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Who is more important to Wrestling History in a NEGATIVE way


AxB

Who is more important to Wrestling History in a NEGATIVE way?  

64 members have voted

  1. 1. Who is more negatively important?

  2. 2. Who is more negatively important?

  3. 3. Who is more negatively important?

  4. 4. Who is more negatively important?

  5. 5. Who is more negatively important?



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Because I thought it would be interesting to turn the other question around. I was thinking of putting he who must not be named in one of them, but I couldn't think who to compare him to. If there's an obvious omission somewhere, point it out.

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McMahon vs. Inoki - I chose McMahon, as he's probably the most important figure is wrestling  history,for both  positive and negative reasons. I will say though, if the question was who negatively effected their own company, and not the industry as a whole, I would've went with Inoki.

Bischoff vs. Russo- Russo, as his garbage ideas infected three major promotions and not just one.

Misawa vs. Onita- I loved Misawa. But he promoted a brutal, head dropping style that probably cost the careers of many indy wrestlers trying to ape it, plus cost him his own life. While garbage wrestling could be viewed as equally dangerous, Onita was not solely to blame for it's rise in popularity.

Michaels vs. Hogan vs. Nash vs. HHH - For these four, I had to weigh their net positives versus the negatives. Michaels has a career of incredible in ring work, HHH is NXT Daddy, Hogan ushered in an era of popularity that thousands of workers have benefitted from. That left Nash. Who was... funny? Sometimes? I guess....

I picked Nash.

Heyman vs. Lawler vs. Danzig vs. Rotten-  I  picked Rotten, but I honestly don't think he's all that important.

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1. Vince McMahon.  Inoki had built up New Japan and nearly sank it, but that is what it is.
For better or worse, McMahon changed how wrestling is worldwide forever. Maybe that's a positive, maybe a negative, and maybe it's honestly both- but it's what it is.
 
2. Upon thinking, changing my vote: Eric Bischoff. Vince Russo gets a bad rap for the end of WCW. Yes, WCW 2000 was very, very bad. And Russo has had some problems as a writer...but honestly, Russo has some benefits to a rebuilding promotion with the Russo style. Also, what needs to be mentioned- WCW was dead when he got there. 1999 WCW was just as bad, and you can make a strong case WCW officially died on 1/4/99. Russo didn't HELP matters, but the actions of Bischoff- always going back to the NWO well, never quite getting people over the hump to keep Nitro feeling fresh- had left WCW hobbling.
 
3. Onita. Misawa created what has been the form of the modern indies, but it's seemed to be played out of in favor of a safer style. Onita created hardcore/deathmatch stuff, which still has a role today and always will.
 
4. Kevin Nash. Shawn Michaels didn't help matters, but was just...kind of a headcase who could wrestle. Nothing inherently positive or negative there. Triple H was a negative in the ring, but his run as head of NXT has made him a HUGE positive effect on the business. Even Hogan was an ego and a headcase, but his run as one of the first big stars pretty much inspired the majority of wrestlers to go into the business. Nash, on the other hand- had a lot of problems, and wasn't even that big a star.
 
5. Paul Heyman. Jerry Lawler was influential on what modern wrestling became, so he'd be out. And then ultimately the problem: Ian Rotten and John Zandig were net negatives on the business...but the big difference: Without Heyman's success, Zandig and Rotten wouldn't exist. 
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McMahon vs. Inoki - I went with McMahon.  He killed the territories and is trying to do it again, promoted a lifestyle of travel, hard drugs, and steroids that killed a lot of guys, keeps his company running via shitty labor practices and loopholes, helped cover up Jimmy Snuka murdering his girlfriend, helped a certain orange con man/failed real estate developer stay in the public eye, actively wrecks his company's booking, the list goes on forever. 

Bischoff vs. Russo- Bischoff.  Russo was a shitty writer who wrote shitty wrestling.  Bischoff was a weak leader, so desperate to be one of the boys that he handed over the keys of the company to them, which led to WCW dying.  There were a lot of other factors but Bischoff not leading properly and stepping on his dick the entire time got the ball rolling, turning wrestling in the US into a dull one-party system. 

Misawa vs. Onita- Have any high-profile garbage wrestlers died in the ring? 

Michaels vs. Hogan vs. Nash vs. HHH - I picked Hogan for being the poster boy for the lifestyle I mentioned in the McMahon writeup just up above.  How many guys eventually died trying to be the next Hogan? 

Heyman vs. Lawler vs. Danzig vs. Rotten-  I  picked Heyman for the proliferation of a dangerous garbage style in the US.  As @SorceressKnight said above, without Heyman, you have no Rotten or Zandig, and I can't think of any long term damage Lawler did to wrestling.

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Vince vs Inoki - Inokism ended up killing New Japan for me for a while.

Russo over Bischoff.  Bischoff put a lot of acts I loved on national TV, easily accessible to everyone.  Even if he ripped this shit off from ECW/others, he was doing us a service.

Misawa over Onita.  Both guys ruled, but while FMW doesn't exist either so this is a bad comparison, look at the states of All Japan and Noah today vs what they were back before the split.

I picked Michaels even though I didn't think the Kliq did that much damage - he just seemed to get his way more.  Might have been at least 50% responsible for killing Vader's career.

Picked Zandig for the last one because if CZW never crossed over with Big Japan, Yamakawa wouldn't have got brain damage.

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For anyone wondering, the other match-up I was considering was Dave Meltzer vs Dr George Zahorian. But I wanted them to all be as much apples to apples comparisons as possible, and that's pretty oranges to bananas.

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6 hours ago, AxB said:

For anyone wondering, the other match-up I was considering was Dave Meltzer vs Dr George Zahorian. But I wanted them to all be as much apples to apples comparisons as possible, and that's pretty oranges to bananas.

For that one, though, it is pretty obvious anyway.

Zahorian gave people steroids, but for a lot of the time it was legal, and even when it was not, there had never been a smoking gun, even in the trials, that a wrestler was flat-out told "if you don't use steroids, you're fired from WWF".

Meltzer doesn't do anything illegal, but there's many, many times of proof "you become my source, I'll  put you over in the Observer and then you'll become a smark darling. Don't become my source, and I'll run you down and the smarks will hate you."

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I was thinking about putting Jimmy Snuka in there as a steroid pioneer (and murderer) but the only obvious match up for him would be he who will not be named, and then  it turns into a 'which murderer is the worse murderer' issue and that's not a rabbit hole that warrants exploration here.

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Rabbits don't live in Rabbit Holes*, they live in Burrows or Warrens (or hutches, if they're pets). I was trying to make a pun by putting the phrase 'rabbit holes' next to the word 'warrant' because it sounds like Warren, but nobody noticed.

* It's a phrase that has entered the lexicon, but it was originally a misnomer. It's like Kennel and Dog House.

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For a guy who allegedly didn't care about winning, he really didn't like losing. Especially clean. Very especially if he was losing a title. How many belts did he drop in the ring? A lot fewer than he won. A hell of a lot fewer.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, I alluded to it in the other thread (and I've not even voted in this poll because tournament hosts are supposed to be objective) but I figure it really belongs here: The Case for Jerry Lawler being more negatively important than Ian Rotten (or Zandig).

Firstly, overall significance. How many people who could have become Wrestling fans but decided not to watch, were turned off by attending an IWA Mid South show? Maybe one or two people in all of human history, maybe not even that. How many were turned off by watching WWE RAW and hearing this sixty year old pervert squealing about puppies every time a woman appeared? Probably quite a lot. Driving potential fans away with horrible commentary = negative influence.

Secondly, although it's well known that death march promoters underpay their Wrestlers, Memphis under Lawler was actually worse. Weekend indie shows that allow the boys to do normal jobs Monday to Friday, those are working men with an unusual hobby they get paid for. Paid sometimes in drugs not dollars, yeah, but paid. Whereas, the Memphis territory that most 90s wrestlers came up in was a full time, eight shows a week territory that paid so badly that the young boys had a choice between sleeping in the car and eating food, or sleeping in a hotel and starving. Look at Steve Austin's raw potatoes story, and multiply that by everyone. And Lawler was making enough from the same shows to live in a mansion.

Thirdly, rape charge. Never proven innocent. Lots of mainstream press attention.

Fourthly, he never publically acknowledged Brian Christopher as his kid, because he didn't want to admit how old he was. Even after that TNA promo Brian did, where he talked about how his Dad held him down and wouldn't let him be himself, and did the whole "call me Brian Lawler"* deal, the next week in Memphis he was tagging up with him again. Everyone thought it was to set up a turn and feud. Nope. Brian Christopher and Jerry Lawler, two good friends of roughly the same age.

Fifth, he convinced a generation of fans that The Worm was a good move. Cunt.

Sixth, he was a racist. Or at least he was willing to say racist things to get crowd reactions.

Seventh, "I'll work for the World Wrestling Federation when hell freezes over". Liar.

Eighth, face lift.

* Typical Russo. A really good promo to set up a match that cannot happen in the promotion he's booking.

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And the hypocrisy of calling ECW extremely crappy wrestling, even though the ECW brawling style was just an updated (more violent) version of classic Memphis style. 

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2 hours ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

So?

You've got some good points. But this feels like a stretch. 

Yeah. I don't necessarily disagree that Lawler was a piece of crap, but did he really negatively influence wrestling that much? Did wrestling as a whole become worse because of him?

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