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The 1st annual tag team tournament Crockett Cup being immediately undermined by having flair and Rhodes back out to do a headliner event so dusty can lose again is very stupid.
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Jan 2, 2023 18:00
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I think the case has been made pretty well that contracts weren't the thing that killed WCW, and a lot of people were underpaid considering the money they were raking in. Still, they had way too many people for a coherent week of wrestling shows and would have to cut some people. I don't know all the inner workings of ECW's history; is there reason to believe that Heyman would still be doing shady poo poo if he had WCW's budget to work with? Speaking of overvalued contracts https://twitter.com/realswoll/status/1110732653463044096?s=20&t=-ToVr65aDI8CHqT4Ub_a5A Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jan 2, 2023 |
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Jan 2, 2023 18:15
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The contracts were in place, and there was no real way around those. What they needed was someone to book around those contracts and either buy them out or eat them. Instead, they fell for the sunk cost fallacy and continued to book the guys with big contracts.
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Jan 2, 2023 18:34
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Heyman's booking of ECW in 2000 was nearly as bad as WCW's booking in 2000.
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Jan 2, 2023 18:44
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MassRafTer posted:Heyman's booking of ECW in 2000 was nearly as bad as WCW's booking in 2000. A lot of that can be attributed to the roster he had. Having to put titles on people he knew no-one else wanted so they wouldn’t leave. There’s only so much you can do with Amish Roadkill
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Jan 2, 2023 20:14
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I think even if Heyman wasn't burnt out (and he was in 99/2000 ECW) I still don't think he would of been the answer as the product would still end up being "ECW/Attitude era" and people were going to stick with WWE if they wanted that It's why I floated Gabe cause I think doing the early ROH style could of been something that would stand out, still work with the old WCW fans and also be unique. Though chances are being on TV would probably mean Gabe would of leaned more into bad Gabe stuff (like the early offensive ROH angles/gimmicks)
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Jan 2, 2023 20:18
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As dishonest as Paul is, I think he truly hated WCW, given how poorly things ended for him there. I'm not sure he'd want to go there. His relationship with WWE wasn't perfect but it was cordial.
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Jan 2, 2023 20:29
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Ziggy Tzardust posted:A lot of that can be attributed to the roster he had. Having to put titles on people he knew no-one else wanted so they wouldn’t leave. There’s only so much you can do with Amish Roadkill Yeah, but Paul's entire thing with his booking was getting the most out of guys regardless of whether or not they were actually good. See The Sandman & Public Enemy being huge deals in ECW despite not actually being very good. But instead he spent too much of 2000 booking for himself, burying TNN. Which hey, nobody made you sign the deal that meant you had to improve the production quality of the show while not getting much money, & nobody made you overdeliver the ratings you'd get to TNN so that even as they were the most watched show on the network they still under-delivered. It's also got to be remembered that in its last 12 months ECW was drawing really well, including in places that weren't ECW traditional territories: to pick a random show in 2000, they did 2,000 fans in Houston & 5,000 in Mississauga, 1500 in Milwaukee after drawing 1000 the previous night in Green Bay. And the talent was there too, it didn't all have to be Roadkill & Chilly Willy. Christopher Daniels & Homicide were several years into their careers. Out in California there are guys like Michael Modest & Donovan Morgan. Michael Shane from the first Shawn Michaels/Texas Wrestling Academy class actually does appear on ECW. Reckless Youth ended up in the WWE developmental system & let's be honest, ECW was basically part of that by the end. I'm not saying book ROH 2 years before it even started, but just the point is there was talent there, nobody made Paul book Taz's hack nephew Chris Chetti. The problem was definitely that he was burned out, he was doing far too much & then he spent most of 2000 checked out as far as I can tell, telling guys he was flying to LA to negotiate with networks for a new TV deal which doesn't seem to actually have happened. If you've got the Between The Sheets patreon, they have a lot of episodes on ECW's later years, I think 6 parts (& it's BTS so those episodes are loving long, more than worth your money) on ECW on TNN & all the workings of that & then a further 2 on The Death of ECW. A lot of really interesting things on quite how full of poo poo Paul was.
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Jan 2, 2023 23:48
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forkboy84 posted:Out in California there are guys like Michael Modest & Donovan Morgan. To the day I die, I don't think I'll forget how hard the Internet thought these two guys were going to make it big. They were good, but their timing was just brutal; they couldn't get into WWF or WCW early on; then as they were essentially peaking, WCW folded, so WWF was never going to have room for them; then they went off to be gaijin midcarders in NOAH and missed out on ROH hitting its stride.
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Jan 3, 2023 00:22
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Ziggy Tzardust posted:A lot of that can be attributed to the roster he had. Having to put titles on people he knew no-one else wanted so they wouldn’t leave. There’s only so much you can do with Amish Roadkill Booking a god awful angle with The Network had nothing to do with the talent he had and everything with wanting to make TNN the bad guys when he lost TV. And we got months of awful awful TV because of it. And he wanted to push Justin Credible he wasn't forced into it. He also wasn't forced into having Taz be the guy to beat Mike Awesome and letting the WWF totally out maneuver him.
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Jan 3, 2023 00:25
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MassRafTer posted:Booking a god awful angle with The Network had nothing to do with the talent he had and everything with wanting to make TNN the bad guys when he lost TV. And we got months of awful awful TV because of it. And he wanted to push Justin Credible he wasn't forced into it. He also wasn't forced into having Taz be the guy to beat Mike Awesome and letting the WWF totally out maneuver him. God, that was so dumb.
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Jan 3, 2023 00:28
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El Gallinero Gros posted:As dishonest as Paul is, I think he truly hated WCW, given how poorly things ended for him there. I'm not sure he'd want to go there. His relationship with WWE wasn't perfect but it was cordial. Hmm, Bischoff was out, what, September of 99? If they buy ECW to get Heyman and some of his talent, Apple & Steve Jobs' thing in the 90s style, you don't have the Dudleys or Jericho anymore, but there was a lot of talent bleeding that could have been stopped. Heyman would absolutely have sold the company if the money and incoming job conditions were right, but yeah, slim chance this was fathomed at the time.
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Jan 3, 2023 00:28
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Arbite posted:Hmm, Bischoff was out, what, September of 99? If they buy ECW to get Heyman and some of his talent, Apple & Steve Jobs' thing in the 90s style, you don't have the Dudleys or Jericho anymore, but there was a lot of talent bleeding that could have been stopped. September of 99 would have been the point where ECW would have been the most expensive to buy and Heyman probably least likely to sell with the start of the TNN deal. By the time it was clear it wasn't going to work out Russo was already in.
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Jan 3, 2023 00:31
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I think even if Paul was willing to sell he wasn't going to sell WCW both cause he hated them and cause he didn't want to screw over Vince. Paul's relationship with Vince was much more than cordial given the money WWF had put into ECW, the fact Paul tried to push talent to go to WWF over WCW at the time and the fact he just really wanted to work for Vince at the time
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Jan 3, 2023 00:49
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ecw was hard to watch in 00 god i was so sick of The Network
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Jan 3, 2023 01:20
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JOHN CENA posted:ecw was hard to watch in 00 god i was so sick of The Network of all the ecw angles for tna to rip off they chose the network lmao
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Jan 3, 2023 01:22
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JOHN CENA posted:ecw was hard to watch in 00 god i was so sick of The Network It turns out TV wrestling angles about TV wrestling are as unbearable as songs about the music industry or movies about how hard it is to be an actor.
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Jan 3, 2023 01:24
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Dawgstar posted:It turns out TV wrestling angles about TV wrestling are as unbearable as songs about the music industry or movies about how hard it is to be an actor. Awww, Dinosaurs Must Die by NOFX is a good song about the music industry. And Radio Radio is one of Elvis Costello's best tunes. Punk bands doing songs about the music industry kind of works
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Jan 3, 2023 01:30
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SatoshiMiwa posted:I think even if Paul was willing to sell he wasn't going to sell WCW both cause he hated them and cause he didn't want to screw over Vince. Paul's relationship with Vince was much more than cordial given the money WWF had put into ECW, the fact Paul tried to push talent to go to WWF over WCW at the time and the fact he just really wanted to work for Vince at the time Eh the narrative may say this and Paul did hate WCW at times but he was also letting stuff happen like Kevin Sullivan being a pipeline from ECW to WCW too. He definitely planned his exit and was going with WWF when he saw the writing on the wall but he was someone who cared more about money than grudges.
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Jan 3, 2023 01:39
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we should have a ecw nostalgia thread to complement this one
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Jan 3, 2023 01:52
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Suplex Liberace posted:we should have a ecw nostalgia thread to complement this one what wacky ecw merch is there
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Jan 3, 2023 01:54
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rare Magic card l00k posted:what wacky ecw merch is there The toys are kinda funny Also the ECW shirt that quotes Bugs Bunny
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Jan 3, 2023 02:13
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rare Magic card l00k posted:what wacky ecw merch is there The prototype only Amish Roadkill Action Figure.
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Jan 3, 2023 02:15
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Then again, if Heyman became an onscreen character, he'd definitely be an x-factor as for how compelling he could make any storyline. He would've had a better than 0% chance of turning the tide for WCW, especially if he could do for say, Goldberg, what he's done for Lesnar.
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Jan 3, 2023 02:42
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MassRafTer posted:Eh the narrative may say this and Paul did hate WCW at times but he was also letting stuff happen like Kevin Sullivan being a pipeline from ECW to WCW too. He definitely planned his exit and was going with WWF when he saw the writing on the wall but he was someone who cared more about money than grudges. Didn't Paul claim he was doing something to save the company when in fact he was out in California or wherever being in Rollerball? Not to be confused with ECW's TNT lead-in RollerJam, of course.
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Jan 3, 2023 03:40
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The problem I have with these hypotheticals, is even if WCW is booked well in 2000 is anyone still watching the TV? Buying the PPVs? The tragedy of WCW is you need to arrest the halt at 1998 to he sure it survives.
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Jan 3, 2023 03:55
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Reading Hardcore History I got the impression that ECW was an indie that tried too hard and too fast to go big. The national audience wasn’t quite there and chasing them was too expensive. Now I’m not sure how long it could have survived as an indie nestled between two big companies that were trying to Hoover up all the talent they could but they were just in an inherently fragile position. That said Heyman did manage to get Shane Douglas over and that’s a monumental achievement.
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Jan 3, 2023 04:20
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Dawgstar posted:Didn't Paul claim he was doing something to save the company when in fact he was out in California or wherever being in Rollerball? Not to be confused with ECW's TNT lead-in RollerJam, of course. I believe so, I remember Corino talking about how Dreamer completely undermined that in one of his shoot interviews too. Which I guess makes sense given Dreamer's later revelation he wanted to murder Paul.
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Jan 3, 2023 04:23
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Jan 3, 2023 16:38
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I think I hate the on air authority figure. There have only been two good ones - Mr. McMahon (only from like 98 - 99) and Dario Cueto. Eric was probably the worse maybe only beaten by Russo
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Jan 3, 2023 18:55
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They're doing ECW style figures again to fill in the gaps in the line. Major Brothers reviewed the WCW OSFTM line this year, I'm sure prices for those will spike shortly. I hope they do WCW Toy Biz at some point so people make copy-cat figures. https://www.instagram.com/p/Clc1viFMnpi/
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Jan 3, 2023 19:06
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Shard posted:I think I hate the on air authority figure. There have only been two good ones - Mr. McMahon (only from like 98 - 99) and Dario Cueto. Eric was probably the worse maybe only beaten by Russo I think I would place Bischoff above Russo. Russo was charismatic enough, but his promos were full of wink-wink-nudge-nudge references to poo poo no one cared about, and he was absolutely lousy about getting his comeuppance when it was desperately needed. Bischoff wasn't great about it either, but I found him more entertaining in that he played a convincing smug rear end in a top hat (fancy that!), and at least he was humiliated frequently during his WWE run. I haven't seen enough of Bischoff in TNA (I imagine it's very bad) but Russo's stuff in TNA was horrific, like all-time bad levels of awful. I feel like you could make the case that either of them were better than the random assortment of authority figures WWE have had in the past ten years, but it's a close one. I agree that it's just not worth it anymore, it's all been done to death and no one could beat Vince McMahon at his peak.
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Jan 3, 2023 19:19
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Shard posted:I think I hate the on air authority figure. There have only been two good ones - Mr. McMahon (only from like 98 - 99) and Dario Cueto. Eric was probably the worse maybe only beaten by Russo Eric was great, he pretended he was a plane.
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Jan 3, 2023 19:56
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I would say Bischoff is better, if only by accident. Even when he was a mark for himself, his idealized onscreen persona was still a contemptible little toady.
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Jan 3, 2023 19:59
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eric as raw gm and early nWo is way better than russo to me.
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Jan 3, 2023 22:44
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MassRafTer posted:I believe so, I remember Corino talking about how Dreamer completely undermined that in one of his shoot interviews too. Which I guess makes sense given Dreamer's later revelation he wanted to murder Paul. Dreamer was also owed the second most amount of money by ECW at 100K. RVD was owed the most at 150K, then Rhino, Joey Styles, Shane Douglas and Francine were all at about 50K. And somehow he owed Roadkill 20K? Plus apparently part of the bankruptcy was a 98 Ford truck co-owned by Dreamer.
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Jan 3, 2023 22:58
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Lmao at the pistol pez whately heel turn. Jesus wrestling The Paul jones army just being foreigners and minorities declaring war on white wrestling. 
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Jan 3, 2023 23:09
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I don't know how I missed this, but I didn't know that Daffney died. That is very depressing.
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Jan 3, 2023 23:13
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Halloween Jack posted:I would say Bischoff is better, if only by accident. Even when he was a mark for himself, his idealized onscreen persona was still a contemptible little toady. I dunno if that was by accident. He and Vince in that era were weird to me because they both got humiliated a lot and seemed to understand they had to protect the real stars, the heel wrestlers. But at the same time, Vince booked himself winning Rumbles, World Titles, and in main events at multiple PVs. And Eric went over at StarrCade '98. So it's like they got it...but didn't get it. I guess it's a bit like Hollywood Hogan. Hogan played an old school heel - he was not cool like Nash or Hall, he was a cowardly bully who got his rear end beat all the time. He just also never actually lost.
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Jan 3, 2023 23:16
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Halloween Jack posted:I don't know how I missed this, but I didn't know that Daffney died. That is very depressing. Wow, tht was a whole year ago. Did anybody even report it in the Memoriam thread? That sucks.
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Jan 3, 2023 23:17
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