ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

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ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by cero2k » Jun 19th, '18, 11:36

Source: f4wonline.com

While Ring of Honor planned to run a show at Madison Square Garden next year, it looks like that won't be happening.

ROH COO Joe Koff did an interview with PWInsider today where he noted that Madison Square Garden said they were backing out of the show after "communications from WWE." Dave Meltzer reported last Thursday that WWE was doing everything they could to stop the event from happening and that it was possible they would succeed in doing so.

"I’m not going to discuss beyond this statement because I am not going to litigate this in the press," Koff told PWInsider. "We had a deal with [Madison Square] Garden and they then told us they were backing out after communications from the WWE. We are not able to get any other dates in any kind of discussion.

"I’m expecting that our lawyers will be contacting all the parties involved and the best we can hope is that we can find a resolution, so we can bring the kind of energy and excitement that ROH and our partner New Japan to a bigger audience and to bigger arenas and to the fans of New York City."

Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley first mentioned the show while speaking with the Baltimore Business Journal. It was planned to take place during the Saturday of next year's WrestleMania weekend, with WWE's Hall of Fame ceremony, NXT TakeOver special, and post-Mania Raw and SmackDown scheduled for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

AAA has also been planning to run Madison Square Garden. It's been several decades since anyone other than the McMahon family has promoted a pro wrestling show at the venue.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 19th, '18, 12:08

Bad move by WWE, good move by Koff to let everyone know.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by cero2k » Jun 19th, '18, 13:11

handicapping the PPV value for all promotions, no compete clauses, cockblocking venues, and yet people still don't see this is a monopoly.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 19th, '18, 13:23

cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 13:11 handicapping the PPV value for all promotions, no compete clauses, cockblocking venues, and yet people still don't see this is a monopoly.
Because it's not a monopoly. The final decision was MSG's, not WWE. Others have used non-compete clauses in the past (when Crockett sold to Turner he had to sign a five-year non-compete). The PPV-value thing is BS because other promotions could be- and are- doing the same with their own streaming services. There is even a valid argument that in the case of ROH and TNA, WWE cutting the prices of their PPVs actually helps them because it gives fans more disposable income each month.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by cero2k » Jun 19th, '18, 14:01

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 13:23
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 13:11 handicapping the PPV value for all promotions, no compete clauses, cockblocking venues, and yet people still don't see this is a monopoly.
Because it's not a monopoly. The final decision was MSG's, not WWE. Others have used non-compete clauses in the past (when Crockett sold to Turner he had to sign a five-year non-compete). The PPV-value thing is BS because other promotions could be- and are- doing the same with their own streaming services. There is even a valid argument that in the case of ROH and TNA, WWE cutting the prices of their PPVs actually helps them because it gives fans more disposable income each month.
it's MSG's final decision, but it's the intervention of WWE that makes the decision, THAT makes it WWE's decision. Distribution will obviously want to have more brands to distribute but when one brand comes in and buys out the distribution space all for themselves, that is a monopoly.

Others have used non-compete, so what? they're the only ones doing it right now.

it's not whether promotions are lowering with their own networks, it's WWE FORCING the industry to lower the value of PPVs or find a way to get a network going in order to get your product out. WWE is the sole dominant entity in the whole industry, it may not be a 'pure' monopoly, their ability to unilaterally lower the value of what a PPV is worth in the eyes of the consumers (those who think that ROH and Impact PPVs are too expensive since they can get WM for 9.99), is an example of a monopoly's power and exercises.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 19th, '18, 14:44

cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:01
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 13:23
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 13:11 handicapping the PPV value for all promotions, no compete clauses, cockblocking venues, and yet people still don't see this is a monopoly.
Because it's not a monopoly. The final decision was MSG's, not WWE. Others have used non-compete clauses in the past (when Crockett sold to Turner he had to sign a five-year non-compete). The PPV-value thing is BS because other promotions could be- and are- doing the same with their own streaming services. There is even a valid argument that in the case of ROH and TNA, WWE cutting the prices of their PPVs actually helps them because it gives fans more disposable income each month.
it's MSG's final decision, but it's the intervention of WWE that makes the decision, THAT makes it WWE's decision. Distribution will obviously want to have more brands to distribute but when one brand comes in and buys out the distribution space all for themselves, that is a monopoly.

Distribution just wants the most money. If WWE is willing to give them incentives that make it more appealing to only to business with WWE then they are within their rights to take that.
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:01 Others have used non-compete, so what? they're the only ones doing it right now.
I don't think that's true. I highly doubt ROH would let someone go in the middle of their contract without a non-compete. Hell.. they were trying to stop guys from going to WWE even after their contracts expired (O'Reilly, War Machine, Dijak) by threatening WWE with tampering claims (which- if WWE even was doing it, which there is no evidence that they were- was something that has always happened in wrestling anyway), and that was something they really had no legal grounds to do at all.
If I remember correctly, LU also would only let Ricochet work indies and international shows when he had clearly expressed a desire to be working for WWE or ROH.
There is nothing immoral about a non-compete. It actually gives the company some incentive to let someone out of their deal early, while ensuring that the wrestler still gets a decent paycheck for his/her first three months out.

cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:01 it's not whether promotions are lowering with their own networks, it's WWE FORCING the industry to lower the value of PPVs or find a way to get a network going in order to get your product out. WWE is the sole dominant entity in the whole industry, it may not be a 'pure' monopoly, their ability to unilaterally lower the value of what a PPV is worth in the eyes of the consumers (those who think that ROH and Impact PPVs are too expensive since they can get WM for 9.99), is an example of a monopoly's power and exercises.
People have always thought that PPV prices have been too expensive, and with the price range that ROH has been in since they got live PPV ($25-$35), no one used to mind paying that when the product was giving them faith that the shows would be worth that. I think TNA was in the 40-50 range, and I'm sure if they were good enough, people would be fine paying that as well.
Yes, WWE lowered the market price, but how many has that really affected? Arguably ROH (though they have found their own way around it via their own network- which they should have had years before they did anyway- by offering the PPVs free with a one-year subscription), maybe TNA, although if anything it was just one factor in the death of TNA's PPV business, as they had already cut back to just four a year at the beginning of 2013, and MAYBE New Japan. No one else has really had an avenue to advertise their product to casuals so they would always be in the same spot of having trouble building a PPV-type show up for casuals to buy, and hardcore fans would find out through word of mouth, and even with hardcores you probably need a relatively low price to get people to try something new for the first time.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by cero2k » Jun 19th, '18, 18:38

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 Distribution just wants the most money. If WWE is willing to give them incentives that make it more appealing to only to business with WWE then they are within their rights to take that.
yes, because it's not MSG's monopoly, it's WWE that is bullying and blocking the smaller options. MSG plus WWE trying to straight up block indie promotions during WM, running shows against ROH, none of it is illegal and it's within their rights, that doesn't mean those aren't monopolistic actions.

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I don't think that's true. I highly doubt ROH would let someone go in the middle of their contract without a non-compete. Hell.. they were trying to stop guys from going to WWE even after their contracts expired (O'Reilly, War Machine, Dijak) by threatening WWE with tampering claims (which- if WWE even was doing it, which there is no evidence that they were- was something that has always happened in wrestling anyway), and that was something they really had no legal grounds to do at all.
If I remember correctly, LU also would only let Ricochet work indies and international shows when he had clearly expressed a desire to be working for WWE or ROH.
There is nothing immoral about a non-compete. It actually gives the company some incentive to let someone out of their deal early, while ensuring that the wrestler still gets a decent paycheck for his/her first three months out.
monopolies are not immoral, nothing to do with that, it just fucks up your industry. up until today, we haven't seen ROH held anyone's contract until it expires, we've seen no no-compete clauses, and everyone who requests to leave to WWE has been allowed. LU's contracts were for 7 seasons, if Ricochet signed it, it was on him, and even then, LU allowed him out of it and only required that the season was over. LU is also not a wrestling promotion, it's a TV show. Where is Neville? Why wasn't Dragon allowed out of his contract? Why wasn't Mysterio out of his contract? Why did Alberto del Rio had to sue WWE for a 1 year no-compete while he was trying to work in Mexico of all places?
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:01 People have always thought that PPV prices have been too expensive, and with the price range that ROH has been in since they got live PPV ($25-$35), no one used to mind paying that when the product was giving them faith that the shows would be worth that. I think TNA was in the 40-50 range, and I'm sure if they were good enough, people would be fine paying that as well.
Yes, WWE lowered the market price, but how many has that really affected? Arguably ROH (though they have found their own way around it via their own network- which they should have had years before they did anyway- by offering the PPVs free with a one-year subscription), maybe TNA, although if anything it was just one factor in the death of TNA's PPV business, as they had already cut back to just four a year at the beginning of 2013, and MAYBE New Japan. No one else has really had an avenue to advertise their product to casuals so they would always be in the same spot of having trouble building a PPV-type show up for casuals to buy, and hardcore fans would find out through word of mouth, and even with hardcores you probably need a relatively low price to get people to try something new for the first time.
You're seriously defending a bully monopoly by saying that the smaller guys are not upping their game against a billionaire company. it doesn't matter if people thought that all PPVs were expensive, because at the end, they were all in the same range and consumers were able to choose what to watch.

This is really similar to Microsoft's monopoly case, they devalued all other OS and browsers because they were bundling them together and making them 'accessible' on all intel computers, just like WWE is bundling WM and the network and making PPVs 'accessible' for 9.99. Did Microsoft really affect other smaller browsers? did it really affect LINUX distributions? not likely since IE and Windows were arguably one the best at that time, that doesn't mean it wasn't a monopoly. ROH having to 'find a way' and Impact 'cutting down' are exactly what smaller companies have to do when dealing with a monopolizing industry, you either find a way to KINDA make it work, or you die.

Capitalism is no excuse, WWE are industry bullies and a monopoly and it's only getting worse coughNXTUKcough.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 19th, '18, 20:01

cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 18:38
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 Distribution just wants the most money. If WWE is willing to give them incentives that make it more appealing to only to business with WWE then they are within their rights to take that.
yes, because it's not MSG's monopoly, it's WWE that is bullying and blocking the smaller options. MSG plus WWE trying to straight up block indie promotions during WM, running shows against ROH, none of it is illegal and it's within their rights, that doesn't mean those aren't monopolistic actions.
The fact that ROH exists means that WWE isn't a monopoly, and the MSG is not the only building ROH can run. WWE's attempts to keep indies away from things during Mania weekend are problematic, but aside from the year they were in California, I don't think they ever really succeeded.
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 18:38
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I don't think that's true. I highly doubt ROH would let someone go in the middle of their contract without a non-compete. Hell.. they were trying to stop guys from going to WWE even after their contracts expired (O'Reilly, War Machine, Dijak) by threatening WWE with tampering claims (which- if WWE even was doing it, which there is no evidence that they were- was something that has always happened in wrestling anyway), and that was something they really had no legal grounds to do at all.
If I remember correctly, LU also would only let Ricochet work indies and international shows when he had clearly expressed a desire to be working for WWE or ROH.
There is nothing immoral about a non-compete. It actually gives the company some incentive to let someone out of their deal early, while ensuring that the wrestler still gets a decent paycheck for his/her first three months out.
monopolies are not immoral, nothing to do with that, it just fucks up your industry. up until today, we haven't seen ROH held anyone's contract until it expires, we've seen no no-compete clauses, and everyone who requests to leave to WWE has been allowed. LU's contracts were for 7 seasons, if Ricochet signed it, it was on him, and even then, LU allowed him out of it and only required that the season was over. LU is also not a wrestling promotion, it's a TV show. Where is Neville? Why wasn't Dragon allowed out of his contract? Why wasn't Mysterio out of his contract? Why did Alberto del Rio had to sue WWE for a 1 year no-compete while he was trying to work in Mexico of all places?
I never said I didn't have a problem with monopolies; just that non-compete clauses are perfectly legitimate and in no way morally dubious.
I'm pretty sure we have seen ROH use non-competes. Do you really think it's a coincidence that it took ACH over two months to start working for Gabe after ROH let him out of his contract? And other than ACH, who has there been that hasn't left ROH at the end of their contract? Considering the way ROH behaved with O'Reilly, War Machine, and Dijak, I'm dead sure that if someone wound up getting released there would definitely be a non-compete.
With Ricochet, he was actively complaining on Twitter that he wasn't allowed to work for ROH due to LU.

WWE contracts have a "freeze" clause that lets WWE basically not count time that someone is off TV if they are injured or in a work dispute a la Neville. That's what happened with Rey, but they let him go after a while. Bryan working as the GM was done so that he could count that time against his contract. Del Rio wanted out with a good chunk of time left on his contract, so he had to go to court over it. His contract probably said he was exclusive to WWE everywhere (to my knowledge it's only ROH contracts that are regionally exclusive, applying onto the US and Ontario). Neville will be free after he comes back to work to fill out the rest of his contract, or when WWE decides to release him. And it's not like he's not still getting paid.

cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:01
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:01 it's not whether promotions are lowering with their own networks, it's WWE FORCING the industry to lower the value of PPVs or find a way to get a network going in order to get your product out. WWE is the sole dominant entity in the whole industry, it may not be a 'pure' monopoly, their ability to unilaterally lower the value of what a PPV is worth in the eyes of the consumers (those who think that ROH and Impact PPVs are too expensive since they can get WM for 9.99), is an example of a monopoly's power and exercises.
People have always thought that PPV prices have been too expensive, and with the price range that ROH has been in since they got live PPV ($25-$35), no one used to mind paying that when the product was giving them faith that the shows would be worth that. I think TNA was in the 40-50 range, and I'm sure if they were good enough, people would be fine paying that as well.
Yes, WWE lowered the market price, but how many has that really affected? Arguably ROH (though they have found their own way around it via their own network- which they should have had years before they did anyway- by offering the PPVs free with a one-year subscription), maybe TNA, although if anything it was just one factor in the death of TNA's PPV business, as they had already cut back to just four a year at the beginning of 2013, and MAYBE New Japan. No one else has really had an avenue to advertise their product to casuals so they would always be in the same spot of having trouble building a PPV-type show up for casuals to buy, and hardcore fans would find out through word of mouth, and even with hardcores you probably need a relatively low price to get people to try something new for the first time.
You're seriously defending a bully monopoly by saying that the smaller guys are not upping their game against a billionaire company. it doesn't matter if people thought that all PPVs were expensive, because at the end, they were all in the same range and consumers were able to choose what to watch.
I'm saying the reason people haven't been paying for the smaller guys' shows is because they thought they weren't worth the money. Those same people used to do the same when WWE PPVs were even more expensive (and I'd argue that in 2014, WWE PPVs were in a higher price-range than at least ROH. They were at least double the price), so WWE lowered the price of their product and added more stuff to the point where people now find it to be acceptable value for the price. If ROH or TNA built up a PPV well and reclaimed reputations for putting on great shows, then I don't think people would hesitate to pay $40 every two months to see them, regardless of the price of WWE's product.
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:01 This is really similar to Microsoft's monopoly case, they devalued all other OS and browsers because they were bundling them together and making them 'accessible' on all intel computers, just like WWE is bundling WM and the network and making PPVs 'accessible' for 9.99. Did Microsoft really affect other smaller browsers? did it really affect LINUX distributions? not likely since IE and Windows were arguably one the best at that time, that doesn't mean it wasn't a monopoly. ROH having to 'find a way' and Impact 'cutting down' are exactly what smaller companies have to do when dealing with a monopolizing industry, you either find a way to KINDA make it work, or you die.

Capitalism is no excuse, WWE are industry bullies and a monopoly and it's only getting worse coughNXTUKcough.
I will argue that a wrestling PPV and a wrestling TV show are essentially the same product whereas a computer and a web browser are not, but even so, TNA's scaling back of their PPVs was done well before the idea of a WWE streaming service was even being thought about (if you'll remember, Vince really wanted to get a channel on TV, like how the Network works- or at least used to work- in parts of Canada, through Rogers Cable). TNA scaled back on their PPVs because no one was buying them because the product was sh*t and they thought this new schedule would enable them to build to the PPVs better... and, of course, it didn't because the product was still sh*t.
You can blame the WWE Network for making ROH include the PPVs free if you choose the yearly option for Honor Club if you want, but the fact is that every other wrestling streaming service in existence at the time Honor Club was launched- WWE, NJPW World, wXw, RevPro, PROGRESS, WWN) included their biggest shows as part of the deal. ROH was the only one that didn't. This was just them conforming to the industry standard.

If WWE's supposed monopoly is so terrible and a monopoly means that the small guy is in a position where "you either find a way to KINDA make it work, or you die" then how do you explain the current indy boom? Pretty much every promotion in the world is doing better now than they were last year (other than maybe AAA and LU). Even NOAH. WWE's supposed monopoly then really isn't having much of an adverse effect on the indies or even foreign competitors

Yes, the UK stuff is pretty sh*tty. I've criticized it before and I'll criticize it now. But the guys that take those deals are making more money than they otherwise would have been, and if ITV or whoever could get a coherent core of guys together that they could decide to build around and get them all to commit (just like LU did), then they could do it. The problem there isn't just WWE. It's also on how many of the guys they'd want to use are working New Japan and/or ROH all the time and doing other established indies that they like working (RevPro, PROGRESS, WCPW, ICW, wXw- or, in Thatcher's case, US indies) on their other dates. Their best bet would be to try to do what TNA did early on and pick a day like Wednesday when no one else other than Japanese promotions would be running shows and just book around NJPW's schedule, but even that would probably be a hassle for guys who don't live in the UK like Scurll, Ospreay, Thatcher, Smith Jr. (I think) to fly in for a day or two of tapings in the middle of the week.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Bob-O » Jun 20th, '18, 08:24

It's simple really, and should come as no surprise.

I think it has less to do with The Garden and more to do with Wrestlemania Weekend. Ring Of Honor is trying to book a MAJOR show directly competing with The HOF Ceremony and TakeOver, of course WWE is going to do everything in their power to not let that happen.

I'm surprised they succeeded so easily since they don't really use MSG any more, but I'm not going to feel bad that they got shot down gunning for Vince's big weekend. There's absolutely nothing stopping ROH or anyone from booking The Barclay's center or literally ANYPLACE else in the NYC area on ANY OTHER weekend. But to go for The House Vince Sr built, on WM Weekend, occupied or not - I'm sure Vince took as disrespect and has acted accordingly. Riding coat tails is one thing to bolster your attendance is one thing, going into one's backyard and using their grill to host your own cookout, that's... well, those tactics are reserved for WWE...
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 20th, '18, 08:33

Bob-O wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 08:24 It's simple really, and should come as no surprise.

I think it has less to do with The Garden and more to do with Wrestlemania Weekend. Ring Of Honor is trying to book a MAJOR show directly competing with The HOF Ceremony and TakeOver, of course WWE is going to do everything in their power to not let that happen.

I'm surprised they succeeded so easily since they don't really use MSG any more, but I'm not going to feel bad that they got shot down gunning for Vince's big weekend. There's absolutely nothing stopping ROH or anyone from booking The Barclay's center or literally ANYPLACE else in the NYC area on ANY OTHER weekend. But to go for The House Vince Sr built, on WM Weekend, occupied or not - I'm sure Vince took as disrespect and has acted accordingly. Riding coat tails is one thing to bolster your attendance is one thing, going into one's backyard and using their grill to host your own cookout, that's... well, those tactics are reserved for WWE...
They can't run Barclay's because that's where Takeover and HOF apparently are. Also,. there is no confirmation that this was a WrestleMania weekend thing (though it does make the most sense). MSG and Barclay's are the two buildings with the best public transportation access. Plus Nassau Colosseum is also a total sh*thole.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Bob-O » Jun 20th, '18, 12:26

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 08:33 there is no confirmation that this was a WrestleMania weekend thing (though it does make the most sense)
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 11:36 Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley first mentioned the show while speaking with the Baltimore Business Journal. It was planned to take place during the Saturday of next year's WrestleMania weekend, with WWE's Hall of Fame ceremony, NXT TakeOver special, and post-Mania Raw and SmackDown scheduled for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
You must've missed it, but that's absolutely what they were planning to do. I'm not sure why ROH would be willing to risk so much going head to head with TakeOver (the one WWE Brand smarks n marks alike can agree on), but I think Vince did everyone a favor in this as the competition would have hurt both gates and been a real disaster for ROH.

What disappointed me was:
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 11:36 "We had a deal with [Madison Square] Garden and they then told us they were backing out after communications from the WWE. We are not able to get any other dates in any kind of discussion.
That tells me they pissed Vince off. He was already in a Colin Cassidy firin' mood, and now the white trash from up the road is trying to swim in his pool during his big 4th of July BBQ. I think he's trying to make a point. Had they just tried a different weekend, he might have let them do it. I'm really interested to see how this plays out with AAA...
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 08:33 Plus Nassau Colosseum is also a total sh*thole.
Awe, for real? That's a shame, it's one of those arenas that's burned into my head from the house show commercials of my child hood... Maple Leaf Gardens, The Cow Palace, Nassau Colosseum... all holy lands to me lol
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 20th, '18, 13:07

Bob-O wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 12:26
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 08:33 there is no confirmation that this was a WrestleMania weekend thing (though it does make the most sense)
cero2k wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 11:36 Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley first mentioned the show while speaking with the Baltimore Business Journal. It was planned to take place during the Saturday of next year's WrestleMania weekend, with WWE's Hall of Fame ceremony, NXT TakeOver special, and post-Mania Raw and SmackDown scheduled for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
You must've missed it, but that's absolutely what they were planning to do. I'm not sure why ROH would be willing to risk so much going head to head with TakeOver (the one WWE Brand smarks n marks alike can agree on), but I think Vince did everyone a favor in this as the competition would have hurt both gates and been a real disaster for ROH.
Whoops. I did miss that.
The reason ROH would go head-to-head with Takeover is because in reality they have no choice, and basically every single year either ROH has announced their show first and WWE scheduled Takeover opposite them, or WWE announced their show first, then after ROH announced theirs, WWE swapped the days for HOF and Takeover to make sure that Takeover runs opposite ROH.

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 08:33 Plus Nassau Colosseum is also a total sh*thole.
Awe, for real? That's a shame, it's one of those arenas that's burned into my head from the house show commercials of my child hood... Maple Leaf Gardens, The Cow Palace, Nassau Colosseum... all holy lands to me lol
[/quote]
Yep. It's reputation in the area has always been a hard to get to, dirty arena in the ugliest part of Long Island, and it's the place where you only book if all of the good places (not just in NYC proper but also including the Northern NJ venues) have all been taken. Even the freakin' Islanders left for a few years and are only now coming back because they got kicked out of Barlcay's for being so terrible they couldn't draw people even to a building right on the subway line. Even back in the eighties it was the third-rate building (well fifth if we're counting the baseball stadiums, too) in the area.
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cero2k
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by cero2k » Jun 20th, '18, 13:33

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 20:01 The fact that ROH exists means that WWE isn't a monopoly, and the MSG is not the only building ROH can run. WWE's attempts to keep indies away from things during Mania weekend are problematic, but aside from the year they were in California, I don't think they ever really succeeded.
Monopoly doesn't mean that you're the only company, but rather that you dominate the market. WWE stopping companies from running is a monopoly tactic.

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I never said I didn't have a problem with monopolies; just that non-compete clauses are perfectly legitimate and in no way morally dubious.
I'm pretty sure we have seen ROH use non-competes. Do you really think it's a coincidence that it took ACH over two months to start working for Gabe after ROH let him out of his contract? And other than ACH, who has there been that hasn't left ROH at the end of their contract? Considering the way ROH behaved with O'Reilly, War Machine, and Dijak, I'm dead sure that if someone wound up getting released there would definitely be a non-compete.
With Ricochet, he was actively complaining on Twitter that he wasn't allowed to work for ROH due to LU.

WWE contracts have a "freeze" clause that lets WWE basically not count time that someone is off TV if they are injured or in a work dispute a la Neville. That's what happened with Rey, but they let him go after a while. Bryan working as the GM was done so that he could count that time against his contract. Del Rio wanted out with a good chunk of time left on his contract, so he had to go to court over it. His contract probably said he was exclusive to WWE everywhere (to my knowledge it's only ROH contracts that are regionally exclusive, applying onto the US and Ontario). Neville will be free after he comes back to work to fill out the rest of his contract, or when WWE decides to release him. And it's not like he's not still getting paid.
exactly, it's those freeze clauses and the exaggerated no compete clauses. All tactics to control the business. With ROH it's hard to say, I've never heard of them having no compete clauses, so it may just be a coincidence or booking situation, but it's the same as the PPV example, it's companies having to adapt stuff from WWE in order to keep things going, but it's still WWE pushing this things to happen.

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I'm saying the reason people haven't been paying for the smaller guys' shows is because they thought they weren't worth the money. Those same people used to do the same when WWE PPVs were even more expensive (and I'd argue that in 2014, WWE PPVs were in a higher price-range than at least ROH. They were at least double the price), so WWE lowered the price of their product and added more stuff to the point where people now find it to be acceptable value for the price. If ROH or TNA built up a PPV well and reclaimed reputations for putting on great shows, then I don't think people would hesitate to pay $40 every two months to see them, regardless of the price of WWE's product.
if they didn't think it was worth the money, that still doesn't matter, because at the end, it was all a fair playing field. Once again, now the smaller company has to compete against a BILLIONAIRE company to make a product that will make consumers not only think that it's better, but worth the money. It's still a monopolistic action by WWE. When they were all the same price, the best product would win, now the best product was to be exponentially better to overcome the cheap price of WWE.
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I will argue that a wrestling PPV and a wrestling TV show are essentially the same product whereas a computer and a web browser are not, but even so, TNA's scaling back of their PPVs was done well before the idea of a WWE streaming service was even being thought about (if you'll remember, Vince really wanted to get a channel on TV, like how the Network works- or at least used to work- in parts of Canada, through Rogers Cable). TNA scaled back on their PPVs because no one was buying them because the product was sh*t and they thought this new schedule would enable them to build to the PPVs better... and, of course, it didn't because the product was still sh*t.
You can blame the WWE Network for making ROH include the PPVs free if you choose the yearly option for Honor Club if you want, but the fact is that every other wrestling streaming service in existence at the time Honor Club was launched- WWE, NJPW World, wXw, RevPro, PROGRESS, WWN) included their biggest shows as part of the deal. ROH was the only one that didn't. This was just them conforming to the industry standard.
Impact's quality and moves are beside the point, blaming the little guy's actions is not a defense for a monopoly. Regardless, they still run live PPVs at an old price and now more than ever when they're trying to get back on track, it's obvious that no card they can book will not make people say "meh, i can get Battleground for 9.99 instead and that will be my wrestling quota for the month"

None of those promotions had PPVs nor they had them live aside from NJPW, and from what we know of what Dave tells us about Japanese crowds, networks are not a big thing, so their network was more about overseas reach than about lowering their value. The issue is not including big shows, it's running them live for cheap. if WWE would still run WM for $50 and put it up on the network three days later, then the standard would had stayed along with all those that you listed. This is indeed all those promotions HAVING to conform (or close enough) to a standard, a standard set by the billionaire company. It's easy for WWE to just stream live and put a show up a minute later, but for a small promotion it takes a LOT of resources that shouldn't be spent on that. This is Microsoft forcing all browser companies to make their product free since IE was now freeware.
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 If WWE's supposed monopoly is so terrible and a monopoly means that the small guy is in a position where "you either find a way to KINDA make it work, or you die" then how do you explain the current indy boom? Pretty much every promotion in the world is doing better now than they were last year (other than maybe AAA and LU). Even NOAH. WWE's supposed monopoly then really isn't having much of an adverse effect on the indies or even foreign competitors
Because indies are now working together more and more and the age we live in makes it easier to access those indies and for wrestlers to travel. The talent is better until they get signed. WWE is not making the indie boom, but let's not pretend like WWE would take over that indie boom if they could (see NXT). This indie boom could be far bigger if not for WWE.
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 Yes, the UK stuff is pretty sh*tty. I've criticized it before and I'll criticize it now. But the guys that take those deals are making more money than they otherwise would have been, and if ITV or whoever could get a coherent core of guys together that they could decide to build around and get them all to commit (just like LU did), then they could do it. The problem there isn't just WWE. It's also on how many of the guys they'd want to use are working New Japan and/or ROH all the time and doing other established indies that they like working (RevPro, PROGRESS, WCPW, ICW, wXw- or, in Thatcher's case, US indies) on their other dates. Their best bet would be to try to do what TNA did early on and pick a day like Wednesday when no one else other than Japanese promotions would be running shows and just book around NJPW's schedule, but even that would probably be a hassle for guys who don't live in the UK like Scurll, Ospreay, Thatcher, Smith Jr. (I think) to fly in for a day or two of tapings in the middle of the week.
They are not necessarily making more money, their contracts are at $16K, that's less than a teacher's assistant position, and yeah, they can run some indies, but as we've seen with the UK now, all those that signed can't book with non WWE-kids, Toni Storm is gone from STARDOM, Travis Banks is gone RevPro, that is gonna limit your big indie money bookings. So now you can't even work your schedule like you want between indies, NJPW, Impact, ROH, and the random WWE UK times they choose to finally do something. WALTER not signing with WWE will likely mean that he can make far more money going wherever he wants right now. I dont know what happens to the merch stores one signed with WWE UK.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 20th, '18, 16:33

cero2k wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 13:33
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I never said I didn't have a problem with monopolies; just that non-compete clauses are perfectly legitimate and in no way morally dubious.
I'm pretty sure we have seen ROH use non-competes. Do you really think it's a coincidence that it took ACH over two months to start working for Gabe after ROH let him out of his contract? And other than ACH, who has there been that hasn't left ROH at the end of their contract? Considering the way ROH behaved with O'Reilly, War Machine, and Dijak, I'm dead sure that if someone wound up getting released there would definitely be a non-compete.
With Ricochet, he was actively complaining on Twitter that he wasn't allowed to work for ROH due to LU.

WWE contracts have a "freeze" clause that lets WWE basically not count time that someone is off TV if they are injured or in a work dispute a la Neville. That's what happened with Rey, but they let him go after a while. Bryan working as the GM was done so that he could count that time against his contract. Del Rio wanted out with a good chunk of time left on his contract, so he had to go to court over it. His contract probably said he was exclusive to WWE everywhere (to my knowledge it's only ROH contracts that are regionally exclusive, applying onto the US and Ontario). Neville will be free after he comes back to work to fill out the rest of his contract, or when WWE decides to release him. And it's not like he's not still getting paid.
exactly, it's those freeze clauses and the exaggerated no compete clauses. All tactics to control the business. With ROH it's hard to say, I've never heard of them having no compete clauses, so it may just be a coincidence or booking situation, but it's the same as the PPV example, it's companies having to adapt stuff from WWE in order to keep things going, but it's still WWE pushing this things to happen.
Are they bullsh*t? I think so. But WWE aren't the only people doing it. ROH pretty much did the same thing with Adam Cole last year, with him working an extra five months to make up for the time he was injured in 2015. The no-competes in WWE aren't "exaggerated." They're the same length they've been since well before the current indy boom or the NJPW expansion started, going back to like, 2003, when WWE was at its most dominant. They're no doing it because they need to do it to keep up with WWE. Keeping up with WWE doesn't matter. They're doing it for the same reason WWE does; to exert some control and prevent someone else from getting too much of a big surprise pop. You can think it's BS, but I don't think it is in any way a monopolistic practice, and arguing that it is one is silly because non-competes have been a thing going back to well before WWE had their supposed monopoly.
cero2k wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 13:33
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I'm saying the reason people haven't been paying for the smaller guys' shows is because they thought they weren't worth the money. Those same people used to do the same when WWE PPVs were even more expensive (and I'd argue that in 2014, WWE PPVs were in a higher price-range than at least ROH. They were at least double the price), so WWE lowered the price of their product and added more stuff to the point where people now find it to be acceptable value for the price. If ROH or TNA built up a PPV well and reclaimed reputations for putting on great shows, then I don't think people would hesitate to pay $40 every two months to see them, regardless of the price of WWE's product.
if they didn't think it was worth the money, that still doesn't matter, because at the end, it was all a fair playing field. Once again, now the smaller company has to compete against a BILLIONAIRE company to make a product that will make consumers not only think that it's better, but worth the money. It's still a monopolistic action by WWE. When they were all the same price, the best product would win, now the best product was to be exponentially better to overcome the cheap price of WWE.
Billionaire, shmillionaire. If you are providing a product that is worth the price you are asking, people will pay for it. That's it. WWE making theirs so cheap only means that people will have more extra money to spend on other services. Someone who was already paying for each monthly WWE PPV would have still have the same $60 or whatever it was for the HD version in their monthly wrestling budget, and can now- even if WWE is still their first priority- spend that same amount of money on each month and also get ROH, New Japan, All Japan, RevPro, and all of the WWN promotions, and maybe still have enough left over for wXw or TNA.
You're also forgetting that when WWE implemented this price, the only other promotion streaming things live for one blanket price a month were New Japan (who were using a third party to do it), and WWE's price was higher than New Japan's was. ROH and Gabe (and I think GoFightLive tried to work with CZW once or twice around this time) had all tried offering single events to be streamed live, and even with that ROH wound up with such a reputation for failure that they became laughing stock. WWE weren't being monopolistic when they started at this price, and they haven't changed their price since. You're acting like they had these malicious intentions to knock everyone else out of a game that only one other person was actually playing at that point, and WWE's price was higher than New Japan's.
cero2k wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 13:33
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I will argue that a wrestling PPV and a wrestling TV show are essentially the same product whereas a computer and a web browser are not, but even so, TNA's scaling back of their PPVs was done well before the idea of a WWE streaming service was even being thought about (if you'll remember, Vince really wanted to get a channel on TV, like how the Network works- or at least used to work- in parts of Canada, through Rogers Cable). TNA scaled back on their PPVs because no one was buying them because the product was sh*t and they thought this new schedule would enable them to build to the PPVs better... and, of course, it didn't because the product was still sh*t.
You can blame the WWE Network for making ROH include the PPVs free if you choose the yearly option for Honor Club if you want, but the fact is that every other wrestling streaming service in existence at the time Honor Club was launched- WWE, NJPW World, wXw, RevPro, PROGRESS, WWN) included their biggest shows as part of the deal. ROH was the only one that didn't. This was just them conforming to the industry standard.
Impact's quality and moves are beside the point, blaming the little guy's actions is not a defense for a monopoly. Regardless, they still run live PPVs at an old price and now more than ever when they're trying to get back on track, it's obvious that no card they can book will not make people say "meh, i can get Battleground for 9.99 instead and that will be my wrestling quota for the month"
TNA's moves and quality are absolutely relevant in this case! First of all, you're trying to tell me that WWE was trying to undercut TNA's business in a business TNA had mostly pulled out of well before WWE tried to undercut them. Arguing that WWE now offering 10$/month PPVs undercut TNA trying to sell one $40 PPV every few months is also laughable, not just because of the added disposable income but because TNA completely failed in their execution of their strategy. Just look at the 2013 alone, before there was a WWE Network for $9.99 a month. The entire reasoning behind TNA's PPV cutback was because they wanted to give themselves more time to build up the stories for their big PPVs matches, and figured that 3 months between PPVs would be the best way to do it, creating a system similar to WWE's old Big Four. Within MONTHS TNA just reverted back to trying to do a big monthly show, except they now no longer had the PPV spot so instead of having four weeks of TV to build to a commercial-free three-hour show with all of the pay-offs, they only had three weeks of TV to build to a two-hour-minus-commercials show for all of their payoffs.
And the reason people didn't give their PPVs much of a chance was because the product stunk, just like it had for years before, which was the whole reason they wound up on this situation in the first place. The reason people didn't give TNA PPVs a chance in 2014 wasn't because the WWE Network was cheaper. It was because TNA kept filling their big PPV matches (in addition to their top TV matches) with f*ck finishes! They kept claiming they would change but they never did. They just kept doing back to the same horrendous booking philosophy that killed WCW and had hurt them every time they tried it. WHY THE F*CK WOULD YOU EVER BRING BACK VINCE RUSSO? Or even bring in Eric Bischoff as a booker. Or give the book to some goof like John Gaburik who had never done it before? Over the long history of TNA there were definitely people available. Heyman has said that he would have come in if they had given him full control but they wouldn't give it to him (this was in the 2009-2011 period). Mike Burns had a relatively successful track-record in his booking of CZW and had his ear to the indy scene. They could have tried to bring him in, but didn't. You want to be an alternative to WWE? It's late 2009 and you've just gutted your creative team by getting rid of Jeff Jarrett, Jim Cornette and Dutch Mantel... and a four-time Wrestling Observer Booker of the Year is available. Why wouldn't you just dump Russo, too, and make a play to hire Gabe instead of sticking with Russo, bringing in Ferrara, and then bringing in Hogan and Bischoff to make things worse. Imagine a highly-motivated 2009 Gabe wanting to prove that his ROH run wasn't a fluke now getting two hours of TV time each week (well-supported by the network, to boot) and a roster that includes AJ, Daniels, Angle, Joe, LAX, MCMG, Doug Williams, Abyss, The Dudley, Roode, Storm, Kazarian, Gail Kim, Awesome Kong, Victoria, CLM, Jay Lethal, The Pope, Sarita, Amazing Red w/Don West, Rhino, Velvet Sky & Angelina Love at their absolute best on the mic...and that's assuming that 1) guys like Jeff Hardy RVD, and the Bucks don't come in, 2) that Gabe somehow couldn't find something worthwhile to do with guys like Sting, Foley, Booker, Steiner, and Nash (which, in pretty much everyone case other than maybe Nash, and Booker if he wasn't motivated in the ring, I'm certain he could have), and 3) that Gabe being the booker plus TNA money and exposure wouldn't have convinced some top ROH guys to jump ship when their contracts were up... and that's also without Gabe bringing in any other indy guys he might have wanted to use.
But no. They went with Vince Russo instead. And did so EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Even when the network told them that they don't want Russo anywhere near the product.
So in summation, TNA's problems are ALL self-made. The promotion might be better now, yes, but that doesn't mean that the scars of the past don't still run deep. When I tried to getting back into TNA this year, the thing that pissed me off the most was the Joseph Park sh*t, because that "constantly-changing because we're too dumb to remember our own f*cking angles and don't give enough of a sh*t to check first" bullsh*t epitomized many of the reasons why I stopped watching in the first place. In TNA's case, they absolutely HAVE to ensure that they are more than worth the price they are asking, because it will take a long time to convince people that they're not going to get f*cked out of their money eventually.

And if you don't think the asking price affects people's impressions of a product, just go to the ROH forums where people will shrug their shoulders and admit that the shows now are nowhere near as good as they were even back in 2015, but they're okay with it because they're getting four or six shows of that quality for $9.99 rather than paying $20 (assuming you're not buying it on sale) for each and every DVD, or $13 for each individual VOD. And now here is Dave Meltzer saying the exact same thing about WWF In Hour House 3:
WWF's third In Your House PPV took place on 9/24 in Saginaw, MI before an estimated 6,500 fans. The show drew a mixed reaction. It appears to me based on phone calls that people judge a $14.95 show by easier standards than a "full price" show. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but just that it is the case.
In the case of someone who says "meh, i can get Battleground for 9.99 instead and that will be my wrestling quota for the month" the issue isn't just the price but also the time, and if someone only has three or four hours to spend on wrestling PPVs in a month, then every company- including DVD or VOD only promotions that don't have a streaming service like AAW or PWG- need to compete even more to make sure that their product is the one this person chooses to spend his or her time on because it's the time that is the limiting constraint here.
cero2k wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 13:33 None of those promotions had PPVs nor they had them live aside from NJPW, and from what we know of what Dave tells us about Japanese crowds, networks are not a big thing, so their network was more about overseas reach than about lowering their value. The issue is not including big shows, it's running them live for cheap. if WWE would still run WM for $50 and put it up on the network three days later, then the standard would had stayed along with all those that you listed. This is indeed all those promotions HAVING to conform (or close enough) to a standard, a standard set by the billionaire company. It's easy for WWE to just stream live and put a show up a minute later, but for a small promotion it takes a LOT of resources that shouldn't be spent on that. This is Microsoft forcing all browser companies to make their product free since IE was now freeware.
Those promotions don't have to conform at all. If I had to guess, the two most successful non-WWE or NJPW streaming services in terms of numbers are probably PROGRESS and WWN, and PROGRESS doesn't do live at all, while WWN gives you a discount on their live stuff and then puts it up in the library two weeks later. Yes, WWE could charge extra for Mania. Most would argue that they should and are making a mistake by not doing so. But PROGRESS could charge $10 for their biggest show if they wanted to and I doubt they’d suffer any more (percentage-wise) than WWE would. Ditto for wXw and 16 Carat Gold or for RevPro and High Stakes, NJPW and Dominion, WK, and the G1 finals, or CHIKARA and KOT and their season finale. If PWG ran a streaming service they could do the same for BOLA. If you create the desire among your fans to pay extra for something and don’t ask some ridiculous amount extra, they will pay it.
As for the claim that these small promotions shouldn’t have to spend money on doing that, that has nothing to do with WWE. It has to do with PPV in general and the transition the business made to PPV being a main revenue generator. I know both ECW and WCW experimented with streaming but I don’t know if they charged for it and I don’t think it went well or else we’d hear more about it as a thing those companies innovated (even Bischoff and Heyman don’t mention it much). This push for streaming started as a way for indies to essentially do PPV without the mainstream support required to make your product worthwhile to a big PPV provider.
(And people not having to wait months to see the show on DVD also creates a buzz around the product because more people can talk about the show right afterwards. Compare that to the old official ROH forum which had to have a dedicated spoiler-free section in which you could only talk about things up to the most recent DVD release. The reason PWG are the only company that still does well with DVD sales is because of the combination of the high in-ring quality and the fact there isn’t much in the way of storylines to feel the need to immediately find out what happens in. Go back and listen to the stuff Gabe and Sal were saying in 2012 when they admitted that the reason they were so far behind on EVOLVE/DGUSA/FIP DVDs was that they were investing so much time and effort into getting streaming right because they thought that was the future of the business.)
ROH were the first ones to really do it with the GoFightLive shows. Then they decided they thought they could save money in the long run by learning how to do it themselves (plus GoFightLive had problems for some people, though I don’t ever remember having any personally) so they tried to stream their big shows themselves. That was (I believe) at the beginning of 2012 (I think the 10th Anniversary Show or WM weekend were the first ones they tried doing themselves). What WWE did by switching to the WWE Network is no different. But they’d seen the huge f*cking disaster that ROH’s became, so they offered this low price to get people to try to sign up- not just because they needed six Network subscribers to replace each lost PPV buy, but because they were asking people to give up a reliable distribution venue for a notoriously finicky one. Remember that ROH had to do things like give away free DVD copies of Death Before Dishonor X to make it up to people for streaming issues, and then they offered the next iPPV attempt, Glory BY Honor XI free with any ringside membership to get people to give their streaming service another chance. To accuse WWE of purposely choosing such a low price to try to hurt everyone else completely ignores the environment of the industry at the time and ignores the many non-malicious (and, quite frankly, more logical, seeing as how this supposed anti-indy crusade doesn’t start until early 2015 when WWE decides they don’t like indies piggybacking off of Mania weekend (and specifically that they don’t like ROH doing it for other Big Four shows, too, which ROH had done for the Rumble in 2014 and 2015).
cero2k wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 13:33
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 If WWE's supposed monopoly is so terrible and a monopoly means that the small guy is in a position where "you either find a way to KINDA make it work, or you die" then how do you explain the current indy boom? Pretty much every promotion in the world is doing better now than they were last year (other than maybe AAA and LU). Even NOAH. WWE's supposed monopoly then really isn't having much of an adverse effect on the indies or even foreign competitors
Because indies are now working together more and more and the age we live in makes it easier to access those indies and for wrestlers to travel. The talent is better until they get signed. WWE is not making the indie boom, but let's not pretend like WWE would take over that indie boom if they could (see NXT). This indie boom could be far bigger if not for WWE.
Bigger if not for WWE? Yes. But not because of the Network or any “monopolistic practices.” They’re signing the guys they think are the best. There’s nothing wrong with that. I feel like NJPW is “stockpiling” talent with nothing for them to do most of the time, too. What’s the difference between that and a sports team signing as many great players as possible? WWE (or even the combination of WWE, TNA, ROH, LU, and New Japan) will never be able suck all of the talent away from the indies and leave the indies with nothing the way people seem to be panicking about because there will always be new, talented indy guys.
I’m by no means an expert on the pre-2000s indy scene, but even if we start in 1998-2000 when your top indy guys from that period like Lance Diamond, Devon Storm, Crash Holly, Reckless Youth, the Hardys, York & Matthews are getting signed, you’ve got some guys who never get signed and stick around (Quack, Ace Darling, plus guys like Daniels, AJ, and Modest who were only signed for a few months) plus a new crop of top indy names starts to emerge, and by the end of 2002 you’ve got a whole new crop of stars: Dragon, Kendrick, Homicide, Low Ki, Joe, Super Dragon, Punk, Pearce, Hero, Maff, London, Briscoes, Amazing Red, Backseat Boyz, plus people start to bring the Brits like Fleisch, Storm, and Doug Williams over to the US… and when a few years later when some of those guys get signed you’ve got yet another new crop of guys like Aries, Roddy, Nigel, Shelley, Claudio, Sydal, Steen, Generico, Joey Ryan, etc. ready to take their place, plus it starts becoming more hip to bring over the NOAH and Dragon Gate guys. And when some more guys get signed a few years later you’ve got guys like the Tyler Black, the American Wolves, Ricochet, Gargano, Young Bucks, Callihan stepping up. And when more guys get signed they get replaced by Cole, O’Reilly, ACH, Swann, Fox, Elgin, ZSJ etc. and the new wave of Brits and the Luchadors start being brought in. And now that some guys from that generation of indy star are leaving you’re seeing new guys like Brody King, Tracy Williams, Austin Theory, Yehi, Adam Brooks, CCK/SPPT, etc. getting big, while people are bringing in some of the wXw crew. The talent will always replace itself.
cero2k wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 13:33
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 Yes, the UK stuff is pretty sh*tty. I've criticized it before and I'll criticize it now. But the guys that take those deals are making more money than they otherwise would have been, and if ITV or whoever could get a coherent core of guys together that they could decide to build around and get them all to commit (just like LU did), then they could do it. The problem there isn't just WWE. It's also on how many of the guys they'd want to use are working New Japan and/or ROH all the time and doing other established indies that they like working (RevPro, PROGRESS, WCPW, ICW, wXw- or, in Thatcher's case, US indies) on their other dates. Their best bet would be to try to do what TNA did early on and pick a day like Wednesday when no one else other than Japanese promotions would be running shows and just book around NJPW's schedule, but even that would probably be a hassle for guys who don't live in the UK like Scurll, Ospreay, Thatcher, Smith Jr. (I think) to fly in for a day or two of tapings in the middle of the week.
They are not necessarily making more money, their contracts are at $16K, that's less than a teacher's assistant position, and yeah, they can run some indies, but as we've seen with the UK now, all those that signed can't book with non WWE-kids, Toni Storm is gone from STARDOM, Travis Banks is gone RevPro, that is gonna limit your big indie money bookings. So now you can't even work your schedule like you want between indies, NJPW, Impact, ROH, and the random WWE UK times they choose to finally do something. WALTER not signing with WWE will likely mean that he can make far more money going wherever he wants right now. I dont know what happens to the merch stores one signed with WWE UK.
They wouldn’t have signed the WWE contract if it wasn’t giving them more of a guarantee than they were currently getting. 16K is just the downside. They also get paid for every WWE use, plus if I had to guess I’d say that the WWE-Kids probably pay pretty well. Maybe not the top (and I’d doubt they alone pay what you might make signing with ROH, NJPW, or TNA), but I’d bet they pay relatively well. Plus, the list of places they’re not allowed to work seems to just be ROH, LU, TNA, New Japan, AAA, and CMLL. If they let them work freakin’ RevPro I’m sure they won’t have a problem with them working most other indies.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by cero2k » Jun 21st, '18, 13:13

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 16:33 Are they bullsh*t? I think so. But WWE aren't the only people doing it. ROH pretty much did the same thing with Adam Cole last year, with him working an extra five months to make up for the time he was injured in 2015. The no-competes in WWE aren't "exaggerated." They're the same length they've been since well before the current indy boom or the NJPW expansion started, going back to like, 2003, when WWE was at its most dominant. They're no doing it because they need to do it to keep up with WWE. Keeping up with WWE doesn't matter. They're doing it for the same reason WWE does; to exert some control and prevent someone else from getting too much of a big surprise pop. You can think it's BS, but I don't think it is in any way a monopolistic practice, and arguing that it is one is silly because non-competes have been a thing going back to well before WWE had their supposed monopoly.
if ROH indeed has no competes and freezes then so be it, just because they have doesn't negate WWE's monopoly. You keep blaming the smaller companies saying that they do some similar stuff or that they're product is not the best, but NONE of that means that WWE is not a monopoly. They're not mutually exclusive and these actions are not just for official monopolies, it's a whole package of WWE's dominance of the industry, how the shift things, how they force other's to follow, and how they block anyone who wants to make it.
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I'm saying the reason people haven't been paying for the smaller guys' shows is because they thought they weren't worth the money. Those same people used to do the same when WWE PPVs were even more expensive (and I'd argue that in 2014, WWE PPVs were in a higher price-range than at least ROH. They were at least double the price), so WWE lowered the price of their product and added more stuff to the point where people now find it to be acceptable value for the price. If ROH or TNA built up a PPV well and reclaimed reputations for putting on great shows, then I don't think people would hesitate to pay $40 every two months to see them, regardless of the price of WWE's product.
you completely overestimate casual fans. Not even Dominion would make casual fans to pay $40 on top of their monthly WWE expense.
Billionaire, shmillionaire. If you are providing a product that is worth the price you are asking, people will pay for it. That's it. WWE making theirs so cheap only means that people will have more extra money to spend on other services. Someone who was already paying for each monthly WWE PPV would have still have the same $60 or whatever it was for the HD version in their monthly wrestling budget, and can now- even if WWE is still their first priority- spend that same amount of money on each month and also get ROH, New Japan, All Japan, RevPro, and all of the WWN promotions, and maybe still have enough left over for wXw or TNA.
You're also forgetting that when WWE implemented this price, the only other promotion streaming things live for one blanket price a month were New Japan (who were using a third party to do it), and WWE's price was higher than New Japan's was. ROH and Gabe (and I think GoFightLive tried to work with CZW once or twice around this time) had all tried offering single events to be streamed live, and even with that ROH wound up with such a reputation for failure that they became laughing stock. WWE weren't being monopolistic when they started at this price, and they haven't changed their price since. You're acting like they had these malicious intentions to knock everyone else out of a game that only one other person was actually playing at that point, and WWE's price was higher than New Japan's.
really? there's this guy locally that makes amazing beers, little pricey since he doesn't mass produce the beer and so the work takes longer and more effort, no contracts with big companies for bottling services or ingredients, do you think he sells more than budweiser? Do you think he could keep the same quality if he lowers the price to what a budweiser costs?

if WM and WK were to run on the same night and WWE offers WM for 9.99 and WK is going for $40. Who do you think people are going to buy? Especially casual fans. People don't have the mentality that thanks to WWE lowering their price, i now have more money to watch indie promotions. Now, people say, fuck yeah, I don't have to pay 60 anymore, what the fuck is indie wrestling?
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 TNA's moves and quality are absolutely relevant in this case! First of all, you're trying to tell me that WWE was trying to undercut TNA's business in a business TNA had mostly pulled out of well before WWE tried to undercut them. Arguing that WWE now offering 10$/month PPVs undercut TNA trying to sell one $40 PPV every few months is also laughable, not just because of the added disposable income but because TNA completely failed in their execution of their strategy. Just look at the 2013 alone, before there was a WWE Network for $9.99 a month. The entire reasoning behind TNA's PPV cutback was because they wanted to give themselves more time to build up the stories for their big PPVs matches, and figured that 3 months between PPVs would be the best way to do it, creating a system similar to WWE's old Big Four. Within MONTHS TNA just reverted back to trying to do a big monthly show, except they now no longer had the PPV spot so instead of having four weeks of TV to build to a commercial-free three-hour show with all of the pay-offs, they only had three weeks of TV to build to a two-hour-minus-commercials show for all of their payoffs.
And the reason people didn't give their PPVs much of a chance was because the product stunk, just like it had for years before, which was the whole reason they wound up on this situation in the first place. The reason people didn't give TNA PPVs a chance in 2014 wasn't because the WWE Network was cheaper. It was because TNA kept filling their big PPV matches (in addition to their top TV matches) with f*ck finishes! They kept claiming they would change but they never did. They just kept doing back to the same horrendous booking philosophy that killed WCW and had hurt them every time they tried it. WHY THE F*CK WOULD YOU EVER BRING BACK VINCE RUSSO? Or even bring in Eric Bischoff as a booker. Or give the book to some goof like John Gaburik who had never done it before? Over the long history of TNA there were definitely people available. Heyman has said that he would have come in if they had given him full control but they wouldn't give it to him (this was in the 2009-2011 period). Mike Burns had a relatively successful track-record in his booking of CZW and had his ear to the indy scene. They could have tried to bring him in, but didn't. You want to be an alternative to WWE? It's late 2009 and you've just gutted your creative team by getting rid of Jeff Jarrett, Jim Cornette and Dutch Mantel... and a four-time Wrestling Observer Booker of the Year is available. Why wouldn't you just dump Russo, too, and make a play to hire Gabe instead of sticking with Russo, bringing in Ferrara, and then bringing in Hogan and Bischoff to make things worse. Imagine a highly-motivated 2009 Gabe wanting to prove that his ROH run wasn't a fluke now getting two hours of TV time each week (well-supported by the network, to boot) and a roster that includes AJ, Daniels, Angle, Joe, LAX, MCMG, Doug Williams, Abyss, The Dudley, Roode, Storm, Kazarian, Gail Kim, Awesome Kong, Victoria, CLM, Jay Lethal, The Pope, Sarita, Amazing Red w/Don West, Rhino, Velvet Sky & Angelina Love at their absolute best on the mic...and that's assuming that 1) guys like Jeff Hardy RVD, and the Bucks don't come in, 2) that Gabe somehow couldn't find something worthwhile to do with guys like Sting, Foley, Booker, Steiner, and Nash (which, in pretty much everyone case other than maybe Nash, and Booker if he wasn't motivated in the ring, I'm certain he could have), and 3) that Gabe being the booker plus TNA money and exposure wouldn't have convinced some top ROH guys to jump ship when their contracts were up... and that's also without Gabe bringing in any other indy guys he might have wanted to use.
But no. They went with Vince Russo instead. And did so EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Even when the network told them that they don't want Russo anywhere near the product.
So in summation, TNA's problems are ALL self-made. The promotion might be better now, yes, but that doesn't mean that the scars of the past don't still run deep. When I tried to getting back into TNA this year, the thing that pissed me off the most was the Joseph Park sh*t, because that "constantly-changing because we're too dumb to remember our own f*cking angles and don't give enough of a sh*t to check first" bullsh*t epitomized many of the reasons why I stopped watching in the first place. In TNA's case, they absolutely HAVE to ensure that they are more than worth the price they are asking, because it will take a long time to convince people that they're not going to get f*cked out of their money eventually.
Talking about Impact's business is irrelevant because (1) WWE never directly targeted them, they're just seeing the consequences of WWE's monopoly as every other promotion, and (2) Because even without WWE, a Dixie driven Impact would still fail and WWE would still be pursuing the monopoly and control of the industry whether Impact existed or not. Impact's bad dealings don't negate the existence of a WWE monopoly over the industry.
And if you don't think the asking price affects people's impressions of a product, just go to the ROH forums where people will shrug their shoulders and admit that the shows now are nowhere near as good as they were even back in 2015, but they're okay with it because they're getting four or six shows of that quality for $9.99 rather than paying $20 (assuming you're not buying it on sale) for each and every DVD, or $13 for each individual VOD. And now here is Dave Meltzer saying the exact same thing about WWF In Hour House 3: WWF's third In Your House PPV took place on 9/24 in Saginaw, MI before an estimated 6,500 fans. The show drew a mixed reaction. It appears to me based on phone calls that people judge a $14.95 show by easier standards than a "full price" show. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but just that it is the case.
I'm not saying that asking price doesn't affect, obviously it does, but when everything revolves around WWE, the standard base become WM costing 9.99, you'd have to offer a show better than WM worth to argue paying more than 9.99, except PPV prices are $40. WK is arguably far far far better than WM and people still wouldn't pay $40 just like that. Paying for wrestling is leftover money and saving on WWE doesn't mean you're just gonna go and use the extra money to watch other companies, (1) because not all fans are hardcore fans, and (2) fans are cheat and greedy and if they could get everything for free, they would.

No one complains about WWE not being worth the value because eveything is cheap, but it forced everything to 'better' than WWE or cheaper than WWE. And that's not even finding ways to add value to a streaming service when you don't have years and years of product to put up there.
In the case of someone who says "meh, i can get Battleground for 9.99 instead and that will be my wrestling quota for the month" the issue isn't just the price but also the time, and if someone only has three or four hours to spend on wrestling PPVs in a month, then every company- including DVD or VOD only promotions that don't have a streaming service like AAW or PWG- need to compete even more to make sure that their product is the one this person chooses to spend his or her time on because it's the time that is the limiting constraint here.
When people want to watch wrestling, time is less of an issue than money, especially for non-hardcore fans that wouldn't warrant paying for more than one wrestling show.
Those promotions don't have to conform at all. If I had to guess, the two most successful non-WWE or NJPW streaming services in terms of numbers are probably PROGRESS and WWN, and PROGRESS doesn't do live at all, while WWN gives you a discount on their live stuff and then puts it up in the library two weeks later. Yes, WWE could charge extra for Mania. Most would argue that they should and are making a mistake by not doing so. But PROGRESS could charge $10 for their biggest show if they wanted to and I doubt they’d suffer any more (percentage-wise) than WWE would. Ditto for wXw and 16 Carat Gold or for RevPro and High Stakes, NJPW and Dominion, WK, and the G1 finals, or CHIKARA and KOT and their season finale. If PWG ran a streaming service they could do the same for BOLA. If you create the desire among your fans to pay extra for something and don’t ask some ridiculous amount extra, they will pay it.
As for the claim that these small promotions shouldn’t have to spend money on doing that, that has nothing to do with WWE. It has to do with PPV in general and the transition the business made to PPV being a main revenue generator. I know both ECW and WCW experimented with streaming but I don’t know if they charged for it and I don’t think it went well or else we’d hear more about it as a thing those companies innovated (even Bischoff and Heyman don’t mention it much). This push for streaming started as a way for indies to essentially do PPV without the mainstream support required to make your product worthwhile to a big PPV provider.

(And people not having to wait months to see the show on DVD also creates a buzz around the product because more people can talk about the show right afterwards. Compare that to the old official ROH forum which had to have a dedicated spoiler-free section in which you could only talk about things up to the most recent DVD release. The reason PWG are the only company that still does well with DVD sales is because of the combination of the high in-ring quality and the fact there isn’t much in the way of storylines to feel the need to immediately find out what happens in. Go back and listen to the stuff Gabe and Sal were saying in 2012 when they admitted that the reason they were so far behind on EVOLVE/DGUSA/FIP DVDs was that they were investing so much time and effort into getting streaming right because they thought that was the future of the business.)
You do realize that all those things that are changing in the wrestling industry, PPVs, networks, Live VOD, are ALL consequences of WWE changing the model and forcing promotions to keep up? Yeah, promotions don't have to conform, then you won't even be at the level of all the other indie promotions, you'll be lower tier indie, hence why i keep up saying that when you have a monopoly dominating an industry, it forces everyone to adapt or die.

Yeah, buzz IF AND ONLY IF you have the means to upload a show soon.
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 Bigger if not for WWE? Yes. But not because of the Network or any “monopolistic practices.” They’re signing the guys they think are the best. There’s nothing wrong with that. I feel like NJPW is “stockpiling” talent with nothing for them to do most of the time, too. What’s the difference between that and a sports team signing as many great players as possible? WWE (or even the combination of WWE, TNA, ROH, LU, and New Japan) will never be able suck all of the talent away from the indies and leave the indies with nothing the way people seem to be panicking about because there will always be new, talented indy guys.
I’m by no means an expert on the pre-2000s indy scene, but even if we start in 1998-2000 when your top indy guys from that period like Lance Diamond, Devon Storm, Crash Holly, Reckless Youth, the Hardys, York & Matthews are getting signed, you’ve got some guys who never get signed and stick around (Quack, Ace Darling, plus guys like Daniels, AJ, and Modest who were only signed for a few months) plus a new crop of top indy names starts to emerge, and by the end of 2002 you’ve got a whole new crop of stars: Dragon, Kendrick, Homicide, Low Ki, Joe, Super Dragon, Punk, Pearce, Hero, Maff, London, Briscoes, Amazing Red, Backseat Boyz, plus people start to bring the Brits like Fleisch, Storm, and Doug Williams over to the US… and when a few years later when some of those guys get signed you’ve got yet another new crop of guys like Aries, Roddy, Nigel, Shelley, Claudio, Sydal, Steen, Generico, Joey Ryan, etc. ready to take their place, plus it starts becoming more hip to bring over the NOAH and Dragon Gate guys. And when some more guys get signed a few years later you’ve got guys like the Tyler Black, the American Wolves, Ricochet, Gargano, Young Bucks, Callihan stepping up. And when more guys get signed they get replaced by Cole, O’Reilly, ACH, Swann, Fox, Elgin, ZSJ etc. and the new wave of Brits and the Luchadors start being brought in. And now that some guys from that generation of indy star are leaving you’re seeing new guys like Brody King, Tracy Williams, Austin Theory, Yehi, Adam Brooks, CCK/SPPT, etc. getting big, while people are bringing in some of the wXw crew. The talent will always replace itself.
I never brought up raiding promotions, THAT actually is not a monopolistic action. promotions and the indie boom will exist beyond WWE's efforts to control it because it goes beyond a few wrestlers, it's with the fans wanting alternatives. Having said that WWE UK wouldn't exist if not for ITV, NXT wouldn't become a 'brand' if not for ROH rising. WWE WILL do everything possible to make sure that everyone stays under them forever, THAT is a monopolistic action.

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 They wouldn’t have signed the WWE contract if it wasn’t giving them more of a guarantee than they were currently getting. 16K is just the downside. They also get paid for every WWE use, plus if I had to guess I’d say that the WWE-Kids probably pay pretty well. Maybe not the top (and I’d doubt they alone pay what you might make signing with ROH, NJPW, or TNA), but I’d bet they pay relatively well. Plus, the list of places they’re not allowed to work seems to just be ROH, LU, TNA, New Japan, AAA, and CMLL. If they let them work freakin’ RevPro I’m sure they won’t have a problem with them working most other indies.
of course they would sign, all these new wrestlers all grew up watching WWE and nothing else and they all want to be celebrities, they would take jobbing positions as long as they get to wrestle for WWE. And no, they're not gonna let them wrestle for RevPro, especially once the weekly show starts. WWE offers a steady paycheck and less hassle, not necessarily more money.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 21st, '18, 16:15

cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 20th, '18, 16:33 Are they bullsh*t? I think so. But WWE aren't the only people doing it. ROH pretty much did the same thing with Adam Cole last year, with him working an extra five months to make up for the time he was injured in 2015. The no-competes in WWE aren't "exaggerated." They're the same length they've been since well before the current indy boom or the NJPW expansion started, going back to like, 2003, when WWE was at its most dominant. They're no doing it because they need to do it to keep up with WWE. Keeping up with WWE doesn't matter. They're doing it for the same reason WWE does; to exert some control and prevent someone else from getting too much of a big surprise pop. You can think it's BS, but I don't think it is in any way a monopolistic practice, and arguing that it is one is silly because non-competes have been a thing going back to well before WWE had their supposed monopoly.
if ROH indeed has no competes and freezes then so be it, just because they have doesn't negate WWE's monopoly. You keep blaming the smaller companies saying that they do some similar stuff or that they're product is not the best, but NONE of that means that WWE is not a monopoly. They're not mutually exclusive and these actions are not just for official monopolies, it's a whole package of WWE's dominance of the industry, how the shift things, how they force other's to follow, and how they block anyone who wants to make it.
Pretty much every legal expert agrees that non-compete clauses are perfectly legal and moral so long as the restrictions in them are reasonable... and if WWE's standard 90-day non-compete clauses were unreasonable, you know someone would have challenged them by now.If WWE is wrong for doing it then ROH is wrong for doing it, too. Morality doesn't change just because one party has more money than another.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 I'm saying the reason people haven't been paying for the smaller guys' shows is because they thought they weren't worth the money. Those same people used to do the same when WWE PPVs were even more expensive (and I'd argue that in 2014, WWE PPVs were in a higher price-range than at least ROH. They were at least double the price), so WWE lowered the price of their product and added more stuff to the point where people now find it to be acceptable value for the price. If ROH or TNA built up a PPV well and reclaimed reputations for putting on great shows, then I don't think people would hesitate to pay $40 every two months to see them, regardless of the price of WWE's product.
you completely overestimate casual fans. Not even Dominion would make casual fans to pay $40 on top of their monthly WWE expense...

if WM and WK were to run on the same night and WWE offers WM for 9.99 and WK is going for $40. Who do you think people are going to buy? Especially casual fans. People don't have the mentality that thanks to WWE lowering their price, i now have more money to watch indie promotions. Now, people say, fuck yeah, I don't have to pay 60 anymore, what the fuck is indie wrestling?
Fair enough, but in that case that's not WWE's fault. No market practice of WWE's can effect the casual fan's desire to give an alternative wrestling product a try. Do you want a law requiring WWE to run commercials promotion every other company?
WWE could make their shows $60 again and those people are going to buy the WWE show (if they by anything at all) even though they could get FIP DVDs for a dollar on eBay. These people weren't willing to give TNA a shot when WWE PPVs were a lot more expensive than TNA PPVs, either.
And if one of those people does catch TNA or ROH or NJPW on TV and decides to start watching it then TNA/NJPW/ROH's goal is to convince them that the PPV they are putting on is worth the money they are asking for it, whatever that price happens to be.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 Billionaire, shmillionaire. If you are providing a product that is worth the price you are asking, people will pay for it. That's it. WWE making theirs so cheap only means that people will have more extra money to spend on other services. Someone who was already paying for each monthly WWE PPV would have still have the same $60 or whatever it was for the HD version in their monthly wrestling budget, and can now- even if WWE is still their first priority- spend that same amount of money on each month and also get ROH, New Japan, All Japan, RevPro, and all of the WWN promotions, and maybe still have enough left over for wXw or TNA.
You're also forgetting that when WWE implemented this price, the only other promotion streaming things live for one blanket price a month were New Japan (who were using a third party to do it), and WWE's price was higher than New Japan's was. ROH and Gabe (and I think GoFightLive tried to work with CZW once or twice around this time) had all tried offering single events to be streamed live, and even with that ROH wound up with such a reputation for failure that they became laughing stock. WWE weren't being monopolistic when they started at this price, and they haven't changed their price since. You're acting like they had these malicious intentions to knock everyone else out of a game that only one other person was actually playing at that point, and WWE's price was higher than New Japan's.
really? there's this guy locally that makes amazing beers, little pricey since he doesn't mass produce the beer and so the work takes longer and more effort, no contracts with big companies for bottling services or ingredients, do you think he sells more than budweiser? Do you think he could keep the same quality if he lowers the price to what a budweiser costs?
No, but that's a case where the issue is time and care where one guy is taking care of every aspect of the production. WWE can afford to have- and does have- more people working on the booking, people dedicated to writing the wrestlers' promos for them and laying matches out for them, etc. etc. than pretty much every other promotion. But I think we can agree that (especially if we exclude NXT) a promotion like PROGRESS or wXw or LU or New Japan or EVOLVE (and even, depending on the day, TNA and ROH) will have more coherent, better-told stories and will likely have (on average) better promos and better action.
Your friend the brewer has to pay attention to every detail of every beer, from the ingredients he picks all the way through the end of the brewing process. All Gabe has to do is give the wrestlers the time and the finish and any important notes and then he can let them worry about what individual moves will fill out the rest of the match. Same for the promos and the camera-work and even stuff like booking buildings. Smallman or whoever might be the one who picks which building they run on which date, but he probably has an office-person who is responsible for (among other things, I'm sure) booking the venues. Most of those companies are charging WWE prices of under for streaming services, tickets, t-shirts, DVDs, etc, and are producing a higher-quality product than WWE.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 TNA's moves and quality are absolutely relevant in this case! First of all, you're trying to tell me that WWE was trying to undercut TNA's business in a business TNA had mostly pulled out of well before WWE tried to undercut them. Arguing that WWE now offering 10$/month PPVs undercut TNA trying to sell one $40 PPV every few months is also laughable, not just because of the added disposable income but because TNA completely failed in their execution of their strategy. Just look at the 2013 alone, before there was a WWE Network for $9.99 a month. The entire reasoning behind TNA's PPV cutback was because they wanted to give themselves more time to build up the stories for their big PPVs matches, and figured that 3 months between PPVs would be the best way to do it, creating a system similar to WWE's old Big Four. Within MONTHS TNA just reverted back to trying to do a big monthly show, except they now no longer had the PPV spot so instead of having four weeks of TV to build to a commercial-free three-hour show with all of the pay-offs, they only had three weeks of TV to build to a two-hour-minus-commercials show for all of their payoffs.
And the reason people didn't give their PPVs much of a chance was because the product stunk, just like it had for years before, which was the whole reason they wound up on this situation in the first place. The reason people didn't give TNA PPVs a chance in 2014 wasn't because the WWE Network was cheaper. It was because TNA kept filling their big PPV matches (in addition to their top TV matches) with f*ck finishes! They kept claiming they would change but they never did. They just kept doing back to the same horrendous booking philosophy that killed WCW and had hurt them every time they tried it. WHY THE F*CK WOULD YOU EVER BRING BACK VINCE RUSSO? Or even bring in Eric Bischoff as a booker. Or give the book to some goof like John Gaburik who had never done it before? Over the long history of TNA there were definitely people available. Heyman has said that he would have come in if they had given him full control but they wouldn't give it to him (this was in the 2009-2011 period). Mike Burns had a relatively successful track-record in his booking of CZW and had his ear to the indy scene. They could have tried to bring him in, but didn't. You want to be an alternative to WWE? It's late 2009 and you've just gutted your creative team by getting rid of Jeff Jarrett, Jim Cornette and Dutch Mantel... and a four-time Wrestling Observer Booker of the Year is available. Why wouldn't you just dump Russo, too, and make a play to hire Gabe instead of sticking with Russo, bringing in Ferrara, and then bringing in Hogan and Bischoff to make things worse. Imagine a highly-motivated 2009 Gabe wanting to prove that his ROH run wasn't a fluke now getting two hours of TV time each week (well-supported by the network, to boot) and a roster that includes AJ, Daniels, Angle, Joe, LAX, MCMG, Doug Williams, Abyss, The Dudley, Roode, Storm, Kazarian, Gail Kim, Awesome Kong, Victoria, CLM, Jay Lethal, The Pope, Sarita, Amazing Red w/Don West, Rhino, Velvet Sky & Angelina Love at their absolute best on the mic...and that's assuming that 1) guys like Jeff Hardy RVD, and the Bucks don't come in, 2) that Gabe somehow couldn't find something worthwhile to do with guys like Sting, Foley, Booker, Steiner, and Nash (which, in pretty much everyone case other than maybe Nash, and Booker if he wasn't motivated in the ring, I'm certain he could have), and 3) that Gabe being the booker plus TNA money and exposure wouldn't have convinced some top ROH guys to jump ship when their contracts were up... and that's also without Gabe bringing in any other indy guys he might have wanted to use.
But no. They went with Vince Russo instead. And did so EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Even when the network told them that they don't want Russo anywhere near the product.
So in summation, TNA's problems are ALL self-made. The promotion might be better now, yes, but that doesn't mean that the scars of the past don't still run deep. When I tried to getting back into TNA this year, the thing that pissed me off the most was the Joseph Park sh*t, because that "constantly-changing because we're too dumb to remember our own f*cking angles and don't give enough of a sh*t to check first" bullsh*t epitomized many of the reasons why I stopped watching in the first place. In TNA's case, they absolutely HAVE to ensure that they are more than worth the price they are asking, because it will take a long time to convince people that they're not going to get f*cked out of their money eventually.
Talking about Impact's business is irrelevant because (1) WWE never directly targeted them, they're just seeing the consequences of WWE's monopoly as every other promotion, and (2) Because even without WWE, a Dixie driven Impact would still fail and WWE would still be pursuing the monopoly and control of the industry whether Impact existed or not. Impact's bad dealings don't negate the existence of a WWE monopoly over the industry.
1) TNA's situation isn't much different than WCW (who WWE actually did target): people stopped being willing to give them another chance because they kept sucking,.
2)"Because even without WWE, a Dixie driven Impact would still fail"- this is exactly the point! And no one has had a better shot at becoming a viable alternative to WWE since WCW died than TNA did! They had a TV network that loved them (Spike made TUF stop running ads that buried pro wrestling when they got Impact, something they never did for WWE), a parent company that was willing to sink billions of dollars into them, and a mix of big-name veterans and top-level fresh young talent, and right in place to pick up the slack when WWE dropped it in terms of providing excellent women's and tag team wrestling. And THEY F*CKED IT ALL UP THROUGH NOTHING BUT THEIR OWN SHEER INCOMPETENCE!
If Dixie had given that money to ROH instead- even if we assume it happens after the RF scandal instead of December 2002, and we assume that TNA somehow stays in business and still winds up pulling guys like AJ and Daniels for a time and that Punk leaves for WWE anyway- the situation in the business right now is TOTALLY different because ROH would have a damn good chance of being an actual mainstream alternative to WWE.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
I'm not saying that asking price doesn't affect, obviously it does, but when everything revolves around WWE, the standard base become WM costing 9.99, you'd have to offer a show better than WM worth to argue paying more than 9.99, except PPV prices are $40. WK is arguably far far far better than WM and people still wouldn't pay $40 just like that. Paying for wrestling is leftover money and saving on WWE doesn't mean you're just gonna go and use the extra money to watch other companies, (1) because not all fans are hardcore fans, and (2) fans are cheat and greedy and if they could get everything for free, they would.
If people won't give anything that isn't WWE a try then there is noting you can do about those people, but that's not WWE's fault, either. It's the result of some people being closed-minded, and that's not WWE's fault. Also, the indy boom is showing that there are a lot more people than before who are willing to give non-WWE wrestling a chance.

cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13 No one complains about WWE not being worth the value because eveything is cheap, but it forced everything to 'better' than WWE or cheaper than WWE. And that's not even finding ways to add value to a streaming service when you don't have years and years of product to put up there.
I'm shocked that there are people who think the Network isn't worth $9.99 a month for NXT and Takeovers plus on-demand access to the library alone. And if you don't have years' worth of library to add then that's not WWE's fault, either. Do what ROH did in the old days and do some shoot interviews with your guys.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
When people want to watch wrestling, time is less of an issue than money, especially for non-hardcore fans that wouldn't warrant paying for more than one wrestling show.
And yet they were still paying for WWE instead of TNA when WWE was more expensive, so quality must have a bearing as well. If someone only wants one to pay for one show a month and they're willing to shell out up to $60 for it then you need to make you that your product is good enough that they want to see it above all others and that they are willing to pay the price you are asking to see it..

cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
You do realize that all those things that are changing in the wrestling industry, PPVs, networks, Live VOD, are ALL consequences of WWE changing the model and forcing promotions to keep up? Yeah, promotions don't have to conform, then you won't even be at the level of all the other indie promotions, you'll be lower tier indie, hence why i keep up saying that when you have a monopoly dominating an industry, it forces everyone to adapt or die.
Did you not read the rest of what I wrote? These were things that the indies started doing. WWE had their Classics on Demand, but 99% of people never paid for that and WWE never advertised it much. Streaming a live show to you via the internet and charging you to see it was the indies trying to do PPV without having to deal with the PPV companies. WWE's switch to that was for the exact same reason: They were tired of the PPV companies taking half (or more) of their profits.
Maybe it forced some indies to try their own streaming services before they were ready, but instead of not having a streaming service forcing people out of business, you have groups like Powerbomb.tv or FloSlam or Smart Mark setting up streaming services for people and splitting both the costs and the profits.
PWG certainly hasn't conformed. Are they a "lower tier" indy? AAW had their best year ever last year and they don't have a streaming service. CHIKARA had one of the earlier ones and yet they've been on the down-swing.

cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13 Yeah, buzz IF AND ONLY IF you have the means to upload a show soon.
So then that should be a thing you put some money/effort into. CHIKARA teamed up with Smart Mark to get King of Trios DVDs ready to ship out the day after the show.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
I never brought up raiding promotions, THAT actually is not a monopolistic action. promotions and the indie boom will exist beyond WWE's efforts to control it because it goes beyond a few wrestlers, it's with the fans wanting alternatives. Having said that WWE UK wouldn't exist if not for ITV, NXT wouldn't become a 'brand' if not for ROH rising. WWE WILL do everything possible to make sure that everyone stays under them forever, THAT is a monopolistic action.
Doing everything (legally) possible to make sure everyone stays under you isn't a monopolistic action. That's competition. The WWE UK thing certainly wouldn't be happening if not for the threat of ITV, but it's still no different than a talent raid.

As for NXT not becoming a brand if not for the rise of ROH... I disagree.
The current incarnation of NXT was created when ROH in the midst of a down-swing. WWE's desire to have their own training facility probably stems from their need for people to conform to their way of doing things, and this would provide a location for them to train/reeducate people without these people having to hang around with non-contracted wrestlers who WWE couldn't control and who would expose the WWE talent to their "bad habits" like WWE probably felt was happening in FCW.
Another key factor in the rise of NXT was the success of ArRIVAL, which they probably wouldn't have tried doing (and certainly not that early) if they didn't need something they could use as a test-run for live-streaming a big event on the WWE Network so they had time to figure out any of the kinks before WrestleMania XXX.
The other key factor in a lot of what NXT has become is Hunter's ego. NXT lets him show us all that he is smarter than Vince and that he really does "get" the business and isn't a Hogan/Nash-style egotist who was only ever out for himself. Being the guy who is seen as responsible for the cool, hip product lets him create a legacy in the business outside of the "WWE Universe" bubbe that is more positive than Shovel H. He has, in some ways, maneuvered things in such a way that "Shovel H" has been folded into the heel he plays on TV while the "real" Paul Levesque is NXT's Proud Papa Paul.
I'm not saying that everything he has done in NXT has all been purely in service to his own ego. I think he realizes the value in building a positive image of his abilities as a promoter and booker so that investor-types don't panic when Vince dies, and I think he was well aware of the product's shortcomings and recognized the value of having somewhere outside of Vince's bubble where he could (to pick just one example) push the women the right way so that he could go to Vince with something he could point to and say "look: this really can work. We need to do it" to help him get important changes like that made. Even taking NXT on tour around the country serves the purpose of allowing things to be tested outside of a small region of central Florida running in just Full Sail and some high school gyms.
Have they come into markets ROH was already announced in and run opposition to them? Absolutely. Was the the right thing to do? I don't think so. But I think the idea of making NXT a touring brand has more to do with Hunter wanting his own undisputedly best/coolest/most critically acclaimed indy (think ROH circa 2006- 2011) than it does with the "WWE wants to kill the (non-underling) indies" narrative.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
of course they would sign, all these new wrestlers all grew up watching WWE and nothing else and they all want to be celebrities, they would take jobbing positions as long as they get to wrestle for WWE. And no, they're not gonna let them wrestle for RevPro, especially once the weekly show starts. WWE offers a steady paycheck and less hassle, not necessarily more money.
You really think these guys place wrestling in WWE above all else? I think there are a good number of them (especially the top dogs, who know they have the talent to get offers from ROH or TNA or New Japan as well) that wouldn't settle for going to WWE with even 50/50 chances of getting past being a jobber.
Once the TV show starts up they probably won't let them wrestle for RevPro, but they've let them wrestle for RevPro until now, which is a pretty shocking thing because of how in bed RevPro is with ROH, New Japan, and CMLL. And once the TV show starts, they'll be getting more (or at least bigger) paychecks from WWE to make up for it.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by cero2k » Jun 22nd, '18, 14:44

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 16:15
Pretty much every legal expert agrees that non-compete clauses are perfectly legal and moral so long as the restrictions in them are reasonable... and if WWE's standard 90-day non-compete clauses were unreasonable, you know someone would have challenged them by now.If WWE is wrong for doing it then ROH is wrong for doing it, too. Morality doesn't change just because one party has more money than another.
i'm not excusing ROH, i'm blaming both, but like I said, just because ROH does it, doesn't negate the monopoly status of WWE. Also, WWE HAS been challenged for the no-compete by Del Rio because they wanted to impose a 1 yr one. The reason no one has big issues with them anymore is because WWE doesn't allow companies to get big enough like WCW to really make a no compete a pain in the ass and WWE still pays you during that time, so people may as well take it as a vacation.
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 16:15 Fair enough, but in that case that's not WWE's fault. No market practice of WWE's can effect the casual fan's desire to give an alternative wrestling product a try. Do you want a law requiring WWE to run commercials promotion every other company?
WWE could make their shows $60 again and those people are going to buy the WWE show (if they by anything at all) even though they could get FIP DVDs for a dollar on eBay. These people weren't willing to give TNA a shot when WWE PPVs were a lot more expensive than TNA PPVs, either.
And if one of those people does catch TNA or ROH or NJPW on TV and decides to start watching it then TNA/NJPW/ROH's goal is to convince them that the PPV they are putting on is worth the money they are asking for it, whatever that price happens to be.
WWE doesn't really need to show commercials, nor it should be under their control what the network decides to promote especially if another company buys the time slot, but surely, at minimum, WWE shouldn't actively be trying to keep all promotions from rising above a certain level, THAT definitely needs a law against.

You're completely missing the point about quality, at no point shouldn't promotions have to slack on convincing fans to buy their stuff nor have I made such argument, but the truth is that they're working against a bigger handicap than just making a good product, now they need to make a good product (under casual fan's perspective which means names + production) and then give it for a reasonable price, likely lower than what would be ideal in order to make good money out of them.
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 No, but that's a case where the issue is time and care where one guy is taking care of every aspect of the production. WWE can afford to have- and does have- more people working on the booking, people dedicated to writing the wrestlers' promos for them and laying matches out for them, etc. etc. than pretty much every other promotion. But I think we can agree that (especially if we exclude NXT) a promotion like PROGRESS or wXw or LU or New Japan or EVOLVE (and even, depending on the day, TNA and ROH) will have more coherent, better-told stories and will likely have (on average) better promos and better action.
Your friend the brewer has to pay attention to every detail of every beer, from the ingredients he picks all the way through the end of the brewing process. All Gabe has to do is give the wrestlers the time and the finish and any important notes and then he can let them worry about what individual moves will fill out the rest of the match. Same for the promos and the camera-work and even stuff like booking buildings. Smallman or whoever might be the one who picks which building they run on which date, but he probably has an office-person who is responsible for (among other things, I'm sure) booking the venues. Most of those companies are charging WWE prices of under for streaming services, tickets, t-shirts, DVDs, etc, and are producing a higher-quality product than WWE.
yes, and the little brewer will never be able to afford having more people because his distribution options will be controlled by all the big companies.
And I disagree that smaller promotions are paying 'WWE prices', because that's not exactly the truth, yeah they're all about $10, but WWE gives you [ all of this ] for 10 bucks, while PROGRESS or wXw can only give you about [ ] <-- that. It may be same price, but for the consumer, just quantity wise, it's far far less value. People don't necessarily want better stuff, they want lots of stuff regardless of the quality.

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 the situation in the business right now is TOTALLY different because ROH would have a damn good chance of being an actual mainstream alternative to WWE.
Except WWE WON"T ALLOW IT!! Just look at the topic name of this thread!
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 If people won't give anything that isn't WWE a try then there is noting you can do about those people, but that's not WWE's fault, either. It's the result of some people being closed-minded, and that's not WWE's fault. Also, the indy boom is showing that there are a lot more people than before who are willing to give non-WWE wrestling a chance.
it's WWE's fault if you don't allow companies to grow to actually become competitors in the mainstream market and casual fan's access scope. Right now, after almost 20 yrs, we're seeing more casual fans pay attention to this bullet club thing, and the first thing that WWE tried to do was outright buy it out, they bought half of it and I assure you they're gonna try and buy out The Elite come january. That's a monopoly, just going out buying anything that can become a threat in order to maintain your dominance over an industry.

cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13 I'm shocked that there are people who think the Network isn't worth $9.99 a month for NXT and Takeovers plus on-demand access to the library alone. And if you don't have years' worth of library to add then that's not WWE's fault, either. Do what ROH did in the old days and do some shoot interviews with your guys.
it's only worth it if you care about watching their product. To me it isn't worth 10 bucks. I rather pay for F4Online or PROGRESS or NJPW or Stardom or two cookies and a coffee after work.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13 And yet they were still paying for WWE instead of TNA when WWE was more expensive, so quality must have a bearing as well. If someone only wants one to pay for one show a month and they're willing to shell out up to $60 for it then you need to make you that your product is good enough that they want to see it above all others and that they are willing to pay the price you are asking to see it..
not disagreeing, again, not sure why you keep blaming Impact. Still, for a casual fan, $10 for celebrities and production value is alone that regardless if you're having Misawa's return from the dead, they still wouldn't pay for it.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13 Doing everything (legally) possible to make sure everyone stays under you isn't a monopolistic action. That's competition. The WWE UK thing certainly wouldn't be happening if not for the threat of ITV, but it's still no different than a talent raid.
Microsoft wasn't doing anything illegal bundling their browsers with their OSs and making contracts with Intel, yet they were judged a monopoly. Legal actions can lead to monopolies, and making sure that no competition can rise IS a monopolistic action, it's like almost the definition.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13 As for NXT not becoming a brand if not for the rise of ROH... I disagree.
The current incarnation of NXT was created when ROH in the midst of a down-swing. WWE's desire to have their own training facility probably stems from their need for people to conform to their way of doing things, and this would provide a location for them to train/reeducate people without these people having to hang around with non-contracted wrestlers who WWE couldn't control and who would expose the WWE talent to their "bad habits" like WWE probably felt was happening in FCW.
Yeah, that was like what? 5-6 years ago, when indeed ROH wasn't rising strong with the backing of Sinclair and when The Bullet Club wasn't strong, and NJPW wasn't on ASX, and LU wasn't even an idea. When Triple H could still get away with his 'it's just developmental' excuse.


Another key factor in the rise of NXT was the success of ArRIVAL, which they probably wouldn't have tried doing (and certainly not that early) if they didn't need something they could use as a test-run for live-streaming a big event on the WWE Network so they had time to figure out any of the kinks before WrestleMania XXX.
The other key factor in a lot of what NXT has become is Hunter's ego. NXT lets him show us all that he is smarter than Vince and that he really does "get" the business and isn't a Hogan/Nash-style egotist who was only ever out for himself. Being the guy who is seen as responsible for the cool, hip product lets him create a legacy in the business outside of the "WWE Universe" bubbe that is more positive than Shovel H. He has, in some ways, maneuvered things in such a way that "Shovel H" has been folded into the heel he plays on TV while the "real" Paul Levesque is NXT's Proud Papa Paul.
I'm not saying that everything he has done in NXT has all been purely in service to his own ego. I think he realizes the value in building a positive image of his abilities as a promoter and booker so that investor-types don't panic when Vince dies, and I think he was well aware of the product's shortcomings and recognized the value of having somewhere outside of Vince's bubble where he could (to pick just one example) push the women the right way so that he could go to Vince with something he could point to and say "look: this really can work. We need to do it" to help him get important changes like that made. Even taking NXT on tour around the country serves the purpose of allowing things to be tested outside of a small region of central Florida running in just Full Sail and some high school gyms.
Have they come into markets ROH was already announced in and run opposition to them? Absolutely. Was the the right thing to do? I don't think so. But I think the idea of making NXT a touring brand has more to do with Hunter wanting his own undisputedly best/coolest/most critically acclaimed indy (think ROH circa 2006- 2011) than it does with the "WWE wants to kill the (non-underling) indies" narrative.
all of this is true, i'm not disagreeing, but it is still WWE's answer to being a 'cool' indie, they run indie styled product with indie level guys with even indie level names. They made a product that offered indie guys the option to enter the WWE realm without actually submitting to the machine, and through getting Gabe in their pocket, they manage to build an umbrella where if you're interested in ever working for WWE (and everyone is), then stay with 'our' friends and we can get you some bookings on NXT, you know work through it. We're seeing that in the UK right now, and soon it will start with NOAH in Japan. NXT is their way into the indie scene in order to try and control it. It can still be Hunter's baby and whatnot, but NXT has a true value for WWE beyond 'developmental'

cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13 You really think these guys place wrestling in WWE above all else? I think there are a good number of them (especially the top dogs, who know they have the talent to get offers from ROH or TNA or New Japan as well) that wouldn't settle for going to WWE with even 50/50 chances of getting past being a jobber.
Once the TV show starts up they probably won't let them wrestle for RevPro, but they've let them wrestle for RevPro until now, which is a pretty shocking thing because of how in bed RevPro is with ROH, New Japan, and CMLL. And once the TV show starts, they'll be getting more (or at least bigger) paychecks from WWE to make up for it.
100%, especially all the young ones that are not NJPW top guys, everyone else would sign with WWE in a heart beat. Aside from The Bucks, Kenny, and WALTER, who else have you heard that has rejected WWE offers?
WWE barely started taping the tournament on the 18, let's see if Banks or Jinny show up for any upcoming RevPro shows. Let's see if Toni Storm shows up for any Stardom shows.
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Re: ROH loses MSG date after 'communications from WWE'

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 22nd, '18, 17:32

cero2k wrote: Jun 22nd, '18, 14:44
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 16:15
Pretty much every legal expert agrees that non-compete clauses are perfectly legal and moral so long as the restrictions in them are reasonable... and if WWE's standard 90-day non-compete clauses were unreasonable, you know someone would have challenged them by now.If WWE is wrong for doing it then ROH is wrong for doing it, too. Morality doesn't change just because one party has more money than another.
i'm not excusing ROH, i'm blaming both, but like I said, just because ROH does it, doesn't negate the monopoly status of WWE. Also, WWE HAS been challenged for the no-compete by Del Rio because they wanted to impose a 1 yr one. The reason no one has big issues with them anymore is because WWE doesn't allow companies to get big enough like WCW to really make a no compete a pain in the ass and WWE still pays you during that time, so people may as well take it as a vacation.
I said the standard one hadn't been challenged. Del Rio's (one year, not three months, and applying Mexico as well) was decidedly not standard.
How can it be a monopolistic practice if ROH can do it, too? And I would even dispute your assertion that such a thing is in any way wrong. This is something that exists in pretty much every industry, and the wrestler gets the benefits of being able to work other promotions aside from the ones whose fit the parameters of the non-compete while still getting paid by WWE.
cero2k wrote: Jun 22nd, '18, 14:44
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 16:15 Fair enough, but in that case that's not WWE's fault. No market practice of WWE's can effect the casual fan's desire to give an alternative wrestling product a try. Do you want a law requiring WWE to run commercials promotion every other company?
WWE could make their shows $60 again and those people are going to buy the WWE show (if they by anything at all) even though they could get FIP DVDs for a dollar on eBay. These people weren't willing to give TNA a shot when WWE PPVs were a lot more expensive than TNA PPVs, either.
And if one of those people does catch TNA or ROH or NJPW on TV and decides to start watching it then TNA/NJPW/ROH's goal is to convince them that the PPV they are putting on is worth the money they are asking for it, whatever that price happens to be.
WWE doesn't really need to show commercials, nor it should be under their control what the network decides to promote especially if another company buys the time slot, but surely, at minimum, WWE shouldn't actively be trying to keep all promotions from rising above a certain level, THAT definitely needs a law against.
I fail to see how keeping one particular promotion (there has been no reporting that they've done anything to stop AAA supposedly running there in September) from running one particular building is trying to keep all over companies from rising above a certain level.
cero2k wrote: Jun 22nd, '18, 14:44 You're completely missing the point about quality, at no point shouldn't promotions have to slack on convincing fans to buy their stuff nor have I made such argument, but the truth is that they're working against a bigger handicap than just making a good product, now they need to make a good product (under casual fan's perspective which means names + production) and then give it for a reasonable price, likely lower than what would be ideal in order to make good money out of them.
I understand your point and I'm disputing that that handicap exists. What I'm saying is that it's not WWE's fault, and thus you including it as something WWE is somehow doing wrong is highly unfair.
cero2k wrote: Jun 22nd, '18, 14:44
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 No, but that's a case where the issue is time and care where one guy is taking care of every aspect of the production. WWE can afford to have- and does have- more people working on the booking, people dedicated to writing the wrestlers' promos for them and laying matches out for them, etc. etc. than pretty much every other promotion. But I think we can agree that (especially if we exclude NXT) a promotion like PROGRESS or wXw or LU or New Japan or EVOLVE (and even, depending on the day, TNA and ROH) will have more coherent, better-told stories and will likely have (on average) better promos and better action.
Your friend the brewer has to pay attention to every detail of every beer, from the ingredients he picks all the way through the end of the brewing process. All Gabe has to do is give the wrestlers the time and the finish and any important notes and then he can let them worry about what individual moves will fill out the rest of the match. Same for the promos and the camera-work and even stuff like booking buildings. Smallman or whoever might be the one who picks which building they run on which date, but he probably has an office-person who is responsible for (among other things, I'm sure) booking the venues. Most of those companies are charging WWE prices of under for streaming services, tickets, t-shirts, DVDs, etc, and are producing a higher-quality product than WWE.
yes, and the little brewer will never be able to afford having more people because his distribution options will be controlled by all the big companies.
How (in either case) are the distribution options being controlled by the bigger companies?
cero2k wrote: Jun 22nd, '18, 14:44 And I disagree that smaller promotions are paying 'WWE prices', because that's not exactly the truth, yeah they're all about $10, but WWE gives you [ all of this ] for 10 bucks, while PROGRESS or wXw can only give you about [ ] <-- that. It may be same price, but for the consumer, just quantity wise, it's far far less value. People don't necessarily want better stuff, they want lots of stuff regardless of the quality.
In terms of historical footage, WWE definitely does have the most (even if they didn't have others' libraries, I think a good chunk of New Japan and/or All Japan's libraries are owned by the TV stations they aired on due to the way the deal was structured), but, again, that's not WWE's fault. That's just the way the cards fell. Is it unfair that wXw has more history to put up than PROGRESS?
In terms of quantity of new product, I'd say that the biggest producers on a monthly basis are, in this order, NJPW, ROH, and then either WWE, All Japan, or RevPro, with wXw maybe jumping up into that pile in certain months (mainly March and October). That puts WWE at 3-5, not one or two, lagging behind some smaller companies, so that isn't a plus for them, either.
cero2k wrote: Jun 22nd, '18, 14:44
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 the situation in the business right now is TOTALLY different because ROH would have a damn good chance of being an actual mainstream alternative to WWE.
Except WWE WON"T ALLOW IT!! Just look at the topic name of this thread!
It's just one specific building. ROH could try running Prudential Center, which isn't much smaller but would probably be better for ROH because they don't charge the broadcasting fee that MSG does (which is why WWE only runs house shows there now) so they might well even do better (especially if people are staying in Jersey rather than NYC, which is highly likely because Mania is in Jersey). WWE has shown no ability to keep anyone off of TV or off of PPV out of just about any other building in the world.
cero2k wrote: Jun 22nd, '18, 14:44
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 If people won't give anything that isn't WWE a try then there is noting you can do about those people, but that's not WWE's fault, either. It's the result of some people being closed-minded, and that's not WWE's fault. Also, the indy boom is showing that there are a lot more people than before who are willing to give non-WWE wrestling a chance.
it's WWE's fault if you don't allow companies to grow to actually become competitors in the mainstream market and casual fan's access scope. Right now, after almost 20 yrs, we're seeing more casual fans pay attention to this bullet club thing, and the first thing that WWE tried to do was outright buy it out, they bought half of it and I assure you they're gonna try and buy out The Elite come january. That's a monopoly, just going out buying anything that can become a threat in order to maintain your dominance over an industry.
Anyone in the world is well within their rights to offer to buy whatever they want (legal things only, of course), and anyone in the world is well within their rights to not sell something if they don't want to sell it. WWE has every right to make them an offer if they're contracts are up, and Kenny and the Bucks have every right to either take it or not take it depending solely on what they decide is right for them.



cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 And yet they were still paying for WWE instead of TNA when WWE was more expensive, so quality must have a bearing as well. If someone only wants one to pay for one show a month and they're willing to shell out up to $60 for it then you need to make you that your product is good enough that they want to see it above all others and that they are willing to pay the price you are asking to see it..
not disagreeing, again, not sure why you keep blaming Impact. Still, for a casual fan, $10 for celebrities and production value is alone that regardless if you're having Misawa's return from the dead, they still wouldn't pay for it. .
I keep bringing up TNA because they were the closest anyone else since WCW has come to being mainstream. TNA was something that at one point I'd assume at least 65%-75% of WWE's age 11+ fanbase had heard of. They had a good TV slot on a basic cable network, and various big-name stars that the average WWE fan would probably be excited to see (Angle, Sting, Booker, Dudleys, RVD, Foley, Hogan, Flair, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Bischoff, New Age Outlaws- maybe even Steiner, Cornette, Jarrett, Nash, Hall, Rhyno, Konnan, Raven, Sabu, Jerry Lynn, depending on the age of the fan and what attachment he/she had had to WCW and/or ECW. And yet, with all this- almost all of these fans who were willing to pay $60 for a WWE PPV still weren't willing to pay $35-$40 for a TNA PPV.
If all of that stuff wasn't enough to convince these fans to spend even less money to try TNA out instead of sticking with WWE, then it doesn't matter what WWE does or doesn't do- who they sign from the indies or what buildings they try to keep other promotions out of or whether a promotion has cheaper PPVs or a cheaper streaming service. If they are "WWE Only" people then they won't watch (or at least pay for) some other promotion no matter what that promotion does... and that is not something that can be blamed on "monopolistic practices" supposedly being used by WWE.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 Doing everything (legally) possible to make sure everyone stays under you isn't a monopolistic action. That's competition. The WWE UK thing certainly wouldn't be happening if not for the threat of ITV, but it's still no different than a talent raid.
Microsoft wasn't doing anything illegal bundling their browsers with their OSs and making contracts with Intel, yet they were judged a monopoly. Legal actions can lead to monopolies, and making sure that no competition can rise IS a monopolistic action, it's like almost the definition.
The entertainment industry is much different than the tech industry. You don't get proprietary control over the concept of a "professional wrestling TV show" just because you're the biggest company, just like you don't get proprietary control over the idea of cooking competition show.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 As for NXT not becoming a brand if not for the rise of ROH... I disagree.
The current incarnation of NXT was created when ROH in the midst of a down-swing. WWE's desire to have their own training facility probably stems from their need for people to conform to their way of doing things, and this would provide a location for them to train/reeducate people without these people having to hang around with non-contracted wrestlers who WWE couldn't control and who would expose the WWE talent to their "bad habits" like WWE probably felt was happening in FCW.
Yeah, that was like what? 5-6 years ago, when indeed ROH wasn't rising strong with the backing of Sinclair and when The Bullet Club wasn't strong, and NJPW wasn't on ASX, and LU wasn't even an idea. When Triple H could still get away with his 'it's just developmental' excuse.
But that doesn't mean any of these original reasons are invalid, either. It is still development (Rusev, Bliss, Charlotte, Carmella, Mojo Lars Sullivan, Nia, Strowman, Drifter, Mandy, Sonya, Liv Morgan, Heavy Machinery, Chad Gable, Jason Jordan, and probably a bunch of others that I'm missing all came up through this system with basically no indy or international experience, while others like The Revival, Tyler Breeze, Bayley, Aiden English, and The Velveteen Dream all found the gimmick that has worked for them via trial and error in NXT. It is certainly MUCH more than a developmental territory, but it is- at least for a good chunk of people- still a developmental territory, and that part of it does, in fact, create talent for the company.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 Another key factor in the rise of NXT was the success of ArRIVAL, which they probably wouldn't have tried doing (and certainly not that early) if they didn't need something they could use as a test-run for live-streaming a big event on the WWE Network so they had time to figure out any of the kinks before WrestleMania XXX.
The other key factor in a lot of what NXT has become is Hunter's ego. NXT lets him show us all that he is smarter than Vince and that he really does "get" the business and isn't a Hogan/Nash-style egotist who was only ever out for himself. Being the guy who is seen as responsible for the cool, hip product lets him create a legacy in the business outside of the "WWE Universe" bubbe that is more positive than Shovel H. He has, in some ways, maneuvered things in such a way that "Shovel H" has been folded into the heel he plays on TV while the "real" Paul Levesque is NXT's Proud Papa Paul.
I'm not saying that everything he has done in NXT has all been purely in service to his own ego. I think he realizes the value in building a positive image of his abilities as a promoter and booker so that investor-types don't panic when Vince dies, and I think he was well aware of the product's shortcomings and recognized the value of having somewhere outside of Vince's bubble where he could (to pick just one example) push the women the right way so that he could go to Vince with something he could point to and say "look: this really can work. We need to do it" to help him get important changes like that made. Even taking NXT on tour around the country serves the purpose of allowing things to be tested outside of a small region of central Florida running in just Full Sail and some high school gyms.
Have they come into markets ROH was already announced in and run opposition to them? Absolutely. Was the the right thing to do? I don't think so. But I think the idea of making NXT a touring brand has more to do with Hunter wanting his own undisputedly best/coolest/most critically acclaimed indy (think ROH circa 2006- 2011) than it does with the "WWE wants to kill the (non-underling) indies" narrative.
all of this is true, i'm not disagreeing, but it is still WWE's answer to being a 'cool' indie, they run indie styled product with indie level guys with even indie level names. They made a product that offered indie guys the option to enter the WWE realm without actually submitting to the machine, and through getting Gabe in their pocket, they manage to build an umbrella where if you're interested in ever working for WWE (and everyone is), then stay with 'our' friends and we can get you some bookings on NXT, you know work through it. We're seeing that in the UK right now, and soon it will start with NOAH in Japan. NXT is their way into the indie scene in order to try and control it. It can still be Hunter's baby and whatnot, but NXT has a true value for WWE beyond 'developmental'
If I had to guess, I'd say that the "go to Gabe, not ROH" thing arose not as much from the rise of ROH via the Sincliar purchase the 2013-2015 audience surge but from the combination that, the rise of New Japan, and the partnership between ROH and New Japan. The ROH/New Japan combination is the only one that could offer someone the combination of money and status that could compete with WWE (when you factor in the benefits of a lighter schedule and more freedom). Remember that in 2012- which is post Sinclair purchase, ROH was happy to let WWE put up the Punk vs. Dragon match from Reborn: Stage 1 on their YouTube page in exchange for the plug just in that YouTube video as WWE's build for Punk vs. Dragon at Over The Limit 2012, and to put ROH over in the Punk DVD. The WWE turn against ROH comes only after 1) New Japan gets big, and forms a partnership with ROH which runs a tour together that does much better than New Japan did on their own a few years before, 2) WWE gets annoyed at ROH piggybacking on more than just WrestleMania, and 3) Matt Riddle becomes available.
The whole story with Riddle was that WWE wanted him but 1) wanted to test whether he was cut out for the business in terms of both being able to handle the road and being willing to do jobs without complaining, (and Gabe books more clean finishes than anyone) 2) didn't want to put a bunch of money into him only for him to keep failing piss-tests for pot. So what they do is they send him to Gabe who not only had a proven track record with talent, but also had been kind of setting himself up (or getting set up by Heyman and others [Punk & Dragon?] or both) as the indy guy WWE could talk to because he didn't even seem to have the desire to be a threat to them (remember that article on WWE.com from a few years ago that put the indies over strong as the place where Dragon, Claudio, Rollins, and Ambrose came from? The guy they gave most of the credit to was Gabe). Add in the supposed Gabe/ROH vendetta (which both sides totally deny, and probably wasn't really a thing by that point except that people wanted to believe it was) and Gabe becomes a perfect indy partner for them to steer Riddle (and all future situations) to in order to keep him away from ROH/NJPW, who are the only guys they thought they might not be able to get him back from). The news coming out last year that Gabe had been getting paid a consulting fee by Hunter basically just solidifies him as the Heyman to Hunter's Vince.
Basically, I'm not sure it was really ever intended to be the "WE ARE GOING TO DESTROY THE INDIES!" machine that the narrative turned it into once the "go to Gabe, not ROH" stuff came out (and even then, that was quickly given up on, considering that WWE made their desires for Cole and Roddy no secret, and signed Roddy less than a year later.
And as for the idea that everyone's end goal is the WWE, I don't think that's true. Elgin has always said his was Japan, and I'm sure there are others like him who always dreamed of working in Japan or Mexico instead, or some Quackenbush types who dream of doing their own thing. I also think that especially nowadays there are guys who value their freedom a lot more than WWE, and I think Omega and the Bucks are paramount examples of that. If they could go to WWE with the guarantee of the freedom to do what they wanted I'm sure that at least the Bucks would, but I think they also know they won't get that freedom.
cero2k wrote: Jun 21st, '18, 13:13
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 19th, '18, 14:44 You really think these guys place wrestling in WWE above all else? I think there are a good number of them (especially the top dogs, who know they have the talent to get offers from ROH or TNA or New Japan as well) that wouldn't settle for going to WWE with even 50/50 chances of getting past being a jobber.
Once the TV show starts up they probably won't let them wrestle for RevPro, but they've let them wrestle for RevPro until now, which is a pretty shocking thing because of how in bed RevPro is with ROH, New Japan, and CMLL. And once the TV show starts, they'll be getting more (or at least bigger) paychecks from WWE to make up for it.
100%, especially all the young ones that are not NJPW top guys, everyone else would sign with WWE in a heart beat. Aside from The Bucks, Kenny, and WALTER, who else have you heard that has rejected WWE offers?
WWE barely started taping the tournament on the 18, let's see if Banks or Jinny show up for any upcoming RevPro shows. Let's see if Toni Storm shows up for any Stardom shows.
Moose, James Storm, Ibushi, Zack, Fale, Brian Cage, MVP, Ospreay, Sonjay Dutt, Ryback. I think AJ turned them down after he left TNA to work for ROH and NJPW instead. I'm pretty sure Dragon turned them down in the mid-2000s, and Abyss turned down not just a WWE contract but a program with the freakin' Undertaker in 2006. Also I thought I heard something about Toni Storm turning them down last year.
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