*brofist*
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How did the WWF/WWE become so successful?
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*brofist*
Isn't that Lord Tensai/A-train?
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Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
Yes sir! Giant Bernard!
Seraphis Cain
bad gameplay lol
Apparently being a jobber in WWE pays better than being a star in Japan. :lol
SonicXtreme
Member
i'll be impressed when i can purchase an undertaker themed coffin. until then i guess i'll have to stick with KISS
new gimmick? How did they explain that his face tats are suddenly gone?
Seraphis Cain
bad gameplay lol
Giant Bernard was his name in Japan.
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Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
Giant Bernard was when he was in Japan, and was a fucking MOnSTER. He had an analyst position for a ppv which is where this is from.
referring to the gif which looks pretty recent. Last I've seen him he still was Lord Tensai.
DeaconKnowledge
Member
Shawn Michaels isn't mainstream popular. He's wrestling popular.
I'm talking about being a generational superstar - a guy that is instantly recognized by people who don't even watch wrestling. There's only really been three since the 80's - Hogan, Austin, and the Rock. Cena is arguable.
Yeah, Cena is probably the 4th guy. I wasn't sure personally since even though I don't follow wrestling anymore I still casually observe what's going on and occasionally read dirt sheets and Cena is everywhere on them.
For what it's worth, I knew Cena was going to big once I saw him handle the crowd at One Night Stand against Edge years ago.
SonicXtreme
Member
I doubt the WWE will ever reach the 90's prime again. The physicality of wrestling has been tamed down because of concussion and injury concerns. A lot of moves have been banned or limited. Blading is rare. They increased the comedy to compensate but it's not the same. Japan and Mexico are still a lot more athletic, but they'll never be mainstream in North America.
Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
What they were able to tap into with the Attitude era was something that I don't feel can be repeated anytime soon.
It's true that you had a lot of great superstars coming up at that time (The Rock could cut a promo like no other) but the feuds were what made it special.
Austin Vs. McMahon was a feud that I see as putting the WWE over the top. They basically captured an entire nation's resentment towards class inequalities and channeled it into a fantasy where the blue-collar worker could get over on his boss week after week. It worked so well because Vince absolutely owned the "Mr. McMahon" character.
No matter how wealthy HHH gets, I could never see him as the wealthy, hateful aristocrat. Truth be told, that's most likely why it's HHH rather than Hunter Hearst Helmsley.
Arrowgigantic
Member
Punk is not going to be more popular than Austin but that's only because Austin is the guy for people who wear t-shirts with cartoon dogs wearing sunglasses, and still write checks, and pull said checks out of their Looney Tunes checkbook. People who have No Fear stickers on their stupidly large trucks that they use for commuting. There's just more of that kind of people than the kind of people that understand that CM Punk is better than Austin.
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Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
He is almost 70.
Shadowlink
Member
At least he regrew his hair to look like classic Vince.
canoli2006
Member
I had this question but didn't think it was thread worthy. I loved the WWF growing up in the 80s, 90s, and all the way up until today where I hardly watch anymore. I used to stand on line for tickets to events, buy the merchandise, and never missed an episode of Raw or Smackdown, and even caught all the PPVs. When I was in the Navy, I'd even call a wrestling hotline to get the results of Raw because we couldn't watch TV. Now, I've reached a point where I just don't give a shit anymore. The WWE has lost me. I took my girlfriend to Raw back in August and it was a lot of fun. But the current WWE product just doesn't excite me like it used to. So my question is, any huge fan in the past just not care about it anymore and possibly feel alienated? Maybe I'm a little spoiled for being an adult during the Attitude era which was such a good time for wrestling.
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Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
You're not alone, brother. There's a lot of people that are looking for something CLOSE to what WWE offers but they do some things that turn people off just a little too much, and a lot of it involves money.
For instance, today, you get a match with Rey Mysterio vs someone else with his mask on the line, and you KNOW he won't lose. Why? WWE makes too much money selling the masks. It takes you out of the moment. That's just one thing though.
I can't recommend New Japan Pro Wrestling enough. Look up some of their 2013 content, any match from the G1 Climax for instance or watch this guy named Tanahashi, or Karl Anderson, and you may feel the pull WWE is incapable of doing. It's amazing stuff.
For instance, today, you get a match with Rey Mysterio vs someone else with his mask on the line, and you KNOW he won't lose. Why? WWE makes too much money selling the masks. It takes you out of the moment. That's just one thing though.
I can't recommend New Japan Pro Wrestling enough. Look up some of their 2013 content, any match from the G1 Climax for instance or watch this guy named Tanahashi, or Karl Anderson, and you may feel the pull WWE is incapable of doing. It's amazing stuff.
British Monsoon
Member
One of the biggest problems I find with WWE today is that so many on the roster are just a name. They don't do enough to show their character and, conversely, WWE don't seem interested in making sure everyone has a character and that everyone stands out. That's one thing New Japan do really well, imo. Even though there's a huge language barrier, it doesn't matter because so many guys on the roster exude character through their look, their mannerisms, their move sets and their reactions. It requires little in the way of explanation as their motives are almost always self evident and the booking is never convoluted, yet still more compelling than any modern WWE storyline, which more often than not are pushed along not by promos in the traditional sense, but by lengthy in-ring diatribes week in, week out that ultimately do little to keep this wrestling fan interested in the product.
D
Deleted member 47027
Unconfirmed Member
Yes. NJPW has managed to make a lot of guys, despite their names meaning next to nothing to me, very important.
Riposte
Member
I would replace Austin with Macho Man, at least for today.
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
Ziggler has a good amount of character, but none of that is really shown on TV, it's all online. It's a shame, since I think he's one of the best people in there right now.
spindashing
Banned
Taker inches close to that sort of recognition, too. He's not as big a name as The Rock/Austin as far as celebrity status goes, but the guy definitely paid his dues and I bet people can recognize him off the street as well.
Turner/TimeWarner, and later AOL, suit and ties fucked-up. They put restrictions on Bischoff/WCW when it was still the absolute hottest thing around during 98; and even at it's death WCW was pulling ratings that ECW, TNA and ROH could only dream of.
canoli2006
Member
I remember taping episodes of Raw on my VCR and running over to my friends house to watch it because he didn't have cable. Those days are pretty much over.
Definitely not. Only wrestling fans.
You're wrong. WCW basically had zero restrictions in 1998. WCW fucked up hard. You can read the Death of WCW or you can read my reviews at legitshook.com as I've been going through all the Nitros/Thunders/PPVs from 1998-2001. You can't blame the decline and demise of WCW on Time Warner. WCW was run horribly and that they made money at all in 1997-1998 is something of a miracle. The final nail in the coffin was the Time Warner merger, but WCW had killed itself well before then.
Terrible booking practices: WCW failed to bring satisfying resolutions (or even just resolution) to most angles. They kept the nWo thing going on for 3 straight years, gave it a few months of rest, then brought it back for another round. The nWo angle should have died in late 1997, but it just kept going and dominating the shows to the point where everyone was sick of it. You had top guys like Hogan/Piper/Flair/Savage who insisted on being on top and refusing to put younger guys over. Hogan only lost to Goldberg with the promise that he'd be the one to end the streak at a later date.
Guys would go from serious, hate filled feuds to being best buddies shortly after. The worst being Hogan turning face and being friends with Sting and Goldberg, but it happened constantly. So no storylines meant anything because they were dropped out of the blue or someone would turn face/heel and it would be over. They also had a huge problem of hyping matches and not delivering them, which is not a way to keep fans watching.
Terrible spending habits: Until sometime in 1999, they used to fly their entire contracted roster to every show. They had over 200 people on the books. Maybe 20 would get used on any given show. But they would pay for travel arrangements and lodging for everyone. And many, many of these people were wrestlers who they hadn't even used on TV in years. Lanny Poffo (Randy Savage's brother/The Genius) was employed by WCW for 5 years at something like $275K a year and didn't make a single appearance on screen or even at non-televised events. They would take $100K full page ads out in USA Today for a show that aired 3 days earlier. Instead of buying junker cars/limos to destroy, they bought new ones each time. They had no concept of booking a tour and would regularly do something like Atlanta-San Francisco-Iowa-Orlando-Indiana. They spent unbelievable amounts of money on celebrities and musicians such as Master P, KISS, ICP, Chad Brock, and Megadeath.
WCW was a terribly run company from day one and got so huge with the nWo stuff in spite of that. You can blame Time Warner for taking them off TV, but WCW ran itself into the ground a good year and a half before that ever happened.
Every company has issues, and WCW is no different. However, once Time Warner merged with Turner Sports, the atmosphere changed from one which rewarded risk-taking, to TW suits not wanting anything to do with wrestling, but having to tolerate it becuase of Ted Turner's affection for it since it had helped him launch TBS. Time Warner did indeed begin/ramp-up the restricting of Bischoff in 1998, if memory serves correctly from Bischoff's book, despite the fact that WCW was the hottest thing going at that time. Slowly Ted Turner himself lost power, and later when TW merged with AOL, an AOL suit Jamie Keller (Kellner?) came-in and cut the TV slot.
At the very end WCW were focusing on younger stars, and were still getting admirable ratings. No one's saying they would have rose to beat WWE again, but they would certainly still be around in some fashion.
Fun Factor
Formerly FTWer
Just the facts, Vince made WWF big by backstabbing the NWA & raiding the AWA roster.
He also stole PPV angle from another wrestling promotion in the NWA as well. All his business deals outside wrestling were complete & utter failures. Including Bodybuilding federation,the supplements company, the XFL football league, his Hogan movie bombed massively, him working with Muhammad Ali & Evel Knievel were disasters that nearly killed them.
NWA promotions respected each other & never invaded or crossed into each other territories. Vince Jr. screwed them over & taking over venues, making them sign exclusivity contracts that only one wrestling company can work in them.
He made deals with station managers to take over TV timeslots of competing promotions, where he made no money on that, but drove those competing promoters out of the business where they had to sell their business to Vince for scraps.
The AWA was the hottest ticket in the nation & what Vince wanted the WWF to emulate. Vince went behind Verne Gagne's back & signed all his top talent, right down to the announcers.
Hogan being the top draw in AWA & immediately became the top draw in the WWF.
He was smart to bank on everything for Wrestlemania & to make merchandising a big focus.
You are incorrect on this. The restrictions put on WCW had nothing to do with them failing since blading/violence against women/cursing had been banned or restricted on WCW TV since the early 90s. What killed them was they were terrible with money and lost around $80 million in one year at their peak. They had higher ratings in the first few months of 1999 than 1998 and still lost that much money by the end of the year. To put it in perspective, from 1988-1996, WCW had lost money every year. The total amount lost in those 8 years wasn't even half of what WCW lost in 1999.
Corporate restrictions had nothing to do with it. It was 100% on the people running WCW blowing money, insulting their fan base, lying to their fan base, rehashing the same stories over and over, and going out of their way to make what few stars they had look like shit heads.
Goldberg was by far the hottest guy they had and the only guy that could really compete with Austin/Rock. He had significantly less TV time after becoming champion, sometimes missing weeks at a time and have no story line for 4 months after winning the title. Then in 1999, he was gone for months at a time with no mention on TV. They just didn't use their biggest star and instead had Hulk Hogan back on top as a face in red and yellow. There has been such revisionist history over Time Warner killing WCW, but that's bullshit. You can watch the shows from that time period and see exactly what killed WCW. It had nothing to do with people not being able to bleed on TV.
It had everything to do with mismanagement of money and putting on terrible shows. Being part of the Turner empire is the only thing that kept WCW around for as long as it was. Had it not been Ted Turner's personal baby, it would have been shut down or sold prior to 1994.
Basileus777
Member
Michaels was never the massive draw that Hogan/Austin/Rock were. Hell, his heyday before DX was a terrible time for business.
Glorified G
Member
This is so inaccurate it's not even funny. The difference the WWF in 1996 and 1998 in terms of business is night and day. The only run Shawn Michaels made as the top guy was a disaster in terms of business. Drawing the lowest ppv buyrates ever. While just in two-three years later Stone Cold was leading the attitude era and made Vince a billionaire.
Vince even went on record and said Stone Cold was the biggest guy ever.
I'd put the Macho Man up there as well. He's known very well outside of wrestling.
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
He did have a featured role in Spider-Man. Seriously though, I have a Macho Man text alert of "Oh Yeah!" and it gets recognized on a pretty consistent basis, and I don't think any of those people would remember Austin. There was just a weird likability to Savage's weirdness that stuck with people, even if he wasn't as big as Hogan, which really speaks to his charisma.
Poor ol Vince, wrestling is what helped make him rich and he helped make it greater than anything but he always wanted something more. He wanted to be respected, as the owner of a wrestling company even a huge famous one he never felt he got his due where wrestling is often looked down upon no matter how popular it got. Everything he tried was in the goal to become something more but nothing he ever did could do it, each venture failed, busted or went down in flames. He has hit his limit, his attitude and mind set limit him, in so many ways I believe when his wife lost that second election campaign he knew it too.
Ever see the image of him looking so dejected? Not only he had they spent millions on the campaign for a second time but they had nothing to show for it. They had even been lambasted for some of the stuff they did due to wrestling. He doesn't want wrestling to be his legacy, he's almost ashamed to use the word, banned it in fact aside from the biggest show they got in wrestlemania. Yet in the end wrestling is exactly what he'll be known for, nothing he's done or can do will change that.
In many ways it can be considered karma for all the shit he's ever done.
Ever see the image of him looking so dejected? Not only he had they spent millions on the campaign for a second time but they had nothing to show for it. They had even been lambasted for some of the stuff they did due to wrestling. He doesn't want wrestling to be his legacy, he's almost ashamed to use the word, banned it in fact aside from the biggest show they got in wrestlemania. Yet in the end wrestling is exactly what he'll be known for, nothing he's done or can do will change that.
In many ways it can be considered karma for all the shit he's ever done.
serenewarfare
Banned
That would be the hope, and they'll probably air a lot of old tapes and footage. But I suspect that a lot of it will have the "these guys were inferior cause they weren't us" vibe to it that a lot of the looking back has nowadays.
CartridgeBlower
Member
I'm not saying you're wrong, but where's the more direct evidence that Vince has a secret hatred for wrestling being his legacy?
Ether_Snake
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If there's one thing the UFC taught me: the WWE can never be called out for rigged results!
ConfusingJazz
Member
Seriously. And things like the Goldberg Hogan match to be on Nitro of all things. That should have been on Starcade, after 3 months of build up. Instead they probably pissed away their greatest selling pay per view of all time on a fucking Nitro. Who in the hell does that? I mean, I appreciated it as a person who didn't buy pay per views, but that makes zero business sense.
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