The breakup of MNM

[Loss]

It's very unfortunate. Joey Mercury is really good, and Johnny Nitro was starting to get really good. They looked like a tag team, had a doubleteam finisher, had a valet, were over, got to wrestle in TV main events on a fairly regular basis, had a great gimmick and for most of their run, unfortunately, had no rivalry. Then, WWE actually builds up a babyface tag team for the first time in years that beats MNM on Sunday night, which got a big pop. They killed it just minutes later by breaking up the heels.

 

What's saddest about the breakup is the timing of it. After a year of facing whoever WWE could put together to challenge them, they finally had an actual tag team to feud with, and Sunday night is really when the program should have only begun to take off. I know what happened between Melina and Sharmell and all, but they really need tag teams right now, and they're punishing themselves just as much as they are punishing Nitro and Melina by breaking up the team.

 

Now, they're back where they were before, with tag team champs with no opponents. Mercury, a talented guy, doesn't stand a chance in singles of getting over, and Nitro may fare only slightly better just because he's a homegrown talent that WWE wants to see succeed. Melina will be fine in the long run most likely, which is ironic, considering that the heat on her was one of the main reasons they were broken up in the first place.

 

Oh well. I guess the tag team dream is over.

[Mad Dog]

This just goes to show why I can't enjoy anything in the WWF anymore. Everytime I find something I like it's like they intentionally go out of their way to destroy it.

 

They should just discontinue the tag team division. They haven't been serious about making it work in a really long time. Breakups are so expected of teams now that it's really sad. MNM, Regal/Burchill and Murdoch/Cade all were teams that I really started to get into over the last year and none of them are left now.

[shoe]

The tag team division RIP since easily 97 in the WWF. The titles don't mean anything in the WWE anymoe. If the main belt means nothing, the tag belt means even less. I love tag team wrestling, it is a lost artform.

[Marty]

Hmmm....let's see....

 

You have a young tag team, where one worker is already very good, and the other one is getting better each passing day. This team is very flashy and flamboyant, and knows how to piss off the fans. They're a very over tag team, arguably the most over tag team the company has seen in at least a little while. They win the titles, and work a number of great matches with different teams. They get broken up far too soon than they should have.

 

Am I talking about these guys:

 

 

Or these guys:

 

[sek69]

Both teams were broken up by politics as well, if the stories about the Blonds are true.

[Guest SweetMama Scaat]

Why were the Blondes broken up again?

 

 

BTW- Cade and Murdoch are back together,

-The Spirit Squad main event RAW on a regular basis and are excellent

-The most likely team to face London and Kendrick are Noble and Kash. Those four could do great things together.

 

Theres still tag teams out there, theres jus no respect or focus on the division. The WWE seems to have an inability keep the divison cohesive and every time things get rolling something happens; The mexicools are a good team but ECW is back so there goes Super Crazy. The Gymini are useful but one of thems injured. The "E" needs to use all of these guys theyve rehired (Palumbo, Jindrak etc) to boost their tag divsions...all the fucks are better tag wrestlers anyway.

[sek69]

Why were the Blondes broken up again?

 

 

 

It's a testy subject. The accepted answer is they were broken up because certain people felt their spots were threatened by how quickly the Blonds got over. It's alleged that Ric Flair was instrumental in said breakup, but that tends to attract the rabid Flair marks who dogpile anyone who suggests Flair ever did anything negative.

 

I believe it caused some heat between Austin and Flair, especially after Austin becaue a superduperstar.

[Guest DylanWaco]

Weren't Pillman and Flair close at that point though? I could be wrong, but I've heard such things from credible sources before.

 

Anyhow, this breakup is awful. MNM were a very credible tag team that could safely slide up and down the card with ease. They could have headlined brand ppv's if promoted properly and that is exceptionally rare and something that never hurts on a roster as injury prone and unlucky as SD's. They have continued to get better since they have been together and they were very good out of the gate so that says alot. If you look at who they have worked it's really a wide array and it's wierd because as Loss pointed out they have never really had an "equal" match or a foil until just now (Haas/Holly was getting there and the matches were very good, but they split that team when they dumped Haas).

 

Mercury is toast on his own. I'm guessing they will pair him up with someone else, because I just don't see any hope for him as a solo star in the company, even on the Cruiser level. Nitro has a slightly better chance for "look" reasons, but he's not nearly as developed a wrestler as Mercury.

 

Really it's a horrible time to split that team. The Gymini, The Mexicools, The FBI, Kendrick/London and Kash/Noble are all on the SD roster. That's a decent tag roster and with proper booking it could have come out making everone look sharp in the end.

[Loss]

It's a testy subject. The accepted answer is they were broken up because certain people felt their spots were threatened by how quickly the Blonds got over. It's alleged that Ric Flair was instrumental in said breakup, but that tends to attract the rabid Flair marks who dogpile anyone who suggests Flair ever did anything negative.

 

I believe it caused some heat between Austin and Flair, especially after Austin becaue a superduperstar.

You do realize you are the only person who has ever alleged that Ric Flair broke up the Blonds, right? He wasn't even booking until a few months after they were already broken up. Everything reported at the time was that Dusty broke them up. Flair couldn't have broken them up when they were broken up, because he didn't start booking for another three months.

[Marty]

I think the main source between any heat between Austin and Flair was not over the Blondes, but more over Flair grooming Austin to be the next one, yet when Hogan arrived, Flair just left Austin to die, at least in Austin's mind. Loss might be able to help me out on this one.

[Loss]

I just e-mailed Meltzer to ask him to explain the whole situation between Austin and Flair in full. I'll post his reply.

[sek69]

Wasn't Austin of the opinion that Flair could have spoken up and prevented the Blondes from breaking up, especially considering their big feud was with the Horsemen? I know Flair didn't have the book, but it sure seemed like he didn't go to bat for the guy he was supposed to be grooming as the next top star.

 

The notion that Flair, world champion for most ot the 1980s and main draw pretty much up to the end of WCW, needed to have the book to voice his opinion on something (at least until Hogan showed up) always struck me as silly. I'm not saying they would have not broken the team up anyway, but I'm under the impression he didn't even make an attempt after telling Austin he was going to make him a star.

 

So in summary I'm not saying Ric Flair broke up the Hollywood Blondes, but rather he didn't try to stop it.

[Guest Cam Chaos]

I find it hilarious that Booker T and Batista having a fight led to a tag team breaking up and the people involved having a nice lunch together and attending a press event with big smiles all round. Something just doesn't add up to me there, but then again, I'm somewhat sane.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I'm conviced that there was no real reason for the Blonds breaking up, and that it was just a casual booking decision they made. "Hey, why don't we have Austin and Pillman break up and fight each other?" "Sounds good." Besides, WCW didn't nead the Blonds to carry the tag division anymore at that point. They had the Nasty Boys!

 

 

Boondocks - Is willing to bet 4 out of 5 DVDVR posters think the Nastys were better workers than the Blonds

[Guest teke184]

Boondocks - Is willing to bet 4 out of 5 DVDVR posters think the Nastys were better workers than the Blonds

I'd agree with you...

 

A lot of those guys already waste time thinking of 500 wrestlers better than Lance Storm because he told them they were full of shit, so they're capable of all kinds of stupidity.

[Guest The Metal Maniac]

I have to ask...in that Hollywood Blondes pic...what's with the belts?

 

Those aren't the same belt. I think Austin's is the Tag Title as I remember it, but I dunno about Pillman's. Is that the Cruiserweight title? What's up with that?

 

Side note: I never watched WCW back then.

[Loss]

From Meltzer:

 

They WCW booking committee saw a 2.6 rating for Blonds vs. Flair & Arn

match that had been built up for some time.  They blamed the Blonds.  We

all knew it was a dumb move at the time.  The feeling at the time was

Austin could be a main event singles wrestler and why waste him in a tag

that meant nothing.  It was done at the time to benefit Austin, but then

when Hogan came in, he saw nothing in Austin.  Flair never had anything

negative to do with Austin.  Never heard him say a bad word about him and

I talked to Flair all the time at that point.

Yes, sek, it's true that Flair could have possibly stopped it, but what does that really mean? Meltzer has also said in the past that any rumors of Flair grooming Austin himself, along with telling Scott Steiner he'd drop the belt to him immediately, aren't true. It's like criticizing HHH for the Eddy Guerrero stuff on WWE TV right now. Sure, you can make the case, but it's a stretch because there's such a disconnect.

[shoe]

I have to ask...in that Hollywood Blondes pic...what's with the belts?

 

Those aren't the same belt. I think Austin's is the Tag Title as I remember it, but I dunno about Pillman's. Is that the Cruiserweight title? What's up with that?

 

Side note: I never watched WCW back then.

The Blonds defeated Steamboat/Douglas for the unified tag team belts that consisted of the NWA and WCW belts. The photo looks like Austin has the NWA belt, and Pillman has the WCW belt.

[Guest The Metal Maniac]

Ah, okay.

 

Thanks.

[Resident Evil]

I have to ask...in that Hollywood Blondes pic...what's with the belts?

 

Those aren't the same belt. I think Austin's is the Tag Title as I remember it, but I dunno about Pillman's. Is that the Cruiserweight title? What's up with that?

 

Side note: I never watched WCW back then.

The Blonds defeated Steamboat/Douglas for the unified tag team belts that consisted of the NWA and WCW belts. The photo looks like Austin has the NWA belt, and Pillman has the WCW belt.

 

That match happened on Worldwide and was a great one. Better than the Clash of the Champions.

[Guest DylanWaco]

 

Boondocks - Is willing to bet 4 out of 5 DVDVR posters think the Nastys were better workers than the Blonds

I'd agree with you...

 

A lot of those guys already waste time thinking of 500 wrestlers better than Lance Storm because he told them they were full of shit, so they're capable of all kinds of stupidity.

If you can't think of five hundred wrestlers better than Lance Storm, you haven't watched much wrestling.

[Guest teke184]

 

Boondocks - Is willing to bet 4 out of 5 DVDVR posters think the Nastys were better workers than the Blonds

I'd agree with you...

 

A lot of those guys already waste time thinking of 500 wrestlers better than Lance Storm because he told them they were full of shit, so they're capable of all kinds of stupidity.

If you can't think of five hundred wrestlers better than Lance Storm, you haven't watched much wrestling.

It's not that there aren't 500 better wrestlers...

 

It's that they waste their goddamn time by doing polls like "Was Bossman a better wrestler than Lance Storm?" and generally being dickish over it.

 

 

 

I'm not sure Lance could have gotten more under their skin if he tried.

[sek69]

Nicca please. Until he made that crack about DVDVR, Lance was one of those guys worshipped by the net community. The over-reaction spawned by his comments only proved him right, IMO.

 

The only difference between Lance Storm and Chris Benoit is that Lance didn't gain more smark cred by touring the world before becoming a midcarder in the US.

[The Thread Killer]

I respectfully disagree.

 

While I agree that many of the posters at DVDVR are major league dickheads, and that the mods there all deserve to be slapped in the teeth, the Lance Storm thing is different.

 

If you remember, Storm actually made the statement that people who aren't wrestlers are incapable of discussing what makes a good worker, and that even trying is "insulting."

 

He's very wrong on both points, of course.

 

Secondly, Storm did work in Japan. He worked in WAR, and he also worked against some Japanese talent in ECW. I honestly don't think Lance Storm is all that great of a wrestler. He seems like a fairly nice guy from his site, and I love his taste in books...but go back and watch his most famous matches.

 

He had very little ability to tell a story in his matches. He seemed technically sound enough, however he was almost robotic in his execution. Look at Storm, a guy who spoke perfect English, and then look at Kobashi, a guy who doesn't. Kobashi conveys far more emotion in his matches than Storm ever could. Even Misawa, who shows very little emotion in his expression tells a better story than Storm.

 

Not to bring up a bad attempt at an angle, but I truly do feel that Storm was "boring." How many of his matches can you name that you rate as all time classics?

 

Secondly, his execution of brawling moves was weak. His punches and kicks have especially come under fire for looking very fake. He himself has admitted this, but claimed that he'd rather look fake than risk hurting somebody.

 

As Mick Foley said, there are plenty of wrestlers who can throw fake looking punches that actually end up hurting you. Then there are those who throw real looking punches that look real because they are (Vader.) The best are those who throw real looking strikes that aren't all that "stiff."

 

If anything, it was Lance Storm who came off looking like a whiner when he went after the DVDVR. It was obvious that he was insulted that Kawada was listed as #1 in the 500...since in his mind, he was just as good as Kawada.

[World's Worst Man]

The Lance Storm stuff was just an overreaction to him being overrated, with a little bit of the "smark" contrarian "Wrestling ability doesn't matter, it's all about ability to play their character/cut a promo/act in skits!!!!!" aka the "How do we justify Steve fucking Austin being matched up against Jushin fucking Liger in a better wrestler poll". Not to say that that Lance Storm has a whole lot of wrestling ability anyway. But really, I don't even know where the idea that he was some super worker came from. He seems like a merely passable worker, which pretty much means that while he wouldn't stink up the joint, he wasn't exactly responsible for much that was worthwhile. Yet for as long as I can remember, he's had a rep for being at least a good worker. Maybe it's the Calgary connection.