The Old School Questions thread

[BurningBeard]

On 6/23/2018 at 1:09 AM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

There was never a storyline or any kind of kayfabe injury to initially explain Beefcake's absence. It was always said to be a parasailing accident. I'm almost positive there was a WWF magazine article about it, which is pretty surprising for the time, as WWF magazine was 100% kayfabe.

Yeah there was, that's how me and my mates knew about it and reading about what actually happened some years after it sounded horrendous. Can't believe he didn't have a heart attack due to the trauma

[PetrolCB]

1 hour ago, CreativeControl said:

Can't believe he didn't have a heart attack due to the trauma

Or a traumatic brain injury that turned him into a vegetable. 

[Infinit]

I honestly don't the Beefcake hate, specifically his WWF run. He was over as fuck as a babyface. His WCW run was hot garbage but from 87 until his accident he had a pretty great run.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

11 hours ago, Infinit said:

I honestly don't the Beefcake hate, specifically his WWF run. He was over as fuck as a babyface. His WCW run was hot garbage but from 87 until his accident he had a pretty great run.

I think most of the hate comes from him being Hogan's #1 lackey and his WCW run. I loved the The Barber. IIRC, my first house show had Beefcake appearing to win the IC title from Mr. Perfect, but then came the Dusty finish.

[OSJ]

7 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I think most of the hate comes from him being Hogan's #1 lackey and his WCW run. I loved the The Barber. IIRC, my first house show had Beefcake appearing to win the IC title from Mr. Perfect, but then came the Dusty finish.

In the 80's the wife and I were already hardcore NWA fans and only watched WWF because it was amusing in the same sort of way that GLOW was amusing later, it was a fucking cartoon, but like Scooby-Doo, a pretty entertaining one. We loved the Brutus the Barber gimmick because it was so absurd. Beefcake couldn't work a lick then or ever, but he was entertaining as fuck, (keep in mind that we didn't quit drinking and smoking weed until summer of '88, so there is that). Anyway, by his WCW run he was no longer amusing, linked too closely with Hogan, and still couldn't work and was saddled with terrible gimmicks on top of that.

[Wyld Samurai]

I loved Brutus as an 8 year old. What held him back I think in WCW was that everyone knew him as Brutus Beefcake... And we could never figure out why he wasn't going by his name. 

He was a true Vince creation. Outside of his character he was nothing.

[(BP)]

38 minutes ago, Wyld Samurai said:

I loved Brutus as an 8 year old. What held him back I think in WCW was that everyone knew him as Brutus Beefcake... And we could never figure out why he wasn't going by his name. 

He was a true Vince creation. Outside of his character he was nothing.

Yes, long before TNA, Leslie was the original, "We know who that is!" It just didn't work and he was repackaged an absurd amount of times over the course of about 4 years. Bossman suffered from this to some degree too, although both had a low ceiling in WCW anyway. 

[Captain Kronos]

In NWA/WCW, which would have been more prestigious:

US Title, or TV Title? 

 

[The Green Meanie]

US was higher then TV, it was basically their IC.

[odessasteps]

US was traditionally the automatic #1 contender for world title, kayfabe wise, for JCP. 

 

Same with Southern title in FL, American title in World Class, ...

[tbarrie]

9 hours ago, odessasteps said:

US was traditionally the automatic #1 contender for world title, kayfabe wise, for JCP. 

Which never made much sense to me. If the US champ was always and automatically the #1 contender, how did anybody else get world title shots? Was the world champ just constantly ducking the US champ?

[Infinit]

The only time the TV title was really pushed as a prestigious "world" title, as opposed to a midcard title, was when Dusty held it.

[odessasteps]

6 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Which never made much sense to me. If the US champ was always and automatically the #1 contender, how did anybody else get world title shots? Was the world champ just constantly ducking the US champ?

1. It doesn't mean you get every shot. It just means you get a shot.

2. We are also talking about a promotions top belt where the world champ is not there every week. It's been interesting to listen to Bowden discussing how important it was to be Southern champ so that Lawler or Dundee or whomever would be eligible to fight Bockwinkel or Flair or Race for the world title. 

Its admittedly less important when your champ is in the territory every week. 

[The Green Meanie]

19 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

2. We are also talking about a promotions top belt where the world champ is not there every week. It's been interesting to listen to Bowden discussing how important it was to be Southern champ so that Lawler or Dundee or whomever would be eligible to fight Bockwinkel or Flair or Race for the world title. 

Its admittedly less important when your champ is in the territory every week. 

This is the interesting thing about territory-era NWA promotions. They all had secondary championships that acted as defacto major titles until the NWA Champion came to town. Flair goes into great detail on the genius of this system in his book.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

10 hours ago, The Green Meanie said:

This is the interesting thing about territory-era NWA promotions. They all had secondary championships that acted as defacto major titles until the NWA Champion came to town. Flair goes into great detail on the genius of this system in his book.

WWE seemed to be doing this with Seth Rollins IC title reign, but then for some inexplicable reason decided to put the title on fucking Dolph Ziggler for a sixth time. That'll put butts in the seats!

[Ace]

13 hours ago, Infinit said:

The only time the TV title was really pushed as a prestigious "world" title, as opposed to a midcard title, was when Dusty held it.

Muta and Sting got some good use out of it in 1989 as a "elevating" title.

 

[cwoy2j]

3 hours ago, Ace said:

Muta and Sting got some good use out of it in 1989 as a "elevating" title.

 

I felt like it was pretty important when Tully had it.

[bobholly138]

On 6/26/2018 at 5:57 AM, OSJ said:

In the 80's the wife and I were already hardcore NWA fans and only watched WWF because it was amusing in the same sort of way that GLOW was amusing later, it was a fucking cartoon, but like Scooby-Doo, a pretty entertaining one. We loved the Brutus the Barber gimmick because it was so absurd. Beefcake couldn't work a lick then or ever, but he was entertaining as fuck, (keep in mind that we didn't quit drinking and smoking weed until summer of '88, so there is that). Anyway, by his WCW run he was no longer amusing, linked too closely with Hogan, and still couldn't work and was saddled with terrible gimmicks on top of that.

Being stoned is pretty much the only way I have been able to watch most WWF/WWE for the past 20 years.

EDIT-Rey Jr post or as I knew it for years "Great your annoying Uncle from San Diego is calling" post.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Was there ever any talk of Hank Aaron wrestling a match in WCW? 

He's all over their TV in 1992

[odessasteps]

Given his place in the Turner hierarchy, I always thought he was used by WCW to suck up to the bosses. And because it’s Hank Aaron. 

[Ramsey]

Old school contentious statement: Nick Bockwinkel was a better Ric Flair than Ric Flair.

[Bustronaut]

Bock is TOO refined.  He's Evolution Flair.  He'll wrestle you within an inch of your life, but if he loses, it doesn't matter, because he's still Nick Bockwinkle.

Flair NEEDS to win, no matter the cost, he needs to be the champion because he craves validation.  When he doesn't have the title/the center of attention, he will try to get it back via any means possible, even if it means degrading himself (faking a heart attack, dressing up as a woman to distract an opponent)

[BurningBeard]

Bockwinkle is too refined to be comparable to Flair's character. Whereas Flair is inviting women and hangers-on up to his suit in the Hilton ensuring his credit card bounces higher than a basketball, Bock is hosting a soiree with a select number of the elite movers and shakers. Bockwinkle was class, Flair was crass

[Nice Guy Eddie]

1 hour ago, CreativeControl said:

Bockwinkle is too refined to be comparable to Flair's character. Whereas Flair is inviting women and hangers-on up to his suit in the Hilton ensuring his credit card bounces higher than a basketball, Bock is hosting a soiree with a select number of the elite movers and shakers. Bockwinkle was class, Flair was crass

Flair is a hillbilly that wins the lottery and blows through it in a few years, Bock is born into old, family money.

[Matt D]

4 hours ago, Ramsey said:

Old school contentious statement: Nick Bockwinkel was a better Ric Flair than Ric Flair.

Excellent question. Let's look at it purely in ring.

First of all, no one could possibly be better at being Flair than Flair. In fact, that's pretty much all that Flair was ever good at. He was so good at being Flair and Flair was so universally accepted as the pinnacle to be that he never honed his craft to try to be better. It meant that he accepted lapses and holes in his game that almost anyone else might have tried to fill. There was no need. He was considered the point of comparison that every other strove to meet. So long was that was the case, there was no reason to be better.

That said, Bockwinkel is almost always better than Flair, because he did not have those gaps or lapses. He was much better at working the same sort of travelling heel champion match and create longer, more engaging narratives where there wasn't huge swaths of entertaining but meaningless work (instead there was entertaining and meaningful work).

Where I'm not sure that Bock is better than Flair is in being Flair. There are two major opponents (three really, but the third is a trick) where Bock would wrestle what I consider to be Flair-esque matches, giving massive amounts to his opponent, mainly bumping and stooging, pulling it out with a screw job or a banana peel roll up, not really forcing a narrative because he's never in control long enough to do so: Gagne, Hogan (and the third one is the Flair match which is much more of a Flair match than a Bock match, all the more hollow). These are, in my mind, the weakest matches in the Bockwinkel canon. Bock is better than Flair 90% of the time. Flair at his best is better than Bock as Flair. Flair not at his best? That's probably a wash.