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THE 2001 SERIES, PART 12: HOW THE END OF THE MONDAY NIGHT WARS CONTINUES TO AFFECT THE BUSINESS TODAY

We're finally at the end of the road, and after following the progression of events throughout 2001 and taking a hard look at the reasons why the InVasion angle failed, let's finish this up with a look at how the whole debacle has had a lasting effect on the industry that we're still feeling today.

The WWF was forced into the Attitude Era and, with no competition left to fear, went back to their comfort zone and gradually returned to the kind of product that got them in trouble in the first place.

You'll see a lot more about this in the next series I'll be running over the next couple of weeks, but Vince McMahon spent years trying to do anything and everything BUT present the style of product that became known as the Attitude Era. He didn't want to do it because his plan all along was to market to kids, thinking that silly characters would sell more action figures, goofy storylines didn't matter because the kids would watch regardless, and a big, muscular superhero who loved America and taught kids values was the kind of guy he wanted as his flagbearer.

The NWO and Monday Nitro proved with their success that Vince's mentality had gone the way of the leisure suit, but Vince still refused for years to change his way of doing things. He gave us everything from Doink the Clown, to Billionaire Ted, to King Mabel, to the fake Diesel and Razor Ramon and beyond to prove that his way of doing things still worked. Sounds great, except that none of it did. He was dragged kicking and screaming into the Attitude Era, and for as successful as the company became during that time, it wasn't something he ever wanted to do.

Once WCW was out of the way, Vince was safe and he could go back to doing his style of product, and now WWE is once again full of goofs like Vladimir Kozlov (who apparently believes Communist Russia still exists), Santino Marella (no explanation needed), and Zack Ryder (who we're supposed to hate because he goes Woo Woo Woo). John Cena is at least supposed to be a modernized version of Hulk Hogan as the virtuous, baby-kissing superhero who can't lose. We're back to watching guys who sell action figures instead of guys who sell PPVs and everything is as it once was, in large part because...

Lack of competition has led to an apathetic WWE product.

Like I said, Vince McMahon feels safe again. WCW is out of business and TNA is so poorly run that the one time they tried to challenge him on Monday nights, they got beaten so badly that they ran back to Thursdays with their tails tucked between their legs within weeks. Nobody else has the resources to compete with him and he's got absolutely nothing to fear from anyone, so what does he have to lose by literally doing whatever he wants on TV?

The thing that the people who were marching on One CNN Center with torches and pitchforks back in 2000 failed to consider was that it was WCW pushing the WWF to the point that their existence was threatened that finally made Vince desperate enough to listen to other ideas and do the Attitude Era. Without that motivating factor, Steve Austin would have spent the rest of his career making his name as the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time, Rocky Maivia would have won the WWF Title instead of the Rock, and Mankind would have stayed in the sewer with the rats.

But there's no real competition, so why does Vince care what people think of John Cena? It's not like there's anyone better on another channel. People don't like how Daniel Bryan is treated? Fine, let him find another job making the same money somewhere else. People hate Michael Cole and want Jim Ross back? Perfect, let's put Cole on every show we can and have him go out of his way to crap on the internet fans.

Why would Vince be so spiteful to the point where it almost comes off like he intentionally books a product that drives away the Attitude Era fans? Probably because...

WWE now markets to the complete opposite demographic than the one that won them the war in the first place.

Yeah, I mean kids. I doubt Vince ever liked or wanted the fans that made him all that money during the Attitude Era, he probably felt like his company was above them and gladly went back to marketing toward his real target demographic the first chance he got.

The reasons why are simple enough: he doesn't sell a wrestling product, and that's why what he does isn't held in high regard by hardcore wrestling fans. He's talked many times about how Ted Turner called him up bragging about entering the wrestling business, and Vince congratulated him and said that the WWF was in the entertainment business. It's an important distinction to make, but one that completely defines Vince's philosophy about his business because, even though wrestling is at the core of what he does, his plan all along was to be a media company, not a wrestling promoter.

On the flipside, kids are easier to market to because they don't have the discerning tastes that adults have and they don't get all pissed off when their favorite indy worker isn't main eventing PPVs. They're the ones buying the action figures and Rey Mysterio masks, and it's easier to throw sloppy, poorly booked storylines at them because they'll sit there and watch it and buy the PPVs since they don't have a reference point to see what other wrestling products might appeal to them. They don't care about workrate or good storytelling, they just want to see John Cena destroy whatever evildoer is throw in his path. Or at least that's WWE's theory.

I have to believe that Vince is happy to have the Attitude Era fans gone, and whether he did it consciously or not, he's been actively driving them away both with the way he's presented his product, and also with the constant references by guys like Michael Cole and JBL about nerdy wrestling fans in their mother's basement. If you're wondering why WWE is so cavalier about attacking you when they expect you to give them your money, I suspect it's because it's not really your money they're after.

A bunch of indy companies popped up and tried to become the "next" ECW.

Certain promoters saw ECW's popularity and the effect it had on the business at large and, mistakenly believing that they got there simply by being the #3 promotion in North America, barely gave the body enough time to stop moving before they began fighting it out to try and grab ECW's position in the hierarchy. CZW, 3PW, MLW, XPW, and ROH all swooped in to try and fill the void, and most of them even ran in Philadelphia in the hopes that the Philly fans would take to them as their "new" home team. The way they bickered with one another during this time impacted their desire to come out at the top of the heap because there was as much focus on the heat between the companies as there was on the products they were presenting.

I don't mean to sound like these companies sucked because they didn't, they all brought something unique to the table, featured an interesting mix of ECW guys and young indy up and comers, and put on some memorable shows. ROH was the one that ended up breaking out of the pack and has assumed the #3 spot that ECW once occupied, but for as much of a diehard ROH fan as I admittedly am, I don't see how anybody can make the case that it means the same thing to the business that ECW did.

ECW wasn't just a really good wrestling product, it revolutionized the way everyone else did things. It made hardcore wrestling cool, was the template upon which the WWF and WCW based their own adult-oriented storylines, and was the first case you can really point to where people were fans of the promotion itself rather than the wrestlers who worked there. I love ROH, but you don't see WWE or TNA doing any hour draws or creating Pure Wrestling Titles because they worked in ROH. The same goes for every other indy that tried to fill the "#3 promotion" vacuum by simply trying to replicate the superficial elements.

The internet fans always have to have a scapegoat.

The internet exploded in the late 90s with people getting online by the millions, and it soon began to pervade every imaginable part of our daily lives. Wrestling was no different since more and more people became curious about the business as it gained in popularity during the Monday Night Wars, but it quickly went from people logging on to check the latest backstage news to people using the internet as a platform to attack certain aspects of the business.

WCW in particular caught a lot of heat from the internet, and they absolutely deserved a lot of it, but it was a little bit disturbing how quickly people went from saying things like "Yeah, I don't really like WCW. It's kinda boring, and the has WWF better wrestlers," to "WCW blew yet another opportunity! Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash are holding everyone down! Bischoff's ruining the company by spending too much money! WCW sucks and they're going to go out of business!"

I really find it bizarre the way people started expressing that they liked one company better than another, and I honestly can't recall anyone ever complaining about how a company's going to go out of business before the late 90s because until then, people simply wouldn't watch shows they didn't like and that would be that. Nobody felt the need to vent their soul about everything they hated about WCW or any other program because they just didn't care enough to. Now everybody's a critic and people take the business WAY too seriously, to the point where they get aggressively angry and belligerent towards whatever company they have an ax to grind with, and I gotta be honest, fans like that ruin wrestling for me more than anything the companies do.

Once their wishes came true and WCW went out of business, they were hooked on shooting their mouths off online and now had to find something else to complain about. First they said WWE screwed up the InVasion, and I grant them that. But then WWE sucked for not making it better after the InVasion was over. Then Triple H was holding everyone down. Then TNA sucked for doing the weekly PPVs. Then they sucked because they got weekly TV and it wasn't two hours on Monday night. Now TNA just sucks for being there. Then ROH sucked because they didn't have TV. Then ROH sucked because they got weekly TV and it was on a network with no exposure. The ROH sucked because they made Adam Pearce the booker and all he knew about was 70s style southern garbage. I can't think of anything any of the companies have done that somebody hasn't felt the need to creatively interpret as a sign of the Apocalypse. Yes, all three companies did dumb things during the Monday Night Wars and all three main companies today do as well, but the point is that WCW was barely in the grave before the online pundits decided they needed to write new prophecies, and this new mentality changed what it meant to a lot of them to be a wrestling fan.

Nobody learned any lessons from the Monday Night Wars, and history has already begun to repeat itself.

It's insane to look back and see how many people were doing victory dances when WCW died without realizing what it would mean for the business in the future. You'd think people would have learned from how negatively the deaths of WCW and ECW impacted the business that having one game in town is never a good thing, yet you get the impression from a lot of what you read that people want TNA and ROH to go out of business even though we saw just a decade ago what would happen if they did.

The Monday Night Wars forced all three companies to go above and beyond to try and outdo one another, and everybody won: the promotions won because wrestling hit a major boom period, the wrestlers won because their services were in high demand and that translated into high priced contracts for them, and the fans won because you had three very compelling wrestling companies to watch, plus wrestling on TV nearly every night of the week. The end of the war changed all that.

Is TNA pulling ratings equal to what WWE is doing? No, not even close. Do their storylines stink sometimes? A lot of the time? Yeah, sure. But on the flipside, isn't it another option where wrestlers can go to, if not make the money they would make in WWE, at least make themselves a comfortable living? Yes. Is it a place where, in spite of how badly they're booked on a routine basis, most of the wrestlers always bust their asses to have good matches? Yes.

Is ROH the second coming of ECW? No. Was the HDNet deal something that was going to carry them to the promised land? No. But is ROH a place where young stars have a place to develop and a high profile platform to show what they can do in the hopes that WWE or TNA will take notice and sign them up? Yes. Is it a place where people who have been casually tossed aside by WWE and TNA can go to show that they had a lot more to offer than what their former employers took advantage of? Yes. Is it a place where you can still see great wrestlers allowed to go out there and create their art with almost no restrictions? Yes.

Wrestling's way down from where it was ten years ago, and I don't know that it's ever going to get back there. The world has changed, and much of that audience has moved on. The people who want TNA and ROH to die obviously haven't learned a thing, and I don't know if there's ever going to be anybody who will be able to truly step up and give WWE a run for its money like WCW did, but if the day does ever come, let's enjoy it, because history tells us that we never know how long it's going to last.

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