PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

 
 

WHY WWE BANISHED PHOTOGRAPHERS FROM RINGSIDE, MISSING ANNOUNCERS ON WWE TAPES, THE BOOGIE KNIGHTS AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2013-01-03 10:00:00

I seem to remember seeing a tag team that did a Karate Kid Cobra-Kai gimmick when I went to an indy show in New York at the old Elks Lodge. What happened to them?

You are thinking of The Boogie Knights, Danny Drake and Mike Tobin, who were two really nice guys with a good gimmick. Drake was injured badly working for Jersey All Pro and eventually retired. Tobin worked as a single for awhile, most notably the ECWA, but eventually stopped wrestling. I really liked their work and a lot of people forget they were in the first incarnation of Ring of Honor as well.

Is there any rationale as to why TNA routinely runs house shows on Thursday nights? I can't see the upside to competing with their own TV, especially on nights when the Impact broadcast is live, and all the top talent is booked for Orlando.

Those dates were locked in well before the company began the live Impacts and it made more sense to run the live shows as opposed to canceling and upsetting business partners and taking dates away from talent.

Up until a few years ago there used to be a handful of Japanese and American photographers ringside at all WWE televised events. I do not see these photographers at WWE events anymore taking photos, was this a conscious decision on WWE's behalf to stop this practice or were there no longer demand for WWE coverage to warrant these photos?

We actually covered this when it happened here on PWInsider.com. When the company moved to high definition broadcasting, company officials felt too many people at ringside would be distracting to fans watching at home, so the photographers are now delegated to shooting from the hard camera position in the crowd. They still allow ringside photography on house shows.

After watching WWE Vintage Collection and older matches being put into best of DVDs. I was wondering if there are any announcers/interviewers WWE will go out of their way to not use? Either, cutting them out completely or dubbing over them or just won't use the footage at all because of them? Best wrestling site there is!

Thanks for the compliment! The only announcer I can think of offhand would be Jesse Ventura. The company removes him from as much of their WCW material as possible since using it would leave them open to paying heavy royalties based on Ventura's winning lawsuit over commentary royalties from WWF videotapes. So, they clip his audio out as much as they can from non-WWF material.

Just who do you think you are?

The guy important enough that you are asking me.

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!