Random questions thread

[Troy]

Does anyone know when Paul Heyman's last scripted OVW show was? I see his first was 7/16/05 and I'm thinking his last was 6/7/06 but I'm not sure

[WingedEagle]

When would people say the stamp was put on Cena as the #1 guy in WWE? After the HHH mania match in '06? HBK in '07? Somewhere in between?

[gingears]

I would think it would have been when he and Batista were respectively switched onto Raw and Smackdown.

[Jimmy Redman]

I was just about to say exactly that. Going to Raw was really the start of the Cena train. Everything after that - the Bischoff Evil GM feud, the switch from rap Cena to military Cena, going over Hunter at Mania and so on...it was all clear that they were going with him as the #1 guy.

[Loss]

I believe it was in late '05 when Vince told all of his key people that Cena was now the #1 guy and to treat him that way. The odd thing about it is that Batista was actually the one groomed for that spot, and he was successful, but the JBL program took some of the wind out of his sails, and then he had an ill-timed injury.

[BigBadMick]

I was just about to say exactly that. Going to Raw was really the start of the Cena train. Everything after that - the Bischoff Evil GM feud, the switch from rap Cena to military Cena, going over Hunter at Mania and so on...it was all clear that they were going with him as the #1 guy.

I agree. But I think that's a lot more obvious in hindsight. He really carried the load in 2007 when everyone else was off with injuries (Hunter, Undertaker, Michaels, Edge) but by Spring/Summer 2008 I felt the top of the card on Raw was a lot more cluttered. He was removed from the title picture and was biding his time with JBL and Batista.

[Jimmy Redman]

2008 was a very crowded main event scene, they had a lot of guys who could work on top besides Cena at that point, which allowed them to give him a break with the upper-midcard JBL feud and what not. But Cena never stopped being the #1 guy in the company, certainly in terms of star power, merch, etc. He was still The Man, but they could afford to cycle him out of the title picture a little at that time, whereas starting from about 2009, there seemed to be Cena and nobody else capable of headlining, which made for a million Cena vs Orton matches and things like that. 2009 was when they seemed to lose all their other stars capable of headlining without Cena and just had to go with all Cena, all the time.

 

(It's also worth noting that Cena was out injured in late 2007 and they probably had to plan for getting through WM24 without him until he came back astonishingly early at the Rumble and they shoehorned him into the planned Orton/HHH match. That may explain why he wasn't booked at the forefront as much in early-mid 2008.

 

But if you look at 2007, 2006, and late 2005, Cena was clearly the #1 guy in the company and all their efforts were devoted to putting him over. He held the WWE Title for over 12 months. And the same is true by the end of 2008 as well (he came back from injury at Survivor Series with the huge video package push and won the title straight away) and onwards.

 

His marginally reduced role in 2008 was just a result of a crowded top of the card and a slight lack of direction after being out injured, rather than a sign that his ascendancy happened four years after it did.

[BigBadMick]

I wasn't paying really close attention to Cena after the 2007 injury - did the anti-Cena chants wane at all when he was less prolific in 2008?

[Jimmy Redman]

Not appreciably, no.

 

There was a point at which Cena Hate seemed to cross the bridge from visceral hatred and wishing he was gone forever, to a less threatening kind of crowd participation deal, where people are happy to go and boo Cena because it's cool to hate Cena, that's just what you do in a crowd. At some point the people who hated him realised that booing him out of the building wasn't going to get him out of the building, he wasn't going anywhere.

 

However, I'm not really sure off-hand when that point was, if we can even pinpoint it to a particular period of time where the switch flipped. It was probably much more gradual than that.

 

When he came back at the Rumble, everyone in MSG was so shocked and they popped HARD for it, before realising that they'd been caught and soon went back to booing him. But you can see the sense there that the most smarky crowd they could run at that point in time had a certain level of appreciation for him as a big deal, if nothing else. Whereas in that 2005-06 period, dudes seemed to genuinely hate him beyond belief, and booed the shit out of him in the hopes of ending the Cena experiment and getting him the fuck off TV.

[BigBadMick]

It might be interesting to chart that.

 

As far as I remember, crowds were really unpleasant in late '05/early '06. Very gradually, as the year went on, there was an acceptance/grudging respect in a lot of buildings. I think Edge deserves credit as a heel there.

 

Feuding with Michaels in early 2007 (instead of Hunter) elevated Cena's work and standing to a degree, but HBK was much more popular among hardcores/adult males, so that unfortunately knocked him back to square one.

[SomethingSavage]

Shouldn't Hulk Hogan feel like a bigger deal these days? When did his legacy take such a dip? Was it all the jobs he did in the 2002 nostalgia run? Was it the feeling that he dropped off the face of the Earth while in TNA? Or was it the post-Hogan Knows Best scandal stuff with his family? Just curious as to what the general consensus might be on that.

 

I rewatched the first half of WM30 - mostly for the opening segment and the DB/HHH match - and yeah. It was just startling to me how much more of a "superstar presence" that both Rock and Austin seemed to hold over Hulk. Don't get me wrong. Hogan felt over. And he felt like he belonged within the context and framing of what they were doing. But, for somebody with so much history and mainstream exposure, he just felt like this man out of time & almost irrelevant in the environment. It's hard to properly convey or put into words, but I think you get my drift.

 

It's just a strange thing. I think he's done okay in this new ambassador role with the company since returning, and his initial return was actually handled fairly well - but, even now looking back, it just feels absolutely underwhelming (at best) for a guy with SUCH a rich & strong influence in the industry.

 

Where'd it go wrong?

[RyanClingman]

I was reading an old Observer from June 18th 1990, which was published after Dave returned from the trip that he saw the first Misawa/Tsuruta match on. He mentions being at an FMW show on June 2nd at Korakuen where, following a main event tag match of Onita & Lee Gak vs. Mitsutero Tokudo & Fumiharu Asako, Onita was in the middle of cutting a sob-story promo about FMW being the underdogs when hecklers got to him and he threw the mic at them, which led to fans responding by throwing cans at the hecklers, and a near-riot. Onita was then mobbed in the crowd. Is there anywhere that I can see this? Did it even make tape? I am highly intrigued.

[The Chief]

Shouldn't Hulk Hogan feel like a bigger deal these days? When did his legacy take such a dip? Was it all the jobs he did in the 2002 nostalgia run? Was it the feeling that he dropped off the face of the Earth while in TNA? Or was it the post-Hogan Knows Best scandal stuff with his family? Just curious as to what the general consensus might be on that.

 

I rewatched the first half of WM30 - mostly for the opening segment and the DB/HHH match - and yeah. It was just startling to me how much more of a "superstar presence" that both Rock and Austin seemed to hold over Hulk. Don't get me wrong. Hogan felt over. And he felt like he belonged within the context and framing of what they were doing. But, for somebody with so much history and mainstream exposure, he just felt like this man out of time & almost irrelevant in the environment. It's hard to properly convey or put into words, but I think you get my drift.

 

It's just a strange thing. I think he's done okay in this new ambassador role with the company since returning, and his initial return was actually handled fairly well - but, even now looking back, it just feels absolutely underwhelming (at best) for a guy with SUCH a rich & strong influence in the industry.

 

Where'd it go wrong?

Probably just an age thing. A lot of fans got the Hogan nostalgia out of their system in 2002. It's diminishing returns. Plus, Hogan's heyday was so long ago that a lot of the current fan base wasnt even alive then and thus have no emotional investment in him.

[JerryvonKramer]

This reached its nadir during HHH vs. Sting, where it really did feel like Hogan was presented as "just another guy from back then".

[WingedEagle]

I was referring more to when Cena "felt" like he was the top dog, rather than when word was out that he was going to be the guy. My recollection was that in '05 it still seemed that HHH, HBK, maybe even Hogan or Batista were promoted at the top of the card. I could also be imagining all of this but am trying to pinpoint when the change from "We Want Him On Top In the Future" to "On Top" took place.

[Laz]

Re: Hogan

The reality show, the divorce, and Nick's legal woes soured a lot of people on Hogan. Age definitely has a factor (as Chief pointed out, a good portion of the current fanbase don't see him as a focal point of their youth), but I think his real life dealings post-WWE return did more harm than just getting older.

[SteveJRogers]

I was just about to say exactly that. Going to Raw was really the start of the Cena train. Everything after that - the Bischoff Evil GM feud, the switch from rap Cena to military Cena, going over Hunter at Mania and so on...it was all clear that they were going with him as the #1 guy.

Also when it was clear the audience was turning on him in the Jericho and Angle feuds in 2005.

[Johnny Guitar]

Re: Hogan

The reality show, the divorce, and Nick's legal woes soured a lot of people on Hogan. Age definitely has a factor (as Chief pointed out, a good portion of the current fanbase don't see him as a focal point of their youth), but I think his real life dealings post-WWE return did more harm than just getting older.

Agreed. Also, Hogan in someways is his own worse enemy. He's never reAlly shown the ability to step back a notch when there's the perception that he's being over exposed.

 

I think the first example of that is the mega powers angle where a lot of people sided with Savage.

 

In Hogans defence in regards to the current audiences perception of him. It's been nearly quarter of a century since he was the man in the company. Over that time he's spent most of it on the outside looking in. And Vince has bad mouthed him to high heAven when he's been elsewhere, especially when he was in wcw. A lot of fans have come and gone in that time frame with a skewed perception of Hogans place in history.

 

It also doesn't help that despite the availability of footage part of the fanbase today just doesn't care about the past. Although that sentiment could apply to a lot of things

[JerryvonKramer]

More Sullivan claims:

 

- Hogan was on about 26 million in WCW, pre NWO

- he was guaranteed 2 million per ppv plus bonuses if they were .5 of a rating above target

- he was also paid a percentage of Nitro revenue

- he also got 50% of ALL merchandise no matter whose it was

- the next highest paid guy was on about 3 million

[UKWildcat]

More Sullivan claims:

- Hogan was on about 26 million in WCW, pre NWO

- he was guaranteed 2 million per ppv plus bonuses if they were .5 of a rating above target

- he was also paid a percentage of Nitro revenue

- he also got 50% of ALL merchandise no matter whose it was

- the next highest paid guy was on about 3 million

What?!!? lol. Seems like a lot of BS from Sullivan.

 

I definitely don't buy that two million from PPV. I remember the sheets saying $300K for a PPV appearance (I can buy that).

[JerryvonKramer]

That's why I wanted to mentioned them, the figures seem absolutely enormous. Sullivan claims Hogan was on almost 10 times the next nearest guy (who was Savage).

 

He reckons that Hogan was able to negotiate this deal after a PPV carrier went to him independently (i.e. just to Hogan) and offered by 2 million for 6 shows. Hogan went to Turner and was able to get the deal by playing one against the other.

 

The figures seem outrageous though, and I wanted to know if there were any conflicting reports.

[UKWildcat]

That's why I wanted to mentioned them, the figures seem absolutely enormous. Sullivan claims Hogan was on almost 10 times the next nearest guy (who was Savage).

 

He reckons that Hogan was able to negotiate this deal after a PPV carrier went to him independently (i.e. just to Hogan) and offered by 2 million for 6 shows. Hogan went to Turner and was able to get the deal by playing one against the other.

 

The figures seem outrageous though, and I wanted to know if there were any conflicting reports.

There was a story I remember from 95 where they put Hogan vs Kamala on the Sunday Main Event, which was shown live before a PPV, because they didn't want to pay him the $300k.

[JerryvonKramer]

Hmmm. Curious. Sullivan has brought up Hogan's payment costs more than once and uses it as the permanent reason why he had to headline pretty much every card.

[JerryvonKramer]

Looking into this it seems like he had 300k base appearance rate + percentage cut of gate + 25% of PPV revenue. And the merchandise rate was 65% although Sullvian said something like he agreed to come down to 50%.

 

If you add up all the 300ks for appearances and then make an estaminet of those gates and PPV buy rates, maybe it did come to 20m+?

[Sidebottom]

For me the audio recording that leaked with his son trying to set up a reality show out of the car wreck is what soured me on the man, big time. Even watching classic Hulkster back, I can't get that call out of my head.