The Wade Keller Appreciation Thread

[Bob Morris]

What seems to be the problem with the "who is responsible for this" issue is figuring out exactly what we are assigning responsibility to.

 

If we are assigning responsibility for whose decision it was to push a particular wrestler or declare one wrestler will be put over the other, that is not the same as whose decision it is to figure out how to execute the push or putting over.

 

I can accept that Jeff Jarrett is/was like Vince McMahon in terms of having final say, but McMahon does not put every single detail of the shows together. He instead assigns responsibility for the details to bookers and writers, giving them the direction as to who he wants pushed. The bookers and writers then decide how to execute/script the push, then their plan goes to McMahon for review.

 

So therefore, McMahon is the one responsible for WHO gets pushed, but the bookers and writers are responsible for HOW they are pushed.

 

And thus I would say the same applies to the Jarrett/Russo relationship. Jarrett may declare WHO he wants to push, but Russo decides HOW and it goes to Jarrett for his review.

 

And really, it's the HOW that has always been Russo's problem. Generally speaking, he has had the right idea of WHO should be pushed when given that input, but does not understand HOW to do it. Certainly not enough to be the main guy putting together a wrestling show.

 

I might also accept that some ideas for gimmick matches may have come from Jarrett, but given that "every match has to have a gimmick" has been a staple of Russo's booking, it should be no surprise people associate it with him. And I suspect that, while it's possible that not every gimmick match in TNA was Russo's idea, he has had more than his fair share that were his ideas.

[kjh]

KELLER RESPONDS TO RUSSO'S LATEST ESSAY

 

Vince Russo has posted on his Facebook page a message about why he shut down his first Facebook page. He said it had "nothing to do with criticism" and everything to do with "negativity." He wrote:

 

"What I don't want to do is be bogged down in everybody else's negativity. I don't want to explain myself for things that happened 10 years ago. I don't want to defend myself over things that mean absolutely NOTHING in the big scheme of things. I don't want to talk about David Arquette, and I could care less how cage matches end, these things are not important to me. What is important is working at making myself a better person, every, single day. What interests me is making this a better world. These are the same things that should be important to you."

 

Quick message to Russo. We all want to be better people. Well, most of us. It's a daily task to be a better person - a better father or mother, a better son or daughter, a better friend. It's a daily task for many of us to live a healthier life. Yes to all of that.

[rovert]

Reducing Russo to Facebook tears is the best thing he ever has done IMO

[kjh]

I missed most of his take, here's it in full:

 

KELLER RESPONDS TO RUSSO'S LATEST ESSAY

 

Vince Russo has posted on his Facebook page a message about why he shut down his first Facebook page. He said it had "nothing to do with criticism" and everything to do with "negativity." He wrote:

 

"What I don't want to do is be bogged down in everybody else's negativity. I don't want to explain myself for things that happened 10 years ago. I don't want to defend myself over things that mean absolutely NOTHING in the big scheme of things. I don't want to talk about David Arquette, and I could care less how cage matches end, these things are not important to me. What is important is working at making myself a better person, every, single day. What interests me is making this a better world. These are the same things that should be important to you."

 

Quick message to Russo. We all want to be better people. Well, most of us. It's a daily task to be a better person - a better father or mother, a better son or daughter, a better friend. It's a daily task for many of us to live a healthier life. Yes to all of that.

 

But we all have jobs. And we all are held accountable. If your goal is to be a better person, but not learn why finishes of cage matches matter, and why history shows how some finishes help business and others destroy fans' faith that putting a cage around a ring means anything, maybe you should resign and concentrate on what matters most to you.

 

Dixie Carter seems like a boss who would want her employees to strive to become better people. But bosses also demand performance from their employees. You, Vince Russo, are a public person. You are writing TV for nearly 2 million people a week.

 

It's nice that you want to learn from Eric Bischoff and be a friend for Terry Taylor. Do you know what, though? Fans want a wrestling product that makes sense to them and reminds them of the best wrestling they've seen, not pro wrestling that makes them sad, frustrated, bored, or disenchanted. Fans of wrestling look to TNA as an escape from their lives, a form of entertainment. They want that entertainment to make sense. Just as fans of "LOST" have ripped the show more often than not for continuity errors or unanswered questions, and just as fans of "Heroes" revolted when the second season went a new direction that disappointed its most fervent followers, fans of TNA want Impact to be the best it can be.

 

I read all of the posts on the Facebook page that he deleted. I cut and paste them and saved them, in fact. The posts on that page asked tough questions, questions about decisions 12 years ago and questions about decisions 12 days ago. They're the types of questions you might not have answers to, and the types of questions you wouldn't want your boss to read, probably. I get that. But blaming the fans on your Facebook page for being negative is like blaming the customer at a restaurant for being negative because he asked the cook why his soup was served cold or why the bread was too dry or why the steak was overcooked.

 

You put yourself out there to answer questions from TNA fans. Fans who watch the product. Not all of whom love everything about it. Yes, you opened yourself up to questions from outside the bubble you live in within TNA where your charisma and likability as a person sometimes overrides the nonsense and non sequiturs you write into the two hours of Impact each week. Those fans have their own personal goals, too, but they deal with those things at the same time they deal with their boss or their customers critiquing their work.

 

So you didn't know who Shelton Benjamin was. So you said you didn't watch WWE, yet you somehow knew enough to say Vince McMahon was spinning his wheels and resting on his laurels. You invited people to ask questions, didn't like the "negativity" of some probing yet congenial questions, and deleted the Facebook page, perhaps before your bosses could read it and begin to wonder about the answers. That was only after you presented a defense that you didn't put much thought into the questions in the first place because you had all of this TV to write.

 

I don't blame you for deleting the Facebook questions. They did make you look bad. They weren't negative, though. They were the questions your bosses should be asking you. But unlike your bosses, the people who asked those questions actually watch WWE, they actually watch TNA, and in many cases they've watched most national wrestling shows over the last 10, 20, or 30 years, including ROH and Japan and the indys. Fans who know good wrestling and good booking when the see it. Fans who have paid attention to what works and doesn't work at drawing ratings and big PPV buys. Fans who aren't married to one single philosophy, but rather the concept of any booking philosophy done well. Your bosses might not know how to ask tough questions about your booking that stump you, but those fans did. That's not negativity.

 

What's negativity is continuing to insist on promoting a certain way without adjusting along the way, learning along the way, taking changing circumstances in the industry into account, taking changing roster strengths into account. What counts as negativity is sticking with the same failed, sloppy, illogic, clearly inexplainable booking approach year after year, and putting it on TV because your bosses don't know good booking from bad, and believe you when you say WWE and Vince McMahon are lazy and going through the motions even though you don't watch the shows every week - wrestling TV shows which these fans asking you questions do watch.

 

Despite acquisitions of Christian, Team 3D, Kurt Angle, Booker T, Kevin Nash, Mick Foley, Bobby Lashley, and others, fans have continued to reject the product as often as they accepted it, with flat ratings on Impact during that entire stretch of expensive, big name acquisitions. It's not just subjective criticism. Objectively, the booking hasn't done the talent justice. Ratings shouldn't be basically flat during a stretch of several years with those acquisitions, not to mention the national TV timeslot to develop new breakout stars (of which the list is zero, since whatever Samoa Joe once achieved has been snuffed out through some of the worst booking I've seen in 30 years of a single character).

 

Good luck with selling your book. But as someone who watches TNA every week, instead of writing about "life, relationships, love, struggles, and things we all face in our everyday life," as you wrote on Facebook today, I wish you had been watching old Mid-South tapes, watching old Mid-Atlantic tapes, watching ROH on DVD or TV, reading books from some of the great wrestling minds over the last few decades, attending UFC PPV events live, attending ROH events live, and yes attending WWE events and watching their shows with an open mind to learn from the good and the bad. That would have been time well spent that would have served your bosses and your fans better.

 

I think your priorities might be in the right place, actually. Becoming a better, healthier person should be top priority, But if that is used as an excuse to not deal with honest, informed critiques about the job you are paid well to do, then maybe it's time to step away from your job and work on being a better person without accepting pay from your bosses for a job you don't want to be held accountable for doing poorly.

[S.L.L.]

I....wow....Keller actually wrote something that made sense. I'm speechless.

[Bob Morris]

Agreed. And I always thought this thread was supposed to highlight the goofier stuff Wade wrote.

[JHawk]

Wade couldn't have written that. He actually made good points.

[S.L.L.]

I don't blame you for deleting the Facebook questions. They did make you look bad. They weren't negative, though. They were the questions your bosses should be asking you. But unlike your bosses, the people who asked those questions actually watch WWE, they actually watch TNA, and in many cases they've watched most national wrestling shows over the last 10, 20, or 30 years, including ROH and Japan and the indys. Fans who know good wrestling and good booking when the see it. Fans who have paid attention to what works and doesn't work at drawing ratings and big PPV buys. Fans who aren't married to one single philosophy, but rather the concept of any booking philosophy done well. Your bosses might not know how to ask tough questions about your booking that stump you, but those fans did. That's not negativity.

Bolded line is right out of my playbook. Clearly, Wade must have compiled the talking points of other, better wrestling writers, and then assembled them into his own piece.

[Bob Morris]

Seems to me that Wade is one of those writers who does a better job when he has a topic he can sink his teeth into, rather than writing about something just because he has to and nothing really strikes him at the moment.

[artDDP]

I usually don't like reading long, detailed PPV recaps though I do enjoy reading Keller's reviews when a promotion is either dying or in total disarray. His TNA reviews are beginning to read a lot like his year 2000 WCW reviews.

[Dan]

I've been listening to some of the "Livecasts" recently. The one from last night had an amusing query:

 

Caller: "I think the last caller made a lot of good points. I want to ask what your opinion on bestiality is?"

 

WK: "(pause) That was great. Um, Jason..."

 

Caller: "The act of fucking animals!"

 

 

Powell started to give an answer but Keller cut him off and went to the next caller.

[rovert]

I've been listening to some of the "Livecasts" recently. The one from last night had an amusing query:

 

Caller: "I think the last caller made a lot of good points. I want to ask what your opinion on bestiality is?"

 

WK: "(pause) That was great. Um, Jason..."

 

Caller: "The act of fucking animals!"

 

 

Powell started to give an answer but Keller cut him off and went to the next caller.

The loudness and defience of the caller said "The act of fucking animals" after Wade failed to cut him off KILLED me.

[khawk20]

That reminds me of a time a bunch of us crashed an online/on air chat with Jimmy Hart someone was doing. Basically Hart was taking questions on-air as read to him from an online chatroom.

 

Someone asked him if he remembered managing against Dan "Crimson Mask" Chernau in Florida. Surprisingly, the name didn't ring a bell to him.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

From Wade's Raw report:

 

Meatloaf, a Grammy winning musician, interrupted with a song that sounded a bit like Honky Tonk Man was coming out at first

He's never heard Paradise By The Dashboard Light?

[Al]

I've found a guy's knowledge on Meatloaf probably depends on if he's dated a chubbier girl born before 1983 or so. Which frankly goes against every biological theory on human attraction I've heard.

[El-P]

 

I for one never heard a single note of a single Meatloaf song. I wouldn't know how the guy looks either. The name barely evoques anything to me.

[jdw]

If you saw a certain Ed Norton/Brad Pitt movie, then you would know what Mr. Loaf looks like.

 

John

[El-P]

I haven't seen Fight Club. One of those movies everybody talks about that I haven't seen. There are quite a few like that. I hadn't seen Scarface until like two years ago.

So no, I really don't know what he looks like.

[Jingus]

Most people in my age range have seen Fight Club, and if not that they've seen Rocky Horror Picture Show, and if not that... shit, maybe they saw Spice World. Also, Michael Bay got his start directing some of Loaf's epic music videos. Point is, he's not some nobody.

[Dan]

I love Keller's run down of the Abyss angle this week.

 

"He's saying 'I didn't do it! I didn't do it!' What didn't you do? Maybe you did do it. Maybe you're being charged with wearing a mask in a 'No Mask Zone.' If that's it, guess what? You did it! And you're lying to Hogan. He's swearing on his life he didn't do it, but he did do it if it was in a 'No Mask Zone.' Maybe at the theme park they don't let creepy big guys in sweat pants wear masks, because it scares the kids. He didn't know what he was being arrested for a minute ago. Or was he lying when he said he didn't know what he was being arrested for?"

 

etc.

[Dan]

Geez, this is like the Blob, it just keeps spreading and infecting more and more people. From the new Keller-Mitchell show:

 

Keller: "Everything about it [wrestling and MMA], everything about it, EVERYTHING is the same, except one has real fights and the other doesn't. Out of 1,000 things you would write about MMA and 1,000 things about the pro wrestling industry - all but one thing is the same."

 

Bruce: "Yup."

[Bix]

At least Dave and Bryan have never put it quite that way if memory serves me right.

[jdw]

I'm trying to remember my age group peers saying the same thing back when Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson were the heavyweight champs.

 

John

[Guest The 3H's]

Paul Heyman, Gabe, and HBO 24/7 wasn't around in those days.

[jdw]

Heyman was around.

 

So were Dave, Wade and Bruce.

 

John