One More Time!

[FourFifty]

Let's face it boys and girls.
After 20 plus years as being king of the wrestling world it seems the creative well has dried up a little bit. We've seen the nWo, DX, and The Four Horsemen (under a different name) rehashed. We've seen kings and queens, millionaires and billionaires, hardcore icons do the job a number of times, massive comebacks, and 525,600 last matches for Hulk Hogan.
At this stage of the game I'd say we've seen just about everything there is to see in pro wrestling. We complain about seeing the same crap over and over again, but we still watch it. Well, enough of us still watch it to keep the industry going.
So let's face the facts: We're not going to see too many new things anytime soon. With that in mind, let's bring something back, One More Time!

If you had the chance to do something again, be it a gimmick, a stable, a tag team, a storyline, whatever has been done, what would it be and how would you do it?

I'd like to see The Million Dollar Team come back one last time.
For a few weeks show a few promos with The Million Dollar Man and IRS talking about how they want to get back in the ring, but can't. So they get an idea- why not buy out a few contracts as investments. The wrestlers get the honor and wisdom of a classic tag team, while IRS and Ted get a cut of what the wrestlers make?
Let's just keep it at three wrestlers for now for their stable. MVP would be a great call, and Teddy Long, sick of having to keep up with MVP's contract, sells it no problem. The dude has a lot of potential, and putting him in this stable would really kick start his career.
Second off an enforcer, Chris Masters. He has the body for it, so why not?
Last, and least, The Miz. He’s there just for the comedy instead of any serious skits. Why did they get The Miz? Well they were going to sign The Great Kahli, but there was a mix up in the paper work. Want it to be serious? Fine. Make it Kenny, but for the same reason. Mainline difference between The Miz and Kenny is The Miz is just there for the ride, while Kenny wants to prove himself to everyone.

After a week or two of beating various teams Ted is backstage talking to Crime Tyme. He wants them to join The Million Dollar Team. They're talking for a while, and then they leave with no real answer.
Later on in the show we see Ted at a mech stand wanting to buy something for his nephew, just to find his wallet was missing. He storms off, pissed. Later on Crime Tyme goes to the same mech stand, buys a lot of stuff with The Million Dollar Man's money, and throws it out to the crowd. There’s their first feud.
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So now you bring something back for a new generation of wrestling fans. What is it, and how would you do it?</o>

[El Fangel]

Another Invasion done right, It was some of the most exciting Raws for me, and done properly would be awesome.

[The One]

Good booking. If I could see that once again, that would rock.

[El Fangel]

Yep. That and a never ending attitude era.

[James Steele]

I'd bring back the emphasis on the actual wrestling. All these Hollywood fuckwits forget that this is pro wrestling (no matter how much paint you throw on it to call it sports entertainment it is still pro wrestling to the masses.) You don't need 20 video packages and 1 four-minute squash match to get somebody over. That is just a great to to generate buzz and have it fail 9 out of 10 times. Every major star had wrestled for a long time and had earned their respect and reputation from the fans. Kurt Angle and Goldberg are exceptions, but they had credibility from their "real sport" experience.

That is why the NWA stuff holds the test of time, while the shit from the WWF in the 80s gets laughed at except a handful of great storylines. Flash and sizzle is great for a temporary buzz, but it takes great stories in the ring to keep wrestling going. Chris Masters does have main event potential, but all the video packages and squash matches aren't going to make me give a fuck about him long term. He had his moment in the sun for a year before he was a glorified curtain-jerker. Chris Masters is green, but he is improving over time and I can see him as a upper midcard/occasional main event heel in 4-5 years.

Wrestling needs to learn that booms aren't built in a day or a week or a month or even a year. It takes years for a boom to get started. "The New Generation" in the WWF was boiling away and making something great and it just took that one thing to light the whole industry on fire. That spark may have been ECW or whatever you want to claim it was, but all those guys busted their ass for years and once the spark was found everything fell into place. People don't pay money to watching wrestling video packages, they pay to see wrestling matches.

WrestleMania 17 (the peak of the Attitude era) was the perfect example of this: all those matches had great storylines but you didn't need 20 video packages to tell the story, because they told the story in the ring. Stone Cold Steve Austin told his story of his passion for the WWF title. He told the story of how he loved it so much he sold his soul and joined up with a man he hated more than anyone on this earth. The Rock told a story about how he wanted to keep the title so much that he would kick out and do anything, but even he had his limit. You didn't need a video package to tell you that because the match told you that.

Wrestling should be like a movie with no words. You see the emotion, you see the struggle, you see the story. The video packages and "flash and sizzle" should just help build up the story to the climax, the match. The highlight of WrestleMania shouldn't be "that video package before the HBK/Cena match was awesome!", the highlight of WrestleMania should be the HBK/Cena match itself.

[hb2k]

In all fairness, the movie without no words theory works to a degree, but I remember so many people telling me they were buying WrestleMania X7 solely on the power of the Austin/Rock sitdown promo they did on Smackdown, where Austin hit the great line of "I need to beat you Rock....I need it more than you can ever imagine". As much as the drama and action and story in the ring does hold true, talking is an important factor - it's just we've been desensitised by so much pointless and unsuccessful promo work from script writers that we don't think about how awesome the most emotional promos can be.

One of the dumbest things I can think of was the mind-blowing video package at Mania before HBK/Cena. It was so awesome, but why the fuck did they wait to put it on the PPV when, had they put it on television, that could have convinced so many people to buy it. Their video work is awesome, but they lack the common sense of when it's best used.

[James Steele]

In all fairness, the movie without no words theory works to a degree, but I remember so many people telling me they were buying WrestleMania X7 solely on the power of the Austin/Rock sitdown promo they did on Smackdown, where Austin hit the great line of "I need to beat you Rock....I need it more than you can ever imagine". As much as the drama and action and story in the ring does hold true, talking is an important factor - it's just we've been desensitised by so much pointless and unsuccessful promo work from script writers that we don't think about how awesome the most emotional promos can be.

One of the dumbest things I can think of was the mind-blowing video package at Mania before HBK/Cena. It was so awesome, but why the fuck did they wait to put it on the PPV when, had they put it on television, that could have convinced so many people to buy it. Their video work is awesome, but they lack the common sense of when it's best used.

I know promos are important, but they all were building up to the match. It seems like right now it is nothing but promos and squash matches.