Loss

I have other interests too -- specifically scouring for great music I've never heard -- but as far as hobbies go, nothing gets me as excited as pro wrestling does.

Part of me thinks if he can't wrestle at the PPV, a fan favorite babyface should at least be the one to win Money In The Bank so people don't feel completely and totally ripped off. So Ziggler came to mind, even if it's just for a short run. I think Dolph could make Brock look like a million bucks in dropping the title to him too, and it's not like they'd be sacrificing someone that's a key player in their future plans to do it either.

I'd be surprised if they go that direction, even if it's hard to see other options. I know they won't, but giving Ziggler the title if Bryan is forced to forfeit would be the best option in terms of fan goodwill.

There's also no way Van Hammer could have looked like Van Hammer clean, and the WWF needed guys that could either look good clean or were smart enough to beat tests. This is the same guy that refused to be called Private Stash in Misfits in Action because he thought the ranking was too low.

I was responding to your claim that wrestling never attempted to make any kind of artistic statement. It clearly has a few times. You can argue if that has been good or bad, but it has happened. And the fact that we talk about what wrestling we like and find entertaining and what we don't shows that there is something there besides just making money. I doubt there's a Pro Banking Only board where posters reminisce about and debate their favorite bankers and recall the ****1/2 interest rates of the 1980s.

It's a problem when WWE management would rather not deal with uppity women who won't just shut up and do what they're told.

El-P, setting aside issues of quality completely, was Bret Hart vs Chris Benoit in the Owen Tribute Match an attempt to draw money? Or was it an attempt to make a statement about the excesses of pro wrestling in the era, the same excesses that killed Bret's brother a few months earlier?

Sunny's problem was that she understood wrestling too well and was willing to challenge angles presented to her if she didn't think they made sense. Sable - at least initially - went along with what she was told to do because she didn't know enough to question anything.

So, Scott Keith everyone ... let us remember the real enemy.

I can't stand Iggy Azalea, but she was carried to a fun summer pop song by a clever production synth hook and fun vocals from charlixcx. In other words, she has good road agents working with her to get the most out of her. The analogy totally works.

To be clear, I think it's good that there are discussions about draws in wrestling, and I think I made too big of a generalization before. The problem is that I don't think most discussions about drawing are all encompassing enough. For a HOF, I agree that all that matters is if the wrestler did or didn't, since a HOF isn't a place to right wrongs. But if we're just talking about drawing in general, I think we should bring in economic and cultural factors. We should discuss details of the promotion and hype when we have them. Numbers without context are misleading and can result in all sorts of false conclusions being drawn.

Was Britney Spears the best musician in the world in the early 2000s since she was the biggest star? I just have to ask if the answer is no, why the two are different. The goal record companies have in producing artists and making albums is to make money.

But even a discussion of what draws money is subjective. If it wasn't, then everyone would promote wrestling exactly the same way. And Vince McMahon has enough experience that everything he does would be successful because he's been around long enough to know what works and what doesn't.

Is there any value in him doing another match?

I have no recollection of said mainstream coverage. I'm looking for proof outside of numbers -- incredibly heated or memorable or well-booked segments that set up that match. I only know it was a big deal because people tell me it was, but it wasn't something I saw for myself. That's what I mean. I was paying attention and watching everything at the time, and it seemed like just another Wrestlemania. What mainstream coverage was there that normally isn't? What buzz was there? All I remember is a fake Donald vs fake Rosie segment on Raw that bombed miserably, to the point that the live audience was chanting for TNA and Vince had to no-sell it. That doesn't sound like something that is going to break PPV records. The buzz that was there at the time that I recall was that Shawn and Undertaker were resurgent, and people were excited about the main event scene involving those guys, Cena and Batista. And that's my point -- why is there no standout buzz for things that end up drawing, where things that do have buzz don't seem to be that important? Outside of the Entertainment Tonight-type shows, what mainstream buzz was there for Trump and Vince? I never saw any of it, so I'm asking.

Sorry for the multiple posts but I keep having additional thoughts. We talk about PPV buys, but we don't always talk about PPV clearance. We talk about television ratings, but we don't talk about Nielsen expanding their sample size or fluctuation in the number of homes that have cable television. We talk about Wrestlemania XIX doing a low buyrate, but cultural factors like the start of the Iraq war are rarely discussed (whether that's part of the reason for the low number of buys or not). We talk about merchandise sales, but we rarely talk about what the merchandise looks like, how long it has been out or how well it has been promoted. We talk about house show attendance on old shows, but sadly, we don't have access to the details of local promotion. Here's an example of what I mean. If house show number one in Philadelphia is headlined by Flair vs Sting and does 10,000 off of hype from local radio and TV stations, that says something I guess. But let's say half the undercard no shows, the main event has a terrible finish and the air conditioner goes out halfway through the event. Two weeks later, the local TV station moves the NWA TV show from Saturdays at 7PM to Tuesdays at 1AM. Let's say the next month is headlined by Flair vs Luger without the strong local promotion and does 6,000, does that mean Sting is a bigger draw than Luger? We would usually say yes, which I think is the ultimate example of living in the wrestling bubble. Is it fair to say that discussions about drawing are usually based around the unspoken assumption that wrestling fans always go to what they want to see, and always avoid what they don't want to see? Is it also fair to say that we always assume that it's what is headlining the card that night that determines whether or not people attend, previous experiences with the promotion or venue be damned? Is that even fair? I remember when I was a kid there was a house show in October 1988 that I really wanted to attend and couldn't because I was grounded for lying about breaking a piece of furniture. In April 1989, the company returned. The first lineup did more for me, even though I went to the second one in person. I suppose conventional logic would mean that I saw the April 1989 show as more appealing. That's wrestling bubble logic, I think. People attend/purchase or don't attend/purchase shows for all sorts of reasons that have little or nothing to do with what's happening on the show.

Well, I think merchandise sales numbers have no place in drawing discussions personally because we don't have exact figures. Until we do, I don't think we should factor them in. I realize they play a part in decision making within the company, but we don't get to see those numbers, so I'm not sure how much we can say about them. The only consistent metric we can use to compare wrestlers of any era is the live gate. PPV is a logical extension of the live gate, because it was basically selling an event to an audience unlimited by size or geography, so I think that's a fair comparison too.

Continuing, could part of this be explained as there being a difference between booking to please an existing audience and booking to expand an audience? Both WWF booms were fueled by pissing off longtime hardcore fans in the goal of drawing more fans. 1997 had the most emotionally invested fans of any year I can recall for the promotion, but it's not the most financially successful for whatever reason.

But yes, I think in the end, we try to assign objective criteria to something where we simply can't. It's easier to discuss drawing money because there's something objective we can point to (although despite conventional wisdom, numbers also have opinions and can be spun to represent just about anything). If we want to discuss wrestlers on the merits of their performance in the ring, on the mic and in angles, that requires more effort from those doing the discussing. On the flip side, I hear about something like Donald Trump breaking records at Wrestlemania 23. I wouldn't know that was something special or really hot unless someone told me so, because it didn't feel like anything special at the time. I didn't have that feeling watching it that we were witnessing this iconic event. CM Punk cutting a semi-shoot promo in 2011 felt like a much bigger deal, but didn't draw at that level. I haven't heard anyone come up with a good explanation for those types of differences, when the numbers just don't match what we experienced. Similarly, if John Cena is hated by most live audiences for TV tapings and Daniel Bryan looks more over than anyone since the days of Steve Austin, why don't the numbers match what we are seeing in both directions? It's puzzling. You always hear stories of promoters going under by living and dying by crowd reaction, but why does such a disparity even exist? In theory, the things people pay to see are the things they are most excited about, right?

Well, Vader did get in the WON HOF because he is probably the best wrestler in his weight class in history. Bret got in because he was probably the best working top guy in the history of the company in 1996, or at least that was the perception. So not everyone gets in for the same reasons. If Sting was one of the best workers of his era or had something else about him that made him stand out in a hugely positive way, his numbers would still be there, but I'm not sure they would be used against him in quite the same way. And I say that acknowledging that WCW's structural issues were such that almost no one could have drawn in that environment.

Well, is it? Have at it in this thread, which means this thread.

I'm with funkdoc. Surely, if the only goal behind promoting pro wrestling was to make money, promoters could have just forgone the wrestling thing altogether and invested in the stock market instead.

Dave has said that how Paige is working now was someone's idea for her -- get beat up the whole match, then get her finisher and pull off the win.

I'm someone who cares about money drawn less than almost anyone, but I still think it's good for explaining why certain decisions are made that affect what we watch. If your goal is to understand why certain creative decisions are made that do affect the matches we watch that we enjoy on an aesthetic level, it's good info.

Bookers always saw something in Brad Armstrong and tried to push him, but it just didn't work for whatever reason. Watts, Dusty, Ole ... they all tried.