Shoot interviews

[Gladstones Bitch]

Ricky Morton Hates Kevin Nash

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoXGhx4xZh8

 

Heres what Big Sexy thinks

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9nh8oi1U3Q

[Magnum Milano]

I've just recently been watching The extended preview of the Sabu ECW timeline from kayfabe commentaries and I'm wondering how they can use what is clearly footage from ECW commercial releases and TV. It says on the screen when playing "footage courtesy of RF video", which I'm sure is bollocks. Most of the footage in question was from the 96-98 period, which were the years in which Sabu and Van Dam had their run as a bonafide tag team.

They have some sort of agreement with RF which means they are able to show the footage on their Timeline series.

 

There is a Kayfabe Commentaries sub-forum on the Kayfabe Memories message board which Sean posts on regularly.

[King Pitcos]

I think they've just got bold with what they show now. The Saturn Youshoot has clips of him beating up that jobber, "courtesy of Youtube."

[Taylorslade]

They have some sort of agreement with RF which means they are able to show the footage on their Timeline series.

 

There is a Kayfabe Commentaries sub-forum on the Kayfabe Memories message board which Sean posts on regularly.

 

I thought that might be it, but I don't see how RF can own any of the footage I've seen them use. Fancams are one thing, and I've heard about some agreement with Heyman and RF, which sounds suspect anyway, but Commercial releases and the TV blocks along with PPVs are surely a clear-cut and sealed property of WWE.

 

I remember when CZW had that music video made and put on their website, a music video celebrating 10 years of wrestling at Viking Hall, and they had to take it down because it was of course made up of ECW footage they didn't own. It was available after that on shit like Kazaa through people who downloaded it off the CZW site, and I think it still survives on Youtube, but there wasn't any difference between what was in that video and what I've seen in the KC videos.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Wasnt RF Video the official distributor prime years of ECW? It might be a deal where what they sold, they had access to put on their DVD's. They used to jam ECW matches into their old shoot interviews and stuff. WWE only bought the assets of ECW, so it might have been a situation where WWE only owns the co-ownership of the ECW library. I believe RF's Doug Gentry filmed all the ECW shows and Feinstein flogged the videos at the gimmick table. Saying that, surely the first thing I'd have done if I was Feinstein and I owned the rights to show ECW would be to have had old ECW footage on those early ROH shows. Just to give it a bit more appeal to that audience. I really have no idea, I'm just throwing it against the wall. If any promotion is going to have a tangled web of confusion about anything, its ECW. It was a mess as far as the business end went.

Edited July 31, 2011 by Ian_hitmanhart

[Taylorslade]

Wasnt RF Video the official distributor prime years of ECW? It might be a deal where what they sold, they had access to put on their DVD's. They used to jam ECW matches into their old shoot interviews and stuff. WWE only bought the assets of ECW, so it might have been a situation where WWE only owns the co-ownership of the ECW library. I believe RF's Doug Gentry filmed all the ECW shows and Feinstein flogged the videos at the gimmick table. Saying that, surely the first thing I'd have done if I was Feinstein and I owned the rights to show ECW would be to have had old ECW footage on those early ROH shows. Just to give it a bit more appeal to that audience. I really have no idea, I'm just throwing it against the wall. If any promotion is going to have a tangled web of confusion about anything, its ECW. It was a mess as far as the business end went.

 

Well, RF Video as a company, has it's origins with ECW, in a way that Feinstein and Co were more or less "ECW Home Video" while the company was going, and I think they only started branching off and being "RF Video" because they wanted to start using all kinds of footage from all different territories and Countries on their compilation tapes and shoot interviews. If you look back, I think almost all of the first few shoot interviews were ECW guys, of course this was because they were immediatley accessible to RF, but they coould also use the footage to splice into the interview. Once RF Video started and they began "branching out", they really did begin to use almost ALL kinds of footage which they didn't own, I know for a fact they used the following, as I have the tapes still ; AWA, WCCW, USWA, JCP, even early WCW was on some of them, I remember them having a Best of Dusty Rhodes "in the NWA" tape I got from them in 98, and it has almost all of the same matches that are now on the WWE Dusty DVD. I think the main reason they got away with this, was because that at the time, the ownership of this sort of footge was kind of all over the place, and not under one umbrella like it is now with WWE. They also sold lots of Ric Flair compilations, one of them consisted of almost 10 tapes and spanned every promotion and territory he ever worked for, including the WWF.

 

I think I have got to the bottom of this ECW thing; Of course, RF legally own the FANCAM stuff. When Heyman made an agreement with RF for him to do so, the video production output of ECW was limited to the local TV showings and Commercial tapes which only came out every few months, so having RF film and sell the house shows, generated much more video production, revenue and other things. I think it was a good thing, because if they didn't film the house shows, a lot of memorable ECW moments would probably have been consigned to the memory and chinese whisper catagory. Although I'm sure New Jack won't agree....

 

Now, the deal was, that RF filmed the shows, and Heyman agreed ( I think) to allow RF Video to sell all of the videos that they processed as "ECW Home Video" on the RF Video website, but they are not allowed to sell them "commercially", whatever that means. This included the commercial tapes ( the events filmed mainly at the ECW arena such as "double tables" etc), TV tapings, and of course Fancams. I think the deal was made before ECW had a PPV deal, so Im not sure what goes for them shows, but I do know that he uses them on his Best Of's. There was also something in the agreement which meant that the TV tapings could not be edited, which might explain the ICOPRO ads and excessive ads for Tod Gordon's Pawnshop.

 

As for RF filming the shows, I've always been told this, but the Fancams differ greatly from the Commercial videos and TV tapings in terms of standard of picture etc, so I'm not sure if they brought in outside help to shoot the main shows, as they were the main source of revenue for ECW early on.

 

Or something like that.

[Egg Shen]

need to get me some more shoot's.

 

i watched Nick Mondo's Forever Unscarred dvd the other day which has a 2 hour 'shoot' shot by the SMV guys. As an interview it's pretty shit, Mondo doesn't remember much and kinda skims over a lot of shit, but seeings as i was such a CZW fan boy back in the day it's nice to get a little sneak peak of what went on behind the scenes. I'd recommend it if you're a fan.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

i watched Nick Mondo's Forever Unscarred dvd the other day which has a 2 hour 'shoot' shot by the SMV guys. As an interview it's pretty shit, Mondo doesn't remember much and kinda skims over a lot of shit, but seeings as i was such a CZW fan boy back in the day it's nice to get a little sneak peak of what went on behind the scenes. I'd recommend it if you're a fan.

I've seen that and was shaking my head at the end of it. Its worth watching for the car crashiness (I know that isnt a word) of it. Its a career retrospective and he's talking about debuting in 1999 and by 2003 he had to retire because of multiple injuries. He was 23 when he retired. 23 year old kid and he was fucked up physically because of doing stupid shit that has been topped since. I bet he wishes he could start that over.

Edited July 31, 2011 by Ian_hitmanhart

[Taylorslade]

need to get me some more shoot's.

 

i watched Nick Mondo's Forever Unscarred dvd the other day which has a 2 hour 'shoot' shot by the SMV guys. As an interview it's pretty shit, Mondo doesn't remember much and kinda skims over a lot of shit, but seeings as i was such a CZW fan boy back in the day it's nice to get a little sneak peak of what went on behind the scenes. I'd recommend it if you're a fan.

 

I once bought a Chris Candido shoot interview that was made by Smart Mark Video, and I remember thinking that it was a lot better than most of the RF ones I had, in terms of questions asked and the flow of the interview. Candido was great on it also, he was always one of my personal favourites, and somebody who was an under-appreciated as anyone during the 90's. RIP.

 

On the subject of Candido, I still have the tape of the show in which he won the NWA title, it was 1994 and the tournament was held not long after Shane Douglas vacated it. The video I have, is the master from the handheld videocamera, the bloke who filmed it, did a really good job, and I think it is possibly the only recording that was made of this particular tournament held in Cherryhill NJ, that may or may not be true, but I have never seen it pop up on Youtube yet, so it's a cool video to have.

[moofasa]

Has anyone seen the RF video shoot with Jake Roberts, Raven and Kevin Sullivan. Sullivan is incoherent and falls asleep mid sentence. Camera just pans to Jake and Raven until he wakes up. Wot's the story?

[IANdrewDiceClay]

In the words of Sully on his Youshoot "I was up all night, I'd had a few etc." He doesnt hide the fact he was fucked up and needed a kip. Its just that RF has so little pride in what he's selling, he released it anyway. Shame really, because that should have been one of the better ones. He tried to get an interview out of a fucked up Scott Hall once, but X-Pac threatened to give him a good slapping (after Scott Hall had already give Feinstein a good smack) if he even tried to exploit his pal.

Edited August 1, 2011 by Ian_hitmanhart

[Tommy Atkins]

They should have just put Sullivan to bed, and done the interview with Jake and Raven. It just looked fucking stupid to have Sullivan sat there comatose, even Jake looked a bit purturbed by it.

[PowerButchi]

I stand by my opinion that the best ever RF Shoot is when an already severely mentally disintegrating Ole Anderson absolutely rips Feinstein apart and makes RF like the biggest idiot and least knowledgeable man about his occupation to have ever lived.

Edited August 1, 2011 by ButchReedMark

[Taylorslade]

I stand by my opinion that the best ever RF Shoot is when an already severely mentally disintegrating Ole Anderson absolutely rips Feinstein apart and makes RF like the biggest idiot and least knowledgeable man about his occupation to have ever lived.

 

Bollocks, Rob has forgotten more about rimming 13-year old lads than what anyone else could ever know.

 

Except Mel Phillips, of course.

 

Its just that RF has so little pride in what he's selling, he released it anyway.

 

The worst example of this, for me anyway, was the horribly sad Terry Gordy interview, which I think was done not long before Bam Bam's death (although I'm not sure on that), he is so out his mind on Xanax and whatever else he can hardly get his words out.

 

As for the best and worst shoot interviews? Well, the most ridiculous one to be made was the RF STAFF SHOOT, featuring Doug Gentry, Hot Rob and Gabe, I think the interview was done by Eric Gargulo. This had to be the most annoying 2hours that I have ever sat through, I don't know how I managed it. The whole thing consisted on the three of them, particularly Gabe and Rob, 'playing a hard wrestler on a shoot', sort of thing, with lines like ; Gargulo : "Anything to say to people watching this?", Gabe and Rob ; "...er yeah, just thanks for the support, and if anyone doesn't like me then....fuck you" (followed by the most pathetic "arent we great" style giggling. Although there was one good story, told by Gentry, about Joe C calling up for the first time to order ECW videos, and Doug, not knowing who he was, refused to process his order until he "put his parents on the phone". After a profanity filled rant from the little man, along with an explanation, the penny finally dropped, and of course Joe C was an ECW fan for years.

 

Oh yeah, and Gabe told a story about how in 1995 in the ECW arena, backstage, Scott Steiner, who Gabe hadn't met before, yelled (insert Michigan accent here) "EYY CUM ERE KID I'MA BREAK YOUR FUCKIN ARM!", Sapolsky fretted like fuck until Taz apparently told Steiner that he was with them.

[Egg Shen]

I've seen that and was shaking my head at the end of it. Its worth watching for the car crashiness (I know that isnt a word) of it. Its a career retrospective and he's talking about debuting in 1999 and by 2003 he had to retire because of multiple injuries. He was 23 when he retired. 23 year old kid and he was fucked up physically because of doing stupid shit that has been topped since. I bet he wishes he could start that over.

 

that's not true.

 

Mondo didn't retire because of injuries, he retired cause he didnt wanna do it anymore. He said that his plan was to always wrestle for a couple or years then quit, that's why he did so much crazy shit, because longevity was never in his mind, it was never a long time career move. He does say he tried to make a bit of a comeback and do non-hardcore stuff but after some shady deals with promoters he decided to pack it in altogether and concentrate on film making.