Nice column from lance

[Guest Hogan Made Wrestling]

From Lance Storm's website:

 

Since this is likely the biggest thing to happen in wrestling since the WWF purchased WCW I guess it’s only right to give you my thoughts on the Brand Extension, or Split of the WWF talent rooster. The comment board has been full of inquiries so let’s just deal with this once, here and now.

 

I think the division of talent is a very positive step. Wrestling has always been a cyclical business. Popularity rises and falls every few years. I think now that we’ve broken through and become more accepted, main stream, the lows will never go as low as they once did, but lulls are inevitable. What causes lulls? Usually, in my opinion, it’s over exposure of the top stars.

 

The WWF has 4 hours of prime time programming per week. That’s a lot, and does not include the syndicated stuff including Heat and Metal. I’m a big NYPD Blue fan and I love Andy Sipowitz (played by Dennis Franz) He does maybe 26 episodes a year, which air once a week for 6 to 7 months then there is the 5 month, or so, off season. I get to see Andy, at most, 26 times a year. Under the current (soon to be past structure) a Rock fan sees Rocky twice a week (Raw & SmackDown), once a month on PPV, and after April 19th, at a theater near you, in The Scorpion King. (Sorry for the shameless plug.) That totals 117 times a year maybe more if you see Scorpion King more than once (Oops, another shameless plug).

 

You’re looking at more than 4 times the exposure of most network TV stars. With the new schedule that is almost cut in half, which should add longevity to a Superstar’s popularity. It should also slow angles down. When angles need to be advanced twice a week, storylines run their course very quickly. Back in the day’s of Hulkamania, you would only see “big name” matches on Saturday Night’s Main Events and at the 4 annual PPV’s. Those appearances totaled 10 a year and a feud between Hogan and Mr. Wonderful would run an entire year.

 

The Austin – Angle feud was fantastic and lasted only 3-4 months and fans wouldn’t have wanted it that long if the work rate and match quality wasn’t so incredibly high. Champions run through talent at a blistering pace and titles change hands monthly, sometimes even weekly. With the amount of big shows that each individual has to do being cut in half, programs and feuds should slow down and as a result careers should lengthen.

 

The other big advantage is that there is now an opportunity for others to step up and get some much needed exposure. On Raw and SmackDown there is room for maybe 16 guys per show. With the rooster division there will be 8 of those on each side allowing room for another 8 from each side to make TV. There is a lot of talent in our locker room very eager to do this. (Me for one! Hell I plugged Scorpion King for Rocky twice (I guess now three times) I can promote myself a little bit, can’t I?) With 6-8 new faces on each show both products should have a fresh feel to them with enough of the original “big name” faces to still make it a star studded show.

 

I for one am very interested to see how both shows develop, and please do me a favour. Give both shows a chance before jumping on the Internet bandwagon and criticizing everything. The Internet has a habit of looking for anything they can feed off of negatively. There will be a few plusses and minuses to both shows at the beginning, give them a chance and look at the big picture before passing judgment.

 

Till next week,

Lance Storm

[Guest]

So in other words, Storm is saying "Shut the fuck up! Don't be a Smark and just try look at wrestling as a fan!" LoL

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

I don't look for anythign I can be negative about. The negativety is usually staring me right in the face...lol.

[Guest The Man in Blak]

I like the point that he made about the amount of TV exposure that main eventers get and it's something I never thought about.  Lance is almost always like "Shut the fuck up, you ignorant smarks" a lot of the time anyway, but at least this time he was insightful.  Excellent column.

[Guest Zero_Cool]

I thnks he speaks with great meaning...or something like that

 

Well, his ideas do make sense, now that people will have to turn into Smackdown! to get their weekly Rock fix.  It's kind of what the American Government did during the Great Depression.  Crops were being prodcued at a rapid, and prices for said crops were lousy, because there was no demand.  So the Government pulled off something a bit questioned..they had farmers kill about half of their crops, so the demand in crops would go up.  Crop prices rose, and farmers made a bit of money.

 

 

Zoom forward a bit.  The WWF is almost doing this, creating demand for certain, and almost forcing people to tune into which ever show The Rock and hopefully Stone Cold are on.  It could help out things...if they don't find a way to screw it up.

[Guest art_vandelay]

LOL @ Scorpion King.  He deserves more mic time.

[Guest The Masked Yodeler]

Well, the roster split was a great idea that could have revolutionized wrestling and brought the WWF out of it's slump.  But so was the InVasion.

 

And so far, the roster split hasn't been implemented very well so far.  It's only been two weeks, but they've made just about every possible mistake so far.

 

That said, I have high hopes for it in the long run if Vince gives it time, and doesn't go into panic mode when the ratings don't jump a full point every week.

[Guest]

Good points made there. I didn't see that as a "fuck off, Smark" statement as much as a "give it a chance, SmarK" kind of thing. Which is what I intend to do. Although I have a feeling that may not last long with Raw. We'll see. This is pretty much make or break as far as big angles go.

[Guest Mole]

Is Storm on Raw or Smackdown?

[Guest RickyB]

Storm's on Smackdown.  I hope they switch him to Raw for some matches with RVD or vice versa.

 

I've read a lot of Storm's commentries and he's usually cool with the smarks.  He uses a lot of Wrestling terms and the only time he said anything bad about smarks is about the Workers list that some site made.  You can't rate workers because rating a worker is different to rating a Wrestler:

 

A good Wrestler is someone who can put on a good technical Wrestling match and can get the fans interested in the match with near falls and telling a story in the match.

 

A good Worker is someone who can take a Wrestler in the ring and talk them through the match, they can take a green Wrestler and call each spot, cover up mistakes.  They can take a poor worker and make them look good.  They also don't work so light that people can see that they aren't hurting the other Wrestler, but they don't work so stiff that they are actually hurting the other Wrestler.

 

That's why most Wrestlers say "you can't rate a worker unless you've worked them" because you can't.  You can rate a Wrestlers technical ability by watching them, but you can't rate a worker unless you've been in the ring with them.

[Guest Hogan Made Wrestling]

Actually I disagreed with Storm's take on that issue, because all he was doing was needlessly splitting hairs over what terminology is correct. Besides, its not like if you pick up a copy of Websters, it will have the wrestling meaning of "worker" in it. There is no authority on wrestling terminology.