wrestling / Columns
Ask 411 Wrestling 05.29.13: Flair vs.Hart, Vince vs. Media, Public Enemy vs. Acolytes, More
Welcome to Ask 411 Wrestling! I am Mathew Sforcina, and my internet is still hit and miss, alas. I think it’s the router, but I can’t remove that and plug directly into the computer without the rest of the residence yelling at me, so we all have to suffer equally.
Anyway, as I write this intro I intend to do a ‘proper’ column, but we’ll see. Until then, have you got a question? Well then, you can email it to [email protected] and it’ll get answered, hopefully.
As well, you can hear my musings on wrestling and a lot more besides at Cheap Heat Radio and, I have a new blog! Not wrestling related though, it’s actually a blog where I post a daily Drabble. What’s a drabble? It’s a story that’s 100 words or less, although mine are always 100 (not including the title. So please do check out 1/10 of a Picture if you have a spare moment, and send feedback if you like.
Anyway, while I wait for the internet to return, BANNER!
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Backtalking
APinOz: APin always has good stuff to add, so I’ll just let him add stuff here.
When Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco fought the Mean Street Posse on Raw, Jim Ross said, “He’s single, fellas” when Patterson removed his shirt, Hogan-style. I’d say that was a rather blatant tip of the hat to Patterson’s sexuality.
In 2002, during his heel run, there was some legit backstage resentment on Undertaker for his complete refusal to sell for the faces. In that run, he destroyed the Hardys and Lita on his own, beat Ric Flair and Arn Anderson to bloody pulps at Wrestlemania (after stalking Flair’s son), completely nullified his shock elimination at the Royal Rumble by Maven by obliterating him moments later. The only guy he ever elevated was Brock Lesnar and by then he was back to being a face.
When it comes to insane pops, one I have never been able to find online, but which I remember as being huge, was when Smackdown was held in El Paso and Eddie Guerrero drove up the arena steps in a Low Rider and entered the arena, around September 2003, I think. A hometown pop like no other I’ve heard.
Big Pops: … Yeah, Nikita’s face turn was pretty damn massive.
And the comments section had a lot of big ones I forgot, thanks guys!
Your Turn, Smart Guy…
I am a retired Latin American wrestler. Although I’m Latino, I descend from European immigrants of a country which produces many great wrestlers at international tournaments. Long before The Rock, Manny Fernandez and Vader, I was already known as a “bull.” I was known to do many feats of strength that even guys like Mark Henry would possibly think twice before even attempting them. His catchphrase was popularized decades later by a legend who should be in the Hall of Fame. His finisher (used by many German-gimmicked wrestlers) was named after a Spanish word that means “hook.” Who am I?
Some Jerk has the answer.
I am a retired Latin American wrestler. Although I’m Latino, I descend from European immigrants of a country which produces many great wrestlers at international tournaments.- of Armenian descent.
Long before The Rock, Manny Fernandez and Vader, I was already known as a “bull.” -“the Wild Bull of the Pampas”
I was known to do many feats of strength that even guys like Mark Henry would possibly think twice before even attempting them. His catchphrase was popularized decades later by a legend who should be in the Hall of Fame. – “Oooh Yeah”, Randy Savage
His finisher (used by many German-gimmicked wrestlers) was named after a Spanish word that means “hook.” – El Garfio, the clawhold.
Who am I? You are Pampero Firpo.
I’ll have the question this week!
What am I? I’m a title belt that has a life span of over a decade. Two men have tied for most reigns, while the youngest and lightest champion ever is the same guy. The first champion had to go through 3 men to win the thing. The man who has the longest reign has just one reign to his name, same as the man with the shortest reign. No woman has ever held me, 2 men once held me at the same time, and I’ve been vacated 5 times. What am I?
Questions, Questions, Who’s Got The Questions?
We begin with notthemountie who has a follow up from last week.
Good sir, in your column of May 22 you talk about Public Enemy in ECW and WCW, then state:
“WCW wasn’t where Public Enemy were unwelcome, they were just out of place. WWF, now THERE they weren’t welcome…”
As I’m obviously unfamiliar with the story, can you elaborate on that?
Thanks,
Sure. The story, as it is passed around, runs like this. Public Enemy were a popular team in ECW, they were over. And they seemed tough and had a somewhat ok gimmick. So in late 1995, both WCW and WWF came calling. They chose WCW.
Fast forward a few years, they leave WCW, and after a cup of coffee in ECW, they sign onto WWF.
And now here the story runs counter to what someone involved has said, so let’s look at both sides of the story.
The traditional story runs that although they were signed, the WWF front office was still a bit annoyed that they chose WCW over them in 95. And so after a couple appearances on shows, they had a match against the Acolytes on Heat. During which the Acolytes pretty much destroyed them.
They were then fired a week later. Basically the Acolytes were sent out there, the story goes, to teach them a lesson and to test them, and they failed the test and so were let go.
Now, JBL has another side, which he’s put out in a blog on his website. You can read it here, but his side is that the teams were set to build to a table match between the two teams, since PE had gone after the Ministry in their time there, and at the end of this match the Acolytes were to put PE through a table to build to the first ever table match in WWF history.
But after PE turned up late and acted like superstars, they decided they didn’t like that and they tried to change the finish right before the match. And so Ron and John went out there and destroyed them, for much longer than that edited thing goes. And then PE got fired a week later presumably because they tried to change the booking, John doesn’t know for sure.
So the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, in the sense that I can see guys like PE being of the ECW mindset where they had some control over their storylines and so could change things and not realising how WWF was a different kettle of fish, and likewise I can see WWF having them on a one strike and you’re out policy due to their choice of WCW earlier on. And either way, even if they are jerks, I’ve never been one for proving yourself via shoot beating the other guy, but only because I’m a pussy I don’t believe in that sort of macho BS.
Because I’m a pussy.
Chico has two questions. Here’s the first one.
I have a question, & sorry in advance if it starts some sort of Chris Benoit debate or something, but I’ve seen Daniel Bryan & Christian (maybe others as well) hitting the Diving Headbutt from the top rope. Isn’t that the move that really did the damage to Benoit’s brain? And if so, why on earth is the WWE allowing the move to be used?
Because of execution. Watch this video of Daniel Bryan hitting his headbutt. Note the arms.
Whereas Benoit’s…
You’ll notice that the arms move in much later, it’s more a sudden impact. That doesn’t take into account the times when Benoit took knees/feet to the head and other such incidents. Like almost any move, there’s a payoff between safety and appearance. If you do the move with maximum safety, it looks horrible. If you make it look awesome, you nail yourself in the head with full bodyweight. It’s a matter of getting the balance right. Benoit went too far one way.
If you land with enough shock absorption and don’t actually connect with it, the move is no more dangerous than any other move. Benoit just did it too hard, too much, too often.
Ace asks about DX being controversial. DX, controversial? NO!
Back on the 10/13/97 episode of Raw when HBK & HHH took over commentary during the Owen Hart/Kama mustafa match, they were eating bananas. Was the banana eating some type of back-handed racial overtone toward the Nation of Domination?
Well, let’s look at the tape.
So, was that a very subtle racial jab? No no no no no. Not at all. No.
Yes.
I mean, the three way thing DX/Harts/Nation had during that time did have a racial undertone, without it being too flat out, at least in terms of the white guys saying it. But the bananas thing, if anyone did make that connection and complained, they could have gone “Oh, they were just showing disrespect by eating at ringside” or “They were just eating the most phallic food they had handy” or even “They were just calling Owen Hart banana nosed!” or what have you. They wouldn’t cop to it being racially motivated.
But I’m sure that was part of the intention.
Stupid Guy has a few questions.
Hey Q,
Good day! Great column and such and such.
Hope my questions won’t be lost amongst the tons of questions you have yet to answer.
First, how do you pronounce 411? Is it four-one-one, four-eleven, four hundred eleven?
Well you can pronounce it however you like, as long as you’re talking about it. But it is meant to be pronounced four-one-one, as it’s a play on 4-1-1 being the directory assistance phone number in the US and Canada. This is where you get the info on wrestling/gaming/movies/whatever, you see. But if you want to call it four hundred and eleven that’s cool with us.
To the wrestling questions – are the moves which are named after places invented in those places, or by people from those places – the Boston Crab, Russian legsweep, Irish whip, Texas cloverleaf, etc. I am not talking about moves that are “re-named” to fit the character (e.g. Pearl River Plunge by Ahmed which is technically called a double-underhook sit-out powerbomb). Neither those moves that are from space/magic-land/parts unkwnown/heaven/hell (e.g. Clothesline by JBL). speaking of moves, granted you became a WWE Superstar, are you keen to accept a gimmick based on Australia and call your finisher the Down-Under Driver (DUD).
They are almost always named so because of the origins/gimmick of the person who invented/popularised/used it, or the name is lost to the mists of time. The German Suplex gets that name because Karl Gotch was the ‘inventor’/guy who popularised it. The Irish Whip is so called because the man who is credited with inventing it was Dano O’Mahoney and he was, shockingly enough, Irish.
The Russian Leg Sweep, The Boston Crab and the Texas Cloverleaf are names I don’t know, perhaps a reader does, but they either were named as such because someone used them and hailed from there, or because they just sounded cool, like how Tag Team Wrestling began in Australia because that sounds cool.
In an un-related question, any idea why Randy Orton did not enter the ring during Flair’s retirement on Raw. Almost everyone broke kayfabe and he is the WWE champion back then. Flair and him had a history together and he is the top superstar. At least Big Show climb the apron to give a hug.
Thanks!
Broke kayfabe at the end, yes, but no-one in the ring was a heel. OK, Batista was heading there, and Jericho would then head there as well, but at the time, no-one who got in the ring was heel. Now then, yes, he is one of the first out at the end…
But no-one Flair interacts with directly on-air was a heel. Everyone was face, even Big Show (who he’s known for over 20 years at this point, for the record). So it’s quite possible WWE said “all the heels can come out at the end, but no interaction, maintain that level of kayfabe at least”. Or maybe he and Orton had a moment earlier in the day and he asked not to be include for fear of crying buckets. But probably WWE said no heels.
Aaron asks about the 90’s. Time for Klax!
Sorry, wrong column.
Hey man, got some questions for ya!
1. Why was Yokozuna permitted to yell ‘Samoa!’ into the camera while he was playing a Japanese character? Especially less than a year into his WWF run? Surely this was considered a serious breach of kayfabe? I distinctly remember Rikishi/Fatu doing the same thing during a match or two throughout his career.
Because he fought under the Japanese flag, but he didn’t actually pretend to be Japanese. I mean, here he debuts, listen to Fink underneath Vince’s prattling.
He’s announced as being from Polynesian Island, which is a heely way of saying Samoa. They almost never announced his hailing from, instead focusing on his weight/height. But apparently while they implied he was Japanese, and he certainly fought under their banner, they never actually said he was Japanese.
…
Wow, my mind is blown. Let’s move on.
2. Apologies if this one has been answered, but why did Bob Backlund get a record-breaking run in the 1993 Royal Rumble, only to have no follow-up angle, a throwaway job match at WM9, and then nothing at all, all the way
to his WWF title win in 1994 over Bret Hart?
There’s two different questions there.
Why did Bob Backlund get a record breaking run in the 93 Rumble? To break the record set the previous year by Ric Flair, since he was on his way out, and just because Vince could break the record, with a guy unlikely to pop up elsewhere any time soon. But mostly it was just to spite Flair.
As for why the long gap, it was probably due to the fact that they didn’t know what to do with him, and/or the idea was to maybe get some older fans with nostalgia/keep old fans while they brought in the New Generation, and maybe have him help some of the new guys learn how to work. The whole snapping heel turn wasn’t thought of till later, or if it was then they had to make sure everyone knew he was clean cut and babyfacey.
But I think it was more that he came back just to work with the new guys and then the heel turn just sort of happened.
2b. When Backlund went over Bret for the title, was Vince already intending to use Backlund as a transition champion to Diesel, or did he have a sudden change of heart in the few days Backlund was champ?
Sadly the Diesel thing was always the plan. While Backlund as champ would have been awesome (it’s my second idea in the list of ReWriting The Books I’ll almost certainly never get round to doing) he only got the belt back because his heel run which was originally meant to be because of Papa Shango got over, and they needed a heel to transition the belt to Diesel, ala Hogan in 84, and using Backlund was poetic and also he sure as hell put over Diesel (guy crawled all the way back to the locker room, that’s a hell of a selljob…)
3. What’s with the low-key WWF title changes in the mid 90’s? Examples include the Backlund/Diesel match, Bret/Flair which I believe was never televised, and to a lesser extent, Hogan/Undertaker on a PPV that occurred within 2 days of another PPV if I remember correctly. Specifically, why wasn’t the Bret/Flair match televised at least at a later date, to put over the new champion?
Thanks man!
Let’s see…
Diesel/Backlund was meant to echo the Hogan title win since Diesel was meant to be Hogan 2.0, or rather 3.0 since Luger was 2.0. Thus Diesel won in MSG, like Hogan, in a quick match, sorta like Hogan, and he acted very much like Hogan did, with the mannerisms and stuff.
Hogan/Taker was to sell the Tuesday PPV, and to put over Flair as a serious threat so that when he won the belt, him V Hogan would be big business, even to those who didn’t know Flair’s history. Flair might just beat Hogan at WM, after all he cost him the belt before! And it puts Taker over as well which is nice, and also the whole thing helped set up the Rumble.
And Bret V Flair…
That was pretty much a “We do this now or not at all” moment. See, Flair was working injured with an inner ear injury, so Vince had to put the belt on someone. But he also had steroid issues looming, so he couldn’t put the belt on anyone who looked chemically enhanced. (Didn’t matter if they were, as long as they didn’t look it). Hart was over and so he decided, almost on a whim, to put the belt on him. And if they hadn’t done it that second, he probably would have reconsidered (after all it meant ditching a bunch of already taped stuff with Flair and Savage building to a match), so they had to do it ASAP.
Batista Steen!
NewLegacyInc! NSFW too!
Eric asks fact questions. One of them is about me though, so skip the first one if you hate me. But if you hate me, why read me at all? Eh…
Sforza! As always I enjoy your fantasy booking input, and the Undertaker/Rumble to Mania feud was no exception. A couple of questions here, one TOTAL OPINION, and the other a legit question. Legit question first.
1) Have you ever booked a card in real life? Or helped book a card? Someone else’s match? Any real life booking experience at all?
Not really. I mean, I’ve worked my matches obviously, worked out how those go down, and I’ve helped a lot of people work on spots/gimmick ideas, (only when asked, for the record), and I’ve thought up ideas for things, but I’ve never actually booked booked a full wrestling card. I’ve not met a money mark willing to set me up in a company or anything, nor have I been put in charge of a show. But as I said, I’ve booked my own stuff and helped brainstorm stuff with others…
2) As a fellow fantasy wrestling nut, I’m always dreaming up “that would be awesome!” matches, moves, segments and moments. I’ve always thought a nice little feud could always be started by one of those fake lottery scratchers. Say a midcard face in the midst of a main event push scratches the ticket, sees that he wins and celebrates with his peers, claiming he can leave the rough and tumble wrestling business behind once and for all, tell the McMahons to shove it, pay for his mother’s breast cancer operation (anything to really hit close to home for the face and his fan base) and so on… all to come to a screeching halt when the main event level heel (champion or not, belt wouldn’t be significant here. The cruelty alone by the heel would be amazing.) reveals it was a prank all along to show just how petty and simple said face could be as compared to the wealth and riches established by the heel. What do you think? Always thought it would have been perfect for JBL or Del Rio. Do you know if its been done before?
Not to my knowledge on the big leagues, no. The closest thing would be the Diamond Dallas Page Bingo storyline, where after some money issues he got a benefactor and then won millions with a bingo card that was in fact Kimberly, his wife’s card that he stole. Eventually she split away from him and took the money, but apart from a couple of inheritance angles nothing really has seen someone get built up by a fake lottery win. It could work, although you’re more likely to see something like someone actually wins and then gets swindled out by a JBL type or something. Or if it happened in Chikara then the money gets stolen by a future version of themselves who then goes back and founds the company with that money in order to put into the charter that at a certain show a steel chair has to be placed under the ring so that heel future self can use it to win the Grand Championship so as to save it from the grips of the even more evil Martian Ladykiller.
Andrew asks about consistency.
Hi Mr. Sforcina, love your column as always. Thanks again for answering past questions.
The territory days may be gone, but wrestling promotions are still far enough removed from each other that unless event co-promoting occurs, their individual “universes” exist independent from other “universes”, in terms of canon and roster and whatnot. For example, Kevin Steen (until recently) operated as heel in Ring of Honor, and as face in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, on a consistent storyline basis. Any given wrestler has this option.
Transparency in social networking certainly hasn’t hindered anyone’s suspension of disbelief in this regard; fans in the northwest don’t care if a given wrestler is “playing hero” for them while “playing villain” to crowds in the deep south. But my question to you is, could it somehow be beneficial for the modern pro wrestler to attempt to maintain a consistent, singular personality/gimmick/character across the globe? Or would it be too much of a stretch, even with social networking? Someone like Stone Cold Steve Austin, globally established from years of mainstream television, might be naturally cheered until he blatantly acts fiendishly, but it’s perhaps a little more unpredictable for indie workers. By all means do I understand that a promoter/booker and wrestler should examine how best to be used in a given roster, and capitalize accordingly. Fans might naturally cheer a wrestler in one promotion and others might boo him or her elsewhere, and it would be wise to go with the flow (of heat). But could social media and networking help to promote and maintain an character/gimmick, reinforcing the matter before the fans can make up their minds?
Oh absolutely, if you can maintain a steady, consistent character across all companies that is a wonderful thing that should be maintained. However, it’s very hard to achieve simply because as an independent worker, unless you’re very well established you are at the mercy of the bookers of the various promoters, and you cannot be picky about what you do. If someone hires you to play face, you play face. They want you heel? You work heel. If you get to the point where you could say no, I want to be a face/heel/whatever, chances are that you have the name and established gimmick and they’re more likely to book that way anyway.
In an ideal world yes, there would be consistency across all companies, but that’s asking a bit too much from the various promotions and wrestlers. All you can do is either have multiple gimmicks you keep separate (Hi Archibald!) or try and maintain some level of consistency of character despite the differing storylines. And even though most everyone is online, we’re nowhere near the point where every wrestling fan is online and reads up about wrestling online. Having a Facebook account does not mean you automatically follow and know all about Kevin Steen’s backstory or anything. Those who do follow Steen and know all about that already accept that there will be differences so… It’s a catch 22. Anyone who doesn’t know how to react isn’t going to be online to be told.
Jeff is incredulous about something.
Hi Matt,
just a quick question – I’ve been reading a few of the old ‘In Defence of…’ columns whilst bored at work this week, and I’ve just finished the
Zbyszko one:
Were fans really, really cheering and chanting for Larry Zbyszko when he was commentating in WCW?
I really find this hard to believe as surely the fans of that era wouldn’t have been aware of his work in the 70’s, and his commentary always grated on me something rotten!
Thanks
It didn’t happen every Nitro, but yeah, they did. When the show would open, and the announce team were welcoming you, there would, more often than not, be a spontaneous ‘Larry Larry’ chant. It’s like Jerry Lawler really, it’s not like he’s the most over guy in the company, but yeah, he got chants/cheered.
I guess being an older badass who runs down the heels and doesn’t show fear gets someone over. Huh.
Mr. Ace Crusher has one of those questions I both hate and are very interested in.
Hi Mathew! *insert random compliment here*. No seriously, great work week in and week out. Especially thankful for you answering questions almost within 2 weeks for Ask411 games!
I know you’re going to hate this question, but you seem to be willing to do stats based work on questions from time to time for factual questions.
This one is about the Undertaker, so fire up historyofwwe.com and aggregate this for me (and to satiate your curiosity. You must be curious… YOU GOTTA be curious!)
Some people behind the scenes didn’t like Biker/American Badass Taker because the mystique of undead taker was gone and he seemed more human, and thus more beatable. My question is this: Was Biker Taker statistically more beatable than Undead Taker?
My methodology would go like this: Take the average win% of every Biker Taker singles match (clean wins or losses only. hard to test if he is ‘beatable’ if there are other factors involved) and compare it against his win% as Undead Taker from singles matches (again, clean wins or losses only). The end result should see if Biker Taker is more ‘vulnerable’ controlling for outside factors.
Undead Taker (1990-1999, 2004-current) vs Biker Taker (2000-2003)
Who wins?!
Cheers,
… Dear lord.
OK, here’s the thing: Clean wins and losses are almost impossible to quantify, in that one man’s clean win for a heel is another man’s outside interference. Plus I don’t have enough time to count EVERY win/loss. So, here’s my logic.
Using the Internet Wrestling Database (Rightchere) I’m going to work out his full win/loss from WWF, then subtract the W/L of his biker period (from May 21st, 2000 through to November 16th, 2003) and then use that as a guide. It won’t be exact/perfect, but it should give us a good estimate. An exact count… Not unless I win the lottery and have lots and lots of spare time.
So then, his total WWF/E match listing is…
435 wins, 64 draws, 160 losses.
Then, counting up his Bikertaker period, manually…
114 wins, 19 draws, 65 losses.
And so by subtraction we have the amount for Deadman Taker as…
321 wins, 45 draws, 95 losses.
In terms of percentages, we have
Deadman: 69.6% wins, 9.8% draws, 20.6% losses.
Bikertaker: 57.6% wins, 9.6% draws, 32.8% losses.
So yes, Bikertaker is more vulnerable than Deadman Taker, overall.
My Damn Opinion
Chico has a second question.
In your opinion, why do WWE announcers never say the word, “goozle”?
Because it’s a slightly insider term that sounds a bit childish and which there are alternatives (chokehold, grab by the neck, has his throat). Tazz was pretty much the sole guy to use the term extensively on WWE TV. Possibly Vince doesn’t like the word because of some childhood trauma or something equally esoteric, but I suspect it is a term that rarely comes up without it being a finisher situation (everyone who grabs one is going for a chokeslam, and everyone going for a chokeslam has that as a finisher/near finish).
Matt has a few questions he wants my opinion on. Hence their inclusion here.
Hey guy, good column and one of favorite reads here!
I have a few questions that I want your opinion on.
First question: Why do you think pro wrestling fans are facsinated with shoot promos, especially ones done during the show? I never once watched a tv show and wanted Character A to break script and air real life beef they had over Character B.
Well obviously everyone is different, so there is no set one answer, but I think with wrestling, it’s because it is such a different beast from everything else. Everything happens on more than one level, there’s the storylines presented and then there’s the meta stories, the stories the fans tell themselves about how wrestlers are overlooked aor how talent is squandered or overpushed or whatever. So when someone ‘shoots’, it’s a combination of something naughty, something they know they shouldn’t get but also something that impacts on that other meta story.
Plus when it’s done right it is different, it often flies in the face of what comes prior, so it can be a breath of fresh air. Or it can be confusing and go over most people’s heads.
But tell me readers, why do you like/are fascinated by shoots? And if not, why not?
Second question: I was talking with a buddy of mine and we eventually started talking about the Benoit murders. I told him the WWE should do a dvd release and let the wrestlers openly talk about the feelings they had on the subject. People knock Benoit now but before that night he was damn near universally loved by pro wrestling fans. I know people get nervous when a tragedy involves kids. The truth is kids do die in horrible ways just like adults and unfortunately its not uncommon. I feel by just wiping Benoit from history, the WWE is doing a great disservice to itself, the family of parties involved, fans, and to pro wrestling in general. Your opinion on this would be appreciated.
Because if they did, they would get roasted alive for glorifying a murderer. Which would be totally unfair, but that is exactly how the media would play it. It doesn’t matter if everyone on the DVD was shown literally pissing on Benoit’s grave, the mainstream media would still say that WWE is making money off a murderer and how dare they and blah blah blah. Given their current stance as a family friendly audience, and what they are trying to do, they’re now going to do anything at all that could be construed as making money or glorifying or doing anything with Benoit.
And I totally understand why and think it’s the right call, for the record. I can see where you’re coming from with the question, but no, they have to do what they are doing, it’s the only way for the company to avoid far too much bad PR.
Third and last question: Do you ever think the WWE will wake up and realize that the so called “media respect” it craves doesn’t matter? Wrestlemania is probably the biggest single day event in America behind the Super Bowl. Raw is regularly one of the highest rated cable shows on tv. The NBA wishes it had the global reach that the WWE has. Why do you think the WWE clamor for “media respect” when it is clearly a huge part of mass media?
Thanks for your time!
For a few reasons.
One, Vince McMahon is a driven guy, and he wants to be a Media Powerhouse, he wants to be one of the most important people in all the world. And laugh all you want, but that drive got him where he is today.
Secondly, WWE may be a part of mass media, but so are the Kardashians. Being a part of pop culture and being a respected institution of the mass media world are different things. I think WWE is a lot more engrained and secure than they think they are, and they are over-focused on the idea, but they want to be something no-one laughs at at all. They aren’t quite there yet…
But mainly it’s about money. Wrestling at the moment can’t get high end advertising. You’ll never see a big car company sponsor a PPV, or a high end jewellery company bringing you a slam of the week. Seems silly to want that, but high end companies spend a lot more and that means more money. The more acceptable wrestling is to the mainstream, the more mainstream companies will sponsor it, and that means more money.
So it’s probably a mixture of all of them. And on that note, I bid you all goodbye for now. See you all next week!
Unless my internet just dies…
