RAW is... (spoilers)

[Forrest]

Menry smashing everyone was great, Lesnar F5ing Miz was great, Jericho vs. Punk was a fantastic match and that final segment with The Shield was AMAZING. I loved it.

 

I hope the announced 6-man tag gets turned into a Chamber tag match, to be honest.

[King Pitcos]

Personally, I think champs should appear on TV, but not wrestle every single week. Also, the title shouldn't ever be defended on TV - I always liked how Ric Flair made a big deal of how he never did that with the NWA title, saying stuff like "the champ doesn't get to ride in limos and wear $500 by defending his title on free TV" etc.

The titles are very rarely defended on TV anyway, certainly compared to the last time everyone liked wrestling. There's usually no excuse for a title match on TV, but WWE doesn't give a toss about saving stuff for the pay-per-views anymore.

 

Although, in general, I think I'd like it if they referred more often to "the winner's purse" and the fact that winners and champions make more money. It adds an extra dimension to feuds, I feel.

They do mention it, particularly in relation to Wade Barrett. It adds nothing, and there aren't any feuds to add dimensions to for the most part. If there's a feud on the go (like Cena vs The Shield, or Punk vs Rock, or Big Show vs Del Rio) there's enough going on in them that talking about prize money is redundant. If there's no feud (like in everything Barrett and Cesaro do), talking about prize money doesn't fool anyone into caring. It just emphasises how little the match matters. And as the audience, unless we're seeing entertaining things being done with the money, we don't give a shit what they make. It's like a computer game that would give you millions of in-game dollars with nothing to spend it on.

[TheShowOff]

Personally, I think champs should appear on TV, but not wrestle every single week. Also, the title shouldn't ever be defended on TV - I always liked how Ric Flair made a big deal of how he never did that with the NWA title, saying stuff like "the champ doesn't get to ride in limos and wear $500 by defending his title on free TV" etc.

 

Yeah that works for a heel, but what about the brave face? Drawing attention to the fact that the belt isn't getting defended would only cause general resentment amongst some. I agree that worthless title matches are lame though.

[PunkStep]

How often was Hogan on TV in the late 80s? Genuine question. I know things are very different now, but just interested to know.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Things were completely different back then. House show business was their bread and butter. You just have to look at some of the results on PPV back then. For example, Earthquake and Hogan never had a clean finish on PPV because their house show run was doing good business. Hogan would rarely wrestle on TV, unless it was a Saturday Nights Main Event or a television special. You didn't want to give the people something on TV that they would pay to see at the arena. He'd do the promos to each town, though, so it wasn't like you would never see him and he'd occasionally turn up on the Snake Pit or the Flower Shop and shit like that.

[Jackpot]

Things were completely different back then. House show business was their bread and butter. You just have to look at some of the results on PPV back then. For example, Earthquake and Hogan never had a clean finish on PPV because their house show run was doing good business. Hogan would rarely wrestle on TV, unless it was a Saturday Nights Main Event or a television special. You didn't want to give the people something on TV that they would pay to see at the arena. He'd do the promos to each town, though, so it wasn't like you would never see him and he'd occasionally turn up on the Snake Pit or the Flower Shop and shit like that.

 

Was there regular wrestling shows on telly during the 80s?

 

If there wasn't, then that might explain (to me at least) why Hogan didn't wrestle regularly on telly because there wasn't a regular showing for him to wrestle on. But obviously his appearances on other telly shows, helped push wrestling to the heights it's since gone to and helped give the sport a lot of weekly shows. And I suppose that's the argument made for the Rock, he may not be appearing on wrestling shows but is using his profile to heighten the interest in wrestling on other type of shows.

[PowerButchi]

WWF wise? Prime Time was on Monday nights, All American was on USA Network on (I want to say, Lister can correct me if I'm wrong) Sundays and Championship Wrestling/Superstars of Wrestling and All Star Wrestling/Wrestling Challenge were in syndication. So there was a fair bit of WWF wrestling on TV in the 80s.

[Jackpot]

WWF wise? Prime Time was on Monday nights, All American was on USA Network on (I want to say, Lister can correct me if I'm wrong) Sundays and Championship Wrestling/Superstars of Wrestling and All Star Wrestling/Wrestling Challenge were in syndication. So there was a fair bit of WWF wrestling on TV in the 80s.

 

And where they every week mate or just whenever they could fit them on?

 

(sorry for being a pain but I don't know how much wrestling was shown at that time)

[PowerButchi]

Prime Time and All American were weekly on USA, I think. Syndication was weekly, but not every show was in every market and/or shown at a decent time.

[Jackpot]

Cheers mate.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Even when Raw first started it wasn't like Bret Hart or Yokozuna or Diesel were on every week. You'd have the likes of Doink vs Randy Savage as the focus or Duke Droese and Jerry Lawler arguing over a dustbin. Its only the last two decades when you'd be getting a regular cast wrestling every week. The Monday Night Wars pretty much murdered any type of exclusivity or slow paced TV.

[Up Chuck]

You're not wrong. It's only really now that they've started getting away with not having the biggest names around all the time, and that's only because of the extremely fortunate situation of Rock and Lesnar being megastars in their own right outside WWE, hence it feeling like a special occasion when they show up.

 

I've only just got around to watching this, anyway, so I won't go over stuff that's probably been discussed to death other than to say FUCK YEAH SAMMARTINO and FUCK YEAH MENRY (even though his t-shirt totally gimmick infringes the Henchmen. I'm sure they'll forgive him, he's a kindred spirit). I also wanted to say how much I fucking LOVED Miz's reaction when Lesnar's music hit. No gulping, no cowering, just "Right, time to fucking fight, let's clear this shit out the way". A small, throwaway thing, but I really loved it. He might finally be realising how to be a babyface.

[Carbomb]

They do mention it, particularly in relation to Wade Barrett. It adds nothing, and there aren't any feuds to add dimensions to for the most part. If there's a feud on the go (like Cena vs The Shield, or Punk vs Rock, or Big Show vs Del Rio) there's enough going on in them that talking about prize money is redundant. If there's no feud (like in everything Barrett and Cesaro do), talking about prize money doesn't fool anyone into caring. It just emphasises how little the match matters. And as the audience, unless we're seeing entertaining things being done with the money, we don't give a shit what they make. It's like a computer game that would give you millions of in-game dollars with nothing to spend it on.

 

Do you mean that's the way things are now? Because I could understand that argument if that's what you're saying. The game has certainly changed in that respect - but all you have to do is look at lots of Ric Flair promos from the 80s to see that it did add something at least back then.

 

I also think that, from what you've said, maybe the reason why it's adding nothing to feuds at the moment is because the audience have been conditioned by so many years of it not being mentioned very much that it would take quite a bit more than just assigning it as a gimmick to a couple of guys. It'd need to be a wholesale change on the part of their commentary and writing style. I'm not saying that's what they should do, though - just that that's what I personally would like to see.

 

Yeah that works for a heel, but what about the brave face? Drawing attention to the fact that the belt isn't getting defended would only cause general resentment amongst some. I agree that worthless title matches are lame though.

 

There are ways and means. They managed it for the face champs back then by focusing more on how the face wanted to beat the shit out of the heel at the big event/PPV.

[garynysmon]

Things were completely different back then. House show business was their bread and butter. You just have to look at some of the results on PPV back then. For example, Earthquake and Hogan never had a clean finish on PPV because their house show run was doing good business. Hogan would rarely wrestle on TV, unless it was a Saturday Nights Main Event or a television special. You didn't want to give the people something on TV that they would pay to see at the arena. He'd do the promos to each town, though, so it wasn't like you would never see him and he'd occasionally turn up on the Snake Pit or the Flower Shop and shit like that.

 

I was sad enough to research this during a period of unemployment a few years ago, and I think the findings were that Hulk wrestled only twice on WWF Superstars between 1986 and 1992.

[King Pitcos]

Who against?