This has been brewing since 2001. They were able to coast on a sea of talent for a few years, but never really replenished the old stars with the same caliber of super stars. Yeah we got Kurt Angle, Brock, and John Cena. But even a John Cena seems like he would be an upper mid card guy back in the boom period. Hell the one guy they had get over was CM Punk, and he did it on his own. If CM Punk had happened during the monday night wars he would be up there with Austin, Rock, etc just for the mic work alone.
In the 80s Vince basically bought out all the territories. Those territories had created some great stars, and basically WWF got a roster of the very best all over the country because there were places for these people to work, make a living, and get better. Imagine a dozen NXT's interlinked, sharing talent, polishing into better wrestlers, etc. Then Vince buys them out and we have a huge roster of awesome guys. But he basically destroyed the field which these wrestlers grew from. We just lucked out that Ted Turner likes wrestling on his station and buys Georgia Championship wrestling, that has a different style, and is another place people can make a living doing this other than WWE. Otherwise I could have seen the early 90s depression wwe era being the end.
So in the 90s we have aging roster from the 80s boom period go down south, and draw money then combine that with some of the newer popular 90s guys and we mix them into the nWo and BOOM wrestling gets jolted out of the depression it was in, and we launch into the Monday night wars.
Thing is the 80s popular wrestlers were still good enough to go (somewhat slower paced now though), and the 90s guys were awesome, but we no longer had territories pulling in guys and allowing them to learn their craft. So we get a few stand outs from ECW that brought in Japanese guys or guys who went to japan like Benoit, Guerrero etc, and also let under card guys show their worth doing promos (like Austin).
But through stupid decisions WCW no longer profits, and with the merger an already unprofitable brand that the new executives didn't like to begin with gets axed. Now we are in 2001 and the 80s guys are getting REALLY OLD but can do a few more years, the 90s guys either got hurt (Austin, HBK) or left (Rock) and we have another vaccum forming but there is no longer anywhere to work, its the 90s story again but no Ted Turner to bail out a company and keep it going. So now we have a long decline and while maybe not dying, it won't ever turn around like it did in the late 90s.
Vince doesn't have a reason to take risks anymore, the older guard is replaced by writers, everything is scripted out of the ass, you don't need blood, but you need something organic and almost real to pique interest. Thats what CM Punks pipebomb was. How they dropped the ball on what could have been another Austin KOTR moment blows my mind.
Roman Reigns doing what hes doing now is like Rocky Mavia dying a slow death as the blue chipper getting booed out of the building. I don't know if he can act, I dont know if he even needs to act, but Reigns cutting a promo from the heart telling the crowd to fuck off would be the first interesting thing I've ever seen him do. Hell if that happened I might even tune in to watch what happens the next week!
