Sean Liska Posted January 26, 2012 Report Posted January 26, 2012 TNA aren't making tens of millions of dollars in profits a year though! I don't think Vince gets enough credit for bringing back The Rock this year. It's probably the best promotional move by anyone this year. It injected some much needed life and energy into a stale product. A lot of people within the promotion were against it. The Observer crew focuses Vince's indecisiveness on minutiae, but big picture wise he's still got some great instincts. He also doesn't get credit for what he pulled off with Mania last year. WWE got over a million people to order the PPV based on some vague idea of Cena and Rock having a physical confrontation. He's going to get two huge Mania buyrates out of one feud. It's really smart stuff.
rovert Posted January 26, 2012 Report Posted January 26, 2012 TNA aren't making tens of millions of dollars in profits a year though! I don't think Vince gets enough credit for bringing back The Rock this year. It's probably the best promotional move by anyone this year. It injected some much needed life and energy into a stale product. A lot of people within the promotion were against it. The Observer crew focuses Vince's indecisiveness on minutiae, but big picture wise he's still got some great instincts. As a known F4Wer I just want to counter this to a certain degree didn't the Rock just become "available" to use Hollywood lingo as he had an inch to scratch Wrestling wise and his mother Ata needled the hell out of him to step back in the ring? Going by the general impression I get is that simply Vince isn't getting the credit this time round for cutting a killer deal or pulling off a promotional master stroke the way he certainly did by doing the hair match with Trump.
Sean Liska Posted January 26, 2012 Report Posted January 26, 2012 We still don't really know how Rock went from saying last January that he would never wrestle again, to committing to another match by April. I don't know how much of that was Vince talking him into it.
kjh Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 I agree Vince to some degree got lucky that Rock was in the right place in his life to want to come back, but he still made the right move for business. I'm not sure Hunter would in the same position.
Dylan Waco Posted January 27, 2012 Author Report Posted January 27, 2012 I don't even like Chikara, but Quack is a totally reasonable pick for promoter of the year.
kjh Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 I think this is one year that you can question the obvious pick of Dana somewhat. PPV was down significantly and there were few real high points during the year. Too early to tell whether moving to FOX was the right move.
Johnny Sorrow Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 Anyone gonna go ahead and post the results for those of us who stopped subscribing?
rovert Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 I don't even like Chikara, but Quack is a totally reasonable pick for promoter of the year. You can question some of the Wrestling on the card but in terms of an effective build and hitting a crescendo storyline wise High Noon hit a real sweet spot for me as a fan in general. King of Trios was also a genuine EVENT too.
Marty Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 Anyone gonna go ahead and post the results for those of us who stopped subscribing? No subscription, but The W has a list of winners and runner-ups: http://the-w.com/2011-wrestling-observer-awards Ryder getting Top 3 votes for Best and Worst Gimmick is amusing.
jdw Posted January 27, 2012 Report Posted January 27, 2012 I bet there are a lot of people going batshit over Davey being worker of the year. I think Dana is still the promoter of the year. The Fox move was a good thing relative to the Spike deal. I think we bounced around some thoughts that it might not be a great deal long term due to the length of the deal, and how the landscape is evolving out there. For long term $$$, UFC probably needs to evolve away from PPV and into being "television product" like the NFL/NBA/College Football/MLB, and this deal locks them to Fox for a long time while capping the growth of that "tv product" $$$. Their options... I'm not entirely sure. They could have gone a "safe" route of a 1-2 deal with Spike and wait for the landscape to settle just a bit: * SEC renegotiation / creation of SEC Network * full roll out of NBC Sports Channel * bombing of NBC Sports Channel's current product (i.e. NHL as the anchor) * new NBA deals * launch of Lakers channel (2012-2013) * Angles tv deal (now done) / Dodgers tv deal (pending) There are other speculative things, such as continuing college movement along with how hard Time Warner pushes into sports (so far it's been fairly large, such as the Lakers). Not it's possible that you play those wrong and end up with the major players having spent their money with none left over for UFC. That, at the moment, seems unlikely. NBC is one of the major wild cards here since their primetime is in horrid shape, and their sports properties are terrible other than Sunday Night Football. They've been almost entirely blocked out of College Sports (ND is a property of declining value), which is brutal when trying to fill up the NBC Sports Channel. One could see them tossing money at the Big 10 when their ESPN contract runs up, especially if they can being the Big 10 and ND *together*. But you get the sense that NBC is going to look around, see they have next to nothing, and start looking for things to anchor NBC Sports Channel other than... well.. the ratings loser that is the NHL. I think that is the possible mistake that Zuffa made: not waiting for just the right moment to use NBC's woes to make themselves one of the anchor properties for NBC. Not just on NBC Sports, but on NBC itself with that barren primetime lineup. Given the amount of content that UFC produces (TUF, Fight Nights, TUF Finales, PPV, etc), UFC brings a lot to the table for a channel that's been frozen out of the big sports properties other than the NFL on Sunday night. But for "right now", it's an improvement over Spike. There are declines, but they're not unreasonable, and likely are less due to "promoter" than injuries and economy. John
Johnny Sorrow Posted January 28, 2012 Report Posted January 28, 2012 MOST OVERRATED 1. CRIMSON 2. Mason Ryan 3. Kevin Nash How can these three be over rated? Are there hordes of fans out there singing their praises?
FLIK Posted January 28, 2012 Report Posted January 28, 2012 I think most people took it as over rated = over pushed by the promotion. Listened to the show Dave, Bryan & Bruce Mitchell did on the awards earlier today, what a miserable depressing affair.
goodhelmet Posted January 28, 2012 Report Posted January 28, 2012 For those not listening, give us the rundown.
FLIK Posted January 28, 2012 Report Posted January 28, 2012 Basicaly just a lot of complaining, especially from Meltzer. Either about how the wrong pick won or that the runner's up were undeserving of being as high as they were. He went on a giant rant about how crazy he thought it was ROH (#4) was higher then WWE (#5) in the promotion of the year catagory because ROH didn't do as well financially. Sparked a lot of controversy over on the F4W boards, mainly ppl disagreeing w him and taking the stance that if money's all that matters and you shouldn't vote on the quality of the product why even have a vote at all for things like that since it can only ever boil down to WWE, UFC & maybe 1 or 2 others being considered. Lots of bitching about how some of the winners this year aren't as good those of the past as well, your usual "it's not like it used to be" spieal. All 3 seemed perplexed how Kevin Steen could possibly win best brawler when he didn't work for any "major" promotion all year too.
Dylan Waco Posted January 28, 2012 Author Report Posted January 28, 2012 Who did they tout for wrestler of the year?
FLIK Posted January 28, 2012 Report Posted January 28, 2012 Who did they tout for wrestler of the year? All 3 seemed fine with Tanahashi getting it but lots of talk about how wrestling's not what it used to be and there aren't many other good candidates. For most outstanding Mitchell thought Davey deserved it, Meltzer wasn't overly down on him but thinks the best guys are working in Japan these days and named Tanahashi & Devitt as 2 he thought were better, Alavarez had no opinion on it.
Coffey Posted January 28, 2012 Report Posted January 28, 2012 I watched some Tanahashi this year and he didn't really standout. Nothing out of the ordinary for him. I just think it's time they re-did the categories and what each one means/represents. I'll hammer the point home forever, but wrestler of the year factoring in drawing power in this day and age is fucking retarded. Then you have a bunch of people voting on technical wrestling and brawling and everyone has a different opinion of what each word even means. And I won't even get into the whole mixing MMA in with pro-wrestling can of worms. I thought it was pretty clear that the biggest standouts this year (voting year) were Mark Henry, C.M. Punk, Dolph Ziggler & Kevin Steen.
KrisZ Posted January 28, 2012 Report Posted January 28, 2012 They should just do a Readers Awards and a Editors Awards
jdw Posted January 30, 2012 Report Posted January 30, 2012 What happened to that "respect the opinions of others when you get older" meme? John
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