Kayfabe Commentaries sent this in:
March 22, 2011
AL SNOW DIAGNOSES TODAY’S PRODUCT AS REALISM-DEPRIVED
Al Snow booked for OVW, and today holds a spot on TNA’s creative team. Snow was also a featured wrestler during WWE’s white-hot “Attitude Era,” where TV ratings were hitting the stratosphere in a way they have never seen again. So it would seem that he’d be someone that would have a lot to say about the paltry results that pro wrestling garners in viewership these days.
And indeed, he does on the latest edition of “Guest Booker,” released today.
The critically acclaimed DVD series profiles wrestling’s most creative minds — its bookers and decision makers — and Al Snow’s episode covers the style and decisions that made that “Attitude Era” so successful. Naturally the questions are posed against today’s backdrop of one major federation going “PG” and living in a major drop-off from “Attitude” numbers, and the other major federation firing all of its arsenal at once and returning ratings in the 1s. Different time, baby.
And Al Snow centers his discussion on “Guest Booker” along those lines. The compare/contrast with today’s anemic and largely dispassionate following lives in the heart of realism. And perceived reality. And the outrageous characters being closer to the actual star than not. Sounds like reality-tv. Snow feels that’s where wrestling hit its groove, even before the reality craze. And they’ve abandoned it.
“Al lived through both Lief Cassidy and Al Snow,” says production company Kayfabe Commentaries president Sean Oliver. “Add to that mix that he has several years of booking experience, and he’s uniquely qualified to discuss wrestling’s failure and success at creating compelling and real characters, and corresponding angles to accompany them. And this edition of ‘Guest Booker’ reminds us of the deleterious effects of steering wrestlers’ direction away from their natural makeup, and putting other people’s words in their mouths on television.”
Snow joins bookers Dutch Mantell, Jerry Jarrett, Jim Cornette, Kevin Sullivan and others who have been guests on the hit shoot-dvd series. The dvd went on sale today at http://www.kayfabecommentaries.com.