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Cavauro posted:Jericho wasn't stiffed, he just forgot about the money and made a big stink later and they all agreed he could be right for the sake of his ego believe it or not in a battle of egos in 2002 i'm willing to take chris jericho's word over triple h's
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Mar 22, 2019 18:15
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It’s hard to understate how bizarre the HHH reign of terror was in retrospect. It was like some sort of bizarro world version of wresting where the villain always overcomes the odds and never receives comeuppance. Like during this time your chief villain beats the poo poo out of a mentally handicapped person, then when said mentally handicapped person’s guardian comes out to rain hell down on the villain, he gets the poo poo beat out of him too. End of story. That’s WEIRD
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Mar 22, 2019 18:19
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Triple H was not involved in paying wrestlers until 2002 and a half
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Mar 22, 2019 18:24
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Blast Fantasto posted:It’s hard to understate how bizarre the HHH reign of terror was in retrospect. It was like some sort of bizarro world version of wresting where the villain always overcomes the odds and never receives comeuppance. I don't know if anybody else remembers the segment I'm gonna talk about, but aside from the Eugene/Regal thing, this stands out the most to me the reign of terror period. Some of you may remember that during this period, one of the reasons HHH was allowed to do this was WWE was hurting for babyfaces. Austin was done physcially, Rock was making movies, and I think Angle was either a heel or over on Smackdown. How bad were they hurting? Well their 3 top faces (as I remember, please feel free to correct) were Kane, Rob Van Dam, and Bubba Ray Dudley. All popular. But Kane always made for a weird face, and the Katie Vick thing didn't do him any favors. RVD always had trouble navigating WWE politically. And he had a habit of accidentally stiffing people, in one case he did it so badly Karen Angle (he'd broken Kurt's nose in a 3 way for the WWE title, held by Austin at the time) wrote to Dave Meltzer to complain about it, which was weird. Which brings us to Bubba Ray. At one point, it seemed like they wanted to make Bubba a singles star, kind of a poor man's Dusty to HHH's poor man's Ric Flair (I once got called all manner of names for implying Flair was better than HHH in his prime by a mega HHH fan, good times). Bubba even started regularly doing the Bionic Elbow routine. So, on some RAW during this period, Bubba interrupts one of HHH's self fellatio sessions on the mic. Bubba's a decent promo when he's not resorting to incredibly offensive riot inducing cheap heat (I'm amazed that Heatwave promo didn't get Paul sued somehow), so this is fine. And hey, you gotta make new stars, right? So Bubba cuts a promo, saying he's so tired of this crap week after week. He points out that RAW has become a show that seems to exist purely to satisfy HHH's ego, and that he's here to put a stop to it. Little on the nose, but it actually followed the only important rule of worked shoot promo: allude to shooty elements, but don't go so inside baseball that you start talking about the worked element of the business. Bubba challenges HHH to a match. And HHH crushes him like a bug inside 10 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting Bubba Ray Dudley is the TA Magnum of that period, or anything like that. I don't know that he should have touched the main event anywhere. But the whole segment comes off as HHH personally addressing those who felt he should drop the belt by using Bubba as a proxy for them, then being like "Oh here's my rebuttal". And pedigreeing the proxy back to the stone age. Or maybe it's just lovely booking. Either way, a total waste of time.
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Mar 22, 2019 18:44
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Triple H desperately wanted to be an old NWA heel champion that held onto the title for years, which isn’t inherently a terrible idea. What was terrible, though, was that most of the time he refused to show his rear end and make the big babyface challengers at the time look like they could’ve beaten him if only he hadn’t had cheated to win. Like say what you will about lovely Bradshaw’s year old reign, he more or less did exactly that and it was much more palatable than Triple H’s run.
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Mar 22, 2019 18:51
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NienNunb posted:Triple H desperately wanted to be an old NWA heel champion that held onto the title for years, which isn’t inherently a terrible idea. What was terrible, though, was that most of the time he refused to show his rear end and make the big babyface challengers at the time look like they could’ve beaten him if only he hadn’t had cheated to win. Like say what you will about lovely Bradshaw’s year old reign, he more or less did exactly that and it was much more palatable than Triple H’s run. Absolutely. I think the unfortunate aspect is if it had been the HHH pre quad injury, him being King poo poo of gently caress Mountain would have been just fine. Dude went from "methodical but very good" to "Cure for insomnia" levels of slow.
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Mar 22, 2019 18:58
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NienNunb posted:Triple H desperately wanted to be an old NWA heel champion that held onto the title for years, which isn’t inherently a terrible idea. What was terrible, though, was that most of the time he refused to show his rear end and make the big babyface challengers at the time look like they could’ve beaten him if only he hadn’t had cheated to win. Like say what you will about lovely Bradshaw’s year old reign, he more or less did exactly that and it was much more palatable than Triple H’s run. Another thing re: NWA heel champions is that, once the heel escaped (and it was an escape) with their title intact, they left the territory and the face would go back to beating up the local heels & you'd forget about the big picture titles because you knew they weren't going to be in the area for a while. HHH would just win the blowoff match & open Raw with a fifteen minute diatribe on how great he was & it's tough to rebuild your babyface roster when the top heel has convincingly beaten them all.
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Mar 22, 2019 19:11
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I always remember the week the Rock did a job to the Hurricane on Raw (he pinned him with a roll up, I think it was a distraction finish but he did get the pin), and then Triple H squashed Hurricane the next week.
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Mar 22, 2019 19:43
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I'm really glad I didn't see any of this.
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Mar 22, 2019 19:50
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When did the HHH reign begin? I remember quitting in 2002 because wrestling didn’t seem as fun anymore. It could also be because I was sixteen, and I became preoccupied with girls though.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:11
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The brand split when he was gifted the belt, so after Summerslam 2002.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:14
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TriffTshngo posted:Didn't H win like every single one, too? It was rough because Jericho was like the opposite of Triple H in status during that run. As Undisputed Champion, the underlying story for a few months was "Chris Jericho is absolutely terrible and why are we stuck with him as champion?" Kind of like Seth Rollins but without the explanation that the guys in charge were protecting him at all costs. So even though the matches were fine, everything surrounding them was crap because: - It was a dominant face taking on a guy who somehow looked incredibly weak despite having various singles wins over Austin and the Rock in the previous couple months. - The angle became Triple H vs. Stephanie McMahon featuring a bulldog and Chris Jericho. - The storyline was so lousy that rather than show any of the build at WrestleMania, they had a buttrock group do a concert with random clips playing on the screens to "tell the story" of their feud. - Triple H insisted that it main event the show, even though Rock vs. Hogan was the bigger deal. This hurt the match because everyone was burnt out and too tired to care for the main event.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:14
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Rock vs Hogan is one of my favourite not very good matches ever
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Mar 22, 2019 20:17
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Aphrodite posted:The brand split when he was gifted the belt, so after Summerslam 2002. So, I checked out before then. I just missed the brand split. The writing seemed on the wall after WCW was bought out.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:19
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Also remember that the "World title" that was gifted to Triple H still had the NWA/WCW lineage right up until he lost the belt to Benoit. From that point on the lineage started with Triple H.
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Mar 22, 2019 21:26
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The HHH run was offensive because while he was a good wrestler and big star, he very clearly used his marriage to the bosses daughter to get himself booked as Superman forever. I checked out for 7 years during this timeframe.
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Mar 23, 2019 02:09
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NienNunb posted:Triple H desperately wanted to be an old NWA heel champion that held onto the title for years, which isn’t inherently a terrible idea. What was terrible, though, was that most of the time he refused to show his rear end and make the big babyface challengers at the time look like they could’ve beaten him if only he hadn’t had cheated to win. Like say what you will about lovely Bradshaw’s year old reign, he more or less did exactly that and it was much more palatable than Triple H’s run. The sad thing is that he (rightly) idolizes Ric Flair, but Flair's lengthy NWA Title reigns were marked by him making every babyface he fought look like a million bucks and he would be reduced to cheating his rear end off to escape with a victory. As mentioned above, he also had the benefit of moving through different territories so there was a reason for him not to have rematches after loving over the face, and in some cases he'd actually set up feuds between the territory face/heel that could continue after he was gone. Best example I can think of is that time he went to Memphis and got tricked into a match against Jerry Lawler, took a beating and left the show after announcing he was putting a bounty on Lawler that any heel that wanted to could try to cash in on, effectively setting up months of potential feuds for Lawler out of one match. Triple H was the top of the only game in town, so he'd beat everybody and they'd just kind of... meander back down to the midcard (upper midcard if lucky) while he got to cut 15-20 minute promos about how much better than them he was. All that said, the earlier question about whether Rock and HHH ever faced off against after 2000 can be answered with this wonderful interaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDa4A7v3-z0
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Mar 23, 2019 02:48
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Ric Flair's Cowardly Heel Puts Over Babyface act was so good that he got the crowd into it in loving North Korea HHH meanwhile got the entire roster together to remind them that Hogan's racist turn was fine and if they were gonna do a racism then make sure no one films it
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Mar 23, 2019 04:31
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Aside from the obvious "did they draw" I feel like the biggest question you can ask of any wrestling character in terms of their positive impact is "who did they make," and that's especially important for heels because their explicit role in the greater canon of wrestling is to make audiences cheer for whatever up-and-coming face eventually kills them. Over the course of a decade Triple H soundly defeated rising faces Chris Jericho (and then again when he turned face and Jericho was a rising heel), Kurt Angle, Booker T, Kane, Goldberg, Orton, and Jeff Hardy and got put over Rob Van Dam and CM Punk. In that same timeframe he made, uh, Chris Benoit and Batista. It's not a great ratio.
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Mar 23, 2019 04:54
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Batista is actually the maddening example because it shows that he actually gets it and just chooses not to do it most of the time. Dave literally just won 90% of their encounters, and the rare times HHH got the upper hand it was due to dirty tricks and tactics.
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Mar 23, 2019 05:04
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I'm randomly reminded of how Mr. Perfect would sell his rear end off for random jobbers on Superstars, until he hit a point in the match where he was like "I might lose this squash" and got serious. Always thought that was great
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Mar 23, 2019 05:07
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Flair becoming a cowardly heel who barely got out of jams and looked generally weak was one of the things that contributed to JCP going down. HHH definitely could have shown some rear end during his run but the NWA champion was normally booked much stronger than Flair was when Dusty started hot shotting poo poo. If 80s Flair had replaced bloated 2003 HHH no one would have been complaining about that run.
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Mar 23, 2019 05:34
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I'm always reading "JCP" as "JCW" and getting really confused for a moment
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Mar 23, 2019 05:38
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Prokhor Zakharov posted:Ric Flair's Cowardly Heel Puts Over Babyface act was so good that he got the crowd into it in loving North Korea
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Mar 23, 2019 05:46
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What a mark!
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Mar 23, 2019 13:00
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Remember, after beating HHH for the title, Benoit's biggest achievement was *checks notes* winning the tag team titles with Edge. He might've not even bothered having the title.
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Mar 23, 2019 14:22
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Then he was demoted to the Four Horsemen
DeathChicken fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 14:31
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Davros1 posted:Remember, after beating HHH for the title, Benoit's biggest achievement was *checks notes* winning the tag team titles with Edge. I mean, (a) he won the title in a great Mania match (b) he retained against the pair of them in a pretty good match (c) he would've beaten CM Punk for the ECW titles without, you know, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAR-DurmA6o
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Mar 23, 2019 14:39
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Venomous posted:I mean, (a) he won the title in a great Mania match (b) he retained against the pair of them in a pretty good match (c) he would've beaten CM Punk for the ECW titles without, you know, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAR-DurmA6o this right here is an example of bad comedy
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Mar 23, 2019 16:45
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Venomous posted:I mean, (a) he won the title in a great Mania match (b) he retained against the pair of them in a pretty good match (c) he would've beaten CM Punk for the ECW titles without, you know, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAR-DurmA6o W-WHAT IS THIS???
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Mar 23, 2019 18:16
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what does a mike tenay rat look like
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Mar 24, 2019 05:26
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CarlCX posted:Over the course of a decade Triple H soundly defeated rising faces Chris Jericho (and then again when he turned face and Jericho was a rising heel), Kurt Angle, Booker T, Kane, Goldberg, Orton, and Jeff Hardy and got put over Rob Van Dam and CM Punk. HHH also put over Daniel Bryan on his way to the WWE title and put over the Shield in crazy-rear end six man matches where he made sure to look totally outgunned by younger, healthier guys. He definitely knows how to do the right thing, he just doesn't because he's a huge dork who can't resist booking himself as a Mary Sue and wants everyone to think he's a Rock/Austin-level icon.
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Mar 24, 2019 16:37
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Didn't Jeff get his biggest world title win ever in a triple threat with Triple H and Edge? I forget who he pinned there, Edge I think after Swanton-ining Trips.
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Mar 24, 2019 16:49
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NikkolasKing posted:Didn't Jeff get his biggest world title win ever in a triple threat with Triple H and Edge? I forget who he pinned there, Edge I think after Swanton-ining Trips. Oh God wasn't this like a month after Jeff lost to HHH after a crucifix pin when Jeff did a lazy cover
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Mar 24, 2019 16:57
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NikkolasKing posted:Didn't Jeff get his biggest world title win ever in a triple threat with Triple H and Edge? I forget who he pinned there, Edge I think after Swanton-ining Trips. Aye they had a long feud where basically Jeff kept barely squeaking out wins against HHH in title contention matches which HHH treated with befuddled amusement so as to show he was not being owned and when it came to finally getting a title match between the two where Jeff was going to win they added Edge so HHH didn't have to job clean for the belt.
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Mar 24, 2019 17:19
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CombineThresher posted:HHH also put over Daniel Bryan on his way to the WWE title and put over the Shield in crazy-rear end six man matches where he made sure to look totally outgunned by younger, healthier guys. He definitely knows how to do the right thing, he just doesn't because he's a huge dork who can't resist booking himself as a Mary Sue and wants everyone to think he's a Rock/Austin-level icon. See, I thought about including those but they came after he had retired (by wrestling standards) as a full-time competitor and switched his primary focus to corporate life, and we were more talking about the whole Triple H-As-Heel-Atop-The-Card period.
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Mar 24, 2019 18:06
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I occasionally see people calling out wrestlers for being very good at the 2.9 (in particular AJ Styles, and I can't remember any other names off the top of my head). Just saw a really great roll-up 2.9 that made me think about the opposite: are there any wrestlers that were or are notably BAD at 2.9s? Like, always too early and/or never actually doing them.
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Mar 24, 2019 18:06
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Sasha Banks seems to have kinda bad timing at it, she kicks out of what should be a near fall at like 2.3
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Mar 24, 2019 18:11
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Procrastinator posted:I occasionally see people calling out wrestlers for being very good at the 2.9 (in particular AJ Styles, and I can't remember any other names off the top of my head). Just saw a really great roll-up 2.9 that made me think about the opposite: are there any wrestlers that were or are notably BAD at 2.9s? Like, always too early and/or never actually doing them. I once heard someone mention Jeff Jarrett lightly raising his shoulder at 2.9 in his TNA days
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Mar 24, 2019 18:23
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Max Coveri posted:I once heard someone mention Jeff Jarrett lightly raising his shoulder at 2.9 in his TNA days Oh he started doing that at least as early as his WWF run.
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Mar 24, 2019 20:28
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