The greatest things ever written on wrestling message boards

[tomk]

Aw I miss doing the TNA reports. Thanks for reminding me how fun they were to write. TNA was so dysfunctional that it allowed me to start thinking and writing about the mechanics of how wrestling functions, how promos function, how storytelling functions, how jokes work, or go off on tangents about Christian pop culture, make up names of fictitious hack fake Def Comedy comics, or review the Jackass films. TNA really threw the ball right into the soft spot that made it easy to hit a homer a lot.

 

Looking at them on crz’s board:

 

http://the-w.com/threadsbyuser.php/id=921

 

SLL skipped over a lot of my Bible passage jokes which were always fun to write.

 

Pat Patterson as the Jim Steinman of professional wrestling is an interesting analogy. Kinda wish I knew more about the production end of music to know whether or not fits better than the John Laurenitis-as-Steinman argument that TomK seems to be making here.

Was making neither argument as used Steinman to refer to a style of Japanese main event wrestling that left me cold. U.S. discussion was all Angle as Whitney and HBK as Bette Midler. My impression is that the Epic for sake of being Epic shit in the US is stuff that’s being layed out/called by the “veteran” wrestlers themselves. Neither Patterson or Laurenitis should really eat the blame for that.

 

Nash and Hogan may not have as devoted as Guerrero and Benoit but they too were built from the same cloth. Hogan has a lot of the same working traits that Benoit and Guerrero do. Nash has some too especially when he was in the WWF and his first stint in WCW.

I rarely agree with Wild Pegasus about anything but I think there’s a lot to what he is saying here.

 

I’m a guy who loves reading Stiglitz and thinks the study of incentives is fascinating. The “Nash as guy who only in wrestling for the money” both is a misreading of what Nash says and requires you to not pay attention to what Nash actually does.

 

I think people have written several times here about the Kip Frey era of WCW and how setting up raises and paying bonuses to wrestlers for having the best match on the show provided an incentive for guys (who otherwise would be content to mail it in) to work harder.

 

But not everyone responds to financial incentives. Different people respond to different types of incentives.

 

And not everyone worked harder under Frey. Terry Taylor is a guy who I don’t particularly dig at that point. And Nash is another guy who seemed more content to mail it in under Frey.

 

Nash worked harder under Dusty, Vince, and Watts than he did under Frey or Bischoff. Nash is a guy who works harder when he has a guy who he respects who he’s trying to “please”. And if you read or listen to Nash interviews he pretty clearly says this. Nash working hard to please Dusty in TNA isn’t a guy who understands that wrestling is about making money so much as he’s a guy who sees making money as not being an actual incentive linked to making him work harder.

 

"Nash only cares about money" is a real missreading of what Nash is saying and what he did over his career. It isn't that he only "cares about money" so much as "money isn't something that makes him care".

 

It's a lot harder to cheat the system when you're working for Vince.

It’s unclear to me if Hogan worked harder for Vince.

 

Fuck I hated Hogan masturbatory booking and refusal to job but if we want to go and count back bumps....

 

Dr. Black promo edited off TV.

 

I have no idea what this is. Someone enlighten me.

[tomk]

This is Schneider on Momoe Nakanishi. It is really over the top and he gets carried away but that’s part f what made it work. It may not read as well if you don’t have the background. At the time this was written Momoe was being pimped regularly as wrestling underdog babyface GOAT.

 

This piece really angered a lot of folks. But the amusing thing about the response to this piece was that even the biggest Momoe defenders all agreed with this point: “Her selling is interesting, as she doesn’t sell like she is in pain, as much as she sells like she is being humiliated by the beating. Like when Maekawa kicks her, it is more degrading than painful, but she will soldier on and not give up.”.

 

There was one actual response that went essentially “Yeah its true that she sells by making facials that she refuses to be humbled but that’s part of Japanese culture, I reminds me a lot of Bukake where the girls always seem to try to hold onto their dignity in the face of humiliation. But that’s the culture and doesn’t make me a sadistic creep for liking her matches” and another that referenced a scat film.

 

Really when you are in an argument where you get your adversaries to say “ this is like a scat film/Bukakae that I watched yadda yadda yadda I resent the implication that I’m scummy” you have done God’s work.

 

 

Momoe Nakanishi vs. Kumiko Maekawa - All Japan Women (10/24/01)

(by PHIL SCHNEIDER)

This is the fourth match I have watched between the most hyped pairing in joshi wrestling. After crapping on there 30 minute draw, I was besieged by joshi nerds pimping this match as the end all be all of distaff pro graps. So, as we often do, TomK and I sat down at 1:30am and watched the whole magilla. As I like to start on the positive tip, this match was a lot better then the 30 minute draw, they basically wrestled the same match as their 30 minute draw but dragged it out over an hour, which allowed them time to sell and do some matwork. As per usual, Momoe Nakanishi takes an enormous beating, and Maekawa has the most varied kicker offense in the world; she has a dozen interesting and sickenly violent ways to punt you in your grill, and- as a stiffness mark- that warms my heart. However this was far from a great match. Nakanishi still has really limited offense for someone pushed so high; she basically hasn’t extended her moveset past rookie level stuff, and doesn’t really hit the stuff she has very well. She does 16 German suplexes in this match (which is still not as bad as hitting 13 in the 30 minute draw) and 9 Dragon suplexes (which look the same as her Germans). The suplexes weren’t good German suplexes either - as she lands on her shoulders first and they just end up looking like roll ups. Basically, she has Ricky Morton’s move set and sells like Kobashi, which you really need to flip around. The match starts with Momoe working on Maekawa’s knee which is a really smart move, as one of the major problems with Momoe is her lack of credible offense, you can never buy her winning a match with anything but a flash pin. With the legbars and figure fours, I bought in to her weakening a bodypart for a submission. Maekawa did a good job of selling the figure four as a dangerous, painful hold from which she needed to escape - although as soon as she got out it, Maekawa completely ignored the fact that her leg was supposed to be hurt. Also, by the end of the match, they went into full sprint mode and ignored all that bodypart work they did for the first 20 minutes or so. I mentioned earlier how Meakawa would kick Momoe in the face really hard, and they were some of the most brutal shots I have ever seen in wrestling. However, because they were so frequent and Momoe would kick out of them again and again, they just lost all meaning. If the 14 thrust kick to the face gets a two count, why should I care about the 15th, at some point the moves mean as much as a Gustavo Mendoza single leg takedown. I understand the need to have a lot of near falls in a 60 minute match (although if you watch Baba v. Destroyer, for instance, they don’t break out big spots until the very end of the match, and the crowd stays engaged) but they could have used rope breaks instead of kick outs. By the 45 minute mark, Maekawa looks really weak, because despite the beating she lays out she can’t put Momoe away. Really the lay out of this match was very similar to a CZW match, lots of big dangerous spots and dramatic kick outs but no build, no sense that any of the moves are leading to anything, sure Momoe will take a big beating, but so will Sick Nick Mondo. What really interests me about this match however is the cult of Momoe Nakanishi. Why has she been singled out for such voluminous praise? Anyone who reads reviews and newsgroup posts by rabid Nakanishi fans can see the sexual undercurrent which is very obviously present and I also initially found this very puzzling. When someone puts up a Takaoe Inoue site, it was obvious, Takaoe is really hot and he or she wants to fuck her, or barring that he or she wants to look at pictures of her taking bubble baths and jack it to them. However Momoe is not a beauty queen, she has frizzy hair and bad skin, so it isn’t traditional beauty which would usually cause the restraining orderish behavior. The thing that separates her from other joshi workers is the huge beatings she takes. Momoe gimmick is that she takes these huge horrific ass-stompings but always shows fighting spirit. Her selling is interesting, as she doesn’t sell like she is in pain, as much as she sells like she is being humiliated by the beating. Like when Maekawa kicks her, it is more degrading than painful, but she will soldier on and not give up. This dovetails well into the cultural bullying undercurrent which has been present in Joshi wrestling since Dump vs. Chigusa, which a reason she is so popular in Japan. Also in this way she makes the perfect repository for the sexual fantasies of a sadist. Who knows how many legion of Momoe fans spend some alone time with thoughts of Momoe - not imagining having sex with her, but imagining beating her ass. “She can take it” he thinks “Look at that fighting spirit, I can kick her in the head and she will come back for more”

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Dr. Black promo edited off TV.

 

I have no idea what this is. Someone enlighten me.

 

HHH is backstage with the interview lady. She asks about the PPV scramble match and his lumberjack match with Khali and wraps up her question by asking what his greatest concern is. He replies: "Well, I think my greatest concern is global warming and then maybe the economy in general." He then begins to talk about the matches when Jeff Hardy walks in. HHH starts making jokes about Jeff having 2 strikes already and one more fuck-up will force him to leave the WWE. HHH leaves but pops back in to make a fake phone call noise, talk into his hand like it's a phone and say that's it is Dr. Black calling for Jeff.

[S.L.L.]

Aw I miss doing the TNA reports. Thanks for reminding me how fun they were to write. TNA was so dysfunctional that it allowed me to start thinking and writing about the mechanics of how wrestling functions, how promos function, how storytelling functions, how jokes work, or go off on tangents about Christian pop culture, make up names of fictitious hack fake Def Comedy comics, or review the Jackass films. TNA really threw the ball right into the soft spot that made it easy to hit a homer a lot.

They were fun to read, too. Really enjoyed going back over that stuff.

 

And why was I just thinking about old DVDVR Momoe Nakanishi hit pieces the other day? Although I think I was thinking of the 30-minute match. That's the one where Phil says they basically wrestled four different matches in one match, right? I'm having trouble finding it in the archives.

[Loss]

I seem to remember jdw's post about Kurt Angle not knowing what to do between suplexes being very good, although I don't remember if there was anything else to it.

[Bob Morris]

Speaking of jdw, I wonder if he can confirm how much of the original tOA archives are still around.

 

I know he did put up a few of the classic posts from there on the new board, but I wonder what else he could dig up.

 

Here is one of them, the Titan Sports Entertainment stuff Frank Jewett came up with back in 2001 when the InVasion angle was nearing its end and the WWF brand split was being talked about.

 

http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1036

 

tOA saves the WWF...

Posted by Frank Jewett

World Wrestling Federation Messages

October 17, 2001

03:36:33 U.S. CST

 

Like a hitter in a slump, WWF management is getting

advice these days from anyone and everyone. First

Dave Meltzer, in yet another "biggest issue of the

year" laid out everything that went wrong with the

Invasion angle and outlined his plan, a combination

of the "Outsiders" meets "The Defiant Ones" meets

"The Higher Power" with Booker T and DDP working

for a shadowy figure who turns out to be Bischoff

or someone else. Now apparently Pat McNeill from

PWTorch is offering up his recap and suggestions.

 

So I though "why not tOA?"

 

But wait, before you start writing your version of

"How To Turn the WWF Around in Three Weeks",

let's briefly examine some problems facing the WWF.

 

1. Too Many Titles

 

As Wade Keller pointed out, having too many

titles dilutes their value, so a solution should

address the issue of unifying titles, dropping

titles, or splitting off titles to another promotion.

 

2. Badwill

 

The name WCW has negative market value at this

point, so a solution should address dissolving

this entity for good or remaking it in some form.

 

3. Bankruptcy

 

The name ECW is tied up in bankrupty at this point,

so a solution should address not using this entity

or resolving the bankruptcy issues.

 

4. Invasion of Confusion

 

The "Invasion" angle had no legs in large part

because it was never given a clear focus in terms

of objectives or achievements. A solution should

address reworking the invasion angle or it should

outline how to finish off invasion storylines and

move on to something that actually draws interest.

 

5. Shane and Stephanie

 

Shane and Stephanie are a failure as a heel tandem,

so a solution should address removing them from

storylines or revising storylines to give them new

roles where their characters create interest rather

than simply sucking heat away from other characters.

 

6. Subterranean Ratings for Excess

 

WWF in prime time on Saturday night has been an

embarrassment of epic proportions. Heyman's ECW

drew better ratings on TNN on Friday with much

less name recognition. A solution should address

all the ratings problems, but particularly Excess

since the ratings are below survivable levels.

A solution should either present an alternative

format for Excess or suggest how to cancel it.

 

7. Split Crew Shows

 

Since the WWF appears committed to the idea of

splitting the crew to run two shows, a solution

should suggest ways to make this concept work

or should point out the problems and risks to argue

that split crew shows are a bad idea right now.

 

8. The Glass Ceiling

 

Everyone seems to agree that one cause of the

current downturn is the failure to elevate new

stars, so a solution should address who should

be elevated, to what level, and by what means.

 

9. Season of the Witch

 

The fourth quarter has historically been a weak

quarter for ratings with competition from both

football and first run network programming, so a

solution should look to position the WWF for a

strong run starting in January rather than trying

to boost ratings in the short run with a few hot

shot angles.

 

10. Overload

 

The current WWF roster is too large to manage

effectively, so a solution should address a way

to divide the roster into smaller groups or it

should suggest how to reduce overall head count.

A solution should clearly identify who should be

cut or reassigned and why that choice makes sense.

 

11. The Long Run

 

The current problems have been building for a long

time. "Invasion" provided a quick boost, but did

nothing to change the underlying problems so the

boost didn't last long. A solution should involve

elements that the WWF can carry forward beyond

the next Wrestlemania for at least the rest of 2002.

 

I realize this is a tall order, but we aren't going to be

able to help the WWF merely by pointing out that

DDP and Booker T had the same name recognition

as Nash and Hall, particularly when they didn't.

 

If we really want to help the WWF we can't gloss

over the structural problems that contributed to

this decline by suggesting that they sign Goldberg

to main event the next six Pay-Per-Views.

 

Sit down and brainstorm your booking ideas,

then refer back to this list to see if there is a

way to address all or at least most of these

problems within your larger booking plan.

 

The WWF needs each and every one of us to

do our part in this time of national wrestling crisis.

 

Won't you please help.

 

Frank

[Bob Morris]

Continuing...

 

WWF needs more help than this...

Posted by Frank Jewett

World Wrestling Federation Messages

October 17, 2001

11:05:34 U.S. CST

 

*opens tOA suggestion box*

 

"Get McMahons off TV..."

 

"Bury RVD..."

 

"More swearing..."

 

These are all admirable suggestions, but the WWF

powers that be need something more fully developed

to save their bacon.

 

If we force the McMahons off TV, how do we explain

their absence? What happens to the invasion angle?

 

If we bury RVD, how do we avoid the perception that

yet another young fan favorite has been crushed by

the WWF's glass ceiling of doom?

 

And if we incorporate more swearing into the show,

how do we use it effectively? Vignettes where Vince

discusses ratings with Stephanie's writing committee?

 

"Restart WCW already..."

 

Seems logical given the WWF's commitment to starting

a second tour, but we need to know who stays in the

WWF, who goes to WCW, and how much, if any,

interpromotional activity takes place between them.

 

"More gimmick matches..."

 

Might help get away from the growing perception that

WWF PPV events are no longer unique, but we need to

know what gimmick matches to use, who to book in them,

and how that plays into continuing storylines.

 

Should "Toughest Man Alive" Mick Foley return against

potato farmer Rob Van Dam in an "I quit" match to put

over the idea that working with RVD is worse than

jumping off the top of a twenty foot high steel cage?

 

"DO NOT bring in Hall or Nash."

 

Well, I hope we can all agree on that.

 

Frank

 

"Personally, I hope the WWF doesn’t listen to any

suggestions and gets back Hall and Nash so it can

fall on its face."

- Yakuza Rich

My plan to save the WWF...

Posted by Frank Jewett

World Wrestling Federation Messages

October 17, 2001

14:26:34 U.S. CST

 

As outlined in an earlier post, the WWF is faced with

a number of problems. Ratings have suffered due to a

lack of competition from WCW and staleness at the top

of the roster. At the same time the WWF has signed a

number of additional workers and committed to trying

to start a separate brand or at least split crews so

that they can double up on house shows.

 

To address these issues, my plan calls for a separate

brand that would emerge from the resolution of the

hitherto aimless Invasion angle. My goal in starting

this brand is to create competition and interest and

to eliminate the perception of a glass ceiling.

 

=====

 

At the start of RAW, Shane McMahon and the Alliance

come to the ring to celebrate yet another PPV triumph,

but before Shane can lose the crowd, Vince McMahon

walks down the ramp to confront him in the ring.

 

VINCE

Shane, I know you think you are winning this little

war, but you aren't.

 

Shane looks to his troops and rolls his eyes.

 

VINCE

Have you seen the ratings? You're losing. We're all

losing.

 

SHANE

Your point?

 

VINCE

As a great American president once said, "A house

divided against itself cannot stand", so I'm here

to propose a series of title unification matches.

 

SHANE

Unification matches?

 

VINCE

Yes, I believe we should unify all of the WWF and

WCW titles as WWF titles. C'mon Shane... son...

you can't seriously want your name associated with

a bunch of losers like WCW.

 

Several Alliance members start to move forward

toward Vince, but Shane motions for them to stop.

 

SHANE

Well you're right... DAD... I don't want my name

associated with WCW. The only reason I brought

this "bunch of losers" as you call them into the

WWF was to force you to give me control of the

company.

 

VINCE

Well Shane I'd be proud to have you follow in my

footsteps, but that day is still a long ways off.

 

SHANE

Oh I know... DAD. You had it easy. You didn't

have to wait half your life to inherit the WWF.

You're father dropped dead in his fifties.

 

Vince looks extremely hurt.

 

SHANE

But with the shape you keep yourself in, if I

waited for you to die, I'd be an old man before

I ever got my hands on the WWF.

 

Shane pauses for a moment.

 

SHANE

Well... DAD... I'm no Prince Charles! I'm not

willing to wait! You want to talk unification

matches? You want to eliminate WCW and the

Alliance? Fine! Let's kill two birds with one

stone. I propose we have five unification matches

at the next PPV. A best of five. Winner take all.

 

VINCE

What do you mean, "winner take all."

 

SHANE

What I mean... DAD... is that if the Alliance wins

the best of five series, I get control of the WWF

and you are out of the company for good.

 

VINCE

But... that's impossible. The Superstars... our

fans... the WWF is my whole life.

 

SHANE

Oh I know that... DAD... believe me. But that just

makes taking away the WWF that much sweeter.

 

Vince is at a loss for words

 

SHANE

Think it over... DAD. I'll give you a week to decide.

 

=====

 

Backstage vignettes would all focus on the impending

"unification" and the possibility of Vince or Shane

losing out with some wrestlers taking sides and

others sitting on the fence.

 

Vince eventually agrees and a PPV lineup is set.

(Some advance title switches would be required.)

 

Lightheavyweight Title: X-Pac vs Big Show(A)

 

Regal books Show into a match for the Cruiserweight

title. Vince and Mick Foley protest, but since it

is a WCW title they are powerless to stop it. X-Pac

puts up a gutty fight, but Show wins. A:1, WWF:0.

 

Hardcore Title vs US Title: Rob Van Dam (A) vs Jericho

 

Jericho has RVD tapping to the Walls of Jericho but

Shane distracts the referee. Shane distracts Jericho

to set up a contrived Van Daminator. A:2, WWF:0.

 

World Tag Titles: Hardys vs Dudleys (A)

 

The Hardys are dominated by the Dudleys but pull off

an upset victory to save the day, for now. A:2, WWF:1.

 

IC vs Euro Title: Angle vs Rhyno(A)

 

Rhyno sets up a table in the corner and goes for the

GORE~! GORE~! GORE~! but Angle sidesteps, Rhyno eats

the table, then eats an Olympic slam. A:2, WWF: 2.

 

WWF vs WCW Title: Austin(A) vs The Rock

 

Dave Hebner is appointed as the referee because he

is totally incorruptable. After fifteen minutes,

Austin applies a sharpshooter. Shane McMahon yells

to Hebner and Hebner calls for the bell. Suddenly

another Hebner rushes the ring. Vince jumps into

the ring and gets between them, but can't figure

out who sold him out. It's Hogan-Andre all over

again, it's Montreal all over again, and Vince

McMahon has lost control of the WWF for life.

 

On the following RAW, Shane gloats and sends Vince

packing, literally, as Vince has lackey "the Fink"

carrying boxes out to the trunk of his limo.

 

Backstage vignettes focus on reaction to the shift

in power with Shane showing up to try to reassure

and woo WWF talent like Undertaker and Helmsley.

The Rock is nowhere to be found. Angle and Jericho

express sympathy and loyalty in segments with Vince.

 

At the end of the show, Shane gets everyone, both

Alliance wrestlers and WWF wrestlers together to

speak to them, but Angle and Jericho are nowhere

to be found.

 

=====

 

SHANE (smiling)

Don't worry, they show up eventually. Where else

can they go?

 

Shane gets cut off by a shot of Vince from inside

the limo.

 

VINCE

Shane... son... I'd like to congratulate you on

stealing a few pages from my playbook to take

control of the WWF.

 

Shane looks proud of himself.

 

VINCE

I knew this day was coming. That's why when I

signed the agreement for Excess with TNN, I made

sure the contract was with me personally, not

with the WWF.

 

Shane looks shocked.

 

VINCE

You see son, this war isn't over. Oh no. It's

only just beginning.

 

Camera pans to show Angle and Jericho in the limo,

then pans back to a grinning Vince.

 

VINCE

See you on Saturday Night!

 

=====

 

The basic plan is to have Vince McMahon start his

own promotion from scratch. He can name it Titan

Sports Entertainment and finally achieve his goal

of excluding distasteful references to "wrestling."

 

Vince takes Angle, Jericho, the Hardys... all the

younger, shorter guys who have been victims of the

WWF's glass ceiling. With none of the usual hulking

suspects around, Vince is forced to push them based

on merit.

 

Shane and Stephanie can continue to run the WWF

into the ground... they'll do it anyway. They

can hotshot matches with Goldberg and Hogan or

they can bring in cancers like Hall and Nash.

It won't threaten the future, Vince's promotion.

 

The "war", ratings, and loyalties should be topics

for discussion, though the two companies should

operate independantly with no interpromotional

matches and no overt cooperation. The discussions

about people jumping back and forth should be used

to help fuel interest in both shows.

 

Jim Ross and Paul Heyman would stay on as Shane's

WWF announcers with Ross as a quasi-POW and Heyman

as his gloating jailer.

 

HEYMAN

Let's see how Vince likes running in two-bit towns

like Topeka, Moline, and Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Of course Heyman's ranting would be timed to coincide

with actual upcoming TSE shows in those very towns.

 

Speculation about the Rock would last for a couple

of weeks, perhaps with vignettes on both WWF and

TSE programs discussing his whereabouts and loyalty.

Eventually the Rock would return to the WWF, in

Austin's old "loose cannon" role as the guy who

works within the establishment to create chaos.

 

More speculation would occur as Benoit and Helmzley

returned from their injuries. Helmsley would sign

on with Shane's WWF, but Benoit would frustrate

Shane by signing on with TSE.

 

Vince would do a lot of backstage vignettes where

he has strategy sessions with Patterson, Brisco,

and his top wrestlers about the direction of the

company, behind the curtain stuff on starting a

new promotion, such as a discussion of when and

how to create the first TSE titles.

 

Vince would lay out clear goals with a strategy

of achieving certain ratings levels on Saturday

night to force TNN to give him half of RAW's

Monday night timeslot. The key would be to

portray this as a real competition between

Shane's WWF and Vince's TSE with Vince having

his own braintrust to combat the powers that be.

 

If WWF ratings continued to fall, and giving

Shane and Stephanie more control should gaurantee

that, writers should begin to have Stephanie and

Shane blaming each other as the WWF fractures

into loyalists on both sides and "innocent"

victims caught in the middle.

 

It gives the old man a new challenge and it gives

his kids a chance to show him they are ready to

take over the running of the company. Of course

it would all be the WWF, but I would suggest doing

as much as possible to create separate, competing

divisions while using some shared resources to

save on production and administrative expenses.

 

My hope is that Vince could succeed in building

a fresh promotion from the ground up if he wasn't

saddled with dead weight like Undertaker and

Helmsley and didn't have to create stars who

could instantly compete with the Rock and Austin.

 

If both companies were viable, people could jump

back and forth to create new alliances and new

matchups. If the WWF dominated, Vince's promotion

could become a feeder promotion like ECW. If TSE

dominated, Vince could gradually take back his

empire one televised hour at a time.

 

If it works, it gives the WWF the second promotion

they wanted and the competition they desperately

need. It eliminates the glass ceiling problem to

enable the development of new superstars and it

also solves the problem of roster congestion.

 

My fear is that TSE would not reach viability,

but would damage and eventually destroy the WWF.

The question for Vince would be whether he thinks

he has the acumen to make this risky plan work.

 

Frank

 

(I'm not a columnist, but I play one at tOA.)

[Death From Above]

Okay I know the invasion angle is an old talking point, and for various reasons fantasy booking is frowned upon as uncool, but it's such a good scenario to play around with that it's almost worth doing. To this day I swear the "invasion" would have at least had a shot if their take over had taken over anything.

 

Since you own both brands and all the names, it's really irrelivant from any perspective except ego (which, let's face it, is a pretty big motivator in Vince's universe) which name gets over. What do you care, either way you make money. Some of the details of how it all really played out are foggy but I think I'm pretty clear on the consensus being Vince enjoyed basically having it become "HAHA I BURIED WCW" when it really wasn't the best business move. The whole thing had a lot more in common with the NWA take over of Mid-South than it did with the WCW creating their own competition with the nWo, and given the option between copying one of those two ideas, as played out as the "WCW creates it's own competition with the nWo" card is, it's still the only one of those two cards that made money. So why not play it again?

 

I still think a brand split into Raw and WCW Nitro ("taking over" Smackdown) could have been done in a productive way. Everyone knows it's a work but people will still eat kayfabe if you give it to them in a flavour they want. Announcers on one show ripping on the "other guys", etc. You bite the bullet on the salary for one of WCW's main announcers and throw him out there to give it kayfabe credibility. Maybe a couple WCW referees. I mean Michael Cole/Mike Tenay doesn't sound super-appealing but I have a hard time seeing it as worse than Tenay/West. Tenay sitting on the former Smackdown-now-Nitro set screaming JERICHO HAS COME BACK TO WCW is interesting. ECW randomly merging with WCW to fight WWE (which in itself is a hilarious historical revision) for no real reason isn't.

 

WCW didn't really have a lot of name value guys by the end because so much of what they were doing was horrible, but the angle of "Shane McMahon buys WCW" could still have worked, and I think it made much more sense in the context of a brand split than the Raw/Smackdown one ever did because at some level all the fans that were around for the Monday Night Wars have something to, you know, war over. Raw vs. Smackdown was never that interesting. Raw vs. Nitro wasn't interesting by the end, but was at one point, and it would have been worth a punt. I mean, we know it's the thing promoters do now to make works out of things that were shoots and present them as a quasi-worked shoot thingy that usually flops. But "Shane McMahon as WCW owner buying WWE talent to come to 'his' show" is probably higher on the possible success quotent than most every one Russo has tried in TNA. That's not saying much, granted.

 

Anyway, there's like a million directions that could have gone. That's a short version of what I would have tried anyway, given the option.

[Phil Schneider]

Most of the problems would have been solved if they had brought in all of the big guns at once instead of parceling them out. They eventually brought in Hall, Nash, Hogan, Flair Bischoff and Goldberg, if they had brought them in all at once and run that WCW v. WWF, you probably wouldn't have needed to turn your own guys

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I didn't know Dave ever published his brilliant idea that would have saved the invasion. I wish I had that issue.

[Bob Morris]

Most of the problems would have been solved if they had brought in all of the big guns at once instead of parceling them out. They eventually brought in Hall, Nash, Hogan, Flair Bischoff and Goldberg, if they had brought them in all at once and run that WCW v. WWF, you probably wouldn't have needed to turn your own guys

Big names? If you take the names you mentioned and put them through the same situation WWF did with the InVasion, you have the same problem... the "invaders" are not made to look like a threat.

 

That is why the nWo worked... Hall and Nash were not enough by themselves. Nash was the worst drawing WWF champion in history and Hall was an upper midcarder at best in his career to that point. How they got over was they were made to look like threats.

 

If it had been Hall and Nash getting their asses handed to them every time they faced Luger, Sting and Savage, there goes any threat they perceive.

 

Granted, they became too much of a threat... but by that point, they were over ane established. Once that happens, you can look to your blowoff matches and go from there.

 

DDP didn't flop agaisnt Undertaker because DDP wasn't a big name. He flopped because he was never made to look like a threat. Make him one and he will have a better chance to succeed.

 

For anyone who thinks "big names" make things work, ask yourself how many "big names" have popped in through the years since the InVasion and how many of them failed to produce results... and in plenty of cases, it was because they never came off as a threat.

[Loss]

I think the big names would have made it draw, I just don't know that it would have been any good because of the parity booking. Within one week of being in the WWF in 2002, the NWO had both laid out Steve Austin and been laid out by him, they had been emasculated on promos, and they had been part of one really strong angle with Rock that was taken one step too far. Lots of good and bad in there. Hogan/Rock drew in spite of the booking because it was a dream match, and the big name feuds would have drawn in spite of the booking because they were dream matches. But the WWF would have booked it all wrong. The right way would have probably been to turn Austin face, park the belt on a heel Hogan quickly, have him defending the title against a different top WWF guy every month until Wrestlemania, when he finally drops it to Steve Austin. After that, Austin defends against Hogan in a rematch, Flair, Sting, Nash, etc. before a big Austin/Goldberg match at Summerslam or something, while the Hogan/Rock feud, and undercard stuff like Rey/Kidman vs Hardy Boys in a ladder match would have rounded out the card.

 

There's also the point that even if they did bring in the big names, real life would have intervened. Flair, Sting, Bischoff, and Goldberg would have been the best assets they had. Hogan would have gone home before the above plan had a chance to be seen through, Hall would have gotten himself fired, and Nash could not have stayed healthy long enough to do a long-term program. Then you get into the idea of WCW being the defacto heel group, when Flair was too respected to be heel, and booking Sting and Goldberg as heels would have been pretty dumb. Scott Steiner could have gotten over strong doing short matches, but HHH was convinced that he could carry him for 20 minutes and ended up completely killing him for the rest of his run (that is really one of HHH's biggest blunders ever and needs to be talked about much more than it is, but that's another topic). One of the things that ended up killing WCW was that the top guys, even if they would have actually wanted to deliver, had trouble doing so because they couldn't stay sober or injury free long enough to actually play a part in an angle from start to finish.

 

Because of the WWF's own internal problems, and the baggage that came with the top guys from WCW, the only chance of success was to do dream matches, which they did with Hogan/Rock and could have done with Hogan/Austin. And because of the styles clash, the chance of them shooting some of the second tier guys to the moon (Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, RVD, Hardyz, E & C, etc) would have been out of the question. Which means when the dream matches ran their course, they would have ended up exactly where they ended up anyway, except maybe in a worse position because who knows what types of missteps would have happened along the way that got plenty of attention.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Steiner was seriously injured in '01, so he couldn't have been part of the Invasion anyway.

[Sean Liska]

I think another reason they spaced out using all the WCW guys was because they had to wait for their contracts to expire. Vince wasn't going to buy out those massive Bischoff deals. Although if they'd done things correctly they probably could've paid for someone like Goldberg's buyout with one PPV.

[S.L.L.]

Biggest problem with the InVasion angle - the one pretty much everyone seems to agree with - is that it was booked as massive vanity project to glorify the WWF/E in general and Vince McMahon in particular. While I'm generally inclined to agree with Bob Morris' line of thinking, I think that if you bring in the big WCW names and their big WCW egos for the InVasion, it at least balances the playing field a little bit in that regard. I mean, it would still have crashed and burned because the egos involved would have turned it from a massive squash into a huge clusterfuck where everybody came out looking like shit...but at least it would be even.

 

As pie in the sky fantasies go, Bob basically has it right. I've had this argument with a friend of mine since back when the damn thing was actually going down. He said the angle couldn't possibly work with the guys they had, because they weren't stars. I always countered that when you don't have stars, sometimes you have to make stars, especially when that much money is on the line. But that's a fantasy scenario. Vince has long put his ego ahead of his wallet, and you can't create a realistic situation where he doesn't.

 

Jewett's idea is just rehashed smark nonsense. Vince McMahon as noble babyface building a promotion around guys trying to break through the glass ceiling? Shane left with a promotion of old-timers and egos? I shouldn't even have to explain why this one doesn't work.

 

The actual solution - independently of whether or not you get the big stars - is to book the WCW/ECW guys as a legit threat to the WWF/E guys. There were a million ways you could do that, but that's the key. But it was never going to happen, at least not in any sort of long-term productive way. How ironic that "the easiest angle in the world to book" was in fact impossible to book when you realistically consider who was involved.

[Sean Liska]

The Invasion PPV from July 2001 did something like 700,000 buys for a main event that had the Dudleys and Rhino on the "invading" team. That should give a sense of what type of money there was to be made with that angle, even without WCW's top stars. If they had booked guys like Booker and DDP correctly and really created a sense that Vince was in trouble, they could have made some serious money.

[Eduardo]

Kevin Cook on watching Santo vs Panther:

 

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I watched these Santo/Panther matches from England today. They went down in October 2004, and the two legends were there, I believe, as part of a traveling exhibit on Mexican culture.

 

The first match takes place in an art museum in Colchester, if I'm not mistaken, and the crowd is pretty odd. You've definitely got some British lucha fans, probably some Mexicans, at least one guy with a homemade flag with a blue panther on it, and a lot of middle aged art patrons, lots of them women, who presumably don't give a fuck about wrestling.

 

The match is simply unbelievable. Absolutely fucking incredible, a complete master's class in pro wrestling. The two go about forty minutes, never grab a resthold, never repeat any moves, and work every style from straight technical wrestling to out and out hate filled brawling. Keep in mind that a lot, probably most, of the crowd knows nothing about these guys other than that they're really short, wearing funny masks, and that they're allegedly legends.

 

You know how people reacted? People with every reason to ignore or applaud this curious exhibition reacted just like an Arena Mexico crowd. They chanted Santo's name, gasped when he was nearly pinned, jeered Panther's really subtle heel stuff early in the match and really jeered his over the top heel stuff later in the match. Some of them thought Panther was a bad ass, so they cheered him, and then other people booed them and chanted for Santo. (Quite diferent from "Let's go Santo/Let's go Panther," note.) They were totally, completely sucked into the match, and weren't at all puzzled over how to react.

 

People quick-clap and chant mostly because so many wrestlers fucking suck and don't know what they're doing. If I were a promoter or trainer I'd apply the Ludvigo Technique to my guys with that Santo/Panther tape.

[Bix]

Kevin Cook guesses what Heyman wanted for the first episode of ECW on Sci-Fi:

I'm just starting this thread hoping PBS can explain this a bit better than I can, but this show was not supposed to be good. You can tell because the skeleton of a great show was there. I'd bet a dollar this is how Heyman wanted it, given the various masters that had to be appeased:

 

- Open with him in ring doing his usual spiel, shot from a hard cam. He promises the new WWE champion, Rob Van Dam, will be out later.

 

- Cut to a grainy vignette for a new guy—say CM Punk. He's walking around a sketchy industrial neighorhood in Chicago, talking about how his life is a war, he saw his boys go down to alcohol and poisons, but he's drug free so he's better than you, etc. (Could be Homicide, whatever.)

 

- Back to the ring, the whole Zombie thing goes down.

 

- Angle goes over Credible with the announcers talking about how old favorites like Credible just might not be able to hang in the new ECW.

 

- A promo package for someone like Sabu.

 

- Shots of the vampire.

 

- An interview with someone, maybe Big Show.

 

- A trainwreck match—say, FBI vs the SAT. They do a bunch of stuff you don't usually see on WWE TV, the announcers shill the lifting of restrictions in a shooty way. Two new dudes—say, Aaron Stevens and Doug Basham, whoever—come out and scout from the ramp.

 

- All this is shot ECW style with just a hard cam and a cameraman near the entrance who goes to ringside during the match- no jump cuts, crowd pans, etc.

 

- RVD comes out, throws down the WWE title or whatever, making him a face to the ECW crowd and a heel to the WWE crowd. Cena comes out, talks in a shooty way about Bruno, Hart, etc. Edge comes out and kills RVD. The locker room empties and comes after Cena and Edge, with Sabu coming out last and pointing at the sky and then at Cena, maybe while Heyman shouts, "Meet your opponent at Vengeance, Mr Cena, the suicidal, homicidal," etc.

 

This would have been a very good and exciting show, put over the WWE guys as real superstars, appeased the network, and all the rest of it, and you can see the bones of it in what went on the air. The people who matter in WWE do not want a show like that, and a show like that will never ever go on the air. WWE did not blow their chance, they put on the show they wanted to put on and it will probably make money just fine without threatening anyone. The best to hope for is that it continues to be Ed Wood-level bad.

 

PolishBobStupak replies later explaining the WWE creative structure:

Hello everyone. Sorry this took so long, but I stayed away from the board because of all the viruses. This thread gave me a massive headache because of all the complete bullshit people are spouting, but I'll try to clear this up.

 

--Paul Heyman personally hates Dave Lagana and the other writing team liaison Ed Koskey, because they are both interchangeably pawns and suckups of Stephanie McMahon and Dave Gewirtz and both fucked him in the ass and backstabbed him when the tide turned against him, backing up Stephanie when she called for him to be fired when Vince asked for opinions and then joking along about how obsolete and stupid Heyman is while in exile. What a lot of people don't understand is WWE creative acts like a group full of workers; it's a constant political battle with the McMahons literally cutting promos on those out of favor and everyone rushing to agree and work in a good punchline so they seem loyal and right-thinking.

 

--As soon as Steph suggested Ed Koskey or Dave Lagana work on the ECW writing team, Paul personally remarked to a close friend that he felt he was already dead in the water.

 

-- The WWE creative is situated like this:

 

Vince is the top of the pyramid, but he's a roided-up coked-up prescription opiate dazed old bastard. When he's lucid and interested, he's still one of the smartest people in the business, but that's rare. He's largely high, indifferent, or caught up in an emotional rage of some sort. He sort of looms over creative decisions, saying "no this, no to that, I like that, that's cool" but what people don't understand is that he has a negligible impact most of the time.

 

Why?

 

Because everything that is ever suggested is framed towards Vince's prejudices. Vince is very easy to predict, so as long as you say things in a "Vince-sensical" way, he'll agree to it. It's like with ECW: appeal to his interests as an entrepeneur, businessman, and groundbreaking cultural rebel, and he'll immediately relaunch it! Appeal to his contempt for wrestling, non-WWE wrestlers, and Paul Heyman's arrogance, and he'll send Heyman to do PR in Liberia for six months. It's all a matter of rhetoric and who gets Vince when he's weak or there.

 

On an everyday level, everything is run by Stephanie/HHH in a symbiotic alliance with Brian Gewirtz. They don't threaten each other's interests or prejudices; one shoots for melodramatic soap opera bullshit, the other for nerdy juvenile-humored comic book bullshit, and there's a little wrestling to keep HHH and the agents happy. Everyone else is jockeying for position and job security between these two, trying to get a patron like a courtier.

 

EVERYONE on the writing team who has been there for a couple years has made an enemy of Heyman, because they all ganged-up and group-raped him when he fell out of favor. They based their own capability on him being an untalented hack who didn't get the essence of "World Wrestling Entertainment!" They all suspect and dislike him because they know that, if Vince empowers him, their ideas and their job security will be fucked HARD in the ass. The second Heyman gets power, Lagana and Koskey and the rest of those numbnuts are fired or, worse, humiliated and slowly tortured by Vince and the peer pressure as being "out of favor." Being out of favor and shown less capable than another writer is worse than death.

 

Stephanie personally loathes Heyman, especially because of something that hasn't been reported where Paul literally talked shit to her face like no one else has. Her creative supremacy is predicated on him being totally wrong about booking -- more importantly, she just hates him to death. Ace hates him as well, though only because he feels his job security threatened.

 

 

So, in other words, this is how it goes. . .

 

Vince wants ECW to succeed, but he's in no mental state to achieve it himself and he's become so isolated by his own power structure that he doesn't even know how to go about it.

 

Everyone under Vince is directly threatened by ECW succeeding and hate and fear Heyman, who they desperately want to fail.

 

 

 

---Since Smoove asked, his view of what Paul wanted for the first show was eerily parallel to reality. You could take that on very good word. Paul got overruled and fucked.

 

 

**Not saying Paul Heyman is a genius or would've been a huge success. But he's definitely predictable, and anyone who knows shit knows that wasn't his style.

 

 

ETA: DVDVR Flashback -- I announce on the board about Heyman being fired from the writing team before anyone on the internet reports it and before the WWE lockeroom knew, then e-mail Dave who reports it minutes later, causing Stephanie McMahon to send a CC letter to everyone in the company shrieking about shutting down leaks in the company and threatening to fire anyone who is caught.

 

ETA Again: I haven't watched WWE wrestling in years, think TNA sucks, and wasn't an ECW fan.

[Bix]

More Stupak, this time discussing Johnny Ace, the WWE structure, and whatnot:

As someone who absolutely knows people very closely who have worked in WWE creative -- you guys may remember that it was me that broke the Heyman fired from the writing team story, here on this very board before I sent it to Meltzer, just to be a dick -- let me try to explain some things that I just can't imagine how some people don't get.

 

1. Every important decision made in the WWE is made by Vince or Stephanie McMahon. End of story. You could simplify to just Vince since he empowers Stephanie and backs her up. The creative staff, especially in the last year where there's been plenty of mostly unreported purges and intimidation, exists mostly to toady and jockey to their particular prejudices for job security.

 

2. HHH isn't the issue. He's a dickhead with pull over a McMahon and an honorary McMahon who does what he wants and gets what he wants, but he's not the problem.

 

3. JBL is a dickhead who gets what he wants, but he's not the problem.

 

4. Johnny Ace loves talking about his time in Japan with non-marks, largely because Stephanie warns anyone who works at WWE creatively not to talk about it (or anyone else's past ) because she thinks it'd make them look like marks. He loved his time in Japan, and you know why?

 

Not because of the matches.

 

Not because of the wrestling quality.

 

Not because of the fans.

 

But because Giant Baba was a very nice boss who paid him very well and liked him personally and Mrs. Baba made sure he got ridiculous treatment.

 

He doesn't give a single fuck about the wrestling. He likes being incredibly wealthy and coddled and getting preferential treatment from the bosses. He has no gag reflex, no shame, and has an absurdly easy job where he fucks idiots and beat down carnies in the ass.

 

5. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT: The people who matter (and this isn't HHH, who wishes he could run a fucking NWA Harley Race marathon "I'm the super champ, watch me put on a classic" vanity promotion most of the time) DON'T WANT A GOOD WRESTLING SHOW. They are embarrassed by wrestling, embarrassed to be in the business, hate the fans, think they're stupid, and wish they were Hollywood moguls instead. The idea of running a ROH/AJPW/NWA style promotions MAKES THEM SICK TO THEIR STOMACHS. Cruiserweight wrestling appalls them. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Good wrestling will be bubble through occasionally through necessity or greed or when a particular writer frames a good idea in just stupid enough way for Vince to obsess over it, but you will never get prolonged quality.

 

And oh yeah: Jim Ross hates the fans and thinks they're dumber than even the McMahons. And Pat Patterson leaving was the nail in the coffin far more than most realize.

Hahahaha. The battered wife/IWC analogy is a good one, but trust me, the WWE doesn't get a cent from me and hasn't for some time. I just see a huge semantic difference in saying Vince hates "real wrestling" and hates his fanbase and wishes he was in Hollywood and saying he flat out designs his shows to suck.

328802[/snapback]

You're totally missing the point. Maybe I didn't make it clear. He wants the wrestling to suck by smark standards. He doesn't want it to take precedence at any point over the soap opera. Outside of Wrestlemania -- where bigtime matches are point of brand identity -- Vince doesn't want the wrestling to be good. It's not a priority and he disdains people who suggest it is.

 

Let me give you example. You know Vince's favorite in-ring talent is of the last three years in regards to who he praises the most personally as a *wrestler*? This shit will blow your mind and you'll probably think I'm making it up: Jimmy Yang. He has multitiple times talked about how much he loves watching his matches.

 

Yet he repeatedly fires him, doesn't put him in TV, and attempts not to put him in situations to shine. BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WANT THE WRESTLING TO MATTER.

 

ETA: Jim Ross. . . you're wrong. Take my word for it. He's said things about the fans that made me wince hearing it. Imagine the worst, most toxic word in the English language, put the word "ignorant" in front of it, and that's what he mutters backstage about you.

 

I don't think we basically disagree, but on the points of contention—yes, I think the McMahons actively want their shows to suck. I think McMahon understands the difference between what he promotes and what Baba or Luetteroth or whomever else has promoted, understands that one is a better product, and actually wants his to not be good.

328835[/snapback]

Let me help your sickass mind clarify.

 

Vince doesn't want his show to suck. He does want his show to suck by wrestling standards outside of specific big shows where he feels compelled to deliver.

 

You totally missed my point. I don't care about Vince's creative talents or employability. My point is in conversation, when he's lucid, he can actually be a very intelligent and compelling man far deeper than the caricature. He's simply not stupid. He's deranged, isolated, high most of the time, and has an absurdly vulgar and puerile personality and rotten taste, but he's not dumb.

328851[/snapback]

This is a point I think well intentioned people fail to understand. The general assumption seems to be that if only Vince would watch AJPW/CMLL/ROH/etc. he would have a light go on over his head and say, "I could make much more money promoting a mature, respectable product that would allow me to get higher ad rates," etc. No. He is a 60 year old man who blows more coke in a day than I have in my life and despises me. I could sit down with him, explain the greatness of El Dandy, and he would order an underling to squash Benoit and give The Great Khali the title. Vince has watched everything all the smarks have watched, and thoroughly understood it; he just hates the smarks and what they like. I even suspect that he's paid more attention to boards like this than people think. Good on Samoa Joe for staying out of his clutches for now; bad on CM Punk.

 

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

That Punk thing turned to out to be wrong.

 

I think he was still right about Joe. Bix, was it you or Cook who once said that "Stupak" told you that Vince went crazy in a writer's meeting once over the internet's (I assume that's his code word for Meltzer) praising of Joe and vowed to hire and bury him? Besides which, despite all the claims (which are really just speculation) by fans on boards, Joe never would have been given the Umaga role. He's not big enough, they say he couldn't work, and his services don't fall under Vince's inscrutable lifelong commitment to hiring Afa's relatives.

[Guest The 3H's]

That last (Bix's) post was one of the silliest things I ever read, but it was awesome.

[kjh]

Speaking of Heyman it's two years to the day of the disastrous December to Dismember PPV and him leaving the promotion. I'm starting to think that there's an outside chance he'll eventually be brought back into the fold, given that interest in the product is tanking, the Heyman haters are slowly falling one by one (Lagana earlier this year and Bruce Prichard this week) and Heyman seemingly using the UK Sun and the wrestling sheets as a covering letter for his job reapplication.

[sek69]

I don't think there was ever any intent to give Joe the Umaga gimmick. There was a desire from I'd guess Vince to hire Joe and job him out in one of those "see how the other guy's talent can't hang in WWE with the big boys" deals, but Joe knew that's what they wanted to do and passed. Umaga made his debut afterward and dummies on the net were all "OMG JOE WUZ GONNA BE UMAGA~!"

 

 

It should also be noted that the December to Dismember fiasco is like a living testament to Stupak's portrayal of the creative staff's intense hard-on against Heyman. They gutted the show and rewrote practically every and anything that had his fingerprint on it and ended up with a turd of a PPV that ended up running too short.

[Bix]

I'm not saying that it was the case, but it's possible that Umaga could be a statement to Joe even if Joe wouldn't have gotten the gimmick/push.

[Death From Above]

Okay now I want to see this Santo/Panther match held in some random British museum.