The General Wrestling Thread

s@ppisgod · Oct 30, 2013

Warner2BruceTD said:
The most important thing TNA (or any group for that matter) can do is to be as different from the WWE as possible.

Different in ring style, no backstage "why is there a camera here for out secret conversation" segments, no on screen authority figures, etc. All of these things just make you look like WWE-lite. Be bold and do something different.

When biss started Inspire, he didn't copy Anarchy. His promotion has a completely different tone & feel. He runs his shows in an art house as opposed to a rowdy bar, he uses a lot of different talent, he doesn't do 4 or 5 hours shows, he has stayed away from women's matches, etc. Why the fuck would anybody go to an Inspire show if it was just a junior version of the already established promotion that runs across town? I see many of the same faces at both shows, because they are getting something different at each one.

I don't think the brand damage is impossible to overcome. A fresh, unique product that focuses on the things WWE does not emphasize, with smart, logical booking & fresh stars would appeal to wrestling fans and might just bring back some people who handwaved wrestling when WCW went under. I don't think it would matter if you call it TNA or Impact Wrestling or Inspire Pro Wrestling or NWA or United Wrestling Association.

I agree with about 90% of that. Two things though. I did like WCW's take on an authority figure. Not some cartoonish heel or over the top comedic face, but just an older wrestler who plays the straightman and occasionally off-sets heels being heels. Kinda off-topic, because I agree that they shouldn't go that route. Just saying it can be done in a way that I don't think it stupid and takes away from the product the way....say, Vickie Guerrero did.

Th other thing is, I think a LOT of the old WCW fans have seen or at least heard of TNA and haven't caught on or outright hated the product. So to have that same name just makes it easier to gloss over it, ESPECIALLY on your cable or satellite guide. Even if someone recommends it to you, you're likely to be set in that mindset that "Seen it, don't like it." Which is not to say that a new name would get people viewing, but why put yourself behind the 8-ball if you don't have to?

LiquidLarry2GhostWF · Oct 30, 2013

The Authority Figure wasn't invented by the WWE, but it is as WWE as Apple Pie is the 'Murica.

The concept is also played out. There is NOTHING you could do to make the authority figure a fresh idea.

Also, I'm of a firm believe, sapp...WCW fans are gone and never coming back. When the WWF purchased WCW, those fans disappeared to never return again...I don't agree that those fans even know TNA exists.

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 30, 2013

LiquidLarry2GhostWF said:
The one problem with this, is that the WWE, has a lot of bases covered under their umbrella. There is very little a company can truly offer to appeal to the masses that the WWE doesn't already cover. You can hit a niche, sure...but are you ever expanding past the 1.1 with said niche? I don't know.

New Japan is an A+ player, brother...even with the invention known as the internet, you can barely get very die hard wrestling fans to seek it out for free. Yes, TV changes the landscape, but I've feared for a long time that many wrestling fans are gone and they ain't comin back.

Basically, what you are saying, is for TNA to not be TNA...in any way...if that is the case...why would you buy it for anything outside of the time slot? The stench of being TNA, whether its by relation or buyout, needs more than a bleach bath to make it something viable.

I truly believe the New Japan model can work. It's the perfect balance of traditional pro wrestling & entertainment. No nonsense when it needs to be, fun when it needs to be. It's exactly what the people who have been ran off by the WWE sports entertainment would sink their teeth into.

New Japan will never break through because people aren't going to give a Japanese promotion a chance. The model can work.

LiquidLarry2GhostWF · Oct 30, 2013

Warner2BruceTD said:
I truly believe the New Japan model can work. It's the perfect balance of traditional pro wrestling & entertainment. No nonsense when it needs to be, fun when it needs to be. It's exactly what the people who have been ran off by the WWE sports entertainment would sink their teeth into.

New Japan will never break through because people aren't going to give a Japanese promotion a chance. The model can work.

The model works because New Japan has most of the elite Japanese workers working there...and expanding (signing a guy like Ibushi is a sign of things to come, IMO, getting more of these great Jap wrestlers in the fold, even if they work elsewhere). And, its not like they pulled these top guys out of their ass, they spent a long time developing these stars.

Where is this new wrestling company getting the elite American workers from...they are all going to the WWE. We're in a generation now where the young up and coming talent that dreamed of wrestling in the WWE. No where else...the WWE. Even the young Indy talent TNA does have, were previously discarded or pushed aside by the WWE. That doesn't necessarily mean they are second rate (Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Aries certainly weren't at their peak), but they have become second rate by proxy of working for TNA. Even if we fantasy book and Samoa Joe becomes CM Punk...does TNA get more than their 1.1? I don't think so...I don't think there is enough of the market share for anyone to truly expand right now. We're working on over a decade where the second biggest chunk of wrestling fans left. A decade is a long fucking time.

s@ppisgod · Oct 30, 2013

LiquidLarry2GhostWF said:
The Authority Figure wasn't invented by the WWE, but it is as WWE as Apple Pie is the 'Murica.

The concept is also played out. There is NOTHING you could do to make the authority figure a fresh idea.

Also, I'm of a firm believe, sapp...WCW fans are gone and never coming back. When the WWF purchased WCW, those fans disappeared to never return again...I don't agree that those fans even know TNA exists.

A lot of wrestling fans died with WCW, that much is very clear. But I think the remaining ones at least have an idea of a promotion that had Flair, Hogan, and most notably Sting for a long time. The problem is that a lot of the WCW fans were people who weren't kids when Flair went at it with Race or Dusty or Funk. They're old. They wouldn't be caught dead watching this new age shitpile. The others, like myself, who followed Sting and Steamboat as kids, are pretty aware of TNA, but don't like it much, if at all, in most cases. The other part makes up probably about 1/3 of TNA's fanbase. Mostly out of laziness or habit.

EDIT: I'd also argue that a lot of those older fans jumped off the ship when WCW started having Vampiro dropping blood on Sting and other assorted stupid crap that WCW did near the end. I'd contest that the older guard dropped off before WCW even hit the 2s (?) near the end. Probably a little bit after Bischoff crushed the new 4 Horsemen into a fine powder...

LiquidLarry2GhostWF · Oct 30, 2013

For what its worth, Big Dave says Easy E (and, I guess, by proxy Wayne Arnold) are gone from TNA. He will be paid out the remainder of his contract while at home.

So, perhaps Warner or ABiss can give me a breakdown of what the TNA structure is like...they have completely gutted middle management at this point.

Who is booking? Who is booking match structure? Etc.

LiquidLarry2GhostWF · Oct 30, 2013

s@ppisgod said:
A lot of wrestling fans died with WCW, that much is very clear. But I think the remaining ones at least have an idea of a promotion that had Flair, Hogan, and most notably Sting for a long time. The problem is that a lot of the WCW fans were people who weren't kids when Flair went at it with Race or Dusty or Funk. They're old. They wouldn't be caught dead watching this new age shitpile. The others, like myself, who followed Sting and Steamboat as kids, are pretty aware of TNA, but don't like it much, if at all, in most cases. The other part makes up probably about 1/3 of TNA's fanbase. Mostly out of laziness or habit.

EDIT: I'd also argue that a lot of those older fans jumped off the ship when WCW started having Vampiro dropping blood on Sting and other assorted stupid crap that WCW did near the end. I'd contest that the older guard dropped off before WCW even hit the 2s (?) near the end. Probably a little bit after Bischoff crushed the new 4 Horsemen into a fine powder...

In the span of a year, the wrestling viewing audience dropped by a combined 4 points before WCW even went out of business. The WWF's audience, from its peak of around 1999, by the time they purchased WCW, dropped 2-3 ratings points themselves. WCW another 2-3 ratings points themselves. That is a lot of viewers that disappeared even before WCW was purchased by the WWF. Now, drop that remaining 3 full ratings points that tuned into the last episode of WCW off the map that never went over to the WWE.

The WWE now runs anywhere from very high 2's to peaking in very low 4's for a RAW. That is a lot of people that just got up and left and now, 15 years later...they ain't ever ever coming back.

FedEx227 · Oct 30, 2013

mookie looks at correlation between match time and Meltzer star ratings among other factors. Great read.

For years, I’ve harnessed the “Observer Star Ratings” blog to look at Star Accumulations by Star or Who has the Brightest Future (Age vs Star Ratings). While I had the information of who was in the matches, I lacked other important data points such as length of the match, type of show or finish of match.
Through sheer will of force and extensively cross-referencing with The History of WWE I’ve mapped each of the matches to collect these data points.
I’ve been interested in whether or not it’s possible to qualify the qualities of what distinguishes a good *** match from a great **** match. By examining the dataset in full, can we draw any conclusions about which factors seem to influence how Dave Meltzer rated the matches?

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/20...nalysis-of-meltzer-ratings-for-wwe-1986-2013/

LiquidLarry2GhostWF · Oct 30, 2013

FedEx227 said:
mookie looks at correlation between match time and Meltzer star ratings among other factors. Great read.

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/20...nalysis-of-meltzer-ratings-for-wwe-1986-2013/

These are the types of articles that separate VoW from other sites...seriously. MookieGhana is fucking awesome.

Tell that fucko to get on that Triple H article before its no longer timely.

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 30, 2013

You should see the shit mookie does randomly on the observer board. He's now delved into the records for New Japan, Dragon Gate, & ROH because he didn't realize there were competent result resources out there. ROH.com has every match result, ever. iheartdg.com, same thing for DG. There are fantastic New Japan resources. Basically, the nerdier the fan base, the more likely you have complete records in existence. And the things mookie can do with those data sets are amazing.

He's been a real boon for HOF research, because the voters who value drawing power, time on top, etc use his stuff to cross reference the REAL records of guys (card position, attendance, etc) as opposed to relying on fuzzy memories.

mookie is what the wrestling community lacked for decades. He really is something.

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 30, 2013

Warner2BruceTD said:
You should see the shit mookie does randomly on the observer board. He's now delved into the records for New Japan, Dragon Gate, & ROH because he didn't realize there were competent result resources out there. ROH.com has every match result, ever. iheartdg.com, same thing for DG. There are fantastic New Japan resources. Basically, the nerdier the fan base, the more likely you have complete records in existence. And the things mookie can do with those data sets are amazing.

He's been a real boon for HOF research, because the voters who value drawing power, time on top, etc use his stuff to cross reference the REAL records of guys (card position, attendance, etc) as opposed to relying on fuzzy memories.

mookie is what the wrestling community lacked for decades. He really is something.

For example, if you are ever in an argument 20 years from now over who was pushed harder in Dragon Gate, Yoshino or Genki Horiguchi, mookie's book will help end that debate:

This is the kind of completely ridiculous shit he is doing across all promotions with a decent data set of records.

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 30, 2013

To further expand on how incredible the Tanahashi/Okada series has been, WWE has five 5-star matches in history. Meltzer gave two Tanahashi/Okada matches 5-stars this year. And for me it was three.

That's not even a knock on WWE. 5-stars is, and should be, rare air. Personally I went many years in between calling something 5-stars (the ROH Dragon Gate six-man in 2006 was probably the last thing I would have rated 5-stars).

s@ppisgod · Oct 31, 2013

LiquidLarry2GhostWF said:
In the span of a year, the wrestling viewing audience dropped by a combined 4 points before WCW even went out of business. The WWF's audience, from its peak of around 1999, by the time they purchased WCW, dropped 2-3 ratings points themselves. WCW another 2-3 ratings points themselves. That is a lot of viewers that disappeared even before WCW was purchased by the WWF. Now, drop that remaining 3 full ratings points that tuned into the last episode of WCW off the map that never went over to the WWE.

The WWE now runs anywhere from very high 2's to peaking in very low 4's for a RAW. That is a lot of people that just got up and left and now, 15 years later...they ain't ever ever coming back.

A lot of those viewers weren't wrestling fans anyway. They weren't even casual fans. But I do think a good number of the fans that watched at the tail end of WCW and some of the viewership of TNA over the years overlap.

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 31, 2013

Keiji Muto announced two wrestlers from TNA would be coming to the 11/16 show at Korakuen Hall, one of which is expected to be A.J. Styles. Wrestle-1's gimmick is that a lot of what they do is a surprise so it's not announced ahead of time and the matches and even some of the stars appearing are surprises.

Even though Kai said he was done doing singles matches with Seiya Sanada on 10/6, they were back wrestling on the 10/9 show in Sakata, with Sanada winning to even their series at 3-3, and then wrestled the main event on 10/10 in Akita, with Sanada winning again, and 10/14 in Yamagata, with Kai winning. After the match that tied them up 4-4, Kai asked if they could end this. Thus far they've wrestled in singles matches on almost every show to date. However, Sanada is scheduled to leave for TNA in a deal put together by Jeff Jarrett.

So the talent trading rumored between TNA & W-1 is going to happen, and it looks like Seiya Sanada, who is very good and has the type of charisma that will translate in North America, will be the latest talented guy to work 4 minute matches on Xplosion.

AJ Styles will be doing his CM Punk storyline in W-1, where he will probably defend the title. Can't wait to see who the second guy is. I have to admit, I really dig the W-1 "mystery X" gimmick after seeing it in practice.

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 31, 2013

Hiroshi Tanahashi did an interview last week where he said that he nearly quit New Japan ten years ago because the company was in a decline and wanted to work in the U.S. In other words, he could have been Yoshi Tatsu. And still have to take hip tosses in Orlando every day.

Sorry Dave, we've made all these jokes already.

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 31, 2013

There are serious sale talks going on behind the scenes. After we reported it over the weekend, a lot of places ran with borderline ridiculous stories. What I can say at this point is that there is a potential buyer that has been looking at the company. Reps for the potential new ownership group have been at the offices. Talk of a potential sale has been going on for months, but has reached a serious enough point where things are at a significant stage. It is not entirely clear who will end up in power and run the company if and when the deal being negotiated goes through, and what percentage of the company, or if the entire company, is what is being negotiated. One source with significant knowledge of what is going down said the new group is unlikely to get involved without owning a controlling interest. Also, regarding speculation in various media of names involved, all of the speculation is way off, that much I know. It doesn't appear Viacom has any interest in buying the company (even though TNA gets far better ratings than Bellator, it's not as valuable because it can't get the corporate sponsors or ad revenue) and the parties involved come from outside the pro wrestling industry. The people who have at least been negotiating the most seriously are not from Viacom. The people involved have been successful in a number of other businesses. Just my gut says they are buying it more as a television property with the idea that future rights fees as those number escalate for sports will make it valuable.

The fact sale negotiations are as far along as they are and Hulk Hogan wasn't signed seems to indicate the new ownership group didn't feel he was a priority in the deal, or else TNA would have been aggressive in locking him up.

Viacom purchased Bellator for "around $50M".

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 31, 2013

According to various cable industry sources, Bound for Glory looks to have been down about 15 percent from last year, which would indicate about 17,000 buys. That's about what I'd have figured because it didn't seem as good a lineup for built up as well as even last year. Even when TNA numbers were down overall, BFG had hit the 40,000 mark as the WrestleMania of TNA as recently as a few years back. The key to the BFG number is that the experiment of cutting back from 12 PPVs to four per year will make people more apt to buy the four and the four will be more special, while sounding good in theory (and it seemed to work with boxing), ended up not working here. TNA PPV numbers for Slammiversary and Bound for Glory were below what they were a year ago when they were running monthly on PPV.

FedEx227 · Oct 31, 2013

New Bauer + Pollock talks a lot about the sale. Bauer lays out 3 potential suitors he's heard: Jeff Jarrett, Eric Bischoff and a "pseudo-celebrity from the entertainment industry"

http://fightnetwork.com/news/42601:oct.-30-edition-of-bauer-pollock/

Warner2BruceTD · Oct 31, 2013

FedEx227 said:
New Bauer + Pollock talks a lot about the sale. Bauer lays out 3 potential suitors he's heard: Jeff Jarrett, Eric Bischoff and a "pseudo-celebrity from the entertainment industry"

http://fightnetwork.com/news/42601:oct.-30-edition-of-bauer-pollock/

Meltzer says the likely buyers have no history in wrestling, which would eliminate Bischoff & Jarrett.

I also found it interesting, that with the ouster of The Bisch & Hogan, Jarrett is a power player again. He's the point man on the W-1 dealings, and is in the creative mix now with Lagana & Jon Guberick.

FedEx227 · Oct 31, 2013

Really when you get down to it, Jarrett may be the best man for the job. He's already made the connection with W-1, when he was running the show they were a lean but somewhat successful company, he pushed the X-Division and the inexpensive indie guys... we'll see.

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