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If you've stopped watching WWE (or wrestling in general) at any point, what was the "last straw"?


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I've given up on the WWE twice in my life. The first time was Katie Vick. Not because it was offensive or anything but because it was just fucking terrible. I started watching again after a couple of months though, mostly because I wanted to see Benoit, Guerrero, Jericho, etc. 

More recently, the last straw for me was The Viking Experience. Not just because it's a stupid name but because I realized if THAT was the best idea WWE creative could come up with, then all hope was lost. I've been hanging by a thread lately mostly because I would still watch for certain guys (Joe, AJ, Bryan, Ali, etc) but hearing the names "Erik and Ivar" just broke my spirit. There's so much other wrestling out there nowadays (ROH is syndicated, MLW is on youtube, NJPW world is affordable, AEW is coming) that I honestly don't feel the need to keep watching WWE when I'm not really enjoying it anymore. If someone really hypes a certain match as being good, I may watch that specific match but I won't be tuning in to Raw or Smackdown anytime soon. 

So how about the rest of you? If you've ever given up on WWE (or wrestling in general), what was the cause of it?

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I gave up on all of wrestling from 1995 Royal Rumble to WrestleMania season 1997.  I'm not sure why,  I was still a kid so you'd think the awful WWE gimmicks I would have been a target for those but I couldn't do it.  

What brought me back was the nWo.  I started seeing t-shirts around and I saw a couple commercials those black/white TV promotionals with Hogan as the heel and I said "hmm this looks different..."  and one Saturday evening I was home alone flipping through the channels and I stopped on WCW and saw Sting was looking like The Crow but he was an outcast. 

Immediately I said "holy shit, this is pretty awesome" and other kids at school started talking about it so I started watching so I could keep up with their conversations.  

This led to me going to see what WWF was up to and I liked what was going on with Bret Hart and Stone Cold so that grabbed my attention very quickly as well.  

Okay,  so from that point on I rented some tapes and caught up to everything that had happened with WCW.   I still haven't seen some WWF PPVs from '95-'97.  Some, not all. 

 

The second time I stopped watching was around the time Eddie died in late 2005 until around WrestleMania 23..   They hooked me back in with the "Vince has gone crazy"  angle but then when Benoit killed his family I was pretty much out again through much of the "PG" Era...   

I still watched sporadically but between the PG stuff which was so kiddy and the guest host bullshit and the RAW GM bullshit and the Johnny Ace bullshit,  it was all very terrible.  Way worse than what's going on now.  

I got fully invested again once The Shield and Daniel Bryan started having great matches every week.  That was I think sometime in 2012. I did catch the Money in the Bank 2011 and stuff with Punk but the follow up sucked.   It might be time for another break soon.  

Edited by Niners Fan in CT
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For me it was the Invasion angle. It was such a spectacularly blown opportunity and combined with how the Radicalz were being positioned at the time and even dating back to Bret in Montreal, I never thought one of "my guys" would be given a shot again. Of course, if I had just had patience I would've been proven wrong but I was young and brash and in love for the first time so it just fell away. I started paying attention more for Wrestlemania 20 but was out again soon after and then after Eddie and Benoit passed I was done until Daniel Bryan showed up. They almost lost me again when he got fired but it all worked out.

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I quit watching WCW  somewhere in 2000. Quit watching TNA regularly years ago, unless its one match I want to see.  But that's extremely rare.

Quit watching Smackdown for years until 2015. Even then it's not always regularly. Skip most of Raws first hour a lot these past years, anything I need to know from the first hour I just get from results. Wish Raw was more about characters and bullshit and less the matches.

Don't really watch NOAH much anymore since the Suzuki Gun era. But in hindsight NOAH is always pointless to watch because they can't make a new ace or maintain one for long.

Really want to go back to watching old stuff and will watch more puroresu again eventually.

 

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I've never stopped watching WWE completely, but I'd say after Benoit dropped the title to Orton, my interest level was really low. My interest in the indies had gradually been taking over since my first ROH show in March 2003. It happened to be Night of Champions when Samoa Joe won the ROH title and the Second City Saints were formed. I've continued to watch WWE mainly for the guys I supported on the indies.

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Had more important things to worry about.  Benoit didn't help; if anything, his issues also brought the NFL's head trauma to the forefront so clearly for me that I'd like to see the NFL get burned the fuck down just as fast as WWE.  Hearing about Misawa a few years later just about slammed the door closed.  But I was already souring on it.  I used to be the sort of person who could see the artistry in what was going on in a match, could describe it to people in a way to help it be seen differently.  But, eventually, I realized the artistry was simply far too rare, too contained within too few performers capable of expressing that with their work.

At the end of the day, the wrestling industry is one of the more exploitative ones out there (at least if you're making a "first-world problems" kind of argument), especially considering its profile and revenue.  And I've felt this way about it long before the Real Sports pieces or John Oliver's more recent piece.  

I think I mentioned over in the "Not the Now" thread about Hokuto being my favorite wrestler (and she still is, because, duh).  There's as good a tragic storyline with her work, and her rise and fall, presaging the arc All Japan Women's itself would take, as there is anywhere in all of the industry.  She physically destroyed herself in the process of being the best at her job, and she succeeded on both fronts.  It wasn't a gimmick or a story.  She didn't end up in a wheelchair or on a slab, so someone could lamely argue it could have been worse, but her highest moments were nearly always undercut by her body giving out due to the workload.

I guess what I wonder is, "Is that worth it?" I suppose I know the answer she would give.  But I still have to answer for myself, and the answer is a strong 'no'.  No one should have to do that.  And there's probably something wrong with us that we think it's entertaining, or some form of escapism.  I still feel like my stomach is coated in motor oil whenever I think about it.

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Couldnt tell you when, that's how long it has been. 

I am happy not to patronize the company or give them any money. Luckily, Matt bought our tickets to the first NXT show here, so I technically didnt give them MY money. ?

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1 hour ago, BrianS81177 said:

I've given up on the WWE twice in my life. The first time was Katie Vick. Not because it was offensive or anything but because it was just fucking terrible. I started watching again after a couple of months though, mostly because I wanted to see Benoit, Guerrero, Jericho, etc. 

More recently, the last straw for me was The Viking Experience. Not just because it's a stupid name but because I realized if THAT was the best idea WWE creative could come up with, then all hope was lost. I've been hanging by a thread lately mostly because I would still watch for certain guys (Joe, AJ, Bryan, Ali, etc) but hearing the names "Erik and Ivar" just broke my spirit. There's so much other wrestling out there nowadays (ROH is syndicated, MLW is on youtube, NJPW world is affordable, AEW is coming) that I honestly don't feel the need to keep watching WWE when I'm not really enjoying it anymore. If someone really hypes a certain match as being good, I may watch that specific match but I won't be tuning in to Raw or Smackdown anytime soon. 

So how about the rest of you? If you've ever given up on WWE (or wrestling in general), what was the cause of it?

See you again in a couple of months.

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1 hour ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Benoit?

It might surprise some people here to find out that I was right there with the general consensus about Benoit being the best at the time. Trying to extract enjoyment out of wrestling in general (not just WWE) seemed like an insurmountable challenge after that. I did end up getting hooked up with tickets to the 2010 Rumble during my break and the roster had turned over enough that I only recognized half of the wrestlers. And then Edge won the Rumble, so I didn't feel like I was missing much. Fuck Edge.

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What drove me away (asides from a professional cooking career), was the generation of guys like Randy Orton and that French Canadian tag team... they were so bad. That whole era featured nothing but cookie cutters who couldn't work a wrist watch -let alone a wrist lock. For someone who grew up on Bret, Steamboat, Hennig, Martel, etc... what the WWF was throwing out there was putrid. 

I've never seen an episode of TNA or ROH. 

What brought me back to the WWF was their WWE Network. I wanted to catch all the old stuff I grew up on... and that in turn led me to NXT. It's easy to say NXT brought me back. I had no idea who the names were... but it was right around the time when Kevin Owen's debuted. I quickly got caught up on who everyone was and what they did before WWE. 

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Benoit had nothing to do with how I felt about pro wrestling. I'll still go back and watch his work. Where he was at at the end of his life is not the guy we loved. Anyone who has ever cared for an elderly grandparent with alzheimers or dementia could attest to that. 

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I stopped watching WWE when Vince killed WCW and ECW, finally killing the territories. Fuck him.  

I never stopped watching Japan and Mexico. I watch whatever comes up on my cable, but some stuff is junk and really just background noise while I do something else.

 

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Huntermania in 2003, especially Wrestlemania XIX, was definitely part of my growing sense of needing to not support the WWE company anymore. (Though the "victory lap" era of WWF/E booking after buying out WCW & ECW and becoming a virtual monopoly wasn't helping and I was already weary of the E's storytelling conventions)

But mostly it was the cumulative effect of all the deaths of guys I grew up liking in that 02--04 period that eroded my will to watch.

Also I cut the cord for a while in those years so I gave up on RAW by necessity but stuck with the still on UPN Smackdown for a while longer.

And I've been mostly waiting for you guys to alert me to anything that might be worth coming back for ever since ?

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Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie

I stopped watching WWF in April 1998 (I was at the Raw in Hampton where DX went to the Norfolk Scope, and I was so disinterested that I stopped the moment that show ended). I gave up on WCW a couple of months later when they had main events with Karl Malone, Dennis Rodman, and Jay Leno on consecutive pay-per-views. Then I was forced out of watching ECW when the TV station that was carrying it closed. By that point, I had gotten into Japanese wrestling, so I didn't feel like I was missing much.

I tried watching WWE again after the first ECW One Night Stand, but got turned off after Eddie Guerrero died. Then I tried watching again at the start of 2007, but the Benoit thing stopped me cold. I was announcing locally so I really only paid attention to what I was working on (outside of SHIMMER) until I quit doing announcing in 2010.

I figured wrestling was just a part of my past, especially after I started my transition. I was really only lurking around here out of habit. Then I started hearing about good women's matches happening at NXT, so I started watching again since NXT was on Hulu. I've also been trying to get more into indies now that I feel like I can enjoy it as a fan again, plus there are so many women on the indies these days that are pretty fun to watch. Nothing against the guys, but they don't really hold my interest.

I think the only way WWE would get me to be a regular viewer is to have a weekly all-women's show. Aside from that, with wrestling in its current form, I pick and choose from what I hear is good.

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I stopped following WWE at the end of 2003. My interest had been waning for a while, mainly due to getting into various indy promotions and the lackluster nature of the WWE in general. I also only had broadcast tv around that time and even with SD on network TV I never had much interest in what I saw. A few times here and there I'd watch a PPV or a show if I was at a hotel but Edge, Randy Orton, and John Cena dominating the main event scene and the rest of the show being incredibly underwhelming did nothing to recapture my interest.

I still kept up with indies regularly then stopped following wrestling in general for about a year starting in 2009. A lot of the promotions I followed were getting stale and I was at a pretty low point in life in general at the time. At one point in early 2019 I actually sold off a big chunk of my vhs and dvd collection that I never watched anymore and had quit posting here and reading other wrestling sites. A while later I found out my building was getting free cable and tuned into Raw out of boredom just in time for the summer of Punk (I knew he and Bryan were in WWE at the time but figured they were relegated to nu-ECW or something else lower card). This area also got ROH in syndication at the same time which also helped recapture my interest. I'd heard about NXT but thought it was just the same evolution of Tough Enough that it had been . Then in the summer of 2013 I found myself with a lot of downtime at work and started watching back episodes when they were all on hulu. My interest in the WWE main roster has ebbed and flowed since then, but for the past several years I've gotten back into indy wrestling due to so many promotions getting hot and the variety of ways to watch.

Having this board as a (mostly) positive place to discuss wrestling and other topics has also helped keep my fandom intact. The sleaze thread brought me here and it's the only place I've consistently enjoyed reading peoples' takes on the wrestling world.

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