APRIL 2016 WRESTLING DISCUSSION THREAD

[(BP)]

Hogan was getting more cheers the instant he turned than as a face in WCW. 

[kafkonia]

1 hour ago, (BP) said:

Hogan was getting more cheers the instant he turned than as a face in WCW. 

That was 20 years ago in a very different market.

[Web Conn]

18 minutes ago, kafkonia said:

That was 20 years ago in a very different market.

Hogan's first two years in WCW was a more manufactured face run then Reigns. His run as champion was way more superficial than Roman Reigns will ever be. 

[sydneybrown]

4 hours ago, kafkonia said:

This has come up a few times, but has it ever actually happened? I can't think of a single example where a babyface getting boo'd instantly got cheered upon turning heel. The closest I can think of is the Rock, and he went from "face who gets boo'd" to "heel who gets boo'd" to "heel who gets cheered."

 

I can, however, think of heels who were getting cheers who got turned into bland babyfaces nobody cared about

You can make an argument for Diesel.  His title reign was a total flop, but after attacking Bret at SSeries 95 and giving the "I'm not good, I'm not bad" speech the next night, he was definitely a heel who the fans decided to cheer for anyway. 

[Curt McGirt]

The Cracker Barrel thing just reminds me about that hilarious Al Snow interview where he talked about how DA BIG GUY just had to go there because for some reason he never had. 

EDIT: Wait, I think Bryan said that. 

[Brian Fowler]

5 hours ago, kafkonia said:

This has come up a few times, but has it ever actually happened? I can't think of a single example where a babyface getting boo'd instantly got cheered upon turning heel. The closest I can think of is the Rock, and he went from "face who gets boo'd" to "heel who gets boo'd" to "heel who gets cheered."

 

I can, however, think of heels who were getting cheers who got turned into bland babyfaces nobody cared about

Don't forget Rock going from heel who gets cheered to semi-face who gets cheers to heel who kinda gets booed but also gets cheered to face who gets cheered.

Actually, his Hollywood Rock run did pretty much immediately get people back to cheering him later.

[Craig H]

10 hours ago, hammerva said:

"Fighting cancer to become a WWE wrestler and win a fake belt.  What a mark" - something Meltzer would say

Dave is becoming more and more Alvarez every day.  It is pro wrestling sheets version of all the ESPN people trying to "embrace debate" and using the worst example

 

Where is this Meltzer rant at? I tried looking for it and couldn't find it.

[SorceressKnight]

5 hours ago, kafkonia said:

This has come up a few times, but has it ever actually happened? I can't think of a single example where a babyface getting boo'd instantly got cheered upon turning heel. The closest I can think of is the Rock, and he went from "face who gets boo'd" to "heel who gets boo'd" to "heel who gets cheered."

 

I can, however, think of heels who were getting cheers who got turned into bland babyfaces nobody cared about

And that's also the point- this is such a new occurrence (not happening since the crowd turned on Cena in 2005), and in addition to it, we've also never saw the WWE themselves actively make the call to turn the hated TOP babyface heel when the crowd turned on them. The closest we've ever seen to "WWE turns the face of the company heel when the crowd hated them" was Bo Dallas in NXT (and Bo Dallas is FAR, FAR, FAR beneath where John Cena or Roman Reigns would ever be, to the point it barely is in the same level as one of their turns.)

We can't know if the top babyface getting booed would be "a hot heel who gets booed by everyone" or "the smarks booing that babyface would instantly cheer them when they turned heel" because WWE wouldn't dare take that risk either way.

[Josh Mann]

8 hours ago, sydneybrown said:

Petey Williams has told stories about if you're getting food with Scott Steiner and ask him where he wants to go, he'll say "Cracker Barrel" as if there was no other option.

Here's what I want to know: When he was at his physical prime in terms of his workout/metabolism, what the fuck did his order at Cracker Barrel look like? 

[sydneybrown]

6 minutes ago, Josh Mann said:

Here's what I want to know: When he was at his physical prime in terms of his workout/metabolism, what the fuck did his order at Cracker Barrel look like? 

According to Petey, Scott always ordered chicken fingers.  He'd pick out the smallest ones and say "Bring me some bigger ones." 

[Josh Mann]

Disappointing. I was picturing all the biscuits, all the grilled chicken and a custom creation known by all short order cooks up and down I-75 as the Big Bad Booty Egg White Omelette.

[Cristobal]

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

The Cracker Barrel thing just reminds me about that hilarious Al Snow interview where he talked about how DA BIG GUY just had to go there because for some reason he never had. 

EDIT: Wait, I think Bryan said that. 

Bryan's Ryback food story that I remember was him and Cody making Ryback go to Panera when he'd always eat at Subway and order a bunch of grilled chicken on the side. He didn't know what to order so he spent a bunch of money on like ten sandwiches. 

[Curt McGirt]

Yeah I remember that now. Maybe it was Snow who mentioned the Cracker Barrel thing. I found a video on Youtube of two gals watching the Snow interview but they stop it before he mentions it. 

Ryback and prime Scott Steiner together could have probably shut down a restaurant. The owner just gathers the employees together in the back after a frenzied two and a half hours of hash slinging and just says "You guys can all go home, we made our nut for the day."

[BurningBeard]

17 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

My favorite Scott Steiner shoot interview is a clip I saw on YouTube where he was telling the guy he didn't remember the Varsity Club at all and asked "That really happened? You saw it? Must've been the shits"

That whole thing is great. Literally has no recollection of his early career

[RIPPA]

5 hours ago, Craig H said:

Where is this Meltzer rant at? I tried looking for it and couldn't find it.

Post Mania radio show (worst case it wast the Post Mania Post Raw show but I am 99% sure it was the former)

Dave basically said he couldn't believe Ryder would call his IC Title win "the best day of his life" (It definitely comes off as Dave taking something WAY too literal since he starts bringing up real world type things like marriage and kids)

Of course - considering the number of people who mock AJ for the tattoo of her title win - there are probably a lot of Team Meltzer folks on this issue

[Linus]

The thing that riled me was that he's so deep into the wrestling bubble lately that he didn't even consider that it might have been Zack Ryder claiming it was the greatest day of his life, not Matt Cardona. Heaven forbid a TV character go on TV and say something that fits with that TV show. His - and Alvarez's - whole Lucha Underground thing lately is also a symptom of their inability to divorce TV from reality. Weird.

[NikoBaltimore]

I would hope by now that somebody brought the video to Dave's attention.  Now if he still says that after seeing it then he can pretty much fuck off.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

I think that goes back to just having an old school mentality and not really being in touch with what a lot of the modern audience is. I talked to a friend who runs a music venue (which I always thought would be a cool ECW-Elks Lodge type place to have a show) and he was concerned about his place being full of hicks and "ghetto people." Like they were gonna have a riot or something in there. Many people don't realize that many older fans are sort of this ComicCon type crowd now and have no issue divorcing a character from the guy playing it. I love Lucha Underground but I just treat it like I'm watching Lost or something. To someone like Dave who prefers NJPW's more sports like presentation, I could see it being a somewhat jarring transition. 

[Matt D]

I wonder if the rise of MMA didn't give a lot of the more sports driven fans a more appropriate outlet, leaving the current 20-something generation of fans as more willing to see it like Lost or whatever.

[bink_winkleman]

<--I've always thought that's what happened, and the transition to geek culture is the underlying struggle of the last several years for WWE.

[JohnnyJ]

What I never got about the whole Reigns thing is how exactly the WWE thinks he'll be this mainstream star without the support of the portion of the fanbase that creates buzz. It seems like WWEs strategy has been to get Reigns on mainstream platforms like the Today show  or Sportscenter with the hope that the rest will work itself out. That's not where buzz comes from anymore. 

You're next star is going to rise from internet geek culture.  Performers that people are talking about online. Performers that the wrestling nerds, embedded at mainstream publications want to hype up and interview. That's the type of buzz that is contagious. 

 

[BurningBeard]

I don't think you'll see anything like that happen til the old man is out of the picture and WWE continues to branch out and be less insular

[Technico Support]

18 minutes ago, CreativeControl said:

I don't think you'll see anything like that happen til the old man is out of the picture and WWE continues to branch out and be less insular

We can hope but the problem is the company will still be run by people who don't watch sports or popular TV.  HHH & Steph are just as far in the old time wrestling bubble as Vince is.  Maybe their kids will be able to expand their interests a bit.

[Craig H]

4 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Post Mania radio show (worst case it wast the Post Mania Post Raw show but I am 99% sure it was the former)

Dave basically said he couldn't believe Ryder would call his IC Title win "the best day of his life" (It definitely comes off as Dave taking something WAY too literal since he starts bringing up real world type things like marriage and kids)

Of course - considering the number of people who mock AJ for the tattoo of her title win - there are probably a lot of Team Meltzer folks on this issue

Ugh. I found the audio of it. It's really gross. So...Meltzer and Alvarez make such a big deal about who holds what title, they clearly understand how important it is for wrestlers to win a title, and somehow Meltzer can still let himself become so detached from reality to shit all over Ryder calling it the greatest moment of his life. Why wouldn't it be and why can't Ryder say that? What is important to Ryder doesn't have to be as important to Meltzer or anyone else. It's just very weird and I'm wondering if Meltzer was perhaps fed up with people calling him out on how he viewed Wrestlemania, Nak vs Zayn, etc. Otherwise, he should know better. Such a weird fucking guy...I mean, why even devote so many words to obituaries of wrestlers or how could you devote so many words to those obituaries and yet not understand why winning a title would be so important?

[SorceressKnight]

6 hours ago, JohnnyJ said:

What I never got about the whole Reigns thing is how exactly the WWE thinks he'll be this mainstream star without the support of the portion of the fanbase that creates buzz. It seems like WWEs strategy has been to get Reigns on mainstream platforms like the Today show  or Sportscenter with the hope that the rest will work itself out. That's not where buzz comes from anymore. 

You're next star is going to rise from internet geek culture.  Performers that people are talking about online. Performers that the wrestling nerds, embedded at mainstream publications want to hype up and interview. That's the type of buzz that is contagious. 

 

The problem with that, though, is even that has a fatal flaw in the mix.

The wrestlers that a lot of the "Internet geek culture" people, the people that are talked about online, and who the wrestling nerds want to give that buzz to, will almost by definition be the people who came up from the independent scene and had years of a head start to connect with the wrestling nerds and get online buzz even before their signing with the WWE.

This is a problem because, by and large, most of these stars are ALSO the stars who have already been tried as the face of the company in a mid-major indy promotion or a promotion like ROH that's bubbling just under "national promotion"- and so their potential as a "can they make it as a crossover superstar?" has pretty much been weighed, measured, and found wanting in their career before signing with the WWE in the first place (and the only people who MAY fit that description as a success in WWE would arguably be Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn for their "took IWS, a somewhat unknown promotion in Montreal, and turned it into a hot indy promotion with a lot of buzz for a couple of years in the mid-'00s".) 

Someone like, say, an Austin Aries may have the online buzz and a big fanbase...but at the same time, it also has to be asked: If Austin Aries had what it took to become the mainstream superstar who'd lead WWE to a new boom period in him, then why couldn't he take ROH or TNA to those heights when he was a main eventer in those promotions?