El-P

There was a recent interview with Shane Douglas, when he tells this anecdote of Dixie asking him for advices about the company. He tells her TNA should be an alternative to WWE like ECW was back in the days, not try to copy them but build their own audience by doing something different. As to illustrate what he said, just at this time the crowd was doing an ECW chant. But the answer Dixie gave him was "Why would we want to be like ECW, they failed." This is the story of TNA. (of course, the worst irony of all is that Dixie saw fit to keep Russo around until he actually cost them their TV deal, and also hire the Bischoff/Hogan team. Because WCW didn't fail, I guess.)

The whole "fans turn on whoever is on top" is a bullshit argument to try to defend WWE's tone deaf, inept booking. Because it happens only in WWE. Sure, Hogan got booed in WCW, but that was from him getting down to the NWA territory, crashing the product and after 10 years on top already. And then he turned heel and became the biggest star in the business for a while. NJ fans refused Naito's push at first. Went down to Mexico, came back as a super heel, became the hottest business card of the company and arguably still is now that the fans are behind him. See a pattern here ? But Roman : By a huge margin. And it doesn't matter, because booking doesn't matter anymore for WWE. The money they got has nothing to do with their actual day-to-day pro-wrestling product, which is not hot, as Hogan would point out. It's because they made WWE a successful brand of whatever they are. WWE is the Starbuck of pro-wrestling. Roman Reigns is a Grand Latte.

This is where you strictly are talking from the outside, as a fan, because if you watch the show, you'll get why the first years were the most fun and exciting to them (it often is, in everything, really). First off, TNA was Jeff's baby until July of 2009, after that it became a job. You really get why it was so important to Gail to finally get a woman's division and why it was so important for Velvet and the other girls to be called up from the indie scene when they created the whole Knockouts division, why in the end this was the most exciting time for them (the fact they pretty much all got along too). They really don't say much of anything about post-09, apart from shitting on Dixie from time to time (gotta love Karen "Isn't she the same person who forgot to re-sign AJ Styles ?"). I don't think Penzer was around for that long after Hogan came in, was he ? West wasn't announcing anymore. Dutch, who was so instrumental pushing the women, was gone. It's really about the inside perspective here, and it's really interesting and fun to hear, despite what you may think about the actual product (Jarrett loved the MEM & Foley stuff because it's when the ratings really went up and they were getting the sense of accomplishing something; as a watcher I think most of it was pretty terrible). Forgot, Conrad dropped by and asked the crowd if they would listen to a Jarrett podcast. Well, whatever you think of the guy, he's a hustler for sure and he did one hell of a job with this Starrcast stuff.

No ridiculous micromanagement, I would guess. The opportunity to actually work with some freedom to develop your game by yourself. About the Starrcast show another highlight was Scott Steiner explaining where the infamous math promo came from.

For anyone interested in the subject, the Starrcast Total Nonsport Jarrett show was excellent. Tons of cool and funny stories, especially once the guests (Scott Steiner out of character and really chill, Karen who still looks stunning, Gail Kim & Velvet Sky who haven't aged a bit BTW) show up. Interesting that the really fun times for them was from 2002 to 2009, it seems Dixie (who got punted several time pretty bad, including Steiner calling her a douchebag, which was really funny as it was the first mention of her on the show, Karen would pile on later on) taking control and the arrival of Hogan really is what fucked the party for them. Jarrett calls the later years a "cesspool", which is quite a strong choice of words. Dave Penzer saying he had the best time of his life in TNA was interesting considering he was there in the hottest days of WCW (I guess it was much less stressful to work in TNA). Gail Kim also said that 2007/2008 were the favorite years of her career. Her and Velvet made sure to point out TNA in 2007 is where the real "revolution" began (Gail also said she would love to see women main event Mania, but only if it was because of talent and not for marketing/PR reasons), which was nice to hear; Jarrett put the girls over a whole lot for drawing the best ratings and selling tons of merch, which Don West confirmed. Oh, and West also told some excellent stories, including a great Kurt Angle one. Really cool to hear a positive spin on those TNA years. Jeff/Karen make quite a great couple too.

I can't stand weddings, so the idea of a wedding that gets ruined always wins me over. Of course it's pro-wrestling, the wedding IS gonna get ruined anyway. Totally agree. She's great at the little things she does. Really fun character. I also thought it was cool to have Cheerleader Melissa as, well, Cheerleader Melissa to attend from nowhere, it keeps on the tradition of her being a masked character and showing up as herself just for a sequence (same thing in TNA where she was Raisha Saaed yet worked one match under the Cheerleader name at the same time). And yeah, nice twist to just have Ricky watch the carnage. "We want tacos ! " is my new favourite chant. The destruction was tremendous, that wheelchair suplex was one hell of a feat of strenght. Cobb also took great care of Taya on the reverse powerslam. Great segment overall. The XO vs Jack match was fun for what it was, but crap selling in a No Mas match really doesn't work. XO is helpless on the chair yet once he's saved, he's perfectly fine and goes on offense like nothing ? Well, ok. Ryan is so fun though, anywhere else he would have turned on XO, he's just that sleazy looking/acting even on his best behaviour. Can't wait to have a six-person match with these three, should be quite the fun stuff. Yeah, Savage is a waste of time. He's even still doing the hand on the heart stuff, so lazy (likewise the idea of him breaking ankle, so unoriginal after Penta's streak of destruction), but he's not a very inspiring character anyway, so I guess they really had no idea what to do with him. Still his best match thus far, he's totally an decent worker, but they should have put him under a mask and go for an outrageous gimmick.

Dull as fuck on all fronts (character, work, look, promos). Perfect guy to be The Man (but not really, but yes really) of the "Nothing matters anymore" era, I guess.

WTF ? (like this movie needed another reason to suck)

Depends what kind of "pro-wrestling history" you're talking about. Ask any old-school Japanese fan who is the more important, I doubt you'd get the same answer. Hansen was a huge, huge star in a pro-wrestling business that was much hotter than WWE's Cena in their respective context. Anyway, I never saw shit in Jeff Hardy and I don't see him as being very "important" in pro-wrestling history apart from setting really bad exemples in both work and life.

Benoit never became a "top" star, really. And Eddie was ripped as fuck in WWE. Hell both guys were ripped as fuck. That's the typical WWE look.

All that is well good, but he was first and foremost mostly a terrible worker and a shitty promo. What does that says about the fans, I won't go into, but I really couldn't care less about merch sales and "connection" with the fans. The fact is Jeff Hardy in-ring was sloppy as fuck, had terrible basics, was an innovator of that god-awful 00's indieriffic styles with physically awkard looking moves (see also : Edge), he was not a very impressive high flyer either if you really think about it (he was a very stupid one though, loving to bump on tables and chairs from very high places), and most of the Hardys most famous spots are directly copied from RVD/Sabu stuff anyway. Did I mention he was sloppy as fuck and had terrible basics ? I don't see that at all. The current indie-style is a product of 15 years of ROH and Japan fetichism. Jeff Hardy is a product of late 90's backyard Us wrestling, and his style clearly demonstrated it. Jeff Hardy was basically an emo teenage crush version of New Jack, minus the great promos and character. Daniel Bryan, along with CM Punk, changed the way WWE sees indie talents. Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles at SummerSlam, and the entire NXT system as it is today and has been for a few years now, doesn't happen without the Pipe Bomb and Yes ! Yes ! Yes !. That beats the hell out of whatever merch sales statistic.

What is Hardy's "legacy" ? Falling off high places ? And the worst ever "under no condition to perform" appearance ever on a major company PPV ?

https://limousinemusic.bandcamp.com/album/wrestling-wave Well, what more can you say...

New business model of WWE : entertaining dictatures all over the world !

Ratings are down. Attendance is down. Booking is the shits. They make more money than ever before and will keep on making more and more thanks to the TV fees bubble and the Saudi contract. So yeah : it doesn't matter. The WWE has entered into the "too big to fail" era, which is really scary.

Funny how people still talk about Shawn Micheals like the guy could have a great match in 2018. All his last Mania matches were overrated self-conscious epics to begin with, but it's neither here nor there : the guy is 53 years old.

Considering their 2012 act was already a bunch of old people blabbing about their glory from 10/15 years before, basically...

Ah ah ah

Would probably be hilarious, honestly. With CorpseTaker, would be even better. Hey, I did ! Of course it doesn't matter, I was never paying a dime to them to begin with to watch their stuff… That being said, after Mania last year and the crazyness of the whole week-end, I was seriously considering going maybe for my 30 years of being a pro-wrestling fan in 2020. As of now, that idea is deader than Rusev & Lana main eventers career.

Get out of the rasslin' bubble, it has nothing to do with fucking pro-wrestling. It's about getting paid to basically do PR work for a regime which stones "unfaithful" women to death and kills homosexuals. Newsflash : money isn't everything in life. (why am I even responding to this usual trolling act anyway ?)

I would guess so. Still, if he comes back only for a Saudi paycheck after years of refusing to do it, it's one hell of a whoring act.

"Everybody's got a price for the Billion Dollar Men". I wonder if that would actually hurt his popularity in the US, not that it matters.

Agreed. They barely watch and comment the thing, and it's not as good as a regular PPV edition. An ok episode, but nothing to write home about. The best part being Bruce talking about his first Brother Love appearance.

That Jose Gonzalez booker guy sure did.

Eric Bischoff, pro-wrestling superstar.