Why the IWC's suggestions are so terrible

[Tastycles]

I've been talking about wrestling on the internet for a long time now, and time and again the same ideas come up from various members of the board which rarely see the light of day in major companies. My aim here is to try to explain once and for all, why these ideas aren't very good from a business point of view.

Stables

Yeah, there's been a few exceptions over the years, but for every D-Generation X there's 5 Oddities. Very few face stables ever work, straight off the bat, because the whole point of faces is that they overcome adversity. If you've got three mates backing you in every fight, there's no adversity to overcome. The only time it ever worked properly was with DX, and that was because they had extremely charismatic members, and rarely, if ever, engaged in the same feuds. They were basically solo, until they got involved in corporation shenanigans.

Now then, heel stables can work. However, with a few noteworthy exceptions like Evolution, they generally serve to bury most of their members. The reason for this is obvious, if John Cena is feuding with a guy who hides behind a stable, everyone in that stable is going to be crushed by Cena at some stage, in an uncompetitive match. The Wyatt family may well shoot Bray to high places, but rest assured, the other two will go nowhere.

Oh, but Tastycles! What about the ones that don't have leaders?! Well, time will tell with The Shield, so I shan't comment. But let's look at some of the other 'equal' stables, like The Corre or Nexus, and it's clear that the cream rises to the top, and the rest get buried.

At this stage, it'd be reasonable for someone to say 'well, stables are good at boosting one man's career at the cost of someone else's.' And that's true, but that's not what the IWC suggest is it? They say 'why not have a stable holding all the titles?' Well, there's a simple reason for that. It's completely boring. Generally, a wrestling show will have segments involving each of the champions. Generally, wrestling shows have stables appear together. If you have this all titles thing, it leads to oversaturation, which is precisely why you all used to hate Triple H.

Heel mouthpiece managers

Another doozy. For this, we need a history lesson. In the territories era, managers stayed put while talents moved about. This allowed talents to be over as soon as they arrived in a territory and therefore was a happy compromise. In the WWF's early days, any TV time was devoted to matches, and Hulk Hogan, for obvious reasons. So people like Bobby Heenan were required to give the big brutes that he was fighting a bit of gravitas - again, you don't need to know who the guy is to hate him.

It's a marvellous tactic when you have no time to establish characters. With hours of television every week, TNA and WWE do not have this problem. The mouthpiece manager serves as a distraction. You see this with Curtis Axel. Is he over? Or is Heyman? When he lost to Jericho on Raw, there was a decent cheer, but when Heyman gets sent to the back, there's a massive one. Axel's development is stunted by association. But Heyman's actually good at his job, and brings his talents into it, so he is by far the best choice if the WWE insist on this.

The IWC idea du jour is to put Ryback with Vickie Guerrero. This would be totally suicidal, because the crowd would stop caring about him and focus on how much they hate her. Going into feuds, you're less invested than you might be because the people you hate and love aren't the ones facing off, there's a proxy.

Tournaments

Oh, Christ. The classic IWC suggestion - go to Book This, you will see this suggestion a billion times. Strip the title, go to tournament.

The reason this is awful is simple. People don't watch wrestling for fake fights, they watch wrestling for the resolution of storylines. People are invested in the characters and people involved and that's why they watch. This is the reason UFC's fortunes got much better when they started having Ultimate Fighter. It's why professional boxing with its press conferences and showboating is far more popular than amateur boxing and its tournaments.

One tournament in wrestling history has been popular, WrestleMania IV, which was essentially a vehicle for DiBiase's feud with Hogan, with Savage and Andre as huge storyline assistants. This is not the same as having 16 people randomly face off for no rhyme or reason other than being a match closer to the title.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Hate to break it to you, but most everyone has stopped caring about Ryback already.

His first PPV win in a year was against a guy who's late career is built on making other guys look good...big flippin deal.

Your own reasoning for managers in the past reinforces why they're important today. No one would care about Curtis Axel on his own, but they do care because of Heyman. It's as you said...he provides immediate gravitas to someone who would receive none. Jack Swagger? Same deal. Total loser until paired with Zeb Coulter, and now...well, he's still a loser but he's a lot more entertaining to watch as a whole.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

For the most part, I agree.

When it comes to stables, it's true that most stables simply don't have the oomph to really make it as significant forces. I think a lot of the problem in WWE for quite a while, at least in the eyes of many, has been a lack of stables or at least one significant stable for such a long length of time. Between the end of the Monday Night War up through the rise of The Shield, the only real powerhouse faction to debut in WWE was Evolution. Nexus started out very strong but fizzled out when WWE had Cena wipe them out single handedly. The Shield isn't on the level of Evolution right now, but they're clearly a force that's been booked consistently strong. TNA has gone the opposite direction and have made factions a major focal point. Must of last year was the first time in a really long time that TNA hadn't done the worn out rehash of a corporate power struggle involving a faction looking to "destroy" a company. Unfortunately, they've rehashed it once again to what could be the most mediocre level yet with Aces & Eights and a reactivated Main Event Mafia. Just like when it comes to producing a major star like a Cena or Rock or Stone Cold, mega factions don't come about very often at all.

When it comes to a heel mouthpiece, I've got no problem with it in general. For me, it depends on where a wrestler ultimately stands on the roster as to whether a mouthpiece can help or hinder. In the case of Curtis Axel, I think he's a solid mid-card champion right now. Will he ever move past that? Can't say, but I'd worry about that a bit later down the road. Heyman is playing a huge role in Axel's current development and if Axel manages to get to where he no longer needs a mouthpiece and can move on up the roster without one; then more power to him. If not, then that's on him because, sometimes, you just might not have what it takes to make it to that next level. WWE has to know that Heyman can't be Axel's crutch forever but, at the same time, Joe Hennig has only been repackaged & brought back to the main roster for just barely more than 2 months. Vicky Guerrero serving as Ziggler's heel mouthpiece certainly helped get him established. Maybe it went on for longer than it should have but, in the long run, it looks as though it's paying off.

As far as tournaments go, it generally depends. Tournaments should come off as special, something that's big & noteworthy. The WWF Championship tournament of WrestleMania IV was special. King of the Ring used to feel special, for a while anyhow. ROH is building & hyping their World Championship tournament as a special event. The BFG Series is kind of borderline at this point. In my opinion, tournaments shouldn't happen often, they shouldn't be complicated and they shouldn't drag out for too long. Now that's not to say that they can't be entertaining even if it comes off as something that's just kinda thrown together, but there's no long term impact and is forgotten almost as soon as it's over.

I've come across what I think do sound like interesting ideas from net fans over the years. That's just my opinion. Perhaps the biggest problem regarding internet fans is when they get too caught up in their own idealized fantasy booking scenarios, which usually results in the belief that their OPINION is rock solid wrestling gospel.

 

[LoudClearVoice]

The reason this is awful is simple. People don't watch wrestling for fake fights, they watch wrestling for the resolution of storylines. People are invested in the characters and people involved and that's why they watch.

I agree with your other points but this one is what I wanted to comment on. You hit the nail right on the head here. The vast majority of fans watch for the storylines, the emotions, the "Wrestlemania moments,", the ridiculousness, etc. That's what makes pro wrestling so unique. The IWC on the other hand, they DO watch for fake fights, and technical skills. If you're good in the ring (and you fought in ROH) then you automatically should be main eventing Wrestlemania and "deserve" a title run. A guy can be terrible on the mic but if he can do a bunch of submission moves, he's suddenly God.

 

[Hard Hit Prince]

I like this threads, it's has some great topics to discuss and some logical things to further your points, t's really a logical debate so thank you Tastycles. Now onto your subject, I must say that I really disagree with you on the "heel manager" - it all depends on how you use them, but for the most part, they are good for business.

I'll try to further up my points - a manager like Vickie Guerrero who is immensely over would be nice for a guy like a Drew McIntyre, or some guy that just vanished from the face of the Earth (or lost a lot of momentum). It would create some buzz and in a matter of weeks, McIntyre would look like a upper midcard that has stayed in a relevant spot for years, even though he hasn't. It's good for him in the short-run, but when times pass by, he needs to be the focus. Vickie can be the one to talk about him, have a relationship with him or whatever, but as time goes by McIntyre needs to be the one to start talking about himself and his opponents - so the sole point of Vickie Guerrero was obtained and now the ball would be in her clients hands.

Paul Heyman and Curtis Axel is something a little weird, because Paul Heyman is in main event storylines since the beggining of the year, and I mean really big storylines with the likes of The Rock, The Undertaker, Triple H and even Chris Jericho - so when Paul Heyman, who can be arguably the #1 heel in the company gets in a spot in the midcard at the same time, he's in a storyline with CM Punk/Lesnar, it will be logical that Paul Heyman will be the guy that has the loudest reaction. But in any way or shape, people started to notice Axel or haven't they? Curtis Axel isn't a JTG anymore, he's an uppercard and right now, I'm starting to feel that he was meant for that spot all along - so Paul Heyman made him popular, he will continue to do it so for some months, but if the company starts seeing Axel as a main event star of some sorts, they will have to put the lights more on Axel than on Heyman.

It's just good business - and if by any chance a big guy like Mason Ryan debuted in the roster as a Paul Heyman client, and started to take out a John Cena or a CM Punk, it would instantly make him look like a main eventer and a logical one, because he's first and foremost a big dude, and because he's a client of their most popular heel, but then again, with time, Mason Ryan needed to have the spotlight on him, more than Heyman. So, I am all for the heel mouthpieces and at some extent, I would like to see some babyface with a good manager like Liz was.

 

[SkyCommanderWinky]

I disagree with most of this.

Stables have worked most of the time in other promotions. The problem with WWE is that, a) they suck at writing for stables, and b) if it's an invading stable (Nexus, The Corre, WWE NWO, the WCW/ECW Invasion Angle) Vince quickly turns it into a dick measuring contest. The Oddities also had "Vince's Idea" written all over it. DX, to me, wasn't much better either. They were just an unfunny, poor man's NWO. If you watch DX's impersonation of The Nation and tell me it's better than the NWO's impersonation of the Four Horseman I'd say you are crazy.

Also, you say people only watch for storylines. You're wrong. I happen to know a lot of people who watch for *gasp* wrestling. People want to see dream matches and big spots more than the shitty storylines WWE pumps out. If people only cared about storylines then there are plenty of other mediums that fill that need that are far superior to wrestling. Like books, television, movies, comics, video games etc.

 

[shalliin]

I've been talking about wrestling on the internet for a long time now, and time and again the same ideas come up from various members of the board which rarely see the light of day in major companies. My aim here is to try to explain once and for all, why these ideas aren't very good from a business point of view.

Stables

Yeah, there's been a few exceptions over the years, but for every D-Generation X there's 5 Oddities. Very few face stables ever work, straight off the bat, because the whole point of faces is that they overcome adversity. If you've got three mates backing you in every fight, there's no adversity to overcome. The only time it ever worked properly was with DX, and that was because they had extremely charismatic members, and rarely, if ever, engaged in the same feuds. They were basically solo, until they got involved in corporation shenanigans.

Except Dx wasn't a face stable they were heels. it's just that they came in at a time the role of heels and faces were flipping and stretching so the fans liked their attitude, even though their behaviour and actions were heelish in nature. They were over as heels first and like austin, never made a real flip to faces, but instead it was the fans who made the turn to cheer for them and their actions instead of hating them the way the script called for.

Heel mouthpiece managers

Another doozy. For this, we need a history lesson. In the territories era, managers stayed put while talents moved about. This allowed talents to be over as soon as they arrived in a territory and therefore was a happy compromise. In the WWF's early days, any TV time was devoted to matches, and Hulk Hogan, for obvious reasons. So people like Bobby Heenan were required to give the big brutes that he was fighting a bit of gravitas - again, you don't need to know who the guy is to hate him.

It's a marvellous tactic when you have no time to establish characters. With hours of television every week, TNA and WWE do not have this problem. The mouthpiece manager serves as a distraction. You see this with Curtis Axel. Is he over? Or is Heyman? When he lost to Jericho on Raw, there was a decent cheer, but when Heyman gets sent to the back, there's a massive one. Axel's development is stunted by association. But Heyman's actually good at his job, and brings his talents into it, so he is by far the best choice if the WWE insist on this.

The IWC idea du jour is to put Ryback with Vickie Guerrero. This would be totally suicidal, because the crowd would stop caring about him and focus on how much they hate her. Going into feuds, you're less invested than you might be because the people you hate and love aren't the ones facing off, there's a proxy.

This is backwards thinking. With the emphasis on entertaining over wrestling, it's smart in todays age to have trained and experienced mouth pieces to guide the young talent into learning the art of the promo and interviews. If they aren't going to also offer acting lessons at the new training facility, then they need to invest in having managers again. A good heel manager makes you hate him enough that you don't care if he or she is the one getting their ass kicked, you're just happy to see them suffer vicariously as the person they backed and touted and promoted is beat down. Especially with how hard and fast they are trying to push some of the guys not giving them the time to really learn the gift of gab that so many of the past greats are known for.

Tournaments

Oh, Christ. The classic IWC suggestion - go to Book This, you will see this suggestion a billion times. Strip the title, go to tournament.

The reason this is awful is simple. People don't watch wrestling for fake fights, they watch wrestling for the resolution of storylines. People are invested in the characters and people involved and that's why they watch. This is the reason UFC's fortunes got much better when they started having Ultimate Fighter. It's why professional boxing with its press conferences and showboating is far more popular than amateur boxing and its tournaments.

One tournament in wrestling history has been popular, WrestleMania IV, which was essentially a vehicle for DiBiase's feud with Hogan, with Savage and Andre as huge storyline assistants. This is not the same as having 16 people randomly face off for no rhyme or reason other than being a match closer to the title.

Completely wrong and endemic of why ratings are dropping and interest is waning. I love wrestling. I've been a fan for almost 30 years. But what is shown now isn't wrestling. It's bad prime time soap with a smattering of stunt work. When I want to watch a wrestling show, I want to watch WRESTLING. When I'm in the mood for bad drama, scripted and stilted speeches, I'll watch fox news or anything on nbc. The point of a story line is to make the drama of the match itself more interesting and impactful. But somewhere along the way, it's been flipped and the matches are secondary to the story and this is not a good thing.
I remember watching a program that was only 1hr of tv, but would have 4-5 matches and the production of the storyline during the match and with short pre and post match segments usually under 2min at the longest. Now there are 10-15 min promo, 3min of physical interaction, a 5min replay of the action after commercial, then possibly a 4-6min match before yet another 10min promo or backstage skit. So now, in a 3hr show, you still only get 4-5 matches, and about 45-50min of wrestling and the rest is badly acted promos and skits and replays.
Not every thing has to be part of some over arching story. Sometimes you should just put two or more people in the ring because they will be able to showcase their talents in the ring and that skill and talent becomes the story. There is nothing wrong with that. It's something that has been lost in the last 15 years or so.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I always felt that a lot of suggestions forwarded by internet fans were so terrible because sooooooooo many of them are nothing more than sheer fantasy booking. Some of the ideas forwarded are nothing more than what they want to see regardless of whether it makes money or even good sense. I don't think there's anything wrong with it as far as just talking about a match, feud or storyline you'd be interested in seeing happen. The problems begin when the posters start to believe in their own imaginary hype to such a degree that they begin viewing themselves as geniuses who have a special perception that nobody else seems to have.

When an internet fan lets their fantasy booking get to that point, there's almost no talking to them or pleasing them. It's as if they'll develop the mentality that nothing is any good unless it fits in exactly with their own scenario of what should go down whether it be a match, who gets a title run, who feuds with who, which storyline gets the most attention and the details of said storylines. Pro wrestling isn't a fantasy football league in which every match is an epic encounter, every promo is solid gold and every feud is the stuff dreams are made of. What seems like a good idea to you might sound like total shit to most of everyone else, and that's a factor that has to be taken into consideration. Realistically, to paraphrase Triple H, what's good in your own opinion doesn't automatically equate what's best for business and that's what pro wrestling is.

 

[Tastycles]

Except Dx wasn't a face stable they were heels. it's just that they came in at a time the role of heels and faces were flipping and stretching so the fans liked their attitude, even though their behaviour and actions were heelish in nature. They were over as heels first and like austin, never made a real flip to faces, but instead it was the fans who made the turn to cheer for them and their actions instead of hating them the way the script called for.

DX as faces did things like attack Vince McMahon's corporation. They were 100% meant to be faces, just like Austin was. This is classic IWC thinking here.

This is backwards thinking. With the emphasis on entertaining over wrestling, it's smart in todays age to have trained and experienced mouth pieces to guide the young talent into learning the art of the promo and interviews. If they aren't going to also offer acting lessons at the new training facility, then they need to invest in having managers again. A good heel manager makes you hate him enough that you don't care if he or she is the one getting their ass kicked, you're just happy to see them suffer vicariously as the person they backed and touted and promoted is beat down. Especially with how hard and fast they are trying to push some of the guys not giving them the time to really learn the gift of gab that so many of the past greats are known for.

Curtis Axel is a prime example of why heel managers are shit. The audience doesn't give a fuck about him, they hate Heyman. The pay off is Punk nailing Heyman, Axel probably won't even be involved in the end to that storyline, so all of this time he's been working to achieve zero career progression

Completely wrong and endemic of why ratings are dropping and interest is waning. I love wrestling. I've been a fan for almost 30 years. But what is shown now isn't wrestling. It's bad prime time soap with a smattering of stunt work. When I want to watch a wrestling show, I want to watch WRESTLING.

And most people don't and this is precisely the . In the 80s people had the choice of watching "WRESTLING" on AWA or watching Hulk Hogan on WWF. Guess who won?

In the attitude era, Austin vs McMahon was a huge storyline that had people tune in in abundance. nWo was a huge storyline that people tune in abundance to see. Very few people tuned in to watch Dean Malenko vs. Psychosis, regardless of how entertaining you might find it.

 

[shalliin]

DX as faces did things like attack Vince McMahon's corporation. They were 100% meant to be faces, just like Austin was. This is classic IWC thinking here.

No IWC thinking is what turned what was supposed to be a hated heel group into one of the most popular groups of all time. NO one was supposed to cheer for anything DX did. Their whole attitude was that they did what THEY wanted when THEY wanted, and screw everyone else, INCLUDING the fans. It wasn't until a couple of months in when it was noticed they were getting cheered, that the decision to promote them as faces really took off. They were SUPPOSED to be a counter to the NWO, and considering that most of the founding members of both groups were friends and members of the Kliq that screwed over every other wrestler and group on the roster, the popularity of DX was a double blow to the guys in the back.

Curtis Axel is a prime example of why heel managers are shit. The audience doesn't give a fuck about him, they hate Heyman. The pay off is Punk nailing Heyman, Axel probably won't even be involved in the end to that storyline, so all of this time he's been working to achieve zero career progression

people don't care about him since he's a bland annoying little shit that's only there because of his father and grandfather, and fans are tired about 2nd and 3rd gen people getting screen time and pushes simply because the wwe and Vince can't let go of the past. Orton is an example of a good 3rd gen, Rock is the premier example of great 3rd gen, both have surpassed their predecessors, but Curtis Axel, Ted Dibiase, and Snuka Jr. are examples of people who honestly, aren't cut out for big time in wrestling.

And most people don't and this is precisely the . In the 80s people had the choice of watching "WRESTLING" on AWA or watching Hulk Hogan on WWF. Guess who won?

Obviously Vince won, but a large part of that was more to do with the fact that during the territories, THEY charged the stations to air their shows, and when Vince took over, he started paying them to air his shows. There was good wrestling even in the earliest days of the VKM jr run wwf, and the emphasis was still on the MATCHES, not the storylines. The storylines were used to push the matches and draw attention to them. Now, it's turned around and the matches are just little hang ups in showing the story. That is why I feel attendance and ratings are down. Why bother watching the event, when it's just as easy and just as informative to just log online, find a site like wrestlezone and read the results while getting a run down of the current stories? If they focues on the matches themselves, made them more intersting and compelling, then people who want to keep up will have to tune in in order to follow the story and see what happened instead of just reading about it online.

In the attitude era, Austin vs McMahon was a huge storyline that had people tune in in abundance. nWo was a huge storyline that people tune in abundance to see. Very few people tuned in to watch Dean Malenko vs. Psychosis, regardless of how entertaining you might find it.

Actually, you are right about this slightly. People did tune in to see what was going on with the story, but since most of it was still presented during a match or some kind of physical interaction, people still tuned in to see the matches and physicality displayed, not just people talking shit about each other. They wanted to see them beat the shit out of one another and know who was next to have their ass kicked and how the ass kicking went down. Not just to spend 2hrs listening to people put each other down and put on a badly acted skit.