Did Vince help or hurt the wrestling industry?
 

By popular demand

I guess I'll start.

Before Vince assumed control of the industry there wrestlers from one end of the country to the other making a living off it. Full time wrestlers buying homes and supporting families. Now either you work for him or you live off a couple hundred a night if you are exceptional/work the gimmick stand. The ones who do well do better than the ones of yesteryear but the gap between success and starvation is vast and there is no "middle class."

There is no industry now. There is one promotion.

Vince killing kayfabein federal court is a topic worth discussing as well.

If Vince didn't do it, somebody else would. The Territories were terribly run by the mid 80's. The decisions made by Fritz, Verne etc were laughable.

Let's not forget the reality of how damaging it's been to the industry as a whole since he bought wcw. I'm aware they had financial issues and someone was going to buy them but he killed his competition and then kinda pooped all over their legacy and their fans with the awful invasion. Ratings have been going down ever since.

WCW had no T.V. It was pretty much worthless to anyone other than Vince.

Moot argument. The question is did it help or hurt the industry not if it was or was not inevitable.

A territory could have died and been revived by someone else. As is there is nothing beyond 100 or so jobs in the business now.

Glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. :yes:

Considering Pro Wrestling pretty much reached it's ceiling 15 years ago. I think he obviously helped. Keeping the product relevant since then has been outstanding.

He turned it from regional garbage to a global phenomenon

A mix of both overall. For every great thing he did, something else took a bit hit either in the short or long term.

WWF's rise and Hulkamania becoming huge in the mainstream came at the cost of the old territory system. WWF's victory over WCW came at the cost of the gradual mainstream decline in the industry. Even stuff like NXT is a mixed bag since he gave Triple H all the resources needed for it to be successful but at the same time is the biggest obstacle when it comes to transitioning those gains to the next level on the main roster.

The non WWE territories went out of business because they were terrible and were minor league. Any other territory could have done what Vince did. The difference was he was way better at it.

The business was declining off its ratings peak before WCW went out of business. It's never been more successful from a business standpoint than it is now. That's thanks to Vince.

Anyone who draws a pay in wrestling in North America is doing so because of Vince.

Vince fixed a broken system

Only to become the broken system with enough money for the "broken system" that he's become/created, not to matter.

Yeah but a broken system without ties to organized crime. So, it's better. So, hooray?

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Everyone is citing the WWEs success and calling it the industry. There is no industry now, there is only one promotion.

Yeah business is soo great right now for the WWE that they suddenly need around $200 million to cover their current debts based on recent financial reports.

Network itself still hasn't come close to doing the financial things the WWE was expecting by now and even has declined a bit in terms of overall performance. Even so, it was only ever meant to replace their tv and ppv revenues which it still hasn't managed to get close to doing so.

Shhh... don't cite facts as evidence. Cynick, et al., will tell you "you don't know anything / what you're talking about" and that "you're just wrong, everything's great". Except for when things were better, like April 18, 2008, April 23, 2010, February 2, 2001, January 15, 2001 - January 30, 2001, June, 25, 2000 - September 23, 2000, October 24, 1999 - November, 23, 1999.

Vince did to wrestling what big business has done to the U.S. as a whole. He made the top guys richer and gave them the ability to become bigger stars than they ever could have before. However, he also killed the industry as a whole and made it impossible for the vast majority of wrestlers to make a living at it.

Don't take the Cynick bait, he's just gonna say you're believing everything Meltzer says or something like that

Seriously, guys...

Ask yourself if this is a guy you wanna try to have a discussion with.

So what I'm reading is that Vince helped "WWE / the promotion" at the expense of "the industry".

Without WWE being the big dog in the yard, the "industry" as a whole would have floundered long ago. WWE kept pro wrestling relevant. Could you imagine in today's cultural landscape (if WWE ceased to exist) how well a glorified carnival act would go over with millennials? I don't think Dusty Rhodes could compete with Steph Curry on a bang-for-bucks ratio

Meltzer Sheep,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Pure speculation. And one that works off the assumption that wrestling cant adapt with the times without vince, as if the product hadnt adapted and changed before he even got into the industry. It would have been different but there is no evidence to suggest it wouldn't have.

No one has yet to name an example of how the industry is better post vince outside of his company.

Well, it will always be speculative when talking in hypotheticals. Without Vince/WWE, would Turner have bought WCW to compete? Would they ever have moved on past the "territory" style of promotions?

Without WWE providing a constant mainstream presence, interest in the industry as a whole would not have been near where it is. I can't imagine there would be any worldwide interest in American football, for example, without an NFL.

We arent talking hypotheticals here. We have a reality prior to vince and a reality post vince. In what way is the industry better off outside of the WWF?

I can only speak for myself in saying that I would literally have no interest in pro wrestling without Vince's involvement. Hell I probably wouldn't even know it existed.

To me this is simple. You take an industry that had, i dunno lets go conservative here, 1000 jobs across the country and replace it with 100 jobs you have not improved industry. If you had 15 successful businesses and replaced it with 1.

Walmart was not good for the supermarket industry. It was good for walmart.

And thats not me saying walmart was a failure theres just a diference between the two things.

WWE has created 1000s of jobs, though.

Granted, those aren't all wrestling jobs. It takes a lot of people to run a company of that size, though. Whereas a territory could be run/managed by a handful of people, WWE is a powerhouse corporate conglomerate with tons of jobs created.

A lot more people are probably making $ and supporting their families due to the state of the industry today. Just maybe less rasslers.

Not only that, but I think what Vince has done since buying WCW has definitely hurt the business. WWE's popularity has been on a steady decline and with it, since it's synonymous with wrestling, has gone the business itself. WCW thrived because Vince made wrestling a mainstream juggernaut and WCW took advantage of that. Even if TNA were actually producing a strong product over the past 15 years though they wouldn't stand much of a chance because the industry is not the draw it was. And that's also because of Vince.

So I'm kind of in between. I think he helped it and then hurt it.

Theres no maybe to the rasslers. The jobs it "created" were entertainment jobs. Jobs that people from television filled. So i guess he had a positive impact on the tv industry?

Furthermore think of the workers he employs. What is their future like post wwe? Most die in trailer parks and its not because of poor money management. The average worker bring in 55k before travel for...5 years? And after that they have no industry to go to.

:yes:

Agreed. Seems like you almost always say exactly what I'm thinking.

Ryan Clark confirms Crippy Z and Fan are one in the same

There better not be a link with hot pics coming.

How is this a bad thing, exactly? Should wrestling not be televised? Is that your gripe?

How glamorous were pre-WWE wrestlers' post-wrestling lives? (not snarky, legit question because I know 0 about anything related to the lifestyle of wrestlers)

No? If you want to credit Vince for creating jobs for sales reps, marketers, TV crews, etc thats all valid. Those are positions that benifit from the industry but arent OF the industry. If the WWF up and died those people would find work elsewhere inside their industry. But if you want to credit him as a job creater for those that would be fair. The net jobs gained v jobs lost still wouldnt favor the WWF but whatever.

They could support families off of them. Buying homes and cars. Middle class. Full time wrestler was a viable profesion. Wahoo McDaniel quit the NFL because wrestling paid better.


Job guys would make a killing but they had to travel a lot more.


Glamor? I dont think the Middle Class could be described as that.

I think wrestling would have died 1-2 decades ago if it wasn't for Vince. If you think, it is probably the silliest thing on TV and without Vince making it relevant I don't think it would have continued anywhere near what it is. Maybe it would still be a travelling carny show at best.

Rediculous. He didnt invent the business. It exists globally with out him. This is propagandized mindset. Something about wrestling works. And has worked for over a century. This notion that only Vince can run a succesful company is just silly.