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January 2022 Discussion of Wrestling


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9 hours ago, AxB said:

A random comment on the AEW Discord "AEW's Women's division won't get over until they sign a woman who is an MJF-level promo" got me wondering, has there ever been a female WRESTLER (not manager) who was an MJF level promo? Who are the best talkers in (English speaking) Women's Wrestling history?

Alexa Bliss 2016-17 is my personal favorite.

One of the first to come to mind for me was Madison Eagles, who was on fire during her SHIMMER run and just exuded charisma.

On the Impact side of things, I think Madison Rayne was doing excellent heel mic work 10 years ago, and more recently I think Tessa Blanchard could've reached that type of level if her career hadn't stalled when it did.

 

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7 hours ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Piper is such a weird comparison that he himself has made because Piper never had the greatest grasp of simple phrases, and would get lost in what he was saying all the time. Even at his best.

I agree, but some would argue that Piper's peak was way back in LA w/the LaBells and his Oregon jaunts, or his Georgia/Mid Atlantic era of commentary'n'rassling. He certainly got more spotlight in that early Hogan WWF time, and even as an established vet for all his later comebacks, but (for me, at least) it was those videos I saw of Oregon/Mid Atlantic/his short stay in CWF. That said, that first year of Piper's Pits changed young RAF's life.

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3 hours ago, L_W_P said:

Good topic for conversation actually - How did you all perceive WWF vs WCW growing up? Did having access to one or the other make you appreciate a certain style more?

This is one of those times I’m actually glad to be so friggin’ old. The sheer breadth of wrestling available to me on basic ass tv when I was like 10 definitely shaped me as a fan. WWF was omnipresent, but everything else I was watching was, at least to me at that age, so much more REAL. It wasn’t even necessarily NWA for me. I was immediately all in on World Class and, soon after, Watts’ UWF. 

Honestly, it’s probably why I was mostly into WWF heels, because at least they had a tiny bit of grit. The only WWF babyfaces I really remember latching onto in the mid-80s were Barry Windham and Tito Santana. I was probably a far more traditional “cheer the faces” sort of kid elsewhere, though. 

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18 hours ago, AxB said:

A random comment on the AEW Discord "AEW's Women's division won't get over until they sign a woman who is an MJF-level promo" got me wondering, has there ever been a female WRESTLER (not manager) who was an MJF level promo? Who are the best talkers in (English speaking) Women's Wrestling history?

Currently Britt Baker, Historicly Sherry or Trish

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13 hours ago, L_W_P said:

Good topic for conversation actually - How did you all perceive WWF vs WCW growing up? Did having access to one or the other make you appreciate a certain style more?

I wonder how kids these days are with the differences between WWE and AEW.

I grew up in the 80s so it was more JCP vs. WWF. I'm from Virginia and we didn't have cable when I was a kid so the only WWF I got to see was Superstars on Sunday morning and the occasional times I stayed up late and watched Saturday Night's Main Event. I got two NWA shows every Saturday, one at noon and one at like 11:30pm or so (and this was back in the days when channels would stop at a certain time!) and my uncle would record the TBS shows and Clashes for me b/c he had cable. I was a big Apter mag reader too. The WWF never came to Charlottesville but the NWA would come here twice a year or so and they were in Richmond more often than that so I'd go to at least one NWA show every year as a kid.

So anyway, I was a big NWA supporter. Even though I was only 7 in 1986, I pretty much knew what was going on with wrestling (retired wrestler Abe Jacobs spoiled it for me when I visited Ricky Steamboat's gym in Charlotte but that's a story for another day). That said, I thought the NWA seemed more authentic because their guys looked more like regular tough guys than the jacked up muscle guys in the WWF. I was firmly in the camp that Flair would wipe the floor with Hogan because he knew more "techniques" and was a better "scientific wrestler" and he wasn't stupid like the WWF rulebreakers who would sit there and stupidly hit Hogan during the Hulk-Up. I thought the WWF was "fake" because it was all bright, there were animals, a bunch of fat wrestlers who didn't know any "techniques" (yeah, I know Dusty Rhodes is fat and I didn't like him but at least he's tough and he knows how to put on a figure four) and all of Hogan's matches ended the same way. Plus there was hardly any blood! How can you tell 6 year old me that on one show, Ric Flair gets rammed into a cage and he's bleeding like a stuck pig but these losers in the WWF do and there's nothing?! Plus what's up with those stupid big blue bars? That's not a cage!

Long story short, I thought the WWF was pretty hokey and that while wrestling might not be on the up and up, the NWA was more "real" (whatever that meant to 6-7 year old me). I definitely was not the kid that Vince McMahon was marketing to then. I'm sure he didn't lose any sleep over that though as we all know, there were millions of others who were.

Edited by cwoy2j
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I grew up on World of Sport wrestling. The first time I saw WWF wrestling I thought it was some sort of a parody. A bad, unfunny joke.

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A lot like @cwoy2jI grew up in the mid atlantic (Baltimore) and had similar wrestling experiences.  I didn't get cable until I was maybe 14 or 15.  I started watching WWF in 85 in the ramp-up to Mania 1, so I would have been 10.  I got into JCP shortly after that, like maybe a year later, because a friend of mine and his mom loved it.  He had a plastic mug with Magnum TA on it and I had no idea who he was.  Thus my Southern rasslin' education began!  

So TV-wise, without cable, I watched Superstars Saturdays at 11:30pm on channel 11, which was Baltimore's CBS affiliate at the time, and Challenge Saturdays at 4 on UHF channel 45, which is now the Fox affiliate and owned by Sinclair!  Crockett was on in syndication Saturdays and Sundays, on the same station, independent UHF channel 54 which I think is also Sinclair now, at noon.  At some point, at least for a little while, Watts' UWF aired at 3pm on Saturdays on the same station as Challenge.  Always looked forward to Saturday Night's Main Event.

I probably liked Crockett a little more then WWF.  It was grittier and more realistic.  I remember wishing we had front row seats at The Bunkhouse Stampede but my mark friend retorted, "Well what if someone gets it with a 2x4 and flies into our laps?!?!"  Amazing.  

I, too grew up on the Apter mags and, in a pinch, the second tier stuff like Main Event and Wrestling Eye.

So yeah, to summarize: I'm old, grew up on the big 2 in syndication in Baltimore, like Crockett slightly more.

Edited by Technico Support
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@cwoy2jmentioned the Apter mags above. Those and the Napolitano mags were super important to my young fandom as well. I couldn’t tell you the first time I actually saw, say…Jerry Lawler wrestle (probably a clip from Pro Wrestling This Week?), but I already knew all the major beats of his character and moveset and big feuds. I was practically a fan before I ever even saw him. There are hundreds of examples of that for me.

Really helped to have a passing knowledge of people when they eventually popped up in territories I could actually watch. Probably another negative towards WWF programming, too, as you’d be reading about the Sheepherders/Fantastics blood feud one month and then get the Bushwhackers debuting the next! 

 

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2 hours ago, AxB said:

I grew up on World of Sport wrestling. The first time I saw WWF wrestling I thought it was some sort of a parody. A bad, unfunny joke.

This is something that isn't brought up often enough, Re: structural changes to their corporation (the cuts). Why bring in people that aren't weaned on WWE in the first place? If they have a different idea of what wrestling is supposed to be, doesn't giving them a job defeat the purpose? You kind of have to give the devil his due in this respect. 

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I watched WWF as a kid, but my southern grandma was into JCP/WCW and had cable, so I watched that with her. I loved both of them, so there was no issue there for me. They were different, but I enjoyed the difference, I think. 

I was more into thinking about all the dream matchups between the wrestlers that I liked in both companies (which was exacerbated by my discovery of PWI and their consistent "dream match" articles). 

To follow up on what @cwoy2jand @Shanesaid about the Apter mags, I am in that boat as well. I didn't see Lawler wrestle until his WWF run and didn't see him wrestle in Memphis until the Andy Kaufman Comedy Central doc, but I knew all about him from PWI. Same with Bill Dundee. If you had asked me as a kid who Lawler's greatest rivals were, I would have told you they were Bret Hart and Bill Dundee even though I had never seen any Memphis. 

 

Edited by SirSmellingtonofCascadia
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91-95 were my childhood wrestling days and WWF was the one I watched most and loved, but I did see some WCW, some USWA and the PWI type mags. I wouldn't have been able to identify the differences at the time, but looking back now I think I thought that the other promotions were a bit more grittier and sleazier. Guys like the Freebirds or Dirty Dutch Mantell just looked like gross dudes whereas most of the WWF guys were oiled up bodybuilder types. Plus you'd see more violence in the Apter mags than you would see in WWF. It gave the sense that the other promotions were a lot wilder.

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So, as a kid we had WOMETCO cable out of Fayetteville, Ga. I still remember their office on the square. Every saturday the cable access channel had a 3-5 hour block of pro wrestling. We got WCW Worldwide, WWF Wrestling Challenge, USWA, Smoky Mountain, and another WWE or something. They had the old school hosts and everything. I was enraptured by the "Dirty White Boy" Tony Anthony, Buddy Landell, PG13, and all the people I'd only heard about in the Apter mags to that point. 

 

Then WOMETCO got bought up by BellSouth after the FCC ruling stuff. All that cable access stuff became a thing of the past. Sad.

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19 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

On one level, it’s amazing Tammy is still with us. 

Was just about to bring her up for the “best women’s promo/mic work” topic, too...

[“manager” qualifier notwithstanding]

Edited by BobbyWhioux
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I guess we'll find out soonish if there's a specific date that someone pivots from OnlyFans Mature(*) porn to unsuccessful candidacies for public office? probably still more money in the former than the latter and a lot less scrutiny of how you spend money from the former than the latter.

(* - I had to use a different word than the standard word for 40somethings with lots of nudes online since I don't think she had any kids before the cervical cancer in 2013)

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20 hours ago, L_W_P said:

Good topic for conversation actually - How did you all perceive WWF vs WCW growing up? Did having access to one or the other make you appreciate a certain style more?
 

As a kid I would track down any wrestling I could find. Every Sunday when the paper came I would yank the knock off tv guide and search for anything wrestling related. The VHS tape was your friend and I remember not only watching NWA/WCW and WWF, but also got my hands on UWF, GWF and some Memphis footage. I was big on babyface Jarrett

WWF stuck to the script. Early 90s WCW rewarded you for your devotion because it was always a little chaotic/random. The thrill people have today revisiting WCW B/C shows existed back then as well. You never knew what you were going to get. I still remember Owens brief NWA run leaving an impression on me. You'd find a syndicated show on at 1 in the morning and 92 Benoit is throwing dragon suplexes. 

In the late-90s I was WCW all of the way. Again, I liked the randonmness of it all and the quality of some of the match ups. I only changed channels for Stone Cold because he was a force of nature. 

Edited by JohnnyJ
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