Shining Wiz

He contradicted himself here as he noted Brock's WWE deal was negotiated with the understanding Brock already had those endorsement contracts in place. The WWE's hands were tied there. Only because Brock tied them. They weren't forced by the sponsors to let their logos be shown. Brock was just in a good enough position to say he wears the logos, WWE pays out the contract or he doesn't wrestle for them.

Not disagreeing with the notion that Vince is by far the most succesful promoter ever and therefore obviously knows what he's doing better than most. But I will say any company that stands on "We're the most succesful at this business, we know better than anyone so don't question us" is pretty much doomed to failure. And I'm afraid that's where they may be. I don't remember a time where the shows seemed so aimless and scatterbrained. Which is a shame, because I don't think I remember a time when the roster was so talented. When people talk about the roster not having depth, I assume they mean in star power rather than in talent. But the lack of star power is the fault of WWE. And that lack of star power looks to be the result of the scatterbrained, aimless nature of the shows. Just look at all the guys who have their legs cut out from them this year alone - Cesaro, Wyatt, Ambrose, Bryan..... I was a long holdout in the "yeah, they may not do it the way I'd like to see it, but they must have a long term plan to get where they want to go". I'm out of that now. Cesaro has had the potential to break out since he showed up.....and they just keep shoving him back down. He's a guy who doesn't need to be a traditional heel or a face....just let him be him and go. He's an interesting character that people are drawn to....if you give them something. But they have no clue what to do with him, and that shows. Wyatt.....hottest new act in forever. But they have no idea what to do with him, so they made him magic. Wonderful. Ambrose was another guy who has a personality and they could have strapped a rocket to and see where it goes.......but no. Same thing Bryan. They may have had him be the focal point of 'Mania, but they didn't have plans for him afterwards. And looking at Vince's tenure in full - he's had two white hot periods in 30 years, each existing for about a 3 year period (85-88 and 97-2000), each based around a transcendant star (Hogan and Austin). His entire empire is based off of this. It's been 15 years since the last truly hot cycle for them. They've had blips here and there, but that's it. Their profile today exists based off what they built then. As for Vince's genius - 6 years out of 30 or 31 as the owner of the company. 24 or 25 not as hot/outright cold years. I obviously have no inside knowledge regarding the company, how it's run, or who does what. But from all the first hand reports of how things run out there, you have a 70 year old trying to tell stories that interest him, aimed primarily at an age group 50 to 60 years younger than him, based on a formula that hasn't really changed at its base in 30 years but seems to think the next hot streak is inevitable. The network numbers should be a wake up. 4 millionish people watch Raw for free. 1 million people pay for Wrestlemania. 700,000 people are willing to shell out monthly for as much as they can get. Worldwide. That is a massive disconnect in people who will look at your product, and people who will pay for it. And why won't they pay for it? It's not because they're dumb or don't understand that $9.99 is cheap.....it's because they're not interested. Possibly because what titilates a 70 year old millionaire doesn't work for the masses.

Yes. Exactly.

If they watch Raw weekly, I'd say they're more than casual. I'm a huge wrestling nerd, and I haven't watched Raw weekely in close to a decade.

Live wrestling audiences aren't the best barometer for intelligence, but they are the best barometer for how a wrestling act is perceived. As for the retort, my issue is with the use of the word "sissy", not of any insult. It's not that far off from calling him a faggot or something similar. As for the Russians, I agree they're heels by design, but just acting towards Russia as U.S. faces do towards the US makes them heels. When it's not your country, it stands out like a core thumb and often makes the dupposed faces seem like jerks.

Well, conspiring to keep punk wrestling while knowing he has a staph infection would be potentially massively counterproductive since he could spread that shit all over. You don't fuck with staph. That shit is NASTY. Now....just being lazy about it, I buy.

Nothing completely earth shattering, except maybe that he was suspended and then fired rather than "walked out". I think it goes to show that when you handle your shit smartly and don't run to every outlet imaginable, there's a good chance that not everyone will know what is going on, not even us internet wrestling nerds who like to imagine we gave a direct line to backstage news/gossip. Sad that he seems to hate wrestling as a whole, rather than just WWE itself. Punk is a guy who put out a lot of what I like in my wrestling and I'd be happy if he decide to wrestle more. That being said, I definitely see the attraction of training jits every day and not putting up with a hectic travel schedule combined with bs. As for the bs, if 1/4 of what he says is true/remotely accurate, then that's just sad. Probably the final nail in the coffin of my "they must have a plan, even if they're not great at executing it" point of view. If Vince actually thinks the UFC is barbaric....good lord. Might be time to start seriously considering what wrestling might be like without WWE around because it might be in more danger than we thought. All in all, Punk sounds like he's happy and relieved (and wealthy) to move on with his life. He also sounds more like a real person than a lot of ex wrestling celebrities fo.

Well, you could find the 'sissy' to be the bad guy in that scenario, and the big guy who resorts to sexist based insults to be the good guy. Conversely, I could find the cheap shot artist to initially be the bad guy, but more sympathetic when the guy he cheap shots resorts to distasteful and childish insults. That's the fun thing about shades of grey....it lets the crowd decide how they want to cheer/boo a situation, rather than telling them this is the good guy, this is the bad guy. Just like as to me, as not being from the US, Rusev is quite often more sympthetic than those he goes up against. The Slaughter angle being just the latest and most glaring example. Often felt the same about the Russians. When it's two countries you're not a native of, it's quite often the 'home' country who comes off worse than the 'invading' country. Xenophobic is certainly a word that comes to mind, but not to be applied to the foreigners. It's why the foreigners are always bad. As for Zeb/Swagger.....they were being cheered when saying the most racist stuff I've seen on wrestling in quite some time. They were getting cheers from the time they debuted against ADR.

Damn, I should have studied McKigney more closely. The Terrible Ted story would have made for a great bio. His Wiki page is amazing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrible_Ted He's also the subject of possibly the best wrestling book ever written - Drawing Heat. It's written by a cultural anthropologist who toured around with him for a while. This is post bear. But it is a great view of wrestling on the margins in the 70s and 80s.

Isn't that just what they did with Ryback for a little bit last year? Didn't get over that much.

"Heels" don't really work anymore. If they're good at what they do, people will cheer them. And "X-Pac heat" IS heat, but it's still not good. The answer is to do away with the need for the good guy/bad guy dynamic. Either in this or another thread, someone talked about the NJPW "post-modern" dynamic where, for the most part, there are no traditional good guys and bad guys, just normal personalities who fall somewhere on a spectrum. There's no reason short of a lack of imagination that the same couldn't be applied in North America. ECW touched on that a bit, but not as much as they could have/should have.

You got me. I type just to type. And since I don't have good ideas to replace your bad ones, you win boss.

You're right. Since I have no alternatives, your ideas win.

Let's see....first, making a heel feminist character would serve to alienate whatever female fan base there is, and draw some pretty bad publicity. That will happen when a company with a horrendous track record regarding treatment and presentation of women takes the time to make a heel out of someone pointing that out. I would guess that George Zimmerman would be cheered by most of the crowd. Kind of like how Zeb turned himself face by being a racist. As for having a wife beating character.....yeah......no. That would not go over well. There is plenty of fertile ground for compelling characters and stories without needing to go for the lowest common denominator of racist and misogynistic bs.

This all sounds......awful? Here's an idea - how about they let characters be a touch more realistic and have, you know, feelings and moods. How about letting a heel be a compelling character who, if he starts to get cheers, DOESNT CHANGE THE THINGS THAT PEOPLE ARE CHEERING IN ORDER TO TURN FACE?!?! Or, how about looking up the word subtlety and applying a little. WWE should stay far, far, far away from racism angles. Newell, at least the intentional ones.....they seem to make every angle involving a black guy racist unintentionally.

Your enjoyment of that sentence combined with your name is disturbing.

Yessir.

Rudy Kay, not Bobby Kay. The Maritime Beadt was Yvonne Cormier.

You've got your Beasts mixed up. Dave McKigney was based out of Ontario, ran an outlaw circuit and wrestled Ted the bear. The bear, incidentally, killed his wife. McKigney died in the same accident that killed Adrian Adonis. The Beast from the Maritimes was the older brother of Leo Burke and Bobby Kay. Last name Cormier, if I remember correctly. He had several world title shots over the years, and did several territory tours. His last match would have been in the late 80s or early 90s for Grand Prix. He was horse lover, and won several shows around the Maritimes.

Great run in ROH that felt like a big deal. Over skilled and underused otherwise.

I met a majority of the ROH 2006/2007 roster at a couple of Wrestlemania weekends. Jack Evans and Bryan Danielson stood out as being particularly nice people. Austin Aries, not so much. And Tyler Black/Seth Rollins was either kind of a jerk, or just uncomfortable having to have dinner with a bunch of weird, weird people.

Dusty the character wasn't beyond self-importance.

Wrestling is a form for telling simple stories. You have the title and I want it. You cheated and I’m mad. You injured/disrespected/otherwise offended me and I want revenge. Just about all angles boil down to this. Quality tends to come from how well you can dress that all up. The fact that wrestling is a vehicle for simple storytelling is why when someone goes for something slightly less simple – Raven had a rough childhood; CM Punk is a real person with moods – they’re hailed as being revolutionary, or at least that they stand out from the pack as a “complex character”. This simplicity is reflected in the lack of social or cultural awareness of the milieu the product takes place in. I’m not saying anything about being politically correct, I’m talking about being socially and culturally aware of your surroundings. In a business designed to make money from fans, not exploiting that is just leaving money on a table. I think most of it comes from the fact that, for the most part, wrestling companies are run by 40+ year old, middle class white guys. That results in the end product generally being focused through a cultural pinhole. Which is a shame. A lot of us have grown up with pro wrestling as a go to entertainment product, and what worked for us 10 doesn’t work at 15 which doesn’t work at 20 which is different than what we want at 30 which seems ridiculous at 40. To cite back to earlier references, Bill Watts calling Jim Cornette a sissy would have been the height of wit when I was 10. Now that I actually know what that means, it makes Watts a bully and Cornette sympathetic. I need something a little bit more than the big oversized jock picking on the unathletic nerd to stir my drink these days. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of what we get though. Through the pinhole, this is what THEY (being those who decide who does what when and how) think a good guy should do. That pinhole is why the nominal “good guys” are almost always dicks – Hogan, Rhodes, Cena, Warrior, Michaels..... Its particularly a WWF/E problem, but like all things North American wrestling, their influence spreads. The biggest good guy is almost always the character I find the most morally detestable. The era of the big bully is over socially and culturally, which is partly why the timing was right for someone like Bryan to get over as he did last year. It’s why someone like Punk was the most consistently over guy on the roster for several years. But.....we get what comes through the pinhole. Just look at that Slaughter/Lana/Rusev angle from the last night, or the Rusev character in general. He’s a heel for saying he’s proud of his adopted country. If his adopted country was the US, he’d be a huge face. But because it’s not, he’s the bad guy. And seriously....you could book him exactly the same, but if he had adopted the USA, he’d be a huge face. The guy gets bullied, double teamed, insulted, etc....but he doesn’t back down and he stands up for the one person who helps him. Sounds like a good guy to me. But through the pinhole.....he’s evil because he’s foreign. It simplistic and kind of boring. And don’t get me started on the plight of the wrestling black man.....I honestly don’t think that’s improved all that much, other than the stereotype being mildly adjusted. All of which to say is that wrestling is, as always, woefully behind the times. Minorities’ gimmicks are that they are minorities, and stories can’t get past their simplistic basis.

I'm still shocked people need Patera research to validate him as a candidate. His prime pre dates my fandom, but it's not hard to find video evidence he was a big deal, and not a horrible wrestler for being a power lifter. Damn good talker too.

It undoubtedly is, but the set ups to the 619 always stood out to me as forced since they required such an uncommon reaction to landing in the ropes.