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Yeah there's no way Disney is going to have the 90s Blood Bath/Mae Young Handchild poo poo on its streaming service. Fox I could see since, well, Smackdown is on Fox already. Most likely Peacock or Paramount. Ironically, Disney could probably manage to make a whole lot of cool poo poo with WWE if they were to end up with it, but I doubt there's any political will in the company to take a gamble like that.
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Apr 8, 2022 12:45
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I wonder if on the network, the attitude era still out draws modern day content? I know we'll never get that answer, but I am curious given that the attitude era is like, the only thing people seem to know about the WWE that isn't John Cena or Hulk Hogan.
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Apr 8, 2022 14:38
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SHAWN MICHAELS, MR. WRESTLEMANIA, PART 4/THE END: THE ICON WRESTLEMANIA 23: SHAWN MICHAELS VS JOHN CENA There’s a number of ironies around this match. By now, the Cena Sucks hatedom was hardened and entrenched, and not going anywhere. One can only imagine how it would have gone if the supposed original plans, which would have been “Wrestlemania 20 again, except Cena in the place of Benoit and this time Shawn and Hunter would be loosely allied CAN CENA OVERCOME THESE ODDS?” would have gone over. I suspect, not very well. Likewise, it seemed almost a certainty that HHH had been going to put himself over Cena at the last year’s Wrestlemania. The opposite was true here: absolutely no one who knew anything about the business thought Shawn had the slightest chance of winning. This time, they were right. In all honesty, they should have gone for the twist again. Shawn should have won. He could have dropped the belt back to Cena on the famous Raw rematch that went nearly an hour a few weeks later. But that, again, is based around assessing situations and planning ahead, and as we’ve seen, the WWE sure as poo poo don’t do that. Hell, I can even understand their mindset. "You already paid up to hundreds of dollars to come here, we’ve got your money, if you want to curse out Cena and us and show your incredible displeasure over how we run things, knock yourself out. You still paid to come see us, you stupid marks.” And again, it can be kind of hard to judge the quality of the match due to the sheer negative feeling around it. It’s like eating a delicious piece of chocolate cake as scores of people glare at you in disapproval; it just takes a lot of the enjoyment out of the food. And as expected, Cena won and continued along the route of SuperCena hatred. Sigh. Maybe Hogan was onto something when he did that whole ‘Jabroni marks who worked themselves into a shoot’ line.  WRESTLEMANIA XXIV: SHAWN MICHAELS VS RIC FLAIR How do you end a legendary career? Usually, not very well. The nature of the beast is that virtually all wrestlers will just fade away, or will be unable to stay away even if they take what is supposed to be a final bow (see: Terry Funk). They’ll keep going until one day their bodies say “No.” and they can’t any more, like Triple H recently discovered as part of his life falling apart (?), or how Undertaker probably came back for more matches than he wanted to because he felt he couldn’t quite put a bow on his career as he wanted to, ultimately requiring a ‘Cinematic match’ to feel like he did it three Wrestlemanias after it seemed like he was done. And so it was with Ric Flair, as a months long storyline that the next match he lost would be ‘his last’ culminated at Wrestlemania 24 against Shawn Michaels. Michaels pulled out everything he could to make up for Flair’s advanced age and just how much he’d slowed down despite himself, and ended it with a truly sorrowful moment where he said “I’m sorry, I love you.” before kicking him to end the match. And so, on the Grandest Stage of Them All, and the next night on Raw, the wrestlers and fans paid accolade after accolade to the Nature Boy. It was more or less perfect. But life ain’t, and either are people. And Flair’s personal demons and failings would lead to him pissing away the moment(s) and going back on his retirement, only actually stopping four years later when Jerry Lawler’s sudden heart attack scared him into realizing his mortality, or so it has been told. Maybe we, as fans, must shoulder some of the blame. After all, what do we often so chant at such legendary wrestlers? “One More Match.” Be careful what you wish for.  WRESTLEMANIA XXV: SHAWN MICHAELS VS THE UNDERTAKER It’s a classic trope in fiction for a character (almost always female) to be wearing glasses, have her hair done up in a tight style, while wearing covering, shabby at times clothes, to have those aspects changed and suddenly she’s AMAZINGLY HOT. Hell, Charilize Theron arguably won an Oscar due to the lengths she went to to hide her attractiveness to play serial killer Aileen Wuornos as much as her performance as said person. And so you could say the same for the Undertaker. I don’t know when Mark Calloway truly learned ‘when to work’. Due to his trainer, Buzz Sawyer, being…less than good, according to Mark’s reports, he basically learned most of his stuff ‘on the job’. He’d only been wrestling for a little over three years when he debuted at the Undertaker, and after his initial heel run, as said, he’d be stuck for another 4-5 years in the role of ‘monster/freak slayer’, forcing him to wrestle often very large, immobile slugs who even the likes of Bret Hart and Michaels himself would probably have trouble carrying to a great match. It presented a sort of ‘damned by the company you keep’ vibe, that Calloway himself couldn’t work, and was good for a few spots and consistency in staying in character. It wouldn’t really be until Mick Foley debuted as Mankind that that image began to be shed, and fortunately, Calloway had another two plus decades to make up for it. And so for Wrestlemania’s 25th showing, Michaels and Undertaker entered the ring with a heavy burden. They’d had numerous great, if not amazing matches in the past. Hell In A Cell I. The 2009 Royal Rumble, which they ended up the last two in and basically turned into a match, fighting for another ten minutes before Undertaker won. And with Shawn now well cemented and regard as “Mr. Wrestlemania”, and Undertaker’s Streak now a REALLY drat BIG THING, hopes and expectations were high. Though of course, few wanted Michaels to win the day; he didn’t need the kind of rub ending the Streak would get him (say what you will about Lesner, but they mostly used that rub drat well with him). It would suggest that the build up, where Shawn seemed to have the Undertaker’s number and kept outthinking and out mind-gaming him, would indicate the opposite would occur: Undertaker would win. In the end, everyone won. Gavok says that he considers Undertaker’s match against Batista at Wrestlemania 23 Taker’s best in all his Streak matches: I respectfully disagree. This is the best. It might be hard to grasp as over-hype-ness might now affect the match, but seeing it live, even with high expectations, it overcame all of them. There was a SPARK there of not knowing just how drat good the two could be, even after all the years and their past matches together, and it lifted an amazing match into a once in a lifetime one, next to Steamboat and Savage and Michaels own WM 10 ladder match. This was the match that well and truly made truth that Shawn Michaels was Mr. Wrestlemania, and so in a way was Taker. What could be better than that?  WRESTLEMANIA XXVI: SHAWN MICHAELS VS THE UNDERTAKER, ROUND 2, CAREER VS STREAK. And so it ended. I asked what could be better than Michaels vs Taker at WM I…and I personally don’t think their rematch QUITE makes it to the same level. Oh, it’s a drat drat amazing match, yes. It’s main eventing, as the first one should have. And props to Michaels, save for one slip (and in all honesty, I really suspect that if we were offered millions of dollars to perform, most of us would put our own interests ahead of the wider problems of a super complicated and messy country. If you have greater principles, good on you), for keeping his word and actually retiring when he again lost the match. So what’s wrong? Well, as said…the last time, we weren’t expecting that extra spark. That was what made the match truly, utterly special, at least in my assessment. The second time, we knew. Much like you can’t really artificially create a “Wrestlemania moment”, it’s really hard to top something that’s amazing if you’re overtly trying. It loses, in a way, a small vibe of authenticity. It’s not something exclusive to wrestling: look at how few sequels to films are considered better than the originals. In essence, there was nowhere to go but down, even if the ‘down’ was a very slight dip that’s almost a straight line. But, again, it’s wholly based on personal assessment. I am as right as Gavok as someone who thinks this was the best Wrestlemania match Undertaker had is this one; it’s all personal taste. It is a little regretful that Shawn did stick to his retirement. One can only drool at some possible One More Matches. Shawn Michaels vs Daniel Bryan. Shawn Michaels vs AJ Styles. But as some say, it’s hard to miss you if you never go away. And it wasn’t like Shawn never appeared at Wrestlemania again. He’d be there as the special referee for Hunter’s own failed second attempt to beat Undertaker. And aiding Hunter again against Sting in that it-wasn’t-supposed-to-be-WWE-vs-WCW-but-Vince-never-forgets-a-slight match at Wrestlemania 31. But, in the end, Michaels capped his title of Mr. Wrestlemania with 17 matches, a 6-10-1 record (he technically wasn’t the one who lost at Wrestlemania XX, Hunter did), a total of 409 minutes (and 45 seconds), or a shade over six and a half hours in ring, two tight changes, 7 title matches, with one won title, one defended by technicality title, one lost title, and four failed to win titles, and one of the best Wrestlemania entrances of all time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHvw3H8FueU It’s often hard to live up to an honorific, especially a self-given one. But as demonstrated, Michael Shawn Hickenbottom earns every one. The Showstopper. The Main Event. The Icon. Mr. Wrestlemania.  --- Wrestlemania 25, nicely provided by the WWE on Youtube. And the sequel. YOU decide which one is better for yourself. And here, here's the Ric Flair match as well. And here's the Kurt Angle match from 21, gonna stick this in my previous post as well. Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Apr 8, 2022 |
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Apr 8, 2022 17:39
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Cornwind Evil posted:It is a little regretful that Shawn did stick to his retirement. "IT IS A LITTLE REGRETFUL THAT SHAWN DID STICK TO HIS RETIREMENT."
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Apr 8, 2022 19:37
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The Young bucks STILL occasionally mouth "I'm Sorry. I love you" before superkicking someone into oblivion.
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Apr 8, 2022 19:49
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It's not even the "I'm sorry, I love you" part that makes that ending great. Earlier in the match, Michaels had a shot to end it, but hesitated and Flair almost got him in a Figure Four because of it. At the end of the match, Flair knew he was done and was straight-up beckoning Michaels like they were Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan. After WrestleMania, there was a pretty cool Michaels vs. Batista feud where Batista's POV was, "You could have held back or even let Flair win and you didn't. You ended his career and I'm going to make you pay."
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Apr 8, 2022 20:41
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Another minor McMahon-speak nonsense thing: forcing Canadian wrestlers to use American cities as hometowns
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Apr 8, 2022 23:17
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:loling at disney owning Stone Cold Steve Austin Ya know, I would play the poo poo out of a Lego WWE video game. Like you could have the Stone Cold, Booker T grocery store fight as a map.
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Apr 8, 2022 23:26
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Gavok posted:It's not even the "I'm sorry, I love you" part that makes that ending great. Earlier in the match, Michaels had a shot to end it, but hesitated and Flair almost got him in a Figure Four because of it. At the end of the match, Flair knew he was done and was straight-up beckoning Michaels like they were Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan. This is true. But it’s the spot people remember. It’s also the bit that was genuinely touching at the moment then funny as hell ever since. But yeah, a genuinely great match.
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Apr 8, 2022 23:35
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Hey, rememberJohn Heidenreich? Original plan was that he was a cryogenically frozen nazi supersoldier Ended up being a mountain of a man claiming he was controlled by "Little Johnny", which he revealed was originally planned to be a doll. Then he sexually assaulted Michael Cole. Had a boring feud with the Undertaker, started reciting terrible poetry, teamed up with Snitsky based on his admiration for babymurder, then they made him team with Animal in a recreated Legion of Doom He was terrible in the ring, every story involving him was terrible, but he did have this weird kooky energy that had its own charms
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Apr 9, 2022 01:53
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In defense of Vince (this time, at least) the cryo-nazi idea was actually just a pitch it turns out and Vince was disgusted, here's Wikipedia:quote:In 2008, former WWE writer Dan Madigan revealed that in 2004 he had pitched directly to Vince McMahon an idea to have Heidenreich return as a Nazi stormtrooper named Baron Von Bava, who had been cryogenically frozen before being revived by Paul Heyman (A Jewish son of a Holocaust survivor), complete with Heidenreich wearing the red armband with the swastika and even goose-stepping to the ring. While WWE would eventually have Heyman manage Heidenreich, the pitch was considered so shocking that McMahon left the board room speechless and didn't return for the rest of the day. The pitch led to Madigan leaving WWE later that year.[16]
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Apr 9, 2022 01:58
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TheSwizzler posted:Hey, rememberJohn Heidenreich? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEK80zqUXWQ
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Apr 9, 2022 02:00
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Apr 9, 2022 02:30
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dixie carter almost sold TNA to two real life neo-nazi's lmao
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Apr 9, 2022 03:16
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Vince McMahon thinks that Millennials are too darn soft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXDmmvC5cXs
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Apr 9, 2022 04:01
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PeterCat posted:Vince McMahon thinks that Millennials are too darn soft. No Vince, it's not a lack of ambition. It's the fact that you hold all the cards and decide stuff wholly based on your arbitrary screwed up head. Maybe some have the sheer balls to constantly put their foot down and go "No, that's stupid Vince." but in the world of pro wrestling with all its dangers and how easy it is to destroy yourself and have no money left at the end of it, and when you're holding the likely best job one can get and it's a coin flip that if you try and be proactive you'll either get his respect or get punished or fired for it, most are unwilling to take the risk. FFS, if Austin had come along exactly as he was, just a decade later, you would have wasted and buried him because by then WCW and ECW were dead, TNA was barely a blip, and where else were you gonna work for real money, huh? I ain't in mortal danger any more, so I'll do what I WANT, assholes. If you had a 90 percent chance to just keep coasting, or a 50/50 chance of putting your arms through some holes, with one 50 being getting the proverbial brass ring and the other having your arms mauled by a pack of rabid wolves, which one would YOU take? Hell, I'll do one better. ZACH. GOWAN. (Later Edit: Or rather, Zack Ryder). He had ambition. You buried him for it. Because he wasn't 'supposed' to get over. I do hope that Vince in his last days suffers a stroke or some sort of condition that leaves him disabled and wholly dependant on others to do ANYTHING and he gets a taste of just what it's like. Ugh. I really wish business didn't mesh so well with the hollow masteries psychopaths have when it comes to certain interactions and decisions. Seriously: the whole "wasn't supposed to get over" idea is so maddening. Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Apr 10, 2022 |
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Apr 9, 2022 05:05
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I just want to watch wrestling where a guy kayfabe dies and then comes back as his own twin brother except he has a moustache and a hat. Then over time, the twin shaves his moustache and starts going by his old brother's name and starts "stealing his life" Then the first guy comes back and now you have a wrestler playing himself and his own twin brother. What wrestling is that?
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Apr 9, 2022 05:11
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Bonzo posted:Ya know, I would play the poo poo out of a Lego WWE video game. Like you could have the Stone Cold, Booker T grocery store fight as a map. Roblox has entered the chat
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Apr 9, 2022 05:16
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Cornwind Evil posted:I do hope that Vince in his last days suffers a stroke or some sort of condition that leaves him disabled and wholly dependant on others to do ANYTHING and he gets a taste of just what it's like. Ugh. I really wish business didn't mesh so well with the hollow masteries psychopaths have when it comes to certain interactions and decisions. Seriously: the whole "wasn't supposed to get over" idea is so maddening. Guess who set up the system in the first place?
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Apr 9, 2022 05:28
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Cornwind Evil posted:I do hope that Vince in his last days suffers a stroke or some sort of condition that leaves him disabled and wholly dependant on others to do ANYTHING and he gets a taste of just what it's like. Ugh. I really wish business didn't mesh so well with the hollow masteries psychopaths have when it comes to certain interactions and decisions. Seriously: the whole "wasn't supposed to get over" idea is so maddening. In the bush leagues, literally saw a guy come in from another territory, get over like mad with the crowd, current "top guy" flipped the gently caress out and shoot tried to take the guy's head off with a baseball bat in an unscheduled run-in Guess who didn't get invited back?
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Apr 9, 2022 05:43
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As a counter to that sourness, check out this entrance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk4UYIqaZ54
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Apr 9, 2022 06:29
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My favourite was when Ronda Rousey (nominally a face) started pissily ranting about Becky Lynch being a soft millennial as some kind of build to a match Becky is exactly two days older than Ronda
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Apr 9, 2022 09:12
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ronda rousey isnt very smart
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Apr 9, 2022 09:16
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Cornwind Evil posted:Hell, I'll do one better. ZACH. GOWAN. He had ambition. You buried him for it. Because he wasn't 'supposed' to get over. I take it you meant Zack Ryder?
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Apr 9, 2022 13:49
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Bonzo posted:Ya know, I would play the poo poo out of a Lego WWE video game. This is a great idea. Surprised it hasn't been done really. The create a wrestler feature would be fun.
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Apr 9, 2022 14:34
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Vince alienating a market that could make his business profitable. Lol
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Apr 9, 2022 15:08
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The new generations are weak, which is why all of our top matches involve 50 year old men running into each other for the enjoyment of other 50 year old men.
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Apr 9, 2022 15:12
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Extra Large Marge posted:the enjoyment of other 50 year old men. Maybe the fans are old. And want to see old man things. This will slowly become a worse problem as time goes on but don't worry! Eventually the last fan will die of old age and no one will care about wrestling again. His final act will be an effort post or youtube video about how the Attitude era changed wrestling forever because the one thing wrestling fans refuse to do is get with the loving times.
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Apr 9, 2022 15:20
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Trollologist posted:Maybe the fans are old. And want to see old man things. This will slowly become a worse problem as time goes on but don't worry! Eventually the last fan will die of old age and no one will care about wrestling again. This is almost exactly the same arc as comic books.
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Apr 9, 2022 15:30
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Sean Michaels and Ric Flair in a Conoloscopy Match! The Brood vs the Corporate Adultcare in a piss-bag match
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Apr 9, 2022 15:44
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Ghost Leviathan posted:This is almost exactly the same arc as comic books. This tickled me so I did a bit of googling: I guess in '96, comics sold around $300 million this is during the height of Spawn apparently. In 2019 Sales were about About $529 million Now $300 million adjusted for inflation (I used this calc: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/) Is $488 million. So comics are up as an industry. And this is just as books, comics as IP are also sweeping movies and culture and merchandise. The books you could argue are being sold in greater numbers to fewer people (for example a reader in the '90's might have bought 1-3 titles a month, and now that number is 6-10) but I don't know where to dive for that information. Wrestling is getting more insular. And I don't even know if that's super true. but like, AEW is HOT with wrestling fans. But I can't remember the last time a random person or pop culture figure came out to talk about wrestling that wasn't just jerking off WWE Attitude or discussing a WWE star. Like, there's no new Stings or Goldbergs or starts that didn't come from WWE that have pushed out into the mainstream.
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Apr 9, 2022 15:50
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I don't know about comics enough to talk about them, but I'd suspect it's the same thing as with WWE - you make more money by charging 50,000 people $100 than you will by charging a million people $1 you can put in the hard graft to be culturally relevant now and to engage new viewers, or you can just pander as hard as possible to the existing fanbase and charge them hundreds of dollars to watch you remember things that happened when they were teenagers just holding down the button on a big nostalgia airhorn until it run out of airhorn juice
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Apr 9, 2022 16:44
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Also I'd question those numbers if I was less lazy on a few grounds. Marvel and/or DC have some weird rackets going on.
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Apr 9, 2022 16:45
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FullLeatherJacket posted:just holding down the button on a big nostalgia airhorn until it run out of airhorn juice New Thread title please.
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Apr 9, 2022 16:46
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There was a write up on Dylan Postl a while back but no one mentioned that WWE bought the rights to the Leprechaun movies to reboot the franchise as a star vehicle for Hornswoggle but for some reason turned him into a weird goblin creature that never spoke and was barely shown in the movie.
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Apr 9, 2022 17:17
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FilthyImp posted:Vince alienating a market that could make his business profitable. Vince is literally on record saying "I'd rather lose money on my idea than make money with someone else's idea."
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Apr 9, 2022 17:28
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FilthyImp posted:Vince alienating a market that could make his business profitable. Oh, did he finally manage to piss off the House of Saud?
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Apr 9, 2022 18:15
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Sydney Bottocks posted:Oh, did he finally manage to piss off the House of Saud?
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Apr 9, 2022 18:26
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re: the comics industry would love to effortpost about this at length if I could (recovering from eye surgery) but basically DC and Marvel only look like they're doing well if you compare them to themselves and each other (and even so, DC has taken to obfuscating its unit sales) we actually have a pretty good picture of what the comic book industry would look like if it hadn't chained itself to a shrinking and aging core demographic because unit sales in graphics publishing overall were actually up 68% last year from 2020, which was up 17% from 2019 in spite of the pandemic, and that was up 32% from 2018. growth in calculated retail value was even steeper but it wasn't spider-man and batman it was stuff like this:   these are the biggest selling titles from the two biggest comic publishers in the united states in 2021: Scholastic, and Viz Media. (yeah) children's and YA (young adult) graphic novels are absolutely massive right now you know how people used to say comics are for kids? well, kids never stopped liking comics, even when the people writing superman stopped liking them back children's and YA graphic novels saw unprecedented growth roughly beginning when Scholastic started republishing Bone in the mid-2000's, then an absolute explosion when Raina Telgemeier showed up, and then... they kinda just never stopped exploding see Marvel and DC had basically willfully ignored the gigantic non-core segment of their audience for so long that it created a vacuum in the market that big name publishers like Scholastic and Simon & Schuster gladly stepped up to fill in as soon as they realized it was there. and it's still being filling in if anybody's interested in reading further, I recommend this analysis of last year's Bookscan but I think this is the most relevant bit: quote:Depending on your exact definitions of intended audiences, it appears that seventeen of the Top 20 is intended for children or middle readers. Four of the Top 20 are Manga, and if you are looking for a “Marvel / DC-style” comic, you are not even in the top hundred-and-fifty! In fact, the first DC comic to appear is at #164 with the middle reader aimed Teen Titans: Beast Boy (with Teen Titans: Beast Boy Loves Raven coming in at #200, and former best-selling Watchmen not showing up until #250) As for Marvel? Their very first appearance isn’t until (gulp) alllll the way down at #892 with Infinity Gauntlet – this means that Scholastic’s Miles Morales: Shock Waves radically outperforms any published-by-Marvel comic, coming in at #202 (We’ll talk more about this below) there's also a pretty good Forbes piece from a few years ago covering the market shift: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robsalkowitz/2019/01/18/as-comics-direct-market-struggles-a-surprising-publisher-rises/ quote:Lots of factors account for the decline, including the lack of many true blockbuster hits last year; the self-defeating tactics of large publishers to extract maximum revenue out of a small and unrepresentative group of hardcore collectors; falling costs of digital back issues via subscription services and sales, making it less necessary for readers to follow every series in real time; and general headwinds facing many small, urban-based businesses, such as rising rents and labor costs, which put a pinch on their ability to order extra copies. In the comic book direct market, orders from the distributor are usually non-returnable, which puts huge pressure on retailers to not over-order titles that might not be salable (prices for recent back issues of most comics are near zero), but not under-order on titles that might end up being sleeper hits. Even small miscalculations can be the difference between a good month and catastrophe.
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Apr 10, 2022 00:54
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you cant talk vince wanting wrestlers in horror movies without mentioning the one where kane is a jason knockoff with an 18 inch penis i dont know
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