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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Aug 25, 2008 12:24:15 GMT -5
I say that it isn't because when I remember back on the Attitude era, I knew a fair amount of people in my high school who thought wrestling was uber-lame and enjoyed ribbing on the kids that got together to talk about last night's Raw/Smackdown. Oh sure, I saw a slew of Rock t-shirts and DX binders/merchandise, but fun was made.
Aside from how (in my opinion) WWE and the business in a whole doesn't seem to be in the toilet despite being down from its peak a few years ago, the key to "booms", I believe, is to draw in people who were indifferent to wrestling anyway and may have gotten into it if the company found the right marketing approach (and those ideas do not come out of thin air). Wrestling's always going to seem uncool to a significant amount of people- it's borderline impossible to draw in anyone who's already made up their minds about it.
So I don't think it's a matter of "oh, wrestling's time will come again". Did the old time even stop? And shouldn't it stop once wrestling becomes network poison?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2008 12:31:17 GMT -5
It's cyclical, just for a different reason than you probably meant.
It's not so much a global idea of "wrestling is cool now!", more of the people on the card that MAKE it cool. People like Rock and Austin can be entertaining to a non wrestling fan, which is what causes a "boom" period (All a boom is really, is the usual people are still watching...but some normally non wrestling fans watch now too).
Once those guys were gone, no one really stepped up to the plate to adequately take their place in appealing solidly to the non wrestling fan demographic. If they did, it'd still be going.
When a few new guys do the same in the future, they'll get more viewers again. So it is usually a cycle, but it's not absolutely required that a cycle has to end either.
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Post by Loki on Aug 25, 2008 15:15:23 GMT -5
It's not cyclical.
It can become slightly more popular in the broad offer of mainstream entertainment every once in a while, basically when WWF/E manage to "ride" whatever trend is going strong in other fields of pop-culture, and One Superstar can thus cross the line between fame among wrestling fans and name-recognition among non fans.
It looks like it's cyclical because it happened already in different decades, following different trends, and that's the reason it's referred to as "cyclical". But some pop-culture trends just don't make it for wrestling popularity and vice-versa, so it's not a given pro wrestling can get another boom as soon as there's a new fad around.
So far this decade has been rather lame in terms of Main Trend, discounting the Reality Crap and the "15 minutes of fame for no reason in particular" one. And to an extent, WWE have tried to capitalize on it (Tough Enough, Diva Search, fans more involved...), but it has failed to attract casual fans.
So, no, I don't think wrestling is cyclical in the meaning of "every N years, a boom".
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Post by Lance Uppercut on Aug 25, 2008 16:18:17 GMT -5
yeah it's cyclical.
I mean it's still popular, but the people who still watch it from back in the day complain the hell out of it, while new fans who were never exposed to the product can enjoy it.
I mean the product has been on in some form for over 20 years without break every week (and sometimes various shows during ht week). Do you really expect the average fan to watch a show every week for 20 years without getting a little tired of it?
Sometimes people just need a break.
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Post by Lance Uppercut on Aug 25, 2008 16:25:19 GMT -5
So far this decade has been rather lame in terms of Main Trend, discounting the Reality Crap and the "15 minutes of fame for no reason in particular" one. And to an extent, WWE have tried to capitalize on it (Tough Enough, Diva Search, fans more involved...), but it has failed to attract casual fans. So, no, I don't think wrestling is cyclical in the meaning of "every N years, a boom". Yeah seriously, wrestling is a reflection of its times. The 80's was cheesy and over family friendly. the late 90's was straight up dirty. You could see it in all the tv shows and movies at the time. Married with Children is a cult classic cause it was the first and the best, other crap like off centre (or was called Grosse Pointe?), Unhappily ever after, all the shows that lasted for like a year or two. Look at this decade. Most of eveyrthing's tone down. Some of the best shows are back to being somewhat edgy but with a good moral, or simplistic dry humor laughing at everyday life. My name is Earl, the Office, King of hte HIll (Hank hill has gone from being a laughable conservative, to a very likable hero who's considered probably the purest character on TV), Monk, Psyche, How I met your mother, Scrubs, 30 Rock are some of my favorites. |
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Post by Dynamite Kid on Aug 25, 2008 16:30:26 GMT -5
So because there were some people not liking wrestling still, wrestling didn't have a boom?
Does that mean Nirvana didn't sell any records?
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Jack
Team Rocket
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Post by Jack on Aug 25, 2008 16:31:51 GMT -5
No. It's a huge cop out. Whenever you don't tap into what young people want business will be down and when you do business will be up.
'Cyclical' is just an excuse for poor performance.
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Post by wrestlecrapcrap on Aug 25, 2008 16:31:53 GMT -5
It's not going to be guarenteed that every exact number of years there will be a boom, but it is cyclical.
They milk as much money as possible out of the biggest star going. Once that star begins to make less money, they will need a new star. It may take time for that new star to be as big as the old one, and the new star may never get to be as big, so that's where down periods come from.
It will always be up and down though because of the fact that you can't just have a constant conveyer belt of talent, you need to use the old to build the new, and that will take time.
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Jack
Team Rocket
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Post by Jack on Aug 25, 2008 16:40:51 GMT -5
It's not going to be guarenteed that every exact number of years there will be a boom, but it is cyclical. They milk as much money as possible out of the biggest star going. Once that star begins to make less money, they will need a new star. It may take time for that new star to be as big as the old one, and the new star may never get to be as big, so that's where down periods come from. It will always be up and down though because of the fact that you can't just have a constant conveyer belt of talent, you need to use the old to build the new, and that will take time. But isn't cyclical just an excuse for a stagnate product? WWE post 1993 wasn't 'cyclical' it was just...rubbish wasn't it? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2008 16:58:39 GMT -5
It's not going to be guarenteed that every exact number of years there will be a boom, but it is cyclical. They milk as much money as possible out of the biggest star going. Once that star begins to make less money, they will need a new star. It may take time for that new star to be as big as the old one, and the new star may never get to be as big, so that's where down periods come from. It will always be up and down though because of the fact that you can't just have a constant conveyer belt of talent, you need to use the old to build the new, and that will take time. But isn't cyclical just an excuse for a stagnate product? WWE post 1993 wasn't 'cyclical' it was just...rubbish wasn't it? The cycle is just the absence/stagnation of old stars while new ones are attempting to be made. There isn't really any excuse involved. It IS their fault for not building new ones in timely fashion. |
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