Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2012 8:09:56 GMT -5
Announcers who actually called the match and knew the names of the holds and the backgrounds of the wrestlers. Hyping every match on the PPV card, so the fans actually cared about British Bulldog vs. the Warlord or Tito Santana vs. the Mountie. That too. Crap, they pushed Hercules vs. Billy Jack Haynes at WM III as if it were one of the biggest matches of all-time. Got its own video reel with highlights of why the match was signed and everything.
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h
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 5,734
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Post by h on Dec 26, 2012 11:22:03 GMT -5
Less TV/Squash Matches - the Monday Night Raws ruined booking for big shows in a lot of ways. A huge part of the novelty of pay per view matches was just see these two characters occupy the same space. Your big Wrestlemania matches in the first 10-12 years were built with the opposing wrestlers rarely even sharing the same screen. When you finally saw them in the ring ready to square of, it was almost surreal. I liken it to the Presidential Debates. You see so many speeches and clips of each candidate in different towns apart from each other that when you actually see them walk on the stage and shake hands, it almost blows your mind that these two actually do exist in the same universe and are going be debating face to face. I miss that feeling in wrestling. That's an interesting point. I remember the feeling that title matches were seemingly determined (much of the time, although there are many exceptions) by who was declared the #1 contender, not by who had a rivalry with the champion. To continue your analogy, it's like how the two parties choose their own candidates rather than saying "Obama is the current president. Who has the most heat with him?" Then they bulit the anticipation by featuring their top wrestlling in matches on free television, either in squash matches or against mid-level wrestlers. It was exciting to see someone like The Undertaker or Yokozuna wrestling on free television, since it wasn't an everyday occurrence.
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Post by Hit Girl on Dec 26, 2012 14:35:07 GMT -5
Jobbers. I loved watching matches like "Bad News Brown vs Jim Davis" or something like that. There's just something hilarious and entertaining about a one sided demolition. It would also save the big matches for special occasions.
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 26, 2012 16:28:41 GMT -5
A ton of ground has been covered here that I completely agree with: the lack of territories to allow guys to truly hone their craft and to rotate in and out of rosters so they don't get stale; the insane amount of overexposure with the insane increase in free TV time; lack of jobber squashes making main roster wrestlers look silly or forcing you to book the same match weeks in a row; etc. etc., it goes on and on why the format in the old days was so much stronger. It goes a lot further than how young and dumb we all were about backstage realities and words like kayfabe; even today, jaded wrestling fans the world over are willing to suspend their disbelief, but only if you give them reasons to.
For me, it breaks down to this: there's been a paradigm shift in a lot of US wrestling away from "selling tickets" and towards "getting ratings". I find increasingly that I can break booking decisions down to something resembling that dichotomy (maybe not just the two options, but they're the main ones). "Selling tickets" typically means delaying gratification, just giving the audience a taste instead of a whole meal, things like that. "Getting ratings" tends to mean throwing EVERYTHING out on screen every chance you get, to keep people from flipping channels.
The former philosophy is better business sense for the long haul; the latter offers you more immediate financial benefits, but is incredibly difficult to sustain. Just focusing on the WWF, it's why the Rock n' Wrestling era lasted from about 1984-1992, but the Attitude Era barely lasted four years.
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Post by unoriginalalex on Dec 26, 2012 17:00:49 GMT -5
Overexposure, having 3 hours of Raw, 2 hours of Smackdown, an hour each of Main Event and Saturday Morning Slam is way to much to keep up with a week and it takes excitement out of seeing a certain wrestler on Friday when you've already seen him every other day of the week.
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Jimmy
Grimlock
Posts: 13,317
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Post by Jimmy on Dec 26, 2012 17:12:07 GMT -5
Different divisions. I was watching a TV Title defense by Steven Regal from like 1996 and on commentary Tony relayed a tremendous line about how the TV Title is the only title that matters to Regal considering the World Heavyweight Title was in possession of the nWo, he has no interest in the United States Heavyweight Championship because he is not a citizen of the United States, and because as TV Champion he defends his title regularly on WCW programming. So to Regal, his title was HIS world title. You certainly don't get that sense of importance today with any title outside of the WWE Championship.
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Post by Hit Girl on Dec 26, 2012 19:24:19 GMT -5
A wall of seperation between the wrestlers and the announcers/interviewers etc...Mooney, Mean Gene, Gorilla etc.....were usually bowtie wearing straight men who rarely got involved in angles and storylines. They tended to be more neutral and at a safe distance from the action. Even heels would generally respect Mean Gene for example.
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 26, 2012 19:56:28 GMT -5
A wall of seperation between the wrestlers and the announcers/interviewers etc...Mooney, Mean Gene, Gorilla etc.....were usually bowtie wearing straight men who rarely got involved in angles and storylines. They tended to be more neutral and at a safe distance from the action. Even heels would generally respect Mean Gene for example. Yeah, Perfect might say "Shut up, Mooney!", or Sid would angrily call Gene "little man", but those guys were there to present things like sports broadcasters, and while they obviously would call actions by heels "deplorable" or what have you, there was what you said, that wall of separation.
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Paco
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 7,145
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Post by Paco on Dec 26, 2012 20:03:48 GMT -5
Guys who's promos you could impersonate. I'd kill to hear promos like Macho, Hogan or Warrior. They had their own style and voice.
In today's WWE, they'd tell Savage to cut that crap and talk like a normal person.
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hughmorris
Bubba Ho-Tep
Resistance is Futile!
Posts: 652
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Post by hughmorris on Dec 26, 2012 22:59:57 GMT -5
Jobbers...we all new that the bigger name would win but by having jobbers you could really save the good matches for PPVs and not get burnt out with the same old boring matches on TV week in and week out. Plus the titles used to mean more when they weren't defended every week. Just my two cents.
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Mr Captain Falcon
Dennis Stamp
So I could write anything in here and it'll be posted?
Posts: 4,689
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Post by Mr Captain Falcon on Dec 27, 2012 20:25:56 GMT -5
I have to say that the existence of the internet has somewhat hurt the wrestling business. We all know everything that goes on backstage, who hates who, who's friends with who, who gets in trouble, who has heat, spoilers, mania programs months in advance. I miss being surprised when someone either returned or debuted.
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mrjl
Fry's dog Seymour
Posts: 20,319
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Post by mrjl on Dec 27, 2012 20:58:53 GMT -5
A wall of seperation between the wrestlers and the announcers/interviewers etc...Mooney, Mean Gene, Gorilla etc.....were usually bowtie wearing straight men who rarely got involved in angles and storylines. They tended to be more neutral and at a safe distance from the action. Even heels would generally respect Mean Gene for example. Mean Gene once tag teamed with Hulk Hogan
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Post by dlg3000 on Dec 27, 2012 21:16:25 GMT -5
Jobbers...we all new that the bigger name would win but by having jobbers you could really save the good matches for PPVs and not get burnt out with the same old boring matches on TV week in and week out. Plus the titles used to mean more when they weren't defended every week. Just my two cents. I also liked the fact that every once in a blue moon, a jobber would actually win. It was cool to see average everyday looking guys wrestle. You even knew the names of some of them like Barry Horowitz, George South, Rocky King, and the Mulky Brothers.
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Post by Hit Girl on Dec 27, 2012 23:31:06 GMT -5
- A greater variety of distinct personas and characters. More interesting that the "guy with tattoos, black trunks and nu-metal music" generic model WWE likes these days.
- Jack Tunney as the neutral president. He didn't appear often, but when he did, it meant something big was going to happen. WWF programming did not need an authority figure micromanaging shows and events every week. Nor did it need hosts.
- Fewer PPV's and programming. Less is more. The more material the company produces, the less special it seems. With more hours, it's only a matter of time before things become saturated and every combination of stars have already faced each other multiple times.
- A curtain protecting kayfabe. Announcers never talked about segments that sucked, bad promos, and other "inside" things. They didn't refer to on-screen talent as losers and goofballs, but made an effort to actually get them over. Michael Cole/Vince McMahon via headset are the example of on-screen venting of backstage frustrations and anger which never should make it to air.
- Patience. Storylines would gradually develop. Talent was given time to emerge. Characters were built up superbly. Now it's hotshotted. A consequence of no jobbers (which kept the stars apart until major events), inadequate gaps between PPV's, and a lack of territories and alternative companies to recruit talent or allow them to learn their trade.
- Old School PPV themes. Back in the day, you knew the theme to the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Summerslam and the Survivor Series. They were all distinct. Now, it's some awful nu-metal crap, or a rap song, or whatever. They tend to blend into one given the sheer number of PPV's.
- Interview and promo segments. In the old days, you'd get the Event Centre, where wrestlers could record promos in front of their logo. They could do them over and over until they got them right. They would get over the character and whatever story they were involved in. Picture-in-picture promos also accomplished this. Then you had your arena interviews, with someone neutral like Mean Gene, or someone antagonistic like Brother Love. Things would happen. Angles would be advanced. Now everything's either backstage with Matt Striker, in the ring with an announcer, or a wrestler hosting a segment. Very little constructive is done with it. It's usually bland and boring. The tiresome "contract signing" segment for example. How many more times does the audience need to see that? Even the wrestlers mock the cliche of it.
- Managers. Boy do WWE need them now more than ever. They are invaluable to getting talent over that needs a little bit of help.
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Post by britishbulldog on Dec 29, 2012 23:14:23 GMT -5
Howard Finkle announcing your New World Wrestling Federation ..insert title...
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2012 7:28:42 GMT -5
I have to say that the existence of the internet has somewhat hurt the wrestling business. We all know everything that goes on backstage, who hates who, who's friends with who, who gets in trouble, who has heat, spoilers, mania programs months in advance. I miss being surprised when someone either returned or debuted. That's why around Royal Rumble time, I shun spoilers or news pertaining to possible rumors until after WrestleMania, when my brother and a couple of friends come over to watch the PPV. I give myself 2-3 months to just "go back to be 11". I want my WrestleMania experience to be like I was a young impressionable fan, before I even knew of backstage news. It makes for a good cleansing of the soul. I recommend it.
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efarns
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,273
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Post by efarns on Jan 2, 2013 7:54:39 GMT -5
I was younger and easier to please. That made old school wresting better.
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Post by Danimal on Jan 3, 2013 3:27:28 GMT -5
A ton of ground has been covered here that I completely agree with: the lack of territories to allow guys to truly hone their craft and to rotate in and out of rosters so they don't get stale; the insane amount of overexposure with the insane increase in free TV time; lack of jobber squashes making main roster wrestlers look silly or forcing you to book the same match weeks in a row; etc. etc., it goes on and on why the format in the old days was so much stronger. It goes a lot further than how young and dumb we all were about backstage realities and words like kayfabe; even today, jaded wrestling fans the world over are willing to suspend their disbelief, but only if you give them reasons to. For me, it breaks down to this: there's been a paradigm shift in a lot of US wrestling away from "selling tickets" and towards "getting ratings". I find increasingly that I can break booking decisions down to something resembling that dichotomy (maybe not just the two options, but they're the main ones). "Selling tickets" typically means delaying gratification, just giving the audience a taste instead of a whole meal, things like that. "Getting ratings" tends to mean throwing EVERYTHING out on screen every chance you get, to keep people from flipping channels. The former philosophy is better business sense for the long haul; the latter offers you more immediate financial benefits, but is incredibly difficult to sustain. Just focusing on the WWF, it's why the Rock n' Wrestling era lasted from about 1984-1992, but the Attitude Era barely lasted four years. The move to multiple hours of weekday primetime programming made the paradigm-shift towards the ratings mentality a necessity. You aren't getting a big enough audience with squash matches and the slow-build meant to get folks to pay to see the good stuff.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2013 10:17:23 GMT -5
I miss old-school promos pushing the next event coming to your area. That meant a lot to me. These guys would talk about what happened the last time at said-arena and how they want to rectify the situation.
That would be the main reason I'd watch the same Superstars 3 times on a Saturday morning. It was on 3 different channels and they'd have a distinct promo for that area, even better was it would be the same match-up!
Say, Paul Orndorff would be taking on "Cowboy" Bob Orton on the loop. You'd get:
-Paul on WOR-NY talking about a "cast vs. cast" match at the Nassau Coliseum. (Mean Gene would do the interview.) -Roddy Piper with Orton on WFLD-Chicago discussing a steel cage match with Orndorff at the Rosemont Horizon. (We either got Gene, Ken Resnick or Chet Coppock.)
(And on the Spanish channel, Tito Santana every damn time.)
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Jan 6, 2013 11:53:39 GMT -5
Everyone was a better worker. Not wrestler, but worker. If you couldn't work in a bunch of different territories, you stayed in one, and you got stale or didn't get called up to the big leagues once they started.
Everyone had to adapt more when they went from territory forever, and had a real grassroots following. And at the very least, even if you sucked, you stuck around if you could get over.
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