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Post by jason1980s on Nov 22, 2020 10:10:39 GMT -5
I'm glad Alex Wright never came to WWF. I wonder if they ever offered him a deal after his WCW deal ended. I am 100% sure he would be jobbing to HHH or one of his buddies on a regular basis until deciding to leave or being let go because "creative..."
Ron Simmons if friggin' sick. Dave is right about "if the roles were reversed" between Simmons and Palumbo. If Ron passes away I really hope his brain and Bradshaw's brains are donated to science to figure out how their brains worked. They are insecure losers who feel it "right" to hurt other people for what? I get you need to know your opponent will protect you but what they would do on a continual basis is just wrong. It makes me sad too because I am a Ron fan, I've met him many times and he's always super nice to the fans. I guess he feels there is a line where, if you cross it into a pro wrestler, you will need to be hurt until you make it or are weeded out. Again, it's pretty sick IMO.
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 22, 2020 21:36:31 GMT -5
I'm glad Alex Wright never came to WWF. I wonder if they ever offered him a deal after his WCW deal ended. I am 100% sure he would be jobbing to HHH or one of his buddies on a regular basis until deciding to leave or being let go because "creative..." Ron Simmons if friggin' sick. Dave is right about "if the roles were reversed" between Simmons and Palumbo. If Ron passes away I really hope his brain and Bradshaw's brains are donated to science to figure out how their brains worked. They are insecure losers who feel it "right" to hurt other people for what? I get you need to know your opponent will protect you but what they would do on a continual basis is just wrong. It makes me sad too because I am a Ron fan, I've met him many times and he's always super nice to the fans. I guess he feels there is a line where, if you cross it into a pro wrestler, you will need to be hurt until you make it or are weeded out. Again, it's pretty sick IMO. Another thread where we are back to "don't trust any wrestlers no matter how nice they were to you or others, cause they all have scummy skeletons in their closets." Got it. Has the O' Haire/Droz story come up yet?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2020 5:54:15 GMT -5
Sept 3, 01
"Linda McMahon stated, as mentioned here previously, that there is no specific plan over when WCW would be broken off into a separate promotion other than she expected it to take place in the first three months of 2002."
"Excess in prime time was expected to deliver a stronger rating than the two morning shows had done, but if the first week's 0.91 rating and 2 share is any indication, it may not be much of a difference. The Grand Old Opry, in that time slot, had been delivering an 0.7 rating on TNN over the course of the previous year."
"The increase in July in ratings was entirely due to the beginnings of the Invasion angle, a predictable short-term increase with uncertain legs, combined with the return of Rock, a phenomenon which has meant less each week he appears."
"One can also trace, to the exact day, the WWF's ratings decline during the period with Austin & HHH pushed as the focus of the shows in the failed "Two Man Power Trip" angle, a decline which ended, right after HHH's injury, steadied by the increase in wrestling quality with the huge Benoit push, and then turned around when WCW characters and the name, and later the ECW name, were introduced to the storylines prior to Rock's return, which gave it a second boost. But that peaked a few weeks ago and the ratings rise already appears over, at best holding steady the last few weeks."
"Linda talked about a business relationship with Manchester United, the British soccer team which is considered the most popular sports franchise in the world. She said that the soccer team would help distribute WWF merchandise at retail stores in the U.K. and promote WWF events in England. WWF would reciprocate by selling Manchester United merchandise through its outlets including WWF New York and help promote their American tour in 2003. Manchester United is not only huge in England, but in many overseas markets, Asia in particular and drew sellout crowds for pre-season games in Singapore and Taiwan. When the story gained a lot of press in the U.K. a few days later because of the high profile of Manchester United, the team was unhappy because they didn't want to be linked with the WWF."
"Perhaps paying for the excesses of the previous week or simply the downward trend being back in force, Raw on 8/27 fell to a 4.85 rating (4.68 first hour; 5.00 second hour) and a 7.7 share for about 6.48 million viewers. It was the first time under the 5.0 aggregate since 7/9."
"The Jericho & Angle vs. Van Dam & Tazz main event with Austin at ringside only pulled a 4.74 final quarter and a 4.99 over-run. It continues the pattern of the weak, chickenshit heel Austin, which led to the company's fastest ratings decline in history, saw things turn around incredibly fast with the tease of him as a babyface and get stronger with Rock's re-emergence, but now he's back to the character, which he's great at, but that didn't draw ratings or sell tickets."
"Stacy Carter officially filed for divorce from Jerry Lawler. In her petition, Carter is asking for the court to consider the 12 years the two were living together as a partnership and she be entitled to half of everything from those years. That's a key point because Lawler made more than $1 million in that sale of the USWA to the group out of Cleveland that had no clue what they were getting into back in 1997."
"Here's the reality of the landscape today. If you hustle as a promoter and don't pay anyone anything and are in a city that'll support wrestling on a small-time basis, you can break even, lose a little, or even make a little doing indie shows. Lots of people do them. For anything bigger, and this is what doomed ECW, and if you want name talent and are going to pay them, you MUST have a viable network behind you which is willing to be a business partner to financially get behind and promote the product with the idea that a heavily pushed wrestling product can draw viable numbers on cable and eventually make money on PPV and maybe at arenas (although touring nationally these days is pretty rough as even WWF is way down)."
"It's funny because both Vince and Bischoff have given the historical lesson on how to compete with established promotions. Go in the familiar TV time slot. Sign the other companies established talent away and aggressively work to bring in younger talent for a balance and do as much celebrity tie-ins to get the mainstream, but you have to have only the hottest celebs and can only do it once or twice a year because WCW went crazy on that and shot themselves dead because when you overdo any angle, it stops working. Should mention it will be infinitely harder to pull this off now than ever before. What superstar wrestler is going to take the risk of leaving the WWF nowadays for a fledgling organization."
"There is a reason why the game isn't played like it was in the 80s, which for some reason people have become romantic about and either want to re-create that, or ECW, which also was a big money loser consistently throughout its history, not recognizing because everyone who played that game lost their shirt and went out of business."
"I'm not sure why and they were putting new talent on TV, trying to get people over, but the Invasion is flattening. There are no stakes, so to speak. We've already had the WCW guy win the WWF title and vice versa. Alliance vs. WWF is just babyface vs. heel with the McMahons as lead heels which is nothing new."
"Rock did the interview putting over the WCW belt that people were critical of the company for not having him do. He said he knew what the belt meant and that Frank Gotch, Lou Thesz, Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair were all great champions. Gotch and Thesz held the WCW belt? You can even make a case that Steamboat never did? He did a Flair strut and the place popped real big. He then ripped on how the belt was destroyed over the last two years with Booker, DDP (I'm sure a lot of people loved that one) and the guy from Scream 2 and he's going to rebuild it."
"Looked like they were trying to get over submissions here as Undertaker did an armbar and Ross made a point to try and freshen up Taker by saying he's lost 25 pounds and is studying submissions. Submissions have their ups and downs. The ups are if they get over, you can work more with them and not take as many big bumps per match. The down is, they for the most part aren't flashy and the process of educating people to them may lose casual fans."
"Helms was re-packaged as a total geek who believes comic books are real. As evidenced by his Green Lantern tatoo, in real life, Helms is a big-time comic book junkie. He came out wearing a cape and mask. This was so 1996 Who? era bad gimmick, like they don't remember the success of Avatar."
"Test pinned Bradshaw in 3:39 when Bradshaw was chasing Shane and ran into the kick of death. There is definitely an idea to try and push Bradshaw as a single, but that would render Faarooq pretty obsolete and they haven't pulled the trigger on it. Shane's a big Test supporter so he's getting his push."
"Austin then nailed Angle after the match with the title belt and took his two medals as the show went off the air. This was done not all that many months ago with Benoit, but I guess they consider it new because it's the first time babyface Angle had his medals stolen"
"They are trying to make Angle into Austin by repeating a lot of the things they did in '97 and '98 with Austin"
"Albert beat Undertaker via DQ when Undertaker laid out Albert with a chair X-Pac had brought in. Undertaker also gave X-Pac a last ride. I get so sad when I see them repeating what happened in WCW. Undertaker was also originally scheduled to lose this match via pin."
"Angle is in the garage looking for Austin, but he's gone. Dreamer is in the wrong place and Angle beats him up. The ECW stars in WWF remind me of the Mexican stars in WCW."
"Since this was the building that Austin was run over in that Survivor Series of 1999, Austin tried to run Angle over but Angle managed to avoid it."
"Austin came out with Debra, trying like hell to look 20 when she's 40."
"Show & Gunn beat Dudleys in 3:32 when they tried the 3-D on Show, but D-Von couldn't get him up, and Gunn took out Bubba with the famouser while Show pinned D-Von after a choke slam. Sort of a miscarriage of justice, but wrestling, as life, isn't necessarily fair."
"Christian got Edge's IC title match changed to a challenge for the tag titles. Edge seemed mad, which actually if you think about it, makes no sense."
"They were trying to sell that Shane hasn't been around since he was injured by Bradshaw's clothesline at SummerSlam. That would play a lot better if Shane didn't get up a few minutes later, and not sell it while doing spots for the finish"
"Undertaker & Kane kept the WWF tag titles (WCW belts weren't even mentioned) beating E&C in 3:30 when Undertaker pinned Christian with the last ride. Brutal in that Undertaker & Kane sold nothing except Undertaker went down for a near fall off Edge's spear, then got up and killed Christian at the finish. One step forward and two steps back."
"It appears at this point the company's belief is that RVD has the most potential of all the newcomers, even ahead of Booker T but those two are the standouts at this point"
"The original plan regarding going with the stalker idea was to make the Undertaker more human, because the feeling was he wasn't selling enough in his old character. For some reason that is really funny"
"There have been so many complaints about DDP that once Vince McMahon opened a meeting asking if anyone has anything to say about DDP before we get started, and recently there was even the statement made, that in a couple of months, nobody will even remember DDP was ever part of the WWF."
"Ross speculated so many WCW injuries because the guys are used to working half speed in Atlanta, although after much criticism, he sort of backed away from that remark. Kidman lost some interest at times due to the political situation but I don't think he ever worked half speed, and he's yet to do anything in WWF that can even hold a candle to his work in WCW. DDP never worked half speed. Booker's knee has been a problem for years but when given the ball, he always put forth effort. There were lots of guys there who did work half speed, but NONE of them are on the WWF roster (and it will be interesting early next year to see if they end up on the roster and getting bigger pushes than the guys who have always worked hard)."
"Schedule is definitely getting to a lot of the guys. By the house shows this week, we were getting bad reports on the show. The difference, mentally, between doing four days a week on the road and five is enormous, because when you consider flying home, nobody really has more than a day home per week on this schedule. While this is cake compared to the 80s, when they ran legit 1,000 house shows per year as opposed to 200 and guys often worked eight shows a week (weekend double-shots) and on occasion nine, the travel was tons harder and the mental strain clearly was regarding not getting home (I remember one wrestler doing 63 straight days on the road and can recall talking to people after 28 straight days). The physical punishment is likely harder now because it is a much tougher style and the crowds are harder to please because they've seen so much, but the mental strain of making all those shows was harder then."
"The WWF Excess show debuted on 8/25 on TNN. The show is totally missable in that there is nothing edgy or new on it. Mainly like the old morning shows except with the in-guest interview and with it being live on Saturday night, it will largely be injured guys or "B" level guys (Tazz this coming week) since the "A" guys most Saturdays (except for PPV week) are on the road."
"From what we were told, when people did call up and the screeners found they were asking non-storyline questions, the response was "Sorry, we aren't allowed to let you ask that question." Clearly they are thinking "play it safe WWF television" through the choice of hosts, the questions they took and the entire nature of the show. Originally, Livewire when it debuted was supposed to be this same format with the call-ins, with JR and usually Tammy Sytch (in the Trish role) as hosts and it died in the ratings because the callers and e-mailers were so lame. Sytch used to try and get friends to sneak in intelligent questions just to have something to save the show."
"Coachmann and Stratus don't have wrestling knowledge and are total cosmetic hosts, chosen because they are good looking people as opposed to knowledge of the subject that will make for interesting TV, particularly when having to carry two hours. Stratus standing there with a low-cut top is not going to make people watch more than five minutes because there are 100 other stations with pretty blonds in low cut tops to choose from at that hour."
"They really need to start thinking heavily about how they are going to do the separate promotions deal next year because if they go into it without being fully ready, it's going to be trouble. I think they need to do a full split with the companies having separate identities and separate products, both being wrestling but different styles. This will never happen in a zillion years because one the reasons they bought WCW was to make sure they never had competition, but wrestling was more interesting head-to-head on Monday nights."
"If you consider Austin as a WWF guy, and really, everyone does, at this writing WWF guys hold the WWF title, WCW title, WWF tag, WCW tag, WCW cruiser, WWF light and IC belts. WCW guys hold the European, hardcore and U.S. belts."
"Since the XFL folded and the WWFE has become far more fiscally conservative, they didn't give out XFL championship rings to the members of the L.A. Express. They did allow the players to buy rings for $120. How ghetto. Seriously, these guys worked all season with small guarantees, had all these touching videos made, took all that press ridicule even though most of it wasn't there fault because Vince went so crazy on the press early season, were told all along there would be a second season no matter what even though logic said otherwise, and were otherwise treated like far less well paid employees of WCW and then the company backs out on giving them promised championship rings to save five grand"
"Although Fort Wayne had very good crowd reactions because WWF hadn't run the city in two years, it was described as like being a WCW show due to all the no-shows. Those that were advertised when tickets went on sale that didn't wrestle were Kane (injury), Booker (given weekend off), DDP (knee surgery), Lynn (knee surgery), Kidman (knee surgery), Christian (there but not wrestling, only did a run-in during Edge's match), Keibler, Wilson, Lita (in Hardys corner but advertised as wrestling) and D-Von (there, but with Kane injured, only did a run-in). While there were legit excuses for most, with no announcement, there was the feeling of being ripped off, especially when the two big stars, Austin and Rock, were already off the house shows, which gave them the WCW feel (when stars didn't work house shows)."
"Albert, just for fun, started imitating George Steele in his match in Fort Wayne with Test, which cracked him up, breaking character in the middle of the match. Originally, Albert was going to be brought in as the son of George Steele but just never happened."
"Personally, I think a WWF vs. WCW feud in 1993 with Flair, Sting, Vader, Rude, Steamboat, Foley, Austin and Road Warriors as Team WCW, had more long-term potential to be successful than this current feud was going to be over the long-term even with ECW's involvement, although in 1994, WWF probably for ego reasons would have screwed it up pretty quickly anyway because they'd be living the feud from the past and not letting the challengers be challengers."
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Post by jason1980s on Nov 23, 2020 10:01:12 GMT -5
For those ripping on DDP, maybe he deserves it-maybe he is self serving in helping A LOT of people, but he's done something that very few wrestling personalities have done and that's be successful outside of wrestling.
Shane McMahon should be high on Test. Test got screwed out of the storyline wedding with Stephanie. It should have been kept as is. Fans wanted to see it I believe. I know I did and maybe it would have kept Stephanie off TV or limited in her TV role.
I wonder if the Hurricane gimmick was a rib on Helms but it worked. If he didn't do it, he would not have been as memorable.
Incredible that WWF made the XFL champs pay for rings. Why not just say no rings at all? It seems to tacky. As I always say, I am so glad Vince's former employee owns the XFL now.
I remember from George Steele's book that he seemed pretty bitter that WWF wouldn't do the gimmick with Albert being his son. Albert should have, he was not cut out for the serious gimmicks WWF gave him.
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Post by Perpetual Nirvana on Nov 23, 2020 14:57:17 GMT -5
Dave did not just disparage The Hurricane? What's up wit' dat?!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2020 4:54:11 GMT -5
Sept 10, 01
"With fads changing faster than ever, we've seen what is left of American pro wrestling, the WWF, in the last five months, in one of the quickest declines of television ratings as we've ever seen in the past 20 year history of the business. It was followed by an even quicker swing back up, which lasted only a few weeks and we're going back in the other direction."
"The sad thing about all this was the biggest fear everyone had was that the history of these mergers wouldn't be learned from, and we'd have another NWA/UWF affair, where the newcomers from the old promotion are buried, and ultimately, instead of the purchase of a once hot but faltering group being a positive by adding new characters to the top and building up the promotion vs. promotion feud, it ends up strangling the parent group. This theory was even acknowledged publicly by Jim Ross who said this would not and could not be a Crockett/UWF situation, one he lived through and understood probably better than almost anyone."
"Vince McMahon himself even stated when the decision was made not to use the Saturday night time slot on TNN for the WCW re-launch, that the only way it would work is if the public saw it as an equal company to WWF, and just having so much of a weaker time slot would guarantee it wouldn't be perceived that way. That's where the idea of doing WCW Raw came about. The dropping of that plan after the first TV in Tacoma was the right idea for the time. It was too soon and the perception of WCW was too negative. People were going to revolt against WCW Raw worse than the new Coke, and it would damage the company at a crucial time."
"WCW needed to be rebuilt. We heard that for months. But in two months, it looks far too similar to the 1987 situation, largely because instead of being rebuilt, the entire WCW roster has consisted of Steve Austin, who comes across as more WWF heel and the ringleader of a group of incompetents, than WCW leader of a powerful force that threatens the existence of the WWF. The Alliance faction today is Austin, Shane and Stephanie, with Booker T as the only guy on the verge of potentially being a money star and Rob Van Dam being the most popular but already slotted in a position where he's not going to be a top shelf guy. The vast majority are a group of no-name guys who rarely talk, that range from average to bad in fans' perception of them, and a few who come across as campy total goof undercarders. As a unit, they come across as no threat to the WWF and mostly as objects of derision."
"The positives long-term of the WWF are this. The company has enough cash reserves and the McMahon family is rich enough and it is the family business that they all have a passion for, and the talent contracts are structured in a manner that the company can survive an economic downturn for many years even if they do things badly. And who can predict, a good concept, introduce some hot new guys, it can all turn around although I think more recognize today in some form this industry would be better for everyone, McMahon included, if there was some competition. The family has enough money that unless the thing flat out died, which nobody expects, while the losses would hurt, it isn't as if they'll have to look at not having enough money so they'd have to get out. It isn't as if plenty of business partners couldn't be found internationally, and the ratings would have to drop a lot before it wouldn't be valuable cable programming."
"There was a huge audience of what I would call traditional wrestling fans. A good three million of them, that skewed older, and as bad as WCW was, they still only ran off about half of them. They stayed with it because, as bad as it was, it was a traditional part of their week, like the fans who keep attending the home team franchise even when it finishes in last place two years in a row. There is always hope of the loyal fans for the future. WCW skewed strong over 30, not being all that far behind WWF, even at the end, despite the tremendous difference in product quality. That speaks for a nice audience base to start with if there had been a tangible plan told to people on that last show, saying exactly when WCW would be back. But that was mistake one, allowing that base to disappear in about three weeks, as they grew tired of waiting and not learning anything, and seeing a product they didn't like. Those people wanted to be wrestling fans bad if they were still watching WCW. And they aren't anymore."
"The question when it comes to WCW was, did it fail at the end because its style of wrestling was passe, or did it fail at the end because it was such a horrible product, booked so poorly that it insulted its audience giving them a product they didn't want? If it was the former, then WWF shouldn't have relaunched with a separate identity, but the consensus is it was closer to the latter, in which case the separate identity but with smarter planning would have been the best thing for everyone in the industry."
"As a group of players, WCW was too weak compared to WWF. They didn't, for the most part, have depth, and most weren't as accomplished in the ring as the WWF guys. That's why they needed a bigger push. Then again, so was NWO at first when compared with the vast masses of people in WCW. You had two guys and one jump. Two guys who were stars with the other group, but far from the biggest stars. Look back in your record books to find out how many PPV events Razor Ramon ever headlined? One or two. With the exception of when matched with Shawn Michaels, inside the ring his match quality of his two years in WWF leading to the jump couldn't touch DDP's of the previous two years, even if Hall probably had tons more natural ability. Diesel headlined far more, but was also at the gate, by far, the least successful champ in WWF history. His track record on top was only slightly better than that of Booker T and DDP in the dying days of WCW. But they spent the money to get them, and they were going to put them over huge, shortcomings or not."
"Sure, the NWO bit WCW in the ass at the end because they lost control and guys clung to the top when their time was over, which, by the way, is exactly what has happened over the past year in WWF with the top guys keeping their positions and elevated guys constantly having their knees chopped off, and WCW never got its strong comeback and was seen as uncool, which they never overcame. But the perception of WCW in WWF rings is every bit as uncool, and they've done nothing to rebuild the team. The WWF mentality, that the WWF is the major league and if you haven't done it here, it doesn't count, killed this angle dead, as so many figured the day the purchase was announced. Instead of three men, one of whom admittedly was the biggest star in the industry, Hogan, but nowhere near as big then as Austin is today, combined with two guys who jumped who were well known but had no track record of being big money draws, because they were put over huge and portrayed as a hell of a threat, it worked."
"There are exceptions, but nearly every major star that left WCW and joined WWF was hotter when they first appeared on television, and their WWF television exposure TOOK THEM DOWN because they were cut off by management immediately. The exact opposite of Hogan, Hall and Nash in WCW, Hogan revived a career that looked to be dead and got a good face run at first before he overstayed his welcome, and a strong heel run until again he overstayed his welcome. Hall & Nash went from unsuccessful draws during the WWF's worst period to successful headliners in WCW's best period."
"We can go back from Dusty Rhodes to Ric Flair to the Road Warriors. Rhodes meant more as a surprise replacement before ever appearing on WWF TV than he ever did once he got WWF exposure. I can recall speaking to Pat Patterson days before the first Flair-Hogan match in Oakland saying that while he thought it would do well, most of our fans don't know Flair yet and it isn't like business Hogan could do with Undertaker. Check your record books. The only Hogan-Flair stuff that did big business was before Flair was established on WWF TV. Once Flair became a WWF guy on television and wasn't pushed as what he was because it would give credibility that there was another company, the whole match you aren't supposed to see went out the window and it was actually at the end a very disappointing program for business, doing nowhere close to the business the two did three years later in WCW."
"In recent years, we saw it with Paul Wight, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, etc. The more WWF TV Paul Wight had, the less he meant. In WCW he was protected and nobody knew just how bad he really was, only that he was out of shape. When he first showed up, he meant a ton. Jericho was on fire when he first showed up, and is in no better shape after nearly two years of television. Benoit and the Radicals drew an 8.1 rating for their famous Dallas ten-man that may have been the best Raw match of last year coming off the jump with one week of WWF TV. After 18 months in the company, he and they never approached that level of success, nor will they ever. In all cases, instead of pushing the newcomers to the moon, they were beaten down quickly. Benoit vs. HHH could have been the elusive battle of the world champions. Instead, they quickly did a match on TV and HHH won. A hell of a match, but Benoit was slotted immediately as being unable to beat the top guys."
"Instead of being the biggest threat to the long-term survival of the WWF, the Alliance is a bunch of jobbers, who can't beat WWF talent and are of no threat and just an excuse to continue the McMahon family soap opera. Far too many have been given the tag that they can't work and are already buried. While there is truth to the limitations stated in everyone buried, how many mediocre and bad workers have drawn huge money in the right program, just because it was the right program or because they were given a money gimmick. How good was Nash in the ring ever? How good was Hogan? Even Hall. How limited was Goldberg? How good was Undertaker without a Mick Foley or a Shawn Michaels or a Steve Austin? Jim Hellwig was one of the biggest stars Vince ever created and he was a downright horrible worker. The fact nobody could have a good match with him didn't stop him from being pushed all the way to the top, where, unfortunately, when he got there, he was unable to hang and self destructed as gates fell."
"So Mike Awesome has obvious limitations. When he was in ECW, he was the on the road to being in the strongest program in company history with Rob Van Dam. He's weak on interviews. Don't let him talk. Geez, you got Heyman, he knows what to say for every situation anyway. You've got Arn Anderson in the dressing room who is one of the five or six best talkers in the business languishing while they complain that none of these WCW guys can talk. Let one of them cover for impressive guys like Van Dam who aren't strong on interviews, and give strong heel rubs for guys jumping over."
"DDP has a name. Yeah, he rubs everyone the wrong way and I figured he'd bomb in WWF because he's really a mid-card guy who was put in the right situations because the top heels always sold for him. But anyone with half a brain knew he was the first WCW guy in the ring with a WWF guy, and the WWF guy needed to sell huge and be carried out at the end and injured, by unfair means, to rally the WWF side."
"The return of HHH won't mean half to the ratings what the return of Rock did, and that lasted four weeks before ratings fell back to where they were."
"Unfortunately, you put Hogan in the dressing room, with Hall & Nash, who may be needed because WWF has already given up on everyone else except Booker and RVD as being possible main eventers, and you are asking for problems. I'd never say this two months ago but this thing needs an injection so badly because the real heat is almost all gone."
"If we learn something from history (this will be repeated soon) it's that Flair as a television character always flops from a marketability standpoint when he's a heel, and flourishes as a face. People just like him. The similarities with Austin, only Flair obviously is on a much smaller scale, are uncanny. Check your ratings histories. Flair turns heel, Austin turns heel, ratings go down. Both are phenomenal performers as heels. You're almost in awe of them. But awe and heat and ratings and tickets are different things and you're in the business of ratings and tickets."
"To keep things fresh and the television "must-see" and unpredictable, they should start bringing in older names as quick-fix hotshots. The whole reason why nobody did short-term programs in "the war" is that you were afraid if you didn't sign a guy for three years, that if you put him on television without a long-term contract and he got over, the other guy could steal him and put him on their TV right away. There is no such threat to that foundation. All those guys who don't want to work 200 nights for three years, like a Sting (after his Time Warner deal expires, obviously a guy for a one shot isn't going to get the kind of money they were getting for a year) or Randy Savage, for instance, can be brought back in a mystery partner role, get his week or two of curiosity money, do one show, and then leave."
"Heyman and Tazz need to be out of the broadcast booth. As much as people knocked Jim Ross and Michael Cole together, because after 16 years of heel commentators it's considered a part of wrestling, the fact is, the angle was far stronger when you had two WWF announcers stating the case for the company and Heyman being a psycho doing the key lines on the interviews. It was Ross & Cole doing the announcing that were able to sell the emotion that led to the biggest buy rate in company history for a non-major show, so what does that say for the validity of the internet complaints about the job they did together? After a few weeks, Heyman and Tazz are exactly the same as they were pre-Invasion, which is another thing that has watered down the angle. It comes across as a simple babyface vs. heel group, not a promotion vs. promotion thing with people's jobs at stake. There should be far more hatred than the simple banter of commentators playing face/heel with each other. Literally, Ross and Heyman shouldn't be able to be professional enough to sit next to each other until the angle has run its course."
"Undertaker uttered a funny line when asked about who he'd like to face at Mania, saying he'd like to face Giant Gonzalez in a cage match, which popped a lot of the wrestlers who were history buffs"
"Christian did an interview designed to turn himself heel on the fans there live, talking about how Toronto had so many ugly people since they were afraid they'd cheer him over Rock since he's from the area. As it turned out, their fears were justified but the end result didn't change."
"They're trying to get Taker over as a submission guy but the crowd has no idea of what he's doing. Secret to getting submissions over. You actually have to first beat some people with them."
"They showed clips from the Toronto rally. Mel Lastman said 34 million people would watch WM live. Let's see. 850,000 homes, so that averages about 40 people per home, so that sounds reasonable. No wonder the city budget in Toronto is so screwed up."
"Stephanie did an interview cutting to Debra in the back where she spent far too long acting like some woman on an afternoon game show describing a truck."
"Edge and Storm argued, with the idea to get Storm to knock Toronto and say Calgary was better, so fans wouldn't cheer Storm. Instead, they didn't cheer anyone, which probably wasn't preferable."
"Earlier in the show, Angle had Austin at a bridge over the Humber River and was threatening to throw him over but decided the bridge wasn't high enough. These segments were pre-taped the previous night. Funny when Angle sped off in the truck, you could see it was light out even though in Toronto it was already dark by this time."
"At this point, the show went to hell. They went to a commercial break at 10:57 p.m. although clearly teasing Angle and Austin on another bridge, this time over the Don River. The guy handling the satellite, apparently figuring the show ended at 11 p.m., cut off transmission and a TV-PG rating flashed on the screen, likely for another Star Trek episode. Then the screen went blank, then a bunch of commercials until eight minutes or so later. In the building it was bad because fans started leaving in droves figuring the show was over. Lillian Garcia had to tell the fans to stay and that there was more. So actually the transmission being out was a good thing for a few seconds since people were leaving and coming back. Debra came out to do her planned speech, but the floor director gave her the signal to stall. She wasn't good at it and was dying out there trying to keep the crowd before the signal came back. Finally, in a panic, they signalled for Heyman to do an interview since he's good under pressure. Well, he probably is, but his mic didn't work. Garcia eventually figured out to give him her mic and he yelled at how sick the fans were for wanting to see Austin thrown over a bridge. Finally the signal came back on with Debra in mid-speech doing some of the worst acting, even by Raw standards, crying begging Angle not to throw Austin over the bridge since he's her husband."
"Should be noted that there was a major rainstorm in Toronto live, but because this was pre-taped, no such problem, but it confused the hell out of people leaving the ACC not figuring out why it was pouring and it wasn't where Austin and Angle were."
"Angle made Austin beg and cry by threatening to kill him, but before killing him, changed his mind and decided instead he wanted a title shot at Unforgiven in Pittsburgh (crowd booed this heavily). As if by magic, a wading pool suddenly appeared on a deserted bridge, Angle shoved Austin into the pool where he floundered about while Angle drove off and left him."
"A decision was made by UPN, WWF and Viacom, literally just five days earlier, not even enough time to get into TV Guides or do any print advertising for it, to move Smackdown live to keep it away from the MTV music awards, figuring they share a similar demographic."
"Christian came out for his big chance. He said he'd moved to Florida (a shoot) and become an American citizen to get heel heat. Said Edge was jealous. Amazing how great Christian usually is on the mic, and in his big chance, he didn't do well. Kind of doing the "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" deal about Edge getting everything."
"Undertaker vs. Richards never got started because Kronik (just signed this past week) showed up and gave Undertaker a beating. He sold for them. I can see taking a chance on Bryan Clark, even though he sucked in WCW this last time (he seemed to have a ton of potential as Wrath before a jealous Nash killed him off because he was almost as big and so much more athletic that Nash didn't want the comparison). But Brian Adams was, with the possible exception of Stevie Ray, the worst wrestler in either of the big two last year."
"For those of you wanting to be wrestlers, just remember, if you're tall and have a good body, once they see you, unless you're a total dickhead like Luger or Sid, and it'll take at least 20 second chances if you look like them, you'll always get a look because even if you totally stink, the promoter sees you in street clothes and is more impressed than a guy who can work rings around you and gets over with the crowd. Think of all those guys like Jarrett who are sitting at home and they hire Adams. At least Undertaker sold for them huge, so that was a great introduction with impact. Undertaker & Kane vs. Kronik. Wow."
"Test pinned Gunn with the kick of death. Fans were chanting for RVD, the Raptors and the Leafs during the match. Those are secret Toronto wrestling fan code words for "this match blows." "
"Austin did another long interview. Not one of his better ones, but every time he said "What?" the crowd would pop and respond."
"Rock did an interview. Tremendously entertaining. Gist was that Garcia asked him a question and he said he knew Lillian wanted his stroodle and gets wet, with perspiration he pointed out, when he's near her. When he said she gets wet, place went nuts. Actually they went nuts on every other word. Garcia admitted she wanted Rock, and then Rock started yelling at her for not being professional."
"Main saw RVD pin Austin in 9:48. Austin put on a performance worthy of Hogan or Nash, in that he took the whole match, had the guy beat, got pinned on a fluke that wasn't hammered home in the least, and people praise him for doing a job to get a new guy over when match portrayal was such that he showed he wasn't in his league. RVD has enough momentum that this won't hurt him like guys in WCW that Hogan and Hall used to "job" for (anyone remember how much those big wins over Hall on TV flukes elevated Jericho and Hector Garza?). Total Hogan-Kidman....Hopefully they don't do a Jericho or a Jeff Hardy next week with Van Dam next week"
"The proposed "WWF Attitude" name for a TV show will be used after all, for a new syndicated show starting 9/8. This show will air on 111 stations, none in major markets (largest cities are Charleston, SC, Savannah, GA, Tyler, TX, Tallahassee, FL and Springfield, MA), all on WB stations on Saturdays at 8 p.m. The one hour show will contain almost exclusively wrestling matches that aired earlier in the week on Raw and Smackdown. There will at this point be no exclusive matches to the show, nor will it be a feature oriented show reviewing angles (at least that's the current plan) from Raw and Nitro like Metal and Jakked. The Viacom exclusivity only applies to cable and network, and because it's syndicated on the stations on a night the network doesn't run, Jamie Kellner's decision not to have any wrestling on Time Warner stations doesn't apply. Probably for those reasons, this show won't be available on any station in one of the top 100 markets (Savannah, the biggest market, ranks No. 101)"
"The presentation of the Helms gimmick was far better the second showing. First time, it looked like something thrown together and an indie gimmick. Second time, between the entrance video and the totally campy interview, it was what I'd call an entertaining prelim gimmick."
"While Nash has considered the idea of teaming with Hall as the Outsiders in New Japan as a regular gig to avoid the WWF road schedule, nearly everyone expects they'll work a few major shows in Japan and come into WWF. While there are those in WWF who say they wouldn't be wanted or needed, and Hall blowing off Shane when he tried to recruit him for the beginning of this angle probably wasn't viewed favorably, this is a business and next year they are going to need something new on top."
"Austin's eye was busted open, probably from a Van Daminator."
"Sharmell Sullivan (Paisley) is also starting with OVW but will most likely get a name and gimmick makeover because Jim Cornette hates the name. She basically got her spot because of it being a favor for Booker T"
"Saddest thing at the WM rally in Toronto was Jason Travers (Jason Sensation, the impressionist in a few great WWF angles from three years ago) charging $2 for an impression, although his routine is still very good"
"A lot of the WCW guys working HWA are already having problems as after the push on national television a few of them got, going back to setting up and taking down rings and making very little money is a hell of a come down"
"Because payoffs are down, because payoffs in general are made based on house show revenue, which is down, plus there are more guys on the roster, it's exacerbated the feelings about you can't take time off right now for injuries or be forgotten when it comes to house show bookings, as well as feelings that too many people are booked on shows (this is a no win, because if fewer guys are booked, then they won't make money and they'll be unhappy) and some talk about non-contributors. Very tough scene right now. It's the down part of being paid on the house instead of guarantees, when business is bad, but it's also the reason the company itself will be able to survive a business downturn so much better than WCW did"
"The Toronto Sun ran a story about a man who proposed to his girlfriend at the WWF rally. He told the paper he had decided to surprise his girlfriend only if Toronto was chosen to host Mania, which is one hell of a way to make the most important decision of your life. They are going to get married the day before Mania and you know where the first day of the honeymoon is being spent. Not in bed"
"Raven worked, so the broken ankle angle from television was ignored. Terri is with Raven on the road in one of those alliances they've sort of shown on TV but if you weren't watching with a magnifying glass you could have missed."
"Storm did an anti-Canada promo saying Nova Scotia was holding the country back and should join Quebec in separating."
"The WWF is making legal threats against web sites with wwf as part of their name, which has it ironies since WWF lost in court the right to use that name as part of the internet"
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2020 10:04:04 GMT -5
Sept 17, 01
"There was a time when this would have been an incredibly huge story, but times have changed. When Rock and Steve Austin wrestled on 9/8 in Dallas for the first wrestling event at the American Airlines Arena, it marked the first match ever between the WCW and WWF heavyweight champions, not all that long ago the two big championships in the business. Not only that, it was billed as a title unification match. The show, which saw Debra earlier in the show read a letter from Austin claiming that he is embarrassed to be from Texas and was renouncing his Texas citizenship (to insure Rock got cheered, because if you remember Mania, the crowd didn't turn as expected). The bout, said to be very good, ended in a DQ when the Dudleys interfered and there was a long post-match deal which saw Rock lay out Austin with a people's elbow and later lay out Shawn Stasiak. They repeated the match the next night in Austin, and no doubt later this year, possibly at Survivor Series, they'll do it on PPV."
"There was a time when people would think the first WWF vs. WCW unification match would draw one of the biggest buy rates in history, and instead it was considered so important it was put on two house shows with no fanfare whatsoever outside the cities they were in. In fact, while Rock vs. Austin was advertised for a few weeks, very few fans attending even knew, before the ring announcement that night, of the stipulations. Similar unification matches also weren't played up big in the storyline, of both the cruiserweight and tag team titles, which did actually have finishes."
"Raw on 9/3 drew a 4.62 rating (4.59 first hour; 4.65 second hour) and a 7.4 share, making it the lowest rated episode of the show since 6/18. The approximate number of viewers was 6.19 million. Labor Day was zero influence on the ratings because the share declined proportionately and both weeks had almost identical number of cable viewers watching television as a whole during those hours. More than half the decline (show would have done a 4.76, compared to 4.85 the previous week) was because of the screw-up at 11 p.m. when the signal went out for about eight minutes, resulting in a 3.30 over-run period for the climax of the Angle-Austin angle, the lowest in many years. The rest of the decline was just a decline."
"That cliffhanger of Angle kidnapping Austin and threatening to throw him off the bridge was a ratings flop even before the 11 p.m. problems. There was a message sent loud and clear by viewers on this night, as the show dropped about 416,000 viewers after the segment (Helms & Ivory vs. Matt & Lita) and another 562,000 viewers for the segment with Angle and Austin on the bridge the first time as well as the Edge vs. Storm match and Christian turning on Edge angle."
"For the weekend of 9/1-2, Excess did an 0.8 rating, which is a major bomb for a prime time first-run wrestling show, while Heat fell to a 1.3. Excess had far more promotion for its second show than for the premiere, which almost came up out of nowhere, and still dropped."
"Tazz then came out and said he thinks Angle will beat Austin for the title at Unforgiven. Austin gave him a stunner and the Alliance destroyed him, which is the same angle they did a few weeks ago before it was later revealed the angle was a fraud. No wonder nobody cared this time when they attacked him. The idea of the Tazz attack was to show Austin as a hypocrite, because he supposedly respected people who would stand up to him, and since Tazz has a lot of heat these days, he's put in bad positions."
"Stephanie & Test talked about their near marriage in the ultimate episode of "Bad Acting Theater." "
"Storm & Hurricane, ha ha, did an interview. Hurricane is awesome and Storm played off him well. Hardys & Lita beat Storm & Hurricane & Ivory when Matt gave Ivory the twist of fate and Lita pinned her after a moonsault. Hurricane was hilarious with everything he did. To me, this was the most entertaining thing on the show."
"Rock did an interview, supposedly naked coming out of the shower and Cole supposedly looked down at his crotch which made for a comedy routine."
"Booker pinned Undertaker. You could see Undertaker was really unhappy from the beginning having to job. Then, doing a flying clothesline spot, he got up hurt, with the last word being it was a separated shoulder (no word on severity of it). He made a comeback, but you could see he was hurting with every punch. He set Booker up for a choke slam when Richards interfered. As Taker was attacking him, Booker gave him an ax kick for the pin. Somehow, without the predictable ref bump, this wasn't a DQ. Heyman really tried to sell the idea that Booker pinned Taker and the significance of it. Too bad he was the only one."
"One of the real problems with wins and losses meaning nothing is that it makes it much harder to elevate people. The fact it doesn't hurt people to lose also makes it not help people even with a big win."
"Even though Kronik is a former WCW team, they clearly have distinguished that Kronik isn't part of WCW. If you're wondering, Undertaker and Adams have been friends and he got them their job."
"This match was very strange because it made no sense. Angle was getting the title shot at RVD who was the suddenly hot face. It's bad enough the PPV issue was confused by RVD's win, because right now people want Rock or RVD against Austin, but the PPV is Angle. Angle posted RVD time after time but I guess they wouldn't do juice. They ended up in the entrance way with RVD holding part of the TV set and throwing kicks. Crowd didn't seem to know how to react. Angle got the submission with the ankle lock to win the title. Austin came out and threw Angle off the entrance ramp. He then pretended to congratulate Van Dam, but threw him off the ramp as well. While on the ground, RVD got an arm over Angle and they counted to three so he regained the title. This finish managed to flatten both guys, neither of whom should be losing at this point."
"This was based on Stephanie saying she wanted a handicap match but would let Rock pick Test's partner, and he picked her. Everyone was against her being in the match but she wanted to prove she could do it, or at least have a reason to wear a skimpy top to show off her billion dollar boob job."
"Billy Silverman, who was working as a WCW ref, quit, I believe on 9/2 after a flight from Halifax to Toronto. Silverman had been ribbed unmercifully since he upgraded himself to first class on a flight (it's considered a sign of arrogance to do so because first class is only for people who have made it to the top in WWF although in WCW, they had no such unwritten rule of conduct and anyone could upgrade themselves and you know how it goes, Silverman didn't read that invisible manual they give you when taking the WWF job). He was told if he bought beers for everyone on the flight, everyone would let it go, but somehow, he didn't buy enough beers and was still getting ribbed and when he landed, he quit"
"Austin got a standing ovation at the end of the Smackdown show in Toronto from fans who were so impressed with his performance the entire night, and in particular, putting Van Dam over both in the match, and again in a post-match which took place after the cameras were off. After the show ended, Austin called Van Dam back in the ring and they brawled, and Austin laid down for the frog splash and was left laying. Tazz got up and then helped Austin to the back, and when they got to the entrance, Sgt. Slaughter, I guess to get him a nostalgia pop, got to deck both of them as well."
"An interesting stat is that the company spent $1.2 million more on travel this quarter as compared with the previous quarter due to the private jet. However, payoffs to wrestlers were down $1.2 million as compared with the previous year."
"Breaking down the drop in wrestlers' income based on recent payoffs for those who have been there for a while, guys in the middle are making anywhere from $250 to $700 less per show than they were earning at this time last year. However, all of the wrestlers for the most part on a per week basis are at or ahead of their downside guarantee"
"Nobody is complaining loudly because there is no alternative and if you are a wrestler in the U.S., the plight of a mid-card WWF guy is 1,000 times better than running around on indies, but it is a subject talked about quietly."
"The original plan this summer was for Foley to be WCW commissioner, but that went out the window when the original plan for WCW to be the babyface organization didn't materialize. Foley was on call most of the summer for possible reintroduction and plans still are to bring him back, likely in a commissioner like role, particularly if they put Regal back to the heel side. At one point, when Foley was to be the WCW commissioner and WCW was still thought of as being faces in the feud, he was scheduled for the ten-man Invasion tag team match on the WCW side. He nixed it feeling that if he was to come out of retirement, he thought it should be something more meaningful than in a spot where literally anyone could fill the spot, plus, at the time he wasn't in shape for a comeback. As it turned out, it didn't matter because the fans changed the angle and with the change, he didn't fit in"
"Rock is almost a pull-the-string Ken Doll when it comes to mainstream interviews. Great delivery and you basically know he'll never say anything but kiss people's ass, everything is wonderful, kind of like the world's greatest p.r. guy. I guess similar to Flair as far as being in a media setting."
"I guess everyone got a reality check of just how small Josh from Tough Enough is (well, everyone being the number of people who actually watch Excess) when he was on with Spike on Excess and Spike looked to be an inch or so taller and easily 25 pounds heavier"
"The current estimate remains that when all is said and done, the XFL in its one season of activity would have lost $116 million, which is far more than double in about 12 weeks than WCW lost in total, in 13 years (estimated at $55 to $60 million). Vince needs to be thanking UPN every day for not renewing that show because if he had ever tried a second season combined with the weakening wrestling economy, I'd feel so sorry for the wrestlers in the company"
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 25, 2020 10:25:46 GMT -5
The mention of "No alternatives" makes me think....perhaps a TNA thread will be in order next?
And the WCW guys under the microscope continues.
Still wondering if Meltzer mentions the story about Droz complaining that O'Haire ignored him in the back.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2020 6:42:24 GMT -5
Sept 24, 01
"Some more details have come out regarding what would be considered crunch time in the industry in March when Jamie Kellner cancelled wrestling on the Superstation which resulted in a one promotion country. In the negotiations with Fusient with Time Warner in the early part of the year, the plan was written into the proposed deal that Nitro would be moved to TBS because they were rebranding TNT and TBS, and TBS would be the "guys network." The deal agreed upon in principle early in January with Fusient would have guaranteed four prime time hours on TBS of wrestling for a ten year period, but give Fusient the option to take one of the shows to another network if it wanted to. It was likely that agreement written in which caused the station to look to WWF, because TBS was already strongly considering dropping Thunder (we had been told in late 2000 that was all but official), only wanting one show."
"There were three major meetings with Fusient representatives and the FOX network between January and March with the idea of moving Nitro on Mondays to FX while Thunder would remain on TBS on Wednesday, a deal that theoretically would have satisfied everyone before the AOL reorganization put Kellner in control of all the stations and removed all of the Ted Turner people from power. In the beginning of the year, FOX was strongly pursuing the deal to give that network something of a Monday night identity with a product with a proven ratings track record. When Kellner made the call of cancelling all wrestling, basically putting the deal in McMahon's hands because he figured to be the only one able to get the needed television for WCW and getting it at a bargain price, Eric Bischoff and Brian Bedol made a last ditch effort to secure a deal with either USA, or FOX, for FX."
"Bedol went to USA, According to sources inside the negotiations, USA was dead set against any deal involving pro wrestling in prime time. Others have said USA would have been amenable for a product which would have enough capital to survive past the short haul, something Fusient didn't have, but in the negotiations with Bedol, they expressed on interest in wrestling. USA had also negotiated and turned down ECW late last year for a non-prime time slot, which was that company's realistic last-ditch hope for survival."
"FX was the last chance and ultimately turned it down for a variety of reasons. To clear such a major deal, which would have included a lot of funding as a financial partner to keep the company rolling and having to approve it immediately, it had to go through numerous channels from advertising, business affairs, legal and programming literally in a 48 hour period, the timing made it next to impossible. Clearly, if Nitro was considered the valuable property it was two years earlier, heaven and Earth would have been moved to make the deal but the weakening of the product made this not fall into that category. In addition, between January and March, the television economy changed. The economics of a deal that could cost them a lot of money at a time when advertising revenue for the future looked bad overall and the key point, advertisers were becoming more negative toward wrestling and led to the eventual result."
"There was always the question of how Fusient would be able to finance a wrestling operation when its main financial backer, Warburg Pincus, had pulled out. That uncertainty may have been another reason not only the deal went to WWF and that after Jamie Kellner made the call, they weren't able to put together a new TV deal."
"Raw on 9/17 had the single strangest and hardest to explain viewership pattern of the year, peaking very early with the Stasiak vs. Saturn match, and you can't tell me Keibler alone drew a 5.11 quarter. Booker & Shane vs. Tazz also inexplicably did a 5.06. Raw hasn't started off so strong in a long time, and for a show that had nothing out of the ordinary except it lacked the lengthy in-ring interview segments with the big names (but they all appeared in key roles), the show then fell slowly but consistently from there. Christian vs. Tajiri at 4.71 was the bottoming out period, losing about 390,000 viewers from the Spike vs. Hurricane match, which makes no sense. Rock vs. Stephanie & Test drew a 4.85 while Van Dam & Austin vs. Jericho & Angle dropped to 4.76."
"Raw on 9/10 grew from the beginning until peaking at 4.95 for the Undertaker vs. Booker and Tajiri vs. Kanyon matches. The bad news is they lost considerable audience for the Van Dam vs. Angle match, which only did a 4.44 rating, losing an estimated 490,000 viewers from the peak. Considering that matched up the company's hottest rising star (who by the rating the past two weeks does not mean anything for numbers yet as loud as the chants for him are, and the same can be said for Angle) with the babyface just turned who is headlining the next PPV, that is a huge disappointment. The Rock vs. Test & Stephanie match did a 4.66, also not a good sign because it seems to indicate Rock's drawing power is starting to sputter."
"Hogan actually talked with Eric Bischoff this past week to see if there was any light from his end about starting something and Bischoff recommended Hogan make amends with McMahon because he felt everything was dead as it regarded something being started because there is no television interest and without it, nothing can be sustained."
"It was agreed that Kronic and Richards would join the Alliance and get a shot at the WCW tag titles. You know what is really funny. All those guys who got buried when they came over because they didn't know how to work, and Adams is going to get a push simply because he's Undertaker's friend. Both Adams and Clark even left WWF on bad terms several years ago."
"Storm & Hurricane did an interview. Hurricane was looking for a super hero sidekick. When Hurricane enters a room, they do this gimmick where the room suddenly becomes windy. Totally campy but it's a comedy role so it's fine. Storm suggested Ivory, but Hurricane said she's only 99.44% pure. I wonder what percentage of the audience caught that one but that was one clever line."
"Terri and Raven were on the video wall and they put Moppy in a wood chip machine. It is so sad watching WWF copy WCW angles and do them far worse. I figured they'd build intrigue as to who was kidnapping Moppy, obviously it would be Raven after a few weeks, they'd fight with Moppy at stake for a few weeks. They have so much television to fill that they shouldn't be rushing through angles, but they do anyway. Do you realize how both these guys were utilized far better in WCW? And we all know the politics involved there."
"RVD talked with Stephanie. Started building sexual tension. RVD said he'd do anything she wanted. She wanted him to pin Jericho tonight and also hurt him in the hardcore title match on Sunday. And here I figured they would shoot a cool angle in that tag match and then announce the match rather than this way. HHH is so smart. Who is the fastest rising guy in the company, and he sets him up as his natural opponent."
"TNN did a commercial for their network showing an American flag in front of WWF New York. Double-team effort by both the network and the WWF to cloak themselves in the flag during war time."
"RVD teased Angle that when they wrestled, the fans were chanting his name. Angle said that when they wrestled later tonight, the fans would be chanting USA. Like RVD is Canadian or something?"
"Nobody will ever admit this publicly in the WWF, but they have to be disappointed that Angle wasn't over far more as they've given him the old Hogan/Slaughter/Duggan patriot role when patriotism is suddenly the hot thing"
"Angle starts destroying Austin when Tazz comes out, and guess what, attacks Angle and not Austin. Seriously, these constant repeated booking ideas where they turn people on one show and it's all a swerve will kill them almost as fast as the words WCW"
"RVD tells Austin that Angle, teased as being paralyzed moments earlier, has checked out of the hospital to come back. Basically what this was all about and the reason this angle was rushed is they did the injury angle to Angle on Raw last week, to plan for Angle's big comeback on Austin on Smackdown. Due to Smackdown being changed, the angle was scrapped. So even though they did the Angle neck brace deal last Monday and he was fine on Thursday, they did it again on the next week."
"Angle cuts a promo on the ramp, ending by throwing his neckbrace down (Steve Austin angle from 1997 rerun after Owen legit injured him with a piledriver and the next night on TV an injured Austin threw down his neck brace--one thing you can see by doing all these Austin angle repeats with Kurt is the idea behind it is to make Angle into a new superstar)."
"A very unique Smackdown took place on 9/13 in Houston. There were a lot of behind the scene politics regarding the show, because many felt it shouldn't go on. Basically Jim McIngvale, who was a long-time wrestling sponsor going back to the beginning of time in Houston with Paul Boesch, and his friend, local war hero Michael Thornton convinced the Mayor that they should do the show on Vince's behalf, as they wanted his approval. Even though the WWF had announced on Tuesday they were running the show on Thursday, it really wasn't cleared until Wednesday. That explains McIngvale was put on television, seemingly as a return of the favor, which made no sense to viewers unless they lived in Houston where he is well known for his TV commercials and associated with wrestling forever. Putting Thornton on and introducing him wasn't bad, and in fact was a very nice touch. But by the end of the night with so many shots and references to him, it was clear they were trying to use a war hero at a unique time as an endorser of the product and that left me with a bad feeling."
"They were clearly very paranoid about criticism for running and were too defensive about trying to get themselves over for not cancelling. There was some criticism the next day of them doing the show, but really not much, because in the grand scheme of things, it was so ridiculously unimportant as a major issue."
"The show was constructed to be like the Owen Hart show from 1999, which was a show that most fans that watched thought was great and a lot of people in wrestling thought was in the worst taste possible."
"WWF was not the only one to not cancel nor the first to run, although they did try to make it out on television that they were the first. The vast majority of wrestling events scheduled for the weekend went on as scheduled and OVW actually ran the previous night, even though all the major sporting events were cancelled."
"The only one that had no business airing was the Stephanie promo, and I can't believe the company let it air. I can see she meant it as a personal experience because in her life, perhaps the worst thing ever for her was when her father was on trial. I was at most of the trial and I remember during the closing arguments in the case by the prosecution just how horrible he would have to feel because his family was in the court room listening to it and Stephanie, who was only a teenager at the time, appeared understandably traumatized by it. But to equate a drug trial and the prosecution in the case or whomever she was referring to with the people who did the acts of the past week which resulted in 5,000 deaths, came off so poorly. It was the one aspect of the show I'd call offensive. To their credit, because of the negative reaction to the promo, they did edit it off the Excess show two nights later which was made largely a Smackdown repeat because New York fans couldn't see the original show. "
"From what we understand, the two main reactions the company received were the negative feedback to the Stephanie interview and a request to market the show as a videotape from people wanting to buy it, although marketing that show would come across badly."
"Going on and on about freedom of expression and they can't take away our freedoms was outright hilarious for a company that complains about censorship on one hand and champions freedom on its telecasts, yet confiscates signs fans bring in if they don't have the "proper" political message."
"I give everyone credit for attempting to entertain under trying circumstances and give the company credit that it showed, as compared with ten years ago under similar circumstances, that this business in that regard has improved tremendously. Ten years ago during the Gulf War, the WWF booked the lead angle to be aligned with the war itself and used the war and tried to portray Hulk Hogan as a national hero by sending him to military bases to exploit the war and film promotional material for battling our enemies from Iraq, in that era played by current WWF agent Sgt. Slaughter, as the Wrestlemania main event. This time, the wrestlers were telling the fans that the real heroes were the police officers and fire fighters of New York. Twenty years ago, every territory would quickly create foreign heels to recreate the real world situation. This business has numerous faults but if there is one thing positive to say about the show, it proved it is not as bad as it once was."
"In the U.K., Sky heavily edited the tape on its first showing, which is in the morning, apparently because of the time slot, erasing all references to the news and everything on the show except the in-ring matches and the show only lasted 51 minutes. They even erased the entire Van Dam vs. Spike match because so much of the commentary was talking about the news. The show did air later that night at 10 p.m. in a less edited form, airing one hour and 45 minutes with a lot of commercials. Edited off the show included the interviews by Vince McMahon, Michael Hayes, Debra and Bradshaw, as well as parts of interviews by Faarooq, Steve Austin and Tazz. It appeared they were editing out all talk of retribution and retaliation for whatever reason, as it isn't as though those subjects haven't been heavily discussed in the news in the U.K. Albert's interview where he talked about swift justice to be brought to the faceless cowards who perpetrated this did air, apparently because swift justice could be viewed as a call for a criminal trial as opposed to bombing the place into a parking lot as Bradshaw suggested."
"After the Smackdown taping ended, they gave fans a special treat giving them a Rock vs. Austin title vs. title dark match with the same Dudleys interfering DQ finish after about 20 hot minutes. Rock held up both belts after the match and made Austin beg and cry before laying him out."
"After Raw ended, Austin blamed Van Dam for costing him to lose the match and challenged him to an impromptu match. They did a short brawl ending with Van Dam using the five star frog splash and counting his own pin. Austin then got up and said that he had just got his ass whipped twice and challenged Van Dam again. Van Dam came out again, but then Austin told him, "never mind." Austin instead starting singing, doing four songs, and then went around ringside and had interaction with fans, doing a comedy bit with fans pretending to hate them, but making the crowd laugh like crazy by the time it was done. He sang "Joy to the World," "Kumbayah" and a couple of George Jones songs which, being Nashville, got over great. With the exception of Rock, Austin by the end, got the best babyface reaction of the night"
"The plan starting the first weekend in October is split crews, with definite "A" crews running major arenas (10,000+) and "B" crews running in a lot of secondary markets and 5,000-seat buildings the company had largely pulled out of when it got so hot."
"The main reason for adding the Attitude show is because WWF sells ads based on cumulative number of viewers for all the shows put together. Adding viewers from new shows may cushion or even avert the losses in ratings from the main shows. There was a belief that Excess would do between a 1.5 and 2.0 being in prime time, making it a huge improvement over the morning show numbers, but those improvements didn't materialize"
"Stacy Carter is currently living with former WWF developmental wrestler Mike Howell (who wrestled as one of the Dupps and later Mike Hard) in Lawler's condo in Florida. Howell was just recently fired by the company in its developmental program cost cutting. As noted here, on his final OVW TV appearance, he went on the air flaunting it by wearing a Miss Kitty t-shirt"
"The announcing positions as you can imagine are a major political hurdle. Ross and Heyman work together well but there are so many underlying issues between those two dating back forever, plus there is the feeling of many that Lawler was a better foil for Ross. Certainly Heyman and Lawler are totally different, and Heyman is much stronger at getting over important storylines aspects over that seem to go ignored. Lawler is smoother and funnier to the masses, although Heyman may be funnier to insiders and certainly sneaks in a lot of lines that say a lot more than what Lawler says. Tazz, on the other hand, is clearly in the doghouse, taking heat from all sides. Even if Lawler doesn't return, there is already some sentiment to put either Heyman or Snow in his position"
"Kane was scheduled to return at the Smackdown show in Houston and get laid out by Kronik to heat up the issue. He was available to wrestle as early as 9/10. It was cut because of the decision not to do angles on that show"
"It was very difficult for the wrestlers to get flights out of Houston after Smackdown. A lot of the wrestlers drove home, driving as far as Florida and Minnesota. Most of the East Coast and West Coast guys and the Canadian guys ended up just driving to Nashville and staying there for a few days before Raw, which meant they wouldn't get to see their families from leaving on 9/8 through 9/19 at the earliest. While 11-days straight on the road is hardly unusual for a wrestler, these were times when I think a lot would have really wanted to come home, especially the New York guys with families"
"Caryn Mawr, who appeared very briefly as Stephanie McMahon's personal trainer Muffy, was the winner in Battledome's first ever women's championship. She lasted something like one WWF taping after a million dark try-outs. Reportedly didn't earn brownie points by speaking up and saying she didn't like the name Muffy"
"Metal/Jakked is becoming the show where they emphasize what a loser organization the Alliance is because it is about 75% WWF "C" team guys beating Alliance guys they gave up on, in many cases far too soon"
"For whatever this is worth, there have been 61 WWF champions since the belt started in 1963. There have also been 61 Hardcore champions since the belt was started a couple of years ago"
"Catching upon the business, the house show on 9/8 in Dallas with Rock vs. Austin drew 15,600 paying $442,246. While a great house, there is something about running a new building for the first time with Rock vs. Austin and not selling out. There has been a lot of disappointment that Rock's return hasn't made the difference they expected both at the arenas and on TV over the long haul after the huge first week pop."
"9/9 in Austin for a house show also with Rock vs. Austin drew 6,458 paying $218,834. There is no question that is a huge disappointment because it shows Rock appearing there or giving people the two top stars against each other no longer guarantees a big crowd."
"There was an interview with HHH in FHM magazine this month. He said he hated the criticism people gave the WWF for continuing the show after Owen Hart died. He said that Owen was his friend and it ticked him off that people said they shouldn't have gone on. Yeah, how dare those people like Owen's wife and family members question that decision"
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Post by jason1980s on Nov 26, 2020 10:54:38 GMT -5
To me, Stephanie looked so much older after her heel turn so it's easy to forget she was only like 24 at the time of 9/11. She was still very young so an off the wall comment could be understandable. I do think she would probably say the same thing now in her early 40s though. In the 1940s, World War II era many football and baseball players gave up portions of their careers to serve. It is admirable them doing so. I wonder if Simmons and Bradshaw would have done the same. Something tells me it's doubtful.
That Billy Silverman story sucks. It's stories like this that make me hate anyone called "locker room leader" who could stand by and let his bullying happen. Even though I am happy Undertaker got his 30 year send off and even if he wasn't on the flight he should have stood against the bullying. That is what a "leader" does. Now, maybe he wasn't on this flight but he had to have heard about it and yet this thing is acceptable. So there's definitely a long period of Undertaker's career I dislike very much. I would love to hear Billy's part of the story. I am guessing Bradshaw was involved in the problem. It's really too bad the government or BBB can't step in, in situations like this. Most companies have a corporate human resources to deal with these issues. Having backstage bullies called "leaders" is just another reason why WWF/WWE is should not be seen in a positive light by other companies.
Edit: HHH had a horrible way of showing his friendship with Owen. Total burials on the mic and in matches. I doubt those two ever crossed many paths backstage. On one hand you have a devoted family man in his early 30s and on the other you have a mid to late 20s disgusting degenerate who uses anyone he possibly can to get over. If HHH is a what is considered a friend, how bad can the enemies be?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2020 11:34:58 GMT -5
Oct 01, 01
"Just days before the Unforgiven show, WWF and DirecTV reached an agreement for one show to continue under the old agreement while they continue to negotiate a new deal. It was said this was a one show thing, but it made clear that when push comes to shove, and with anywhere from $800,000 to $1.3 million at stake for both sides by not carrying the show, that this is not the time (nor is any time a good time) to be passing up that kind of revenue each month over a few percentage points or a contract interpretation going to arbitration."
"The early returns on the "B" shows range from encouraging (Bethlehem, PA on 10/6 and Saginaw, MI on 10/13) to fair, generally with 2,000 to 3,000 tickets sold. The first casualty was 10/7 in Fairfax, VA, a building WCW used to do strong business in until the bitter end, and that WWF was running its first ever event in, which should have meant a strong showing. Due to a poor advance, the show was cancelled and the crew scheduled for that tour, working Bethlehem the previous night, will instead work in Valpraiso, IN on a show just announced at press time and with tickets going on sale on 9/29, just seven days before the event, which is unheard of for the WWF and goes to show how poorly Fairfax was expected to do."
"The Madison Square Garden streak is in grave danger on 10/14. MSG is the only house show currently on the schedule with Rock booked in the main event (he's only working TVs and PPVs) and at press time, and in what is a very disappointing affirmation from many of the house shows he's worked since returning (Austin, TX wasn't good for a unification match with Austin; San Diego was decent, while Dallas was strong also for a unification match with Austin but it was also one of the first events in a new building), that he's not magic at the box office like he once was. They have only sold 9,000 tickets for a building that in recent years they've sold out the first day tickets were put on sale and that Rock himself was seemingly building toward breaking the Superstar Graham sellout percentage record for headlining that building."
"Unforgiven ended with Angle winning clean with an ankle lock submission in 23:12, with his family (ala the Hart family at the Calgary Stampede PPV in happier days) and the WWF wrestlers including Rock in the ring to congratulate him. The huge post-match celebration puts the title over as something special. Saying it was flat would be unfair, but like with Angle of late, it just didn't come across, even in his home town, as the overwhelming reaction perhaps it should have been. Angle was a geek for a long time--even as late as two months ago, and it's hard to get behind a former geek as your main event babyface. This is paying for not getting Angle out of that gimmick sooner and having time to build him into a new character as opposed to just wave the magic wand and forget he's a geek, he's now a stud."
"The title switch was seemingly a way to give people a feel-good ending to the show after all of the events of the past two weeks, where there hasn't been a lot to feel good about. The decision would be controversial, because there is more money in Austin as champion, with faces Rock and HHH on the immediate horizon as well as Angle and Van Dam. There really isn't much for Angle as champion except Austin that would be a PPV caliber match, so it's a short-term switch most likely and the title is stronger without them. The booking idea, if you don't acknowledge the real world and cater to the hometown audience, Austin should retain the title. If you do, you figure this is just the week to provide a happy ending to people even though from a long-term booking standpoint it doesn't seem to be the "right" ending."
"There were no serious injuries that came out of the show, but there was a strange abundance of eyes being busted open, with Perry Saturn, Edge (who ended up with a black eye and needing stitches), Chris Jericho (took stitches but worked Raw) and Steve Austin and a bloody mouth from Christian, who apparently took stitches in his upper lip."
"The down point of the show was the Undertaker & Kane vs. Kronic match, which may have been the worst WWF PPV match between male wrestlers all year and resulted in the end of Kronic's very brief stay in WWF. The word we got is that they claim they quit and one company source said they were dumped, but details weren't confirmed other than that they are gone after just three weeks and they had called up to try and get re-booked on the late October Russo tour of Australia. The story going around is that Jim Ross talked to them before the show on Monday and told them they were going to send them to HWA and they instead quit. If that story is correct, for wrestlers of their level of experience, the idea they were being sent down was a nice way of hoping that they would quit."
"What was also strange is that even though Kronic shouldn't have been in the company (brought in as a favor since Brian Adams and Undertaker are friends), if they are being brought in, why were they given a manager and an attempt at a big angle if they were to be literally beaten like a drum on the finish to immediately take whatever luster there could possibly be? Considering the finish, not the pinfall but blow-off nature, they already had made their decision before the match. It was the right decision, but why sign them?"
"The one bright spot is that the audience itself seems to have decided that Van Dam is the next hot thing. Heavy RVD chants. Fans didn't boo Jericho at all, but it was clear fans didn't see him as a top guy in comparison."
"Van Dam seemed to bust Jericho's eye with a kick and he needed stitches, legit. While busted eyes seemed to be the norm for the night, it should be noted how Van Dam is getting a major track record of doing so in recent matches."
"With the high injury rate, they've definitely adopted a more safety oriented product, which is good. Unfortunately, they've weaned a generation of fans who don't care about the health of the performers and many get bored with a toned down product based more on ring psychology and basic moves."
"Finally, after teasing the piledriver as the killer move, Austin hit it, but Angle kicked out of the pin. Even though nobody has seen piledrivers in a long time since WWF did the unofficial ban, crowd didn't react to them with anywhere near the heat the announcers were trying to sell the move with."
"Raw dropped to a 4.47 rating (4.28 first hour; 4.63 second hour) and a 6.5 share. It was the lowest rated Raw since 6/18 and the second lowest share of the year, trailing only the 5/21 San Jose show (HHH & Austin vs. Benoit & Jericho) which was the show that stopped the post-WM huge drop. The total audience dropped to about 5.98 million, falling under six million for the first time since 6/18.As far as the show pattern itself, the audience grew throughout the first hour, peaking with a 4.81 for the Angle vs. Booker title match. They lost about 345,000 viewers from that level for Christian vs. Jericho, and continued to very slowly drop the entire second hour (which seems to be a new trend and I've got no idea why other than the audience is not as loyal to the product as it was even a month ago)."
"The New York Times did an interview with Linda McMahon for a story on how the WWF is handling the war-time situation, likely comparing it with its exploitation of the situation during the Gulf War. McMahon said that they were going to change the name of Raw is War, to just Raw, and that they are going to rename the December PPV, which was formerly known as Armageddon. She also said that the situation did play a part in Angle getting the WWF title on the PPV"
"Raw got very strange on 9/23 in Columbus, OH. The night before on the PPV, Stephanie talked about them having a big birthday celebration for her. While her birthday was acknowledged, no such thing took place on the show. Also, the entire show they were building up what was going to happen when Austin showed up. And after two plus hours, Austin never showed up. That is one of those things that kills fan confidence in the product, no matter what form it is. I guess the theory is to make Austin showing up into a big deal, but they were getting away from paying attention to the matches in favor of constantly hyping something that they never delivered. Anything reminiscent of WCW sends those warning signals"
"Watching everyone bump from those arm punches by Undertaker with no body movement was almost as bad as watching everyone run into an immobile Dusty Rhodes' elbow in the late 80s."
"Keibler said all she had to do was snap her fingers and she'd get a tall, dark, handsome guy. Stasiak was never mentioned, so I guess they've kicked dirt on his carcass."
"Christian came in the building and told the security guard to keep fans away from him. Two fans were in this skit, basically ignoring him (long-time Observer readers Chris & Jan from Ohio), and this did look like something WCW would do about 18 months ago (3 Count at Nitro Grill with no fans caring) that we'd write at the time "the WWF would never do this." "
"Shane announced Angle vs. Booker for the WWF title. How in the name of logical storylines does he have the power to do that? Later they tried to make sense out of it by saying that Regal approved it as long as Shane wasn't at ringside."
"Spike came out as this miniature Show wearing the same ring outfit as show. A totally horrible idea, and not just because he has no tan. He looked like the kid who looked goofy in shorts in gym class that was the worst athlete and I'm sorry, but as I recall, that is not a cool character people identify with."
"Shane showed Hebner the tape. Hebner admitted he blew the call but wasn't going to reverse his decision. I like a man of principle who can't change his mind even when given unimpeachable evidence."
"Page is back doing a self-help gimmick. Bob Patterson. This has death written all over it."
"Main saw Rock pin RVD in 8:21 to keep the WCW title in a pretty heated match that seemed to serve no purpose other than to stop RVD's momentum, which I don't think should be their goal."
"For Heat, Spike pinned Awesome with a huracanrana off a top rope power bomb, so that tells you they probably want Awesome to disappear."
"Something very sad and telling and I don't have an answer, is that as JR & Cole were selling like crazy the severity of Angle's injury, you could see the crowd didn't buy it at all. Wheeling him on the stretcher through the crowd was supposed to elicit that sympathetic clap you get when athletes are injured and taken out. It really didn't happen. Worse, as they are selling, you saw a bunch of little kids mugging their faces on TV, which totally killed the effect of the announcers seriousness."
"Sean O'Haire was involved in a fight in the stands while attending a Reality Superfighting (MMA) show on 9/22 in Savannah, GA. Apparently a fight broke out in the stands with two guys and O'Haire jumped in. A fighter by the name of Charles Bennett, a 155-pounder also known as Crazy Horse, who had actually fought earlier in the show, choked O'Haire from behind and choked him all the way out while several police officers appeared to finally break things up. According to live reports of the incident, it started with one fan sucker punching another fan after words had been exchanged and continuing to pummel him. O'Haire was sitting in the section came to where the fight was. At that point, the guy who started the fight, went to punch a different fan. Another fan grabbed the first guy to break up the fight. O'Haire jumped on that guy and started fighting with him. Bennett ran into the crowd and grabbed O'Haire from behind and choked him all the way out. If you've ever unknowingly been jumped from behind with a perfect choke by someone who knows what they are doing, they can be a lot smaller than you and if you're stuck in the hold, you're probably not getting out. Still, O'Haire is lucky Bill Watts isn't running the WWF."
"WWF expects Eddy Guerrero to be released soon from rehab. For part of the time he was in, he was rooming with Tom Prichard, who also was battling problems and I believe is now back at work. Guerrero's family is being paid his downside while he's been in and he will get a chance to come back. Not everyone makes it, but everyone uses Regal, who was in horrible shape and had several relapses but came back all the way, as the example of a best-case in giving someone that extra chance."
"Can you believe that Shane, while on Opie & Anthony on 9/20, where he talked a lot about Lawler, putting him over (they've been trying to get Lawler his job back) said about his sister's implants that they were "two good reasons to tune into Smackdown." "
"There has been more consideration of late to buying Flair's contract out from Time Warner and Flair's representatives have been contacted about Flair's feelings on the matter. The current economy affects every decision and Flair would have an $800,000 guarantee which is very high, particularly for someone whose value isn't going to be going on the road and working house shows, or for that matter, wrestling on television with any frequency. Perhaps the realization has hit that they failed to make any new stars out of the group they picked up, and most are in worse shape as far as being over than they were a year ago with the exception of Booker and RVD."
"The William Hill line agency in England which put together the betting line on who would hold the WWF title on 12/31, now has odds on who will win the Royal Rumble. They've got Rock and Austin at 2-1, Angle at 4-1, HHH at 9-2 (not the worst bet), Undertaker at 5-1 and Goldberg at 12-1, Jericho at 14-1 and Booker, Rhyno and RVD (which may not be the worst bet by January either) at 20-1. Stephanie is listed at 100-1 if you're looking at a longshot. Benoit is listed at 33-1, which would be a very bad bet since he won't be back in action by that time"
"In Reading, they announced before the show that Undertaker, Faarooq and Ivory wouldn't be there due to transportation problems and offered refunds. While people were mad about Taker not being there, want to guess how many people asked for refunds? Zero."
"While the WWF publicly claimed that all wrestlers were given the option on whether or not they wanted to work the 9/13 Smackdown show in Houston and that nobody chose not to perform, it doesn't appear that a lot of the wrestlers were aware of that option. Some may have been taken aside personally but there was no group statement and most didn't know about it being a matter of choice. Not that it would have made much of a difference. WWF is about groupthink and not individual positions (I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just saying that's what it is). If anyone didn't want to do it, and some had mixed emotions going in, they were going to perform. With the economic situation being what it is in wrestling, you don't want to appear to have publicly disagreed with a controversial decision by the company, especially with so many guys competing for so few strong positions"
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2020 10:45:05 GMT -5
Oct 8, 01
"The World Wrestling Federation was ordered to pay 150,000 pounds ($229,772 U.S.) and was granted permission for an appeal to challenge the ruling in the World Wildlife Fund case which would force it to eliminate a lot of marketing under the WWF name, including its web site. The original ruling gave the wrestling company until March to stop using the WWF initials on its products, television shows and its web site outside of the United States (with a web site, that is international, it would force it to stop using the initials completely). The company was given 14 days to officially file its appeal, at which time a date would be set for the appeal. It was also given 28 days to pay 150,000 pounds of the Fund's legal bills, and would also, if losing the case, be forced to pay a "substantial" portion of the Fund's total legal bills up to this point of 412,000 pounds ($630,000)."
"When WWF attorneys complained about the cost of a brand initial change, Judge Robin Jacob was totally unsympathetic in the original decision, saying, "It's going to cost a lot because you have effectively built on somebody else's land." "
"The wildlife charity in arguments was willing to accept the wrestling company changing its initials to either WWFE or simply WF."
"In 1994, both sides signed an agreement which would allow the wrestling company to continue using those initials for marketing in the U.S. but not internationally, which the original's judges decision ruled the WWF has consistently violated that agreement since, and in particular with the wwf.com web site address. The WWF has argued that its 1994 agreement is unenforceable because it's an unreasonable restraint of trade which is contrary to European law, and that there is no evidence of the public being confused by the two companies using identical initials."
"The Tough Enough final, where Maven Huffman and Nidia Guenard were chosen as the male and female winners live at WWF New York on 9/27, drew the show's highest rating in its history, a 2.49, and ended up as an emotional night with the crowd taking to Huffman like he was already a charismatic superstar. Huffman, 24, who left a job as a school teacher in Beaverton, OR to do the show, gave a tremendous speech, including thanking all the wrestlers of the past that paved the way. The live crowd, which, granted, is the easiest crowd in the world, reacted to all five as if they were established wrestling stars."
"Huffman, who they played it safe with by debuting him on Smackdown taped 9/2 in Mobile against one of his trainers, Tazz (who no doubt he's done many matches with in training), in a few weeks will be sent to Cincinnati to work for Heartland Wrestling. Guenard will be sent to Louisville to work for Ohio Valley, where WWF has sent all its developmental women, to have a group of training partners. Huffman, who if he had the ability right now, has enough charisma and speaking ability that he might be able to parlay it into getting over for a short-term program. Most likely, by the time he is ready, and with so many developmental prospects there is no guarantee that will ever happen, whatever appeal from his exposure from the first Tough Enough will have long since past. In others words, they got a guy over to a degree, which today isn't easy, and there's really no way they can do anything with him, at least while he's hot."
"Others who were close to the situation, pegged Huffman, a native of Virginia, as being very charismatic and a great talker, but in the ring, being equivalent to an average independent wrestler of about six months experience. "Bumps well, good cardio, quick on his feet but can't do anything special in the ring," was a description given to us by someone close to the situation. Guenard, 22, a former stripper from Houston, who privately people aren't nearly as high on as far as potential ("Neither she nor Taylor will be another Lita or Jackie"), nosed out Taylor Matheny, 21, of Seattle, in what was a pretty major upset."
"The choices of the two winners were made largely by consensus of input from people like WWF executives Kevin Dunn, Vince McMahon and Jim Ross along with John Gaburik, a regular on the show who was the company's intermediary with MTV, along with trainers Snow, Tazz and Jackie. The other trainer, Terri "Tori" Poch, is no longer with the company, wasn't at the final special, was never acknowledged or thanked by anyone, as if they clearly knew ahead of time her name wasn't to be mentioned. She was almost too conspicuous by being all over the "Tough Enough" tapes in the background, but was never focused on with individual comments during the show, as she clearly fell out of favor with the company between the taping of the show in the spring and airing of the episodes months later. When her name comes up, the subject is always changed immediately."
"Both picks were very close. The basic feeling seemed to be that the women were largely equal (Snow gave a slight edge to Taylor inside the ring showing more fire and toughness), but, and this surprised a lot of people, Nidia got the pick because they considered her sexier and more exotic looking, being that in the WWF, the appeal of the women is not based on their technical skill in the ring. They also felt she was more comfortable in front of the camera and had a more outgoing personality. But from all accounts, the decision was almost a coin flip."
"Huffman, although the favorite among most watching the show, from all accounts was not a shoe-in when it came to picking. Some of those with an opinion that may have counted picked Josh Lomberger, 20, of Schereville, IN, who ended up being the flashiest performer inside the ring and came across having an underdog personality and a real passion for the business, as well as winning most of the agility drills. Lomberger is about 135 pounds and when together on Excess, was far smaller than WWF's smallest performer, Spike Dudley."
"The final competitor, Nowinski, 23, or Harvard Chris as he was nicknamed, or Chris Harvey, which is the name he's using on the indies, had the size, at 6-4 and 270 pounds, and athletic background as a former college football player. He was a total heel in the final weeks of the show because he became frustrated because he was the most competitive of the group, and sensed his initial advantage of being the best worker was slipping away, particularly after Huffman stunned people with his promo ability and Lomberger started picking up the ability to do flashy moves. He was the most psychologically sound of the three, but was thought to be somewhat mechanical in his matches and lacked fire. There was also some resentment, as many felt he had far more training than he let on."
"It was pretty clear that Tazz, in his role of being an aggressive interviewer talking to the losers on the special moments after they had gotten the bad news, felt bad about having to do his act with Matheny, who seemed both stunned and crushed by the announcement, but seemed to relish the idea of sticking it to Nowinski."
"Raw on 10/1 stayed basically flat, doing a 4.43 rating (4.42 first hour; 4.44 second hour) and 6.5 share for about 5.95 million viewers. This means the show has now dropped in audience six of the past nine weeks since its peak in Philadelphia with Rock's return."
"The show peaked with Rock vs. Dudleys drawing a 4.72 rating, and largely again dropped in the second hour, which is becoming a bad pattern, particularly with no wrestling on another station. It used to be that Raw constantly grew, which is what a good show should do. In recent weeks, that pattern has changed, showing the casual audience is less willing to sit there for two hours without switching. In particular, the Heyman-Regal and Tazz-Maven angle plus build and entrances for the main event was down to a 4.09, an unheard of level that late in the show, a loss of nearly 520,000 viewers from the Christian, X-Pac & Edge promo and Regal vs. Storm"
"Angle vs. Shane in the main event did a weak 4.48, which also showed they cried wolf too often with Austin, as the number would have been higher if people really did expect Austin to show up as was being built the entire show."
"The XWF (which may or may not stand for Xtreme Wrestling Federation and may have its name changed since the folks at WWF are threatening legal problems about the name claiming it's a cross between WWF and XFL)."
"Russ Haas, 27, a developmental wrestler out of the HWA, suffered a mild heart attack late on 9/21 but everyone seems to be hopeful he'll make a full recovery. Haas, the younger of the two brothers who have been in the developmental program a few years as a tag team, wrestled Prototype that night at the HWA TV tapings in Jeffersonville, IN and was fine the night of the show but feeling nauseous on the way home and in the middle of the night, was rushed to the hospital where they found a partially clogged artery near the heart which caused the heart attack and his potassium levels were way off."
"Raw on 10/1 in Baton Rouge asked that age old chicken and egg question. Well, the show laid an egg, but that's not what I meant, which came first. Was the show so dead because the crowd was bad, or was the crowd so dead because the show was bad. Either way, to the viewer, it came off like both were the case. Which is strange, because Southern crowds are usually more vocal and the show was a legit sellout, but it came across as one of those Thunder shows at the end in WCW when the top stars weren't there."
"It was another show without Austin, this time they did the gimmick where Heyman kept saying throughout the show that Austin wouldn't be there, where fans, since the heel announcer is supposed to be a liar, are supposed to take it as that he's doing a run-in during the main event so stick with it, and again the show ended without him, leaving viewers mad at spending two hours waiting. Heyman had a fax machine and several times during the show claimed to have gotten faxes from Austin and read them, largely insulting the crowd. By this point I was figuring he had to come, because it seemed like pre-conditioning to make sure they wouldn't cheer Austin for being there."
"Angle came out at the start of the show and got very little reaction when he came out. Geeking him up on Smackdown the previous Thursday did him no favors. Crowd was dead for him, although they were for just about everyone else as well. The more he ripped on Austin, the less they reacted, and you could see it in his face. He told a joke about Austin peeing on himself while in the ankle lock and nobody laughed."
"Has anyone told Shane he needs new entrance music and shouldn't do that silly dance? One of those great unanswered questions is why he still does it."
"Taker needs to be out of the ring, at least when it comes to TV, except on special occasions or on PPVs in a mystery partner type role. His shoulder is obviously, from his punches, in worse shape than he's letting on and he's burying his rep. Most fans don't see it, but they will catch on if he's out there wrestling on TV every week."
"Taker nearly lost Test on a last ride spot, but did deliver the move after first losing balance and falling backwards while holding him, only keeping his balance using the ropes. Do you realize how badly a newcomer would have been buried underground and what would have been said about him if he had matches like Taker has been having or did a finisher that in recent months on TV had been nearly botched badly on several different occasions (Eric Angle, Rock and Regal come to mind)?"
"Did a few segments with Shane and RVD with Stephanie not there. At least they didn't tease sexual tension with those two."
"DDP did his segment. Crowd groaned. Horrible."
"Ivory asked if Regal liked her top or her bottom. Storm was in the office and started charging Regal with sexual harassment. Okay, who got charged with sexual harassment unfairly lately?"
"Then came a long interview segment that died. Christian was out first, trying to insult Baton Rouge. Fans started chanting "Baton Rouge." He tried to get them to chant "Christian sux," which they didn't do. The idea was X-Pac would come out and sympathize since he was used to the same chant, but since they didn't chant that at Christian, that idea didn't work."
"Edge did some comedy on X-Pac saying that 1998 was calling. Edge mentioned that he once did a goth gimmick but times change and it's called character development. Reaction to this was like the night Eric Bischoff talked to Sid about the scissors and nobody knew what he was talking about. Those fans in Baton Rouge don't want to hear about character development. Edge finally got a pop when he claimed that Christian still wets his bed. Yeah, that'll help him get over as a serious money player."
"Regal is so entertaining backstage and a strong babyface character in portrayal, but when he comes out to wrestle, people don't see the same guy and don't take to him at all."
"Main saw Angle over Shane to keep the WWF title in 7:47 with the ankle lock. This crowd was dead for Angle and Shane at the start of the show, so imagine what they were like after a boring show."
"It should be noted that there was an article previewing Smackdown in the local newspaper which said that Austin would appear, but again he didn't."
"Main event was Rock & Jericho & ref Chioda over Dudleys & Patrick. Patrick took the rock bottom and lionsault, and then Chioda pinned him after Rock ordered him to do a people's elbow. After the show went off, Charles Robinson ran in and got a rock bottom and Chioda gave him a people's elbow. Jericho gave another ref the triple bomb and Earl Hebner gave him a people's elbow"
"Here's how the Kronic situation seems to have ended up. As mentioned, the two were brought in on recommendation by Undertaker in spite of the fact that everyone who watched WCW during its last year of existence was shaking their head when the news came out. Actually, this entire situation points out a lot of large and small problems. Although some people we spoke with liked Brian Adams, they immediately got that WWF locker room deal about new guys coming in and getting a bigger push than guys who have paid their dues in the company."
"Even before that match took place, it was clear, based on the match finish at the PPV, that this was a political deal where a new act was brought in that others felt shouldn't, so first they were put together with Richards with a push, and before their first big match, the act was already booked to be destroyed, doing a finish that came across as a burial, so the bad match turned out to fulfill some people's political agendas as it turned out. Of course, Kronic did themselves no favors by the match, but the truth is, as bad as Adams was, which should have been no surprise to anyone that watched him in WCW, there were four people in that match."
"Jim Ross apparently talked with Kronic about going to OVW to remove the ring rust from the months of inactivity (their Time Warner deal just expired so they had done no indie work since WCW went under), but based on that finish, they took it, probably correctly, as the secret code word for "We want you guys to breach your contract." Both had inquired about working elsewhere after that, and I guess Clark just quit while Adams, seeing that there's nothing else out there, didn't want to breach or take a buyout, so he's going to be sent to either HWA (Les Thatcher has been told to expect him) or OVW (per the Ross Report, and Ross is the one who makes those type of assignments). It is believed Adams won't be brought back. Don't know his downside, but generally speaking most of the downsides since WCW went down haven't been that high"
"It's amazing in that even within the company there is talk from people that they need to bring in Bischoff to feud with Vince to get this thing going"
"Tazz didn't doSmackdown because he was in New York for Tough Enough and it wouldn't look right for him to do Smackdown, which they try and give the illusion of being live. Of course the previous week they did that angle to get him off the broadcast and Heyman did that show, and the week before, Heyman did that show because it was that special show, but you can see the pattern emerge."
"They did a few vignettes trying to build camaraderie and comedy with Rock and Angle. One skit saw Angle want to take Rock out for strudel, but Rock said he liked pie, not strudel. Angle said he liked two big jugs of milk. Total double entendres galore. It was funny, but I think the naive Angle, while entertaining, keeps him from being that top guy that his work and verbal ability should have him as. Rock is cool while Angle was the sidekick who is tough but not at all cool. It may make for good comedy byplay, but when the straight naive guy has to draw money on his own in a wrestling ring, it's not the same concept."
"Hurricane still cracks me up. With his size, they'll never let him be a serious star anyway, so at least he's got a role. Not sure about the longevity of the role and then what. We've seen some guys in WWF do very well with a goofy short-term gimmick, but when the gimmick runs its course, they seem to have a difficult time giving them something new. DDP, well, it's going to be really tough"
"Ron Killings (K-Kwik) has been dropped and the closest thing to a story about Terri Poch is that they wanted her to go to OVW and she refused, although from the reaction to her name, instincts say there is probably more to it than that"
"Page's gimmick was his own idea, since's long wanted to get into motivational speaking when his wrestling career is over. A lot of the wrestlers get a kick out of it because they know him. The problem is, he's not a new character, he's a guy everyone has seen for years as a serious guy now doing a comedy role. It's much easier to give a gimmick like that to someone that people haven't seen before"
"House show on 9/30 in Biloxi, MS drew 3,185 paying $109,610, which was terrible considering it's a market the company never plays. It was one of the five lowest crowd of the year, but in some ways the worst because the others in this category were "B" shows on split crew nights and this was an "A" show with Angle vs. Austin on top."
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Post by jason1980s on Nov 28, 2020 11:22:15 GMT -5
Really interesting write up on Tough Enough. I thought Maven was the favorite and also Taylor. Chris is doing great things now but I get why he thought he should have won. I think Josh was either around later than I watched or he wasn't around much because I don't remember him at all with WWE. Nidia was good in her role which was more comedy than serious. Maven's career was probably destroyed during that royal rumble match and very reminiscent of "Big Andy" some years later and how he was destroyed on a Raw.
What interests me is season 2. I wonder if there was someone, or multiple people who had it in for Jake and wanted to embarrass him when he naturally assumed a male winner would be picked and the way Stacy read the "Ja" in Jackie's name, someone with a Ja in their name who is male would obviously stand up thinking it's them being picked. I wonder if this was purposely directed towards Jake or if it was just Vince or other backstage guys who wanted to mess with someone just to mess with him and no personal vendetta. I do think Jake probably killed his chances when he said he was a slow learner. No matter the job, big or small, you never want to say that in an interview. You want to put yourself over like Brimstone-a guy who the whole world in his hands, with immeasurable talent and skills even if you have nothing going for you.
I watched the first 3 and last season of Tough Enough and always enjoyed it (except for the Matt beatdown). I think almost all, or all, of the winners and runners up did fairly well. Maybe not star level but for being a part of a reality show, just coming in, they did pretty good.
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Post by DSR on Nov 28, 2020 11:46:03 GMT -5
It baffles me that this sort of mentality would still be in effect with guys that had a history with the company as Crush and Adam Bomb. Admittedly they weren't exactly mega stars, but I'd say they paid their dues. *shrug*
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Post by Perpetual Nirvana on Nov 28, 2020 16:26:56 GMT -5
That makes me wonder if that weird reverse powerbomb Kane briefly used as a finish around this time was a rib on Taker.
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hassanchop
Grimlock
Who are you to doubt Belldandy?
Posts: 14,794
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Post by hassanchop on Nov 29, 2020 1:30:33 GMT -5
It baffles me that this sort of mentality would still be in effect with guys that had a history with the company as Crush and Adam Bomb. Admittedly they weren't exactly mega stars, but I'd say they paid their dues. *shrug* I still say they could've at least brought Adams back in as Crush in 2002-04 as a nostalgia run, team him with nWo since he was a member before, or team up with a returning LOD.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2020 3:44:22 GMT -5
Oct 15, 01
"The original plan for No Mercy was to do Angle-Austin in a submission match and do Survivor Series on 11/18 in Greensboro with Austin vs. Van Dam and a Rock vs. Jericho rematch, which means they'll likely keep Austin and Rock apart at least until Royal Rumble. I wouldn't be surprised to see HHH cost Austin the title on that show, but we're way ahead of ourselves even thinking that far in advance. With Rock and a babyface HHH and possibly a babyface Benoit if they want to "credit" Austin for his injury and let him get that high as well as Van Dam, there are a whole slew of ready-made opponents for a heel Austin as champ, but the counter is a heel Austin isn't drawing."
"Angle is looking like odd man out in how this all plays out, but I guess they can beat him a few times like they did Jericho since ultimately he's probably going to have to turn."
"The Raw finish where Regal turned on Angle was originally proposed as the finish in Pittsburgh, but they went back-and-forth on that one before most likely patriotic fervor and the expected home town pop moved that one into the Angle win column"
"The plan this time is to give Jericho the huge push as a heel, although he's had so many false starts that nobody is holding their breath on this one. One would expect Jericho and Stephanie aligned sooner than later"
"Added Edge vs. Christian in a ladder match for IC title to 10/21 (how many ladder matches have we had on PPV this year and this is only their second PPV match)"
"Raw on 10/8 in Indianapolis was a very good show. Coming off one of the worst shows, they hyped it to death, promising a PPV card type of atmosphere and claiming all week that the face of sports entertainment would change and it would be the most important Raw in history. After all that, it came across like that Bischoff/Russo show where they promised this giant surprise and it wound up being the Goldberg turn and everyone was mad. Overhyped, but I guess they felt they needed to with numbers falling, but that's another thing we've seen in the "Death of WCW" novel that hyping the greatest Nitro of all-time can only be done once. So hopefully this was it."
"DDP segment. It was well produced and hilarious. This women bent over so far that TSN in Canada wouldn't show it. Crowd, which has hated every DDP segment so far, laughed like crazy and gave it one of the biggest pops of the night. He's actually going to be a face out of this. The woman I believe works in the office in Stephanie's department."
"Rock confronted Jericho as he was getting medical attention. He was all uppity. Jericho apologized but wasn't thrilled and said something under his breath. Rock confronted Jericho a second time and Jericho got pissed and punched him and they had a pull-apart. This segment was tremendous."
"Molly pinned Lita in 2:42 with a Pat O'Connor rolling reverse cradle and back bridge. I'm not making that up. It really happened."
"Austin won the WWF title from Angle in 17:17 in one of the longest Raw matches in years....Ended up real good although the crowd hurt the match because crowd was pretty dead for the biggest match in the history of the show."
"Spike did a stretcher job, and not only were fans laughing because they've seen one on every show and nobody takes them serious, but the EMT's were laughing as they came to the ring."
"Kidman beat X-Pac to regain WCW cruiserweight title. Why they need two cruiser champs in a company that shouldn't even have one since they bury the division is beyond me"
"Jericho's eye was busted open, so Van Dam is keeping his streak alive."
"Hurricane challenged anyone for the European title. Kane came out, allowing him to do the "Citizen Kane" line."
"Some interesting things to look out for (if, when) Nash goes in early next year, which I'd figure is very close to happening since Jim Ross had a meeting with Nash and has spoken with Hall as well. On his Ross Report wrote, "A lot of rumors circulating Kevin Nash and Scott Hall and their return to the World Wrestling Federation. I can clarify and address both those talents very succinctly. We have had casual conversations with Nash and Hall. Both men are interested in returning, and we certainly would welcome them back under the right circumstances." "
"At one point there was a vote on whether to take Nash among upper management and everyone voted no, but I always figured when January came around, he'd be in anyway because that's how the timing of the business decline would play out"
"Even if Hall doesn't get into trouble, he's got a hell of a track record. Not to mention Nash's tremendous ability when it comes to locker room politics, making the right friends, and then manipulating the locker room and burying rising talent."
"Van Dam was kept out for months when they polled talent that had worked with him and the talent was very negative toward his ability, but when Van Dam got in and did so well, the locker room polling thing probably won't have the power it once did."
"A lot of the wrestlers, and virtually all that were there during the WCW fall, seem to have a negative view on this because of the feeling they'll lock up the top positions with HHH, and that long-term it won't be good, although I don't know if anyone can say that publicly because politically it would be suicide"
"Although Jim Ross talked about expecting MSG to sellout on 10/14 (MSG hasn't not sold out since 1998) for the Rock vs. Austin unification match, at press time they had 10,200 tickets sold. There may be a push to heavily comp, but at press time there were about 6,000 tickets remaining"
"People are asking why Smackdown is usually so much better than Raw. I think the answer is checking out how much time is spent on wrestling. They spend far more time on Raw it seems on interviews and skits, and it often becomes "over-written" or overbooked. Then with Smackdown on Tuesday mornings when they put it together, they've used so many ideas and it winds up leaving less time for written stuff and more time to wrestling, making it usually the better show."
"Angle vs. RVD was excellent. You can sure see why wrestlers don't share a lot of people's opinions on RVD as a worker, and he continued his string of busting people up. It may be impossible for Angle to have a bad match. Okay, except against Undertaker, Kane or Brian Adams"
"Tazz vs. Maven? I've seen a lot of people in their first match and Maven was better than most. I guess they figured on keeping it short because you don't know what you're getting, but this was perplexing. First off, Maven's crowd reaction was ridiculously good, which I'd have figured. I know the politics and how it would be taken if he won, but guys don't come out of the chute with that kind of momentum, and to deflate it in one match is something I only thought WCW would do, although the wrestlers would have freaked if this guy walks in after 14 weeks and goes over one of them on Smackdown. I guess it turned out as good as it was going to with everyone trying to compromise at the end with this week's show. Once they were spending that kind of time building him up and due to the reaction he got, he really should have snuck over."
"The referees were kind of silly in the main event, but the crowd went for it and it was an entertaining match. Refs weren't in enough to hurt the match at all. The negative is that it was really sad watching a match with Rock and Jericho and watching the crowd file out in droves as the match is going on"
"The staff is right now headed by Stephanie as head writer and supervisor, with Vince having more input than he's had in a long time. The rest of the staff is Brian Gewirtz, who does a lot of the comedy writing, both good and bad, Paul Heyman, Michael Hayes, Bruce Prichard and Ed Kosky. Shane McMahon has some input into Raw but is always around on the Tuesday morning meetings when they put Smackdown together. The basic writing schedule is that they come back from TV's on the private jet late Tuesday after Smackdown. On Thursday, they start putting together Raw (or a PPV) with ideas for where to go. After Raw, they then start the next morning on Smackdown. Very few, if any, decisions are long-term, which is why you don't see long storyline builds like in the past."
"Goldberg apologized for his remarks last week regarding the WWF and its supposed lack of doing anything in New York. It's funny, because as soon as those remarks went public, the WWF suddenly scheduled both Bradshaw and Kurt Angle to go to Ground Zero partially to help push the 10/14 MSG show."
"They are bringing in women wrestlers to Undertaker's house to train Sara"
"There was quite a controversy in Louisville over a segment of OVW for the first time ever that was edited off the show that was to air on 9/22. Jim Cornette and all the wrestlers got in the ring together (and if you know Cornette, to have all the faces and heels standing together in the same ring, it would take a major catastrophe) and he talked about the situation. He cut a hell of a wrestling promo, but I think where the station got squeamish is he said that our enemies didn't care about killing innocent civilians. Basically he said that in a war, innocent civilians are going to get killed, and it would be better for it to be their's than ours. This was way stronger than the Bradshaw and Austin promos they edited off the U.K. shows. Cornette was furious about the segment not airing."
"Kidman debuted at the 10/3 tapings, losing to Rob Conway. Before the match, they went in with the instructions, since Kidman's knee is far from 100%, that if he started to feel significant discomfort, they should just go home. Kidman called for the finish early, and the ref, not knowing, counted 1-2, and then hesitated, making the finish look bad. Cornette was upset because he had just told the refs that from this point forward to ref as if it's a shoot, in that, if a guy who isn't supposed to lose, doesn't kick out in time, you can't three without hesitation and that's that (a lot of old-time promoters had that theory which is why you didn't have the confused ref hesitation counts you do now)."
"Kidman was back working WWF shows on 10/6 returning in Bethlehem, PA, and got a huge reaction since he grew up in nearby Allentown, so naturally lost to Crash in the opener."
"TSN in Canada edited two things off Raw, the power bomb Wilson took through the table, and the DDP segment"
"The Tazz-Maven match on Smackdown in the U.K. was edited off the show since "Tough Enough" is only a few weeks into its run, in one showing, but they blew it as a later repeat airing did have the match"
"The original new ring name for Molly Holly, before Mighty Molly, was Mollycane"
"Among numerous names suggested for the December PPV when they dropped the Armageddon name was Starrcade, but Vince McMahon didn't like that name"
"On the "Excess" show on 10/6, in the classic match, they aired the match from January 2000 where Benoit won the WCW title from Sid Vicious. It was the first time a WCW historical match has aired in the body of a WWF show. This was the finish that was used at Unforgiven, and by airing the match, they would have showed their audience that, but it was on Excess so it isn't like anyone actually saw it. Maybe they just wanted to show that Benoit is such a great worker he had a good match with Sid"
"Angle got seven stitches after his match with Van Dam, two in his lip and five in his chin, but didn't miss any matches."
"Foley noted that he's had several scenarios that he was supposed to come back and do, first as WCW commissioner (before the separate WCW idea was scrapped), then to wrestle Regal (which he wasn't high on doing because he wasn't in shape for that kind of match), then to wrestle Vince, then to do the ten-man tag at Invasion. Over the past month, his return to TV was moved back three times because the writers are constantly changing plans. He said there is a sticking point between he and WWF because he wants to do things that don't involve wrestling and contractually he isn't in a position where he can do that. He said to return as commissioner would be rehashing something that was really good a year ago and wouldn't be nearly as good now."
"Brian Adams debuted on 10/9 at the HWA show in Cincinnati. It was funny, because he came out, got a huge pop, and got cheered for everything he said, even though he was playing heel as he and Haku joined the WCW team while D-Lo Brown and Blackman joined the HWA team in their feud."
"The WWF trainers, or at least many of them, are literally shaking their heads at the training the WCW guys got at the Power Plant. The feeling is they were trained to look great but their in-ring training wasn't good at all"
"WWF held weigh-ins last week. Big Show weighed in at 483 pounds. Remember when they had ordered him to keep his weight at 375 or he wouldn't be brought back?"
"The wrestlers were already ribbing Maven pretty hard at Smackdown and everyone has warned him it may be worse in Cincinnati with guys with more experience that are more frustrated about not getting chances"
"A very interesting phenomenon this weekend when it came to split shows is that the "A" shows in the big arenas in large cities with far more star power barely outdrew "B" shows in small markets. That seems to indicate that right now, the name "WWF" draws whatever the crowds they are getting and nobody as an individual has any drawing power. The only names that sells extra tickets in a market is "Raw" and "Smackdown." The fact that Rock vs. Austin in a unification match didn't sellout MSG a month in advance tells you it's no longer the names or the match as much as the number of people interested in seeing the WWF live. History has shown us that wrestling is at its best when you have individual drawing cards as opposed to just local product wrestling as the draw."
"10/7 in Valpraiso, IN drew 3,742 paying $102,660. Valpraiso is actually a huge success, even though it's among the smaller gates of the year, since tickets were put on sale just eight days before the show after adding this date in place of cancelled Fairfax, VA. Fairfax had only sold 1,900 tickets, and Valpraiso came the closest of all the weekend shows to selling out even with so little advanced promotion, coming 1,170 shy."
"In a strange deal, after the APA won early in the show, Austin did a run-in and took the spinebuster from Faarooq and the clothesline from Bradshaw, and then got up and started plugging the merchandise and complained about being picked on"
"Lesnar did his first house show, pinning Kanyon, using the fisherman suplex as his finisher. Lesnar has been advised to save the shooting star press finisher only for big shows, because at 295 pounds, it's too much wear-and-tear on the knees."
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Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Nov 29, 2020 19:41:06 GMT -5
I was mentally checking out of all of this nonsense by this point, having fully accepted that WCW in any form or iteration was truly dead, so I'm a bit shocked that there was seemingly no plan in place by mid-October to end the Invasion. I had drafted a version of reality where they knew to end it by Survivor Series probably around late August, but it appears that's not the case. Hell, it seems they still planned on the second brand carrying the Alliance branding, and were even talking about bringing Eric Bischoff in. I knew Bischoff came up when Russo came back for one day in 2002, so I figured that was the first time it was bandied about Titan Towers.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2020 5:44:47 GMT -5
Oct 22, 01
"When wrestling peaked in late 1998 and early 1999, there were just under six million viewers over the age of 30 watching every Monday night. At that point, WWF was winning the ratings, but within that age group, WCW had a slight lead and it was still a dogfight for that group as late as 2000. WCW always skewed older (the average WCW viewer for Nitro and Thunder ranged between 35 and 39, older for the more traditional WCW Saturday night until it was left for dead) than WWF (average viewer was usually about 25). Perhaps its version of pro wrestling (at least pre-Nash and Russo) was closer to what the older audience was comfortable with and the stars were people they were more familiar with. Currently, that number on Monday's is closer to two million."
"About the time WCW went into a similar decline, it commissioned a study, where it studied the audience that was no longer watching the product, as well as those who still watched, and what they liked and didn't like about the product. At that point, and this was done two years ago, fans wanted more emphasis on the wrestling, less on the silly angles, interviews and skits. The results were 180 degrees different to what the people in charge (Russo at the time) thought wrestling should be. As people remember, the people in charge got the study, rejected it, and the guy who did the study quit, and the company went in its blind and merry way out of business."
"The most powerful people when it comes to constructing a television wrestling show these days are the writers. Writers write shows to show the value of the writers over the wrestlers. Often they make themselves central characters even though they aren't wrestlers, and, with the occasional exception (Vince McMahon), in 80% or more of the cases, it's the kiss of death."
"WWF is huge in studying fan response. Vince McMahon makes changes literally every week based on crowd reactions at TV tapings. Unfortunately, all the time spent analyzing their current audience and doing the monstrous job of producing so much television every week made them skip out on studying the last few years of WCW and all the lessons learned, because they are repeating so many of the same mistakes. It was sad that as WCW's numbers declined, they started throwing blame everywhere but where it belonged, as a way to not have to address the real problems, which never did get addressed. Also sad to see WWF starting to do the same thing. Blaming outside forces for people not buying tickets. Blaming critics for the fact their product is starting to get negative criticism despite declining ratings showing that something is wrong."
"One of the biggest problems many companies have had on the way down the drain is listening to the wrong audience, which is the audience that has remained after you've run the casual fans off. I can specifically remember going to a WCW event at the Nassau Coliseum on February 14, 2000, when the company was taking on water badly. Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair got far bigger reactions than everyone else on the show. I realized right there, that being in the building, was the worst thing for the people making decisions. The veterans were experts at working the crowd. The paid attendance for that show (headlined by an advertised Hogan vs. Flair match) was terrible, but if you were there, you would come to the conclusion they were the only guys the fans cared about."
"Bischoff was in those arenas (it was funny, but at the end, before his failed attempt to buy the company, he started staying away from the arenas on purpose to watch on TV and see how the masses saw things) and saw how the crowd reacted to Hogan and Sting, not realizing he was going with a pat hand far too long and planting the seeds for what happened. Generally speaking, the guys on top, because they have the most TV time and are portrayed on top, are going to get the best pops among those that pay, kind of inherently, but if nobody is paying, those pops mean zilch. This creates a redundancy, because then they continue to be featured."
"Deciding next month's card by listening to this month's audience response means the audience, and not the promoter, is the manipulator. The audience doesn't understand its responsibility to keep the main events fresh, but the promoter doesn't know exactly where he's going, which kills the long-term storylines which are the foundation of turning around business."
"In television, when an audience loses interest in a TV show because of whatever reason, bad writing, stale characters, over a season, it is next to impossible to get them back even with new writers and an improved product. They've moved on. Maybe they'll come back for a wedding special or a farewell show. Everyone's idea of what they want out of wrestling is different and you can never please everyone. In 1995-96, when the Monday night phenomenon started, teenagers increased but much of the new audience was 35+, not so much drawn by WWF Raw fans switching to WCW, but WCW creating a new audience of older fans interested in the stars they grew up with mixed in with new stars in a new format that looked state-of-the-art."
"There is no movement from territory-to-territory or super North American workers making a living in Japan and Mexico to revolutionize the in-ring product to allow constantly bringing in new faces to rise to the top. You can't recreate Nitro, or for that matter, 1997 Raw. They tried to recreate 1997 Raw with Angle as Austin, and it failed."
"Even the lessons of July tell us the right angle and right comeback, the lost audience will test the waters. But they won't stay more than a few weeks if they don't like what they get. The lesson of 10/8 says the opposite, that a lot of damage has been done over the last two months that isn't so easy to turn around even by promising the greatest show of all-time and pushing a match as PPV quality for free."
"It was really telling a few weeks ago when Kurt Angle was wheeled out on a stretcher and everyone laughed, or when fans visible on TV were leaving in droves during the Smackdown main event with Rock involved"
"A year ago, the mid-card was over. The Edge, Christian, Hardys Boys, Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero core were hot midcarders on their way up. Fans were teased by their holding their own with the big names, frustrated by their false starts, and eventually, stopped caring once they figured out there was a glass ceiling. A second problem, again based on those same names, is there needs to be a constant influx of new people throughout the card. WWF is paying the price today for having such a great product and giving the fans too much. Fans saw these guys when they were willing to take risks to get over. Now they are, "better workers," and "smarter workers," but they aren't fresh talent. Fresh talent can't get in because they don't have the talent of the guys who are in. But by not getting in, the product in inherently stale."
"Fans surrogately lived through Austin in hating HHH and Vince, and suddenly, Austin didn't care. It was like they had invested all this emotion in a fake storyline and felt jilted. Make no mistake about it, the Austin heel role, and teased face turn, coincided with all the downs and ups of ratings since Mania."
"Part of the problem is during the 1997-2000 war period, so much was thrown out so fast that there is nothing new fans haven't seen. Fans saw more angles and title changes in that four year period than people who were fans from 1980-96 saw in 17 years, so everything started to look the same."
"Most wrestling TV shows since the early 80s consisted of 3-5 minute television matches. At one point, JCP under Dusty Rhodes, during a period where ratings declined greatly, was doing a 30 second squash match/90 second interview format."
"Konnan and company came to San Jose for AAA and drew 4,500+. A few years later, they came back with WCW, as midcarders with all the so-called huge stars of WCW added to the mix, and drew 2,000, with virtually no Mexican fans coming to the show. The Mexicans, huge wrestling fans in this market, were not going to pay money to watch their superstars portrayed as midcarders nor care about seeing the people they relate to as non-stars."
"One of the biggest lures of wrestling, and everyone seems to have forgotten it, is identifying with a hero who may stumble, but if he does, immediately gets back up and goes for it. When your hero loses cleanly and it doesn't lead to them at least trying to rectify it, or they ignore it, you will lose faith. Why would the disenfranchised WCW fans pay to watch WCW wrestlers on WWF shows when they know they are bit players to be humiliated? It's the reason ethnic superheroes in the past drew, but having ethnics on the undercard just based on their ethnicity were a waste of a promoters' time."
"I also think the botched, and I mean badly botched return of Rock has hurt them more of late. He came back huge, and then did illogical jobs on TV for Rhyno (which didn't even elevate Rhyno, just took Rock down) and was pinned by Stephanie, which actually I thought was cool because it led to a situation where he needed to get revenge on her. But when Rock didn't even care, never acknowledged the losses or looked for revenge from them, never did an interview regarding Austin, HHH and Vince, who knocked him out of action, his story that the fans knew and wanted him to get revenge for was dropped. If he didn't care about getting screwed and wasn't going to get even, the fans aren't going to care much about what he does. He became a character you pop for as part of a show, and he's still a huge star, but the extra drawing power and identification with his every move is now missing."
"Fans are not going to get emotionally behind as their hero a guy who so recently was wearing an undersized cowboy hat and a gold badge portraying the most uncool geek of a character."
"Many can point to not just the Madison Square Garden sellout streak ending with the 10/14 show, but ending on a show headlined by Austin vs. Rock in a unification match, as one of the most telling signs that the boom period is over. Madison Square Garden was working on a sellout streak of 18 consecutive shows, which began on December 27, 1998, with a show headlined by Rock vs. HHH for the WWF title. Despite folklore to the contrary, it was the longest sellout streak and most successful period for pro wrestling in the 120-year history of pro wrestling in the world's most famous arena.The show, even though heavily papered with thousands of tickets given away both to firefighters and police officers in the New York area and to survivors of those who lost their lives on 9/11, drew 16,941 fans, roughly 2,600 seats shy of capacity. The paid attendance for the show was a more sobering 11,098 for a show originally promoted as the return of The Rock to MSG, and in recent weeks, Rock vs. Austin for the WCW title. Over the last week, after Austin beat Kurt Angle on 10/8 in Indianapolis, a lot of specialized advertising for a title unification match was done. Only 900 tickets were sold in the final week, including walk-up, after the unification match was announced."
"The scary reaction was when the announcement was made that Raw would be coming to the Nassau Coliseum on 11/5 and Smackdown on 11/6 to the Meadowlands. There was no reaction whatsoever for an announcement which one year ago would have torn down the house."
"It also appeared when wrestling was on fire even one year ago, that it was considered at the time almost a given Rock would eventually break Graham's record of 17 sellouts in 18 MSG main events, during several different runs spanning the time period between 1976 and 1987. Rock, going into Sunday, had sold out 11 of the 12 MSG events he'd headlined, while Austin had 12 sellouts in 15 main events going into Sunday and HHH had 13 of 15."
"Raw on 10/15 drew its second lowest rating in its regular time slot since 1998 with a 4.11 rating (4.07 first hour; 4.14 second hour) and a 6.0 share. The share was by far the lowest of the year"
"The audience continued to drop throughout the second hour to the point that the Austin & Booker vs. Angle & Undertaker main event started out at a ridiculously low 3.88 rating, which has to be the lowest rating for a main event match in years, before growing to 4.34 for the over-run."
"The 10/8 Raw ratings, while not the lowest of the year, had to have been the most disappointing of the year. The much-hyped show drew a 4.47 rating (4.32 first hour; 4.60 second hour) and a 6.6 share for about six million viewers. While a very tiny increase from the audience the previous two weeks, this was with a show that was hyped better on Smackdown than any Raw of the year, built around the Austin vs. Angle match which they promised would change the course of sports entertainment (a lesson from WCW, promising that doesn't draw viewers, but does lead to people being disappointed even when producing a good show because they expect something mind-blowing) and it was Austin's first TV appearance after being kept off TV for two weeks. The Austin vs. Angle title match only did a 4.85 rating for the entire match and ring entrances building to a 5.13 over-run, again numbers for such a hyped match that have to be considered a disaster, as with the hype that number should have been a good 15% higher. In fact, the final quarter of the show, which was the title match (4.58), actually pulled a lower rating then the Stephanie, Shane and Jericho in-ring confrontation in the second segment, which did a 4.70."
"Excess on 10/13, the first taped show, dropped to a ridiculously low 0.58 rating and one share, going from ECW level numbers down to RollerJam level numbers, now below what Grand Ol Opry used to do in that time slot on the old popless TNN."
"Kidman told RVD that he really voted for him but Austin made it all up. Tazz then came out and started yelling at Kidman for doing so. Kidman called Tazz a Tazzletale. Let's see, Kidman was the one tattling on Austin but Tazz is the, whatever. Pretty much they can't find enough ways to humiliate Tazz."
"The plan seems to be for Jericho to get the WCW belt, but not turn heel so quickly, more he lucked into it inadvertently type of thing (and all this is subject to change) although the obvious long-term is he and Stephanie are hooked up together as heels. Of course, there are those working to see that latter thing never happens."
"Jericho beat Rhyno via DQ in 4:27 in a good match. Jericho hit the walls when Awesome and Raven interfered. Now Awesome and Raven would be stooges for a top guy, but they were killing Jericho until Rock showed up, and they quickly became stooges."
"Another DDP segment, this time from WWF New York. DDP understands the value of the catch phrase to get fans to repeat your lines and get you over. But this segment was terrible."
"Ross gave Edge a message, and he sprinted out of there and saw Christian and told him their mom was in an accident. But it was a set up by Christian as he, Palumbo, Kanyon and Morrus gave Edge a pretty brutal old-time beating. Edge really took it to get the segment over as legit. So back at the arena, were people upset? No, they were all laughing. If we have to point to one phenomenon that totally changed this industry, it was the point when the wrestlers and promoters stopped being able to work the fans on angles, and instead the fans worked the wrestlers and promoters into insanity because of it."
"Angle came out in a biker do-rag coming across like a complete geek. Ha ha. That's so funny that you've got the most talented guy to come along in years and he can't get over as a face, but damn, we can make him look like a geek."
"The assumption was they kept Earl Hebner off the show because of what happened in Toronto and were afraid of "You screwed Bret" chants."
"The original plan for 10/21 was Austin vs. Angle in a submission match with Austin going over in some form (how had apparently not been decided) but was changed on 10/9 before Smackdown to the three-way. Van Dam was scheduled to wrestle Shane on the PPV which is why, on Raw, they set up the spot where Heyman asked Ross who he thought was the better athlete between the two because that's where they were going and what was going to be the foundation (and also why neither Heyman nor Ross answered the question)."
"Even though technically and workrate wise, Angle vs. Austin was very good, Angle came out of the match damaged by the lack of heat the match got. Austin is these days nearly immune from blame because those in power have so much respect for his track record and he's the most valuable guy in the company right now because everything is built around matches with him."
"For some reason I cringed watching Raw when Jim Ross called St. Louis "one of the greatest sports entertainment cities of all-time." If he said wrestling, it would be one thing, even though that's 20 years in the past. WWF has this phobia about using the term wrestling as if they are embarrassed about what they are, just like porn stars that call themselves adult entertainers. The day they can put "sports entertainment" on a building marquee and people will buy tickets, or when people in the general public called Steve Austin a sports entertainer more often than they call him a pro wrestler will be the day there is some reality in their absurd fantasy world. "
"Heyman replaced Tazz as announcer. Tazz has only done one Smackdown in the last five or six weeks. I think there's a message there."
"Maven beat Tazz. If they had figured that out two weeks ago they may have had something short-term with him. Now it's just more of a burial of Tazz."
"Main was Angle vs. RVD. RVD was way more over than Angle, which should come as no surprise, given one portrayed as cool and the other as a geek. Angle was bleeding even worse than most of RVD's opponent from a kick to the nose. Apparently there are people really upset about Van Dam backstage in that because he's getting over so big with the fans, the belief is management looks the other way at him constantly hurting people. Undertaker in particular spoke up after this match."
"People weren't into Maven as much as the previous week because he had been squashed and now people understood he's not someone they should get behind, but he still had more reaction than most on the show."
"Van Dam vs. Jericho was a very good match, but it didn't take long, like the first spot of the match, for Van Dam to keep his streak alive by busting Jericho's eye hardway. Funniest thing on the show was with all the "RVD" chants going on, Michael Cole had the nerve to say "the crowd is chanting for Jericho." "
"Hurricane vs. Kane seemed to only have one purpose, which was to set up Hurricane doing the "Citizen Kane" line, and showing once again the writers and audience not connecting, the crowd didn't react one iota when he delivered the line."
"Kidman vs. X-Pac was good, but they've trained people to not take seriously light heavyweights. X-Pac gets zero respect but usually has good matches. That said, he kicked out right after the three, which more often than not in pro wrestling (don't know if it's the case here) is the sign of a guy who was unhappy about being asked to lose to someone he thinks he's above."
"Show desperately needed a Regal interview to explain his turn. Without it, the turn came off as just an excuse to bring Foley back as opposed to bringing Foley back as a result of Regal turning. It's the lack of explanation to the storylines and these turns that really have no impact except for a one match screwjob that frustrates the audience that wants to understand and make sense out of all this"
"The belief by those who should know is that Hall & Nash coming in January is a lock. There are many people leery in the company of taking them but ultimately it's Vince's decision and the belief is he's decided to bring them back pending the deal being made."
"Vince McMahon wanted Maven to beat Tazz in their first Smackdown match but was talked out of it because of the feeling it would breed more resentment of Maven among the wrestlers"
"Stratus will be able to start wrestling in a week. Have no idea why they'd want her to but that's a different issue."
"Lesnar will probably be brought in to work more house shows when tours are geographically near Louisville. They did the same with Angle for months before introducing him as a TV character."
"There have been problems in HWA with some of the former WCW talent. There is the natural frustration because they are guys who were on Nitro, and in a few cases, had great PPV matches in the last six months of the company, and now they are in a developmental program and the odds are against most of them, the names mentioned most often, Mike Sanders and Evan Karagias. WWF also is for the most part mandating, unless there is a family emergency, the wrestlers staying in Cincinnati. Several had been flying home to Atlanta or the Carolinas every week. WWF feeling is that they are based there and the job isn't one that you go home on weekends as there is always something scheduled, comparing it to working territories in the old days."
"December PPV was renamed Vengeance instead of Payback, which replaces Armageddon. Someone registered the domain name wwfpayback.com and I think they just said screw it"
"WWF put up on hotjobs.com that they were looking for on-air talent with sports play-by-play experience a must. Of the current announcer corps, everyone seems on solid footing right now except Chris Leery, the new announcer, who hasn't gotten good early reviews, and the situation with Tazz is the same as it's been for the past two months"
"Bryan Clark has told friends he's confused about what happened to him and he really has no idea. He said that he never refused to go to OVW or HWA and has no idea his status. Both members of Kronic signed two year deals with WWF less than two months ago. The situation seems to be that they were signed to deals and after that, others in power wanted them buried and their performance on the last PPV gave the latter tremendous ammunition. Adams and Clark had different contracts, as Adams didn't have provisions where he could be fired. He was sent to HWA, after OVW didn't want him, because the company tries to avoid paying people for just sitting home. Clark's contract was structured to where he could be let go, but will be getting paid either until his window is up or a few month severance package"
"The story on Terri Poch (Tori) seems to be that she was asked to go to OVW and refused, and that was it, once her contract was up, she was done"
"If you are looking at ratings patterns, it took Raw ten weeks from April through June to drop from 5.67 to 4.09, which was the fastest ratings drop in modern history (WCW never had such a short period dropping so fast). It took seven weeks--the introduction of WCW, then ECW, and return of Rock, to peak at 5.68 for Rock's return on 7/30, which was the time they needed to create a slew of new stars. It has since taken 11 weeks to return to the 4.11 level"
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Post by DSR on Nov 30, 2020 7:16:20 GMT -5
Reminded me of Kofi Kingston losing the WWE Championship to Lesnar last year and then going right back to the tag ranks. I like Kofi a lot, but that whole situation left me dejected.
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