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December 2021 Wrestling Discussion


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On 12/1/2021 at 2:00 PM, Stefanie the Human said:

I never understood where that talking point came from. He was defending the title on house shows (Cagematch lists 13 specific defenses) and was working regularly on TV (which World Champions at the time just didn't do). I guess because he was working non-title squashes on TV, but really, what World Champion back then was defending their title on TV each week?

Garvin wasn't the right choice as champion, and his reign was weak, but I've seen that "he won the title then vanished until Starrcade" talking point come up multiple times and I just never got where it started.

Thanks for the correction!  That's really wild because I definitely remember Crockett TV making an angle out of the fact that Garvin would be taking time off to train for Starrcade.

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1 minute ago, Technico Support said:

Maybe it's the same addled memory that convinced me Ron Garvin had no title defenses, but I seem to recall Rey wrestling Dean multiple times (okay, at least twice but maybe more) on Nitro with the same finish (Rey counters avalanche BT Bomb with a rana).

That finish was so overdone, I'm not sure he did it twice with Malenko, but I remember it being done with at least Malenko, Psicosis, and Eddy at different points. 

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Matt Hardy spent a few weeks getting the BT Bomb over as a finisher before wrestling Rey at Summerslam, so they could do the rana reversal as the PPV finish and have it make sense.

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1 minute ago, AxB said:

Matt Hardy spent a few weeks getting the BT Bomb over as a finisher before wrestling Rey at Summerslam, so they could do the rana reversal as the PPV finish and have it make sense.

My biggest problem with them doing the finish over and over is that no one actually used the BT Bomb as an actual finisher. That is an all time great move,  but it probably sucks ass to take. 

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WWE has postponed its tour of Canada that was scheduled to take place in January 2022.

The four-show tour was set to include an episode of SmackDown, an episode of Raw, and two house shows. WWE issued a statement today announcing that the events have been rescheduled to later in the year:

The WWE Friday Night SmackDown live event scheduled for January 21, 2022 at Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg has been rescheduled to Friday, September 30.

The WWE Supershow live event scheduled for January 22, 2022 at the Brandt Centre in Regina has been rescheduled to Saturday, October 1.

The WWE Supershow live event scheduled for January 23, 2022 at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon has been rescheduled and will now be WWE Live on Sunday, October 2.

The WWE Monday Night Raw live event scheduled for January 24, 2022 at Rogers Place in Edmonton has been rescheduled to Monday, September 26.

Tickets are currently on sale through Ticketmaster.ca and all originally purchased tickets will be honored for the rescheduled dates.

The reason for the shows being postponed wasn't announced. Dave Meltzer notes that the Winnipeg and Edmonton events had good advances, so the postponement isn't due to poor ticket sales.

The Friday, January 21 episode of SmackDown will now be held at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. The Monday, January 24 episode of Raw will take place at the Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio.

WWE will have a house show in Corbin, Kentucky on Saturday, January 22 and a house show in Huntington, West Virginia on Sunday, January 23.

WWE still has house shows listed on their schedule for Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Wednesday, December 29 and Place Bell in Laval, Quebec, Canada on Thursday, December 30. The shows would be the first time WWE has been to Canada since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trish Stratus has been announced as the host of the Toronto house show.

 

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Liger in 1991 had an effect on me in a way that Misterio in 1996 and 1997 didn't quite reach. For a kid who wasn't even ten and who watched a lot of WWF, Liger/Pillman had a lot to do with expanding my understanding of what wrestling could be. I watched both WWF and JCP/WCW, but Liger wrestling like he did opened up a new dimension to me that I ended up following up on a few years later after I was able to get more access to tapes and then to the modern internet.

For that reason alone, I give Liger the edge over Rey, who is undeniably great, but who would not be in my top ten. Liger is a lock for my top ten. I'd probably have him five or six just based on how he impacted me as a fan (and also his longevity and how fucking GREAT he was for like three decades, just consistently great).

Edited by SirSmellingtonofCascadia
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2 minutes ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

Liger in 1991 had an effect on me in a way that Misterio in 1996 and 1997 didn't quite reach. For a kid who wasn't even ten and who watched a lot of WWF, Liger/Pillman had a lot to do with expanding my understanding of what wrestling could be. I watched both WWF and JCP/WCW, but Liger wrestling like he did opened up a new dimension to me that I ended up following up on a few years later after I was able to get more access to tapes and then to the modern internet.

For that reason alone, I give Liger the edge over Rey, who is undeniably great, but who would not be in my top ten. Liger is a lock for my top ten. I'd probably have him five or six just based on how he impacted me as a fan (and also his longevity and how fucking GREAT he was for like three decades, just consistently great).

If you'd have asked me to pick as little as a year or two ago,  this would probably have been my answer. My interest in wrestling started with 80s WWF, but the two people who influenced my interest in wrestling outside of the WWF weren't Ric Flair and the Steiners, but The Great Muta and Jushin Thunder Liger. Flair and the Steiner Brothers made me wish they were in the WWF, Muta and Liger made me want to see what was going on outside of the WWF. That is what made me love wrestling how I love wrestling. 

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5 minutes ago, supremebve said:

If you'd have asked me to pick as little as a year or two ago,  this would probably have been my answer. My interest in wrestling started with 80s WWF, but the two people who influenced my interest in wrestling outside of the WWF weren't Ric Flair and the Steiners, but The Great Muta and Jushin Thunder Liger. Flair and the Steiner Brothers made me wish they were in the WWF, Muta and Liger made me want to see what was going on outside of the WWF. That is what made me love wrestling how I love wrestling. 

Same. Muta's aura and physical charisma were off the charts. They could have put the big gold on him (the real big gold, not the WCW International Championship or whatever), and I would have bought it. He looked and moved like a guy who would legit fuck your world up.

Muta and Liger led me to finding Japanese work later, and while I'm very narrow in what I've seen from Japan, I will always appreciate them for that.

The Andy Kaufman doc on Comedy Central led me to Memphis, and Memphis in the '70s and '80s is like the best non-JCP stuff out there in American wrestling IMO.

Regal/Flair bastard WoS series in WCW led me to actual WoS years later, which is my favorite non-U.S. stuff by far. '70s WoS is endlessly watchable to me.

I tend to highly rate the stuff that acted as a gateway into other pro wrestling cultures, especially if I saw it as a kid/tween.

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Yeah. I was mainly taking a break from wrestling in early 90s while an undergrad until I found the Observer via the National which led to tape trading and seeing NJPW and Liger. It also helped change the perception of rasslin to folks in my dorm when we showed them the liger/Sano series. 

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I remember reading an interview with Rey after he had just signed with WWE (likely in a magazine I didn't own while loitering in WH Smiths) where he had been asked if he wanted to be seen as the greatest cruiserweight of all time. His response was that he wanted to be seen as the greatest wrestler period. Now, it's not like Rey wasn't already iconic up to that point, but Vince had just signed him as the token good lucha thing for a sub-division of Smackdown! that everyone knew wouldn't last. I was thinking if that's not a soundbite and that's what he actually thinks then he's delusional.

If you ask me to choose between him and Liger I'm leaning Liger, but years later we're having this conversation which says it all about how well he did for himself. I wasn't following WWE through the 2000s so maybe this is off the mark, but a guy like him winning Royal Rumbles and world titles in VKM's world sounded as revolutionary as what he was part of in WCW. Thanks for proving me so very wrong, Rey.

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I do think that, as someone else said in this conversation much earlier (maybe last month), that he's been futzing around mostly in stale-ass WWE for the past two decades hurts him in an unfair way.

I thought that he was really fun in LU, and it gives a glimpse of what sort of career he could have had outside of the machine later in his life. 

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40 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

wonder if the WWE is gonna be a bit reluctant to cross international borders for the near-term due to concerns that shows could get cancelled closer to the scheduled date due to hypothetical travel restrictions

They did 2 separate UK tours like last month. Roman didn't come on the Smackdown one because his immunocompromised status means he can't travel internationally.

Except to Saudi Arabia, obviously.

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One of those twitter threads where it's almost all wrestlers, and almost no fans:

Turns out, almost all of them have MH struggles.

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On 12/2/2021 at 6:18 AM, J.H. said:

I think the only thing that Liger has over Rey is that Liger was able to to work heel if given the situation (NJ v. NOAH Jrs, 10thJr. title run being a heel build up to challenge Sasaki, CTU). You can argue Filthy Animals were heels but Rey was cheered regardless. I lean towards Liger. Hell. add ring music into it and Liger wins!

James

BOO-yaka this man! /s

I agree on @SirSmellingtonofCascadia’s point regarding stale just-a-guy status of Rey in WWE. If he’d have just had that one phenomenal Rumble appearance where he’d somehow found the Fountain of Knee Rejuvenation and then carried on as an international touring attraction, presented with the bona fide legend status he has earned, with short stints at all the non-wwe players (excepting COVID), that might even enough to raise his perceived status further towards his rightful position as all-timer.

Heart says Rey but head says Liger.

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3 minutes ago, AxB said:

Thanks for sharing. Moral of the story: a 5-day LSD bender is just the ticket to provide oneself with clarity in future career aspirations.
But seriously, great to see a bit more of his background. I had watched the short documentary showing him in GCW but he had come across as a ‘doth protest too much’ indy 4 life, totally-not-bitter guy before, which was probably an unfair presumption on my part.

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6 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Thanks for the correction!  That's really wild because I definitely remember Crockett TV making an angle out of the fact that Garvin would be taking time off to train for Starrcade.

They definitely made it an angle on tv. I remember they said something like Garvin was taking a sabbatical from defending the title to focus on defending against Flair. He did defend it a lot on house shows but was only on tv wrestling a couple of times from what I can see on Cagematch.com. He was actually in a WarGames match the night before Starrcade which I had no clue about! That would've been a hell of a thing to see at a house show. Ricky Morton selling inside of a WarGames just seems right.

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=1017&page=4&s=400

403 26.11.1987 Mid-Atlantic Championship WrestlingNational Wrestling Alliance NWA World Heavyweight Title Steel Cage: Ric Flair defeats Ronnie Garvin (c) (17:25) - TITLE CHANGE !!!
NWA Starrcade 1987 - "Chi-Town Heat" - Pay Per View @ UIC Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois, USA
404 25.11.1987 Mid-Atlantic Championship WrestlingNational Wrestling AllianceUniversal Wrestling Federation War Games: Barry Windham, Dusty Rhodes, Ron Garvin & The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson) defeat Big Bubba, The Four Horsemen (Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard) & The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane) (23:00)
NWA World Championship Wrestling - Event @ Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, USA
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Also, not that anyone ever doubted Ronnie Garvin's toughness but jeebus. He did a WarGames match and then did a main event match with Flair. I remember that match wasn't the greatest but they really chopped and beat the crap out of each other during it. I can't imagine what Garvin's body must've felt like after a WarGames match and then getting chopped by Ric Flair for 17 minutes the next night.

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On 12/1/2021 at 3:58 PM, supremebve said:

Yeah,  I watched it for the first time a few years ago and was surprised how much I was engaged with it. Garvin was pretty over at the time and it felt like a big deal. The problem was there was nothing to follow that moment up. It was a fun match with a surprising finish,  and then nothing. If you're going to put someone over Flair at that point,  he has to be pushed as a superstar afterwards or it's not going to go over. Flair was everything you could possibly want from a champion. Flair raised the ceiling for the entire promotion. Garvin was pretty good, but unless he was going to be pushed as a killer it was going to fail. 

This would have been the perfect time for the old Dusty finish. Have Garvin get the visual pin,  have everyone come out and celebrate,  while in the background an official is arguing with the ref and they have to restart the match. Flair goes over and they push Garvin as a man who feels he got a raw deal up to the rematch at Starrcade. Garvin could kick ass every week on TV,  Flair could try to get out of the rematch, and there is a story to be told. The way it happened didn't leave much for them to do,  because everyone knew Flair was going to get the belt back, because he was Ric Fucking Flair,  and Garvin was not. 

Garvin was pushed as a killer on tv before he won the title. I mean, all you had to do was look at him Tony, just look at him. Dominating the other man. Tying him up in knots. Just look at him.

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I think Rey in WWE in the Mid 00s was what Bret Hart was to WWF in the Mid 90s. Both undeniably talented and skilled but Obviously neither would've ever dreamed of being the main title holder coming in  Both became world Champion based off circumstances. 

I see a few people here holding his WWE run against him and understand he was misused alot during his run but I've been thinking that if he never came to WWF he probably would have never put the mask back on. Maybe he would have at some point but not full time, I don't believe. People talk about Steamboat being an agent helping his psychology which helped him with his limitations of Knee injuries. 

The fact that he was one of the few WCW guys to have a memorable run like he did and him getting out of the Cruiserweight label is amazing. 

If anything,  I think he would've benefited more going and ending in AEW instead because that all in Show he was dope,  keeping up with the young guys

Edited by Ziggy
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