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With Jamesman talking up how Finlay helped make WWE's women's division better, I want to talk about WWE's reluctance to make Becky Lynch one of their biggest stars next. But even before I can get into that, I'm going to have to write a thing on WWE's Women's Revolution. So I'll put that together later. My favorite Finlay story is how back in WCW, there was an incident where Juventud Guerrera got messed up on PCP or something and had a gigantic freakout in a hotel lobby. He was screaming and trying to tear his clothes off. One wrestler wasn't there, but knew that it had to be serious after finding out that Finlay had trouble holding him back. Because if Finlay holds you down, 99% of the time, you will be held the gently caress down.
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Feb 22, 2022 20:06
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:You've said that 'cool heels' are a problem and from your writeups I can kind of see how/why, but like how do you account for the fact though that, like, good villains are generally cool? Seriously, heels are almost always cool. When I think of unlikable heels, I think of The Rock, in a bad way. He was & remains wildly successful though, so there must be something in what Cornwind Evil is saying.
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Feb 22, 2022 20:12
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All these positive fit finlay stories still don’t quite make up for the many hours I’ve spent watching his unfit stringy son Dave in njpw do a middling job of things while wearing half applied scene girl eye makeup.
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Feb 22, 2022 20:38
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Oh my god I'd forgotten about Hornswoggle! Tbh I was a fan because it made no god drat sense that a leprechaun would come out of nowhere and just beat the poo poo out of people. I also forgot he was attached to Finlay!
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Feb 22, 2022 20:40
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:So, Cornwind Evil, I have some questions about heels and faces, if you don't mind? The thing about cool heels is that as cool as they are, you still need a balance. Vader was a badass, but Lucas and the rest never went so far as to make the heroes look like dorks in comparison. Luke and friends were still likeable heroes and we still got that moment of Luke just wailing on Vader until his hand came off. If every Vader scene was him yoinking Han's blaster away like it was nothing, then it would have been a problem. A good comparison to what I think Cornwind Evil is going for is when writers overuse and overhype the Joker. He's not afraid to die, he's not afraid to feel pain, he's not afraid to lose, etc. He always has control of the situation. So... what's the payoff? Writers will have him escape Arkham, kill a bunch of people, get punched out by Batman, go back to Arkham, and laugh it off. Sure, Batman beat him up and didn't "give in" and kill him, but when this happens like every week and Joker is an unflappable guy who has murdered thousands, Batman just looks like a total loser. nWo was a villain group who never seemed to have any meaningful defeats. WCW just looked like a bunch of geeks and the product suffered for it.
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Feb 22, 2022 20:48
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Vinces OTHER Son - Part Three: MISTEEEEEEEER KENNEDYYYYYYY! ...KENNEDYYYYYYY Ken Kennedy was exactly the kinda guy WWE wanted you to see when you turned on their show in the mid-2000's. He had the look, he had the mic skills, he had the personality, he had the moves (ish?). You looked at him, and you not only knew WWE was gonna push this guy, you also kinda knew they were right. ...KENNEDYYYYYYY The only issue was Kennedy's body appeared to be prone to exploding. Just as his momentum was going, he would get injured. This kept happening, and kept him from reaching the top. Every time you thought you were going to see him become THE Next Big Thing, something would happen that would sideline him. WWE tried to keep him on TV and not lose the heat, but there's only so many times this can happen before everyone's feeling like they should stop getting invested in the poor guy.  WWE stayed invested, though. There was undeniably something about the guy, and they knew that sooner or later, he would climb his way to the top. Things were looking good for a while, and so he ended up being booked to win a Money in the Bank match, which gave the winner a year to "cash in" on challenging for the championship at any point during events. And then the muscle on his arm was ripped off the bone, so they had him give up the prize to another wrestler. Sadly, the "muscle on his arm was ripped off the bone" was a premature diagnosis, and the injury ended up being much less severe. Had it had been known at the time, he probably would have kept the prize and the plans stayed in place for a Wrestlemania match. But even so, something else was about to happen that would gently caress it all up anyway.  "Hey, fuckers. It's me again." The murder-suicide of the Benoit family re-ignited talk about steroid use in professional wrestling. WWE worked on damage control by instituting a Wellness Policy (For real this time! Honest!) and having wrestlers be a part of the discussion on news outlets to turn the conversation away from any blame people might be trying to put on the company. One of these people would be Mr. Kennedy. And then Mr. Kennedy was implicated in steroid abuse through journalist investigations, along with several others. The investigation results were bad enough, since WWE was trying to act like "No, we're totally on top of this stuff." But having one of those people implicated be on TV saying "No, we're totally on top of this stuff." was loving embarrassing. I'm sure at least a few people wanted Kennedy dead after this, but since WWE was trying to distance themselves from murders, he was instead suspended, per the Wellness Policy (For People Whose Name Doesn't Rhyme With "Mandy Borten").  They call him "The Viper" because he injects cobra venom into his testicles. Kennedy would stick around for a bit longer, but this pretty much cemented that any plans for him to be the Next Big Thing were dead and gone. This included a storyline where it would be revealed that Vince McMahon had an illegitimate son... and they were a wrestler in WWE! So what do you with a storyline involving Vince when one of the key actors needs to be replaced? Well, you replace them. You idiot. Of course, you could just scrap the whole thing and come up with a new and better storyline, but you should know by now Vince never wants to throw out a perfectly good lovely plot involving himself (See: The time Vince's character died. Twice.) So yeah, just hold off a bit and revisit it when you have another big wrestler to plug into such a major story. Or... maybe a little wrestler...  And that's how Hornswoggle became a McMahon. For, like, a month. Then it was revealed he was actually Finlay's son.  MY NAME, IS FINLAY. AND I LOVE TO gently caress!
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Feb 22, 2022 20:50
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YeahTubaMike posted:Seriously, heels are almost always cool. Rick Rude was rad as hell
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Feb 22, 2022 20:56
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:So, Cornwind Evil, I have some questions about heels and faces, if you don't mind? With all due respect owed to the Champ here. I'd like to take this, as a former booker.
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Feb 22, 2022 21:22
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Castor Poe posted:Can someone effort post about how Hogan, who was still bitter he had to put the Ultimate Warrior over 167 years earlier at Wrestlemania VI, had him signed with WCW just to beat him at Starcade, in which was arguably the worst match in history? The current OSW arc is exactly this, if you want to watch a bunch of Irishmen make jokes that will upset people in the wrestling forum (a mid-90s wrestling podcast is no place for comedy) But yes. Honestly, while I'm sure Hogan almost certainly had a hand in it, to a certain extent it was WCW doing the same thing they'd been doing before and getting themselves out of the hole they'd created with the nWo angle. I don't see Hogan sitting in his trailer and refusing to comb his skullet until he gets his win back from Jim Hellwig. Specifically, as of the start of 1996, WCW really has two (maybe three) top babyfaces - Hogan, Sting, and Randy Savage. Their entire business model is pretty much around Hogan fighting the monster of the week, as has been amply demonstrated by some of the previous effortposts. And this is getting really long in the tooth and starting to veer into open self-parody where Hogan fights actual monsters from the monster dimension, yadda yadda previous effortposts. So, finally allowing Hogan to turn and portray a character who didn't give a poo poo about the business or anyone in it as long as he got paid and got to ride his motorbike (a character he was shockingly good at, for reasons no-one could quite put their finger on) was a great business decision but you then need an actual wrestling program for Hogan to work. It can't be against Sting because the entire storyline relies on Sting getting sick of this poo poo and going off to listen to The Cure in the rafters for the next year. You could in theory do Randy Savage, but he's a legitimately slightly unhinged guy in his mid-40s who got completely blackballed by Vince McMahon (even Jarrett came back in the end) for some incident that may or may not involve Vince's daughter, and it'd be bizarre for him to lead the WCW charge against what is unofficially a WWF 'invasion'. You could do Ric Flair, but they've already done that program, and Flair is a natural heel who's also approaching 50 at this point. So you then have Hogan, Nash and Hall against what are largely a collection of doofy midcarders. JImmy Hart and The Giant are briefly defacto babyfaces, as they announce that it's one thing to travel to the monster dimension and worship Satan, but Hogan has now taken this all too far, which lasts until The Giant joins the nWo a month later because they promised a fourth man would show up at the pay-per-view and then British Bulldog (their original plan) did not show up at the pay-per-view so Big Show had to turn and some say he's still turning to this day. Lex Luger would briefly feud with Hogan, and actually have a title reign that lasted a couple of weeks, but the WWF had already proven at length and at great expense that Lex was categorically not the guy to replace Hogan. DDP is about six months removed from the gimmick of GUY WHO WON AT BINGO and lost his hot wife to Johnny B. Badd, although he'll be a main-eventer by the time the nWo has run it's course. There are a bunch of other guys who'd go on to be megastars in the undercard - guys like Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio, Jushin Liger and Eddie Guerrero, but they're all five years away from that, and even then if you'd suggested to Hogan that he work a program with 5'7" luchador dude Eddie Guerrero he would have laughed in your face and then probably said something racist because he's Hulk Hogan and he has a scrapbook under his bed of all his favourite times he laughed in your face or said something super racist. So, what do? Well, same as before, just reverse it. Throw money at 80s guys to come and lose to Hogan, except now they're babyfaces and Hogan is the heel. First up is Roddy Piper. Piper is fun, but he's also insane. I described him upthread as his gimmick being that he's on day three on a seven-day bender, and that may be factually accurate at any point. He rambles for so long on his debut appearance that the pay-per-view cuts off and they have to replay it on the Monday. There's a segment where he reveals that Bischoff is running the nWo, except he doesn't, Hogan just comes out and hugs Bischoff while Piper is screaming at him about whether his road is straight or crooked, presumably because there are other matches planned for the next two hours. To build his match with Hogan, he challenges the entire nWo to a fight, because he is a stupid babyface, and then they beat him up and point out that he has a fake hip, because that's a good way to build sympathy with young people. He also cuts a promo from Alcatraz and implies that he's going to swim to the show. He beats Hogan in the main event of Starrcade, which is non-title for unclear reasons, but then loses the rematch due to shenanigans. He organises a team to fight the nWo, where there's some suggestion that WCW legitimately gave him a free choice and he decided to do a segment where he brought out several complete rookies to audition for Team Piper. One of them is Luther Reigns (remember Luther Reigns?). This segment goes on for a loooong time and dies an absolute death. As of the following week, the rookies aren't mentioned again and Team Piper consists of people presumably picked by someone in the back who is only the normal, regular amount of high. Thus follows a few months of Team nWo vs Team Other Dudes matches, where The Giant will turn with the season and feud with Hogan, and also footballman Mongo McMichael will show up and is now in the Four Horsemen, for reasons. He is a danger to himself and others, it is very fun. Kevin Greene is also apparently a footballman (I have no NFL frame of reference, you could tell me he played professional laser tag on the moon and it'd be the same for me) and gets to be in Team Other Dudes, for reasons. At some point they have a Nitro from the beach where they do a bikini contest and the woman who wins it later becomes famous for having sex with one of her students. This is higher on the card than at least three or four hall-of-famers. This lasts through to Starrcade, where Sting beats Hogan in as much of a way designed to make Sting look like crap as possible. This lasts for about three months, before the belt is off Sting (this goth dude isn't jacked or tan enough to be champion) and we're back to same Hogan show, same Hogan problem. So, Warrior. Warrior now being his legal name that he signs when he goes to the bank, because trademarks can eat a big ol' bowl of dicks. Warrior is something of an oddity in wrestling. Normally you would want to be either really good at talking or really good at doing moves. For best results, you should probably be really really good at talking and good enough at doing moves that nobody gets mad, that's like the golden zone for actually making money, but there's also a cool zone where you're really good at doing moves but sound like you're actively being given a wedgie, which makes you popular and relatable on the internet. Warrior doesn't leave a margin for error here. He's terrible in the ring, and also his promos are literally nonsensical gibberish that sound like someone mixed coke and ketamine in the same bag. His entire schtick is just pure distilled babyface fire. He runs to the ring, he runs around the ring, he throws his opponents around with no care whatsoever for their actual physical safety, and then he yells nonsensical gibberish at the sky. At some point he'll independently release a comic book which makes clear that he actually believes some or all of this gibberish, and in which he murders Santa Claus and steals his clothes. And then he shows up in WCW with a spooky-ooky fog machine and cuts an unscripted 27-minute promo about Hogan Bad. It is 1998. Jimmy Hart and The Giant already established that Hogan < Satan two years prior. There's an active argument on that OSW show that technically this is the best promo Warrior ever cut, and they're right, but after all that what he really needs to be doing is running and shouting and throwing Virgil around in a way that injures him and then shouting some more. There's money in the shouting. He's instead now the bastard son of the Undertaker and Matt Hardy, appearing out of mysterious fog to kidnap people and cut 20-minute promos. Hulk Hogan can see him in the mirror, but no-one else can, except the audience (scary!). He appeared in the ring via a trapdoor that Bulldog badly hurt himself on (oooh!). He kidnapped Ed Leslie, using his Ed Leslie kidnapping mist (good lord!). This is one of those things where you get to see the fans turn on it in real-time, and it's great. Hogan and Warrior have their match at Halloween Havoc, which is absolutely terrible and ends with a botched finish where Hogan tries to throw a fireball into Warrior's face and it goes off in his hands. Warrior would end up wrestling a total of three matches for WCW, in return for what was likely a six-figure sum. WWF would feature this heavily on the DVD they released about how Ultimate Warrior was a bitch failson, and where Hogan would claim that the reason the feud failed was because Warrior carelessly let slip that they'd already wrestled in the past and therefore no-one was interested in seeing a rehash. Specifically, they'd previously wrestled in the main event of Wrestlemania VI, which was the entire premise for the feud to begin with. WWF would later release a follow-up DVD about how actually Warrior was cool and good after all, and he'd show up for one night on Monday Night Raw, shout incoherently at the sky, and then died on the way out of the building that night. Many people still believe that if you look up at the sky on a clear night, you can hear the faint sound of him hurting his opponents and being mad about butt stuff. FullLeatherJacket fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Feb 22, 2022 |
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Feb 22, 2022 22:54
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FullLeatherJacket posted:Warrior stuff  I can't believe it king! FullLeatherJacket just threw Cornwind Evil off the steel cage! AS GOD AS MY WITNESS HE IS BROKEN IN HALF.
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Feb 22, 2022 23:55
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It's been really cool to read all this backstage behind the scenes poo poo of wrestling which I stopped watching 22 years ago. Would like to read about more crazy poo poo that happened, those are my favorite posts.
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Feb 23, 2022 01:08
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Hollismason posted:It's been really cool to read all this backstage behind the scenes poo poo of wrestling which I stopped watching 22 years ago. Would like to read about more crazy poo poo that happened, those are my favorite posts. wcw held a ppv event in north korea and 2 Cold Scorpio plotted to murder Road Warrior Hawk while they were over there 16-bit Butt-Head fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 01:21
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SilvergunSuperman posted:Rick Rude was rad as hell Back in the day characters were simple and effective. "Cool hot dude who fucks a lot" Great.
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Feb 23, 2022 01:26
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:wcw held a ppv event in north korea and 2 Cold Scorpio plotted to murder Road Warrior Hawk while there I thought you were kidding. 
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Feb 23, 2022 01:27
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16-bit Butt-Head posted:wcw held a ppv event in north korea and 2 Cold Scorpio plotted to murder Road Warrior Hawk while they were over there I'm sorry what.
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Feb 23, 2022 01:28
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Seth Pecksniff posted:I thought you were kidding. you cant make up stories about wrestling because what actually happened is always more stupid and insane than any one person can come up with on their own 16-bit Butt-Head fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 01:29
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This is probably older than you guys like but let's take a look at one of the best managers of all time: Gary Hart. Hart started off as a wrestler. He was pretty decent. But he evolved because he was good on the mic. I think the turning point was the 1975 airplane crash which killed Bobby Shane, an and coming young guy who was pretty drat good. Hart recovered, invested his settlement money and went to work for Fritz Von Erich's World Class promotion. On screen Hart was the evil manager bringing in talent to take down Fritz and the faces. Behind the scenes he was a booker and a drat good one. In his autobiography he tells us he was among the elite class of bookers like Dusty, Jim Barnett of Georgia Championship Wrestling and others. I believe it. His book of WCCW was legendary and spawned one of the greats: Von Erich boys versus The Fabulous Freebirds. Classic wrestling, Georgia shitheels vs. Texas royalty. Then he quit. Why? Fritz hosed him on his pay for the big Christmas Star Wars (yep, Gary thought the name would attract.. it did) card. After that he bounced around, developing wrestlers like the Great Kabuki, managing (in real life) Bruiser Brody and the Butcher and booking for other promotions. In his book he rightly brags that he set WCCW up for success. The Freebirds versus the von Erichs is one of the great classic feuds in wrestling. Before Michael Hayes looked like your sloppy drunk Uncle at a wedding with a Fanny pack, he was a pretty decent wrestler and fantastic on the mic. And the women, at least in the early '80s, loved him. Hart saw that. However, he always would return to Dallas because that was home. But friction between him and Fritz usually sent him elsewhere. He actually fought for Fritz at the end but after the death of nearly all of his sons to suicide, Fritz was done. Gary managed Al Perez in WCW in the early '90s but that ended when Perez wanted to shoot on Flair and steal the belt. Hart was not on board with that plan and ended the relationship, even though he loved Al. He did some indie work in the '90s but retired and lived off his investments, smoking weed and enjoying life, occasionally going to conventions to hang with fans. Lots of his promos are on Youtube and he is fantastic on the mic. He is the definitive evil manager, but he's never over the top. Though born and bred in the Upper Midwest he has a slight Texas accent which adds to his persona. His autobiography is long out of print and stupidly expensive. However, it is freely available on the internet in .pdf form. My Life In Wrestling...With A Little Help From My Friends is the title if you want to search.
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Feb 23, 2022 01:29
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Hollismason posted:I'm sorry what. Vice put out a series called Dark Side of the Ring where one of the episodes covered that as part of the North Korea trip. You should watch it in supplement to any post explaining it.
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Feb 23, 2022 01:30
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TV Zombie posted:Vice put out a series called Dark Side of the Ring where one of the episodes covered that as part of the North Korea trip. You should watch it in supplement to any post explaining it. I just read a news story on it that quotes the guy. That's loving insane lol.
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Feb 23, 2022 01:33
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There's a lot of bad ideas in this world but conspiring to commit murder in North Korea has to be like, top five easily
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Feb 23, 2022 01:34
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Seth Pecksniff posted:There's a lot of bad ideas in this world but conspiring to commit murder in North Korea has to be like, top five easily And the guy who talked him out of it was Chris Benoit which is also loving crazy
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Feb 23, 2022 01:36
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I What?  Are humanity's writers wrestling fans because I cannot process this. My brain cannot understand what you just wrote
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Feb 23, 2022 01:38
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they asked hulk hogan if he wanted to wrestle in north korea and he said no and refused to go so that makes hulk hogan the smartest person in the story lol
16-bit Butt-Head fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 01:39
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Seth Pecksniff posted:I Haha here is the story I found on the whole thing https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/chris-benoit-talked-2-cold-scorpio-out-stabbing-road-warrior-hawk He was going to stab him with a chopstick
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Feb 23, 2022 01:41
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it was a metal chopstick he sharpened into a shiv because he was going to shank road warrior hawk in north korea
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Feb 23, 2022 01:43
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FullLeatherJacket posted:Warrioring don't make 1998 WCW work. Trollologist posted:
Eh, after all that stuff about how lovely Hogan and Michaels were, I'd have to be pretty drat hypocritical to make any complaints. Wasn't going to anyway. Couldn't have done it any better myself Jacket. If avatars on SA were free and I could photoshop I'd take out the belt and hand it to your avatar. Let's see if you can draw, kid. --- Right, so I was also asked, "What makes a cool heel?" Well, giving it some thought, I think the answer comes best in the old latin phrase "Res ipsa loquitur", "the thing speaks for itself." A good heel, or bad guy, just is. They'll do their thing and people will respond. As I said, in wrestling, if you do your job well as a heel (as a wrestler, managers tended to not get this because their victories are far more metaphorical. Yes, Cornette is generally widely respected now, but he was never going to get cheered eventually for being so drat good at being an infuriating lisping bastard back in his manager days. That would come later), eventually fans will cheer you. Wrestling fans, in general, like/respect winners, and not 'winning' is a good way to lose their support. This is a finer point than most realize, as there can be a thin line between "plucky underdog" and "Loser". The first example that comes to mind is Randy Orton's Legacy stable, consisting of him, Cody Rhodes, and Ted DiBiase Jr. He treated his two subordinates poorly and at a point the crowd was hot for them (Ted especially, IIRC) to turn on him, Virgil and his dad style. But WWE didn't pull the trigger. They stayed at Orton's side despite his behaviour not improving. And so the fans turned on the two of THEM instead, and when they actually did turn on Orton they not only didn't much care, but it turned ORTON face instead of them. Look no further than Wrestlemania 26, which had an Orton vs Cody and Ted match, if it had happened at Summerslam six months previous, would have been Cody and Ted beating the crap out of Orton while the fans cheered. Instead, the fans cheered Orton, who wasn't a 'loser', and he won the match. That's what helped the NWO. They said they would do stuff, and then they did it. They said they'd beat the poo poo out of people, and then they did. They said they would win belts, and they did. They said they would get the whole WCW promotion on the run, and they did. That's enough. But like Gavok said in regards to what Vader and the Empire did and what they didn't do, some people see that and think "We need to go EVEN FURTHER", when it's really not needed. Hell, we bring up Darth Vader; I think of his Marvel comic book series, which has some neat moments, but half the time reads as someone who is trying so hard to 'fix' how the prequels made Vader 'lame'. Except it doesn't help. Take this bit, as part of a storyline where Vader in his TIE gets shot down and is surrounded by a large unit of rebel troops.  This line is not needed. Vader igniting his lightsaber would be more than enough. But the writer decides that he absolutely HAS to look cool, so he says something 'badass'. Maybe it works for some, but for others, it rings hollow. The more you do it, the more people will pick up on it, and the more hollow it will ring. They also mentioned the Joker: this makes me think of Scott Snyder, who while he did write some good comic book stories, generally writes the Joker as "The Batman, except his opposite." Yeah, that's generally how the Joker IS, but it's also a response to 'Bat-God', where Batman despite being human has trained so much and is so smart and so quick thinking that he can do stuff that superhumans generally don't or can't do. So Joker must be just as skilled, just evil and insane. So Synder has stuff like Joker shutting off the lights in a police station and then killing his way through the dark offices and taking out eight officers and vanishing again in the ten seconds before the lights come back on. Or his big storyline "Death Of The Family", which has Joker trying to break the bonds of the Bat-Family, but to do this he's interacting not only with all the prime Bat-family members, but adjacent ones like Catwoman, Harley Quinn, the Teen Titans via Robin, and Red Hood's group, to the point where it seems like Joker's in ten places at the same time in order to get around and do all this. Or Synder's big Joker storyline after THAT, where he is SO GOOD with his Joker Venom that he was able to create variants that "Jokerized" the WHOLE JUSTICE LEAGUE, forcing Batman to pull out yet another 'planning and prep time' series of countermeasures to take them down. Or hell, that ain't enough? How about when Joker talked about how he planned to betray and destroy the Legion of Doom, where he again made Joker Venom that let him take control of all its members, including the likes of Gorilla Grodd, who has immense mind control powers of his own, and sabotaged all of Lex's backup plans before he could invoke them, and then concluding with this bit.    You catch my drift? This isn't BAD, per say...but it's the sort of thing that undermines other things based on the whole "Batman and Joker are just normal humans" concept. Just let the Joker do stuff. Don't sit down and try and think up the craziest possible poo poo, or if you do, be careful. Do it just right, and you get The Dark Knight. Do it wrong, and you get a 'cool heel'. And of course, there's just the more obvious stuff. The NWO could have gotten "Empire cool' just by doing what they did. But Nash would give them a hand sign, based on a personal sign between himself and the Clique, for the fans to copy. That's not a heel move; that's a face move. He'd have a catchphrase that fans could sing along to: "Tooooo sweeeettttt!" Yes, fans would eventually sing along to stuff like the Rock's catchphrases, but that happened because he got over, not so much because they were designed to. You'll notice that when DX turned heel in 2000, they stopped doing the crowd participation "And if you're not down with that..." bit. Hell. I have a video example that basically sums up 'cool heel'. This video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-cXztkOz-c Nash SHOULD have fled just by jumping into the pool. Instead, he did it THAT way. Doesn't make the Giant look all that good, does it? --- A completely unrelated note, based on something I found while looking for the above video that I just had to share. One of the many many many stupid things I didn't bring up during the last WCW days was this plot thread idea in WCW storylines that people would bring out the supposed contracts of certain wrestlers, with the idea being that if the contract was physically destroyed, this would either get them fired or free them to go to WWF. Which was counterbalanced by the fact that these contracts seemingly COULD NOT BE DESTROYED. Case in point: Goldberg did this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS1ZiDqogDQ And he must have had a very uncomfortable bathroom experience afterwards because next week the contract was back, looking none the worse for wear. Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 02:21
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Jamesman posted:Hornswoggle has been brought up in this thread before, but I don't think it's really been stressed enough that WWE introduced a magical ring imp into their world and we were just supposed to... accept it? I don't know if this was a punishment or just one of Vince's Great Ideas, but they took Hard Irish Badass and felt they needed to refine that gimmick by having this become part of it. Finlay owned hard and to me is up with my all time-favorites with Regal Hornswoggle attacking (as accurately described) as a rabid badger owned Hornswoggle was actually pretty darn good in the ring, but you can only do so much with the size differential with a mini vs big guy situation outside of said rabid badger attacks, but he did that very well. Replying from the previous page but I'm sure you'll get to H-Swaggle's horrible feud with Chavo eventually, which did irreparable damage to both of them. Edit since I got the chickens peckin: RoboChrist 9000 posted:So, Cornwind Evil, I have some questions about heels and faces, if you don't mind? I mean, there's cool heels, like, "love to hate" or "straight up villains who are fun to watch", then there's "cool heels" like Hall and Nash were doing. They were booked like heels, they did heelish things like cheating/run ins/beating up faces, but they still acted like faces at the same time, doing "sing along" catchphrase promos, interacting positively with fans who were "down" with the nWo, etc. It's not necessarily a bad thing in the short term, but you need to book around it. Steve Austin in '97's character acting like a heel and that was kept pretty consistent, but they booked him away from being a "cool heel" by booking him like a face. The crowd responded to him like a face although the character was a heel, but the booking kept him from making their intended babyfaces looking like dinguses. Hall and Nash though? Booked as heels, acted like heels, got face reactions, worked the crowd as faces, ended up undermining the babyfaces they were trying to build. TheSwizzler fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 02:22
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Cornwind Evil posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS1ZiDqogDQ Lord how I wish that the title of that video had been accurate, because it would have been hilarious to watch him just pour Scott Hall's contacts right into his mouth 
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Feb 23, 2022 03:15
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That's a pretty accurate final panel, specifically in that post's context, because "The Batman Who Laughs" is a bizarre and extremely stupid rabbit hole that makes Pro Wrestling (from any era) look thoughtful and highbrow. Near as I can tell, it's what happens when you take Judge Death, make him a Cenobite, tell everyone he's Batman, and then go really crazy with it.
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Feb 23, 2022 03:22
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vince mcmahon likes to let out loud smelly farts because he knows it made one of his employees sick and vince finds that funny. one day vince farted so hard he poo poo himself and he couldnt change his clothes because he had to go on camera so he walked out on live television and did his segment right after making GBS threads himself
16-bit Butt-Head fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 03:33
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TheSwizzler posted:Replying from the previous page but I'm sure you'll get to H-Swaggle's horrible feud with Chavo eventually, which did irreparable damage to both of them. I don't think I was watching at the time of this, so someone else will have to cover it. The only Chavo thing I remember is Kerwin White.
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Feb 23, 2022 03:34
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Right, I worked for an indie for a few years up here in  and have some lore that's insignifcant but "new" about WCW, but also kinda illustrates how weird WCW gotSome may remember a strange squash match on the August 16, 2000 Thunder episode from Kamloops, BC (couldn't find footage, but if you can there are some neat bumps and botches involved), 4 indie guys vs Kronik, where they cut a strange, stilted promo that "the office" was sending these guys to teach them a lesson and proceeded to demolish them in under 2 minutes, including a guy who was over 500 pounds. This was a favor from Terry Taylor to a local indie promoter to get his guys some work. This isn't anything unheard of, you see that fairly often in WWE with "security" or "police" who take bumps being cast from local indies, or give them dark matches/squashes for syndication, in fact, one of the "orderlies" who detained Kane in a 1998 Raw is among the jobbers in this segment. What's quintessentially WCW is that they just decided to put this bizarre segment on the main show. It'd be less weird if they didn't give it an explanation, just literally "Kronik vs 4 guys", but they had to try to make a nonsensical story about it.
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Feb 23, 2022 03:40
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The rise of the WWE women's division and how we got a women's match to main event WrestleMania one time. Something that connects the McMahon family is that each member seems to be successful, but driven by what they don't have. Vince wants to be successful outside of wrestling. Linda, similarly, wants real political power. Shane wants to earn his father's respect and admiration. Triple H wants to be seen as a face on wrestling's Mount Rushmore. But Stephanie? Despite being rich, successful and enough like her father, Stephanie is a girl in a business that's inherently a boy's club. On some level, there is some resentment built from that. When they go to Saudi Arabia, she has to stay in the hotel room while the men get to touch the orb or whatever they do. I say this because despite Stephanie's many problems, I genuinely believe that she wants women's wrestling to be taken more seriously. Ever since the Attitude Era, women's wrestling in WWE has usually centered around the women who are more model like than the ones who are good at wrestling. Trish Stratus was the outlier here. Like for several years, WWE's top woman was Kelly Kelly, a woman who was hired because John Laurinaitis saw her in a lingerie catalogue and hired her. She had zero character and fans would point out how awkward it looked whenever she bounced against the ropes, like it was her first week in the business. Meanwhile, women who were about being good in the ring were usually treated as bitter antagonists, such as Beth Phoenix. Once WWE went PG and they stopped doing "bra and panty" matches and the like, things didn't get much better. Women's feuds were mostly about wrestlers calling each other "slut" or being depicted as lunatics. Then the matches would last about three minutes and end with a roll-up. Even if it was some kind of 5-on-5 tag match on a PPV. They also had the Divas Championship belt, which much of the talent hated and considered demeaning. Meanwhile, TNA, despite so many problems, was at least considered to have one over on WWE by having a popular women's division. The story of why Vince hired TNA's Gail Kim has already been talked about several times in this thread, but her disheartened reaction to how bad WWE was was legendary. So fed up with WWE, Gail decided to walk out at the very beginning of a battle royal just to see if anyone noticed. Nobody important did, at least. In the mid-2010s, the biggest act in the women's division was the Bella Twins. Despite them getting pushed because Vince saw them act as Price is Right models when Bob Barker guest hosted Raw (this was awesome, by the way) and realized they were hot, the two did at least make attempts to get better at wrestling. It was funny because Nikki was dating John Cena and Brie was married to Daniel Bryan, so they stopped being identical due to assimilating to their significant others. Brie was smaller and more about grappling while Nikki put on a shitload of muscle and did power moves. Now, with the developmental version of NXT in its infancy, the nice thing it did was allow women to wrestle and wrestle in long matches. With real finishes, too! The first real star to make her name in NXT and go to the main roster was Paige, otherwise known as the woman who got her own biographical movie Fighting With My Family several years ago. She mainly feuded with AJ Lee, a major part of the women's division who also took it seriously. Unfortunately, both of them would be wrestling on borrowed time as built-up injuries would destroy both of their careers soon enough. Around Daniel Bryan's ascent into the main event, Brie Bella started a feud with Stephanie McMahon. So started one of the dumbest strings of story in wrestling history. The two fought at SummerSlam, where Stephanie had no reason to lose other than ego. Nikki turned on Brie and helped Stephanie win. So then it became a feud between the twin sisters, featuring a promo where Nikki yelled, with the worst delivery, "I WISH YOU DIED IN THE WOOOOOMB!" Nikki won a match that made Brie her personal slave for 30 days. Obviously, we were meant to wait it out so Brie could get her ultimate revenge on her sister for everything. When the time was up, Nikki had a title match against AJ Lee and Brie helped Nikki because.......because. There was no explanation. Their rivalry was just over and now Nikki was champ. At this time, NXT was churning out some solid talent in its women's division. It gave us what fans refer to as the Four Horsewomen: Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Bayley. NXT kicked rear end and they were a huge reason why. As NXT was treating women's wrestling with respect, the main roster was not. After a lovely tag match that went 30 seconds happened on Raw, AJ went on social media and ranted about how badly women were being used. She got on Stephanie's case and started a hashtag #GiveDivasaChance, which got a lot of traction. For once, WWE seemed to actually listen. Also, there was an infamous women's tag match around this time where the crowd jeered it by chanting "[woman wrestler] SUCKS [male wrestler they were in a relationship with]!" So that was trash. Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair were brought to the main roster in what Stephanie McMahon called the Divas Revolution. The women's division became a stable war between three trios. Alicia Fox joined with the Bellas to become Team Bella. Sasha Banks, Naomi, and Tamina became Team BAD (Beautiful and Dangerious). Paige, Charlotte, and Becky were also a team and were told that they would be "The Submission Sorority." They immediately told the writers that that was totally a porn thing and should not be their name. The writers shrugged and said they would look into it (they did not). So they appeared as the Submission Sorority for one week, the higher ups found out that it was totally a porn thing, and then they became Team PCB. The three factions wrestled each other a lot, but it really didn't feel like anything mattered. Even after a bunch of losses to her team, Nikki Bella pointed out that it was all moot because she was still champion. They kept her as champion just long enough to break AJ Lee's record because AJ was married to CM Punk and WWE is petty as gently caress. Going into WrestleMania 32, WWE was finally dropping the whole "Divas" moniker and went to calling the women "Superstars" like the guys. They also created a new women's title and had Charlotte, Sasha, and Becky wrestle for it. While an otherwise solid match and a great sentiment, the whole thing was stained by a part of the match where Charlotte's father Ric Flair forcibly grabbed Becky and kissed her. Yeah, sexual assault! Women's Revolution in full effect! Bayley eventually left NXT after dropping the women's title to Asuka. Asuka was an awesome talent treated as a straight-up force of nature. Not only did she dominate the NXT women's division as champion, but she remained undefeated due to receiving a major injury and having to drop the title. She then jumped to the main roster, where she continued to be undefeated. The women's division in WWE kept improving and getting more of a spotlight. They not only started to main event PPVs, but they started to take part in high-profile gimmick matches like Hell in a Cell and Elimination Chamber. All the while, Stephanie would not only take full responsibility for its success (not as a heel thing, either. Commentators would regularly credit her), but constantly boss all the women around with zero repercussions. She's very bad at being a heel authority figure. In early 2018, WWE finally added a women's Royal Rumble to the PPV of the same name. The inaugural match had Asuka win. Truly a major moment. It was then immediately undercut by "Bad Reputation" playing and UFC star Ronda Rousey making a surprise appearance. The PPV ended with Ronda showing up, shaking Stephanie's hand, and pointing at the WrestleMania sign. Truth be told, she was a huge get at the time. WWE was about to see their biggest star in years make her ascent. It just wasn't Ronda.
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Feb 23, 2022 04:16
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Burning Beard posted:This is probably older than you guys like but let's take a look at one of the best managers of all time: Gary Hart. I enjoyed this, because I find the old days of wrestling fascinating. When people (mostly) believed it was real, and elaborate medicine-show type promotions traveled from town to town selling violent passion plays, and the wrestlers and managers lived kayfabe to the extent that they had to get into fights in public and travel in separate cars to keep the illusion alive. Stories about the North Korea match and the Shockmaster are fascinating in an "OMG WTF" way, but seem less substantial somehow.
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Feb 23, 2022 04:47
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Okay, let's talk "Effective Heel" And also Heels and Faces in General. But to do that we're going to have to talk about Ninjas. And briefly, about Vince Russo: Vince Russo, Is either a complete tool bag that ruined wrestling forever and also sucks as like, a person. Or, the most progressive and genius creative wrestling has ever seen having penned the attitude era and the NWO:  Truthfully, Vinny Russo isn't a wrestling creative. He's a TV writer that writes wrestling to be compelling TV. and Given that he came up in the Era of "When Animals Attack" and "World's Scariest Police Chases" often citing Jerry Springer, you get the idea of his style of writing. Compelling, unpredictable, surprising. What's more shocking then putting a belt on a WRITER?!? After all, NO one would see that coming and the belt is just a prop that goes to whoever it's scripted to go to so who really cares? Well, fans do for one. Here is the first lesson in Wrestling Villainy: A good heel is anyone that the crowd hates and wants to see get beaten. Make them hate you by any means necessary The Heel is just whoever the crowd wants to Lose, and the Face is whoever the crowd wants to Win. If people buy PPV or tune in to watch this smug writer get his just desserts, well, then you got worked Mark. Buy a shirt for Sting, who beat Vince Russo and go home with your commemorative Starrcade Cup. BUT! and this is Important: Barring a real-life actual death/injury, Heels must get beaten. Eventually. Wrestling, as a story telling medium has a unique asset that no other medium really gets to enjoy: TIME. For example, let's look at John Wick: John Wick has 101 Minutes of runtime. about 90 Minutes of actual movie. Think about everything that John Wick has to do in 90 minutes: Show John Wick, establish his skillset, explain motivation, show the villain, build the world, set stakes, set obstacles, have setbacks, and lulls, and then provide context for everything. Like, Okay, we establish that the universe is full of assassins getting paid in gold coins. Why don't they just send one to kill John while he's sleeping? He has to go to a special place where this can't happen (context and explanations are needed) and even then, when he does get attacked while sleeping, it comes as a shock. 90 minutes. Dozens of scenes and characters established, explained, given context and relevant history. 90 minutes. One Episode of Raw is 3 HOURS. With a 2nd episode (Smackdown) clocking in at 2 hours, That's 5 hours of plot and action, every week, FOREVER. If you need to set up a hero or build a villain or establish a feud or work continuity, you have all the time you need. Keep in mind that like 70% of these "hey remember when" stories take place over months, or years, sometimes DECADES. In wrestling, if you have nothing else, you have time. And that brings us to the Ninjas. One time, Samoa Joe was abducted by ninjas. This was never followed up on or explained. This was written by Vince Russo. And when it was written, the idea that it would be available to watch at any moment forever was completely insane. Paul Heyman (a whole other story worthy of a Cornwind effort post) once said that Wrestling needs to be defined by responding to the era it's in. In the 90's writing crazy, insane counter-culture stories that were completely unpredictable was THE THING to do. Wrestling, as an industry was responding to the documentary "Beyond the Mat" exposing with a heavy thud that wrestling is a show and forever killing the idea that wrestling was anything other than a scam or a production. Vince's Approach to this was to lean into the "reality" of the drama and sell to audiences the behind the scenes drama of wrestling as part of the production, blurring the line between Work and Shoot (an idea that persists to this day and is now a cornerstone of wrestling storytelling). But in the age of Streaming, Binge Watching, The MCU and Prestige TV, Long-form narrative content is more popular than ever and wrestling should have a massive resurgence as a result. Time will tell if this happens, but I'm betting on NO if my experiences with promoters are anything to go by. Where were we? Right. Ninjas and Heels. It's okay to have someone abducted by Ninjas. And there's a ton of good reasons to do it! Maybe Joe wants time off for a vacation or honey moon or he earned it. Maybe he needs time off because he exploded all his knees doing the "knee exploder drop" twice a week for 5 years. and has to heal. Who cares. Get him off TV, let's have him abducted by Ninjas. But while he's gone, we have to check in on our ninjas. Who hired them? Does Joe have any friends care that he's gone missing? Why JOE and not [INSERT ANYONE ELSE]? Who could be abducted next? When Joe comes back will he get to the bottom of it? These are all questions that in some form or another will need answering. If you don't, everyone will ask: What was up with those ninjas that one time? And that lack of resolution will drive fans MAD. But maybe they'll tune in, because, this week we might find out what was up with those ninjas that one time. But if you don't resolve it, well, The fans will chant "Fire Russo" in a legit attempt to get you terminated from your job. For Real. Second Lesson in Wrestling Villainy: The audience needs to hate your character, not you. If they hate your character, they'll pay any amount to watch you get your rear end kicked. If they hate you, they'll never give you a dime. So, Heels. "Cool Heel" like, isn't really a thing. It's just being likable while cheating. Eddie Guerrero once had a whole gimmick about how he's a cheater. It's even in his theme song. But goddamn that man was lovable. And even though he flagrantly cheated, he was cheered for it. Just look at that spot, how could you not love this:  He's framing Kurt Angle for a chair shot that never happened. It's loving MAGICAL. A heel, again, is just whoever you want to get beaten. If Kurt Angle was being a huge douche (likely), then Eddie, in framing him becomes the face. Since, while we agree that's unsportsmanlike to frame someone, we dislike Kurt so it's deserved. The NWO was hated. They disrespected the company (WCW), they represented the competition, they cheated and acted poorly, and they NEEDED to be beaten. Every week, for 83 of them anyway, millions of people tuned in to see if this was the week that the NWO got what was coming to them. Every PPV, this was the one that the NWO lost on. But it never came. And with Vince blurring the line of backstage drama and scripted drama, the crowd turned on "Hollywood Hulk Hogan" and began to hate Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bolea for his creative control, his keeping everyone's favorite mid carders down, for running the NWO and fleecing the WCW for millions along the way. They hated Terry because Hulk never lost. (Second Rule) so Fans Left, and with them, the WCW left too. So, Effective Heat. And Real Heels. Heels fall into 2 basic categories: 1) The "Brain" Heel: This is a heel that uses schemes, trickery, and deceit to their advantage. CM Punk Hiring the Shield, Triple H adding match stipulations to help him out, Ric Flair sneaking a chair into the ring to cost hulk a title. Anyone that points to their temple after cheating or scheming a way out of having to drop the title is a brain heel. Honky Tonk Man's Historic IC title run is the epitome of this. 2) The "Muscle": The Muscle is just a big guy that beats everyone up. Muscle is equally a heel and a face. Like a Gun. The gun is never the villain in a movie, but the person wielding it is. Point a gun at a baby, you're a bad guy. Point a gun a Hitler, You're a hero. Goldberg is a heel when he's coming after Sting, but Brock Lesnar is a face when he went after Brom Strowman. Goldberg is THE Muscle. So to be Effective, I mean really effective, you need time. Luckily, that's the one thing that Wrestling has tons of. So go nuts! Spend 9 months keeping a small man out of the main event he clearly deserves. Make a lot of blurred lines about how this isn't "good for business" so fans don't really know if you don't like him or if you're just pretending to not like him. Put your friends in the main event so that you look like a real, Grade AAA piece of poo poo. Make him wrestle 2 matches, injured. And then, when that scrappy little guy wins the title, it'll be the hugest cathartic release in history. (Wrestlemania XXX) If along the way, everyone hates your character? Man, they'll pay a lot to watch your schemes get foiled, and your friends lose. And buy shirts and cups and cheer every little scrappy guy that rises up "against" you. Seems like a profitable venture for the COO. Be hated on TV and make millions? I'd take that deal. After all, that's why we hate Hunter. And not Paul. Muscle also needs time. You have show that you're a threat. Beat up the under card, and then the mid card, and then the main event. Point to your next victim: Face Niceguy. And when you toss him through 20 tables and into the negazone with your Chaos Bomb you just became Smaug. You're Sauron, except you got the ring now bitch. And that little mid-carder who could, or that champion of your company? They'll put you down, because you're a mad dog, and you need to get shot. Building a Villain takes time. Sure, you can feed someone a dog and use the blues mobile to steal someone's dad's corpse. And that'll make me want them to lose just the same, but it won't feel as good if it doesn't have a build behind it. Getting real, seething heat, takes time. Because the fans need to know that you're not only just an rear end hole. You're an rear end in a top hat that really deserves it. And if you're booked right, an rear end in a top hat that isn't getting his due.  And then whoever stops him, HUGE FACE. But, that heel? They have to get beaten. Or, you can just call everyone the N-word until you get domed with a chair. I mean, that works too. Trollologist fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 04:55
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A big big big BIG reason Stephanie pushed for more serious women's wrestling is because she became the mother of two daughters. And like every hypocritical piece of poo poo ever, she only started seeing problems with objectified "Divas" because she and HHH were like "what if our little girls see bra and panties matches and think that's all they're allowed to be?" Same poo poo as womanizing men who have daughters and then all of a sudden threaten to murder any guy who wants to date their daughter with a shotgun or whatever. It's only bad if it happens to me. Garbage humans. Absolute loving filth. I mean I'm genuinely glad they allowed women to progress beyond lingerie pillow fights (an actual match that actually happened at a PPV) but the reasons they did it are incredibly selfish. And it's not all great by any stretch of the imagination. The WWE has had an annual event called King of the Ring since the 80s. It's a tournament and the winner gets to be called the King for a year. They get to wear a crown and get moved up the card and talk poo poo and sometimes it's really awesome. Of the Kings I remember, Booker T was by far the best. He had an amazing year with his real life wife at his side as his Queen and they constantly stole the show. Last year the WWE decided that they'd give the women a Queen of the Ring tournament. Cool idea right? Progress you say? Not quite because none of the matches in this supposedly big deal tournament lasted longer than 3 minutes. That's right. The first ever tournament to crown their first Queen had no matches that told any kind of compelling story. It was a total rush job and the fans poo poo all over it because they wanted to see actual good matches. lol lmao
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Feb 23, 2022 04:58
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gently caress Stephanie McMahon and gently caress HHH. That's all there is to it.
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Feb 23, 2022 05:03
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I still think that the follow-up to Joe being kidnapped by ninjas should have been him showing up at the arena months later with dried blood all over his clothes. Someone runs to him to ask him about the whole ninja thing and he just responds, "It's taken care of." "But... what happened? Why were you kidnapped? Are you--" "It's. Taken. Care. Of." Then they never mention it again.
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Feb 23, 2022 05:06
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YeahTubaMike posted:gently caress Stephanie McMahon and gently caress HHH. That's all there is to it. Yes We hate HHH the character but we REALLY loving hate Paul Leveque the real person for all the scummy poo poo he's done Same with Shawn Michaels. gently caress him super hard too
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Feb 23, 2022 05:13
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I wish I had watched more WWE when Asuka and Kairi were taking the show by storm. I tuned in to the inaugural FOX Smackdown and saw The Rock cutting a spot with Becky Lynch and thought "Well drat, she must be pretty good"
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Feb 23, 2022 05:19
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