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Several news items from Meltzer


Loss

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--Samoa Joe signed yesterday with TNA and will debut on Sunday's Slammiversary PPV against Sonjay Dutt. The entire show isn't finalized, but there will be a six-way X Division match and possibly Shocker vs. Alex Shelley added to the line-up headlined by a King of the Mountain match with A.J. Styles, Jeff Jarrett, Abyss, Monty Brown and a mystery fifth man as the main event, and Christopher Daniels vs. Michael Shane vs. Chris Sabin for the X title.

 

--An interesting thought for the day. This is a theoretical, and I know it will never happen. But what if, based on WWE's actions and inactions in the past, if one of these scenarios were to happen, how do you think John Laurinaitis and Vince McMahon would handle it:

1) A young wrestler coming up is getting hazed and bullied by a veteran enforcer, the smaller guy (they aren't going to be picking on Bobby Lashley) comes back and beats up the enforcer in full view of the locker room, with everyone knowing it was started by the enforcer type to teach him respect

2) A very specific incident kind of similar to what happened Sunday. In a big brawl spot, Matt Cappotelli just goes off on Bob Holly, sucker punches him when he's unaware, opens up some cuts on his head before it's broken up. Does the company take action, or just consider it a receipt?

 

--In a business move that could impact wrestling, Viacom has split into two companies effective early 2006. MTV, VH1, CMT, Spike, Nick, Nick at Nite, TV Land, Comedy Central and BET will be under the company called Viacom Inc. CBS Corp. will operate CBC and UPN, so the corporate synergies between Spike and UPN would be over. Leslie Moonves will head CBS Corp., which is considered a positive when it comes to potential renewal of Smackdown. It looks like Sumner Redstone, the man in charge, will be retiring when the split comes. Redstone said the day of the huge TV conglomerate has passed.

 

--Jim Cornette is at the Davis Arena right now setting up the OVW TV show, and there are a lot of wrestlers in Louisville very happy at this moment. And one or two who aren't.

1 - Good for Samoa Joe's career finally seeing some direction, although I don't know how much longer TNA plans to last with no house shows and no TV to promote their shows.

 

2 - Interesting question, and I don't know the answer

 

3 - Expect HHH to use this as an excuse for having something to do with WWE's downfall if something ever happens and WWE goes out of business in 15 years or something.

 

4 - Woohoo!

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- With the news that CM Punk is now in WWE and Joe is in TNA, I am kind of saddened. I would hope that one day their paths will cross again.

 

- The hypothetical situation Meltz talks about is similar to the incident with Vordell Walker and Steiner on an indy show. Steiner was taking liberties on Walker and Vordell got the better of him. If this happened in WWE, I could see management placing the younger guy in some stupid gimmick and jobbing him out to appease the bully.

 

- Loss, can you explain what you meant when you said HHH would blame his on the downfall of the company? From reading this, it sounds like this would be a positive in keeping SD! alive or am I misreading it?

 

- I didn't know his "vacation" was up.

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- Loss, can you explain what you meant when you said HHH would blame his on the downfall of the company? From reading this, it sounds like this would be a positive in keeping SD! alive or am I misreading it?

It was a reference to Kevin Nash blaming the downfall of WCW on corporate America. HHH wouldn't be above doing the same.
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Guest teke184

In all fairness to Nash, even though he doesn't deserve it, changes due to the AOL-Time Warner merger DID kill WCW.

 

 

However, Nash had given it a case of terminal cancer during his booking reign. That just made the decision to pull the plug that much easier.

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Guest MJHimJfadeaway23

Was Nash booking in mid-98 when they strung together horrible PPV after horrible PPV? I know this killed me more than the Goldberg loss or the fingerpoke.

He claims he didn't take over until February 1999.
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Nash joined the booking committee in September of 1998 and took over completely by November after Hulk Hogan "retired", which was a work on the locker room to trick them into trusting Nash as the anti-Hogan. Bischoff not only condoned this, but helped orchestrate it, and he had a very tough time getting his wrestlers to trust him again afterwards. Wonder why.

 

The cruiserweight division was totally fucked up in the time you mentioned. They were trying to appease Jericho by pushing him as a heavyweight toward the TV title, since he had a renewal upcoming, but they offered him roughly half of what Scott Steiner had just renewed for, and Jericho felt that at that point in time he was a far bigger asset to the company than Steiner, considering that he was better in the ring and on the mic and more over, and things got really weird after that. They didn't really have a direction to go with the smaller guys at that point, the ones who usually saved the PPVs, because they didn't have a new heel set up to replace the departing Jericho. Not that the match quality when Jericho was cruiserweight champ wasn't a dramatic downslide from the work in 1996-1997 anyway, but he had gone over everyone cleanly without them trying to build anyone else up. When the cruiser division lost focus, the good matches became more and more rare.

 

I think WCW's death was actually a combination of a lot of things, and Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Vince Russo were the key guys in tearing it down, each in their own special way.

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Guest teke184

Not sure... Bisch was nominally in charge until about September 1999, although he would give certain people the book from time to time when he felt like doing something else (vacation in Europe, negotiations in Hollywood, etc.)

 

 

Nash had some booking power by early 1999, which is when the company went from "Crap on top with Goldberg and a few good workers supporting them" to "I need a set of goddamn Cliffs Notes to understand this booking."

 

 

That's not to say shit like the Jay Leno match didn't seriously impair fan interest. It was just easier to put up with it when you could hold out for the good workers, Goldberg, and a decent storyline or two.

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I feel for Samoa Joe. He won me over in Ring of Honor. Then he lost the belt and lost a direction in the company. He randomly got the Pure Title slapped on him and that didn't mean much. I don't think going to TNA is the solution though. He's a great worker and TNA will book him in Wrestlecrap.

 

Either that or he'll be made to look like a monster against people like AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. The problem is that people like Billy Gunn will make Joe look small. :(

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