July 2022 Wrestling Discussion

[The Natural]

5 minutes ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

I'm amazed at this WrestleMania 5 naysaying. I think that was one of my favourites of the earlier Manias all told (partly because I think most of the early Manias are dross) but also because I think Savage/Hogan is largely excellent, Rude/Warrior and Rockers/Twin Towers are very good, and yes, Haku/Herc is a good match.

If I had to rank the first 10 Manias, just off the top of my head, I think I'd go-

1. 10
2. 7
3. 3
4. 8
5. 5
6. 6
7. 2
8. 9
9. 1
10. 4

5, 6 and 8 I think are of roughly the same quality.

I'd go:

1. X.

2. VIII.

3. III.

4. VII.

5. V.

6. VI.

7. IV.

8. II.

9. I.

10. IX.

Edited July 11, 2022 by The Natural

[Elsalvajeloco]

I feel like by the time you get to match #72 in hour 6 of Wrestlemania IV that nostalgia would have worn off.

[The Natural]

WrestleMania X is in my top five WrestleMania of all time with X-Seven, XIX, XXIV and XXX.

WrestleMania IX is still my pick for the worst WrestleMania of all time. The rest of the bottom five is made up of I, XI, XV and XXIX.

[The Natural]

WrestleMania IV is a sentimental favourite of mine as my much missed Nan and Grandad bought me it on VHS and Randy Savage winning the WWF Championship.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

Not so different from mine, Natch.

For a long time I thought 9 was just the worst shit ever but watching it back, I think it's one of those things that actually becomes better when divorced from the time period. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still the drizzling shits and still has an ending that makes me angry, but none of the matches are really outright bad (from memory), and it has a cool and memorable look at least. 4 is just soul-destroying and 1 is kind of the anti-9 in that at the time it probably was cool but watched in hindsight without the sense of being part of this 'moment in time', it's actually petty worthless.

To reiterate though, WrestleMania 9 sucks.

As an addendum, do you @The Natural(you might have been too young) or any of the other Brits ( @AxB, @SturmCRF, @Sky Blue Samet al) remember Bret going on, I think it would have been Live and Kicking shortly after WrestleMania 9 and basically calling out the WWF (in kayfabe) for allowing the end of WrestleMania 9 to go down the way it did? He was like, 'yeah, I told Hogan to go for the belt but I assumed the officials would look at the footage afterwards and realise the injustice that had been done and reverse the decision'.

[The Natural]

3 minutes ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

Not so different from mine, Natch.

For a long time I thought 9 was just the worst shit ever but watching it back, I think it's one of those things that actually becomes better when divorced from the time period. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still the drizzling shits and still has an ending that makes me angry, but none of the matches are really outright bad (from memory), and it has a cool and memorable look at least. 4 is just soul-destroying and 1 is kind of the anti-9 in that at the time it probably was cool but watched in hindsight without the sense of being part of this 'moment in time', it's actually petty worthless.

To reiterate though, WrestleMania 9 sucks.

As an addendum, do you @The Natural(you might have been too young) or any of the other Brits ( @AxB, @SturmCRF, @Sky Blue Samet al) remember Bret going on, I think it would have been Live and Kicking shortly after WrestleMania 9 and basically calling out the WWF (in kayfabe) for allowing the end of WrestleMania 9 to go down the way it did? He was like, 'yeah, I told Hogan to go for the belt but I assumed the officials would look at the footage afterwards and realise the injustice that had been done and reverse the decision'.

Great minds think alike so the saying goes, @Yo-Yo's Roomie.

WrestleMania IX is my worst WrestleMania for what happened with Bret Hart and fucking Hulk Hogan. Pissed me off then as an 8 year old and more through the years. Trying to remember Bret going on Live and Kicking.

[Elsalvajeloco]

I just watched nine recently.

It's still awful, but I did find the gem of JR's dry run (I believe he was already calling post WM stuff on Challenge tapings with Heenan) where he does the El Matador and Papa Shango dark match before the PPV. It's extremely insightful on the bullshit commentators have to go through because you can hear him going back and forth with Bruce in the headset as he's calling the match. He get audibly pissed at Bruce for not feeding him the correct info. 

It's strange that something like that would even be uploaded to the network. 

[Mister TV]

28 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Hart Foundation and Danny Davis vs Bulldogs and Tito: Pretty good match but hell, it's the Harts and Bulldogs.  They can do "pretty good" in their sleep (or more likely on somas).  Was Danny David a wrestler before he became a ref turned wrestler?  Heels cheat to win and all the announcers completely miss the megaphone shot.

Davis wrestled as Mr. X, normally he would work the first match as Mr. X then ref a few matches later in the card.

[Infinit]

4 hours ago, Tarheel Moneghetti said:

Is this the Jimmy Garvin fancam or is that different?  At one point years ago, I had a backstage fancam supposedly shot by Garvin that outed some of the talent’s drinking, drugging, and womanizing.  It’s been so long since I saw it that I barely remember what is on it, but a decade or two ago, it was considered sort of shocking.  Supposedly, some of the locker room was unhappy Garvin shot it and let it get out.

 

 

This is the footage from Jimmy Garvin's camcorder backstage on the Bash 88 tour

 

[Kang]

WWE released Curtis Axel and Ariya Daivari. They were brought in to produce matches.

Vince Mcmahon is now more involved in creative for Smackdown since stepping down as Ceo and Chairman.

[Niners Fan in CT]

I go back and forth on WM IX.  It's mostly garbage but I do love the outdoor setting, staging and interview areas.  I think most people hate it the most because of Hogan bullshit and who can blame them. It's the absolute worst but it does make King of the Ring 1993 all the sweeter when Yokozuna buries Hulkamania and then Bret puts on a masterclass in the tournament.

@Yo-Yo's Roomie

You didn't mention Mr. Perfect vs. Blue Blazer. Another gem on that WMV card. Listen, the commentary on that show is on another level too. I am a guy where commentary matters a great deal and Ventura is on fire all night. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

That all begs the question, what IS the WORST WrestleMania of all time??

I have a few candidates floating around in my head but I'd like to hear more thoughts from the board.

[Technico Support]

Ventura and Gorilla were amazing on commentary together.  You get the vibe they're good friends and some of the stuff they say to each other is hilarious.  On at least two occasions, Ventura jokes about Monsoon's career "fifty years ago" which was amazing.

[SturmCRF]

2 hours ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

As an addendum, do you @The Natural(you might have been too young) or any of the other Brits ( @AxB, @SturmCRF, @Sky Blue Samet al) remember Bret going on, I think it would have been Live and Kicking shortly after WrestleMania 9 and basically calling out the WWF (in kayfabe) for allowing the end of WrestleMania 9 to go down the way it did? He was like, 'yeah, I told Hogan to go for the belt but I assumed the officials would look at the footage afterwards and realise the injustice that had been done and reverse the decision'.

I don't remember that, I watched a bit of Live & Kicking but I preferred Fully Booked, it had Zoe Ball, a hotel theme and a talking cow. I do remember Bulldog being on one of those shows and giving a fairly ambiguous answer to the whole 'is it real?'  question.

I loved Mania IX despite hating Hogan, because of the whole outdoor, ancient history atmosphere. Obviously KOTR 93 is better though, as the matches are good and the Yoko/Hogan feud gets its happy ending.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I'd say 4, 15 or one of the recent death marches is the worst in history. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

Anyone else feel they should have had a hint or some type of storyline leading into Lex turning face with USS Intrepid Fourth of July bodyslamming Yoko angle? Or was Lex as the next Hogan always DOA?

I mean he is still treated as a heel on the syndicated shows that weekend, which means he was a heel on TV with absolutely no hint of a turn the same day he was slamming Yoko.

[Matt D]

I hated that as an 11 year old, let me tell you.

Also, here's the most fun Mr. X match ever.

 

[SirSmUgly]

1 hour ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

That all begs the question, what IS the WORST WrestleMania of all time??

I have a few candidates floating around in my head but I'd like to hear more thoughts from the board.

I even like the "bad" WMs from the earlier days. Does WM IX kinda suck? I guess, but I enjoy it.

I think once WM hit like 24 or 25, they became these slogs full of matches that I don't remember anything about, so probably one of the ones from the last ten years would be the one that I thought was the worst, though I think the last one I saw was WM 32 and I also remember it being this painful shitfest, like six hours of crap. So maybe that one. IX might have sucked, but it was over in three hours at least. 

I think 30's the only modern WM (if we're counting "modern" as post-Attitude Era when the company started to mold itself into a sterile corporate product machine) that was legitimately good. 21 was pretty solid, too. The rest of them just blend together for me. 

Edited July 11, 2022 by SirSmellingtonofCascadia

[Ziggy]

The first Wrestlemania , if the card wasn't booked as if it was a random house show and booked to be one of the best cards then it could have been one of the best Early Wrestlemanias. When I first started watching TV and MSG and other big cards that showed up on Classic on Demand and stuff like that,  alot of the pre and post Wrestlemania shows we're really good. Valentine, Tito, Orndorf , Orton, Adonis , Snuka a ton of other guys were really fun to watch. Wrestlemania was purposely booked not to feature matches between guys that were in Active programs against each other outside of Studd and Andre and the Main Event and even then you had Orton and Snuka not even in matches that could have filled up the card

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, Matt D said:

I hated that as an 11 year old, let me tell you.

Also, here's the most fun Mr. X match ever.

 

Here is my little fantasy booking the territory scenario: If you must have Luger as the Hulk Hogan replacement, you need to place Luger and Yokozuna within one or two degrees of each other. I see it where Lex and Yoko are tagging against Duggan (who Yoko was programmed with around that time) and maybe like Virgil or someone perfectly disposable as the feature match on Superstars two or three weeks out from the Stars and Stripes Challenge.

The layout for the match isn’t as important as the post-match. The finish would be Luger laying out Virgil with the loaded forearm of doom. Afterwards, Luger starts doing his lame Narcissist posing to the hard cam. Meanwhile, Duggan is checking on the unconscious Virgil. Out of nowhere, Yoko attacks Duggan and then drags him over to the corner. Totally oblivious to what’s going on, Luger continues posing on the other side of the ring. Fuji motions Yoko to go up, and Yoko demolishes Duggan with a Banzai Drop. Luger turns around sort of bewildered just as Yoko is getting off top of a seriously hurt Duggan. Fuji then motions Yoko to go up again for another Banzai Drop. Luger goes over to Fuji and asks Fuji what the hell is going on. Yoko doesn’t give a damn and hits Duggan with a second Banzai Drop. Duggan is basically a pancake at this point. Fuji brushes off Luger and says Yoko isn’t done yet. Yoko goes up again and just before he is going to deliver a career ending and possibly fatal(!) third Banzai drop, Luger dives in and shields our fallen hero Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Yoko gets angry, climbs down, and starts yelling at Lex and Lex argues back. Then, Fuji decides they still aren’t done. Fuji wants Luger to prove his loyalty to these anti-Americans and deliver one last loaded forearm to an already half dead Duggan. Fuji motions Yoko to pick up Duggan, and Yoko obliges. Lex looks to the crowd in order to see what he should do. He plays up the moral dilemma huge. The crowd obviously doesn’t want him to do it.  Vince of course oversells the shit out of it on commentary saying, “Don’t do it, Lex! No! No!”. Lex brings up his forearm and sort of looks at it. He puts it down. Then, he exits the ring and heads to the back in disgust. Yoko is totally confused by Lex’s actions.

Then, the following Raw two days later, you have Jim Ross do a sitdown with Lex at his home in Atlanta and asks why he did what he did. You don’t have Lex do the typical halfway babyface interview. You have Lex say that why he isn’t friends with Duggan or Virgil at all, he was completely disgusted by the actions of Yokozuna and Mr. Fuji. They had already won the match, and they proved they were the better men. It was completely uncalled for. When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, he is still a proud, red blooded American and couldn’t stand by to watch Yoko do that or contribute anymore to it. For his final question, Ross asks if Luger will show up for the Stars and Stripes Challenge on July 4. Luger just says he doesn’t know. He honestly cannot answer Jim’s question because he doesn’t know if the fans will accept him after KOing people with his loaded forearm for months now or being egotistic. He also doesn’t know if he can realistically bodyslam the WWF World Champion Yokozuna. However, if he isn’t there, he would like someone to humble Yokozuna and do the deed in his absence.

You play up the “Is Lex going show up on July 4” on Raw and the syndicated shows heavily. Boom. You have an instant mega babyface when this dude shows up and bodyslams Yokozuna.

[Shartnado]

4 hours ago, Yo-Yo's Roomie said:

I'm amazed at this WrestleMania 5 naysaying. I think that was one of my favourites of the earlier Manias all told (partly because I think most of the early Manias are dross) but also because I think Savage/Hogan is largely excellent, Rude/Warrior and Rockers/Twin Towers are very good, and yes, Haku/Herc is a good match.

If I had to rank the first 10 Manias, just off the top of my head, I think I'd go-

1. 10
2. 7
3. 3
4. 8
5. 5
6. 6
7. 2
8. 9
9. 1
10. 4

5, 6 and 8 I think are of roughly the same quality.

Not really dissing WMV per se, even the clipped version off TV was watched SO many times over the years! I remember how elated I was when the show started, as the tv-guide didn't specify WrestleMania V, just Wrestling Main Event for 3 hours! That was a good Saturday!

[SirSmUgly]

Fuck Lex, they shoulda had SCOTTY STEINER bodyslam Yokozuna. Strap the rocket to him, put Rick in the IC title mix if you have to in order to get Scott to agree to it.

Yeah, I've said this before, I know.

I like Lex Luger, too! But Scott Steiner, though. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 minute ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

Fuck Lex, they shoulda had SCOTTY STEINER bodyslam Yokozuna. Strap the rocket to him, put Rick in the IC title mix if you have to in order to get Scott to agree to it.

Yeah, I've said this before, I know.

I like Lex Luger, too! But Scott Steiner, though. 

Scott was one of their choices, but he didn't want to break up the team. Everytime they tried to break up the team, he said no.

They had way more invested in Lex considering he did not wrestle for basically eight or nine months while signed with WWF.

[SirSmUgly]

I know re: Scott, but it's a shame that he only became a singles star once he got roided up to a level of gross immobility. 

Lex should never have been a heel. Vince's wavering faith in Bret is one thing, but to have a heel dominate the title for a year in a territory that thrives on a mega-face knocking off monsters is backwards. He should have come in as a face off the jump. I get that the quickie face-turn was because Hogan left, but that they had to do a quick face turn of Luger at all shows a deficit in planning. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

23 minutes ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

I know re: Scott, but it's a shame that he only became a singles star once he got roided up to a level of gross immobility. 

Go back and look at Scott circa World War III 1997. It's fucking absurd how big he is. Before that, he was just stepping up to that line of being unable to move. By fall 1997, it was point of no return.

During the WWF years, the Steiners were also working New Japan IIRC. I don't think WWF was that hot giving someone a super push who was also working outside WWF. 

Quote

Lex should never have been a heel. Vince's wavering faith in Bret is one thing, but to have a heel dominate the title for a year in a territory that thrives on a mega-face knocking off monsters is backwards. He should have come in as a face off the jump. I get that the quickie face-turn was because Hogan left, but that they had to do a quick face turn of Luger at all shows a deficit in planning. 

Has anyone been screwed more times by forced turns or being at the wrong place at the wrong time than Lex?

Sting gets hurt at the Clash in Texas, and Lex has to turn abruptly so Flair can have an opponent. Won't get the title cause Flair wants to give it to Sting. Flair gets fired/quits in July 1991, has to do the makeshift main event with Windham at GAB 1991 that people shit on. Wants out of WCW in late 1991 and then eventually does leave in 1992, but cannot wrestle due to an agreement with WCW. Was gonna do the WBF, but got hurt in a motorcycle accident. Comes back when he can wrestle, gets a nonstarter gimmick cause Lex isn't charismatic enough to pull it off and it being dumb to start with. Gets a chance to become the biggest star in wrestling, but they botch it for one big pop with ZERO leadup. Then, never gets the title.

I know Lex got all the chances in the world for a guy who wasn't that talented enough to get all those chances, but he was absolutely snakebit.