Comments that don't warrant a thread

[Loss]

The problem with Hamilton's idea is that he doesn't know shit about hot air ballooning. Goal of most hot air balloonists isn't to just rise in altitude until you run out of gas and die. It's to have a controlled flight, and then to land safely to fly again another day. Once a pilot reaches the desired altitude, they'll only turn the burners on again occasionally to maintain that altitude, and will only do so for a few seconds at a time. Even if you had infinite gas, you'd still have to deal with heavy winds that would make your flight uncontrollable at higher altitudes, severe changes in pressure in the upper atmosphere, and, of course, the vacuum of space. How is explosive decompression good for business?

Explosive decompression is the perfect way to describe the Eric Bischoff approach to pro wrestling.

 

Infinite gas = The WCW budget under turner

Flight uncontrollable at higher altitudes = Main event wrestlers with creative control

Severe changes in pressure in the upper atmosphere = Jamie Kellner shutting the lights off

Vacuum of space = Things out of one's control

[Wahoos Leg]

Was Hamilton known for the "feign heart trouble to get out of jobbing in blow-off match on undercard of most well-built pay-per-view card in promotion history" booking strategy?

 

Or did he come up with the "five years after feigning heart trouble reveal in dirtsheet interview that you actually just ate one too many hash brownies and had a bad trip" philosophy?

I'm heartily confused by this post

[sek69]

I think art is referring to Nash no showing a PPV claiming he had heart issues (I remember at one point it was reported he had a heart attack), only for them to magically clear up after the show was over. I don't recall the interview where Nash said it was due to a bad trip, but considering the two guys he hangs out with the most I'd believe it was possible.

[artDDP]

Nash no-showed Starrcade 1997 where he was supposed to have his blow-off match with the Giant. He claimed a rapid heart beat or something and was saying he was panicked because his father died of a heart attack.

 

In a 2003 "Torch Talk" with Wade Keller he said it was because he got trashed on hash brownies that weekend. Seriously.

[Jingus]

Which leads to two other points I never understood. Firstly: Nash no-showed the event, but his tag partner Scott Hall was indeed there and even looked halfway sober. The obvious solution would be to just slide Hall in that match instead, right? Of course they didn't do that, it would've made too much sense. Instead, they sent Hall out to cut a rambling five-minute promo, and Giant ran in and chokeslammed him and that was all.

 

Admittedly, they might not have wanted to do that because it would have been the second time that night: they already had a similar angle where Raven weaselled out of his big match with Benoit by sending in Saturn to take his place (and even that ended in a run-in fuck finish). But then you'd have to ask: why the hell did WCW book it that way in the first place? They could have changed it on the fly. But no, of course not.

 

In fact, WCW completely fucked the fans on all of the most heavily-promoted matches that night, considering the stupid non-finish to Zybyzko/Bisch and Hogan basically squashing Sting in the main. The NWO also won all their meaningless prelim matches like Bagwell/Luger and a thrown-together six man tag. The only babyface to get a decisive win on that night? DDP. How 'bout that. Pure coincedence, I tell ya.

 

In FACT, come to think of it: what was with WCW's obsession with never letting the fans go home happy at the biggest show of the year? From 1995 onwards, the babyface never once got a clean, unambiguous, definitive win over the heel in the main event of Starrcade. The closest exception was when Piper beat Hogan, but even that was tainted with the "whaddya mean, it's a nontitle match?" stupidity. You can literally count on one hand the number of times that the babyface pinned the heel in a main event title match without outside interference or shenanigans at Starrcade. And there were always a whole bunch of heels going over and/or various fuck-finishes in the undercard. WHY. Why on earth did they keep booking it like that? Especially since they had a clear example in Wrestlemania every year that it was much more profitable to just let the people have some happy endings. They knew this didn't draw as well as the classic Babyface Wins The Big Match formula, but they kept doing it for decades anyway.

 

 

But back to Nash/Giant: why the hell did Kev never do that elusive job for Paul? They wrestled several times; if Giant ever pinned Nash, I sure as hell don't remember it. Even aside from the infamous Ganso Bomb at their Souled Out match a month later, Nash was booked to pin Giant anyway. (And going back and watching that powerbomb, does anyone else think it looks kinda funny? Nash didn't look so much like he lost control. He didn't even try to get Wight all the way up, he just dropped him and then fell over himself. Not saying it was intentional, but it sure looks odd to modern eyes.)

 

It's amazing that Kevin still whines in shoot interviews about how everyone unfairly accuses him of never doing jobs. Big Sexy, listen: it's because you never did jobs. Name any meaningful losses Nash ever suffered in WCW. The fluke loss to Mysterio doesn't count; it was clearly portrayed as a fluke where Nash essentially defeated himself. The rematch with Goldberg doesn't count; everyone was forced to lose to Bill at some point. The title loss to Savage didn't count, because it involved all kinds of outside interference. The retirement match with Hogan doesn't count: Nash booked it himself because he wanted a vacation, and purposefully sandbagged the whole time to make the worst match possible. And any time the Outsiders lost a tag match, it was inevitably Hall getting pinned. The only example I can think of Nash jobbing decisively was losing the cage match in 2000 to Booker T, and you could argue that he knew he had to do that job because Booker was the only untarnished top babyface they had left. Why are some guys so terrified to ever lose a single goddamn match?

[Strummer]

Starrcade 97 is probably the worst booked big PPV card in the history of the big 2.

 

you have Savage inserted into the six man on the promise that he goes over clean and it can't be Ray Traylor because Savage considered him to be a jobber so he had to pin a Steiner brother clean

 

they throw Saturn in their against Benoit which didn't get much complaining at the time on the net because they were getting a Benoit match on a major PPV but that always pissed me off. That match had zero heat.

 

Bischoff/Larry Z was booked horribly with them trying to have it be a real match instead of Larry just squashing Eric ala Austin at No Way Out 2003. Bischoff's "selling" in this match is much much worse than any McMahon or announcer/referee/whatever non worker match I've ever seen.

 

and the main event. There's just no defending Hogan in this one even if you're feeling nostalgic and love the guy. He squashes Sting, doesn't give him anything, talks trash without a moment selling fear (remember he had acted scared for over a year and the day of the match he's strutting down the ring playing air guitar on the belt without a single worry) Then he cons Nick Patrick into making a regular count instead of a slow one. The big win is rendered meaningless with Tony and co. acting like idiots screaming when Sting had been made to look like a fluke champ who only won because Bret helped him. Then the title is held up anyway in the aftermath

 

that was it for me with WCW. Never bought another one of their PPVs

[sek69]

To Jingus' question on why some guys never seem to do any meaningful jobs: I always felt the dog-eat-dog nature of the business kind of demanded that kind of mindset from guys on top. The moment you start putting guys over, you start to lose a little something with the fans unless you're one of the rare few like Rock or Flair where losing didn't really hurt them after a while. Guys are paranoid that losing a match on a big show could be the first step to endeavorland.

 

Also re: so many non finishes in WCW at the time, that was the point where the booking was more geared toward placating wrestlers than pleasing the fans/making a sensible product. There was a point in WCW where practically no one other than jobbers or low midcard guys ever did a clean job.

[Loss]

Obviously, wins and losses mean less than they ever have, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. There are cases when wrestlers should probably stand up more and push for certain things (John Cena, I'm looking at you!) and there are cases where I think wrestlers see the lay of the land with them becoming less significant and start trying to protect their falling star. Hogan getting out of doing a clean job to Sting and Steve Austin getting out of doing a job for Jonathan Coachman are obviously two different things.

 

I think a wrestler has every right to refuse to do things that don't make sense, and in some ways, I wish we saw a little more of that. I think in some ways WCW main eventers abusing that privilege ruined it for everyone, because now, everybody does jobs, but that's why no one cares about match results.

[MikeCampbell]

I think Raven put it best when talking about "negotiating" a finish in WCW, it was largely the same principal that Loss was describing. He'd be told that they'd want him to put over a mid carder who really wasn't going anywhere and that they really had no plans for. He'd argue that it made no sense because he was higher up on the card and they weren't going to do a program between them.

[artDDP]

What still surprises me is that after Starrcade 1997 was such a big rip-off, next month's Souled Out did a similar buyrate. There wasn't an immediate backlash against WCW and I think even SuperBrawl did well. I don't think it was until they shifted the focus onto Hogan and Savage feuding over the NWO in the spring that WCW began losing steam.

[Loss]

Really, the bottom didn't come crashing down until after the Fingerpoke of Doom. 1998 was a hugely profitable year in spite of doing most things wrong because they were riding the wave of momentum from 1996 and 1997, wrestling in general was hot, and Goldberg catching fire probably bought them a little time. Even in December, they were doing Nitros in domes in front of 30,000+ crowds.

 

And even after the Fingerpoke of Doom, they were doing good business until they turned Hogan babyface and Flair heel. Then, you can see a pretty rapid decline in TV ratings, PPV buys, house show attendance, etc., even though all the warning signs had been there for a while by that point.

[Loss]

Nitro quarter hour ratings in spring of '99 are also interesting. Ric Flair promos and Ric Flair matches were competitive with RAW, and occasionally one of the undercard matches would pop a good number, but that was it.

 

It's amusing how soundly the audience rejected the headliners at the time.

[El-P]

Starrcade 97 is probably the worst booked big PPV card in the history of the big 2.

Probably the most significant worst booked big card ever. It was a can't miss big show, it was easy as hell to book this and make it a grand event. Sting thrashing Hogan and winning cleanly, without Bret being involved. Giant beating Nash clean. Larry Z. beating Bischoff's ass. The undercard nWo guys could have some wins, and you leave the people happy, the grand days of the nWo are behind, new chapter. Of course, it was a reset to status quo. What was worse is that basically one year later, reset again. Two years in a row they fucked it up when it was so easy to not fuck it up. Goldberg beating Nash clean despite Hall's intervention. How hard was that ?

[Jingus]

From the description of everyone involved, the latter half of '98 was practically one long backstage war over who would be the one to finally beat Goldberg. Which really says it all about that fucking company and the selfish mindset which killed it. They should have been thinking "how do we continue this Streak indefinitely?", but of course they were more preoccupied with "how do I convince Bischoff that I should be the one to end the Streak?" instead.

 

I'm usually very suspicious of the Greater Good mindset in wrestling; to me, that's usually code for "do whatever the Boss says, for He is our Lord and savior" and an excuse to treat wrestlers like toilet paper. But WCW proved that there has to be some discipline, and that you can indeed be too generous to your individual employees to the point where it eventually fucks over everyone.

[S.L.L.]

When labor becomes too powerful, they tend to find ways to do as little work as possible while maintaining their high profile positions. When management becomes too powerful, they tend to find ways to exploit labor unreasonably while reaping profits at their expense. You have to be able to strike a balance, just like any other business. Wrestling promotions tend to not be very good at that.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

http://www.mmafighting.com/2010/10/23/ufc-...1_lnk3%7C179709

 

Anyone catch this interview w/ Undertake after the Lesnar fight last night? Was there bad blood between Mark and Brock? Is this setting a return to the WWE for Lesnar? Someone please explain.

 

Thanks

[Grimmas]

http://www.mmafighting.com/2010/10/23/ufc-...1_lnk3%7C179709

 

Anyone catch this interview w/ Undertake after the Lesnar fight last night? Was there bad blood between Mark and Brock? Is this setting a return to the WWE for Lesnar? Someone please explain.

 

Thanks

Vince wants Brock vs. Taker at WrestleMania.

[sek69]

I'm not a guy who is harsh on WWE PPVs, but other than the opener Bragging Rights was not a good WWE PPV.

[KrisZ]

3 PPV's in a month timespan has gotten everybody burnt out I think from the writers to the wrestlers to the fans. They gotta cancel the early October PPV next year.

[artDDP]

http://www.mmafighting.com/2010/10/23/ufc-...1_lnk3%7C179709

 

Anyone catch this interview w/ Undertake after the Lesnar fight last night? Was there bad blood between Mark and Brock? Is this setting a return to the WWE for Lesnar? Someone please explain.

 

Thanks

My thought is there's some bad blood between many in WWE and Brock because the promotion got behind him and put him over many top stars only for him to quit.

 

Either that or he broke some locker room rule about not celebrating a WWE title win with your right foot pointed outward or something equally ridiculous.

[Tim Evans]

As bad as that ppv was, the most interesting thing coming out of it was apparently Perry Saturn was backstage. I wonder what he looks like now?

[sek69]

As bad as that ppv was, the most interesting thing coming out of it was apparently Perry Saturn was backstage. I wonder what he looks like now?

 

Back when Dave was concerned that Saturn was either missing or dead, one of his readers did some internet sleuthing and found his Facebook page. Before it was locked down, Dave mentioned the photos he saw look like the Saturn you'd remember from wrestling only fatter.

[Coffey]

Did anyone hear what Stryker said to Jerry Lawler? Lawler made a comment about Stryker never winning titles and Stryker retaliated that he never booked himself in his own promotion.

 

Isn't that the type of stuff that probably...shouldn't be said on live TV?

[sek69]

Lawler hates him for some reason, but I guess Stryker figured out if you don't stand up for yourself you get a rep for being a pussy. Either way it's pretty funny to hear them shoot on each other every month on PPV.

[cm funk]

As bad as that ppv was, the most interesting thing coming out of it was apparently Perry Saturn was backstage. I wonder what he looks like now?

 

Back when Dave was concerned that Saturn was either missing or dead, one of his readers did some internet sleuthing and found his Facebook page. Before it was locked down, Dave mentioned the photos he saw look like the Saturn you'd remember from wrestling only fatter.

 

 

"You're welcome"