So, for the first time in forever, I was crusin some wrestlin boards this morning and came accross a topic on DVDR that really sparked my interest...so let's steal it!

The basic idea is: What would it take for you to get full-out excited and inspired by pro-wrestling again?

For me, I think it would take another major company who was actually doing things in a different way. The whole in-ring promo, backstage vignette, meaningless matches, thing has ran it's course for me. TNA doesn't count because they are just rehashing the same ATTITUDE formula. WWE is still living off the Mcmahon vs. Austin ideal, and won't change until they are seriously challenged.

What would the new company have to do to peak my interest? Unfortunately, I don't really know. They'd certainly have to capture some of the aspects of the wrestling I grew up with, but I'd also want them to do it in a way that is new and fresh. They'd have to have wrestlers who seemed like legit stars, but not repackaging old WWE / ECW / WCW stars.

I actually want less produntion quality, less music, less pyro. Not that it has to be "pure sports" type stuff, I'm just tired of all the gloss. want something different.

Any ideas?

Yeah, it's kind of a weird question to me at this point.

I don't really know if there is anything that will get me super excited again. I'm thinking that first off they need to change their direction for mostly everything for me to REALLY care.

They would have to generally focus their product more on wrestling and less on entertainment. Not only that but they'll have to start having payoff's for their major angles and deliver good matches for the most part.

I'm tired of seeing rehashed shit time and time again.

I'll add one more thing. No more PPV.
"But WMD, how will they make money?!?!""

I don't care. PPV has ruined pro wrestling. Everything is booked aroung the PPV, and now with a couple a month, nothing is special. I would like to see a return of a Clash of th Champions type thing where a couple of times a year feuds are blown off on free TV.
Just a related pet peave...I love when Net Marks get all pissed because a good match was on TV. "They gave away a PPV quality match for FREE!!!" That's gotta be the stupidest thing a fan could say. Who wouldn't like to see good quality matchups for free?

See, I'm of the thinking that PPV is vital.

Then again, I don't order anymore either.

But I would say that I'd gladly pay money for something if it was actually worth a shit.

You want good matches on TV, fine. But the bottom line is they aren't having good matches on TV OR PPV at this point and it's partly the reason I find myself not caring anymore.

I've harped about this before, but I'd like to see wrestlers who aren't trying to "be cool" or improve their "street cred". That's probably the biggest difference I see between old timey and modern wrestlers.

Modern wrestlers take their character way too seriously. Older wrestlers would have a little twinkle in their eye, like they knew the whole thing was goofy. Hulk Hogan really didn't expect to walk into a bar and tell everyone about the "3 Demandments". Whereas John Cena or Triple H expect to walk into a bar and receive high-fives or free drinks for being "cool" or 'bad ass".

Regardless of the match quality, I think wrestlers need to understand that there's no such thing as a "cool wrestlers". Being a pro wrestler, you are proclaiming yourself a dork; so don't fight it and just be the best dork you can be.

Going back to the old "wrestling as comic books" analogy-- it's like someone trying to proclaim comic books as "important literary masterpieces". Bullshit...they're frickin' comic books. The best comic books are one that don't try to be all pretentious and do not attempt to be something more that they are. The basic concept of comic book and pro wrestling is preposterous...so don't try to pump it up and make it "hip" or "relevant".

Something like Smoky Mountain Wrestling coming along would get me going pretty good. A product focused on wrestling that has real characters again. Simple plots, little time and money investment needed. Pretty much, I can invest two hours into a promotion per week. I might go to 2 or 3 shows a year. I won't buy PPV but I'll impulse buy DVDs at Bestbuy. So give me a solid wrestling show that takes an hour, comes to town every now and then and sells house shows on DVD.

Honestly though, I'm too jaded. I enjoy a few promotions here and there but investing in them weekly just doesn't happen long term because I have to search them out on the net and download the episodes.

Really, I don't need new wrestling anymore. My DVD collection is such and I have access to enough stuff that 1 or 2 hours a week gives me an infinate amount of material to watch weekly.

Also to add to something that MD just said, I simply don't have the time I used to devote to watching wrestling. I watch it if it's on TV, but I never have time to watch tapes and shit like I did years ago.

I think there are four things pro-wrestling can do.

1) Less PPVs. As some of you have mentioned, PPVs every month is ridiculous. In TNA and WWE, there are only four shows per company/brand before the next PPV, which means they are cramming far too much into far too little a time. I think 6 PPVs a year or less is more than enough. That would give each show/brand at LEAST 8 weeks, allowing more time to develop storylines, more time to build excitement, and more time for more wrestlers to get TV matches. Everything is just too rushed right now. Included in this is making title defenses a PPV-only thing (of course there should be exceptions for variety and storyline considerations, but not often.)

2) Less over-exposure. Stop with the crazy house-show and travel schedules. Stop with the 6 hours of your wrestling product on TV a week (assuming ECW has a 2 hour show...). Give us a good, solid, two hour show a week, and stop shoving the product down our throats. This would also greatly help the health of pro-wrestlers, as they would have more down-time to recover from minor injuries, etc.

3) Less Entertainment. As someone (I am too lazy to scroll up to see who) said, there needs to be more focus on wrestling and less on entertainment. I would even go so far as to have less scripting - some wrestlers should be able to work together without a script in the ring and some should also be able to promo without a script. This is probably one of the most important points, especially with MMA being as popular as it is. Also, less scripting would mean that when promoters plan big surprises, less people need to know about it and the likelihood of someone leaking shit to the smark newsites is greatly reduced.

4) LISTEN TO THE FANS! I have been saying this for a LONG time. Promoters need to use the internet as a tool and work with it instead of working against it. Promoters need to pay attention to who the fans are cheering and booing. They need to check the wrestling forums for fan opinions. They need to stop pushing people they THINK we like, and push the people we LIKE, regardless of their size/promo ability/good looks/breast size/previous promotion affiliations. Imagine all of the incredible athletes that could be main eventers right now if Vince sat back and actually paid attention to who we were cheering. Imagine how much healthier the wrestlers would be if they didn't have to worry about being the biggest, and just had to worry about being the most entertaining. Cut the wrestlers we don't like, push the wrestlers we do, and have the wrestlers kiss OUR asses for once, instead of their promoters'.

I think that instead of going BACK to what wrestling used to be like, wrestling needs to go FORWARD and embrace the changes that have happened in the society it is operating in.