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An interesting read from an old interview with Bill Watts... - 11.10.2008
I was rummaging through RSPW-legend Herb Kunze’s “Tidbits” (thats what she said) today and came across this awesome gem from 2/9/95. Check it out. It’s worth reading in full because well, I didn’t write it. Oh man, I totally just zing’d myself.
- I’ve had the chance to read some old Wrestling Flyer interviews (Thanks Jason) and have come across a few things that might be particularly
interesting to the net at large. When WCW went to Hulk Hogan, there
was some talk about Bill Watts’ run a couple of years ago. Here is
Bill’s response in 01/93 to the question “What effects did all the
happenings in the professional wrestling industry in the year 1992
have on the overall success, long-term well-being, and the existence
of the wrestling business?” (any errors are probably not due to the
scanner; they are probably just newsletter typos…please let me know
if you enjoy this and I’ll try to scan the few other interesting
things):
Well, I think we’re seeing the overall effect of just the business.
These other things (scandals, houses and TV hitting all-time lows) are
just a part of it. I don’t think those things are the cause, I think
they’re the effect of the overall status of the industry. I think the
industry has been down-trending since ‘86. There was a mega-trend, a
mega-change in the thing and you had the destruction of the
infrastructure of this business, the very thing that kept it alive - all
the independent areas that had places for new talent to get in, get
experienced on a regular basis, and then as they rose up, they
advanced to bigger and better areas. Also, the different areas as they
had turnovers in ownership, you get better people in or worse people in.
So, you had a constantly changing industry that had eighteen to twenty
different places in this country to go work. and now you basically have
two.
At the time you had these two, one guy took it and made it a faddish
event to be with a lot of tremendous media blitzing and
positioning. At the same time, he totally killed the credibility of our
business. It was always questionable, but he removed all doubt, and
turned his empire into a cartoon comic strip come to life concept. And
he thought that, it was so big and making so much money, it would go on
and on forever. And this company here evolved into it and all of a
sudden, they had people that in my opinion, TV executives, that didn’t
understand the industry and didn’t even understand how to pay attention
to their own research. They started copying it and combined with that,
this company had a bunch of TV executives that knew nothing about it and
they started guaranteeing talent huge contracts that had no basis for
performance or incentive. So they didn’t give a damn whether they made
the event or didn’t make the event or had a good match or had a bad
match, they got paid. The NFL experienced the same thing back in the
early ’60s where they had guaranteed contracts and they would end up
with a lot of #1 draft picks sitting on the bench. They quit doing it.
When you sign a contract with the NFL, you get your bonus and if you
don’t make the team, they get rid of you. So they’re not long-term tied
to you on anything guaranteed. You’ve got to have a “dog eat dog”
concept of survival of the fittest in all the sports. The other aspect
is that the WWF bought all the big stars. The wrestling stars were all
owned by this company, but this company got top-heavy contract-wise so
there was no way to influx anything new. The wwf never has developed
anything on its own, so it took all the top stars. Well, you had a total
stagnation of turnover. In other words, since both areas, where every TV
they showed goes nationwide, all the top stars and everything you had in
wrestling was being exposed every week on television nationwide. Whereas
in the old days, if you were a big star in one small regional area, and
another area was down and its talent was stale, they could bring you in
and a couple of guys and you would rejuvenate or spark the local area,
because you were new and you were doing things different.
Well, pretty soon, Vince McMahon went through his repertoire
hulk hogan hit an era where he became the new success point of wrestling,
but it also had gotten so big through Vince’s very, very shrewd marketing and positioning, he made so damn much money that he got bigger than the
business. As he got bigger than business, he no longer needed to meet
the demands and the rigors of a daily schedule, he didn’t need to stay
as focused in one aspect. As he (Hogan) retired and then Andre the
Giant and all these great established people retired, they didn’t
replace them with anybody. And as they came down and tried to replace
them with guys like the Ultimate Warrior, who has never had any
credibility in my opinion, and who didn’t know shit from shinola, and
never’s had any integrity in my opinion, and different people like that
that couldn’t carry the mantle and wouldn’t even keep their word, and
they got into chaos. Then they established stars- The Macho Man, he’s
been there forever, the DiBiases, the Ric Flairs, they’ve all ended up
in ruts and they’ve all been there forever. So it’s a culmination of all
these things.
So you finally reach a point, down-trend, down-trend,
down-trend, but then it reaches saturation for all these effects to take
total charge, and it’s like it fell off a cliff. So it wasn’t 1992, 1992
just saw it finally hit the bottom. It is in the worst crisis it has
ever been in because you can’t reach out to another regional territory
and pick up a superstar to rejuvenate it. And they all think, well gosh,
we’ve got to go find the next Hulk Hogan. Well, there’s no next Hulk
Hogan out there right now. That’s a phenomenon that just comes along
once in a while and it has to have all these right things in places for
it to happen, because Hulk Hogan truly became a mega-star, he developed
into as big of a star that has ever been in this business. It was on a
much bigger level than Bruno Sammartino. He had a longer lifetime and a
longer regularity and everything of drawing money, but back then, it
was limited to just the east coast. Whereas, Hulk Hogan’s projection was
world-wide. He still hasn’t stood the test of time like a lou thesz, a
Bruno Sammartino, or anybody else, but he was projected so much bigger
because McMahon did it in such a bigger method and a bigger
presentation. And now, Hulk is not here, Flair’s hit his golden years in
this business and he’s now with an outfit that doesn’t really feature
his best abilities. He’s like a square peg in a round hole with the WWF
and they haven’t stayed with him and they’re sitting there grasping at
straws trying to figure out who’s going to be their savior and they
don’t have any. And at the same time, with this infrastructure gone,
where do the new kids learn to get the experience to do what the made
the business great.
So what these guys all say to us guys from the past, “the business has changed.”
I want to tell you, the business has not changed. The same emotion that makes
somebody want to watch a match or not watch a match is still out there.
The only difference in the business that’s changed is that we used to draw money, all over, in
every little area, and these areas ran on a regular basis. The wrestling
fan and the wrestling industry has been destroyed. So we have to
rebuild it out of the ashes of this chaos and take it back- I don’t mean
back it up like, take a 1993 car and make it a 1950 car- but we have to
re-establish the traditions of this business where the athletes have a
bond between the wrestling fan, their peers, and the promotion to have
the integrity to show up for their bookings, be in condition, drug free,
and be able to go out there and bust their ass and to give the people
their money’s worth. You can go back to one or two other major factors,
the AIDS aspect and blood, but that’s just a small effect. The major
effect has come about because you had a mega-trend where your industry
is down to two places that expose everything that they do nationwide
every time they do it, and there has been nothing new.
You had the same model in New Japan Pro Wrestling in Japan three or four years ago.
They were stale and they had their two top stars retire- lnoki and Sakaguchi,
who had been carrying the mantle for twenty years. They invested in the
time and money to build the Sakaguchis, the Sasakis, the Mutas, and the
Chonos, and the Ligers. They’ve got five Olympians in their program and
as they took the time and invested and built them, now they’re reaping
the benefits, they’ve rebuilt their business. And they went back to
wrestling and they went back seriousness. And the other thing they did
is they didn’t go out and buy big superstars with inflated egos, they
made people, no matter who they were, come into their system and learn
to wrestle and learn to pay a price to be in this business because they
wanted to be in this business. They didn’t go kiss somebody’s ass,
they didn’t go find some steroid freak that used to be a hairdresser or
used to play in a band, they went and found people with athletic
ability. They’ve got five Olympians in that program. It’s that long
range planning and it was going back to the basics, and that’s to me,
where this industry is now in the United States. It’s in a crisis point.
Everybody says, “Oh, Vince loves the industry.” Ah, excuse me, I think
he loved the power and the money. I think he hates wrestling. If he
loved wrestling, he couldn’t pervert it and present it in the light that
he presents it in. So it’s going through its shake out phases. Naturally
in our country, everything’s very faddish. But, I always said that the
wrestling industry has not been healthy for a long time. Where you had
every territory running one or two towns every night all over the United
States, it got down to two companies running one or two towns a night,
and now it’s not even that. It was just made into a farce and the talent
had no respect for anything except themselves and the promoters had no
respect for the talent. But, the talent wants to blame it all on
management. But when the talent doesn’t show up or miss bookings or have
shitty matches, they’re just as much to blame as the management. So that
is my opinion on what got us here and where we are.
Two things were happening when my territory went down. One thing, which
killed the whole country, was Reagan’s new tax package which devalued the
greatest asset in this country, land, by some 40% when they said you could no longer
write off your interest when you’re buying property, unless you’re
buying it as a home. That wrecked every person that was investing in
real estate as a long-term investment. All banks were collateralized
based on land back then, so the banks went down. They now have banks
collateralized based on your ability to repay, your cash flow. And you
have an area that I vas in, the five states primarily, which was my cash
flow, had that happen to it plus the oil impact as it crashed. You had
total devastation. The entertainment market was affected too. Rock bands
quit drawing, the country western quit drawing. It was like the money
was shut off with a spigot. Fortunately, I had seen the mega-trend
happening in wrestling, even though I couldn’t stop it. I wasn’t big
enough, I wasn’t in a big enough demographic area, I didn’t have the
backing. It was a brand new era where we had started doing our own
syndication, we were starting to get revenue from our program. But Vince
was in the media areas and he had a million dollar war chest that his
dad and he had accumulated. He was ahead of everybody and he was already
in the biggest populated areas in the country. He could buy your top
guy, put him on his preliminaries, and make him more money. He’d just
come in and buy all your top talent out from under you. It was a well
planned thing by him and he got away with it. With all the other
ingredients, it was apparently meant to happen.
Here we are with all this accumulative effect, it’s finally come home to roost.
But, thank God it’s also going to kick his ass! Here we are at WCW, we know where
the industry is and we know where it’s going. But we are fortunate in
that it’s a part of Ted Turner’s situation and his vision, and he has
the backing, he has the staying power. So if we just get ourself
reorganized and get back to the basics and start looking for new talent
which we re constantly doing, and hells’ bells, I don’t try to fool
anybody that some of the young talent we’re putting on are the next
superstars. But, you’ve got to give them a chance. At least it’s better to
tune into our show and see somebody new than to watch the same old shit
over and over again. Who wants to watch formula matches, or as you guys
term them- squash matches, on every TV show? So we’re trying to go back
to exciting TV. The last thing I feel will react are the live gates.
I think we’ll do well with our television ratings, we’ll do well with our
PPVs, we’ll do well with our Clashes, when we have what people want to
see then you get up to the situation, we can hype market and we can book
them, but your talent basically, most of them don’t know how to carry
the event. That’s the big loss, they don’t have the experience to carry
the big events. We have to get them back to where they have the basics
and they have the concepts to where they can then live up to what we
can market. It’s a crazy deal.
Hmm, I wonder what Bill Watts would have to say about the WWE today.
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WWF Monday Night Raw (01.16.95) - 11.10.2008
The current WWF Champs were as follows:
World Champion: Diesel (11/26/1994)
Intercontinental Champion: Razor Ramon (8/29/1994)
World Tag Team Champions: vacant (11/23/1994)
Women’s Champion: Bull Nakano (11/20/1994)
Your hosts are Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels! Heck yeah.
- 1-2-3 Kid & Bob “Spark Plugg” Holly vs. The Heavenly Bodies (w/Jim Cornette)
This is a rematch from Superstars from the previous weekend where the Kid and Holly took the Heavenly Bodies out of the tag team titles tournament. The Bodies dump the Kid out and double-team the crap out of Holly for a while. They even give him the HUMAN COUGH DROP, but Holly kicks out. Holly rolls through a flying crossbody and gets a nearfall. Uh oh, Bam Bam Bigelow, Tatanka and Ted DiBiase are standing in the aisleway. Holly dives into a double clothesline which causes the Heavenly Bodies to crash into one another to set up the HOT TAG TO THE KID! Pritchard cools him off with a sledge to the back for a double-team suplex, but Holly spears Del Ray down as the Kid takes Pritchard over with a fisherman’s suplex for the 1-2-3. (4:35) Short and sweet tag formula. Bigelow and Tatanka don’t seem too impressed. **
In the back, Bret Hart and William FN Shatner are hanging out together. Tonight’s match will be Bret’s first match since Survivor Series. Vince asks him if he’s got any ring rust? Nope. What’s even better is, Shatner has his back. This is going to be great.
- Mantaur (w/Jim Cornette) vs. Jason Ahrndt
YES! It’s MANTAUR! Wait a minute. Where’s the head dress? Now he just looks like Man-in-tights-who-makes-weird-noises-taur. Oh, who am I kidding? He was always that guy. To the best of my knowledge, this is the worst wrestler that Jim Cornette ever managed. Just a King Kong Bundy style squash. Running body attack gets the win. (1:44) Mantaur’s going to be at the Royal Rumble, folks! Call your cable operator and order it right now!
What’s up yall! It’s Todd Pettingell with the Royal Rumble report. I miss this guy. He was like the Sarah Palin of the WWF. He could make any feud seem folksy and fun! Here’s the card:
* If Mantaur wasn’t reason enough to order, Pamela Anderson is going to make an appearance too!
* 30-Man Rumble Match
* The Undertaker vs. IRS
* WWF Tag Team Championship Tournament Finals: 1-2-3 Kid/Bob Holly vs. Tatanka/Bam Bam Bigelow
* WWF World Championship: Diesel vs. Bret Hart
* WWF Intercontinental Championship: Razor Ramon vs. Jeff Jarrett
- Bret Hart (w/William Shatner) vs. Jeff Jarrett (w/The Roadie)
Shatner’s here to support the Hitman and oh yeah, his new TV series TekWar. Roadie is of course the future Road Dogg Jesse James. This is fairly early in his run as Jarrett’s lackey. I would go as far as to say only a couple weeks as they push Jarrett up the mid-card ladder. Vince makes a point to say that Bret is wrestling more aggressive than ever when he rakes Jarrett’s eyes across the rope. Bret grounds Jarrett with a Russian Legsweep and works the arm. Jarrett escapes with a back suplex. Commercial break! We come back to see Bret pulling Jarrett’s pants down to show a little crack on a sunset flip, but Jarrett punches him down. Jarrett drops down across Bret’s shoulders for the double-bicep pose, which gets hooked by Bret’s legs for a near fall. Meanwhile, Shatner tries to get the fans going. Jarrett whips Bret hard into the corner and connects with a flying double-sledge, but gets caught on the way down when he tries a second one. HERE COMES BRET! Inverted atomic drop and a Russian legsweep gets two. Suplex gets two. Backbreaker and the flying vertical elbow drop connects for another two. SHARPSHOOTER? Nope. Jarrett goes to the eyes. Bret ties Jarrett up in the ropes and charges, but Roadie helps his man get loose and causes Bret to collide into the ropes. FIGURE FOUR is applied! Shatner pushes the ropes to help Bret reach the ropes. Jarrett tries a rollup off the ropes, but Bret reverses into a rollup of his own for 1-2-3. (9:00) Roadie tries to attack the Hitman afterwards, but Shatner gives him a swift forearm and throws him over the top rope. Well, you know your career is going nowhere when you’re having to sell William Shatner offense. This was like Bret in Good finish though because Bret has to go over since he has a WWF title match the following weekend, but so does Jarrett so you have to not make him weak either and yet he has to take the fall. **½
King’s Court with the Million Dollar Corporation:Ted DiBiase has invested a lot of money so that his stable is victorious at the Royal Rumble. He promises IRS will defeat the Undertaker, Bigelow and Tatanka will win the tag team championship over the 1-2-3 Kid and Bob “Spark Plugg” Holly, and that King Kong Bundy will win the Rumble match and walk down that aisle at WrestleMania XI with Pamela Anderson. I’m sure she’s thrilled now. The funniest part about this whole segment is that Ted DiBiase couldn’t be MORE wrong about everything for this year’s Royal Rumble.
- Mabel (w/Oscar) vs. Lee Toblin
Another big man squash. Mabel wins with the LEGDROP. Due to his enormous size, he’s probably the only guy who can execute a legdrop worse than Hogan. (2:35) King Kong Bundy breaks up a post-match Mabel interview since neither man can decide who’s going to win the Royal Rumble. Funny because Shawn Michaels is standing in between them. Mabel challenges Bundy right then and there, but DiBiase advices against it.
A Diesel hype video airs. He powerbombs and side slams people a lot.
And we out!
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ROH: Glory By Honor 7! - 08.15.2008
So I've got 5th row tickets for Philly on 9/20! YEAH! I'll be the guy in an ROH shirt (oh how original) with another guy who's big and tall, has a Batista haircut, wears glasses, and will be wearing a Fail-adelphia shirt. Yeah, he's actually planning on getting punched in the mouth.
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SNME #36 (08.02.08) - 08.03.2008
Your hosts are JR and the King! Could this be an omen that they’re getting back together? No, probably not.
- Batista, John Cena & Cryme Tyme vs. Kane, JBL, Ted DiBiase & Cody Rhodes
The World Champ CM Punk joins us on commentary. He does a really good job compared to most since he does have prior experience at that sort of thing. The big ‘uns start this one off. I’m talking about Kane and Batista. They exchange corner clotheslines leading to Batista getting stuck in the wrong part of town. Cody Rhodes tags in and he gets hoisted to the opposite corner for a tag to JTG. Cryme Tyme controls Rhodes as Shad launches JTG onto Rhodes while he’s in the corner. Shad press slams Rhodes for two. He delivers the Snake Eyes, but JBL pops Shad as he comes off the ropes. Rhodes tags Kane as we go to commercial. We come back to see JBL toss Shad out to allow Kane to get in some cheap guardrail action. Back in, JBL gets two. Tag to DiBiase for a suplex and the Million Dollar Fist Drops~! He runs Shad down with a clothesline for two. JR hypes NBC’s reality contest finales as Shad fights up out of a chinlock. DiBiase takes Shad over to his corner for the heels to triple-team, but Rhodes just doesn’t get it and will not join in on the fun. More basic face-in-peril stuff as the crowd chants for Cena or Batista. Shad reverses a suplex on DiBiase as Punk questions Lawler what he thinks is in Kane’s bag. Nobody at the table wants to find out. Really? No one’s even curious in the least bit? You know, a broadcast journalist like Bobby Heenan would be talking to some folk if he were sitting in Lawler’s chair. HOT TAG TO CENA! Shoulderblocks a plenty to JBL! Protobomb! “You can’t see me.” Five Knuckle Shuffle! FU? No! Kane breaks it up with a big boot. Batista runs Kane down with a spear. Shoulderblock to Rhodes and a AA Spinebuster to DiBiase! He goes with Kane off a clothesline out to the floor. JTG wants a tag from Cena so he can deliver the ROCKET LAUNCHER to DiBiase! I love it. Oh, but he’s not the legal man, JTG. The real legal man JBL gets rid of Cena by pulling him out and tossing him into the steel steps. JBL hops back in the ring and surprises JTG with the CLOTHESLINE FROM HELL for 1-2-3. (13:00) Harmless formula tag. I really like Ted DiBiase, but what is Cody Rhodes doing? Does this guy even know any real wrestling moves? All in all, the Raw main event scene looks strong as we head into SummerSlam and that was the intention here. Above all else, it makes JBL look strong, who appears to be Punk’s upcoming PPV challenger. **½
Jeff Foxworthy gives me stats on autism! At least he didn’t throw in a “you might be a redneck if…” joke. Sorry to bust your chops Jeff, but it’s your fault people know who Larry the Cable Guy is!
After some commercials, Carmen Electra apparently had her pupils removed in order to encourage me to support Generation Rescue. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen her and she freaked me out in a BAD way.
- The Great Khali (w/Runjin Singh) vs. Jimmy Wang Yang
Khali is an UNSTOPPABLE MONSTROSITY MAN. Well, at least until SummerSlam when he faces the GAME-UH. Yang tries to kick Khali down and winds up getting chopped while he’s in mid-air. TREE SLAM! Good night Yang. (1:27) That’s right. Get him in, get him out.
Ben Stiller takes time to read some autism-related sentences off a prompter. Thanks, Ben.
14 days until SummerSlam!
Jenny McCarthy (who I am convinced is only a figment of our imagination at this point in her life) battles autism with some encouraging words. Well, I didn’t see a clear cut winner, so let’s call it a draw for right now.
We check out a video package of Edge and Cankles Guerrero. He cheats on her with a black chick, tries to get back with Cankles by feeding her (har har) some BS lines, so she reinstates the Undertaker for a Hell in a Cell match at SummerSlam. Darn you Dr. Phil and your relationship advice!
- Edge vs. Jeff Hardy
They show a recap from last night’s Smackdown where Foley gave Edge a pep talk about facing the Undertaker in a HIAC match. He can’t be going around quoting lines from romantic comedies to Cankles when there’s serious business on the way. Foley tells Edge he needs to get his mind straight or the Undertaker will rip him apart! This results in an over-the-top beatdown on Foley. First Cole, now Foley! Sheesh. It’s a bad week to be a WWE announcer…unless your last name is Adamle. “Hardy” chants go up immediately. Hardy delivers some armdrags and grabs an armbar. Edge escapes and gets nailed with a dropkick through the ropes, followed by a pescado. Hardy whips Edge into the barricade and tries to flip onto him off the steel steps, but Edge moves and Hardy crashes and burns. Hardy is clutching at his knee as we go to break. So anyway, anybody else interested to see Pineapple Express? I love my Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly comedies, but Step Brothers just wasn’t that fun to me. I would much rather sit at home and watch Anchorman or Talladega Nights for the 2157th time. Oh well. So anyways, I’m hoping Pineapple Express makes up for Step Brothers. I just hope it’s not one of those movies where there’s too many funny people in it and not enough funny to go around because of a weak script, you know what I mean? Okay, back to the match. Edge is getting all psychological on us by working the injured *ahem* knee. Hardy makes the ropes off a legbar and tries to come back, but Edge shrugs off the mule kick. He knows Jeff Hardy pretty well, you see. Edge posts the knee, but soon Hardy starts up another comeback with a clothesline. He sets up Edge in the tree of woe, but Edge avoids the baseball slide by merely sitting up at the appropriate time. Hardy forearms Edge down and gets the dropkick after all. Slow cover, 1-2-NO! TWIST OF FATE is reversed into the EDGECUTION! Cover, 1-2-NO! Edge puts his crazy face on and waits for the SPEAR, but Jeff sidesteps and hits Whisper in the Wind for 1-2-NO! Jeff delivers a sitout front suplex and goes for the SWANTON BOMB, but Edge rolls away. Jeff hops down and is still selling the knee really well. Edge kicks the knee and goes for the SPEAR, but Jeff manages to leapfrog over Edge to send him to the floor. Now Jeff has himself draped on the apron, leaving him wide open for MVP to jump the rail and kick Jeff Hardy right in the FACE. MVP jumps back over the rail and politely heads for the exit sign. I can’t even count all the times he told the kind people in the floor section “excuse me” so he could maybe head out to help a citizen in need. Gosh, what a gentleman. What a role model that Montel Vontavious Porter fellow turned out to be. Who knew a convicted armed robber could be so NICE! Hardy looks like he just woke up from sniffing glue all day and turns around into a SPEAR from Edge. Buddy, that puts them ALL down. (13:24) Excellent TV match from these two. Impressive selling from Jeff throughout considering nobody in the WWE does it very well anymore (looking at you Cena), and the MVP interference was fine by me. It made this match mean something more than just a good vs. evil exhibition. ***¼
Final Thoughts: A completely harmless hour of wrestling to put over SummerSlam and bury autism. Kind of weird SNME booking of having all the heels going over. Edge and Hardy fans may want to check this show out, but the tag match was nothing we haven’t been seeing on Raw for the past few weeks. Hey, neutral feelings from my view.
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And we're rolling... - 03.31.2008
Say what you will, but no wrestler will EVER get the kind of goodbye like Ric Flair received tonight on Raw. Absolutely the best Raw segment ever. |
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