funkdoc

along similar lines, tito santana's semi-clean win over the undertaker in 1991! that was in barcelona, so they must have figured the matador gimmick would be hugely over. (part 2 should be on the side)

loss brings up a great point there. when i was living with my brother in columbus, we were among that group who completely ditched cable in favor of the internet. i also know quite a few others in the same boat...would venture this group is largely younger folks and will only grow over time.

A lot of people online were mad about Benoit, Jericho, and Angle all losing to WWF mainstays at Fully Loaded 2000. That's the biggest one that comes to mind. was this the one that sparked scott keith's huge rant on undertaker? the "retire NOW, you no-selling fried-food-eating has-been piece of SHIT. Kurt Angle is the future and you are NOTHING"? to add to this, i seem to recall 2000 being the beginning of the whole Glass Ceiling narrative that dominated smart fandom for a few years there...doubt the picture was as rosy as loss seems to think, from my memories of that time. if anything, i'd say there was far more optimism during 1999 just because everything was still so fresh. somebody should look up star ratings outside of the WON from that year - that cultural zeitgeist basically led to the wrestling equivalent of beer goggles.

re: the nitro discussion, i think i beat sleeze & matt the only nitro i went to live? the one that began the whole WHO DROVE THE HUMMER angle. i think that speaks for itself...

i'd throw the midnights into the "best squash match wrestler" arena, though goldberg is definitely up there. really liked his match vs. brad armstrong from a random PPV early in the streak...

alright so i read through this thread. the hip-hop discussion is way out of my league but i'm glad to see it pop up here! anarchistxx, my thinking there was that this type of storyline could draw interest from women and others, which could outweigh the misogyny of the core fanbase and even help things in the long run by shining a light on these attitudes. i already mentioned sarkeesian as an example of this phenomenon, and you can also point to rebecca watson revealing similar problems in the atheist community. it would hurt a lot in the short term so i wouldn't expect anyone to try it except for some desperate shithole indie fed maybe. regarding dylan's point on violence et al: what i think you're missing there is that leftist politics aren't inherently averse to violence. mainstream liberalism is, yes, but there are marxists and others who are perfectly okay with violence when it's the only effective way to attack established power structures. this is also why i don't entirely buy the line taken by parv & nintendologic - anger and the desire to win don't necessarily NEED to be tied to masculinity or retrograde ideas. hell, after episodes like gamergate, "social justice warriors" (this generation's "politically correct" btw) are as likely as anyone to show the kind of fire you wish ricky steamboat had! to respond to parv a bit more, i just find "fuck bitches get money" beyond boring anymore. hell, it's hard for me to get into magnum-tully even - i think i briefly touched on this before when i said pro wrestling doesn't tell the stories that interest me. i tend to be most fascinated by those who have to fight mainstream conventions in some fashion, and/or get screwed by those conventions. standard pro-wrestling (and sports etc.) masculinity is the definition of a mainstream convention. i have no illusions of this stuff happening with any promotion involving mcmahons or people tied to the old carny ways. i just think it's a necessary step in wrestling's transition from fake sport to art. and make no mistake, that transition is happening sooner or later (knowing wrestling, probably later). it's happening with video games as we speak, and i really do think that's the best comparison to wrestling for a number of reasons...after all, the NES and wrestlemania came within a year of one another!

whoa, didn't even see that this was a thread now! i won't have time to read through all this & reply for a while, but thanks for doing this! i suspect my comments about nerd culture probably ruffled some feathers, so i'll just say that i was referring to the overall culture on places like reddit + 4(20)chan + somethingawful. that's what i mean by core internet-nerd communities. having been around a fair amount of these people IRL as well as plenty online, i call 'em like i see 'em... oh yeah, and just from looking at this last page...my idea for a feminist character wouldn't even be to make her an overt heel. after all, anita sarkeesian doesn't go on "Kill All Men" rants - she just makes videos applying basic Feminism 101 concepts to video game criticism with a level-headed tone, and draws death threats for it. i think the people who don't blatantly "heel themselves" are actually seen as a much greater threat by their enemies, so that's how i would do it in wrestling. the beauty of this IMO is that it could be a genuine "shades of grey" character that would draw different strong emotional reactions from different segments of the fanbase, and possibly even draw in new fans who wouldn't normally bother with wrestling. i'm sure i'lll have tons more to say later once i actually read all of this!

There's some validity to that argument, at least in that there are no slam dunk candidates. But if the Hall of Fame doesn't induct anyone, it will whither and die. eh, there's a lot of slam-dunk candidates in lucha since the voters there can never seem to agree enough - too much of a good thing atm! colon also should be considered one, but i guess you could count the unofficial blackball against him. your statement probably holds a lot more water with the US & japan regions, especially japan. it's funny - you would expect the US to be the most overrepresented region in this thing, but the bulk of the weakest inductees came from the japan category. ultimo, hase, sasaki, dr. death, masa saito, the shootstyle guys if you don't buy the "MMA = wrestling" idea...maybe it's the history of japan being seen as the land of magic & workrate!

didn't he have some sort of genuine mental disability? i think saturn mentioned it before, but that would be a whole other can of worms if true.

she had a BEYOND creepy stalker type making youtube videos trying to "prove" she was a fraud with regard to being a virgin and such. he even included a clip of himself burning a pile of like 20 molly holly action figures, as if that wouldn't set off anyone's alarm bells... wonder if that's still going on, this was a few years ago

yeeeeepppppp this could probably be its own thread, but... i know you wonder why modern heels don't get booed, and i actually think this has a lot to do with it. what i mean here is twofold: 1. lack of attention to diversity means the promotions aren't tapping into issues their audience genuinely cares about. imagine if you had a woman asking the fans for money to make a documentary on sexism in wrestling - you don't think that would get NUCLEAR heat if done decently? there's also the issue of not having good enough writers to pull off this sort of thing, as i doubt things have changed much there since muhammad hassan. but let's face it, you need something more hot-button than IN SOVIET RUSSIA to connect emotionally. 2. i remember loss saying "if someone is an asshole the fans will hate them" and others arguing that isn't true at least in today's indies. i think there's a clear explanation for at least some of this - the core wrestling fanbase has gotten much nerdier since even the 90s. misanthropy is at the heart of a lot of modern nerd culture, which is probably most blatant in stand-up comedy; if i had a nickel for every comedian whose entire act was "hey look i'm a lonely pathetic human being who hates everyone!", i could go get that grilled-cheese-sandwich-burger monstrosity from jack in the box right now! it's not uncommon to see the internet genuinely identify with characters who were meant to be arrogant and loathsome, such as dr. house or (a much more extreme example) ignatius j. reilly. i mean shit, walter white is a bigger merch mover than anybody in wrestling these days! in short, being an asshole is often seen as a GOOD thing by the type of people likely to pay to see a wrestling show live, especially indies. i think promotions currently don't quite "get" their fanbase, and that's a far bigger issue than any aspect of the wrestlers' performances. it's strange because the WWF nailed that in the late 90s with antihero characters on top, but i guess going public led them to go a "safe" route that in reality is hurting their ceiling...

i'm surprised people here aren't aware of the 619 hate. that's the most common reason internet fans can't stand rey - well, probably alongside general heel fandom.

i am about the most strongly anti-canon person on this board, probably, for reasons that intersect greatly with my views on power & privilege. canons are inevitably created by the dominant group(s) and will inevitably reflect their values on some level. whether it's racism (see: australian education official saying "aboriginal literature is non-existent") or US-centric rockism, it's almost certainly going to be something that i don't respect and that doesn't hold up if you examine the evidence in further detail. i see canons as extensions of established power structures, basically. study what's important? i ask: who gets to define "importance"? on what merits did they earn that right? who or what is being erased by their definition, and is that deserved? i could go on and on but no need! frankly, one of my main issues with pro wrestling criticism is that it has yet to move beyond the "importance" imbued upon things by old wrestlers and dave meltzer. i'm much more likely to find music critics who can make a real case for the beatles not belonging in a top 100 than wrestling critics who can make a real case for flair not belonging in a top 100, and i consider that a negative for the wrestling side.

smoky mountain??? i *think* that was when he had the mini-feud with bob armstrong...

ric_flair_YES.gif i especially hate the fact that nothing in WWE can win a match besides finishers, run-ins, and flash pins. a lot of wrestlers have neat secondary moves that never get a pin but should be able to on occasion - thinking of orton's draping DDT here.

says who? i detest pro wrestling's attachment to long matches for main events. things would be much more interesting and less predictable if there were a greater variety of "big match" structures being used. the world needs more matches like cena-brock at summerslam imo realistically yes, you are right in that WWE would have forced him into that. but i think that's on them. in american sports we say that most coaches try to make their best players fit their system, but the great coaches can make their system fit their best players. WWE would have had to alter its "system" to fit goldberg, and the argument is that it would have been worth it for them to do so. the part you can debate is whether he would have been a big enough draw to merit that...

yeah this is what stood out the most to me by far, and i haven't been around rovert nearly as long as the rest of yall. the way he talks about some of the women in wrestling gives me some nasty vibes, having dealt with creepers/stalkers in the past. oh also he loves to randomly butt into my twitter conversations with IRL friends who follow wrestling but not nearly on the level of this board. usually happens when someone dares to criticize Jesus H. Meltzer. annoying as all hell and leaves them wondering WTF is going on. i don't really see what rovert adds here, considering he never seems to try and defend a viewpoint. even joe will sometimes do that in between the name-calling!

i think people refer more to his initial babyface period when he was real hot and they didn't capitalize. you can see this as early as '89 with their start-stop push of him, and again in '92 when he had the liger match and they followed up by bringing in a new boss who banned top-rope moves. there is also the argument that he was always miscast as flyin' brian, as he was more of an intense fighting babyface. still, probably not quite the best pick for this thread.

oh here's another great one: the other half of kronik, bryan clark! for a 90s wrestler he had a 10/10 look, and he seemed to be getting over in WCW with his undefeated streak. there was also a point where i remember him working his ass off in the ring - mabel vs adam bomb from the first in your house PPV is one of my favorite quick squashes ever, and certainly up there in the "better than you'd expect" department. yet again, just never quite put it all together at the right time.

i wonder how much jorge gonzalez was paid during his wrestling career. seems like WCW would have thrown way too much at him, which could make him a contender from the "career earnings:production" standpoint. i admit this post came from reading discussion on carson palmer's career following his recent contract extension & ACL tear

that's a really good catch! and both those guys were quite underrated in different ways: slaughter for his work in the ring during that period, and backlund for his character stuff during a weak era for that. although, slaughter obviously has much more of an outright bad rap given the tastelessness of that whole deal...

i think viewing bam bam as a disappointment is more about comparing his smart-fan rep and all his tools (athleticism & look/character) to his actual output in the ring. i doubt many of these folks think he could have been a much bigger star than he already was.

would "what could have been" guys fit this even if they were good in their few opportunities? buddy landell is an all-timer in that category... the natural born thrillers in WCW are a good one, as plenty of internet fans saw them as the future and they were certainly five-tool athletes. though i'm not a fan of the devil's advocate gimmick like seemingly everyone else is - it's basically penn jillette on steroids, even down to his look. re: maxx payne, i think part of the issue was that his look screamed "fat greasy metalhead" rather than anything particularly sinister or dangerous. i feel like vader had it even worse in that regard,btw; i heard people back in the day laugh at "that big fat guy with the jockstrap on his face". anyway, maxx is one of the more interesting flameouts to me as well, as his act fit the 90s in a way that pro wrestling rarely did at that point. really good pick!

just thought of something right now... i think 1994 is an awfully similar year to 1990 in terms of the american wrestling landscape. in both years: - WCW was absolutely on fire in terms of match quality during the first half of the year, but didn't draw and degenerated into hideously-booked cartoon garbage over the second half of the year - the WWF mostly sucked but gave us one quality main-event feud (hogan-earthquake::bret-owen) - there was a new indie sensation getting a lot of buzz in the apter mags & dirtsheets (lightning kid::sabu) obviously WCW was in better shape with hogan than with the black scorpion, and 1990's last-gasp territories (e.g. USWA-TX) gave way to 1994's smoky mountain & ECW...but i think there's a lot here.

fair point grimmas, but i've always tended to view this as meaning "the worst relevant wrestler", i.e. someone who worked in a promotion of note otherwise we could find 100 backyard wrestlers on youtube right now who are worse than anyone in this thread, yes anyway, isis the amazon struck me as the female equivalent to giant gonzalez or khali from what little i've seen of her...