Wow! It is great to be back home here at *Kayfabe Kickout, I want to give a shout out to Richard Boudreau for bringing the site back! Allow me to introduce myself to some and reintroduce myself to others. I'm Anthony Cox, and I'm a lifelong fan of the world of professional wrestling. It all started when I was 4 years old watching WWF Superstars of Wrestling along with episodes of NWA Wrestling on TBS. I can rant on and rave about my history as a fan forever, but that's not what we are here for. If you were a follower of Kayfabe Kickout in its original incarnation, then you know that the way I write is from an objective point of view where I cut through all the fan boy gibberish, and talk about what is. If you are expecting some mark who's going to kiss WWE’s ass, then I'm probably not the columnist for you. If you're one of those goofs who wants me to write about how awesome a wrestling doing 10 super kicks in a row is, again, I'm not the writer for you. With all that out of the way, let's get right into it!
As you can see from the title of the article, I made a statement that “A great match never drew a penny”. This is something I heard former WCW wrestler Disco Inferno say, and he's not wrong with that statement at all. Think about it, when you go to a wrestling show, you pay before you go in to see the matches, not after! It's the build up and the characters that make you buy the tickets, a great match is just a byproduct of the card. It's a bonus, if you will. After all, it's entertainment before anything else. It's the entertainment which leads to people buying more tickets and the company making money.
The greatest matches of all time are remembered as such in hindsight. After the ticket sales, merchandise sales, and buy rates have been calculated. Here's an example, let's look at my favorite Wrestlemania of all time. That would be Wrestlemania III. Everyone knows that the match between Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat and Macho Man Randy Savage for the Intercontinental Championship is considered, by many, to be the greatest Wrestlemania match ever. As great as the match was, it wasn't the match that put the asses in the seats that day back in 1987. The match that drew over 90,000 (actual numbers are closer to 78,000) fans to the Pontiac Silverdome was Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant for the WWF Championship. Those guys could do maybe 12 moves combined at that, but it was the match everyone wanted to see. Everyone wanted to see if Hulk Hogan can defeat his biggest challenge yet to retain his championship. Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage tore the house down while Hogan got the same exact response body slamming Andre the Giant. It's just how the system works!
Look at pro wrestling today. When you watch Raw, you see these Cruiserweight wrestlers having some excellent matches with a ton of high spots, but if you listen to the crowd, all you can hear the silence. You can feel the apathy. Sure it's fun to see TJ Perkins do some flashy shit that gets a “This is Awesome” chant here and there, but Brock Lesnar gets a larger response doing a German suplex. Paul Heyman gets a larger response just talking about Brock Lesnar than most of the guys on the roster get after an actual match.
In conclusion, whether the match is great or not, they already have your money before the show starts. A great feud draws money, a great character draw money, a great angle draws money, just not a great match! By the time the matches happen, they already have your money in their pockets. So what do you think? Send me your thoughts to invidwarriorz@gmail.com or you can follow me on Twitter @whosantcox. You can also catch me on Instagram under the name UltraGoldenAnt. Lastly, be sure to always support your local independent promotion. It's the indie scene that allows the legends of tomorrow to learn their craft. I'll catch you next time, wrestling fans! It's good to be back!
*Kayfabe Kickout (2012 - 2020) has since rebranded in July, 2020 and is now known as 'Pro Wrestling Slam!'
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