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Grifter posted:Since this is basically the MMA/WWE crossover thread, I've got a question. Everything I read about Vince seems to indicate that he is an insane megalomaniac who is terrible to work for and makes all kinds of bad decisions that should damage his business. Why is the WWE so dominant then? Is it purely momentum from having the biggest brand? WWE's biggest problem now is that Vince is an extremely competitive personality, but there's no one to light a fire under his rear end and make him compete. The only way to compete with the WWE is if someone wants to invest $100 million or more to enter an insular, precarious business that they probably know nothing about, and compete with the guy who's been doing this for decades and outlasted every other US wrestling promotion of significant size. So you're basically looking for an eccentric plutocrat who loves wrestling and is willing to stake his personal fortune on it--despite often being the most-watched program on television, the wrestling business is not integrated into the TV business in general. If a would-be promoter went to Viacom, Fox, Time-Warner, Disney, etc. and convinced one of them to invest in starting a new wrestling company, that would be incredibly shocking news. quote:Are there good books I can read about the competition companies? They sound like trainwrecks by comparison.
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Mar 30, 2015 19:13
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| # ? May 13, 2024 23:07 |
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Half the fun of wrestling is that everyone backstage is insane and half the people on the roster each other for various real or perceived slights. WCW was the excess and insanity of the wrestling business taken to heights it had never seen before and will never reach again.
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Mar 30, 2015 19:15
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The person in charge of WCW challenged Vince McMahon to a shoot fight for a WCW PPV, and trained his rear end off for it because he expected Vince to actually show up. This is something that happened before WCW started going completely insane.
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Mar 30, 2015 19:18
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Great White Hope posted:The person in charge of WCW challenged Vince McMahon to a shoot fight for a WCW PPV, and trained his rear end off for it because he expected Vince to actually show up. quote:Believe it or not, Dana White and Tito Ortiz were scheduled to square off in an exhibition boxing match back in March 2007, but the bout was called off when Ortiz did not show up for weigh-ins, per MMA Junkie.
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Mar 30, 2015 19:20
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Vince probably would've beaten the poo poo out of Bischoff which is what makes the challenge real funny. Edit: and Tito ducking Dana in a boxing match is the funniest thing ever.
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Mar 30, 2015 19:28
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Vince McMahon held a gimpy shoot fighting tournament with wacky rules in 1997 to cash in on the UFC. It was derided as not being wrestling and apparently designed to make Steve Williams (a badass amateur wrestler and megastar in Japan) a star in the WWF. So much so, that they paid him his winning bonus before the tournament ended. He ended up blowing out his knee in the semifinals. (Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn were under contract but "pulled out" after round 1/weren't allowed to compete.) After half the people in it were injured, eventually Bart Gunn was victorious. They decided to have him SHOOT FIGHT BUTTERBEAN on pay per view. Butterbean said he would take a dive or at least make it competitive, Vince said no way, Bart Gunn can totally beat you so shoot dammit! Bart Gunn was KOed in 15 seconds. Luigi Thirty fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 19:30
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Grifter posted:Since this is basically the MMA/WWE crossover thread, I've got a question. Everything I read about Vince seems to indicate that he is an insane megalomaniac who is terrible to work for and makes all kinds of bad decisions that should damage his business. Why is the WWE so dominant then? Is it purely momentum from having the biggest brand? Up until the 80s, wrestling in the US was split up into regional territories where promoters had agreements to not infringe on each others poo poo (and for NWA territories, actively shared world title belts). When Vince Jr bought the WWF territory (New York area) from his father, he inherited probably the strongest and most commercially viable of these, and immediately set about tearing up any agreements his father had made and turning it into a national company. This was almost certainly inevitable after the advent of home video, but it was McMahon who did it and basically trod his boots over the rest of the industry. The writing was on the wall for the rest of the territories and they eventually ended up either simply folding, fading into obscurity, or being absorbed into Ted Turner's new WCW brand, which Turner set up to ensure he could still get cheap TV content with the old system no longer in place. By the early 90s, WWF and WCW were the only significant players, and Turner dumped a whole shitton of money into buying WWF talent. For a while, this left WCW dominant, but was actually the best thing that ever happened to Vince McMahon. Without the old fallback of "let's put the title on Hogan", WWF went for an adult-orientated style (mostly cribbed from Paul Heyman's fledgling ECW promotion) and were forced to promote B-level stars, like Steve Austin, The Rock and Mick Foley. Austin would quickly become the biggest name in the business, while WCW was left paying out on comedy contracts that allowed Hogan to essentially write his own storylines. WCW countered by signing WWE's lead writer, Vince Russo, but found that without supervision, he was actually an insane person who wanted a title change every week and produced some of the most bizarre content ever put out on television. He would eventually be fired after suggesting that Tank Abbott (that Tank Abbott) win the world title. By 2000, WCW was hemorrhaging money and fans to the extent that some of their pay-per-views were essentially not bought by anyone, and when AOL & Time Warner merged in 2001, the company's remaining assets were forcibly sold over Turner's head for nickels and dimes to one Vince McMahon. tl;dr, A whole lot of words about wrestling, basically: 33% Vince McMahon knows stuff about wrestling and nothing else (and is a ruthless scumbag), 66% all of his competitors were dumb idiots who did idiot things and essentially handed him a monopoly on a plate
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Mar 30, 2015 19:43
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Luigi Thirty posted:Vince McMahon held a gimpy shoot fighting tournament with wacky rules in 1997 to cash in on the UFC. It was derided as not being wrestling and apparently designed to make Steve Williams (a badass amateur wrestler and megastar in Japan) a star in the WWF. So much so, that they paid him his winning bonus before the tournament ended. He ended up blowing out his knee in the semifinals. (Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn were under contract but "pulled out" after round 1/weren't allowed to compete.) Dan Severn did one match against The Godfather and he basically did a million takedowns and won a decision because the scoring really favored it.
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Mar 30, 2015 19:51
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Considering David Arquette, I don't think that having Tank Abbott win the WCW world title would've been the dumbest WCW did or could have done around that time.
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Mar 30, 2015 19:51
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Luigi Thirty posted:Bart Gunn was KOed in 15 seconds. Cumulating in one of the greatest knockout slomos in the history of video where Bart's head wobbles in circles like a punch-out character on his way to the mat. Twenty years later and to this very day, my friend and I refer to decisive knockouts as getting "Bart Gunn'd".
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Mar 30, 2015 20:30
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Then there was the time WWE tried to treat Tough Enough as a shoot (a reality TV program about people trying to break into the wrestling business) and had Daniel Puder put Kurt Angle (a big WWE star by this time) in a kimura. If the referees hadn't intervened to count Puder down (which he wasn't), he would've broken Kurt's arm and/or embarrassed him and the company on a Smackdown broadcast, because Kurt was not really in a position to tap out. Never under-estimate how big the chip on WWE's shoulder is as regards MMA.
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Mar 30, 2015 20:32
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Then there was the time WWE tried to treat Tough Enough as a shoot (a reality TV program about people trying to break into the wrestling business) and had Daniel Puder put Kurt Angle (a big WWE star by this time) in a kimura. If the referees hadn't intervened to count Puder down (which he wasn't), he would've broken Kurt's arm and/or embarrassed him and the company on a Smackdown broadcast, because Kurt was not really in a position to tap out. Then as his punishment for not letting Kurt Angle deliberately injure him, veterans (I think Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit?) beat the poo poo out of him.
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Mar 30, 2015 20:35
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Seriously go read that WCW thread I linked. It's 300+ pages of WCW insanity.
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Mar 30, 2015 20:35
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I clearly remember watching Butterbean vs Gunn with my uncle, who was in the middle of something about how it's all fake, blah blee blah. Then that happened, he stopped and went "That was not fake!"
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Mar 30, 2015 20:40
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Then there was the time WWE tried to treat Tough Enough as a shoot (a reality TV program about people trying to break into the wrestling business) and had Daniel Puder put Kurt Angle (a big WWE star by this time) in a kimura. If the referees hadn't intervened to count Puder down (which he wasn't), he would've broken Kurt's arm and/or embarrassed him and the company on a Smackdown broadcast, because Kurt was not really in a position to tap out. And on top of this, they decided to do this while Angle was recovering from yet another neck surgery. The idea was that the match would be after making the guys do a billion squat thrusts so they'd be gassed before it started. Angle actually broke the first guy's ribs, Puder was the second guy.
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Mar 30, 2015 20:57
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Yuriy posted:The person in charge of WCW challenged Vince McMahon to a shoot fight for a WCW PPV, and trained his rear end off for it because he expected Vince to actually show up. 90% or more of the audience had no idea what was going on, but that wasn't the point; the point was for Eric to do his two favourite things: sticking it to Vince McMahon, and looking like a big bad tough wrestler. RZApublican posted:Considering David Arquette, I don't think that having Tank Abbott win the WCW world title would've been the dumbest WCW did or could have done around that time. Chokes McGee posted:Cumulating in one of the greatest knockout slomos in the history of video where Bart's head wobbles in circles like a punch-out character on his way to the mat. OneThousandMonkeys posted:Then there was the time WWE tried to treat Tough Enough as a shoot (a reality TV program about people trying to break into the wrestling business) and had Daniel Puder put Kurt Angle (a big WWE star by this time) in a kimura. If the referees hadn't intervened to count Puder down (which he wasn't), he would've broken Kurt's arm and/or embarrassed him and the company on a Smackdown broadcast, because Kurt was not really in a position to tap out. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 21:01
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Halloween Jack posted:Maybe not the absolute worst, but Tank had already been jobbed out like any other guy. He hadn't been built up as a monster at all. This whole Puder story is something I didn't believe the first time I heard it because I couldn't believe that the company could be that stupid (ditto for the CM Punk being buried for his outfit at a press event). Essentially they had Kurt tangle with a legit shooter with no precautions or worked anything. They just somehow had faith that Kurt, many years past his prime, would gently caress up these rookies as expected (itself a retarded goal), because wrestling guys have a huge hard-on for making people pay dues and the backstage politics make high school seem mature.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:06
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From what I remember, the intent was for Angle to put the rookies through the wringer by shoot wrestling them, but former MMA fighter Puder decided to fight back and caught Angle in a kimura after being taken down.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:08
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WCW had Bob fuckin Sapp in developmental when they shuttered
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Mar 30, 2015 21:08
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Dr. Abysmal posted:From what I remember, the intent was for Angle to put the rookies through the wringer by shoot wrestling them, but former MMA fighter Puder decided to fight back and caught Angle in a kimura after being taken down. Yes, after he got murdered in the Rumble he left to go 8-0 in professional MMA.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:12
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Luigi Thirty posted:Yes, after he got murdered in the Rumble he left to go 8-0 in professional MMA. This is OK but MMA junkies probably have lots to say about the quality of opponents that a guy will get in sub-UFC MMA like Strikeforce.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:15
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:This is OK but MMA junkies probably have lots to say about the quality of opponents that a guy will get in sub-UFC MMA like Strikeforce. I just assume all non-UFC promotions are basically TNA
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Mar 30, 2015 21:16
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:This is OK but MMA junkies probably have lots to say about the quality of opponents that a guy will get in sub-UFC MMA like Strikeforce. Luigi Thirty posted:I just assume all non-UFC promotions are basically TNA only 2 of his opponents have a record above .5 and theyre all trash and yea, basically with the exception of OneFC which is kind of like our njpw except without the talent, b-leagues tend to be pretty TNA-esque Coker-era Bellator is a step above everything else in the US at the moment, but it's largely idiot-driven (WSOF, Titan Sports) or up and coming nobodies (AXS.tv umbrella of fight leagues)
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Mar 30, 2015 21:19
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:This whole Puder story is something I didn't believe the first time I heard it because I couldn't believe that the company could be that stupid (ditto for the CM Punk being buried for his outfit at a press event). Recently, the WWE built a wrestling school and training center around Tampa. On one hand, it's state of the art, costing $2.3 million. On the other hand, they hired a washed-up old wrestler to run the place, and he was forced to resign after his training was primarily ethnic and homophobic slurs, and beating up rookies.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:22
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I stopped watching wrestling regularly in 2006 and one of the last things I actually remember was Sylvester Terkay showing up on Smackdown squashing jobbers with an MMA gimmick based on his NCAA wrestling background and fighting career in K-1, and that he was called "The Man-Bear."
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Mar 30, 2015 21:22
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:This whole Puder story is something I didn't believe the first time I heard it because I couldn't believe that the company could be that stupid (ditto for the CM Punk being buried for his outfit at a press event).
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Mar 30, 2015 21:22
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Dr. Abysmal posted:I stopped watching wrestling regularly in 2006 and one of the last things I actually remember was Sylvester Terkay showing up on Smackdown squashing jobbers with an MMA gimmick based on his NCAA wrestling background and fighting career in K-1, and that he was called "The Man-Bear." And he finished people with a swank spinning backfist.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:26
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Halloween Jack posted:To be fair, Angle was an Olympic heavyweight gold medalist. It's not unreasonable to think somebody with those credentials could outgrapple a MMA journeyman. Did Puder even have any pro fights at that point? Problem is Angle's body was a wreck. The thing with MMA is that it's dangerous and guys who are past their prime are basically meat even if they used to be great. Nobody should be shooting on anybody on a professionally-run wrestling show.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:27
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Halloween Jack posted:To be fair, Angle was an Olympic heavyweight gold medalist. It's not unreasonable to think somebody with those credentials could outgrapple a MMA journeyman. Did Puder even have any pro fights at that point? Problem is Angle's body was a wreck. He had 1. Angle's body was destroyed and he was coming off surgery.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:27
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This is just a reminder that Angle apparently wanted to go into MMA himself to the point where he got to the physical, and then it all stopped because they pretty much went "Dear god, you are dead. Like legally dead, you are held together with silly putty and obscene amounts of painkillers, please go to a hospital." Kurt Angle is insane.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:29
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For the benefit of MMA posters who haven't heard about the Brawl for All:Halloween Jack posted:I keep coming back to this question trying to think of good examples. I think that the Brawl for All might have been the grossest misuse of talent in WWF, maybe not in terms of overall impact, but in terms of how toxic it was to every single person involved.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:33
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Halloween Jack posted:To be fair, Angle was an Olympic heavyweight gold medalist. It's not unreasonable to think somebody with those credentials could outgrapple a MMA journeyman. Did Puder even have any pro fights at that point? Problem is Angle's body was a wreck. More that there's a big leap between being a dominant amateur wrestler and actually having the knowledge to defend against jujitsu submission holds, which I'm pretty sure was the story of Lesnar's first UFC fight
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Mar 30, 2015 21:39
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DeathChicken posted:This is just a reminder that Angle apparently wanted to go into MMA himself to the point where he got to the physical, and then it all stopped because they pretty much went "Dear god, you are dead. Like legally dead, you are held together with silly putty and obscene amounts of painkillers, please go to a hospital." Kurt Angle is insane. He had been pestering the UFC for years. Dana told him "pass your physical and you can be on Ultimate Fighter Heavyweights" and he failed it spectacularly. The reason he's not with the WWE right now is because Vince refuses to have an Olympian die in his ring, since Kurt is insane and does things like jump 15 feet off cages onto his neck. Dixie Carter seems to have no problem with that.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:41
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Dana has kind of hinted that it was because he couldn't pass a drug test.
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Mar 31, 2015 02:18
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He expended too much energy and got tired
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I've seen someone ask Dana about Kurt and he said "We invited him to be on The Ultimate Fighter, but he couldn't pass his physical". The reporter asked, "Do you mean he couldn't pass a drug test?" And Dana kinda smirked and said "He couldn't pass his physical, that's all I'm going to say".
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Mar 31, 2015 02:20
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Apparently MRSA can be treated with loving medieval alchemy so maybe CM Punk should have gone to see a wizard instead of WWE's doctor Maybe Bigfoot will let Punk use his warlock
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Mar 31, 2015 02:56
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Oh yeah, he also has been on every steroid ever invented plus whatever else poo poo he shoved up his nose.
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Mar 31, 2015 02:56
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Luigi Thirty posted:Oh yeah, he also has been on every steroid ever invented plus whatever else poo poo he shoved up his nose. Also infinite pain pills. All of the pain pills, all of the time, for ever and ever amen. Add to that a shitload of booze and it becomes even more miraculous that he's still alive.
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Mar 31, 2015 03:04
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Luigi Thirty posted:Vince McMahon held a gimpy shoot fighting tournament with wacky rules in 1997 to cash in on the UFC. It was derided as not being wrestling and apparently designed to make Steve Williams (a badass amateur wrestler and megastar in Japan) a star in the WWF. So much so, that they paid him his winning bonus before the tournament ended. He ended up blowing out his knee in the semifinals. (Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn were under contract but "pulled out" after round 1/weren't allowed to compete.) Bart Gunn later fought Minowaman in PRIDE
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Mar 31, 2015 03:11
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| # ? May 13, 2024 23:07 |
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vince mcmahon is why it's a good thing that man is mortal in that speech from "the great dictator", when charlie chaplin goes "and so long as men die, liberty will never perish", he was talking about vince mcmahon cm punk became one of the most popular things wrestling has seen in over a decade by giving a promo where he said "the wwe would be better if vince mcmahon died"
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Mar 31, 2015 04:55
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