[UnOfficial] WWE vs. TNA Thread - New one active

[Kasey]

That doesnt take away from the fact that ECW didnt have 1/50th of the money TNA has at present time. Just because TNA make apparently stupid business decisions doesnt mean they dont have the money.

What stupid business decisions? Switching from weekly to monthly mega PPVs? Getting a tv deal? Starting to take their shows on the road instead of staying regional? Acquiring new talent? Please pinpoint the monetary screwups as these guys are apparently proving to be a tad more calculating than ECW was, rather than just running around the country bleeding money and bouncing checks to its wrestlers. It's not like TNA is some bottomless pit of finances. The parent company is SEPARATE in terms of money from TNA. TNA is run as it's own beast.

ITS A RECAP SHOW!!!! How many commercials do you see for AM Raw? Airing at a time when most people are asleep, drunk, or otherwise out of it. If it was Raw on at 2am, I'd agree, but its just a shit recap show.

Yes, and as I've already tried to drill into your head...it's a recap show for a MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL (ratings-wise) company that has been around much longer and has been established much longer and has much higher baseline ratings for its flagship show by a landslide (we're talking millions of viewers, here). How many people in the lower 48 do you think knows TNA even exists at this point? I'd bet my life savings that the three letters you'd hear from the average joe on the street regarding professional wrestling don't start with a T an N or even an A. Reruns still score at least passable ratings if their reruns of a successful show. It's simple math...nothing more complex.

I didnt say HARDCORE, I said hardercore. Mortal Kombat, at the time was the most violent things on the market, kids loved it and parents hated it. TNN Censored it because it was being sponsored by very conservative companies. That doesnt mean that the trend wasnt going that way. Are you telling me bloody and gory fighting games, movies, and tv shows werent showing that? Just because one redneck, close minded cable company decided to be overly cautious doenst mean the rest of the country wasnt that way. Your logic makes no sense.

And there is a difference by adding or subtracting an "R"? Anyways, as far as that "redneck" company, they jumped right into bed with another wrestling company right away, so apparently that redneck company wasn't all that cautious except with regards to ECW. You're also sidestepping the fact that BEFORE ECW was even in the cards on TNN, they were cockblocked by major cable/satellite distributor due to content issues that were not even remotely worse off than any R-Rated film that'd been released for at least a decade prior. Notice I said that not EVERYONE was searching for hardcore content?

Maybe if he had gotten Benoit a visa it would have worked out better. But no, its not Heymans fault, its the big bad WWE/WCWs fault.

Or maybe Tod Gordon? After all, it does help when you have a talent mole in your ranks, doesn't it? I'm not saying Heyman was perfect in regards to talent management or fiscal responsibility...and I'd be the last guy to defend him in regards to money management. However, do you honestly think that WWF or WCW would've given two shits about ANY of the wrestlers that ended up in there clutches if Heyman hadn't shown them the possibillities first? Either of those companies could've jacked those wrestlers from Japan or Mexico or Canada or the US at any time but didn't do it until after Heyman showed what the guys could actually do for them.

Sacrafice is all well and good, but it doesnt make you a good wrestler. It makes you insane and maybe a little bit stupid, especially for the LACK of money they were getting. Pride goeth before the fall. Sandman and almost all of the old ECW main eventers knew fuck all about ring pshycology, despite Raven trying to teach it to them. He said it himself, you dont need 5,000 chair shots, you just have to sell well and have good psychology, and I saw ZERO from guys like Sandman and Sabu. It was all about getting over with the bloodthirsty idiots in the bingo hall by any means necessary. They couldnt take a Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair, they wanted tables, barbed wire, and 2x4s on fire. Thats not wrestling, thats garbage. Next youre gonna tell me New Jack was the greatest in ring technician of all time.

It did wonders for Mick Foley and Terry Funk kept his fading career alive for almost another decade with it. As far as getting over in the bingo hall for the bloodthirsty idiots, you make it sound like Sabu just jumped off of shit all the time and Sandman only ever hit people with his cane and drank beers. Frequent the library of their stuff. I'm not saying I love either of their performances these days as they've both lost a step obviously, but they put on some great shows back then that didn't have to just be geared around chair shots and singapore canings. But that wouldn't matter because it sounds like you've watched all of a few of their matches, so I'm probably wasting my typing. I could be wrong, though. They couldn't take a Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair? Are you for real? The ECW fans loved good wrestling. Hell, Malenko and Guererro put on a technical clinic the night before they left and were greeted with a "please don't go" chant. They gave standing ovations to Al Snow and Shane Douglas, two guys who got over in ECW on wrestling, unlike their other trips to cartoon-land. Doesn't exactly sound to me like they shunned solid matwork?

Whoever said anything about New Jack being great? That is an assumption that is way off base. He was a one-trick pony that was out there for a specific purpose. He knew it. Heyman knew it. The fans knew it. This is why his music was continually played and he didn't have lengthy matches. It was a gimmick in limited supply that wasn't overly bled to death in terms of execution as they limited his exposure. Do I think New Jack had potential? Not really. Then again, he never received any sort of push other than kicking the shit out of Da' Baldies.

1997, yeah Vince sure jumped on Tazz. What did he take 2 years to get him?

Because Taz was extremely loyal to Heyman. Even in the slanted ECW doc he stayed around to support ECW because Heyman paid him his salary when he was out with an injured neck for months. After a while of not having the kind of money roll in that he wanted, he left. They never had a contract agreement. Just a handshake. That doesn't mean he wasn't contacted.

Batista, and especially CENA sell the shit out of their matches. Sandman takes a chair shot and he comes back a minute or 2 later running full blast because he doesnt care that hes sposed to LOOK HURT, he wants to show how "tough" he is totally disreguarding EVERYTHING REAL wrestlers like Flair, Savage, Steamboat, Hogan, Race, and the rest of them fought so hard to create. No its not about psychology, its about making the crowd go HOLY SHIT HE HIT HIM WITH A FLAMING CHAIR!

Who cares if they sell the match when the match itself is complete and utter disjointed bundle of poorly executed shit with awful movement and bad timing? You're wasting your time championing those two with me. They're god-awful.

Such is the nature of hardcore wrestling. It's a different mindset and a different mode of operation. You don't saddle up to watch a legitimate Sandman match with the same mentality you do a Kurt Angle match and vice versa. They are separate styles of working. It's a different kind of ring psychology. One you're just not into, and that's fine. Just like watching a lucha match or a mat-wrestling clinic. There are certain things to expect and certain things not to expect.

Sting/Flair vs. Muta/Orton WCW Halloween Havoc 1989 in an ELECTRIFIED STEEL CAGE MATCH, LONG BEFORE ECW. Roddy Piper vs. Greg The Hammer Valentine in a DOG COLLAR MATCH. Piper lost part of his ear LONG BEFORE MICK FUCKING FOLEY!! And guess what, Killer Kawalski took someones ears off BEFORE THAT!!! LONG BEFORE ECW!!!! So why dont you check your fucking facts and spare me the elitist SMARK point of view.

What has Foley losing his ear got to do with ECW? It was done in another company. And who gives a shit about Kowalski taking someone's ear? He was also the first to slam Andre, but that is irrelevant as I'm talking ECW...not WCW.

I've already told you in another thread: I can watch old NWA tapes and see a so-so dog collar match that was insane FOR IT'S TIME. It doesn't validate their match as being the finer example of trendsetting with regards to hardcore wrestling product and holding the longer lasting impression. Same with the Thunderdome match at Havoc. I mark out for Sting and Muta as much as the next guy, but there are plenty of finer examples of "hardcore" wrestling that I'll take over that any day of the week (and not just from ECW). Matches that set the standard with better rhythm, more athleticism, sitffer shots, and bigger bumps.

The self proclaimed creator of ECW named Pillman the first high flying superstar in the US and youre ignoring it!? He said Pillman was 5 years ahead of his time! Wow way to ignore cold hard fact. Once again, spare me the smark point of view and check your fucking facts.

As I've stated in another thread: Tiger Mask/Dynamite Kid, 1982. Youtube it, sweetheart.

Just because it was OLD doenst mean it didnt do something BEFORE ECW did. Youre ignoring fact. Way to go smark.

And as far as the match goes, I wouldn't even consider it to really be hardcore. I've had the match downloaded for about two years now and have watched it a few times since. Your perspective on what is indeed hardcore differs from mine, and that's okay, but seriously, that match was no more violent than the current offerings of the new ECW. Whether or not it's even hardcore is very debatable, after all, Bruno was the ref. To me, it was no more hardcore than any of the other cage match gimmick offerings of the time, so hit me with something better than a cage match in 1989. Now if you want to bust out the Japanese on me? Oh, hell yeah. They were there first for most of the solid offerings in wrestling seen today.

Yeah, 240 thats SOOOOOOOO BIG. I mean isnt the Big Show 250? Once again your elitist smark view has you ignoring fact. You refuse to accept what is right in front of you, but you choose not to see it because it doesnt fit with your warped smark perception that "D00D ECW INVENTED EVERYTHING G00D ABOUT WRESTLING"

And you're ignoring the facts I shot to you because it didn't fit your "small guys get the rub" theorem. The great number of guys who've been pushed in the big two were a bare minimum in weight. Rey Misterio Jr. was the one glaring anomaly and his whole scheme lasted about nine seconds before it was squelched. Other than that you don't see top guys weigh less than 240 in their prime, except Michaels who these days is coasting on name value.

Whoever said ECW invented everything good about wrestling? What I've alluded to was that the current product design from the two dominant companies in the last decade hijacked the product design and talent from the little company that could and you're not having an easy time trying to get me to eat your bullshit. And your elitist mark view has you dumping all over something and not giving credit where it's due because you enjoy all the name dropping of old school wrestling, because you either don't understand what made ECW popular to some (which is becoming more and more apparent), or that you've seen a miniscule amount of it's offerings and are shooting half-assed opinions on sight unseen.

 

[Kaedon]

What stupid business decisions? Switching from weekly to monthly mega PPVs? Getting a tv deal? Starting to take their shows on the road instead of staying regional? Acquiring new talent? Please pinpoint the monetary screwups as these guys are apparently proving to be a tad more calculating than ECW was, rather than just running around the country bleeding money and bouncing checks to its wrestlers. It's not like TNA is some bottomless pit of finances. The parent company is SEPARATE in terms of money from TNA. TNA is run as it's own beast.

Supposedly paying 1 million dollars for 2 wrestlers to work one night every other week and a PPV every month with MAYBE a few house shows. Thats dumb. And its payed off so well, didnt TNAs ratings hit a 5.0? Oh yeah, they havent broken 1.3

Yes, and as I've already tried to drill into your head...it's a recap show for a MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL (ratings-wise) company that has been around much longer and has been established much longer and has much higher baseline ratings for its flagship show by a landslide (we're talking millions of viewers, here). How many people in the lower 48 do you think knows TNA even exists at this point? I'd bet my life savings that the three letters you'd hear from the average joe on the street regarding professional wrestling don't start with a T an N or even an A. Reruns still score at least passable ratings if their reruns of a successful show. It's simple math...nothing more complex.

But all you smarks contend how SHITTY it is. I mean if its so bad, and youre so right, TNA should be kicking the ass of a recap show. But they arent because they suck.

And there is a difference by adding or subtracting an "R"? Anyways, as far as that "redneck" company, they jumped right into bed with another wrestling company right away, so apparently that redneck company wasn't all that cautious except with regards to ECW. You're also sidestepping the fact that BEFORE ECW was even in the cards on TNN, they were cockblocked by major cable/satellite distributor due to content issues that were not even remotely worse off than any R-Rated film that'd been released for at least a decade prior. Notice I said that not EVERYONE was searching for hardcore content?

You obviously know dick about the TV industry. It will always, and i mean ALWAYS be marred by conservatives, because of moms and dads get mad, they dont buy the product and then there does the sponsors. That doesnt mean kids and other people didnt want to see it. Everyone wanted to see Ozzy after he pissed on the Alamo, but he was banned. That has nothing to do with what people want, just because the pussy ass powers that be do something about something they see as a threat.

Or maybe Tod Gordon? After all, it does help when you have a talent mole in your ranks, doesn't it? I'm not saying Heyman was perfect in regards to talent management or fiscal responsibility...and I'd be the last guy to defend him in regards to money management. However, do you honestly think that WWF or WCW would've given two shits about ANY of the wrestlers that ended up in there clutches if Heyman hadn't shown them the possibillities first? Either of those companies could've jacked those wrestlers from Japan or Mexico or Canada or the US at any time but didn't do it until after Heyman showed what the guys could actually do for them.

Eric was raiding NJPW, not ECW. He saw that thousands of fan liked it in the tokyo dome, not 200 in a bingo hall.

It did wonders for Mick Foley and Terry Funk kept his fading career alive for almost another decade with it. As far as getting over in the bingo hall for the bloodthirsty idiots, you make it sound like Sabu just jumped off of shit all the time and Sandman only ever hit people with his cane and drank beers. Frequent the library of their stuff. I'm not saying I love either of their performances these days as they've both lost a step obviously, but they put on some great shows back then that didn't have to just be geared around chair shots and singapore canings.

Im just gonna keep asking, can you tell me where there was ONE ECW PPV that had a ME that had ZERO hardcore elements?

But that wouldn't matter because it sounds like you've watched all of a few of their matches, so I'm probably wasting my typing. I could be wrong, though. They couldn't take a Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair? Are you for real? The ECW fans loved good wrestling. Hell, Malenko and Guererro put on a technical clinic the night before they left and were greeted with a "please don't go" chant. They gave standing ovations to Al Snow and Shane Douglas, two guys who got over in ECW on wrestling, unlike their other trips to cartoon-land. Doesn't exactly sound to me like they shunned solid matwork?

This coming from a fanbase who would react to a guy pissing in the ring, and they almost did.....

Because Taz was extremely loyal to Heyman. Even in the slanted ECW doc he stayed around to support ECW because Heyman paid him his salary when he was out with an injured neck for months. After a while of not having the kind of money roll in that he wanted, he left. They never had a contract agreement. Just a handshake. That doesn't mean he wasn't contacted.

You said it, it was because of Heyman and the money, it was all Heymans fault.

Who cares if they sell the match when the match itself is complete and utter disjointed bundle of poorly executed shit with awful movement and bad timing? You're wasting your time championing those two with me. They're god-awful.

Umaga/Cena I and II displayed more psycholgy than any Sandman, Rhyno, Tanaka, Awesome, Sabu, Dudley match, ever.

Such is the nature of hardcore wrestling. It's a different mindset and a different mode of operation. You don't saddle up to watch a legitimate Sandman match with the same mentality you do a Kurt Angle match and vice versa. They are separate styles of working. It's a different kind of ring psychology. One you're just not into, and that's fine. Just like watching a lucha match or a mat-wrestling clinic. There are certain things to expect and certain things not to expect.

Like a good match? Like ring psychology?

I've already told you in another thread: I can watch old NWA tapes and see a
so-so dog collar match that was insane FOR IT'S TIME. It doesn't validate their match as being the finer example of trendsetting with regards to hardcore wrestling product and holding the longer lasting impression. Same with the Thunderdome match at Havoc. I mark out for Sting and Muta as much as the next guy, but there are plenty of finer examples of "hardcore" wrestling that I'll take over that any day of the week (and not just from ECW). Matches that set the standard with better rhythm, more athleticism, sitffer shots, and bigger bumps.

Doing it more "extreme" and more frequently doenst mean they innovated it, it means the did it more often. McDonalds makes a shit ton of Cheeseburgers, did they invent it?

As I've stated in another thread: Tiger Mask/Dynamite Kid, 1982. Youtube it, sweetheart.

Yeah what fed was that in? How long did that feud last stateside?

And as far as the match goes, I wouldn't even consider it to really be hardcore. I've had the match downloaded for about two years now and have watched it a few times since. Your perspective on what is indeed hardcore differs from mine, and that's okay, but seriously, that match was no more violent than the current offerings of the new ECW. Whether or not it's even hardcore is very debatable, after all, Bruno was the ref. To me, it was no more hardcore than any of the other cage match gimmick offerings of the time, so hit me with something better than a cage match in 1989. Now if you want to bust out the Japanese on me? Oh, hell yeah. They were there first for most of the solid offerings in wrestling seen today.

You dont WANT to see it as hardcore because it would prove your so called "FACT" that ECW revolutionized wrestling when in fact everything they did had been done already,

And you're ignoring the facts I shot to you because it didn't fit your "small guys get the rub" theorem. The great number of guys who've been pushed in the big two were a bare minimum in weight. Rey Misterio Jr. was the one glaring anomaly and his whole scheme lasted about nine seconds before it was squelched. Other than that you don't see top guys weigh less than 240 in their prime, except Michaels who these days is coasting on name value.

Youre not submitting facts, just an OPINION that it was a different time therefore it doenst apply. I addressed this before, Im not typing it all over again.

Whoever said ECW invented everything good about wrestling? What I've alluded to was that the current product design from the two dominant companies in the last decade hijacked the product design and talent from the little company that could and you're not having an easy time trying to get me to eat your bullshit. And your elitist mark view has you dumping all over something and not giving credit where it's due because you enjoy all the name dropping of old school wrestling, because you either don't understand what made ECW popular to some (which is becoming more and more apparent), or that you've seen a miniscule amount of it's offerings and are shooting half-assed opinions on sight unseen.

No, I dont shit all over ECW. It was good for what it was, a small time fed that grew into a cult phenom. But it didnt "revolutionize" shit because everything they did had been done already, and in NATIONAL feds, not some small time dump.

 

[Shocky]

Umaga-Cena ring psychology, give me a break dude. Honestly, there is nothing good about these two, or for that matter, nothing good about WWE in general any more.

Ive watched this stuff since Wrestlemania 2 and have never been more disapointed with this piss poor product that is being shoved down my throat right now. I was a tna basher and nay sayer, but guess what WWE has pushed me into being a fan, because of the lack of wrestling on it's own program.

Don't go bashing ECW. I remember getting the rabbit ears out at midnight on a tuesday night and hoping i could get a signal so i could watch wrestling. ECW came around when WCW and WWE were nothing but crap. ECW didn't invent anything new, but when you watched it, you knew the wrestlers were giving 100% in the ring. Sandman can't wrestle, fine, but you know what, he didn't have to bust himself open every night for no damn money either.

This WWE elitist attitude you express is sickening. I consider myself a WWE guy, but can never justify saying have the things you have. You defending a Batista or Cena shows that you have nearly no knowledge when it comes to watching professional wrestling. I've heard the argument that "Oh Cena works his ass off in the ring..." Boo Freaking hoo. A ton of guys work their ass off in the ring, A Scotty 2 Hotty, a Val Venis, but do they get over, no. They have more talent in their pinky then John Cena has in his body. Its so hard for blind WWE fans to acknowledge that the majority of people can not stand what Vince is trying to push, and this is where Vince has lost his magic with the wrestling fans. Instead of giving us what we want, he's trying to choke us with Cena and have JR say "Oh, he's unorthodox." Um, no he can't wrestle, and Batista can't wrestle, yet two of the most prestigous titles in the profession are on these guys shoulders.

I've drawn my line in the sand with WWE. If for some reason Cena and Batista get over at Mania, i'm done. This WWECW is an abomination to the wrestling world. Sure TNA has it's problems, but i can actually watch guys give it there all in the ring. It does remind me of the old ECW, except the TNA impact fans in the arena are very lame.

Seriously, get a hold of some Un-WWE edited ECW and watch it. It's not the prettiest stuff in the world, but I'll take a Sandman vs. Sabu match any day of the week over Cena-K-Fed, or Cena Umaga.

 

[I Eat Cat Poo]

i am also the anti fan i love cheering the bad guys its more fun then cheering for the lame good guys cept for austin who i thought was always da bad guy and cheered him

 

[Kasey]

Supposedly paying 1 million dollars for 2 wrestlers to work one night every other week and a PPV every month with MAYBE a few house shows. Thats dumb. And its payed off so well, didnt TNAs ratings hit a 5.0? Oh yeah, they havent broken 1.3

Supposedly? Anyway, TNA is a fresh company. FRESH. NEW. Not old. How long has the WWE/F been around touring the country regularly with their locked-in foothold on the industry? And on the flipside, how long has TNA been in existence? You'd expect the newer company not to have the frequency of road scheduling that the older one would because at this point, it's not monetarily sound. Also, you're looking at the difference in overall exposure. TNA has how many hours of TV exposure per week? WWE has how many? Hey, the ratings haven't increased drastically, but they haven't dropped, either, have they? As for pissing away money on talent, I'm sure the people up in Stamford are ultra-smart for any of Hogan's recent paydays. At least the guys TNA bought can actually wrestle.

But all you smarks contend how SHITTY it is. I mean if its so bad, and youre so right, TNA should be kicking the ass of a recap show. But they arent because they suck.

Quality and popular exposure are different entities entirely, with quality being subjective to who indeed is watching. If sales and ratings were the highest indicator of quality every time out of the gate, then The Backstreet Boys would be the best musical act of the last century. Do you think they are?

You obviously know dick about the TV industry. It will always, and i mean ALWAYS be marred by conservatives, because of moms and dads get mad, they dont buy the product and then there does the sponsors. That doesnt mean kids and other people didnt want to see it. Everyone wanted to see Ozzy after he pissed on the Alamo, but he was banned. That has nothing to do with what people want, just because the pussy ass powers that be do something about something they see as a threat.

ECW is exempt from this as they were never marketed towards children. It was a wrestling company for teens and up. Watch the average old ECW telecast and tell me how many little shits are running around the stands with a foam finger? I'd doubt you could even find ONE. What sponsors were ECW looking for when they were eschewed of their first PPV? I mean, I never remembered even seeing any commercials during their PPVs unless it was for something directly related to ECW. The fact is that they were likely too controversial for the mass American public at that time. That says nothing for the quality of what they did, but I still remember the comparative backlashes of something we've already discussed. The crucifying. I remember a veritable shitstorm when McMahon and company did it...and not much of anything when ECW did it. Just showing you the difference in the mass exposure and the response. A definite case of a tree falling in a forest and no one being around to hear it the first time. Regardless of the contingent of free thinking individuals who don't censor the majority of what they watch or listen to, there are still a great contingent of those who are at the other end of the spectrum...and not just in the TV business.

Eric was raiding NJPW, not ECW. He saw that thousands of fan liked it in the tokyo dome, not 200 in a bingo hall.

Benoit actually did a stint in WCW with Bischoff at the helm of the company and he never made it past curtain jerker status. WCW did a crossbrand PPV that starred Eddy Guererro in 1993 and they could've tried to get him then, but alas he wasn't imported until AFTER ECW had him. Bischoff was also at the commentary booth for Collision in Korea which featured a handful of guys who ended up in ECW. He could've went after them then. Did he? No. He waited until after ECW did something with them.

Im just gonna keep asking, can you tell me where there was ONE ECW PPV that had a ME that had ZERO hardcore elements?

With the name of the company starting with the word "extreme" this has to be the dumbest question anyone on here has ever asked me. And that is definitely saying something.

This coming from a fanbase who would react to a guy pissing in the ring, and they almost did.....

You'd likely get a heavy reaction ANYWHERE in ANY COMPANY from someone taking a piss on the canvas. I'm not a rocket scientist, but that's my guess. And yes, the ECW fanbase is a hell of a lot smarter than you (don't) give them credit for. Hell, they'd even clap after a good series of spots out of respect for the competitors and skill it takes to perform a deep series. You find that in about a ten-person murmur at your average event in the big leagues.

You said it, it was because of Heyman and the money, it was all Heymans fault.

And my point wasn't in regards to Heyman, so I don't know where you're going with that, but okay. Vince had his eye on a number of guys who ran through the ranks of ECW, Austin and Foley being the frontrunners in the beginning.

Umaga/Cena I and II displayed more psycholgy than any Sandman, Rhyno, Tanaka, Awesome, Sabu, Dudley match, ever.

Strictly a matter of taste. There is no point in continuing this little tidbit as I can't stand John Cena and couldn't since he was doing the same old shit back in UPW with poor move selection, slow movement, highly telegraphed offense, and a cumulatively lousy execution of his offense. The only difference is now he always pulls out the mega-predictable Superman routine at the end of each match and salutes the crowd. Gee, I know my favorite matches are the ones where I can call three spots ahead exactly what Cena is going to do next. Man, that's fucking entertainment. All Cena needs to do next is incorporate a big boot and a legdrop and we'll be all set. Hell, Batista already started using the Ultimate Warrior schtick. Why not make everything go full circle?

Like a good match? Like ring psychology?

Once again a matter of taste and viewpoint. You sound not like you hate ECW so much as your slanted towards being an old-time purist (as evidenced by all the old-school name drops). Which is fine. It just shows that you have no proper bearing towards judging something regarding hardcore wrestling, because you just don't get it.

Doing it more "extreme" and more frequently doenst mean they innovated it, it means the did it more often. McDonalds makes a shit ton of Cheeseburgers, did they invent it?

Well, I'm sure there is a contingent of folks who just don't see it your way. And as for McDonalds, who actually did invent the cheeseburger? I bet in the long run, the only name associated with them will be McDonalds. Same deal with ECW.

Yeah what fed was that in? How long did that feud last stateside?

I gave you an example of who did what first because you're so hung up on Brian Pillman performing high-flying work first in America. You can deal with the semantics of the facts all you like. Actually, it was a tour done in 1982 in Vince Sr.'s WWF, if you really wanna know.

You dont WANT to see it as hardcore because it would prove your so called "FACT" that ECW revolutionized wrestling when in fact everything they did had been done already,

Sure, and at this point the Thunderdome match and Piper's Dog Collar encounter in '83 are definitely the lasting impression. They did a match or two around "trying" to be hardcore. ECW made a movement out of it.

You Youre not submitting facts, just an OPINION that it was a different time therefore it doenst apply. I addressed this before, Im not typing it all over again.

So even with guys on average being smaller as Heavyweight champions such as examples of Lou Thesz and Gagne, do you honestly think that two guys of their size would be holding the titles in a company like WWE which is fronted by three roid-monkeys? If you do, you need to share some of your moonshine with the rest of the class. Different time, different standards. Plain and simple. Please, type your point over again. It'll be no more valid than it was last time.

No, I dont shit all over ECW. It was good for what it was, a small time fed that grew into a cult phenom. But it didnt "revolutionize" shit because everything they did had been done already, and in NATIONAL feds, not some small time dump.

Actually, the entire posting we've made is full of you dumping on their talent and matches, so I beg to differ. You can deny the influence it had on the business stateside as a whole that it did have, and that's fine with me. I know the truth...and that's even finer.

 

[Kaedon]

Supposedly? Anyway, TNA is a fresh company. FRESH. NEW. Not old. How long has the WWE/F been around touring the country regularly with their locked-in foothold on the industry? And on the flipside, how long has TNA been in existence? You'd expect the newer company not to have the frequency of road scheduling that the older one would because at this point, it's not monetarily sound. Also, you're looking at the difference in overall exposure. TNA has how many hours of TV exposure per week? WWE has how many? Hey, the ratings haven't increased drastically, but they haven't dropped, either, have they? As for pissing away money on talent, I'm sure the people up in Stamford are ultra-smart for any of Hogan's recent paydays. At least the guys TNA bought can actually wrestle.

That doesnt justify paying a million for them when the ratings havent gone up even SLIGHTLY.

Quality and popular exposure are different entities entirely, with quality being subjective to who indeed is watching. If sales and ratings were the highest indicator of quality every time out of the gate, then The Backstreet Boys would be the best musical act of the last century. Do you think they are?

Actually, your anaolgy is faulty. Its like comparing a remix of a recently released Backstreet Boys song to any new album. You are the one who seems to think popular opinion is the end all mr. "make a poll and see for yourself"

ECW is exempt from this as they were never marketed towards children. It was a wrestling company for teens and up.

So what? The censors are still protective as long as THEY FEEL the message being sent out isnt wholesome or whatever enough, no matter who its targeted too. Ever wonder why you dont see cigarette ads on TV or Liquor ads on CBS/NBC/FOX/ABC? Because the POWERS THAT BE dont want it going out over the air, even though it would be on a show NOT MARKETED to kids, there is still a chance of it getting to them.

The fact is that they were likely too controversial for the mass American public at that time.

This is the argument shitty fucking metal bands like Cradle Of Filth use when they talk about their music. "Our music is too brutal, too hardcore for the mass american public." No its not, its shit.

That says nothing for the quality of what they did, but I still remember the comparative backlashes of something we've already discussed. The crucifying. I remember a veritable shitstorm when McMahon and company did it...and not much of anything when ECW did it.

Thats because one was seen by yesmen who accept anything, and the other was seen by an uptight public. The WWE got worse flack for a lot worse actions so dont give me that shit.

Benoit actually did a stint in WCW with Bischoff at the helm of the company and he never made it past curtain jerker status. WCW did a crossbrand PPV that starred Eddy Guererro in 1993 and they could've tried to get him then, but alas he wasn't imported until AFTER ECW had him.

Yeah that exposure to 300 people a night is what got Benoit on his good side...

Bischoff was also at the commentary booth for Collision in Korea which featured a handful of guys who ended up in ECW. He could've went after them then. Did he? No. He waited until after ECW did something with them.

Once again, im sure their playing to a whole 300 or so people is what made Bischoff say "you know what, those bush league ****** fans are going crazy, I should pick them up." Ever wonder why Eric didnt bother with the bullshit of ECW? (though he did pick up Sandman and what a shitfest that was) Because those guys are DOGSHIT compared to Benoit, Malenko, and the rest, thats why.

With the name of the company starting with the word "extreme" this has to be the dumbest question anyone on here has ever asked me. And that is definitely saying something.

Why dont you answer my question.....Oh yeah because the answer is ZERO. No pure wrestling matches could headline ECW because IT HAD TO BE EXTREME for the EXTREME MORONS who were their fans.

You'd likely get a heavy reaction ANYWHERE in ANY COMPANY from someone taking a piss on the canvas. I'm not a rocket scientist, but that's my guess. And yes, the ECW fanbase is a hell of a lot smarter than you (don't) give them credit for. Hell, they'd even clap after a good series of spots out of respect for the competitors and skill it takes to perform a deep series. You find that in about a ten-person murmur at your average event in the big leagues.

Actually the matches where that happened had Benoit, Angle, Flair, Bret and GOOD wrestlers, had fans on their feet clapping.

Strictly a matter of taste. There is no point in continuing this little tidbit as I can't stand John Cena and couldn't since he was doing the same old shit back in UPW with poor move selection, slow movement, highly telegraphed offense, and a cumulatively lousy execution of his offense. The only difference is now he always pulls out the mega-predictable Superman routine at the end of each match and salutes the crowd. Gee, I know my favorite matches are the ones where I can call three spots ahead exactly what Cena is going to do next. Man, that's fucking entertainment. All Cena needs to do next is incorporate a big boot and a legdrop and we'll be all set. Hell, Batista already started using the Ultimate Warrior schtick. Why not make everything go full circle?

Use of ring psychology is NOT subjective. Sorry.

Once again a matter of taste and viewpoint. You sound not like you hate ECW so much as your slanted towards being an old-time purist (as evidenced by all the old-school name drops). Which is fine. It just shows that you have no proper bearing towards judging something regarding hardcore wrestling, because you just don't get it.

I get it just fine. Hardcore wrestling is all well and good when it uses ring psychology, but ECW didnt have a lot of that. It was all about sacrafice and killing themselves, not about psychology.

Well, I'm sure there is a contingent of folks who just don't see it your way. And as for McDonalds, who actually did invent the cheeseburger? I bet in the long run, the only name associated with them will be McDonalds. Same deal with ECW.

Too bad neither of them are the originators and it is therefore WRONG to say as much.

I gave you an example of who did what first because you're so hung up on Brian Pillman performing high-flying work first in America. You can deal with the semantics of the facts all you like. Actually, it was a tour done in 1982 in Vince Sr.'s WWF, if you really wanna know.

There is a difference between a TOUR and a guy with one style working his ass off with the other big men in the company.

Sure, and at this point the Thunderdome match and Piper's Dog Collar encounter in '83 are definitely the lasting impression. They did a match or two around "trying" to be hardcore. ECW made a movement out of it.

They werent trying to be "hardcore" they were making a statement about the fued from a psychology standpoint. They were saying the "hatred" between these men had gotten to a point that they had to do this.

So even with guys on average being smaller as Heavyweight champions such as examples of Lou Thesz and Gagne, do you honestly think that two guys of their size would be holding the titles in a company like WWE which is fronted by three roid-monkeys?

Oh so youre skirting the issue again, good job. Why cant you just admit I was right?

Actually, the entire posting we've made is full of you dumping on their talent and matches, so I beg to differ. You can deny the influence it had on the business stateside as a whole that it did have, and that's fine with me. I know the truth...and that's even finer.

Truth is subjective, I know FACT. The FACT is, everything ECW has claimed credit for has been done.

Umaga-Cena ring psychology, give me a break dude. Honestly, there is nothing good about these two, or for that matter, nothing good about WWE in general any more.

Did you watch the match? Or did you do like every other smark and go "Z0MG, CENA BEAT HIM WITH A ROLLUP HOW GAY" after reading the quick report? If you had bothered to watch the match, you would have seen an old school piece of story telling like was done by Hogan and many before him.

Don't go bashing ECW. I remember getting the rabbit ears out at midnight on a tuesday night and hoping i could get a signal so i could watch wrestling. ECW came around when WCW and WWE were nothing but crap. ECW didn't invent anything new, but when you watched it, you knew the wrestlers were giving 100% in the ring. Sandman can't wrestle, fine, but you know what, he didn't have to bust himself open every night for no damn money either.

So what, that makes him committed? I know guys who are committed to better and more noble causes than busting themselves open for a bunch of ******s in a bingo hall and getting a lot less money, if any for it. Commitment has nothing to do with how good you are. This is America, you dont make money for effort, of course unless youre in front of an ECW crowd who will react to anything.

This WWE elitist attitude you express is sickening. I consider myself a WWE guy, but can never justify saying have the things you have. You defending a Batista or Cena shows that you have nearly no knowledge when it comes to watching professional wrestling. I've heard the argument that "Oh Cena works his ass off in the ring..." Boo Freaking hoo. A ton of guys work their ass off in the ring

This is the same argument you used for the Sandman. The only difference is Cena is actually applying SKILL. Ring psychology, the working of the crowd etc. Sandman is just doing hardcore trash.

A Scotty 2 Hotty, a Val Venis, but do they get over, no. They have more talent in their pinky then John Cena has in his body. Its so hard for blind WWE fans to acknowledge that the majority of people can not stand what Vince is trying to push, and this is where Vince has lost his magic with the wrestling fans. Instead of giving us what we want, he's trying to choke us with Cena and have JR say "Oh, he's unorthodox." Um, no he can't wrestle, and Batista can't wrestle, yet two of the most prestigous titles in the profession are on these guys shoulders.

The majority of fans? You mean all the people who tune into Raw/SD/ECW every week? All of them hate it yet they watch? If it was really that bad, theyd turn it off.

This is what pisses me off about smarks "the majority of people". You dont know the majority of wrestling fans. You know a bunch of people who think the EXACT way you do, and the rest are "ignorant marks". They are the majority you seem to know so well. You opinion is completely devoid of any logic whatsoever. I cant believe it but I think im DUMBER for indulging it.

I've drawn my line in the sand with WWE. If for some reason Cena and Batista get over at Mania, i'm done. This WWECW is an abomination to the wrestling world. Sure TNA has it's problems, but i can actually watch guys give it there all in the ring. It does remind me of the old ECW, except the TNA impact fans in the arena are very lame.

Yeah yeah, blah blah, you will still watch because smarks have to have SOMETHING to complain about. And god knows if you couldnt complain, youd fucking die of a heart attack. Complaining is like air to you people.

Seriously, get a hold of some Un-WWE edited ECW and watch it. It's not the prettiest stuff in the world, but I'll take a Sandman vs. Sabu match any day of the week over Cena-K-Fed, or Cena Umaga.

Yeah because you prefer hardcore bullshit to ring psychology.

 

[Shocky]

Well Kaedon i just think we're going to have to agree to disagree on some things. I respect your take on old school wrestling, and i get where you are coming from with the dog collar match, The Hatred level was there, and that's why they needed it, i get it.

When you watched ECW, you knew what you were getting. ECW was a second tier or maybe Level 1-B organization, so you let certain aspects of what you watch go. You displace yourself and put yourself into the reality of that situation. I don't expect to watch five star matches with sub par talent, which a majority of ECW was. But I respect the fact that with limited ability, the people busted their asses off every night to please the 300 people in the crowd. That's heart, that's not what we have today. If they used weapons, big deal. The fans love blood and violence, yes. You never saw ECW cross the line with it though, which says alot. You didn't see the House of Light Bulbs and crap like that. No exploding Steel Cages, they kept some sort of "realism" about it.

Again, ECW never originated anything. The matches they performed were all done some place else before, but they brought wrestling out of a funk. Like it or not, those early Benoit, Malenko, Jericho, Mysterio matches brought the fast paced action back to the states. Probably nothing to do with ECW, i give you that, but they got exposure. Those 4 were going to be big stars regardless of were they went, but they got their break in ECW.

On Brian Pillman, Hey, i'm from cincinnati, grew up five miles away from where he did, I followed Pillmans career like no other. He did so much for the small man in the business, but he adjusted, which ECW allowed him to do. The Loose Cannon character was too hardcore for WCW, but it was allowed to grow in ECW. Pillman was the first Attitude Era Character. It wasn't long after this that WWE let SCSA stop being the Ringmaster and be himself. Austin worked, therefore WWE said, screw the stupid gimmicks, we're just letting people be themselves.

When I watch WWE or WCW for that matter, i expect to see the best from the wrestlers involved. WWE has become nothing more then spot wrestling. Hit the high marks and float through the rest of the match. The three champs don't have the heart that is necessary to pull that company along, and a lot of people see through it, and a lot of people don't buy it.

You can't hear the boos for Cena when Jim Ross is trying to yell over the Crowd and tell you how unorthodox he is. WWE bans signs bashing Cena, it's ridiculous. The only reason Cena is over now is because he's matched up with guys like Umaga or K-Fed, guys that don't belong in a ring. Cena gets booed out of the building every time he faces someone that the crowd knows is more talented. Ever since the Raw Jump, Jericho was a heel, got cheered. Angle was a heel, got cheered. Triple H was heel, got cheered. Edge was a heel, got cheered. This is the majority of wrestling fans. Bring out a DVD, watch his matches over the last 18 months, every time he is in the ring with someone that is carrying him through a match, he is getting booed.

Which brings us to One Night Stand this year. Cena was rattled in the Ballroom by those 300 people. you could see it in his eyes. Vince has been sheltering him, and when he got into that environment with those fans, he was rattled and slipped up. RVD had to carry him in that match too.

 

[Kasey]

That doesnt justify paying a million for them when the ratings havent gone up even SLIGHTLY.

Steady .8's to a 1.3 isn't half bad for a one-hour wrestling show on Spike TV of all places that is brand spanking new by comparison to an American institution like the WWE. And why not pay for the athletes in question? It helped them garner the TV deal in the first fucking place. What? Would you expect them not to do that so that they could keep broadcasting Impact solely on the internet? Yeah, sounds like the smart move. Anyone who has even a decent memory knows that the recent big-name talent signings were to help them get and stay on Spike because the executives there wanted name stars on the show as a prerequisite to actually let them on the air.

Actually, your anaolgy is faulty. Its like comparing a remix of a recently released Backstreet Boys song to any new album. You are the one who seems to think popular opinion is the end all mr. "make a poll and see for yourself"

Notice the key demographic I'd be talking about polling, chief? It'd be geared strictly towards wrestling fans on a wrestling website, not quizzing the average ******** walking down the street in Anytown, USA. There is a difference in garnering the opinions of the clueless masses as opposed to those who actually know their ass from a hole in the floor with regards to wrestling.

So what? The censors are still protective as long as THEY FEEL the message being sent out isnt wholesome or whatever enough, no matter who its targeted too. Ever wonder why you dont see cigarette ads on TV or Liquor ads on CBS/NBC/FOX/ABC? Because the POWERS THAT BE dont want it going out over the air, even though it would be on a show NOT MARKETED to kids, there is still a chance of it getting to them.

Tobacco and Liquor ads aren't available because that is stuff that kills you. ECW is hardly in line with something like that. Now tell me why the double standard existed in terms of WWF running the Attitude Era programming (which during it's biggest boom was about as full of sex, violence, and bad language as ECW) and getting away with it versus ECW not getting away with it? How can you explain that?

This is the argument shitty fucking metal bands like Cradle Of Filth use when they talk about their music. "Our music is too brutal, too hardcore for the mass american public." No its not, its shit.

Well, apparently if ECW was being censored and controlled by a network and fighting to get their first PPV on the air, they were obviously a bit too hardcore for someone.

Thats because one was seen by yesmen who accept anything, and the other was seen by an uptight public. The WWE got worse flack for a lot worse actions so dont give me that shit.

The WWF got worse flack for it due to the amount of exposure they have had with the American public for so long. As far as the yesmen who accept anything, they sure loved John Cena, Batista, and Show's talentless asses at the Hammerstein. Man, those guys were so over. And if you remember the reaction in Philly during their version of the incident, no one was really saying anything because the entire crowd was freaked out.

Yeah that exposure to 300 people a night is what got Benoit on his good side...

Obviously, they did something right to pique interest of the larger companies. After all, Bischoff had two opportune chances to latch onto Benoit and he didn't. The second opporutunity in Pyongyang wasn't in front of 300 people either. It was in front of 190,000 that Benoit did a pretty damn good job of entertaining. But go ahead and disregard the chain of events.

Once again, im sure their playing to a whole 300 or so people is what made Bischoff say "you know what, those bush league ****** fans are going crazy, I should pick them up." Ever wonder why Eric didnt bother with the bullshit of ECW? (though he did pick up Sandman and what a shitfest that was) Because those guys are DOGSHIT compared to Benoit, Malenko, and the rest, thats why.

Actually, He didn't know how to use and market Sandman correctly. Which is the same problem that WWE has at present. Sandman isn't to be marketed as a standard wrestler and he never functioned that way. Eric did bother with the bullshit of ECW. Sandman, Saturn, Raven, Bam Bam Bigelow, Mike Awesome, Lance Storm. He was even within an inch of signing RVD in 1997 until Heyman convinced RVD to stay at the eleventh hour. Apparently he saw something in them.

Why dont you answer my question.....Oh yeah because the answer is ZERO. No pure wrestling matches could headline ECW because IT HAD TO BE EXTREME for the EXTREME MORONS who were their fans.

Maybe because it's not strictly a pure wrestling company? The fact that you don't understand the essence of what ECW was about doesn't make for an inconvenience on my part. I would expect it to be EXTREME considering that's in the fucking title of the company?!? Maybe? Whad'ya think? The fact that you even asked the question says loads about your perception on things.

Actually the matches where that happened had Benoit, Angle, Flair, Bret and GOOD wrestlers, had fans on their feet clapping.

Or maybe Credible vs. Lynn? RVD vs. Storm? Douglas vs. Snow? Tanaka vs. Awesome? Almost any of the juniors matches? The fact that you pop a chubby for amateur-style wrestling doesn't negate the fact that there were plenty of other WRESTLING encounters in ECW that got the fans on their feet respectfully cheering for a solid series of spots and being way over, and not just being on the .

Use of ring psychology is NOT subjective. Sorry.

It is subjective when you're discussing the difference in styles that you'd find in different companies and from different athletes. You can't approach a typical juniors match expecting the same styles of offense as a standard heavyweight encounter. Same as the difference in the working styles of lucha and puroresu. Same between technically sound mat-based work versus aerial-oriented offense. Watching juniors almost always focuses around high-spot work. That doesn't mean the wrestling isn't solid. It's just not your flavor of choice. Just like ECW hardcore wrestling.

I get it just fine. Hardcore wrestling is all well and good when it uses ring psychology, but ECW didnt have a lot of that. It was all about sacrafice and killing themselves, not about psychology.

But that's just it. There was plenty of solid wrestling action throughout the history of the company from numerous athletes in the top spots, but that is negated because of your distaste for a few workers that didn't wrestle your given style. Even wrestlers that aren't technically sound but can control an audience still work for me sometimes. Take Orton or Edge. Outside of a headlock or wristlock, they're not submission specialists by any means, however, they can play a crowd.

Too bad neither of them are the originators and it is therefore WRONG to say as much.

Yes, but the influence they've had is undeniable. So, are they originators at certain things? Hell, yeah. McDonald's was the first dominant (and still is) franchise food-chain in existence. Combo meals, super-size, you name it. They have indeed innovated. Just like ECW did with a lot of what they do. WWF and WCW were for the most part canned and bland with a few exceptions in terms of how the products were executed. Cruiserweights, hardcore divisions, three-way dances, four-way dances, and slew of other staples weren't even on the menu until ECW began focusing on doing them and succeeding with their presentation. Innovation isn't just doing something first, but inspiring others to follow your trend and seeing your efforts as being the ones duplicated.

There is a difference between a TOUR and a guy with one style working his ass off with the other big men in the company.

What do you think Dynamite did for the rest of his tenure with the WWE? It wasn't exactly a time of cruiserweights in their tag division.

They werent trying to be "hardcore" they were making a statement about the fued from a psychology standpoint. They were saying the "hatred" between these men had gotten to a point that they had to do this.

They didn't have to do anything. It was a set of gimmick matches put together for the same purpose ECW did their schtick. Shocking the audience with a level of brutality they weren't normally accustomed to.

Oh so youre skirting the issue again, good job. Why cant you just admit I was right?

Maybe because you're not? I immediately refuted your claim about small guys always getting as much of a shot as they have post-ECW and you ran out of gas trying to drill the same illogical point home disregarding the differences within the industry as a whole in the last forty years.

Truth is subjective, I know FACT. The FACT is, everything ECW has claimed credit for has been done.

If EVERYTHING they've done had already been accomplished then the Attitude Era would've taken place circa the 1980's. It wasn't, so quit acting like they didn't leave a lasting influence when it's plain as day to anyone without an anti-ECW markist stance they did. That they influenced and changed the course of the business as a whole is a FACT. If the WWE and WCW didn't have their product or talent to steal, WCW would probably still be taping at Universal Orlando and the WWE would be holding Monday Night Raw at the Manhattan Center barely raking in 2.0's in the ratings...if they're lucky.

 

[Kaedon]

Steady .8's to a 1.3 isn't half bad for a one-hour wrestling show on Spike TV of all places that is brand spanking new by comparison to an American institution like the WWE.

Thats a .5 change in percentage points. If the WWE went from 4.5 to 4.0 every smark would be all over it, Z0MG WWE DROPPED IN RATINGS. But when TNA does it its ok?

And why not pay for the athletes in question? It helped them garner the TV deal in the first fucking place.

Oh yeah, I forgot, Sting signed with TNA before the IMPACT debut on SPIKE....

Anyone who has even a decent memory knows that the recent big-name talent signings were to help them get and stay on Spike because the executives there wanted name stars on the show as a prerequisite to actually let them on the air.

The fact that the ratings dropped off .5 points says different.

Notice the key demographic I'd be talking about polling, chief? It'd be geared strictly towards wrestling fans on a wrestling website, not quizzing the average ******** walking down the street in Anytown, USA.

I said 10 wrestling fans. You'd be polling 10 smarks who read Dave Meltzers column and news like his word is dogma. Wasnt he the guy who said RVD would take out Edge when the fought for the WWE title? And that JR was "chastized" and "taken out" by Kevin Dunn even though the man himself says it isnt true? Yeah theres fact for you.

Tobacco and Liquor ads aren't available because that is stuff that kills you.

Only in excess. Just like McDonalds, Snickers, and a host of other things that are advertised on TV. Read up on your Television Law, they are banned on NETWORK TELEVISION because the FCC doenst think its right to do so, and for no other reason.

Now tell me why the double standard existed in terms of WWF running the Attitude Era programming (which during it's biggest boom was about as full of sex, violence, and bad language as ECW) and getting away with it versus ECW not getting away with it? How can you explain that?

ECW got away with it. What are you talking about? No one saw it except for a few hundred people on TV and maybe 1,000 in the arena on their best day.

Well, apparently if ECW was being censored and controlled by a network and fighting to get their first PPV on the air, they were obviously a bit too hardcore for someone.

As far as the yesmen who accept anything, they sure loved John Cena, Batista, and Show's talentless asses at the Hammerstein. Man, those guys were so over. And if you remember the reaction in Philly during their version of the incident, no one was really saying anything because the entire crowd was freaked out.

As "heels" they were very over. Cena, Batista, and Show were all boo'd heavily.

Obviously, they did something right to pique interest of the larger companies. After all, Bischoff had two opportune chances to latch onto Benoit and he didn't. The second opporutunity in Pyongyang wasn't in front of 300 people either. It was in front of 190,000 that Benoit did a pretty damn good job of entertaining. But go ahead and disregard the chain of events.

So if a band opens for Metallica, doesnt get signed, but then headlines some
shit club in their hometown and are THEN signed....Metallica had nothing to do with it? Yeah....such logic....

Actually, He didn't know how to use and market Sandman correctly. Which is the same problem that WWE has at present. Sandman isn't to be marketed as a standard wrestler and he never functioned that way. Eric did bother with the bullshit of ECW. Sandman, Saturn, Raven, Bam Bam Bigelow, Mike Awesome, Lance Storm. He was even within an inch of signing RVD in 1997 until Heyman convinced RVD to stay at the eleventh hour. Apparently he saw something in them.

Oh yeah, I remember Sandman being marketed as your standard wrestler. Coming out with barbed wire wrapped around him, thats completely standard....

Maybe because it's not strictly a pure wrestling company? The fact that you don't understand the essence of what ECW was about doesn't make for an inconvenience on my part. I would expect it to be EXTREME considering that's in the fucking title of the company?!? Maybe? Whad'ya think? The fact that you even asked the question says loads about your perception on things.

The WWE isnt a "pure wrestling" company. They are "Entertainment" yet Angle/Benoit, Bret/HBK, and Flair/Savage were still the main attractions.

Or maybe Credible vs. Lynn? RVD vs. Storm? Douglas vs. Snow? Tanaka vs. Awesome? Almost any of the juniors matches? The fact that you pop a chubby for amateur-style wrestling doesn't negate the fact that there were plenty of other WRESTLING encounters in ECW that got the fans on their feet respectfully cheering for a solid series of spots and being way over, and not just being on the .

A series of high spots and hardcore spots is easy to get over with. ANYONE can get over that way, which is why shit wrestlers like the ECW talent got over.

It is subjective when you're discussing the difference in styles that you'd find in different companies and from different athletes. You can't approach a typical juniors match expecting the same styles of offense as a standard heavyweight encounter. Same as the difference in the working styles of lucha and puroresu. Same between technically sound mat-based work versus aerial-oriented offense. Watching juniors almost always focuses around high-spot work. That doesn't mean the wrestling isn't solid. It's just not your flavor of choice. Just like ECW hardcore wrestling.

No, all GOOD wrestling matches, hardcore or not had ring psychology. Taker/Mankind was harcore up the ass, but it told a story. Sabu/Sandman didnt tell shit.

But that's just it. There was plenty of solid wrestling action throughout the history of the company from numerous athletes in the top spots, but that is negated because of your distaste for a few workers that didn't wrestle your given style. Even wrestlers that aren't technically sound but can control an audience still work for me sometimes. Take Orton or Edge. Outside of a headlock or wristlock, they're not submission specialists by any means, however, they can play a crowd.

What negates them is Paul Heymans misuse of them because he had to pander to the morons who wanted hardcore/high spots.

Yes, but the influence they've had is undeniable. So, are they originators at certain things? Hell, yeah. McDonald's was the first dominant (and still is) franchise food-chain in existence. Combo meals, super-size, you name it. They have indeed innovated. Just like ECW did with a lot of what they do. WWF and WCW were for the most part canned and bland with a few exceptions in terms of how the products were executed. Cruiserweights, hardcore divisions, three-way dances, four-way dances, and slew of other staples weren't even on the menu until ECW began focusing on doing them and succeeding with their presentation. Innovation isn't just doing something first, but inspiring others to follow your trend and seeing your efforts as being the ones duplicated.

McDonalds innovated making Americans fat pieces of shit just like ECW innovated dumbing down wrestling to appeal ******s who know nothing of wrestlings history or ring psychology,

What do you think Dynamite did for the rest of his tenure with the WWE? It wasn't exactly a time of cruiserweights in their tag division.

Oh yeah I forgot, there was just The Killer Bee's, The Brisitsh Bulldogs, Strike Force, The Powers Of Pain, Demolition, the starting of The Twin Towers, The Rockers came in a year later. Yeah no tag teams there...

They didn't have to do anything. It was a set of gimmick matches put together for the same purpose ECW did their schtick. Shocking the audience with a level of brutality they weren't normally accustomed to.

BUt they DID do something. They used psychology, unlike most of ECWs so called "greatest" harcore matches.

Maybe because you're not? I immediately refuted your claim about small guys always getting as much of a shot as they have post-ECW and you ran out of gas trying to drill the same illogical point home disregarding the differences within the industry as a whole in the last forty years.

You refuted it with OPINION, not FACT.

If EVERYTHING they've done had already been accomplished then the Attitude Era would've taken place circa the 1980's. It wasn't, so quit acting like they didn't leave a lasting influence when it's plain as day to anyone without an anti-ECW markist stance they did. That they influenced and changed the course of the business as a whole is a FACT. If the WWE and WCW didn't have their product or talent to steal, WCW would probably still be taping at Universal Orlando and the WWE would be holding Monday Night Raw at the Manhattan Center barely raking in 2.0's in the ratings...if they're lucky.

The country wasnt ready for it then. It needed to GET THERE. The seeds for Rome sending Christians to lions were sewn LONG before it happened.

 

[Downward Spiral]

Our discussion won't be as heated as Kasey's and Kaedon's but it is still a discussion and that is something I miss doing. I am getting quicker at the quoting stuff but it still takes me a long time to do it all.

To me not much can make AJ Styles look "WEAK" but then again I know and watch alot of wrestling that normal/average fans don't follow, so I know just how talented AJ really is, the problem with the match to me was TNA is tring WAY too hard to get AJ over as a heel and in turn in makes AJ look "Weak" in and out of the ring having run away from certain guys, having him team-up with other heels, they refuse to just let it happen which too me it feels like his heel character is being force fed to me and I don't like it, but I agree he deserve's better and should have at the very least some offencive moves in the match.

I think that they had all the oppurtunities to build to AJ's already glittering reputation, and I think they did make him look weak by making him job in 5 minutes. For a guy that has had so much building up in the last few years, and someone who really showcased his talent as a face, that was a disgrace to do to him.

Again this goes back to TNA letting character get in the way of performance in the ring. He has as much talent as any other wrestler you can name, and yet he was made to look terribly weak against Angle because apparently, being a heel does not allow you to wrestle properly. They need to step over that barrier with their wrestlers if they are to completely differentiate themselves from the WWE. That could have been a 15 minute main event that benefited everyone, but even with their time restrictions, that was still unacceptable to do to AJ Styles.

Again it's going to take alot more then that little squash match to truly hurt AJ credibility, it's happening now it happened back then it's apart of the business at times you have to job weather it be to new/up-and-coming/or mega stars sooner or later everyone in wrestling jobs and AJ is no exception, I understand your point I just don't agree WWE did and still does it's talent the same way or worse then TNA did Styles, but it's good that a STAR like AJ is willing to job to other stars as it proves once again that he cares more about the company then his own career and he doesn't think he's above the other talent on the TNA roster, can TNA say the same about Angle?

But I really believe that if anything, he could have benefited from the match simply by looking strong. He did look weak in the match because it showed that despite his talent, he can't cope it with the other talent. It does show great character in the wrestler though, for someone so talented to do what he did, but part of me feels that he had no choice but to do it, and was just smart as to not anger the TNA officials by refusing. Kurt Angle most likely had a part in deciding to make AJ job to him, and that shows arrogance that the company doesn't need.

I hope AJ is rewarded for being such a great worker, because that is a trait that not many others have today, especially not Angle. They got it wrong here. Dead wrong. It did not build up his heel character, and it certainly did not help that he barely looked decent in the match. My real problem is that he didn't deserve to job like he did, but had no choice but to comply. The WWE is like this in regards to almost all their wrestlers. They are a company that builds characters and puts proper wrestling last. TNA looks to have done the same here as well.

The WWE is frequented with jobs like this, some worse. But back in the Attitude Era, guys were being pushed left and right and most everyone looked strong. If a guy had a bad work ethic backstage like Angle does, you can be assured that they would not have let that guy run over talent that deserves to be at the top, both through wrestling ability and work ethic.

On some level I agree, it's no way TNA could have stolen him from WWE if they had him lose match after match but I wouldn't have fed him my top stars right away Abyss, AJ Styles, and Samoa Joe three guys that are most reconized with the TNA product, reputation or not Angle would still be Angle if he lost those matches or won them or had a draw each time out as most people already have their mind made up about Angle being one of the greatest ever in the ring, but like you said it would have been hard to keep a Angle calibur star happy coming in of a losing streak but they could have fed him their smaller stars first.

I agree here. I think just letting him feud with one high talent like Joe or Styles would have done wonders for him and TNA. But the feud also had to be competitive, or risk TNA losing reputation for the talent they have spent time in building up. I think Angle's arrogance kept TNA from doing something like this, because he just thinks that he deserves to do what he is doing because he is the best pro wrestler today. TNA needs to show some authority in laying down the law about shit like this that he did to the WWE for so many years. Angle could be so beneficial for TNA, but he is being used in a completely different way. They are overpushing him to the point where all other talent is looking very inferior to him, and I think that they need to know that a few losses won't hurt him at all.

I disagree, Angle may be a bigger star but Christian is the un-tapped star, Angle has had his time to shine and will always somewhat be considered a WWE guy, but Chriatian was just the guy that couldn't catch a break in WWE and now that his recived his chance he has to deliver because unlike Angle he doesn't have megastar power too fall back on, so in my eyes Christian's rise to the top makes way more sense then Angle's.

They have made a star out of Christian, no doubt, but a guy like Angle really does deserve to be showcased as TNA's top draw. Christian's rise was too fast, albeit long overdue for the guy, but now that I think about it, a guy like him can't really make their wrestlers look bad because he has the ability to work with the company in a proper way. Angle has the credentials to be a champion, yet I think a TNA guy who has been with the company deserved to be a champion more than Christian did. Christian was a guy that should have been built up the ranks in TNA, but TNA pushed him straight away into the title picture, and this time, I think they did make the WWE look stronger because a mid card at best wrestler like Christian, was going over all the other talent and that made them look weak.

Again I disagree, In no way should Kurt Angle (WWE former golden boy) come in and defeat Samoa Joe (ROH former golden boy and TNA's current golden boy), they had three matches Angle won the first Joe won the second and Angle pulled out the thrid but Joe should have won that thrid match as he's way more deserving then a slivered spooned Angle, Angle could have gone on with that lost but now they have he and christian in the main event of their next PPV too me that's pretty dumb, I understand your tring to bring in new fans that might reconize them but they should be tring to push the talent they made famous like AJ, Daniels, Killings, and Joe.

I think that they would only benefit from drawing WWE fans to see Christian and Angle, and then to have guys like AJ and Joe look incredibly strong against them. This would do wonders for the TNA talent, and now from a mark perspective, they may think that 'Look at Angle beat that guy in 2 minutes. Man TNA wrestlers must suck compared to the WWE wrestlers'. But I don't think that they are really trying to draw more WWE fans and I don't think the fans have been tuning in to see them either. The Joe and Angle feud was competitive, but Angle came out looking much stronger whereas they could have made it great for both men. They started off on the wrong foot there as well to make Angle look over the top compared with the other talent. Too fast, and too unjust for a guy like AJ. Joe was the former unstoppable wrestler, and now that has gone the way of Kurt Angle.

I totally agree, and this has a lot to do with my point, the thing TNA didn't seem to get is their fans was watching WWE wrestling first their for they knew who Angle was and he was going to be a big/top star no matter what, and I think that moving Angle up the card at this speed will backfire anyway because sooner or later they will have to take him out of the main event, and he'll have to do those mid-card feuds that he should be doing now but by that time he will be a considered more of a TNA guy which would have been a better time to have him tear through the TNA roster.

TNA should have known that Angle had main event built into him, and needed no push to get over as one of the top guys in the company. Yet they went about making the other talent look pathetic, and while he should be doing main event feuds, he is doing them and looking too strong for many fans taste. I don't think that he could have had as big a build up if he had of been in a mid card feud though. They needed an immediate impact and yet blew that by making guys who worked their way up to the top look terrible against a guy who just came from the WWE. Everyone knows who Kurt Angle is, and no fans other than ROH/TNA knew who Joe and Styles were and they really could have put them on the map by making Angle at least make them look decent against him. But again, Angle got his way and now they are suffering for pushing him over the top like he always wanted. The WWE was smart enough occasionally not to reward arrogance, and that is what TNA did to him in favour of guys who had a lot of ability and were great workers. Those are the guys that should be put over Angle, because unlike Angle going over them, no one gets hurt.

I agree with everything except the statment in bold, since more people link Angle to WWE then TNA it had no choice but to make TNA look like the small leagues right now Angle is tearing through their roster and the only competitive matches he had was with Joe, so is TNA tring to give the impression that Joe is their only superstar?, is Joe the only guy on the roster that can hang with Angle?, it doesn't matter how you answer those questions as that's the way it seems TNA wants you to think, so your telling me it doesn't look good for WWE when Angle was jobbing to Cena and RVD and Big Show before he left now all of a sudden he can make everyone on the TNA roster look like joke accept for Joe? something wrong there don't you think?

This comes down to reputation and ability. Most fans did not care that guys like Cena went over Angle before he came in, and most know that he is the best wrestler today. I think that to bring him in, they really shouldn't have had him going over top talent, so I guess just having one feud with someone in the mid cards could have done him well, but he had to be in the main event picture sooner or later. I agree with you partly here. They really do make Angle look absolutely unbeatable, and like the AJ/Angle squash, he made their other talent look like an average WWE mid carder. I think we both know that if he had of taken the guys he beat to a good, long match, that all competitors would have benefited from it. Instead, they made the talent that deserves to be at the top look like dicks against him. That is not damaging the company and furthering the WWE, that is just making the wrestlers look bad and one guy look like the best. He had reputation, but they didn't need to make him look strong. At all.

I agree with this statment if TNA would have worked a little harder to make Angle more of a TNA guy his dominice over the TNA roster wouldn'r bother people as much while I agree Christian is a smaller star he is a better choice for TNA then a mega star like Angle to tell the truth I would have rather they brought in amazingly talented guys like Bryan Danielson, Doug Williams, Chris Hero, Claudio Castagnoli, and Kaz Hayashi as the have no major ties to major american companies (ROH doesn't count and even though Kaz was a WCW wrestler he never got the chance to truly show what he can do in a ring) as TNA should be tring to distance it's self from being too much like the WWE but unstead they are running towards it wildly with their arms wide open, thinking that WWE style TV is what every fan wants but it's not I don't won't too see four versions of a WWE style show I have RAW, Smackdown!, ECW and I don't won't TNA to be the same shit I watch on the other shows I want something different and TNA used to give us that but now slowly but surely TNA is becoming WWE light, by signing and making stars of guys the fans don't know haven't seen they would be becoming their own company well at least in my opinion.

They do need to concentrate on building up young guys, but they do also need guys they can market straight away. They need a big WWE guy to get their credibility up, but like you said, they also need to get wrestlers who can show that TNA really does have better wrestlers than the WWE. This shouldn't be the sole cause of the apparent Total Nonstop Entertainment brand of wrestling that TNA is showcasing each week now, and it isn't the reason. The reason is that guys who come in like Angle has, make other talented guys look stupid, and that is the same with the WWE (although I wouldn't call Cena and Batista talented.) Angle can only bring the WWE elements that TNA should separate themselves from, and that is bad for them and their reputation as a NEW up and coming company. That 5 minute job was worth all criticism, and it shows that Angle could be the cause of a TNA slide and them stepping in the wrong direction.



Sorry about that post. Most of it was repeats of what I have said before but I had to get it out of the way.

 

[Kasey]

Thats a .5 change in percentage points. If the WWE went from 4.5 to 4.0 every smark would be all over it, Z0MG WWE DROPPED IN RATINGS. But when TNA does it its ok?

Once again, you're comparing a sardine to a shark. Get the clue and you'll realize the difference. Why don't you compare the XFL to the NFL in a blind and blanket manner while you're at it?

Oh yeah, I forgot, Sting signed with TNA before the IMPACT debut on SPIKE....

He was inked along with the other guys because that is what Spike wanted. Why else do you think they went after Steiner and Cage so fervently? Or gave the Angle the key to the city? They had a big enough roster as it was to begin with, but they signed who they had to so they could survive.

The fact that the ratings dropped off .5 points says different.

Read what I wrote. They didn't drop...especially for the average ratings.

I said 10 wrestling fans. You'd be polling 10 smarks who read Dave Meltzers column and news like his word is dogma. Wasnt he the guy who said RVD would take out Edge when the fought for the WWE title? And that JR was "chastized" and "taken out" by Kevin Dunn even though the man himself says it isnt true? Yeah theres fact for you.

For every one news update that is bunk, there are many more that are spot on. Wasn't it you who was on here saying that the Wrestlemania main events that had been posted on the main page here were probably bogus? You sound an awful lot like an internet-savvy smark who reads up plenty on the business. You almost had me fooled into thinking you weren't a smark yourself. If Meltzer is so full of shit, then why has McMahon been a subscriber to the thing for years? Hell, it doesn't even take anything more than a viewing of Beyond The Mat to find that out.

Only in excess. Just like McDonalds, Snickers, and a host of other things that are advertised on TV. Read up on your Television Law, they are banned on NETWORK TELEVISION because the FCC doenst think its right to do so, and for no other reason.

Could the reason maybe be that life expectancy for someone who uses booze or cigarettes has an ingrained limited life-expectancy? Junk food is hardly as detrimental to your health in limited quantities as booze or cigs. You can't get cirrhosis or lung cancer from those, can you? When's the last time a cheeseburger was proven to cause birth defects? As far as the FCC, stuff is voted on by a committee. I know they're in charge. Of TV. Radio. Etc.

ECW got away with it. What are you talking about? No one saw it except for a few hundred people on TV and maybe 1,000 in the arena on their best day.

Hey, they were nationally broadcast, too. Following stricter content standards than the WWE when they got on TNN. The shows were chopped up and edited, meanwhile as soon as Vince rolled up they not only changed the entire network format, but let him run Raw live the way he wanted. That's the double standard I'm talking about.

As "heels" they were very over. Cena, Batista, and Show were all boo'd heavily.

Not for the right reasons, chief. When you're out there busting your ass in the ring and chants erupt that do nothing but criticize the work (and believe me, they were actually trying), then you've failed as a legit heel. My favorite part of it, was that Styles and Taz pretended to be oblivious to the whole thing like it was actually a good match...when in reality, they knew, just as the fans in attendance did...that the match was fucking atrocious and damn near coma-inducing.

So if a band opens for Metallica, doesnt get signed, but then headlines some
shit club in their hometown and are THEN signed....Metallica had nothing to do with it? Yeah....such logic....

Your logic is what needs a serious check. The difference (which I hope you'll get) is that if a band opened for Metallica, had a record exec in the audience, and didn't get signed...then went and played a smaller show but only got signed after the SAME record exec saw that show's proper usage of the band they previously saw as unmarketable, then you'd be shooting along the lines of what went down with regards to ECW. Malenko, Benoit, Eddy, Rey, and host of others were just as talented BEFORE they went to ECW. They could've been offered a job at anytime because they weren't well-off in those days and would've jumped at the chance to work for one of the big companies. AND I REPEAT: It was only AFTER they'd been to ECW that they became desirable to Vince or Eric.

Oh yeah, I remember Sandman being marketed as your standard wrestler. Coming out with barbed wire wrapped around him, thats completely standard....

He was also chucked in the ass-end of the card and never given serious interview time or even table scraps that could be considered an angle. His personality that got him over in ECW was nowhere to be found. Steve Austin was a hot commodity once he had his personality re-instated in the WWF. Before that, he was just the goddamn Ringmaster. Understand?

The WWE isnt a "pure wrestling" company. They are "Entertainment" yet Angle/Benoit, Bret/HBK, and Flair/Savage were still the main attractions.

They were by comparison to ECW until they started jacking talent and product stylings from them. Hell, I can't even remember someone going through a table in a WWF match until 1995, maybe? Even then, it was one of the craziest things you'd seen on there in terms of something that wasn't just standard wrestling.

A series of high spots and hardcore spots is easy to get over with. ANYONE can get over that way, which is why shit wrestlers like the ECW talent got over.

High spots get over anywhere. Want a fine example? How about Lynn/RVD from an episode of Sunday Night Heat years back. They wrestled past their alotted time and went fifteen whole minutes (Oh NO!) and woke the crowd up by actually earning their money and getting people to actually give a shit as to what went on within a Heat broadcast. People typically want some sort of action. Whether or not it is of purist nature is irrelevant in terms of the crowd's response. Even a match I'd hate I can't completely defeat if the crowd was controlled throughout. Even if it's between two wrestlers I can't stand. Lynn and RVD were admonished because they just wrestled a tamer ECW-match and upstaged their contemporaries in the process. Showing exactly how ass-backwards the booking scheme can be.

No, all GOOD wrestling matches, hardcore or not had ring psychology. Taker/Mankind was harcore up the ass, but it told a story. Sabu/Sandman didnt tell shit.

Whether or not a match takes place inside a bingo hall or a famous sports arena makes no difference. I've seen numerous WWF/E title matches that may have told a story...but the audience didn't want to fucking hear it and were either: A. Bored to death or B. Got up to go take a piss. Taker didn't really do shit in that match. It was the same old story of Foley tearing his ass nearly in half to scare the crowd and earn their respect through punishment. No different than he did in FMW or ECW. It was the same thing that ECW wrestlers did years before KOTR 1998. You see it as telling a story strictly because you have a hard-on for WWF product. I liked the match, but know that if Foley wouldn't have taken the two spills, you wouldn't even bat an eyelash in condemning it.

What negates them is Paul Heymans misuse of them because he had to pander to the morons who wanted hardcore/high spots.

He didn't misuse them one bit. He did to you because you obviously just hate ECW, which is fine. However, they were over, stayed over, and the matches were over, so it looks like a success to me. He also didn't have to sink millions of merch dollars and re-shuffle show lineups because he couldn't get them over correctly, ala' John Cena.

McDonalds innovated making Americans fat pieces of shit just like ECW innovated dumbing down wrestling to appeal ******s who know nothing of wrestlings history or ring psychology,

It's all about money, right? That's what you said about the big two before? Why change your tune now? Because your arguments don't have any legs to stand on when you have a tunnel-visioned myopic view of the business (in particular ECW)? Know nothing about the history? These guys cheered Dusty Rhodes like he was Jesus for fuck's sake. They knew plenty about it. Which is why they'd cheer for solid workrate even if a guy didn't have a gimmick (Tommy Rodgers, Jerry Lynn, or Lance Storm initially).

Oh yeah I forgot, there was just The Killer Bee's, The Brisitsh Bulldogs, Strike Force, The Powers Of Pain, Demolition, the starting of The Twin Towers, The Rockers came in a year later. Yeah no tag teams there...

Yes again you missed the point entirely. More reading and comprehension. Less hasty typing. You alluded to the fact that Pillman had been the lone gunmen fighting off all heavyweight comers. Well, you just proved what I wanted you to get in the first damn place. Dynamite was a junior who was kicking the hell out of numerous heavyweights in tons of different matches in the WWF's golden age of HEAVYWEIGHT tag units. Pillman's good...but he wasn't first.

BUt they DID do something. They used psychology, unlike most of ECWs so called "greatest" harcore matches.

If the story of the match is told to great effect to those in the audience...then the psychology is successful. If the two or however many guys in the ring play that audience like a fiddle, they've done their job. No matter where it is.

You refuted it with OPINION, not FACT.

Hey, you gave me a laundry list of names and I refuted it right there by giving you the "FACTS" you needed to get it. The fact you can't acknowledge that changes in body development VASTLY changed the nature of who gets the top spots in the business, that's your problem. The fact is that true juniors were never given the kinds of pushes and clout they were before Paul E. showed what potential lied therein, with the exception of guys long ago when the average size of a wrestler was nowhere near where it went post-1975 or so.

The country wasnt ready for it then. It needed to GET THERE. The seeds for Rome sending Christians to lions were sewn LONG before it happened.

McMahon had considered it, but didn't have the balls in the early nineties because he was still aiming the product at kids. Heyman didn't care about kids, though, so he went "extreme" while McMahon was still scheduling "Crybaby" matches.

This quote represents the truth so well. ECW sowed the seeds and the WWF and WCW just finished what they started.

 

[showtyme27]

I think that they had all the oppurtunities to build to AJ's already glittering reputation, and I think they did make him look weak by making him job in 5 minutes. For a guy that has had so much building up in the last few years, and someone who really showcased his talent as a face, that was a disgrace to do to him.

I can see you haven't been following AJ Styles career for all that long AJ is considered worldwide a high calibur wrestler on the same level with wrestler's like Angle, Joe, Danielson, Benoit, and so on..., he has put on some of the best matches i've seen in year's so saying that one little match they used to futher get him over as a heel "ruined" his rising stock as a star prove's that your new to seeing Styles in action so i'll say this it may have hurt his standing with fans that are just now starting to watch and follow TNA.

Again this goes back to TNA letting character get in the way of performance in the ring. He has as much talent as any other wrestler you can name, and yet he was made to look terribly weak against Angle because apparently, being a heel does not allow you to wrestle properly. They need to step over that barrier with their wrestlers if they are to completely differentiate themselves from the WWE. That could have been a 15 minute main event that benefited everyone, but even with their time restrictions, that was still unacceptable to do to AJ Styles.

I totally agree with you, i've said it before TNA is tring a little too hard to get AJ over as a heel, having him team with Christian, the crybaby heel preformences in the ring, and the walking out on matches thing, my point is I see why TNA had to go this far to some degree because the fans were still cheering AJ over Rhyno in their feud, the fans resepcted AJ and what he's able to do so much that the only way to get the fans to Boo him was to make him look "weaker" or less-talented then he truly is, but they should have let him slowly become a heel doing little tweaks to his charecter until the fans didn't approve of him anymore, and since he's been their top draw over the past few years to have him job to Angle like that was as you said "unacceptable" but AJ is already set as one of the most talented stars of today and that lost didn't hurt him as much as you seem to think it did well at least in my eyes.

But I really believe that if anything, he could have benefited from the match simply by looking strong. He did look weak in the match because it showed that despite his talent, he can't cope it with the other talent. It does show great character in the wrestler though, for someone so talented to do what he did, but part of me feels that he had no choice but to do it, and was just smart as to not anger the TNA officials by refusing. Kurt Angle most likely had a part in deciding to make AJ job to him, and that shows arrogance that the company doesn't need.

I think I said something like this in my last post, putting in a strong preformence against Angle would make anybody look great, anybody would benefit from that so even though I get your point i'm just saying that win-lose-or draw AJ is still AJ and maybe sooner rather then later we'll see some classic's between these two, like I said before the only way AJ got hurt from that match is newer TNA fans don't know what he is capable of.

I hope AJ is rewarded for being such a great worker, because that is a trait that not many others have today, especially not Angle. They got it wrong here. Dead wrong. It did not build up his heel character, and it certainly did not help that he barely looked decent in the match. My real problem is that he didn't deserve to job like he did, but had no choice but to comply. The WWE is like this in regards to almost all their wrestlers. They are a company that builds characters and puts proper wrestling last. TNA looks to have done the same here as well.

I somewhat agree but I think if AJ had made a big deal about jobbing to Angle like that then they would have listened and made the match more competitive, I could be wrong but I think AJ has just as much or more clout backstage as Angle because once again until Joe, Sting, Christian, and Angle came along he was the company's most bankable star(and in many ways he still is) like I said in my last post that shows that AJ doesn't have a big head and will put the company first, but your right with the WWE reference as more and more TNA steps away from competitive entertaining matches too WWE's typicial squash matches.

The WWE is frequented with jobs like this, some worse. But back in the Attitude Era, guys were being pushed left and right and most everyone looked strong. If a guy had a bad work ethic backstage like Angle does, you can be assured that they would not have let that guy run over talent that deserves to be at the top, both through wrestling ability and work ethic.

Angle can basicly do whatever he want's if TNA ever gets fed-up enough to fire him i'm sure the WWE would welcome him back with open arms and if not if could make WAY more money in Japan working less wrestling dates then he does now so Angle can do and say whatever he want's and getaway with it, but like I said in another post between me and you that may cause once totally loyal talent to quit, walkout, and take their chances with the WWE or Japan.

I agree here. I think just letting him feud with one high talent like Joe or Styles would have done wonders for him and TNA. But the feud also had to be competitive, or risk TNA losing reputation for the talent they have spent time in building up. I think Angle's arrogance kept TNA from doing something like this, because he just thinks that he deserves to do what he is doing because he is the best pro wrestler today. TNA needs to show some authority in laying down the law about shit like this that he did to the WWE for so many years. Angle could be so beneficial for TNA, but he is being used in a completely different way. They are overpushing him to the point where all other talent is looking very inferior to him, and I think that they need to know that a few losses won't hurt him at all.

I totally agree 100% there is not much Angle can't recover from he was in a 6 month or so feud with John Cena and lost everytime and no one in the known world gave a f*ck, he is still considered the best wrestler in the world so I don't get the point in having him steamroll their talent.

They have made a star out of Christian, no doubt, but a guy like Angle really does deserve to be showcased as TNA's top draw. Christian's rise was too fast, albeit long overdue for the guy, but now that I think about it, a guy like him can't really make their wrestlers look bad because he has the ability to work with the company in a proper way. Angle has the credentials to be a champion, yet I think a TNA guy who has been with the company deserved to be a champion more than Christian did. Christian was a guy that should have been built up the ranks in TNA, but TNA pushed him straight away into the title picture, and this time, I think they did make the WWE look stronger because a mid card at best wrestler like Christian, was going over all the other talent and that made them look weak.

I disagree, Christian's whole thing about leaving the WWE was because he never got the chance too shine, he never got the opprotunity to face the very best, he was held back by the WWE, Angle can't claim any of this so to me TNA wrestler's jobbing to Angle makes TNA like alot weaker then Christian who has good matches with the lowest to the highest talent in TNA it doesn't seem as though he's steamrolling the competition and I liked the way they push him although I thought Monty Brown and Christopher Daniels should have won the title before/ahead of him, so like you said in WWE he was mid card at best but still he was never made to look weak or less talented then he was even playing the scared heel, and I quickly forgot he ever was a WWE wrestler(not really but you know what I mean...) which proves just how great Christian really is, he truly is and always has been very underrated.

I think that they would only benefit from drawing WWE fans to see Christian and Angle, and then to have guys like AJ and Joe look incredibly strong against them. This would do wonders for the TNA talent, and now from a mark perspective, they may think that 'Look at Angle beat that guy in 2 minutes. Man TNA wrestlers must suck compared to the WWE wrestlers'. But I don't think that they are really trying to draw more WWE fans and I don't think the fans have been tuning in to see them either. The Joe and Angle feud was competitive, but Angle came out looking much stronger whereas they could have made it great for both men. They started off on the wrong foot there as well to make Angle look over the top compared with the other talent. Too fast, and too unjust for a guy like AJ. Joe was the former unstoppable wrestler, and now that has gone the way of Kurt Angle.

This was kind of the point of my whole post the average fan sees something and it sticks in their head and they never forget that AJ Styles was destoyed by WWE's Kurt Angle, that was a dumb move by TNA and always will be as alot of new fans probably won't give AJ a fair shake now, but to fans that know alot about all of wrestling will still consider him one of the best, and yet another dumb thing is having an all WWE main event at your PPV this shows once again newer fans that WWE superstars are superior too the TNA superstars as they have come to TNA and dominated, I disagree about Joe he and Angle looked like true equals in the ring which is good but Joe shouldn't have lost that thrid match as Joe and TNA needed the win way more then Angle, and I see what you mean that Joe doesn't seem so unstoppable anymore and Angle does but if you think about it he's already been stopped in joe vs Angle 2.

TNA should have known that Angle had main event built into him, and needed no push to get over as one of the top guys in the company. Yet they went about making the other talent look pathetic, and while he should be doing main event feuds, he is doing them and looking too strong for many fans taste. I don't think that he could have had as big a build up if he had of been in a mid card feud though. They needed an immediate impact and yet blew that by making guys who worked their way up to the top look terrible against a guy who just came from the WWE. Everyone knows who Kurt Angle is, and no fans other than ROH/TNA knew who Joe and Styles were and they really could have put them on the map by making Angle at least make them look decent against him. But again, Angle got his way and now they are suffering for pushing him over the top like he always wanted. The WWE was smart enough occasionally not to reward arrogance, and that is what TNA did to him in favour of guys who had a lot of ability and were great workers. Those are the guys that should be put over Angle, because unlike Angle going over them, no one gets hurt.

I agree with everything except Joe did look damn good against Angle but I just think TNA screwed up by making Angle win out that feud.

This comes down to reputation and ability. Most fans did not care that guys like Cena went over Angle before he came in, and most know that he is the best wrestler today. I think that to bring him in, they really shouldn't have had him going over top talent, so I guess just having one feud with someone in the mid cards could have done him well, but he had to be in the main event picture sooner or later. I agree with you partly here. They really do make Angle look absolutely unbeatable, and like the AJ/Angle squash, he made their other talent look like an average WWE mid carder. I think we both know that if he had of taken the guys he beat to a good, long match, that all competitors would have benefited from it. Instead, they made the talent that deserves to be at the top look like dicks against him. That is not damaging the company and furthering the WWE, that is just making the wrestlers look bad and one guy look like the best. He had reputation, but they didn't need to make him look strong. At all.

What the hell did you write this for we agree on this already(lol), I agree 100%

They do need to concentrate on building up young guys, but they do also need guys they can market straight away. They need a big WWE guy to get their credibility up, but like you said, they also need to get wrestlers who can show that TNA really does have better wrestlers than the WWE. This shouldn't be the sole cause of the apparent Total Nonstop Entertainment brand of wrestling that TNA is showcasing each week now, and it isn't the reason. The reason is that guys who come in like Angle has, make other talented guys look stupid, and that is the same with the WWE (although I wouldn't call Cena and Batista talented.) Angle can only bring the WWE elements that TNA should separate themselves from, and that is bad for them and their reputation as a NEW up and coming company. That 5 minute job was worth all criticism, and it shows that Angle could be the cause of a TNA slide and them stepping in the wrong direction.

Everybody has these posts stating they wont TNA to sign guys who already have made there mark on wrestling RVD, Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit, the list goes on and on but like we both seem to agree TNA needs to build is OWN stars it's OWN legacy if they keep signing former WWE and WCW talent in the long run I think their company will suffer if it already hasn't.

Sorry about that post. Most of it was repeats of what I have said before but I had to get it out of the way.

I know something's kind of confused me you tricky bastard(lol) but I get your point and enjoy debating with you just as fun as when I debate with Kasey, and also I always read while i'm posting so you'll have too forgive some of the things we agreed on that I didn't happen to mention.

 

[Kaedon]

Once again, you're comparing a sardine to a shark. Get the clue and you'll realize the difference. Why don't you compare the XFL to the NFL in a blind and blanket manner while you're at it?

.5 percentage points is still losing the same amount of viewers. If anything it matters MORE to TNA because they have WAY LESS FANS.

He was inked along with the other guys because that is what Spike wanted. Why else do you think they went after Steiner and Cage so fervently? Or gave the Angle the key to the city? They had a big enough roster as it was to begin with, but they signed who they had to so they could survive.

So Im right, thank you.....

Read what I wrote. They didn't drop...especially for the average ratings.

All of these are taken directly from Broadcasting and Cable Magazine...

http://www.100megsfree4.com/wiawrestling/pages/nwa/impactrat.htm

Yeah no drop off at all.

For every one news update that is bunk, there are many more that are spot on. Wasn't it you who was on here saying that the Wrestlemania main events that had been posted on the main page here were probably bogus? You sound an awful lot like an internet-savvy smark who reads up plenty on the business. You almost had me fooled into thinking you weren't a smark yourself. If Meltzer is so full of shit, then why has McMahon been a subscriber to the thing for years? Hell, it doesn't even take anything more than a viewing of Beyond The Mat to find that out.

I read in other threads, and there were tons, about it. And how do you know Vince subscribes to it? And even if he does, it doesnt mean he knows anything. DO you think Vince is trying to get the inside scoop on his own company?

Could the reason maybe be that life expectancy for someone who uses booze or cigarettes has an ingrained limited life-expectancy? Junk food is hardly as detrimental to your health in limited quantities as booze or cigs.

Smoking one cigarette a day will kill you WAY SLOWER than eating one cheeseburger a day (on average) thats a fact. Feel free to look it up...

You can't get cirrhosis or lung cancer from those, can you? When's the last time a cheeseburger was proven to cause birth defects? As far as the FCC, stuff is voted on by a committee. I know they're in charge. Of TV. Radio.

Actually the FCC doesnt have any direct influence on Cable TV and Satellite Radio as those are paid to be brought into the home and not just on the free air waves. Read up.

And while too many burgers cant cause birth defects, it can cause heart disease, diabetis(sp) and many more things.

Hey, they were nationally broadcast, too. Following stricter content standards than the WWE when they got on TNN. The shows were chopped up and edited, meanwhile as soon as Vince rolled up they not only changed the entire network format, but let him run Raw live the way he wanted. That's the double standard I'm talking about.

Not when they were doing the rediculous shit. Before they were on TNN they were told to cut that shit out.

Not for the right reasons, chief. When you're out there busting your ass in the ring and chants erupt that do nothing but criticize the work (and believe me, they were actually trying), then you've failed as a legit heel.

"If you dont get the 'right' boos, youre not a 'legit' heel" yeah thats not conformist thinking in the least...

Your logic is what needs a serious check. The difference (which I hope you'll get) is that if a band opened for Metallica, had a record exec in the audience, and didn't get signed...then went and played a smaller show but only got signed after the SAME record exec saw that show's proper usage of the band they previously saw as unmarketable, then you'd be shooting along the lines of what went down with regards to ECW. Malenko, Benoit, Eddy, Rey, and host of others were just as talented BEFORE they went to ECW. They could've been offered a job at anytime because they weren't well-off in those days and would've jumped at the chance to work for one of the big companies. AND I REPEAT: It was only AFTER they'd been to ECW that they became desirable to Vince or Eric.

Chances are if a record exec doesnt sign someone on the spot, they send some lackey out to do it because they dont want to take a chance and dont want their name associated with it. There is no FLAW in my logic. They are analogus, you just dont want to admit it.

He was also chucked in the ass-end of the card and never given serious interview time or even table scraps that could be considered an angle. His personality that got him over in ECW was nowhere to be found. Steve Austin was a hot commodity once he had his personality re-instated in the WWF. Before that, he was just the goddamn Ringmaster. Understand?

Way to cover up the fact that you were WRONG that he wasnt presented as a standard wrestler....

They were by comparison to ECW until they started jacking talent and product stylings from them. Hell, I can't even remember someone going through a table in a WWF match until 1995, maybe? Even then, it was one of the craziest things you'd seen on there in terms of something that wasn't just standard wrestling.

Im not comparing them to ECW. They are irrelevant here. If fans are so "hardcore" to expect whats in the name "entertainment" doenst necessarily mean classic wrestling, yet it got over. But not in the land of morons called ECW because like impetulant children "I WANT WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW!!!!"

High spots get over anywhere. Want a fine example? How about Lynn/RVD from an episode of Sunday Night Heat years back. They wrestled past their alotted time and went fifteen whole minutes (Oh NO!) and woke the crowd up by actually earning their money and getting people to actually give a shit as to what went on within a Heat broadcast. People typically want some sort of action. Whether or not it is of purist nature is irrelevant in terms of the crowd's response. Even a match I'd hate I can't completely defeat if the crowd was controlled throughout. Even if it's between two wrestlers I can't stand. Lynn and RVD were admonished because they just wrestled a tamer ECW-match and upstaged their contemporaries in the process. Showing exactly how ass-backwards the booking scheme can be.

Really, anywhere? Then why in Milwaukee at SD taping did Paul London, who was still doing all of his BS high spots, get bood out of the building?

Whether or not a match takes place inside a bingo hall or a famous sports arena makes no difference. I've seen numerous WWF/E title matches that may have told a story...but the audience didn't want to fucking hear it and were either: A. Bored to death or B. Got up to go take a piss. Taker didn't really do shit in that match. It was the same old story of Foley tearing his ass nearly in half to scare the crowd and earn their respect through punishment. No different than he did in FMW or ECW. It was the same thing that ECW wrestlers did years before KOTR 1998. You see it as telling a story strictly because you have a hard-on for WWF product. I liked the match, but know that if Foley wouldn't have taken the two spills, you wouldn't even bat an eyelash in condemning it.

Leave it up to a smark who equates tolerance for pain to good wrestling to say something as stupid as this....

He didn't misuse them one bit. He did to you because you obviously just hate ECW, which is fine. However, they were over, stayed over, and the matches were over, so it looks like a success to me. He also didn't have to sink millions of merch dollars and re-shuffle show lineups because he couldn't get them over correctly, ala' John Cena.

Sticking them in the undercard when they are clearly the best in
the company is a misuse.

It's all about money, right? That's what you said about the big two before? Why change your tune now? Because your arguments don't have any legs to stand on when you have a tunnel-visioned myopic view of the business (in particular ECW)? Know nothing about the history? These guys cheered Dusty Rhodes like he was Jesus for fuck's sake. They knew plenty about it. Which is why they'd cheer for solid workrate even if a guy didn't have a gimmick (Tommy Rodgers, Jerry Lynn, or Lance Storm initially).

What does "money makes the world go round" have to do with anything? That is what I did say about the big 2, whatever makes them money is what they want, it doesnt mean they innovated anything.

Yes again you missed the point entirely. More reading and comprehension. Less hasty typing. You alluded to the fact that Pillman had been the lone gunmen fighting off all heavyweight comers. Well, you just proved what I wanted you to get in the first damn place. Dynamite was a junior who was kicking the hell out of numerous heavyweights in tons of different matches in the WWF's golden age of HEAVYWEIGHT tag units. Pillman's good...but he wasn't first.

I just took what you said and turned it around on you. I comprehend just fine. If you dont want me turning what you say around on you, dont fucking say it.

If the story of the match is told to great effect to those in the audience...then the psychology is successful. If the two or however many guys in the ring play that audience like a fiddle, they've done their job. No matter where it is.

"You hit me then I hit you" isnt a story, sorry.

Hey, you gave me a laundry list of names and I refuted it right there by giving you the "FACTS" you needed to get it. The fact you can't acknowledge that changes in body development VASTLY changed the nature of who gets the top spots in the business, that's your problem. The fact is that true juniors were never given the kinds of pushes and clout they were before Paul E. showed what potential lied therein, with the exception of guys long ago when the average size of a wrestler was nowhere near where it went post-1975 or so.

You refuted it with "It was a different time then". Thats an opinion, not a fact.

McMahon had considered it, but didn't have the balls in the early nineties because he was still aiming the product at kids. Heyman didn't care about kids, though, so he went "extreme" while McMahon was still scheduling "Crybaby" matches.

No, the mass audience didnt want it yet. If the mass audience doesnt want something, they dont take it. They turn off the TV, they stop coming to the shows, they stop buying merch.

This quote represents the truth so well. ECW sowed the seeds and the WWF and WCW just finished what they started.

Much like in religion, "truth" is nothing more than opinion.

 

[Kasey]

.5 percentage points is still losing the same amount of viewers. If anything it matters MORE to TNA because they have WAY LESS FANS.

The ratings haven't dropped, though. They've stayed above the 1's consistently with the exception of a show that was pre-empted due to a UFC broadcast, so I'm honestly not sure where you're getting the drop from. Are you reading it right? Am I reading it right? These are the highest consistent numbers that TNA has put out. That was my point. I'm sorry if I didn't make it correctly.

So Im right, thank you.....

I'm not sure I follow as to what you're right about, though? The buzz (especially around places like WZ) at the time leading up to the Spike debut had guys like Sting and Steiner on a list of apparent acquisitions that TNA was interested because it was part of the stipulation of them signing. Spike felt it was necessary for them to take established guys before they got onto the network. That was the point I was trying to make.

All of these are taken directly from Broadcasting and Cable Magazine...

http://www.100megsfree4.com/wiawrestling/pages/nwa/impactrat.htm

Yeah no drop off at all.

Ken, I think you were reading it backwards. It starts with 2005 at the top with a .8 rating, dude.

I read in other threads, and there were tons, about it. And how do you know Vince subscribes to it? And even if he does, it doesnt mean he knows anything. DO you think Vince is trying to get the inside scoop on his own company?

I've read it at least twice online since the mid-90's as well as it being mentioned on Beyond The Mat. Not inside his own company, but rather the concensus on others, though. It'd honestly be a smart move from my perspective, because he could get glimpses at other company's talent that way, and also get the smark perspective on what everyone is doing. As much as they might not seem like they care, even recently I've seen patterns regarding their knowledge of what some of the internet assholes like me think. Especially after the Rosie/Trump incident when he came out the next week doing that spot with Carlito where he told the audience they liked whatever he told them to like.

Smoking one cigarette a day will kill you WAY SLOWER than eating one cheeseburger a day (on average) thats a fact. Feel free to look it up...

It also depends on what kind of cheeseburger and the prep method. There aren't healthy cigarettes, though. I teach nutrition and exercise for a living, so if I had to choose between which one to prescribe, it'd sadly be the burger. Kind of a lesser of two evils thing, ya know? Don't worry, though. I did watch Super-Size Me. Disgusting.

Actually the FCC doesnt have any direct influence on Cable TV and Satellite Radio as those are paid to be brought into the home and not just on the free air waves. Read up.

I figure they would, but then who sets the standards for the non-premium cable networks? I know TNT and USA both got flak for Scott Steiner and Bret Hart's respective mic meanderings in the 90's from them. Maybe it's just for PPV broadcasts or something?

Not when they were doing the rediculous shit. Before they were on TNN they were told to cut that shit out.

I suppose. But I honestly didn't see much of a shift in terms of the product flavor for the first year or so that they were on there. I mean, they still did the Katie Vick stuff after that, weren't they? Or was it before that?

"If you dont get the 'right' boos, youre not a 'legit' heel" yeah thats not conformist thinking in the least...

It would've worked if they wouldn't have tried to adjust the audience sound to get rid of the chants and to have the announcers (who are pro-ECW, anyway) play it off like nothing is happening and that they're watching a great match and completely ignoring the rabid fans in the audience. Now, if they'd have done it differently and had them actually take the correct stance, I'd have bought it. Shortly thereafter, though, McMahon decided not to take ECW solo anymore, and definitely not through their old stomping grounds because he can't control that audience like he can the Smackdown and Raw ones.

Chances are if a record exec doesnt sign someone on the spot, they send some lackey out to do it because they dont want to take a chance and dont want their name associated with it. There is no FLAW in my logic. They are analogus, you just dont want to admit it.

I still disagree with you. Think what you want. A & R reps that actually are interested in a band will definitely be the first ones sent, yes. However, with all the resources at their disposal, Bischoff and McMahon could've scouted any company in the world at a given clip, especially one in their own backyard. If they'd have had any of the ECW perennials on their radar, then they would've signed them way back, but alas, they didn't.

Way to cover up the fact that you were WRONG that he wasnt presented as a standard wrestler....

He was presented as a standard wrestler. He didn't have any of his character intact, and had none of what actually got him over in ECW in terms of pushes or mic time that set him apart and made him unique. He may as well have been Norman Smiley for all anyone cared. Hell, I went to Spring Stampede 1999 and people with NWO shirts on next to me were asking, "who's that?" Now, take that for what it's worth, but these people had no idea as to the history of who he was and his marketing was just an afterthought because Bischoff didn't care that he got pushed, so much that Heyman didn't have him to use. He wasn't just over in ECW because he hit dudes with a cane. They put him in some of their biggest angles of the time and had him at the top of the card working controversial storylines like the one involving his own son. Everyone starts somewhere, but if they aren't even given the ball, you can't expect them to make a touchdown. Take Batista, for example. If he'd never have been given the opportunity that Hunter spoonfed him, they'd still probably be cycling him through another gimmick on par with being a deacon of all things and the fans giving less than a rat's ass about him. Same thing with Stone Cold. He performed in the "everyone get up and take a piss" match at WM12 opposite Savio Vega. It wasn't until they allowed him to re-assert his old ECW personality that he started to get over.

Im not comparing them to ECW. They are irrelevant here. If fans are so "hardcore" to expect whats in the name "entertainment" doenst necessarily mean classic wrestling, yet it got over. But not in the land of morons called ECW because like impetulant children "I WANT WHAT I WANT RIGHT NOW!!!!"

Many things got over in ECW. Solid mat-wrestling, high-flying, weapons-play, shoot promos. However, fans wanting to be treated with some respect by the writers and bookers is nothing new. Hell, I still remember Vince's Raw service announcement when he declared that the fans were "tired of having their intelligence insulted." Heyman knew that upon his departure from Atlanta. Vince seems to have forgotten this, though. First and greatest example? Khali.

Really, anywhere? Then why in Milwaukee at SD taping did Paul London, who was still doing all of his BS high spots, get bood out of the building?

No workable gimmick and nothing but wrestling to get over in a company where the gimmick is 90% of the battle in recent years. And his wrestling post-ROH has only been a small fraction of what he can actually do in a wrestling ring because of the limitations imposed post-Droz. WWE has never been high on putting the time it takes into marketing cruiserweights effectively (as evidenced by having their division spread across three shows and a belt that is worthless). They also choose a piss-poor booking order to keep their quarter-hour ratings up so the sponsors won't shy away. This cuts the rhythm out of the show when you have the lower and midcard wrestlers do their thing in the middle of the show, instead of where they belong at the beginning.

Leave it up to a smark who equates tolerance for pain to good wrestling to say something as stupid as this....

Not very stupid when the highlight is included yearly in some show or another and is in the opening sequence to Raw. It's the most imporant and memorable thing about the match. Not saying I don't like it, but it was just ECW performed in a larger venue.

Sticking them in the undercard when they are clearly the best in the company is a misuse.

Best according to who? You? I could say the same thing about TNA and WWE right now. They have some of the finer workers in either company taking up the back, while some seriously weak performers with a definite ceiling of potential help the company to eek by when they have the potential to take it to another level entirely that could bury the last wrestling boom easily.

What does "money makes the world go round" have to do with anything? That is what I did say about the big 2, whatever makes them money is what they want, it doesnt mean they innovated anything.

I've already spent paragraphs telling you what they influenced and helped to entrench in American wrestling. I won't waste the time typing it again, because the next five times I tell you, you'll ignore anyway.

I just took what you said and turned it around on you. I comprehend just fine. If you dont want me turning what you say around on you, dont fucking say it.

That's just it. You turned it around on yourself and helped me to establish my point. Re-read. If your comprehension of this is on par with the ratings sheet you supplied, we might as well stop the discussions right now.

"You hit me then I hit you" isnt a story, sorry.

Then please astound me with your description of a story and just how you'd tell it. Please. I'm chomping at the bit.

You refuted it with "It was a different time then". Thats an opinion, not a fact.

I also alluded to the fact that on the whole wrestlers in those days were not as large ON THE WHOLE as they are today. You're not really a junior when you wrestle in nothing but a sea of juniors if you get my drift. Guys on the average in any sport in those days were smaller...not just fake wrestling.

No, the mass audience didnt want it yet. If the mass audience doesnt want something, they dont take it. They turn off the TV, they stop coming to the shows, they stop buying merch.

And the mass audience didn't want what McMahon was shoveling at the time, either. Business dropped and he sat there with his thumb in his ass because he saddled all his hopes on Jim Helwig and Hulk Hogan hung him out to dry in court. He's even gone on record as saying that he wanted to do an edgier product in the early '90s, but because of the steroid trial and all the shit he got from that, he kept it tame. Well, that idea didn't help much either. Heyman had the cajones to do it first, so he gets the credit for the innovation of an edgy and non-stupid wrestling product.

Much like in religion, "truth" is nothing more than opinion.

I can say the same to you.

 

[doublej_TNA]

WWF can even get people to watch the PPVs..
""lets get Hogan, Taker, HBK to headline WM23.. but lets let Cena keep the title and Umaga be a hit

WWE is total crap!

 

[Kaedon]

The ratings haven't dropped, though. They've stayed above the 1's consistently with the exception of a show that was pre-empted due to a UFC broadcast, so I'm honestly not sure where you're getting the drop from. Are you reading it right? Am I reading it right? These are the highest consistent numbers that TNA has put out. That was my point. I'm sorry if I didn't make it correctly.

Ken, I think you were reading it backwards. It starts with 2005 at the top with a .8 rating, dude.

If TNA could do a month of ratings within .1 of each other, Id buy your "consistancy" theory. However they havent. There are large fluctuations all over the place. Up, down, Up down. Drops then rises.

I'm not sure I follow as to what you're right about, though? The buzz (especially around places like WZ) at the time leading up to the Spike debut had guys like Sting and Steiner on a list of apparent acquisitions that TNA was interested because it was part of the stipulation of them signing. Spike felt it was necessary for them to take established guys before they got onto the network. That was the point I was trying to make.

And the point I was trying to make was that Spike didnt say "you dont get a TV contract unless you get Sting and Angle, to which you agreed.

I've read it at least twice online since the mid-90's

I think I read it in the Star and the National Inquirer too....

as well as it being mentioned on Beyond The Mat.

You mean the movie that made Jake The Snake look like a pathetic piece of shit even though he wasnt?

It also depends on what kind of cheeseburger and the prep method. There aren't healthy cigarettes, though. I teach nutrition and exercise for a living, so if I had to choose between which one to prescribe, it'd sadly be the burger. Kind of a lesser of two evils thing, ya know? Don't worry, though. I did watch Super-Size Me. Disgusting.

Cigarettes (in small amounts) can control disorders like Inflamitory Bowel Syndrome while also putting you at risk for cancer. Just as a cheeseburger (even off a Forman grill) will give you some of the nutrients you need, while putting you at risk for a heart attack.

I figure they would, but then who sets the standards for the non-premium cable networks? I know TNT and USA both got flak for Scott Steiner and Bret Hart's respective mic meanderings in the 90's from them. Maybe it's just for PPV broadcasts or something?

The companies essentially police themselves. However what happens more often than not is that the people control what happens. If the people dont like what happens, they complain. And if people complain the sponsors walk. Without the sponsors, there is no TV show.

I suppose.

Thank you.

It would've worked if they wouldn't have tried to adjust the audience sound to get rid of the chants and to have the announcers (who are pro-ECW, anyway) play it off like nothing is happening and that they're watching a great match and completely ignoring the rabid fans in the audience. Now, if they'd have done it differently and had them actually take the correct stance, I'd have bought it. Shortly thereafter, though, McMahon decided not to take ECW solo anymore, and definitely not through their old stomping grounds because he can't control that audience like he can the Smackdown and Raw ones.

Yeah it had nothing to do with the fact that the new ECW had ZERO star power (with the exception of Angle) and couldnt draw more than 2-3,000 on their own. Vince cares about money, not about controlling the fans.

I still disagree with you. Think what you want. A & R reps that actually are interested in a band will definitely be the first ones sent, yes. However, with all the resources at their disposal, Bischoff and McMahon could've scouted any company in the world at a given clip, especially one in their own backyard. If they'd have had any of the ECW perennials on their radar, then they would've signed them way back, but alas, they didn't.

Once again I ask, where is the logic in "well they are over with 500 fans, lets sign them" as opposed to "they are over with 20,000" lets sign them. Maybe they were told not to go after them by the higher ups (in Erics case) or maybe Vince had some dumbshit advisior who said they werent ready yet. Hell Benoit himself said he COULD have stayed in the WWE, but the market wasnt ready yet. But oh yeah, 500 fans later and the market is ready?

He was presented as a standard wrestler. He didn't have any of his character intact, and had none of what actually got him over in ECW in terms of pushes or mic time that set him apart and made him unique. He may as well have been Norman Smiley for all anyone cared. Hell, I went to Spring Stampede 1999 and people with NWO shirts on next to me were asking, "who's that?" Now, take that for what it's worth, but these people had no idea as to the history of who he was and his marketing was just an afterthought because Bischoff didn't care that he got pushed, so much that Heyman didn't have him to use. He wasn't just over in ECW because he hit dudes with a cane. They put him in some of their biggest angles of the time and had him at the top of the card working controversial storylines like the one involving his own son. Everyone starts somewhere, but if they aren't even given the ball, you can't expect them to make a touchdown. Take Batista, for example. If he'd never have been given the opportunity that Hunter spoonfed him, they'd still probably be cycling him through another gimmick on par with being a deacon of all things and the fans giving less than a rat's ass about him. Same thing with Stone Cold. He performed in the "everyone get up and take a piss" match at WM12 opposite Savio Vega. It wasn't until they allowed him to re-assert his old ECW personality that he started to get over.

Once again, I dont know many standard wrestlers who came out wrapped in barbed wire. Arn Anderson, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, these are standard wrestlers.

Many things got over in ECW. Solid mat-wrestling, high-flying, weapons-play, shoot promos. However, fans wanting to be treated with some respect by the writers and bookers is nothing new. Hell, I still remember Vince's Raw service announcement when he declared that the fans were "tired of having their intelligence insulted." Heyman knew that upon his departure from Atlanta. Vince seems to have forgotten this, though. First and greatest example? Khali.

What didnt get over, heel or face, in ECW? Name one time the ECW crowd just stayed silent? When the crowd is dead, you arent over. The second any reaction is drawn, youre over to a degree (depending on the reaction).

No workable gimmick and nothing but wrestling to get over in a company where the gimmick is 90% of the battle in recent years. And his wrestling post-ROH has only been a small fraction of what he can actually do in a wrestling ring because of the limitations imposed post-Droz. WWE has never been high on putting the time it takes into marketing cruiserweights effectively (as evidenced by having their division spread across three shows and a belt that is worthless). They also choose a piss-poor booking order to keep their quarter-hour ratings up so the sponsors won't shy away. This cuts the rhythm out of the show when you have the lower and midcard wrestlers do their thing in the middle of the show, instead of where they belong at the beginning.

But you said highspots get over WITH ANY CROWD. You were wrong, and now youre dancing around that fact.

Not very stupid when the highlight is included yearly in some show or another and is in the opening sequence to Raw. It's the most imporant and memorable thing about the match. Not saying I don't like it, but it was just ECW performed in a larger venue.

The stupid thing you said was "Undertaker didnt do anything in that match"

Best according to who? You? I could say the same thing about TNA and WWE right now. They have some of the finer workers in either company taking up the back, while some seriously weak performers with a definite ceiling of potential help the company to eek by when they have the potential to take it to another level entirely that could bury the last wrestling boom easily.

Best according to the people. Who is more over? Carlito or Masters? Who is more over? London or Batista? In ECW they would cheer anything so you had to go to something else to gauge who is "better" (for the company) and that WAS skill. Too bad it didnt matter.

I've already spent paragraphs telling you what they influenced and helped to entrench in American wrestling. I won't waste the time typing it again, because the next five times I tell you, you'll ignore anyway.

Im ignoring your opinions. You dont present any facts, you present your version of "truth".

That's just it. You turned it around on yourself and helped me to establish my point. Re-read. If your comprehension of this is on par with the ratings sheet you supplied, we might as well stop the discussions right now.

No, I took what you said literally, to the T. If you dont want me taking things literally, say what you mean.

Then please astound me with your description of a story and just how you'd tell it. Please. I'm chomping at the bit.

The face coming back from being destroyed is a popular story. Cena/Umaga is the most modern equivilant of that. Flair/Savage told the story of a man who is defaming anothers wife and the other man INSANE with revenge.

I also alluded to the fact that on the whole wrestlers in those days were not as large ON THE WHOLE as they are today. You're not really a junior when you wrestle in nothing but a sea of juniors if you get my drift. Guys on the average in any sport in those days were smaller...not just fake wrestling.

Oh yeah, Andre, Hogan, Knisky, The Crusher, Monsoon, Kawalski, those guys were midgets.

And the mass audience didn't want what McMahon was shoveling at the time, either. Business dropped and he sat there with his thumb in his ass because he saddled all his hopes on Jim Helwig and Hulk Hogan hung him out to dry in court.

Yeah business dropped off. No one was buying the merch of Warrior, the PPV buyrates were down, and everyone just tuned to WCW.....

He's even gone on record as saying that he wanted to do an edgier product in the early '90s, but because of the steroid trial and all the shit he got from that, he kept it tame. Well, that idea didn't help much either. Heyman had the cajones to do it first, so he gets the credit for the innovation of an edgy and non-stupid wrestling product.

The business was moving in an edgier direction back before he said that. The promos of Jake The Snake and Roddy Piper took it there.

I can say the same to you.

I dont speak of "truth" i speak in FACTS.

 

[Kasey]

If TNA could do a month of ratings within .1 of each other, Id buy your "consistancy" theory. However they havent. There are large fluctuations all over the place. Up, down, Up down. Drops then rises.

Look, you gave me a number sheet you obviously didn't read correctly. You saw that there were indeed fluctuations, but at present the average rating for TNA within the past six months has stayed consistent. You thought it was a drop because you read it backwards. Talk about sidestepping.

And the point I was trying to make was that Spike didnt say "you dont get a TV contract unless you get Sting and Angle, to which you agreed.

That's just it...I didnt' and still don't agree. It was in a handful of news snippets at least a month before they netted the Spike deal because Jarrett was the one spearheading the negotiations. Spike wasn't confident in the starpower of their young guns and didn't want to get into bed with them unless they had some established names, to which TNA replied that they would grab some.

I think I read it in the Star and the National Inquirer too....

Doubt the validity of any internet reports all you want, but I've been frequenting sites like this one and getting accurate news almost all the time for over a decade. This includes contract happenings as well as any reports involving McMahon or Meltzer. I'm sorry if I don't keep an archive of every little news snippet I read, but I do have a pretty decent memory for such things.

You mean the movie that made Jake The Snake look like a pathetic piece of shit even though he wasnt?

Yeah, smoking crack habitually and ignoring your family isn't being a pathetic piece of shit. Or how about the self-admittance of committing adultery in some very disgusting fashions. Yeah, he should've been man of the year. Look, I'm not doubting his talents, and never have, but as a person he's the last motherfucker I'd be championing in that regard.

Cigarettes (in small amounts) can control disorders like Inflamitory Bowel Syndrome while also putting you at risk for cancer. Just as a cheeseburger (even off a Forman grill) will give you some of the nutrients you need, while putting you at risk for a heart attack.

Look at the overall nutrient content of what you'll get from each. You can survive off a burger, you can't off a cigarette. End of story.

Yeah it had nothing to do with the fact that the new ECW had ZERO star power (with the exception of Angle) and couldnt draw more than 2-3,000 on their own. Vince cares about money, not about controlling the fans.

Bullshit and a half. It was no coincidence. They already had a handful of guys they could've built into stars that have been established names from the get-go (which is why initially they gave the belt to RVD and NOT Angle). The fact is that McMahon wanted to try marketing WWE to old ECW fans and they didn't want to hear any of that shit. He can't control crowd reactions or edit around a small venue like that, no matter how good his A/V truck personnel are. That's just it. Control of the fans, denotes money. If you can manipulate those paying for tickets, then you can dictate how they spend their money. He ran smack-dab into a hard lesson of knowing who he can and can't market to. So immediately after that show, he up and changed the gameplan to piggy-back ECW telecasts onto Smackdown tapings so he had a more malleable audience. This was all done within a week's time. Disregard the fact all you like, but it happened.

Once again I ask, where is the logic in "well they are over with 500 fans, lets sign them" as opposed to "they are over with 20,000" lets sign them. Maybe they were told not to go after them by the higher ups (in Erics case) or maybe Vince had some dumbshit advisior who said they werent ready yet. Hell Benoit himself said he COULD have stayed in the WWE, but the market wasnt ready yet. But oh yeah, 500 fans later and the market is ready?

Vince and Eric saw a different way to present them and get them beyond over with the fans as a result of what Heyman was able to do with them. Bischoff and McMahon both had Shane Douglas at one time or another...and pissed him away. Bischoff had Austin on the payroll and had him jobbing to Duggan of all people and fired him by FedEx. As I'll have to keep drilling into you, they could've signed and pushed these guys at any time before ECW was even in the cards, but they didn't know what to do with a lot of these guys (and in some cases still didn't) even after getting a hold of them. Dean Douglas was a completely ******ed idea that went over like a fart in church, but McMahon still signed him. The Ringmaster was another prime one, but Austin wasn't even given a call until after ECW. He'd been out of WCW for quite sometime, though, but his phone was ringing off the hook with offers from Titan until after his ECW stint. Same with Foley while he was toiling away on the indy circuit and damn near killing himself in Japan. WCW and WWF didn't give a rat's ass until after his stint in ECW. Are you noticing the pattern, yet?

What didnt get over, heel or face, in ECW? Name one time the ECW crowd just stayed silent? When the crowd is dead, you arent over. The second any reaction is drawn, youre over to a degree (depending on the reaction).

Well, if the reaction is unintended, then you've failed. Just like when Cena was getting booed in his program with Angle and Christian in 2005. He was over in the wrong end of the spectrum, so things were re-shuffled in terms of booking, so it didn't really look like mission accomplished to me. Just like when WCW tried turning Sting heel for five minutes back in the late '90s. It didn't work because the fans never bought it and the angles suffered because of it when they couldn't get him over the way they wanted. Vince figured that the ECW faithful would respect his top guys, but was sorely mistaken when they did nothing but insult their work shoot-style and heckle them the entire match.

But you said highspots get over WITH ANY CROWD. You were wrong, and now youre dancing around that fact.

Fine, then let me rephrase that. Properly orchestrated highspots get over with any crowd. Cruiserweight wrestling and things of the sort can get as over as you can get, but if direct focus and proper booking aren't on the menu, then they'll get over as much as the next failed outing, whether it be heavyweight or other.

The stupid thing you said was "Undertaker didnt do anything in that match"

By comparison to Foley he did shit. He just threw him off the cage and chokeslammed him through it. He didn't take any of the highlight-caliber bumps in a class anywhere near the suicidal shit Foley did that night doing an ECW sendup. So what I said was no more stupid than your blind defense of that match over anything done in ECW along those lines. It wasn't anymore of a "story" told in the ring than a number of hardcore ECW matches. The difference was that J.R. was behind the mic spitting out pre-fed lines from Vince McMahon. It was Foley doing a New Jack and all the WWE marks eating it up just for the fact that it was done in WWE and they weren't clued into ECW. Hardcore is hardcore, not matter what size the building is, or what promotion it's from.

Best according to the people. Who is more over? Carlito or Masters? Who is more over? London or Batista? In ECW they would cheer anything so you had to go to something else to gauge who is "better" (for the company) and that WAS skill. Too bad it didnt matter.

Carlito and Masters are about even these days. London has a snowball's chance in hell of getting more over than the top guy on Smackdown as he's wrestling in a heavyweight-centric company that doesn't give two shits about juniors as is. As much as I like London and Kendrick, they were given the belts out of necessity, not out of immense planning.

Im ignoring your opinions. You dont present any facts, you present your version of "truth".

Hey, reading a timeline of events is pretty goddamn factual to me. Looking at a set of companies all of a sudden inputting new divisions and taking athletes from another company is very obvious to see. Seeing them change their overall show format and company direction, when the company their pillaging from was doing it before them is also easy to see. WWE and WCW wouldn't be what they are today if not for ECW.

No, I took what you said literally, to the T. If you dont want me taking things literally, say what you mean.

Once again, re-read. This isn't the ratings sheet where 2005 and 2007 are reversed and you still deny numbers sitting in front of you. You made my point for me. Thank you.

The face coming back from being destroyed is a popular story. Cena/Umaga is the most modern equivilant of that. Flair/Savage told the story of a man who is defaming anothers wife and the other man INSANE with revenge.

Why not have the bad guy win cleanly for once? Something fresh. Something that hasn't been bled to death forever. And Cena/Umaga is a joke and waste of Umaga's talents. And the Flair/Savage angle got outpopped by Hogan and Sid of all things at the Hoosier, so there goes audience selection for you. Not saying I didn't appreciate the effort, but what the masses want isn't always what I'd consider to be solid work.

Oh yeah, Andre, Hogan, Knisky, The Crusher, Monsoon, Kawalski, those guys were midgets.

Hogan is disqualified because the time frame I'm speaking of is pre-1975 when a guy like Thesz would actually get a shot. As for the rest of them, being tall and fat isn't the same as what came after the steroid revolution in the '70s. If small guys were always getting the same quality of pushes in those days, then we would've seen cruiserweights taking on guys like Billy Graham. Alas, we weren't.

Yeah business dropped off. No one was buying the merch of Warrior, the PPV buyrates were down, and everyone just tuned to WCW.....

No. Everyone just tuned out, period. He went from being able to generate a 15 rating on SNME, to barely pulling a 2 with his flagship show on Monday nights with he and WCW eventually fighting for a year and a half over basement table scrap ratings, until WCW got their shit together. He didn't plan for the future when he geared some of the top spots in the company around juicers and then all of a sudden had to have a fire sale when the fuzz was at his door. This is why you saw the "new generation" take over within about a year's time and the entire face of the company was changed. Their buyrates and gates didn't increase until after they lifted the ECW style for their shows in 1996 and 7. I still remember attending a house show in 1995, where 3/4 of the arena was shut off and they just used mobile bleachers to house the few thousand who actually bothered to show up. They barely even had entrance music that night, even if the wrestling was really good.

The business was moving in an edgier direction back before he said that. The promos of Jake The Snake and Roddy Piper took it there.

There is a difference between pushing the buttons of conservatives with an edgy product and having an awesome, but rather tame (by comparison) speech ala The Snake. There was no shooting. Piper gave the same kinds of energetic promos that were a dime a dozen in those days. Not that I don't find some of them good, but they were hardly edgy by comparison to standard ECW fare.

I dont speak of "truth" i speak in FACTS.

Really? Okay. Let me list the same "facts" for you.

WWF & WCW product pre-1997: tame
ECW product 1994 and on: edgy
WCW marketing cruiserweights: 1996 and on
WWF marketing cruiserweights: 1997 and on
ECW marketing cruisergweights: Early 1995 and on
WCW's cruiserweights: Guererro, Malenko, Misterio, Psichosis, Juvi
ECW's cruiserweights (used a year prior): OOPS. Same lineup above.
WWF's cruiserweights: Mens' Taoh, Dick Togo, Terry Boy, Sasuke, Taka
ECW's cruiserweights (used only months prior): OOPS. Same lineup above.
WWF's hardcore division: established 1998
WCW's hardcore division: established 1999
ECW's switch to hardcore wrestling: established 1994

Noticing the pattern, here? Look who came first in all of these.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for the "facts." This isn't even taking into account overall roster changes of who went where after getting a chance to shine in ECW. I'll save that list for another time, though.

 

[Kaedon]

Look, you gave me a number sheet you obviously didn't read correctly. You saw that there were indeed fluctuations, but at present the average rating for TNA within the past six months has stayed consistent. You thought it was a drop because you read it backwards. Talk about sidestepping.

January 4, 2007 1.1
January 11, 2007 1.1
January 18, 2007 1.1
January 24, 2007 0.8

That's just it...I didnt' and still don't agree. It was in a handful of news snippets at least a month before they netted the Spike deal because Jarrett was the one spearheading the negotiations. Spike wasn't confident in the starpower of their young guns and didn't want to get into bed with them unless they had some established names, to which TNA replied that they would grab some.

Yet Sting was signed AFTER the Spike deal....

Doubt the validity of any internet reports all you want, but I've been frequenting sites like this one and getting accurate news almost all the time for over a decade. This includes contract happenings as well as any reports involving McMahon or Meltzer. I'm sorry if I don't keep an archive of every little news snippet I read, but I do have a pretty decent memory for such things.

Dave Meltzer reported RVD would go over Edge last year at their PPV meeting. He not only said that, he said it would be a match of a lot of high spots, and it would be the MAIN EVENT. He was wrong on EVERY ACCOUNT.

"News" like "Carlito being in the doghouse" isnt news. It's guesswork with there being no way to prove it.

How about the "news" that Kevin Dunn pulled JR from the RR calling when the man himself refuted it. Yeah, thats ace detective work there...

Yeah, smoking crack habitually and ignoring your family isn't being a pathetic piece of shit. Or how about the self-admittance of committing adultery in some very disgusting fashions. Yeah, he should've been man of the year. Look, I'm not doubting his talents, and never have, but as a person he's the last motherfucker I'd be championing in that regard.

Bret Hart ignored his family too, I guess he's pathetic too. Just because you disagree with his choices on moral grounds. That doesnt mean the movie wasnt full of spin.

Look at the overall nutrient content of what you'll get from each. You can survive off a burger, you can't off a cigarette. End of story.

Eating nothing but burgers will lead to a Vitamin K difficency and will kill you. Not to mention all of the fat in it. Yeah thats so good for you....
Both have up and downsides.

Bullshit and a half. It was no coincidence. They already had a handful of guys they could've built into stars that have been established names from the get-go (which is why initially they gave the belt to RVD and NOT Angle). The fact is that McMahon wanted to try marketing WWE to old ECW fans and they didn't want to hear any of that shit. He can't control crowd reactions or edit around a small venue like that, no matter how good his A/V truck personnel are. That's just it. Control of the fans, denotes money. If you can manipulate those paying for tickets, then you can dictate how they spend their money. He ran smack-dab into a hard lesson of knowing who he can and can't market to. So immediately after that show, he up and changed the gameplan to piggy-back ECW telecasts onto Smackdown tapings so he had a more malleable audience. This was all done within a week's time. Disregard the fact all you like, but it happened.

And you disreguard the fact that Vince was sending all of the top stars over there to make sure people watched. What happened as soon as the crossover stuff stopped? The ratings dropped like a rock.

Vince and Eric saw a different way to present them and get them beyond over with the fans as a result of what Heyman was able to do with them.

Yes they stole the thunder of being over with 500 fans....

Bischoff and McMahon both had Shane Douglas at one time or another...and pissed him away. Bischoff had Austin on the payroll and had him jobbing to Duggan of all people and fired him by FedEx. As I'll have to keep drilling into you, they could've signed and pushed these guys at any time before ECW was even in the cards, but they didn't know what to do with a lot of these guys (and in some cases still didn't) even after getting a hold of them. Dean Douglas was a completely ******ed idea that went over like a fart in church, but McMahon still signed him.

Because he was over with the idiots of ECW? Yeah that must be it. Had nothing to do with his impressive mic skills.

The Ringmaster was another prime one, but Austin wasn't even given a call until after ECW. He'd been out of WCW for quite sometime, though, but his phone was ringing off the hook with offers from Titan until after his ECW stint.

Yeah, I call bullshit. Id like to know how you got stone colds phone records...

Same with Foley while he was toiling away on the indy circuit and damn near killing himself in Japan. WCW and WWF didn't give a rat's ass until after his stint in ECW. Are you noticing the pattern, yet?

Excuse me? Yeah because Cactus Jack wasnt doing anything in wrestling till 1994. Never faced Vader in WCW, or Ron Simmons, or anyone there. That never happened.

Well, if the reaction is unintended, then you've failed. Just like when Cena was getting booed in his program with Angle and Christian in 2005. He was over in the wrong end of the spectrum, so things were re-shuffled in terms of booking, so it didn't really look like mission accomplished to me. Just like when WCW tried turning Sting heel for five minutes back in the late '90s. It didn't work because the fans never bought it and the angles suffered because of it when they couldn't get him over the way they wanted. Vince figured that the ECW faithful would respect his top guys, but was sorely mistaken when they did nothing but insult their work shoot-style and heckle them the entire match.

So I guess Stone Cold is a huge failure. Being booked as a heel for all that time. Beating up a cripple on TV, etc. Yeah, what a COLOSSAL FAILURE.

Fine, then let me rephrase that. Properly orchestrated highspots get over with any crowd. Cruiserweight wrestling and things of the sort can get as over as you can get, but if direct focus and proper booking aren't on the menu, then they'll get over as much as the next failed outing, whether it be heavyweight or other.

In the big leagues this applies, but not in TNA or ECW.

By comparison to Foley he did shit. He just threw him off the cage and chokeslammed him through it. He didn't take any of the highlight-caliber bumps in a class anywhere near the suicidal shit Foley did that night doing an ECW sendup. So what I said was no more stupid than your blind defense of that match over anything done in ECW along those lines. It wasn't anymore of a "story" told in the ring than a number of hardcore ECW matches. The difference was that J.R. was behind the mic spitting out pre-fed lines from Vince McMahon. It was Foley doing a New Jack and all the WWE marks eating it up just for the fact that it was done in WWE and they weren't clued into ECW. Hardcore is hardcore, not matter what size the building is, or what promotion it's from.

Yeah I know that if FOley just went out there by himsef the match would have been just as good....

Carlito and Masters are about even these days.

The crowd reaction says different. Carito gets nice pops, Masters barely gets any boos.

London has a snowball's chance in hell of getting more over than the top guy on Smackdown as he's wrestling in a heavyweight-centric company that doesn't give two shits about juniors as is.

Yeah man, the WWE hates guys unless they are 240lbs. Unless your name is Ric Flair, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio, and Eddie Guerrero.

Hey, reading a timeline of events is pretty goddamn factual to me. Looking at a set of companies all of a sudden inputting new divisions and taking athletes from another company is very obvious to see. Seeing them change their overall show format and company direction, when the company their pillaging from was doing it before them is also easy to see. WWE and WCW wouldn't be what they are today if not for ECW.

Timeline of events? You disregaurd every big motherfucker who was over like gangbusters then and you call that reading a timeline of events?

Once again, re-read. This isn't the ratings sheet where 2005 and 2007 are reversed and you still deny numbers sitting in front of you. You made my point for me. Thank you.

You proved nothing. All you did was admit I took your obviously incorrect statement literally which isnt what YOU wanted. What does that prove other than your arguming skills suck?

Why not have the bad guy win cleanly for once? Something fresh. Something that hasn't been bled to death forever. And Cena/Umaga is a joke and waste of Umaga's talents. And the Flair/Savage angle got outpopped by Hogan and Sid of all things at the Hoosier, so there goes audience selection for you. Not saying I didn't appreciate the effort, but what the masses want isn't always what I'd consider to be solid work.

Oh yeah I know bad guys win cleanly all the time. Didnt the Romans capture Jesus by walking up to him and saying, "Hey were gonna kill you, come with us if thats ok?" Heels dont win cleanly because they are heels. Why not ask why we dont have 8 toes? I mean its different right? And anything different is automatically good....

Hogan is disqualified because the time frame I'm speaking of is pre-1975 when a guy like Thesz would actually get a shot. As for the rest of them, being tall and fat isn't the same as what came after the steroid revolution in the '70s. If small guys were always getting the same quality of pushes in those days, then we would've seen cruiserweights taking on guys like Billy Graham. Alas, we weren't.

Thats ONE NAME out of the rest i mentioned, try again....

No. Everyone just tuned out, period. He went from being able to generate a 15 rating on SNME, to barely pulling a 2 with his flagship show on Monday nights with he and WCW eventually fighting for a year and a half over basement table scrap ratings, until WCW got their shit together. He didn't plan for the future when he geared some of the top spots in the company around juicers and then all of a sudden had to have a fire sale when the fuzz was at his door. This is why you saw the "new generation" take over within about a year's time and the entire face of the company was changed. Their buyrates and gates didn't increase until after they lifted the ECW style for their shows in 1996 and 7. I still remember attending a house show in 1995, where 3/4 of the arena was shut off and they just used mobile bleachers to house the few thousand who actually bothered to show up. They barely even had entrance music that night, even if the wrestling was really good.

And im sure you have proof of this.....

There is a difference between pushing the buttons of conservatives with an edgy product and having an awesome, but rather tame (by comparison) speech ala The Snake. There was no shooting. Piper gave the same kinds of energetic promos that were a dime a dozen in those days. Not that I don't find some of them good, but they were hardly edgy by comparison to standard ECW fare.

Dude, it's the 1980s. That shit hadnt been heard before. But it all got used again...in ecw.

Really? Okay. Let me list the same "facts" for you.

WWF & WCW product pre-1997: tame
ECW product 1994 and on: edgy

Opinion...

WCW marketing cruiserweights: 1996 and on

So I guess Brian Pillman won the LHW title from a HW wrestler then. There were no light HWs there....

WWF's hardcore division: established 1998
WCW's hardcore division: established 1999
ECW's switch to hardcore wrestling: established 1994

And notice how long the FAD lasted in WWE and WCW.

And once again, youre ignoring the fact that WCW and WWE copied someone who wasnt getting any exposure. Failing in their respective ratings and failing to draw people outside of the east coast. In school did you cheat off the dumb kid?

 

[Kasey]

January 4, 2007 1.1
January 11, 2007 1.1
January 18, 2007 1.1
January 24, 2007 0.8

Notice the most recent one? Also, take into account the fact that that telecast that scored the .8 was pre-empted due to UFC action that night and was switched to another night. Ever checked Raw's ratings when they've been pre-empted or moved to another night? They never stay consistent either. Notice the most recent ones...WHERE THEY RETURN TO NORMAL? Wonder why that is? Maybe because they're back on their normal night?

Yet Sting was signed AFTER the Spike deal....

That doesn't mean dick when the reports of him being approached happened before they aired on Spike. Also, what do you think was the purpose for him being signed, anyway? Because Dixie and Jeff didn't have faith in the lockerroom? They needed him to get on TV. Simple as that.

Dave Meltzer reported RVD would go over Edge last year at their PPV meeting. He not only said that, he said it would be a match of a lot of high spots, and it would be the MAIN EVENT. He was wrong on EVERY ACCOUNT.

And it could easily be argued that McMahon changed it as a result of the reports. And how many other times has he been right? Oh, you wouldn't really know because you don't check the news portion of the sites.

"News" like "Carlito being in the doghouse" isnt news. It's guesswork with there being no way to prove it.

And there is no way to disprove it, either. However, you can typically put two and two together when you see someone's win/loss record affected in terms of clean losses when they've been reprimanded by the office. CM Punk and RVD are the most recent examples of this.

How about the "news" that Kevin Dunn pulled JR from the RR calling when the man himself refuted it. Yeah, thats ace detective work there...

And why would J.R. say anything to the contrary? So he could call out Kevin Dunn and start a shitstorm that could get him fired? Their biggest goal is to make everything seem like peaches and cream behind the scenes...even if it isn't.

Bret Hart ignored his family too, I guess he's pathetic too. Just because you disagree with his choices on moral grounds. That doesnt mean the movie wasnt full of spin.

He did more than just ignore them, but then again, you don't see me championing his morality do you? I keep my discussions on him limited to the wrestling business aspect of his life. As far as the spin goes, if Jake wasn't a crackhead who was afraid of his own daughter and pissed a promising career down the drain, there'd be nothing of the sort on that film, would there?

Eating nothing but burgers will lead to a Vitamin K difficency and will kill you. Not to mention all of the fat in it. Yeah thats so good for you....
Both have up and downsides.

And doing nothing but smoking cigarettes will help you live longer? One is the lesser of two evils by a landslide. No matter how you want to cut it. One is food. The other is a carcinogenic stimulant that serves ZERO nutritional purpose. I'll take the Riboflavin deficiency over starvation and lung cancer any day of the week.

And you disreguard the fact that Vince was sending all of the top stars over there to make sure people watched. What happened as soon as the crossover stuff stopped? The ratings dropped like a rock.

Or maybe because the booking was shit as a whole? I like Angle as much as the next fan, but having an ECW perennial like Polaco job to him at lighspeed doesn't say shit for the spirit of competition that ECW was built on. Neither do DQ's and countouts in a company with EXTREME in the title that was built on always giving you a pinfall or submission. Instead of giving fans what they promised with ECW, they gave them the table scraps from Raw and Smackdown and just plastered a few of the old ECW alumni in there to try and give it legitimacy. I called it ON THIS BOARD last summer after the first two weeks I watched when I said that even though RVD is on the top spot, the company will see this show take a staunch nosedive because they put it together like shit. And lo and behold? I was right on all fronts.

Yes they stole the thunder of being over with 500 fans....

Yes, they did.

Because he was over with the idiots of ECW? Yeah that must be it. Had nothing to do with his impressive mic skills.

Skills that could've been used when Douglas was already in the company in 1991 or in his two tenures with NWA/WCW, right? Why not use them then? Oh, because they didn't know how to pour piss from a boot when it came to procuring them. McMahon even bungled Douglas' second tenure up when he had a personality custom built from ECW that would've changed the face of the business had it had the exposure the WWF provided. But no, he was instead being Matt Striker in 1995, boring the hell out of American wrestling fans and wasting his talent.

Yeah, I call bullshit. Id like to know how you got stone colds phone records...

I didn't have to. I watched a WWE FUNDED documentary of all things where he said it HIMSELF.

Excuse me? Yeah because Cactus Jack wasnt doing anything in wrestling till 1994. Never faced Vader in WCW, or Ron Simmons, or anyone there. That never happened.

Yeah, because Cowboy Watts' mini-push and his midcard destiny under the Flair/Bischoff regime is definitely what got him noticed by McMahon seeing as Vince snapped him up right after that. Oh, no that was two years later, AFTER ECW.

So I guess Stone Cold is a huge failure. Being booked as a heel for all that time. Beating up a cripple on TV, etc. Yeah, what a COLOSSAL FAILURE.

Yes, because that stuff got him a quick ticket to Monday Night Raw and unlimited fame and fortune, right? Oh, no. It didn't. He instead got shitcanned via telegram and was allowed to re-invent himself in ECW doing a character he wanted to do (Stone Cold), and then finally getting the attention of VKM.

In the big leagues this applies, but not in TNA or ECW.

Oh, yes, because WCW's cruiserweights were never over and appreciated for their work in the ring.

Yeah I know that if FOley just went out there by himsef the match would have been just as good....

Actually, anyone who can push someone off a cage or chokeslam a guy could've been out there. It's not the storytelling tour de force you claim it to be. It was a hardcore match that drew thunderous ovation. That's it.

The crowd reaction says different. Carito gets nice pops, Masters barely gets any boos.

You hear what you hear. Carlito gets a fraction of the response I think he would if he were booked properly and able to use some of his natural heel charm like he did in the beginning. His in-ring skills have been used better as of late and he looks WAY more comfortable in the ring, but he's still drawing a fraction of what he could in terms of resonse.

Yeah man, the WWE hates guys unless they are 240lbs. Unless your name is Ric Flair, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio, and Eddie Guerrero.

And where did the last four of those come from? Eddie also had to juice up to make the requisite weight as he was still a lowly cruiserweight upon entering the WWE. Flair, Hart, and Michaels are both at or around 240. Michaels only gets the push at his lighter weight now because of his reputation and past accolades. He was twenty pounds heavier in his prime, and even heavier than that in his earlier days.

Timeline of events? You disregaurd every big motherfucker who was over like gangbusters then and you call that reading a timeline of events?

Over and PUSHED. Remember the difference?

You proved nothing. All you did was admit I took your obviously incorrect statement literally which isnt what YOU wanted. What does that prove other than your arguming skills suck?

That your observation sucks. Wanna go read me some more ratings sheets while you're at it?

Oh yeah I know bad guys win cleanly all the time. Didnt the Romans capture Jesus by walking up to him and saying, "Hey were gonna kill you, come with us if thats ok?" Heels dont win cleanly because they are heels. Why not ask why we dont have 8 toes? I mean its different right? And anything different is automatically good....

Maybe because it's not the same boring bullshit we've seen for ages? ECW used to actually have the face have to take some lumps and for the heel to be a credible threat. Not just some chickenshit weaseling his way to a belt he can't hold onto at the first sign that a good guy walks into the room.

Thats ONE NAME out of the rest i mentioned, try again....

None of the names you mentioned are as short or as small as the guys who came to prominence after ECW was in full effect.

And im sure you have proof of this.....

Of the ratings? Google it. SNME scored a 15 in 1988. As far as the steroid trial? Look at what happened with regards to the push of Bret Hart. He drops the title to a roided-up Smith at SS 1992, only to be elevated only a couple of months later to being the top guy in the entire company, while the pushed Bulldog is escorted quietly out the back door? Meanwhile, Warrior is also flaking out and is not worth the steroid hype he'd gotten since his debut in 1987. Look at the lineup he used for a few years after that. Waltman, Hall, Jarrett, Yokozuna, Nash. The one glaring exception was Lex Luger.

Dude, it's the 1980s. That shit hadnt been heard before. But it all got used again...in ecw.

Yes, because all the shoot promos that guys like Douglas cut were just commonplace in the business in the 1980s. Yeah.

Opinion...

No. Fact.

So I guess Brian Pillman won the LHW title from a HW wrestler then. There were no light HWs there....

There were only a handful of guys in a division that lasted how long there? Some impact, right? Heyman saw that using technical standouts, luchadors, and puroresu competitors was the way to go. Eventually, so did Eric and Vince.

WWF's hardcore division: established 1998
WCW's hardcore division: established 1999
ECW's switch to hardcore wrestling: established 1994

And notice how long the FAD lasted in WWE and WCW.

And once again, youre ignoring the fact that WCW and WWE copied someone who wasnt getting any exposure. Failing in their respective ratings and failing to draw people outside of the east coast. In school did you cheat off the dumb kid?

Yeah, that fad lasted so long because Vince and Eric put a hell of a lot of thought into it. Especially when Crash Holly was winning the title in hotel rooms and amusement centers. Man, I don't know why THAT didn't set the world on fire and bring credibility to the divison. Or maybe it was the belt changing hands multiple times in one evening in a matter of minutes? As for WCW, they're end-all scheme for using the ECW-bred concept of hadcore resulted in guys like Norman Smiley wearing football pads and a helmet. That's just it. Heyman wasn't the dumb kid. In fact, he fed a shitload of ideas to the larger companies that issued the biggest boom wrestling had seen since 1985.

 

[Downward Spiral]

Showtyme, like I said, we have covered everything there is to cover in that topic, so I will just say that I have never seen an Impact show and have only seen 2 TNA PPV's (Slammiversary 2005 or 2006 and Turning Point 2005 and I didn't know most of their names) so I have only seen AJ wrestle on youtube.

I know the kid has got talent, but I don't think he is at the top yet, when they could have elevated him EVEN higher by making him look just as good as Kurt Angle in EVERYONE'S eyes. Most WWE fans don't know who the hell he is so imagine if fans new to the product saw that that guy could go up against the Olympic Hero and arguably the greatest wrestler of our time.

But they made him look weak against him (a 5 minute squash is pitiful against anyone) so they didn't take the chance that was glaringly there and have now stuck him in some crappy wuss gimmick that the fans haven't really gotten into by the sounds of it. They could have made AJ Styles a better known name to the majority of the wrestling audience, simply by making him look good against Angle, which is very easy because it is just Angle selling the offense that he gives him.

He hasn't reached the top yet in that regard when he could have gone a step further. We will have to wait until the next topic now. Kasey and Kaedon will just dig up whatever they can to argue though.

 

[showtyme27]

That's also kind of my point AJ Styles hasn't reached his prime and if you ever see some of the guys ROH and eariler TNA stuff you'd understand that AJ Styles IS a primetime player, he IS one of the most talented in ring preformers that us wrestling fans have been blessed too see, and well I think he is slightly overrated by his super devoted fans (claiming he is byfar the best wrestler, the most entertaining, and most talented naturaly athletic guy wallign the planet)(trust me it's fans out there who will agree you down about this), he still is one of the top stars in wrestling today and he's so young and gifted that he will only get better and that's what makes AJ so great right now TNA want's to get over that dumbass heel gimmick of his but make no mistake AJ is still one of the top wrestlers in the world, but like I said before I totally agree with you about the way AJ was used and will by precived by fans that are new to TNA and I think that's where TNA dropped the ball the most, but if YOU want to truly see what AJ is capable of then I recommend you buy his TNA DVD and some old ROH DVD's and you'd see alot of TNA guys in a different light like Alex Shelley, Jay Lethal, Senshi/Low-Ki, Austin Starr/Austin Aires, AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels to name a few so happy hunting man and I look forward to our next debate.........

 

[rhcp22]

I don't know, for some reason I just have the feeling TNA is going to have one hell of a time putting over their talent (that didn't come from WWE) and making them stars like Stone Cold, the Rock, etc. Their biggest stars right now are Kurt Angle, Sting, Christian, and Samoa Joe. Two of whom became famous in the WWE. One of whom has been famous for over a decade (in WCW/NWA). That leaves Samoa Joe. This is the only homegrown superstar that TNA has made.

When people talk about TNA what to they talk about 3/4 of the time? They talk about wrestlers leaving WWE for TNA because they know this is the only way TNA is going to get big (thats the only way WCW got big). Its retarted if you think about it. I mean people watch WWE make these guys into huge stars then when the stars leave they act like they are famous because of TNA (or WCW or wherever they go).

I'm not saying WWE has the right to put out a crappy product though I totally agree. I find myself looking through the sattelite guide during RAW more and more because of all the crap. 20 minute promos with Edge and Orton where Edge says the exact same thing EVERY TIME! Womens wrestling matches that are BORING!! If I wanna get a hard on I'll watch porn! Don't get me wrong, TNA is a good thing, I just wish they would push some of their own stars and worry less about signing WWE washed up old stars like hogan, scott steiner, etc.

 

[showtyme27]

I don't know, for some reason I just have the feeling TNA is going to have one hell of a time putting over their talent (that didn't come from WWE) and making them stars like Stone Cold, the Rock, etc. Their biggest stars right now are Kurt Angle, Sting, Christian, and Samoa Joe. Two of whom became famous in the WWE. One of whom has been famous for over a decade (in WCW/NWA). That leaves Samoa Joe. This is the only homegrown superstar that TNA has made.

When people talk about TNA what to they talk about 3/4 of the time? They talk about wrestlers leaving WWE for TNA because they know this is the only way TNA is going to get big (thats the only way WCW got big). Its retarted if you think about it. I mean people watch WWE make these guys into huge stars then when the stars leave they act like they are famous because of TNA (or WCW or wherever they go).

I'm not saying WWE has the right to put out a crappy product though I totally agree. I find myself looking through the sattelite guide during RAW more and more because of all the crap. 20 minute promos with Edge and Orton where Edge says the exact same thing EVERY TIME! Womens wrestling matches that are BORING!! If I wanna get a hard on I'll watch porn! Don't get me wrong, TNA is a good thing, I just wish they would push some of their own stars and worry less about signing WWE washed up old stars like hogan, scott steiner, etc.

This is the exact same thing I was tring to say all of TNA's top talent right now got famous elsewhere, TNA should be signing and pushing talent that haven't made their mark in the big two WWE and WCW, ECW doesn't count do to the fact that it was never as popular as WCW or WWE (even though I loved it), I look around the TNA threads and everybody thinks TNA should be signing guys like RVD, Rey Mysterio, Chris Beniot, the Old ass ECW Origanals, and many other top WWE/WCW talent these guys will always be known for making their mark in WWE/WCW they will never fully be TNA superstars, I think TNA should be tring to sign guys like Bryan Danielson, Doug Williams, Jimmy Rave, John Walters, the Briscoe Brothers, the SAT/Los Maximos and the Amazing Red, and the list goes on and on guys that will be known for becoming famous in ROH(which not many people know about or able to watch)/TNA unstead of the same old guys we've already seen in a WCW or WWE ring.

 

[Kaedon]

Notice the most recent one? Also, take into account the fact that that telecast that scored the .8 was pre-empted due to UFC action that night and was switched to another night. Ever checked Raw's ratings when they've been pre-empted or moved to another night? They never stay consistent either. Notice the most recent ones...WHERE THEY RETURN TO NORMAL? Wonder why that is? Maybe because they're back on their normal night?

The last 2 are a 1.0 and a 1.1. Still fluctruation. They were consistant for 3 weeks, never any more.

That doesn't mean dick when the reports of him being approached happened before they aired on Spike. Also, what do you think was the purpose for him being signed, anyway? Because Dixie and Jeff didn't have faith in the lockerroom? They needed him to get on TV. Simple as that.

Reports from unreliable news sources like Dave Meltzer and wikipedia?

And it could easily be argued that McMahon changed it as a result of the reports. And how many other times has he been right? Oh, you wouldn't really know because you don't check the news portion of the sites.


And there is no way to disprove it, either. However, you can typically put two and two together when you see someone's win/loss record affected in terms of clean losses when they've been reprimanded by the office. CM Punk and RVD are the most recent examples of this.

And why would J.R. say anything to the contrary? So he could call out Kevin Dunn and start a shitstorm that could get him fired? Their biggest goal is to make everything seem like peaches and cream behind the scenes...even if it isn't.

So youre theory is, if it cant be proven false it must be true?

He did more than just ignore them, but then again, you don't see me championing his morality do you? I keep my discussions on him limited to the wrestling business aspect of his life. As far as the spin goes, if Jake wasn't a crackhead who was afraid of his own daughter and pissed a promising career down the drain, there'd be nothing of the sort on that film, would there?

I also dont see you attacking Bret like you are Jake....

And doing nothing but smoking cigarettes will help you live longer? One is the lesser of two evils by a landslide. No matter how you want to cut it. One is food. The other is a carcinogenic stimulant that serves ZERO nutritional purpose. I'll take the Riboflavin deficiency over starvation and lung cancer any day of the week.

If you happen to have Inflamitory Bowel you would end up with a lot wrose problems, not to mention the Vitamin K problem. Neither are the best for you. So because one isnt as bad as the other, its good?

Or maybe because the booking was shit as a whole? I like Angle as much as the next fan, but having an ECW perennial like Polaco job to him at lighspeed doesn't say shit for the spirit of competition that ECW was built on. Neither do DQ's and countouts in a company with EXTREME in the title that was built on always giving you a pinfall or submission. Instead of giving fans what they promised with ECW, they gave them the table scraps from Raw and Smackdown and just plastered a few of the old ECW alumni in there to try and give it legitimacy. I called it ON THIS BOARD last summer after the first two weeks I watched when I said that even though RVD is on the top spot, the company will see this show take a staunch nosedive because they put it together like shit. And lo and behold? I was right on all fronts.

Because the ECW originals cant draw a mass audience and Vince more than likely understood this.

Yes, they did.

No, they didnt.

Skills that could've been used when Douglas was already in the company in 1991 or in his two tenures with NWA/WCW, right? Why not use them then? Oh, because they didn't know how to pour piss from a boot when it came to procuring them. McMahon even bungled Douglas' second tenure up when he had a personality custom built from ECW that would've changed the face of the business had it had the exposure the WWF provided. But no, he was instead being Matt Striker in 1995, boring the hell out of American wrestling fans and wasting his talent.

You dont get a chance to rock the mic when you have some other guys hogging the time. Yeah, he got that in ECW. But that means if all he needed was a chance, he could have been in any po-dunk indy fed and gotten the time. It just so happened to be ECW.

I didn't have to. I watched a WWE FUNDED documentary of all things where he said it HIMSELF.

Notice the words himself never say ECW made him or he was "stolen" from ECW nor does he give as much credit for then making him as you do.

Yeah, because Cowboy Watts' mini-push and his midcard destiny under the Flair/Bischoff regime is definitely what got him noticed by McMahon seeing as Vince snapped him up right after that. Oh, no that was two years later, AFTER ECW.

My point was he was still there. You made it sound like Foley never did anything stateside before ECW, which is an outright LIE.

Yes, because that stuff got him a quick ticket to Monday Night Raw and unlimited fame and fortune, right? Oh, no. It didn't. He instead got shitcanned via telegram and was allowed to re-invent himself in ECW doing a character he wanted to do (Stone Cold), and then finally getting the attention of VKM.

I meant Austin being pushed as a heel and the fans turning him face. You said when you dont "get the correct response" its a failure. Therefore Austin 3:16 and everything he did thereafter is "a failure".

Oh, yes, because WCW's cruiserweights were never over and appreciated for their work in the ring.

They were properly orchestrated in WCW.

Actually, anyone who can push someone off a cage or chokeslam a guy could've been out there. It's not the storytelling tour de force you claim it to be. It was a hardcore match that drew thunderous ovation. That's it.

Yet my theory about Y2J/Benjamin is wrong......

You hear what you hear. Carlito gets a fraction of the response I think he would if he were booked properly and able to use some of his natural heel charm like he did in the beginning. His in-ring skills have been used better as of late and he looks WAY more comfortable in the ring, but he's still drawing a fraction of what he could in terms of resonse.

Yes he could get more, but he gets way more than Masters, which is a fact.

And where did the last four of those come from? Eddie also had to juice up to make the requisite weight as he was still a lowly cruiserweight upon entering the WWE. Flair, Hart, and Michaels are both at or around 240. Michaels only gets the push at his lighter weight now because of his reputation and past accolades. He was twenty pounds heavier in his prime, and even heavier than that in his earlier days.

Bret never went over 235. Flair was BARELY at 240 after 1990. And if 240 is so big, was Harley Race at 260 a SUPER DUPER HEAVYWEIGHT? No. You just cant fess up to the fact that smaller guys did get over and get titles before ECW.

Over and PUSHED. Remember the difference?

Oh yeah man, Andre and the rest of them never got pushed. Oh no way.....

That your observation sucks. Wanna go read me some more ratings sheets while you're at it?

Apparently I need to read them to you because a .8 and a 1.1 is the same to you...

Maybe because it's not the same boring bullshit we've seen for ages? ECW used to actually have the face have to take some lumps and for the heel to be a credible threat. Not just some chickenshit weaseling his way to a belt he can't hold onto at the first sign that a good guy walks into the room.

Oh yeah Flair never took lumps from anyone, nor did Hogan.......

None of the names you mentioned are as short or as small as the guys who came to prominence after ECW was in full effect.

Lou Thez 230, Chris Benoit 235-240

Of the ratings? Google it. SNME scored a 15 in 1988. As far as the steroid trial? Look at what happened with regards to the push of Bret Hart. He drops the title to a roided-up Smith at SS 1992, only to be elevated only a couple of months later to being the top guy in the entire company, while the pushed Bulldog is escorted quietly out the back door? Meanwhile, Warrior is also flaking out and is not worth the steroid hype he'd gotten since his debut in 1987. Look at the lineup he used for a few years after that. Waltman, Hall, Jarrett, Yokozuna, Nash. The one glaring exception was Lex Luger.

Yea I will go ahead and just look around on the internet. I hear Tripod.com sites have really good ratings reports.

Yes, because all the shoot promos that guys like Douglas cut were just commonplace in the business in the 1980s. Yeah.

Piper admitted in his DVDs that a lot of his promos were shoots. Do you think Pipers racial slurs at Mr. T were scripted?

No. Fact.

Thats what an opinion is, no fact.

There were only a handful of guys in a division that lasted how long there? Some impact, right? Heyman saw that using technical standouts, luchadors, and puroresu competitors was the way to go. Eventually, so did Eric and Vince.

Point remains, they were still there. You said WCW didnt have a CW division till AFTER ECW, that is wrong.

Yeah, that fad lasted so long because Vince and Eric put a hell of a lot of thought into it. Especially when Crash Holly was winning the title in hotel rooms and amusement centers. Man, I don't know why THAT didn't set the world on fire and bring credibility to the divison. Or maybe it was the belt changing hands multiple times in one evening in a matter of minutes? As for WCW, they're end-all scheme for using the ECW-bred concept of hadcore resulted in guys like Norman Smiley wearing football pads and a helmet. That's just it. Heyman wasn't the dumb kid. In fact, he fed a shitload of ideas to the larger companies that issued the biggest boom wrestling had seen since 1985.

Oh so it had nothing to do with the fact that it was the same shit everytime? Just like ECW? Weapons glaore and unless Foley or someone GOOD was involved in the match, no psychology?

 

[Kasey]

The last 2 are a 1.0 and a 1.1. Still fluctruation. They were consistant for 3 weeks, never any more.

So what is the statute of limitations before you'll denote consistency? When is TNA allowed to declare ratings victory, according to the almighty Kaedon?

Reports from unreliable news sources like Dave Meltzer and wikipedia?

Try a boatload of other reporting sites, with Meltzer being one of them. Even Dan Rather has a foulup now and then...and he's on national TV reporting news. Reliability is gradeable like anything else. Wikipedia is DECENT for history at times...when the article has been verified WITH SOURCES. However, Meltzer hasn't received his reputation in the reporting field and had his name out there so long because he's always been doubted. He's pissed off the major companies for a long time because he's let more than his share of cats out of the proverbial bag with regards to shit they wanted kept under wraps. A prediction on a push or match outcome doesn't necessarily disprove that it wasn't the tentative plan at the time. Just like Hogan was reported to be at WM this year against Khali. Now, he's not.

So youre theory is, if it cant be proven false it must be true?

I'm saying there is a definite possibility that where there is smoke, there is indeed fire. Do I ALWAYS take it as gospel? No. There have been a massive amount of internet reports that were indeed proven true. Including huge reports about WCW's sale to McMahon the day the ink dried, all the way down to Curt Henning's 1997 Nitro debut being let out of the bag weeks in advance on THIS VERY SITE and tons more beyond that. A prediction regarding a push or a roster move is usually on the button more often than not from Meltzer or other guys doing the reporting, but I wouldn't expect you to be able to make a distinction, considering you say you don't always visit the news reports, if at all.

I also dont see you attacking Bret like you are Jake....

I attack Jake's personal issues when someone defends his character. How often do people come on here discussing with me whether Bret Hart was husband of the year? They don't. The usual topics revolve around wrestling. The only time I'll bust out a particular factoid is if I find it relevant to a point I might be making. But I don't just run around the boards screaming "Jake's a dirty crackhead." Do I think Jake was an amazing performer? Hell, yes I do. Bar none of the best of all time regarding his persona and in-ring stylings. If it weren't for his substance issues, he'd have been the top heel of the 90's as far as I'm concerned. As for Bret, there are some little tidbits I've heard, seen (in shoot interviews) and read that paint a different picture than what a lot of people think.

If you happen to have Inflamitory Bowel you would end up with a lot wrose problems, not to mention the Vitamin K problem. Neither are the best for you. So because one isnt as bad as the other, its good?

No. A lesser of two evils. I don't have inflammatory bowel, so it makes no difference to me. I can survive on nothing but cheeseburgers. I can't on smokes. That's all I was trying to get across. Don't get me wrong, man. I'm a health nut and I hate both, but if held at gunpoint the Big Mac sounds better to me than a pack of Camels, is all.

Because the ECW originals cant draw a mass audience and Vince more than likely understood this.

How would you know whether or not they could draw if booked right? They have never had as much of a chance as some of the others in the company. With the exception of RVD's moment in the sun before his pot bust, how many of the ECW originals who came over during the acquisition got top spots? Just like a lot of the WCW stalwarts during that time, they were lost in a sea of burials, with Booker T being one of the only survivors himself after a few years of midcard table scraps. Besides, how does it validate the company you're trying to rebuild and the legacy you're trying to keep going, when you take one of it's key players and invalidate him and his title reigns in the span of one match? That really says a lot for intelligent booking. If they were going to have ECW's old guys being nothing but roadkill for the WWE guys, why even call it ECW? It says "Wow, why watch this company of guys who suck when you should instead be watching our A shows?"

No, they didnt.

Yes, they did 2x10.

You dont get a chance to rock the mic when you have some other guys hogging the time. Yeah, he got that in ECW. But that means if all he needed was a chance, he could have been in any po-dunk indy fed and gotten the time. It just so happened to be ECW.

They'd already had three chances between them (WCW and WWF) to do something with Shane BEFORE he even got into ECW and they didn't. So what, they all of a sudden came to their senses and Vince felt he needed him all of a sudden? Truth is he had zero clue how to use him and saw what Paul did with him. Just like with a handful of others he took.

Notice the words himself never say ECW made him or he was "stolen" from ECW nor does he give as much credit for then making him as you do.

Really? Because I'm positive that without ECW Austin would've had a cushy spot waiting for him up in Stamford, seeing as they were knocking down his door with a job after getting booted out of WCW.

My point was he was still there. You made it sound like Foley never did anything stateside before ECW, which is an outright LIE.

There is a difference between being a midcard skidmark used in angles that almost never relied around a top spot to being the WWF Champion more than once and having that come coincidentally AFTER being in ECW. I'm not making this stuff up. It happened.

I meant Austin being pushed as a heel and the fans turning him face. You said when you dont "get the correct response" its a failure. Therefore Austin 3:16 and everything he did thereafter is "a failure".

He had become a tweener because they were simultaneously turning Bret bad because his old schtick wasn't working anymore with a changing climate of the audience. So in the place of one match they turned Austin from a edge-straddling tweener to being a bona fide face after WM13. That was the plan and it worked to fruition. It was no accident.

They were properly orchestrated in WCW.

Because of the example set forth by Heyman's booking, hence the direct talent transplant that worked like a fucking charm as the title had clout. The previous effort for a light division revolved around guys who weren't even suited for high-flying work with the exception of Liger and Pillman, which was hardly enough to build a division around, considering the other focuses were Levy and Armstrong.

Yet my theory about Y2J/Benjamin is wrong......

There is a difference between a midcard IC title match on Raw having the top spot be a slingshot bulldog as opposed to a guy nearly falling to his death...twice. Which one do you think would draw more of an ovation?

Yes he could get more, but he gets way more than Masters, which is a fact.

You're probably right about the present. I will say that it has varied though in terms of the past year. There have been times when Masters gets noticeably more heat than Carlito can get pops. And I've also seen where either of them get a shit reaction in terms of their matches.

Bret never went over 235. Flair was BARELY at 240 after 1990. And if 240 is so big, was Harley Race at 260 a SUPER DUPER HEAVYWEIGHT? No. You just cant fess up to the fact that smaller guys did get over and get titles before ECW.

Guys as small and as short as Dean Malenko and Eddy? How about Benoit in his earlier days with WCW when they started him as a cruiserweight? Bret being six feet and 230 is hardly small. Same for Flair. Eddy was my height, for pete's sake. Mysterio is the height of my wife. And you just can't fess up to the fact that small guys didn't get the rub. We can argue this over and over again, if you wish.

Oh yeah man, Andre and the rest of them never got pushed. Oh no way.....

Did I ever dispute whether or not that sideshow anomaly wasn't pushed? No. He's obviously out of the classification of the size of guys we were discussing.

Apparently I need to read them to you because a .8 and a 1.1 is the same to you...

No, you obviously didn't watch the TNA episode to realize that it was PRE-EMPTED. That means, not ON and moved to another time. Thus explaining the one week drop and miraculous recovery. Imagine that?

Oh yeah Flair never took lumps from anyone, nor did Hogan.......

Flair or Hogan blading is nowhere near on par with half of the shit done on an ECW card and it is downright insane to insinuate it is. Their style of working was primarily geared around in-ring work with a moderate amount of outside work (on mats). ECW involved loads of other goodies like ladders that Hogan has never touched, and Flair didn't touch until just recently.

Lou Thez 230, Chris Benoit 235-240

Lou Thesz 220-225. Chris Benoit 235-240 WHEN HE GOT PUSHED. Chris Benoit 220, BEFORE HE GOT PUSHED.

Yea I will go ahead and just look around on the internet. I hear Tripod.com sites have really good ratings reports.

Knock yourself out.

Piper admitted in his DVDs that a lot of his promos were shoots. Do you think Pipers racial slurs at Mr. T were scripted?

You could call any promo in those days a shoot as it wasn't until the nineties when McMahon began having those guys do pre-planned promos. Making racial slurs at a guy is different in nature than the shoot atmosphere of guys like Douglas directly calling out someone else in the other major company numerous times (Flair) and talking severe smack. Do you think that McMahon would've let Pillman show up on Raw right after his WCW departure saying the stuff he did about Bischoff during his five minutes in ECW? No way. And there is a staunch difference between slipping in some racial ribs to hit someone and completely abandoning the concepts of old-school kayfabe where people wouldn't even acknowledge another company's existence, let alone get a wrestler on the mic and have him call them out. Even Vince blurred the WCW title when Flair wore it on WWF tv. Bischoff took a cue from Heyman's style and had Madusa shitcan the WWF Women's belt on LIVE TV.

Thats what an opinion is, no fact.

Ignore the comma. That was clever, though. Almost had me.

Point remains, they were still there. You said WCW didnt have a CW division till AFTER ECW, that is wrong.

That you even call that a division is hilarious. Five guys who they didn't know what to do with is loads different from what WCW recreated the second time around due to a direct pilfering of talent from ECW and eventually from other organizations. And I'm talking about reference to a SUCCESSFUL division. One that actually lasts past a year. Do you even think that WCW was even in the market to start a CW division until they saw what happened in ECW? No. They had direct ties with NJPW for years and could've began importing all of the talent way back when the Super J Cup was in its infancy.

Oh so it had nothing to do with the fact that it was the same shit everytime? Just like ECW? Weapons glaore and unless Foley or someone GOOD was involved in the match, no psychology?

They threw ZERO effort into making it a credible division, so of course it's gonna fail. They let Foley kickstart the damn thing and then after that it got as much thought as a future push for the Bushwackers. They threw guys in the division they didn't know what to do with elsewhere instead of trying to focus on bettering it. How do you expect a title and a division to get over when it's nothing more than a junkyard? And like you said, no one GOOD was even usually in the matches. Sure, they had some obligatorily good encounters when guys like RVD, Taz, and Angle were there, but those didn't last long. If they'd have sunk at least a portion of the effort into making that division (especially with all the talent they had from WCW and ECW) it could've been five times better than it was.