World Wrestling Entertainment: More Entertainment Than Wrestling?

The WWE has been around for many years, and will probably be for many more years to come.

People love to come and cheer their favorite superstar, or boo their least favorite. They come to see the sexy divas, and they come for wrestling entertainment.

But is WWE now trying to focus more on entertainment than wrestling?

WWE has always been about entertainment, that’s nothing new, but in the past they would back up that entertainment with great wrestling also.

In the beginning—with superstars like Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant, Roddy Piper, and Jimmy Snuka, just to name a few—it was like wrestling was the primary objective, and the matches that were put on were entertaining because of the great wrestling.

Then came the very first Wrestlemania, which might have been the very first look at the WWE putting entertainment first and wrestling second—bringing in such stars as Cindy Lauper and Mr. T.

The WWE would hit a low point in 1994 with allegations of steroid abuse and sexual harassment from employees. McMahon was eventually exonerated, but it was a public relations nightmare for the WWE.

According to sources, it cost them an estimated $5 million dollars when revenues were at an all-time low.

Despite all this, and despite having to cut the pay of both wrestlers and front office personnel, the WWE was still focusing on wrestling to bring in the fans.

With wrestlers such as Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Razor Ramon, Bret Hart, and The Undertaker, their skills in the ring, along with their gimmicks, were more than enough to keep people entertained.

Then began the Monday Night Wars between WWE and WCW in which a lot of the superstars from WWE such as Kevin Nash (Diesel), Scott Hall (Razor Ramon), Sycho Sid, and Alundra Blaze began to leave for WCW because of higher pay.

The WWE then brought in Vader, Steve Austin, Mankind, and Farooq to try and compete with WCW—still focusing on wrestling to draw in the fans from their competition.

We would then see the formation of DX, the beginning of The Rock's success when he joined the Nation Of Domination, the beginning of Austin 3:16, and the infamous Montreal Screw Job.

In turn, that helped create the whole "Mr. McMahon" character, and would mark the beginning of the era which all fans want to bring back: The Attitude Era.

Throughout those years we would see a little more focus on entertainment, but still a focus on wrestling at the same time.

We would see even more new superstars coming to the WWE such as Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko, and Eddie Guerrero.

Then one of the most shocking moments in wrestling history happened. Vincent Kennedy McMahon bought the competition, WCW. He would also later buy ECW after they went bankrupt, which he eventually ran right into the ground.

Recently, the WWE has been focused more on "entertainment" than wrestling.

Having the celebrity guest-host thing on Raw, and keeping the title on John Cena almost 365 days a year just because he is in movies, commercials, talk shows, you name it. John Cena is more of an entertainer than a wrestler.

Hulk Hogan, when coming to TNA, said something along the lines of "The competition calls themselves the lead in sports entertainment. Well, we're a wrestling company, and we're here to wrestle."

Now don't get me wrong, entertainment isn't a bad thing, but when you're a wrestling company and you focus more on entertainment than you do actual wrestling, then you have a problem.

So hopefully Vince McMahon will steer things back to the way they used to be, where you had quality wrestlers and wrestling matches, and the fans were entertained by that, instead of bringing in someone like David Hasselhoff to host Raw to try and bring in a broader audience.

So is WWE focusing to much on entertainment and not enough on wrestling? Or do you think things are just fine the way they are now?