Malcolm
Grimlock
Wanted something done about the color of his ring.
May contain ADHD
Posts: 13,482
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Post by Malcolm on Jul 30, 2014 12:43:58 GMT -5
People have fond memories of the Monday Night War. To them it was the most exciting time to be a pro wrestling fan. WCW vs WWF in a war for ratings in a way that you just didn't know what was gonna happen next... But there are also those who believe that it had a negative effect on the US wrestling business in the long run. In this thread we discuss them.
The one that stands out for me is PPV quality matches on "free"(if you even consider basic cable free) TV. Now almost nobody likes squash matches and a show full of nothing but those would suck, but when you put out PPV calibur matches(sometimes between two wrestlers who are supposed to be meeting for PPV later in the month), why bother buying the PPV?
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jul 30, 2014 13:10:11 GMT -5
Wrestling began to be built around television while things that can make the company money became a secondary concern, big matches were regularly given away for free and people got used to that, leading to the situation where the audience is burned out on a feud before they get to PPV, and certain combinations of top guys have been done a dozen or so times so it's hard for them to make a fresh feud between them... See the 'ugh' reaction that the Cena/Orton or Sheamus/Del Rio feuds get. WCW was the worst for PPV matches/feud enders on free TV, they rushed the Hogan/Goldberg feud and put it on TV when it could have made them an absolute tonne of money.
Then there's the ECW influence, where you had guys doing things that took years off their career, taking moves or bumps they had absolutely no business taking, chairshots were something that ended matches but in the attitude era, people were getting pounded, taking unprotected shots that damaged their health... and it still wasn't enough to finish them. Young guys were being booked to fall off ladders in meaningless matches on Raw and for what? To bump up the ratings just a little or because the writers couldn't come up with compelling storylines for them and guys like Michael P.S. Hayes (according to X-Pac) didn't give a rats behind about the wellbeing of the people he's booking. A Ladder or Hardcore match should be a feud ender, the big blowoff to a long feud, not pointless busywork for midcarders which put them in an awkward position where they had to take big bumps to get noticed. Look at Foley, Edge, Helms, Angle look at the present day state of most of the ECW roster, there is no way that the Hardcore style was a good thing for wrestling.
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Post by molson5 on Jul 30, 2014 14:36:11 GMT -5
I think people's enjoyment of the product today is hindered by romantic and inaccurate memories of the attitude era. It was exciting then because it was so different than what came just a few years before, but if you actually go back and watch those TV shows, a lot of it did not age very well, and it's riddled with the kinds of things people still complain about today (except there were shorter matches, less wrestling, and more DQ finishes).
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Post by James Fabiano on Jul 30, 2014 14:45:16 GMT -5
Two words: RUSSO BOOKING.
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Post by thegame415 on Jul 31, 2014 0:37:05 GMT -5
I like to think of the Monday Night Wars like a literal war. The wrestling landscape was severely damaged, and it's still in recovery.
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Post by Jedi-El of Tomorrow on Jul 31, 2014 3:54:32 GMT -5
I'd say the birth of the cool heel. The nWo had the merch, catchphrases, the interacting with fans, and always came out on top. A villain is there for the crowd to hate, and to get beat in the end. That changed with the nWo, and WCW suffered because they couldn't let go of the cool heel concept, and didn't realize that the villain does have to get toppled, and the heroes stand triumphant.
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Post by berlynwright on Jul 31, 2014 4:03:37 GMT -5
short term booking and hot potatoing of titles.
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Jul 31, 2014 5:00:22 GMT -5
In WCW's case, it ended up with them largely ignoring making the PPVs worthwhile viewing and largely ignoring the midcard in favour of blockbuster main events on free TV.
Death of WCW observed that Goldberg vs. Hogan in front of 60-odd thousand was a HUGE moment for WCW, had major heat, but it was f***ing stupid because imagine the buyrate they could've got for Goldberg's first title shot. The nWo would occasionally lose out on TV but rarely ever lost out on PPVs.
Try to count the times the nWo lost, and it's almost all on TV rather than PPV.
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Post by CeilingFan on Jul 31, 2014 5:22:10 GMT -5
House shows became irrelevant. Why go to one if all the good stuff happened on TV?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2014 7:40:16 GMT -5
Shows became built around who can pop a bigger rating, regardless of whether or not the match would be any good. Sure, you can have Kevin Nash vs. Goldberg (just throwing two random guys) on Nitro as your main-event because they are two names that draw a lot of interest; but if they don't work well together and have a crappy match, you can't blame the wrestlers. You pin the blame on the bookers who should have known better. Same goes for 20 minute talking segments that don't do anything but stroke the wrestlers' egos. And wastes your time. (I'm looking at you, Triple H.)
How many of you bought a PPV to see a certain high-profile match, then the next night on Raw/Nitro (and in some really dumb cases, later on in the week also on SmackDown/Thunder), they just give you the exact same match you paid $30 for the previous evening?! (Crap, they STILL do that!)
Feuds that don't have a defining end because "it didn't draw, nobody cares". And I'm not talking about one-offs; I mean feuds they spent a lot of TV time building as a serious grudge between two guys. Glad some of these writers don't script books; you'd get 8 chapters in, it has a hot build, babyface starts to make the comeback, and...The End.
Matches only matter if the guys have good chemistry and need a time-killer. The Cruiserweights in WCW went through this. Then, a few years ago, we'd see Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston fighting over a belt all summer long. In the end, it means nothing. Yeah, Kofi wins the belt, everybody's happy. Then the next week, he drops the belt to some bozo you never heard of.
"That's a shoot!" To 85% of your audience, nobody knows what that means. To the other 15%, you're a liar.
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Post by celtics543 on Jul 31, 2014 8:03:07 GMT -5
I think one of the most negative effects of the Attitude Era is that it was so successful. By that I mean that bookers and fans look back on it with so much love that guys who wrestled in that era are still being pushed beyond their means. Every time an Attitude Era star makes a big return he's pushed as a superstar which only hurts the new crop of guys. It's why the New Age Outlaws won the tag titles, it's why the Rock is still pushed as an elite wrestler even though he hasn't wrestled in years, and it's why Steve Austin is still feared when he makes appearances even though he hasn't wrestled in 11 years and has a bad neck.
At some point we have to stop treating these guys like they're in their primes. The same thing could be said about HHH when he makes appearances or even the Undertaker. They should be putting the new guys over left and right but instead bookers cling to the pop that these guys get based on something they did fifteen years ago.
The other major issue is that we got this idea that top guys can be around forever because attitude era guys are the first to really stick around for a while. In the 1980's it was Hogan and then a rotating stable of heels for him to conquer. With business being mostly house show driven with some pay per views sprinkled in that model worked. In the 1990's television grew and top guys couldn't be top guys for as long anymore. Bret was on top sporadically from 1993 to 1997, only four years. Shawn was on top from early 1996 until his back injury in 1998. Steve Austin was THE top guy from 1998 until 2001. The Rock was on top from around 2001 until 2003 before going to make movies. Top guys didn't stick around for too long. Compare that to now where John Cena has been THE MAN in the WWE since 2005, a solid nine years as the top babyface in the company.
We look back on the attitude era so fondly because things changed often. No guy truly dominated the WWE world title for more than three years before giving way to the next guy or turning heel to keep things fresh. Right now we've been in the John Cena era for nine years. I'm a fan of the guy but no one can stay fresh, especially without changing his character, for that long. From 1997 to 2002 I can name every guy who held the title because they were all meaningful runs. Bret, Undertaker, Shawn, Austin, Sid, Rock, Kane, Angle, HHH, and Foley all had memorable runs with the title in that five year span. Today we don't have that kind of parity between top contenders, it's John Cena's title seemingly whenever he wants it.
That's the negative effect of the Monday Night War. One company means only one place to work and main eventers who have been on top for a long time have no where else to go, which means there aren't any openings for the young guys trying to break through. Every other era had main eventers who, for whatever reason, found themselves no longer main eventing for the same company four years after they got to that level. This era hasn't had that happen, in fact due to returning stars we've had guys come back to extend their main event run even longer. It's killing the company.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 31, 2014 9:24:15 GMT -5
Man, where to begin? I'll likely wind up repeating a few things that other folks here have already said.
-Weekly PPV caliber matches. It's weird to go back to old WWF or WCW PPVs and see matches that feel slow, matches with schmozz endings, matches that don't blow you away in terms of workrate or whatever, yet they feel so much more fulfilling than PPVs today that are filled with elite workers going all-out. Why is that?
The Wars era saw the end of straight up TV jobber squashes, so guys who might be built to lose a PPV match could still look credible. Instead, top guys would face each other every week, and a PPV with them on it no longer feels special. There's little to be had from a PPV match, because almost every fresh match up has been exhausted. So now you need guys who should be profitable, successful midcarders to instead act as jobbers for the ascendant main eventers. Stupid.
-The "in the ring by yourself" promo, and the "invisible camera" backstage vingette. These didn't really exist in the old days, and they're two of the absolute worst, least forgivable things about the Wars era, and wrestling would be infinitely better off if they just about eliminated both altogether. They're the absolute worst.
-The "Stone Cold model" for getting over; if you can't do it like Austin, Rock, or whomever did it, then Vince (and other promoters) doesn't have the time of day for you, nevermind that Austin 3:16 was nearly 20 years ago now and things are totally different.
-The lack of competition. Nothing more to be said about that.
-Playing with kayfabe instead of just presenting your show as a legit sports competition, but with a lot of flair and colorful characters. Stop freaking winking and nodding at the camera; unless you're CM Punk or Paul Heyman then nobody wants to hear your worked shoot; we want to willfully suspend our disbelief, and you're making it impossible.
-The heel authority figure. Remember when I said that solo in-ring promos that go on forever and invisible camera skits are the worst? I might have lied, because THIS might be the worst.
-Burnout factor. Even with crash TV no longer being the main staple of US wrestling, it's still just so easy to feel burned out nowadays. There's a reason the crowd turned on Cena as quickly as it did back in the day, and it's because he's ALWAYS on TV, and you feel like you're watching the same show every week, and...ugh.
...Looking back, I really didn't enjoy the Monday Night Wars very much. I did get a kick out of all the cruiserweights who made an impact in WCW, really enjoyed the nWo for awhile, but when I look back I realize that I watched both WCW and WWF in earnest around 1998, a bit in 1999, but by midway through that year I was completely burnt out and was sick of both of them, only checking on them occasionally. Just an awful legacy that comes that era, really.
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metylerca
King Koopa
Loves Him Some Backstreet Boys.
Don't be alarmed.
Posts: 12,479
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Post by metylerca on Jul 31, 2014 11:30:14 GMT -5
Fat guy with the winged eagle belt over his shoulder at shows talking up the attitude era.
Thanks, Monday Night War!
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TGM
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,073
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Post by TGM on Jul 31, 2014 13:31:24 GMT -5
There had to be a loser who would be painted by the winner as pathetic.
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Push R Truth
Patti Mayonnaise
Unique and Special Snowflake, and a pants-less heathen.
Perpetually Constipated
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Post by Push R Truth on Jul 31, 2014 13:41:51 GMT -5
Created a wrestling world where most matchups have been seen too often.... or are people really clamoring for Orton/Cena again?
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Post by CATCH_US IS the Conversation on Jul 31, 2014 13:56:31 GMT -5
The Wars era saw the end of straight up TV jobber squashes, so guys who might be built to lose a PPV match could still look credible. Instead, top guys would face each other every week, and a PPV with them on it no longer feels special. There's little to be had from a PPV match, because almost every fresh match up has been exhausted. So now you need guys who should be profitable, successful midcarders to instead act as jobbers for the ascendant main eventers. Stupid. The problem isn't midcarders being used as jobbers for rising stars. The problem is midcarders being EXCLUSIVELY used as jobbers. That's actually one thing the Monday Night Wars got right. Mid and lower carders had characters and got to do things other than simply lose. If the Monday Night Wars were booked the way that today's product was booked, we'd have Sting refusing to break the Scorpion Death Lock on Alex Wright after the bell while Tony Schiavone talks about how AGGRESSIVE he is
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Post by Hit Girl on Jul 31, 2014 14:07:10 GMT -5
Practically everything wrong with wrestling today can be traced back to the Monday Night War
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2014 14:16:24 GMT -5
The use of the heel authority figure as a major crutch in the storyetelling.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2014 21:26:54 GMT -5
The real acceleration of wrestling's weird problems with women.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 31, 2014 23:14:37 GMT -5
The Wars era saw the end of straight up TV jobber squashes, so guys who might be built to lose a PPV match could still look credible. Instead, top guys would face each other every week, and a PPV with them on it no longer feels special. There's little to be had from a PPV match, because almost every fresh match up has been exhausted. So now you need guys who should be profitable, successful midcarders to instead act as jobbers for the ascendant main eventers. Stupid. The problem isn't midcarders being used as jobbers for rising stars. The problem is midcarders being EXCLUSIVELY used as jobbers. That's actually one thing the Monday Night Wars got right. Mid and lower carders had characters and got to do things other than simply lose. If the Monday Night Wars were booked the way that today's product was booked, we'd have Sting refusing to break the Scorpion Death Lock on Alex Wright after the bell while Tony Schiavone talks about how AGGRESSIVE he is Oh, I agree that, for a time, the Wars era did it better: Booker T and Chris Benoit had their committed TV Title feud (with bonus Finlay involvement!), the Cruiserweights focused on feuds with one another, the WWF actually had a tag division, etc. Yeah, Austin would beat the shit out of a bunch of midcarders, but since those guys would go back to legitimate feuds (well, as legitimate as some feuds could be when a portion of them revolved around transvestite hookers or avoiding castration via shrinkage) it didn't leave them with too much damage. But I think the overall formula of a guy like Austin just beating up anybody, and the overload of PPV-level matches, contributed to create this environment where being midcard means you might as well not exist. The Wars era made featuring your main eventers every single week a requisite, and now fans won't accept anything less. It worked for a little bit in the Wars era, but burnout quickly followed, and that same era created the platform that gave us the usage of midcarders today.
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