Who is more important to Wrestling History in a NEGATIVE way

[AxB]

20 minutes ago, mystman said:

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?

Compared to Ian Rotten, John Zandig, or Paul E Dangerously? I would say he's a bigger negative influence than all three, yes. I mean, obviously the voting is pretty much done and he came last in his bracket. I'm just disagreeing with the consensus.

EDIT: Apparently unsuccessfully disagreeing with the consensus, since 4 people have voted for Rotten since I posted the case against Lawler.

Edited March 4, 2019 by AxB

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I was one of the four that voted for Lawler.

[Brian Fowler]

Lawler also has some positive impact to offset the negative. He drew huge for years upon years in Memphis, and is likely responsible for the better part of a generation of wrestling fans in the mid-south area (not to be confused with the Mid South territory that, bizarrely, wasn't in the mid-south)

[SorceressKnight]

5 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

Lawler also has some positive impact to offset the negative. He drew huge for years upon years in Memphis, and is likely responsible for the better part of a generation of wrestling fans in the mid-south area (not to be confused with the Mid South territory that, bizarrely, wasn't in the mid-south)

In addition, Lawler has the same problem for Vince McMahon vs. Antonio Inoki.

Memphis's style basically invented the sports entertainment style, which WWF then took and turned into "THE" style of pro wrestling.

That'd put Lawler like my McMahon argument of "Wrestling is different because Jerry Lawler was involved. Some would say it's better, some would say it's worse, it honestly is probably a little of both...but it's DIFFERENT because of them".

Compared to my argument of Heyman (who took the Memphis blueprint and mixed it with garbage wrestling to get something that directly led to Ian Rotten and John Zandig's existence, which was bad enough to be in the discussion of the two), that isn't enough to beat the others.

 

...now, if you asked "who's worse for wrestling: Jerry Lawler or Vince McMahon?" ...Good GOD.

Edited March 4, 2019 by SorceressKnight

[mystman]

3 hours ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Why are you quoting my very specific gripe to make you larger point? 

Because I misread your post. Sorry.

[BloodyChamp]

AxB got long winded there for dramatic/comedic effect lol I thought that was pretty obvious. As for his serious points, he’s telling the truth about Lawler. I personally don’t care about all of them but not because they’re untrue things. As for 1 I do care about, of all things, is his turd guzzling yawps. I just couldn’t listen to that trash. He was definitely a reason I didn’t watch WWF.

[OSJ]

15 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I was one of the four that voted for Lawler.

As was I.

 

What I don't get is the rabid dislike of Onita. He has always had my admiration for reinventing himself to such a degree that he in effect reinvented wrestling in Japan. He took what he learned in Memphis, cranked it all the way up and coupled with always being the most charismatic mofo in the room created a success story that's damn hard to replicate. Yeah, some of FMW was so over the top it was silly, but for the most part it was a lot of fun and without it we wouldn't have had ECW.

Edited March 4, 2019 by OSJ

[AxB]

35 people (so far) voted for Rotten, but only one posted to say why. 

On ‎2‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 3:28 AM, mystman said:

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

Let's just accept that the majority of the board hates deathmatches and sulk/rejoice as appropriate.

[Curt McGirt]

3 hours ago, OSJ said:

some of FMW was so over the top it was silly

I think you can blame most of that on Fuyuki. The company was under him when it was at its nadir (Hayabusa having a lit firecracker up his ass, anyone?).