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Dylan Waco

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Hey Will remember when we were recording five-hour podcasts about The Kinks and David Bowie that never seem to get released rather than "feuding" over Dory Jr and Dick Murdoch's place in the WON HoF?

 

Where have all the good times gone?

 

Well, since Joe left the territory after throwing out the challenge, I had to turn on my tag team partner to keep things fresh. I imagine once Joe comes back and we start feuding over the legacy of this company, you and I will form an uneasy alliance to combat the vagabond Bruiser Brody-like no selling Joe before he runs out of the territory demanding a bigger payoff.

 

 

fantastic.

 

Here is what happened. I don't know if you listened to the historical candidates show we did w/Dylan, and now that I think about it i'm not even sure if it ended up making the tape, but I casually brought up my love for The Islanders for some unknown reason, and Dylan mentioned that you were also a big fan.

 

Brother, I can't have malice for an Islanders fan.

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Regarding ROH commentary, I'm not defending it from a quality standpoint, but you have to remember that the DVD's were the lifeblood of their business model in the early days, and the selling point of the DVD's was that ROH was a workrate promotion giving workrate classics to workrate fans.

 

So Parv, that is why ROH wrestlers went into matches actively attempting to work MOTY contenders & ****+ matches, in some cases up & down the entire card. That's what was selling the DVD's, and the trickle down effect for the wrestlers was that this is how they were gaining exposure & reputations.

 

It's easier to sell months or even years old DVD's on the strength of "hey, this is that show with five 4-star matches" rather than, "hey, this is that show with a few minor storyline advancements, a decent promo by a midcarder, a prelim face turn, and a darn good main event that set up the KILLER rematch in Philly four months later." Especially with those fans and what those fans wanted in that era.

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Regarding ROH commentary, I'm not defending it from a quality standpoint, but you have to remember that the DVD's were the lifeblood of their business model in the early days, and the selling point of the DVD's was that ROH was a workrate promotion giving workrate classics to workrate fans.

 

So Parv, that is why ROH wrestlers went into matches actively attempting to work MOTY contenders & ****+ matches, in some cases up & down the entire card. That's what was selling the DVD's, and the trickle down effect for the wrestlers was that this is how they were gaining exposure & reputations.

 

It's easier to sell months or even years old DVD's on the strength of "hey, this is that show with five 4-star matches" rather than, "hey, this is that show with a few minor storyline advancements, a decent promo by a midcarder, a prelim face turn, and a darn good main event that set up the KILLER rematch in Philly four months later." Especially with those fans and what those fans wanted in that era.

I can see exactly why they were doing it, but that doesn't mean that I hate it any less than I do. I think directly appealing to "the smart fan" is properly stupid, both in terms of a business model and in terms of creating an in-ring product. I can't remember where Loss said it, but it should be that the wrestlers are controlling the crowd, not the crowd controlling the wrestlers.

 

ROH really screwed the pooch from the get-go, in my view. By being so stubbornly niche, they put a cap on the potential size of their audience. And by working "to the smart fan", they create a real rod for their own backs as to the sorts of matches they have to put on every single time.

 

On the plus side, you may get some great matches put on in front of intolerably annoying crowds, but it puts a tremendous amount of strain on the workers for not a lot of pay off. Completely ass backwards when you stop and think that Vince McMahon Sr was selling out MSG putting on sub-par shows with only one or two featured matches and literally SD Jones vs. Johnny Rodz or its equivalent filling out the card. It's not that "standards have changed" or that fans are now "smarter", it's that promoters and workers have become actively stupider. If Vince Sr had kept raising the bar every single month at MSG and had his son talking about MOTYs, then they'd have probably gone bust in a couple of years or had to stack his cards by bringing in expensive talent from elsewhere and amping up the workrate.

 

Down south, in some territories, they had to work twice as hard for half the pay off either because the crowds weren't there, or because they had to run a weekly loop. Might make for better matches and more innovative angles, but again it's not exactly booking "smart". The very best promoters were those who were able to get the most (i.e. box office) out of the least (i.e. talent and matches).

 

Where am I going with this? I do ultimately agree with you Joe that standards aren't universal and that guys at different times have to do different things to get over. I think it's undoubtedly true that a guy working ROH in 2005 would have to work about 20 times as hard in front of the 500 people in the shitty high school gym than Ivan Putski would in front of 25,000 people at MSG in 1979. And Putski would probably get the bigger pops and a much bigger payday. It's not fair is it. Putski was awful and yet he was probably more over than any wrestler save for a select couple than anyone from the past decade. Is it because Putski was working smarter? No, he was just lucky to be in that time in that place.

 

But I am ideologically opposed to ROH and to actively breaking kayfabe in the product. My dislike for "the modern product" has never ever been based on match quality or anything to do with wrestling, it's a "feel" and atmosphere thing. It's a presentation thing. I'll consider guys from the past 10-15 years for the purposes of this project, but I make no secret of the fact that I'd much, much prefer to watch wrestling from back in the day when it was still authentic, when it still meant something, when the crowds and workers were less self-conscious and more organic. I blame Russo. I blame Bischoff. I blame Heyman. I blame Gabe. I blame the internet. I blame idiotic promoters and terrible bookers. They broke wrestling and now it's nothing at all like what I want to see and so I don't watch it. I don't blame the workers, which is why I'm giving them a shot. But at the same time, the surrounding context -- which I actively hate -- is almost certainly going to produce tendencies in the work that I don't enjoy. It's not exclusive to this era though. I mean, I generally dislike the trend in the 70s and early 80s of having dancing, jiving babyfaces. I hate Putski and Strongbow. I hate Road Warrior Hawk and The Ultimate Warrior. Every age will produce both great stuff and shitty stuff.

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But here's the thing. As a fan, why should I care if a promoter is being smart? The only thing that concerns me is being entertained. If ROH is giving me my money's worth every show, what does it matter to me if they are unwittingly stifling long term growth? Booking SD Jones vs Johnny Rodz, Ivan Putski, Jay Strongbow, etc on cards means your card is going to be terrible. As a fan, I couldn't care less if it was smart or not for long term business. My one & only concern is enjoying what i'm watching. And i'm glad people like Rodz or Putski or Strongbow woulnd't be able to cut it in 2014, because who wants to watch that shit?

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You seem very intent on making it an old vs new thing again. Read what I said again.

 

I read everything you said, and responded using the examples that you used.

 

I'm not even really disagreeing with your smart vs dumb premise in terms of booking/promoting, but my counter to that, is that as a fan, when the rubber meets the road why should I care?

 

And again, i'm not defending the early ROH commentary, I don't like it either (wait until you hear Gabe- err, "Jimmy Bower" screaming DAAAAANNNGEROOOUUUSSS!!), but I totally see why they presented things in that manner. Just as I can see why McMahon graced us with his terrible house show cards. Doesn't mean I have to like those, either.

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I don't care how much money a show/match makes.

I don't care how many people a show/match/wrestler draws.

I don't really care what other's opinions of a show/match/wrestler/promotion are.

I do care if I enjoy watching what I just watched, irregardless of it was smart for business or whatnot. Worrying about whether what a promoter is doing is smart for business seems odd to me, other than in the sense of "I'd like it more if they did it this way".

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I feel like I didn't make myself clear here. The last paragraph is the important bit, the stuff before that about the business is just context.

 

I do think crowds and atmosphere play an important role for me though. On the one hand the high school gym feels less important than MSG, on the other the smoky Mid-South arena feels more authentic than the modern Wrestlemania stadium show. Whichever way you look at it, I massively dislike modern crowds and -- like the commentary -- it's a barrier to overcome when I watch that stuff. I'm into the presentational aspects of wrestling more than most. Never been just a bell-to-bell guy. I'm into the whole "inner-world" of it.

 

I also have no problem saying that I do consider the opinions of others, especially those in the PWO community. If Chad drops five stars on a match and then Loss backs him up, I'm going to take notice of it. If I'm high on something and someone else is less so, the reasons can be really interesting. They might point out flaws I missed, or whatever. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree, like me and the other Titans over Bob Backlund's ridiculous lack of selling every single show.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For the overall large point of "how to prioritize" I wouldn't have a problem with someone not really considering something they might consider too "niche." I mean if your main area of interest is pretty much only in one country or a specific time period and you're already committing to watching stuff outside of that comfort zone for the project, how deep are you supposed to dive?

 

If someone has never watched more than 10 matches from Japan it's probably not realistic to expect them to go through the glory days of New Japan & All Japan, the 2000s and then jump into Joshi, FMW, M-Pro, etc etc. So for someone who hasn't watched wrestling past a certain time period, particularly 10+ years, it's never going to possible to cover all the bases the way the biggest modern indie fan, or the Joshi fan, or even the lucha supporters might want.

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Serious question - was Jon Moxley getting any buzz before he became Dean Ambrose? I had never really heard anyone talk about him at the time, so maybe I just missed it.

Moxley was getting buzz for his promos and CZW (I think?) work about six months before he got picked up by the WWE. If I remember the timeline, right. Basically, he never got the Ring of Honor/PWG/etc. run that other people got, because he got plucked just as he was about to replace guys like Rollins who also got picked up by the WWE in the timeframe.

 

Of course, I could be completely off.

 

Word was that Jon Moxley was hired by Adam Pearce for a ROH run . However Pearce got fired some Moxley ended up with Gabe. It all work out for him .

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Moxley worked in Gabe's promotions along with PWG and CZW and AAW and AIW. He really stood out in Evolve and Dragon Gate USA in so many ways. He was a much better promo than almost everyone else. He was much larger than everyone else. He acted like a cross between Roddy Piper and Stan Hansen. He had a feud/program with Bryan Danielson. I think I have that show on DVD. I haven't watched it once yet because I burned out on the promotion after their first few shows.

 

He had said on Art of Wrestling that he didn't really enjoy the Gabe style of wrestling. He then went on to work that style in WWE. He's not Ziggleresque or Kofi Kingstonrific he doesn't really stand out on his own without the other Shield members teaming with him.

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