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They did do the MX injures Pillman's that with the tennis racket angle. I just saw the WCWSN episode for the first time a few days ago, after watching a clip of it when it happened on an episode of WWW back in 1990. It was taped in Altoona PA, which I thought was an odd place for them to do a tv taping.

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For the Pillman move...I think the bigger what if wouldn't have been seen from WCW, but rather the WWF at the time. A Pillman main event run would have been normal in WCW (and likely either upped cruiserweight wrestling to the forefront or destroyed junior heavyweights from making it in America), but more specifically- if Pillman succeeded, then Shawn Michaels would have inevitably been seen as a Pillman ripoff in his singles run (and lost a little of his buzz)...which changes things since Shawn wouldn't have the hype to work the Kliq, and that potentially changes a lot of history right there.

And it's similar to the "What if Terry Taylor wasn't the Red Rooster?" thing- even if the rumor of "Curt Hennig and Terry Taylor had the Mr. Perfect and Red Rooster gimmicks on the table at the same time" thing was or wasn't true- it was true that both guys couldn't really coexist as top guys. Either they end up teaming or one is a star and the other isn't....and Hennig was better than Taylor, so inevitably Hennig would swim and Taylor would sink. 

 

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2 hours ago, Infinit said:

They did do the MX injures Pillman's that with the tennis racket angle. I just saw the WCWSN episode for the first time a few days ago, after watching a clip of it when it happened on an episode of WWW back in 1990. It was taped in Altoona PA, which I thought was an odd place for them to do a tv taping.

Yeah Cornette said they filmed a lot of the stuff. He said he wanted it to be as wild as possible so that they could generate a ton of heat. 

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2 hours ago, CreativeControl said:

I guess they kiiiiiinda did this with the Horsemen taking him out prior to War Games 91, then him still entering the match only to be KO'd by Sid, which somehow then led into the taped fist match with Windham, but that was as far as it went right? It didn't exactly legitimise him to the extent Flair wanted from the above but certainly raised him up a notch.

As for the second part of your question, judging by his lacklustre face run in 93 post-Blonds I don't think it would have got him over as much as hoped. It's crazy to think of him perceived as 'too small' as he would be huge compared to WWE wrestlers these days, but that's the way it was back then

Eh, I'd say that's a stretch. The Horsemen did injure him but Pillman was the guy who took the fall in the WG match plus he lost that Taped Fist match with Windham. He somehow ended up being the Dirty Yellow Dog out of all of this. Not exactly the push Flair was envisioning. I think if they'd have followed through with the whole angle, it would've elevated him. Would he have been a long-term main event guy? Maybe not due to his size but I don't think he would've been floundering around as much as he was.

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15 hours ago, cwoy2j said:

Eh, I'd say that's a stretch. The Horsemen did injure him but Pillman was the guy who took the fall in the WG match plus he lost that Taped Fist match with Windham. He somehow ended up being the Dirty Yellow Dog out of all of this. Not exactly the push Flair was envisioning. I think if they'd have followed through with the whole angle, it would've elevated him. Would he have been a long-term main event guy? Maybe not due to his size but I don't think he would've been floundering around as much as he was.

El Gigante came in to throw in the towel because Pillman was getting pummelled, so it protected him and his fire in some regard. I know it's a stretch, but having been put through the WCW committee grinder this was obviously the end result of Flair's initial idea. As for the Yellow Dog stuff, I'm drawing a complete blank on how that all came about but remember it featuring heavily on whatever late night WCW show we used to get in the UK

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6 hours ago, CreativeControl said:

El Gigante came in to throw in the towel because Pillman was getting pummelled, so it protected him and his fire in some regard. I know it's a stretch, but having been put through the WCW committee grinder this was obviously the end result of Flair's initial idea. As for the Yellow Dog stuff, I'm drawing a complete blank on how that all came about but remember it featuring heavily on whatever late night WCW show we used to get in the UK

If getting the piss beat out of you and being made to look like the weak link who needed to be saved by your big giant buddy is being protected, I'd hate to see what WCW would've considered a burial.

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3 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

If getting the piss beat out of you and being made to look like the weak link who needed to be saved by your big giant buddy is being protected, I'd hate to see what WCW would've considered a burial.

To be fair, Pillman was beaten down before the show and still was the first guy in the cage.

 

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Yeah, if I recall correctly the WCW Saturday Night before the Wargames show Pillman was the only member of his team who didn't go to the city the show was in, so the Horsemen all showed up and just beat the hell out of him.  Sting and others wanted him to be the last one in to protect him, but he basically jumped in the cage first in order to go after them as soon as possible.  At the end he got destroyed by Sid, but it took two powerbombs (and remember, the powerbomb was like death incarnate back then) and he never gave up.  They never really capitalized on it well sadly as his big revenge moment was costing Arn Anderson the tv title, and that just lead to him becoming Yellow Dog after that loser leaves town tag match, but I think the original angle itself was perfectly fine.

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Was that the match where one of the Powerbombs got messed up, because Pillman's feet hit the cage roof on the way up? Because he took a nasty bump on that one, iirc.

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While we're talking Herd-era WCW, would the Dynamic Dudes have worked out better in the WWF? Corny talked about it on the Drive Thru a few months back. I think with Herd being a vapid idiot and not realizing that WCW's fanbase was old style NWA fans that didn't want to see any of the WWF horseshit, at least in the WWF whoever had the book at the time would've made a few tweaks to the gimmick, or since it was getting crapped on in Philly and the fans were chanting "JOHNNY SUCKS DICK, JOHNNY SUCKS DICK" at Laurinitis they would've added heel elements and had them paired up with a Demolition or a Hart Foundation, one of the WWF tag teams that were actually cool. And I would imagine that with the resources that they had in Titan Towers, even by 1989-90 standards, someone would've at least taught them how to goddamn use the skateboard, or at least had them use roller skates instead, or something.

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Johnny Ace did eventually learn how to use the Skateboard. Shane D never did though. Also, if you google 'Johnny Ace gif', you get more AJ Lee perv shots than AJPW kill spots. It's odd.

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On 9/15/2017 at 3:12 AM, CreativeControl said:

^ He gets it. I fully understand your original point cwoy, but that whole programme elevated Pillman from where he was at previously. Not to the level Flair wanted but as much as he was going to get in 1990 WCW.

I get that it got him over past the lower card but it wasn't anywhere near what they were actually trying to do. Flair wanted him to be a credible main event guy and they crafted an angle that would've done so. Then they crafted another angle that basically just got him on tv more and ended up with him wearing a yellow body suit and calling himself a dog. If they'd have followed through with what Flair had wanted, they might have had a bigger star on their hands.

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12 hours ago, Thomas Bugg said:

While we're talking Herd-era WCW, would the Dynamic Dudes have worked out better in the WWF? Corny talked about it on the Drive Thru a few months back. I think with Herd being a vapid idiot and not realizing that WCW's fanbase was old style NWA fans that didn't want to see any of the WWF horseshit, at least in the WWF whoever had the book at the time would've made a few tweaks to the gimmick, or since it was getting crapped on in Philly and the fans were chanting "JOHNNY SUCKS DICK, JOHNNY SUCKS DICK" at Laurinitis they would've added heel elements and had them paired up with a Demolition or a Hart Foundation, one of the WWF tag teams that were actually cool. And I would imagine that with the resources that they had in Titan Towers, even by 1989-90 standards, someone would've at least taught them how to goddamn use the skateboard, or at least had them use roller skates instead, or something.

That's an interesting question. WWF did cartoonish gimmicks way better than NWA/JCP did so I think the Dynamic Dudes would've at least been a good midcard tag-team there.

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I dunno, The Dudes weren't... ummm... that Dynamic. I mean outside of the match where Cornette turned on them do they have any other memorable matches?

Even with the WWF creative team marketing them if the team isn't at least fun to watch then what would be the point?

I think the Dudes would just end up being Young Stallions 2.0 in WWF

James

 

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37 minutes ago, J.H. said:

I think he Dudes would just end up being Young Stallions 2.0 in WWF

 

 

That's a pretty good comparison. That's pretty much as far as Douglas got in his first run in the WWF, a Roma and Powers level JTTS. For some reason, he did last a while in the '91 Royal Rumble.

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5 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

That's a pretty good comparison. That's pretty much as far as Douglas got in his first run in the WWF, a Roma and Powers level JTTS.

Which was unfortunate, would've liked to see him higher up. He talked recently about original plans for that run was to have him be a Bon Jovi esque rock star and he would sing his theme music, they had songs for him to record for an album but he had to leave to take care of his sick dad at the time.

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14 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Not long ago, Cornette discussed Pillman's match vs Flair as well as the angle with Pillman and the MX, which was watered down by Herd and Jim Barnett. 

Yeah, that's what prompted my post. Here's a youtube vid of him talking about it:

 

 

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