Breaking The Walls Down - Innovation
Submitted by Chris Dailey on Tuesday, July 5, 2005 at 4:45 PM EST







Breaking The Walls Down







Hello all and welcome back to another edition of Breaking The Walls Down. Happy belated July 4th to all those who celebrate it. I had a great weekend that is one for the record books. But, you don’t want to hear about those stories and with the news kind of slow with the holiday, we’ll skip Bits and Pieces this week and go right for the column.











Innovation









I sat down at my computer with the full intention on giving The WWE a grade mid-way through the year. Then, as my thoughts began to wonder, something hit me, about the state of professional wrestling as a whole and where the genre of professional wrestling is headed. It is my belief that professional wrestling, as a whole, is still in a slump that still hasn’t found that something to pull it out. It’s not all doom and gloom, but it’s reality. Professional wrestling is in a funk when it comes to innovation.







Innovation is something that constantly evolves in professional wrestling. To look to The WWE for innovation is easy, or at least it used to be. True innovation takes groundbreaking ideas and fundamentals and forms them into a kind of hybrid philosophy that transforms our way of thinking. During “The Attitude Era” of The WWE (then WWF), innovation was showing up in mass quantities. Whether it was “Stone Cold” Steve Austin or The Rock, innovation was there. But, a synonym for the word innovation is improvement and The WWE certainly did this as well. The WWE introduced us to “Hell In A Cell” a steel structure that resembled the cage used in WCW’s War Games. But, The WWE’s version was more cold, somehow, and much more violent.






Sure, it can be argued that the whole “Attitude Era” was borrowed or stolen from ECW, but again, the synonym for innovation is improvement and The WWE sought to improve an already existing product. It can be argued whether or not they were successful in improving what ECW had done. Certainly one of the two remains in business today, due to finances, but the one that went under due to poor finances, is, seemingly, never forgotten by the fans. Regardless, the “Attitude Era” was born and we, the fans, thrived off of it. We loved cheering on Austin, The Rock, Foley, Undertaker, HBK, Triple H, etc. and professional wrestling, as a whole, benefited from the largest promotion in the world innovating its product.







But, now the professional wrestling world is wrapped up in the mediocrity that has ensued from one of the, if not the, largest financial boom the profession as ever seen. Toiling in mediocrity is not something that is good, but it’s not bad either. Professional wrestling is in no danger of folding. The WWE still has a relatively successful product and will continue to push that product; however, all the meanwhile, they are looking for that next innovative idea. The next thing that will put them over the top and make the world stand up and recognize the professional wrestling product as a whole.






The question is, therefore, is professional wrestling looking for innovation or a revolution? I would argue that revolution is too strong of a word to use at this point. Innovation is definitely key here. As great as “The Attitude Era” was, it was all about the violence, attitude, and sex. What is left to be truly innovative? I don’t think The WWE (and it must be The WWE being innovative, because they get the most attention) has to reinvent the wheel, but they must come up with something, anything, that can begin to lead The WWE, and professional wrestling as a whole, in some sort of direction and, sadly, I don’t see that happening yet.








Competition can be said to insight innovation. What competition does The WWE have? I’ve given them there chance, but when I talk to various fans, The NWA-TNA is simply nothing more than a Jerry Jarrett/Dusty Rhodes hallucination that is not inspiring fans. It has the feel of WCW all over it and the six-sided ring novelty has worn off. Many fans I have spoken with, simply don’t care about the six-sided ring and aren’t ready for that kind of innovation. So, the question then becomes what exactly is today’s wrestling fan looking for in terms of innovation?






I won’t profess to know the answer to that question, but I can guess. Wrestling fans that I’ve spoken with are interested in a product that is riveting, something that has intense physical action and has a sizeable amount of violence on it when called for. Something that has less talking and more action. Sometimes a story line isn’t needed to be successful. I think that storylines are great and they’ve helped the business tremendously, but maybe the business depends too much on them. I always fall back to it, but ECW was successful because of the innovation that was used. Maybe, just maybe, Vince McMahon and many other promoters will take notice of what made ECW successful for the fans and apply it to their brand of wrestling in a more consistent manner. Then, we won’t have a PPV once in a blue moon that is great entertainment, we’ll have a product that is innovative.









Well, that will do it for this week. I hope all of you have a safe and happy week and have had a safe and happy July 4th. And, as always, join me as I try to “educate people on the realness of the fakeness of professional wrestling”©.




Later,
Chris Dailey















• The Beautiful People Ass Shots: Hot Pics
  

• Quick Links -
  [Back to LOP] [News Archives] [Results] [Columns] [Forums]