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WWE TV 03/25 - 03/31: Angle vs. Joe! Angle vs. Styles! TNA! TNA! TNA!


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35 minutes ago, El-P said:

Sorry but, WTF does it has to do with anything ? First, it's only one of the most in-famous matches of one the hottest period ever in US pro-wrestling, so yeah, most people of that generation probably have seen it. Second, it did kill the golden goose dead, Goldy never recovered. Sure got a pop, and the match sure was pretty good. And ? What's the point ? Charlotte got a big pop ? Sure. She's terrific and she's over. And ? So what ? It's still useless to put the belt on her.

You can go the reverse with this too. Goldy never recovered? So what? We have that moment, and it's an incredible moment. Most people ignore this when they talk about the match.

There is this trend with wrestling to just follow the business narratives and ignore what actually happens on screen. I think that's short sighted and ignores the actual good parts of what is the wrestling experience.

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Leaving aside the can-you-criticize-without-watching question for a bit (as it's so self-evidently true that's scarcely worth arguing), as someone following what actually happened on-screen, Goldberg-Nash sucked and the finish was idiotic (both the idea of Goldberg losing at that time, and the manner in which it was carried out). Both then and when I watched the '98 Yearbook. Booking for a singular "pop" is Vince Russo bullshit. You always have to know where you're going to go tomorrow.

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9 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

I have no criticisms of the end of The Sopranos, so no. The criticisms of the end of Lost, though, have led me to not bother binge-watching the series after the fact since it all seems like a waste of time. Dexter also.

And this totally invalidates any critique you would make of those endings since you never watched the series. 

Imagine just seeing the end of the Sopranos and thinking "that's terrible!" Totally unwarranted criticism since the end provides no context for the rest of the series.

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36 minutes ago, PeteF3 said:

Goldberg-Nash sucked and the finish was idiotic (both the idea of Goldberg losing at that time, and the manner in which it was carried out). Both then and when I watched the '98 Yearbook. Booking for a singular "pop" is Vince Russo bullshit. You always have to know where you're going to go tomorrow.

I didn't even get the internet until 1999. One of the first things I remember looking up after getting a modem was pro-wrestling. I found my way to a message forum back then, wrestlinggames.com or something, and I remember being genuinely confused at all the people shitting on Kevin Nash. I thought he would be a lot more popular in the online wrestling world. Maybe that was me being naive. It was a learning curve.

I watched Starcade 1998 with a group of friends when it aired live. Friends that were only wrestling fans at the time because of the popularity of the Monday Night Wars. They were all nWo fans. They all marked out for Nash winning. They all booed Goldberg.

I didn't get it. I didn't see the need to end the Streak, I didn't like the cattle prod finish, it just seemed really lame. I also didn't like how it was basically good guy vs good guy. 

Those same fans/friends weren't watching at all a couple of months later. Meanwhile I watched WCW die while they all switched to MMA.

When I was in high school, I was known as "the wrestling guy." So when people had questions about wrestling, they asked me. I graduated in 2000. Again, didn't get internet until 1999. So it's not like I had all the answers... They just knew that I had been watching wrestling forever & was watching before Stone Cold or the nWo. I never hid my fandom. So I had like VHS tapes of ECW shows & shit from where I used to record the PPVs or old WWF shoes & I would loan out tapes to other fans if they asked so they could see other things besides Monday Night wrestling. But when people would talk to me about wrestling, or ask me questions about wrestling, it was always like "yo, did you see Miss Hancock's ass last night dancing on that table?" They didn't care about wrestling as anything more than just a TV show. They wore the shirts simply because they sold them in JCPennys in the mall, not because they were big fans.

I hated the Starcade '97 finish. I hated the Starcade '98 finish and by the time they got the Starcade '99 the finishes didn't even matter anymore. The problem with booking for the casuals is the casuals leave. They don't give a fuck. They're only there to watch it because it's popular, the same way they'll watch Seinfeld or The Sopranos or nowadays Game of Thrones when that's the only shit people at work are talking about. They're not sustainable.

This "it was great in the moment" is revisionist history bullshit. It was fucking awful in the moment. And it's fucking awful with hindsight. Even before the Fingerpoke of Doom. Even acknowledging that Kevin Nash probably should not have even won World War 3 to begin with. Or ending Wrath's streak when he was catching fire. Or any of the other countless stupid decisions they did. Pete is right.

You don't book for a moment. Look at current WWE. They're all about "making moments" and the product is awful. You book for the long term, you tell stories, you get fans invested in characters & stories. What did Kevin Nash beating Goldberg do for WCW? What does Charlotte beating Asuka do for WWE or Wrestlemania? It's all short-sighted nonsense.

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15 minutes ago, Coffey said:

This "it was great in the moment" is revisionist history bullshit. It was fucking awful in the moment. nse.

Okay, this is the definition of revisionism. If you watch the footage, the crowd goes from an 8 to a 10 when Hall brings out the cattle prod and it's fucking glorious. Not a single person in the audience cares what this means for "business". And why would they? They're getting their money worth and then some. Would have loved to have been there.

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Just now, peachchaos said:

This is fake news. None of the booking hurt WCW half as much as what happened behind the scenes. The company was doomed to fail no matter what they produced.

Can we not go into "fake news" when talking about bad pro-wrestling booking ? Yeah, WCW losing a historical amount of money because of their incompetence has nothing to do at all ever with the fact they went down. Yeah, it's *all* about evil fusion and shit, Bischoff & Russo say so, so it must be true.

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Just now, El-P said:

Can we not go into "fake news" when talking about bad pro-wrestling booking ? Yeah, WCW losing a historical amount of money because of their incompetence has nothing to do at all ever with the fact they went down. Yeah, it's *all* about evil fusion and shit, Bischoff & Russo say so, so it must be true.

I edited my post to include the term "false narrative", which is more accurate. Read the Nitro book if you haven't.

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David Arquette winning got a pop. And mainstream media presence. It was great.

Anyway, it's just ridiculous at this point. And really, people moaning about shitty WWE booking have every right to do so. Moaning about moaning won't get anyone anywhere, as showed by how far from the initial subject we have strayed, talking about Goldy vs Kevin Nash being a great moment for WCW and shit...

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If '99 WCW wasn't such a colossal shit show that killed their one remaining Golden Goose, then even if the AOL merger meant their death on Turner was inevitable, then maybe maybe *maybe* they could have lined up a TV deal elsewhere. Like, say, the suddenly-needing-inventory USA Network. Maybe not, but the company being so aesthetically and financially terrible sure didn't help. 

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Just for clarification, I don't read reviews or synopses of the shows. I *do* keep up with things via clips, recaps, and highlights a lot though. I'm seeing moments. I'm following closely. I'm watching promos. And I'm selecting certain matches to watch in full (like the recent gauntlets).

I don't know who the "you can't criticize if you only read results" line was aimed it, but that bullshit missed me by a mile.

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8 minutes ago, peachchaos said:

Accurate. Better to just ignore the noise at this point since the haters are gonna hate.

Honestly, yeah. I mean, I don't pay attention to posts that talk about how New Japan is MOVEZ and crossfit-wrestling and whatnot. I mean, whatever good you can get out of the WWE stuff, good for you. Some of us are gonna bitch, other are gonna ignore, well, it's just pro-wrestling in the end. ;)

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14 minutes ago, SomethingSavage said:

Just for clarification, I don't read reviews or synopses of the shows. I *do* keep up with things via clips, recaps, and highlights a lot though. I'm seeing moments. I'm following closely. I'm watching promos. And I'm selecting certain matches to watch in full (like the recent gauntlets).

I don't know who the "you can't criticize if you only read results" line was aimed it, but that bullshit missed me by a mile.

To some people, unless you watch every single match on every single show, you're not a "real fan" and are just trying to spoil there fun.

These are the people that need to listen to every album cut from every Nickelback or Imagine Dragons record before they dare disparage these bands or say it isn't for them. Hearing their radio singles? Seeing their videos? Not enough apparently. You can't criticize anything you don't have absolute knowledge of. If you asked them if they like the taste of dog food, they'd have to admit that the answer is "maybe." The smell or look wouldn't be enough to know. They'd have to eat a can. Of every variety.

I watch the Network specials in full. I watch clips on YouTube from the TV show. In the old days, this would make me a die-hard, but they produce so much TV, I've probably seen less than 30% of what they produce. I've still seen enough WWE wrestling in my 35 years on Earth to judge/criticize/praise what I like on a wrestling forum and feel like I can defend those positions.

 

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