AUGUST 2015 WRESTLING DISCUSSION!

[RandomAct]

I always subscribe to the old saying, "where there is smoke, there is fire".

[Tromatagon]

Unless it's a smoke machine in a spooky haunted house

[cwoy2j]

Breaking news -

Kevin Dunn likes to sleep naked in smoke filled haunted houses which he believes gives him sexual powers!

 

That's a half-truth!

[Big Fresh]

I blame Vince more for anything terrible Kevin Dunn has done for keeping him around.

[caley]

 

Shut up, Bucky.

 

The funny thing about Dunn is that every defender, or dude just trying to be contrarian for fun, has the same defense.  "Everything we know about him comes from second hand sources."  Like everything we "know" about every other person involved in wrestling isn't second hand?  I never saw Orton shit in any bags nor have I heard him talk about it.  I never heard Michael Hayes drop the old N bomb.  With a few exceptions, everything we think we know about the personalities of anyone in wrestling is either secondhand information or inferred by their actions.  Yet somehow, this is a valid defense when it comes to Kevin Dunn.

 

But, you know, we've heard/watched/seen interviews with Randy Orton and Michael Hayes over the years, we've been able to glean some part of their personalities from the way they answer questions, the way they interact with the public.  But you can't really do that with Kevin Dunn, he doesn't do interviews, we don't see him interact with people/the public.  The Orton shits in a bag story was long ago disproven.  And the reason no one questions the Michael Hayes story is because he was announced as being suspended over it, it even appeared in newspapers.  Is there not a far cry from that, and "Orton made a joke about Owens' weight because Kevin Dunn hates Kevin Owens an anonymous source told Dave Meltzer" (Which again Meltzer says he never said).

 

Look, I'm not saying that Dunn isn't likely a huge douche, nor that his ideas about wrestling aren't probably the antithesis to what most people want out of pro wrestling.  What I'm saying is there is a bizarre amount of venom (From Twitter: "Kevin Dunn is a cancer to the WWE. #FireKevinDunn" ; From this very board: "then, once you're fired, fuck off and never come back.") for a guy we know little to nothing about, and what we do know comes mostly from second-hand sources, many of whom have axes to grind (Fired wrestlers/writers).  It seems like a bizarre amount of bile reserved for a guy who most likely just parrots/has his ideas steamrolled by Vince McMahon.

 

I always subscribe to the old saying, "where there is smoke, there is fire".

You mean like the way everyone always believed that once Triple H took over, he would hire roided-up bodybuilders and indy wrestlers/smaller guys would never get a chance as was believed for many years (the smoke, as it were).  Then once he got to book his own offshoot (NXT), he filled it with smaller guys and many decidedly non-bodybuilders?

[RandomAct]

Not really.  The "smoke" in this case is almost always from people who have worked with Dunn.  Obviously the most recent story has been debunked, but how many former writers, wrestlers and employees have blasted the guy?

[cwoy2j]

Smith Hart just posted a pretty long rant on facebook. I'd spoiler it for length but don't know how to do that:

 

I truly am at the end of trying to understand modern day professional wrestling. How hard is it to book a good show in 2015? The talent still exits, the problem is the wrestling minds have been chased away by the Fabulous Hollywood Twink brigade. Unfortunately the gateway to entry to being a true player within the industry has become far too much as most network players that would even fathom wrestling would rather double up on WWE programming rather than take another chance with a competing professional wrestling organization. Especially after the amount of bridges that have been burnt by companies like TNA and WCW. As the television industry dissipates, the gateway to competing on WWE’s level will grow smaller and smaller with each passing year. Smaller regional promotions like Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Pro Wrestling Syndicate, House of Hardcore and a select few others do produce decent wrestling, but hardly have the resources to grow or develop their products to anything beyond their regional levels. And beyond that, a million shit indies start and fail every single day. International companies like Triple A or New Japan put out great respective products for their native countries, but continue and will continue to find barriers to entry into the United States, even though their flagship shows may end up on domestic PPV. And while domestic companies like Ring of Honor and Lucha Underground provide a decent niche product, the problem is wrestling itself is a niche product and running a niche of a niche shortens the market.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now. The opportunities do still exist for the re-emergence of a competing national/international company, but the big problem is the political will of the right people being willing to work together for the better of the business as a whole. Too many people in a position to give back to the business have been burnt so bad themselves that they choose instead to worry about their own interests rather than leaving the business in a better position than when they found it.

 

For years I have tried fruitlessly to build bridges to try to provide my insight, yet at every turn I’ve been rejected by those in power positions. And as the years pass by, I see my capabilities to benefit this business or leaving it in a better position than I found it, passing and closing. So today I am trying something new. I am going to begin laying out ideas in a public forum, because if the fans agree with me, perhaps they may see what they are missing out on. Than perhaps they may become upset enough to protest to existing and potential power brokers of this business for change that benefits us all.

 

So first and foremost the key I believe is working together. Companies like Destiny Wrestling in Toronto, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla in Los Angeles, Pro Wrestling Syndicate in New Jersey, House of Hardcore in Philadelphia, Family Wrestling Entertainment in New York, Absolute Intense Wrestling in Cleveland, Evolve in Florida, 2CW in Upstate New York, All American Wrestling in Chicago, GLCW in Milwaukee, Full Impact Pro in Florida, Pro Wrestling Xperience in Carolina's and Future Stars of Wrestling in Las Vegas all have a great following for local independents. Imagine if a National entity like Global Force or TNA were to adopt each of these individual promotions and amalgamate them under one banner. Then TNA or GFW could be a competitive touring brand drawing decent houses and building up a wide array of young talents. The smaller companies would benefit by gaining national exposure while the bigger company grows by being present in more markets.

 

Global Force made the right decision by choosing Orleans Arena in Las Vegas as their Television Taping venue. A beautiful 4500 seat venue in the heart of one of the biggest tourist destinations on the planet. But the problem is without a national television deal what do you need television tapings for. Dixie Carter has seemingly destroyed relationships with Spike TV and Destination America and when WWE’s USA contract came up for renewal not many national networks made competitive bids on the open market for their product. So one would ascertain that because of this, there is not a large demand for wrestling on a major network in 2015. I tend to disagree. I think the big problem that TNA, GFW, ROH and others are facing is that they are all trying to get onto network primetime slots. I feel as though, WCW and TBS proved that WCW Saturday Night on the 6pm time slot proved to be a successful formula for more than 20 years. If a company like TNA were to pitch to such networks as Spike, MTV, A&E, AMC, CMT, FX or WGN a 6pm program on a Saturday night, when there isn’t much in the way of competitive programming for a reasonably cheap price, with the agreement of keeping a larger share of the ad revenue, then I am sure one of those networks would jump on the idea of having a product that could add anywhere from a half million to a million plus weekly domestic viewers. TNA having a tremendous asset like Billy Corgan behind them could easily be a deciding factor for many of these networks.

 

The next step in television is clearly the internet and when I think of the strongest market today for television, I instantly think of Netflix. With shows like House of Cards, Daredevil and Orange is the New Black as original series, it clearly has taken leaps and bounds to becoming the strongest television brand in the world today. With each new innovation, you have to look to the future and I think the next future logical step for Netflix in their expansion to dominate the television industry is live sports. Imagine if rather than seeking out a prime time national network slot, that professional wrestling could be the first live sports added to the Netflix medium. Maybe I am reaching, but this could be a partnership much like wrestling helped launch the superstation as a cable network.

 

Clearly TNA has the best visual representation of a product in today’s market, but has bombed in terms of creative, strategic partnerships, marketing, talent relations, public relations, licensing and general leadership. If only we could take the production work of David Sahadi, the graphics work of William Goertel and the musical direction of Dale Oliver and assemble them behind a strong leadership team like Jeff Jarrett, Jim Ross, Jim Cornette, Scott D’Amore, Gabe Sapolsky, Tommy Dreamer and perhaps myself without handcuffs, it would certainly put the business back in a better direction. Although I’m sure some new blood like a Billy Corgan could add a lot to the creative process as he has a textbook amount of insight to our business, with business entertainment understanding as well as being in tuned with modern popular culture. This would not be to discount the independent partners of the amalgamated promotions who would each still direct their own creative under the lead promotions umbrella, thus putting emphasis on the entire brand as a whole rather than a series of individual brands.

 

Talent certainly isn’t an issue as there hasn’t been this strong of a free agent market since the closure of WCW. Quality name brand talent and undiscovered youth mixing together on a national/international stage is in my opinion exactly what wrestling fans want to see. The key I find is rather than give everything away on free TV like Impact Wrestling or Lucha Underground, the key still is to gear everything towards pay per view. If Pacquio vs. Mayweather taught us anything it is that the PPV market is not dead it is just waiting to be revitalized by a product worth paying for. Take UFC as an example. Up until UFC moved to Fox, UFC’s television exposure was limited to pretty much a commercial hyping the pay per view events and the Ultimate Fighter which was a series of events that eventually lead to pay per view. And even today UFC’s brand as a whole is dependent on finding the next big main event feature match to headline their pay per views. Wrestling should be and still can be the exact same. No one needs to see a Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio or Bill Goldberg wrestling on TV every week. That’s where the young guys can make their names. The big names should be headlining monthly super card extravaganzas bringing in the big pay per view dollars and bringing eyeballs to the next crop of young superstars building them for tomorrow. The key then is to see what other events are relevant to our industry and how to bridge and build things under one banner.

 

So for example this month Triple A is hosting Triplemania down in Mexico City. Now I understand this is a long-standing traditional event, rich in the culture of Mexican Lucha Libre. But what if as a step to building a better tomorrow Triple A, Global Force and TNA had all worked together and brought the brand name of TripleMania to a market like say Los Angeles. Now it’s time to play fantasy booker.

Triple A could still present
Rey Mysterio vs. Mystesiz
Alberto El Patron vs. Brian Cage in a Hair vs. Hair match
Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (as the local promotion) could present
Biff Busick vs. Timothy Thatcher
TNA could present
Eric Young vs. Chris Melendez
Ethan Carter 3 vs. Drew Galloway
Kurt Angle vs. Bobby Lashley
Global Force could present
John Hennigan vs. AJ Styles
American Wolves vs. Young Bucks
Then maybe an inter-promotional match like say Gail Kim vs. Sarita
And as an added attractional tribute, Jesse Ventura could host a brief 10-15 minute talk panel with Greg Valentine, Jimmy Snuka, Chavo Guerrero, Rick Martel and Bob Orton on the life and times of Roddy Piper.

All this action called by the likes of Jim Ross and Chael Sonnen and I think you’d have a starting pay per view people would pay for that also builds a following for future events.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe Im being too idealistic. Perhaps I am out of tune with what wrestling fans want today. But I don't think I am. I think many of you are as discouraged as I am. I think many of you are nostalgic for a time when wrestling was so much better. For some of you that may have been the attitude era, others it may be the golden run of the WWF in the 80's. Some may be nostalgic for older territorial promotions like I am. Whatever your flavor is, I highly doubt the products being produced by all promotions in 2015 is what you want to see today.

Keep tuned each month as I release an update on how I would see things going based on, resources and political will backing me. I welcome feedback from those that have suggestions to make this a reality.

[Tromatagon]

Hes the one that goosestepped to the ring with the Hitler mustache in Germany, right?

[Nice Guy Eddie]

Hes the one that goosestepped to the ring with the Hitler mustache in Germany, right?

I believe so. Let's not forget JBL was also stupid enough do that, minus the mustache. 

[joseph2112]

RE: Kevin Dunn.

The thing is, I have heard multiple writers on podcasts. Some liked Steph, some liked Vince,and they all had disagreements over one thing or another with people. Many weren't fired, they just resigned or burned out. Most don't seem like they are "grinding axes" for the most part. But the one universal mantra is the hatred for Kevin Dunn.

But at the end of the day, they also all say that the buck starts and stops with Vince, period. So you can blame anyone you want but I don't think VKM is some malleable piece of clay that is being played by anyone.

[caley]

I liken it to wrestling fans needing a boogeyman of sorts.  In the late 90s, it was Hogan (Keeping wrestlers down), Nash (the vanilla midgets comment) and Bischoff (Hogan's patsy), with the demise of WCW, it morphed into Vince keeping former WCW guys down, then became Triple H and Stephanie undercutting/burying everybody.  Over the last few years, with Triple H making NXT, Stephanie letting Vickie go over her on the way out, and Vince being too entertaining to outright hate, wrestling fans needed another boogeyman to blame for whenever things don't got the way they want, and Dunn is the easiest scapegoat.

[Jiji]

I have enough proof to hate Kevin Dunn in the production of WWE shows alone. Fuck shaky came, camera changes at almost every strike, or zooming in and out violently so as to diminish the art of making stuff look like it hurts without hurting people. He's the Michael Bay of wrestling.

 

And as Joseph said, this isn't just Cornette or one or two people, this is pretty much everybody that's ever gone on record concerning Kevin Dunn. That's corroboration and if we were only to trust primary sources, we'd have little knowledge of life before us or outside of our immediate surroundings. 

[Brysynner]

So what everyone's saying is the one thing in wrestling they'd go back in time to change would be to stop Dunn's father from ever saving those TV tapings that were in a car fire after Vince Sr. taped a bunch of shows in Allentown (I think ) which lead to Vince Sr. promising Dennis Dunn that he would take care of his family for life.

[DTTW]

Re Dunn

I've shot video over the years and the weirdest thing about Dunn to me is his lack of any other work. His imbd is only WWE related. Nothing else. You would think he might have worked on something else in the last 30 years but nope.

[Burgundy LaRue]

Many in the busines have put it this way:  when Paul Bearer, who was truly nice and couldn't bring himself to dislike anyone hated Kevin Dunn, something is wrong with Kevin Dunn.

[caley]

Many in the busines have put it this way:  when Paul Bearer, who was truly nice and couldn't bring himself to dislike anyone hated Kevin Dunn, something is wrong with Kevin Dunn.

You mean the same Paul Bearer who repeatedly ripped into WWE, its writers, and wrestlers after his last angle wrote him off.

 

 

 

For starters, he ripped the Katie Vick storyline, ranted on the direction of the Kane unmasking angle, said the fans "couldn't care any less" for an "unknown China Doll" winning the WWE Women's Championship (current TNA wrestler Gail Kim), criticized the WWE writing team ("However, in my heart I just know sooner or later they are going to screw something up. No matter how hard Glen Jacobs works, or how much blood he spills, his fate is in the hands of writers who have never stepped foot in a wrestling ring before."), and chastised WWE for their piece on Confidential on the death of Miss Elizabeth.

 

 

Compared to Mark Calaway, he said that Kane was the "superior athlete" and that "Glen Jacobs was indeed treated like the red headed stepchild, while big brother got the big paydays and the glory." He also added, "With Mark Calaway's big boot resting on the bar, Kane had a snowball's chance in hell of any type of character elevation."

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/a-major-extensive-update-on-paul-bearer-inside-here.167051982/

 

 

 

I have enough proof to hate Kevin Dunn in the production of WWE shows alone. Fuck shaky came, camera changes at almost every strike, or zooming in and out violently so as to diminish the art of making stuff look like it hurts without hurting people. He's the Michael Bay of wrestling.

See, to me this is a perfectly viable reason to dislike Dunn.

 

Because, sources say, he hates said wrestler or type of wrestler, seems to me kinda silly, at best, reason to wish for someone to be fired.

[Technico Support]

So what everyone's saying is the one thing in wrestling they'd go back in time to change would be to stop Dunn's father from ever saving those TV tapings that were in a car fire after Vince Sr. taped a bunch of shows in Allentown (I think ) which lead to Vince Sr. promising Dennis Dunn that he would take care of his family for life.

 

Maybe just tell Vince Sr that, while Dunn Daddy is a stand up dude, Dunn Jr will be worthless, so don't do it.

[cool arrow]

No offense to cwoy2j, but why should I care what Smith Hart has to say about anything?

[Burgundy LaRue]

Sorry Caley, but your examples aren't strong enough to hold your point--

 

* Most former WWE folks rip into the company.  Nothing to see there.

 

* I have yet to hear a soul who thought the Katie Vick angle was good.

 

* More could have been done with Kane's unmasking.

 

* We critcize WWE's writing all the time here.  What, a former employee who was actually impacted doesn't get to do that?

 

* Not familiar with the Miss Elizabeth story, so I can't comment.

 

* Taking up for Kane and noting that Taker's existence likely kept Kane from being fully elevated.  Again, not a big deal.  I don't read that as him saying Taker didn't deserve his spot, but more of the writers not being able to look past Taker to fully develop Kane.

 

The one thing that can be held against Bearer is the Gail Kim comment, but even then, Jim Ross had to tell Vince about how popular Asian porn was for Vince to consider hiring her.  So while Bearer's comments were crass and racist, it's pretty obvious the company didn't care about her, which could easily spill over to some fans.

 

 

 

I'm not saying Bearer was some saint.  But by all accounts, he got along with nearly everyone.  So when someone like that doesn't like another person, it's worth noting.  It's not the be all, end all regarding Dunn.  Just another strike against a guy who seems to have accumulated more than a few enemies over the years.

[Big Fresh]

There's Asian porn????

[JRGoldman]

I think it's pretty clear that Kevin Dunn is a jackass. That's a constant in what every says about him. The other constant is that he is Vince's yes man/sycophant. What I don't get is the leap that Kevin Dunn is the major reason that the WWE is doing things that hardcore rasslin fans don't like. Do people truly believe that if Kevin Dunn was fired tomorrow, the WWE would be a totally different place (television production not withstanding)? Like, do you honestly think Kevin Dunn is the only person that is saying "Kevin Owens is fat and ugly" or "all diva's should be portrayed as backstabbing crazies"? If Kevin Dunn stepped down tomorrow, there would be a line out the door at Titan Towers to become Vince's newest boot licker. Nothing would change. It starts with one man, and it probably ends with him too. Kevin Dunn is Grima Wormtongue. Yeah, he's an asshole that made things difficult, but no one was like "Dude, Grima Wormtongue is the problem here. If he's gone, Sauron and Sarumon will totally come around and start letting the hobbits put on work rate classics every week".   

[Dewar]

Percy Pringle was a pretty insufferable dick towards fans when he lowered himself to posting on message boards after he left WWE, so the "he's nice to everyone but Dunn" stuff probably won't fly with anyone who interacted with him online.

[Niners Fan in CT]

I don't understand the supposed Triple H/Stephanie vs. Kevin Dunn behind the scenes thing.  They say Dunn is attempting to sabotage NXT wrestlers. Ok, I guess I could buy that but do people forget that Triple H and Vince are family?  How does that work? Triple H just never brings it up at the dinner table?

[Dewar]

Dunn clearly invites himself to dinner, the girl's basketball games and family swim time.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Dunn clearly invites himself to dinner, the girl's basketball games and family swim time.

 

Fuck, he probably has permanent dibs on the guest room.  Maybe this all started because Dunn blew up the bathroom.