>>16712119(continued)
WWE, on the other hand, goes too far in the other direction. The matches have a ton of build up and often end up bland like what we saw on that Netflix Raw debut. It might spark some interest in old fans but it has a lot to do if it's going to keep them.
There's quite a bit of hate for it around here, but part of what draws a lot of people into joshi these days is that it tells low-key stories built around wrestlers that get people invested in them. Sure, some are coomers and what not but the point is they watch and the shows are match based. Again, this is not something that would succeed in the US but it's a hint of the right direction to take.
Prime wrestling in the US was what we saw in the territories and later in WCW. There were great stories, but you really just tuned in for some wrasslin' and it was okay to have filler matches with no real story behind them (which could potentially turn into stories if the workers did good things together).
Point is, no one's getting it right. WWE's downfall was when corporate went public. Its storytelling was built around the type of spectacle that scares investors off. Instead, its focus moved from making money by entertaining people to just squeezing as much profit out of the product as possible while trying to be as inoffensive as possible. Moving to Netflix isn't going to change that.
