I was really looking forward to this week’s show, as I was anxious to see how you bounced back from the criticism of your debut show. Overall, I think this was a noticeable improvement, but there’s always room for more improvement (just like there’s always room for JELLO!).
THE GOODStarting off with a Clash as your first major super card is a good route to take. It’s already taking shape to be a strong show, with the US Title Tournament Finals and the first ever Sting/Taker showdown, and with your roster there’s potential for a lot more great matches.
Glad to see Ric Flair in the Main Event where he belongs! Benoit’s a good wrestler at this point, but his standing in the States was miniscule at this point, so using him to put Flair over here was very believable and authentic. Plus it’s also in keeping with Flair’s nature to go out there and make one of the young guys look good before putting him away, and having him show respect to Benoit after his defeat would have gone a long way towards garnering fan acceptance for the Crippler.
Having Savage/Haku on this show was like a double Main Event! As far as the match itself and the outcome is concerned, you did everything right. Haku’s a hell of a hand, but Savage is the superstar, and putting over the Macho Man clean with the flying elbow was the only way to go. Good match!
I’m glad to see that you’ve taken my advice about pacing out the segments better. I couldn’t see any glaring instances of going over time or matches going too long, and that’s good. Now all you’ve got to do is transition to a two hour show and you’ll be on the right track!
THE BADAs has already been stated by other, tacking a gimmick stipulation of the Sting/Taker match is overkill. Casket Matches are for blowing off feuds, not beginning them. Heck, I’d expect KAW to book a Casket Match with no build up.
This is Sting and Undertaker’s first ever singles match against each other, and that should be enough of a selling point by itself. I’d even argue that June 24th is much too early to put these two in the ring yet. You could have milked this first ever confrontation for possibly months through promos, brawls, video packages, vignettes, whatever. Instead, you’re giving us this ultimate dream match right away...on free TV! If there’s any match that could conceivably fill up a stadium with paying customers, it’s this one!
Just like Warrior last week, you’re wasting a potential Main Event player by placing Randy Savage in the U.S. Title division. The man WAS a WWF World Champion in real life at this point in time in 1992. Having the Macho Man fighting over the US Title would be like if Misawa Mark debuted Hulk Hogan in ECW by putting him in the TV Title Tournament. You’ve got so many A-list wrestlers on your roster that you’ve basically put yourself in a position where you’ve got to demote some of them to fill out your mid card. That’s the unfortunate trade off and I understand that, but Warrior and the Macho Man should not be one of those casualties. Dude, you’ve got guys like Johnny Ace, Ken Shamrock, Road Warrior Animal, Benoit, and even Muta, and all of those guys would have been better suited for your U.S. Title Tournament than Ron Simmons, Warrior, and Savage.
Now your Title brackets are Savage vs. Dibiase, with William Regal facing the winner in the finals, and regardless of who wins that’s going to be a very lopsided match. Regal’s a solid wrestler (if a little on the small side) in 1992, but he doesn’t have the experience or the star power to stand a believable chance against either the Macho Man or the Million Dollar Man. The US Title is your mid card belt, and you need to pull out your aces in the whole to make things fresh and exciting. Your fans would have been happy to get a Regal/Shamrock finals. Heck, I’d have been happy with Simmons/Haku. This is a perfect example of where a little restraint would have gone a long way, and hopefully you’ll be more mindful of such things in the future.
I’m glad to see that you took some of the advice given last week to heart, although in some case I think you overcompensated. Having Warrior kill Snuka this week to make up for the double CO last week, for example. Simply having Warrior get a dominant win, regardless of the opponent, would have sufficed, but simply doing the same match and “hitting the reset button” only serves to remind people of what happened last week when you should be moving forward and hoping we all forget. Ditto for having the Natural Disasters kill RVD and Rey Jr in their rematch, only to have Earthquake toss out an open challenge so you can presumably do the “non title loss to set up a title rematch” with another team.
THE WHYWhy no Flair promo? I don’t even need to explain this one.
Why no bracket posting for the US Title Tournament now that all the first round matches are all out of the way? If someone hadn’t watched the show last week, they’d be in the dark as to who is facing who in the semis.
SOME SUGGESTIONSDon’t be afraid to make mistakes. Lord knows none of us were perfect when we first started, and I doubt any of us are perfect now. Heck, my first foray into fantasy wrestling was doing a 1982 Western States Wrestling promotion with a debut show that consisted of an entire Heavyweight Title Tournament so star studded that I literally had nowhere else to go but down because I gave away all my possible money drawing dream matches in one shot. Not to mention that I put my Jr. Heavyweight Title on a heavyweight wrestler and that I treated wrestlers who I never heard of as jobbers when they were anything but. Dude, we’ve all been in your position at one point and we expect that mistakes will be made. Failing is the only way you’re going to find out what your limitations are. When you do something that doesn’t work and somebody like myself or Drew or Grape or whoever points it out, don’t feel pressured to try and fix things overnight. Instead of trying to completely erase a mistake, like last week’s Warrior/Snuka match, find a way to work around it or improve upon it.
To use this week’s show as an example, don’t get rid of the Casket Match stipulation for the Sting/Taker COTC match. Yes it was the wrong call, but it’s already been made. It’s out there, and now you got to deal with it. Figure out some kind of way to make it work and see it through to the most satisfying conclusion possible.
IN CLOSINGWCW is, at the very least, moving forward in the quality department. The progress is slow and steady, but at least it’s not a step backwards. If the show gets progressively better little by little every week, you’ll eventually have a fantastic show on your hands. Until then, as long as things continue to improve, however little, I will continue to tune in. In the meantime, keep a firm hold of your cards and don’t feel the need to give away all of top shelf merchandise before you can make a profit off them. Save the dream matches for the paying customer, and milk them for every drop they’re worth. If you don’t treat your product with value, then neither will your customers.
This is Sting and Undertaker’s first ever singles match against each other, and that should be enough of a selling point by itself. I’d even argue that June 24th is much too early to put these two in the ring yet. You could have milked this first ever confrontation for possibly months through promos, brawls, video packages, vignettes, whatever. Instead, you’re giving us this ultimate dream match right away...on free TV! If there’s any match that could conceivably fill up a stadium with paying customers, it’s this one!
