sek69

I don't get it, its like all of a sudden going against notions that were accepted as fact is the new craze on the net. HHH isn't a bad guy. Hogan's misunderstood. WCW only went away because their TV was cancelled. Hell, I'm expecting to see someone praising Kevin Nash.

I had a feeling this would happen, if for no other reason because Joey actually knows wrestling history which WWE feels is markish.

You seem to think that marketing is more important than the actual wrestling product of a wrestling company. That seems like putting the cart before the horse. Any marketer worth his or her salt knows that polishing a turd is part of the job, but you can't seriously suggest that marketing is more vital to a wrestling company than wrestling. You see it in the music business all the time, you can promote anything for a short time and be successful, but if the product can't back it up you won't have long term success. And to answer your question: Because WWE is a wrestling company and it's her job that ultimately decides how well Shane can do his job. If she cranks out compelling TV and quality storylines, the tickets and DVDs will sell themselves. It's only when Steph fails at her job that Shane's got to work harder at his.

It's pretty shocking and sad how many people sound like battered wives making excuses for WWE. WWE didn't mean to book the promotion that badly, baby, It'll do better next time. I swear WWE won't mess up again!

In Dave's defense, I don't think you can blame this injury on steroid use. If a guy the size of Henry lands on you wrong, something's getting squashed no matter what shape you're in.

From Meltz:

What are the two moments that made the WWF/E what it is today? 1. Vince takes over from his dad and makes the creative descision to go towards guys like Hogan and Piper. Do you think Wrestlemania would have been a success with Bob Backlund and Pedro Morales in the main event? 2. Russo's creative team ditches the cartoon era for the Attitude Era. Case in point: Steve Austin, Ringmaster = Flop. Steve Austin, redneck asskicker who flips everyone off = biggest draw in wrestling history. Sure, marketing plays an important role. I'm not saying Shane doesn't have a key role in the company. What I'm saying is that what the marketing people promote depends on what the writers come up with. Look at the Lex Express. They marketed the hell out of that, and it failed. Why? Because it was a shitty creative move. The WWE is making money on international tours, because most of the places they've been going to hadn't seen live WWE programming for a long time if ever. They're coming out for what might be a once-in-a-lifetime event. The more they tour, the smaller the houses get. They're also making money on their DVD releases since they own almost all US wrestling footage from the 70s on up. How many DVD releases of recent PPVs are big sellers? It's mostly stuff like the Ric Flair set and the ECW releases. Other than WrestleMania, not much of the current product really sells a lot of units. You have to realize that the WWE is still profitable, but the amount shrinks every year. Houseshow attendance is getting embarrassingly small, TV has to go to smaller venues to keep up the appearance of a sellout crowd, and there's not a whole lot to suggest things are going to change anytime soon.

Well if Steph's booking drives the company into the ground like a lot of people claim it has been, it's gonna make Shane's job a lot harder. How's he gonna book international tours or live event bookings if no one wants to see the product his sister's putting on TV? He's already lost what was considered WWF/E's "home" in MSG. If she has people on her staff that piss off the talent to the point they leave, how's that going to help Shane? Everything that WWE does stems from what their creative department puts out. If you don't get that, then I have to pose the question of who's really not understanding the company.

Obviously Shane's going to be involved with the company, but in terms of being in charge of the wrestling aspect ("creative", or whatever you want to call it) I haven't heard anything about Shane being involved in that part of the company for a long time. How do you figure Shane has more power, considering his sister is the one who decides what goes on TV twice a week which goes a long way towards the future well being of the company? And try to make your reply as condescending as possible too, I love to be talked to like I rode in on the short bus.

By Hogan's account, Andre weighed somewhere between 700-1000 pounds at WM 3, so a 2000mph jet ski wouldn't seem unusual in Hoganworld.

Yes, I'm a mere little n00b who knows nothing about the wrestling business. Please educate me. Everything I've read about Shane indicates he's happy where he is running the New Media (or whatever they call it now) division and that he had more of an interest in Linda's job (the business side) than Vince's job (the wrestling side). If I'm wrong, please correct me.

Shane's shown little interest in running the company, and Vince has already handed most if not all the creative decisions over to Stephanie. Unless Shane has a drastic change of mind in the next few years, it looks like Steph and her offspring will be the future of WWE.

It's funny that a Jet Ski could hit Hogan and leave the same impact as a fist. I'm watching WM8 now, and boy does it sound weird hearing HBK's theme sung by Sherri again.

This is the fatal flaw. Dismiss me as a smarky smarkerson if you must, but the current crop of WWE writers would fuck things up if 1983 Hogan and 1997 Austin were dropped on their laps.

You're basically saying the ends justify the means. I guess if WWE can turn his reign into something meaningful it might. Right now it reeks of hotshot booking because the fans were turning on one of WWE's pet projects. Better to have a champ who's supposed to get a heel reaction than one who isn't but gets one anyway I guess.

It's also the reason the majority of wrestlers from WCW either don't have jobs or are working for indy scraps.

As a company, WWE needs to give a fuck about ratings and goddamn buyrates because its what keeps them in business.

Sometimes I almost feel bad for WWE creative, for weeks the fans have been begging for someone to beat Cena, and he ends up losing to the one guy they WEREN'T hoping for.

Anyone else get the impression that it finally sunk in during the Elimination Chamber match that Cena was getting booed and they decided on the spot to switch the title?

Seems like Angle going out first was classic WWE style "fuck you" booking. Creative seems mad that they can't get the crowd to boo Angle, and they know the crowd wants Angle to win, so they say "fuck you" to their paying customers and job out the guy they want to win first. Now the crowd's probably going to shit on whoever wins because it's not who they wanted to see.

It's also a good possibility that this kid will end up running WWE one day, since it seems like Steph and Hunter will inherit the lion's share of the operation when Vince dies. I'm expecting the full Lion King treatment when this kid's born, complete with Pat Patterson holding the child up so the whole locker room can bow to him.

I think it's obviously important to have some kind of system in place to keep rookies from having a big head (especially since WWE is pushing a lot of guys who are greener than grass), but the current locker room police have a history of punishing people over petty shit.

I know these things are probably planned in advance and can't be helped, but I wonder if after seeing 2005 end in the death of a top superstar and a new drug policy in place if WWE sees any irony in the first DVD release of 2006 being Superstar Billy Graham.

From WM 6 after Bobby Heenan slapped Andre around (causing him to turn face) Mean Gene interviewed him later in the show: Gene: Bobby Heenan, What gives you the ba...NERVE to do what you did to Andre the Giant? Heenan (trying to keep in character while trying not to laugh at Gene): I'll tell you what gives me the *long pause* NERVE!

WWE did a good job editing Smackdown. If you didn't read the reports or see the feed video, you'd never have known Mark Henry jobbed to the cage.