GABE SAPOLSKY JUST POSTED A BLOG FOR TODAY
- 12/08/2008 (1:59:22 pm)
- Georgiann Makropoulos
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Monday, December 08, 2008
My Last Booking Snafu I believe that I booked some pretty ok stuff over the years and had the fortune of great talent to make it even better. I also booked some crappy stuff that even good talent couldn't save. For the most part though, I think I had a pretty good batting average when it came to good vs. crap. Then of course there are always some booking snafus. There are times when you wish you would have done something just a little differently or afterwards you realize how you could have improved it. On rare occasions you see the error of your ways right before the match or angle is about to go down, but it is way too late to change it. My final booking snafu moment like that came at "Glory By Honor VII" in Philadelphia. Sometimes ideas would come in a moment's time. It was like a flash of adrenaline straight into the brain. I would think and think of something and then suddenly the vision would become completely clear in an instant like an explosion. This happened for the Cage Of Death format at the annual "Death Before Dishonor" show in 2006. The CZW angle was on fire, arguably the hottest angle ROH ever had. In fact, in the past two years there would be times that I would curse out the entire deal because every future feud we had would be compared to it and would rarely measure up. It became the standard instead of a remarkably great exception. I think it was actually one of my downfalls because all I would read for the last two years was how such and such feud was good, but it wasn't the CZW feud. Anyway, back to the point I was getting at. I was thinking of the possible formats for Cage Of Death probably about 6-8 weeks before it was set to go down. I knew it had to be something extra special and that we couldn't drop the ball with this blow off. The final match is so important because it can make an average feud into something great, a great feud into something legendary or vice versa. In this case, we had a feud that had captured people's imaginations and it was time to cement its place in history. I don't know how much time I spent thinking about what we needed to accomplish in this match, but it wasn't a small amount. Since early 2004 all of ROH's production was done in Tampa, Florida. I would always fly down there to produce. I would call them 20 hour trips. Basically, I would fly out of Philly around 11 AM, get to Tampa around 2 PM, we'd get some food (go to Guppy's if you are ever in Tampa) and then work through the night until morning when I would take an early morning flight out. Needless to say, it was pretty exhausting. So what does this have to do with Cage Of Death? I was struggling at the time to bring the format together and getting somewhat frustrated. I even started to get worried as each week passed. Time was running out. I knew it would be great with the talent involved, but I wanted it to be truly memorable. It was about 5-6 AM and I was walking to good old gate 84 in the US Airways terminal for the last leg of another 20 hour trip. As soon as I was dropped off I went into zombie mode just going through the familiar motions of getting to the gate while letting the thoughts of COD roll through my mind. Then in a moment as I walked from security to the gate, it was literally like 30 seconds I think, the entire format just exploded in my mind from the order of entry to the babyfaces gaining the advantage for the Bryan Danielson/Samoa Joe subplot to the Pearce/Homicide/Cornette angle (which for some reason fizzled after the event despite a really good cage match finale with Homicide and Pearce in Chicago) and the major points in between. The guys in the match then took the rough format and made it into something very special. They all came up with creative stuff and put themselves on the line with fearless and flawless execution. The end result is a match and storyline that people will be talking about for a long time. It was an example of a perfected total team effort. Everything clicked. So what does this have to do with my latest booking snafu? Well, I have to admit that for the last year or so the material didn't just explode into my head like it used to. Don't get me wrong, I am very proud of my final year and feel that we did some great stuff. I stand behind all that work and believe that it deserves your support if you like the ROH style of action, but I wasn't getting those explosions all the time. This brings us to Steel Cage Warfare at "Glory By Honor VII" in Philly. I will continue the story in a new blog shortly. I just don't want to write too much in one sitting. Thanks for reading! |
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