by Bruce Bostwick

Created on: February 13, 2008

Where is the WWE heading into the future? Nobody really knows for sure. If I had to guess one thing, it won't be another Attitude Era like run like previous times. The bar for that is so high, it is practically unreachable. Remember when the Monday Night Wars was one of the best times in wrestling? If you were around during that, there were two shows, Raw and Nitro competing on different networks with two different companies being WWF and WCW. It was a time that continued most notably when WCW had Nitro go live back in 1995 and the war had ended in 2001 when the WWF bought out WCW once and for all.

One of the men responsible for the Monday Night Wars has to be Eric Bischoff. Like him or hate him, he had a helping hand in making the product better than what it was at the time. Wrestling in general was in a dry spell and WCW claimed most of the top talent that made their name in the WWF being Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Macho Man Randy Savage for example. WCW also had the return of Lex Lugar, whom was more famous and had a better with than in the WWF mainly due to the fact he got to be WCW Champion and would become a WCW Grand Slam Winner in the company.

One other factor was WCW's not using the younger talent at the time and letting them slip away like Steve Austin, who would have his greatest success as Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H, both men whom never got that top stop. The primary difference between the two is that Steve Austin had some success holding at the time every major title in WCW but the WCW World Title.

What tipped the scales to WCW's side was the infamous New World Order storyline. While it was something that was watchable, it eventually got to the point of ridiculousness and splitting it up into 2 factions didn't really help at all. Instead, it got stale and repetitive. As far as not creating new stars, to be fair outside of Goldberg, I would say that DDP was made in WCW even further and got his big break there, same with Booker T for example. In a way, the nWo was really a problem. Though the original intent was to do a roster split having that name and the WCW banner as well but that didn't pan out.

With WWE virtually not challenged in the same aspect, they can sit pretty and not doing anything too fancy. The only competition they got wrestling wise is TNA, though they act too much like WWE to where no one will watch because of that. Unless either TNA really steps up and gets out of the WWE-Lite stigma they are in at this present time, they'll never be true competition to WWE all the way around. The only thing they can hope is to beat the ECW Brand in the ratings at this moment unless things start improving and I mean right now.

If TNA doesn't seriously consider pushing their own talent and quit relying all the past to work, it could potentially put them away or knock them even further down the pro wrestling ranks. Do I want to see that happen? Not really but that's what I see happening unless there is a major shake up in the booking philosophy in the company.

As far as PPVs, the biggest threat is the UFC without question. Though they are two separate entities, UFC has gained appeal and has been regarded as a sport with more legit competition and the best man ends up winning more often than not.

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