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Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard


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Something Else to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard: Hardy Boyz (WWE Network)

 

A pretty missable episode. No real information. When they discussed the Hardys' various singles runs, Bruce inexplicably focused on Jeff and ignored Matt. Yeah, I get that Jeff was the bigger star, but his constant drug problems can only be interesting for so long - and by so long, I mean never. I'd much rather hear about what Matt was doing during that period instead of Junkie Jeff self-sabotaging his career and life for the 20th time. Prichard even admitted that Matt was more passionate about wrestling, but Jeff was more over. I've personally always preferred Matt, and it sounds like Bruce did too. At least Matt got credit for being a creative genius when they briefly touched on the Broken/Woken Universe.

 

Prichard was wearing a "Pronouns, Pal" t-shirt - referencing one of Vince/WWE's linquistic quirks - and rarely spoke in pronouns during the podcast, which became distracting as hell. "When Jeff was in this match, Jeff did this," etc.

 

Conrad was in a very jovial mood, which was also boring. Even though it's mostly fake, I think I prefer their bickering.

 

Unless you're a diehard Hardys fan, you can easily skip this episode.

 

The biggest news coming out of it had nothing to do with the Hardys - it's that Something Else to Wrestle is wrapping up "Season 1" soon, so I guess this show won't be on the Network 52 weeks a year like I had previously thought for some reason.

 

 

So the Hardy's in the next one they are doing and the first thing they mention is Bruce saying he hates TLC matches. Yeah that is a glowing endorsement for me to watch that

 

He's said that at least a dozen times on the podcast. He always follows up by clarifying that he hates the high risks, the dangerous bumps, and the potential for injuries.

 

This is exactly what it was. It wasn't an exaggerated Bruce hate-fest. He said he enjoyed the matches once he knew they were all safe.

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Yeah. Here's hoping the Sable show delivers. The PPV spotlight shows are really lackluster.

 

I don't think there was anything worthwhile in that Bad Blood episode, aside from JR still pushing for Dr. Death to come in for a run in the summer of 2003. That was crazy & caught me off guard. I had never heard that before.

 

Oh, and I guess the bit about Vince selling Christian on the haircut upgrade with before & after photos was pretty entertaining, too.

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I actually enjoyed the Bad Blood episode quite a bit, despite having absolutely no relationship with that era at all. I wasn't watching, I don't think I saw any PPV from that time except WM (years after the fact). It sure beat the Holly episode which was as dull as Holly's career (although ok as opposed to boring as fuck like Edge's episode was).

 

Conrad is noticeably burned out though and he doesn't even try at this point. Bruce should just cut out the inane Meltz bashing, it's transparent, boring and ridiculous at this point, especially when he out of the blue agrees with him whenever Meltz praised the hell out of some Michaels match.

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The first part of your post looks familiar...

He's doing the same thing Bruce & Conrad does, he recycles his stuff.

 

I'm actively waiting for tomorrow's show. Sable has potential to be a fascinating dive in the Attitude Era peak, not to mention Russo's inanity.

 

Don't tempt me or I'll start a separate thread dedicated to just my thoughts on the Prichard podcast. :P

 

Anyway, am I the only one who thinks Sable unfairly gets a bad rap?

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Anyway, am I the only one who thinks Sable unfairly gets a bad rap?

 

As far as a "talent", no. She sucked, she brought nothing to the table apart from her looks. (then again, there goes Stacy Keibler whom everyone seems to love)

 

As far as a human being, probably yes, because all we have heard over the years came from awful human beings themselves like Tammy Sytch and through the filter of pro-wrestling people who couldn't stand the fact she was a TV draw for understandable reasons. Bruce actually talked about her being put in an impossible spot before, so that's part of why I'm interested in hearing this episode, to hear more about the misconceptions we (wrestling fans) have had over the years. The fact she probably was a loner (she married Brock Lesnar for fuck's sake) kinda endears her to me actually.

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As far as a "talent", no. She sucked, she brought nothing to the table apart from her looks. (then again, there goes Stacy Keibler whom everyone seems to love)

But so what? She wasn't filling the same role others were. She did very well coming out, looking good, and being the foil for angles ("jealous" Marc Mero, etc.).

 

Sure, she was put in the impossible position of being expected to wrestle, but why hold that against her? Russo did that bullshit with all the non-wrestling women. (In WCW, he did it with Elizabeth and the Nitro Girls, for example.) You can't blame an untrained woman for not being Chigusa Nagayo or [insert random Japanese women's wrestler that Dave Meltzer gave five stars to and put in his Hall of Fame].

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I think Sable unquestionably gets a bad rap. She was just a valet, and did well in that role. She got super over to the point where the company felt they had to do more with her. She's the equivalent of someone who's good at their job then keeps getting promoted until they're in way over their head.

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You can't blame an untrained woman for not being Chigusa Nagayo or [insert random Japanese women's wrestler that Dave Meltzer gave five stars to and put in his Hall of Fame].

You're getting way too deep into that Bruce character now. :)

 

Hahaha. I probably am watching way too much of them. I cleansed my palate with a Jerry Jarrett podcast today. :)

 

(Posted after 11 p.m., so let's see if this survives the new board.)

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On 6/21/2018 at 4:37 PM, El-P said:

As far as a human being, probably yes, because all we have heard over the years came from awful human beings themselves like Tammy Sytch and through the filter of pro-wrestling people who couldn't stand the fact she was a TV draw for understandable reasons.

There was a story from Luna Vachon of how Sable and Mero used her and once they realized they did not need her, tossed her aside. I know she had bad feelings over Sable refusing to drop the Women's belt to her. Which did not mean much to Sable, but would have meant the world to Luna.

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14 hours ago, Victator said:

There was a story from Luna Vachon of how Sable and Mero used her and once they realized they did not need her, tossed her aside. I know she had bad feelings over Sable refusing to drop the Women's belt to her. Which did not mean much to Sable, but would have meant the world to Luna. 

Do you have more details? I've heard only good things about Mero.

And, really, if WWE wanted Luna to have the title, she'd have it - Sable didn't have that much stroke.

The fact is, Luna was "unconventional" (but still a beauty to me), and that's not what WWE wanted at the time - or even now, if you think about it (Alexa Bliss and Carmella say "How You Doin'!" while Sasha Banks and Bayley frown like abandoned shelter dogs as they enter the fifth or sixth month of their meaningless, heatless program).

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Most people who know him say Sable's fame went to Mero's head. Which is what ended up doing him in as an active wrestler. 

Basically in the build up to Wrestlemania 14, Mero and Sable were really good to Luna. Since she was the one who was going to work with Sable at WM 14 and might have been training her. Now if Luna wanted to, she could have made Sable look really bad in that match. Once their program is done, they toss Luna to the side. Which is how people typically behave, but it always hurts. 

Sable was suppose to drop the Women's Title to Luna at Royal Rumble 99. They had run an angle of Luna being revealed as the Spider-Lady. My guess is Luna vs Sable was suppose to be Sable's WM 15 program. Shane McMahon was being positioned as Vince to Sable's Austin. 

Day of the show Sable refuses to drop the title and they decide to go along with it. Much like Honky Tonk Man in 88, you can make a plan later.*   

Now you will notice that Sable turned heel really suddenly, even for 99 WWF. Then in April they took the title from her in a shoot reverse evening gown match. Sable tore the gown off Debra, then Shawn Michaels said Debra was the winner because Sable was old news. Sable quit a week later, which tells the story with Luna was true. 

*Before Summerslam 88, they had Honky Tonk Man lose the IC title to Ultimate Warrior in a Dusty finish. Warrior defended the title on the taping a few times, then Honky was given the belt back for a legal reason. Which I think was to keep Honky from refusing at Summerslam.

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also the RR match was a strap match and the day of the show Sable refused to take any shots from the strap so Luna had to improvise and it came off awkward.  And yes Sable was starting a program with Shane around that time that was almost immediately dropped so something had to be going on backstage for a McMahon program to be forgotten so quickly.

 

and I believe this is the time period where she refused to do a lesbian angle with Tori (not Wilson)

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While I normally love Prichard's podcast (even though half of his stories are full of shit), I had a hard time sitting through the Sable episode after the 14th "Meltzer hates women" rant.

We get it, you don't like Meltzer, but does it have to be the focus of the entire episode?

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Understood. I also enjoy Mero more than most, he also gets a bad rep as a worker to me.

I'm one hour into the Sable episode and yeah, the constant, repetitive Meltz bashing is not tedious at all... Especially now that Conrad doesn't even argue one bit. Well, I guess that was for the show anyway, but at least it didn't sound like a total Bruce-getting-his-way-working-a-gimmick.

That being said, I must agree what Meltz wrote about Sable was often cringeworthy, especially on the age thing and Sable looking like a "washed up old stripper" when she was around 30-32 when she hit her TV peak. Hell, Debra was 40 when she was stripping around the next year or so and she looked simply great. But anyway, that and the constant mention of fake boobs is not aging well. (I never understood the american obsession with big fake boobs either, but then again, whatever floats her boat... well, I didn't mean that in *that* way)

And then again, the fact Conrad justifiably said that Sable's paint boobs during the bikini contest was one of her most famous spot ever really tells everything that needs to be told about Sable's contribution to pro-wrestling. So there...

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I have never been one to say mean things about peoples appearance. I honestly thought Sable was older than she was. But I think she just has one of those faces. She probably looks young for her age now.

Has anyone asked Bruce why they signed Debra. Nothing against her personally, but it was one of the stranger signings of the Monday Night Wars. 

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1 hour ago, Victator said:

Nothing against her personally, but it was one of the stranger signings of the Monday Night Wars. 

Well, they were going for sex-appeal and Debra looked stunning. To me she was also a good valet, she cut fun little promos playing the airhead southern beauty queen (she always said it was improvised too, which seems right considering WCW), she had way more personality than Sable. I guess the fact she was paired up with Jarrett immediately also showed they brought her up to help him get over because they had a WCW past together (despite the fact WWF pretends not doing that kind of booking, but they of course do). It kinda turned up allright for her. Well, not really when you think of the Austin abuse but... Didn't she get a Master in criminology or something not too long ago ? Good for her.

Well the Sable episode overall was still one of the best recently as it was indeed fascinating on many accounts. I do like the fact Bruce talks about the "shitting in bag" stuff as hazing and disgusting and not "boys will be boys" bullshit. It's crazy to remember she was arguably their second biggest draw at a point when they were doing crazy business. You go back and forth as far as sympathizing with her, as her arguments of not wanting to be a wrestler and not wanting to bump are totally understandable (this is where the old "who doesn't have a passion for da biz is a bad people who shouldn't be in it" bullshit mentality rears its ugly head from backstage), but the whole debacle with the lawsuit is much more difficult to swallow. Overall, she doesn't come off like a bad person. The fact she is married to a guy like Lesnar makes a whole lot of sense too.

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