Dave Meltzer stuff

[Sean Liska]

Not that I agree with the poll results either but I think some of you are confusing booker for promoter. Heyman was a terrible businessman and promoter but he's absolutely fine as a booker.

What was his most successful angle? Who was the biggest star he created?

 

I get where you're going with that, but I think Heyman's detractors brush over the significance of what he did accomplish. He took a random Northeastern indy that mostly ran bar shows in front of a few hundred people, and turned it into a national PPV entity that could get 100,000 buys at it's peak. Nothing close to that has been accomplished since the territories died. It can be argued that it took greater booking prowess to do that than it took to run a successful territory where the booker had a monopoly, free weekly TV. and a rotating cast of major-league stars to cycle in and out of the area.

 

I'm not totally sure I would make that argument, but I think it's more compelling that some give it credit for. But Vince still runs away with it. He built a global giant of a business with Vince Russo as his right hand man. With the benefit of hindsight, that's probably the most impressive booking feat we've ever seen.

[Loss]

I actually think that's more of an argument for Paul Heyman as a promoter, not a guy who crafted well done angles, built new stars and created matches that people were invested in and wanted to see.

[Slasher]

Think promoter deals with the overall picture, which is where Heyman fails (where is ECW now?) But booker deals with the creative aspect of the product. He did definitely create a lot of stars who fell apart when given a chance on the bigger stage or younger wrestlers who used ECW as a springboard for bigger better things. I think Vince has no peer when it comes to being a promoter but as a booker? Eh. I have no problems with people picking Heyman over him. Personally if I was voting, I would go with Watts too though.

[hammerva]

I guess you definition of "biggest angle" is vague. I mean Raven vs Dreamer and Taz vs Sabu was a feud he built for over 2 - 3 years. That was clearly the most known angle/storyline in the ECW history. Were they legendary feuds in history probably not but there wasn't anybody in ECW that could create a Bret vs Shawn or Flair vs Dusty like feud.

 

Like I said before, Heyman greatest strength is that he took average guys or guys near the end of the road and made his big stars. Scott Levy in 1994 wasn't much of anything after his Johnny Polo stuff but Raven resurrected his career. Guys like the Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Dudleys probably would have mediocre careers if it wasn't the character build-up that Heyman was responsible for.

[Loss]

Heyman was a creative guy. And what he did is in many ways impressive. But he never -- not even one time -- filled a regular-sized arena. Jerry Jarrett had far more success in a weaker market, on a smaller budget, and with less television clearance. Did the largest house in ECW history even hit 2,000 people? Sure, he was creative, but he wasn't really successful. And I think that has to factor into this at least *some*, even if you're not using it to form your entire opinion.

[soup23]

Ecw definitely had crowds bigger than 2,000 on more than a handful of occasions. I agree with your overall points Loss just wanted to add that for clarification.

[Slasher]

Again, filling arenas require more than creativity. You have to market, promote, etc. Yes, if you were a good booker and a creative guy, it is easier to get people to come, but it isn't a guaranteed. Look at TNA, no matter what they try to do creatively speaking, they can't draw for shit. It was a different time in the 70s and 80s, but by the 90s the promotion model focused more on television shows rather than house shows. You needed TV to draw. I am not going to lay all the blame at Heyman's feet as a booker, but rather as a promoter.

[Bix]

ECW's biggest crowd was "over 6,000" for Anarchy Rulz '99 in the Chicago area.

[Indikator]

Attendance

 

By the way, with all the Scherer talk here I wonder if he or any other source consistently inflated the numbers.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Or heaven forbid, you can take it how it was written.... that even "wrestling's" best cannot come anywhere close to the standards of journalists in the real world. In terms of training, method, delivery, psychology, you name it.

 

Next you'll be telling me Rob Feinstein is no different to Martin Scorcese. I have to respect him (which you seem to think means bum without the option for mild criticism) too right, under your theory of "regardless of the flaws, he's still working his ass off (for 20) years". Your (illogical) words.

 

I don't know why you are coming across as so thin skinned and bitter and spiteful, but you're really hurting my feelings and upsetting me.

Journalists can be as grammatically correct as they want to be, but mainstream journalists largely should be treated as a laughing stock. The degree of poor research, towing the line in government rhetoric, selective citations to stick with their narrative, and their 14-year-old understanding of history has made the press a joke establishment comparable to state-controlled media. Of course, I'm speaking more of the political and international relations side of the fence, but it's a crime (possibly induced by the mediocrity of supply and demand) that people have to dig so deeply to find a decent historical explanation for why things are as they are. It must never be forgotten that the press, including the left-wing NYT, gave Neocons a voice for almost a decade, and it's unbelievable how much that side of the right got away with their nonsense that had no real roots in philosophic conservatism, ended up causing a strategic disaster in the Middle East and elsewhere (and every realist of that era, who I might add, have little voice in the press called that before 2003's invasion of Iraq), and gave them a carte blanche to take terrorism totally out of context. It's just a propaganda machine.

 

There are good journalists out there, though they're few and far between, and they're usually far away from mainstream publications. Dave Meltzer is a saint in a field full of scoundrels.

 

* I wanted to say this a week ago, but I was inspired to post this since I'm reading an academic paper now on the disgusting French bashing that went on in the mainstream press from 2002 to 2004, and how literally no one in the press even came close to touching on the French experience, their history with counterterrorism (that, I might add, highly influenced David Petraeus, its own military commitments around the globe (second most deployed force in Gabon, Cote d'Ivoire, Afghanistan, Haiti, Lebanon, and the list goes on and on), and just how asinine that an armchair general like Dick Cheney who cowardly dodged the draft FIVE TIMES was lecturing to Jacques Chirac about terrorism when Chirac did his service as a conscript in Algeria and was wounded TWICE. No, no one from the press establishment has any right to critique Dave Meltzer without being petty.

 

I'd like to add that I've read articles over the last few years where newspapers are going under. The scapegoat naturally is the Internet. Though that can have its effect, another obvious reason is that mainstream press sucks for obvious reasons. Little in those publications are of interest to anyone who has read more than a few books on international relations or history.

 

Now, I feel better.

[NintendoLogic]

How much financial success would Heyman have had if he was getting paid for TV and paid guys $25 a night (insert bounced check joke here)?

[Loss]

Not sure it could have helped him pack 6,000-8,000 into a Philly arena every week, with occasional 10K+ crowds for big shows.

[Slasher]

Look at what ROH is doing attendance wise, and they have ended up existing longer than ECW did. ECW was an independent trying to be the #3 national promotion. They couldn't sustain their expansion model and they went out of business. If they had TV and if they were able to keep their major players in place, who knows how successful the company would have been. If they were able to advertise their upcoming shows via a key time slotted tv show a la Raw or Nitro, you are telling me they couldn't bring an extra few grand fans per show? Come on now, Loss.

 

Furthermore we are forgetting, he did book OVW which did well supposedly, and the Smackdown brand, which helped create stars for Raw to poach via drafts. Heyman shouldn't have won the poll by that much, or maybe even at all, but it is easy to see why he did. And no, it doesn't entirely have to do with uber smarky marks voting either.

[Loss]

It's entirely that. There is no such thing as someone who visits F4W who doesn't fall into that category.

 

Paul Heyman has zero significant accomplishments to his name as a booker. Zero. No huge gate, no wildly successful PPV, no television ratings, no record gates. Nothing. At best, he helped give the start to a lot of guys who became stars later, which can be said for almost every promoter in history, including Joe Pedicino and Herb Abrams.

[Slasher]

I respect your position but I have to disagree with you about Heyman and leave it at that.

[Loss]

ECW might have worked, except that it didn't.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

It's entirely that. There is no such thing as someone who visits F4W who doesn't fall into that category.

 

Paul Heyman has zero significant accomplishments to his name as a booker. Zero. No huge gate, no wildly successful PPV, no television ratings, no record gates. Nothing. At best, he helped give the start to a lot of guys who became stars later, which can be said for almost every promoter in history, including Joe Pedicino and Herb Abrams.

That's an interesting standpoint, though in fairness, the conditions of the late 90's were in such a way that getting a huge gate could never happen.

 

Relatively speaking, if it's true that ECW ever did 100,000 buys, that's something to write home about. Despite national backing and advertisement, Bulldog and Bret at In Your House 5 did around 75,000 buys.

 

ECW was in many ways sort of the third party of pro-wrestling, which are almost always temporary and not enduring. So even if they had succeeded initially in national expansion, it's doubtful that their model could have been sustained. Furthermore - and I could be wrong - but I don't think ECW ever made new fans who weren't initially disaffected fans of the two key national players of that era. As a promotion, its esoteric nature always made it in such a way that their national appeal would never have gotten that great. With pressures from advertisers and toning down the product would have risked alienating their fan base, it seems clear to me that the model was unsustainable since they couldn't tap into a new fan base (for example, like what WWE is doing and succeeding in some ways with John Cena in the PG era).

 

Some could argue that Heyman was influential in WWE booking, but I don't think the case is that convincing. Yes, WWE did introduce table spots and blood around 1995, but that had far more to do with their competition with WCW than ECW's influence. The Attitude Era itself from Fall of 1998 onto Fall of 1999 - WWE's hot period - was really just a toned down Vince Russoism where the product for a time, due to its raunchy nature, just happened to be cool to watch, with charismatic players all in key positions.

 

Good post against Heyman.

[Log]

ECW's biggest crowd was "over 6,000" for Anarchy Rulz '99 in the Chicago area.

Funny, cause I was about to post that the one ECW show I went to definitely had over 2000. It was that show.

[Dylan Waco]

There were plenty of ECW shows that did over 2K.

[Loss]

Fair enough on the 2,000+ crowds. I was thinking about how small the ECW Arena was when I went there a few years back for the first time, and I remembered seeing fancams with a lot of high school gyms and armories.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Fair enough on the 2,000+ crowds. I was thinking about how small the ECW Arena was when I went there a few years back for the first time, and I remembered seeing fancams with a lot of high school gyms and armories.

You do have to consider the potentiality of the industry at that point. Relatively speaking, that ECW was even approaching WWF numbers is impressive on its own, even if those were 1995 numbers. They outdrew WCW throughout most of its existence. They did all of this with no national television backing. Like with things in life in general - though I do maintain its booking model was totally unsustainable - the timing just wasn't there.

 

But for the Orthodox wrestling fans out there, ECW should be held in scorn in so many ways. Its pushing the boundaries of what the gladiator is capable of was causal in making it nearly impossible to get over angles.

 

I guess that goes back to the WWE thread elsewhere. It's more than just John Cena not being Steve Austin. It's the fact that no one can bump like Mick Foley. I remember last year when Kane pushed wheelchair-bound Zach Ryder off the ramp. That was a nasty fall where he could easily have been hurt or worse. There wasn't much of a reaction, and the crowd sort of acted like me, with a smirk but without any real emotion. And that's sort of what modern WWE is, sort of a joke that has its rare moments of seriousness but is treated as a visually-pleasing exhibition where no one is taken too seriously and the product is treated as entertainment not to be taken seriously. Now, that's largely by WWE's design, whether intentional or not, but this trend begins with ECW being so over the top that it desensitized crowds and made pro-wrestling into a joke.

[Dylan Waco]

Fair enough on the 2,000+ crowds. I was thinking about how small the ECW Arena was when I went there a few years back for the first time, and I remembered seeing fancams with a lot of high school gyms and armories.

At their "artistic" height they weren't drawing near what they were in 98/00.

[Dylan Waco]

Fair enough on the 2,000+ crowds. I was thinking about how small the ECW Arena was when I went there a few years back for the first time, and I remembered seeing fancams with a lot of high school gyms and armories.

You do have to consider the potentiality of the industry at that point. Relatively speaking, that ECW was even approaching WWF numbers is impressive on its own, even if those were 1995 numbers. They outdrew WCW throughout most of its existence. They did all of this with no national television backing. Like with things in life in general - though I do maintain its booking model was totally unsustainable - the timing just wasn't there.

 

I think what ECW did in terms of drawing people is more impressive than they are often given credit for, but it is not true at all to say they outdrew WCW throughout most of its existence. In fact I'm not sure there was ever a year where they even came close to outdrawing WCW.

[NintendoLogic]

I'm not at all a fan of ECW, but I think Heyman deserves credit for doing more with less than anyone I can think of. And you can't talk about Jarrett's success without mentioning the advantages he enjoyed that other promoters didn't.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Fair enough on the 2,000+ crowds. I was thinking about how small the ECW Arena was when I went there a few years back for the first time, and I remembered seeing fancams with a lot of high school gyms and armories.

You do have to consider the potentiality of the industry at that point. Relatively speaking, that ECW was even approaching WWF numbers is impressive on its own, even if those were 1995 numbers. They outdrew WCW throughout most of its existence. They did all of this with no national television backing. Like with things in life in general - though I do maintain its booking model was totally unsustainable - the timing just wasn't there.

 

I think what ECW did in terms of drawing people is more impressive than they are often given credit for, but it is not true at all to say they outdrew WCW throughout most of its existence. In fact I'm not sure there was ever a year where they even came close to outdrawing WCW.

 

I'm comparing through spans, so you can argue that I'm using an affirmative action criteria. In 1993, WCW was having difficulty getting 1000 people to attend their house shows. That's with the advantage of national television. Comparatively, ECW, only through syndication, could get 2000 easily in 1997.