Technico Support Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 This was a really good job by Cornette to get everyone to talk about him for a few days for no good reason. It's his best current skill. See I wondered if his angry guy thing was just schtick and he's just playing to his base, then I remember that he's been fired form every company he's ever worked for because he's an angry guy, so it's most likely legit. Or Kaufmanesque dedication to his gimmick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdA Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Guy who was involved in scaffold matches and a feud with Miss Atlanta Lively reminisces about the old days when wrestling was taken seriously as a sport. I know that when I watched all those Midnight Express matches with those LEGIT HARDASS~~!!! kicks by Stan Lane I OFTEN feared for the lives of their poor opponents. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tromatagon Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 yeah their shins were fucked, son Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tromatagon Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 I just spent about 3 hours making a sign featuring Pentagon Junior and a severed head. The head is a spoiler though so I can't post it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianS81177 Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Fucking Direct TV for only having El Rey in their 2 highest priced packages..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 I just spent about 3 hours making a sign featuring Pentagon Junior and a severed head. The head is a spoiler though so I can't post it OH NO NOT BYRON!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilwaldo Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Vamp's stilted flat delivery really worked in the psych ward bit. Not so much in the build up to his feud with Pentagon last season. But the opening made me actually care about Vampiro in the year 2016, which is amazing. Havoc/Angelico/Ivelisse was the best part of season one and I'm so glad that they're getting a huge shine right off the bat. I'm already hyped for next week. There's so many dangling plot threads that still haven't been addressed. I explained Vampiro to my cousin who loved ECW and WWE back in that era and he looked at me funny until I explained the depth of the character. Now he is hooked. https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/430ift/im_writer_and_coexecutive_producer_for_lucha/ Chris DeJoseph did an AMA immediately before last night's return. Most interestingly, he mentioned that the WWE has reached out to multiple members of the LU roster in order to check their availability. That is what WCW and WWE did when ECW started to make waves and get onto the national radar. ADR was the first roster raid. Where Cornette and others miss the boat is LU gets the culture, the mythos, and the history. The old school guys know what they were taught and brought up from in territories serving local audiences. LU is not trying to create a flavorless product that can easily be transferred all over the world like McDonalds. It is a distinct product based on the rich history of lucha libre. Where the WWE has to be concerned is Mark Burnett and Robert Rodriquez. It is their names and history in television and film that create this epic tale that is dark and edgy yet modern. They are making no bones about live versus taped and the production value is just incredible. The production and rich stories create a product that can be a breakout hit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stro Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 WWE absolutely has nothing to be concerned about in regards LU, Robert Rodriguez, or Mark Burnett. LU is the most niche of an already niche genre, on a network that no one gets or even knows about. LU is doing their own thing and not at all attempting to compete with WWE on any level. LU only exists because RR wanted cool original programming for his network, and even then he could barely get a second season funded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubbymark Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 Counterpoint: TNA has been a farce of a promotion for almost 14 years, and have had some sort of TV outlet for most of their tenure. They've also done such a horrible job that they've managed to piss off every other company they have been on TV with. It is only a matter of time before POP TV drops them like a bad habit. Back to Lucha Underground, Sling TV is a really good way to watch live and on demand. One of the little subtleties that was mentioned earlier was the sexual tension between Catrina and Melissa Santos as Catrina whispers in Melissa's ear. The fans or "belivers" pick up on this by chanting, "BESO! BESO!" Vampiro if you go back and watch the tape, is absolutely incredible during this interaction. He is visibly marking out in the background, and as the camera focuses in on the whispering, you can hear him pounding on the announce table. When the camera zooms back out, he raises his arms in the air as though he was not worthy to have seen what just happened, and has just the most adorable "I just saw something naughty" smile on his face. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecubsfan Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 LU (and TNA and ROH and everything else) is not a threat to WWE, but it is a slight threat to NXT as the cool alternative. Taking Prince Puma or Jack or Angelico or whoever else wouldn't be about trying to make the main group better (though it'd be a benefit if it was), it'd be about keeping Nxt hot for whatever end game they have for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 I miss real heat, angry crowds thinking they are witnessing heinous crimes against humanity committed by men of unparalleled evil You know what was the last time I saw that in wrestling? When Pentagon Jr. threatened to break Melissa's arm last season in LU. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stro Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 Counterpoint: TNA has been a farce of a promotion for almost 14 years, and have had some sort of TV outlet for most of their tenure. They've also done such a horrible job that they've managed to piss off every other company they have been on TV with. It is only a matter of time before POP TV drops them like a bad habit. Back to Lucha Underground, Sling TV is a really good way to watch live and on demand. One of the little subtleties that was mentioned earlier was the sexual tension between Catrina and Melissa Santos as Catrina whispers in Melissa's ear. The fans or "belivers" pick up on this by chanting, "BESO! BESO!" Vampiro if you go back and watch the tape, is absolutely incredible during this interaction. He is visibly marking out in the background, and as the camera focuses in on the whispering, you can hear him pounding on the announce table. When the camera zooms back out, he raises his arms in the air as though he was not worthy to have seen what just happened, and has just the most adorable "I just saw something naughty" smile on his face. He was excited because he got a boner over Catrina being all sexy with MDS. It had nothing to do with the match, because he nor Striker knew what the match was until they came out. He was perving out, bro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stro Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 LU (and TNA and ROH and everything else) is not a threat to WWE, but it is a slight threat to NXT as the cool alternative. Taking Prince Puma or Jack or Angelico or whoever else wouldn't be about trying to make the main group better (though it'd be a benefit if it was), it'd be about keeping Nxt hot for whatever end game they have for it. LU's popularity is extremely, extremely over-inflated. It definitely is not even a slight threat to NXT as a cool alternative or anything else. LU has a shockingly tiny audience. And the audience it has likely watches pretty much everything anyway. The entire LU viewing audience could turn away from NXT and it wouldn't make a dent. And NXT has significantly fewer possible viewers than Raw or Smackdown. It's still gigantically bigger than LU on every front. EDIT: Meant to combine those posts. Dang. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 Christ, you have to come piss on this campfire too? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stro Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 No. I liked the show. But you gotta have perspective on LU. It seems popular on message boards, but it is super duper tiny in scale is all I'm saying. Even having the idea that somehow it could be a threat or concern in any possible manner to WWE or NXT specifically is just nonsense. To even entertain that idea is taking away from the essence of what they're doing in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecubsfan Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 I agree that LU popularity is over-inflated online, they're not really a threat to NXT, and they should be beneath WWE's concern, but I think where you and I disagree is I think WWE's totally capable of being that small and petty and going after people anyway. WWE should not be wasting time/effort going after LU, because the realities of their seemingly non-existent business model will put them out of business more quickly and efficiently than any talent raid, but my belief is they went after those guys anyway just because they want All The Cool Guys. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stro Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 I don't think the attempt to get dudes from LU was really a petty attack on LU as much as the talent on that show happen to be super hot around the world and especially to their NXT target audience right now. The offers would have been made if they were in ROH. The hiring for NXT seems to be a Google search of "Most popular independent wrestlers" and seeing what pops up. How DOES LU make any money? Their shows obviously cost more to produce than ROH or PWG shows, and doing super longterm contracts seems like a bold move. They don't tour, they're on a super tiny network with a super tiny audience, so I can't imagine they get much ad money. It's very easy to see why the second season took so long to get funded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecubsfan Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 LU has some tiny revenue streams, but they can't be making money now. This only makes sense as either an intended loss leader designed to create demand for El Rey and increase their subscriber base (the promotion itself loses money, but El Rey makes money off increased subscriber fees from cable/satellite adding them and it balances out) OR this is the equivalent of a internet start up, the investors are throwing in venture capital in hope of a giant entertainment corporation buying the promotion (or increasing their share of the promotion) to give a profit for all the other investors, and then whoever's left can figure out how to actually monetize it. if it's the former, it would explain why they're off of Unimas and why they hasn't gotten on elsewhere. 150K people watching El Rey is better than 100K watching El Rey and 250 watching Unimas (or someplace else) if the goal is to help El Rey. if it's the latter, it would explain why all the DVD/merchandise stuff hasn't been done, because those numbers would look a lot bigger on potential and less attractive if they were locked in to something. (I'd guess the PWTees thing would be something they could pull out of quickly.) Maybe it's something else and I'm just missing it. It just doesn't seem to be a traditional ticket selling deal, because they don't sell tickets. (And maybe can't depending on how TV shoots work in LA?) It's not a modern version wrestling deal of being paid for TV content, because El Rey's not going to be paying themselves. (Given the timeslot was and now is again just old action movies, I don't suspect they were getting paid much by Unimas - if they were getting paid at all.) It's something else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 It's no secret the WWE is very much looking to find a new Hispanic star & find a way to connect with the Hispanic audience the way they were during Rey/Eddy's peak & also when Rey was on top with Alberto just coming in. Not to mention the negativity that surrounded the company with the accusations of racism. So in that sense you could see why they'd be worried about LU ever gaining any traction. It's a market that can be very lucrative & the WWE has nobody working for them right now who understands anything about it. Right now LU is so under the radar it's not a concern but I assure you WWE was paying attention when the Univision talks were at their peak. If LU ever gets on Univision they're an automatic #2 & tons of new eyes are on them. WWE doesn't take that shit lightly. They're fine with every company existing in their own little bubble but if anyone tries to expand WWE pounces. Look no further than when ROH got on DA combined with releasing a Kevin Steen action figure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyMax46 Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 This is once again where I will ask how El Rey even stays in business. As for Cornette, my opinions on Cornette were never the same after my younger sister and her wife were talking about wrestling one day and his name came up. Wife: No, Jim Cornette was yelling about women's wrestling or something. Sister: Allison, I was born in 1994. Who's Jim Cornette and why does his opinion matter? Wife: Jim Cornette was the manager of the midnight express. He fell of the scaffold at Starcade. Sister: ... Wife: He was the booker for SMW and OVW. Sister: No, no one knows who Jeff Cornette is. Wife: No one knows who Jeff Cornette is because Jeff Cornette isn't a person. Ever since then I could never look at Jim Cornette the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 FTR: El Rey is subsidized by Comcast as part of an FCC mandate to have more diverse programming available to offset a merger they did a few years ago. I think Centric came about in the same deal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tromatagon Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 WWE didn't raid Alberto from LU, they raided him from AAA. He already wasn't coming back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTNW Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 It's funny to me that Cornette uses those arguments to attack Lucha Underground because that's largely how I feel about the era he is so fond of. I love 50s/60s american pro wrestlng. I love the atmosphere, I love the setting, I love the style. Pat O'Connor demonstrating holds on an announcer and explaining what damage they cause is my favourite thing. The 80s stuff is something that just doesn't really connect with me, and the stuff that does doesn't have ANYTHING to do with sports build (Terry Funk throwing chairs, Memphis angles etc.). It's an obvious cry for attention, but alas, people still care about him. Pro wrestling is a fucking work. It still rules though. -Roland Barthes, 1957 Do wish this thread was free of strolling though. The idea WWE doesn't jump at the slightest sign they might potentially have competition in some form, no matter how minor, is as ridiculous as thinking Triple H was good in 2003. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stro Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 Strolling? Fuck outta here with that shit. Saying you like the show but realize it is an ultra tiny niche of an already niche product = trolling. It's not my fault no one has El Rey. WWE was trying to get guys popular with PWG's audience, not LU's. It just happens that there is an overlap in talent and fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecubsfan Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 This is a dumb argument for a Lucha Underground thread because it has 100% to do with what you think WWE is doing. But explaining that LU is too tiny for WWE to go after but PWG isn't kind of makes it even dumber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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