Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4

[Flyin' Brian]

Before my time, but pretty neat that Crockett had a live studio show in Roanoke, VA about an hour away from me at one point. Masked Men, Good Guys, and Heels: Wrestling at WDBJ (retroroanoke.com)

[JRH]

Not only does Randy Orton have the longest tenure for an active wrestler in WWE (not counting guys like Cody who left and came back), but he's also the only one who was there when it was WWF (he had some house show matches in 2001-02 before debuting on tv).

[JRH]

Just found out something interesting on the OVP podcast. On March 1, 1986, you had WWF Championship Wrestling, WWF All-Star (in certain markets), WWF Superstars (not the one you're familiar with, this was the c-show, and again, in certain markets), the Slammy Awards. and SNME. Add in all the Saturday shows from other companies, and you've got the most wrestling (or wrestling-related in the case of the Slammys) on  one day of tv ever (or at least at that time).

[strobogo]

And thus began @El-P's FOMO syndrome 

[MLB]

On 9/22/2023 at 2:26 PM, Cien Caras said:

Billy Jack Haynes in 1995 USWA was fucking terrifying.

Dude, I live in Oregon...this whole state is full of terrifying psychopaths like BJH and Matt Borne. Psycho and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were both set in Oregon. 

[El-P]

On 10/8/2023 at 11:13 PM, strobogo said:

And thus began @El-P's FOMO syndrome 

I'm old, but not THAT old.

I think that came from years of doing integral watches of WCW, ECW, SMW and then TNA in the 2010's.

[El Boricua]

For anyone interested, over at Segunda Caida I've been working with Matt D on a weekly (or so) column taking a look at Puerto Rican wrestling starting around late summer of 1989. It's called El Deporte de las Mil Emociones.

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/search/label/El Deporte de las Mil Emociones

 

[Timbo Slice]

I’m stoked you’re doing that project! 

[Dooley]

On 9/17/2023 at 9:01 PM, strobogo said:

In terms of quality and entertainment value, Hollywood Hogan's run is the worst main event run of all time.

The worst promos

The worst matches

The worst angles

 

I'm not sure there is even a decent Hollywood Hogan singles match in the WCW run. Any angles or promos that are any good are because of the other person involved, not him. Anything that requires "acting" is so bad. The absolute most groan and ugh worthy person on the entire WCW roster anytime he appears on screen in any capacity in 1996-1998. It's somehow even worse than the 1995-pre turn 1996 run, which is also absolutely dreadful.

 

Maybe not your cup of tea, but sheer numbers suggest you're in the minority on that one. He was the hottest heel in the business for 2 solid years.

And you may be genuinely the first one to put forth the take that 95 face Hogan > 96 heel Hogan.

[strobogo]

5 hours ago, Dooley said:

Maybe not your cup of tea, but sheer numbers suggest you're in the minority on that one. He was the hottest heel in the business for 2 solid years.

And you may be genuinely the first one to put forth the take that 95 face Hogan > 96 heel Hogan.

I'm not talking about the numbers. I'm talking about the actual quality of what he was doing. Just absolute dogshit angles, promos, and matches the entire run.

[Dooley]

2 hours ago, strobogo said:

I'm not talking about the numbers. I'm talking about the actual quality of what he was doing. Just absolute dogshit angles, promos, and matches the entire run.

Well doesn't it stand to reason that if it drew those numbers people other than yourself were digging it?

There hasn't even been an argument presented other than "it was bad".

The 95 vs 96 comparison especially threw me. You really prefer Hogan vs the Dungeon of Doom to the NWO?

"Ahhh! It's not hot!"

[pmo]

Yeah heel Hogan was initially good.  It was so refreshing NWO was over.  The work rate was lousy and Hogan didn’t help himself by wrestling like a cowardly Memphis heel instead of like a monster that his size and track record dictates.  But the Piper feud was quite good.  The issues, which are well known is that it started today in 97 with Sting thing being dragged out way too long trying to make Starrcade into WM.  I still think if they blew the Sting off at the Bash with him taking the title off and transitioning into the Wolfpack vs rest of NWO for the fall would have kept it fresh.  But they dragged it out and it got staler and staler.  So 96 into early 97 was good and it went downhill from there.

[Ricky Jackson]

The novelty of Hogan finally going heel + big WWF stars joining WCW + a cool gang vibe = the feeling wrestling was at last moving away from kid friendly, inoffensive presentation and was generating a buzz for the first time in forever. With all that in the air, and how fun it was to follow week to week, I didn't really think too much about Hogan's technical heel performance, other than from a Kayfabe perspective it was illogical he suddenly went from invincible Superman to cowardly wimp overnight simply because he was now a bad guy. But I guess it's not really suprising to find heel Hogan lacking because lot of the 90s boom stuff doesn't hold up watching in a vaccum 

[strobogo]

 

1 hour ago, Dooley said:

Well doesn't it stand to reason that if it drew those numbers people other than yourself were digging it?

There hasn't even been an argument presented other than "it was bad".

The 95 vs 96 comparison especially threw me. You really prefer Hogan vs the Dungeon of Doom to the NWO?

"Ahhh! It's not hot!"

Yeah what other argument do you need when I'm saying it was dogshit? Do you need specific promos and matches that fucking sucked? 

Outside of the original turn and post turn promo, everything involving Hogan fucking sucked. Hall and Nash were doing ALL the heavy lifting and making the nWo seem hip and fresh. Hogan was just full blown cartoon bad guy that went totally against what the whole point and vibe of the nWo was supposed to be. And the longer it went on, as the chopped up promos gave way to in ring promos, Hogan became more and more exposed as the lamest fucking old dude who would just talk/yell until his voice went out every week hyping himself up and not even pushing angles most of the time.

In ring, every TV match is a complete waste of time with him doing chokes and eye/back rakes for a few minutes before a DQ. PPV matches are pretty much the same but twice as long and Hogan taking a few more slow motion bumps and selling like a parody of Ric Flair. Any time he drops a fall it is immediately over shadowed with a nWo beatdown and he gets his win back while still being all over TV. Guy "puts Goldberg over" after controlling Goldberg far more than anyone had ever done before in Goldberg's longest match to date and them main events the next two PPVs with celebs doing all the mainstream media shit, his angle dominates the War Games build and match, and his match with Warrior dominates the build for Halloween Havoc despite the Goldberg/DDP match being the main event. 

[MoS]

You guys are having a really great debate, and I do not want to interrupt it, but I have to - both my heart and my brain have left me with no choice!! INDIA BEAT PAKISTAN IN THE CRICKET WORLD CUP, BITCHES!!!!!! FUCK YEAH!

[KawadaSmile]

You think that with the inclusion of Cricket in the following Olympic Games, India has a chance to bring the gold medal home?

[MoS]

Oh easily. The only question is scheduling. The international and high-level professional cricket calender is *packed*. It might be very well that despite the prestige of the Olympics, in order to make sure the players are fit and ready for the non-Olympic commitments, the national boards for cricket and even the Association of Players (in countries where they exist) might try to downplay the Olympics a bit. 

India has the depth to send their D squad to the Olympics and genuinely expect them to win. But most countries do not. Will be interesting to see how they balance Olympics aspirations with the reality of the modern international cricket schedule, and how Olympic aspirations for Indian cricketers (and really, players from many other countries too) generally fit into their desires to win more in elite-level professional cricket, as is required from every professional cricket player, ESPECIALLY Indian cricketers just due to the sheer pressure, spotlight, and the neverending, strict, sometimes cruel and sometimes just gross reactions they have to face. 

India can and will bring the Olympic gold home,, but the question would be: would that be worth it, if the fatigue from the tournament prevent them winning historically established, more financially viable trophies?

[El-P]

Fuck Paris 2024, a tool to instore even more illiberal surveillance tools "as an experiment". Students are gonna be kicked out of their studios during the games because they need place for the people who work (for free) for the organization, homeless people are gonna be kicked out of the center of Paris, traditionnal book-sellers are gonna be kicked off their spots alongside the Seine. Fuck this pathetic flag waving demonstration of the pseudo "values of sports", fuck Macron, fuck Darmanin. Fuck Paris 2024 and fuck the Olympics in general. Fuck de Coubertin who was a simp for the Nazis and their Berlin games. Fuck Paris 2024, another step in the way of France becoming a police state, served on a plater to eventually become a fascist state in 2027. PARIS 2024, GET FUCKED. 

Ok, got that out of my system. Back to PWO ! 

[Dooley]

That was a nice interruption, back to our regularly scheduled programming

 

8 hours ago, Ricky Jackson said:

The novelty of Hogan finally going heel + big WWF stars joining WCW + a cool gang vibe = the feeling wrestling was at last moving away from kid friendly, inoffensive presentation and was generating a buzz for the first time in forever. With all that in the air, and how fun it was to follow week to week, I didn't really think too much about Hogan's technical heel performance, other than from a Kayfabe perspective it was illogical he suddenly went from invincible Superman to cowardly wimp overnight simply because he was now a bad guy. But I guess it's not really suprising to find heel Hogan lacking because lot of the 90s boom stuff doesn't hold up watching in a vaccum 

I completely co-sign the first part of your post. I think some people may forget how stale both the big 2 were in 1995. Hogan going heel and aligning with the 2 former WWF stars really did make Nitro destination programming. Many things that were happening were creative and unique to the presentation and watching the ultimate do-gooder babyface Hogan shitting all over the rest of the world was an undeniable hook.

On his ring psychology, the transformation from Superman babyface to chickenshit heel was giving the WCW audience what they had desperately wanted since 1994: license to hate him. While Hulkamania definitely drew more eyeballs to WCW than the early 90's doldrums, I think everyone is in agreement that it wasn't what made WCW hardcore fans tick. The more they tried, the more the pushback. By completely removing everything redeemable about Hogan, it gave the WCW audience the license to completely hate him and generate nuclear heel heat that hadn't been seen in a long time before that.

A decent comparable would be Cactus Jack's heel run in 95 where he went full anti-hardcore, going for namby-pamby promos and insisting on working matches using mostly headlocks. Take away everything people liked about the original character to create something new.

 

8 hours ago, strobogo said:

 

Yeah what other argument do you need when I'm saying it was dogshit? Do you need specific promos and matches that fucking sucked? 

Outside of the original turn and post turn promo, everything involving Hogan fucking sucked. Hall and Nash were doing ALL the heavy lifting and making the nWo seem hip and fresh. Hogan was just full blown cartoon bad guy that went totally against what the whole point and vibe of the nWo was supposed to be. And the longer it went on, as the chopped up promos gave way to in ring promos, Hogan became more and more exposed as the lamest fucking old dude who would just talk/yell until his voice went out every week hyping himself up and not even pushing angles most of the time.

In ring, every TV match is a complete waste of time with him doing chokes and eye/back rakes for a few minutes before a DQ. PPV matches are pretty much the same but twice as long and Hogan taking a few more slow motion bumps and selling like a parody of Ric Flair. Any time he drops a fall it is immediately over shadowed with a nWo beatdown and he gets his win back while still being all over TV. Guy "puts Goldberg over" after controlling Goldberg far more than anyone had ever done before in Goldberg's longest match to date and them main events the next two PPVs with celebs doing all the mainstream media shit, his angle dominates the War Games build and match, and his match with Warrior dominates the build for Halloween Havoc despite the Goldberg/DDP match being the main event. 

You seem to be weaving in and out of kayfabe here. Is it the presentation of the character that you don't like or is it the perceived "backstage" stuff? If the answer is "both", that tells me that Hogan is a master of psychology for drawing such a vehement reaction. No one is motivated enough to just drop a "Ted Arcidi sucked" post with no context.

Hogan going heel instantly shuffled the deck and made rivalries with Flair, Savage and Piper fresh again. People were emotionally invested and borderline desperate to see Hogan get his ass kicked by the WCW icon Flair, his historical rival Savage (the Elizabeth intrigue added a nice touch too), and the returning Piper. Did anyone think Piper had any juice left after his commisioner run in WWF? But they were able to turn back the clock for a couple of months for Starrcade 96 and the build to it.

The fact that Hall and Nash "did the heavy lifting" was all part of the character. People were desperate to see Hogan get his ass kicked but he kept getting saved by his goons. It's like any action movie or video game, you wait until the end for the big boss to get destroyed.

In '97 Hogan was so hated that he drove the charismatically-challenged Lex Luger to his biggest babyface reactions in history, much more than the WWF's much larger attempt at it. Sting got more over than he has ever been by hanging out in the rafters and dropping down on the occasional Nitro to clean house simply because fans wanted to see WCW's last hope destroy Hogan. They let it simmer and did the biggest buyrate in company history. You can argue against the match itself and the fallout, but any attempt to discredit the effectiveness of the build and the massive business it did is an attempt to rewrite history.

Yes, the wheels fell off in 98. Everything has a shelf life. If they had managed the Wolfpac/Hollywood split differently and gave people the Hall/Nash vs Hogan/Savage rivalry that people wanted to see, maybe we would remember it differently. Maybe not. Ifs and buts and all that.

Again, it may not be your cup of tea or what you enjoy in pro wrestling, but Hogan didn't suck. He carried two companies on his back in consecutive decades. Once by having people love him and wanting to see him win, once by having people hate him and wanting to see him lose.

[strobogo]

No, I'm not talking about perceived backstage stuff aside from him dropping the title and then being on the shows MORE and headlining PPVs instead of the champ, which is SOP for Hogan going back to dropping the title in 1988 and 1990. No one is getting me mad at them and thinking they suck because they're such a good heel, man.

The context is I've been going through the Nitro era over the past 2 years in a bookclub like deal with some buddies and Hogan segments/promos/matches are consistently the lowest rated of anything on pretty much every show but everyone in the group with pretty varied tastes in what they like in pro wrestling.

When I say Hall and Nash did the heavy lifting, I mean the only reason the nWo seemed fresh and cool was because of them. The had all the swag, were the ones that felt like they were doing something transgressive, and they're the ones that seemed physically dangerous in beat downs in a way Hogan never, ever could. Hogan is the opposite of what they were and what they brought, and it really sticks out once the black and white cut up promos fade out and Hogan is cutting those rambling nonsense promos like a heel from 1983. He's so out of place with the vibe, and he's promos are just dreadful yelling until his voice sounds like he's gargling blood while not even saying anything of note (not unlike HBK during the same period, which was also dogshit). 

His bad guy acting goings beyond laughably bad into embarrassing. Just constantly mugging and preening like a cartoon when the whole point of the nWo is supposed to be realism. His matches are absolutely dreadful, and that's judging him just on his WCW run up to that point, which was pretty dodgy outside of the first couple of Flair matches and maybe a Vader match. His psychology makes no sense: he's both a complete over the top chicken shit AND a dominate big guy who imposes his will on whomever (but usually extra when it is a Sting/Luger and even Goldberg). And his matches are such bullshit on TV that fans don't even react to someone kicking out of the leg drop (which happened a few times to zero reaction) because everyone is just waiting for the run in.

Great, he drew so much money and such ratings and buyrates and it was such a hot run, well who gives a fuck, because that's not what I'm talking about. No one can go back and watch his work in 1996-1998 and tell me that's good entertainment. It's bad wrestling. It's bad promos. It's bad angles. He's an active detriment to enjoyment of any show he's on during that period. 

[sek69]

On 9/26/2023 at 3:03 PM, MoS said:

Reading Ole Anderson's autobiography and wanted to understand, how did Ole go from wrestling with Gene in the Carolinas to actually booking Georgia (and of course being the main eventer) in such a short span of time? The way he tells it, he was basically a main eventer from the day he started, cuz he would tell the promoters to fuck off if he didn't like what they were saying. Which is definitely not the normal experience of wrestling rookies of that time (or any time for that matter). 

You're not wrong, but if there ever was a wrestling rookie who *would* do that it'd be Ole. 

[El-P]

7 hours ago, strobogo said:

His bad guy acting goings beyond laughably bad into embarrassing. Just constantly mugging and preening like a cartoon when the whole point of the nWo is supposed to be realism.

He was basically the exact counterpoint to his babyface acting, which also was cartoon dogshit, really. 

I always thought Hollywood Hogan was the perfect iteration of the character, since Hogan was always a piece of shit at heart anyway. Even as a babyface, his in-ring style was bullshit, with back scratches, threats to the referee and cheating galore. Perfect guy to represent Reagan's USA, really.

As far as his in-ring stuff during the nWo era, some was really bad, but he did a very good job carried the corpse of Piper around at Starrcade, and by 1999 I'd argue he was better than Flair. Yep, I said it. Which is kind of a backward compliment anyway, since Flair in 1999 was yikes, but still. That being said, tons of stuff was really bad too, but I dunno, I'd rather watch Hollywood Hogan rather than Hulk Hogan anyway. Well, I'd rather not watch any Hogan anymore at this point, but, oh well.

[cactus]

I've decided to try and give Mid-South the deep dive that it deserves and I'm loving what I've seen so far. I've seen all the essentials like the Duggan/Dibiase Cage and the Dibiase face turn episode, but I want to fill in the blanks and get some more context for all the big moments that I've heard about or seen before. I want to try and watch a full calendar year of TV, so naturally I went with 1985. I'm already onto the last episode of February and I only started earlier this week. It's an incredible digestible and morish wrestling show. I'm gripped by the Dibiase and Duggan rivalry unfolding! Everything has a quick pace and nothing has any time to stagnate, yet nothing feels rushed. I know the majority of the board is aware of how great of a show this is, but I wanted to show my love for it and have some questions answered to make sure that I'm getting the most out of my viewing.

I'm also taking the matches that were featured on the Mid-South DVDVR list and adding them to my watchlist so that I don't miss any of the big matches that weren't featured on the studio show and I've ran into some confusion. The first 1985 non-TV matches that were featured on the DVDVR are two matches from a Houston card that don't feel like they have any relationship to what was being shown on TV apart from some of the same talent being used. 

My second bit of confusion comes from the dates. The dates listed on the DVDVR list look to be from when the matches were either taped for TV or if they are from non-related shows. For example, I can't find Rock N Roll Express vs. Midnight Express (1/21/1985) online anywhere. I'm not sure if it was taped for weeks down the line and I will see it eventually. Basically what I'm asking is if there is an existing playlist floating around that features all the TV matches and the big blow off matches in one place?

 

[KawadaSmile]

Chris Hero announced his return to in-ring action, baybee. November 17th at West Coast Pro, against Timothy Thatcher.

[Timbo Slice]

An hour away from where I live. And I might have early Thanksgiving plans that take me out of the running to see it live. Bah.