Hey Scott,
I visited Apter's Alley, one of the coolest places for any wrestling fan, and tried to get some answers from Wonderful Willie about the Hulkster's status at Mania30.
Thanks!
I think Hulk's usage at WM21 was just about perfect -- rescue Eugene from the evil bullies as a big surprise, do some posing, get out again before people got sick of him.
Best match of the year in WWE was Punk/Cena on Raw before WrestleMania.
ReplyDeleteDid also like how they had him do a surprise return a few months later to tag with HBK and Cena. The star of the '80's, the one of the '90's and the one of the 2000's together, a smart booking there to make a RAW match more special.
ReplyDeleteI've only seen this and heard his appearance on AOW, but Apter comes off as a supremely creepy guy. I'm talking local comic shop owner "Hey kids, would you like to watch some wrestling"-level creepy
ReplyDeleteI loved Hogan's appearance at Mania 21, and thought it was a perfect usage of him on an overall stacked and well-booked show, but I feel like WWE needs something different out of Hulk this year. Basically, they need to advertise that Hulk will be doing something important ahead of time because honestly, they NEED him to help draw a buyrate this year. They've castrated the roster with shitty 50/50 booking and BOW DOWN TO THE KING Steph and HHH bullshit, so they're pretty much useless as draws. Orton is not over in the slightest, as crowd reactions and the Survivor Series buyrate (plus 10 years of Orton not moving the needle) show.
ReplyDeleteCena is less of a draw now than he probably ever was.
Bryan's momentum wasn't utilized, so he's not gonna mean much come Mania time.
The Authority storyline was their big ace, and the fans have wholly rejected that one.
Rock isn't back to save their asses.
Undertaker vs Brock Lesnar, whose been booked to mean slightly more than Mark henry? THAT'S the draw?
They need to pull something out of their asses in the next few months. Not saying Hogan wrestling is the magic bullet, because its probably not, but they're gonna have to figure out some meaningful way to promote Hogan on this show, because they absolutely need all the smoke and mirrors they can get to keep this shit from bombing.
While I agree with your individual points, I don't think it's nearly as dire as you make it sound. I really believe an Undertaker-Cena, Lesnar-Punk, Bryan-HHH card does just fine by itself. Hogan should have a token appearance, but there is nothing worth doing in the ring.
ReplyDeleteCena/Taker would be a great draw and the other two matches are very logical based on the booking... but I don't think there's any way that's the direction they're going.
ReplyDeleteMore like Cena/Orton, Taker/Lesnar, HHH/Punk, Bryan/Kane.
It is pretty hilarious that Punk/Lesnar was such an insane match that absolutely blew the crowd away, yet that doesn't get a rematch because Taker needs to play MMA guy. So basically Punk becomes the ONLY guy that Lesnar beats without losing a match too, despite Punk being someone that's counted on to draw TV/houses week to week, whereas HHH eats up three of Lesnar's dates with shitty matches because he needs to get his win back.
Anyway, I digress... I think the matches we're getting are considerably less enticing than what you proposed.
If Hogan could increase the buy rate on name alone, TNA wouldn't veer on the verge of going out of business.
ReplyDeleteThe Punk-Heyman feud is done. There's not going to be a Punk-Lesnar rematch.
ReplyDelete"So basically Punk becomes the ONLY guy that Lesnar beats without losing a match to"
ReplyDeleteThe ONLY guy on a long list of Cena, Triple H, and Punk as the guys he's faced. Out of 5 matches, he's won 3 of them; waah.
Jesus Christ, so this argument again?
ReplyDeleteBryan was headlining his first event ever. By your logic, Wrestlemania 14 should have been headlined by Undertaker vs Michaels because Austin had utterly bombed the previous year. (Mania 13, for which Austin-Bret was the heaviest promoted match on the show, drew an epically low buyrate). They need to accept some slow starts when they're trying to build a new star, otherwise they'll (as they are currently doing) never build anyone new and get stuck having to beg the old timers to come out of retirement every year to save their asses.
Orton's been a historic bomb as a main eventer the last 4 months, including the LOWEST Big 4 buyrate of all-time as the headliner. And he's been heavily pushed for 10 YEARS, so it's not like he's on the upswing. Yet a month later...he gets the unified title and is probably on his way to main eventing Mania.
Orton's pretty much a negative draw at this point, and yet they'll push him because they just feel like it. In the end that's how this works—— they're gonna push who they feel like because that's what they do.
DO IT.
ReplyDeletewhat a coincidence, my best of Punk in 2013 list comes next week :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks to Scott once more for the plug
Which isn't exactly PC. Didn't Brand get banned from the BBC? As I recall, he had relations with a young lady, and on his radio show the next week, he called up the woman's father and left him a message graphically detailing said encounter.
ReplyDeleteI liked the Eugene nostalgia thing but it wouldn't do anything for me at this point if they tried to redo it. Make him a guest enforcer for the main event or something.
ReplyDeleteIt would be kind of odd if Eugene just popped up out of the blue after all these years, no?
ReplyDeleteOOOOOORRRR recreational the WM 9 two match thing by having him beat Bryan with the boot then have him snap the streak. Which ever scenario you prefer
ReplyDeleteHe's an omnipresent entity.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what your very clever "waah" point was directed at.
ReplyDeleteyeah, Lesnar's been booked like shit and they've killed him off as anything meaningful, by virtue of the Cena loss and the awful 50/50 matches with HHH. I'm not taking shots at Lesnar, they absolutely should have booked him to be more dominant.
But a guy like Punk (or Bryan or Sheamus or Reigns) is the type of guy who SHOULD be getting booked to win against Lesnar, not cena (who didnt need it) and not HHH (who isn't a wrestler anymore.) Lesnar, when he loses, should have been used to build up guys like Punk who can actually make money for the company year-round. Instead, Lesnar is basically brought back so every few months he can be trotted out and lose to the WWE legends who don't need it. Yup, smart strategy here:
-Have Lesnar go over Punk, then send Punk out to headline house shows and PPVs! Also, Punk never gets the win back.
- Lesnar taps out to Taker at Mania (ohhh you know that's the finish), then Taker proceeds to... well nothing til next year.
It's insane, bad business all around. Oh also, waah.
Exhibit #90241, in the case "WWE vs The Future"
ReplyDeleteBringing back a HUGE name to put over a guy who definitely didn't need the boost, a guy who wasted three matches bringing him down to "just another guy", and then not putting over the one guy who could truly use it.
This case is not closed yet (hopefully), but GUILTY of stupidity and shortsightedness (among other things) is the only possible verdict at the moment.
DO IT
ReplyDeleteNot to come off ant Bryan but what MOTYs did he have this year outside of Cena/Bryan at SS??. It wasnt even the best match on the card IMO
ReplyDeleteI agree. Guest enforcer for the main event or something.
ReplyDeleteKeller thinks that WWE wants Hogan in to act like an "ambassador" for when they launch the network. This is probably where they see his most value, not in a throw away WM segment
Favorite spot: Lesnar almost has the Undertaker out, but has to put him back in, because that wasn't planned! :)
ReplyDeleteIt'll still do 1 million
ReplyDeleteI suppose the thought process is that lesnar vs a wwe legend (I think its fair to even call punk one now) is a bigger money maker than using him to build a new guy. I agree with the theory but their execution is horrible (to no ones surprise). Just imagine if they booked him the same but swapped cena and hhh's role. Part of the appeal of Brock is the craziness of his matches. When he's in the ring with a talent its been the moty (arguably... I thought cena/Bryan and Bryan/punk were the Moty for 2012 and 2013 but either way you can't go wrong).
ReplyDeleteI'm down with brock vs taker but cm punk vs hhh makes me want to puke. The only rumored match on this card that will move the needle at all is hbk vs d Bryan. I'd say they struggle to reach 800k buys and it will drop next year too.
Might upset some folks but it would definitely be a WM moment people wouldnt forget....
ReplyDeleteHow long are Wrestlemanias now? I'm not gonna sit through ab bunch of bullshit and nostalgia for 4 hours unless the chick I go with guarantees me some pu-
ReplyDelete***PLEASE STAND BY***
It'd be pretty easy to start back up...Heyman brings back Brock to avenge the best down that Punk gave him
ReplyDelete"..in 10 minutes. Make it happen!"
ReplyDeleteI guess we'll find out just how bullet proof mania is as a draw on its own this year. Rock was a huge draw but that build to mania 29 was so bizaare. If he ever does come back again they are gonna have to actual work an angle to sell it (what????) otherwise even rock would start posting diminishing returns. I guess a Steve Austin return could pop a buy rate (assuming it would be at least half way properly booked). That's not going to happen though.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming they think vinces involvement is going to be the draw this year but I don't see it
Didn't you predict a horrible buyrate for last years show too...?
ReplyDeleteHow'd that work out?
Robocop is about to pin Fred when the theme music distracts him:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/2PPf3aaZmUw
Barney slides in and hits him with one of those pterodactyl legs.(Even though the match will be playing on the big screen in front of everyone including the ref.)
You know what else sucks about Brock Lesnar booking, besides the Cena loss and the awful HHH matches? The fact that there's no longer any suspense that he's ever gonna mean anything to the general programming. Like when he debuted, there was all this buzz about what Brock's gonna do, who he'll feud with, if he'll go after a title, will he be part of a faction, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteBut now it's pretty clear— he's gonna wrestle at Summerslam, Mania and Extreme Rules, his match results will have ZERO bearing on anything else that happens, and his character has absolutely no motivation and doesn't care about what's happening around him. I really think that's done as much as anything to kill him off as a relevant draw. Basically we know what Brock does is meaningless, and his character doesn't really give a shit about being in WWE.
So specifically looking at teh Punk/Lesnar match, that's a feud that desperately needed to continue soon after. There was so much heat coming off that feud— the match was amazing, the crowd loved their dynamic, the Punk-Heyman promo segments were still gold at that point. That's a feud that absolutely called for a rematch at hell in a Cell when the issue was still hot. But because of how they're structuring his dates, that couldn't be and once again, Brock just sort of wanders off until starting an Undertaker feud next year, for which he'll have no believeable motivation because WHY DOES BROCK LESNAR CARE ABOUT THE STREAK? Heyman will do his best, and they'll have Taker shoot lightning bolts at a UFC cage or something, but it's gonna be quite a stretch.
They paid Rock and Brock a shitload of money to drop off from the year before.
ReplyDeleteNo I predicted it would do over a million buys as documented in all the prediction posts nwa88 kept putting up. So actually it worked out really fucking well
ReplyDeleteI agree. The NBA was so hell bent to make Kobe the next Jordan they didn't see that everything changed and the person they should promote (Allen Iverson) was right there.
ReplyDeleteYour sarcasm and use of puns are on point today.
ReplyDeleteTj..listening to Kevin Kelly p2b podcast and he is NOT a fan of HHH. "Who's that dude with the long blonde hair and 8 foot nose whos an anchor around Austins angle suck off all his heat." Amoung many many anti HHH quotes
ReplyDeleteNow should be the part where you make an off argument personal attack because you have no clue what your talking about.
ReplyDeleteIt would join David Arquette, WCW Champ; Bockwinkle retains against Hogan; and Justin Credible, ECW Champ in the Pantheon of Promotion Killers.
ReplyDeleteInduction date ETA: 2021.
The "Mania is an automatic draw forever and ever" is a fallacy.
ReplyDeleteMania 26 was in the mid 800k range. Mania 27 was set to drop off way further (MIZ VS CENA??HAHAHAHAHA) if they didn't strike that deal with The Rock.
Yeah, they could probably draw a decent number with a heatless card based on the Mania name and a shitload of promotion, but nothing is forever. If they don't build new stars or book stories that people are into, the audience will continue to dwindle and Mania buyrates can drop year to year like anything else.
She strikes me as the type that would take it in the as-
ReplyDelete***PLEASE STAND BY***
It's not a fallacy bc it does 800k worst vase scenario while all other ppvs do 300 BEST case scenario. They obviously need a great show and match on top to do 1.2.
ReplyDelete"This is generally followed by her swallowing my expl-"
ReplyDelete***PLEASE STAND BY...SOME MORE***
It would get inducted sooner than 2021....
ReplyDeleteI agree, I don't think Hogan is teh answer either. But they're gonna have to try anything this year, because Rock isn't here to save their asses and they've killed off the roster as anything meaningful, and Lesnar as well.
ReplyDeleteThey're not negotiating with Goldberg because they're feeling confident right now.
Creepy. So did I.
ReplyDeleteI did have this awesome thought that if the Ultimate Warrior got inducted in the HOF... they do a WM21 style segment but with the 'Real Americans' where Hogan comes out to a huge response beats them down but eventually Swagger/Cesaro start making a comeback... the Warrior comes out in full war paint running (limping?) down to the ring to a huge response, they beat up the evil no gooders... then pose WM8 style with over the top pyro. BOOK IT!
ReplyDeleteIt's a fallacy that mania is an automatic one million buys.
ReplyDeleteAnd at this point, they've structured their company in such a way that getting that million buys at Mania is hugely important. Fuck, they're building the network launch around that perhaps. So sinking to 800k would be a huge hit for them.
And even that isn't the basement for a Mania buyrate. Yeah it was forever ago, but Manias drew less than that pre-Attitude. if they keep killing off the current roster and are unable to get Rock back, the buyrates will drop. They can't force people at gunpoint to buy teh show.
I don't think anyone argues that WM is an automatic 1 million, because they fell below that a few years ago. I just had a big arguement that WM itself though is a draw. Not to the 1 million buy standpoint but to the 700-800 range. They've done an overall good job of protecting it as a brand
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rspwfaq.net/2013/04/the-wrestlemania-buyrate-prediction-pool.html
ReplyDeleteSo I predicted 980k and the show did 1.04 million. You only predicted it would do another 40,000 more than me. I'd say we both had a very accurate prediction
I only want to see that match if Toni and Big Hoss shoot.
ReplyDeleteI'm not exactly sure what that says about us, but it can't be good. Thankfully, I'm not generally struck by a desire to drink excessively and moonwalk poorly.
ReplyDeleteTotally, I think for the most part we agree. I'm not saying Mania's gonna suddenly drop 500k buys in one year because they put ona card that isn't over. Obviously, there'll be residual buying for a bit.
ReplyDeleteBUT the fact that they've devalued everyone outside of the part-timers (Rock/Taker/HHH/HBK) and Cena and Brock to a degree at the expense of their regular roster will catch up to them. Putting over the old time brigade as the only relevant stars will absolutely fuck up Mania buyrates in teh coming years, and unless Rock pulls a surprise and comes back I think this year will see the first "major" crack.
Yeah it did a quarter million less than the wm28. If this show drop another 250k its only gonna be a 750k buy rate. I didn't think in the age where the wwe is the draw itself I'd see a survivor series do a 5 figure domestic buy rate. My prediction last year was only off by 60,000 but im not quite ready to pick a # for xxx yet other than to say it will be under a million
ReplyDeleteThe fact that they added BROCK LESNAR to a card that had a Rock WWE title match and still dropped 250k buys should have been cause for major concern. They absolutely should have gotten up the next day and dedicated the year towards coming up witha new draw for Mania 30.
ReplyDeleteInstead they're basically reshuffling the part-timers, and hoping that Taker/Brock means something.
Warrior and Hogan posing together in 2014 would be a sign that the apocalypse is near, there is probably a better chance that Chris Benoit gets inducted into the WWE HOF.
ReplyDeleteUT/Cena would only be interesting to me if they had not unified the belts and Cena was World Champ until WM. Then you'd really not know who was gonna walk away, arm up.
ReplyDeleteI honestly dont see the big deal about Brock/UT, its been done before. Do we really need to see UT make Brock tap to the Hell's Gate?
ReplyDeletei have it on good THEAUTHORITY that the new logo is based around this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.memegeneokerlund.com/meme/z17z39
Threadjack: Royal Rumble 2014 ad
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul2zBC4sHOA&feature=player_embedded
I want Roman Reigns to bed me immediately.
50-75K a year? Not a chance! I was just watching that new HHH Doc on Youtube last night (Don't judge me) and he was making 52K a year back in 93 during his 1 year run in WCW.
ReplyDeleteI admit i laughed when he said he had to starve that year though, seriously Trips 52 K a year 20 years ago and you were starving? Fuck Off!
I would call the match he had with Orton this past Monday THE Match of the Year, but I'd put it on a list of MOTY candidates. To each their own, though!
ReplyDeleteLove your posts, hate your obsessive need for this to be the main event.
ReplyDeleteNah, WWE could stagger along long enough.
ReplyDeleteWinners: Reigns, Cody, Orton (!!!), Goldie.
ReplyDelete"That's a skull... that's a skull..." I laughed.
Broken, the picture is.
ReplyDeleteCena can still win the titles...
ReplyDeleteThis is huge news. Bill Apter would NEVER work the fans!
ReplyDeleteI'd put it as one of the best free TV MOTY's but the top honors for that I think is Punk vs. Cena from February.
ReplyDeleteHe was probably the most consistent performers of the year, but yea Brock/Punk was better than Cena/Bryan.
ReplyDeleteIf Ric Flair is to be believed, he had hundreds of five star matches with Ricky Steamboat in a single year.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, my wrestling viewing in the last half of 2013 has been way down but the best matches I saw were Punk/Cena from Raw, Lesnar/Punk from Summerslam, Punk/Taker from WrestleMania, and Bryan/Cena from Summerslam.
ReplyDeleteI think the world of Daniel Bryan but I still think Punk works better within the WWE style.
To clarify further, my vote would be Iishi v. Shibata overall, and probably Punk v Cena from WWE.
ReplyDelete