First of all, Happy Birthday tomorrow to my mother, who turns 70. Now that you’ve lived your Biblical Three Score And Ten, die already so I can get the SUV. Two weeks in Vegas, indeed.
Damn, I’m wrecked right now…
For those of you who have been following this saga over at Fleabag’s, here’s the latest. Yesterday, as was planned, I got a phone call early in the morning from the owner of the company that will almost certainly be my next employer wanting to meet me face-to-face one more time in order to iron out some things. He said that he’d heard some things from my references that he was slightly worried about, and he also said that he was going to discuss things like job duties and such. He was headed back to Nebraska from visiting relatives over the long weekend, and he’d be passing through the Quad Cities.
(Yes, the same Quad Cities I made fun of a few weeks ago in this very column. Karma loves the taste of my ass.)
So, I drove the three hours from Chicago to meet him at a convenient place so we could talk. And we did, for about an hour and a half over a tasty lunch paid for by him.
(I forget the name of the restaurant, unfortunately. However, if you’re driving I-80 into Davenport, cross over into Iowa and take the first exit. Follow the signs to the Iowa Welcome Center. On the access road to the Welcome Center, but before you get to it, you’ll see a small restaurant. If you pass the gas station, you’ve gone too far. If you’re coming east from Davenport, it’ll be the last exit before the river. Just do the same regarding the signs. They’re a little pricey, but they serve a fantastic lobster bisque. Nice view of the river from the dining room as well. Highly recommended.)
The “concerns” that he had vis-a-vis my references was the fact that they’d said that I was a little “intense” and “hard to get along with at first”. I’ll take “Duh!” for 2000, Alex. However, the owner didn’t regard that as a problem per se, especially after I told him that my “hard to get along with” problem stemmed from the fact that I try to maintain professional detachment rather than work with people from a “we’re pals” standpoint. We discussed some more stuff, and he was very impressed that I brought up the department’s budget and that, since I’ll be in charge of both quality assurance and research and development, that separate budgets for both would be appropriate and necessary (good timing, really; they’re planning their budgets for the next FY in a few weeks). By the time the check came, we seemed to have reached a working relationship. He’d help me on my “people skills” and I’d help him by being the human target for USDA’s complaints. Supposedly, the offer letter will be in my hands by Friday.
However, that hasn’t stopped me from having another phone interview with a company I know (and a company that knows my last two employers) later today. This job actually will pay more and will mean less relocation distance. Hey, if they like me too (and can expedite a face-to-face for later this week), I may end up being the Stacy betwixt Test and Big Sump Pump…not a good analogy, but I wanted to refrain from using Hogan/Savage/Liz out of respect for Liz’s memory.
Memo to Rod the Mod: Is it really necessary to put most of I-80 through Illinois under construction at the same time? Once you get past Joliet, they’re mostly Republican voters anyway, so f*ck ’em.
Speaking of Republicans…
YOU HYPOCRITES
So now that the situation in Iraq has boiled down to a guerrila war against the occupying forces, Dubbaya wants the UN to come in with a multinational peace-keeping force. Let me get this straight…Dubbaya turned the UN into a laughingstock by ignoring all objections they had to invading the country. Now, he finds that the US is going to be stuck there for a long time due to the fact that there are people doing things like bombing mosques and UN agency headquarters (certainly past next year’s elections). So he’s decided to put forward a resolution in the Security Council to make the pacification of Iraq a joint effort by a body that has absolutely no credibility thanks to him (and to a body that, let’s face it, has done such a bang-up job of keeping the peace in other places…the only way the Blue Berets would have any teeth would be by nations giving up a little bit of their soverignty to the UN in regard to their militaries, and that ain’t gonna happen).
He’s doing this for one cynical reason: get the bulk of the troops home before election season. If voting time comes around and the American people suddenly realize that we’ve got tens of thousands of boys and girls getting killed over there at the rate of about three a week, the public will have a less-favorable view of the whole thing and of his illegal occupation of the White House. Nixon tried to boost his image the same way in 1972, when he wasn’t opening up China, visiting Russia, and having his guys break into Democratic national headquarters. Yet again, Dubbaya is playing politics with people’s lives. But, hell, Halliburton’s already in there, so our job is apparently done, right?
If I’m France’s UN rep, I veto this thing so fast it’ll make Dubbaya’s pinhead swim (it’s either going to be them or the Russians, but it’ll get vetoed). I make sure I tell every single news agency in the world this: “Despite the fact that the UN would not sanction this action, you and Great Britain went ahead and did it anyway. You used specious reasons and intelligence proven to be false to aggressively invade a nation with a legitimately-recognized government. It wasn’t a “response” to September 11th because Iraq wasn’t involved in that at all. You were an aggressor in a de facto act of war, and now you want the United Nations to legitimize your actions by sending in peace-keepers. The United Nations is not the United States’ bitch. And how about paying those back dues that you owe us?”
I think even the Dubbaya supporters in the audience are wondering about this move. Of course, they’re probably upset that US forces have turned over responsibility for some of the country to multinational forces already.
Of course, it doesn’t help my side of the argument that our supporters include a true expert on political affairs in North America (specifically Mexico and the Caribbean) like Johnny Depp. “Big dumb puppy”? Thanks for the credibility boost, Johnny. However, it should firm up his Oscar nomination for Pirates (and he does deserve it).
THE PIMP SECTION
Gamble is back off the IR and ready to rock. That alone is cause for celebration.
Memo to Syl: In regard to what Grenier should have said, yeah, I have to admit that “amenez” would have been better than “obtenez” (damn, I hate transitive verbs). That being said, we do have a pair of Quebecois speaking in front of an audience of Cajuns, two groups of people that don’t necessarily speak classic French (despite the fact that La Res is supposed to be French). Plus, you would have the advantage of “obtenez” being close enough to “obtain” for the English-speakers to make a connection. The point, though, was that Grenier should have said, “Rene, get the tables” in French rather than English. It would have helped their gimmick tremendously.
FROM THE “WE ALREADY KNOW THIS, SO WHY IS IT A NEWS BREAK?” DEPARTMENT
Brian Gewirtz is an ass-kisser. The Bitch of the Baskervilles is a meddler. The day will consist of an extended period of light, followed by darkness. Why the hell are we devoting space to shit like this, WidShish? Da Meltz is an idiot; that’s why he would devote space to it. But we’re not. Come on.
MORE “DUH”-RELATED MATERIAL
From Da Meltz via the usual channels:
While the Summerslam PPV was a joint production of Raw and Smackdown, it was actually the Raw writing staff which handled a bulk of the PPV script.
Thus explaining why the SE completely blew.
Smackdown submitted which matches they wanted as part of the show, but the actual PPV was done by the Raw staff. This lends credence to the notion that Vince McMahon views Raw as the more important brand, and also further explains why the Smackdown World Title match between Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar was put on third to last, behind the Kane/RVD match.
A common refrain that emerged from my “don’t bother watching anymore” request was “I won’t watch Raw, because it sucks, but Smackdown deserves our support, so I’ll keep watching.” If Vince feels that Raw is his “most important brand”, what does that say about Smackdown? Is it because it’s flying below Vince’s radar that it’s been of reasonable quality? He’s on Smackdown much of the time. Does he think that the writers are simply putting out a special effort because he’s there? Is this the real reason he’s been popping up on Raw, because he thinks that the Vince McMahon Presence will automatically increase the quality of the show?
A lot of people are afraid not to watch Smackdown because they think the message sent to WWE by decreased Smackdown ratings would be “We’re not watching because we don’t like Kurt Angle, Eddy Guerrero, Chris Benoit, and real wrestling.” That’s a risk worth taking, I think. The real message is, of course, “We can’t stand what WWE is doing anymore. You’re putting out complete bullshit, and we’re tired of it. We’re so tired of it that we’d tune out the stuff we do like in order to avoid your programming altogether.” So I still recommend not watching Smackdown in addition to not watching Raw. I’ll get a little more into this in the Mailbag.
FROM KELLER VIZ. KANYON
As we all know, Chris Kanyon’s being returned to the Mortis gimmick. Here’s what the Torch has to say about it:
Michael Hayes is reportedly the main force behind the return to the gimmick, and is pushing for Kanyon to get a push with the gimmick. Paul Heyman was also said to be in consideration to be brought in as a manager for Kanyon, but those plans appear to be off for now.
Michael Hayes usually has better judgment than this. Kanyon’s been over before playing himself, even in WWE. Is a return to Mortis the only thing they could think for him to do right now? The only thing I can say in favor of this is that a return to “Who better than Kanyon?” might end up like Stevie Richards’ Heat gimmick, and I don’t want to see Kanyon suffer like that.
Now as per bringing Heyman back as Mortis’ manager, it should be done that way. The Mortis character needs a strong manager. In WCW, that manager was Jim Mitchell, who has always been terrific (he’s the closest thing wrestling has these days to an in-his-prime Jim Cornette). Smackdown doesn’t have that sort of presence except for Heyman. The only thing I can think of doing for him manager-wise if not Heyman with what they have on the roster now is for Linda Miles to abandon the Bashams and take over Mortis. It’s not very good, but there’s a strong visual there (and that’s what’s helped Victoria and Stevie Richards to some extent). You know, if Heyman had any stroke whatsoever backstage, Mitchell would have been given a contract with WWE by now. They need him.
AND RAW ALSO HAS PROBLEMS WITH A RETURNING WRESTLER
According to multiple sources, Dave Batista is going to finally be back later this month after those multiple surgeries to repair his triceps. So what do you do with him? Put him back with Evolution? If so, why? Where does he fit in? Trip, Flair, and Orton have some great chemistry going with each other. Batista would only disrupt that, and has the potential of killing Orton’s singles push (especially if they plan for him to go over Michaels at Unforgiven). Here’s a suggestion: Bring Batista back as a face, and have him be Shane’s weapon against Kane, especially if Kane/Shane takes place at Unforgiven (which it will) and Kane beats the living shit out of the Money Man. This is not to say that the guy deserves an upper-mid-card push, but we all know Vince Loves Big Men, and they were willing to put him in one with Evolution anyway. So it isn’t too much of a stretch, and being given Shane as a side-man, he might just get over.
MORE TORCH NONSENSE
WWE reportedly has some interest in AJ Styles, but there are concerns about his small size and southern accent in promos.
So throw him into a superhero suit and have him do a comedy act. That’s what they did with the last guy they had the same problems with. Maybe they could rehire Jamal for him too.
THE CAPACITY FOR HUMAN STUPIDITY IS INFINITE
To summarize a Torch report, Chuck Palumbo and Rikishi are both in the process of negotiating new contracts, and there’s been trouble afoot on both renewals. So nobody has a right to bitch that I only summarize without reporting what I’m summarizing about.
How exactly does Chuck Palumbo believe that he merits a high downside guarantee in his new contract? As repayment for the gay angle? He’s the third wheel to Maritano and Stamboli in the FBI. Plus, his contract antics are harming any chance that those two guys, who have busted their asses since coming in, have of really getting over. Either he sees the light or his ass will be in TNA before you know it.
And then there’s Rikishi. You know, getting some laser eye surgery and not telling your bosses about it beforehand, then taking a month off to “heal” afterward is not a good way to open negotiations when your contract’s up for renewal. Stop learning your negotiation tactics from Latrell Sprewell, okay?
SMACKDOWN SOMEWHAT SPOILED
No sent-in recap this week, so it’s “somewhat”, courtesy of one of Kumar’s stringers:
The mere thought of seeing Benjamin, Haas, Bradshaw, and Faarooq in the same ring makes me want to scrub my eyes clean with steel wool.
You’ll be happy to note that John Cena is converting from Word Life to Thug Life (thus filling Tazz’s void quite nicely) by increasing the severity of his criminal acts. But we all love Cena, so he’s forgiven anything.
Okay, so Torrie and Nidia seem to be interested in a Madonna/Britney. We all know that Billy Gunn goes both ways, at the very least. So what is Jamie Noble’s role in all of this? We must ask for the sake of completeness.
Rajah’s idiot says that the Angle/UT title match is “incredible”. Kumar should start giving manadatory intelligence tests to his live submitters, since all of us know that no match involving UT can be “incredible”. Save the superlatives for the Rey-Rey/Tajiri cruiser strap match, please.
Okay, I’ll blow this one because it’s worth it: in two weeks, there will be another world title match. It will involve Lesnar. And it will be an Iron Man match. Why two weeks? Remember, next week, Smackdown will only be ninety minutes in order to give the last half hour up to the premiere of The Mullets. Also remember that next Wednesday is the season premiere of Jolene Blalock’s New Cat Suit.
MAILBAG!
Due to the fact that I want to make sure to be able to submit this on Wednesday, I’ll stick to one great letter. It’s from Mervin McKenney The Third:
I’ve generally enjoyed your columns and agreed with your ideas and views on politics, wrestling and Star Trek. Lately, I’ve been disagreeing with some of your views and comments.
Well, that’s the right of everyone who writes in. If we didn’t have disagreements inside of the IWC, it would be awfully quiet.
Ricky Steamboat’s status on Mount Perpetually Over was the first point of contention. As a huge Steamboat mark, I understand such list are inherently subjective and reasonable minds can disagree.
Now here’s why I didn’t have him there. It’s something Steamboat admitted to in his shoot interview with RF Video. He never played a heel. Ever. The true test for a seat on Mount Perpetually Over is retaining your heat despite turning. If he never turned, we can never have any idea whether or not the audience would have accepted him as a heel. That’s the only thing keeping him out.
The next issue was your rant on the Christian from 411music. While correctly quoting portions of Leviticus, your interpretation of said scripture was completely wrong. Unless you want a correct understanding, I’ll leave that in the past.
And, like most people, you missed the point of what I was getting at. That was, in summary, that he used Leviticus as the sole reason for condemning homosexuality, instead of citing other accepted Christian sources like the three mentions of it in St. Paul’s letters. Since he was saying, in effect, that Leviticus was the sole authority on this and that it’s right, I decided to mention other things that Leviticus says that obviously have to be right too. It was, shall we say, purposeful misinterpretation to teach him a lesson.
Currently my main with you is the call for boycotting WWE show in favor of internet recaps. As you mentioned, the reason for such a boycott is to convince Vince to change show content, i.e. storylines. Later in the week, Flea used his posting of the WWE’s quarterly conference to rebut your call. Both of you are venturing close to YAM status. You didn’t misread me. I did say that two of the IWC’s finest are close to being morons. If you don’t like that, I could say that both of you are hopelessly naïve. I’ll explain why both of you are wrong.
Please do, because I think we’re both right in our way. I said what I said out of exasperation. I’m just sick and tired of the repeatedly-demonstrated non-creativity of the “creative” staff on both shows (Raw more than Smackdown), and the fact that they can’t seem to recognize that if Goldberg goes through Trip like shit through a goose like he’s going to do at Unforgiven, then Trip loses what little heat he has left. They had the perfect opportunity to get the belt off of him and get him away from the belt at the same time courtesy of the Elimination Chamber; would a feud between Trip and Michaels, not for the belt, be a bad thing? They had the opportunity for Randy Orton to prove himself at a higher level, feuding with Goldberg for the strap rather than with Michaels for no real reason, and didn’t pull the trigger. A message needs to be sent, and the only way to send one is to not watch. That’s the only thing they understand that we can accomplish. We don’t have the financial clout as a group to buy up WWE stock, then start selling it like there’s no tomorrow, driving the share price down.
The last thing that Fleabag and I are is naive. In fact, I’d say that our views are completely within reason.
I must admit that the last Nitro was the last time I regularly watched wrestling. In retrospect, the television probably served more as background noise instead of compelling television to me for much longer. As a jaded internet smark, I’ve preferred getting my fix through the writers on 411. Since I’m currently attending Seminary and have no real access to cable and a clean UPN signal, another reason for not watching comes into play. Though I fit into your particular group, it is either moronic or hopelessly naïve to think that Vince would care about his viewers or especially the IWC. Based on his past actions, Vince ranks the fans views and opinions somewhere below an IRS investigation. The only thing that matters is the TV deals and their sponsors because that is where the money is.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you on this. The man’s ego knows no bounds. He’s also very much of a short-term mentality. He prefers to cash in now rather than build something up for later. Always has, too. That’s why Hogan had him by the balls back in the late 80s.
When Vince agreed to change the content on Smackdown, it had nothing to do with the wishes of viewers. Unlike the USA Network, UPN, as a major network competing with ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and the WB, couldn’t hide behind any cable origins. The sponsors got to UPN, UPN went to Vince, and the WWF changed its content on Smackdown.
You didn’t go far enough. If the sponsors got to UPN, they could continue on their way through all of Viacom’s broadcast properties, including and especially CBS. Compared to CBS, UPN is really small potatoes. It’s fifth of six in the broadcast network department. What’s scarier, “We’re going to boycott advertising on Enterprise if Smackdown’s not toned down” or “We’re going to boycott advertising on Everybody Loves Raymond, CSI, and Letterman if Smackdown’s not toned down”?
Since cable is known for its more racier content, all of the money people could tell the PTC to go take a flying leap. According to the ratings at the time, the viewers had no problem with the content, but he made the change anyway. If Vince isn’t going to listen to the viewers when they are actually watching the product, what makes you think that he will if they don’t? As long as the network is happy and the sponsors are happy, the viewers can take a flying leap. Besides he has insulted, attacked and berated the fans, especially the IWC and people STILL watch his product, why should it change now?
Perfectly valid point. But by continuing to watch, you’re continuing to subjecting yourself to substandard entertainment and, in most cases, substandard wrestling as well.
My problem with Flea is that he perpetuates the myth that the WCW demise resulted from mismanagement. Was the management team incompetence? Yes, but no more so than the team running the show in 95, or 92 or 91 or 89 or 85, when it was Crockett Promotions. According to many in the IWC, these guys couldn’t tell the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground even with a map and directions. Even with that, the organization was a viable going concern with multiple suitors until a week or two before their final show. The only reason that WCW or ECW no longer exist is because they don’t have national television contracts. To operate a national wrestling organization, you need a national television contract. That contract pretty much covers the majority of the company’s expenses.
Now here’s where you’re wrong. What was the difference betweeen WCW in 1995 and in 2000? In 1995, it was owned by Ted Turner, who was amenable to blowing money on wrestling since, in large part, it was wrestling that helped WTBS succeed and go national, which was the beginning of his broadcast empire. It’s the same reason why the Tribune Company keeps pumping money into the minor-league baseball team on the North Side of my fair city (you know, the team that isn’t in first place in their division right now). In 2000, it was owned by Time-Warner, who didn’t have that dedication to keeping wrestling on the air. All they knew was that WCW was losing sixty million dollars a year at that point, that figure was growing, and that ratings were declining without showing any kind of a trend to recovery. Time-Warner was in the process of merging with AOL, and they wanted to get all of the red ink off their books as fast as possible. So in came Jamie Kellner and out went WCW, straight into Vince’s hands.
WCW didn’t have a broadcast contract. They were a division of Time-Warner broadcasting on networks that were also divisions of Time-Warner. Everything was internal. They were budgeted through Noo Yawk as every other division of the company is.
ECW fell victim to unrealistic expectations. Viacom sold ads based on them getting around a 2.0 rating within six months. Unfortunately, the ratings settled at .9 very quickly and stayed there. The Viacom people attempted to talk to Heyman, but Heyman was completely unreasonable about creative compromises or other things which might have increased an audience. In return, Viacom treated Heyman like shit, and the relationship went downhill. However, what it did do was open up Viacom’s mind to broadcasting wrestling. If the number three fed in the US could draw a consistent .9 on a Friday night, what could the number one fed do in its traditional Monday night slot? Viacom saw money in Vince and trauma in Heyman, mostly because Vince knew how to act like a businessman.
After Kellner axed the shows, there were still suitors other than Vince. Bischoff’s group still wanted to buy WCW, even though they had to go out and get a deal (and there were a number of outlets they could have gone to, especially USA Network, which I’ll elaborate on later). Time-Warner, though, decided to take the cash up front that Vince was giving them, because it was a cash deal completely up front. Most of the prospective suitors, by the way, dropped out a few months prior to the cancellation, not a few weeks. It was down to Bisch and Vince at the end. And speaking of one particular failed suitor…
What about NWA-TNA, you say? It isn’t a national organization. Despite their PPV deal, it pretty much runs as a regional or super regional wrestling organization. Outside of the PPV advertising and the internet, I’ve neither seen any advertisements for their shows nor found flyers for their shows in either Richmond, where I use to live, or St. Louis, my current residence. If you aren’t touring or advertising nationally, how can you be a national organization?
You’re not. I don’t bother watching them because I don’t think they’re usually worth $10 a week. If they had a cable deal and I got that channel, yes, I would watch them.
WCW was bleeding millions of dollars from their parent organizations. After the accounting fiascos of Enron and Worldcom, do you really believe that?
Yes, I do. Guaranteed contracts for ridiculous amounts signed during the short time that WCW was making a profit, combined with loss of ratings and hence loss of ad revenue, equals negative cash flow. Jesus Fucking Christ, Page and Nash were each making over a million a year guaranteed at the end. Goldberg was making about two and a half million a year, also guaranteed. That’s why they sat out until those contracts expired.
As an accountant, I could create a set of audit approved financial records that will state the 411mania.com is making or losing millions of dollars in revenue or income.
Could you do a set of books in the “making millions” department for WidShish? That way they can start paying us.
While WCW mostly operated at a loss, I doubt that the subsidiary hurt Turner’s or even Time Warner’s overall bottom line.
Turner’s, no, not really. WCW took rather minimal losses (single-digit millions) until Bisch got Turner’s open checkbook and signed people like Hogan (and even before that; WCW, on Bisch’s watch, lost over $30M in 1993). In 1996 and 1997, they showed a profit courtesy of the NWO. Then Turner sold out to Time-Warner. Naturally, WCW wasn’t a major burden on Time-Warner’s bottom line; for God’s sake, they’re a multinational mega-media company with interests in everything, even before the AOL amalgamation. However, once they stopped making a profit, they were as vulnerable as any division of Time-Warner who had red ink on the books.
I don’t believe that a huge conglomerate like Turner or Time Warner would allow their sports entertainment company, WCW, to ask for a market value television contract from it media outlets, TBS & TNT. Since the programs usually were among the top 20 cable programs. In case people didn’t know, the media outlets make their money on advertising and charge different rates based on viewer ship levels. Their cable stations were making money on these programs and didn’t have to recognize the expense of the market value television contract.
If, and only if, they’re a broadcaster making a deal with an independent contract provider, like Viacom does with WWE. In WCW’s case, the same company owned the content provider and the broadcast outlet.
There was no contract. It was one of the content provider portions of the company supplying the broadcast arm, in the case of both Turner and Time-Warner. The numbers could easily be compared. WCW was over their particular budget number by tens of millions of dollars. The profit from TBS and TNT in broadcasting their programming did not offset this. Thus, the company was in the red regarding those programs. Expectations were not lived up to.
I see this happening all the time in another division of AOL Time-Warner that’s part of the former Turner group: Cartoon Network. If a program doesn’t meet expectations on CN, it’s buried and no new ones are produced. This is what’s happened to Whatever Happened To Robot Jones? and Sheep In The Big City (although the latter did well enough to give Curious Pictures a second chance, which they capitalized on with Kids Next Door). It’s also happened to Justice League, a cartoon created by an AOLTW division, broadcast on an AOLTW outlet, based on a property owned by AOLTW. It didn’t perform, therefore no new episodes are going to be made.
By the way, in case you forgot, Cartoon Network is now being run by Brad Siegel, the ex-Turner mandarin in charge of WCW on the day they were killed.
With consolidation, the conglomerate could offset the income from one sub with losses in another and reduce their tax burden. For most of it’s existence, WCW was a huge benefit to the overall corporation.
You’re not looking at the whole picture. Time-Warner was desperate to clean the books up prior to Steve Case and his psychos coming through the door. Anything that had red attached to it was let go. WCW was the one thing we concentrated on because we concentrate on wrestling, pure and simple. However, thirty-six hours prior to all WCW programming being cancelled, I published a column on The Smarks about Jamie Kellner and his behavior when he was head of Kids’ WB, because wrestling smarks were ignoring the fact that Kellner was now holding the life of WCW in the palm of his hand. I knew about his behavior from the fact that I was a cartoon smark in addition to being a wrestling smark, and I needed to inform the audience of his modus operandi. He was absolutely ruthless when it came to properties he considered to be “underperforming” (which is why he killed Animaniacs). He continued that behavior when he was put in charge of the merged Turner properties to see how they could be cleaned up and allocated in a more efficient, money-saving fashion, which was done to put a shine on the books for AOL.
Also, to think about it from your terms, Time-Warner is f*cking huge. The losses on WCW weren’t enough of a tax write-off. If they’d actually performed worse, Time-Warner may have thought about keeping it around and sold AOL on that fact.
If mismanagement isn’t the reason, what is?
Wrong. Mismanagement is the reason. Bischoff brought the company into profitability, yet sunk it deep into the red due to those guaranteed contracts after the boom receded. Bill Busch tried to clean up the mess and couldn’t. Brad Siegel tried to get some fiscal control over the whole situation and couldn’t. Time-Warner was seeing their wrestling division lose money and needed to show some fiscal responsibility before AOL came in. That’s the whole story.
The head of television programming for the newly merged AOL/TimeWarner didn’t want wrestling on his stations.
That would be Jamie Kellner, who is NOT biased against wrestling. He is biased against programming that does not show a profit.
Since this new company had huge merger related expenses, they really needed to move some loss leading subs, like WCW, off their books. Unfortunately, in order to get any real value for the company, any possible suitor would need the television contract.
Yes and no, in that order, as I’ve explained.
When Kellner decline to keep wrestling on their networks, he eliminated the only real value of any wrestling organization. How long do you think that WWE would exist without Viacom’s contracts?
It’s really a non-issue due to the fact that there are intangible assets that can be utilized in such an atmosphere, like name value. WCW still had tremendous name value at that point to sell to a broadcast outlet. As I said, there was a suitor for WCW who was willing to take the organization without the guaranteed TV time, because they could shop the fed around looking for a slot, and they’d have two advantages: 1) the WCW name and 2) Eric Bischoff, the only guy who ever made a profit out of WCW. At the time, Stephen Chao at USA would have bit and bit hard, just to screw over Vince for negotiating in bad faith (which is what they were doing at the time regarding Raw). Chao learned how to do that from his ex-boss Rupert Murdoch, and Barry Diller has been known to do a few things for the sake of vengeance, so he would have green-lighted Nitro in Raw’s slot. There was also the possibility of Fox becoming involved at a number of different points near the end (usually in regard to Hogan trying to get them as a money mark for a new fed, but there was some talk about WCW being attractive to them). A buyer would have had to look for an outlet, but not very hard.
Without a television contract, the only asset of any wrestling organization is the video library. Vince might have overpaid for the video library but the wrestler contracts balanced out the overall cost.
Because the high-priced talent had guaranteed contracts that were with Time-Warner, not with WCW. All Vince had to do was have the low-priced talent void their Time-Warner contract and sign a WWE contract. Vince was getting WCW, but not with the big names. Naturally, the price would have to be lower.
In the long run, the AOL/TimeWarner made a mistake because they lost the advertising revenue generated by the WCW without sufficiently eliminating their associated expenses. If they kept the program on their stations, they should have sufficiently eliminated the expenses from their books and not lost the advertising revenue.
The ad revenue was pre-sold on ratings being a certain amount. At the end, Nitro was barely getting a 2.5. If ads were pre-sold at a ratings level of, oh, 3.0 or 3.5, Time-Warner would have had to refund to advertisers or create make-good slots. The advertising revenue was not going to be enough to keep up with the pre-sales, or to keep up with producing a live show every week from various locations. It’s very, very expensive to have all of that shit traveling the country with you, and booking satellite feeds, paying per diem for the talent, and paying the talent fees (and in WCW’s case, it was guaranteed money, not a low-end). All in all, there would be no money coming in.
Admittedly, my theories could be wrong; however, they are based on some idea of finances.
The problem is that they aren’t based on knowledge of the entertainment industry. They do things very differently from a standard company, and that’s the perspective you have to use here. I don’t need to be an accountant to know what happened. And I think the people that I do know who are involved in the field who know wrestling and entertainment would probably agree with me (right, BFM?).
Since he took over the company from his father, Vince only motivation is financial. If you follow the money, you understand the reasons.
Not true. Say what you want about Vince, but he does have an undeniable passion for the business. The problem is that his mentality is still stuck in the same rut as the old guys. He’s one step removed from the carny. It took the fact that he was being destroyed by WCW to even get him to listen to Russo and Shane about Attitude. Now, he doesn’t have that competition pushing him, and the creative disaster that is WWE will continue, because there’s no need for him to change. The only way he would is if the money stopped rolling in.
I don’t see much hope for that happening, and it’s not due to us. It’s due to the fact that Viacom owns 10% of WWE, and they’re going to prop up their investment. Also, Raw is still one of the highest-rated programs on cable. If ratings start to decrease, what would most likely happen is that expenses would be cut, and there’s a lot of fat on WWE. They’d get rid of the fat contracts who aren’t getting any ROI (for the first time, they’d have to take a good, hard look at why Paul Wight is getting paid all that money for drawing jack shit). I don’t expect them to go out of business. All I want to do by advocating not watching is to send a little message that fans are displeased, and there are fans who have a bully pulpit and a willingness to use it to spread that word.
That’s it for me this week. Grut’s coming in right on my heels so that you can be entertained for a change. I’ll have that column I already have done up at Fleabag’s. It’s going to be a rant on a media company that’s even bigger than Viacom (hint: round ears) and the lack of creativity that they show on a regular basis. Until then, have a good one.
