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May 2023 Wrestling Talk


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With all the discussion about Bill Watts and WCW, I often wonder how things turn out had he been the one to get the spot in 88/89m after Turner purchases the company from Crockett.  I think there was talk about wanting him as the booker in 89 but he didn't want to answer to Herd, but what if he gets the Executive Vice President position and there is no Herd to begin with?  If he comes in at the end of 88/early 89, I doubt he has to worry about cutting costs as much as possible compared to 92 so he's not rubbing talent the wrong way.  I wonder with him being away from wrestling  for less time in this scenario leads to him running a more acclaimed product compared to 92.  Then I also wonder if he even does that Torch interview that he did in 91 if he's in charge of WCW at the time.

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28 minutes ago, evidence said:

With all the discussion about Bill Watts and WCW, I often wonder how things turn out had he been the one to get the spot in 88/89m after Turner purchases the company from Crockett.  I think there was talk about wanting him as the booker in 89 but he didn't want to answer to Herd, but what if he gets the Executive Vice President position and there is no Herd to begin with?  If he comes in at the end of 88/early 89, I doubt he has to worry about cutting costs as much as possible compared to 92 so he's not rubbing talent the wrong way.  I wonder with him being away from wrestling  for less time in this scenario leads to him running a more acclaimed product compared to 92.  Then I also wonder if he even does that Torch interview that he did in 91 if he's in charge of WCW at the time.

How much did he (Bill) really want to compete with Vince in the middle of the height of WWF's success? What would be Bill's counter to the MegaPowers exploding? 

1989 had some crappy stuff like the Ding Dongs, but it also had the Flair/Steamboat trilogy, the introduction of the Great Muta to the U.S. audience, the Flair/Funk feud, and some other good stuff. I mean Starrcade: Future Shock kinda killed some of the momentum, but it was a good year considering 1988 was them trying recover from what looked to be a financial collapse.

Watts had pressure on him in 1992. Three years earlier, that's even more pressure and scrutiny. I think one of the bigger issues with Herd was it always felt that WCW was one step forward, three steps back. The Sting injury didn't help of course, but it felt like a lot of it was their own undoing. Bill would have had the luxury in 1992 of WWF falling apart at the seams, and it not getting better. The business stateside was begging for a savior. After the pizza guy and Kip Frey who was there for maybe 3 months, they (the people who felt they know wrestling) finally had their wrestling guy....and he preceded to somehow do worse than those guys.

Could he have done better if he wasn't five years removed from following wrestling? It's possible. It's also possible he would have floundered even more knowing the WWF is gangbusters, and he's coming in facing a major deficit even if he would have had more critical success. All I know is he still had the pieces in 1992 to do better than he did.

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It's a fun thought experiment to see what would have happened if WCW had stayed the course with Kip Frey rather than bring in Watts. The talent seemed especially motivated (Frey's policy of a "best match of the show" bonus contributed to that). I get the feeling he didn't want to be there longer than he was and was just a placeholder, so it likely would've fallen apart too, but I have a feeling he wouldn't have imploded the Dangerous Alliance or gotten rid of the Steiners out of nowhere like Watts did.

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It's a very old Scott Keith narrative that Kip Frey was perhaps the best person to run WCW so lets tread lightly. 🤭

Being serious though, maybe Kip's biggest misstep was turning WCW Saturday Night into that weird quasi talk show. However, when you think about it, the most early to mid 90s thing (bringing back the Springer connection) was the trashy talk show. If you remember, between the old Prime Time Wrestling format w/ Bobby and Gorilla and the Vince roundtable version with two people on either side, WWF did a similar thing and it was quite terrible. However, I cannot really fault pro wrestling for getting with the times. I can fault it for sucking, but I am not going to complain that much about them doing something new. 

IIRC he also signed Ventura. The problem with that is I don't think Jesse did what he was able to do for WWF. His connection to the glory days of WWF didn't really resonate with the WCW audience. Then, he just became a burden in terms of what his deal did financially for the later regimes to the point where he ultimately ended up gone as his place became less secure with WCW constantly signing folks who jumped ship and not fitting in to a company that (turns out) doesn't need a star color commentator.

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58 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

All this other shit aside, somebody posted a card with Sting vs. ORION. Who the hell is ORION?

A DC Comics character.

He's a pretty big deal, so I'm surprised DC let him wrestle Sting. Much less job in under five minutes.

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6 minutes ago, tbarrie said:

A DC Comics character.

He's a pretty big deal, so I'm surprised DC let him wrestle Sting. Much less job in under five minutes.

especially since Marvel Comics had the WCW comics at the time.

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Jobber matches where the jobber had a gimmick made the match more legit. That was 1 thing Watts always did that still wasn’t outdated IMO. It hardly made it 5 stars or anything, but there was just something better about wrestling a guy called The Libyan than there was about wrestling a guy called Ed Brock. 

1989 was the funnest year of WCW IMO and had Sting not gotten hurt, well, I don’t know if history is altered all that much but WCW never straight bottoms out like it had by 1991. It was still kind of just put-putting along like it was the NWA. Jim Herd didn’t go crazy until about 1991 with his crap. 

Yes I know the Ding Dongs happened in 1989 but they only lasted 3 months and weren’t on TV again until the end when they got squashed, unmasked, and even sorta mocked late 90s insider style IIRC. Had Jim Herd not been the biggest jerk that ever lived, and just been a typical booker who didn’t know what was going on, I’d go as far as to say that might have saved his reputation lol! Of course he probably didn’t come up with the idea for that send off either. 

 

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I think WWE need to change their creative and have Seth Rollins be the one who beats Reigns for the title at next year's Mania. 

I know they are likely going with a slow build for Cody Rhodes but the crowd love Rollins just as much or if not more then Cody.

I know Cody is more liked by the kids but I think Seth has a great gimmick right now and the crowd are really into him. 

Also you could have Seth eliminate Cody to win the Rumble match and then when Seth wins you could have a slow heel turn for Cody as a delusionial heel who thinks he is loved by the fans and you got a big fued after next year's Mania when Reigns has a break.

 

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44 minutes ago, EVA said:

I feel like singing the same three notes over and over again is more over than Seth, himself, is.

Fans love entrances they can sing along with.

ADAM COLE BAY-BAY

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2 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Fans love entrances they can sing along with.

ADAM COLE BAY-BAY

That and "What" are the worst of the many lasting legacies of WWE/the Attitude era.

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4 hours ago, Sparkleface said:

This guy. (Disappointing, yeah?)

Very disappointing. If somebody shot down my "DC character" answer, I was planning to fall back to assuming Sting had wrestled an actual constellation.

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When did the wave of "fans singing 'OHHHHHH' to the melody of wrestler's entrance music" begin?

Edited by Hamhock
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4 minutes ago, Hamhock said:

When did the wave of "fans singing 'OHHHHHH' to the melody of wrestler's entrance music" begin?

I feel like Full Sail Era NXT was pretty influential. I first really started noticing it with them singing along to Sami’s theme. So at least 2014-2015-ish.

Edited by EVA
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29 minutes ago, Hamhock said:

When did the wave of "fans singing 'OHHHHHH' to the melody of wrestler's entrance music" begin?

I think it was a PROGRESS thing that started with their "Ohhhhhhhh Zack Sabre Jr." chant to Seven Nation Army

Sami Zayn's theme is just a rip-off of El Generico's Bouncing Souls theme that he had been using for years - and that was based on the "Ole!" soccer chant

So, to sum it up - Europeans and their dumb soccer chants

Edited by Dolphman 3000
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