Loss

Please stop discussing ripping of footage. This is a violation of the board rules.

This is not something to be discussed here. Pinned thread in this folder: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=21258

I tend to think you answered your question there. Their audience watches the shows. They also have a fairly well traffic'd website to market the network on. That's likely where they'll focus on. In turn, one of the few things they market in a give year is Wrestlemania. Since this is #30, much like #20 and #25 it will probably have a bit more marketing than the average Mania. So they'll likely piggyback some Network marketing on that marketing. They also have likely built up a large pool of e-mail addresses from customers / subscriber / others who have bought things from WWE.com or subscribed to things there or gotten on their mailing list, etc. They can blast stuff out that way. They pimp the shit out of Twitter, so they'll likely try that as well. It's not likely they are going to spend $50M on marketing it. They will probably produce some ads for it, but it's the WWE: they Production team can do that falling out of bed, as they to promo pieces every week of the year. My guess is that they'll try to draw in from their current base first, then look for ways to expand it over time to former fans and non-core fans. John They need 1 million subscribers to break even. Seems like they'll need to do something beyond their normal hype.

Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs Antonio Cesaro & Jack Swagger (WWE Monday Night RAW 01/06/14) Another excellent tag, although the heat wasn't as strong as for the Smackdown tag until the final few minutes. Also, I don't know if this is consensus or not, but I think the Wyatts are a better team than the Real Americans, or at least they were in these two matches. You can tell how much Goldust adds to the team by how dead the crowd is when he's not on the apron to cheer on the hot tag. Cody Rhodes has also improved a ton from the last time I really paid much attention to him. Very good match.

Because MOTY sets have already been released. Plus, those years don't interest me much because of the lack of good angles and promos. More the former than the latter.

So to be clear, you aren't arguing any of the criticisms against his in-ring style in this thread and you support him basically because you are both Irish? Someone made the point that he was only popular because he was Irish and got down on Twitter. Rovert responded that was ridiculous and said that he is respected within wrestling. I think that was the extent of his point - not that Rovert is even a fan specifically.

Eric Bischoff has massively failed at everything he's attempted in wrestling since 1998. If it doesn't involve Hogan, he doesn't know how to do it.

I'm also curious if they'll be doing any microtargeting based on the on-demand content that is accessed the most, but I can see them considering that information privileged, for now at least.

Also, since the network does have appeal to people who don't watch WWE anymore, I do wonder how/if they plan on advertising outside of their own programming?

The question about what type of marketing campaign they have planned and how much they intend to spend on marketing would be the one I would ask for sure.

All good context and yes, Martel did progress quickly. This isn't really a good showing from him in my opinion, but Race carried it well. I don't want to get too granular at this point since I'm not doing that for every group. I'd prefer to just limit it to the best stuff. I will add that.

It comes across as putting himself over, where had the match only been one fall he would have taken it.

Harley Race vs Rick Martel (PNW 01/12/80) Race looks excellent and this may be my favorite match I can recall seeing him in, if only because he's working the U.S. instead of Japan. He has had better matches, but he does such a good job of making Martel look good. The spot where he stumbled off of the leapfrog and ended up armdragged was excellent. Martel is someone I really like, but he was a bit bland at this point, specifically in the arm work that seems to go forever and has no payoff. But Race's offense and selling keeps this match going in the right direction for the most part. This has some weirdness. The champ winning the first fall is a curious layout choice. The drama over Martel being required to wake Race back up after putting him to sleep was a little awkward too, although I guess that is an effective way to get the hold over, especially when Race is expected to be alert enough to fight back in the third fall. Lame finish too. I wouldn't even call this a three-star match, but it's a good snapshot of how good both guys were at the time.

Hogan/Backlund is there but I will add Zbyszko vs Putski.

I've decided to take a look at some other praised matches for 1980-1981, specifically from Portland, the WWF and World of Sport. I was planning on waiting until there's a DVDVR set, but I feel like I'm a little behind the curve and don't want to wait that long. Matches added in to the master list. Whatever makes its way on to one of those sets that I don't watch now, I will watch then.

Oh we'll be doing that soon too, albeit in highlight/lowlight format. As for the threads, it's not as bad as you think.

I remember the good old days of wrestling message boarding, when the Europeans were only distinguishable by paragraphs of TL;DR nonsense about PAL and NTSC.

Jose, have you listened to Austin on Jericho's show yet? Austin simply explains so many things about his philosophy on wrestling where Jericho seems a little dumbfounded at times by how much sense he makes. You hear the difference between a guy successful in wrestling at a fairly high level and a guy who was successful at a level very few in history have ever been.

When WWE is changing their pay-per-view model, it also makes that particular revenue stream even more challenging for a secondary promotion. TV rights fees and going really old school and trying to draw on the road by running a full schedule is the only shot a #2 promotion has to be viable, and that's going to be tough too.

Regardless of the point's accuracy, I can't tell you how much I hate it when dudes try to be macho and talk about "sucking dick" as praising and being "on someone's dick" as being a fan. It's a word choice that comes across as sexist or homophobic, although I don't think that's the intent most of the time. I'm not saying this to ban people from using the phrase. Say what you want. I'm just letting you know how I think it sounds.

If they hire Russo, they deserve to fail. Sadly, I can't think of anyone who would be the right person to set the vision though.

Well, that was the only one I listed a star rating for, but Okada/Naito was better than that. I'd put that one at ****1/2 actually.

I was just curious when the WON HOF case for Stephanie McMahon starts. She led the creative team that got John Cena over as a top star and did seven consecutive dome shows for Wrestlemania, most of them breaking existing buyrate records. She also has the Austin/Rock and Rock/Hogan shows to her credit. Critically acclaimed feuds like Eddy vs Rey and Michaels vs Jericho have happened under her watch. :)