Why There Will Never Be Another Wrestling Boom

FOX to their credit made WWE feel big-time with a committed, big time-feeling ad campaign roll-out, using its vast platform to its fullest. WWE flew in several big guns and shock celebrity cameos for the premiere, before producing an incredibly WWE-feeling show on week two complete with screwy finishes, poorly-received character development, a catastrophic draft and an over-familiar main event.

The arrogance of it all was perversely amusing. WWE is systemically unable to create stars, but more people now have the opportunity to watch non-stars on a night traditionally reserved for socialising—?????—boom!

At the close of the 1990s, the rampant WWF prospered. Maybe you remember it: Austin 3:16 t-shirts, chokeslams at Friday night sleepovers, Sable’s furtive adolescence sex symbol status. Those days are over. It’s clear, or should be clear, that WWE cannot grow in popularity with an ageing, out-of-touch autocrat controlling everything.

Nor do the market conditions exist for such an explosion in popularity across virtually every medium. In those halcyon days of…telling your friends to suck you off on the playground, limited entertainment options bred cultural explosions: Friends, nu-metal, South Park, ER, and yes, the Attitude Era all blew up in the mainstream, but that mainstream, fractured now by a towering wave of content and platforms, no longer exists.

The music industry is propped up by outrageously inflated gig prices in the wake of the death of the physical medium. The three-camera sitcom is all but dead. Blockbuster cinema has thrived, but televised drama has not. The finale of Game Of Thrones wasn’t just dissatisfying on its own terms; it appears to have marked the end of TV’s golden age. Video games remain the only viable form go physical media left.

This still isn’t much of an excuse for AEW’s inability to reach lapsed fans.

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