Ric Flair (sigh)

[JerryvonKramer]

Point is John that your style of argumentation is such that you do what it takes to push through a point. Where you're arguing against Sting's inclusion into the HoF you look at the data and use it to show how Sting wasn't a draw.

 

Here you are arguing for your idea of Sting being a megastar in WWF and you look at that same data and I quote: "He got over in a weeker promotion and sustained it for close to a decade."

 

In one argument you use it to show how he's not HoF worthy, in another you argue that he was the force keeping the company alive.

 

I'm not going to accuse you of bad faith. I just think you do what most people do naturally -- you have an intution about something and then you reach for reasoning.

 

But knock yourself, get pissed off at me, argue till you're blue in the face until you can demonstrate to the world that you were somehow 100% right in both arguments, or whatever else it is that you want to do. 2013 hasn't exactly been a marquee year for JvK-jdw relations. I'll just try to keep out of your way.

[jdw]

The other point to make is that jdw is putting a lot of weight on how Warrior drew as champ vs. how much money he made in the build. He probably sold more in action figures than Sting sold in tickets.

Hell... I'm not even sure Warrior drew all that great in the "build".

 

In turn, Sting would have sold action figure in the WWF. Easily.

 

 

Warrior didn't draw well as champ, but some of that is surely because he didn't have any credible opponents -- when you've beaten Hogan, what's Rick Rude or DiBiase or Perfect?

I think we can make similar excuses for Sting's drawing issues: he worked for a dying promotion, not the WWF at their expansion peak.

 

Of course it's kind of telling that the Expansion Peak started to hit the wall right at the moment when Warrior beat Hogan, and pretty much the only thing that drew strongly across the board in 1990-92 was... Hogan.

 

 

I think it's probably a weakness of the booking that Vince was booking to the Wrestlemania moment with no real plan seemingly beyond that.

This is all old ground that's been hashed around for 20 years.

 

Then again, Ted had already jobbed around the horn against Hogan, then jobbed at Mania to Savage... and how again did Macho-Ted draw? The booking sucked there if the point was for Macho-Ted to be the post-Mania feud to carry the promotion. Yet it drew.

 

Warrior-Rude was Warrior's key feud after winning the title. Rude had a prior win over him, which is a bit more than Ted had over Macho. Yet...

 

 

I don't really see how there are grounds for assuming that Sting would have done any better given that he pretty much bombed as WCW company ace -- and I'd warrant the drop-off was steeper than the drop during Warrior's run.

Sting bombed for a shitty company that was dying. But actually helped keep attendance from going off the cliff in the first half of the yeah.

 

Warrior bombed for the strongest company in US history up to that point, on the heels of the company you know... doing fucking strongly right before he got the belt.

 

Yeah, there's no reason to think.

 

 

We're arguing about a hypothetical here,

You don't say.

 

 

so we'll never know one way or the other.

No shit.

 

That doesn't mean that we all have to be stupid when pondering hypotheticals.

 

 

My instincts say

You instincts when it comes to analysing the 80s and early 90s US wrestling business (i.e. the Business end of it) have been... nicely put... well... poor. There are more than a half dozen threads that reflect your poor understanding out it. So...

[jdw]

I don't really see that. Who would the Horsemen have worked with? Which heels were really "huge" in that era? They'd have been reduced to the midcard in a matter of months.

This. Vince never would have pushed them harder than he pushed the individual parts (Arn & Tully when they were in, and Ric when he showed up still the World Champ).

[JerryvonKramer]

Where poor means "didn't have exactly the same interpretation as jdw and is willing to entertain external factors as something that might put a company out of business". [cue: a long, pedantic, tedious, joyless post from you now trying to demonstrate point-by-point what an idiot I am by way of Ivan Koloff or whatever. I do hope you aren't that predictable].

 

But like I've already said, pedantic point scoring shouldn't be the name of the game here or in any other thread. You've descended into ad hominem attacks now in a bid to try to gain leverage for your position on a hypothetical Sting run in WWF. Has it come that? Not much fun discussing things with you.

[jdw]

1. You and I (and others) have really hit other people hard in fantasy/theoretical booking scenarios before over the viability of options. My issue here isn't "all fantasy booking is stupid," but "if we hold others to that standard we should hold ourselves to the same standard."

JCP signing Ted was a viable option. They certainly had a shot at signing him if they offered a big deal before Vince got in. JCP pushing Ted like I mentioned was a viable option.

 

Would Dusty have pushed for it?

 

No.

 

But *all* JCP vs UWF fantasty booking fails then in those regards because Dusty never was going to push the UWF. He also would crush it under his heel.

 

So we go one of two routes:

 

A. No UWF fantasty booking because of the Dusty Issue

B. Open it up to what was viable if Dusty hadn't completely gotten stupid in 1987 after a rather terrific 1987

 

I'm perfectly fine having folks shut down all UWF Fantasy Booking with "Dusty's UWF Law" being the equiv of Godwin's Law. But if we're not going with it... then Ted is open for discussion.

 

 

2. This ties to point 1, but I don't think there is a whole lot of reason to buy the argument that Ted was ever terribly likely to end up in Crockett long term. I see your argument - when negotiating with Watts hammer home the point that you want Ted - but I think even within the realms of fantasy booking it is a stretch to believe that Ted was going to go there if Vince made any sort offer. Had Vince made an offer? We don't know.

Seems like from the various timelines that he hadn't.

 

I also go back to the earlier point: when he raided UWF for Duggan, he could easily have gotten Ted at that time if he gave a crap. His attempts to get Duggan went on for months. I don't recall any Ted rumors in that, on top of Ted getting the major push after Duggan left.

 

Add in that Vince raided Wattsville the year before, and took someone like Slater rather than Ted. :/ I don't think he put much thought into Ted until the Watts-JCP deal was done, and there was a chance to stab the deal.

 

 

But I think it is pretty likely that DiBiase would have explored that option on his own before inking with Crockett even in the scenario you are proposing.

Not terribly clear that he would if the offer felt good to him, and the offer that I'm talking about is the biggest he could get outside of the WWF. It was bigger than what Watts had been offering him to stick around three years into Vince going National.

 

I don't recall in the WON that there were annual items of Ted exploring going to the WWF. Shit just kind of happened after JCP bought Watts out.

 

 

And if we buy the argument that Hulk was always going to go to NY no matter what Verne did (and I know we both do), I think you can make a case that Ted was too (we may differ here which is fine - but it makes our premises fundamentally different so I don't know where to go from there).

We're three years into Expansion. Ted had three years to go there. Vince had three years to get him. It didn't happen until it did.

 

It's a bit like Rick Rude. He'd been around for a while. He was on top in Dallas. Vince appeared not to give enough of a shit to get him, though he did swipe Dingo out of the same pool. But Rude as the WTT Champ in JCP... that appears to have gotten enough of the attention of Vince & Co. to go steal him.

 

Seriously... I don't think Ted raised to the "We should get him" level until after the super-duper-secret deal was completed.

 

Hence my statement: you close him before you complete the deal.

 

 

3. On your breaking down of talent, I understand that you were "tiering" them off. My point - which I think was transparently obvious - was that in 1986/87 if you were looking at potential and/or value to the company I think it stretches the bounds of belief to argue that Sting was a more logical pick than Williams or Gang. "But Sting was lower costs" is the counter and I get that too (though I do wonder how much cheaper he was), but I would argue that I don't know of any evidence to support the argument that Sting was seen as a guy with solid potential (I'm not well versed in the WON's from the time, so if I'm wrong steer me to it), or that Gang/Williams were seen as guys that wouldn't have some value at the time. I could see saying "I don't want any of them," or even saying "I'll take Sting and some of these other middling guys for slot filling positions," but I don't really see the non-hindsight case where the end result is "Sting is a solid prospect we can get for cheap/Williams and Gang? Fuck Em."

Here's why I was doing tiers.

 

Let's say you're going to need to pay Doc and Gang downside minimums of $250K to keep them from going to Vince. I'm pulling a number out of my ass, but the rest of these are as well.

 

In turn you're going to have to pay Ted a $350K downside, and let's say the Birds collectively $400K.

 

In turn, Taylor might be $100K, while Sting and Steiner are $50K a pop. Sting and Steiner are probably less on their initial contracts, but again... I'm pulling numbers out of my ass here.

 

Retaining Sting & Steiner has nothing to do with keeping Doc. They're 1/5th of the money. I'm signing them to replace shit like Shaska, or eventally solid guys like Brad Armstrong that I can't make any money off of, or guys like Valiant who are at the end of the line.

 

Retaining Doc means I need to get him up into a spot when I can make some money off him at that $250K. Here's the thing: Doc never in his life, before or after that, showed the potential in the US to be a guy who could justify that pay. He just didn't draw on his own.

 

I'd rather in a given year have five early 1987 vintage Stings and Steiners than one Doc. All I need is just one of those guys to break out and I'm fine. In turn, Doc never breaks out. :/ Which I think a lot of us pretty much knew at the time: he had stuff that a lot of us liked, but he just didn't have "It" on any level.

 

So in parsing out the money I have to spend, who I can make money off of, and the slots that I have in JCP that actually pay out money, I can take two of the main even folks and then see if there are any guys who might help the midcard / undercard. My preference on the first are Ted and the Birds. I don't expect that you would disagree with me on that: if JCP could sign two of those acts in 1987, those were the two that if booked and pushed properly could have drawn JCP money. My preference on the second are (i) prospects and (ii) guys who could be solid. Sting and Steiner are prospects. On solid... Terry turned into a really solid heel. My hedge on him has always been in the thread: "If someone had the vision that he could go heel like he did". Which is maybe 50/50 since the motions for the heel turn were kind of starting when the sale was going on... so someone much have been thinking about it either right before or right at the time.

 

This is a bit like building the Heat. It would be nice this off season for the Heat to add Howard since they don't have a Center. But they can only afford the Big 3 contracts and surround them with cheaper talent that matches them. Spurs are the same way in how they've juggled contracts over the years. JCP wasn't Vince: they could toss money around like he did, or promise everyone an eventual run with Hogan where they get their 15 minutes of making a lot of money before sliding deep down the cards. If you're running JCP smarter than they did, you flat out had to be smart with the contracts.

 

Doc: I didn't ever see him making money for JCP.

 

Gang: he didn't fit JCP at all, and wouldn't have made them money

 

I thought that at the time. It's possible that in some box in a closet are my old fantasy booking that I actually wrote up in 1987 while in my last stretch of being a stoner drunk in college. Doc and Gang had dick to do with them. I had Flair-Ted main eventing Starcade. So... not something I'm pulling out of my ass 25 years later. What I thought at the time. :/

[jdw]

Where poor means "didn't have exactly the same interpretation as jdw

No. Where poor means that a number of people came into various threads to point out where you were wrong. Repeatedly. Thread after thread. Even within threads when you tried to morph your positions into new ones.

 

You're incorrect in thinking I'm who pointed out you were cuckoo in your analysis of business in that period.

[jdw]

Point is John that your style of argumentation is such that you do what it takes to push through a point. Where you're arguing against Sting's inclusion into the HoF you look at the data and use it to show how Sting wasn't a draw.

 

Here you are arguing for your idea of Sting being a megastar in WWF and you look at that same data and I quote: "He got over in a weeker promotion and sustained it for close to a decade."

Actually my idea in this thread was:

 

WWF Sting > WWF Warrior

 

Since Warrior wasn't a megastar in the WWF, but in the end something of a disappointing guy one top and a giant asshole who Vince fired, the threshold for WWF Sting > WWF Warrior is quite a bit lower.

 

In turn, the WON HOF is a much higher standard for me.

 

That's not terribly difficult to understand.

 

Zaha doesn't need to be a Hall Of Famer at United to be better than Bebe. He doesn't have to be Ronaldo-Hogan HOF Lever. Why? Because Bebe bombed. He just needs to be say Good Nani level, rather than say Goofy Nani level... in which case he will be a successful player at United.

 

Only you are making it complicated.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm simply not interested in another ding dong with you John, not now or for the rest of my life. You're right, you were always right, and you're the most right there ever will be. I can't compete with that.

 

---------

 

On your Ted point, do we know for sure that Vince didn't approach him? DiBiase was known for being fiercely loyal to Watts and only left the company when he sold it. He had an agreement to go on the All Japan tours, but always on the understanding he was going back to MidSouth.

 

I would be very surprised if Vince didn't make some approach in 1985-6, likely Ted said no. I can't recall if he ever mentions it in interviews or in his book.

[Alchemy]

Flair really embarrassed himself tonight:

 

http://www.twitch.tv/2k/c/2769500

[Dylan Waco]

Flair really embarrassed himself tonight:

 

http://www.twitch.tv/2k/c/2769500

I saw about two minutes and it was painful.

 

Flair has also started doing a lot of dates with "Nature Boy" Paul Lee a former WCW/SMW jobber from the Chattanooga area who is pretty much the least respected promoter in the region. In fact he is allegedly going to second Paul Lee for a show in El Paso soon and he gave Paul Lee a replica NWA title at the last show he promoted. Really pathetic

[JerryvonKramer]

Everyone on that panel including JR seems blind drunk. Flair being the worst of them, but Ross is clearly not with it from the start. I just skipped about but they are mostly sozzled.

 

Apparently Flair is recording a podcast with Austin in the next couple of days, should be fun at least.

[Alchemy]

None of Bryan, Foley, Austin or Mysterio seemed "blind drunk."

[JerryvonKramer]

You're probably right, I'm not going to watch it through to find out.

[rovert]

Apparently Stephanie had to apologise to the video game people.

 

It has gotten to the level he is disrespecting the McMahons and Hunter in particular.

[ohtani's jacket]

Everyone on that panel including JR seems blind drunk. Flair being the worst of them, but Ross is clearly not with it from the start. I just skipped about but they are mostly sozzled.

 

Apparently Flair is recording a podcast with Austin in the next couple of days, should be fun at least.

Blind drunk? All of those guys were far too lucid to be blind drunk.

[JerryvonKramer]

Yeah bit of an overstatement. I only watched like 60 seconds. JR seemed far gone to me.

[Hollinger.]

JR also has Bell's palsy and slurs everything because his face is paralyzed. He seems like normal JR there.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

I've skipped around and watched like 30 minutes of this and don't see what's so bad about it. Am I missing something?

[JerryvonKramer]

Think it's just because Flair didn't stick to topic. They were meant to be talking about great Wrestlemania moments and he mainly just put himself over or talked about things that were not relevant.

 

I refuse to believe JR was fully sober though.

[jdw]

Dave on Sunday:

 

From talking to tons of people in and around WWE today, the feeling coming out of last night's 2K14 press conference where Ric Flair hijacked the show is that the video game people weren't bothered at all about it, but the WWE side was pretty upset. "Infuriated" is probably pretty strong, but they weren't happy at all and it might have ruined Flair's chances at least short-term for a PR deal with the company. Don't expect the video to ever see the light of day from the WWE side but it is online in various places right now, including here. Flair was pulled from the rest of the 2K14 PR.

From the index, it looks like they talked about it on one of their shows as well.

 

I watched in spurts since it's so long, jumping ahead a number of times then watching 2-3 minutes here and there. Ric's telling stories, bogarting the time. Ross seemed to get more annoyed by it that anyone else, with Heyman eventually getting up and ripping JR's notes of questions to ask since they weren't going to be answered since Ric would keep talking. That was pretty funny. I enjoyed Ric putting over Foley for letting him get chops in, contrasting it with Taker who let Ric do a few, and then contrasting it with Bret who didn't want to take any. I suspect anyone who likes Flair will like the clip.

[Happ Hazzard]

What did Flair say about Daniel Bryan? WWE is supposedly mad at Flair for "burying him" at the event.

[goodhelmet]

I put this in here instead of the Steve Austin thread but it reinforces that Austin may be the best interview out there today. Way more entertaining than Flair's shoot interview and he comes across as a likable guy which was not the case in the shoot interview.

[Marty]

What did Flair say about Daniel Bryan? WWE is supposedly mad at Flair for "burying him" at the event.

http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2013/0...s-daniel-bryan/

 

1:02:28: JR asks Daniel Bryan about his WrestleMania dream opponent, and Bryan joked that he felt that he didn't belong on the panel. Flair agreed, saying, "41 years of wrestling [bruiser] Brody and Blackjack [Mulligan], you can imagine how I feel about you being up here. Good lord! What would have Harley [Race] said about him?!"

[Matt D]

I love that the guys Flair chose to compare Bryan to unfavorably are Mulligan and Brody.

[Marty]

I love that the guys Flair chose to compare Bryan to unfavorably are Mulligan and Brody.

I'm disappointed that John didn't bring up the Brody comparison in his recap above.