JerryvonKramer

What I'm getting from this thread is that hardcore fans love an underdog.

Him as a DDP / Jarrett / Booker opponent is a lot more realistic yeah. Call me snobby, but I see those guys as midcarders put on top anyway.

And Sid was jacked, had a cool look and could talk. LA Park might have been higher up on the card than he was, but anything above going for the US title is fantasy land. I can see something like Him vs. Luger on a PPV underneath a Hogan match and a Goldberg match, but that's his ceiling.

People still remember Papa Shango too. Rey and Eddie got their runs on top when Vince had a monopoly. That's the key thing that changed by the way. Vince didn't have to worry about anyone else, he had the entire wrestling audience (that was left). In 98, you have to worry about the competition. And when it's Austin, you don't run a Mexican against him.

The fact Austin was a Texan working man was significant. Race played no part in Austin's character, but sure as hell that he hardly upset the sensibilities of anyone who held those views.

Skeleton costume is also an issue.

I think LA Park would had been a face, so no. However if Matt wants to argue that he can.No I don't mean running him in a match against Austin. I mean running him on top as WCW against an Austin-led WWF. "Here racists, change the channel!" Basically giving Vince money.

A listener question for that show: to what extent do you think the opening 10-15 minutes of the cage match in which Shawn appears to be taking liberties is justified? This was a massive talking point during the AWA set stuff. I can't remember the sides, but I think Matt D was against the match and Will was for it. I was somewhere in the middle, I think with Dylan.

Are you going to try to run a Mexican against a Texan Redneck in the height of the Monday Might Wars? Let's not pretend that the wrestling audience were all enlightened liberals.

Quite a huge amount actually.

Even if he worked as a base, he was associated with high flying. Even if he was actually a heavyweight, he was associated with cruiser weights. And Loss, I think both. I don't think fans were ready en masse in 1998 to go with a Mexican as the top star, and sure as hell the promoters, TV companies etc. weren't. Let alone a masked one. The idea of LA Parka being a top main event star at a time when Goldberg, Hogan, Savage, and Austin were all still active is pretty laughable. Let alone Nash, Bret, Flair, Taker, Foley, Sting ... "Get real" is all I'll say.

Backlund came from a legit amateur background and had a completely different style of working. There's that weird promo before one of the Adonis matches where he equates working a match to baking a cake, so let's call it a cake baking style. He worked a slow build style adding more and more ingredients or layers to the mix. I don't think Cena is anywhere near as slow or deliberate. Jerome says he's the best possible Hogan, but I think he may be a better Sting. Right, yeah totally different styles. But they have some odd similarities none-the-less: disliked by hardcore fans, mixed reactions from crowds, pushed by the office regardless, good box office regardless, some awkward tendencies in the ring, and put in enough main event situations over a long period of time to have great matches to their name despite those similarities. My point was more that in terms of quality and GWE candicacy, I see Cena as being in the same sort of ball park as Backlund. Bret is at least a league above them in my book. Not just a style bias on my part, I just think he's a better worker all round.

I don't know if there's a point, I'm just responding to the thread. I think you'd need an ass kicker. Essentially an Austin 2.0 to be the "human" to Cena's machine. I was thinking you could make it a kind of weird propaganda angle, with shades of games like Bioshock or Portal 2 or Fallout: Las Vegas. Paint Vince as an evil Disney utopian visionary type with Cena as his prototype. Important for it to work would be to run video packages of Cena being a true hero etc., with no irony and no comment from the commentators. Like serve it straight. Perhaps too subtle for wrestling, but an Everyman vs. weird evil Disney empire angle could get over with generation millennial, I think, it has done in video games time and again. Maybe a role for CM Punk? I dunno. Not an ass kicker, but he'd be a suitable face to go against the empire.

So go the other way and the opposite extreme. Super nicey, doesn't break any rules, kissing kids and stuff but gag inducing. Make angles so that a guy like Bryan is positioned in storyline to get a big advertising deal or something, and the office give it to Cena. And do it a few times. That crowd is not above being worked.

Savage?

I can watch the match, but if you think a masked light heavyweight Mecixan high flyer is main eventing any US company in 1998 you need a reality check.

So you think they'd de facto cheer any attempt to get him over as a heel? What if he was kicking an injured Daniel Bryan in the head while running him down? What if he did a basketball style skit and made a kid cry? What if he gave Jerry Lawler a pile driver through a table? There's nothing that can be done?

Goc, if he cut the promo I wrote out do you think the crowd would really cheer a guy calling them losers?

OJ, would still like to know more about your Backlund comment. I can take that post in two or three different ways.

1. WWF 2. Mid-South 3. GCW

Not a chance Matt. Not even one hope in hell.

If superman had a defective finisher that people have to kick out of at least twice before being put away. I couldn't believe people were actually complaining that Rusev only took one AA. Imagine that! Only ONE finisher!

I see them all as midcarders and can't see any of them carrying a company in 1998. US title level at most.

You've got to admire Marty's commitment to getting "whoomp there it is" over. He's like a young DDP with his "good God!"

Can you elaborate on this?