Sometimes ingenious ideas are born that the world just isn’t quite ready for yet. Like virtual reality before the rise of high definition screens, or grocery delivery services before the internet boom. Does anybody remember the Nokia N-Gage?
Fourteen years ago WWE hatched one of its most forward-thinking concepts since the inception of WrestleMania itself… and it failed miserably.
Taboo Tuesday. Sports entertainment’s response to a rapidly evolving digital landscape and a whole new generation of “internet fans” that, for one reason or another, began demanding their voices be heard for the very first time.
The idea was simple. For one night only they would give the fans the power to make every major decision for an entire pay-per-view. Who would face Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship? What weapon would Kane and Gene Snitsky (lol) beat each other senseless with? What sexy outfit would all of the WWE Divas be wearing for the first ever Fulfill Your Fantasy Battle Royal? Vote now on WWE.com…
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
It seemed like a brilliant concept – you know, minus the whole objectification of women thing. Here’s the problem. In 2004 the most popular cell phone was the Nokia 2600, followed closely by the Motorola RAZR. Anyone old enough to remember Taboo Tuesday vividly probably had one or two of these things.
In 2004 the social media platform of choice was Myspace. Tom was everyone’s friend, and your “real” friends were constantly annoying you with spam chains telling you to “repost this within 24 hours or a ghost will sexually assault your best friend’s dog.”
In 2004 teenagers would get home from school, totally ignoring their parents glued to the television watching the latest news blast about President Bush and his war in the Middle East. Instead we would jump online, chatting with our friends on AOL instant messenger about how Encore wasn’t as good as The Eminem Show, or post Green Day lyrics on our secret LiveJournal accounts.
The world just wasn’t ready for Taboo Tuesday fourteen years ago. The new “internet fans” were happy to hang out in message boards, and the dirt sheets were still a fairly niche product. Going to a website to vote on match stipulations that wouldn’t play out for days or weeks, it just didn’t generate the kind of buzz WWE needed to make the show a success. The concept needed to be ingrained in the public’s mind first.
Enter: Twitter.
Also, whoever approved the idea to hold a pay-per-view on a Tuesday night should be publicly tarred and feathered. The buyrate was dismal, and the live gate even worse at just under 3,500 people in attendance. Moving back to Sunday nights with the rebranding to “Cyber Sunday” in 2006 was necessary, but ultimately didn’t help a whole lot. The concept was doomed from the start, and ultimately folded two years later never to be seen again.
It didn’t help that the shows weren’t very good. Unknown challengers and participants made it hard to invest in anything ahead of time. The wrestlers themselves often had no idea who they would be facing, making it impossible to lay out the matches ahead of time.
Fast-forward to 2018.
With every pay-per-view now airing live on the WWE Network, the old concern over rapidly declining buyrates no longer exists. They don’t have to ask people to fork over $50 for a risky concept they might not enjoy. And even if it were an issue worth considering, WWE now makes so much money on television rights fees – and they’re about to make a whole lot more, presumably – that it literally doesn’t matter how many people show up.
We also have iPhones, a blazing fast connection to the internet no matter what far corner of the world we live in, and we’re completely obsessed with sharing every thought that pops into our brains on Twitter.
In 2004 the fans wanted to feel included because they saw all their heroes leaving, and most weren’t especially excited about what they saw on the horizon. In 2018 the fans WILL BE included by every means necessary, and are not above hijacking an entire show to prove their collective point – even if they don’t really know what that point is to begin with.
Think about it. The most popular superstar of the modern era rose to prominence off the idea that WWE management wasn’t listening to what the fans wanted. We literally yelled loud enough to change the main event of WrestleMania. But imagine if, for one night of the year, we didn’t have to?
You want to see Rusev get a title shot? Vote for Rusev.
The other major factor to consider is the quality of the event itself, as compared to the original concept over a decade ago. With the original Taboo Tuesday, WWE kind of lucked into Shelton Benjamin getting picked to face Chris Jericho for the Intercontinental Championship, and the two went out and had a solid match. Not every name in the talent pool could have gone out there and “called it in the ring”, so to speak. One-fourth of that pay-per-view was women in skimpy outfits rolling around pretending to wrestle, with an extra side of Gene Snitsky, and Eric Bischoff beating up his mentally challenged nephew.
Today, the level of in-ring ability across the board has improved so drastically, there’s virtually no one on the roster incapable of having a good match. Even guys like Jinder Mahal, who used to be at the bottom of the barrel, have improved so much that I wouldn’t necessarily be worried about him getting picked for a random bout.
2004 had Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair and Chris Benoit sure, but 2018 has Seth Rollins, AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan and Finn Balor. If you load up the top of the card correctly, those guys could each individually carry an elephant up the side of a mountain. We also have the benefit of a women’s roster that can actually wrestle. I’ll take Asuka versus anyone over a Playboy Pillow Fight any day of the week.
2018 was MADE for a concept like Cyber Sunday.
Fourteen years ago fans had to load up WWE.com to vote, in an age where not every family had multiple computers, and the internet was slower than Taboo Tuesday ticket sals. Today we have Facebook polls, Twitter hashtags, and the internet at our fingertips every single second of every day. We have an app fully capable of making the voting process as easy as humanly possible, and a Network to constantly remind us to cast those votes.
We’re a culture of entitlement demanding to be heard. Let them know, #WeWantCyberSunday.