I don’t think TV-PG is a big issue honestly, NXT is TV-PG more or less. You can tell a ton of stories about performers wanting to be the best and win the title with a PG rating. This issue is bad writing an misusing the whole roster.
My issue isn’t with the good stories, it’s with the stupid “edgy” ones.
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The problem is they don’t have many good stories (maybe Rollins), and a ton of stupid edgy ones. That is the issue.
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Yeah, I’m sure they will look at the ratings and decide they need more cuck angles. More breakups. More lesbians for shock value. More “good shit”.
God help us all
It does draw ratings. It draws in people whose interests aren’t necessarily with wrestling being presented seriously and that’s a lot of people. Black v. Murphy was an amazing match but that’s not going to interest people who aren’t wrestling fans.
Trashy TV has a much wider audience. Us nerds, worrying about moves and the history of wrestlers and if things are consistent, are the minority. Trashy TV was responsible for wrestling becoming as big as it did in the 90s.
Maybe in the 90s that mattered, but these days? Why would i tune into wrestling for trashy TV in 2020? There are too many options for that. If I want to see wedding drama I’ll go watch Housewives of pick a city, or one of any number of Soaps that I can stream. Maybe at one point it would bring people in because there was a desire for more of that kind of content, but the market is saturated with just about every kind of content these days. SO you are better super serving your fans, then trying to reach out to people that have no reason to follow you.
I honestly don’t believe that people that would want a good story, and good matches are the minority. People want heroes to care about. The Trashy TV wasn’t the major reason for the rise in the 90s, that was Austin, Rock, and the NWO. There was some trash with those guys but it was larger than life characters with stories people cared about. The issue with Black v Murphy is that no one cares about either guy because they don’t have established character. YOu are right great wrestling isn’t the main draw, none of the top company stars have ever been the best workers in the company, they were the characters people care about. No one cares about Lana and Lashley. The reason the "main roster: out draws AEW and NXT is because that is where the established stars are, the characters people have been following are. There has been no evidence of more people tuning into Monday nights to watch the Lashley/Lana/Rusev stuff. Recent weeks have been some of the lowest rated of the year.
No one cares about Lashley and Lana as characters but a lot of people do pay attention to the insanity of this storyline. It gets talked about, it gets views, it continues. A few more trashy storylines after this one, then give her the title a few times and we have a new Trish Stratus. This is how wrestling legends are made… It’s shit but it works with casuals who don’t want to think that much when watching wrestling. I have Orange Cassidy, Sonny Kiss and Joey Ryan in this insane section of wrestling. If they can be excused by saying “there’s different types of wrestling for everyone and that’s great” then this Jerry Springer storyline should have the same.
Sonny Kiss doesn’t really fit your argument and I am not a big fan of the others. Cassidy is in a very minimal role at the moment too. I just don’t think you are correct about what works for casuals. The big draws have been guys like Rock, Austin, Hogan, Cena. Not Trish, and Lana is no Trish. I’m not saying it has no place at all, but it shouldn’t be the huge focus it is now. My argument is that if people cared about the characters you would do better. Heck you can have Lana and Lashley be a scandalous pair but the need evolving storylines, have her cheating on Rusev behind the scenes and have us follow that not knowing who it is with, have Rusev furious with finding hints of her cheating, have him going crazy on her in the ring and get jumped by Lashley. Then resolve that feud fairly quickly (at least short term). Decide who you want to benefit, either have Rusev get his revenge, or Lashley and Lana rise victorious as heels. Then move them on to other things for a while. I would put Lana and Lashley win, then come into the open with their PDAs after matches, videos of them going out on dates. She no longer needs to sneak around. Make fans hate them, have them pick up heeling wins, maybe put the US title on Lashley. Have Rusev defeated struggle in agony with his Marriage falling apart, begging Lana to come back etc. Then finally come back around to Rusev after a long time, he is fed up and finally files for divorce, and declares he is going to take everything including The US title. It’s still a soap opera angle but at least it is well written.