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January 2023 Pro Wrestling Discussion


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1 hour ago, twiztor said:

yeah, we are certainly the exact same demographic, as my experience mirrors yours. i loved all of Jericho's nicknames for people: Tony Skee-a-vone, Ron Mysterio, Quasi Juice, etc. By the time Ralphus was introduced, Jericho was among my favorite parts of Nitro.

I didn't watch Fall Brawl that year and that closeup of Flair's face made me actually think that maybe Flair had died (not necessarily due to the head slamming, just in general). bizarre way to open the show, that's for sure.

The closeup of Flair’s face was scary af at the time. I wish they would have done a little more with it. They didn’t even acknowledge it on TV. They just said somewhere in hour 2 that o yeah Ric is injured. I would go as far as to say that had then been exploited properly, it could have been as big of a freak out as some of the doomier stuff that Foley, Undertaker, or Jake did in the WWF. They really missed on that very good idea that somebody grabbed out of nowhere. WCW had the best ideas. I’ve said the 1000 times. They just didn’t know how to use them. 

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2 hours ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

I still don’t quite understand how they slammed that cage door on Ric’s head without really killing him. We need a Wrestling Secrets Revealed 2 for that trick reveal.

Chainlink is light can be really flimsy, I don't remember exactly how the cage was built, but it is kind of the perfect building material if you want to slam someone's head in it and make it look terrible while it still being relatively safe.  

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36 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

track and field covers a lot of events but it is kinda interesting how many T&F people got NILs here. One would have to check into the people named to see if any of them could use the discus punch if they go into wrestling.

There are some straight up hosses in that group.  That Cameron Jones guy looks like a beast right now, curious to see what they do with him.

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2 hours ago, supremebve said:

Chainlink is light can be really flimsy, I don't remember exactly how the cage was built, but it is kind of the perfect building material if you want to slam someone's head in it and make it look terrible while it still being relatively safe.  

....which is why Mick Foley is fucking nuts for letting Chyna slam the door of that blue cage on his head. I believe he said that was in the top 5 or 10 list of his most painful experiences in his career.

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3 hours ago, supremebve said:

Chainlink is light can be really flimsy, I don't remember exactly how the cage was built, but it is kind of the perfect building material if you want to slam someone's head in it and make it look terrible while it still being relatively safe.  

The thing is I believe the contact is with the pipes holding the chain link. I guess this is a mystery like getting hit with Toni Storm’s ass.

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1 hour ago, Infinit said:

I'm sure they could've gimmicked the door frame with plastic piping to lessen the impact. 

I don't think anyone involved with WCW ever thought far enough ahead on anything to do something like that.

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4 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

track and field covers a lot of events but it is kinda interesting how many T&F people got NILs here. One would have to check into the people named to see if any of them could use the discus punch if they go into wrestling.

Considering the quick development for Tiffany Stratton and Sol Ruca I'm shocked they didn't grab more gymnastics folks. Or maybe they weren't interested?

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On 1/25/2023 at 2:56 PM, twiztor said:

yeah, we are certainly the exact same demographic, as my experience mirrors yours. i loved all of Jericho's nicknames for people: Tony Skee-a-vone, Ron Mysterio, Quasi Juice, etc. By the time Ralphus was introduced, Jericho was among my favorite parts of Nitro.

I didn't watch Fall Brawl that year and that closeup of Flair's face made me actually think that maybe Flair had died (not necessarily due to the head slamming, just in general). bizarre way to open the show, that's for sure.

The only wrestling T-shirt I have ever bought was a Monday Night Jericho shirt that I don't know what happened to. I know I was always talking him up on the RSPW/-M. I loved when he did the Man of 1,004 holds and just kept alternating random things with "armbar" and then used the Dr. Seuss reference (Moss Covered Three-Handled Flying Gradunzle). And of course Ralphus.

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Hennig turning was so dang predictable. It was the first really kinda lame thing they’d done long term since 1995. The turn was done so well though, and Flair’s dead head the following night was so badass that it saved it. And Flair’s promos after this were as good as anything he’d ever done. 

I know alot of people liked Jericho cutting up on TV every week but it was frustrating for me being a WCW diehard who wanted them to get it together. He’d do his thing on TV then just get buried. Then I’d hop online and hear people talking about how great it was, which only meant it’d be so much better when he leaves. Then I’d read what he would say himself on his website lol ugh...

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I don't think Jericho really got buried during his WCW heel run. Definitely wasn't elevated to his potential, but he still had a ton of credibility going into WWE. Once he won the belt from Mysterio, he didn't lose for like 5 months, and got pretty much all of his wins clean too. Eventually, he had to give the wins back to the top guys like Dean, Rey, and Juvi, but then he moved on the TV title and got a decent amount of wins there before dropping the belt to Konnan who was super over at the time. He then did a reasonable 50/50 feud with Saturn who went over in the end as the face, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then he pretty much disappeared until his contract was up. WCW could've done him way dirtier.

I think 98 Jericho was the first heel I ever cheered for. He was so perfectly obnoxiously funny. He had all the good qualities of heel Shawn without any of the negatives.

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41 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

I don't think Jericho really got buried during his WCW heel run. Definitely wasn't elevated to his potential, but he still had a ton of credibility going into WWE. Once he won the belt from Mysterio, he didn't lose for like 5 months, and got pretty much all of his wins clean too. Eventually, he had to give the wins back to the top guys like Dean, Rey, and Juvi, but then he moved on the TV title and got a decent amount of wins there before dropping the belt to Konnan who was super over at the time. He then did a reasonable 50/50 feud with Saturn who went over in the end as the face, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then he pretty much disappeared until his contract was up. WCW could've done him way dirtier.

I think 98 Jericho was the first heel I ever cheered for. He was so perfectly obnoxiously funny. He had all the good qualities of heel Shawn without any of the negatives.

I think it was "buried"  in the sense he was largely stuck in the cruiserweight purgatory (In one of his books, Jericho talked about how the cruisers were like "lepers" in WCW and Booker T (whom he said he'd later count as a friend) once remarked "I ain't no cruiserweight" when matched up with one of them); how the division was largely looked down upon. Outside the cruiser division, his biggest moments were over Hall (Who did it just to stick it to management) and the Goldberg "angle" (which Goldberg and all tried to scuttle). He did also say, to your point, that he was expecting Bischoff to crush him on the way out as he'd gone back on his word about re-signing (IIRC, he thought the "Loser wears a dress" stipulation with Saturn was going to be punishment for him before finding out it was because Saturn wanted to wear a dress for his new gimmick) but they were quite fair with him. So, I think the "buried" thing is that he was given top status, but it was in the division nobody cared about, so you never saw him in any Nitro or PPV main events.

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I think the cruiser segregation ultimately worked in his favor. He was a big fish in a small pond, but the top cruisers who "moved up" around that time never got much to show for it. Thinking of Malenko as US champ being an afterthought in the Jarrett/Mongo feud (and getting beat by both) and Rey getting a (midcard only) giant killer gimmick that ended with him losing his mask and the blowoff match with Nash anyway. Jericho dodged a serious bullet with Goldberg not wanting to do business with him. Never working (and losing) to the likes of Nash, Goldberg, Steiner, etc gave him an aura of "can't wait to see him work with real top guys" that made his WWE debut so anticipated.

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Do you even count Hennig turn as an actual turn? The Horsemen recruiting saga that lasted for a full year made them out to be heels who were kinda faces but not really tweeners. They were suppose to be the badass Horsemen, but they were in fighting for months. Hennig came in and instantly started heeling on a babyface DDP and suppose to be this highly sought after free agent. It just makes the Four Horseman look dumb for Ric going all out to recruit a guy who will go the highest bidder and already sided as a bad guy. Maybe the only explanation is they wanted to go after another bad guy since TECHNICALLY they were suppose to be the bad guys who don't wear white hats.

IMO I think they really didn't have a handle what the Horsemen were suppose to be in the era of the NWO. Once you got past that weird gray area where the Horsemen were united and siding with team WCW, it went down this weird path where Jarrett (who Flair recruited but didn't recruit) was feuding with Mongo, Benoit, and Arn. Mongo is feuding with Jeff. Benoit is feuding with Jeff but also feuding with Mongo cause Mongo's wife is obnoxious and basically slutshaming Woman. It's Days of Our Lives: The Four Horsemen Edition. So adding in Hennig to the mix when Hennig is already basically telling Flair he will only go with who pays him the most is basically just making things worse. 

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It didn't make Ric look real bright when you consider Hennig turning on DDP right out of the gate, but there was the whole Arn "spot" promo that Nash so famously overshadowed with his parody, both of which clearly established Hennig as a babyface, however briefly it may have been.

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