Johnny Sorrow Posted September 9, 2011 Report Share Posted September 9, 2011 Ah, Wrestling was super-hot when Verne got Slaughter on a silver platter. Slaughter at the time was pretty much just as big a star in the WWF as Hogan was. Considering that Verne had the syndicated Pro Wrestling USA show AND ESPN, he could have made a run at Vince with Sarge as Champ, but they instead created "The Americas Title" for him to chase underneath the title programs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted September 9, 2011 Report Share Posted September 9, 2011 Was the mindset that Sarge didn't NEED a big title? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted September 9, 2011 Report Share Posted September 9, 2011 Possibly, but I wouldn't say that was a for-sure. Â Even the sharpest promoter I think eventually would have fallen trying to compete with Vince on a national level. Verne had some good talent but not enough to spread out and gain inroads in smaller, non-traditional AWA markets. One thing Vince had was enough wrestlers to run 2 or 3 shows a night. Even if they were shitty shows, it was getting the WWF name out there which, combined with the expanding TV market, gave the illusion that the WWF was the "best" game in town. Â Vince had some terrible crowds in the Twin Cities after their debut show on 6/17/84, all the way through until Thanksgiving 1985. Still, he didn't pull out of that area because he knew he had to gain the upper hand in the home base of the AWA to ultimately take them down. Vince did not want Verne to have even one fall-back market once his expansion ideas fizzled out...and by 1987, he really didn't with the AWA being down to crowds of 1000 in the ancient Minneapolis Auditorium on a good night. Â One of the things about the AWA that made it successful before 1984 ultimately hurt it badly after 1984: The old stars of the area (Crusher, Raschke, Greg Gagne, Lary Hennig, Bruiser) crossed over from crafty veterans to over-the-hill very quickly. Nobody could replace Crusher's overwhelming popularity in the AWA, and unfortunately by 1984 he was pretty much a parody of his former self. Â There were many factors that lead to the demise of the AWA. Verne's business sense in the "modern age" of TV and pro wrestling was a part of it, but not all of it, and I consider it unfair to place all the blame on him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted September 9, 2011 Report Share Posted September 9, 2011 I do love the alleged story that when they explained the Midnight Rockers gimmick to Verne he thought it was somehow about rocking chairs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CompletePlayer Posted September 9, 2011 Report Share Posted September 9, 2011 I do love the alleged story that when they explained the Midnight Rockers gimmick to Verne he thought it was somehow about rocking chairs. HBK brought that up in a shoot interview around 2000. He had said something like "When Verne heard the name of Midnight Rockers, he thought fans would think of rocking chairs instead of Rock & Roll" as a reference to him thinking that Verne was behind the times. Unless someone wrote it in a newsletter eariler, that is where this story came from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted September 9, 2011 Report Share Posted September 9, 2011 Either Marty or Tanaka talks about it too for what it's worth. Â The best Verne story is easily the padlock one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted September 10, 2011 Report Share Posted September 10, 2011 Bumping this after two plus years, because I've been watching a fair amount of AWA lately and wonder what others would have to say about this potential myth. Â The failure of the AWA was ultimately due to Verne being too stuck in the past and unwilling to change with the times. I can understand that as far as Verne not being willing or able to expand nationally like Vince and Crockett were doing in the '80's. He seemed to be comfortable in his midwest-west coast region, with occasional trips to Jersey. But, when it came to things like angles and gimmicks and such, at least from the mid '80's period I've been watching, they seem relatively up to speed. I think there was a lot of Verne being too stuck on the past. Â Based on ESPN: Â 1. The squash matches routinely went for 8-10 minutes when Crockett and WWF guys were running over jobbers in a few minutes. A small thing but it shows the mentality. Â 2. The product values to the show were ancient compared to the WWF and Crockett. The show is just brutally slow and has no life whatsoever. This was a huge problem. If they had a slicker, more modern feeling show, it would've competed better. Â 3. The announcers didn't "get it". This is the biggest problem right here with the product. The best announcer from the ESPN era was Lee Marshall. Lee Marshall fucking sucks and the only reason he was the best is he had a slight idea of what was going on. The announcers were a bunch of old men and they would constantly say things during matches that showed they were behind the times. Dig up some Midnight Rockers matches from 86 and you'll just cringe at what they're saying. Larry Nelson also hurt the product a lot as he could just take a great promo off the rails at any moment. Â 4. Verne didn't understand the talent as time wore on. The Rock N Roll Express came to town in 88 after a hot run in Crockett and you could just tell the AWA wasn't comfortable with how to use them. They essentially did nothing while they were there. They wouldn't have saved the AWA but I bet they would've put a few more butts in the seats if they were pushed harder. But you see this happen several times on television. Â 5. Routinely buried younger talent. I was watching a show from 88 several months ago and Ray Stevens wrestled in a match. Ray Stevens looked like a physical disaster and guys were having to sell for him like he was still a threat. This happened a ton over the course of the television. Â The angles to me always seemed fairly basic and down to earth. They never felt outdated to me either. I do feel like his fews on talent were outdated at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 I mentioned this in my post in the omnibus thread that split off into Rumble discussion, but Bret's Five Moves of Doom is indeed a myth. It wasn't five moves, he didn't do them in every match, and he didn't always do them in the same order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 It's not a myth. Â It was a joke at the time. Â Which folks seem to take way too seriously. Â John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pol Posted August 22, 2014 Report Share Posted August 22, 2014 Bump! Not sure I have the knowledge to weigh in on these, but I'd like to see others' thoughts... Â 1. Long title reigns make the title more valuable/hot-shotting title changes devalues the title. Â 2. Match quality matters more to the average Western fan now than at any point in history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkdoc Posted August 23, 2014 Report Share Posted August 23, 2014 i'm no historian but #1 seems pretty well off the mark to me. the consistent pattern i have noticed is that the value of a title depends on the value of all the wrestlers competing for it. Â when people bring up this point, they never mention all the rapid-fire WWF title switches between austin/rock/mankind, or the 1-day reign for kane. all of those guys were booked well enough that they mattered to the fans, and their title wins didn't stretch any credibility. Â on the opposite end, JBL's reign didn't seem to elevate the title (more the opposite, if anything). i knew a bunch of people who had stopped watching and said "wait, BRADSHAW is the champion??? ahahahahaha", which was also my response at the time. granted i don't have hard numbers here, so maybe i'm wrong, but that really came off as a random midcarder getting the belt. Â memphis is one of the most infamous examples of hotshot booking with the title, but i would argue that was because of how often they would have terrible wrestlers come in and almost instantly win the title. think king cobra or the dragon master. then you look at someone like the snowman, who by all rights should have been one of those random scrubs as well...but they came up with a genuinely hot angle and the fans bought into him. Â a corollary to this is that i believe you can elevate secondary titles by having top guys feud over them. WCW, believe it or not, was really good at this when luger had the US title. flair went from world champ to immediately challenging luger for the US belt, but his promos emphasized that title being a stepping stone to a world title shot so it still came off as a big deal. Â so tl;dr i don't think the length of title reigns matters so much as how high on the card the title is, how over its champion and top contenders are, and whether said contenders have done enough to earn a title shot in the fans' eyes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Faulconer Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 It has been a long time so forgive me if this was mentioned earlier. Â Steve Blackman was not a rookie when he showed up on WWF TV in late 1997. I remember him specifically from Stampede wrestling in the 1980s. Ken Shamrock wasn't a rookie either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 Steve Blackman did jobs on WWF TV in the late 80s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 And Shamrock wrassled before doing shootstyle/MMA. He was "Mr. Wrestling" Vince Torelli in the NAWA/SAPW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKWildcat Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 5. Routinely buried younger talent. I was watching a show from 88 several months ago and Ray Stevens wrestled in a match. Ray Stevens looked like a physical disaster and guys were having to sell for him like he was still a threat. This happened a ton over the course of the television. Â Heck, he looked like death in his Mid Atlantic run in 81. He was basically a corpse here. Hard, hard living. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 Steve Blackman did jobs on WWF TV in the late 80s. Â He had Malaria which ended his early career. Â This is what he looked like before it. Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKWildcat Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 Â Steve Blackman did jobs on WWF TV in the late 80s. Â He had Malaria which ended his early career. Â This is what he looked like before it. Â That pic looks so odd, almost like an intentionally bad photoshop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 I still find it odd 15 years later than Shane McMahon of all people sought out Blackman as his pet project. That's one of the strangest decisions made during the Attitude era. Of all people to push Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted August 24, 2014 Report Share Posted August 24, 2014 It's not a myth. It was a joke at the time. Which folks seem to take way too seriously. John Myths become reality to people when the joke gets passed on to second, third, and fourth hand reports. I definitely knew of the Bret Hart "five moves of doom" as a serious complaint when I started talking wrestling online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Posted August 25, 2014 Report Share Posted August 25, 2014 It's only a myth in the sense that no, it wasn't the same five moves, it wasn't the same order, and that it wasn't always even five. Colloquially, it's just a term to describe what really a fairly routine run through of moves he liked to do. Ask a bunch of people what the five moves of doom are and they'll know what it is and come up with very similar answers. It's really just being pedantically literal about things, which I guess some people can be, but complaining about the "five" part is like complaining about the "doom" part not being literal enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted August 25, 2014 Report Share Posted August 25, 2014 There's no emphasis on the "five" in "five moves of doom" as a sticking point. The myth is that Bret always used the same finishing sequence, give or take a little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pol Posted August 25, 2014 Report Share Posted August 25, 2014 I've definitely seen enough people repeat "the same five moves in the same order" enough times to say that it's a myth. Incidentally, Google "five moves of doom" now and you get far more results about Cena than Bret, so I guess I'll submit that one too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted August 25, 2014 Report Share Posted August 25, 2014 While we're on the topic of phrases used to describe a wrestler's offense, what is the "wham" supposed to represent in KICK WHAM STUNNER? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted August 25, 2014 Report Share Posted August 25, 2014 A swig of coffee for the working man? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subatomic_elbow Posted August 25, 2014 Report Share Posted August 25, 2014 While we're on the topic of phrases used to describe a wrestler's offense, what is the "wham" supposed to represent in KICK WHAM STUNNER? Â Â As I recall, the 'WHAM!' was a derisive commentary on the amount of time between the kick and the stunner as Steve's body broke down. When he first broke out the Stunner, it was faster and more fluid. Post-neck operation, it was more of a kick, space, stunner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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