In a preview of the new version of Notsam Wrestling headed to the WWE Network in the new year, host Sam Roberts chats with Bruce Prichard about the hardships of WWE in 2020 and how it compares with the company’s transition into new territory back in 1993. In January of that year, the company switched from taping batches of episodes occasionally to putting on a live production each week, and it posed a fair share of problems.
Bruce recalls how the room they had at the Manhatten Center was not ideal to put on a wrestling show, and how they had to bring in equipment and wrestlers through the front door before showtime. One wonders if WWE had to do that when they returned to the venue for RAW 25, and why that portion of the show let down so many hardcore fans with its brevity.
It is an interesting comparison that Sam makes in the video. 2020 is the first time in a long time that WWE has had to make do with what they had rather than define their own Universe. No amount of money can buy them out of a pandemic, and even the critically acclaimed ThunderDome is a compromise that they’d sacrifice in a minute for that genuine crowd reaction. As that becomes a reality in 2021 (hopefully!), it will be interesting to see how many other things change in the transition back to normalcy.
