Talking "sports entertainment"

with Tom Zenk

Don’t sing it … bring it !!

I wonder how Vince’s stock is doing. The Wall Street 'marks' must regret ever buying into that X-creative genius persona. Remember "The Walt Disney of Wrestling?" Nowadays, "Emperor of Wackeyworld."

Last week, WWFE sent out a business wire alerting investors to the split roster, describing it as “a new television paradigm which will give the fans more of what they want, and increase television viewers, ratings, and create business opportunities."

"This is an important step for our company, and one that we have planned for quite some time," Vince McMahon said. "With the acquisition of WCW, and the talent development work we have been doing, we now have the depth of talent necessary to provide the star power to drive two compelling, distinct, prime-time television programs, and that's what our fans will get starting in April."

So the WCW buyout was a success after all! And Vince has been secretly developing scores of new talent down at the Power Plant. Only, jeeze, someone tell the Head of Talent Relations!! Here's JR from this week's Ross report:

“New stars have to be created and developed... I am looking forward to new rivalries and storylines being established and developed .”

And I guess the unbalanced talent spread between RAW and Smackdown has nothing to do with keeping UPN numbers up, with TNN as an after thought? And exactly how smart is that?

Does anyone in Wall Street buy Vince's crock of PR bull for one minute. There's no plan!! WWF booking is on the fly. Despite all the Patterson rehearsals, the mania “dream match of the century” went wrong …. the WWFE jet had to be dispatched to Florida the same night to pick up Hogan’s red and yellow for the crowd-written turn … which scuttled the multi million dollar black and white nWo angle ….. which led to …..(watch this space). With things happening so fast, VKM and his people can barely keep up. The new issue of the WWF magazine has Hogan, Nash and Hall together on the cover, while the new Raw magazine features the Dudleys and Stacey Keibler. So much for everything being “planned for quite some time”.



Brand X-tension or Brand Dilution and “Where’s Steve?” …. “WHAT?”

Without going into the semantics of how twice (2X) the same BS equals a brand new ‘paradigm’, it’s pretty obvious ‘brand extension’ is just corporate speak for ‘brand dilution’. According to Vince, the same number of wrestlers are going to be working 350 live shows a year instead of the current 200 plus increasingly frequent tours to Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, England, Scotland, Germany and Australia. That means each WWF event gets just half the talent they usually had. And despite being on the road almost twice as long, the boys will be getting paid less. Downsides are being renegotiated downwards while loyalty no longer brings its own reward. Austin gets pissed off with a drunken idiot who quit on Vince who then takes him back with open arms for free money, while cutting Austin’s $$. What type of message does that send the locker room about LOYALTY?

It’s gonna be interesting to see how this Austin thing plays out. If the Rattlesnake gets punished for his stand against disloyalty, then the locker room gets to know Austin's hard work was ALL FOR NOTHING. But if Austin gets rewarded, the door is thrown wide open for dummy spits – with Stash and Hash at the head of the queue.

I'm disappointed the shills haven’t come out more strongly for Austin. Some of them have swallowed the WWF line, criticizing Austin for missing house shows. The shills makes money off this sh** , act like they have no clue as to what Vince is all about and don't even bother talking to Steve. What a bunch of a$$holes. It's Vince who's screwing the fans, not Austin... "Vince is very big on loyalty." Right - so where exactly is Vince’s LOYALTY to Austin?

Hogan’s 'rib'

It’s not like the Hogan effect is even gonna last. Why screw Austin for something short term like Hulkastalgia? Hogan can't hack the road and his body can't take the more demanding style, even with summer reruns coming up. Then again, he was off TV a long time after the Russo deal and no one seemed to care. Remember the ‘rib on the rib” before ‘mania? On Regis, last week, Hogan claimed the reason he lost at 'mania was because of TWO broken ribs (prior to mania it was only the one!) and, anyway, he "really won, because the crowd cheered more for him than Rock." So there! BTW If Hogan was so smart, as so many of the shills are saying, how come he let WCW go down the drain, when we all know he had total creative control over Bischoff?

Heyman vs Flair - and the winner is....

Meanwhile, Ross reports - “the Nature Boy's pending interaction with Paul Heyman should be some classic stuff.” Just like the two of them swearing and throwing garbage cans at each other backstage at Center Stage, Atlanta. I saw that one ..... and Paul E won! If I recall, Flair had the book and maybe Heyman got fired, or released. Flair I'm sure had lied about something and Paul was calling him on it. When I came across them they were swearing back and forth "Oh yeah, well fu** you!!" "NO. Fu** YOU!!" followed by Heyman throwing a garbage can at Flair. Slick Rick threw the can back. Paul returned fire at Naitch and so it went on. Finally, Paul E. got the last word in (F***). Winner by decision: Paul Heyman... the night he beat the champ...a better battle that Pillman vs Sid if I do say so myself ( *****).



The Twilight Zone …

‘eerily correct Zenk predictions’

LOCKERROOM IN REVOLT

[Zenk column 09-21-01]

"Hall, Nash …. what price will these guys be forced to pay for not "paying dues daily" and quitting on VKM for more money…..With business so terrible and VKM’s ego so huge, he can’t possibly let these two guys back on top, and take top money away from the others who stayed loyal. The locker room won't stand for their insubordination. …."

HEYMAN DUMPED … LAWLER RETURNS

[Zenk column 10-20-01]

"Linking up the dots - the stories that try to sink Heyman with Steph - the campaign to level the playing field against Heyman's protégé RVD - my guess is, we could be witnessing the first strikes in Ross versus Heyman. … The ground war may be months away. But I'm looking for Lawler to stick his head above the parapet, very soon. "

.

AUSTIN REACHES THE END OF HIS RUN?

[Zenk column 12 -21-01]

"Austin’s neck is wrecked and his knees are shot. He’s carried WWF all through 2001.…. It’s pretty shocking but soon enough Austin may be gone, with as little fanfare as Mick Foley."

HHH HIDES BEHIND THE NWO

[01/28/02] - "the return of Hall, Hash and Hogan provides …. the Game with plenty of static to deflect heat from his own faltering comeback. A key issue for HGH will be, whether he can convince VKM to resist his gut instinct to humiliate Bischoff’s NWO until HHH has a chance to use them to his own advantage."

NWO BOMBS IN RECORD TIME

[02/0/02] "My guess is, VKM is going to try and have it both ways with the NWO. If it works, and provides a few months of attention and draws a bit, great! If it fails, the whole deal was ‘a swerve from the start’ …..I’m predicting the NWO bombs in the first few months….. "

AUSTIN DUMPED?

#20 "Steve is mad at VKM for giving the nWo more attention than him. Austin feels that he alone pulled VKM out of the funk, remaining LOYAL while the rest of the million dollar, pill taking, dubie smokers (of course not looking in the mirror) bailed for ATM Eric. Steve was always loyal and a great guy. Now, with VKM looking for a new savior, no retirement benefits, insurance, 401k, and going on 40 with a couple of knee braces, a couple of kids, wife, mortgage etc, Austin doesn't want to be left out in the cold saying WHAT???"

Your feedback

“The only good thing coming out of the draft is that Tom Zenk will have enough ammunition to make it onto all the radio shows AGAIN and keep me in stitches.”

“Zenk once again proves he's one of the best writing wrestlers out there. Whether you agree with his opinions or not...his writing is awesome.”

“I feel embarrassed when I go to his site because the egomaniac has pictures of himself everywhere. I understand that it's his site and he can do what he wants to do, but come on! I don't want to see pictures of him posing and talking about how sexy he is all the damn time! Enough is enough! “

“Zenk is so damn intelligent, he should start a newsletter. I swear his analysis is better than anyone else’s out there today . Meltzer should give Zenk at the least about 2 full pages of his newsletter to write on.”

“It galls me that Zenk has been appointed as an "expert" on the current professional wrestling scene by himself and various fans. All he does is bury everyone in sight and spout off comments on the WWF financial scene like some sort of award winning economist when his analysis actually combines 10th grade level economics with jargon from "Business Week" magazine.”

“God, I love this guy. I just can't put it any better than he does in his columns.”

“I'm pretty sure that God has a special place in Hell reserved for Vince McMahon. …..Hopefully it involves Vince jobbing to Dynamite Kid and Tom Zenk for eternity.”

“1st- on the puro note, it's good to see an American give a Japanese wrestler his due. Zenk really put over Kawada as what a wrestler should strive to be.”

“2nd- Tom Zenk's columns are cool as hell. At first he seems bitter but after a while (the more columns you read) he actually seems more of a realist than a pessimist. Let the venom fly!”

“If anything he's both. But more of a realist than bitter depending on who or what he's talking about.”

“Call him bitter if you want, lemmings. He speaks nothing but the truth!”

“Zenk knows what he is talking about. Too bad the WWF isn’t listening. There has to be a place for him in the WWF somewhere......that is if Vince would have him after him stating truths all the time!! It’s nice to not see a kiss a**!”

“He's sounds very bitter to me that Vince didn't give him a job, so he sits and pisses and moans about what they should and shouldn't do..... Who is he to tell a billionaire what to do with his money?”

“The beauty of it is that Zenk is free to talk because he doesn’t want anything from Vince.”

“He's not Lawler, writing love notes about Vince and Bruce Pritchard begging for his job back."

"Missy Hyatt wrote this whole thing about how she fell in love with him and he was the one guy in wrestling she wishes she could have f**ked but didn't. It's sad really. It's like Romeo and Juliet….”

“And what has Tom Zenk ever done to be an expert on wrestling????????

- Umm, you mean besides actually being a wrestler?”

“Hey, I just realized this, while nosing through some of Tom Zenk's commentaries, why is it that Arn Anderson, who's had zero success outside of Ric Flair, is not put on par with Ed Leslie as Flair's bitch?”

“Zenk is right about Flair and AA. Flair in power buried the young talent to oblivion and only put over his own boys like AA and Tully. The point is once you’re on top you only look out for yourself....and when you’re not you want sympathy for being good guys I hate hypocrites like Flair and AA.”

“Why does Zenk always pick on DDP – I mean, what did DDP do wrong besides going to work for WCW and being Bischoff's pal? Come to think of it, wouldn’t the above two be enough?”

“In many ways, Zenk’s columns remind me of "Dynamite Kid" Tom Billington's book, with the anger it seems to shed on all the business.”

“Does anybody else see RVD or Jericho becoming a Tom Zenk after being blatantly screwed by the Powers That Be?”

“Magnificent!! That's all I can say. Zenk’s verbal barrages are more entertaining than anything I've seen on TV in years.”

"If only Vince listened to Zenk he’d be $600 million ahead. Zenk’s predicitions have all proved eerily correct……”



Bret Hart Interview

Alex Marvez has posted an interesting interview with Bret Hart on Meltzer's site http://www.liveaudiowrestling.com/wo/news/interviews/default.asp?aID=4678

A couple of extracts -

Bret - "I get a strong sense that McMahon would love to screw me over worse than he ever did. They've tried to portray me as a crybaby or a guy who cannot get over it or a guy who ... is bitter and psychotic. ....They reprogrammed me that I am now a prima donna ... I saw it happen to

Hogan and (Randy) Savage and to one wrestler after another....

"They would love to see me fold up and show up hat in hand and have me wrestle Howard Finkel in a tuxedo match.... They’re very dishonest and very slimy and have no scruples.....It’s funny. Vince says that I have psychological problems. I think it’s the other way around. He’s a very warped, sick person.”

"I think all I have is my legacy and memories and love for the business. As long as I write the book I want to write, I don't care how well it does. It gives me a really good position to take all the time to say exactly what I want to say and set the record straight.”

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Previously on tomzenk.com .....

2002