cjh
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,604
|
Post by cjh on Nov 11, 2020 20:24:39 GMT -5
Nash signed a 4-year extension in December 1997 and even mentioned on WCW TV at least once that his deal would be up at the end of 2001.
|
|
|
Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Nov 11, 2020 23:48:31 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. It would have ultimately been like WWECW; a product that took great pains to differentiate itself at first, but ultimately would have succumbed to Vince and Dunn’s formula and become a bland copy of the preexisting product. As the Brand Split originated from these plans, the whole “brand supremacy” angle always feels like a hollow echo of the WWF vs. WCW rivalry it was supposed to emulate. I sometimes still wonder what the timeline of WCW Hard On would look like, even if it was inevitably never going to work under the McMahons.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2020 5:36:30 GMT -5
2001, June Part 1
June 4, 01
"Lance Storm was the first WCW wrestler to appear on Raw, doing a run-in and throwing a thrust kick on Saturn that missed by about six inches (that fact made obvious by an ill-advised replay shot from a "perfect" angle) and Saturn was pinned. Storm ran off, out of the building, and was congratulated by Shane outside the arena. Because it was Storm in Calgary, he got a big pop, probably tons bigger than the pop would have been for this angle anywhere else. Vince played it up, starting the WCW thing going, yelling at security about letting a WCW wrestler onto Raw and to make sure it didn't happen again."
"To a casual viewer unaware of the backstage politics, Raw seemed to be built along the idea that they would tease the fantasy confrontation between Vince McMahon and Bret Hart throughout the show, particularly once the main event started, with references throughout the show that something strange was about to happen. Several members of the Hart family were at ringside, including Stu, announced very early in the show. There were frequent references to Bret during the show which isn't exactly a regular occurrence on Raw, including a film clip of the 1993 angle where Jerry Lawler laid him out after the first King of the Ring PPV, and a main event scripted to reprise the famous Montreal match, even building to a sharpshooter spot which got the biggest pop of anything on the show. It was either vindictive booking based on all the problems with McMahon and Bret, which wouldn't be a first as this has taken place on a regular basis dating back to the falling out between the two in late 1997, or simply using the tease of Bret Hart doing a run-in as something to keep fans hooked or even build ratings for that elusive confrontation some fans have been waiting four years to see."
"Many watching at home were shocked that McMahon would reprise the Survivor Series finish, using Benoit in the Bret Hart role and Austin in the Shawn Michaels role, with Vince playing himself, in front of Bret's family in his home town. But they didn't understand the politics. Of the family members represented at the show, which were Stu, two sons, Bruce and Smith, and two daughters, Ellie and Diana and children of the three of the four, all except Stu were probably overjoyed at the digs throughout the show at their brother."
"Through most accounts, Stu, who appeared totally out of it at the show and has a heart problem, and was the p.r. pawn in all of this, agreed to attend the show largely because his wife Helen, who had attempted to be neutral as her family fell apart around her, felt if it would help Bruce get a job or make a business deal with McMahon, at his age, maybe he should help him out. According to sources close to the family, it was a decision, that at the last minute, she felt she may have made a mistake on."
"It was one year after an attempt by Bruce Hart to get the WWF to work with him to run a joint show honoring Owen and Stu was thwarted largely by Martha going public, saying she felt it was in bad taste at roughly the one year anniversary of the death, and with the lawsuit was still going on. Other family members at the time convinced Stu, now an 86-year-old wheelchair bound pawn in this game, to publicly disown the idea and he publicly came out against it saying he didn't feel like being honored for his 85th birthday that May because it was the one year anniversary of Owen's death, which basically very publicly killed the show, leaving both Bruce and the WWF with major egg on their face in the market."
"Seemingly the primary goal, besides the scene of Austin tapping to Jericho, seemed to be to attempt to get Earl Hebner over as a babyface referee in Canada. It went so far that they did old-time ring introductions, to give the match a flavor like it was something out of the past, which it was. Howard Finkel was made ring announcer for this match, ahead of the often criticized Lillian Garcia. For the first time in a WWF match that didn't involve a celebrity official probably dating back ten years, if not more, the referee was announced, drawing huge boos from a crowd that remembered Hebner primarily for his role in "Wrestling with Shadows." Hebner's actions in the Montreal match, where he swore on his kids lives to Bret (there's that saying again) that he wouldn't fast count him (and by a technicality, he fast submissioned him for those trying to split hairs to somehow defend that statement) were quickly forgotten in the United States. But in Canada, even four years later, Hebner has been vociferously booed and still the recipient of "You screwed Bret" chants, particularly in Toronto and in Western Canada. So in the only change to the famous match finish, this time Hebner refused to sell out, and even shoved Vince down at the end, but it didn't matter, because Vince had the power to order the bell rang anyway as Austin held Benoit in the crossface, Benoit's own hold, in Benoit's home country and in the city where he started his wrestling career."
"Bret did go out with Benoit after the match. The two didn't talk much wrestling, but Benoit was apologetic to him about having to do the finish meant to mock him."
"Jericho won the hardcore title from Show in 4:30....As Jericho was leaving with the Hardcore belt, he was gored at the top of the ramp by Rhyno, who pinned him to get the title. Being that Jericho right now needs all the help he can get in getting over as a PPV headliner, the idea of seeing him pinned by Rhyno, even in a fluke setting, probably could have been done on another week as the hardcore belt basically means nothing anyway. Probably would have served the same purpose for Show to never get the belt, and for Jericho to just beat Show in a straight singles."
"They started the Black Scorpion angle with Sara Undertaker brushing her hair while the peeping tom camera was spying on her. The original angle for this was that Austin (and probably Debra) would be behind this to set up Austin vs. Undertaker at KOR."
"The show ended with Jericho having Austin in the lion tamer and Austin tapping (that's the reason Austin didn't tap, even with no ref, on Benoit's submissions, two crossfaces and one sharpshooter which got a gigantic pop since that was Bret & Owen finisher, because the PPV main event is Jericho, not Benoit) while Vince was tapping to Benoit's crossface."
"Smackdown and Heat tapings on 5/29 in Edmonton featured a reported ****1/2 main event with Austin vs. Benoit which went 23:45 on television, the longest match in the history of Smackdown."
"Jericho pinned Angle in a finish that made no sense. Angle had Jericho beat with the ankle lock when Shane came out. Security grabbed Shane before he could interfere, and while Angle was distracted, Spike did the Dudley dong on him and Jericho got the pin with a lionsault. If Jericho is headlining a PPV against Austin, it makes no sense he needs help from two other people and was going to lose on his own against Angle."
"In its own strange way, it was funny when Regal told Tajiri they don't do any stereotypes in the WWF, and then asked Tajiri to bring him tea and crumpets."
"Angle and Spike had a confrontation after Angle was mean to Molly. Spike called her his girlfriend. It was so hokey except when Angle asked if this was "Saved by the Bell." Didn't that show go off the air like ten years ago? Maybe it just seems that long because I remember it when Diesel was WWF champ and wrestling was two lifetimes back."
"Bubba suplexed Jeff off the ladder. Michael Cole said he was suplexed 15 to 20 feet, but if that was the case, then Bubba would be about 14-foot-9 tall."
"While not said officially, the belief is both DDP and Booker T are willing to take buy-outs now and be ready whenever WWF needs them. Feeling is that DDP, who is owed a lot of money on his Time Warner contract, is more willing to be on board as soon as possible if he would be a key player in an angle on Raw, as opposed to starting off on a WCW only show and not interact with WWF personnel and be a key player in a potentially big money angle. WWF also has started negotiations with Torrie Wilson"
"As part of the WCW purchase, WWFE now owns rights to 127 songs that were owned by WCW. Jimmy Hart has been put in charge of cataloguing all the former WCW music"
"The Storm run-in during the Saturn match was not a long planned out angle, but actually something put together just before the show started"
"Just like with WCW, either WWF will elevate and create new stars or they won't, and if they don't, they'll be in trouble. Things move so fast in a fad industry. Read the Observer in January 1999 and you'll realize it's just over two years ago, but it's a totally new generation."
"There is a big difference between laying down for a 1-2-3 and putting someone over. Scott Hall was the expert at laying down for the three, but not putting anyone over. Remember what huge stars people like Jericho and Hector Garza became in WCW after scoring clean pins on Nitro over Hall?"
"In Vancouver, Benoit pinned Austin, not Regal, after a title belt shot. Did lots of spots where they incited the crowd first to think Regal is gay, and then Austin even questioned Regal's sexual preference before it was over to get the crowd to chant more. Funny that it was in Vancouver many years ago that the WWF got in hot water because the Beverly Brothers did this same act and fans were chanting "faggot" at them led by Bushwhackers and a gay couple was there, was upset, and it turned into a decent sized issue."
June 11, 01
"The feeling seems to be that WWF is going to make a strong attempt to hire Goldberg at some point, even though they don't seem to know it (sort of like the feeling come early next year when Kevin Nash is available), so therefore, they might as well do it now because WCW needs to make a strong first impression or it'll have a tough time getting off the ground. The feeling is few PPVs are guaranteed to do monster numbers more than correctly promoted first meetings of Goldberg with both Rock and Steve Austin."
"On the flip side is that Goldberg has about 27 months left on a contract that probably has about $6 million in salary still owed him that WWF would have to pick up if they were to purchase the contract from Time Warner. Without purchasing the contract, Goldberg has zero motivation to go to WWF. If he can get paid that kind of money to sit at home for more than two years, he can retire and live the rest of his life pretty much in luxury just on the interest of the money he's made in wrestling, which is ultimately the happy ending of the story."
"Purchasing the contract would be both a win for Time Warner, which offered low settlements (50 cents on the dollar is what is believed to be the offer) on the belief wrestlers would either take them in their quest to get back in the game, or force WWF to buy the expensive contracts, thereby saving Time Warner the 50 cents on the dollar in the long run, due to the belief they couldn't start up a WCW brand without the biggest WCW stars."
"The WWF strategy seems to be to play the waiting game, figuring that Time Warner is spending lots of money eating this huge contracts, and if the WWF doesn't buy them, they'll eventually up the buy-out to a point the wrestlers will accept it, and at that point, WWF will be able to get the wrestler at a much more acceptable deal as far as WWF is concerned."
"In the past 15 years, only Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin and Rock had Goldberg's potential as a draw. None had his crossover media potential due to his Jewish heritage, because so much of the media has Jewish power behind it and the gimmick of a pro wrestling powerhouse being Jewish garnered a lot more media interest in 1998 than it probably deserved, and certainly more than drawing record revenues did for Austin and Rock in early 2001, at least until Rock broke through into the movies."
"Wrestling, like other forms of entertainment, and now more than ever, is a star driven business. Attendance figures and buy rates really aren't drawn based on angles, but on star power. The superstars carry the company for everyone else to make big money or not. When they're at their peak, like Rock was in 2000 and Austin was in 1998 and most of 1999, everyone makes more money. When that isn't the case, such as now, since the Austin turn, everyone is making less money. 99 percent of the wrestlers fall into a different category than Goldberg when you are talking about fair market value for their services."
"Just to look at what a star means, compare the buy rates of WCW PPV show in 1993 and 1994 to the numbers Hogan drew. When Hogan came in, with a contract that called for 25% of the PPV revenue, people thought Eric Bischoff was insane. As it turned out, it was the smartest deal Bischoff made at the time because everyone made more money, until the day came when Hogan could no longer draw. By not foreseeing that would happen at some point, that was the worst move Bischoff made, and then, because of that and other deals, the company went kaput."
"Does Goldberg deserve preferential treatment? Does he deserve to earn more on a guarantee with limited dates than all but maybe three WWF wrestlers who work full-time and have been a part of this dynasty earn? No if this was a fair world and if productivity in the ring and box office appeal were the same, but neither is the case. But is it worth the company to pay him that? If the company can get him over even to half of what he was in 1998. Yes. Easily. If they can't get him over, then, no, not even close."
"Nearly every McMahon long-term deal, such as Paul Wight (ten years), Mark Henry (ten years) and Bret Hart (20 years) turned out in some form to be a disaster. Fact is, Wight was a tons bigger star in clueless WCW than he was in WWF, part of the reason being that even WWF didn't understand the concept of why Andre worked and how Wight at 6-11 could only be a giant in a promotion like WCW which wasn't loaded with guys who are 6-7 mid-carders. Wight is proof positive that because someone was a big star in WCW, they won't necessarily be as big a star in a place where theoretically they are the experts at making stars, which is something at least to be considered when thinking about Goldberg."
"Goldberg's a big man, at 6-4 and 290, in WCW where aside from Kevin Nash and Wight, he matched up well size-wise with everyone. In WWF, he'll be shorter than underneath guys like Test, Billy Gunn, Bradshaw and Albert and almost dwarfed by Kane. It'll be harder to get over as a monster in that company. Unless he is pushed as a monster as opposed to pushed like a normal headline wrestler, he would be in grave danger of being a waste of money."
"If Goldberg vs. Austin was put on a show that wasn't Mania, and did 600,000 buys, which I think is a very conservative estimate of what such a match would do if correctly hyped, the company in one night is taking in $2 million in added revenue, or almost covering his salary for a year, even if he meant zero dollars on every other PPV and his merchandise stiffs and he couldn't sell tickets at the house shows."
"Almost all of the biggest NWA/WCW names when they went to WWF, were not as big stars in the new environment despite the reputation of McMahon as the best when it comes to star making. Granted, these examples are largely old and from another era, but Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Lex Luger (who came close but ultimately failed and that's with one of the biggest pushes in history), Vader, The Giant, The Road Warriors and Steiners all went to WWF and none were as successful as they were in WCW. In most cases, they came in hot as hell, and the more they appeared on WWF TV, the more steam they lost."
"Goldberg at his peak meant about a .4 ratings boost on average for every quarter hour he appeared on, or about 450,000 added viewers to the show, every time he was on the air in 1999. He was the biggest ratings booster in the entire business in 1999 even though Raw was beating Nitro every week."
"Do wrestlers resent Rock and Austin making so much money? The ones that do, and I'm sure some do, need a quick lesson in business economics. As do any wrestlers who believe it's a mistake by the company to pick up Goldberg for a salary higher than that of wrestlers who have been in the WWF for the past few years on top for reasons of not paying dues, or that others have been with the company longer and are better all-around performers. The numbers say, that unless they drop the ball on him and he means zero at the box office, that he's more than what they'll have to pay him, with plenty left over for company profits and whatever trickles down to the rest of the crew that would be carried to greater revenues by the drawing power of the few true drawing card superstars."
"Raw on 5/28 from Calgary, despite coming off the best week of WWF television in a long time, posted its eighth straight week of decline, with a 4.19 rating (3.87 first hour; 4.45 second hour) and a 6.8 share. That's with virtually no competition on television. Memorial Day doesn't hold up as an excuse for the number as Raw the past two years on Memorial Day, with Nitro competition, posted 6.4 and 6.2 ratings. The total audience watching wrestling was approximately 5.44 million, which is the lowest Monday night total since 1995."
"The eight-week streak where Raw declined in ratings finally ended after two of the company's best weeks of television, when Raw on 6/4 from Minneapolis drew a 4.25 rating (3.93 first hour; 4.54 second hour) and a 6.8 share. While the audience increase over the previous week was only 54,000 homes, it was still a stoppage of the exceedingly dangerous pattern."
"The Kane vs. Christian opener with Morrus interference and the introduction of the new WCW logo drew a WCW like 3.12 quarter, the lowest for a non-holiday Raw in years."
"Apparently Scott Steiner's foot is a lot worse than people are letting on. The foot is numb, probably stemming from all his back problems and he has no control of it."
"I guess over the past few weeks, this place hasn't been WCW, but those previous six weeks were too close"
"The Austin vs. Jericho KOR main event for 6/24 has been changed, as evidenced by the pinfall finish in their singles match on Raw. At this point the working idea for the new main event is Austin vs. Jericho vs. Benoit in a three-way, but it's not official, and still could be changed until the announcement of the match on TV, and for that matter, even after. The negative of this three-way is that if Jericho or Benoit don't win, they both end up looking bad because they've each had plenty of singles matches and failed, and then both together, still couldn't beat Austin even though the finish will likely be gimmicked. In a single, Jericho could have still lost (not throwing the Raw match into the mix) the right way and it probably could have elevated him. But when the two tag team champion buddies together have all the odds in their favor and still lose, that's a tough one to keep their momentum going....It also almost puts Austin in the babyface position with the odds stacked against him, not that he's going to get cheered necessarily, but we've seen in WCW booking what happens when you put heels in what is the babyface psychological position. The guys who are supposed to be faces end up flat and weak."
"Guerrero, 33, was sent home because of the belief he was in no condition to perform on Raw. The descriptions of his condition were really bad. He was scheduled to wrestle Matt Hardy (Jeff replaced him) in a KOR qualifier. He's basically gotten the same directive as Shawn Michaels got."
"Ventura in the past, when doing SummerSlam, XFL, whatever, insisted that they never bill him as Governor in any publicity. But here he did an about face. Heyman had a great line about there finally being an announcer (referring to Ventura) who Ross hates worse than he hates him."
"Undertaker slapped the hat off Heyman, who for a brief second looked like Verne Gagne at 50."
"Hugh Morrus, with the new WCW logo and music playing and in gear, did a run-in and did a moonsault, landing with his knee braces right on Edge's ribs."
"Test tells Shane how great the WCW invasion is doing. What a kiss ass. So far it's a guy missing a superkick by six inches and a guy who hasn't screwed up a moonsault in two years screwing up a moonsault and nearly killing Edge."
"Saturn came out wearing a robe, exposed himself wearing a sports bra and panties. At first I thought it was weird, but he actually looked pretty much like 1997 Chyna."
"The one thing that has become so tough in making new breakthrough stars in the WWF is the mic skills of the established stars. People like Vince and Austin are so great on interviews that it takes now the delivery and cleverness of an HHH, Rock, Angle or Foley just to stand with them and not get overwhelmed. Shane was totally overshadowed by his father in their in-ring confrontation where Big Show turned on Shane several weeks back. Because today's fans constitute super promo power as something needed for a star, it's going to be tough for Benoit, because for him to make it, they need to be able to concentrate on match quality as being just as important. Jericho is a good talker, but there is something not smooth, I guess is the term, about how he goes into his catch phrases as compared with HHH, who is smooth on delivery, or Rock, who is just amazing at naturally flowing into the catch phrases."
"Austin did an interview yelling at the fans. He said he was beyond a legend, that he has sold more merchandise (probably true), sold more tickets (not true) and sold more PPV buys (pretty close) than anyone in the history of the business."
"Few could see it, but Benoit was practically working the match with one arm because of how weak his right side is due to what is believed to be a pinched nerve in his neck, which has nothing to do with the working rib injury they have been using since the table match for psychology purposes. He's been having problems with his right arm and his neck since the TLC match on 5/20 which has gotten progressively worse. When he got treatment, they told him the damage went back well before that. He gets shooting pains down his right arm when he lifts or wrestles, and has done little or no lifting, mainly limited to one arm movements with his left arm, for a couple of weeks. When he goes to the gym, he concentrates on cardio, which is unusual for him since he actually normally doesn't do cardio but uses a fast-paced weight workout as his conditioning."
"During the match, Michael Cole talked about Benoit as an eight-year-old coming to the same arena and watching the Oilers. Only problem was it was a different arena, and when Benoit was eight, he was living in Montreal, which is pretty far from Edmonton"
"Booker T officially completed his contract buy-out from Time Warner so he should be ready to sign a WWF deal, if he hasn't actually signed and will be ready to start up as soon as they want to use him. The others who are expected to follow him in this are DDP and most likely Billy Kidman."
"Nash made a last ditch effort to keep Booker from going in. The idea Nash, and another key star, were politicking was telling him that WWF was on the downslide, so if he were to go in, he'd be associated with failure. The idea was to convince him to wait until February where they could all go in together in a package deal and get a better deal in the process due to the leverage factor and the feeling at that point they'd be needed more. Those close to Booker advised him that Nash was trying to hold him out so that WCW couldn't get off without him and that Nash could come in as the top guy in the new group, but if Booker came in and became a big star with Nash out, he could end up being the star of the group. Basically Nash used the same deal he convinced Hall of to keep Hall from going in at this time."
"From Page's standpoint, it appears Page wants to be in when the big first angle is shot so he can be part of it, but the flip side is it's in his financial best interest to keep his WCW deal until it expires early next year"
"Bagwell, who is a free agent, is expected to be signed as soon as possible if he hasn't signed already. His Time Warner deal expires on 6/24 but he is believed to already be out of it. Let's just say there isn't exactly a unanimous consensus regarding the decision to hire him, but as mentioned a couple of weeks back, this is an entirely different business than it was at the end of March and unemployed stars, regardless of the background checking process that the WWF used to use, are now at something of a premium."
"Johnny Ace, who has signed a deal with the WWF and was at the TV's this week, went to bat for Bagwell and tried to get him in by saying his track record in WCW as it pertained to complaining and no-shows was due to him being under the influence of Luger, and without Luger, he'd be a changed person."
"Bagwell was actually the first choice to do the interference angle on the Minneapolis Raw, but it fell through because they couldn't finalize everything in time."
"As this pertains to any rumors regarding WCW television, Viacom owns exclusive rights to all WWFE pro wrestling television through September 2005. Even if someone like Fox Sports Net or FX or USA or TBS or E! wanted the WCW programming in a prime time slot and promise to promote it big, WWF would be unable to accept the deal. TNN and WWF remain in an impasse regarding the Saturday night slot in that TNN wants more of the big names like Goldberg, Sting and Flair signed before giving them a slot and WWF isn't going to upset their salary structure." "When WWFE purchased WCW, one of the existing contracts the company had was with Turner South for the WCW Classics show. The contract runs until 2005. Turner South has the rights to continue the show up until that point, or cancel it if it chooses"
"On the Superstars show, they did a recap with the storyline for Raw being that Vince screwed Benoit right in front of the Hart family. What was most interesting is that they showed a recap of the 1997 Survivor Series where Vince screwed Bret Hart. To show just how obsessed Vince seems to be, he wore the exact same outfit in Calgary that he wore four years ago in Montreal"
"WWF is perhaps over paranoid about the net based on this story. Storm was told at just about the last minute he'd be doing the show. The idea was that since he was in Calgary and everyone knew he was meeting with Ross, that his being at the building would cause no commotion. If Booker, for instance, was used first, people might see him at the airport or wrestlers might see him and the "word" might be out that Booker was there. They actually had Lynn get Storm's gear from his car so nobody would see him do it and make a connection"
"At this point, aside from wrestlers, almost nobody (Ace the noted exception to this rule; new writers, production people, road agents, referees, ring crew) have been hired for the new WCW. There is no point since when the project gets the green light, the people can be hired very quickly, but there is a lot of nervousness among non-wrestling personnel since few people if anyone have heard anything since their original meetings, which for those in Atlanta, is now more than seven weeks ago"
"Another sign of the times. After running regularly at the huge Georgia Dome, the next WWF appearance in Atlanta, on 7/9 has been moved indoors to Phillips Arena for the Raw show"
|
|
Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,511
|
Post by Nr1Humanoid on Nov 12, 2020 7:23:25 GMT -5
Damn, no wonder Martha Hart is so pigheaded to this very day.
|
|
cjh
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,604
|
Post by cjh on Nov 12, 2020 7:35:45 GMT -5
The WWE 2K games credit "Turner Music Publishing, Inc." for Sting's 1997-99 theme and the NWO Wolfpac theme. YouTube's system, though, credits them to WWE, along with the 58 other songs on WWE's "The Music of WCW" album from 2014.
|
|
|
Post by DSR on Nov 12, 2020 11:47:31 GMT -5
Since there's a lot of talk about Goldberg and dream matches involving him, will this thread cover his eventual WWE run, even though it's post-Invasion?
|
|
XIII
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 18,564
|
Post by XIII on Nov 12, 2020 17:19:50 GMT -5
oh my!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2020 4:32:05 GMT -5
2001, June Part 2
June 18, 01 "Raw dropped once again on 6/11 to a 4.09 rating (3.77 first hour; 4.37 second hour) and a 6.7 share, dropping to levels not seen since the period right after the 1997 Survivor Series when the ratings turnaround started. It makes a ratings decline in nine of the past ten weeks and drops the Monday night wrestling audience to about 5.3 million viewers." "Turner South will be airing a one-hour special on 7/22 at 8 p.m. as the one year anniversary of the WCW Classics show, with Ric Flair joining host Dusty Rhodes for a show billed as "War of the Words," where they will talk about their feud and air their Starrcade 1985 main event" "Onoo on Memphis TV this week building up to the big show was doing the exact same stereotypical role that he's in the midst of suing Time Warner over forcing him to do" "The only thing I can say about this past week is that TV was really strange, and made zero sense. It's almost as if they only bought the booking committee from WCW. We're two weeks from King of the Ring with nothing announced except the three-way main event, and Undertaker vs. Stalker (who will likely be kept a secret until the PPV) will likely be added"
"After all the raves about TV for a few weeks, based on presenting good wrestling, they want to the Russo formula of short matches and endless badly acted vignettes."
"Now let's paint a picture of the WWF money feud. Benoit & Jericho were two guys who were over a year ago, but had faded into mid-card purgatory. Suddenly, they were given a big push three weeks ago, which consisted of them winning in tags every time out, and losing three singles matches to Austin with the title at stake. Now, having lost to Austin each, they are put in a three-way but the fans clearly don't believe either can beat Austin, since neither has scored a singles win against a top guy in recent memory. Then, the fans react to the PPV main event with a "is that all there is?" reaction. These guys need all the help they can get until the PPV."
"Show & Rhyno beat Jericho in 4:22. Nobody cared as this handicap gimmick is played out. Show didn't sell for Jericho's offense and treated him like a rag doll. That's okay against a mid-card face, but not against a "weak" face needing a push that's in your money match on PPV. In that position, everyone should sell and job. But no, Show lays out Jericho with a choke slam. Rhyno then gores Show and pins Jericho, and does an interview pointing out he's now pinned Jericho three times. In other words, while Jericho is by all rights about to die as a main eventer because he's in a spot he hasn't been pushed for, they're putting more emphasis on getting Rhyno over at his expense."
"Angle did an interview telling the people in Richmond that their ancestors had screwed up fighting the Civil War. No reaction. Showed Hall of Fame footage. It's amazing how much larger Angle is now than he was in his gold medal days, or for that matter, than just a few months ago. Crowd still dead. He challenged Shane to come out. Undertaker came out instead. Angle backed down and said he wasn't the stalker and said he didn't even think his wife was attractive. Undertaker laid him out like he wasn't even competition (and they wonder why the main event didn't draw a number after blowing all the heat off the heel)."
"Regal was picking up the pieces in the dressing room, which was all designed to set up a line where Regal said at an errant doorknob, "look at my knob, it's completely useless." "
"Test did an interview saying he was interested in going to WCW. Nobody cared. They'd better have a good plan, because thus far, everything they've done with WCW hasn't done a thing to make anyone interested."
"HHH update. Between the Rock update and the HHH update, I felt like all the stars were gone and we were watching guys filling the positions of the stars."
"Main was Angle vs. Benoit in a cage. First half of the match saw the match almost as a backdrop for the interplay with Austin, Heyman and Ross. Match was really good, and ended up being excellent, maybe ****1/4 or more, but crowd wasn't into it early. Probably seeing Austin there overwhelmed Angle and Benoit's presence since he's pushed as so much bigger of a deal than them. Probably everyone knew no finish meant anything until Austin did something."
"After Angle did his slam finisher, he went to the top of the cage and missed a moonsault. He could have accomplished the same result from the top rope and his knees wouldn't have taken such a pounding. It was a hell of a deal, but I was furious when Benoit didn't get out because he took that big of a bump and it wasn't even the finish."
"Benoit did nine german suplexes. That spot was awesome against Austin, but to bring it back, trivialized it. Like the german now means nothing until No. 9. But they needed it, because it was the spot that got the crowd into the match."
"Austin ended up slamming the door on Benoit's head. Angle climbed out to win. Angle won??? Who is in the match that is going to attempt (and perhaps fail, but you have to book with the idea it's going to work) to be in the money drawing match in two weeks? "
"Test beat Rhyno to win the hardcore title. They sacrifice Jericho to put Rhyno over, but then don't even have the balls to push Rhyno to the point he can beat Test. They were supposed to do a table spot but the table broke. Rhyno had to keep selling while Test got another table. They then repeated all the previous spots (this won't air due to the magic of post-production) ending with Test elbow dropping Rhyno through the table off the top. WCW logo came out and Shane and Stacey Keibler came out. Keibler distracted Rhyno while Test used the kick of doom into a garbage can on him for the win." "There was no possible upside (minor point, but still) of them insinuating whomever was going to do the WCW run-in was scared off by Undertaker. That invasion should be the No. 1 angle of the year for the company, and it has not gotten off to a very good start thus far." "Page was in Connecticut from 6/6 through 6/8. Page is attempting to keep his deal quiet as those in the WWF and Page were both saying, even to friends, that he's unhappy with the 50 cents on the dollar buy-out offer from Time Warner and wanting to come in but not coming in. His deal is in place and his angle is already decided. No doubt the stories Page is unhappy with the Time Warner buy-out offer are true, but the idea that he doesn't already have a WWF deal agreed to aren't. My impression is both sides are trying to do a deal similar with Benoit and those guys when they agreed to terms, but publicly said they hadn't because of the nature of the storyline introduction, which is probably similar for Page." "WWF is not announcing any of the signings of people publicly from WCW that are new (Booker, Kanyon, Bagwell I believe have all signed and Dreamer and Van Dam are either close or have done so as well)"
"WWF is booking some Fan Appreciation nights in July which will feature lowering of ticket prices, plus cage and tables matches. There's a weird deal about ticket prices to wrestling that I've never been able to explain, but any study of it shows this point. The higher the prices, the more people buy the tickets. And in the U.S., it is always the highest prices (unless you're just totally overpricing) that sell the tickets and the lowest priced tickets that don't sell. And unless you bring the bottom price down to something like $3, you're not going to get any extra people buying the cheap tickets by lowering the price. If you have an attraction people want to see and the prices are within reason, they will go. If they don't want to see it, lower prices won't get them in the door, particularly when you're talking about an attraction that only comes three times per year to a market."
"The reason the KOR match was changed from Austin vs. Jericho to the three way was because of the feeling it made the match more intriguing. There is a working idea for Austin to cost them the tag titles and they'll be after him together going for revenge, but that psychology pretty well makes Austin the face and if they don't win, totally makes them both come across as mid-card, and even if they do win, it can, if done incorrectly, come across as them backdooring in"
"In Greenville, SC, they went with a three-way for the tag titles on top with Benoit & Jericho over X-Pac & Credible and E&C. Austin was in all the advertising for the show. Apparently he was promised the night off at one point but there was a lack of communication somewhere. Austin reminded everyone last week he was promised Friday off and the card was changed, with Austin pulled from the show, a few days before the event but after almost all the advertising was out."
"Scott Hudson, who has a job situation where he either needs to go back to work full-time at his regular Government job in Atlanta, or continue to work part-time which would enable him to work for the WWF as an announcer, but has to inform his work one way or the other, sent a message to the WWF about what to do and never heard back."
June 25, 01 "The World Wrestling Federation is planning a significant overhaul in aspects of its television as well as significant roster changes due to both the declining ratings pattern and the debut of WCW. Details of the plans have not been released publicly since much of the end result will be explained through television storylines. What is known is WCW will have its own television show, far sooner than most expect it, and the plans that have been in place for more than one month regarding television appear to be still going through. There is talk of restructuring exactly how the lower rated shows, such as Heat, Superstars, Metal/Jakked and Livewire would be handled as well, since all have shown strong ratings declines in recent months and the Heat at WWF New York on MTV has been a failure to the point that even those in the company publicly have made fun of its ratings." "The plan, as noted by Vince McMahon several weeks ago, are to create two equal promotions. There are ideas that have been thrown out that will largely be built toward through the month of July as well. It now appears that there will be far more movement of WWF talent to WCW, and visa versa, than most probably expect, as a way to even out both sides in terms of attractions." "If there was going to be a strict brand loyalty feud with the fans of WWF against the lesser number of fans of WCW like what made the New Japan vs. UWFI feud, that is not happening due to the watering down of distinct long-term sides with the cross-pollination planned. It is more going to be an attempt to get the existing WWF fan base to be interested in WCW as both a place to see newer stars and the only place to see many existing stars and getting the old WCW fans who have switched off wrestling to hopefully come back, and this may be a long shot, because at least some of the stars they are familiar with are back on television, as well as use competition to grow interest similar to the wrestling boom that is now over." "At this point the plan is, and this could change, for Kurt Angle to become the top star of the new WCW, a position originally earmarked for HHH (who actually, perhaps not surprisingly, would have been the one piece of talent working angles on both sides). Whether the evening out process of talent would include Stephanie McMahon going to WCW to feud with Shane, which was likely part of original plans, is unclear." "Most of the plans have been kept secret, largely because of negotiations that had to be completed for aspects of the television to change along with keeping storylines quiet. This is why there has been so little public talk in recent weeks regarding the WCW project, even with the participants whose futures and career decisions would have had to have been made based on these plans. It has also resulted in much speculation that WCW would not have its own television show, and simply just be an angle rival faction that would appear on Raw and Smackdown shows, which at no time was the case, at least as far as plans went." "With the signing of John Laurinaitis (Johnny Ace), who will likely be a major creative force of WCW, along with bringing Marty Lunde (Arn Anderson), David Finlay and Aldo Ortiz (Ricky Santana) to this week's television tapings, the plans to create WCW as a separate full-time touring group as opposed to just an angle as part of WWF, are in place, likely kicking off sometime this fall." "This is clearly the most important both angle and set of changes in the history of a rapidly changing industry. Pro wrestling is declining, which isn't a surprise, but the speed of aspects of the decline, most notably television viewership, is. Raw tapings on Mondays are still doing well when it comes to ticket sales, although there is a decline in that over the past three months as well. Smackdown has declined more noticeably when it comes to selling tickets, and regular house shows even more than that, all largely coinciding with the Steve Austin heel turn, which was probably the main factor of the house show decline." "Despite all the negative talk about popularity, it is a company at this point that is still overall very profitable. It also has more positives on the short-term horizon that, unless wrestling is so far "out" it's scary, that should bring things back. The return of Rock. The return of HHH as a babyface. And an interpromotional feud. And even Bill Goldberg or Ric Flair if needed badly enough." "There is a school of thought that with the business in such a rapid decline when it comes to viewership, this may be the worst time to attempt to launch a new brand and basically double the amount of arena dates, as well as start to build toward doubling the amount of PPV shows." "WWF sources indicate that with the exception of Goldberg, Scott Steiner and Flair, every piece of former WCW talent the company is interested in is now under contract." "The Flair situation is similar to Goldberg, in that there is no financial incentive for Flair not to sit out and collect his money, plus, he himself doesn't want to go back on the road full-time. WWF doesn't appear at this point interested in buying out a $16,000 per week guaranteed deal for someone who would likely be more of a television performer, and only wrestle on very special occasions a few times a year." "Steiner is expected that he would be signed when he's physically able to perform. At this point there is not even a time table from his doctors as to when this would be. His doctors this past week decided against surgery and the plan is to hope that his damaged nerves that have left him with no control over movements of one of his feet would regenerate on their own with time." "WWF will not buy Goldberg's contract from Time Warner due to the feeling it will set a bad precedent as well as be a major contractual risk if Goldberg gets injured, or, if he doesn't get over to the level of one of the big three or four in the company. However, the only incentive Goldberg would then have to join WWF is one that would require risking millions for the chance that, if everything went perfectly and he was one of the big three or four, he could come out ahead financially in the long run." "The flip side of the question as discussed infinitely, is how much adding Goldberg and Flair would mean as far as potential success of the WCW venture. Their deals are a big price if they won't be a significant factor one way or the other of the success of the WCW venture. They are a small price if they are a significant factor in the make or break of a venture, which for many reasons, WWF can't afford to have fail, both because it greatly tarnish the company's reputation on Wall Street of not being able to succeed with something new in the field it has its expertise in, not to mention just how badly damaged the industry itself would be." "The only employee additions, besides the 30 to 35 new wrestlers signed, and new road agents, would be a new crew of referees, a second ring crew (some of those positions would likely be both) and probably new television announcers for the show." "The only announcer who has received a try-out for a new position is Joe Bonsignore (Joey Styles), who likely would have been hired as the lead announcer for WCW even though Paul Heyman was strongly against it as the two weren't on good terms when ECW went down. However, except the two sides were far apart on money, reportedly Bonsignore was told the absolute maximum for the job would be $90,000 per year and his asking price was said to be considerably higher and he's no longer under consideration." "Mike Tenay and Scott Hudson are said to be still under consideration, although neither has received a try-out or, for that matter, are they even directly aware they are under consideration." "It is believed that Gene Okerlund and Bobby Heenan were rejected because they didn't want an aged look of the announcing team, nor want it to appear like 80s WWF." "The plan for now is not to have a separate writing team for WCW, but instead expand the current writing team. This would indicate something that many have thought is crucial, that WCW would be a similar product as WWF since the same minds and viewpoints would shape both products. It is said the new show would have a totally different look, such as a different type of openings, pyro and graphics packages." "There is a strong school of thought that WCW needed to be a different form of wrestling, perhaps stressing aspects and television and ring styles that the WWF product hadn't stressed, so people would have a real alternative as opposed to just different wrestlers." "Smackdown on 6/14 drew its all-time record low with a 3.2 rating and 6 share and only a 2.0 in the 18-49 age group. UPN still finished fourth among the six networks, although virtually all the programming on against Smackdown was reruns except Millionaire (9.8)." "Kidman, Awesome, Torrie Wilson and Kanyon were all at the tapings both nights but the decision was made only to use DDP" "WCW has invaded all right. Seems like they've invaded the writing and production more than anything. Show opened showing a graphic for Dudleys & Austin vs. Spike & Benoit & Jericho.... They switched what was announced as a tag title match with Benoit & Jericho vs. Dudleys to moving that match to Smackdown and making the six-man because Spike wanted Austin so badly, that was already shown on the graphic. That was so WCW."
"It's as if somebody decided that Benoit & Jericho weren't going to get over before they gave them the push, and then everything about the idea was killed in booking them to appear like mid-carders whose only chance against Austin is because it's two-on-one, which is very unbabyface-like, which is bad enough since their push came out of nowhere, then was seemingly dropped, and Austin is really still a face to only a deminishing number of fans."
"Spike & Molly came out. It boggles my mind so much time hs been spent on this angle as opposed to the KOR tourney and the main event. Spike called out Austin and challenged him for the title. He kept challenging him. I started reading a book and think I was through several pages before this went anywhere. Austin came out, laughed at both of them, called Molly a bimbo. Molly slapped him. He said he respected both of them, shook Spike's hand, then gave Molly a stunner. The place erupted in cheers. Actually it was a standing ovation."
"Hardys' popularity is fading. Very reminiscent of Rock & Roll Express in a territory after two years. Probably no coincidence."
"Austin & Debra were talking. Austin was looking for a friend to talk with. Debra thought he meant her. Of course, he treated her like crap saying how could she relate to being a champion. She noted she was a former womens champ and he laughed at her. While Austin's turn killed business, like Flair as a heel, he is tremendous in the role and is almost a one-man show at this point. "
"Rhyno beat Tajiri in 2:50 with a gore in a KOR quarterfinal. A few people tried an ECW chant but it didn't take. Tajiri looked great, and got big pops for everything he did. Rhyno got no reaction to anything, so of course, he won."
"Page unmasked as the Stalker. Crowd popped real big for that. I think they were thrilled it wasn't Paul Bearer or Vince or Kane. Page then did a long interview to no reaction. This was not exactly one of his finer moments and he was doing an interview to kiss up to WWF, and not to build heat for the program. See, he was the stalker as a way to get a program with Undertaker, since he'd never been to the "shizow" (is there anything more annoying than an interview for the boys in the back--hey guys, they aren't the ones buying the tickets) and never been a star. He might as well have said WCW was always second rate and it's not even worth doing the feud since these guys are stars and all those PPVs I headlined and titles I held were minor league straps. Nobody booed Page at all. Page did note he made Sara famous. He then left through the crowd. He never mentioned WCW once, but Heyman and Ross when he was done went off like it was the first shot fired in the war."
"Show is the single worst jobber in history. The role of a guy who never wins inherently is to get his opponent over, and except for Benoit because of the submission finish, nobody has gotten over a lick by beating Show because he doesn't know how to work a match and get his opponent over. If he was pushed as a giant, he has value. But as a jobber, I can't fathom why he's around."
"Jericho got the walls and Benoit got the crossface on Austin at the same time for the submission. They played it up as the first time Austin had ever tapped (forgetting that he did for Rock and Jericho both in the last few months). That really did wonders getting Benoit & Jericho ever, being that it took two of them to beat Austin, something neither has been able to do once on their own."
"Undertaker & Sara came out. He said DDP sucks as a wrestler, wasn't good enough to be in WWF, has half-ass talent and got over in a second rate company that went out of business."
"Dudleys beat Benoit & Jericho to win the belts. As if they hadn't done enough jobs leading to this PPV."
"The WWF's plan for Chyna earlier this year, when the decision was made (which she was against) to no longer let her beat men, was to create the big neck injury angle as her achilles so to speak to allow her to sell a lot for the women. However, she was against it and stopped selling the injury before her Mania match with Ivory and in her matches basically squashed everyone as if they weren't competition."
"On Raw, when Angle came to the ring they showed a fan mocking Angle's three I's with a sign. It was tremendous because his third I was spelled "Ingnorance." "
"The WCW angle is expected to be shot big either at the PPV or at MSG for Raw the next night, and the entire period from 6/25 to 7/22 is going to be based on getting the WCW vs. WWF feud over"
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2020 9:24:51 GMT -5
"It is believed that Gene Okerlund and Bobby Heenan were rejected because they didn't want an aged look of the announcing team, nor want it to appear like 80s WWF." Well, Heenan didn't come back for various health reasons (and not the cancer one which was on the horizon) that JR's talked about on his podcast - mainly the workload, and how Bobby's neck affected the long work hours of TV production at the time, would be an issue. A few years later, had Bobby's health still been the same, they could've adjusted the workload & how the job is done easier to meet his needs. Gene, of course, was back in 02 or 03 hosting on a largely part-time basis for several more years. ....the origin of Ricky Ortiz?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2020 5:58:38 GMT -5
July 2, 01
"With the business at a crossroads, Vince McMahon made the ultimate ballsy move. Starting in just a few weeks, unless plans change, and they do on a daily basis, Raw on TNN will be renamed "WCW Raw." TNN officially got the word on 6/22, although McMahon had the basic ideas formulated many weeks ago of having one existing prime time show be labeled with the WCW brand and the other be a WWF brand. McMahon's feelings were that WWF vs. WCW will have to be promoted as both being equals to be able to create a separate entity and drive the same type of successful revenue streams when it comes to merchandising, licensing, ticket selling and PPV as the WWF. As negotiations fell through for the original 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. time slot on Saturday nights on TNN, McMahon said he felt that even if those negotiations hadn't fallen through, that if WCW was given that time slot, it would immediately establish them as a secondary company. There was also the question of adding another $350,000 weekly expense as well as the time constraints problem on a busy staff for a third day every week of taping new television."
"The idea is that when Shane gets control of Raw, that it will be the big prize because it signifies that in the end, Vince lost the all-important Monday Night War, not to Ted Turner, but to Shane, theoretically establishing him and his team as big players for taking the thing Vince worked for the hardest away from him."
"Part of the change would include Smackdown being live every week, although that change wouldn't be immediate. The WCW Raw change could take place as soon as a few weeks after the Invasion PPV, which at press time will be headlined by a five vs. five tag team match. The news drew a lot of complaints from people who were under the impression that Monday tickets for shows in August and September, would instead of being tickets to see Rock and Steve Austin, be tickets to see people like Booker T and DDP as the top headliners."
"The theory is, and this is just me breaking things down in a manner that may or may not be close to how they happen, that one side gets Austin, the other gets Rock, one gets HHH and the other gets Angle, one gets Undertaker, the other gets Kane, one gets E&C, the other gets the Hardys & Lita, one gets Big Show, the other gets Billy Gunn, one gets Page, the other gets Booker T."
"The ultimate goal is to make the WCW brand an independent touring entity, running four shows per week, running a Saturday through Monday schedule, probably in mid-sized arenas as well as, eventually, monthly PPV events. WWF would run a Thursday through Sunday road schedule, starting off with the live TV taping that would build for the weekend house shows and the monthly PPV event. It is uncertain the timetable of all this, but there are tentative plans to get this underway by the fall."
"For the production people, the travel will be much harder, because they'll be working half the Sundays and then going to a live Monday, have a day off for travel, have to set for a Thursday in a different part of the country for another live shoot before going home and getting ready for the next week."
"The belief was the current program was necessary to expose the WCW brand and talent on WWF television before changing the brand name on the Raw time slot rather than the original plan of keeping the two sides separate until WCW was built back up enough to be considered a viable challenger."
"King of the Ring from the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, NJ, the so-called kickoff featuring the first in-ring shot, DDP vs. Undertaker, ended up so disappointing from every standpoint. The show had a main event where the office clearly gave up on two of the participants weeks before the match, after two weeks of which, if nothing else, temporarily turned things around from a morale standpoint and brought crowd heat and match quality way up. And the King of the Ring tournament, which in past years anchored the show, was reduced to largely an afterthought."
"So it was the first confrontation. Obviously nobody takes WCW seriously yet. Its fans are gone. Obviously Undertaker gets laid out bad in a heat spot the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time. Obviously the match, oh sorry, confrontation, looks different from a physical standpoint than anything we've seen. More serious. More tense. It shouldn't look like a shoot as in a UFC-shoot, but it should look different stylistically then what other pro wrestling matches look like, no comedy and slapstick or even showy moves, maybe like people's pre-UFC fantasies of what a shoot would look like would be the best description. Undertaker has to sell to make his opponent at first. Probably most of the way, because the opponent should do something mildly heinous at first. Big comeback, and when Page is about to take the medicine that hopefully the people finally want him to get, all the troops come out from WCW and give the WWF guy a bad beating, and it's on. Probably an angle involving WWF guys all in a room together watching tensely and cheering on their man, and the WCW guys barricading a door to that room shut to enable the horrid beat down to make sense. The upside of "confrontation" instead of "match" is the indecisive DDQ when the WWF guys break down the door isn't a "groan" finish. Instead, it's a walk-out with none of the differences needed, a groan finish to a letdown of a confrontation if ever there was one. And nearly a one-sided squash with DDP hardly getting in any offense."
"The Meadowlands crowd had that dangerous attitude of sitting there telling the performers to "show me something crazy."
"By the time it was over, Angle had suffered a sprained tailbone, at first feared to be broken, a concussion, and needed five stitches above his right eye from a punch that landed, plus had a body filled with cuts and bruises largely from going through glass (as well as a potato shot by Edge as well)."
"Benoit was diagnosed as having a blocked nerve in his C-7 vertebrae, causing his right tricep to atrophy, particularly over the past week. At the show, the imbalance in arm size was beginning to get noticeable. Benoit decided last week to take time off to have surgery, because of fear the injury would worsen and he'd have a permanent Paul Orndorff like imbalance. The final decision wasn't made as he went to see specialists during the past week, taking more tests and visiting three more doctors before the final decision was made on 6/22 when Dr. Lloyd Youngblood, the doctor who did the surgery on Austin's neck, told him he needed the surgery immediately. Benoit worked the PPV, and surprisingly, they didn't even do a television angle to explain his absence. On TV the next day they simply said in passing he was injured in the match and would be having neck surgery, and would be out three to six months."
"An Austin scare also took place as it was feared he suffered a broken hand when being thrown too far through the Spanish announcer's table by Booker T. His hand was badly swollen, so he also wasn't able to wrestle at the following TV's, and also came out of the show with his back and tailbone bothering him."
"Chris Jericho also suffered a mild concussion, was woozy after the show and there was some concern about him driving, likely from a chair shot to the head by Benoit. He wrestled on Raw the next night."
"The main event, which was a very good long match, came off as a negative to the show to some people for several reasons. The main one was the lack of crowd heat as compared to usual main events, somewhat because they didn't do any stunts of the likes of which were done in the previous match. More so because both Benoit and Jericho's mega-push ended on 6/4, some three weeks before the show, and due to their portrayal, very few fans took them seriously as contenders. The way the show built, the fans "knew" there would be no finish until Vince McMahon came, and by building it up that way and McMahon not being there, it had an empty feeling."
"Like with the Hardys, this false push in the long run did more damage to Benoit and Jericho than no push at all. But if they hadn't gotten that initial push after Judgment Day, just imagine how lackluster the TV over the past month would have been?"
"Benoit & Jericho were doomed from a heat standpoint the minute this thing was done as a three-way and portrayed in storyline that both were after him and there was no heat before hand pitting the two against one another. It was a handicap match and all the odds were against Austin. That put the babyfaces (like in the famous No Limit Soldiers vs. West Texas Rednecks booking brilliance) in a death situation. They couldn't win for losing, made worse by the fact they were losing regularly on TV leading up to the main event. End result was a flat crowd for the main event, despite the guys being out there for nearly a half hour with a hard workrate from bell-to-bell and the match that attempted to tell a story."
"Being that Rhyno lost to Test and Edge, now tell me what the purpose was for him to twice beat Jericho before Jericho's PPV main event?"
"Big screw up when Kane used a powerslam on Bubba and apparently D-Von was supposed to break up the pin, but he didn't. Ref counted two, Bubba didn't kick out, and everyone booed when the ref just stopped counting."
"Edge pinned Angle in 10:21 to win the tournament. Tournament had zero impact. Build-up was lousy. Finals were put in the middle of the show like they were just Angle's prelim test for his real match. No real emphasis put on Edge winning the rest of the show."
"The non-match with Undertaker vs. Page was next. People popped for the first punch and it was pretty much it. Page's "Terry Funk" comedy bumps in a serious heat program just seemed out of place. As far as the first physical confrontation between WWF and WCW, which this was, it couldn't have been planned out any worse. Page got very little offense in, and just bumped. Page's offense was just brief spots after low blows or chairs. They ended up brawling over the U.S. announcers table. In the ring, Taker hit Page with a high kick and Page ran off in 5:40. Shouldn't the first confrontation end with all the WCW guys swarming Undertaker and beating his ass, building heat, rather than a finish which made someone who needs to be a star right now with the lack of star power and multitude of non-stars under contract, look bad, which is exactly the opposite of what needed to be done. At this point I was sure it was WCW that had bought WWF and hired their writing staff."
"Angle twice suplexed Shane and twice the glass didn't break. Finally he whipped him through. This was total insanity, and not in a good way. You had broken glass everywhere. The crowd was going crazy. And you had Angle, who is being counted on so highly in plans, being put in a situation where he could have been seriously injured because you just can't predict how broken glass will break. As it was, he was just scraped up. His back was all bloody and there was broken glass all over the floor and they were reduced to putting the best worker the company had for the summer putting himself at far too much risk than necessary just to do Combat Zone Wrestling spots, and in New Jersey no less."
"First few minutes established Austin as the babyface and the two guys who were going to jump to WCW were double-teaming him and trying to steal his belt."
"Paul Heyman brought up Montreal. Good thing everyone's gotten over it by now. Then Heyman said those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. I'm not sure what this had to do with this match. Well, actually I am. History shows that companies that don't elevate new talent and keep the old talent in the same positions for long periods of time usually wind up like Dinosaurs. You know, extinct."
"JR kept mixing up Benoit with Jericho."
"Jericho put the walls on Austin in the middle of the ring. Instead of Benoit saving, as he'd done the entire match, he put the crossface on, and Austin tapped. Being that a precedent had been set when Undertaker and Kane both beat Austin in a similar three-way on PPV a few years ago, this was stunning. But not so fast. Even though that was an acceptable finish on PPV a few years ago, and on TV as recently as Monday, it was an illegal double-team so Hebner ordered the match to continue."
"All three guys were laid on the mat out and Austin, in dramatic face fashion, with all the odds against him, two wrestlers, all of WCW, and even Vince McMahon deserting him, draped his arm over Benoit for the pin."
"With Benoit being injured and out of action all summer, the only logical finish was for he to be the one pinned. There was no point in Jericho winning either, with Rock coming back to challenge Austin theoretically. A lot of people were mad because the same guys who never win the big ones, didn't again after a false-start of a push, but the problem wasn't the match, it was the decision to do a three-way and everything that was done on television after that decision was made."
"The four-year relationship between the WWF and Joanie Laurer and the transformation of the character Chyna ended abruptly on 6/21 when Laurer was sent a letter that the company was dropping all further contract negotiations with her. Laurer, 31, will remain under contract with the company until her present deal expires on 11/30, but is not expected to be used on television any longer."
"The writing may have been on the wall for some time. In recent months, on at least one occasion, when a male wrestler who had worked with Laurer had complained about his plight in the program, he was told that they needed to feature her strongly on television to sell the magazine and the book, but the push would be short-term. Nevertheless, as recently as two months ago, the company was planning on doing a long-term program with her turning heel on Lita in a womens' title program that never really got off the ground. She had expressed interest once again, in not wrestling Lita, but instead doing some sort of an angle with Eddy Guerrero, a storyline that was briefly teased, and then dropped."
"It had always been tough, because, most notably with Jericho, the male audience, which is the vast majority, didn't like the idea of a woman, even a large one, beating up and fighting evenly with male pro wrestlers. Chyna became very unpopular among insiders because people saw it as an undeserved push, because her work itself had she been a male, would never have gotten her past the mid-level indies and she got plenty of heat when on several occasions she complained publicly about the WWF hiring Trish Stratus based on nothing but how she looked, with the irony that Laurer also had nothing but a unique look backed up by strong marketing and being in the right place at the right time to offer."
"With Lita being the new hot commodity, Laurer and Amy Dumas became friends and formed almost a pact backstage. As insiders say, Laurer totally outworked Dumas, leading to their match, which the company wanted to go completely different (not so much the finish as the story of the match itself). It wound up with the story that Chyna had Lita beat on a few occasions, but refused to pin her, then pinned her clean in the middle. This both resulted in the perception that Lita, nor any of the women, were in her league, but also took the edge off Lita."
"The first real good ratings news in wrestling since the loss of the WCW audience in April came on the 6/25 Raw, doing the 4.65 rating (4.16 first hour; 5.10 second hour) and a 7.6 share. The growth of numbers throughout the show (with only one quarter dropping) was a sign of a show that people either enjoyed or at least were intrigued by, as the strong second hour growth also indicated. The peak number was a 5.63 for the closing segment, where Austin and Angle went to WWF New York, looking for Shane and Booker, who were instead at MSG and Booker laid out Vince."
"Vince was out first and did this diatribe on what the "T" in Booker T stands for. Must have been the same scriptwriter who wrote that terrible Shane interview a few weeks back where he talked about what the initials WCW stood for, because this was dumb, especially when Vince said "Troglodyte." "
"I think the clip from the 50s billed as early WWF was actually Blassie vs. Rikidozan from Tokyo."
"Vince claimed that Awesome raped him. No way. There is no portrayal of rape on WWF telecasts."
"Then they showed clips of Bruno Sammartino. I thought it was the Twilight Zone."
"Show tried to pick up on Stratus. Show is really funny. He offered to take her on a European vacation. She said she'd go, as long as they stayed in separate rooms. There is something about guys getting blown off and not getting the hint that on any television show makes for good entertainment. I think it's guys thinking, "see, there's a guy even more of a loser with women than I am" and it makes them happy."
"They aired a clip of Superstar Billy Graham, with Heyman calling him the man who revolutionized sports entertainment. Now I'm sure I'm in the Twilight Zone."
"Crowd was already dead. Christian claimed he had to get past Show and Kane to make the semis, who together weigh more than a half-ton. He's Canadian. Must be him messing up the conversion from metric. Gunn came out. Now that'll get the crowd going."
"Edge cut the most hilarious promo on Gunn, noting that he both sux and blows at the same time. He said Gunn was "so two years ago," which is true. By the way, in that same vein, Montreal is "so four years ago," so can the WWF please get over it. I know, different timetable. So I'm laughing my ass off, and the crowd in MSG is totally dead. A few people watching with me are dead thinking I'm a geek. All these people are missing the joke until I realize, the joke is on us. It's like that night Bischoff was talking to Sid about his scissors on Nitro. The crowd didn't react. Bischoff, thinking the whole world knows the scissors story, as opposed to maybe 1% of his audience, thought somehow the mic didn't work, and said it again, and again got this blank reaction from the audience."
"APA held a pep rally with all the guys barely clinging to their jobs. We had Goodfather & Bull Buchanan with no gimmicks, Essa Rios, Malenko, Haku, and even underutilized guys like Raven. Not one guy with any level of stardom was there. Bradshaw did a great promo basically saying those guys from WCW are trying to jump on their coattails so they can pay for their houses after their company went down and jumping on what we've all built. Sorry, but you guys were all along for the ride for what Austin and Rock built. The one thing great about this is Bradshaw did the perfect interview. Just should have had a few stars out there to make it seem like not such an NWO Black & White loser crew."
"Showed Jimmy Snuka's splash on Don Muraco. Do you realize people remember that moment today, and it was 18 years ago, and Benoit and Angle both did dives from a higher height last Monday as transition moves in a match."
"Edge pinned Gunn in 6:18. Gunn does have a gift when it comes to time travel. He made six minutes seem like 60. No crowd heat at all, except the small "Goldberg" chant when Gunn did a jackhammer and the much louder "Hogan" chant because some guys were running around the crowd dressed up like Hogan and Warrior."
"Vince admitted Angle was a dork, but "he's a dangerous dork" and "he's our dork." Wrestling has been around now for probably 125 years on some form of a contrived basis and has had many charismatic people who have been huge draws. I don't know anyone any more gifted than Angle. However, in that time frame, with all the different facets of people who were big drawing cards at one time or another, from Evil Russians, to Evil Sheiks, to ethnic heros, to musclebound clowns, to fatass dancers, to super athletes, not one, ever, portrayed a dork."
"Booker attacked Vince with some of the most hilariously mistimed kicks and bad selling, but Vince can get away with that. I guess if a heel has enough heat, or may enough money, the stuff doesn't have to look good. All the JWO (Jibroni World Order) guys came out and Booker ran off"
"Linda & Vince did an interview talking about the divorce (this becomes important as the next few weeks go by and the storyline advances, as many have halfway figured out). Linda suggests interpromotional matches starting next week on TV. She also suggests changing the PPV name to Invasion and having interpromotional matches there as well."
"Albert pinned Kane to win the IC title when DDP interfered and gave Kane a diamond cutter. Now we're getting somewhere. Except, now Albert holds the IC title."
"Hardys vs. Dudleys table match had no winner when Palumbo & O'Haire did a run-in. All the JWO guys destroyed them and left them dead. Sucks to be them."
"The Fearsome Foursome (Vince, Angle, Austin and Debra) were looking for Booker. They instead found Torrie Wilson. Wilson said her WCW contract was about to expire and wants to discuss, with Vince, in private, signing a WWF contract. Have you ever noticed that the old men characters on a show (Vince, Hogan, Ric Flair, Nash) or bookers all politick or book so they're in some form linked with the hottest women. There is a reason. They are old enough to know history, and those who know history can also learn from it in a positive way. You know, like the Benoit/Nancy Sullivan angle or all the other romances bookers made up that somehow became real life. Austin acted jealous of Vince, probably because he remembers how his angle with Chris Adams' ex-wife turned out."
"Just for a clarification on Goldberg's status, his Time Warner contract is not assignable, which means even if WWF wanted him and was willing to buy out the remainder of his deal, he is under no obligation to go. Whoever negotiated that contract for him is someone everyone should have as an agent. Oh yeah, everyone already has him (Barry Bloom). Nobody's ever getting another one like that"
"Foley vs. Regal is planned for the Invasion PPV but not sure Foley has agreed to it yet because the reaction seems tepid when it comes to strongly pushing that angle"
"Have to give WWF credit for editing a lot of the verbiage calling WCW a second-rate product out of Undertaker's interview before it aired"
"On "Win Ben Stein's money" this past week, a question was, "Name one of the founders of the WWF?" The answer they were looking for was either Vince McMahon Jr. or Linda. I don't even know what the real answer would be. I guess Vince Sr. and Toots Mondt if we're talking about the WWWF name, or just Vince Sr. if you talk about the elimination of the third W"
"After the threats of a class action lawsuit by former XFL assistant coaches, the WWFE will continue to pay all assistants their full salaries and keep up their benefits through May 31, 2002. The coaches a few weeks ago had received a letter saying they would no longer be under contract after May 31, 2001. Several of them got together and threatened a lawsuit, which caused WWFE to extend the contracts another year. This affects between 50 and 60 assistants, as WWFE and the eight head coaches had already reached settlements on deals. The coaches threatened suit because most coaching positions in football are filled between December and February, and the timing of the folding of the league would mean few would have a chance to hook up with a new job in football until the end of this year"
"Stephanie said it is harder for their fans to find the show on TNN. Good Grief. Almost all of them found it the first week. Now they can't find it? Like, the big drop was after Wrestlemania. Like that finish with Austin siding with Vince was so traumatic to WWF fans that one in four viewers has now developed amnesia, too?"
|
|
|
Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Nov 14, 2020 23:50:17 GMT -5
We’re about to hit the point that marks the true death of WCW in my mind: Buff vs. Booker in Tacoma, with Scott Hudson and Arn on commentary. That’s where the last vestiges of the dream were had, just as the match and the crowd’s reaction to it smothered the sleeping body dead.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2020 7:47:28 GMT -5
July 9, 01
"The first impression of WCW, in the most important angle in the history of the business, on 7/2 in Tacoma, was downright scary to the point re-evaluation of the current plans have to be considered. The live crowd totally rejected the Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell match, put on as the Raw main event. One can blame Bagwell for putting on a bad performance and T for also not rising to the occasion, but the crowd had already decided to hate it long before the bell rang to start the match. Loud chants of "boring," "This match sucks" and "Goldberg" filled the Tacoma Dome, as the crowd booed every move by both wrestlers. Fights broke out in the stands, and a large percentage of the crowd was streaming toward the exits while the main event was going on. Chants then started of "refund" and "end the match" with the only positive pop coming with what would normally be a groan spot, when Austin and Angle did a run-in to end the main event in only 5:00."
"Fans booed Shane McMahon when he came out, with new lighting and the new look for WCW when it takes over the Raw time slot, if plans continue as they are, and nothing had changed at press time (My Note: He would have mailed this a day earlier on the Tuesday because of July 4th), it is no doubt something that will be talked about a lot later in the week. The match, with Booker, defending his WCW title and also still billed as U.S. champion (he held both belts when the actual WCW promotion folded in late March) was poor, ending with a big babyface pop for top WWF heels Steve Austin and Kurt Angle. Bagwell then joined in on the attack with announcers Arn Anderson and Scott Hudson trying their best to act like their co-worker was a turncoat to the organization, but it just came across way too forced. Even though Austin and Angle were heels the entire show, they got the biggest face reactions as they beat on Booker, three-on-one, and then threw him out of the building. They got a second face reaction when they turned on Bagwell, laid him out, and threw him out of the building as well. This program is being booked ass backwards, as WCW, the invaders, have gotten their asses kicked at almost every turn."
"Clearly, a lot more thought needs to be put into this storyline because fans who have been conditioned to see WCW as the real enemy in the only thing real about a fake wrestling world, are not ready to embrace the idea of WCW Raw, particularly since it's only a few weeks from the scheduled start."
"Scott Hudson had talked with Jim Ross a few months back when he came to Atlanta and Ross gave him the impression he would be strongly considered for an announcing job. This was when they were going under the impression WCW would have the Saturday night late time slot on TNN. When that fell through, nobody was called back. Hudson wrote Ross a few weeks ago, noting that he had until 6/15 to make a decision on whether to go back full-time to work at his government job, or continue to work part-time. At his work, he had been switched to part-time because of all the time he had spent out of the office working for WCW. Ross did get back to Hudson before deadline telling him that in the short-term, there was nothing that appeared on the horizon for him, which was likely because Joey Styles seemed the prime candidate for the WCW job. Hudson then informed his work he was going back full-time. Then, with the plans to introduce a WCW announcing crew at the 7/2 show in Tacoma and the Styles deal having fallen through over the two sides being far apart on money issues, Hudson was given a call to come to Connecticut for a week of training and to be the lead voice of WCW. Hudson got there, but surprised the WWF by telling them he had gone back to work full-time and couldn't take the job, but would be willing to help them since they were in something of a jam, and agreed to take the spot for a few weeks to get the angle going."
"According to Jerry Lawler, he was supposed to be introduced with Hudson by Shane on Raw as the new WCW announcing team, and his wife, Stacy Carter would accompany him to ringside. Lawler said he was told the next day that Vince McMahon wanted to make it clear they had no role for Carter other than appearing on Raw and Smackdown with Lawler at both shows in Tacoma, which Lawler agreed to. This would have resulted in both missing their scheduled show booked in Memphis on 7/3. On 6/30, after both received with travel itinerary, Lawler was called again by WWF officials and told that he would be getting a contract and she wouldn't. At that point Lawler backed out of the deal."
"Hudson was generally praised for his backstage demeanor with people saying of the WCW crew, that Hudson was the only one who had the enthusiasm they were looking for in the clutch. Several names are under consideration including Mike Tenay for the spot."
"WWF also hired Nick Patrick, who debuted as WCW ref on Raw, along with Charles Robinson and Billy Silverman to serve in similar roles. Besides the talent who had already debuted on WWF TV (DDP, Booker T, Bagwell, Stacey Keibler, Torrie Wilson, Palumbo, O'Haire, Lance Storm, Hugh Morrus and Mike Awesome), also backstage in Tacoma included Chavo Guerrero Jr., Shane Helms, Shawn Stasiak, Mark Jindrak, Chris Kanyon and Billy Kidman, all of whom were brought to Connecticut during the week to train."
"The Raw switch to WCW was scheduled to come as early as 7/30 or 8/6."
"For those keeping track of this sort of thing, Ric Flair has 20 months left on his Time Warner deal. His attitude seems to be that if, at that time, things work out for him and whomever wants him, that would be great. If not, he's had a great career"
"Border City Wrestling sent out a correction regarding the 7/14 Windsor, ONT show. Arn Anderson won't be wrestling on the show but he will be appearing. Lance Storm was also pulled from that show as well as all his July indie bookings due to new WWF commitments. Lots of indie promoters are upset about that one since WWF at first encouraged Storm to do as many bookings as possible through the summer. Plans change"
"Austin, on the other hand, may be out a little longer. His hand has improved, but his back is really hurting him. At Raw, it locked up early during the show and he did the show in tremendous pain. Apparently the pain was so bad that he was sweating like he'd worked a main event match by the latter part of the show"
"Shane's annoying music played. He did one of those horrendous interviews about "I" standing for Invasion and that this isn't Sesame Street. He announced Booker vs. Bagwell. Crowd booed. A bad sign, but not even a warning of what would come. He said if Austin interfered in the match (which he did), he'd go home and tell mommy, or something like that. Fans were booing Shane pretty good."
"Undertaker beat Albert via DQ in an IC title match in 2:44. Page interfered for the DQ and even gave Undertaker the diamond cutter. Not so fast if you think Page was leaving with any heat. He stalked Sara, until Kane came out. Kane laid out Page, Sara gave Page a low blow, Undertaker pounded him around. Albert got involved saving Page, which makes no sense in the storyline, allowing Page to run away. Undertaker & Kane cleaned house on Albert."
"Torrie Wilson showed up wearing a bikini top hitting on Vince. The entire show saw them find this obscure places to be alone and make out, but someone, whether it be Austin, Angle or Saturn, would interrupt just as Vince was about to consummate (and that word was used) something. It got creepier by the segment."
"Molly pinned Crash in 2:00 when Jackie turned on Crash. Jackie DDT'd Crash after. Things do not look promising for Crash's future. Earlier he was supposed to go for a tope and accidentally hit Jackie to set up Jackie turning on him, but he never made it through the ropes. Ouch."
"Rhyno pinned Test in 2:14. The entire dressing room thought Test was the mole so they came to ringside and Bradshaw clotheslined Test to set up the pin after a gore and give Rhyno a shot at Awesome's hardcore belt on the PPV. The NWO B team then stomped the hell out of Test."
"Wilson and Vince were alone in a room. Wilson got very aggressive, taking down Vince's pants, ripping off his shirt, pulling down his underwear and telling him to clothes his eyes and she had a big surprise. When he opened his eyes, Linda was there and the show ended. This is part of the angle to lead to Vince losing Raw in some form"
"A lot of WCW wrestlers were brought up all week to train in the new rings, which are larger and have different ropes, to get the kinks out before they do matches on live TV"
"They did an angle on Heat for once. The APA was guesting when O'Haire & Palumbo jumped them at the end. Most of the show consisted of both guys ripping on WCW, with lots of inside jokes. There was a "Goldberg" chant when they went so hard on WCW. Won't be the last. What was funny about this was to regular patrons of WWF New York, the previous night, Bradshaw, O'Haire and Palumbo were all at a table together, which is no big deal nowadays except that it was at WWF New York, the same spot they were doing an angle the next day"
"Austin vs. Tazz was scheduled as the main event on Smackdown on 6/26 in MSG. They had to do an angle instead of a match because Austin was injured"
"Attempted best explanations as to some recent burials. Lynn was buried because McMahon just didn't see anything in him. Benoit and Jericho had the push stopped because somehow, as funny as this sounds, they got the blame for the bad ratings during the two weeks they were pushed. Almost like this was an experiment that everyone expected to fail but they let it happen just to prove it would fail, and bailed on it the first chance they got. Jericho is in the same boat as Jeff Hardy, in that he lost a lot with the false start and quick throw in the towel of a perceived push. While Jericho got no fair shake once again, not really given the chance to succeed or fail before the rug was pulled out, and his singles match with Austin did draw the best ratings (up until last week) of any match on Raw in a month (including the tag match which involved HHH & Austin vs. Benoit & Jericho), he does deserve some blame in that when he moved up to main events, he wasn't able to change gears so to speak. His interviews, once his strong point, are now so cliched and with a lack of smoothness of getting into catch phrases that, while they are certainly not bad, they aren't good main event interviews (then again, I guess he really didn't get a chance to do pure main event build up the PPV interviews anyway)"
"The locker room dynamics have changed greatly over the past week. The descriptions to me sound identical to what I heard in 1987 when the Bill Watts guys and Jim Crockett guys became one company. The Crockett guys wouldn't accept any of the Watts guys as stars and you know how that ended up. In this case, there is resentment of the WWF guys because the WCW guys have gotten paid since the end of March even though they just are starting on the road this week."
"There is a feeling that some of the WCW guys (read that the inexperienced guys who never worked any territories and learned wrestling in that horrible WCW atmosphere) walk around the locker room really cocky. The biggest heat was on Booker, Stacey Keibler, Bagwell, Palumbo and O'Haire. The word is that all of the younger members of that quintet have zero knowledge as to locker room protocol, etiquette and how to conduct themselves."
"The only one that seems to have significant heat is Bagwell, who had made a lot of enemies with his attitude even before making such an inauspicious television debut. About two dozen of the WCW guys were brought to Connecticut all week to train in the larger WWF rings to get the rust off before appearing live on television. Bagwell was late for every session, and then arrived late for the house show in Spokane. While in WCW, where there was almost zero discipline, he could get away with it, that doesn't fly here. During the week, while Shane Helms was training, the two got into an altercation. The story was reported as Bagwell (who along with Luger while in WCW used to laugh at the cruiserweights behind their backs and joke that they were the problem with the company--there's a story that one time after Malenko had a great match with someone and people were all coming up to him congratulating him, Bagwell went up to him and made fun of him saying that this business isn't about having great matches, it's about having a great body) telling Helms that no matter what he did, he'd never make it in wrestling because he was too small. Helms came back saying with the obvious steroid retort. Bagwell slapped him. Helms came back and hit Bagwell with something filled with ice and busted him up, requiring stitches, before it was quelled."
"In the MSG beating of Palumbo & O'Haire, a little extra was put into it by some guys as a lesson."
"There was also the obvious heat with Booker, both because of the feeling he didn't protect Austin in the PPV spot, but also because he didn't stay at the Gorilla position after he went through the curtain to check on Austin"
"They had two WCW matches on 7/1 in Spokane, Booker T kept the WCW title over Bagwell in a good, solid match. Booker got a very big face reaction the entire match. Bagwell got a mixed reaction and was said to have looked rusty. Helms beat Chavo Guerrero Jr. in a cruiserweight title match. Crowd was dead for that one."
|
|
Nr1Humanoid
Hank Scorpio
Is the #3 humanoid at best.
Posts: 5,511
|
Post by Nr1Humanoid on Nov 15, 2020 8:56:47 GMT -5
There is a useful four letter word. And Bagwell is full of it.
|
|
|
Post by jason1980s on Nov 15, 2020 10:55:04 GMT -5
Wow, Bradshaw, O'Haire and Palumbo together at WWF New York? They must be guys who loved boasting about kicking everyone's butt in a bar fight. It seems like an odd trio and I'm sure Bradshaw was angry as anything about the WCW guys coming in. I'm surprised there weren't more backstage issues between the WCW and WWF wrestlers. Luckily there weren't many, if any, reports that I can remember. My guess is a Bradshaw or Holly knew WCW was Vince's new baby and not to mess with the guys.
|
|
|
Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Nov 15, 2020 20:37:14 GMT -5
Part of me wonders if, on some level, Vince always wanted WCW to fail. The idea of him rebranding his baby, Raw, as a WCW show completely defies everything we know about the petty, insecure, weirdo he is. And to launch the new WCW in a non-WCW territory in front of a crowd that expected a WWF main event when they were going to be in ATLANTA the next week?
Yeesh.
|
|
|
Post by jason1980s on Nov 15, 2020 21:00:20 GMT -5
My guess is Vince was like a kid in the playground who would kick his friends bigger sand castle over if he had the chance. I'm guessing he deeply hated WCW and wanted it to fail. He probably put n w o Hogan at Wrestlemania knowing he would have a huge reaction and would have to be turned face back to the red and yellow made most famous in WWF. I also get not being able to bring in a lot of big WCW names but who he did bring in, mostly were absolute jobber worthy guys. If they had been with WWF in the late 80s, early 90s at best they would be a guy like Brooklyn Brawler or Barry Horowitz, the more famous jobbers but still, jobbers.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2020 6:07:15 GMT -5
July 16, 01
"One of the most amazing weeks in pro wrestling history saw the World Wrestling Federation abandon nearly all its plans and re-create Extreme Championship Wrestling from the ashes in a story that, truth be told, in hindsight looks like the single greatest case of manipulation in the modern history of pro wrestling. The formation of ECW was decided upon, although there were moves and hints to do so for some time, late last week after the realization that the current plans as they were laid out were going to be a disaster due to the reaction to the so-called WCW matches at last week's television tapings in Tacoma."
"The basic plan, much of which has been outlined here for weeks, was for WCW to get a few weeks of television exposure building a feud with WWF for a series of interpromotional matches at the 7/22 Invasion PPV in Cleveland. It would be a one-time deal and the feud would end with the PPV. An angle had already been set up for the next night's divorce hearing between Vince and Linda where they would split the assets down the middle. In the split, the supposed WWF would be split into two equal groups. The plan was to call one group WCW, which would run television on Mondays, start touring regularly in October as well as run its first PPV show in October. The other group, WWF, would run live Smackdown on Thursdays and continue with monthly PPV events."
"The way the storyline was written, on the 7/23 Raw show, which would include the divorce hearing, it would be announced talent would be split down the middle and all WWF and so-called WCW talent would be put in a draft. The 7/30 Raw show would largely be the draft itself, patterned after the TV presentations of the NFL and NBA draft. Shane's team, called WCW, but really being mainly WWF talent, would then start on Raw on 8/6."
"The WCW touring group would largely be composed of WWF talent, and the main stars would have been mainline WWF talent such as Kurt Angle, perhaps Kane, Mick Foley as commissioner and even HHH when he returned was the plan at one point."
"What caught everyone by surprise was the degree of the negative reaction to the WCW brand. The feeling is Shane McMahon, as the babyface member of the family, combined with Booker T as champion immediately being programmed against WWF heels Steve Austin and Angle, would babyface an aspect of the group. DDP against Undertaker would heel an aspect. It's only one PPV anyway."
"The reaction to WCW vs. WCW was utter disdain from the audience, perhaps worse on Smackdown live (the sound was remixed to come across better on television) because the excuse that the guys were having bad matches like Booker had with Buff Bagwell was out the window as the fans hated two of the best matches on the show, Gregory Helms vs. Billy Kidman with a title change, and Booker vs. DDP."
"WWF fans have been trained to hate WCW for years from the heat of the promotional war. WCW fans, with the exception of the half-point that came back to the table the past three weeks, that had continued to watch the second opposed hour to the bitter end, did so largely because they were simply never going to like WWF and most weren't starting now as the wrestling audience dwindled greatly since the folding. They were an older audience, that for the most part didn't attend house shows, and certainly wouldn't attend WWF house shows nor support a WCW group without the top WCW stars from the past, or headed by a McMahon."
"One thing was clear. The negative stigma of the WCW name was such that, had they gone to a name change for Raw, it would have, at least at first, been a disaster."
"To show how wild the ideas became, there was serious talk of bringing in Eric Bischoff. Backstage at Raw in Atlanta, the talk was that Bischoff would debut the next night at Smackdown, although those in the inner circle claimed the Bischoff deal had fallen through several days earlier. The claim was that, once again, as the entire WWF vs. WCW issue was booked more for ego and to prove the new group was second-rate even though they owned it, before rebuilding it, they only wanted Bischoff for two weeks, just long enough to save a PPV they were afraid was heading for a fall. Bischoff would come in, shoot an angle, do a match with Vince, which was thought would draw a big buy rate. Vince would go over and Bischoff would never be heard from again."
"The answer to the dilemma to save the PPV was ECW. The angle to put the group back together, link it with WCW and combine forces with the idea that Stephanie McMahon had purchased ECW and the two children were planning on running the father out of business was an amazing concession to ego. Clearly WCW being tanked was no accident. Heyman keeps his dream alive and perhaps the WWF helps him out of at least some debts by buying whatever assets they want from his company, and the fact Heyman owed them a half mil. Head writer Stephanie is back on the air in a power position (she likely would have joined HHH in WCW anyway had HHH not been injured). With her in the role as head writer, ECW is also protected in a manner WCW wasn't, even during the infancy of the angle when it needed to be."
"ECW was a concept and a cult, where the stars themselves were not as important as the loyalty to the name. ECW fans, for the most part, do attend WWF shows, as noted by the chants in most cities when former ECW performers would appear. Those from the outside knocking putting so much emphasis on ECW by saying all they were was 0.8 ratings points and 700 to 1,500 fans in a city, most of whom in both group the WWF already has, miss the big picture. The lack of certain key ECW cult figures like Sandman means nothing."
"The 7/9 Raw from Atlanta was if nothing else, eventful. It was very reminiscent actually of a Vince Russo show. A first Russo show, which usually was his best one. Remember the night Russo and Eric Bischoff came back and the fans gave the show a standing ovation at the finish after they stripped everyone of their belts. Of course, few if any future shows matched up to show one, all the swerves killed anyone caring about any character and destroyed the foundation of the product. The last 30 minutes of the show had 18 months worth of angle development. "
"For whatever reason, Jerry Lynn is not involved, although with nothing else on his plate and actually a good storyline about being misused for the taking, it doesn't seem to serve a purpose for him not to be."
"Vince & Shane, representing WWF and WCW, who haven't even started their feud, already did the bury-the-hatchet for a common goal angle, which usually happens with hated enemies about a year into their run, when no more money can be squeezed out of the program. But alas, just like the swerve at the beginning of the show where Shane and DDP never wrestled, and instead turned on Undertaker, basically rendering the Smackdown final angle of WCW turning on itself useless, the show ended with another swerve when the WCW and WWF teammates in the match, fought among themselves. After WWF cleaned house on WCW, ECW, with a numbers advantage, attacked WWF. WCW then swerved, helping ECW, and ending with Shane and Stephanie together against Vince."
"Vince McMahon was surprised, because in the meeting before the show laying things out, where McMahon also wanted to make sure the big stars, Austin, Angle and Undertaker, were nowhere near the angle where they'd get laid out, expected ECW to come across as strong heels. The crowd reaction was actually very positive toward ECW, but the next night in Birmingham, the crowd was totally pro-WWF, anti-WCW, and totally confused how to react to ECW because they wanted to cheer them but were conditioned to boo them."
"It's noted the "WWF" members laid out were almost the Sunday Night Heat squad of the APA, Bob Holly, Billy Gunn and Big Show. If nothing else, with Booker and Page also kept out of the mix, the lack of depth of the WCW group was downright scary, since the five consisted of Shawn Stasiak, Chris Kanyon, Shawn O'Haire, Mark Jindrak and Chuck Palumbo, all of whom have two things in common, they are tall and they aren't considered stars. With the exception of Kanyon, all would be better off in OVW for one year and at that point, at least Palumbo and O'Haire could likely walk in and be somebodies, but that may not be as easy if they're exposed too fast now. Kanyon is the only member of the group who isn't green, and while really entertaining at one point in his Positively Kanyon role and a good worker, he disappeared from WCW TV for so long and was given no special intro that he just seemed like a tall nobody. This segment brought home just how lacking WCW really was in star power."
"Of all the major changes in the plans, we're told that none are definites. The one most likely not to be changed is Smackdown going live on Thursdays starting 8/16. Everything else, the split crews, the draft, the evening up the sides, the separate TV shows, separate PPVs and arena tours are all up in the air."
"Raw on 7/9 drew a 4.73 rating (4.37 first hour; 5.08 second hour) and a 7.6 share. It was the highest rating for Raw dating back to 4/30, totalling 6.1 million viewers. The ratings pattern was identical with the previous two weeks. The consistent rise coincided with the introduction of WCW characters, and after three weeks it can't be called a fluke."
"Kevin Nash did a lengthy interview in Americana, a Japanese magazine. It was quite funny. He credited himself and Scott Hall with helping the young guys in the business get over because they realized when they broke in how shitty the veterans were because nobody would elevate them. He mentioned in WCW how he was specifically told not to mention Hall's name on TV, so he did it every week. At one point they told him if he did it again they were going to fire him on a breach. He gave them a big speech about the constitution and freedom of speech. It's so funny. Like the constitution guarantees you the right on a television show to go against the script and still keep your job. But right or wrong doesn't matter, because they never fired him, so at that point after a warning and a threat and doing nothing, Nash is no longer at fault, the company was for letting it continue."
"Bagwell was fired before Nitro in Atlanta. He was let go for an amazing ability to accumulate heat in almost record time. This was for all the reasons mentioned last week as well as some others. There was the issue with Helms reported on last week, which left him with some stitches, and started him off on a bad foot because the feeling was Helms was a quiet hard-working guy being made fun of and slapped and that Helms was only defending himself when he did his comeback. Bagwell still had a good size gash on his head when he showed up for TV in Atlanta. Bagwell also arrived late for the practices almost every day in Stamford, CT to get used to the new ring and was said to be the only one not taking the practices seriously. He also arrived late for the house show in Spokane. The original plan was for Bagwell to work the weekend house shows against Morrus and put him over, but the decision was made to pull him from the bookings and put Jindrak in. Even though that was an office decision, most of the wrestlers were under the impression he had called in sick so to speak."
"At the second night in Tacoma, after the show went off the air, they set up an angle where the WCW crew that was doing the beat down in the back on Undertaker (Stasiak, Kanyon, Bagwell, Awesome, DDP) would come back in the ring and the NWO B team guys (Bradshaw's crew) would run them off. It was set up for all the WCW guys to run off, leaving only Bagwell in the ring, for what appeared to be the typical APA legit punishment as he was power bombed very hard and complained afterwards of a neck injury."
"Bradshaw was ribbing Bagwell hard about his mother, the legendary former tag team champion Judy Bagwell, calling the office and complaining about Buff's travel reservations on more than one occasion."
"There was even a pool among some of the wrestlers as to how long he'll last. Most of the over/under predictions seem to be Labor Day, although one person actually had it as early as 7/4, only missing by five days."
"Somebody also punched a hole in Bagwell's hat"
"Angle challenged T. T ignored him but finally accepted. Even by his recent levels, Angle was really portrayed as a geek."
"Angle and Austin then argued over who was Gilligan and who was the Skipper out of the two, both agreeing that Vince was Thurston Howell, references from "Gilligan's Island." Seriously. If they want 60s references, they might as well have brought back Heenan."
"Jericho came out and wanted to join Austin & Angle's team for the invasion. They blew him off, making him seem like a geek as well. Earth to WWF. Fans want their babyfaces at least portrayed as cool guys who don't back down from adversity. Jericho said he'd been in WCW and didn't want to go back. Earth to Vince. You own WCW."
"They scripted it with Booker as the heel with Shane interfering and Nick Patrick playing heel ref. Wow, heel ref, two weeks into the interpromotional feud. Next thing you know they'll have WCW and WWF join forces before the end of the show."
"They're doing a better job of WWF vs. WCW with the refs than the wrestlers"
"Awesome & Storm looked like Race Steele coming down the aisle for Heat."
"Vince & Shane and the WWF & WCW teams argued over which would be captain. It was like a convention for large uncharismatic guys with the APA (actually they have a unique charisma), Show, Gunn, Bob Holly, Jindrak, Palumbo, O'Haire, Kanyon and Stasiak."
"In the first dark match, Kaz Hayashi & Yun Yang beat Shannon Moore & Evan Karagias in the debut for all four. Yang pinned Karagias with Yang time and crowd was really into this match, which marks the first time that has been the case for a WCW match."
"Jericho beat Storm with the walls. Good match except for one blown spot (which with the magic of post-production, may have never taken place). Made little sense for Patrick to ref with this finish."
"No word yet on Austin's return to in-ring action. Probably not until the PPV. He has deep contusions in his back and he's hurting just putting on his shoes."
"A bunch of Austin, Vince and Angle stuff with Debra as the sidekick. Most of it was hilarious. Not sure how it'll help Austin's diminishing drawing power and merchandise power, but I get the feeling some of the people who are writing the show are writing for their own entertainment and don't see the other 50% of the business anyway."
"Trish thanked Jeff for saving her. Matt and Lita walked in and couldn't figure out why Jeff was even on speaking terms with that woman of so little self respect that she'd tease Big Show and not even go to Europe with him."
"Kidman pinned Helms in 4:12 to win the WCW cruiserweight title. Helms is now Gregory Helms, because there can only be one Shane in WWF. Pretty lame reason if you ask me. Kidman's new finisher is a pedigree using the legs instead of arms. X-Pac was watching since they want to do a title vs. title with X-Pac vs. Kidman on PPV. Both guys worked real hard, but appeared rusty. Match was better than most on WWF TV but still sloppy. Crowd barely gave them a chance live. Magic of post-editing is you didn't hear all the "Goldberg" chants and that the crowd just wanted them gone."
"Vince did an interview and basically bragged about being a sexual dynamo. It was quite unsettling. At first Vince was very sad until Regal & Tajiri showed up. Vince hugged Regal and got his confidence back. Angle and Austin were jealous that Regal would get hugged by Vince. I wonder if Nash and HHH were in that position they'd allow themselves to be doing this angle?"
"Show & Gunn beat Hardys in 5:20 when Gunn used the cobra clutch slam on Matt and Show pinned him. There is a moral to the story. If you are lazy, or clumsy, or uncharismatic, but you've got a WWF contract, eventually if you do nothing good for long periods of time, they'll put you over the guys who have worked their asses off for their spot."
"Albert pinned Edge in 3:34 to keep the IC belt with the Baldo bomb. If you read the review of the previous match, it covers this one as well to a degree. Not that Albert is either lazy or clumsy. He's simply huge and somewhat lacking in charisma."
"Christian seems to have a crush on Edge's KOR trophy. Patterson has to be writing this stuff. Angle and Austin like Vince more than their wives. Well, Kurt with his attitude couldn't get a girl anyway. And Christian is feeling out a damn trophy. Notice the only one who actually seems like they want sex with the opposite sex is Vince, and we are forced to actually watching him in degrees of tonguing with fitness models because he has final approval of the script. Someone comes up with an scenario to get people to care about Benoit & Jericho and its nixed two weeks later because ratings didn't immediately turn around and because they are short or whatever reason was given. But someone comes up with an excuse for Vince to fondle Torrie Wilson, or better yet, do so while Saturn is taking a dump, and their longevity is guaranteed."
"Booker pinned Page in 7:06 to keep WCW title. These guys worked real hard. It wasn't evident on TV, but apparently the crowd started filing out as Page did his interview, and continued to leave during the match. Crowd was heckling these guys to death, which didn't come across on TV through the magic of post-production. For all their worrying about spoilers ruining their ratings, they ought to count their blessing that taping the show eliminates a lot of embarrassment. "Goldberg" chants and "boring chants" edited out were the order of the day."
"Page ran off to the back with Undertaker behind him. Page had to do that famous moving fast slow run that Bruiser Brody pioneered in the 80s when he would have to chase Abdullah the Butcher all over buildings and never catch him, and that takes talent. In this case, Page had to run, but not run fast to expose that Taker can't run. Luckily Taker has all that goodwill built up that Foley used to talk about, because he exposed himself bad in this chase that he had Nash speed."
"The average fan has no idea who isn't coming in, and there is likely some curiosity as to when Flair, Goldberg, Sting, or whomever else will show up. Once people realize that isn't happening, that curiosity audience will dwindle off like it did in April."
"People like Palumbo, Jindrak and O'Haire should have spent the summer at OVW and not have been brought in, even now, until Cornette deemed them ready. That was part of the problem with WCW at the end was rushing these guys on the air when they were still green and pushing them hard due to nothing but their look and perceived potential."
"The reason Leviathan has changed his look, growing the hair and to keep his face clean shaven is because he was told by WWF officials to do so when his dark matches elicited loud "Goldberg" chants"
"Did you get a load of WWF when announcing Smackdown going live that they are blaming the ratings drop of Smackdown (which took places largely one big fall in February, and a second since WM when all their business has fallen) on internet spoilers. Like they didn't exist when the show was doing 5.0s."
"David Cash (Kid Kash from ECW) is under contract to WWF but hasn't been used yet"
"The situation with Morrus and Jindrak has been largely blown out of proportion although there was an altercation. Jindrak was working out in the ring and messed up some spots. Morrus, as a veteran would do in this situation, told him what he was doing wrong. Jindrak responded calling him a fat slob who had never done anything in the business. It didn't escalate from there. Reportedly WWF officials that were there got a real bad taste regarding Jindrak's attitude."
"A lot of WWF wrestlers are already seeing the angle as a major flop based on early crowd reactions. From WCW side, there are those saying that even WCW was more organized long-term and well planned out than WWF. But the general feeling seems to be that WWF is so much more professional in every aspect than WCW. Those who have been in WWF for a long time say they'd never experienced anything like this atmosphere."
"Keibler had some heat again this weekend from the crew on the road when word got out that she was able to get out of going on the road this weekend. She apparently asked some time back if she would be working the shows and was told no, then the plans for the bra and panties match on the PPV came up, and they wanted all four women on the road to practice working so she was booked. She had made plans to go to the beach with friends and either refused to break them or was given the weekend off, but as you can imagine, that story didn't play well in the locker room, particularly when some of the guys heard the local radio ads for the show and heard Bagwell and Keibler's name mentioned"
"Hudson was already let go. As mentioned last week, he was only in for four weeks anyway. He was probably buried after the first night in Tacoma which was practically a career death sentence. He was much better the second night and they let him do the one interview on Nitro after telling him he was done"
"A lot of the contracted talent formerly with WCW that WWF hadn't brought in was in Atlanta for Raw since many lived in the area. Same protocol problems. They were nervous, didn't say Hi, got bad reps for sticking together in a corner. None were used in dark or syndication matches and instead they used Dusty Rhodes' guys in jobber roles along with former WCW wrestler A.J. Styles."
"Main event was Undertaker & Kane over Page & Awesome when Page walked out on Awesome, leaving him to get pinned by Undertaker. After their match, all four were talking at length afterwards about the ups and downs of it to improve for their future matches."
"Booker pinned Storm in the second match from the top. Booker got a good reaction but for the most part the crowd wasn't into the WCW matches or the WCW name and logo."
"If you want to know, in a nutshell, why the WCW thing was such a flop, this web site story on the brief history of the feud says it with amazing clarity. "For over 50 years, the World Wrestling Federation has been the dominant force in sports-entertainment. Thanks to the vision of Federation chairman Vince McMahon, the company has become a billion-dollar conglomerate, and a worldwide media presence. For a few years in the late 1990s, WCW overtook the Federation in the Monday night ratings war, using former Federation talent to do so. For years, the NWO was a dominant force in the sports-entertainment industry, with WCW giving fans the impression that the NWO was a Federation entity. Soon, though, the tide shifted back to the WWF, and the Federation soon dominated to the point where WCW nearly went out of business. But shortly before WrestleMania, Shane McMahon purchased the fledgling company, giving it new hope." One of these days, perhaps when it's too late, the company is going to realize they own WCW and it serves them no purpose to continue to bury their history. It is this specific mentality that they've pushed that resulted in the audience reaction they've received. If this isn't Dusty and the UWF all over again, it's probably only worse. Dusty may have buried UWF in booking, but on the television show, or in NWA programs, they never portrayed them as a loser company that they had saved from death"
|
|
|
Post by chronocross on Nov 16, 2020 11:19:09 GMT -5
KOTR was a good show, but he's not wrong about the main event, as I don't think anyone really believed Austin would lose to Benoit/Jericho on that night. The finish was even worse as it felt like a middle of the match move and the crowd was surprised it ended like that.
It's a shame Bagwell acted the way he did, he could've been a decent mid-card IC/U.S title holder,IMO.
|
|
|
Post by DSR on Nov 16, 2020 13:37:42 GMT -5
Something about the way Dave goes through the laundry list of reasons Bagwell was not liked and fired, and ending the whole bit with somebody punching a whole in Bagwell's hat made me laugh.
|
|
|
Post by Terry McConkey on Nov 16, 2020 15:42:30 GMT -5
Something about the way Dave goes through the laundry list of reasons Bagwell was not liked and fired, and ending the whole bit with somebody punching a whole in Bagwell's hat made me laugh. I hated Bagwell almost as much as Meltzer and I can't do anything but nod along and agree with him. However, I wasn't aware that it was a backstage fight that got him fired and not just his horrible attitude and tardiness.
|
|