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October 30, 2006
ECW, Divas, and The Mixed Metaphor
John: No more ECW house shows .
Jeff: Is Vince ready to admit he fucked it up completely? ECW was drawing 5,000 or so for their big shows when they had no money at all back in the day.
John: Getting rid of Extreme Rules matches should set the ship right.
John: A lot of things got fucked up from the get-go. They set up ECW to tour with the original idea that Kurt Angle and RVD would headline with Sabu and Show backing them up. RVD fucked up and got suspended, Angle got hurt and then quit, Vince still doesn't believe in Sabu, so Show got the belt. So they had an ECW Champion who busts his ass but people didn't really want to see with the belt. Then they book all the ECW Originals except Sandman to look like total shit jobbers while pushing assholes like Knox and Test who people didn't want to see.
John: Also, they took away the one thing that could have gotten word of mouth regardless who is in the ring: the hardcore violent shit people were paying to watch.
Jeff: But aside from that everything was perfect.
John: It was the How-To on how to launch a wrestling company, besides that.
Jeff: They also neutered Styles and Tazz. They should never, ever be hyping The Marine.
John: Instead of the ECW logo, a picture of John Cena should be in the corner of the screen.
Jeff: I still don't understand taking away the weapons in ECW. Vince thinks he knows how to keep the wrestlers healthy, but is there any difference in the injury rates of the ECW guys and the WWE guys?
Jeff: It seems that the steroids are a much bigger problem than chairs. WWE guys are hurt all the time with torn muscles, then they all die at 45 from heart attacks in hotel rooms.
John: He wants to take away weapons from the weekly ECW shows and save Extreme Rules for pay per view. Part of the reason is wrestlers' safety. I think Hardcore Holly's back really grossed him out. Supposedly he was pissed RVD and Test had a similar match a week later. The main reason is always money; it scares advertisers away when people are maimed on the free TV shows.
John: Combining Smackdown and ECW house shows, they want to see if they can get 8,000 to show up to see both together instead of 3,000 and 1,000 for individual house shows. And it takes a third truck and personnel off the road.
Jeff: So he was pissed that someone finally pulled something watchable out of Test? The Holly thing was a freak accident. I've seen 1000 table spots and that's the first time it's ever happened.
John: Something else interesting is 2007 will be the first time in 8 years they won't be doing a Divas DVD and magazine. They realized something when Extreme Strip Poker's shitty ratings came in: their Divas suck and no one cares about them. Trish is gone, Lita is rumored to be gone after Survivor Series, Stacy is gone, Torrie is almost worthless, and no one cares about the other fifty on the roster. Part of that is how worthless they book the Divas to be and the other part is the Divas themselves.
John: It's stupid. They did three Diva Searches to accomplish two things: find new personalities for their shows and find another Trish Stratus. And they found her the first time around: Christy. So of course Stephanie has her fired. They then gave Ashley and Layla a combined $500,000 so Ashley can spend half a year injured while Layla feuds with The Miz. The fucking Miz.
John: Meanwhile they have Melina, Mickie James , Victoria , Jillian, and Ariel. All of whom can wrestle and could do what Trish, Lita, Jazz, Molly , Victoria , and Gail did.
Jeff: Things are snowballing downhill very quickly, if I may use a slightly mismatched metaphor.
Jeff: Also, the gravy train has sailed.
John: It's not like they can't make a mountain out of a lemon.
John: They still have all the tools in their library.
Jeff: He still may have an ace in his bag of tricks.
John: Vince does have plenty of bullets in his quiver.
Jeff: Someone needs to teach that old dog Vince a new way to skin a cat.
Jeff: Imagine if Heyman went to TNA. I can see them getting to be a real alternative place for a lot of guys to earn some money.
John: Anyone competent booking TNA would probably change the business.
John: TNA could be really great if only their booking weren't completely retarded.
Jeff: I think they'll realize that soon themselves.
John: Are we seeing Genesis? I'm willing to pay to see Angle vs. Joe.
John: Those are the words TNA wants to hear from people.
John: When Lita bails at the end of the month, Scherer says TNA has already talked to her.
John: Of course, she can't be "Lita".
Jeff: Can she take her tits?
John: She has to leave them at Vince's office.
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