I agree. Most of the guys who get called up to the main roster get hosed shortly thereafter so Vince can play with whoever is next on the list. It's weird to not really want people to get "called up" because it's almost guaranteed that they're going to be put into a position to fail.

From what I can tell, early TNA was pretty good and ECW-ish. They should have let Raven win the TNA Championship during his "destiny" run, he was extremely over (more than Jeff Jarrett), still looked great and could still put on a great match, but nah, they just fed him to Jeff Jarrett. Jeff. Jarrett. At least that match holds up as possibly the best in TNA history.

I remember Eugene. I went to a house show and Eugene was on the card ABOVE a Randy Orton match. I quit watching around 2006 too, mainly because of Rey Mysterio winning nine times outta ten against giants despite being "the underdog". Every single match Michael Cole went on about how Rey "is undersized/the underdog/has the heart of a champion" etc etc. How can somebody who almost always wins be the underdog? Well, that applies to Cena too haha. I still feel like Tajiri should have been the one to rise out of the Cruiserweight division, he was great in every role they put him in.

WWE used to have a pretty great Women's Division in the late Attitude/early Ruthless Aggression era. Victoria, Molly Holly, Ivory, Trish and Lita were all great. Then they all seemed to disappear within a year and you had Torrie against Stacy for the championship hahaha...aw I made myself sad.

I've been reading up a bit on current WWE and as much praise as Daniel Bryan gets it just seems to me that they're trying to make him into a combination of Rey Mysterio and John Cena while putting him in a slightly altered McMahon/Austin storyline.

I just don't get how people see the WWE as anything different than the failing days of WCW. The WWE fails to utilize talent, squashes potentials, runs weak story lines, and generally doesn't seem to care about its product any more. When WCW did that, they bled out 60 million in debt and ended up losing the Monday night wars. Difference being that WCW was owned by a billionaire that walked away... WWE is owned by a billionaire who sticks to his guns. But at what cost? When WWE went public, I would have gladly scooped up a bunch of shares. I wouldn't go near the WWE product or its investments now if you offered to buy it for me.

Wrestling has always had a mean bell curve to success, and a heavy downside in the bad times. Remember the early 90s, when a midget blew up Sting on a boat, and the WWF had Pete Rose running around in a chicken costume? Yeah, I think those days are here again. The WWE writing team could sit down and hammer out one hell of a story, but instead they choose to put goofballs and weirdos in the ring for the sake of cheap pops. It's a bad sign.

Personally, I think the best thing Mcmahon could do for wrestling would be to split up his franchise, at least publicly, and offer a product that at least seems like the territory days of old. Let's face it, fans on the east coast don't always like what fans like in Memphis or Portland. The product is stale and everyone is losing out. Vince should 'break up' his product... say in a dynasty feud or another 'invasion', then let the dust settle and new companies emerge. That way it would have story legitimacy as well as offering a chance to fans to see different types of wrestling in different places. The homogenization of wrestling is killing the business.

The interesting thing about Bryan is that when he appears there's a constant tension as to whether WWE will bow to the fans and finally let him have a serious run with the title, or continue to dismiss him as a flash in the pan who should accept his destiny as an upper card JTTS. There are similarities to Austin/McMahon but it's not quite the same thing because there's a lot of evidence that, unlike Austin, McMahon genuinely doesn't view Bryan as championship material and is baffled as to why this undersized hippie keeps getting the biggest reactions on the show.

One thing I hate is how WWE keeps breaking up tag team and when the tag team breaks up, they become lost in the single wrestler shuffle. The tag team division seems neutered ever since the mass tag team breakups or releases. Why can't they just let them stay a tag team and let them also compete for single titles or wrestle 1 on 1 also?

Cesaro became boring after The Real Americans broke up.
Jack Swagger was irrelevant for awhile before his feud with Rusev.
Titus O'Neil stayed a jobber after Prime Time Players broke up. He had mic time at first, but then he was forgotten.
I'm wonder if Ryback/Axel will break up next.
I was almost afraid for the tag team division after they teased that cody/gold dust breakup awhile back.

Another thing that annoys me is how the top 'good' guys have this insane winning %. The 'bad' guys have to cheat or have interference to win a lot of times and have a poor win %.

I thought of the same thing when I read the topic and I am a huge South Park fan. Wrestling is not my cup of tea but i did watch it with my brother in the late 90s.

I saw an old match from the mid 90s the other night that was simply great. Rick Rude (US Champion) and Big Van Vader vs Sting and Ron Simmons (World Heavyweight Champion). It was just after Ron Simmons (yes,the same Ron Simmons as the one in the APA) had won the World Heavyweight Championship from Big Van Vader, and Sting and Rick Rude were feuding over the US Championship at the time.

I was a huge WCW fan back during the 90s. All my faves were there, Sting, Goldberg, DDP, the Horsemen, Booker T, Eddie Guerrero, (RIP,) a young Big Show, Rey Mysterio and a LOT of great cruiserweight talent.

It was a sad day for me with Vince McMahon bought it out, and I really kinda stopped watching after.