Classic Wrestling Discussion (as in non-current): Part II

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Kimi

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Jun 24, 2004
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There are a lot of problems that make them an impossibility these days. First is you need room in the arena to actually fit the extra ring without losing too many high price seats, which is never going to happen. Then you've got to have an arena that can actually fit a giant cage in it, which is hard as they already have issues with Elimination Chamber. And they have to construct a giant gimmick cage for them, which is going to be expensive for a very rarely used match.

Then you have to make the argument for why you want a giant cluster**** of a match when you can't just have a normal Survivor Series match and avoid all the costs involved and still be able to tell the story they want. I don't think there's enough nostalgia to really get it going.
 

Megahab

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Apr 30, 2009
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Has WWE ever done a multiple-ring match? I can't think of it.

I love multiple ring matches. First WCW show I ever saw was Starrcade 1991. Loved the Battle Bowl concept.
 

JackSlater

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Apr 27, 2010
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There are a lot of problems that make them an impossibility these days. First is you need room in the arena to actually fit the extra ring without losing too many high price seats, which is never going to happen. Then you've got to have an arena that can actually fit a giant cage in it, which is hard as they already have issues with Elimination Chamber. And they have to construct a giant gimmick cage for them, which is going to be expensive for a very rarely used match.

Then you have to make the argument for why you want a giant cluster**** of a match when you can't just have a normal Survivor Series match and avoid all the costs involved and still be able to tell the story they want. I don't think there's enough nostalgia to really get it going.

Good point about the financial loss with seating. The height isn't an issue though when you look at the height of the old cages. Far from the elimination chambers we see today. I also don't know what cluster**** match you mean. The concept of the match is good, as shown in the late 80s and early 90s, regardless of how poorly someone books it in any individual situation.
 

Kimi

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Good point about the financial loss with seating. The height isn't an issue though when you look at the height of the old cages. Far from the elimination chambers we see today. I also don't know what cluster**** match you mean. The concept of the match is good, as shown in the late 80s and early 90s, regardless of how poorly someone books it in any individual situation.
The old cages were terrible, WWE won't copy them. They have far too high production values to use something that looks bad. Just compare the new Elimination Chamber to anything else, it looks so good and is great for viewing too. Having those short cages would look really bad on camera due to the angle they shoot from, you basically only see the mesh of the roof. And you'd interfere with the wrestlers ability to wrestle with today's style. They're a nonstarter. You'd pretty much need to have something more like a double Cell cage.

But the biggest issue is weight not height. You need to be able to hang it from the roof supports and a lot of places can't take the added weight with the new massive scoreboards. You could do a smaller cage that is built by the ring crew, but then you have a long setup time which makes for a sucky pacing of the show.


As for a cluster****, I just meant in the general sense. Lots of bodies doing lots of things, not always easy to keep up with. Rumbles, Battle Royals, big tags, whatever. They fall into the 'cluster**** category' of match. It wan't a knock on the quality of any of those match, as you can 'easily' book something good, just a grouping of them.

The thing with a War Games match if you don't really do anything different form what you can already do. Yes you have the mechanical aspects of 5min intervals and giant double ring cage, but the story you tell can just as easily be done in a normal Hell in a Cell match with run-ins or in a standard Survivor Series tag match with a bit of creativity. Obviously they are not exactly the same, but they're close enough and have zero added cost for WWE. War Games just isn't different enough to bother with in my eyes. I'm not even sure if they'd get over with today's audience.
 

JackSlater

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Apr 27, 2010
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The old cages were terrible, WWE won't copy them. They have far too high production values to use something that looks bad. Just compare the new Elimination Chamber to anything else, it looks so good and is great for viewing too. Having those short cages would look really bad on camera due to the angle they shoot from, you basically only see the mesh of the roof. And you'd interfere with the wrestlers ability to wrestle with today's style. They're a nonstarter. You'd pretty much need to have something more like a double Cell cage.

But the biggest issue is weight not height. You need to be able to hang it from the roof supports and a lot of places can't take the added weight with the new massive scoreboards. You could do a smaller cage that is built by the ring crew, but then you have a long setup time which makes for a sucky pacing of the show.


As for a cluster****, I just meant in the general sense. Lots of bodies doing lots of things, not always easy to keep up with. Rumbles, Battle Royals, big tags, whatever. They fall into the 'cluster**** category' of match. It wan't a knock on the quality of any of those match, as you can 'easily' book something good, just a grouping of them.

The thing with a War Games match if you don't really do anything different form what you can already do. Yes you have the mechanical aspects of 5min intervals and giant double ring cage, but the story you tell can just as easily be done in a normal Hell in a Cell match with run-ins or in a standard Survivor Series tag match with a bit of creativity. Obviously they are not exactly the same, but they're close enough and have zero added cost for WWE. War Games just isn't different enough to bother with in my eyes. I'm not even sure if they'd get over with today's audience.

You see far more issues than I do. The economic issues regarding lost seating are reasonable. I don't buy that with Vince gone they wouldn't even considered it (old cage or new version of the cage) or that it's essentially a redundant idea in any significant way. Yes you can do most of the main ideas in other types of matches, but that's true of almost anything in wrestling. War Games is essentially a team based cage match with enough room for the wrestlers to not have to roll around outside on the floor for five minutes at a time while WWE films just two wrestlers at any one time. That's different from anything that they are doing, and really anything that they could do at this time, and I hope they give that concept some consideration eventually. I'm certainly not expecting it in the near future.
 

offkilter

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Jan 18, 2014
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You know what match is a real cluster****?

World War 3.

On paper a 90 man royal rumble spread across 3 rings sounds like an awesome idea until you realize its almost impossible to tell what the hell is going on. It might have been something to see in person, but I feel bad for the people that ordered it on older smaller tv's back then, trying to watch as the action was split up to three tiny camera angles.
 

quoipourquoi

Goaltender
Jan 26, 2009
10,123
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Has WWE ever done a multiple-ring match? I can't think of it.

I love multiple ring matches. First WCW show I ever saw was Starrcade 1991. Loved the Battle Bowl concept.

With the creativity on the roster, I'd love to see it.

IMG0225.gif
 

Carolinas Identity*

I'm a bad troll...
Jun 18, 2011
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So, I've been a WWE fan for over 25 years, but until recently never got really into the backstage aspect of it. Been reading up on some guys I used to like, but who just randomly vanished (Gangrel for example)

Any who, another guy I really liked was Mordecai, and I thought the gimmick was pretty solid. Is it true that the reason they killed it was cause of religious backlash for him carrying a cross around? Pretty stupid if true imo.
 

M.C.G. 31

Damn, he brave!
Oct 6, 2008
96,268
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Ottawa
So, I've been a WWE fan for over 25 years, but until recently never got really into the backstage aspect of it. Been reading up on some guys I used to like, but who just randomly vanished (Gangrel for example)

Any who, another guy I really liked was Mordecai, and I thought the gimmick was pretty solid. Is it true that the reason they killed it was cause of religious backlash for him carrying a cross around? Pretty stupid if true imo.

It ended because he got in a fight in a bar and there was a lawsuit and Vince got pissed off.
 

FirstRoundExit

Registered User
Apr 26, 2015
437
20
Me and my buddies seem to get into a very passionate conversation about early WWF/WCW every six months or so.

Finally decided I'm going to buy some dvds. Picked up the Macho Man story DVD that came out a few years ago and the ultimate Macho Man collection.
 

Shoalzie

Trust me!
May 16, 2003
16,904
180
Portland, MI
What a place to leave off at prior to Summer Slam...the Raw before Wrestlemania 13. Hot ending with Bret flipping out on the mic after losing the cage match with Sid. Leading up to that epic encounter between Bret and Austin...I've yet to watch that match start to finish so I'll be eager to check that out.
 

DenisSamson3

Registered User
Sep 13, 2007
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I was reading how much of the Networks classic content is dubbed or edited and it is pretty outstanding. Sometimes eclipsing over 10 min have been edited. Even certain jokes and ppv songs. The rock concerts are also missing and those are hits on YouTube as well as the Austin and rock Margarita duet.
 

Kimi

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Jun 24, 2004
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Newcastle upon Tyne
There's a lot of things that are changed for legal reasons. Music being the obvious one with almost every entrance being overdubbed due to WWE not having a licence for it, so you get silly things like Jericho with his WWE theme on WCW shows. And there a ton of generic music added to older shows too to just cover it up. It's really not worth the cost to use the original music, so it's understandable. Songs are part of segments have to go too, which is a bit lame.

But some stuff is also lost due to the version of the shows they upload to the Network. You get shows which are just direct copies of the old video or DVD releases where they had to remove any 'WWF' reference. So even though they can say display it again, they've just not uploaded a clean copy as it would require extra work for no gain. Those shows sometimes have things cut short or deleted too.

It would be interesting to see a master list of things that are changed/missing. Maybe even a list of ''DVD/Video exclusive' too, as they used to have random promo segments on them that were never aired.
 

DenisSamson3

Registered User
Sep 13, 2007
8,538
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There's a lot of things that are changed for legal reasons. Music being the obvious one with almost every entrance being overdubbed due to WWE not having a licence for it, so you get silly things like Jericho with his WWE theme on WCW shows. And there a ton of generic music added to older shows too to just cover it up. It's really not worth the cost to use the original music, so it's understandable. Songs are part of segments have to go too, which is a bit lame.

But some stuff is also lost due to the version of the shows they upload to the Network. You get shows which are just direct copies of the old video or DVD releases where they had to remove any 'WWF' reference. So even though they can say display it again, they've just not uploaded a clean copy as it would require extra work for no gain. Those shows sometimes have things cut short or deleted too.

It would be interesting to see a master list of things that are changed/missing. Maybe even a list of ''DVD/Video exclusive' too, as they used to have random promo segments on them that were never aired.

Yes I understand what you are saying. Especially with the DVD copies.But at what point should wwe's claim of raw, uncut, uncensored be challenged? They made that claim for many years and keep that statement on today's wwe network programs for older raws. Raw, uncut,uncensored is faulty advertising then.

As for the master list,
Some forums have compiled a few lists of edited footage but they seem to give up because wwe edits more stuff later from the same episode. Ex they edit an episode from 2004 in 2014 and then again in 2017.
 

Kimi

Registered User
Jun 24, 2004
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636
Newcastle upon Tyne
Yeah, it's really not fair claim by them. Especially with their very liberal version of history they like to push on top of the selective editing.
 

PeterSidorkiewicz

HFWF Tourney Undisputed Champion
Apr 30, 2004
32,442
9,701
Lansing, MI
You know what match is a real cluster****?

World War 3.

On paper a 90 man royal rumble spread across 3 rings sounds like an awesome idea until you realize its almost impossible to tell what the hell is going on. It might have been something to see in person, but I feel bad for the people that ordered it on older smaller tv's back then, trying to watch as the action was split up to three tiny camera angles.

I was actually at a World War 3 PPV at The Palace of Auburn Hills, Kevin Nash won. The show was fun as hell and we saw Stevie Ray at the Shell Gas Station after the show. Good story, I know.
 

alko

Registered User
Oct 20, 2004
9,348
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Slovakia
www.slovakhockey.sk
Is there any place to see classic PPV shows for free online? Royal Rumble, Survivor Series...

O man, that were times. 20 years ago already, i watched wrestling regularly. The sad thing was, i couldn't talk about it with other guys. Nobody from my friend list followed it. In Slovakia it wasnt much know sport show. And there was no Internet for me at that time...
 

Emperoreddy

Show Me What You Got!
Apr 13, 2010
129,839
75,228
New Jersey, Exit 16E
You know what match is a real cluster****?

World War 3.

On paper a 90 man royal rumble spread across 3 rings sounds like an awesome idea until you realize its almost impossible to tell what the hell is going on. It might have been something to see in person, but I feel bad for the people that ordered it on older smaller tv's back then, trying to watch as the action was split up to three tiny camera angles.

World War 3 was such a cluster f***. Three rings, and three seperate crews. Dusty was about as bad as it gets on commentary. There weren't really any planned spots, it was total chaos and impossible to keep track of as a viewer, and of course it ended with Hogan doing one of his biggest dick moves ever.
 

sabremike

Friend To All Giraffes
Aug 30, 2010
22,544
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World War 3 was such a cluster ****. Three rings, and three seperate crews. Dusty was about as bad as it gets on commentary. There weren't really any planned spots, it was total chaos and impossible to keep track of as a viewer, and of course it ended with Hogan doing one of his biggest dick moves ever.
Was that the one where he burned a copy of the Observer and 99% of the audience had no idea what the hell he was doing? I remember Meltzer thought it was hysterical.
 

JackSlater

Registered User
Apr 27, 2010
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12,663
Is there any place to see classic PPV shows for free online? Royal Rumble, Survivor Series...

O man, that were times. 20 years ago already, i watched wrestling regularly. The sad thing was, i couldn't talk about it with other guys. Nobody from my friend list followed it. In Slovakia it wasnt much know sport show. And there was no Internet for me at that time...

Dailymotion sometimes has full PPVs from the 90s.
 
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