John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler should be booked as one of the best feuds possible in order to elevate both men at little cost to the company in terms or promotion or airtime. To do that, the WWE should take pieces from other all-time great feuds and mix and match to create an epic war that will stand the test of time. Merely reading how these ideas mesh gives the fan an idea of how well they would work together if the WWE were simply willing.
The WWE often struggles with creativity, especially when it comes to getting wrestlers and angles over. This needn’t be the case. The WWE has an absurdly huge tape library from many of the best promotions in history. Every idea needn’t be an original and the wheel only needed to be invented once. Look at Hollywood with their constant re-makes and sequels of proven franchises. Wrestling can follow this and has an advantage- most current fans won’t realize what they’re seeing is re-hashed. The New World Order WCW Invasion was nothing more than a re-do of the UWFi vs. New Japan feud from years earlier, but only well after the fact was that little detail publicized.
And that was a fairly contemporary feud. If the WWE were to go back to territories, which were, of course, regional, their ideas would have only been seen by a small group of fans in specific places well over twenty years ago. The WWE recognizes the brilliance of territory era wrestling with their road agents as everyone from Arn Anderson to Barry Windham was trained and learned the ropes in a territory. On the creative end, Jim Ross, Michael Hayes and Dusty Rhodes were all of extreme importance in that era. So why limit the usefulness of that era to people? The ideas were and remain excellent vehicles for storytelling that new fans would love and deserve a chance to see played out.
The WWE should look to the ideas of great bookers like Bill Watts, Buck Robley, Bill Dundee, Dutch Mantell, George Scott, Ole Anderson, and, of course, the more-than-legendary Eddie Graham in order to get their wrestlers and angles as over as possible and make money. With nothing more than minor tweaks, these angles can help the WWE make more money. The re-hashed ideas of Hollywood writers aren’t increasing ratings or buys, so why not use the amazing ideas found within the business itself?
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Because it’s not the idea, it’s the execution.
As the saying goes, “If you can’t commit, it ain’t worth shit”. They have shown very little interest in committing to a feud and letting it play out unless it is with already established stars.
Mr. Glazer you’re going to need to turn in your IWC credentials and leave the interwebz due to your constant use of “common sense”.
Just kidding, I dig these articles you’ve been doing. As far as why they aren’t stealing ideas from the territories, well it might be a simpler answer than that: Vincent K McMahon. There’s a strong case vinnie mac has nothing but contempt for wrestling. Its all well documented how the territories fell apart by the end of the 80’s. If you owned a business you didn’t like and expanded it to take out your competition, would you then use their ideas? A lot of business men would. But there’s a case for the idea that Vince see’s the old territory angles as being the reason they all folded and ones that wouldn’t work again. That is why we won’t be seeing anything recycled from the territories.
Sometimes I wish TNA could be a legit company so Vince would stop being so complacent.
Everyone that talks to Vince nowadays says he seems almost sad about what wrestling has become. He misses the great workers and didn’t want everyone else out of business/respects the crap out of the smarter territories. Sure that’s mellowing with old age, but still.
I think it’s brutally, bluntly obvious that Vince McMahon despises wrestling. Otherwise, he would never have attempted to shill it as “sports entertainment”, he wouldn’t hire great independent wrestlers and flat-out refuse to use them to their full potential…oh, and he wouldn’t start football leagues and a cinematic production company. Hypothetically speaking, if the XFL would have ever taken off or if WWE Films ever makes a massive eight- or nine-figure profit, I’d be willing to bet that very number that he’d just shut the wrestling down, because he finally doesn’t have to use it anymore.
“I think it’s brutally, bluntly obvious that Vince McMahon despises wrestling.”
Vince is coming up on 40 years of promoting non-stop. He may be a tad burnt out and perhaps finds the competitive juice in other arenas. A solid competition could certainly light a spark.
And going back to Wrestlemania I – he’s always tried to tie it in with entertainment. This isn’t new.
I’m not convinced hiring all these great indy wrestlers would give him a huge windfall of money. Sure, WE’D like it – but everyone knows the bottomline when it comes to merchandise and gates. He is not marketing to die hard fans.
Don’t forget Bobby Bruns. He booked St. Louis steadily through some serious down periods in pro wrestling, allowing St. Louis to remain profitable while most other promotions were either folding or barely scraping by. Sam Muchnick’s overall philosophy towards wrestling deserves a look too, in my opinion.
I think what’s missing on a broad scale from the booking of today versus the booking of yesterday is that old school booking was focused on getting people in the seats not just next week but every week for the next decade.
The cheap pops and swerves were used less frequently, making them more meaningful. And also giving things time to build.
WWE, today, seems concerned with a lot of different things. But they’ve seemed to be willing to harm business over the long run for a quick ratings boost or to tart up the next PPV.
It’s been noted that the WWE appears to book things on a PPV-to-PPV basis with continuity on some angles being dropped or reset every four weeks.
Contrast that with the territories who would often plan things out up to a year in advance. Giving them time to set things up properly, like these feuds that Glazer’s mentioned. And also time to readjust if someone was lost to injury (which was less frequent during the territory days) or some other consideration.
Great reply Scott.
Wrestling is Sports Entertainment. The SE tag just comes with less legal hassles. Ever see SMW? Cornette booked a ton of “Sports Entertainment”… because there’s no such thing as SE. What we complain about is poorly planned wrestling angles. For more, try – http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-14674-NY-Pro-Wrestling-Examiner~y2009m11d1-Theres-no-such-thing-as-Sports-Entertainment
Thanks for the link, Aaron.
That article hit the nail on the head. Done well, these skits and segments can really push a feud or build up a new talent. Anyone remember Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka and the coconut? That was sports entertainment too.
Even done poorly, these skits and such are forgivable as long as the wrestling is passable and the booking makes sense.
Regarding the Memphis territory, it is arguably the originator of the style Vince adopted as “sports entertainment”. I grew up in Memphis. I still have a soft-spot in my heart for it, no doubt.
But much of what we see today (and complain about) had its origins in 1970s Memphis Wrestling. Everything from the squash matches to the monster builds to the whacky stipulations to hardcore matches.
But most people don’t get that Memphis caved in on itself. It started out where stuff like that only happened every once in a while. Then it got to the point where you had Phil Hickerson pretending to be a Japanese guy and a Tupelo Concession Brawl every other Tuesday.
I guess the promoters saw the dollar signs after a proto-hardcore match between the Fabs and the Moondogs and felt like THAT was what the people wanted to see. Or when Kimala came to town.
So we had to get *more* hardcore. Putting Ricky Morton through a table. A parking lot brawl. And we needed *more* carny characters. Like a Mummy.
No, I’m not kidding.
But what got ignored was that these things were more like the bling on Sputnik Monroe’s Cadillac. You still want the car to run — and that’s the wrestling or sports end of it. But when that car is running good, a little sparkle will go a long way.
But if the car’s not running. Like on, say, Raw most Mondays. All the sparkle in the world won’t sell that car.