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Your wrestling HOT TAKES


A.M.B.

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I frequently wonder why, if the WWE system is so terrible at evaluating and developing talent, so few of their ex-employees go on to do anything noteworthy elsewhere. There are always going to be a few misses - Juice Robinson and Tay Conti come to mind.  Cody is a fairly obvious answer.  John Morrison did well for himself outside of the WWE.  But, for the most part, the Rybacks, Bull Dempseys, and Chris Masters of the world go on to do little of note outside WWE and somehow manage not to get picked up by New Japan, ROH, etc.

Years ago, I was talking to a Pittsburgh sportswriter and he commented that the Rooneys were pretty good at knowing when it was time to stop paying a guy.  What he meant was that relatively few ex-Steelers were getting cut or allowed to leave as free agents, only to go on to light it up for another team.  There were misses, occasionally, but generally if the Steelers thought you were done in the league, you were probably done in the league.  That's mostly the way I think of Vince and co. when it comes to evaluating talent.

As far as Ricochet goes, I think the mistake was signing him in the first place, not misusing him once he made the main roster.  He's an amazing talent in a lot of ways, but I never watched him on the indies and thought "this guy has the skills to make it in the WWE."  Different skill set required in the 'E. 

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14 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Meltzer makes the same mistake when he says "these guy could have a better match anywhere else."  Well yeah, but that' not the point.  WWE knows exactly what they need for the content they produce, and they are trying to create performers that work inside their criteria. 

Agreeing with your point, but regarding this: Is it a hot take to say that Meltzer's definition of a good or better match isn't worth a damn in the grand scheme of things? Dave knows a lot about wrestling and has a lot of great insights and such, but his rating of matches is nothing more than a "I liked this match." type of deal. Which is fine, but I wish he would stop acting like he defines what a good match is. 

PC is a good place for some, a horrible place for others. The big problem in today's wrestling to me is that there is one prevalent style around the world. The high end matches all seem so similar, aside from the odd standout match here and there. NXT as a product - which is the on air extension of the PC in my and probably other minds - seems a bit of a watered down version of this worldwide style. 

My other hot take: Having seen the finish of Varsity Blondes vs Young Bucks I'm 100% sure the goal was to take any steam off of Pillman Jr. and probably the Blondes as a whole, that was horrible imo. If it wasn't, whoever booked/agented that match totally missed the mark. 

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On 5/7/2021 at 8:17 AM, Goodear said:

I get that but I think Bigelow also suffered from being in WWF in his first run especially being the land of the giants.  I mean look at this...

Bam Bam Bigelow vs One Man Gang (WWF, 4-25-1988) | Tape Machines Are Rolling

Like he seems tiny compared to OMG but Gang's MASSIVE which most people didn't realize. Bigelow always had to stand next to Gang, Hogan or Andre and he's "dwarfed" at 6'4". It's just not fair which is why they tried to highlight he was so agile. As the wrestling size norm dropped, Bam Bam got more effective until he was one the bigger guys on any roster. WWF in 1987 was terrible for him.  Gear wise, you'd think he'd change from the black and flames at some point in the next 15 years if he hated it, but that clearly wasn't the case.

This picture makes me wonder Where did the big men in wrestling go? No merely getting off the gas but just your one man gang and Bam bam types of height and mass seem rarer. Do men of size just no persue pro-wrestling (perhaps due to Pro football having expanded rosters and more money?) or do we just not have as many large humans walking around? I remember someone once saying the poor american diet lead to shorter kids meaning no more 7 footers in the NBA anymore

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I think it's more that the Bam Bams of the world are far less likely to fall through the cracks now. Wasn't there an NFL coach who phoned up Bigelow's high school gym teacher to berate him for not putting Bigelow on the Football team (having seen him on WWF TV)?

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2 hours ago, zendragon said:

This picture makes me wonder Where did the big men in wrestling go? No merely getting off the gas but just your one man gang and Bam bam types of height and mass seem rarer. Do men of size just no persue pro-wrestling (perhaps due to Pro football having expanded rosters and more money?) or do we just not have as many large humans walking around? I remember someone once saying the poor american diet lead to shorter kids meaning no more 7 footers in the NBA anymore

There's a lot more opportunities to play college football now compared to the 70's and 80's, even MAC and C-USA schools have massive dudes playing on their lines.

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Did the 2000s rise of ROH also kill off the big man worker?  We had a whole generation of smaller guys who could work, which exposed the prior generation's reliance on plodding giants.  Every trend is an opposite reaction to the last one, so maybe we're due for another rise in big dudes? 

I watch some indy stuff on IWTV but I'm sure others here watch more.  Are there any indy dudes of size coming up right now?  I know we have Puf, but he crosses that line from "good big man worker" to "morbidly obese and I worry about him," same for Acey Romero.  Hoodfoot is really good but he's short.  Who else? 

 

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Are big guys even still draws? The average indy crowd does not want to see that style. It's not like Babatunde was some big attraction when he worked Evolve, people were there to see the NXT wrestlers working the show or the other indy darlings. If Omos had showed up in say PWG one day, what would he do? That PWG over the top style has spread to most promotions.

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The big guys on the indies now are mostly a lot smaller than the big guys of the 80s. There's a few guys like Pretty Boy Smooth (6'9"), but a lot of your current indie Hosses are 5'10" and 220 lbs.

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2 hours ago, Spontaneous said:

Are big guys even still draws? The average indy crowd does not want to see that style. It's not like Babatunde was some big attraction when he worked Evolve, people were there to see the NXT wrestlers working the show or the other indy darlings. If Omos had showed up in say PWG one day, what would he do? That PWG over the top style has spread to most promotions.

I've always felt that wrestling is at its best when its like the circus/buffet analogy where you get a bit of everything. I feel like even if its not the main attraction a BBB or OMG type showing at BOLA would at least stand out

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8 minutes ago, elizium said:

How big is Calvin Tankman?

DAMN, good call.  I knew there was someone I was missing (and so damn close, as I mentioned HOODFOOT but forgot that I just saw Tankman on some Paradigm shows).  I definitely consider him a big man worker, and an awesome one at that.  MLW has him billed at 6'2" 355. 

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Someone was saying they wanted Tankman to team up with Powerhouse Will Hobbs. Because it would be a good team, I mean. Not because their name would be Calvin and Hobbs.

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Casanova Valentine is over 300 lbs. Specialises in no-ring Deathmatches. Spend the early bit of Lockdown powerlifting because he has an amateur background and wanted to be able to work like Gary Albright. And then did a Deadlift German on Shlak in one of his first matches back.

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On 5/20/2021 at 4:17 PM, cwoy2j said:

I hate the term "IWC" because it makes it seem like it's just some collective hive mind. I also hate how many fans online use it and then fall over themselves to try to say they're not part of it in order to be contrarian. "Those darn indy IWC smark darlings! But I don't like those guys! I'm not part of the internet wrestling community even though I talk about wrestling on the internet every chance I get."

I hate the term "IWC" because that's supposed to stand for Pittsburgh's International Wrestling Cartel. 

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22 hours ago, AxB said:

Someone was saying they wanted Tankman to team up with Powerhouse Will Hobbs. Because it would be a good team, I mean. Not because their name would be Calvin and Hobbs.

Would love to see their specialty gimmick bout, the Calvinball Death Match ?

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4 minutes ago, John from Cincinnati said:

There should be a moratorium on referees allowing themselves to blow a finish by getting into protracted conversations with people who jump up on the apron. Nothing gets a groan out of me like that. 

Should only happen with the crooked/rudo ref where it illustrates that that’s the whole point

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On 7/21/2021 at 11:48 AM, Spontaneous said:

Are big guys even still draws? The average indy crowd does not want to see that style. It's not like Babatunde was some big attraction when he worked Evolve, people were there to see the NXT wrestlers working the show or the other indy darlings. If Omos had showed up in say PWG one day, what would he do? That PWG over the top style has spread to most promotions.

I think we have to run an experiment and see if Sid would get over today walking out and power bombing people.  I'm guessing you'd be surprised by the results.

 

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22 minutes ago, Goodear said:

I think we have to run an experiment and see if Sid would get over today walking out and power bombing people.  I'm guessing you'd be surprised by the results.

 

No, I could easily see Sid killing dudes working in any era. It just seems like the heavyweight main event style is non-existent in certain promotions. Keith Lee was a big guy who worked a middle ground between that and the current jr tinged main event style. I wonder if guys who were just bigger and didn't work faster paced matches could succeed in certain promotions. Just a passing thought.

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