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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2021 16:20:56 GMT -5
Yes and No.
From a business standpoint, do casual fans care about "workrate"?
WWE was at it's absolute peak popularity in the late 90s when there was barely any wrestling on the shows. It was all story driven and full of characters.
Now? It's all random matches between regular looking dudes that ultimately mean nothing.
No wonder ratings are in the toilet. Everyone looks and sounds like a regular guy! I get this all the time from my non-wrestling fan friends. They talk about how everyone looks "normal" now. I mean... look at Johnny Gargano, Kevin Owens, etc. They all look like guys you would see on the street. On top of that, they have no outlandish-gimmicky character traits. No catchphrase, no signature attire, no iconic entrance music... basically all the things that made guys like Austin, Taker, Rock, etc successful? They're lacking it.
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Post by Hypnosis on Jun 8, 2021 16:55:34 GMT -5
Yes and No. From a business standpoint, do casual fans care about "workrate"? WWE was at it's absolute peak popularity in the late 90s when there was barely any wrestling on the shows. It was all story driven and full of characters. Now? It's all random matches between regular looking dudes that ultimately mean nothing. No wonder ratings are in the toilet. Everyone looks and sounds like a regular guy! I get this all the time from my non-wrestling fan friends. They talk about how everyone looks "normal" now. I mean... look at Johnny Gargano, Kevin Owens, etc. They all look like guys you would see on the street. On top of that, they have no outlandish-gimmicky character traits. No catchphrase, no signature attire, no iconic entrance music... basically all the things that made guys like Austin, Taker, Rock, etc successful? They're lacking it. Gargano's come a long WAY from the last time you probably saw him on NXT: ![](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LnWf7Bo6ZL41nBesvvLJ1ncdwzI=/1400x1400/filters:format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20029063/EaMPbuEWAAEUD31.jpg) Owens could use some freshening up, though.
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Post by eJm on Jun 8, 2021 17:20:23 GMT -5
From a business standpoint, do casual fans care about "workrate"? I respond to your question with a question of my own, in the year 2021 who on Earth is the casual fan? What are their interests? What do they like doing? Would they watch a MCU movie or a Fast and Furious movie? Do they like playing D&D? Do they watch Netflix or Disney+ more? In 1998, there was a pretty definitive target audience for those shows but the market is so big now, you can have things draw in an audience and if you make it mean something, they’ll come in if it’s good. It’s why this casual fan thing always is a weird thing to bring up because with a culture so big, who is that person?
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Jun 8, 2021 18:08:55 GMT -5
Depends on what the goal was.
To make money? Nah. They're literally too dumb to make more money than they are. It's astounding.
Sadly, after a certain point, the goal was to kill the indies.
It worked for a while. Especially in the UK.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2021 19:15:05 GMT -5
From a business standpoint, do casual fans care about "workrate"? I respond to your question with a question of my own, in the year 2021 who on Earth is the casual fan? What are their interests? What do they like doing? Would they watch a MCU movie or a Fast and Furious movie? Do they like playing D&D? Do they watch Netflix or Disney+ more? In 1998, there was a pretty definitive target audience for those shows but the market is so big now, you can have things draw in an audience and if you make it mean something, they’ll come in if it’s good. It’s why this casual fan thing always is a weird thing to bring up because with a culture so big, who is that person? A casual fan, for me is somebody who isn't a religious wrestling fan. They turn it on because it looks interesting. These are the type of fans who make you the most money because these are the fans you don't have on your side already. These are the fans that will be responsible for a potential new boom. Back in the 90s, everyone in school and at work was talking about Austin vs Vince, Austin vs Rock. Now imagine I went into work and said "Oh my god guys, did you see that 5 star classic between Timothy Thatcher and Roderick Strong?".... Doesn't really capture the attention or the imagination of somebody who ISN'T a fan, does it? It sounds like I'm putting down hardcore fans but in all honesty I'm just seeing it from a business perspective. I want wrestling to have a boom period again and growing up, I used to be against the whole "Bodybuilder/Supermodel" thing... but looking back now that I'm older, maybe I was wrong. Because the memories I have of wrestling growing up are ones filled with characters and gimmicks and crazy storylines. NOT meaningless matches that only serve to impress Dave Meltzer.
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Post by Venti on Jun 8, 2021 19:18:02 GMT -5
I can't really answer that, but I tend to prefer guys like Lashley, Roman, Sheamus, etc. who are big and seem larger than life over really any of the indy favs.
There's a few guys who were big on the indies that later went to WWE that I enjoy, like Aleister Black, who not only is great to watch in the ring, but has a cool distinctive look and has an odd charisma to him.
I'm not a fan of wrestlers who look and act like regular Joe-Schmoes you'd meet in the street, no matter how good in the ring they are.
It's just my personal preference.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 8, 2021 22:40:09 GMT -5
Indie has been one of the best parts of NXT!
Her and Dexter is the greatest love story of this generation.
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Jun 8, 2021 22:46:49 GMT -5
Yeah I think it's been oversaid but it's not the talents fault... it's the system. Vince doesn't have it anymore and his underling lackeys are the same. Pritchard and Johnny Ace still being in prominent positions says it all.
Heyman saw so much more in Indie talent than Vince did or ever has. Which is why guys like Cedric, Aleister, and Ricochet all tanked. Even guys he apparently LIKED like Priest and Lee well look at how well that's been going...
Indie Talent have thrived in WWE when allowed... very big on the when, so it's not a failure. The failure is the guy in charge not seeing anything in them but seemingly keeping them on the payroll so they don't do better outside of his bubble. That notion seems to be ending with Khan though... at least in some form.
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Post by Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby on Jun 9, 2021 0:46:22 GMT -5
]A casual fan, for me is somebody who isn't a religious wrestling fan. They turn it on because it looks interesting. These are the type of fans who make you the most money because these are the fans you don't have on your side already. These are the fans that will be responsible for a potential new boom. Back in the 90s, everyone in school and at work was talking about Austin vs Vince, Austin vs Rock. Now imagine I went into work and said "Oh my god guys, did you see that 5 star classic between Timothy Thatcher and Roderick Strong?".... Doesn't really capture the attention or the imagination of somebody who ISN'T a fan, does it? It sounds like I'm putting down hardcore fans but in all honesty I'm just seeing it from a business perspective. I want wrestling to have a boom period again and growing up, I used to be against the whole "Bodybuilder/Supermodel" thing... but looking back now that I'm older, maybe I was wrong. Because the memories I have of wrestling growing up are ones filled with characters and gimmicks and crazy storylines. NOT meaningless matches that only serve to impress Dave Meltzer. So I have three thoughts about this: The first is...it's not like the OVW guys were any better equipped to become memorable characters? In many ways, they were worse equipped. Sure, we had Cena, Orton, Batista, and Lesnar out of there. But the bulk of those tall buff guys cycled in and out very quickly and left very little impression. It's not like Rob Conway or Matt Morgan or Tyson Tomko or Rene Dupree or Orlando Jordan or Danny Basham were going to set the world on fire with their character work. All of them had very short runs in WWE and faded into complete and total obscurity afterward, because they just did not have the wrestling ability or the marketable personality to make it anywhere else. Indy guys, on the other hand? At minimum, having more flexibility in the ring gives them more to do with a pre-made character than the aforementioned OVW types. Roderick Strong may not be a wellspring of charisma, but he was usually able to turn his considerable in-ring ability toward a simple hook, whether that was "fiery super-rookie" or "asshole jock" or "cowardly weasel." Having a gimmick is great and all, but it's useless if it's just pasted onto the wrestler. Hulk Hogan wasn't just a big personality who was OVW-level competent in the ring; he was an over-the-top superhero who had over-the-top superhero comebacks. In contrast, Rob Conway was just a bland wrestler with a weird leatherman look and a vague "con man" character - which had no impact whatsoever on his wrestling. And there are even indy wrestlers who made it big on their personality as much as their ringwork - your El Genericos and Kevin Steens and Adam Coles. Finding someone who already has a big personality - and is great in the ring, to boot! - has more potential to yield results than taking a 6'3" muscleguy and assigning him a personality as was so often done in the mid-00's. Basically: WWE failed the OVW developmental wrestlers, and they are failing the NXT developmental wrestlers in much the same ways. They're given too little to work with - in particular, they aren't given stories of consequence or substantial characterization that can actually manifest in their matches. But at least most of those indy guys have something to fall back on. (I have a whole other thing about my experiences with non-fans and workrate - the gist is, my anecdotal experience suggests that workrate is very persuasive for people to get into wrestling. But it's anecdotal evidence, and no more convincing than your own. If you'd like me to elaborate, I'd be happy to.) The second thought is: yeah, WWE had more viewers and fans and such in the 00's than they do now. But they didn't only have OVW clone factory wrestlers...they also had Edge, Undertaker, JBL, Booker T, Matt Hardy, Chris Jericho, the Big Show, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and Kane throughout the decade. WWE was never really carried by that generation of developmental except for a select few standouts; the bulk of the show was built on the veteran wrestlers. Even Chavo Guerrero did more to fill out the midcard than the vast majority of big guys from developmental - he certainly outlasted all of them who weren't that small class of elites. The current crop of NXT wrestlers are struggling because they are replacing both the midcard washouts of the 00's and the big stars of the 90's and 00's. And while they may not have provided us with another Cena, Orton, Rock, Austin, Hogan, or Savage (the question of if they could have with better booking is an open one), they've done a better job replacing the Edges and Bookers and Jerichos and HBKs and Kanes than their taller, more muscular counterparts. And thirdly, and more personally...I'm just really skeptical about trying to make a new boom period, but that's largely because, as a huge Marvel comics fan, I've not really felt terribly elated by Marvel superheroes being the biggest thing in pop culture. Like, it's cool that other people know who the Scarlet Witch and Battlestar are! It's cool that I can start conversations about that! But like...I don't enjoy the Marvel Cinematic Universe more than I enjoy my old comics because of its popularity. Hell, I actually find the MCU to be pretty underwhelming most of the time. But, I accept it, because it actually benefits the sides of the fandom I enjoy (reprints of older comics and action figure selection). If I actually had to choose between having the MCU with all of its popularity, or having comics that I enjoy more that remain in obscurity? ...I'd take the obscurity, as long as I still had enough friends to enjoy it with. Because as long as I'm still getting the social benefit of being in the fandom? I struggle to see what benefit I'd get if the same thing were liked by people I don't know. ...but, that's me. If that really doesn't resonate with your experience and how you enjoy these things, I can't speak to that. I can only give my perspective as someone wholly indifferent to the massive success of one of my favorite properties.
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Post by eJm on Jun 9, 2021 4:13:50 GMT -5
A casual fan, for me is somebody who isn't a religious wrestling fan. They turn it on because it looks interesting.  These are the type of fans who make you the most money because these are the fans you don't have on your side already. These are the fans that will be responsible for a potential new boom. Ok. Have you taken a survey? Or are you basing this off of people who have only watched wrestling 20+ years ago. Because you might as well be talking to people whose Pokemon experience was Red, Blue, Gold or Silver or only watched the Anime because those are almost the same kind of old audience. I mean, you talking about Austin and Rock, neither of those guys were bodybuilders. Hell, Austin was about as far from either of that stuff as possible. Rock sure as f*** wasn't, compare him back then to how he is now, you might as well be talking about two different people. Most of his Attitude Era prime, he was wearing a damn black t-shirt! And hell, those guys were the counter to the bodybuilder/supermodel thing that Vince had been trying to rekindle since Hogan left to the point where Lex Luger was being billed as "Hogan V2" when everyone else was clamoring for Bret Hart, at least internationally. Also, a lot of Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby's post made sense. That era of wrestling, the OVW/FCW era wrestling, was full of body guys mixing it up with the stars who had experience in other companies and doing different styles (Edge, HHH, Austin, Taker etc, all ex WCW/ECW guys) but whilst the latter were experienced in trying different things to make it work, those guys were programmed the way WWE wanted them to be and, this is key here, hardly any of them worked. Unless you're going to tell me Matt Morgan, Nathan Jones, Rene Dupree etc were all massive stars and nobody knew it. They're all body guys, right? They all should have worked instantly. John Cena debuted as the most body guy to be a body guy in the history of body guys and the fact he was spotted rapping saved his career because they could at least do something with him. Now, the key question is why did it take that? Why weren't they talking to him constantly about who "John Cena" was to get some kind of chracter from him? You're paying him money to have him on your roster, why aren't you trying to make money from him from the offset? They did eventually make money from him (and I've always argued he saved the company from a worse drop post Reign of Terror) but they had to work at it. Also also...why do we need another boom period? I ask this with all seriousness, why do we need a small time window when wrestling's big to validate wrestling when (and I'm sort of tired of making this point) being a niche is not a bad thing. D&D is a niche and there are loads of shows you can watch or listen to with people playing versions of D&D and they can be as compelling as any big-budget TV show. Trading card games, before the pandemic, can fill halls of thousands of people to play in tournaments. eSports make literal millions of dollars and none of them are on ESPN or FS1. If you're making money, why do we need wrestling to be water-cooler talk or schoolyard talk when the business is making money? There are people on the indies making a lot of money because they've made people gravitate to them. Your Danhausens, your Warhorses, your Effys, your Nick Gages, your RJ Citys, people who are doing stuff to stand out and putting over who they are. WWE could easily do that with the people they have but they simply don't, regardless of if they're from the indies or NXT made. EverRise are doing a web series and it sounds like it'll appeal to me (3.0 are one of my favourite tag teams) but EverRise are treated like jokes on the main NXT TV show so why would I watch anything they do even if it's not going to be treated like something I should be watching? tl;dr: Management is to blame for this. They could be making an effort to make people seem important but the company is going to make money regardless of if 1.5m people watch Raw or 0.5m people watch Raw so they're not going to put that effort in. It doesn't matter if the company is full of bodybuilders or literal dwarves.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Jun 9, 2021 4:41:43 GMT -5
THe prevalence of talented indie wrestlers is not an obstacle to having characters and stories. It's not even the reason that that's the case. Filling air with "good matches" that mean nothing isn't the idea of anyone on the roster. That was management deciding that they wanted to go in that direction. That was Vince not wanting to write stories and putting more effort into time-wasting shit as he struggles to continue his company's programming output while wrestling with age and decreasing mental faculties. You can have a roster full of indie wrestlers and give them compelling stories to tell. You can have high intensity wrestling matches that feature incredible stories and spare no creative effort in wowing people. Hell, that's ideally what even a strong in-ring focused promotion should be doing. Running up the false dichotomy that you can only have good matches or good characters loses me immediately.
And frankly, even if another boom period is possible, I don't know that it comes from trying to be the Attitude Era again, or trying to be the '80s again. Those were wildly different eras that did wildly different things because the respective cultures were so distant with only a decade between them. Anyone who thinks we need to return to 25+ years ago and run that playbook again is really missing the point of how culture evolves and how the things that succeed in making a cultural footprint are the things that in some way reflect and meet the times.
The blame here is entirely on Vince McMahon for being shit at telling stories and having no idea what to do with the people he has. Not because he employs boring workrate dudes, not because nobody has the capacity to be 'larger than life'. It's because the priorities and creative efforts of the person at the top run counter to even attempting to make transcendent stars who define pop culture the way he did when he had better people at his side guiding him along.
But also, the idea wrestling needs less wrestling to succeed and that the only thing holding it back is the part of it that makes itself wrestling is kinda backwards and insane to me.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jun 9, 2021 5:21:48 GMT -5
Also, while I get that a lot of people use Meltzer’s rating system as shorthand, the dude only really gives high ratings for matches that have strong stories or character work involved, to go along with really athletic action. Integrating those things into one’s wrestling is part of what constitutes “workrate” itself, otherwise it’s just a bunch of moves being done.
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Post by Mozenrath on Jun 9, 2021 5:29:08 GMT -5
I can't really answer that, but I tend to prefer guys like Lashley, Roman, Sheamus, etc. who are big and seem larger than life over really any of the indy favs. There's a few guys who were big on the indies that later went to WWE that I enjoy, like Aleister Black, who not only is great to watch in the ring, but has a cool distinctive look and has an odd charisma to him. I'm not a fan of wrestlers who look and act like regular Joe-Schmoes you'd meet in the street, no matter how good in the ring they are. It's just my personal preference. It makes sense. I think there's something really satisfying about bruisers. Like, if you're a wrestler who uses fallaway slams, I probably enjoy your work. That being said, variety is really nice to me, so just like how I think a show full of dudes in kickpads who might not even throw kicks, trying to use moves off of old Japanese tapes, can get one-note, I also don't want to see nothing but beefy guys. The contrast can be nice when you mix them together. Bautista looks bigger standing next to Jamie Noble than he does next to Lashley, for example.
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Post by Jaws the Shark on Jun 9, 2021 6:13:30 GMT -5
Also, while I get that a lot of people use Meltzer’s rating system as shorthand, the dude only really gives high ratings for matches that have strong stories or character work involved, to go along with really athletic action. Integrating those things into one’s wrestling is part of what constitutes “workrate” itself, otherwise it’s just a bunch of moves being done. I think workrate is one of the most misunderstood concepts in wrestling, and it seems to have become this weird pejorative shorthand for "lots of flashy moves but no psychology", and that's not what it is at all. I've always understood it to be how much effort someone puts into telling the story of the match, so a great match (IE one that has a compelling narrative) has to have great workrate, and likewise just doing a load of stuff that makes no sense is kind of the opposite of good workrate, because you're not putting any work into telling the story.
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Post by thehottag on Jun 9, 2021 6:52:56 GMT -5
Tbh I find it difficult to call it the 'workrate/indie' era when you have people being eaten by zombies & posessed by evil dolls.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jun 9, 2021 7:15:41 GMT -5
Also, while I get that a lot of people use Meltzer’s rating system as shorthand, the dude only really gives high ratings for matches that have strong stories or character work involved, to go along with really athletic action. Integrating those things into one’s wrestling is part of what constitutes “workrate” itself, otherwise it’s just a bunch of moves being done. I think workrate is one of the most misunderstood concepts in wrestling, and it seems to have become this weird pejorative shorthand for "lots of flashy moves but no psychology", and that's not what it is at all. I've always understood it to be how much effort someone puts into telling the story of the match, so a great match (IE one that has a compelling narrative) has to have great workrate, and likewise just doing a load of stuff that makes no sense is kind of the opposite of good workrate, because you're not putting any work into telling the story. Right; nobody watched a Bret Hart match to see a ton of flashy moves. Bret would occasionally do some spots that were a bit unique for their time in the US (e.g. doing suicide dives through the ropes in the early 90s), but the core of Bret's matches was always how he'd take his usual slate of offense and selling/bumping abilities and integrate them into the story he was telling with a given opponent. Yet nobody would say that Bret Hart lacked "workrate", because whatever he did it always had a purpose and was always, pardon the obvious reference, executed properly. Like, athleticism, cardio endurance, and ability to pull moves off well is part of "workrate", I'd say, but they're only parts of the larger whole. I get arguing, for example, that Ultimate Warrior lacked "workrate" given his limitations in the ring; in large part I think it was a big factor that limited how far he was going to go compared with Hulk Hogan, who had a better all-around game, and the Warrior matches that told effective stories were often exceptions for him and usually structured by all-time greats like Randy Savage and Rick Rude. But again, you then had a guy like Hogan who also wasn't exactly pulling moves off in a silky smooth manner, wasn't wrestling super long matches, and often limited what he did in the ring intentionally, but he was always aware of how he was presenting himself, always working a story or character beat, etc., and it gave him a greater "workrate" in comparison.
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