goodhelmet Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 I figure I am about to reach critical mass with what I can pick up from trading in the next few months. That will leave me plenty of time to start my 500 better matches than Owen-Bret I know a ton of those matches would come from Japan and Mexico, that is for sure. As for 6/3/94, I made a post at NMB a couple years back asking about what matches need to be seen prior to watching the match. Tim Cooke made a nice post outlining what would be a good lead-in and I may revisit the idea again then make a comp out of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 As for 6/3/94, I made a post at NMB a couple years back asking about what matches need to be seen prior to watching the match. Tim Cooke made a nice post outlining what would be a good lead-in and I may revisit the idea again then make a comp out of it. I actually had a concept of, when sitting down to watch Dan's 1993 season set in order, trying to see how well it would make for converting into a "Digest" format similar to Frank's WCCW Digests. As he explained them, he usually tried to build each digest to a big show or a climax of a storyline. AJPW naturally breaks into Series, climaxing with a big show. They did in this era at times have a less show and/or taping after the big show. But anyway, the idea would be trying to take a look at each series and see what is keeper in terms of quality, storyline, development and/or wrestling introduction. There would be series like Carny and the Tag League that generate more than one disk. Others... who knows. 1993 is an interesting testing ground for it since it was still nearly all on TV. 1994 the TV went to 30 minutes and things started getting more complex with commerical tapes (The Carny commercial tape, the complete Carny Final split off into another tape, the full May tag match, at least one match in full from the Tag League that was JIP on TV). There is some commercial tapes in 1993 that I would have to see if Dan has and send some cash for. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HTQ Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Now is a good time to mention that a researcher did a survey of the wrestling audience for WCW in 1999 of a huge cross-section of fans asking what they wanted from the product. The most popular answers were that they wanted less skits, less NWO, more wrestling and storylines that made sense. Russo went in the exact opposite direction, giving them more skits, more NWO, less wrestling and illogical storylines. The average WWF fan and average WCW fan were in some ways two different beasts, as previous surveys of WCW's audience had also indicated that they were mostly devoted sports fans. Russo tried to beat McMahon at his own game -- sports entertainment -- and Vince McMahon can NOT be outdone there. I don't think Russo was able, or willing, to grasp the fact that WCW fans and WWE fans wanted two completely different products. I think Russo was of the mindset that WCW fans didn't know what wrestling was meant to be about and that the 'genius' Russo was going to teach them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 I think I'm going to do threads on all the WCW figureheads in the next few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HTQ Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Great. I feel like blistering some asses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 I don't think Russo was able, or willing, to grasp the fact that WCW fans and WWE fans wanted two completely different products. I think Russo was of the mindset that WCW fans didn't know what wrestling was meant to be about and that the 'genius' Russo was going to teach them. He STILL doesn't really grasp that fact, but that isn't surprising given that he's always booked the sort of product he wants to see rather than adapting his booking to what the fans want. He knows fans are turned off by things like Big Dick Johnson and Rosie O' Donnell vs Donald Trump, so he knocks WWE for that, but doesn't realise the knocks ring hollow when his shows are full of mediocre comedy segments like that and have even less wrestling than any WWE show. TNA will never be a true alternative with Russo at the helm, because he won't change and he's the one who inspired Vince McMahon to more heavily feature his smutty, perverse, juvenile sense of humour in his TV shows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Actually, as bad as Conan is in that thread, meltzerkiller takes things to a new level of nuttiness: View Recent Posts: meltzerkiller I confess that whenever I see a "poster" who was created (12-26-2005) a full year before making a post (01-10-2007) it screams out SOCKO loud and clear. Over the years, WC has had a lot of these Sleeper Cell posters who seem to lay in wait for months and years before being "activated". I'm only half joking. The thing with WC is that you *don't* have to register to read the boards. The only reason to register is to post. Who would register and then not post until a year after registering? It's never made sense. But this isn't the first time I've pulled up the profile of a new-to-me troll/attack poster that over there and seen this rather odd thing. I don't really think I've seen it on any other board, though I don't get out as much as I once did. Since the smack is aimed at Dave, and in support of Russo, it beats the living hell out of me who it could be. The Russo-support eliminates a lot of the Usual Suspects. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HTQ Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 I'm pretty sure I know who "meltzerkiller" is. The guy in question is a combination troll/idiot, who is incredibly sensitive when it comes to criticism of a certain wrestler and throws fits over it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HTQ Posted January 16, 2007 Report Share Posted January 16, 2007 Unfortunately, the latest Impact scored TNA's best number of viewers ever, so now we'll get all the "Yay Russo" banners out and people saying Russo is a great booker. I wonder if these people ever stop to think about the fact that TNA's PPV numbers aren't going up, which is where the money is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 I'm pretty sure I know who "meltzerkiller" is. The guy in question is a combination troll/idiot, who is incredibly sensitive when it comes to criticism of a certain wrestler and throws fits over it. This isn't the same guy who was taking Dave to task on Hogan? John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HTQ Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 I'm pretty sure I know who "meltzerkiller" is. The guy in question is a combination troll/idiot, who is incredibly sensitive when it comes to criticism of a certain wrestler and throws fits over it. This isn't the same guy who was taking Dave to task on Hogan? John That's the guy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 You know, I don't really want to defend Russo but there seems to be a definate trend to want to minimize any contributions Russo made at all because he is pretty much unquestionably an asshole at best and an egomaniac who nearly destroyed the business at worst. I realize it's really hard to overlook all the really bad stuff he's been responsible for, but the current trend of completely dismissing his entire body of work seems to be almost as much revisionist history as a typical WWE DVD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HTQ Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 What positive contributions has he made? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 What positive contributions has he made? I was going to ask the same question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 I guess it can be debated how much input he had, but like it or not Crash TV was one of the things that helped WWF turn the corner on WCW. They went from the death throes of the cartoon era to an edgier style with Austin, Rock, and DX. WWF started targeting teens and young adults instead of the little kid demo the Hulkamania era was popular with. He also gives jobbers/lower midcarders a semblance of a gimmick or personality. Some of them suck, but really who didn't like Screamin' Norman Smiley? The thing about Russo is that he doesn't seem to know how to write a proper end so his shit goes on way past the point it should have been over and just keeps going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TheShawshankRudotion Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 He takes credit for the rock talking in the first person. +1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 That's the guy. If that's the case, then he's working a pretty long planned out socko angle. His other ID still exists (I don't think he's been banned), and this ID has been laying in wait for use for more than a year before being used to post. The person in that other thread didn't seem to be of the depth of through to pull off something that long term. He frankly came across more as someone who would use a socko to come in and do the classic "I agree with Poster X - Meltzer is wrong" sock puppet spot than have one laying in wait for later usage. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 Even the ratings and viewership going up slightly isn't any shining endorsement for his booking. That had to be expected given the earlier time slot when a lot more people watch TV and the acquisition of Kurt Angle. Really Russo was put in a position where he couldn't fail from a ratings perspective in the short term. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HTQ Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 Crash TV is a great example of something that had big short-term benefits but tremendous long-term liabilities. Sure, it was a part of what elevated Raw from 2’s to 7’s and helped turn the company around, but look at what else it did. It fostered an environment where fans became conditioned into not caring about matches that weren’t moving at a breakneck pace. Ninety second matches were so much the norm of the Crash TV era that any attempt to work a hold and actually wrestle, unless you were a star, was met with complete indifference and, in some cases, saw the crowd start to chant “boring.” It became impossible for newcomers or lower rung wrestlers to get over with the crowd unless they were either moving at a million miles an hour or hitting some high risk move. That kind of environment is not conducive to allowing young wrestlers to learn how to work, because any attempt to actually do so saw the crowd turn on them because they’d been indoctrinated with the Crash TV mentality that grabbing a hold of any kind was immediate cause for booing and chanting. Crash TV was the ultimate Faustian Bargain. It got wrestling into some of its highest peaks, but it also gave wrestling its lowest valleys, and I don't think anybody who helped keep the Crash TV mentality going, or someone who can't let that mentality go when it's long since stopped meaning anything, deserve any kind of praise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 I don't even think Crash TV had massive benefits. I tend to think that a lot of things that get rolled into "Crash TV" are really *other* things that were working in the product. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 17, 2007 Report Share Posted January 17, 2007 One thing about the television format that I do think helped the ratings is going to most of commercial breaks on some type of cliffhanger. The few times they've done this since the glory days (they were doing it in every segment in 2003 when Kane lost his mask), the ratings have increased quite a bit. That's Television 101, really, but there's rarely a hook these days when they go to commercial. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuttsy Posted January 18, 2007 Report Share Posted January 18, 2007 The acquisition of Kurt Angle really isn't *that* significant. The people who were already watching are excited by it, but it isn't really bringing in new viewers. Meltzer had a blurb about a journalist who spend a day with Angle on a press junket and commented how EVERYONE was coming up to Kurt and knew who he was and was asking why he hadn't been on WWE lately. TNA has virtually zero mainstream presence, whereas when most people think of pro wrestling in the United States, they think of WWE. What was it Lance Storm said, like Band-Aid or Jello, WWE has built up a brand name that most people consider basically a definition of the product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HTQ Posted January 18, 2007 Report Share Posted January 18, 2007 It doesn''t help that TNA are piss poor at getting their name out to begin with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 18, 2007 Report Share Posted January 18, 2007 Blame the street team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Cooke Posted January 18, 2007 Report Share Posted January 18, 2007 Conan isn't a troll. He is one of the guys from VinceRusso.net who truley believe that Russo is a savior to Pro Wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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