WWE/USA network update

[Hawk 34 0]

USA might as well force the WWE to allow them to have a member of the USA team on the booking team or in the creative meetings.

 

Then you have

 

Stephanie

Gerwitz

Triple H

USA member

 

I smell the ratings from these meetings!

 

Seriously the HHH hate is getting old.

 

What hate? HHH is in the meetings just like Stephanie and others.

[Guest Ant]

Seriously how does ANYBODY know this?

[Hawk 34 0]

Seriously how does ANYBODY know this?

 

The number of times wrestlers have gone on record saying that "HHH never misses a meeting" is just one measure of proof. The meetings aren't NSA-level meetings.

[Guest Ant]

Oh. Yeah i just read up on that. Sorry my mistake.

[Precious Roy 0]

Wasn't one of the conditions of the WCW sale that TBS/TNT couldn't counter program with any sort of wrestling? I thought I remember hearing something like that at the time

[Mike wanna be 0]

It wouldn't technically be considered counter-programming if Raw moved there, though.

 

If they did, however, I'd hope for an move to start at either 8:57 or 9:05. Those were the days.

[The Buzz 0]

I'd kill to see an alternate reality where WCW stayed on the air under the direction of the Eric Bischoff led buyers(Fusient?). Just to see how it played out. Whether or not Sting and Flair would stay on. How the Natural Born Thrillers would have ended up. Would Goldberg still be wrestling? Could Rey Mysterio have ended up a World Champion? It's too bad most of the talent is too old, it'd be nice to see WCW be jumpstarted from where it left off. The whole mention of TBS/TNT just made me realize how much I miss even the last days of WCW.

[Guest Joseph2112]

I wonder if Hammers ideas included things like:

 

Bringing back managers for heels(Umaga, Snitsky)

Bring back and PUSH tag teams

Bring back heel factions/stables

Push the mid-card belt to make it mean something, and allow the guys going for the belt to get themselves over, on the mike and in the ring.

Stop f'n squashing all the mid carders with the hvwt. champs. HHH doesn't destroy the tag team division and Khali doesn't kill the IC champ and Cena doesn't kill the ECW champ. It's counterproductive and it is NOT necessary.

 

The show has turned into the Hvwt champ, Mr. Mcmahon and HHH. Why can't the stuff that worked forever still work today?

 

Edit for a manager for Orton. God that guy needs a mouthpiece.

[Atticus Chaos 0]

I get the feeling Vince is going to be Orton's manager. Sort of.

[Jingus 0]

TNT and TBS won't accept a wrestling show, period. Time-Warner-AOL made that very clear when they canned WCW after the merger. I forget the name of the specific executive who pulled the plug, but he came right out and said that wrestling wasn't conducive to the type of image they wanted to build for their networks. They sold WCW, its trademarks, its contracts, and its entire massive tape library for a measely three million dollars; obviously they just wanted it off their hands at any cost.

 

And what have some of you been smoking, saying that if WWE somehow left USA that they could go to the SciFi Nework?! They're both owned by the same people, doofus, one wouldn't offer a better deal than the other.

 

If Vince did the dumb thing and walked away from USA again, he'd have a tough time finding a decent new home. TNT, TBS, and Spike all won't take himl; most of the other networks are either niche products that offer a specific type of programming which doesn't include wrestling, or are too small to give Vince anything close to the kind of money and ratings he wants. F/X is just about the only network I can think of which is a possibility, but if they really wanted pro wrestling on their channel, they've had plenty of opprotunities in the past. Also, it doesn't help that Vince almost always demands deals that are WAY out of proportion to normal television contracts. McMahon is legendary in media circles for his awesome greed and amazing ego, acting like the WWE deserves better treatment than any other product out there.

[Bix 0]

Jamie Keller was the exec. He left TBS in '03. He's now more famous for his comments about DVRs:

 

"Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming."

[JPopStarKami 0]

Getting rid of the idiotic 3-way brand split, that feature the exact same thing would be a start.

 

If this means Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Val Venis are unemployed, so be it.

 

NOT VAL VENIS~!

[bobobrazil1984 0]

Jamie Keller was the exec. He left TBS in '03. He's now more famous for his comments about DVRs:

 

"Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming."

 

:lol:

[The Buzz 0]

I would hope they'd actually push Val Venis again, I still hold my belief that the man was getting over as Chief Morley before the plug was pulled on him. Not to mention I just watched some ppvs from 2000, and he was more over then the babyface Eddie Guerrero in his King of the Ring match. I'm not trying to use a single match as proof as to why Venis should be pushed. I think his ring work is good enough on its own to speak for itself, and on the microphone he's pretty damn underrated.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

Well Venis has been getting TV time, and is in a feud with Santino, so we'll see how that goes.

 

Oh and while I enjoy most of Val Venis's work, his Chief Morley stint was pure crap IMO.

[The Buzz 0]

Well Venis has been getting TV time, and is in a feud with Santino, so we'll see how that goes.

 

Ahh good, I've only skimmed over Raw the last week or two so I only saw the one segment where Venis offered Maria a movie role. I figured Santino was building up to more of a Saturday Night Main Event Austin burial then anything, but maybe Venis can jumpstart things here.

[cabbageboy 0]

I had the idea a while ago that Val could do a tongue in cheek variation on his old gimmick where he now is balding and older, so he picks these sorta skanky or fat chicks out of the crowd since he can't get the hot chicks anymore. It sounds vaguely similar to Mike Awesome as the Fat Chick Thriller but at least with Val he has the long running backstory to make such a silly gimmick fun.

[Brocklock 0]

Edit for a manager for Orton. God that guy needs a mouthpiece.

 

Orton's promos used to be really bad, but I think his promos have been awesome ever since he started the head kicking gimmick. His interviews are reminding me of heel Jake Roberts as he's so slimy, yet calm about what he's going to do to his opponent.

[zappafrank 0]

I would hope they'd actually push Val Venis again, I still hold my belief that the man was getting over as Chief Morley before the plug was pulled on him.

 

That's the only time I actually ever cared for him. He had kick-ass theme music, and I remember in one match he did this cool "stomping around the ring" bit that just clicked.

 

The main reason I don't like his wrestling is that he sucks his teeth or something too much. You always this sucking in sound, kinda like a wrestling equivalent of Monica Seles.

 

And the shaved head look just doesn't work for him, IMO. I know he had hair plugs a while back, but I dunno, he's gotta do something different, image and gimmick wise.

[Chazz 0]

I do find it amazing that no network executive (for either Spike or USA) has noticed the blatant nepotism of Stephanie's position and the dwindling ratings since she took over in 2001. Or, if they have noticed havn't made one complaint about it to Vince.

 

C'mon, if JJ Abrahms hired his brother as head writer for Lost and it started to tank (to half of what it once was), how long would that situation last before ABC stepped in and got rid of the brother?

 

Vince no longer has the passion to better the product like he used to. If he did, he'd kick Steph and HHH the fuck out of The Writer's Meeting's, reassign/fire Gerwertz and all of the yes-man writers, rehire Russo,(If he isn't under a TNA deal), and Heyman to head up Raw and Smackdown, and cancel ECW. Or maybe that's what I'd do. Either way, I hope making The WWE Hunter and Steph's playground the last several year's was worth it when he get's lowballed on a new deal for his highest rated T.V. Show.

[The Buzz 0]

This is the last I'll say about the Morley deal is I just didn't understand why they'd take a guy who was getting legit heel heat by messing with the Dudleys, and then bring him back to the gimmick that wasn't getting over anymore like it had between 98-00. Right to Censor pretty much killed off the Val Venis character. That was one of the few instances where I really think they didn't want the guy to get over for some reason.

[dh86 0]

I do find it amazing that no network executive (for either Spike or USA) has noticed the blatant nepotism of Stephanie's position and the dwindling ratings since she took over in 2001. Or, if they have noticed havn't made one complaint about it to Vince.

 

C'mon, if JJ Abrahms hired his brother as head writer for Lost and it started to tank (to half of what it once was), how long would that situation last before ABC stepped in and got rid of the brother?

 

Vince no longer has the passion to better the product like he used to. If he did, he'd kick Steph and HHH the fuck out of The Writer's Meeting's, reassign/fire Gerwertz and all of the yes-man writers, rehire Russo,(If he isn't under a TNA deal), and Heyman to head up Raw and Smackdown, and cancel ECW. Or maybe that's what I'd do. Either way, I hope making The WWE Hunter and Steph's playground the last several year's was worth it when he get's lowballed on a new deal for his highest rated T.V. Show.

 

If (when) WWE goes in the red, Stephanie McMahon-Levesque will be reassigned and not a day sooner or after that.

[Black Lushus 0]

I'm about 99% sure Vince would sack his own kid before he let his company go down.

 

It's what happens after he finally retires that we have to worry about.

[Mecca 0]

I do find it amazing that no network executive (for either Spike or USA) has noticed the blatant nepotism of Stephanie's position and the dwindling ratings since she took over in 2001. Or, if they have noticed havn't made one complaint about it to Vince.

 

C'mon, if JJ Abrahms hired his brother as head writer for Lost and it started to tank (to half of what it once was), how long would that situation last before ABC stepped in and got rid of the brother?

 

Vince no longer has the passion to better the product like he used to. If he did, he'd kick Steph and HHH the fuck out of The Writer's Meeting's, reassign/fire Gerwertz and all of the yes-man writers, rehire Russo,(If he isn't under a TNA deal), and Heyman to head up Raw and Smackdown, and cancel ECW. Or maybe that's what I'd do. Either way, I hope making The WWE Hunter and Steph's playground the last several year's was worth it when he get's lowballed on a new deal for his highest rated T.V. Show.

 

I understand your point but Russo is worse........

[Ultra Violence 0]

In the UK all WWE programming is on Sky Sports. If they end up on Fox in the USA do you think they will consider just doing a global TV deal with News International? I'm sure Vince and Rupert Murdoch would both get on well.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

People actually want Vince Russo back with WWE, now? Why? Has he done such a great job in TNA?

 

As far as the TBS/TNT suggestions, we need to get out of the Monday Night Wars mentality as wrestling fans, like I've said before. This isn't 1998. WWE should take that to heart as well, and completely overhaul their product, especially Monday Night RAW, which is just beyond stale. I think that's the main problem with WWE...it's basically the same show it's been for the last 9 or 10 years.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Their numbers are strong enough that there is zero chance of USA cancelling them

 

So, did 83% of the posters in this thread stop reading the original post before this part of the story?

[Cherry Blossom Viscount 0]

This is the last I'll say about the Morley deal is I just didn't understand why they'd take a guy who was getting legit heel heat by messing with the Dudleys, and then bring him back to the gimmick that wasn't getting over anymore like it had between 98-00. Right to Censor pretty much killed off the Val Venis character. That was one of the few instances where I really think they didn't want the guy to get over for some reason.

 

Actually, Morley was getting over very nicely in RTC. It was the previous few months when WWE had strangely turned Val into a bland 1980's heel with a techno dance/house music mix as his theme song. Somehow, I forget how, Val became associated with RTC and became sort of the "main guy" under Steven Richards. Val also had an interesting heel run under his old Val Venis gimmick. It was actually a very well written storyline that involved all three of the top faces at the time (Rock, Foley, Austin) but since he didn't get HUGE heat out of the gate, it was dropped. Orton would not have survived the attitude era.

 

[chaosrage 0]

People actually want Vince Russo back with WWE, now? Why? Has he done such a great job in TNA?

 

As far as the TBS/TNT suggestions, we need to get out of the Monday Night Wars mentality as wrestling fans, like I've said before. This isn't 1998. WWE should take that to heart as well, and completely overhaul their product, especially Monday Night RAW, which is just beyond stale. I think that's the main problem with WWE...it's basically the same show it's been for the last 9 or 10 years.

 

Because Raw was a thousand times more enjoyable when he was writing the shows for WWE.

 

Russo isn't writing TNA by himself, but I do think TNA is more watchable now than it was before he came there. Let's wait to see what he can do with 2 hours. I didn't see it, but reviews of the first show were mostly positive.

 

And WWE obviously is not anywhere close to the same show as it was 9 or 10 years ago. You must not remember the Attitude Era at all if you think that. WWE feels stale now because it feels like nothing is ever happening. It was mentioned before that the one big storyline of the summer ended up amounting to nothing but a few comedy bits. Whether you miss a week of shows or a month, chances are you're not really missing anything and Raw will be the exact same show when you start watching again. In 1997 and 1998, something was always happening.

[Black Lushus 0]

Their numbers are strong enough that there is zero chance of USA cancelling them

 

So, did 83% of the posters in this thread stop reading the original post before this part of the story?

 

see my response in the "100 Reasons Why the WWE Folder Sucks" thread.