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Are you rooting for WWE to fail? If so, why?

10K views 153 replies 110 participants last post by  PushemVnce 
#1 · (Edited)
For me - yes. But I define failure as the company reaching a point where change is forced. Not a return to the Attitude Era, or the Golden Era, but programming that is unpredictable and possessing more than brief glimpses of entertainment. With actual characters and semi-logical storylines that are not abandoned on a whim.

It's odd for me because in the 90s, I was rooting heavily for the WWF to come back and defeat WCW. Now I find myself rooting against the company I once cheered.

What of the rest of you?
 
#21 · (Edited)
Well, let's see:

I'm certainly not rooting for them to succeed based on the product they are at the moment, and much of that comes from the totally bizarre way they conduct themselves as a business. Never have I seen one company have such a perverse obsession with themselves to the point where anything outside of what they deem suitable does not exist within their own little world. Never have I seen a company blatantly censor its own fans, and convince them their own point of view is wrong on top of it. Never have I seen a company that has stooped to such reprehensible levels for the sake of a quick publicity boost by doing things like incest(nearly), necrophilia, and man-on-man rape. Never have I seen a company that covers up one murderer from their history and protects another (even if only allegedly.) Never have I seen a company who's employees will shame another employee for having a medical disease and yet will allow the guilty party to keep their job. Never have I seen a company with the gall to shame it's own craft. Never have I seen a company that refuses to acknowledge it's own shrewd and dishonest relationship with talent.

In short, WWE don't currently DESERVE success. Much of it is Ill-gotten and riddled with lies and revisionist history with hostility to the unhappy consumer, so Yes. Yes, I want the regime that has twisted itself into a corporate PARODY of a craft I love and respect very much to be held to the fire and reap the seeds of what it has sown behind the scenes. This is a company that has been up its' own ass for FAR too long. The only way the product will change is if their business practices and ethics change. That will occur when the people responsible are no longer in charge.

The sad thing is they have convinced so many on this site and around the world that unless you do wrestling the way they do wrestling, you are somehow an inferior product or an inferior fan for enjoying it.

Think about how scary that is.
 
#12 ·
Lel.


Of course not, WWE isn't always great but I enjoy enough of it and can skip what I don't. People seem to not realize if WWE dies no American networks are going to want to pick up wrestling, no investors will want to support a new wrestling company, the existing companies won't be able to sign all the talent currently in WWE and they won't even get paid a fraction of their current salaries, indy shows would be flooded with too much talent driving down the worth of all wrestlers.

The way to make WWE fail without irrevocably damaging the entire industry is to support another company to the extent that networks think wrestling is viable programming and will be willing to give big tv contracts to that company. Take soccer for example, Americans never gave a shit about it until the national teams started having some success in 2002. MLS was struggling but in the 15 years since they've expanded from 10 teams to 22 and they'll have 28 by 2020, they have a profitable tv deal with ESPN and the average value of teams increased by over 6 times. If you support a company the tv and sponsorship deals will come and then the production and talent quality will increase as they'll have more money to spend.

The real problem is none of the other "major" wrestling organizations have the ambition and/or business acumen to try and compete with WWE.
 
#71 ·
I try to be objective. I went through this with WCW in its dying days, and my attitude really hasn't changed.

When WWE does good, I want it to be rewarded.
When WWE does bad, I want it to face the consequences.

If WWE does bad long enough and has enough bad things happen, then that's too bad. Overall, though, I don't want to watch a show that's bad and I've mostly stopped, and if others feel the same way, then they're going to lose more potential dollars.

I think last year, when Reigns got busted for PEDs and they put the title on Dean, and then did the great Cena/AJ feud, I found myself really enjoying the SmackDown side of WWE, so I know there's a part of me that's rooting for them to do well, but ever since the Royal Rumble, they've really been messing things up.
 
#75 · (Edited)
As I stated in the original post, my definition of failure is....

Sometime in May 2018

WWE Boardmember: Mr. McMahon, we have lost 65% of our RAW viewership in the last two years. We barely eclipsed 1.2M viewers last week

WWE Boardmember 2: Our stock has fallen below $5.

Vince: 65%? I think -

Kevin Dunn: It doesn't matter! We could have lost 105% of our viewers! We have the Network!

Stephanie: That's right! And we should raise its price!

Paul Levesque: [quiet groan]

WWE Boardmember 1: Sir, Mr. McMahon...yes, we have the Network. With it we make more off of special events than we ever did with PPV.

Stephanie: That's right! And with India now as our prime market - with Jinder going on his second year as champion we will make more money than ever!

JBL: Our stock could hit a $150 a share. Maybe even split!

WWE Boardmember #1 : Vince, it's simple mathematics. Television plus Network plus prudent spending means profitability. Network minus television means we lose money. Eventually, we go out of business.

Kevin Dunn: Inconceivable!

WWE Boardmember #1 : This isn't 1984. Two plus two equals four.

Stephanie: There's no need for a change, dad! Our social metrics are through the roof!

Vince stares at all of them for a long moment. Slowly he stands, grabs the mahogany table, and with a burst of inhuman strength flips it over.

Vince: All of you...YOU'RE FIRED!
(points to Board Member 1)
Except you - you stay.

Shocked, the other boardmembers leave.

Vince turns to Board Member 1.

Vince: Shane, you were right. You were always right. Now, before it's too late. Get me CM Punk.
 
#2 ·
I just want the programme to go off the air, never to return. WWE died in 2008. The old dog needs to be taken out into the woods and shot already.
 
#6 ·
I don't really want them to fail but if that's your definition of failure then yes, why not. I do want them to start putting in more effort into everything. The ratings are only getting worse so they need a change.
 
#15 ·
Yes...

Not to the point of going bankrupt and having to shut the doors, just to the point where they have no choice but to look at the product, accept that they've been coasting, resting on their laurels, and delivering a mediocre product and are forced to change.

I think the majority of WWE's problems have nothing to do with lack of talent but complacency, lack of motivation, and lazyness.






Or as it's put in a VERY shitty movie...



:p
 
#36 ·
I'm sorry but you're just a bad person if you want a company to fail. People should lose their job as a lesson because you don't like the product/ quality?
 
#37 · (Edited)
Overreaction. Actually this entire thread is an overreaction on many levels but I'll begin with your statement. To begin with why should I at nearly fifty years of age, be concerned with the employment status of a conglomeration of talent 99.9% of whom I have never rooted for nor whom have ever entertained me a day in my life? Yes you can make the "my fellow man" argument or "for the grace of god, there goes one of my own" but the sad reality is that this is the kind of thing that happens every day in the big bad world out there. It doesn't mean I have to like it and I certainly don't root for it to happen but don't expect me to cry tears into a bucket if a multi-million dollar corporation goes belly-up because of gross mismanagement.

Having lived through at least two recessions, I've seen more than my fair share of "Mom 'N' Pop" shops and local businesses shuttered, some of which were entrenched staples of my community for nearly fifty years at the point when they had to close up shop. Likewise, I've seen huge corporations come into communities and absolutely devour smaller mercantile outfits due to the fact that the "little guy" can't afford to compete against the big dollar. Personally I'd be much more inclined to be a bleeding heart over these causes than the WWE going out of business. While some may criticize and say that I'm not looking enough at the small picture in terms of the employment of the talent themselves many of whom have no other viable option of making a living other than pro wrestling, I vehemently disagree. To begin with the talent that is currently employed by WWE that is of high caliber will ALWAYS find work within the industry of their choice. They might not be making an annual six figure salary but you will neither find them in line at your local soup kitchen either. Then there will be talent who wisely pursued some college or some other avenue in terms of making themselves more marketable should their wrestling career come to a sudden end and they will parlay their talents into that particular field. Then you have talent that have wisely either squirreled their money away or invested it where it affords them a handful of years to start digging into another field of choosing without having to worry where their next meal is coming from or how to put a roof over their heads. If you haven't caught on to what I'm driving at here, is that in all of these scenarios I've laid out for you, the talent involved will be just fine if the WWE goes out of business. The ones who don't fall into that category are no different from their predecessors from the eighties and nineties all of whom made a king's ransom from their work in the wrestling industry but by and large pissed it all away due to their own poor decisions.

But none of this is going to happen because the WWE is not going out of business anytime soon. Because unlike the local businesses that went belly-up in my hometown and yours, WWE has an influx of cash that will see them through likely at least another decade even if their television ratings continue to drop precipitously. The easiest way to understand the WWE's current situation is the old analogy involving the "long rope". The WWE despite their foibles and failures during the past decade or so, have also seen successes and gains which will grant them a great deal of rope which they will either use to their advantage or will be the device that eventually brings about their demise. But that demise isn't nearly creeping up upon the doorstep as fast as the IWC seems to believe it is.
 
#53 ·
By the way.. It would probably benefit you to get your thread title changed to "Do you want to see WWE decline to the point it's forced to improve or fade away?" Since it better fits the point you're trying to make.
 
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#62 ·
Nah, all I'd like to see is another company rise up and be at least somewhat competitive so that the talent has another option where they can still be paid well and probably treated better. If such an event occurs amd said company takes WWE down I can't say my feeling would be hurt. As long as the talent has a place to work.
 
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