Smackdown sans Heyman

[Guest Spaceman Spiff]

OK, don't laugh, because I *know* there were people on here saying that replacing Heyman as head writer for SD was a good idea (most notably Brian - hey, where'd he go?)

 

There were a number of *valid* criticisms about Heyman's booking of SD. Notably:

1) The Angle/Brock feud - Brock getting the better of Kurt & Team Angle almost every time

2) The quasi-lesbian Torrie/Dawn storyline (which people said had Heyman's fingerprints all over it), and addition of Al Wilson

3) The "SD 6" matches were pretty pointless (elevation-wise), as they really didn't go anywhere and the matches didn't evolve as the guys kept facing each other

4) The cruisers were basically jobbers for the big guys

 

So, were several months removed from Heyman's ouster. Let's take a look at SD, post-Heyman

1) The Brock/Angle feud improved (hey, even Anglesault said so!). OK, a positive, but that's about it in the way of positives.

2) Another quasi-lesbian storyline featuring Torrie/Sable. Not getting as much time as Torrie/Dawn, but Heyman isn't around to blame this one on

3) How're the SD 6 faring? Benoit has assumed the Jericho role, Rey is being thrown around by Big Show, Eddy still in the tag ranks

4) The cruisers are still jobbers to the big guys. Mattitude is the champ, and they have no idea what to do w/ him.

5) They have no idea what to do w/ Brock (see, Brock/Big Show II)

6) Mr. America is taking up more time than the Al Wilson saga

7) There's been less wrestling on the show

8) 2 talented guys are back from long injury-related absences (Kanyon & Rhyno) and could be used to freshen up SD, but they have no idea what to do w/ them

 

Just something I've been thinking about lately. Anybody still agree w/ the removal of Heyman?

Edited May 18, 2003 by Spaceman Spiff

[Guest Heavy As Hell]

For me, I prefer meaningless SD6 matches to not having them. Everything else is pretty much the same before and after Heyman. The 'wrong' people/stories get too much time. Cruisers are still used improperly. The ladies still get to do their lesbian thing to please Vince.

 

The spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down when they were giving us a treat each week of a lengthy match(regardless of whether or not it is 'meaningless') in my opinion anyway.

[Guest Morality Check]

In case you forgot... the Dawn/Al/Torrie segments were, apparently, the highest rated segments on Smackdown! for several weeks in a row. So... it's only natural that they kept it going, 'cause it was getting ratings.

 

Notice how as soon as the angle's segments started droping in the ratings, they killed (no pun intended) the angle off right away.

 

Word.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Anyone willing to look back and compare the amount of wrestling on Heymans Smackdown compared to the Heymanless Smackdown. I've got it clocked at 22 minutes vs. 30 minutes of wrestling. But that's rough.

[Guest Blue Bacchus]

I haven't really noticed a difference.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

It is easily worse.

[Guest Mole]

Yeah, much worse.

[Guest Kid Kablam]

you know you can throw statistics around and stuff, but all I know is that I turned off the TV only during the Dawn Wilson stuff when Heyman is around. Now, I onley watch about 20 mins of Smackdown a week. To me that's the stat that matters, how often I turn V.

[Guest TheBostonStrangler]

However, Paul Heyman had Kurt Angle, Edge, and Undertaker to work with. The current Smackdown has replaced them with Mr. America, Roddy Piper, and the FBI. Given the amount of talent they had to work with, I'd say that they've been about equal. I'd like to see some better wrestling out of the show, but right now, they're just missing a lot of their key guys.

[Guest Spaceman Spiff]

Kurt Angle - OK, tough to replace. But Benoit & Eddy are treading water right now. Either/both could have stepped in.

 

Edge - replaceable

 

Taker - involved w/ Nathan Jones, A-Train, and Big Show before he left, so he wasn't really in any big storylines.

 

Kanyon & Rhyno returned. Knoble is doing nothing. Rey is doing nothing. Mattitude is in a holding pattern. Kendrick doing nothing.

 

All of these guys are talented, and could easily step up & fill the void if handled correctly, so I don't buy the losses of Edge & Taker as being that much of a problem. Sure, Edge was over w/ the crowd, but so was Rhyno before he left & after he came back, and they failed to capitalize on it. The talent is there to fill these voids.

[Guest El Satanico]

It's not like they did anything with Edge before he was hurt.

 

Edge was being used as filler talent before the injury. Which is how Beniot is now being used. Undertaker would be involved with FBI if he wasn't hurt so it's not like he's a big piece they're missing. Kurt Angle is the only missing guy, that's actually hurting the show.

 

Beniot could've easily replaced Edge.

 

 

EDIT: damn you spiff

[Guest AndrewTS]

I thought Kevin Dung was pushing for the Dawn/Al/Torrie shit?

[Guest Austin3164life]

Things were better with Paul Heyman around.

[Guest ISportsFan]

Things were better with Paul Heyman around.

Amen.

 

Jason

[Guest treble charged]

Heyman is over-rated. If he was as good as some people say he is, ECW would still be around today and be making money hand over fist.

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

Heyman is over-rated. If he was as good as some people say he is, ECW would still be around today and be making money hand over fist.

That statement is so ridiculous. Heyman is a great booker. ECW died because Heyman tried to wear too many hats at once, and never delegated. He should have left the business side of ECW to someone else.

[Guest treble charged]

A great product would have meant ECW would have made more money and he could have hired someone competant to run the business side of things.

 

It always boggles me how Bischoff, Russo, et al. always get blamed for WCW dying, but Heyman gets off blame-free when it comes to the death of ECW.

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

A great product would have meant ECW would have made more money.

That isn't always true. ECW had a stigma about it, and a network not behind it, that crippled it's chances to expand.

[Guest Boomer Sprinklespax]

To expand on what NoSelfWorth said...to say that Heyman is overrated because ECW would still be around and making money is insane. Heyman took a company that was nothing and booked it into a contender, an admittedly failed contender, but a contender nonetheless. ECW started as low as you can get without being backyard, running a couple shows a month, and became a nationwide company that ran regular PPV's, sold merchandise, had a TV deal that got fucked up due to the TV company, and, last but not least, developed a cult fan following that is still strong today. Sorry, but if Heyman is so overrated, why do people still routinely wear ECW shirts and chant EC Dub whenever former performers are in a ring together? And then there's the whole, y'know, Vince-stealing-everything-from-Paul-and-calling-it-"Attitude" thing...

[Guest El Psycho Diablo]

A great product would have meant ECW would have made more money and he could have hired someone competant to run the business side of things.

 

It always boggles me how Bischoff, Russo, et al. always get blamed for WCW dying, but Heyman gets off blame-free when it comes to the death of ECW.

WCW died more of the fact they lost their network than anything else. The same thing would happen if WWE lost theirs now..

[Guest treble charged]

To expand on what NoSelfWorth said...to say that Heyman is overrated because ECW would still be around and making money is insane. Heyman took a company that was nothing and booked it into a contender, an admittedly failed contender, but a contender nonetheless. ECW started as low as you can get without being backyard, running a couple shows a month, and became a nationwide company that ran regular PPV's, sold merchandise, had a TV deal that got fucked up due to the TV company, and, last but not least, developed a cult fan following that is still strong today. Sorry, but if Heyman is so overrated, why do people still routinely wear ECW shirts and chant EC Dub whenever former performers are in a ring together? And then there's the whole, y'know, Vince-stealing-everything-from-Paul-and-calling-it-"Attitude" thing...

Heyman is over-rated, since a lot of people make him out to be a god, ignoring the fact that most of his success has come from telling people to go out there and perform. In ECW, it was telling a bunch of people to go out there and take a bunch of crazy bumps. ECW was built more on the wrestlers than the booker. Heyman's WWE legacy will be all the great SD 6 matches, but really, how good of a booker do you have to be to go, 'Angle, Benoit. You 2 go out there and have a great match'?

 

I think Heyman is a decent booker and has booked some good angles, but he's not as great as some make him out to be.

[Guest Boomer Sprinklespax]

To expand on what NoSelfWorth said...to say that Heyman is overrated because ECW would still be around and making money is insane. Heyman took a company that was nothing and booked it into a contender, an admittedly failed contender, but a contender nonetheless. ECW started as low as you can get without being backyard, running a couple shows a month, and became a nationwide company that ran regular PPV's, sold merchandise, had a TV deal that got fucked up due to the TV company, and, last but not least, developed a cult fan following that is still strong today. Sorry, but if Heyman is so overrated, why do people still routinely wear ECW shirts and chant EC Dub whenever former performers are in a ring together? And then there's the whole, y'know, Vince-stealing-everything-from-Paul-and-calling-it-"Attitude" thing...

Heyman is over-rated, since a lot of people make him out to be a god, ignoring the fact that most of his success has come from telling people to go out there and perform. In ECW, it was telling a bunch of people to go out there and take a bunch of crazy bumps. ECW was built more on the wrestlers than the booker. Heyman's WWE legacy will be all the great SD 6 matches, but really, how good of a booker do you have to be to go, 'Angle, Benoit. You 2 go out there and have a great match'?

 

I think Heyman is a decent booker and has booked some good angles, but he's not as great as some make him out to be.

I never called him a god, but it sure seems to be an impossibility for anyone else in the WWE to do what seems to be so simple to the rest of us, namely throw good wrestlers out there together.

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

most of his success has come from telling people to go out there and perform.

You can say that about every booker ever. Heyman is a great booker, period.

[Guest Boomer Sprinklespax]

Heyman is great because he knows that less is more when it comes to booking. He doesn't arrange for oodles of mindless run-ins or stupid non-finishes or stupid angles (well, not too often, anyways). Heyman knows the key to great wrestling booking is great wrestlers booked with real finishes, i.e. he rarely if ever OVERBOOKS anything. And that's a point that not many often grasp.

[Guest treble charged]

Wasn't Heyman the head writer on SmackDown when the Al Wilson/Dawn Marie/Torrie shit was taking up lots of TV time?

 

A great booker would have made the company a ton of money, which Heyman didn't. A great booker wouldn't have burned out the SD 6 stuff as quickly as Heyman did.

 

Heyman is a good booker, but not he's not as great as you say he is.

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

Wasn't Heyman the head writer on SmackDown when the Al Wilson/Dawn Marie/Torrie shit was taking up lots of TV time?

 

A great booker would have made the company a ton of money, which Heyman didn't.  A great booker wouldn't have burned out the SD 6 stuff as quickly as Heyman did.

 

Heyman is a good booker, but not he's not as great as you say he is.

The Al Wilson stuff was not his idea, and he had no choice but to do it. What you have to realise, is that Heyman, in WWE, is very restriced in what he can do. Give him free reign, and he will work wonders with the Smackdown roster.

[Guest treble charged]

See, that's another thing. Heyman was still writing SmackDown at this point, yet people tend to overlook anything bad he did and blame it on someone else, while anything remotely good was all his doing.

[Guest JHawk]

With Heyman: Entertaining shows centered around wrestling, plus the Al Wilson bullshit.

 

Without Heyman: Mediocre shows centered around everything but wrestling matches (one four minute match in the second hour?)

 

I'd say they were better off with Heyman.

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

yet people tend to overlook anything bad he did and blame it on someone else, while anything remotely good was all his doing.

You seem to be doing the exact opposite.

[Guest treble charged]

I've said Heyman was a good booker, just not as great as people like to say he is, which is why I said he was over-rated. I really don't remember any really good storylines from Heyman's run as SD booker, just a bunch of great matches that everyone on this board could have booked.

 

Heyman = good, but over-rated.