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The 7 - Pro Wrestling - Booking on the fly Vs Long term booking
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AJ_Levy
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#1 Posted on 6.9.02 0842.14
Reposted on: 6.9.09 0844.15
Here's a question: would you rather storylines be booked on the fly, or a federation that persists with long-term storyline planning?

Before you answer, consider the fact that long term storylines have in the past involved putting forward storylines and characters which aren't over. And then persisting with them instead of pulling the plug.

Also, WCW's downfall (you could argue) began with what were two of the most brilliant storlines the federation put forward at its peak. These were Sting Vs nWo and the Goldberg-streak angle. Here we see another problem with long-term booking: if fans invest a year watching a storyline unfold, the payoff better be damn worth it. In both of these cases, the payoff was a lot less than spectacular.

Are these potential pitfalls of long-term booking enough to prevent them overcomming the many pitfalls of booking for the short term, as WWE appears to be doing at the moment?

(edited by AJ_Levy on 6.9.02 0649)
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Santa Sangre
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#2 Posted on 6.9.02 1026.01
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1029.06
Don't forget some of the long term angles that have made WWE the booking on the fly fed that it is today.

- The love triangle that never had a finish.

- Vince is the higher power.

- I did it for the Rock, wait no, Triple H did it.

- Stephanie jobbing to the pedigree at WM.

The solution is good endings to long storylines. But no one ever takes in account all the problems that can happen along the way to having good closure to an angle. Ego's, injuries, backstabbing, dropping the angle for no reason at all...ect. Shit I can't remember the last time there was a long term angle that didn't end with a thud.
The Amazing Salami
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#3 Posted on 6.9.02 1028.16
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1029.08
The post about Lesnar's possible injury made me think about that.

The fed has been pushing Lesnar for months and months ... now he's on top. What if he went down to a major injury? SCREWED THEY WOULD BE, HMMM.

I don't know the answer to this question, but I understand the WWE's tendency to shy away from long term booking.
Tom Dean
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#4 Posted on 6.9.02 1031.42
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1032.02
It's true that sometimes long-term angles fall flat and people get disappointed, but if you book on the fly, you are almost guaranteeing no one will care about what you're doing. You have to take the chance. (It's like relationships!)

If someone in the long-term storyline gets hurt or isn't getting over or whatever, they should still try to take the storyline in a direction that keeps it going while incorporating this new information. If they do ultimately have to bail out on the whole angle, they should give a logical storyline reason for it. They shouldn't just pretend it never happened and never mention it again.
Christian Synthare
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#5 Posted on 6.9.02 1039.12
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1050.07
It depends. I know ideally long term booking is a great idea. It allows for the fans to get more involved with the characters and leads to a bunch of great matches.

However, realistically, injurise occur and sometimes long term booking does not have a great end ie the Steph/HHH/Angel or Who hit Austin with the car? Short term booking allows for injuries or walks out to carry. Say Brock gets a broken leg at a house show this week, well then since he's only fued was with Taker, then the WWE can give the belt to Taker or do a tournament on Smackdown. Either way, it gives the WWE room to breathe.

We have to remember the Fed is only booking on the fly, because you don't know when someone is going to go down. Granted, having talent like HHH,Austin, Rock and Mick leave opens the door for other talent, but it takes a few months to elevuate those guys. When Austin left, the WWE was luckily moving HHH, Big Show, Rock up the ladder. Mick was already an established star, so he took Austin's place and did the jobs that HHH needed to get over, but still keep the Rock fresh for his match with HHH.

I want long term booking, I want Sting vs. the NWO or another Austin/McMahon fued that gets most of the roster involved in some way. Unfortuantly, for those to work there has to be a lot of luck involved and really protecting the wrestlers. During the NWO storyline, Sting didn't fight for a year, a friggin' year. The WCW protected Hogan and Golberg by giving them quick matches or matches that ended in clusterfucks. Even Austin didn't fight every Raw, but mainly cut promos or did insane things like bringing a zamponie to the ring or being escorted out by cops. The McMahon/Helmsley worked mainly, because it seemed like the Karma of Austin's injury protected those four for awhile.

A Fan- Realism is better way at looking at the world
Enojado Viento
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#6 Posted on 6.9.02 1126.47
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1129.02

    Originally posted by Christian Synthare
    It depends. I know ideally long term booking is a great idea. It allows for the fans to get more involved with the characters and leads to a bunch of great matches.

    However, realistically, injurise occur and sometimes long term booking does not have a great end ie the Steph/HHH/Angel or Who hit Austin with the car? Short term booking allows for injuries or walks out to carry.



To which I have to ask. . .why can't you book long term but have a contingency plan in place in case someone gets injured?
Rising Ashes
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#7 Posted on 6.9.02 1407.14
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1414.24
I'd have to go with long term booking. It doesn't have to be complex, but you can really combine long-term booking with on-the-fly booking. Just have actual long term plans, which they don't seem to, and maybe do a few things here or there on the fly, but STICK TO IT.
Tom Dean
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#8 Posted on 6.9.02 1426.27
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1429.02
Let's say someone does get injured. You can do an injury angle and have the person with whom he's feuding "put him out" from a storyline perspective, increasing that person's heat. You can have the injured person concede defeat and announce that they've lost their smile and are taking a break. Maybe you can make the injured person a manager or announcer. There's all kinds of options... or, you can just come up with some convoluted but plausible reason to stop the storyline... even that is better than never having anything be coherent to begin with! Outside of something like Owen Hart, I can't think of too many things that are gonna happen that a competent writer simply could not work into a storyline. It's really mostly a question of wanting to do it and putting in the effort and planning.
SKLOKAZOID
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#9 Posted on 6.9.02 1459.23
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1505.34
This is my main problem with wrestling today. It's too much about "safe" booking and protecting certain people's heat that they don't take any risks or put all of the effort that they can into quality storylines anymore.

I understand that certain performers could get injured before the big blowoff matches, but there's always ways to tweak storylines into something great (maybe even better than the original idea).

EXAMPLE: Steve Austin vs Bret Hart was supposedly going to be the big blowoff at WM14 that was going to put Steve Austin on the map. The prior year, Bret vs HBK was supposed to be the WM13 main event. When Bret was, for all intents and purposes, "forced" out of the WWF in 1997, they had to fill up Bret's slot with HBK and the angle still played out perfectly.

Things can be done like this today. Let's say we want the big WM19 main event to be HHH vs RVD. It obviously won't be since they're blowing their wad with this match in September, but if it was, they could start building towards it NOW and have a tremendous story about the "big dog" holding down the younger guys, except one younger guy (RVD) has HHH's number.

Once you have that plan, for a contingency, enter in a third party. In this case, let's say it's Angle. They can have Angle challenging HHH and/or RVD in the meantime. If RVD gets injured, have Angle run out for the save during an angle where HHH "injures" RVD. There, you have Angle stepping into RVD's place and sort of fighting in his honor. If HHH gets injured, you hand the title over to Angle and have him fight RVD.

That's a basic bare-bones example of how to do it, but it IS possible, and highly recommended, to do longterm storylines. They just need to make sure they storyline is something GOOD that the fans legitimately want to see. Fans have really taken a liking to RVD and a real hatred towards HHH, so this is a natural main event to BUILD to.

As opposed to a BAD longterm plan, where they decide to ultimately put HHH over RVD, which is bad for reasons of fan appreciation stated above. You have to make sure that the end result will maximize fan satisfaction, or the fans won't come back.
deadbeater
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#10 Posted on 6.9.02 1547.22
Reposted on: 6.9.09 1559.04
If there is to be long-term booking, it should:

1) be Flexible enough so the booker can adjust according to crowd reactions, injuries, etc.
2) Have announcers don't bonk us over the head with it week after week would help a lot. Just a little narration and overview would do. A good storyline should sell itself.
3) Have interaction from both sides to make it hot. Or if there is only one sided interaction throughout, the other side has a ready response or somehow ruins the plan.

Let's look at the current long term booking storyline of Molly and Chris. It is very flexible, and anything can happen as a result of this. That's good.

The announcers--uh-oh. "Are you a virgin?" And "Hymen! Hymen! Hymen!" That was laying on it a bit thick.

And that leads to the third thing. People are wondering why Molly is reacting as if she is not seeing the show as to what Chris' plans are for her, especially when we know that she wants to save her virginnity until marriage? We don't see Molly keeping herself busy doing exercises, or talking to Victoria about him. Nothing at all.

In a one-sided plotline such as this, this device usually means, assuming equal sides, that the other side is aware, and is planning a few surprises that would be spoiled if the audience were to go to the other side. Molly could be fully aware what is going on, and intends to hatch a few surprises of her own when Chris makes his moves. Road Runner/Coyote makes effective use of this device.



(edited by deadbeater on 6.9.02 2210)
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