Little questions thread

[JerryvonKramer]

I've made it clear I've stepped out of this debate now, especially re: Mid-South, JYD, fads, and "product" vs. intangible external factors. My position is clear and I've got nothing else to add to it. There are four books I'd recommend on this topic: Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, The Black Swan and Thinking Fast and Slow. I don't see why principles that apply to the rest of society don't also apply to wrestling.

 

But Johnny / Kris -- you want me to believe Happy Days had 20million+ "hardcore" fans who singlehandedly kept the show on air till the bitter end? C'mon man. 20 million hardcore Happy Days fans? Really?

 

Also, Loss, I've always thought that WCW's problems / WWF's success came down to marketing rather than product. Believe that Vince with the same product as WCW in 92, for example, would have done better because he was so good at marketing.

[BackToBionic]

I can't speak for him / her (lol, yeah right "her")

Hey I don't mean to derail the current conversation, but this is the "little questions thread" after all.

 

Why are there practically ZERO hardcore female fans of wrestling? Hardcore wrestling junkies span the globe and this little community here is one hell of a cross section. Aside from liking wrestling, the only other thing we all have in common is we're males.

 

You can find hardcore female fans of all other sports and virtually all other areas of entertainment. Not wrestling. Why?

 

Sorry if this has been debated to death years ago or something.

 

I'm a female "hardcore" fan. I've followed since I was 9 and spend almost all of my free time watching old (and sometimes new) wrestling, even though my boyfriend thinks it's hokey and only knows Attitude era guys. I have good knowledge of everything American post 85 and a small working knowledge of Japan since 90-ish (and a slightly smaller range of knowledge about other regions). I'm sure there are others, maybe even that you've talked to and just don't know it as there's really no reason to bring it up on the internet.

[El-P]

Also, Loss, I've always thought that WCW's problems / WWF's success came down to marketing rather than product. Believe that Vince with the same product as WCW in 92, for example, would have done better because he was so good at marketing.

Hum... I'm watching WCW's Highway to Hell, and it is not a matter of marketing. The product was going to the shitter and people just stopped watching because they got fucked over and over again and were sick of the same old shit. Then Russo made wrestling irrelevant and the core WCW fans were true wrestling fans so they left never to return again. WWF's product was shit in 1999, but you had AUstin and Rock (and Mr. McMahon) who were so ridiculously over that it didn't matter. They were over and fresh. WCW's product was neither. WCW's bad product killed the company, there's no arguing about that one. WWF's product was shit in 1999, but it was also new hot shit that got over by being good (on top at least) in 97 and early 98. And then when Russo left, the product got better and better, and the company peaked with a good product again.

[El-P]

I'm a female "hardcore" fan. I've followed since I was 9 and spend almost all of my free time watching old (and sometimes new) wrestling, even though my boyfriend thinks it's hokey and only knows Attitude era guys. I have good knowledge of everything American post 85 and a small working knowledge of Japan since 90-ish (and a slightly smaller range of knowledge about other regions). I'm sure there are others, maybe even that you've talked to and just don't know it as there's really no reason to bring it up on the internet.

You're the exception to the rule. I have crossed path with very few. I remember Miko Kubota who was a huge joshi fan back in the late 90's. A girl named Tina also dating back from the Spider Twist board I think....

[ohtani's jacket]

Vince wasn't faring too well himself in 1992 and he certainly wouldn't have booked WCW any way their fanbase wanted to see. WCW was a national company that only went national because someone with money and a TV station bought it not from it's own volition. It was amateur hour all the way.

[JerryvonKramer]

Yeah I'd agree it was product there el-p. By 99 WCW had caught up with marketing. I was thinking of the earlier period. Just consider the fact that SD Jones had an action figure in 1985. Vince's success wasn't just product it was a combination of that and marketing savvy. Flair has argued this before, that NWA with the WWF's marketing machine behind them could have been alot bigger.

 

OJ- not Vince booking, the booking stays exactly the same, just marketing.

[Ian]

Now that the death of Mid South conversation has been beaten to death I'll jump in with a new theory.

 

From shoot interviews I've seen wrestlers often claim that MS/UWF fans "believed" far moreso than fans in other territories. WWF and Hogan, on the other hand, were impossible to take seriously as athletes engaged in legitimate athletic competition. I was 4 when Hogan pinned the Iron Sheik and by the time I was in the 1st grade every kid in my class knew wrestling was fake. It's at least plausible that when WWF went national, fans in Watts' territory realized they had been conned and stopped watching wrestling altogether. That, combined with other factors, may explain why UWF, JCP, and WWF couldn't draw in NOLA after the height of JYD.

[ohtani's jacket]

Why would Vince let the booking stay the same? He's hardly going to market the rasslin as the rasslin is he? Besides, Vince as marketing genius is a very post-territorial, job-for-life, DVD talking head point. We used to throw it around a lot in the Mon Night Wars era when folks took sides, but it's overplayed.

[Strummer]

was there ever a (backstage) reason given why Austin wrestled Hall at WM 18 instead of Nash?

[JerryvonKramer]

Why would Vince let the booking stay the same? He's hardly going to market the rasslin as the rasslin is he? Besides, Vince as marketing genius is a very post-territorial, job-for-life, DVD talking head point. We used to throw it around a lot in the Mon Night Wars era when folks took sides, but it's overplayed.

This was a hypothetical Vince who wouldn't interfere with the booking, which I admit is stretching the boundaries of imagination.

 

Honestly, I don't have the stamina or the patience for another back and forth about how important marketing was to WWF's rise in the 80s. I'm going to take a timeout and go and watch some more AWA. The idea that Vince was better at marketing than either Crockett or early 90s WCW is something I had assumed was so self-evident as to be uncontroversial. If I had to attribute WWF's boom to factors, I'd say it was about 30% product, 30% marketing savvy, 20% luck (see also "something clicked"), and 20% "business", by which I mean things like raiding talent, takeovers, hostile and aggressive scheduling, local and national TV slots and things like that on the business end. I don't care to debate this point myself, I'd expect many many many other people to see it the same way. We've seen that in general the majority of posters on this board put a disproportionate amount of weight and significance on "the product". My understanding of the world, of business, of media, and of the public is that it just doesn't work like that. I'll point you back to the four books I mentioned which each in different ways look at cultural phenomena. I almost wish Malcolm Gladwell had included a chapter on Hogan and 80s WWF in The Tipping Point alongside the stuff about Hush Puppies and Sesame Street. Of the factors he identifies for things "tipping" Hogan (and the rest of the product) only account for "stickiness" -- about 30%.

 

Right. AWA disc 4 then. Party podcasts #5 and #6 at the ready. And only one Brad Rheingans match in there.

[Johnny Sorrow]

But Johnny / Kris -- you want me to believe Happy Days had 20million+ "hardcore" fans who singlehandedly kept the show on air till the bitter end? C'mon man. 20 million hardcore Happy Days fans? Really?

Yes. The American TV audience of the late 70's/ early 80's was a completely different animal than today.

[Dooley]

was there ever a (backstage) reason given why Austin wrestled Hall at WM 18 instead of Nash?

Austin didn't want to work Hogan but was still caught in the nWo invasion. He figured he could at least get a good match out of Hall.

[S.L.L.]

My position is clear

Are you shitting me, Jerry?

 

You're the guy who was arguing this....

 

Now, I suspect jdw and the other people on that side of this argument will come back and say that they weren't talking about "quality" so much as "what the people want to see".

....while simultaneously arguing this....

 

I don't know if the "50 Shades of Grey" craze has hit the US or not, but I've literally never heard a single good word said about that book by anyone. Not in life, or on TV. But it's a smash bestseller. A "product" that virtually everyone shits on, a product that is by all accounts putrid. And yet it's a smash.

 

Why is wrestling different from that?

These arguments are mutually exclusive. When Dylan asked, "what do you mean by 'quality'", you told him one thing, after having told jdw something entirely different. And then you actually reaffirmed the point you made to jdw, as though he couldn't read what you had written to Dylan earlier that day. jdw said you "got lost", but I can't help but wonder if he's giving you too much credit in assuming that.

 

The extent to which your argument is clear is that you think you're right and that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. Somewhat funny, seeing as how....

 

It's a surprise to me that on this forum I'd I come across "in thread after thread" like I'm trying to put myself over as "smarter than the room". Especially when my general feeling is that I'm posting on a board where everyone knows more about wrestling than I do

Do you still believe that, Jerry?

[goodhelmet]

Now you're just piling on and looking for a fight. He's already bowed out.

[JerryvonKramer]

SLL, I'm not going to be drawn back into the debate. I do think my position is extremely clear. I've also given you the sources of why I'm thinking about things in the way that I am, why I think an emphasis on "product" and product alone is misplaced.

 

I am posting now only to point out that in the first quotation you've pulled out there, I'm not arguing anything, I'm putting forward what I suspected jdw and others would say. And lo and behold, they did go ahead and said it.

 

The second thing you pulled out is part of what I'm arguing. I don't know if you've noticed but jdw and I have been on polar opposite ends of this debate. It's not a surprise that the argument I suspected he would come out with and the one that I am putting forward are "mutually exclusive". We don't agree.

 

Do I think I'm right? Of course I do or I wouldn't be arguing what I am. Does jdw think he's right? Of course he does. What's "smarter than the room" got to do with anything? I don't get that criticism. Especially when it's jdw who has a habit of speaking down to me, and not the other way around. I don't really understand what your post is trying do there SLL. Is it trolling? Is it shit-stirring? The one thing it's not doing is adding anything at all to the conversation.

[Dylan Waco]

Tell me how many people lived in the world during JYD's peak.

 

Tell me how many countries there were.

 

Tell me how many wrestling territories there were within those countries.

 

Tell me how many fans within those territories gave a crap about JYD relative to their local heroes.

 

JYD was one of the biggest draws in the country pre-national expansion is probably praise enough.

Why? If we apply your logic the area of the country he worked in was hardly massive. Was it more than half the country? Well no. A third of the country? No. A quarter? No.

 

At every point in history there has been an someone who was the biggest drawing card in wrestling. Sometimes those people worked relatively small geographical areas, sometimes they were true international stars. JYD may not have been that person but he was in the running. Saying he was possibly the biggest draw in the world at his peak isn't hyperbole, it's fact.

[khawk20]

I've made it clear I've stepped out of this debate now,

You say this a lot. You never seem to mean it.

[Dylan Waco]

Honestly, I don't have the stamina or the patience for another back and forth about how important marketing was to WWF's rise in the 80s. I'm going to take a timeout and go and watch some more AWA. The idea that Vince was better at marketing than either Crockett or early 90s WCW is something I had assumed was so self-evident as to be uncontroversial. If I had to attribute WWF's boom to factors, I'd say it was about 30% product, 30% marketing savvy, 20% luck (see also "something clicked"), and 20% "business", by which I mean things like raiding talent, takeovers, hostile and aggressive scheduling, local and national TV slots and things like that on the business end. I don't care to debate this point myself, I'd expect many many many other people to see it the same way. We've seen that in general the majority of posters on this board put a disproportionate amount of weight and significance on "the product". My understanding of the world, of business, of media, and of the public is that it just doesn't work like that. I'll point you back to the four books I mentioned which each in different ways look at cultural phenomena. I almost wish Malcolm Gladwell had included a chapter on Hogan and 80s WWF in The Tipping Point alongside the stuff about Hush Puppies and Sesame Street. Of the factors he identifies for things "tipping" Hogan (and the rest of the product) only account for "stickiness" -- about 30%.

 

You should read more than Gladwell, Taleb, et. Not saying you haven't and I liked Tipping Point and love Black Swan, but if you are going to go around criticizing those of us who focus on "product" at the expense of other things (allegedly), I wouldn't hang my hat on those four books. There is a way of viewing markets and having a basic understanding of how they work that I think is easy to lose in all the pop psychology and cultural analysis that existed in those books. Taleb has said that himself though now that I'm wanting to use the quote I can't find it. I'm still not entirely sure you even know what some of us mean when we talking about "the product."

[Dylan Waco]

Now you're just piling on and looking for a fight. He's already bowed out.

Maybe so, but I don't think Jerry's position is clear at all and I'm not entirely sure he understand the position of others.

 

Also he can't claim to have "bowed out" when he's taking subtle shots at people in his last post.

[goodhelmet]

Now you're just piling on and looking for a fight. He's already bowed out.

Maybe so, but I don't think Jerry's position is clear at all and I'm not entirely sure he understand the position of others.

 

Also he can't claim to have "bowed out" when he's taking subtle shots at people in his last post.

 

When did he take a shot at S.L.L.?

[khawk20]

I think calling S.L.L. a shit-stirring troll in his latest bow-out post qualifies, no? See also the jdw "lo and behold" line.

 

You don't post lines like that without expecting to continue the conversation, IMO.

[goodhelmet]

That is after the SLL post. Prior to SLL's post, where?

[Dylan Waco]

Now you're just piling on and looking for a fight. He's already bowed out.

Maybe so, but I don't think Jerry's position is clear at all and I'm not entirely sure he understand the position of others.

 

Also he can't claim to have "bowed out" when he's taking subtle shots at people in his last post.

 

When did he take a shot at S.L.L.?

 

I didn't say he did.

 

You however did claim that Jerry had "bowed out."

 

This is not bowing out:

 

"We've seen that in general the majority of posters on this board put a disproportionate amount of weight and significance on "the product". My understanding of the world, of business, of media, and of the public is that it just doesn't work like that. I'll point you back to the four books I mentioned which each in different ways look at cultural phenomena."

 

That's harping on the point about "the product" still.

 

I'm not looking to take shots at Jerry who I like, but when I read that my take away is that he is relying too much on Gladwell, Taleb, et. and that he still doesn't understand how some of us view "the product" as a catch all term for a lot more than just bell-to-bell action and promos. I could recommend books to, but I generally reserve my Good Will Hunting gimmick for real life, or even less important debates on facebook.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

That's me right there. I apologise for doing my old trick of bowing out and then coming back in to say something. I'm going to try to make a resolution to stop doing that, it's a bad habit. You might say "don't bow out in the first place then", but I get burnt out after a few days, especially with John. Dylan -- I would like to see what other books you'd recommend though, because I do think some of those I've mentioned (Freakonomics in particular) have problems.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't want this to get political as a tenet of this board is that it is Pro Wrestling Only, but I would strongly recommend Kevin Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy. For something less academic the Charles Johnson/Gary Chartier edited Markets Not Capitalism is a very good book. I also enjoyed The Pirate Organization which is new-ish and easy to consume in a single sitting if you are so inclined.

 

Any other talk of this sort will be reserved for PM or off board conversation.