overbooked

I think a division with those workers would be well worth trying, but only if it is given proper attention and time to develop. There would have to be real investment in creating better storylines, giving them all time to develop their characters, and probably a fair bit of room for trial and error. Then there is the obvious thing around giving the matches far more time. There would need to be a re-education of the fans, to a point, and I think getting rid of the 'Divas' tag would be a good start, followed by just treating the division right and not as a sideshow. I doubt it would all work immediately, but if WWE is serious about broadening its fanbase (including women) then a proper women's division could work. However, as many WWE cards seem built around peaks and troughs, with the Divas match the obvious piss break, they would perhaps have to work around that and have something else to replace it - more comedy matches from the male roster or similar? I don't know...

Thank you for all the effort and thought that clearly went in to this podcast. I have no idea how you all found the time for this, or how you all still had a voice by the end! It is great to see a story like this broken down, with anecdotes and numbers to back it all up - entertaining and informative. I also think it kind of challenges the standard narrative that WWF killed the territories as it sounds like JCP and others were doing a pretty good job of killing themselves.

You can only watch one TV show from one promotion until the end of time - which one do you choose and why? Fans love to build up narratives within matches - how much of that do you think is consciously planned by the workers themselves, and how much is just interpretation or wish-fulfillment on the part of the fans? And does it matter either way? Could wrestling be real again, without resorting to shitty shoot angles? Considering the current rate of growth, how many wrestling podcasts will there be in five years, and what will the average length of each episode be?

Sid finds the territory with the least travel and the best softball league.

My first thought was that a lot of workers might have stayed healthier/alive a lot longer. The steroid look might not have become so popular, at least not everywhere. While some territories obviously had punishing schedules, they wouldn't have necessarily been as punishing as some of the national ones we see in the 80s/90s. So, there might have been less painkiller abuse, uppers/downers etc to cope. Perhaps optimistic, but there you go. I guess some guys would have stayed fresher for moving around territories. I wonder if Vader might have had a lot more US success if he was the travelling monster heel in the 1990s. Would The Undertaker have just kept to his original look and shtick rather than becoming Bikertaker etc? The Big Show seems an obvious Andre 2.0 attraction. I could see The Rock as one of those guys who mainly stays in one territory but does odd shots as a special guest attraction across the country. I'm presuming that we'd have far fewer world champions too. I could imagine Bret Hart as a steady travelling champ and Angle getting the nod because of the amateur background and his strong personality/promos. Additional question: considering there would be so many more booking jobs, which wrestlers would have transitioned into becoming bookers?

I didn't realise I would enjoy such a long podcast about Mr Fuji, but I really did. Re: Fuji still wrestling when he was a manager...I've been spending FAR TOO LONG thinking about this. 1. Maybe this is why he was kept around so long, despite being one of the weaker managers? Managers on house shows are a bit of a waste of money. Managers willing to step in to make up the numbers/cover for no-shows/take the fall to protect their team are probably worth their weight in gold. 2. Was odd 6 man tags/handicap matches a way of protecting (sort of, nearly) money matches? So, stick Fuji in the mix and you can still go back to the normal match-up (either singles or normal tag) further down the line. 3. Fans like to see managers get their comeuppance, right? And it hardly hurt Fuji's heat to get a beating in a house show. So throwing him in the mix would probably lead to a cheap pop or two, and the fans going home happy.

I'm really enjoying these shows, and it is good to see Kris evolve into more of a host/chair of discussions with each episode. I think there is a real art to bringing people in, knowing when to contribute and when to hold back. I would love to hear more of a discussion of the legacy of this period. Obviously a lot of those workers went on to bigger and better things, which would be worth exploring. But I'd also love to hear another perspective: what were the negatives? Did this lead to a style that was too spotty? Was it smart to be risking life and limb in front of 25 guys and a camcorder? Was match quality over traditional terriorital style storytelling a good move or not? Was it really cool that Low Ki (among others) beat up on fellow workers? Was the breakdown between workers and fans so that they became friends actually good for business? Essentially, it was lovely hearing such enthusiasm for three hours, but I'd love to hear a debate between that enthusiasm and someone more grumpy!

Do we know just how recovered Bryan really is? Is there any chance that they've rushed him back and then realised that he is still too beat up and needs to be protected a little while longer? Obviously there has been plenty of shitty booking, but I have no issue with Bryan first getting his revenge on Kane, as while that probably doesn't lead to a great match, it does make storyline sense. I'm wondering if they are saving up Bryan/Lesnar for a few months from now. Wrestlemania will sell no matter what matches are booked, so there is a certain logic to saving 'money' matches for weaker shows. Either that, or they just don't like Daniel Bryan and for better or worse want to properly see through the Reigns push.

Owen Hart returning to the WWF post-Montreal for me. It seemed like he was primed for a main event run as the lone Hart, there seemed to be a load of heat around his return, the booking seemed self-evident and he could have had some great matches. Instead he ended up in a mid-card feud with HHH. I would have loved to have seen him more in the main event mix in late 97/early 98 with Michaels, Austin, Foley etc. Jericho is a good pick too. I was always rooting for him to succeed post-WCW, but a lot of his stuff felt a little flat.

Hi all, hope it is OK to post this here... The online wrestling magazine-thing from years back, Real in Memphis, has returned for a special tribute issue to the wrestling writer and broadcaster Stewart Allen, who died earlier this year. All the contributions refer to wrestling he loved, and there are links on the site to make a charity donation in his memory too. You can find it all here: http://realinmemphis.com/ Cheers, and Merry Christmas.

The short answer is you'd need a lot of time and a lot of money. The slightly longer answer... I think one of the key issues is that with a lack of territories you could end up relying on WWE cast-offs and so you immediately look like a bush league version of WWE. I'm not sure how many big stars would jump ship to an unproven and unestablished company, so you'd need to offer pretty big money as 'insurance', and then you've got a roster of overpaid and under-motivated talent. So, I'd be tempted to invest over the long-term instead. Before launching a national/international company, I'd be interested in setting up several schools attached to small promotions, essentially creating my own territories and my own means of creating new stars. Each school/promotion would have a different style and ethos, and workers would be encouraged to move between them every six months or so. Ideally, I'd make this international too - have a school in Canada, one in the UK etc as well as a few dotted around the US. Then, stage two would probably be two/three years down the line. I'd have some reasonably rounded new faces to build a bigger promotion around, and would be an established enough business to hopefully attract some interesting free agents and maybe agree some talent exchanges with Mexican and Japanese companies. This would enable a three-ring circus to the in-ring product, as I'd have a variety of people to work with. I think there is still money to be made from a touring company, but those tours need to cover more than the US. Even TNA can draw in Europe, so I think there is a real opportunity to have a promotion that genuinely feels international, perhaps running tours every couple of months in Europe as well as some American shows, and maybe even exploring markets like India and the Middle East. TV is at the heart of wrestling, but in light of the WWE Network and YouTube viewing habits, I'd invest heavily in a really good online platform rather than chasing a TV deal. I'd maybe have a weekly studio-based wrestling show for free, then a small subscription to watch house shows and semi-regular 'super shows'. The company needs to look good too. The production values need to be excellent. A studio wrestling show could still work with a great set, great lighting and first-rate music and commentary. Every worker would have a proper logo, a proper entrance video and a great outfit. Each visual element would need to hang together so that the presentation is coherent and instantly recognisable, and ultimately distinctive from WWE. This would all lead, hopefully, to really appealing merchandise to sell on those tours. Then, it just needs strong booking. By having the 'territorial' system underneath there would potentially be a pretty large pool of wrestling minds to step up and book the main product, and enough of them to keep swapping them around to keep things fresh. As I said at the start, it would need a lot of time and a lot of money. I think it is highly unlikely to happen. But that is how I'd do it...

I think I'd use the term "fun" for something that is enjoyable, but ultimately throwaway. There might not be the in-depth storytelling or emotional engagement of an "excellent" match, but there is something in there that made it enjoyable anyway, perhaps a funky spot, some comedy, a neat little thread in the match etc. It is an enjoyable way to pass the time, rather than something that really affects me. I guess "fun" matches are also those that are enjoyable despite limitations. The match might be short, and finish before it has the chance to be really great. It might be a tag match with two good workers and two awful ones, so only some of the match works. Or perhaps just a match without a compelling context, with two guys thrown together and making the most of it. It might just be better than expected, so while it is not excellent, it is a nice surprise. A lot of TV matches manage to be fun, but don't always have the support of time/storylines/whatever else to become truly great, for instance. Saying all that, maybe a really excellent match is one that manages to be brilliant despite all those limitations, as there isn't the help from time/storyline/whatever else.

I think YouTube has really changed things. There were plenty of discussions ten years ago that ended up with someone saying "Watch the tapes", and generally there were those people who had the finances to buy lots of footage/had spent a lot of time trading, with others playing catch-up. There is more of a level playing field now as so much more stuff is accessible, and accessible immediately. So, there are perhaps fewer people working on speculation, and fewer people as 'gatekeepers' who can influence a discussion as they've seen the most stuff. It doesn't take long to prove a point, or disprove one.

Big Daddy? A long career, generally had to be protected in tag matches, and not only managed to be awful in the ring but almost single-handedly ruined the aura of every heel he faced. "Easy" indeed.

I guess the obvious answer is "No more Hell in a Cell", but I could easily imagine fewer garbage bumps generally, so no TLC matches, ladder matches, cage matches, and the Spanish Announce Table remaining intact for the majority of PPVs. However, apart from that, I don't think there would be many long-term consequences - WWF and pro wrestling generally seem pretty resilient when it comes to these kinds of things.

Great stuff guys, really enjoyed this show. It seems like at the heart of this debate is the question "How important is quality wrestling to the success of pro wrestling?" - Hogan/Vince showed that you can go pretty far with a hugely charismatic figure, a promotional juggernault and some great production values, and that these will often yield far more success, financially at least, than lots of 35 minute ***** matches. I can't think of anyone else during the period who could have had as much mainstream crossover as Hogan - here was a larger than life character who you could trust to do the right thing on talk shows, MTV, the A Team etc, as well as regularly put on a cartoon-y simple, popular, face main event each night. But I do think the production values helped immeasurably too. WWF looked so slick that to the untrained eye it seemed more professional, legitimate and current than the more low-rent offers elsewhere. I enjoyed the NWA/Vince fantasy booking - my take is that a Vince-owned NWA would just be Attitude-era WWF, but 15 years early and with generally better workers. It does make me wonder - was Vince's national expansion successful because he was in New York? If he had been from any other territory could he have made it work, or did being where he was make it much easier than if he was based, say, in the South West?

I think the two parts might be linked. The UK was essentially a new market to exploit while business was down domestically. The UK product had been off-screens for a while, and so there was a gap in the market for wrestling - and wrestling with far higher production values, larger-than-life characters etc. The growth of Sky meant more people could discover the WWF and the flood of merhandise (action figures, trading cards, magazines) meant even if you didn't have Sky, if you were in the playground between 1989 and 1992 you knew about the WWF. It was certainly a bit of a fad, like the Ninja Turtles or Gladiators or whatever, but also there was a general openness to US sport at the time - American Football became really popular in the UK in the 80s once it was shown on TV. The push of Davey Boy Smith certainly didn't hurt. I remember going to a signing he had in Croydon's Woolworths in the early 90s. The place was full of near-rioting 10 year-olds and the place got trashed as everyone climbed up the shelving and displays to catch a glimpse of him. And this might be a minor point, but the growth of VHS must have helped. There were the Silver Vision releases to buy if you didn't have Sky, but also I watched a lot of WWF because friends taped shows for me, and VHS recorders were for the first time relatively cheap enough to buy two, hook them together and make some money dubbing the latest WWF PPV. I remember one friend making a killing on Royal Rumble 92, going home every lunchtime to swap the tapes around. I look forward to a long Lister post that answers the question far better than I have...

I think this is a really important point, and is perhaps linked to knowing the outcome of a match/feud. It is much easier to get 'lost' in a wrestling narrative when watching in real time. Watching old footage it is easy to get distracted by a wider context, or the history of the workers involved or whatever else. Maybe it is harder to care when you already know what happens next - in the next 5 minutes or 5 years. However, as there really isn't the breadth of great episodic wrestling that we had in the past, maybe it is harder to have an emotional connection than ever before. Maybe there are just less opportunities to care. Saying that, I think if watching wrestling didn't move me in some way I'd stop watching altogether. And that is probably a key reason why I have stopped watching in the past. I can appreciate it on a purely cerebal level, but that is not enough for me. There are plenty of matches that can give me shivers.

In terms of 'caring' and particularly caring who wins and loses, is it worth thinking about how we individually approach wrestling? If we approach wrestling as a sport (albeit a pre-determined one) then maybe we are more open to making an emotional connection, or at least caring who wins. If I watch a football match I enjoy it a whole lot more if I want one team to win more than the other. There is something almost cathartic about sport in that sense - cheering someone on to win within a pre-defined set of rules (ie any sport) is a release and escape from the unfairness and uncertainty of the real world. That is why blown-calls (or in wrestling, screwy finishes) can mean so much. While wrestling is more than a sport, I do think it works best when sporting tropes are at its heart, and when I'm able to lose myself in the contest as I would do with any other sport. If we approach wrestling as an art form, or entertainment, then I guess it is easier to be detached, to admire the craft and to not really connect on a gut level. However, being completely objective seems odd too. Do we watch a movie purely to admire the direction and cinematography? Do we read a novel just to marvel at its construction? Surely, even at this level, we need to relate with the art in some way. There is art, and there is art that touches us personally and we actively care about. Same with wrestling. I guess it matters less who wins and loses, as a loss can still be constructed in an emotionally satisfying way. Yet, I still think when I watch wrestling more from this perspective I want it to move me in some way. Or what if we watch wrestling because we are interested in the business? I'm sure we're all fascinated by the industry to come extent, but watching purely from this perspective seems a little sad - to string out the movie analogy, it is a bit like going to the cinema just to keep tabs on the highest grossing films. I'm sure most wrestling fandom is a little bit of all the above, but perhaps this difference of approach can explain why for some of us an emotional connection is vital, while for others they don't see that at all. That wrestling is such an odd mix of sport/entertainment/art/business makes it harder to unpick, but ultimately satisfying in its complexity - it can do different things for different people. Anyway, enough of my rambling...

I think an emotional connection is at the heart of all great pro wrestling. It is what makes me leap from my sofa and cheer, or just believe for a little while. Appreciating wrestling purely from a technical perspective feels a little like enjoying a book just for its grammar. I think there are three facets to the emotional involvement, for me anyway... The set-up - this might be a six-month build-up or just a pre-match promo, or even just knowing that the two guys don't like one another. Essentially, some degree of pre-match storytelling or context makes it a lot easier to connect with a match quickly. While it might not be essential, it helps. This isn't just about a face making me care for him, but a heel making me hate him enough to care about the face winning. The match itself - it doesn't feel like moves or anything as tangible as that makes the difference, it is more those vague but vital elements of charisma, timing, body language. Ideally this comes from everyone in the ring, and they need to feed off of one another. I can enjoy a match with one wrestler who gets it, but it becomes magical when they both do. The smarky bit - I'm not sure how I feel about this, but it is there. I can care about a worker if he seems like a decent guy, or deserves a good run, or has been genuinely held down. Similarly, I can hate a heel who has too much clout backstage, or has been pushed to much - HHH has over the years been pretty much the ultimate Smark's Heel, for example. This is less around the greatness of believing, which is a shame, but it has still drawn me into matches. I guess the most important element of the above is what the wrestler(s) do in the ring itself, and that is how I can be drawn into a match with foreign wrestlers, but everything around the match can add to it. The drama isn't inherently in the moves, it is when the moves happen, how and why. Wrestling in a vacuum misses the point.

Another great show. I thought three hours might be too long, but it flew by and I could have easily listened for longer. I'd completely forgotten about the Savage/Roberts stuff and how out there it was. In hindsight it does feel like a dummy-run for the Attitude era. It is also interesting how protected The Undertaker was, and for how long. It seems like they knew they had hit upon something special, and that slow build helped make the gimmick so durable over the next 20+ years. The Flair/Hogan discussion was fascinating too. I liked the Flair introduction, but they didn't really make as much of it as they could. Even if house shows suggested a lack of interest it still seems bizarre that they didn't go for a big Flair/Hogan match at some point. At the time I experienced non-WWF/WCW wrestling pretty much entirely through Apter mags, so it great to revisit 1991 from this more informed perspective. I can't wait for the 1992 episode - one of favourite years in wrestling. And more interview clips please!

I'm really enjoying these shows - it is great that you're giving the subjects enough time in order to go into some depth on matches/angles etc. I'd love to hear a follow-up on non-US cage matches. In terms of the blue bars I'd assumed that they were brought in (and kept) because they made escape-rules matches a lot easier to execute, as they seem a lot easier to climb up and down than a normal cage. As the whole drama in an escape rules cage match is built around climbing the cage I can see the logic, especially with big guys, although it didn't make the more 'normal' sequences of a match any easier.