1w ago

Are you camp one or camp two?

Worlds Collide, CMLL Viernes, La Riña

"Some people care about the on-screen wrestling product primarily for what it means for the business of wrestling, and there are people who care about the business of wrestling only in what it means for the on-screen wrestling product. I find myself in the second camp"

As usual I find myself agreeing with Cubs Fan. For my taste the 21st century is much more of the first, and it makes me sad.

4 comments

I'd be camp like...1.9 lol.
I def care more about the on screen product as I'm the consumer, the business itself is the problem of the people who own it. I have the luxury of taking my views elsewhere.
But I don't bad shit to happen which affects the overall business either.
I'm somewhere between the two, I used to care about the tv product through the '90s and early '00s. Then when WWE became basically a monopoly I really enjoyed reading the backstage shit and looking at the business functions that lead to that product. I mean I'm not quite in that camp 1 but I enjoy business news and scandal some.
What we know of TNA over the years is that they are a miracle business. Almos nobody could have withstood their crazieness. Hell they were basically a ponzi schemed for a while there with Anthem, Billy, the Nazi Bros and others all believing they were getting the company when Dixie couldn't pay them.
WWE on the other hand fell upwards in spite of themselves, their implosion, granted part of that is Viacom's fault, coincided with the slow death of Cable so live programming became coveted by networks who just wanted fans to tune in no matter what. You can look at WWE's past financials and see in real time as fans and ticket numbers (not sales, they raised prices) declined their revenue kept growing thanks to the TV contracts, had TV not declined the way it did, they would have been WCW'd or been on some obscure channel like Destination America.
I also respect AEW being a private company that doesn't share that information. No matter how much I would enjoy reading some of it.
No amount of backstage business info really hurts my enjoyment of a product which is way more heavily weighted for my enjoyment, the story-lines do though. Triple H came out and righted WWE's ship when Vince left, I've watched a lot more WWE up until probably Mania than I had for a long time, especially with AEW coming along... now WWE has shit the bed again and it's as bad if not worse than Vince booking and I quit caring, that hurts my view of the company more than anything.
Overall, neither company is playing a tune I completely care for, but I'm glad they exist, wrestling has been so much better with the inclusion of a second major promotion, and TNA is decent enough even if they don't have a real tv channel. I don't know, this feels rambly, I'll stop here.
- . Almos nobody could have withstood their crazieness. Hell they were basically a ponzi schemed for a while there with Anthem, Billy, the Nazi Bros and others all believing they were getting the company when Dixie couldn’t pay them.
  Who are you referring to as the nazi boys_?
  TNA is decent enough even if they don’t have a real tv channel?
  Why doesn't you consider AXSTV as a real T.V. channel?
  
  The Harris Brothers had some questionable taste in ring attire in the 00s including SS logos, they were part of Aerolux (something like that) who had a stake in TNA during their big money trouble era. Aerolux at the time they were part of TNA claimed they were just playing biker characters and weren't Nazis but those logos even in the early 00s were frowned on.
  AXS TV is a low carriage network, or it was when TNA's parent company bought it and TNA ended up there. They had coverage in about 32 million households compared to 73 million for USA, TNT, TBS, etc in 2022-2023. They may be in more homes now, some cable companies used to not have it.