APRIL 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION

[Rehabilitated Rick]

Another one in recent times is Rollins. I think Rollins is garbage. The worst. But HHH contributed to getting him over. Owens was a HHH pick, too. HHH keeping his spot is a symptom of WWE's overall problem, which is their inability to let go of the older vanguard.

Also if we're talking matches. Go back and watch HHH's match with Ambrose at Roadblock. That's some good shit. 

[John from Cincinnati]

30 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

But back to Triple H... He has as you said put over young talent. But I’d argue that he was only really successful with three people. John Cena, Daniel Bryan, and Batista. Everybody else was either poorly executed, or in the case of recent times the wrong guy to put over the young talent. 

Depends on how you define success. Is he responsible for all subsequent booking stumbles that might diminish the shine he puts on someone? Someone not using that shine to springboard to perennial main event status is no knock on the times he's given rubs IMO. You only counting outright coronations as successes is taking quite a narrow view.

He essentially put Shelton on the map as a singles competitor, and over the next couple years he rode that into a solid upper-midcard run. He's set Jeff Hardy up for success multiple times. He shined Ambrose up nice during their mini-feud in 2016. I'm missing the poor execution in any of those.

Heck, IIRC he even gave Maven a rub in 2004 before they finally attempted to push him in earnest. It didn't work out for Maven in the long run, but I don't consider that a shortcoming of the job Hunter did. He gave Maven a great set-up for a potential run. On his part, I count that as a professional success. As a perennial main eventer, not every prospect he comes in contact with is going to pan out. But when he sets out to be giving as a performer, he generally does a good job. 

There are glaring, high-profile examples where he's outright jammed people up. I think those blind people to some of the opposite examples. 

Edited April 26, 2020 by West Newbury Bad Boy

[LoneWolf&Subs]

I haven’t been watching the WWE now in quite a while, but if you want to point at a moment where he put somebody over go with the Rhonda match. The crowd was hot, and the finish was right. The Rollins stuff didn’t work out at all. The match stunk, and it gave him a new moniker, and gear that didn’t get over. They would try again with the Brock stuff and that looks like it didn’t work either. So that’s a swing and a mess for him on that one.

Edited April 26, 2020 by LoneWolf&Subs

[John from Cincinnati]

5 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

The Rollins stuff didn’t work out at all. The match stunk, and it gave him a new moniker, and gear that didn’t get over. 

Among his contributions to Seth's success, you should also count the Evolution-Shield stuff in 2014 and Hunter doing a lot as an on-screen character to prop up Seth's subsequent heel singles run. I didn't care for the Mania 33 stuff either, but on the whole he did a lot of elevate Rollins. 

Edited April 26, 2020 by West Newbury Bad Boy

[Godfrey]

HHH is an overachieving midcarder. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a match of his that made me think, “Shit, this dude HAS to be champion/in the main event.” His boring work drove me away in the early 2000s and made it really hard to keep watching during the Authority stuff. His matches aren’t good so he makes them long to cheat some semblance of epicness out of them, a bad habit he’s passed on to other wrestlers who shouldn’t follow that lead. He’s also responsible for NXT so I like the man in general, but as a performer he’s the pits.

[Ziggy]

His use of the sledgehammer was one of my biggest criticisms of him and I know he wasn't the first to use it, I think The Rock used it on Kane to his back or somebody like that in late 98. HHH brought it back in 01 on Austin to get heat in their feud.I thought it was such a cheap way to get heat. Disregard the fact that you really have to suspend disbelief, I always thought it discredited him as a dominant threat especially for someone who is supposed to be viewed on the same level as Austin or Rock. It would be one thing if your a lower card guy or complete underdog feeling the need to even the odds but not a top guy whose supposed to be booked as a superior wrestler than even Rock or Austin. Sting had a bat to fight off a whole gang of guys that most of them were bigger than him, it made sense. I'm glad that other main events in WWE didn't feel the need to have a signature foreign object that's out of the paradigm of Wrestling because it really takes me out of his matches 

[John from Cincinnati]

While I don't think Hunter is a transcendent in-ring performer or anything, I feel he's had plenty of high-end matches that go against the extreme takes people have about him. He's a perfectly adequate WWE main event style guy who'll do in a pinch. He's definitely gotten more chances at the plate because he married well, and between that and him presiding over a down time for his company he gets a lot of flack. There's also a lot of high-profile self-indulgence that rubs people wrong and he's had his share of flops, I get that. 

Having said all that, I continue to be amazed as the years go by that he can still inspire pages of discussion like it's still the early-to-mid 2000s. And it's not just the Orange Man's tweet. Every few months, I feel like I see discussions like this pop up in one place or another. It always surprises me to be reminded of the fervor people still have for a guy who I rarely give a thought to beyond "He's fine, I guess..."

Unless we're talking about DX promos and skits. That stuff is unfathomably awful and embarrasses me more than any top act in any company ever. And that covers a lot of ground. 

Edited April 26, 2020 by West Newbury Bad Boy

[Rehabilitated Rick]

But HHH's matches are good. I can go into some autism about match quality metrics. But I personally don't buy into the progressive match style of Davey Richards-NJPW-PWG synthesis moving my emotional palette than say, Dustin vs. Cody did. Kenny Omega is a good wrestler for the most part, but TNT viewing data suggests he isn't catching on like I've lead to believe he could. So am I wrong here? Cody vs. Dustin was fucking incredible! and that match style was vastly different than whatever is the norm domestically now.  And that was a Triple H match to the fucking tee. 

[John from Cincinnati]

2 minutes ago, Rehabilitated Rick said:

But HHH's matches are good.

Depends on the match. Shawn Michaels crying like he wants his parents to stop fighting is where I draw the line. 

[Raziel]

Triple H matches overall would've been looked back on a lot better if their average length was cut by 20%.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

I think I'm the only one who really enjoyed HHH vs Rollins. 

As someone who does not enjoy Rollins at all, nor HHH post-2000, it was a really well laid out match. Yes, it plodded a bit, but it was preferable to Rollins' usual excess. The false finishes hit well. I thought Rollins sold the knee well, and the match was laid out to serve the purpose of Rollins being put over as the guy, rather than just HHH slipping on a banana peel (see: the Jeff Hardy match).

Nash HIAC was better than it had any right to be. The ladder match too to some degree.

He had a really good little period there in 2004 post Mania, where he had these throwaway matches with Shelton and Tajiri, also a schmozz with Eddy that was fun for the troll value of what was being implied. 

I thought he sold well for Khali - it was an interesting change of pace for him to see him as the underdog babyface, almost as Warrior type guy. Was it any good? No. Just different.

Also really enjoyed the six mans with Evolution and The Shield. They managed to showcase each Shield guy as having unique offensive qualities and put them over accordingly each time. 

[AxB]

48 minutes ago, Rehabilitated Rick said:

 Cody vs. Dustin was fucking incredible! and that match style was vastly different than whatever is the norm domestically now.  And that was a Triple H match to the fucking tee. 

No it wasn't. The longer it went, the more people cared about it. Exactly the opposite of a Trips match.

[Rehabilitated Rick]

Triple H having veto power the moment he married into the McMahon family was his biggest enemy, not timing. He was conscripted into a war of scrutiny whether he knew it or not. Which is where the cries of ''glorified mid-carder'' or ''Ric Flair cosplayer'' stem from. It's very difficult to analyze a career which I admit had no real grassroots. I understand where the criticism comes from. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Rehabilitated Rick

[DreamBroken]

1 hour ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Heck, IIRC he even gave Maven a rub in 2004 before they finally attempted to push him in earnest. It didn't work out for Maven in the long run, but I don't consider that a shortcoming of the job Hunter did. He gave Maven a great set-up for a potential run. On his part, I count that as a professional success. As a perennial main eventer, not every prospect he comes in contact with is going to pan out. But when he sets out to be giving as a performer, he generally does a good job. 

My favorite example. Loved their Nov '04 RAW match the night after Survivor Series where they built it up all throughout the show as Maven's big shot as a show-long story, great hope spots and story. Wish it did work out for Maven in the long run. They also had a fun match on Sunday Night Heat in the summer of 03 in the 80s heel champ vs lower card babyface style. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

13 minutes ago, L_W_P said:

I really like Triple H but I think timing was his biggest enemy.

He ran as a long term heel champion, trying to pull off the old school NWA touring style, right at the peak of indy awareness in the wrestling world. More and more of us were seeing clips of Japan, Lucha, ROH, CZW etc and this opened up our concept of what a "good" wrestler was. This was also immediately after hotshotting things around in the late 90's and the massive appeal of seeing the top stars of WCW/ECW come into the WWE. The demand for this long term, dominant heel, who finally gets beaten by the underdog hero just wasn't there. Not until Benoit won the Rumble anyway and even then, we didn't think he was facing Triple H at Mania when he won.

They sort of tried again with Rollins but he's just not that guy. He's Dolph Ziggler with a push.

In a vacuum Hunter's run was very good but in the grand scheme of wrestling at the time it just wasn't what people wanted.

The transition to him wanting to be Jack Brisco (while looking like a Harley Race knockoff) came too soon after sarcastic, clever asshole Triple H. He can come off as a badass, but it's tonal dissonance when you still want to be a class clown. To be fair, I cared less and less about SCSA when he went from badass who was occasionally funny to singing goofy songs and trying to get shit over so WWE can sell more merch. 

[Rehabilitated Rick]

Another quality is Trips' comedic timing. You could say D-X were problematic, they were. It was a product of a fucked up time period. Bad optics. But he hasn't lost that comedic value. The alibi of any 90's cultural figure is ''oh this was just the manifestation of societal norms then and we delivered the content for the market''. Fine. Trips on commentary just a MONTH ago was a net for attitudinal fans (like myself) to stay tuned in. He is hilarious. I haven't been following the empty arena era really. But Jericho and Triple H has made me turn on the cable box. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Rehabilitated Rick

[John from Cincinnati]

13 minutes ago, Rehabilitated Rick said:

Another quality is Trips' comedic timing. You could say D-X were problematic, they were. It was a product of a fucked up time period. Bad optics. But he hasn't lost that comedic value. The alibi of any 90's cultural figure is ''oh this was just the manifestation of societal norms then and we delivered the content for the market''. Fine. Trips on commentary just a MONTH ago was a net for attitudinal fans (like myself) to stay tuned in. He is hilarious. I haven't been following the empty arena era really. But Jericho and Triple H has made me turn on the cable box. 

Comedic timing is one thing. It also helps that his position allows him to say stuff nobody else could get away with. Easy to be le edgy badass and wink at the audience when you’re in the family. 

Also, taking out the cultural implications or whatever, I find the DX stuff deeply unfunny. 

Edited April 27, 2020 by West Newbury Bad Boy

[Rehabilitated Rick]

Just now, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Comedic timing is one thing. It also helps that his position allows him to say stuff nobody else could get away with. Easy to be le edgy badass and wink at the audience when you’re in the family. 

Solid point.

[Unnatural]

I love wrestling for what it is, to me personally, an escape. Chikara and its ants and invisible grenades crack me tf up. Wcw with the hotly contested cruiserweight matches, the squash matches on syndicated weekend shows, that was my jam. Jake the Snake scaring wrestlers shitless with Damian, Warriors crazy over the top promos. That countdown before the next buzzer as your next Royal Rumble entrant walks out from behind the back. ECW and the crazy Awesome Bombs or the tazmissions, Whipwreck and Tajiri, the giant killer Spike Dudley, 3d's for everyone, TOTAL ELIMINATION, all that. AAA with its Hell Brothers and six man tags, Verano de Escandalo, NJPW with the G1 tournament and the crazy fighting spirit never say die battles. 

Tldr I don't watch every last thing, I barely follow weekly shows unless something is heavily pimped with highlights recapped on YouTube, y'know? But for me, as an 80s kid, wrestling is just a getaway from the mundane every day. I love the random matches of recent crowdless shows that remind me of being a kid and sitting back grinning ear to ear at the comedy or being blown away by the athleticism and spectacle.

If I'm going anywhere with this, my question would be- What drew you in when you got into following wrestling weekly, that you had to watch and just couldn't miss the next week? 

I remember it was a Saturday morning for me, and Jake the Snake had just done his short arm clothesline to set up a journeyman guy for the DDT. I was blown away seeing him wipe out the guy, like "Damn, he just killed him on tv and all those fans are cheering for him." That was my 'I don't wanna miss out next week' moment. Just curious what yours might be, is all.

[SirSmUgly]

Shoot, I can't even remember. I had a Hulkamania shirt when I was four and watched it then, but I don't remember ever not being aware of pro wrestling or of not liking it. 

I bet my grandma had something to do with it. She's from the South, so she was more an NWA fan while I watched mostly WWF. Still, she would watch any wrestling. I remember watching AWA on ESPN with her as a very young child (I also remember that my first wrestling figures were AWA figures - I had Shawn Michaels, Marty Janetty, Larry Z, and Nick Bockwinkel, so I ran endless Midnight Rockers vs. Zbyszko and Bock tag matches. I even had a ring, but I can't remember if it was an AWA ring or no). 

I will say that I can remember when I really took notice of NWA/WCW for the first time - when I saw that Sting/Flair Clash match. I remember being blown away by that match as a little kid. 

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Smelly McUgly

[sabremike]

Watching the Nick Gage Invitational from 2015 on IWTV. Masada at the end cuts a promo where he uses an anti-gay slur about 37 times (Talking about Roderick Strong and Jimmy Jacobs, two guys who he isn't 1/1000th as talented as) and brags about how the death match stuff is real and how what they do is fake. Hey dummy, the point of wrestling is to simulate getting hurt and not actually to get hurt. I mean I can enjoy this stuff for what it is but I mean don't cut a promo like that. And the crowd at one point in the show doing a chant for Guy Who Killed His Family And Then Killed Himself By Playing Hangman With a Lat Machine, yeah...

[Rehabilitated Rick]

I almost think Hogan was the patriarch of the HHH style. I know discussing Hogan is a sensitive subject here. It makes me sick that he destroyed everything when those tapes were released, and there's no excuse for it and I'd rather not discuss him at all. But yeah. Hoganism is very much the precursor to Triple H. 

[AxB]

1 hour ago, Hayabusa said:

If I'm going anywhere with this, my question would be- What drew you in when you got into following wrestling weekly, that you had to watch and just couldn't miss the next week? 

Kent Walton always signed the shows off by saying "Have a good week, til next week". So you had to watch every week or the good wishes would expire.

Little kids love Masked Wrestlers, don't they? When I was five, my favourite Wrestler was Kendo Nagasaki.

[JonnyLaw]

All the talk about the random “HHH makes you think he may lose/puts a guy over” matches and no one mentions that (IIRC) Smackdown where he got Rikishi over as a serious threat?

[SorceressKnight]

3 hours ago, L_W_P said:

I really like Triple H but I think timing was his biggest enemy.

He ran as a long term heel champion, trying to pull off the old school NWA touring style, right at the peak of indy awareness in the wrestling world. More and more of us were seeing clips of Japan, Lucha, ROH, CZW etc and this opened up our concept of what a "good" wrestler was. This was also immediately after hotshotting things around in the late 90's and the massive appeal of seeing the top stars of WCW/ECW come into the WWE. The demand for this long term, dominant heel, who finally gets beaten by the underdog hero just wasn't there. Not until Benoit won the Rumble anyway and even then, we didn't think he was facing Triple H at Mania when he won.

They sort of tried again with Rollins but he's just not that guy. He's Dolph Ziggler with a push.

In a vacuum Hunter's run was very good but in the grand scheme of wrestling at the time it just wasn't what people wanted.

Honestly, if you use timing as a problem for Triple H, I'd go so far as to say that the fact timing was his biggest enemy has led to his rebirth as a promoter/talent scout. If you use all of those things, then you also have to come to the realization that it likely directly led to NXT.

Of course Triple H would be the executive who scouts all the top indie and international stars and gives them the opportunity to be signed by WWE and try to build his promotion around him, He spent 2002 all the way to 2011 when he became a executive first, wrestler second getting market research, week after week after week, with arenas full of angry fans telling him "wrestlers like you are not what we want anymore. We want this style of wrestling instead!", and when he got the power to do something about it- he took all of that and realized "this is what the modern fan wants? Then this is what they will get."

 

3 hours ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Comedic timing is one thing. It also helps that his position allows him to say stuff nobody else could get away with. Easy to be le edgy badass and wink at the audience when you’re in the family. 

Also, taking out the cultural implications or whatever, I find the DX stuff deeply unfunny. 

Even beyond the cultural implications of the DX stuff, it doesn't change the way Shawn and HHH play off of each other. Like, even not being DX and just inducting people in the Hall of Fame together, just seeing how they work could be completely innocuous stuff (like, their timing and banter would make it so that WWE Films could probably cast Shawn Michaels and Triple H in a classic Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road to..." movie and it'd probably be FANTASTIC.)