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14 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I think Dr. Death would have fit fine in 1998-1999 WWF. I easily could have pictured him as a member of the Corporation. If the Big Boss Man's gimmick could be tweaked enough to fit in the Attitude Era, then Dr. Death could have been. 

Even that's a big difference.

Workrate-wise, Dr. Death could have fit in- even if he was past his prime in the ring, it's not like 1998-99 WWF was known for its incredible workrate (and Dr. Death at 50% was better than a lot of Russo Era WWF workers at 100%.) 

Character-wise...I still don't see it for Dr. Death. Even if Big Boss Man's gimmick could be tweaked enough to fit well in the Attitude Era, that comparison still doesn't work in Dr. Death's favor. Big Boss Man may have been a relic of the cartoony era- but unlike Dr. Death, Big Boss Man was tweaked from "evil prison guard" to effectively an "evil security guard"...

...and that minor adjustment meant that Attitude Era Big Boss Man couldn't have been more in Vince Russo's wheelhouse. One of Russo's pet lowcard angles: He's always been enamored with the concept of "let's have wrestlers get in angles where they fight members of the security team", which has gone further to  "Let's put a couple of developmental guys as ringers for the security team so that we can have the security team actually wrestle in matches (R+B Security in WCW, Red Shirt Security vs. Black Shirt Security in NWATNA)" , and as far as "Russo tried to convince WWE's head of security Jim Dodson and WCW's head of security Doug Dillinger to become wrestlers".

By contrast with Dr. Death- Steve Williams did get fired from WWF, and he did end up in WCW under Vince Russo. We saw Russo's big idea for Steve Williams as "have him be Oklahoma's attack dog and beat the crap out of luchadors and cruiserweights for him." It didn't work in WCW, and if that's Russo's bright idea for Dr. Death, it probably would have worked FAR WORSE in WWF if Jim Ross is there to say "no, Oklahoma is NOT going to be a regular character."

6 hours ago, AxB said:

I thought Russo to WCW was more of him jumping than being pushed out? But even having said that, he'd Vince Russo. Everyone who has ever interacted with him has, at some point or another, realised he's an idiot who doesn't have a clue what the difference between a good idea and an absolutely terrible idea is.

Russo may be an idiot, but having said that- it was Vince Russo in the WWF. Vince McMahon seemed to like Russo until he chose to ask for more money and jumped ship, and if that's the case, Russo wouldn't be the first clueless idiot Vince McMahon kept around because he personally liked them and he wouldn't be the last. 

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Russo and Ferrara's very unprofessional and intentional burial of JR in WCW bears no resemblance to what Dr. Death would have done had the WWF run worked out. I hope I don't have to explain the difference between booking committee filtered WWF Russo and WCW PTB Russo. 

If Jeff Jarrett, Prince Albert, and Ron Simmons could carve out a spot in 1999 WWF, Dr. Death would have been fine. There's no basis for the talking point that he didn't "fit in" - the Attitude Era was more of a variety show than any other era of WWF. There was room. Vince just didn't see it. 

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21 hours ago, Southside Jim said:

After listening to Cornette discuss the Brawl For All, I've learned that there is this really weird disconnect between Corny, Jim Ross, and other "wrestling lifers" that Steve Williams had much more appeal to "casual" American fans than there really was.

Back then and now JR think’s that the fans of pro wrestling have the same mindset of Mid-South/UWF fans circa 1985 to 1987. To him a “legit tough guy” who could “handle himself in a shoot” who also “PLAYED FOOTBAWL!!!” should be pushed to the moon, even if that wrestler is old, broken down, not that great of a promo and not familiar to 90% of the audience. 
 

I think Corny is always working so his comment about Russo “costing the WWF $5million” is total bs, since that’s what he think his fans want to hear. 

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Those of you saying that Russo would have figured out a spot for Dr. Death are missing the point.

 

From the way they talk, it always sounded like Cornette and Ross, at least, always envisioned pushing Doc as he was in Mid-South/UWF/Crockett.

 

Jim Ross: " My gawd, it's Dr. Death Steve Williams!  He has answered Steve Austin's open challenge, and now the two are standing face to face in the middle of the ring!  This crowd is in shock!"

 

[The Attitude Era crowd is dead silent, as very few of them recognize Williams.  A light "nWo" chant breaks out.]

Ross: "Four times All-American at the University of Oklahoma!  Former Triple Crown Champ-...and now the two men are trading punches!  Stone Cold and Dr. Dr. Death are trading punches!

 

Austin with a kick to the gut!  STUN-  BLOCKED!!!  DR. DEATH JUST BLOCKED THE STUNNER!!!!

BACKDROP DRIVER!!!!!  BACKDROP DRIVER TO THE BACK OF STEVE AUSTIN'S SURGICALLY REPAIRED NECK!!!!!!!!

DR. DEATH STEVE WILLIAMS, THE FOUR TIME ALL-AMERICAN, HAS JUST CRIPPLED THE WWF CHAMPION, AND HE IS STANDING TALL AS REFEREES AND OFFICIALS SWARM THE RING!!!!!

 

Edited by Southside Jim
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1 hour ago, MORELOCK said:

Russo and Ferrara's very unprofessional and intentional burial of JR in WCW bears no resemblance to what Dr. Death would have done had the WWF run worked out. I hope I don't have to explain the difference between booking committee filtered WWF Russo and WCW PTB Russo. 

If Jeff Jarrett, Prince Albert, and Ron Simmons could carve out a spot in 1999 WWF, Dr. Death would have been fine. There's no basis for the talking point that he didn't "fit in" - the Attitude Era was more of a variety show than any other era of WWF. There was room. Vince just didn't see it. 

Using Jeff Jarrett as an example of someone who could carve out a spot in 1999 WWF is closest to the example of Dr. Death- because even at the time, the big problem with Jarrett was he was not over. At all. He could not draw heat if the arena was on fire, and couldn't get anything resembling a crowd reaction until "put him with Debra and put Debra in a really low-cut top, then have Road Dogg make a quick one-liner that Jerry Lawler can say ad nauseaum for the next decade" and "that's still not working? Have him beat up women, the crowd might hate that" could make crowds...vaguely, slightly give a shit about him.

Now, if you're assuming WWE could have given Dr. Death a valet with really, really large breasts as well in order to try and jury-rig a crowd reaction to him, it's possible...but even if they did that, that does not necessarily mean Dr. Death would click on the roster. 

Edited by SorceressKnight
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To be fair, the plan wasn't, apparently, randomly throw Doc in with Austin. It was "have Doc run through a real fight tournament of midcard geeks", have JR manage him for months while he wins a bunch of matches, Doc turns heel on JR, beats the hell out of him, challenges Austin"

Now if that would've worked is questionable...

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3 hours ago, SorceressKnight said:

Now, if you're assuming WWE could have given Dr. Death a valet with really, really large breasts as well in order to try and jury-rig a crowd reaction to him, it's possible...

 

3 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

To be fair, the plan wasn't, apparently, randomly throw Doc in with Austin. It was "have Doc run through a real fight tournament of midcard geeks", have JR manage him for months while he wins a bunch of matches, Doc turns heel on JR, beats the hell out of him, challenges Austin"

Now if that would've worked is questionable...

...well, I wasn't WRONG...

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See the running joke on BTE about Kenny Omega's weightlifting routine involving very light weights and very low reps? I think it's a reference to what he says his workout is in this:

It's from 2013, when he was living in Japan fulltime and mostly working for DDT.

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One minor thing left unmentioned in regards to Tonga Kid being in the car and none of the people involved mentioning or knowing about it is that Tonga Kid was just barely in the WWF as "Samoan #4" at the time while Snuka was working against Afa/Samula on various shows. So, while people at the time wouldn't have much of a reason to know who Tonga Kid was, the fact that he was in the car would be breaking kayfabe since it involved Snuka traveling with the partner of somebody he was working against on shows.

Basically if they had done any sort of real investigation then and realized they needed to talk to Sam Fatu, he would have collaborated Snuka's story instead of contradicting it.

I'm pretty sure that one couldn't be acquitted of murder on reason of being high on cocaine, but that was a murder in some form.

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5 minutes ago, The Outsider said:

That cop was awfully uncomfortable once told about Tonga being in the back of the car.

That cop looked like and seemed equally as incompetent as Jack Tunney.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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3 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

One minor thing left unmentioned in regards to Tonga Kid being in the car and none of the people involved mentioning or knowing about it is that Tonga Kid was just barely in the WWF as "Samoan #4" at the time while Snuka was working against Afa/Samula on various shows. So, while people at the time wouldn't have much of a reason to know who Tonga Kid was, the fact that he was in the car would be breaking kayfabe since it involved Snuka traveling with the partner of somebody he was working against on shows.

Samoan #4 > Dark Order #8 & #9

Lots of gray in this one. Definitely mixed feelings from Tonga, the Cop and the widow. Muraco seemed fairly genuine. Great job by the reporters for all the hard work they did to get this back in the limelight for Nancy.

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I definitely have mixed feelings for Islander Tama after this. I thought his praise for Snuka at the end was pretty disgusting. Maybe I'm judging him too harshly. I don't know what it's like to have been friends with someone who more than likely murdered their significant other.

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Don Muraco looks a little more Hawaiian than Italian these days (yeah, I know he's native Hawaiian, and Muraco is an Italian surname). It's a very Italian sort of season for DSOTR between both Nancys, Russo, Muraco, Dino Bravo, and New Jack's spaghetti.

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1 hour ago, ka-to said:

No, that was to cover up the hash smuggling.

It can be a lot of things. You cover up crime after crime  for someone, eventually the price tag goes high enough that you have a lot of money they owe you for keeping them out of prison.

Heck, it just seems to make more sense if Tamina is only still running around because she makes minimum wage to work in WWE, the rest of her salary goes to paying off what Snuka still owed Vince.

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