unfitfinlay

 

Could Bret have debuted at Starrcade or was the referee gig part of a no compete? Given that he wrestled at Souled Out, I'm thinking they just didn't use him.

 

 

I imagine the logic was "We're going to pop a monster buyrate off Hogan vs Sting, the impact of adding Bret's in-ring debut to that buyrate might be marginal, pushing Bret Hart's first match for WCW could gain another huge buyrate later." Which would have made sense, if Bret's first PPV match wasn't an underpushed "I respect you actually" middle-of-Nitro storyline with Ric Flair, which was nowhere near pushed as being the main reason to buy Souled Out.

 

Although someone who edited Bret's wiki page reckons he had a 60-day no-compete clause. I find it odd that Bret's contract would include that given that it was a 20 year deal intending to last into a non-wrestling role and reduced salary upon his retirement, and was designed to be a "you're a lifer" situation. Unless it was a stipulation of Bret's release.... which still strikes me as weird. I dunno. If I had Bret's book to hand, I'd see if he mentions the reason in the delay of his wrestling debut, but I don't.

He didn't have a no compete clause (strictly speaking no one actually does). There was a clause letting him out of the contract in the first year, as long as he gave notice. The notice actually expired the month after Survivor Series, right before what would be the D-Generation X PPV. Bischoff actually agreed to delay Bret's WCW debut, so that he'd be free to work that PPV for Vince.

It's the one thing that annoys me with the "Bret was going to turn up on Nitro with the Title" stuff. He couldn't. WCW weren't even allowed to say "foreign objects". There was no way that Time Warner would let them use a wrestler that was still under a WWF contract.

To be honest, I think politics played a part. I totally get the logic of "Hogan vs Sting is a monster draw anyway. Let's save Bret for next month" but it did feel like his legs were being cut off before he'd even started. Bret vs Hogan at Souled Out would've done major money, and been logical given the controversy at Starrcade.

 

I assume by “it” you mean a mate in management?

 

That got him a chance, and nothing more. His hard work and the right attitude (not complaining when he was jobbing to fucking Booty Man) got him a lot of the way, and his gravitas did the rest. If he didn't have the aforementioned "it" then none of the crowd - who by and large would have been unaware of him being mates with Bischoff - wouldn't have given a shit when the nWo started courting him, and certainly wouldn't have gone mental when he rejected them so spectacularly. Maybe Page befriended (and more importantly, impressed) someone with stroke, namely Bischoff, during his journey, but that shouldn't negate from the fact he was getting on in years when he started, and Bischoff certainly didn't have enough influence to get him any prominence when he started actually getting in the ring back in 1991.

 

Tim's got his foot in the door at 33, I think Page stands up as an example of "If you work hard enough, impress the right people and have something about you, it's not too late."

 

I agree.

As an aside, I think the interesting thing about Page's friendship with Bischoff is that Page helped Bischoff get in the door in WCW in the first place. Bischoff had to work with Page in his try out and, even though they had heat, Page did all he could to get him the job.

It's not like he was a scheming, politician who kissed up to people in power. He's just a genuinely nice bloke. I still say he benefited from his friendship with Hall and Nash more than Bischoff anyway. He was going nowhere until the NWO showed arse for him, at a time when they really weren't showing arse to anybody. That was the major game changer for him.

 

Chyna would have been right up shit creek if Jarrett didnt put her over. He'd out smarted her and gotten the better of her at every turn, as well as beating up every woman they had on the roster. The angle was designed for Chyna to get one over on the man. Imagine if he'd have just walked out after slapping all those women about for months? This was before the days when women beat men every weekend on the indies. Chyna winning the IC title was a big novelty at the time. Jarrett held a lot of cards. Not forgetting of course that the money he was asking for was money he earned. It was his PPV money.

 

How did they get into a position where they knew what the pay off was but without a key part under contract? Did they not expect Jeff to leave as they were smashing WCW at the time. Did Jeff change his mind due to the stuff with Austin refusing to work with him or something else much sillier?

 

I think J.R just fucked up. He simply didn't realise that Jarrett's contract expired the day before the PPV, until the storyline was set up to end there.

Jarrett went to WCW for a variety of reasons. The main one was that his mate Russo jumped and promised him he'd be a top guy over there. The WWF weren't willing to make the same offer.

I'm glad Ian pointed out that Jarrett only asked for money that he felt he was owed. I've always thought it was weird that Jarrett gets shit from fans for "holding them to ransom". The WWF try to fuck wrestlers over all the time when it comes to PPV pay. Jarrett just didn't want to be the guy who was working for the competition when they were deciding who got what.

I thought at the time it was the same mistake as with Lex Luger four years earlier: his contract ended without WWF realising it.

The WWF knew Luger's contract was expiring. They tried to renew it and thought they'd come to an agreement with him, but he kept making excuses about actually signing the paperwork until that first Nitro.

Yara has fucked off back to the Iron Islands, so how can they burn her? She's nowhere near them. Same with Gendry. In fact he's probably the other side of Ulthos given how long he's been fucking rowing.

The show isn't made week to week. If they'd wanted to burn one of those two, it would've been fairly easy to write them back in in previous episodes.

It still would've been messed up but a lot less so than Stannis burning Shireen, which makes little sense. Stannis now has no heir, so his men will have no one to rally around if he dies in the battle. He's also, quite publicly, committed one of the worst crimes in Westeros. The Northerners hate Theon for killing his two *foster* brothers. How are they going to feel about Stannis murdering his own child? And if the North won't fight for him then what, exactly, is the point of him freeing Winterfell?

We're heading into a three way battle where Littlefinger is the least evil of the three Commanders. That's pretty messed up right there. Who exactly are we supposed to be rooting for?

 

They could've burned Yara, or even Gendry. Both have King's Blood and it's not like either of them are doing anything particularly important. Where IS Yara anyway. It can't take that long to sail from the Iron Islands to the North surely?

".

How does Yara have King's Blood? Isn't she Theon's sister, daughter of Lord of Iron Islands?

 

Balon, their Dad, declared himself King during the Greyjoy Rebellion before the show, and again when Theon took Winterfell in Season 2. He hasn't done much, like, but it should be enough for Melisandre.

Book readers, which I am not, can probably expect Shireen to meet a similar fate; that idea was pitched by George RR Martin..

It's probably best to keep that discussion out of this thread. There's not a lot of spoilers left, but it could still upset some folk. At the very least, I'd imagine a few people will want to read the books after the show is done.

They could've burned Yara, or even Gendry. Both have King's Blood and it's not like either of them are doing anything particularly important. Where IS Yara anyway. It can't take that long to sail from the Iron Islands to the North surely?

That's assuming Stannis burning someone was even necessary? I'm honestly not sure what that scene achieved. We now know that Stannis is a heartless fucker who will do anything to gain the Throne but we're supposed to want him to win against Roose and Ramsay so that isn't really a good thing. This probably gives Roose and Ramsay the moral high ground, actually. At least they aren't kin-slayers.

The way they've set up the Battle for Winterfell as being between a King-killing rapist, and his psychopath rapist son, and a child murdering nutter, I can only now see one result. Stannis trumps the Boltons, but before he can celebrate Brienne (one of the few likeable people left in the North) takes his head clean off and hands the North to Sansa.

Good point. Littlefinger's heading North with an army as well though and I think he might be the one to "save the day".

I liked the last scene. I noticed the music for about a second but then got sucked right back into the show. Poor Jorah - He finally gets back in Daenerys good graces and she fucks off ten seconds later.

The scene with Shireen was awful though. I'm really not sure what the creators were thinking with that. We're now heading into a climatic battle between a rapist who murdered his own King, and a bloke who burned his only child alive. Why should anyone even care about the result now?

I thought they stopped rowing because they were in shock at seeing the Night King raise all the people they had just killed. It wasn't dumb it was totally believable. The look on Jon Snow's face is one of someone whose brain can't believe what they have just seen. I think that is probably fair given the circumstances his character finds himself in.

They stopped rowing before that though. They stopped to watch the Giant fighting, started again for about two seconds, and then stopped again to watch the remaining humans get slaughtered. I've no problem with Jon's reaction, because it looked cool, but it was stupid that everybody on the boat was content to just gently drift away from the unspeakable horrors they were witnessing. They could still have had Jon look back if the extras were rowing surely?

It was still a great episode though.

To be fair, they probably realised that they couldn't outswim a row boat.

 

They could if no one is bloody rowing! I can't be the only one to notice that they made all that effort to get to the boat and then just sat in it like a bunch of fannies? The Giant strolled past them for fuck sake!

Anyway, I'd imagine that the White Walkers let them go to send a message. The Night's King wanted them to see just how easy it is for him to raise the dead so they'll go back to Castle Black spreading the story and demoralizing the rest of the realms defenders.

It was an excellent episode though. The show seems to have developed a pattern where a season is slow all the way through then just kicks into high gear in the last couple of episodes.

 

Doing a 6 week catch up of Impacts (yeah, I know....) I recorded on the digibox, its clear the only reason this promotion still exists to me is the constant arse and crotch shots of the likes of Brooke, Taryn and Gail Kim. Transplant these three to GWF and fuck off for good.

 

I'm going to be fascinated in the ratings war between ROH and TNA on Dest. America now though.

 

There wont be a ratings war. TNA will probably try and create one. Even when TNA do get higher viewing figures than ROH on Destination America doesnt mean more people are watching it. ROH is available on many other networks/stations.

 

Not officially, no, but TNA are going to be under incredible pressure to get higher ratings than ROH. ROH is cheaper and less hassle for Destination America. If ROH gets ratings that are better, or even comparable to Impact, then there's a good chance that the network will just drop TNA completely. At the very least the threat of it will destroy TNA's ability to negotiate. To have any leverage at all, they are going to have to trounce ROH, and they really don't have the resources to do it.

GFW aren't going to be able to do anything with the tape library to make money. Signing Jeff Hardy to ten dates would be more useful for the company at this stage than owning the entire tape library of a dead company with nothing but bad will attached. If they have money, it shouldn't be wasted on something as stupid as a tape library.

 

GFW could stick Samoa Joe vs Chis Sabin on Youtube with advertising enabled and it would immediately become one of their top sources of income because, again, they have fuck all else.

Right now, their only major source of income is whatever cut they get from NJPW's iPPVs, which is hardly regular and depends entirely on NJPW being content with having a middleman. If that goes then their main source of income is whatever Jarrett and Duggan are making signing autographs at baseball games.

Signing Hardy would be great, but what do you do when those hypothetical ten shows are up? Sign him again? Until they get TV they are going to be losing their arses on every single show they do, regardless of who is on the roster. It makes far more sense to invest in a revenue stream that they can monetize forever, without any further investment, than signing one guy who isn't going to make a significant difference to their bottom line.

Saying TNA has "nothing but bad will attached" is daft. Most people don't even know the company exists, and the likes of Challenge seem more than happy with it. I'm sure that there's plenty of networks that'd be willing to air it as cheap filler, even if it's just as a late night alternative to teleshopping.

The people who watch TNA on free TV don't buy anything from TNA, that's the problem. If TNA can't even monetise themselves, what is anybody else going to do with their material?

Surely a huge part of that is because TNA is run by complete morons?

 

That's the dumbest thing ever. How would having footage of people who don't work for them and never did get them a slot on a station? How would they make money selling TNA DVDs when TNA couldn't sell TNA DVDs? How would them owning the tape library of a dead company make them seem more legit? Every single one of your points is mental

TNA decent production values compared to most stuff not on the network and is also a lot more current

 

What's mental about it? I'm not suggesting that having access to TNA's library would magically make GFW a profitable company, but it would at least give them a potential source of income that they don't currently have. What are GFW right now? They've got a name, a crap logo and a few deals with other promotions. If they don't find a money mark or a network then they aren't going to survive. Having TNA's back catalogue might not help them find TV but being able to show their top star(s) against recognisable names would put them in a far better position than they currently are. At the very least you'd think they'd be able to sell the "classic" footage to stations like Challenge.

It might have decent production values, but again, it's worthless to WWE. What moments in TNA would be relevant to WWE fans? WCW, ECW, AWA and Memphis footage all has nostalgia value. TNA isn't. The vast majority of it isn't even good television. From a WWE point of view, it's footage of either total unknowns or ex-WWE stars slumming it. If they did buy it, I still think it'd be primarily to stop anyone else from having it.

Incidentally, I could be wrong but weren't TNA house shows profitable at one point, despite being poorly advertised, solely because of how good Don West was at shifting merchandise?

I'd rather GFW spent the money picking up the some of the better talent left over from TNA than tapes of them wrestling.

 

It's not useless to WWE, it's filler for the network which I imagine would be cheap enough for them to get. There won't be a rise and fall doc, but I could see a best of the X-Division doing well enough.

GFW having TNA's footage would allow them to sell DVDs and make some money, which is the most important thing. Having footage of folk like Hogan, Savage, Flair etc, might even help them get a TV slot, similar to Destination America, where they can get paid for showing "Classic Footage". At the very least having 13 years of TV and PPV would make them seem a lot more legit than their current state.

WWE already has a ridiculous amount of footage that'll never be shown on the network. Why show TNA? What does Impact offer Network viewers that WWE doesn't already have access to?

 

Might be worth it for a few early matches with CM Punk (if they both give each other a big kiss and make up), but that's about it.

 

ADDED: You just know that they'd want that bit where Christian turned up in a TNA ring when he was employed by the WWE too.

 

I don't know. Punk's TNA matches meant nothing to his career. His ROH and IWA matches are far more important and WWE seems to have easy enough access to them.

Realistically the only reason I can see for WWE to buy TNA's library is to stop someone else getting it. It's useless to WWE but it would be massive for GFW.

I think Judy Grable was even pre-Moolah. If memory is correct she was a fuckign shooter as well, and had some shoot situation after he husband who was also her promoter, dicked about with another lady wrestler. I might be completely wrong but I'm sure a story like that involved Grable. She's apparently held in some high regard for being a pre-Moolah pioneer for women's wrestling. Moolah was also a complete cunt who's reputation is really sullen when you look into her.

You're thinking of Mildred Burke. Judy Grable was trained by Moolah.

I think Moolah was just a wrestler, ultimately, She looked out for herself, first and foremost. Considering wrestling's attitude to women when she broke in, I'm not entirely sure I can blame her. Billy Wolfe, Burke's Husband, who was running things at that point, makes Moolah look like an absurdly generous money-mark by comparison.

Didnt Christopher Daniels invent the Roll of the Dice? Or am I making that up? Something in the back of my mind is telling me he did, yet I dont know where I'm getting it from.

Possibly. I vaguely remember an interview with Nova, who used it for a while, where he claimed that he and Daniels both invented the move on their own with no influence from the other. I think it was on the old ECW page when Nova was doing the "InNOVAtor" schtick so was hardly likely to admit to nicking it.

So, aye, he probably did invent it.

Not sure if this has ever been done before or if it even makes any sense but has a wrestler ever specialised in using an opponents finisher before? E.g. Rollins would use his opponents finisher every match instead of one of his own?

It was part of Lance Storm's gimmick in ECW.

I think Summerslam happened just before his 90 day notice period ran out so, no, he was never *really* fired. They just gave him his notice and then changed their minds after everything died down.

 

When he was the voice of smackdown he used to ride certain wrestlers, your MVPs and the likes of the world, ride them like tractors until they got he approval of his best bully mate Benoit.

I loved that, in fairness. It might well have been JBL shooting on people he didn't like but it fit the storyline and made their characters (MVP and Miz) feel more legitimate when even the heel Commentator hated them. I never cared about Miz in the slightest until JBL started ranting about him.

Incidentally, wasn't it MVP's feud with Kane that JBL stopped burying him? I remember him talking about MVP earning his respect when Kane set him on fire and that was before the Benoit feud.

1)Internet marks using that bogus term created by Internet marks - "X-pac heat" and everything to do with the bogus concept of "X-pac heat".

 

What's bogus about it?

There's good heat and bad heat. Good heat is when the audience think "I hate this guy. I hope someone kicks his head in". Bad heat is when they think "I hate this guy. What else is on?" I love Waltman but the reaction he was getting during that period wasn't because he was a world class heel, it was because he'd been doing the same act for about six years and people were bored of it.

I agree that the term is overused, and it's a bit unfair that it was named after Waltman, but that doesn't invalidate the concept.

Lazy, crap, storytelling.

I don't think it's a coincidence that my interest in WWE has waned at a time that they've got a ridiculous amount of TV to write every week. It must be an extremely hard job but when you build stuff up, like the "Who sent the text to Nash?" mystery a few years back, I want a decent pay off that makes sense. Not "Nash stole Triple H's phone and sent the text about attacking Punk to himself....for some reason".

It is entertainment after all. If I'm reading a book with a story that makes no sense or goes nowhere, I'll stop reading. Wrestling really isn't any different.

I don't blame the writers though. Except for Russo. He's just terrible.

That's the thing, though -- the change in direction seems to be a realisation that The Ascension wouldn't be convincing in that role. The little fella's been very miscast, and the two of them are fair shit. WWE failing to realise they were shit at the role for the last year (they've had Lego figures in production for months, which almost none of the other NXT wrestlers have, so they were expected to be a big thing quick) but then noticing it immediately after their Raw debut is the headscratcher.

 

I haven't read the Observer for a few years but I seem to remember quite a few stories about people in Creative being scared to give Vince bad news or disagree with him. It seems very likely that they knew The Ascension were shit, told Vince they were great, and are now having to backtrack when they bombed on RAW.

C-Rock - WWE's share price once dropped because investors believed that Vince had been murdered on International TV. How do you think Wall Street would react to the news that the company might change hands based on the outcome of a wrestling match? In fact I'm fairly certain that even attempting it would come under Stock Market Manipulation.*

Also, how on earth do you get something over as "real" in a worked sport? The actual fans have been burned by stipulations so much that they aren't going to buy into it anymore than they believe that Rowan and co are actually fired. Non fans might but they are hardly going to buy a PPV/Network subscription based on it are they?

*God, I'm a right boring bastard aren't I? No fun at all.

Spaced and Spangled wasn't actually EmperorSeb though was it? It was Michael Cole (no, seriously) the thieving tape trader who used to post as Live2WinForever and was also responsible for this mental thread. He might've been Seb as well, I suppose but I remember Seb at least pretending to be intelligent.

Anyway, I'm voting for Butch getting stalked. That was just sinister.

It just seems weird how Punk has waited until he fell out with WWE and had this sudden interest in joining UFC. If Vince gave him his dream WrestleMania main event that he always cried about he probably would be still there. See how long it takes before he moans about his UFC career not going his way.

I don't see that happening. The nature of UFC means that nobody can really be "held back" the way he feels he was in WWE. As long as he wins his fights, or at least looks good in defeat, then things will go his way. It's entirely up to him.

Given their wages are probably massively down I'd imagine they should've packed up and fucked off, Matt Hardy's proven someone who wasn't a headliner in WWE can make a decent wedge on the indy circuit and he's probably only doing 2 days a week, 3 tops, why carry on working the same schedule for less money?

Matt Hardy was never a headliner but he was still a huge star during wrestling's biggest boom period, and he's got a big fan base as a result. Plus he's already loaded so he can afford to work whenever he feels like it. The vast majority of people in WWE aren't in that position. You can't really blame them for taking the guaranteed pay cheque instead of gambling that they'll draw on the Indies, especially since they won't be allowed to take their gimmick names with them.

Aye. It was a bit of an awkward position for Punk to be in. He could really laugh along at the piss ripping, because it could be taken as him not taking MMA seriously, but if he got pissed off about it, he'd look thin skinned and unable to take a joke. It looked like he just decided to shut up and try and stay professional, which all he really could do.

I've never actually watched Landsberg before. Is he like that with all his guests?