The WTF!?! Have they lost their minds?! thread

[El-P]

For some reason I always remembered during the build-up to Piper-Hogan, that it was a non-title match, just a one-time deal to "settle the score".

I remember it the same way.

[Dooley]

For some reason I always remembered during the build-up to Piper-Hogan, that it was a non-title match, just a one-time deal to "settle the score".

I remember it the same way.

 

I as well. The "settle the score" bit was obviously a throwback to their original MTV match and I seem to remember Piper not wanting a title shot because he wasn't doing it for WCW, he was just doing it for himself.

[Frankensteiner]

Personally, I thought it made more sense to have Brock lose than job Cena out. If Cena is leaving for a few months, you can build Brock up and then have Cena return as the guy who beat him last time out.

Hum, what ? Doesn't make a lick of sense. Cena is leaving. Traditionnal wrestling booking : guy leaving because the heel destroyed him. Babyface comes back several months after and gets his revenge. It's easy, it's simple.

Now, Brock has already been beaten. He's not that special anymore, I don't care what anybody says. If at least Lesnar had beaten up Cena after the win and the show ended with a bloody Lesnar triumphant, a foot on Cena's carcass, then I would agree the loss wouldn't matter than much. There Cena won, KOed Lesnar, cut his cute promo, Lesnar was nowhere to be seen. End of story. Now you have to *re-build* Brock ? Well, that is poor booking no matter how you twist it.

 

Cena isn't a traditional babyface. He gets booed a lot. By having him do badass things and beat Brock he can come back stronger than if Brock had put him on the shelf. I bet he gets a better reaction when he returns than he would have if he'd jobbed. His cred got a major injection from this match and month long feud. It was an interesting reversal of conventional booking.

 

It's not going to change anything. Didn't Cena do some "badass things" in his feuds with Umaga, Orton, and Edge? People don't boo Cena because they perceive a lack of toughness; they boo him because he's such lame character. Cena will come back as the same smiley, happy Cena with terrible humor and forced delivery. Any cheers he might receive initially will fade once people quickly realize the character is still the same.

 

So I watched the Cena promo from last night. And it was Cena at his most obnoxious. I just wanted Ace to kill him by the end of that segment. Anyway, there are some good reasons for having Cena beat Lesnar, but to get Cena over with fans for being a bad ass is not one of them when he comes back and does interviews like that.

[Mr Wrestling X]

I think the decision to book John Cena in a feud with Big Show (for the 100th time, no less) comes under the WTF!?! label, considering WWE decided to go with such a predictable turn. We all knew it was coming and Johnny Ace seemingly fucked up when he revealed that he re-signed Big Show on the Saturday - which contradicted that match stipulation that "should any WWE superstar interfere - they will be terminated". So Johnny Ace botched and WWE quickly went into damage control mode because they realised people noticed (which is a somewhat positive thing that comes out of WWE's obsession with social networking media).

 

It's terrible how they are booking Big Show anyway, sure he wanted his job back and gave into Johnny Ace, but there was no need for him to "embrace the hate" as heels so often do. It's redundant for a person to go "classic heel" in the "deal with the devil" scenario in modern professional wrestling, why not have Big Show do what Cena did during his reluctant tenure in Nexus? Show could come out and explain that he helped Laurinatis because he gave him his job back and how it was a no-brainer considering that Laurinaitis would never have re-hired him otherwise. But alas, this is complicated by the fact that had Cena beaten Laurinatis, then Big Show would surely have been rehired and given an apology by the new GM/authority figure for Laurinatis' actions, meaning that he had no need to bother siding with Laurinatis. Whatever Big Show said on this weeks Raw and Smackdown (taping) is also redundant because "bonus money" or whatnot doesn't really add up to him going full blown heel.

 

Do you want a modern product WWE? Then stop fucking it up with classic standards that just aren't effective on modern wrestling characters.

[NintendoLogic]

It wasn't a botch. The line about Show being rehired on Saturday actually was in the script. The explanation from Cole came after people went nuts on Twitter.

[Mr Wrestling X]

It wasn't a botch. The line about Show being rehired on Saturday actually was in the script. The explanation from Cole came after people went nuts on Twitter.

Really?! Man, someone will be in serious shit for that, mind you it could be argued that WWE did it because they didn't think anyone would notice, which was something I was getting at, although with the revelation that it was in the script all along, you've got to wonder whether they did it just to see if people would notice?

[Matt D]

I'm dealing with the weird logic gaps surrounding the 93 Rumble right now. First Savage knocks down Yoko and tries to pin him. Then the next night on Raw, Bartlett goes "At least you knocked him down!" To Savage, and Vince plays it down something fierce. "Well, I don't know about that. No one's ever knocked Yokozuna down." So that they can do the Duggan challenge (announced that week on Superstars, played out the following week).

 

It was so weird because it's one thing for Yoko to get knocked down and them to just pretend it didn't happen, but the guy who did it was in the booth, and more than that, it was the FINISH of the Rumble.

 

Crazy stuff.

[Mr Wrestling X]

So that they can do the Duggan challenge

That's exactly why they did it and it's definitely not the first time, nor last time that they've performed such a blatant re-write of history (but we all know this). I do see where you're coming from with the 93 thing - that year in wrestling is full of, shall we say "interesting" bookings that don't sit well with people looking back (us). I don't know whether this particular decision was down to the WWF hesitating on whether to proceed with Yoko's monster push, or simply trying to give Savage a boost and realising that they fucked things up when it came to Yokozuna.

 

Crazy stuff.

It got much worse, at Wrestlemania for example, where Hulk Hogan essentially aborted Yoko's push just as it had began by stealing away the WWF title in squash fashion. But it all came to a head at KOTR where Yokozuna was allowed to defeat Hogan (albeit with some outside interference) and apparently "retire" him, although by this point the damage had been done and Hogan resurfaced in WCW (very much un-retired) a few months later. WWE continues to do this push halting shit today - it's hard to keep count of how many up and coming performers have lost in quick and unspectacular fashion to the likes of John Cena and Randy Orton.

 

The 1993 KOTR confused me when it came to Bret Hart's performance in his KOTR matches - namely that he was barred from using the Sharpshooter (and winning via rollups instead) by order of Pat Patterson, which Bret claims in his autobiography. The only explanation I have for this strange booking decision is that Patterson was looking to get Bret over as a guy who could beat you regardless of whether he used his signature move or not - in line with Hart's "excellence of execution" moniker.

[JerryvonKramer]

Did anyone mention Studd winning the 89 Rumble? Think about all the possibilities for that show and what they went with.

 

DiBiase or Bossman could have gone over, or Akeem even. The Hogan stuff could have happened last instead of 10 minutes before the end killing the crowd.

 

Of all the people in that rumble, Savage, Warrior, even Andre, the biggest WTF is that Studd was the actual winner.

[goc]

Studd had left the business for a few years with the idea that when he came back he would be fresh and get a renewed push, whereas at the time he wasn't really doing anything. The idea worked, at least for the short term. But Studd was never that good and after a few years off was even worse. And not a good babyface at all.

[Loss]

I think the mindset may have also been that since they would be putting the big heat on Hogan/Savage on NBC, they wanted to do something to also build up Andre/Jake with him as ref for Mania. They did the angle for Rude/Warrior earlier on the card, so that has them building something for the top three matches that were on the card.

 

I acknowledge that Hogan/Savage completely sold the show that year, and that it was really a one-match show. But it speaks to the genius of the Hogan/Savage build that they were able to further progress that angle on the show and also give something else a spotlight to add depth to Mania here. Hogan/Savage was so hot that they didn't have to really hot shot much of anything.

 

I may be giving them too much credit, but the build to Hogan/Savage is probably the best angle in the history of the company in terms of long-term development, and I think pretty highly of the booking in general during that time period. The record-setting business they were doing on house shows at this point even while not running Hogan vs Savage just further adds to how hot that feud was.

 

It always struck me as odd that Hogan/Boss Man drew so much money around the horn, since it's not like they did a ton of TV build to that series. I have to come to credit it to residual heat from the Hogan/Savage issue being so scorching hot that it carried over to everything else.

 

I think the build to Hogan/Savage is the greatest case for Vince's genius in terms of laying out a compelling feud and having patience, involving people that the audience perceived as huge stars and wanted to see lock up. I miss that Vince - the one who realized that he was at his aesthetic and financial best when he kept things simple.

[JerryvonKramer]

I take it one step further Loss: you can draw a straight line from Andre turning on Hogan in the build for Mania III to, basically, Wrestlemania V. From the Andre feud, to DiBiase buying the belt and the evil twin refs, the tournament at Wrestlemania IV and the "out of nowhere" rise of Savage to the Mega Powers through Summerslam 88 and the slow slow breakup over the course of the Twin Towers feud. It's 2 years of SENSATIONAL booking from 87-89. There are subtleties too: Andre was still sort of respected at Wrestlemania III, someone led astray by Heenan, by the time he's selling the belt to Ted he's a total dick heel.

 

Back to Rumble 89 though, why not send Bossman or DiBiase over there? Is it just Vince's pathological belief in never putting heels over and sending the fans home happy? DiBiase could have done with a rub there after losing some heat over the second half of 88 after the Savage feud died down. It was setup for him to win - he'd bought the number 30 slot. After being screwed over at Wrestlemania IV, you'd think they'd throw one of their major stars a bone or something.

 

Hell, I could even see a case for putting Dino Bravo or Rick Martel over in that show ahead of Studd. What possible plans did they have for Studd in 1989?

[rainmakerrtv]

Hell, I could even see a case for putting Dino Bravo or Rick Martel over in that show ahead of Studd. What possible plans did they have for Studd in 1989?

New babyface Andre the Giant. I definitely recall the return of Studd as being a big deal at the time, and they were clearly indicating a feud with Andre after WM V . It's a bit hard to imagine, given how out-of-shape Studd was at that time, but he was being given a fair sized push.

[jdw]

There was something in the Studd obit of Dave's that explained the push Studd was going to get coming out of that win. I've forgotten what it was, but I think Dave touched on it fairly well.

 

John

[El-P]

Apart from being fairly big (and not even gigantic), what was Studd's appeal ? He couldn't work a lick.

[Sean Liska]

They had big plans for Studd as a face feuding with Andre, and then he left for some reason and Vince was furious. I was flipping through the WWE's Andre the Giant book and there were quotes from Vince burying Studd - 15 years after he died.

[cm funk]

Yeah, they definitely wanted to give Studd a big babyface push that year. He was a shitty wrestler, but he was big, returning to the company and had an established name/aura from the rock n' wrestling years, it made sense to try and push him. This was also before the Rumble was "The Rumble". Hacksaw won the first one broadcast on USA, and it was basically just a nice highlight win for a mid-uppermidcarder, a way to put a guy over without putting a belt on him. That's what it was for Studd too.

 

Also, heels didn't go over in main events at that time as Kramer noted. It never happened. IIRC the first heel to go over in a main event in the 80's was Andre's team at the 87 Survivor Series, then Undertaker at the 91 Survivor Series, shortly followed by Flair at the 92 Rumble.

[Victator]

Apart from being fairly big (and not even gigantic), what was Studd's appeal ? He couldn't work a lick.

You have to remember the era he started. He was a huge man, especially for seventies wrestling. I think he gets an unfair rap at times. He knew when to hit his spots and why, and had a few good looking suplexes.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Apart from being fairly big (and not even gigantic), what was Studd's appeal ? He couldn't work a lick.

You have to remember the era he started. He was a huge man, especially for seventies wrestling. I think he gets an unfair rap at times. He knew when to hit his spots and why, and had a few good looking suplexes.

 

Yeah, Studd gets a bad rap. I always liked the guy. The cage match with Hogan on the first Hulkamania tape is good stuff. And he had a fucking great name.

[Al]

He also had a good rep in WWF history. He was actually around most of the 1970s, first as Chuck O'Connor (worked the first Shea show) and then as part of the Masked Executioners. And he had a rep as a nice guy. I don't have an issue with it, because if there's one match to put a big guy who can't work well over it's a battle royal.

[Bob Morris]

The real problem with trying to put Studd over at the Rumble was that, when Hogan and Savage were gone, the crowd wasn't really into the match until it came down to Studd and DiBiase, and then it was more based on the fact that DiBiase had bribed his way into getting No. 30. I don't know if it would have helped to have Studd be the guy to come out when Hogan was getting double teamed by the Twin Towers to generate a little more heat for him, but regardless, they were clearly building to Brutus Beefcake being the guy taking Savage's spot as close friend and associate of Hogan.

[Al]

Did the crowd know about the bribery? I wouldn't have thought the promos were miked into the arenas yet.

[rovert]

Truncated soundbites for print, editing and shoehorning in the latest thing they are pushing are all reasons why this may read the way it does but still fuck me:

 

 

WWE and your performers have started using Twitter more.

 

McMahon: Back in the early days, our performers elicited a response -- a boo or a cheer. Today, we use all this social media. We are going to do Tout, in which the WWE just invested. With that, you get a 15-second video shout-out that goes straight to our TV programs. Beginning with the 1,000th show, people can participate in terms of the types of matches and what actually happens on air. It will be the most interactive TV programming in the world.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/vinc...-wwe-raw-351254

[Kevin Ridge]

I don't think they knew what they had going with the Rumble until a couple years. Felt at the early stages it was just a unique match they were throwing out. It wasn't until Rumble 92 that the match had real significance with the title on the line. From then on the winner got to face the WWF champion at WrestleMania. Obviously with two titles, this wasn't as big of a deal over time when guys stopped main eventing the big show. In retrospect, it would have been been right to have Dibiase win the 89 Rumble and Perfect the 90 Rumble but WWF was still in their send the fans home happy with the good guys winning. Studd winning sure does feel random over time since he didn't last long in WWF during that period.