Dave Meltzer | The Wrestling Observer Yearbook '97: The Last Time WWF Was Number Two
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- Опубликовано: 15 мар 2021
- In our most recent Zoom Book Club Chat, Dave Meltzer joined and we asked him questions pertaining to his new Observer Yearbook on the year 1997. We talk a lot about Montreal, the early days of the UFC, and more.
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Should do more of these interviews with Dave on the observer books.
97 was my favourite ever year in WWF
Crazy crazy entertaining year.
I think 98’ was the best. 97’ was second best. In my opinion.
@@412StepUp agreed
1997 was great
1998 was unstoppable
Amazing how it just kept getting better
The golden age of wrestling
Currently reading the book... The thing is half the size of a phone book. Lots of information from that year
We're probably getting more too!
Great watch!
Great interview, thanks for this 👍 (BTW, Mutoh/Takada was 1995)
Thank you!
I’d like to pick up one of the books to check out. Been very curious about them, but I was a bit unsure what the content of them was actually. Looking forward to finding out what it’s all about.
Also-there’s no way popularity in the early 90s declined that dramatically. Wrestling was still 10x what it is today. It’s not even comparable. So many kids loved it. Hogan was a super hero. Most kids wouldn’t even realize he had signed to WCW. The early 90s didn’t decline that dramatically. Today there is a decline that could never be reversed.
Really good stuff. Popularity-wise from the perspective of people knowing who the stars were, your right. Business-wise, it was way way down.
@@FightGameMedia metlzer mentioned WWE was never close going out business.worst case they would been second in ratings but they were besting WCW House show ppv live gate and buyrates business was always just not as much golden era. Due steirods and lawsuirt
@@FightGameMedia The story of the episode was WWF was close to going out of business due to the WCW war and couldn't afford Bret anymore, so Vince nobly allowed Hart out of his contract so he could negotiate a better deal with WCW. Actually, Dave says, Vince first talked to Bret about deferring some of his contract to later on but that was a couple months earlier. At the time, WWF really was having some financial struggles, but it's an exaggeration to say they were almost driven out of business. They were never even close. But regardless, that's irrelevant because in Sept. 97, they raised the price of PPVs by $10. That added revenue, which was nearly $1 million per month in pure profit, was easily enough to get them out of financial trouble. By the time Survivor Series 97 rolled around, WWF was doing just fine, money-wise, and were only a couple months away from catching fire and getting nuclear hot. So no, they did not need to get rid of Bret's contract. And in fact, in October, a couple weeks before Survivor Series, Vince changed his mind and asked Bret to stay, saying that the financial situation had turned around. But by this point, Hart's negotiations with turned around. But by this point, Hart's negotiations with WCW were full speed ahead and Vince allowed Hart to continue negotiating. But after talking to both sides, it was clear Vince had no real plan for Bret and he didn't really seem like he wanted to keep him, so Bret took the WCW deal and the rest is history. But of course, none of that is mentioned in this show. The episode also claimed Hart refused to drop the title to anyone (again, not true. Only Shawn. Bret even offered to lose it to Brooklyn Brawler if they wanted. In fact, Dave breaks down all the different scenarios that were presented here, and Bret was willing to lose the title to anyone other than Shawn, anywhere other than that show in Montreal, at any date before or after the PPV. They had actually presented Bret with dozens of different scenarios, all of which he agreed to, only for Vince to keep coming back around to Shawn at Survivor Series, which was the one anuntil Dec. 1st, and he was booked on more than a dozen house shows after Survivor Series and had even agreed to work the early December PPV because Bischoff had given his blessing. There was zero chance Bret was going to show up with the belt on Nitro. There was concern that Bischoff would go on Nitro the next day and announce he had signed Bret, and Dave says it's true that Bischoff certainly was planning to do that. But Bret had also asked Bischoff to hold off on the announcement and Bischoff had agreed. Vince knew about that too, but in recorded conversations with Bret (from the Wrestling With Shadows documentary), Vince didn't seem concerned since the word was already out and everyone knew Bret was leaving already. This just goes on and on. We all know the story already. Anyway, TL;DR - interesting show, but WWE's version of the story is bullshit. But we all knew that.
@@FightGameMedia Time for some number crunching, as Dave looks at both WWF and WCW and compares TV ratings and house show attendance numbers for the last 5 years in great detail. There's a lot of numbers and stuff here but I'll try to sum it up easily. When it comes to WCW, they're obviously in the midst of their hottest run ever. But there's a misconception that WCW winning the cable ratings war is some new thing, when in reality, WCW has pretty much always beaten WWF in cable ratings, with the Saturday Night show beating early Raw and Prime Time ratings all the time, but they weren't in prime time. And no one really paid attention until the companies began going head-to-head on Monday nights. The truth is, yes, WCW is winning the war but the alleged "decline of WWF" is overrated. 1996 was WWF's strongest house show year since 1991, even though their TV ratings have hit new lows. But overall, WWF is still doing strong business everywhere else and TV ratings haven't shown to have that much effect on ticket sales. In fact, WWF's house show business grew at a faster rate than WCW's did last year and with increased ticket prices, their house fact, WWF's house show business grew at a faster rate than WCW's did last year and with increased ticket prices, their house show business became even more profitable. There's a perception from people who believe the Monday night ratings are the entire business and believe WWF is in trouble because they're losing the ratings war, but overall, they're still pretty strong (I find stuff like this interesting, because the revisionist version of history is that WCW damn near put WWF out of business until Vince heroically fought back and conquered his enemy. Reality is, they were never even remotely in danger of it and aside from TV ratings, they were doing their best business in years on every other front. Sure, they were a distant second in TV ratings but in all other aspects of the business, WCW was only barely winning)
@@FightGameMedia Jim Ross says business increased when Bret beat Nash for belt
Wrestling guru
Great listen
I love wrestling magazine shows...has anyone watched EveryRing That's Everything Wrestling...it's low production but it's starting up...it's like ups and downs but the major shows....I wonder if they'll take a look at the independents
Wish they did 1998
I think 2001 is going to be next. Hope that the books keep doing well because I think 1998 would definitely be one of the ones after that.
When was this recorded? Dave talks about plans of Edge/Orton at Mania, which clearly is no longer relevant today.
January - it was out as a podcast then. We held off on video so we could maximize listeners to the podcast first.
this guy meltzer is no more an expert than anyone else who followed wwf and wcw in 97. i guess just calling yourself an expert makes you one ok got it
Have you called yourself an expert yet?
Say what you want about Meltzers takes on modern wrestling, but his historical knowledge is up there with anyone’s. His newsletter has been used as a script for most of the popular podcasts of today...not that he batted 1000 with all of his info, but considering the “work” aspect of the biz, he’s navigated the waters with success year in year out.
Dave is a stooge