WWF/WWE/ECW/WCW

Well, apparently the TNA lawsuit is still in effect. WWE just decided that it poses no significant threat to the company which is why they brought Flair and Dreamer onto TV for that one night.

Vince thinks he's inVINCEable which explains why they keep putting out crap week after week.

SpectreFate wrote:

The old stuff had some sort of magic that lacks these days.

The magic was "kayfabe" and not knowing what goes on behind the curtains. With the rise of the "dirt sheets" and the internet, wrestling lost it's magic.
Ring of Honor for the past 2 years is a good example, Jim Cornette made it basically Smokey Mountain Wrestling 2.0 and i enjoyed it quite a lot - yet most of todays wrestling crowd thought it was boring, dumb, slow and too "old school".
Wrestling doesn't work anymore because the Monday Night Wars did a lot of damage, the Russo Crash Style did damage and todays crowd is too ADHD to enjoy a 20 minute wrestling match.

Wrestling in the classic sense can still be found in some american federations and of course in Japan, even though the japanese wrestling scene has been on a downward spiral since Giant Baba died and after Inoki sold New Japan Pro Wrestling to Yuke's (they did a bad job there, just as they produce one bad WWE video game every year ) and Noah has been in bad shape since Misawa died.

tohostudios wrote:

Vince thinks he's inVINCEable which explains why they keep putting out crap week after week.

They have their crowd, even if they lose ratings, they don't drop below 2.5 points for Raw and the PPV Buyrates for 2012 were above the 2011 buyrates with Wrestlemania setting a new record. It's sad because they really produce bad shows, waste many opportunities with storylines and wrestler because they don't give a smurf poo. Raw is watched regardless of what they show, they PPVs draw good numbers and they make a positive income every year.

Sara Del Rey has left SHIMMER, the company she helped start, and is now working as a trainer for WWE, so with her there, and also ex-SHIMMER wrestlers like Tenille Tayla (aka Emma) and Britani Knight (aka Paige) on NXT , there is hope there will be good women wrestlers there in the WWE again, and not just eye candy / "divas".

mlotek wrote:

Sara Del Rey has left SHIMMER, the company she helped start, and is now working as a trainer for WWE, so with her there, and also ex-SHIMMER wrestlers like Tenille Tayla (aka Emma) and Britani Knight (aka Paige) on NXT , there is hope there will be good women wrestlers there in the WWE again, and not just eye candy / "divas".

From what I understand, HHH wants the women to be like that. He also wants a strong tag team division. He continues to get more and more creative control so there is a good chance of that happening.

The womens division has been seriously SERIOUSLY lacking since Trish and Lita

Addy wrote:

The womens division has been seriously SERIOUSLY lacking since Trish and Lita

Jimmy Snuka and Jim Niedharts' daughters are the only real wrestling talent left in the women's division and they are barely used. They had Beth Pheonix too but I'm sure she got tired of having to put over the barbie dolls.

OK, now SuperCena has gone too far!

http://screen.yahoo.com/john-cena-replace-fred-flintstone-231017311.html

Watching Clash Of The Champions, Sting & Dusty Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard with Teddy Long as the ref. Listening to Teddy Long yell at the wrestlers, I keep expecting him to say 'playa'.

Watched some more of The Best Of Clash Of The Champions and saw a match involving Mick Foley when he went by the name of Cactus Jack Manson (never knew CJ had a last name). He was defeated (rather quickly I might add-more or less a squash match) by the uncle of Alberto Del Rio, Mil Mascaras. The announcers (one of them good ol' JR) acted amazed at CJ getting up after hitting the back of his head on the concrete (the old WCW alway had the hard ring and little or no padding on the outside). With all we know now, that is a paper cut compared to what Foley went through in his career (this particular match was many years before his Japanes death matches).

Oh yeah, if you read his first book he talks about destroying his body for the industry. Also, he used the last name Manson when he wrestled in Memphis and Dallas before coming to WCW. I remember him taking that bump in that match with Mascaras. It was the sickest thing in wrestling I had seen at that point.

Leatherface wrote:

Oh yeah, if you read his first book he talks about destroying his body for the industry. Also, he used the last name Manson when he wrestled in Memphis and Dallas before coming to WCW. I remember him taking that bump in that match with Mascaras. It was the sickest thing in wrestling I had seen at that point.

Yeah, it was because of a "stalker" and her last name was Manson. The few times I saw him wrestle at the Sportatorium (there was a cable channel that showed it), the announcers never really said the last name (or at least I don't ever remember them using it).

BTW, saw a Battle Royal that contained El Gigante (The Giant Gonzales) and Oz (Kevin Nash). They were actually two of the last participants (Gigante eliminated Nash and One Man Gang at the same time).

Started browsing through youtube due to the Clash Of The Champions DVD and an article on the worst wrestling gimicks. Found the first match between Kane and Undertaker:

WWE just had a montage of gimmicks yet they missed some crucial ones:

Waylon Mercy
Head (Al Snows "manager")
Henry Godwin (though they did show his "brother")
The Truth Commission
Issac Yankem
Saturn and Moppy
Farooq (when he was with Sunny wearing the pastel gladiator uniform)
"Sparkplug" Bob Holly

Speaking of which, I came accross this article from many years ago but still relevant of the 25 worst wrestling gimmicks:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/05/14/igns-25-worst-wrestling-gimmicks?page=1

I actually almost ditched my Prom to go to the Capital Combat PPV from the nearby DC Armory. And the primary reason was the reputation that Cactus Jack had gotten in the magazines at the time. He was only in a six man tag but even that was enough to make me consider going. The funny thing was the thing that was supposed to be one of the draws Robocop (loved the movies but didn't need him scaring off the Horsemen) actually dissuaded me from my decision. Well that and a girlfriend who probably would have killed me.

Then years later it was the Hell In A Cell match with Foley that started my decline in fandom. I just could never get into the whole kill yourself falling off of high places. Just seemed too much and too far for my liking.

Man, did I ever love those Clash Of Champions shows.

jstate wrote:

I actually almost ditched my Prom to go to the Capital Combat PPV from the nearby DC Armory. And the primary reason was the reputation that Cactus Jack had gotten in the magazines at the time. He was only in a six man tag but even that was enough to make me consider going. The funny thing was the thing that was supposed to be one of the draws Robocop (loved the movies but didn't need him scaring off the Horsemen) actually dissuaded me from my decision. Well that and a girlfriend who probably would have killed me.

Then years later it was the Hell In A Cell match with Foley that started my decline in fandom. I just could never get into the whole kill yourself falling off of high places. Just seemed too much and too far for my liking.

Man, did I ever love those Clash Of Champions shows.

Me too! When I was getting into wrestling, I had no way to get PPVs so I always had to wait for the next TV show to find out who won and see the show later when it came out on VHS. Clash allowed me to see PPV quality shows without having to wait for them to come out on video.

loved clash of the champions! I still have a few on tape somewhere.

btw anyone get wwe'13?

I saw a promo for "The Rock" returning to the squared circle in some PPV thing. Guess his agent hasn't been tossin any scripts on the table as of late.

James B. wrote:

I saw a promo for "The Rock" returning to the squared circle in some PPV thing. Guess his agent hasn't been tossin any scripts on the table as of late.

Actually, he has at least 6 films due to be filmed this year. After years of trying to distance himself from wrestling, it seems he's actually trying to mend fences with the wrestling community and genuinely wants to give back to the business. I will give him credit for that and have no problem with him coming in for a few appearances a year. However, he does not need to be given any title runs or victories over full time wrestlers. He should be used to build the current talent because unlike most of them, he doesn't need wrestling to live off of.

I'm really liking the build-up for Rock's match with CM Punk. They're actually selling the match at the PPV and doing serious promos in which they begrudgingly show respect for the opponent. It's completely unlike just about everything else WWE does these days.

One of the worst things is John Cena. Up until recently I've defended the guy but his character has become unbearable. Unless you're the Rock, you can' beat him cleanly and even if you do cheat, you still can't defeat him. Two mathces in a row with Ziggler using every underhand trick and tactic and stll can't defeat him. How are we supposed to take the Money-In-The-Bank holder as a serious contender for the title when he can't defeat Cena cleanly or by cheating. Cena is becoming more unbearable than Hogan did in his heyday. This editor on Wrestezone said it best on the Cena situation:

Quote :

Now before everyone thinks that I am just about to jump on the bandwagon and moan about Cena’s victory over Ziggler, I’m not. Sure the victory annoyed me but what’s the point in moaning about it, it’ll never change. I am however extremely annoyed at his work ethic. We all know that Cena will likely win any match that he is in and WWE are seemingly obsessed with making sure Cena looks strong after his apparent “bad” year. However, Cena in the past two weeks has been hit with everything but an 18 Wheeler Truck and the shockwave from a Nuclear Bomb and still manages to look like he’s ready to go for a jog at the end of his matches. We all know that his technical skills are not fantastic but would it really hurt to make your opponent look good? To make it believable that you nearly got beat? To give the guy in there with you a bit of a rub and show some sense of realism? No, you feel the need to get all hyped up on adrenalin and forget that you have just taken 6 moves that knock anyone else out and walk up the ramp like everyone else is made out of cardboard. Anyway, things won’t likely change on that front anytime soon.

What's so frustrating about Ziggler vs. Cena is that they work really well together and put on excellent matches...up until the finish when it's time for Cena to shrug off all of Ziggler's best moves and win the match. It's a failure of basic storytelling - the hero should struggle to win because otherwise there isn't any suspense. Even Hulk Hogan used to get destroyed by a well-motivated heel during his feuds, because if the villain doesn't seem invincible then you can't have that feeling of elation when Hulkamania triumphs.

The WWE employs a stable of trained film and tv writers and for some reason no one grasps this or why they don't have any breakout stars except Cena or Punk on the roster right now (and it's probably telling that Punk mostly throws away the writers' material and creates his own).

James B. wrote:

I saw a promo for "The Rock" returning to the squared circle in some PPV thing. Guess his agent hasn't been tossin any scripts on the table as of late.

He has 9 movies coming out this year and has another 8 projects IMDB classifies as "in Development" and while some of these look like rather low-budget crap like "Fast and the Furious 6" (how in the hell made that crap make it to 6 movies? ) he is still one of the best paid actors in Hollywood and the only wrestler to fully translate into Hollywood, becoming a star there.

I think overall Dwayne Johnson made the right decision: He came to the top of the Wrestling world a few years after he was deemed a "failure" and "midcarder for life" (Nobody cared about Rocky Maivia) and after his long feud with Austin what else was there to achieve? So he got out before he ended like Austin or so many other wrestlers.

Now he comes back and hopefully it won't end with him dominating the WWE destroying younger guys. Though the risk is there, why should the WWE officials act any different than the WCW did 15 years ago and push old guys over youngers just because the audience goes nostalgic for 10 minutes.

sheets wrote:

What's so frustrating about Ziggler vs. Cena is that they work really well together and put on excellent matches...up until the finish when it's time for Cena to shrug off all of Ziggler's best moves and win the match.

Selling was always the biggest weak-spot of Cena, i still remember that I Quit Match with Miz where Miz beat him down like crazy for 15 minutes and Cena just looks bored and everytime Miz asked him if he quits, he just says "No" in that bored "i don't feel a thing"-voice.

The thing is: A Hulk Hogan like "Superman"-Run doesn't work in todays world. Sure, the kids will like it but everyone else will be either bored because it's not the 80's anymore or are Fans who know the behind the curtain stuff so they automatically hate it

Watching the first Royal Rumble and there is a women's tag team match. Those gals were not lookers by any means, but damn could they wrestle.

One of my favorite matches I ever saw live was a Glamour Girls/Jumping Bomb Angels match. Usually WWF matches at the time were pretty slow but that thing was like a hundred miles an hour with moves I'd never seen before. Crowd was going crazy by the end.

Funny thing about that first Royal Rumble was it was run in opposition of the Bunkhouse Stampede and blew that show away. Much like the Clashes blew those Wrestlemania shows away when they ran opposite it. I remember thinking at the time why don't these companies just run their free shows instead of PPV, or better yet make the PPV as good as these free shows. Ah, competition was good for wrestling.