Thibs

Idk how well its expected to go given that its not a thing yet.

You’re in the “Ambrose leaving is a work” camp?

I’d look forward to them lying about what a 70% marginal tax rate actually is

If he meant sport in the literal sense then he’s a idiot because no matter how much people want to try to blur the lines and draw comparisons, professional wrestling never has been and never will be a sport. Using the word sport in the context he did, talking about 52 weeks a year, stood out to me as meaning a “live event” (similar to the way sports are live events) that can be available with no off season. That’s not “something totally other”. But like I said, I could be totally wrong and maybe he meant to define wrestling as the legit sport that it’s not. Which wouldnt be all that surprising.... Tony Kahn a few weeks ago said that he’d determine salaries based on wins and loses. So the entire world has pretty much lost their minds when it comes to what wrestling is and isn’t.

Idk that they mean “sport” or “sports presentation” in the context that Meltzer or people on here talk about. I think they just mean live event. I could be wrong. If they do indeed mean that they want a sports, in ring based presentation then we’ll see how long they’ll put up with the viewership that sort of thing will draw.

They just assumed you knew them from other networking events. Since anyone who attends a networking event also attends any and all other networking events that those same people also attended.

Why would he need a compelling introduction? Its the indie internet age, everyone knows who everyone is

Ryan Satin beat you to it.

Since its drunk tweeting, will Meltzer be okay with them having a wellness policy now?

Vanilla Midgets**

Of all the cliches you’ve made note of in your last couple posts I’m glad you saved the best for last— that wrestling’s just like a real sport ?.

Probably the intro music. That’s the charm of it, though, at least for me. Somewhat of a throwback set in a modern day society. I will say, I didn’t really start getting into until the end of season 1 and beyond.

Fair points. O’Shea’s the one that Bosch goes off on in the restaurant about re-prosecuting the rich chick who killed the priest. And then its caught on camera and goes viral.

And those examples are fair. We’ll have to see if it draws. I don’t think it will be we’ll see. Regarding Meltzer— not hand waving him away because he reported something I don’t like. More so because he’s got a history of pushing a narrative based on what he likes. The other examples you gave make sense.

The key in there is “introducing”. I don’t have a problem with using the same characters people have been using.... assuming its an effective character and not just a nickname. But you need to have an introduction and a starting point, for ppl that aren’t familiar with these guys.

That definitely was the case in the territory days. But most of that fell to the wayside once national television came into play. I think you can point to examples of both being successful. Steve Austin, arguably the biggest star ever, got repackaged not once but TWICE in the WWF and became a mega star. Foley was repackaged as Mankind— which more or less wasn’t far off from what he was doing in other places— but he was introduced with vignettes, a backstory, etc. He wasn’t just thrown out there with a “That’s so and so” line from the announcers. I guess what I’m saying is that you need to make decisions on a case by case basis. But when you’re dealing with young talent that have never been exposed to a national TV audience, you’d be better served to give them distinct characters (which can be based on what they’ve been doing on the indies and they can even have the same names), build them through vignettes and introduce them to an audience that’s never seen them, instead of acting like everyone should know who they are which imo can come off slightly arrogant.

I think Meltzer was the one that said that. IMO that sounds like him continuing to push what he wants. Either way, they want ratings. And higher ratings then they’re getting now. So I guess we’ll have to wait and see what kind of ratings a real sport presentation will get if that’s indeed what they want.

The problem is that this new TV network has higher ratings expectations and WWE has not shown an ability to grow a TV audience with the play it safe approach.

No you’re right. And I love that story. I guess what I’m saying is I would like to have a “setup” for that so we have a full story. Having Flip debut as the annoying dork, have some vignettes building him a such prior to the debut, have him act that way during matches and in vignettes..... and THEN have him start the interaction with Cody and co. Introduce us to the character, have the character stand alone, and THEN initiate that sort of interaction. And they may very well do that on a TV show. I hope that they do but I’m not sure.

I disagree with some of that. People have been repackaged when going from promotion to promotion forever, even in recent history and it has been successful— EC3 In Impact being an example. You certainly don’t need to have them from the start to build a distinct character from start to finish. To your second point, hardcore fans may be aware of all the talents in the indie scene but the assumption that the vast majority of fans are familiar is a false one. Putting people out there and having the announcer say “That’s MJF!” ain’t gonna cut it. To your third point, I agree, a characters motivations and actions must be totally clear. But before you worry about that, you have to define who the character is so that their actions and motivations make sense.

“Well, I mean, umm, errr, I don’t think any of those guys even drink...” -Meltzer In all seriousness, I think they’ll at least reach out. Let’s be honest.... somehow landing Lesnar would immediately put them on the map like nothing else could. And they have the money to do it. So who knows ??

They’ve shown the ability to build personalities and character traits. But who is MJF? I’m looking for them to build a character from start to finish and define exactly who this character is. Wrestling just doesn’t do that these days. They have “premises” for characters but not actual characters. EC3 In NXT was a joke. They kept the name and basically stripped away everything that made him EC3 and just had him wrestle. Impact brought in Taya and had Josh Mathews tell us 50 times that she’s “lucha royalty”.... that was the extent of her character development. Compare that to EC3’s debut in Impact— he has vignettes, he has a backstory, he looked and acted the part. Everything made sense. And as a result he was a standout character that was associated exclusively with Impact.

I don’t think you’re the only one that recognizes it. The problem is that anytime companies try to do something topical they’re immediately flamed online by dirtsheet writers and their sheep among others. When Killer Kross debuted for Impact in that vignette where he was dressed as a fake cop and took out “Peter” Williams... I wanted them to go full bore with it and have him be a former corrupt, sociopathic cop who was kicked off the force for crossing too many lines. Can’t imagine that would go over too well. And I can only imagine the reactions online to the above Kane idea— which I really like. Whenever wrestling does anything out of the box its immediately shat on.

Not sure how true this is, but apparently according to Meltzer (via other sites), AEW, along with WWE and UFC will be going after Lesnar this spring as his contract comes up. Apparently Jericho wants a match with Brock.

You definitely could. Especially with the hardcore Meltzer fanbase that fair or not, will complain the minute you don’t give them exactly what they want. They're going to have to find a balance. And it won’t be easy. The easy thing would be to just get on a streaming service, ignore the TV and keep doing what they’ve been doing. But given the type of return on investment that Kahn probably wants, they can’t do that.