The Ultimate Warrior, Dead at 54

[The Unknown Poster]

Do you think part of the drop in numbers is tied to the drop in popularity of the WWE since the Attitude Era?

I always felt the local wrestling scene has always had too many people who would rather be a big fish in a small pond. They could be a mid-card guy on a good show or be a "champion" in front of 30 ten year olds at a community club.

You are absolutely right on both counts.

 

I always found there was a trickle down effect.  When WWE got hot, it took awhile for that to trickle down to the local scene.  When WWE got stale, it was a bit quicker.

 

When CWF was packing Le Rendezvous (great venue as it was all ages AND served booze) in 2000, they were using a bit of an ECW style which plays really well, especially in the short term.  They had very good talent too (Top guy was Robby Royce who was exceptional in his prime and even after 20 years is still a very good worker) and a bunch of young guys that went on to be VERY good workers (Rawskillz, Mentallo, Mike Angels etc).

 

When TRCW (sort of an off-shoot of CWF) started up in 2001, they really hit their stride after debuting at The Palladium.  While the debuted to poor crowds, the bar helped push their weekend regulars to try out the wrestling on Thursday nights and once they got a core group of young, cool, University-aged people to become regulars, it became the cool thing to do.

 

Once those casual fans and bargoers started drifting away, I thought we had somewhat aliented the hardcore wrestling fans to a degree and didnt really serve that niche.  In 2004-ish (maybe even to an extent end of 2003) I made the decision to serve that niche.  I remember a competitor started at Coyotes, down the street from us, and I said to my guys "I dont care who draws more people week to week.  I care who has the best show EVERY week.  In the end, the one with the best show with have staying power".  And I also felt if I was going to promote shows, I needed a reason other than ego.  If I put $1000 in my pocket every week, then that would be reason, but no one was doing that so my reason became developing talent and to do that you need to work a style that is going to teach and develop guys into workers who have the chance to go somewhere.

 

I remember our competition laughing at us for "pushing the juniors" but the 'juniors' such as Kenny Omega, Mentallo, Rawskillz, Ryan Wood etc were our best workers at the time.  And we began building back up a loyal core of fans who LOVED wrestling.  Dont get me wrong, we still had humour and "characters" (including the first ever Sex Toy on a Pole match in wrestling history) but that all flowed organically from having talented workers and good, realistic-based storylines.

 

The reason my main competition exists today is because the core group there were four guys who worked for me that wanted to be the top four guys.  Its easier to be the top guys when you're the best four guys than being apart of a group that while you might be very talented, you're not the top four talents.  So they started their own promotion.  In fairness, we started our promotion for a similar reason (lol).  In fact, they all did.  CWF begat TRCW begat PCW begat CWE and its really only PCW and CWE that are the leading promotions right now.

[Brandon]

The biggest factor definitely is the attitude era dying no question about it.

Barely anyone knows any of the current WWE stars but almost everyone knows who GSP is. Wrestling just isn't cool anymore.

When I watched the good wrestling at the church TV station, it was half nerds and half welfare moms with tonnes of kids.

At the CFC shows it has a massive amount of 20-40 year olds and a whole lot of gorgeous eye candy to look at.