2014 Pro Wrestling Thread

Has anyone read Death of WCW by Alvarez? Noticed an updated version was published recently.....anything "new" or interesting in there, or the same kind of stuff we've seen all over Monday Night Wars type shows for years?

 

I would predict Lilian to RAW and Eden on SmackDown. JoJo needs to stay away. Ideally Chimel should return but I don't see that happening.

 

In character, I'd be curious as to what Triple H's explanation to Rollins would be. I mean, Rollins is your guy, you want the belt on a guy you control, and while you're happy Lesnar got it off Cena, why would you be content with letting him hold the belt in abesntia, picking and choosing his spots and making it nearly impossible for Rollins to cash in? The punchline being that they're fucking scared of the guy, just like anyone else in that position would be.

It would seem odd for Rollins not to be pushing for Lesnar to show up, until you realize "oh yeah, I don't want to beat HIM for the title." Maybe have him push Triple H to reinstate the good ol' 30-day defense rule or something.

 

Never read the original, but I saw this revised version as a suggested item when I pit Jericho's third on my Amazon wish list. It went on the list, too. Christmas time's a comin'.

 

I haven't read the updated version, but I do have the original and it's a good read. It gets a little too fan boy at times - it basically paints Bischoff as being lucky and Russo as the devil incarnate - but it does have a good amount of interesting booking stuff. Portions of it have since been heavily refuted by some parties on shoots here and there, but in a way, I think it's based on the reaction the book and dirt sheets of that era got.

 

It still amazes me that a business that was worth perhaps $100 million and had made multiple millions in profits for a couple of years and was owned by one of the biggest media moguls in the world just ended up going kaput in roughly two years.

And I still find it funny how, when the Turner people were trying to sell the company, the one TV exec announced the shows were going off the air and basically killed off about $75 million in company value with one ill-timed announcement.

 

"The Death of WCW" was good, but could have been so much better. The one thing it was really lacking was the inside stories on the insanity of the place. Whether that was guys not wanting to go on the record and burn bridges, I don't know, but it would've added a ton to the book.
That's one of the reasons why I feel like you need to read that, Flair's book and Jericho's first book to get a fuller picture. There's probably a couple of others, too. "Death of WCW" gives you the overview, and the individual wrestlers' books take you a little deeper into some of the nitty gritty personal details.

 

They should use WCW as a case study in every business school in America of how to turn gold into a steaming puddle of shit.

 

I wanted to try something with this thread. It may not work, but I am hoping it will.

I watch a lot of wrestling, I want you guys to ask me some questions about wrestling that you would like answered. I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will try my best.

There are a couple of conditions though:

- I don't want to be asked modern WWE questions. I don't keep up with them properly, haven't for a couple of years.

- Ask questions that you legitimately want to hear my opinion on.

Some basic answers:

- How long have I been watching? Roughly 40 years.

- Favorite wrestlers? Ricky Steamboat, Davey Boy Smith and Chris Benoit.

- Favorite overall year? 1989.

- Favorite World Title reigns? Bret Hart (1994), Chris Benoit (2004), Shawn Michaels (1996), Raven (2005), Chris Hero (2008-2009), Samoa Joe (2003-2004) and Vader (1993).

- Current companies you watch? A little NJPW, PWG and even less ROH, TNA and WWE.

- That's not a lot of wrestling, so what do you really watch? A lot of mid 80's to early 90's WWE including SNME, PPV's and house shows. Various older PPV's from WWE, ECW and WCW. TNA 2006 (Slow going). NJPW 2010. Various older PWG.

- Favorite matches? Ricky Steamboat vs Rick Rude (Beach Blast 1992), Davey Boy Smith vs Bret Hart (IYH 5), Samoa Joe vs Kenta Kobashi (Joe vs Kobashi), Super Dragon vs Kevin Steen (Astonishing X-Mas), Chris Benoit vs William Regal (No Mercy 2006), Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles (Turning Point 2005), Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi (4/19/97) and Jerry Lawler vs Kerry Von Erich (Superslash 3)

 

Most of the blame of course has to go to the mismanagement, horrible booking and letting the inmates run the asylum, but one thing that's always touched upon by the former WCW folk is that there was always a big contingent in the company that didn't want anything to do with pro wrestling.
Those people couldn't do anything when Turner ran the show, because he loved wrestling, but when Time Warner took over and Turner's influence began to wane, a lot of executives were looking for the right time to dump it. Obviously, they couldn't do it when the company was insanely successful, but I think a lot of them probably saw the train was going to fly off the tracks at some point, and instead of taking steps to prevent that, just let it play out so they could just cut it loose. That's when that Kellner guy was able to kick wrestling off his channels when it was at its lowest ebb.

 

The new version is 40 percent bigger, but I'm not sure how much of that is new reporting and how much is "looking back after 10 years, here's how it looks now" sorta writing. Haven't heard if it's worth buying if you've read the original version.

 

There was a surprisingly good podcast recently with Jim Ross and Ed Ferrara, of all people, and Ed pointed out that a big part of the problem with WCW is that the buck didn't stop with just one person, especially once Bischoff was gone. Even when he was there, if you had a big enough pull (Hogan, The Outsiders) then you could go to a Turner executive in an attempt to overrule them. Contrast this with the WWE - Vince is clearly the guy in charge.