Straight Shootin'

What got you into wrestling?

I thought it looked cool and exciting, and it was something I could get into.

Kate Hudson or Natalie Portman?

Kate Hudson.

Yeah, pretty much universally Kate Hudson is picked. My buddy was up for Christmas and he kept asking everyone that question and was bewildered by everyone picking Hudson. It was pretty quick too, everyones responses, which is odd considering how hot Portman is.

 

Ok, an actual questions this time; they require short, to the point, answers rather than long, drawn out philosophical explanations.

 

1. What are the main problems with the WWE (as opposed to symptoms of the problem, ie: 50/50 booking, Trump/Rosie skits, etc)?

2. What would do you do fix them, and name 5 things to improve the product (?).

 

Ditto TNA.

 

3. What, if any, techniques would you use from MMA in improving pro wrestling in North America? (Pro Wrestling = either TNA or WWE)

 

4. What gets you more randy, Rachelle Leah in a bikini, or Shinya Aokis grappling?

WWE’s main problems:

 

I think WWE’s main problem is they have a preconceived idea of what wrestling should be and anything that deviates from that idea is immediately dismissed as ‘wrong’. In WWE land, how they do things is the only right way to do things and anything else is automatically wrong. If someone comes in who was a star elsewhere, they’re either broken down into the WWE mold, which usually negates their gifts, or booked in such a manner that they don’t get over anywhere like they did outside of WWE, which is then pointed to as ‘proof’ of them not really being that good because they couldn’t work ‘WWE style’. The ultimate example of that was Goldberg. Sure, Goldberg was not the most talented of workers and he was very rough around the edges, but in WCW he become over to an insane degree and the people went nuts for him. Instead of booking Goldberg like Goldberg, WWE put a wig on him, had him get outsmarted twice in his hometown without getting revenge, made him a clown and generally made him look like an idiot. Instead of booking to Goldberg’s strengths, WWE booked him like a buffoon because they wanted to prove that he really wasn’t as good as people thought he as. Whether Goldberg was good or not wasn’t the point, The point was he could get over huge if booked the right way but WWE refused to do that because that would mean acknowledging that something another company did worked, and in WWE it was more important to prove a meaningless point than get Goldberg over.

 

Fixing them and five things to improve the product:

 

I don’t think it’s a problem that can ever be fixed. The mentality of there only being one way, the WWE way, of doing things is so ingrained into the minds of people there that it isn’t ever going away. And WWE has so many ancillary means of income that they’ll never lose money, and in their minds that means there is no reason to change things. The way WWE do things now is the way they’ll always do them, and nothing short of being faced with imminent bankruptcy is going to change that.

 

TNA’s main problems/Ways to fix them

 

TNA’s first, and biggest, problem is they want to be the new WWE and not the first TNA. I think the idea of beating WWE is so much their driving force that it makes them do things, like hire Vince Russo, that are completely counterproductive. The TNA template is an awful lot like the WWE template, where a lot of the angles and storylines happen away from the ring, usually in backstage skits or segments, and what action there is in the ring is usually secondary to something else instead of being the main focus. I believe that for TNA to be the first TNA they need to put the primary focus on the matches and for virtually all angles and storylines and play out in the ring. That can either be through finishes or promos in the ring or through angles taking place in the ring, but it has to be in the ring. Any interviews should be done in the arena in front of the fans so they can watch them in-person rather than having to watch a big screen. If a talent can’t talk in front of people, work on that, or give them a manager who can talk for them. If a story cannot be told through matches, finishes or promos, then unless it is a major ticket selling story DO NOT TELL THAT STORY. If you want to tell the story that Wrestler A is mad at Wrestler B and wants to kick his ass and you can’t do it through the aforementioned three things, then don’t bother with it. If it’s going to sell a PPV because it’s the main event, then that is ok, because of two things; one, it’s going to sell tickets and you should give leeway to the money making programs, and two, because it makes the money making programs special when they do an outside of the building angle because they don’t do that for the undercard stuff. If an undercard program does a bunch of skits and segments from Podunk, VA, it is not special when the main event program does it, and the main even programs should be special.

 

It seems obvious, but it’s not being done right now, but TNA need to see what WWE are doing and the opposite. WWE are all about the skits and the over-the-top craziness with the actual matches secondary. TNA needs to go in completely opposite direction. If people want silly skits and comedy, they have somewhere for that; WWE. TNA are not going to go anywhere by trying to emulate what WWE does, because they just look like a low-rent copy.

 

Using MMA influences to help wrestling:

 

Clean finishes in all the top matches. If you buy a UFC PPV, you know that the top match is going to have a clear winner and a clear loser, and the results will be decisive. If you buy a WWE or TNA PPV, you know that the top match is probably going to have a bunch of run-ins, the referee is probably going to get bumped, and the winner won’t really have won and the loser won’t really have lost. If the main events are what sells PPV’s, then they will sell a lot more if the people paying to see them do so with the confidence of knowing that they’re not going to get a DQ finish or a pinfall finish but only after a ton of interference, the ref getting bumped and a dozen chair shots. Take out all the extraneous bullshit that doesn’t do anything but give bookers a crutch when having to beat someone, and have the winner win clean in the middle of the ring with his finisher. Not only will it get that finisher over, because the people see it means instant death (and when time comes for someone to finally kick out of it they’ll pop like crazy), but do it for long enough and eventually the people are going to be educated into accepting that when they spend money for a PPV, then they’re going to get a main event that will see a decisive winner. UFC’s biggest PPV’s sell over 600,000 buys for a number of reasons, but a big reason is because they don’t screw people in the main events. One person wins decisively and one person loses decisively. There is virtually never any controversy, and when there is, with Ken vs. Tito II, they came right back, delivered a clear winner and promptly scored an insanely high number of viewers. Why? Yeah, the dynamic of Ken vs. Tito helped a great deal, but also because they knew they’d get a clear winner this time. The people knew they were not going to end up wishing they hadn’t bought the PPV. For a straight wrestling comparison, look at All Japan in the 80s. The top matches would almost always end in a DQ or count-out of some kind because Baba wanted to protect his stars, and also placate egos. Come 1990, the UWF was going great guns while All Japan wasn’t, and Baba saw that the main reason was UWF had clean finishes and were giving the people clear winners and loses. Baba switched to an all clean finish philosophy, and All Japan wound up with about 200 or so Budokan Hall sell-outs in a row. The match quality helped, but what helped as much if not more was that the people knew they were not going to get a cheap finish. They were going to see one man win and one man lose, and next month they’d come back and see again. It was as simple as going to clean finishes. You can argue that an all clean finish system can’t work in the US, and maybe it can’t, but if you go to a 98% clean finish ratio rather than what it is now, maybe 40% at most, then when you do run that rare indecisive finish, and providing you follow it up with a clean finish, it will draw money because people know they’ll get a clean finish in the return match.

 

Treat the main events seriously. Comedy has its place, and it’s the opening match or a midcard feud between two guys not moving up the ladder. Main events don’t draw because people want to see one guy pants the other guy or some other corny crap. Main events draw because the people want to see one guy beat the crap out of the other guy for a reason they can sink their teeth into. If it’s something stupid like Wrestler B put Ex-Lax into the drink of Wrestler A, then you might draw the people who would pay to see either man on the toilet crapping out that Ex-Lax, but that’s about all you’d draw. However, if it’s because Wrestler B was friends with Wrestler A but then stole his girlfriend and know Wrestler A wants to kill Wrestler B, then that will draw a lot more because it’s storyline people can not only believe but one that a lot of people can relate to. I’m sure there are a few people out there that can relate to having Ex-Lax put in their drink, but I’ll guarantee you that far more people can relate to having their friend steal their girlfriend and people pay to see stories they can relate to and where they can identify with the protagonist.

To me, the main WWE problem is structural, with nearly everyone within trying to justify their existence in order to keep their job, or their spot. The WWE has gotten so big, so corporate, and so complicated that it has strayed away from the core of professional wrestling: simplicity.

 

They have TEAMS of writers coming up with storylines, scripting promos, etc. FOR WRESTLING! And not only do they have writers, but the writers themselves have assistants! And they have meetings, and pitches, and they have drafts, and they script and they rewrite. They have giant white boards where they write ideas on. It takes a full week to write one 2 hour wrestling show! You need to have a degree to write for wrestling! You actually need to go to school to learn how to write. for. professional. wrestling.

 

Does this not seem insane to anyone else? You need to go to school for 4 years, then have 3 years of experience, in order to come up with reasons as to why two (or more) guys (or girls) would want to fight each other.

 

Seriously.

 

It's all the result of insecurity.

 

Truly over-complication for the sake of complication, in my eyes. Their desire to have a "system" stems from the notion that they are/should be like every other television show out there, and therefore should operate under the same system.

 

Anything less would make them seem like less.

 

Who cares if the actual writing produced sucks, it was produced with a system! With educated writers who have written for other professional-type television programs, so it can't possibly be bad because it followed the same process that Friends does! There was a CRAFT involved, for crying out loud!

 

INSECURITY, anyone?

 

Not to mention Vince McMahon is batshit insane and has done what many legacy-building buffoons have done, which is put their progeny in key positions in the company in order to continue the family business, without cause or concern about their competency in said positions.

 

Think about this: Stephanie McMahon has been in charge of writing for nearly 6 years now. How many quality storylines can you name - ones that you would compare with any other tv show out there? 1? 2? None? Even with those tv writers, they are still the worst written show on television, for 6 straight years. And she is nowhere close to being fired. In her time as writer, the ratings, buyrates, attendance, etc. have all fallen. And she is nowhere close to being fired. Infact, I can't recall many of the "professional" writers ever being fired from the WWE, they usually just leave, or get moved into other divisions.

 

The benefit, of course, of having a system in place is to make sure that no one is actually held accountable. A team of writers came up with ideas, the team then focused and edited and worked on those ideas, different people "okayed" it, and different people produced it. Though, ultimately, the wrestlers end up being the ones held accountable, as evidenced by the large turn over in the past few years. They just didn't deliver the material properly.

 

That Smackdown, ECW, Raw are differentiated is laughable. They have never been. Smackdown has never been "the wrestling show". Raw has never been "the entertainment show". On a fundamental level, they are all the same show. The same type of booking, writing, dialogue, characters, action, etc. The only thing that is different is the wrestlers and the time given, and that's it. Anything else is superficialities. The same system produces each show, and as a result, the same show is produced.

 

And TNA is just trying to be like the WWE. Which is hilarious. Same system set up, same procedures, same layout and outlines. They are (both) functioning off an outdated, 1996, model of producing wrestling on television. Think about that. 10 years and no one has come up with anything new. It's ridiculous. There needs to be a paradigm shift in not only what wrestling is, but what it can be.

 

And they have no idea. Either of them. WWE wants to be a television show, but they don't aspire to have the content of other television shows. They don't want to have the plot twists of LOST, the characterization of House, the satire of south park, the intensity and drama of 24, the acting of Studio 60... in fact, even mention this to ANYONE affiliated with professional wrestling - be it the promoters, wrestlers, writers, or FANS - and they'd think you are nuts. That it's unreasonable and somehow out of reach.

 

They want to be a television show, they want to have the status of LOST, 24, House, etc. and will even cite these shows whenever they get criticism from outside groups (Aka the "Well, CSI does it" defense) but when it comes to criticizing the quality of their writing? their acting? "Well, it's just professional wrestling". They try to have it both ways, and in that, they have no idea what or who they are.

Good stuff, people. Keep it coming.