Dave Meltzer stuff

[kjh]

LeBron is clearly better a playing heel then Koshchek, will draw a shit ton more money at it too.

LeBron is in the same "industry" as Koshchek: Sports.

To be fair, when Dave said "industry" he meant "combat sports". Of course, pro wrestling is neither real combat or sports, but they've been lumped together since the dawn of time.

 

Poor Chael Sonnen. One failed drug test and Mr Meltzer forgets you for his new heel poster child Josh Koscheck. And Bix, we all know who you would say doesn't count, because the McMahons aren't pushing him hard at the moment.

[tomk]

Apparently, the hilarious WNBA talking point isn't going away anytime soon.

[rovert]

LeBron is clearly better a playing heel then Koshchek, will draw a shit ton more money at it too.

LeBron is in the same "industry" as Koshchek: Sports.

To be fair, when Dave said "industry" he meant "combat sports". Of course, pro wrestling is neither real combat or sports, but they've been lumped together since the dawn of time.

 

Poor Chael Sonnen. One failed drug test and Mr Meltzer forgets you for his new heel poster child Josh Koscheck. And Bix, we all know who you would say doesn't count, because the McMahons aren't pushing him hard at the moment.

 

On Sonnen Oliver Copp (not tmlyger) thinks the whole thing will get squashed

[Sean Liska]

Dave had one of his all-time great quotes today, talking about how TNA's business would almost surely have improved with Heyman there.

 

"All I know is Heyman's PPV shows with no budget did 40,000 when he had no TV at all and 99,000 at their peak. Heyman's house shows with no ad budget and without having WWE's first or second hottest star from the year before never did as bad as TNA's shows do now.

 

He may not be great, he may not even be good, but you're comparing him with Russo & Bischoff."

[artDDP]

Apparently, the hilarious WNBA talking point isn't going away anytime soon.

That talking point was mentioned in a reader's letter in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. For a second there I thought that thread was going to break out in the WSJ.

[kjh]

Dave's Norwegian food analogy may possibly be more hilarious than the WNBA talking point:

 

How many times did Vince Sr. sellout Madison Square Garden compared to Vince Jr?

 

By that standard, Vince isn't in the league with his father. And he is a better promoter in many ways than his father, although today's Vince cannot come even close to creating the main event match feel that his father was so good at creating, and his father did it on a monthly basis.

 

The analogy that Vince didn't have the advantages over Dana is beyond crazy. Beyond. Vince was the son of the guy who owned McDonalds in the Northeast and then expanded it to the rest of the country and then the world with a brand name and a menu of products that were known worldwide. He started working at McDonalds and was the No. 2 guy in the company, learned the business from the ground up and took it over when his father had cancer.

 

Dana was the guy whose rich high school friends bought him a Norwegian food deli during a period when nobody in the world wanted Norweigan food, ever heard of Norwegian food, and Norweigan food was banned in the most states, and he was banned from advertising Norwegian food on television because a Senator years ago created a stir saying Norwegian food was poisonous. Not only that, but when he started, he didn't know the first thing about the restaurant business.

 

He did have rich people backing him and they actually liked Norwegian food and thought it had a chance to catch on. And then, a whole bunch of other rich people jumped in and decided that they, too, were going to open Norwegian food restaurants. And every one of them was out of business quickly, realizing that the public doesn't even like Norwegian food.

 

For five years, the TV industry thinks Norwegian food is poison even with no evidence of such, and he's still banned from advertising. Finally, a food channel figures we can put a Norwegian food chef reality show and people get intrigued by the chefs on the show.

 

Norwegian food becomes all the rage. Most figure it's a one or two year fad.

 

Two years later, McDonalds hamburgers have gotten stale and more people are eating Norwegian food. However, McDonalds is still bigger because they had a 100 year head start and are a worldwide brand.

 

Four years later, Norwegian food is more popular than McDonalds in Canada by a huge margin, in almost every U.S. state, even though a few still ban it, and over the last year took over Australia. McDonalds is telling TV stations in Europe that Norwegian food is bad for children, causes cancer, anything to keep it out of the countries McDonalds is still selling lots of burgers in. Major financial publications like the Wall Street Journal are saying McDonalds is a tired brand losing relevance and Norwegian food is what the public now wants, even though Norwegian food for a variety of reasons is very inconsistent. Sometimes you go to the restaurant and it's really great. But two or three times out of ten, it's so-so and sometimes tastes awful. McDonalds responds by saying Norwegian food competes with German food because they are both European, and that it's only a fad because they really don't have any items on the menu that the public really likes, plus they can't control the quality of their product.

 

You start Vince in 1984 with an indie promotion, have him banned from holding shows in most of the country, and not give him television, nor one star that other promoters previously created, and let him have a billionaire backing him. He's done in one year max. If it wasn't for Japanese money saving him, he was done in one year with national TV and access to every major arena in a business, with Hogan, Andre, Piper, some of the best talent in the business already established stars, and with a business with a 100 year history in the country.

 

Vince is the better promoter because he has stood the test of time. Dana may self destruct when business goes down. Bischoff did. Vince did as well, but managed by overcome it. We don't know how Dana will face adversity, and guaranteed, adversity will come. He's only have five good years. Vince has made money probably 22 or 23 of 27 years.

 

But the idea Dana started out luckier than Vince is absolutely crazy. I mean, you have no clue about the pro wrestling industry, economics, legalities or how things were in 1984 if you say that.

 

Plus, Vince has the huge advantage of being able to create and manipulate storylines. If that's not an advantage now because it's fake, it's because Vince lost sight of what the public wanted, not an inherent advantage of real. Fiction in most genres is more popular than reality, movies, TV, and while the biggest boxing matches because of media coverage were always bigger than the biggest wrestling matches, wrestling was at most times the hotter live event ticket and the stronger business. On a local level in many places, the local boxing promoter would work with the major wrestling promotion and hold weekly shows with the idea that the profits gained from promoting wrestling would allow him to continue holding boxing regularly, since boxing couldn't make money.

 

Now everything says the only reason Dana is ahead is because he's promoting something real. No, it's because he's got better storylines and builds matches better. What he does in building a match and making a star is far closer to Vince Sr. than Vince Jr. now is to Vince Sr. And he never worked under Vince Sr. since he was a young man to learn it. He had to learn by making one mistake after another until he got it.

[kjh]

"All I know is Heyman's PPV shows with no budget did 40,000 when he had no TV at all and 99,000 at their peak. Heyman's house shows with no ad budget and without having WWE's first or second hottest star from the year before never did as bad as TNA's shows do now."

Meltzer on early MMA PPVs:

 

"UFC 2 did 100,000 buys not 300,000 buys, and in those days because there were so few events on PPV, every event was promoted like hell by the cable companies. UWFI debuted to 95,000 for a taped show months old at the same time. Pancrase debuted to 60,000 for a taped show months old a year later Completely different era. UWFI and Pancrase today couldn't do 8,000 buys today under those conditions. Pride, on a same day tape delay with a product that was far more appealing to Americans and with TV on FSN was only doing 10,000 to 20,000 buys in its heyday."

 

Um...

[Sean Liska]

I post over there as Sean Reedy (don't want those people knowing my name), and I'm trying to at least make Dave defend his arguments, like that the Norwegian food had been shockingly succesful a decade before. His new one is that the original UFC was going downhill before the government problems because the style argument had been settled. Does anyone remember it that way? I thought they still had some main event personalities that could draw.

[Sean Liska]

"All I know is Heyman's PPV shows with no budget did 40,000 when he had no TV at all and 99,000 at their peak. Heyman's house shows with no ad budget and without having WWE's first or second hottest star from the year before never did as bad as TNA's shows do now."

Meltzer on early MMA PPVs:

 

"UFC 2 did 100,000 buys not 300,000 buys, and in those days because there were so few events on PPV, every event was promoted like hell by the cable companies. UWFI debuted to 95,000 for a taped show months old at the same time. Pancrase debuted to 60,000 for a taped show months old a year later Completely different era. UWFI and Pancrase today couldn't do 8,000 buys today under those conditions. Pride, on a same day tape delay with a product that was far more appealing to Americans and with TV on FSN was only doing 10,000 to 20,000 buys in its heyday."

 

Um...

 

ECW came around once we had 12 PPVs a year from the Big 2, that's pretty much this era. You can't deny that Heyman was far better at getting their fans to spend money than TNA is now.

[Wahoos Leg]

That Norwegian rant just supports what I've said for years.

 

Dave Meltzer: Decent reporter. Very well connected. Horrible writer. Just horrible.

[Tawren]

UWFI and Pancrase aired PPV's in the US in the mid-90's?

[Bix]

UWFI and Pancrase aired PPV's in the US in the mid-90's?

Three UWFi Shootwrestling PPVs and a few Pancrase PPVs. The Pancrase PPVs were done by SEG and tied in with UFC.

[Cox]

After that baffling Norwegian food comparison outlined above, I think I finally figured Dave out. Any older Observer readers remember the 80's and 90's, when Dave would criticize paranoid wrestlers who thought every sporting event was a work (Kevin Sullivan was one, I think Terry Funk was another)? Dave has become one of those people, only instead of thinking that everything is a work, Dave thinks that everything is pro wrestling.

[Sean Liska]

To be fair, the debate was about whether Dana or Vince was the better promoter. So you can theoretically discuss that without saying MMA=Pro Wrestling, like comparing David Stern and Bud Selig, although it's still kind of a goofy argument to have.

[Bix]

I once had a girl

Or should I say, she once had me

She showed me her room

Isn't it good

Norwegian food

 

She asked my to stay and told me sit anywhere

So I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair

 

I sat on a rug, biding my time

Drinking her wine

We talked until two, and then she said:

"It's time for bed,"

 

She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh

I told her I didn't, and crawled off to sleep in the bath

 

And when I awoke, I was alone

This bird has flown

So I lit a fire

Isn't it good

Norwegian food

[rovert]

I once had a girl

Or should I say, she once had me

She showed me her room

Isn't it good

Norwegian food

 

She asked my to stay and told me sit anywhere

So I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair

 

I sat on a rug, biding my time

Drinking her wine

We talked until two, and then she said:

"It's time for bed,"

 

She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh

I told her I didn't, and crawled off to sleep in the bath

 

And when I awoke, I was alone

This bird has flown

So I lit a fire

Isn't it good

Norwegian food

Too bad the Observer doesnt have a letters section anymore

[kjh]

"All I know is Heyman's PPV shows with no budget did 40,000 when he had no TV at all and 99,000 at their peak. Heyman's house shows with no ad budget and without having WWE's first or second hottest star from the year before never did as bad as TNA's shows do now."

Meltzer on early MMA PPVs:

 

"UFC 2 did 100,000 buys not 300,000 buys, and in those days because there were so few events on PPV, every event was promoted like hell by the cable companies. UWFI debuted to 95,000 for a taped show months old at the same time. Pancrase debuted to 60,000 for a taped show months old a year later Completely different era. UWFI and Pancrase today couldn't do 8,000 buys today under those conditions. Pride, on a same day tape delay with a product that was far more appealing to Americans and with TV on FSN was only doing 10,000 to 20,000 buys in its heyday."

 

Um...

ECW came around once we had 12 PPVs a year from the Big 2, that's pretty much this era. You can't deny that Heyman was far better at getting their fans to spend money than TNA is now.

It's still a completely different era, when wrestling was a lot hotter and the PPV market wasn't quite as saturated as it is today. It's also a completely different Paul Heyman. He definitely was in tune with what wrestling fans wanted in 1995. 2010? Probably not so much. Heyman was definitely far better at getting their fans to spend money than TNA is now. He probably still would be today. But it'd be much more difficult for him to draw 99,000 buys on PPV today.

 

This was the latest quote by Dave in that thread:

 

Nobody is a God. But a monkey with a typewriter would be equal to what we have now, so even if Heyman is 50% of what he once was, he's 75% better than what we have now.

I think Bischoff and Russo are out of touch, one trick ponies too, but come on, they aren't quite that bad.

[Loss]

I don't know, they are pretty bad.

[El-P]

It's also a completely different Paul Heyman. He definitely was in tune with what wrestling fans wanted in 1995.

Hell, judging by ECW's product, Heyman was totally burned out of ideas by late 98. An how much did Tod Gordon actively contributed to the creative aspect of the shows back then ? I've heard interviews in which he's said to be 50% responsible of ECW's booking. I know it's an accepted fact (myth) that Heyman is a creative genius, but doesn't Gordon deserve some credit for ECW being as ground-breaking as it was ? After he left, quite frankly, it didn't take long for Heyman to be drained out of good ideas. By the time they got on TNN, the booking was awful.

[KrisZ]

This is the lead story today and from the completely out of left field department

 

--There was an MMA show in Victoria, BC last night with Robert Drysdale fighting and Frank Mir was there in his corner. They did an interview with Mir at the show and they asked him about fighting Brock Lesnar next. He said something to the effect of, we'll see how Lesnar's career pans out now after he got his ass absolutely smashed by Cain. It got quite the big pop. For old-time fans, the description of Mir from his behavior is that he's the modern day version of Mil Mascaras. And no, I don't mean he was walking around on his tip toes and sucking in his stomach while wearing a mask. More he's a guy with all the answers no matter what the question. (thanks to Greg Hill)

[Sean Liska]

It's also a completely different Paul Heyman. He definitely was in tune with what wrestling fans wanted in 1995.

Hell, judging by ECW's product, Heyman was totally burned out of ideas by late 98. An how much did Tod Gordon actively contributed to the creative aspect of the shows back then ? I've heard interviews in which he's said to be 50% responsible of ECW's booking. I know it's an accepted fact (myth) that Heyman is a creative genius, but doesn't Gordon deserve some credit for ECW being as ground-breaking as it was ? After he left, quite frankly, it didn't take long for Heyman to be drained out of good ideas. By the time they got on TNN, the booking was awful.

 

Nah, Tod never did anything with ECW before Heyman took over and never did anything interesting with his indies after.

 

ECW's creative definitely wasn't as good by 99, but you also have to factor in the talent losses. It's a lot easier to be a great booker when you've got Mick Foley as your lead heel cutting brilliant promos every week, rather than when you're trying to somehow coax Justin Credible into being a compelling figure. And it's not like he pushed Credible at the expense of better guys, the roster was just drained. It's too bad ECW didn't last until the indy talent explosion a few years later.

[MikeCampbell]

I always got a kick out of the little angle from Guilty as Charged 2000 when Tajiri was supposed to wrestle Super Crazy in a Dream Partner match, but Corino chose Crazy as Tajiri's partner.

[El-P]

It's also a completely different Paul Heyman. He definitely was in tune with what wrestling fans wanted in 1995.

Hell, judging by ECW's product, Heyman was totally burned out of ideas by late 98. An how much did Tod Gordon actively contributed to the creative aspect of the shows back then ? I've heard interviews in which he's said to be 50% responsible of ECW's booking. I know it's an accepted fact (myth) that Heyman is a creative genius, but doesn't Gordon deserve some credit for ECW being as ground-breaking as it was ? After he left, quite frankly, it didn't take long for Heyman to be drained out of good ideas. By the time they got on TNN, the booking was awful.

 

Nah, Tod never did anything with ECW before Heyman took over and never did anything interesting with his indies after.

 

ECW's creative definitely wasn't as good by 99, but you also have to factor in the talent losses. It's a lot easier to be a great booker when you've got Mick Foley as your lead heel cutting brilliant promos every week, rather than when you're trying to somehow coax Justin Credible into being a compelling figure. And it's not like he pushed Credible at the expense of better guys, the roster was just drained. It's too bad ECW didn't last until the indy talent explosion a few years later.

 

I dunno, I heard Sandman giving credit to Gordon for putting his character together, with the cigarette and beer drinking entrance for instance. Before Heyman I though Eddie Gilbert was doing all the booking. And I never saw the "creative genius" in Eddie Gilbert. I never saw much of anything in Eddie Gilbert actually, despite years of pimping.

In 1999 ECW still had Jerry Lynn, RVD, Sabu, Credible (who was much better than he ever was given credit for), Tajiri (who was great), Super Crazy, Corino, FBI, Dreamer, Lance Storm, Candido for a while, Raven coming back... In 1995 you also had shit workers in the roster, 911, Public Enemy, Gangstas which were FF material for me every time.

No, to me the booking was the killer, it was unimaginatve, sometime derivative of what was done in WWF/WCW at the time. There was enough talent to to something really interesting.

[Stuttsy]

After that baffling Norwegian food comparison outlined above, I think I finally figured Dave out. Any older Observer readers remember the 80's and 90's, when Dave would criticize paranoid wrestlers who thought every sporting event was a work (Kevin Sullivan was one, I think Terry Funk was another)? Dave has become one of those people, only instead of thinking that everything is a work, Dave thinks that everything is pro wrestling.

Dude- he thinks everything is a work, period!

 

Once, when Dreamer did a frog splash, it appeared he may have broken his wrist. If not, they did a hell of a deal with a bone sticking out of the wrist.

This goofy motherfucker thinks a bone sticking out of someone's arm might be a work? Hang it up, Dave.

[kjh]

To be fair to Dave might have thought it was a work because Dreamer was stupid (sorry, I can't bring myself to use the silly euphemism hardcore anymore) enough to work on with a bone sticking out of his wrist.

 

Meanwhile, Meltzer is out of touch with current smark opinions:

 

--Who do you consider the best wrestler of these Hall of Famers?

Jumbo Tsuruta 36.0%

Genichiro Tenryu 23.2%

Kazushi Sakuraba 19.7%

Dos Caras Sr. 5.9%

Negro Casas 5.9%

Nobuhiko Takada 4.9%

Canek 3.4%

Perro Aguayo 1.0%

History not being kind to the awesomeness that was pro wrestler Takada.

I also like how he no sells Sakuraba getting 20% of the vote!