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May 2023 Wrestling Talk


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12 minutes ago, For Great Justice said:

Was JYD ever a heel?

I think he might've been a heel in Stampede as Big Daddy Ritter.

Were Kevin or Kerry Von Erich ever heels?

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6 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

I think he might've been a heel in Stampede as Big Daddy Ritter.

Were Kevin or Kerry Von Erich ever heels?

Kevin/Kerry came into Florida as heels to back up David one time during his heel run there.

 

Edited by Hamhock
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10 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Barely even de facto in Japan. Which is infuriating, since he’s so naturally unlikable.

Does anyone recall was the WrestleWar'92 match against Pillman wrestled straight up face vs face throughout? He didn't even show any heelish edge there?

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The Wimbley Stadium show hasn't been formally announced as a PPV yet. Right?

If they stream it on Max that might get new subscribers that are hard-core wrestling fans just like WWE and Peacock. & the good thing about Collision is that is can be a good lead in show for the Saturday PPVs. I imagine the Collision show before All in will get alot of views with it being the day before.

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At the moment, it's just a very big house show. Presumably it'll be televised somehow.

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1 hour ago, Hamhock said:

Kevin/Kerry came into Florida as heels to back up David one time during his heel run there.

 

David....not the best speaker in the world.

I saw some of David's work in Florida recently. Just based on that feather earring, he automatically has you wanna beat him up Jeff Jarrett heat. He's a good slimeball heel. Had his career continued on, I can see him going to WWF in that role but desperately needed that mouthpiece. There is an alternate timeline where David lives and becomes the J.R. Ewing character on WWF TV almost two decades before John Layfield does his take on that character. 

So if that happens, do we get the Million Dollar Man? 

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Has there been a point in the past 30ish years since the Headshrinkers and Yokozuna debuted that no member of the Samoan wrestling family hasn’t been employees by WWE?

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57 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Has there been a point in the past 30ish years since the Headshrinkers and Yokozuna debuted that no member of the Samoan wrestling family hasn’t been employees by WWE?

Depends on how the question is worded. You may have a time when guys were still on the payroll but not used on TV. 

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3 hours ago, Matt D said:

Barely even de facto in Japan. Which is infuriating, since he’s so naturally unlikable.

Since we’ve been reminiscing in our eulogies for Dean, I remember Zenk being a regular on RSPW trying to convince everybody that he was a superstar who got screwed and a genius for the business. 

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1 hour ago, Sublime said:

Has there been a point in the past 30ish years since the Headshrinkers and Yokozuna debuted that no member of the Samoan wrestling family hasn’t been employees by WWE?

Closest was probably 2005 - Rock was gone, Rikishi was on the outs, and Jamal was in All Japan prior to coming back as Umaga. Only Rosey was still around.

Edited by Dolphman 3000
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They kept Yoko under contract around for a LONG time after he couldn't get cleared to wrestle. I know they (WWE) in the time since kept some folks when they were having issues outside the ring, but the mid to late 90s is back when they weren't doing that all. That tells you how much they liked him. 

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Zenk was 1 of the first old rasslers to discover the internet and read what he saw on it with a tad to much intensity, and get a tad mad about it. Therefore he got an unfair reputation of being a turd. Here we are now in year number 100 it seems like that people find it charming when wrestlers act like him on the internet. 

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Zenk was basically a less charismatic Paul Roma. Great worker, up there with Brunzell and Holly in terms of great dropkick off the whip, but just a dull generic tan pretty boy look. Could've used a stand-out finish too. Started out with the sleeper, but never put in the work to get it over (Say what you want about Beefcake, but that guy got his sleeper OVER). Then after they start pushing him as a high-flyer, he tended to flip between the missile dropkick and crossbody without ever really establishing one.

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I wouldn’t say Z-Man lacked charisma or babyface charm. He was over big time for a long time, and he could dang sure work for a guy his size. He was so good that you didn’t notice how big he was. 

The WWF machine just wasn’t for him so he hit the road, but alot of good wrestlers did that. Then he rubbed Ole wrong, which alot of good wrestlers did to. 


 

 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, The Comedian said:

Zenk was basically a less charismatic Paul Roma. Great worker, up there with Brunzell and Holly in terms of great dropkick off the whip, but just a dull generic tan pretty boy look. Could've used a stand-out finish too. Started out with the sleeper, but never put in the work to get it over (Say what you want about Beefcake, but that guy got his sleeper OVER). Then after they start pushing him as a high-flyer, he tended to flip between the missile dropkick and crossbody without ever really establishing one.

Ed Leslie is probably the biggest case of if this dude ever learned how to work, he would have been a bigger superstar than he was. There was a stretch where he was scary over for a guy who is way down on the undercard.

Funny that we bring up Zenk as well cause the other boys hated Zenk cause of his contract and being pushed above his level of skill. I think Zenk was talented, but he got stuck as that plucky heartthrob underdog when that era was over with. He had a good thing going in WWF and his tag team with Rick Martel was over as hell. He never got back to that level in WCW no matter how hard he tried.

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1 hour ago, The Comedian said:

I feel like Leslie was on the cusp of putting it all together when the accident happened. After that he really shouldn't have gotten back in the ring.

Leslie is hard because when I was a kid (well a tween/teen) I was a huge Brutus Beefcake fan. I don’t even know if he was a good wrestler, I just liked him. I mean Steamboat was my favorite but I marked for Brutus too. Then he was f’ng awful in WCW

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I’ll tell you what I loved the heck out of as a youngun - Pillman and Z-Man. They were such a breath of fresh air to see on weekly TV doing all those cool moves against jobbers. Yes we already had heartthrob tag teams but they were all established so they weren’t on TV much, and when they were it was just to get cheated out of winning the main event. 

They were over to, big time. Another 1 of those cool things to say to sound smart is that they were not. I do know of the problems they eventually had but not being over wasn’t 1 of them. 

Also just so I don’t sound like a total mark I’ll add that while Zenk shouldn’t be judged for leaving the WWF, Rick Martel shouldn’t be tuned out for the negative things he’s since said about it. Even with good reason, I’d be pretty mad if my partner left me hanging just before we were about to be the top good guy team in the biggest promotion. 

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1 hour ago, JLowe said:

Leslie is hard because when I was a kid (well a tween/teen) I was a huge Brutus Beefcake fan. I don’t even know if he was a good wrestler, I just liked him. I mean Steamboat was my favorite but I marked for Brutus too. Then he was f’ng awful in WCW

His squashes on the syndicated shows were always fun, which is why the sleeper was over at a time when it was becoming passe as a finisher. It became clear you have to keep him in short matches.

To be honest, he wasn't the best worker before WWF. Once he got put in the tag team with Valentine, he could be hidden and didn't have to carry a ton of the workload. The great face turn and the barber gimmick (which got him away from the strange male dancer/gigolo gimmick from San Francisco) gave him the momentum to do something different other than have job cause he's Hogan's boy/lackey. He was able to parlay it for a little while.

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3 hours ago, BloodyChamp said:

I’ll tell you what I loved the heck out of as a youngun - Pillman and Z-Man. They were such a breath of fresh air to see on weekly TV doing all those cool moves against jobbers. Yes we already had heartthrob tag teams but they were all established so they weren’t on TV much, and when they were it was just to get cheated out of winning the main event. 

They were over to, big time. Another 1 of those cool things to say to sound smart is that they were not. I do know of the problems they eventually had but not being over wasn’t 1 of them. 

Also just so I don’t sound like a total mark I’ll add that while Zenk shouldn’t be judged for leaving the WWF, Rick Martel shouldn’t be tuned out for the negative things he’s since said about it. Even with good reason, I’d be pretty mad if my partner left me hanging just before we were about to be the top good guy team in the biggest promotion. 

Co-signed.

I thought Pillman and Zenk were a great midcard babyface tag team and although Pillman had a higher ceiling as a top babyface, Zenk was, in my opinion, a great TV title level babyface who could be a credible TV main event opponent to uppercard heels. The pro wres nerd in me would use as an example a Z-Man vs Rude main event from an episode of World Championship Wrestling from February 92. 

And I don't get how the powers that be at the time came up with half assing Ricky Morton into Richard Morton for the York Foundation when turning Tom Zenk heel was RIGHT THERE. Which he probably would've been fucking great at. How great would a heel team of Terrence Taylor and Thomas Zenk have been?

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8 hours ago, The Comedian said:

Zenk was basically a less charismatic Paul Roma. Great worker, up there with Brunzell and Holly in terms of great dropkick off the whip, but just a dull generic tan pretty boy look. Could've used a stand-out finish too. Started out with the sleeper, but never put in the work to get it over (Say what you want about Beefcake, but that guy got his sleeper OVER). Then after they start pushing him as a high-flyer, he tended to flip between the missile dropkick and crossbody without ever really establishing one.

For a while in WCW, Zenk was using a Side Headlock Takeover (running up the turnbuckles) as a finishing move.

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