The Wrestling Thread

[RCBH928]

I agree with what you said. There are a lot of people that will suddenly turn arrogant due to fame and money and maybe the Warrior fell in that destruction hole. It was really something to be the top guy in the WWF back then, just imagine beating some one like Hulk Hogan in his prime.

You will never see this kind of thing again in the wrestling world. WWE made sure that every talent they have understands that the benefit of the company comes first. You work for the company, the company does not work for you. No wrestler dares to do that kind of stuff now, and its easy to tell. All the wrestlers today are moving around, jobbing to whoever, playing any storyline the company tells them to play.

I guess thats a good thing because we don't have to see the "backstage politics" that used to rule the WCW, or so I have heard.

[jvalentine98]

First off, for guys in the WWF, there's no where else to go. Not without a serious pay cut. Hogan could afford to be in TNA, cause he's all ready rich, and he can always sell a few million autographs if he was ever poor.

Say what you will about WCW but they got paid very, very well.

As for the guy who stabbed a wrestler to death. Yeah he pretty much did. But none of his fellow country men would testify to it, as they generally disdained American wrestlers. Tough cookies. Wrestleview.com has had this posted as a matter of fact for well over a decade, and they have credibility.

As for Warrior, he began talks with WWE in 2013. He got inducted to the HOF because they are running out of people to elect to the HOF. So Warrior was next. McMahon has always loved his body builder types and Warrior fit that mold to a T. His death is tragic, as he was a person, but it is what it is. Life goes on.

[jvalentine98]

I've been thinking, should people hate Hogan more than they do? In essence he created a lot of people good jobs in the 80s, and his ego destroyed many careers in the late 90s, with the fall of WCW. He was a one man industry, well him and Vince, that helped and hurt a lot of people. Had he and Nash not demanded so much control and power in WCW, the wrestling world would be entirely different than it is today. We'd have two strong companies and more options for wrestlers. It's amazing to think that the actions of a couple men could decide the fate of an industry, but it basically did.

I guess the legacy of his career, that no one else can claim, is that he was there at the beginning of both wrestling booms. Hulkamania and NWO are two of the most popular things ever, and he can claim those. But his greed and ego also put a lot of people out of work, ultimately.

[Luke]

YIKES!

https://www.etrade.wallst.com/v1/stocks ... tCjUKyiQ==

[retrosportsgamer]

I've been thinking, should people hate Hogan more than they do? In essence he created a lot of people good jobs in the 80s, and his ego destroyed many careers in the late 90s, with the fall of WCW. He was a one man industry, well him and Vince, that helped and hurt a lot of people. Had he and Nash not demanded so much control and power in WCW, the wrestling world would be entirely different than it is today. We'd have two strong companies and more options for wrestlers. It's amazing to think that the actions of a couple men could decide the fate of an industry, but it basically did.

I guess the legacy of his career, that no one else can claim, is that he was there at the beginning of both wrestling booms. Hulkamania and NWO are two of the most popular things ever, and he can claim those. But his greed and ego also put a lot of people out of work, ultimately.

This is an interesting talking point but I think you're exagerating that those two were the deathknell as you describe.

Turner asking for a second show (Thunder) put a huge strain on them creatively and financially. Guys were overexposed, it was a big increase in production costs and sunk what profits they were making in the peak NWO years.

The product had to be TV-PG versus what the WWF was doing, so this is used as an excuse by their many creative teams for why the ratings dropped. Hiring Russo, then firing and ultimately re-hiring him didn't help this. But ratings were still there. Hogan and Nash were draws and at the end of the day - their guaranteed deals weren't any kind of deciding factor. There were a ton of guys with bad contracts. The business changed in the mid 90s - Lex Luger was the one who started the guaranteed thing anyway.

WCW ultimately went out of business because Turner didn't want to give them a TV slot any longer. The AOL merger resulted in a lot of cuts and a new direction in what they wanted their programming to be (aka not wrestling). Had time on TBS been available, I'm certain Bischoff would have completed the deal w/ Fusient to purchase WCW back in 2001.

[Gamerforlife]

I love the fact that Bryan has had the highest rated segment on each Raw for weeks now and HE'S NOT EVEN WRESTLING. The highest rated segment on this past Raw was Cena TALKING about Daniel Bryan - who wasn't on the show.

Daniel Bryan is money.

Seth Rollins heel turn is interesting. I've always considered him the best overall talent out of the three Shield members. I hope his story line is handled well. I'm interested in Ambrose's reaction to Rollins' betrayal. Those two could have some interesting promo exchanges. I really don't give a crap about Reign's part in this story line as he's the most boring member of The Shield. WWE thinks he's their next big star, which means he likely won't be because WWE is usually dead wrong on these things (they certainly were wrong about Bryan not amounting to anything and about Batista getting over as a face).

WWE network subscriptions have not met WWE's expectations. I'm pretty sure I predicted that long ago, though the crappy TV deal and big stock drop I didn't see coming. WWE needs to get their shit together. It doesn't help that the network's performance by many people's accounts is not nearly as consistent and stable as something like Netflix. If that continues, I don't think they'll ever be able to get away with increasing the price point beyond 9.99

Really digging Steph's heel work of late and kudos to Triple H. For all the hate he has rightfully gotten over the years, he has been bending over backwards lately to put guys over.

Paige kind of sucks, at least she has since she's been on the main roster. When is she going to grab a mic, get in the ring and say something to make us actually give a shit about her? She just feels like another nobody diva. Gotta admit though, her submission finisher is pretty bad ass. That aside though, she's proven a rather poor replacement for AJ, who presence is sorely missed in the divas division, but I guess AJ's got more important things to worry about right now...like a wedding.

On a somewhat AJ related note, the CM Punk chants from various arenas are starting to get old. Punk doesn't want to come back and there's nothing WWE can really do about it.

I really want to start checking out some indie stuff. Chikara sounds REALLY fun, and people have been raving about new japan and recent Ring of Honor/New Japan IPPVs. It will be interesting to see Ring of Honor try to take WWE's pay per view spot now that they've kind of moved away from that business model, with some companies just outright dropping WWE pay per views from their cable offerings.

On another note, Global Force Wrestling - wonder how that will turn out. Will it just end up being another TNA? Guess we'll see

[Gamerforlife]

Kudos to Daniel Bryan for firmly establishing his real life bad ass credentials:

http://www.tmz.com/2014/07/25/daniel-br ... n-robbery/

[Gamerforlife]

Two women had the main event slot on raw this week, kind of a big deal. Though I guess if you're cynical, you can take that as an indicator of how bad their product is right now that Stephanie McMahon vs Brie Bella feels like the biggest feud WWE has going right now. Kind of feels like they are trying to get some of that Daniel Bryan love to transfer over to Brie Bella, especially with all the Yes chants she's been getting lately. It's actually kind of funny how much more Brie is benefiting from her relation with Bryan than Nikki is from her relationship with Cena.

In other news, Reigns is not getting nearly as over as WWE wanted, which I predicted, while Dean Ambrose continues to be more awesome than him every week. He should be WWE's main focus until Bryan is back.

Nice to see old school Jericho doing his classic Stephanie insults on Raw, very Attitude Era

Not much else to talk about beyond that. WWE kind of sucks right now, in every area. The network hasn't really taken off...yet another thing I predicted way back when. They don't have as many subscribers as they want and the quality of the streams is really, really, REALLY shitty at times. They are not even in the realm of quality that services like Netflix offer. And that TV deal has really screwed them over too, leading to lots of budget cuts and lay offs.

And TNA is...well, TNA. There's actually a lot of rumors at the moment that Spike is NOT going to renew TNA's TV deal. So WWE gets low balled on their TV deal, and TNA is possibly not even getting renewed, and the WWE network hasn't taken off. Kind of seems like people really don't give a crap about wrestling these days

The only great wrestling right now seems to be in the indies or New Japan

Keeping my fingers crossed that Global Force Wrestling turns into something awesome

[Luke]

Love how Brie Bella basically translates to "Beautiful Cheese".

Not interested at all in this girl fight.

Scared as hell at Steph's boobs. So huge, yet so separated from one another. I swear she was cute at one time, but Vince was also slim and handsome at one time.

Drugs are bad, m'kay.

[prfsnl_gmr]

This is in Charlotte this weekend. I am not going, but I think it is pretty cool. As a bonus, it prompted our local public radio station to interview Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat this morning, which pretty much sets the tone for my entire day. (The tone is "awesome".)