Favourites that you soured on...

[JaymeFuture]

So for this week's podcast, we're looking at wrestlers that you once held in high regard but soured on over time - whether something about their act changed, whether they regressed as performers, or whether you feel you started to see through them and they weren't actually as good as you once thought.

If you could name one wrestler or act that sums this up for you throughout history, who would you pick and WHY?

As always, the best contributions will be read on the show and you'll be credited accordingly. So who fell from grace in your eyes?

 

EDIT - Our show discussing Favourites That You Soured On, featuring many of your contributions, is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/5f2atq/SCG_Radio_101_-_The_Bloom_Is_Off_The_Rose.mp3

[JerryvonKramer]

My honest answer for this is Sting. Before I started the Where the Big Boys Play podcast with Chad, in my mind Sting was like the ultimate main eventer: everything that Hulk Hogan could have been but wasn't. The process of watching through 1988 to 1993 in chronological order has had the effect of exposing and highlighting a lot of his flaws during that time frame. He gets hot in 1988, and so naturally they book him into the main event, but Sting consistently seems like a rabbit in the headlights who cannot take hold of his own overness. He flounders in the spotlight, and -- and least to me -- is completely over-shadowed by Lex Luger who is absolutely fantastic in the same 88-90 sort of time, and felt a more natural fit eventually to take over from Flair. Sting's 1990 run isn't helped by booking (see Black Scorpion), but he's terribly disappointing for me through all of it, and then he ends up getting injured in early 91. His performances in 1992 get a lot better, and obviously the Vader feud is fantastic, but over the past five years, I don't think I've had quite so much stock fall in a guy than I have for Sting.

 

Also, once it occurred to me that his character was essentially that of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, I couldn't "un-see" it, which somewhat hurt my capacity to get into his mostly not-very-good promos.

[Gutenberger]

Definitely Dolph Ziggler.

 

I liked him from the first time he came in and said "Hi, I'm Dolph Ziggler", because I just found it to be so ridiculously stupid that it awoke my interest. For a long time I held him in really high regards, could not understand why he wouldn't reach that top level, saw him as a legitimate Shawn Michaels successor. (I was, am and probably always will be HBK fan, so that's a compliment there).

But then over time I just realized how stale he was. Yes there's lots and lots of formulas in wrestling and everyone has their pattern, but I think he was the first one where it really soured him for me. Along with his very inconsistent mic work, he fell really really deep in my opinion.

Although, I gotta admit, his work the last couple of weeks/months has been really good and atm, I enjoy watching him and Miz go at it verbally and phisically.

[C.S.]

Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, and Paul Heyman

 

I thought Orton was awesome and had a ton of potential in the early stages of his career as a cocky pretty boy. The Randy News Network reports were great. Then he morphed into the one-dimensional "tough guy" Viper character that he could never adequately pull off IMO. There's nothing "badass" about him. It's the same reason Raven never worked for me. The worst characters in wrestling scream "fake" and that's The Viper and Raven in a nutshell.

 

Brock was never someone I loved, but his early stint as "The Next Big Thing" was great and exciting. Contrast that with his one-trick pony matches now. "Suplex City" is the biggest con of all time. Paul has taken his "hide the negatives and accentuate the positives" philosophy from ECW and applied it in the biggest way possible to Brock, and everyone's eating that shit up and thinking it tastes like cotton candy. Plus, the guy is an absolute albatross and liability at this point. He did nothing for Ambrose at WrestleMania, concussed Orton at SummerSlam, and has become a boring waste of time in general.

 

Heyman has gone from an electrying screen presence to a one-note dullard. The Dangerous Alliance is quite possibly my favorite stable of all time, and I loved ECW. But he makes me yawn these days. Every single promo he cuts now goes something like this: "Ladies and gentleman, my name is Paul Heyman, and I am here as the Advocate for THE BEAST, THE CONQUERER, BAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOCCCK LES-NAR. At [insert PPV here], my client Brock Lesnar will face [insert opponent here], my client Brock Lesnar will [insert violent action here], my client Brock Lesnar will [blah blah blah]." Same shit every time.

[El-P]

Historically : Shawn Michaels. He was a very early favourite of mine. His stuff doesn't hold up at all for the most part. He has a bunch of great matches under his belt, but at this point, I'd say he peaked as a worker as a babyface in the Rockers. His comeback was full of way overrated self-conscious epics (those Taker matches). Hell, he may very well be one of the architect of the entire self-conscious epic actually. And he's also responsible for some of the worst Actor Studios moments that plague WWE to this day. "Sorry, I love you". Need I say more ?

 

Right now : Brock Lesnar. What's been said above. The "Suplex City" bullshit is typical case of WWE jumping on something organic and turning it into complete shit. Remember that insane Cena match when Lesnar came back ? Or the brutal thriple threat at Mania last year ? Now it's just him launching a bunch of suplexes with people counting along. The hardway/concussion stuff is also one of the biggest debacle in recent memory. Lesnar was special, he turnedinto someone I just dread to see work now. 49 years old Goldy on the way ? That match is a disaster on paper, but since it can't be Supex City, maybe they'll actually find a way to make it work again. I doubt it.

[Mr. Lacelle]

Chris Benoit, I used to be a huge fan & now, not so much.

[El-P]

Chris Benoit, I used to be a huge fan & now, not so much.

 

I laughed.

[Zenjo]

Wrestling fans are such an unforgiving bunch. All it takes is a couple of murders and they turn on you in a heartbeat.

 

Plus the Undertaker killed his parents and nobody holds that against him. Talk about double standards.

[Tabe]

Ric Flair.

[Jordan]

Definitely Angle. I loved him as a kid but was disappointed how little his stuff did for me when I ran through some of it with a friend a few years ago. The '01 Summerslam match is still great though.

 

Kobashi too. He hasn't fallen as hard, and he's got too many performances that are still great to me, but he has so many things he does in his matches especially from the late 90s on that just make me groan.

[elliott]

Mitsuharu Misawa and Daniel Bryan. More on that later.

[Microstatistics]

Chris Benoit, I used to be a huge fan & now, not so much.

 

I was going to say Benoit but not because of the incident. I rewatched his stuff over the past year especially during the GWE project and a lot of his stuff didn't really hold up. Too workrate-y and I almost never use that as a criticism.

[Edwin]

Off the top of my head:

 

Dean Ambrose -- Holy crap has this guy sucked for the majority of the time since the Shield split. I was big on him pre-WWE as Jon Moxley working in Puerto Rico and East Coast indys and then in the Shield he was good (as they worked well together). Then when they split and he began running the single Lunatic Fringe character he just started working the same routine and all of his matches have been very predictable, stale and uninteresting. It's like he realized he got over and stopped caring. The Brock feud was interesting, yet the blowoff Mania match was horrendous. That Jericho feud was horrendous too.

 

Seth Rollins -- His post Shield heel stuff I thought was good, but he's been very uninteresting since his return from the injury.

 

ECW -- As a company. I used to be a big fan when I wasn't exposed to other none mainstream wrestling in the mid 90's. I thought they were revolutionary and different and thought it was awesome. Fast forward to latter and being exposed to other stuff and my opinion on them changed entirely. I also feel a lot of their heavily praised matches haven't aged well; the MPro 6 man tags for example. Those guys put on way better matches on a regular basis in Japan than that one. Sure it was revolutionary at the time, but if you've watched your fair share of MPro, you'll know they've put on way better matches than that. I know many people will dislike the RVD vs. Jerry Lynn matches now, but back then these got a lot of people IIRC. I've rewatched some of their earlier shows in the WWE Network, but even then those shows weren't great.

[Tim Evans]

Damien sandow: I was a huge fan of his when he was first released from WWE and went to Puerto Rico. Then he got signed to WWE and went to FCW/NXT and I thought he became really good then. He got handed a lot of shit gimmicks like Mizdow and even the Macho man and somehow still made it work. I started to sour on him when they ended the Mizdow gimmick and he started his complaining gimmick on twitter. Once he showed up in TNA, I knew it was over and he's just not good anymore.

[goc]

Sandow is definitely the current king of favorites that people have soured on. Even his most die hard supporters after the Mizdow thing are talking about how his TNA run sucks and he's not very good without some kind of goofy gimmick which to me is hilarious as all anyone wanted to say about him after Mizdow was "make him a serious character and give him push!"

[KB8]

Flair and Jumbo. A lot of that is burnout. I feel like I've seen pretty much all I need to see from those guys at this point. There are still Flair matches I could watch no problem if I put them on right now, and I still like the grumpiest old man Jumbo shows a ton, but for the most part I don't have much interest in watching either of them, and haven't for a few years now.

[ohtani's jacket]

I chop and change a lot on wrestlers but the two I'd say I soured on the most were Bret Hart and Mick Foley given how much I cared about them when I was a teenager. I might as well have been Canadian given how big a hero Bret was for me, and I kind of jumped on the Mic Foley bandwagon in 1998 but I was still deeply passionate about his push to the WWF title. I wouldn't say I soured on their in-ring talents, though I can see the flaws in their work that I couldn't when I hero-worshiped them, but something has sure as hell changed as I could go the rest of my life without seeing either of them wrestle again. Having said that, I no longer have heroes the likes of Bret Hart and Mick Foley, so to a certain extent I have fond memories of that time of my life.

[Cap]

It is actually Sting for me too. Sting was my favorite as a kid and even when I first started looking at wrestling more critically I thought (and still think really) he did a lot of really good things in matches and had the ability to really take a main event match spectacular. I have probably partially soured on him from burnout, but Sting's just doesn't have the same in ring appeal that he did before for me and a lot of things i like about wrestlers now are things he just didn't excel out for the most part. He also didn't age well. Whereas some wrestlers changed their style to put on just as good - if not better - matches as they get older and more efficient, I found most of what I have seen from him late in his career to be an absolute, and often unwatchable mess.

 

Angle is another one. This one is really simple and predictable and in no way novel. I really liked that he was fresh and different. He was an exceptional athlete and he worked hard. He had some matches that were really fun in the moment. The matches just don't hold up as well to me, but that is kind of all of the Attitude Era to me.

 

Nigel McGuinness was pretty high on my list during his Pure title Run and his ROH title run. I love how hard he works and his commitment. I think he has a hand full of great matches that have held up really well for me, but he is in some ways the embodiment of some of the things I soured on about Indy wrestling on the whole and I really don't like his jawbreaker lariat. I still think he is a case of somewhat tragic lost potential, but he doesn't stand out in that group as much as he used to. Part of that is honestly what has happened sense shaping the past and part of that might just be the ebbs and flows of my taste. Either way, I am not as high on Nigel as I used to be.

[brockobama]

I'll echo the Shawn and Angle sentiments for the obvious reasons. Still enjoy them quite a bit, but it's a more reserved and complicated enjoyment.

 

Mine is probably Kenny Omega. While I wouldn't ever say I formed a deep emotional connection with his work, he used to be one of my favorite guys to watch in the world about six to eight years ago. Suffered from the same problems a lot of indie guys these days suffer from, but he was fun and goofy without annoying me, had a fairly unique way of moving around the ring, and always entertained. Even with his jump to DDT he managed to keep me interested. However, since joining NJPW, his style and character have changed in just the wrong ways to make me totally 180. He's become just another overly dance-y, finisher-crazy, somewhat nonsensical NJPW main eventer. Even his character's changed, becoming just another too cool for school Bullet Club guy. I'd never call him a "great" wrestler, but anything I once found enjoyable in him has been driven out of late.

[Matt D]

Shawn and Angle are the easy ones for a lot of people.

 

I'm going to go with Christopher Daniels, though. When I was going to ROH shows in 2001-2 and was ~20 and even in the couple of years before that like when he was getting the Nitro tryout, he had cool moves, smooth execution, had a solid indy cult of personality, a strong online presence with weekly commentaries or what not. He was in the mix with Low Ki and Styles on the top of the super indy heap. As I came to value different things, he's someone that ended up left way behind.

[Goodear]

I thought Daniels had a late career renaissance where he finally put his character together with the team with Kaz being the turning point?

 

I remember being in awe of Ahmed Johnson and thinking this dude was going to be the next big face in WWF. I even caught a glimpse of him in Global as Moadib and thought he had big potential. Then he kept getting hurt and his tights kept going up his shit and he got more and more unintelligible.

 

I've soured on Mick Foley a lot and the twitter thread brought that back to mind. While an extraordinary bumper, Foley did some things that were quite frankly stupid dangerous (like why did he ever think a sunset flip to the floor was a good idea?). He's like the death match bumping definition of excess.

[concrete1992]

I would say Davey Richards but I actually still sort of have a soft spot for him.

 

Christopher Daniels is probably a good pick for this. Helpful when you're working with Styles and Joe as I'm forming an opinion on someone.

 

Okada would be another one. Unlike Davey, I no longer hold any sort of residual enjoyment of. What he is is not what I like in my wrestling. He used to be a strong example why I enjoyed the NJPW style...that has faded though and the battle for the finishers don't hold the same joy as before.

[victory]

Brock for me. I thought he was great in 2002 and 2003. Him leaving was one ( not solely) for losing interest in current wrestling. I was excited for his comeback and enjoyed him in the beginning. Now he's almost a channel changer. It first started with the WM match with Roman which I just hated and it has gone downhill from there.

 

I am interested in his Goldberg match, but that isn't due to Brock. I'm a Goldberg fan and I just wanted to see him have another match.

[Dylan Waco]

I can't think of a favorite off hand who I completely turned on. Ambrose is probably the closest of modern wrestlers, but I still don't completely hate him.

 

I was a Jericho fan of sorts at one point and now I have basically no use for him even when he's doing relatively entertaining character work because I know the end game is going to be him dragging down a superior talent in a feud he politicked his way into. But the window for him being one of my favorites was very small and it feels like a cheat to the question.

 

This is actually a tough question.

[GOTNW]

I can't think of a favorite off hand who I completely turned on. Ambrose is probably the closest of modern wrestlers, but I still don't completely hate him.

 

I was a Jericho fan of sorts at one point and now I have basically no use for him even when he's doing relatively entertaining character work because I know the end game is going to be him dragging down a superior talent in a feud he politicked his way into. But the window for him being one of my favorites was very small and it feels like a cheat to the question.

 

This is actually a tough question.

"Takada is better than Misawa"

"Bob Holly is better than Takada"