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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2016 11:12:51 GMT -5
Can someone explain the beef between Russo and Jarrett? Back in the WCW days, Russo was all about Jarrett. And I thought Jarrett was the one that brought Russo into TNA.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Oct 4, 2016 11:31:17 GMT -5
Can someone explain the beef between Russo and Jarrett? Back in the WCW days, Russo was all about Jarrett. And I thought Jarrett was the one that brought Russo into TNA. Yes he brought him, but I think Jeff fired some time later in 2003-2004. I think Jeff realized that the guy sucked. Then in 2006 Russo returned but I believe that Dixie hired him and Jeff never wanted him back. I don't think it's a coincidence that Jeff never brought Russo to GFW despite the fact that Russo was fired from tna. I think Jeff realized the damage Russo did to his company. In his podcast Russo has mentioned that Jeff doesn't talk to him anymore.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Oct 4, 2016 12:03:47 GMT -5
Russo also has a reputation to sucking up to everyone in power so that he can weather any changes in management. He "earned" Dixie's loyalty enough for her to go to bat for him repeatedly, while Borash might have been a Jarrett hire, but he also seems to be generally holding one out for TNA. That doesn't mean that when Jarrett lost clout and power in the company over the Karen thing there wasn't a very suspicious and sudden turnover in people perceived as being "Jarret guys" being shown the door and all kinds of new stooges loyal to Dixie being pulled in to management positions in their stead. The idea that Cornette spent his time in TNA squabbling with Russo ignores that outside of the bullshit story that came out after he was let go, he mostly just did his job; he was brought in as an on-screen personality who later became a producer, and near as I can tell he did that job just fine. But his hill to die on had ultimately been the feeling that they were f***ing up their Hernandez push something fierce and that this wasn't going to get the top star they wanted to get over over, and for that he was cut out of the company. How is that not actively trying to do something about it? Dutch's "nah, wasn't me guv" tour had everything to do with the fact that Dixie had previously given an interview where she tried to pin a segment that got a "Fire Russo" chant on Dutch. And as far as his booking went, he was also the guy writing the Knockouts when they were pretty much that decade's peak of women's wrestling in America. Within a year of Dutch leaving, the Knockouts Division was already withering away into a husk of what it once was. I don't know how people who are just cogs in the machine and not actually in the major, high positions of management can be pointed at in a "You guys want to blame Dixie Carter but what about all these people you like who never did anything?" way. They did do things. They didn't have the power to change the entire direction of the company by themselves. It's the equivalent of going into a thread about Vince being out of touch and saying "Yes, but what about Fit Finlay's role in not changing the company for the better?" Fit Finlay is one guy in a company that employees hundreds, if not thousands of people, TNA has nothing like that level of bureaucracy, so yes, it's not unreasonable to expect people who have major roles in the company to shoulder some of the responsibility for things staying the same. Dutch Mantell is the guy who claimed the ratings success of the knockouts was down to the slot their segments occupied, if I remember correctly, so I wouldn't put him on a pedestal, Scott D'Amore was a major influence during the year the division caught fire and was a bigger loss than Mantell, either way, Bischoff and Hogan stripping the company of it's identity had more to do with the knockouts division withering than loss of a particular booker, it would have happened whoever they had there. I love the idea of Russo as a genius hybrid of Machiavelli and Rasputin, who's the only guy who can actually influence what's going on while everyone else is a cog in a machine, just trying to do their job without the influence to change things. Mantell managed to become a booker in an environment as psychotic as Puerto Rican wrestling and spent time booking in the WWE, helping Vince to rewrite shows during his Zeb Coulter run, Dusty is as political as they come and Jim Cornette managed to get the WWE to subsidise his little islands of old school not once but twice so I don't buy that they were powerless pawns, competing with the political juggernaut that is Vince Russo, I just can't. It's not that hard this is Dixie Carter we're talking about. Russo emailed her constantly singing her praises. He planted the idea to have her appear on tv. He also buried his best friend allegedly in Jeff constantly to her.
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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Oct 4, 2016 17:14:32 GMT -5
Russo also has a reputation to sucking up to everyone in power so that he can weather any changes in management. He "earned" Dixie's loyalty enough for her to go to bat for him repeatedly, while Borash might have been a Jarrett hire, but he also seems to be generally holding one out for TNA. That doesn't mean that when Jarrett lost clout and power in the company over the Karen thing there wasn't a very suspicious and sudden turnover in people perceived as being "Jarret guys" being shown the door and all kinds of new stooges loyal to Dixie being pulled in to management positions in their stead. The idea that Cornette spent his time in TNA squabbling with Russo ignores that outside of the bullshit story that came out after he was let go, he mostly just did his job; he was brought in as an on-screen personality who later became a producer, and near as I can tell he did that job just fine. But his hill to die on had ultimately been the feeling that they were f***ing up their Hernandez push something fierce and that this wasn't going to get the top star they wanted to get over over, and for that he was cut out of the company. How is that not actively trying to do something about it? Dutch's "nah, wasn't me guv" tour had everything to do with the fact that Dixie had previously given an interview where she tried to pin a segment that got a "Fire Russo" chant on Dutch. And as far as his booking went, he was also the guy writing the Knockouts when they were pretty much that decade's peak of women's wrestling in America. Within a year of Dutch leaving, the Knockouts Division was already withering away into a husk of what it once was. I don't know how people who are just cogs in the machine and not actually in the major, high positions of management can be pointed at in a "You guys want to blame Dixie Carter but what about all these people you like who never did anything?" way. They did do things. They didn't have the power to change the entire direction of the company by themselves. It's the equivalent of going into a thread about Vince being out of touch and saying "Yes, but what about Fit Finlay's role in not changing the company for the better?" I love the idea of Russo as a genius hybrid of Machiavelli and Rasputin, who's the only guy who can actually influence what's going on while everyone else is a cog in a machine, just trying to do their job without the influence to change things. Mantell managed to become a booker in an environment as psychotic as Puerto Rican wrestling and spent time booking in the WWE, helping Vince to rewrite shows during his Zeb Coulter run, Dusty is as political as they come and Jim Cornette managed to get the WWE to subsidise his little islands of old school not once but twice so I don't buy that they were powerless pawns, competing with the political juggernaut that is Vince Russo, I just can't. I'm not saying neither of them are political themselves; my point wasn't that Russo got his way into making Dixie cut everyone else and squashing their ideas, my point was that despite being a Jarrett hire, he didn't remain a "Jarrett guy", and had Dixie's loyalty to the point that she had on at least one occasion scapegoated Dutch with something Russo had booked to try and shift the heat away form Russo. Not to mention the famous moment of her saying that if the crowd changed Fire Russo, she would fire people who weren't named Vince Russo until they stopped. I'm not saying the dude's Grima Wormtongue, but it's difficult to say he wasn't playing his way into a position where no matter who won the company, he was going to remain where he was. Besides, TNA's lowest point quality-wise and the start of their decline all came after guys you named like Dusty, Cornette, and Mantell were out of the picture. All the bumbling and self-destructive business choices weren't things they could have stopped anyway because they weren't there to do anything about them.
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Post by ThereIsNoAbsurdistOnlyZuul on Oct 10, 2016 16:27:17 GMT -5
In summation, Dixie made boom on the carpet once she got in the door. That is what we focus on. And eventually we wonder 'How the hell did she get in here? Who let her in?'
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Post by Brandon Walsh is Insane. on Oct 11, 2016 0:47:57 GMT -5
I used to pay $9.99 for the weekly shows...
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Reflecto
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Post by Reflecto on Oct 11, 2016 1:02:04 GMT -5
In summation, Dixie made boom on the carpet once she got in the door. That is what we focus on. And eventually we wonder 'How the hell did she get in here? Who let her in?' But that takes the real point to defend Dixie on it. Dixie Carter IS bad, and people know it- but at the same time, Dixie Carter and Stephanie McMahon are closer to being kindred spirits than you'd think. There are some benefits Stephanie has on Dixie (Stephanie seems to have learned from Vince to try and treat the workers with some respect health-wise, which is a VERY big deal in her favor), but they have a LOT of similarities....and if Russo is an issue, Russo might be Patient Zero for that reason. If this is the case, Dixie Carter is part of the issue, but the real issue is the same as it's always been in pro wrestling: There is no better way to kill a company than let the money mark be on the show. Period. Yes, you will immediately save your own job if you suggest to the money mark "Wanna be on the show?". It may even be a hot angle for a little bit- boss vs. employee always draws money in the beginning. Doesn't matter. Because once you do it, it's like drinking unicorn's blood. You'll save your own job, even if you're about to be fired...but in exchange, you've guaranteed the company WILL die due to it. Because one day- maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not for a few years, but ONE DAY, the money mark will grow stale and people will not want to see them on their television anymore...but by then, the money mark will have a taste for being a TV star. Then, they'll like the taste of fame, fame will be as addicting as it is to anyone else...and they'll want to keep being famous, and they sign the checks so what they say goes. If you tell them "you're stale", they'll say the crowd loves them. You tell them "the crowd doesn't want to see you", they'll say "I know, I'm a great heel, right?" You tell them "you can't be on the show anymore", they'll say "You're fired and I'm replacing you with someone who will use me on the show MORE." The show will cease to be a wrestling promotion and become their vanity product and their way to be a TV star, and the whole show will only be about how THEY can be more of a star. That's how wrestling promotions die.
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Post by Tiger Millionaire on Oct 11, 2016 19:00:33 GMT -5
Dixie is a very rich money mark, for the good and the bad that comes with it.
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chazraps
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Post by chazraps on Oct 11, 2016 19:01:32 GMT -5
Dixie's a bad boss who lied to her employees, is late to pay her employees, and puts her own shallow ego over her employees.
There's no way to defend that in any industry.
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Oct 11, 2016 20:27:18 GMT -5
It's not like Vince started off rich, his father had him promote shit almost independent shows before owning the wwe. He had years of experience. He also prepared for being on camera by being an announcer for years which he pretty much admitted that he sucked at the beginning.
Dixie's daddy just bought her a wrestling company so that she could play reality star.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Oct 11, 2016 21:08:49 GMT -5
Dixie's a bad boss who lied to her employees, is late to pay her employees, and puts her own shallow ego over her employees. There's no way to defend that in any industry. Exactly, she is Heyman at his worst without the charisma or dedication.
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Post by ThereIsNoAbsurdistOnlyZuul on Oct 11, 2016 21:18:47 GMT -5
In summation, Dixie made boom on the carpet once she got in the door. That is what we focus on. And eventually we wonder 'How the hell did she get in here? Who let her in?' But that takes the real point to defend Dixie on it. (...) Shortening it a bit, because you did a lot, and I wanted to still engage you on this line fo logic. Honestly I don't know how much of TNAs success we can lay on Dixie's shoulders. Though it appears that you can lay most of the failings on her. I think that she might, MIGHT, be able to claim some of the business dealings. But long term planning in regards to how wrestling as a business should be done? We can almost be definitive in saying that was not her forte. At the same time I will not say that I could have done it better, or that TNA was every truly salvageable.
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chazraps
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Post by chazraps on Oct 11, 2016 21:50:50 GMT -5
Dixie's a bad boss who lied to her employees, is late to pay her employees, and puts her own shallow ego over her employees. There's no way to defend that in any industry. Exactly, she is Heyman at his worst without the charisma or dedication. She's worse than Heyman. At least Heyman paid Tazz and New Jack's medical bills.
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Post by Alice Syndrome on Oct 11, 2016 22:17:40 GMT -5
While Russo remained, one of Jarrett's biggest supporters in wrestling, and a whole slew of people hired by Jarrett are still there to this day from Borash to Dale Oliver. You mean the feud everyone called a hotshotted mess that did Samoa Joe no favours at the time? That Joe vs Angle feud? Mantel was also responsible for booking Ring Ka King and chose to build the company around Matt 'Cardboard Cutout' Morgan and Mahabali Shera. Ring Ka King was more entertaining than it had any right to be, almost more so than TNA at the time. And people complain about Angle Vs. Joe now, but it was THE hot feud at the time, and people were dying to see it, hotshotting or no. Plus Kurt vs Joe in that borderline MMA match at Lockdown was probably TNA's peak. I mean, that was because right after we had Sharmell counting a pin and everything going to shit with the MEM angle, but hey.
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Sephiroth
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Post by Sephiroth on Oct 11, 2016 22:37:27 GMT -5
My take has always been that TNA was at its height when Dixie was largely just the name on the paycheck and they had Panda Energy's name backing to provide some kind of legitimate business recognition, but when the actual TV product was largely left up to people who...well, actually know wrestling. When Dixie became the one in sole charge the downhill slide was faster than greased lightning.
On a similar note, I've sometimes wondered how much of TNA getting their time slot on Spike was the management and how much was Spike just being bitter over the loss of WWE. I could be wrong but I've long had this image that Spike was pissed about losing WWE and gave a slot to TNA pretty much out of spite and because wrestling still suited their "network for men" style programming-but it turned out to actually be a good partnership and thus Spike started investing in the promotion. Further, the end of the relationship wasn't just about TNA's sliding rating-it was also because Spike was looking to change the audience they were aiming for by then (if TNA had been drawing the same ratings, Spike would have found a place for them).
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Reflecto
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Post by Reflecto on Oct 11, 2016 22:52:04 GMT -5
But that takes the real point to defend Dixie on it. (...) Shortening it a bit, because you did a lot, and I wanted to still engage you on this line fo logic. Honestly I don't know how much of TNAs success we can lay on Dixie's shoulders. Though it appears that you can lay most of the failings on her. I think that she might, MIGHT, be able to claim some of the business dealings. But long term planning in regards to how wrestling as a business should be done? We can almost be definitive in saying that was not her forte. At the same time I will not say that I could have done it better, or that TNA was every truly salvageable. Well, on the opposite side, the business side is the real point where you can't defend Dixie simply because TNA WAS salvagable. The biggest problem TNA had always had, even before they fell off a cliff, was that TNA's advertising was horrible. TNA had the talent at one point, had the star power, had the in-ring action, and absolutely COULD have competed with WWE- but their advertising was so terrible they could never be that close to WWE in the race (and the Hogan era is an example- Hogan may have started TNA jumping the shark- but the beginning of Hogan's run got TNA an advertising blitz for the first time in TNA's career. Incidentally, the first Hogan show was also the best rating TNA got in their history. Funny how that happens.) This is a big problem in Dixie's career, because again: Dixie CAME TO TNA FROM A PUBLIC RELATIONS BACKGROUND and if she had even the smallest iota of PR skill, she should have known damn well about the importance of advertising and marketing the promotion. She didn't make it transfer to TNA- and THAT says so much more about why Dixie's business dealing failings need to be marked against her.
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Post by ThereIsNoAbsurdistOnlyZuul on Oct 11, 2016 22:57:17 GMT -5
Shortening it a bit, because you did a lot, and I wanted to still engage you on this line fo logic. Honestly I don't know how much of TNAs success we can lay on Dixie's shoulders. Though it appears that you can lay most of the failings on her. I think that she might, MIGHT, be able to claim some of the business dealings. But long term planning in regards to how wrestling as a business should be done? We can almost be definitive in saying that was not her forte. At the same time I will not say that I could have done it better, or that TNA was every truly salvageable. Well, on the opposite side, the business side is the real point where you can't defend Dixie simply because TNA WAS salvagable. The biggest problem TNA had always had, even before they fell off a cliff, was that TNA's advertising was horrible. TNA had the talent at one point, had the star power, had the in-ring action, and absolutely COULD have competed with WWE- but their advertising was so terrible they could never be that close to WWE in the race (and the Hogan era is an example- Hogan may have started TNA jumping the shark- but the beginning of Hogan's run got TNA an advertising blitz for the first time in TNA's career. Incidentally, the first Hogan show was also the best rating TNA got in their history. Funny how that happens.) This is a big problem in Dixie's career, because again: Dixie CAME TO TNA FROM A PUBLIC RELATIONS BACKGROUND and if she had even the smallest iota of PR skill, she should have known damn well about the importance of advertising and marketing the promotion. She didn't make it transfer to TNA- and THAT says so much more about why Dixie's business dealing failings need to be marked against her. Oh no doubt, and I am not defending Dixie. I think it may have been a matter of misplaced value on what is allocated where. I.e. she considered advertising as the thing she could spend the least on, and it bit them in the ass when they started to travel.
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Reflecto
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Post by Reflecto on Oct 11, 2016 23:29:07 GMT -5
Oh no doubt, and I am not defending Dixie. I think it may have been a matter of misplaced value on what is allocated where. I.e. she considered advertising as the thing she could spend the least on, and it bit them in the ass when they started to travel. Even that is still the problem- first off, any PR person worth their salt would know that is the dumbest thing possible to do. Second off, TNA had the worst part that they didn't start to really travel, outside a couple spot house shows (often promoted by the ICP and selling out huge- in large part because regardless of people's thoughts about them musically, ICP are very, very good at advertising and marketing to their fanbase)- until around 2007 when Spike TV had the Impact run...and also when most of the bloom had fallen off the rose as far as TNA's real BUZZ happened (which is a big problem if you're building your travelling show without much advertisement- NXT's live tour is proof that method works best when your product is so utterly white hot that the fanbase will NEED to see that show live no matter what it takes... and TNA was long past that point for a few years by the time they did a lot of house shows.)
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Oct 12, 2016 0:03:27 GMT -5
Exactly, she is Heyman at his worst without the charisma or dedication. She's worse than Heyman. At least Heyman paid Tazz and New Jack's medical bills. Agreed which is why I said she is worse than Heyman at his worst for sure. Paul was at least loyal to his soldiers in instances but as we know when it comes to shit like that Dixie isn't (Jesse Sorrenson, Daffney)
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Oct 12, 2016 5:15:32 GMT -5
Exactly, she is Heyman at his worst without the charisma or dedication. She's worse than Heyman. At least Heyman paid Tazz and New Jack's medical bills. Paul Heyman looks like ATM Eric next to Dixie.
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