[WWE NETWORK] What Are You Watching?

[EN090]

Weren't Austin and Foley and even Pillman in ECW just waiting out their noncompete clauses and holding until there was a spot and background for their debut? Like, Taz, Douglas, and Snow were the only active people Vince scooped up.

There were no compete clauses back then?

[Raziel]

There have always been noncompete clauses when you worked for WWF/E and WCW/JCP. Its what stopped Flair from showing up at SummerSlam after Herd fired him from WCW. ECW didn't start counting as a place that violated that clause until they went to PPV (which is why Foley, Austin, and Pillman did stints there)

Only guys that ever didn't have to wait after a quit/release were Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero and Saturn because they got granted unconditional releases because of the Busch/Sullivan bullshit.

Luger and Madusa jumping across were contract expirations and not premature terminations.

[Petey]

I was referring to Austin, Foley, etc leaving ECW for WWF.

My bad.

[EN090]

No worries.

There have always been noncompete clauses when you worked for WWF/E and WCW/JCP. Its what stopped Flair from showing up at SummerSlam after Herd fired him from WCW. ECW didn't start counting as a place that violated that clause until they went to PPV (which is why Foley, Austin, and Pillman did stints there)

Only guys that ever didn't have to wait after a quit/release were Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero and Saturn because they got granted unconditional releases because of the Busch/Sullivan bullshit.

Luger and Madusa jumping across were contract expirations and not premature terminations.

Interesting.

Crazy to think that not only would WCW (Bill Busch at the time) unconditionally release Benoit & Co. but they wouldn't even negotiate a no compete.

Given how much those four wanted to leave, you would think that they wouldn't have balked at having to wait 3 months. Instead, Busch just let them walk straight onto Raw.

[Raziel]

Looking it up, It wasn't Busch, although he was responsible for Russo in WCW.  Brad Siegel was actually the guy that did the releases.  Benoit and co asked for their releases after Siegel announced he was making Sullivan head booker, since Benoit at least figured he'd be unmercessly buried by Sullivan, which was totally understandable.  Siegel wasn't a wrestling guy, he was a numbers guy.  Didn't think about the noncompete clause and just released them outright mutually since it dropped their contracts and left WCW off the hook for terminating early (mutual termination doesn't require compensation).  The noncompete was an oversight that allowed the 4 to just show up on RAW the next week.

 

Still not as bad as Pillman getting his release due to an office fuck up and him running with it, which eventually led to Benoit's unconditional release, if you think about it.

[EN090]

This is probably me underestimating the incompetence of WCW, but idk how someone with any sort of common sense could not take into account those 4 guys jumping to the competition within days.

[Raziel]

If you're expecting competence by the guy in charge of WCW at any time that's not named Kip Frey, you're looking in the wrong place.

 

Actually, to be fair, Bischoff was running a pretty good and tight ship, up until the nWo happened and he decided he'd rather be one of the boys and believed his own hype instead of continuing to run a wrestling company.

[Craig H]

Lets not forget the meeting Bischoff had where he said if anyone didn't want to be there then say so and they would be released, which lead to Raven's release.

[EN090]

Did that include any kind of no compete agreement? Not sure how long it was until Raven went to ECW.

Bischoff of all people would have covered that base, when it came WWE at least.

[MonteCarl]

But Raven wasn't released no questions asked. He wasn't able to jump to WWF right away and ended up doing a final run in ECW for a few months before finally going to the Fed.

[SirSmUgly]

These 1995 RAWs are such a chore to sit through, but in Episode 102, Ernie Ladd does a really awesome interview/promo where he responds to Vince's question about Lawrence Taylor's chances against Bam Bam based on Ladd's experiences as both a football player and a wrestler. I liked it so much that I would say that it's actually worth seeking out if you're futzing around the Network and looking for something to watch. 

[Craig H]

Raven was still able to get his release from WCW and leave for ECW, making his return on ECW's TNN debut. So while yes, there was a no compete clause preventing him from jumping to WWE, he was still able to remain on a nationally televised wrestling show due to what Wikipedia describes as a loophole in his WCW contract. 

[Raziel]

Yeah, the only guys that ever got released without a no compete clause were the Radicalz.  And I'm not sure how much of that was some kind of leverage they may have had over WCW (Only thing I could possibly think of is a Hostile Work Environment suit from Benoit when they were making Sullivan head booker), or if Seigel just offered the release and was unaware of the no compete clause/didn't think it was important and AOL Time Warner Legal forgot/didn't bother to remind him, or stayed out of it lest they repeat their Pillman fuckup (which again, involved Sullivan.)

[Mick32]

Watched the first half of Bash 89 last night. Holy shit, Muta vs Sting.

[cwoy2j]

Watched the first half of Bash 89 last night. Holy shit, Muta vs Sting.

 

JR's commentary was gold too. Jr and Bob Caudle might be my favorite commentary tandem. They put everything over as a big deal.

[Gorman]

Thoughts on WrestleMania III

 

Gorilla Monsoon said Cowboy Bob Orton had "excellence of execution" before using the same phrase to describe Bret Hart later in the show.

 

Jesse Ventura had to go down to the ring to be introduced to the live crowd, but he paid for his hubris by being forced to share a cart ride with Mathilda back to the dressing room.

 

Bob Uecker and Mary Hart both made good observations during the Hart Foundation match. Uecker actually listened to Gorilla's backstory, and when Santana started pummeling Davis, Uecker said, "He's waited a year for this!" Also, Mary Hart actually called Davey Boy's piledriver.

 

Harley Race saved his match with JYD by bumping like a crazy person. It's still weird to see a babyface lose a "humiliation" match.

 

Piper showed a lot of restraint by not beating up the fan who jumped into the ring after his win over Adonis. That would have ruined his feel-good "career-ending" victory.

 

They showed a lot of foresight with the near-fall at the beginning of the Hogan-Andre match, so Heenan could claim that Andre really won the match

 

Macho Man wins his second MVP award (the first was for the Wrestling Classic). Steamboat could have easily won it too, but Savage gets the edge because he should have won the match twice. First, Savage would have won by countout when he knocked Steamboat into the crowd if George Steele hadn't brought him back. Second, the ref was down after Savage hit the top-rope elbow and had Steamboat pinned.  

[Web Conn]

Ravens departure and the wording of his no complete clause just proves how little Bischoff took ECW seriously. Pompous jerk.

[EN090]

The best part of the latest MNW installment was Vince still trying to defend the Ringmaster gimmick, 18 years later.

 

"He's a master of what happens in the ring..."

[Craig H]

"It's a jump...to conclusions mat!"

[JonnyLaw]

I'll be honest, I always liked the Ringmaster gimmick. It's not like they gave him a top hat and tails like a circus ringmaster. Plus, putting him with DiBiase shouldn't have been out of the ordinary since he had managers for a good bit of time in WCW.

[PetrolCB]

DiBiase's run with Austin actually helped out the former than the latter I feel. Sure, it didn't hurt to have a name guy manage you when you debut. But we're talking about a man who managed a very lame MDC for all of '94-'95, not to mention Xanta Claus in this same time frame.

Austin, to me, seemed to give Ted some managerial legitimacy that he needed at that point in his usefulness as a character.

Of course, this is all hindsight, I wasn't breaking this shit down at nine years old.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Fuck I hated Ted Dibiase as a manager. Just awful.

[EN090]

I'll be honest, I always liked the Ringmaster gimmick. It's not like they gave him a top hat and tails like a circus ringmaster. Plus, putting him with DiBiase shouldn't have been out of the ordinary since he had managers for a good bit of time in WCW.

 

Except for the fact that he already proved what an awesome talker he was during his ECW time.

[Lawful Metal]

Just ran through the Jeff Hardy - CM Punk feud over the World Title in 2009.  

 

Edge v. Hardy Ladder match from Extreme Rules.  Hard to watch knowing what happened to Edge's neck, but I have apparently forgotten how reckless Hardy appears to be.  He has a haphazard competence where he looks like he's completely out of control but he always seems to hit his marks here - case in point, a crazy running RKO/ Diamond Cutter on the barricade? Punk's cash-in is excellent, as is his heel turn mannerisms, even if it took a while for it to take.

 

Punk v. Hardy from Night of Champions.  Great match with a so-so ending.  Punk was hitting all sorts of killshots on Hardy with Hardy kicking out, then he just up and leaves with the belt?  And then Hardy throws him back in, kick wham Twist of Fate Swanton?  I really expected a little bit more to take out Punk considering all the things Hardy kicked out of. 

 

Punk v. Hardy TLC from SummerSlam.  Great match, drama, more of that haphazard competence from Hardy.  Even moves that appear to miss the mark add drama to the match -- Hardy was supposed to be slammed on the seat of the chair catches it in the kidney; poetry in motion on the floor is all over the place; Hardy with a wild chair shot to Punk's elbow as Punk is jumping off the ring steps; the mish mash of chair shots, pieces of the table and whatever he could hit Punk with to lay him on the table for the super swanton.  The drama with the EMTs was well done and made sense with all the neck work Punk did in the buildup to the match, all though it is a bit understated in the commentary.  I think the wrong man won this match -- Punk could have just won the career match at the next PPV instead of rushing off into the Undertaker feud (which sucked), but Hardy was going to leave anyway.  

 

Hardy left the WWE on top -- probably one of the best last feud in the WWE.  I don't consider his TNA work at all.

 

Also, did Punk headline more PPVs as World Champion than as WWE champion?  WTF?

[tlk23]

Didn't they have a Smackdown Cage match a week or two later? Hardy's final WWE match.