Straight Shooting - Issue #105
Since 1997 - The Standard Bearer For Wrestling Columns
by Fritz Capp
For PWBTS.com
February 04, 2001
The XFL : For Better or Worse it's Here To Stay
The initial marketing and the first night of the XFL has come and gone and to be quite
honest there are many varied opinions as to what really transpired. One thing is to be
sure, as with any other sporting event one cannot predict what will happen.
This was obvious as the XFL's first televised game had the Las Vegas Outlaws pitted
against the New York/New Jersey Hitmen in a dismal game which actually looked more
sophomoric than it did big league instead of it's other game (which they finally went to
in the fourth quarter) which had the Orlando Rage against the Chicago Enforcers that
looked to be on more of the level of game that at least I myself was expecting from a
Vince McMahon run company.
Browsing the Internet in the aftermath of the first XFL broadcast has brought a wealth of
praise and criticism from every walk of life. From sportscasters to ministers everyone
seems to have an opinion on what they saw.
Associated Press columnist Howard Fendrich saw fit to dissect the show, throwing
disparaging remarks at what he saw throughout his column. Over on the MSNBC site, an
uncredited Associated Press column took it upon itself to criticize Jesse Ventura's role
in the announcing booth. iWon.com took the more politically correct route and just gave a
Reuters account of both games, which was basically covering the games. Les Carpenter, an
MSNBC contributor and someone who covers "pro" football for the Seattle Times
was also less than gracious when writing about the XFL. He refers to the Orlando team as
the Orlando (ROID) Rage, claims that we need another football league about as much as it
needs a monster truck hall of fame and finds many places to shoot his interesting and
sometimes biased barbs at the XFL, the WWF and Vince McMahon.
Now if the XFL games all looked like the Las Vegas/NY/NJ game I am afraid I would have to
be inclined to agree with some of their assessments. Watching that game gave me the
impression of a High School National Championship game at worst, a poor college game at
best. The play was poor, the cheerleaders were defiantly not the caliber of what I was
expecting and some of the things I saw (like He Hate Me across the back of a jersey) in
actuality turned me off. It was less than a professional debut. But then they switched to
the Orlando/Chicago game. Here there were 35,000+ fans, two teams that looked like they
knew how to play the game and while some people will vilify me for saying this, Jim Ross
and Jerry Lawler doing an outstanding job on commentary. I actually got kind of mad that
we were not given this whole game instead of the other one. But it does present that the
fact that there are a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong with the XFL, which is
to be expected on it's inaugural night.
One thing is to be sure, that this league will not fall into the financial trappings of
the USFL. There are no Steve Young's drawing $40,000,000.00 contracts. But then again it
will be hard pressed to find a wealth of talent like the USFL had also. The USFL accounted
for many great players who eventually wound up in the NFL. Can the same thing be said
about the XFL? That question can only be answered in time.
The premise of the XFL is to once again give the kind of football that our fathers grew up
watching. You know the kind of football I am talking about. The kind that allowed Joe
Namath and the New York Jets to pull one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl or football
history. The kind that we always hear about when talking about the legends of yore. The
Y.A.Tittles, the Sonny Jorgenson's, the "Mean" Joe Greene's and the
"Hacksaw" Reynolds. The kind of football that when someone was hit, they felt it
but they got back up and played the next play. Not todays's NFL players who are protected
by every rule imaginable and are so used to living La Vida Loca due to their huge and
mostly undeserved multi-million dollar contracts that they would not be able to take a
true pounding from the dreaded Pittsburgh "Steel Curtain" for one quarter let
alone for four. The question is can Vince McMahon deliver this and match the hype he has
put out for his new football league?
I highly expect for there to be some indications of this but it is hard to build what you
hype overnight. To expect Vince to come right out of the box and deliver all he said is
ludicrous. Rome was not built in a day, neither was Microsoft or the World Wrestling
Federation as we know it today. To build something it takes time and someone of Vince's
obvious understanding of how to build a successful company understands that concept very
well. To say that Vince's XFL is a huge success at this time is not right. On the other
hand to say he failed in his vision is equally wrong. Also to judge the XFL by the
standards of the World Wrestling Federation, as a lot of "sports columnists" are
doing right now shows their complete misunderstanding for what Vince is trying to
accomplish while allowing their own personal bias to protrude from their columns.
The XFL, for better or worse, is here and will be here for a long time I believe. While
the NFL sits back and watches and steals whatever ideas they like one thing is for sure,
Vince McMahon is going to change football as we currently know it. Just as a fledgling
little independent wrestling promotion based out of a bingo hall in South Philadelphia
changed professional wrestling forever, Vince McMahon could do the same to the NFL. It
will be interesting to watch to be sure.
Wrestling Websites Shutting Down In Alarming Numbers
People recently have been shocked at the recent closings of Scoops and iWrestling. This
shows that most people do not have a full understanding of what has been going on as it
pertains to the Internet at large. For those people who just think the Internet is
something that just goes on and on I have some sad news for you. The Internet is nothing
but an extension of pure capitalism plain and simple. This past year has seen the Internet
go from a huge money hog to broke, broke, broke. Well not actually broke, but a lot of
companies on the Internet are not realizing the huge profits they thought they would, so
they scaled back. Even the huge money backed websites such as Disney and Warner Brothers
are cutting back and consolidating their Internet interests. The days of free money on the
net are gone. Don't get me wrong, a lot of companies went broke or bankrupt, but that was
due to mismanagement or not having a real viable and usable product. At the height of the
Internet glut many sites, in an effort to draw more people to their sites or just for the
sake of cashing in on the net, decided joint partnerships with other sites or companies
were in their best interest. This is not always the case though. When Scoops and
iWrestling joined IGN they were under the impression that it would be to their benefit but
that was not the case. When IGN first started their wrestling section it showed a lot of
promise. Their mind set was to compete with the ever present and huge wrestling website,
1wrestling.com. But they failed in that goal. This was due to the fact that the people who
were actually running IGN Wrestling allowed their ego's to get in the way of their goals.
Al Issacs's "Scoops" is just another casualty of the Internet gone bad. A
partnership is never a full partnership unless two or more people start out the project
together. Scoops was an afterthought of IGN and Snowball and would of course be the first
to go in crunch time. I guess Isaac's really doesn't understand business and the
ramifications to his site if something was to go wrong. Now I do not know if Isaac's sold
the right to the name of his site to Snowball in this deal and if he did he was a complete
idiot. Hopefully he did not. This would mean that he could restart Scoops at anytime if he
wanted to.
IGN has degraded from what was potentially a great wrestling website with editorials that
covered such topics like - January 25, 2000: Do wrestlers need a union?", January 19,
2000: Do The Disgruntled WCW Workers Have Options?, January 30, 2000: How to successfully
raise a wrestling fan and May 15, 2000: Bruce Hart reflects back on the life of his
brother Owen on his 35th birthday to February 2, 2001: Billy Gunn has been a namby pamby,
Sabga says it's time for "The One" to break Chyna's neck, A Hermaphrodite's
Revenge - January 25, 2001: Chris Sabga says that Kevin Kelly needs to turn ugly on The
Rock. It's time for the abuse to end! and January 24, 2001: R.D. Reynolds, being the
spiteful little punk he is, opens up a can of whoopass on the 9th wonder!. What a change
from when they first started to now huh? On top of that, they do not want to report on
indy promotions that don't use "names" regularly. Now of course they will report
on you if that name would be Barry Darsow who couldn't draw flies at a cow manure party or
some other relic that isn't even talked about anywhere, but if you have some guys that are
up and coming they don;t want to have anything to do with you. Man, what a long strange
trip it's been for IGN Wrestling. My hats off to Blake Norton for taking a great idea and
concept and shoving it down the hopper while shutting down two of the better wrestling
websites in the process. If you can't beat the competition, take it out right?
And with that I am outta here. Remember wrestling is nothing more than it appears to be!
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