S.L.L.

There was actually a lot of outright hostile stuff said about Cena in his first year or so with the company by many of the same people who praise him now. Dean Rasmussen outright called him the worst wrestler in the WWE. Kevin Cook, who went on to really like Cena, though I think he's pretending not to like him now like he used to do with Foley, said he was terrible and would never amount to anything. And while I was never as down on him as some others, I thought the people in early 2003 who were saying he would be the biggest star in wrestling one day were nuts. By contrast, I don't remember a lot of anti-Angle stuff in '01 and '02. Remember him being pimped pretty heavily by the same guys who don't like him now. I think the dislike of his stuff from that period was retroactive. Actual Angle hate really started to manifest in '03, which makes sense, because that's when he was starting to really go downhill. Incidentally, that's also when Cena started making some real progress, and there started to be rumblings that maybe this Cena guy wasn't all that bad. Anyway, I don't know if there's really a direct correlation between Angle haters and Cena fans other than Angle starting to stink around the same time Cena started to get good. But it's an obvious troll, so it's not like it matters, anyway.

I don't know what the specific cause is in Bob's case, but Meltzer in general is a guy who has a hard time reconsidering his opinions. He'll change his reasoning for said opinions as new facts become available/undeniable, but the change in reasoning won't actually change his conclusion (see Tsuruta, Jumbo).

"Oooooooooooooh, the more things change, the more things stay the same, ha ha!"

I have Firefox.

I'm surprised it took this long to happen, honestly.

I don't think it's a secret that I think really highly of Smackdown, but it is very much your AAA type show where you watch the undercard and then only stick around for the main eventers if you're feeling lucky. Usually, that's more about bad booking than bad wrestling, but then, as you noted, the main event scene is pretty skit heavy, so it's often the bad booking on display. Edge really has devolved horribly as a character since jumping to Smackdown, and he was never more than competent in the ring, and often outright bad. Batista is fine, but his babyface character had become unwatchable over the last year. Hopefully, the heel turn will fix that, but it's off to a disappointing start. The Undertaker is pretty reliably awesome, so hopefully, now that he's the champ, that'll help matters. If it's true that they're going to draft Umaga to Smackdown (and really, he needs a change of scenery pretty badly), I'm begging for a Taker/Umaga title program. Until then, or until Rey heals up, or until MVP, Matt Hardy, and/or Chuck Palumbo get pushed as full-time main event players, the World Title scene is going to be pretty anemic. Still, the undercard is really, astoundingly vibrant right now. You put Smackdown's undercard with Raw's main event scene, you've got one hell of a show.

I really, really want to believe this is 100% legit, but with the WWE's track record, I just can't. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Well, there is Estrada and Carlito, with Carlito in particular borrowing pretty heavily from the Razor Ramon playbook (albeit with a fraction of the effectiveness). True. In fairness, the trucker stuff never really played that much into how Nash portrayed the character beyond the associated imagery. He could have had any number of gimmicks and still been the same guy, more or less. Also, Kevin Nash ended up being a much bigger deal than Diesel, so I can understand why he'd get copied more. ;-) Certainly not. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash are to blame, because they jumped to WCW and killed the gimmicks in the process.

But is that really because the original gimmicks were flawed, or is it because the nature of the Fake Razor & Diesel gimmicks prevented them from working - perhaps deliberately so? After all, the crux of Bogner's & Jacobs' act wasn't really that they were Scarface and a trucker, it's that they were impostors of guys who were Scarface & a trucker. The focus was very different.

These are really more reuses of common character tropes than true "stand-ins" in the sense that Loss means it. Loss seems to be looking for guys who were meant to be filling in precisely for certain other guys. "Corrupt millionaire" is a pretty standard character archetype. DiBiase, McMahon, and JBL all played "corrupt millionaire", as did a lot of people outside of wrestling, but they weren't ever supposed to be "stand-ins" for one another. If nothing else JBL's heavy influences from JR Ewing and Tom DeLay separate his character quite a bit from DiBiase's, as does Vince's...um..."Vincier" qualities. Not "stand-ins" so much as guys belonging to a common character archetype. "The Great Kabuki" really has become an archetype unto itself, at least in pro wrestling. Wrestling is such a derivative art form that I could never even say with certainty if Mera was the first guy to do the "mysterious Japanese heel with a Kabuki theme" bit, but even if he were, his successors were never really meant to "stand in" for him, just to pay homage to/rip off a good gimmick. Lest we forget, Muta was supposed to be Kabuki's son. Can't very well be your own son. Not without time travel and a sick mind, anyway. "Jungle savage", while not as common of an archetype as it once was for obvious reasons, was still a common archetype. Kamala and Umaga certainly have a lot in common. They also have some big differences, and certainly, no one is supposed to mistake one for the other. As for Bogner and Jacobs, well, I don't think anyone was supposed to mistake them for the genuine article, either. Vince McMahon himself said as much on commentary when "Razor" first "returned". As while this may not be germaine to the actual topic...what's your beef with the original Razor and Diesel gimmicks?

I know the Iron Sheik/Brian Blair stuff is played out beyond belief, but yesterday's Observer update kinda added a new twist to the matter. Also, I didn't know that God had died, but if he did, he totally deserves a moment of silence.

You're really a special kind of stupid. At least be consistent in one post. Huh? He didn't call you names in any of the bolded sentences. Besides which, I think he was referring specifically to your real name - Jim Brambilla - which, when uttered on the internet, causes you to get needlessly and hilariously shook up. As though by saying your name - Jim Brambilla - you will now be bound to do my bidding, though I'm quite sure what good that would do me or anyone else, so even were it true, it would be a needless worry on your part. That would be the part of you - Jim Brambilla. As for other sources on Smothers' defective dome, just type his name into the search engine on this very message board, and you'll probably find more talk about that than about anything he's actually done as a wrestler. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was some discussion of it earlier in this very thread. Again, just because you - Jim Brambilla - have not heard of this story up until now, does not automatically mean nobody else has. It would be a huge mistake for you - Jim Brambilla - to assume that your experiences in life - be they not knowing about Tracey Smothers' widely publicized mental problems or bragging to Johnathan Snowden that you were raping his son for some reason - are universal.

Yeah, this isn't exactly one of the better kept secrets in pro wrestling. Where have you been, Jim?

On one hand, she's really just stating the obvious. On the other hand, a lot of people seem to have forgotten the obvious.

Before you go generalizing everyone who can separate Benoit the person from Benoit the wrestler (no offense to you, RE, if you see them intertwined so be it, you do have a good point), as being heartless fanboys. You might want to stop and check the flip side of the coin. Of all the people who get so outraged and offended, how many of them are only doing so because it makes them feel like they're good people for it, or because it's what society dictates. Depends on what degree of separation we're making. I've been watching Jerry Estrada matches for years with no problems. Can still enjoy the Naked Gun movies despite what OJ did. What Benoit did was worse, but I can still enjoy his matches. I also have a pretty warped sense of humor. All of one day after finding out what really happened, I went over to a friend's house and played Raw vs. Smackdown, with my friend playing as Benoit for the sole purpose of throwing me outside the ring and choking me out with an electrical cord. We both got a pretty good laugh out of that. I also post on another board where I don't exactly hold back with regards to jokes at the expense of this situation, to the point that I'm now booking a fantasy fed there based on the notion that Nancy was the Messiah, and her death plunged the world into the apocalypse, and now everyone is living in some kind of magical land that exists in the mind of Daniel's spirit. Don't ask. So my point is I'm not exactly a touchy-feely type, and for better or for worse, I can separate myself from this enough to enjoy Benoit's matches, get a few cheap laughs from a horrible situation, and make some really bizzare fantasy booking. But I kinda feel it's better to do that by detaching yourself from the situation than by separating Benoit into two different guys. Maybe that's arguing semantics in some cases, but let's not forget that one of the big reasons - maybe the biggest reason - wrestling is in this mess in the first place is that people in and around the business forget what's real and what isn't. On a certain level, splitting Benoit the Wrestler from Benoit the Killer seems to avert that problem. On another level, it seems like a convenient excuse for people to write-off Benoit the Killer so that they can focus on the "real" Benoit, which is exactly what caused this whole mess in the first place. It does more harm than good. And I'm not saying that's what you're doing, necessarily, but I definitely get the sense that looking at the situation like there were two Benoits is a crutch for many people to go about business as usual without having to really consider that something is terribly, terribly wrong here, while still being able to pay lip service to it. If you can separate yourself from the situation like I can and still enjoy Benoit's matches, more power to you. But what he did really can't be ignored or swept under the rug by looking by separating Benoit from himself. And again, not necessarily saying that's what you're doing, but that's what's being done in some cases, and that's where that path seems to eventually lead.

Man, if I ever do a 7x7 Wrestling Death Apologist Bingo card, I must remember to include "murder is a personal choice, and we should not be judgmental about it". Even if it's only been used once, and likely just for trolling purposes, it's too good to ignore.

I think they were thinking that of the four, that was the only one that ended with the face going over.

Let me get this straight.....last year, a pro "rassler" of some notoriety MURDERED HIS FAMILY - probably at least partially as a result of his profession - and the best knock that this dude can take at wrestlers is that they like steak? I mean, it's stupid and petty enough for amateur wrestling dudes to still be shook over pro wrestling, but if you're going to attack them, at least do it right. Pro wrestling has a veritable buffet of loathsomeness to attack, and this is the best the guy can manage? Unreal.

According to WO.com, at the same press conference where he announced this, he said he's still looking to return to the WW|E. So, no, I guess it doesn't mean he can't do that now. In a related news story, Sid holds press conferences, apparently.

Unfortunately, it says that he's a professional wrestler.

Man, you're way behind the times. Don't you know we're all supposed to be blind WWE marks now?

I imagine the 80's Memphis project might be an eye-opener for me vis-a-vis Koko, so, point taken.

I kinda agree with this, but for different reasons. Namely, I think the Von Erichs - particularly Kerry - were underrated workers, but not world-beaters, either. Roughly on the same level as Koko, but higher profile. So a Race/KVE match would probably make for a nice comparison to Race/Koko.

Having not seen them myself, was this really about Race's performance? Because it's not like the Baba of the early 80's was the Baba of the mid-70's. I guess that ties back to the "Race has never had a great match against a lesser opponent" part of the argument, which, to the best of my knowledge, is true. That said, that's always an argument I find spurious when putting down a wrestler, because most great matches tend to happen between great wrestlers. To the best of my knowledge, we don't have anything like Dynamite Kid carrying Tiger Mask, Fuerza carrying Octagon, or Kawada and Takada carrying Albright, or Cena carrying Khali to point to with Race. But I don't think that should be a huge knock against him....unless we unearth enough mediocre Harley matches against mediocre opponents to realize he couldn't rise to the occasion against inferior opponents....or, as the case may be, against very good opponents like Koko.

I had always thought that Harley's matwork was one of his weak points. He actually didn't seem to have a whole lot to do down there. Not sure he was appreciably better mat wrestler than Lawler. Not sure he was particularly more athletic than Lawler either. Neither guy was doing moonsaults or anything, but they both did moves off of the top, both were big bumpers, hell, Jerry was probably more energetic in his matches than Harley was...not seeing how Harley was more athletic, at least not significantly so.