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Hansen/Andre

Hi Scott,

Stan Hansen vs Andre the Giant. I'm watching this match and the emotion and intensity are off the charts. There could be a story, but who cares, it's two badasses trying to kill each other. Was this a case of it being a place and time of crowds and workers, or could this level of pro wrestling be delivered today? I can't think of who could come close to reaching this level of out of control atmosphere today besides Brock or maybe the Sheild. Is the performance centre even teaching murdeous looks? What's the WWE's aversion to badasses destroying each other?

​Baron Corbin v. Bull Dempsey has kind of been down that line.  Both guys are terrible, granted, but the idea is there.  And I'd pay good money to watch Terry Funk teach a class in murderous looks.  They could do a wacky cartoon about the performance center where retired wrestlers become teachers and there's all this high school drama with the trainees and stuff.  ​

Comments

  1. I don't have time to watch a 20 minute match right now but I just watched some bits and it's pretty cool. Two giant hosses beating the tar out of each other is what wrestling is all about.

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  2. Baron Cohen at least looks like a badass. Bull is shaped like a pear and I can't take him seriously.

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  3. Oops. Apparently I have Borat on my mind.

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  4. The NFL is a work.


    Later.

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  5. Man, these grapes are so damn sour!

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  6. 1M was based on the amount of paying, active subscribers on January 27th or whatever date it was announced. Nothing to do with non-commitment or cancellation math this time.

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  7. Yeah it was two weeks in the beginning, the month of November and the month of February.

    Calm your tits people.

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  8. It's the second free month and it only applies to new subscribers. Not sure how that even comes close to totally free for everyone 65% of the time.

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  9. I can't take emails like this seriously when people say stuff like WWE Networks been free 65% of the time.


    It's the 2nd free month which is at least one too many but hey if Vince wants to throw money away and Wall Street doesn't seem to care, more power to them.

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  10. Also it was only free for new subscribers. If I decided to cancel, I've still been billed up through February 25th, so I'd get like three free days if I wanted, then I'd forty billed on March 1st. Whoopie.

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  11. Corbin has a much bigger upside than Dempsey does. He's go a great look (despite having a really weird, wide belly button), good presence, and a killer finish.

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  12. Just hand the ball off to Lynch!!


    Sorry ... had to get it off my chest.

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  13. Bull needs to drop the King Kong Bundy Singlet of Shame sooner rather than later.

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  14. NXT is so good at promoting feuds and matches that they actually had me wanting to see two guys who aren't very good in the ring face each other. That's talent.

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  15. Emailers like this should stick to things they know about. Like uh......kinda drawing a blank here.

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  16. Yeah, this. You're only giving it away to people who weren't paying for it anyway, so if you convince a portion of them to remain subscribers for Wrestlemania you're increasing revenues for March and April without losing anything.

    The problem is going to come if they keep doing this so often that they piss off the people who *are* paying for the free month.

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  17. Almost every word of this email is inaccurate.

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  18. Its also the first time this year.

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  19. My roommate and I said the same thing. He's thinning like crazy. Get plugs or Bic it.

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  20. He could also do with some plugs or something to fill out the front of his hair, because it looks really thin up there. Or maybe that's just because of the way he slicks it back.

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  21. Antone who thinks that Andre sucked should watch those matches.

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  22. There's something about Bull Dempsey I really like, but I still can't elucidate it. He's nothing more than a jobber, sure, but you need those.

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  23. You don't get it. There are a few episodes of WCCW from 1986 that are missing so the whole this is a BIG FAT FAILURE!

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  24. I love, love, love when most wrestling fans discuss things like stocks or try to do the math on cost vs. profit. It's adorable.

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  25. I also love the implication that stockholders are gonna revolt when they realize Vince cooked the numbers to hit the 1M mark, as though sketchy math with non-financial numbers is a giant scam by the McMahons and not a common practice engaged in by countless publicly-traded companies worldwide.

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  26. Hey now, just remember:

    65% of the time, it works EVERY time.

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  27. People talk like they want the Network to fail or something. I for one am happy with the archive of older stuff even if the product today sucks. Sure I'd love to see the current product not do stupid shit like having Roman Reigns win the Royal Rumble but if you're offering me PPVs plus the archive for $10 a month that's still a deal.

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  28. rule of thumb for the IWC--never be happy about anything.

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  29. See my comments above. If I decide I'm pissed off and I want the free month, I can't get it cause I've already paid for most of February.

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  30. Yeah? Well your face is a work!

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  31. Leaving aside the emailer's commitment to the Scott Steiner school of maths - what will (eventually) freak the investors is the churn rate and the WWE's inability to drive extra revenue from the subscriber base.
    This is basically similar to a cable TV package and the things the investors look at in the long term are:
    - what proportion of people cancel their subscriptions
    - the average revenue per subscriber - which can either be goosed by putting up the price for the basic package, upselling to a better package or bundling (e.g. broadband + cable + mobile/cell).
    We already know the churn rate was too high when they were locking people into a six monthly commitment and its going to go through the roof now people can just drop in and out. Its entirely possible the WWE could end up with half a million permanent subscribers and another million dropping in and out for the PPVs. If that happens then what they have done is reduced the cost of PPVs by about 75%.

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  32. Fat, Ugly Inner-City SweathogFebruary 2, 2015 at 10:42 AM

    Those investor meetings must be painful for Vince. "So why is it exactly that you guys keep giving away so many free months?" "Of those subscriptions, how many are paid?" "You had HOW many cancellations?"

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  33. Hes got a killer finish as long as he keeps facing lightweight jobbers who can take it properly. Dempsey barely got it out right and it looked sloppy. When he gets called up, it's not gonna be pretty.

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  34. Remember this when the nfl pulls for a seahawks/patriots rematch.

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  35. I'll be the one wishing death on the commissioner of the NFL for his terrible booking and rooting for the 5'2 185 lb kicker to be the star qb

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  36. Vince studying the WCW Road Wild business model now it seems.

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  37. People can make up numbers to back up anything. Forfty percent of all people know that.

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  38. It's really 57% of the time. He was a little off. Cut him a break.

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  39. Brian I'm not gonna lie to you. That smells like pure gasoline.

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  40. It's eye-opening to see how much more agile Andre was just six years before WrestleMania 3.

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  41. "You know, they say all Networks are created equal, but you look at me and you
    look at WWE Network, and you can see that statement is not true!"

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  42. WWE Network got to 1M by giving away November and retaining people, either through the content itself or people forgetting to cancel. FACT. People acting like giving away February during the build to Mania is going to be some disaster, but the only metered history on file shows differently.

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  43. It's over -- they messed up -- time to move on. It's killing me that they lost and I'm a Skins fan.

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  44. FACT: Bears eat beets

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  45. Without the Network, I'd actually have to watch RAW or SD, and that would suck

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  46. The Network is the only reason I even started following the product again. I've only gotten Wrestlemania since 2010 and I came back briefly during the summer of Punk and left again by November.

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  47. I've been a paying customer since day one, and these free months do not concern me in the slightest.

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  48. I don't think Corbin is terrible, to be honest. He's got presence, at least.

    No argument on Bull.

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  49. Well, it's true. Bull has one of the worst looks I've ever seen for a wrestler.

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  50. Agreed. I dig him so far.

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  51. Yep, and it blows my mind. It's the same as the "I can't wait for WCW to go out of business" stuff from 2000 and 2001. Makes no sense.

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  52. Dude. You just suck. So damn hard and so damn much.

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  53. You still claiming the rumble sold out, or have you moved on to other lies?

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  54. If I were a shareholder in the WWE, and Vince *wasn't* trying to carny shyster me in some way, I'd be really worried. It's really his best skill and how he got where he is.

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  55. How can anyone tell if he's good or bad? We've only seen him do one move. I'm very interested in seeing what happens when he wrestles someone like Neville or Zayn and has to show more.

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  56. I imagine it's free this month for two reasons- the lead up to Wrestlemania with a weak PPV and the fact that they have to give the UK a free month to make up for the shambles of last year.

    At this point they need the subscribers rather than the revenue as a show of intent to the markets.

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  57. I'm pretty sure the Rumble did sell out. Where did you hear it didn't? Just curious

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  58. Scott Steiner Network. Stay tuned for a new episode of Freaks and Peaks!

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  59. Baron Corbin feels like a 3rd Roman Reigns (who is a 2nd rate Diesel himself), so I never understood his appeal.

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