Good Trope/Bad Trope

[Kronos]

God that tropes website gave me a headache. Somebody explain to me what five moves of doom or finishing moves actually have to do with telling a story.

If I am getting it: It's basically the concept that we have certain elements we use in putting together a story, and that those elements tend to be common across storylines. You pick and choose "tropes" when building the story. So, in wrestling a story is put together using a heel manager or a specific finisher or a Heel/Face conflict or whatever. Understanding after the fact how the story was put together can sometimes help to make better stories down the road.

[Kronos]

The more I watch Hogan from the 80's and even pre-NWO 90's (especially early 96 Nitro), the more I find that he subverts the FACES ARE ALWAYS GOOD trope. I know we have talked about it before, but he does sneaky things all the time -- and he treats others like crap. In a lot of ways, 1995-era Hogan is one of the first Tweeners.

I think during that 1995 run they were testing out a heel turn for him, IIRC. But yeah, he always fought a little dirty and acted like a jerk to a lot of faces. One of my biggest "outrages" growing up was during the 92 Rumble and Sid throws Hogan out. Hogan is complaining and goes back to eliminate Sid. In the original commentary that was on the PPV, Monsoon was actually speaking out against how Hogan was acting. Later, on TV, when they showed the ending of the Rumble, they had gone back and redone the commentary so Monsoon was talking about Hogan being robbed.

 

Yeah, I had heard that the fans actually boo'd Hogan in the original, though I have yet to see the PPV recording.

[Bix]

Don't forget Hogan stripping Sherri en route to beating her up.

[Loss]

Hogan was not really a virtuous babyface. He was putting the moves on Elizabeth the whole time he was teaming with Savage, to a point where Savage snapping on him was understandable. He was a poor sport about being eliminated fairly at the 1992 Royal Rumble. He acted like a coward toward Andre the Giant at the first Survivor Series. He beat up Sensational Sherri fairly regularly in 1989. He treated Paul Orndorff like dirt when they were friends and wouldn't even return his phone calls.

[Kronos]

Hogan was not really a virtuous babyface. He was putting the moves on Elizabeth the whole time he was teaming with Savage, to a point where Savage snapping on him was understandable. He was a poor sport about being eliminated fairly at the 1992 Royal Rumble. He acted like a coward toward Andre the Giant at the first Survivor Series. He beat up Sensational Sherri fairly regularly in 1989. He treated Paul Orndorff like dirt when they were friends and wouldn't even return his phone calls.

Heh, so maybe he belongs in the MYTHs thread.

[Jkeats]

He treated Paul Orndorff like dirt when they were friends and wouldn't even return his phone calls.

Right?! I remember watching that going "well I would be mad at him too". WWF had the policy of "whatever Hogan did was ok" and it drove me nuts (especially since Piper and Flair were two of my favorites).

[Death From Above]

Hogan was not really a virtuous babyface. He was putting the moves on Elizabeth the whole time he was teaming with Savage, to a point where Savage snapping on him was understandable.

There's got to be a YouTube of it out there somewhere, but I only have an obscure memory of it so I can't place the exact time frame. There was a promo where Hogan and I think Beefcake were working as a team and Hogan tells Savage Elizabeth has been off riding on their motobikes with them "getting double teamed", and Mean Gene was all "Whoa! Hulkster you can't say that!", it was pretty bizzare for a guy that was a childhood superhero.

 

I think it might have been in the lead-in to the Wrestlemania 5 match... the memory is kind of foggy. But the point is it was a pretty mind blowing "hey I wonder why Savage hates Hogan... oh, that" moment.

[Strummer]

There's got to be a YouTube of it out there somewhere, but I only have an obscure memory of it so I can't place the exact time frame. There was a promo where Hogan and I think Beefcake were working as a team and Hogan tells Savage Elizabeth has been off riding on their motobikes with them "getting double teamed", and Mean Gene was all "Whoa! Hulkster you can't say that!", it was pretty bizzare for a guy that was a childhood superhero.

Summerslam 89

 

He also mentioned her "headlights"

[Cox]

Somebody should put together a YouTube montage of 80's clips of Hulk Hogan acting like an utter shithead to all of his friends. It might be even more enjoyable than all of the David Caruso/CSI opens.

[Kronos]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3s6y7_me...hogan-bru_sport

 

Here's the headlights comment from SS 89 -- but it's not certain it's Liz, and he doesn't mention double-team.

[jdw]

Hogan was not really a virtuous babyface. He was putting the moves on Elizabeth the whole time he was teaming with Savage, to a point where Savage snapping on him was understandable. He was a poor sport about being eliminated fairly at the 1992 Royal Rumble. He acted like a coward toward Andre the Giant at the first Survivor Series. He beat up Sensational Sherri fairly regularly in 1989. He treated Paul Orndorff like dirt when they were friends and wouldn't even return his phone calls.

Awesome post.

 

John

[jdw]

Savage did some great interviews after the MegaPowers broke up taking about Hogan being nothing but a "hotdog and a grandstander". And it was one of those times in the 80s where the interviews were unintentionally too close to home.

 

 

John

[Bob Morris]

The more I watch Hogan from the 80's and even pre-NWO 90's (especially early 96 Nitro), the more I find that he subverts the FACES ARE ALWAYS GOOD trope. I know we have talked about it before, but he does sneaky things all the time -- and he treats others like crap. In a lot of ways, 1995-era Hogan is one of the first Tweeners.

I think during that 1995 run they were testing out a heel turn for him, IIRC. But yeah, he always fought a little dirty and acted like a jerk to a lot of faces. One of my biggest "outrages" growing up was during the 92 Rumble and Sid throws Hogan out. Hogan is complaining and goes back to eliminate Sid. In the original commentary that was on the PPV, Monsoon was actually speaking out against how Hogan was acting. Later, on TV, when they showed the ending of the Rumble, they had gone back and redone the commentary so Monsoon was talking about Hogan being robbed.

 

Yeah, I had heard that the fans actually boo'd Hogan in the original, though I have yet to see the PPV recording.

 

You can make out just enough of the booing on the Royal Rumble DVD.

 

I have always felt that WWF believed that they could always condition the fans into always rallying behind Hogan no matter what. The problem was, when you watch that Rumble match, both Hogan and Sid are getting loud face pops when they come out, thus telling you the fans like them both.

 

In order to get the proper reaction, you need to book it so it becomes absolutely clear that Sid _did_ screw Hogan. The way they did it, it didn't work because fans knew in the Rumble it's "every man for himself."

 

Compare that to the first Rumble aired on PPV. Ax and Smash faced each other to start and established it was "every man for himself" so when it was down to Hogan, Savage and Bad News Brown, fans didn't instantly believe Savage got screwed when Hogan went to eliminate Brown and Brown took Savage with him. They would have expected Hogan and Savage to fight each other if Savage hadn't fallen out and so nobody believed Hogan was screwing anybody over.

 

Back to the 1992 Rumble, I have always believed the proper ending to get people to believe Hogan got screwed is to have Hogan taking it to Flair, turning to Sid and offering him to join in, and Sid simply motioning to Hogan he can have Flair for himself. Then allow Flair to bump around a bit for Hogan, then Hogan tosses him but Flair saves himself. As Hogan leans over, Sid comes up behind Hogan, eliminates him as Flair slides back into the ring, then laughs at Hogan as he "allows" Flair to eliminate him with no resistance.

 

I would have said Sid could just step over the ropes and eliminate himself to give the match to Flair, but with Savage having hopped over the ropes earlier and Heenan having to cover for him that you had to be thrown out by somebody else, Sid stepping over the ropes wouldn't have worked.

 

At any rate, the point is to book it so that Flair and Sid are in cahoots with each other, thus Hogan is truly screwed, and when Jack Tunney books the Flair/Hogan match, Hogan proclaims he wants to even the score with the man who screwed him out of the belt to begin with, and thus Hogan/Sid is a natural and fans will happily cheer Hogan because the storyline is laid out so that it makes sense to cheer Hogan.

[Bob Morris]

Speaking of Hogan not being virtuous, what always bothered me about that was how Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura, when paired together, would have their commentary regarding Hogan become nothing more than petty arguing with one trying to up the other.

 

In watching the SNME DVD, I found their commentary with each other to be all right to start, but then get progressively worse. One has to wonder if Vince and Jesse were getting tired of each other at that point.

 

Vince's commentary in general wasn't as good when they started pairing him with Bobby Heenan more often, but the back-and-forth banter came off less like arguing and more like the two just bouncing material off each other.

[sek69]

Jesse's commentary during Hogan matches always came off like him just shooting the whole time. I guess it was because he was so established as a heel supporter, but it's amazing the things he was allowed to say about Hogan being an egomaniac.

[ohtani's jacket]

God that tropes website gave me a headache. Somebody explain to me what five moves of doom or finishing moves actually have to do with telling a story.

If I am getting it: It's basically the concept that we have certain elements we use in putting together a story, and that those elements tend to be common across storylines. You pick and choose "tropes" when building the story. So, in wrestling a story is put together using a heel manager or a specific finisher or a Heel/Face conflict or whatever. Understanding after the fact how the story was put together can sometimes help to make better stories down the road.

 

Eh, telling a story in wrestling isn't about five moves of doom or a finisher. The moves are used to tell the story, but they're not the story themselves. Thematics, structure and archetypes are far more important. The fact that Bret used the same five moves in every match is enough to tell you that's not what the story is about. Sorry if I'm rambling, but this has long been a pet peeve of mine. Bret's a guy who used a lot of actual tropes -- I mean thematic tropes -- and it bugs me when people say, "they worked a story where one guy worked over the other guy's arm." What kind of a story is that?

[Jingus]

it bugs me when people say, "they worked a story where one guy worked over the other guy's arm." What kind of a story is that?

A story which is more complex than usual, by wrestling's standards. The vast majority of matches tend to boil down to "guy #1 hit his finisher first, so he won". I treasure those uncommon matches which dare to do something with more depth.

[ohtani's jacket]

The vast majority of matches tend to boil down to "guy #1 hit his finisher first, so he won".

Yeah, that's not much of a story either.

[Death From Above]

There are really a lot of different ways to approach storytelling in wrestling.

 

All Japan was (by a WWE fan's standards) a gimmick-less company. All the storytelling is in the ring, so certain elements in a match have to be presented in a certain way or it's no good. There are no promos, no heel manager interference, no smashing in a guy's winshield because he stole your belt. So the wrestling tells the story. The matches have to be engrossing in and of themselves or there's no story. That's one way to do it.

 

I don't really think that in general, when you're talking about a lot of WWE wrestling (or televised American wrestling in general), that the actual wrestling is really all that important in and of itself to the storytelling. The storytelling of wrestling in that environment is much more angle-driven, promo-driven and gimmick-driven. And at the end of the day with a televised company, that's the stuff that has to sell people on your product. The match becomes just another part of the overall formula, and really I sort of believe in that environment almost the only thing that matters in your matches in the end is making sure you get the finishes right, and make the finishes memorable for fans. The rest of your match is really just setup to make that moment work, but doesn't have to be memorable otherwise, because (I don't think) it's even as important as the lead-in promos, angles, and such. Ask American wrestling fans about "big moments" and all that comes up are finishes (Hogan bodyslams Andre), and angles (Austin/McMahon "did you see Austin drive a Zamboni to the ring? That was something else"). Nobody outside of hardcore internet fans talk about match content, and in some ways I think it misses the point of how you make bigtime American-style wresting tick.

 

To sum that up, I just think "telling a story in the ring" with American TV wrestling is really not nearly as important as some people would argue it is. For people like us, it's a nice bonus when it happens. But I'm not sure it has a huge amount in the US mainstream to do with "how to make money in pro wrestling" which is always the ultimate goal.

[jdw]

it bugs me when people say, "they worked a story where one guy worked over the other guy's arm." What kind of a story is that?

Not a bad subplot if it's well done.

 

I mean, in the end the stories are pretty basic:

 

Wrestler M doesn't like Wrestler N and wants to kick his ass.

 

Wrestler N wants Wrestler M's title.

 

Wrestler F is a punk ass bitch who gets his ass kicked by Wrestlers D, M and R&R until Wrestlers T, A & O run in to save his punk ass.

 

Those are pretty typical main themes. We can talk all we want about the grand storylines, but things like that end up being the main themes.

 

Tito wants Randy's belt. Tito is pissed because it use to be his belt. Tito is pissed because Randy cheated to win it.

 

When we talk about "working the arm", it's just a subplot within the greater theme. It's well done, or it's not. It adds to the greater theme, or it just fills space (which in and of itself can be perfectly fine as well).

 

Not a great deal to get bugged about there.

 

John

[Marty]

Hogan was not really a virtuous babyface. He was putting the moves on Elizabeth the whole time he was teaming with Savage, to a point where Savage snapping on him was understandable. He was a poor sport about being eliminated fairly at the 1992 Royal Rumble. He acted like a coward toward Andre the Giant at the first Survivor Series. He beat up Sensational Sherri fairly regularly in 1989. He treated Paul Orndorff like dirt when they were friends and wouldn't even return his phone calls.

That's not even taking into account his questionable moveset in matches, a lot of which hardly fall under the "virtuous babyface" category, such as when he switched from the "three straight elbowdrops" spot to "two straight elbowdrops followed by a foot face-rake" spot around 1989 or so, something Jesse Ventura always called him out on.

[Ditch]

Or using Jimmy Hart's megaphone to beat the lowly Beverly Brothers, who hadn't done even light cheating.

[ohtani's jacket]

There are really a lot of different ways to approach storytelling in wrestling.

I don't think they're so disimilar. The audiences know the characters and know why they're fighting. Everything else is just plot points to tell the story. The details may differ, but at the end of the day it's all pretty universal stuff.

 

I don't know if your comments about All Japan are entirely true. There were angles and promos and stories heading into the big matches. I mean any match you build to is a payoff, right? At it should be. Even shoot style promotions couldn't resist that type of booking, and they were the closest wrestling has come to the actual work being the story and the outcome being less predictable.

 

There's a lot of people who get heavily into the play-by-play at the end of a big epic All Japan match, but to me Kawada kicking out of one move and Misawa having to do another isn't the story. A great sportswriter doesn't tell the story like that, even if the finish to a sporting event is memorable.

 

Anyway, back to the original point. I'd argue that the five moves of doom was part of the characterisation of Bret Hart being the Excellence of Execution. I can't think of a Bret Hart match where it was a big story point, other than being part of his overall thing -- i.e. his whole Gretzky gimmick and how that played into his babyface role.

[Bob Morris]

Or using Jimmy Hart's megaphone to beat the lowly Beverly Brothers, who hadn't done even light cheating.

Yes, and at that point, it just seemed Hogan was arrogant enough to think he could get away with any spot and the fans would cheer because it was Hogan. It was one of the reasons he wore out his welcome quickly with that 1993 return.

[Loss]

Forgetting any behind-the-scenes stuff, Hogan really came across horribly at the end of Wrestlemania IX, with the whole Bret to Yokozuna to Hogan title transition. He seemed like an opportunist feigning interest in Bret's well-being. I'm honestly surprised that Vince (and Hogan, for that matter) didn't think about the position that put Hogan in. I think in their mind, Bret saying "Go for it" was key, and I agree that it would have come across even worse without that. But suddenly, Hogan forgot all about Bret's well-being after winning the title, and it looked like that was all he had in mind all along.