Why the lack of theatrical matches?

[wildojinx]

I know they only did them during the pandemic due to the lack of crowds, but considering how well-received the good ones were (ie, the boneyard match), you'd think they'd keep them around, at least occasionally.

[CeilingFan]

It seems now that the concept was a flash in the pan.

[Bo Rida]

Mostly because they have live crowds and they're not paying to watch a screen.

However you'd think you could fit them into the end of a long taping block when the crowd is already tired and many have already left.

[XIII]

I could see them doing it as a solely for the tv viewer type thing where the live crowd gets a random match during the cinematic airing and then it’s uploaded to YouTube after the show so they can see it or something. I think that there is a place for it still…I mean at its core the Booker T/Stone Cold grocery store brawl was a cinematic match. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[PHD-FENDERBAUM]

Just not feasable to do with the live shows.

And that is ontop of doing it well takes alot of time to do and gotta structure whatever story you are telling around it.

The pandemic made it easy for companies to test the waters but they aren't built to do it beyond such a situation.

Which is why unless you have specifically tailored your company to to be pretty much LU then it just makes no sense to even attempt.

[The Thread Barbi]

Might do this once the NBC deal ends and Netflix hasn't started.

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

May 1, 2024 12:54:40 GMT -5 XIII said:

I could see them doing it as a solely for the tv viewer type thing where the live crowd gets a random match during the cinematic airing and then it’s uploaded to YouTube after the show so they can see it or something. I think that there is a place for it still…I mean at its core the Booker T/Stone Cold grocery store brawl was a cinematic match. 🤷🏻‍♂️

PRICE CHECK ON JACKASS

[Zombie Mod is not a ghoul.]

probably something that's best used rarely, if a company did at least one per show they'd have to start charging less for tickets due to the actual show being shorter.

you just know someone would sue eventually over not getting to see "star x" live because they were in the taped cinematic match, and could stand a good chance of winning if the appearance isnt advertised as being in a pre-taped match.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

How many 'theatrical matches' have there been? Off the top of my head...

Undertaker/Styles graveyard match.

Cena/Wyatt Funhouse.

Miz/someone? Zombie match.

The one that was a chase through the WWE office building.

The one at Matt Hardy's lake.

I think the old Rock/Mankind Superbowl match would count.

Any others?

[SkullTrauma]

theyre pretty much universally shit.

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

They're basically going against the core competencies of pro wrestling.

Much like dance and a lot of live theater, pro wrestling derives a lot of its spectacle from the fact that a human being is in front of a live audience doing that. A cinematic match can't quite get that because it's losing the physical spectacle that you get from a match happening in one take and with only camera angles or distance to hide mistakes. The majority of pro wrestling is very tuned to this environment, whether that's the pacing of selling and comebacks to keep rhythm with the audience, or the development of moves to look good under these conditions. High flying, submission holds, loud strikes, huge athletes, and shows of strength are all huge parts of wrestling because they all play into that sense of "oh damn that person in front of me actually did that."

Cinematic matches introduce a lot of new toys to play with, but they also push wrestling into the same realm as television action and the like that can do the same thing much more elaborately.

Plus, part of why wrestling has thrived in the media landscape is how easy it is to make a whole lot of it. Wrestling stays affordable to produce largely because once you've got the crowd and the ring, there's a few hours of television/streaming right there. Those advantages get watered down by cinematic matches, which would need at least more variety of setting and props to stay unique.

[Burst]

There was the Darby/Sting vs Team Taz match which I recall being very Darby but that made more sense for them in particular. I don't *think* I'd count the Stadium Stampede matches though I'd say they were almost kind of a hybrid.

I feel like there's a niche for them but they're best used sparingly for the reasons mentioned. The best use I could see them would be either for shows that you know are going to be entirely pretaped like before a PPV or major travelling, because then you could just take it whenever and you wouldn't have the live-crowd-paying-to-watch-a-screen deal.

That being said, the one place where I think you could totally justify it, would be as basically a segue match during a PPV where you'd put it up on the screen while setting up for an elaborate gimmick match or cleaning up after an elaborate gimmick match or a particularly messy street fight.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

They need a certain freshness it's hard to really make interesting. The early Matt Hardy compound matches did that with a series of utterly insane ideas, newness, and the desperation to let Matt f*** around with Jeremy Borash's drone for little money in exchange for cheap content they didn't need to worry about. Cena vs. Wyatt was a fascinating horror sketch more than it was a wrestling match. The Stadium Stampede matches made the best of the pandemic situation and had a lot of fun, cool bits to them that involved some complexity to make really happen, but would get stale if they kept returning to them. When the pandemic was going on, companies found themselves in a good spot to do something new and experiment with ideas on that front, but those weren't situations where they had to make a choice between audience or no audience, they were looking at empty arena vs. something with some production to it.

But even when they were done I think very well, they were contentious. The Hardy compound stuff got heaps of love because TNA was in the dumpster and it was something fresh and silly, but every bigger company doing it ran into friction or massive execution problems. Then there's ones like Orton vs. Wyatt that were just obivously dogshit and bad from the beginning. All of the risks are still there, but none of the interesting circumstances that drove companies to try them out, while the ground they already tread remains tread and any return to those ideas will have to find new ways to do something interesting that might further divide opinion.

[lemonyellowson]

They were shite

[Mozenrath]

It's difficult for the performers to have no feedback, and it's also difficult from a practicality perspective for "how do we not make the live crowd feel like they got screwed here?"

It's not that it cannot be done, it's basically what Empty Arena matches are, for example, and those have been around for decades in various forms, but you really need a premise that justifies it, or you're doing it just to do it.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

May 1, 2024 16:40:57 GMT -5 This Player Hating Mothman said:

They need a certain freshness it's hard to really make interesting. The early Matt Hardy compound matches did that with a series of utterly insane ideas, newness, and the desperation to let Matt f*** around with Jeremy Borash's drone for little money in exchange for cheap content they didn't need to worry about. Cena vs. Wyatt was a fascinating horror sketch more than it was a wrestling match. The Stadium Stampede matches made the best of the pandemic situation and had a lot of fun, cool bits to them that involved some complexity to make really happen, but would get stale if they kept returning to them. When the pandemic was going on, companies found themselves in a good spot to do something new and experiment with ideas on that front, but those weren't situations where they had to make a choice between audience or no audience, they were looking at empty arena vs. something with some production to it.

But even when they were done I think very well, they were contentious. The Hardy compound stuff got heaps of love because TNA was in the dumpster and it was something fresh and silly, but every bigger company doing it ran into friction or massive execution problems. Then there's ones like Orton vs. Wyatt that were just obivously dogshit and bad from the beginning. All of the risks are still there, but none of the interesting circumstances that drove companies to try them out, while the ground they already tread remains tread and any return to those ideas will have to find new ways to do something interesting that might further divide opinion.

The Broken cinematic matches also made a bunch of sense for TNA to do, since there's no getting around the fact that a promotion doing block tapings is going to have a spoiler problem in the age of the Internet. However, since the Broken stuff, be it matches or skits, wasn't taped for fans, you had to watch the show or at least the YouTube channel to actually see it.

Meanwhile, everyone in 2020 had a no-fans problem, so even if people seemed to be fatigued with them towards the end of the crowdless run, it's not like anyone was desperate to go back to the venue for another all canned noise match.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Because they're something crowds would reject if overused, like iron Man matches. You need the right time, place and performers.

[Sephiroth]

May 1, 2024 15:48:42 GMT -5 El Pollo Guerrera said:

How many 'theatrical matches' have there been? Off the top of my head...

Undertaker/Styles graveyard match.

Cena/Wyatt Funhouse.

Miz/someone? Zombie match.

The one that was a chase through the WWE office building.

The one at Matt Hardy's lake.

I think the old Rock/Mankind Superbowl match would count.

Any others?

New day vs the Wyatt’s

[Vice honcho room temperature]

In a world where we have crowds back idk if they draw ratings or crowds for storylines. I mean did the empty arena match draw in Memphis? Or the Hardy's do anything really for TNA at the time

[Jindrak Mark]

I loved the firefly funhouse and boneyard matches because of the circumstances of the no-crowd Wrestlemania.

If it was a regular show I bought tickets to though I'd be furious if one of the top matches was happening on the screen and some of the top stars weren't even in person in front of the crowd.