GeronimoJacksBeard Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 2 hours ago, wandshogun09 said: They also had matches at Judgement Day (with Austin as ref) and Survivor Series in 98 (tournament), plus the 3-way with Austin at Breakdown. But the fact I can’t really remember anything about those matches suggests they weren’t much good. Either that or I’m getting old. It wasn’t singles but I quite enjoyed Taker & Show vs Kane & X-Pac at SummerSlam 99. I also liked that Kane wore the alternate attire he had on the Attitude game as well. They had a fair few on Raw in the 'Attitude Era' too. There was a number 1 contenders match on Raw with Kane going over to challenge Austin at KOTR, which was the start of the Summer long in-cahoots angle. There was the tag match that was really an angle of Austin and 'Taker vs Kane and Mankind where the Cell came down which was loads of fun. Sure they had another Inferno match on Raw too with the teddy bear bollocks and the start of the Steph angle and Lord of Darkness/Ministry/'Where to Stephanie?' Undertaker. I loved that whole summer '98 angle and 'Highway to Hell' period personally. The in-cahoots stuff had loads of neat twists and turns that were logical in the overall story and was just so much fun to watch unfold. Spring -Summer '98 WWF was a highly enjoyable time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members garynysmon Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 (edited) Did anyone in the UK actually know who Lawrence Taylor was in 1995? I certainly didn't. Its always been a bug bear of mine how the WWE, while claiming to be a global company etc, has had this tendency to wheel out American celebrities which aren't famous at all outside of north America and expect everyone to accept them as a big deal. That American Footballer at Wrestlemania being the latest example. Edited April 28, 2020 by garynysmon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 36 minutes ago, garynysmon said: Did anyone in the UK actually know who Lawrence Taylor was in 1995? I certainly didn't. I'm assuming American football fans like myself did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyattSheepMask Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, garynysmon said: Did anyone in the UK actually know who Lawrence Taylor was in 1995? I certainly didn't. Its always been a bug bear of mine how the WWE, while claiming to be a global company etc, has had this tendency to wheel out American celebrities which aren't famous at all outside of north America and expect everyone to accept them as a big deal. That American Footballer at Wrestlemania being the latest example. At that time though, the PPV model, and the general state of the WWF, was different. Outside of North America the PPVs were free (sort of) in most markets, so the focus will have been on making money through domestic PPV. Taylor hadn’t been long retired, his last game was in was January 1994, and he was a big fucking deal. Back then, there will have been people that would’ve bought a wrestling PPV purely because of his involvement, same as when WCW would bring in Dennis Rodman, Kevin Greene, Reggie White, Karl Malone and all those guys. Plus, Wrestlemania was in Connecticut that year, 120 miles outside of New York were Taylor was such a big star for over 15 years. WWE is a global product, but it’s biggest market will always be North America, so that’s why they cator to it. As for Rob Gronkowski, the NFL is a bigger brand today than in LT’s day, hence why you get regular season games in London now. I haven’t watched the NFL for years and know very little about Gronkowski as a player, but I know him by name and even if he brings a few extra eyes to the show, then he’s done his job. Dana White didn’t pay CM Punk $500k to get MMA fans to buy UFC 203, he paid him that to get wrestling fans to buy it too. At $50 a pop, if having Punk on the card got 10,000 wrestling fans to buy the PPV (a little over 2% of UFC 203’s 450k buyrate) to watch him in the co-Main Event, then he’s done his job, and who knows maybe those fans enjoy the show and buy the next PPV and so on. Gronkowski wasn’t the draw for Wrestlemania, he was an added attraction, a curiosity if you will, which ultimately gets people watching who might not have at another time. Edited April 28, 2020 by WyattSheepMask Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 WCW milked it too much. Especially after the WWF did the whole Tyson thing at WrestleMania 14. After that it seemed like there was a point where nearly every WCW PPV had to have a celebrity in a match. Next thing you know Jay Leno‘s got Hulk Hogan begging off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 (edited) I listened to the WCW Nitro audio book recently, and it got me thinking even as crazy as WCW was in 1999, imagine if they'd have gotten that NBC deal? They could have put me wanking to Lisa Snowdon's 1999 calander on and it would have done huge numbers. Also its obvious WCW was completely fucked in late 2000. Look at the timeline. WWF hires head of WCW Brad Siegel's frat brother and best mate former Turner executive Stu Snyder as COO. WWF wants to buy it. Viacom tells them "if you buy it, we're out, because you arent buying a Turner asset with their TV attached." Turner cancels WCW after agreeing to sell to Fusient Media Ventures. Snyder was barely in the company just over a year. That just massive tampering isnt it? Edited April 28, 2020 by IANdrewDiceClay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyattSheepMask Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 Agreed, they did milk it, but when Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone are helping you to over half a million buys (the highest for the year) you can’t blame them for trying. Road Wild, with the aforementioned Jay Leno, was still the 5th highest for the year, better than Bret Hart’s WCW debut in January, better than Hogan v Warrior at Halloween Havoc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted April 28, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted April 28, 2020 2 hours ago, garynysmon said: Did anyone in the UK actually know who Lawrence Taylor was in 1995? I certainly didn't. Its always been a bug bear of mine how the WWE, while claiming to be a global company etc, has had this tendency to wheel out American celebrities which aren't famous at all outside of north America and expect everyone to accept them as a big deal. That American Footballer at Wrestlemania being the latest example. Yeah, you've gotta remember that NFL was a really big deal on Channel 4 during the 80s. To the extent Frank Gifford even ended up presenting their coverage at one point and had their own commentary team at superbowls. Gary Imlach is still a household name in my house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Statto Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 2 hours ago, garynysmon said: Did anyone in the UK actually know who Lawrence Taylor was in 1995? I certainly didn't. Mania XI was the subject on Something to Wrestle a few weeks ago & Prichard gave the impression that as much as LT put mainstream media eyes on Mania (in the US at least), his involvement was as much about shifting tickets in the local market than anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said: WCW milked it too much. Especially after the WWF did the whole Tyson thing at WrestleMania 14. After that it seemed like there was a point where nearly every WCW PPV had to have a celebrity in a match. Next thing you know Jay Leno‘s got Hulk Hogan begging off. The Leno thing was so stupid, and didn't need to be. The advantage of having Jay Leno on your show is huge - that's someone who can plug your show to huge audiences on every single episode of the Tonight Show from the day the match is announced to the night of the show itself. You're reaching a potentially massive audience, and you should be using that boost to showcase the best of what you do. But instead they use it to try and get Leno over as a wrestler, and it robs the match of credibility - not just because Leno's a non-wrestler, but because everything he's doing looks like shit. He's not Mr T looking the part and keeping things basic enough that his work is still pretty tight. It's Hogan selling to nothing. What makes it so frustrating is that Hogan never needed to sell for him. The money was in seeing Leno give Bischoff his comeuppance, not Hogan. And Bischoff loses nothing by selling for Jay Leno. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members unfitfinlay Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 3 hours ago, garynysmon said: Did anyone in the UK actually know who Lawrence Taylor was in 1995? I certainly didn't. Its always been a bug bear of mine how the WWE, while claiming to be a global company etc, has had this tendency to wheel out American celebrities which aren't famous at all outside of north America and expect everyone to accept them as a big deal. That American Footballer at Wrestlemania being the latest example. I'd heard the name but, to be fair, with that angle I didn't really need to know who he was to be interested in it. I'd seen enough celebrities at ringside that one of them getting actually physically involved with the wrestlers did feel like a big deal. The thing I struggled with was why I was supposed to LIKE him? The feud started because he laughed Bam Bam getting "beat by a 12 year old". I LIKED the 123 Kid and thought Taylor was a cheeky cunt for talking shit about him. I wanted Bam Bam to slap him about. 45 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said: I listened to the WCW Nitro audio book recently, and it got me thinking even as crazy as WCW was in 1999, imagine if they'd have gotten that NBC deal? They could have put me wanking to Lisa Snowdon's 1999 calander on and it would have done huge numbers. Also its obvious WCW was completely fucked in late 2000. Look at the timeline. WWF hires head of WCW Brad Siegel's frat brother and best mate former Turner executive Stu Snyder as COO. WWF wants to buy it. Viacom tells them "if you buy it, we're out, because you arent buying a Turner asset with their TV attached." Turner cancels WCW after agreeing to sell to Fusient Media Ventures. Snyder was barely in the company just over a year. That just massive tampering isnt it? Oh absolutely. Especially when you consider how quickly the final sale went through. They didn't even give Bischoff a chance to properly react to the cancellation before they sold it to Vince for such a low amount. Obviously Fusient weren't going to pay $50 million without TV but they still might've been willing to do some sort of deal if the company hadn't been sold, what? A day or two later? A few other people have said that they were either interested in buying it but got frozen out (Jerry Jarrett) or would've been had they known how little it actually went for. A few million dollars for the tape library alone was an absolute steal. I don't know how true it is but Kevin Sullivan has said that the deal included PPV revenue for the last Pay Per Views WCW held that they hadn't been paid for yet. If that is true then AOL/Time Warner essentially paid WWE to take WCW off their hands, when they'd just been offered $50 million for it! Plus they lost one of the highest rated shows on TNT! It's another one of those things that's gets ignored because it's wrestling. In any other industry it would be a major scandal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 Awkward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeronimoJacksBeard Posted April 28, 2020 Share Posted April 28, 2020 The WrestleMania Firefly Funhouse left me just wanting to watch alternate universe WWE. If such a thing existed i'd have spent most of this lockdown binging on Johnny Largemeat and MuscleMan Bray Wyatt SNME promos and nWo Cena. There's so many fascinating 'what ifs' in wrestling - 'If you could take a Funhouse trip to experience another alternate timeline, what would be the scenario and how do you think it would affect the future scope of pro-wrestling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Your Fight Site Posted April 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 28, 2020 (edited) 53 minutes ago, GeronimoJacksBeard said: There's so many fascinating 'what ifs' in wrestling - 'If you could take a Funhouse trip to experience another alternate timeline, what would be the scenario and how do you think it would affect the future scope of pro-wrestling? Two for me: WCW winning the “war” and proceeding over WWE as the global wrestling brand. I loved the black and red logo and branding WWE created for Alliance-era WWE; it’s a shame we only got to see it for a few months and never applied to a TV show, PPVs, WCW.com, etc. Also, Sting arriving in WWE much sooner than frigging 2014. Would have loved to have seen what an in-his-prime Sting could have done with superstars from the back-end of the Attitude era (Rock, Austin, Angle, Triple H, etc) and the stars breaking through in the “Ruthless Aggression” era. It would have been great to see him rub shoulders with the likes of Brock, Cena and Orton. Edited April 28, 2020 by Your Fight Site Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Dem Wanz Posted April 29, 2020 Share Posted April 29, 2020 (edited) Edge vs Cena from SummerSlam 2006 - super heated, well paced action, clever finish, both guys looked good. One of my favourites from the era this, it holds up super well on a rewatch. Edited April 29, 2020 by Otto Dem Wanz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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