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WWE Hall of Fame 2019


flyonthewall2983

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Harlem Heat was fantastic. The snarky hate in this thread is utterly baffling. No, Stevie Ray wasn't a "super worker," but they were a damn good and effective tag team. Yes, WCW's tag team division sucked in the mid to late-'90s, but holding that against them makes no sense to me. They would have dominated any division in any era. 

I agree that Sherri should be there with them, but she technically wasn't part of the team and I'm sure she'll be mentioned and thanked profusely. She deserves her own induction anyway.

If this backlash is because the Hart Foundation "got bumped" for Harlem Heat (assuming they did), the reason why is obvious to me. Expecting Bret Hart to take a backseat to DX was never, ever, ever going to fly - no matter how "buddy-buddy" he and Shawn Michaels supposedly are now.

 

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Happy to see Harlem Heat recognized and Stevie Ray get in with Booker.  Booker may have been flashier and more athletic, but watching their GWF and early WCW stuff, Stevie is clearly the ring general in there and covered up for Booker a lot, be it from botching a flashy spot or just the match sliding off the rails for a bit until he tagged in and settled things down.  Their tag series with the Nasty Boys is their best stuff, but I think the Nasties are really underrated and should probably be in the HOF themselves.   I don't think teams like the Steiners and Road Warriors really meshed well with Harlem Heat.  I'd have to watch the Public Enemy matches but those may have been alright too.  I did enjoy his WCW angle when Stevie used his power of attorney to become TV champion when Booker was injured in 1998, what a great heel move.  

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1 hour ago, C.S. said:

If this backlash is because the Hart Foundation "got bumped" for Harlem Heat

Seriously now. People have shit on Harlem Heat for 25 years now. The fact WCW's tag team title scene in the mid 90's sucked is because Harlem Heat was champions all the time, not because they weren't any good teams.

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1 minute ago, El-P said:

Seriously now. People have shit on Harlem Heat for 25 years now. The fact WCW's tag team title scene in the mid 90's sucked is because Harlem Heat was champions all the time, not because they weren't any good teams.

All of those people are wrong.

Harlem Heat was a great team.

As for not meshing with The Steiners and the Road Warriors, we're talking about two teams who, at that point, were past their primes and not what they used to be. Did those two teams have good matches with anyone in the mid to late '90s?

The rest of the division was pretty mediocre. What was good? The Marcus Alexander Buff Bagwell rotating team of the year? Not really.

I'll give you Meng and Barbarian though - those guys ruled!

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12 minutes ago, C.S. said:

All of those people are wrong.

Harlem Heat was a great team.

Ok.

And Asuka sucks and is not over too I guess. (yeah, I'm being snarky)

Blue Bloods, washed up Nasties, washed up Steiners, Bagwell & Scorpio, Bagwell & Riggs, Bagwell & Norton, Orndorff & Roma, Faces of Fear... the only team that sucked even more than Harlem Heat to me was Buck & Slater. And more than sucking, what's more offensive is that The Heat was fucking boring. People just forget. They were boring as fuck in competitive matches. At least the old Steiners were throwing people around and the Nasties had that car-crash appeal to them. 

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10 minutes ago, El-P said:

Ok.

And Asuka sucks and is not over too I guess. (yeah, I'm being snarky)

Blue Bloods, washed up Nasties, washed up Steiners, Bagwell & Scorpio, Bagwell & Riggs, Bagwell & Norton, Orndorff & Roma, Faces of Fear... the only team that sucked even more than Harlem Heat to me was Buck & Slater. And more than sucking, what's more offensive is that The Heat was fucking boring. People just forget. They were boring as fuck in competitive matches. At least the old Steiners were throwing people around and the Nasties had that car-crash appeal to them. 

Most fans care a lot less about Asuka than PWO thinks. Yes, part of that is bad WWE booking. Even I scratch my head at how she went from dominant to a non-entity so quickly. She has a title again now, but the bloom is definitely off the rose. If she left tomorrow, it wouldn't affect WWE's product one iota (although even I can admit she'd be an asset to AEW's women's division).

As for the other teams around in the Harlem Heat era, I won't bother commenting on any of the Bagwell pairings because they were all bland, but I remember Orndorff and Roma being okay together, Nasties were fairly decent until at least '94, Blue Bloods were good at sports-entertaining but I can't remember their matches for the life of me, Faces of Fear deserved far more than they got. Buck and Slater were everything that Bischoff despised about the Southern WCW, and he's not wrong. LOD and Steiners were useless by then.

Harlem Heat was clearly the best of this bunch - except maybe Faces of Fear, but they never got pushed and were never going to get pushed. 

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4 hours ago, C.S. said:

Most fans care a lot less about Asuka than PWO thinks. Yes, part of that is bad WWE booking. Even I scratch my head at how she went from dominant to a non-entity so quickly.

They should just show that stuff on TV and she would be the biggest star in the company :

 

 

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15 hours ago, SirEdger said:

Harlem Heat was arguably the most dominant team in WCW in the mid-90s. The only thing surprising about this is inducting them in New York (although they were billed from Harlem so in theory, that makes sense.). So I take it that the Hart Foundation won't make it this year after all.

Not exactly what I had in mind when I said NYC-centric, but I'll take it. Any WCW acts that never worked for WWE getting in is always a bit of a pleasant surprise. If this class shakes out the way I think it will, theirs will be the only induction I'll have any interest in watching.

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On 3/11/2019 at 2:42 PM, Beast said:

Did Harlem Heat ever have a great match? Or a good one?

Not meaning passable or slightly fun, like actually good.

 

My tastes can be a bit odd but I thought they had at least a few good matches in '96 and '97, mostly with the Steiners but I can also think of at least one Outsiders match I liked a lot, and maybe a couple others. Not a ringing endorsement, I realize, but I never hated watching them when I was going through WCW stuff, even if Stevie Ray did stink.

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9 minutes ago, sek69 said:

LOL @ "voted in by my peers", no one votes on the WWE HOF but Vince.

Hilarious, he's basically pointing out why the WWE version is less relevant. 

23 hours ago, SomethingSavage said:

I fucking loved Harlem Heat back in the day. I don't need a bunch of hidden gem 4-star matches to get unearthed for me to justify that. That theme music was the bee's tits, and they were over in my living room.

Great entrance, good look, but when the bell rang we all changed the channel or stuck around and were bored to tears. No one has unearthed any 3-star matches from this team because they don't exist. They sucked for years, broke up, and came back together for one of the worst reunions in wrestling history. 

Amazing theme song though. The song should be in the HOF really, not the workers. 

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What's amazing is how fast Booker went from "well he's probably the better guy on this team" to "OMG why is he still teaming with his useless brother". I remember in their GWF and early WCW days the difference between them wasn't *that* big, yet after a short time Booker was clearly a upper-mid/top level guy and Stevie somehow got worse. 

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Fair enough if you guys don't find them worthy due to a lack of star ratings or whateverthefuck, but I'm absolutely unafraid to say I'm a Booker fan for life.

Harlem Heat had the music. The in-your-face trash talking to the camera. The Scissors Kick that made its way into every single one of my CAW's move sets. And the HARLEM HANGOVER, which I popped for every time like it was Lesnar busting out the Shooting Star or the infamous Paul Wight Moonsault.

Fuck the critics. There are guys having supposed 5-star matches today that would sell their firstborn child to be half as over as THA HEAT.

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Time to get the nWo black and white band back together. Whoever is still alive. The suckas gots to know they are representing the criminally overlooked 90s black tag team legacies of the blackbirds, gangstas, doom, heel men on a mission and the true legends Brickhouse Brown and Sir Reggie B Fine.

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The Heat are close friends with Bruce, it's no wonder Stevie Ray had to mention Meltz to try and get himself over. Funny how the other day, Jerry Jarrett, whoever he is, was like "It's an honor to be in the WO HOF because it's the only legit one."

Yeah. Induct the entire nWo B-team. Why isn't Virgil in the HOF already ? And Brian Adams ?

And really, Ahmed Johnson was more fun to watch in his short WWF stint than the entire Harlem Heat career.

1 hour ago, Brandon-E said:

Hope Rick Martel goes in this year but I have a feeling he'll have to wait until Mania returns to Toronto or the Midwest. 

Considering both Booker and Stevie are responsible for ending his career, I'm glad he isn't inducted the same year.

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Big talking point for Harlem Heat defenders on Twitter is that they dominated the WCW tag division during their time.

Makes me think of them as the WCW version of Money Inc.

Dibiase and Booker both had solid singles careers (Dibiase before, Booker after) and IRS and Stevie Ray were regarded as the lesser part of the team....

They dominated their respective tag division while active....

And together they had very, very few memorable (good) matches.

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Also Harlem Heat and Money Inc. both peaked with their Hogan feuds (that subsequently didn't draw and nobody cared about). I wouldn't want a Hall of Fame with Money Inc. inducted either.

Is William Regal in this thing yet? Now he was legitimately great during that period of WCW where most everything stunk until Nitro lit it up. Memorable for his comedic role. Influenced a generation of talent and eventually worked directly with them. Overcame addiction and substance issues. An inspiration. 

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