Loss
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Everything posted by Loss
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Pretty awesome wild brawl. Most people know this match well, so I won't walk through it, but I will say I liked it more than I expected to like it, even having really liked the Spring Stampede tag. The one thing I didn't care for was the way they set up Dave Schulz's altercation with Sags. But everything else was the bees knees, and the post-match angle with Payne and Evad getting their revenge was even better.
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It's interesting that when he was in developmental, most old-timers who saw Cena cut promos thought wrestling had found its next Ric Flair. That was how Cornette talked him up. He probably would have been better in the past because he would have taken more control of how he was presented and been allowed to speak off the cuff a little more.
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He probably doesn't. I do think if you break it down to individual thing compared to individual thing, Hogan looks better. Both guys are cases, though, where the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts, which is why I think it makes more sense to compare them that way.
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Sorry, I saw "yesterday" on the date/time stamp in your post and thought the thread was older. My mistake. The match is not merely a spectacle, although that is a big part of it. I haven't seen Hogan work a match that was that stiff or bloody ever. I'm not someone who thinks Hogan has to do that to be better than Cena, as I haven't seen Shawn Michaels do that either, and I'd rank him above Cena. I'm just pointing out what makes that match work. If you look at Hogan's spectacles, how many of them are because of specific things Hogan is doing during the match? And how many of them are because the buildup was strong, he had a great ring entrance and people were already invested in him before the match started? Hogan at his peak could take a nap mid ring and get a big pop. Cena has nothing that looks as ridiculous as Hogan's leg shaking sell of a bodyslam, and has never had a move that looked as bad as Andre reversing the piledriver on the floor at Wrestlemania.
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First of all, it has been very rare that the crowd has universally booed John Cena. It has happened a few times -- Punk, RVD, Rock -- but it's not a regular thing. He has his supporters who are pretty loud and enthusiastic, and he has his detractors. He's a babyface to those who like him, and a heel to those who don't. The window where WWE wasn't purposely generating this reaction is very small. There were items in early 2006 WONs about PPV finishes designed to get Cena over as both a face and a heel. Bret Hart was booked to be a heel to one segment of the audience and a babyface to the other. He pulled it off very well. The only difference is that the dividing line there was markets, and the dividing line with Cena is age and gender. So because of that, Cena gets a mixed reaction much of the time, because he has fans of both types in the same market. I won't pretend there was this great WWE calculation behind it, and that it's something they thought of on their own, but they realized it pretty early in his push and started deliberately booking him to milk that reaction even more pretty quickly. Trying to kill that and get the crowd behind him more is a recent thing.
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My post after you started this thread motivated you to start this thread?
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Why? Because opportunity matters to me. What the wrestler actually does with the opportunity given matters. You watch enough matches with someone, you see how they move, why they move, and you can extrapolate. It's the ten minute vs thirty minute match argument. So long as you have ENOUGH matches to work off, you can extrapolate. Some guys aren't put in a position to have as many great matches. Talent does not always rise in wrestling, because what the general audience is looking for isn't always what we're looking for. Completely alternatively, isn't this argument, in some ways, Pat Patterson vs Arn Anderson? I agree with this. There are plenty of great wrestlers who sadly don't ever get the stage you wish they could have to show off what they could do. I can think of a dozen or so without trying too hard. But ... does Hogan really fit in that category? He had quality opponents. He had the booking focus. He was given time on big shows. And is this thread to say "Who was better?" or "If all things were equal, who would have been better?" The former is actual, while the latter is hypothetical, so the answer to each question is different.
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No one in wrestling gets the heat Cena does. How can you say he doesn't connect with a crowd? I think he means in the context of getting the "right" kind of reaction in relation to his character alignment. Even if nowadays, "any heat is good heat", getting booed by half the crowd while playing a babyface is not necessarily a good thing. Cena gets exactly the reaction he is booked to get. WWE has marketed the divisiveness, acknowledged it on television and programmed him against every top babyface they could find over the years. When a top guy isn't over, people just tune out. Look at all the wrestling companies that have died because the guys on top turned people away so much that they couldn't pack arenas anymore. WWE is down from their peak, but they can still do 10,000+ for a show. When I think main eventers getting the wrong type of reaction, Cena is pretty far from the someone I think of. I think of Kevin Nash, Randy Savage and Sid sinking the main event scene in the summer of 1999, getting zero reaction and driving business down. You can't compare Cena to that with a straight face.
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Watch this. WWE was afraid to put Hogan in the ring longer than 15-20 minutes. Cena has wrestled 45-60 minute matches. If anything, WWE saw Hogan as the more limited wrestler. No. He had: * Four PPVs a year (Eventually) * Monthly televised MSG shows * Monthly televised Spectrum shows * Monthly televised Boston Gardens shows * Network television specials every 4-6 weeks Some of which were against guys like Randy Savage, Harley Race, Curt Hennig, Ric Flair and Ted DiBiase.
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No one in wrestling gets the heat Cena does. How can you say he doesn't connect with a crowd?
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Why?
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But does none of that matter because Hogan's hammerlock takedown looked better than any of Cena's offense? I'd rather look at this in a macro way than a micro way myself.
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The topic of this thread is "better in-ring performer". Buyrates aren't part of the discussion. "Better result" means "I used my talent to have better matches." I will mention this for about the 40th time and I would like to see you finally respond to it. Barry Windham is a more talented wrestler than Ric Flair. Ric Flair is a better in-ring performer than Barry Windham because he had better matches. The fair way is matches. If the wrestling wasn't as good then, it doesn't reflect very well on the people who wrestled then.
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That's probably a fair statement. The debate is over which has more value -- being able to do things better, or being able to translate what you do well into better results.
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I don't really care about breaking down wrestlers like this. I'm more interested in the matches (the output). I don't put nearly as much stock in a list of a person's list of attributes as I do a list of their best matches. (Yes, I realize there are exceptions to this.) But based on that, for me, it's Cena, by far. Hogan is an underrated wrestler, but has never had a great match. Lots of really good ones, lots of historic ones, lots of fun ones. But nothing like Cena/Umaga, Cena/Michaels, Cena/Punk or Cena/Lesnar.
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There has to be a smarter, less labored way to make a cross reference. I'm re-thinking it.
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Barry Windham's career getting cut short because of the injury makes me so very sad. If Barry was fully healed and able to really go on this show, this would have been an even hotter PPV, as it was so well put together, cheap attempt to make people think Flair was going to face Hogan at the PPV aside. Even with Barry obviously not his old self, this wasn't terrible. It feels like a match with more thought put into the layout in advance than most Flair matches, as the finishing sequence is pretty intricate. However, the setting should have made this awesome and in a perfect world, Barry would have been able to come back and show that he was back to his old self before moving right into the Dustin/Funk/Buck feud. Michael Buffer: "The referee in charge will be Randy Peterson". I couldn't stop laughing at this!
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"The referee in charge of the action will be Randy Peterson." -- Michael Buffer, before the Flair/Windham match at Slamboree '94
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Thanks for sharing that.
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I don't know if it's just favorable editing, but wow, WCW was a great wrestling promotion in 1994, both in terms of good matches and solid booking.
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Another really good one. WCW was so great at this point. The psychotic Philly crowd chanting for blood is no surprise. Buck knows how to set up spots to make himself look like a fool with the bullrope really well. Buck pulling Dustin's shirt over his head and pounding him was awesome, as was Buck tying Dustin to the ringpost and laying his shots in, leading to Dustin's one-armed comeback and low blow to turn the tide. They really do a lot with the gimmick and for a match without blood, did a great job getting over the brutality. Love the finish too! Post-match, Terry Funk does a surprise run-in to attack Dustin. Wow, the little "I'm in Hollywood" video Dusty did before Funk/Tully is even better now that you realize what followed it. This feud took so many twists and turns and is the one thing in WCW that remained great even after Hogan's arrival.
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Harley Race, The Crusher, Ernie Ladd, The Assassin, Ole Anderson, Dick the Bruiser are inducted in a really classy ceremony - the best of the Slamboree ones.
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How did you rate this for AJ matches in the 90s, Ditch? -
Excellent match! I wasn't sure what to expect here since it's the WCWSN match that people talk about. But this was really good. Starts off with some comedy before getting more aggressive. The crowd loses interest a few times, but screw them. Regal threw some nasty shots. Great finish.
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They gave Tully Blanchard Chris Jericho's future babyface music. What kind of shit is that? He's TULLY BLANCHARD. It's pretty obvious from this crowd that they're in Philly. Nick Patrick yelling at both guys to get back in the ring when Tully just ate a piledriver and can't really control his current situation is funny. I was disappointed with this match, given its rep. Tully didn't get much offense and the match was too short. All the commentary was focused on Funk, and he got all of the offense, which made this feel like a Tully burial.