Heyman asked Stephanie to step down

[Guest RedJed]

Probably because Heyman was too busy trying to run the whole show by himself. Finances, promos, booking, and scripting.

 

Because Paul the booker was apart of every main event angle for the past seven months he's been head of the booking team. He's managed guys on the side like Albert and Team Angle. He worked with Hardy and Moore backstage. Damn those McMahons~!

You don't get that Vince and Steph oversee all writing on each show though.........you act like it cant be possible that they even put their foot in on their own families product. Its completely naive to think that. You act like all of Smackdowns desicions, even Raws at times were all in Heymans hand and he could do whatever he wanted with them.

[Guest Silence]

As much as I dig Steph, she might want to back up a little and let Heyman work a little Paul E. Dangerously magic. I know ratings would boom.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I think he is just trying to balance the scale. Heyman seems to get out blame free from everything wrong and seems to get credited with everything right. Albert over Matt Hardy - That's Johnny Ace. Katie Vick - that's Kevin Dunn. Crappy Skits - that's Brian Gerwitz. Angle vs. Benoit 15 minutes on Smackdown - that's all Heyman. Rey getting Elevated - that's Heyman. Rey getting buried - that's Ace. I have heard no one blamed for Al Wilson yet.

[Guest bob_barron]

That was a combination of Stephanie, Dunn, Vince and Gerwitz.

 

I bet Paul spent the whole time protesting the angle and asking for it to be stopped so that he could push all these good wrestlers instead

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

... Even though it involved Dawn Marie - a Heyman favourite.

 

"Oh, this is Paul trying to make something so bad it's funny" - Jeff "metlzer" Mark... I mean Marek in October.

 

Marek really didn't say much when they killed off good ole Al...

[Guest RedJed]

One thing I give to the Al Wilson storyline........I thought it was funny how the announcers would shit on it like they did. That made it easier to swallow for some reason, plus Al Wilson was so awful of an actor that he reminded me of those low grade B-movies from Troma films that I used to get a kick out of.

 

So whoever came up with the idea to not take the storylines seriously......thank you. The major problem I had with all of that crap is that the payoff was completely pointless. They should have done something way more when they did the wedding, like some swerve and Dawn Marie is revealed to have been secretly plotting with her other man (Kidman?) to humiliate Torries dad in every way possible or something. Instead we get an OD on Viagra, ugh. Oh yeah and that classic ppv match between the two for the blowoff at the Rumble.

[Guest El Psycho Diablo]

Even if Heyman was part of those angles, what kind of say did he have?

 

It's been said that nothing gets past Vince without him thinking it's a good idea. Might as well say Vince and Stephanie..because that's the way it is. Even if Heyman WAS behind those, the problem lies at the very top of the company anyway.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

The thing I don't get about the Al Wilson feud... How did it manage to take up 3 segments per show and get hype when clearly nobody cared?

[Guest El Psycho Diablo]

The thing I don't get about the Al Wilson feud... How did it manage to take up 3 segments per show and get hype when clearly nobody cared?

Explanation: Torrie is the HHH of the Women's Division. Constant going over other people might get her over.

[Guest RedJed]

The thing I don't get about the Al Wilson feud... How did it manage to take up 3 segments per show and get hype when clearly nobody cared?

Someones believed in its purpose I guess, plus believe it or not it usually got the best QR rating of the night if they had a segment in the ring with DM, Torrie, or Al.......I remember reading a quote they had with Kevin Dunn during one of those columns particular newspapers would do in "behind the scenes" look at the show and Dunn confidently claimed that the segment they were doing that night with Dawn Marie and Al would get the highest rating of the night. Not sure if it did or not though.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Damn her!

 

But how can we make witty usages of her name like we can withhh Hunter?

 

This is no good.

[Guest El Psycho Diablo]

Don't worry, somebody here will think of something.

 

...right?

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Oh oh oh!

 

Oh that Jazz, she is such a hard worker. Unlike SOMEONE else in this territorrie...

 

SWISH~!

[Guest JMA]

Yea- he has a lot of guts telling Eddy Guerrero to do his dirty work.

 

A smrter booker wouldn't have killed the SD! 6 in two months. Heyman did

Heyman was the one who made the speech about the conflict of interest. Not Eddy. I repeat, not Eddy.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

[[Meltzer doesn't pick out the awards himself, man. That should be obvious.]]

 

As I pointed out later, Meltzer is responsible for what most of his readers believe in wrestling. He's Meltzer. He says something, they believe it. This is fairly obvious. So, if Dave has the power to control what people think, he should take responsibility for what they vote for.

 

[[And Smackdown didn't drop in the ratings more than Raw, if you want me to give you a full month by month breakdown of it, so be it.]]

 

Oh, by all means, bud, go ahead. I've seen the Raw and Smackdown! numbers from sweeps last year and the Raw and Smackdown! numbers from sweeps this year. Raw fell less.

 

[[You guys are equally as blurred by pure Heyman hate (without logic other than you "hear" things from a source at TOA, which is all you can base your arguments from) than some are for praising him for everything.]]

 

Other than the source at tOA that reported Paul at the booking meatings, all my arguements come from what I see on my television and what I read from Scherer, Meltzer, and Keller. I didn't "make up" anything that I said. The numbers did go down on Smackdown! more than Raw. Injuries are happening all over the place, especially among the "Smackdown! Six" which I believe has to do with Paul's idea of throwing them out there every week in increasingly dangerous matches. This is also taken from his track reccord in ECW, where he showed little concern towards the well-being of his workers.

 

Believe what ever you want. Nothing I say is "made up" by the braintrust at tOA.

 

[[You're basing everything off like the WWE creative situation is a cut and dry issue, which should be obvious that its not.]]

 

Obviously it's not a cut and dry issue, but claiming that Heyman is the source of everything good and the opponent of everything bad is not only a ridiculous attitude, but a common one among the people here. Ratings are down, injuries are up, and yet Heyman has supposedly "improved" things. This is the attitude I am trying to prevent.

 

[[if you want people who are for Heyman to open their eyes, then you can't be so biased yourself.]]

 

It's easy to call someone biased. It's a common tactic to say "you're just biased" or "you've got an agenda" when someone makes a point of questioning something that you disagree with. What have I said that is biased? Why do you assume that I have a bias?

 

Instead of throwing the blanket statement over my arguement, you should justify your statement.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Yea- he has a lot of guts telling Eddy Guerrero to do his dirty work.

 

A smrter booker wouldn't have killed the SD! 6 in two months. Heyman did

Heyman was the one who made the speech about the conflict of interest. Not Eddy. I repeat, not Eddy.

Which brings up the obvious question, if Paul's the writer, why doesn't he just talk to the rest of creative instead of telling Eddy to talk to them?

 

I think that's what he meant when he said that, anyway.

[Guest RedJed]

I have yet to see any of the guys on the anti-Heyman side even give him a little credit for helping out the cause on Smackdown, thats all I was saying by the biased statement. You aren't reasoning out things, instead immediately opposing the viewpoint just because it has to do with Heyman. Example, the comment about just because Meltzer says something is either good or bad, then immediately everyone agrees with him. You won't even consider the concept that maybe fans just feel the way they feel consensusly because they actually DO enjoy a product such as the Smackdown program that was voted best of 2002 by the readers. Instead it's "Oh thats all Meltzer propaganda, etc..........readers and fans of his publication don't have a viewpoint of their own." If thats what you truly believe so be it, but maybe it will make you understand why some may feel that the opposing viewpoint is from the same concept then (if Williams from TOA didn't exist, would you believe in half of the stuff you are saying, etc).

 

Ok here are the numbers from Raw and Smackdown since June, tell me who had fell harder here.

 

Raw Ratings (per month average)

June - 3.98

July - 4.01

Aug - 3.89

Sept - 3.54

Oct - 3.69

Nov - 3.44

Dec - 3.34

Jan - 3.85

 

Smackdown Ratings (PMA)

June - 3.80

July - 3.82

Aug - 3.83

Sept - 4.10

Oct - 4.08

Nov - 4.08

Dec - 3.86

Jan - 3.93

 

How do you figure Smackdown lost more viewers now again? I'm missing the reasoning.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I never hear anything bad said about Paul Heyman by Meltzer or Marek. All good things are because of Paul, all the bad things are out of his hands. That's uneven. When I found out that Heyman feeds Meltzer info, things started to make sense.

[Guest Mulatto Heat]

When I think of the SD 6 booking, while I appreciate the effort Heyman brought to the table with that, I can't help but think of a couple of questions:

 

1) What upward mobility REALLY resulted from all those matches?

2) Was it REALLY worth it after the injuries that occured to half the SD 6?

[Guest RickyChosyu]

[[i have yet to see any of the guys on the anti-Heyman side even give him a little credit for helping out the cause on Smackdown, thats all I was saying by the biased statement.]]

 

That's because I don't think he's helped matters. If a) increasing injuries and b) making no progress in ratings is "helping" then how would you define "hurting."

 

[[You aren't reasoning out things, instead immediately opposing the viewpoint just because it has to do with Heyman. Example, the comment about just because Meltzer says something is either good or bad, then immediately everyone agrees with him. You won't even consider the concept that maybe fans just feel the way they feel consensusly because they actually DO enjoy a product such as the Smackdown program that was voted best of 2002 by the readers.]]

 

I don't feel that way in regards to just Heyman. I think in many instances, Meltzer is the sole source of information his readers have in a specific area. For example, the "wrestler of the year" award has often gone to Japanese wrestlers (Misawa in '99, for example) where many of the readers probably didn't even see a good amount of Misawa's matches that year, but because Dave tells them "Misawa is really tearing it up this year" they go and vote for Misawa.

 

In this case, the readers themselves have a direct access to the material in question, but if you read Dave's reports of the ratings, he often spins things in a pro-Smackdown! fashon. If Raw falls from a 4.8 to a 4.2, it's a disaster and the world is ending tomorrow, but if Smackdown goes from a 4.1 to a 3.7, it's "good, considering it was pre-empted in several markets," or something to that affect. Dave doesn't reach the "Let's-Go-Hey-Man" level that 1wrestling and the Torch Crew often do, but he seems pretty comfortable depicting Smackdown! as the show that's succeeding while Raw is about to combust.

 

Dave did this, mind you, while keeping the assumption that "Heyman only writes for Smackdown!" which I firmly believe is not true. Even if you don't find tOA to be a credible source in this case (I find that ridiculous, but I assume that's how you feel), I must once again ask what Heyman was doing arguing with Gerwitz about his writing? If Heyman only wrote for Smackdown! and was completely unafiliated with Raw, why were he and Gerwitz even talking to begin with?

 

That Dave never reported Paul's involvment with Raw is disturbing. With the amount of people he talks to, the only possible explanation is a) his other sources are protecting Paul or b) he's protecting Paul. Take your pick.

 

[[if thats what you truly believe so be it, but maybe it will make you understand why some may feel that the opposing viewpoint is from the same concept then (if Williams from TOA didn't exist, would you believe in half of the stuff you are saying, etc).]]

 

I'm not going to pretend that reading tOA doesn't influence my opinion. I do not, however, simply recite everything they say. I watched ECW with all its horrible shows and laughable attempts at being "extreme" again and didn't believe the excuses I heard. Now, I see a situation very similar to that, and I once again don't believe some of the things I hear people say in favor of Heyman. Heyman being a "balsy, tell-it-like-it-is" type, for instance, is ridiculous. If Heyman is such a stand-up guy, why did he wait this long to question Stephanie's intesions? Trip and her have been together for at least two years now. What, he didn't think it would be an issue prior to their engagement? Do you expect me to believe that?

 

You can think whatever you want. If you want to call me a drone, go ahead. It's not like I've never been never been accused of of that before.

 

[[Ok here are the numbers from Raw and Smackdown since June, tell me who had fell harder here.

 

*insert ratings*

 

How do you figure Smackdown lost more viewers now again? I'm missing the reasoning.]]

 

Like I said before, the February sweeps period from 2002 compared to that of 2003 was my example. I don't have the numbers on hand, but as it was presented to me, the neilson ratings for Raw in the February sweeps period of 2003 had fallen compared to the 2002 sweeps, fell less than Smackown!'s.

 

*Edited it include the blurb on Meltzer not reporting Heyman's involvement on Raw*

[Guest geniusMoment]

Edge's injury occured because he hurt his knee and protected it by landing high on his shoulders which is how he hurt his neck.

Mysterio had knee problems well before WWE and his knee just needed to be scoped, nothing to do with WWE.

Angle's occured because of years of abuse on an already injured neck, again not heymans fault.

As for why we plain Gerwitz for the stupid skits, well its because he writes a lot of the comedy stuff.

Dunn likes Vinces vision of wrestling so he also adds in skits. This comes from Keller, Meltzer and Scherer so I tend to believe them.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Heyman did a nice job of spreading out the main event scene. Would there be a 'Smackdown 6' without his booking?

 

On the flipside, look where they are now...

[Guest RedJed]

If you honestly have never heard of guys like Keller or Meltzer be negative towards anything Heyman related, that it part of the problem. Rest assured they have. This goes back even to the days of ECW. Off the top of my head I remember also both the thanksgiving Smackdown show getting panned by both publications, as well as some heavy critisizm for the mess involving Heyman going with Angle.

[Guest RedJed]

"Dave did this, mind you, while keeping the assumption that "Heyman only writes for Smackdown!" which I firmly believe is not true. Even if you don't find tOA to be a credible source in this case (I find that ridiculous, but I assume that's how you feel), I must once again ask what Heyman was doing arguing with Gerwitz about his writing? If Heyman only wrote for Smackdown! and was completely unafiliated with Raw, why were he and Gerwitz even talking to begin with?"

 

As I've stated before its certainly not out of the question that all of the writers meet in the same group at times in the week to go over both shows (does anyone for certain know how the WWE creative meetings are handled? Thats my point), and while not all are actually writing everything for both shows, I would suggest that McMahon allows everyone on the creative staff to offer their viewpoints for even the opposing show they work for. But if you don't buy that, its certainly logical that the entire staff works on the actual booking of the ppvs, at least.

[Guest Mulatto Heat]

Edge's injury occured because he hurt his knee and protected it by landing high on his shoulders which is how he hurt his neck.

Mysterio had knee problems well before WWE and his knee just needed to be scoped, nothing to do with WWE.

Angle's occured because of years of abuse on an already injured neck, again not heymans fault.

Yes, and I'm sure the aggravation or re-aggravation of these injuries had NOTHING at all to do with those rigourous (and ultimately, pointless) SD 6 matches from last fall.....

 

Please.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

[[Edge's injury occured because he hurt his knee and protected it by landing high on his shoulders which is how he hurt his neck.]]

 

And who was credited with booking that match? Did it help either man involved?

 

Does it also help if I point out that both those guys have suffered neck injuries that will put them out for year? Furthermore, do you realize that those two were put out there every week doing countless dangerous rolling german spots among other bad neck bumps?

 

And lastly, do all the "Smackdown Six" tag matches resemble Paul's favored pairs in ECW to you? From my perspective, the "let's stick them out there again and see what happens" attitude of those matches greatly resembles the Awesome/Tanaka series, the Dreamer/Raven series, the Tajiri/Crazy series, the Lynn/Van Dam series, ect. al.

 

If I haven't explained it clearly enough, I think Paul has something to do with the injuries.

 

[[Mysterio had knee problems well before WWE and his knee just needed to be scoped, nothing to do with WWE.]]

 

So you're saying all those tag matches where he took all those bumps helped matters?

 

[[Angle's occured because of years of abuse on an already injured neck, again not heymans fault.]]

 

Again, how many Germans do you think Kurt took this year alone? A hundred? I haven't counted, but that number wouldn't shock me.

 

The majority of those suplexes happened in the countless singles matches against Benoit and the countless tags against the other four.

 

[[As for why we plain Gerwitz for the stupid skits, well its because he writes a lot of the comedy stuff. Dunn likes Vinces vision of wrestling so he also adds in skits. This comes from Keller, Meltzer and Scherer so I tend to believe them.]]

 

Scherer is Heyman's voice box. His cheif, and as far as I can tell *only* source of info is Heyman. This goes back to ECW and the days when Scherer would constantly vouch for them. It's nothing new.

 

Keller and Meltzer, as I said above, I have a harder time figuering out. They talk to more people than just Heyman, yet they haven't broken the news about his involvement with Raw over the past six months. Either they're getting worked, or they're working us.

 

Either one seems to be a blasphemy in these parts.

[Guest RedJed]

Either they're getting worked, or they're working us.

Or you're getting worked also, left out that option.

 

And then just when I thought I had seen it all here..........a BOOKER is blamed for injuries too.......

 

I think its absurd to blame injuries on Heyman since once again, we don't know who comes up with match context plans. Most matches are actually planned by the workers themselves, and are just told of a finish. I highly doubt, for example, that Heyman just tells them "Go out there and german each others asses off" or what have you. Benoit has always had that moveset, as well as Angle, so its not like their workrate style had just suddenly changed when Heyman began booking Smackdown. If anything they were just told you do what they want to do and to not be regulated by a filter of a punch-kick-punch style, which I don't see as a bad thing. Injuries happen, its a part of the business......and Raw has as many injured workers as Smackdown so should we also blame Brian Gerwitz as well? How about blaming Eric Bischoff for every damn injury that happened in WCW?

 

This discussion is getting borderline ridiculous, I thought I would never see the day that a booker or writer would be put the blame on for injuries. This is EXACTLY what I mean by pure bias.

[Guest Mulatto Heat]

I'll remember that when thinking about how TLC 3 put Benoit out for a year and the match didn't even get nominated for the Best of 2001 show, and that all of the SD 6 matches from last year were forgotten when it came time to nominate for the Best of 2002.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Hearing Dave talk about Heyman this week, hearing Marek just suck his dick on every occasion... No, they are incredibly biased toward him.

 

So how does Heyman get credit for the great matches on Smackdown if the Bookers are the ones who tell them what to do?

 

Heyman was in control of the Benoit/Angle feud - can we all agree on that? From WM 17-on when that feud began it's safe to say Heyman was controlling it. It was a very poorly booked and written feud. The only saving grace was the fact that Benoit and Angle were involved and Benoit and Angle rock.

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

Yes.

 

However everything in the feud went to shit at Survivor Series when Vince decided to put the strap on Big Show...which is not what Heyman wanted.

 

Ever since that show all you read about is Heyman trying to put Benoit on top or get himself off screen or whatever. These things just don't seem to have happened.

 

The feud went to shit at the same time Heyman lost control.