WWF vs WCW - The Future of Pro Wrestling | 7
Business Wars
Audible
4.6 • 13.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2019
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
World Wrestling Entertainment is the dominant name in professional wrestling but new promotions are now challenging the WWE’s dominance. We conclude our series on WWF vs WCW with David Shoemaker, author of The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling. Shoemaker joins us to talk about whether or not these new companies can succeed against Vince McMahon's behemoth and what it means to be the best professional wrestler in the world.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Business Wars Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. |
| 0:13.0 | I'm David Brown and this is Business Wars. |
| 0:31.0 | Today we conclude our series on professional wrestling in the battle between WWF and the WCW. |
| 0:44.0 | Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation or WWF fought hard to dominate the American wrestling industry. |
| 0:51.0 | In the 1980s, WWF aggressively bought up regional wrestling promotions to create an empire strong enough to crush all other competitors. |
| 1:00.0 | And by the 90s, his company was the undisputed champion of the ring. |
| 1:05.0 | It survived steroid scandals, wrestler deaths and a bloody rivalry with WCW. |
| 1:10.0 | But today, the WWE, as it is now known, faces new challenges. |
| 1:16.0 | Scrappy new wrestling promotions are popping up and they're recruiting some of wrestling's biggest stars. |
| 1:21.0 | And to add insult to injury, WWF viewership has plummeted in the last couple of years. |
| 1:27.0 | Live events and network subscriptions are also down. Today's cultural landscape is changing. |
| 1:34.0 | And WWE must once again find a new strategy to stay alive. |
| 1:40.0 | Our guest on today's episode knows all about this stuff. His name is David Schumacher. |
| 1:44.0 | He's a wrestling historian and the author of the book, The Squared Circle, Life, Death and Professional Wrestling. |
| 1:50.0 | He also hosts a podcast on the ringer called The Masked Man Show covering all things wrestling. |
| 1:56.0 | We'll talk with Schumacher about these new upstarts as well as the future of pro wrestling in America. |
| 2:05.0 | David Schumacher, welcome to Business Wars. |
| 2:07.0 | Thank you so much for having me. |
| 2:37.0 | I think he must be referred to somehow or another at least at this juncture. |
| 2:42.0 | Can you tell us a little bit about a character named Gorgeous George? |
| 2:46.0 | Yeah, of course. Gorgeous George was in a lot of ways the first fully modern pro wrestler. |
| 2:53.0 | Of course, he was wrestling in a nominally pre-modern time. |
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