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Post by chunkylover53 on Nov 22, 2009 2:44:49 GMT -5
Its just not in the WWF/E's style which is not necessarilly a bad thing. Different audience, different way they run things, etc etc. Even as a 10 year old bias WWF mark, I knew they were copying WCW. Here's one no one mention - using obscure celebrities to garner ratings(e.g. The Guest Host thing they have going now). What pains me the most is WWE has criticized WCW doing that, which angers me more. There's a huge difference there, though. WCW did stuff like have live concerts on Nitro for no reason and pay KISS assloads of money to base a jobber on them. All WWE does is give them 15 or 20 minutes a week at most, and always in ways that feature guys on the roster as well. Well I haven't watched the WWE since Wrestlemania 25 to make a proper judgement(my current knowledge of the product comes from here), but they fact that they are relying on guest hosts every week SCREAMS desperation, just like WCW did in the past. Kiss, No Limit Soldiers, DAVID ARQUETTE!!! When you have people wondering who will the next guest host be rather than what the storylines are, that can/will hurt the product immensely. I'm not opposed to celebrity use in wrestling, if done right(Mike Tyson being a shining example), but you don't want to overdue it. Instead of relying on quick answers that don't work, focused on your own product and try to make it better. Thats what WCW did, and now WWE is following the same path.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2009 2:47:51 GMT -5
There's a huge difference there, though. WCW did stuff like have live concerts on Nitro for no reason and pay KISS assloads of money to base a jobber on them. All WWE does is give them 15 or 20 minutes a week at most, and always in ways that feature guys on the roster as well. Yeah it's not like WWE ever had a live concert from an outdated performer on TV. Or even stupider perform it live on their biggest show of the year... for over 10 minutes. Doing something once is not tantamount to doing it repeatedly.
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Post by Impact Zone's #1 DUMMY...YEAH on Nov 22, 2009 4:02:50 GMT -5
You be the judge. Nitro Intro 1996: Raw Intro 1996: Raw Intro 1997: I wondered about that too, watching some old Nitros. I thought the intros looked incredibly similar.
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Post by Schattenjager on Nov 22, 2009 4:09:20 GMT -5
Under-utilizing Raven.
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Post by Bubble Lead on Nov 22, 2009 5:01:04 GMT -5
Yeah it's not like WWE ever had a live concert from an outdated performer on TV. Or even stupider perform it live on their biggest show of the year... for over 10 minutes. Doing something once is not tantamount to doing it repeatedly. WCW did that like three times. There really is no defending WWE on this one. The only thing separating bad celebrity involvement in WCW to WWE at this point is WWE hasn't given a celeb the World or WWE Title yet.
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Post by jfpierce on Nov 22, 2009 11:12:37 GMT -5
To say that DX isn't an nWo ripoff is extreme hairsplitting. Dx was an anti-authority stable that dressed in black and spraypainted their name on things, and had Shawn Waltman.
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Post by stormwrestling on Nov 22, 2009 11:39:23 GMT -5
Doing something once is not tantamount to doing it repeatedly. WCW did that like three times. There really is no defending WWE on this one. The only thing separating bad celebrity involvement in WCW to WWE at this point is WWE hasn't given a celeb the World or WWE Title yet. Yet being the key word
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Post by JaySticLe respects Umaga on Nov 22, 2009 12:25:42 GMT -5
To say that DX isn't an nWo ripoff is extreme hairsplitting. Dx was an anti-authority stable that dressed in black and spraypainted their name on things, and had Shawn Sean Waltman. Fixed for accuracy. But, let's review this: DX wore black, yes, but they also wore green and white, too. In fact, those are the main colors of their titantron! And, yes, DX was anti-authority, but I sure didn't see them try and take over the WWF with a mass army. Maybe WCW, but not WWF. They only sparingly spraypainted their names, and usually they spraypainted "WCW" on people who were going down south. And I've never heard of Shawn Waltman. Is he like the porn star called Sean Michaels? Also, DX didn't have the whole company and some celebs (only one) join them. They, as a whole, had less then 10 total members at a time. Here's the list (according to my memory): Triple H Shawn Michaels (was in WWF's nWo) Road Dogg Mr. Ass Chyna Rick Rude (was in WCW's nWo) X-Pac (only person to be in both versions of the nWo and be in DX) Tori Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley (she was in the titantron in 2000, so she counts) 8 or 9 people. Reasonable amount. I love that record that X-Pac has. Also, the 2002 nWo has the record for most Kliq members in a group together: 4 (Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, X-Pac, Scott Hall) Almost all the Kliq was in there except for HHH, who was off WINNING THE WWF/E TITLE.
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Post by Tiger Millionaire on Nov 22, 2009 13:07:14 GMT -5
The whole Attitude Era. I know this will fall on deaf ears since most people have been trained to think that Vince McMahon come up with this, maybe when watching an episode of ECW, but for those of us who lived during the time, you will see what I mean. WWE Raw was not a show that was must see TV. Once in a while something would happen, but it was basically a benign show. Now when Nitro came one, you had alot of stuff that you did not see on weekly wrestling television working on a wide scale. You had something different every week(in the beginning). It was must more of a water cooler show then Raw was. WWF Raw was almost the opposite of attitude. Even one of the edgier character like Golddust was based on a tried and true tradition of Adrian Adonis. It wasn't until Vince looked at Nitro, looked at it succeeded with edgier characters(edgier for the National Wrestling Period at the time) that he switched to the attitude era. He created his evil boss, his outsiders that were cool and peppers in shoot comments, his loner hero. Vince would even do it better then Nitro, but no doubt the initial blueprint was Nitro's.
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Post by Schattenjager on Nov 22, 2009 13:10:29 GMT -5
It was also WCW that forced Vince to actually have competitive matches on RAW. That was stolen from Nitro.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2009 13:19:51 GMT -5
Doing something once is not tantamount to doing it repeatedly. WCW did that like three times. There really is no defending WWE on this one. The only thing separating bad celebrity involvement in WCW to WWE at this point is WWE hasn't given a celeb the World or WWE Title yet. You make it sound as though celebrities in wrestling are a concept that WCW invented and that has never, ever worked out. Which of course ignores even the original WrestleMania, though even besides that wrestling has a long, long history of bringing in stars for cameos or even some story involvement here and there. And while it doesn't always work out, it's hardly been a policy that's done nothing but fail. On another note, I'm still waiting for Schwarzenegger to defend the Undisputed Box Office Championship. It's been like ten years. Oh, and there is in the strictest sense no harm in having a concert on PPV - know why? On TV, people can change the channel. On PPV, it doesn't matter what they do because WWE's already got their money. If anything, it is a good way to get the live crowd to go get extra merch and snacks if the performance bores them.
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Madagascar Fred
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Post by Madagascar Fred on Nov 22, 2009 13:29:18 GMT -5
It was also WCW that forced Vince to actually have competitive matches on RAW. That was stolen from Nitro. this absolutely...many good answers in this thread anyway!
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Post by Janitor From Mars on Nov 22, 2009 13:43:50 GMT -5
They both ripped each other off at times but without competition, who does Vince have left to rip-off?
Hence the need for fresh competition in this day and age.
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"Magic" Mark Hurr
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Post by "Magic" Mark Hurr on Nov 22, 2009 14:02:30 GMT -5
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Jay Peas 42
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Post by Jay Peas 42 on Nov 22, 2009 14:26:17 GMT -5
Well, when you say rip off, I think of Renegade or Demolition. It would be like in 1997, WCW started the Guerrero Trust and started talking about how great Mexico is and bad America is. That's a rip off.
I don't really think D-X was a rip off of the NWO. NWO was, first and foremost, an Invasion Angle. D-X, was always a stable, involved in Factional Warfare. Sure they both tried to be, edgy, but so what? To use an anology, Law and Order and CSI are both crime dramas. If you like one, you'll probably like the other, and both shows have had similar story lines. But that doesn't mean they are ripoffs. Having similar storylines isn't the same thing as having cloned storylines.
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Post by Bubble Lead on Nov 22, 2009 14:36:19 GMT -5
WCW did that like three times. There really is no defending WWE on this one. The only thing separating bad celebrity involvement in WCW to WWE at this point is WWE hasn't given a celeb the World or WWE Title yet. You make it sound as though celebrities in wrestling are a concept that WCW invented and that has never, ever worked out. Which of course ignores even the original WrestleMania, though even besides that wrestling has a long, long history of bringing in stars for cameos or even some story involvement here and there. And while it doesn't always work out, it's hardly been a policy that's done nothing but fail. On another note, I'm still waiting for Schwarzenegger to defend the Undisputed Box Office Championship. It's been like ten years. Oh, and there is in the strictest sense no harm in having a concert on PPV - know why? On TV, people can change the channel. On PPV, it doesn't matter what they do because WWE's already got their money. If anything, it is a good way to get the live crowd to go get extra merch and snacks if the performance bores them. Im aware WCW didn't invent the celeb thing, which actually makes it even sillier to criticize them for doing it every so often. Theres no harm in having a concert on PPV because people already paid their money and it may bore the crowd enough to go buy stuff? Thats one of the silliest things I have ever heard. Yeah, if only WCW had their boring concerts on PPV! That would have made everything okay!
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mrjl
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Post by mrjl on Nov 22, 2009 15:02:25 GMT -5
Doing something once is not tantamount to doing it repeatedly. WCW did that like three times. There really is no defending WWE on this one. The only thing separating bad celebrity involvement in WCW to WWE at this point is WWE hasn't given a celeb the World or WWE Title yet. I like the guest hosts
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Post by diegorivera on Nov 22, 2009 16:03:10 GMT -5
The real difference in the Raw's use of celebs and Nitro's is that the WWE is having a popularity slump during a down period for the public's interest in pro wrestling yet is still managing to make money, often times more than they've made during the boom periods. WCW was having a popularity slump during one of said boom periods with more than enough public interest in pro wrestling and yet lost tons of money and eventually went out of business.
For all the hate Raw get's nowadays it still doesn't hold a candle to the sort of dismal, intelligence insulting, face palming, channel changing sort of dreck Nitro could dish out. Maybe it's just that Vince runs a tighter ship, but his crap is turning a profit. WCW's wasn't. The average viewer would rather watch poorly acted skits with Ozzy Osbourne and Jeremy Piven in between the 1000th John Cena/Randy Orton/HHH/HBK match with Michael Cole's "VINTAGE" commentary than a KISS concert right after a Mike Sanders vs Van Hammer match than ends with a nWo run in and a DQ in a match that was supposed to have no DQs that features Tony Schiavone shouting that this is, "The greatest night in the history OF OUR SPORT!" It's like the difference between "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," and "Gigli." Both are crap, but one get people to watch.
On subject, a lot of booking fans dreamed of for Eddie Guerrero while in WCW was actually realized in WWE. Eddie noted in his book that the "Cheat to Win," slogan originated in WCW but never went anywhere. In the E, it became part of his catch phrase and was put on a shirt and sold. Dunno if that counts as ripped off, but when I watched him in WCW I always wondered why I could never get a Cheat to Win shirt. I just had to wait about six years or so...
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Post by GaTechGrad on Nov 23, 2009 12:53:29 GMT -5
I'll also throw in the limo arrival / who's in the limo? WCW was notorious for the limo scene, then WWE started doing it soon after.
Edit: Just thought of two more:
Overruns (going past the scheduled program ending time)
Pyro for wrestlers
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Post by chunkylover53 on Nov 23, 2009 13:59:14 GMT -5
The real difference in the Raw's use of celebs and Nitro's is that the WWE is having a popularity slump during a down period for the public's interest in pro wrestling yet is still managing to make money, often times more than they've made during the boom periods. WCW was having a popularity slump during one of said boom periods with more than enough public interest in pro wrestling and yet lost tons of money and eventually went out of business. For all the hate Raw get's nowadays it still doesn't hold a candle to the sort of dismal, intelligence insulting, face palming, channel changing sort of dreck Nitro could dish out. Maybe it's just that Vince runs a tighter ship, but his crap is turning a profit. WCW's wasn't. The average viewer would rather watch poorly acted skits with Ozzy Osbourne and Jeremy Piven in between the 1000th John Cena/Randy Orton/HHH/HBK match with Michael Cole's "VINTAGE" commentary than a KISS concert right after a Mike Sanders vs Van Hammer match than ends with a nWo run in and a DQ in a match that was supposed to have no DQs that features Tony Schiavone shouting that this is, "The greatest night in the history OF OUR SPORT!" It's like the difference between "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," and "Gigli." Both are crap, but one get people to watch. I honestly think the current crap RAW(or WWE as a whole) is dishing out will hurt them in the long run. They may not to losing viewers now, but how long can this guest host thing last WITHOUT turning viewers away? The list of people will(if not already) run dry. The concept just screams half ass and desperation. It has to stop immediately. Do they need something to force them to get their act together? Competition? Losing more viewers? Injuries of big name stars at the same time? I know WWE can get better if they really wanted to, but they just decide to settle for a 3.5 to 3.8 rating. What about the monster rating they got when Randy Orton was being a psycopath, or Donald Trump buying RAW(I hate the angle, but bare with me here)? That shows they is a 1.0 out there to be had. You're not suppose to put on compelling television during Wrestlemania season, you're suppose to do it EVERY WEEK. If you love your viewers so much, stop putting on quick fixes that'll get old. Makes me glad I no longer watch them.
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