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Greatest pro-wrestling debacle


El-P

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AWA Team Challenge Series, actually a decent concept but with poor execution and a constantly shifting roster that made it impossible to follow. Plus a lot of shitty, shitty gimmick matches.

 

I would love to see the WWE try something like that with their roster for two or three months. If they did it right, it could be pretty interesting. At least the rosters would stay intact.

 

Hansen walking out of Denver and Bock being awarded the title was absolutely the worst thing that could have happened to the AWA title in 1986 and really signalled a downturn in the promotion's perception amongst average wrestling fans. It was much worse than Nick getting the title via acclaimation in 1981 since the promotion was doing very well and there was time to get his reign on track after some initial concerns (Bock-Raschke in Minneapolis in June 1981, when Baron was the top face in the promotion, was very poorly attended and set off some serious alarm bells).

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I think my favourite thing about that UK WCW show is the total randomness of a heel Flair/Luger vs. a face Vampiro/Hennig team. I don't remember anything like that actually being on WCW TV, probably because it might actually be entertaining or at least odd enough to be memorable in some small way.

 

For me it's Sting/Hogan '97. I never saw Sting wrestle growing up, so basically Sting was the Silent Man That Stalks Hogan for like the first year I saw WCW and it was the coolest angle ever. They blew it totally. The Fingerpoke of Doom was real bad too but the Sting one bothered me even more personally, I guess just less desensitized to WCW doing dumb things at that point. Thing people forget about the Fingerpoke was WCW giving away Mankind winning the title on the air to try and spoil the WWF's surprise switch, which backfired and cost them a bunch of viewers, many of whom never came back post-Fingerpoke. The more I talk, the more I'm talking myself into saying the Fingerpoke was worse...

 

Along those same lines, the angle where Bicschoff kept calling out Vince McMahon to fight him on some PPV, then having a "match" on the PPV where Vince (obviously) isn't there and Bischoff wins by count out. This was just bizarre. There was several weeks of build to this, grandstand challenges etc with no potential payoff. Even if you were into the angle, you'd switch over to WWF to see if Vince had any response, which of course he didn't. Just ego-driven nonsense that hurt business, though not as full blown a mess up as the above.

 

Back Scorpion in the early 90's was bad, that angle got really messed up and they ran out of outs.

 

FMW did some really bizarre shit when Onita's power dwindled as time went on. Involving porn stars in big angles and whatnot. It didn't do them any favours.

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The several minute long semi-shoot brawl at the end of the Padrisimo event 15 years ago where AAA and CMLL were literally forced to work together by Televisa.

 

Casas running in with soap all over his hair trying to legit unmask Octagon, Rayo de Jalisco Jr. going for Electroshock, guys like Garza (who were friendly with both sides) trying to keep people from fighting each other and older coked up guys like Pierroth, Pirata Morgan or Cobarde looking for a good ol fight with whoever wants it while younger guys like Abismo Negro are trying to get cocky and getting bitch slapped by Porky (who, jokes aside, was a legit badass). Some guys are clearly working and others are clearly shooting. The production crew is probably clued in so they quickly cut left and right but at some points you can see older guys keeping others down using wrestling holds (it used to be customary to train in amateur wrestling for years before you took your first bump). Pierroth is the greatest non-Terry Funk crazy old man ever and brings a fire extinguisher to the fight at the end.

 

It's a very different world right now but then it was the end of an era, and the older guys and the CMLL trained guys had no respect for the crappy workers without a legit background like Electro Shock, Latin Lover, Cibernetico or Abismo Negro (who could be good at times). There was real resentment because the AAA guys with their theatrics were "killing the business". Others were trying to get at Octagon who they resented for raiding CMLL talent in the locker room to start AAA, which would bring a several year business drought in CMLL.

 

A great Memphis style mess.

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I wouldn't call this great, but ECW's handling of New Jack assault on Eric "Mass Transit" Kulas was an all-around fiasco. Even the wikipedia article has a victim-blaming section.

New Jack IS a debacle surely. Like there's no good reason he's not serving serious time. I cant wrap my head around how people ask him to do shoots and chuckle along like he's some comic, dude's vermin

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Pantherwagner, I've never heard of that! Do you have more details and is that available online anywhere?

 

There's not a lot more to the story than what I mentioned, things simply got out of hand. The video is on youtube. Look for AAA El Padrisimo, the brawl is on the last part. I have found two versions and both have horrendous quality but it's still quite the spectacle.

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Bobby Eaton vs. Ric Flair at Clash XV getting cut short due to poor scheduling of the undercard including Dan Spivy and Oz matches. Bobby had been training really hard and really taking his title shot seriously. The match only went 15 minutes, and while it's still a great match, it had the potential to be an all time classic given how good that first fall was. That was Bobby's one and only big headline title shot I believe. Not necessarily a huge debacle on a large scale, but a big bummer.

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aw, I quite like that channel. Th Eddie stuff was horrible. I'd have loved a Rey run on his own merits, but the whole looking up at the sky for the Rumble draw and the terrible acting was just insulting. And I was 13 at the time. When you insult the intelligence of a 13 year old you know it's bad. Then the Khali squash in his hometown just screams 'burial' and that's not a word I like to overuse

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When you're talking about debacles, how about WWE constantly aligning themselves with domestic abusers? First Hunter is still proud of his best pal Floyd Maywether, and the guy who owns the site of the next Wrestlemania just responded to the release of photos showing the beating his player laid on his girlfriend by doubling down and promising to extend his contract.

 

Now that's not to say WWE had anything to do with the issues themselves, but it's a bit troubling when they continue to back the abusers/enablers. It's like the message being sent is they support women's issues for PR purposes but you bitches better keep in line.

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When you're talking about debacles, how about WWE constantly aligning themselves with domestic abusers? First Hunter is still proud of his best pal Floyd Maywether, and the guy who owns the site of the next Wrestlemania just responded to the release of photos showing the beating his player laid on his girlfriend by doubling down and promising to extend his contract.

 

Now that's not to say WWE had anything to do with the issues themselves, but it's a bit troubling when they continue to back the abusers/enablers. It's like the message being sent is they support women's issues for PR purposes but you bitches better keep in line.

 

There is a Pandora's Box there when it comes to people sticking their fingers back at the WWE.

 

Especially the guy on the cover of the most recent video game release. Granted he acknowledged it was wrong, and served his time for it, it is still something that the WWE would get killed on if they did take a stance on such issues.

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Just because the WWE wants to run a Wrestlemania event at one of the premier stadiums in the country doesn't mean they are "enabling" Jerry Jones on the Greg Hardy matter. It means they want to make a boatload of money knowing a lot of people will go to Jerryworld to see the show. Otherwise the WWE might as well only run events out of bingo halls instead of Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara because they had guys like Ray McDonald and Ahmad Brooks and others suit up for the Niners. Nor can they go to Lucas Oil Stadium because the owner of the team that plays there had drug and DUI problems. You can go on with a lot of the other stadiums. This is a really idiotic thing to charge the WWE with such criticism.

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