The Meltzer Thread

[Valeyard]

The Ospreay I like doesn't touch the Funk I like under any metric. Bruv.

 

[alkeiper]

If you don't see how Funk was a great wrestler I feel like you don't understand what makes wrestling great to begin with. But there's a practical matter here too. Ospreay is 31 and by any measure he's had a great career with a lot of classic matches. Terry Funk turned 31 in 1975. Almost none of Funk's early '70s is on tape. Imagine if Ospreay's entire career up to now disappeared into the void.

 

[strummer]

Probably needs to be said but Dave obviously has a tremendous fear of aging. He will be 65 next month. This is clearly influencing these takes. He doesn't want time to pass him by so he is clinging on to the younger generation(s)

 

[Mickey Massuco]

Lmao that’s actually hilarious.

Imagine some 65 year old guy who desperately wants to look relevant to gen z by blasting Chappelle Roan in his car.

 

[alkeiper]

Blasting Chappelle Roan is its own reward.

 

[Fall of Epic]

Blasting Chappelle Roan is its own reward.

Yeah Chappell Roan rules wtf.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

That wasn’t an insult to her, I don’t have an opinion about her music one way or the other. More about the idea that old people will completely shift gears just to look relevant to kids.

 

[Valeyard]

See Meltz feels more like the type of guy who thinks Train is the coolest.

 

[alkeiper]

See Meltz feels more like the type of guy who thinks Train is the coolest.

He needs to play something with a fucking beat.

 

[Valeyard]

The Bryan Adams thing is really funny, and not just because there is 100% no doubt he listened to him because of his name.

Man, it's weird I'm sure but if I saw him at any show that isn't wrestling, I'd bug him. I don't care about star ratings or anything but I want to know what other pop culture he actually enjoys or has a passion for.

 

[BUTT]

He did an interview years ago where he said his favorite show is Friends and his favorite artist is Springsteen. He also went to a Paul McCartney concert once. His cultural tastes are very basic and mainstream, in sharp contrast to his weirdo outlaw wrestling tastes.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

He was also a huge roller derby fan iirc

 

[Valeyard]

He did an interview years ago where he said his favorite show is Friends and his favorite artist is Springsteen. He also went to a Paul McCartney concert once. His cultural tastes are very basic and mainstream, in sharp contrast to his weirdo outlaw wrestling tastes.

Does he have any feelings one way or another on the New England comedy scene?

 

[strummer]

didn't he go to a Ringo Starr concert for his birthday a few years ago? He was mad because he missed a (wrestling) show or something

 

[Mickey Massuco]

The Bryan Adams thing is really funny, and not just because there is 100% no doubt he listened to him because of his name.

Lmfao I didn’t even think about that.

Someone should put meltz onto Action Bronson. He raps about old school wrestlers and won’t trigger Dave’s uhhh ‘biases’.

 

[BUTT]

Action Bronson wrestled on AEW once, so Dave definitely has JERKED OFF TO HIM.

 

[Brocklock]

JPEGMAFIA should be Dave's favorite musician. The rapper has name dropped multiple AEW guys including Darby Allin and Tony Khan himself. He also has a song called HBK and has the Edge "You Think You Know Me" sample a bunch through his songs. The latter tripped me out and made me think the song was going to turn into Altar Bridge. He also included JR screaming in the background of one of his songs.

Dave's head would probably explode if he tried to listen to him, based on the Bryan Adams love.

 

[Brocklock]

Somebody needs to book Paul Walter Hauser vs Action Bronson on next year's indie mania shows.

 

[Tino Standard]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1844519457911386278

Dave off the top rope!

 

[Valeyard]

I mean, WCW's fate negates everything Bischoff will ever say.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

That’s easy mud to sling, but how many people would have been able to beat Vince And Austin? Literally zero, how many could have gotten into the position Eric was in for those 83 weeks? Only one person has ever done it.

The amount of people who haven’t moved the needle that say his opinion is worthless because WCW failed is crazy to me. We are all keyboard warriors at the end of the day, knocking someone who actually played the game because they lost shows that people need more self awareness.

 

[BruiserBrody]

I mean, WCW's fate negates everything Bischoff will ever say.

Every single promoter not named Vince McMahon went out of business after 1983 (Sam Muchnick being the exception to the rule that doesn't push the number into the 70s at least.)

Tony celebrated his windfall with record low ratings, so huzzah.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

There were plenty of promoters who chose to get out without losing their fortunes. There are also numerous promoters worldwide since 83 who were successful. Giant Baba is one obvious example.

Dynamite ran on a different day at a different time. Of course the ratings plummeted.

 

[BruiserBrody]

There were plenty of promoters who chose to get out without losing their fortunes.

If that is the metric, then Bischoff wins as he had a big money deal paid out when he was sent home, and he then signed a new big money deal to come back under Russo.

==
And yes, "out of business" and "lost their fortunes" are 2 different arguments.
Fritz sold out to Bum Bright and eventually Jerry Jarrett, who sold to Lawler who sold a bill a goods for the USWA to some schmuck and then they just started "Power Pro" in the wake. Plus Fritz was a real estate millionaire.
Watts was losing 50K a week before he got at least some money from JCP before the JCP went under....and sold to Turner to "save the family money"
Boesch was suddenly out of business when Watts sold to JCP without talking to him. He worked for the WWF for a cup of coffee and then mingled in JCP as a promoter.
Verne lost his ass, but a decade later made big money selling the video rights...so he failed upward?
Don Owens made it 60 plus years...but the last decade was near shindy level.
IIRC Shire was financially fucked.
Eddie Einhorn failed at the NWF and PWUSA.
David McClain had 2 failed women leagues if not more.
Bruiser ran shows until he died but they were a Shindy after 1980.
Eddie Graham had money when he blew his brains out, but Florida was in hospice.
Cornette broke even on SMW so he didn't "lose his fortune"
I'm sure Otto Wanz was well off since he ran his empire. Ditto Carlos Colon.
Ole and Joe Blanchard failed at a joint national expansion in 83 and they weren't promoters anymore by 85. Ole was loaded, including a WWF payoff for his chunk of GCW.

 

[Valeyard]

There is literally no excuse for Bischoff having the resources he had to end up with WCW dying like it did, and if he knew what he was talking about the business (and Bischoff) would be in very different places. His highs do not match the lows, and he's bitter, and he's spent so many years trying to shift blame that it makes any actual accomplishments dubious.

TK is better at this and Bischoff hates it.

 

[snuffbox]

Bischoff was given so much and still failed. McMahon was given even more, his wife even acknowledged what anyone who isn't willfully dumb already knew, he was given the WWF by his dad. And he failed too. He no longer owns the company he was given. That's right up there with his friend who was given casinos in Atlantic City and couldn't even make that work.

 

[BUTT]

Tony and Bischoff were operating under totally different market conditions that make an apples-to-apples comparison impossible. Eric didn’t have a shot at a big TV rights deal. And Tony didn’t compete against a WWE that would let Hogan and Savage-level stars walk because they couldn’t financially justify keeping them under contract if they weren’t drawing. So I’m not going to call this new TV deal a flawless victory for Tony in this pointless feud. But I’m sure AEW will still be around in two years, unless theres a corporate merger, since no wrestling promotion could ever survive that.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

There's no perfect comparision but AEW is at the moment set to be the second most profitable company in history. Tony's method of losing money for the first several years (as you previously compared it to in chat, a tech startup) in order to make money further down the road was a success. This went over the head of most people. AEW is also now picking up international TV deals because WWE signed with netflix and abandoned all of their old deals. They're going to be making money hand over fist.

Personally I don't care if they are profitable as long as I enjoy the product. I do, so I'm happy. I didn't care if WCW or ECW was profitable either. WCW stopped being enjoyable a long time before it died except as so bad it's good. ECW was (at least to a teenage me) always fun.

 

[Brocklock]

ECW had a fun last gasp in the Summer of 2000 when they brought in Psicosis and were having those fun FBI vs Tajiri/Mikey Whipwreck series. Along with guys like Corino, Rhino, Lynn, and Kid Kash doing well. It's a shame, that Justin Credible was the champ during most of the run.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

This may be the first time ECW is brought up on this board where I don't launch into a tirade about how Chilly Willy deserved better from the business, or how we owe most of the 00s independent scene to ground that ECW paved.

For every great decision that Eric Bischoff made, he made about half a dozen awful ones. Some were rectified immediately, others eventually fixed themselves, but the worst ones were allowed to fester until they turned rotten and caused the product to turn with them until the fans stopped caring.

If you want legitimate proof of Bischoff's acumen in the pro wrestling business? Look at his stint as the head of creative in TNA. A handful of solid ideas quickly fell to the wayside to the worse ones, and the company was never the same.