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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2020 5:54:11 GMT -5
July 23, 01
"The story of Paul Heyman and ECW got even stranger this past week as the WWF continued the ECW storyline, despite the name and trademarks being owned by the bankruptcy court in White Plains, NY. Heyman hadn't shown up for any of the creditors' meetings on the ECW bankruptcy, filed on 4/5, which led to trustee Barbara Balaber-Strauss converting the case from a Chapter 11 (reorganizational bankruptcy) to a Chapter 7 (liquidation) last month."
"On 6/25, Balaber-Strauss requested an inventory of Heyman's ECW books and records, which has not been received, which resulted in her ordering Heyman to appear for examination on 7/30 with an inventory of all his books and records. There is some question as to whether these records even exist, because Heyman never conducted ECW like a business. Earlier this year, when Tommy Dreamer was able to set up meetings for potential investors to keep the company alive, the meetings never went anywhere because Heyman never was able to produce adequate records."
"The WWF theory seems to be that they believe, because nobody else would want the rights at anywhere near the same price, that they will eventually end up with the ECW intellectual property and tape library so because they feel they will own them, they feel they have the right apparently to use the I.P., such as the name, the logo and the merchandise to promote the upcoming PPV and appear on the television shows. The ECW trademark owned by the bankruptcy court at this point covers arranging and conducting wrestling exhibitions as ECW both live and on television. WWF this past week made an offer of less than $1.5 million to the trustee for those rights, which would be pro-rated to the various creditors, of which listed total $8,881,435 in debt. The offer was turned down."
"There is no doubt also the feeling that many of ECW's creditors are either people in the wrestling business, who wouldn't want to get into a legal mess with WWFE either because of the expense and length of time it would drag out, or because they wouldn't want to burn that bridge for potential employment. Other licensees still making money off the ECW name, such as Pioneer Entertainment, are benefitting from this angle, because with exposure on highly rated WWF television, the ECW brand name has been strengthened."
"Some creditors are clearly up in arms, seeing Heyman close the company, and then make a soft landing with a WWF announcing and creative gig, and re-start the company's basic history and I.P. with the funding of the WWF to back it up, while the creditors remain unpaid."
"Heyman, in pulling off this swerve, proved himself to be one of the great manipulators this industry has ever seen, or simply someone who benefitted by a series of coincidences. After taking over for Jerry Lawler, from day one, he began planting the ECW seed, making as many references to the defunct company as possible. More intriguing was the slew of similar e-mails written by Heyman's minions under fictitious names, or some have insinuated, Heyman himself, to the major web sites that WWF decision makers were known to frequent in a business where playing to the internet audience as opposed to the broad audience has already proven to be part of the reason of the closure of two of the three major companies already this year. There was a consistent theme in the letters, pushing his ideas, pushing the former ECW characters like his pet projects, Spike Dudley and Rhyno in particular, but not Jerry Lynn, an ECW main eventer who politically had no shot at being pushed, knocking the ideas he was against, heavily critical of Jim Ross when the two had legitimate disagreements on the air, consistently ripping on Lawler's work in comparison to Heyman's, and most importantly, pushing ECW as a cool thing and WCW as a dead thing."
"The 7/9 television show, with angles consisting of ECW being formed, the WWF alliance with WCW against ECW and subsequent swerve back, could have been played out over months of television AFTER the WWF vs. WCW angle, correctly done, would have started to lose steam. Instead, it was a panic move to save a PPV they feared was going to die. Somehow the same writing team that wrote a WCW invasion that was bafflingly ill-thought out, has managed to hit on all the obvious storylines once ECW, with Heyman and Stephanie (clearly the stronger power broker of the two siblings, in particular since Shane's trying to play 30-year-old cool white boy dancing to rap on television is almost a butt of jokes comedy sitcom character), were thrust into the focal point."
"Even the 7/16 Raw, the first show where an ECW effect could be shown in the ratings, which did a 5.03 rating and drew the largest audience to see Raw since 4/23, was more the result of the hotshot angle teased throughout the show of the return of the Austin that everyone wanted, a sure fire ratings winner, but can be used as bragging rights that ECW had a significant effect on the numbers. The Raw ratings, falling at a scary rate after the folding of WCW, have now increased 23% since the introduction of WCW and an interpromotional angle."
"Stephanie gets television ownership and a strong storyline role and Heyman gets "protection" because of her on-air involvement combined with head writer position for what in his life is every bit his real-life baby. The McMahon family would never allow a promotion in such an angle look strong without figurehead ownership of a McMahon. In the real world, WWFE all of a sudden has a vested interest in the ECW bankruptcy, tape library, I.P. And to a degree, has to in some form satisfy the creditors enough to gain that property. Heyman gets his public role, his company still exists in exactly the way he wanted it, as he had long since tired of actually owning the company since he didn't enjoy the business aspect and it was only a money drain, but wanted to keep its name, legacy and image alive. And best of all, it's up to the WWF, which is now put itself in a position of having to settle with at least some creditors, to satisfy the paper trail he left behind, including a $587,000 debt his company owed to the WWF itself, although WWF never expected to be paid back on that. And in the only in wrestling department, the end result is Heyman, despite the mess he left in his wake, is a more powerful figure in the industry than ever before."
"Part of the difficulty in looking at master manipulators, is that often, because people recognize they are so good at it, they start being given credit for manipulations that they may have had nothing to do with. A perfect example is Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler's quitting the company. Because McMahon had the reputation as a master manipulator, there was a common belief that McMahon had Lawler's wife fired, knowing Lawler would quit, as an easy way to get rid of him. The reality is probably that he just wanted his wife fired, and things happened from there, that under the stress of the XFL going under, resulted in what happened."
"Vince McMahon, after returning from the television tapings in Atlanta and Birmingham, made the decision to at least temporarily change the schedule through September. The plan for doing Smackdown live was dropped, with the exception of the 8/16 date in Salt Lake City and the 8/23 date in Denver, due to the changing of the major angle in the company. All Thursday house shows starting with 8/30 have been canceled or moved."
"At this point, using the WCW name for Raw on Mondays was a disaster waiting to happen short-term. Eventually, the WCW negative stigma would be broken in due time with a good product, or accentuated with a bad product, but the past stigma would go away. But it was not something that would go away by 8/6, the scheduled start date, and the company would be risking very negative crowd reactions early, and weak attendance a few weeks down the line when shows were specifically advertised as WCW events."
"With the dumping of the idea of WCW as a separate crew, at least temporarily (it is still something of a long-term idea but there is no timetable on when they'll get there and it's likely things would change many times along the way), in order to at least give everyone three days off per week and make things easier on the production crew, they are reverting back to the current schedule."
"As an example of constant changes, a house show in Montreal scheduled for 9/1, over the past week became a Smackdown taping on 9/4, and later, was moved again to being a Smackdown taping on 10/16 when the decision was made to put 9/4 in Toronto, running two straight nights at the Air Canada Centre since the Raw sold out in two hours."
"There are a slew of wrestlers whose contracts were picked up in the WCW purchase that are not even part of the current angle and have never wrestled for the group, many of whom are smaller but were the wrestlers that were stealing the show in the dying days of WCW. Among those who haven't been used are Alan Funk (Kwee Wee), Elix Skipper, Sam Roman (Kid Romeo), Jayson Broyles (Jason Jett), Mark Larue (Lash Larue), David Cash (Kid Kash), James Gibson (Jamie Knoble), a mid-sized heavyweight in Rick Cornell (Reno) whose lack of height has hurt him since he was much farther along in the ring than some of the others who are getting a television role, one giant who is something of an opposite to the rest, Jerry Tuite (Sgt. Awall). John Hugger (Johnny the Bull), Shannon Moore, Evan Kavagias, Kaz Hayashi and James Yun (Yun Yang) have only one dark match each at tapings last week (the latter four reportedly having a great match) and Mike Sanders hasn't been used, but was being tried out for an announcers position."
"Turner South is airing that special WCW Classics episode with Flair and Rhodes featuring their Starrcade '85 match on 7/22, in particular great planning, going head-to-head with the Invasion PPV at 8 p.m"
"Booker T beat Bobby Eaton to headline the 7/13 HWA show in Lawrenceburg, IN in a WCW title match."
"Show opened with Spike calling Molly out. In keeping up with current pop culture, Spike did a Partridge Family reference (they could have had Awesome drive the bus in at that point). Spike told Molly that he loved her. Some boos, mostly no reaction. Molly said the same thing. Same reaction. Heyman came out to interrupt and asked Spike to come to ECW. Spike said he was staying with Molly. Paul offered him a job and said Molly could come in since ECW needs women if she got some liposuction and breast enhancement ("The Brady Bunch Movie" from a few years ago--it's like the only stuff I've watched in the last five years besides wrestling is the only stuff they've watched as well)."
"Edge's DDT is now called the buzzkiller, a dated reference used twice years ago by WCW, 1) Name of Syxx's chicken wing finisher; 2) Name of Brad Armstrong pot smoking character."
"There is no difference between a jungle kick and a superkick other than a jungle kick can only be delivered by a tall curly-haired guy wearing short trunks."
"Michael Cole, who was JR's co-announcer, declared, after two matches, that the WWF is now "0 for 3." "
"Booker T & Stephanie were hanging out when Jericho showed up. Jericho and Stephanie acted like Seinfeld and Newman which is like so three years ago."
"T then schoolboyed Jericho holding the trunks and Patrick fast counted him. This fast count proved one of pro wrestling's great unanswered questions about Patrick and fast counts. He did a real fast count here. He was supposed to, in two different Hogan-Sting matches in late 1997 supposed to fast count Sting to lead to re-starts, but both times he did what wasn't a fast count, and acted (behind the scenes, not storyline) like he didn't know what the fuss was because he had."
"The bad guys had a 15-on-4 advantage and Undertaker still never left his feet."
"Show ended with Shane & Stephanie confronting Blassie, leaving the building in a wheelchair wheeled by Brooklyn Brawler, with Stephanie telling Blassie that she can't wait for him to die. Probably heard more complaints from people in wrestling the next morning from that than anything in a while, even the stupid "bark like a dog" stuff that keeps sponsors away. Hey get ready, Heyman had Joel Gertner do a joke about JFK Jr. getting bj's from both sisters when he crashed the plane the weekend it happened"
"Heyman said that when Vince took away his father's business (well, actually he was given it, although his father did give him a deal many expected him to fail in, but let's not worry about accuracy) that his father died 14 months later (it was less than two years)."
"Stephanie said that after they win at Invasion, Vince has two or three years left and then he'll die....At this point they retaped the same interview. Stephanie didn't talk about Vince dying in the second version."
"Vince was on the phone and told the divorce proceedings are on hold. Quick way to tie up that nasty loose storyline for a while."
"Vince has a guitar and plays the theme to "Welcome Back, Kotter," but it's "Welcome Back, Austin." I hope somebody on that writing team starts watching TV from this decade soon."
"There is something of a feeling within the company that having introduced so many new characters, most of whom haven't gotten individual identities, that this is the worst time to debut a newcomer"
"With Heindreich, Jones, Leviathan and Lesnar, OVW is becoming almost another WWF with so many monsters that the average sized guys become small and the monsters can't get over as monsters."
"The belief is that DDP is still doing too much comedy in his bumping on the road shows against Undertaker and Awesome is getting mixed reviews. Awesome did great moves for a big guy, but most of those moves he's not going to be able to do here, and as a worker, he was always highly overrated because his flying moves were so impressive. In Japan and ECW, he was able to get over as a monster. But in WWF, that isn't the case and as a medium-sized guy, his weaknesses in working with people, particularly against limited workers like Undertaker and Kane, become apparent."
"The company seems most happy with the ring work of Kanyon, Kidman and Storm"
"An angle was proposed for Raw this week where Heyman would beat up Ross, but Ross nixed it"
"Ivory did a morning drive time show on 7/13 in Sacramento to promote the 8/20 Raw in Sacramento. What was interesting, is that she stated from the very beginning it would most likely be a WCW show, but said that plans could change. I was surprised they would still be thinking along those lines and that communication was such that they didn't inform her of plan changes before doing the promotional work. They were giving away tickets to the show and a caller told her that he and his whole family would show up wearing RTC outfits. She immediately responded, "You're willing to look like an idiot, since the gimmick is over." "
"The feeling among the wrestlers is that the reason the WCW angle failed, is because with only a few exceptions, none of the guys can work. Except, how much chance did they have to prove it? Think about this, Booker vs. Bagwell stunk. Helms vs. Kidman, both were rusty, but they still had a better match than all but probably one match on that show. Booker vs. Page was very good, the only problem was the crowd mentally quitting on them before they even started. But despite a lot of talk inside that this isn't the case, most of the WWF wrestlers have a very negative attitude still toward most of the WCW wrestlers on the dressing room etiquette and lack of respect, and there is already negativity among the WWF wrestlers with the agents hired from WCW (and if they don't go to split crews, these will be the guys whose jobs are in jeopardy), in specific Ricky Santana, Dave Finlay and Arn Anderson. Johnny Ace, the ultimate politician, who has a tremendous knack of telling everyone what they want to hear, is the exception to that"
"There has been a lot of comments on some apparently rapid physical changes in Lita. If she was just physically harder and more muscular, that would be one thing, but her face has seemed to change with it"
"Most of the house shows were interpromotional style matches and with the exception of Booker over Angle, the WWF won all of the ones against WCW (and split the two against ECW)."
"In New Haven, reports were a lot of fans were leaving during the T vs. Angle match, in which Angle played face and fans even chanted his name."
"The strict WWF vs. WCW crowd response wasn't always there as Kidman got cheered against X-Pac."
"The WCW women don't have a clue how to wrestle. Like, should they? They never were trained."
"Backstage story this week. Jindrak & O'Haire at catering sat at a table where HHH was and kept to themselves. They never introduced themselves, and after a while, HHH got up, and made a minor production over introducing himself to them. The basic gist is that some of the WCW are cockier than they should be, but others who are coming across not so well, simply don't know better"
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 17, 2020 10:34:24 GMT -5
"Backstage story this week. Jindrak & O'Haire at catering sat at a table where HHH was and kept to themselves. They never introduced themselves, and after a while, HHH got up, and made a minor production over introducing himself to them. The basic gist is that some of the WCW are cockier than they should be, but others who are coming across not so well, simply don't know better"
Uh-oh the shaking hands with UT meme is about to be born.
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Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Nov 17, 2020 22:54:06 GMT -5
I’m that person. The one guy who loathed ECW getting shoehorned into the Invasion and saw it as killing the most anticipated angle ever.
Yeah. WCW was floundering, but had they done it right, ECW shouldn’t have factored into the plot for months. Hell, YEARS. We needed to exhaust the dream of WCW vs. WWF before they added in the rogue cult promotion.
But within a year, they’d already burn through WCW, ECW, and the nWo. And reintroduce Flair the night after WCW ended and Bischoff the week after the nWo. They botched every single aspect of all of this save for that initial simulcast.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2020 10:41:11 GMT -5
July 30, 01
"Just a few weeks ago, the World Wrestling Federation appeared to be on its way down. Bad booking, lack of making fresh stars, all the usual reasons. Then, as pro wrestling shows, the right angle can turn it all around. The Invasion PPV on 7/22 from the Gund Arena in Cleveland appears to have been a major success based on three things happening, 1) ECW was injected into the interpromotional angle; 2) The booking of the interpromotional angle, once head writer Stephanie McMahon and Paul Heyman was involved as characters, suddenly got inspired; and 3) They gave the fans what they wanted. The Steve Austin that sold tickets. Preliminary indicators, such as attendance at the Famous Players theaters in Canada as compared with usual shows, volume of feedback, and television ratings from 7/23 (5.35 rating, best number since 4/9), are all positive signs of a turnaround. But regarding point three, then it was taken away."
"The end result of the first Austin turn at Wrestlemania less than four months ago was a downturn in most every facet of business, ratings, merchandise, attendance and PPV all dropped, in most cases significantly. The tease of turning him back turned things around, remarkably fast, in conjunction with the strong television main angle."
"Unlike the first time Austin turned when he had no opponents except for resurrecting an old feud with Undertaker, and the company failed to pull the trigger on creating new opponents, instead focusing on the "Power Trip" vignettes which turned out to be a ratings killing program, he is loaded with opponents now. Austin had what should be big money programs lined up with Rock and HHH, and with Angle's turn, a third program, not to mention Undertaker still in that position if they need something quick in the event of an injury since their last program was left open ended. The heel side, due to the interpromotional angle, was being headed by Booker T, DDP and Rhyno. Clearly, from a marquee value standpoint, it was totally unbalanced. Second, for the main storyline, the idea that ECW/WCW stole the WWF championship is a strong program."
"The Austin turn had more impact than the other possibilities, which were Angle and Chris Jericho, since the show basically had to end with the ECW/WCW winning the last match due to a member of the team turning. Clearly this is being booked as a copy of the NWO, with a very similar first angle when Hulk Hogan turned. Of course, there was a huge difference between Hulk Hogan in 1996, who nobody wanted to cheer anymore, and Steve Austin in 2001. On paper, it's the right move for balancing faces and heels and having a series of marquee heel vs. face main event programs. The risk that Austin's sudden invigoration, which was one of two key reasons for this show having so much interest, is negated by being in a position where he didn't draw before (although he didn't have as strong an angle) should be alleviated by the return, first of Rock, then of HHH."
"The decision also appears to have been made not to go with Austin vs. Rock as the main event at SummerSlam on 8/19 in San Jose, and instead do the title vs. title gimmick with Austin against new WCW champ Angle (who won the title at Smackdown on 7/24 in Pittsburgh). It's the right call from a longevity standpoint. Rock's first big match back, which will be SummerSlam, should increase business just by his return, just as Austin's returns, just for run-ins, increased business on two shows last year. Then you are still saving the first Rock vs. Austin match for down the line and theoretically have another big money show."
"As it turned out, Austin did the main event with three broken bones in his back and two broken bones in his hand courtesy of the bump he took at the 6/24 King of the Ring show when Booker T threw him over the announcers table. Austin was x-rayed after the show which didn't reveal any broken bones, but he was in continual pain, particularly his back when just doing anything physical, and had further tests done on 7/19 which revealed the five breaks. He had breaks of the L-2, L-3 and L-4 bones, which are not weight bearing bones, so was able to gut it out in the PPV. The current estimate is that Austin would return to active wrestling on 8/5 in San Diego. He wasn't the only one who went into the main event hurt, as Jericho worked with a hyperextended elbow, while Angle had whiplash and a black eye from the 7/17 show in Boston."
"They actually had a good story of both teams wanting to win the majority of the matches, but there should have been something tangible, maybe it was too early for the Raw time slot but something of significance like maybe matchmaking capabilities for one hour of each show, if the heel side won. That way Austin's turn would have been even more impactful, as not only did they get the champ, but the power to book matches. It also would have added significance to the undercard matches."
"If they aren't going to run two separate companies, they desperately need to whittle down the number of belts. There is no need for two tag team champions, especially when neither is that good and a unification match has already been held with one team going over. Nor two cruiserweight champions since it's a division WWF has traditionally shit on to begin with and fans have been taught for years not to care about"
"If it wasn't for Van Dam and Hardy, it probably would have been considered a bad show, but good and bad on this show is something best determined in a few weeks by if the Austin angle draws money this time."
"A funny thing not noticeable on television is the stage crew was still working on the set, literally until the last minute. They were even working during the Heat match, sawing plywood and hammering it together to assemble the left side of the "V" ramp. If you notice, Chavo Guerrero Jr. had to walk down the WWF walkway because the ECW/WCW ram wasn't finished yet. The gates opened 30 minutes later because they were also still putting up the floor seats. WWF traditionally likes to book two days in the arenas for PPV events, with the first day being the set-up. They couldn't in this case because the WNBA Rockers game the night before went long since it was "N'Sync Experience Night" which featured a post game party with the new N'Sync album. The clean-up crew didn't even get started until 11 p.m. the night before which explained the timing problems."
"The WWF reached a temporary agreement two days before the show to use the ECW name through 7/31. Trustee Barbara Balaber-Strauss maintained that the ECW intellectual property was owned by the estate of ECW and controlled by her, and the WWF's usage of it up to that point had been unauthorized, particularly after she received complaints about its usage from ECW creditors. WWF upped its offer of $150,000 last week for the trademarks and videotape library, which had been turned down, to $250,000, and agreed to send a non-refundable cash advance of $50,000 on 7/23, the first day of business after the agreement, on the proposed purchase. Since thus far WWF appears to be the only interested party, Strauss, upon receiving the offer, waived the rights to take legal action against WWFE for its previous unauthorized use of the ECW name. If another party offers more for the ECW trademarks and videotape library, WWF would forfeit its cash advance."
"The WWF's legal claim is that nobody owns the ECW name because the trademarks had been abandoned when ECW went out of business and filed for bankruptcy because Paul Heyman, the owner of HHG, claimed to have abandoned his rights to the trademarks before filing for the bankruptcy. The WWF claimed because nobody had rights to the trademark, it doesn't need any consent or permission from the trustee or anyone to use them. However, Balaber-Strauss didn't see things that way and asserted a liability claim against WWFE for infringing upon the trademark and unauthorized use of the ECW Intellectual Property in doing the television angle. In order to avoid legal action between the two sides, the agreement was reached. The agreement has the trustee, or any future owners of the trademarks or intellectual property (but not current debtors) forever discharges any claims against WWFE for its usage of the ECW name as well as people doing business with WWFE."
"During the days leading up to the PPV, at least one WWF business partner, Famous Players theaters in Canada, had requested the WWF send them a signed legal paper indemnifying them by the WWF of any future legal risks provided a ECW creditor would come after them as well for making using the names in selling tickets to the PPV."
"The agreement allows WWF to continue using what the trustee claims is the ECW intellectual property at least through 7/31. After that point, if a final deal isn't made for the WWF to purchase the trademarks and I.P., Balaber-Strauss can pull the WWF rights to use it by giving them 72 hours written notice. If a third party ends up buying the rights, the WWF will have 30 days from the time the deal is finalized to end all usage of the intellectual property and trademarks, although WWF would maintain the rights to sell television tapes forever that were done during the time frame that used the I.P. or trademarks."
"APA had to win, or WWF would have both its champs lose the interpromotional. Trish & Lita had to win because the idea was to get Torrie Wilson & Stacey Keibler over by people seeing them in their undies. Obviously Earl Hebner wasn't going to lose to Nick Patrick."
"Fans were not happy when Guerrero kicked out of the worm. It's like everyone knows that move is a ridiculous finisher, but they love it anyway and Guerrero "ruined the illusion" as opposed to kicked out to make the match better."
"X-Pac was still booed, even on the WWF team, and played heel from the start."
"The word on Kidman was always that he desperately needed a new ring outfit. Now that he's got one, he still does as those tight biker shorts are so four years ago."
"Fans didn't seem to care about Gunn, who did that heel turn that nobody saw and didn't register. They didn't know how to take Albert, since he's on TV as a heel."
"Hardy then grabbed a 12-foot ladder (said to be 20, which would be the case if both these guys were actually 10 feet tall)."
"Van Dam dropkicked a chair into Hardy's face, which seemed to be the spot where Hardy's head split open pretty big, which may have been a hardway."
"Keibler didn't seem that happy about being in her bra, like her parents actually didn't encourage her to be a stripper growing up."
"Austin was on the floor selling his knee big-time, with a fake EMT guy helping him out. For some reason, this was never acknowledged. I can't believe something so important was missed, so it appeared they now have the mindset that if they ignore important parts of the match, that fans will think, "Aha, the announcers aren't talking about it even though we are seeing it so it must be real." They need to be thinking about the other 95 percent of the audience."
"Heyman himself declared personal bankruptcy on 6/22, something that was not unexpected. Heyman claimed $2,830,385.74 in debts at the filing, claiming he was owed $128,000 in unpaid wages from HHG (this raised the ire of some creditors who had been told Heyman never took a salary in running ECW). Most of the creditors listed were duplicates of creditors already listed in the HHG bankruptcy case. In the filing, Heyman listed his current employer at WWFE as a television writer claiming a salary of $4,000 per month."
"Raw on 7/23 drew a 5.35 rating (4.94 first hour; 5.71 second hour) and an 8.6 share which translates into about 6.95 million viewers. It was the fifth highest rated Raw of the year, and represents an amazing 31% increase in viewership since the show bottomed out on 6/11, which the majority of which can be attributed to the interpromotional angle. The show started out strong, with a 4.50 first quarter with Austin's interview after joining with the confederacy, and the audience grew consistently, with no down spots."
"This increase has to be credited to curiosity over Austin, and it should be noted that the highest rated Raw of the year, the day after Mania, was also after Austin did the turn based on that same curiosity, and it went into the rapid decline immediately. This time, with Rock coming back, there is no reason for that to hold true, but only time will tell."
"Before the Raw show started, Ross did a big speech ripping on Austin, to make sure the crowd wouldn't cheer him when he came out a few minutes later when they were on the air. As it was, the crowd didn't cheer or boo Austin, but Ross got a big pop"
"Undertaker pinned Rhyno in 2:35 with a choke slam. Although he beat him clean, Undertaker sold more for Rhyno than he ever did for Angle or most anyone except your Austin and HHH types. Page went after Sara at the finish and Undertaker beat up Page, throwing him into the crowd, over the barricade back to ringside. Sara put the boots to Page. He was taking such an unmerciful beating you almost wanted him to be saved. Taker went for a chair shot, but Page pulled Sara in the path of the chair and she took the hit. Taker did the King Kong bit carrying a limp Sara to the back, while Page ran away and drove off, but not before saying how much he was turned on seeing Sara like that."
"They had some problems here. Angle suplexed D-Von on a table that didn't break. Second suplex broke the table. Angle slam on Booker on a table that didn't break, so had to whip him hard through a vertical table to eliminate him."
"One interesting result on Heat is that Bob Holly pinned Awesome clean. The WWF talent (read that Undertaker) that had worked with Awesome had not been impressed and I guess this is the result."
"Before the show went on the air, JR again gave the speech about Austin to make sure nobody cheered him."
"They simply said Kanyon was the new U.S. champ and Booker gave him the belt. What's even the point of having it? They should just make 40 belts, that way everyone can have one, and every match on the card can be a championship match."
"A correction, David Cash isn't signed to a WWF deal. I believe when I asked about Kid Kash being under contract, it was probably confused with Kid Romeo"
"There is more fear of job security in the locker room now than ever before with so many wrestlers having been signed and the feeling there is no other place to work. Because of the feeling that unless you're a tippity top guy, it's "out of sight, out of mind" and many wrestlers are either hiding serious injuries or downplaying them so they aren't off TV and forgotten about. In addition, for similar reasons, those who know are saying the steroid use because of the pressure to look good and get a spot is at an all-time high"
"Fashion faux pas at the PPV. Van Dam, unbeknownst to him, when he got his airbrushed tights, had a skull on it, which is Austin's gimmick. The feeling on Van Dam was mixed after the show. Many thought he was awesome since his match stole the show. Others thought that he didn't know how to work and wouldn't be able to adapt if he didn't have the "right" opponent like Hardy was"
"The whole storyline with Angle and especially Austin hugging Vince was an inside parody on DDP. When Page first cut his deal with Vince and Vince went to shake his hand, Page hugged Vince like they were long-time best friends and they made a storyline out of it"
"HHH had been going to TV's the past three weeks helping with the booking of the shows. He was told by his doctors that all the travelling was getting him behind on rehab, and to stop leaving every week or his return to the ring will be delayed. He's taking the hint and won't be around much for now"
"Remember the WWF web site version of the history of WCW? Contrast this with their version of the history of ECW: "For years, sports-entertainment fans shared their opinions on how the industry rose from the depths of despair in 1995 to the billion-dollar entity it is today. It's simple: Once ECW began making a name for itself in 1995, fans started to care again. Tired of watching something that Vince McMahon eventually admitted was "passe" and of which the audience was "tired of having its intelligence insulted," fans looked at ECW as a return to the roots of sports entertainment. ECW had violence. It had passion. Fans felt like they were part of the show. Best of all, ECW had attitude, and it provided the U.S. a mix of barbaric commotion and athleticism only seen in Japan. It was no coincidence that the "big two" began seeing ECW as an innovative influence. ECW helped win back old-school fans and helped changed the industry for good. Gone were the days of Saturday morning wrestling on local channels. Gone were the days of the good guys kissing babies and shaking hands. And gone were the gimmicks better suited for children's theater. Thank ECW for that. And thank ECW for turning Aldo Montoya into Justin Credible, for showing us the true talent of the Dudley Boyz, Tazz, Rhyno, Lance Storm, Raven, Tommy Dreamer and Rob Van Dam (to name a few), and for displaying the true genius of Paul Heyman. Today, the magic is back--and then some. Heyman's creativity is backed up by Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley and her billions of dollars. It's a winning combination, one that will provide the same hardcore, close-to-the-heart theater that defined ECW, this time on a much grander stage." That line about Saturday morning wrestling on local channels is really funny, as if ECW had anything to do with WWF starting on prime time (which took place in 1984) or Ted Turner agreeing to Eric Bischoff's proposal to start Nitro. But why not, they still do that Vince took wrestling out of smoky arenas stories, which had more to do with smoking laws being passed in the same major arenas that wrestling had always run in"
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Post by Ryushinku on Nov 18, 2020 12:41:22 GMT -5
I’m that person. The one guy who loathed ECW getting shoehorned into the Invasion and saw it as killing the most anticipated angle ever. Yeah. WCW was floundering, but had they done it right, ECW shouldn’t have factored into the plot for months. Hell, YEARS. We needed to exhaust the dream of WCW vs. WWF before they added in the rogue cult promotion. But within a year, they’d already burn through WCW, ECW, and the nWo. And reintroduce Flair the night after WCW ended and Bischoff the week after the nWo. They botched every single aspect of all of this save for that initial simulcast. From the booking point of view, it was totally kid in a candy store stuff, yeah. And then from the workers point of view, they really ignored both the legitimate bad feeling in some quarters and also the simple different physical logistics of the WWF and WCW rings and style.
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Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Nov 18, 2020 15:56:10 GMT -5
I’m that person. The one guy who loathed ECW getting shoehorned into the Invasion and saw it as killing the most anticipated angle ever. Yeah. WCW was floundering, but had they done it right, ECW shouldn’t have factored into the plot for months. Hell, YEARS. We needed to exhaust the dream of WCW vs. WWF before they added in the rogue cult promotion. But within a year, they’d already burn through WCW, ECW, and the nWo. And reintroduce Flair the night after WCW ended and Bischoff the week after the nWo. They botched every single aspect of all of this save for that initial simulcast. From the booking point of view, it was totally kid in a candy store stuff, yeah. And then from the workers point of view, they really ignored both the legitimate bad feeling in some quarters and also the simple different physical logistics of the WWF and WCW rings and style. Yeah, but if ever there was a time to put aside politics and petty grudges, it was the ultimate wrestling storyline. That's not even hindsight. That was clear as day in 2001 as it was now. I wonder if the XFL crashing and burning just before all of this began really dulled Vince's instincts and made him as insecure and petty he was towards the very concept of WCW (which he OWNED and was trying to get in television with its own programming!). I feel like Heyman was also in his ear in a Lord of the Rings Gollum sort of way, getting them to jump the gun in reviving ECW long before it should have happened, creating the insipid mess we got. They could have done what they did in April and May and slowly kept checking in with Shane and the progress of WCW all throughout the summer, then fired the gun when Flair was available in November. In the meantime, let all of the greener WCW guys spend those months getting retrained in WWF rings.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2020 3:31:03 GMT -5
August 6, 01
"The actual purchase price of World Championship Wrestling from Time Warner was $2.5 million according to figures released this week by WWFE in its annual Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Much of the material in the report just broke down in more detail the previous annual earnings report released by the company. But in breaking things down into more detail, WWFE listed $2.5 million at the purchase price for the trademarks, some contracts and videotape library of WCW and another $1.8 million in costs to the company in the negotiations."
"The WWF actually spent less money on buying their rivals than the $2.9 million it spent on an NHRA race car or the money it spent annually just for the travel of the inner circle to and from television tapings in the private jet. The WWF's purchase deal also included a three-year undisclosed amount contract that the company must purchase a minimum amount of advertising on AOL Time Warner owned media companies."
"WWFE receives $15.6 million annually for production costs from UPN for Smackdown and $28.6 million annually for rights fees from Viacom."
"The company also spent $3.5 million in increased travel costs for the year, mostly because of the use of the WWF corporate jet."
"It projected the May through July quarter as soft, with an $84.5 million projection and that includes a $9.3 million license sale figured in."
"The company's biggest quarter in its history was $131.8 million for this past February through April, which also shows the May through July period will see gross revenue across the board drop an estimated 36% from the previous quarter."
"The projections, when it comes to arena business is to increase from four to six shows per week, and maintain an average attendance in the range of 10,000 paid and $330,000 per show, as well as average a 5.5 rating on Raw and a 4.6 on Smackdown for the year, all of which sound optimistic even with the recent growth spurt in ratings."
"It is also worth noting that the company's contract with DirecTV, which has about eight million PPV subscribers, ends effective with the SummerSlam PPV and the two companies have not come to terms for a renewal."
"Starting this week at Smackdown, while the ECW term was used a few times as well as the graphic, there was a big change in that everyone was calling both WCW and ECW simply "the alliance," which seems to be a transition into that as the term, perhaps after this week when all the bankruptcy proceedings go into high gear."
"The Annodeus (My Note: A division of Acclaim) filing listed the salary structure in ECW as of 1999, when the company bailed ECW out of its financial problems. Performers under contract to HHG and their annual salary at the time were: Bill Alfonso--$32,000, Terry Brunk (Sabu)--$156,000, Steve Corino $32,000, Lance Evers (Storm)--$160,000, Francine Fournier $58,500, Matt Hyson (Spike Dudley)--$75,000, Francisco Pantoja (Super Crazy)--$52,000, Tom Laughlin (Dreamer)--$130,000, Jerry Lynn--$104,000, Peter Polaco (Justin Credible)--$91,000, Dawn Psalitis (Dawn Marie)--$75,000, Peter Senerca (Taz)--$380,000 and that's not a typo as at the time WCW and WWF had interest in him and Heyman must have felt he needed him, but ultimately agreeing to a deal of that size and not being able to live up to it wound up with him leaving, Rob Szatkowski (Van Dam)--$156,000 and Yoshihiro Tajiri--$52,000. The other major stars of the company at that point in time, including Bubba & D-Von Dudley, were not under an annual contract. In addition, Steve Karel was under a $150,000 contract to the front office and there was a contract with ECW Management Group, whatever that means, for a $180,000 per year deal."
"Annodeus Inc. lent HHG $1 million officially on August 25, 1999 to continue operations against future video game royalties that the company would receive, which would come due on February 25, 2002. On January 31, 2000, the company lent another $175,000 that HHG claimed it would repay ten days later and failed to do so. A third loan of $350,000 was taken on the same day, but with the promise it would be paid back on June 30, 2000 with 10.75 percent per annum interest. The loans actually started on May 7, 1999 ($100,000), June 29, 1999 ($100,000), August 20, 1999 ($125,000), September 2, 1999 ($675,000) along with the aforementioned early 2000 transactions. The September 2 loan was mainly HHG taking out a loan to repay money owed for television production, merchandise, taxes, mailing expenses, legal expenses (which totalled $246,000 of the $675,000 borrowed at the time) and money the company already owed to Troy Martin (Shane Douglas), Szatkowski, Chris Candido and Laughlin, which totalled $140,000. The $45,000 to Szatkowski was an estimated figure based on the company's contractual obligation to cover family medical expenses and the high figure due to wife Sonia's serious boating accident injuries."
"ECW's deal with TNN was to pay the network $150,000 for production costs as well as pay TNN a percentage of company gross revenue from all sources, eight percent of total revenues and 10 percent of any profits over an agreement of 30 months that went into effect in September of 1999."
"The return of The Rock on 7/30 drew the highest rated segment on Raw in nearly one year and the second highest rated show in the ten month history of the show on TNN, capping off an amazing seven week recovery period for the show which had just done its biggest short-term collapse in the show's history."
"The show did a 5.68 rating (5.15 first hour; 6.13 second hour) and 9.1 share for a show that was the most heavily promoted Raw show in recent memory with TNN plugging the return of Rock in nearly every commercial break over the weekend and swelled the audience to about 7.6 million viewers, a 40% increase since bottoming out. The overrun, with the McMahon family waiting in the ring for Rock to make his decision, drew a 7.12 rating and 12.7 share (9.2 million viewers), the highest rated segment in nearly one year, since a 7.69 rating for a Stephanie vs. Lita match with Rock as referee and HHH, Angle and the Hardys in respective corners on 8/21. Raw's record on TNN was a 5.78 rating on 12/11 for a show built around the Vince McMahon vs. Mick Foley feud."
"There was some legit underlying heat during the filming of the Dusty Rhodes-Ric Flair Turner South special that aired on 7/22. Rhodes basically considers the WCW Classics as his show. When the idea was given to bring in a full-time antagonist on the show, and have it be Flair (who is basically being paid a lot to do nothing by Time Warner these days), Rhodes was against it although the special was heavily promoted. The situation got so funny as when Turner South aired a premiere of the special at the ESPN Zone in Atlanta, Flair wasn't even invited"
"Dusty Rhodes looked really bad in the ring the first night before 390, wrestled Larry Zbyszko (complete with Zbyszko taking eight minutes to lock-up), which turned into tag matches with Dustin and Luther Biggs. Of course, Dusty only had to wiggle his finger for those in attendance to become unglued. Technically it wasn't a tag since Dustin is still collecting on his Time Warner contract for almost $15,000 per week and wink, wink, can't wrestle until 8/1."
"TNN will be dropping both the Superstars and Live Wire morning shows and in exchange, WWF will be getting a two hour Saturday night time slot from 10 p.m. to midnight. This enables TNN to add another hour of WWF programming within the prime time window to make it appear the station is doing better, while at the same time not increasing the numbers of hours per week for wrestling. The new show will be a magazine style format, similar to what Superstars and Live Wire were, with a lot of features, and not a separate third taping (the initial idea for a WCW show) as was the original plan when negotiations began for this time slot. Superstars and Live Wire will continue to be produced because of international television contracts."
"Lawler and Stacy Carter split up three weeks ago and she asked for a divorce"
"Ch. 4 in the UK announced this week it was cancelling all WWF programming effective when its contract expires at the end of the year. The station aired Heat and several of the PPV shows. Ratings were not a factor but instead the reason was "increasingly violent scenes" and the portrayal of women on the show. The WWF's key shows, Raw and Smackdown and half the PPV events, air on Sky, which has far less widespread penetration than a major broadcast station. The decision was criticized because the station had aired a comedy show on paedophilia the day before wrestling was canceled, which drew more than 1,000 complaints, while wrestling received relatively few viewer complaints"
"One thing striking was just how much Rock's appearance has changed. The loss of upper body mass isn't a surprise (which is likely why the shirt never came off), since he's been doing movies and that tends to happen. But the loss of hair over three months was."
"Lots of surprises being in Philadelphia. There were people who thought because it was the home of ECW, that the crowd would cheer Heyman and company and some even expected WWF to be booed. As it turned out, there were very few ECW shirts in the audience, and while there were some chants, they were weak except in Van Dam vs. Tajiri and died out quickly."
"Debra brought out cookies and Booker inadvertently ate one and felt sick. I think this was taken from the 60s sit-com "Green Acres" where the star had a ditzy blond wife (played by Eva Gabor) whose pancakes were so horrible and so hard they snuck them away from the table and used them as shingles. By the way, that was one of the greatest shows of all-time."
"Everyone fawned over it being Rock. Instead, Kanyon got out and everyone walked away. Love those gimmicks where the idea is you're making fun of how not over you are. Did wonders for Kroffat & Furnas as I recall. I know, Angle pulled out of it okay, but Angle is going to end up like Flair, coming out of a career of lame ideas okay."
"Helms & Wilson beat Matt Hardy & Lita. The women worked the first 2:00 strangely enough and, not strangely enough, it was horrible. Finish saw Wilson give Matt a low blow and Helms pin him with an inside cradle. Very nice of Matt to put his friend over. He could have been "clever" and explained Helms would get over losing to him by getting the rub of being in the ring with him (I still love that one when I hear it). Nice to see Helms get a chance."
"Test was back on TV. He's been stuck in dropped angle oblivion and he looked like he's aged 15 years in the last few weeks."
"Kanyon & Storm beat E&C when Kanyon gave Edge a downward spiral on a chair and Storm pinned him. Since this was Awesome's program, you can see he's out of the picture, jobbing on syndication instead of feuding over who is really Awesome."
"Angle did a total face interview, and also, the single worst interview he's done since joining WWF. Way too goody two shoes."
"In a title vs. title match, X-Pac pinned Kidman in 3:54 to be the first double champion. Kidman tried to turn himself heel during the commercial break, ripping on the sports teams. They were concerned because X-Pac was the only WWF guy to get booed. Well, he didn't get cheered anyway. These two had the best match on the show, but everyone thought Vam Dam and Tajiri did because they had heat and crowd was quiet for this one. Clean win with an X-factor as Kidman came off the top rope. That result does make no sense, but it's totally expected."
"T regained the WCW title from Angle in 8:17.....Austin gave Angle the stunner and revived Earl Hebner to count the fall. So much for title vs. title at the PPV. Angle will survive what Jeff Hardy couldn't."
"Angle chased Austin out of the building and somehow couldn't get Austin, who isn't exactly a speed demon these days. Austin got in his truck and drove off, leaving his wife behind. Angle confronted her and told her that her cookies sucked."
"DDP did a run-in, tripped on his way in, and cut up his head. It's so sad when a guy is becoming an inside joke and then does something like this."
"Should be noted they put RVD over Lynn on Heat and the two had a spectacular match, although the crowd didn't understand the psychology of the two selling familiarity with each others' moves. Probably still won't get Lynn out of the doghouse."
"Storm came out with a Canadian flag. I think I saw this in Wrestling with Shadows. Then again, I think we saw everything in some form in that one. Storm talked about the crime rate and lack of health care in the U.S. Sound familiar?"
"Austin bumped into Stasiak. Austin was super condescending, acting like he didn't even know who Stasiak was or that he was even a wrestler. After Stasiak left, Austin asked Debra who he was. Sounds like a bad idea, but since it's Stasiak, who has no real upside anyway, it sounded hilarious."
"Keibler offered Austin cookies. Austin liked her cookies. Debra got mad. Debra, don't let them book your marriage problems. Ask Chyna how this one goes."
"Rock did an interview. Place went nuts. Booker came out. Rock acted like he didn't know who he was. That's fine for Stasiak, but is so demeaning for Booker. Also set up Rock vs. Shane in a street fight for Raw on 8/6 in LA. You know how they say some football players have a nose for the end zone? Those McMahons have a nose for those high quarter hours"
"They are looking at signing Sharmell Sullivan (Paisley in WCW) to have her train in OVW. Even though she is talented and has a lot of potential as a spokesperson because she understands from the beauty pageant days about how to professionally conduct herself publicly, it's like they don't have enough women on the roster that they have no idea what to do with."
"I believe that Elix Skipper, Shannon Moore, Evan Karagias, James Yun (Yun Yang), Kaz Hayashi, Sam Roman (Kid Romeo), John Hugger (Johnny the Bull), Rick Cornell (Reno), Jason Broyles (Jason Jett aka E.Z. Money), James Gibson (Jamie Knoble) and Alan Funk (Kwee Wee) are being assigned to HWA shortly. That list is for sure close to accurate but may not be 100% accurate"
"Jerry Tuite (The Wall) was actually the first former WCW wrestler let go, about two months ago due to drug addiction problems, which was the reason he disappeared from WCW TV abruptly. Tuite recently completed rehab"
"Best bout was Tazz & Van Dam & Rhyno & Awesome over Jericho & Kane & Regal & Tajiri when Dreamer interfered leading to Van Dam pinning Tajiri. This match at least at the time was considered a dry run for a SummerSlam match. Fans cheered for Tazz & Van Dam."
"X-Pac was actually cheered, although it took pre-match mic work to do so for his match with Credible."
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 19, 2020 9:18:12 GMT -5
From the booking point of view, it was totally kid in a candy store stuff, yeah. And then from the workers point of view, they really ignored both the legitimate bad feeling in some quarters and also the simple different physical logistics of the WWF and WCW rings and style. Yeah, but if ever there was a time to put aside politics and petty grudges, it was the ultimate wrestling storyline. That's not even hindsight. That was clear as day in 2001 as it was now. I wonder if the XFL crashing and burning just before all of this began really dulled Vince's instincts and made him as insecure and petty he was towards the very concept of WCW (which he OWNED and was trying to get in television with its own programming!). I feel like Heyman was also in his ear in a Lord of the Rings Gollum sort of way, getting them to jump the gun in reviving ECW long before it should have happened, creating the insipid mess we got. He's always been like that with "outsiders." Look at (most) JCP/WCW'ers he signed long before the InVasion. Only ones who stood a chance were ones strongly misused by WCW, which gave Vince a chance to give said talent a chance to prove them wrong. Shoot, he's like that NOW with his own WWE brands. Seems like unless you were his baby (Raw), prepare to be treated like second-or-more class citizens.
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saneiac
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 3,952
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Post by saneiac on Nov 19, 2020 10:49:52 GMT -5
So the answer to "Why didn't the Invasion work?" is a combination of Vince's pettiness, overpriced contracts, difficulties with TV networks, poor crowd response, bad attitudes, inexperience, accidents, and external legal issues.
All this is interesting, but not nearly as much fun to read about as the days of the "real" WCW, when the answer to every "Why didn't such-and-such work?" was "Gross incompetence".
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 19, 2020 10:53:59 GMT -5
I think as a bonus we should go back to 1990. Yes the rebranding finished in 1991, but you have things in '90 like Sting's injury, Robocop, El Gigante, the Black Scorpion, the departure of 2/3rds of the Midnight Express, and more.
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
The Ultimate Arbiter of Right And Wrong
Spent half my life here, God help me
Posts: 15,077
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Nov 19, 2020 11:13:21 GMT -5
"Ch. 4 in the UK announced this week it was cancelling all WWF programming effective when its contract expires at the end of the year. The station aired Heat and several of the PPV shows. Ratings were not a factor but instead the reason was "increasingly violent scenes" and the portrayal of women on the show. The WWF's key shows, Raw and Smackdown and half the PPV events, air on Sky, which has far less widespread penetration than a major broadcast station. The decision was criticized because the station had aired a comedy show on paedophilia the day before wrestling was canceled, which drew more than 1,000 complaints, while wrestling received relatively few viewer complaints" Just to say, Brass Eye is amazing satire, it was a faux news program about media hysteria, calling it a comedy show about paedophilia is really not doing it justice, they also did ones on drugs, crime, sex. It's great stuff if you can track it down.
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Post by jason1980s on Nov 19, 2020 11:31:16 GMT -5
It would be interesting to see how petty Vince could be if he got all the big stars at once. I think it could probably only hurt the future of the angle as it would have all been downhill from there. But aside from pettiness I can't see how the angle would have worked well. WCW guys who were mid carders in WCW could only be jobbers in WWF. There was probably a reason they went to WCW instead of WCW when they first started. WWF fans had a different belief of what a star would be and guys like Jindrak and O'Haire, Hugh Morris, Kanyon and others were not stars. The ECW guys were probably more well known to WWF fans and more popular than anyone from WCW who was not a major star.
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 19, 2020 11:33:26 GMT -5
It would be interesting to see how petty Vince could be if he got all the big stars at once. I think it could probably only hurt the future of the angle as it would have all been downhill from there. But aside from pettiness I can't see how the angle would have worked well. WCW guys who were mid carders in WCW could only be jobbers in WWF. There was probably a reason they went to WCW instead of WCW when they first started. WWF fans had a different belief of what a star would be and guys like Jindrak and O'Haire, Hugh Morris, Kanyon and others were not stars. The ECW guys were probably more well known to WWF fans and more popular than anyone from WCW who was not a major star. I think, when he did get them, we saw the answer would be yes.
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Post by Terry McConkey on Nov 19, 2020 21:37:36 GMT -5
I’m that person. The one guy who loathed ECW getting shoehorned into the Invasion and saw it as killing the most anticipated angle ever. Yeah. WCW was floundering, but had they done it right, ECW shouldn’t have factored into the plot for months. Hell, YEARS. We needed to exhaust the dream of WCW vs. WWF before they added in the rogue cult promotion. But within a year, they’d already burn through WCW, ECW, and the nWo. And reintroduce Flair the night after WCW ended and Bischoff the week after the nWo. They botched every single aspect of all of this save for that initial simulcast. It was not well thought out. Once TNN realized that they'd be getting the WCW B show and not the stars, it seems like the writing was on the wall. Also, the failure of the XFL right around this time didn't help as it siphoned a lot of money from WWFE.
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Post by Terry McConkey on Nov 19, 2020 22:22:59 GMT -5
Oh, so it would be an outdated reference if Bobby Heenan made it but not Dave Meltzer? Hypocrite.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2020 5:49:43 GMT -5
August 13, 01
"The Invasion PPV on 7/22 in Cleveland, based on preliminary reports, looks to have done a 1.6 buy rate. With the ever-expanding PPV universe, it would be 750,000 buys, making it, if these numbers hold up, the fourth most purchased pro wrestling PPV in history, trailing only the past three Wrestlemanias. SummerSlam, which is being far more heavily promoted within the cable industry because of the belief the return of the Rock (who did both his first TV appearance and match on Raw the past two weeks) will lead to another large number. It's pretty clear the Invasion number was drawn both based on the interpromotional aspect, this being the first big event, as well as the tease of the return of the old Stone Cold, which no matter what TV and movie executives think of Rock, it is Austin, well at least the old Austin, who has always been the bigger PPV draw."
"How long this will last is anyone's guess. It came back so quickly after falling so fast. The comeback seems to have resulted in long-term plans going back to where they were just a few weeks ago before the crowd reaction in Tacoma, and whatever else, caused the original plans to split promotions and make Raw a WCW show on 8/6, to be thrown out."
"The plans at this point, and there is no timetable, again seem to be that at least by February (based on the numbers projections for the current fiscal year), that WWFE's wrestling operations will be divided into two separate companies, each with prime time weekly television and each doing monthly PPV events and separate house show tours. The addition of the Saturday night time slot on TNN, which was the original time slot plan for WCW, does give them the option of doing things that way, although that is clearly not the plan for right now."
"It is not clear whether the plans remain for the new company, which for now is being called "The Alliance," but may be given a different name, to get Raw as originally planned is unclear. Obviously to do so, they have to first get the group over as an equal that can survive on its own (something it should be noted, the NWO failed every time that was attempted) and then make babyfaces to go with the mostly heels of the group."
"On paper, there are a lot of strong matches possible for PPV, Rock vs. Austin should be huge, the return of HHH should be good, so that avenue looks strong. Showing just how quickly things can turn around (in both directions) also seems to end arguments about whether or not a smartly pushed Goldberg match with Rock or Austin, or both, would inflate buy rates and more than pay for, in one night, close to what would be required to get him at some point with a two-year $2.5 million per year guarantee. But now isn't the time to make that deal, but when things are going down again, it's another idea to stop downward momentum."
"The good news is the easiest time to turn things around and to create new stars is when the business is hot with teenagers, which it has been for the past few weeks. Teenagers are looking for the new in thing and are more accepting of new hot acts. No matter how big ratings are today, if new stars aren't created now, before that age group moves on again, the company will pay for that mistake. When things are good, it is so ridiculously easy to go with a pat hand."
"They are focusing a lot of attention on Kurt Angle as a super hero babyface (although that one week title reign isn't how you do that), Booker T, Rob Van Dam and to a lesser extent, Lance Storm. With the exception of Angle (who has a chance to become the greatest all-around performer in the history of the industry if he's not hurt or screwed up in portrayal), there is no guarantee any of them will be a megastar."
"There is a tremendous opportunity right now to build a foundation for the future. It'll be a damn shame if history isn't learned from and it doesn't happen."
"During the fiscal year ending on August 31, 2000, the ECW Hardcore Revolution game grossed for Acclaim approximately $17 million, which explains why the company would want ECW kept alive."
"WWFE was taking the legal tact that the trademarks and rights to the name ECW had been abandoned by HHG before filing from bankruptcy. This was based on the fact they promoted no shows after January, didn't file for bankruptcy until April, and never listed the trademarks as potential assets in the bankruptcy filing. That was the legal branch they were holding onto for using the ECW name and trademark on television before making any deal for the rights, although they have since made a deal to where the trustee won't take action for that usage. Heyman, at the 8/2 meeting, concurred, naturally, with the WWF contention that he had abandoned the marks before filing the bankruptcy."
"However, on 4/16, long before WWF revived the name on 7/9, WWF made its first offer to purchase intellectual property, as well as company business records, assets, and even the existing talent contracts they would want to take over similar to what they had done in the deal for WCW a few weeks earlier. Since this attempt to purchase included trademarks, in making that offer, they seem to be contradicting their current position. WWFE has explained this by saying they made the initial offer for those things they believed abandoned simply to avoid possible litigation and as part of doing practical business."
"HHG, although forming in 1995, never filed tax returns until late 2000, covering the years 1996-1999, showing seven figure plus losses each year."
"Raw on 8/6 dipped to a 5.40 rating (4.96 first hour; 5.77 second hour) and an 8.8 share for approximately seven million total viewers. It was the first week of football competition, with ABC doing the NFL Hall of Fame pre-season game doing a 6.3 rating....The Rock vs. Shane main event did a 6.25 overrun rating after a 5.89 final quarter. It was the second best mark since 4/9, trailing last week. It also ended five consecutive weeks of growth, but that was to be expected because Rock can only come back for the first time once."
"The new Saturday night TV show will be a magazine format. They actually don't have all the ideas down yet but working ideas seem to be to use the show to do personality profiles to get new talent over. The show will likely have a new broadcast team, although that's not decided yet. They like the idea of a two-hour Saturday night show to really hit the issues on the PPV's the next day"
"The steak ended with the 8/6 Raw from Anaheim. What streak? Streak of good shows. The first hour was really bad. Second hour was a lot better. Too much reliance on those badly acted skits. Seemed like one of those shows where the creative writers were trying to justify their existence."
"RVD pinned Kane to keep the hardcore title in 4:00 with a frog splash. Another streak broken as it was the first RVD TV match that wasn't good."
"Booker, jealous of Rock, went to Hollywood to be an actor. They did these bad skits throughout the show, ending with Booker punching the director. One thing I'll give them credit for on this show is they are using the period where ratings are high to attempt to create new stars, like Booker, Van Dam and Storm. I don't agree with the idea of portraying Booker on your own television show as this guy with a big ego, making fun of him for holding a meaningless title belt five times (guys, you own the belt now, you should be pushing it as on par with the WWF belt, not getting your digs in because of how badly Russo thrashed it) that nobody in the "real world" knows while everyone knows Rock. It did give Booker a character, but it also told people the WCW belt is a joke and nobody in the real world knows a guy you've focused your TV around for almost two months, just for the sake of bad comedy. "
"Stephanie, with her Sable-sized implants, did an annoying interview. What was she thinking? I was almost ready to find religion until Jericho showed up. The dialogue got so out of control at times there was little reaction. Finally, I'm not making this up, and this isn't Vince Russo, they brought out two guys dressed up in Planet of the Apes costumes and one put a pie in Stephanie's face. She vowed revenge."
"Keibler & Wilson beat Jackie in 1:37 when Ivory, with a complete new look, did a run-in, turned on Jackie and DDT'd her. Yep, the Alliance pulled out a major jump this week. Match was as brutal as you'd think. Maybe what's worse is watching Keibler & Wilson try and do dropkicks and enzuigiris."
"Terri, looking like a new plastic woman, showed up in WWF New York, but Heyman berated her and that was it for her."
"Tajiri won the WWF lt hwt title from X-Pac after blowing mist and hitting the side kick in 3:07. Both guys threw tremendous kicks. The WCW belt wasn't at stake because Regal doesn't have the authority to make WCW title matches, so the unified belt is no longer unified. In a company that doesn't push small guys much, why do they need two belts, when they need to be dropping belts like flies because only one means anything these days because everyone has one. The unification should have left them with one and gone on from there."
"I also think it was a mistake to put Rock in a match on television before SummerSlam. You can only have the "first match spike" and "first appearance spike" once and they did both for free. If you recall, they made huge money with Austin's return last year by doing both on PPV."
"The two women from the Booker skit were walking around noticeable to the audience at the show."
"Kanyon & Page won the WWF tag titles from APA when Test joined the Alliance and hit one of the APA members with a title belt. So the swerve he wasn't a mole was a double swerve. Anyone got a headache, or better yet, a copy of that book of how Russo killed WCW."
"This has been said elsewhere and I do agree with it, that Paul Heyman and Tazz being brought back as announcers is okay because deep down everyone knows they're all one company, but them doing product plugs gets a little silly. Not a major point, but it hit me wrong as well."
"Angle doing the Sgt. Slaughter bit is a little corny but for the second time (first time was right after he lost the title to Rock for a few weeks) they've just about got Angle up to that level he needs to be."
"Angle vs. Storm was very good. What is it about Angle to where every opponent ends up hurting him. This time he ended up with a busted open right eye. Because he's so legit tough, do guys just think they can potato him because he can take it or is there some other reason. Weird with Storm as IC champ that the title was never mentioned. It really positions the belt as not that important when a non-champ wins a non-title match, the belt isn't part of the issue because the fans, correctly, believe that Angle is above the IC title level. The key is, what that says about the IC tile level. "
"That near fall spot where Shane pulls the ref out of the ring at the count of two is getting old, because they seem to do it in every TV main event"
"Because of the two live Smackdowns on 8/16 and 8/23, there has been concern expressed because the road schedule for the month is tougher than usual. Traditionally, the wrestlers have off from Tuesday until a PPV. But next week, after Raw in Chicago, they have two days off and then do Smackdown in Salt Lake City and house shows in Las Vegas and Fresno before SummerSlam in San Jose and Raw in Sacramento. After that is two days off and another five day run. After that, it goes back to the normal four on, three off routine for September and October"
"Something to ponder. Think about the last month or two of WCW, and how well, during a period the company couldn't get anything over with the audience, how well they responded to Jason Jett and his workrate and contrast it to Stasiak, just as an example (and there are a half-dozen names you could substitute for his) who got big pushes and nobody cared about them, and look at the lack of a chance Jett has even gotten (I don't think he's done one match) while guys with one-tenth his ability have been pushed hard. The moral is for you indie guys, that while workrate is important, it won't even get you in the door today without the look, and the look, even without the ability, will"
"Reno and Mike Sanders debuted in Anaheim in a dark match, with Sanders playing heel. No crowd reaction but each did good moves with Reno going over"
"There was almost a huge news story at the WWF 8/5 house show in San Diego. Bill and Steve Goldberg were given front row tickets and they, and many of their friends, argued very spiritedly, about whether or not they should go. A lot of them wanted him to go because it would be such a scene figuring huge "Goldberg" chants and people expecting a confrontation, even if he just sat there as a fan and did nothing. Others, who won the argument, realized there is no point in pissing off the WWF, as whether by design or not, the possibility of upstaging their show would do so, since ultimately the day will come when he at least seriously negotiates to work with them"
"Jury is still out on Van Dam, and perhaps widening because he's getting over so strong, yet made worse by the fact Test needed seven stitches hardway from a kick into a chair in the corner in their San Diego match on 8/5"
"House show in San Diego on 8/5 which featured the return to house shows of both Rock and Austin, drew 8,032 paying $230,152. That figure has to be a major disappointment because there was tons of advertising all over town about Rock in particular"
"8/6 Raw at the Anaheim Pond not selling out with 10,355 paying $336,005 (not a lot of empties) is a bad sign when you're in the L.A. market, which is traditionally strong, and Raw with Rock and Austin doesn't sellout."
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2020 7:34:41 GMT -5
August 20, 01
"The website WWF.com, as well as other potential international usages of the WWF initials for marketing purposes are in jeopardy after London High court Justice Robin Jacob ruled against the company in the lawsuit filed by the World Wildlife Fund. The lawsuit was filed when the Fund claimed the wrestling promotion has broken a 1994 agreement regarding usage of the initials outside the United States for marketing purposes."
"The wrestling company's stance was that the 1994 agreement never specified the use of the initials on the internet (since it wasn't around as a significant technology at the time). WWF is planning on making no changes even with the ruling, until the next court date, after which it plans an appeal. The 1994 agreement was signed by the wrestling company in exchange for the wildlife company to drop a previous lawsuit it had filed. In the agreement, the wrestling company agreed to avoid using the stand-alone initials WWF in most situations unless it couldn't be avoided. The court ruled it could have been avoided in the web site name, and the judge felt the confusion could hurt the reputation of the wildlife company (that one is a mild stretch)."
"The agreement between the two companies did allow the wrestling company limited uses of the initials in marketing its product in the United States."
"The wrestling company claimed in its own arguments changing the name of the web site could cost it as much as $50 million. Jacob said that while it might cost them that much the judge said the company's lawyers arguments in court were "hopeless" and "astonishingly poor." "
"The Fund, in its arguments, said it had no objection to the wrestling company using the WWF initials when it was largely an American based company. When the company expanded worldwide, the Fund threatened a lawsuit, which led to an out of court settlement in 1994 where the wrestling company agreed not to use the initials outside of the United States except within in wrestling world, such as usage on television shows or in its magazines. It made an oral agreement to no longer use the initials outside the United States to sell merchandise. The judge said he believed the wrestling company complied with its agreement at first, but since 1997, had "simply ignored the contract." "
"Multi Channel News reported this week, in a story about the WWF purchase of WCW being for $4.3 million (actually the story was incorrect as the price was $2.5 million) that a source familiar with the deal claimed the $75 million price listed everywhere that Fusient was going to buy WCW for in January when the deal was announced publicly was a bogus number leaked by Turner executives to save face. The story quoted an unnamed executive as saying the actual offer was $10 million and that the other $65 million was to be paid in payments over the next seven years if WCW hit certain benchmarks including the value of the company hitting $1 billion. I believe that idea that the money would include $10 million down and payments, since all Fusient offers were based on that including the final offer of $48.3 million which was $5.3 million down and $2.15 million per year over the next 20 years."
"The story appears to have been leaked by AOL/Time Warner to defend itself against criticism of late when the purchase price of WCW was made public a few weeks back, questioning how that team could have been made for such a low price with other potential suitors willing to pay much more. The company's negotiations with SFX in 2000 fell apart when it asked $600 million for the company, well above what the arena promotional company was willing to pay, and the $75 million Fusient price had been reportedly, so a $2.5 million final sales price was shockingly low."
"The story failed to mention there was an inherent $15 million more of value in the Fusient offer immediately, since it was going to pick up all the WCW contracts than WWF refused to pick up. The story noted that Fusient had also agreed to spend $5 million in advertising in various AOL/Time Warner media outlets. The WWF's offer also included a guarantee of purchasing an undisclosed amount of advertising from AOL/Time Warner."
"Raw on 8/13 shows something of an armor chink, not so much the number, but the viewing patterns. The show did a 5.16 rating (5.07 first hour; 5.23 second hour) and an 8.4 share, for about 6.7 million viewers. It was the third straight week in decline, but again, no surprise since the Rock returning spike was going to wear out. The bad news was the quarter hour pattern."
"The audience peaked at 5.44 for the latter part of the never-ending interview segment with Jericho, Stephanie, Rhyno, Booker and finally Rock, peaking after Rock arrived of course. At that point, the show went into a tailspin, with Angle vs. Van Dam dropping to a 5.12, losing 416,000 viewers. The main event of Booker & Rhyno vs. Jericho & Rock fell even more, to a 4.84, the lowest rated quarter of the show, absolutely unheard of for the main event, let alone with Rock as over as he is, before picking up to a 5.36 for the overrun. The combined 5.10 main event rating would be the lowest rated main event since the 5.04 on 7/2 for the infamous Booker vs. Bagwell match."
"Smackdown on 8/2, which drew the 4.74 rating for Rock's first appearance on the show, was ranked No. 50 out of the 139 prime time shows of the week, which would be the highest the show has ever done in its history, actually tying a rerun of "Frasier," and beating every show on FOX for the week."
"Alex Wright has decided to stay in the United States for the time being. Wright was lucky enough to sign a contract without 90 day cycles, so Time Warner has to pay him through the early part of next year, and won't be moving at least until the contract expires"
"If Smackdown does a good rating this week live, and I expect the first week it would, the second week is more of the real test, the earliest they'd go to Smackdown as a regular live show at this point looks to be January."
"It is all but official that Wrestlemania will be March 17, 2002 at Skydome in Toronto. The official announcement is expected to take place in Toronto on 9/3 in conjunction with the live Raw event. Even though that is the case, locally in Toronto they are publicizing that Tampa is the leading candidate of four cities considered and that Premiere Mike Harris of Ontario, whose popularity ratings aren't high, is using this storyline as a way to babyface himself as he "works feverishly" to bring the big event to Toronto. On 8/9, it got even funnier. WWF sent Venis, who lives in nearby Markham, and is recovering from hip surgery, to appear with the Premiere. Just minutes before the two were to go on stage together, the Premiere, who claimed he was a big wrestling fan, was advised about Venis' former wrestling character, and Harris said he wanted Venis pulled from the event and instead shared the stage with WWF Canada President Carl DeMarco."
"Austin was mad at Tazz for just watching as Rock put Shane through a table on Smackdown. He told Tazz to take off his shirt to he could whip him. Don't know if Tazz is in condition for us to see him without a shirt, so he didn't. Unlike the others, Tazz stood up to Austin, so everyone beat up Tazz, Rhyno gored him and Austin whipped him. But the key was, he still had his shirt on. While Austin was great and the ending was right out of ECW, it dragged so much because they stretched it out for more than 20 minutes that it came across like one of those Bischoff segments on Nitro."
"Tajiri beat Albert in 2:27 when he blew the mist and kicked him in the head. Tajiri beating a guy the size of Albert is so not like usual WWF."
"Morrus tried to attack him, but, as was the theme for the show, Morrus is a goof and Angle put the ankle lock on him."
"Stasiak, who earlier in the show, vowed to do something big, went to attack Angle as Angle was talking with Regal. Angle sidestepped him and he ran headfirst into a steel knight in the corner of Regal's office and knocked himself out."
"Helms knocked Angle's milk out of his hands when Angle didn't think Green Lantern was a top superhero. Angle destroyed him and left him dead. Apparently they are of the belief that looking like an idiot makes you a star because it worked for Angle. That's like saying to make a new star we should have them wrestle 300 screw-job finishes in a row because Flair was still a star doing that, forgetting that he was a star to fewer and fewer people when he was booked like a moron"
"Undertaker & Kane destroyed Palumbo & O'Haire in a cage in 4:18. Talk about a squash. Palumbo juiced. Taker & Kane sold almost nothing. Page & Kanyon came out to abduct Sara, but they were foiled when Sara climbed the cage. Then in the cage, they destroyed Palumbo & O'Haire more, laying both out for a double pin. Then Taker climbed the cage to save Sara. They might as well have all gotten on their knees for Taker & Kane by the time this was over."
"Then came a second 20+ minute interview segment, this one was largely to get over Stephanie's new implants primarily, and a distant second, to build for the main event. Clearly the build for the main event didn't work, since the rating for the segment building the main event was higher than the main event, which is something that virtually never happens on Raw. Jericho came out and made fun of her with before and after pictures. For what it's worth, Stephanie was on Opie & Anthony and said she had her boobs done because she saw a sign in the crowd one night saying she had "saggy puppies." You can be rich, famous, and write yourself into celebrityhood and hijack the shows every other week, but one sign in the crowd and you go under the knife. This is not the business for people who can't take criticism from knuckleheads, or even non-knuckleheads and ignore it, because they are everywhere. We'd have all been better off if she took the criticism of her acting and improved on that and kept her old body."
"Test killed Spike dead with the kick of death, and this looked so good it was the kick of something worse than death, so we'll call it the kick of watching Giant Silva vs. Scott Norton next month."
"It was that typical WWF main event. Four ref bumps and the near fall where the ref is pulled outside the ring and can't count."
"Jericho put the walls on Stephanie, who suddenly realized her dress was too short for that move, so instead of selling, made sure to pull her dress down."
"Misterio Jr. met with Jim Ross and John Laurinaitis on 8/7 at the Smackdown show in Los Angeles. Juventud Guerrera came with him but did not have a meeting scheduled. Neither were offered contracts. Misterio Jr., who called the WWF to set up the meeting since his Time Warner contract at about $350,000 per year expires on 12/31, was told to keep his Time Warner deal and keep in shape by wrestling indies (although his Time Warner deal precludes doing so, leaving him iced) and that in January, which is when his contract expires, there was a chance they would bring him in. He was told they have too much talent and aren't looking at hiring new people right now because they already have so many newcomers they have to work at getting over."
"Guerrera, who basically came along for the ride, spoke to Ross at catering and asked for a job, which wouldn't exactly qualify as adhering to proper protocol. Ross praised his talent and told him to contact him in January and at that point they would have a more lengthy discussion. Ross did bring up to Guerrera that they won't put up with any drug problems and brought up Road Dogg and Brian Lawler and Guerrera told him it's no longer a problem, but then again, that's what everyone says. Paul Heyman told Guerrera that he'd try and open doors with McMahon to speed up the process"
"They shot an angle at the 8/14 HWA show in Cincinnati where LeRoux, Jimmy Yang (as he's being called), Knoble, Jett, Johnny the Bull, Moore and Karagias all did a run-in with the idea that WCW is attempting to take over the HWA"
"The only ex-WCW announcer who has had any contact with the company about potentially being hired down the line is Zbyszko, who was contacted over the last week or two after having not heard anything for months"
"Royal Rumble is scheduled for 1/20 at the Phillips Arena in Atlanta. The Georgia Dome was approached about doing Wrestlemania, but they turned down both the 2002 and 2003 versions because they have the NCAA mens tournament Final Four booked for next year and the Womens tournament for the following year."
"The 8/9 Smackdown show ran 25 minutes long, which caused a lot of matches to be edited downward and the Jackie vs. Ivory match to not air."
"When Angle got busted open against Storm, it wasn't that Storm potatoed him like, say, everyone else seems to do, but because when he took the bump, one of his medals cut open his eye"
"Keibler and Wilson both suffered ankle injuries trying to be wrestlers and Keibler also has a tore elbow."
"Report from Nassau was that it was a hot show, but the bad sign is at 9,172 it came thousands from capacity, the first non-sellout for a WWF show in the New York City market dating back to 1998."
"Stuart Snyder was quoted in Multi Channel News in the article about the WCW low purchase price and said there would be a new WCW television show but that it won't happen over the next month. He blamed the ratings declines on the switch from USA to TNN and MTV. That's a good one when the big decline came in April and May of 2001. He claimed the recent jump in ratings was because of Rock's return, and that the acquisition of WCW hasn't sparked a ratings jump (Tell me, he did not say that). But then he said they believe they've captured a fair amount of WCW fans (wouldn't this be a direct contradiction of the first statement) but need to work to acquire more"
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 21, 2020 11:28:19 GMT -5
Yeah nothing will come of this, and it surely won't change anything about the company forever. Next!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2020 8:22:40 GMT -5
Aug 27, 01
"SummerSlam, traditionally the WWF's second biggest PPV event of the year, was more of a by-the-book show, with a strong line-up presented and a straight forward approach with few swerves and curves. The show was largely well received and had little controversy afterwards aside from analysis of whether the WWF title match or Rock should have gone on in the main event position. The decision regarding this non-issue was since they weren't going to have a clean finish in the WWF title match and the WCW title match would have the happy ending with Rock winning, it was put on last. Virtually all the advertising for the show was based around Rock's return to PPV, another argument for putting him on last. In hindsight, because as a match, Rock vs. Booker T couldn't follow a near match of the year performance by Steve Austin and Kurt Angle, you could make the argument in the other direction."
"The show on 8/19 drew a sellout crowd of 15,293 fans, which was 14,087 paying $907,105 to the Compaq Center in San Jose, CA, as well as another $162,867 in merchandise, exemplifying the recent trend of arena merchandise increasing as the $11.56 per paying customer for this show is the highest total in many months."
"The feeling internally was that they didn't want a finish in the Austin vs. Angle match because they didn't want to hurt Angle's momentum so quickly after his turn, but the big money is with Austin vs. Rock (at this point scheduled for Survivor Series on 11/18 in Greensboro but that could change) and eventually Austin vs. HHH (which may end up as the Mania main event)."
"The lone negative to the show was Undertaker & Kane vs. Diamond Dallas Page & Chris Kanyon in the tag team title unification match. It was a one-sided squash match in a cage, where the belts themselves seemed not just secondary, but inconsequential. It would have been better to have other teams in the tag title hunt and leave these four simply to do a cage match since the idea was to blow off the hugely disappointing stalker angle."
"Undertaker, because of his tenure at the top, is something of the company icon and few will dare say anything negative about since he's considered a locker room leader, but his lack of selling and putting over new talent is turning him into the same type of wolf on the top of the hill that killed WCW. Kevin Nash was also a locker room leader and while Undertaker has a career history of being more of a star (partially because of the mentality that exists these days that unless it was done in the WWF, it doesn't count) and working harder, from a fan standpoint at this point, there are a lot of similarities."
"Edge got the pin after an implant DDT (which is, contrary to popular belief, not a DDT given by a man with a boob job)."
"Bradshaw after a hot tag really looked good and the crowd was with him. There is thoughts of giving him a singles push that were there beforehand and more after this."
"Shane McMahon hit Bradshaw with a chair shot leading to Test getting the pin. They tried to sell it like Shane came from nowhere, except a rare miscued camera shot building for the finish showed Shane unacknowledged at ringside with a chair ready for the finish."
"X-Pac (Sean Waltman) pinned Tajiri (Yoshihiro Tajiri) in 7:33 to win the WWF light heavyweight title and retain the WCW cruiserweight title in a unification match. Why is it that he always wins the big ones?"
"Perry Saturn was at WWF New York looking for moppy. That's the curse of not getting over originally. There can't be any dignity in being a pro wrestling undercard character, but even so, I felt sorry for Saturn having to do those lines."
"Jericho had his bell rung early on when he did a plancha off the top to the floor into a gore, and it was feared he had suffered a concussion. He was woozy which likely caused his problems later on....Jericho went for a quebrada, but slipped on the loose ropes, later blamed on a pin that held the ropes tight coming out during the match. He made a decent recovery. He then went to the top for a missile dropkick, slipped again, and fell down. There was no recovering from that one and it temporarily killed the match."
"Rob Van Dam (Robert Szatkowsky) beat Jeff Hardy to regain the hardcore title in a ladder match in 16:33. Match had all the high risk stuff but because of what it was being compared with and the fact they've done far too many ladder matches this year, it didn't accomplish what it set out to do with Van Dam. The first several minutes was almost an ECW style where they set up spots and it looked like a connect the dots match as opposed to a wrestling match."
"The finish was messed up as Jeff was climbing and grabbed the belt but Van Dam took the ladder away, leaving him hanging from the belt. Van Dam was supposed to do some form of a spin kick off the top rope to knock him down, and totally missed. Jeff had no choice but to let go and fall."
"After the match, Jim Ross said that this may be the last ladder match. Isn't this the fifth ladder match on TV this year from the WWF? It needs a rest. It's on its way to being like the cage match and the Battle Royal, events that were once automatic sellouts, done and bastardized to death to where today they are totally useless. Plus doing the ladder spots necessary to get the match over are legitimately dangerous in a company whose injury rate is already out of control."
"Kane had a herniated disc in his lower back so he was limited in what he could do and shouldn't bump. Undertaker, well, he just didn't sell."
"Angle did a belly-to-belly on Austin on the floor. Somehow, for a guy with broken bones in his back and who has a history of neck problems, taking suplexes on the floor is a little scary. Angle back suplexed him on the floor as well."
"Angle had Austin pinned after the slam when Nick Patrick ran in and instead of counting the fall, disqualified Austin for attacking the previous refs. Jim Ross and Paul Heyman were going crazy trying to put this match over and make the finish into a heat finish instead of a groan DQ finish. Unfortunately, they put the heat on the referee instead of on Austin."
"For some reason, Ross mentioned that WWF was ahead 4-2 going into this match, which WWF also won. So WWF won 5-2. I'm not sure that's a point that should have been put over at this time."
"APA came out and chased Shane around the ring and Bradshaw killed him dead with a clothesline. My neck was hurting the next morning just having to watch it. The negative is that Shane ended up getting up and doing more spots later."
"Rock used the people's elbow, but Shane pulled Robinson out of the ring to stop the count. Rock laid Shane out with a rock bottom on the floor. Luckily the match was almost over so Shane couldn't recover from that one as well."
"It appears that the WWF will, barring a resolution of their problems, not air PPV events on DirecTV. The two sides had been working under terms of a contract that had expired last December, and the final extension ended with SummerSlam. Besides working without a new deal, both sides have been at an impasse over an interpretation of a contract clause which has to do with a significant amount of money. DirecTV had taken the dispute to arbitration, which is what the contract calls for in the event of a contractual dispute. What this dispute is exactly about is unknown because the contract also calls for neither side to be able to discuss matters going to arbitration publicly. WWF was so upset over being taken to arbitration that on 8/17, they sent out word that SummerSlam would be the last WWF event televised on DirecTV, without letting DirecTV know of its plans."
"If there is a time to make a power play for a better deal, this is it, as mentioned before. WWF has never been more dominant in the PPV world, with boxing having a bad year and all the other serious wrestling organizations having closed up shop."
"Jim Ross mentioned on the PPV twice that DirecTV wouldn't be carrying any future PPVs as a way to make sure it becomes a public issue immediately. DirecTV this week was still telling people as late as the day of the show it was carrying the 9/23 Unforgiven show, and because of the amount of money at stake, it is in everyone's interest to settle this before that show."
"Some of this also may be posturing by WWF, as in 1988-89 they made a similar power play, threatening to pull Wrestlemania V from PPV because they were trying to cut a better deal, as I can remember Jesse Ventura complaining about it being un-American what was going on (which was just free enterprise taking its normal course of battling for every last dollar), but at the end, with the cable companies asking WCW to put on a show that same day as leverage, WWF backed down, WCW got screwed by the people who asked them to put the show on and ended up putting it on for free on TBS (which was the famous 56:00 Flair-Steamboat match from New Orleans that some would say was the best match of the entire decade) and Wrestlemania aired."
"If DirecTV doesn't carry the next show, it would be out an estimated $1.35 million based on an average buy rate (or slightly more when you throw in the Fanatix series) for an average month. If DirecTV had not carried last month's show, which did a well above average buy rate, DirecTV would have been out $1.8 million and WWF would have been out a number that may have come close to that same figure."
"Raw had its highest full quarter hour early for the segment with Rock and Mini Booker, at 5.50. Even though the segment bombed live, there is something traditional (Roddy Piper's worst ever segment in the history of Nitro when he auditioned his team for a match that was so awful they ended up forcing Piper to team with the Four Horseman instead doing triple the rating of a Mick Foley vs. Sid Vicious match is the perfect example) about skits that bomb, likely for curiosity, doing good ratings and then follow with an audience drop. Rating dropped, although not to bad levels, losing 373,000 viewers for the 12-man, although it was more of an exceedingly high quarter for Rock. Rock's match with Storm did a 5.31 so for the second week in a row, Rock's segment building up a match did better than the match itself, something that almost never happens."
"The live Smackdown on 8/16 drew a 4.32 rating and 7 share, up slightly from the 4.2 of the previous week. Considering all the hype going into the show as the season opener and with it being live, well, going live even as a first time novelty proved to mean even less than what we expected, and believe me, we didn't expect it to mean much. Anyway, this should end whatever debate there is about the power of internet spoilers to hurt ratings."
"For 8/18-19, the final episode ever of Live Wire did an 0.74 and the final episode of Superstars did an 0.72."
"USA Network is willing to air wrestling. Here's the catch. They want $5 million per year for a Noon to 1 p.m. Saturday time slot"
"For whatever this is worth, if Nitro was still on the air, this past week it would rank somewhere between No. 5 and No. 11 out of all the shows on cable. Granted, a loss of $60 million isn't worth that, but that level of a loss isn't necessary to run a wrestling company. As it is, they are losing $15 million without any television product this entire year, but then again, that's what they wanted"
"People in the know are somewhat disgusted with the Ontario politicians attaching themself to Wrestlemania, both because it is wrestling, and also because they are talking about raising support for Mania as something they are in competition with three other cities to get when the decision has already been made and they are well aware of it so they are using wrestling to get over with a fake political victory for the city"
"The official name for the new Saturday night show that debuts on 8/25 (to surprisingly little fanfare) is WWF Excess. I wonder if that means two hours of nothing but referee bumps and Shane pulling refs out of the ring at the count of two. Maybe it means one two hour long interview of Steve Austin with the Alliance people."
"About the nicest thing I can say about Raw from Sacramento is that I'm glad I wasn't there live, and even gladder I didn't pay for this."
"When Keibler wears long pants, it totally negates whatever value she has. And even in shorts, she has no value being in a wrestling match."
"Rock did an interview. Boy did this segment suck. This was like being a kid and watching your snowman melt before your eyes in the spring. Well, maybe not. Maybe it was like watching Ric Flair put over Eric Bischoff. No, it wasn't that either. He brought out a midget dressed up like Booker T. Rock did a bunch of comedy and nobody laughed. Segment never ended. Nothing worse than a superstar doing comedy and getting no reaction. Storm came out and said it wasn't funny. That made it worse, since he was right. Set up a match for later in the show. Didn't seem like the crowd cared. Storm then gave Mini Booker a kick."
"Faarooq looked like he was trying to break Palumbo's jaw with a clothesline. Do you realize if the reverse would have happened, everyone would be saying how Palumbo doesn't know how to work, but if Faarooq does it, he's just teaching him a lesson."
"Helms did a Green Lantern interview. They've already got Stasiak as the resident geek so why do they need a second?"
"Foley was in WWF New York. This was sad and this is serious. In this business, you are either in or out. In between is purgatory and that's where Foley is. He and WWF should either come up with a program and storyline that will make him a regular TV character, which is fine, since he's one of the most entertaining characters around. Or, he should be kept off TV, except if there is a situation that calls for him to have impact. I hate to say this, but his constantly being on without any story or any reason for being there comes across like the guy who graduated high school who keeps going back."
"Rock pinned Storm with a rock bottom in 3:09. I actually wrote that Rock was going to show what a dick Nash was by making Storm before beating him. He just showed what a dickhead I was for thinking that for a second. Total 80s enhancement match where you had a jobber with moderate credibility losing quick to a star. Rock gave him very little, pinned him clean, and then they made a fool of him. Whole thing was built up for Mini Booker to get his revenge and give Storm a people's elbow, which meant Storm had to sell the rock bottom for what seemed like an hour. He tripped on Storm, on purpose, which meant Storm had to lay there some more for a second one by Mini Booker as he delivered the worst people's elbow in history. I know, didn't Storm get a great rub by being squashed by Rock and the midget? Yeah, just like he got that great rub when Nash destroyed him, and he was never the same in WCW. I've seem some of the most unathletic people in the world on indie shows not screw up that people's elbow."
"Storyline is that Edge is basking in all kinds of success, and Christian keeps screwing up while trying to prove himself. I think they need to bring in a third brother so Christian can play middle sister from the movie they got this from so when Edge is sleeping, Christian in a nightmare can cut off Edge's hair."
"Booker went to Regal and demanded a WCW title shot. Regal told him Rock had already defended against Storm, and laughed at him as well. Tajiri laughed as well, which set up Booker vs. Tajiri. Hey, isn't Regal supposed to have no jurisdiction over the WCW title? I knew they wouldn't remember that one for more than a week."
"Sara beat DDP in five seconds. Basically, Undertaker beat the hell out of DDP and choke slammed him on the floor before the bell, threw him in and Sara pinned him. Some people who make decisions in the WWF need to think about this, and this is something nobody wants to acknowledge. It takes two sides to screw up a match and it takes two sides to screw up a pushed angle that doesn't work. Whenever Undertaker has a bad match, which is now just about every house show and most TV shows, it is always his opponent that doesn't know how to work. Never mind that DDP had great matches in WCW with all sorts of guys, some of whom were green and some of whom weren't very good, and DDP in recent weeks has had very good TV matches with Booker (crowd didn't give them a chance but if you watch it with an open mind it was good) and Jericho (which was a real good TV bout). Suddenly, now, after years of good matches, he's been "exposed" as a guy who can't work."
"I can make as much fun of DDP as anyone, when he deserves it, which he does at times. This was just vindictive b.s. and he's getting a bad rap by insiders who have pretended that years of good matches never happened because they didn't take place in the WWF or because they are having fun at his expense because he probably never, as a charismatic character, deserved to be pushed as much as he was in WCW, or as much as he was going to be in WWF before his program didn't get over. What about the guy they are working with? What about the guy who is one of only two people in the company in the last year to have had bad matches with Angle? What about the guy who only has good matches with HHH and Austin, who pretty much have good matches with everyone? What about the guy who it is almost impossible to work with because he never sells, unless it's against HHH or Angle, and never bumps? These guys who take 500 bumps in a row and after five minutes of this the crowd gets bored, it's because they can't work."
"Mike Awesome was a style conflict and I know his limitations, but he's also proven to have an upside when handled right, but he's been buried because he, too, can't work (actually for WWF, he really can't, because he's too small in WWF to play agile big monster and that's really the only role he's effective as)."
"Show ended with an Austin tribute with everyone from the Alliance in the ring. The segment had its moments, such as Stephanie singing so ungodly awful that she actually showed the most talent she's maybe ever shown. But this segment went 23 minutes and would have been a lot better with half the time, like they needed to have Helms do this speech about Austin being his hero and giving him a Green Lantern t-shirt, Debra and the cookies."
"Angle showed up to end the singing with a milk truck and reprised a famous Austin-Vince angle from a few years ago, throwing milk at all the alliance members, guzzling milk till it was all over him, and spraying the ring with a hose filled with milk. During this, Stasiak knocked himself out running into the milk truck. Great campy climax of one of the worst Raws in a long time"
"Smackdown live from Salt Lake City on 8/16 Came across for the first hour more like a talk show than a wrestling show."
"X-Pac & Albert beat Regal & Tajiri in 3:21 when Albert pinned Tajiri after the baldo bomb. Typical WWF pattern booking, the guy who goes over on Monday loses on Thursday."
"Austin browbeat Scotty forever. Then he browbeat him some more. He told him he'd never make it in wrestling. Then he started calling him Kurt. Then I made a sandwich. Then I did my mail and paid my bills. Then I came back and he was calling him Kurt."
"Scotty attacked Austin and was about to give him the worm, but Austin is too big a star for a prelim move, so Austin stomped the hell out of him and gave him a stunner."
"Angle came out. Tazz ran in, clearly waiting to turn on Angle and choked him out."
"An article on the live Smackdown on 8/16 in the Chicago Sun-Times was critical of the 8/13 Raw angle where Austin whipped Tazz due to racial overtones, as the writer, Allen Johnson, thought Tazz was black"
"Interesting note at the 8/15 OVW TV tapings. Nick Dinsmore beat Mike Hard in a loser leaves town match. Hard came out wearing an old Miss Kitty t-shirt which probably tells you more than you need to know (not as much as you may want to know, but now you know it)."
"Add Mike Sanders and Mark Jindrak to the list of those who are expected to be shortly assigned to HWA. The downsides for many of these guys are much lower than you'd think (some as low as the 30s) and some are getting second jobs, knowing that working in HWA, all they are going to get is their downside. While for most of the guys, going to Cincinnati will be the best thing for them, there is something funny about Kaz Hayashi, who is better than just about everyone on the WWF main roster, going there for training from Big Bossman and Al Snow."
"One of the upshots of having too many agents at this point is that on the road and at TV, they are often able to assign an agent to one specific match as opposed to having to work through two or three, and thus give more individual attention to working out the match. Arn Anderson, David Finlay and Ricky Santana in particular have actually at most TV's before the show, gone into the ring itself with the talent to go through the matches"
"In what is the least pushed angle in WWF history, Terri was with Raven sitting watching the monitor on the PPV"
"At some of the house show matches with Hardys vs. Palumbo & O'Haire, all four were given instructions before hand that they weren't allowed to throw a punch. The idea is that, Palumbo & O'Haire in particular, need work on the art of working, which is working holds, settling down, and transitions from move-to-move"
"Arena merchandise for the week, not including SummerSlam in San Jose, was $281,782, or $9.09 per head which makes it the best week since the boom period ended. We have a pattern here that is contradictory, but it seems to show that the characters themselves, or at least the top characters, are over more than they've been in a long time to those who attend, but that fewer are interested in attending."
"Some unhappiness over the weekend, particularly in Vegas. A lot of the wrestlers, with the five-day schedule this week plus a PPV, and seeing the so-so crowd in Las Vegas and that 36 wrestlers plus Wilson, Keibler, Booker and Molly were also booked figured the payoffs wouldn't be good and were, with so many people on the road, waiting for October when they go to split crews (because with less people on the show to divide the payoffs by, theoretically, the payoffs for house shows per person would increase, but everything is theoretical in a business where the houses can vary and are really unpredictable)."
"What really had some complaining in Vegas was booking a 12-man tag match featuring nobody who is over, just to get as many guys work on the show as possible, but the people not in that match, which they considered useless on the show, were mad because they felt it was going to take too much out of their specific payoffs. It's a balancing act that nobody can be happy with. With a better house in Fresno, people were probably a little happier, but on that show, the 12-man tag became a 14-man tag"
"One funny thing during the Edge vs. Storm match, fans started chanting "USA," and Edge went to them and mentioned that he's actually Canadian. Reminded me of something about 10 or so years ago when I saw Davey Boy and Iron Sheik do a singles match and the crowd was chanting "USA." I asked the people next to me why they were chanting that and they said, "because we're cheering for the American." "
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Post by Perpetual Nirvana on Nov 22, 2020 10:09:19 GMT -5
I mean I like the guy and was always a fan but damn if this isn't the worst period of Undertaker's career.
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