OttoBlog
2007/05/12: Vince McMahon Claims The Condemned Was Sabotaged
Noting that ECW's relaunch is about a year old, a shareholder asked
McMahon if the brand has met his expectations. McMahon said that it
hasn't lived up to his expectations but has met those of their
broadcast partner. He said that when you take the concept of "what
that brand was, it can't stay there; it was unsuccessful." McMahon
says you have to take the brand and morph it to make it different but
not that different. He said it is a slow evolving process and has a
bright future but not as quick as he would like.
It doesn't help that the changes he made to ECW were essentially:
"get rid of everything people liked about the old ECW, yet don't add
anything that makes people want to watch Raw/Smackdown".
If he let Joey Styles call the matches like he did in ECW v1.0 (and
no "backstage producing" through his headset). If he brought in the
writers from the old ECW, and didn't dilute it with crappy ideas he
and Steph come up with. If he let the people cut passion-filled
promos that come from the heart, instead of having unmotivated,
repetitive, monotone "I'm your school teacher" every week. And if
he understood the role of women in the old ECW, instead of the crap
that is "Extreme Expos颮
And that doesn't even get to any of the wresting.
I'm sure Vince never watched the old ECW, so his impression is from
hearing stories from his lackeys who want it to fail. He must think
that every match in the old ECW was a hardcore bloodbath. No. Go
back and watch the tapes. There were lucha matches with people like
Super Crazy and Rey Misterio Jr. There were long technical battles
with Jericho, Benoit, Malenko, and Eddie. There were matches with
Raven that just oozed psychology throughout the match. There were
brawls with Axl, Ian, Balls, etc. And, yes, there was the
occasional bloodbath with Cactus, Funk, Sandman, Dreamer, etc.
When asked about WWE's discussed international expansion, McMahon
said that they just got back from a successful international tour and
recruited eight individuals to come to WWE and show their talents.
I'll bet it's eight "hosses", and not anyone good like Kaz H.
Though, even if they did sign someone good, they'd ruin them by
making them switch to the "three minute match of nothing but
punches, kick, armlocks, and chinlocks" style--so I guess I don't
care either way.
McMahon said that over time, three brands might not be enough to cover
the globe. McMahon noted that South America "is really about to open
up and that's obviously a large continent with lots of people."
But if most of them are poor, WWE won't make any money even if they
are somehow able to draw huge crowds. Even in Mexico, where they
have phenomenal workers and are drawing huge crowds (in the major
cities) ticket prices are super low (compared to the US) or no one
would be able to afford to go to the shows.
Hell, even if you didn't create more "brands" to be based outside of
North America (or didn't increase overseas tours) if he were able to
get away with raising non-US PPV prices to what he's able to get
Americans to pay--that would probably double WWE's income right
there.
McMahon said WWE will be going to High-Definition within the next
year and they have tested it. He said that the product looks amazing
under that format but they don't want to be too far ahead of the curve
because that costs you money, while being too far behind gives the
impression you aren't on the cutting edge.
Psst. You're already behind the curve. We've been enjoying NFL in
HiDef for the last 5 years or so now.
McMahon noted there would be an event titled "Night of Champions"
where every match is a championship match coming up.
So it'll have at most nine matches (3 world titles, 2 tag titles,
IC, US, women's, cruiserweight). In fact, non-WrestleManias
generally don't have that many matches. Some title holder will have
the shame of not wrestling on a show where every match is a
championship match.
When asked for an update in a statement he made a few years back
about wanting WWE to own its own WWE PPV channel in order to hasten
getting revenue from the events, McMahon said that as time goes on,
the way fans watch PPV will in all likelihood be through WWE.com
If they want to have the same video quality as PPV they'll need some
hella-expensive new servers to deal with the throughput.
I wonder if they could offer WWE PPVs live (as opposed to three
months late) on WWE 24/7 without having to give more than 50% of the
revenue to the PPV companies like they currently do.
McMahon discussed technology such as his
blackberry and said in the future, a consumer will be able to watch TV
on their own handheld devices via digital media.
I certainly wouldn't want to watch a PPV on a tiny screen like that
when I have the option of watching it on my 65" Sony HDTV (or the
next toy on my wish list: the Sony 300" HDTV VPLVW100).
McMahon was asked whether he still thinks WWE.com sucks, based on a
comment he made at a previous shareholder's meeting. McMahon paused
for some time and then joked that he was told last year that his
comments probably hurt morale. McMahon said, "The website doesn't suck
as much and is bordering on not sucking at all."
LOL.
When the role of celebrities were brought up, McMahon said that
Donald Trump was relatively inexpensive.
Inexpensive? Didn't WWE pay $5M to Trump's charity (plus Vince
donating an additional $5M to another charity)? Sure--that's a huge
tax write-off, but "inexpensive"?
A shareholder praised the company for their work with the troops
overseas and says he hopes the company will not follow the route of
other corporations that quietly work with terrorist states. McMahon
said, "I would doubt that very seriously."
Now Sgt Slaughter--he might be doing that behind Vince's back! ;-)
When asked whether he felt any of the current performers might end up
involved in a role similar to Vince McMahon's current role. McMahon
said that many of them have a bright future within the company after
they are done inside the ring. He said that many of the current
talents will be melded into the other business aspects of the company
over time.
Didn't you tell Bret Hart that when you signed him to a 20-year
contract?
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