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December 2022 Wrestling Discussion


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57 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

I vaguely remember hearing that the Samoan Gangsta Party were going to be involved in the whole Fatu deal at some point but it never came to fruition. I don't know how serious that was as it could've been one of those "Yokozuna in the Hart Foundation" things where it made sense on a few levels so people ran with it as a rumor but it just never came together.

Speaking of Yoko, I forgot to bring up that I thought that would have been a great way to repackage him as the main foil for Fatu once he was done with the Camp Cornette stuff and gotten his weight under control. The Yokozuna stuff was becoming passe even for that era of WWF. You can have where you finally acknowledge the familial relationship and say that everyone was trying to forge their own identity within the WWF. That would explain away the Headshrinker and Yokozuna gimmicks without outright saying wrestling is fake. You can also make it where the money, fame, and success of being Yokozuna changed Rodney under presumably a new name and went to his head to where he has gotten into things out of wrestling that isn't too legal. You don't have to do the elaborate Kane/Undertaker backstory they eventually retconned caused they added too many layers. You can just plant the seeds that Rodney got into all these things cause he was out with an injury or whatever to keep the lights on and his family fed, and Fatu cannot get down with that even though Rodney is almost like a blood brother to him.

Voila! You have the instant credibility of a multi-time WWF world champion instead of being it being 1 or 2 underneath guys and some guys only hardcore fans would readily know.

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46 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

I vaguely remember hearing that the Samoan Gangsta Party were going to be involved in the whole Fatu deal at some point but it never came to fruition. I don't know how serious that was as it could've been one of those "Yokozuna in the Hart Foundation" things where it made sense on a few levels so people ran with it as a rumor but it just never came together.

Im pretty sure the Samoan Gangsta Party actually were on WWE TV though...I remember them checking out a Fatu match from the entrance way on an episode of Superstars.

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18 minutes ago, Infinit said:

Im pretty sure the Samoan Gangsta Party actually were on WWE TV though...I remember them checking out a Fatu match from the entrance way on an episode of Superstars.

You're probably right. I just remember hearing that they were going to be a big part of an angle with Fatu but it never really got off the ground to any great degree. I couldn't remember if they actually made tv or not.

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25 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Speaking of Yoko, I forgot to bring up that I thought that would have been a great way to repackage him as the main foil for Fatu once he was done with the Camp Cornette stuff and gotten his weight under control. The Yokozuna stuff was becoming passe even for that era of WWF. You can have where you finally acknowledge the familial relationship and say that everyone was trying to forge their own identity within the WWF. That would explain away the Headshrinker and Yokozuna gimmicks without outright saying wrestling is fake. You can also make it where the money, fame, and success of being Yokozuna changed Rodney under presumably a new name and went to his head to where he has gotten into things out of wrestling that isn't too legal. You don't have to do the elaborate Kane/Undertaker backstory they eventually retconned caused they added too many layers. You can just plant the seeds that Rodney got into all these things cause he was out with an injury or whatever to keep the lights on and his family fed, and Fatu cannot get down with that even though Rodney is almost like a blood brother to him.

Voila! You have the instant credibility of a multi-time WWF world champion instead of being it being 1 or 2 underneath guys and some guys only hardcore fans would readily know.

Yoko was actually cutting promos in English towards the end of his WWF career and not even bothering trying with a Japanese accent or anything so maybe they were going to go down that path.

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14 minutes ago, Infinit said:

Im pretty sure the Samoan Gangsta Party actually were on WWE TV though...I remember them checking out a Fatu match from the entrance way on an episode of Superstars.

 

4 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

You're probably right. I just remember hearing that they were going to be a big part of an angle with Fatu but it never really got off the ground to any great degree. I couldn't remember if they actually made tv or not.

They definitely were on Raw and then I think I saw the one Superstars appearance a few months back. Might have all been in the same taping cycle. Then, that was it.

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3 hours ago, odessasteps said:

But it likely would have come with a gimmick deemed problematic in 2022, be he some kind of African Gary Hart found on a world tour or some gang member from Halsted Street in Chicago. 

Him managed by Prince Nana? I'd buy that for a dollar

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3 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

A lot of good stuff in the response.

Re: Sid, I was really thinking specifically of his last WWF stint. He loses the gold to the Undertaker at WM 13 and is shuffled down the card so quickly, leaving in July (IIRC) with nary a trace, even though he was so important in that eight-month period and could have fit right into the upper-midcard as a gatekeeper/transitional champ. I feel like post-IC champ Ahmed has the same fade out and WCW stint even without the weight/injury issues.

Re: Ahmed's portrayal, he's probably best off from that perspective with MVP as his mouthpiece, basically in the Bobby Lashley role. Lashley is very good from what I saw of his last Impact stint, but he doesn't have Ahmed-level presence or physical charisma.

 

The Hurt Business is about as least stereotypically racialized as a group of black wrestlers can get, even moreso than the face New Day, IMO. Ahmed would be great in a group like that.

 

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41 minutes ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

Re: Sid, I was really thinking specifically of his last WWF stint. He loses the gold to the Undertaker at WM 13 and is shuffled down the card so quickly, leaving in July (IIRC) with nary a trace, even though he was so important in that eight-month period and could have fit right into the upper-midcard as a gatekeeper/transitional champ. I feel like post-IC champ Ahmed has the same fade out and WCW stint even without the weight/injury issues.

Re: Ahmed's portrayal, he's probably best off from that perspective with MVP as his mouthpiece, basically in the Bobby Lashley role. Lashley is very good from what I saw of his last Impact stint, but he doesn't have Ahmed-level presence or physical charisma.

 

The Hurt Business is about as least stereotypically racialized as a group of black wrestlers can get, even moreso than the face New Day, IMO. Ahmed would be great in a group like that.

 

Well, if Shawn didn't get Vader put out of their program and Shawn didn't lose his smile, Sid's run would have been mostly as a big guy who plays maybe the #2 or #3 heel at best. So yeah, he would have been the gatekeeper/monster you beat BEFORE getting a title shot. Once Vader got replaced, Sid and Vader essentially changed spots and that was the end of Vader being taken that seriously as a big time player. So Sid basically settled into the role he was going to be in from the start before plans changed.

With Ahmed, they had big plans out of the gate. The big obstacle would have been how you handle him once he won the IC title from Goldust. Had he gotten through the Farooq feud clean and unscathed, you could have put him in a big time program after that and moved him up a little.

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Re: Samoan Gangsta Party

They definitely made at least a couple appearances. I think they even confronted Fatu in the aisle after a match once, not just watched. But as @Elsalvajeloco said, it was probably done over one taping cycle and then dropped. Make a Difference Fatu disappeared around that time, before being repackaged

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13 hours ago, cwoy2j said:

I can't remember if it was D'Lo or Godfather but one of them said that Simmons tried to mentor Ahmed but he (Ahmed) just wouldn't listen. They said Simmons told him something like, "listen man, they're literally trying to give you money and basically begging you to take it! Do you know how many other blacks who've been in this business would kill for that?" Basically trying to get him to stop being hard headed and appreciate his spot but obviously that never took. Ahmed has only been in the business for a couple of years at that point so when you think about it like that, the amount of push he got was crazy.

And out of everyone in the NOD he certainly had the shortest run

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12 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Well, if Shawn didn't get Vader put out of their program and Shawn didn't lose his smile, Sid's run would have been mostly as a big guy who plays maybe the #2 or #3 heel at best. So yeah, he would have been the gatekeeper/monster you beat BEFORE getting a title shot. Once Vader got replaced, Sid and Vader essentially changed spots and that was the end of Vader being taken that seriously as a big time player. So Sid basically settled into the role he was going to be in from the start before plans changed.

With Ahmed, they had big plans out of the gate. The big obstacle would have been how you handle him once he won the IC title from Goldust. Had he gotten through the Farooq feud clean and unscathed, you could have put him in a big time program after that and moved him up a little.

Ahmed might’ve been in Taker’s spot at Mania 13 if you really think about it.

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Only things I remember about "Make a Difference Fatu" was ...

1) him being watched by the Samoan Gangsta Party during 1-2 TV tapings

2) eliminating Austin at the 1996 Rumble

3) Having a dope jacket

 

For the first part, I was under the presumption this was going to lead to some sort of "family fight" angle that never developed but, as already mentioned, the whole bit was dropped without explanation.

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I was listening to Tarantino‘s podcast this morning, and he brings up a characters name in The Loved One. I realized this was the actual origin of Virgil Runnels wrestling name.

Learn something new…

Edit: Oh wait a minute! No, wait one fucking second! Both Tarantino, and Roger Avery repeat the name “Dusty Rhodes”. But on doing further research the name is actually “Dusty Acres”. So somebody had the fat man from Florida on their minds. Funny because I don’t think QT has ever said he was a fan of wrestling.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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If he’d grown up in Texas, he’d have been a big fan of that one Von Erich brother.

Considering Tarantino is a guy who has never had an opinion on anything without wanting everyone in the world to hear it, and he’s never said anything about wrestling, safe to assume he never watched it. Part of me wants to think he’d be thrilled to know that “Pro-Wrestler Jungle Boy” appears in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but he’s not said owt.

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4 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I thought it came from the baseball player Dusty Rhoads. 

QT grew up in Tennessee, right? So can see him at least being exposed to wrestling. 

I read somewhere that he got it because the area he grew up in was pretty poor and had a lot of dirt roads so he turned that into Dusty Rhodes as a name. Also, I remember in Gary Hart's book, Gary talks about first meeting Dusty and hearing the name Dusty Rhodes. Gary wanted to change his name to Lonesome Rhodes after the main character in the movie A Face in the Crowd and Dusty replied, "Well, I don't plan on being lonesome so I think I'll stick to Dusty" or something to that effect.

Sidenote-A Face in the Crowd is a pretty good movie starring Andy Griffith as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a drifter who becomes a big country music star. Publicly he's a folksy, nice guy but privately he's an arrogant prick. It's pretty wild to see wholesome Andy Griffith as a beer drinking, asshole redneck heel. He was Steve Austin before Steve Austin was Steve Austin!

Edited by cwoy2j
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In the Jim Thompson story “A Swell looking Babe” there’s a character whose last name is Rhodes and the first person he meets says “I guess everyone calls you Dusty”, so he goes by Dusty Rhodes for the rest of the book. Written 1954.

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Stuff to look forward to in 2023

Better crowds for NJPW

RoH weekly series

AEW's new looks for Dynamite and Rampage 

Whatever Mercedes Mon'e is doing

Muto's final matches and NOAH using the Tokyo Dome again. The Dome has only been used by NJPW and DDT for pro wrestling since 2008. Twice only for DDT. 2007 was joint WK 1 NJPW and AJPW show. Stardom plans to use the Tokyo Dome un the future.

AJPW Electric current bombing match. With Onita.

Where Jake lee will end up

If Kota Ibushi leaves NJPW

If WWE changes the rules for some of the gimmick matches for their PLE'S. And RAW XXX.
 

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On 12/27/2022 at 1:27 PM, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

I think, at best, Ahmed gets the Sid treatment and fades out by mid-1998 instead of mid-1997 like Sid did. His accent was too thick to cut the longer promos and skits that the company moved toward.

Ahmed was maybe ten years too late because that type of physical charisma, paired with a manager who could talk for him, would have been unstoppable. Stick Ahmed with Gary Hart and watch the magic happen (and the face turn when Hart eventually pisses off Ahmed would be flames, though I don't know who you'd get to talk for him as a face manager).

Imagine Ahmed with Capt Lou.  I don't think Vince would do it though. He would either make him instant heel and put him with Slick a la Butch Reed, or he would make him face and slap him with Oliver Humperdink.   The more I think about it Ahmed w Jimmy Hart could make sense. Big ass kicker next to the scrawny blabbermouth. 

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