Paul Heyman and ECW's Books

[RLStern]

Man, what you talking about?? SMW used to sell out most of their shows. Those shows had arguably the best tag team wrestling at that time. Yes, SMW folded, but they didn't have billionaires funding it like WWE, AEW, WCW, and TNA. Nor a major TV deal.

The fact that it went out of business shows it sucked.

It doesn’t matter if those in a niche bubble liked it.

ECW is another example, it sucked, no matter what excuses Paul Heyman makes it simply wasn’t good enough to generate enough people to watch, most didn’t like it, even if a niche bubble did.

 

[RLStern]

No it doesn't mean it sucked. I was actually hoping you would catch my "intentionally " omissions and choices of wording (something I also do when having political discussions to see if the person knows what they're talking about,, or just being a lemming and following others) but I'll give you the run down.

I apologize if anyone has mentioned some of the things I'm about to discuss. I didn't read every post in the past few pages. I know Deezy has discussed some of these in the past.

SMW ran from 1991 to the end of 1995. What occurred during this time frame? The 90s Wrestling Recession. What does this mean? No one was really drawing during this time. Both WWF and WCW were not having their best years. However, the pre Hogan WCW years were good shows. Even though the Recession occurred, SMW were selling out shows in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. Hell, the sold out the Cobb County Civic Center with Jim Cornette vs Bob Armstrong as the main event. Hell, WCW and WWF couldn't sell that place out with a house show. WWE can't even get 6K in Columbus and Macon any more. Those places are growing, but interest in wrestling isn't at the moment.

Now, it costs money to run any business. Basic accounting skills will show you, even if you make $30,000, your total amount of expenditures could leave you with only $1000 of disposable income. What are these expenditures, you may ask? Wrestlers Salaries, vendors Salaries, hired security (a requirement in the State of Georgia and most other states), rental fees, promotion fees, etc. Without a major television deal, you don't get that advertisement revenue. Another advantage that the larger promotions have. You also don't get that exposure to a national audience. WWE gets a good chunk of change off of the candy company that sponsors them.

Let's also look at what else happened during this time frame. WWE brought Cornette over to help get their monster heel champion, Yokozuna, over. So more of his time was deflected from his own promotion to the WWE. Cornette, would eventually become a full timer in WWF and one of the more interesting pieces of the company at that time. Guess what else happened? Most of his talent were signed to WWE. Most ended up only appearing on a few episodes of Superstars, but they were given spots on House Shows and frequented the USWA. Also, WWF purchased the rights to the video library. So Cornette got a good job and got paid for his promotion. Not exactly going out of business when someone else buys your stuff, gives your employees positions, and puts you in the main event to save their promotion.

On the topics of Wrestling Recession, we are currently going through one now. Maybe AEW will take off, so WWE can get serious and we have some decent Wrestling again.

A bunch of gymnastics, none of them drew because the products sucked.

Once WCW got good in 96... it drew.

Once WWF got good in 98... it drew, then when they got really good at the end of 98 entering 99 with The Rock, they beat WCW.

SMW sucked so much/drew so low because they had the worst product.

It’s the same reason why ECW went out of business, they weren’t good enough to draw.

 

[Swamps]

A bunch of gymnastics, none of them drew because the products sucked.

Once WCW got good in 96... it drew.

Once WWF got good in 98... it drew, then when they got really good at the end of 98 entering 99 with The Rock, they beat WCW.

SMW sucked so much/drew so low because they had the worst product.

It’s the same reason why ECW went out of business, they weren’t good enough to draw.

Did you bother reading my post?

Anyway, SMW wasn't about "gymnastics". It was old school wrestling. You know Cornette wouldn't have booked that type of wrestling on his shows. Something tells me, you are seriously reaching.

Also, I don't think I mentioned ECW. However, they did not get a TV deal until 1999. This was a 3 year contract but TNN didn't honor the contract. ECW was even the networks highest rated show too. Was even shown in the early morning hours. You remember what happened at the end of 2000? WWE and USA parted ways, and WWE moved to TNN. Yeah, Vince pretty much sunk ECW with that move, and then purchased the company for peanuts. Let's forget that ECW was owed money from In Demand for their pay per views, San Francisco Toy Company for the action figures, etc. Its not hard for your liabilities to outweigh you assets when you have bad business partners not holding up their end of their agreements. Yes, Paul E takes a lot of slack for not paying wrestlers, but its hard to pay them, when you aren't getting paid neither. Let's also forget that ECW shows were selling out, and they couldn't keep their merchandise in stock because fans were purchasing it like hotcakes.

 

[Kross Rhodes]

ECW is another example, it sucked, no matter what excuses Paul Heyman makes it simply wasn’t good enough to generate enough people to watch, most didn’t like it, even if a niche bubble did.

I'll have to disagree with ECW. They were selling out their buildings in 2000. It went out because Paul sucked at business.

He lost his tv deal to WWE and then couldn't get Viewer's Choice to release his ppv profits. Had he had a decent lawyer ECW would have lived.

 

[Kross Rhodes]

Also, I don't think I mentioned ECW. However, they did not get a TV deal until 1999. This was a 3 year contract but TNN didn't honor the contract. ECW was even the networks highest rated show too. Was even shown in the early morning hours. You remember what happened at the end of 2000? WWE and USA parted ways, and WWE moved to TNN. Yeah, Vince pretty much sunk ECW with that move, and then purchased the company for peanuts. Let's forget that ECW was owed money from In Demand for their pay per views, San Francisco Toy Company for the action figures, etc. Its not hard for your liabilities to outweigh you assets when you have bad business partners not holding up their end of their agreements. Yes, Paul E takes a lot of slack for not paying wrestlers, but its hard to pay them, when you aren't getting paid neither. Let's also forget that ECW shows were selling out, and they couldn't keep their merchandise in stock because fans were purchasing it like hotcakes.

Like I was saying if Paul had a lawyer to force TNN to honor their deal and gotten Viewer's Choice to pay them for their PPV profits.

 

[RLStern]

I'll have to disagree with ECW. They were selling out their buildings in 2000. It went out because Paul sucked at business.

He lost his tv deal to WWE and then couldn't get Viewer's Choice to release his ppv profits. Had he had a decent lawyer ECW would have lived.

Even creatively, because they were tapping into pop culture an entire half a decade before WCW and WWF were, then when WCW and WWF tap into late 90s pop culture ECW becomes an out of touch grunge era/Morton Downey Jr show.

The WWF and WCW did pop culture better than ECW, they were already into the whole post grunge, nu-metal, teen-pop Tom Green, TRL, American pie pop culture while ECW was stuck in the grunge adult late night era of the 80s-mid 90s.

WWF and WCW were blockbusters while ECW remained that show you saw after 1:00am.

The Late 90s/Early 2000s weren’t about shock for shock sake like the 80s-mid 90s were, it was about reality based television.

In ECW sandman had no defining character, he was just a guy who drank beer, that’s a gimmick, whereas Stone Cold had a character who happened to drink beer, see the difference?

ECW was full of traits and sex, but no story and character behind them.

Sable didn’t just show her tits for no reason, there was a story, she was rebelling against her abusive husband Mero and later boss McMahon.

Trish didn’t just do sexual stuff like they did in ECW for no reason, she did it because they were part of a story, whether that be T&A, rebelling against the RTC, the McMahon affair,etc

One of the reasons why the Ruthless aggression era failed is because they started doing stuff with no story. Such as HLA, Bischoff just nonsensically put two lesbians making out with no character, no story, just a phony competition as an excuse

If ECW was in touch with society, they would have drawn, and if they drew they wouldn’t be in debt.

They should’ve drawn to the point where even if TV was stripped they could still have money to hold over a year.

Not only didnt they have enough money due to not drawing, but networks didn’t want it because it was out of touch.

People didn’t want hokey ultra violence with shitty to zero characters and story that was out of touch with society.

They wanted reality based television that was in touch with society, and that’s exactly what WCW and the WWF were.

Paul Heyman hates Vince Russo to this day, because Russo didn’t get to make WWF edgy until 5 years after ECW did, and Russo was more in touch with late 90s/early 2000s pop culture than Heyman and Bischoff could ever dream over.

Then it gets worse with Kreski, because unlike Russo this guy was outside the wrestling world completely.

 

[Kross Rhodes]

If ECW was in touch with society, they would have drawn, and if they drew they wouldn’t be in debt.

They did draw. Paul just couldn't get the ppv provider to pay him.

 

[Kross Rhodes]

If Tod Gordon or anyone smarter than Paul was running the books, ECW would have survived a few years longer or still be here.

If ROH and Impact can survive being the worst drawing companies ever, ECW can.

 

[RLStern]

They did draw. Paul just couldn't get the ppv provider to pay him.

Indemand PPV owed ECW $2.8 million

ECW had $8,881,435 in debt. They were going out of business regardless.

ECW officially bankrupt, officially done

H.H.G. Corporation, ECW’s parent company, officially filed for bankruptcy on the promotion’s behalf in New Jersey. It was revealed that ECW owes a total of $8,881,435 in unpaid bills fo…

www.morningjournal.com

 

[Kross Rhodes]

Indemand PPV owed ECW $2.8 million

ECW had $8,881,435 in debt.

ECW officially bankrupt, officially done

H.H.G. Corporation, ECW’s parent company, officially filed for bankruptcy on the promotion’s behalf in New Jersey. It was revealed that ECW owes a total of $8,881,435 in unpaid bills fo…

www.morningjournal.com

Most companies have debt, but it wouldn't have stopped ECW from running if he had gotten that $3M to continue operating.

Like I said, he was a terrible business man. ECW made enough to run at its level, but Paul continued to try to compete with WWE and WCW.

 

[RLStern]

If Tod Gordon or anyone smarter than Paul was running the books, ECW would have survived a few years longer or still be here.

If ROH and Impact can survive being the worst drawing companies ever, ECW can.

Those companies make more money than they spend.

Those companies drew less but stay within their budget and never grew.

ECW/Paul Heyman tried to FORCE an expansion, he was increasing the supply when there wasn’t enough demand, because he was out of touch with pop culture. So he had to be reliant on drawing, he didn’t draw so they folded.

ROH and Impact never tried to force an expansion and adjust to whatever numbers they have.

When TNA tried forcing an expansion with Monday Nights they quickly backtracked.

ECW/Paul Heyman was so out of touch and insistent on forcing an expansion that he put it out of business because it didn’t draw, he thought ECW was it... it wasn’t, ECW was doing 80’s/early 90’s late night syndication/Morton Downey Jr, it was out of touch by the late 90’s/early 2000’s.

He kept forcing it and it went out of business, people wanted WWF 1999-2002, or WCW 1997-2000, not ECW a product behind the times thinking it’s cool.l

 

[Kross Rhodes]

Those companies make more money than they spend.

You're making my point for me. If anyone smarter than Paul had the books, exactly.

 

[Swamps]

If Tod Gordon or anyone smarter than Paul was running the books, ECW would have survived a few years longer or still be here.

If ROH and Impact can survive being the worst drawing companies ever, ECW can.

Impact will never die. Its lasted longer than WCW did. If TNA would have kept running live TV shows they would have done a lot better.

 

[RLStern]

You're making my point for me. If anyone smarter than Paul had the books, exactly.

That’s what I’m saying, ECW drew in a niche but didn’t draw enough to be mainstream because it was out of touch with Late 1990’s/Early 2000’s pop culture.

Despite that they kept trying to force it to be mainstream when it wasn’t. If they wanted to be mainstream they needed to be like WWF 1999-2002/WCW 1997-2000, instead of 80’s/early 90’s Morton Downey Jr syndication.

He refused to do so, while insisting to make it mainstream when it wasn’t in touch with mainstream late 90s/early 2000’s pop culture, therefore he went out of business.

ECW was going to always go out of business if they continued to have the same out of date 80’s/early 90’s style with the amount of debt they had, it was gonna catch up to them, Heyman simply sped it up by forcing the issue.

He kept trying to force it to mainstream audiences, and they rejected it, it wasn’t in touch

 

[Hidden Blaze]

TNA/Impact used the Dragon Balls to wish for immortality.


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