The following article was originally published with RealSport on May 26, 2017.
Welcome to the inaugural volume of Wrestling Today. Every Friday, I’ll be taking a look at the landscape of professional wrestling and the issues facing it right now. Every week will be different, but there will always be a focus on the aspects of the industry and how they evolve as time goes on. In a way, everything in wrestling is cyclical. If you want to see where you’re going, you simply need to look back at the past. To understand today, we need to understand yesterday.
At least, that’s a good place to start. It’s never that simple, but look no further than the most famous era of wrestling to see what is bringing the industry back to the forefront today. Independent promotions are thriving, but where is the real competition? Instead of going head to head, everyone is veering off in their own preferred directions. Is that really the best thing for the business?
The Epitome of Competition
Most fans probably already know where I’m going with this. When did competition put wrestling on the map? During the Monday Night War. It was September 5, 1995, when Monday Nitro first debuted on TNT with access to a national cable audience. Most of us know the story. The WWF was bleeding talent with losses of Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and countless others. WCW was capitalizing on every bit of work the WWF had done building these talents and reaping the rewards.
The introduction of the nWo is still regarded as one of the most pivotal periods in wrestling history. Many aspects of the business today, good and bad, can be traced back to that one faction. There were plenty of small factors that came together in producing the magic of the Monday Night War, but the most important catalyst was head to head competition. When introducing Monday Nitro, then-Executive Vice President of WCW Eric Bischoff fought for their new program to be put up directly against the flagship show of the WWF, Monday Night Raw.
It was a ballsy move, but it was a gamble that helped spark arguably the greatest period wrestling has ever seen. While veterans like Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan had made themselves nationally recognized names before this era, it was the Monday Night War that birthed characters like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, The Rock, Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Sting, the nWo, and so many more.
The Fall of Wrestling?
Thanks to the downfall of WCW and Vince McMahon’s purchase putting the nail in the coffin of his competition, the very foundation of professional wrestling was shaken to its core. By the end of 2001, the WWF (soon to be the WWE) was pretty much the only game in town. WCW and ECW had both been shut down and absorbed by the WWF.
Wrestling hadn’t vanished from everywhere else, but no other company could even come close to the reach that the WWF was managing at the time. Even as things died off at the tail end of the Attitude Era, they were a global product that no other company could stand against.
There were a few international companies holding strong, such as New Japan Pro-Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling, Lucha Libre AAA, and CMLL, but none had anything close to the global reach or imprint in the United States that the WWE held. Few big name independent promotions survived this period, and several smaller ones went under. Indies in the US, Canada, and the UK all continued to live on, but none with any more than a regional impact.
The Seeds of Competition
While the WWE underwent significant changes and tried to reinvent itself in a drastically different industry, the roots of some of today’s hottest promotions were being planted. As far away as Japan, Pro Wrestling NOAH was founded in 2000 by japanese legend Mitsuharu Misawa. Back in the United States, Combat Zone Wrestling was beginning to find a niche in the absence of Extreme Championship Wrestling. CZW partnered with Big Japan Pro Wrestling, the company largely credited with the growth of the deathmatch style, and branded themselves “ultraviolent” to differentiate from other promotions.
In 2002, the industry was in a state of flux. The World Wrestling Federation was officially rebranded to World Wrestling Entertainment after a copyright dispute over the WWF acronym with the World Wildlife Fund. Meanwhile, three of the most noteworthy promotions of today were created in that same year. Ring of Honor, TNA Wrestling, and Chikara were all founded in 2002. Of those three, TNA Wrestling (now known as Impact Wrestling) has come the closest to providing direct competition with the WWE, but more on that later.
The least-known of the three is easily Chikara, a promotion that mainstream fans have probably never even heard of. Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor have both gained a more widespread audience, but Chikara’s focus on tag team wrestling, over the top characters, and lucha libre style has endeared it mainly to more hardcore fans of professional wrestling. CZW enjoys relatively the same amount of recognition, but both tend to sit at the independent ranks and nestle into their cozy comfort zones.
The Transition Period
In the fifteen years since those promotions were founded and the WWE began to form into the global entertainment conglomerate it is today, professional wrestling pulled through that rough period and started to thrive once more. In the internet age, the delivery method for wrestling began to change drastically. Years ago, the only way to expand your reach was a national television deal or underground tape trading. By tape, I mean VHS tapes. If you don’t know what that is, google it.
Companies like Ring of Honor began to experiment with iPPV, hosting an event on the internet instead of through a cable service. It all sounds so rudimentary today, but it was groundbreaking at the time. Along with the internet age, the mystique of wrestling began to fade away. The trade secrets started to get out, and the mystery was replaced with a thirst for knowledge and content. Those with a passion for the industry sought out companies like CZW, ROH, and even Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (founded in 2003).
Many companies bridged the transition with mail-order catalogs for DVDs of their events. Ring of Honor built their foundation on this practice, and it’s still in use today as the primary delivery path for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s events. While that satiated the desires of hardcore fans, it did little to expand the fanbase of many promotions. If you were a newcomer to wrestling, you would check out the WWE. That was essentially the only valid option for several years, but the fight for a television deal continued.
Ring of Honor’s Relative Television Obscurity
Before I get to Impact Wrestling, let’s focus on Ring of Honor for a moment. It’s a name that is becoming progressively more recognized, and that’s in large part due to their former talent becoming huge stars in WWE. CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, and countless other ROH alumni made their way to the big stage. While Ring of Honor continuously produced quality wrestling, they struggled to gain a wider audience.
The closest Ring of Honor came to a national television deal was from 2009 to 2011 with the HDNet. The channel was available via extended packages in various major cable providers but didn’t enjoy a spot among traditional “basic cable” such as USA, TNT, TBS, ESPN, Fox Sports, and others.
HDNet chose not to renew their contract with Ring of Honor in 2011 and later rebranded as AXS TV. That name might be familiar to some because it’s the channel that currently airs a weekly special featuring matches from New Japan Pro Wrestling. The content isn’t always current, but it does at least air on a weekly basis. Meanwhile, Ring of Honor has settled in to airing on syndicated television via Sinclair Broadcast Group.
While syndicated broadcasting has the benefit of being accessible to those without cable, it runs into the severe struggle of having holes in their nationwide coverage. Ring of Honor airs on local Sinclair Broadcast Group stations in only 33 of the 50 states in the US. They get replay coverage on Comet TV, another syndicated subsidiary of Sinclair. Despite these outlets, Ring of Honor will continue to stare at a glass ceiling of national appeal if they don’t get a truly national television deal.
Total Nonstop Problems
While Impact Wrestling has found new life since being acquired by Anthem Sports in the beginning of 2017, it hasn’t exactly been a smooth ride since their founding in 2002. The company was started by Jeff and Jerry Jarrett, the former who some older fans may remember from his time in WWE during the Attitude Era. The promotion initially partnered with the NWA to get off the ground, but by 2004 they had separated from the NWA. Even though they kept the championship from the NWA for a few more years, the company was clearly becoming its own entity. RealSport got to speak to Jeff Jarrett about the founding of TNA and reasons behind it back in February; this is what he had to say.
“The business had come off the Attitude era, it was super red hot, and I can remember in Panama City Beach, Florida – that’s where the last Nitro was – just thinking ‘this is surreal. There’s one game in town now.’ So I knew pretty quick that there would be a huge void in the marketplace. My family had been in the business over 70 years, I’m thankful for that, blessed for that, cursed for that sometimes too, but I knew there was going to be an opportunity, because, without a number two promotion, there’s no such thing as a number one promotion. Again, a huge void in the marketplace, the PPV industry in 2002 was completely different than it is today, entertainment, distribution, not just PPVs, were completely different than it is today, but we found a way to launch a company and then as things rolled on from Fox Sports Net to the Spike Saturday night slot to the Thursday night late night slot from the one hour to the two hour, Impact continued to grow… Collectively as a group, we always had a “never say die” attitude, we always knew that we were gonna pull it together some shape form or fashion, but there are setbacks in any start-up business. You look at statistics it’s not just wrestling – a startup candy shop, a startup coffee shop, a startup automotive place, the odds are against you. But as a group, our wrestling know-how with my father and the different pieces of the puzzle that fell together, and just timing of different things, we found a way to continue and prosper and really get the ball rolling, but of course, in any startup business, there are concerns.”
In 2004, the company then known as Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) struck a deal with Fox Sports to air on Fridays at 3 PM local time. It was a modest time slot, but it served as a launching pad for the company. They introduced the six-sided ring and stuck to it moving forward, but hit another bump in 2005 when Fox Sports chose not to renew their contract. Fortune was on their side, as WWE ended their contract with Spike TV around the same time in favor of returning to the USA Network, the channel they had previously aired on and still air on today.
TNA struck a deal with Spike TV and aired for a national audience in prime time for the first time in October of 2005. They began to expand with the establishment of homegrown stars and an influx of established talent from WWE like Kurt Angle, Christian, and others. It all seemed to be going along the right track, but a series of moves sent TNA into a spiral. Poor writing and poor management began to plague the promotion in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
They attempted to go head to head with Monday Night Raw, but the experiment barely lasted two months. I could go on for days about the many decisions that hindered Impact Wrestling throughout this period, but their poor ratings continued until 2014 when Spike TV chose not to renew their contract with TNA. They struck a deal with Destination America, an obscure channel similar to HDNet, but it only lasted through the end of 2015.
Today, Impact Wrestling finds their home on Pop TV, an equally obscure cable station that isn’t widely offered in basic packages. While the company has made huge strides to improve and create something consistently unique, their deal with Pop TV leaves them a glass ceiling just like Ring of Honor struggles with today.
Can anyone really compete with WWE?
All of this might sound a little pessimistic or cynical. I might sound like the guy who insists that the WWE is still the only game in town. On the contrary, I follow WWE, NJPW, Impact Wrestling, ROH, and even PWG when time allows. As good as much of that wrestling has become, there’s an explosion waiting in the distance if one company will simply step up and challenge WWE. It might sound improbable, but it was equally unlikely when WCW turned itself into a national product in the mid-1990s and went on to even defeat WWE in weekly ratings for an extended period of time.
The most obvious candidate is Impact Wrestling, and they’re well on their way to making themselves a viable threat. A lack of live broadcasts will hinder them due to the prevalence of spoilers online, but they are striving to accent the taped content with backstage segments and surprises that entice fans to tune into the weekly program. These are all positive moves, but they still leave Impact Wrestling out of direct competition with the WWE.
Ring of Honor has all the tools, but to compete, they would also need a commitment to at least semi-frequent live broadcasts and a serious national television deal. There is some hope that Billy Corgan’s recent purchase of the NWA could lead to a revival for the historic promotion, but that’s just a pipe dream right now. New Japan Pro-Wrestling is looking to expand in the United States and is improving the accessibility of their online service to an English-speaking audience, but again a lack of a consistent television presence in the United States will stop them from becoming actual competition.
Imagine the Return of Competition
Between the rise of mid-level promotions already mentioned and various independent promotions around the world, many feel that we are hitting a new golden age of professional wrestling. The quality has skyrocketed around the world, and the understanding of the business has evolved in a way that never could have been predicted a few decades ago. The internet has increased the ability of the average fan to find other options in the wrestling world, but they still have to actively decide to search for that content.
Competition drives innovation, and that’s what made the Monday Night War such a special period. If any company, whether it be Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor, NWA, or even New Japan Pro Wrestling, could garner a national television deal and start to compete on the same field as the WWE, the industry would be gifted with an explosion of greatness. WWE would push itself to new heights and levels of consistency if they saw a legitimate threat to their ratings, and the mere platform would drive that company to step up their game as many notches as is possible.
Believe it or not, this isn’t just a ‘what if’ game anymore. Wrestling is back in the mainstream, and you don’t have to look any further than WWE’s partnership with ESPN to see that. The business is rapidly expanding and everyone is trying to find their spot in this new landscape. WWE is aggressively acquiring talent while Impact Wrestling is pushing their product to an international level. All it takes is a company with the balls to bow up to the biggest dog in the yard and a television network with the faith to give them a shot. What’s the worst that could happen? Another Invasio- okay disregard that.
Today’s industry is back on the cusp of something special, and all it takes is one true competitor to turn all of this potential into a functioning competitive industry. I’m talking to you, Impact Wrestling. I’m talking to you, Ring of Honor. I’m talking to you, fan who wishes there was more wrestling on your television. All the needed ingredients are in place. We just need someone to pull the trigger and let the competition thrive once more.