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)!
3/29/2001: W.W.T.R.D.? (What Would Teenage Riot Do?)
As I've discussed in the last three columns, WOW is in serious financial trouble. Scuttlebutt throughout the wrestling world, along with WOW's own financial statements, confirm that the company is bleeding money. Wrestling guru Dave Meltzer and Wrestleline's WOW recapper Christopher Zimmerman have both made it clear that they believe WOW is dead. WOW disagrees that the rate of blood loss is quite that severe. They have stated their plans to start up operations again at some unspecified future time, and to broadcast their show only on stations that are willing to broadcast it without payment from WOW.
If they can get the show on the air for free, that will decrease WOW's costs significantly. But WOW is so far from making a profit that further cuts no doubt will have to be made. What else needs to be done? Well, here's one writer's opinion. Of course, I have never run a wrestling promotion myself. Then again, I haven't run two promotions into the ground either...
1. Drop some wrestlers.
Let's kick right off with the most unpopular suggestion. By my count, at the time of the Feb. 4 PPV, WOW had 38 wrestlers. Now, the show is only on for one hour, once a week. That means that, in a typical week, eight to ten wrestlers are involved in matches. The math doesn't add up. If half the roster was cut loose, you would still have enough left over for WOW's needs. Prior to the acquisition of WCW, the WWF had about 52 (male) wrestlers on the roster... to fill six times as many hours of TV.
No, I don't particularly want to see roster cuts either. All the wrestlers have worked hard, and I happen to like a lot of them. But WOW with a smaller roster would still be better than no WOW at all. And let's face it, that might very well be the alternative.
And, let's face this reality as well...there's a very good chance that, overall, the show would be better as a result. One of WOW's chief problems has been the inability to develop characters beyond the level of superficial gimmicks. When you have fewer wrestlers to work with, presto, that means each character can get more time, making it much easier to develop them.
2. Get out of the Great Western Forum.
It makes absolutely no sense to rent an 18,000-seat arena when you're drawing a couple thousand fans at most to your events. Even the Feb. 4 pay-per-view event didn't succeed in selling out half of the Forum.
It's not cost-effective to rent a much bigger arena than you need. Furthermore, it makes the TV product less compelling. On TV, WOW crowds often come off as rather dead. This is to be expected when the arena is 10% full (and that's including people who are only there because they got free tickets and don't really know what's going on). It would come off a lot better on TV to have a full house of excited fans, even if that "house" only seats a couple hundred people.
3. In fact, get out of Los Angeles together.
Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the country. Equally importantly, it does not appear that WOW is going to be on TV in LA. That will further hurt WOW's already lackluster attendance if they stick around.
The organization should definitely move to a town where costs will be cheaper, and one where the show is on the air. The destination I would suggest is Indianapolis. This is McLane's home base; in fact, as a corporation, WOW is actually chartered in the state of Indiana. So there is a connection there, and it is not an expensive area at all.
Moving operations to another city could also help with point #1. I'm sure that a lot of the wrestlers are based in LA and would not want to move to Indianapolis. Only the ones who were serious about wrestling, rather than using WOW as a springboard to some other career, would be likely to follow the organization. WOW could then control the public relations damage of losing the others by saying "well, they chose to leave, we didn't make them."
4. Do a much better job of merchandising.
If you're not making any money off house shows or pay-per-views, the least you could do is sell some shirts. The performance of the WOW ShopZone has been slow at best, and nonexistent at worst. It took me a month to get my Riot shirt, and from all reports, that was fast service by ShopZone. Orders are currently so far backlogged that consumers would be well advised not to order anything at this time. Your order would be put at the end of a very, very long line.
If stuff isn't being sent out to the people who are willing to pay for it, it almost seems unnecessary to make any further comments about merchandising, but I will put the cart ahead of the horse nonetheless. WOW needs to drive people to the ShopZone. Show the merchandise on TV. Tell people that they can go to wowe.com and buy it. Better yet, have the wrestlers and other on-air personalities wear the merchandise on the show. They need to be shameless about shilling the merchandise, and do everything they can think of to shove it down people's throats.
There also needs to be a wider variety of merchandise available. They do have to be careful with this, because they can't afford to spend money to make stuff no one wants to buy. Marketing research needs to be done to make sure that they concentrate on materials the fans want. But, they need more than just T-shirts and hats. And while they're at it, they could make cooler-looking T-shirts.
All these things may still not be enough to save WOW, but as far as I can tell, they're necessary prerequisites.
No real news this week. Poison said at a public appearance that tapings are going to begin again in late August, which got a lot of marks' hopes up. I am tempted to speculate whether WOW can last in re-runs until then, but I won't. Suffice it to say that I feel that, by this point, WOW has forfeited the benefit of the doubt, and I'm not going to take any good news as being accurate unless WOW itself officially comes out and states it definitively. Let's also hope, for the health of the organization, that tapings resume a lot sooner than Poison speculated.
Poison also said that during the hiatus, the wrestlers are no longer practicing. That can't be a good thing. One of the major complaints about WOW was always the sloppiness of the wrestling; I can't exactly imagine it will be any better if the wrestlers are many months out of practice when shows resume. However, if the wrestlers are not getting paid -- and the smart money says that they aren't -- then I suppose you can't blame them for not practicing. Still weakens the product, though.
Last week, I said that in six weeks, WOW would have a chance to become the #2 federation. I didn't expect it to take only one week for WCW to exit the picture! WOW probably has the best television penetration of the remaining non-WWF feds, which would mean a lot more if they weren't in re-runs. Speaking of WCW, it's been reported that the new "WCW" program will be on from 11 pm-1 am on Saturday. That might well hurt WOW, which airs at that same time in many areas.
Two weeks ago, I suggested you support WOW by writing to TV stations. Last week, I suggested you give them money. But since you'd be well-advised not to buy merchandise or stock, and since there are no house shows or PPVs... well, there's no real way to give them money. So I changed my mind again. Write to TV stations telling them to keep WOW on or add it, as the case may be. You can also sign this petition.
Only character page update this week is the ever-popular Patti Pizzazz.
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(e-mail: thatthing35@yahoo.com)