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It was the opposite. Turner bankrolled Nitro, but they expensed Thunder to WCW, so they had additional weekly television production costs that affected their bottom line that they weren’t used to having. 

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27 minutes ago, (BP) said:

It was the opposite. Turner bankrolled Nitro, but they expensed Thunder to WCW, so they had additional weekly television production costs that affected their bottom line that they weren’t used to having. 

Really? So given that, and 98 was still their most successful year financially, is quite impressive. 

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12 hours ago, BloodyChamp said:

Is what you’re saying that Turner paid for Nitro’s weekly production out of his own pocket, which meant it’s weekly costs weren’t on the books? And Thunder’s was, which was cheaper than Nitro’s?

I don't think Ted Turner personally paid for the production, most likely the cost of Nitro's production was covered by Turner Broadcasting's budget while Thunder and the other shows were covered by WCW's budget. Even though everything is "owned" by the same company they're set-up in ultra convoluted ways for ultra convoluted reasons.

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Yes, to clarify, I meant Turner Broadcasting. Not Ted personally. 

And yeah, think of it as the difference between a television show produced by a network and a show independently produced by a production company that then sells it to a network. Although like Mister TV pointed out, it’s really one large umbrella and it’s just about how the money is allocated. The benefit to the execs at Turner Broadcasting with Thunder is that they didn't have to report the costs under their part of the umbrella (WCW did) but they still get the advertising revenue.

The important thing is that it’s instructive that those WCW figures don’t really tell the entire story and there’s context to why their fortunes seemed to have shifted dramatically in a year’s time. 

Edited by (BP)
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I liked the first set with the rocks and the sounds effects lol! I think that only lasted a few weeks. 
 

1998 was the worst. There’s just no way they made any money. Thanks for all the info on this. It makes sense. 

1999 was much better up until Russo came in and blew it up. Hogan was out injured, but before then Flair actually managed to carry him to a great match at Superbrawl. Nash was fun for a minute when he was trying to fool people into thinking he would make up for the Goldberg win (lol!). The tag team tournament, Bret Hart coming back, and they’d cleaned the jobbers up from the midcard (wastes some good stuff on free TV to but that’s another post). All of that goes to show what (BP) said last which is another way of looking at it.

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20 minutes ago, BloodyChamp said:

I liked the first set with the rocks and the sounds effects lol! I think that only lasted a few weeks. 

It looked like the Aggro Crag.

Some company should copy the Guts format. Get Mike O'Malley to be the hype man/commentator, "Spill Your Guts" are promos and he'll throw it to Mo for the ring introductions.

Then at the end of the night, the wrestlers scale the Crag, which is a shoot.

Edited by PetrolCB
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Vince would have all of the leverage and be able to humiliate them in a public setting. He could take the majority of the gate, the majority of the PPV revenue, and have final say on creative. I don’t know if he’d pass that up. It’s not the most likely situation, but it wouldn’t be much stranger than what actually happened. 

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50 minutes ago, PetrolCB said:

It looked like the Aggro Crag.

Some company should copy the Guts format. Get Mike O'Malley to be the hype man/commentator, "Spill Your Guts" are promos and he'll throw it to Mo for the ring introductions.

Then at the end of the night, the wrestlers scale the Crag, which is a shoot.

This is all they needed (I can’t believe I couldn’t find this whole segment on YouTube!).

https://youtu.be/-snelbZDe-k

Edited by BloodyChamp
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38 minutes ago, (BP) said:

Somewhat related. I just read this Variety article that was released before the Fusient deal fell apart, and it’s like stumbling into a parallel dimension. I’m really curious if they could’ve talked Vince into inter-promotional PPVs. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2001/tv/news/wcw-pinned-down-1117791665/amp/

This is advertised and marketed, completely spelled out, as having all clean finishes...at the time I would have paid any amount of money to see it lol!

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Around when did the DDT start getting devalued as a finisher? I remember that the Evenflow was protected in ECW as best as my memory recalls, but is there a wrestler or period in wrestling when it becomes just another move? My cousin and I were talking about this watching Dynamite some weeks back and he feels like it lost it's Instant Death status when you had these spinning DDTs off the top turnbuckle by high flyers in the 90s and I'm thinking it was the 00s with the super indies popping up?

But is there a more clear picture we're both missing or maybe don't know about? And if this was covered on any podcast please tell me how I can hopefully find it. 

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3 minutes ago, Hayabusa said:

Around when did the DDT start getting devalued as a finisher?

mid-late '90s. a few guys still had it as a finish (notably Raven used it in ECW, WCW, and WWF. and Gangrel/Edge used a variation as well) but otherwise was fully a transition move to the rest of the roster (Rock used a spinaround ddt as a signature move but was rarely if ever a finish. it pretty much morphed into his ddt being just another move).

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Yes, thanks for the reminder! Rock with the spinaround was a pretty flagrant offender with "it's just another move" like he did with one or two others. Sharpshooter might be one, would use it but never finished anyone with it(that I can remember) as it was part of his mid match offence. Jeeze, I'd completely forgot. 

That spin around DDT and the "catch one guy for a DDT, catch another guy for a bulldog" are some of the ones I remember now that you jogged my memory there 

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14 minutes ago, Hayabusa said:

Yes, thanks for the reminder! Rock with the spinaround was a pretty flagrant offender with "it's just another move" like he did with one or two others. Sharpshooter might be one, would use it but never finished anyone with it(that I can remember) as it was part of his mid match offence. Jeeze, I'd completely forgot. 

That spin around DDT and the "catch one guy for a DDT, catch another guy for a bulldog" are some of the ones I remember now that you jogged my memory there 

IIRC, The Rock beat Benoit with his mess of a sharpshooter.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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It was a secondary finisher, which is 1 of the things missing today! It was a move he did to win matches when he had to bust it out, usually in big matches. Other examples are The Steiners who had several, Benoit the Dragon Suplex, etc. When they busted those out it made you think they were running out of options as a heel, or it made you want to see them top the special move as a face.

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38 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Speaking of secondary finishers, remember that period, maybe mid 2000s, when WWE was all about guys having secondary submission finishers?  I vaguely remember Flair Cosplay HHH beating dudes with a sleeper.

He also had that Indian Deathlock.

Isn't this why Edge started using the Edgeacution or whatever it was called? Thats was actually a pretty cool move.

Edited by PetrolCB
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