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Anyone else think that Shawn Waltman is way underrated?


Guest Col. Da Bears

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Guest Rob Naylor

So I've always been a huge Waltman fan. From the days on the indies with Ricky Blues and Perry Saturn and Bill Wilcox..... to when he hit tv with Global and was redefining the flying wrestler in the United States.....

 

And then his WWF run. Amazing debut and I really have to give him even more props for sustaining his heat for those first couple WWF years from 93-95, given how badly Colin Delaney has kinda failed in the same role.

 

I got to thinking of all my favorite Waltman stuff and it was really interesting to see how many roles this guy excelled in during his career.

 

You had him as the underdog babyface in WWF - Razor matches, the classic Bret match, which I put up with Scorp vs. Windham as the best underdog title match ever, vs. Bam Bam Bigelow on ACTION ZONE in late 94/early 95 (If anyone has this in great quality please let me know!)

 

Then he was an awesome tag wrestler. Could sell like crazy, in a very believable fashion, was was maybe even MORE valuable in the Gibson role of getting a tag and just kicking shit in on everybody. GREAT HOUSE OF FIRE that Kid was. I remember some WWF tags he and Holly had vs. YOKO and Owen Kid's hottag was so fucking great that he had the fans believing he was really going to turn the match around... on a dude that outweighed him by 400 pounds! Yoko was great selling for him too of course. And who could forget Kid's role in a tag match that I'd call one of the best I've ever seen with Razor vs. HBK/Diesel from 94. Kid sold AND got the hot tag in that one and really energized that match.

 

Kid was also great at being the Buddy Roberts type heel that gets his ass kicked in a group of bigger dudes. His stuff with Hall and Nash was great in WCW. I loved all their hilarious promos too, with Kid being so cocky since he had those dudes on his side. Kid STOLE the match too, in the infamous 2000 Raw ten man tag with Rock, Cactus, Too Cool and Rikishi vs. Sean, HHH, Dean, Benoit and Saturn. Kid bumping around on each good guys hot tag just had the people hanging from the rafters.

 

Kid's run even late in his WWF career vs. Kidman and Tajiri etc.... really showed his value as a guy like Candido that could just slow a match down and not be all BING BING BING highspots all the time, which was great to see from a guy that started in that style with Chaz, Jerry Lynn etc in Global. Rewatch Syxx vs. Rey Jr matches too..... I'd rate them higher than the spot Olympics matches Rey was having all over Nitro's at the time, just cause it seemed like Syxx would reall reign him in and tell a better story.

 

Am I crazy for this topic? Anyone else a huge fan of Waltman? Dude really was awesome and it's rarely recognized.

 

EDIT... don't know how to edit the topic title, but I meant "THINK THAT WALTMAN WAS UNDERRATED"

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I think he was at one time an awesome wrestler, and he peaked young and fizzled out fast. I don't think he was ever as horrible as he was made out to be, but he did lose a few steps at times when his personal life seemed to be overtaking him. Still, even as late as 2005, when he is trying, he can be really good.

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I generally don't believe in "X-Pac heat" but the fact that he was the only "WWF" wrestler booed during the Invasion works against him.

To be fair, he was also the only "WWF" wrestler booked as a heel (except Jericho, who didn't make a full turn until Survivor Series and Christian, who joined a few weeks after turning on Edge).
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I generally don't believe in "X-Pac heat" but the fact that he was the only "WWF" wrestler booed during the Invasion works against him.

To be fair, he was also the only "WWF" wrestler booked as a heel

 

Not at first he wasn't. He was just another WWF hometown hero fighting off the evil WCW foreign invaders, or at least the cruiserweight division of such. Yet he got thoroughly booed, and was the only guy at the time which the crowd turned on like that.

 

As to the question of why he was so thoroughly reviled in the first place? It's an interesting debate. For one thing, he was one of the few guys who essentially hadn't changed a single thing about their gimmick since 1996. (I don't think the million crotch chops or the Bronco Buster helped him much longterm either.)

 

Then you have to look at the booking. In late 99, his tag partner Kane was one of the more inexplicably popular babyfaces in the company. Then X-Pac turns on him, for no real reason. And steals his girlfriend. And somehow beats the psycho pyromaniacal giant in the vast majority of their feud matches. In fact, from his heel turn onward, few people ever beat X-Pac. Look down the results for the year 2000, and you'll see a hell of a lot of DQs, no contests, and X-Pac going over. He was strangely protected for being a midcard cruiserweight heel. And then there was his team with Road Dogg; as long as it wasn't a title match, it felt like they won every time. They even beat the Dudleys twice in a row in tables matches on PPV. Plus DX 2.5 tended to have really boring matches; Road Dogg was firmly entering his "I just don't give a fuck" period, and X-Pac had no chemistry with his partner whatsoever. I mean, so little chemistry that it really made you pine for the days when Billy Gunn would be wrestling in this spot instead, and, I mean, I can't believe I just SAID that but it was true at the time. And then there was X-Factor... don't think I need to say anything more there, just "X-Factor" should be enough. I think the crowd just got sick of seeing the same old thing from him, and got progressively sicker as the WWF didn't take the hint.

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Guest Rob Naylor

Yeah, I just always thought he was a great little prick heel. His matches vs. Kidman AND Tajiri were just awesome. He just has an added snap to every bump he takes and just generally has such ring presence and still wrestles real smartly. Granted, it took a couple broken necks to get there, but he really is a master at making a match and not having to take a thousands crazy bumps, but taking a few and making them mean alot.

 

If he wasn't so fucked up, he'd be great in a Candido like role to alot of the young guys these days.

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There wasn't really that period of "X-Pac heat" dating back to 1999 as some people like to claim. He was quite over and fans accepted him in his role from his return to WWF until about midway through 2000, when it became apparent to people he seldom lost, and when he did, he was soon getting his heat back. Couple that with very little evolving of his character and fans just soon grew tired of him.

 

But those people who use that period when fans grew tired of X-Pac to rip apart Sean Waltman for nearly his entire career forget that he was very good in the earlier part of his career and would pick up his pace against better workers. And when WCW fired him via FedEx, he had some good wrestling during his return to WWF because he was so motivated to prove to WCW they made a big mistake in firing him.

 

To sum up Waltman, he was one of those guys that started off well but then fizzled out, but it isn't fair to judge him solely based on his later years.

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Guest jmkc52

As a kid who grew up watching stuff like '97-'98 WWF and WCW, X-Pac was definitely one of the guys I liked. His face character always seemed cooler than the other guys in DX like Gunn and Road Dogg and he had already been in the nWo which game him a lot of credit to someone like me at that age. Besides all of that, he was a great flyer to work with guys like Hall, Nash, HBK, etc. and as Nash put it on his shoot in 2007, "back in 1996 if you couldn't 'go' with the kid you just couldn't 'go' at all".

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And then his WWF run. Amazing debut and I really have to give him even more props for sustaining his heat for those first couple WWF years from 93-95, given how badly Colin Delaney has kinda failed in the same role.

Should be pointed out that 123 Kid had a legit knock out finisher, where Delaney is treated as completely lacking credibility and as being capable of nothing but fluke win. He isn't booked as any more credible than Lee Scott. Failing to get over as underdog babyface when you have no hope/comeback spots isn't a surprise.

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And then his WWF run. Amazing debut and I really have to give him even more props for sustaining his heat for those first couple WWF years from 93-95, given how badly Colin Delaney has kinda failed in the same role.

Should be pointed out that 123 Kid had a legit knock out finisher, where Delaney is treated as completely lacking credibility and as being capable of nothing but fluke win. He isn't booked as any more credible than Lee Scott. Failing to get over as underdog babyface when you have no hope/comeback spots isn't a surprise.

 

Colin isn't close to the Kid. His character is almost entirely Mikey Whipwreck, circa 1994.
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Should be pointed out that 123 Kid had a legit knock out finisher, where Delaney is treated as completely lacking credibility and as being capable of nothing but fluke win. He isn't booked as any more credible than Lee Scott. Failing to get over as underdog babyface when you have no hope/comeback spots isn't a surprise.

That's something which has been bothering me. Listening just to crowd reaction, except for Matt Hardy, Colin Delaney is quite possibly the most over babyface on the roster. He often seems to get a better pop than his mentor figure Tommy Dreamer. But of course, this is the WWE, so for various reasons he just gets mercilessly squashed every time he gets in the ring.
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I generally don't believe in "X-Pac heat" but the fact that he was the only "WWF" wrestler booed during the Invasion works against him.

To be fair, he was also booked against the only WCW wrestler who WWF fans really liked, Kidman, who wrestled like a babyface even when he was supposed to be a heel.

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Hard for me to view him as underrated since I recall him getting pimped in the newsletters from Global and then as one of the Indy Heros of the early 90s, pre-ECW. Waltman and Sabu got the most run, guys like Lynn and Snow on the level below them. I don't think smart fans really turned on him until he went into prick mode (basically Little HHH), possibly prior to that as he was sucking off the power of Nash and Hall and the nWo to get large pushes there. I don't think people tended to knock his work until it reach a general point of just not liking him, though there did seem to be times in WCW and DX where he didn't give a shit (relative to others busting their ass) or was too zonked out of his mind to perform well... or a combo of both. It's not like he hadn't been zonked out for years earlier before that - he was way far gone the two times we saw him in Japan in March 1995 to the point of not tracking and being embarassing.

 

 

John

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Guest DietSoda

Hey Rob, do you think Matt Sydal could work as a new 123 Kid type character? It would have been cool if he showed up on Raw and upset Y2J or on SD and upset MVP or something.

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Guest Rob Naylor

Hey Rob, do you think Matt Sydal could work as a new 123 Kid type character? It would have been cool if he showed up on Raw and upset Y2J or on SD and upset MVP or something.

 

Oh totally. Actually, that's the exact role the dude should have had. He would just be this bland dude showing up to get squashed and then he'd bust out his spectacular offense out of nowhere and get a big win. They kinda did this in his debut when he debuted the knees to the face press off the top that is a believable move and got a monster pop. Buuut, then he disappeared. And lost to Mike Knox. So yeah, who cares anymore really. Sucks, since I think Sydal in incredible in ring. Promos suck, but nobody's perfect I guess.

 

As for Delaney, more times than not, the guy just gets little to no reaction when he's on tv. He started off getting some decent pops, but I've never seen an underdog gimmick fail faster, and they are usually foolproof. They've built shows around the dude and it still kinda falls flat. Just seems like he was given a great role that nearly any indy dude could have got, and then just real failed to catch on or sustain heat. Granted, his booking hasn't been the best, but he really just seems bland to me.

 

I'm not talking about Waltman being underrated back in the day, I'm talking about alot of his WCW and later 99-2002 WWE run that people always shit on. Go back and watch those matches and 9 times out of 10, they are real smartly worked and Kid carries things no matter who he wrestles. He developed into an even great utility style wrestler.

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I think it's a lot harder to get this role over in wrestling today. Most of the larger headliners(height, build, and being over), in the WWE they won't let job to some nobody small wrestler. It worked at the past Wrestlemania in a way with Show, and Mayweather. Then again it wasn't built up as a shocker. The WWE also dropped this with Puder and Angle with all intents and purposes was similar to the Kid and Razor. For the most part the WWE doesn't want to have the headliners show that much ass to get the angle over and potentially hurt the drawing of the main eventer.

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  • 5 years later...

Hard for me to view him as underrated since I recall him getting pimped in the newsletters from Global and then as one of the Indy Heros of the early 90s, pre-ECW. Waltman and Sabu got the most run, guys like Lynn and Snow on the level below them.

 

His work in Global as Lightning Kid was the best of his career.

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Always liked him too, but he did get stale a few years into his WWE return. Like someone else said, it doesn't help that he changed absolutely nothing about his character and was also oddly protected with very few losses given his lower card spot. The X-Pac/Road Dogg/Tori version of DX was a complete waste of time, and X-Factor (his stable with Albert and Credible) sucked hard too.

 

I'll probably get criticized for this, but Lightning Kid had no credibility with me whatsoever. Awesome in the ring, yes, but he seemed like a little kid outside it. His promos at the time were horrendous. He was supposed to be a heel, but he came across like a small child play-acting the role of a tough guy to impress the bigger kids. WWE got it right by making the Kamikaze Kid/Cannonball Kid/The Kid a jobber and the 1-2-3 Kid a scrappy underdog babyface.

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I think he is rated just fine. He is recognised at his peak of being an awesome wrestler who could go with just about anybody. He wasn't the best on the mic, but was far from the worst. His summer of 1999 stuff with Kane / Undertaker really allowed him some good time on the mic and he fit into his role perfectly.

 

If anything, he was underrated as being a viscous little shit in the ring when he was heeling it up and laying his stuff in.

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