WWF's drop in popularity-1991 or so...

[willywonka666]

I wanted to stress the very early 90s so as to not mix this in with the new generation.

I was 15 in 1990 and a freshman in high school and had been a huge fan since 85 or so and I think by 1990 things were changing, perhaps as early as late 89 or so.

For me, Hogan pulling back and switching up Prime Time Wrestling made me lose a bit of interest. These were the first changes aside from wrestlers coming and going that bothered me.

Hell, I think transitioning from the 80s to 90s in general involved changes that made me lose interest in pop culture and wrestling was a big part of pop culture in my world.

I saw a clip of a shoot video with Sid Vicious and they discussed Hogan getting booed at the Rumble and the fans were kinda getting away from him-aside from what happened at the Rumble, the times were changing-what happened?

He was still popular, but it had been 7 years since Hogan first hit big in the WWF and won the title. Was it simply the fans tiring of him?

It wasn't just Hogan though, things were definitely changing and while things didn't get really rough until 1993 or so, does anyone know how early the WWF was on a downturn?

[Sigma: Current SRW Champ!]

I'd have to say Survivor Series '90 was the catalyst. This was where they had the Gooker, the birth of more gimmicked low and mid carders, but the main thing was Slaughter and his Pro-Iraq gimmick, which was truly tasteless in a war that was currently happening. To me, that was the moment where you can say it was on a downward spiral.

[Deleted]

I mean, everything runs its course. Rock & Wrestling climaxed in '85. Hulkamania climaxed in '87. Hogan's act was still successful, but became predictable and formulaic. Prime Savage was never really given the opportunity to shine outside of Hogan's shadow. Warrior had the look and charisma to rival Hogan but fell short in every other category. The Hulkamania act could only carry the company for so long, and their efforts to shift the spotlight without anyone noticing were not successful, so they ran the same main event (Hogan vs. ultimate strongbad) until fans were exhausted with it. It's like anything else, getting tired of something we really like and enjoy doesn't necessarily mean that we have any idea what we could replace it with that would give us a comparable level of enjoyment.

[petef3]

I don't know if it can be overstated what a bad idea it was putting the title on Sgt. Slaughter. The '91 Rumble actually did hot business, but he was a one-shot draw and building the company around him even for 2 months based on an active war was an unqualified disaster. In terms of singular booking decisions (not the death-by-a-thousand-cuts decisions that lead to things like where the company has been recently), it was probably the worst one ever made in company history to that point, and maybe still a solid #2 behind the Austin turn in '01.

[flowercity]

Vince never could figure out how to book his big star baby face away from the title. Red and yellow Hogan had steam left (business was good for his early WCW run) but no one was ever allowed to be out over as marquee over him. Vince had this same problem with Cena in the early 2010s. Even when Punk was champion, the Main Event was always Cena’s side story. In my opinion that type of presentation does no one any good.

[SmashTV]

I think it was a case of them resting on their laurels. The 9, 10, 11 year olds from 1984 had grown up and no doubt wanted something edgier in their pop culture tastes. Undertaker would feed into that nicely, and I think his impact diverted some attention away from Hulk.

Hogan’s act hadn’t evolved either, it was the usual paint by numbers format which had grown stale in some eyes. Taker aside, the roster hadn’t changed much since 1988, and the impact I mentioned maybe shone a light on how repetitive some of the other roster had become.

[sungod2020]

Oct 31, 2020 16:24:33 GMT -5 SmashTV said:

I think it was a case of them resting on their laurels. The 9, 10, 11 year olds from 1984 had grown up and no doubt wanted something edgier in their pop culture tastes. Undertaker would feed into that nicely, and I think his impact diverted some attention away from Hulk.

Hogan’s act hadn’t evolved either, it was the usual paint by numbers format which had grown stale in some eyes. Taker aside, the roster hadn’t changed much since 1988, and the impact I mentioned maybe shone a light on how repetitive some of the other roster had become.

Interestingly enough, when the roster DID make notable changes around 92/3, business has declined even further. Just take a look at the year 1992. Compare early 92 to late 92 and the product is night and day. In fact, at the beginning of the year, Bret Hart wasn't even in the WWF title picture, which was dominated by the likes of Hogan, Undertaker, Flair, and Savage. By the end of the year, he main events against Shawn Michaels who himself broke out of the tag team ranks when the year started.

Quite a stark contrast.

[The Thread Barbi]

I started watching in the "decline". Summerslam 90 was my first show.

I didn't notice a dip in popularity till about 1993, when Wrestlemania 9 felt "small", Hogan had shrunk in size as had the live audience on TV and PPV, Warrior was gone and Savage was seen as a has-been commentator.

Bret Hart was about the best thing they had going even with a good roster under card.

It really hit home at Wrestlemania 12 in 1996 when Warrior returned in front of relatively paltry crowd of 16k. I remembered being in awe watching him defeat Hogan six years earlier in front of 67k fans on VHS.

[koreycaskets]

My numbers are probably off here but I'm pretty sure Maple Leaf Gardens house shows went from 10000 to 2000 in that time period.

[J. Hova]

I hate to use the usual line but wrestling is always a cyclic business. Wrestlemania 3 was the absolute apex of the WWF in that era and then they followed it up with unbelievable business with Savage and Hogan, Hogan and Bossman, and a strong undercard with tag teams and midcarders who could work (Tito, Martel, Hart, etc.). You have that high of a high, you are going to have that low of a low. Ironically, it was in 1991 that I became a fan.

[wildojinx]

I wonder if the heel roster being weak was also a factor. Outside of Taker, you had guys like Slaughter, Col. Mustafa, Warlord, Mountie, Nasty Boys, Berzerker, Skinner, IRS, and other guys who didnt really seem like much of a threat.

[Dean-o]

The roster started to get very cartoony, which probably turned off a lot of fans from the 80s.

Also, could the decline in viewership be attributed to the sexual allegations and steroid distribution rumors? There were numerous news segments of the “dark side of the wwf” coming to public view. Vince McMahon even shot a segment addressing it that aired of WWF programming for a few weeks.

[thecrusherwi]

I’m a bit younger (born in 1987), but I’ve been a fan since I’ve been self aware. I was completely oblivious to its waxing and waning popularity until I came back from summer break in 1998 and everyone at school had Austin and Wolfpac shirts. Late 1990/Early 1991 is the first time period I have any memory of experiencing in real time so it was already on the way down when I was watching. My dad was a huge wrestling fan and sports fan in general, so wrestling was just another ‘sport’ we followed. We never thought about the declining popularity in the same way you don’t really think about the popularity of baseball or whatever. You’re just focusing on what is happening in the sport at the time.

The OP mentioned Prime Time and while I’m not sure how much it effected the overall popularity, I agree that the 1991 format is horrible. I love watching the Hogan Era shows, but I rarely watch those months in mid 1991, because I usually watch old Primetime episodes and those are terrible. It’s so awkward with the live crowd and them attempting to make it a knock off of The Tonight Show. It made the whole product look goofy and unserious. Particularly when they switched from Vince to Sean Mooney as host. Thankfully they switched to the debate panel after about 6 months. Gorilla and Bobby is the best format, but the debate panel is very very close. Those panel PrimeTimes really help put over the craziness of the booking in late 1991/early 1992. It really felt like you were watching a sport when it was presented that way.

[Milkman Norm]

Imo it's the territories (other then Memphis) were dead so the pool of new challengers or babyface was limited. In 1986/87 you bringing in DiBiase & One Man Gang from Midsouth to be top heels, ditto for Big Bubba Rogers from Crockett. Meanwhile on the face side Duggan comes in in the face side from Watts & Dingo Warrior comes from World Class. There are numerous other examples of this, new matchups were created. By 1991 the roster was pretty stale.

[wildojinx]

I think Prime Time 1991 was trying to recreate the success of Tuesday Night Titans, but by 1991, that was a distant memory to most of the fans, and it didnt have the charm or the experimentation of TNT.

[Natural Born Farmer]

Saw my first WWF programming in 1997 in the build up to Wrestlemania 12. That particular show looks ridiculously low rent relative to their production values today, but in the build up they ran Madison Square Garden, so I'm not sure how much is just "the company was on it's last legs" and how much is "old stuff just looks bad".

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Kids aged out, people got bored of the Hulk Hogan formula and adults tuned out because the steroid stuff was bubbling up at this point. Hogan did a disastrous media tour where he denied ever doing steroids when admitting to doing it earlier in his career would have been better for all concerned, he wasn't willing to take an L for his own good, which became his MO in the decade that followed.

[johnnyk9]

I started watching in 1991 and it’s my favorite year as a 5 year old kid I never noticed it was a declining year

[wildojinx]

As for me, I started watching in 1990 and I didnt really see any drop in popularity until 1994 (at least at the High School I went to, and even then, there still were some fans).

[Citizen Snips]

I was in fourth grade when Warrior beat Hogan and it definitely didn't have any playground buzz. It was actually one of the first times I realized "Hey, it's not cool to be into this anymore" and having to conceal my fandom of something.