Sean Liska

Jericho is a guy I don't think is close and frankly I don't see how he is any better or worse a candidate than Edge. Better worker and a more compelling act overall, but his feud with Michaels was not successful as a buyrate draw and that is the only real feather in his cap over the last few years. No Mercy with Jericho-HBK in the ladder match did one of the better B-show buyrates of the year. Not saying he should be in, but that is a rare case nowadays of a good feud popping business.

I don't think it's fair to say nobody from WWE is a draw and no one should go into the Hall. The WWE of 2001-2004 was a dying company. HHH had soundly buried everyone he had feuded with on RAW, Lesnar left, Eddie freaked out under the pressure, JBL was one of the worst drawing champions the company had ever seen, and the entire company was incredibly stale. I don't care how strong the WWE brand name may be, things were in danger of getting pretty ugly. Guys like Cena, Batista, Orton, and Edge helped breathe some new life into the company and allowed them to pump out profits for at least another half-decade. In 2003, they did something like 6,000 people for an MSG house show. The last several house shows there have been sellouts. No one person was responsible for those sellouts like a Bruno was, but clearly something beyond the WWE brand name ignited business. You couldn't just plug anyone into the main event slots and expect business to keep humming along. The WWE name isn't that strong. Somebody deserves credit for the company still being so huge, even if it's a different type of credit than someone from the 80's may get. I'm not saying Edge should necessarily be in, but someone like Cena would be an easy pick for me. Little kids don't make their parents take them to shows because they're in love with the WWE machine. They come to shows in their Cena and Rey gear and those guys are definitely draws.

Anyone? You have to go Russell with the footage available, but Solie's at a disadvantage because we don't have much from his peak. WWE Classics did a Film Vault on the Brisco-Funk feud from Florida, and I really got a feel from that for why people speak so highly of him, but there's not much out there. He was clearly past his prime by the early 80's.

Ummm...the Dustin Rhodes stuff started in '02, and in '09 he's still recognized as great. Hell, even now the Goldust/Seamus feud got a bunch of positive reviews. If it's no longer trendy, then it's because it became conventional wisdom, not because he was a passing fad. Really, Dustin was pretty well liked by sheet readers when a lot of those 90's matches were happening. The 91 series with Austin was often cited as being the only thing worth seeing at WCW house shows. We liked him and Windham. The Dangerous Alliance matches were always well received. The street fight with Bunkhouse Buck blew people away. Goldust and Savio Vega had some popular stuff. The fact that there weren't more nepotism charges thrown around against Dustin in the early 90's is really a testament to how much people respected him in the ring.

Absolutely. They elevated a new crop of main eventers, made the best use of the talent they had available at the time, wrote engaging feuds (Austin-McMahon, DX-Nation) and built to PPV main events that people paid to see. It wasn't a great time for in-ring, but they did everything business-wise that a booking team should do. In 2000? Besdies WM2000 there were a LOT of awesome matches during that period. I was thinking more 98-99ish.

Absolutely. They elevated a new crop of main eventers, made the best use of the talent they had available at the time, wrote engaging feuds (Austin-McMahon, DX-Nation) and built to PPV main events that people paid to see. It wasn't a great time for in-ring, but they did everything business-wise that a booking team should do.

That's probably a modification on the story that Mike Graham threated to kill Benoit for trying to get him fired.

I know. Just more of my general amazement with the stuff put on the Observer site.

Did that one fairly obvious point need to be stretched into an entire column?

I didn't mean to say that wrestling in the country will die. But I could easily see it falling into a Japan-type level of irrelevance.

Bob, what indications are there that Stephanie would be any better running the financial side of things than the creative side? For all the doom-mongerers (and to be fair there is plenty of reasons to be worried), it should be remembered that everyone thought AAA would fall off the cliff when Antonio Pena died, which didn't happen. In all likelihood, Vince has created such a promotional juggernaut that the company will survive long after his death despite any in fighting, inexperience and incompetence in the immediate aftermath of his death. It is big enough that it could take years before business really takes a hit. Stepanie has been a creative force over an effectively booked promotion for the last few years here. HHH isn't an idiot. But long-term it won't stay at the level it's at right now. No one else is smart enough to sustain it.

My thinking is that pro wrestling in America will lose its relevance and slowly die out when Vince dies. I don't see who else can do his job. Everyone loves complaining about the guy, but he's had a monopoly for eight years now and is still hugely successful. He created a post-Attitude core of main eventers in guys like Cena, Orton, Batista, Rey, and Edge. He's open-minded enough to have CM Punk and Jeff Hardy main eventing a PPV even though they both don't fit his mold. He's put a nice amount of emphasis on in-ring over the past couple years. Nobody can hype a big show or put a promotional machine behind a wrestler to make them a star like he can when he's on top of his game. I hope his heart can hold out until he's 90.

Bobby was pretty good in his first year or two of WCW. Spring Stampede 94 is one of my all-time favorite PPVs and I thought him and Tony added a lot to the show. It seemed to me that Bobby lost his place a little bit with the NWO angle. Because of the nature of the NWO, he couldn't be a heel announcer anymore during their matches and angles, and that took away a lot of his schtick. Bobby as a face announcer lamenting the evils of the lead heel faction didn't work. Of course, he later got pissed off and stopped caring and it didn't matter what was going on.

The problem is they're not using the time this is buying them to create any new top names. True. I think Miz earned some trust from Vince with the Cena feud, and Swagger's a sure thing, but they're a while away from main eventing. MVP has main event level charisma but doesn't work for me as a face. Maybe this is what Smackdown is for, and guys like Punk will get sent over once they're established as main event level guys.

Heyman seems to be the guy always trotted out as the guy to book TNA, but any check of his booking patterns have shown that while he may get matches people go nuts for, he is lousy at getting people to buy PPVs, which is what the business is based on these days. I've always said Heyman would be a good choice to put together house shows, but when it comes to building storylines to sell PPVs, his track record is poor. Really? ECW was doing bigger buyrates than TNA is doing now back when they just had late-night syndicated TV and very few stars with national names. ECW could be in the 80,000-100,000 range, which TNA very rarely hits. That's amazing when you think about the resources of the respective companies. TNA has two hours of weekly prime time TV on a solid cable network with a roster including fomer WrestleMania main eventers. ECW was on MSG at 2AM on a Friday night. And ECW could still do bigger buyrates. The same can be said about how ECW could actually go on the road and run places consistenly while drawing 2,000-3,000 in their bigger markets, which TNA has been unable to do. TNA can't even draw enough fans to justify doing PPVs on the road anymore. Saying ECW drew better buyrates than TNA ever has does not translate to Heyman knowing how to build storylines that sell PPVs. I have seen no evidence that ECW increased its buys beyond its core audience... a core audience that was, no doubt, more loyal to the company than TNA's core audience is. But comparing Company A to Company B does not prove anything, it's about comparing Company A's PPVs to each other, particularly from one year to the next, to see if whoever is in charge is increasing buys. The comparison is to take the PPVs in which Heyman was doing a lot of the booking and comparing them to the shows of the previous year to see if interest was really being increased. Or compare WWE PPVs outside of the "big four" to see if there was a boost from one to the next. People need to not buy too swiflty into this idea that Heyman is the cure for all that ails TNA. With Heyman, you'd get the X Division workers doing even more gimmick matches than they are currently doing, Abyss being allowed to run free with his hardcore antics, the Beautiful People being a trio of lesbians who get heat by trying to kiss their opponents, and very likely, Kurt Angle being thrown out there in 15-minute matches nearly every single Impact that may cause certain smart marks to cream themselves, but is going to add more wear and tear to Angle's body as he is encouraged to engage in "top this" in his matches. Because stuff like that is the way Heyman operates. I disagree with most of this. The fact that ECW was drawing decent numbers on PPV was a testament to the great marketing job Heyman did. I don't see how it can be a knock against him. No, they didn't do big numbers out of their "core audience". They were a distant #3 promotion with no production values, no star power, terrible TV slots, and the inability to hold onto any main event talent except Tommy Dreamer. That they had a core audience capable to supporting numbers north of 50,000-60,000 buys on a regular basis was great. You can critique him for not increasing buys during the TNN run, and I don't think anyone will point to that year as being his highlight. But he did lose two world champions, tag team champions, and a ton of other talent that year as well, to where he was forced to go with a Steve Corino-Justin Credible main event program. People always point to the failure of ECW as a sign of Heyman's incompetence, like anything other than them becoming a full-fledged national promotion would be a failure. This is a company that was running every three weeks in a warehouse in a bad part of Philly off of the money Tod Gordon make from his pawn shop when Heyman started. It's not like they had TNA money. That they were ever able to get to PPV and national TV was a massive accomplishment. Who's ever started with so little and gotten so big without any type of money behind him? I'd assume Heyman would borrow a lot from MMA due to his relationship with Lesnar and fandom. He knows hardcore is passe. I also disagree with your vision of how TNA would be run under Heyman, and I'd point to his OVW run as an example. There was no hardcore stuff, no profanity, and very little sex. And he still had people convinced that guys like Kennedy, Doane, Jeter, Cappotelli, and Punk were going to be big stars in the future. The only thing I would agree with is him destroying Angle's body, because he did have that tendency on SD and OVW. Not sure where the thing about X Division gimmick matches comes from since he's never been a big gimmick guy. Of course, there's no way Heyman will end up in TNA, and I'd bet on the Jarrett-Angle thing becoming an angle within 6 months knowing their track records.

I still think people are worrying too much about the guest hosts. To me, it's just a nice gimmick to freshen things up weekly on a show where the top names have been around forever. If they use ZZ Top as part of next year's big WrestleMania celebrity angle, I'll be concerned.

Heyman seems to be the guy always trotted out as the guy to book TNA, but any check of his booking patterns have shown that while he may get matches people go nuts for, he is lousy at getting people to buy PPVs, which is what the business is based on these days. I've always said Heyman would be a good choice to put together house shows, but when it comes to building storylines to sell PPVs, his track record is poor. Really? ECW was doing bigger buyrates than TNA is doing now back when they just had late-night syndicated TV and very few stars with national names. ECW could be in the 80,000-100,000 range, which TNA very rarely hits. That's amazing when you think about the resources of the respective companies. TNA has two hours of weekly prime time TV on a solid cable network with a roster including fomer WrestleMania main eventers. ECW was on MSG at 2AM on a Friday night. And ECW could still do bigger buyrates. The same can be said about how ECW could actually go on the road and run places consistenly while drawing 2,000-3,000 in their bigger markets, which TNA has been unable to do. TNA can't even draw enough fans to justify doing PPVs on the road anymore. The only other buys you could evaluate Heyman by would be from the Smackdown era. I'm pretty sure the SummerSlam with Lesnar-Rock did well. I don't remember the other shows being out of the ordinary either way.

Eh, they're going to be doing the guest host thing 52 weeks a year. Not every one can be a hip celebrity with the kids. It's not a big deal.

Heyman made the comment on the Smackdown after 9/11. Gave me a needed laugh.

Well, the first guy was making some pretty stupid assumptions.

There was a Razor-HHH match from a 1/96 RAW that I remember being a lot better than most HHH matches from the time. It was the show where Monsoon was destroyed by Vader.

I would be shocked if that was all she was getting paid. I've heard stories about her being paid Eddie's salary during the time and Vince paying off their mortgage, so perhaps this would just be in addition to that.

I don't really think there was a conspiracy to get Lawler to quit, so I'd believe the Chyna thing. I just don't see why they'd want to get rid of him. He was hugely popular at the time. He was announcing Smackdown, and continued to after he came back until they split the brands. He's the one announcer Vince apparently doesn't yell at. They brought him back as soon as he wanted back in, and has had the job ever since. It seems like Vince loves the guy.

That sounds like a Vince line to me. And why would they need to remove Lawler from RAW instead of just getting him off of NBC?

Apparently Laurinitis was doing a mediocre enough job that Stephanie had to begin overseeing him, which wasn't needed for JR. Or at least that's how she put it in her congressional testimony.