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)!
3/13/2001: Fat Lady Warming Up (And It Ain't Thug!)
Well, I was idealistic enough to tape WNYW in New York City (my hometown) from 2 to 3 AM this Sunday morning. But as I expected, I woke up the next morning with an infomercial on my tape, and no WOW. (Damn you, Tempur-Pedic™ Swedish mattress and pillow!!)
Some folks in other cities did get a show with some re-run old matches, new commentary, and additional skits thrown in to keep developing angles (Danger-Riot feud, Lana swimsuit win, etc.) Some folks got a straight rerun of show #4. And a good number of folks got the same thing I did: the revelation that WOW is no longer on their local station.
[To go off on a tangent, I feel WOW is being very shady about these re-runs.
I mean, they don't have to publicize the fact that a show is a re-run -- other
programs don't, and WOW shouldn't have to either. But it's one thing to downplay
the fact that it's a re-run, and it's another thing altogether to try to present
it as if it's a new show! It is clear from the WOW web page, from the commentary
added to the re-runs, and even from some comments made by wrestlers on the message
board that WOW is trying to convince people that these are new matches!
I don't feel like I should need to point out how bush league this is. It smacks
of desperation, and insults viewers' intelligence. Anyway...]
Since I can't watch WOW anymore, you may wonder what the status of this page is. Here's how I figure it. If WOW officially folds, I will stop updating this page. If WOW starts up with new episodes, and no one is broadcasting them on a station I can get, I will also stop updating this page. There would be little point for me to continue commenting on wrestlers and matches that I can't see for myself. If WOW starts up with new episodes and they are on a station I can get, obviously I will continue with the page (and be in a state of pleasant shock). For now, while we're all in limbo, I will keep the page active with the usual weekly updates. I will use recaps written by others to do the small number of character page updates I will need to do.
Enough about the state of my page; back to the state of WOW. Returns are still coming in, and here's what we've got so far. WOW is apparently off the air in the nation's two biggest cities, Los Angeles and New York. And it has not been in Boston for a while now. But the damage doesn't seem to be limited to the huge cities, as folks in Denver, CO, Portland, OR, and Austin, TX also reported that they did not see WOW. The show did seem to air in many other markets. Keep in mind, though, that in a lot of places, WOW is on some pretty obscure stations. New York and L.A. were the rare cities in which WOW was on a station that everyone with a TV could see. So that makes their loss even worse in terms of potential audience. Losing L.A., the home base, also can't be the least bit good for attendance at future live shows.
Regardless of how you want to interpret all this, you at least have to acknowledge that the reports I detailed last week of WOW's financial troubles have a lot more credibility now. Additionally, some people who have called up their TV stations were told that the station had cancelled the show because "WOW is bankrupt." I doubt that is literally true (yet). But you'd certainly have to be the densest sort of mark to buy WOW's assurances that things are fine. They probably didn't make a profit on house shows to begin with, and now there aren't any. The PPV was a flop, and it's unlikely they will be able to do another in the foreseeable future. They can't possibly make much on merchandising. What revenues does WOW have? Really, they are totally dependent on TV. So it's pretty obvious that when they start losing major TV markets, it is big trouble. (By the way, any federation that is primarily dependent on TV is in trouble even in the best of times, but I'll probably get to that in a future column.)
Before you say it, I don't want to believe that WOW is finished. But neither do I want to believe that everything is super, if it isn't. I simply want to believe whatever is true, and that's why I research this stuff and try to find out as much as I can. At this point, the theory that best fits the evidence is the theory that WOW is in very serious financial trouble. Therefore, I am going to continue to believe this theory until I get evidence to the contrary -- evidence that is as convincing as the evidence it is trying to rebut. Convincing evidence would be an official announcement from WOW stating the PPV buyrate. Convincing evidence would be a complete listing of what stations are dropping and adding the program. Convincing evidence is not dropping vague hints that "we might start taping again in April", "we might get a cable deal", "we might tour Egypt"...whatever. They might fly on the fuckin' space shuttle, but I have no reason to think it's likely. I won't buy any of it unless WOW can come up with something concrete that proves that everyone in the world besides them was mistaken all this time.
(Oddly enough, considering how silent the organization has suddenly gotten, someone actually did get an answer from WOW about the Egyptian tour mentioned by McLane in show #22. There is no such thing. Either it is an angle which will be used on future shows to explain WOW's hiatus, or the mention of it was another short psychotic episode on McLane's part.)
Again, I urge everyone to keep writing to their local TV stations and do whatever you can to get, or keep, WOW on the air. For you Christians out there, note that St. Jude is the patron saint of miracles. And check this page weekly for whatever news I can dig up. It ain't over till the Fat Lady of Wrestling (no doubt a mutant relative of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) sings.
New comments this week for Lana Star, Patti Pizzazz, and Ice Cold.
No mailbag this week. YOUR LETTER COULD GO HERE!
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(e-mail: thatthing35@yahoo.com)