Wrestling redundancy

[Beef03]

I don't watch wrestling very often, I catch it maybe once a month or so, and ususally just as background noise or something to kill time with.
I have observed though that they have run completely out of ideas as to what to do with the plot or even new characters, so much so that they have brought back the likes of Hogan a couple of years ago, Mick FOley, LoD, hacksaw Jim Dugan, Sgt. Slaughter. Tatonka, I think I saw Steamboat make an appearance, and now they have just brought back DX (fronted of course by the pushing 40 HBK and HHH - youthful rebellion or what?) and a host of other old characters who havelong since lived out their worth and are just hanging on as well as ressurectiong the ECW. Saddly though the one wrestler they haven't brought back who could actually still physically wrestle would be the Rock. i mean what's next? are they going to talk the Bsh whakers back into action?

 

[Beef03]

Replace all these wrestlers with names of movie titles in the last two years, and replace "Wrestling" with "Hollywood" ... then we'll talk. It's a sign of the times.

It's a sad state of the times for the entertainment industry

 

[djc3317]

I don't watch wrestling very often, I catch it maybe once a month or so, and ususally just as background noise or something to kill time with.
I have observed though that they have run completely out of ideas as to what to do with the plot or even new characters, so much so that they have brought back the likes of Hogan a couple of years ago, Mick FOley, LoD, hacksaw Jim Dugan, Sgt. Slaughter. Tatonka, I think I saw Steamboat make an appearance, and now they have just brought back DX (fronted of course by the pushing 40 HBK and HHH - youthful rebellion or what?) and a host of other old characters who havelong since lived out their worth and are just hanging on as well as ressurectiong the ECW. Saddly though the one wrestler they haven't brought back who could actually still physically wrestle would be the Rock. i mean what's next? are they going to talk the Bsh whakers back into action?

The lack of competition has made the WWE stale, as many people predicted it would. I haven't watched, more than the occasional passing glance, in years.

A co-worker loaned me the Road Warriors documentary that the WWE put out last year. It's really interesting. When they first broke on the scene, there were at least three bigtime regional promotions, so you could build your rep and move from place to place. Apparently, it kept things fresh for audiences because of the turnover, among other things.

Now that there's only one major promotion, and especially when that promotion is run by who it's run by, wrestling's going to remain in the tank for a while.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

And given the horrifically boring and missing-on-every-cylinder restart they gave ECW last night, even when they have an okay idea they're going to blow it. At least the fans reacted to DX, so they'll get a few weeks out of that. But guys, you can't run an "ECW" show in a Smackdown arena and without giving any character development to any of the wrestlers while making everyone who didn't come from WWE (RVD, Kurt Angle, Big Show) look like retards.

 

[Sea Bass]

Wrestling needs video replay. Yeah, it slows down the matches but in the end, the most important thing is to get the calls right.

 

[Huggy]

And given the horrifically boring and missing-on-every-cylinder restart they gave ECW last night, even when they have an okay idea they're going to blow it. At least the fans reacted to DX, so they'll get a few weeks out of that. But guys, you can't run an "ECW" show in a Smackdown arena and without giving any character development to any of the wrestlers while making everyone who didn't come from WWE (RVD, Kurt Angle, Big Show) look like retards.

All you have to do is watch the ECW DVD that WWE came out with a few years back to see how bad the current product is these days. EC-dub rocked!

 

[Norman Stansfield]

And given the horrifically boring and missing-on-every-cylinder restart they gave ECW last night, even when they have an okay idea they're going to blow it. At least the fans reacted to DX, so they'll get a few weeks out of that. But guys, you can't run an "ECW" show in a Smackdown arena and without giving any character development to any of the wrestlers while making everyone who didn't come from WWE (RVD, Kurt Angle, Big Show) look like retards.

All you have to do is watch the ECW DVD that WWE came out with a few years back to see how bad the current product is these days. EC-dub rocked!

I was such a fan of EC-Dub back in the day...

I went to a few of their live shows around my parts back in 98-99 and they were CRAZY. RVD doing a flip from the top rope onto a guy in the third row, New Jack doing a swan dive off a balcony onto Justin Credible on a table. Even the fans were nuts.

Today's version is a pale comparison. But I guess it's better than just watching WWE.

 

[Dynasty99]

Theyre just trying to get the fans from back when those characters were actually wrestling in there prime. I mean I used to watch and intruiged by all the ECW, DX stuff but eventually all that **** gets old and done over and over. Now what would be cool is if they had the steriod freaks wrestle bums. Itd be Bum Fights meets Bonds on Bonds.

 

[Point of Order]

Wrestling needs video replay.  Yeah, it slows down the matches but in the end, the most important thing is to get the calls right.

LOL!

Much like in the SEC, they would just find a way to screw up the instant replay, too.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

ECW sucked last night, but it's the first show. Give it time and it will get better...hopefully. The only highlight of the show was that little striptease from that one hot chick.

They had a zombie and a vampire make appearances last night. WTF? I loved watching Sandman beat the holy hell out of that dude, but come on, a zombie?

And Vince needs to get his ****ing ass off TV and run the show from Stamford. But he won't listen to the fans, who he keeps losing week in and week out. Vince doesn't care about the fans anymore...that's why we're seeing old ideas (Tatanka, DX, Great Khali, Old Kane) rehashed today.

I've got two words for Vince McMahon: SUCK IT!

 

[Appgrad05]

The ratio of serious posts to jokes is outstanding.

I had no idea anyone still watched that crap.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

The ratio of serious posts to jokes is outstanding.

I had no idea anyone still watched that crap.

I've watched it in the past weeks because of DX coming back.

 

[hockeybeat]

I went to ECW ONS II Sunday night. It was the first time in a long time that there was a truly hot crowd throughout the show. The crowd made that show a must-see.

Following what may have been the show of the year, Vince offered the worst ECW show ever. It wasn't Extreme Championship Wrestling. It was World Wrestling (barely) Extreme Entertainment. The show opened with a 10 minute interview segment with Heyman, Van ***, Edge, Lita and John Cena. It was Raw Redux.

From there, it got worse.

Because WWE did not want to pay Metallica the rights to "Enter Sandman," Sandman comes out to bad WWE music and beats the crap out of gimmick designed to **** of Sci-Fi Network. That was funny, but it does Sandman no good. "The Zombie" ain't gonna be around for long and no one is going to care.

The blonde "exhibitionist" was a bad imitation of Kimona Wanaleya's bump-and-grind on top of the ECW Arena a decade ago. It was WWE's soft-core porn.

The main event wasn't fun. Battle Royal's usually suck to begin with but this was garbage wrestling, guys hitting each other with stop signs and chairs for no reason. When ECW first existed, they built to the violence. The tables and chairs and signs didn't come out until the story was built. The only thing that match accomplished was putting over Big Show and Sabu.

The biggest problem with last night's show was the venue. You can't tape ECW before Smackdown. It's two different fan bases. Smackdown is a kid's show for the most part. ECW is--should I say was?--an adult oriented show. It does the new ECW no good to have children in the crowd. They won't be able to push the envelope with regards to language (last night's show was taped before Smackdown because Sci-Fi was shocked with the fans' language Sunday night), violence and sexuality. If the revived ECW is going to be successful, it needs to be taped at the ECW Arena, Queens Elks Lodge, The Hammerstein Ballroom, the multitude of smaller arenas in the midwest. It needs to get back to its core crowd. It hurts the product when Joey Styles begs the fans to watch their language prior to the show going on the air.

Mystery_Meat: I don't think WWE did a good job developing RVD's character. Angle and Show are easy characters. Angle's a legitimate wrestler who can hurt people with his hands, a la Taz. Show's a big monster. It doesn't take much to develop those characters.

They completely ****ed Van *** up, though. ECW fans cared about RVD winning the belt Sunday night. The casual fan had no reason to. All they had to do was a series of interviews/historical vignettes detailing his 16 years in the business. The fans would have cared. They would have wanted to see him win the belt. Instead, he's a champion that only ECW fans care about.

 

[CitizenTino]

For what it's worth, ECW was shown live last night AFTER the Smackdown tapings were over, so any parents concerned about exposing their kiddies to a more mature product could leave for the night once Smackdown was over and the setup for ECW began.

That show was awful, but I think the real problem is that they basically said, "Hey, everybody loved ECW! Let's bring back ECW!" and then they did without having any sort of a real plan in place. It's like they've got three or four basic things happening with ECW right now, and none of them are progressing and they have no idea where to go with it. Great, ECW is back on TV. Now what? They appear to have no clue.

I was as big a wrestling fan as anybody growing up, but watching it now, I can't help but wonder if WWE falls under the same ownership umbrella as the Kansas City Royals. Their decision making and management are spectacularly awful sometimes..

 

[hockeybeat]

For what it's worth, ECW was shown live last night AFTER the Smackdown tapings were over, so any parents concerned about exposing their kiddies to a more mature product could leave for the night once Smackdown was over and the setup for ECW began.

That show was awful, but I think the real problem is that they basically said, "Hey, everybody loved ECW! Let's bring back ECW!" and then they did without having any sort of a real plan in place. It's like they've got three or four basic things happening with ECW right now, and none of them are progressing and they have no idea where to go with it. Great, ECW is back on TV. Now what? They appear to have no clue.

I was as big a wrestling fan as anybody growing up, but watching it now, I can't help but wonder if WWE falls under the same ownership umbrella as the Kansas City Royals. Their decision making and management are spectacularly awful sometimes..

Citizen Tino, according to Dave Meltzer, the show was taped before Smackdown. http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=16554

I think Vince saw dollar signs with ECW after the success of The Rise And Fall DVD and last year's One Night Stand PPV. If ECW is to be successful, he can't book the show. Vince has to let Paul E. book the shows.

 

[Beer_Baron]

Vince is never going to present something that wasn't his brainchild as superior or even equal to his own stuff.

Based on last night, it's obvious he's willing to kill ECW if it means some quick paydays.

Remember, tickets for all these ECW shows have been on sale for a while. Even if they all suck from here, that money's already been spent, and that's money in his pocket.

 

[CitizenTino]

For what it's worth, ECW was shown live last night AFTER the Smackdown tapings were over, so any parents concerned about exposing their kiddies to a more mature product could leave for the night once Smackdown was over and the setup for ECW began.

That show was awful, but I think the real problem is that they basically said, "Hey, everybody loved ECW! Let's bring back ECW!" and then they did without having any sort of a real plan in place. It's like they've got three or four basic things happening with ECW right now, and none of them are progressing and they have no idea where to go with it. Great, ECW is back on TV. Now what? They appear to have no clue.

I was as big a wrestling fan as anybody growing up, but watching it now, I can't help but wonder if WWE falls under the same ownership umbrella as the Kansas City Royals. Their decision making and management are spectacularly awful sometimes..

Citizen Tino, according to Dave Meltzer, the show was taped before Smackdown. http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=16554

Wow, I stand corrected. How lame. What's wrong with a 5-second delay like pretty much every other live event shown these days?

 

[Inky_Wretch]

I grew up on the Von Erichs, Devastation Inc. and the Freebirds. I'd love for McMahon, who now owns the world's largest rasslin' videotape archive, to start a 24/7 Professional Wrestling Channel to show some of those old matches.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

For what it's worth, ECW was shown live last night AFTER the Smackdown tapings were over, so any parents concerned about exposing their kiddies to a more mature product could leave for the night once Smackdown was over and the setup for ECW began.

That show was awful, but I think the real problem is that they basically said, "Hey, everybody loved ECW! Let's bring back ECW!" and then they did without having any sort of a real plan in place. It's like they've got three or four basic things happening with ECW right now, and none of them are progressing and they have no idea where to go with it. Great, ECW is back on TV. Now what? They appear to have no clue.

I was as big a wrestling fan as anybody growing up, but watching it now, I can't help but wonder if WWE falls under the same ownership umbrella as the Kansas City Royals. Their decision making and management are spectacularly awful sometimes..

Citizen Tino, according to Dave Meltzer, the show was taped before Smackdown. http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=16554

Wow, I stand corrected. How lame. What's wrong with a 5-second delay like pretty much every other live event shown these days?

Sci-Fi wanted it to be "family friendly" or something like that. And that's bull****. EC ****ing W isn't meant to be family friendly. That's what Smackdown is for these days.

And they should never tape ECW and SD on the same night. I know it's a lot easier in terms of booking arenas, but the beast that is ECW needs to be unleashed for it to be successful. Paul E should have all the booking rights and not Vincent Kennedy McMahon. All Vince is doing so far is running ECW and Heyman into the ground.

Another thing, keep RAW wrestlers off ECW programs from now on. Cena, Edge and Lita never should have been there last night...

 

[KYSportsWriter]

I grew up on the Von Erichs, Devastation Inc. and the Freebirds. I'd love for McMahon, who now owns the world's largest rasslin' videotape archive, to start a 24/7 Professional Wrestling Channel to show some of those old matches.

Sarcasm, Inky?