a more plausible pain element. And when his partner misses the pain, he puts him BACK in the move so he can get a selfie with the guy screaming in pain. That's a bit original. Good writing.
Look at the pin at 9:12. That makes psychological sense to put the weight on the shoulders. I don't know if I've ever seen a pin like that but it makes sense,
It seems like WWE realized their product sucked so put a bit more effort in.
I think the main problem now is just TOO MANY HOURS OF PROGRAMMING!!!!
How many fucking hours of wrestling can you make interesting? 3 fucking hours of RAW?!!!!! And this doesn't even include the PPV and other shit? They committed to this shit for the money but now can't fill the hours. Seinfeld can make funny observations for 30 minutes(with commercials). Try filling THREE HOURS with quirky observations.
In the old days, you had a brief Saturday morning thing and then everything would set up for a PPV like WrestleMania. Why do I need to buy a PPV with a near NONSTOP fucking wrestling channel?
The wrestlers seem to be headed at least slightly in the right direction but the marketing team needs to cut the hours. It's oversaturated.
But there seems to be a BIT more quality. Although I only saw these brief highlights. I can't sit through 3 hours(WHO CAN?) so anyone that can let me know if the product is getting a little bit better. I'm trying to give it a chance.
So what I meant when I started a thread saying "Bob Backlund was screwed" was a metaphor for the wrestling audience. Were WE screwed with the shift from quality to mass production? Can WWE save this sinking ship with a return to basics?
