Forgotten Good Workers/"Hey I Thought This Guy Was Supposed To Suck?"

[Phil Schneider]

Watching some of Will's Dustin set, I think 1994 might have been his best year. The brawls with Buck are some of the best in wrestling history, he had the spectacular Clash match against Vader and a bunch of fun six man tags against the Stud Stable.

[El-P]

Kosugi was just a though girl, really hard working and though as nails. Really the second coming of Kudo in term of work if she had the time to build a career.

JD in the days before it got taken over by the wave of pretty idol girls always got over shadowed by there just being way way too much other stuff out thear. I'll get in the mood now & then for something diffrent and buy a show of theirs and most of the time I really enjoy them but with so much AJW, JWP, GAEA & ARSION among others out thear that I still haven't seen it just always ends up taking a back seat.

 

Yeah, Jd' was the great little promotion that could, but no one ever watched for the reasons you mention. It's too bad, there was a lot of good, different stuff there. It got ruined by the act?s?s concept. The most famous of which ended up doing porn videos. Hurrah Jd'.

[Kronos]

Where would Marc Mero fit in a list like this one? I haven't really seen his WWF work, but I am a bit of a fan of his Johnny B Badd period. It's pretty ridiculous, but he's so enthusiastic that I can't help but like him. And the matches I have seen have generally entertained me.

 

Is he considered bad? Or just mediocre?

[shoe]

For me I thought Mero was a solid worker. He has had a lot of good matches, but I would put that down more because his opponent was good. His stuff with Regal really entertained me. Though he did have quite a few good matches with different opponents. Some that come to mind are with Pillman,Regal, Guerrero, Owen, Austin, DDP, Bubba Rogers, and plenty of others. I would classify him as underrated.

[El-P]

In every shoot interview I heard, everyone is talking about how bad Mero was. I'm watching the matches, and I don't see that. Sure, he pre-planned everything, but everybody is doing it these days. Mero had too many good matches to be as bad as people say he is. I guess tons of workers were jealous of him : getting a big contract up front while never "paying any dues"; being married to a ridiculously hot wife. That said, Mero in his own shoot interview is the first to admit that at first he was rotten and gives plenty of credit to everyone he ever worked with, he also admit getting a big head at one time, and comes off as a really likeable guy overall. I guess Mero fits the bill if you consider the terrible reputation he gets.

[shoe]

When he 1st started I would classify him as bad. He seemed to work hard and got a lot better to where his matches were fun.

[shoe]

Watching some of Will's Dustin set, I think 1994 might have been his best year. The brawls with Buck are some of the best in wrestling history, he had the spectacular Clash match against Vader and a bunch of fun six man tags against the Stud Stable.

 

I thought this was a damn good year for him too. That Vader match was epic. I feel 94 gets slept on for him because he gets fired abruptly. Hogan and friends are all anyone is focusing on. Dustin gets pushed down the cards and becomes a mid carder so I think people don't think fondly of Dustin's 94 work. I mean Duggan, Earthquake, and to a lesser extent HTM are pushed harder. I mean a lot of the guys in 92 that got big pushes were getting their legs cut out from underneath them. Dustin, and Austin are 2 that come to mind. Vader and Flair fall into that category to a lesser extent.Heck they even had Sting doing jobs for Tenta with the notion of replacing him with Renegade as the 3rd face of the company. This was more 95 though. Still they kept Sting off of the 1st few shows Hogan headlined because they didn't want him to get more cheers than Hogan. You knew Hogan was pissed at Steamer/Austin when they stole the show at BATB 94, and was pissed at Dustin for having good matches that got over on his undercard and stole some of the spotlight from Hogan. So the more good matches those guys had and the more they got over the more they were punished in the bookings. Again, this is just how I saw it.

[tomk]

Maekawa is dangerous you know because she has some stiff kicks, even though she may have not ever injured anyone. I call it the Kana syndrome. Meanwhile Aja will mess someone up and she's awesome.

 

I don't remember people criticizing Maekawa for being dangerous. The criticism is that her stuff was meaningless.

There is a difference between Flairs first chop exchange and first stiff chop exchange. Between Aja's first back fist and first big back fist. Same true for Hotta.

 

Maekawa had about four or five really cool stiff kick spots and she'd throw them out a million times in a match. There was no difference between the first time she threw a kick combination and the last time. Part of this could be blamed on the way Nakanishi and her other AJW opponents sold and some of this was the problem of the length of the matches exposing her ( I mean HHH is also a guy with about 8 minutes of interesting time filling ideas who is exposed in matches that go over 11 minutes).

[rzombie1988]

Kosugi was just a though girl, really hard working and though as nails. Really the second coming of Kudo in term of work if she had the time to build a career.

JD in the days before it got taken over by the wave of pretty idol girls always got over shadowed by there just being way way too much other stuff out thear. I'll get in the mood now & then for something diffrent and buy a show of theirs and most of the time I really enjoy them but with so much AJW, JWP, GAEA & ARSION among others out thear that I still haven't seen it just always ends up taking a back seat.

 

Yeah, Jd' was the great little promotion that could, but no one ever watched for the reasons you mention. It's too bad, there was a lot of good, different stuff there. It got ruined by the act?s?s concept. The most famous of which ended up doing porn videos. Hurrah Jd'.

 

Jd's athress concept brought us Yumi Ohka, Fuuka, Misaki Ohata, Shu Shibutani, Haruka Matsuo and Asami as well as Keiko Furuta who was super hot, so it could have been worse.

[Dylan Waco]

1994

8 Shawn

14 Bret

16 Vader

23 Waltman

31 Flair

32 Austin

38 Owen

55 Razor

56 Sting

59 Pillman

62 Finlay

73 Arn

75 Regal

80 Dustin

83 Badd

 

Cactus was 25th, but I'm uncertain whether to toss him in. Did have the two beloved (back then) tags with the Nasty Boys. But also worked ECW, SMW and I want to say some Japan as well. So I left him out.

 

Hakushi was 57, but Wade specifically said he rated high due to a strong year in MPro. So I left him off as well.

 

Dustin is 14th here.

 

We can argue about whether he should be higher or not, and I suspect that Dustin-Pillman ratings are ones people will focus on. That's not really the point that I was trying to get across earlier: Dustin was thought of as a Good Worker back in 1992-94. If one wants to draw a comp, I'd suggest people focus on this one:

 

6-11-12 Arn

8-15-14 Dustin

 

Arn always was a well respected worker. He never was as beloved by hardcores as a high end worker like say Barry or Eaton at their peaks, but he was always respected.

 

Dustin's in the same ballpark as Arn, not only in the WWF/WCW set of rankings, but also the overall rankings. I would think that evidence that Dustin was well respected as a worker in those years by these hardest of hardcore fans.

 

John

Thanks for pulling those over John. Focusing on 94 because I happened to agree with the Phil that that was Dustin's best year. 92 is a really great year and features some totally forgotten matches on top of the tag stuff/DA matches (thinking the Vader match from Saturday Night with the insane flip clothesline bump on the floor for example). But it is a year where Dustin is immersed in greatness and I can see someone making the argument that others were just "rubbing off on him." I like Jimmy Golden a lot, but watching the Studd Stable feud you get the sense that Dustin is coming into his own and is really a big time wrestler on his own. Focusing on the "we can argue if he should be higher" line and well I don't think there is really much of an argument against the notion that he should be higher. I can see an argument for Regal based on the matches with Larry, but realistically I think it would be a real stretch to rate him over Dustin that year. Arn is Arn and he really never had a bad year, but I don't think there is any reason to believe he had a better year than Dustin. Finlay wasn't even working in the States at that point and shouldn't be on the list if I am reading your criteria right here. I love Pillman, but I'm not even sure Pillman from 91-93 is better than Dustin from 91-93 and that is a much better version of Pillman than we had in 94. Sting and Razor strike me as pretty laughable picks, and I actually like both guys more than most and think they both had solid years, with some stand out moments (Razor's being obvious). Owen is an interesting case because of the Bret matches. Interesting enough that I can see him being on the docket as someone better than Dustin in 94 even if I'm not buying it. Austin is a laugh out loud level pick as he wasn't in the same league as Dustin in 94. I like 94 Flair more than most, but he didn't have a better year than Dustin. Trying to think of anything Waltman did that year to end up near that high. I know there was the Bret match, and the Action Zone tag may have been that year. Vader is someone who has a case. Bret is someone who has a strong case. I liked Shawn in 94 and still like 94 Shawn, but I personally wouldn't rate him on Dustin's level. Perhaps funny enough the one guy from WCW who I think has a strong case other than Vader is Steamboat and he's not even on the list (Flair series, series with Austin, Vader match on SN).

 

I get your point about Dustin being regarded favorably by the hardcores and I also agree that some of the things you outlined as possible reasons for the drop make sense, but I also think what you are seeing here is an indication that the Dustin-Studd Stable feud was really being slept on at the time/being lost in all of the other things that were going on in the States at the time.

 

For my money Dustin was at WORST the fourth best guy in the States in 94 (Bret, Vader, and possibly Steamboat are the only guys I would rate on, or above him)

 

I'm curious, where was Terry Funk rated in 94?

[jdw]

I get your point about Dustin being regarded favorably by the hardcores and I also agree that some of the things you outlined as possible reasons for the drop make sense, but I also think what you are seeing here is an indication that the Dustin-Studd Stable feud was really being slept on at the time/being lost in all of the other things that were going on in the States at the time.

Wouldn't disagree with that. Just think it would be better put in the context of "This guy was really better than hardcores thought at the time" than Sucked/Forgotten Good Workers.

 

 

For my money Dustin was at WORST the fourth best guy in the States in 94 (Bret, Vader, and possibly Steamboat are the only guys I would rate on, or above him)

Again, the list above is just WCW & WWF. It doesn't include anyone from ECW nor from AAA when they came across the border.

 

 

I'm curious, where was Terry Funk rated in 94?

I'll have to look. He was on the list. Just thought he worked in a wide variety of promotions, similar to Cactus.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

He did. In 94 there was a period where Terry was on WCW, ECW and SMW shows within a ten day period IIRC - possibly less than that. I'm more or less curious at the Funk deal just to see what people were thinking of him at the time as he was sort of "the all time journeyman" at that point.

[El-P]

If there's a 1994 Yearbook done, the Terry Funk factor should be fascinating.

[Loss]

In every shoot interview I heard, everyone is talking about how bad Mero was. I'm watching the matches, and I don't see that. Sure, he pre-planned everything, but everybody is doing it these days. Mero had too many good matches to be as bad as people say he is. I guess tons of workers were jealous of him : getting a big contract up front while never "paying any dues"; being married to a ridiculously hot wife. That said, Mero in his own shoot interview is the first to admit that at first he was rotten and gives plenty of credit to everyone he ever worked with, he also admit getting a big head at one time, and comes off as a really likeable guy overall. I guess Mero fits the bill if you consider the terrible reputation he gets.

Marc Mero had the nerve to suggest that maybe wrestling needs to clean its act up post-Benoit. He also fucked above his push. I suspect that whatever other gripes are made, legit point or not, that's the underlying problem people have with Mero.

[Loss]

Maekawa is dangerous you know because she has some stiff kicks, even though she may have not ever injured anyone. I call it the Kana syndrome. Meanwhile Aja will mess someone up and she's awesome.

 

I don't remember people criticizing Maekawa for being dangerous. The criticism is that her stuff was meaningless.

There is a difference between Flairs first chop exchange and first stiff chop exchange. Between Aja's first back fist and first big back fist. Same true for Hotta.

 

Maekawa had about four or five really cool stiff kick spots and she'd throw them out a million times in a match. There was no difference between the first time she threw a kick combination and the last time. Part of this could be blamed on the way Nakanishi and her other AJW opponents sold and some of this was the problem of the length of the matches exposing her ( I mean HHH is also a guy with about 8 minutes of interesting time filling ideas who is exposed in matches that go over 11 minutes).

 

That reminds me that I never saw those Maekawa/Nakanishi matches in 2001 that people loved at the time.

[El-P]

He also fucked above his push.

What do you mean ?

[Loss]

He also fucked above his push.

What do you mean ?

 

Meaning Sable was a bigger star than him, and typically, midcarders who date hot females get big heat in WWE.

[El-P]

That reminds me that I never saw those Maekawa/Nakanishi matches in 2001 that people loved at the time.

Well, not everybody loved them. I used to argue to death with some guy who died then reviewed Korean movies that these matches were not that good, that Maekawa sucked and that Momoe, as good as she was, was overrated by pretty much everybody because she was the only one left. I have a dreadful memory of a Hotta cage match that went one hour. One hour of Yumiko Hotta in 2001, the horror. AJW had a few good stuff on the big shows, but it was mostly thanks to veterans freelancers coming back.

[El-P]

He also fucked above his push.

What do you mean ?

 

Meaning Sable was a bigger star than him, and typically, midcarders who date hot females get big heat in WWE.

 

I thought that's what you meant, but wasn't sure. Well, it's different though, they were married before they even got there. I guess it doesn't change a thing to the "boys". On the same interview, Mero said he didn't care that Rena became that huge star while he was lost in mid-card, because all the money was going into the same household. It's funny that Mero basically remains one of the last guy who actually stood by the stipulation of his match. He lost, he never worked in WWF again.

But yeah, you're right, he's basically a black sheep to the "boys".

[Cox]

In every shoot interview I heard, everyone is talking about how bad Mero was. I'm watching the matches, and I don't see that. Sure, he pre-planned everything, but everybody is doing it these days. Mero had too many good matches to be as bad as people say he is. I guess tons of workers were jealous of him : getting a big contract up front while never "paying any dues"; being married to a ridiculously hot wife. That said, Mero in his own shoot interview is the first to admit that at first he was rotten and gives plenty of credit to everyone he ever worked with, he also admit getting a big head at one time, and comes off as a really likeable guy overall. I guess Mero fits the bill if you consider the terrible reputation he gets.

Marc Mero had the nerve to suggest that maybe wrestling needs to clean its act up post-Benoit. He also fucked above his push. I suspect that whatever other gripes are made, legit point or not, that's the underlying problem people have with Mero.

 

To be fair, Foley was ripping Mero long before he was out of the business in his books. From what I can remember, they actually had him take out a bunch of really inflammatory stuff he had to say about Mero in his first book.

[Loss]

Mero, Austin and Foley all entered the company around the same time. Mero was the one pegged to be the star, which considering how far Austin's stock had fallen in the last year he was in WCW and how Foley had been off of national TV for so long, is an understandable viewpoint. Hindsight tells us way more of course.

 

I'm not saying Mero is above criticism, or that any points made about him aren't valid. For all I know, he was an aloof asshole and people are right on the money about him. I just suspect, maybe incorrectly so, that he's not hated on the merits.

[El-P]

For all I know, he was an aloof asshole and people are right on the money about him.

Like I said, I thought he came out of his shoot interview quite down to earth, honest (about his own ability and why people would hate him) and not bitter in the least. I think it was him who told the story about hanging out with the *wrong* guys at some point, namely Van Hammer, Eric Watts & Marcus Bagwell, and Arn made some joke about it.

[kjh]

Mero, Austin and Foley all entered the company around the same time. Mero was the one pegged to be the star, which considering how far Austin's stock had fallen in the last year he was in WCW and how Foley had been off of national TV for so long, is an understandable viewpoint. Hindsight tells us way more of course.

 

I'm not saying Mero is above criticism, or that any points made about him aren't valid. For all I know, he was an aloof asshole and people are right on the money about him. I just suspect, maybe incorrectly so, that he's not hated on the merits.

I think the guys who quit/fired from WCW (particularly Austin and Foley) were jealous in 1996 that he managed to play both sides against each other and get himself a pretty sweet guaranteed contract, whereas they were forced to take the standard crappy contract the WWF was offering at the time despite both being pushed harder than Mero had been when they were in WCW. That jealousy only escalated when his even less talented wife became for a time the second/third hottest act in the promotion, thanks in large part to Mero prostituting himself by letting her embarrass him, even kick his ass, on a fairly regular basis.

[El-P]

thanks in large part to Mero prostituting himself by letting her embarrass him, even kick his ass, on a fairly regular basis.

Prostituting himself ? What ? The Mero household made shitload of money being on the road and working *together*, and probably having a blast doing so. I don't see how he embarrassed himself, it was just business. I hated Sable as much as the next guy, but the Marvelous Marc interactions were actually fun.

[Loss]

thanks in large part to Mero prostituting himself by letting her embarrass him, even kick his ass, on a fairly regular basis.

Prostituting himself ? What ? The Mero household made shitload of money being on the road and working *together*, and probably having a blast doing so. I don't see how he embarrassed himself, it was just business. I hated Sable as much as the next guy, but the Marvelous Marc interactions were actually fun.

 

He is not saying his opinion, he is saying how Austin and Foley probably saw it.