The Natural Posted September 6 Posted September 6 Bret Hart will be on WWE RAW next week in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Get in! 1
zendragon Posted September 6 Posted September 6 I hope he gets to cut one last angry old man promo on vince Spoiler 1 1
Norwegian Rudo Posted September 6 Posted September 6 5 hours ago, Sublime said: If he’s the second generation Dynamite Kid, he wasn’t as good as DK (and turned out to be an even worse person but that’s beside this) I remember reading DK's book back in the day and coming out thinking it was probably good for the local hooker population that he ended up in a wheelchair. When you want to start the book with a fond childhood memory and what you come up with is the time you slaughtered a goat, that is a bit of a red flag (besides all the other troubling stuff).
odessasteps Posted September 6 Posted September 6 There was a guy in the Indies in the 2000s named (I think) Max Boyer whose gimmick was he was the successor to Dynamite and Benoit. Needless to say, history says that was a bad idea.
Zakk_Sabbath Posted September 6 Posted September 6 9 hours ago, The Natural said: Bret Hart will be on WWE RAW next week in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Get in! The monkeys paw curled when I joked about his always right-status yesterday, now I gotta break my WWE moratorium for a night or the whole thing implodes 1
Infinit Posted September 6 Posted September 6 Has there been an announcement as to when all the non US WWE programs move to Netflix? Will it be in January when Raw launches?
For Great Justice Posted September 6 Posted September 6 (edited) Was thinking about this more and you know when the “wrestler whose gimmick is that he is a great wrestler” deal actually worked for me? Dean Malenko in 97-98. You watch those old Nitros and Dean was over fucking HUGE. Like he’s legit the 4th or 5th biggest pops of the night routinely. I think people forget just how popular he was. 40+ year old me says that I should kind of hate the whole good matches Iceman thing, but Dean ruled. Maybe his babyfave rogues gallery of colorful lucha opponents and the contrast is a big part of that? Anyway, yeah. Dean Malenko, badass. Edited September 6 by For Great Justice 9
odessasteps Posted September 6 Posted September 6 It just depends how you do it. Also works for guys with legit amateur background ( hodge, Lewis, roop, angle, gable).
zendragon Posted September 6 Posted September 6 1 hour ago, For Great Justice said: Was thinking about this more and you know when the “wrestler whose gimmick is that he is a great wrestler” deal actually worked for me? Dean Malenko in 97-98. You watch those old Nitros and Dean was over fucking HUGE. Like he’s legit the 4th or 5th biggest pops of the night routinely. I think people forget just how popular he was. 40+ year old me says that I should kind of hate the whole good matches Iceman thing, but Dean ruled. Maybe his babyfave rogues gallery of colorful lucha opponents and the contrast is a big part of that? Anyway, yeah. Dean Malenko, badass. Stinko Malenko's stoicism was a perfect contrast to The King of Loopholes colorful buffoonery 3 1
RazorbladeKiss87 Posted September 7 Posted September 7 2 hours ago, For Great Justice said: Was thinking about this more and you know when the “wrestler whose gimmick is that he is a great wrestler” deal actually worked for me? Dean Malenko in 97-98. You watch those old Nitros and Dean was over fucking HUGE. Like he’s legit the 4th or 5th biggest pops of the night routinely. I think people forget just how popular he was. 40+ year old me says that I should kind of hate the whole good matches Iceman thing, but Dean ruled. Maybe his babyfave rogues gallery of colorful lucha opponents and the contrast is a big part of that? Anyway, yeah. Dean Malenko, badass. Dean was really popular amongst my friends and I. At wrestling practice someone was always getting put in the Cloverleaf. I think the contrast between him and the other cruiserweights was part of it. He seemed like the toughest dude. 3
Ziggy Posted September 7 Posted September 7 (edited) 18 hours ago, The Natural said: Bret Hart will be on WWE RAW next week in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Get in! Love that Bret continues to talk shit about WWE unapologetically and still gets invited back. Even before the Vince stuff, well the latest Vince stuff came to light. He was burying Hunter for years even after he got more and more power and still gets invited back. Good for him. Most of it is probably because they know he'd be just as celebrated in AEW and 2 I don't think with CM Punk around I don't think he would allow any negative Bret Hart talk in any way form or fashion. Unlike all the other legends that are signed with WWE Bret isn't a mark for the company in so much as he's a mark for his legacy and body of work. If he had the same body of work in WCW in the time he was there as his Prime WWF run, he Probably wouldn't care. That's why I didn't intentionally phone it in in WCW. Bret would have wanted nothing more than to continue on putting on his best matches with alot of the workrate guys and also make some of the main event guys step it up and work to his level. Bret says he wasn't opposed to appearing in AEW more. I think him is segments with FTR and Punk would have legitimized FTR more. AEW alot of time use legends better than WWE. Not always but alot of times they do Edited September 7 by Ziggy 2
BloodyChamp Posted September 7 Posted September 7 (edited) I know Bret and Flair have went back and forth back and forth but in 1 interview that I can’t find again Bret said he didn’t get to watch much other wrestling as a professional wrestler so when Flair came to the WWF he was happy to finally see him wrestle after everything he’d heard and was not only let down but…well you know. I think that’s all there was to it and all the personal stuff that followed was just 2 old wrestlers being 2 old wrestler at each other. I love Ric Flair and have and will continue to defend him but crisp technical offensive showcases weren’t going on with him in 1992. They hadn’t been for a long time. I don’t think Bret ever knew how limited Flair was by then, even though he’d still been in a ton of great matches because of other things he was great at. He thought that was just him and it had always been. Edited September 7 by BloodyChamp 3
Shartnado Posted September 7 Posted September 7 4 hours ago, The Great ML said: God, I love Bash 89. Makes perfect sense, Mr "The Great Mamerican Lash!" 3
BloodyChamp Posted September 7 Posted September 7 I have the best childhood memories of that show because it’s the first wrestling tape we ever rented, but I have never watched it as an adult. So while I have very good memories of the show, they don’t really go together or make sense of some kind of wrestling ppv that I can evaluate. I might as well be evaluating something else I’ve never seen ever. 1
Ziggy Posted September 7 Posted September 7 7 hours ago, BloodyChamp said: I know Bret and Flair have went back and forth back and forth but in 1 interview that I can’t find again Bret said he didn’t get to watch much other wrestling as a professional wrestler so when Flair came to the WWF he was happy to finally see him wrestle after everything he’d heard and was not only let down but…well you know. I think that’s all there was to it and all the personal stuff that followed was just 2 old wrestlers being 2 old wrestler at each other. I love Ric Flair and have and will continue to defend him but crisp technical offensive showcases weren’t going on with him in 1992. They hadn’t been for a long time. I don’t think Bret ever knew how limited Flair was by then, even though he’d still been in a ton of great matches because of other things he was great at. He thought that was just him and it had always been. I think Bret Hart is going based on his personal experiences in WWF. If we only seen Ric Flair past 40 I'm sure alot of us would still think he was very good but if we never seen him in the NWA , JCP, Mid-Atlantic , touring world champion and before working the territories then we would have missed out on alot of his best work. That would be like judging 90% of 70s and 80s wrestlers based on their WWF run. The TV style , the schedule and Vinces quirks are all things that play a roll in limiting a wrestlers abilities
Stefanie Sparkleface Posted September 7 Posted September 7 7 hours ago, BloodyChamp said: I know Bret and Flair have went back and forth back and forth but in 1 interview that I can’t find again Bret said he didn’t get to watch much other wrestling as a professional wrestler so when Flair came to the WWF he was happy to finally see him wrestle after everything he’d heard and was not only let down but…well you know. I think that’s all there was to it and all the personal stuff that followed was just 2 old wrestlers being 2 old wrestler at each other. I love Ric Flair and have and will continue to defend him but crisp technical offensive showcases weren’t going on with him in 1992. They hadn’t been for a long time. I don’t think Bret ever knew how limited Flair was by then, even though he’d still been in a ton of great matches because of other things he was great at. He thought that was just him and it had always been. Not to mention that Flair's early-1990s WWF run was more a caricature of Flair than Flair himself. I always thought it was weird that he rarely if ever wore his suits during that run, he just ran around wearing his robes all the time. I can imagine that if that was your initial introduction to Flair, your lasting impression of him would be "who's this old man wearing a bedazzled housecoat". 2
FourPostMassacre Posted September 7 Posted September 7 8 hours ago, BloodyChamp said: https://imgur.com/gallery/a2apqZ7 Solid bump from Gordi there. 3
EVA Posted September 7 Posted September 7 It’s kinda odd to me that I haven’t seen more think pieces and general discussion of the end of the Fox era of Smackdown. What’s fascinating onto me is that it was simultaneously a huge success for WWE (having network TV reach was instrumental in fueling their current boom period) and a total flop for Fox (ratings were far below expectations, ad rates were poor, it had zero impact on carriage fees), to the extent that Fox effectively cancelled it by not competing to renew the rights. We’ll see how Raw moving to Netflix affects things, but if it seems like WWE’s business is cooling off a year or two from now, I think the loss of network TV will have been a big factor in it. 2
Ramo2653 Posted September 7 Posted September 7 Yeah, I felt like it was odd too. This isn't hard research or anything, but among people I interact with (work, bars, rec sports, parties at friend's houses), just references to Smackdown and people saying they watch it was way higher than pre-Fox era. Combining that with them finally figuring out how to use Roman and the Bloodline saga really pushed WWE to another level. And I know their demo skews a little older and I wonder how much of that was an older person sitting at home on a Friday scrolling channels and staying on SD which might not be the case on cable on Fridays. And I know this was discussed before, but most weekly TV wrestling I'm watching the next day via DVR. If I'm home, I might start watching an hour or so after a show starts so I can avoid commercials. 1
Ziggy Posted September 7 Posted September 7 1 hour ago, EVA said: It’s kinda odd to me that I haven’t seen more think pieces and general discussion of the end of the Fox era of Smackdown. What’s fascinating onto me is that it was simultaneously a huge success for WWE (having network TV reach was instrumental in fueling their current boom period) and a total flop for Fox (ratings were far below expectations, ad rates were poor, it had zero impact on carriage fees), to the extent that Fox effectively cancelled it by not competing to renew the rights. We’ll see how Raw moving to Netflix affects things, but if it seems like WWE’s business is cooling off a year or two from now, I think the loss of network TV will have been a big factor in it. Before they got on FOX WWE was having the worst tv in probably forever. Raw was having so many start overs like Nitro in 2000. The attendance was trending down year by year. I thought going to Network TV would force WWE to take a more serious approach to their onscreen product. I do think they did start producing better tv in the early years of FOX. I think them experimenting with a lot of what the NFL on Fox’s production style helped too. I know people hated the Animation graphics for certain entrances but it was different. They also started to book matches a week or two ahead of time like AEW was doing in the beginning. Remember Vince would book a match for Raw a few days before and not follow through by the night of the show but it seems Smackdown started to stick to promoting matches a week or two ahead and it worked especially when Roman started to not wrestle every week. I just felt they could have used the NFL crossover more with being on FOX. I felt the same way about AEW with the NBA being on TNT and how big a fan Shaq and Barkley is in particular. I wonder if Smackdown will continue to be the A show after RAW is on Netflix. I’m sure we’ll see all the top Smackdown guys integrated on RAW until WrestleMania is over. Before FOX ,Smackdown was always the clear B show. The only time WWE made a honest effort to make Smackdown seem just as important as Raw was in the very beginning of the brand split. Smackdown has still been the A show since Vince has been gone but with the value of the Netflix deal and this being the first time the have a major first run live tv show on a streaming platform that they would want to move their tv audience to watch Raw. I don’t see them keeping 2.5 million viewers on Friday on USA or whatever the same number is for Raw. 2
DragonZombie Posted September 7 Posted September 7 Whichever of the 3 (RAW, Smackdown, NXT,) shows becomes the A show will be decided later. I think they will demote Smackdown. I eventually expect Smackdown ratings to be around where Raw is but only slightly better. The fact it's not 3 hours helps. Not everyone is going to make the switch to the dying USA network. Next week, Raw, Smackdown, and NXT are all on the USA Network. Then NXT moves to the CW on Oct 1st. They will be doing arena shows for NXT.
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