What if everything was in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I don't know if there can be any doubt that looking back on the AWA through a modern lens, it is very dry. Perhaps this was the point, and I do think modern wrestling could use a bit less pomp and a bit more reality, but I just don't know if this style was ever going to work in the excessively flashy 1983-1992 (or so) North American cultural period.
Perhaps if the AWA could've made it past 1992, they could've stood some chance to survive, as Verne was correct and the WWF fad did die a very gruesome death, in popularity terms, from 1992 until they truly started changing things in 1996 and 1997, but by then it'd just been a little bit too long. The wrestling landscape had irrevocably changed to favour big business WWF, at the expense of wrestling as a whole. If the WWF fad had died just a little bit sooner (maybe in 1990 or so) who knows where the wrestling business would've ended up, but it all came just a little bit too late to save the AWA.
Those are very good points to ponder, re the timing of the wrestling landscape in the ‘90s. AWA did operate as its own entity for 31 years total, which is far longer than any other U.S. based promotion, especially WCW, outside of WWE.
What if everything was in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I don't know if there can be any doubt that looking back on the AWA through a modern lens, it is very dry. Perhaps this was the point, and I do think modern wrestling could use a bit less pomp and a bit more reality, but I just don't know if this style was ever going to work in the excessively flashy 1983-1992 (or so) North American cultural period.
Perhaps if the AWA could've made it past 1992, they could've stood some chance to survive, as Verne was correct and the WWF fad did die a very gruesome death, in popularity terms, from 1992 until they truly started changing things in 1996 and 1997, but by then it'd just been a little bit too long. The wrestling landscape had irrevocably changed to favour big business WWF, at the expense of wrestling as a whole. If the WWF fad had died just a little bit sooner (maybe in 1990 or so) who knows where the wrestling business would've ended up, but it all came just a little bit too late to save the AWA.
Those are very good points to ponder, re the timing of the wrestling landscape in the ‘90s. AWA did operate as its own entity for 31 years total, which is far longer than any other U.S. based promotion, especially WCW, outside of WWE.