NintendoLogic Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 8 hours ago, MoS said: Question for historians here - (Really wish @mookeighana still posted here): how much trusth is there to the claim, made especially by Bruno, that Hogan did not draw well when he would headline in the same city month after month for subsequent shows, and therefore he had to be booked as a special attraction appearing only 2-3 times a year? One of Bruno's biggest criticisms of Hogan was that attendance for shows that Bruno would headline would go up in the 2nd match, and even more in the 3rd match in the 3rd month, while with Hogan the trend was the exact opposite. I was wondering if there was any truth to this claim In Minneapolis at least, Hogan was clearly fading as a draw by early 1985. A March 17 title defense against Jesse Ventura only drew 5500. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dooley Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 Would that have more to do with Minnesota being the AWA home base rather than a comment on Hogan's drawing power? WWF had a tough time cracking established "opposition " towns initially. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 10 hours ago, MoS said: Question for historians here - (Really wish @mookeighana still posted here): how much trusth is there to the claim, made especially by Bruno, that Hogan did not draw well when he would headline in the same city month after month for subsequent shows, and therefore he had to be booked as a special attraction appearing only 2-3 times a year? One of Bruno's biggest criticisms of Hogan was that attendance for shows that Bruno would headline would go up in the 2nd match, and even more in the 3rd match in the 3rd month, while with Hogan the trend was the exact opposite. I was wondering if there was any truth to this claim Hogan himself could be a strong draw in cities over a long period of time, but his programs usually didn't have much staying power. That's what Bruno was getting at. They couldn't really run rematches with him as much as they could Bruno. I'd have to look into it, but it would be news to me that Hogan couldn't remain a draw in a market for a long time. It's less that than it is that his feuds ran out of steam quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Log Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 Maybe it was just me, but as a kid, a big appeal of seeing Hogan live was getting to see the "routine". I was so excited the first time I got to see the Hulk-up and the post-match posing in person. It seems that the appeal of seeing Bruno was seeing that dastardly bad guy finally get what's coming to him. With Hogan, it was more of seeing the spectacle. Once you've seen it, it gets a little less special each time. That's just my theory off the top of my head. I'm not basing this on any kind of numbers or anything. What do you all think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 1 hour ago, Dooley said: Would that have more to do with Minnesota being the AWA home base rather than a comment on Hogan's drawing power? WWF had a tough time cracking established "opposition " towns initially. I don't think so, since Hogan was as well known in the AWA as he was anywhere else before he jumped to the WWF. The AWA was losing attendance as rapidly as the WWF was in the Minny market by the time Hogan-Jesse drew that 5500 number noted above. The local flavour that was lost as the WWF expanded into every big market hurt attendance more than anything else. Your monthly gang of wrestlers appearing at the big arena was an invitation to see things happen that would be reflected as major in your own territory. The New York based WWF wouldn't be able to offer much in terms of "would something happen that would reflect on the big WWF meter at OUR show?", and I think that slowly killed attendance no matter who was on a card. I can watch Hogan defend the title on a national TV show like SNME, and the expectation that something major affecting the entire balance of the WWF title scene happening was real. A Hogan title defense once per four or five months at the St. Paul Civic Center, or Reunion Arena in Dallas, or another large venue outside of their power base, offered no such drama. The transition to the WWF Superstars being the draw wasn't all it was cracked up to be after their initial appearance in a lot of those towns. In that sense, they were fun to see once but you weren't married to their return appearance since nothing major was likely to happen, especially if you could just stay home and watch their regular TV or SNME or that newfangled PPV which always had something important happening. So why didn't the local companies continue to draw in light of that? The stripping of talent by the WWF for their own expansion and the loss of TV in many markets by the local companies hurt them a ton. The WWF, a national, easily seen, entity with a repetitive mantra of being "the biggest and best", settled into an attendance number that worked for them, and those fans were the ones that simply preferred the product to their local one for whatever reason, no matter who was on the card. A Hogan appearance might spike it some but they didn't need to have him there monthly as the company had their number that they were good with. Drawing 5500 in Minny wasn't as big as you would think, but if 3000 of those people went to that show INSTEAD of the AWA show the same month, mission accomplished. Meanwhile the local company lost a section of their base, and the talent to keep the base that they still had became more difficult to hold onto, and growing new talent became a challenge...less time to build them, and when they were big, guess who came along with the bucks to take them from you? Sorry for the wordy answer, it's hard to encapsulate the divide and conquer layers that the WWF had in the areas they came into. Bruno, in his monthly circuit, drew great with the WWF formula in those areas. Hogan didn't have nearly the same steady compact circuit to become the same kind of draw, but the WWF was willing to forgo that to make him the National and International star that he was. They had an Apples-to-Bananas kind of run to compare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Log Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 28 minutes ago, khawk20 said: Sorry for the wordy answer... No need to apologize. That's great info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 Yeah, the point about "nothing important happening" at the shows where WWF was invading a territory, and thus being just a one-time curiosity for a lot of folks, makes a ton of sense Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 3 minutes ago, Log said: No need to apologize. That's great info. I always feel like I'm taking 10,000 words to make a ten word point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 2 minutes ago, Ricky Jackson said: Yeah, the point about "nothing important happening" at the shows where WWF was invading a territory, and thus being just a one-time curiosity for a lot of folks, makes a ton of sense Yeah, pop the house on your first foray into the area and then the number mostly declines until you hit a number that works for you (and hurts the opposition on a regular basis). That's a far different strategy than trying to sell out MSG or Philly on a monthly basis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thread Killer Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 2 hours ago, khawk20 said: I always feel like I'm taking 10,000 words to make a ten word point. Don't steal my gimmick, bro. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 3 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said: Don't steal my gimmick, bro. lol if that's the case I've been stealing it since I learned how to write. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadaveri Posted February 22, 2021 Report Share Posted February 22, 2021 More wordy answers please. The biggest draw of this forum is seeing people explain their views with evidence and nuance where most of the internet has turned into 160 character Twitter discussions which don't really teach you anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeg Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 Hey question... what's the Village Green Preservation Society Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.S. Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 42 minutes ago, joeg said: Hey question... what's the Village Green Preservation Society Caution: Last time I "dared" to ask this in a public post, I got chewed out and was told to "use common sense" and PM a mod. (My bad for not automatically knowing by osmosis WTF a "Village Green Preservation Society" is supposed to be, lol. Sounds like a horticulture club to me.) So, PM a mod, I guess? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoS Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 15 hours ago, Loss said: Hogan himself could be a strong draw in cities over a long period of time, but his programs usually didn't have much staying power. That's what Bruno was getting at. They couldn't really run rematches with him as much as they could Bruno. I'd have to look into it, but it would be news to me that Hogan couldn't remain a draw in a market for a long time. It's less that than it is that his feuds ran out of steam quickly. This is very logical and makes sense..except I don't think Bruno was really trying to make sense when he ranted about Hogan. He absolutely despised Hogan, so he really meant to say that Hogan didn't have staying power at all over a period of time and that his drawing ability would diminish with time. I think he genuinely believed that, which is why an analysis of the numbers and figures, especially in 1984-1985, when Hogan was hitting cities and territories frequently, and with far more regularity than he would subsequently when he would become a true, proper national touring champion, would be really useful in deciphering whether Bruno's claims were accurate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 1 hour ago, C.S. said: Caution: Last time I "dared" to ask this in a public post, I got chewed out and was told to "use common sense" and PM a mod. (My bad for not automatically knowing by osmosis WTF a "Village Green Preservation Society" is supposed to be, lol. Sounds like a horticulture club to me.) So, PM a mod, I guess? It’s a Kinks album. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 If there was yelling (I don't remember this), it wasn't because someone didn't understand a Kinks reference, it was likely because someone who knew they shouldn't be talking too openly here about what exactly that forum is was doing so anyway, despite knowing better. "DM a mod" = "We're not going to answer that question in a public forum because the content there is sensitive", not "How dare you not know Kinks album titles". Use common sense means if you know what's in that folder, you should understand why we don't discuss it out in the open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Log Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 But, really, you should know that Kinks album, too. It's a classic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thread Killer Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 10 hours ago, joeg said: Hey question... what's the Village Green Preservation Society The first rule of the Village Green Preservation Society is that you don’t talk about the Village Green Preservation Society. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 10 hours ago, joeg said: Hey question... what's the Village Green Preservation Society That's where the orgies happen... Oh fuck I'm banned... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 It's something I don't even have access to (I asked for the password and got denied), so it can't be that big a deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 It's where we say positive things about Lars Sullivan that must never see the light of day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ButchReedMark Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 It was the theme tune to shite sitcom Jam and Jerusalem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDuke Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 I should have googled it. I always thought it was a reference to the classic 60s TV show The Prisoner. I only saw a couple episodes of that back in the 90s, but Village Green Preservation Society sounded like the sort of creepy name those people on that island would have used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Reedy Posted February 23, 2021 Report Share Posted February 23, 2021 On 2/22/2021 at 1:00 AM, Shrike02 said: I can't provide a specific reference point but Jericho has mentioned lots of times how growing up in Winnipeg he went to AWA shows. Stands to reason Bockwinkel was an influence for him. Bock was cited as a big influence on Jericho's suit-wearing big words-using heel character of 08-09. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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