Scott Keith

Giving the fans what they want.

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Hey man, watched Crown Jewel, thought it was all right. But what jumped out at me is that when they're in Saudi they seem to have figured out how to book a show for a happy crowd.


Home town guy gets a win, faces go over in most of the big matches, book some underdogs to go over, etc. 

Why are they so incapable of doing that on their domestic shows? 

Guess we need some oil barons to finance domestic shows as well.  

Vince yelling at people on commentary

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Renee Young shared a familiar story of Vince yelling at her like crazy over her headset over something minor.  We have heard stories like this from other commentators including JR and Mick Foley.  Who is Vince to yell at anyone when he himself was terrible
at commentating and the WWE commentary team in general has been awful for years?   Isn't this just another sign that Vince has lost his mind and needs to go?

Vince wasn't terrible, he knew exactly how to phrase and put over exactly what he wanted to.  That's why he yells at people now, because he can't be out there doing it himself anymore.  He just goes about it horribly wrong and apparently doesn't trust anyone ever to get it right.  

Queen’s Crown cheapened?

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When someone like Zelina Vega, whose record was 6-42 before the tournament, wins the Queen's Crown, does that elevate the wrestler or cheapen the tournament?


Booking everything to be 2:00 matches cheapens the tournament.  Vega winning is just par for the course.  The whole thing was a complete waste and having her win it in Saudi Arabia is just another tone deaf move in a series of them.  

Another thing about the Demos…

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This whole Demos discussion has me upset & I blame the WWE & AEW stans equally. 

I mean, can't we just enjoy both of them?

Maybe you can help pit it to rest Scott. Final question about the Demos: 

Better or worse than the Road Warriors?
Better in the ring, but the Warriors drew better with males 18-49 so they’re the real winners.  

Peak NXT vs AEW

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Mr. Keith,

I am writing to you once again with another pressing question about professional wrestling:

When NXT was at its absolute peak in terms of creativity and in-ring talent, could it have successfully competed against AEW on Wednesday nights?

As always, your opinion on this matter is greatly appreciated.

With warm personal regards,

Dr. Ashley Spider, PhD

I think the peak NXT crew with Undisputed Era and the like could have competed, yeah.  

The Final Exchange, bro!

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Vince Russo tweeted out today that he and Vince McMahon had their FINAL EXCHANGE (caps his of course) yesterday.  How do you suppose that went?

I imagine that he asked to be put in charge of NXT 2.0 and then Vince had to end the meeting when HHH immediately suffered another 7 cardiac events.  

Is it the Demos?

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So gonna just leave this here and see what happens. I know there are alot of Ad executives and AEW stock holders here on the blog who basically get all their talking points from Uncle Dave on why every thing is great when it comes to AEW's ratings. Same Uncle Dave who has been tweeting about why viewers don't matter and it's all about the demos like he is a 12 year old girl defending Taylor Swift's love life. Here is the proof that before AEW was around to defend Uncle Dave ways also saying it was all about the viewers, not just a demo, when it came to crapping on WWE. He tweeted and talked about it shown in the link below. Yes I get WWE touts high demos, people have always talked about demos, and that's what networks want for advertising. But its not this end all be all that people use it to decide wins in this fake rating competition. 

At this point AEW will probably never come close in viewers but they can compete in the Demos so that's what's important now. And obviously like cousin Scott Uncle Dave has a real sweet spot for his nephew Tony. And before attacking the source Dave himself has said while he thinks the guy who runs this Twitter is annoying he usually brings accurate receipts to prove his points.


Ratings are determined by overall viewers, ad rates are determined by the demos.  Why is this supposed to be some kind of “gotcha” moment on Dave?  The anti-Meltzer crew is weirdly obsessive.

MAKE UFC GREAT AGAIN!

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Hey member Dan The Beast Severn former NWA Champion who used
to fight in the fake and boring UFC? Well, I think it’s time again that pro wrestlers
branch out again and I have selected some that I think would make UFC fun and
exciting to watch.  

 

1.      
Roman Regins-I mean duh. He is the current the Head
of the Table and the reigning Universal Champion! He has the superman punch,
spear and guillotine choke at his disposal! He also beat The Undertaker at Wrestlemania!
Come on! He would go undefeated in every fight with having those credentials.  

2.      
Kenny Omega- He is the current  AEW
Champion and wrestled in New Japan. That is 10 times more real than UFC! He
also has had many 5 star matches! Surely he would dominate UFC with 5 star
fights!

3.      
Bryan Danielson-He beat Triple H at
Wrestlemania! He retired and came back and picked up right where he left off!
He also has the flying knee. Jorge Masvidal has nothing on this guy!

4.      
Chris Jericho-Have you seen his Judas Effect?
Dude could knock out anyone with that move!

5.      
Brock Lesnar-He’s the 1st man to beat
The Undertaker at Wrestlemania! I mean surely that makes him a top contender in
the UFC!

What say you Scott? 


Oh!  I know!  AEW is featuring these new guys called American Top Team and I think they'd be pretty good in UFC.  

About the Demo….

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So the talk of the wrestling world is about AEW beating WWE in their head to head battle in terms of the coveted 18-49 demographic.  I understand why Tony Khan, TNT, and even AEW wrestlers consider this a victory.  I also understand why Vince McMahon, FOX and WWE wrestlers would be upset.  But after reading all of the comments on social media and this blog over the past couple of days, I do have to wonder:  Why do FANS consider this a victory for AEW and not for WWE?

Again, I totally understand that those in the television industry don't care, but from a fandom perspective wouldn't you consider “more people watched” as the victory here?  This isn't intended to be pro-WWE or anti-AEW (both have their pros and cons).  I do get why the executives have the mindset they have, but it seems weird to me that fans are arguing that WWE lost because the segment of their audience means less ad money for…..FOX?

So why did WWE have to extend the show by 30 minutes and make it ad-free in the first place?  They started that fight and it backfired on them.  

WWE cared too much?

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Hey Scott-

So the fact that WWE put Daniel Bryan on the shelf for an extended period of time due to the fact that he “wasn’t cleared to wrestle”. Then he was back doing all of the same stuff he used to do not only the last few years in WWE but also now in AEW. Was this due to the fact that he just needed time to heal and WWE was doing right by him or was it more they were overly cautious? Did they just say “eff it” and allow him back?

Did they WWE do him a favor to let him heal or was there some underlying reason to not have perhaps the most over guy in years on the bench?

Edge coming back makes me wonder if they just relaxed their standards and what not. 

Your thoughts?


Yup, that's WWE in a nutshell, caring too much about the well being of their talent.  

Actually I think they switched main doctors if I'm not mistaken.  Good thing they don't have Dr. James Andrews in charge, people would just tape up their neck after a concussion and work through it.  

Parker Boudreaux Can Lose?

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So what the hell happened to Parker Boudreaux? Seriously, shaved head and Nailz's old get-up and stalking Joe Gacy of all people?

Did he piss Vince off shilling himself online with his own self-made moniker (Destroyer of Gods) before he was even officially introduced on TV? Or did he piss people off backstage? Or was Parker's tattoos, including puppy prints too much for even Vince to take seriously?

Or is Parker's current state being Vince's attempt to personally recreate Dexter Lumis, especially as Dexter is now officially transitioning into the Nash to Johnny Gargano's Shawn Michaels? And if so, why freaking emulate Nailz? Just put Parker in a zentai suit to hide his tattoos, give him a Kane style mask, and have him rampage about until Gacy manages to calm him down, at which point he's basically using Parker as his own personal attack dog monster? If you want him to be a monster, at least go the Kane route if you are convinced no one will take Parker seriously once they see the puppy prints. 

Jesse 

You're much more worked up about this than I am.  Who's Parker, the bald guy? 

Bischoff with the hot take

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https://www.sescoops.com/2021/10/eric-bischoff-thinks-tony-khan-should-shut-up-and-wrestle/
Yeah, let's listen to the guy who was fired by VINCE MCMAHON for not understanding the modern wrestling business in 2019.  Eric and Roman Reigns should do a podcast together called “Tweets Aging Badly”.  It's not the 90s, they can't just put Dynamite on Monday nights opposite RAW.  Plus they already put a show on against WWE and won.  That's why NXT is on Tuesdays and got gutted into whatever it's supposed to be now.  

What went wrong?

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Hello Scott,


reading how you hyping and loving most of what AEW throughs at the wall and trolling hardcore WWE fans and at the same time seeing how much fun you have reviewing elder/former WWE content and loving it…
What went wrong?
Yes RAW and NXT 2.0 drags the whole WWE experience down, at the same time NXT UK and most of SD and their PPV have some great quality and content. It is great to have a bigger chance of watching what you want to see…Minoru vs. Brian is the best example…and not depending on Vince and his monions to give us what we maybe want to see.
Is it about time to get WWE at that point again before the 83 weeks?
Or can we just enjoy having great wrestling at our fingertips and choose what we want to see?
Do we need WWE as the Main Event?
What made you and a whole of wrestling fans go mad at them?
Is it just Vince or does WWE need to hit rock bottom to get up?
Or has all the all the money the network and its selling to Peacock made them just lazy? I am glad they have that network and some indie, uk and old school content.

Greetings and a good week from Austria…(i am glad our WWE Network is still not affected by Peacock by the way)

From WWE's perspective, it's mostly that they're so, so, so very lazy now that they have all the money.  Not just on the main shows, but in stuff like the WWE Network, which has been around for 7 years now and is still lacking most of the basic content that should be on there for people who want a meaningful archive of wrestling history.  It's not that I want MORE wrestling to watch because I have more than enough in my life, but I want to be excited about what I watch at the very least. 

Would Flair still be employed?

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If Flair hadn't left WWE shortly before the disastrous Dark Side of the Ring episode, do you think WWE would've kept him on the payroll? They already knew about the allegations. Seems Flair an a really ill-timed career decision. 
I suspect WWE knew what was coming and decided to get ahead of the story.  

diminishing returns

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Morning, Scott –

 

Wrestling has a well-documented history of wrestlers overstaying their welcome or tarnishing their legacy – Goldberg being the latest victim to such circumstance.

 

Hogan’s legacy dive bombed as well (for different reasons), and Ric Flair is a parody of himself at this point.

 

Who are some that got out and never hurt their legacies?

HBK, Austin, and the Rock come to mind – and CM Punk would be on this list if he hadn’t come back but he’s still performing at a high enough level that he will probably stay on it.

 

Austin did kind of overstay his welcome though.  I think Rock is the perfect example.  Also Cena, he got out when he knew that he wasn’t at that level anymore.  

Black Saturday Part 2: Electric Boogaloo??

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Hello Scott,


Now that Ruby Soho v. The Bunny tied Roman's Main Event Contract Signing in the demo, how long until we get Black Saturday Part 2, with Tony Khan welcoming us to Friday Night Smackdown and throwing it to squash matches taped from Universal Studios?

Hail Cobra,
Tomax

Oh man, Bruce Prichard is gonna be sleeping on the couch tonight!  

“Will he get him now? YES HE DOES!”

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Hi Scott, we're coming up on the 30th anniversary of Dustin Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat vs The Enforcers from Clash of Champions 17 I believe it was in 1991. And it's still probably the greatest “classic formula” tag team match I've ever seen. In terms of an angle payoff, I have it ranked right there with HTM-Warrior in terms of execution. And the match, it's perfect…Steamboat's selling, cutting the ring off and the switching by Arn and Larry (not to mention their awesome selling), and Dustin finding his groove as a hot tag guy, it's an awesome piece of business. 


Where does it rank on your list of all time favorites?

Quite high.  I’ve watched it a lot of times and it was really a moment that turned me around on Dustin.  I mostly stopped hating him after that.  

Roman on AEW

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Hi Scott,

your thoughts on Roman Reigns’ opinion of AEW?

“I don’t see the real competition with AEW because I think their fan
base legitimately is a hardcore fan base. So there’s like a ceiling and a built-in ground to that viewership. The WWE is trying to connect with everyone. We’re trying to connect with the mainstream. We’re trying to pull in the casual fan. We’re trying to engage
the new viewer, while also servicing our hardcore fan base and give them compelling stories to fulfill them as well. I don’t know if I’ve said it before, but I’ve said it before, when the audience is probably the biggest character in your show, that’s strange
to me. You’ll hear it all the time, the reviews and the comparisons. I think because they are the new kids on the block, they’re the cool kids in town, I guess, because of how premature and how novel it kind of still is, I think they’re still being babied
by these hardcore wrestling fans.”


Roman needs to not talk about this stuff.  He comes off much better that way.  

What if

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What if Steamboat and Rude don’t get injured and forced into retirement?  What do you think their roles would’ve been in WCW?  Do they ever sniff the main event again? 
Rude for sure.  He would have been multiple time World champion.   Until he gets Hulked. Steamboat I doubt.  He probably would have jumped back and forth for a bit in the wars and retired multiple times based on how well his gym was doing. 

WWE House Show Crowds?

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Hey Scott,

I attended a house show here in Rio Rancho, New Mexico last night and I must say it was a great show with a women's fatal 4-way being the surprise highlight. However, what really stuck out was the live crowd. It was a near packed house and the crowd was
far hotter then most of their live television crowds. 

It just got me thinking, would WWE benefit from doing television away from the bigger markets and doing them from markets they don't visit often because the crowd was great and not dead like some of the more saturated markets? I'm curious because I remember
a time when they did the most unique markets for television back in the mid-late 90s.

It might benefit but probably not as a short term fix, and so I can’t see them trying it.  Plus USA wants big cities and big arenas.