2001 March, Part 2
Mar 19, 01"At press time, eerily similar to ECW just two plus months ago, there are only three shows remaining on the books, the Greed PPV show on 3/18 in Jacksonville, Nitro the next night in Gainesville, FL and the annual Spring Breakout Nitro on 3/26 in Panama City, FL."
"There are no shows scheduled for April and nobody seems to have an answer as to what will air in the wrestling time slots on Monday and Wednesday night on TNT and TBS. While there were plans for a 5/6 PPV show from Las Vegas and at one point Eric Bischoff was targeting that show as a major spectacular bringing in a lot of new talent, all previous target dates have been changed because the sale hasn't gone through and Bischoff doesn't have the full power to execute his plans and make his changes. While advertising is out for the show and it has not officially been canceled, nobody at this point has any idea whether or not the show will actually take place."
"Ever since the announcement that a sale was pending, Fusient had an employee working in the WCW offices to work on the sale transition, and he was still working at press time, and clearly, if the deal wasn't going to happen, he would have been recalled to New York. When Brad Siegel returned from vacation on 3/13, WCW employees were expecting an update on the situation and again, nothing was said. Before he left, when questions were asked regarding the future of the business past the end of the month, his response was that he expected the deal to go through and everything after the end of the month would be in their hands."
"There were storyline advances indicating the deal coming through on Nitro on 3/12 with empty chairs and talk that the "new owners" may be arriving (which they didn't), but it is said that segment was written having nothing to do with real-life negotiations and isn't indicative of anything regarding progress of the real-life sale."
"There have been snags in the negotiations in recent weeks. Fusient originally agreed to a purchase price in the neighborhood of $70 million, but lowered the offer to the $50 million range based on the January books, which showed another unforeseen downturn in company income even below the devastating final quarter of 2000. There are estimates that the company at this point is losing anywhere from $5 million to $7 million each month. Because the company is losing money so rapidly, shutting down running shows and doing television and even PPV, even while continuing to pay the current salaries (at least until they can exercise the 90 day cycles in most of the talent contracts) would cut down on that monthly loss figure temporarily."
"If the deal is to go through, the belief is that Bischoff will do his long planned out angle to shut down the company, perhaps as soon as Sunday's PPV or 3/26. However, one of those working the closest with Bischoff is under the impression there will be a show on 4/2. No site has been announced (there is a building on hold) and it's going to be difficult to get publicity out at this late date for a show, and if it isn't done by the weekend, it would be almost impossible, and there is no purpose in not making those announcements by this point. This indicates one of two things. The deal being completed, at least at this time, is either not a formality, or Bischoff will be shooting the angle to lead to the shutdown."
"Another indication is that the WWC promotion in Puerto Rico was told virtually all WCW talent would be available to them in April because WCW would be shutting down, and they've expressed interest in Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, Konnan and Rey Misterio Jr. among others."
"The length of the shutdown isn't clear at this point. If the plan is to run a 5/6 PPV show, it would be for about a month as they would have to at least have massive publicity to get word out of TV to draw enough viewers that weren't in the weekly habit of watching the show back, and then use that show to build the PPV. If not, there has been talk that the shutdown could last as long as August or September before the company is re-launched with a new cast of characters both in front of, and behind-the-scenes, and a new look."
"The belief is at that point, the promotion at the beginning would run nine shows per month, eight television tapings and a PPV. The TV's would likely all be taped as opposed to live on Monday night, to give the shows a chance to be edited, perhaps Friday and Saturday tapings for shows airing on Monday and Wednesday, with Las Vegas the most likely location, but none of that is finalized nor is it likely to be finalized for some time. Bischoff has recognized that Thunder has been a poor television product with the bad atmosphere with dwindling early leaving crowds that don't react after seeing a live Nitro."
"The 1.59 Rick Steiner vs. DDP did ranks behind only a Scott Steiner vs. Jarrett main event on 1/8 as the lowest rated main event in the history of the show."
"The scary stat of the week was in the head-to-head hour, Raw was watched by 1,145,000 teenagers while Nitro had 57,000, roughly 20-to-one."
"They did a deal where Buff had a camcorder filming a documentary on the life of Ric Flair (you'd think they could afford a real camera man?). Flair talked about having worked for the company for 20 years (pretty mean feat since the company has only been around for 12 1/2) but I guess that's like 50 years of WWF history. Were all of you cringing as bad as me when he brought up Hogan, Savage and Piper? Flair isn't saying that for his health, you know."
"Midajah was laid out. Sucks to be her. They spent the rest of the show trying to figure out who did it. The footage that aired never showed a perpetrator on the camcorder even though we were told the whole backstage had surveillance cameras everywhere which is why we can see everything. Maybe they just should have asked her."
"Stasiak has the look, and it doesn't matter if his matches stink and fans find him boring. There are guys in this business who have made a career having what promoters thought was the right look that never drew a dime but got chance after chance anyway."
"When talking about the break-up of 3 Count, Scott Hudson brought up John, Paul, George and Ringo. Anyway, Schiavone said something to the effect of, maybe if they had wrestled each other, they'd still be together today."
"Dusty looks now like an albino Charlie Chan."
"They were still advertising Mobile for 3/25 even though it's been canceled due to a non-existent advance."
"All the heels ran in to destroy DDP. They showed Booker and Cat laid out on stretchers backstage from their earlier beating and the announcers were exclaiming there was nobody left to help him. And there was, except for the other 30 guys in the dressing room. They should have made it more clear. There's nobody who can help him because it is company policy here that we have a glass ceiling and nobody who wasn't on top in a different era or isn't friends with the right people are allowed to do run-ins when main eventers are involved."
"E.Z. Money, last week known as Jason B, is now known as Jason Jett. I was told Jett was the most impressive performer on the taping using a lot of innovative offensive moves and they were impressed because he's not a cruiserweight."
"Chris Ford, who wrestled as Crowbar, was released, told by the office because his contract (believed to be slightly more than $100,000) was "so high" and they were cutting back on the budget. It was a high figure if you consider the company had stopped using him."
"Time Warner is moving to settle as may lawsuits as possible as quickly as possible. Jerry Seganowich (Jerry Sags of the Nasty Boys) had his case settled a few months back claiming a career ending concussion from a chair incident involving Scott Hall, who he warned to stay away from his head due to a previous concussion, and Hall didn't, clocked him again, and he never wrestled again. There was another part of that story in that Seganowich was furious when Hall hit him with a chair and attacked him for real in the ring and busted him up pretty good and Hall ended up needing oral surgery"
"Arn Anderson, whose suspension was up this week, wasn't brought back for TV"
"A major complaint of the current formatting is the feeling that instead of laying out matches for 5-6 minutes (which means 3-4 minutes because they count segment time which includes walking to the ring and ring announcements), they now lay most matches out for nine minutes with the feeling they need to emphasize the wrestling content. The shortcoming as it pertains to understanding the abilities of talent is that if it's Shawn Stasiak or Cat or someone who isn't a good worker, they get the same time that someone like Kidman would get, who is."
"Bagwell signed a two month contract extension through May 1 as his deal ran out last week."
"In the Konnan-Storm match on Thunder, the reason they did a crowd cutaway on the finish was because did a run-in, but slipped on the ring steps"
""With all the heat on the company for too many of the older wrestlers working Carolinas in the 70s where racial slurs were part and parcel of being a heel and after the heat because Flair called Cat "sambo" at a house show not that long ago, attorneys for Sonny Onoo and company were really quick to jump on Flair on television telling a fan supposedly to shut up or "I'll Jap slap you." "
Mar 26, 01
" "In early January, we told you about an agreement that we had reached to sell WCW and its related assets. At that time, we said that we would apprise you of any changes to the way WCW operates. Effective Tuesday, March 27, WCW programming will begin a period of hiatus. During this hiatus, WCW will review its programming plans and determine the course of future WCW-branded entertainment events. On Wednesday, March 28, please plan to attend an all-staff meeting at 10 a.m. at the Power Plant, at which we will share with you further information regarding WCW plans. In the meantime, I hope that you will maintain the level of professionalism that distinguishes our organization, particularly as we prepare for the upcoming Panama City, Florida event. Thank you." -- Brad Siegel, in a memo to the staff on the morning of 3/16"
"Even to the end, they couldn't be completely honest to their own employees. There is no hiatus, and by the end of the day, TBS Inc. publicly announced it would no longer air wrestling on its stations after a 29-year run."
"This clears the way for an expected purchase of what is left of the company, the name and trademarks owned by the company and the videotape library by the WWF, plus however they negotiate contracts of wrestlers, which is expected to go down within two weeks. The combination of the purchase and the end of wrestling on the Turner networks, may mark the biggest news story in the modern era of wrestling. If not the biggest, it ends the challenging story for first place, as the final end of the wrestling war started when Vince McMahon raided Hulk Hogan, David Shults, Roddy Piper and Gene Okerlund from Verne Gagne and Jim Crockett in December of 1983, signalling the start of the wrestling war, which he appeared to have won many times, but it was never final until now."
"In his first major act as CEO of Turner Broadcasting, Jamie Kellner, who has always disliked pro wrestling, made the decision to cancel all pro wrestling programming. In doing so, it nearly ended negotiations that had been rocky, with Fusient Media Ventura, to purchase the company, a sale that was prematurely announced in January by Fusient President Brian Bedol, WCW President Brad Siegel and Eric Bischoff, so as to make it public literally hours before the official consummation of the AOL/Time Warner merger."
"Finalizing the deal between the two sides had many rocky points, in particular, the second round of due diligence, when the January books were examined by Fusient, found the company in a far worse financial state than Fusient had been led to believe from the original projections made by Time Warner. In addition, it scared away some of the original investment money, both of which caused Fusient in recent weeks to back away from the original $70-75 million purchase price and make an offer of $48.7 million for the company, which was close to finalization, although there were stumbling blocks, before Kellner made the decision."
"Even as late as mid-week, there were signs the sale to Fusient was close to being finalized, for $5.7 million down and $2.15 million per year in payments over 20 years. Everyone was proceeding as if this was the case, with plans of building up new talent after a shutdown at the end of the month, which likely would have led to a re-opening sometime over the summer, and searching for locations in Las Vegas to be permanent homes for both Nitro and Thunder (which, perhaps unknown to Fusient, a decision had already been made to cancel more than a month earlier as reported here as a probability). The contract included provisions for Time Warner to maintain a minority interest in the company as well as a multi-year agreement where the Turner networks would continue to carry WCW programming. After the decision made by Kellner, who believed pro wrestling not to be upscale enough programming for what he wanted TBS and TNT to become, the original deal was dead."
"Where things stand at press time is this. Time Warner is going to sell the company, within days, maybe two weeks at the most, almost assuredly to the WWF. It appears that Fusient officially backed out of the deal for good on 3/20 a desperation attempt to finalize a solid television deal on FOX after two days of meetings in time, which, without television, made it economically imprudent to put together a strong enough bid."
"Although not highly publicized, some of the decision regarding Turner programming was made even before Kellner took over. Plans had been made more than one year ago to try and distinguish TNT from TBS and give the stations specific personalities. At first, the idea was that Nitro would move to Monday nights on TBS. Those who have international deals with WCW were told over the past few weeks that effective in late April, there would only be one weekly show available. It was to be announced that TNT would drop wrestling, a deadline that was being moved to the end of April when the changes in station philosophy were to begin, and that one show, likely named Nitro, would have aired on TBS, until Kellner made the call."
"None of the wrestlers were told anything at the TV tapings on 3/19 about their future or the future of the company or even that the television show had been canceled, only that they had to come to work on 3/26. On television, it was said 3/26 would be the final show of the season, with no explanation what that meant, or acknowledgement of the media reports that the station was dropping wrestling. The wrestlers were actually never even told of that, and having been subject to so many worked angles by Bischoff, many, like the ECW wrestlers who failed to see the obvious even when it was reported, sadly deluded themselves into believing Bischoff was doing a work and that everything was fine."
"Ted Turner started WTCG, a UHF station in Atlanta, in 1972, and the late Ann Gunkel, the very pretty wife of Ray Gunkel, the top the area's top babyface star and part-owner of Georgia Championship Wrestling, was able to put together a deal with Turner to move the wrestling show to the station in its prime 6 p.m. Saturday night time slot, where it became the stations' first show to draw any kind of an audience. The show moved to two hours later that year after Ray Gunkel died and Ann started her own promotion, beginning a legendary area wrestling war which saw both companies tape television on Saturday mornings for one hour in the same studio on Techwood Drive. Jim Barnett, who remained employed by World Championship Wrestling to this day (although not consistently from that period), became the driving force behind NWA Georgia Championship Wrestling, which after the split, hired Gordon Solie from Florida as the lead announcer, and after buying out Gunkel when she threw in the towel, had a rare two hour wrestling show during a time period when most companies had one hour shows."
"The peak of Georgia Championship Wrestling, Inc. on a national basis was in 1981, shortly after it was renamed World Championship Wrestling as the name of the television program. For the year, it drew a 6.4 average rating on Saturday nights and numbers very close to that on Sundays, making it the most watched show on cable television"
"In 1984, after the popularity of the show saw the promotion expand outside of Georgia to promoting in many new markets off cable, most notably Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia, many of the stockholders including Barnett and Jack and Jerry Brisco as well as the regional promoters, disenchanted with the company's downhill slide, sold a controlling interest to Vince McMahon for $750,000, who promptly closed the company down and put WWF programming in the valuable time slots, thereby eliminating any serious threat for national competition during a pivotal historical period."
"However, the ratings dropped on the station, to the chagrin of Ted Turner, who never got along with McMahon, who had reneged on the contract of producing a separate program for the station taped weekly at the studios in Atlanta. When the switch was made, thousands of fans bombarded TBS with complaints about the new product airing in the traditional time slot, and in particular, about the loss of the popular Solie from the show. Instead, McMahon sent in tapes from his syndicated tapings. Turner almost immediately gave Rogowski an early morning time slot for a new company he formed called Championship Wrestling from Georgia, using Solie as his host."
"As he got more fed up with McMahon, Turner made a verbal deal with Bill Watts, whose Mid South Wrestling was one of the strongest remaining regional outfits by this point in early 1985, and generally considered the best when it came to television. In a slap in the face to McMahon, Turner gave Watts a one hour Sunday night time slot, which aired the Watts' syndicated show, and by the second week, Watts' show outrated both of McMahon's shows. Turner and Watts had agreed to a deal where Turner would buy into Watts' company, and they would expand to become the second national promotion and take on McMahon. However, before the deal was finalized and Turner was about to kick McMahon off the station and give Watts the prime slots, Jim Crockett, Turner and McMahon reached an agreement where Crockett paid McMahon $1 million for the time slots, McMahon left, Turner canceled his deal with Watts, and Crockett attempted to go national based on his new penetration."
"Crockett's company flourished from taking over in 1985 and successfully expanded into numerous markets around the country including Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia, through a strong 1986. Business slowed in 1987 through Rhodes' repeated screw-job endings at house shows and going too long with the same performers on top to where it got stale. The frequent turning of the same talent, to keep things fresh, burned out the audience, and the botched up aftermath of the purchase of Watts' territory, but not allowing any of his stars that could have freshened up the top of the card, into the main event mix, messed up a golden opportunity to alleviate the problems."
"World Championship Wrestling, Inc., formed in November of 1988, had its own stormy history. Based largely around internal infighting and hiring non-wrestling people to head its business, it was a money loser from the start, with frequent booker and management changes."
"Bischoff's big move was to spend money to make money. Others, like Herd, had the same philosophy, frequently negotiating with WWF's top talent, but Petrik wouldn't allow him to make big money offers, and the meetings turned into an embarrassment with Herd offering, say Randy Savage or Roddy Piper, less than what they were making to jump to a smaller company. Herd even had the idea of doing the television live, but it was turned down."
"In comparing television ratings for WWF and WCW throughout the 90s, the fact is, WCW drew almost identical ratings in 1992, significantly stronger ratings in 1993, the same year they couldn't draw flies at the box office, and 1994, well before there was a such thing as Nitro. Nobody knows this because, until the Monday Night wars begin in late 1995, nobody cared about ratings because ratings didn't correlate to revenue, and making money was, and still is, the real name of business."
"Looking back, Hogan drew most of the big buy rates. Hall and Nash were stars, but on their own, they may have been cool and for a period the NWO made them megastars, but Hogan knew how to keep them in their place as well. Sting was so hot that the Starrcade match was a disaster. Hogan pinned Sting. For some reason, it was supposed to be a fast count, except the count wasn't fast. A few rematches were screw-jobs, and by February, Sting had already cooled off and become a mere mortal."
"The business peaked in 1998. Even with WCW showing all the signs of an impending decline, it made $55 million in profit, making it the most successful year for a pro wrestling company in history."
"Goldberg became a monster. Hogan even put Goldberg over perfectly, then politically maneuvered the world title into the semi-main events, behind his feud. The Goldberg phenomenon cooled off because after beating Hogan, there were no new world's and Hogan never worked a program with him that would have drawn huge money on PPV, because the only result was to continue putting him over."
"Fooling people with no regard to how it will make money is only done by fools. Swerving the boys makes no money, thereby see the previous point."
"Insulting the audience directly is bad business. The audience knows it's all a work, but they don't want to be told, and they don't want to watch things that rub it in their face. For example, in the fantasy world of wrestling, even though it's ridiculous, it's okay for Sid Vicious to beat Tank Abbott, even though in real life that couldn't happen. It's not okay for David Arquette to do the same thing."
"Nash, who was popular among the wrestlers because he would speak up against Hogan, secretly cut a deal with Hogan. Nash would get the book and Hogan would "quit in protest," making Nash a hero to the boys for ridding Hogan's ego from the company and they'd listen to what he'd say. In the deal, Nash got to end the Goldberg streak at Starrcade, and unfortunately, Goldberg was never the same again. Hogan got to come back at the Georgia Dome a week later, and do the one finger push, and get the belt back. Nash would beat Goldberg and then not have to do a real job. Hogan would have the belt and the gang who made the boom would be back together, and Flair, standing for the tradition of the belt would chase Hogan."
"You could write a book at what killed WCW. The mistakes made at the peak. Goldberg doing that job. The one finger push. The frequent Flair heel turns, which always killed ratings, no matter how good Flair was at putting people over while working heel style. Remember that period in the mental hospital? Is that what the audience, where Flair had become the biggest draw after the rest of the superstars burned themselves out, wanted? Screwing every chance Bret Hart had to be a super babyface, both from his debut, to the release of "Wrestling with Shadows" (ignored by the promotion and he was kept off television for fear he'd be cheered) and even turning him heel within a few months of his comeback after his brother's death."
"Remember the Nitro where Flair was beaten up in the field, finally showed up at the end of the show, and unlike Stone Cold, simply got beaten up again?"
"Nothing is forever. Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan headlined a PPV in early 1999 and drew a 1.2 buy rate. The same two men headlined a PPV in early 2000 and drew an 0.15."
"Greed was very sad to watch, because not only was it good, but they finally did the things they've been needing to do for the past 18 months. The booking was good and not overdone, the matches were given time and many of them were very good as well, and there were attempts through ring entrances and finishes to elevate younger talent including Kid Romeo & Elix Skipper as a tag team, Sean O'Haire attempted to be groomed for the superstar level, Shawn Stasiak getting a bigger push as well as Shane Helms as a cruiserweight with star credibility and Jason Jett as a newcomer getting a huge push in commentary based on him being a good worker."
"The biggest story backstage involved Lex Luger & Buff Bagwell, who may have greatly hurt whatever slim chances (Bagwell) and virtually no chance (Luger) of being picked up by the WWF with their reaction to being asked to put over Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire. Both complained loudly about it to the point most wrestlers thought they were babies, and the way they stormed out of the building after the meeting to go to the gym made a lot of people think they weren't going to come back. The match itself was booked for 8:00 and it was supposed to be O'Haire pinning Luger with the seanton bomb clean. Instead, after doing a lengthy interview (which was on the script), they went into business for themselves and did a spot where they knocked each other out and laid down for O'Haire to do his move on both of them and pin Luger in 54 seconds. This was from the Kevin Nash school of doing a job, where if you do it quickly, nobody takes it as seriously as if you lose a hard-fought longer match."
"There was another last minute change in the cruiserweight tag team tournament. Rey Misterio Jr. & Billy Kidman had been told all along they were getting the titles, including given a finish of going over on the day of the show. They got the word it was changing at the last minute and while both were very upset about it, they were professional enough to not let it effect match quality."
"If there was a fitting end, so to speak, of the final WCW PPV event, it was seeing Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes in the ring getting by far the biggest crowd reactions of anyone on the show. Flair and Rhodes were the two top singles stars when Turner purchased the company in 1988, although who would have believed in 2001, they would oppose each other for the first time ever in a PPV match (their legendary matches, particularly in the mid-80s, came before the NWA promotion got on PPV)"
"Interesting that the former E.Z. Money will be the trivia question answer as to what wrestler was on the last PPV show for both ECW and WCW."
"Dusty Rhodes claimed he'd be eating 40 bean burritos to get ready for his ability to pass wind on command (a trait Tony Schiavone said everyone knew Rhodes was known for, which is Dusty Rhodes trivia I'm sure not everyone was thrilled to hear)"
"Sean O'Haire & Chuck Palumbo retained the WCW tag titles beating Lex Luger (Larry Pfohl) & Buff Bagwell (Marcus Bagwell) in 54 seconds. After mic work by Totally Buffed that seemed to last forever, they went into the ring, fell down, had O'Haire give both the seanton bomb and laid down for a double pin by the champions. You know the rest of the story. Great way to impress whomever is thinking of hiring you next. And to Lex, a special note, thanks to all you've done in your career, or at least the latter stages, particularly at the bitter end, with this company that through its own stupidity made you a millionaire."
"They were still looking for the mystery guy that attacked Midajah and Animal. It'll probably wind up like whatever Baby Doll had in those photos of Dusty 15 years ago."
"Ironically, Nitro came closer head-to-head in the first head-to-head quarter than any period in a long time, losing 3.5 (Show vs. Raven; Rock interview) to 2.4 (Bischoff interview and angle building Steiner vs. Booker)."
"Stacy came out to some cheers. She complained that the crowd insulted her by not cheering her more to get heel heat. You know what? They cheered her a lot more. Funniest thing I've seen in a long time."
"Bischoff did an interview via phone. Actually this was taped earlier in the day. This was so weird. Basically he hinted he was working to buy the company but had hit a roadblock. Everyone expected him to go out there and say, "hey, this whole thing about the show being canceled is a work." That doesn't explain why he was there other than to announce they want to bring back all the ex-champions for a big Nitro next week and will have all the titles at stake for what they are calling the final show of "the season" as opposed to the final show on the Turner network. Schiavone did make a few references to 29 years on the show but they never talked about the finality. It must have been so unbelievably weird for the 98% of the audience watching who has no idea about what was going on with the sale since pro wrestling has never before had "a season." "
"At this point, storylines that add up really don't matter anyway."
"Smooth was wearing a singlet way too big on him, and considering how big he is, who the hell did they make it for?"
"A very strange match saw Rick Steiner kill Konnan dead. He was potatoing him, stiffing him. It was like Konnan violated his sister or something. It had to be the five longest minutes of Konnan's life and one of the worst matches in the history of Nitro because Steiner was totally unprofessional. After a while, Konnan was doing everything he could to survive and not get killed, which meant he avoided every bit of contact possible once he realized he was getting potatoed, making the match look even worse. Konnan likely suffered a concussion as he was knocked out at two different points in the match. I don't know who he pissed off, or if Steiner just figured since the company is done he could just have fun being a bully with impunity....The original finish was Konnan getting the pin when Douglas used the cast. Steiner refused to do the job so it was switched to approximately what happened, although Douglas' run-in was late, missing a cue because he was in the stands and didn't see it, and Steiner just pounded on Konnan until Douglas showed up for the finish."
"The main event on the show, believe it or not, was Flair kissing a donkey with the writing "Dusty's ass" on it. They beat up Dustin. Dusty made the save. They beat him up. Dustin saved. Flair & Jarrett had their faces rubbed into the donkey and kissed it as the show ended"
"There were two backstage skirmishes the last two weeks. Last week, Palumbo tried to stand up to Rick Steiner and went to try and take him down. It was a bad idea and he paid for it, being twisted into a pretzel. This week, O'Haire and Jett got into it backstage and O'Haire choked him out in 30 seconds"
"Ace got over with a lot of the wrestlers with an exchange with Luger. The way we heard the exchange is that Luger was complaining about doing so many jobs for everyone. He compared himself with a Ferrari and said that if you keep hitting a Ferrari with a sledge hammer, pretty soon it's worthless. Ace's reaction was something to the effect of, acting like he had no idea what that meant. The fact Luger is still doing jobs got a lot of the wrestlers' respect because in similar situations, bookers acquiesced to the older guys when they complained about putting the younger guys over. The problem of course is how Luger puts people over in that for the most part nobody gets over beating him, but for the wrestlers themselves, they see it as a sign of something when the highly paid guys are losing to the younger less well paid guys"
"Jett was wearing an orange costume with wings on it (you know, jet wings) but some of the guys talked him out of going to the ring wearing it"
"Viewers Choice Canada was furious as nobody from WCW ever let them know that they had canceled the 4/15 PPV date, even though it was cancelled weeks ago"