tristram

Fairly ordinary move to part ways with Daniels IMO. Anyhow, onto the most recent show I saw which featured the 6 man cage match as the main event. * The 6 man main event is a good starting point. Nice spot at the start to take Eric Young out the way they did. Awesome re-entrance by Eric. However, the match was awful. They needed to spend 3-4 minutes building heat on the band beating down the handicapped opponents. Instead, it was all rushed. What with Eric trying to get up outside you never really noticed the momentum shift due to everything being so clustered. And before you know it, you have three guys, two of them genuinely strong guys, just lying there waiting to be pinned. Totally ineffective. * Thought the Styles-Jarrett match was good, and a good follow up after the main event with Jarrett joining team Hogan as it showed some continuity. I think Styles needs to reassess his finisher, it looks lame that the other dude basically has to put on his seat belt so to speak before busting it out. If we're trying to create a product that the move is lethal and a finisher, the dude shouldn't be given time to buckle up so to speak. * Nice promo between Anderson and Angle. When Angle walked out he flicked the Wolfpack sign to the Band. Now, I don't want Angle to go heel, but Anderson's character could use this next week against Angle's integrity. I doubt they will, because both the major promotions seem to miss moments to build off like there's no tomorrow. Without getting into it too much, I liked the show. If I was booking, I'd reassess also where I placed the Band segment where Eric Young went against them, because when the Band came out you could hear a pin drop in that crowd. The crowd was dead. I still find myself crying out for more athletic action featuring the likes of Gen-Me and in particular MCMG, but I am glad that hopefully, just hopefully, they're plotting together a decent storyline that helps feature Jay Lethal, as the bloke has serious talent.

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="TommyDreamerFan" data-cite="TommyDreamerFan" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25169" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>The grandest irony of Jericho losing his belt to the MITB winner? His character invented the concept in the first place.<p> </p><p> You'd think they'd touch upon this but... NOOO <.<</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Good point, there's a lot of times when you could build stories off previous events, or interesting facts, but it seems to get lost in the shuffle. I get the feeling wrestling promoters want to scramble the truth of history, kind of like Shawn Michaels being dubbed "Mr Wrestlemania", when his record was like 6-10. I guess if they were being realistic about it, he probably wouldn't get that title.</p>

Oh, well that's quite logical then.

I made the comment in the TNA thread that I thought there was alternate ways for WCW to end the streak and layer his character to add longevity beyond his streak. But, I feel once they didn't do that, Goldberg's character was kind of a fizzer. I suppose at 43 he could still do his routine, but much like I said in TNA, despite being a mad fan of Goldberg's, I saw little place for him in TNA, much as I don't really see a big role for him in WWE. I would though place a lot more money on WWE getting it right, even if it is a second attempt at it, then TNA.

I agree with your basic sentiment. Professional wrestling has evolved enormously over the past 25 years. The entire environment has changed. Heck, you only need to look at the proliferation of fast food restaurants to realise that because of concepts like globalisation and the increased delivery of multimedia and the variety that brings that people quickly change views unless they are constantly invigorated by something new. Such as it was there were times when wrestlers wouldn't 'turn' for 10 years, now they swerve every which way but how. Its all about media capitalisation, and about ensuring the product is always changing, always hard hitting, always developing conflict and impact that prevents the viewer from switching channels. There is nothing worse than to have a hundred cable TV channel options at your disposal and alternatively sitting and watching a bloke in a choke hold on the mat, unless it has suspense captivation delivered by superior psychology and the energy of the characters and crowd. But you are also right that the ... I guess, crash TV nature of things that goes on today can burn out a crowd, and I don't think anyone really has hit the balance of the constant need to view something because its important, exciting, and changing everything we know, versus crowd energy maintenance.

But that was the point, wasn't it? Rather than make something meaningful out of someone going over Goldberg, it was basically a charade to get the belt back on Hogan. It was an epic fail. There are so many better creative options for all concerned, as long as it is a meaningful change and results in long term options, rather than basically construct a program that ends up with Hogan getting the belt in the finger poke of doom.

As in someone who struggles to break what they're initially known for. A lot of childhood stars go through it where they struggle to get meaningful work later on as they're always remembered for something they can no longer be or it makes minimal sense to be. Some try and rehash it and trot it out, but generally fail. The point is Goldberg suffers this effect. If Goldberg is involved with wrestling people automatically associate him with the streak, it would take a very good creative mind to get people's mind past that and onto something new with him.

Oh God no, I wouldn't bring in Goldberg now. To me, Goldberg's long term star value drops big time by the way he was booked in WCW. He's like Kevin Arnold, you can do whatever you want and you can try as many different career alterations, but at the end of the day in your main field of expertise you're always going to be the man with the streak, and once that's done... what more is there? He would add nothing at all to their situation, plus, I feel he'd decrease the value of their brand "Bobby Lashley" style in that I don't think professional wrestling will ever be his main priority again. Bringing Goldberg back now to me would be the equivalent of WCW bringing in the Ultimate Warrior. Don't get me wrong, I popped big time when Warrior showed up, but there's not much beyond the initial reaction that they can really do and it ends up being a great big embarrassment for all concerned.

Good thinking on Flair. Someone who needs the rub, can legitimately wrestle, and because of a lengthy push up the card themselves its no disgrace to lose to, infact, perhaps even he can take something from. Nash was not the guy, unless they really run with Nash-Goldberg, which they didn't.

In his short matches he came to the ring, snarled, got in a kick, then it was spear and jackhammer time. In matches where he was allowed to execute more variety because he had more time, he did alright. Nothing outstanding, but alright. Got by with working the crowd for wont of a better term, but still, could take you down to the mat and use some good moves. Had some decent martial arts variety to him as well. Not Benoit, Jericho league, but decent enough to hold his own.

Because that's how he was booked. If you look at some of his Pay-Per-View matches, they're quite controlled in contrast to his Monday Nitro squashes. When he was repeatedly given the likes of Mean Mike Enos or Glacier to beat down in half a minute flat, that's what he did. When he was asked to bide some time, that's what he did. As I say, look at his PPV match with DDP. It's a very, very good match. And, then jobbing him to Nash, and diong next to nothing with Nash aside from the finger poke of doom and some comic routines, how on earth can he progress beyond that with any surety? To me he could easily have been Brock Lesnar. You know he's hella strong, but he can give you some minutes and work a decent match. Nothing outstanding, but you can vary the inputs and outputs.

lol - ask wrestlers like DDP and Lance Storm about that. You know, DDP who goes from cornerstone of WCW to a gimmick of inspirational positivity guru, who.. as everyone knows, was married to Kimberly Page one of the hottest chicks of the 90s, so what do you do? Disguise him as a man after Taker's horse face wife, and then... then... job him to her. As far as Storm goes, basically turn him into a comic joke with no credibility. Aside from Ric Flair who genuinely benefited from going to the WWE, not many received career longevity by going to Connecticut. Goldberg was a one trick pony because he was booked as a one trick pony. Imagine if you take a genuine great NWA/WCW superstar like Ricky Steamboat or Great Muta or Sting and say fellas, you've got 1 to 2 minutes max every night, I want you to do the spear and jackhammer, and thats it, how else can you be made to look? When they needed to pad out matches on Pay-Per-View he had some decent qualities to him. Not outstanding, but enough coupled with the massive popularity and star quality to make something more of him, far beyond a one trick pony.

To me, Goldberg started to develop better skills the more his 'streak' went on. And, also in the matches he was allowed to work with the likes of Bret Hart. Matches where he was given beyond the standard 2 minute burial of his opponent. Sadly, of course we know what happened in the end with Bret Hart, but there was some decent mat wrestling and some nice pieces of psychology developing in Goldberg's actual wrestling which was masked because we kept seeing squash matches. He could wrestle some decent matches, the match he had with DDP in 1998 I thought was very, very good, but having said that everytime DDP stepped onto PPV around that period he'd pull off an awesome match. If you put him with someone who genuinely gets a rub out of winning against him, who is a great worker, and who, despite losing starts to highlight some of the fighting 'babyface' type qualities that a character like Goldberg needs to develop to add layers to his character, someone like a DDP, someone like a Benoit, someone like a Jericho, provided you have pushed them hard as well leading into the match then I suspect you have room to move beyond the streak. Give him a genuine reason to lose, IE he got out mat wrestled, or in the case of say a DDP, the People's Champion, the man who gives his all night in night out and everyone knows it and respects him for it, DDP stays the distance, and all of a sudden Goldberg post streak is recoverable and can be developed in many different ways because you have added to his character. The problem with the streak is how it ended, and instead of making a massive thing out of the guy who beat him, they do the whole finger poke of doom thing which coincides with a night where they come up with a flawed, stupid and all manner of mercy killing storyline to keep him away from the arena where he's arrested for sexual harrassment. In truth, I don't think anyone had any real idea what to do with him to end his streak and beyond that, which is very disappointing because he should have been one of their key players.

I don't know if I would have said there was no way. For a number of a reasons. Firstly, the fact that clearly there were issues with Hart and Michaels. A very, well... simmering tension. Secondly, from what I understand Bischoff tried to recruit Hart to be in the original nWo concept, but couldn't quite jag him due to Hart's loyalty, but none the less, the seed was sewn. Thirdly, because the WWF was in a dead set dogfight and struggling financially and had to dump some fuselage to get through. I don't see Taker and HBK having the same tensions with anyone on the roster, except in HBK's case with Bret Hart. I haven't heard TNA actively target either. And the WWE has a mountain of cash and has in the past tended to reward these type of workers with life behind the scenes deals, not only for loyalty reasons, but to protect them from causing a spike in ratings by appearing on the oppositions product. While the WWE didn't protect Flair or Hogan, they had both spent a lot of time competing mainstream against the WWE and Taker and HBK, aside from some work in AWA, a tiny bit of WCW in its infancy, and a little bit of WCCW, never really had competed as major stars against the WWE.

The only way HBK or Taker ends up in TNA is this.. Taker was big time on Bret Hart's side in the whole screw job thing, if, some way, some how, VKM screws Bret again and its seen as nothing more than a ploy to stroke his ego, then maybe Taker goes. HBK? The only way it happens is if he gets truly angered by having to stand in the same ring as the Hitman and ... well, I don't know, is forced to job to him? I would say 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of either of those things happening. I think they now probably have enough established stars as such, they now just need to work on ways to start building foundations around the likes of Styles (which they are doing), Samoa Joe (which I don't think they've done well for a while), and a few of their X Division type athletes of the day such as Lethal or MCMG. And, of course, IMO the best worker in the business today, Kurt Angle. Now more screwey endings, resist the temptation to 'mass swerve' everyone with constant turns, keep some good logical plot lines going to the big events and find ways to get the right talents over. Oh, and more Velvet Sky, because she's hot as hell.

It would appear to me, from a business strategic perspective, one of two things, or perhaps a combination of both occurs, and it must cost the WWE financially in many respects. The entertainment industry would be very difficult to manage in this respect, so I'm putting this from a typical more stable industry perspective. 1. Strategic recruitment is poor. In most companies you recruit the right kind of people to do the right kind of job at the right time. These people are brought into provide long term value in their initial role and hopefully through their continued development to provide a human capital strategic competitive advantage. My question is what sort of long term plan goes into a performer who is promoted to the main roster? Do they truly believe the performer can be a long term competitive advantage laiden performer? Are they recruiting the right type of performer for the roles creative have open? It would be very important I would feel for creative to be very open with the scouts responsible for bringing the wrestler to the company to ensure that the right type of performer is brought in, not just the best available and find something to do with them. 2. Constant market fluctuations. Constant variables in entertainment would make predicting trends on what is going to be popular in the near future incredibly difficult. You see it with pilot TV shows, so many of them don't last or won't last their first season despite being a popular mainstream concept at the point of conception. This must play havoc. If I was to label the 'future endeavours', 1 Maria - no idea why she's gone. People want cute girls and that doesn't appear to fluctuate too much 2 Shane Helms - 2? Perhaps the 'comic book hero' gimmick isn't as hot as it once was and they believe he has not much beyond that? 3 Paul Burchill - 1. The guy was never put into a gimmick that made any sense for his physicality and performance attributes. The comic pirate routine was not what he should be booked for. He strikes me as a more legitimate performer and therefore if creative wanted a pirate, he was never the guy. 4 Charlie Haas - 1. They didn't seem to have much of an idea beyond the impersonator routine, and don't seem to want to perservere with tag team wrestlers for much more than 3-4 months before an inevitable turn, and then the inevitable result that it didn't work and at least 1 if not both are out of the company. That said, most of these performers were contracted for a while, so... in terms of professional wrestling tenures in the mainstream era their tenure was reasonable.

Aside from the obvious as in Mickie James, Beth Phoenix and Neidhart, I would have thought that as far as personality divas go Maria would have been the main attraction. To me, her crossing over into mainstream could only have been beneficial for cross-marketing opportunities for the WWE. So...she gets Slammy Diva of the year as well, and ... gone? I must say I prefer the Knock Outs by a country mile, but, well Maria certainly had spunk. Some of it.. well, it's a bit baffling. That said, TNA seems to enjoy doing the same as well (outlandish booking strategies.) Burchill's pirate gimmick I thought was a bit daft, but I thought in limited opportunities he was making the best of an ordinary situation. I think all three releases are...well, strange.

I don't know if this has already been posted... http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i231/MackemRoid/1264711987712.gif

Space Mountain may be the oldest ride in the park, but it still has the longest line. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

You nailed it one. Preach what you say you are. And frankly, they are the promotion right now who can achieve exactly that. Their roster is stacked with players who can blow your mind. So... blow our minds. Let them do it in the ring, let them excite us, and have the backstage segments and promos simply... DRIVE the matches. Not some convuluted work-shoot, just drive the matches. Drive us to believe that Alex Shelley can be a big deal, that Samoa Joe is a dominating Samoan wrecking machine. I believe to a large extent from what I've seen they've got it right with Angle-Styles (bar any screwjobs) and Pope-Wolfe, and the reason for that has little to do with the build ups, its the in ring execution of the athletes involved. That's their strength, that's their point of difference, now exploit it ruthlessly.

For the first time in 5-6 years I have sat through full TV tapings of wrestling. Maybe even longer, it was probably way back till the initial Invasion concept, before we knew it was going to be a WCW funeral procession. I think people are trying to be fair with TNA. IMO, Kurt Angle right now is the best talent on the face of the planet. I don't get the PPVs, but the Impact match he had with Styles was outrageously good. Perhaps, just perhaps, he's even arisen above my perception of Bret Hart. The match between MCMG-Generation Me, best tag match I've seen in a very long time. But this is the point - you have the elements to build outrageously good wrestling matches already in the building. Keep on adding your Desmond Wolfes, your Popes, young guys with agility and who will go. Bring in your personalities, as I've said, don't even mind the Band if used properly. Don't bring in the Nasty Boys and Bubba who can't add a single them but issues. Have the Hogan character do what he says he's going to do, I want to hear him praising Angle, praising the X division, confronting Joe from his 'lull' and breathe life back into him. I want the backstage segments to flow, not be ''smarky'', be genuinely interested in the in ring action. They will not overtake WWE this year, to me they're trying to go for the instant grand slam home run, take your time, and I'm sure thy can progressively build it up and go over. In summary, I think you'll find the complete opposite. A lot of people WANT TNA to rise, they want genuine wrestling competition ala '97-99, but they are rightly pointing out that there are some stumbling blocks that it appears TNA are adamant are logical, which clearly they're not. If they kept it basic, and built intense storylines that had 'all out' blow off matches, then they will rise.

The internet media? I don't read any of the internet sites, so I don't have a clue what the """"internet media""" has to say. How's that for """"smarky""""? Nope, this is just my own opinion. To me, sadly, there's a lot of what happened in WCW in this. As I said, WCW wasn't all about Hogan. It included Flair and Bischoff, and before that through the NWA-WCW transition Ole Anderson, Bill Watts and Dusty Rhodes. And the underlying element to them all was instability within their under card. And that to me was one of the major elements of the death of WCW, the lack of willingness to firstly care, and then promote the undercard. Of course, the likes of the Giant, Sting, even Ron Simmons were all exceptions to that rule. Right now, the likes of MCMG, Lethal Consequences need to be exceptions to that rule. The home grown talents the likes of Joe, Daniels, they need a spotlight hanging above them too. What is mostly disappointing about these turn of events is that you have TNA with several ... probably underutilised, but none the less points of difference to market your product on. The six sided ring with really I think helps explode the X Division because it gives more locations to go for a top rope move, which in particularly helps X Tag Matches, and the Knock Outs. I didn't see enough of Saeed to say it's the end of the world, but ... losing Amazing Kong is a tough tough blow. She's the biggest point of difference available to the mainstream American market. Granted, I haven't seen any of the SHIMMER's or any of the Japanese women's products, but here you have a legitimate brute to build a division around... and potentially here, through one of Hogan's pals Bubba the Love Sponge who has no place being involved in TNA in the first place, you're about to lose your most bankable commodity in a very important division to TNA. IMO, the Knock Outs drop plunkeys from a great distance all over the bottle blonds of the Diva Division. Because they have in the last 6-12 months at the least had a monster to play off, and genuine storylines to pursue. Personally, they're one of the reasons I have tuned in. Bubba the Love Sponge is one who shouldn't have been there, but neither should Nobs or Sags and the others of the Hulk Hogan class of 1988. This is TNA, it's time to grow the TNA home grown talent, because IMO, with the voice and overness of Hulk Hogan working behind them and pushing their talents by his promos, there's enough there for progressive growth into the wrestling market. I have no problems adding in guys like Kennedy, RVD, Hardy, heck even Goldberg if the opportunity arose, because in 2010 they have name value and ... though I'm not sure on Goldberg, can still work good matches. I really don't have a problem with the 'Band', provided they are used to build others up. But anyone who comes in should be there to support and grow what they have, not cause backstage incidents, political turmoil and talents leaving left and right. One other thing, I read Bashir went of his own accord a couple of months ago. Does anyone know why? I genuinely though World Elite could be used as a good stepping stone stable for a few talents, Bashir included.

Well... that would suck. She's the only chick who genuinely looks .... frightening. She's the key to the Knock Outs division, as you can always book her legitimately as the strong heel no questions asked. Again, that's rather ordinary also. This just sounds so... WCW-ish. Hogan thinks he's the messiah, sells himself well to corporate types, gets ingratiated with the upper brass, becomes a key figure behind the scenes, and whammo, the ingredients of a great recipe start to go by the way-side. It sounds like a very disorientated, very disorganised unit at the moment. It doesn't surprise me. Look, I think Hulk Hogan knows how to sell Hulk Hogan. And he's done it very well for a very long time. But much like say Ric Flair with WCW, I don't think Hulk Hogan is someone to lead an organisation from a non wrestling perspective. At the end of the day, it seems to me that Vince McMahon is probably sitting back quite happy that the only genuine chance in years to pose any threat to his promotion is destroying itself, in good old WCW fashion.

You are technically right, WCW didn't try to create stars (although, to be fair, it did give big pushes to the likes of Giant and Goldberg, but you kinda couldn't miss with them), but the talent tried hard to be considered stars. Frankly, I was watching their shows more for the first hour and a half than anything else.

Good point. That's the way it should have been. I think if they get the allignment right, then Morley can win with a screwjob finish, and then at the end of the feud Daniels can rightly go over as a courageous face. I never, ever, like an angle that borders on a worked-shoot when the worker is supposedly saying he doesn't want to be in TNA. What does that say to the fans? If the talent doesn't want to be there, and they're getting paid, why the heck should I be there? It was like WCW when Chris Jericho started going nuts and the same with Eddie Guerrero. From there of course within 15 months both are in the WWF and have left the WCW altogether. So it served no long term purpose anyway.