dexstar

From the outside reading this thread, I wanted to drop in with a couple things from my brief stay in the Wrestling Classics version of this game - They had the traveling champ thing - multiple, actually (World, Tag, Jr, IIRC) and they'd have a thread for owners where they had an opportunity to book dates for those. And then a convention thread every few months, or sometimes on an emergency basis, where they'd vote on new champs. You could also book Thesz as traveling NWA President and I think, at least at one time, a couple guys like Bruiser and Andre were also not on rosters and instead booked through a thread. They also, as more people joined, had Main and Satellite promotions, with the Satellites being used for the newcomers they weren't sure would stick with it. Both had a roster limit. Then there'd be a dispersal draft of sorts every few months where you had to leave a handful of guys unprotected, like the Expansion Draft in the NFL. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there. Look forward to reading this new history!

I was reading through this and goodhelmet asked towards the beginning: And there wasn't a definitive answer - I haven't seen one anywhere since that was asked, but maybe I missed it somewhere in someones news and it wasn't mentioned here? Does anyone know? Since they started doing house shows occasionally I've been watching for reports on how they were paid but haven't seen any. The fact they had a Samoa Joe t-shirt ready for that debut, and on-sale immediately after, makes me think there's at least a little potential for top NXT guys to make some extra coin through that avenue. Maybe it'll be a place where the Blake and Murphy's of the world take less money but a shot at the main roster and older indy guys take a steady paycheck but stay in NXT for the "exposure" and, in theory, less headache of booking their own stuff around the world/country?

Joe's music strikes me as something that is lame initially but able to ingrain itself and stay for a while, kinda like the beep boop beep boop of My Time back in the day with HHH.

I'm not sober enough to complete this entire thought but Rodman strikes me as the "potential fulfilled" version of what people wishcast Brian Pillman to have been.

Ok, thanks, I like him 100% more now.

Forgive my ignorance of 80s NWA here - is Darsow supposed to be an actual Russian in his Khruschev gimmick? I'm guessing no? But all I've got to go on is what's on WWE Network and Wiki so I'm not entirely clear.

I'd suggest they run a "New on the Network" clip 30 times a show instead of those ridiculous "Did you know..." bumpers, but that'd require something "New on the Network" every week.

"$10 for WWE" is also a hard sell for some of the people I know because they like saving money on the PPVs, but we just watch it at the same place- and they are unimpressed by the actual service (in terms of ability to skip around, selection, interface) enough that they don't see the point in having it for anything but the new PPVs. Then they find out they can't watch Raw on it either (which I completely understand is not really something WWE can fix right now) and they very little interest in spending anything on it.

Yeah, but will they realize people aren't sticking around because they aren't satisfied with the product, or will they once again retreat into The Wrestling Bubble and just blame everything else under the sun? I've always been optimistic this is going to be a success because it seems like it eventually HAS to be for the company to survive, but they have to understand that a main reason they are failing is that the service itself just isn't good enough to justify even $9.99 a month for most people who aren't sickly obsessed with wrestling, right?

Still think they need to, for lack of a better term, outsource some of the network projects to the community, or bring in some new partners. For instance: https://rabb.it/ This actually, in my limited trial with friends, works for group watching a WWE Network stream. Which would be a great built-in function for the Network. There's probably negatives to pushing people to a 3rd party for some of the wishlist functions, but at the same time you'd open up some new functionality to the service that a lot of people aren't going to go out of their way to figure out on their own. Similar concept with chapters - if it was left up to the users, certainly almost everything would have the markings within a couple months, right? You wouldn't be able to just let people mark willy nilly, but some sort of "suggest a chapter mark" feature may be a relatively simple solution for that. On the social end, no clue why they don't have a profile for each user that at the very least allows you to track what you've watched. Add some discounts to the Shop if people watch every Nitro or something. Get 5% off a t-shirt for watching a premier of a new show. Get a badge (I don't get into social gamification personally, but plenty of people do) for watching all of a certain series in a certain time, little stuff like that would go a long way, in my opinion, to making this feel like a real service and not just me paying $10/month because I don't want to deal with finding a bootleg stream.

re: Uti Not that I can find. I thought it was unpolished until he slipped and did the splits doing the bodyslam spot. That pushed it to WTF territory for me. Either way I think you're right, I don't think he's the worst, especially considering I doubt they had great pro wrestling schools in Lagos in the 80s. There is a match against Festus on YouTube that's just ... I don't even know how to describe it:

I don't know if he'd count but Power Uti might have one of the worst individual matches I've ever ran into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpg-ZIA2hoY

Cesaro said Orton-Cena is "boring" last week - then he went down in 2 straight falls to Ziggler - then there was that weird ass kicking segment tonight - is it a worked shoot (~~!1!!) angle that ends with him joining Team Cena and fellow "rebel" Ziggler - along with Randy Orton?

Man, if Cena doesn't pick Torito for his team he's insane. Brass balls on the bull coming out to fight in that scene.

I'll never understand the online obsession of grouping them together. Don't see the appeal either as babyfaces or heels. Would be such a hodge hodge of accents. Finn and Lynch have been packaged with non-stereotyped gimmicks. Devitt also seems to be package a straight ahead singles star rather than just a faction member. Devitt always been very careful to let Becky be her own wrestler/person publicly. Never really spoke about her interviews. Privately he is probably the reason why she returned to wrestling. I could see Devitt shooting down an on screen association. Can't speak for anyone else but I just enjoy stereotype foreign heel stables. Will definitely cop to knowing jack and shit about their backgrounds so maybe it's not the best idea.

Hoping they go all in eventually on the main roster with a heel Sheamus/Finn/Lynch (managed by Finlay) stable

I'm always optimistic. I saw this on Twitter today: Bohsjohnny ‏@BohsJohnny 19m 19 minutes ago This is great god knows why WWE dosen't a random match feature bulit in without a fan having to do it http://returntotherunway.com/wwenetwork/random_match.php As people build stuff like that, the Network is going to keep better whether the company puts their full weight behind it or not. Given the budget cuts, I think they should encourage this type of thing and try to get other people to do the work for free. Eventually they are going to stumble into a way to make this whole thing really work.

Ads have potential to be pretty great. If they just run standard commercials, that's verging on annoying, but what if they sold heavily branded recap/interview/backstage type segments (like, think the old Castrol GTX Slam of the Week graphics) and focused on retro clips, matches/angles that somehow fit a brand message, etc. it could actually be a positive. Or if they managed to convince advertisers to use WWE talent in their spots - guys like Bad News Barrett, Big E, Dolph, Adam Rose, hell a bunch of the roster - could be pretty entertaining in 30 second commercials.

That would be an awesome callback. It'd be awesome if they set him up as the surprise final entrant, but when the buzzer hits, someone comes out WITH SOME BAD NEWS

I would like an entire one hour Network special dedicated to how Ambrose, in kayfabe, got in that box. Might win an Emmy if they play their cards right.

I know, I was speaking in jest - at least about the chance of anything actually happening.

Man, there are going to be some wildly inappropriate "revenge" segment ideas thrown around in the WWE office this week I bet. Thankfully a publicly traded company would never follow-through on those ...

I always thought it described the action of kicking (KICK), the impact (WHAM), then the STUNNER. I've seen Kick-Wham-Pedigree too and assumed the same.

That main event was awesome, but I'm going to laugh so hard when HHH turns face in January and goes on to "defend the WWE" from the evil Brock, winning the title at Mania.

I feel like the trading wins stuff would work with just a minor amount of explanation on their part - frame the entire "sport" as you would anything else really. You push the idea they are going to wrestle more than once until someone definitely wins, exactly as pro wrestling feuds normally works, just explicit. "Swagger and Rusev have an issue, whoever wins this series decisively is going to be in prime position for a shot at Sheamus" or something. Like, you educate people to expect dudes are gonna fight 6 or 7 times from the very start. Then it's just one loss when you lose the feud in the context of the storytelling.