Holy crap these crowds & the long road to finger-pokes
By Scott Keith on 3 November 2023
Hey Blog King,
Long time, multi-time. I'd love to hear your take if you have one:
On the morning news feed today (Sat.), I saw that WWE is running Germany in April/May, and the article cross referenced the Feb. show in Australia. Next week they're running Saudi & early April is Mania.
From SummerSlam to Backlash & counting both nights of Mania, that's 7 stadium level shows in 9 months for WWE. Add on AEW in Wembley to the mix and it's up to 8. Those are crowds of 34,000, 40,000, 50,000 60,000, 60,000, 60,000, 70,000, & 80,000.
I mean, this is astounding, right? I've been a fan since 87, and I don't think wrestling ever had the international market that it does now, nor had the ability to go for so many shows that large & pull it off in such a short time. (I appreciate the ambition of GAB's original run, but those peak crowds didn't approach most of these numbers.)
Between these shows, the sound bite of “#1 rated show on television” from earlier this year, the multiple billion dollar deals, the situation where Rock, Cena & Batista are all in-demand Hollywood stars, the mainstream sponsorship partnerships, & the fact that there are now a plethora of respectably rated wrestling shows on TV that have nothing to do with matches themselves (three A&E shows, Dark Side, Miz/Bella reality shows, Young Rock, etc.), I kind of think the industry has hit a new apex in popularity. I wouldn't say it's “bigger on every level,” but I'm definitely thinking bigger overall.
What say you? Does this feel bigger than the late 80s & late 90s heights to you?
Side (& better) question – for every high, there is always that one moment that seems to strongly represent the inevitable & eventual downward turn, at least with hindsight (finger-poke of doom, Austin heel turn, Horsemen jumping ship, Warrior getting the title, ECW's jump to TNN, etc.). Do you feel like WWE or AEW has had that representative moment from their current runs yet? And can you think of other great company runs that ended with a key bad moment?
The 90s will always be bigger because wrestling was EVERYWHERE. What today's product is, is wrestling monetizing a much smaller fanbase much more effectively. Plus 90s TV had a feeling of “If I miss this episode, I'm missing something huge!” and speaking for myself only, I almost never feel that way. Like the couple of rare occasions where I skipped Collision for example I barely even bothered to check the results afterwards. Hell I can't even go on Twitter during TV shows for either promotion without having the whole thing spoiled minute-by-minute anyway. Nature of today's audience.
As for a “fingerpoke” moment, the closest thing in recent memory was the Rollins-Fiend Cell match, which really felt like the low point of Vince McMahon's booking career and seemed to coincide with crowds and interest in WWE dropping to what would normally be dangerous levels. But then Vince got bounced and things got better.