Jump to content

WCW: Turner's Past, Fusient's Future


EndOfAnEra

Recommended Posts

ignition-1.gif

WEDNESDAY JUNE 8, 2001

The Hardrock Arena is a packed house tonight as 'Let the Bodies hit the Foor' opens up the show to the impressive pyro in the arena. Mike Tenay welcomes us, hyping up last weeks episode, and Jeff Jarrett and Lance Storm's victory over Booker T and Rob Van Dam to earn their title shots at the Great American Bash. He says that Planet Jarrett will be in the ring later tonight for a special victory speech, but first, Diamond Dallas Page takes on Rick Steiner!

SELF HIGH-FIVE!

DDP is the first man out tonight, much to the delight of the crowd. He bangs up some pyro from the stage and hits the ring as the fans pop like crazy.

YOU DON'T LIKE ME...BITE ME!

Rick Steiner is out next, and it seems the only reason for this match is storyline continuation as the fan's reaction isn't nearly on par with DDP's. They stare off briefly, and when the bell rings the first match of the night starts.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Rick Steiner

What else would you expect from this? DDP carries Steiner to a watchful brawl, and helps to open the show hot. All the reaction is for DDP's offense, as Steiner really seems to take the wind out of the crowd's sails for the most part. A quck match that has a textbook Diamond Cutter ending.

Winner: DDP @ 5:56

As DDP celebrates after getting his measure of revenge on Rick Steiner for his attack at The Big Bang, Mike Aweome hops the guard rail and jumps him from behind! Awesome and DDP brawl briefly, but Steiner jumps in and gets his licks on DDP. The two men start to double team him, but Chris Kanyon comes sprinting down the aisle! Kanyon slides into the ring and goes straight for Steiner, as DDP recovers and pairs off against Awesome! The four men brawl around the ring as the announce team is shouting.

Stevie Ray: These guys are gonna kill eachotha!

Lawler: What a way to open Ignition!

Tenay: Fans, we have to take a commercial break! Don't go anywhere! KANYON WITH A FLATLINER ON STEINER!

*COMMERCIAL*

When Ignition returns, we are shown a wide shot of the stage.

CH-CH-CHOSEN ONE

Jeff Jarrett and Lance Storm step out onto the stage together, dressed in street clothes. Jarrett has a cocky grin following the win last week, and Storm is serious as ever. The two men, who are now getting solid heat, get into the ring, and Lance Storm starts on the mic.

Storm: If I can be serious for a minute...

The crowd starts booing loud enough for Storm to have to stop. He mutters to himself until the crowd quiets down.

Storm: As I was saying...If I can be serious for a minute...last week on Ignition, Jeff Jarrett and I proved once again why we are the rightful US and World Champions here in WCW, and why we are, simply put, the BEST. Not only did we beat Booker T and RVD in a tag team match, but now, we get what's coming to us, title shots at the Great..."American"...Bash.

Storm passes the mic to Jarrett, who automatically has to wait for the crowd to stop booing him.

Jarrett: I said we would do it and we did! And aaaaalll you SLAPNUTS had better believe the word, when it comes from the mouth of the CHOSEN ONE! Rob Van Dam, your days as US Champion are numbered, and you're gonna fall at the hands of THIS MAN! LANCE STORM! And then there's Booker T...Champ, you had better keep that belt in the BEST condition, because when I knock you on your ass for the 3, that belt, is comin' home!

I'M BAAACK! AND BETTER THAN EVER!

Jarrett gets cut off by the music of Eric Bischoff, as the WCW President steps out onto the stage, mic in hand.

Bischoff: Jeff, Jeff Jeff...don't you think you're getting a little ahead of yourself here? I'll tell you what, why don't we go back and take a look at what exactly was said last week...

Bischoff points behind him to FusientVision, and we're shown a highlight of last week's encounter between the boss and Planet Jarrett.

Bischoff: But you know what? I brought WCW back to ensure a level playing field, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. So here's the deal. Right here tonight, Jeff Jarrett and...say Lance Storm, since you were so eager to interfere in the World Title match on Sunday. You two are going to be involved in a tag team match tonight against Booker T and Rob Van Dam! And if you can beat them, I'll give you your title shots. Fair?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yet another good show, but not as good as the initial Ignition. I like what you did with Jarrett and Storm, leads you down another path than Booker vs Jarrett headlining another PPV. And RVD vs Double J could turn out to be a really good match. I like your tag scene too. If Awesome and Steiner and DDP and Kanyon stay together, you tag division could be really good, especially with The Live Crew. I also liked how your making Eric into a good guy, rather than an evil mastermind like so many people turn him into. I would like to see more guys on the shows, but sees as your building towards a PPV, and it's only your second episode, I can see you reasoning behind focusing on the same guys every week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Solid show. I enjoyed the twist that you threw in with Jarrett having a U.S. Title shot and Lance Storm getting a World Title shot. I hope to see Lance Storm - WCW World Heavyweight Champion! I was really looking forward to Lance Storm making a World title run, but then WCW folded. So maybe now I will be able to see the World Title run he finally deserves. (Y) Thumb up EndOfAnEra. Even though you already had 2 Ignitions, I'm already looking forward to TGAB.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another solid edition of Ignition. Liked the swerve Bischoff pulled on Jarrett and Storm. Booker/Storm and Jarrett/RVD should be great matches at TGAB. So should DDP/Kanyon vs. Awesome/Steiner, as you have three excellent wrestlers... and Steiner. I'm guessing you'll be making O'Haire/Palumbo vs. The Live Krew for the PPV, since The Live Krew got a non-title win over O'Haire and Palumbo. Admittedly, not looking too forward to Morris/Animal and Totally Buff/Kronik... but it wouldn't be WCW without those type of matches. Main Event with Booker and Vampiro was good, though for a moment I thought you were going to go with Booker/Malice.

Anyways, excellent show. TGAB is shaping up to be a good PPV.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You have some good qualities within the diary. I like the backstage stuff, and you write well for certain people, especially Kanyon. The layout is easy on the eyes, and at the very least, you have a direction for the company, which is better than most. So it's not all bad at all.

However...

-- Your Big Bang PPV was like a REALLY long Nitro. I almost thought it would never end by the time we got to Totally Buff/Konnan/Roaddogg. You booked it like it was a TV show. An PPV opening with a promo? Doesn't fly, really. Plus, surely you'd have booked matches on the website or something to at least get the internet fans to purchase the PPV. It seemed too much work to just book so many "on-the-fly" matches and I don't see how many people could have realistically bought the PPV with so little announced, if anything at all.

-- What's with the obsession of using things that came in the future? It just shows a lack of creativity, IMO, if you have to resort to coming up with "Planet Jarrett" which was never used in WCW, nor until around 2003/2004 in TNA. Johnny Stamboli? He never used that name before. Why the change? "Live Krew"? What reason did Konnan have to team with Roaddogg? Why "BG" James? I know he used it in the future but surely you could have been a little bit more inventive (BG James isn't the best name as it stands even today). It irks me when people do that.

-- In one show, you have Kidman attack Helms backstage. On the next show, there's not even a mention of it at all. Helms just congratulates Tajiri and says everyone else should earn it. After a backstage attack, personally, I'd be angry and want to address it.

-- I don't like the overpush of Doring or RVD. If RVD debuted in WCW in real life, his reaction, much like it was in WWF, would be average at best until he went into the ring and did his thing. But yet he debuted at Big Bang and got an unjustifyable pop, IMO. If thats just how the game simulated it then my apologies, but that's just unrealistic to me. Ditto Doring, who was a nobody at the best of times, let alone in a bigger company. I don't see how so many people would have understood the "Meat" reference to Stasiak either. Most WCW fans at that point probably wouldn't have known much of Stasiak's past, let alone about that nickname. I sense it would have gotten the "Sid/Scissors" reaction.

There are a few other bits as well that I just don't like, but as I said, you have a direction for it and hopefully you'll be able to take that direction and do something positive with it. You have a strong talent pool to work with so there's no reason why you shouldn't do well with it. Needs a little bit more work though. Just because it's WCW, doesn't mean you need to fall into their trap of lacking logic or continuity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

-- Your Big Bang PPV was like a REALLY long Nitro. I almost thought it would never end by the time we got to Totally Buff/Konnan/Roaddogg. You booked it like it was a TV show. An PPV opening with a promo? Doesn't fly, really. Plus, surely you'd have booked matches on the website or something to at least get the internet fans to purchase the PPV. It seemed too much work to just book so many "on-the-fly" matches and I don't see how many people could have realistically bought the PPV with so little announced, if anything at all.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

ok, I'll be honest, I didn't read all that much of your backstory. Just seemed like an unneccessary and really long winded way of getting to the point that WCW's coming back, and somebody's bought it, and they're debuting a new PPV called the Big Bang. Great.

so, they debut with a PPV rather than a tv show. I'm undecided on whether that's a good idea or not. On the one hand they need something big to get people hooked back in, on the other maybe a sudden surge of fans really is just not gonna happen and instead it needs solid progress through well worked tv shows. The problem I have is that the last WCW PPV scored a buy rate of 0.10. The promotion then fucks off for two months. Now, admittedly the simple fact that WCw's back adn there's a new WCW may get people buying out of curiosity, but just how much? I mean, I don't see anything really advertised other, apart from "hey, here's a new WCW PPV, come buy it, we'll tell you what's on it when it starts...". I'd genuinely have wanted as many people as was humanly possible watching our first show back, if you're running on FSN I'd have pushed hard to get them to give you a two hour free to view ppv quality show (although probably run more like a tv show as it's essentially what was needed for a first show) in the right timeslot (not vs raw or smackdown or anything) and get as many fans tuning in as possible, and REALLY hype the full time return to tv of the promotion. but i expect i missed something in the backstory that i didn't read properly which would have stopped you being able to do that.

so, ppv time, the music/intro video was cool, made sense to focus on steiner being a bad ass, and booker being the one to beat him, puts book over nicely and then all teh other little bits you included in there would actually make someone who hadn't seen the promotion before (although they won't be watching as they wouldn't have bouight this ppv) pretty excited about what they might see tonight. still, i know i'd have been marking out and excited at seeing some of the highlights of what was left of WCW.

so, the new WCW logo, is in fact, the real life old WCW logo that vinnie mac used. i can't really complain or say that it's bad that you should use it, just because it's what was used in real life by somebody else but, what's wrong with the old WCW logo? why do people always think a new logo is important and makes a sodding difference? I liked the old logo, bring it back. but then I liked Schiavone mostly and nobody else really did that.

Eugh, you have Tenay as play by play carrying the show on announce? The guy's horrid in that role, he really is. He just can't get moves over, or call main events, people complain about JR but SO many WWF moments over the years were enhanced by words from JR to the point where there are some matches that when I remember, I instantly remember a line of his commentary. There's not one TNA match that gives me any memory of Tenay. He never knows what to focus on to get the right things over. The way Heyman got GORE! GORE! GORE! over in WWF, or how Lawler got over the sodding Worm of all things. Tenay just tells you what's happening and then ignores it for a bit to tell you what Jeff Jarrett or Sting or Kurt Angle's gonna be doing later on. Somebody like JR, or Schiavone when he cared, got you emotionally involved in a match in a way that Tenay can't do. He needs some serious help out there and he gets.... Stevie Ray? Great. I know you were probably limited on choices for people to call the show, and if you were set on removing Schiavone which makes sense as he stopped caring a LONG time ago, the it's hard but that announce team just really wouldn't have me buying anything right now. They wouldn't enhance the show at all.

Incidentally read briefly your comments about some of the feedback. To my knowledge from reading them, I've NEVER seen a wcw 2001 diary dissed for starting a first PPV with a match, I've seen them dissed for starting with the WRONG match, but not just for a match. however, the fact you start with Bischoff in the ring doesn't overly bother me. HE's the owner, the promotion's back, his character is one who gloats like a smarmy motherfucker anyway so wouldn't he come out and do just that? damn right he would. bear in mind also, and i don't know this as you didn't say so but there's every chance that it would, and should, have happened in reality, the fans have probably already seen a fast-paced Cruiserweight "dark match" right before the show went live anyway, to get them in the mood.

Lawler as the colour guy I like, he's teh right guy at the right time. Something fresh was needed and if have Mr lack of personality Tenay you need a BIG personality to carry it. At least now you have one person on your announce team who knows how to get things over and if you can write some of his comedy then cool, he should be fun. I hated his "looking at who I was replaced with" line though. Who the hell would have a clue, or really care, what he was talking about? These guys are wrestling fans, they know Lawler, but how many people who were paying a shitload of attention to the WWF at this point in time do you think bought this PPV? It was kinda stupid too, a missed opportunity for an amusing Lawler one liner. I was replaced with Paul Heyman, therefore I'm glad I'm here, despite the fact that if I was still there Paul Heyman wouldn't actually be there anyway. If you had to make some remark about the WWF surely it should have surrounded Stacy? and, i hope you've bought her along for the ride, not only because it makes sense but because actually she'd be fun to have on your roster right now.

booker promo's fine, he needs to give up or get stripped of the US title somehow so you got that out of the way right off the bat.

what are they all doing together? Jarrett, Animal, Sanders, Storm and Awesome? It's two months down the line, I don't exactly expect you to carry on all teh storylines that were in place, but they don't even fit to make a decent stable. It's all a bit odd, what allegiance do they have to Jarret, and simply why do they ahve any reason to be his bitches?

exactly which thre couldn't hold his jock? Why not just say that Flair's an ass, Steiner's foot's fucked and he dropped the ball, and the rest were losers bar this man, this great, big, hulking has been, the ROAD WARRIOR ANIMALLLL!!!!!! Yeah, he pisses over Steiner, clearly. and why can he count on these guys? never did in the past, why does he now? Sanders is Commissioner, fair enough, I like Sanders on the mic and he'll do ok although I do think that people get obsessed these days with on screen authority figures in their diaries and the job almost gets bandeed about like an extra title where people actually wrestle for it and stuff, i hope you don't end up going that route.

Sanders is Commissioner, err, hang on? how does that put you on the level with Bischoff, isn't he the President? Surely President trumps Commissioner? Even if Flair signed Sanders into a tight contract, surely Bischoff can just overturn all his decisions, which incidentally gets boring REAL fast, see Watts/Callis/TNA for further proof.

So, Eric comfirms that, and it looks like we're set for a horror show of boring overrules? Eitehr that, or it gets ignored which makes the whole thing pointless.

Bischoff gives them what they want anyway, and even gets Sanders to actually physically say it because he can't be arsed himself? or, whatever. Booker/Jarrett's fine as a match that leads somewhere, makes sense after two months for Book to defend the belt, but it's not a PPV carrying match, and it has been seen before, enough, if this was a tv show it'd suffice for your first main event but this is teh new WCW, the new guys get their shots right? you said that, not the old farts. When will people realise that Jarrett DOES NOT count as New fucking Blood, the guy's more old school than most of the roster.

Bischoff had the chance to get rid of Sanders, and tells him so, but hey, it's ok because I thought it was a good idea and the fair thing to do. Obviously, Sanders has always proved that he can be a trustworthy and fair Commissioner who'll do what's best for the wrestlers. Well done Bisch.

fans screaming and going nuts is NOT what would happen for RVD. honestly, go rewatch him and Dreamer running in on WWF during the Invasion. They did NOT go mental just because they saw him, they didn't really react all that much at all. Once they'd seen him jump around like a crazy fucker in the ring, then they went nuts over him. It wouldn't take long at all in this diary before he could get mental crowd reactions, but him walking in with a whistle blowing nutter wouldn't do it. you can argue that he's set to be a big start, that everyone's gonna know him, that WCW wanted to sign him and push him big, but that does not mean that the second he walks out from teh back people are gonna go nuts. This isn't Bret Hart turning up on Nitro for the first time after Montreal. It's ECW's biggest star, yet still, just an ECW star, turning up as a surprise entrant. Great, some fans would be excited, many wouldn't really care, once the match was done and he'd torn the house down with Storm, then you can break out the mental crowd reactions.

11 minutes for his first match, on PPV, against Storm is great, it might not be my ideal pick of two guys to go out and wrestle the first match back in WCW but they would do what was neccessary, put on a fast-paced, excellent match that would REALLY warm the crowd for the rest of the show.

why the fuck would Luger/Bagwell/Steiner want to get back with Jarrett, he just gave them shit int he ring, AND, admitted to it when confronted with them. Are they pussies? Why not just kick his ass, why wrestle a match to try and get back into his little posse? why not go worry about winning back that US title, or those tag belts, instead?

Cash? Kid Kash? well, at least he's no longer named after a seriously fat and utterly useless dude from H2K

why does Nova get the biggest reacion of the men so far? Because they get excited seeing guys they don't really know much about more than guys from the existing roster? What are they reacting to? Jett was getting a push, Jung Dragons were liked by the fans for some fun matches, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't expect massive pops, but I'd expect a bigger one than for Nova. The debut of new people so far's been kinda ok, but too much more and it'll get messy. I understand that there's gaps that need filling, btu there's also plenty of talent that was on the roster already that by the looks of it you're not going to bother using. That's unneccessary really and the fans won't be able to take in THAT many new people debuting. I know it's a new WCW, but it shouldn't be treated like an entirely new promotion. WCW did have a fanbase at one ponit, and the promise of a relaunch, as much out of curiosity as anything else, would have got some of those watching tonight.

Air Raid didn't win, that's good, any AJ overpush at this point would turn a LOT of people right off, including me. Jett/Nova's fine to move on from this, Jett was on a roll and could have been a lot (his ECW matches were always good too) and Kash/Moore shouldn't be ignored either as Kash is a really good heel and worker for a Cruiserweight division.

we had to endure Cat going after Sanders for the Commissionership once, do we have to do it again? Like I said, it is NOT a title belt, me no like.

Palumbo & O'Haire were one of the few things that were getting over when WCW died, fans were into them. They'd get a decent reaction, and if they didn't? You should have put one in over the speaker. I'm not kidding, they're your tag champs, they were as over as a tag team could be in WCW at that point (which really wasn't a huge amount in real terms but still) and you can make them look like big stars, which IS neccessary.

ok, first off, O'Haire sounds like a heel, why? Also, he had the ability at that point to actually be quite reasonable on the mic IF he was allowed to get intense and showcase his presence. Instead you try and make him cocky heel? Where did that come from. and why? Tenay referencing it doesn't suddenly make it explained either.

HAHAHAHAHA, Mamalukes back together, with no explanation other than Tenay telling us they're back together, which we can see, after a "bit of a fallout" lmao. Yeah, ok. Also, there's no reason as such why you shouldn't call JTB, Stamboli, except that, I just don't understand why. His name was fine, it adds nothing, and to the best of my knowledge it's not his real name and was created by the WWF, so why would you create exactly the same name for him, before they did, when it's not that great anyway?

Don't like just flipping Palumbo & O'Haire over to heel because you feel like it, but the right team won. No protection for the Mamalukes redebuting with a loss, albeit to the World Champions.

Don't feel you have Lawler down at all either. I'm not saying everything he says should be comedy, too many people make that mistake. But he's at his best when he's throwing in the odd line and so far we've had none. He's just generic colour guy, not even generic heel colour guy, just generic.

oh man, ok, Stacy's great, and she was one of the things in WCW that had managed to get over. She's more important to you than a lot of people realise doing this diary but, another debut, another one from ECW, not even actually a very good one from ECW, and she even refers to him as being from ECW. Maybe because nobody would know who he is otehrwise? You know what, would that have been a bad thing? Tool the guy up with a new gimmick, make him out to be a newcomer, and don't try and pretend he's famous because he was in ECW bceause they are SUPPOSED to be an inferior promotion to yours, which is in fact, now dead.

the crowd would NOT laugh at the Meat reference. They wouldn't get it, it's already been said but Sid/scissors, they didn't get that, they won't get Meat. If you were watching the WWF whjen Meat was around, you most likely wouldn't be watching this show tonight. so Doring's new gimmick is that he's basically a cocky little perve who wants to fuck women but won't really get anywhere with them in reality? could be fun, and i can't really think of any other way to use the guy as i generally think he's got little to nothing to offer to you

hang on a minute, how long has this show been so far and we've had two matches? This is like Nitro, and not even a very good Nitro.

eugh, Bang Man? dunno, just sounds shitty. the DDP promo lacked the attempts at being explosive that he SHOULD have in there. I dunno, join the dots or something and have him really BANG!!!!! it out, just not "get ready to fell the bang..buddy.". weak. could have done with calling Steiner something better than a burst vein too, Einsteiner for a start. Anyway, you'll get the characters down better as this goes along hopefully, some are fine, but there's some that don't feel right

Awesome's good but has had his push turn into a bit of a horror show. Morrus on the other hand has kinda got himself over, and it worked, with the help of a little bit of a push. The guy's hugely under-rated at this point in time and if his knees work, then he can be seriously good for you in this diary. I like the idea of the two workin together as well as it's kinda unexplored really, never really seen anyone feud them both and that would be fun, the two big men that can move. I know the match isn't written in play by play sttyle (which is no bad thing by the way, pbp matches bore me to shit most of the time) but it really didn't feel like 9 minutes of action. Morrus was really just used to portray Awesome as a monster, and 9 minuets is maybe a longer match than you think. Shame too as Morrus could, and probably should on the basis of his WCW run up to this point, be used way better than this.

also, it didn't seem like Morrus' unwillingness to give up, it seemed like Awesome picking him back up to unleash more pain.

Kronik Vs Palumbo/O'Haire could be good, they're probably your two money teams right now and whether people like Kronik or not there's no denying that a. they were over in WCW terms at that point, and b. they were strangely entertaining in wcw, come on, really, they were. I liked Kronik, a lot, and a strong tag team division adds a lot to a diary so building to that is fine. They're horrid on the mic too so you didn't overplay them by making them sound cool. I can even deal with the fact that you kinda ignored that one of the last times we saw O'Haire on tv he was screaming into the camera because Kronik had been attacked backstage, and was calling Luger out (and then promptly beating him). The whole "re respect you" thing was fine and kinda covered that up. Still, O'Haire was about to be built on his intensity and that's wher ehis money is, not in being a cocky snot nosed punk heel.

ok, ok, ok, VAMPIRO VAMPIRO VAMPIRO, did he steal sting's gimmick? raven's? the undertaker's? or just mixed all three losing what was great about those three individual characters in the process. that said, he can work, and he's not quite as bad on the mic as people think. but why the hell is he back? would he wanna come abck and work for wcw? what lured him back in, explain? mitchell i like, but seeing as he's back in a place he's been before, believe it or not, SOME people do remember these things so why not call him James Vandenburg? He's still essentially the same character, isn't he? You turn Wall (presumably that's who you've used?) into Malice with no explanation (the look's pretty different, but it is still the same guy, it wouldn't have taken much to explain it either with a decent segment where he gets turned over, but seems a bit lazy to just have him there), it's essentially another debut as Malice is a new character and you've not acknowledged who he was, you've then taken more TNA stuff in calling them the Gathering. I can't really knock you for just pinching names from elsewhere and not coming up with your own when the ones you've pinched do fit, but it's just not working for me, i already have these names associated with other stuff that's now happened in real life. also, i like dark sinister type stables, there's fun you can have with them, but i didn't much like that segment at all. doesn't get me excited about them. sod going after booker's belt, start going after world domination and opening up a canker in the world that unleashes the deepest depths of hell on wcw. do something properly nasty, not just winning a shiny gold belt off someone.

stil not much wrestling for a pay per view

Doring's good reaction is surprising, REALLY surprising, he wasn't even one of the handful (rhino/RVD/perhaps sandman/dreamer too) WCW guys that fans would really know about. Doring wins, well, it is his debut. Shame though, Stasiak's good, Doring's not.

get back together? didn't the mamalukes already do that? i'm confused now. was that your big explanation for them being back together lik before? they had a match, and lost, so they should be back together because of it, even though they had to get back together for that match anyway?

so much non-wrestling stuff, said it before, say it again, LONG ass Nitro right here, and that's not a good thing. This could/should have been a live tv show to drag in more viewers if it was gonna work like this.

yep, that's right Kidman. You were the second-last person to lose in an attempt for the Cruiserweight title (i think?) on one of the last Nitro's, so that does indeed mean you should be the number one contender, right? you just had a shot, and got beat to put over helms. kidman wants the belt, makes sense though seeing as he's held it so many times, and i don't think sustaining a cruiser tag title is really possible without your promotion becoming a mess, so no probs with you droppin them really. nice to see he's finally remembered he's nothing more than a cruiser too, and lost his delusions of being a breakout star outside the division.

I actually quite like your Stevie Ray, he's making me chuckle more than Lawler, which all round isn't a good thing but at least one of them's coming over well. he's the best, and most entertaining, of the three you're writing right now.

Helms reaction being good isn't a surprise, he was one of the few things getting over towards the end, Suga Shane, with his dancing girls and all that. He would get a good reaction, no surprise. why no dancing girls by the way? there doesn't seem to be a reason to change it, and the whole package of the gimmick made him look like a star, and was working, so why tweak?

fuck off Lawler, stop talking about the opposition. You're in no position to take shots at the WWF and try and make out you're better than them right now, because you're clearly not. You're so far behind it's untrue, there's not even a war, focus on what makes you great and do NOT mention the wwf for a long time. it just highlights that there's this other place doing much, MUCh better stuff than you, with much, MUCH bigger stars working for them.

Another ECW guy, great, and straight into a title shot? THE FANS GO NUTS!!!!! do they bollocks. maybe they thought he was the great muta if they saw him spit mist or something, but even he hadn't got massive reactions on wcw shows in his last run either.

why are they more on the side of newcomer Tajiri? Helms was a huge fan favourite for the division, and was over, why would you try and change that and make out like they've suddenly turned on him for no reason in favour of some guy from an inferior promotion that they've not seen before?

OHMYGOD!!!! you're an ECW mark, right? You must be, Corino? I like the guy, I do, and there's more of a place for him maybe than some of the other guys you've bought in, he can work a mic at least. but another debut, and it's NOT a familiar voice, who the hell in WCW knows that voice? fuck off about former ECW world champion, that doesn't really work. your'e a former world champ so you want to be a cruiserweight champ? just stop bringing these guys in and trying to live off ECW fame. Stop asuming everyone knows who all these guys are. Corino in the cruiser division could be interesting though, he doesn't really work a style that fits with them traditionally but that can be an advantage as he brings something new to the table, PLUS, he can talk with large numbers of them can't.

Lawler's comment about the ECW title kinda makes fun of you as much as anything else though. He's right, the ECW world title doesn't mean much in the real world, so why are all these guys being presented as former ECW guys, as if it's a good thing?

the kanyon segment was cool though, i liked it, kinda fun, nothing big or major but didn't need to be, this is still totally tv show and totally NOT pay per view. i'd be bored by now and the only reason i'd still be watching the thing is that i'd paid money for it and felt obliged to. i'd be getting irritated by all the small fairly pointless skits and interviews, and debuts and stuff that were going on.

DDP/Kanyon match sounded kinda fun, but totally buried Kanyon. I understand that DDP's kinda a bigger star, but using him in some way to elevate a guy like Kanyon (as DDP aint gonna go on being your main eventer for too much longer) wouldn't have been a bad thing. If this leads to Kanyon somewhere down the line pulling his shit together and standing up to, and beating DDP, then cool, but if you make KAnyon look too weak right now there's no going back in terms of making him credible at the top of the roster.

Incidentally, why ddi Rick Steiner attack DDP with a chair? that was his way to impress Jarrett tonigt, or what? Kanyon saves him (nice to see the Flatliner, cool move, Kanyon should be using it) but this needs to lead somewhere good because Kanyon/DDP/friends/not-friends/friend etc etc, has been done. you don't need to revisit it and tease it a lot.

the little jarrett interview was good, his character was cool, mic off paulshock, getting rid of her, all worked well. i liked it.

does stevie raw mean yak as in, like, those big hairy beasty animal things? because, pamela paulshock REALLY isn't like one of them, at all. made me laugh, but then i'm probably not "street" enough to have a clue what he's on about and it means something else

the fans should go bigger for RVD this time around, although i still think you've overplayed it throughout this night with his crowd reactions, especially earlier. more building tension and feuds off the back of ECW. great, nobody should really care so much what happened there. I've heard so much ECW this PPV that I'm starting to wonder if it's a WCW show or not.

I actually think RVD/Awesome would have been better than RVD/Storm earlier tonight. RVD/Storm was never as good as expected in my eyes, and at least with Awesome he can take it to the extreme, which they do. RVD bumping around to make Aw3esome look hot, and the general feel to this would entertain me more than RVD/Storm, but I'm guessing the game told you RVD/Storm was better so you can't ignore it.

RVD/Awesome tension teased at the end too and the potential for them feuding I like. It'd be a great feud to re-establish Awesome in the manner he should be, and to cement RVD as a real star for the company.

Ok, Morrus being the one to take care of Jarrett and his little posse is kinda okish, except thjat Morrus basically got jobbed out earlier, but the thing is, Booker's WCW character at this point was very much a guy who would feel like he was gonna go out there and do this alone. I'm nto saying he never had alliances, I just think if someone came in his locker room right before his world title defence, he'd say thanks, but no thanks, and keep his focus where it should be.

ok Konnan and BG, why? because they came together in TNA a couple of years later? In TNA, both were in the promotion and needed something to do, and their characters while not really fitting together traditionally, made an interesting threesome with the Truth and created a team that was fun. That doesn't mean that if "BG James" (yet another newcomer) was to set foot in WCW for the first time he'd just suddenly jump to Konnan's side like he's his boy, when clearly he's not and they have no affiliation whatsoever. If Konnan needed a partner, he wouldn't go to BG James. I don't care where the rest of the Filthy Animals are or why he couldn't have chosen one of them, but that just made little sense to me.

Also, the fact that Tenay in TNA has always constantly referred to people as former ECW this, and former WWF that, is because he has to. TNA needs to big them up in that way. WCW wouldn't do that, at most they'd call BG James a former World tag team champion, not a former WWF one (like they did with Bret, calling him a former x times World Champion when he debuted). Constantly referencing the opposition to try and give your own guys credibility makes you look weak.

booker interview's fine, and then we're at the main event, finally? that was a long ass show, with not enough wrestlign content for it to carry an entire pay per view that people paid money for. A tv special a la SNME/COTC, or even just a simple first edition 2/3 hour "Ignition" would have sufficed. also, barely at all, has anyone on this show tried to sell Ignition and promoted what's gonna happen on it. using PPV to promote a tv show might seem odd, but as you went ppv first (your choice) you put yourself in that position and you need to give people a reason to tune in next week. So far we know there's a rick steiner match. awesome

the main event's fine, typical ppv main event that's not had the luxury of the usual build up going into the show. nothing essentially wrong with it at all and a decent enough way to end the show.

all in all there were a LOT of problems i had with this show, it wasn't all bad, some of the segments were written well, some of the booking was good, but there were seriously a lot of problems with this being the show to relaunch WCW to the world

Link to comment
Share on other sites

so, they debut with a PPV rather than a tv show. I'm undecided on whether that's a good idea or not. On the one hand they need something big to get people hooked back in, on the other maybe a sudden surge of fans really is just not gonna happen and instead it needs solid progress through well worked tv shows. The problem I have is that the last WCW PPV scored a buy rate of 0.10. The promotion then fucks off for two months. Now, admittedly the simple fact that WCw's back adn there's a new WCW may get people buying out of curiosity, but just how much? I mean, I don't see anything really advertised other, apart from "hey, here's a new WCW PPV, come buy it, we'll tell you what's on it when it starts...". I'd genuinely have wanted as many people as was humanly possible watching our first show back, if you're running on FSN I'd have pushed hard to get them to give you a two hour free to view ppv quality show (although probably run more like a tv show as it's essentially what was needed for a first show) in the right timeslot (not vs raw or smackdown or anything) and get as many fans tuning in as possible, and REALLY hype the full time return to tv of the promotion. but i expect i missed something in the backstory that i didn't read properly which would have stopped you being able to do that.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Too many blocks of quoted text, apparantly

Don't feel you have Lawler down at all either. I'm not saying everything he says should be comedy, too many people make that mistake. But he's at his best when he's throwing in the odd line and so far we've had none. He's just generic colour guy, not even generic heel colour guy, just generic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. To learn more, see our Privacy Policy