This month marks the 25th Anniversary of Bruce Mitchell becoming a Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter columnist. No single person has influenced the editorial tone and direction of the Torch brand over the years than Bruce, who brought a hard-hitting, supremely well-informed, speak-truth-to-power approach to his writing. He went after sacred cows out of the gate, such as the beloved among “smart fans” (today’s “Internet fans” or “IWC,” I suppose) Eddie Gilbert and Jim Cornette. He also went hard after people in positions of authority and power who were abusing or misusing that power, or just not delivering a worthy product. He has also applauded and paid tribute to the greatest moments and movements in pro wrestling over the last 25 years, with a style of writing that has yet to be matched anywhere, I contend (despite Bill Simmons’s arrogant and uninformed contention last year that no one wrote at a high level about pro wrestling until his “Masked Man” columnist came along).

To celebrate and highlight Bruce’s stellar 25 years of influential and eloquent truth-telling about this fascinating industry, we’ll be featuring a single column from each of the last 25 years each of the first 25 days this month. His long-form columns were a pioneer approach to pro wrestling journalism, and the next 25 years you’ll experience a slice of what it is that has earned Bruce Mitchell widespread recognition within the industry over the years as being “Pro Wrestling’s Most Respected Columnist.” We began on Oct. 1st with his very first column, from Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #89 (cover dated Oct. 5, 1990).

Today we feature his column from the December 18, 1993 edition of the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter where he, essentially, proposed that WCW could reach the next level by launching a two hour live weekly program. Several years before Monday Night launched, Bruce wrote a column that laid out the gameplan for recent WCW V.P. Eric Bischoff to shift WCW up a few gears and produce a live weekly two hour show. All Bischoff added to this formula was going head-to-head with Raw on Mondays. Bruce, often referred to as wrestling's best and most respected columnist (and certainly the most read within the wrestling industry over the last 25 years), may have been the most influential wrestling writer of the '90s, also, considering the impact of Nitro on the landscape and the influence this column may have had on that happening...

NOTE: VIP members can access hundreds of Mitchell columns instantly in the BRUCE MITCHELL LIBRARY here, part of the massive unmatched online archives of insider wrestling coverage from over the past 28 years.

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HEADLINE: TURNING TO TELEVISON, AN OPPORTUNITY

"Turning to television, an opportunity"
Originally published December 18, 1993
Pro Wrestling Torch Weekly newsletter #258

WCW's long-needed serious consideration of abandoning house shows provides the company with an opportunity to both cut costs and generate new revenues with a substantial improvement in their product. If done creatively, WCW's quiet move could signal another of the expected big changes in the way the business is run in the United States - and this time it could be a positive change.

WCW has reportedly cut back on its money-losing tour of house shows starting in January to a dozen or fewer per month, perhaps eventually cutting back even more. The only true committment they have is to tape television to fill their cable and syndicated hours and run house shows in areas they syndicate where contractually obligated. WCW should seriously consider eliminating these house shows altogether.

That move benefits the company enormously in very obvious ways. The sad fact is that for the last several of the five years TBS has owned WCW, virtually every house show they have run has lost money. Truthfully, they deserved to lose money. Most shows were dispirited affairs where even the best workers more often than not went through the motions in front of what became embarrassingly small crowds, especially considering its television product that was still viewed by several million people a week.

Now, by cutting down on house shows, WCW reduces the enormous costs of renting these buildings, for advertising these shows, of flying wrestlers from town to town, of paying security and all of the other ancillary costs. WCW also cuts out expenses for its wrestlers who have had to pay hotel, food, and other assorted outlays out of their own pockets.

But those are just the obvious savings of doing nothing more than cutting back on house shows. The key to WCW's chance to run its business in a new, more profitable way is not the expenses it saves but the time it gains.

Think about it. If the wrestlers are not busy on the road losing the company money, what will they be doing? Lying around the house all day watching the soaps and hitting the Gold Club in Atlanta every night?

Maybe. But WCW will be missing a golden opportunity to improve its product on one hand, and make extra revenue without risking any money on the other.

How can cancelling house shows help WCW make desperately needed improvements in its television and pay-per-view product?

In several ways.

The first place WCW can immediately help itself is on the "WCW Saturday Night" show. With no real commitments on that night, there is absolutely no reason this show could not be produced all the way live - with all of the excitement and immediacy that live shows have to offer.

WCW has the facilities at Center Stage to produce a two-hour live show that can take all of the advantages of the energy a live show can generate. As the WWF's "Monday Night Raw" has proven, live television can provide a shot of adrenaline to television ratings that more than offset the increased cost of doing the shows live. And television ratings, now more than ever, are this company's main focus.

The advantages of a two-hour live show are many. For example:

•The show can include up to the minute sports, entertainment, and other "real world" references to add a cutting-edge appeal.

•WCW can take advantage of a performer suddenly becoming hot to a live audience by strengthening that performer's push instead of being locked in to several weeks of pretaped pushes that fail from the beginning - like that recent sequence with Todd Champion on Main Event. WCW missed taking advantage of the obvious popularity of Too Cold Scorpio in part because of all of the long-term taping that had already been done.

•Live television with immediate ratings feedback will make the management more sensitive to the performers who really draw the ratings. For example, Ric Flair has been the focus of the three or four ratings highlights the TBS Saturday show has had this year. Management was too slow, however, in building on this momentum. With a live show, management can immediately take advantage of any positive trends that could develop.

•Live television would require the booking to be long-term in scope, but flexible enough to be "written in light pencil." The long-term scope would provide direction and stability, but that flexibility would set the best possible stage for surprises like the addition of a Curt Hennig or a Bobby Heenan. Shock angles are made for live television. No longer would management have to waste time making fools of themselves trying to find out who leaked information to newsletters, unless someone attempts to murder someone or phony up a steroid program again. And the booking committee could use the extra time saved booking finishes to house show matches to instead polish the T.V. booking.

•WCW could adjust quickly to storyline problems that occur with situations like the Arn-Sid fight. The switching of Starrcade's main event from Vader-Vicious to Vader-Flair caused WCW to put on a cut and paste job full of holes to promote the big show. The impact of Vader injuring Flair at BattleBowl was ruined when Flair appeared the next Saturday night in a meaningless pretaped tag match suffering no ill effects from a stretcher job. With live television WCW could have started a new, totally fresh program.

•It would be much harder for bookers and other stars with clout to load up the talent roster with relatives and cronies. Without the use of post-produced sweetening, untalented clods or worn out has beens like Robert Fuller, The Nasty Boys, Todd Champion, "Uncle" Fred Ottman, The Kongs, and Harlem Heat would stand out as the tremendous liabilities that they are. Check out that last War Games for a great example of this. With the again-rumored change in booking coming this January, a new booker would have to do what benefits the company most, and not just his no-account friends and family.

•Wrestlers could be brought in cheaply for short programs to get WCW regulars over, to audition, or to just spice up the television.

•Because the tapings would only be two hours long, with all the major angles and debuts included, the live crowd should be much livelier and less jaded than they were when two or three shows are taped at a time. Without all the travel time wrestlers should be much fresher and everyone could go home by nine o'clock.

•Fast-paced, high-energy wrestling featuring performers that the fans care about and a sense that anything could happen at anytime results in higher television ratings. Monday Night Raw is just the latest example of this. And higher ratings mean happier, less stressed suits.

There are other major improvements that could be expected by management and fans. As noted, without a draining travel schedule to follow, wrestlers should be fresher and in much better shape. Management in fact could demand that wrestlers, like any other professional athletes, maintain a structured training schedule that concentrates on cardiovascular and wrestling skills training, assuming that management wishes to stay out of jail. Wrestlers could get in plenty of ring time during the day to polish their up-coming matches or work on new moves. Yes, there are some very talented, experienced wrestlers like Vader or Ric Flair who may not need this ring time, but there are many more in this company who do.

Experienced wrestlers at the gym or training facility could change the WCW wrestling school from a place where old wrestling buddies of Dusty Rhodes get an easy paycheck showing the pharmaceutically gifted but profoundly untalented likes of the Equalizer or Thunder and Lightning a couple of moves that got over big in Florida during the '70s to a place where guys like Brian Pillman, Terry Taylor, "Too Cold" Charlie Skaggs, Chris Benoit, Brad Armstrong, or Steve Austin are teaching and demonstrating things to a new generation of talented athletes. Rick Steamboat or Flair's gym could also be used in Charlotte by either of those two or Bobby Eaton for the same purpose. This concept would result in better matches which again should help improve television ratings and pay-per-view buyrates, again improving the bottom line.

And what of the syndicated television tapings at DisneyWorld in Florida? They do save money and provide WCW with a nicely produced show. Since audiences are frequently rotated, WCW could tape mostly squash and a few feature matches with mostly their long term regulars to provide raw materials for subsequent shows. These shows could then have added material taped in-house specifically for syndication or repeated hot material from the live Saturday Night show - preserving the advantages of taping at Disney without the liabilities.

Another idea to improve the bottom line would be to borrow an idea from our neighbors due south at AAA. If WCW is running limited or no house shows they should become a booking office from which independent promoters could hire their talent. As long as television and pay-per-view priorities for dates are maintained, WCW could put a valuable resource to work without incurring these horrible expenses. Promoters willing to book the likes of Nikolai Volkoff or Tito Santana would jump to book wrestlers with national television exposure.

WCW could charge a booking fee, nominal at first, and a talent fee that could augment a wrestler's income substantially in the course of a year. Obviously Sting would carry a higher booking fee than Charlie Norris, for example. Wrestlers would have the right of first refusal so that they could pick and choose when they wanted to work and for whom they wanted to work. Indy promoters would be required to pick up travel and other expenses. The only thing WCW would be required to do is cash the check - before confirming the date. The indy promoter takes the risk and WCW provides the television exposure in a partnership that should benefit both parties.

By limiting the booking requirement, in other words letting promoters book talent any way they want within reason, WCW could increase its cash flow and scout out new talent or matchups. If Cactus Jack versus Sabu draws a good house in South Philly, WCW might want to add that match to their mix. If Shockmaster versus the Italian Stallion bombs in Dillon, S.C., well, at least WCW got its booking fee. If Marcus Bagwell does a job for Abdullah the Butcher in Columbus, Ga., only a few hundred people would be aware of it anyway.

If the result gets into a newsstand magazine so what? They sport the lowest readership figures they have had in ten years. And any promoter who tries to use WCW wrestlers to get local talent or themselves over will more than likely find a sceptical public turning its back to him.

A promoter who plans well and offers his audience the likes of Ric Flair versus Ted DiBiase could become a consistent money-maker. WCW could become risk-free partners with any promoter around the country without a television network. And imagine the fees they could charge to a UWFI for Vader, or Otto Wanz for a Flair, or AAA for a Too Cold Scorpio. And if these promoters start making a lot of money in a particular area, that could be an indication that a market is ready for a full bore WCW production.

Of course, WCW has other serious problems, not the least of which is a management that is ignoring a problem, pushing abnormally large wrestlers, that could put them in the same danger of serving jail time as their competitor now faces. It will take a management team willing to develop creative, new ways of developing revenue to revive a company that has been artificially kept alive by, up until now, a lot of wasted money. Whether WCW will make the best use of this new opportunity remains to be seen.

END COLUMN

We suggest these recent related articles...

25 YEARS OF BRUCE MITCHELL - DAY 10 (2000): Titled “Death of Hardcore” as Bruce discusses the apparent end of the Hardcore Wrestling era and also suggests what ECW must do to regain relevance

25 YEARS OF BRUCE MITCHELL - DAY 9 (1999): Titled “Children” as Bruce discusses Vince McMahon's marketing approach toward children and how he deals with controversy like a child would (with a great opening line)

25 YEARS OF BRUCE MITCHELL - DAY 8 (1998): “Stolen Moments” - Bruce lays out case for Flair as Greatest of All-Time as he dealt with locker room politics in WCW Nitro era