Rather Brilliant Torch Column

[Guest TDinDC1112]

At least as far as I know Luger doesn't have holes in his memory like some wrestlers and he hasn't been convicted for beating women.  I'd say beating your wife is about as low as you can go.

Austin apologised

 

As for the "holes in their memory", since that's yet another potshot at Raven, I'll ignore that one.

So apologizing for beating your wife makes everything ok?

[Guest Goodear]

Let me just say this... if you're serious about being upset about how wrestlers are dying at an early age, you would be against this booking. You would also be upset about the re-hire of Steve Austin as well as anytime that Jake Roberts or Scott Hall actually get hired to do anything. The issue is not that these men made mistakes it is that federations are all too eager to bring them back into the fold only months or weeks after these incidents. Quite frankly there is no way for us to know that Luger has really cleaned himself up yet on a permament basis. But taking a Guerrero or Raven as an example... when Luger has gone a year or so of clean living, I see no issue in bringing him into a federation again (as far as this issue is concerned). But doing this so close to the incident with Liz, it smacks of TNA hiring a guy regardless of his health status. And that is why you get guys dropping dead all the time... because wrestling is all about making money at the expense of peoples' health.

[Guest Dave O'Neill, Journalist]

QUOTE (Dave O'Neill, Journalist @ Nov 9 2003, 11:02 PM)

QUOTE (Mad Dog @ Nov 9 2003, 11:01 PM)

At least as far as I know Luger doesn't have holes in his memory like some wrestlers and he hasn't been convicted for beating women.  I'd say beating your wife is about as low as you can go. 

 

Austin apologised

 

As for the "holes in their memory", since that's yet another potshot at Raven, I'll ignore that one. 

 

So apologizing for beating your wife makes everything ok?

 

No, but since Luger has kept schtum since the incident, and Austin went public with his apology, I'd give Austin a second chance. If Luger goes public between now and Wednesday Night, I might reconsider

 

I remember when this board actually had intelligent discussions on TNA. Can someone ban this guy already???

 

How about, no, since all I'm doing is

 

-Agreeing with a column

-Fending off flamebait from the TNA Apologists

 

You might as well hate EVERY wrestler, since 95% of the nationally (and internationally) known stars have done drugs at some points in their careers or are serious addicts.

 

So which ones are in the main event of a PPV this Wednesday?????

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

Here is my point about the whole Lex Luger argument. If Lex does drugs.....so what?! Why the hell should anyone care except Lex's family or friends? Why should I care? Hell, if we were going to hate all the people in wrestling that did drugs, we might as well wash are hands of the entire business. I personally don't think that Luger should have a job anywhere, especially in TNA. But believe me when I say it has NOTHING to do with drugs. It has to do with the fact that Luger has not another good wrestling moment in him. His athleticism is nonexistent, he was never the greatest worker, and honestly was Luger a draw anywhere? That is where TNA is making the mistake. Hell, when they were going to bring in Hogan I was actually happy about it. Simply put Hogan is a proven draw and might be worth the money that he would demand to wrestle there. Luger on the other hand isn't and it would be foolish for them to even hire him. But this would also be a PR disaster, just like we read at the beginning of this thread. Now granted that most of us could give a shit about the letter, but considering there are followers out there of these newletters they might not order TNA anymore or ever again because of the article. This I DO NOT feel is right because even though people may not agree with Luger's actions, he does still have a right to earn a living.

[Guest Dids]

at you accusing anybody of being flamebait.

[Guest MikeSC]

Luger was nothing more than a punchline to a joke two weeks ago and now people are openly supporting his working with NWATNA, I just don't get it.

What's the joke?

His ring work?

His horrid promos?

His jerk behavior?

-=Mike

Doesn't that joke apply to like 75% of professional wrestlers?

Hint: If you're trying to build a company, you shouldn't sign guys who are absolutely horrid. They should try and go with the whole "We put on a better show" mentality.

-=Mike

[Guest MikeSC]

I will gladly support ANY wrestling organization that has the chance to knock the goddamn WWE off its perch. Whatever it takes to screw with the McMahon-Helmesly Reich is fine with me.

 

-Patrick

And this mentality is foreign to me.

 

Personally, I'd support a company that was putting on better shows and weren't signing guys I never wanted to see in their prime in their battle with the WWE.

 

If they're no better, I'll stick with the more established name.

-=Mike

[Guest MikeSC]

Alright...

 

The Great American Bash 1988 - Flair Vs Luger... got a 2.20 buyrate... One of the the NWA's (WCW) biggest buyrates ever... something that should be noted as well... the Flair/Funk main event of 1989 GAB got a 1.50..

 

And, there was a SMALL difference in the, you know, SIZE of the PPV audience. Bragging about a huge buyrate in PPV's infancy is not exactly intellectually honest.

 

Starrcade 88 - Another Flair/Luger got a 1.80 buyrate...

 

WrestleWar 1990 - Flair/Luger 1.6 buyrate

 

Capital Combat 1990 - 1.4 buyrate

 

Hmm, Flair COULD work wonders, couldn't he?

 

The Great American Bash 91 - Luger/Windam... 1.0 what also should be noted is that this was not long after Flair left WCW and this also was one of the worst ppvs of all time...

 

OR, a drop of .7 from the previous year.

 

Havoc 91 - Luger/Simmons 0.8 buyrate...

 

Or a drop of .5 from the previous year. And it was lower than .1 than the next year's.

 

Clash 17 - Luger/Rick Steiner got a rating of 4.3

 

It was pushed as a huge supercard at the time. Sting v Rude got tons of coverage and hype.

 

SuperBrawl II - Sting/Luger got a 0.96

 

Or a drop of .08 from the previous year.

 

i couldn't be fucked going through all the mid 90's so now to 1997

 

Road Wild - the Hogan/Luger rematch from nitro 0.65 buyrate... which was probably in the middle level for 97 in 97 for buyrates..

 

For you, we'll check it out:

 

Souled Out --- .47

SB --- .7

Uncensored --- .89

Spring Stampede --- .58

Slamboree --- .6

GAB --- .6

BATB --- .78

FB --- .57

HH --- 1.1

World War 3 --- .56

Starrcade --- 1.9

 

So, yes, about half-way. We could, of course, go into depth on these shows --- or mention that Hogan tended to draw decently --- but there is no point.

 

Plus that Hogan/Luger nitro match got the highest rating for Nitro WCW had ever had until that point... And 3 weeks after that... Luger/Savage main event for nitro that nitro got the higest rating ever up to that point as well...

 

Never heard of ANY Luger v Savage Nitro matches popping a good number.

 

I don't think he main evented another ppv after that... maybe the WWA show but i don't know where to find buyrates for that...

 

Nobody has them --- but rest assured, they weren't good.

 

As for the later WCW shows that Sting and Luger wrestled on they weren't the main event so the buyrate cannot be directly attributed to that plus the fact that at the time they did wrestle WCW was in a shocking state.

 

So, saying luger never was a draw in flat out wrong he has been apart of some of the biggest buyrates in WCW/NWA history...

 

So, you can't discount his "drawing power" by who he is working with --- but you SHOULD discount how bad WCW did at the end because it wasn't his fault?

 

And if it a only a one or two deal then i see nothing wrong with it... TNA are trying to reach that next level and bringing in names and trying to get their own talent over is a good way to go about it...

 

What talent gets over by having Luger in the ring? Just one- AJ. And who knows if this match will help him.

 

Well, he is only in one match so having only one talent get over on him if that is gonna be the case... is fine... you can't ask for much more...

 

 

I am by no means a fan of Lex Luger... i only did this because people were pointing out wrong information...

 

I do think that Luger will spike the buys... i do not know by how much whether it be 1 or 1000... but i think he will...

 

OK, I will say it now:

 

Luger will have NO appreciable impact on buyrates for TNA.

 

None.

-=Mike

[Guest dvkorn]

As for the later WCW shows that Sting and Luger wrestled on they weren't the main event so the buyrate cannot be directly attributed to that plus the fact that at the time they did wrestle WCW was in a shocking state.

 

So, saying luger never was a draw in flat out wrong he has been apart of some of the biggest buyrates in WCW/NWA history...

 

So, you can't discount his "drawing power" by who he is working with --- but you SHOULD discount how bad WCW did at the end because it wasn't his fault?

 

That isn't what i necessarily meant... I meant that WCW was not in too great a state at the time so you would expect the buyrates that the two wrestled on to be less than if WCW was in a decent state... And i said that the buyrate cannot be directly attributed to that certain match because it wasn't billed as the main event but it is harder to ascertain what effect that that match had.

 

Alright...

 

The Great American Bash 1988 - Flair Vs Luger... got a 2.20 buyrate... One of the the NWA's (WCW) biggest buyrates ever... something that should be noted as well... the Flair/Funk main event of 1989 GAB got a 1.50..

 

And, there was a SMALL difference in the, you know, SIZE of the PPV audience. Bragging about a huge buyrate in PPV's infancy is not exactly intellectually honest.

 

I did know that there were differences in the size of the ppv audience but did not know how much they varied, and seeing it was only one year i did not think it would vary too much... If i am mistaken and GAB 89 had more viewers than GAB 88 then so be it...

 

Starrcade 88 - Another Flair/Luger got a 1.80 buyrate...

 

WrestleWar 1990 - Flair/Luger 1.6 buyrate

 

Capital Combat 1990 - 1.4 buyrate

 

Hmm, Flair COULD work wonders, couldn't he?

 

Yes, he could... but Flair working wih Luger seemed to bring a higher buyrate than Flair working with some others (not all)... and Luger working with someone other than Flair still brought decent numbers...

 

 

 

The Great American Bash 91 - Luger/Windam... 1.0 what also should be noted is that this was not long after Flair left WCW and this also was one of the worst ppvs of all time...

 

OR, a drop of .7 from the previous year.

 

Havoc 91 - Luger/Simmons 0.8 buyrate...

 

Or a drop of .5 from the previous year. And it was lower than .1 than the next year's.

 

Clash 17 - Luger/Rick Steiner got a rating of 4.3

 

It was pushed as a huge supercard at the time. Sting v Rude got tons of coverage and hype.

 

SuperBrawl II - Sting/Luger got a 0.96

 

Or a drop of .08 from the previous year.

 

yeah, they may have dropped from the previous year or gone up the next year or whatever but that still doesn't discount the fact that some of those buyrates he Vs whomever popped were still decent.... I only did all this crap to begin with because people were saying Luger never was a draw which is wrong... big or small... he was a draw... saying he wasn't is ignorant...

 

Road Wild - the Hogan/Luger rematch from nitro 0.65 buyrate... which was probably in the middle level for 97 in 97 for buyrates..

 

For you, we'll check it out:

 

Souled Out --- .47

SB --- .7

Uncensored --- .89

Spring Stampede --- .58

Slamboree --- .6

GAB --- .6

BATB --- .78

FB --- .57

HH --- 1.1

World War 3 --- .56

Starrcade --- 1.9

 

So, yes, about half-way. We could, of course, go into depth on these shows --- or mention that Hogan tended to draw decently --- but there is no point.

 

yes, Hogan tended to draw decently but he still drew with Luger better than he did some others... eg. The Giant... Souled Out 97 - .47 ... Road Wild - .65 and as you liked to do... up .03 from the previous year with Hogan Vs The Giant.... sure it wasn't much but still it was up... Sure in 97 they were in the midst of the hot period whereas in 96 they were just starting out but we won't bother with that now...

 

 

And if it a only a one or two deal then i see nothing wrong with it... TNA are trying to reach that next level and bringing in names and trying to get their own talent over is a good way to go about it...

 

What talent gets over by having Luger in the ring? Just one- AJ. And who knows if this match will help him.

 

Well, he is only in one match so having only one talent get over on him if that is gonna be the case... is fine... you can't ask for much more...

 

 

I am by no means a fan of Lex Luger... i only did this because people were pointing out wrong information...

 

I do think that Luger will spike the buys... i do not know by how much whether it be 1 or 1000... but i think he will...

 

OK, I will say it now:

 

Luger will have NO appreciable impact on buyrates for TNA.

 

None.

-=Mike

 

That's your opinion and that is fine.... i just think you'll be wrong...

 

If i am wrong though, then so be it...