Matt D

I'm still pretty certain I mainly use it when we have a situation where one wrestler is basically only containing the other. The strategy isn't wearing down or damaging a body part or even establishing dominance but just containing a force that would otherwise overwhelm them. In a shine situation, the babyface has more dominance of the situation.

To further clarify, it's not necessarily a literal term. The Republicans aren't necessarily more republican. The Democrats aren't necessarily more democratic. "Liberal" means something different in the States than it does in Europe. It's more of a political party from a certain time, or a cultural movement than an actual all-consuming Internet Wrestling Community, but it was a prevailing one in a lot of ways, and one that has legacy today. I think you can draw a fairly straight line between those people and a relative large and noisy minority today that complain about Dolph Ziggler being held down and Cena being terrible and what not. That becomes a bit more of a slippery slope because things are so broken up today relative to 1998.

I think there were a large majority of everyone who felt pretty much the same about this stuff. Looking at Kunze's old posts sum it all up pretty well. Maybe it was "A" IWC and not "the" entirety of the internet or whatever, but I think it sums up 90% of the people I remember dealing with at the time. A major, major majority who would take a massive offense at the Vanilla Midgets comment and all that.

To repeat, I think IWC is a very useful historical tool to describe things from the Monday Night War era, though of course even then it wasn't homogeneous, but it was much, much, much more so than it is today. I find it less useful in other usages.

I was looking at my own stuff on the board to see where and when I used control. I don't use it much. Fifteen posts out of my 4442 maybe. The main place I saw was when a babyface was using matwork/holds as a base for the first part of a match. They're not getting heat on anyone since they're the babyface, and it's usually a case where the heel should be more dominant (see Race vs Martel from Portland, where Bonnema even calls it "Control and Containment" while on the mic as he explained it really, really well, or something like the Killer Bees or Rogueaus vs Demolition) and are just held at bay by the babyface grabbing a bodypart and sitting on it. Admittedly it's not the only time I use it (I see that I used it for limbwork that Goldust did to the Undertaker, but that's sort of the same idea. I think I occasionally use it subconsciously when i feel like the limbwork isn't going anywhere but is either killing time or is about just containing someone), but it's the main, by far.

This is a good resource if you want to see what the results were for the Monday night shows between TV. http://prowrestlinghistory.com/memphis/index.html

As a kid, I had no idea why PNW was in the back with its own rankings since I'd never heard of anyone there. ICW too.

There was definitely a time in 98-99 as I was finishing up high school that I went to Scoops and 1wrestling more than once a day.

From the post King of the Ring 95 WON. I thought this was interesting.

I thought Vic Steamboat was a big deal because he always seemed to have a belt.

The bigger point is that they were positioning WCW as WWF's equal though. That's a bigger issue than singling out poor Steve.

Wouldn't that be early 90s WCW in general then? Not just Sting?

I think IWC is a useful historical term for the Monday Night Wars era.

Brody seems like a pretty easy choice here, the Road Warriors as well. I remember when I was reading them as a kid, in 92 or so, the Philadelphia stuff with Gilbert and Cactus Jack would get play and I wouldn't have known about that otherwise, certainly.

Somehow, I fear for the next generation.

Oh, my opinions now are pretty different from back then. Hogan vs Michaels is an interesting discussion for instance. I'm not sure where I'd fall on that. Wrestling has nothing to do with how many moves you do. I'm not 10 anymore.

Before I had any influence from the magazines, I liked the Rockers and Brian Pillman more and hated Hulk Hogan (because he always only ever did the same three moves) and Jim Duggan and the Bushwhackers, but I also liked Ultimate Warrior and the Young Pistols and Shane Douglas and Tom Zenk and any high-flying type babyface or someone who seemed really energetic. I liked Arn Anderson a lot too but that was sort of beside the point. I just liked the Spinebuster. I absolutely hated Hogan because he only did three moves though. it had nothing to do with him winning or losing.

I actually think that Dibiase has a few other slightly more minor but still pretty great angles. 1. Buying Hercules 2. Jake the Snake stealing the Million Dollar belt and Bossman turning face after getting it back. 3. Hart selling out the Disasters for Money Inc.