Cena must have forgotten his return at Wrestlemania for some bizarre reason I can't say I blame him.

That was just one in a countless number of hotshot booking ideas that partly brought about the demise of the company. Throw in excessive spending and WWE at its most consistent and you have a recipe for disaster.

On its own Arquette winning the title wasn't as bad as people make out. People forget celebrity wannabe Kevin Federline holds a rare pinfall victory over John Cena and it was booked in such a cheap a way that neither DDP or Jarrett were made to look too bad from what I can remember. Hot shotting the world title so many times within a few months and quickly abandoning the big veterans versus youth storyline were far more detrimental business decisions.


Why do I get the feeling Cena is going to suffer later in life for his approach to looking after his body.

Well la de da.

Great lets see cena and roman team up and win the tag titles during the summer. Cena coming back means more rubbish promos lasting 20 minutes about never giving up and hustle loyailty bla bla bla.

I hope this doesnt come across as an anti cena thing

Hey at least Cena didn't drop the WWE title to Federline god imagine that knob being on TV every week with the title.

In my opinion (and it is only my opinion), creative decisions on their own don't make or break wrestling companies. What killed WCW was the AOL Time Warner merger. WWE have made tons of questionable creative decisions but the business side has always been sound, so they're still here. BTW I don't buy the claim that at one point WWE were just a few months from closure. I think that's entertaining hyperbole and retrospective hype for the Monday night war era.

Had never heard of it before but that sounds really cool. Could you give me an idea of how much/what kind of stuff you get?

Yeah, Vince was never going to close up. He would have cut back on the roster, cut back on dates and retreated to his home territories but he wouldn't have folded the company.

On creative decisions, when a company is hot then they can get away with more things. When they are in a bad position, every little bad decision is amplified. For WCW, viewership declined as a host of bad creative decisions mounted up as the WWF product was hitting top gear. However, you're right in that they could have survived as long as they got TV in 2001. But if they had have been at their ratings peak when the merger happened, it would have been a lot harder to drop them and a lot easier for Bischoff to find a new home for them.

Btw, I think that Cena coming back is good. I'm not sure who they programme him with though because Payback looks pretty filled in as a card. Give him back the US Title maybe?

I wonder is Balor comes up too or whether they save him for Payback/the following Raw. I'm not sure how he'll do on the main roster tbh. I know he's a HHH guy but I think he's very bland in the ring and his entrance, which is kinda goofy, isn't actually connected to his character in any way. Looks like he'll be in a prominent position to begin with anyway with the Bullet Club stuff developing nicely.

For 11.99 a month or 21.99 a month (plus postage and packaging) I think it varies but mine is 4 quid. You get stuff like shirts, dvds, signed autographs and other little tidbits really that make up a nice little box. They started in the USA but it would have been like 50 quid a month to get a box with the shipping price so the UK have started doing their own.

Here is a link. It is saying what was the March contents.

http://www.wrestlecrate.co.uk/whats_inside

April's went out today and they included two dvds, one of Balor and Owens finishing off their independent dates just before they arrived at NXT. Two more Tshirts (One with women's wrestling on it on a red shirt with Becky/Banks/Charlotte trademarks on it) and then some really professional pictures that'd look nice in a frame.

Didnt stop TNA from hiring him which I recall when they went to POP TV wasent Russo still employed?

I still dont see why they had to do it, Cena wouldnt have gotten in trouble for refusing it.

Sure he got alot of flack for booking that on a Thunder when a non wrestler got pinned and then dropped the belt a week or so later. Yes it was bad a celeb won the title but I know whey were trying to promote the film.

Still could have been worse and booked it on their biggest PPV of the year.

Still cant fathom why McMahon wanted LT vs Bigelow as the main event of Wrestlemania making it over shadow the WWF title match.

Vince Russo has not worked for TNA in at least 2 years. Russo wasn't there for the Pop TV nor the Destination America deal. The last time Russo worked for TNA they were still on Spike TV which was a few years ago now.


David Arquette winning the title got WCW in the mainstream media so it was a success. Wrestling fans will always watch wrestling. They will watch anything with the word wrestling in the title. Things like that will bring in outsiders that would never normally watch wrestling.


And Sinister might I remind you that on Vince Russo's watch TNA hit 2 million viewers on a number of occasions. When Vince Russo left TNA their ratings plummeted and now instead of 2 million viewers in the USA they do 250k viewers a week. That's the difference.

TBH I didn't watch TNA at the time so I wouldn't know can't imagine the decisions Russo made over there.

Perhaps WWE did it for attention cause they were such media whores still can't believe they once had Cena pinned by the one man who ruined Britneys career.

Yep how wrong they were Sinister to try and bring in as many people as possible to watch the product.

Yeah David Arquette winning the WCW title was so successful that it saved WCW which is why WCW still exists oh wait.

Yeah cause TNA is now competing on the same level as WWE oh wait. Why don't you just admit that Vince Russo is a failure?

There was a post I made some time ago which showed many WCW contracts of the year 1999 adding to over 30 million. I don't even think there was 10 names listed. By the year 2001 and over 100 wrestlers contracted you can only imagine the amount they were paying out on contracts.


Creative didn't kill WCW. AOL Time Warner didn't want wrestling. To this day wrestling is looked upon as white trash. Entertainment for poor people. WWE right now despite making over 100 million dollars a year for their TV deal still can't get the kind of advertising money other top TV shows can because the fact is companies wont pay that kind of money for a wrestling show. In 2016 they still think that way.


So did Vince Russo kill WCW? No. AOL did. It didn't matter how many people watched WCW or how much money it made, they didn't want wrestling at all so it was game over and that's really what it comes down to. WWE outdraws all the other shows on USA Network, but WWE is barely in the top 5 every week but at least making an appearance in it is good enough for the USA Network, they only care about the numbers, they don't care about what it is as long as it brings in the numbers.

Sinister when Vince Russo was writing TNA they hit 2 million viewers on a few occasions and the rest of the time floated between 1.2 million and 1.4 million. When Vince Russo left they dropped to 1 million on Spike. They dropped to 500k on Destination America and now on Pop TV they do 250k.

That's a hell of a drop. He really killed that company didn't he? He did so bad they were drawing 2 million viewers and now they do 250k.


Same with WWF. They hit 8 million under his watch and now they do 3 million. Last weeks Raw fell below 3 million in the third hour.



He sure done a lot of damage to wrestling. Under his watch at WWF and TNA he brought in the most viewers they had ever seen.

This still isn't true.

I'm fairly certain you've posted many times that Russo never had creative control when he worked for TNA. Now you want to say he was responsible for their ratings. Make your mind up.

It's also not true that Russo's Raw brought in the most viewers WWF had ever seen.

Going back to the "what would you do if someone called wrestling fake" bit from earlier on, this Xavier Woods' response:-
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...02082806502518

Still on the Russo shite? Yawn. That casual fans are more drawn to interesting characters and stories is basically a truism. That doesn't mean anyone needs Russo's spasmodic approach to storytelling.

Also, Roman Reigns > Finn Balor.

Paige was in town tonight with her family.

She said she is having a few visa issues so will be staying in the UK until it's sorted.