Hi Scott,
A comment in the Smackdown review about Rollins "not being able to main event" got me thinking about when the shows (including PPVs) moved away from the traditional main event. I don't know a ton about the quarterly ratings but there used to be a lot of talk about popping a rating when RAW and Nitro were going head to head and I guess it made sense. For a long time now it seems that what would normally be considered your main event on a given TV show can be found anywhere on the card and the traditional main event slot is used as much for interviews and progressing story lines as it is for actual wrestling. Not to mention Wrestlemania usually advertising about five co-main events lately... Thoughts?
I agree that "main eventers" have certainly become a diluted concept in the past few years, especially with two World titles and 50/50 booking all over the shows. When pretty much everyone but Cena and Orton go unprotected, no one becomes a true star. It's part of the reason why house show business flattened out so much now that they basically only advertise the WWE brand and not specific matches. In fact, I just a had a dream last night where they finally came back to Saskatoon after 3 years and they just put up a big screen in the middle and did video packages and skits instead of matches. That might not be far off from the truth in the future.
The traditional way of building new stars and protecting current ones was largely destroyed during the Monday Night Wars. Squash matches were gone in favor of Star vs. Star matches in order to prevent the viewer from switching to the other program. It was awesome at the time because it was new and we had never seen so many of those types of matches on free TV before, but in hindsight, it was probably bad news in the long run.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the simple fact that comments like that were slightly more 'acceptable' in 1992 than they were in 2003. And they're less 'acceptable' in 2014 than they were in 2003. Just a sign of the times.
ReplyDeleteThe MNW destroying squash matches is kind of a myth. WCW was regularly running squash matches on Nitro well in to 1998.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait until WWE does it's first ever hologram match.
ReplyDeletePeople don't remember them because they happened on a random Clash in 1992. Without the Network, nobody would have ever noticed. And most people would never have remembered the Booker T thing if not for Botchamania.
ReplyDeleteNot a bad idea for WM Axxxxxxxxxxxxess. Hologram Andre the Giant vs hologram Undertaker and shit like that just happening in the background.
ReplyDeleteYep, they can easily milk the dream matches that never happened and it'd be funny if wrestlers start getting protective of their hologram spot.
ReplyDeleteHeels need to be unacceptable, so if bigotry is a way to get it, then fine. However, when Heels sink to that, they need to lose the feud. If they don't, then it makes it seem like the heels bigotry may have been valid. When HHH won the feud with Booker T after talking about how Booker T's "people" don't belong here, it made it seem like that was true, at least in WWE's alternate universe.
ReplyDeleteWorse is JR's incredibly awkwardly racist commentary during JYD vs. Butch Reed at COTC VI.
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of surprised WWE never did a racist gimmick in the late 90s. I think it was Scott Keith who once fantasy booked Justin Credible to play a Ed Norton type character from American History X.
ReplyDeleteId say thats one of the reasons they're out of business
ReplyDeleteHa, what did he say? "That JYD, he's goofier than a pet coon".
ReplyDeletelol, on the list of 1,000 reasons WCW went out of business, squash matches doesn't even make the list.
ReplyDeleteI guess that depends on the definition of "squash" match.
ReplyDeleteworkers like Bloom and Enos or Rick Fuller always jobbed to the "real stars". but even those guys scored wins over other "jobbers" (and also, unlike the jobbers of the years before, sometimes got a full entrance) - for example Fuller scored a win over El Dandy, Bloom and Enos beat Disorderly Conduct.
Well when I was a kid id much rather watch two solid midcarders in al snow vs jeff jarrett for example on raw with a storyline ( no matter how goofy) than watch hugh Morrus squash some jobber like jerry flynn on nitro. Ill agree that squash matches werent the main reason wcw went under, but it definitely didn't help. But have u really not noticed that raw was mostly squash matches until the MNW started
ReplyDeleteThose guys against name guys are most definitely squash matches.
ReplyDelete"Not to mention Wrestlemania usually advertising about five co-main events lately [...]"
ReplyDeleteinterestingly enough: the first time they not only announced the main event one year in advance but also promoted it to be more important than anything else on the card (although while declaring two other matches as "main events" too) they broke the buyrate record.
Nitro still pulled monster ratings while featuring squash matches.
ReplyDeleteIm imagining big e joining the real Americans.
ReplyDeleteO yea no doubt but I'm saying squash matches still started dying out during the MNW.
ReplyDeletebut I think Pete wasn't literally talking about "squash matches" (Sheamus vs. Daniel Bryan from WrestleMania 28 is a squash match, too) but more about it being matches between "non-jobbers".
ReplyDeletesomeone like Marty Jannetty only managed to beat guys like Lenny Lane, Rick Fuller and Frankie Lancaster. and almost all of his wins took place on Saturday Night. besides one match each he lost every time he was seen on Nitro or Thunder.
that still doesn't mean that Jannetty didn't have a lot more "name value" then your typical eighties/first half the nineties jobber.
They made up for that by booking black men as either, pimps, dancing fools or horny for white ladies.
ReplyDeleteBut they were trying to do something with Jannetty, so that qualifies as a squash matches. Fuller, Enos, all those guys were jobbers. Guy getting a push+jobber=squash match.
ReplyDeletethey were doing NOTHING with Jannetty.
ReplyDeleteThey ended up doing nothing with him. But obviously they were trying for that Rick Martel magic again.
ReplyDeleteARMBAR!
ReplyDeleteWCW was doomed by a plague of armbars.
ReplyDeleteRick Martel didn't already job in his second WCW match (Jannetty also lost in his third and fourth match before finally winning one again on Saturday Night against Lancaster).
ReplyDeleteMartel went on two win seven times in a row including a submission victory over Eddie Guerrero on Nitro. his first defeat came versus Booker T during their tv title match at Souled Out.
so, no, the booking of Martel and Jannetty really didn't have any similarities.
http://www.profightdb.com/wrestlers/marty-jannetty-97.html?prom_id=4&sort=rev
http://www.profightdb.com/wrestlers/rick-martel-60.html?prom_id=4&sort=rev
The issue with booking racist in WCW is that they might get over as babyfaces.
ReplyDeleteCool story bro time: My dad was born in the '30s and back then poor black people mingled with poor white people too so he had lots of white friends. Fast-forward 5 decades. So my dad's mechanic was an old white guy he'd known his whole life. He worked cheap but just liked for you to keep him company while he worked. So he's telling me a story once about a kid that worked for him. He says to me, "he was a colored fella, just like you....". He didn't mean anything by it, it's just how people talked. I forgot what the point of this was. Oh well.
I think that rather than running house shows, they should just do fan expos. Or maybe a mix of the two, letting some of the newer guys work on their craft while letting the older guys interact directly with the fans. Maybe have a booth set up where you can play Halo against Kofi Kingston or a few Q&A sessions with some of the wrestlers. What about a commentrary table where you can select a match with the commentary removed and record your own?
ReplyDeleteno, no they didn't. The buys were less than the year before.
ReplyDeleteOdd that Harley got that role considering how he stumped for Tony Atlas to win the belt from him.
ReplyDeleteI was talking about WrestleMania 28.
ReplyDeletei thought the buildup for a year was for 29? didn't they announce Cena/Rock 2 the night after WM28?
ReplyDeleteyou are confusing the buildup to the rematch with the one for WM28.
ReplyDeleteOh no old wrestling is offensive to an emailer....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why WWE hasn't gone back to squash matches, well when the PPV era still existed. The matches are secondary to the storylines, and you want them to be short anyway, so why not do squashes. Especially when these 'main event' matches are often not promoted.
ReplyDeleteHarley got ass kicked by Simmons right after he said that too.
ReplyDeleteBecause 1992 isn't 2003 or even 1997, and people were less sensitive?
ReplyDeleteThat was pre Will and Grace. Insulting a straight guy by calling him gay was still ok.
ReplyDeleteMy Grandma, who never had ill will towards anyone, would often use the word negro.
ReplyDeleteTowards the end of her life she realized that was outdated, and would try and correct herself, or at least tell us kids that wasn't a proper word to use any more.
''A heel said something offensive!'' really got out of hand during the Piggie James saga when seemingly everyone flipped their lid over Mickie being called fat, how horrible WWE was for booking the angle etc. and seemed to forget it was Pro Wrestling 101.
ReplyDelete"Harley Race is just old and from a different time,"
ReplyDeletei grew up in the south and yeah, it's definitely a different mindset outside of the true civil rights issues of the 60's. not saying it's right or wrong, but what a lot of people don't realize that at least in the south, people who appear to be racist really aren't in the sense of wishing ill will, thinking less of, etc.
living north of the mason dixon line, i can say that whenever people bring race up here, it's truly in the sense of hatred, prejudice, ill will, etc.
No kidding, especially when people forget that said feud was blown off when Mickie not only beat Michelle in literally a minute, she and the face Divas proceeded to shove Laycool's faces in cake after the match. It was a complete and total humiliation for the heels --- classic comeuppance.
ReplyDeleteIt was also helped by Lawler saying on commentary what the Smackdown guys had been omitting for weeks, which was that Mickie James wasn't fat or unattractive in the slightest. Who knew that the King's pervy commentary would actually be a benefit?
Given that you want WWE to go out of business, I don't think you understand the concept of going out of business
ReplyDeleteSquash matches or lack thereof had nothing to do with WCW being out of business.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea. If they charge a relatively cheap flat rate to enter the arena, they can charge extra for all of the different photos, festivities and games involved. Between that and merchandise, they can clean up.
ReplyDeleteBy less sensitive, you mean more bigoted, right?
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is that it was a feud based around a woman's appearance instead of y'know...her character. Though I guess "Attractive Woman" is all the character most females in the company get.
ReplyDeleteHeels are supposed to be jerks.
ReplyDeleteMaking fun of someone`s appearance is a jerk thing to do.
In my experiences, I've found that racists aren't hardcore racists. They may general despise a group of people but will always have a few they think are alright.
ReplyDeleteThose habits die hard. Throughout the century the accepted world for black people changed every decade. Negro, colored, black, African-American, what word people use will let you know what era they grew up in.
ReplyDeleteI really irritated a college professor by saying "people of color" is a totally ridiculous term and means the exact same thing as "colored" if you give it two minutes of thought.
ReplyDeleteI align myself with mostly progressive ideology but liberals acting like huge ninnies about words doesn't help their cause with real issues.
I've never been hung up on words myself. It's more the actions that I look at. Calling me a name and denying me rights based solely on my skin color are two very different things. We get so caught up in the former that we as a society haven't come close to addressing the latter.
ReplyDeleteNo he means they did fake offense to everything.
ReplyDeleteIt is just ridiculous to constant change what is an acceptable term and then get pissed at people who didn't get the memo. My grandmother said "colored" was the nice word to use. Like you said, it is intent.
ReplyDeleteWell minus the "pet".
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of when Pez Whatley turned heel on the Boogie Woogie Man because he referred to him as the "best black athlete" in wrestling.
ReplyDeleteMickie's 30-second win over Michelle wasn't the end of the feud. I don't know why, but everybody forgets what happened after that.
ReplyDeleteLaycool beat her in a handicap match
Michelle regained the Women's title from her soon after that. She kayfabe put Mickie out of action as Mickie wasn't seen for almost two months
After Mickie returned, she had two more appearances on Smackdown, where she lost to both members of Laycool. She was fired before the loss to Layla aired on TV.
Post-firing, WWE taped but didn't air a backstage segment at a SD taping where Laycool bragged to Kelly Kelly about how they finally got rid of "Piggie James" out of WWE. There was also a WWE.com article about the Divas article months after Mickie left where it was said she quit because Laycool's taunting finally broke her.
I get that, but Mickie sold the insults like they were devastating, "You were adopted" bombshells.
ReplyDeleteA pretty boy heel calls the rugged face ugly, the face laughs it off and beats his face in? Sure, let's do that. Rugged face cries because he really does think he's ugly? Fucking stupid.
Kind of off-topic, but I really want to see another "non main-event" main-event on one of their shows some time. Something like Rey Mysterio vs. Matt Hardy, or Lita vs. Stephanie McMahon. And an actual match, too, with actual stakes, not just a five minute thing that leads to a segment.
ReplyDeleteWould it really be THAT bad if the main-event of "Raw" was Sheamus or Cesaro against someone that WASN'T Cena or Orton?
Wasn't the actual line a "black like you" and not negro?
ReplyDeleteI always thought that HHH was referring to criminals when he said that, not black people. JR and King kept talking about Booker's time in jail so it seems to fit more than a random racial comment.
ReplyDeleteWell, the Monday Night Wars led to one-upsmanship for the sake of ratings, so you were going to get high-profile matches given away on TV. Ideally, do TV like the old days: squash matches and maybe a Name vs. Name mid-card match as a main-event. Once they started one-upping with bigger matches on free TV, it was harder to make PPV matches seem "big". Putting the genie back in the bottle and going back to squash matches on TV wasn't going to happen at that point. They might have been able to gradually transition back into that sort of thing, but after years of conditioning fans to expect Star vs. Star on every 3-hour TV show, it probably wouldn't have worked.
ReplyDeleteWe WILL get HHH beating Bruno, Graham, Gotch, and Hackenschmidt if it kills them
ReplyDeleteIt's more a matter of them sticking with the Star vs. Star thing beyond the MNW. Once they were the only show in town and *especially* once they split the roster to two "brands", they should have moved back to squash matches like in the old days, to build toward PPVs matches
ReplyDeleteRight, I've never met a real woman who put another down because of looks.
ReplyDeleteTHIS! Thank you! And the people forgetting the "Piggie James" thing lasted past the Rumble are probably the same people that swear Daniel Bryan main eventing Wrestlemania XXX was their plan since Summerslam when Orton cashed his case in. Besides, a lot of recent WWE feuds have had the handicap of not ending when they should.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and in real life people hack each others facebook account and post nude pictures of our exes on revenge sites. Wrestling isn't the real world, it's fantasy, heightened reality...whatever you want to call it.
ReplyDeleteIn real life, you hit my car with yours, I call my insurance agent and the police, in wrestling, you bump my car I challenge you to a cage match.
"what a lot of people don't realize that at least in the south, people who appear to be racist really aren't in the sense of wishing ill will, thinking less of, etc."
ReplyDeleteNo, most of them are racist, but it's a very casual kind of racism that they grew surrounded by their entire lives. They might not want to lynch or enslave black people, but still seem them as a different and inferior other.
Didn't they try to do a Kerwin White gimmick with Chavo for a second.
ReplyDeleteThere's an episode of WCW Main Event from right after the Young Pistols turned heel, where Tracy Smothers calls the fans a bunch of "porch monkeys" who never got them anywhere.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a letter to Congress when they started calling Kelly Kelly by the insensitive name of "Smelly Kelly" -- a lot of wrestling fans lack basic common sense.
ReplyDeleteTrue. The only one with a defined character I can think of is AJ, and even that was crazy, nerdy hot girl.
ReplyDeleteFunny enough, JYD was usually booked against racist heels in both the WWF and working for Bill Watts.
ReplyDeleteAJ had a distinct face, tweener and heel character. Whether that's through creative talent or she was politically savvy enough to be able to play a character, she really is needed for the division.
ReplyDelete