How The Future Of Wrestling Might Be In Grave Danger

What has happened instead is the undead grimness of professional wrestling in a bastardised and grossly unethical empty arena setting. WWE proceeded with WrestleMania, is proceeding with Money In The Bank, and beyond a few cinematic spectacles is mostly doing so with an ardent, weird and lazy approach that no-sells the context. An empty arena WWE show is literally, stupidly that: it is a normal WWE show in an empty arena. That they have produced two consecutive VIP Lounge segments with no fans looks absurd. It's the most acute visual of what a bastardisation sports entertainment is at the best of times. WWE is disconnected from reality. WWE is creatively bankrupt. A segment like the VIP Lounge absolutely does not work in this context. This context, in fact, illustrates how dumb a segment like that is normally.

These shows are abysmal - calculably so. Ratings are cascading. And if anything has been learned since 2015, and the sharp fall in WWE viewership since, is that these fans aren't lapsed, nor casual. They are gone.

Where AEW achieved has more in the way of artistic success - much of the promos are pre-taped and thus not jarring, storyline plans were altered to best maximise the skeleton crew, the wrestlers in the audience added so much to the ambience that the matches felt like fights, and not bizarre emulations - there should be no confusion: AEW's decision to proceed with creating original content is equally reprehensible. And, since the equivalent is an almost cartoonishly evil corporation, that is a terrible look that may yet erode so much of the good will built up with fans who want not only a better quality alternative but a plain better alternative, too.

Here's the question nobody in WWE nor AEW has asked, or nobody is hoping gets asked: what happens if somebody dies?

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