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Controversy Creates Cash - Eric Bischoff

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East.Coast.J

 

I don't think he really figured out how to work his character at that level until around the point that he defeated JBL for the Smackdown title, but of course that is purely opinion.

 

You never saw Eddie work Mexico did you? Eddie had learned how to work as a tremendous heel long before 2004. He had that worked out over ten years before then.

 

Norman Smiley was crazy over in WCW at points, and if I was promoting the company I would have ran with it and tried to kind of add the fun aspect to the show that Too Cool and Rikishi did for a while with Smiley in that role. I would have given Eddie a bigger role, but nothing would have inidicated to me at the time that he was worth using a major main event push on.

 

Smiley wasn't crazy over until the Screamin' Norman gimmick, and that was a comedy act. Even then, Norman wasn't 'crazy over' until Eddie had long since proven to anyone with open eyes he was worth pushing strong.

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Guest East.Coast.J
You never saw Eddie work Mexico did you? Eddie had learned how to work as a tremendous heel long before 2004. He had that worked out over ten years before then.

 

I definitely saw him work Mexico for the first time over a decade ago. But that's apples and oranges and I still believe that. The Mexican culture is so completely different than the American culture that someone being able to work as a top level heel in Mexico doesn't necessarily mean that they will be able to duplicate the same thing in a television and pay-per-view driven major company in America. Vampiro was huge in Mexico and he never really caught on in the States.

 

Eddie was GREAT for his entire WCW and early WWE run as being a heel in the ring, and making people think he was a rule bending dirtbag. That was never going to be enough though. You've got to have a great character, and a character that can translate into money drawing promos. Eddie never had that in WCW, and he took a step backwards with his gimmick with Chyna. Just because people chanted Eddie Sucks when he wrestled doesn't mean he is ready for the big times.

 

When I said "I don't think he really figured out how to work his character at that level until around the point that he defeated JBL for the Smackdown title", I'm not talking about his in-ring persona. I'm talking about knowing how to market that persona outside of the ring and on promos in a way that will make people emotionally and financially invest in a character. For me personally, I didn't invest in Eddie with Chyna, I thought it was a sleazy gimmick and I changed the channel. It wasn't until Eddie Guerrero found the formula that made you love to hate him in all facets of his game, which eventually made you just love him, that he became one of the biggest stars in modern American wrestling. Eddie was a star because he was a guy who you felt like he came through the screen and you could relate to him. At no point in WCW or his early WWF career did I ever get that feeling.

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I definitely saw him work Mexico for the first time over a decade ago. But that's apples and oranges and I still believe that. The Mexican culture is so completely different than the American culture that someone being able to work as a top level heel in Mexico doesn't necessarily mean that they will be able to duplicate the same thing in a television and pay-per-view driven major company in America. Vampiro was huge in Mexico and he never really caught on in the States.

 

The culture's may be different, but the ability to work those fans into a frenzy isn't. The fact that Eddie was good enough to do it in one place is, at the very least, reason enough to give him something to work with to see what he could do with it.

 

Bringing up Vampiro isn't the best of examples, because he never got the chance to see if he could be huge in the US.

 

Eddie was GREAT for his entire WCW and early WWE run as being a heel in the ring, and making people think he was a rule bending dirtbag. That was never going to be enough though.

 

If being a great wrestler and working the crowd up wasn't enough, what would be?

 

You've got to have a great character, and a character that can translate into money drawing promos. Eddie never had that in WCW, and he took a step backwards with his gimmick with Chyna. Just because people chanted Eddie Sucks when he wrestled doesn't mean he is ready for the big times.

 

When a guy can get the entire arena chanting "Eddie Sucks", and he hasn't even wrestled the match yet, doesn't that say something to his ability? Eddie just had to stand there and the people were going nuts for him. And you're telling me a guy who could do that doesn't deserve a chance

 

When I said "I don't think he really figured out how to work his character at that level until around the point that he defeated JBL for the Smackdown title", I'm not talking about his in-ring persona. I'm talking about knowing how to market that persona outside of the ring and on promos in a way that will make people emotionally and financially invest in a character.

 

He already did that in Mexico, but we've already established that Mexio doesn't count in your eyes. Eddie already knew how to do that, whether it was in Mexico or not. That alone shows he deserved a chance at doing it again above those who hadn't proven that anywhere in the US, let alone outside of the US.

 

It wasn't until Eddie Guerrero found the formula that made you love to hate him in all facets of his game

 

I'd bring up Mexico again, but bringing up anything outside of the US is a lost cause with you.

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Guest East.Coast.J
I'd bring up Mexico again, but bringing up anything outside of the US is a lost cause with you.

 

Aside from the fact that I have referenced guys careers in Mexico and Japan a half dozen times in this thread alone. I even said that Konnan's run in Mexico was validation as to why his pushed shouldn't have been squashed. If you want to bring El Hijo del Santo and Heavy Metal into America and think they are going to turn around a sinking ship in WCW, more power to you.

 

It's not a lost cause, but headlining in Mexico in front of 16,000 people paying $4 a head while playing second fiddle to Art Barr and doing a heated anti-Mexican gimmick doesn't mean you will be successful in the States. It doesn't mean you won't be either.

 

You seem to be under the understanding that I don't think Eddie deserved a chance. Sure he deserved a chance. But when there were 20 guys qualified for the same push, it is logical to see why Eddie wasn't selected.

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Regarding Fully Loaded 2000 though, the Jericho-HHH match had just as much buildup (Triple Main Event) if not more in my opinion than Rock-Shane oh wait I mean Rock-Benoit.

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It wasn't until Eddie Guerrero found the formula that made you love to hate him in all facets of his game, which eventually made you just love him, that he became one of the biggest stars in modern American wrestling.
Funny because he found that formular back in WCW when he turned heel, he just oozed arrogance and you just wanted to see someone kick his ass so bad - it wasn't until Vince realized this and put him over Brock he became a world champion.

 

But being a world champion and being a great wrestler, a charismatíc genius who could captivate you by stepping into the arena are NOT the same thing. Eddy was awesome even before he broke through to the world title, if he never won the world title he'd still be my all time favorite wrestler and one of the most entertaining guys out there.

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WWE fans didn't care about Eddie one bit until "Latino Heat" It is a sad fact but it is the truth. WWE fans are just wired differently, they are taught to put character over workrate, and the same held true with Eddie, sure after playing the comedic "Latino Heat" persona, fans started to respect other aspects of what he brings to the table, but "Latino Heat" is where it started with the WWE flock.

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Eddy was injured for most of the two months pre-Latino Heat in the WWF and was pretty much only being used as Benoit's lackey and hanging backstage with Saturn & Malenko. No wonder he didn't get over doing that.

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Yeah, remember how Eddie got injured in like, his second or third televised match in WWE? Hard to get over with your arm in a sling when you've been known mostly for your workrate.

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Yeah, remember how Eddie got injured in like, his second or third televised match in WWE? Hard to get over with your arm in a sling when you've been known mostly for your workrate.

 

It was actually his first match.

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Wasn't it a run-in by the Radicalz, not an actual match? For some reason I remember him doing the frog splash in street clothes.

No, it was during a tag match with the Outlaws, on the Smackdown where the Radicalz had to beat DX two out of three to get WWE contracts.

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Wasn't it a run-in by the Radicalz, not an actual match? For some reason I remember him doing the frog splash in street clothes.

 

That was they very first showed up on RAW and attacked the NAO and that's when Eddie did the frog splash in street clothes.

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Wasn't it a run-in by the Radicalz, not an actual match? For some reason I remember him doing the frog splash in street clothes.

 

That was they very first showed up on RAW and attacked the NAO and that's when Eddie did the frog splash in street clothes.

 

 

nevermind

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Survivor Series 2000 drew the lowest buyrate that year, Fully Loaded did a 1.04 which was about what Judgment Day did.

 

Dean Malenko didn't work Fully Loaded, while Eddie v. Saturn was a match that was put together at the last minute. The other big matches were Triple H v. Jericho and Angle v. Taker

 

I stand corrected on Survivor Series. What I should have said was that a pay-per-view headlined by Chris Benoit was the second lowest WWF buyrate of the year. The point I was trying to make wasn't that Benoit wasn't a draw (because they hadn't even built him up yet), but that the Radicalz debut wasn't exactly something that effected business in any kind of major way. Nitpicking at the semantics of my point doesn't really change that either way.

 

In some ways you are correct, but the Radicalz jumping imo helped to flush out the mid/uppercard for the wwe which it didn't have in years. Weren't the Radicalz apart of one of the highest rated segments in history in terms of just a match in Texas if I recall correctly?

 

It's the same thing as the nWo jumping to the wwe to SOME degree which I know everyone will disagree with. You have to look at the whole roster and what matches the wwe actually had to promote to get the gist of what these guys brought to help not make things get stagnate earlier and it would have been stagnate.

 

An example is WM 16 for Angle and Jericho. Benoit helped to add some sizzle as they were feuding for months. Malenko added the lightweight division along with Saturn to the tag division. They did what they did for wcw at their height. The wwe would have got boring a lot quicker if they did not jump.

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Kidman was super over in WCW for a while.

 

I know that to be fact. I was there on September 14, 1998 in Greensville SC the night that he beat Juventud Guerrera for the CW title right after the PPV with the "Control of the Flock" match on PPV, and when he won the title the fans went absolute apeshit over it. I remember being so shocked at the reaction, even though I was into it as well. That was also the Nitro with Goldberg/Sting and when Flair returned to WCW and reformed the Horsemen. :)

 

I just went to look up the show to see everything that was on it, and noticed that on the following Nitro, September 21, 1998, the first match was Wrath b Nick Disnmore, and on his OWW page it says:

 

World Championship Wrestling:

# September 21, 1998 - WCW NITRO: Wrath defeated Nick Dinsmore..

# September 25, 1998 - WCW THUNDER: Ernest Miller defeated Nick Dinsmore..

# September 28, 1998 - WCW NITRO: Scott Steiner defeated Lenny Lane and Nick Dinsmore

 

I'm sure most of you know that, but I don't remember it at all.

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This is not a representative sample, but among people I knew who casually watched wrestling Kidman was probably the MOST over guy other than Goldberg. I think it was his mix of guy next door look and demeanor along with his high-flyer style.

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Not to mention that fans would pop the hell out for the SSP. Every WCW show that I ever went to, other than the big stuff like Goldberg, Flair, and that sort of thing the SSP would get the biggest pop of the night.

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They did, but it was as a heel and in 2000, when he had begun to cool down some. Kidman, right around the time his face CW title push began was fucking RED HOT. Problem is, to push Kidman would have been going against all conventional booking wisdom, which we've still not overcame all these years later.

 

Anyway, the point East Coast is making, and what some people seem to be glossing over, is he's not looking at it hindsight. It's easy to look back at things and say "Well that was a bad idea". What he's doing, is placing himself in the roles of WCW executives, and saying that AT THE TIME, Eddie was not a top priority for a push. He wasn't.

 

Eddy was a superb heel, but at the same time there were more people with upsides in WCW 1997-1998 then just about any fed in history. Granted, almost none of them were capitalized on, but it still holds true. A solid upper midcard, main event run for Eddie just wouldn't have ever happened. For one, he was too small, for two his style would not have meshed with anyone in the main event scene beyond Sting, Page and Goldberg who would have worked around their limitations with him, and for three he had not shown any significant microphone charisma yet. People overlook this, but Eddy wasn't a mic god. Hell, he wasn't for most of his WWE run. He was alot like Bret Hart, in that until he had ALOT of practice, he was merely adept at it. Not good enough for a push. Eddy was never even given a huge chance in WWE until it was mandatory, and had hit the roids HARD. It's not like Vince woke up and said "Eddy Guerrero will be my top star!", it was more "...Fuck Brock's leaving? Who do we got? Angle? Angle's hurt...WEGOTNOONEELSE, wait...lets put it on Guerrero for a few months!", the only reason Guerrero made it out of being a transitional champion, was because he was a great latino draw, and he tried so hard to be the champion that he mentally cracked.

 

As for WCW...Had WCW stayed alive, they'd likely be in great shape today. They were bringing up new people, trying different things, and trying to build stars for one of the first times EVER. Mike Sanders was an amazing mic peice if nothing else, while the sky seemed the limit for Sean O'Haire, doing things that at that time, no big man had done in the national stage. He had fire, intensity, and made up for his lack of experience with awesome feats of athleticism. I've always heard it rumored that the reason Vince buried O'Haire during the Invasion, and was so quick to cut him when it didn't work out, is because he knew O'Haire was Bischoff's big hope, and had WCW stayed alive, O'Haire would have been his top guy. As such, he was viciously jobbed out.

 

The problem with wondering "what if", is there are so many variables. If WCW was still alive, would WWE be in it's funk? Probably not. Would another fed have opened like TNA? Maybe. You can't predict what might have happened, because we can't even accurately predict what WILL happen a year from now.

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I read the majority of the book last night in about an hour and a half at Borders.

 

It's a fun read. I liked the glances into WCW's corporate structure, but the lack of talent relations material was the book's big flaw.

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Hawk, I gotta take issue with some of what you say. First, Eddie eventually got awesome on the mic. Certainly one of the best in the business from roughly mid 2000 till his death. Now his early WCW stuff? Yeah, he was nervous and sucked on the mic back then.

 

Also, Eddie wasn't pushed because Brock was leaving. In fact I'd say it was the opposite: Brock left because Eddie was going to be pushed with the title and he wasn't for a long while. To me, Eddie flat out forced Vince to push him by being the most over guy on SD, having great matches, etc. And I don't mean he was possibly the best guy on the show, it was obvious. You gotta push a guy when he's obviously the most talented guy on the show and getting the best reactions.

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You gotta push a guy when he's obviously the most talented guy on the show and getting the best reactions.

 

Alex Shelley in TNA. OK, he's not getting the BEST reactions, partially because he's a heel. But he's getting the best reactions of the 'no-namers', and yet when was the last time he won a match? You could turn him on Nash, have him as a wise-cracking Jericho-style face and he'd be insanely over, but you won't see that push done. No thanks, we'll push Chris Sabin.

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I read the book, and I thought it was ok, but that there was too much revisionist history going on, not even so much in WWE's favor, but just Eric Bischoff using selective memory to explain things the way he'd like to remember them as opposed to how they actually went. The biggest example of this that I remember is when he talks about Hogan not wanting to turn heel and how Hogan made the decision himself because he knew that Nash and Hall were the wave of the future. What he leaves out entirely was the fact that Hogan's heel turn was a necessity for his career, since any drawing value he had as a face was completely destroyed in 1995 and '96 by the never-ending Dungeon of Doom feud and the Doomsday Cage match., both of which caused the fans to completely turn on Hogan.

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You can be the best worker in the world and it doesn't mean you'll get pushed. You have to have something a bit deeper then just flat out workrate. A character, something in your work that can elevate you. Eddy, as great of a worker as he was had nothing that would work against heavyweights. Benoit worked against heavyweights due to his character, a tough no-nonsense brawling technical worker ala Arn Anderson who could hang with anyone. Eddy was just some asshole Cruiserweight, and 90% of his moves wouldn't work in WCW's world title division and wouldn't have worked in WWE had he not changed his style for them.

 

Eddy had to have time to cultivate his character, and come up with what worked. In that way, he was alot like Bret Hart. He was decent on the microphone, if unspectacular for years until after having practiced, he got very good to great. I'm not saying Eddy wasn't good, or that Bret was awesome, I'm merely comparing the two. Their situations inwhich they evolved are very similiar. Superb wrestlers who took years to get to that level on the microphone.

 

Eddy didn't force WWE to do anything. Since when does WWE listen to reactions from fans? If they did, Cena would have been heel way back in 2005, Matt Hardy would have been one of the top faces in the company, and Edge would be the top heel in all of the company. They don't. Eddy was pushed to the title due to his overness, yes, but he was given the ball mainly because he exceled at it, and they had no one else. Eddy was never one of Vince's "Projects" or chosen wrestlers, that's evidenced by the fact that the title went to JBL when he had done nothing to earn it. Eddy was cracking under the pressure, and instead of working around it, Vince simply took the title away and put it on one of his "projects". The fact that Eddy got a decent reign with the title is purely Eddy, but it's not like Vince really WANTED to do that in the first place.

 

The internet puts way too much emphsis on the wrestling aspect. Pure wrestling just doesn't draw 95% of the time. Every great draw has had something beyond their working abilities to get them above that. For years Eddy didn't have that. It was only until the last few years of his life did he put all the peices together. That's not an insult on Eddy, it's simply the truth.

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You can be the best worker in the world and it doesn't mean you'll get pushed. You have to have something a bit deeper then just flat out workrate. A character, something in your work that can elevate you. Eddy, as great of a worker as he was had nothing that would work against heavyweights. Benoit worked against heavyweights due to his character, a tough no-nonsense brawling technical worker ala Arn Anderson who could hang with anyone. Eddy was just some asshole Cruiserweight, and 90% of his moves wouldn't work in WCW's world title division and wouldn't have worked in WWE had he not changed his style for them.

His first WCW title was the United States Championship. He didn't wrestle exclusively in the criserweight division until mid 1997. He first entered WCW in late 1995.

 

Eddy didn't force WWE to do anything. Since when does WWE listen to reactions from fans?

I can think of two instances, Steve Austin and Eddy Guerrero. In fact it was WWE officials who refered to Eddy as the Latino Stone Cold.

 

Eddy was pushed to the title due to his overness, yes, but he was given the ball mainly because he exceled at it, and they had no one else. Eddy was never one of Vince's "Projects" or chosen wrestlers,

Yes he was. They took the ball from Brock and gave it to Eddy. He was originally planned to keep the title until Summer Slam at the earliest.

 

that's evidenced by the fact that the title went to JBL when he had done nothing to earn it. Eddy was cracking under the pressure, and instead of working around it, Vince simply took the title away and put it on one of his "projects".

Layfield is the guy who got the title because they had no one else. Brock was upset he was no longer the guy so he left and Kurt Angle was injured. Combine that with Eddy's problems at the time and it was just a series of unfortunate incidents that led to Layfield getting the title.

 

The internet puts way too much emphsis on the wrestling aspect. Pure wrestling just doesn't draw 95% of the time. Every great draw has had something beyond their working abilities to get them above that. For years Eddy didn't have that. It was only until the last few years of his life did he put all the peices together. That's not an insult on Eddy, it's simply the truth.

I have to disagree with this. I think Eddy had it all by the time he turned heel in 1997. To say his wrestling style didn't mesh well with heavyweights is BS. That somehow the best wrestler in the United States at that time couldn't wrestle heavyweight is false.

 

I am not saying he should have been WCW World Champion in the mid 90s (although there was plan proposed by Heyman where the title would have gone from Guerrero to Benoit). If you weren't somehow involved in the NWO angle it just wasn't going to happen. All I'm saying is that he could have been an effective upper midcard guy along with guys like Booker T, Jericho, and Benoit. Guys that WCW could have built up and moved up the card when the NWO ran its course. It was WCW that stuck with the NWO too long and in doing so alienated the guys who could have stepped it up.

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Plus Eddie gave his blessing and helped convinced management to have JBL be the WWE Champion since they were chums.

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Eddie and Benoit were PLANNED months in advance to be the champions because of their reaction to the crowds. It wasn't an off-chance thing as some might think it was. Both Eddie and Benoit were on smackdown in the fall of '03. There were rumours of one of them being sent to RAW to face HHH for Mania 20 remember? HHH chose Benoit surprise, surprise! They even still ended up doing Eddie/HHH on the first draft lottery on RAW.

 

Back then they did not think two guys winning the title for the first time on the same night was a good idea(they ended up doing it a year later with Cena and Batista), so they had one of them win it earlier at NWO(the event had promoted Benoit/Brock actually, but it got switched when HHH decided Benoit to jump to RAW) which I clearly remember some poster at this site said was going to happen due to "an inside source"(you longtime guys know who I'm talking about). Remember smackdown mag had Eddie/Angle as the main event for Mania so close to Eddie winning the title?

 

I also remember the rumour of Eddie holding the belt for a year, but SummerSlam more likely too. Benoit was the one planned to lose the belt first to HHH before that whole Orton debacle.

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I think Benoit was given a gold watch type title reign more than anything. He wasn't shockingly over, but was a highly respected veteran. Eddie was someone actually getting massive reactions and was supposed to be the top guy on SD for a long, long time.

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