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But ahead and onward we go, and we open this mailbag with Ori Haskelovich, who wanted my take on a couple of things regarding ROH's future:
First off, great column, keep up the excellent work!! There have been a lot of rumors as of late that stated TNA and ROH are working some kind of talent exchange deal, to which TNA responded that these rumors are false. Now I know that both companies did have a working relationship in the past, so do you think there's any chance they might renew it? I believe only good things can come out of this, especially for ROH which would get a bigger exposure. Also, do you think it would be possible for ROH to receive a TV deal any time soon, seeing as a lot of their PPVS have been sold and aired on TV Networks? Thank you for your time.
Okay, let me touch on the TNA question first. I think the answer depends on what you consider to be a working relationship. I don't see a full on cross-promotion, with guy appearing on each other's shows and being presented as “ROH guys†or “TNA guysâ€. I certainly don't see them working an interpromotional war. I think both companies are at a point where they're trying to establish individual identities and brand awareness, and acknowledging what is really their competition would probably come off as bush league. We may continue to see TNA talent making occasional appearances on ROH shows, but it's going to be low level guys like the Motor City Machine Guns, I wouldn't expect to see Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, or Christopher Daniels appearing in ROH anytime soon unless they get released, which is not likely.
As for ROH getting a TV deal, that is indeed their next goal by all accounts. They're not marks for TV and aren't going to jump at a crappy TV deal just for the sake of getting themselves on TV, but from what I understand, the thought internally is that they've gotten as big as they're going to get with the exposure they have right now, and they need TV to take that next step and continue to grow. Whether they get it or not remains to be seen, but I have to believe that they will get something eventually. The PPVs are part of the plan to get on TV, because it's easier to sell their product to TV executives if they can say they sell a lot of PPVs than it is by saying they sell a lot of DVDs.
A. Russo has a few things for me:
I read your latest column and I see where you are coming from with those 2 guys. It's just that when I think of wrestlers I'd like to see in ROH, I'm hoping for guys like RVD, Jerry Lynn, Koji Kanemoto, Taiji Ishimori, Minoru, Yuji Nagata, etc. Your choices are definitely more realistic and probably better from a business standpoint. However, since ROH has a history of bringing in guys like Lance Storm, Misawa, Liger, and Muta anything is possible.
Those are some interesting choices. I think the idea of bringing in Jerry Lynn as a regular is a great one and I've said that several times in the past. He'll be making his return in the next few months (I forget exactly when), so hopefully he'll become at least a semi-regular. I don't know if you'll ever see RVD in ROH. I think the hope is there, probably because he spent so many years in ECW and people have a fnatasy that he'll want to come to ROH because he looks back so fondly on his indy days, but I think that's all it is, a fantasy. I don't think he was in ECW for the love of the company, he was there to make a living and, unlike a lot of guys, stopped showing up when the money wasn't coming. I don't think he'll come in to ROH to “be a part of something special†like some people might. Also, he's been pretty honest about the fact that after working in front of huge crowds and being a superstar for WWE, he has no real desire to work indies, and will only wrestle now if it presents him with an attractive opportunity, either financially or in terms of traveling somewhere cool.
As for the Japanese talent you named, I don't know Ishimori or Minoru, but I don't think Kanemoto or Nagata are ever going to come in. Don't take what I say as gospel because I am about the least educated person in the world where the Japanese scene is concerned, and it may have changed since the last time I checked (which was around 1997), but last time I looked, Nagata and Kanemoto were working for New Japan, with which ROH has no political connection. Indeed, I would think that their connection with Pro Wrestling NOAH would work against them if they were trying to bring in New Japan talent. Besides, they have access to great talent with NOAH and Dragon Gate anyway, so I don't see a need to bring in names from their competition.
I agree with most of the stuff you said about TNA and about a company being perfect. However, with that roster TNA has the potential to do great things, but instead we get all that silliness. At times, TNA smells like WCW. Imagine what Paul Heyman would do with all that talent. I don't expect everything to be perfect, just a good show overall. Samoa Joe coming out of an ambulance to attack Booker T is whack. That was worse than Raw's ending last week.
As goofy as TNA can be sometimes, I don't think they're anywhere near as bad as WCW at the end. And for the record, WCW only got bad toward the end, and even then there was some really good stuff on most of their shows, which I think a lot of people took for granted at the time and completely overlook today. As for Paul Heyman, I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to verbally fellate him like a lot of people do. He did something very special with ECW, but that ended over seven years ago, and I don't know that he can catch lightning in a bottle twice. It's been shown that it's more complicated than taking somebody with past booking success, handing them a pen, paper, and a roster of wrestlers and saying “Here, do it again.†Every booker runs out of great ideas at some point, and I do mean every booker.
Another thing to consider when thinking about Heyman's success as a booker is that a lot of times, it takes a combination of a good booker and the right talent. Paul Heyman was able to create something special because he had a roster of talent that was compatible with the type of product he was trying to book. Could he book Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, and Abyss as effectively as he booked Tommy Dreamer, Sandman, and Taz without redoing what he did in the 90s? Here's another thing: ECW was incredibly popular among its fanbase, but its fanbase consisted of a small number of hardcore smart fans. It catered to a niche market, and though it never really had the right opportunity outside of their failed TNN deal, I have my doubts as to whether ECW could have realistically competed against the WWF and WCW even given the right TV deal and financial backing. I know that sounds sacreligious, but I really don't think they could have done it, and even as big of a ROHbot as I am, I don't think ROH can compete with WWE and TNA today because they cater to a niche market too, albeit a different one. Matt Carter wants to tell me about his big markout moment:
Just wanted to tell you my little Punk Wins Story...
I grew up watching wrestling. Mostly WWE but some WCW from until about 1989. I then started watching again about 2 months before the launch of ECW on Sci Fi. (Yes I missed the entire Attitude Era and the original ECW). I have caught up with DVDs, you tube, and WWE 24/7 a bit. Anyway...there is the background
For my Punk Wins story....
When I heard his music start and saw him come out with a ref and the MIB case, I LITERALLY jumped out of my seat. I was screaming for the win.
I NEVER DO THIS! I usually sit casually and watch or react to a nasty bump...but I never mark out like I did for Punk. I even screamed "that is what you get Edge you damn weasel".
It was the first time, for me, as a "smart mark" that I was cheering like I did as a kid for the Hulkster, brother. :-)
Well, don't feel too silly, because I was in attendance when Punk won the ROH Title in New Jersey back in 2005, and I did the same thing. It was easily one of my two or three biggest markout moments as a fan ever. I was high fiving the people around me, as stupid as that sounds.
Question for ya...what is your favorite wrestling book? I have finished all 3 of Mick Foley's, Roddy Piper's, and Flair's....just started on Bobby The Brain....any suggestions? (i have some long train rides to work)
I've read a lot of wrestling books over the years, so let me try and cover everything:
-I thought Mick Foley's first book was really good, but the second one seemed like a combination of milking the cow and working his agenda of shooting down the PTC. I didn't get the third one.
-I hated Flair's book. There was a LOT of stuff in Flair's career that deserved mentioning and was either barely touched on or completely glossed over. I also feel like he didn't cut loose with his true feelings on a lot of subjects because he was afraid of pissing the wrong people off. I was really disappointed by that, and I think that given a couple of years away from the business and the right, non-WWE employed writer, we would have gotten a much more interesting book.
-Case in point, Bret Hart's book, which I recently started reading and am only about 75 pages into, but it is absolutely fascinating.
-I read Shawn Michaels and Eric Bischoff's books and I thought both were good, and I feel inclined to at least partially believe most of what they say in their books, but most people seem to completely disregard it as them covering their own asses on uncomfortable subjects.
-Bobby Heenan's book was good, though not particularly memorable. He's funny, but too much insight into his personal life kind of tainted the Brain character for me.
-I really enjoyed Kurt Angle's book, but I think I enjoyed it more than a lot of other people would because I have an amateur wrestling background and he spends about half the book talking about his amateur career. I think that might go over the heads of most readers, or at least bore the hell out of them. I now also doubt the validity of a lot of what was said in that book given what we've seen out of him in the last few years.
-Ole Anderson and Dynamite Kid's books were both interesting and they're both as straight as straight shooters come, but they both come off as really bitter.
-For those of you who are interested in the real old-time wrestling, I highly recommend Lou Thesz's book, Hooker. It gives a great insight into the old days going back to the 30s and 40s, even before the NWA existed.
-And for old school fans and new alike, avoid the NWA book at all costs, as it is one of the most boring books I've ever read, wrestling or otherwise. Instead of the interesting historical piece I expected, it read like a bland listing of wrestling cards and the gates they drew, and was full of references to a lot of wrestlers I have never heard of, and I know my wrestling history.
Wow, I didn't realize how many wrestling books I have actually read until I made this list. I suddenly feel like I've wasted my life.
So, let me keep wasting it by continuing this edition of the mailbag, as I got quite a bit of feedback to my column a couple of weeks ago defending TNA, and wanted to respond to some of the emails I got.
Shawn Harris
Enjoyed your column on TNA, and naturally everyone has the right to their own opinion. Now MY opinion has always been Vince Russo is basically the Antichrist. He comes in, makes huge promises, LIES THROUGH HIS FACE about past successes in WWE, and NEVER mentions how much of his writing didn't make it past the filter that is Vince McMahon. Once he is turned loose, he chuckles with an evil grin and proceeds to throw everything he can think of at a wall, and whatever doesn't fall to the floor gets on tv.
I think you paint a far more drastic picture than actually exists. Sure, he has a lot of dumb ideas, but you can't point to how much didn't make it past Vince McMahon because we don't really know how much actually got through instead of being cut. We as fans don't have that insight. And he doesn't lie about his past success, I honestly believe the Attitude Era would never have happened without the contributions Russo made. Although it may seem that way sometimes, I don't think Russo's booking is as haphazard as it's made out to be, and he's part of a committee now anyway, one that he's not the head of.
Just to illustrate a point, I tracked the number of title changes for the WCW heavyweight belt.
From 1991 to right before Russo took over, the belt changed hands 35 times, and was declared vacant 3 times for assorted reasons. That's over 8 years.
From Oct 1999 to when Russo left and WWE bought WCW - March, April?? - the title changed hands 22 times, and was declared vacant 8 times. That's over the course of 18 months, give or take. And who were some of the luminaries who got to wear the same belt that Hogan, Flair, Sting, Luger etc wore?? Those buff manly wrestling machines, David Arquette and Vince Russo.
I could go on forever, but dude - Russo was, is, and always will be an idiot. Even as recently as the last TNA ppv, after the finish of the main event, the fans were chanting Fire Russo.
I don't know how you judge somebody's booking acumen on how often their top title changes hands. If there's a justifiable reason to do it, what's the problem? That said, a lot of those WCW title changes, especially starting with the Jeff Jarrett Era, changed hands under some seriously suspect circumstances, but do you think any of them are really much worse than the Sting-Starrcade 97 debacle or the infamous Fingerpoke Of Doom, both of which preceded Russo? I think a lot of that speaks more to the WCW environment than to Russo himself. Russo's been involved with the booking of TNA for most of its existence, and you don't see the NWA/TNA Title bouncing around like that. I think the frequency of and circumstances surrounding all those WCW Title changes is more a result of the political sharks than Russo.
As for the Fire Russo chant, it's over. It's cliched now. Like George Carlin said, guys used to wear earrings to piss off the squares, but now the squares are wearing earrings too. It was smart and cutting edge the first time, but now it's turned into the What? Chant.
Chris Muldong sees things a little more my way:
I just read your article on pwinsiderxtra.com, and I have to say that finally someone has stood up for TNA with evidence that it is not as bad as the internet community makes it. I wil say that TNA is not perfect, and at times I do not like the direction that they go (for example the finish of the Booker T vs Samoa Joe match at Victory Road), but it is so obvious that there is a double-standard when it comes to TNA. If you actually look at who are the champions, they are all TNA Homegrown talent. Even when TNA features a former WWE wrestler, that wrestler has almost always been feuding or paired with a TNA homegrown.
I think the problem with TNA is that it is that bastard child of wrestling. I mean that they have the workers of ROH, and other wrestlers who can have amazing matches, but TNA is on national television so they need the sports entertainment aspect as well. TNA in my opinion has not found that balance. It is amazing how overly-critical and downright unknowledgable the internet community tends to be in regards with TNA. For example, here is something that someone wrote in regards to the TNA Knockout Division: "Over-hyped women's division: I am a strong believer that women's wrestling can play a crucial part in a TV show and I look forward to the diva matches on Raw each week, so thepositive reviews of TNA's women's division encouraged me to take a look. However, this division has been ludicrously over-hyped. The reason it pops the highest quarter hour ratings is because men channel surf and stop briefly to see attractive women bounce around on a show aptly named - TNA!" The criticism towards TNA can be so outright ridiculous that even the positives that the company does will be downplayed or turned into a negative.
Personally, for whatever reason, I feel that TNA is held to a ridiculous double-standard. WWE and Vince McMahon can book God to a match, yet when TNA does something equally dumb, you will never hear the end of it (Pacman comes to mind and yes, the Pacman Jones signing was a dumb idea I will admit). I believe that TNA is taken more to task for their goofy ideas than any other wrestling promotion (heck, even ROH had an unsuccessful near-rape angle).
While I feel that TNA can do better, do you feel that the criticism that TNA gets is justified? Do you think that some fans have an unrealistic expectation from TNA? I mean, there is only so much room on the top, you can't have Shelley, Lethal, Sabin, Homicide, etc and the current main eventers all be on top, can you?
Thank you for your time.
I agree with everything you said, and I think you make a great point in that TNA has SpikeTV to answer to, and as long as an entertainment-oriented entity has its fingers in TNA, it can never break away and become a true alternative to WWE in the way that a lot of people want it to be. To answer your questions, I do think that some of the criticism is absolutely justified (my intention was never to paint TNA as the Holy Promotion That Can Do No Wrong), but I absolutely believe that fans have unreasonable expectations from TNA. I liken it to a family with two children, and while one child's successes are praised and failures are ignored, the other child's failures are harped upon and successes are just taken as what's expected of them and never acknowledged as special. And no, you can't have a million people on top, and it's driven me crazy for years now how everybody complains about every midcard (or lower) wrestler under 260 lbs being held down and not being given a shot at the top, when the fact is that you need an undercard and if you make everyone a main eventer, then you don't have the underneath talent that you need to get the main eventers over. Nobody can job anymore without the online community freaking out.
Joel Second chips in with his thoughts:
Thank god someone is defending what Vince Russo has done in tna. tna storylines & character development were horrible before he came in. great article
Well, I wouldn't go that far either. I think the difference is that TNA was more focused on the “sports†than the “entertainment†before he came back to power, and that's what bothers people who want an entertainment-free, pure wrestling alternative product. The pre-Russo storylines weren't blowaway successes by any means, but I wouldn't call them horrible, either.
Finally, Suzanne Abshire apparently put quite a bit of thought into my TNA column and responded with her thoughts on the matter. In fact, she wrote about four pages of thoughts, so no disrespect intended Suzanne, but I'm going to have to chop this down to excerpts otherwise we'll be here forever:
Hi Stuart,
Hi! :)
The problem is not that TNA brings in guys from WWE/WCW/ECW its that are pushed to the top of the card over guys who have been in TNA since day one or guys that TNA spent almost 2 years building up as a unstopable monster lik Samoa Joe. What they should have been doing is something simuar to what the new ECW was doing when they had the Originals vs the New Breed. That way you have the established names in the Main Events but they are putting over the younger and fresher talent. If they were to push that talent and not make them look stupid while your doing it the ratings would go up just like they have on RAW.
The problem with doing this is basically that you are creating an NWO scenario where it's “the TNA guys†vs “the guys from Up Northâ€, and by bringing those guys in and putting them right at the top of the card and putting them over the TNA guys, you're essentially creating the same self-destructive scenario WCW created where you're making your talent look inferior, only by doing it this way it's be far more blatant than the way it is now.
It would have been better to have booked the guy that was being build as the "New Face of ECW" Kurt Angle to fued with the last "REAL" ECW World Heavyweight Champion RHYNO before they put Joe in the ring with Kurt.
Again, you're creating a scenario where you're building off of peoples' history elsewhere, and that's no good if you're trying to make TNA look like the place to be.
Joe had been proving himself in ROH and then in TNA where as Randy nor Brock had done anything in the business before they were given the Championship. Even if it didn't work out atleast they would have been trying and they could have made him a transitional Champion and given him another shot later.
I think making him a transitional champion, which by definition means that he's just meant to get the title from one champion to another without making them interact directly, would have been a horrible way to book Joe if you're trying to make him your next big thing. Remember how badly it hurt Orton when he beat Chris Benoit for the World Title, which was a big deal and a huge elevation, only to lose it to Triple H less than a month later? Booking Joe the same way would have been very bad for him.
It is not about giving him the belt just because he has great matches but rather because he is the most over guy in the entire company and when he Main Events a PPV the buyrates go up.
How do you know that? Do you have the buyrates in front of you? In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard barely anything about TNA’s buyrates and certainly no specific numbers, so I’d be interested to know where you get your information.
I will grant you that TNA had for a long time done a great job with this division although they have been slipping recently. Although to be fair it is still the best booked Division in TNA. As I said its been slipping lately and right now for the most part the division looks like the X Division did when you had the Joe vs AJ vs Daniels fued where it was great but everything under it wasn't and the Knockouts in TNA are now in that same boat.
This was in reference to the Knockouts division. So you say it’s slipping and now it’s like the X-Division when Joe, AJ, and Daniels were feuding over the title? I can’t think of a time when the X-Division was hotter, so I don’t know how the Knockouts division could be considered to have slipped if that’s what you’re comparing it to. And I’d argue that the underneath women below the Gail Kim-Awesome Kong level are more over than the Sonjay Dutts and Chris Sabins were during the Joe/AJ/Daniels era.
Again TNA has not been an alternative to WWE in years. To be the alternative to something you have to be different. TNA does not know how to be different or I should say they forgot.
Sorry Suzanne, but the email you wrote me is exactly the kind of attitude I was complaining about in the column, which is one where people don’t want to give TNA a chance and will look for any opening they can find to tear down TNA, even if they have to start making them up. I disagreed with nearly everything you wrote and you had almost no constructive criticism, except for one or two items which would be hugely counterproductive to what it is they’re trying to accomplish.
It’s like I keep saying, wrestling fans just need something to complain about and some promotion that needs to be the scapegoat which can do no right. The best analogy I can come up with is that TNA, like WCW before it, is the fat dorky kid at your school who people pick on because it’s fun, and no matter what he accomplishes or tries to do to get over with his classmates, everyone will find some way to turn it around on him just because people are dicks, and there’s really no other way to put it.
No matter how well booked Samoa Joe becomes, people will always find some reason to claim he’s being misused. No matter how good the matches are in the X Division or the Knockouts division, people will say that they’re treated like a joke. No matter how the former WWE guys are booked or what their presence accomplishes in terms of increasing their national exposure and brand name, TNA is evil just for having them there. Vince Russo could drop dead tomorrow and people would still find some way to blame bad booking on him.
To be perfectly honest, if you feel like TNA is running their company in a way you don’t like, I can’t say I would really blame them because nothing they do is good enough for anyone. At some point, which probably happened a long time ago, TNA needs to stop worrying about what internet fans think and just book the best product they feel like they can. If you feel like you can do a better job, find a money mark and start your own national promotion and see how far you get.
And with that, we end another edition of the mailbag. Thanks for reading, and if you have any feedback, please send it to stupwinsider@yahoo.com and maybe your letter can appear in a future mailbag! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you soon.
