I don't really know anything about it apart from a few adverts promoting it on WWF programming back in the day but can anybody answer a few questions for me? My very basic knowledge of it if any, is that it was Wrestling and American Football mixed together
Was it real?
What were the rules?
What was the major factor in its failure?
How was wrestling incorporated into the game? (If at all. I'm not sure)
If anybody thinks they know how it could be been successful if it was possible, then I'd like to hear your thoughts.
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Yes, it was real, it was damn real. Actually it started out with a huge amount of viewers, I don't know the exact number but I remember that first week A LOT watched it. I'll try to answer some of these questions.
There were rules, I'm not big on football in the first place, but the rules were slightly different here, and I remember if you did something like score a touch down you could get on the mic and talk shit for 30 seconds or something too. The idea before hand was that this was "more dangerous than regular football" because of the rules, but there were so many, a lot of fans criticized this fact as saying it was no different.
I think a major factor in it failing was Vince being too vocal about it being "real football", when the NFL players were obviously superior, the critics tore into the league big time. By the end of the season there were regularly news columns about the whole thing being a joke. There were a few players that did transition into the NFL though, but not many.
As for wrestling being incorporated.... not really, besides that touch down rule where you could talk on the mic lol. The WWE did cross promotion though, I remember Jericho wearing one of the guys jerseys.... all I can remember is the guy's jersey said "He Hate Me" lol.
Not sure how they could've been more successful, again, Vince being so vocal about the whole promotion despite inferior players lead to the critics being *brutal*. A lot of the games weren't that good though either, it's hard to say they should be modest though, knowing McMahon in particular, but when starting a league you want a lot of publicity under normal conditions.
Been a long time since then obviously, but hope some of this helped.