Jump to content

Jump The Shark Moments


Liam O'Rourke

Recommended Posts

There was no way to hold off doing the invasion though, was there? With the contracts and fan interest, they had to pull the trigger on it. But I wonder if they could've just not ended it at Survivor Series 2001 and kept the story going for another year or so. Probably not, really.

 

Every company needs an authority figure to a degree, but why can't they be more along the lines of the Stanley Blackburn, Jack Tunney, JJ Dillon etc? Just popping up when necessary to resolve a conflict.

Because wrestling isn't a one-hour Saturday morning squash match show that only needs to build a PPV four times a year. Nobody in WWE or on here has ever come up with a decent replacement for the authority figure showrunner role in the last 15 years, and until someone does, they're a far lesser evil than even more Ziggler vs Del Rio type shite filling the TV time.

 

Wrestling's big problem is that it hasn't really evolved since about 1997, but "make everything like it was in 1990" is no solution.

 

 

At the time though, Vince's challenge for a match to end it all did seem to come out of the blue, there were still people turning up (Kronik, so not necessarily anyone good) to add a bit of intrigue for the "who's going to turn up next?" factor, if Survivor Series had been for control of Smackdown or something like that rather than ending the invasion and then Flair and the nWo turn up in the coming months then the whole storyline might have been massively different

 

In fairness to Vince though, from a business point of view, the July PPV probably covered most of his costs of buying WCW anyway so for all the money they potentially lost, it's not like they actually ever lost money on the whole thing

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 142
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Paid Members

I don't think they ever had a plan of what the invasion looked like. So much of it was booked on the fly. Ideas came up, things changed. You never got the sense that they knew where it was going.

 

Had you sat down at the beginning and wrote the end - say WWF wins a blow off match/series at WM18 - and then worked backwards factoring in the availability of Flair, Hogan, Nash, Hall and Bischoff and the return of Triple H then I think you could quite easily have kept it going. You could have had jumps between the sides. RVD to the WWF would have been a no-brainer at some point and the Austin turn was OK but premature and for no real reason.

 

I know some stuff came up that they didn't expect, such as WCW flopping before it could be given it's own show and ECW becoming involved. But even at that point it wasn't like they were revising a plan they were just jumping around.

 

It is what it is but it could have been better even without going into fantasy stuff where Goldberg, Sting, Steiner, etc show up. Keeping DDP and Booker T strong would have helped massively. They never seemed to appreciate the fact that the story was theirs to tell and the talent was theirs to inflate. They all worked for Vince. And they had full arena after full arena who believed what Vince told them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having an authority figure of some kind is necessary to give the shows some focus. What's stale is the heel authority figure fucking with all the top babyfaces.

 

Raw has seldom been as fun as it was during the commissioner Foley era in 2000. I'm surprised there haven't been more attempts to re-visit the babyface authority figure since then.

Teddy Long did it for years on Smackdown, and Stephanie before him, which I think is why they usually had heels on the Raw side. Plus it's easier/makes more sense to do babyface vs evil regime storylines than the other way around. They're kind of stuck now too with Stephanie and Triple H -- having, say, Daniel Bryan or Edge suddenly wielding more power in WWE than the McMahons would make less sense than Stephanie buying ECW did. A babyface authority figure would have to be Hunter and Stephanie turning face, which is what makes me wonder if Rollins would've been the one to stay heel when they split.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The WWF jumped the shark when Triple H hit The Rock with a sledgehammer the night after WrestleMania X7.

 

The execution of Austin's heel turn was great, largely because of Jim Ross's efforts at getting it over, and if I remember rightly the Raw after Mania X7 drew a million more viewers than had the previous one. There was big interest in where they were going with a baddy Austin as champ.

 

The two man power trip was never the way to proceed when they were so obviously lacking in top babyfaces. If Rock was sticking around or Shawn Michaels hadn't been on a gary the previous month or Goldberg was coming straight in after the WCW buy out then it could've been great. But they needlessly painted themselves into a boring Undertaker and Kane shaped corner by aligning Triple H and Austin straight away.

 

If Triple H had come down and gone for Austin then you have a legitimate babyface challenger to Austin that can see you through to the Rock's return in time for SummerSlam. I think you extend the boom period by a good few months with a babyface H against heel Austin, which maybe even means you have the nWo and Flair in place to lead the invasion when it begins some months later.

Austin and Triple H had been feuding on and off since November 2000 up until the 3 stages of hell match at No Way Out in Feb 01. I think it would have been too much to have them feud again so soon, even if they had both turned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Awards Moderator

I remember back in the autumn of 1996 on Monday Nitro, Real Estate Steve was defending his United States championship against John Tenta.

 

During the match Sting did a leapfrog, so I guess you could say Sting jumped The Shark…

Tremendous! Please say you haven't nicked that from anywhere and it's a Pilchards original...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

 

For me it was the JR interviews with Mankind. After watching since 1990 and sitting through things like Max Moon and the Red Rooster, that was the character that drove me away. From then until 2000 the only wrestling in my life were WCW games on the N64

 

What brought me back was Heat on CH4 and seeing the RR promo for Cactus Jack v HHH. Ironic the man who drove me away pulled me back in!

That's an interesting one - what was it about Mankind that drove you away?

 

I don't know. I didn't care for the look, I didn't care for the performance. I didn't like the voice. I just thought it was too weird and not entertaining. I mean, looking back NOW i get it, but at the time, i was done. I still remember a mate renting WCW/NWO World tour on the N64 and seeing Hogan and thinking what the hell was that. I also remember when WWF Warzone was released and in Game they had people playing it and a big crowd and wonder who the bald guy was (Austin). But from 1996-2000 I watched no wrestling and just played the two N64 WCW/NWO games   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi there, not a regular poster but I'm really enjoying the podcast.

 

To offer up a jump the shark moment I think really you can look no further than the Undertaker.

 

He has avoided becoming stale for years but now that he has been defeated by Brock at Mania and lost his aura of invincibility he has gone from a genuinely cool looking legend to someone who you would expect to find shouting insults to lamposts while drinking a can of special brew.

 

Taker vs Wyatt at 31 was like watching Bumfights...I don't want to see the character of Taker in peril let alone start worrying about Mark Calloway the man!

 

So yes, after the streak ended Taker was finished in my eyes. Should have bowed out the next night. But no they jump the shark and put him in there with Jake Roberts lite, then feed him to Brock again.

 

Go home Mark, you have done enough, don't ruin the memories.

 

Love the podcast guys! Keep em coming! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

Grado. He was like "oh, look at this chubby jolly guy - he's amusing" for around 5 mins - then it wore thin very quick.

 

Yeah, then he started getting everywhere and then he got the gig on "River City" ( where he jumped the shark ) . I'd have to agree with you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

 

Grado. He was like "oh, look at this chubby jolly guy - he's amusing" for around 5 mins - then it wore thin very quick.

 

Yeah, then he started getting everywhere and then he got the gig on "River City" ( where he jumped the shark ) . I'd have to agree with you.

 

Well, it's all subjective but I love Grado. He's nowhere near "peak Grado" for me

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

I'm going to go back a bit further than most of you, to Kendo Nagasaki hypnotising Robbie Brookside and making him attack Steve Regal. This wasn't just jumping the shark, this was borrowing Evel Keneval's rocket powered motorbike and jumping a Grand Canyon full of sharks. Proper bullshit of the highest order that made me turn off the TV and not watch any wrestling for about 3 years. It was just the worst piece of hokey cobblers you have ever seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The straw that broke the camels back for me was when we actually had to pay for pay-per-views! 

 

The whole product at the time wasn't bad at all but the fact that I went from being able to watch all the PPVs for free to having to pay for some (then all) of them turned me off completely. In fact it wasn't until the WWE Network that I turned the corner and enjoyed the promotion again. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

I'm going to go back a bit further than most of you, to Kendo Nagasaki hypnotising Robbie Brookside andvmaking him attack Steve Regal. This wasn't just jumping the shark, this was borrowing Evel Keneval's rocket powered motorbike and jumping a Grand Canyon full of sharks. Proper buckshot of the highest order that made me turn off the TV and not watch any wrestling for about 3 years. It was just the worst piece of hokey cobblers you have ever seen.

 

That is before my time, but would seem to me to be one of the better examples given in the thread so far of a moment where a promotion 'jumped the shark' in the truest sense of the phrase. With so few decent examples being put forward from recent years it made me realise that by 2015 most of us long-time fans have already seen pretty much every ridiculous wrestlecrap moment or shit idea conceivable, to the point that it's now pretty difficult to consider anything as being desperate enough to turn us off completely.

 

There must be lots of good examples of similar moments to Lion's there from the territory days before kayfabe was completely dead and buried, where fans might still have been believers, or at least wanting to believe, but some really stupid shit just made them feel like dickheads for doing so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The straw that broke the camels back for me was when we actually had to pay for pay-per-views! 

 

The whole product at the time wasn't bad at all but the fact that I went from being able to watch all the PPVs for free to having to pay for some (then all) of them turned me off completely. In fact it wasn't until the WWE Network that I turned the corner and enjoyed the promotion again. 

 

This is a good shout actually. Also add in the shows where Smackdown were having sound edited/pipped in and it just lost all appeal to me. 

 

I love watching the live shows (Raw) and the PPV's as you feel anything can happen, taped shows on the other hand (and I include the Raws taped over here) are never quite the same and just turns me off completely. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The straw that broke the camels back for me was when we actually had to pay for pay-per-views! 

 

The whole product at the time wasn't bad at all but the fact that I went from being able to watch all the PPVs for free to having to pay for some (then all) of them turned me off completely. In fact it wasn't until the WWE Network that I turned the corner and enjoyed the promotion again.

 

Sky sports was never free, so you never got them for "free" . And the networks not free either, so you are still paying for them?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...