Shining a Spotlight 5.17.07: Following the Leader

There’s a trend in the world of entertainment that’s been around for decades. Those in the business no doubt have their own names but what it basically amounts to is “follow the leader.” It’s simple fact than whenever someone makes something that takes off with the public, there’s going to be slews following. It happened in movies with the advent of sound, then color, then big-budget fare. It happened in music with the shifts in rock and roll, rap and more. And in television, other shows are always happy to jump on the bandwagon. It boggles the mind to wonder what the TV landscape today would be had the first Survivor not been a hit and reality TV hadn’t taken off as it did.

When it comes to wrestling, the leader for the last twenty years has been, without a shadow of a doubt, Vincent Kennedy McMahon and the WWF/E. Ever since he began his expansion, Vince has been the one all other promoters have looked to in order to gauge success. And no one has been as successful as Vince. He’s done what no one thought possible, which was to create a virtual monopoly on wrestling in North America. He’s made mistakes along the way, of course, but you can’t argue with the results.

But what’s interesting is that so much of his success was because so many of the promoters, the men who were bright and successful and who surely could have stood against him, failed not because they fought Vince but because they tried to follow his way of success. From AWA to NWA to WCW, they tried to copy WWF’s wild circus-like style. And in doing so, they became the architects of their own demise. As TNA seems to be falling into that pattern, I think it’s important to see why Vince made his style work and no one else could.

The key reason why Vince succeeded with the expansion was that no one thought he could do it. In fairness, wrestling was then divided into nearly twenty big territories and the idea that one man could control it all was as ridiculous as the idea of one channel dominating all cable TV. Vince himself has stated that he got a lot of luck making things work the way they did, that he was really stretched thin with the first Wrestlemania and had the other promoters knew, they might have been able to fight him off. But they all figured that the “rock n’ wrestling” thing was a fad and were too tied down by the decades of tradition that led them do their own thing.

What they didn’t realize was that Vince was putting himself and WWF in the public consciousness. The old-timers may have sniffed at the cartoonish antics of WWF but with major wrestling shows on NBC and Hulk Hogan on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the general public began to automatically associate the business with WWF and that allowed Vince to pull the expansion off.

He was helped by the fact that the old-time promoters also made the key mistake of not realizing how a new generation of fans were growing and wanted something different. On the AWA DVD, Vince himself notes that the old-time promoters never had any competition and thus didn’t know how to deal with Vince making huge money offers to talent and pushing his shows into new markets. They also made the somewhat naive decision that the majority of their wrestlers would value loyalty over a big payday on a much bigger stage.

Verne Gagne was one of the best examples of this mentality. This was a man whose AWA was truly seen as the most elite organization to be in. Even Hogan has stated that in the late 1970’s/early ‘80’s, Minnesota was the place to be for every wrestler. But that success led to Verne’s idea that he knew what the fans wanted and pushed the old guys like Nick Bockwinkel, Baron von Rashke and others over the talent they wanted like Hogan. That, combined with Gagne’s low-balling of talent, led to the exodus to WWF of so many stars.

But despite the fact that by 1987, the AWA was in serious financial trouble, Gagne still couldn’t accept how things had changed so radically. He kept on doing things like he always had because that had worked before and he couldn’t understand why fans wouldn’t accept it now. He also couldn’t seem to see how the AWA was no longer “the major league of professional wrestling” but merely a stepping stone where wrestlers could make a name for themselves before jumping to WWF (or in some cases the NWA). The few times Gagne did try to copy WWF style, it led to cartoonish characters like Nord the Barbarian, which hardly helped put things back on track. Had Gagne just admitted things were bad and tried to find a way to make new stars, he might not have fallen apart so fast. As it was, the AWA was history by 1991 and Gagne is more notable for his failures than his successes.

Jim Crockett was a bit more on the ball than Gagne was, although not by much. He could see faster than others how Vince was expanding and decided he would be the one to take him on. He started to take control of territories like Florida and Mid-Atlantic and with the TBS Saturday afternoon shows giving him more prominence so fans began to automatically associate the NWA with Crockett. Not to mention, he had a massively deep talent base with Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Kolloff, the Road Warriors and more, men who were true wrestlers and could offer great matches for their fanbase.

However, Crockett just didn’t seem to have the right mix of booking and public relations to make it as big as Vince did. If he could have gotten NWA guys on talk shows like Vince was doing, it would have given him the same mainstream recognition WWF had. I mean, Ric Flair would have been a natural for something like Carson or even Letterman but Crockett just couldn’t get it. With all the talent at his feet, Crockett really could have given Vince a run for the money but he just couldn’t break out of the Southern base he had inherited.

Of course, it hardly helped that Crockett made several key errors such as allowing Dusty to book things with himself at the center and his namesake finishes that alienated crowds. What was worse was that Crockett apparently believed he had the same limitless flow of cash McMahon did and thus spent millions on private planes, supplying the Four Horsemen with fine limos and hotel suites and fancy clothes. That mentality extended to his own personal life as he had the company offices done up like a major headquarters with marble floors bearing the family name. His brother, David, was actually sickened by this as their father, Jim Crockett Sr, had always told them to save money, even running his promotion out of the family home and suddenly Jim Jr was tossing around money like water. This would lead him to make the massive mistake of trying to do some key shows like Starrcade and the 1988 Bunkhouse Stampede in Chicago and New York, cities that were more keyed to the WWF product and thus Crockett ended up deep in the hole. That forced him eventually to sell to Turner. And that’s where this whole “follow the leader” mentality really started to sink in.

Whatever else his faults, Jim Crockett did understand the wrestling business. He did know when something clicked and did know how to keep the majority of his big stars, like Flair, happy. But when Turner took over, WCW became a corporate entity and found itself run by people who knew next to nothing about the wrestling business but were just into making money. And since WWF was the most successful wrestling company around, WCW heads decided that what worked up North would work for them, failing to realize how vastly different the two audiences were. Even before the WWF expansion, New York audiences had enjoyed a looser style of grappling than the more serious NWA/WCW and most hardcore fans of the latter hated the circus-like atmosphere of the former. But sadly, the new corporate bosses didn’t get that and thus the slow decline of WCW began.

The writing should have been on the wall when Jim herd, the vice-president of the company, actually wanted a tag team of hunchbacks, arguing they’d be unbeatable since they couldn’t be pinned. When that was rightly shot down, he instead came up with the Ding-Dongs, a tag team clad in orange outfits with bells who were booed out of the building in their first appearances and quickly rid of. At least that first year, 1989, was marked with Flair tearing down the house with great matches with Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk and a pretty all-around good run with wrestlers like Brian Pillman, Sting, Great Muta and others.

But when Flair and Herd had their falling out and Herd put Ole Anderson in charge, the crap started to flow. Appearances by Robocop, the Black Scorpion, El Gigante and more along with signing up over the hill guys like Junkyard Dog and Paul Orndorff marred the company. Worse, they allowed some big ones to get away like the Nasty Boys who were elevated to stardom with a feud with the Steiner brothers but WCW refused to sign them up to anything long-term so WWF snatched them up and pushed them to the tag titles within months. But Herd was too busy playing catch-up to WWF to really understand the damage there.

When Herd and Flair had their final blow-up and Herd fired Flair, everything went to hell. With Flair, the man who had been the heart and soul of the company for years now gone, WCW started to really flow into stupid, over the top stuff meant to copy WWF’s success but only making them look more second-rate. You had Kevin Nash as Oz, the Desperados, Van Hammer, the Chamber of Horrors and more, all of it utterly craptacular in a way even WWF couldn’t match. That, combined with the betrayal over Flair’s leaving, led to a massive exodus of fans, poor house shows and PPV revenues and eventually Herd was gone. His replacement, Kip Frye, actually seemed to understand things better, setting up a great system that paid workers a bonus for the best match of a given show which led to a much better on-camera product and backstage morale. But just as things were improving, Frye left and Bill Watts was allowed to take over.

On paper, it seemed perfect as Watts was a real old-school type who wouldn’t be following the WWF example but instead give WCW its own identity. Unfortunately, it turned out Watts was too old-school. He banned moves from the top rope, killing the light heavyweight division that had been helping WCW stand out, instituted a new stiffer style of in-ring action, tried to make Ron Simmons a viable World Champion by pitting him against the Barbarian and laid out some seriously strict backstage rules that would even govern how wrestlers could act outside the ring. Of course, he also pushed old faves Steve Williams and Terry Gordy to the tag titles over the younger and more over Steiners and tried to make a serious star out of his vastly untrained and unready son, Erik. While Watts may have helped WCW stand out, it wasn’t in a good way and he was soon removed.

That led to the power struggle ending with Eric Bischoff taking over and again, WCW seemed to follow the WWF’s circus-like atmosphere but in even worse ways. They would blow millions on mini-movies like “White Castle of Fear,” and Beach Blast, stupid wastes for what should have been more solid set-ups. To cut costs, they borrowed from the WWF’s old idea of taping a week or two of syndicated shows in advance by taping three months of shows in advance, giving away all storylines and leaving no room for changes. This led to problems like Brian Pillman being injured and thus Steven Regal having to replace him in the Hollywood Blondes to drop the tag titles as well as WCW pulling out of the NWA thus leaving Ric Flair and Rick Rude fighting for a meaningless belt.

WCW did bounce back by letting Flair beat Vader for the World title but rather than let Flair continue to bring in house shows and give Steve Austin the rub in a feud, Bischoff was too interested in trying to turn WCW into a viable company. And thus he made the decision to hire Hulk Hogan, not only giving him the title right off but also creative control. From there, WCW really began to follow WWF…the WWF of the 1980’s as Hogan brought in old buddies like Ed Leslie, Jim Duggan, Honky Tonk Man, Randy Savage and others and in no time flat, WCW had turned into a carbon copy of 1988 WWF…which wasn’t what their fans wanted.

I’ve known long-time, die-hard WCW nuts who say that the day Hogan showed up on TBS was the day WCW truly died seven years early. What Hogan, and by extension Bischoff and the WCW heads of the time, couldn’t understand was that this was a completely different fanbase. Hogan truly seemed to believe they would accept him as well as WWF fans did, not realizing the Southern fans had a different mentality. They were used to a more realistic style of action and to seeing a heel dominate as champion instead of a superhero face who couldn’t lose. That was one of the key problems, Hogan never lost despite plans at the time. He was supposed to drop the belt to Flair a month after winning it but instead had himself attacked, injuring his leg yet still beating Flair. He was going to drop it to Vader but not only changed that but also refused to sell Vader’s dreaded power bomb at all, thus sending the big man’s career into a tailspin he never recovered.

People complain over how bad WWF was in 1995 with Diesel running revenue into the ground but at least they had Bret and Shawn and Razor Ramon among others to get good matches. WCW, on the other hand, was running horrible shows like Uncensored and having Hogan getting into monster truck battles with the Giant and battling a Yeti. It seemed more and more that WCW was just taking the surface stuff of WWF, the cartoonish aspects and rather than at least try to back them up with some solid workers, just pushed in hopes the WCW fans would accept it like WWF fans did. Hell, the Renegade is one of the biggest rip-offs ever, pushed to be the next Ultimate Warrior but of course lacking even the small skills Warrior had and the fans turned on him big-time.

Then, just as it looked like things were going as bad as they could, Bischoff struck gold with Hall and Nash arriving in WCW and hooking up with Hogan as the New World Order. The WCW fans had wanted an excuse to boo Hogan from the start and now they got it. While WWF was a bit stagnant, WCW was suddenly taking off with this idea of this big force invading and trying to take over. Finally, it was WCW kicking WWF’s butt in the ratings and fan appeal, so much so that many rational people truly believed WWF would be out of business by the time 1998 came to an end. Bischoff believed that too. And that’s why WCW fell apart so fast.

One of the single most ironic wrestling articles I’ve ever seen was from a WCW mag in 1997 that had Bischoff comparing Vince to Verne Gagne, stagnant and unable to flex with the times. But as it turned out, it was Bischoff who would end up falling into the same trap as his former employer. Bischoff truly seemed to think that the NWO would go on forever and kept on shoving it down the throats of fans, not seeing how they were getting tired of it. The whole point of an invasion is that at one point or another, the invaded company, WCW, would have to fight back. But instead, the NWO was always allowed to win, putting massive beat-downs on the WCW stars and bragging about their success. That led to Bischoff mistaking the fan’s reaction from “we love to hate these guys” to “we love these guys” and thus the NWO kept on winning and gaining more and more members.

Meanwhile, Vince, finding himself in the unusual position of being behind someone else for a change, showed why he’s always been the leader. Rather than try to duplicate what WCW was doing, McMahon instead began to push not only new stars like HHH, Rock and Austin but also the new attitude with sex, violence and backstage antics. While you can argue Vince was copying Eric in making himself the evil owner, Vince was smart enough to do what Bischoff didn’t; while the NWO may always have been the winners against WCW, Vince made sure that his feud with Austin was far more even, as not only would Austin come back to beat McMahon’s plans but humiliate Vince in the process which the fans couldn’t get enough of.

So while WWF was rising, Bischoff was making the same mistakes as Gagne, which was not realizing that in order to regain his top place, he’d have to stop assuming that he always know what that fans wanted to see. He also made the mistake that Crockett did in that he let the massive talent pool of great workers like Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero and more wallow while pushing the old-timers like Hogan, Savage and Piper. He also pulled the same boner as Herd, which was trying to get rid of Flair, completely underestimating the respect the man had with both fans and workers. This just added to the backlash as Vince began to rebuild back to the top.

Another mistake, and one that just boggles the mind looking back, was how WCW used the mainstream. Or rather, how they didn’t. The few times they would use it, it would be for stupid stuff like Jay Leno in a PPV main event or Rick Steiner feuding with Chucky. Yes, the doll from the horror films. But aside from those, WCW seemed to refuse to use anything that popped up in the media. A great example was in 1998 when Goldberg met with Mark McGwire, then in the middle of his home run chase. It would have been great to show video of them hanging out, getting bats, having their own batting competition but WCW never used any of it. Of course, they were all too ready to give the World title to David Arquette which flushed whatever respect they had down the toilet. When you read of WCW, you didn’t see stuff highlighting how huge their stars were. Rather, you saw Leno or Arquette or Dennis Rodman manhandling actual wrestlers, making things a joke.

Bischoff was soon removed and that allowed Kevin Nash to book things into a bigger mess than before, which seemed impossible. Then, of course, Vince Russo arrived, having snowed WCW heads into believing that he was the one responsible for WWF’s turnaround. Now, to be fair, Russo did help give WWF a boost with a new tough attitude and backstage goings-on that led fans to think they were really part of the show. But as pretty much everyone knows, Russo’s WCW tenure showed that Vince McMahon had been a major aid in editing Russo and keeping his more insane ideas from going on the air. Without that buffer, Russo went way, way overboard to the point where he seemed to think that the actual wrestling didn’t even matter, that the fans wanted to see more of his soap-opera antics and swerves. He also made another key error, sometimes overlooked but just as important as the others; While WWF had faced up now and then to how things were planned out, Russo went the extra step, having announcers openly talk about “works” and “shoots” and wrestlers breaking character on camera constantly. That may have played in WWF but WCW was always far more into kayfabe and the fans hated that they were openly talking about how fake wrestling was while trying to sell it. Rusoo didn’t kill WCW but he did help supply the final push.

The point (and I had one in all this) is to show that Crockett, Herd, Bischoff and Russo were all only looking at the surface of WWF, at the crazy characters and antics and thought that was what brought the fans in so they tried to follow the formula. What none of them seemed to grasp was that while crazy antics and characters were par for the course in WWF, McMahon was smart enough to also have workers of not only talent but also capable of getting major fan heat and bringing in the crowds. When they hired Hogan, WCW thought he could draw anywhere, not understanding that their fan base had been long conditioned to reject the WWF product so bringing in their biggest name and symbol would be a slap in the face to them. Bischoff also allowed himself to be played by Hogan, Hall and Nash to keep themselves on top at the expense of the older talent. Just like Gagne, Bischoff thought the same guys could keep on drawing and ignored how the fans were tired of them. And Russo? Well, he truly thought the WCW fans were like WWF ones, perusing the Internet for all kinds of stories and wouldn’t mind having the reality of the business exposed.

All of them made this common mistake, that they had to duplicate WWF in order to beat it. When you look back at the incredible talent pool WCW had with so many stars of talent and heat, you’d think this would easily be a company that could last forever. But rather than use what they had, WCW believed that they needed what WWF had, both stars and presentation, in order to really work. And that attitude, more than anything, was what killed the company in the end.

ECW was a bit of a different animal as Paul Heyman set out from the start to make it as far away as possible from WWF at the time. For a while, it worked with its amazing action and stars. But the problem was that Heyman seemed to think ECW was a bigger than it truly was and, like the old territory owners, thought workers would value loyalty over money. He can complain all he wants about WCW “stealing” Malenko, Benoit and Guerrero but if Heyman had been paying them right, they wouldn’t have jumped in the first place. In all the histories of ECW, it becomes clear that as great he was booking, Heyman just wasn’t a good businessman and didn’t make the moves needed to keep ECW a viable company. He also wouldn’t adapt when he got the national deal, not seeming to understand that something that appealed to a niche audience would have trouble making it on a national level. As much as Heyman will boast it, at no time was ECW ever the number two promotion as even in their darker days, WCW just reached a bigger audience than them and was more financially secure. Had Heyman tried to keep it going locally for a little more, he might have lasted longer but taking ECW national before it was truly ready was the death knell.

So where am I going with this? The fact that TNA is falling into the same trap as the men above. If you read Stuart Carpola’s excellent two-part “That Was Then” column this week, he hits it on the head over the problems TNA is having. A key one has been around from the start, which is that Jeff Jarrett always intended for the company to be the number two behind WWE. It’s why he wanted the weekly PPV’s, to reach a national audience rather than start out small. Time and again, TNA has made the moves to assert themselves as the only other promotion around, which is a nice goal. The problem is, TNA thinks they’ve achieved that, that they are now the equal to WWE and that’s messing up their future.

Like those running WCW, TNA seems to think that they need to follow the example of WWF in order to succeed and are giving fans dumb angles and swerves rather than concentrate on action. Watch a TNA PPV from 2005 against one today and it’s amazing to see the difference in both action and tone. Of course, it’s hardly helped that TNA is doing the complete opposite of what WWF has done: Rather than have a star from another company be made to “pay their dues,” TNA pushes former WWE stars to the moon right off the bat. Christian, Team 3D, Rhino, Kurt Angle, they’re pushed immediately at the expense of TNA faves like AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and of course Samoa Joe. And even then, they mess things up like Christian presented as a face at his entry, killing some of his heat while Angle is bounced around back and forth between face and heel with no clear distinction that the fans have no idea whether to cheer or boo him.

It’s gotten only worse under Russo’s reign. I understand he doesn’t write and book everything but his influence can be seen with crazy swerves and storylines designed to mock the competition but only makes TNA look more second-rate (VKM the prime example). TNA is also repeating one of the key mistakes of Bischoff’s WCW reign, which is giving away for free matches that would be easy PPV candidates. After Angle/Joe, Angle/Styles was the matchup I was dreaming of but then TNA has them do a two minute match on Impact and weeks later, has the first ever Angle/Sting match, another surefire moneymaker, be on Impact too. TNA might as well forgo the fireworks and just burn a pile of money. They’re also pushing Sting/Christian/Angle while letting Joe, the guy fans have been wanting to win the world title for over a year, wallow in the midcard while having only his second TNA loss ever be to TYSON FRACKING TOMKO! And they wonder why fans are starting to get annoyed.

The other ranks of TNA aren’t much better. They finally give the tag titles to Team 3D, a year after it would have meant something and now have them ready to feud with the Steiner Brothers, a match that would have been a dream eight years ago but with all four guys past their primes now, is not quite the major moneymaker. As for the X Division, Chris Sabin isn’t taking off like fire with the fans and Jay Lethal, a guy who is over and deserves the belt, is being made to team with Nash and adopt the Randy Savage act for cheap heat.

There’s a reason why Vince McMahon is still around while all his enemies are either out of business or working for him. As much of a circus as WWF/E could and can be, Vince has been wise enough to have workers who can still give great matches to keep fan interest. Complain about HHH and Cena’s pushes as champs but when it comes to the big bouts, they bring their A-game. Smackdown has great talent like Finley, Benoit and MVP to highlight regular shows and even ECW is capable of some interesting twists now and then. Vince knows that fans love the show but the wrestling is still a vital part so as crazy as things can be, he gives some real action and real workers to make it all gel. Also, he may be reluctant at first in letting old stars go but in the end, he does realize some new blood is needed and lets it rise (Austin, Rock, HHH, Edge, Cena).

WCW never quite understood that, only taking the surface craziness and pushing the old guys while letting new stars fade to the side, ignored. They refused to use the national mainstream media the right way, to present themselves in a positive light like WWF/E did. And those in charge also misread the fanbase, pushing things their own way rather than let the fans decide who they wanted to see at the top.

TNA is starting to make those same errors. They’re pushing former WWE guys over the talent at their disposal and aren’t doing much to really push themselves in the media. But they are also making the mistake that led to the downfall of so many before them: They are more intent on taking on WWE and presenting themselves as true competition than concentrate on their own problems. If TNA were to step back and really use the base they have, they would be a great promotion. But, like Heyman, they seem to think they’re much bigger than they really are, that they’re on an equal par with WWE and not just a small wrestling company with a decent fanbase and national standing. The arrogance TNA has is astounding as they honestly believe that Vince sweats over what they do when in truth, WWE has barely even acknowledged their existence. Even when they pull off a great move, like signing Angle, they drop the ball totally which makes them look even more lower-class than they are.

Vince McMahon has spent the last twenty years as the leader of pro wrestling and he’s shown why he still remains on top. His unique mixing of action and angles has been imitated but never truly duplicated. But the real reason why Vince is still the biggest game in town is because no one else knows how to take him down. All they can do is whittle at him and try to follow in his success but as we all know, the copies just don’t match the original. As Stu points out in his column, ROH (and for that matter CZW) has never pretended to be anything other than a small local promotion and that’s what’s allowed them to succeed so well. TNA from the start considered themselves the equal competitor to WWE and still pushing that mentality. But as more fans and even IWC supporters are turned away by the bad booking and pushes, TNA may soon end up just like AWA and WCW did, which is realizing that following the leader is all well and good. But when you think you are the leader while you’re still stuck at the end of the line…then all you’re going to do is walk right off the edge.

Also around 411 this week:

As I mentioned above, Stu has a great two-parter on TNA and ROH.

Just S’Pose does another take on Barely Legal.

Julian counts down the Top 10 Edge matches.

You’re an Idiot and Here’s Why talks about Kennedy losing the MITB.

Ripple Effect shows how injuries last year led to the rise of King Booker.

Don’t forget Column of Honor, Triple Threat, 3 R’s, Ask 411, Fact or Fiction, Navigation Log and the rest.

Next week, I’ll take a look at the World title situations of Edge and TNA breaking off from NWA with their own belts. For this week, the spotlight is off.