WrestlingPower

In some ways I almost see Shane Douglas as a more tragic figure than Axl, Balls, or New Jack. Those guys arguably didn't have all that much going for them and as I guess Wade Kelller said in the film, it's not surprising those kind of guys gravitated to Heyman/ECW and were willing to do whatever to get over in that lifestyle & it's not a huge shock they got caught up in the culture. Douglas on the other hand, if memory serves, was all but retired in 1994 and they had to convince him to come back as The Franchise, and I think even that was supposed to be a part time deal. I think he was going to medical school or something. But he got bit with the bug BAD to the point that here we are 12 years later and he is the main guy it seems continually trying to spearhead the next ECW movement. For a guy who seemingly was so well equipped for life outside of wrestling to continously stay caught up in the whirlwind of banging his head against the proverbial wall trying to run the same type of fed over & over to diminishing returns is quite sad. Even if he insists on being in the business you'd think by this point he would realize the ECW ship has sailed & try to use his business knowledge, promotional connections, and/or agent/producer skills toward something a little more fulfilling.

(As with any review I don't claim to have been able to do a better job, I just thought some of the production decisions weren't ones I would have made.) I finished watching the movie & the nearly one hour of extras. I really enjoyed mostly everything. The movie was very balanced, the 2 hours flew by and it was a very compelling story even though it was one I was familiar with. I can’t say there was anything glaring that I learned but it was really cool how it was pieced together with comments from such a wide variety of people and with the fancam footage. I don’t know if this is a criticism or not but for those wanting more from the bigger names that were in ECW, they did the best with what they had and had a good cross section of guys there from the various stages of the company. One might argue there was an over-reliance on Mike Johnson & Dave Scherer but those guys lived it and built their careers off of covering ECW and didn’t just cover it from afar. I especially liked the bonus features on the iconic buildings of ECW, the Arena itself (which it appears was filmed in 2001) and the Elks Lodge in Queens (which I’m guessing was filmed then too). The coolest part of those segments was how they laid in footage of the actual jam packed ECW events over top of what the buildings were like post-ECW. The one negative that I will say about the film that kind of bugged me was the Extreme Reunion footage. It seemed really out of place & kind of broke up the continuity of the story. Interrupting the narrative on ECW's history to show Shane Douglas going to the hotel to figure out what was up with a drugged Sabu seemed very random why that was even in there. The Jerry Lynn segment was cool & all but seemed out of place as well especially since it had nothing to do with anything else and the story they were telling did not focus on individual wrestlers. I think they could have quickly mentioned the fact there had been innumerable ECW reunion attempts over the years and this was the latest one as a way to set the stage as to a context for the 2012 footage without including random stories from that promotion. It's not germane to the topic at hand. To me it came off as if this was the only attempt at a revival and also possibly them just feeling compelled to make use of this footage they had access to shoot. The DVD box explains that the story contains a juxtaposition of the story of the promotion itself against a backdrop of a singular event in 2012 but to me all that was unnecessary and was time better spent fleshing out more of the ECW history. To me the “alternate beginning” showing the roots of ECW from the TWA would have been more factually correct than the muddy focus at the beginning with the Extreme Rising stuff. I do think they needed to set the stage as to where ECW fit into the national landscape though that they may not have had with the TWA-focused intro. I did like that the story had a focus throughout, it was all about how the company relied on its fans, the fans reaction to things, and the business side of the company itself. What its strengths were, what made it different and how everything worked together to run as long as it did. There were no attempts to be all things, as in no lengthy pieces on the talent, storylines, or characters. It was about the business and the culture and the film stayed on task (aside from the Extreme Rising stuff). To me the segment on the Dudleys was more about what it did in relation to the crowd than a focus on them as an act or overemphasizing their importance. A couple things I think were missing that should have been included were segments on the women and the international talent. Tapping into their audience’s sexual desire was as big a part of their appeal as the violence. To me they should have tried to get comments from Francine or Beulah or someone and at least touched on the lesbian angle. They also failed to mention about how ECW gave a break to international talents that their tape trading audience might have been familiar with. To me it seemed they oversimplified things as saying the violence & irreverence & unpredictablility was what set them apart (with numerous comments of people saying how that wasn’t the only appeal). But to me these 2 things should have been touched on. One other thing I wanted to touch on from talking with one of the producers during the early stages of this. They seemed to be overly concerned during production about making a movie that could be featured at film fests and would be larger in scope than just appealing to a wrestling audience. On those counts I think they really failed unfortunately but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I can't imagine anyone not into wrestling being the least bit interested. There was a lot of narrative/exposition at the front trying to paint the picture of the wrestling landscape at the time & how ECW tried to be an alternative & what they did to be that. But I can't see any non-fan (or anyone with no exposure to wrestling at all) caring in the least to invest 2 hours into this unless it's like a case study in a Sociology class. Especially since they are talking about a time frame of 18 years ago and using SD footage to tell the story (which by the way didn’t take away one iota from my enjoyment of it). So overall I give this my highest recommendation. I was obviously more connected to this since I’ve been friends with Johnny P. for several years and donated to the project but this is a worthwhile movie to watch whether you are a fan who came along post-ECW or lived thru it. It truly recaptures the magic that existed at that time and makes you long for aspects of that again.

I must say I have little interest in Today In Wrestling History unless it's something really important or noteworthy that would prompt a good discussion. Running down a dry list like is posted on Observer every day (that I skip) is of no interest to me. The Yearbook ones would either have to be multiple shows or focus on one promotion at a time or a few month span at a time. Discussing or even touching on 120 hours of footage in a 2-3 hour show, there's just no way.

I think in hindsight, the Cornette/ECW thing is hard to understand but at the time it was completely justified (or at least understandable that he would think that way, not being a viewer of ECW). SMW was no different than any other Southern territory in its use of gimmick matches. ECW was guys doing stupid stuff to get noticed regardless of what it did to their bodies or their opponent's. That was the difference, Cornette had guys bleed a lot & do violent stuff but that was part & parcel of the business he ran. The ECW that Cornette railed about (and those of us that were fans of both at the time knew he was over-sensationalizing) was about guys getting drunk or drugged up & doing some stupid stuff to get noticed. There's a big difference between running a chain match & a Taipei Death match. I agree with the above comments on Brian Lee's heel turn being the best thing for him. As for the Bruise Brothers, they actually weren't bad at the time. Their gang fight (or whatever it was called) with Heavenly Bodies that headlined Thanksgiving Thunder in Knoxville was the best SMW match I ever saw live. They were best used in brawling style matches & Cornette used them that way including turning them & having them fight Moondogs. They were good in their brief ECW run too I thought. After that they were garbage as they got lazy. The big drawback to them in SMW was they were dangerous for fans. They didn't care so if someone in the crowd pissed them off, they'd go punch him. I'm not sure what match was being referred to as stalling Smothers' momentum but if you're talking about the chain match, that is 100% not true having lived thru it. That was his final validation, triumphing over DWB, becoming champ and breaking free from his being perceived as a mid-carder. I would argue he might be one of the few success stories of Cornette as booker in taking a guy who was seen as a jabroni on the national stage & making him into a legit draw & star regionally. I was surprised to hear a recent podcast with Tom Prichard who really downplayed the whole Bodies/RnR feud as being a total walk-thru/rehash of MX/RnR to diminishing crowds. Not only did I think the Bodies were something fresh at the time but it certainly wasn't diminishing gatest that killed the promotion, it was the TV money situation. And certainly by the time SMW started to look on its last legs in 1995, Bodies/RnR was LONG since over.

Will is still working on this and no stone is unturned, he was asking me dates on obscure indy stuff I had supplied him.

Those details seem to line up with Roddy's story but the timeline doesn't. The story about he & Rich getting lost is most definitely on the way to Chattanooga. But his chapter on touring PR & Santo Domingo with Flair while he was blackballed from the states seems to line up with Flair's late Aug/Early Sept. 1982 tours of those places. And I'm finding results online of Piper in Mid-Atlantic in Aug/Sept 1982. The timeline is all wacky as Roddy seems to intimate that he was blackballed for months and that him getting a job with Vince was not too long after the blackballing was over, but that was 1984. Actually that brings up another interesting point. Meltzer always presented Vince going national as completely a Vince Jr. thing and that Sr. had denied knowing about it but most thought he must have. Roddy tells the story the opposite, that it was Sr.'s idea, that he did all the calling around to gather talent, complete with telling them they were going to invade other territories, and it wasn't until they all moved up there & showed up to TV in Harrisburg that Sr. & Jim Barnett introduced Jr. as the new guy running the show. If that's true that paints Sr. in a completely different light than I had ever heard.

Another thing in the book that seemed a bit of a stretch was claiming that Crockett's Starrcade 83 came as a result of being envious of McMahon's Shea Stadium show and feeling the need to be seen at the same level nationally. Shea Stadium was August of 1980, Starrcade some 3+ years later. Either Crockett was stewing for an awful long time or it took him 3 years to get the pieces in place to pull this off. Or Piper is just making things up. I seem to remember hearing the Starrcade idea came about after the March 83 Greensboro show where they turned people away for The Final Conflict.

So I've been reading Piper's book lately & wanted to check on some of the things I've run across in there that I've never heard before. I assume if these are totally false then he must be Hogan-level in being a fiction writer but I'm assuming maybe there are just exaggerations. 1) Claims he broke his neck in a plane crash while working in Mid-Atlantic in the early 80s. His story talks about how Sgt. Slaughter was thrown across the plane & that Piper hit his head on the roof & broke his neck. Claims he needed 4 people to help him walk off the plane but wrestled that night. He doesn't give a year this occurred nor mention how much time he missed after or anything. There are details about where they were flying from & to that could be cross referenced I guess to get a time frame. 2) This one is repeated on wikipedia. Claims he was blackballed from wrestling in the US after he & Tommy Rich were late to a show & missed it completely. This is confusing at best in its placement in the book. It's in the Mid-Atlantic chapter (there is no Georgia chapter) but Tommy Rich didn't really work Mid-Atlantic and I think they were going to or from Chattanooga, so sounds like Georgia territory. It's oddly placed in the book as well as he tells this story after talking about the late 83 dog collar matches with Valentine but as the story unfolds, it is clearly a year or more prior since the story ends with him being brought back to Mid-Atlantic. I'm sure this isn't a complete work as he devotes a whole chapter to his international travels with Flair to PR, etc. but claims it was due to him not being allowed to wrestle in the states. 3) The above road story with Rich also includes a conspiracy theory that Piper says he doesn't believe. The theory is that Rich was jealous of Piper, got lost on purpose, and thinking he was untouchable in the promotion that he would be fine & Piper would be fired. Which is what happened but also included the alleged blackballing. I would think it would take more to get "blackballed" than no-showing one show. 4) Claims he & Valentine had 45 dog collar matches over the 60 days following Starrcade 83. Looking at History of WWF website, there are only 5 listed post-Starrcade. All this may have been covered before since this book is probably close to 10 years old but I was wondering if my BS meter should be going off at these stories or if the details have been lost over the years. Any insight anyone has, I would be curious to read.

So does anyone know if ROH has stopped using them over the incident or it's just cheaper not to use any of them if they aren't using all of them? Or cheaper for the wrestlers to not drive there if all 3 can't come?

ROH is clearly just trying anything they can to find a revenue source. Releasing old footage of guys who went on to bigger & better things is smart to me especially since most of their older DVD stock was no longer available and the main selling point of them anymore would have been matches of these guys. The sad part about the situation is more people buy these comps of old guys than their current product (not unlike WWE). They are also clearly (slowly) abandoning the live show/DVD model in favor of trying to take advantage of iPPVs. Certainly the newly added PPV will have more people watching & more $ coming in with PPV added to live crowd #s. But I'm concerned just how quickly they burn out that revenue stream. To me this show is extremely skippable. Moving the product toward nothing but TV & iPPV is a more likely end result here than the company closing up in the next year or so but if creative changes aren't made, I think they are in for more fan apathy & falling business in that time. Oh and a point that most seemed to miss in the pages of earlier discussion, I don't think ROH ever wanted to attract the MMA viewers/fans themselves. The intent was to get the lapsed wrestling fans back, some of whom probably had moved on to watching MMA just as a "something to watch". I've never thought wrestling should be influenced by MMA as wrestling has always been sold as an extension of amateur wrestling, not of a fighting art form. The point is to pin someone, not injure them. Anyway, I had no problem with the "faux MMA" storyline as to me it was an attempt to modernize things & play off of something clearly a part of pop culture.

I haven't finished reading thru this thread so this may be redundant. On my trips to Tokyo for the 2001 and 2002 Dome shows, I remember the sentiment around Naoya Ogawa very much transcended language barriers. He was a huge draw to wrestling fans in a way that seemed to straddle kayfabe. From what I remember Ogawa was such a prick (whether worked or not or a combination) by refusing to sell for or do jobs for pro wrestlers and working stiff with them that it really riled up the pro wrestling fans. I think they would have been ok with an outsider coming into their world and playing fair, but this guy had the nerve to come in and not cooperate and ticket sales boomed by people coming out in hopes of watching him get his comeuppance. I think eventually it turned into more & more of a work but Hash/Ogawa was certainly the main thing I remember as the tipping point as even then I was trying to ignore all the MMA stuff.

On the original topic, I agree with above thoughts that wrestling isn't really "needed" or something Americans are really craving or looking for. I don't want to debate what level of a "dying industry" this might be but I propose to uncouple the 2 topics in the title of the thread. To be a #2 company does not inherently mean wanting to rival or overtake Vince, does it? There's just no need. I'm not even sure the fanbase as it was in 2002 was necessarily looking for that much less what fanbase is left in 2012. I would think that establishing a viable (but extremely distant) #2 would be your best chance and then if WWE falls apart post-Vince, you automatically close the gap. I think the thing we've all come to realize though is that it's really hard to break even without a good backer. I don't think you could run a profitable national wrestling company just off the wrestling shows & the revenue streams themselves because of the money needed for advertising, marketing, and getting/maintaining a TV deal. Even with all that said, to me the time is ripe for someone to come along as competition for TNA or to scoop up the pieces should Panda decide to dump it, just so you aren't starting from nothing. To me there needs to be more alternatives at the level of TNA and/or ROH. To me it's that mid-level of promotion that is most in danger of failing & fading away. A world of nothing but WWE & thousands of low level indies that only run a handful of markets with nothing much in between is a very real possibility in the next 5 years. It comes back to no one with the desire to do it knows how and/or has access to the people with money & vice versa. Sorry if I didn't actually go anywhere with this as far as answering the desired question but to me a more realistic discussion would be what lessons could be learned if a new #2/3 level promotion came along that would give them more of a chance of success if the current options failed. I'm not sure I 100% buy into Meltzer's theory that all but the top level group in a genre are doomed to failure. I think we need more #2/#3 level options to spread the wealth around & generate more dollars at that level and the combination of multiple promotions at that level would be somewhat competition to WWE rather than one company by itself.

That was at Bluegrass Brawl that luckily was the night he was getting revenge. I was a big fan & following it during the whole run of the promotion and I think they cut bait on Brian Lee as soon as they could. He was an "up & comer" type in Memphis that Cornette saw good size & look in & took a chance on him as the guy. Admittedly he kind of lucked into getting Smothers & having him get over as well as he did but if you follow Southern booking in that era, things don't move but so fast. The Sullivan & DWB feuds are all Lee had on top & then was kept strong after he lost the belt so his turn would mean something. Lucily they had Smothers at the time to take over as lead face. Lee didn't really wear out his welcome with the fanbase until he got lazy when preparing for the fake Undertaker thing, after the team with Candido ran its course. After the WWF thing failed, he had nothing left other than the brief ECW run. And reading back a few pages, I think Cornette in 1995 realized just how lame & weak his "Union" gimmick was & the fact he needed to maintain the credibility/relevance of his character, he latched onto Snow & Unabom. You are right, they didn't need him at all but many territories over the years went thru periods where one manager pretty much managed all the important heels.

I was at the match where Tim Horner "waved" the flag by beating up Don Wright. I really don't remember much about the match but don't remember it hurting momentum or anything. I do remember they were planting seeds for Horner/Smothers and they may have had a match in Morristown or something. I'm thinking Cornette addressed this in one of the Q&As. My guess is Horner didn't want to turn, I can't remember, I just know that by the end of 93 Cornette was coming up with creative ways of using him (I think he had a couple different masked gimmicks). I always look back on 1993 as the peak of the promotion, particularly Bluegrass Brawl.

Interesting to read that. I'm not sold on that argument though. RnR were famous for carrying people so it could have worked regardless of how bad of workers the Gangstas were. The issue, as Cornette explained it and I totally agree with, is that people didn't want to pay to see the Gangstas get beat up. I don't think he "underestimated" racism, maybe overestimated it, people didn't want the guys in their town & didn't want to pay to see them there. They were too in-your-face with the "I'm going to move into your neighborhood" stuff as opposed to traditional heat that would get people to pay to see someone get revenge on them. Having seen the infancy of the gimmick live, it was very much cheap race-baiting, I'm going to move to your neighborhood, get with your old lady/daughter, etc. type fan baiting instead of putting heat on the babyfaces they would feud with. It was a very political time & Cornette thought they could garner attention with the NAACP, Rodney King stuff.

To revisit an earlier topic and put a different spin on it, I think it may be time for them to start "farming out" coverage of stuff they don't have time to cover themselves. It seems like Bryan is starting to make more use of Alan & Steve Sims for stuff in his newsletter, why can't Dave do the same other than he never has? To follow up on the "group think" talking point from earlier, to me defending their coverage of the highest profile promotions at the expense of everything else just contributes to the problem. They have completely marginalized anything non WWE/UFC/TNA that they almost talk down to those who care about anything else as being followers of something that doesn't matter. Bryan's conversation with Steve Sims a month or so ago really hit this point home as Steve tried to talk about how promotions that are deemed unimportant are having more & more trouble making payroll, etc. to the point that one day the promoters may decide why bother. To me Dave/Bryan are part of the problem here. LOTS of us discovered wrestling we had never seen thru the Observer. Now anyone that doesn't care only about the most visible stuff gets pushed aside and their interests are deemed unimportant & not worthy of anyone's time. How many times have they covered indies but always have the paragraph about them not being able to get above the level they are at? It's no wonder why, they can't get the coverage. I think the time would be right for them to give some balance to indy coverage even if they can't do it themselves to break the trend of the groupthink & keep people on their site instead of going to PWInsider & other sites. I think someone mentioned a long while back that a website of Meltzer & Mike Johnson may have been the best option of all.

Re: Brody/Luger: pretty sure I heard recently that Luger left the building & went straight to Crockett, where did this idea come from that they sat down & made friends after? I call BS on that one. Back to Terry Taylor: has anyone seen the Highspots "Behind the Curtain" shoot he did & care to compare the 2? I am usually intrigued by most of the Kayfabe Commentaries releases but don't really feel any of them are worth the price they charge.

Re: the child support thing, if I recall correctly that was Morton's fault as well. He very easily could have correctly reported his income to be the much lower post-WCW amount but if I recall correctly he thought his children deserved to be paid at that level even if he couldn't afford it so used it as some sort of "inspiration" to do what he could to earn up to that level. Not sure Morton would ever be accused of being the sharpest knife in the drawer as even if they sold out everywhere they went in SMW the towns weren't big enough to support that level of money.

Even then I don't think he was Vince's type. Too short, too hairy, too Southern. Not to mention whatever shape his health was in at the time.

Why are St. Louis figures hard to come by? I would think Matysik has all that info or has it just not made its way online?

Whatever happened to her? Or is that something to ask Naylor off the record?

Did you miss this part about the guy who sent the drugs? "Cruz, now 31 and living in Kissimmee, Fla., was arrested in Moore County in November 2010 on charges of conspiracy to traffic in opium and two counts of trafficking in opium. He is free on $50,000 bond. His next court date is in November." Did he try to come to visit? Also the way the article is worded I'm not entirely clear if the coffee can itself was addressed or if it was in a box. I would find someone using a coffee can as a shipping container to be quite suspicious as well. Sounds like this guy wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Knoxville was easy to just walk in with the camcorder. Johnson City was the only building that cared. The only times I filmed there were during Fanweek (when we were let in early & it was a directive from Cornette that we could film every show) and what turned out to be the 2nd to last show. That one was an inside job where I had a local indy guy carry my camera bag in & hand it off to me once I was in. I was still questioned & taken to the office by Sandy Scott during the opener (which is why that is incomplete) but got out of it by saying I was filming for public access & he confused it with whatever public access Tommy Noe filmed for. Oh and Charlotte I had to put the camera back in the car & then have someone who did an SMW newsletter let me out the back door & then back in once I went & retrieved the camera. All that said there were a lot of shows that Tommy Noe filmed (and sent to RF until Cornette & RF had a falling out) and Tony Brown filmed a few in J.City by sneaking the camera in his gf's purse. I've been trying to locate him for years to get an upgrade of the show w/ Boo vs. Candido dogfood match.