Johnny B Badd / Marc Mero... Time to Revisit his Career

[TRMD]

Legitimately my least favorite wrestler ever, in a "I don't ever want to see this guy on my TV again" kind of way. I watched several of his matches when I was attempting to watch every Austin PPV match in WCW, even his matches with Regal, and I hated every second the guy was on screen.

[Steenalized]

As I make my way through '91 and now into '92 WCW I'm getting a lot of very green Johnny B. Badd. All told I don't think he's awful at this point, just raw and green and a weird gimmick. The one thing that stood out to me is his punches. They're simultaneously great and awful. At Clash 18 vs. Morton, he backs Morton up into the corner with jabs and hooks and from a technical standpoint, they're great. The guy is a Golden Glover afterall. But for pro wrestling, his punches are awful. He doesn't connect with the real boxing punches since potatoing the shit out of Morton isn't a good call. When he throws worked punches, they look terrible.

[goc]

I always cut him some slack on that because it's really hard to train yourself to throw a punch that looks good and doesn't hit a guy after he'd spent all that time training himself to punch a dude in the face for boxing.

[Sidebottom]

Watching one of the old Legends rountables and Jim Ross effectively compares Mero to El Giante. Harsh.

[BillThompson]

Watching one of the old Legends rountables and Jim Ross effectively compares Mero to El Giante. Harsh.

 

Ross also thinks Charlotte is a comp for Kurt Angle; he's crazy off his rocker sometimes.

[Judy Bagwell]

although he was able to put on a cracking opening match with the right opponent in 94-95 I still hated him with a passion, all of his gimmicks were terrible and his promo work downright awful

by the time he negotiated his way into WWE the fans couldnt have given less of a fuck and in the end he just got backed over by Sable who unlike her husband was able to draw a dime

I dont hate him anymore but this is the most time Ive spent thinking about his career

Now Im angry because its bringing back horrible memories of Sables huge run in 98 and the way she treated Luna after getting put over at wm14, and Im back hating Mero again

 

[Jingus]

Ross isn't alone, there seems to be a lot of distaste for Mero's work among many of his coworkers. Mick Foley roasted him pretty hard in the first autobiography, right down to saying he'd rather not work on Wrestlemania at all than be stuck in a match with Mero on that show.

[BillThompson]

Ross isn't alone, there seems to be a lot of distaste for Mero's work among many of his coworkers. Mick Foley roasted him pretty hard in the first autobiography, right down to saying he'd rather not work on Wrestlemania at all than be stuck in a match with Mero on that show.

 

It's been my understanding that a lot of that came from jealousy over Mero getting the first true guaranteed contract from WWF.

[Jingus]

He repeatedly implied that he thought Mero was a terrible worker, though he never came out and explicitly said it. (Then in his second book he said that there was a wrestler whom he repeatedly raked over the coals in the first book for just being terrible, but his editors or legal team or someone made him take that stuff out.) The money was part of it, but he was insinuating that Marc didn't deserve to be making that much because he sucked. I don't think Foley would've had asked to be left off his first Wrestlemania over merely being grumpy about income inequality.

 

Not saying this is all true-to-life gospel, I've got no horse in the race; I always found Badd/Mero to be competent-but-utterly-boring and found his gimmicks to be nails-on-chalkboard aggravating, thus I haven't watched any of his matches in long years and have no real opinion on the subject. I just think it's always interesting to examine what wrestlers' coworkers thought about their abilities.

[Mad Dog]

In my experience, Foley's opinions generally suck when it comes to other workers. His books were entertaining but I think his biases shine through too much.

 

Badd is one of the guys that I'm most interested in getting to as my WCW/NWA watching progresses. I'll get there some day.

[El-P]

It's been well established by now that Mero got from "green and awful" (from his own account also, as told in his shoot interviews) when he debuted to "quite decent and having good matches regularly" by 95 because he cared about improving. Jealousy is a sad thing. Did he deserve the big garanteed contract ? No. But then again, he's not the first guy who got money because of his looks rather than his ability.

 

Add the fact he was married to the really hot girl and yeah, the boys wouldn't handle that well I guess.

 

Add to the fact he got on TV during the Benoit debacle and was not throwing around WWE's company line, so yeah, he's one of the "bad guys".

[Laz]

I remember a coworker of my mother's in 1998 actually graduated with Mero and he came by for the 20-year reunion. Story was that he was a massive asshole even growing up.

 

"Marvelous" Marc is my favorite gimmick of his, and I think there's a bit of untapped potential to him, but comparisons to Bagwell seem fair to me.

[flyonthewall2983]

He's being interviewed very soon for Jim Ross' podcast.

[Judy Bagwell]

He's being interviewed very soon for Jim Ross' podcast.

now that should make for an interesting listen

[Justtxyank]

Bringing up a dead thread because I've rewatched a lot of Mero/Badd stuff and want to throw my hat into the fight on the side of "extremely underrated."

The more I've read/listened to about him, I think I've come to a conclusion as to why his peers hated him.

1) He was a Dusty pet project INSTANTLY as a young green nobody and got a push right away. Being seen as Dusty's "teacher's pet" had to hurt him. He wasn't good yet and he was getting a push over guys who were better and he was making more money than them. He was basically pushed up the card consistently from 91-96. Guys who worked hard had to resent not getting that treatment.

2) When he jumped to the WWF he had three big issues: 

• He was now the teacher's pet for Vince which caused resentment
• He got a big guaranteed contract.
• He joined a promotion where guys who had resentment towards him from WCW were out to undermine him.

 

But, regardless of why "The boys" didn't like him, the man was a good worker. I've liked basically everything he's done from 94 through the end. Hated his gimmick as Johnny B Badd because I don't like "silly" gimmicks for non-comedy relief guys and the Wildman gimmick didn't land either. That was weird, Vince was in love with Johnny B Badd. That said, I think when he turned into Marvelous Marc Mero he found it. He was a great jerk. His injuries became a problem then though. If Mero had converted from Badd to a serious gimmick in 96 and stayed in WCW I think he could have easily been a top of the mid card guy, maybe headlined a ppv here or there. Dirtbag Mero in the nWo in the black boxing trunks would have worked.

[strobogo]

I happened to put on Superbrawl 1 last night and lol'd at how you could immediately tell Dusty had returned and was running booking. 

 

One of these being the PPV debut for a PROMO for Johnny B. Badd (also TWO DDP segments, who wasn't even wrestling yet, also the horrific debut of Oz and most of the card being filled up with dudes on TBS in 1986). And I got to thinking about him and saw this thread and....he was fine. He could be led to solid to pretty good matches with the right opponents. He was a good athlete, always in tip top shape. Not a great promo but also had a gimmick that kind of locked him into something that wasn't going to produce money promos in WCW regardless. I think he was about at the right level of TV/US/IC tier guy who maybe could get a main event once in a blue moon on TV. I think the Marvelous Marc Mero gimmick and look could have lasted a while longer with success in the mid card probably up through the early brand split era. 

This dude had literally zero experience when he debuted in WCW, which is crazy they put so much time into a guy who barely had any training or ring time who wasn't some 7 footer or something.

[IpponDropkick]

I always liked him. Something about a dude who did fun high flying stuff while also boxing was neat. But yeah, way too many headlocks.