The Piledriver Report Is Pro Wrestling Losing The Piledriver Report

[HEIDENREICH]

Напоследък почти загубих всякакъв интерес към любимия спорт.Бай джихад се мъчи да ме бъзне,но нищо ми не е интересно-напоследък гледам само стари мачове.

Обаче не съм само аз-ето тук Рони Сарнеки прави един отличен анализ на качествата на шоутата към днешна дата-съгласен съм със всяка дума в тази статия-браво на автора.

Over the last few weeks and months, something happened in the pro wrestling industry that has stunned the writer of The Piledriver Report. Ronny Sarnecky has been losing interest in professional wrestling. Read why it has been happening, and what could possibly be done to change his opinion.

It's the sport of sports. It's the grandest form of entertainment in all of the land. It's professional wrestling.

I've been watching professional wrestling since January 1984. I've witnessed Hulkamania, the Four Horsemen, World Class Championship Wrestling and the American Wrestling Association on ESPN, the rise of Sting and the Ultimate Warrior, the WWF Steroid Trial, the lean years of the early nineties, the real ECW, the New World Order, the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Monday Night Wars, The Rock, the fall of ECW and WCW, the birth of TNA and Ring of Honor, and the McMahon-Helmsley Era. Through it all, I've watched every minute, and loved mostly all of it.

Lately, something has changed. Not to sound like your grandfather, and say "wrestling was so much better back in my day." For every Piper/Snuka feud, there was a Duke "The Dumpster" Droese and Gobbeldy Gooker. However, I've never seen wrestling hit the kind of low point that it's currently in today.

Don't get me wrong, I love Ring of Honor. From an in-ring perspective, Ring of Honor delivers the best action in the business. They present wrestling the way it should be. Great ring work, believable storylines, and really good, unscripted performances on the mic. My only complaint in regards to ROH is that aside from attending a show once every three months when the come to New Jersey, the only way to get my Ring of Honor fix is by ordering their DVDs. There's only so many DVDs I can purchase before Visa and my checkbook start to complain. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that they make every event available on DVD. Imagine if the WWE would have done that with their house shows, when house show business meant something. That would have been awesome. As much as I like Ring of Honor, I have a hard time getting behind a product as being my number one wrestling fix when I only see the live every couple of months. I wish they could come up with a way to air a small weekly show on the MSG Network like ECW did back in the day.

TNA: Total Non-Stop Action delivers some of the best pay per view events in the business. From the Joe/Daniels/Styles classics to the great X-Division action and legitimate tag team matches. However, their weekly show on Spike-TV is missing something. One of the problems could be that they have to cram everything in a one-hour slot. Another problem is that they haven't had that one can't miss storyline that can captivate an audience. For TNA to explode, they need to find their New World Order or Austin vs. McMahon to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. I Tivo Impact, because I usual fall asleep around 11pm. However, I find myself erasing Impact more then I watch the episodes. To me, unlike the former NBC-TV Thursday night line-up, TNA Impact is not "must see TV." Despite their weekly show not keeping up my interest level, their monthly pay per views, with or without Jeff Jarrett on top, are worth every penny.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is World Wrestling Entertainment. There was a time when every WWE show was a can't miss experience. RAW, SmackDown!, and pay per views were watched weekly and monthly in my house. Slowly, I stopped ordering SmackDown! only pay per views. As the WWE changed SmackDown! from being on par with RAW to being the WWE's "B" show, I lost interest. I very rarely watch more then ten minutes of SmackDown! each week. Sorry WWE, but on Friday nights, my viewing habits start with Jennifer Love Hewitt and "Ghost Whisperer" on CBS-TV, and is followed by a Tivo broadcast of a "Beverly Hills 90210" rerun.

The WWE's newest brand, ECW, is no where close to being as entertaining and revolutionary as its namesake. Going into the "rebirth," I knew this wasn't going to be the old ECW. I knew that, understood that, and accepted that. Even after the first ECW television show, as horrible as it was, I said the fans needed to give it more time. I went to the first and only ECW house show at the ECW Arena. It was only two hours long. WTF?!?!?! They didn't have to present an ECW three and a half to four hour show like back in the day, but two hours? Even a normal WWE house show is close to three. Then there are the "Extreme Rules" matches. That's another thing that I shook my head at. Didn't the WWE realize that ECW always had rules, they just were never enforced. Despite all of this, I continued to watch. The show isn't bad. Unlike RAW and SmackDown!, they focus on wrestling. They deliver really good main events, and have some wrestlers that are fun to watch (RVD, Sabu, CM Punk). The biggest turnoff that I have with the brand is that in several interviews with the media, Paul Heyman talked about pushing young guys, and signing wrestlers from around the globe, like the wrestlers from Dragon's Gate. Well, it's been almost six months, and only CM Punk seems to be the hot young breakout star. Instead of Dragon's Gate, we got Matt Stryker, Hardcore Holly, and Test among other retreads. To me, ECW is the bastard child of the WWE. ECW is good enough to sell merchandise and DVDs, but let's not give them too much room to get too successful. If the WWE wanted ECW, and even SmackDown! for that matter, to attempt to reach great heights without having the pressure of being labeled as the WWE's "B" and "C" brands, the WWE needs to run the three shows, not as three separate brands, but as three separate companies. The WWE is trying to be corporate. It's about time they act like it. Look at NBC-Universal, which is owned by General Electric. Under the NBC-Universal umbrella, you have television stations like NBC, USA, and the Sci-Fi Network. Each are entertainment companies. While there are occasions where the companies cross promote with each other, for the most part they act as separate companies. In the land of the WWE, the McMahons treat the three wrestling brands as one company. Instead, they should have a RAW (WWE), company, and ECW company, and a SmackDown! (WCW?) company. Let them legitimately act as their own organization. They could fight to sign guys behind the scenes. They could have their own creative staffs where the McMahons do not interfere. Do you see the President of General Electric say, "I don't like ER, so I think we should change this and that?" Of course not! Vince wanted to be a CEO. Start acting like a CEO. This may not solve their problems, and is probably a fantasy to even think about it ever happening. However, it would be interesting to see what Heyman could do if they allowed him to run ECW as the head of the WWE's ECW Westling Division.

And then, there was RAW! I saved the best, and I use that term extremely loosely, for last. RAW is the WWE's flagship television show. Out of any WWE show, I still make sure I watch RAW and order the RAW pay per views. One of the main reasons was because Shawn Michaels is my all-time favorite wrestler. After missing him for four years due to his career ending back injury, I really feel lucky to be able to see Michaels wrestle today. However, even Shawn Michaels hasn't been able to keep me glued to my seat. RAW has been extremely lackluster. I don't know what I am more sick of, Mr. McMahon with his Kiss My Ass Club or two near forty year old men (Shawn and Triple H) trying to act like their sixteen years old. I find myself counting down the days to the premier of "24" in January then I do to next week's RAW. I don't want to get off on a rant here about how the WWE sucks, and the Internet Wrestling Community knows all. Not at all. Give the WWE some credit. The Edge/John Cena saga that ran throughout most of this year was one of the best storylines since the WWE screwed up the InVasion angle. They need to continue that type of storyline. It was successful because it was reality based. Edge and Cena wanted something they each felt they deserved, the WWE World Championship. While they had to follow material in their promos, they didn't feel scripted. The WWE needs more of that. The WWE wrestlers need to have guidelines on what points they should cover in their promos. They let the invent the ways that they use to get their point across. How can they cut a believable, emotional promo when they don't even believe what they are saying themselves? Who lives these characters 24/7, the WWE writers or the wrestlers? The answer is easy. It's the wrestlers. Give the wrestlers more control of what they can or don't say. These guys are wrestlers, not actors. If you want an emotionally charged scripted promo to be acted out, then they should hire George Clooney. You have NO competition right now. It doesn't hurt to give this a try. If it doesn't work then go back to hiring unemployed soap opera writers.

A milestone was reached last Sunday. It was the first RAW only pay per view that I didn't order since the brand split first occurred a few years ago. I looked at my options, Sunday Night Football and "7th Heaven" or spending $40 on Cyber Sunday, which featured a Champions vs. Champions bout where the titles would not have an opportunity to be unified. What kind of Champions vs. Champions match is that? The whole card looked bland, and the "voting" options where either obvious or where stipulations that nobody cared about. I saved my money, read the results, and was happy to have kept my cable bill a little lower for at least one month.

While wrestling always seems to go through cycles in terms of popularity, I have never seen so many loyal fans be turned off by the present state of the industry. Will I continue to watch on a weekly basis? Of course, I will. I write about it weekly. However, I will watch other programs like "24" when they are on at the same time as professional wrestling? You damn betcha. I want to be entertained, and its up the wrestling companies to entertainment. If they don't, I'll catch them when my other shows are on a commercial break. As for what I will do to get my wrestling fix in the near future, well Ring of Honor comes back into town in less then two weeks. See you there.

[Shawn_Michaels]

Явно нямате нагласа да посрещнете новото,то и с California беше станало нещо такова и не съм го чувал от сумати време

[rawhide]

Явно нямате нагласа да посрещнете новото,то и с California беше станало нещо такова и не съм го чувал от сумати време

Каква ново Shawn?!

Бъкащ от конкретика въпрос-какво ново?! В доброто старо WWE всичко си е същото каквото си беше по време на прочутия angle-inVasion.. Единствено и само проблема е че хората се смениха,а това което дойде "отдолу" не е като старото..

Естествено че образи като Stone Cold Steve Austin не могат да виреят днес.. Ама.. как се иска да приемам същото "ядене" като преди една петилетка.. Само леко претоплено и подправено на ново?! ;)

[Nikolai]

Giant Gonzalez се казваше тоя нали? '93 година го гледах на видео касета, и тогава гробаря мислех, че е средно висок човек

Та по темата, и на мен не ми харесват сегашните предавания. След monday night wars и attitude ерата, ми се струва, че летвата много на високо застана и немогат да я стигнат(какво ли остава да я прескочат)...

Дано да сте ме разбрали какво имам предвид.