I'd like to start off by saying that the past few months have been excellent for Monday Night Raw. I never saw such a streak of interesting programming since the summer of 2011 which was mostly thanks to Punk and Rhodes for me. The revitalization of The Mcmahon family as a heel staple, Randy Orton as a heel champion, D-Bryan is the top babyface, the incorporation of The Rhodes family into things have all worked together seamlessly. Even Cena was interesting prior to his injuries, and Punk was damn well exhilarating.
Let's move on the the real topic: Wrestling has been in a decline for at least half a decade. Sports entertainment no matter how drenched in kayfabe, and soap opera nonsense is an important aspect of our television culture. Since the 1950's professional wrestling has thrived on the television and vice-versa. Look at the statistics for wrestling programming at it's highest and it's impact on our hyper-capitalistic culture and you'll find that it's a little more than Homoerotic Twister.
Jim Cornette besides being the most liberalistic southerner I've ever heard of can vouch for me on this one. The end of the wrestling territories meant the end for the initial soul of the industry and its talent. Wrestling Started out in little territories all sanctioned out and divided by the NWA; Not the rap group, but rather the National Wrestling Alliance; They insured that not one promotion wouldn't try and dominate the other.
In the Vaisya territory of the south you had legends like Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Magnum TA, and Jerry The King Lawler; In the Brahmin territory of the Northeast coast you had guys like Bruno Sammartino, Buddy Rogers, Billy Graham, Pedro Morales, Bob Backlund and Andre The Giant. For the most part even though The East coast had Madison Square Garden, the star quality of the south always kept them in equilibrium.
Vince Sr. made sure that his business wouldn't bankrupt the other territories, where this son whom bought the company from his dying pops had "better" plans: In the middle of the 1980's Vince was going to take over the nation, which lead the other territories to unify under reaction. Thus WCW was made in order to compete with the WWF. The WWF acquired the one and only Hulk Hogan whom was fired by Vince's dad for playing a major role in Rocky III: He was over in the AWA yet mistreated by the higher ups for his "lack" of technical ability.
The key was to form the Wrestling equivalent of The Superbowl, complete with heavy patriotism to appease to the youth suffering from the nihilism of the Cold War, amongst other wars or future wars of that period. As with anything in the 1980's loving your country was as deep as waving a flag around and chanting "muh freedomz" with colorful protagonists. WCW in it's early NWA/Jim Crocket-esque days got the jump with Starrcade, yet WCW still killed that event with the inclusion of Mr. T and Cindi Lauper.
Future stars taken from the NWA would be repackaged to destroy the territories. Enter The Ultimate Warrior, and The Undertaker. Once the 1980's were over and steroid allegations became rampant WCW had the oppurtunity to rise as a promotion. Eventually they got Hogan and their billionaire in Southerner Ted Turner. It wasn't long until they formed a counter-culture storyline in the NWO from elements of Japanese Wrestling storylines.
WCW was now a southern empire of professional wrestling with it's own program of "Monday Nitro" to compete with WWF's "Monday Night Raw". Before they can be wiped out, The WWF made their own counter culture face in Stone Cold Steve Austin. This time it's a Southerner dishing out payback to his Yankee boss and his spoiled family. This lead the Rock in his peripheral souther glory to shine. Eventually WCW had to fall, their Writing team and booking declined, and Turner (like a liberals) made a bad investment causing Time Warner to crash.
WCW died in a shocking fashion, with the WWF buying them out, then humiliating them in buy broadcasting their show live simultaneously with Raw to reveal the truth to the public. Ultimately this leads to the ridiculously bad Invasion storyline, along with a brand split to keep up with the new talent from WCW and ECW.
As a result we now have TNA that's mostly set in arenas from the south to compete with the WWE. Granted, even with Hogan as head commissioner they still can't compete with the now global corporation that is The WWE. To prove that they cater to a perverted Vaisya audience they broadcast their show on Spike Tv: Home to MMA which is too scary for the Brahmins (aside from the frat boys). Various TNA wrestling gimmicks and characters are too southern for the WWE (Freakin' Cena is from a suburb in Massachusetts).
To compensate for the ultra brahmins in the east coast too radical for Vince we now have ROH to compensate for ECW. Instead of hardcore "wrestling" matches we now have wrestling with a technical pedigree to keep the autistic fans interested. Even though some events are set in the hipsterific parts of the midwest, it's a clear show for the more degenerate flocks of Brahmins.
It's clear that modern wrestling is treading dangerously close waters to Starbucks territory, especially with entertaining yet militantly brahmin superstars like Cm Punk and Daniel Bryan finally getting a rise from the indies to the top spots in the WWE. Other wrestlers that are encircling the midcard and main event seem more like college fratboys in their 30's still in developmental territories learning the basics of working a match.
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