Professional Wrestling

Did he say anything about having it in writing?

edited 4th May '16 6:41:15 AM by SilentlyHonest

As an actor, I'm a firm believer in paying people according to what they do in the performance. Leads frequently get paid more, but that's usually because they have the more difficult songs, lines, etc. I was with one murder mystery group that paid everyone equally, and I have to say, I actually preferred being the first act body, or a minor character, because it meant minimal effort for the pay. It's that universal issue with pay scales that, when everyone's paid the same, a fair number of people will put in the minimal effort to get that paycheck since there's no real reason to go further.

As a side note, are the losing wrestlers paid a pittance? The Forbes article breaking down the publicly available information seems to indicate that the pay starts at a base of $100k even for the low-card wrestlers, plus they're guaranteed a share of the receipts. Admittedly, that's before expenses such as gyms, transportation, and tanning, but that's still not small potatoes.

EVOLVE 60 falls on May 6th, and maybe the fact that the Devastation Corporation from Chikara is in the main event will interest someone here. But good news for you WWE fans, if you haven't read about it already this Saturday there will be two qualifying matches for WWE's Cruiserweight Qualifying Series on EVOLVE 61.

Also, the former EVOLVE tag team champions will be facing each other in singles action.

But I'm more excited about ROH. Besides Jay Lethal throwing the first pitch at The White Sox game this Friday, Global Wars is Sunday. Still I mention both in case EVOLVE does leave people wanting more from the independent circuit. These events don't conflict, should be three good nights of pro wrestling and will give some insight into four companies when you consider New Japan roster members will be out in force Sunday.

Just as a counterpoint, Jim Ross claims that the losers are sometimes paid more than the winners if they're still starring performers. That seems to make sense. Although I suspect Ryback is coming at it more from the point of view that the superstars are usually also cast as the winners.

Lots of people released by WWE today: Hornswoggle, Alex Riley, Zeb Colter, El Torito, Cameron, Santino, Damien Sandow, and Wade Barrett. (Although in Barrett's case, he already had his mind made up not to re-sign with the company in June, and he says he and management agreed on him leaving early.)

Cameron's release may have something to do with her publicly agreeing with Ryback's comments on wrestler pay, with a tweet of "Amen brother" Followed by this, using TwitLonger:

edited 6th May '16 8:14:20 PM by KilgoreTrout

Twitlonger, fitting name. Look, if people really think WWE saw lying to a police officer while being pulled over for driving under the influence wasn't a good enough reason to get rid of her but a tweet was, well I'm not going to say it would surprise me but I figured fans would have more faith in the company. I mean me, whose boss doesn't pay me nearly as much as a WWE wrestler but at least give me health insurance, me who knows guys working in warehouses making 7 to 12 USD an hour whose bosses still give them health insurance, me, who knows WWE does give its employees such benefits but doesn't see fit to call the wrestlers it works the hardest employees, I don't, but I'm not a fan.

For the record I did think Cameron sucked from what I saw of her, but I didn't find her uniquely bad or even blame her much, so much as find her another failure on WWE's part. I think when Zero 1, CZW, Maryland Championship Wrestling are doing a better job of training wrestlers than you, "the leader of entertainment", it's time to reevaluate, which in WWE's case apparently means sign a large amount of already trained and in many cases renowned wrestlers and call it a "new" developmental program(considering the old program had Danielson, Ki, Castagnoli and such that in itself is not even "new"). It's not like they have a lack of capable teachers, resources or anything other than will. Or maybe it's comical mismanagement, apathy to student development, purposefully putting people it knows won't look good on television, Cameron's been through it, she should know better than us, should I ask her which?

Lio Rush being on the Maryland EVOLVE was a deciding factor in me getting at least one, more than any WWE stuff(or even Chikara stuff, admittedly) but here I am, talking about recent and upcoming shows when we still haven't gotten around to comparing the ones we, or at least I had agreed to discuss at the end of last month. Anyone still up for that? Anyone need more time?

edited 7th May '16 5:48:53 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

Hiring Sara Del Rey apparently made a big difference in the talent level of women brought up from developmental. I know that some of them had prior experience, but others didn't (Charlotte, for one). Anyway, she wasn't around to train Cameron.

Okay, but in my opinion, Sara Del Rey being around would not have mattered all that much in Cameron's case. She might have been better in some aspects but if a teacher is limited in tools they use, in the directions to point people and in time had with students, I can't see the outcome being too different.

Cameron herself explained her inadequacies as "lack of experience", but isn't that in of itself part of the training process? All Pro Wrestling required all of its trainees to go on learning excursions, Sara Del Rey included. Ohio Valley Wrestling sent trainees to Texas, to Puerto Rico, to France, and maybe FCW didn't necessarily have to go that far but I don't know why Naomi and Cameron were expected to excel at the stages they were at when they left.

When I think of the Naomi/Byron to Brodus/Cameron, I think back to MNM in OVW. Joey Matthews-Johnny Nitro(Joey Mercury-John Morrison) made a lot more sense when people argued pairing an experienced wrestler who needed work with promos with a charismatic acrobat who needed help with wrestling would give both growth they needed. And not only did they not leave to Smackdown until they were clearly at a higher level, they were, at points, sent back to OVW. Maybe Del Rey, Stock, etc are signs WWE is putting more thought into how they're doing things in Florida, but if the process is screwed up, different people usually are not a fix.

And the fact Stock and Del Rey are trainers is odd to me. Everyone knows they're great wrestlers and all, but so were CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Low Ki, Claudio Castagnoli, Fergal Devitt, Samoa Joe, Kenta Kobayashi, Shinsuke Nakamura...Alexis Laree, Macaela Mercedes, Britani Knight, etc, etc. We don't care who you are, or what you do, you go to developmental and learn WWE style. The apologists like to scapegoat Mistico, who was a great wrestler but sucked in WWE, but overlook that he was in developmental too, WWE only keeping him there for a number of days was an error on their part. He had never wrestled in the USA, unlike every other wrestler mentioned. They had all had done so extensively.

With all that in mind, Sara Del Rey had applied to work for WWE before, even tried to get on tough enough. She was rejected every time. Sarah Stock had been to their facilities just to get sent back to CMLL. These two women, great wrestlers, were apparently not good enough to wrestle on a B Show, but they're good enough to train those who will be on pay per views? Del Rey and Stock, who were no more versed in this WWE style than Danielson or Castagnoli when they were put in developmental, now teach it? I must be missing some piece to this puzzle, because it doesn't make sense.

edited 13th May '16 7:09:39 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

Confirmed that Jake Roberts's mother did die

Bummed you missed him, huh? How's about something from his CWF Florida days?

Been watching WhatCulture's videos lately, and here's one of them: 10 Reasons Why Vince McMahon Is Not A Genius.

My first thought upon reading the video title was "I thought everyone agreed that Invasion proved he wasn't."

For the record, Jim Cornette said Vince Jr was an evil genius when it came to promoting, saying he had a great eye for talent when it came to production, secretaries, public relations and the like. He said Vince Jr was never a good booker though, that he'd rather book a fart joke than a great match.

edit: The over exposure thing is one point I haven't thought about much. I'm not sure if I watch more or less wrestling at this point since I cut WWE out of my schedule(I haven't been watching on a schedule since Spike dropped TNA), but I've gone from SHIMMER-SHINE to CMLL-REINA, from ROH-NJPW to NWA-WWL(yes, I learned a couple weeks ago that WWL is back again), etc, I'm usually seeing different wrestlers, different styles of wrestling, different presentations of wrestling, different angles. Sometimes I get curious or invested in a guy, a woman, a tag team, etc, follow them through multiple promotions just because they're on a card, but there remains variation I've started to take for granted. Lio Rush in CZW is different from Lio Rush in Chilanga Mask, Rush in ROH vs EVOLVE...not really but Chris Hero currently isn't in ROH and the opposite is true for reDRagon. I hadn't been keeping up with Cedric Alexander too much so seeing him back in ROH is great. Followed his former tag team partner to AML and gave another place a stamp of approval.

I think now I get why people complain about three hour Raw so much...why people like NXT so much. I'm so glad I learned about UPW, Zero 1, TNA and stuff relatively early as a wrestling fan, even if I didn't fully appreciate them back then.

edited 19th May '16 7:07:53 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

It's not even the three hour raw. It's three hours of raw and two hours of smackdown, per week, plus the pay per views. Five hours of TV a week is a lot to take in.

But what's so much worse is that they don't take advantage of it. Imagine how good Raw could be if they actually used more of their talent. Even just on Raw, we could be getting eight or nine matches a night, each with their own storyline. Add in smackdown, and that's even more. And the best part is that the bigger the active roster, the more places people can go once their current stories end - which is important, because otherwise the stories just don't end.

Instead, we get... this.

If I was a WWE writer, my first order of business would be to call every single member of the roster into my office and ask them three questions: Who are you, what do you want, and why do you want it? That by itself should be enough to get plenty of different angles brewing.

The thing I hadn't known before seeing that was the part about how Vince had to be convinced to hire Austin. -shakes head-

MAY 19TH

May 19th?

Watched an hour of Extreme Rules.

Crowd was super out of it for the Usos/BC and Rusev/Kalisto matches.

It goes to show how crowds can make or break a night. I watched Psicosis/Rey Mysterio 2 out of 3 Falls match from ECW, and half the fun was how goddamn wild the place was. Same goes for the Misawa matches I watched; late in the match they were screaming their lungs out for Misawa to ganbare through the pain and win.

Imo, the matches themselves were pretty good wrestling exhibitions, but the dead crowd made them sad to watch. I gave up on Raw,and decided to stick to recaps instead, so maybe it was how those matches were built up.

Shoulda kept watchin, they were hot for the Fatal 4 Way.

also, MAH BOY IS BACK. DA PRODIGAL SON HAS RETURNED AND HE WANTS HIS BELT BACK!

I only stopped because it was getting late. Croed was back into it with the New Day's promo. They cheered louder for the IC title match entrances than anything Kalypso and Ruru did.

So uh....they're splitting RAW and Smackdown again apparently.

You forgot to mention the most important part about that: Smackdown will move to being live on Tuesdays starting July 19th! Finally, no more piped-in hairdryer crowd.

While I don't think splitting the roster will make WWE great tv again, I do believe that it will improve things.

I got back into WWE after six years of not watching in 2009, while the original brand split was still in effect. This was around the time that CM Punk cashed in on Jeff Hardy to become a world champion again. The program between Punk and Hardy was pretty good, putting aside the Unfortunate Implications of the man with the drug problem being framed as the good guy while the man living the straight edge lifestyle was the heel.

I doubt that either one of them would've been in a main event program if there hadn't been a brand split at the time and if everybody were on Raw. Not if they'd have needed to compete with the likes of Cena, Orton, Taker, Batista, and Triple H for a main event spot.

The other good thing about it is that if they're going to have two sets of belts again, anybody who dislikes Roman Reigns as champion can just watch Smackdown, where they'll hopefully get to watch somebody better. Again, going back to 2009, I found Jeff Hardy to be far more entertaining than John Cena in the ring. Hardy had, and has, plenty of flaws: being a Spot Monkey, not being a very good promo, the aforementioned drug issues, etc. But even so, I would much rather watch a Spot Monkey doing amazing moves while sporting a unique look than watch a generic musclebound jackass doing the same set of basic moves all the time. And doing so while wearing an outfit that was far more worthy of "You look stupid!" chants than Sheamus' mohawk could ever be. (I'm gonna actually say something nice about Roman Reigns: at least he has a cooler outfit than Cena. Picture, if you will, The Shield debuting while all wearing matching jorts and baggy t-shirts, and ask yourself if it would have helped them get over or made it more difficult for them.)

Hell, if they'd split the roster sooner, then maybe some of the people who got released would not only still have jobs, but would have gotten pushes. Maybe Cody Rhodes wouldn't have become frustrated enough to quit after it was made clear to him that he would never be a top guy. (Btw, back in 2009 when I thought one of the guys in Legacy might become a main eventer after they broke up? Cody Rhodes was the one whom I felt would be the best choice. He seemed the most talented after all, although Vince probably thought he was too skinny.)

That was a real chant? At Sheamus?

Anyway, I find it strange that the guys at WWN can't stop posting about how great it is that WWE is putting highlights of an EVOLVE match on their website and youtube page but TNA let SHINE have a belt and WWN just lets that speak for itself without gushing about it.

Granted, it is unusually generous for WWE to use footage it doesn't own and give credit, TNA's probably being generous because they're up against another wall, but all the same, WWE hasn't actually given all that much from the perspective of a fan watching the product and TNA giving a belt and titleholder, though rare, isn't without precedent. Am I wrong when I disagree with the notion that WWE has gone above and beyond the call of duty? Weird for not getting the hype?

...

So watching Raw today, I caught a commercial for the next WWE video game 2k17...

Which has FUCKING BILL GOLDBERG as a pre-order.

Now I'm sure some of you re-call The last time a certain big time wrestler was available as a pre-order for a WWE game.

What the hell is going on? Is he coming back?

edited 30th May '16 6:23:45 PM by HandsomeRob

Dirtsheets from awhile back mentioned Bill and the 'E were in the talks of making amends, IIRC? I don't want a Goldberg comeback. I'm not interested in another Goldberg run, like, at all. They might just be back at doing business with each other.

Why preorder for Goldberg anyway? The only feature you will need comes with the base package; Bo Dallas five-year title reign yes please.