JerryvonKramer

I have reviewed at least three Paul Jones matches. vs. Jack Brisco vs. Harley Race In this thread: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/27673-jvks-territorial-explorations/ And on WTBBP (Starrcade 84 / Starrcade 86) And I think also on Titans Mid-Atlantic shows. Probably around 10-12 Jones matches reviewed across all of those.

I am interested in this. I think it's a slightly different topic from how WWE positions women now, so a new topic I think. At various times promotions have tapped into a female audience. Ricky Steamboat was over with the girls in Mid-Atlantic. Jack Brisco apparently was over with female fans. Later the Rock n Rolls, Fantastics and other blow-job babyface tag-teams had a lot of "girl fans". You can hear them and see them in the crowd. Then there was this: Then there are the old women you sometimes see in old crowds. I remember as a kid there were quite a lot of women in their 50s and 60s my mum knew who randomly liked wrestling and watched WWF. I'd often go over one particular old woman's house and watched Superstars with her. She loved it, but there was an element of her liking the muscle guys. She liked Luger a lot I recall. Some issues: - When do people think wrestling had the most female wrestling fans? - Why do you think those women came to the matches? What was over with them? - Why didn't they stay fans? How long were they fans for? - What do you think would be some ways to get similar fans now?

You and I are very much on the same page, Jimmy Redman. One thing I've wondered about is whether a Bull Nakano type could get over as a kind of female Brock Lesnar. I think the wrestling audience has always been drawn to asskickers from Dick the Bruiser to the Road Warriors to Austin to Brock in the modern day, that concept seems to get over time and again. Do you think a total female bad ass could get over with the male fans? Trouble is, that you need good competition which means a whole roster of good talent for her to roll over .... or (and this wasn't good when Chyna was around) have her take on men.

You've moved the goalposts there Steven. We were talking about getting wrestling over with women by giving them "someone to cheer for" which would generate more income. Now you're talking about giving mid-card women wrestlers more time on the card. They are two different things. The latter is possible but it's not a business decision and generates no extra income or extra fans. It's just giving a slightly different product to existing fans.

It's still not a very good business pitch to Vince, Steven. Women have been watching movies for a 100 years. There have been strong female characters in action films before: think Sarah Conner, think Ripley. It's not that amazing that women are going to watch films. They watched Alien and Terminator 2 as well. They also watched Batman films. They also watch Game of Thrones. So what? I think the gap between the idea of women (en masse) watching action movies and watching wrestling is wide enough for the analogy to stop being useful. I've heard people say that their partners or wives have got into the WWE Total Divas show without ever being interested in wrestling. Vince obviously knows that too and sees the figures. How do you convince him away from thinking that women don't really like wrestling and trying to manufacture the success of a Hunger Games or Fury Road in wrestling probably isn't worth the time, cost and effort?

Getting women who watch films but who don't tend to watch action films is one thing, getting women who watch TV but aren't really into sports period let alone wrestling is an entirely different proposition. Then asking them to sit around for 2 hours while they wait for the one woman they are cheering for to come on. THEN wanting them to pay money for a ticket to a live show or sign up to the network. It's a huge ask.

This is only a starting point though. You are then faced with the problem of how to try to get fans of Hunger Games or Jennifer Lawrence who aren't wrestling fans to become interested enough in wrestling to the point where they are willing to spend money. While ALSO making sure that the existing audience doesn't shit on it and boo her out of the building. Which is a very difficult proposition. Then you look at the time and effort required to do that and you look at the projected extra revenue that would come in if it pays off. Then you do a cost-benefit analysis and work out whether it is worth trying to make a wrestling-version of a Jennifer Lawrence. If you are Vince, do you go for it? Doesn't seem that compelling to me.

I think that's a tremendous point Matt, and that's how you'd have to start building the business case. If you can try to convince Vince that there's a bit of money he's missing out on, he might bite and do it.

Kris, is Flair wanting to work heel really Flair being a mark for Flair, or do you think it's because he didn't like working babyface because he thought he had no offense for the comeback? I've heard him say it a few times now.

And what I'm saying is that it won't happen if there doesn't seem like a viable commerical driver for it to happen. And if it doesn't for that reason (that there is no discernable demand), you can't then point at the promoter and blame him for it. He's going to stick to making money. Vince has always been good at being able to project what the average casual viewer will think. Take his prediliction for Big Men over little guys like Daniel Bryan. That's not just because he has a hard on for body builders, it's because he knows that the average guy thinks "there's no way the big guy loses to the little guy". That's why he's always pushed big guys, even when little guys (Savage to an extent, Shawn, Eddie, Rey, Bryan) have proved him wrong. Because the man-in-the-street marks for the big guy. A guy like Sid can just turn up and be over. As wrestling purists and hardcores, we don't like that. As a man looking to maximise profits, Vince doesn't have to challenge the perception of the casual viewer, he can play off it for $. He probably saw his dad trying to "fight" the casual fan in a way by his weird experiment with Bob Backlund, where despite all logic, despite Superstar Graham being over like rover, despite Backlund not having the best look or easiest style to get into or any discernible charisma, his dad proceeded to push him to the moon and keep him on top for 6 years. I have a theory Vince Sr did that in a Trading Places style bet with Eddie Graham ... but probably the truth is he wanted to try to "re-educate" the fans to appreciate wrestling and make his product more wrestling-orientated. Literally the minute Vince Jr took over, he dumped Backlund and brought in Hogan. He didn't do it because he hates wrestling and loves muscles, he did it because he knew Hogan might get over with casual fans in a way Backlund never could. And a lot of that is because he was 6'10 with 24-inch pythons. Again, if you're a promoter and you make money, do you listen to the money coming in or do you listen to the little smart fans telling you that you should be pushing more wrestling on top? He's only going to do it if there's a commercial driver and it is proven that fans (en masse) want to see good wrestling. All of this is true of the women. NXT is a little hardcore fan's wet dream of a place and in a sense the more successful things are down there, the more it will ghettoise itself and turn itself into its own thing. Vince won't look at it for lessons, he'll look at it and say "great, that product is serving that audience very well, give them more of that. We'll keep serving up what we do on Raw, cos that's working too." Until there's a commerical driver, there's no need in his eyes to change anything. Imagine being in management, walking into his office and saying "I think, boss, we should give women more time on TV and maybe then we could headline B-shows with them. It's working on NXT. What do you think?" What is your honest assessment of Vince's reaction? What's his first question? "Why? Is it going to make us more money?" "Oh, no, but y'know it might be nice for the women ... yeah?" "Quit wasting my time I'm busy" Do you see the conversation going a different way? How do you sell him on the idea. Not trying to be a dick, being serious.

Watching through late 80s on WTBBP, a frequent talking point was how lost and aimless the Road Warriors felt, like they literally drifted and were hanging around doing nothing in particular for what seemed like years. I think you might argue that as an act they weren't very well set up for an extended run in a national promotion. Once they've run through everyone what then? What's there left for them to do? I agree that a heel turn makes sense on paper, but what they REALLY needed to do was go away (i.e. to another territory) and come back refreshed. The new climate and landscape didn't allow for that and so instead we got, as Kris said, staleness. And even with them never jobbing to anyone, it's difficult to maintain "aura" over an extended period like that. They never stopped being over, but I was pretty shocked by just how directionless they felt right up to their departure to WWF.

As showed by the Batista push last year. And the Roman Reigns push this year. As shown by him being easily the most successful promoter of all time and running a half-billion-dollar revenue company that draws all over the world on a scale never seen before in wrestling before, yes. I mean, if you want to go down the route of pointing to track record. I'd rather not turn this into another Vince thread, but the company is still drawing. Even if the Network has lost money. Reigns has headlined three 10,000+ gates this year already. It's not like the gates plummetted during Reigns's run. Recent losses are solely down to the Network, nothing to do with Reigns. My point was only that putting a woman's match on top even for a single PPV is asking the promoter to make a risk where he needs to take none. It's not like the demand for women in the main event is so high that it would actually be worth doing.

Please recommend me anything you think might be relevant. I will also be checking out some stuff from this thread: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/31080-the-best-non-roh-indy-matches-of-the-2000s/ And this one: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30891-a-look-at-2000s/

I'd co-sign that Kelly. Only thing I disagree with is this line of thinking: This was also the promoter who booked the War to Settle the Score and drew more (casual) female fans to the wrestling audience than anyone before him with a money angle built around a BS Women's title that meant nothing. I don't agree that you can lay this solely at Vince's door. He sees his audience as being mostly blue-collar men. WWE for certain has deep Alec-Baldwin-in-30-Rock-style breakdowns of audience demographics. You know they do because, John Cena. They know x% hardcore fans, male 15-30-something with y disposible income. x% grumpy older fan with y disposible income. x% kids who need to spend their parents' money. x% women. They know all this. What's going to draw best with the audience demographic? What did they work out? Well, women don't really give a shit about wrestling. The x% women in their audience are mostly mothers or partners dragged along. What might get over with women? WWE Total Divas. A reality show concept. Women watch reality shows. They don't watch wrestling. TV companies have a habit of responding to data trends by perpetuating the trends and reflecting them, not challenging them. It stands to reason too: if you're in the business of drawing ratings, you try to give an audience more of what they are telling you they want, not less. This is the same logic as Hollywood Blockbuster churn. What's the point of "challenging" an audience, when you can make billions of dollars just spooning them more of what they seem to mark out for anyway? Is every Hollywood producer or TV exec a stubborn 70-year old man? WWE isn't really doing much different from what other TV companies would do. Vince is the figurehead and we know he is hands on, so it's easy to personalise it and pin things on him. But the real question you'd have to ask yourself is ... after almost 50 years in the business and having promoted 1,000s upon 1,000s of shows, why do you think Vince might be a bit reticient to put women's wrestling on top? Is it: A. Because he knows his audience and knows what draws. or B. Because he hates women and wants to see them suffer. Answers on a postcard. The company is a product of the audience as much as the audience is a product of the company. Did McDonalds make America fat or did fat Americans make McDonalds? If the McDonalds exec puts salad on the menu year-on-year but the Big Mac is consistently his top draw, does he push the Big Mac or the salad? Same question. You cannot blame a company for pushing what draws. Their responsibility is to make money, not redress social ills.

More like 60 years. The territory was always booked like that going back to Vince Sr and Toots Mondt.

So ... the only people who ever believed in kayfabe were the wrestlers. Crowds always knew it was fake. So when riots occured in the 1970s and 1980s, it was really fans complaining about booking direction. They were just extremely dedicated to suspending their disbelief in a way that modern crowds aren't. And not having twitter to vent their frustation at the creative direction of the promotion, they instead took it out by throwing trash or getting violent. Is this what people really think? My impression is that even if people always had "some sort of idea" that something wasn't on the level, the maintainance of kayfabe ensured there was just "enough" of an aura that something was legit that the crowds believed. And in some cases, they wanted to believe. Like a child sort of knowing Santa Claus isn't real but still kinda hoping and wishing deep inside that he is, and playing along. There's a bit of that I think. But the massive massive change in crowds from then to now is the surest proof that the death of kayfabe actually means something and has had a legitimate impact on live shows beyond "the boys needing to get over themselves". I think jdw's view is not really nuanced enough on this. He's right that there will have always been doubters and people who thought wrestling was BS. But he's wrong to think that kayfabe never "fooled" anyone. The footage of crowds from the period in question alone is proof enough I think. You simply don't see fans as invested as that now. You either get awful smarky indie fans doing their awful indie fan chants, or WWE crowds who even if they cheer and boo, aren't really as into it as the fans we see in the 70s and 80s. You don't get the old women throwing every punch or the wild estatic fans punching the air. We see it almost every MSG show on Titans, I see crazy fans all the time in the old footage. If some of them didn't believe in some way, then what the hell were they doing?

Requesting a list of 90s Tenryu recommendations.

I think the anti-Dean stuff has gone a bit too far in this thread.

WM4 is horrible

I love the idea of having a thread called "The NWA Convention" where we hobnob and talk to Jim Barnett and stuff. Lobbying for votes of certain champions. Key decisions like whether to allow WWF back in or how best to go to war. Could be real interesting.

Most boring and charisma-less wrestler of all time?

Also Jake / DiBiase

Bruno / Larry

When did Choshu and Yatsu jump to All Japan?

Fixed.