JerryvonKramer

I disagree, Fake Hogan made many a PPV more entertaining, especially KotR 93.

Contrast the number of people who tweeted leave the network and the number who actually did. Just noise is right.

I'm biding time until the company grows to "cult" at which point I'll bring in Steamer or Martel who will be my babyface. Or Hogan, if I can prise him away from Verne (AWA doing v. well).

Distinct lack of Ted DiBiase.

A welcome addition to the PWO-PTBN network this, KrisZ was really part of the regular crew on rotation anyway, so it made sense for him to have his own vehicle. V. interested to listen.

Many of the program's algorithms are mysterious, and I've never been fired before, but then I've never worked for Vince before. I have booked Mid-South under Watts though, but he was a bit more patient. Later on I'll provide a blow-by-blow account of who is on the roster together with some of their key stats and overness ratings. Post-Mania, I need to perform a stock taking exercise, because I currently have virtually no live storylines, feuds, or plans. The Bruno situation threw me for a loop.

Distinct lack of Ted DiBiase.

When did I say logic was the only criteria? Greatest wrestler ever, to me, comes down to who do I think is the best. Everyone is not going to be judged based on the same criteria, because not everybody is in the same position. Aja Kong, Rey Mysterio Jr and Bret Hart are all out there trying to accomplish different things in different roles. I will look at how great Aja is at being a monster, how great Rey is as an underdog, how great Bret is as a never give up technician. Aja can do things in the ring that if Rey did them, it would be idiotic and vice versa. Okay, so what is it that Flair does that doesn't fit his role? Don't you think someone with the level of hubris of Slick Rick would keep going for that move off the top? A. because it won him titles before and B. because -- even kayfabe wise -- he knows it gets a reaction and he's a showman who gets off on that. Care to point to anything specific? I mean I've used the same argument for Dory, his character was all about being ice cool and showing no emotion, so it makes sense that he seldom shows any. Emotion = loss of control = weakness. He was wrestler-as-master-tactician.

You know as well as I do that the reality is, if the booker says "go out there and give me 15 minutes with wrestler X" then the wrestler's job is to make that happen. I've been critical of Harley Race for working too weak most of the time as champ, I think Flair usually asserts his superiority enough to demonstrate he's the better wrestler or a class above or whatever most of the time -- main exception being his WWF run in 91-2 when he was booked like HTM. But that's because Vince doesn't know how to book a heel champ.

It makes sense for Bock to be logical because he was a thinker and presented as a thinker. Same with Dory Jr, or Baba, or other such "chessmasters". Flair was the nature boy and his touchstone wasn't to be cerebral, it was emotion. Desire to show he was the best. He was a show off. Someone who wasn't above peacocking. So such a character wouldn't always be logical. Almost everything Ric does makes sense in terms of his character. Funk and Hansen were two different shades of crazed Texan. Lots of the things they do don't always make sense either, they aren't always logical. But these things tend to be accepted as part of their intrinsic unpredictability and danger. If logic is so highly sought after a commodity, why isnt everyone putting Dory over in their top five? Oh I forgot, it's because he doesn't make faces. Seems to me that criteria can be picked and chosen to suit whatever argument you want to make about someone.

I'm also not rehashing any arguments I've made about "the Flair formula", because they always appear to fall on deaf ears. It's like it doesn't matter how many times we hash it all out, the specifics we point to, the wide variety of different matches and types of matches and performances and nuances in his character and shifts within his character and all of that stuff, that I have laid out, that Loss has laid out, that Chad has laid out. Sometimes in painstaking detail. None of it matters, because in the end, people just ignore it and default to "oh he wasn't that good in the 90s and he was a formula guy". I'm past the point of trying to have that argument because we've been through it so many times. Which is why I'm much more interested in focusing on the good and bad points of all the other candidates. Once people's minds are made up about something, it's very hard to change them, that's how people are.

This analogy is off because wrestlers have more creative input into matches than actors do into the process of filmmaking. The analogy doesn't work, because you have guys like Hitchcock who say "actors are like cattle". Films don't rest solely on the performances of actors because it is and has always been "a director's medium". Wrestling matches are not "the road agent's medium" are they? There's no part of this analogy that works at all. And I'm loathe to come up with an alternative because I'm not sure that an analogy helps.

I'll say something else too, which is that when I've been critical of Kawada or Kobashi on the All Japan Excite Series, it's almost as if I've committed some sort of heresy, like those guys are above criticism in some strange way. At least that's how it has felt.

Here's the only thing that slightly irritates me, Dylan, and it's that guys like Funk or Hansen sometimes feel like they get a free pass because no one voices any criticisms like they constantly do with Flair. That's not because they don't have flaws. Why doesn't anyone ask why Hansen's matches with Slaughter, Jumbo and Misawa are all disappointing at a time when those guys were having classics with others? Why doesn't anyone ever bring up the fact that he works 90% of matches the same, with the jump start and the skipping of the shine? With Funk, no one ever brings up the fact that he worked too much shtick while he was NWA champ, that there are times when he undercuts the intensity of a match with cartooniness. That he plays the same trick of longterm injury selling while Dory works the match more or less alone in a ton of tags. Do you think it's because these sorts of candidates are less assured of their place than Flair that people aren't as prepared to put them to scruitny? In a sense, the question I asked Grimmas which triggered this thread was less about Flair and more about why he prefers those other candidates.

This also co-signed.

Yes, co-signed.

So hold on, the little things he does which you don't like are enough to off-set the quantity of great matches? Will you hold every other candidate to that level of scrutiny? How about our All Japan guys? Doesn't Bock have any bad habits? Doesn't Hansen? Doesn't Lawler? In each case how much weight to you give to the little things that bug you vs. the great matches? And Matt -- no I didn't have anyone in particular in mind, but more that someone like Bock gets a bit of a rub from being less familiar than a "slamdunk" pick by Flair. Flair's shortcomings and limitations are highlighted and magnified and made to do incredible things like count more than the metric ton of 4+ star matches he has. Whereas with someone like Bock people will zone in on the highlight reel and conveniently forget about shit like the OTHER match with Billy Robinson or any of the other times where he's not setting the world on fire. He's just not held to the same amount of scrutiny. "But Flair always does the Flair flip", yeah, but shit how many times does Bock want to go to the king of the mountain spot? You see what I mean?

My all-purpose defense is as follows: - The roster is old. My big stars were Andre, Bruno and Backlund. As I started, Bruno was working in the backroom, I brought him out of retirement. Andre is constantly being loaned out by Vince Sr and the NWA, and is missing for at least a third of the time. Backlund walked out. My plan, therefore, was to build the promotion around a Bruno comeback. Using his overness as a "rub" for my new heels. - I had to bring in new talent. Steamboat wouldn't come. Martel, Flair, Valentine, none of them would come. Arn, Tully, Savage and DiBiase all agreed to come. Three of them were completely unknown in the North East and the fourth, Ted, was familiar to fans because of the 79 run. That's why Ted was pushed on top. Savage is a much longer term prospect. Arn and Tully are building nicely. - If you look back to my booking from the Royal Rumble, my plan was always to headline Wrestlemania with Bruno vs. DiBiase. Then Backlund walked out and I had to throw in the tournament to the mix and it made sense for Bruno to win the title at the same time as he beat Ted in the big blow off. The plan was for Bruno to hold the strap from Mania to Summerslam while Ted kept being built up to the point he could run with the title. And long, long term Savage would get to the point where he could turn and you've got an instant Ted vs. Savage feud for the belt. - That was the plan, but as I was executing it week-to-week, two things became clear: 1. Bruno couldn't perform in the ring and 2. Ted wasn't over enough to carry the strap. So I'd booked myself into a corner. I had this main even match for the title that no one could win. - After Andre, Bruno and Backlund, the next most over people in the company are Billy Graham who can't work (and whose limitations I think I've worked well with) and Jimmy Snuka. Snuka is showing signs that he can't really work that well either, but of all the available options, he was the best. Yes, a last-minute change of plan and yes, if I known he was about to be champ, I'd have built him up more, but sometimes circumstances dictate things. There was no way I could make either Bruno or Ted champion. But that was clearly my number 1 match, so the title had to go in the semi-main slot. - As for Ted over Bruno. I looked at it like this: Bruno is done. There's only so long I can try to carry the company through angles carried by his overness. And he stunk it up in every single match he had in the comeback run -- five matches in a row with the "Bruno was really off his game" road agent note. What that means is that Bruno is done in the ring. So what? Feed the heel I've been building for 3 months just to send the fans home happy one night? I've got the next 9 months to think about. So it's a choice between "give Bruno the fairytale ending" or "make the top heel a made man". Like I said Bruno is Undertaker in 2014 here, his sole use from a long-term stance is putting someone over. ---------- None of these things are ideal and the situation has not been ideal. Half of the guys on the roster are 40+. I can't book looking back to 1975, I have to look forward. I get the idea of "foresight bias", but that's honestly not what is dictating who I'm pushing. DiBiase, Savage, Arn, Tully and Hennig all have tremendous stats within the game. None of them are that over at the moment, but no one gets over without being built. There is literally NO POINT in sacfricing any of them to put Chief Jay Strongbow or Ivan Putski over. The young guys need to start getting elevated. If you look back in history, Ole Anderson when he was booking WCW was massively criticised for putting the veterans over the young up and comers. He was criticised for burying Brian Pillman. For putting his old friends over time and again. I'm doing the opposite here and I'm getting criticised for it. But Dibiase in 1983 IS Brian Pillman in 1990. I have to push him. Hennig and Savage aren't there yet and it will take at least a year for those guys to rise up the card. Savage did fine in the side-feud with Andre, but in game-terms his overness rating is "E+", he's a long way from main eventing anything. But Savage's popularity will rise faster than most people's because he has that X-factor. To an extent, yes, knowing what happened in real-life is a benefit, but like Arn is great on the mic and we know that and the game knows that. So I want to get Arn to a point where he can cut money promos. What's the alternative? Arn and Tully jobbing out to the Samoans? So I defend myself on the basis that I have to look forward and sometimes that means changing direction in the short-term. I'll admit, Wrestlemania was disappointing. I thought I'd built really well to that point, but I had to change the card for practical reasons. That's booking. --------- As for "what to do". At the moment I'm out of ideas. I'm still waiting for the territory to pop into being "cult", which will let me transfer the TV to a bigger cable network, get PPV and (hopefully) it will mean I can get guys like Steamboat or even Hulk Hogan to come in. Bruno being past it and Backlund walking out has left me with no top babyfaces. Snuka can have his moment but you can tell I have no conviction behind that. I was thinking that him vs. Slaughter could be a feud, but Slaughter is looking like my answer for the ailing IC division. Ideally I want to fire about half the roster and replace them with fresher faces. But it's tricky. Anyone who is anyone in the North East is kind of here already and I need those guys to get other guys over. I'm worried that it's all going to take too long and I'm going to get fired before I get to that point, but let's see. I should also mention that I've been playing this game for years and years and before now have never been fired. It would be ironic that the only time I've shared this is the only time things go tits-up.

But do you rate Bock over Flair, Will?

Besides, from what I've seen there is quite a bit of Bock on tape from the 70s where he's either unremarkable or actively boring. He worked to the mode of the day. In the tags I've seen so far, he's outshone Stevens but the work is NOT A PATCH on the Flair we have from 77-8, let alone early 80s Flair. It seems like people want to overlook the times when Bock isn't that engaging for the sake of making the case. The idea that Flair "wasn't smart" is really quite overplayed as well. I've said many times that Flair is organic as a worker and doesn't really plan things out, he goes with the flow and works on instinct. But that's not necessarily a knock because Flair's instincts are often gold. And in some ways, what Flair comes up with on-the-fly are better than what you could plan. I watched that segment with Lawler the other night and it's really one of the best things I've ever seen. I know outside-of-ring stuff isn't being considered for this, but just look at what he does in the match portion of that segment. How he works it and dominates Lawler because "Lawler is a slow starter" and because he's getting over this idea of himself as the best wrestler in the world coming to this rinky dink town. I honestly don't think you could put Bock in that segment and have it come off as well as it does. I don't want to knock Bock, he's likely a top 10 for me, top 15 minimum, but I don't think in what we have on tape he shows us more than Flair shows us. He really doesn't. Yes, Bock is versatile, but is the range from Bock vs. Billy Robinson to Bock vs. Larry Z really wider than Flair in Japan working technical classics with Jumbo, Flair working stiff-as-fuck with Garvin, Flair as the underdog vs Vader, Flair as the dominant champ, Flair as the chicken-shit champ. The case is simply overstated and it sells what Flair does far far too short while making quite a lot of a slim volume of matches from Bock. I get it, Flair is the number 1 stalking horse and therefore there's a temptation to go for a more niche or "contrarian" candidate like Bock over him, but it's really to make a very big deal out of a few small things about Flair while willfully overlooking the mountains of tremendous stuff he has on tape. It's like putting Leonard Cohen over Bob Dylan because Dylan has a few minor album tracks you don't like (or something like that.)

Every now and then I consider someone else other than Flair as my #1 and then I see a promo, or a match or even just a little something from a match Flair does and back he goes to #1 - it s a total package game for me and Flair has everything. Still time for that to change though, but its going to take some doing. Flair can rank anywhere from 3-12 for me. Funk is above. Lawler is above. Hansen, Jumbo, Kawada, Santo, Satanico, Rey Jr, Misawa, Kobashi and Bockwinkel could all be higher. Might I ask why or is that too big a topic?

Imagine Jim Breaks in WWF in 1988. Let's say he works exactly the same way as he does in WoS, would he get over?

Wrestlemania I (April, Week 2) Okay, so from the point of view of the live gate, this was a total fucking disaster. 6,715. That's right. 6,715. I made a $80k loss on the gate, failed to secure PPV, and for whatever reason these crowds in the North East keep dwindling. I tried cutting the number of house shows. I think this is going to remain a real problem until I can get a bigger TV slot. I don't think the problem is down to my booking. At least that's what I'm telling myself. Vince's "approval rating" for me is currently "Very Low". Oh dear. In my mind ALL of these problems are going to go away when the New England rating goes from D to D+ and the WWF's status goes from "regional" to "cult". That will open so many doors it's unreal. But need patience. This show just came a month too early. Anyway, here's the show. Ended up holding it at the Baltimore Civic Centre. Okay, so what this doesn't tell you is that this pissed off more or less the entire roster. Mostly everyone was "very unhappy" or "furious" about Hennig being put over here. Dusty Rhodes flat out refused to take part in the match unless the booking was change, ditto Brisco, ditto Kamala. None of them are on the card. They are loaned-in talent anyway. The idea is that I want to start pushing Curt, but it may be that all I've succeeded in doing is turning the locker room against me. The IC title scene is still totally dismal. I'll admit that my focus has been elsewhere, but something really needs to be done now. I'm thinking Slaughter. I was going to keep going with Soul Patrol, but they were just so shitty that I had to do this switch now. Arn and Tully have gone from being an "F" in popularity in the Tri-State region to "C" under my booking so far, and with the straps they'll keep rising. Hopefully they will be at B+ or higher by Summerslam. Decent match here. Of course Andre goes over. This feud really played second fiddle to the Bruno vs Ted one. In retrospect, I might have made a bigger deal of it. The arm-wrestling match. Ventura wins cheap thereby winning Graham's "Superstar's Supershow" TV slot. That's right, I went with Snuka in the end. He's a placeholder champ until Ted is ready, which might not even be until Wrestlemania 2 in a whole year's time. Way things are looking, I'm likely to get fired before then. *DiBiase rolls out of the cage. He is bloodied and can barely raise an arm in victory. Bruno is left in the ring alone. He calls for a mic. He's out of breath. He's bloody and exhausted.* Bruno: All you people, all you wonderful fans, I've give you everything. And I'm sorry. This was one match too many for me. I don't want to do it, but it's time for me to say goodbye. It's been 20 great, great years. I didn't want to go out like this. He ... he gave me everything out in here today and the better man won. I hate to say it, but he beat me fair and square. And it's my body telling me "Bruno, enough is enough". I'm happy for Jimmy Snuka. He'll be a great champion. And I'm grateful for everything this company has done. But the end of the road is the end of the road. So will you people do me the honour, just one last time, let me hear you cheer. Bruno raises his battered arm in the air, tears in his eyes, and the crowd cheer. He leaves the cage.* Bruno and Ted look like they worked that match a bit too stiff for the crowd. Seems like it was a decent match though. So I thought with Snuka winning the title that Ted could beat Bruno clean (he wasn't that thrilled about doing the job). The plan is that moving forward, Ted will -- Larry Z-style -- claim to be the man who made Bruno retire and it will be something that people say about him for years. From the booking point of view, the idea of Bruno retiring at the first Wrestlemania has a kind of historical resonance, that hopefully would be talked about for years to come. In a way the loss is bigger news than a win would have been. And for the live crowd, we were going for "emotional". Anyone who was there would hopefully remember the speech he gave at the end. ------------- Right, now that Mania is out of the way. It's time for some real changes. Bruno retires and becomes a Road Agent. Patterson retires and becomes a Road Agent. Denucci retires and becomes a Road Agent. Those three are done in the ring as far as I am concerned. Jobber / JTTS crew: Rene Goulet has a month on his contract and won't be coming back. Tony Garea will slide down into being JTTS. Frankie Williams has been generally awful and I think I might fire him soon and bring in a better jobber. Tag: Arn and Tully desperately need some decent opponents who aren't fucking Soul Patrol. In fact, I might see if I can sign 3-4 face tag teams. IC level: Pedro is just a fat disgrace at this point. It's sad. I've let him languish, it's true, but this needs shaking up. Slaughter as IC champ and then I need 3-4 new faces to take him on. Curt Hennig might be elevated to be one of them. World level: Snuka has a ready-made opponent in DiBiase but I want to save that for now. Snuka can go over the Blassie guys (Sheik, Koloff and Kamala) in fairly quick succession, and I want maybe 3-4 heel challengers to come in. Meanwhile, DiBiase can float around picking up wins while telling everyone he's better than them. I need to come up with some new angles for The Elite. Savage needs something to do as well. Andre can go back to handicap matches and battle royales for a while.

I think people forget too that MX worked face for most of 89 vs. the SSTs and Original Midnights during the whole Cornette vs. Heyman feud. Corny is a surprisingly effective face, but Eaton just works in the context of being a face tag worker either as FIP or as the hot tag. And it gave the crowd a chance to get behind his big bombs. In fact, there's an argument to say that the Eaton / Lane version of the MX hit their peaks as faces.