Comments that don't warrant a thread 2010-2011

[NintendoLogic]

OK, thanks for clearing that up. The fact that it wasn't 60 minutes was throwing me off. The time thing aside, it seems kind of weird to me to have a match end with a heel challenger who is behind in falls applying a submission.

[Resident Evil]

OK, thanks for clearing that up. The fact that it wasn't 60 minutes was throwing me off. The time thing aside, it seems kind of weird to me to have a match end with a heel challenger who is behind in falls applying a submission.

That kind of thing is what made Japanese wrestling better than wrestling from other places. It was more realistic, more organic and not as much formula. More like a real sport.

[Matt D]

Re: Slaughter in 90-91.

 

He worked his ASS off, no matter what you say about him. He was bumping like a madman in almost every outing. Like Hennig level bumping. And I think he was fairly over as a heel in the late summer of 90 vs Volkoff, who was astoundingly over as a face.

[El-P]

Re: Slaughter in 90-91.

 

He worked his ASS off, no matter what you say about him. He was bumping like a madman in almost every outing. Like Hennig level bumping. And I think he was fairly over as a heel in the late summer of 90 vs Volkoff, who was astoundingly over as a face.

Which makes me think : Slaughter the american iraki sympathiser was a turncoat, but Volkoff the russian american sympathiser was a hero.

But yeah, Slaughter was still really good back then, he had Hogan's best match in years in WM VII.

[Mad Dog]

I thought the Slaughter/Hogan main event was a really overlooked gem. Slaughter isn't the problem. He's getting a last big run and working hard, it's the angle and amount of tv time that's the issue.

[Dooley]

I thought the Slaughter/Hogan main event was a really overlooked gem. Slaughter isn't the problem. He's getting a last big run and working hard, it's the angle and amount of tv time that's the issue.

This is the case. It was being force-fed down everyone's throats despite the fact that no one was buying it, and then WM7 came around and no one bought it.

[Matt D]

Almost all of the boot camp matches around WM VII are good too. The thing about Hogan matches in 90 and 91 is that they all had very very clear narratives. From the Genius SNME to the Undertaker matches at Survivor Series and SNMe.

 

The story for the Slaughter match was that Slaughter was going to cheat and fight dirty and break the rules because he was the champ and he didn't care if he got DQed. So he was going to declare war, basically.

[artDDP]

Re: Slaughter in 90-91.

 

He worked his ASS off, no matter what you say about him. He was bumping like a madman in almost every outing. Like Hennig level bumping. And I think he was fairly over as a heel in the late summer of 90 vs Volkoff, who was astoundingly over as a face.

I agree that Slaughter was working hard and pulled off a really good WrestleMania main event with Hogan. I can still watch that match today and enjoy it. Slaughter must have been a really tough opponent because Hulk had to get aerial in that match to take him down.

 

I do remember Slaughter getting way too much TV time back then, especially when Savage-Warrior was the most interesting thing going on. I really don't recall much of anything else that hooked me and my eight-year-old friends quite as much. I wasn't a big fan of Jake Roberts so him getting blinded didn't reel me in. I can't remember any other feuds that were really exciting me back then.

[Mad Dog]

Rhodes Family vs. Dibiase/Virgil has been really interesting because Dusty was cutting some really great promos.

 

As I mentioned earlier. Slaughter is getting a promo or two a week on Superstars and a promo on Wrestling Challenge. This is mixed together with special interview segments with Mean Gene and being a regular in the squash matches. He's on both shows every week and sometimes appears more than once on the show. That's a crap load of tv time considering how the WWF tended to spread guys out. It's wearing me out as an adult that knows how the storyline goes. I can't imagine sitting through it when it was actually happening.

[Bob Morris]

No question Slaughter worked his ass off to get matches over and the feuds over.

 

The issue with the Slaughter run is that WWF never went "over the top" with the character like they did with Nikolai Volkoff and Iron Shiek, in which it was Volkoff singing the Soviet anthem and Shiek shouting "IRAN NUMBAH ONE, RUSSIA NUMBAH ONE!"

 

With Slaughter, they played up how General Adnan looked like Saddam Hussein, they doctored a photo of Saddam to make it look like Slaughter was palling around with him, they had the "boots that were a gift from Saddam" bit, and on it goes.

 

Fans can take stuff that ties into real life if it does with a wink in the eye. WWF didn't play it that way with Slaughter.

 

And I've said this before but will say it again: The original angle used when Slaughter returned in 1991 was that he believed the end of the Cold War was a result of America growing soft. That might have worked into a more interesting angle, with Hogan taking the stance that "yeah, I battled guys like Volkoff before, but us welcoming him into the United States now is not because the United States became weak, but because Volkoff has learnd to embrace our ideas and principles."

 

Taking that approach might have worked better and might not have caused as many fans to stop watching the product. But once they decided to go the route of Slaughter essentially being "pals with Saddam Hussein," too many fans didn't like it. To them, it was likely "too close to reality" for them to accept.

 

Wrestling can incorporate angles that can draw parallels to reality, but it always works best as an escape from reality. The Slaughter angle, as it played out, got too close to reality, IMO, and I suspect other fans felt the same way.

[Strummer]

I can remember Keller reporting that Patt Patterson begged Vince McMahon to not got through with the Iraqi sympathizer angle and have Warrior win at the Rumble and do Hogan/Warrior 2 at Mania 7 but Vince saw dollar signs

[Dooley]

I can remember Keller reporting that Patt Patterson begged Vince McMahon to not got through with the Iraqi sympathizer angle and have Warrior win at the Rumble and do Hogan/Warrior 2 at Mania 7 but Vince saw dollar signs

Talk about your all-time backfires. I remember a record amount of tickets (for the time) were sold for WM7 at the LA Coliseum in the week after WM6 both at Skydome and after Jack Tunney's announcement that he would not sanction a Hogan-Warrior rematch for at least one year. The obvious implication being that Hogan-Warrior 2 would happen at WM7.

[Dylan Waco]

Re: Slaughter in 90-91.

 

He worked his @#!*% off, no matter what you say about him. He was bumping like a madman in almost every outing. Like Hennig level bumping. And I think he was fairly over as a heel in the late summer of 90 vs Volkoff, who was astoundingly over as a face.

This isn't surprising. Sarge is in the argument for best bumpers of all time.

[Victator]

I loved Sarge vs Warrior at the 91 Rumble. Slaughter really put in a great performance pinballing for Warrior. I think Warrior was very good as well. All of his stuff looked good. The weird thing with Warrior is the better he got as a worker the more charisma he lost. In 88 he had this incredible manic wild animal energy. That he lost as time went on.

[smkelly]

Thinking about the PG-13 thread, and the discussion if talent were enough to supersede bad politics and/or attitude problems, would Sean Waltman's career have been different in a good or bad way had he not been one of the kliq boys?

[cm funk]

Hogan/Warrior II would have robbed us of Savage/Warrior, so that would have sucked.

 

I'm assuming the Savage/Liz/Sherri angle and the wedding angle had been planned well in advance too. It never would have worked as well without Warrior. Who could they have even put in that spot?

[sek69]

No question Slaughter worked his ass off to get matches over and the feuds over.

 

The issue with the Slaughter run is that WWF never went "over the top" with the character like they did with Nikolai Volkoff and Iron Shiek, in which it was Volkoff singing the Soviet anthem and Shiek shouting "IRAN NUMBAH ONE, RUSSIA NUMBAH ONE!"

 

With Slaughter, they played up how General Adnan looked like Saddam Hussein, they doctored a photo of Saddam to make it look like Slaughter was palling around with him, they had the "boots that were a gift from Saddam" bit, and on it goes.

 

Fans can take stuff that ties into real life if it does with a wink in the eye. WWF didn't play it that way with Slaughter.

 

And I've said this before but will say it again: The original angle used when Slaughter returned in 1991 was that he believed the end of the Cold War was a result of America growing soft. That might have worked into a more interesting angle, with Hogan taking the stance that "yeah, I battled guys like Volkoff before, but us welcoming him into the United States now is not because the United States became weak, but because Volkoff has learnd to embrace our ideas and principles."

 

Taking that approach might have worked better and might not have caused as many fans to stop watching the product. But once they decided to go the route of Slaughter essentially being "pals with Saddam Hussein," too many fans didn't like it. To them, it was likely "too close to reality" for them to accept.

 

Wrestling can incorporate angles that can draw parallels to reality, but it always works best as an escape from reality. The Slaughter angle, as it played out, got too close to reality, IMO, and I suspect other fans felt the same way.

 

Personally, I thought having the angle turn towards wanting to believe he was suddenly close personal friends with Saddam made it veer into bullshit land for me. Not because it was "too real", quite the opposite, it was too fake to believe. Especially since they made no attempt to hide that his other new ally was the Iron Shiek (I guess you really can't repackage him, but still...) who was so identified with Iran and everyone knew Iraq and Iran were enemies. That struck me as even more bullshit than Sarge becoming an Iraqi sympathizer. I guess they were just banking on most wrestling fans believing all Middle Easterners are the same.

[Jingus]

And I've said this before but will say it again: The original angle used when Slaughter returned in 1991 was that he believed the end of the Cold War was a result of America growing soft. That might have worked into a more interesting angle, with Hogan taking the stance that "yeah, I battled guys like Volkoff before, but us welcoming him into the United States now is not because the United States became weak, but because Volkoff has learnd to embrace our ideas and principles."

 

Taking that approach might have worked better and might not have caused as many fans to stop watching the product. But once they decided to go the route of Slaughter essentially being "pals with Saddam Hussein," too many fans didn't like it. To them, it was likely "too close to reality" for them to accept.

The biggest problem is that wrestling looks at subtlety as being its mortal enemy. The WWE always fucks up storylines in which the heel has a legitimate gripe, especially when it comes to anything involving race or politics. Look at Muhammed Hassan for the classic example: his character started as "fuck you for automatically thinking that I'm a terrorist!" but oh so quickly devolved into "fuck you, I'm a terrorist". Same deal with the Mexicools, who started out as an angry parody of wetback stereotypes, but were soon simplified into the very stereotypes which they were supposed to be mocking.

 

Also, it really didn't help that the Gulf War officially ended over a month before Wrestlemania. Not really the WWE's fault, but that kind of shit can happen when you're relying so heavily on unpredictable current events.

 

 

Sarge is in the argument for best bumpers of all time.

Yeah. It's kinda sad that nobody but the hardcores remember just how awesome Sarge was. Whenever I show his old matches to young fans, they're usually astonished by some of the bumps he took. Even now, in his yearly put-over-a-youngster nostalgia matches, he still looks pretty good.

[Matt D]

Re: Slaughter in 90-91.

 

He worked his @#!*% off, no matter what you say about him. He was bumping like a madman in almost every outing. Like Hennig level bumping. And I think he was fairly over as a heel in the late summer of 90 vs Volkoff, who was astoundingly over as a face.

This isn't surprising. Sarge is in the argument for best bumpers of all time.

 

Yeah but he was 43 at the time.

 

As for Warrior, I think he was EXCELLENT at following direction. When he had someone good laying out his matches, his matches are good. It's pretty much that simple. You got as much out of him as you put in.

[Frankensteiner]

Regarding Sarge, I'd really like to re-watch his AWA stuff from '85-'86-ish. I think that was another big missed opportunity in wrestling. He was coming off a really hot '84 and had the GI Joe deal. They should have pushed him harder instead of typecasting him in a feud against kind of a crappy foreign heel like Zhukov. Not implying he would have reached Hogan's level of popularity but the AWA could have been more competetive than they were.

[El-P]

I guess they were just banking on most wrestling fans believing all Middle Easterners are the same.

Hell, they used an Italian guy to play an Arab in the 00s. Tells you how much you need to know about how they view their audience (and I guess they aren't entirely wrong sadly).

[JerryvonKramer]

Rhodes Family vs. Dibiase/Virgil has been really interesting because Dusty was cutting some really great promos.

I maintain that that 10-minute challange match, DiBiase vs. Dustin, is one of the most underrated matches of that era.

[Dylan Waco]

Re: Slaughter in 90-91.

 

He worked his @#!*% off, no matter what you say about him. He was bumping like a madman in almost every outing. Like Hennig level bumping. And I think he was fairly over as a heel in the late summer of 90 vs Volkoff, who was astoundingly over as a face.

This isn't surprising. Sarge is in the argument for best bumpers of all time.

 

Yeah but he was 43 at the time.

 

As for Warrior, I think he was EXCELLENT at following direction. When he had someone good laying out his matches, his matches are good. It's pretty much that simple. You got as much out of him as you put in.

 

Sarge was still taking big bumps as recently as this decade.

[Mad Dog]

Regarding Sarge, I'd really like to re-watch his AWA stuff from '85-'86-ish. I think that was another big missed opportunity in wrestling. He was coming off a really hot '84 and had the GI Joe deal. They should have pushed him harder instead of typecasting him in a feud against kind of a crappy foreign heel like Zhukov. Not implying he would have reached Hogan's level of popularity but the AWA could have been more competetive than they were.

He had a title match with Stan Hansen in early 86 if I remember correctly. As for the AWA fucking it up, that's really just par for the course with them. Verne was probably less likely to push him hard due to his popularity. They could barely handle pushing the Rockets and Stan Hansen correctly. Asking them to do it right with Sarge was too much. Hansen/Slaughter was a big miss. They teased Slaughter/Brody in 86 right before Brody left.

[smkelly]

What happened to make Sarge leave the WWF in the early/mid eighties? I remember reading about it somewhere (might have been here) but I don't remember the specifics of it.