Episodic Booking vs. Surprise Booking

[Poop Master Flex]

I haven't seen anything on this (once again if this has been done my apologies) so here it goes:

I just finished reading Mark Madden's column (the link is: http://www.wrestlezone.com/editorials/article/surprise-103625) and I must say I absolutely loved it, he IMO described the biggest issue with pro wrestling these days (and with TNA in general) that episodic booking will always be better than surprise booking and that too much surprise booking = lazy booking.

Not everything needs to be a surprise, sometimes going the old-fashioned way works, The last great storyline for me was Jericho vs. HBK, a perfect example of old-fashioned booking with results everyone expected, but even though it wasn't too shocking (except for maybe HBK's wife getting decked) it was tremendous nonetheless and actually got me watching wrestling again. This feud actually made me care about Chris Jericho again (when he first came back, he wore off in about 3 weeks).

Now lets take a look at Jeff Hardy, in the WWE Jeff Hardy was handled correctly. He got a good push, slowly but surely moved his way up the ladder, throughout the weeks the crowd got more and more behind him until he becomes a main eventer, he unsuccessfully challenges for the title for about 10-11 months before he actually wins it, and when he wins it the crowd loves it and are happy to see Jeff as champ. This had an 11 month build to him winning the title, everyone knew it was coming, and the end result was EXACTLY what it should have been, Jeff wins the title (which everyone knew was going to happen), the crowd goes nuts and almost everyone is behind their new champ.
Now look at Jeff Hardy in TNA, his entrance was surprising, but after that he hasn't done a thing. He is in their main event picture, but no one could give 2 shits. This is because everything was about the SURPRISE, and not enough about building Hardy into a credible challenger for the TNA title. Jeff Hardy went from the most popular wrestler in WRESTLING to a bum in about 5 months.

Anyways this isn't a rant about TNA's booking, this is about how I feel surprises are ruining wrestling, and that logical booking and storytelling seems to take a backseat to surprises these days. I have no problem with surprises, but when that becomes the foundation of your booking, eventually everything turns into incoherent drivel that nobody cares about (much like this thread lol). Surprises are important (Hogans heel turn is a perfect example) but only in moderation, episodic television is what wrestling is about, wrestling was built on this formula and it works even today, its just too bad that the WWE and TNA have forgotten it.

So what do you think, is surprise booking happening too much and is it starting to ruin wrestling in general? Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

 

[gd]

I'd have to strongly agree, sir. Watching Raw this Monday, you more or less knew everything that was going to happen, because it made sense. Edge talking about Orton, Orton coming out for the RKO. Cena loses his partner, Bourne is the replacement. A simple Hart/Uso brawl. etc, etc. Everything just worked. WWE keeps things simple so that coherent storylines develop and people know what's going on.

TNA continously gives up on storylines halfway through with little to no explanation. You get random shit, like a pointless Rhyno appearance every few months. Recently, only Angle's feuds with Wolfe and Anderson have actually been put together well. Everything else has just been making it up as they went along, and it obviously hasn't worked at all.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

Surprise booking can work very well sometimes, other times it's simply ridiculous.

Take for example the Raw Scramble match. Earlier in the night, CM Punk, the current World Champ at the time, was ambushed and taken out by Legacy and Randy Orton. Punk gets punted, and we're told he's suffered a concussion and will have to abdicate the title and that a replacement will be entered into the match to determine a new champion.

Same night, HBK and Chris Jericho have a 'Unsanctioned match" that sees an emotional, bloody Shawn Michaels beat the holy high hell out of Chris Jericho, for the months of disrespectful trash talking, beat downs and even assaults on HBK's family, until Marty 'The Match Stopper' Elias calls for the bell because Jericho is completely incapassitated.

We later see HBK do a promo saying he's going home to his wife to put all he's suffered behind him.

Through the course of the night, we see several superstars talking to Mike Adamle (Current GM of Raw at the time), about taking Punk's place, including Regal and Big Show.

The match begins, all the other four combatants are in the ring duking it out, and the 5th and final challenger is........... CHRIS JERICHO!

Not only did he lose in his match earlier in the night, the guy is literally limping to the ring, covered in bruises and scars from being whipped, bust open and beat down by Michaels, only to get in the ring and be blasted by Batista immediately. Then in the closing 30 seconds of the match, Kane gets speared, Batista turns to counter Mysterio, and Jericho gets a 3 count a mere 4 seconds before the time expires, becoming the new World Heavyweight Champion!!!!

And the next month he carried on fueding with Michaels as the Champion!

Now can anyone seriously say they weren't shocked to see the guy who took the night's biggest ass kicking, end up winning the World Title in a match he wasn't booked to even be in?

Now that was a great example of surprise booking.

MITB is a good example of how surprise booking sucks, because with the exception of Edge's first cash in and Van Dam's none of the following title reigns have made any real sense.

Edge had the briefcase 9 months and lost his title within a month. Made sense, he's never been champion in his 10 years in the company, the guy he beat has won it several times and held on to it up against the best in the world, you'd expect Cena to win it back straight away.

Van Dam announced he'd cash in at Extreme Rules where the situation was more in his favour. He then lost it due to his personal choices outside of wrestling, but again booking wise it made sense, because he was defending two belts on two brands, working himself ragged, and then lost in a triple threat match, where the odds are stacked against the champion.

Kennedy never got his WM24 title match, instead Edge took the briefcase off of him just so they could avoid saying 'Taker's injured' when they crowned a new champion, then Edge fueded with Batista who'd previously been fueding with Taker, and then Edge got hurt and it went to....... Khali? Yeah, what the fuck, right?

Then Punk cashed in on Edge and then never actually beat anyone by pinfall other than JBL, and then suddenly they took the belt off of him.

Then he cashes in a 2nd time on Jeff Hardy, making that wonderful 11 month build to JEff grabbing the brass ring for more than 1 whole month, immediately irrelevant.

And this year Jack Swagger cashes in in the middle of someone else's fued and has just been made to look shit ever since. Beating the guys he was beating before isn't going to convince anyone he's a decent champ. Beating more guys the calibur of Orton will do that.

I have to say, the fueds i have enjoyed the most from the 'E' as of late have been the long drawn out fueds.

Edge/Taker
HBK/Jericho
Orton/HHH
Taker/HBK

So personally i'd have to go with episodic booking over surprise stuff personally. It seems the success rate of episodic booking faaaaaaarrrrrr outweighs surprise booking.

 

[shattered dreams]

This "debate" is stupid because it is not like there can be only one. The best is a mix of both. If the product is entirely surprises it lacks substance. If the product is entirely episodic then it is boring a lot of the time. Both types of booking can produce great moments. I would probably contend that without the threat of surprises the episodic elements would falter because we would lose that little part of the anything is possible even if unlikely thought process that allows the predictable to be exciting under the right conditions. To dismiss surprises as the root of all evil in wrestling booking and call people using them lazy is ******ed. Nobody, except maybe this fat phuck, wants all episodic storylines. What some people miss on this topic is that what happens when the episodic story fails? It is absolutely terrible and far worse than when a surprise story falls flat. With the surprise you can pretty much just move on and try something different. With the other you are kind of stuck and it drags on sucking the life out of the product. Most fans want less predictability and a combination of both styles. In this case the fans are way smarter than a jaded jabba.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

This "debate" is stupid because it is not like there can be only one. The best is a mix of both. If the product is entirely surprises it lacks substance. If the product is entirely episodic then it is boring a lot of the time. Both types of booking can produce great moments. I would probably contend that without the threat of surprises the episodic elements would falter because we would lose that little part of the anything is possible even if unlikely thought process that allows the predictable to be exciting under the right conditions. To dismiss surprises as the root of all evil in wrestling booking and call people using them lazy is ******ed. Nobody, except maybe this fat phuck, wants all episodic storylines. What some people miss on this topic is that what happens when the episodic story fails? It is absolutely terrible and far worse than when a surprise story falls flat. With the surprise you can pretty much just move on and try something different. With the other you are kind of stuck and it drags on sucking the life out of the product. Most fans want less predictability and a combination of both styles. In this case the fans are way smarter than a jaded jabba.

The point is surprise booking shouldn't be the #1 basis of your programming, episodic booking should. Surprises are indeed important in a wrestling company, but that shouldn't be you're #1 weapon into garnering ratings and attention, if you can't write episodic television, then you aren't good enough to write a wrestling program. I'll never say surprise booking doesn't work, but only in moderation, it shouldn't be the driver, it should be the passenger.

 

[Alex]

Suprise booking should be that a surprise and work itself into a episodic booking. Having Wrestler A come out unexpected and attack Wrestler B is great surprise booking, but if Wrestler A decides to fued with Wrestler C, what was the point in it in the first place, Wreslter B should be pissed he was attacked and want revenge.

What The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh said about Jericho was great surprise booking, he had his ass kicked by Shawn Michaels and is then entered into the world title picture battered and bruised and wins, nobody saw it coming he then carried on the fued with Michaels. This shows great surprise and episodic booking in one.

Now TNA has a serious problem with booking. Jeff Hardy makes a surprise appearence on the Jan 4th show and attacks Homicide, when he finally signs with TNA he attacks Desmond Wolfe and AJ Styles, who does he enter a fued with??? Beer Money?!?!. This is shitty surprise booking at it's best (or worst depending on your preference) they simply used Hardy for the surprise factor and nothing more.

 

[shattered dreams]

Why does the exception prove the rule here. Hardy was not even signed for more than a night on the 4th. He came in and he has wrestled AJ Styles and now is involved with this whole Anderson thing and they keep teasing the showdown with RVD. That is a story to me and a quite relevant one at that. Ric Flair shows up and Hogan is there. They are going to continue their feud. That is a story. The Flair and AJ partnership and group is a story. Abyss and Hogan is a story that people do not like but like I explained earlier they are kind of stuck in it. Quite honestly the biggest complaints about TNA are not liking the longer running stories opposed to not liking the surprises. Terry vs Jordan makes sense but apparently no one cares about that. RVD wins the title out of nowhere on impact and people get excited about the product again. People have short attention spans and constantly complain about the simplest things being too complicated. How is that a call to build longer intricate stories? How was TNA supposed to seamlessly transition from what they were doing into the new era they decided to embark on? It was impossible but that does not mean lazy booking. Too me relying on simplicity because it is easiest to understand is the lazy booking. Sure sometimes less is more, but often less is lazy and lower quality. The thing is this lazier quality is a proven sell in WWE right now. The main point is "quality" of booking has only ever been loosely tied to success. There just is not much evidence that episodic booking is clearly superior except personal opinion. Obviously, long-term booking is instrumental in putting a product together but surprises must be an integral part as well.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

Why does the exception prove the rule here. Hardy was not even signed for more than a night on the 4th. He came in and he has wrestled AJ Styles and now is involved with this whole Anderson thing and they keep teasing the showdown with RVD. That is a story to me and a quite relevant one at that. Ric Flair shows up and Hogan is there. They are going to continue their feud. That is a story. The Flair and AJ partnership and group is a story. Abyss and Hogan is a story that people do not like but like I explained earlier they are kind of stuck in it. Quite honestly the biggest complaints about TNA are not liking the longer running stories opposed to not liking the surprises. Terry vs Jordan makes sense but apparently no one cares about that. RVD wins the title out of nowhere on impact and people get excited about the product again. People have short attention spans and constantly complain about the simplest things being too complicated. How is that a call to build longer intricate stories? How was TNA supposed to seamlessly transition from what they were doing into the new era they decided to embark on? It was impossible but that does not mean lazy booking. Too me relying on simplicity because it is easiest to understand is the lazy booking. Sure sometimes less is more, but often less is lazy and lower quality. The thing is this lazier quality is a proven sell in WWE right now. The main point is "quality" of booking has only ever been loosely tied to success. There just is not much evidence that episodic booking is clearly superior except personal opinion. Obviously, long-term booking is instrumental in putting a product together but surprises must be an integral part as well.

Now I will have to agree that quality booking is loosely tied to success (very loosely tied, but tied nonetheless), but you got to understand I'm not saying episodic booking = success and surprise booking = failure, my issue with surprise booking (especially when looking at WCW) is that if it is done too much it completely kills the surprise, the surprises start to become predictable.

For example. RVD coming in on March 8th didn't surprise me one bit because they did the exact same thing on January 4th with the Nasty Boys, Orlando Jordan and Jeff Hardy, I knew they were going head to head of March 8th, and because of that I knew RVD would show up, he's friends with Hogan, he was in talks with TNA, pretty much the writing on the wall said he would show up, therefore the surprise was ruined. Not only that, Hogan and Bischoff are using the EXACT SAME FORMULA they used in WCW, we're basically seeing the same surprise booking over again, therefore, there is no surprise. A big reason why WCW went down is because their show was all about the surprises and wasn't about the storylines, storylines became secondary to the surprises and when you do surprises every week, eventually people go from "Holy Shit" to "Whatever".

Now lets take a look at the Bryan vs. Cole feud thats happening. The feud started when NXT started (Cole's been bashing Daniel Bryan since he came in), and there was that slow build until.... BAM, Daniel Bryan gets eliminated, gets the microphone and shocks the hell out of us by beating on Cole (which was one of the greatest things I've ever seen), that was good surprise booking, but that surprise booking was built off of the episodic booking that was put in place beforehand, the episodic booking is still in charge, but the surprise made myself much more interested in the feud (which states the importance of surprise booking), but the point is the episodic booking is still controlling the feud.

Jericho's title win was another good example, because that started with his feud with HBK (which went on for months before), HBK beats Jericho so badly that you think there is no way he'll make it into the match, and then BAM... he shows up and wins the title, and then the title gets intertwined into the Jericho/HBK feud to keep it going, but even though the surprise was important, the episodic booking was still steering the ship (and I really think the ONLY reason Jericho was put in that match and given the title was BECAUSE of his feud with Michaels because the second that feud was over, Jericho dropped the belt to Cena almost immediately).

So thats where I'm coming from, surprise booking is an important part, but it is not what should be steering the ship, it should be riding shotgun while episodic booking drives the ship.

 

[TheMainEvent]

I agree that Episodic booking is overall better than Surprise Booking. Storylines have to have a beginning and end in place before they are setup and have to have events occur that draw in audiences to continue to want to watch tio see what happens next. One event leads to another and finally some form of conclusion....basic storytelling 101, simple as that. However surprise booking can really enhance episodic booking in some instances.

Take The Rocks first World Title win...for weeks hes built up in a feud with McMahon and the Corporation with the odds stacked against him going into the World Title tournament. He gets win after win against various guys and goes into the finals against Mankind, who is with McMahon trying to be his "corporate son like figure" and just as the expected episodic storytelling of having Rock win and overcome the Corporation...BAM surprise booking and he wins the title in a screwjob and is actually aligned with McMahon as the Corporate Champion leading him to even larger mainevent status.....thats just one example.

I said this before but wrestling would be smart to really book their storylines similiar to how Comic books do their large story arcs. Have one major storyline throughout the year; ie Marvel Comic's Civil War or Siege storylines and intertwine it with smaller storylines invovling the majority of the roster. WWE was successful doing this with the Austin/McMahon storyline that soon involved Rock, Mankind, Taker, DX, Hart Foundation, Kane, literally everyone on the roster at one point or another. WCW was successful doing this with nWo/WCW storyline as well. One large storyarc that incompasses the whole brand can work if set up properly in an episodic fashion and throw in surprises along the way to make things interesting.

 

[TheAnimal]

Quality booking can lead to surprises too. Often thats when you are truly surprised, because to me surprise implies a nice shock, whereas 'shock' implies something bad.
Examples are obviously Hogan turning heel, well planned etc with actions in the ring that are undeniable then a powerful promo after, under Russo he'd probably be made to cut a crypted promo saying how the fans are this and that. Look at WWE Elimination Chamber PPV, they often surprise us, but it is though out/planned to have Mania in mind and builds well/gets excitement truly building for it.
I like episodic booking generally and think it is better though, with Mania being a prime example of its success.

If you think of the best films/TV shows, you make the investment in the show by watching it and seeing the story develop, to get your payoff at the end. Why bother with it if straight away in the film the bad guy goes good, or the good guy goes bad, or a big player in it gets killed? You watch it to the end, build your suspense and anticipation and then have the pay off.