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Was looking through this since the Macho's Outs With Vince came up on the Torch board, and of course the Savage Banged Steph story came up. What's really annoying looking back two years is this: Contrasted with this: So Oliver helped make people believe the Savage-Steph bullshit story was the reason Vince wouldn't use Savage, then two years later says that Vince never would have cared if Savage was banging Steph because she was a tramp anyway. Like I said above: Fucking asshole. John

Going in the other direction: Big Win that screwed up a career. Ron Garvin comes to mind. He wasn't a spring chicken at that point: 42 years old. He sort of moved out of his "good utility wrestler" position into "Is He Really The Champ?" position. After dropping the title, it didn't seem like he slid back into the utility wrestler spot: it seemed like folks couldn't get the Champ part out of their mind, and not in a good way. John

Not sure if it hurt him as much as simply wandering off, and never fully returning. Steamboat seemed like a guy who could be over without a belt / being in a belt picture. The feuds with Muraco and Jake were pretty strongly focused and over. I suspect he could have come back for a strong feud against HTM... their matches at MSG drew and were over. It's just that he never came back consistently in that period. John

This kind of depends on how you define it. HTM losing to Warrior ended his run with the IC Title. It was a squash, which didn't help. But in the end, HTM really was a nothing wrestler without the belt in terms of promotability. He wasn't Savage, who by the time he dropped the IC Title was something really big. HTM was a gimmick guy, pretty small, not terribly exciting to fans, whose primary thing of getting over was his Greatest Of All-Time smack which no one buyed... and once the IC Title was off him (and not coming back), he really was something lesser. There probably are quite a few people like that on a national level: once they pass through their highpoint, they drop quite a bit. John

Bix: your timeline needs to be placed in here for easy finding. TNA's Ric Flair charged with contempt of court in Highspots belt case Terrific stuff. John

Sean's second post is a hoot. As rovert says, most TV shows have a Bible/Series Bible from the creator / series runner. They evolve over time, and some shows are more anal about it than others. On some shows, small things (such as prior Cheers owners) might not be in it, or even have anyone care. On other show, they back and forward stories are immense. Tim mentioned The Wire, which was pretty rich. I don't think it had anything on Babylon 5, which as goofy as its acting and dialogue were at times, was fucking insane on it's backstory, foreshadowing/telling, reaching back/forward, etc. The creator says over and over that all his cards were on the table as the show goes along. The two parter "War Without End" (episodes 60 & 61) is nuts in that way. Supect that Lost Fans would say the same thing about that show. John

I like the 1995 match the best, but it really hits its highest marks as being the climax to the Aja-Dynamite matches. Dynamite was 0-3, evening losing on here "home show". Plus they took the leg selling to the next level. John

Well, Bryan and a lot of the WO-4 folks are in Las Vegas... so maybe they haven't had the time to sort this shit out. John

Setting aside the point made below where Nash was clear that they weren't with the WWF, it's still a weak case. What's are the damages? What did the WWF do to mitigate damages (i.e. go on their own TV to say Hall & Nash weren't still working with the WWF)? WCW could have easily pointed to public knowledge that they weren't still with the WWF. Granted, the internet and the sheets weren't big, but they certainly could point to it being public knowledge that the two left the WWF. Then point back to the WWF's own Real World Champion angle. I think WCW had defenseable arguments. I keep saying that WCW did some dumb things in it, specifically Madden. But simply being dumb doesn't really damage the WWF. John

I've never heard that it "just broke even". The story at the time and for a while after was that it was the most profitable ever due to a record live gate and a record buyrate. Vince wouldn't have run the joint two years in a row if the first one didn't make a shitload. In turn, the second one was said to have made even more. John

It struck me as a weak argument if WCW had some brains in fighting it. Madden did say some dumb ass things, but the WWF's case wasn't air tight. John

Read like Ric validating his choices to blow his money, while Randy saved up and dropped dead without enjoying life to the fullest in Ric's eyes. John

This in a week where Ric was taking pokes at Macho for being smart with his money and dying young without being able to enjoy all of it. From the May 30, 2011 WON: John

The best part being the WWF sued WCW for ripping off gimmicks that the WWF ripped off from WCW. How did WCW's lawyers not produce footage of the Diamond Studd from 1991? It's not clear if it was a case of dumb lawyers, dumb clients, or both. I can't vouch for the lawyers, but I do recall that Madden said some dumb ass things on the Hotline and that his depo wasn't very good. Wrestling is a tough business for an outsider to get, and who knows how good of a job they were able to do in learning enough info to defend the case. I always thought the Vince's own history of predatory practices would make it tough for him to argue his case, and that things such as The Real World Champion made arguing on Hall & Nash / Outsiders pretty tough. John

We had some fun with the two of those guys. John

I'm happy people are happy with the DVDVR boards. Nothing wrong with that. John

Sully is wearing tinfoil hats: it's conspiracy stuff. Other companies made higher offers only with the understanding they could get TV. Eric's folks walked out when they couldn't get a TV deal: either via staying on TNT/TBS, or via Fox. It wasn't worth more than $4M without TV. It was losing money even *with* TV at that time. In the thread above we've got ROH losing money, and it's not like they are paying DDP and Booker $1M+, along with whatever the hell Hall & Nash were up to that point (with a year left on their contracts). What was the running joke about Stevie Ray's contract? It was a money losing company with TV. Take away the producution money / rights fees for TNT/TBS, and take away all house show money since they wouldn't be able to have TV to promote, then take away almost all of an already dying PPV revenue stream because they wouldn't have TV to promote... This was a promotion losing money that would have lost all revenue streams the second they were off TNT/TBS if they didn't get a contract. That's what killed WCW: the decision by AOL-TW to take it off the air. After that, it was dead. Even if they got another TV deal, in the mid-term the promotion would die because of the contracts and the likely massive decrease in tv revenue. Given all we know of Eric, which was completely reafirmed by his time in TNA, there's no way that he was going to come in with the Money Mark and contain the insane expenses. Instead, it was more than likely he'd just be fleecing the Money Mark to keep the ATM running. Again, that's *exactly* what he did coming into TNA. He knew (and still knows) nothing else other than how he believes he created success in WCW: go big scale, spend-spend-spend on Big Names, fight a full scale frontal war with the WWF. I think people want to believe that "something could have been done" with the company when AOL-TW decided they wanted the company off their airways and out of their corporate structure. Especially people in the industy who were sucking on the tit, people covering it who saw their world become a lot more boring, and us fans who loathed a completely WWF-centric wrestling world. Reality? Dead company the moment that AOL-TW wanted to be rid of them. If someone didn't instantly step up and want the programing, it was dead. In a sense, if it was truly valuable, Fox would have bought the thing. Not directly, since AOL-TW might prefer it to die than go to a competitor. But round-a-bout: front someone like Eric's money mark with a letter of understanding on a TV contract, with it clear that the full contract would include (i) Fox equity, and (ii) Fox right to buy the whole thing in a few years. After, if it was still valuable programing, then wouldn't Fox want 4 hours a week to anchor one of their channels like FX? Thing is... it wasn't valuable enough programing to spend millions of dollars not just to buy it, but then to run it. John

Oliver is a douchebag. Guys party and get laid in college, and they're "studs". Girls party and get laid in college, and they're "sluts" and "whores". Fucking asshole. John

Sully is delusional. The AOL/TW guys wanted out bad. They just wanted to be done with pro wrestling at that point. And looking at what a disaster WCW turned into in the last two years, one can see the point. I suspect that the suits also knew some of the ugly stories inside the company that are similar to the Sleaze Thread, and worse. The biggest problem with anyone buying it was what was gone over time and again back then: * without TV, the value of the promotion was next to nothing * AOL/TW wanted wrestling off it's networks * deals to get on other TV fell through fast That was the key thing for Eric's money marks: they couldn't get a viable TV deal. I also suspect that none of the other buyers could play hardball like Vince did in this specific deal. Vince didn't need to take the big contracts because there was no alternative for the top wrestlers. In contrast, any other buyer of WCW would have to take enough of the promotable contracts to (i) continue/re-launch the promotion, and (ii) prevent them from going to the WWF. So without TV and stuck with a lot of expensive contracts (as even guys you might want to keep and promote like Booker had massive contracts), a buyer is pretty fucked. It ended up cheap because Vince only had to take what he wanted. He frankly could have just let the company die in another month or two, or let some money mark buy it and have it die in six months. At that point he could have grabbed the talent he wanted. Instead, he struck at a time when AOL/TW was getting desperate so that he could accomplish two things quickly: * get what he wanted (the tape library) * kill WCW off (by closing it down, and getting all the IP to prevent someone from promoting as WCW) Smart. Vince has done some dumb things over the years, but he (and/or his team) were pretty brillant here. John

I don't think that's the case. As someone pointed to below, DDP took a buyout then signed with the WWF. The WWF wanted these guys on WWF contracts, not the old WCW ones. Not just for pay cuts to make them in line with the WWF's pay scale, but also for other favorable things in WWF contracts at a time when all the leverage was in the WWF's favor. Booker is a fine example. There's no way the WWF wanted to pay Book and Page at their WCW rates. So there's double leverage: * if Book and Page want to work, they'll do what the WWF wants * WCW wanted to pass that money through their books as fast as possible There was talk of TW offering 80% buyouts for low end contracts, down to 40% for higher end. Someone like Nash has the ego to think the WWF would be there when his contract runs, so he'll sit on his ass and get paid 100% and wait it out. Someone like Page, despite the big contract, worries that (i) he's not especially loved by the WWF, and (ii) he's getting a bit old and broken down. If the WWF wants him now for the Taker angle, he probably thinks it's his best chance to get "in" with them rather than piss them off. Negotiate *up* from TW's initial buyout offer, which TW will do because they really want to clear these off fast. Then take what Vince offers. The lesser guys were in the same boat. I mean... where in the hell Mike Sanders going? There was no ECW, no TNA... nothing. And if you're Mike Sanders you still have the dream at the time to be a star, and the only to make it was the WWF. You really think that if Jim Ross said: "Son, we really would like you in the company. But you need to settle off that WCW contract so that we can sign you." You don't think he'd take TW's offer? I *know* they "chose" certain guys to "keep". It doesn't mean that they kept them on their WCW contracts, or that they didn't settle with WCW then sign a WWF contract. John Might have been. It's a cheap dollar amount.

I don't know if the WWF even picked any contracts. I think that those they wanted were encouraged to take buyouts from Turner, then sign WWF contracts. There's no way the WWF saw any of the contracts that WCW had as being "value". WCW was well known for overpaying. Turner had a program of buying out contracts. Some took them, hoping to hook up with the WWF. Others, like Nash if I recall, were happy to sit on the sideline collecting 100% until they expired. My recollection is that Nash's would have run pretty close to when the nWo came into the WWF, so it was an easy move by him at that point to deal with a couple of months left than a full year. Others in WCW had rolling contracts that were a bit easier for them to terminate sooner and get out of. Depended on the specific wrestler, and how smart they were in their contracts. John