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Post by mrpeacock on Jan 6, 2024 1:06:15 GMT -5
Ready to Rumble
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J. Hova
Don Corleone
Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt
Posts: 2,019
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Post by J. Hova on Jan 6, 2024 1:58:17 GMT -5
I interpret "box office bomb" in an 'amount paid vs. results' context... so I pick Master P. Got paid $200,000 per appearance and for what? Another one would be Pacman Jones in TNA... $25,000 per appearance? Hey, he made them say, "Uhhhhh." Ok, maybe it was closer to "Mehhhh," but still.
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Johnny B. Decent
Patti Mayonnaise
Had one once
Everybody's Favorite Arizonian.
Posts: 31,095
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Post by Johnny B. Decent on Jan 6, 2024 3:46:38 GMT -5
Inoki's repeated attempts to make Naoya Ogawa his Ace in the 90's over Hashimoto.
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Post by karl100589 on Jan 6, 2024 5:49:06 GMT -5
I interpret "box office bomb" in an 'amount paid vs. results' context... so I pick Master P. Got paid $200,000 per appearance and for what? Another one would be Pacman Jones in TNA... $25,000 per appearance? And WCW misread its audience so bad he was forced to turn heel against the West Texas Rednecks.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jan 6, 2024 7:41:30 GMT -5
I'm not sure if they outright lost money on it, but WrestleMania XI has to be one of the biggest disappointments in WWE history. They spent so much money to get legitimate celebrities to the show. Pamela Anderson was a megastar at the time, and the "lesser" celebs were all from top rated network TV shows at a time when the top TV shows were watched by tens of millions of people each week. And then they had NFL megastar Lawrence Taylor flanked by some of the legit top defensive stars in the NFL. Three of LT's All Pro team are in the Hall of Fame, Mongo likely will be this year, and Banks, Norton, and Spielman were perennial Pro Bowlers who may get into the HOF some day. They were all top tier sports stars. I have to think that Vince thought this show was going to launch the New Generation like Wrestlemania I used it's mainstream celebrities to launch the Hogan Era. At the beginning of the show, it's clear Vince was expecting lots of new fans to be watching the show judging from his commentary. And then the show is lackluster. It's was panned by wrestling fans and basically ignored by non-wrestling fans. It had a buyrate around 20% lower than the year before. It was so bad that despite business lagging, Vince decided the next year to make Wrestlemania XII basically a straight up wrestling show for wrestling fans. No stars and puts a 60 minute workrate match on top. I almost think the concept of the New Generation died in Vince's mind that day. Hogan and Piper was a hot program with or without Lauper and Mr. T, that was the difference. Nash was a cold champion partly I feel because Backlund (even while he was crazy) still had name value, and Diesel not getting his decisive win over Bob on a major broadcast show IMO was a massive mistake that skunked his reign out the gate (and sticking him with a popular heel in Shawn made thing’s worse). The public could get their Salt N Pepa, Nic Tuturro and Pamela Anderson fixes elsewhere without having to buy a PPV with a tired Bret/Bob program and Lawrence Taylor fighting a midcarder (an iconic midcarder in Bigelow, but still not a main event guy). The difference between WM11 and Mania 1/Bad Bunny/David Arquette post-2000/some of the better guest hosts like Bob Barker was that 11 focused on the WWF fawning over the celebs, and the latter examples were meant to have the stars put over how cool wrestling is.
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Jan 6, 2024 9:18:06 GMT -5
Inoki's repeated attempts to make Naoya Ogawa his Ace in the 90's over Hashimoto. you can probably put Inokism in general on this list. imagine Vince deciding one day that Tank Abbott needs to be the company's top star because hes a legit tough guy and sends him out there to squash The Rock and Triple H AND break Steve Austin's orbital bone.
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XIII
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 18,665
Member is Online
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Post by XIII on Jan 6, 2024 10:06:32 GMT -5
Post invasion Scott Steiner is this in spades. I'm not sure if it's a matter of mishandling of injuries catching up to Scott, but it should have been a bigger deal than it ended up being. I personally feel the same way about NWO in WWE, but the Rock-Hogan payoff salvages it for most people, I imagine. Scott suffered from nagging injuries, HHH having no real interest in putting him over, and WWE not going all in on Big Poppa Pump and just letting him go HAM like he did in WCW. He never had much of a chance really.
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Renslayer
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
every time i come around your city...
Posts: 16,826
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Post by Renslayer on Jan 6, 2024 10:18:58 GMT -5
I interpret "box office bomb" in an 'amount paid vs. results' context... so I pick Master P. Got paid $200,000 per appearance and for what? Another one would be Pacman Jones in TNA... $25,000 per appearance? Wait wait wait, exactly WHY did TNA bring Pacman Jones in?!?!?
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Gunhaver
Mephisto
"Gunhaver! You actually have a gun!"
Posts: 688
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Post by Gunhaver on Jan 6, 2024 10:44:28 GMT -5
I interpret "box office bomb" in an 'amount paid vs. results' context... so I pick Master P. Got paid $200,000 per appearance and for what? Another one would be Pacman Jones in TNA... $25,000 per appearance? Wait wait wait, exactly WHY did TNA bring Pacman Jones in?!?!? IIRC, he was made a tag champ despite not being permitted to wrestle at all. I also believe this was after his assault charge.
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Post by OGBoardPoster2005 on Jan 6, 2024 10:55:11 GMT -5
I'm not sure if they outright lost money on it, but WrestleMania XI has to be one of the biggest disappointments in WWE history. They spent so much money to get legitimate celebrities to the show. Pamela Anderson was a megastar at the time, and the "lesser" celebs were all from top rated network TV shows at a time when the top TV shows were watched by tens of millions of people each week. And then they had NFL megastar Lawrence Taylor flanked by some of the legit top defensive stars in the NFL. Three of LT's All Pro team are in the Hall of Fame, Mongo likely will be this year, and Banks, Norton, and Spielman were perennial Pro Bowlers who may get into the HOF some day. They were all top tier sports stars. I have to think that Vince thought this show was going to launch the New Generation like Wrestlemania I used it's mainstream celebrities to launch the Hogan Era. At the beginning of the show, it's clear Vince was expecting lots of new fans to be watching the show judging from his commentary. And then the show is lackluster. It's was panned by wrestling fans and basically ignored by non-wrestling fans. It had a buyrate around 20% lower than the year before. It was so bad that despite business lagging, Vince decided the next year to make Wrestlemania XII basically a straight up wrestling show for wrestling fans. No stars and puts a 60 minute workrate match on top. I almost think the concept of the New Generation died in Vince's mind that day. The last point is ironic considering that WrestleMania 12's branding was Hollywood themed with one of the marquee matches being the Hollywood Backlot Brawl and the event logo modeled after the 20'th Century Fox logo. (And the fact the event took place in Anaheim and not Los Angeles.) Wrestlemania XI is odd because its almost like they were trying to create something that combined what The War to Settle the Score and Wrestlemania did the decade prior. Getting the main stream star appeal to bring in casual fans in hopes of finding those who watched in the mid-late 80s again, but it lacked what made that work. First and foremost, it starts with location. Hartford Civic Center wasn't Madison Square Garden by any stretch. MSG was the mecca and arguably the #1 arena in the United States. Hartford Civic Center gave it a feeling of a regular run of the mill PPV. I understand they went there the year prior and Hartford was cheaper for operating costs I would suppose (CT taxes aside), but instead of feeling like a Wrestlemania it felt more like a random special in an Arena. The second is that Diesel had 0 mainstream noteriety in spite of any Regis and Kathie Lee shows he could make. Hulk Hogan had Rocky III under his belt and was in his 3rd year after the movie's release and going up the rollercoaster in popularity. Diesel got hot shoted a title a few months prior and while Vince really wanted him to catch on, he never did. The third is that the roster paled here compared to 1985. You gotta think at Wrestlemania I in star power alone in ring you have Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Andre The Giant, Iron Sheik, and Junkyard Dog, all of whom had been over in a big way either in the WWWF/WWF such as Andre or Sheik or in the territory system in the case of Hogan (AWA), Piper (Mid-Atlantic), and JYD (Mid-South). Throw in Paul Orndorff and Ricky Steamboat in there as well. Here in 1995 you have Diesel, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Undertaker, Yokozuna, Razor Ramon, Lex Luger, and Bob Backlund leading, and to us fans now that sounds like a lot of big names but Diesel here was only 4 months removed from being Shawn's bodyguard and Tag Team partner, neither had been over on a large stage leading up the same way Hogan and Piper were. Bret, Yoko and Lex had headlined Wrestlemania X but they never did the business any of the guys I mentioned at One did prior to XI. Razor Ramon was an over face but only to that WWF crowd, nobody knew who Razor in the mainstream, and while Bob Backlund may have been WWWF Champion for 6 years prior to Hogan, he returned in 1993 to a very different company and by 1995 while he was an over Heel on WWF TV, he wasn't a majorly over Heel in the main stream. As for Undertaker, I argue the WWF never truly knew how to capitalize on his overness. They knew how to present him but manifesting that into a mainstream babyface was difficult from the perspective of how they wanted to present Taker and so while he caught on with WWF fans, mainstream casual audience wouldn't know him as anything more than a big dude. And yes King Kong Bundy may be back from Wrestlemania 2 but people forget that his feud with Hogan wasn't about Bundy's great performance as much as it was Hulk's story being destroyed by this monster Heel and having to be locked up in a cage with him to keep his title and get revenge. That aspect didn't exist with Bundy/Taker but you can tell the WWF thought it would be a great feature match alongside Diesel/Shawn, Bret/Backlund, and LT/Bam Bam. Which brings it to that point. Lawrence Taylor was no Mr. T by any means and Bam Bam was a midcarder at best by 1995 and so presenting him in a Main Event spot against a football player wasn't a great selling point. I cannot imagine a single wrestling or football fan who thought that match was a good idea or was something they wanted to really see and the fact it Main Evented over Diesel/Shawn did nothing for any of the four or the WWF. The star power also shows how much Vince missed the point. Yes it got the kids of the 80s tuned in but the kids of the 90s didn't look at Nick Turturro, Jonathan Taylor-Thomas, Pam Anderson or Jenny McCarthy the same way the kids of the 80s did Cyndi Lauper or Mr. T. I think Vince truly believed he could find lightning in a bottle but it wasn't there and this PPV was foreboding of what 1995 held for the company. They never got ahead in 1995 and by the end of the year, they went right back to Bret as the lead in hopes of grooming Shawn to take the spot. Speaking of Wrestlemania 12... Anaheim in this era was seen the same way East Rutherford was. While it wasn't LA, it was close enough that you can say LA. Just like with East Rutherford, its not NYC, but its close enough to say it is. In the mid-90s, LA County was in a recession and as a result their wasn't a modern indoor venue in Los Angeles, as the Sports Arena was well over 30 years old by WM 7 and the Great Western Forum hardly ever ran WWF shows. Vince had gone there in 1984 but didn't return for 8 years while JCP/WCW ran there. They went back for 2 years from 1992-1994 but after that did not go back again until 2015. Not sure if it was contracts that led to Vince not returning after 1994, since WCW didn't return either until 1997 and only did 3 there after that, or something with the Forum. The Anaheim Pond, located in Orange County had been built in 1993 and the WWF had been running shows there for 3 years prior to Mania. Newer venue, coupled with close enough proximity to the LA market made it a viable alternative to running either the Sports Arena or the Forum. Vince must have liked it because they've ran it almost every year since, some multiple times. As for "regular wrestling show", I wouldn't say that for XII. He definitely cut out the celebrity aspect but to be fair the year prior had enough for 3 Wrestlemanias. The Backlot Brawl was one of the first cinematic matches and wasn't cheap I'd imagine, and neither would have been the original proposed Miami Street Fight between Razor and Goldust. The Iron Man match is the only reason the card didn't have more matches since start to finish entrances to exits its almost 75 minutes of PPV time in an era where 3 hours was becoming standard for major shows.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Jan 6, 2024 11:54:40 GMT -5
I'm not sure if they outright lost money on it, but WrestleMania XI has to be one of the biggest disappointments in WWE history. They spent so much money to get legitimate celebrities to the show. Pamela Anderson was a megastar at the time, and the "lesser" celebs were all from top rated network TV shows at a time when the top TV shows were watched by tens of millions of people each week. And then they had NFL megastar Lawrence Taylor flanked by some of the legit top defensive stars in the NFL. Three of LT's All Pro team are in the Hall of Fame, Mongo likely will be this year, and Banks, Norton, and Spielman were perennial Pro Bowlers who may get into the HOF some day. They were all top tier sports stars. I have to think that Vince thought this show was going to launch the New Generation like Wrestlemania I used it's mainstream celebrities to launch the Hogan Era. At the beginning of the show, it's clear Vince was expecting lots of new fans to be watching the show judging from his commentary. And then the show is lackluster. It's was panned by wrestling fans and basically ignored by non-wrestling fans. It had a buyrate around 20% lower than the year before. It was so bad that despite business lagging, Vince decided the next year to make Wrestlemania XII basically a straight up wrestling show for wrestling fans. No stars and puts a 60 minute workrate match on top. I almost think the concept of the New Generation died in Vince's mind that day. To this day I have no idea why the Diesel Michaels match was laid out they way it was. Especially when Prichard is adamant that Vince wanted Nash to be his top babyface. They went of their way to make the heel look cool and then they act surprised when he gets over.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jan 6, 2024 12:07:21 GMT -5
Post invasion Scott Steiner is this in spades. I'm not sure if it's a matter of mishandling of injuries catching up to Scott, but it should have been a bigger deal than it ended up being. I personally feel the same way about NWO in WWE, but the Rock-Hogan payoff salvages it for most people, I imagine. They hired him after he failed their medical so knew full well he was seriously injured so needed surgery to work a passable match but wanted someone new for Triple H to beat and figured they could 'randomly' drug test him so they'd have an excuse to fire him afterwards and save a bunch of cash. Steiner told WWE management he'd go for his drug test the same time Triple H went for his and they never asked again. He eventually got the surgery and went on to have better matches in TNA because he was actually able to move his foot.
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Ultimo Gallos
Grimlock
Dreams SUCK!Nightmares live FOREVER!
Posts: 14,712
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Post by Ultimo Gallos on Jan 6, 2024 12:08:49 GMT -5
Mistico in WWE must be one. He wouldn't have been cheap and was hired to bring in Mexican-American and Mexican viewers as well as move merch to the kids. I doubt they made their money back on the Sin Cara masks they bulk-ordered from the factory in Phnom Penh. Also, the product was a bit stagnant at the time so fans of Lucha weren't going to change the channel for just one wrestler especially one who botched a lot and clearly didn't want to be there. All true. But until AEW started every show I vended at had kids asking if I had any Rey Mysterio or Sin Cara masks for sale. Nope they didnt want Blue Panther or Groda or even a legend like Dr Wagner Jr they wanted Rey and Sin.
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Jan 6, 2024 12:38:30 GMT -5
I imagine whatever they paid Rodman for his Road Wild 1999 match was absolutely not worth it.
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Post by Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite on Jan 6, 2024 12:59:52 GMT -5
The WCW/ECW Invasion SHOULD have been a license to print money if Vince could have kept his ego in check enough to actually make either company look like credible/independant threats instead of just pawns in the McMahon family battle
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Renslayer
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
every time i come around your city...
Posts: 16,826
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Post by Renslayer on Jan 6, 2024 13:50:14 GMT -5
I'm not sure if they outright lost money on it, but WrestleMania XI has to be one of the biggest disappointments in WWE history. They spent so much money to get legitimate celebrities to the show. Pamela Anderson was a megastar at the time, and the "lesser" celebs were all from top rated network TV shows at a time when the top TV shows were watched by tens of millions of people each week. And then they had NFL megastar Lawrence Taylor flanked by some of the legit top defensive stars in the NFL. Three of LT's All Pro team are in the Hall of Fame, Mongo likely will be this year, and Banks, Norton, and Spielman were perennial Pro Bowlers who may get into the HOF some day. They were all top tier sports stars. I have to think that Vince thought this show was going to launch the New Generation like Wrestlemania I used it's mainstream celebrities to launch the Hogan Era. At the beginning of the show, it's clear Vince was expecting lots of new fans to be watching the show judging from his commentary. And then the show is lackluster. It's was panned by wrestling fans and basically ignored by non-wrestling fans. It had a buyrate around 20% lower than the year before. It was so bad that despite business lagging, Vince decided the next year to make Wrestlemania XII basically a straight up wrestling show for wrestling fans. No stars and puts a 60 minute workrate match on top. I almost think the concept of the New Generation died in Vince's mind that day. To this day I have no idea why the Diesel Michaels match was laid out they way it was. Especially when Prichard is adamant that Vince wanted Nash to be his top babyface. They went of their way to make the heel look cool and then they act surprised when he gets over. Shawn getting the visible pin really f**Ed diesel's title reign on the spot.
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Jan 6, 2024 14:06:28 GMT -5
I imagine whatever they paid Rodman for his Road Wild 1999 match was absolutely not worth it. This is true for literally every celebrity WCW ever brought in. Eric Bischoff goes off about how he gave KISS so much because they were "the biggest band in the world" in 1999, by which point the bloom has long fallen off the rise on the reunion. The teenage boys they were courting at the time didn't give a rats ass about KISS or Megadeth, they wanted Korn and Limp Bizkit. I should know, I was one of them.
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Post by THE FVNKER on Jan 6, 2024 14:38:49 GMT -5
Idk if it counts but as much as they spent on Glacier’s entrance, and the time invested in his debut I’d say that was a pretty big one.
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Post by TOK Is the Target Demo on Jan 6, 2024 15:21:03 GMT -5
Marc Mero has to be near the top of the list. He was the first big-money guaranteed deal that Vince gave out, and both Austin and Foley have said that they were offended by it and used it as motivation. Vince saw Mero as a star but he ended up playing sidekick to his wife.
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Mozenrath
FANatic
Foppery and Whim
Speedy Speed Boy
Posts: 121,349
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Post by Mozenrath on Jan 6, 2024 15:55:13 GMT -5
I imagine whatever they paid Rodman for his Road Wild 1999 match was absolutely not worth it. This is true for literally every celebrity WCW ever brought in. Eric Bischoff goes off about how he gave KISS so much because they were "the biggest band in the world" in 1999, by which point the bloom has long fallen off the rise on the reunion. The teenage boys they were courting at the time didn't give a rats ass about KISS or Megadeth, they wanted Korn and Limp Bizkit. I should know, I was one of them. In his defense, he wasn't the only person to get suckered in for the KISS wave that didn't quite deliver on its hype. Detroit Rock City was in 1999, and the KISS: Psycho Circus video game came out in 2000, plus a shitload of action figures, etc, to go along with that property that I remember sitting on store shelves in the mall. I have no idea how the latter did, but the film Detroit Rock City bombed, only making back like a third of its budget.
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