thebrainfollower

I think we underestimate how long things can take to take off sometimes. I'd argue that WCW did a ton of harm to itself in 97 and WWF a ton of good but it took a year for that to be so clear that the tide turned numbers wise. And WWF until Wrestlemania seemed booked to anger the existing audience and stamp out any hope of a new one. Now they at least seem to be moving towards a future, even if they make as many bad moves as good ones and who know how long all this will last.

Which numbers Loss? Merch sales? Cena's are driven by kids who aren't there in great numbers or aren't as loud. And I think we've argued this before but Vince's goal in the last decade has to been to ensure no wrestler is a draw. He's finally succeeded, for better or worse The streak was the last definite draw and look how that ended, not with a bang but a whimper. We're literally back to the mid 90's where nobody really draws and have been for ten years. And will continue to be until someone comes up with a truly hot idea.

I would place Sting definitely below Bret and Vader. I think the WON contains more guys than a small "greatest of all time" list would just to be clear. I'd be talking top 10, maybe 20 at a stretch US based workers since say roughly 1980 when video footage is out there often enough to make a good judgment call.

Depends on who's talking. I don't believe it's a be all and end all but remember how much that argument was used to bury Parv's dream of Sting in the WON Hall of Fame. If it's a metric it should be for everybody. I truly believe to be one of the all time greatest you have to have gotten people to say "darn I need to see that guy". Austin did it. Hogan did it. Flair, Lawler, Funk, Bruno, Bob, Harley so many did it. But to give two examples of guys who didn't and are just a notch below one of the all time greats in North America for me would be Bret Hart and Vader.

Back to the topic - who had better PPV's in 92? WCW had probably the greatest PPV of the decade but it also had GAB 92, Halloween Havoc 92 (heaven help them) and Starrcade 92. I feel like every WWF PPV that year was great except Survivor Series which was still the best Series in 4 years. So to me this is a tossup. I'd need to assign scores out of 10 and divide by the number of PPVs. Anyone wanna try that?

Agree wholeheartedly. There's a ton of minor botches that WCW's idiot camera crew can't cover up for and WWF does all the time. That was a huge difference in how I saw the product and thought WWF wrestlers were better. I really think the camera crew is one of the biggest differences between the two you rarely hear about.

Well no matter how good your product is, if you are going out of business you're not doing it anymore. The first thing to do is stay in business. We're having a Vader debate in another thread and it's not like every time I see a Vader match I think about how low WCW was drawing in 93.

I'd love to have watched a reality program in the late 70's/early 80's featuring Ole Anderson, Fritz von Erich, Verne Gagne, etc trying to make it in the stock market. I don't think wrestling is all about drawing money but neither do I see it as art. It's entertainment and comes somewhere in between. As a performance artist (actor) myself I struggle with this. A couple of reviewers recently saw a play I did in a small town in central MA (for which I had wasted a bunch of time listening to Parv's voice to master a subtle Welsh accent, director switched the role to Irish). By coincidence Matthew Broderick played the role on Broadway and these reviewers, being huge fans of this play, saw it. Both came to me on separate days in the dressing room after and told me I blew him away and gave the best interpretation of the role they'd ever seen. But ultimately probably 500 people saw it. So does that make me, even in this one role, a better performer than him? I struggle with that. Understand in my group of fan friends, I'm the LEAST WWF friendly person of us and the biggest Vader fan. I just think to be one of the all time greats you have to have drawn money. You guys used that very argument to tear apart Sting as a hall of famer and I truly think your Vader love blinds you to the double standard you've created. When it's someone loved, a different set of rules apply. Flair before Vader drew better. Ron Simmons drew a little better. Yokozuna drew better. Bret Hart drew better. So even in a downtime, other than the Hogan feud and of course Japan Vader didn't draw. That to me makes him "not an all time great" like say Flair, Lawler, Funk, Dusty, Hogan, Austin, Rock. I'd put him a notch or two below Bret for work down for US promotions overall but he also had a shorter time on top in the US by far.

I'm wondering who was dense enough to think that would go over. But a lot of it is simply the inattention WWE gives to the division. How you work a match can only take you so far if fans have no idea who you are or have no reason to care. There's no heel fans hate in the division anyway for her to feud with until Charlotte gets called up or AJ returns. The Alicia thing is cute but has anyone actually had their career improved by a losing streak/whining gimmick?

Yeah he was not booked as a dominant monster at all. Hell Gorilla nearly got the better of him. His first feud was with Yokozuna, which sort of a returning Giant Gonzalez is pretty much the worst opponent for him. He got beat around the horn by Warrior, Shawn and Taker consistently. And the later two didn't want to work with him. Ahmed got the better of him before Owen's help in the KOTR qualifier and he wasn't smart enough to pin Jake. Shawn Michaels whining is hardly news but Taker too complained about how stiff Vader worked and forced a change. And they were on the road a hell out of a lot more than WCW and wrestling is a work, so I agree with Taker wholeheartedly there. Yeah he was upper midcard after Summerslam through most of 97 but that's about it. Really at the end of the day, Ron Simmons ended up having a much better WWF career than he did. His weight was out of control as well then and injuries caught up with him. But at the end of the day Vader didn't turn things around at all in WCW. He took a ship that was sinking and sunk it worse. 93 was just an awful year for attendance, WCW 1993 was as bad as it got for a major promotion in this era. Yoko was top dog in WWF and he actually brought up WWF ticket sales in his run. For whatever reasons he was a monster heel people were willing to pay to see during a down time. Vader was definitely not.

So it doesn't quite work but almost Original Series = 1990 - good for the first half, gets worse as it keeps going and they lose faith 1991 - equals Star Trek 1 - Nice seeing old faces at the beginning but then nothing really happens 1992 - equals Khan - great action, everyone loves it but ends on a downer 1993 - Up and down stuff but with a great nasty vicious heel running the show. This might be the only Christopher Lloyd = Vader reference in net history. 1994 = Voyage Home - Doesn't quite work here since that one ends well and WCW 1994 not so much 1995 = V - Total garbage all around nobody watches unless they have to 1996 = VI - beloved all around. Features a balding bad guy who gives strange quotes and refuses to accept the future as the main heel. Points the way towards the future as well. Pretty sure if you keep going then Voyager = Russo.

So WCW is the Star Trek of wrestling companies?

Right but the thread was just "WWF vs. WCW in 92" so it doesn't seem unreasonable to look at more than in ring match quality. If the thread had been "which promotion had better in ring quality in 92" then the answer is clearly WCW. But it's not that simple to me.

MST3K had at least funny robots to hang out with and the movies were amusingly bad at least. I'm willing to take up the case that this violates your rights under the 8th amendment if you want Dylan.

Sorry I just can't see wrestling as art.

Well in his introduction Sleaze mentions drawing power being brought up. When your top heel can't draw and that man is going to be world champion next year for the entire year, you have a problem. I can't understand how any "WWF vs. WCW" comparison can't involve business numbers. They are businesses. It's like saying Wendy's is doing better than McDonalds because you like their burgers better. I bet if you asked any WCW executive if they would switch work rate vs. ratings, attendance, merch sales, etc they'd agree in a heartbeat. It matters because I do believe to an extent that a great worker should be able to generate fan interest and get people to come to see his matches. Vader could not do that in the US, in either WWF or WCW. Yeah there's plenty of extenuating circumstances but I believe in what Jack Brisco once said about how if you have the talent it will rise eventually. Vader was a very good worker and taking into account his Japan stuff an all time great. But just in the US, no he wasn't, sorry. I also feel like funkdoc makes a great point. WCW had some real highs in the early part of the year and is clearly a more entertaining promotion at times. But it did not sustain itself well at all. WWE seemed to turn a corner from a really boring post Mania at Summerslam and had a good Fall season.

I feel like so much of WCW's building momentum (which happened at the same time WWF was suffering, as Sleaze points out with who they lose, but also Savage-Flair which drew horribly for such a long program, Bret-Owen two years later actually did do much better) was stopped dead in its tracks the day Bill Watts took over. Beach Blast aside, all his PPV's are just awful and depressing, from GAB to a god awful Havoc to a boring and pointless Starrcade. WWF had a much better future in ring quality rise with Bret and Shawn and the decision to make Ron Simmons the man was just silly. And as much as everyone loves Vader he was a horrible draw in the US.

Has WWE really had a great top babyface diva on the main roster since Trish left? Mickie seemed to have the fans tolerance and maybe respect but they didn't love her. Candice seemed on the rise but injuries ended that fast and she never regained any momentum. Every other top face has done better as a heel. They've had heels seem to get a bit over, Beth, Michelle, Maryse and lately AJ but every face of the division face has fallen flat. Paige seems to be falling faster than most though.

I had heard Nord once claim that the Taker gimmick was for either him or Mark and Mark got it, the Berzerker being the consolation prize. You look at top WWF heels at that time, very few of them were giants who couldn't talk. Earlier with Andre and Kamala yes, but by the 90's you had Savage, Dibiase, Rude, Perfect and Flair as top heels. Earthquake was an okay promo and that was a short run and Sid could talk. UT was an exception and that's pretty much the perfect blend of gimmick and guy ever. I do agree Berzerker is criminally underrated but I cannot see John Nord with Bobby Heenan being the top thing in 91. UT really wasn't booked as the top heel ever, first it was Slaughter, then Flair who got the programs with Hogan (Taker never did except a one off and a few tags), As far as Bruiser Brody goes, I doubt Vince would care in the slightest about creating a better Bruiser. Brody was dead and buried and irrelevant which the Roadies weren't when the Demos were created.

His mom

Misreading this due to no glasses on I thought EL-P's pick for 94 was Dusty at first and he had flipped his lid. I'd go with Barry too but in his case I think he held himself back as much as politics did. And if you don't really want it yourself it won't work out.

I saw this match live so I can answer Kevin's question about where Warrior was, he no showed this taping. He was booked to take on Mr. Perfect for the IC title, but given the state of Perfect's back I can't imagine the match being more than 3 clotheslines, Perfect bails, count out. The announced main was Hogan-Taker, first singles match ever between them. Early on in the show (a marathon TV taping) the Fink announced that Warrior will not be there (huge boos) and Sgt. Slaughter has challenged Hulk Hogan tonight for the WWF title and Hogan has accepted (and that got even bigger boos which just shows either how sick fans were of the Slaughter feud or how over Taker was getting since we all assumed that match was off). Instead Fink announced Hogan would wrestle both men, Slaughter half way through and Taker at well past midnight at the end of the taping.

Streaming. I downloaded it and it worked fine. This was a great funny show that justified itself on two levels by the great discussion in the last hour. What I want to know was, why was all that background chatter allowed? I'd have sent some boys who were friends of Bruno and Tony to straighten that out.

Cut off at the 20 minute mark and now cuts off every minute. Was sounding funny. But never promise Kal Rudman unless you get the real thing. You broke my heart Johnny Sorrow.

Take the LOW panels with a grain of salt but the fact that nobody named Hump to the hall of fame (including JJ and Michael Hayes, who knew and worked with him off and on for years) tells me what I need to know. But yeah lack of footage is clearly a problem.