July 2022 Wrestling Discussion

[Pete]

They overproduce this thing to the nth degree and still can't bring themselves to edit

Spoiler

Flair gigging himself?

So f'n dumb.

[Log]

1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I can imagine Vince and Bruce watching the dailies during filming and trading "That's good shit, pal" and lap dog head nods throughout, respectively.

Bruce just doubled over, dying laughing when that guy says, "Dookie".

[SirSmUgly]

Hahaha, Flair couldn't even help basically being the heel in the build for his very final match.

[S.K.o.S.]

 

[Technico Support]

18 minutes ago, Log said:

Bruce just doubled over, dying laughing when that guy says, "Dookie".

He sent an anonymous email to the Academy after the TEENY WANGERS scene.

[Elsalvajeloco]

38 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

He sent an anonymous email to the Academy after the TEENY WANGERS scene.

I'm still baffled as to why Stan Hansen of all people was dressed like one of the actors from the original Hal Roach Our Gang shorts and apparently living on Skid Row.

[Tarheel Moneghetti]

1 hour ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

Hahaha, Flair couldn't even help basically being the heel in the build for his very final match.

Eh, I thought Flair came off the babyface in that segment.  Which is interesting since Meltzer has been saying for awhile that Ric is more comfortable working heel and would most likely be the heel in the match.  

Edited July 19, 2022 by Tarheel Moneghetti

[Pedro]

On 7/17/2022 at 10:46 AM, Stefanie the Human said:

I've been trying to limit how often I bring up misogyny because apparently I strike some raw nerves when I do so, but... yeah.

Two notes about this:

1) $30,000 for conventions is actually fairly cheap, especially if you break it down to a per day cost of $10,000 or $15,000. Let me pluck a convention out of thin air: GalaxyCon books a lot of wrestlers for their conventions, and with a couple of exceptions, their pricing is pretty consistent no matter which wrestler. I'll just link to Hangman Page, but it doesn't matter because it's the same for any wrestler unless you're Sting (where it's higher because, well, it's Sting) or an indie wrestler (where you are basically setting up as a vendor piggybacking on the AEW wrestlers and legends there, not as a contracted talent brought in by the convention, and are charging your own rate).

So $40 for an autograph, $40 for a table selfie, $60 for a combo of the autograph and table selfie, or $60 for the professional photo op. And that's for a run of the mill wrestler. (For those curious, Sting is $60 for an autograph and $70 for the photo op, no table selfies.)

Sasha isn't going to be charging those rates because Sasha falls within a unique category, because she will be able to draw wrestling fans and Star Wars obsessives due to her appearance on the Mandalorian (however big or small the role might have been).

Who else is appearing at GalaxyCon Raleigh? Katee Sackhoff, who was in the Mandalorian with Sasha. Note her autograph pricing. $120 for an autograph on Star Wars items. $80 for an autograph on non-Star Wars items, or an 8x10. $80 for a table selfie. $100 for a professional photo op. Her prices are going to be higher than Sasha's, but those Mandalorian appearances put Sasha in a unique category and conventions will likely put her close to this tier.

Sasha's a double draw for these conventions thanks to that Star Wars connection, so I dare say $30,000 is underpaid.

2) Let's also analyze if the men charging high price tags are worth it on indie wrestling shows. Short answer: no. Remember how I said Ric Flair charged $16,000? Do you also remember how I said the promoter didn't make their money back? You also have to accept the upcharge on security and venue costs to accommodate the higher than usual amount of fans. Flair got paid, as did the other names brought in (Ricky Morton, Bobby Eaton, the Barbarian), but local talent got nothing. And what did the local promotion get from it? A one night bump in attendance, then right back to square one for the next show, which didn't happen for four months because the promotion lost too much money to run again until then. That promotion was averaging 100-150 for their shows before Flair, and it averaged 100-150 after Flair. All to get a five minute rambling Flair promo where he called the promotion by the wrong name.

I worked on indies for close to a decade, and I don't think I ever saw an instance where bringing in a name of that magnitude helped long-term attendance. It was great for a short-term bump but it never really did anything to maintain the audience because the elevated costs just ended up torpedoing later shows. Maybe that's just poor cost management by the promoters I worked for, but really, when you book a name, you draw in people to come see that name. Once that name is gone, you'd better hope you've hooked the people who came to see that name, and 99% of the time that just doesn't happen. Way too much risk.

this is close but not always true. I was able to get table selfies with Sting, different places allow different charges. 

The thing is if a company is willing to pay Sasha her asking price what business is it of ours? Somethings are better left out of the public eye. Somehow she had to have told somebody "I'm charging $30,000 per appearance"  and someone else made sure it leaked. So you could argue she wants people to know what she's getting paid. But regardless it's not our business.

 

Same with when Brock was getting $100k per raw appearance. If WWE wants to pay him that it's not his fault, can't hate on someone for making money when a company is willing to throw trucks of cash at them. 

[twiztor]

38 minutes ago, Pedro said:

this is close but not always true. I was able to get table selfies with Sting, different places allow different charges. 

The thing is if a company is willing to pay Sasha her asking price what business is it of ours? Somethings are better left out of the public eye. Somehow she had to have told somebody "I'm charging $30,000 per appearance"  and someone else made sure it leaked. So you could argue she wants people to know what she's getting paid. But regardless it's not our business.

Same with when Brock was getting $100k per raw appearance. If WWE wants to pay him that it's not his fault, can't hate on someone for making money when a company is willing to throw trucks of cash at them. 

the bolded is just speculation. A Comic Con promoter may have reached out, been given that price, and then balked at it and spread the word to get public opinion against her. or it could be a completely made up number. or a million other things.

[Technico Support]

1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I'm still baffled as to why Stan Hansen of all people was dressed like one of the actors from the original Hal Roach Our Gang shorts and apparently living on Skid Row.

The pop culture knowledge of the co-writers of the film (along with Hulk Hogan and Cocaine) is always a few decades behind the times.

[odessasteps]

I just asked this on the BTS discord so I’ll throw it out here: 

I wonder the most successful baseball player turned wrestler was. I mean, the best baseball player to become a wrestler. Did Torborg make the show? Did The Mayor ever wrestle In HWA or just manage? I presume there was someone who made it higher in the system than Randy.  I’m sure I’m forgetting someone obvious.

[Peck]

?
 

[The Comedian]

2 hours ago, Technico Support said:

He sent an anonymous email to the Academy after the TEENY WANGERS scene.

Hopefully we can all agree that Kurt Fuller as Brell was completely awesome in that "Raul Julia in Street Fighter" way though ...

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

1 hour ago, Pedro said:

this is close but not always true. I was able to get table selfies with Sting, different places allow different charges. 

I was referencing that one specific convention's rates.

[BobbyWhioux]

1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

I just asked this on the BTS discord so I’ll throw it out here: 

I wonder the most successful baseball player turned wrestler was. I mean, the best baseball player to become a wrestler. Did Torborg make the show? Did The Mayor ever wrestle In HWA or just manage? I presume there was someone who made it higher in the system than Randy.  I’m sure I’m forgetting someone obvious.

How far did Simon Diamond get as a catcher before his knees died?

[Robert S]

2 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I just asked this on the BTS discord so I’ll throw it out here: 

I wonder the most successful baseball player turned wrestler was. I mean, the best baseball player to become a wrestler. Did Torborg make the show? Did The Mayor ever wrestle In HWA or just manage? I presume there was someone who made it higher in the system than Randy.  I’m sure I’m forgetting someone obvious.

I know baseball is big in Japan nowadays, no idea about the 1950ies, so I don't know how much it is worth that Baba won the award for best pitcher (according to Wikipedia) for two years in the "Nippon Professional Baseball" league.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Robert s

[Cobra Commander]

Dale Torborg was a first baseman for the Kingsport Mets, St. Lucie Mets, Tampa Yankees, and Greensboro Bats over 59 games in 1994-1995.

Giant Baba pitched 3 games for the Tokyo/Yomiuri Giants in 1959.

Veer's baseball career included 119 games mostly from 2009 to 2012 (and one game in 2016) for the GCL Pirates, State College Spikes, West Virginia Power, 3 games with the Dominican Summer League Pirates for some reason, and 34 games in the Australian league.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Cobra Commander

[Vgmastr]

59 minutes ago, L_W_P said:

Pete Rose?

Had an incredible baseball career and is in the WWE HOF, for what that's worth.

Bob Uecker is in both the baseball and WWE HOFs.

[Log]

Didn’t WWE sign that Indian pitcher that had a movie made about him?

Edit: Oh, shit! That’s Veer. I had no idea. And the movie is Million Dollar Arm. 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Log
Answered my own question.

[Horangi]

Circling back to the worst booking decisions in the past 20 years, the culling of the IWGP Heavyweight Title history is bad, but I don't think it is the worst in the last 20 years for New Japan. Remember the disastrously bad 2004-05 run of the IWGP Heavyweight Title? Some of it was bad luck, but there were some extremely bad decisions in that period that I can't believe I defended back in the day. 

Tenzan winning at the end of 2003 was the right idea, probably should have had a decent run but they wanted to try a big shock with Supernova Nakamura winning (something they would do with great success 10 years later with Okada). It kinda worked (decent drawing Dome show), but unfortunately Nakamura gets hurt. Then the wheels start falling off...Tenzan wins a tournament, drops immediately to Sasaki, who then immediately drops to Sapp (sure Sapp was a big deal in Japan, but where could this have possibly gone? And why even put it on Sasaki?) and Sapp vacates 66 days later due to losing to Fujita in K-1. 

Fujita then wins the belt in a fun match with Tanahashi and after another fun match with Shibata, seems to be going okay...until that what the fuck finish with Sasaki (getting pinned in his own sleeper in like 3 minutes) who drops to Tenzan a few months later (back to square 1). Tenzan gets hurt in the Kojima match, wins it back, then back to Fujita (because last time went so well) before finally settling on...Brock Lesnar, who really didn't want to be there and did nothing at all for business. This is at the same time NJPW is bleeding money, Lesnar refuses to wrestle Tanahashi (Lesnar says because he wasn't paid, other rumours at the time indicated he didn't want to wrestle Tanahashi for whatever reason so who knows) and then vacates which leads NJPW to have to bring back the old crown belt as Lesnar wouldn't give back the new 4th gen belt.

Typing that out makes the IWGP World thing seem not so bad...

[AxB]

7 hours ago, S.K.o.S. said:

 

13 minutes 15 seconds. Pretty good.

[ka-to]

Warren Cromartie was in Hustle for one match.

Babe Ruth was a ref.

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by ka-to
.

[onelegbrynn]

5 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I just asked this on the BTS discord so I’ll throw it out here: 

I wonder the most successful baseball player turned wrestler was. I mean, the best baseball player to become a wrestler. Did Torborg make the show? Did The Mayor ever wrestle In HWA or just manage? I presume there was someone who made it higher in the system than Randy.  I’m sure I’m forgetting someone obvious.

Dale Torborg probably. I think his wrestling career was longer that his baseball career!

I assume by “The Mayor”, you’re talking about former Reds first baseman Sean Casey, right? He’s not to be confused with the other Sean Casey who wrestled for HWA and teamed with BJ Whitmer for a while (I think? That was a long time ago).

Baseball Sean Casey did make an appearance at one or two of the Pillman Shows though. I know he was at 2000 because I have a program from that show with his autograph on it. Don’t remember if he was at the 2001 show.

[Peck]

Baseball Sean Casey is a HUGE wrestling fan as well as one of the nicest human beings on this planet.

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

13 hours ago, vicious&delicious said:

Out of curiosity, are there any instances where a wrestling promotion actively went against the wishes of the fanbase and it actually worked out for the better? It seems like WWE is always moving towards a grand vision that never materializes. 

 

In a way, the best wrestling promotions (booking-wise) did this. Eddie Graham in particular knew what the fans wanted, but knew the best way to give it to them was not how they (think they) wanted it, but the way that would elicit the most emotion (his genius way). Feuds that go on for a long time, with lots os turns, teases, face beatdowns and slow burn are a typical example. Memphis could do this on occasion too, Portland and LA too. Yeah, you want your hero to get revenge ASAP, but those old bookers would wring every last angle/emotion/dollar out of it, and we were all better off for it. Forget booking for your monthly PPV, I want a feud that lasts for years...