Booking Talk: Signature Styles and Peak Angles

[SmartMark15]

Saw a post comparing Gedo's NJPW booking to old school Memphis. That made me want to talk about bookers and their strengths and peak angles that define their particular style.

Let me start it off with a booker I'm very familiar with: Gabe Sapolsky.

STRENGTHS
1. Supercard Construction - Especially starting in Mania weekend 2006 in Chicago, Gabe had a knack for creating stacked cards. The amount of quality wrestling that went into a lot of the big 05-07 cards was really quite fantastic. The 06 Chicago Mania weekend cards, Supercard of Honor III, Man Up.

2. Title Contender Hype - I always thought that Sapolsky was very good at creating the proper clamour for the people he was setting up for title reigns. He got them incredibly over and even his "surprise" title winners had such strong booking behind them that no one bat an eyelash at it. Peak examples: Austin Aries, Homicide, James Gibson.

3. Title Reign Booking - Sapolsky always booked his top guy strongly and gave them a reign-long storyline that built and built. You had Samoa Joe's dominance, Nigel McGuinness' mounting injuries leading to his heel turn, Summer of Punk.

WEAKNESSES
1. Over Scheduling - Can't recall if this was more of management or Sapolsky's choice but even would be the first to tell you that in 07, his scheduling of shows weakened his booking. Too many big supercards led to weird decisions like having Danielson-McGuinness in Philly air as part of the Chicago PPV or have Rising Above 2007 (which had a better card) be filmed too close to Final Battle.

2. Too Late Pulling the Trigger - Problem Sapolsky developed that eventually became a bad habit for ROH bookers to follow. Started with McGuinness who won the title six months to a year too late. Continued to Tyler Black and almost every top ROH babyface since.

[Herodes]

Let's never ever compare terrible NJPW to old school Memphis.

[Troy]

Let's never ever compare terrible NJPW to old school Memphis.

Amen

[SmartMark15]

Let's never ever compare terrible NJPW to old school Memphis.

Care to expound on the hallmarks of Memphis booking?

[Mad Dog]

No, they just want to crap on New Japan because it's popular right now.

 

I did want to add a little on Gabe on the weakness side. I think he was guilty of repeating angles towards the end and I thought he was terrible at card placement. Some of those RoH shows got super tedious because he wouldn't throw the bathroom break matches in the right places.

[SmartMark15]

I think he was guilty of repeating angles towards the end and I thought he was terrible at card placement. Some of those RoH shows got super tedious because he wouldn't throw the bathroom break matches in the right places.

Definitely agree with the card placement. It's a flaw of trying to make EVERY card a 10/10 supershow. As quality as those Chicago shows were, they were fairly tough to sit through.

 

As for repeating angles, might I ask which ones you had in mind? Only one that comes to mind off the top of the head is trying to recapture the magic of ROH-CZW with the failed faction warfare experiment (which I feel wasn't an innately bad idea).

[Mad Dog]

Yeah, it felt like he spent the last year or so trying to recapture the RoH/CZW feud. There was also something with the Briscoes where the programs were almost identical back to back around the same time period. My memories are really hazy from this period, I just remember feeling like the promotion was on reruns the last year he was there.

 

I wanted to add on his waiting too long on guys. I think the problem there is he was trying to cosplay All Japan a lot with the length of title reigns and because he was doing title matches every month you would burn up your contenders too quickly vs. the 4-6 title defenses a year in All Japan. A year and a half with 6 title defenses is different than a year and a half with 24 title defenses. It worked with Joe because the promotion was new and fresh and Joe was a great champion and a long run was novel. But you get down the road to Nigel or Danielson's runs and it was obvious he was just padding their title reigns out because Gabe does long title runs. A lot of his later title runs felt like they overstayed their welcome by the end and the byproduct there is guys start slipping through the cracks. He almost always jobbed the next ace one too many times.

[SmartMark15]

A year and a half with 6 title defenses is different than a year and a half with 24 title defenses.

 

This is a trademark of classic All Japan that continues with Gedo's set 5-6 defenses every year. It also translates to WWE booking Lesnar. Personally I enjoy the idea that the rarity raises the stakes of these matches but does that really translate in NJPW where the title scene is so highly protected and guarded? I might follow this up with personal observations of Gedo's booking but I can't speak to that in much detail.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

Yeah, it felt like he spent the last year or so trying to recapture the RoH/CZW feud. There was also something with the Briscoes where the programs were almost identical back to back around the same time period. My memories are really hazy from this period, I just remember feeling like the promotion was on reruns the last year he was there.

 

I wanted to add on his waiting too long on guys. I think the problem there is he was trying to cosplay All Japan a lot with the length of title reigns and because he was doing title matches every month you would burn up your contenders too quickly vs. the 4-6 title defenses a year in All Japan. A year and a half with 6 title defenses is different than a year and a half with 24 title defenses. It worked with Joe because the promotion was new and fresh and Joe was a great champion and a long run was novel. But you get down the road to Nigel or Danielson's runs and it was obvious he was just padding their title reigns out because Gabe does long title runs. A lot of his later title runs felt like they overstayed their welcome by the end and the byproduct there is guys start slipping through the cracks. He almost always jobbed the next ace one too many times.

 

I'd definitely agree that ROH at this time burnt through contenders far too much. As you say, with Joe's reign it was novel, but also helped by a few more left field title defences against guys like Matt Stryker, Dan Maff and Rocky Romero. Not sure anyone really bought them winning the belt but it meant that when someone like Austin Aries challenged for it at Final Battle 2004, he hadn't already had three or four previous unsuccessful attempts. With the later reigns, where you had to have challengers at least once, sometimes twice every month, and people were expecting long title reigns, it meant that people like Roderick Strong, Colt Cabana, El Generico, Claudio would wrack up eight or nine defeats in title matches. The matches still tended to be good, but fell flat and meant those guys at that upper midcard level struggled to get moved to the main event as they were seen as serial chokers. I'm a big Roderick Strong fan, but by the time he won the ROH Title I'd lost count of the number of times he'd challenged for it and lost.

[SmartMark15]

I wonder if this was a problem of Gabe's booking at the time considering that he did admit that around the time of Nigel's reign, he was scheduling way too many shows or if it was a problem of roster depth? Perhaps it's because Gabe never really capitalized on the people who got over in the midcard after their hot angles. For example, Jimmy Jacobs never went anywhere after his hot Age of the Fall debut and feud with Aries. BJ Whitmer never broke through despite his featured role in the CZW war.

 

But still, I felt that Danielson had a similar title defense schedule to Nigel and about the same roster of guys to work with as well. How come Danielson's reign never felt as stale or killed as many contenders?

 

In a more general sense, do you guys prefer having consistent and regular title defenses or the much more pared back approach of a Japanese style promotion?

[rzombie1988]

 

In a more general sense, do you guys prefer having consistent and regular title defenses or the much more pared back approach of a Japanese style promotion?

 

I want to see title matches where the result is actually in question.

[G. Badger]

This is good stuff!

 

When you're talking about is when I got into ROH ppvs and all that. Gabe put too much into the faction stories possibly as a response to what DragonGate had been doing. One off shows were good but nothing was going nowhere mainly because McGuinness was hurt and an on again off again champ and there was a team vs team thing going nowhere for no purpose.

 

As much as they pushed the AJ/Noah lineage of champs as comparable to ROH (Joe, Punk, Danielson, now Nigel) it was always In Comparison rather than on its own. And there lies the problem.

 

After Noah and DG were introduced and even became part of the roster (and champ in Morishima's case), ROH was going to be compared to those guys and their work.

 

So, it became a de-facto puro group and when Nigel was OK he could go up against the likes of KENTA, Dragon, Aries, Roddy etc. and deliver stiff believable bouts. If scrawny Jimmy Jacobs (who is a fantastic heel) is your top heel in a puro group then there's nowhere to go but in a circle unless Gabe wanted to go back (to the 80s) to having a chicken-shit beat Nigel on a countout or something.

 

Really, Aries should have beat Nigel in a NOAH style match. Had Aries as champ then done the Jacobs vs. Aries feud with the No DQ & I Quit Stuff. Nigel could take time to heal and perhaps come back as a face and been the first 2 time champ. Or just give up the idea of having every champ be the most epic MFer of all time.

 

...at the time the first 2 time ROH world champ was treated like the 2nd coming because he had a NWA champion booking plan with Indy guys. He and we were lucky he got Joe to Aries to Punk to Gibson to Danielson relatively seamlessly! Things were perceived as too prestigious past that...it came to that once he was ousted anyhow...

 

OK taking a deep breath now...

[SmartMark15]

HUGE DISCLAIMER: I do not follow New Japan closely. So don't take the following as gospel but as mere observations from the outside looking in. I won't even separate them into strengths vs. weaknesses since I don't have that strong of an opinion on Gedo. Please feel free to correct, discuss, or expound on Gedo!

 

1. Title Exclusivity - Possibly coming as a response to the dark days of early 00s New Japan when the belt was hot potatoed, the IWGP Title has been heavily protected in the past few years with only Tanahashi, Styles, Okada, and Naito breaking the barrier to claim the title. This has lent the title a strong sense of prestige but it also potentially robs credibility from several challengers. Just look at how Omega's title prospects seem to have deflated since drawing with Okada as well as winning the US Title.

 

2. Rigid Booking Patterns - A fair amount of unpredictability has been zapped from New Japan booking because of the patterns that the schedule follows. For example, the IWGP Champion's presence in the G1 is almost entirely ceremonial. The IWGP Champ's chances in the G1 are pretty much zero. The King of Pro Wrestling card after G1 is similarly inconsequential with the Tokyo Dome main event almost always set in stone once the G1 finishes.

 

3. Big Match Feel - Having only 4 or 5 title defenses a year, the IWGP Championship matches are always a big deal. This year alone, it's produced a MOTYC almost every time as well as two of the most (controversially) acclaimed matches in recent wrestling memory. Even smaller B-level title defenses like the Okada vs. Cody match led to a very enjoyable bout that had several good angles sprouting from it. And even that had the unique selling point of having the ROH World Champion vs. the IWGP Champion--a dream match in name though the talent involved could have been better.

 

4. Repetitive Booking - Closely related to the point on title exclusivity, there are always a solid crop of workers at the top of the heap that Gedo goes to the well with for his big cards. It used to be Nakamura, Styles, Tanahashi, and Okada with Naito pressing in on the edges. After the WWE raid, it's become Okada, Omega, Tanahashi, and Naito with those four men being in the same two marquee matches of the year's two biggest shows (WK and Dominion). With how the G1 is looking, it seems likely this pattern continues with Tanahashi-Omega and Okada-Naito looking like the likely top matches for next year's Dome show.

 

Peak angles: I feel like Tanahashi-Okada and Okada-Omega are the two most illustrative feuds that embody Gedo's booking style. Both were highly competitive storylines that played out over several 30+ minute matches. An emphasis was placed on balanced win-loss columns as well as goal-oriented milestones (Okada never beating Tanahashi at the Dome, Omega yet to have a decisive victory over Okada).