In this weekly column, I will comment on the past week's goings-on in WOW, and whatever else it occurs to me to discuss :-) I also hope that a big part of the column will be printing and responding to your e-mails. So please send them in (the address is thatthing35@yahoo.com)!
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5/9/01: Letters!
First off, a correction. In its last financial report, WOW reported $105,000 of pay-per-view revenue. I originally divided this by the $20 price to get an estimate of 5,250 buys. But I forgot that half of the money goes to the cable companies and the InDirect service. So 10,500 buys is a good estimate for the Feb. 4 PPV. This means that WOW was technically right when they said that Internet reports underestimated the buyrate; the Net reports were between 4,000 and 8,000 buys. But WOW was arguing that 20,000 was a low estimate, so in my humble opinion, they were still full of bologna. 10,000 buys is a buyrate of 0.023, if you're curious. But you probably don't need a buyrate to know that $105,000 was not the kind of financial windfall WOW needed. Thanks to BigBob for pointing this out, and Dave Meltzer for pointing it out again later the same day :-)
This week, I got some truly superb letters from other thoughtful WOW fans. I'm sick of hearing myself talk anyway ;-), so this week's column will be a mailbag.
Bob Porrazzo writes:
"There's supposed to be an actor's strike in July."
Yup. It will not affect WOW... wrestlers are not in the AFTRA union that other TV actors are in.
"If the strike does happen, can you come up with a special column on it? And will it be the lightning in a bottle for WOW? As it would be, there would be no new "ER", "Friends" and the like. None of these shows I watch as I feel prime time TV is full of nothing. At least with cable if there's a sports event I'll tune in or watch "Match Game" on The Game Show Network. Shows like the one's I mentioned, in addition to Leno and Letterman will be forced into repeats. Only reality shows like Survivor and new ones coming on the horizon are immune as they are not scripted (Though I feel there is some scripting in those shows myself)."
Yup, stations could be scrambling for programming if there is a lengthy actors' strike (especially since I think people are already sick of reality shows). Since WOW is "strike-proof programming", an actors' strike can only help them.
Now, keep in mind that everyone has seen this strike coming for many months now, and it still wasn't enough to save WCW, which would have provided four hours a week of strike-proof programming. And of course, the strike may not even happen, or may be very short in length. Finally, let's keep in mind that stations set their schedules a good amount of time in advance. It's not like they're going to go into the fall with no idea what they're going to put on the air. They have probably already made whatever contingency plans they felt they needed to make in the event of a strike.
All that said, the actors' strike possibility can't hurt WOW, and it might help.
Xenophobe first writes in to tell us that WOW has apparently returned to Peoria, IL. This is actually not the first time I have heard of the show re-appearing in certain areas. I don't really understand why that would happen. My best theory is that this happens when the infomercials that replaced WOW decide to stop purchasing time, and the stations have nothing better to put on the air. I certainly find it hard to believe that WOW decided to start paying to have re-runs put back on the air... especially since when this happens, the WOW show usually goes back off the air in the next couple weeks. Anyway, Xenophobe then comments on last week's article about what went wrong, and points out that I left off the swimsuit contest:
"Yes, the swimsuit contest; that bane of WOW. How could you have forgotten that utter voting fiasco, with rules changing with each passing day, votes wiped out, a crooked system of voting where one person has unlimited voting power, women's pictures posted that weren't even in the contest, women in the contest who had no photos posted at all, and so much more?"
That actually sums it up much better than I ever managed to :-)
"It was pure T&A, which I guess was okay, since it wasn't stooping to the WWF level, and it wasn't the main attraction, though it was shilled for big time. But that is part of the big problem, as well. We were constantly informed that it would end at the Pay Per View. When the Pay Per View came, they only showed SHOTS of the wrestlers, and not the actual wrestlers themselves posing live, like we were led to believe."
That is true, and I was expecting them to pose in the ring too. But I liked it better the way they did it, and I would expect most others probably felt the same way.
"And that was it. No winner was announced that day. So the T&A people didn't get what they wanted and those of us (like myself) anxious for it to end didn't get that either."
Well, the original rules stated that the voting would begin on the day of the PPV. Although they ended up opening the voting early, I don't think that implied to most people that it would then end on the day of the PPV.
"And it only got worse. As I watched my tape, I witnessed the horror that became of it all. They informed us before a commercial that a pre-taped presentation of the awarding of the unannounced winner of the contest was going to be shown. The scene was pretty bad, with McLane standing with the check and a mic, addressing the camera with most, but not all, of the entries of the contest on either side of him. McLane mentioned that a "last second surge in the voting," or something like that, determined Lana Star to be the winner. I'd hate to sound arrogant and say, "I told you so" but what I warned people on the original WOW board when the contest first started became reality. None of the real voters' opinons really mattered; they designed it so that their pick could get the prize. Jade was right in the middle of the shot, and she acted completely shocked that the winner wasn't her, despite the fact that no opportunity was ever given for people to vote on her!"
Actually, I think you could vote for Jade, she just didn't have any pictures on the site, but, yeah.
"So where did this end up? Ice Cold showed up and attacked Lana for being the winner. Here is what really tanks this contest for me. First off, if Ice Cold had been watching the polls, she would have noticed that she was one of the least voted for contestants. How could she possibly think she would win it? It would have made more sense to involve one of the more popular wrestlers at the polls, like Heather Steele or the person who was the rightful winner according to the polls, Summer. One of those two could have been declared the winner, and then Lana would get mad and attack her, leading to a nice little feud that would help elevate Heather or Summer. But instead we get another pairing of Lana and Ice Cold? That is the second big problem here. Pay Per Views are supposed to be where feuds end, not where they are simply continued (like Roxy and Slam's feud was). The Lana/ Ice Cold feud should have ended the moment Ice lost her hair. Since Poison turned her back to Ice, it would have made sense for a fued to develop there. Immediately after the PPV, a fued was brewing between Lana and Randi Rah Rah over Patti Pep. Why did they try to saddle Ice Cold with Lana when she is already involved in another angle? It was WOW's greatest mess, in my opinion. I hope you will post your own thoughts on this stuff."
Well, you're absolutely right about all that. And you even forgot to mention some other flaws with the angle. For one thing, Ice Cold claimed that she lost the contest because Lana shaved her head. That made no sense, because Ice had hair both on the pics on the site and in her swimsuit video shown at the PPV. Also, I can't see how it accomplishes much to do yet another "Lana is vain" angle. I agree that they should have just announced that the winner was whoever actually won, and not made it an angle at all.
However, I don't think that anything that aired after Feb. 4 really hurt WOW, because I think the goose was cooked by then. Right after the PPV, everything shut down, and it seems clear that the poor performance of the PPV was the nail in the coffin. The shows that aired after the PPV had been taped before it. Even if those last three shows had been incredible, I don't think it would have made any difference... they were already closing up shop.
I shared most of these thoughts with Xeno by e-mail, so I'll yield the last word:
"After thinking about it for a bit, I think the swimsuit mess had an impact, though you are correct that it wouldn't have mattered much without it. I think its impact was on the more loyal fans that had followed the show for a long time. The constant toying with the rules disillusioned a lot of people on the message board, and by not heeding the to democracy, and screwing around with the actual winner, they basically cheated their own fans. I wasn't watching the message board at the time, but if I were someone who had taken the contest seriously, and really believed that I was making a difference by voting, I would have been offended by the whole thing. You can't lie to your fans and expect them to stay.
"But regarding the Pay Per View, I wonder how many people ordered it for the contest and were less than pleased when they got nothing by pre-taped clips. False advirtisement is a logical complaint, perhaps enough to demand a refund if one is bold enough to present the case to the cable company. Now, I doubt if many people did that, and indeed the production values and fast matches were the deadliest of the promotion's mistakes, and reviews I saw of the show didn't bother to mention it, probably because those people didn't know much about WOW. Still, when WOW failed to deliver what was probably the easiest of things to present and then flopped, how does that look to investors and the cable companies? What's more, how does that look to the fans that love the show? Not too good."
Dan writes:
"Now I disagree with you original editorial on WWF, as I am a major WWF fan."
Oh, I am too! I was just saying that they have a certain style -- one that even I, as a fan, get tired of sometimes. So, you would think there would be room for another fed with another style and different strengths.
"I also disagree totally with your opinions of Ice Cold who was easily my favorite. Although maybe I was blinded by the fact I think she is hot, I really thought she was a great performer and worked well with Poison."
I think she's hot too :-) But in the ring, I think she is rather limited. And no one could get over with the impossibly corny lines they gave her (which is not her fault, of course.)
"Incidentally, her and Poison were in my opinion the only reason the whole Lana Star/Haircut thing was halfway bearable. They carried Lana and Patti in my opinion. Making the two of them the ones who Lana feuded with was in my opinion the closest to a good idea they ever had. Of course a better one would be to not do the angle at all but I digress:)"
Yup :-)
"That being said I agree with most of your important points. I, like you, saw a lot of potential in WOW. It had decent wrestlers, especially considering all but two were rookies, most of whom probably never thought prior to trying out of ever getting into that business."
I know Riot had some prior wrestling experience, but I think your characterization is on the whole quite accurate.
"It had an emphasis on the wrestling end of the product over the storyline aspect, more so then WWF in my opinion."
With everyone except Lana, that is probably true...
"They also like you said did try to present women in a positive light and with the exception of a few costumes showing a little too much cleavage they didn't even come close to the kind of exploitation WWF and WCW had been doing for years towards women. I really was hoping that WOW would become a respected alternative to the big two and it had the potential in that it offered a more family friendly program as well as trying to do something different.
"I don't know how familiar you were with GLOW (if like your alias implies you are a teen you may be too young to remember. Although you did seem familiar with it.) But it came out smack dab when puberty was beginning for me and so I remember it well."
It was on in my area, and I did see it as a kid. I only have vague visual memories... I remember it was filmed in a huge hotel convention room or something that made the crowd and wrestlers look microscopic... I remember cheesy costumes and lots of rolling around on the floor... I remember a wrestler trying to hypnotize another wrestler, always a great angle. I certainly didn't remember specific gimmicks or anything; I had to look it up to find out that many of the gimmicks were similar to WOW. I'll just shut up here, because your description is hilarious:
"It was a federation (and I use that term VERY loosely) that featured T&A, wrestlers with absolutely no talent save maybe two (again I am generous to say even two.) who even looked halfway like they could wrestle. It featured stupid characters that make WOW's look good and were played by the worst actors in the world. What's more the one thing that I will never forget (and man have I tried to) is that over half of each program featured the wrestlers telling jokes that were the most god awful jokes I have ever heard. It amazed me that in the two years my affiliate carried it I head them tell hundreds of those damn things and not once, NOT ONE TIME did they ever even make me chuckle much less even laugh. You know the "Why did the chicken cross the road" joke? Lets just say they WISHED their jokes were that funny. Why they even felt the need to tell one joke after another rather then show something that had to do with wrestling is beyond me, but the fact that they were so consistently bad they made you want to vomit is just pathetic. And as I said these jokes were over half the damn program. I also remember they had like 3 music videos that they cycled through every week because apparently we couldn't get enough of them. They were slightly less annoying then their jokes. They also were the only wrestling fed to have summer reruns, reruns when it wasn't sweeps week and all the other makings of a sitcom airing which sure didn't help what little credibility they had. I also remember the fans cheering the heels. Literally, every single heel got huge cheers and every face got monster boos. It was funny actually, but it showed how little the fans cared about the wrestlers, I don't even thing they liked the heels any better they were just being smart asses."
Oh, man... that is some funny stuff.
"T&A is the only reason that show lasted as long as it did and personally the lull in women's wrestling that happened in the early 90's until Sable came about I actually think had a lot to do with WOW dragging their name through the mud. Ivory has all my respect in the world to be able to get out from under that piece of crap and become a WWF woman's champion. I am a fan of hers for that alone.
"That being said, when I watched WOW for the first time I honestly expected to dislike it. After all when it came from the guy who gave us GLOW how could I expect anything good from someone who gave us the product above. Funny thing was, it was good. In fact it was real good. WOW really tried to give us a show with competent wrestlers that was treated like a real wrestling federation. It also (and this amazed me the most) tried to give us family friendly programming. I also was impressed in that they actually tried to sell Terri Gold and Bronco Billie as role models to children. Now I never for a second bought it, but considering McLane was once famous for Crotch Shots and T&A the fact that they even tried it said allot that they were trying to change the image they had with GLOW."
Well, yes and no. I mean, no one else bought it either... can you really give them credit for paying lip service to a concept that they didn't truly deliver on? I agree that WOW was less exploitative than GLOW, but I don't think it was because of Terri Gold-like characters. I think it was less exploitative because it was presented as legitimate wrestling, "just like the guys do." That in my opinion is true empowerment... treating women as equal to men... not setting up some sweet, demure woman as the champ. And for what it's worth, if they had delivered on the "family friendly" thing, I think it would have flopped even worse. Whether one likes it or not, I don't think there is a market for that anymore. Especially in middle of the night time slots...
"In fact the webmaster of wrestlecrap.com, a site that rags big time on bad gimmicks, actually gave WOW a very positive review even after admitting he watched it expecting it to be something he would add to the page. Now a guy who watched it WANTING to rag it as crap was impressed. That says a lot to me that they could on at least two occasions win over people who expected to hate it. They really should be proud of themselves for that alone."
Wrestlecrap is king. I still expect some WOW gimmicks and angles to make it in there though ;-) But yeah, I think it is fair to say that if you watched a few shows, you at least saw the potential.
"Still, I knew it was doomed from the first time I saw it.The sad fact was that the wrestlers, although better then most of the WWF woman's division and looking more like athletes then most of them, were still almost all rookies and hardly performed to the level of the main eventers in the WWF and WCW. They did great for rookies and showed improvement, they alsofor the most part seemed to really be giving it their all and performing to the best of their abilities. Still, if the end result is much less spectacular wrestling then the big two then the average fan will not care."
That's exactly, precisely right. Sadly, only those who watched regularly saw the potential and the improvement that was being made... and if you don't like your first taste, you probably won't come back for more.
"Also the angles and gimmicks absolutely sucked. The cartoon like characters were reminiscent of the mid 80's/early 90's WWF stable and if you remember the WWF suffered allot during that time largely for that reason. As for the angles, I think the bookers and writers truly aimed to give us top quality entertainment but they just didn't have the talent. As you said, anyone who thought giving the title to an outdated character like Terri Gold for a the whole run of the fed, that was one other problem WOW had that they didn't learn from, and push talents like Patti Pizzazz and Lana Star to the moon clearly didn't have a grasp on what wrestling fans wanted. The fact the ones with the most talent on the mic and/or in the ring got less of a push (with the exception of Riot and Danger) drove the point home even more."
Yup, yup, yup.
"The infrequent title changes by the way are another thing GLOW had a problem with. The only time a title would ever change hands was if the current champ was leaving the show after the season, they would switch it in the season finale. I really think that in four years they only changed their champions like, 3 times. This and the cartoony gimmicks also told me that WOW hadn't entirely learned from their past mistakes."
Well, those aren't the only problems from the GLOW era that have not been addressed. You say that in GLOW, the heels were way more over than the faces... well, WOW has the same exact thing going on. And WOW did have the closing joke at the end of each episode, but everyone hated it and they eventually got rid of it. It can drive ya nuts, because they seem to be listening to the fans about little things like the closing joke... but then when you look at the big picture, it almost seems like McLane hasn't learned a damn thing in 15 years. If he can somehow get WOW back in business, he will need to start listening about the big things too, or else he won't be back for long.
"The fact was for all their good intents, and unlike GLOW I think they did have good intentions, they simply had lousy bookers. On a final note none of the main stream wrestling magazines and/or websites really ever acknowledged or covered it. It wasn't because they weren't aiming to be a true wrestling federation because clearly they were, it was because everyone knew it was from the genius that gave us GLOW. No wrestling fan who ever remembered glow had any reason to expect anything but crap and T&A so no one really cared when word of it coming out was announced. Why would anyone thing that something that was spun from the same web as the biggest back eye in wrestling history was worth taking seriously? Had the wrestling fandom hyped it more it might have gotten them some more attention and bought some time but ultimately it was a joke before it even launched because it always has that connection to GLOW and in the end their was no way they could shake it in time to get the attention from mainstream wrestling they needed."
I can't say that McLane's involvement was good for WOW's prestige; clearly, it was not. But, there are other federations that are not being run by McLane, that do have TV like WOW did, and still don't get much coverage. BET had that urban wrestling thing... no one covered that. There was that WXO thing... they had TV too... no one covered them either. I think that lack of coverage is a result of lack of popularity and lack of perceived merit. I don't think it was primarily because of McLane's history with GLOW.
"I would like to believe that WOW will somehow make a comeback but I just don't see it happening. It is a damn shame because I think given another year and a better booker it would have surprised everyone but that just wasn't something that was likely to happen:( It is a shame, looks like the underdog lost again. The one good thing that could come of WOW in the long run is that the wrestling world now has allot of trained talent out there without work. I personally think Riot, Danger, Beckie the Farmer's Daughter, Roxy Powers, Jungle Grrrl, and Wendi Wheels could all add a lot to any wrestling federation's women's division although most of them would need new gimmicks. Also, unlike most woman talent to enter the WWF they wouldn't need to be trained first. I hope WWF, or another fed should a #2 emerge, will be smart enough to capitalize on the opportunity should WOW not come back."
You can be sure that, if things get bleaker for WOW, there will be a future column In This Very Space discussing each gal's WWF chances, so I won't get into that now. They will need to be trained, though; let's not get carried away. No one in WOW is a polished ring performer. And unfortunately, they've now all lost a few months of development time.
"On a side note WOW ironically can take comfort in one thing. When WCW and ECW both folded for the two or three weeks that WOW was still on the air they were able to say that they were the #2 wrestling federation in the world. Granted it was by default but the idea still cracked me up when I realized it."
WOW was actually in re-runs before WCW folded, but hey, almost :-)
Please e-mail me with
your thoughts about anything WOW-related!
(e-mail: thatthing35@yahoo.com)