TheXtremisT
Main Eventer
10 Year Member
This is the way
Joined on: May 3, 2008 8:03:15 GMT -5
Posts: 3,953
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Post by TheXtremisT on Jun 19, 2019 16:57:59 GMT -5
I guess you could also say: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Simply put: when wrestlers famous for other promotions join a rival company, how should they be booked? This is relevant today with ex-WWE guys going to AEW.
My point is this: when Hulk Hogan et al joined WCW in 1994, he was booked extremely strong, beating WCW mainstays like Flair and Vader. But he was seen as an ex-WWF guy destroying WCW's top talents, thus making them look second rate compared to the WWF's best. Loyal fans weren't happy.
But during the Invasion with Booker T, DDP etc... being made to look weak compared to WWF guys (and Vince has a history of doing this with ex-WCW/ECW guys), they lost their aura and potential with WWF/E fans by constantly looking bottom tier compared to Vince's guys.
So how should it be done? I guess you could say in a feud for example - have a strong build up, make the "invaders" look strong, getting the upper hand, have a highly competitive series of matches, have it best of 3 with one win a piece then all to play for in the rubber match with the victor being the loyal company guy to keep their momentum in the eyes of the fans, but still make the invader look good despite losing.
How would you guys solve it?
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Post by PJ on Jun 19, 2019 20:23:49 GMT -5
AEW isn’t relevant on the Classic board. And until Vince bought out WCW and decided to cr@p on the WCW guys it used to be the top talent would come in and enhance your roster facing to top guys before leaving. But they were booked strong but would lose to the champion before leaving the territory. Hogan going to WCW was booked how he was booked because he was going to be the guy in WCW once he got there.
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Post by hbkbigdaddycool on Jun 20, 2019 10:24:09 GMT -5
Vince didn't have to push any of the WCW guys in 2001. Hell, he didn't even have to hire any of them to be honest. So of course he wasn't gonna treat the WCW guys on a higher level, they were just lucky to be employed at the time. They had to prove their self worth to Vince and once they did, Vince would give them the benefits.
It was different when WCW was still active. If Vince could get a WCW star, he would try to make them a star, because it brings in money to him, and hurts WCW at the same time.
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Post by Gorilla on Jun 20, 2019 15:52:28 GMT -5
It's a little different comparing AEW to WCW. Dean Ambrose is a legitimate star, DDP and Booker T were IC title level guys, not main eventers
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Post by JokerFC on Jun 21, 2019 10:54:09 GMT -5
Hall was an "IC level guy" and look how well his booking in WCW worked during the intial run of the Outsiders. That Argument doesn't wash at all.
Also Booker T & DDP were ex World Champs in WCW. They were NOT IC level guys....If DDP was truly seen at this level he wouldn't have been booked against UT FFS. Had they been booked correctly as an invading force? They would have been accepted as a threat.
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Post by cordless2016 on Jun 22, 2019 20:06:02 GMT -5
It's a little different comparing AEW to WCW. Dean Ambrose is a legitimate star, DDP and Booker T were IC title level guys, not main eventers DDP was world champ in early 1999 when WCW was still very popular (they were on a downward trend, but still massively popular). He wasn’t “IC Title level.” He was a legit star, and the WWF fans reaction when he first revealed himself on Raw proved that. Booker T is a little different scenario. He wasn’t world champ until about 8 months before WCW closed its doors, but he was booked solid for a good portion of this time (besides falling victim to the constant title changes that plagued WCW at the time). He was booked as an equal to Scott Steiner, who was arguably the top heel of either company in the second half of 2000, and got a clean win over Goldberg. And most importantly, he was booked as a serious and smart character throughout his decade in WCW. Fans respected him, and he wasn’t portrayed as the “stereotypical gangster” that Vince straddled him with. Both were seen as main eventers coming into the WWF (DDP moreso than Booker). The problem is that Vince killed any credibility both of them had almost immediately upon their WWF debuts. Give them a clean win over a top WWF guy, even just once, and you portray them both in a totally different light. One legit win by either of them over a top WWF guy would have made them without worrying about weakening the WWF stars. |
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Post by King Richius on Jun 22, 2019 20:25:59 GMT -5
Look at how NXT books the top indy wrestlers for a lesson how to best handle stars from other companies. Forget that they were once "working for the enemy", give them good storylines, let them show what they can do in matches, and if they get over then continue to push them. Look what it's done for Adam Cole and how it's elevated Fish and O'Reilly - who could have very easily been relegated to mid card tag team purgatory because they are undersized. NXT certainly handled Impact wrestlers far better than the main roster. Bobby Roode, EC3, Eric Young, and others were actually over in NXT but on the main roster they've all been less than meh.
Looking back at the early 2000s, it was obvious from the start that the WCW stars were getting the second class treatment when they came to WWE. I don't think WCW fans expected the WCW guys to run the table on Austin, the Rock, Undertaker, and so on but it would have been nice if they managed a few victories here and there to get some respect.
Even worse was the way WWE stars were shoehorned into and made the top guys for the "invading forces", like when Austin was made the leader of the ECW faction and certified badass Taz was relegated to kissing his ass.
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Post by Gorilla on Jun 22, 2019 21:47:28 GMT -5
It's a little different comparing AEW to WCW. Dean Ambrose is a legitimate star, DDP and Booker T were IC title level guys, not main eventers DDP was world champ in early 1999 when WCW was still very popular (they were on a downward trend, but still massively popular). He wasn’t “IC Title level.” He was a legit star, and the WWF fans reaction when he first revealed himself on Raw proved that. Booker T is a little different scenario. He wasn’t world champ until about 8 months before WCW closed its doors, but he was booked solid for a good portion of this time (besides falling victim to the constant title changes that plagued WCW at the time). He was booked as an equal to Scott Steiner, who was arguably the top heel of either company in the second half of 2000, and got a clean win over Goldberg. And most importantly, he was booked as a serious and smart character throughout his decade in WCW. Fans respected him, and he wasn’t portrayed as the “stereotypical gangster” that Vince straddled him with. Both were seen as main eventers coming into the WWF (DDP moreso than Booker). The problem is that Vince killed any credibility both of them had almost immediately upon their WWF debuts. Give them a clean win over a top WWF guy, even just once, and you portray them both in a totally different light. One legit win by either of them over a top WWF guy would have made them without worrying about weakening the WWF stars. Sorry, these two guys and Steiner were second class stars. Top WCW guys were: Hogan Sting Goldberg Hart Flair Nash Savage Sid and maybe Luger DDP, Booker T, Steiner, Hall, Hennig etc were all a level or two below. |
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Post by cordless2016 on Jun 23, 2019 8:18:06 GMT -5
DDP was world champ in early 1999 when WCW was still very popular (they were on a downward trend, but still massively popular). He wasn’t “IC Title level.” He was a legit star, and the WWF fans reaction when he first revealed himself on Raw proved that. Booker T is a little different scenario. He wasn’t world champ until about 8 months before WCW closed its doors, but he was booked solid for a good portion of this time (besides falling victim to the constant title changes that plagued WCW at the time). He was booked as an equal to Scott Steiner, who was arguably the top heel of either company in the second half of 2000, and got a clean win over Goldberg. And most importantly, he was booked as a serious and smart character throughout his decade in WCW. Fans respected him, and he wasn’t portrayed as the “stereotypical gangster” that Vince straddled him with. Both were seen as main eventers coming into the WWF (DDP moreso than Booker). The problem is that Vince killed any credibility both of them had almost immediately upon their WWF debuts. Give them a clean win over a top WWF guy, even just once, and you portray them both in a totally different light. One legit win by either of them over a top WWF guy would have made them without worrying about weakening the WWF stars. Sorry, these two guys and Steiner were second class stars. Top WCW guys were: Hogan Sting Goldberg Hart Flair Nash Savage Sid and maybe Luger DDP, Booker T, Steiner, Hall, Hennig etc were all a level or two below. Guess we’ll agree to disagree. |
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Post by PJ on Jun 24, 2019 17:53:53 GMT -5
While I never cared for DDP as a wrestler ...Booker was a deserving world champion.
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Post by JokerFC on Jun 27, 2019 18:37:29 GMT -5
Its all about the presentation. Ill go back to Hall. He was IC level...and lost more big matches on PPV in 95/96 for WWF than he won. But he was presented as a bad MF in WCW alongside Nash as The Outsiders.
BATB 1996.
Luger is flattened early on....Hall and Nash dominate Savage & Sting. WCW announcers are BEGGING for somebody to come out to RESTORE the 3 on 2 advantage for the babyfaces...strong booking. later on it would go to far as the Outsiders were effin unstoppable but at 1st they damn sure got it right as they laid waste to WCWs tag division then afterwards by getting the belts off the star team of Luger & Sting.
DDP & Booker T could EASILY have been booked in this fashion, disrupting top level matches, sneak attacking top stars, beating he snot outta McMahon Hammering WWFs VAST amount of disposable mid/lowcarders in 2001.
Invasion got a 1.1 buyrate with an angle that was already going south and these "B + players". Imagine what $$$$ Vince would have made had he gave the angle some thought and not have fed the guy that took a buyout to participate to UT as a stalker.
Vince and his daughter lost their marbles around this period. as the head of creative she is equally as responsible.
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Post by cordless2016 on Jun 27, 2019 21:56:48 GMT -5
Its all about the presentation. Ill go back to Hall. He was IC level...and lost more big matches on PPV in 95/96 for WWF than he won. But he was presented as a bad MF in WCW alongside Nash as The Outsiders. BATB 1996. Luger is flattened early on....Hall and Nash dominate Savage & Sting. WCW announcers are BEGGING for somebody to come out to RESTORE the 3 on 2 advantage for the babyfaces...strong booking. later on it would go to far as the Outsiders were effin unstoppable but at 1st they damn sure got it right as they laid waste to WCWs tag division then afterwards by getting the belts off the star team of Luger & Sting. DDP & Booker T could EASILY have been booked in this fashion, disrupting top level matches, sneak attacking top stars, beating he snot outta McMahon Hammering WWFs VAST amount of disposable mid/lowcarders in 2001. Invasion got a 1.1 buyrate with an angle that was already going south and these "B + players". Imagine what $$$$ Vince would have made had he gave the angle some thought and not have fed the guy that took a buyout to participate to UT as a stalker. Vince and his daughter lost their marbles around this period. as the head of creative she is equally as responsible. This. To this day I still say that the Invasion could have been a success even without bringing anyone else in. Present Booker and DDP as legit threats. Make Jericho and Big Show join WCW to help build them up while also making more sense than having Austin and Angle join. Push RVD even harder than they did (give him the world title as a “shocking” moment in 2001). Let Rhyno just gore people in half. Rebuild Mike Awesome as the dominate big man he was in ECW. This then gives you enough time to get to the winter where Flair and the nWo could then be introduced. |
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Post by JokerFC on Jul 3, 2019 9:24:59 GMT -5
Its all about the presentation. Ill go back to Hall. He was IC level...and lost more big matches on PPV in 95/96 for WWF than he won. But he was presented as a bad MF in WCW alongside Nash as The Outsiders. BATB 1996. Luger is flattened early on....Hall and Nash dominate Savage & Sting. WCW announcers are BEGGING for somebody to come out to RESTORE the 3 on 2 advantage for the babyfaces...strong booking. later on it would go to far as the Outsiders were effin unstoppable but at 1st they damn sure got it right as they laid waste to WCWs tag division then afterwards by getting the belts off the star team of Luger & Sting. DDP & Booker T could EASILY have been booked in this fashion, disrupting top level matches, sneak attacking top stars, beating he snot outta McMahon Hammering WWFs VAST amount of disposable mid/lowcarders in 2001. Invasion got a 1.1 buyrate with an angle that was already going south and these "B + players". Imagine what $$$$ Vince would have made had he gave the angle some thought and not have fed the guy that took a buyout to participate to UT as a stalker. Vince and his daughter lost their marbles around this period. as the head of creative she is equally as responsible. This. To this day I still say that the Invasion could have been a success even without bringing anyone else in. Present Booker and DDP as legit threats. Make Jericho and Big Show join WCW to help build them up while also making more sense than having Austin and Angle join. Push RVD even harder than they did (give him the world title as a “shocking” moment in 2001). Let Rhyno just gore people in half. Rebuild Mike Awesome as the dominate big man he was in ECW. This then gives you enough time to get to the winter where Flair and the nWo could then be introduced. Absolutely man.... |
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TheXtremisT
Main Eventer
10 Year Member
This is the way
Joined on: May 3, 2008 8:03:15 GMT -5
Posts: 3,953
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Post by TheXtremisT on Jul 6, 2019 6:19:10 GMT -5
Look at how NXT books the top indy wrestlers for a lesson how to best handle stars from other companies. Forget that they were once "working for the enemy", give them good storylines, let them show what they can do in matches, and if they get over then continue to push them. Look what it's done for Adam Cole and how it's elevated Fish and O'Reilly - who could have very easily been relegated to mid card tag team purgatory because they are undersized. NXT certainly handled Impact wrestlers far better than the main roster. Bobby Roode, EC3, Eric Young, and others were actually over in NXT but on the main roster they've all been less than meh. Looking back at the early 2000s, it was obvious from the start that the WCW stars were getting the second class treatment when they came to WWE. I don't think WCW fans expected the WCW guys to run the table on Austin, the Rock, Undertaker, and so on but it would have been nice if they managed a few victories here and there to get some respect. Even worse was the way WWE stars were shoehorned into and made the top guys for the "invading forces", like when Austin was made the leader of the ECW faction and certified badass Taz was relegated to kissing his ass. Careful - mentioning NXT and current stuff as comparisons may get you told off on here!  Anyway, yep totally agree, loving how stars like Samoa Joe, AJ, Ricochet are treated as legit stars on the main roster and other stars even better on NXT. Things would have been so much better back in the early 2000s if Vince didn't have such an ego and buried many of them. Bubba Ray once said that Vince likes to strip away wrestlers from other promotions down to their cores and see if they can get over again. That may be true, but he should have just let many be themselves and work with what they had whilst developing additional skills to compensate what they lacked. He did with say Van Dam, but Jericho was weirdly treated in the first few months of his 1999 run and then organically got so over. Man, so disappointed how badly Tazz was wasted. |
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Post by JokerFC on Jul 6, 2019 13:28:39 GMT -5
Look at how NXT books the top indy wrestlers for a lesson how to best handle stars from other companies. Forget that they were once "working for the enemy", give them good storylines, let them show what they can do in matches, and if they get over then continue to push them. Look what it's done for Adam Cole and how it's elevated Fish and O'Reilly - who could have very easily been relegated to mid card tag team purgatory because they are undersized. NXT certainly handled Impact wrestlers far better than the main roster. Bobby Roode, EC3, Eric Young, and others were actually over in NXT but on the main roster they've all been less than meh. Looking back at the early 2000s, it was obvious from the start that the WCW stars were getting the second class treatment when they came to WWE. I don't think WCW fans expected the WCW guys to run the table on Austin, the Rock, Undertaker, and so on but it would have been nice if they managed a few victories here and there to get some respect. Even worse was the way WWE stars were shoehorned into and made the top guys for the "invading forces", like when Austin was made the leader of the ECW faction and certified badass Taz was relegated to kissing his ass. Careful - mentioning NXT and current stuff as comparisons may get you told off on here! Anyway, yep totally agree, loving how stars like Samoa Joe, AJ, Ricochet are treated as legit stars on the main roster and other stars even better on NXT. Things would have been so much better back in the early 2000s if Vince didn't have such an ego and buried many of them. Bubba Ray once said that Vince likes to strip away wrestlers from other promotions down to their cores and see if they can get over again. That may be true, but he should have just let many be themselves and work with what they had whilst developing additional skills to compensate what they lacked. He did with say Van Dam, but Jericho was weirdly treated in the first few months of his 1999 run and then organically got so over. Man, so disappointed how badly Tazz was wasted. Tazz could have been used so much better but he got lost in the shuffle. Vince was ALL ABOUT Taz….then he got the Radicalz unexpectedly & Taz was forgotten about....then there was the situation with Awesome jumping ship to WCW and Taz going back there to beat him etc etc. that midcard scene was absolutely jam packed at the time...but yeah he still should have been treated better. |
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TheXtremisT
Main Eventer
10 Year Member
This is the way
Joined on: May 3, 2008 8:03:15 GMT -5
Posts: 3,953
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Post by TheXtremisT on Jul 7, 2019 10:06:35 GMT -5
Careful - mentioning NXT and current stuff as comparisons may get you told off on here! Anyway, yep totally agree, loving how stars like Samoa Joe, AJ, Ricochet are treated as legit stars on the main roster and other stars even better on NXT. Things would have been so much better back in the early 2000s if Vince didn't have such an ego and buried many of them. Bubba Ray once said that Vince likes to strip away wrestlers from other promotions down to their cores and see if they can get over again. That may be true, but he should have just let many be themselves and work with what they had whilst developing additional skills to compensate what they lacked. He did with say Van Dam, but Jericho was weirdly treated in the first few months of his 1999 run and then organically got so over. Man, so disappointed how badly Tazz was wasted. Tazz could have been used so much better but he got lost in the shuffle. Vince was ALL ABOUT Taz….then he got the Radicalz unexpectedly & Taz was forgotten about....then there was the situation with Awesome jumping ship to WCW and Taz going back there to beat him etc etc. that midcard scene was absolutely jam packed at the time...but yeah he still should have been treated better. No way I thought Vince couldn't get behind that 5'4 dwarf (quoted) haha. In the land of the giants he would look unbelievable I heard people say. I think he definitely could have worked if he was booked like in ECW as a killer. You see legit shorter tough guys in the real world, and he still had enough weight to him to choke his opponents out and suplex them, he was legit believable. He could have been huge. |
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Post by ~ Cymru ~ on Jul 8, 2019 21:53:13 GMT -5
WWE will ALWAYS put their product first. Hell look at Triple H vs Sting, did H really need the win there? Stinger should have had it but his whole WWE career he was booked as a loser. Just another WCW guy that thought they could hang in WWE. He was 100% right about not signing with WWE I guess he either wanted to have WWE on his resume before retiring or he needed the money.
I never bought in to DDP he was old in WCW let alone during his WWF debut, and Booker never really did much for me until later years.
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Post by JokerFC on Jul 9, 2019 4:52:20 GMT -5
Tazz could have been used so much better but he got lost in the shuffle. Vince was ALL ABOUT Taz….then he got the Radicalz unexpectedly & Taz was forgotten about....then there was the situation with Awesome jumping ship to WCW and Taz going back there to beat him etc etc. that midcard scene was absolutely jam packed at the time...but yeah he still should have been treated better. No way I thought Vince couldn't get behind that 5'4 dwarf (quoted) haha. In the land of the giants he would look unbelievable I heard people say. I think he definitely could have worked if he was booked like in ECW as a killer. You see legit shorter tough guys in the real world, and he still had enough weight to him to choke his opponents out and suplex them, he was legit believable. He could have been huge. He sure could....Vince was clearly behind Taz 100%. Debuted on PPV in front of a roasting hot NY crowd in MSG and squashed one of Vince's personal projects in Kurt Angle. Nobody can say Vince was never interested.... To this day I still think Taz was pencilled in to be part of that 3 way feud with Jericho & Angle over the Euro/IC belts but ended up getting replaced by Benoit who was obviously seen as the bigger star. I think Taz as an ex ECW guy like Cactus should have been booked to come to his aid when the Radicalz turned on him and feuded with the McMahon Helmsley regime. |
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