Magazine Archives: The Mailbag! (Patreon)

From issue 2 of FightfulMag.com!

Avery Dunn: Jimmy - What's more fun, being behind the scenes at Fightful or the lead man of his first site?

Jimmy Van:Behind the scenes at Fightful. With my first site, I was more or less a one-man show. I had some freelance writers, but I didn't have development, design or marketing help or social media to help spread the word at the level we have today. I enjoyed some aspects of it, but it was a ton of work for not a lot of financial reward. I prefer now to interject myself whenever I feel like it but otherwise leave things up to Sean Ross Sapp.

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Andrew Benge: What’s the most memorable thing you saw at a live show, but not for the reasons they wanted (funny or just unplanned)?

Jimmy Van: I can think of two, both WWE events. The first was a Raw taping at the former Skydome in Toronto in February 1999. A local businessman who owns a chain of pawn shops known as Oliver the“Cashman”did a promotion where he walked all over the Skydome wearing a Superman costume, and if he saw any signs with his name on them, he would hand you cash. Neither he nor his people realized the kind of crowd they were dealing with, and because it was at the Skydome, it was a huge crowd. People climbed all over each other to get the cash, fights broke out, people were lunging at poor Oliver, and along the way, he got his cape torn off and had to scramble out of there. That same show ended withThe Corporationbeating upSteve Austinin the ring, which prompted dozens of fans at ringside to throw water bottles at Vince McMahonand company, and everybody was ducking and dodging and running for cover.

The other event was a WWE house show from around the same time. There was a tag team match pitting The Hardy Boyz against The Dudley Boyz. This may have been a rib, but at one point, Bubba Ray Dudleyattempted a neckbreaker onMatt Hardy, but Hardy bumped early. So Bubba stood there with his arms up in the neckbreaker position, looking down at Hardy on the mat as fans “in the know” laughed.

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Alan Stanley: For Fightful’s social media department, how have you noticed social media changing for wrestlers over the past five years?

Kyler James: I think wrestlers are using social media more to get over more than they did. I feel like they get more comfortable with their characters through social media. Whether that is doing skits on their own time or uploading promo clips from the shows. By doing that, wrestlers are getting more exposure than ever before from social media. Also, I think wrestlers that have Youtube or Twitch channels are benefiting by gaming, hosting live streams, Q&As, etc.; we are able to see a different side of the wrestlers from what we usually watch on TV.

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Alex T.: Why do you think Canadian crowds go against the grain?

Gisberto Guzzo: I like to think of it as Canadian crowds as being ahead of the game rather than against the grain. Crowds – especially in the late 90s and early 2000s – would almost always cheer for anyone from Canada. Now, as long as the wrestler isn’t from here, the fans tend to go with whoever they like. We’re not piped in crowd noise who’ll cheer for whoever the company tells us to. Once at a SmackDown taping, they tried to get heat on Edgeand Christianby playing a backstage video before the show where they trash-talked our town and the country as a whole. Naturally, this did nothing. Sure, you get instances like Bayleygetting booed while wearing a sling, but if we’re being honest, her character at that point in time was in dire straits. Not to mention, when a primarily adult crowd starts downing Canadians and having a good time, we tend to get in sync with one another pretty quickly.

The Canada vs. USA feud in 1997 also feels relevant to the conversation. I’m not sure it’s a conscious decision made by the crowd to be contrarian, but we definitely like to be different from our friends south of the border. The“Montreal Screwjob”also lives on and a lot of people still have a very “us against them” mentality when it comes to WWE, so when they see something being forced by the company they’re more likely to push back against it. The crowds might also seem more boisterous or “bizarro” – as they like to call us – because WWE rarely bring Raw and SmackDown to Canada. Alberta, home of the Hart family, hasn’t had a televised show in eight years. Vancouver has had two shows in the last 20 years. There are plenty of other cities to visit besides Toronto and Montreal. Superstars like Randy Orton and Steve Austin have praised our crowds as being among the best.

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Andrew LaCelle: What manager/wrestler combo had the least amount of onscreen chemistry?

Robert DeFelice:The relationship between a manager and wrestler can be one of the best in the industry if done right. There are countless examples of relationships that only lasted less than a year but remain immortal in the minds of fans because of how well the pairing was. The pairing of Curt Hennig,Mr. Perfect, and Bobby “The Brain” Heenansprings to mind when thinking of such an example.

However, on the flip side, sometimes pairings can just go dreadfully wrong. While examples like Jim Cornette paired with Mantaurmight be first in the mind of many, I look for an example that could have been great and fell apart due to the inability of the promotion to capitalize.

In 2013, Paul Heyman was paired with both Curtis Axel and Ryback. The former was an attempt to recast the glory of the pairing that I mentioned above, fitting as Curtis Axel is the son of Mr. Perfect. The latter was an attempt to give Paul Heyman a heater whileBrock Lesnar was away.

Unfortunately for Curtis, the focus on Brock Lesnar, then later Ryback, left him in the dark despite having victories over Triple H and an Intercontinental Championship run of his own. With Ryback, strange booking choices, sloppy matches with CM Punk, and an overall forgetfulness towards the pairing once Brock Lesnar was back in the picture put these pairings down as some of the purest reminders of why Paul Heyman can’t create magic with everybody.