I was fortunate enough to speak with Bryan Alvarez of Figure Four Online & The Wrestling Observer. Alvarez is the author of the recently released 100 Things WWE Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die in which he details what wrestling fans should be aware of regarding WWE (the good and the bad) and “things” that fans should aim to check off their bucket list.
Alvarez discusses what the implications are for WWE’s big move to FOX in October and what that means for the pro wrestling landscape. Alvarez says what he thinks it will take for wrestling to go through another boom period and it’s going to take a lot more than a just a big move to a primary network.
“Well I mean I think the number one thing to think about is that WWE has been on network TV over the last couple decades. You know stuff like UPN, but it never led to a boom period. I mean you can be in 120 million homes, which is great, FOX is a huge platform, but at the end of the day, a bad show, and man, if you follow television, there’s some shows that people really like that get canceled. All the time. All the time. I mean, at the end of the day, the network is important, cause I mean when Lucha Underground was on El Rey, I mean that was just it, it’s not a big enough platform, but you’ve got to present a good show, that’s it. And not only do you have to present a good show, but to really have another boom period, you have to present another good show and you got to have a Rock, a Steve Austin, a Vince McMahon/Steve Austin dynamic. You have to have something. And when I watch WWE now, they do not have a Steve Austin, they don’t have a Bruno Sammartino, they don’t even have a John Cena right now. And this idea that, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to go on FOX and all of a sudden we’re going to have a new boom period.’
“I mean I don’t think that them going on FOX is going to lead to a new boom period. Now, a year from now we could be talking about a new boom period, but the reason we could be talking about that is because if AEW on TNT takes off and WWE, like they really need to make some changes, and I don’t even know what those changes would be by the way. Number one would be getting rid of Vince, but that’s not going to happen, but AEW on TNT and WWE moving NXT… and RAW and SmackDown, SmackDown being on FOX. I mean there’s a lot of synergism here that could lead to a boom period, but none of that that I just said is solely because of WWE moving to FOX. You’d have to have good competition, you’d have to have people on AEW catching fire, you’d have to have WWE letting somebody take off and they have to have that person, and they’d have to have that person number one.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
You can purchase a copy of Bryan’s book on Amazon and to listen to his entire interview with WrestleZone, just stream it below:
