As noted, Billy Corgan was the special guest on Vince Russo’s The Brand, and below are more highlights from Corgan’s appearance. You can check out out the entire show at this link.
On Continuing Off of the Success of The Final Deletion:
Coming off the Final Deletion, I see that this is where the business wants to go. We need to figure out how to build from that and continue it. If you can do that, and you can build people’s interest from the finishes, then I think they will show up. Again, good problems to have. When Billy Beane (Executive Vice President of the Oakland Athletics) figured out that small ball was the future for small market teams, you, you don’t automatically flip a switch and become a World Series contender, it takes time to find your people, It takes time to build a crew, find people to edit the videos for the Final Deletion. Right now, we are working on an in-house mafia of who can do that stuff. We’re shooting five days of television in two nights, and that type of thing. We don’t have a system to follow up. So, when you ask how we followup, we have to build that, so there becomes an expectation of Impact! Wrestling week after week.
On What is On the Top of the List for Impact! Wrestling:
Stabilizing the business. You’ve heard lots of signals coming from within, I don’t control on what is written in the dirt sheets, there’s been a lot of talk. Sometimes I’m surprised on what people know. You have to stabilize the business. You have to present a consistency, that’s the number one thing, you have to stabilize the business. Right at number two is, I’ve had a year and a half and I know what I want the shoot to go, I want to push the gas pedal right now to sort of see where I want to accomplish in this company in a creative level that I feel will yield results, I deeply believe that. As somebody as theories I have learned from and resources I draw from you, I can ask what you think about this. I think you will be happy with the direction of the program. I’m not saying it’ll be exactly what you will do, or WWE would do, but what I would do, but I feel like I can learn from great people, on what does and doesn’t work in wrestling. I’ve paid attention a lot in wrestling to see how Paul Heyman would book, how Russo would book, or Jeff Jarrett, the McMahon’s, there’s lots of lessons to learn, even going back to the Verne Gagne days. Everybody has their theories, but until they are tested we will never know.
On the Glimpse of the Vision:
The average viewer is playing with their phone, checking their messages, texting, maybe they are tweeting. The idea that somebody is going to sit and watch a wrestling program, and completely pay attention the way they were 20 years ago is a fallacy. It’s not going to happen. Why do you think when a top show, a top entertainment show, Walking Dead, they have a hashtag like #IWalkWithTheDead or whatever; those people are relying on social media to do their market driving. They already understand and accept that the viewer is going to sit for two hours. It’s just not going to happen, so number one is you have to pick up the pace. I’m not saying you have to have shorter matches, I just think you have to pick up the pace that are happening, and I would say…going back to my comment about the wrestling audience being intelligent, I think the Hardy’s proves that more than anything with catch phrases. People are catching on to that right away, so you have to give them more of that space to turn the product on for them. You have to go with the pace the world works at now, not saying this is the way it is, or the way it’s done, but this is the pace that it needs to happen in. Every detail needs to matter. It’s simple for me, every little thing has to matter and needs to be explained. Let’s start here: If a heel can go in and bump a ref or interfere in a match, why wouldn’t he do that for every match the rest of the time? It needs to make sense.
On Pro Wrestling Not Changing with the Time:
If a heel feels that cheating is the way out of losing his title, then why wouldn’t they do that, right? So what is the consequence? The consequence would then be, usually in wrestling there is ramifications, everyone kind of does the no-see or no-hear, and pretends it didn’t happen. Look for ways that go from a dead alley to tell a bigger story, to build character, build more nuance. Use it to build a character over, use it to get over dimensionality, but be consistent in applying those rules. That is something that I am a stickler for.
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