Like...I really think that the casual wrestling fan mostly has a rough power ranking of these things that they care about:
(1) Storylines
(2) Entrances
(3) Finishers

Give them those things and they're fat and happy.

(4) Catchphrases

And I mean even if you're going to reject jobber matches, that's still a big chunk of the roster that never ever gets used. They don't absolutely have to have the same eight people be the whole Monday Night Raw show every week. They're doing all of this to themselves. Hyper-condensed storylines don't need to be a thing.

Well, what they need to do then is condense the roster some or send a few more people to the minors.

I don't recall anyone saying "you know, I like the Sopranos, but I think they really overuse Tony, maybe they should just show him in background photos for a few weeks, you know?"

Or, if you want to look at it more as a sporting event and not as an entertainment TV show, there's no real call for "the Miami Heat are in town, I sure hope I see Toney Douglas tonight, I'm sick of Wade throwing sick alley-oops to Lebron all night"

Again, Kofi vs. Dolph Part 75 is not comparable to LeBron or Tony Soprano.

They're still going to have their staples of the show, the main eventers, open and close the show. If the scripting calls for it, they can do segments in between, and also use that time to push other angles along. The matches themselves can absolutely have more variety, since those are all just time-killers in between the segments that more people are waiting on anyway. And the more exposure you give to more wrestlers, the more chances they accidentally hit on something big at some point.

Let's put it this way, if you want to have a lot more variety in who faces who, and you also want to have a lot more reason for those people to want to face each other, you're going to have a lot less wrestling and a lot more stupid stuff that makes no sense. Especially given the current state of WWE creative, but really in general, is that something you actually want?

I mean it's almost a freeroll for my viewership, since my MO these days is to watch the opening and then turn it off most of the time, or still many times to never tune in to begin with. So I'm one fan that yes, would like them to do something else, but I realize that I'm not a good representation of the average fan too.

As long as the minor segments are couched properly in between interesting segments of top-card guys, it really is my theory that your ratings aren't going to vary too wildly whether it's a match people have seen a million times or one with less immediate appeal. I don't think casual fans are staying tuned in because they find Kofi so interesting. Either they'll tune out because the show in general hasn't grabbed their attention or they'll wait through whatever is on because they want to see the next John Cena segment that's coming up in like 8 minutes.

I wish there was a way I could know how my theory actually does in practice; they kept going with Ryback jobber matches for a good long while before moving him up the card. On one hand I would think if those were a clear ratings loser they would have gotten away from it quicker; on the other hand if it was successful you would think they wouldn't have gone back away from it when they were making such glorious progress back toward the 80's. My guess is that those matches were probably break-even with this other stuff but that they decided that only huge monsters should fight jobbers for whatever reason.

Just as much of a problem as having the same people against each other every week is that the matches all have the same formula it seems. I've enjoyed the Sheamus/Christian matches (even though I can't figure out the feud at all) because they've been getting some decent time in their matches and have been able to go beyond just setting up/executing their signature moves in succession and doing some different things.

Well yes, related to what you're hitting on here, they've also killed a lot of the intrigue of matches by having to finish every ****ing match with a finishing move (if not some "distraction of doom" spot or whatever). Of course, that cat's been out of the bag for like 30 years now.

This may have been said already, but the worst thing about this era was the fact that like 10% of matches on RAW actually ended without interference. Even as a youngster I remember thinking "Why is this guy attacking someone midmatch, then surprised when the same guy attacks him midmatch later in the night?".

Also, there was one thing they had then that they'll never have again in that era that enhanced the product so much more.

Jim Ross

Replace with Cole and you wouldn't even know half the top moments of that ear even happened because they'd be too busy trying to amuse each other and not even mention most of what happens in the ring.

Yeah obviously the announcing quality is at its lowest level ever. That certainly doesn't help. Though JR stuck around into the decline after the Attitude Era, and while he remained enjoyable his presence can only shine it up so much.

Jim Ross is my favourite "sports" announcer all time. I bet he would've called a great NFL or NBA game also.

XFL - and he worked for the Falcons radio back in the day.

But in baseball terms. JR to Cole is like losing Miguel Cabrera (7 WAR) and replacing him with whatever played infield for the Yankees last season (-1 WAR).

What was the point of only giving Kane 24 hours as WWF Champion?

I read once that it was given to Kane because of his loyalty of staying with the company. Booking/WWE Universe sense it doesn't make much sense and made a mockery of the title in a way (as they have the IC and US title ever since those days).

Basically Kane was offered a lot of money to go to WCW, and he was a company player. Apparently he's made a million a year since like 1999 and is one of the reasons he is still wrestling today.

That's neat, good for Kane.

I just googled it and apparently it was Russo's idea. Seems like something he would come up with. lol

Oh right, and if Kane lost at the King of the Ring, he would have to set himself on fire.

Just watched the Raw where DX "invades" WCW. The segment itself I think is pretty overrated, but they did bring up something I was curious about as they claimed WCW gave out free tickets to fill the arena. I googled 'WCW free tickets' and came up with what appears to be a bunch of WCW stuff from the Wrestling Observer. I believe these may have been posted in the WM thread. I tried looking, but didn't have a clue where to start, so I'll post them again here. (the link anyway)

My favourite one:

• Benoit left the company as WCW champion. He offered to lose the title to whoever they wanted but was told instead to just leave. Those backstage who questioned the move were told that Benoit was a vanilla midget who would never draw. Guerrero, Malenko and Saturn were all granted unconditional releases as well. Despite being midcarders most of their WCW careers, their RAW debut drew a 6.59 rating to Nitro's 2.79. The peak of Raw's ratings was during the main event, featuring - you guessed it - Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero and Saturn, AKA The "Vanilla Midgets". Their match drew a rating of 8.1

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/57229...lenge/51047309

• A fan dressed as Sting ran into a match and the commentators, so used to not being told about changes to shows, assumed it was the real Sting.

• Slamboree's PPV buy-rate was so bad it was never publicized by the company. It was believed to be around 0.14. Ticket sales were fairly good for the show up until May 1 when it was announced that David Arquette would defend the title in the main event. Ticket sales came to a screeching halt the same day.

• They went a step further by having a funeral for Flair which, you'll not be surprised to hear, featured Kevin Nash coming out of Flair's casket and taking the WCW title which had just been handed to Jeff Jarrett. To make things worse, Nash had trouble getting out of the casket. That set up the following:
Nash took on Jarrett to decide the vacant title. Russo ran in and Nash went to powerbomb him in the aisle. The Vampiro blood came down from the ceiling and MISSED AGAIN! Nash covered for this by moving into the blood, getting it on himself and Russo. For a reason never explained, the blood incapacitated Nash. Even more bizarre, it had no affect on Russo at all. Jarrett subsequently pinned Nash and won the title.
As if the above wasn't bad enough, the title went to Nash on the following Thunder and then on the next edition of Nitro the title changed hands twice in one night. Within a week the title had gone from Jarrett to being vacant, to Jarrett to Nash. Then Nash gave the belt back to Flair who had never lost it and on the same night Flair lost the belt back to Jarrett. Confused? You're not the only one.




LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL this is an amazing read

• Many backstage and outside the company blamed the huge money loss on the to stars earnings. The facts are very different. If all of the wrestlers had worked for free in the year 2000, WCW still would have lost around $40million.

lol

That is some great stuff. Thanks for posting it.

I actually enjoyed WCW a fair bit when they had NWO Hogan/Nash/Giant AKA BIG SHOW/Goldberg/Sting/Steiner brothers etc thing going.....it wasn't as good at WWF but still good fun imo.

Is that the era we are talking about, or is this just after all that?

I wish there was some legitimate competition in the industry like there was during the Attitude Era. Without it, the quality of the product will continue to suffer.

I made the argument once that if Star Wars came out I-III when we (my friends and I) were young and then IV-VI when we were adults, we'd remember the prequel trilogy more fondly.

I sometimes wonder if the Attitude Era was the same thing. I wonder if it just destroyed all our future expectations or if we had Cena and company right after the Hogan Era and were just getting into the Attitude Era now, how we'd look on that time.

There was that New Generation era in between the Golden Era and the Attitude Era. History doesn't smile on that **** either.