In an interview with In Your Head Radio, former World Class
Championship Wrestling producer Mickey Grant spoke about the success of the WWE
Network and more. Here are highlights:
On if WCCW was when people started liking bad guys for
the first time: “Our bad guys worked so well in World Class
Championship Wrestling, and much of the reason why was we told their side of the
story. It wasn’t one sided, and so when we led up to a big conclusion, usually
with something at Texas Stadium, there’d be fans on both sides. I think that’s
what you’ve got to do, but you’ve got to do it well…I think it started with
our show. I don’t think anyone had really given enough of the storyline; they’d
written enough of a textured, shades-of -gray storyline before. Part of doing
this thing live is having respect for the wrestling audience, and I think some
people today just don’t have enough respect for the wrestling audience. I find
that wrestling audiences come in all shapes and sizes: lawyers, judges,
professors, non-professors, truck drivers. Whoever they are, you’ve got to get
them…they’re connoisseurs of a good storyline …I respect hard-working
people, and I believe they want a good story; they want something like
this.”
On if the WWE Network will be a success: “I
don’t know about their network; I just think I know maybe a little about
wrestling. I think wrestling will be a success. If you have repetitive
storylines, and if you don’t have your fans sitting on the end of their seats
wondering what’s going to happen next week, you’re not going to have a market.
Too many people have done that…I think somebody with relatively little money
can jump in there today and do very well…If you’ve got the talent, and you’ve
got the broadcast, and a methodology to get it to the audience, it’s going to
work…I think that a handful of people will probably come about who will turn
wrestling upside down, inside out and rebirth it, where it is exciting…I think
it’s there; it just takes bigger-than-life personalities…and it would take
off…I think a lot of people like Vince McMahon, they just get kind of in a
rut. They’ve done it so many times, and the next thing you know networks are
turning them off and turning them down. But that has nothing to do with
wrestling; that just has to do with bad storytelling.”
