Wrestling backstage politics

[Shallow]

So what do you guys think would have happened to Hulkamania if Iron Shiek decided to take Gagne's offer and break Hogan's leg?


What if Vince decided he didn't like Hogan anymore and jobbed him out? Maybe Hogan would have walked out and joined an NWA that would acceot him with open arms. But it's alot easier to succeed whn there is competition and no guaranteed contracts. Owen Hart was as over as anybody on the roster when he came back as the black hart, but thanks to a contract that binded him to the WWF and bad booking he faded away. When Bret came to WCW he was bigger than everyone given the circumstances but after one month he was in the midcard while Hogan was hogging the spotlight. Tell me Trauma; what was Bret supposed to do to ensure he stayed over?

A star is only as big as his booking. You think Goldberg would have been as big a star with out that streak they showed us on TV week after week. It was new. It was exciting. What happened to Goldberg when the streak ended?


Only people with amazing talent and charisma can become stars, but no matter how much talent or charisma you have you can be booked to fail.


Where would Sean Combs be with out Clive Davis bankrolling Puff's talent and vision? You think Puffy could have just started his own label with out financial backing from people competing with with Uptown. You need competition if you want to strive on your own merit. If Steve Austin was about to get fired in '98 then he cold leave for WCW and WWF would have been hurt. That's what Austin did in WCW. He saw Hogan and what he was going to do to the young guys so he more or less got himself fired and made to the WWE. The reason why more people couldn't was because there were only 2 major companies to work for and only so much room on each. In computers and in music there are dozens of labels and a lot of room in the major labels for a lot of people with talent to exceed. Wrestling isn't as big. Where is Matt Hardy supposed to go and make a decent living if not in the WWE? How about RVD? If TNA was bigger then they'd go there, but for now there is only one major company and it can do what ever it wants with any wrestler because the company lives of it's own brand and not on any one wrestler.

And because of that, WCW went out of business, and Hogan was jobbing to Billy Kidman trying to correct his wrong. More so than Hogan, it's WCW fault. You should never give a wrestler creative control, and for their lack of wrestling business knowledge, they went out, the fans spoke.

Iron Sheik breaks Hogan's leg, Hulkamania never takes off, WWF is never known nationally, and the Iron Sheik is fired, and the WWF does not make the impact it once did. Instead, I think the NWA with it's Turner contract is the dominate federation, and Vince McMahon is fighting up hill with an aging Andre the Giant. There is no Wrestlemania, since everyone in the WWF admits Wrestlemania was created because of Hogan. Ric Flair is the star of the 80's, BUT, wrestling as we know it never takes off in popularity since most people want a star like Hogan, not like Flair, the same way they prefer The Rock to Chris Benoit.

Wrestlers that get burried, if they get themselves over, then they will be alright. They tried to bury some wrestlers, and the crowd still responds, and they have no choice but to push them. Hogan was a product of that. The AWA would never let him win the title, and the crowd was wanting him too. Basically, he was not getting over in favor of older stars, and that's why AWA is no more. WCW had Steve Austin, and they were not pushing him, instead going with older talent like Jim Duggan and Brotha Bruti... ha ha... and of course Hogan and Flair in the main event. The results, WCW may have won a short term war, Hogan leading the nWo to beat the WWF in the ratings, BUT, WCW is now out of business, and Steve Austin made Vince McMahon more money than any other wrestler. Blame WCW for not knowing how to run a wrestling promotion. No wrestler should ever have creative control. Vince McMahon gave it to Bret Hart, and you saw what happened there.

Of course it's WCW management's fault more than it is Hogan's. I'm just saying Hogn hurt a lot more than he helped in WCW when it was all over.

Your vision is so skewed. Flair is nothing like Benoit as far as characters go. Flair is the Rock with a lot more wrestling talent. If Hogan never came then Vince would have signed Flair and probably put him against Piper in Wrestlemania 1. It wasn't Hogan that made the non-wrestling crowd think that event was special, it was all the celebrities. Imagine Flair vs Ali in a war of words on national television. That would have been huge. Would they have made as much as they did with Hogan? No, but they would have won the war with NWA and they would have stuck around until '97 where Austin would have become big. So either way they'd be in business right now. Flair would have been a lot bigger in New York with Vince than he was in Carolina with with Crockett.

When did Hogan exactly job to Kidman? Hogan agreed to lose a 2 on 1 match where his actual family member (by marriage) Mike Awesome did all of the work using weapons and Kidman came in at the end for the pin, but Hogan still won the pay off match at the PPV. Kidman jobbed to Hogan in the end.

AWA never burried Hogan. Let me tell you what burried; it doesn't mean push a guy like a star but keep the belt off him. It means have the guy lose to wrestler after wrestler in clean finishes, or give the guy a gimmick or angle that is so stupid it makes him look bad. I can't think of one guy that was consistently burried by a company and still remained over with the crowd that wasn't already a legend. WCW tried to bury Flair a lot of times but he was already such a star. If they teried it in '82 then he never would have became that big, unless he jumped to WWF. Which brings me back to my competition theory; with out competition the company can do what ever it wants to wrestlers and keep them down. Steve Austin was never buried by anyone. He wasn't pushed right in WCW and started off as a midcarder in WWF, but he was pushed slowly and booked strong and got over with his charisma and talent. If he wasn't pushed or booked strong then his charisma and talent would not have gotten him over because the people wouldn't see him as a threat.

[Mygla]

i haven't read all the posts... but do you guys see wrestling as what it is? or do you actually think it's real  

is wrestling big in japan too? i thought the US was the only country in the world....

[Shallow]

i haven't read all the posts... but do you guys see wrestling as what it is? or do you actually think it's real  

is wrestling big in japan too? i thought the US was the only country in the world....

Of course we know what it is. lol. No human adult thinks it's a real fighting competition. It's an artform, eventhough WWE does it's best to keep any art out of it.

It's huge in Japan. It's in a real down time in Japan but it's still as big their as it's ever been here, and at it's peak wrestling in the top 5 forms of entertainment. It was always it's number 2 form of athletics, behind sumo, until baseball became big, then it fell to number 3.