Overdone Pushes That Annoyed You

[JaymeFuture]

For this week's podcast we're taking a look at examples throughout history where certain guys were pushed far beyond their limitations, and want to know about those particular instances that actually annoyed you as a viewer and why. This can manifest itself as:

 

a) A terrible wrestler you couldn't stand getting a spot they shouldn't have.

 

An acceptable midcard act being ruined by being spotlighted too much.

 

c) A badly executed push for a talented guy.

 

Either way, what is an example of a really aggressive promotional push you couldn't stand, and why did it annoy you? As always we'll be reading the best examples on the show (which will be up this weekend) and crediting you accordingly. So what's your pick?

 

EDIT - The show discussing your candidates for overdone pushes is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/qtizxc/SCGRadio44-OverdonePushes.mp3

[PeteF3]

To me this begins and ends with a fairly obvious but unavoidable pick: WCW's #1 heel going from Ric Flair to Brother Bruti. So horrid on so many levels that it scarcely needs explaining. Beefcake was never a *great* worker but you can at least understand why he earned his babyface push in the late '80s. In 1994 he had nothing at all going for him other than being Hogan's pal.

[Loss]

HHH in 1999 wasn't as nauseating as I remembered when I rewatched the stuff last summer, but he was still pushed far beyond the level at which he was over. I would say the same for just about every Jeff Jarrett heel run in the WWF and WCW, and Jarrett is a worker I like. But he was always pushed at a level beyond where I thought he should have been and he pandered for heat so much as a heel that it was a turn-off.

 

I'd also like to mention Adam Rose here, not so much as someone overpushed but someone who I think fell off the deep end through no real fault of his own. He had some great vignettes hyping his debut, then he debuted and actually got a decent reaction. However, for reasons probably having to do with HHH-Kevin Dunn politics, the line became that his debut somehow bombed miserably (even though fans were singing along with his theme and everything) and he's never really recovered from that.

 

Others:

- Dino Bravo in 1989-1990, which was always implied had something to do with his mafia connections

- The quintessential WCW undercard guys who were kept around forever for reasons I don't understand, like Bagwell, Van Hammer, and others (Some would put Johnny B. Badd in this category, but I wouldn't. DDP is probably in this group pre-1995)

- Lex Express - The guy is so naturally smug and standoffish, and he was completely miscast in this role when he could have had a really great heel run

- Scott Steiner in 1999-2000 (Sorry, not a fan, although I get why some liked him)

- Big Show and Kane in this decade (I don't think either guy is horrible in the ring, but they are the types where lapsed fans who turned out will flip channels, see them on TV and think it's same-old, same-old and not bother to stop and watch)

- Curt Hennig in WCW was living off his name and was too featured despite a few isolated good matches

- Kevin Nash in 1999-2000 WCW

 

Somewhat related, I think there are guys who had value but who Vince always overprotected who weren't necessarily his biggest cash cows, but were his personal favorites. To me, those three guys are HHH, Shawn Michaels and Undertaker, who were always more protected than Steve Austin, The Rock and Bret Hart.

[KrisZ]

Mike Von Erich

[SomethingSavage]

Jeff Jarrett in Russo's WCW. Ask me a thousand times & that's probably my answer 9 hundred and 99 times.

 

I could understand giving him a singular run as the "Chosen One" or whatever - to help get across the idea of the Powers That Be or even later with Russo & Bischoff. Double J could be a temporary, transitional heel that played up the Honky Tonk role at a higher spot on the card for a few months. But mygoddamngod. They played that card with every hand they'd deal. It was just overkill.

 

Couple that with, as Loss said, the way Jarrett tried to go about getting heat. He was dripping with desperation. The "Slapnuts" catchphrase was as corny as anything I'd ever heard, even at the time. I've seen posts on message boards since that have tried to lay claim that the phrase itself "got over" and found its way into everyday slang. Well, not in my neck of the woods. And I live in the south. Never once heard anyone use "Slapnuts" in casual conversation.

Maybe that was the point. It was stupid for the sake of being stupid. Cause, ya know, Jarrett's a stupid heel. But he just never fit or functioned as a long-term main event player. And he was their pet project - soaking up the spotlight - for so long. It was just a huge turn-off in itself, at a time when the WCW product REALLY needed to stray away from anything like that. They couldn't afford to be making major mistakes, and there they were. Pushing Jeff fucking Jarrett like this great world beater with his secret weapon of mass destruction, Mjolnir the great guitar or whateverthefuck.

 

And this is coming from someone that REALLY enjoyed the hell out of Jarrett as a fiery southern babyface. His stuff in the USWA was incredibly entertaining in its time. Hell, he even worked a crazy fun match as an underdog borderline babyface against the Giant in his first run with WCW - in the Fall of '96 or '97, I believe.

 

Plus, hey. He actually went on to become a halfway tolerable heel in TNA. I actually didn't mind the Planet Jarrett stuff nearly as much, but it seemed to be booked better & had a way of leaving you with a feeling that they had something planned down the road. It felt like they were using Jarrett as the placeholder & the temporary band-aid until the company could come up with their rightful "successor" in AJ Styles or Monty Brown or someone. So there was this sense of hope that you just didn't get with the WCW time period. Jarrett kind of found a way to raise his game with all the fun brawls & added "dog and pony" stuff, too. He made up for what he lacked with Gail Kim, AMW, etc. for awhile in TNA.

 

But Christ on crutches. That main event run in WCW's darkest days was absolute trash. I've given it a rewatch in recent years, and it still stands up as the stuff nightmares are made of. Honestly. Any of us that dare to relive it deserve an honorary medal. I'd rather crawl & crab-walk through a dozen dirty dumpster fires than relive it for a third time. Just terrible.

[Badlittlekitten]

Seth Rollins run as the honky tonk champion has turned me and others I know off the product. While he no longer Daffy Ducks his way through promos they're still overlong and boring. I can see the HHH comparisons although at least Trips looked the business.

 

To be fair I'd put him in the b and c categories.

 

Nobody's going to convince me his heel turn wasn't - at best - a monumentally stupid decision. He's dull as fuck as an in ring heel. He needs a Jeff Hardy style repackaging quick time.

[Alucard]

AJ Lee. Got absolutely sick of her being all over TV on every show, getting thrown in with all the top guys at different times.. Bryan, Punk, Cena. Shoving her into the GM Role to get even more unneeded TV time. And that was all before taking over the entire divas division for 2 years. Never enjoyed her in any role. Terrible and unbearable.

[jdw]

At the time, Dustin's push when he and Dusty came to WCW in 1991 annoyed the hell out of me. Booker's Son, at a time when Dusty was one of the Anti-Flair's and Ric ended up leaving WCW that year... just annoying. Not a big fan of nepotism in general, and seeing it coming from Dusty pissed off the Flair Fan in me.

 

In hindsight, Dustin busted his ass to become a good worker.

 

I would have preferred if had gotten to WCW earlier while his dad was in the WWF and gotten pushed as Dusty's Son rather than Dusty being the one to push him. But it doesn't take away from the fact that a good deal of the Dustin's work in that pre-WCW-Hogan Era ages well. I've always loved and pimped the Austin & Larry vs Barry & Dustin match, and it's hardly the only one that rocks.

[JerryvonKramer]

- Dino Bravo in 1989-1990, which was always implied had something to do with his mafia connections

Wasn't he basically there to draw in Canada?

[thebrainfollower]

Stephanie McMahon annoys me in any version but her Smackdown GM mode was particularly cringe inducing.

 

RIck Steiner's pushes in WCW 1999 at the expense of better workers.

 

Chyna basically destroying the entire women's division to such an extent that it took six months before she was gone to have much of a reboot.

[DMJ]

Billy Gunn in 1999. I'm not going to argue that winning the Intercontinental Championship or the King of the Ring at that time was still really meaningful, but Gunn's string of victories as a singles star that year just came across as such as an obvious attempt to get him over outside of DX and the New Age Outlaw team that I don't think ANYBODY, even the biggest DX supporters, were really rallying for.

 

I won't go as far as to say he didn't deserve it - the guy put in his time and certainly deserved a chance based on the success of the Outlaws, his look, and his in-ring skill, which I don't remember loving but certainly wasn't offensive. Still, the push annoyed me because it was so forced and inorganic.

 

 

Any time Prince Albert or Test was pushed too.

[sek69]

 

- Dino Bravo in 1989-1990, which was always implied had something to do with his mafia connections

Wasn't he basically there to draw in Canada?

 

 

 

I figured it was just because he was the exact type of musclehead that Vince couldn't wait to push in the 80s.

[Dooley]

 

 

- Dino Bravo in 1989-1990, which was always implied had something to do with his mafia connections

Wasn't he basically there to draw in Canada?

 

 

 

I figured it was just because he was the exact type of musclehead that Vince couldn't wait to push in the 80s.

 

 

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one.

[C.S.]

Brock Lesnar

 

An Undertaker-like special attraction...great. A World Champ holding the belt hostage...not so hot.

[Johnny Guitar]

Justin Credible.

 

Everyone deserves a second chance and he wasn't the worst wrestler ever like people portray him as. But he had the stigma of a jobber who was repackaged all over him and didn't have the rep of guys like Candido, Snow or Lynn that were given lame gimmicks and got the shaft by the big two before being "reborn" in ECW.

 

To make matters worse there was always more deserving guys that the hardcore fans could point to that we're more deserving of his spot. When Heyman brought him in, in 1997, guys like Reckless Youth, Devon Storm and Ace Darling were the Indy darlings that people wanted too see get their dues.

 

When he finally got his big world title push. He wasn't even the best heel in the company. Tajiri and Corino, who were still a team and had him lapped by a country mile on ring and character work.

[Bierschwale]

Stephanie McMahon annoys me in any version but her Smackdown GM mode was particularly cringe inducing.

 

I have fond memories for that era of Steph as a character.

[Dylan Waco]

To me the answer to this is Justin Credible. The guy was not a bad worker at all. In fact he tried really hard in ECW, almost never half assed it, and had good matches. But he never had great matches, and his whole push came across as a desperate attempt by Paul Heyman to prove that he could get any big league castoff over if he got behind him. While ECW houses were still strong with Credible on top, I don't think the promotion ever recovered the mystique it had before his push as champ. The way the title win was done was especially bad, as it came across as a big "fuck you" to the most loyal fans who had years invested in the product up to that point. In my own personal circle of friends there were a half dozen or so people who completely gave up on ECW because of Credible's run as champ, and they were huge ECW fans at that point. I feel bad because Credible was not a bad performer, but he was horribly miscast and overpushed by Heyman.

[C.S.]

I don't know... Credible didn't seem like a bad idea until it happened. Then, immediately after the fact, it was obvious it just didn't work. But before that, he was fairly popular and - sorry - credible.

[Dylan Waco]

I can only speak from my experience at the time. I didn't like it, but the other people I was around absolutely hated it. A few weeks into Credible's run as champ my entire group of ECW friends that I had watched ECW with for years at that point vanished completely. This is not an exaggeration. They were all gone, and all cited Credible's title run as the reason.

[C.S.]

I can only speak from my experience at the time. I didn't like it, but the other people I was around absolutely hated it. A few weeks into Credible's run as champ my entire group of ECW friends that I had watched ECW with for years at that point vanished completely. This is not an exaggeration. They were all gone, and all cited Credible's title run as the reason.

 

Don't get me wrong: I didn't like it either, but I can see why it might have seemed like a good idea before it happened. Credible was fairly well-liked by the fans (both people I knew and the internet in general), from what I remember. But the minute he won the title, it was obvious what a monumental mistake it was.

[WingedEagle]

Credible is not at all a bad pick. I remember loving the name, loving the the first appearance or 2 and then...the bottom fell out. There was nothing remotely ECW or credible about him.

[Mad Dog]

I remembered being really annoyed by the Road Dogg and X-Pac tag team in 2000. You had all these interesting and newer tag teams and it felt like Road Dogg and X-Pac were beating them all. I remember being pissed when they beat the Dudleys at King of the Ring that year.

 

It probably wasn't as bad as I remember though. I think I was just tired of them at that point in time.

[SomethingSavage]

I agree that there's a strong case to be made for Credible, and he might actually be my pick for runner-up to Jarrett. But I don't know. He looks like a surefire winner on the surface, but there's just too much about the Jarrett 2000 push that pulls it ahead of the pack for me.

 

Jarrett had the weakest finisher - perhaps of all time - in his arsenal. No way did the "Stroke" ever merit a spot as a main event level finishing maneuver. It's just terrible. And, even if the execution is RIGHT ON POINT, it still looks atrocious and lame. Credible was at least busting out spinning & jumping Tombstone Piledrivers to put away his challengers. Advantage: Credible in my book.

 

Jarrett's title defenses consisted of Kevin Nash and Diamond Dallas Page - both of whom had cooled WAY off by then - along with David Arquette. Oh and Ric Flair. Not the robe-wearing "Nature Boy" Flair for the Gold championship mode Ric Flair though. I'm talking Ric Flair, dressed in fucking slacks & a Hawaiian shirt, like he's just come from the hotel and figured, "What the hell? I'll go for the Big Gold belt while I'm out of the house."

 

Credible's Three Way Dance elimination matches and the like at least felt like actual main events. Sure. They were dressed up with the dog & pony act that Raven had run through previously, but - even as a Xerox copy of that shtick - it felt right at home with what ECW was doing.

 

Credible's title defenses were given time. They were given the spotlight. There was bloodshed. There was plunder. There was the usual garbage spots & interference you'd expect. Maybe Credible himself was out of place in the setting, but if you had switched him out with another heel that WAS viewed as "acceptable" in those main events? Then nobody would think twice about it. At least a concentrated effort was being made to elevate Credible up to that level along the way, even if it didn't stick.

 

Justin Credible clearly lacked the credibility to warrant his push at that time. I'm not disagreeing with that. But at least he had some good matches along the way. Jarrett in 2000 WCW lacked BOTH the credibility AND the matches.

One could even argue - at least in theory - that Jarrett's position should be held to a higher accountability, considering where WCW was just a year and a half prior. The fact that Credible's push happened in ECW is one thing. The fact that Jarrett's push happened in "the #2 promotion" is just insane.

[Laz]

While I'm one of the rare few who didn't mind Credible's run (and thoroughly enjoyed the Impact Players and the brief Dreamer feud over the title), I can't argue for him. Balls may have even been a better choice as champ than him.

[grapplin' apple]

Eugene's push in the summer of 2004. I think Dinsmore was a decent wrestler, but I hated that gimmick.