Your Wrestling Pet Peeves/Utter Hatreds

[Loss]

I will admit that the one thing that really amused me in old guy DX was the running gag of finding ways to get Shawn out of the skit when something vulgar was about to happen.

[pantherwagner]

HHH was never cool. Even in the 1998 DX. Road Dogg and X-Pac were cool. HHH and Gunn were not.

 

Was X-Pac ever considered cool?

 

I thought that Road Dogg's intro was quite funny until it became old, and I was pissed off that the shitty Armstrong is the one that became a famous star.

[El-P]

I was pissed off that the shitty Armstrong is the one that became a famous star.

 

Scott did ?

[goc]

 

I was pissed off that the shitty Armstrong is the one that became a famous star.

 

Scott did ?

 

Aww come on, Steve is the shitty one. He was nothing without Tracy Smothers propping him up.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

People who throw replica briefcases at wrestlers.

[Mad Dog]

 

 

HHH was never cool. Even in the 1998 DX. Road Dogg and X-Pac were cool. HHH and Gunn were not.

Was X-Pac ever considered cool?

 

I thought that Road Dogg's intro was quite funny until it became old, and I was pissed off that the shitty Armstrong is the one that became a famous star.

Relative to HHH and Gunn. He was kind of like the little dog from Looney Tunes that followed the big dog around.

[JaymeFuture]

It says something when you question whether HHH is cooler than the guy with lips on his ass that moons the fans.

[El-P]

I remember it.

 

THE KING OF ROCK WHO

THE KING OF ROCK WHAT

 

It was bad.

 

Oh man. Kinda sad indeed.

[Bierschwale]

K-Kwik was not cooler than Triple H, but that's because he barely existed. At Ron Killings's peak in the company, though? Absolutely more over.

 

HHH was also the fifth-coolest man on the DX New-Gen team from Survivor Series '06, of course. In that match as a whole I'd say that his peak overness as an individual was 9th of 10 (Punk, Michaels, Jeff, Matt, Edge, Helms, Nitro, Orton, HHH, Knox). Kelly and Melina were also more over so 11 out of 12 for people at the ring.

 

Take Team HHH from 2007 as an extension of Team DX and add Rey to push Trips to #6. Kane definitely was more over at his peak, too.

 

You can keep working this jag with HHH-led SS teams. Add the heel team from '04 and you get Batista. Snitsky was never REALLY more over, even if the babypunt is an all-time great moment.

 

He wasn't the leader in 1996 but obviously Goldust and Lawler were more over. Crush and HHH are basically a push. And with Team Authority, you get Henry and Rusev without qualification. Jury's out on Harper and Rollins as singles acts (I'd say that HHH actually IS more over than post-Shield Rollins at this point in time but that's with Rollins to HHH as Rockabilly was to HTM so I don't think that it's fair to judge Rollins at this point in time).

 

So Trips is, at best, 12th on his all-time Survivor Series teams.

[JerryvonKramer]

To be fair, Run DMC was a neat call back to Wrestlemania 5.

[Jingus]

I will admit that the one thing that really amused me in old guy DX was the running gag of finding ways to get Shawn out of the skit when something vulgar was about to happen.

Oh yeah, that was always hilarious. "Hey Shawn, look, isn't that Mr. Fuji over there?" Or Shawn groaning and covering his eyes when Trips pulled him into the women's locker room, etcetera.

 

HHH was also the fifth-coolest man on the DX New-Gen team from Survivor Series '06, of course. In that match as a whole I'd say that his peak overness as an individual was 9th of 10 (Punk, Michaels, Jeff, Matt, Edge, Helms, Nitro, Orton, HHH, Knox). Kelly and Melina were also more over so 11 out of 12 for people at the ring.

The funniest moment of that match did belong to HHH... it was the look on his face when the crowd was unleashing nigh-deafening "CM PUNK!" chants. (The second-funniest was Shawn instantly pinning Mike Knox and then asking his teammates "...who was that guy? Was he in the match?")

 

 

I'm with the guys who was actually entertained by Michaels as the sad old guy at the teen party, who knows he's totally out of place but still can't leave. (During the times when he wasn't sabotaged by being forced to make a bunch of dick jokes with Trips, anyway.) Shawn sold his material as being the tired old man who barely even wanted to be here, but didn't know what else to do.

 

Like, that one time when Boogeyman pulled him under the ring (which Shawn sold with the classic "Undertaker is slooowly dragging me into the casket!" act), and the punchline was him coming back into the ring with a mouthful of worms. Most top guys wouldn't even agree to do that in the first place; but practically nobody would've undersold it like Shawn did. The natural instinct would be to be frantically wiping at his mouth, fake vomiting, and generally overacting like Chris Farley on the night when the coke was very pure indeed. Instead, Shawn projected fatigue, stoic helplessness at the gross fate he'd been subjected to. He just climbed back into the ring, worms dangling from his lips, and blankly stared at Triple H like "why me?!". Little unique moments of effort and character-based humor can help sell anything, even something as fucking nasty and pointless as a shitty worm-eating gimmick.

 

There were plenty of other times when Michaels was bringing his desperation and insecurity to the forefront of the character. The semi-legendary "See, I just kicked Stan!" backstage vignette is one popular meme, in a moment where the whole point of the character is that he knows full well that he's no longer the young hellraiser of the company, and is willing to do any damn dumb thing to relive his old glory for even the briefest moments. At other times, he'd give up and sink into the resignation of being the fuddy-duddy who's too marginalized to even be considered an elder statesman, when he mock-ruined one of DX's "openly shill merchandise for Christmas" skits/commercials by going into a tantrum over his ungrateful kids being spoiled brats during the holidays.

 

 

HOWever, all that other stuff classified as Everything Triple-H EVER Did In DX-2.0 can fuck right off. Terrible shit, especially with a whole bunch of "LOLfaggot!" gay jokes which were never funny even in '98 but were something you really shouldn't even be trying in '06.

[LariatMMBOPPO]

Integender wrestling, mainly in the United States. It's not even a violence against women issue, it's just stupid watching a 100lb woman having a competitve match with guys that usually have at least 80lbs on them. With someone like Rey, he was springboarding all over the place and chopping his opponents down. Male vs female matches tend to fall under the Jericho trope of wrestling your opponents style. It's stupid to see Mia Yim suplexing a big fat guy like Greg Excellent.

#intergender

[Mad Dog]

I agree on intergender. If it's not Sara Del Ray then I'm hitting skip.

[El-P]

#intergender

 

Beyond the legitimacy issue which has been adressed and with which I totally agree, this gif does scream "violence against women" too, and although it's not obvious when they are just bouncing off each other doing lucha spots (it does expose the whole style though), it can quickly be a real issue with me.

 

Oh, and fuck the Young Bucks.

[Mad Dog]

The worst are the matches where they just have to slow it down to nothing. Chikara tries pushing Heidi Lovelace and the matches just suck. The guys have to slow it down to nothing for her and loon stupid and nothing in the match looks good. I also make a point of not watching anything with Candice LeRae in it.

[pantherwagner]

I agree on intergender. If it's not Sara Del Ray then I'm hitting skip.

 

Or the Apaches!

[goc]

The worst are the matches where they just have to slow it down to nothing. Chikara tries pushing Heidi Lovelace and the matches just suck. The guys have to slow it down to nothing for her and loon stupid and nothing in the match looks good. I also make a point of not watching anything with Candice LeRae in it.

I reviewed that WrestleCon show in the Modern Indies thread probably about 2 months ago and skipped right over the tag match that had Joey Ryan & Candice. I'm also in the "I don't like intergender wrestling" camp.

[MJH]

As I said originally, my suggestion for having Charlotte wrestle Neville, for instance, is simply so she can be in the ring with someone who, from a technical POV, is far better than any of the women, and have to learn to keep up, thus improving her mechanics. Even in the better NXT women matches, you put Sasha/Charlotte side-by-side with Neville/Finn, there's a massive difference in how well they're hitting their stuff. Obviously that also comes down to experience as well, but my point all along is that, for the women to get where they want them to, they have to be as good as the best guys in the company, i.e. Bryan, Cesaro, etc, especially from a technical POV because the audience has been conditioned for so long to expect the divas to be sloppy as shit and they're not gonna get there working each other.

[FJBR]

I liked the Joey/Candice vs Bucks gurilla warfare match, but even then it's not like it was particularly good wrestling, it was pretty much just a deathmatch with some fun spots, lots of blood, and a crowd which was really behind the payoff and the story.

 

As far as peeves, I don't think I hate anything more than mat wrestling/fish out of water spots at the start of the match which lead to nothing and mean nothing, just for the sake of doing them. Modern NJPW does it a lot, and every time it makes me groan. What's the point? I can understand mat wrestling done for a reason, but Okada doing some transitions with no real authority or sense that he's doing anything is just time wasting.

[El-P]

Or the Apaches!

 

Oh, I remember the Apaches working not only intergender matches, but father vs daughters stuff in ARSION, and it was actually enjoyable because it never got ridiculous. Are the Apaches sisters as cool now as they were 15 years ago ? They weren't very good in 98, but by 00 both Mari and Fabi were kicking ass.

[BillThompson]

As I said originally, my suggestion for having Charlotte wrestle Neville, for instance, is simply so she can be in the ring with someone who, from a technical POV, is far better than any of the women, and have to learn to keep up, thus improving her mechanics. Even in the better NXT women matches, you put Sasha/Charlotte side-by-side with Neville/Finn, there's a massive difference in how well they're hitting their stuff. Obviously that also comes down to experience as well, but my point all along is that, for the women to get where they want them to, they have to be as good as the best guys in the company, i.e. Bryan, Cesaro, etc, especially from a technical POV because the audience has been conditioned for so long to expect the divas to be sloppy as shit and they're not gonna get there working each other.

 

Yeah, I'll take Banks over either Neville or Balor both technically and when it comes to hitting their moves.

 

Anyways, don't have any issue with intergender. It's just another gimmick in wrestling is all. Accordingly some matches are good, some are bad. And someone like Heidi Lovelace is an example of how great the intergender gimmick can be because her bumping is off the charts and really gets across the idea of a size/strength difference being present.

[MJH]

Firstly, on the subject of inter-gender matches: domestic violence (both ways, it needs to be said) is fair game theatrically, and I'm sure we can all name films, plays, novels, etc, where the subject matter is used effectively. There's no reason, hypothetically, that it can't work in wrestling, but it would take a maturity amongst the writing staff that simply isn't there.

 

Secondly, Bill, if you think Sasha is in the same stratosphere as Neville or Finn technically you're out of your mind. I get preferring her as an act (she's a better character, certainly, and I'm no particular fan of either of those guys as overall professional wrestlers), but those guys are crisp as anything; she simply isn't at their level when it comes to actual technique. Neville in particular, for all the negatives one could toss his way, is unreal-crisp.

[sek69]

I liked DX all the way up until they got the music, so not very long. I really loved them pre-Montreal in 1997, if only because Shawn Michaels at that stage was probably the most viscerally hated heel in the history of the company. So many moments, but that promo where he has the Canadian flags tucked in his shorts is pretty wild.

 

Funny enough, I was reading the 1997 WONs leading up to Montreal and apparently the skit where Shawn was showing his bare ass while Chyna and HHH were trying-but-not-really to cover it with signs was the straw that broke the camel's back and made Bret decide to sign with WCW.

[BillThompson]

Secondly, Bill, if you think Sasha is in the same stratosphere as Neville or Finn technically you're out of your mind. I get preferring her as an act (she's a better character, certainly, and I'm no particular fan of either of those guys as overall professional wrestlers), but those guys are crisp as anything; she simply isn't at their level when it comes to actual technique. Neville in particular, for all the negatives one could toss his way, is unreal-crisp.

 

I think she's easily just as technically proficient and crisp as either one of them, yes. There really isn't anything special about either Balor or Neville when it comes to crispness or technique though, so it's not really saying all that much to say she's better than them.

[Jingus]

Sloppiness in American women's wrestling has nothing whatsoever to do with differences between male and female biologies. Even the most casual viewing of a few high-end Joshi matches shows that women are absolutely capable of doing pretty much everything just as well as any man can, in physical terms.

 

The problem is the manner in which female wrestlers are treated in America, and the weird expectations that the wrestling business has for its women. Simply put, like most American media, the vast majority of female celebrities in wrestling are required to be cute in conventional terms. There are some exceptions like Kong, but overall any female wrestler who gets lots of work is more likely to look like a Bella twin. If a woman is "too muscular", that's treated as a profound negative; they're expected to usually be pretty skinny and petite. Yet they're expected to perform the same maneuvers, in the same ring, which are typically designed for really tall really muscular men. Of course they're going to look like fools, when they're trying to run the ropes in a ring where the top rope is high enough to hit them in the back of the neck.

 

 

And as someone else mentioned, the "they're just chicks, they don't matter" attitude within the industry is still REALLY strong in many quarters. All too often, the bosses don't even want them to try hard or improve their game. I've seen promo-shooting marathons for local TV where the booker works exhaustively with the men, making them do take after take to get their talking as good as humanly possible; but when it was time for the women to talk, the same booker would go "that's fine, next!" after the first (horrible) take.

 

The WWE sends the same basic message when the Divas rarely get worthwhile ring time, with half the roster working two-minute matches and the other half not even wrestling on TV at all. Fit Finlay and Sara Del Rey can train all the girls as hard as they want, but you're not gonna get better when you're a greenhorn who is stuck working a part-time schedule against the same mini-roster of equally-green opponents. The company clearly spends more time and effort prepping them for bikini photo shoots and their shitty reality show than they ever spend on trying to make much of their female workrate look as good as your average curtain-jerking match on any Shimmer show.

 

 

And, "it's not believable for a 100-pound girl to beat up a full-sized man"? Uh, why not try and book more girls who weigh more than a hundred damn pounds? Chyna might've been a shitty worker, but nobody in the crowd ever had any problem "suspending their disbelief" when she was going toe-to-toe with men the same size as her. (And besides, it's fake, and none of the marks ever seemed to have difficulty believing guys from Shawn Michaels to Spike Dudley to Jushin Liger when they went over much larger opponents.)