Post by naparo01 on Jan 17, 2013 11:58:40 GMT -5
I have followed pro wrestling (mainly the WWF/E) since i was a young boy in 1991. At that time, the limited amount of original WWF TV programming was not enough to feed my Ryback like appetite so every weekend i would go to one of the three local video stores in my home town and rent a WWF tape. I would watch the current PPVs and go back to watch all the glory of the early PPVs in the 80s.
I still follow WWE today, but like many others I prefer the wrestling of my youth. A lot has changed since the 1st PPV i watched (SummerSlam 91). Wrestlers once worked through a curtain and now march down a giant led HD stage with pyro. Belts were pieces of art that wrestlers wore around their waists and now belts are spiny, blingy, shoulder ornaments. Ropes were patriotic Red White and Blue and now they are all one color (currently white). These were all difficult changes for me to watch over the years. I know they may seem small but to me these little details mattered. But perhaps the biggest blow came with get the F out campaign.
WWF was no more and WWE took over. Now i don't admit to being an expert on this black mark on WWFE history but we know it has something to do with WWF's legal battles with the World Wildlife Fund. So they did the best thing they could think to do with their name and dropped the F. But i adjusted and the transition from F to E was as smooth as i guess it could be. I still have a program from a live event around the time of the change that features both the WWF and WWE logos.
So Entertainment is the name of the game now. Well if you watch any WWE flashback or compilation DVD's you might think that the E instead stands for Edited. This is why the change to WWE has soured me so much. It not only has changed the present but it is tarnishing the past! I mean blurring, silencing, music removed it's ridiculous.
It started with the blurs. Anything that had the WWF scratched out logo that was used in the Attitude era got video distorted. One may think, "Is it really that big of a deal?" Well yes. This logo was on the entrance, ring skirts, bug on the corner of the tv, announce tables, all 12 turnbuckle pads, every camera man's shirt, the announcer's shirts, belts, microphones, fans apparel, fan signs, the list goes on and on. Every time i watch this edited footage it proves so distracting to the "Entertainment." In addition to that, it wasn't always done well. The blurring was over done and ended up going over the wrestlers, and their faces depending on how close they were to the dreaded F. I understand how hard it must have been to do all the blurring and don't blame the editors but it makes the footage look like crap. That being said, WWE does seem to have done better at isolating the blurring in recent years making it look less distracting. But luckily i still had my classic 80s and 90s WWF footage in tact because for some reason the classic block WWF logo was AOK to legally show.
I was happy to read a few months ago that WWE made a deal with the WWF to allow old footage of the scratched WWF logo to be shown on footage. In old clips on tv from time to time i see that old logo and it gets me so excited that the blurring is gone. From time to time i see it on WWE.com as well. But WWE .com has been really inconsistent with this. From time to time i see picture where they don't blur the WWF logo but completely edit it out. Like on the WWF Monday Night Raw sign coloring over the WWF logo, or editing the belts to make it look like they have no logo or a WWE logo, or coloring over the old blue turnbuckle pads so that no company logo can be seen. I don't get this. Especially since this is done often times with the WWF block logo which is believed to be ok to show.
But the worst of the worst for me has to be the audio editing. It started with silencing the Fs. This was bearable and didn't distract me all that much. It was actually quite comical listening to guys talk about wanting to be the WW champion or being the best wrestler in the WW or climbing to the top of the WW. But it didn't stop there. Soon I came to notice that music was being changed.
I am not an expert on copyright law but I can understand how some music like Undertaker's entrance by Kid Rock or LimpBizkit may have to be changed or openers to more modern PPVs that used current rock songs. I can see why some themes from ECW that used real rock and rap songs has to be edited out. I can even stretch to understand why some WCW themes may have to be edited but I don't get why WWF themes have to be changed. There are a number of examples of this. For example, Demolitions music (one of the greatest 80's wrestling themes ever) has been covered up with crappy generic music. Ricky Steamboats wwf themes are erased too and replaced with the new song that was given to him over the past few years with his WWE involvement, DVD and hall of fame induction. Why. Hollywood Hogans music has been changed to Real American long before he started using it again. And the most confusing example that i have recently seen was on the Falls Count Anywhere DVD. When Mick Foley made fought HHH at the Garden as Cactus Jack the removed his WWF cactus jack theme (which i always liked) and piped in his old corny WCW Bang Bang song! WTF! Will someone please explain the logic of that to me!!! I mean taking a song which you presumably own, and editing it out to be an old corny song that didn't play at that time! You went out of your way to change something that didn't need to be changed and made it worse! It's like that freakin lady that touched up that old painting of Jesus and made it look like the screamer! WWE has even gone as far as silencing announcers. The best of WCW dvd and clash of the champions dvd have matches where they have edited out all of Jessie Ventura's Commentary. You can hear Tony Schovonny interacting with Jessie with no response. It is ridiculous!
As i said, I am not an lawyer and don't understand the ins and outs of these matters but I know one thing. It wasn't always this way. Looking at an early WWE dvd like Hulk Still Rules was branded with WWE but still showed WWF scratch logos un blurred. Wrestlemania and Royal Rumble anthologies still show WWF block logos. European released WWE Tagged Classics have no music changed, show all WWF block and scratched logos, and Say WWF through out ( I highly recommend getting these and a region free DVD player to watch history as close to how it actually happend).
I don't know what happened or why things are they way they are. Let me leave you with this look back at history. The first wrestlemania. The show opened with the lyric free version of Phil Collin's Easy Lover. The U.S. Express came to the ring to Springstein's Born in the USA. Hogan and Mr. T. came to the ring to Survivor's Eye of the Tiger. This was broadcast, released on VHS in the 80's and re-released in the attitude era untouched. How could that be fine then. Why do they insist on smearing a poop stick over the classic footage that we love.
To those of you that read all 7271 characters of this post I thank you and look forward to hearing your comments.
I still follow WWE today, but like many others I prefer the wrestling of my youth. A lot has changed since the 1st PPV i watched (SummerSlam 91). Wrestlers once worked through a curtain and now march down a giant led HD stage with pyro. Belts were pieces of art that wrestlers wore around their waists and now belts are spiny, blingy, shoulder ornaments. Ropes were patriotic Red White and Blue and now they are all one color (currently white). These were all difficult changes for me to watch over the years. I know they may seem small but to me these little details mattered. But perhaps the biggest blow came with get the F out campaign.
WWF was no more and WWE took over. Now i don't admit to being an expert on this black mark on WWFE history but we know it has something to do with WWF's legal battles with the World Wildlife Fund. So they did the best thing they could think to do with their name and dropped the F. But i adjusted and the transition from F to E was as smooth as i guess it could be. I still have a program from a live event around the time of the change that features both the WWF and WWE logos.
So Entertainment is the name of the game now. Well if you watch any WWE flashback or compilation DVD's you might think that the E instead stands for Edited. This is why the change to WWE has soured me so much. It not only has changed the present but it is tarnishing the past! I mean blurring, silencing, music removed it's ridiculous.
It started with the blurs. Anything that had the WWF scratched out logo that was used in the Attitude era got video distorted. One may think, "Is it really that big of a deal?" Well yes. This logo was on the entrance, ring skirts, bug on the corner of the tv, announce tables, all 12 turnbuckle pads, every camera man's shirt, the announcer's shirts, belts, microphones, fans apparel, fan signs, the list goes on and on. Every time i watch this edited footage it proves so distracting to the "Entertainment." In addition to that, it wasn't always done well. The blurring was over done and ended up going over the wrestlers, and their faces depending on how close they were to the dreaded F. I understand how hard it must have been to do all the blurring and don't blame the editors but it makes the footage look like crap. That being said, WWE does seem to have done better at isolating the blurring in recent years making it look less distracting. But luckily i still had my classic 80s and 90s WWF footage in tact because for some reason the classic block WWF logo was AOK to legally show.
I was happy to read a few months ago that WWE made a deal with the WWF to allow old footage of the scratched WWF logo to be shown on footage. In old clips on tv from time to time i see that old logo and it gets me so excited that the blurring is gone. From time to time i see it on WWE.com as well. But WWE .com has been really inconsistent with this. From time to time i see picture where they don't blur the WWF logo but completely edit it out. Like on the WWF Monday Night Raw sign coloring over the WWF logo, or editing the belts to make it look like they have no logo or a WWE logo, or coloring over the old blue turnbuckle pads so that no company logo can be seen. I don't get this. Especially since this is done often times with the WWF block logo which is believed to be ok to show.
But the worst of the worst for me has to be the audio editing. It started with silencing the Fs. This was bearable and didn't distract me all that much. It was actually quite comical listening to guys talk about wanting to be the WW champion or being the best wrestler in the WW or climbing to the top of the WW. But it didn't stop there. Soon I came to notice that music was being changed.
I am not an expert on copyright law but I can understand how some music like Undertaker's entrance by Kid Rock or LimpBizkit may have to be changed or openers to more modern PPVs that used current rock songs. I can see why some themes from ECW that used real rock and rap songs has to be edited out. I can even stretch to understand why some WCW themes may have to be edited but I don't get why WWF themes have to be changed. There are a number of examples of this. For example, Demolitions music (one of the greatest 80's wrestling themes ever) has been covered up with crappy generic music. Ricky Steamboats wwf themes are erased too and replaced with the new song that was given to him over the past few years with his WWE involvement, DVD and hall of fame induction. Why. Hollywood Hogans music has been changed to Real American long before he started using it again. And the most confusing example that i have recently seen was on the Falls Count Anywhere DVD. When Mick Foley made fought HHH at the Garden as Cactus Jack the removed his WWF cactus jack theme (which i always liked) and piped in his old corny WCW Bang Bang song! WTF! Will someone please explain the logic of that to me!!! I mean taking a song which you presumably own, and editing it out to be an old corny song that didn't play at that time! You went out of your way to change something that didn't need to be changed and made it worse! It's like that freakin lady that touched up that old painting of Jesus and made it look like the screamer! WWE has even gone as far as silencing announcers. The best of WCW dvd and clash of the champions dvd have matches where they have edited out all of Jessie Ventura's Commentary. You can hear Tony Schovonny interacting with Jessie with no response. It is ridiculous!
As i said, I am not an lawyer and don't understand the ins and outs of these matters but I know one thing. It wasn't always this way. Looking at an early WWE dvd like Hulk Still Rules was branded with WWE but still showed WWF scratch logos un blurred. Wrestlemania and Royal Rumble anthologies still show WWF block logos. European released WWE Tagged Classics have no music changed, show all WWF block and scratched logos, and Say WWF through out ( I highly recommend getting these and a region free DVD player to watch history as close to how it actually happend).
I don't know what happened or why things are they way they are. Let me leave you with this look back at history. The first wrestlemania. The show opened with the lyric free version of Phil Collin's Easy Lover. The U.S. Express came to the ring to Springstein's Born in the USA. Hogan and Mr. T. came to the ring to Survivor's Eye of the Tiger. This was broadcast, released on VHS in the 80's and re-released in the attitude era untouched. How could that be fine then. Why do they insist on smearing a poop stick over the classic footage that we love.
To those of you that read all 7271 characters of this post I thank you and look forward to hearing your comments.
I dont know good luck 
