What Pro Wrestling Needs to Succeed Again

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On March 26, 2001, the final episode of WCW Monday Nitro aired on TNT. Earth Championship Wrestling and all of its assets had been sold three days prior to its chief rival, the World Wrestling Federation, with whom it had been engaged in a knock-down, elevate-out television ratings war for the improve part of six years.

The final prototype of Earth Championship Wrestling for almost who followed it was a split-screen satellite multicast of Vince McMahon — the owner of the WWF and real-life heel — and his son, Shane McMahon, arguing over which i of them at present endemic the visitor.

The March 26, 2001 Nitro marked the terminal fourth dimension pro wrestling appeared on TNT for nigh 20 years, and signified the day that millions of weekly professional wrestling viewers began tuning out, many never to return.

Since that fourth dimension, WWF has become Earth Wrestling Entertainment, information technology has captivated not only WCW and Extreme Title Wrestling (ECW) but also the tape libraries of many historical and shuttered wrestling companies, and information technology has go a monolith in the globe of professional wrestling. To many fans, the initials "WWE" and "pro wrestling" aren't just synonymous: at that place's no difference. And no alternative.

Yet the nearly diehard pro wrestling fans — far from a modest audience, and one of the most passionate fanbases that exists — know WWE isn't the only option. That it's never been the just option. For decades, they've been nourishing their fandom, investing time, coin, and loyalty to a variety of upstarts.

And terminal year, that investment began to pay off. For the first time in 20 years, WWE isn't the only one in the band.

Allow's commence together on a brief journey of how pro wrestling took over Northward America, how WWE took over the very concept of what pro wrestling is, and how now, after almost two decades of no truthful competitors, there's all of a sudden a new titan going toe-to-toe with Goliath. And this new challenger has all the momentum.

Vince McMahon stands between The Rock and John Cena at a 2013 Wrestlemania press conference

Photograph by Taylor Hill/Getty Images

How WWF took over the world of wrestling

At the inception of professional wrestling as we know it (a predetermined series of bouts disguised equally a genuine athletic competition, bound past the carnival art of "kayfabe" to never let the audition in on the truth behind the illusion), the logistics of the world more or less necessitated that countries or areas (particularly in North and Primal America) were carved up into "territories" run by either promoters or cartels of promoters, each dominating their geographical area with their ain regional tv shows, circuits of "house shows" (or live events, where all the coin was made), and of course, stars.

Minnesota had Verne Gagne's AWA (home to Nick Bockwinkel and, at the beginning of his run under the guise we know him best, Hulk Hogan); Texas had the Von Erich Brothers in WCCW; Ray Stevens ran the Cow Palace in San Francisco; Florida was home to Dusty Rhodes and CWF; Wrestling at the Hunt was the landmark St. Louis television bear witness from Sam Muchnick; television star Andy Kaufman helped Jerry Lawler'south Memphis-based CWA enter the national consciousness; Vince McMahon Sr. ran WWWF out of New York, with its star-studded Madison Square Garden shows; and in Charlotte you had Jim Crockett Promotions, the de facto dwelling of Ric Flair and Harley Race. Most of these territories were at one fourth dimension or some other part of the National Wrestling Alliance, a conglomeration that sought to loosely affiliate the disparate territories and vote collectively on which wrestler would exist recognized as the agreed-upon earth champion. In theory (and in practice, for many years), that world champion would rotate in and out of the diverse territories, building up the regional heroes, driving ticket sales, and and so moving on to the next a month or three afterwards.

Of course, pro wrestling being the business concern that information technology is, territories were ofttimes breaking away from the NWA and crowning their own champions — oft taking advantage of a loophole, screwjob, or other chicanery involving the established NWA Earth Champion that gave the breakaway promotion'due south chosen man just enough of a leg to stand on that they could be rightfully viewed, in the eyes of their fans, equally having a legitimate claim to being world champion themselves.

One of the showtime to suspension away from the NWA was Vince McMahon Sr., who was perfectly content to rule the Northeast, and whose WWWF was invariably referred to among wrestlers every bit "New York." Dorsum in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, wrestlers were free to come to a territory, make a little (or a lot of) money, and and so when their run had ended or there were no more competitors or rivals that made sense, they were given the promoter'south blessing to head on over to another territory and practise concern at that place for a while … and they'd probably return again when a new opportunity presented itself.

That all changed when Vince McMahon, Jr. — the Vince virtually people in the world are familiar with — orchestrated a buyout of his father's company, dropped a W, and set virtually making his WWF not just the biggest pro wrestling company in the globe, but a wrestling visitor that reflected his view of what pro wrestling should be: namely, something that was much closer to entertainment than the traditional blood-feud competition of wills to which most fans were accepted. McMahon relentlessly poached the biggest stars, biggest personalities, and, about importantly, biggest physiques from other territories and made them exclusive to "New York," while striking deals with national cable companies similar the The states Network to get WWF programming on the air every week, from coast to coast. In what many territories considered the ultimate criminal offense, he began usurping long standing goggle box slots in certain regions, driving companies out of business forth the fashion via his diverse tactics.

Eventually, most of the remaining NWA territories, predominantly led by Crockett, coalesced under the WCW proper noun, and childhood wrestling fan Ted Turner got into the "wrasslin' business concern" by broadcasting World Championship Wrestling on the TBS Superstation before going caput to head with McMahon by launching Monday Nitro contrary WWF Mon Night Raw in 1995, kicking off what is affectionately known to wrestling fans as the Monday Dark Wars.

And of course, McMahon won that war. He accomplished his goal of putting all his major competitors out of business, and afterwards losing stars like The Rock to Hollywood, Steve Austin to … a lot of things (including age and injury), and Brock Lesnar to the dream of the NFL and and then UFC, he began pivoting to making sure that the WWE product wasn't any specific wrestler, simply the WWE make itself. McMahon looked to the NFL for inspiration: the Super Bowl sold out every year and was the most watched outcome every year no matter who played in information technology; football game was the nearly pop cultural touchstone no matter how atrocious the on-field product. (McMahon would endeavor to outdo the NFL twice via the XFL, only that was just another in his very long line of finding a "legitimate," non-wrestling enterprise to hang his entrepreneurial chapeau on.)

A TNA European Bout match in 2011

Photo by Joern Thumb/Bongarts/Getty Images

The many failed challengers to WWE

Since WCW went off the air, there have been countless attempts to try to create a "legitimate" competitor WWE. Perhaps the most notable is TNA, which for a time had stiff ratings. So those numbers dipped, and TNA went through long periods of appearing on the verge of bankruptcy and collapse. TNA still exists today, nether the name Impact Wrestling, and arrogance weekly on AXS Tv set. MTV attempted Wrestling Society X. XPW was a matter that briefly threatened to interruption big before flaming out spectacularly (and becoming its ain episode of Vice TV'due south Dark Side of the Ring). Robert Rodriguez's El Rey Network featured Lucha Underground, whose cinematic, fantastical approach to the artform briefly generated fizz earlier a far-too-long hiatus demolished its momentum.

And the truth is, the territories that well-nigh people acquaintance with pro wrestling prior to the mid-1980s never fully died. The NWA kept chugging along in the 1990s, attached itself to TNA for a while, and continued to field a recognized NWA Earth Champion via contained promotions. The territories morphed into "independent wrestling" or the more colloquial and affectionate "indie" wrestling. Early indie stars were heavily influenced past the exploits of the bombast of ECW and the tape trading scene that exposed American wrestlers and diehard fans to the difficult-hitting "stiff manner" of Japanese wrestling, the innovations created by Mexican lucha libre stars Rey Mysterio Jr. and Psicosis, and the technical prowess of British legends like Johnny Saint and Jim Breaks, Canadian innovators Dynamite Kid and Chris Benoit, and countless more.

Northern California's All Pro Wrestling created the first Male monarch of the Indies tournament in 2000, and the 2001 iteration was the first big viral contained wrestling record, featuring performers similar "The American Dragon" Bryan Danielson, Samoa Joe, Brain Kendrick, Adam Pearce, Doug Williams, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Depression Ki, and Kazarian.

Spurred by this revolutionary demonstration of what professional wrestling could expect like in the ring in the year 2001 — a jaw-dropping mix of high-flying, technicality, brutality, and athleticism — one-time Paul Heyman protege Gabe Sapolsky conceived of an East Coast-based promotion that would focus primarily on "dream matches" featuring the best available talent. Ring of Honor was born in 2002, with its first event featuring a briefly-fired-from-WWE Eddie Guerrero and culminating in its main event: a genre-defining Three-Style Dance betwixt Danielson, Daniels and Depression Ki.

While far from the biggest, the Philly-based Ring of Laurels would prove to be the most influential Due north American company that popped up in the void left behind by the shuttering of WCW and ECW.

From 2002 to the early 2010s, ROH continued to thrive and build a buzz via its DVD releases and live shows, and eventually began running shows in the same city as WrestleMania during WrestleMania weekend. ROH came to define indie wrestling and be viewed as having the consensus highest quality in-band production in Northward America (at least equally far as men's wrestling goes) as it grew. Stars began beingness created or featured in affluence: CM Punk, Austin Aries, AJ Styles, the Briscoe Brothers, Nigel McGuinness, Tyler Black, Claudio Castagnoli, Kevin Steen, El Generico, Davey Richards.

A foreign byproduct of Band of Award coloring the adjacent decade-plus of indie wrestling is that WWE kept scooping up its biggest stars. And after a while, equally Punk, Castagnoli (Cesaro in WWE), Black (rechristened Seth Rollins), Steen (Kevin Owens), and most chiefly, Danielson (Daniel Bryan) became key components of WWE, their indie flavor began influencing the slick WWE product. The wrestlers were changing WWE from the inside.

Vince McMahon speaks during Wrestlemania XX

Photo by KMazur/WireImage

WWE is in the business concern of the "status quo"

Even dating back to the days of Vince McMahon Sr., the knock on the "New York" product by hardcore wrestling fans was that it was too flashy, too entertainment focused. It wasn't similar Southern wrestling, where the ultimate object was to brand your opponent bleed buckets of blood in pursuit of being the best athlete, or, even amend, in pursuit of avenging real-life emotion, like your best friend betraying you, or if your rival enlisted his friends to break your arm with a baseball game bat in the parking lot. The NWA had the son of a plumber taking on a rich, spoiled pretty-boy athlete who also had the irritating trait of being the all-time wrestler in the world. WWF had a cartoon superhero fighting a cartoon supervillain (usually tied to some general bigotry, like the wrestler's weight or where they were built-in), with non a whole lot that could fifty-fifty charitably be called "wrestling" going on.

Over the decades, McMahon has never made whatever bones about his product being fake, or that he preferred to view information technology as entertainment rather than wrestling, and most died-in-the-wool pro wrestling fans hated the product both in principle and in execution. In the 1980s, they clung tight to their territory … and then to Jim Crockett … and then to the NWA … and and so in the 1990s to WCW. And and so information technology was gone. And the only pro wrestling left on television was a production they fundamentally hated. Some turned to indie wrestling. Some retreated to tape collecting and erstwhile-timer conventions. Some simply turned abroad and left the memories alone. And for the better part of xx years, WWE has been complimentary to do whatever it wants, ofttimes to the very loud chagrin of wrestling fans.

To WWE'due south credit, the gambit has worked. WWE has indeed get synonymous with pro wrestling, and the WWE brand and name has get ever more valuable. Between Raw, Smackdown, NXT, monthly pay-per-views (or "live specials" subsequently the advent of the WWE Network), and other assorted programming, WWE offers a minimum of viii hours of live programming every calendar week, with no offseason. In a tv set landscape where live sports and live boob tube is invaluable in filling a programming schedule, WWE has never been more crucial to networks and conglomerates, despite pulling in some of the lowest pure ratings of its beingness.

(The ratings continue to wrongly be measured confronting those halcyon days past longtime fans, despite the farthermost balkanization of tv viewing habits, cord-cutting, the existence of DVR, the uploading of clips to YouTube and Instagram and Twitter and network websites, and a k other parameters.)

There isn't space here to run downwards the consummate list of problems with WWE (up to and including its electric current, lucrative contract with the regime of the Kingdom of Saudi arabia), but many of them stem from Vince McMahon (and pop net punching bag, EVP of idiot box production Kevin Dunn) having final say in pretty much everything yous come across on television. McMahon is a truly bizarre and fascinating individual with a singular mindset of what he believes makes a good product, and without anyone threatening to put him out of business organization since the dawn of the millennium, there's been no i to hold him accountable or suggest that his method isn't working. The company has continued to get more and more profitable, despite ceaseless criticism from fans and the press.

Both fans and wrestlers have many bones to pick about the wrestlers McMahon chooses to feature and the methods in which they're used. An argument has been made innumerable times that WWE specifically punishes fans and performers alike for having the brazenness to complain, or to suggest that certain wrestlers are being utilized while others are being pushed downward viewers' throats. Certain wrestlers (perhaps most notably CM Punk) take opted to take their brawl and become dwelling instead of deal with the politics and broken promises from those at the superlative of WWE, while others have called to ply their trade elsewhere in search of creative fulfillment.

Chris Jericho at the 2022 New York Comic Con All Elite Wrestling panel

Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for WarnerMedia Company

Indie wrestling'due south rise to the big fourth dimension

When Cody Rhodes, son of Dusty Rhodes, broke from WWE in 2016, he started on a journey of acting and storming the indies that happened to dovetail with a specific moment in the prominence of global pro wrestling. The U.k., long deprived of a viable product, was experiencing a sudden resurgence of wrestling. Germany's wXw was thriving. And most chiefly, New Japan Pro-Wrestling was the hottest product going, as the gaijin faction Bullet Society ran rampant and followed the template set by Steve Austin and the nWo: never underestimate the power of a absurd, iconic shirt that doesn't say "wrestling" on it.

Cody became a member of the Bullet Lodge, and he also became Ring of Honor World Champion. In the Bullet Order, he began running with Kenny Omega and with brothers Matt and Nick Jackson, whose tag team the Young Bucks was intended to exist the most obnoxious affair they could conceive of. Omega and the Bucks christened their trio "The Elite of the Bullet Lodge," and began posting what was originally a travelogue on YouTube. This travelogue apace turned into the immensely pop and still-ongoing Being the Elite, crammed with bits, ironic sketches, and within references galore. Cody became a fixture in the BTE episodes, and the iv men connected — both together and separately — to rack upwardly acclaim and fans, sell out shows, and well-nigh chiefly, make gobs and gobs of money off neverending merchandise. Their merch endeavors were assisted past the Chicago-based print-on-demand company One Hour Tees, which spun off into Pro Wrestling Tees, at present the official t-shirt home to pretty much every non-WWE wrestler you tin can think of … and some that are really currently signed past WWE. As their success kept growing, Cody and the Elite started thinking beyond Ring of Honor every bit their contracts with that visitor and with New Japan neared an stop.

Cody made a Twitter bet with Wrestling Observer Newsletter founder Dave Meltzer in 2022 that Ring of Honor, riding a wave of popularity thanks to its partnership with NJPW, could sell out a 10,000-seat arena. xvi months after, on Sept. 1, 2018, Rhodes and the Young Bucks presented the All In pay-per-view, circulate from the sold-out Sears Centre Arena in the Chicago area, in front of eleven,263 fans. Utilizing ROH'south production squad, the outcome was hailed as a masterstroke and a landmark moment for contained wrestling.

Things began to snowball after the runaway success of All In, and Cody and the Elite began discussions with lifelong pro wrestling fan Tony Khan, co-owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham F.C. along with his father, Shahid Khan. Trademarks were filed shortly afterward All In, and in Jan. 2019, the creation of All Elite Wrestling was announced. Rhodes, the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega signed full-fourth dimension with the visitor and were named executive vice presidents. Several truckloads of notable independent and international names followed.

In May 2019, a week before the company's first PPV, a bargain was appear for a weekly television show on TNT, marking the cable network's return to broadcasting professional wrestling for the first time since WCW was bought out. AEW Dynamite debuted in October of that year and was viewed past an average of ane.4 million people. WWE counter-programmed past moving NXT (freshly placed on the The states Network after existence a streaming WWE Network exclusive for years) to Wednesday nights to compete directly with AEW. Flash forrad to today and NXT has been shuttled to Tuesday nights instead. AEW claimed a victory in the Midweek Nighttime Wars in less than two years.

All Elite Wrestling has connected to pick up steam since its debut, but no greater shot has been fired than with its signing of CM Punk, who is making his return to pro wrestling after 7 years away from the sport entirely. Punk was a crossover star for WWE and had the non-wrestling world talking about him in the summer of 2011 after his "pipage bomb" promo successfully blurred the lines for viewers about whether what he said was "real," which was compounded past his promise to walk out of the company after winning the WWE Championship on the night his real-life contract with WWE expired. "The Summertime of Punk" got off to a rousing start when Punk put his coin where his mouth was and beat John Cena for the WWE Title in his hometown of Chicago on July 17, 2011.

WWE got cold feet and curtailed the storyline, simply Punk became a top star in the visitor from 2011 to 2014, when he walked out later on that twelvemonth'southward Royal Rumble and tried a UFC career on for size for a couple of years. He returned to WWE programming (in a sense) in 2019, when he was hired by FOX Sports equally a recurring panelist for their WWE Backstage show on FS1, but fans withal clamored for an in-band return.

Punk debuted in AEW on Aug. 20, 2022 on the second episode of AEW Rampage, the visitor'southward new, second weekly show. The episode garnered the highest ratings since the debut of Dynamite two years earlier, but the most telling signifier of success came via the all-important pro wrestling metric: merch. Despite having been around since 2013 and officially partnering with many household proper name wrestlers and non-WWE companies, and despite having 8 years of selling the ubiquitous Bullet Guild shirts and partnering with Hot Topic since 2017, CM Punk's return shirt became the single biggest-selling design in the history of Pro Wrestling Tees within days of his debut and effectively depleted the world'southward supply of ringer tees, forcing PWT to impress the design on a manifestly white tee until they could locate another cache of the all-important ringers.

CM Punk and his impending in-ring render were the talk of the entire manufacture for weeks, leading up to his start friction match back at All Out 2022 on Sept. five. AEW pulled out the stops for its outset post-pandemic arena bear witness, as the 10,000-plus fans in attendance not only got to run into Punk'due south return confronting Darby Allin, merely were treated to 2 huge debuts to end the nighttime, as recent WWE escapees Adam Cole and the onetime Daniel Bryan, again Bryan Danielson, appeared to send the oversupply into a series of frenzies.

AEW continues to open "the forbidden door" with its ongoing partnerships with New Nihon, Touch Wrestling, Mexico'southward AAA, and other companies, creating a dauntless new world of globalized professional person wrestling where anything seems possible and where the object seems to be to keep its fans and viewers happy. (For the almost office.)

All Elite Wrestling is not at all without its criticisms, shortcomings and bugaboos, as is the nature of pro wrestling companies in general. At that place are still very real concerns almost lack of representation, the employment of some with questionable pasts, the lack of a wedlock (and severe lack of concern well-nigh a union by the EVPs), and a very WWE-like propensity of signing dozens and dozens of wrestlers without seeming to have room for all of them.

Merely the long and short of it is that AEW is here, and it's a force to be reckoned with. For the first time in a very long fourth dimension, at that place is a very real and very oversupply-pleasing alternative to WWE — one that is primarily focused on being a professional person wrestling company, rather than televised entertainment that happens to exist pro wrestling-shaped. It's a very of import distinction, especially where wrestling fans are concerned.

It's going to be many years — if information technology e'er happens — earlier the AEW proper noun comes anywhere close to attaining the level of cultural footprint and, mayhap more importantly, the enshroud and raw value that the WWE name holds, merely AEW doesn't appear to be concerned with that. It's focused on creating the product that it wants to come across, and making it the premier location for the very best in-ring contemporary wrestling in Northward America … just as Ring of Accolade did back in 2002.

It's the best possible time to be a fan of professional wrestling. You tin watch pretty much everything that has ever happened in WWE, WCW, or ECW on the WWE Network (which now resides on NBC'south Peacock app, role of some other lucrative deal that WWE has pulled off recently), New Japan has started up a Los Angeles-based arm of its company and airs a weekly English-linguistic communication show on Fite Boob tube, and numerous other promotions offering streaming services for modest prices.

And every calendar week, you tin encounter the two biggest wrestling companies in America strut their stuff several times a week on national television. WWE vs. AEW isn't quite WWE vs. WCW yet, but it's clear that All Elite Wrestling is a force to be reckoned with, and is taking the fight to a company that didn't believe it would ever have a rival like this again.

Needless to say, wrestling fans are all in.

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Source: https://www.polygon.com/2021/10/7/22709241/all-elite-wrestling-wwe-competitor

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