[Ol Dirty Dastard]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito I don’t think there is anything wrestling can do to be seen as “cool” to non-fans ever again, even if it went full bore in trying to market itself as a legitimate sport and was devoid of comedy or any of that. The industry is too far gone in the eyes of the mainstream.

I mean nothing is impossible. I'm sure JCP in the 80s had its fair share of shlock (I'm not super well-versed with the promotion), but the shit I have seen felt gritty and kind of cool.

Even ECW, despite being fucking trash t.v., had that rock and roll vibe about it.

The problem is, WWE monopolized wrestling. And honestly, it's fine that WWE is the circus if there are other viable options. But, instead, it has influenced literally every promotion in North America -- even if they think they're anti-WWE, it's a bunch of self-impressed Indy geeks who are so focused on being anti-wwe that it ruins everything. Treating wrestling as a sport is a wonderful idea, but doing so in a way where everyone is like WAY TOO INTENSE is over the top and dumb.

And to delve deeper, WWE can't help but make everything decidedly uncool. We talk about it all the time, but once anything seems cool, they'll sink their stink-claws into it and ruin it. You have this 70-plus-year-old owner and his inner circle of people who NEVER had their finger on the pulse of anything mainstream who drive the creative (actually I'll give them the rock and wrestling connection). Plus, the insistence on wrestlers utilizing branded language makes it so much worse. Watching wrestlers in interviews calling fans "The WWE Universe" and referring to themselves as "WWE superstars" on a pop-culture-based show like Hot Ones is one way to ensure nobody takes you seriously.

Then, with something like AEW, that demo is literally the anti-pussy. It's unfortunate because IMO Cody Rhodes oozes suaveness. And if the Bucks removed their heads from their asses and stopped catering to smart marks they could have something. But, I digress... just look at those AEW crowds. Christ. I would not want to go to one of those shows based on how bad it seems like it'd smell.


So, I'll agree that it's HIGHLY unlikely wrestling can dig itself out of this whole. However, if someone got involved who was an honest-to-goodness great writer/creative mind who didn't have an affinity for putting forth embarrassing fucking trash, I'd like to see what happened. This hypothetical person would also need to be unimpeded by morons and have a thorough understanding of pop culture.