The Warthog
Unicron
Tell them, the warthog is back in business!
Posts: 3,372
|
Post by The Warthog on Nov 6, 2020 23:42:31 GMT -5
Confession: at the time, in March of 2001, I was relieved that Vince McMahon purchased WCW and not Eric Bischoff. Yes, I said it. While in retrospect that makes me sound like a fool, as a teenage WCW loyalist who looked at the Attitude Era WWF with great admiration and envy, I bought into what the McMahons were selling: that they were going to revive WCW as its own entity with the same attention and care that had been going into their own product for the last couple of years. I was PUMPED, and I must have watched the final Nitro with Shane appearing a dozen times or more in the weeks that followed. Finally. WCW would get the respect it deserved! Welp. It didn't help that the talent they needed to properly re-launch WCW were unavailable or uninterested. It would have been different if the Invasion had all the right guys at the start. Once WWFE saw that the young WCW guys weren't getting over, it was the end. I really don't know as much as I wish I did.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2020 4:36:37 GMT -5
WWF buys WCW
Apr 2, 01
"The purchase of World Championship Wrestling by WWF Entertainment this past week combined with the ending of all wrestling programming on the Turner networks changes the entire landscape of the pro wrestling industry forever."
"Exactly how good faith the negotiations were from the WCW side is still a question. It is believed that Brad Siegel of Time Warner and Stuart Snyder of WWFE (who formerly worked for Time Warner) began negotiating the deal in late February. Since their previous deal fell apart because of WWFE's exclusive television contract with Viacom, even before Jamie Kellner made his statement killing wrestling on the station, they must have been leaning in that direction based on opening the serious aspect of the negotiations back up. Snyder was told in the negotiations weeks before it came out publicly, that they were not going to sell to Fusient, even though Fusient was still negotiating with the idea they were likely to close the deal."
"The final episode of Nitro, at least on TNT, the show which forever changed television wrestling from the squash match/interview format to the idea of weekly blow-out almost PPV-like shows, started with the almost surreal image of Vince McMahon addressing the audience after purchasing the show. Perhaps even more telling, the final moment of 29 years of wrestling on the Turner networks was a music video promoting the Steve Austin vs. Rock match at Wrestlemania."
"It was acknowledged many times throughout the show that it was the final episode of Nitro, closing down the old company with its two most enduring stars, Ric Flair, now 52, and Sting, now 42, hooking it up and doing an abbreviated version of the match they did nightly for so many years, with the apropos finish to the company's wrestling product, Flair in the ring, putting over Sting clean with the scorpion. Even to the bitter end, the company never realized that the face of the company was Flair, and not Sting, as Flair sold his injuries and the two hugged, probably realizing they may never wrestle each other again."
"Thus ended the most newsworthy week, certainly as far as long-term, week in the history of this industry. A ten-day period so momentous that it will end with likely the biggest (or second biggest) money show in the history of the industry, and that biggest dream match in American wrestling since Hogan and Andre in 1987 pales in comparison with the rest of the news. Besides the big story, the announcement of WCW being sold to WWF on 3/23, thus ending both competition and the wrestling war for the foreseeable future, there are numerous smaller stories stemming from this."
"It is the television industry's negative perception of pro wrestling that, more than McMahon buying WCW, has led to what looks to be a single ownership monopoly of the major league industry in this country for the first time in its history."
"Eric Bischoff always felt that even if he was unable to get control of WCW, he could get backers in place and start a company from scratch because there is enough talent that simply isn't going to work for WWF for whatever reason, largely because some of it WWF simply wouldn't want. But the inability to secure television not only shut the door on Fusient's buying WCW, but on anyone starting out and being a significant competitor."
"Two years ago, wrestling seemed like the darling of cable television. A wrestler was elected Governor. Seven of the ten highest rated shows on cable were wrestling shows (never mind that this was never the case, the media never picked up on how it was being hornswoggled and it got repeated so many times in so many circles that it became one of those fake "truths"). While wrestling peaked with a very healthy figure of 12 million fans watching on Mondays, its legend grew to where people who didn't do their homework would spout things like more fans watch wrestling on Monday night's than NFL football enough that a lot of people actually believed that to be true."
"Last year, when WCW was first put on the market, the negotiations ran in the hundreds of millions of dollars and there wasn't even the consideration the product wouldn't keep two valuable prime time slots on two of the strongest cable stations. Viacom was bidding at the same time for the valuable WWF franchise. There were more stations that wanted big league wrestling than there was big league wrestling."
"This past week, TBS and TNT canceled wrestling. Fusient Media Ventures, the company that had been announced in January as the buyer for WCW, still was in the game trying to buy the company. All they had to do was clear a cable outlet. With several major stations out there, and this is wrestling, and it's ratings are still strong, one would think people would beg for the product. But, as ECW found out months earlier which caused Paul Heyman to throw in the towel and accept the verdict the current landscape had given, that wasn't the case. USA Network publicly washed their hands of it, and didn't even want to negotiate. E! had no interest. And after a last-ditch attempt to make a deal with FOX, for FX, failed, Fusient had to pull out."
"The saddest reality of the past week was not that one man now owns all of wrestling, but the barriers of entry to competition are such that economically he can't be challenged. A national product, and to really make money you need national exposure for the licensing and merchandising end as well as what should be lucrative PPV, needs a national cable outlet. And no cable station is interested. They weren't interested in cult favorite ECW. They weren't interested in brand name WCW with big names like Hulk Hogan and Bill Goldberg on the roster. They won't be interested in a start-up that can't provide the marquee names already under contract."
"WWFE purchased the name and trademarks of WCW, which would include the rights to the name Nitro, the extensive videotape library, and contracts of 24 of the generally lower paid wrestlers. Time Warner would still have to fulfill the remaining contracts, as well as be responsible for the outstanding lawsuits and make-goods for Nitro and Thunder under performing in the ratings."
"But even WWFE, the entity that turned TNN around through the popularity of Raw, was unable to secure a good time slot. The new WCW weekly program will air Saturday nights from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. No starting date has been finalized, but Shane McMahon told the WCW wrestlers in Panama City that they expect to get it on the air in six to eight weeks."
"There is no long-term, or for that matter, short-term battle plan other than to produce a television show. Talent is largely up in the air. The working idea is to tape the television every Wednesday night, so that the top WWF officials can be there after doing Monday and Tuesday tapings for WWF. The WCW brand would be kept separate with, at this point, the wrestlers only doing the Wednesday tapings. There are no plans for house shows or PPV shows under the WCW brand at this point. The idea is that if and when the WCW brand gets hot enough, then they would start touring and doing PPVs, and there is no timetable."
"The working idea is that no WCW wrestlers would appear on Raw or Smackdown, however there would be a few WWF wrestlers that would appear on the WCW television show. Most likely, the WWF wrestlers would be portrayed as "the stars" on WCW television because they would come from the strong show, which immediately would start casting the existing WCW wrestlers as the WWF's "B" team. The bad television time on TNN as compared with Raw and lack of network exposure as WWF has, and lack of PPV as WWF has, would also accentuate all that."
"Decisions as far as announcers, road agents, bookers, writers, etc. have not been made, other than things don't look good for Ed Ferrara, and may not for Tony Schiavone. There was an amazing sequence on Nitro when Scott Hudson, who in a roundabout way was given the word that he's probably safe (and also has a second job with the government), talked in storyline form about being afraid of what his future was and how he'd be able to provide for his wife and young child. Schiavone, with no word about his future at all, was sitting next to him, no doubt worried in real life about his family and his five children."
"McMahon apparently told people at the creative meeting he was going to basically fire some people, Jarrett, Luger, Bagwell and Animal in particular, right on television, and he certainly indicated as much on various vignettes. Nobody in WCW knew what to make of it. Jarrett all night had no idea whether it was a work or a shoot when McMahon said he'd spell Double J, Double Gone. Shane McMahon, however, told all the wrestlers that they would all be starting with a fresh slate"
"When McMahon brought up several of the WCW names, the response to Bagwell, a lot of cheers, was something of a surprise. With his WCW contract running out, Bagwell pitched WWF on coming and they expressed no interest a little more than a month ago. Whether the crowd response will change Vince's ideas is unknown, but it is known that most of the key people in management view him as an average worker with better than average charisma but whose out of the ring attitude is a disaster."
"Scott Steiner, Nash, Misterio Jr. and Konnan also were not looked upon favorably at the same meeting, with the idea they all had bad attitudes and they weren't looking to add any locker room problems. Shane Douglas may also fit into this category but that is just speculation."
"Scott Steiner's two outbursts, going against the script on live TV which caused one suspension, as well as physical intimidation of people backstage, was enough to sour the WWF higher-ups on him. Clearly, he wants a chance and was as professional as could be in doing the job for Booker T clean with the uranage dropping the WCW title on the final Nitro. Also, with the exception of Goldberg, he got the biggest reaction when McMahon asked fans if they wanted him, something Booker T, who the WWF was figuring to be the biggest star for them out of the WCW group, didn't get."
"Nash has ten months remaining on a contract that pays him $1.625 million per year. If he were to ask for a buy-out from Time Warner to get his release, he'd give up $800,000 in guaranteed income over the next ten months, probably double what he'd earn as a downside in ten months in the WWF without house show and PPV money. With everyone starting at once, it's probably best for him to sit on the sidelines and be a free agent and see where the business is in ten months. And with his rep, they don't want him right now in the first place. In ten months with no recent stories, his rep will subside, and not only may they want him, they may pay him a lot more at that time, or he just simply may be out of luck."
How Misterio Jr. got put in this category is a total mystery. When word got out that the WWF wasn't interested in him, several of the former WCW wrestlers went to bat for him with Stephanie McMahon in Madison Square Garden, asking the same question. She told them that they heard he had a bad attitude, which his former co-workers denied was the case. In checking with people in WCW who shared locker rooms with him, nobody concurred with that and all said the opposite, which is why his name was the biggest surprise."
"Konnan, who is a strong interview and has charisma, both was and wasn't a surprise. Like Bagwell and Douglas, when WWF had a chance to get him when Bill Busch gave the Radicals their release, WWF showed no interest at all. There is also the situation from the early 90s when he designed the Max Moon gimmick, which Vince put a lot of money into, and was going to be pushed as a Latin superhero, he simply stopped showing up at tapings because he was doing so well during a boom period in Mexico, which doesn't help his cause."
"Douglas, 36, is also a strong interview, but he's injury prone and has left on bad terms with every company he's ever worked for, bashing them on the way out, including the WWF. He's made comments directly at Vince, and while they did consider bringing him in after he quit ECW this last time, he's not strong in the ring, which works against him."
"WWF has always liked Kanyon, because he has size and is a very good worker and in the past has let him know if he could get out of his WCW deal they would have a place for him."
"Booker T wasn't on the list because of his high contract, believed to be $750,000 per. Of every wrestler in WCW except Bill Goldberg, WWF is believed to be highest on him to be a top star. Doesn't hurt that he's African American, and WWF in that category aside from Rock, who half the world doesn't believe is Black even though he is, the invisible D-Lo Brown and the aging Faarooq is a classification WWF is very weak in, and those racial discrimination lawsuits, whether justified or not, are a bitch. He's expected to be the first guy given the chance to be a top guy."
"Rhodes didn't leave the WWF on good terms, and the story McMahon told about Rhodes wanting to take the Goldust character even farther and get implants was true, as he made that suggestion before his falling out and signing with WCW, where he basically collected a huge check while management couldn't figure out anything to do with him after WWF legal blocked WCW's attempts to make him into a Goldust-like character."
"Kronik's gimmick is a copy of the APA, which WWF already has. Brian Adams left the WWF on relatively bad terms and Bryan Clark actually quit wrestling at one point and sat out the rest of his contract rather than continued to work there. They don't offer much in the way of upside, as they have bad matches, and Adams is very bad about doing jobs, which is simply an issue not tolerated in the WWF."
"Sting has about a year left on a deal which pays him close to $2 million per year. The Time Warner policy on buying out contracts (30 cents on the dollar to those owed more than $1.5 million) could cost him $1.4 million, far more than he could possibly make in WWF since the talent is likely only to make their downside base since they won't be working PPV or road shows for the foreseeable future. He would be a fool to ask for a buy-out to get released from his contract to go to the WWF."
"There is interest in Flair, with the belief that "WCW" as an entity loses something without Flair being part of television....Fact is, Flair resurrected his career a few years ago while he was on the shelf after rotator cuff surgery (the first time, not the most recent time) just by coming out every week and saying, "Mean, Bygod, Gene, Whoo!" Also, as long as he's portrayed as the venerable babyface, he's been the biggest ratings draw in the company. Whether the taint of the past year has damaged him from ever being that again is unknown, but it's not like he hasn't been booked to be buried underground 100 times over the past 13 years and his career just never dies."
"Immediately when the sale was made and people talked about interpromotional matches, it was Goldberg vs. Austin, Goldberg vs. Rock and Goldberg vs. HHH. The constant was Goldberg. Goldberg has two-and-a-half years at more than $2 million per year. Truth is, if he was given the monster push, because of the potential of those dream matches, he would likely be worth more than that to the WWF. But they aren't going to guarantee it, because doing so would upset the entire salary structure. That monster push will also upset some applecart's because he's going to have to spear and squash everyone moving up the line or his box office value will be ruined before he gets to the big matches. WWF will find out who are really the team players in this situation, when top guys are asked to lay down in two minutes with no funny business to get him ready for Austin, or whomever is the money guy at that point."
"Goldberg also has a rep for not wanting to do jobs, being that the one job he did hurt his career badly, and wanting to do things his way, which isn't something that fits in well with the WWF."
"The numbers list Raw at a 4.74 rating (4.12 first hour; 5.26 second hour) and a 7.3 share. The last Nitro did a 3.01 rating (3.11 first hour; 2.91 second hour) and a 4.3 share. The total wrestling audience for the night grew significantly out of the news of the WCW sale to 8.5 million from the 7-7.5 million of the past few weeks, but all the curiosity viewers tuned to Nitro."
"There was one major indication of bad news, and that is the finish of Nitro, which was the Raw simulcast, included a promo for the rest of Raw and the Undertaker & Kane vs. Rock & Austin main event. Despite that promo being seen by an additional 4.2 million viewers that normally wouldn't have seen it (the audience Nitro ended with), the second hour of Raw didn't show any increase over that of previous weeks, and the main event of Rock & Austin vs. Undertaker & Kane in the final week before Mania only did a 5.10 rating, one of the lower rated main events of the year. The failure to carry over most of the huge Nitro climax audience to Raw for what should have been more of the biggest angle in history is a bad sign that the WCW fans, many of whom were fans of it because it was an alternative to the WWF, which as good as it has been of late, simply isn't everyone's cup of tea, isn't a great indication for a move six to eight weeks down the line to a new station with a bad time slot"
"The McMahons interview, on both stations, drew the largest combined audience, with a 4.38 on Raw and a 3.47 on Nitro, which also marked one of the closest quarter hours in a long time. It was the highest rated competitive quarter since January 10, 2000 with a 4.08 for what turned out to be the final match of the career of Bret Hart, in a non-match against Kevin Nash and the highest rated Nitro since 9/11, the last number drawn by Flair when he came back for David's non-wedding."
"The last Nitro on 3/26 in Panama City, FL was apropos on many levels. The crowd was about 1,000 because of a screw-up. The original plan was to make it a free show, but about a week before the event, they decided it would be better to sell tickets. Then, when nobody bought tickets, they had a sad crowd."
"WWF security patrol didn't confiscate enough signs early so there were funny ones noticeable, including "Vince is Satan" and one saying that Vince was a fool between buying this and the XFL. Those signs magically disappeared after the first break."
"We should be thankful that if only one man was left to run wrestling, at least it was someone who is very good at it and not one of the clowns who ruined it, and also that we didn't have to see Douglas vs. Rick Steiner on this show."
"Regal & Vince win vignette of the year here where Regal called WCW a "bloody awful place." Schiavone started screaming about how years ago they had to try and put Regal over."
"They aired a video clip of numerous former NWA and WCW champs, regardless of whether they left on bad terms (Vader) or people wouldn't recognize them (Whipper Watson). Luckily they did edit out the ones based on stupidity so we didn't see Arquette or Russo."
"After just a few weeks, the cruiser tag title was a bigger deal than the main tag title."
"After all this, it really was cool for Sting to show up for one last show. And it really wasn't cool for Nash and Goldberg not to. Hogan not coming I can understand since he's suing the company."
"Actually they should have ended the final Nitro somehow with Flair winning the belt clean, even at his age, and fireworks going off."
"Vince and Shane then did their thing. It was apropos again because on TNT, because they run on a delay, Shane's voice and words were on the screen several seconds before his mouth would move."
"Vince asked the fans for help if he should hire people mentioning Hogan (mostly boos), Luger (mostly boos), Bagwell (decent amount of cheers), Booker T (disappointing level of cheers), Steiner (major pop) and then they chanted Goldberg and when Vince asked, it was the monster pop. That was so strange because it went against every law of promoting wrestling, and Vince knows those laws better than anyone. You never tease the fans and make them want a match that you can't deliver because it's a waste of their emotions that wrestling attempts to control and manipulate. Just hope they don't fall prey to the cockiness that killed WCW when they thought they were untouchable, because that would be the death of the business for real"
"At Nitro, Luger & Bagwell were still acting like no matter what anyone was saying, when push came to shove they were big-time players and would have a job"
"Rick Steiner's brutalizing in recent weeks of Leroux, Vito and Konnan is probably not coincidental. The feeling is that the Leroux beating was a message being sent because management felt Leroux was getting overweight and Vito just annoyed certain people with his personality. A lot of people in management apologized to Konnan after he got out of the ring in their Nitro match for what was at the very least, totally unprofessional behavior"
"Don Callis noted after the sale to Bischoff fell through that he and Bischoff had a secret agreement to start when Bischoff would have re-started the promotion."
"As late as 3/21, Disqo did an Atlanta radio interview saying he thought all the talk about TBS and TNT cancelling wrestling was a work by Bischoff"
"HHH did a great job on Conan O'Brien on 3/22 and in a media conference call on 3/23. He said too many in WCW didn't have the passion, from both people in the office as well as the wrestlers. Said there's a part of him that wishes Flair wouldn't wrestle so he could remember him as he was, but said he still shows more passion than anyone else on the show and was usually the most entertaining guy on the show and said he still enjoyed watching him"
"Regal was in Australia last weekend doing promotions and was interviewed on FoxSports. He buried Bagwell all weekend, and said WWF buying WCW could be a positive for the industry because it would clean out a lot of the rubbish in wrestling, specifically mentioning Luger and Bagwell. He said WCW has had poor production and WWF buying the company would create more jobs for the right people in the industry and fans would get to see two strong promotions instead of one."
"McMahon at a meeting in Cleveland when talking about the purchase of WCW told the wrestlers that nobody needed to worry because the grosses would be bigger than ever and everyone would make more money than ever when they got to the interpromotional matches. He also said they would have to rebuild WCW to be an equal of the WWF to get the feud ready"
"Since it really doesn't matter now, it can be revealed that Rob Van Dam was in serious negotiations with WCW and Bischoff was attempting to keep it quiet to bring him in as a huge surprise on the re-start"
|
|
|
Post by EP 54 is banned from Collision on Nov 7, 2020 8:55:55 GMT -5
Confession: at the time, in March of 2001, I was relieved that Vince McMahon purchased WCW and not Eric Bischoff. Yes, I said it. While in retrospect that makes me sound like a fool, as a teenage WCW loyalist who looked at the Attitude Era WWF with great admiration and envy, I bought into what the McMahons were selling: that they were going to revive WCW as its own entity with the same attention and care that had been going into their own product for the last couple of years. I was PUMPED, and I must have watched the final Nitro with Shane appearing a dozen times or more in the weeks that followed. Finally. WCW would get the respect it deserved! Welp. It didn't help that the talent they needed to properly re-launch WCW were unavailable or uninterested. It would have been different if the Invasion had all the right guys at the start. Once WWFE saw that the young WCW guys weren't getting over, it was the end. I really don't know as much as I wish I did. I don't buy that line of thinking. Because a) Vince is Vince, and he wouldn't have been able to resist burying Goldberg etc. b) WWF had enough WCW talent to go with. The problem wasn't with the amount of talent, it was bad booking. Fans would never have bought them as an nWo level threat to the WWF, true. So you don't book them as a threat. Book them as babyfaces trying to get the jobs promised to them when lovable Shane O'Mac bought their company, but Evil Mr McMahon is stopping them.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2020 5:50:12 GMT -5
Since I'm doing the Invasion I'm going to start adding WWF TV stuff for added context
2001 April, Part 1
Apr 9, 01"The introduction of WCW talent was a total flop on many levels. It was a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. The basic feeling was that it was too soon to shoot any kind of angle for WWF vs. WCW, since the belief is WCW needs to be rebuilt for a long time first. However, with all the talk regarding the sale and how huge the sale angle was played on television six days earlier, the feeling was there had to be some show of support for Shane McMahon evident, but not at ringside where it would be too imperative to shoot an angle." "They flew in Johnny Ace, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Mike Awesome, Lance Storm, Hugh Morrus, Sean O'Haire, Mark Jindrak, Chuck Palumbo, Mike Sanders, Stacey Keibler and Shawn Stasiak. All with the exception of Ace, who did the calling, were people that WWF purchased the contracts of from WCW in the sale. The wrestlers were told to bring their gear and their championship belts (in the case of Palumbo & O'Haire), so unless they were shooting publicity photos, they may have had a different idea originally what they were going to do and put them in a luxury box." "The WCW crew were brought in together, never brought backstage to talk to any of the wrestlers, and by the time they returned to the hotel, the WWF crew had already left." "Even though Shane was the strong babyface in the match, when he talked about WCW wrestlers and they were shown, without any graphics or mention of who they actually were which made it so rinky dink, the crowd booed them out of the building. The lack of star power meant the first impression of the angle took a lot of steam away from it without people like Flair, DDP, Goldberg, Hogan or Steiner, that virtually all casual fans would think would be part of a purchase of WCW."
"The Austin turn had been on the books for months. Months ago it seemed natural due to the ascension of the younger Rock, who had eclipsed Austin's mainstream popularity. In recent weeks, plans didn't change even though the Vince McMahon standard of listening to the audience would have made him take a different path, as even with Austin's nastier demeanor and playing the psychological heel role, the crowd was beginning to boo Rock when the two confronted each other and the company was having to confiscate signs at the TV tapings. Even months back when the tease for the match began, a Rock interview where he started trash talking Austin saw the crowd turn on him briefly. By the final week, more due to tweaking of Rock's character, having him punk Austin out a few times on television and be nicer to new employees, the crowd was split in their reactions. But it was a foregone conclusion that wouldn't be the case at the beginning of the match in Houston. Before the show, security was removing tons of negative signs regarding Rock which is why they weren't evident during the broadcast."
"The WWF, breaking with longstanding company policy, now allows references to other federations (Chris Benoit as a former WCW champion who never lost the title, plus Paul Heyman's repeated references to the defunct ECW championships) and even paid homage to its past with a gimmick Battle Royal. Sadly, that was more of a hit on the internet than it was to the crowd live, most of whom didn't seem to know the majority of the competitors."
"The complete card was made clear after Smackdown the previous Tuesday, leading a lot of the wrestlers who had been with the company on the road all year that weren't booked on the show upset about not sharing in the biggest payday of the year. Several wrestlers were vocal, among them Blackman, because he had always done his job and been on the road all year, and X-Pac, who until recently had always been kept as one of the main players on the squad. X-Pac said he was going to HHH and when show time came, many of the people originally off the show were back on."
"Originally Gillberg was to be in the Battle Royal but he was pulled from the show because they were afraid it might start a "Goldberg" chant, which was a smart move on their part."
"It's funny because HHH never does a clean job, and he did here for Undertaker, and instead of elevating a new star, he put over an established star which is so smart politically doing a clean job on the biggest show of the year while at the same time not making a new star."
"The 7.41 million viewers that tuned into Raw as a whole (and the combination of Raw and Nitro has been below that a few times in recent weeks as well) were the most viewers for any show in the 18-year history of TNN." "The Rock vs. Austin cage match for the WWF title did a 6.42 rating, which was the highest rated match since 10/23 when a three-way title match with Angle vs. HHH vs. Rock did a 6.63. Exactly how much of the rating is because it was the day after Mania (and quite frankly, going against the NCAA's should negate a lot of that because) and how much is because of lack of Nitro competition should become evident next week." "The movie "Purgatory" on TNT in the old Nitro time slot did a 1.7 rating."
"Raw after Wrestlemania in Fort Worth was a weak show. Whether it was because of a post-Mania letdown or simply this is what the show will be without competition on Monday, we'll find out in a week or two. It was the McMahon family show more than ever, with wrestlers, even Austin, just being the incidental pawns in the family games."
"Heyman was clearly subconscious over everyone discovering Rhyno's size in ECW was a gimmick in a company with tall guys, pushing that the idea that he's 6-2 (he's really closer to 5-10) is a lot of a credibility problem in a company that goes back and forth between giving real heights for giant guys (Albert and Test at 6-5 and 6-6 when they could easily get away with saying 6-7 and 6-8 which would be typical wrestling embellishment) and fake heights (Undertaker and Show being given the standard two inch exaggeration and Kane given more than that, although he's got the Herman Munster boots to make him look several inches taller than he is)."
"Vince came out again and introduced Austin. At this point nobody live knew what to make of Austin. As Austin insulted the crowd, they booed him, but it was that weak booing as opposed to vociferous booing."
"They are clearly building toward making Benoit & Jericho a face tag team, leading to Jericho turning on Benoit (that would only make sense since Jericho's heel turn is overdue). Then, guess what, they can still feud with each other in the same position for all eternity."
"X & Credible gave Gunn the double superkick after the match. This was explained that Gunn was negotiating with Shane to join WCW and Vince had them teach him a lesson. God help WCW if their big acquisition is Gunn."
"Vince & Austin doubled on Rock. HHH came out with a sledge hammer for the supposed save. Quick. What's the purpose of a cage match in wrestling? Answer: There was once a purpose, but there isn't one anymore. HHH shocked everyone who hadn't seen this kind of angle that doesn't make sense in WCW 1,000 times over the past four years by hitting Rock with the sledge hammer. They all destroyed Rock, bad beating, including both a pedigree and a stunner"
"The reality of the WCW situation hit a little harder on 3/28 with the final staff meeting, held at the Power Plant. Basically the entire work force was let go in one fell swoop. About 120 of the 140 were let go at the meeting and asked to clear out their offices by the end of the day, turn in their cell phones, pages and company credit cards as well as anything that was Time Warner property. Their computers were already shut down when they got to the office and all the locks on the door had been changed. Security guards were watching as they were given boxes to clean out their belongings by the end of the day and security checked everyone as they departed from the facility. They were given nine weeks severance pay as well as an addition four weeks for every year of service to the company which is a pretty generous package." "The ones that weren't let go immediately, including Diana Myers (head of legal), Aaron Blitzstein (head of marketing) and Rob Garner (head of advertising and syndication) were given an additional 30 days to help making a smooth transition, as well as some people who work underneath them. Johnny Ace also fits into that category and he is currently working as the liaison between the WWF and the former WCW talent that is no under contract to WWF." "The rest of the agents and bookers were let go, such as Terry Taylor, Ed Ferrara, Vince Russo, Bill Banks pending the expiration of their respective deals and how their contracts are structured. Kevin Sullivan, who hasn't been used since being demoted one year ago, had his contract recently roll over at $300,000 for one more year. Of that group, only Taylor appears to have any reasonable shot at being hired by WWF" "Someone from human resources at the WWFE told everyone that if they were willing to relocate to Stamford, CT, they could apply for a job with WWFE, and given a form to fill out. They were told if they filled out the form they would be contacted by WWFE, if they wanted them, within 30 to 60 days. The general feeling seemed to be that the employees were surprised at just how "cold" the sendoff was, and also a lot of people complained that Brad Siegel never even came to the meeting to face people." "When names were read off of employees given their various termination notices, Tony Schiavone, who if nothing else is a name people working in the company should know, when his name was read off by the people at HR in WCW, they said "Tony Skee-a-vone," pronounced like the old Chris Jericho spoof on his name." "The first WCW television show at this point it scheduled to air on 5/12 on TNN from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. The plan is to begin adding weekly Wednesday night shows which will be tapings for that TNN show starting on 5/9 in Trenton, NJ. These dates are both tentative at this point. There are no further plans regarding the shows." "Shane did an interview from WWF New York. He didn't really say anything. Fans chanted "WCW." I think that was a first in history."
"In Marshall Fink's column on everyone being let go in the New York Daily News, he stated that Ted Turner had started WCW "solely to drive McMahon out of business. It obviously didn't work." If that was the case, since Turner had the greater resources than McMahon, why didn't Turner ever attempt to actually do anything along those lines until 1994? Anyone who followed what went on in 1988, when Turner bought Jim Crockett Promotions, knows the main reason the company bought it was because Crockett was on the verge of bankruptcy and having to shut down his company. The weekend wrestling shows were highly rated fixtures on TBS and the only way to keep wrestling on against the onslaught of McMahon, who was succeeding in running most of the rest of the company's out of business during that time period, was to own it themself since there were no other buyers out there."
"There were occasional wrestlers who left McMahon on bad terms that came to WCW, but the first major raid was probably Randy Savage, under Bischoff. Hulk Hogan wasn't a raid, as he had quit WWF one year earlier and was working for New Japan at the time he signed with WCW, although that history has also been re-written." "Another historical correction in the history of pro wrestling on TBS. When McMahon bought Georgia Championship Wrestling in 1984, the price he paid was $1 million, not $750,000 as listed. McMahon apparently claimed the $750,000 figure because he sold the time slot to Jim Crockett one year later for $1 million, and bragged he not only got the TV time on Turner's station for one year but also made a profit on the deal. In actuality, he didn't make a profit on the deal, but I guess that didn't make as good a story" "Wrestlers still under contract to WCW, which means the wrestlers that WWF refused to pick up their contracts for, have been told that if they were to appear on any wrestling shows, they would be in breach of their contract. Time Warner is looking for any excuse to declare a breach so they don't have to pay any more than necessary since the company WCW doesn't exist anymore. All of the wrestlers whose contracts have 90-day cycles are in the process of being cycled out, but they won't be able to work any indies, or probably do even any public interviews or it will be considered the breach the company is looking for."
"Brock Lesnar appeared on Wrestling Observer Live on 3/29 talking about his background. Lesnar was approached first during his junior year by Gerald Brisco and Ross, which was about the time a lot of people started talking about him, because of his physique, as a potential pro wrestler. He also had offers from WCW through Bischoff and New Japan through Brad Rheingans and Inoki. He didn't want to work in Japan, although he told a story about doing a 60-minute sparring session with Inoki and marvelling at his conditioning for his age. He said at one point a few years ago he was interested in UFC after meeting Ken and Frank Shamrock, but he had never considered it a viable option over the last few years because the money wasn't good enough."
"David Taylor was originally brought in to help train wrestlers for "Tough Enough," but was pulled with the idea of making him a television character with some sort of an affiliation with Regal, his former WCW partner. If they use Taylor as a wrestler, he would pass Faarooq (42), as the oldest active wrestler in the WWF."
"It is said that the reason One Man Gang came in under that gimmick as opposed to his more campy Akeem gimmick is that he's lost 100 pounds since those days (and he looked it) and the Akeem costume didn't fit anymore"
"The Fan Axcess was a huge success from WWF standpoint. The place was mobbed. Some had negative viewpoints complaining about so many people there was barely room to breath (all entrepreneurs and promoters should have such problems) and the long line for autographs being as much as a few hours. One fan paid $300 to get a chance to eat ravioli with Big Show and another paid $205 to get a sock from Foley"
"One of the reasons Flair's interviews on Nitro over the past few months weren't up to his usual standard were because he was banned by management from doing the "Whooo!" Ace told him he couldn't do it anymore because management felt that he was playing the role of the CEO, and that a CEO shouldn't be saying "Whooo!" Flair never could get into his rhythm without it. In his interview on the last Nitro, the ban was lifted and he did his best interview in a long time. While nobody has said so directly, the feeling is Ace was acting under orders from Bischoff" "Regarding WCW, Ross said they would assemble over the next two or three weeks a staff of agents (Arn Anderson and David Finlay's name have come up), referees, a ring crew, ring announcers, TV announcers and wrestlers. He said the WWF and WCW promotions would be kept separate with very little crossover with the exception of Shane McMahon appearing on both shows. Said interpromotional angles will be developed, but not soon and probably not until 2002. Said they first have to rebuild WCW" "The lack of interest in television, which is the life's blood of the industry, is an ominous sign. The fact even McMahon, could only get a Saturday night at 11 p.m. time slot on a weak station like TNN, shows just how dire the television landscape is, and if McMahon's ratings at some point in a few years sink to just above average level, how easily television will consider it yesterday's fad." Apr 16, 01
"HHG Corporation, the parent company of Extreme Championship Wrestling, officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 4/4 claiming $8,881,435 in outstanding debts with $1,385,500 in assets, making the company $7,495,935 in debt not including potential unfavorable results of litigation."
"The biggest debt is to the family of Paul Heyman, listed at $3.8 million. Heyman himself also declared personal bankruptcy in the wake of ECW going down. Other major debts include large amounts owed to various business partners including $1 million to Acclaim, $300,000 to Farm Club, $250,000 to The Original San Francisco Toymakers and $150,000 to In Demand, the PPV distributor. HHG is due far smaller amounts from some of the partners including $50,000 from Acclaim and $10,000 from The Original San Francisco toymakers. In Demand, which still owes the company an estimated $800,000 from its share of revenues of previous PPV events, is the only major creditor that actually owes ECW more money than ECW owes it."
"HHG listed $587,500 as money owed to WWFE in two loans taken out in recent months, apparently as last-ditch efforts for survival. HHG listed its tape library as an asset and listed its value at $500,000, and with no money to repay the WWFE debt, one would think part of that debt could be relieved by ECW giving WWFE its tape library and all future rights to the tapes, since the tapes are of less value to any of the other creditors, although to do so would require two separate processes, getting a settlement on the debt and using the settlement to then purchase the rights to the videotapes, since the bankruptcy involves the court."
"ECW owed $244,000 to Madison Square Garden cable in New York before losing the television, as well as $243,000 to American Cable Productions (America One) as well as $64,000 to William Byrd Productions, who produced the TNN show and $60,000 to Weigel Broadcasting out of Chicago, for its time slot in that market. There were also smaller amounts owed to arenas, radio stations, ad agencies, print shops, as well as lighting and Atlas Security revolving around the live arena events held in the last several months the company was in business."
"Other outstanding bills included $140,000 in legal bills to Hoffinger, Friedland, Dobrish and Stern; $50,000 in accounting bills to Donohue, Gironda and Doria CPA, a $16,659 hospital bill left in Orlando, FL that was never paid and $11,700 in travel expenses from Discount Travel of Baton Rouge (Bob Ryder's company). There are also large debts to Steve Karel, both $50,000 personally and another $120,000 to Karel's companies, Stonecutter Productions and Stonecutter Event Promotions."
"Listed debt to contract wrestlers and other performers under contract were listed as: Rob Szatkowsky (Van Dam) $150,000, Tom Laughlin (Dreamer) $100,000, Joseph Bonsignore (Joey Styles) $50,480, Terry Gerin (Rhino) $50,000, Troy Martin (Shane Douglas) $48,000, Francine Fournier $47,275, Mike DePaoli (Roadkill) $21,250, Don Callis $12,000, Dawn Marie $9,000, Yoshihiro Tajiri $5,000, Francisco Islas (Super Crazy) $5,000 as well as $12,000 more to Tajiri and Islas' manager, Victor Quinones, and unknown figures (not included in the total debt) to Jim Mitchell and Jerome Young (New Jack). HHG claims no money owed to only two contracted performers, Terry Brunk (Sabu) and Steve Corino, both of whom ended up on the worst terms with Heyman."
"All the World Wide slots are up for grabs as WWF decided against keeping them and syndicating their own programming in the slots." "The 5/9 first WCW taping in Trenton, NJ has been postponed and the first taping now looks to be on 6/9 at a site yet to be determined for an air date that evening on a three-hour tape delay although that date is also tentative. If not, the first taping would be 6/13 in Fairfax, VA for a 6/16 show. As the XFL showed, especially in a bad time slot, it is very important to be ready with all guns loaded for a first show than rush things out to meet a deadline and have a first show that doesn't hit big." "There has been communication with Goldberg, Flair, DDP and Scott Steiner but nothing close to happening. Goldberg and Flair coming in seem unlikely, Goldberg more than Flair, and Page is considered on the fence." "David Crockett, who has been in the wrestling business his entire life and who isn't being hired by WWF, is trying to round up investors to start something in the Carolinas. Flair could be involved in that in some form if he can still maintain his Time Warner deal but everything is iffy." "The feeling at this point seems to be that Steiner has played his cards right, they know he wants to come, he worked hurt and put Booker over clean on the final Nitro with no problem so it appears better than 50% now they'll seriously negotiate, but they still may not come to money terms." "If Sting were to accept a Time Warner contract buy-out, which is unlikely, they would consider taking him, as they would Flair and Page, although there seems to be a feeling Sting isn't going to do so. Same for Goldberg, even though there are reservations about Goldberg in some ways, there is also the recognition if this feud is going to draw money, Goldberg is the key because it's the matches with him against Austin and to a lesser extent Rock that the public wants to see." "There doesn't appear to be interest in the other so-called top guys except Booker T, who everyone seems to feel is the closest to a sure thing of eventually coming in." "Because WWFE owns the name World Championship Wrestling, Turner Broadcasting has opened up a company called Universal Wrestling Corporation, Inc. which is basically a front company to take in whatever money is still owed, pay contracts still outstanding and do whatever business needs to be taken care of in settling all the various debts"
"TSN edited most of the final angle involving Steve Austin and HHH beating on Lita, including numerous chair shots, off television the previous night, the second straight week an angle was edited off television due to violence against women. TSN went to several minutes of crowd shots rather than show the pounding Lita was taking, and then went off the air with the show still in progress to switch to the next show. Sky joined TSN in editing off of Raw the segments from last week where Trish was getting whipped with a belt while Regal was holding her. Neither station edited off when Rhyno gored Molly. Perhaps the idea is that using wrestling maneuvers on women are okay, but usage of objects (a belt last week, a chair this week) on women isn't, or perhaps it's just an inconsistency in application."
"The Judge in the Sonny Onoo racial discrimination lawsuit ruled against Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting's motion to dismiss the suit. The lawsuit is going to look a lot stronger because there are many front office employees who have knowledge that can be framed to help the lawsuit who either wouldn't have talked previously because they were still working for the company, or maybe didn't even believe the lawsuit was fair. However, employees, probably justifiably, in most cases left the company very bitter about being kept in the dark about their jobs, lied to about the company's future and the sale, and would be far more receptive to helping stick it to the company now" "Wrestlers still under contract to Time Warner and now UWC have been told point blank that if they work any dates, they will immediately be fired as a contract breach. Needless to say, a lot of the wrestlers are grumbling about that one feeling that the company misled them in contract negotiations over the last year (claiming that restructured contracts lowering the guarantee and making it up with additional money per house show when the company had already decided to nix the house show schedule) and now for the large group not picked up by WWF, they are holding back them getting their careers going elsewhere" "Konnan made a specific deal in his contract when he agreed to a huge pay cut in January which allowed him to work outside the United States (but not American indies) when he wasn't booked by WCW, something other WCW wrestlers under old contracts, weren't allowed to do." "The people who had contracts in WCW that weren't wrestlers actually aren't bad off. For instance, Jimmy Hart is under contract to Time Warner through March 11, 2002, but is free to work on other projects including do indie shows and maybe even work for WWF and "double-dip" because office contracts for non-wrestlers were written differently than wrestler contracts. There may only be a few employees in the same situation as Hart, but we do know that Gene Okerlund and Arn Anderson are also under similar deals" "Johnny Ace informed many but not all of the group of wrestlers that were under contract to WCW that the WWF doesn't want that they were being terminated when their 90-day cycles are completed. Among the names on that list were Vampiro, Christopher Daniels and Michael Modest" "Without Nitro on Monday, somebody needs to provide the weekly comedy so they decided to book Raw as if it was Nitro."
"The Fleet Center on 4/9 was booked for a middle age soap opera, billed as "Raw is War." Last week we could blame it on a letdown after the Mania show. This week it's clear just how much the lack of competition and pressure is making things coast. With Rock out of the picture, one would think this is the time to push new top guys. And it was. But who thought the new top babyfaces would end up being Linda McMahon and Jim Ross?"
"Angle challenged any champion to a title match, specifically mentioning Austin and HHH, which guaranteed it would be either Kane or Crash Holly. Kane's music played, setting a Japanese flag on fire."
"There is a changing of the guard as this was the night Big Show got paid back for not getting down to 400 pounds. Match went 3:54 with Show and Undertaker both involved, making it a four-way, and Show taking a double choke slam from the alleged brothers of destruction and Kane pinned him. Show then challenged Undertaker to a singles match. Bad idea.... Undertaker pinned Show in 1:33 with a modified power bomb out of the corner (in other words, they wisely didn't try to have Taker actually do his finisher on Show). Show's constant losing at this point is a sign that right now, they have no plans for him to be a headliner."
"An uncomfortable JR and Vince as Satan were on the couch when Vince brought in Austin to watch the movie with them. Austin quoted a spoof on a line from deliverance, so I was afraid the two were going to rape JR right then and there except I remembered, there is no portrayal of rape on WWF broadcasts. Instead they aired the entire segment with Austin and JR from Smackdown, which was great the first time. The second time, it was an excuse to leave the room and make a sandwich, eat the sandwich, and actually start missing all those horrible Luger matches on Nitro."
"JR said he could quit and go to work for Shane in WCW. Vince sold that one with the old bitter beer face. Luckily, like with Linda, as mean as Vince is, and as nice as Shane is, everyone knows that WCW is going to lose at the end and you'd rather back a winner than a loser so Ross didn't quit and instead did his job."
"Vince had a bad feeling. 75 minutes into the show, so did I."
"Then it came time for a can't miss segment since they put Benoit vs. Jericho. Unfortunately, they were only given 3:30, since we had to leave enough time for the RTC."
"There was a funny line when they did the wazzup on X-Pac after the match and Ross said, "He shouldn't reproduce anyway." "
"Austin laid out both Hardys with chairs to the head and was pounding Matt to death on the ground with chair shots. Lita got up and covered Matt to protect him. Austin started killing her with chairs to the back and then driving the chairs into her stomach when she turned over. As a fan, I loved this because the psychology and heat building was awesome, but from a business perspective, this was very dangerous after the Tiffany Eunick case for a portrayal of Austin, who is still the most popular wrestler in the company in some ways, just beating the hell out of a woman half his size.
"Smackdown opened with HHH and Austin doing an interview. May be edited because there were continuity mistakes such as talking about Foley being commissioner last month."
"Jeff beat HHH for the IC title in a good match when after a ref bump, Matt hits HHH with a chair and Jeff does the swanton for the win. I don't think this title switch was planned far ahead of time, but seems to have been more of a decision made based on the reaction to the Hardys and strength of the angle on Raw with the feeling the reaction to the match and angle in Boston showed they were ready for a big elevation"
"The original role for Michaels at Mania was going to be to interfere in the HHH vs. Undertaker match at Mania, presumably to screw HHH and lead to a singles match between the two of them. There is nothing official on Michaels. We're told his name is simply not a subject anyone is talking about in the company"
"Pete Rose was contacted about doing Wrestlemania. Not sure why he didn't. The idea for him was to hide in the crowd wearing a mask and hit the ring during Kane's match and hit him with a garbage can"
"I think one of the reasons management (Ross, Vince, Shane) will do these blade jobs or crazy bumps is so that when they ask wrestlers to do so, it makes it so the wrestlers would feel like pussies saying no, when non-wrestlers have done it."
"Some notes from the live Raw in Boston....After the show ended, and even after the angle with Lita, when Austin & HHH drank beer for about ten minutes after the show ended, estimates were that Austin was getting 40 to 60 percent cheers....Crowd sort of cared about Prototype in a dark match, but that was more because he was announced as being from Massachusetts (which is legit)....A funny incident is that Funaki left his flag on stage after their TV squash loss. When Kane came out for his match with Angle on Raw, the flag went on fire off camera and it took an estimated two minutes before a crew member came to the stage to extinguish the flame"
"HHH vs. Jericho main event was a good match, but not on the level of most of the matches the two had last year. Something was missing and I think it's that the fans don't see Jericho as a threat to the top guys anymore. Last year, he was the guy knocking on the door. This year, he's not viewed like that anymore"
"There have been people noting the irony of the HHH vs. Jericho title change seeing it as another subtle way to make sure Jericho doesn't rise to the top during the interim with no Rock and before the HHH turn on the face side. Undertaker & Kane are both, long-term, no threat to the No. 1 face position because Undertaker is too old and needs a great opponent to have a good match although his name is so strong he can always be put on top at any point when they need him, and Kane has no interview ability and is too much a gimmick for a consistent push as the top face"
"The latest plans at this point seem to be to do nothing in storyline form using the ECW name"
"They did this great video package and a long plug for that company they own that just lost $80 million. No, not WCW. The XFL."
|
|
|
Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Nov 8, 2020 23:22:23 GMT -5
I can’t wait until we get to the list of potential names for the late Saturday WCW show that were all vagina euphemisms.
WCW Hot Box would have prolonged the wrestling boom, dammit.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2020 4:20:42 GMT -5
2001 April, Part 2
Apr 23, 01"The WCW roster right now is composed of talented lighter weight guys (Shane Helms, Elix Skipper, Steve Romeo, Shannon Moore, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Kaz Hayashi, James Gibson [Jamie Knoble], and James Yang), tall guys with good bodies that may have potential, have low contracts, but aren't ready yet (Chuck Palumbo, Sean O'Haire, Mark Jindrak and Shawn Stepich [Stasiak]), guys with low contracts so there is no financial risk in taking them (Mike Sanders, Alan Funk), guys with medium end contracts who will likely be cycled out of their current deals and re-negotiated with, but whose current contracts weren't so out of line WWF didn't mind carrying the salary for 90 days and people felt the company could build around (Lance Evers [Storm], Mike Alfonso [Awesome]), plus Bill DeMott (Hugh Morrus), Stacey Keibler and a half-dozen others." "The idea is to put together a 30 to 35 man roster of wrestlers, with most of the 24 currently under contract being augmented by perhaps three to five wrestlers currently in the WWF, some ECW talent as well as some ex-WCW talent whose contracts weren't purchased in the sale and possibly some wrestlers from either OVW or Memphis Championship Wrestling that they've talked about bringing to WWF but haven't had room or storylines written for." "The Time Warner feeling is WWF will have to, at the end, pick up at least a few more of the big contracts or the show is doomed, and have not made any strong offers for buy-outs, which would enable them to get the talent off payroll, and enable the talent to negotiate with WWF. Over the past week, some buy-out proposals have been offered, most appear to be 50 cents on the dollar (of monies owed), and nobody seemed inclined at this point to take the buy-outs. WWF personnel aren't even counting on Booker Huffman, who was the one major star that had the best odds of being the focal point of the new promotion, being available in time for the first show." "Most concede Goldberg, due to his having about $6 million in contract income from Time Warner, and no great desire to return to wrestling for glory or anything else, is the least likely to come in. To most fans, the irony is that he's also the one with the most potential to generate revenue, as the feeling is, a correctly promoted program with Austin, Rock and maybe HHH, would all do big PPV business. There is a very good chance he would be worth his current salary in potential income just from a few PPV main events, but WWF at this point looks to not be interested in guaranteeing it, and Goldberg is likely not going to be interested in walking away from the money he's got guaranteed." "The only major name who hasn't contacted WWF at all that there may have been interest in, is Sting. The belief from WWF is that he has no interest in wrestling any longer, and as most who worked in WCW recognized, he's had no real interest in wrestling for quite some time since in many ways the product is a contradiction to his beliefs, and is content to collect his money owed." "Steiner would likely have to take an enormous pay cut to come in, at least until or unless the company is on a roll and even then, it's doubtful his income would match his WCW level. But he's expressed interest in at least talking about coming in and WWF has not closed the door on him." "Flair is torn between wanting one last run on strong television that is run right, and doing the right thing for his family by taking the money guaranteed, because the WWF isn't going to offer enough, certainly not guaranteed, to make up for income lost by sitting it out for his remaining two years." "Page had expressed the strongest interest in coming in except for possibly Booker T, but as things stand, it is not in his best financial interest to come in, even more so than Flair." "There are several others they are interested in, Kidman, Kanyon, maybe even Rey Misterio Jr., whose contracts weren't picked up due to them earning in excess of $300,000 per year (Storm and Awesome were the only two topping $200,000 that were picked up and both are likely to be renegotiated). In all cases, they would have to agree to work for a major pay cut, at least at first and on the downside."
"One WCW mainstay who almost surely won't be part of the new company is lead announcer Tony Schiavone. The often criticized voice of WCW programming made numerous inquiries into his status, and took a job over the weekend to do a post-game call-in show after Atlanta Braves games on WSB-AM, the radio flagship station for the team."
"The names mentioned most frequently as at least getting initial offers from WWF as far as announcing goes are Mike Tenay and Scott Hudson, but a final decision has yet to be made by Dunn." "The plan at press time is for, at least until business dictates a change, for WCW to run every Saturday night with two-hour house shows, taped live-to-tape for airing on a three-hour tape delay in most cases on TNN. The decision to do tapings on Saturdays instead of Wednesdays was made for many reasons. It was felt it would be much easier to attract fans to show on Saturdays as opposed to Wednesdays. The WWF itself almost never runs Wednesdays, and this past week, on a rare occasion when it did, a card with every major star except Rock, drew less than 5,000 paid, which seemed to prove it was a correct decision. In addition, it is much cheaper transportation wise on the budget because people flying in for one night have Saturday stayovers." "For the first month, the taping locations are 6/9 at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA, 6/16 at the Jacksonville Coliseum, 6/23 in Trenton, NJ and 6/27 at the Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, PA. The last date, a Wednesday, is because they will be using the same production truck and likely some of the same production crew for WWF and WCW tapings. With Raw and Smackdown that week set for the West Coast, it was just easier to tape on a Wednesday in the Northeast (since Raw and Smackdown the previous two days will be in Madison Square Garden)." "A traditional show spends most of the show building to a main event. However, due to the time slot, this show would have to be booked differently. In the 80s, WWF did the Saturday Night's Main Events on NBC from 11:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., a show which in its early years drew excellent ratings, occasionally topping the 10.0 mark. The headline match, involving Hulk Hogan, was usually put on first or second, usually ending before midnight. The idea was they wanted the main angle on the show and the big star seen by the largest potential audience." "Raw on 4/9 drew a 5.43 rating (5.08 first hour; 5.74 second hour) and an 8.5 share. The highest rated segment was the Linda McMahon interview with Vince at 6.20, which saw viewership pick up about 1.07 million over the Undertaker vs. Show match that preceded it. The biggest loss of viewership, of 654,000, came for Dudleys vs. X Factor, which came after that same interview. The rating dropped throughout the second hour, the sign of a show the general public was losing interest in as it went on, bottoming out at 5.35 for Raven vs. Venis before the main event of Hardys & Lita vs. Austin & HHH & Stephanie at 5.99" "Raw on 4/16 dropped to a 5.08 rating (4.83 first hour; 5.28 second hour) and an 8.0 share on 4/16, which, for an unopposed show, was roughly what the show was averaging this year head-to-head against Nitro bringing the Monday night viewership of pro wrestling down to 6.56 million." "Judging from the ratings pattern over three weeks, it appears on 4/2, a combination of being the day after Mania and perhaps some disenfranchised WCW fans brought the number up. The McMahon family soap opera on 4/9 really drove the rating, and there was little of that this week, which concentrated on providing the sorely lacking wrestling of the previous two weeks. One can look at the same numbers and come to many different conclusions. You can say that the bad rating was simply the WCW audience gave up on wrestling, which was the prediction many had when Raw's second hour didn't swell after the final episode of Nitro ended and that the big rating the next week was simply the Mania curiosity and follow-up. You can say the relatively weak numbers on Smackdown and Raw over the past week were a reaction to bad Nitros the previous two weeks, or simply a reaction to the Hardys not being ready as main eventers, or that people want the soap opera and not the wrestling." "From the audience, it is clear that at this point, very little, and it's dwindling quickly, of the former Nitro audience is tuning to Raw or switching to any of the WWF programming since the other shows have shown zero ratings gain even with the elimination of WCW, which is an overall very bad trend for wrestling as an industry."
"Hogan is keeping former WCW wrestler Emory Hale (6-6, 325 pounds) under contract in case something opens up, to repackage Hale as a young heel monster and a future opponent"
"Dwayne Johnson, in the new issue of Premiere magazine, publicly stated for the first time something that family friends had been aware of as well as many wrestling insiders for some time, regarding his future plans to likely leave pro wrestling for a full-time acting career. When the question was asked, Johnson said, "Absolutely. That's the first time I've ever said that. But, yeah. Making movies, you don't get the immediate reaction, but you're able to tell longer stories and it's great. Having done my first film--boy, this is what I want to do." "
"The theme of this week's TV was to bury any threats to the top position, and HHH was totally unmasked on Raw to anyone who still thought he was a team player. What's so awesome about HHH is the same thing as Hogan, in that everyone from the outside sees it clearly, and management in both cases are totally blind to it. Remember how Bischoff, and he will to this day, defends Hogan even though Hogan was partially responsible for ruination of the company. WWF management defends HHH as the Most Valuable guy in the company. The only one who saw through things, was Jim Crockett on Dusty, and that wasn't until after he was out of business. It's just so sad to watch the WCW mistakes on Nitro, particularly when only one company is left, and it can go down just as fast if they don't create new stars"
"Show wanted Shane to watch him destroy Kaientai and then made a bleeped out racial slur about Japanese. Later in the show, Heyman was insisting that Show called them "goofs." The unedited tape was available on the internet and it wasn't clear exactly what Show said (and they may have edited that as well). Anyway, the racial slur was not scripted. If it was WCW, it would be added to the lawsuit for sure."
"HHH pinned Jeff to regain the IC title in 10:27. It wasn't so much that HHH won this match but how this match punked out Jeff and what the TV show was. They did a great job the entire show of building the match. They portrayed Jeff as having no chance, that it was a fluke. Even during the match, HHH took the entire match and the theme of the announcing was Jeff scored this upset of the century. Nothing against the idea of HHH regaining the belt, because if that's needed for where they are going, that's fine. But booking 101 would tell you to not bury the babyface losing in that situation, you should spend the TV show building up the win as opposed to saying it was a lucky fluke. And if heel goes over clean, then said heel should sell his ass off to prove the previous win wasn't a fluke. Heel in his interview if he's going over should act slightly scared of his chances and nervous as opposed to acting as if face has no chance to beat him. If heel is so confident, announcers are so confident, it sets the stage for the big pop when the upset happens again. This whole story was developing perfectly and would have made for one awesome main event to cap off a good TV show as HHH treated Jeff as a jobber and pounded him the entire match. Jeff got one comeback after hitting HHH with a title belt, since no mere punch had any effect. He got a near fall after that with a missile dropkick, but missed a swanton. Austin beat up Matt backstage. Lita couldn't decide what to do, but decided to go back and help Matt, but Austin confronted her on the ramp. While this was going on, the new production crew borrowed by WCW missed the pin clean with a pedigree. As if Jeff wasn't treated like an enhancement guy for ten minutes, and talked about like he has no chance with the big stars for two hours, and then puts on a performance to convince everyone that is the case, then loses his belt clean after a few days proving he never deserved it since he didn't even win it clean. After all that, then Austin & HHH destroyed Jeff and were whipping him with a belt. Matt did the save, and you know what happened to him."
"This is exactly how WCW ruined all its young talent and never got any new babyfaces over because fans don't get behind people portrayed as losers. Jeez, usually the Hardys got great pops coming out, and play back the tape. After two hours of being told Jeff wasn't in HHH's league, he came out and got zero reaction, and the fans live didn't even take his offense seriously when HHH would stand there and barely sell it. Matt's big save consisted of getting killed and whipped with a belt. Stephanie threw Lita in, but before they could get TSN's license revoked, Undertaker & Kane slowly walked in for the save. When they got to the ring, Austin & HHH bailed out. Actually because they never bail, that was a pretty cool spot"
"An article in the Newark Star Ledger quotes Basil DeVito, the XFL President, and Mike Keller, the director of football operations, a saying there would be a second season. Keller said, "on the heads of our children, that we'll be back next year." Does anyone remember the last person who worked for Vince McMahon who swore on the lives of his children about something?"
"Lots of surprises at the Smackdown tapings in Philadelphia noted from various letters. The big one brought up was crowd reaction, in that there were no "ECW" chants even though they were in Philadelphia and so many former ECW performers appeared. As one long-time ECW fan noted, attending this show was the final realization that ECW was dead."
Apr 30, 01
"Just days after the first month's WCW schedule was released in last week's Observer, the WWF office canceled all the announced dates and at press time, there was no timetable for the re-launch." "Jim Ross spent the latter part of the week in Atlanta, meeting with prospective employees, including performers, announcers, road agents, and production people, both to begin negotiations to hire new employees as well as get a better understanding from former employees of the now-defunct company as to who the company should and shouldn't hire. There were meetings with more than two dozen people over a three-day period." "According to the WWF office, the plan now is to move back to Wednesday night tapings weekly for an 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday night time slot on TNN. The latter period isn't etched in stone. Ross did tell people he met with that if the ratings were to be strong in that slot, he was hopeful TNN would give the show a more favorable time slot, although those at TNN don't want the network pigeon-holed as the wrestling network so they are at this point adverse to it." "The move from taping on Saturdays, as was the second plan, back to the original Wednesday plan, was largely Vince McMahon listening to the production crew which was unhappy at the prospect of having to work every Saturday night away from their families. The production crew largely works six-days per week with Saturday as the one day off. As mentioned last week, Saturday would be cheaper from a transportation standpoint (Saturday stay-overs for flights), as well as far easier to draw fans to a live event." "The main concerns on launching this new operation are that with the roster as it is today, the new group would have a very strong crew of undercard talent but would be very weak when it comes to potential headliners, combined with the weak time slot. In addition, whatever momentum there may have been stemming from the strong television angle on 3/26 on the final episode of Nitro, has waned with the lack of follow-up or appearances of what people perceive to be the main WCW talent, none of whom are under WWF contract, on Raw." "If Bischoff had been able to acquire WCW as was expected, besides Rob Van Dam and Don Callis, who have admitted being pretty close to deals but told to keep it quiet, I believe Joey Styles was also under consideration as an announcer and John Muse was going to be given the job of head booker of the cruiserweight division, which would have been kept largely separate" "Terry Taylor was turned down for a front office job in the new WCW" "The trainer claimed Taker & Kane were too banged up to wrestle on the show, which of course, meant they'd be in the main event and they still wouldn't sell for Edge & Christian."
"Show confronted Vince to ask if he really meant it when he called him the biggest disappointment in the history of wrestling. Vince said he didn't. So he lied."
"Benoit & Jericho beat Regal & Angle in a submission match in 2:03 when Benoit made Regal submit to the crossface. They spent far more time on hype than delivering. It's very hard for these four not to have a good match, but giving them 2:00 and forcing them to rush through submissions so fast they mean nothing did accomplish that. Right at the finish they cut immediately away like it all meant nothing. Very sad."
"Austin & HHH came out for a long interview. HHH did a long diatribe about how everything in the world belonged to them. Austin was insulting individual fans to get that Flair heel heat. They challenged Taker & Kane to come out, "knowing they were injured." Instead, Hardys came out. What happened? HHH & Austin laughed at them. That would have been okay if Hardys came out and got some offense on them, but instead, after being laughed at, Taker & Kane came out and Austin & HHH ran, and Hardys seemed like little punks starting fights for the tough guys to finish."
"Main saw E&C & Austin & HHH over Taker & Kane & Hardys in 7:37 when Austin gave Matt a stunner and HHH pinned him. The finish was changed that day. Not sure what the original finish was, but it may have been Taker using the last ride on Austin (My Note: not with that neck he wasn't) and Matt pinning him. Match had very good heat and it was a good match. The stars never really put over the mid-carders and watching it there was a clear distinction between who the stars were and weren't. I don't think anyone was elevated by association, nor hurt by being made to look "not top level" as the Hardys have been in most of the matches and angles of late. Maybe then can just copy how WCW booked the Filthy Animals to show how to get babyfaces over (hopefully everyone sees past that sarcasm)"
"On last week's Raw show when it aired in the UK, they edited the tape differently and cut away from Austin stalking Lita to actually show Jeff getting pedigreed and pinned by HHH. They used the same commentary which didn't acknowledge the pin as it was happening but fans saw the set up and finish"
"There was a ton of controversy regarding what Show said on the 4/16 Raw to Shane regarding his match with Kaientai. It appeared on TV he used the word "gooks," since it was bleeped, which is a negative racial slur on Japanese. Later in the show, Heyman made a point to bring up that he actually said the word "goofs." People who did hear it unedited and turned the sound up as loud as possible say there was no way you could honestly say which word he said."
"Johnny Ace signed a multi-year employee contract with WCW just before it went under. The backstage employees are actually allowed to collect their money and if they get a job with WWF or another company that starts up for another job, can "double dip." The wrestlers, as independent contractors, as strange as this sounds, have the 90-day cycles which will be exercised shortly, and can't work anywhere while getting paid by Time Warner"
|
|
|
Post by saneiac on Nov 9, 2020 9:50:57 GMT -5
"The WWF, breaking with longstanding company policy, now allows references to other federations (Chris Benoit as a former WCW champion who never lost the title, plus Paul Heyman's repeated references to the defunct ECW championships) and even paid homage to its past with a gimmick Battle Royal. Sadly, that was more of a hit on the internet than it was to the crowd live, most of whom didn't seem to know the majority of the competitors."
I was at WM X-7, and I'm calling bullshit on this. Sure, The Goon and Duke The Dumpster didn't get much reaction, but Slaughter, Quake, The Bushwhackers, and even Repo Man got decent pops, and Doink got a big one. Doink being eliminated drew some of the loudest boos of the night.
|
|
|
Post by Perpetual Nirvana on Nov 9, 2020 15:58:08 GMT -5
Did Sting and Flair ever wrestle eachother after that final Nitro? Surely they had a match in TNA at some point.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2020 16:02:01 GMT -5
Did Sting and Flair ever wrestle eachother after that final Nitro? Surely they had a match in TNA at some point. Yeah. 2011, it's on YouTube, during the Hogan era of TNA.
|
|
Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,528
|
Post by Nr1Humanoid on Nov 9, 2020 18:37:00 GMT -5
It sure did not take long beyond the downfall of WCW and ECW for the WWF to start coasting.
|
|
Rave
El Dandy
Perpetually Bored
Posts: 8,195
|
Post by Rave on Nov 9, 2020 23:48:08 GMT -5
Stuart Snyder? That Stuart Snyder, the one who nearly killed off Cartoon Network? Never knew he was involved in the sale.
|
|
cjh
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,650
|
Post by cjh on Nov 10, 2020 0:26:10 GMT -5
Stuart Snyder? That Stuart Snyder, the one who nearly killed off Cartoon Network? Never knew he was involved in the sale. He was working for WWE at the time and also just happened to be friends with Brad Siegel, who was in charge of WCW. Not coincidentally, WWE got a sweet deal and other, bigger offers to buy WCW were apparently ignored.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2020 4:47:04 GMT -5
2001 May, Part 1
May 7, 01"Sources at TNN have confirmed 6/16 as the current planned start-up date with the station bumping "Grand Ol' Opry" to make room for WCW." "Ross met with Rob Szatkowsky (Rob Van Dam), his wife and agent Michael Meltzer for the first time on 4/25 and in his Ross Report described the meetings as very positive." "There was also a meeting with Brad Small, the agent who represents Booker Huffman (T), Page Falkinburg, John Laurinaitis (Johnny Ace), Pete Gruner (Billy Kidman) and Chris Klucsaritis (Chris Kanyon). Each of the aforementioned people have different issues. Klucsaritis' contract with Time Warner expired last week, so he's basically a lock to go in. Ross has made it clear to virtually everyone he's negotiated with that the salaries offered will not be in the league of what they were used to earning, but there is potential to earn more of the new company is successful." "No contracts have been offered at this point to any talent so there is no real barometer of what kind of money will be offered, other than the most recent WWF signees like Rhyno, Jerry Lynn and Yoshihiro Tajiri came in at about the $100,000 level as far as a downside is concerned, and Spike Dudley came in well under that figure. Those working on the road on the WWF would earn more because they are paid on a percentage of the house, and the WWF side houses are usually very good and they do 18-20 house shows per month plus a lucrative PPV event." "The plan, with Wednesday tapings, is to tape in smaller sized arenas (4,000 to 7,500 seats) in the same geographical location of the WWF Smackdown tapings the night before, since they will use the same production crew and production truck. As mentioned last week, there are both advantages and disadvantages, none mysterious, over taping on Wednesday (easier on the crew, more time to edit out mistakes) as opposed to Saturday (lower costs to fly in talent, more immediacy, easier to sell tickets to the events)." "The Ross Report officially listed the 24 wrestlers the company already has signed: Mike Alfonso (Awesome), Bill DeMott (Hugh Morrus), Lance Evers (Storm), Chavo Guerrero Jr., Shawn Stepich (Stasiak), John Hugger (Johnny the Bull), Shane Helms, Shannon Moore, Evan Kavagias (Karagias), Palumbo, O'Haire, Mike Sanders, Mark Jindrak, Elix Skipper, Allen Funk (Kwee Wee), Mark Larue (Lash), Jerry Tuite (Wall), Kaz Hayashi, James Howard (Jamie Knoble), James Yun (Yun Yang), Stacey Keibler, Cornell (Reno), Sam Roman (Kid Romeo) and Jason Broyles (Jason Jett aka E.Z. Money). All are expected to be cycled out of their current contracts and most, if not all, offered new contracts under WWF terms after the new WCW begins and the new ownership can evaluate them." "It is believed the main names being considered as far as announcers are Scott Hudson, Mike Tenay, Joey Styles, Mark Madden and Jerry Lawler. Lawler is at best a very long shot because at this point Vince McMahon doesn't want him and there are obstacles to work through because it is believed he won't come back without his wife and McMahon likely won't budge on that issue. There is a feeling he'd be the best man for the job and there is a natural storyline of him going with Shane and hating Vince since the story of his departure has gotten some mainstream publicity." "The writing team from WCW will be separate from WWF, but the two teams will work together on Mondays and Tuesdays to make sure angles don't conflict, such as both group's for example, building up to cage matches on television or on PPV during the same week, or angles being repeated too closely with different characters on both shows." "Don Callis was on Observer Live and said he's going back to school to get an MBA because he never wants to be put in the position he's in where an unforeseen turn in the wrestling business (Bischoff not getting WCW after ECW folded) leaves him without a job"
"A further examination of the ECW Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition filed three weeks ago puts an apparent realistic positioning of where ECW fits into the real pro wrestling landscape in North America over the past two years. In 1999, according to the petition, it claimed ECW grossed $5,822,312 in total income. During the same period, WWF grossed more than $259 million and WCW grossed more than $160 million (losing about $16 million in the process). In 2000, ECW claimed it grossed $4,124,452 (losing about $2.5 million for the year) as compared to about $379 million by the WWF and $120 million by WCW (losing about $65 million for the year), giving ECW less than a one percent market share of a roughly half billion dollar major league pro wrestling industry."
"ECWs income declined drastically in 2000, although not as drastically as WCW's. But nor should it have, because ECW did nothing overt, as opposed to nearly everything overt, to run its audience off. But it is interesting to note how income fell significantly during a year when the company had national television coverage for nine months in prime time, something they never had before. It shows the value of national television, at least for a cult promotion like ECW, was in the long run, highly overrated in exposing its product to a new audience and helping its various revenue streams."
"Tommy Dreamer even stated on Wrestling Observer Live that in last ditch efforts to raise funding to keep the company going, they failed to come to fruition because they couldn't provide the companies any sort of verifiable bookkeeping records. So many people owed money were listed in round numbers, indicating estimates as opposed to well kept records. Others still, including many wrestlers, were listed as being owed money, but the figure was listed as "unknown." "
"Another sad example of what has been the theme of wrestling over the last several weeks was USA Network releasing its financial figures. Even though USA Network's ratings themselves are down since losing the WWF programming, their ad revenue and bottom line are doing better than at this time last year even with a softer market"
"HHH did the pedigree on Kane, but instead of going for the pin, which would necessitate a kick out, he tagged Austin. Saying HHH is so clever is not a knock, it's praise, and he is. It is a knock that sometimes what is good for him isn't good for the company and we've seen with Hogan and Nash the end result of that. Clever stuff like him tagging out doesn't hurt anyone."
"Kane went after Vince, but with the cameras missing a finishing sequence again, and How in the WCW does this happen? HHH hit Kane with the sledge hammer to the head and scored the pin."
"X-Pac pinned Spike Dudley in 3:19 with the X factor in a good match. Only problem is with X-Pac winning, it meant we had to hear that entrance music twice."
"They did vignettes that were pretty flat with Crash Holly getting drunk and taken at cards by the APA. This was one of those inside ribs that 99.9% of the audience doesn't get, because Crash has gotten into trouble for getting drunk in the past including fined once for it during a public appearance at WWF New York several months ago."
"HHH destroyed Test, leaving him for dead with chair shot after chair shot, getting DQ'd in :56. It's almost like they're trying to copy WCW. They easily could have done a 6:00 match, given Test lots of offense to elevate him, and have it end the same way. This way Test wouldn't look like such a punk and be buried."
"Austin and Undertaker brawled into the ring and did a 57 second main event, ending in a DQ finish when HHH interfered. Crowd groaned a little when the bell rang to end HHH's match, but they really groaned when the bell rang this time. Then they started booing, and it was that WCW booing at the end of a TV show that doesn't mean they are getting the good heat. Post-match was strong with both destroying Taker with a sledge hammer. Except for the fact there was no spray paint used, it looked just like Nitro, and that isn't good. Kane came out, and just like a WCW babyface would and with Test, the heels punked him out without even making him look decent first."
"HHH beat Jeff Hardy to keep the IC title. Austin was at ringside. Taker came out with a chain and attacked Austin and they brawled to the back. While this was going on, it was pedigree and pin clean in the middle."
"Regal & Angle beat Jericho & Benoit in 10:53, which must be the longest opening match on WWF TV in probably close to a year."
"Few knew about it, but the original plan was that Rock would show up as a surprise and save Prototype since he's staying in Los Angeles doing acting classes. But it just didn't get worked out at the last minute. Kind of funny that they'd have Rock at a UPW show and keep it a surprise for the pop when publicizing him being there could have gotten the company tons of local media attention, but since it was never finalized, I guess they couldn't really do much with it."
"The Backlash show that aired on Ch. 4 in the UK on a 50 minute delay screwed up the order of matches, airing Benoit vs. Angle before Jericho vs. Regal. After airing the Jericho match, they started the video airing before the Benoit match and stopped it in mid-transmission when someone figured out they already aired the match. The Vince/Show segment aired twice. They also took commercial breaks at times in mid-sentence between matches"
"They were confiscating signs at TV again this week. The major ones were those involving characters of the old WCW, such as "NWWFO" and drawings of HHH with a Hulkamania shirt on"
"UPN was clearly desperate about "Chains of Love." WWF did them a favor doing a spoof of the show with Blackman handcuffed to four large women. Segment was hilarious with GMS talking in that GMS slang saying he went to get four PHAT women to handcuff to Steve but somehow they wound up with four fat women. See, this proves Vince Russo's point. WWF was allowed to call women fat and that's why they still draw sellout houses. GMS threw chocolate on the ground and the women all dived for it. Then the least attractive starting hitting on Blackman."
May 14, 01
"Insurrextion was advertised with Benoit vs. Regal and Jericho vs. Angle, but instead they mixed and matched. The complaints were that even though the two matches ended up being the two best matches on the show, that the people had already seen numerous matches with Benoit vs. Angle and Jericho vs. Regal for free, including the last two American PPV shows, with those matches, and were expecting to pay to see fresh matches and not what just aired last week."
"The original line-up was Austin vs. Undertaker for the WWF title, HHH vs. Kane for the IC title, Benoit vs. Regal billed for the Queens Cup, Jericho vs. Angle, Dudleys vs. X Factor vs. Hardys vs. E&C, Bradshaw vs. Show, Womens Battle Royal with the winner getting a title shot, Crash Holly vs. Dean Malenko vs. Spike Dudley for the light heavyweight title, Grandmaster Sexay vs. Rhyno and Hardcore Holly vs. Saturn."
"Those bouts continued to be advertised until television the day of the show, when a new line-up was announced. With Kane selling his worked broken arm, it was announced as Undertaker vs. HHH & Austin but with the WWF title still at stake if Undertaker won. Benoit vs. Regal, Angle vs. Jericho and the Womens Battle Royal stayed the same as originally advertised, which must have been an office rib, since none of the matches took place. Then, they announced they were changing the other matches to a three-way for the light heavyweight title with Lynn now defending against Malenko and Crash, which also ended up being canceled completely. They announced the tag elimination would become a three-way, with all three Dudleys vs. all three X Factor members and E&C & Rhyno, which instead ended up being the match that was originally advertised as a four-team regular tag elimination. Show vs. Bradshaw was changed to Show vs. Test, since they had a TV program, but instead, they did an angle where Test was injured by HHH at Raw and while he did appear, it was Bradshaw who wrestled Show. Test vs. Guerrero for the European title ended up being Sexay vs. Guerrero."
"Nobody understood the rules of the main event as far as the titles and reports we got is that it wasn't explained well on television and people couldn't figure out why HHH was pinned, that Undertaker didn't win one of the belts. We got reports it was announced as a handicap match with the title at stake, so people expected that the title switched when Undertaker won."
"The show opened, with Regal and Vince complaining about the changes Linda had made to the card, as if Vince should be mad that instead of Austin defending his title against Undertaker, it was instead a handicap match with Austin having HHH as his partner. Live, the sound system was said to be horrible and those live had no idea of the new card or why the show was changed because the intro didn't come across well."
"The injury occurred as Austin's knee brace became unfastened and it caught Undertaker near the ear and ripped at it. Undertaker was draped over the ropes and Austin ran across the ring to jump on his back and the piece of metal that goes over the back of his calf stabbed him in the ear. It wasn't as if the ear was in danger but there was a very ugly jagged cut and he was bleeding pretty badly. They butterflied it up on the trip home and immediately upon arrival in Newark the next day, he went to a plastic surgeon."
"After the handicap match, fans started pelting the ring with garbage since the heels were left in the ring. One live estimate said it was 100 to 150 bottles thrown at the ring, some of which were glass and it got very dangerous. Paul Heyman and Michael Cole (subbing for Jim Ross, who missed the trip due to being ill although Cole himself still had a weak voice that was noticeable on Smackdown) got out of there as quick as possible with everything flying, as did the McMahons, HHH and Austin. Actually there was talk the Heyman/Cole chemistry was better than Heyman/Ross, because Cole is better at being the butt of jokes. Stephanie apparently took a drink right to the face and then Austin, HHH and Vince also got out of there. The whole mat was covered with garbage by the time it was over."
"Babyface Austin as the top draw on house shows averaged 11,537 paid per appearance and 21.1 percent sellouts. Heel Austin as the top draw on house shows averages 7,142 paid attendance per house show and no sellouts. In other words, Austin as a heel doesn't sell tickets because that's Austin in "A" towns with all the top stars on the bill selling tickets at the pace just barely ahead of Jericho vs. Angle in "B" towns with no support. That is a difference in $141,651 per night in WWF house show revenue."
"I don't care how many people boo Austin and how much garbage gets thrown, or how few people cheer him, the turn was not a success"
"Raw on 5/7 was the fifth week in a row of a ratings decline, ending with a 4.57 rating (4.55 first hour; 4.59 second hour) and a 7.0 share. The audience for Raw has now declined to below the level the show was averaging when it went head-to-head with Nitro, which basically says that the 2.5 million fans of Nitro are no longer watching wrestling."
"Austin vs. Rikishi in the main event drew a 4.65 rating, the lowest rated main event for a non-holiday edition of Raw in the regular time slot in many years. While there have been occasions this year when the Raw main event is outdrawn by a segment earlier in the show, it is either a McMahon family or Austin segment outdrawing a main event. The main event this week was only the fifth highest rated match on the show behind Jericho vs. Regal cage match (4.92), Lightheavyweight four-way (4.80), Lita vs. Molly Holly (4.75) and E&C & Rhyno vs. Guerrero & Hardys (4.72), all of which were in less advantageous parts of the show with very little build-up except the cage match."
"It's pretty clear a major tactical error was made on what just a few weeks ago was considered a legendary night of wrestling, on 3/26 with the simulcast, an event six weeks ago, that the way this business changes, might as well have been six years ago. When Vince McMahon got in the ring and talked about Big Poppa Pump, Goldberg, Jeff Jarrett, Buff Bagwell and Booker T, it whetted fans appetite for a series of dream matches, in particular Goldberg against either Rock or Austin. To come back after Mania, with same old Undertaker & Kane vs. a heel Austin, whose drawing power as a heel is becoming more suspect by the day, and HHH, left the audience flat and it's showing." "It's funny because McMahon understands the rules of promoting wrestling better than anyone. When all the promoters in the 80s were losing their temper and doing stupid things on their television, McMahon ignored his competition and never teased matches he wasn't going to deliver. The key to popping a territory is building to a big match that most fans focus on as, more than anything, what they want to see, and then giving it to you. When fans' focus is diverted in many different directions, that level of interest will never be there for the match you are delivering. It's okay if this will play out down the road, but by teasing a match and matches in front of a huge audience that you aren't going to deliver, it's a mistake so elementary that I was stunned when I saw it, and am even more stunned thinking back that I did see it." "The combined audience that saw the segment was 9.6 million. The audience that watched Raw this week was down to 5.94 million making it, except for a holiday, the first time wrestling drew less than six million viewers on a Monday night after peaking at 12 million during the height of the boom, in many years, probably dating back to around 1996." "Raw, just five weeks ago, drew 1.4 million more viewers than this week. Part of it was because they ran Rock vs. Austin for free and part was because the former WCW audience, at least a portion of it, checked out the show to see the new chapter in WCW. By the third week, that audience had dwindled down to almost none of the former WCW audience when the realization hit that TBS and TNT weren't carrying wrestling and WCW was no more, and because they saw none of their favorite stars in the new environment. Now they are starting to lose the WWF audience for a number of reasons that didn't care about WCW in the first place. Reasons? Elimination of The Rock has hurt. Austin going heel has, at this point, hurt even more. Lack of upward mobility and a generally weaker quality of Raw since the competition ended may be even more to blame."
"Over the first few months of this year, Raw and Smackdown, eight weeks out of ten, built to really hot main event matches usually involving some combination of Rock, Austin, Angle, Benoit and HHH. Sometimes Jericho, Undertaker and Kane were in the mix. When was the last "really great" main event? Rock vs. Austin on 4/2."
"Even though Rikishi dancing to that music was something that was done less than a year ago, it seemed so outdated like trying to re-enact DX or something or bringing back the Horseman with Paul Roma."
"Angle, who is still playing the geek role that he should have dropped roughly one year ago, told E&C to grab Benoit if they see him and get the medals. They, who are about the only cool characters left in the company at this point, agreed, but only because they were sick of hearing Angle complain."
"Jericho is letting his dark roots grow in. Either he's been so busy he hasn't dyed his hair, or politically he figures the blond hair isn't doing him any favors. Hey, it isn't the hair."
"Chyna got in the ring and Lita spanked Chyna. We got about two-dozen e-mails the next day from people who think this angle is creepy. I think once you've read Chyna's book, everything she does sort of fits into that category."
"Angle was at WWF for a segment that turned out to be ill-advised. Everyone, whether face or heel, is cheered like crazy at WWF New York. Benoit when he does interviews, gets mixed reactions because nobody knows exactly what to make of his interviews. I'm convinced at this point that Benoit has to be a heel because he was so much more effective as this guy who gave the faces great matches on TV. Sooner or later, the people will turn him because he's good. Telling people he's good without a super strong angle, which they haven't had, and with his interviews not up to par and being exposed in that regard, is causing him to go into quicksand. Anyway, crowd cheered Angle like crazy at WWF New York. Benoit got no reaction at Nassau."
"Edge, apparently thinking he was Strangler Lewis, Lou Thesz, or perhaps Stephanie McMahon, asked Benoit if he wanted to do it the hard way or the easy way. Unlike legend has it with Ed Don George and Buddy Rogers, Benoit chose the hard way and they started fighting, ending up in a room where Jericho just so happened to be, to nicely segue into a new program."
"Undertaker in another skit was mad that Austin didn't have the guts to try and take his dressing room back (god, are they killing the golden goose dead by making him a coward)"
"HHH vs. Jeff Hardy, which should have been the best match, may have been the worst match on the show (that or the main event). Jeff came off very bad in that in storyline form, HHH was distracted, didn't have his mind on the match, and came off like he could end it any time, and then did exactly that."
"Hopefully not a sign of the times, but probably it is. They had scheduled both Raw and Smackdown originally for 6/4 and 6/5 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, with the idea they hadn't played Minneapolis in a long time (although they had run St. Paul which is considered the same market). When first day ticket sales weren't what was expected (8,000 for Raw, which is good, but not through the roof), they realized the Raw sellout wasn't an automatic and they don't announce the Smackdown until after the Raw sells out the few times they've done two straight nights, so Smackdown was moved to Grand Forks, ND."
"Surprisingly little news in the past week regarding the WCW re-launch. Ross, who heads the project, was ill. There is nothing official on the books. There are arenas on hold but there has been a snag in the past week as negotiations between TNN and WWFE have slowed down greatly. That's the only hold-up with the start-up at this point."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2020 5:13:47 GMT -5
2001 May, Part 2
May 21, 01
"Vince McMahon and Dick Ebersol announced on 5/10 at a hastily put together press conference less than three weeks after the championship game that they were disbanding the XFL after McMahon a few hours earlier had gotten word from UPN that they were not going to pick the league up for a second season. NBC has pretty well made that decision during the season, but had yet to publicly acknowledge it."
"Raw on 5/14 was the sixth week in a row of a decline, dropping very slightly to a 4.49 rating (4.39 first hour; 4.58 second hour) and a 7.0 share and an audience of about 5.8 million. If you want more cause for concern, Nitro at no point in its history ever declined six straight weeks in the ratings nor did in a six week period a consistent 1.2 point ratings drop."
"Backlash early estimates are about 400,000 buys or an 0.95 buy rate. This looks to be the lowest WWF PPV since No Mercy in 1999 (Austin vs. HHH main event, which was also the main event of the lowest buy rate of 2000 for Survivor Series)"
"Most of the rumors regarding either Jerry Jarrett or Hulk Hogan starting something up on the USA Network are dwindling with the word that USA wanted $30 million in escrow as insurance the company would have the resources to last out at least one full season before folding. Bottom line is that USA in reality had no real interest in wrestling, nor does FOX, which makes any start up at this point look to have far too great odds against it."
"The United Wrestling Federation group with Stevie Ray as booker is already going headlong into that territory known as fraudulent advertising wrestling companies. For tickets to one of its first shows, on 5/26 in Monroe, LA, they are billed it as "WWF Wrestling Presents WCW Wrestling Superstars." I guess somebody has to keep McDevitt busy these days now that there are no other major wrestling companies to file papers on"
"They did segments throughout the show with Austin acting concerned for Undertaker's wife, so you knew it was a hoax and he was behind it. I've always liked Austin, but this was the worst acting and worst skit he's been involved in since that day they embalmed him."
"Regal did an interview. This was really scary. He announced Taker was gone so Kane would have a handicap match for the titles against Austin & HHH. Crowd didn't react a lick. Then he announced HHH vs. Kane in a chain match for the PPV. Again, no reaction. He announced his match with Rikishi. No reaction again."
"There was a commercial for Arena Football on TNN with Jill Arrington, this hot blond announcer who was playing the role Carol Grow played for like one week on the XFL trying to get ratings for football through a female announcer. Think about this. We're watching this episode of Raw, which is doing almost everything that killed Nitro. And then we see this commercial for the AFL, following the ultra-successful XFL formula."
"Show & Buchanan & Goodfather beat APA & Test when Bull pinned Test after Show hit him with a weak shot with the steps in 3:16. Awful. This would have been awful on OVW TV let alone on Raw."
"Finally, in a tribute to our beloved departed Nitro, Kane beat HHH & Austin via DQ in a handicap match in a main event that went 3:36 when HHH hit Kane with a chain. Fans booed the finish, and it was that groaning boo reminiscent of a Nitro screw job where people leave thinking I'm not coming back, not that good kind of booing"
"Undertaker revealed his wife was not in a car wreck, but she had received a phone call telling her that her mom was in a car wreck. Undertaker blamed Austin. That isn't the only thing he's been getting blamed for these days."
"HHH arrived and everyone shunned him. Heyman told him he went too far with the prank call. So in other words, it's okay to run someone over, but you can't prank call in the WWF. HHH says he was framed by Austin and didn't do it."
"HHH & Stephanie scream at Austin. Austin said he's repulsed by HHH and never wants to team with him again. I think I saw Bret Hart do this ten times on Nitro and each time he was over less than the time before."
"Stephanie revealed that Austin told her his car battery died and she gave him HHH's cell phone, so Austin did do it. Undertaker vs. HHH ends up with Taker about to last ride him (which sounds so lewd) when Austin is on the video wall. He admitted he did it, but had an accomplice. HHH jumped Undertaker and what do you know, he was the accomplice. They pound on him until Kane made the save"
"With Benoit vs. Angle, that's three ladder matches (Benoit vs. Jericho, TLC and this would if it were to happen) on PPV already this year. All these gimmicks they get over like ladder matches and Hell in a Cell that have replaced the cage match and Battle Royals as the hot drawing gimmicks, will also mean as much as the cage match and Battle Royals if they're done more than twice a year, let alone three times in five shows. After seeing what happened with WCW, every attempt to imitate their desperation booking patterns scares the hell out of me. I hope this is the last week I spend being horrified"
"One of the funniest, unintentional, parts of Smackdown was Undertaker, the top babyface in the company, doing the tobacco spitting angles, and 30 seconds later seeing a "tobacco is whacko" commercial aimed at teens on the same show"
"This was kept off camera, but a fan hit the ring during Kane's entrance and Earl Hebner smoked him with a Goldberg spear, and HHH then kicked the hell out of him. Got a huge face pop of course"
"There is no WCW start date. The main factors that will determine the start date are a television deal with Viacom being finalized, which it isn't and is probably the main delay, and also getting all the little things that have to be ready done, such as new logos, new lighting grids, new music written, a new set designed, new graphics and everything else." "TNN doesn't want the same characters on Raw transferred over and called WCW for a new show. They want the big stars of WCW on the show, most of whom aren't signed to WWFE. It's that dreaded stalemate in that Time Warner isn't offering good buy-out propositions figuring WWFE would have to get more generous with its offers and get the top guys under deals or it wouldn't be able to successfully do the show. WWFE clearly was under the impression they could use the lower priced talent, augment them with some free agents, a few developmental guys and shift 3-5 WWF guys over and have a television show but TNN wants more of the so-called Goldbergs and the Stings and you know the hold-up there. From the TNN side, they are targeting September right now, but that really means nothing until a deal is signed" "Scott Hall has told friends that whatever he does, he won't make any commitments past February, which is when Nash's contract expires. They are going on the hunch, and they may luck out big-time on this one, that by February, somebody will be begging for a shot in the arm and they can come in as a tandem and get the deal they want, either with New Japan (unlikely) or WWF (which depends largely on where business is in February and I'd hate to predict because there are so many factors, basically dependent upon if they can make hot stars in WCW and the feud is a success)" "Ross compared this with Jim Crockett's purchase of the UWF in 1987, which he was a part of, and said that they couldn't let what happened (UWF guys simply not being utilized correctly and eaten up immediately) in that situation happen with WCW" "Both Awesome and Morrus have dropped significant weight since WCW closed. Morrus has lost 55 pounds, down to 285. Awesome is said to be down around 240" "The 7/22 PPV has had its name changed from Fully Loaded to Invasion. The name change is because the former WCW wrestlers at this point are scheduled to appear in some form"
May 28, 01 "The Monday night audience for wrestling has declined to a scary degree coming off the end of Nitro and folding of WCW, down to a 4.2 rating on 5/21, for the best Raw show in a long time. This number was equivalent to the audience the show used to draw the few times a year it aired from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. on tennis or dog show night. The WWF not only has lost all of the former Nitro audience, as well as having dropped about 16 percent of its own core audience over a seven week period."
"The decision was made to do an about-face on Jericho, whose stock with the fans had never been lower after a string of television losses, with the rocket lit on him by pinning Austin in the tag match. This sets up being in his first true PPV main event challenging Austin at the 6/24 King of the Ring PPV in East Rutherford, NJ. This came literally one day after the Judgment Day PPV, where during the day of the show, morale was described as being similar to WCW for the first time, with several wrestlers feeling frustrated with the belief with new programs needed and new stars needed to be put into the top mix, the company, showing no signs up to that point of truly elevating anyone, had no confidence in them and the lessons learned by WCW's folding were fresh in everyone's mind. This led to the same glass ceiling frustrations that most of the crew in WCW felt."
"The decision to go with Jericho, a decision that was questioned by many, did give not just a glimmer, but gave a bright ray of hope up and down the roster. There was the belief of many that of the various suggestions made, perhaps even correctly, this had the least box office appeal for the show in specific. But for the long-run, if handled correctly, this was the only option that was a step forward."
"With HHH's suffering a full quadricep tear in the closing moments of the San Jose match, which will require surgery under Dr. James Andrews on 5/24, he'll be unavailable for several months, probably not until October or November, which puts more pressure on Austin to carry the load than at anytime, and the bottom line is that the Austin heel turn has been a disaster for business. "
"Other thoughts for the show included doing the HHH babyface turn off the PPV and having him challenge Austin, which is the idea that on paper would have the most short-term box office, but was premature and others thought they should save that for either SummerSlam, or even Wrestlemania next year, because nobody knows what the status of Rock will be by next year's Mania."
"Another plan considered was to book an Austin vs. Undertaker rematch for KOR, building it around storylines involving both men's wives, which was continuing the direction that up through this point didn't seem to be working, but was still "safer" as far as less of a box office risk than putting Jericho at this point on top and still holding what was believed to be the big-money HHH face turn off for a bigger show."
"The Austin turn, like similar turns with Goldberg and Ric Flair, represented slaps in the face to the fans, and resulted in people booing them because they were villains in the storyline, but not wanting to pay for tickets, and in many cases, not wanting to watch TV because of it."
"It is only a few weeks since HHH lost to Jeff Hardy in the so-called upset of the year, which ended up actually hurting the Hardys' momentum because of how it was done, and more importantly, the follow-up, so it's premature to jump to any conclusions before seeing the follow-up other than saying the tag match on Raw was probably the company's best television match of the year, a ****3/4 effort."
"With no television deal on the table, the plan has totally changed. Shane McMahon appeared on the 5/21 Raw doing a series of angles with Kurt Angle, once where Angle laid him out and a second where Shane cost Angle the match in an IC title bout with Kane, and talked of WCW coming sooner than people think. Shane, usually a good performer, did a terrible interview, probably the worst of his career, and did himself no favors by dancing to a lame entrance song coming out. This combined with the crowds total lack of caring when he brought up the WCW subject, shows just how much work needs to be done on this project." "WCW is a big deal to insiders and to the folks at the stock market to see how WWF handles its new acquisition, but clearly not to the most WWF wrestling fans, who lost interest in the WCW name over the past two years, or WCW fans, those who remained that have since stopped following pro wrestling over the past two months." "McMahon has cooled off on the original plan, which was an 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday night slot on TNN, due to the problems as noted last week in the negotiations with the network. That may still happen at some point, but it is not imminent or even expected for the fall season. He's even debating the viability of an added $350,000 daily production expense for another full day of taping for a show which based on its time slot, would almost inherently establish WCW as a secondary promotion as opposed to the equal entity he feels it needs to be for everything to work." "McMahon stated that the only way to make the WCW brand viable, and the idea would be to springboard from Invasion to a separate entity, and thus have the ability to run separate house shows, PPVs, sell new licenses, would be for both company's to have what would be perceived as an equal talent pool." "The company has also done an about-face when it comes to talent. When the WCW purchase was first talked about last year, and again when finalized in March, WWF was adamant, both somewhat publicly as well as even more so privately, that concern No. 1 was keeping a harmonious dressing room and that anyone with a history of backstage problems wouldn't be welcome. At this point, the company instead seems to have taken the approach that anyone who was a star at one point or has potential, regardless of their track record in the past few years or what the current talent pool think of them, is welcome." "Shane McMahon and Heyman had a secret negotiation with Scott Hall recently, to bring him in, possibly as early as Judgment Day. The negotiations fell apart after Shane and Hall had a phone conversation that didn't go well. Hall was talked about in regard to being brought in. It is believed that no deal would have been finalized without some sort of written safeguards in the contract or a form of a zero tolerance deal going in." "The company has also has re-thought its feelings regarding Marcus Bagwell, who was high on every original list of people they didn't want. Just a few months ago, when Bagwell's WCW contact was about to expire, he had negotiations with WWF to leave, but ultimately the decision was made not to bring him in, and he signed a short-term WCW deal that expires at the end of the month. On the upside, Bagwell is 31, and has a star look, and maybe more than anything else, he'd be available in just a few weeks for television if needed, which much of the top name talent WWF wants would likely not have Time Warner buyouts completed by."
"Really says something when a guy with a good physique like Crash is out there wearing a t-shirt."
"By the way, there is always talk about why Angle has two medals when he only won one Olympic medal. While the medals he uses aren't real, they are meant to represent both in 1996 gold medal in the Olympics and his 1995 World championship in freestyle wrestling."
"Jerry Lynn did a promo from WWF New York complaining that as light heavyweight champion, he should be on the PPV as opposed to being in WWF New York. The fans there cheered him, not picking up that he had basically insulted where he was. Lynn did a hell of a promo, doubly notable because the book on him is he's not good on promos. If this was WCW, that would be the last one he'd ever do."
"At this point, Kane did a run-in. The cameras were on Kane, and missed the finish, and that is one of those things that used to only happen in WCW. HHH hit Undertaker with the sledge hammer and Austin got the pin. Kane arrived a second too late for the save. So even though HHH did the job earlier, he was the one who was the decisive force in the main event."
"Shane came out to horrible music. Then he started dancing. Please, somebody tell him to never dance. Then he started talking about WCW re-starting sooner than you think. The people booed. Don't these fans know that dozens of hard working people's jobs are at stake. Then Shane did this interview that was only a few steps up on the evolutionary chain from a Jim Hellwig promo. Angle was so mad he gave him the slam off the medal stand. That did nothing to turn Angle heel. He put the ankle lock on momentarily. Shane did one thing right this whole segment, and that is he sold the move great."
"Benoit & Jericho won the tag titles from Austin & HHH in 13:55. Great match by any standard of a great match. Great moves. Great build during the match and even before the match as they tried to sell it as the biggest match of Benoit & Jericho's career. This match was a real slap in the face to anyone who thinks winning and losing doesn't matter or shouldn't matter to the fans. The reason this got over was not because of any silly gimmick, but because they sold the idea that the most important thing was the win and the quest for the win was real. When you take that out of wrestling, you eliminate most of the effectiveness of everything from bell-to-bell."
"They upped the match time with the people who could work to 6-8 minutes per bout as opposed to the usual 3-5 which made for a better show"
"On the Austin turn being effective, Foley said we won't know until Rock comes back but said there's something about Austin as a coward that doesn't sit well. Foley doesn't want to write the shows, but it is so scary, that he has this total grasp of everything both right and wrong with the shows."
"TSN edited the sledge hammer shot by HHH on Austin which led to the finish off Raw this week. They did leave the Terri wet t-shirt in"
"Before Wrestlemania, WWF had seriously negotiated and almost completed an angle for a match with Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens against HHH. According to a key insider, WWF proposed the idea of kicking it off on the 3/5 Raw in Washington, DC, similar to the Lawrence Taylor deal from 1995. Lewis would be in the front row, like WWF likes to put athletes at its tapings. HHH would verbally abuse him and call him a murderer, hitting it as hard as possible, with the idea with HHH as a huge heel, it would get Lewis over as a face, helping his image (similar to one of the lures of Mike Tyson doing Mania when his image was at rock bottom, although doing Mania did nothing to help Tyson's image with anyone, but it did help WWF incredibly because of the rub he gave to Austin). They would then build for a singles match at Mania. Lewis' attorneys pulled out of the deal, literally at the last minute since Lewis himself had flown in for the show, and WWF put Undertaker in the spot."
"Plans can change, but apparently the idea at this point is not for Guerrero to double-cross Lita and the Hardys and go back with Chyna, but to wind up doing the feud with Matt over Lita. Chyna and Lita have actually become tight politically and trying to work together on their angles. Chyna herself is apparently trying to push for Guerrero double-crossing Lita and the Hardys to build to Chyna & Eddy vs. Lita & Matt as a program, which by the nature of it, would have the guys carry the load and the women would tag in for the big pops. The belief is that Chyna likes working with the guys, for obvious reasons, because the guys in general are so much better workers so she can have much better matches and programs with higher profile people. A lot of people in the company, and apparently those who make the decisions, think that time has passed"
"Rey Misterio Jr. has one year left on his Time Warner contract and has had little or no contact with WWF. There is no way they'll sign him to a deal anywhere close to what he's making by sitting out, so he doesn't appear to be stressed by the situation as many people are. WWF sources indicate there would be interest in him if he were to get a buyout on his deal, but unlike Booker T, Page and Steiner, for example, he hasn't been aggressive in contacting WWF so Jim Ross didn't even meet with him when he came to California" "For whatever this is worth, among the domain names, which could be used as names of PPVs or television shows, that have been registered to WWFE for WCW usage are Anarchy, After Hours, After-Hours, Climax, Defiance, Hard-on Saturday Night, Hard on Saturday Night, Hotbox, Late Night Appetite, Nailed, Primal Urge, Saturday Night Nitro, Saturday Nitro, Turned-on, Turned On and Uprising"
|
|
|
Post by Main Event Mark on Nov 11, 2020 5:47:17 GMT -5
Those potential WCW names are all terrible.
|
|
|
Post by chronocross on Nov 11, 2020 7:35:27 GMT -5
I could be wrong, but I think that promo from Jerry Lynn was the last major promo he did in WWF in 2001 that I can recall.
I remember the shows post-WM17 being lackluster, not terrible but if you didn't see it, it wasn't a big deal. I never really bought Taker/Kane as threats to the 2-Man Power Trip as it felt like a filler feud before something major would happen.
|
|
|
Post by James Fabiano on Nov 11, 2020 10:52:38 GMT -5
Oh god, the Tobacco is Whacko ads.
Lorrilard Tobacco Company = meant well, but cancelled out any good will by presenting their cause in ANNOYING commercials.
|
|
Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,184
Member is Online
|
Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Nov 11, 2020 13:52:27 GMT -5
Those potential WCW names are all terrible. They're pretty much all porn titles.
|
|
The Warthog
Unicron
Tell them, the warthog is back in business!
Posts: 3,372
|
Post by The Warthog on Nov 11, 2020 18:48:06 GMT -5
I'm glad WCW never got rebooted separately. Vince knew it wasn't going to work because they couldn't get the talent that TNN wanted in order to get that second WCW show. It's good that it died when it did.
|
|
XIII
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 18,634
|
Post by XIII on Nov 11, 2020 20:15:22 GMT -5
Hard On Saturday Night followed by Sunday Morning Blue Balls
BAHAHAHAHA @ those names
|
|