Bob Morris

Since the post was in response to something I wrote, I did want to say that the reasons covered in this thread pretty much sum up how I felt about it. They took the Diesel gimmick and turned it from Nash being the guy who is cool and knows it, into a wishy-washy goody-goody. Then he had no opponents who he could have good matches with, except for those in which it wouldn't look like the odds were against him. On top of that, he wasn't the most over wrestler... as has been mentioned, fans cared more about Bret, Shawn and Undertaker. I agree that Nash's reign came during a time when he had no chance to draw, but the fact is, business got worse during his reign and house show business didn't turn around until he dropped the title to Bret.

You know, I did compile a couple of top 10 lists, one for gimmick and one for angles, but I forgot all about the WCW Warrior stuff. Anyway, though, these are my top 10 of each. Worst Angles 1. The InVasion 2. WCW fingerpoke title change 3. Exploitation of Eddie Guerrero 4. nWo Nitro switch 5. Sgt. Slaughter, Iraqi turncoat 6. David Arquette wins WCW title 7. Undertaker vs. Underfaker 8. Undertaker resurrection at 1993 Royal Rumble 9. Billionaire Ted skits 10. Austin-Pillman gun angle The ones that made my top five were ones that damaged the promotion's business, or potential damage. If I redid the list, I'd probably put the WCW Warrior storyline in the top six. And the reason I don't have Arquette's title reign at the top is because WCW was dead in the water at that point, so while it was a bad idea, it wasn't like there were crowds to kill at that point. With the other five, the crowds may not have always been strong, but they were there and said angles just cost momentum. Worst Gimmicks 1. The Black Scorpion 2. Zeus 3. Glacier 4. The Gobbledy Gooker 5. The KISS Demon 6. Outback Jack 7. New Diesel and New Razor Ramon 8. The Red Rooster 9. The Shockmaster 10. The Ding Dongs

Sad news.

Loss summed things up pretty well. I've never thought of Shawn as a "cream of the crop" wrestler, but he could deliver great matches at times, and even if they weren't great, you could certainly call them "good or very good." Seldom did you see a televised match in which Shawn stunk it up... and in those cases, it would be where he was paired with a wrestler who he just didn't mesh well with (yes, I am thinking of Curt Hennig). That being said, there are many wrestlers who just don't mesh well with one particular wrestler, so it's not a trait unique to Shawn. Behind the scenes, he's certainly going to be remembered for his low points, but he's not the only wrestler with them... some of them tended to get magnified given certain circumstances (Montreal being the best example). His first World title reign came during a down time for WWF, so he's never going to be remembered as this "top draw," and then there was the issue of him doing what Bret did before him, where he'd dog it during the house shows but turn it up for televised/PPV matches. But that aside, I doubt there was any way for Shawn to have a chance to draw... the Diesel reign did much damage and then when WCW struck gold with nWo, Shawn was fighting an uphill battle. Overall, I'd call Shawn a strong wrestler overall, and while he has his faults, he also brings plenty to the table. He may never be my choice for a "hands down top wrestler" but he does rank up among the better wrestlers to have been part of the business.

http://www.wrestlecrap.com/newinductions.html RD, Blade and Triple Kelly listed their 10 favorite inductions on the Wrestlecrap site... not all of them covering wrestling, but given that RD has covered bad Christmas movies each year, you could probably figure they'd pick a couple of those inductions. But this brings up a topic worth discussing: What would be the worst wrestling gimmicks and angles of all time? I'll share mine later, but this can be a fun topic to discuss, as much of those gimmicks and angles are ones we can look back and laugh at... only there are those that really caused damage to a promotion.

From the 3/19 F4W.com update:

When WWE published that tribute magazine to Bret Hart, Bret made a similar quote about how he thought it was "wrong to blame Vince" for Owen's death and saying that he never blamed Vince for what happened. So it really doesn't surprise me he said what he said in the prowrestling.net interview.

If TNA is ever going to be a profitable company, the company needs to establish its own identity rather than just making the product look like "WWE for an older audience." They've had elements that could have enabled TNA to distinguish itself, such as the X Division and a women's division that's promoted as having better athletes who aren't all just eye candy, but such elements don't really stand out any more and look just like everything else. The X Division title, in particular, is booked as just another title to pursue rather than the original purpose of being a title contested among wrestlers who were considered "more innovative" regarding in-ring ability.

Amazon has the detailed DVD listing up. The WWE focused quite a bit on matches that involved Hart Family members either teaming up or facing each other, which means several matches that have been featured on other DVDs are repeated here. I suppose one could argue they should have tried to find certain house show matches, but the way WWE operates, they tend to go with matches the majority of people are familiar with. I'll probably pick this one up mostly to see what the various Hart family members that got interviewed have to say, since most of what we have heard recently has been Bret's side of things.

Some fact checking of the Linda McMahon for Senate campaign. To be fair, though, Linda's campaign isn't the only political campaign that distorts stuff.

Having seen parts of Impact last week, I wonder if they raised Angle up from his entrance platform too early. The reason I say this is TNA is terrible with timing stuff, as evidenced by its horrible production cuts with them not cutting to an interview soon enough, going to commercial too early and coming back from commercial too late, etc. And yeah, Anderson's promos are terrible. They go WAY too long.

Wow, just months after the fans vote Maria as the most popular diva in the company, she gets her walking papers. Not that I believe there is a conspiracy afoot, but it still makes you raise an eyebrow. Also gone: Gregory Helms and Paul Burchill.

Assuming the Obama administration follows through on this, it could have implications on pro wrestling as a whole, not just WWE. TNA would almost certainly be affected... don't know much about how ROH structures its contracts, if any. Independent wrestling promoters could be unaffected, though, given that they contract with wrestlers to work a couple of shows, rather than restricting them over a multiple-year period, as is the case with WWE and TNA contracts.

Keith just took that cartoonist to school... not that you didn't get in a good blow, Bix, but Keith's post summed up just how ignorant many in the media regarding what really goes on in the pro wrestling world.

Not to mention that Todd was all up in arms about the DQ ending to Sheamus/Randy Orton when it was clearly being used to build the Orton vs. DiBiase/Rhodes program. Martin is just one of those guys who believes "all DQ endings suck, no matter what," but then would turn around and complain about how stupid it is to have a clean finish because it makes one guy look weak/being buried/fallen out of favor with management/come up with some other reason why said clean finish was bad. EDIT: Oh, and let's not forget that, next week, Martin will be complaining about how nobody knows who Ty Murray is or cares about bull riding, when in reality, it's Martin who doesn't care and some people actually do watch rodeo and know who Murray is.

So WWE is dropping the Survivor Series name and concept. Personally, I think it's about time, because the whole tag-team elimination match theme was losing its luster and there wasn't much you could really do to make it intriguing, unlike what they've done with the Royal Rumble. And really, the first one was just something thrown together to screw with Jim Crockett, along with giving WWF an excuse to do Honky/Savage and Hogan/Andre without actually doing a straight-up singles match for either one. Don't get me wrong... there are some elimination matches that were very good and it sometimes could be used to help build feuds, but the concept itself just got stale.

I'm similar to others here in that I like to discuss wrestling but don't watch it anywhere near the amount I used to. I seldom watch the current product, and when it comes to catching up on wrestling from the past, I buy what DVDs I can. And really, it would be impossible for me to track down and watch every single match I enjoyed in the years I watched wrestling on a regular basis. There is just too much to catch up with and not enough time to see it all.

The thing about Foley is he didn't really get cemented as a main eventer in WWF until he got the storyline about "the son Vince McMahon never had" and thus leading to the introduction of Mr. Socko. His HOTC match with Undertaker didn't do it, because he ended up sliding back into the midcard after that match and didn't do much of note until the McMahon storyline came along.

Wow, he must done have a great job of keeping a straight face during Bang 3:16, Rock promos, the Jim Cornette/Paul E. tuxedo match and other moments in which pro wrestling presented comedy done properly. And as for the Bret Hart comment, I guess that means he believes the Hart Family DVD has already been scrapped and you can _really_ forget about Stu Hart going into the WWE HOF.

As I remember, the talk when ECW was "brought back" was because of the success of the ECW One Night Only PPV, with the question being why one would do that because the ECW loyalists would want nothing to do with a version of ECW that differed from the original promotion. Not that I'm saying it was a bad thing for WWE to rebrand ECW into something different. Really, it didn't bother me that much that WWE brought back ECW and turned it into something that wasn't like the original... better to appeal to the loyalist through the DVD market.

Maybe Shawn needs to have a long talk with Chris Jericho, who has made it no secret about his Christianity. Then again, Jericho isn't a religious zealot. I have no idea if Shawn is one, but the fact that he refuses to play heel because of his religious belief does make you wonder.

Kev is right that Vince is too stuck in the mindset that certain guys belong in the midcard and, if they aren't somebody he particularly thinks is main event material, he won't get there. Cena, Batista, Orton, HHH and Shawn all started in the midcard, but Vince was the guy that saw each of them has having what it took to be in the main event for one reason or another, hence why they got pushed there. He tends to be stubborn when it comes to who he thinks should get to that main event level. And this is really nothing new. He was like this back in the 1980s, it continued into the 1990s and it remains that way today.

Seems to me that Wade is one of those writers who does a better job when he has a topic he can sink his teeth into, rather than writing about something just because he has to and nothing really strikes him at the moment.

Agreed. And I always thought this thread was supposed to highlight the goofier stuff Wade wrote.

With the A-Team, I don't think there's any excuse for anybody who follows pro wrestling extensively to not know anything about it. It should be common knowledge that Hulk Hogan guest starred on the show several times as a way for WWF to continue to cement a Hogan-Mr. T relationship into everyone's mind. Rocky III alone did not cement the connection.