Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

JULY 2017 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


Recommended Posts

14 minutes ago, CreativeControl said:

I love Flair, he entertains the hell out of me for the reasons stated above, but I've always stated that he wasn't cut out for the TV/internet era. If you're making towns and putting on a liveshow his shtick is faultless, when you sit and watch five Flair matches in a row on the Network you can be forgiven for wondering what the big deal is

Let me toss up a corollary to this actually. Flair's act worked because you weren't going to see him every week. If he comes in and puts over (even in defeat) Bart Sawyer in Portland or Koko Ware in Memphis or has a big match with Wahoo in Houston, you're probably not going to see him again for months.  That said, Nick Bockwinkel did the same shit in astoundingly different ways, just as effectively, all tempered to his opponent and is a hundred times the wrestler Flair was for that reason.

The big tragedy of Ric Flair is this: We don't have a lot of pre-travelling champion Flair on a week to week basis in front of the SAME audience. We have that with Buddy Rose or Gino Hernandez or Jerry Lawler. I want to see Flair in Greensboro week after week in 1980. I want to see how he handles wrestling in front of the same audience and if he really DOES do the same thing week after week or if he switches it up like the others do. 

I honestly have no idea because we tend to just have 3-4 minute clips of these scattered matches.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ha, I was supposed to ask that question about Stan Lane in my original reply! Was it a load of rubbish to give him a bit of shine or did Flair train him? I can't exactly image Flair have the time or inclination to full on train someone

EDIT - I just had to look up corollary so well played.

And yes, Bockwinkle is definitely a hundred times the wrestler Flair was. I'd heard the name Nick Bockwinkle due to being into my wrestling history but had never ever even had the chance to see him wrestle until Youtube burst on the scene. As more and more of his matches became available and it was like a revelation. He is legit one of the most intricate wrestlers I've ever watched, so invested in the minutae of a match. And unlike a lot of other formulaeic territory wrestlers I don't think the amount of footage overexposed him because no one match was ever the same with him. Bockwinkle is the wrestling equivalent to water - he's fluid and you can put him in any in-ring situation and he'll adapt.

You know how the commentators always tried to get HHH over as a ring general? Bock is the epitome of that saying to me. If he'd had a better quality of opponent/had decided to run with the NWA he'd probably be everyone's #1 wrestler

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always preferred Bockwinkel to Flair - not just in-ring, but the character work as well.  Bock and Heenan together were a fantastic combo that actually played off each other well, while Flair eclipsed anyone he was around, including the Horsemen.  

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Matt D said:

Let me toss up a corollary to this actually. Flair's act worked because you weren't going to see him every week. If he comes in and puts over (even in defeat) Bart Sawyer in Portland or Koko Ware in Memphis or has a big match with Wahoo in Houston, you're probably not going to see him again for months.  That said, Nick Bockwinkel did the same shit in astoundingly different ways, just as effectively, all tempered to his opponent and is a hundred times the wrestler Flair was for that reason.

The big tragedy of Ric Flair is this: We don't have a lot of pre-travelling champion Flair on a week to week basis in front of the SAME audience. We have that with Buddy Rose or Gino Hernandez or Jerry Lawler. I want to see Flair in Greensboro week after week in 1980. I want to see how he handles wrestling in front of the same audience and if he really DOES do the same thing week after week or if he switches it up like the others do. 

I honestly have no idea because we tend to just have 3-4 minute clips of these scattered matches.

The coincidence of you naming four guys mostly known for their regional work who also happen to be four of the greatest of all-time insofar as getting the most out of what they had to work with is interesting. I tend to suspect that Flair pre-travelling champ was probably pretty repetitive and probably got away with it because that's what the audience had been conditioned to accept. It always depends a lot on the crowd and what they've been conditioned to respond to. A guy couldn't get away with doing the same match over and over again in the Pacific NW that been home to Dutch Savage in his prime. A big part of what made Buddy Rose so great was his ability to elevate everyone around him, he could make a mediocrity like Rip Oliver seem like a big deal and get high-end matches out of a severely limited Billy Jack Haynes or a green as grass Curt Hennig. 

Of the guys that you mention, Lawler probably had the easiest time of it as far as having new talent brought in to face him whereas the other guys had to be very creative and play the hand they were dealt with a rather static roster. One other thing to consider about Flair as travelling champ, is that while he did on occasion have to carry the proverbial broom to a **** match, by and large once he was in that spot the level of competition got a whole lot better. The idea that the NWA Champ was often tasked with making a local stiff look good sounds good on paper, but it simply isn't true. For every lackluster opponent that Flair, Race, Brisco, Funk, faced they would get three or four guys that they could have a good to great match with. When Flair came to the NW, he wasn't saddled with Rip Oliver, he got Piper and Rose. Sure, Oliver was on hand to run his mouth on the mic, but Don Owen (the promoter) knew that the money was putting the champ in with other guys that could go and run the circuit with the marque match-up. That program satisfied everyone, the local heel champ could rave and rant that the NWA Champ was afraid of him and wouldn't give him a shot (thus staying reasonably strong) and the real workers could have a series of forty-minute to one-hour Broadways around the horn sending everyone home happy. 

You mention Gino, and as the recently unearthed plethora of footage shows, Gino was a guy who was as good as whoever he happened to be working with. Maybe not a ring general, but he could keep up and adapt to anyone and was smart enough to mix things up and have different matches with the same guys. Bock was probably the best that there has ever been at that. You could have him face Wrestler X ten different times and you would get ten different matches. Lawler could get away with working the same match with a wide variety of opponents as that's what the Memphis fans had been educated to expect. Finally, there's the "less is more" aspect that some guys get and others do not. You have to look at your supporting cast to really see how effective your lead guy is. In the case of Bock, Buddy, Gino, and to a much lesser extent Lawler, the supporting cast got over because of the lead guy. For example, in the PNW Billy Jack Haynes, Len Denton, Matt Borne, Rip Oliver, and some guy named "Dizzy Hogan" got over because of Buddy's work both in-ring and on the mic. When Flair became the flagship of JCP, his supporting cast got over in spite of Ric Flair, not because of him. The main weakness of the Four Horsemen was that once you had the whole group on camera, Flair made everyone else seem like an after thought. I don't think that the concept of "less is more" has ever occurred to him.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What really sold me on Flair as a great worker wasn't his work in his prime, it was the latter part of his career (98 on). While he did have plenty of great matches in his physical prime, as others have said, it was just the right routine in the right places at the right time. His crazy old man character that I would say started with the "you can't fire me" promo showed me that he had some self-awareness and wasn't a one-trick pony. I don't know if it was by accident or what, but a guy who had such an unimpeachable schtick in his heyday switching to a more passionate and personal style that fit in the attitude era was pretty impressive. He could play a delusional exaggerated version of his 80s character as a heel or he could do the "vet getting one last shot at glory" arc as a face.

Compare his matches with Hogan from Bash at the Beach 94 and Superbrawl 99. The BATB is a fine match where each guy does what they always do, but the Superbrawl match is a very attitude style fight that speaks to the adaptability of both Flair and Hogan and shows why they've lasted so long in the business. Flair working arguably the most heated and emotional Foley-style garbage match at Summer Slam 2006 is the coup de grace for his career.

Flair might be bad at articulating his work, but I don't buy that he's a guy that just got lucky and succeeded despite minimal understanding of the business.

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Edwin

Does anyone have a website that lists shows in Central Florida?

I've noticed there's been some random cards here, but I've noticed them after they've occurred.

I'd love to attend some more shows in the area, but I can't come across any...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Go2Sleep said:

What really sold me on Flair as a great worker wasn't his work in his prime, it was the latter part of his career (98 on). While he did have plenty of great matches in his physical prime, as others have said, it was just the right routine in the right places at the right time. His crazy old man character that I would say started with the "you can't fire me" promo showed me that he had some self-awareness and wasn't a one-trick pony. I don't know if it was by accident or what, but a guy who had such an unimpeachable schtick in his heyday switching to a more passionate and personal style that fit in the attitude era was pretty impressive. He could play a delusional exaggerated version of his 80s character as a heel or he could do the "vet getting one last shot at glory" arc as a face.

Compare his matches with Hogan from Bash at the Beach 94 and Superbrawl 99. The BATB is a fine match where each guy does what they always do, but the Superbrawl match is a very attitude style fight that speaks to the adaptability of both Flair and Hogan and shows why they've lasted so long in the business. Flair working arguably the most heated and emotional Foley-style garbage match at Summer Slam 2006 is the coup de grace for his career.

Flair might be bad at articulating his work, but I don't buy that he's a guy that just got lucky and succeeded despite minimal understanding of the business.

I said months ago, I think Flair was the all around best wrestler in 1999. Between promos, character and in ring.

His matches were not what they were. But they were still very entertaining. 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Edge and Christian actually talk for a minute or two about "instinctual workers" who can't really explain how and why they get it, but they do. Used Orton and Umaga as examples.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I was in the middle of replying to Matt's great post above yours kind of contrasting Flair's spots with Bret's "five moves" comeback when I saw your reply pop up, and it made me think, man do I wish Bret and Malenko crossed paths more in WCW. I remember they had a Nitro match, but I haven't seen it since it aired some time in 98 or 99, and I don't think it was particularly notable. 

Only notable because it resulted in Hart receiving a groin pull, "the likes of which you've never seen", and Bret essentially burying Malenko in his book. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bret said he was looking forward to working Malenko and was disappointed by how dangerous he was. I know I was disappointed  by the match i saw them in. Which was a period where Bret got something good out of Van Hammer. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Who are some wrestlers you find are underrated promos? 

I think Brad Armstrong was an underrated promo. He wasn't as good as his dad, but not many people are. 

I thought if you gave him a good feud, Bret Hart could cut strong promos. 

In ECW, I loved RVD's promos. The ones where he antagonizes Sabu are always good. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, Kronos said:

I watched that Savage (w/Sherri) vs Tenryu in Japan match. It was everything I remembered and more, especially Sherri's role.

This is the kind of match you watch when you have forgotten why you love Rasslin.. 

That really is such a fun match.  I love when styles clash and they make it work.  Savage and Sherri are determined to have a WWF style match.  Tenryu is determined to wrestle an All-Japan match.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/27/2017 at 9:50 AM, ChesterCopperpot said:

From the WWE Q2 report 

 

 

Braun = $$$$$$$

214 million in revenue coming out to 5.1 million in profit is awful. No wonder they got rid of pyro and are cancelling everything on the Network

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/27/2017 at 10:46 AM, Craig H said:

And I can see not knowing who Karen Angle is. I have no freaking idea what she looks like because I never watched her in TNA and I'm not one who is curious to see what a wrestler's spouse looks like. The rest of that story, with Braun begging and everything else sounds like such bullshit that if it were real and if it were in front of THAT many people then you would have heard way more about this by now.

The biggest logic problem is why would Kurt Angle's son not go to Kurt to get an autograph? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Victator said:

Who are some wrestlers you find are underrated promos? 

I think Brad Armstrong was an underrated promo. He wasn't as good as his dad, but not many people are. 

I thought if you gave him a good feud, Bret Hart could cut strong promos. 

In ECW, I loved RVD's promos. The ones where he antagonizes Sabu are always good. 

I've always heard that Brad Armstrong was funny as hell and had a great personality off-screen but totally went into his "golly gee shucks" Southern face schtick when the cameras were on. He used to do commentary on matches backstage that would have the other guys dying of laughter but he thought his character should act so like an old school babyface so that's what he did instead of using his real personality. I believe it was Cornette who talked about that.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, RolandTHTG said:

In terms of people saying weird shit out of context in wrestling promos, HHH casually dropping in an inference that he was bisexual at KoTR 98 is pretty underrated.

"I may be bi- a lot of things, but lingual isn't one of them..." *awkward silence*

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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