Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

APRIL 2017 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


RIPPA

Recommended Posts

15 minutes ago, w. josh said:

Scott Casey took that spot from Buddy Mareno.

Weirdly enough, I don't see Buddy Mareno in the Houston records until 84 (and yes, I checked for Atlas too), after the transition had already been made from Southwest to Mid-South in Houston. Boesch used Southwest talent in the years prior but it wasn't always a 100% overlap with what was happening in San Antonio. We do have a Black Gordman vs Mareno/Atlas match which is probably most notable for Gordman hitting a DDT (which he does all the way back into black and white footage with Santo) and a really good Lothario/Mareno vs Gordman/Goliath match which I kind of want to rewatch now. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tiger's actually been really good in the footage we've seen so far. He's a great face-in-peril, struggling, trying to fight out of holds, trying to make it to the corner. Sometimes he can move a bit askew, almost akin to the way Greg Gagne or someone did, and that distracts a little, and yes, they ran the hard head gimmick a little too far, but for a turn of the 80s high spot worker who could also sell and brawl pretty well, he's a guy that's been quite underlooked. As a Houston mainstay, I sort of see him as a poor man's Dundee without the heel runs (or maybe a 1993 Danny Davis). He even got a pretty good match out of 80s Killer Brooks. And he could do comedy too.

We have that match in much better VQ with superior Boesch commentary, but it's really tremendous. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And then for those people not paying attention, the biggest surprise out of the Houston footage has been Lothario. The only person I can honestly liken him to is Lawler. He was pretty old by 1980, but he sort of held court in the middle of the ring, selling, drawing sympathy, teasing and teasing the comeback, and when it came time for it, unloading to the crowd's elation with the best punches you'd ever see. They uploaded a match the other night with Pak Song, and Pak Song is like the world's shortest El Gigante. You can hardly believe that THIS GUY is the guy who Dusty Rhodes had his big Face  turn in Florida on. And Lothario sells all the crummy chops and throat thrusts and whatever, and when it comes time, he unloads, dropping knees, punching the hell out of Song's head and it's just the best thing, the very best thing. There's a guy in the crowd heckling too, which makes it even better. It's the sort of match that's never going to get a ton of snowflakes, because it's 15 minutes, two out of three falls, and Song is a literal broomstick, down to his physique, but what Lothario brought to the table in making his opponent seem vaguely credible, in portraying Texas-loved fury, and in putting over the meaning of the match, was just tremendous. And yeah, he can do so much more when he has a worthwhile opponent. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, JohnnyJ said:

So... the Vince biopic. I'm curious what a 90 minute movie made for non-wrestling audiences would look like. And who can play big and over the top enough to be a convincing Vince without resorting to caricature? 

An interesting story would be the lead up from him taking over WWWF to kicking out his dad to Wrestlemania I.  That's doable in 1:45 or so. 

Also:

 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And then there's Gino. A lot of times with wrestlers who died young, especially ones where we only have limited amounts of footage, it's easy to overrate them. You sort of lose track of them in the myth. That's true with wrestlers who died a long time ago, not just ones that are young and not only ones that we don't have footage on. Look at Brody (more on him later). Gino was 23 in 1980. We have footage of him in Houston now back to 77 or so. He was a prodigy, absolutely. In 80-81-82, he's in the same conversation as someone like Buddy Rose, as a heatseeking heel who carried a territory. Granted, Gino had more to work with than Rose did since bigger names came through Houston, but the point remains. He had that same swagger, the willingness to stooge and bump big, the underlying cruelty, the big spots (his elbow off the ropes, the Flair flip to the floor, etc). And franky, I'm not sure there was anything better in wrestling in 81-82 than him and Tully together. Gino was so giving and so committed that every match with him is worthwhile. They just posted a 2/3 falls match with a young, bottom of the card (but billed from Houston) Gary Young and I wasn't expecting much at all from it, just Gino vs a prelim guy but it really was up there with a lot of the Buddy Rose vs a Prelim guy stuff from this period. Young came in game and Gino made him look like a million bucks. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, JohnnyJ said:

So... the Vince biopic. I'm curious what a 90 minute movie made for non-wrestling audiences would look like. And who can play big and over the top enough to be a convincing Vince without resorting to caricature? 

 

Someone on here I think suggested Joel Edgerton and since then I've never been able to picture anyone else. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

His Georgia stuff (Being national TV) is supposed to be really good but I haven't seen it. 

You know who else I've come to really enjoy? Heel Jim Duggan. I've convinced myself that the solution to the dearth of heels to wrestle Warrior in 90 would have been heel Duggan. He has maybe my favorite Mil Mascaras match (not necessarily the best but my favorite) and even though we haven't gotten too many of them yet, feels like the best possible Brody opponent. He was a big bumping, high energy, unorthodox in offense (he has this great jumping elbow, for instance) just manic heel. Also a great disgruntled, disrespectful promo. I mean obviously he stands out as a really solid standing tall babyface in Mid-South able to have tons of great brawls and power matches but it's the Southwest era heel work that has really stood out. We have a Dusty match too, and a match with a young babyface Landell, and a hoss match with a non-midget Ivan the Terrible who's obviously an undercard foreign heel but kind of gets over as a babyface just because Duggan's so well defined as a bad guy, and there's still some more to come.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, CreativeControl said:

I'd never heard/seen Gino til WWE's WCCW documentary and I was immediately sad that we never got to see what he could do on national tv

Did you catch the Heroes of World Class doc by any chance too? That one was a lot cooler. The story about Gino having a sugar bowl full of coke in his kitchen (just like the line in Goodfellas) is so fucked up. 

Incidentally the whole thing is on Youtube

Whoa, I FFed that to the Gino part and the story ref dude says about his death just dropped the hammer. Three times the amount of coke needed to overdose in his system... yeah, somebody whacked him out. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, JohnnyJ said:

So... the Vince biopic. I'm curious what a 90 minute movie made for non-wrestling audiences would look like. And who can play big and over the top enough to be a convincing Vince without resorting to caricature? 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A friend and I talked about who would play Vince. I thought Josh Brolin would nail it.

I'm just wondering where that movie ends. It has to go over his childhood, taking over the business, killing territories, the steroid trial, and then it ends at...what, the WCW buyout? Has to be, right?

So who plays Shane and Steph? Do wrestlers play themselves or do actors play them?

Also, do we get a montage of Vince slamming 20 Monster energy drinks, ripping up scripts, and screaming in announcers ears during the broadcast of Raw?

And what movie will have more: "Fuck" in Big Lebowski or "Goddammit" in the Vince biopic

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

A friend and I talked about who would play Vince. I thought Josh Brolin would nail it.

I'm just wondering where that movie ends. It has to go over his childhood, taking over the business, killing territories, the steroid trial, and then it ends at...what, the WCW buyout? Has to be, right?

Scope, my man.  Too many biopics fail because they try to cover too large a time and never bother to tell a story well (Nixon, J. Edgar, Jobs).   You can acknowledge the accomplishments of a person while focusing in on a story that really examines how they think or what makes them tick (Lincoln, The Social Network, The King's Speech).

Remember, to the majority of people, they either don't know who Vince is, or have an extremely negative opinion of the man.  You have to introduce this man who, through, lying, cheating, sex, drugs, death, and craven manipulation has become a billionaire. You have to show people that Vince is an absolute heartless motherfucker AND a man who is easily worshipped. This is a VERY strange dichotomy and merits further examination.  

Vince stories you can tell:  Taking over WWWF; The Lead Up To Mania 1; The Steroids Trial; The Monday Night Wars; Over The Edge '99; or The Benoit Murder/Suicide.  

Any one of those paints Vince as a genius businessman, a charlatan, a gambler, a brutal realist, and a circus ringmaster.  

There's a fascinating tale in there, if it's allowed to be told, it could be amazing.  But it HAS to stay focused. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...