Burt Reynolds

[goodhelmet]

Burt

[jdw]

You know what that would have been a v silly point. Esp given how much of a flop Kane was at its time. Gone with the Wind I'd argue sort of fits because despite being the most popular movie of its time its central moral message (The Southern system, and by implication slavery was good) is even more disgusting as Hogan's 80's morality is now.

I don't think 80s WWF was especially disgusting. 80s WCCW was the one with disgusting booking and angles, taking advantages of death, making a bunch of dead drug addicts into heros, pushing kids into the business who should never have been in there and ended up dead, and of course the faking that Fritz heart attack.

 

The WWF was just a big over the top giant piece of entertainment. Like Smokey.

 

 

But Smokey and the Bandit did that ultimately alter the way movies were made? Did it change the genre in any appreciable way? Not really.

It launched Bert into being the #1 star in the country for 5 years.

 

I'm not terribly sold that the 80s WWF altered the way wrestling was made. It took advantage of changing technologies, though hardly the only company to do so and frankly beaten to it by a few. It just did it better, and figured out stuff that slipped by others. The one major innovation of the WWF was going National, which isn't really relevant to Movies because they've always been national.

 

Smokey didn't change the Car Chase genre. It just did it great. It didn't go in for Drama like say Bullet, but played it low brow like the WWF.

 

 

I'd say a GOOD comparison (and I have to apologize for my original stupid comp) would be the Star Wars trilogy which pretty much changed movie making forever, buried low budget genre movies and brought us the era of the summer blockbuster (which seems to run about 10 months a year now but I digress).

Star Wars was more likely the Gold Dust Trio, Jack Curley, Fabian and others in the 20s and 30s. They changed the business from a period of "few matches" and working the gamblers to Wrestling As Spectator Entertainment where wrestlers worked much more regularly, and the money was entirely made from drawing crowds. In effect, the summer blockbuster.

 

That said, the notion that the Summer Blockbuster started with Star Wars has always been overrated. One can just look at the rest of the summer of 1977 to see that: it was filled with blockbusters. In turn, the biggest blockbuster of the following year opened in December. While that movie was over ambitious in shooting, over budget and delayed, if Summer was the be all, end all after Star Wars, they could easily have pushed it out to a May 1979 release which was just five months later.

 

Star Wars just made a point that people knew from Jaws and frankly long before that: there's money to be made in Summer when kids (from young through college) are out of school and adults are taking vacations. The real change was even more in the 80s, after Empire (1980), Raiders vs Superman II (1981) and ET (1982). I think if you look at 1980:

 

1980 DOMESTIC GROSSES

 

You'll see that the Summer wasn't massively loaded up. I saying that less in the sense of what became a Hit but in what was Released. For example:

 

Airplane! was a hit, but it wasn't a blockbuster, and ended up being a super surprise hit.

 

In turn, Any Which Way You Can was a sequel to Clint's biggest hit ever, and was saved for the fall/winter. In contrast, his more specialty and personal Bronco Billy was rolled out in the summer. Pretty much everyone knew Any Which Way You Can was the one likely to be the bigger hit.

 

Stir Crazy was the follow up to the big hit Silver Streak, and saved for December.

 

Blue Lagoon wasn't a blockbuster in the summer, but Blues Brothers was one in the summer, while the equally expensive blockbuster Popeye went to December. Flash Gordon was a blockbuster at the end of the year.

 

Anyway, three years out from SW and the Summer Blockbuster is still just the Blockbuster which popped up as much as the end of the year as the summer. ESB not withstanding.

 

But by here:

 

1982 DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE

 

Bingo.

 

I'd add, though, that smaller movies weren't totally crushed out by the big. An Officer and a Gentleman, despite what we think of it now, wasn't a blockbuster. Gere wasn't a star at that point, instead the movie made him. Winger wasn't a massive star, and the director never made a hit before it. There still were movies like that which did business and weren't squeezed out. But things had swung towards summer blockbusters.

 

Anyway, Hollywood tends not to be slow. If SW was a total game changer on when movies get released, it wouldn't have taken 5 years for them to figure it out.

 

So... no... Vince and the WWF in the 80s weren't Star Wars.

[JerryvonKramer]

Possibly the most tedious man on the internet. I made an argument for how WWF changed wrestling here. The "one" major innovation was going national? Are you fucking serious?

 

WWF was Smokey and the Bandit not Star Wars? What the flying fuck? What planet do you live on?

[jdw]

I made an argument for how WWF changed wrestling here. The "one" major innovation was going national? Are you fucking serious?

Alright... let's take a look at this...

 

1. He turned wrestling into entertainment that competed not with sports, but with other TV shows by making it more about the CHARACTERS and STORIES than about the action in the ring.

That's why The Destroyer wrestled a Bear in the 60s. Because bears took the field NFL games, played outfield in Major League Baseball, played for Matt Busby in the 60s, etc. Right...

 

As far as characters and stories, that went back before Vince even promoted the business.

 

Wrestling was entertainment back to the 20s. Don't be stupid and think otherwise.

 

 

2. Balls like melons. Absolutely fearless every step of the way. He said "up yours" to the old boys' network and dared to be aggressive. If it meant raiding talent, being ruthless with booking venues, absolutely killing Verne Gagne, so be it. There is a certain Machiavellian genius to that.

Okay... so your "Vince Changed Wrestling" epic had TWO POINTS~! For fuck's sake.

 

Anyway, you're #2 is covered by my:

 

He went National.

 

That was the balls. All those things your mention in the sentences that follow it are requirements of going national and succeeding.

 

 

Possibly the most cluelessly stupid man on the internet.

Corrected, though you're not self reflective enough to see it in yourself.

 

Or perhaps better stated with:

 

 

Tugg Speedman: In a weird way I had to sort of just free myself up to believe that is was ok to be stupid or dumb.

Kirk Lazarus: To be a moron.

Tugg Speedman: Yeah!

Kirk Lazarus: To be moronical.

Tugg Speedman: Exactly, to be a moron.

Kirk Lazarus: An imbecile.

Tugg Speedman: Yeah!

Kirk Lazarus: Like the dumbest mother fucker that ever lived.

Tugg Speedman: [pause] When I was playing the character.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm stepping out of this crap now, but before you go calling anyone else a moron remember that you're the guy sitting there telling us that Star Wars didn't change films and WWF didn't change wrestling. Jog on.

[thebrainfollower]

Here's my take on this. Modern cinema tends to view SW as a make or break point. Everything changed after SW. Is that right? To an extent, but the perception that that's what happened is extremely prevalent.

 

It's likewise an extremely prevalent view that the Hulkamania era in the WWF represent THE major shift in pro wrestling in the US in the last 30 years. Is that factually correct? Maybe not but it's certainly how virtually everyone perceives things outside of a few experts.

 

 

And the tendency of a few experts to tear apart these widely cherished beliefs sort of proves my point better than I ever could JDW, that's there's an elitist view in operation when condemning 80's WWF vs. other less successful promotions. That's not a bad thing. I consider myself a liberal elitist politically. It's not a good thing either. It's just an observation I've noticed. I've long believed that perception is more important than reality. Any study of modern politics proves that. If people think X happened that matters in many ways more than the cold hard facts. Is that good? Is that bad? I don't know but it seems to be that way.

 

Merchandising is also a key point. SW was THE thing to buy as a kid growing up in that era (I should know, I have been buying figures for 30 of my 33 years). WWF took that sort of mega blitz merchandising and brought it to wrestling (there were things before that like Batman in the 60's but those were fads that died. SW and WWE/F merch is still going strong.)

 

And yes Smoky and the Bandit made Burt Reynolds a star for five years. But if you were to write, say a five page history of Hollywood 1927-2013 I'd be bemused if he even got a mention. IF someone wrote a five page history of US wrestling in those same years and never mentioned Hulk Hogan I'd assume the person was a bit of an idiot.

 

Also I sort of find Hogan's antics in the 80's a bit sickening. It's not payback it's "Hogan can break the rules because he's Hogan and he's BETTER so the rules don't apply to him". If that's not a metaphor for Reagan's America, I don't know what is. That was my point about finding the era disgusting. Really it's just Hogan that bothers me that way but he was the man in 80's WWF for more of it than anyone else.

[jdw]

I'm stepping out of this crap now, but before you go calling anyone else a moron remember that you're the guy sitting there telling us that Star Wars didn't change films and WWF didn't change wrestling. Jog on.

I know it's hard for you, but you need to read closer. I didn't say Star Wars didn't change the movies. I said this:

 

That said, the notion that the Summer Blockbuster started with Star Wars has always been overrated.

Then backed it up with, you know, those little things called facts.

 

In turn:

 

I'm not terribly sold that the 80s WWF altered the way wrestling was made.

It did change the wrestling business in this country. But it didn't really change the way wrestling was *made*.

 

TV tapings and the equiv of syndication? Existed before the WWF.

 

Closed circuit and it's successor PPV? Closed circuit existed in pro wrestling before Wrestlemania, and PPV existed in boxing and was just waiting for someone to use it in wrestling. The required what boxing was: National business.

 

National TV on a Network? Oh my god... that existed in the 40s and 50s!

 

Split rosters? JCP was doing it before Vince, as were other promotions. To a degree, the WWWF was doing a little of it before Vince, and probably a lot more than we're aware of if we had the results.

 

Characters?

 

 

Holy shit!

 

Storylines?

 

 

Oh my god!

 

And on and on.

 

I'm sure someone can pull Ice Cream Bars and Vitamins out of their ass, but that's the equiv of merchandising... and last I looked, they have very little to do with the WWF's big bottom line in the 80s and how they did business. They are not how Wrestling Is Made. They simply are side areas to cash in.

 

I know you get all worked up over TNT, but it had no significant impact. In the big picture, it was gone in short order while Vince focused on the things that made him money.

 

Vince changed the business by going national. He was successful in going national because he was smarter than his competition, exploited changes in technology, exploited dumbass and lazy rivals, and had Hulk Hogan. A lot of it was the last one. Much more than stuff like TNT.

 

"When I was playing the character."

-Tugg Speedman

 

John

[thebrainfollower]

One story mentioned every now and again is how important video sales were to the WWF. That Wrestlemania didn't even bring the sort of instant cash revenue needed to keep things going nationally with the 3 crew roster they had but video sales helped smooth that over a lot. The deal with Coliseum Video was crucial to WWF's being able to remain a major national player in mid 1985.

 

And today, from everything I've heard the action figure sales with Mattel are very very crucial to their success. Merchandising was NOT a small tiny unimportant part of the WWF 1984-2013. It was a HUGE part of it, from wrestlers making as much money on their LJN's (admittedly only in some cases when the figures, particularly the first few, sold really well) to videos to everything else in between.

 

Since we are speaking I guess of just cold hard facts, that's a fact.

[jdw]

Here's my take on this. Modern cinema tends to view SW as a make or break point. Everything changed after SW. Is that right? To an extent, but the perception that that's what happened is extremely prevalent.

SW has an impact on the business. A major one.

 

It just didn't have the immediate one that you cited: Summer Block Busters.

 

Yes, it is perception. A lazy one that people who make it never have bothered to go check. As human beings, we're not forced to accept perceptions that are wrong. Breaking free of them is wonderful.

 

 

It's likewise an extremely prevalent view that the Hulkamania era in the WWF represent THE major shift in pro wrestling in the US in the last 30 years. Is that factually correct? Maybe not but it's certainly how virtually everyone perceives things outside of a few experts.

Again, we're playing apples and oranges.

 

WWF Expansion (i.e. Vince & Hogan vs The World) was a major shift in the pro wrestling business in this country. Kris and I devoted a giant massive thread on it just to get that point across. I'm the one who thinks either Hulk Hogan or Jim Londos is the greatest pro wrestler who ever lived.

 

So you're arguing with the wrong person if you think I don't believe WWF Expansion didn't change the business.

 

But what Jerry pointed to was "how wrestling is made". Which is a wildly overstatement.

 

That is... unless... you want to say that the "change" was:

 

1. Pre-Expansion wrestling was made by territories

2. Post-Expansion wrestling was largely made by national companies

 

In which case... well... that was my point: Vince's change was going National.

 

 

And the tendency of a few experts to tear apart these widely cherished beliefs sort of proves my point better than I ever could JDW, that's there's an elitist view in operation when condemning 80's WWF vs. other less successful promotions.

See... this is where you have an inferiority complex as an 80s WWF Fan. You think everyone is out to get the WWF, and it's hurtful to your fandom. Anyone who doesn't see that WWF in the way you do is an Expert or Elitist out to get the WWF.

 

Look:

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=11633

 

You aiming that stuff at the wrong guy. There's lots of stuff about 80s WWF that I think if goofy. I confess to hating Gorilla Monsoon and thinking he was a shitty announcer. I don't agree with the premise that Demolition was a good working tag team. But I do think Vince is the best promoter who ever lived, Hogan is one of the two best wrestlers who ever lived, and by that thread you'll see that I think they were awesome in kicking the living shit out of other promotions.

 

 

I've long believed that perception is more important than reality. Any study of modern politics proves that. If people think X happened that matters in many ways more than the cold hard facts. Is that good? Is that bad? I don't know but it seems to be that way.

I've long believed that people who buy into perception without taking a step back to look at reality are idiots. Sometimes what the believe in or buy wouldn't even survive a minute if they paused to think about it. Or five minutes if they took a look at the Google.

 

It's not just me. Most of the discussions here are about perception, and trying to find the reality.

 

Perception: Hogan was a shitty worker

Reality: a number of people looked a bit deeper and found him at the very least to be "very effective"

 

Perception: Fujiwara wasn't any good

Reality: there are folks here who get all warm and fuzzy when watching him

 

Perception: A Whole Lotta People could have taken Backlund's spot in 1978-83

Reality: folks who've looked at this find a real hard time finding anyone who could have held it for 5 years

 

Perception: Carlos Colon was a shitty worker

Reality: looking at a host of matches over a good number of years, people now think he was a very effective babyface worker

 

Perception: Vince could have gone national with someone other than Hogan

Reality: when people have looked at this closely, they come up empty on anyone from that era being able to sustain Hogan's role from 1984-88

 

Perception: the WWF had deeper house show cards in the 80s than JCP

Reality: completely fucking off the deep end laughably nuts

 

There are several hundred conversations on this board where perception has been looked at and people figure out reality. It's what we do.

 

 

Merchandising is also a key point. SW was THE thing to buy as a kid growing up in that era (I should know, I have been buying figures for 30 of my 33 years). WWF took that sort of mega blitz merchandising and brought it to wrestling (there were things before that like Batman in the 60's but those were fads that died. SW and WWE/F merch is still going strong.)

That's perhaps a slight difference: I was 11 when SW came out, and you were not born. You entered a world where SW and merch already existed. I was in a world where there were OJ Simpson dolls before Star Wars came out. And Evel Knievel merch.

 

SW took existing things and pushed them to another level. It was a phenom, but people who claim it invented these things are wrong.

 

The WWF merch biz is great. But Brain... it's not How Wrestling Is Made. Anymore than the SW merch that I bought in 1977/78 was how Movies Were Made. They were ways to exploit the popularity of a movie, or in the case of the WWF "wrestlers" and "wrestling".

 

I have a dozen Manchester United jerseys at home, and a half dozen Barcelona jerseys. They don't change how futbol is played. The only change how those teams can make money... except of course they've been selling kits for ages.

 

 

And yes Smoky and the Bandit made Burt Reynolds a star for five years. But if you were to write, say a five page history of Hollywood 1927-2013 I'd be bemused if he even got a mention. IF someone wrote a five page history of US wrestling in those same years and never mentioned Hulk Hogan I'd assume the person was a bit of an idiot.

That's entirely fair. It's quite a distance from your original Kane/GWTW reference, but perfectly fair.

 

On the other hand, there were no National Promotions before Vince and Hogan. There really is no Hollywood equiv for that landmark change, unless we care to go Jazz Singer.

 

 

Also I sort of find Hogan's antics in the 80's a bit sickening. It's not payback it's "Hogan can break the rules because he's Hogan and he's BETTER so the rules don't apply to him". If that's not a metaphor for Reagan's America, I don't know what is. That was my point about finding the era disgusting. Really it's just Hogan that bothers me that way but he was the man in 80's WWF for more of it than anyone else.

Well, you were 0-8 during the RR era. I cast my first vote when I was 18 in 1984, and it was against RR. So if there is someone who tends to get RR's America here having come politically aware during it and behind shaped by it (I'm a DFH Liberal), let me raise my hand. Hogan = RR America isn't something that impacted me when watching Hogan at the time, and doesn't impact me when watching him now. He's just a typical babyface, and almost all of them as as big of assholes in what they do as the heels. There's nothing about Hogan that jumps out as an disgusting character. This awesome thread notwithstanding:

 

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=14212

 

Though I will say that, as well documented in that thread, this guy is a total douchebag:

 

 

[BrickHithouse]

I hate wrestling

[thebrainfollower]

One point about your post JDW SW wasn't made to sell merchandise. I completely agree with you on that.

 

Having said that merchandising was a HUGE part in the decision making factor of the prequels (and even ROTJ hence the Ewoks). I know for a fact (this quote came from GL's son to me in private) that the reason the prequels all had a different villain, that the clones have so many darn colors, etc was merchandising. It was literally thought up at the time. Even someone as soulless as Joel Schumacher has talked about the extent that toy manufacturers were dictating what was going to happen in his Batman movies something WB had no problem with.

 

So it might not have been a factor in merchandising then but it sure as heck is now. And that was when people saw the insane money you could make off this stuff. SW took Kenner, then Hasbro from being a small company to the only serious competition Mattel's ever had (Now Lego is #2 but that was only changed this year). I guarantee if John Cena sold ZERO action figures next year, he'd be sent down the card faster than Zach Ryder.

 

Those things didn't START with SW or 80's WWF (well in the later case I would argue they did, merch pre Hogan was not terribly important) but it was a massive massive increase. It's a point I made with JVK but it's not usually the first success that changes things. Hollywood didn't get on the horror bandwagon in the 30's until Frankenstein, which was the second hit. Comic book movies didn't start coming everywhere till Spiderman which was after Xmen.

 

So to be clear the Star Wars trilogy didn't create the summer blockbuster. Adolf Hitler didn't create Nazism either. But he darn sure had more of an impact than Von Gobineau or Houston Stewart Chamberlain or Dietrich Eckhart or Anton Drexler either. Likewise those 3 movies had a huge impact on summer blockbusters. There were summer blockbusters before SW. (Jaws being the most famous example). But I would argue SW was the most important summer blockbuster of all time. Because it made a TON of money and cemented in the general public's limited view that the summer was blockbuster time.

 

And to your other broad point, I don't get defensive in the slightest when people knock 80's WWF. In my group of wrestling friends I'm almost always the first one to suggest Mid South or JCP or Memphis or something different whereas they want to pop in an old Coliseum Video. You basically made a point saying most people are idiots. Well yeah they can be a lot of the time. Unfortunately there's more of them and they can dictate a lot.

 

And yes not every expert was out to get 80's WWF. Meltzer was in that era but you're right. I never said you hadn't credited Hogan and co for their success.

 

As to that old house show cards issue my only point was that WWF ran 3 shows, Crockett one most of the time. That gave him a huge edge in a more focused house show lineup with storyline backed matches. His big cards also had fewer matches, again a huge edge in making each match important. But on any given night after 87 the WWF had usually almost as many or as many "Feud" based matches as Crockett did in total.

 

I even admitted my original Kane reference was idiotic. Kane was a huge flop that nearly ruined RKO and Orson Welles (TMA finished him off there). That was a quick facile thing to compare it too. Gone with the Wind I am more comfortable. I'd say Wizard of Oz but actually it took nearly 20 years for that movie to really make money.

 

And the Jazz Singer, well that wasn't as huge a change. The movie wasn't all sound, it took a few years and a few dozen successful sound movies for Hollywood and mainstream America to get on board with sound. It always take Hollywood a few hits to back anything really.

 

Your points about SW and Reagan though seem to be a variation on the "you can't understand something you haven't lived through". Speaking as a history teacher than darn sure would put us all out of business fast. And I don't really agree with it that much anyway. I didn't mean to imply that everyone in Reagan's America believed what he did. But Vince I think did and promoted that same basic belief system through Hogan.

 

 

It's just that when you compare Smokey to 80's WWF I laugh. Smoky was a time piece that was a hit, was fun and had really zero impact on its broader business. 80's WWF had a much bigger impact on pro wrestling. I would say in that way SW as a game changer is the better comparison.

[jdw]

One story mentioned every now and again is how important video sales were to the WWF. That Wrestlemania didn't even bring the sort of instant cash revenue needed to keep things going nationally with the 3 crew roster they had but video sales helped smooth that over a lot. The deal with Coliseum Video was crucial to WWF's being able to remain a major national player in mid 1985.

This isn't true on two fronts:

 

1. Wrestlemania was a hit

 

A total, monster hit. 400K in closed circuit attendance.

 

2. there was no Coliseum Video deal

 

Coliseum Video = WWF. It was Vince's company. It would be like saying Sony Pictures has a "deal" with Sony DVD when it's just another part of the firm.

 

Video business wasn't that massive at the time. Blockbuster Video didn't even exist at the time of Wrestlemania I. You had some mom & pops stores, and the music stores were just getting into it. This was also the era of Rentals rather than Sales. The WWF would sell 1 copy of a video to a store, which would then rent it out... and hope to rent it out enough over the years to pay for the cost of buying it from the WWF. I think a lot of us had the experiance of going to the video (or music-video) store and renting the WWF videos and Lords of the Rings. Not a lot of people bought videos because very few were "priced to move" in those days. The WWF was trying to churn them out, but it was a small part of the business.

 

Credit to Vince: it still was money, and a way to use content that he'd already spent money on filming. He was ahead of the curve relative to his competitors in churning a lot of them out rather than farting around with 1 or 2 a year, taking forever to get them out, and being piss poor in getting them in stores. Of course Vince could have been slipping folks some cash to keep stores WWF-exclusive.

 

 

And today, from everything I've heard the action figure sales with Mattel are very very crucial to their success. Merchandising was NOT a small tiny unimportant part of the WWF 1984-2013. It was a HUGE part of it, from wrestlers making as much money on their LJN's (admittedly only in some cases when the figures, particularly the first few, sold really well) to videos to everything else in between.

We're talking several eras when you toss out 1984-2013. That's 30 years. We were talking about 80s WWF, which ended in 1989.

 

Merch was a good revenue stream for the WWF. Vince was smart in using it. But it wasn't the core business or core revenue stream. It also wasn't "How Wrestling Was Made". It simply was a way to make money off the wrestlers and wrestling. And as pointed out earlier: wrestling merchandise existed before 1984. Vince didn't invent it. Just like a lot of things, he happened to do it better.

 

Since we are speaking I guess of just cold hard facts, that's a fact.

I think you would find that the WWF made more money on one single day in 1987 from live gate, PPV and closed circuit (Wrestlemania III) than they did in the entire year of 1987 from all merchandise, licensing and video sales. Suspect that if we were able to add up the Live Gates of all the Hogan-Orndorff and Hogan-Kimala matches going around the horn, *both* feuds drew more revenue than those 1987 merch, licensing and video sales.

 

That's while admitting that Vince did good merch business.

[thebrainfollower]

Coliseum Video was actually a small independent company owned by Evart Enterprises. It was NOT owned by the WWF though the WWF did the vast majority of their business.

[BrickHithouse]

Did Evart produce porn tapes also, or is that an old wives tale?

[Johnny Sorrow]

Hey look, Ma! A thread about Burt Reynolds and Star Wars that's managing to be boring. That's new. Thank God Porn got brought up.

[ohtani's jacket]

Here's my take on this. Modern cinema tends to view SW as a make or break point. Everything changed after SW. Is that right? To an extent, but the perception that that's what happened is extremely prevalent.

From a critical standpoint, a lot of critics blame Jaws and Star Wars for killing off the more artistic, auteur-driven New Hollywood cinema, so if people view the territories as being more artistic per se then I think Star Wars or Jaws is a fairly apt analogy for the WWF. I like the image of the WWF being Jaws. The auteurs were also largely to blame for the demise of New Hollywood, much like the territories themselves, and Hollywood was taking advantage of a changing commercial landscape much like Vince did.

 

I think the analogy works fairly well.

[PeteF3]

Who or what is the Heaven's Gate of wrestling? Post-UWF buyout Crockett?

[Johnny Sorrow]

Who or what is the Heaven's Gate of wrestling? Post-UWF buyout Crockett?

It'd have to be something that cost a ton of money and failed right out the gate.

[ohtani's jacket]

Herb Abrams' UWF? SWS?

[Death From Above]

Cannonball Run 1 and 2 = kick ass movies.

Anyone who disagrees with this thinks incorrectly and requires societal reintegration.

[PeteF3]

Who or what is the Heaven's Gate of wrestling? Post-UWF buyout Crockett?

It'd have to be something that cost a ton of money and failed right out the gate.

 

...and did huge damage to the business as a whole (when OJ talks about auteurs being to blame for their own Hollywood demise, this movie served as the breaking point). That's why I'm tempted to go with '87 Crockett over SWS, which was sort off in its own isolated world and ended up being a blessing in disguise for All-Japan, despite being a money pit.

[Matt D]

Pro Wrestling USA?

[thebrainfollower]

Did that cost anyone any serious money though? Or did that just confirm the companies had to go it alone. Sort of as it Paramount, RKO, Fox and WB teamed against MGM in 1935 to do a few movies.

[KrisZ]

The best part about this thread was that it was created to get it out of the wrestling thread and then this thread sidetracked into a wrestling thread.

[jdw]

Coliseum Video was actually a small independent company owned by Evart Enterprises. It was NOT owned by the WWF though the WWF did the vast majority of their business.

Cool. So Vince made even less money off home video than we thought with cuts going to Evart, his distribution network, and resellers. Awesome!