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Jump The Shark Moments


Liam O'Rourke

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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?

 

They feel free now. I'd pay twice as much for monthly access to the Network even without them.

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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...

 

 

It has come direct from my warped mind, unless I subconsciously heard it somewhere and claimed it as my own like Paul Weller.

 

Back on topic, the phrase "Jumping the Shark" is probably one of my most hated idioms as some people are too quick to say that the shark has been jumped.

 

Saying that there is one angle in WCW which put me off the product for the rest of its miserable pathetic run. Now I am a patient person and I have put up with a lot of ridiculous shit in WCW which didn't put me off for example calling Sean Waltman Syxx as he was the sixth member of the NWO even though he was the eighth member, or when fucking Vincent became a member of the NWO, or when Jay Leno headlined Road Wild or that ridiculous feud between The Maestro and Ernest The Cat Miller about James bloody Brown. I could go on (cough KISS Demon) but I want to get on to (cough Arquette) the angle which made me switch off for good - Ed Ferrara as Oklahoma. 

 

It was a crass humiliating parody of Jim Ross who suffered a terrible attack of Bell's Palsy at the time. It was not clever, it was not funny and a dumb way for Ferrara and Russo to air their petty grievances at the WWF. The final nail in the coffin of my WCW viewership was to put the Cruiserweight strap on this fucktard. So this stopped me flicking between TNT and Sky Sports for Raw, I started flicking between Raw and L!VE TV instead. Topless Darts, The Weather in Norwegian and Tiffany's Big City Tips was much more entertaining than the tripe that was getting served from Nitro.  

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I want to thank everybody for the contributions, we got to read many of them on the show, which is now available at the following link:

http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/5yzejn/SCGRadio61-JumpTheSharkMoments.mp3

Join us as we talk about Jump The Shark Moments in Wrestling History! Taking your nominations, we discuss the incidents on screen that turned you or your friends off a company, or even the whole business. Moments such as Katie Vick, Austin's Heel Turn, Aces & Eights, Claire Lynch, The Fingerpoke of Doom, Vince McMahon's Exploding Limo, Crazy Ric Flair, Justin Credible as ECW Champion, The Higher Power, Fritz Von Erich's "heart attack" and many, many more are looked at in depth, a really fun show this week as we look back at some baffling moments, check it out and let us know what you think!
 

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Enjoyed the podcast, listened to it yesterday amongst catching up with some of the old ones. The discussion about Stone Cold's heel turn at the end was particularly interesting. I never had a problem with heel Austin because I found him entertaining, and as I've made clear elsewhere, I never liked face Austin. But the way the turn was discussed on the podcast has convinced me what a fundamental mistake it was. Not just for the reasons you guys gave, but also the excellent contribution from that F4W poster about how much people connected with face Austin and how all of that was just pissed away in a moment. Thinking about it in retrospect, that may well be the moment WWE jumped the shark, or at least, it's been downhill ever since the moment he didn't Stun Vince in Houston.

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I enjoy heel Austin now when I look back at it. But it certainly want money. For me atleast it wasn't a draw at all. I still liked him when he was a heel because he was funny and entertaining but he definitely lost his edge

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There wasn't really anywhere for him to go as a babyface either, though, until the InVasion kicked in at least. Austin giving Vince the stunner was hardly fresh and exciting, and who are the list of baddies there lining up to face him from Backlash onwards? He'd just feuded with Triple H for months. He'd made Kurt Angle look a prat in every encounter they'd had since the prior September -- it's a possibility, but it wasn't going to keep the boom period rolling. Then the next ones down are Regal, Edge, Christian, and the three Radicalz. You could turn Undertaker or Kane, but that's no better than what did happen. I guess there's a Jericho and/or Benoit turn as well.

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There wasn't really anywhere for him to go as a babyface either, though, until the InVasion kicked in at least. Austin giving Vince the stunner was hardly fresh and exciting, and who are the list of baddies there lining up to face him from Backlash onwards? He'd just feuded with Triple H for months. He'd made Kurt Angle look a prat in every encounter they'd had since the prior September -- it's a possibility, but it wasn't going to keep the boom period rolling. Then the next ones down are Regal, Edge, Christian, and the three Radicalz. You could turn Undertaker or Kane, but that's no better than what did happen. I guess there's a Jericho and/or Benoit turn as well.

You're right but does that matter? They had a huge audience at that point and the majority of them were tuning in to see Austin and The Rock be Austin and The Rock. McMahon recruiting decent mid-carders to take the two of them out (or Austin while Rock was away) would still have done decent business and then the Invasion arrived and brought a load of new challengers. At that point, Austin and McMahon making friends for the sake of the WWF would have made sense.

 

I was sick of Austin by that point but I felt in a minority.

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I agree with all the above, but among the many reasons Austin felt stale was that he wasn't involved in a new situation that was actually good. Rikishi and HHH stunk (obviously), but there was no excuse for the Radicalz, Angle, Regal or a heel turned Jericho not to work in 2001, other than HHH didnt want anybody else in a feature spot.

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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?

 

 

To be fair, I imagine many here grew up in a family who had Sky Sports because of the Premier League etc with wrestling being a handy by-product of that subscription. But its a different kettle of fish trying to justify forking out £15 on top for a standalone wrestling show.

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