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  NoDQ.com > Columns > New NoDQ column - The missing element
Posted by Jake Ryan on 10/27/2009 at 07:09 PM

This is my debut column here on NoDQ.com! Contact me with feedback by clicking on my name above! I hope you enjoy...

The general opinion of wrestling from those that know what they're talking about these days is that it's not what it used to be. Wrestling is no longer considered 'can't miss tv' by even the most die-hard fans. Despite a world-wide recession the WWE & TNA continue to turn a profit but as anyone in the internet wrestling community will be quick to point out the monetary figures don't always mean that the product is as strong as it could be. Long gone are the days when fans on Tuesday morning were already jonsing for Thursday when they could witness the fall out of Monday night Raw\Nitro. There are a lot of culprits for this, and anyone that watched ten years ago and out of habit continue to do so today will have a varied response as to what the problem in professional wrestling is. The killing of kayfabe, dirtsites, no competition, the ego of wrestlers in power, political correctness in the product are only among the few and to a degree while those are hard cases to dispute the problem is a much simpler one than all of that. Kayfabe was on it's deathbed before wrestling blew up in the late nineties, dirtsheets had fluttered around among the wrestling community dating back to the days of Race & Flair, a wrestler's ego has caused problems dating back to the days of Backlund & Hogan, and until the Attitude Era wrestling was a product the whole family could enjoy and was just as successful. With all of the major aforementioned problems in professional wrestling refuted what is the answer to the problems in professional wrestling from the fans' aspect today? It's an answer that is more complex than any of that. An answer that quite frankly isn't provided nearly enough anymore, and while we still see it from time to time it proves to be the only real answer that could solve the problem of the professional wrestling industry.

A lot of the younger talent in today's generation are fit to a cookie cutter mold, and the written product is just as simple in variables. What professional wrestling is missing these days can be summed up in one simple word that carries a number of complex variables, and unfortunately there aren't enough in a position of power that realize what it is, and there are even fewer fans that want to believe they know. This is a challenge to everyone, it isn't exclusive to those that have been fans of wrestling for ten or more years, it isn't one just for those that have only been watching since the Attitude era, or fans that caught the wrestling bug as recently as just a few years ago. Take a moment and think back on some of the fondest memories you have as a fan of professional wrestling. It can be any company regardless of their success, it can be of any wrestler regardless of in-ring talent.

The most memorable moments in professional wrestling are often times moments where you see a talent rise to the occasion and overcome, or when the superhero-esque face slaps his fans in the faces and becomes the dastardly heel that you just hate with all of the passion in your body and cannot wait to see finally get what he has coming to him. I know, by now you're thinking 'Enough already!' I'm going to guess that nine out of every ten of those moments that came to the mind of all of you, the readers, it was a moment when you felt in some way connected to what you were watching, the attachment to that moment is connected to how emotionally invested you were in what you were watching and how it made you feel. Today what wrestling is missing most is an emotional investment in the product. The WWE's priority of becoming a more mainstream product, TNA's priority of becoming bigger competition to the WWE, and Ring of Honor's priority of trying to provide the absolute best in-ring entertainment available have all left a lot of fans emotionally disconnected from the product for the most part.

For instance Wrestlemania 24 when Ric Flair was heading into the sunset during what could be considered one of the best runs he'd had since his run with Sting in the early 90's. Everyone had a pretty good idea of what the match between Ric & Shawn Michaels would be, but for the moment under that Florida sky there aren't many that can say at some point their belief wasn't suspended watching those two. The emotion had been running so high in the weeks leading up to the match that it delivered what is one of the best storylines of the last ten years in my opinion.

Until recently with TNA there wasn't much of that in TNA until FINALLY tapping into that was with AJ Styles' retirement announcement and Sting's inviggorating speech. Whether you had no opinion of AJ, loved him, or hated him that was a big moment in TNA because it tugged on the emotion of the fans.

At one-point Ring of Honor but that was built on emotion. Even fans of a company that tries so desperately to project the image of being a competition driven product couldn't help but be outraged when someone that worked as hard as CM Punk and showed such respect to the business and the company when he won the ROH Championship and signed his WWE contract on it.

It all goes back to the emotion of the moment. The reason why the Attitude Era was so successful is because so many fans where emotionally involved with their favorite wrestler. They were genuinely excited to see Tommy Dreamer finally get one over on Raven, legitimately pissed when Bret Hart got screwed over, incredibly dissapointed when Hulk Hogan turned on WCW and joined the NWO, legitimately concerned when they saw Austin get run over because of his previous neck problems, legitimately excited when Shawn Michaels returned after 4 years victorious.

I can continue to name moments where booking talent in a way that gets fans emotionally invested to prove this point, and like it or not, a few of the biggest names in wrestling were booked that way when Vince Russo has been a major force in booking. TNA has FINALLY tapped into what will only help them grow their fanbase, but it's going to take time for the WWE and Ring of Honor to see what TNA has found. It's easy to put on a successful pro wrestling show when you stick made names in the wrestling business in the limelight because loyal fans will tune in to see their favorite performers that have a history in the main events, but it takes time to build a wrestling company and make new stars and get the fans emotionally involved in them. Doing that will help build the product as a whole to build a loyal fan base of fans that watch out of habit but will get those habitual viewers talking to the casual viewer and get them to then in turn get them to tune in. Seeing the passion of one person will always intrigue someone else to find out what it's all about. That's what it was about when father's showed their children Hulk Hogan for the first time back in the 80's and it's what those children who had grown into teenagers watching Hulk Hogan become Hollywood Hogan were talking about to their friends.

It all boils down to that one word when it comes to successful booking, but as I've mentioned it's a complex word. Emotion driven storytelling it what made The Attitude Era the success that it was, and it's emotion driven storytelling that has improved TNA's product as of late. Let's just hope that Vince Russo doesn't lose sight of that, and let's hope that Vince McMahon somehow takes notices of the positive change in their product and applies it to his own. Wrestling's re-ascension to glory depends on it.

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