As a kid I remember a heck of a lot more focus on promos more than anything else. Most of the matches would be against jobbers and you may get a few mid-card matches between two talents if you were lucky. That's not even getting into the 'B' show that was Maple Leaf Wrestling LOL.
All the way up until the Monday Night Wars TV was to build up the house show matches and then later the PPV matches. There would be a big match sprinkled in to give the TV fans a title change or a big angle to set up a big match they would have to pay for but it was mostly squash/promo/repeat. It really wasn't until 1995 that we started getting big matches on TV every week.
Just a heads up: Dark Side Of The Ring season 3 is now on Hulu. I think some episodes are on YouTube too.
This is also a holdover from the old territory system -- prior to about the mid 80s, and in some measure continuing into the early 90s when the last holdouts gave up the ghost, it was regional territories, which meant that the audience could get to shows pretty regularly. The TV shows were advertisements for the live events in much the same way that cartoons were just commercials for toys. Once you had a couple national promotions, it wasn't the case that the entire viewing area likely had a nearby show coming up soon, so TV had to morph into the product rather than a taste of/advertisement for the product.
Well the unthinkable happened, Corny actually gave the recent AEW Dynamite two thumbs up. He also mentioned that he finally sees the truth in Dynamite taking over the ratings from WWE Raw in the next couple of months so long as they keep the standards at the level of the recent program.
Whoa! This is awesome! AEW and The Owen Hart Foundation Announce Partnership, Tournament To Be Held - Wrestling Inc.
The Experience, they just released it late last night. Warning, it is an extremely long episode and for 2 hours of it they go over Dark Side Of The Ring and all the upcoming episodes to cap off season 3.
Tony Khan put over Corny in a couple of interviews lately. Not saying that's why he's suddenly warmer to AEW or not, but I'm sure as hot and cold as Corny goes it didn't hurt.
The tournament could wind up being their "King of the Ring" which would make it an even greater tribute to Owen's legacy (King of Harts)
I trust that AEW will do it right and not water it down like the WWF did by the 3rd King Of The Ring.
Well I think like others have mentioned in this thread before, AEW and specifically Tony Khan seem to be taking criticism to heart and are listening to their fans and adversaries alike to try and improve the program. It seems that the stars mostly aligned for Dynamite and with exception to the few offenders that Corny will never enjoy, he was overall impressed with the improvement. But like he mentioned at the very end, WWE are a giant self inflicting wound that is growing larger by the week (he was not impressed with NXT 2.0) so they are more or less handing things over to AEW. It sounds like his rating would go up more if AEW canned Marko Stunt (I actually had to search this guys name because they have never called him that ever).
I'm just glad to see Owen's name tied to a larger, modern day wrestling promotion. This should be a great way to pay tribute to him and keep his name alive and well in the future of the business.
The irony of Cornette not liking Marko Stunt is a bit much. I find Marko Stunt annoying, but hardly ever wrestles on TV. He's more a manager/mascot for Jurassic Express. When he does wrestle except for the occasional "I'm too quick for you and it's throwing you off your game" hope spots, he gets destroyed. Cornette himself had Brian Hildebrand/Mark Curtis do the same type spots in Smokey Mountain Wrestling in a Ninja Turtle outfit. It's not like they made him Spike Dudley and had him beat Bam Bam Bigelow.
To me it sounds like the old "guilty by association" card. Marko is working with Omega and The Young Bucks so of course he is going to get ridiculed by Corny strictly for this fact alone. He was a little more receptive with Adam Cole on Dynamite but commented that Cole needs to go on his own to get away from picking up bad habits.
If Jim Cornette and the AEW EVP's could ever get along, the perfect place for him to debut would be a tennis stadium. It's a shame. What are the odds that someone tonight uses a racket as a weapon?
corny always says omega has the same match and i'd argue the opposite that his match he works the style of his opponent