Sean Liska

Is there a better possible dream match in current wrestling than Daniel Bryan/Negro Casas? Any two current active guys that would be more fun to watch? Maybe Bryan/Lesnar I guess.

The Network is one of the biggest risks he's ever taken. He completely undercut Mania.

So weird that Punk hates Jericho so much after Jericho did 3 clean PPV jobs to him. .

TLC's two main events are Cena-Rollins and Ambrose-Wyatt. Three of the four guys in prime spots are relatively new to the main event scene. The plan for Mania is to headline with a guy who's been in the main event of one PPV previously. There' no indication that those are going to be sustained pushes. Just look at Wyatt who went from mega over act, to jobbing to Cena and then being off of TV for a while. In three months time they'll most likely be back to Cena versus the Authority figure, or versus Orton, or whatever. Vince has proven time and again that unless his back is against the wall he fears changing things up. As long as there is no competition Vince has no reason to change things up and that's why WWE ends up with so many guys with failed main event pushes. Wyatt feuded with Cena for three months. Yes, he eventually lost, because it was presented as a battle of good vs. evil for Cena's soul and if you've followed New York wrestling for the past 50 years, faces tend to come out on top. Then Wyatt moved on to the Jericho feud which culminated in a clean win at SummerSlam. They gave him a month off to freshen up and he returned in the main event of the HITC PPV and is in a major feud with Ambrose now. Really, the whole main event scene is filled with fresh talent right now. Cena and Orton are the only guys that have been around for a long time. (not counting utility guys like Kane and Show as headliners)

Wouldn't the unprecedented revenue and profits in the decade pre-Network be considered something of a triumph?

I remember being so deflated when Jericho beat HHH for the title at RAW and then inexplicably did a clean job to HHH in the tag team main event at the end of the show to put him back in his place. I remember Edge and Christian often getting treated like jobbers by Taker. I remember everyone being excited for Angle, Benoit and Jericho getting big matches at Fully Loaded and all three losing clean and Angle being treated like a joke by Taker. Hated the payoff to the Angle-HHH feud.

That's not even how modern WWE really works now. Cena was 4th from top at Mania. He was underneath Bryan-Kane and Evolution-Shield at Extreme Rules. He was underneath the Shield at Payback. He was only inserted into the SummerSlam main event because Bryan was hurt. He was underneath Rollins-Ambrose at HITC. He wasn't a main focus of the Survivor Series main event. WWE is more of an ensemble than ever.

TLC's two main events are Cena-Rollins and Ambrose-Wyatt. Three of the four guys in prime spots are relatively new to the main event scene. The plan for Mania is to headline with a guy who's been in the main event of one PPV previously.

That's just such an overly harsh way of looking at modern WWE. He eventually gave in and went with Bryan for one of the all-time great moments at Mania. Ambrose and Rollins, two indy guys, headlined a PPV this year and are spectacular performers. My main interest in the next few years of WWE is seeing how high Ambrose can go. I'm grateful that they're willing to pay so much money to Brock because he's had some amazing spectacles. The Survivor Series main event was a lot of fun and featured a big night for Ziggler. The internet used to like Wyatt, so that was a positive for Vince. Rusev is awesome and getting a big push. I just don't see how WWE deserves all of the vitriol it gets in terms of who they're pushing now. I get it, Cesaro should be pushed more. And less Cena. But even Cena worked 4th from top at Mania, worked under Bryan at Extreme Rules, and was only in the SummerSlam main event because Bryan got hurt. And he was an afterthought in the Survivor Series main event.

What are these territories 30 years ago that were selling out major venues so consistently? Sean, you have to give that point to him it can't be won. More like 35-40 years ago (70s more than 80s), but most of the territories did good steady business hitting 8,000-12,000 gates on their regular big show loops for years. It can't be denied that far fewer people net see live wrestling every week than they did during the height of the territories. WWE still does 8,000-10,000 on a lot of Mondays and more than that for PPVs. The difference from the old days is that people have picked up on how irrelevant house shows are, and they run two tours to drag down averages. RAWs and PPVs serve the purpose that house shows used to in being where things "matter".

What are these territories 30 years ago that were selling out major venues so consistently?

WWE is highly successful by any historic standards. The Rumble sold out this year in minutes. So did SummerSlam. Payback sold out Chicago. Extreme Rules sold out NJ. MITB sold out quickly in Boston. TLC is going to sell out. The last international tour had plenty of big crowds. Mania does a $10 million gate every year now. The whole thing about how wrestling is at it's lowest interest level in 100 years is such an empty talking point. Of course things are different than the days of dozens of local promotions having free TV during eras where there were 4 channels. Everything on TV except football has less general interest than it used to. Welcome to 2014. The 1998 NBA Finals averaged 29 million viewers. Last year's Finals, with the made-for-TV Lebron story and Spurs redemption deal, did 15 million. Game 7 of the 97 World Series, with two teams lacking national appeal in Cleveland and Florida, did 39 million viewers. Game 7 of last year's World Series did 23 million.

I agree. I like Cesaro and he could be pushed more. But he's not a game-changer. It's not some huge sign that Vince needs to hang it up. It's amazing to me that we got this rare in-depth interview with one of the great minds in the history of the industry and all anyone wants to talk about is Cesaro. If they send Ambrose back to the midcard, I'll be on board with everyone being mad at Vince because I think Ambrose has the highest ceiling since Cena. If they don't get good runs out of Reigns and Rollins and Bryan, I'll be on board. Cesaro? They'll survive.

Because he doesn't want to push Cesaro, a guy who didn't even have the charisma to headline in ROH consistently?

The internet hasn't been happy with Vince since WM17. We're just bringing up his age now because it's convenient, but it's not like people thought he was doing an amazing job in 2003 but has fallen way off since then. To me, he's fine. I honestly don't see the Gagne comparisons. He's got a crop of young guys that can carry them for a long time, The PPVs have been really good this year. The Lesnar title reign and ending of the streak shows he still has balls. Curious where you get the figures that say house show revenues are in a free fall. They've been steady for a long time. I've heard this argument for ten years about how less people are interested in wrestling than ever and it's irrelevant in the mainstream and so on and so on but it's a fragmented entertainment landscape now and they're doing fine. The Network projections would be the best argument towards him being in some serious decline but it's not any worse-conceived than the XFL. He likes to take big dumb risks and can afford to.

Ability to sort by venue is so cool! It will probably be like WWE Network where people buying it for the archives will get bored and we're mainly going to use it for the new stuff. But to go from them losing UStream to us having easier access than ever to all of these live shows, man, good times.

No big deal, just using my NJPW World subsription to watch the Tenryu/Ishikawa/Kitahara vs Koshinaka/Kimura/Aoyagi match from the 11/92 Sumo Hall show. My god, the crowd heat back in the day was amazing. This service is unbelievable! They have 67 episodes of NJPW Classics on demand! Every 1/4 show! Tons of random matches from the last 40 years. Tons of live shows going forward. And it's 8 bucks a month! For those of us that remember driving to Japanese supermarkets so we could pick up a month of AJPW product condensed into four 22 minute episodes, this is really cool. Wait, I've moved onto Inoki/Hansen from 1980.

Here's one other thing to consider when talking about the idea of WWE ever going anywhere. According to Meltzer, there was a period in 2009 when TNA was profitable. This is a company that couldn't get anyone to come to their live shows, that couldn't get anyone to buy PPVs, that had bad contracts on the books, that was receiving a fraction of the rights fees from Spike that WWE can command, and yet the economics of being a content provider in this era are so advantageous, they stumbled into making money. That's how far WWE can fall and still be successful. They have very few fixed costs. They can fall to near-2009 TNA levels of popularity and still make money when you look at all of their international TV deals and revenue streams.

A year where they maintain their popularity, despite unexpectedly losing Punk and Bryan, and are forced to elevate 3 new PPV headliners into the mix (Shield guys), to me can't be labeled a "miserable failure". 2001 was a miserable failure.

I don't know if it's fair to say it's been a miserable failure creatively as much as the Network was a miserable failure, to this point, as a concept. But if creative was such a huge problem, it would have affected attendance, TV ratings, merch, and everything else. Also, the Rumble and Chamber PPVs were highly successful this year, pointing to creative working until they blew the model up. SummerSlam did a surprisingly high # on PPV, which indicates it may have been a high-performing PPV if not for the Network.

Yeah, this always gets me in discussions like this. You look at a year like 2007 where Mania set the all-time PPVs record, drew 70,000, big Rumble and SummerSlam PPV numbers, healthy house show attendance, and most importantly, something like $40 million in profit off $480 million in revenue. But it doesn't even count as a feather in Vince's cap because RAW didn't average a 6.5 that year. To address the main point, I like what Vince is doing now a lot more than I did in 01-04ish. They've got a really solid foundation of young guys to carry the company forward in coming years like Reigns, Bryan, Ambrose, Rollins, Wyatt, and Rusev. Even Meltzer has said that WWE has better positioned itself for the future than NJPW has. The experiment they're doing with Lesnar as champ now shows that he can still try new things and take risks. I'd say things are generally fine outside of his Network decision-making.

Meltzer has always said that there was only a very brief time that he was ahead of Cena in merch sales, and otherwise Cena always lapped the field. I question his credibility on that one. But I wasn't even saying that as a knock on Punk. I'm just saying that WWE is so successful that a guy can retire after 2.5 years on top without even being a big draw like an Austin or Goldberg.

WWE is contracted to receive something like $220 million in TV revenue in 2018. Mania probably already did around $8 million in ticket sales 5 months out. The Rumble sold out in minutes. This interview has everyone whipped into a frenzy, but wrestling in the US is very stable. The idea that WWE is vulnerable to threats from NJPW or AAA - I mean, NJPW's annual revenue is around $25 million, WWE is closer to $500 million. Everyone feels so bad for Punk, but the dude was a headliner for 2.5 years, didn't really move business much, and made enough money to walk away forever, that's virtualy unprecedented in wrestling.

This is the best. Lance Russell and Dave Brown back at the WMC-5 TV studios, right where they taped the Memphis TV show, reminiscing for an hour. http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/27490271/dave-brown-and-lance-russell-reminisce-about-memphis-wrestling#.VHa8w7QeMW8.twitter

It's still the right move to hold him off the show. Look at the guy. Less is going to be a lot more during this run. I wouldn't have him on TV a lot heading into Mania, let him maintain his aura until then.