November 2023 Wrestling Talk

[ChesterCopperpot]

In his latest hotline - Wade Keller was saying that CW were willing to offer an eight-figure TV deal to the NWA 

[Shartnado]

19 minutes ago, ChesterCopperpot said:

In his latest hotline - Wade Keller was saying that CW were willing to offer an eight-figure TV deal to the NWA 

I AM assuming this means that they offered to give them 8 super rare wrestling action figures for the TV deal.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

9 hours ago, Greggulator said:

I know a woman who went out on a few dates with him. They lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn and they were on the same dating app. She said he was kinda dumb but really nice and she could not resist the ability to tell people “You know that guy James Iha from Smashing Pumpikns? Well…” 

I guess it's just not the same once you know that Billy Corgan can barge in at any time and ruin things for you. (Also, since he got rid of his very cute mid-1990s long hair with the blond streaks.)

[Matt D]

I have a deep emotional connection to the Houston wrestling tapes he currently has rights to and is doing absolutely nothing with and that he's certainly not continuing to convert so that the half that's left doesn't rot away into nothing. That's kind of like having feelings about James Iha.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

9 minutes ago, Matt D said:

I have a deep emotional connection to the Houston wrestling tapes he currently has rights to and is doing absolutely nothing with and that he's certainly not continuing to convert so that the half that's left doesn't rot away into nothing. That's kind of like having feelings about James Iha.

That depends on if you have deep embarrassment about a tape library, but relief that you admitted it publicly.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

29 minutes ago, Sparkleface said:

That depends on if you have deep embarrassment about a tape library, but relief that you admitted it publicly.

I feel like there's probably a joke about the TK ROH purchase in here somewhere but I haven't finished my coffee yet

[Greggulator]

3 hours ago, ChesterCopperpot said:

In his latest hotline - Wade Keller was saying that CW were willing to offer an eight-figure TV deal to the NWA 

ROTFLMAO this is so stupid. 

What does that even mean? 

IF THIS IS EVEN TRUE (spoiler, it’s not): Networks give out TV deals over a few years — like four or five years. NXT is for five years.

So an “eight-figure deal” sounds really impressive. But that breaks down to $10 million over 5 years or $2 million a year. So that’s impressive but not as much of a “WOW” as that headline makes you believe. 

Also: Come on. Keller is getting that information from Billy Corgan or the guy who works for Billy Corgan. It’s not anything at all that would pass any level of smell test.

CW’s biggest sports property is LIV Golf. Now, LIV has a lot of problems — backlash because it’s Saudi owned, ridiculous team format, distracting war with the PGA, etc. But it has some of the biggest names in golf (people my wife has heard of and she knows nothing about golf.) And golf gets the most coveted audience members — the worst people alive (ala rich white people.) Even with crappy ratings the people watching are still wealthy. 

LIV was actually looking to buy time from TV networks like an infomercial before it found a deal with The CW. So knowing that, I doubt that the CW even paid LIV and “eight-figure deal.” Let alone a fly-by-night wrestling company no one cares about even among wrestling fans run by the very dependable businessman/Zwan lead singer Billy Corgan. 

Let’s also use some more logic here. The WWE is a really big deal. It’s a massive corporate entity. The CW wants to make a splash and is building out its programming around sports and sports-ish stuff. Getting NXT from the much more established USA Network gives The CW some of that rub and reminds people that it used to have Smackdown years ago. On top of possibly making them money, it’s good for putting its name out there to the world.

A TV deal between any company takes a really long time to put together. If it is between two companies with stock the general public can buy and sell like the WWE and the CW’s owners, then it becomes even more complicated because of government regulations. And one thing that was absolutely included in the negotiations and The CW agreed to without any hesitation at all would be: “You can’t have any other wrestling on your network” and also very very very certainly “You can’t negotiate with any other wrestling company while we hammer this out.”

Who at The CW was going to go out and say “You know what? Let’s risk this whole WWE relationship by going behind their back and against well-established official negotiating practices to give $10 million to a wrestling company even wrestling fans don’t care about that is owned by the guy who made life hell for Guitar Center employees in 1992 when every teenager in the world came in and tried out the opening line to ‘Today’ on a Fender they had no money to actually buy. 

None of this NWA stuff is even remotely true. 

Is there any actual reporting on what AEW gets? The only thing I saw was from wrestling journalists and hahahahahaha about them writing anything knowledgeably about the actual business world.

[ChesterCopperpot]

15 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

So knowing that, I doubt that the CW even paid LIV and “eight-figure deal.”

 

They didn't pay them anything 

Quote

Into the void, CW emerged. Acquired by the Nexstar Media Group in 2022, CW touts more than 200 affiliates in the United States with a reach of 120 million viewers. The network is primarily known for airing syndicated programming; however, sources told Golf Digest, CW is aiming to break into the sports media space. Terms of the deal were not announced, but sources confirmed to Golf Digest that there is little direct financial cost associated with CW’s venture. LIV Golf will not be receiving media rights fees from CW, sources confirmed to Golf Digest. Instead, the agreement will be an advertisement share between the network and league.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/liv-golf-tv-deal-beall-2023

[Cobra Commander]

The money figures being tossed around for the actual CW/NXT deal and the rumored CW/NWA deals feel like some real “oh fuck we made a mistake” money if network people are as fickle as they can be.

Like if there’s any sort of network crunch and they look to “what are we spending on without enough of a return”, they’ll sniff around the CW deal if they’re giving the WWE $30M or whatever for NXT.

[Log]

I do think Corgan had/has a deal with CW. I just don't think it's for a "wrestling" show. I have heard it's for something similar to the Netflix OVW reality show.

That's probably why it didn't conflict with the WWE negotiations.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

1 hour ago, Log said:

I do think Corgan had/has a deal with CW. I just don't think it's for a "wrestling" show. I have heard it's for something similar to the Netflix OVW reality show.

That's probably why it didn't conflict with the WWE negotiations.

Yes I saw that too, that it would be a reality show on their app - it's not really something that would interest me anyway tbh.

Honestly, it would probably be a bigger loss if they for whatever reason had to stop syndicating WOW (like WWE would even give a shit, but you never know)

Edit: well this shocking report has certainly shaken me to my core:

https://www.hausofwrestling.com/2023/11/08/frustrations-growing-within-nwa-over-billy-corgans-leadership-exclusive/

Edited November 8, 2023 by Zakk_Sabbath

[zendragon]

what will that John Moxley do next?

[Cobra Commander]

watching Survivor Series 87 did make me wonder one more general thing about wrestling arena layouts.

Back then and for a lot of shows until the mid-90s, the entrance would be parallel-ish to one side of ring side instead of being down the middle. So you'd have a section of ringside that got split in two in the currant standard layout

Surely that change didn't eliminate too many ringside floor seats (with the eliminations being because the ramp/entrance is wider than it used to be)

I think the last WWE show that regularly used a non-standard entrance was WWECW

I could see the reasoning for not having a tron behind fans so that they'd have to turn around to see what was on the tron.

But I think it would be distinctive enough to switch from a T shaped entrance to an upside down L shaped entrance. If a certain company with multiple cable shows is looking for an idea on how to make their stuff look less like WWE.

Or if you trust your ramps or the ability of wrestlers on the roster to walk stairs, enter on the stage, walk to the left, and then go down to the ring in an entrance that is parallel to one side of ringside. Idk.

[NoFistsJustFlips]

I understand Gregg's thoughts on this (very detailed and coming from a place of knowledge which I really appreciate). But one thing that it doesn't seem like you considered in your breakdown is that NXT may not have the pull to get an exclusive deal. It might not have been one or the other. CW certainly could have been trying to build a wrestling block. Raw & Smackdown definitely have the pull to have exclusivity. It's entirely possible they just wanted to maximize the earnings for NXT and wouldn't have put the exclusivity into that all.

In that circumstance it's entirely possible the coke spot could have caused them to pull a deal. I'm sure these big corporate entities also put fail safes in these huge money deals. A morality / moral turpitude clause would almost certainly be a component of it, and glorifying drug use could be a case for pulling that trigger.

I actually agree with what you've laid out as being the mos likely scenario. Corgan had a meeting that he inflated the importance of an over shared to wresting media. CW probably met with him as a backup plan in case they couldn't land a WWE property. But it's not an absolute impossibility a deal could have been in the works and went south as it's been reported.

[Log]

There was definitely a deal with Corgan and CW. It was for a reality show. I’m not going to pretend to be some insider, but I did hear it from someone who would know. 
 

And no, I am not secretly James Iha. 

[Matt D]

Just now, Log said:

There was definitely a deal with Corgan and CW. It was for a reality show. I’m not going to pretend to be some insider, but I did hear it from someone who would know. 
 

And no, I am not secretly James Iha. 

Are you secretly the Houston wrestling library tapes?

[Cobra Commander]

40 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

I think the last WWE show that regularly used a non-standard entrance was WWECW

upon thinking about it, I'd describe the WWECW entrance as being shaped like a bit of a slash (or maybe shaped like a 7).

One more CW/NWA/NXT note. WOW isn't airing in primetime on CW, so I could see there being a line of delineation where the WWE won't boot WOW off CW but they'll also tell CW not to air WOW in primetime or air WOW on the same night as NXT. Not immediately whacking WOW is a helpful move for the sake of the WWE's current legal situations with certain companies accusing them of monopolistic practices

"That Court Bauer is full of it, look, we didn't make the CW murder WOW"

Also, I remember channels in like 1998 that would air WCW Worldwide and Shotgun Saturday Night in the same Saturday Afternoon block so back in the glorious days of syndication, the WWF wasn't insisting that their affiliates not air WCW programs too.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

19 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Are you secretly the Houston wrestling library tapes?

Matt out here with flowers and a box of candy looking for the tapes.

[caley]

Is '...All the Marbles' with Peter Falk managing a women's tag team any good? It's on TCM tomorow if anyone is interested.

[Mister TV]

9 minutes ago, caley said:

Is '...All the Marbles' with Peter Falk managing a women's tag team any good? It's on TCM tomorow if anyone is interested.

It’s good, watch it!

[HumanChessgame]

Has any company ever had a rule where you couldn't hold two titles simultaneously? One of my childhood e-feds had that rule, mainly because I used it as a angle to break up the tag champs when one of them won the world title.

[Infinit]

Didn't Pedro and Backlund beat the Samoans for the WWF tag titles but couldn't keep them because of that rules at a Shea Stadium show?

[Cobra Commander]

Mid-South had an sequence of events where JYD won the North American title from Bob Roop, only to quickly lose it to Ted DiBiase, and JYD vacated the Louisiana Title upon winning the North American title and was unable to make it in the tournament for the Louisiana title.

But I'd think a bunch of feds barred someone from holding two singles titles at the same time

[Peck]

1 hour ago, caley said:

Is '...All the Marbles' with Peter Falk managing a women's tag team any good? It's on TCM tomorow if anyone is interested.

Columbo? In the wrestling business??  

[Nice Guy Eddie]

5 hours ago, HumanChessgame said:

Has any company ever had a rule where you couldn't hold two titles simultaneously? One of my childhood e-feds had that rule, mainly because I used it as a angle to break up the tag champs when one of them won the world title.

Wasn't that a rule in WWE? Warrior vacated the IC title after winning the world title from Hogan and Mr. Perfect won the tournament for the title by defeating Chico Santana.