funkdoc

feels like the only time dave was genuinely passionate about lucha was mid-90s AAA, which made more of an effort to appeal to american audiences

to try not to sidetrack this thread TOO much, i think what did it for bret was coming off so authentic and down-to-earth in such an inauthentic cartoon world. the whole "fighting champion" push they did with his first title reign impressed the hell out of me as a kid, too - i was too new of a fan to realize the guys he was beating were all losers! anyway, my confession: i unequivocally love battle royals no matter how bad they are. they're wrestling pizza for me. i think i just get excited over all the possible combinations of wrestlers, and you're bound to see them deliver on at least a couple unique/rare ones.

concussions are probably worse in the long run, honestly. especially with his history of them... we should be hoping he doesn't end up like those NFL players who intentionally shoot themselves in the heart so people can study their brains

yep goc, great pick there! sandow's had that hype around him for years and it continues to mystify me. i think earlier it was just a product of WWE not having a great talent roster, so fans tried to talk themselves into guys like him & the miz. it's a bit weirder to still see it today, but i guess it happens with any midcard act that gets really over.

think i said this before but i always wondered if coliseum video didn't have some workrate nerd helping to pick the matches, or if it was just randomly throwing crap against the wall the number of bret & shawn singles matches on those things, before they got any sort of big push, is the main thing that stands out to me

thank you i've wanted to say something about this for a while but wasn't sure how to say it. i think some of the backlash against guys like HBK & tanahashi comes off as a more refined way of calling them twinks. i guess their weak offense gets people to focus more on their look, maybe?

yea, this isnt much of a question i think. '98 jericho would be the best heel in damn near any other year of the 90s at least, but it's not even a contest when you have mr. mcmahon

to me "ace" means "wrestler the company is built around". i would absolutely say flair qualifies, since crockett built around heels far more than the typical promotion did. "the money is in the chase" and all that

lots of good ones here. one modern trope i haven't seen mentioned: always having to do your video-game taunt before your finisher, even if that involves an injured limb we don't have many examples for older wrestling, so let me take a shot there... - nobody doing clean jobs in the 80s, even midcard gatekeepers (hacksaw & bad news, i'm lookin at you!) - blatantly racist gimmicks getting onto national TV. though we do have cryme tyme & the mexicools from a more recent period... - bad jim ross commentary. awfully similar to modern WWE between the forced cliches and burying the product - the general culture of ECW. the product itself delivered some cool shit but the fans, the presentation after the first couple years or so...bah

ok this is actually a good point. i've even seen bundy's shoot and completely forgot about it, haha good call on el santo & mark cuban, too

i've been saying for a while that mizdow is virgil minus the racial overtones

yea bill simmons is a master of the forced narrative, and that carries over to a lot of others on his site

maybe you could include babyface del rio as a counter to the point about "rich" characters? he seemed to be more "rags to riches" though

i really like the hansen/tenryu/freebirds picks. tenryu was in two royal rumbles and won a match at wrestlemania, so they could get a lot more highlights of him than fujinami. he'll get in at some point for sure. the other guys would of course be the local heroes, and that's something WWE always likes unless there are footage issues (cf. the recent discussion on ray stevens & danny hodge not getting in). i think parv mentioned that they likely kept out other big names from bruno's era because bruno wasn't in. now that he is, uncle ivan is probably at the top of that list and i would definitely expect him to go in within the next year or few. don't really see rick martel anytime soon. even someone like bundy feels more likely because he had THREE ~Wrestlemania Moments~, whereas most just know martel as a midcarder who sprayed cologne at people. i don't think "someone formerly on the outs with vince" is necessarily a slot they have to fill in the HOF, though luger will probably be inducted eventually. don't see it happening this soon though. i am with you on the "main" inductee, though i suspect it will be undertaker even if he wrestles there. home state connection on top of everything else...

i'm most curious to see which Generic Jim Johnston Rock Theme makes it the farthest. figure it'll be stone cold's, though i think brock's theme is a better actual tune. it just doesn't have anything as distinctive as the glass breaking. i guess you could throw warrior's theme in here as well, and that would be a strong candidate... EDIT: would also be interesting to look at the various stock music WCW used, though goldberg should be the runaway winner there. rey mysterio's theme is the only other good one i can think of offhand. and please, please tell me the candyman theme is in this! guy handing out candy to kids in the front row, backed by a ripoff of Owner of a Lonely Heart...

this tends to be a common thing with you. you gotta realize that people want specific examples that aren't marred by other mitigating factors. you're very much a "grand narrative" kind of guy, and the best way to debate those types is to get completely nitty-gritty. it's part of why jdw does what he does with you.

all i'm sayin is i'm really glad resident evil hasn't found this thread

well brie is still a liability at best in the ring, but nikki's definitely stepped it up. trish stratus was originally one of these types as well, and look at what she became in WWE canon. my suspicion is that the women these days get much better training in developmental compared to the pre-NXT era, so i'm tempted not to be completely pessimistic here.

survivor series 98 is one of the best arguments for the meltzer approach to wrestling, basically. i bought into the whole thing hook, line, and sinker as a 13-year-old, but no way is it that great on rewatch.

http://garystrydom.com/contact pol found this. maybe not technically a video but i think it fits the spirit of this thread - it's the official site of a champion bodybuilder for cryin out loud! EDIT: i know the GIF itself is old but the fact that it's here...

i think anarchistxx is horribly out of touch with american pop culture on a lot of these things, but i'm closer to him when it comes to the evil foreigner stuff. that shit instantly kills your cred with younger generations and it's part of the "lol wrestling is for manbabies" suite of cliches. only way to pull it off these days is to go full Team America with it, which cena actually did in his promo on jimmy kimmel. THAT'S the kind of stuff they need on their own TV if they're still going to be doing this.

frankly i might agree on luke harper. remember that one raw when harper was by himself and he did a bray wyatt promo like 5 times better than the actual bray wyatt does? too bad WWE doesn't seem to... GOTNW: rusev has a legit badass aura about him that few in WWE do, and that goes a long way in the eyes of many. you don't seem to be the biggest fan of stiff hoss fights, which i totally get, but i don't think you can argue those are inherently worse than main-event epics or spotfests or what have you.

see my above post. another major part of that was that some of those guys were made through LOSING. foley-undertaker hell in a cell is the most obvious example, and there's also the rock-HHH ladder match that shot both of them up the card. heck, rock lost that match clean and he was the one who got the title later that year!

No it can't. These guys were made at different times. i would argue that rock, HHH, foley, and kane were all elevated in a similar timeframe. 1998 was the year that made all of them. it helps when you have guys so over that others don't even need to win to move up the card - they just have to hang in there with the top stars.

i think you've had this argument like 50 times on here lol they already did this with rusev to build him up in the first place. zack ryder, heath slater, xavier woods...those are the mulkeys of today. and that formula still works - besides rusev, it also got ryback over before he got jobbed out. thing is, you need a direction for these guys once they start mixing it up with the main eventers. part of what killed goldberg was that he went right back to squashing jobbers after losing the title, instead of getting revenge on the NWO. last night's show was not a good sign for rusev in that regard...