The interesting Dave Meltzer posts thread

[kjh]

But Vince really has nothing to do with it either at the beginning, it's a matter of luck (HHH being depushed because of the curtain call) and circumstances and a über talented guy coming up with his own stuff to try and get over.

It wasn't just luck, circumstances and Austin's own talent. There were people on the creative team, most notably Jake Roberts, Jim Cornette and Jim Ross, who pushed hard for Austin to be given the ball. They deserve some credit for pushing Vince in the right direction. Just like Russo deserves some credit for pushing Vince in the right direction later on.

[El-P]

Of course Austin was gonna be pushed, but if the MSG incident hadn't happened, Austin wouldn't have been given the KoTR, and that's luck. Hell, Austin wasn't even part of the SummerSlam PPV a few months later, which was quite dumb. Things really got better with the fall and the Bret Hart comeback. Wasn't Bret the one asking to work a program with Austin ?

[Indikator]

When was the double turn teased?

[Bix]

I don't remember the double turn hinting being that overt until "FRUSTRATED ISN'T THE GODDAMN WORD FOR IT! THIS IS BULLSHIT!"

[Sean Liska]

When was the double turn teased?

It wasn't anything overt but they had definitely been hinting towards Hart becoming more of a whiny character constantly complaining about being screwed and Austin being more of an ass-kicker. The proof is in how the live crowd ate it up and instantly took to Austin as a face and Hart as a heel.

[KrisZ]

That cage match on RAW was the beginning IMO.

[Loss]

In regards to Dick Murdoch, maybe Dave, if he ever gets back into the discussion, will simply say that you can't measure the 1970s/1980s laziness of Dick Murdoch by seeing footage of him through 2009 eyes. In order to truly appreciate what the standards of laziness were at that time, you have to see the laziness in context.

[Bix]

Irv had a story to write, and his story was how the wrestling media covered up for Vince McMahon.

 

Whether the truth jived with the story was immaterial.

 

He also liked to claim a falling out with me and him when he knew that wasn’t the case, given that long after our so-called falling out I was there helping him proof his book.

 

He was looking for me to respond and thus in his mind, help sales, so my decision was to ignore it even though there are people who have begged me to rip on him for his portrayal of me.

 

The only negative thing I wrote was when he was going crazy trying to post daily news updates and taunting Chavo Guerrero and Scott James to talk with him, and pretty much becoming a laughing stock, I told him he was killing his credibility by doing so and was very blunt in doing so. He felt it was a means of marketing the book and that criticism created another hook with the idea he and I had a falling out.

[kjh]

Anything can go out of business, and quicker than you think.

 

If NBC merges with Comcast and the guy in charge thinks Vince is a loon that he doesn't like, they won't go out of business, but they are seriously fucked come renegotiation time. Take Syfy and USA out of the picture if the wrong guy is in charge, and MyNetwork is likely going out of business on its own, and you're stuck with having to beg Spike to dump TNA or putting Raw on WGN America. And with that, there is little leverage to get the kind of TV money they are getting.

 

The WWE network in theory, with no reruns and 52 weeks of programming, looked to be the most valuable network for pure ratings in 2005, and nobody wanted them except USA, which got them at a favorable deal price because of lack of competition.

 

WCW still did what were very competitive ratings for cable in 2001, and when TBS/TNT got the wrong guy in charge, they were done within two months, although they didn't have the cash reserves and had been running a huge losing business.

 

Without the U.S. base, the international attractions often die.

 

Funny thing is, the Roller Derby show we just did is probably the closest comparison and best illustration of all this.

 

Derby was huge in the 60s and early 70s. A 1970 Sports Illustrated article said annual attendance was 3 million (significantly more than WWE today) and TV viewership was 20 million in the U.S. (and in 1970 they produced 26 one hour tapes, each show airing once in the summer and once on replay in the winter in every market) and 20 million more overseas every week. That's almost double Raw + Nitro combined at the peak of wrestling's popularity.

 

In 1971, they sold out the outdoor Oakland Stadium for a big summer game. In 1972, they sold out White Sox Park for a September game. In 1973, over Memorial Day weekend, they played Shea Stadium and sold 27,000 tickets.

 

At the end of 1973, through a series of circumstances, they were out of business. Now, there are key differences, they didn't get paid for producing television and there was no merchandising of any significance to speak of other than magazines and game programs.

 

But they expanded too quickly, didn't have the training facilities to create new stars, the existing stars were overworked and hovering on 40, the gas crisis saw smaller arenas shut down canceling dates on them while skaters were on weekly guarantees. They also lost touch with what their audience wanted or burned out their audience on angles, you take your pick, as they started doing hotshot angles that worked at first but eventually took away from the base of what drew and attendance fell a lot in their home base. The schedule, age and travel took away from the quality of the product and couldn't match what people were used to seeing.

 

And their flagship station got a new General Manager who was from out of town, decided that its highest rated show historically over the previous decade and show that put the station on the map was beneath their dignity and not the direction they wanted. While they could have gotten TV on a weaker channel, the realization was they were fucked and couldn't sustain the operation of the size they had built off that weaker channel. They didn't have the cash reserves to survive 3-4 years and ride it out, or even one year, which WWE does have. But even if they did, odds are with all that going against them, it would just mean more losses with the same end result, only delayed.

 

But when the rival group took over (a story in itself) and the U.S. business collapsed, the international business collapsed within two years.

 

I think WWE is safe, but in 1970, Derby was far more popular than today's WWE, and it was gone three years later. And of the reasons, some are and some aren't similar to what could happen today and in some cases, are even showing signs of happening.

 

It would take a series of bad breaks, in this case MyNetwork folding and the wrong guy getting in charge of NBC Universal, making no new stars and booking that loses touch with the audience. Odds are it won't happen, just as odds were that all of those things that happened to Derby in 1973 wouldn't happen.

[kjh]

Heyman had nothing to do with Cena and the cut situation.

 

If anything, what hurt Cena is Heyman brought him in and immediately plugged him in with Angle and wanted to make him a top guy. HHH had it nixed immediately because Heyman's angle to put him over the top would be Vince getting all in his face, threatening, etc. and then Cena, a rookie, would slug Vince causing Vince want to do everything to ruin him and Cena stand up to the test. HHH said that makes no sense, because in real life, the boss would just fire him. Think about that for a second.

 

Cena was then cut off from angles and ended up as a job guy on the Velocity or Heat or whatever that show was called and they were about to cut him. I know Barnett was pushing him constantly in memos or phone calls to Vince but don't know if that had anything to do with anything, but he was on the bubble when he did that rap for Stephanie, then Stephanie liked him, made him her project and he became a top guy.

 

I remember when he did the rapper gimmick and I was negative because I thought he had more upside than the gimmick would allow (right in the long run because he had to drop it to be a top guy, wrong in the short-run because he did get over with it), and was told outright that if she didn't go with the gimmick, he was about to be cut because they thought he couldn't work.

 

Stephanie saved him, not Heyman. Heyman noticed him first, but that's really no great genius since a lot of people knew he had the charisma long before Heyman brought him up.

[Dan]

Funny thing is, the Roller Derby show we just did is probably the closest comparison and best illustration of all this.

Why do I get the feeling that if Dave had to explain atomic theory or WWII or something, he'd use a Roller Derby analogy?

[kjh]

Dave on the Figure Four board refutes the myth that Shawn Michaels wasn't a first ballot Hall Of Famer solely due to his unprofessionalism:

 

Michaels not getting in on the first ballot was for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with a comparison with Cena.

 

He was first eligible during the time of his sabbatical, so his career largely ended in early 1998. At that point, he was never a draw anywhere close to the level of Cena, and his only true period as the top guy was April 1996 to February 1997, and he was in the top mix for much of 1997 but the top feud was Steve Austin and Bret Hart, and those two plus he and Undertaker were the big four. With the exception of 1997 he never had a period when you could call him a top draw.

 

His refusal to drop so many championships killed him with veteran wrestlers. Plenty of people have refused to do a job, or changed things, but look at his career before 1998, titles won, and how many were lost. It's actually staggering.

 

I always voted for him, but the arguments against him were very solid. It's not a guy with bad press who haters keep out, but would be equivalent to a player who was super talented, only really had a couple of big years at that time, and you could argue strongly hurt his team more than helped them, plus when he was on top, the team was doing shit.

 

When it was clear from his comeback that he had more great years and was a clear plus for the company, the sentiment started to change.

 

Cena has been considered the company's top guy now for four years, and as top guy pulled things from a business low point to a solid point. He's not the Bruno Sammartino/Austin/Hogan level top guy, but business wise he's way ahead of Bret Hart and solidly right behind the biggest draws during a successful period. It's not about one man like it was in the past, but he clearly draws a kids and women's demo that wasn't there before and is one of the better merchandise sellers in history.

 

Michaels works rings around him. If you look at drawing power points for a career (8/5/09 issue breakdown), Michaels in 1998 until his comeback had eight, nowhere near Hall of Fame numbers as a draw so his only point in his favor is he was a hell of a wrestler. In fact, so good I thought he should be in, but it's not like you couldn't make a great argument his talent wasn't even a positive to his company. Many made that argument.

 

Cena right now has 31. No modern guy (post TV) with that level isn't in except Mistico (level of guys like Gagne, Ray Stevens, Dory Jr., Pat O'Connor, Dusty), and unless he has a career ending injury, in three years, when eligible, he'll be at the level of people like Race and Kiniski who are locks.

 

Just for drawing power, he and Mistico should be first ballot guys unless they absolutely sucked in the ring or killed companies.

[tomk]

This is super amusing. I'd imagine jdw can pull out the Meltzer quotes from the time where Meltz seemed to refuse to believe that anyone was voting against Michaels based on anything but spite.

[sek69]

I'm not necessarily defending Dave, but I did find it kind of funny that pretty much all of the HBK hatred went away when he came back and had great matches. Kind of proved the point that a lot of people will look past any and everything if a guy can bring the goods.

 

As funny as it was, his famous SummerSlam performance vs Hogan was just as bad if not worse from a professional standpoint than any of his pre-injury backstage stuff. The only reason that didn't vilify him for life with the sheet/smart crowd is because it was done against one of the guys they hate most in life.

[Sean Liska]

I'm not necessarily defending Dave, but I did find it kind of funny that pretty much all of the HBK hatred went away when he came back and had great matches. Kind of proved the point that a lot of people will look past any and everything if a guy can bring the goods.

 

As funny as it was, his famous SummerSlam performance vs Hogan was just as bad if not worse from a professional standpoint than any of his pre-injury backstage stuff. The only reason that didn't vilify him for life with the sheet/smart crowd is because it was done against one of the guys they hate most in life.

And because the match got over great with the live crowd and everyone went home happy. I think that whole thing is way overblown. Michaels was under pressure to deliver a Shawn Michaels PPV main event with an immobile old guy and went way back in his playbook. I was watching an old Hogan/Warrior-Perfect/Genius match a few weeks ago, and Perfect was more over the top with his bumping than Michaels was. The HBK promo the next night on RAW was another story, though.

[sek69]

Perfect was known for his over the top bumping, Michaels was basically having a match long hissy because he ran into the one guy he couldn't out-politic. Yes it was funny, and the crowd loved it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't unprofessional to do it. If it wasn't for the fact that Hogan was such a dick himself, everyone would have been screaming how terrible it was for him to embarrass one of the all time greats. It never would happen because the circumstances needed wouldn't happen, but if he had gone out there and oversold and overbumped like that for Flair we would have seen an entirely different reaction.

[jdw]

I'm not necessarily defending Dave, but I did find it kind of funny that pretty much all of the HBK hatred went away when he came back and had great matches. Kind of proved the point that a lot of people will look past any and everything if a guy can bring the goods.

I still think Shawn is a piece of shit. Thought it while he was champ in 1996/97. Thought it when he went out with the "career ender". Thought it when he came back.

 

I also probably like his matches since he came back far less than most folks.

 

John

[tomk]

I also don't buy that his induction had as much to do with comeback performances as it did with the influx of new voters.

[MikeCampbell]

I've long since stopped putting stock into anything out of Skeith's mouth, but, just for shits and giggles I'll ask. Is there any possible, or probable, correlation between Shawn's HOF entry and his job to Flair at Bad Blood 2003? Skeith's claim was that Shawn only put over Flair so that he'd get inducted.

[Bix]

I also don't buy that his induction had as much to do with comeback performances as it did with the influx of new voters.

Yeah for all of Dave's claims about peers voting him in there were suddenly dozens of new "reporters" and "historians" voting that year.

[jdw]

I also don't buy that his induction had as much to do with comeback performances as it did with the influx of new voters.

He was inducted in 2003, meaning voting from about Jun-Jul 2003.

 

I suspect that him coming back had some to do with it. He was over 50% the year before. It's a short skip to 60%, especially give who got in 2002 and who did in 2003:

 

2002

Kenta Kobashi

Manami Toyota

Wahoo McDaniel

 

2003

Chris Benoit

Shawn Michaels

 

There wasn't a Kobashi on the ballot, nor someone like Wahoo who was pulling the sympathy vote for dropping dead and getting the big bio.

 

The 2003 class was light, and no one really to draw attention away from Shawn and Chris.

 

Dave handing out more ballots had a part to do with it. But I think if we did the math on the number of votes each year, there wasn't a massive jump from 2002 to 2003. I think there has been a greater jump in numbers from 2003 to 2009 than there was from 2001 to 2003.

 

He always was going to get in. The comeback helped focus people on actually getting him over the 60% hump from being in the 50's the year before.

 

John

[jdw]

I also don't buy that his induction had as much to do with comeback performances as it did with the influx of new voters.

Yeah for all of Dave's claims about peers voting him in there were suddenly dozens of new "reporters" and "historians" voting that year.

 

I'd love to see someone do the estimated math on the changes in the ballot over the years.

 

There was some growth in "reporters" and "historians" in that time frame because Dave was doing more business online, and handing out ballots. But we all know that the lions share of growth in ballots over the years has come folks in the business.

 

John

[jdw]

This is super amusing. I'd imagine jdw can pull out the Meltzer quotes from the time where Meltz seemed to refuse to believe that anyone was voting against Michaels based on anything but spite.

I actually think he was a bit more balanced on that: people had a valid reason not to vote for Shawn. He did focus a bit too much on the "Shawn's was an unprofessional prick for not dropping the titles" as the reason people didn't vote for him. It's quite possible that's what a lot of people told him. I found it frustrating because at the time I thought there were quite a few more reasons to not vote for him, quite a few centered on Pro Shawn Voters over inflating his accomplishments and imact. I tended to think that when you looked at him more objectively, the plusses weren't as great as people were making them out to be.

 

Of course folks didn't think I was objective in my thinking. It's the old saw that if you don't love him as much as I do, you must hate him and are being shrill.

 

John

[ragemaster]

I still think Shawn is a piece of shit. Thought it while he was champ in 1996/97. Thought it when he went out with the "career ender". Thought it when he came back.

 

John

 

Of course folks didn't think I was objective in my thinking. It's the old saw that if you don't love him as much as I do, you must hate him and are being shrill.

 

John

I wonder what would give people that impression.

[El-P]

What are the "great matches" Shawn had since his return ? His embarrassing return match with the back no-sell from hell ? His overblown "WWE modern epic main event" formula matches with Angle, Taker or Cena ? His super scripted, cute but cute only, awkward-with-bad-acting Flair (temorary) sendoff match ? I can't say I've seen a lot of WWE this decade, but I've seen every WM and quite a bit of the "great matches", and the only Shawn match I really liked a lot was his match with Jericho at WM 19. Jericho being the far superior worker. Shawn's accomplishments have been overblow to unimaginable proportions to me, much like most of the WWE product (mostly because it's pretty much the only top thing around, TNA being a glorified indy). Anyway, from many records, the new Shawn is pretty much the same person as the old Shawn. only now people love him. Go figure.