chaosrage

Fucking amen. Damn that shawn, always putting on great matches.

Yeah, fuck you guys! Ironman!

Okay, wtf?

Cool, ladder match. Next two better be bret/owen and ironman.

Hogan/Andre isn't on?

I want to see it, but it's not worth $50. I might get the webcast. Edit: I'll split it with you, DH.

Triple Threat followed by UT/Kane. Then Angle/Eddy. Molly/Victoria, and Brock/Goldberg.

No, they weren't worth much, but more than Bulldog/Sid and Roberts/Lawler? Hell yes. And you need to re-watch WM14 or any RAW up to Summerslam if you think the Rock wasn't over. Hah. If Taker/Mankind was building since 1990, then UT/Kane was building for about 40 years. Definitely reaching now. No one gave two shits about Bulldog or Sid. I never once said the main event didn't make the show. I said the undercard still matters. What I mean is that 1998 had a lot more popular wrestlers than 1996 that would help the buyrates of Austin's PPVs a lot more. If you don't think the undercard matters, then find a way to explain Over the Edge. Again, Austin was over but he didn't do anything. So what? Austin became a main eventer and a face the next year. That's where the improvement (like a 0.1 in ratings) came from. Of course they count! In 98, you had all of those guys. In 96, you basically had Shawn and the Undertaker. There were louder "D-lo Sucks" chants than anything involving Bulldog in 96. And you're right, when Owen was in the nation he didn't mean anything more than 96, but before that he was over. Bret also was the one who brought the ratings from a 1.8 range to a 1.2 range. Look, you can't blame Diesel for getting the .3. He NEVER got a .3. If the .3 was Diesel's fault, one of his IYH's would have got that low. But they were both awful. So if I can't use It's Time, you can't use Mind Games. However, you still can't say anything about IYH5. Yeah, they were the middle of the card like Rock/Hogan was the middle of the card. Isn't it still obvious which match was the main event? SS96 would be an example of a stacked card if people cared about Taker/Mankind or NOD/Team Yoko. You even admitted they stopped caring for Taker/Mankind. They should get some of the blame. But Shawn & Austin had what, a week of build up? Two weeks before, it was still looking like it'd be Hart/Michaels. Bret/Austin had at least a good two months of awesome build up. Is that what I asked for? Answer the question right next time or you die. Bret's second highest IYH is a .59. Hmm... I wonder what more of those would do. What were the highest quarter-hour ratings from Montreal to WM14? Hell, I bought an Austin shirt instead of a DX shirt because it looked cooler than a DX shirt. DX's PPV, like I've been saying, proves as much about Shawn as No Way Out proves about Austin. No, those dumb teenies show that people weren't only talking about Austin going into RR. And I can tell you right now, the amount of idiots that ordered to see Tyson in the audience is somewhere around... 0%. Summerslam02 had a 1.04. Not too bad for buyrates being down. Allright, you can't use those .5's to show Shawn couldn't draw as a heel. Out of 3 PPVs with heel champ Shawn, 2 of them did good and 1 of them did bad. Out of 3 "Rise of Austin" PPVs 2 of them did good and 1 of them did bad. So there's one fluke PPV where Shawn fought Shamrock and one fluke PPV where Austin was in a meaningless tag match. It took people 2 years to get sick of the Rock (post wm99-01). And it took almost 2 years (post wm95-ss96) for people to get sick of Shawn. I know it's long posts, but here, the point wasn't that Shawn drew more with Taker, it's that Taker's buyrates fluctuated depending on who he fought. Something you made a big deal out of Shawn doing. There was no rise of Shawn, but ratings and buyrates boosted right after he got the belt? (Despite the fact that Bret left) How did you come up with that? Ratings being high from 98-01 were more due to the Attitude era than just Austin, although he led it. This would be like me saying Wrestlemania XI drew more than XII. Diesel was the difference. Because those were bad years and no one drew in 96 and 97? I thought we went over that. If Shawn drew ten 0.5's in 98, you might have a point. Do you think if Shawn was around for the rest of the year, the WWF would've gone bankrupt and been sold to WCW? Yeah, I already said he couldn't compare to Austin. Who said anything about the last page or calculations? I'm talking about you ignoring the PPVs where UT got horrible buyrates when Shawn wasn't even around, and throwing out Austin's two bad PPVs in 98. I like how you keep dismissing the fact that Bret didn't have any IYHs from 92-94.

PPV, WM14 For match, Austin/Bret. I love the video before it.

Resident Evil 4? Isn't it 5th? What happened to Veronica? Looks nice though.

or people with a sense of humor

Better yet, you can download it in HQ the day after. You'll probably need at least a DSL conncetion, though. where?

crowd's definitely alive now...

get em stevie is this the main event?

They can't let HHH win the world title at WM for a third time. No way... And twice as a heel?

No excuse.

I'd say Rock/Shamrock and HHH/Owen were almost up there with NAO/HL. They had nice build up and all 4 guys were starting to get over. So you could say that there was one other match on SS that was interesting, while there were at least 4 at WM14. I mean, whatever you think about those two matches they had to have boosted the buyrate more than Sid vs Bulldog or Jake Roberts vs Lawler. Not looking at the main events, who the hell would pick Summerslam 96 over Wrestlemania XIV? As for Kane/Taker, it's not even close. Kane and UT had a whole year of build up and Kane was a monster heel at that point. UT actually seemed geniunely scared to fight him. More people probably wanted to see that then Shawn/Vader. Now, Mankind was a great character, but I don't think he was ever a big draw before socko, except for possibly the middle of 97. I would put the Boiler Room brawl on the same level as NOA/Hardcore Legends. Main events draw more than the rest of the card? Get outta here! It still matters though. This is why Over the Edge with Austin/Dude Love had a crappy buyrate and the PPV the month before with Austin/Dude Love had a good one. For starters, Austin was the ringmaster before KOTR96. When he came out to the arena, well... you could hear a pin drop. It was bad. After KOTR, he still didn't do anything until Survivor Series. He wrestled in a dark match on Summerlam, I think he might've had an interview segment on Mind Games. Bret/Austin was the best feud ever, but didn't do shit for ratings. To see proof of that, look at Survivor Series 96, Final Four, Revenge of the Taker, Canadian Stampede, or just ratings in general. Bulldog was never over after 92 and the buyrates he had with either Shawn, Bret, or Diesel shows how much of a draw he was. The only time Owen was a draw was 94 and 98. 98 for Montreal, fighting DX, and looking like a legit badass for the first time. Goldust didn't mean anything in either 96 or 98. The only one of those 6 you mentioned that was over was the Undertaker. In 98, everyone from Val Venis to Dlo to NAO to Edge to Taker to Shamrock to Kane to HHH to Owen to Xpac to Sable to the Rock got a good response. No, someone wouldn't have bought a PPV just for Dlo. But combined together, to a casual fan, they make it more of an attractive purchase. If they liked everything they saw on Raw, and most fans did in 98, the PPV is just a bigger version of that. Diesel wasn't the one that got the .3. But can you say Mind Games was promoted hard? Shawn and Mankind were thrown together without any reason, it wasn't even considered important enough to have a clean finish. Bret/Austin was advertised just as much. On wrestlemania, even more so. Oh right, Bret outdrew Shawn only if you count 93 and 94, before IYHs existed! Every Bret show had was a big 5 show. You don't think that skews the results? That's exactly my point. Nobody was watching it in 96 either. How do you know they didn't stay for DX? When I was in high school, everybody was talking about Austin. But there was also plenty talking about DX, Bad Blood, Kane, etc.. I didn't hear anybody say "Oh god, WWF sucks, Austin's the only thing worth watching". I just didn't hear it. I heard "Did you see what DX did?" or "When is Shawn fighting the Undertaker"? or "I can't wait to see Undertaker beat that faggot at the Rumble." What didn't happen was "Hey, guys did you hear, Mike Tyson is going to be in the audience cheering at the NEXT PPV!!!" ::::everyone within the vicinity drops what they're doing and runs home to order the show:: If No Way Out doesn't count, then International Incident doesn't count. But never mind, insert Over the Edge instead of NWO. It's obvious people weren't throwing away money at every show just because Austin was taking off. Yeah, that's probably true, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a draw. People get tired of seeing the same thing for 9 months. It happens. Hell, people finally get tired of the Rock and Hogan, two of the greatest draws ever. I was responding to the paragraph where you said "people pay to see Shawn's opponents more than him". Well UT fought Sid and got a really low buyrate, he fought Farooq and he got a low buyrate, he fought Austin and got an okay buyrate, he fought Shawn and got an okay buyrate as well but it was better (one of them at least) than Austin's. What upward trend? Bret had ONE IYH that did better following IYH5. Giving Bret credit for the shows after he lost the belt just makes it look like you're reaching. A more realistic way to look at it is right after Bret took the belt, they went down, and right after Shawn took the belt they went up. Or maybe Bret's feb IYH can be attributed to the "rise of Shawn". Do you think Bret didn't have a downward trend from when he won the belt in 92 and 94? Again, it's just as fair to use 98 where Austin was inflating buyrates as 96 where the weak cards were DEflating buyrates. You realize, that if Shawn hadn't got injured, buyrates would still have continued to go up and he'd have bound to main event some more of those PPVs from 98-00, right? Then his average would be a whole LOT better than Bret's. That's why this doesn't work. Cookie Monster says Shawn wasn't a great draw. But he wasn't a bad one either. He was average as a face and good as a heel. Better than Bret, Taker, Diesel, and Sid, but not up there with the greats. I mention Austin a lot because I don't think he was great enough to get everyone and their mama to order WM14 and get a 2.3 rating all by himself, and even though you might not think DX drew, a lot of people hated them and did want to see Shawn get beat up. Tyson and the rest of the card helped, but a lot of things in 96 such as HBK's opponents and the undercard hurt. If you throw out WM14, you have to throw out all of Shawn's PPVs from 96 and 97. Since you're already writing off IYH5, It's Time, Final Four, WM13, Cold Day in Hell, Revenge of the Taker, Canadian Stampede, Summerslam97, RR98, NWO98, and Over the Edge98, I can't see why I can't write off those.

Exactly. ^These categories suck! What does "action" and "adventure" mean as categories? Now, "Action/Platform" I understand. "Adventure" I have no idea about, because that's pretty much any platform-ish game. Oh, once upon a time Castlevania played almost nothing like Metroid. Action = Mario, Castlevania, Contra, Mega Man Adventure = Zelda type games Sports games, ugh. I know this is a wrestling board, but still.. why play a video game of something when you can do in real life?

He was a clear face and stopped insulting fans as early as May. He was definitely a face around the USA/Canada angle. That PPV proves jack shit. If Shawn fighting Shamrock and HHH fought Sgt Slaugher.is proof that DX can't draw, then Austin fighting Foley at Over the Edge and getting a .5 rating is proof that AUSTIN DID NOT DRAW. If I'm a Shawn mark and even I didn't order DX, what does that tell you?

So you're saying there's no way in hell that WM14's STACKED under card and SumSlam96 having one of the weakest undercards ever had an effect on the buyrates? Sure, they had terrible undercards if you're a smart mark. But to everyone else, just about every single wrestler was over, almost the extreme opposite of 96. Oh please, he BETTER have raised them considering how low he brought them down! Yet strangely enough, never as bad as Bret's december PPV where he fought the same opponent. Look at how Shawn took the ball from Bret in 97 and ratings climbed steadily up after that. Austin was a rising star since WM13, so why didn't ratings go up until October and November? People bought the PPV to see Tyson cheering in the stands instead of for the main event? Uhh... And this is one of the few times I can think of where they actually didn't try to make out the Royal Rumble to be the main event. Austin was in it, but no one else stood a chance. It didn't have any star power. On the other hand, Shawn vs UT had tremendous hype mainly due to Bad Blood. Shawn wasn't even at NWO by the way. Why couldn't the "rise of Austin" sell that one? NYC was just a weird crowd. He didn't get booed anywhere else in 96. Alright. Everyone performed terribly, but Shawn still had a better buyrate average than Bret from 95 and on. And Undertaker? Hell, Bad Blood almost did just as much as the WRESTLEMANIA that UT main evented.

AS is an old bastard.

Like fuck they are. Why don't you compare from 1995 and on? If you look at it like that, then Shawn easily wins .83 (or .80) to .74 Notice how Bret brought them wayyyyyyyyyyyy the hell down for It's Time? Diesel/Mabel did better than Summerslam97 too. WM11 with Shawn vs Diesel also did better than Shawn vs Bret at WM12. And of course either Shawn vs Bulldog did much better than IYH5. So it's not fair to give Shawn credit for 98 but it's fair to credit Shawn with a PPV where Shamrock main evented? How does that work? Austin was doing the exact same thing since WM13 but ratings stayed the same and they didn't magically go up until around october. Hey, about the same time DX started. DX (the PPV that is) had the shittiest card ever, but ratings were up. Everybody hated them. That's not to say that they drew as much as Austin in 98, but you can't say that they DIDN'T draw and you sure as hell can't base it on that one shitty ass PPV. Either way, if you can go ahead and try to explain away 98 to Austin, I can explain away 96 to Shawn fighting a lot of nobodies and the under card of every single show being made up of guys nobody cared about.