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MAY 2020 WRESTLING CHAT.


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Guest Edwin
35 minutes ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Let's just assume everyone in the wrasslin' business is shit in some way and move on. 

This.

I'd say most fans, too.

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26 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

 

You know when this happens the first thing Vince or Kevin Dunn does is still people to all move to the hard cameras.   So is 25% of a building where about 90% are in one section really smart?

 

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22 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Could it be Peyton didn't want to licky boom boom down?

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Edwin said:

This.

I'd say most fans, too.

Well, let's just expand that to basically everyone on earth.

Total shit.

Yes, me too.

But also definitely you. 

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22 minutes ago, hammerva said:

You know when this happens the first thing Vince or Kevin Dunn does is still people to all move to the hard cameras.   So is 25% of a building where about 90% are in one section really smart?

 

Worked for the AFL

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Guest Edwin
11 minutes ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Well, let's just expand that to basically everyone on earth.

Total shit.

Yes, me too.

But also definitely you. 

Fair! I was already including myself.

Now, we can move on from this entire thing, right?

Anyway, apparently DeSantis was misquoted and they won't be allowing fans back as soon as next Monday.

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1 hour ago, Oyaji said:

I had no idea how sexually explicit that song was as a kid. God damn.

As I recall their entire catalog was songs exactly like this. Teenage me loved it for a while - which is why I try not to be a hypocrite when it comes to what my 13 year old listens to. ?

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19 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Some of you younger folks missed some truly hilarious shit in the '90s... like Snow

I have to admit that "Informer" is a guilty pleasure of mine. Once you read the lyrics, the song actually makes sense.

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Am I the only one here who absolutely despises the "Company Ace/The Guy" booking philosophy, where the entire company is built around one guy, that Meltzer/Gedo/Cornette/Baba/Vince all seem to believe in.

 

It's one of the main reasons that I had a lot of trouble getting into Crockett, they kept going back to Ric Flair instead of giving Rhodes/Koloff/Luger/Sting long reigns as NWA World Champion.  And when Misawa won his 4th and 5th Triple Crowns in 1998-99, I just rolled my eyes, as Kawada and Taue should have both had long reigns, and by 1998 Akiyama should have been celebrating his first TC victory.

 

Companies should always be built around multiple guys: "Okay, Okada just had a 10 month reign as IWGP Champ, now it's time for Ishii to hold the title for six months and get three successful defenses as a reward for his long service, than Ishii will drop the belt to Sanada, and after Sanada it'll be Shingo Takagi's turn...."

 

 

That booking philosophy has a nasty habit of backfiring on bookers, as you really struggle when "The Guy's" time comes to an end.  Look at AJPW/NOAH; I really wish Baba had lived long enough to see Rikio and Morishima utterly fail as main eventers, just so he could see that his decision to so completely build the company around Misawa would have such negative consequences.

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I’ll admit it isn’t a good match but I’ll gladly be in the minority liking Sabu vs Sandman. It’s a train wreck but what a glorious train wreck it is. It’s wild unpredictable falls apart a couple times but it looked and felt like both men were out there fighting for their lives. Same can be said about Sabu vs Terry I love that match too. Terry was in his 50’s and had no business being in that match but fuck if those two didn’t put on a show. And here’s Sandman talking about the acid match:

 

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57 minutes ago, Southside Jim said:

Am I the only one here who absolutely despises the "Company Ace/The Guy" booking philosophy, where the entire company is built around one guy, that Meltzer/Gedo/Cornette/Baba/Vince all seem to believe in.

It's one of the main reasons that I had a lot of trouble getting into Crockett, they kept going back to Ric Flair instead of giving Rhodes/Koloff/Luger/Sting long reigns as NWA World Champion.  And when Misawa won his 4th and 5th Triple Crowns in 1998-99, I just rolled my eyes, as Kawada and Taue should have both had long reigns, and by 1998 Akiyama should have been celebrating his first TC victory.

Companies should always be built around multiple guys: "Okay, Okada just had a 10 month reign as IWGP Champ, now it's time for Ishii to hold the title for six months and get three successful defenses as a reward for his long service, than Ishii will drop the belt to Sanada, and after Sanada it'll be Shingo Takagi's turn...."

That booking philosophy has a nasty habit of backfiring on bookers, as you really struggle when "The Guy's" time comes to an end.  Look at AJPW/NOAH; I really wish Baba had lived long enough to see Rikio and Morishima utterly fail as main eventers, just so he could see that his decision to so completely build the company around Misawa would have such negative consequences.

But on the same token for that, the opposite booking plan of "make everyone look like a star" is just as bad in a different way.

People seem to romanticize the ECW booking plan of "every person on the roster could potentially open the show or main event and/or win the title depending on the week", but when companies use that style of booking, eventually you find out the hard way that Syndrome was right: If everyone's special, then no one is.  

Any time a company's actually tried to build around multiple people,  inevitably what happened is that none of them become special enough to truly become STARS...and since pro wrestling is a star system, the only way that a company can be a true success is if someone manages to become a legitimate star (and because everyone's enamored by the star, they then come to the shows, and start caring about the lowercarder...and even if they don't care, they'll still be coming in so much that other lowcarder gets a nice paycheck out of it.) 

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Even then, it's also the difference for timing- the expansion eras, ECW, and the indies today are different than on a main scale. With those levels, there's at least a case for multiple stars and anyone being upwardly mobile to take a bigger role- because you don't know when a national promotion's going to come calling for one of your top stars, and when they inevitably do you'll need to be prepared to replace them at a moment's notice. 

Companies on a national scale: WWE, NJPW, AEW, are different: They can likely assume that their top stars are pretty much safe. It's not likely Okada or Tanahashi are leaving NJPW for somewhere else, the Elite probably aren't leaving AEW, and it took a global pandemic for WWE to have to deal with Roman Reigns not walking through the door. With those companies, your top stars are safe, and so you can have more of a pecking order.

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12 minutes ago, SorceressKnight said:

Any time a company's actually tried to build around multiple people,  inevitably what happened is that none of them become special enough to truly become STARS...and since pro wrestling is a star system, the only way that a company can be a true success is if someone manages to become a legitimate star (and because everyone's enamored by the star, they then come to the shows, and start caring about the lowercarder...and even if they don't care, they'll still be coming in so much that other lowcarder gets a nice paycheck out of it.) 

Plenty of guys in the Attitude era were stars while Austin was still THE star with just a few people right behind him. Having an ace is fine and should happen. You just can't push them up above everyone else so much that no one can even slightly touch them in the eyes of fans. That is what AJPW/NOAH fucked up on with Kobashi & Misawa. Its what WWE screwed up with in the case of Cena for years. And is what Gedo could be screwing up in the case of Okada in NJPW right now depending on when Okada wins the belt again. 

Basically there is a balance that needs to be hit and can be. 

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2 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Plenty of guys in the Attitude era were stars while Austin was still THE star with just a few people right behind him. Having an ace is fine and should happen. You just can't push them up above everyone else so much that no one can even slightly touch them in the eyes of fans. That is what AJPW/NOAH fucked up on with Kobashi & Misawa. Its what WWE screwed up with in the case of Cena for years. And is what Gedo could be screwing up in the case of Okada in NJPW right now depending on when Okada wins the belt again. 

Basically there is a balance that needs to be hit and can be. 

I agree with that, but even then, there's still problems with having an ace. You can't make the ace so high above everyone else that no one can even slightly touch them, but even then, there are some people who SHOULDN'T be able to touch the ace or the star.

It ties into the controversy last week over Omega giving his jobber a competitive, back and forth match very well, because if you have a true mega-star, then there should be some guys who it's clear "not only is this guy not in the star's league- quite frankly, they're not even playing the star's sport." There's a very thin line between "Wow, that jobber nearly HAD the superstar! They might be a name to watch in the future!" and "...wow, this superstar really sucks. They had to struggle to beat that no-name guy? If they can't beat that guy easily, how the hell can they beat the actual stars?".

It's the same with an ace. Someone like Roman Reigns shouldn't be so far ahead of people he could destroy Drew McIntyre or Seth Rollins without breaking a sweat...but if Roman Reigns can't destroy Akira Tozawa without breaking a sweat, then that just makes Roman look bad and won't really make Tozawa look much better. When there's too high a difference between the superstar and the lowcarder, it goes past "the lower name just got MADE by the ace and is now in that league", goes past "this was a huge upset, and the lowcarder might be a little higher on the card", goes past "This was one of the biggest flukes in wrestling, and it did nothing for the lowcarder", and can go screaming into "This was a comedy segment. See, it's FUNNY because the lowcarder beat the top star, and that's funny because even if you tied the ace's hands and legs behind his back, then gave the lowcarder a nuclear bomb, the ace would STILL win. So the lowcarder winning is funny, because he could never win against him!"

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3 hours ago, hammerva said:

You know when this happens the first thing Vince or Kevin Dunn does is still people to all move to the hard cameras.   So is 25% of a building where about 90% are in one section really smart?

 

Also, you know Vince is going to be insufferable when live shows restart.

I've got money on Vince hiring Virus (the luchador.  Is he still with CMLL?  God, I need to start watching lucha again), renaming him Coronavirus, and pinning him with "ruthless aggression'" in the first match back.

If you ever wanted to see what a 70-something-year-old man on the gas looks like, this may be your chance.

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Isn't it a little misleading to say that Baba booked around just one guy? It's true that he presented Misawa as the all-around best in the company, but there were always other wrestlers around who were credible enough to hold the title here and there. This is even more true of Gedo's NJPW, where Okada is clearly the top guy, but he's also just one of five wrestler to hold the title in the last two years (and Ibushi ready to be elevated to that level any time).

I think the biggest weakness of the "ace" approach to booking is that there's just no way of guaranteeing that your top star will have a successor who the audience will accept in that role. But I don't think that can be helped.

That said, I do sympathize with what @Southside Jim is saying. If one guy is the unambiguous top wrestler in the company, then when they lose the top belt, you know it's just a matter of time until they get it back. And in fact, them NOT getting it back would be dissatisfying, since it would go against they way they've been presented! The idea of Okada becoming heavyweight champion again kind of bores me, but the idea of that not happening is bothersome too.

 

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15 hours ago, Eivion said:

Plenty of guys in the Attitude era were stars while Austin was still THE star with just a few people right behind him. Having an ace is fine and should happen. You just can't push them up above everyone else so much that no one can even slightly touch them in the eyes of fans.

The thing is the fans decide that, which brings me to this.

16 hours ago, Southside Jim said:

It's one of the main reasons that I had a lot of trouble getting into Crockett, they kept going back to Ric Flair instead of giving Rhodes/Koloff/Luger/Sting long reigns as NWA World Champion. 

I like Nikita Koloff in the mid 80s. Nikita Koloff being NWA world champion would have killed Crockett before they actually died. Sting came too late when it's already starting to go down. Going back and watching some of those old shows, Flair was far and away the best thing they had. Now, they had some over acts but Flair was the man, and it was going to be super hard unseating him. He was champion for a reason. They basically had a nonpareil act, and a bunch of feature acts. He was always going to be the business driver. Business went in the shitter when he wasn't champ. Business went further in the dumps when Jim Herd drove him away, and didn't recover until a year into Hogan being in WCW off and on. None of those guys you listed were ever that much of a difference maker for Crockett compared to Ric Flair.

I think it's too tough to compare what All Japan had, WWF in the Attitude era, and JCP because all of this is under completely different circumstances. Getting back to WWF and what was going on with Austin...they also had THE ROCK. Let me use this example: Miles Davis put out a legendary album called Kind of Blue in 1959. One of the featured saxophonists on the album is JOHN COLTRANE. So in essence, Miles Davis probably wasn't even the most talented person on the album. I say that to say if everyone had a Dwayne Johnson in their deck and that's the number TWO guy, then shit, you can build around seventy guys cause those two dudes alone subsidize EVERYTHING you're doing. It won't matter. The University of Alabama's fifth best WR is better than 3/4th of the nation's best WR. That's what we're talking about.

So to me, when someone like a Dave Meltzer or anyone for that matter keeps saying this or that person can be a star or has a star look...if everyone with that look can be a star, then no one is a star. Star is the most abused and overused word in the world of pro wrestling IMO, and business very much reflects that. You should either retire the word or be extremely careful when you use it. It either happens organically, or it don't happen at all. 

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1 hour ago, Southside Jim said:

That booking philosophy has a nasty habit of backfiring on bookers, as you really struggle when "The Guy's" time comes to an end.  Look at AJPW/NOAH; I really wish Baba had lived long enough to see Rikio and Morishima utterly fail as main eventers, just so he could see that his decision to so completely build the company around Misawa would have such negative consequences.

People who are ideologically lead, they tend to take all evidence that proves or disproves their central philosophy as positive reinforcement. If Baba lived, the Noah split never happened and the two Takeshis both failed as main eventers, the lesson Baba would take from that may not have been that Misawa should have been moved from the top spot sooner. It may have been that Misawa should have stayed on top for even longer.

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