What are the chances of a third major promotion coming along?

**Mr. Nerfect** · 11-21-2021, 12:42 PM

For a while I was hopeful that The Rock would start his own wrestling promotion. He bought his own football league to �give back� to the sport he first tried his hand at. The Rock starting his own wrestling promotion would have made a lot of sense if we weren�t in a pandemic at the time a lot of these big free agents were around.

But regardless of who it is � a ViacomCBS, another billionaire, an international entity � there is value in a the television real estate/potentially right fees (or getting around them from a television network�s perspective) for a wrestling promotion that snags up John Hennigam, Shane Strickland, The Briscoes, Keith Lee, Kevin Steen, maybe makes a huge play for AJ Styles.

If it�s a ViacomCBS thing, there�s potential for them to use Tessa Blanchard, AJ Lee and the WOW crew/do a tie-in of some sort there.

Wrestling is being stretched too far as it is. MLW didn�t exactly debut on VICE with a bang. TNA and ROH find it harder to exist with AEW around and WWE adding more and more content. Ratings for basically everything but SmackDown seem to be falling. But I think there is the opening for an alternative to the WWE/AEW shenanigans. Something that feels big league but doesn�t wink so hard at audiences that it�s insulting. The difficulty there is making the splash needed to convince people to actually go to these shows in this market. Are they going to get the support of paying customers quickly enough to generate the healthy optics? I think the �Not WWE� factor will still there be with them and help them initially though. There�s also the possibility that they could even work with an AEW to get some of the bigger stars there involved, at least in the short term (although why Tony Khan would help out a competitor that could ultimately crush him is anyone�s guess � unless he�s looking for CW Network exposure or something).

11-21-2021, 12:42 PM	#1
Mr. Nerfect Posts: 61,530	What are the chances of a third major promotion coming along? For a while I was hopeful that The Rock would start his own wrestling promotion. He bought his own football league to �give back� to the sport he first tried his hand at. The Rock starting his own wrestling promotion would have made a lot of sense if we weren�t in a pandemic at the time a lot of these big free agents were around. But regardless of who it is � a ViacomCBS, another billionaire, an international entity � there is value in a the television real estate/potentially right fees (or getting around them from a television network�s perspective) for a wrestling promotion that snags up John Hennigam, Shane Strickland, The Briscoes, Keith Lee, Kevin Steen, maybe makes a huge play for AJ Styles. If it�s a ViacomCBS thing, there�s potential for them to use Tessa Blanchard, AJ Lee and the WOW crew/do a tie-in of some sort there. Wrestling is being stretched too far as it is. MLW didn�t exactly debut on VICE with a bang. TNA and ROH find it harder to exist with AEW around and WWE adding more and more content. Ratings for basically everything but SmackDown seem to be falling. But I think there is the opening for an alternative to the WWE/AEW shenanigans. Something that feels big league but doesn�t wink so hard at audiences that it�s insulting. The difficulty there is making the splash needed to convince people to actually go to these shows in this market. Are they going to get the support of paying customers quickly enough to generate the healthy optics? I think the �Not WWE� factor will still there be with them and help them initially though. There�s also the possibility that they could even work with an AEW to get some of the bigger stars there involved, at least in the short term (although why Tony Khan would help out a competitor that could ultimately crush him is anyone�s guess � unless he�s looking for CW Network exposure or something).