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Post by kingnothing ~ Hardwired... on Jul 26, 2018 6:47:20 GMT -5
One of the things we’ve discussed here over the years has been how the importance of tag wrestling seems to appear on occasion, then fade shortly thereafter. Personally and strictly WWE related, I feel like we’ve not seen a high like the Hardys/E&C/Dudley era. Once in a while we get a super group thrown together for a couple months, but it usually feels like a storyline to keep them occupied until something better comes up than a team dominating the division.
In a recent episode of Bischoff’s 83 Weeks podcast, he mentions why he split up The Hollywood Blondes back in the early 90’s, and why he soured on tag teams in general back then. It’s very interesting and probably provides insight into why the focus on tag wrestling went away.
"If you look at a tag team, and each one of them is breaking close to $200,000 a year and they are in the ring with those of equal value, now you have a million dollars worth of talent for a seven or eight-minute segment, so from an economic point of view to have two high profile guys in a tag team match and you start looking at the economics of it, you look at it like, wait a minute, I can have two separate stories here at two separate segments to fill my content requirements with for the same amount of money that I am spending on one."
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Post by marino13 on Jul 26, 2018 7:48:36 GMT -5
From a business standpoint it does make sense. I believe I read somewhere that this is exactly how Vince views it as well.
Personally, I love tag teams wrestling. And judging by NXT, it seems like Triple H does as well. So hopefully that's the next division that gets rebuilt.
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Post by bababooey on Jul 26, 2018 7:54:38 GMT -5
In another sense, you can make tag teams up of low card guys that aren’t making much. Use the tag team to build them up, then split them off. It really come down to whether or not you’re truly into tag team wrestling. If not, you can find any excuse against it.
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Post by Iron Bison on Jul 26, 2018 8:07:51 GMT -5
In another sense, you can make tag teams up of low card guys that aren’t making much. What I was thinking too. This is why you use lower card guys. If you put a Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy together, then Bischoff makes total sense but then again, that's why you don't put Hardy and Bray together, if you're watching your financials.
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jcjdotcom
Superstar
Joined on: Oct 23, 2005 23:26:04 GMT -5
Posts: 530
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Post by jcjdotcom on Jul 26, 2018 8:22:23 GMT -5
I think tag team wrestling is more fun and has far more room for innovation. I'd like to see the tag belts be on the same level as the main championship. After all, they are both world heavyweight championships (or they used to be).
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walkingturtles
Main Eventer
Joined on: Apr 22, 2018 19:54:00 GMT -5
Posts: 1,702
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Post by walkingturtles on Jul 26, 2018 8:34:50 GMT -5
It’s like they forget where guys like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Booker T, and Edge got over and came from before their singles run.
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Post by punksnotdead on Jul 26, 2018 8:36:36 GMT -5
But then you can make the argument like the Road Warriors, or the New Age Outlaws, or the New Day, or the Young Bucks. Two guys who absolutely, positively, can’t make you more money as singles as they do together. There is a value to team merchandise and drawing power. So it’s not about the expense in those situations as much as it is the intrinsic value. So that might be Eric and Vince’s philosophy but it’s narrow sighted imo.
Creatively, tag teams and six mans and such break up the monotony of seeing two guys in the same situations over-and-over. It’s why stables get over so well. Not to mention, I’d put Golden Lovers vs the Young Bucks against any match Vince has given us since MITB2011. So it’s just a terrible approach to your own assets.
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Post by CM Poor: DeepFigureValue on Jul 26, 2018 10:06:30 GMT -5
I think the problem with the current (and long standing) mindset behind tag-team wrestling is that some people tend to see the talents involved as interchangeable - success within the confines of a tag team setting should, naturally, beget success in a singles talent. The problem lies where that's been proven wrong time and time and time again. Everyone from the top on down has some sort of ceiling, and there's nothing wrong with that ceiling resting in the tag division if it's considerably lower in the singles division. It speaks to the fluctuation of strengths and weaknesses throughout the business - there's this strange sort of mentality lately that seems to say that an individual is a dud if he or she is not consistently at the top of the class, headlining marquee shows and having a stranglehold on the top tier titles. That segment of the business is fine, but there's no main event without a mid-card and an under-card - divisions which need just as dependable talents in order to properly support the matches up top.
As an aside, I find myself at odds with a lot of what Bischoff has to say in 2018 about events that took place 20 years ago. A lot of it, at least from where I'm standing, kind of reeks of revisionism. He's had a good 20 years to digest everything that happened, and I feel that we all, as imperfect humans, have a tendency to frame the past over time to fit our own personal narratives a bit better. That's not to take away from his demonstrated natural acumen for business as a whole, but this is a guy who was moving a mile a minute from sunup to sundown back then, and throughout it all, it's been pretty well documented the number of decisions made on his watch that directly contrasted with what even an entry level business major would deem "smart money moves".
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Post by Bandalero on Jul 26, 2018 10:19:34 GMT -5
this is the aspect of the business that I absolutely love! Understanding the economics behind running a business, shows and managing talent! We're always quick to say how Vince is senile and doesn't understand his audience but he's brought WWE to where it is today on his business acumen. Do I love tag team wrestling? Of course I do - my golden era was the late 80s: Road Warriors, Horsemen, Freebirds, Midnights, etc. but I can understand the hesitation in investment from a business perspective. Road Warriors and Edge/Christine/Hardyz/Dudleyz come once an era.
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Post by hbkbigdaddycool on Jul 26, 2018 11:50:35 GMT -5
Bischoff had this same thought process in late 1998 I believe. I remember in 1999 there was talk about WCW disbanding tag teams all together and not having tag titles anymore.
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Post by k5 on Jul 26, 2018 11:54:20 GMT -5
with rosters as large as they were in the 80s, late 90s, and now there is no reason that lesser draws can be combined to potentially make profitable tag teams - hence the reason why they exist in today’s wwe. wcw in the early 90s though? you had your bigger names but there weren’t enough to divide them into tag teams. also, the wcw tag division was never the same after the steiners and road warriors had split or split up. I was a fan of Kronik though
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Post by J12 on Jul 26, 2018 13:12:48 GMT -5
It makes sense, but as punksnotdead pointed out, there are some really talented guys who have drawing power who simply wouldn't be in the same position without their partner. Just because someone can't work as a singles, doesn't mean they should be prevented from making themselves, and their company a bunch of money. It comes down to having over acts at every level of the card. WWE has been so focused on only caring about what's happening at the top of the company for so long that entire divisions often suffer, and the tag teams often catch the brunt of it. You don't really need to look any further than the New Day to see a money making machine. Those guys have operated primarily in the tag team space for years and they're hugely over and they make the company money. There's undoubtedly value in tag team wrestling. All of that aside, there's also the simple fact that money is no object for WWE anymore. Bischoff's point is such a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of the company's profits that it's hardly worth mentioning. They could afford to provide drastic raises across the board for the entire roster, plus health insurance, and they'd still be pulling in more money than any time in company history. It's a moot point.
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crookedterror
Mid-Carder
Joined on: Dec 26, 2014 23:23:48 GMT -5
Posts: 121
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Post by crookedterror on Jul 26, 2018 20:10:24 GMT -5
Variety is the spice of life. It doesn't always work economically on the micro-manager, penny pinching short term level, but it can pay off in many ways in the long game. Sadly, today we see much of the same short-sighted outlook with managers.
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Post by BØRNS on Jul 26, 2018 23:56:00 GMT -5
If you're promoting on a budget, this makes sense. But WWE spends money left and right, so tag teams are the least of their concerns. I was on their earning conference call today, and they have much bigger topics to be concerned about that tag teams.
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marklud
Main Eventer
Joined on: Jun 5, 2009 21:10:30 GMT -5
Posts: 1,726
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Post by marklud on Jul 27, 2018 0:05:15 GMT -5
Your first problem is believing something Bischoff said actually makes sense. Like 90 percent of the time he's a bit of a dope. Got lucky with the NWO, which was magic. Listen to Austin, who knows the business like no other, talk about how frustrated he was that the Blonds were broken up and pushed back down once they were finally getting over and getting some steam. It's amazing to think about if they had stayed together and gotten super hot, maybe Austin could have been hot in WCW. Instead, he ended up destroying Bischoff later on as one of the biggest stars of all-time. Funny how that all works.
Edit: I realize some of that may seem awfully harsh, but as has been pointed out on here (and elsewhere) ... there's WAY more to the benefits of tag team wrestling than using up "two guys/four guys" with one storyline. Tag teams can allow younger talent to grow and get experience before they're ready for more (Hart Foundation!), tag teams can draw on their own better than some singles (Road Warriors! Young Bucks! New Day! Outlaws! Demolition!), and you need variety in a promotion otherwise you'll just have singles matches all the time.
Bischoff sure has a lot of "convenient" opinions now that he's got a popular podcast again ... he straight up contradicts things that he used to say all the time now and often says the exact opposite. I wouldn't take him at his word these days.
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Post by k5 on Jul 27, 2018 12:02:11 GMT -5
Your first problem is believing something Bischoff said actually makes sense. Like 90 percent of the time he's a bit of a dope. Got lucky with the NWO, which was magic. Listen to Austin, who knows the business like no other, talk about how frustrated he was that the Blonds were broken up and pushed back down once they were finally getting over and getting some steam. It's amazing to think about if they had stayed together and gotten super hot, maybe Austin could have been hot in WCW. Instead, he ended up destroying Bischoff later on as one of the biggest stars of all-time. Funny how that all works. Edit: I realize some of that may seem awfully harsh, but as has been pointed out on here (and elsewhere) ... there's WAY more to the benefits of tag team wrestling than using up "two guys/four guys" with one storyline. Tag teams can allow younger talent to grow and get experience before they're ready for more (Hart Foundation!), tag teams can draw on their own better than some singles (Road Warriors! Young Bucks! New Day! Outlaws! Demolition!), and you need variety in a promotion otherwise you'll just have singles matches all the time. Bischoff sure has a lot of "convenient" opinions now that he's got a popular podcast again ... he straight up contradicts things that he used to say all the time now and often says the exact opposite. I wouldn't take him at his word these days. yep. bischoff got where he was by bullcrapting, he’s not going to change his ways after how far he’s gotten with it. that said he is clearly an intelligent guy, but does he have a thorough understanding of how to run a wrestling business? his history has shown that it is very evident that he does not.
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Post by Joe/Smurf on Jul 27, 2018 15:56:54 GMT -5
It makes sense when you’re booking a territory and paying guys per date, but it doesn’t hold water when WWE is making money hand over fist.
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