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How would you present Raw?


tiger_rick

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21 hours ago, Brewster McCloud said:

Absolutely, Loki, but I suppose what I'm more interested in is the underlying point of the thread, though, which is whether any change(s) to Raw could ever make wrestling as hot as it was in the 80s/late 90s, or has that ship sailed for good?

Hot in what sense? Wrestling won't ever be doing 6s and 7s on TV again, the TV landscape has changed too much, but because of that, wrestling is making a lot more money from TV than it ever was when it was getting those ratings. The current format is far more conducive to good business than any other version of the show has ever been, and there is no need or urgency for NEW ATTITUDE BOOM PERIOD~. Much in the same way that for about fifteen years, everyone was convinced that the holy grail was GET BRITWRES BACK ON TV~ but now it's happened and nobody cares. 

WWE isn't struggling. No lifeboats are needed. But we can still moan about how we'd like the show to be.

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On 9/27/2018 at 3:06 PM, tiger_rick said:

* Get rid of the ramp to the left every single week. Book a larger or smaller venue every so often. Embrace the contours of an arena. Build a ramp some weeks. Have a long aisle others. Have the crowd right on top of the ring in smaller venues. It's a show that travels the country and the world and is presented live almost every week but looks exactly the same. Why would you do that? Why would you take it all the way to London and make it look exactly the same as the US?

I'm not familiar enough with the product these days to critique the ins and outs of every episode (they even hold big "returns" for returning superstars these days when I wasn't even aware they were gone).

But as one who still catches the odd glimpse here and there, I echo 100% those who feel that the presentation is way too clean cut and "Hollywood" these days.

Where has all the gritiness gone? I don't expect it to come across like an episode of ECW Hardcore but c'mon, it doesn't have to look like something Disney would produce. I'm not even sure who'd actually enjoy that apart from Kevin Dunn and Vince McMahon and their obsession with "making movies."

Have been watching 1997 Raw's recently and even though they've brought in the Raw is War set with Titantron etc in March of that year, hardly any episode looked like the last.

When they filmed an episode in Germany and South Africa, they didn't even bother trying to make the set look like a normal Raw. The same when they filmed in the Manhattan Centre and smaller arenas. Its refreshing.

Its an old cliche by now but the scripted promos are killing any potential spontaneity. Not everyone can talk, that's what managers are for. They can really help with finishes and match booking too.

There are other little things of course. Not every single wrestlers needs an entrance for example, I remember the days when JTTS like Leif Cassidy or Aldo Montoya would already be in the ring when they cut back from a segment or ad break.

 

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Don't start every show with a twenty minute promo. How refreshing would it be for the show to start with the lead announcer saying "Welcome to Raw, we're live from Bumblefuck, Arizona and we're kicking off tonight with ______ vs _______" and just have a match. It doesn't have to be amazing, a tag match, cruisers, something a bit fast paced to warm the crowd up and start things strong. Do your ten minute in ring promo after or preferably, not at all.

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Open on a back stage argument or fight being broken up. Or someone trying to recruit people or something.

I really miss those mini 1/2 episode stories you used to get. Like Spike Dudley ripping up Stone Cold Steve Austin's petition and subsequently wrestling him.

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6 minutes ago, Wrasslin said:

I really miss those mini 1/2 episode stories you used to get. Like Spike Dudley ripping up Stone Cold Steve Austin's petition and subsequently wrestling him.

Good shout actually. With three hours to kill you could easily do that today. Case in point, The Rock was in the middle of his last big feud with Austin when they started doing the backstage skits with the fucking Hurricane of all people, completely separate from the Austin rivalry, until they gloriously intertwined for the blowoff with Stone Cold's distraction and Hurricane actually beating big Dwayne, and it only pissed him off even more ahead of the match with Austin.

EDIT - Another one I just thought of - I think when Kurt was WWE champion the first time round, didn't he get into something like a three or four episode spat with Essa Rios? Can't remember if it actually amounted to anything but anytime jobbers/those lower down the card get to temporarily mix it up with the elite always makes for good fun. 

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On 9/30/2018 at 5:17 PM, King Pitcos said:

Hot in what sense? Wrestling won't ever be doing 6s and 7s on TV again, the TV landscape has changed too much, but because of that, wrestling is making a lot more money from TV than it ever was when it was getting those ratings. The current format is far more conducive to good business than any other version of the show has ever been, and there is no need or urgency for NEW ATTITUDE BOOM PERIOD~. Much in the same way that for about fifteen years, everyone was convinced that the holy grail was GET BRITWRES BACK ON TV~ but now it's happened and nobody cares. 

WWE isn't struggling. No lifeboats are needed. But we can still moan about how we'd like the show to be.

Wrestling is making more money because WWE’s infrastructure has improved and they tap into more revenue streams than ever before. They are putting out a lot more content now too. This has probably been forced by years of declining interest.

Another boom period is totally possible and it should be their goal because they will always want to make more money. Just because they don’t need a “lifeboat” doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be attempting growth.

I bet Vince would love to have the popularity of the attitude era combined with their improvements with getting every penny they can.

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21 hours ago, garynysmon said:

When they filmed an episode in Germany and South Africa, they didn't even bother trying to make the set look like a normal Raw

They didn't bother trying to light and mic Germany or get the post apartheid flag for South Africa IIRC. 

I agree with the sentiment but there must be better examples. 

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On 9/30/2018 at 11:17 PM, King Pitcos said:

Hot in what sense? Wrestling won't ever be doing 6s and 7s on TV again, the TV landscape has changed too much, but because of that, wrestling is making a lot more money from TV than it ever was when it was getting those ratings. The current format is far more conducive to good business than any other version of the show has ever been, and there is no need or urgency for NEW ATTITUDE BOOM PERIOD~. Much in the same way that for about fifteen years, everyone was convinced that the holy grail was GET BRITWRES BACK ON TV~ but now it's happened and nobody cares. 

WWE isn't struggling. No lifeboats are needed. But we can still moan about how we'd like the show to be.

The TV landscape, as you put it, has indeed changed since the halcyon days of blood and misogyny, but I wonder if people's fundamental tastes (as opposed to the way they consume the media) have. Would lapsed fans ever go back? I suspect it's too late now and people have found other things to scratch the wrestling itch, hence there's no urgency to create stars anymore as enough people lap up the current shit. I can only really use myself as an example, but it would take a lot to get me to watch wrestling again as UFC ticks that box for me now (the Daniel Cormer/Brock promo encapsulated everything I miss about wrestling) and my time is more limited than it was in the 90s/00s. I'm guessing this applies to a lot of other people in their late 30s who used to watch obsessively before Benoit went and ruined it for everyone.

While Vince is doubtless happy with what he's got, I do wonder if someone as manically driven has him doesn't miss the glory days when people outside the core fanbase were taking an interest and there was a buzz about his product, a buzz that enabled him to play at being the Disney-like figure he's always wanted to be seen as. I suppose you could argue that it's mission accomplished now, but I like to see him (almost certainly inaccurately) as more of a Citizen Kane figure. If we accept that people now watch wrestling purely as entertainment rather than it in the same way as they would a sport (a desire to see who wins and loses), then it's interesting to compare it to Hollywood. The film industry still very much relies on star names to carry the product - stick Dwayne Johnson's name on a poster and people will go to see the film regardless of genre - yet the WWE has gone in reverse, moving away from a star-driven system to the "studio" system that used to be Hollywood's lisence to print money.

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In addition to all the aesthetic conventions brought up in this thread, I miss how the backstage area felt like a sort of dynamic, interconnected wrestling village. 2000 was a standout year for many reasons, and one of them was because it was the year they really nailed this aspect of their product. Nowadays Raw feels like a TV set where you're sitting about tweeting in the dark until you get to do your bit. Which is every single week for roughly the same time and in roughly the same spot. Other than the exhausted authority figure, there is no real sense of hierarchy, subculture or order within the backstage area. Considering there are so many wrestlers - and they're all meant to be so mental - I think that's a great shame. 

You could do a scattershot little case study of the year 2000 to great effect, in terms of illustrating the interconnected flow of the backstage area. There's loads of examples. Take a guy from the bottom of the card - Bull Buchanan - and I can still tell you whether Triple H and his regime were cool with him or not during the shows. Bull was Bossman's buddy, and both of them kicked in some heads for probably a bit of extra cash. They also hated the fans and probably resented flashy pretty boys. As such despite Bull Buchanan and Triple H having never feuded, you could believe they're somewhat 'on the same side'.

You can do this with nearly any two guys from the roster, from this period. Even jobbers like the Brooklyn Brawler and Just Joe fitted in as intermediary pawns that transmitted bits of gossip around the place. APA had their office going. T&A were dicks, yeah, but they weren't evil or anything. They were kind of just knobs. I remember half of us loving the charisma of Edge & Christian and half of us thinking they were absolute cretins. Not because of a split in the perception of how they were booked - yawn - but because we just had genuine opinions based on how they carried themselves. 

The Radicalz were heel, but Guerrero was pretty much a babyface when he was with Chyna. He done both at once and it never really seemed confusing, he was just human. 

Part of what made Steve Blackman cool wasn't just the music and the kendo sticks, but the fact that he was one of the few guys who didn't seem to fit into any of this. He didn't give a fuck about anyone. He just showed up with his gear bag and done karate shit. 

There has been nothing even close to this level of stuff since that era. 

Baron Corbin is a meany, the Big Dog's always got some fight in him, and Bray Wyatt will make some spooky videos about you for three weeks if you want to fight him at the next PPV. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Gay as FOOK said:

Part of what made Steve Blackman cool wasn't just the music and the kendo sticks, but the fact that he was one of the few guys who didn't seem to fit into any of this. He didn't give a fuck about anyone. He just showed up with his gear bag and done karate shit. 

One of my favourite backstage segments from this era was when Blackman was teaming with Grandmaster Sexay. The two of them and Test are walking through a corridor, discussing their respective beef with The Radicalz, Test is saying, "Okay, I understand that you two want revenge on Malenko and Saturn because of what they did to you last week on RAW, and I want to get my hands on Guerrero because...." and so on, and then they just stop walking, and one of them says, "...but why is Raven here?", they turn to the side, and Raven is sat on a crate next to where they've just stopped, and he's going to be their partner for the next match. He spouts some cryptic bullshit, Sexay says some faux-hip hop nonsense in return, and Blackman just shakes his head. 

It was genuinely funny, played into the ongoing stories, played off the characters of everyone involved, and mapped out exactly what you're talking about in terms of seeing where all the characters fit in.

 

Apparently someone in creative around 2000 - the name escapes me - used to keep flowcharts of how everyone on the roster related to one another, to ensure that you'd never have a case of two guys who used to be hated rivals now teaming together without an explanation just because one had turned heel/face. So you did get this very real sense of how everyone connected to everyone else, that's exactly what you're talking about here. In terms of booking, I'd want to have one or two people on creative for whom that is their number one priority. 

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33 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

One of my favourite backstage segments from this era was when Blackman was teaming with Grandmaster Sexay. The two of them and Test are walking through a corridor, discussing their respective beef with The Radicalz, Test is saying, "Okay, I understand that you two want revenge on Malenko and Saturn because of what they did to you last week on RAW, and I want to get my hands on Guerrero because...." and so on, and then they just stop walking, and one of them says, "...but why is Raven here?", they turn to the side, and Raven is sat on a crate next to where they've just stopped, and he's going to be their partner for the next match. He spouts some cryptic bullshit, Sexay says some faux-hip hop nonsense in return, and Blackman just shakes his head. 

It was genuinely funny, played into the ongoing stories, played off the characters of everyone involved, and mapped out exactly what you're talking about in terms of seeing where all the characters fit in.

 

Apparently someone in creative around 2000 - the name escapes me - used to keep flowcharts of how everyone on the roster related to one another, to ensure that you'd never have a case of two guys who used to be hated rivals now teaming together without an explanation just because one had turned heel/face. So you did get this very real sense of how everyone connected to everyone else, that's exactly what you're talking about here. In terms of booking, I'd want to have one or two people on creative for whom that is their number one priority. 

Chris Kreski. He became lead writer after Russo and Ferrara left in October of 1999 and remained in that post until he was replaced by Stephanie in November of 2000. The TV in the weeks following his departure almost immediately lost its "we can do no wrong" touch, despite how great the run up to X-Seven generally was.

He passed away from cancer in 2005, sadly. A total enigma in the world of wrestling. There doesn't even seem to be a reason why Steph took his job, other than sheer, bare naked nepotism. 

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I’m fascinated by Chris Kreski. I know a few people in the business have said he was overrated and doesn’t deserve so much credit, but you can’t deny the quality of the programming when he was supposedly in charge. Arguably some of the best TV they ever did. Russo ended up looking a right wally when he walked out and things actually improved.

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31 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said:

Chris Kreski. He became lead writer after Russo and Ferrara left in October of 1999 and remained in that post until he was replaced by Stephanie in November of 2000. The TV in the weeks following his departure almost immediately lost its "we can do no wrong" touch, despite how great the run up to X-Seven generally was.

Sounds like the kind of bloke that might have known putting Rocky with Debra was a terrible idea. Which should have been anyone with a brain.

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