What were the Top Five ways to spark the wrestling industry ten years ago, just a few months removed from WWE buying the last of its competition, WCW? PWTorch editor Wade Keller broke down what could spark the industry in his column from Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #676 in October 2001. See which ones materialized and which ones have not...

Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #676
Cover-Dated October 27, 2001
End Notes With Wade Keller - Five Ways to Spark Wrestling Industry
By Wade Keller, Torch editor

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The wrestling industry in this country is at the mercy of the WWF. If the WWF is entertaining, then things are fine. If they're not, then you're stuck watching some of those other channels you never noticed existed before WCW and ECW went under. There are a number of things that could happen, though, to change the current situation. Here are five possibilities...

-A major financial backer gets behind the launch of a new wrestling promotion: This is the obvious scenario that could change the face of the industry. If Eric Bischoff, Jimmy Hart, Jerry Jarrett, Hulk Hogan, Ted Turner, or another major player with past ties to wrestling were to lead a start-up effort with major funding and a smart business plan, things could get interesting. The best way to make things exciting would be for that promotion to sign enough major names right away to be taken seriously, and then get a major cable clearance on Monday nights head-to-head with Raw. A start-up wrestling promotion might find no more success on cable than WWF Excess or ECW on TNN if they were to choose another night of the week. On Mondays, though, they'd have a built-in audience and they'd immediately renew the energy-level that existed in the early days of the Monday Night Wars. Even if the promotion were inferior to the WWF in eight out of ten ways, it would attract wrestling fans who were sour on the WWF and could build on that.

-Ultimate Fighting Championships takes off in a big way. The UFC events are as close as wrestling fans can get to a major league alternative product to pro wrestling right now. Unfortunately, by being on PPV only once every few months, it's hard to consider them head-to-head competition for WWF fans. If UFC were to begin running a weekly TV show on a major network in which they featured two matches per week with preliminary fighters and spent the rest of the program hyping the major PPV matches with real-life promos and background features, it could attract more pro wrestling fans then it currently does. UFC in the ring is what pro wrestling would be like if "it were real." But it lacks the promos and week-to-week soap opera drama that makes pro wrestling a year-round addicting entertainment outlet. If UFC were weekly, it would take on more of those traits.

-The WWF splits up into two separate promotions. This is the most likely to happen, although there's no guarantee it would shake up the industry all that much. If WWF1 and WWF2 were mirror images of each other in terms of presentation, in-ring styles, and pacing, it would have less impact than if the spin-off were genuinely different. Vince McMahon's best bet is to make the second promotion very different, including setting up a completely separate creative team that does not communicate with the WWF1 creative team at all other than to propose "talent trades" that they believe might benefit both promotions and the wrestlers involved. There should be a true sense of competition between the two promotions to outdraw and out-innovate each other. The WWF has been suffering without that sense of a rival to run from or chase down. Vince McMahon should set up that situation under the WWFE corporate structure. It would provide fans with two genuine alternatives, something that many fans resent not having and thus have turned out completely as a result.

-The WWF signs every major free agent, no matter what the expense. If Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Goldberg, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, Lex Luger, Sting, and Ric Flair all showed up on WWF TV over the next few months, the WWF would have even more of a roster overflow problem than they currently do, but that's a good problem to have. They would also attract a lot of fans who have turned out in recent months (or years) as long as they handled the acquisitions in a creative fashion. The influx of WCW talent this summer didn't lead to a lasting boost in business because the Invasion angle was poorly executed overall and the WCW talent was seen as the WCW B-teamers for the most part. A "second invasion" with the Big Boys would be different.

-Indy Promoters Get Their Acts Together: This is the least likely to happen, but if indy promoters across the country were to unite in an organized, wise fashion and coordinate the use of free agent indy talent and pool resources to put together strong regional TV shows, a grassroots network might be strong enough to give dozens of indy wrestlers strong full-time incomes. There may never be a time when more TV-familiar names are available for indy work than now. If there is a coordinated effort, including a major website run by the promoters dedicated to tracking upcoming dates and providing video streams of all indy wrestling events, some semblance of a national wrestling alliance could exist. It wouldn't compete with the WWF, but would provide an alternative for fans everywhere.

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