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March 2022 Wrestling Discussion


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14 minutes ago, Infinit said:

From that March 31st Raw until Summerslam was some of the best TV and hottest crowds in WWF/E history 

1997 is the best year in the history of wrestling. WWE digging it's self out of the Doink / TL Hopper / Duke The Dumpster era with the excellent Bret Hart anti USA stuff. Nitro hitting it's stride with dope cruiserweights and the Sting / nWo story. ECW stirring shit up with Sabu & RVD & Sandman & Taz.

Maybe it's nostalgia but fuck man... is 1997 the greatest year ever for US pro wrestling??? By the way, I won't accept no for an answer lol.

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My son is fascinated by Andre the Giant, so I've been trying to find all I can of him on youtube.  It's nice that most of his matches are like four minutes long, so it keeps the little guy's interest pretty well.  Segunda Caida has been running through a bunch of Andre matches, so that's a great resource, too.

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8 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Do they have the stuff form the 60s and 70s? Has the quality been upscaled on some level? If not then I'm curious why you wouldn't just watch all of the stuff youtube has.

Right now it's only five shows, all from 89 and 90, with the plan being to add five shows a month.  They did a new transfer from the masters so the VQ is better than most of what's out there now.

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59 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

You make a great point. It's actually hard to believe how short it really was given how super- important that period was to developing my young fandom.

Quality over quantity was essentially the story of Tully and Arn as well.  

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Lol, lots of people toeing the line and giving world-class spin during their Mania-week media obligations, and Randy's out here just speaking freely. 

Quote

There is an art to what we do and a lot guys have lost that art. Instead of selling a punch because you need to sell a punch, now I'm protecting myself because I don't want to get my fucking jaw broken. That's unfortunate. The art to professional wrestling...when Vince (McMahon) was on (McAfee's Show), he talked about the number one priority, above all, being protecting your opponent. That's not taught necessarily in NXT. I know that because I've been in the ring with guys that came from NXT and they don't know what the fuck they're doing. It's unfortunate. It's just how kind of things are changing. Edge, I knew I could trust this guy and give this guy my body in the ring and I don't have to, in the back of my head, worry about him only being concerned with looking cool in the ring and hitting the fuck out of me and taking my head off. He knows I know how to work and when he hits me, I'm going to sell and react and make it bigger. He doesn't have to hurt me. The right way to do things in the ring, longevity-wise. There is a reason I've done it for 20 years and I'll do it for another 10 and I want everyone to put food on the table, clothes one their back, and take care of their families for 10, 20, 30 years but they're not going to be able to because they're going to be all fucked up. I'm trying to preach that longevity. If I'm able to think about what's happening in the moment and not worry about, 'here's this fucking guy, I don't know where he's coming from,' because you have to protect yourself

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/randy-orton-protecting-your-opponent-isn-t-taught-necessarily-nxt?utm_source=TW-Fightful&utm_medium=Fightful Wrestling News&utm_campaign=dlvr.it

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Is Randy the Meryl Streep of wrestlers? Uber respected and admired by his peers, super longevity, it’s all functionally and structurally good and sound…but to the lay audience it’s a little cold and uninteresting most of the time (IED run = Devil Wears Prada though)

Edited by For Great Justice
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That's underselling Meryl. She's got lovely little performances like in Julie & Julia where she's a mega-face who covers for her heelish counterpart in Julie. She's basically Sting in the Sting/Luger tag team of 1995/96 in that movie. Orton doesn't have a performance like that AFAIK.

Orton is Jesse Eisenberg. Was a star young, but was never very good, and it's a wonder that he's still working considering his replacement-level work for years.

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35 minutes ago, Log said:

My son is fascinated by Andre the Giant, so I've been trying to find all I can of him on youtube.  It's nice that most of his matches are like four minutes long, so it keeps the little guy's interest pretty well.  Segunda Caida has been running through a bunch of Andre matches, so that's a great resource, too.

Eric from Segunda's enthusiasm for Andre is contagious.  

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1 hour ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

'70s Andre is incredibly awesome, to be fair. Every time I see him, he's fun as hell. 

 

Early 80s Andre is still pretty good too. Andre vs. Stan Hansen is one of my favorite hoss fights ever just because you never see Hansen playing an underdog face like that and Andre took a great bump to the floor off of the lariat.

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9 minutes ago, cwoy2j said:

Early 80s Andre is still pretty good too. Andre vs. Stan Hansen is one of my favorite hoss fights ever just because you never see Hansen playing an underdog face like that and Andre took a great bump to the floor off of the lariat.

Andre has great hoss fights. There's an Ernie Ladd match from the late '70s where Ladd wrestles like he's used to being the big guy who can impose his will on a smaller opponent, and he just gets more and more frustrated at the role reversal as Andre stuffs his offense at every turn. It was so fun because it told that bit of story beautifully, as Ladd got fed up and Andre visibly enjoyed making Ladd the bullied rather than the bully for once.

I feel like Andre and his opponents ended up doing really interesting stuff w/r/t Andre's size depending on who the opponent was and what little story that they wanted to tell. Andre is great with physical movements, big man wobbly selling, and facial expressions, too, so he enhances everything by using those tools really well. 

Andre is another guy for me who went from "cool, thought he was solid as a kid, but only saw his post-prime" to "this guy is really, really good" once YouTube footage became common. I also value his post-prime, though, because he could do a lot with a little. Even when he could barely move, he knew how to get over the moment to moment of a match. 

Edited by SirSmellingtonofCascadia
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2 minutes ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

Andre has great hoss fights. There's an Ernie Ladd match from the late '70s where Ladd wrestles like he's used to being the big guy who can impose his will on a smaller opponent, and he just gets more and more frustrated at the role reversal as Andre stuffs his offense at every turn. It was so fun because it told that bit of story beautifully, as Ladd got fed up and Andre visibly enjoyed making Ladd the bullied rather than the bully for once.

I feel like Andre and his opponents ended up doing really interesting stuff w/r/t Andre's size depending on who the opponent was and what little story that they wanted to tell. Andre is great with physical movements, big man wobbly selling, and facial expressions, too, so he enhances everything by using those tools really well. 

That was the best part about younger Andre IMO. You could match him up with mobile, big guys like Hansen and Ladd who were used to just beating the crap out of everyone and see the dynamic of them fighting from underneath without a lot of shenanigans to make it believable. 

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4 hours ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

The very best part is when Bret's hugging Owen, the camera gets a shot of Bret just glaring DAGGERS at the crowd as they boo heatedly. Cracks me up every time. What a facial expression.

In Bret's book, he says he was trying not to crack up as he did it, which I can kinda see now that I watch it again. It was just great though, a moment that has stuck with me since I watched it live.

But that's my G.O.A.T., always doing G.O.A.T. things in the ring. It's to be expected. 

IIRC, Bret said he almost lost it when Owen did the double hair tousle to him and Davy. The dagger stare was probably his way of not breaking down laughing.

Edited by cwoy2j
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2 hours ago, For Great Justice said:

Is Randy the Meryl Streep of wrestlers? Uber respected and admired by his peers, super longevity, it’s all functionally and structurally good and sound…but to the lay audience it’s a little cold and uninteresting most of the time (IED run = Devil Wears Prada though)

You're forgetting The River Wild. RKO could never take on Kevin Bacon. Wouldn't have him arrested. Wouldn't get within 6 degrees of him (if I do say so myself)!

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2 hours ago, John from Cincinnati said:

Lol, lots of people toeing the line and giving world-class spin during their Mania-week media obligations, and Randy's out here just speaking freely. 

The number one priority, above all, being protecting your opponent. 

tumblr_oqc3818IAG1u1ljrzo2_500.gif

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On the topic of Seth, I think we go through this every 3-4 months on here, I'm not a big fan of Seth Rollins and was never a big fan of Edge but they got over and stayed over. 

Seth is a star. Edge is a big star. Not sure what there is really to dispute, WWE should do this or that.. why? For our benefit? That would be great but the casuals are the core audience, not us. 

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5 hours ago, Log said:

If you'd asked me yesterday how long the Hart Foundation run lasted, I'd have said a year or year and a half.  Amazing that it was basically 8 months total.

It's like the Flair/Arn/Tully/Windham Horsemen that I and many others consider to be the best workrate wise and they all had titles. As a kid, it seemed like that run lasted for at least a year or two but they were only together for like 7 months before Arn and Tully left to go to the WWF.

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On 3/29/2022 at 12:17 PM, HarryArchieGus said:

I see no reason to doubt that. 

Perez was silky smooth.  Sounds like the industry soiled his spirit (tho, I don't know any facts of the matter).  Pro Wrestling Plus here in Canada would feature Continental Wrestling from time to time.  My pals and I all thought we were pretty fuckin cool when we'd list the somewhat obscure (regionally) Wildcat as one of our favorite wrestlers.  Like knowing a really cool band that nobody had heard of (outside of NY and pre-internet) like ESG

Perez was also kinda nuts and hard to deal with. Gary Hart went into it in his book. Hart liked him and would always push for creative to do more with him. Apparently Perez was going to get a shot at Flair's title in Tampa which was Al's hometown. Al went to Gary and said that he was gonna shoot on Flair and legit pin him as Al was pissed that Flair was going to go over clean and he'd been unhappy about other things too. He reasoned that if he did that in front of his hometown fans, the NWA would have no choice but to acknowledge what happened and at the very least, put him in a top program with Flair. Hart figured that Perez actually could've done it as he (Al) was a legit accomplished shooter and he told the office about it. They made a last second change and substituted Eddie Gilbert for the match. What's crazy is that wasn't even the end of Perez in the NWA as they brought him back to be one of the Black Scorpions. You'd think something like that would've gotten a guy blackballed for life but they brought him back a couple of times for that angle.

Edited by cwoy2j
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3 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

What? He's awesome..  

I probably was too flip about him - no one makes it that far without some talent. Not even Pia Zadora. Same for wrestling. Well, okay, maybe not El Gigante/Giant Gonzalez. But Orton has, in general, major-league talent.

However, Eisenberg had a short A-list run because of a lack of range. That basically would describe Orton if the WWE weren't stuck somewhere between 1998 and 2005 on any and every given night they have a show and thus are unable to move on from guys who have long since worn out their welcome or what little drawing power they may have once had. 

Re: Rollins and Edge, I can squint and see Edge as a star. Not a huge one, but yeah, he just makes it to that level. He was actually over during a time that the product was hot. He wasn't a tippy-top guy between 1998 and 2001, but he was an important mid-card guy on the rise and had enough burn to parlay that into enough of a main event run that the lapsed fans I know do mention him, still.

Rollins is unequivocally not a star. Dude is anonymous outside of hardcore wrestling circles. No one except WWE's shrinking audience gives a fuck about him. He has a negative Q-rating. 

All that is irrelevant, though, because the conversation was exactly about what we want and what roles we think guys like that would thrive in, not about what the dwindling American wrestling fandom wants. 

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8 hours ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

1997 is the best year in the history of wrestling. WWE digging it's self out of the Doink / TL Hopper / Duke The Dumpster era with the excellent Bret Hart anti USA stuff. Nitro hitting it's stride with dope cruiserweights and the Sting / nWo story. ECW stirring shit up with Sabu & RVD & Sandman & Taz.

Maybe it's nostalgia but fuck man... is 1997 the greatest year ever for US pro wrestling??? By the way, I won't accept no for an answer lol.

NO (no backsies)

I respectfully disagree, but I would have to cite the cop-out/truth of subjectivity. The really really best pro wrestling, meaning the stuff that you love as a maven*, is the wrestling that get an emotional reaction from you and has real resonance. This is often the wrestling you watched as a kid, when you were more emotional and the intellectual weight of being smartened up hadn't sunk in, or from a period when you have positive memories, perhaps when you were watching with friends and/or family. This is usually in addition to your judgement of "good" wrestling. Hey, I see a lot of posters with otherwise good taste defending the matches of filks like  The Ultimate Warrior and such without irony or embarrassment. 

1997 was a pivotal and exciting year for rassling, to be sure. For me, I really dig 1985-86: Horsemen in a groove, the territories hustling to keep up with a rapacious WWF, uncertainty in the future landscape, JCP supershows, Savage waking up the WWF, The War to Settle the Score -  or maybe 1995: rise of ECW, tape trading making feds from around the world available, lucha is super hot, Japanese deathmatch excess, fusion workers incorporating separate styles into what would become the modern over the top standard. I think the ring work from those two years is superior to the output from your fave, and I have a lot of fun memories of wrestling from then but as I said, it's subjective.

I will give you the WCW cruiserweights as a shining star in any timeframe.

*As in a fan who is also a connoisseur, not the schmendrick** who eliminated The Undertaker.

**Not to be confused with Thee Brian Kendrick, an excellent worker who may or may not be cancelled here on thee DVDVR, I can't tell anymore.

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