Watching this makes me wonder what the hell happened to pool in the last 17 years. Check out the relatively young crowd, their excitement (Mosconi Cup-style), the mic'd up players (why don't the streamers do this more? such an easy win), Earl being cheerful and appreciative of his opponents' good shots, the friendly (and funny!) banter between opponents.
We've lost the joy. Everyone's so damn serious these days. How did we screw it up so badly? I know it's easy to blame poker and video games, but perhaps we should look at ourselves and our tournament formats. Rule #1 of a game: if it ain't fun, the masses aren't gonna play. Or watch.
The wildest part of the video is earl actually applauding good shots and seeming happy go lucky and cordial... Good video thanks for sharing
This was a great CJ/Earl match; I really enjoyed it. Thanks for posting it CJ.
But in watching this and other old ESPN matches I have to wonder if we've lost something or gained something, in the way pool is presented, at least for the serious player. Absolutely the pro players would benefit from more big money tournaments like there were a decade or more ago. But personally I'd rather watch a TAR or AccuStats match or other high quality streaming match. ESPN had features like: jumping between two tables so you can't see any single runout. Handheld cameras that focused on the players more then the table layout. Play-by-Play commentators who's big contribution were comments like "If we've learned anything it's that when players of this calibre play, anything is possible." Commercials. Resuming from a commercial and finding they've skipped a few games. etc.
For the mass market, this style of coverage is probably much better. But for the members on AZ, do you really want to return to the "good ol days"?
-Jeff
HEY CJ
Everyone is mentioning the Earl vs. CJ match. It was during that time that Earl appeared sane and was a world beater. He showed real class when you beat him and he did that several times when he battled with Efren. That really had to be a sweet victory!:thumbup:
Who was your favorite opponent or opponents during that time period? You looked in dead punch!
Wish I could see some videos of you playing one pocket....
Ken
nice to see someone play wide open and shoot the balls in! great victory for you CJ, and the best part is that some really hot chick keeps coming up kissing you after each match.lol
I just saw this link sent to me on Face Book, check it out and see the ESPN World Open Championships.....it was for a total prize of over $300,000 and was seen by over 10,000,000 people WORLDWIDE.
CLICK HERE -ESPN WORLD OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Amazing pool. Mr. Wiley you are a legend, thank you for posting this.
I too miss the days when you could catch a match on tv often. There are many contributing factors to the decline in popularity of our beloved sport and we all know what they are. People who play often and have a general understanding of the game can sit and watch match after match remaining completely entertained. However those who aren't that familiar with the game might not realize what they are seeing when the players play amazing safeties or tactical push outs. These are the people we need to enthrall for the sport to grow.
The Color of Money helped keep the game popular for over a decade. We need the movie makers and authors of the world to keep trying with the pool stories, one day one will catch fire again and maybe the pros of our beloved sport will get the compensation and respect that all finely tuned masters deserve.
Mr Wiley please for the love of all that is holy and unholy write a book about your life in pool.
I just saw this link sent to me on Face Book, check it out and see the ESPN World Open Championships.....it was for a total prize of over $300,000 and was seen by over 10,000,000 people WORLDWIDE.
CLICK HERE -ESPN WORLD OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS
Thanks for this CJ! This is one of the things I really miss about pool. It helped "lure" me in when I was young watching on TV. I distinctly remember watching this one. Guess I was one of the 10,000,000!
Hey, you were the most important of the Ten Million I was drawn into pool by Wide World of Sports matches between Minnesota Fats and Willie Mosconi....the production of the game wasn't the focus, the character building was....and it was fantastic.
This is the key to the future, not just "broadcasting to players," it's ALL ABOUT THE CHARACTERS, and branding the ENTERTAINMENT aspects of pool....this can and will be done asap. We don't see it anymore because the games have gotten HUGE, but football, golf, tennis, baseball etc were all branded by the players, not the games.
Yes, this something that is crucial to the de evolution of pool in the last 14 years, the ESPN presence is essential to be regarded as an "entertainment option" for the general public. If they took football off TV for 3 years you would see a massive decline in their industry too. Of course this is ludicrous for any other sport/game, but it happened in pool and is continuing to happen. ESPN really liked doing pool events when we were all involved, I'm not sure what happened, I retired in 99 and never payed any attention to what happened, all I know is within two years there was No ESPN Events anymore.
Thousands of people were channeled into playing pool during these events and we averaged over ONE MILLION viewers per show.....this was the average, the match between Vivian and me posted a reported 2.8 Million in viewers....and it was rebroadcast many times in the next year. ESPN told me the matches I played in were played over 600 International Hours Worldwide. Imagine how much pool has been effected by NOT having this type of exposure. It's not "The Game" that messed up, it's the "students" that didn't "real eyes" how important TV would be to the future.
'The Game is the Teacher' .com
Wow...strong figures here.
I'm right along with ya. Pool hasn't been the same since it's been off of prime time. I can remember people (non players) back in the day asking me about "the black widow", allison, earl, and several other tv faces. Nobody has asked me about them in years
cj has about the most solid stroke i've ever seen. I've only seen a couple of little clip type vidoes of him playing but good lord solid is an understatement.