19.02.2016, 05:42
Smith Hart, der Bruder von Bret Hart, hat auf seiner Facebook Page seinen Frust ueber das Pro Wrestling zum Ausdruck gebracht mit folgenden Zeilen:
Zitat:I truly am at the end of trying to understand modern day professional wrestling. How hard is it to book a good show in 2015? The talent still exits, the problem is the wrestling minds have been chased away by the Fabulous Hollywood Twink brigade. Unfortunately the gateway to entry to being a true player within the industry has become far too much as most network players that would even fathom wrestling would rather double up on WWE programming rather than take another chance with a competing professional wrestling organization. Especially after the amount of bridges that have been burnt by companies like TNA and WCW. As the television industry dissipates, the gateway to competing on WWE’s level will grow smaller and smaller with each passing year. Smaller regional promotions like Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Pro Wrestling Syndicate, House of Hardcore and a select few others do produce decent wrestling, but hardly have the resources to grow or develop their products to anything beyond their regional levels. And beyond that, a million **** indies start and fail every single day. International companies like Triple A or New Japan put out great respective products for their native countries, but continue and will continue to find barriers to entry into the United States, even though their flagship shows may end up on domestic PPV. And while domestic companies like Ring of Honor and Lucha Underground provide a decent niche product, the problem is wrestling itself is a niche product and running a niche of a niche shortens the market.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now. The opportunities do still exist for the re-emergence of a competing national/international company, but the big problem is the political will of the right people being willing to work together for the better of the business as a whole. Too many people in a position to give back to the business have been burnt so bad themselves that they choose instead to worry about their own interests rather than leaving the business in a better position than when they found it.
For years I have tried fruitlessly to build bridges to try to provide my insight, yet at every turn I’ve been rejected by those in power positions. And as the years pass by, I see my capabilities to benefit this business or leaving it in a better position than I found it, passing and closing. So today I am trying something new. I am going to begin laying out ideas in a public forum, because if the fans agree with me, perhaps they may see what they are missing out on. Than perhaps they may become upset enough to protest to existing and potential power brokers of this business for change that benefits us all.
So first and foremost the key I believe is working together. Companies like Destiny Wrestling in Toronto, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla in Los Angeles, Pro Wrestling Syndicate in New Jersey, House of Hardcore in Philadelphia, Family Wrestling Entertainment in New York, Absolute Intense Wrestling in Cleveland, Evolve in Florida, 2CW in Upstate New York, All American Wrestling in Chicago, GLCW in Milwaukee, Full Impact Pro in Florida, Pro Wrestling Xperience in Carolina's and Future Stars of Wrestling in Las Vegas all have a great following for local independents. Imagine if a National entity like Global Force or TNA were to adopt each of these individual promotions and amalgamate them under one banner. Then TNA or GFW could be a competitive touring brand drawing decent houses and building up a wide array of young talents. The smaller companies would benefit by gaining national exposure while the bigger company grows by being present in more markets.
Global Force made the right decision by choosing Orleans Arena in Las Vegas as their Television Taping venue. A beautiful 4500 seat venue in the heart of one of the biggest tourist destinations on the planet. But the problem is without a national television deal what do you need television tapings for. Dixie Carter has seemingly destroyed relationships with Spike TV and Destination America and when WWE’s USA contract came up for renewal not many national networks made competitive bids on the open market for their product. So one would ascertain that because of this, there is not a large demand for wrestling on a major network in 2015. I tend to disagree. I think the big problem that TNA, GFW, ROH and others are facing is that they are all trying to get onto network primetime slots. I feel as though, WCW and TBS proved that WCW Saturday Night on the 6pm time slot proved to be a successful formula for more than 20 years. If a company like TNA were to pitch to such networks as Spike, MTV, A&E, AMC, CMT, FX or WGN a 6pm program on a Saturday night, when there isn’t much in the way of competitive programming for a reasonably cheap price, with the agreement of keeping a larger share of the ad revenue, then I am sure one of those networks would jump on the idea of having a product that could add anywhere from a half million to a million plus weekly domestic viewers. TNA having a tremendous asset like Billy Corgan behind them could easily be a deciding factor for many of these networks.
The next step in television is clearly the internet and when I think of the strongest market today for television, I instantly think of Netflix. With shows like House of Cards, Daredevil and Orange is the New Black as original series, it clearly has taken leaps and bounds to becoming the strongest television brand in the world today. With each new innovation, you have to look to the future and I think the next future logical step for Netflix in their expansion to dominate the television industry is live sports. Imagine if rather than seeking out a prime time national network slot, that professional wrestling could be the first live sports added to the Netflix medium. Maybe I am reaching, but this could be a partnership much like wrestling helped launch the superstation as a cable network.
Clearly TNA has the best visual representation of a product in today’s market, but has bombed in terms of creative, strategic partnerships, marketing, talent relations, public relations, licensing and general leadership. If only we could take the production work of David Sahadi, the graphics work of William Goertel and the musical direction of Dale Oliver and assemble them behind a strong leadership team like Jeff Jarrett, Jim Ross, Jim Cornette, Scott D’Amore, Gabe Sapolsky, Tommy Dreamer and perhaps myself without handcuffs, it would certainly put the business back in a better direction. Although I’m sure some new blood like a Billy Corgan could add a lot to the creative process as he has a textbook amount of insight to our business, with business entertainment understanding as well as being in tuned with modern popular culture. This would not be to discount the independent partners of the amalgamated promotions who would each still direct their own creative under the lead promotions umbrella, thus putting emphasis on the entire brand as a whole rather than a series of individual brands.
Talent certainly isn’t an issue as there hasn’t been this strong of a free agent market since the closure of WCW. Quality name brand talent and undiscovered youth mixing together on a national/international stage is in my opinion exactly what wrestling fans want to see. The key I find is rather than give everything away on free TV like Impact Wrestling or Lucha Underground, the key still is to gear everything towards pay per view. If Pacquio vs. Mayweather taught us anything it is that the PPV market is not dead it is just waiting to be revitalized by a product worth paying for. Take UFC as an example. Up until UFC moved to Fox, UFC’s television exposure was limited to pretty much a commercial hyping the pay per view events and the Ultimate Fighter which was a series of events that eventually lead to pay per view. And even today UFC’s brand as a whole is dependent on finding the next big main event feature match to headline their pay per views. Wrestling should be and still can be the exact same. No one needs to see a Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio or Bill Goldberg wrestling on TV every week. That’s where the young guys can make their names. The big names should be headlining monthly super card extravaganzas bringing in the big pay per view dollars and bringing eyeballs to the next crop of young superstars building them for tomorrow. The key then is to see what other events are relevant to our industry and how to bridge and build things under one banner.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe Im being too idealistic. Perhaps I am out of tune with what wrestling fans want today. But I don't think I am. I think many of you are as discouraged as I am. I think many of you are nostalgic for a time when wrestling was so much better. For some of you that may have been the attitude era, others it may be the golden run of the WWF in the 80's. Some may be nostalgic for older territorial promotions like I am. Whatever your flavor is, I highly doubt the products being produced by all promotions in 2015 is what you want to see today.