MoS

The time zone issue might be too much to hold a PPV/TV show here, but their house shows a couple of years back were really profitable. And while most Indian fans certainly do not read Meltzer or come to sites like PWO (their loss, for I have learned so much here) to say they wouldn't know a good match from an awful one is being pretty ignorant and really, downright stupid. The most popular stars in India in the last 15 years have been Cena and Mysterio. It is not that big a co-incidence that they are also excellent wrestlers. It is really not too different from non-smarky/"hardcore" Ameridan wrestling towns.

They do not treat Jinder as a face when he cheats or does heel shit, but they do not treat him as a dastardly heel either. "Ooh he cheated, that is unfortunate, should not have done that. But hey, Jinder wins!!" for example. I guess they are looking at how huge Khali got over in India and want to replicate it. Except Khali getting over was due to a wide variety of reasons, none of which Jinfer can replicate. When presented properly, he looked like a physical marvel, was booked really strong when he won the title, including a clean victory over Taker, on a PPV, etc. Also, he was actually Indian. WWE does not really need to have an Indian champ to sell out arenas here while touring. Wrestling is huge here and they will do so anyway. I remember John Cena being stunned at how many people turned up and how much they were cheering for him when he came here for a promotional tour in 2005, and this was when the backlash against him had firmly become a thing. When they came here last time, they sold out their shows while charging prices for tickets up to 4-5 times that of a normal American house show, if we look at price differential and in real value terms. Jinder has got some traction on the news channels and everything, and mainstream newspapers reported the title change. But these papers also report other major events that happen in WWE. A face champ would be better perhaps, but I genuinely do not think they would book a face Indian world champ to have a multiple-month title reign. I admit though: I do enjoy it when he trolls American viewers by saying shit like "Now, I will speak to my people, IN PUNJABI!!" It also sounds really entertaining when you are high.

They are denying it, fwiw https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2017/7/19/16001738/ufc-brock-lesnar-usada-testing-pool-novitzky-wwe-mma-news

I agree Rock's promos were often empty; it was his charisma that made them entertaining or over. Without his charisma they would have stopped meaning anything in 6 months, and indeed when he came back, they mostly did not mean anything. The atmosphere and the setting of WWE now is different and his promos sounded as hollow as they could. I firmly believe he was comfortably outpromo'd by Cena and Punk because that kind of promo style was always going to have a limited shelf life; it is just that Rock's charisma ensured his shelf life was longer. I guess many wrestlers took the wrong lesson from his success, and thought just having tons of catchphrases and many sing-a-long promos would get you over. I remember Meltzer once saying that it is often foolish to look at what Rock did and what worked for him as precedent or justification for your booking, because he was the exception to the rule. If you had a roster full of Rocks, of course you could get away with doing anything. But you don't, and you most likely never will. I think Dave was bang-on with that. Coming back to Enzo and Cas, I thought Enzo did a tremendous job in their squash match playing a wrestler who was game and wanted to fight and prove his "toughness" but was ultimately completely outmatched. His facial expressions when he was taking a beating and when he was trying to make a comeback, only to fail, were excellent.

Both Rock and the NAO relied on using catchphrases a ton, but the Rock was infinitely more charismatic so got exponentially more over and drew a lot more money, so I can see them being jealous of Rock. In his prime, Rock was one of those people whose interview could be billed as the main event of the card and it would sell out the arena. Pity he was so awful in his comeback run, although I guess his material was never going to age well.

I didn't know about this. When did Rock call out Dogg? This is also interesting because I thought there was also heat between NAO and Hunter for the longest time.

I look at how Goldberg was booked in the first month or so of his return and I think if Reigns is booked like that (obviously not identically but in the same vein) he wouldn't have the mixed reaction issue, at least not to the same extent. Goldberg in his opening promo came across as a bigger ass-kicking cool badass babyface than Reigns and all his "I am THE guy" promos. So I guess the company does know how to book babyfaces and make them look badass instead of geeks or losers who cannot hang with the evil heels, but..they choose not to do that with Reigns and co.? I dunno, it is very weird. I really like Goldberg, but Reigns is a significantly better worker than he is, and yet he has never looked as good as Goldberg was booked to look, even without the surprise squashes.

Does Christian count? He was the ace for WWECW for a year and had a cup of coffee with their secondary world title a couple of times, but apart from that he never had a big singles run as a top star.

It's the whole Benoit debate again (and so close to the ten years' anniversary of that tragedy) where we have to ask ourselves if wrestling for so many years and taking so many bumps played a role in the tragedy. I do not know a lot of details of this incident and Breaks's mental state, and in any case I do not have any appetite for having that entire debate again, but I do not think it is something that can be discounted.

Hopefully this dude gets perma-banned soon.

We know that wrestling is full of awful people, but stuff like this really jarres you out of a stoic acceptance of that. Awful, awful stuff and again makes me really question myself for being a wrestling fan.

What exactly was Global Force Wrestling? I was not keeping track of it; did it run any shows? Or was it essentially a talent agency which contracted wrestlers and made deals for them to appear on various promotions' shows?

But that's part of the bullshit Russo narrative. Cornette hating Russo has plenty to do with Russo politicking him out of his WWE booking job and later doing the same to get him fired as a TNA road agent. He also hates Russo for the damage that he feels Russo inflicted on the business, but it's not the whole thing. I do think it's possible at this point that Russo has deluded himself into thinking Cornette only hates him because of what he booked, but he's also a compulsive liar so who really knows? Either way, the whole "Bro, why would you wanna kill somebody over FAKE WREST-A-LING?!?!" shtick is a fabrication. Fair enough. Depriving someone of their livelihood and a job in a profession they love to death while doing almost irreparable damage to that profession is much more justifiable. I was going through 1999 WWF a few days back, Russo's last few months with the company, and dear Lord it is terrible. Absolutely awful. Forget about the well-documented horrible mid-card stuff, even the main event scene is terrible. That entire Austin-HHH-McMahon angle is so utterly boring, the only reason Austin survived that was because he was teflon by that time. Even then, I felt that Russo had started to actually damage Austin's character and his overness due to consistent terrible segments and booking, a feat almost admirable because of how impossible it seemed. Really, Austin survived a lot of awful shit booking like the Satanic Undertaker angle, being embalmed and crucified and whatever, and it might have led to a drastic decline in WWE's business shortly after becuse, as I said, the constant horrible booking had started to damage the company's top draw. WWE dodged an arguably fatal bullet when Russo departed. Chris Kreski might very well be the most underrated booker of all-time. His seamless, inter-connected, logically consistent angles in 2000 up and down the card led to arguably the greatest year in company history.

I'm just glad they are not reaching out to Russo for creative salvation. Dude almost ruined the Greatest Rivalries DVD when he presented Austin v. McMahon.

I agree Corny sounds way off his rocker when he goes on those kind of rants. Although parts of me thinks Corny is just cutting a promo, because that's what these old-school guy always do. If he really is cutting a promo, then Russo is right: Corny is using him to get over. Goddamn it, fuck you Cornette for making me take fucking Russo's side, no matter how superficially.

I am not going to pretend I do not enjoy a good rant, particularly about Russo, the most horrifically inept booker there ever was, but in the video linked above, Cornette once again reiterated how he would murder Vince Russo if there were no penal consequences. He said that the thought of him breathing air disgusts him. In this case, I agree with Russo: how anyone can hate somebody to this extent over wrestling is beyond me. Not only is that particular kind of rant something I would not enjoy (although that is a matter of personal taste) it makes me think Cornette is a lot more fucked up than Russo is and needs some medical help to sort out his issues. At this point of time, Cornette is so consumed by his Russo hatred that if Russo were to die tomorrow, I do not think Cornette would be able to have any meaningful existence of his own, because he seems to need Russo and his presence to sustain his soul through pure hatred.

Awesome. Thanks!

I read a lot of guys on the internet and in the dirtsheets (as well as wrestlers' autobiographies) where they called Bruno an average or mediocre worker. I disagree and I think he is fucking awesome. I could watch him wrestle for hours. It is very tricky appearing like a superman in the ring without fatiguing the audience or ultimately sucking out all the heat from your matches. Bruno mastered that trick his entire career, including his late 1980s matches. Meltzer wrote that as far as selling tickets in the same territory for the longest time, he is the greatest draw in history, and I am not surprised. No one has ever personified the ace role the way Bruno did. You could tell that he absolutely owned the WWWF. I would love a podcast episode dedicated solely to him.

I love watching Bruno Sammartino wrestle. I realise he was considered a bad wrestler by many fans, but I absolutely do not care how many holds he can execute. He brings an energy in his matches that is ridiculous, the crowd keeps going absolutely wild, and his physical charisma is the greatest in wrestling history for me. I'm so glad he is on good terms with WWE and they are uploading many of his matches on the Network.

WWE is coming to India in September.

It was certainly not a well-planned and thought out decision, and given that ye has been really bad throughout his career, they were right to treat him as a jobber. It is all about how they book him and his storyline from now on.

Most of WWE's Indian fanbase is urban/semi-urban, well-off upper caste people. Jindal is every bit their guy. No forum on the internet is equipped to have a proper discussion of the caste system properly because it is so old, complicated and evil, so there is no point discussing it, but let us just say that upper-caste Indians are perfectly happy exploiting the system and being racist here and yet being highly outraged (which is justified) without having a single moment of introspection about their own systematic racist behaviour (which is absolutely not justified) if/when the situation is reversed in America or any Western country for that matter. If Jinder does start a gimmick of being a hard working talented wrestler who is being held down because WWE fans in America are racist assholes, it will be very resonant India.

I am honestly not invested in the product enough to be pissed about this. I was just saying that at least on a superficial level, it makes business sense.

Jinder ain't great... but he's new. Something different. Orton is the same old shit. He isn't new. He has been a jobber since around 2010. Probably longer. The only difference is that he is a jobber thanking god that champions don't have to deal with wellness tests. I mean is he even Hindu to begin with? I know he is Canadian. He is Sikh, I think.

I am guessing this is to further expand their already massive Indian fanbase. WWE is covered online by a couple of mainstream Indian newspapers, so "Indian dude is the WWE Champion" will most assuredly be an article pumped out. It started when they gave Khali a month-long world title reign. As terrible as Khali was, I will go to my pyre defending that booking, because that just opened up the market big-time. Wrestling was popular here before as well, but this got it to the next level; it was all over the news here, and now India is their 3rd most profitable market, which is even more impressive when you consider the personal disposable income here compared to America and the UK. I just wish there were better Indian wrestlers available.