For ECW, yes. For ROH, they played a very little part in shatterin kayfabe. It was already gone by the time they arived. Also, while it may not e your cup of tea, ROH and ECW had/has a following because they catered to particular crowds. For ECW, ys, it was the vampires, or the lowest common denominator. For ROH, purely an internet crowd, esp. since their main source of revenue is from tape and DVD sals from their internet site. Personally, I don;t think ROH plays to the LCD but that is because I don't despise internet smarkiness or the loss of kayfabe. I just adjust my paradigm to what they are setting out to do. If I am ok with it, I don't need the aura of it being real.
If ROH never has any hopes whatsoever about expanding past their current fanbase, then what they're doing is fine. Kayfabe doesn't define quality. There is no "good wrestling" or "bad wrestling" when kayfabe is kept. The interest is who's going to win and what's going to happen. How are they going to get there? What is this guy going to have to do to beat this guy? What kind of strategy is he going to have to use, considering where they've been in the past and where they are now? When I mention kayfabe, that's specifically what I'm referring to.
It's on the company to deliver the product to get the reaction they want from those who are watching it. If I'm watching a Midnight Express match, and Cornette is cheating, and telling the audience to shut up, and they're doing awful things to the guy who's the babyface, and the crowd still cheers, that's the crowd's fault. That's the crowd putting themselves over just to be cool.
I think that's a good idea. I don't think they should do televised shows in areas where they're worried about the reaction either. Tour there plenty, but it's up to the company to be familiar with every market.
If they're getting that cheered in a specific market, then maybe they shouldn't be heels at all, especially if they're not overwhelmingly over as heels in other places. Flair gets cheered everywhere, and Jericho always had trouble getting heel heat. Christian is just now starting to get heat of any kind. That's bad booking, making popular guys heels.
That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about Barry Windham, Sting, Rick Rude, the Dangerous Alliance, Ricky Steamboat, Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, the Midnight Express ... *that* era. They never had a problem with the crowds cheering the heels and booing the faces unless they were in Philadelphia, in which case they do bizarro world house shows and they never should have run televised events.
Fans who want to be entertained nonstop are a problem. Bear with me and I'll explain that phrase. Promoters have never, ever booked and never, ever will to give fans great matches for the sake of giving them great matches, at least not successful promoters. Who wins and who loses, and the ramifications of those decisions, are *far* more important to the company's success. Being entertained and being involved are two different things; they shoot for involvement first and foremost. Being entertained is just a side effect. Fans who demand constant entertainment are the reason we have spotmonkeys like Rob Van Dam and Sabu who don't know how to wrestle a match, but who figured out that they can get a pop doing stupid highspots nonstop. If you look back at the downfall of companies who have been on top, they can almost always be traced back to illogical booking and a few controversial decisions in who to push or not push. WWE's downfall has had little to do with the quality of their matches. Watching WWE and expecting a card full of great matches is not understanding their product, because that's not the goal they have, nor has it ever been. The goal they have is to make you care about the results. If fans are more occupied with the quality than the results, in that case, the fans are to blame, especially if that's not the bill of good they're being sold in the first place.
Yes.
Yes. There are societal norms in America that demand a different type of product for a promotion to be successful. You can try new things and new concepts constantly, but if you forget where you came from, you're going to fail in the end. The problem with ECW was that they expected you to believe Shane Douglas was a bad guy in the same breath they expected you to see Steve Austin's plight in the past being held down. It's no different than Vince Russo's booking -- if you're going to remind the audience during the show that what they're watching is fake, then why should they care about what happens? ROH runs into the same problem in 2002 with Christopher Daniels as a heel. They're trying in one breath to tell you wrestling is fake and that it's designed to produce great matches that entertain you because of all the moves used. They're telling you in another breath that Christopher Daniels hates everything ROH stands for and is a heel. No one buys that, so why run the angle? Pick a vision, whatever it is, and stick to it. ECW and ROH tried to have it both ways. American wrestling companies are going to have certain expectations, and that's just how it is.
Not completely. I took that as "Eddy, we may not like you, but we respect you for surviving that war and doing what you could to win."
I don't know if they did go home and reflect though. I don't know if they saw wrestling in those terms.
It's a problem, and I'll give you that. I just know that there are bigger problems than that.
Totally inappropriate, but a major guilty pleasure.
True. We're dealing in total shades of gray here instead of absolute rights and absolute wrongs. I'd take a crowd doing that to turning on the match and putting themselves over as being clever though.
I just don't know how DVD sales excuse them from breaking kayfabe. Bigger wrestling companies rely on DVD sales as well.
If they're going to cater to the internet crowd, you know what I'd rather them do? Go all the way with it. Have the announcers mention the great psychology and point out that one guy is sure selling the other guy's punches. After a promo, call it a great promo instead of reacting to what the guy said. Say, "That transition was lacking, but they nicely covered that blown spot." Trying to have it both ways is a problem, because if wrestling is mythological, which I think it is, then the universe isn't consistent.
I don't consider those exhibitions, because rather there's a backstory or not, both guys are trying to win. There's at least *some* story there. It doesn't have to be anymore advanced than that, but when I think of exhibitions, I think of Liger and Sayama on the Michinoku Pro show. I don't know if you've seen that or not, but it's basically just a display of spots. That's all it is. They don't even call it a match.
True, but you at least have one trying to win and the other trying to keep him from winning.
Last time I saw that match, I didn't like it. Maybe it's the ECW of Japan. Who knows?
No, it only makes you a different type of fan.
Usually only after being told that what they're expecting is wrong, or going on the Internet and learning that Rey Misterio is better than Hulk Hogan, despite Hogan winning more matches. That's not an absolute though.
I wouldn't, because I don't think they understand what wrestling is supposed to be. You and I can watch wrestling like that, and at the same time not expect others to do it. There's perspective there. I'd never do it at a live event, especially not when I'm watching a hell of a match. I think it's disrespectful.
I don't know. Either way I answered would be right, and either way would be wrong. It's hard to compare different eras as well, just because the believability factor is different in each era.
In that case, Vince. Vince is the reason WWE fans have trouble buying into things, because the company is even called World Wrestling Entertainment. I think the answer is going to be different for every example you think of.
