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Post by Hypnosis on Nov 30, 2020 8:02:40 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. Or RVD teaming with Kane and Booker T, after all three of them failed to beat Triple H in title matches. "Man he buried us good, want to go for the Tag titles?" "Sure!"
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 30, 2020 9:25:58 GMT -5
Something I learned from this post: all these years, when my friend called her "Tori Poch" I thought she was saying "Tori-Pac," as in, some obscure name to go along with her association with X-Pac. Only now did I learn it's her real last name.
Waits to see when Dave addresses: WWF purposely muting RVD chants. Also can't wait to see his opinion about the Heyman diatribe pre-Survivor Series.
And yes, about faces "just accepting it" when they lose a title. It's a lot of soft reboots instead of one ongoing storyline.
Cornette's post-9/11 speech: not going deeper there, but let me just say he's more like than unlike his political "enemies," more often than not.
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Post by James Fabiano on Nov 30, 2020 9:27:18 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. Or RVD teaming with Kane and Booker T, after all three of them failed to beat Triple H in title matches. "Man he buried us good, want to go for the Tag titles?" "Sure!" Is it scary that this sounds like a promo they'd give?
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Toates Madhackrviper
King Koopa
Is owed an Admin life-debt.
This avatar is so far out of date I might as well stick with it forever now.
Posts: 10,723
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Post by Toates Madhackrviper on Nov 30, 2020 13:08:59 GMT -5
I was going to make a thread with this question but then I remembered this thread was on page 1 and a new thread for a simple yes or no question was silly, though I do think we could use like a simple q and a thread pinned in this forum.
Anyway like, after the legendary incident when Biscoff ordered Tony Schiavone to spoil the fact that Mankind was winning the WWF title on RAW and 600,000 people changed the channel, did WCW *immediately* stop doing RAW spoilers on the air? Like did they at least learn their lesson right away or did they keep on doing it?
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cjh
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,604
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Post by cjh on Nov 30, 2020 13:30:26 GMT -5
I was going to make a thread with this question but then I remembered this thread was on page 1 and a new thread for a simple yes or no question was silly, though I do think we could use like a simple q and a thread pinned in this forum. Anyway like, after the legendary incident when Biscoff ordered Tony Schiavone to spoil the fact that Mankind was winning the WWF title on RAW and 600,000 people changed the channel, did WCW *immediately* stop doing RAW spoilers on the air? Like did they at least learn their lesson right away or did they keep on doing it? A few months later on the night Vince revealed that he was the Higher Power, Bischoff said on commentary something like, "the guy on the channel in the mask has the initials VM." That was just him taking an educated guess, though, since Raw was live that night.
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Toates Madhackrviper
King Koopa
Is owed an Admin life-debt.
This avatar is so far out of date I might as well stick with it forever now.
Posts: 10,723
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Post by Toates Madhackrviper on Nov 30, 2020 13:35:00 GMT -5
I was going to make a thread with this question but then I remembered this thread was on page 1 and a new thread for a simple yes or no question was silly, though I do think we could use like a simple q and a thread pinned in this forum. Anyway like, after the legendary incident when Biscoff ordered Tony Schiavone to spoil the fact that Mankind was winning the WWF title on RAW and 600,000 people changed the channel, did WCW *immediately* stop doing RAW spoilers on the air? Like did they at least learn their lesson right away or did they keep on doing it? A few months later on the night Vince revealed that he was the Higher Power, Bischoff said on commentary something like, "the guy on the channel in the mask has the initials VM." That was just him taking an educated guess, though, since Raw was live that night. I mean, at least that time they were "spoiling" something that unquestionably would cause exactly -100 people to change channels
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2020 4:31:01 GMT -5
Oct 29, 01
"In one of the strangest moments ever on wrestling television, almost like the moment you're watching something crumble right before your eyes, just as Vince and Linda McMahon teased making out inside the ring in front of nearly 10,000 fans in Kansas City and were interrupted, a challenge was made and accepted. For 11/18 at Survivor Series, what should be the biggest money match with the highest stipulations in the history of wrestling, but will come nowhere close to that level. A match with WWF vs. The Alliance, with the losing promotion having to disband."
"To give the Alliance its badly needed credibility, since it's lost virtually all key matches and with the exception of Rob Van Dam, no newcomer has been booked in a way to get them over, the Alliance was destroyed, including losing four championships, on the lowest rated non-holiday edition of Raw in its regular time slot in many years. The rating is proof of what everyone knows. This angle is dead because WCW and ECW were never given the necessary wins and credibility. Titles mean nothing, although MSG last week and the Austin-angle rating were the ultimate proof of that. And people are sick of the McMahon family on television. To make matters worse, they aren't so keen on Rock, Austin, or everyone else that used to carry the promotion either."
"In theory, if stips are to be taken seriously, even though we all know this isn't going to happen, that could be the end of the WWF, which does still mean something after 17 years of national television and another couple of decades of history in the Northeast. It also could be the end of WCW, which has a similar lengthy history if it's traced back to either Jim Crockett promotions in the Carolinas, which goes back to the beginning of time, or Georgia Championship Wrestling, which on a national basis dates back some 23 years on national cable. So why, on the show after this announcement was made, was the angle not even sold as anything special. It was referred to, but hardly as an important point. Hardly as anything to change history."
"The bottom line is that fans have lost their confidence in the product. They've been taught not to believe in stipulations. Most seem to expect that one side will lose and then still exist. And it really doesn't matter. They've done everything possible to insure a failure of their own secondary product if they ever launch it. And if they are still thinking of a secondary product, I suppose the WWF could lose, and then return the next night on Raw with the whole company under a mask. Why not, if the public doesn't believe in the context of the product anyway?"
"I've got a sense that a lot of the problem, besides all the Invasion problems and lack of competition problems, is that wrestling fans saw so much during the hot period and have seen basically every imaginable thing. Going to the old standbys that worked, like Vince-Austin, will yield lesser results every time out, but in wrestling it is so much easier to try and recreate something that did work when risk going all the way with something new that has no track record."
"I remember once a promoter told me they put in their program a deal for fans to choose the match they most want to see. It ended up being the top two faces in the territory against each other, since in those days, that was always the "dream" match for hardcore fans because most promoters wouldn't make the match since in most cities, the face vs. face program usually wouldn't draw. Then, when he made the match, the house was a big disappointment. The conclusion to this is that sometimes what fans tell you they want when you ask them and what they will pay to see aren't the same thing. Wrestling purchases are still impulse buys which is why, when you catch fire, it seems like nothing can stop you, and when you're cold, presenting a solid product often doesn't heat you up."
"Amidst so much negative news came one of the best PPV shows of the year, the No Mercy show on 10/21 from the Savvis Center in St. Louis. The stars of the show were not only the wrestlers, but the crowd itself. While the glory days of St. Louis wrestling may have been decades ago, this was a crowd that came to enjoy long, hard-fought matches and that's what they were provided."
"While it has not been reflected in any business comparisons, the Rock-Jericho feud has been the WWF's best angle in a long time. There was actually a moment right before the finish, where Jericho blocked the people's elbow and turned it into the walls of Jericho, and then as Rock was about to reach the ropes, pulled him to the center, that a tap out finish would have exploded the crowd like nobody's business. However, the storyline didn't call for it. Instead, Stephanie McMahon did a run-in, and indirectly led to Jericho, the king of false starts, winning the WCW title. Whether this turns out to be yet another false start, or the beginning of Jericho as a bonafide top guy is probably something nobody really knows, because the direction of the company changes so fast, but the two of them stole the show."
"A bigger issue than the content of the show was the DirecTV issue. Neither side backed down at the end, and most DirecTV subscribers had no access to the show"
"At the last minute, WWF announced a live webcast of the show as a $15 PPV. Most reports we got said it was a disaster. The server crashed during the first two matches. One report we got is that with a 300K stream, the quality wasn't bad, but with a lesser powered computer, it was not a pleasant experience. As it turned out, about an hour before the show, only 500 orders had been placed. UFC tried this more than a year ago when it had little PPV penetration, looking at internet webcasting as a way to bypass cable and open up a new market and they only did 1,000 orders so it's just not something masses are ready for."
"The only real negative on the show is both main events ended up with McMahon family interference leading to the finishes. There is a clamor for less involvement, particularly of Shane and Stephanie, and if there were any complaints about the show, it usually revolved around this. The main event, a three-way with Steve Austin retaining his title over Rob Van Dam and Kurt Angle, was built up with the idea that Vince McMahon would make a difference. It was a risk, because they basically told the fans that the finish wasn't going to be until Vince came out."
"The decision for Van Dam to do the job instead of Angle is likely one of those political deals. There had been a lot of dressing room talk before the show that this would be the night Van Dam got his payback. There is a lot of resentment of Van Dam's push, particularly because many see it as a Paul Heyman manipulation and Heyman has both his friends and foes politically both in the dressing room and the office. Adding salt to the wound is that Van Dam gets such a great crowd reaction every night, and that since the Van Dam push started, business has been way down. Van Dam opening people up hardway so often hasn't helped those who are going to be resentful of a newcomer that the crowd took to so strongly even before the company reacted to it and started making him a major part of the show. All this basically allows those who believe Van Dam should and shouldn't be given the huge push with plenty of legitimate arguments on either side, which makes it even more of an issue."
"Several had compared Van Dam with Jericho when he arrived. Van Dam had the good fortune to arrive when HHH wasn't around and he didn't run into that problem. But the arguments pro-Jericho is that he got just as strong reactions when he arrived, and whatever sloppiness and weaknesses he may have had as a worker weren't as much as Van Dam's. But he was always kept in the pack even though a lot of wrestlers did see him as the guy, even more than Chris Benoit because Jericho is stronger on interviews and more charismatic, as the next guy in line for the push, that Van Dam got. When the team is winning, there usually isn't a quarterback controversy. When the team is losing, there is often too much emphasis put on the quarterback."
"As it turned out, Austin was split open hardway once again, and needed 12 staples in the back of his head, but this time it was from a too hard chair shot by Vince McMahon."
"Test (Andrew Martin) pinned Kane (Glen Jacobs) in 10:09. Notice the WCW guys who go over on a WWF mainline star are actually WWF guys."
"Keibler brought out a cat-o-nine tails and whipped both Wilson and ref Jack Doan. They rolled all over Doan. Then they got up and did this Malenko-Guerrero series of cradles. Seriously. I wonder if those two ever thought when they came up with all those reversals that they would be used in a match like this six years later?"
"Edge (Adam Copeland) beat Christian (Jay Reso) to win the IC title in a ladder match in 22:16. They need to retire the ladder match until at least Mania. These guys went out there and killed themselves and the basic reaction seemed to be we've already seen this."
"Can you imagine in 15 years someone reading this and seeing a wrestling move called a wazzup? Then again, imagine what some of the booking ideas will sound like in hindsight"
"Rhyno after the match said the alliance wasn't going to be a joke anymore. Somehow I think when we check back in two months, that'll be a comedy line."
"Even though Jericho had matches every bit this good and better with HHH and Benoit on PPV, his match with Rhyno where he slipped off the ropes a few times and his three-way with Austin and Benoit where he wasn't at his best had tagged him with the label of not being a main event worker. Anyway, this should untag him for at least a few weeks."
"Raw fell to its lowest rating in its normal time slot for a non-Holiday show since March 30, 1998, and even that was during a period with head-to-head competition from Nitro. The 10/22 show did a 3.92 rating (3.63 first hour; 4.18 second hour) and a 5.8 share. The number of viewers watching wrestling, down to 5.3 million (which peaked as 12 million during the height of the war and a few Raw main events have topped 10 million on their own), represents the lowest total for a non-Holiday night in nearly six years."
"The bad news is that no excuses fly for the overall trend which has been a 30% drop in Raw viewership since it peaked just 12 weeks ago for Rock's return. This was on a show which saw the return to Raw of Vince McMahon and only the second Raw episode since the return of Foley. Granted, there was no Austin, but that was never specifically spelled out to the viewer."
"Raw had to be redone at the last minute, as they had a show written, and about three hours before show time they got the word that Austin, who the show was built around along with the McMahons, wouldn't be able to appear."
"Show opened with Vince & Linda coming out holding hands. Let's see, the back story is that Vince had her committed to a sanitarium and drugged her up to fool around with Trish Stratus. Then she recovered, and caught him with his pants down with Torrie Wilson. They haven't been seen together since. So what explanation was given for all this. Well, the same explanation Regal gave for joining the Alliance, although at least Vince had a lengthy interview to explain the issue, which was ignored. And they wonder why ratings are falling?"
"DDP came out. You know he wants to be a motivational speaker when his wrestling career ends, and judging from this segment, I think he should realize his career ended on March 26, 2001. He got no reaction except the crowd repeats his catch phrases with him. Kane came out and choke slammed him after DDP ripped on Kane for being ugly. He understands the catch phrase deal where people will repeat after him, but otherwise, this gimmick is terrible. He got it from watching TV previews for the Bob Patterson show, and that show is already dead as well."
"Tajiri won the WCW cruiserweight belt from Kidman in 5:01 with a kick to the side of the head. Most entertaining thing in the match was them talking about Show's weight and JR made a remark about what do they want, for them to send him to weight watchers and Heyman said "I read the Ross Report" (where JR used to say they weren't going to bring Show back until he gets to 375--which is about 108 pounds less than he was at his last weigh-in)."
"Angle won the U.S. title beating Rhyno in 11:29 with the ankle lock. In three weeks, Angle has gone from WWF champ to winning Kanyon's belt."
"Bradshaw pinned Hurricane with the clothesline in 3:09 to win the European title. Picture the famous Nash-Storm confrontation on Nitro, only lasting three minutes. Is it my imagination, or as soon as somebody gets a little cult following, is the first thing they try to do to squash it?"
"Regal & Foley had more interplay, mainly so the writers could do the line where Regal yelled at Foley for playing with his knob and playing with himself."
"RVD pinned Show after a Van daminator and frog splash in 4:45. Originally this match was RVD vs. Undertaker. Plan A was for RVD to win, to kind of give him steam coming off the PPV loss. Plan B, not because Taker refused to do the job, but because several agents felt it would send a bad message for RVD to beat Taker to the dressing room (please), they set up a finish where Austin would interfere and cost RVD the match. With Austin out, they couldn't come to any kind of an agreement on what to do since they didn't want either to lose, so they scrapped the whole match and put Show in to do the job and gave Undertaker his win in the tag match."
"Maven did an interview in WWF NY. He's about 20% as over in that building as he was three weeks ago. Kind of nervous promo. If he had cut this promo on Tough Enough that night, we'd be watching Josh get squashed on Smackdown. He said he lucked out in beating Tazz, and would be leaving for the developmental territories."
"Rock & Jericho then beat Dudleys to win WWF tag titles in 7:48. That's four title changes in one night, all going from Alliance to WWF, not one of which meant a thing, on the lowest rated show in more than three years."
"By the way, does anyone remember that Van Dam pinned Austin a few weeks ago on TV (thereby confusing the main event Austin-Angle issue at the time)? I guess not, since that should have been pushed heavily in the build-up for this match, and also explains why, if nobody remembers results of even the important matches, fans don't care about outcomes, and if they don't care about outcomes, they don't care about matches, and if they don't care about matches, they don't buy tickets in the long run."
"With Rock, for some reason, the WCW belt never seems important as with the exception of one interview, he doesn't really put it over."
"Funny that in Maven's win over Tazz, they did more to get Nidia over than Maven, as they kept the camera on her. Crowd was kind of dead but there was a chant for Maven, which makes no sense since only a couple of weeks of "Tough Enough" have aired in Canada and Maven didn't really click until the last third of the season, also because his momentum is dead from being squashed three weeks in a row (and even though he got a pin, don't fool yourself, he was squashed). Long run it doesn't matter because he's not ready, but it could have been a fun month before the "Tough Enough" burned out to make him a flash."
"One of the problems right now is that they've got almost everyone working the same style. New Japan used to have that problem. Everyone (well, not everyone, but most of the guys) technically becomes so proficient in the style so there are few bad matches. But all the matches start looking the same. One of the reason RVD gets over in the ring is because he does things differently. As a worker of WWF style, he's probably among the bottom guys because his timing of when to do things isn't really there and he always busts people up, but his high spots are unique. When in there with Angle, they had the most entertaining match on the show, and it was because Van Dam did what others don't."
"Funniest sign during Undertaker's mask was "Dead Crowd Inc." "
"Privately, some former WCW guys who are there are saying things are becoming more and more similar to WCW circa late 1999. When business was great, everyone for the most part was a team player, but now that business is going down, people are more and more looking out for their own interests"
"Stacey Keibler did a good job on Howard Stern on 10/19. Reports were that Stern took her far more seriously than most women he has on the show. She said she split with David Flair because he fell too hard in love and wanted to get too serious. Said she's only been with three guys her entire life, one of whom was a seven-year relationship with her high school football star that ended when she got into WCW. Stern on the air said that he wanted to get the PPV just to see the lingerie match. On the 10/22 Stern show, someone called him up and asked about it, and Stern said he forgot about it and was pissed, and Stern mentioned how hot Keibler was."
"Jericho ripped on Eric Bischoff on the wcw web site after the win over Rock, saying he wanted to dedicate the win to Bischoff and shove it up his ass because he said he could never do it. He sort of tempered that remark saying he didn't mean it maliciously, even though it came out that way. Surprisingly, Bischoff responded on 1wrestling.com and ended up explaining why he nixed the Goldberg-Jericho program (after they had already started it on television). As I recall, Kevin Nash convinced Goldberg that he shouldn't work with Jericho because he was too small (this was leading up to when Nash was going to end Goldberg's unbeaten streak at that Starrcade so you can understand what was going through Nash's mind and why he'd care). Bischoff said he thought it would be difficult to keep Jericho if he nixed the program, but he did and believes it was the right decision because neither Goldberg nor Jericho were ready for it. What? They built an angle up on TV and then decided not to do it. Jericho was better than most of the people they fed Goldberg. At the time just working with Goldberg would put Jericho in the spotlight and everyone figured he'd get squashed, but they could do some fun angles along the way."
"Regarding frustration with the writing, the WWF has a letter it sends out to those looking for writing positions that tells people they need to write a sample program, promo and vignette. You'll love this line: "If you are unaware what a promo or backstage vignette is, just watch a show and you'll understand." On hotjobs.com when asking for writers, they are looking for people with a college degree in film, TV, drama media studies or communication and five years experience in TV writing, producing or directing, with episodic or soap opera TV experience preferred. "
"By the way, the women in the good DDP vignette that bent over is named Jennifer Hume, and she's Stephanie's assistant"
"HHH worked out in the ring for the first time before the PPV in St. Louis. He's targeting early December for his comeback. The commercials for the December "Vengeance" PPV have already been made and are built around him"
"Brock Lesnar had his first loss in the WWF ring putting over Kanyon. I guess it doesn't really matter at a house show in an out-of-the-way market and they probably just wanted to test him to see how he'd react to losing, but otherwise, doesn't really make much sense."
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Post by DSR on Dec 1, 2020 11:55:52 GMT -5
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2020 4:50:36 GMT -5
Nov 5, 01
"The wrestlers have started feeling the pinch for the past few months. Paid based on house show business and PPV business, those figures have decreased significantly since Wrestlemania with the exception of the monster Invasion PPV. A lot of the WWF side also had bookings cut back, which again cuts into pay for the mid and lower card wrestlers, because so many newcomers were brought in over the summer. This led to resentment of newcomers at the beginning and was a key factor in botching the potentially biggest angle in history, which lead to the fan frustration with the product that exists. This led first to smaller grosses on shows with more performers on them, meaning significantly lower pay per show for most regulars, combined with many regulars not being booked on as many house shows and big shows."
"Ultimately, this pointed out the WWF wasn't filled with nearly the team players that was portrayed, but instead, it turned out to be a clique protecting its turf from letting any of the newcomers surpass the existing top stars, at the expense of the angle and, ultimately, overall business. A true team locker room, which admittedly is impossible in a system based on being paid based on your position on a card (which means top guys will do anything to keep their positions because their income depends on it, although the guaranteed money system has its flaws in such a hot-and-cold business), would have strongly put over the newcomers and hidden their obvious faults instead of attempted to exploit them to make sure they didn't succeed."
"The "B" show grosses are by far the lowest WWF has seen in a few years. While the paychecks for the September PPV won't be out for a few months, and the pay for October house shows should be coming soon, a lot of the performers are going to be disappointed because they are used to being paid on $300,000 houses and now are being paid on $100,000 houses if they are working the smaller shows. More frustration is about to occur since most of them won't be aware of how drastic the changes are since the "B" shows are being run with lower ticket prices, so working a 5,000-seat arena with 4,000 fans looks like a good house, but a $100,000 house is far less than even the bad houses the current crew of wrestlers are used to."
"In addition, the Survivor Series stipulations has everyone paranoid. While some have speculated that WWF will lose as a concession to the result of the World Wildlife Fund lawsuit, the fact is WWF spent seven figures to appeal that verdict and it doesn't even come up for appeal until the spring. Not that it's impossible, but the timing doesn't seem to fit. Many wrestlers, who trace the decline in the business to the Alliance angle, and business dropped before that, picked up with it, and then has declined when it was botched, figure it's a dead issue and want to get rid of it and move on."
"There is paranoia about widespread cuts with the Alliance being dropped, which would theoretically spell the end of the original plans for two separate promotions, which would have opened up more jobs for wrestlers and theoretically led to more product divergence and hopefully more interest. It is logical that if WWF were to cut back to one house show per night, than its roster is too large and cuts would be made."
"Much of the heat seems to be on the writing staff, for storylines that don't make sense, too frequent title changes, and inconsistent characters, not to mention too much emphasis on the McMahons, The latter complaint for obvious reasons will only be said in private. Fingers are pointed back-and-forth. The writers appear frustrated because of the editing process of their writing by both Vince McMahon and the agents, which makes any long-term plans seemingly a waste of time."
"There are complaints back-and-forth regarding the main angles, particularly those involving Vince and Steve Austin. On one hand, the writers are paranoid about doing too much with Austin because that's the angle Vince ends up changing the most and has led to talk of Vince being a mark for Austin because he spends so much time on his programs."
"There is more and more frustration with the realization that the Austin turn was a flop from a business standpoint and ultimately something big needs to be done with his character to get him back to where he should be as a draw. In hindsight, the turn was a bad idea, but at the time, it was thought it was going to freshen up his character. Some blame the original problem on the fact that HHH was scheduled to turn at the same time, creating an Austin vs. HHH program with the idea that HHH beat him before Mania and now is challenging for the belt as a babyface. HHH nixing that program because he didn't want to turn led to instead having to go with Undertaker as a top face, which didn't work, and then the elevation of Benoit & Jericho, which exposed just how ugly the politics of elevation have gotten and did major damage to the product in the long haul as well as morale because fans were teased and lost hope."
"The frequency of turns has made it that an Austin turn now will have far less impact than if they went with it in July, when it led to the massive Invasion buy rate."
"Recent turns of William Regal, Kurt Angle, Christian and a strong tease of Chris Jericho have devalued future turns, particularly the two Angle turns in a short period, one of which was ill-timed in that he was portrayed too geeky for fans to get behind as a face, then turned heel on 10/29 in an angle that makes zero character consistency sense since, like Austin aligning himself with HHH and Vince, now Angle is aligning himself with the man who threw his gold medal into the river, a strong angle almost immediately dropped."
"According to one insider, there is a feeling that Bruce Prichard, Michael Hayes and Brian Gewirtz are team players but that Paul Heyman has a separate agenda, and that things run smoothly until Vince listens to Heyman. One insider said there was frustration from other writers with the belief that McMahon feels Heyman is more of a wrestling expert than the others and listens to him and makes changes in plans based on his input too often and claimed Heyman knew no more than anyone else. Others say that Gewirtz doesn't have enough wrestling product knowledge and the emphasis on his comedy has taken all the seriousness away from the product so no angles get over, and Heyman is always trying to protect "his ECW guys." Yet another viewpoint is that Heyman is the only one who sees the depth of the problems and that widespread changes are needed, and gets heat because nobody else wants to acknowledge just how serious the situation really is."
"Some feel that because of the internet, it is important to swerve people so they can't predict the angles. While it is easy to surprise the audience by doing things that aren't logical within the storylines, usually those angles, particularly if they are done too often, make no sense and result in audiences not caring about the product. Case in point Monday, where everyone expected a Jericho turn the entire show since they've been doing a great slow build for it the past few weeks. So they turned Angle. They swerved the audience, but it made no logical sense from a storyline standpoint."
"If this turns into an angle where Vince and Angle concocted a plan, Angle turns back and wins it for the WWF, it probably will be satisfying in the long run. If that doesn't happen, but Angle is portrayed as a killer heel for a while and his geeky part of the character is dropped, in the long run, it's probably for the best, but for the short-term it was just feeding the overall problem as opposed to taking the risk of massive changes in the product itself. WCW followed the part of the theory feeling the need to fool and surprise the audience as much as possible. Instead of swerving the audience, the audience simply grew not to care, and the only ones being swerved were the writers who swerved themselves and the company right out of business."
"Edge pinned RVD clean with an implant DDT in 5:28. Not much heat. Just amazing to watch because it was so wrong. RVD was totally buried by the presentation and completely left out of the main event angle. There is an argument that he should be punished, but it should be something backstage, not something to hurt the only guy getting over to the fans because this is the kind of booking they can't afford at this time. Several live specifically credited the finish of this match for killing the crowd for the rest of the show. Austin even laughed about the loss, not in a heat building way but in a "that's the end of his story" way"
"Rock and Jericho ended up arguing over who the traitor was. Some great interplay including Rock talking about being a star when Jericho was losing to Juventud Guerrera."
"In a segment that bombed so badly that words can't do it justice, DDP came out to no reaction. He did his trademark phrases, mostly to indifference. He then said Show was the one jumping. Nobody cared. Show ended up choke slamming DDP, which was the same ending as last week."
"Austin gave Vince the single worst stunner in history and Vince took the bump several seconds before Austin delivered the move, and Shane got the pin. Fans were real upset with the Angle turn and throwing things like crazy as Undertaker, Jericho and Hebner all were hit with bottles"
"SummerSlam PPV (Austin vs. Angle, Rock vs. Booker) built around the return of the Rock to PPV did about 500,000 buys or a 1.05 buy rate. That's down significantly from last year. In hindsight, Rock's first match should have been saved for PPV, because clearly you only get one chance to make that first match pop. They played it a lot smarter when Austin returned and his first live appearance was on PPV, then the next month his first match was on PPV, and they did two huge buy rates in the process"
"Test & Booker won WWF tag titles from Jericho & Rock when Jericho accidentally hit Rock with a missile dropkick and Test pinned Rock after the kick of death in the first example of reversing the Monday result on Tuesday."
"RVD beat Edge to keep hardcore title in the second example of the split booking philosophy. Actually in this one, Test had to interfere and kick Edge for RVD to hit the frog splash."
"RVD on the WWF's web site claimed in the deal a few weeks ago where he arrived late in the ring for a promo (which led to the thing the next week where Austin bought him a watch) that he was late because he was doing a vignette with Kidman at the time. Problem with that story is when RVD was late, Kidman was already in the ring"
"A new promotional poster for Survivor Series has a photo of Bret Hart's face seconds after Vince called for the finish in 1997. So much for them finally getting past that"
"The reason the Spike Dudley-Molly angle ended so abruptly was because Molly didn't like playing the goody two-shoes role and wanted to turn heel"
"Eddy Guerrero returns to house shows this coming weekend in Lowell and Bridgeport against X-Pac. There was an interview with him on wwf.com where he didn't quite say but it was there about his marriage ending over his latest problems, as he talked about no longer having a family but that his daughters and the wrestlers still love him unconditionally. He has been training of late in Cincinnati for his return."
"William Daley (former ref Billy Silverman) is threatening legal action against WWF. Daley, who quit WWF on 8/12 after being harassed, or ribbed very hard, or hazed, for a variety of reasons including upgrading a plane ticket to first class. It was okay to do so in WCW, but in WWF, only the stars are allowed to fly first class and if you aren't a star, it is considered a way of showing up the people who are stars by doing so, I know this sounds petty but that's a lot of the whole crux of the WWF/WCW feud and why it failed"
"Karen Angle wrote this about RVD: "My personal opinion is that RVD is not ready yet. I feel he is very careless. When these men step into the ring, they are trusting the other person with their body. Even though RVD has been in the business for many years, I don't feel he can be trusted. Out of five matches with RVD, there was only one match Kurt didn't have to have stitches or was able to walk out without bleeding." "
" "A" team on 10/29 in Lexington, KY with Austin vs. Rock drew 4,803 paying $145,065 which has to be a big disappointment."
"At Omaha, in what may have been a snafu, although I can't imagine people not knowing this would happen ahead of time, the biggest negative reaction on the show was when they played Boomer Sooner, which is Jim Ross' entrance music, since they were in Nebraska, the Oklahoma historical football rival. The fans did cheer Ross once they realized it was him."
"APA wrestled Hurricane & Awesome and Bradshaw got on the mic and asked Awesome what kind of super powers he has, and Awesome responded he has ass kicking super powers. Bradshaw came back saying he clearly doesn't have promo cutting powers."
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2020 8:22:33 GMT -5
Nov 12, 01
"As of 11/5, approximately 53,000 tickets were out for Mania, with 51,630 of them paid for $5,542,730 Canadian, which is $3,508,548 U.S. No doubt that by the middle of the week, the company's all-time gate record set at the 4/1 Wrestlemania in Houston of $3,530,905 will have been broken and that it's practically a lock the event will sellout the Skydome in Toronto since there is still four months to go, which legitimately put in 64,278 in 1990 for Wrestlemania. It showed that the Mania name, even with business down, has some incredible sizzle."
"Much of the news internally is more chaotic, with plans being made on the fly and the foundation of the product being destroyed with mistakes that shouldn't be made because of the lessons that should have been learned from WCW about turning main characters until nobody cares, changing title belts to where they become totally meaningless, and numbing stipulation matches that aren't adhered to, thus rendering them meaningless. And when everything is meaningless to the public that wants meaning out of the problem, business plummets. And at least for the short-term, it doesn't appear these problems are going to be addressed."
"The upcoming Survivor Series is the epitome of all of these problems. Either WWF or the Alliance goes and numerous people are to be out of a job come 11/18 according to the storyline. Nobody believes the storyline, nor should they, as nobody really believes either Rock or Austin or JR or Angle will be on the unemployment line. Proof of that is ticket sales for Greensboro at press time were only 6,528, meaning half the Coliseum is unsold. This comes on the heels of the live Raw at the Nassau Coliseum drawing 7,629 fans. Up until this summer, WWF had sold out every event in the New York metro area dating back to 1998. Now, after Rock vs. Austin couldn't come close to selling out MSG, they didn't come close to selling out a live Raw either."
"The booking, with the turn a week and numbing number of title changes to the point where most in the company can't even keep track, meaning few fans can either, hasn't slowed down. On 10/29, in an attempt to keep the audience from tuning out before the main event, the decision was made to tease a turn that would be delivered at the end of the show, with Kurt Angle. However, unlike the old days, where this would be the culmination of long-term planning, there were debates going on literally until the last day over who would be turned, with Undertaker actually the lead candidate as well as some talk of Chris Jericho (who they sort of turned a week later), and even talk of turning two people on that show."
"There were also debates over Angle's character, whether he should be serious or comedic, with compromise apparently being he should be serious in the ring and comedic outside, a recipe that served to kill Steve Austin's drawing power. The dichotomy was evident on Smackdown, where Angle made Kane tap to the ankle lock in what was the best match involving Kane in a while and a psychology the crowd got into, but then Angle followed it up doing a goofy promo with Austin."
"Angle's explanation for the turn was a rare Angle interview that didn't come across well, as it seemed as if he was reading a script and very stiff. They did a second-take of the interview, this one apparently with Angle coming across as a much stronger heel, but the decision was by those in the production studio to go with the original promo because they felt the character portrayed was inconsistent with his vignette later with Austin."
"Vince McMahon's idea, at least as of the weekend, was shortly after Survivor Series, to do an angle to split the company into two equal groups. Presumably the WWF wins the match, although they could always do a Vince McMahon heel turn and go in the other direction, but either way, nobody expects any period where the "losers" would be off television. The resurrection of the divorce angle with Linda was also talked about as the storyline catalyst where it would split in a settlement, but as of the current plans, it would have to be incredibly rushed."
"The biggest argument against the draft, as noted when it originally came up, is after the first half-dozen or so picks, it makes everyone on the roster come across as also-rans, which served no purpose with so many newcomers that could have been pushed. That isn't as big a problem now, since the booking of nearly everyone has made them interchangeable also-rans, including the decision to pull back on Rob Van Dam, who did mess up by hurting people, but also, to the fans, was just the latest example of emotionally getting behind the new act and getting unfulfilled, which is probably the best summary of why the audience is leaving."
"There is no word what the name of the second group would be, only that they've killed WCW and ECW so dead that would be a mistake. The plans don't appear to be that detailed at this point, only that Rock would be the top star in one group and Austin in the other, both as babyfaces. They would be kept apart until shooting an angle for a dream match, perhaps at Mania, although there are political forces against that as well."
"It is now acknowledged by many internally that the heel Austin character was a big mistake, with the note that the tease of his face turn in July being the lone period when business appeared to be on the verge of turning around. McMahon's feeling was apparently to turn Austin face, which was teased on Raw with the idea it would happen in Greensboro. Others, apparently including Paul Heyman, HHH and Stephanie appear against the idea if only because the turn itself was designed for Rock and HHH as babyfaces to chase Austin through Mania, which at one point was designed to be HHH's title win. They are also against the draft idea, both for the slotting reason, and because this isn't the time to split the crews, but Vince seems to be in favor of it strongly."
"At one point, HHH's injury, giving him a chance to return, seemed to be beneficial for the company because it would force them to create new stars, and HHH could return fresh as a face. Instead, after Rob Van Dam was a few week wonder, and Chris Jericho and Rock were the only programming being interesting, Jericho's title reign lasted 15 days, and no major character appears to have been made to fit into the tippity top category. The idea that HHH's return in a few weeks will make a big difference in the ratings is questionable, since Rock, who had far more mainstream drawing power particularly among teenagers, only kept numbers strong for about a month when he came back. The return of both Mick Foley and Vince McMahon to TV resulted in no upturn, which from a time line standpoint can be considered equivalent to when Goldberg returned after his arm injury."
"Another thought for Austin was to basically have him take on a similar role as Sting in WCW in 1997, which at the time was very successful. Austin would be a lone wolf in an apparent promotional war, a babyface, but not siding with either company."
"In a show that garnered mainly strongly favorable reviews, the WWF returned to the U.K. for a PPV show for that market on 11/3 at the Manchester Evening News Arena before a sellout 15,612 fans, which was 14,968 paying $753,673. Rebellion, as with most WWF events in recent years in the U.K., was a sellout well ahead of time, as likely will be the next PPV in the U.K. on 5/4 from Wembley Arena in London when tickets go on sale on 12/1."
"Reports on the show were that the match quality was top notch, in particular the WWF and WCW title matches respectively with Steve Austin vs. Rock and Chris Jericho vs. Kurt Angle. The general feeling is it was the second best of the U.K. set of PPVs, trailing only the 1997 "One Night Only" show. The negatives are the usual complaints about every U.K. PPV show. The problem with these events is that they usually don't do any storyline advances or title changes. They are booked like house shows, although the workrate is usually up because all the key people in management are there and because the U.K. crowds, since WWF comes so infrequently, are hotter for the product."
"Some fans in the U.K. don't like it because they get the longer U.S. PPVs, which have matches promoted harder and have storyline advancement, for free, but pay for these events."
"The show went 2:16, so some called the feel of it more like a well above average edition of Smackdown, although that really isn't fair since most of the matches were given more time than Smackdown bouts, but also Smackdown contains storyline advancement. If there was a business negative, and it's hard to have them with a sold out house and good response, it was that the scalpers were having a very difficult time unloading tickets, as the 35 pound tickets were being sold in front for 10."
"Chuck Palumbo & Billy Gunn, in their first match together, beat Lance Storm & Justin Credible in the dark match in about 5:00. Said to be okay. Latest booking plan is to make Gunn & Palumbo a regular tag team since they are both tall, muscular and have full heads of hair (the prerequisite to getting chance after chance whether you have good matches or not)."
"They did a promo with Austin, Angle and Shane with Austin mainly making fun of Angle and Angle playing the geek role talking like since they were in England, they were like the three knights of the round table. The British crowd hated such a stereotypical remark. Said it would be equivalent to today for the U.S. audience doing a skit based on the Boston Tea Party. Angle called Shane "Merlin" and then Austin asked Shane if he could make Angle disappear. Crowd laughed at that."
"The 6,630 average attendance for the month was the lowest for WWF since December 1997, the month after the Survivor Series, just before the Stone Cold Steamroller brought the company to the promised land. On WCW's decline, this is where WCW was in April 1999 as Kevin Nash was booking."
"WWF's realistic popularity peak period was from November 1998 through August 1999, which was the Austin era. There was only a tiny decline when Austin went down with his neck injury, as the peak of The Rock era lasted through July of 2000, but numbers overall could be categorized as healthy through September of 2001."
"No word why Foley wasn't at TV, or even mentioned on TV, since TV was from New York. Hope his not sugar coating the problems on some interviews haven't put him in the doghouse. He had gotten on the bad side of the writing team over the summer when turning down some of their ideas"
"A dead Raw took place 11/5 at the Nassau Coliseum. Even in the glory days, Nassau was a tough crowd and this may have been the worst yet. At one point because the crowd was so dead, Heyman cut a promo on the crowd during a commercial break hoping it would inject some life, but that didn't work either."
"Vince came out and promised a major jump, then saying it would be Austin, at Survivor Series. Fans expected RVD. Austin came out, more cheers than boos, and acted like he didn't know what Vince was talking about. Fans were chanting "What" like crazy. He gave Vince a stunner. The lack of reaction to this spot was scary. "
"Christian was cutting a promo on Hurricane, when Hurricane came out in his alter ego, Gregory Helms of the Daily Planet doing kind of a Clark Kent deal. This was pretty funny, but Hurricane is now a ratings liability because they killed him dead."
"Test won IC title from Edge in 5:26. Dead crowd. Some near falls. Edge was crotched while on the top rope when Test threw the ref into the ropes causing Edge to lose balance. Test got the pin using the ropes. Nobody cared about the title switch."
"Christian beat Hurricane to keep European belt in 3:09 with the unprettier. Christian wore a Diamondbacks jersey which resulted in tons of crowd reaction chanting for the Yankees, but no heat for the match."
"Steph & Angle bumped into each other. Teased sexual tension between the two. Wasn't that RVD's storyline?"
"RVD NC Booker in 2:29. Regal did commentary. RVD was super light on the kicks, so he was really being careful. Tajiri attacked Regal, who ended up with a bloody nose. Booker attacked Tajiri, leading to Regal power bombing Tajiri on the floor. Show ran in and choke slammed RVD and Booker. When Vince starts panicking (WM 1997), he goes back to the big guys and, like everyone, to guys that have drawn money instead of alleviating the problem by creating new superstars. RVD's reaction was so down."
"Jericho gave Rock his face forward leg sweep (Jarrett's stroke), now called the breakdown, through the announcers table. Heyman's leg got caught under the table when it broke and he was injured."
"TV taping on 11/6 at the Meadowlands was nowhere close to full again and the Smackdown show we heard was the worst in a while with a flat crowd."
"DDP had his first TV match back, on Heat, and was pinned clean by Edge."
"Austin had the Alliance B team in the ring and asked if they trusted him. Tazz, on commentary (another angle to get rid of him) said he didn't. Even though crowd was with Austin, they sided with Tazz. Austin gave Tazz a stunner and beat him up. Ross did color for the rest of the show. "
"Angle-Kane had a great finish. The crowd was going nuts for the finish, which should be a sign you don't need ref bumps and screw jobs and you can get submissions over if you just book to get them over. Not only that, but it put Angle over as a real player making Kane tap, which was ruined within five minutes when he was back to being a total geek lackey for Austin, wearing the hat and crying over the medals. "
"The Christian vs. Bradshaw European title change match scheduled for this show never aired due to time constraints however it is recognized as a title change. I guess they felt the Regal-Tajiri squash was more important which would be the matches to decide to cut potentially out of that show. Guess that was done because so much has been made of no resolution to the Regal-Tajiri duo with Regal's turn so they did the angle a few weeks later to tie up that loose end"
"Tazz was back announcing on 1/11 Smackdown. Talk about going back-and-forth on a decision."
"As mentioned, almost weekly it seems, they do all the writing for days for Raw, which is overwritten, and then Smackdown turns out to be the wrestling show, which may be part of the reason why it usually draws the larger audience."
"Jim Ross met with Jim Cornette, Les Thatcher and Danny Davis for four hours on 10/29 in Louisville before Raw about the developmental talent. Everybody was high on Rico Constantino being ready, although there was a little concern over his comedic style in the ring."
"There was a strong feeling not to rush Lesnar out there, because he isn't ready. The Goldberg push was talked about, but the feeling was, after that, his weaknesses due to lack of full understanding of the business (he was never a fan growing up so he really only has one year even studying and watching) would work against him. Lesnar's developmental contract is significantly higher than most, because there was serious interest from both WCW and New Japan at the time he made it clear he wasn't going any farther in amateur after winning the NCAA title and was looking to go pro. Because of that, there is that innate pressure to get him to the big show faster to justify the deal"
"Continued comments among the wrestlers that worked in WCW at the end that everything feels the same"
"Eddy Guerrero had his first match back over Funaki. Reports we got were that Guerrero looked good in his return. Should be noted that, WWF does monitor with more frequent drug testing, wrestlers who have been through rehab, such as Regal, who is kind of their poster boy for someone using rehab to overcome problems and be a strong force in the company again, to keep from a relapse."
"With almost all the top names in England, the "B" shows in Lowell and Bridgeport, CT were really "B" shows. The only guys getting any TV push were the main event where Booker & Test keeping WWF tag titles in a cage over Undertaker & Kane when Stasiak interfered and pulled Booker to the floor ahead of Undertaker. Of course Taker & Kane double choke slammed Stasiak after the match. Van Dam was the other major star, beating Tazz in the show finale. OVW wrestlers Rico Constantino, Ron Waterman, Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar worked. Howard Finkel tried to put over them appearing as a special treat to fans, but they got no reaction the first night and only polite response the second night"
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2020 5:07:41 GMT -5
Nov 19, 01
"In the first very public acknowledgement of the business decline being a serious issue, WWFE laid off nine percent of its front office staff, totally 39 employees, along with bouncing company President Stuart Snyder in the largest mass layoff in company history on 11/8. The cuts were across the board, but hardest hit was the internet side, with it merging with the publications department under Shane McMahon. With the change in the internet economy and the huge drop in advertising, providing constant new content for the web site no longer generates significant income and the upkeep of the site for anyone in wrestling seems to be, at best, a loss leader that is largely there to attract viewers to sell merchandise."
"Snyder, 42, whose background includes stints with both Time Warner and USA, was the point man in two major deals this year. With his Time Warner background, he negotiated with Brad Siegel of Time Warner the purchase of World Championship Wrestling for $2.5 million in March which gave WWFE what turned out to be an ill-fated monopoly that has totally changed an industry that has suffered ever since. He was also involved in the DirecTV negotiations which resulted in a stalemate that is costing both companies anywhere from $800,000 to $1.3 million per month, depending on the popularity of that month's PPV offering. It is not known if either deal had any affect on this change."
"The company, which peaked with 457 front office employees, dropping now to 417, was planning to move its operations to a larger facility in Stamford, CT and had been looking for the new headquarters for several months because Titan Towers was bursting at the seams. Plans for that move have been dropped."
"Rules for most business don't apply to WWF, as they didn't for WCW. What killed WCW wasn't the high salaries to the performers, although that certainly increased the losses when the bottom fell out. What killed WCW was huge drops in every revenue stream because they lost their audience, the same thing WWF is going through."
"The company's plan continues to be to expand into two separate brands, although the time line hasn't been finalized. There has been talk of starting the separating process as early as the next few weeks, once Survivor Series is over. That decision has yet to be finalized and there is no indication of the necessary changes (which would require scheduled changes, probably result in Smackdown going live, etc.) are even in motion. Vince McMahon in a Pro Wrestling Torch interview mentioned perhaps making the switch either after Royal Rumble to build up for Wrestlemania, or hold off until after Mania." " "A" shows this weekend headlined by Rock vs. Austin in Cleveland, traditionally a very strong city, and Hartford, which is usually good as well, averaged 5,891 tickets. In Bangor and Portland, and granted, these markets did have the advantage in that they don't get regular house shows but they also are markets with far smaller population bases, B team shows with few stars and scheduled RVD vs. Tazz main events (Raven ended up replacing Tazz) averaged 5,839 tickets. It shows the WWF, in markets it doesn't play, can come in and do decent business no matter who is or isn't on the show."
"This weekend was the best example so far that there are no drawing cards in the WWF. The main point of this is when people talk about this wrestler or that wrestler that they can't headline because they may be a good worker but they can't draw money, officially, that is pure b.s. now, because Rock vs. Austin in a unification match has little more drawing power than a main event with Tazz. Guys drawing money, at least today, doesn't exist. The name WWF is the only draw right now because all the people that were drawing cards may move TV ratings a little, but they no longer sell tickets."
"The reality is it isn't so much the age of the person as much as how much exposure they have had. The current system burns talent out quickly and thinking about anything longer than two years in this industry is impossible. Bottom line is that currently, 24-year-old Jeff Hardy is currently played out, and someone like X-Pac, who was a major player in the company's comeback, is even more burned out as a character"
"It is clear from being brought to "B" shows regularly, that Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, Ron Waterman and Rico Constantino seem to be in the best shape of the developmental talent."
"Sean O'Haire has gone from being the guy Eric Bischoff, had he purchased the company, wanted to shoot to the top as the company's hot new star, and now finds himself working dark matches on OVW tapings"
"Another big question has to be Steve Bradley. Bradley has been in developmental for years as one of the best talents in the system. He started off in the company in the Memphis territory as the leading rival of Kurt Angle. It's funny because in Memphis, it did appear that when the two feuded, that Bradley was the better wrestler. Angle, because of his background, got the chance and the push and now is an incredible in-ring performer. Bradley is still in the same spot he's been in for nearly three years."
"There is also the plight of John Cena, who, due to his look (like a young Sting) and interview prowess (easily the best promo guy of all the developmental talent), but he's not mentioned often in Ross Reports nor has he been brought to the "B" shows. Cena got great reactions live doing dark matches, largely due to his look and his physique. The physique has changed greatly as he's dropped about 20 pounds, and has a nice physique, but doesn't look like a head-turning freaky bodybuilder any longer. He is not ready inside the ring as mentioned here before, but has the "it" they always talk about that may make him the best prospect of all."
"The WWF is now filled with workers that rarely embarrass, and bad matches, at least by the standard of ten years ago, don't exist except when the women are in the ring. Now the bad matches aren't due to missed moves or botched spots in most cases, but due to guys being given no time, apathetic crowds toward their personalities often due to lack of television push, and bad finishes."
"Fans have seen so much spectacular and dangerous things in the ring from Mick Foley, the Hardys and Edge & Christian, and the toned down style, on one hand necessary for the long-term health of the participants, makes everything seem similar. It makes it hard to get fans excited as that X-games danger element seems missing."
"Even on the big stage, in many ways no fault to the wrestlers themselves, but probably 90% of the talent acquired this year has already been portrayed in a manner in which they are close to being killed off as far as potential. The WWF could easily lose everyone brought in except Booker and RVD from the rival companies going out of business from a business standpoint and at this point it wouldn't hurt them from either a house show or TV perspective. Long-time WWF employees like Crash Holly and Essa Rios seem totally out of the plans these days and Spike Dudley may be teetering these days. That's also the greatest tragedy of the last few months is how the new fresh performers have been buried without being given a chance."
"We've seen far too many examples, from Jeff Hardy to Jericho to Angle, where the quickie switches don't elevate the wrestler by winning the big one, but take them down because people see their win as a fluke and see them as failures as champion."
"Everyone who was in MSG the night Bob Backlund beat Superstar Graham or Hulk Hogan beat Iron Sheik, or saw that match, remembers those matches today. Very few people will remember the night Austin beat Angle."
"An inherent problem is that when the fans don't remember who holds what belt, they don't care, and there are so many, I doubt if Vince polled the people in his front office, they couldn't even tell him whether Booker & Test or Dudleys held the WWF or WCW tag belts or name all the champions. When Mick Foley made his speech, even he didn't remember who held what title. How do you expect the casual fan to then care, which is the lifeblood of your company?"
"They stopped doing the big line-up hype on Raw because it was felt PPV hype would cause people to switch to Nitro. Then, when there was no Nitro, they didn't do it because they created a system where they didn't come up with line-ups until the last possible minute."
"The most frustrating thing over the past six months is that so many of the concepts that Vince introduced and worked in the boom periods have been abandoned, from the edgy content, the catch phrases and audience interaction, and the regular introduction of new talent which gets pushed in many cases to the top."
"New stars may fail. The same stars that are played out against each other will fail. I'll take my chances at this point with "may." "
"There was a lot of talk within the industry regarding Mick Foley's apparent farewell promo on 11/12 Raw, which nobody knew exactly what to make of, but was, in fact scripted ahead of time and all they key points approved by Vince McMahon. Fans were happy to see him, but he didn't seem happy and it came across. He basically said he wouldn't be around much longer. Storyline was that if Alliance won, he's out of a job, but if WWF won, he'd also be out of a job because he didn't want to work for Vince. That took the crowd down. He gave a speech about how much winning the WWF title in Worcester in 1998 meant to him. He said there were so many belts and almost anyone can have one."
"Foley mentioned that the previous week when TV was in Nassau and Meadowlands that he was there both nights, but they had nothing for him, and seemed upset, in particular, that on Long Island, where he grew up, that they couldn't find a reason to get him on Raw, which was a true story. In hindsight it appears that some people were pushing for getting him back on television because of his popularity but others didn't want him, kind of that strange Kronic story all over again"
"Foley was not at the Smackdown tapings on 11/13 in Albany, and the dressing room word was that most of the promo was him shooting, which is the one thing to me that is impossible for me hard to believe he'd do on live television unauthorized because he's too much of a pro for that. Because of that, and the fact Heyman acknowledged his promo on his promo on Smackdown, it proved to be storyline. However, at press time, the plan was for it to be Foley's final major interview as an angle is scheduled at this point for Raw on 11/19 to write him off the show."
"The career of Eddy Guerrero is in jeopardy once again after being arrested for a DUI with property damage after being in an auto accident at about 3:20 a.m. on 11/9 at his place in Land O'Lakes, FL. Guerrero was released two days later by the WWF after a phone call from John Laurinaitis from his contract that is believed to have had a $250,000 per year downside guarantee, which likely was a three-year contract."
"Guerrero had just started back on tour with the WWF the previous weekend after being out for several months in drug rehabilitation. According to police reports, he crashed into the gate at a relatively slow speed at the Arbor Apartments where he lives. Deputies approached him, smelled alcohol on his breath and noticed he was slurring his speech, and allegedly failed two breath tests. Guerrero was not injured in the accident, which caused $500 in damage to the gate, and was released that night after posting bail."
"According to a report from someone with personal knowledge of the details, Guerrero was at the Tampa Ale House, basically across the street from his place. Two guys from another club, who often work out with him, went to take him home but when he got to his car, he jumped in, locked it and started driving. They tried to stop him from driving but he motioned he lived down the street and drove off. Two sheriff patrol cars were parked in the apartment complex behind the automatic gate. Guerrero didn't punch the code and drove into the gate."
"The Austin-Rock singing segment did a 4.4 rating over the 20 minutes, peaking with a 4.7 for the overrun and picking up about 755,000 new viewers during the latter part which is on line with what a usual main event match would pick up. The number wasn't the success some were hoping for that remembered the 8.4 that the "This is your Life, Rock" segment with Foley did years ago, but it was not a ratings negative whatsoever."
"They did the best job to date on the show selling the idea that people's jobs are at stake based on the result, even to the point that Ross and Heyman basically said one of them wouldn't be there the next week. The thing is that nobody believes it."
"They had the champs that were in the PPV main event lose the first two matches to get belts off them to unify on the PPV. Upside is they are getting rid of belts, but downside is with two title changes in the opening two matches, they are still in a pattern of killing meaning of the belts."
"Tazz did an interview challenging Austin to a non-title match. I think the interview lasted longer than the match."
"Austin pinned Tazz with a stunner in 41 seconds in a non-title. Austin didn't even bother to change into wrestling gear. Some people must really hate Tazz as they've spent months building up this match."
"RVD pinned Undertaker in 7:46 to keep hardcore title. Some might say there is significance in Undertaker doing the job here, but it was one of those Hogan-Kidman deals except a little less one-sided. This wasn't your basic match, which made it stand out. They ended up on the stage with RVD doing a cross body off the Titan tron from probably 7 1/2 feet. Undertaker came back and set up a last ride spot where he was going to bomb him off the stage, which actually would have been way too dangerous. Booker broke it up and it turned into a handicap match from there. Taker took some punishment but held his own for the most part against two top guys. Finish saw Taker superplex Booker, but upon landing, RVD frog splashed him for the pin. Heyman tried to push the idea of RVD beating Undertaker as something special, but this win or loss under the circumstances, like most, didn't mean anything."
"Rock called Austin out. They did the basic bit they usually do at the house shows. They did a long monologue with each cutting the other off in the midst of a catch phrase. Austin did the segment like a total "entertaining" babyface and. The segment got over great live, like it does at the house shows. I think 20 minutes was too long for television, and some would question is taking place the week before a PPV."
"The most talked about episode of Smackdown in some time was taped on 11/13 in Albany. All the talk revolved around a lengthy promo by Heyman on Vince. It was one of those historical deals which I was told long-time fans would love and most fans weren't understand, however his performance and delivery were said to be off the charts. People there live compared his performance to the famous Ric Flair interview in Greenville in 1998."
"With that promo, really pushing the stips hard for the PPV and a lot of women beating, this seems to have the Heyman fingerprints on it."
"Heyman then does an interview. Interview saw Heyman say the WWF would die on Sunday. Paul said not to blame him, as he isn't the one who pissed on the memory of Bruno Sammartino, Superstar Graham, or ruined everything built by Austin. Another interview admitting that the company sucks. So Russo-esque, playing to the internet like that, because 90% of the audience, while losing interest, has no idea the depth of the loss of fans. Heyman said he agreed with everything Foley said and that the WWF sucks, Vince doesn't have it anymore and the company is imploding from within. He even brought up the XFL. Vince came out. Heyman told Vince he hated him, just like his kids do, and said Vince is used to having Patterson and Brisco kiss his ass all day. He said Vince used Hogan's blood to build Titan Towers, he destroyed Bret Hart to buy himself a private jet, and ruined Shawn Michaels' smile and made billions. He talked about how Vince's father went around the country telling all the promoters he wouldn't compete with them but when he died, Vince drove everyone out of business (technically, Vince started his expansion months before his father died, and his father told most promoters Vince wasn't expanding, but told his friend Wally Karbo long before he did that his son was going national), stealing their ideas and making money from them. He then said Vince got most of his ideas from him, stealing his dreams and his legacy and his ideas. He said when Vince was using Doink, Austin was drinking beer in ECW. He talked about how Vince flaunted his affairs in Playboy and how his kids hate him for it. Said Tazz was a wrestler but Vince thinks wrestling is a dirty word and turned Tazz into a no-good color commentator. Tazz then came in and choked Heyman out to a huge babyface pop. This was the excuse spot to again get rid of Tazz as announcer and Ross came out."
"Some Smackdown notes from 11/8. Flat show. Smackdown is at its best when they give matches time to build and this show seemed to be more geared toward the outside the ring, particularly backstage comedy stuff. Some of it was cute, but there was too much of it."
"Austin beat up Tazz again. All I could think of watching the show is how badly they were flattening out nearly every character. The undercard guys with potential like Raven and Kidman might as well be job guys from the 80s. They've become the 2001 version of WCW's Luchadores. At least with the Luchadores like Silver King and La Parka, the excuse can be given they didn't know English and the people in power had been around American wrestling so long that anything different looked wrong so they couldn't see their talent. With these guys, I have no clue why they've buried their talent."
"For all the talk of WWF being able to make stars, virtually every wrestler acquired the past few years was a far bigger star in WCW than WWF except Benoit and Jericho and maybe Booker T was a lateral move. With the exception of the Dudleys and Van Dam, you can say the same about every wrestler who came from ECW as well."
"The top guys are all out there doing comedy sketches which makes nobody take them seriously, which means they have no drawing power. The show was reminiscent of Nitro with all the bad backstage acting, particularly the Vince-Undertaker segment. Just couldn't believe they put Undertaker in their doing the badly acted comedy, but there is so much backstabbing of characters right now."
"Austin was totally overexposed, and the in-ring stuff with the Luchadores which seemed to never end, actually was several minutes longer live, as they edited out Austin reacting to RVD chants."
"The original TV plans, which were changed several times, were to have Rock & Jericho vs. Booker & RVD in a tag match with partners that didn't get along. Also, DDP vs. Edge was first scheduled for Smackdown before being changed to Heat. There was a lot of talk that Page's future in the company was in grave danger, but he had a good enough performance with Edge that he got a stay of execution"
"Heyman was said to be upset about the Undertaker-Angle match on Raw on 11/5, apparently as was Pat Patterson about Undertaker out wrestling Angle and reversing the ankle lock"
"Austin volunteered to put Undertaker over on Smackdown in exchange for being able to stun Angle and re-introducing the beer spot as a step into his babyface turn. At this point Austin, with backing from Jim Ross, is trying to turn face, which others, as mentioned last week, are still against. It appears Austin's idea apparently is to be a lone wolf ala Sting in 1997. Austin saw the writing on the wall when his merchandise went down so badly. The Austin promo on that Smackdown was edited down several minutes, mainly the crowd chanting for RVD and Austin goading them by yelling "What?" Well, the promo was too long on television even in its edited form"
"There was internal talk of debuting HHH on 11/19. It is said that Vince was toying with the idea, but it is believed it won't happen that quickly because he physically won't be ready to wrestle by that time"
"Foley was on the Jim Valley show in Portland, OR and said the biggest problem with the company is the lack of explanation of storylines and characters. "We've been losing viewers because they don't have faith in us to tell a good story anymore." He made it clear he doesn't hate what the WWF is currently doing, but pointed out specifically people like Dreamer, Credible, Raven and Lynn as proven main event guys who deserve more of an opportunity and PPV matches. He also said he doesn't think Page got a fair shake when he came in. "For some reason, guys who can wrestle, who I know can wrestle, are being told that they can't. One of two bad matches doesn't mean that somebody no longer has it." "
"One of the first numbers game victims is Aaron Aguilera (Hardkore Kidd). He contacted WWF to find out when he'd be assigned to HWA or OVW, as every developmental guy just about except him had been. When they got back to him, he was told because so much WCW talent is there, they were overloaded in those territories and were giving him notice and his contract will be terminated as a few weeks from now"
"Scotty 2 Hotty did a promo before his match in Portland that got a big pop but came across pretty bad to a lot of people ripping on a teacher from his old high school. He mentioned going to Westbrook High in nearby Westbrook, ME and said that he quit the high school wrestling team after one day because the coach on the first day said pro wrestling was fake and said the coach has made negative comments about pro wrestling. He then ripped on the coach saying he could kiss his worm, basically that the coach was still there rolling around with kids and he made it, and told people to contact the coach and let him have it. Because WWF hadn't run Portland in five years, this was the first time he was ever able to wrestle in his home town where he was a legit wrestling star."
"The same OVW talent as last week worked the "B" shows (Lesnar, Waterman, Orton and Constantino)."
"There is no firm decision regarding Brock Lesnar right now. There is definitely a movement to bring him to television shortly as a way to justify his huge contract, but people have warned against it. Unless he's protected, and the WWF hasn't done a good job of that with anyone of late, he'll be exposed as not being ready"
"Really surprised there was no mention of Helen Hart's death on Raw or Smackdown. Only notice was in a sign that appeared on Smackdown in the second or third row. Wrestling is so weird about that and so political. I recall when Bobo Brazil died, WCW wouldn't mention it because the WWF had inducted Brazil into their Hall of Fame. Like, the guy is dead, who cares about politics"
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Post by DSR on Dec 4, 2020 15:47:54 GMT -5
I absolutely adored this promo at the time, but it's so weird that WWE would air such an anti-WWE promo. Yeah, they won at the PPV, but this promo made me actually resent the company and the booking strategies and the squandering of talent that I liked. They really just let Paul Heyman deconstruct the entire company just so Vince can say "Meh" and keep on going.
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Post by James Fabiano on Dec 4, 2020 16:23:34 GMT -5
I absolutely adored this promo at the time, but it's so weird that WWE would air such an anti-WWE promo. Yeah, they won at the PPV, but this promo made me actually resent the company and the booking strategies and the squandering of talent that I liked. They really just let Paul Heyman deconstruct the entire company just so Vince can say "Meh" and keep on going. "He's a heel so he's lying/will be proven wrong"
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Post by DSR on Dec 4, 2020 16:46:41 GMT -5
I absolutely adored this promo at the time, but it's so weird that WWE would air such an anti-WWE promo. Yeah, they won at the PPV, but this promo made me actually resent the company and the booking strategies and the squandering of talent that I liked. They really just let Paul Heyman deconstruct the entire company just so Vince can say "Meh" and keep on going. "He's a heel so he's lying/will be proven wrong" I could totally see that being their reasoning, but much like the Reigns/Cena "buyrates and attendance" feud, so much of what that promo is about has nothing to do with winning a physical fight.
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Post by Perpetual Nirvana on Dec 4, 2020 17:13:11 GMT -5
They were also a few days away from hitting a big old reset button so Vince probably thought nobody would remember Heyman's promo next week.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2020 5:36:34 GMT -5
Nov 26, 01
"The WWF reset its entire promotion this past week, plus brought back Ric Flair and Jerry Lawler and the result was the first undisputed positive sign for Raw ratings with an increase to 4.81 on 11/19. Because the show started so strongly, the rating increase should be more attributed to curiosity over how the supposed demise of WCW and ECW and talent firings would be handled and what would happen next, than to Flair and Lawler, aside from the overrun."
"The Alliance vs. WWF feud was ditched at Survivor Series after being perhaps the biggest disappointment in recent wrestling history, where WWF won in a confusing series of events. Chris Jericho first turned on Rock, when Rock and Steve Austin were the final two wrestlers left, but Rock survived. Then Kurt Angle, playing the double agent role, turned on Steve Austin, allowing Rock to win the match and put, in storyline form, the terms WCW and ECW to rest even though the reality is both were put to rest early in the year."
"The show with the biggest stakes in history had little buzz going into the final few days. Preliminary indicators (strong walk-up business at the Famous Players theaters in Toronto plus the rating the next night) seem to indicate the buy rate was well above that of the weak Unforgiven and No Mercy numbers, and if that's the case, much of the late anticipation would have to be credited with the last week sell of the stipulations, including and perhaps primarily the Paul Heyman promo on Smackdown. As a one match show with stips nobody until the last week was taking seriously, it certainly wasn't the undercard, and the advance in Greensboro indicated the main event a week out wasn't getting over either."
"Those who have any kind of a memory of history will recognize the overall reaction was nearly identical to three different "re-start" periods booked by Vince Russo, one being his debut show, the second being the Nitro after Starrcade where he re-introduced the NWO, and the third being his return the next year with Eric Bischoff. All shows were considered huge successes because of the abrupt dropping of virtually all storylines that were going nowhere and changes to new storylines that seemed to have a direction. In all three cases, the re-start shows drew significant ratings increases. In all three cases, the ratings after a few weeks declined to well below previous low levels."
"The signing of Flair in a deal verbally agreed to by Flair and lawyers for Time Warner at 7:30 p.m. on 11/16 but not officially signed until the lawyers sent the contract to the Charlotte Coliseum at 4:30 p.m. the day of the show, is to play Vince McMahon's adversary, who will be the point man in setting up the break into two separate promotions because the two will be unable to get along as 50% owners."
"Flair was also talking with XWF, which had indicated it wanted to buy out his Time Warner deal. Ultimately, XWF didn't come through with the money before its first taping last week. When they came back after the taping and verbally offered a strong deal, Flair had already entered into serious negotiations with WWF and had made something of a verbal commitment once everything was settled with Time Warner because he loved how the storyline was being laid out..k after the taping and verbally offered a strong deal, Flair had already entered into serious negotiations with WWF and had made something of a verbal commitment once everything was settled with Time Warner because he loved how the storyline was being laid out."
"With WCW officially closed and nobody left working in the office on things like negotiation of contracts, negotiations with the Time Warner side for Flair's release went slower than everyone would have liked. Late last week there was real concern in the WWF that it wouldn't be done by Monday and there was really no back-up plan in place, and it was something of a photo finish with the contract being faxed to the Charlotte Coliseum with a release from Time Warner literally hours before he was to go on the air."
"There is some internal disagreements about Flair's character, as in the role of 50% owner, they want him to play the low-keyed dignified Flair, but fans want to see the out of control Flair mannerisms and promo when he's in front of them and compromising to do both is a work in progress."
"Politically, the Austin turn, which was categorized as a power play by Austin and Jim Ross, although all logic indicated it was necessary because Austin as a heel was much to the detriment of the company business-wise, was a win over the forces of HHH and to a lesser extent Paul Heyman. The Austin turn was largely to work programs with both Rock and HHH in what theoretically were to be big money feuds. HHH's blew out his quad, which wasn't considered a negative long-term because of the feeling he'd be fresh coming back and have an obvious program with Austin as a face. As it turned out, they did the Rock matches but never pushed the program hard on television, and they were huge disappointments at the gate. But from a strong TV standpoint, they turned Austin before really getting to either program. There had been a half-assed long-term plan, since such things really don't exist, for HHH to win the WWF title as a face at Mania from Austin, and the positioning change will probably throw a monkey wrench into that."
"The WWF first called around 11/12 to get Lawler in for the 11/19 tapings. Lawler by this point had already agreed to do the XWF tapings as well as the WWA tour of England in late November and early December. He considered cancelling doing the XWF tapings to negotiate with WWF, but Jimmy Hart assured him that even if he signed his XWF contract, which called for a 45-day non-compete, that they would let him out of a deal owing to their friendship that dates back decades, and Hart asked him to work the shows anyway."
"Why Lawler, or anyone, would be signed to non-compete deals and then be released from them immediately brings up the question as to what purpose the contracts had in the first place. While XWF doesn't want to get on the bad side of WWF and have the thing turn nasty, the bottom line is, WWF's history when it comes to competition doesn't indicate if the roles were reversed, that they would be as acquiescing."
"Those in XWF by late in the week expected Lawler would be leaving and he made the firm commitment to WWF on 11/18 but the deal wasn't worked out with the lawyers and he actually didn't sign his three-year contract, believed to be for roughly the same $250,000 per year he had been earning when he left the company, until three hours before the show went on the air."
"Lawler went on the air not having seen Survivor Series or much WWF television since February, and went on with very limited storyline knowledge of the product and zero preparation, although he himself felt comfortable doing so feeling his role was to entertain and Jim Ross' job is to get the angles over, very different than Heyman, who felt his primary role was to get the talent and angles over and the jokes and entertainment were secondary."
"At the time the deal was made, Lawler was only scheduled to work Raws on Mondays and PPV events once per month with Ross. Because the crowd response to his return was so positive, he was asked the next day to do Smackdown with Michael Cole."
"The same television show which saw Flair and Lawler return saw the departure of Mick Foley from the WWF. Foley and Vince McMahon had secretly agreed to a parting of the ways about two weeks earlier, with Foley agreeing to appear on a few television shows to give the fans a storyline explanation. Foley didn't appear happy on any of the promos, but those close to the situation said that McMahon wanted a television farewell to Foley where McMahon would thank him for his work because, literally, that has never happened with a departing character. "
"As noted from several interviews, Foley hadn't been happy with his role in WWF, and the writing team wasn't happy with Foley since he nixed storyline ideas for his return to the ring. When he did return, the material he was given was unusually lame, not that Foley was the only person with lame material during a creative dearth, but it did almost come across that some wanted him back in the company while others were mad at him and didn't put him in a position where he'd be anything but a disappointment."
"During the skit, while they were inside McMahon's luxurious airplane, shown on television for the first time, seemed to be a public acknowledgement that the sacrifices by people like Foley led to the business boom that paid for things like a WWF jet. As Foley left, McMahon smiled and said, "Have a nice day." It was a clumsy farewell, far more like a sitcom star leaving a show suddenly with no logical explanation other than something forced with the writers clueless of how to handle it as opposed to the kind of farewell a unique wrestler would be expected to get publicly parting from the company he'll forever be associated with."
"Brian Adams accepted a buy-out because they had no plans for him, even though he had worked his way into something of a key position with HWA leading a lot of the training drills and helping write the television show (My Note: His HWA run included him wearing a mask as Tiger Hung Lo, doing a Japanese old man voice while mentoring the Jung Dragons)"
"With the Alliance angle having been dropped, the crew brought in from ECW and WCW with the exception of Rob Van Dam and Stacy Keibler were all temporarily written out of the TV show (the others from the Alliance who are remaining on TV, Test, Tazz, Christian, Austin, Angle and Dudleys were existing WWF performers sent to the other side as opposed to wrestlers acquired when WCW and ECW folded)."
"It's pretty clear that many most of the Alliance wrestlers were given little to no serious chance from the start. Most were buried hard within two weeks. With the exception of Booker T, at this point virtually none would be missed if they were dropped. "
"There is no television explanation going to be given for the wrestlers from an organization that doesn't exist and seemingly fired appearing at house shows. There was talk on Tuesday of making a statement that wrestlers would have to fulfill previous commitments to make sense out of the situation, but the decision was made to instead totally ignore the fact and just not acknowledge it on television."
"Survivor Series on 11/18 from the Greensboro Coliseum ended up being a one-match show with the storyline that people's jobs were on the line. The reality is, for many of the undercard wrestlers, whether they needed to worry or not, there was fear that there jobs really were on the line. The show drew 10,142 fans paying $594,720 and another $91,409 in merchandise. You'd probably have to go back more than four years for a WWF PPV event which drew barely half of capacity paid."
"Tazz came in late and got a big pop. I was just waiting for him to be humiliated, but had to wait for Raw."
"The only real point of interest was whether or not Jim Ross or Paul Heyman would mention the name of the last womens' champ, Chyna. They didn't."
"Undertaker, as would be the theme of the evening for him since he was doing a clean job somewhat early, didn't do hardly any selling."
"Second fall was everyone kill Shane. Kane used a choke slam, Undertaker used a tombstone piledriver and Jericho pinned him after a lionsault in 14:30. There was that secret heat afterwards on Shane because not only of how lame his firing on Raw was, but because he took everyone's finish the night before including a tombstone, a move that is basically unofficially banned for regular use, was helped out but then didn't sell anything the next night."
"A month ago, Jericho looked buried deep once again while Van Dam was the rising superstar. Now Van Dam is buried deep and Jericho is being pushed as the next guy in the top rung, until they give him on him like they always seem to do."
"Angle showed up and hit Austin with a title belt, saving the day for WWF and Rock scored the pin with a rock bottom and eight months after WCW died and ten months after ECW died, their names within WWF were officially taken off life support and allowed to die with no dignity after a branding manslaughter."
"Raw on 11/19 drew its best number since 8/27 with a 4.81 rating (4.78 first hour; 4.83 second hour) and a 7.2 share, and an estimated 6.1 million viewers."
"There was a huge drop after Rock's match of about 536,000 viewers for the next segment, which was Regal kissing Vince's ass (4.73)."
"The appearances of Flair and Austin in the final five minutes kicked the overrun up to a whopping 5.45, the highest rated segment on a Raw show since the NFL regular season started. The last Raw show to pull an overrun like that was the 5.89 for the Angle milk truck angle on 8/20."
"Smackdown on 11/15 drew a 3.9 rating (4.5 realistic rating) which shows all the underground pre-hype for the Heyman interview really had no effect on the size of the audience for the show itself. The show had tremendous internet hype due to the Heyman interview. While the Heyman interview most likely helped save the buy rate for Survivor Series once it aired, the Smackdown show itself did roughly what the show had been averaging over the past few months."
"While there were numerous signs in the crowd pro-Angle, the crowd actually did boo the name from the start. The crowd also booed Vince when he mentioned that WCW and ECW were dead."
"Stratus pinned Lita to keep the womens title in probably the worst 2:44 of wrestling in a major promotion all year. If there is ever a match the epitome of the saying it went to hell in a handbasket, this was it."
"RVD went for a frog splash onto Bubba through a table, but Bubba moved and Van Dam went through it. He actually landed short as the table was way out there. The match didn't end as he had to be put through the table. Dudleys gave him a 3-D onto a table, that didn't break, and they had to do it a second time for the finish in 4:27. These first two matches made you realize how great it is that Smackdown is taped."
"Shane, who won't be a TV character from this point forward, as he's to spend full-time working in the office overseeing publications and internet, at first didn't even want to do TV after losing. While nobody can publicly say it, privately a lot of wrestlers were mad that Shane showed up not selling taking everyone's finisher including a tombstone and having been carried off the previous night, but showed up fine. There was a plan proposed for Shane to be humiliated and dragged off, but he wouldn't do it and ultimately Vince agreed with Shane."
"Vince confronted Jericho, and to get back at him, made him wrestle Kane. This made zero sense, as Jericho theoretically nearly cost Vince his company, and logically, anything but a firing would make no sense."
"Vince called out Regal, pulled down his pants, revealing black briefs, then pulled down his briefs from the back, started flexing his butt and ordered Regal to kiss his ass to save his job, which he did. This was quite disturbing as you start thinking about a 56-year-old man who is flexing his bare ass in front of the world. Evidently viewers must not have liked it with such a massive number tuning out during this segment. And who would have thought that all this was is another way to humiliate Tazz. As Regal left the building, Tazz made fun of him and he beat the hell out of Tazz."
"Jericho was supposed to put Kane in the walls twice. I don't know if Kane wanted to make Jericho look bad or what, but it's one thing to mess up a spot off the ropes, but it's another to twice mess up a boston crab spot. There is definitely more to this, but Jericho sure looked bad in a spot designed to make him look strong."
"Regal beat Tazz in :53 with the Regal stretch. The whole building was filled with smoke."
"The gimmick before Survivor Series was that all champions would keep their job so Van Dam (hardcore), Christian (European), Dudleys (tag team) and Austin (WWF) were guaranteed to stay, plus they brought Regal back with the kiss ass stip, Tazz back because McMahon was happy he choked out Heyman, Test stayed because of winning the Battle Royal and Keibler stayed because she's so hot"
"Michael Cole throughout the show in what appeared to be lines edited into the show in studio kept saying that for the first time in the 100 year history of wrestling there would be only one undisputed world champion. Aside from that not being true, I was amazed they actually claimed they were part of the wrestling business for the first time since the early 80s."
"The Paul Heyman interview was the best interview on a wrestling show in a long time. It was the most talked about of the year. It's really too bad they didn't run with this angle the right way. Got a feeling this angle will historically be looked at as the single greatest botched angle in wrestling history. Considering how badly botched All Japan vs. New Japan ended up, that's saying a lot. I think some of the stuff was too inside, such as mentions of people like Don Owen and Sam Muchnick (who technically was the one promoter Vince didn't run out of business because Muchnick retired in January 1982 and McMahon didn't expand into St. Louis until December 1983). Vince's father's death time line wasn't accurate (Vince started his expansion months before his father died and his father was well aware of it) but we're splitting hairs."
"The interview was edited. Before Vince came to the ring, Heyman talked about WWF history and mentioned names like Bruno Sammartino, Superstar Graham and Jimmy Snuka. Sammartino and Graham's name got some cheers but not a ton, Snuka got a legit pop. From a TV standpoint, it was probably the right thing because the interview went long enough and hit its points the way it was presented. Just wish they'd be able to edit some of those interviews that never end on Raw down in post."
"You could hear people throughout the show chanting "What?" like crazy. Actually they were doing that at the XWF tapings as well. The "What" seems to be the new version of the "Whoo!" whenever anyone throws a chop."
"Most of the rest of the show was entertaining except Show vs. Page, because you just can't spoof a dead character. Nothing worse than a babyface doing comedy and the crowd not laughing. And boy, when someone rubs people the wrong way there, do they get off on humiliating them or what?"
"Undertaker vs. Booker was the other bad spot. Undertaker sold nothing and destroyed him, took no bumps, and then after being DQ'd, laid him out with a choke slam. Have you ever seen, three times before a major PPV, one of the main eventers put in such a one-sided match? Seriously, if they wanted to make Undertaker a monster, they should have put him in with Richards or Dreamer or Credible or any one of a dozen guys that weren't in the main, because Booker came off so weak."
"On the Stern show on 11/15, Torrie Wilson mentioned that she just got engaged to Billy Kidman two days earlier. Can you imagine the pressure he's going to feel because they've got no plans for him and some feel she can be a superstar, although from a storyline standpoint, they've got her positioned all wrong. No matter what negative people want to say about Marc and Rena Mero, the one thing is, in the situation where the wife becomes a superstar and the husband gets buried, that is a hell of a lot of pressure on a marriage, and unlike most wrestling couples that break up on the air, in their case, life didn't imitate art."
"On the 11/14 OVW tapings, the big angle was a loser leaves town handicap match with Prototype & Kenny Bolin beating Rico Constantino. After losing, Constantino got a standing ovation and he thanked everyone for supporting him over the two years. His WWF plight is going to be most interesting for everyone to watch. He'd be the oldest young guy in the recent history of the company, starting out at 40 (well, DDP was older, but he had years of main event experience, Constantino is unknown on a national level), but he comes in as a fairly complete package with interviews and personality. If the sharks gobble him or not is going to be an interesting sign for the future if he is brought in."
"The basic gist on Constantino, Lesnar, Ron Waterman and Randy Orton is that they are going to be booked full-time by WWF on "B" shows every weekend for the rest of the year. With the exception of Orton, and Waterman a little, the idea is they are going to be based out of their home towns (Lesnar in Minneapolis and Constantino in Las Vegas) to be closer to family over the holidays so the angles were to explain them not being on OVW. The feeling is that in January, a decision will be made on Constantino, probably depending on where the company is at the time. He'll either be brought in as a television player, he'll be sent back to OVW or he'll be let go. Lesnar is pretty safe from being let go but the other two options will be decided for him as well. Waterman for the most part is going home to Colorado for the holidays although he may be around for some TV. His situation, at 35, is very similar to Constantino's."
"Mark Henry is also leaving, just as they started his program with D-Lo Brown. Apparently there is a World's Strongest Man Contest this coming March that he was invited to compete in and is starting to train full-time for it. The negative on this is that he spent all that time cutting weight, from about 415 down to probably 330 at one point (he's closer to 350 now as he got off his diet when his mother recently passed away). But to compete in the strongman contest, he'll probably have to shoot back to around 400. The idea is that if he wins, they'll have a marketing hook to springboard his WWF return, theoretically."
"Prelim indication is Awesome's injury was a torn ACL, which would require reconstructive surgery, so that is pretty serious. Ross said it doesn't look promising. Awesome is saying he's trying to avoid the surgery even if it's a full tear, because of how long it would require being out of action. The guess is with all the rumors of roster cuts, this isn't the most opportune time to be on injured reserve."
"Tazz is officially after all the games are over with the weekly excuses to get him off the air, been taken off as Smackdown commentator with Lawler in the spot temporarily until the split takes place"
"Angle, on his web site, put up sort of a disclaimer about his wife's comments on RVD, stating they were her opinion as a fan. However, in an ESPN appearance a few weeks ago, Angle mentioned a wrestler who broke his nose and then said he would refuse to dignify their name on the show"
"Regal, who has suffered bloody noses five or six times in the past two weeks, is needing an operation. The nose is smashed and infected and thus bleeds with any physical exertion. He can't get the operation until the infection subsides"
"Page was on a radio show and admitted that in not sitting out and just taking his WCW contact money, he ended up losing about $500,000 because of how everything ended up working out"
"Vince talked about the WCW purchase and noted that they had absorbed a lot of the talent of WCW and portrayed it as saving individuals from being out of work "which would not necessarily strengthen anyone in the WWF." "
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2020 6:28:14 GMT -5
And so WCW ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
I dont know if you plan on doing anything like this in the future @dcr but I've thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you.
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Post by DSR on Dec 5, 2020 11:18:06 GMT -5
I'm of the mind to say "f*** it" and just keep going with WWF/E stuff, since over the years they've repeated many of the same WCW mistakes. But I also just really enjoyed this thread and already kinda miss it now that the WCW stuff is over.
At any rate, thanks @dcr for doing this. This thread's been a fun nostalgia trip and a fascinating read.
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Post by James Fabiano on Dec 5, 2020 11:31:13 GMT -5
Good time to restate some suggestions:
- Time to start TNA? - Special editions on attempts to start a second brand with WCW castoffs and more? (XWF? World Wrestling All-Stars?) - 1990 WCW (Herd and Ole antics)?
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hassanchop
Grimlock
Who are you to doubt Belldandy?
Posts: 14,794
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Post by hassanchop on Dec 5, 2020 11:37:34 GMT -5
I remember during that time period there was a site called Paul's Wrestling Page which covered this, but a bit more blunt with more rumored stories. There was also 'news' about other stars with big contracts that never came for invasion and what their plans were. I recall one that said Savage was gonna start his own promotion and get Goldberg but also questioned where he got the dough since WWF didn't have it neither that time.
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