Opinion by S_D

If there is one thing said about the diehard wrestling fans, it is that we are the real marks. Because no matter how destitute the product, no matter how uninspired the work, and no matter how stupid the decisions, we will never quit watching.

That statement once held true to describe me. Ever since I was 3 years old watching Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant, I was hooked. Nothing ever drove me away from the presentation. The Shockmaster didn't drive me away. The days of the Diesel/Sid main events didn't drive me away. Not even the necrophilia drove me away. But it's finally starting to happen.

The reason I was never driven away in the past is because I knew, with three major promotions, the next big thing could happen any day. One day, we had two constantly dull promotions. The next, we had ECW. One day, we had the return of the played-out Ultimate Warrior. The next, we had the birth of the New World Order. One day, we had a very burnt out and tired same nWo, the next we had Austin vs. McMahon.

But things had to change.

One day, we had three promotions. One month later, we had one. And as the leftover entities of WCW and ECW assimilated into WWE, what we should have gotten was the super-promotion that every fan dreamed of. But what we got was a super disaster that every fan feared. But so many articles have been written about the failure of the WCW/ECW InVasion that I would merely be beating a dead horse by talking about it again. That's not what this column is about anyways. The InVasion is a mere one reason amidst a quagmire of reasons in which my diehardedness, if you will, is dying.

The WWE vs. WCW angle, which should have been the single-biggest money making angle in the history of this business, was a monumental failure due to Vince McMahon's assertiveness in making WCW continuously look weak, despite the fact that it was now his company. This turned the casual fans away in droves.

The return of Ric Flair to WWE was what was supposed to bring those old-time WCW fans to the WWE product. But Flair didn't wrestle full-time. He was put into an owner feud with Vince. Ric's tenure as owner ended less than 7 months after it started and was turned into a wrestler again, but the luster of the Nature Boy in WWE had already worn away by that time.

The return of the original nWo faction of Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash was another plan used to rope the casuals and bring them back to WWE land. However, plans changed and unavoidable cirumstances happened immediately and the original nWo reformation didn't last for more than a month. Hogan was turned face. Hall was fired 3 months later. Nash suffered a biceps tear that put him out immediately. The nWo saw almost as many versions within 5 months in WWE as they did in their 4 years in WCW.

And finally, the WWE debut of Bill Goldberg. By this time, the casuals had understood what was going on: No matter what thing WWE offers that looks good on the surface, it will not look good in action. And the casuals couldn't have been more correct in this case. Within a month of his anticipated arrival, Goldberg had already been "WWE-ized". His trademark theme music was replaced with a far-less trademark remix. His signature black trunks had been changed to white/navy blue MMA-like shorts. He wasn't the monster he used to be. I mean, I'm a fan of Christian and everything, but no mid-carder should be getting anywhere near the amount of offense on Goldberg as he was in their RAW Cage Match. The mystique of Goldberg has already been killed and now he's just another wrestler. The casuals knew it before we did. The rating going down 0.2 points the week after Goldberg's debut is proof of this.

The beginning of the grand slam of failures was enough for the casuals to turn away. But is the entire grand slam, mixed in with tons of other factors, enough to start driving away the devoted, hardcore fans? It is in my case.

On RAW, we have Triple H dominating absolutely everything going on and systematically destroying the heat of every babyface on the RAW side. And he's done something that was once thought to be impossible: He's made Ric Flair boring. HHH has sucked away every bit of interest the RAW side could have. HHH says that his Internet detractors are just "12 year old kids on their parents' computers." Hey HHH, I'm 18 years old, a sophomore in college, and I bought this computer myself. And I still think you're horrible.

SmackDown! used to be a jewel of a show. When the SmackDown! Six of Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Rey Mysterio, and The Guerreros were tearing it up every week, SmackDown! consistently was the best show of the two and was the bright WWE spot a lot of us hardcore fans were looking for. We needed not to complain about The HHH Show, because we had SmackDown! three days later. But SmackDown! is a joke now. With Angle, Edge, and now Chavo Guerrero being out with injuries, three new focal points have emerged. Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan, and Roddy Piper. Brock Lesnar is the champion of SmackDown! yet he and his storylines get about 1\4 of the focus and attention that the neverending Hogan\McMahon\Piper saga is getting. It's just ridiculous to watch a product now that is based around a non-wrestler and two men old and crippled enough to where they should be non-wrestlers. Remember in 1997 when Jim Ross chastised WCW for putting "Age In The Cage" as the main event for their Halloween Havoc PPV? Here we are, six years later, and by Vince putting this same match, more age-sans cage, on a 2003 PPV, it's obvious that he doesn't.

But after all this, the argument is made that despite everything we say, Vince and WWE doesn't care because we, as hardcore fans, will keep watching no matter what.

Well, I've recently found myself watching a lot less.

I have not watched RAW in two straight weeks. Guess how many times I've done that since the inception of the show in January 1993? Never.

I have not watched SmackDown! in two straight weeks. Guess how many times I've done that since the inception of the show in August 1999? Never.

The last PPV I've watched was WrestleMania XIX. The last PPV I watched before that? Unforgiven.

My diehardedness is dying hard. And if Vince and WWE doesn't watch it, I won't be the only hardcore fan telling stories like this.

S_D
©WrestlingDB, 2003.