The interesting Dave Meltzer posts thread

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I wonder how much money Shawn cost himself by turning down the 2nd Hogan match and wrestling The Masterpiece instead.

[El-P]

Booking to sell merchandise over tickets will almost always favor the status quo, will it not?

That's what I'm saying in the WM thread actually. No need for a Man in the company. No need for "booking". Vince sells the WWE brand. He doesn't want a Hulk Hogan or a Steve Austin. The brand is all that matters, hence no need for creating real new stars.

[jdw]

Another version, which was posted earlier:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyN5sAShqOA

 

Most of the same stuff, though a few different ones.

 

Rock vs Hogan > Shawn vs Hogan + Shawn vs Flair

 

That said, I like the two Shawn-Taker matches at Mania a good deal for "current" WWE product.

 

John

[El-P]

Shawn turning the Hogan match into a parody really doesn't bother me at all. Anyone shitting on Hogan is allright with me.

[Bix]

It doesn't bother me either, but I don't get saying that he didn't do it.

 

And I've never seen him do the turnbuckle smash flip spot in any other match.

[El-P]

Me neither. It's like the Curt Hennig spot gone insane.

 

The bump following the big boot is glorious.

[jdw]

Shawn crapping on Hogan was fun. Even more fun was Hogan never jobbing for Shawn.

 

John

[Sean Liska]

 

Here's Shawn doing the turnbuckle spot. Go to about 3:47 in.

 

Nothing he did in that match would have been out of place in a mid-90's HBK match. It was probably jarring to people in 2005 because it had been so long since he worked as a heel. But go back and watch any match he had with Nash, another instance where he felt he had to go all-out to get a good match. You could make the same video. He always bumped like a nutjob.

[Strummer]

on the new DVD Shawn said he purposely tried to be over the top in the ring in the early mid 90s cause it fit the cartoonish nature of the promotion. He was trying to be visual with spastic movements and gyrations

 

He changed it up in the comenback and in the HD era to fit the more "realistic" style

[Bix]

 

Here's Shawn doing the turnbuckle spot. Go to about 3:47 in.

 

Nothing he did in that match would have been out of place in a mid-90's HBK match. It was probably jarring to people in 2005 because it had been so long since he worked as a heel. But go back and watch any match he had with Nash, another instance where he felt he had to go all-out to get a good match. You could make the same video. He always bumped like a nutjob.

Similar but different: In the Kerry match he doesn't do a flip, and it's also a lot more smooth looking.

[jdw]

One might add that Shawn was probably ripping on Kerry as well.

 

John

[MJH]

Whilst there's no doubt in my mind that Shawn was working the same, sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek "look what I have to do with this guy!" that he did with Nash at Mania 11... I still think the match worked. Really, I think the cartooney over-bumping is the way to go with Hogan anyway and it suits his whole "superhero" schtick. I'd sooner watch Hennig or Shawn just pinball off of everything than Bret try and lay out a more cerebral and "realistic" match with Hogan. It's not as if pin-balling in that way originated with Shawn, it's as much a part of old heel schtick as anything.

[Sean Liska]

It's the only really solid Hogan match since, what, Hogan-Vince in 2003? Hogan in that match looked like a guy that could still headline a PPV. The crowd went nuts for it. Hogan looked like a superhero. If he was sticking it to Hogan, he failed pretty miserably. He could have easily wrestled a boring match like the one Hogan had with Orton a year later that no one remembers.

[Loss]

I'd like to re-watch those Hogan/Jericho matches again sometime that Dave calls the best Hogan matches in years and that apparently made Hogan a huge Jericho fan. I seem to remember Jericho doing a lot of standard Randy Savage spots, but don't remember for sure. The Jericho/Hogan matches were 10 minute TV matches, but it would be interesting to watch them side-by-side with the Shawn match (and Hogan/Rock, Hogan/Taker, and Hogan/HHH) to see who is old Hogan's best opponent.

 

Hogan/Rock at Wrestlemania X-8 was tremendous, but the rematch at No Way Out '03 was during a time when I think Pat Patterson was on the outs with the company because of HHH's increasing influence, and they didn't have his help in laying out the match. No one ever talks about that match. Was it not very good? I haven't seen it.

[Bix]

I liked the Hogan-Rock rematch but it wasn't as good as WM.

[jdw]

I only watched the second Rock-Hogan once, way back in 2003. I recall being disappointed by it. But I loved the Mania match (still do on rewatch), so it may have been in relation to that it was disappointing.

 

John

[S.L.L.]

It's the only really solid Hogan match since, what, Hogan-Vince in 2003? Hogan in that match looked like a guy that could still headline a PPV. The crowd went nuts for it. Hogan looked like a superhero. If he was sticking it to Hogan, he failed pretty miserably. He could have easily wrestled a boring match like the one Hogan had with Orton a year later that no one remembers.

Define "solid".

 

I don't deny that it was an entertaining oddity, much like...well, like Hogan/McMahon, albeit for different reasons.

 

Let's assume for a moment that Michaels wasn't really throwing a temper tantrum in that match. Let's assume he was really trying to just carry Hogan to the best match he possibly could.

 

One of the more interesting aspects of the great Michaels debate that doesn't involve incredible amounts of name-calling is that it raises the question of what constitutes a quality carryjob, as one of the key defenses of Michaels is that he is a guy who is great at carrying useless slugs.

 

But a problem arises when one considers that carrying another wrestler is defined by making another wrestler look good when they're really not on that level.

 

A lot of people who take issue with Shawn consider Fuerza Guerrera to be a great carrier. You watch Fuerza wrestle Octagon back in the day, and you completely forget that Octagon blows. You think there might be something to this guy that you were just missing in his other matches. You weren't. Octagon pretty much sucks. But you watch him wrestle Fuerza, and you don't notice that.

 

A lot of people who take issue with Shawn consider The Necro Butcher to be a great carrier. People watched him wrestle Tank in the '05 KOTDM tournament, and walked away from it thinking that Tank was ready to be a breakout star. I don't consider Tank to be bad wrestler, strictly speaking, but he's not all that people who watched that match thought he was cracked up to be. But you see him wrestling Necro, you don't notice that.

 

A lot of people who take issue with Shawn consider Toshiaki Kawada to be a great carrier. You watch Kawada wrestle Gary Albright, and you walk away thinking that Albright is a total badass who you should see more of. But Albright has had maybe three matches ever that are worth going out of your way to see. When he wrestles Kawada, you don't notice that.

 

When Shawn "carries" a lesser wrestler, do you ever really walk away impressed by his opponent? I mean, you say that Hogan came out of the match looking like a superhero, but that seems to be a minority opinion even amongst people who liked that match. People who like Shawn's "carryjobs" almost never seem to praise his opponent. They praise Shawn for his crazy bumping, but with a small handful of exceptions that include you, most people praising Michaels/Hogan are saying that Hogan looked as useless as ever, but Shawn kept things interesting by bumping like a lunatic the whole match.

 

A lot of people who take issue with Shawn - myself included - would argue that a carryjob where you draw all the attention towards yourself without actually making your opponent look any better isn't really a carryjob at all. And that's just assuming he was actually trying to carry Hogan.

[jdw]

I use to use the phrase "The Shawn Show". Match laid around for a while (say Shawn-Jarrett), then it was time for the Shawn Show down the stretch. I don't recall a lot of people at the time saying that Jeffey looked great in the match. It was Shawn having another good match.

 

A contrast would be Jeffey-Benoit from Starcade. Most people thought at the time that Benoit carried. I haven't watched it recently enough to offer a different opinion on that. But there was the thought that whether Benoit carried it or not, Jeff looked *good* in the match. It was a good Jarrett match.

 

John

[Eduardo]

SLL did a great job explaining it so I thought I would just add that a few years ago, even Dave Meltzer in his newsletter was comparing the major differences of a Bret Hart carryjob and what people call a Michaels' carryjob. He said something along the lines of Bret Hart being a "magician" at making you believe that that certain shitty guys were better than they actually were while Michaels' was more of a stylistic flashy bumping performance. I don't have all my Observer issues with me anymore, but I think it was around the time when Flair and Hart were having their little war of words in the Summer of 2004.

[Loss]

I think one of my favorite carry jobs is Lawler carrying Bam Bam Bigelow in that Texas Death Match from Memphis. Bam Bam was obviously very green, but had a few things he could do well, and Lawler carried him to a really great, long match built around a few big spots.

[spudz25]

The "carryjob" to me has a different meaning.

 

To me, it's basically stating that a match was good and with the participants involved, it really shouldn't have been.

 

I thought Bret was the absolute best at doing that with some variety. Flair, and I loved Flair, would do it with redundancy, but my love for the "Flair Match" made me overlook the fact for years that it was the exact same match.

 

Shawn, on the other hand, would make decent matches Great.

 

All wonderful carriers in their own way, but very different in my eyes.

[Loss]

Bret Hart has discussed his approach to carrying a wrestler before. He would ask the lesser wrestler his three biggest moves and build the entire match around that.

[Slasher]

I wonder where that philosophy went at this year's Mania. I can't imagine Vince giving "getting beaten by a chair" three times as his three big moves.

[ohtani's jacket]

Tangent time -- I dunno if Octagon sucked as such. Máscara Sagrada and Super Muñeco, now they sucked. I remember El Dandy making Super Muñeco look like half a million bucks once and to me that was more impressive than Fuerza and Octagon, because Octagon had some decent Black Man/Fantásticos, knock-off stuff that the better rudos could work around. Super Muñeco had fucking nothing. Besides, the fact that most of Octagon's singles matches never aired makes it difficult to say with any certainty that Fuerza carried him better than anyone. It does seem that way, however.

[Resident Evil]

I wonder where that philosophy went at this year's Mania. I can't imagine Vince giving "getting beaten by a chair" three times as his three big moves.

 

That's not a fair comment. We all know how risky it is for Bret's health to be in the ring.