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Randaconda posted:And the matches on television he did have very rarely had a finish.
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May 4, 2020 19:50
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Halloween Jack posted:From what I remember from looking over the stats, I don't think that's actually true. But it definitely felt that way to me at the time! Well, a clean finish, I guess, against other stars. Gotta pay to have a real ending to Austin/'Taker
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May 4, 2020 19:53
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Has there ever been a Huge Wrestler (Yokozuna/Haystacks Calhoun/etc.) that was also strong and not just fat? The best example I can think of is Vader and he wasn't quite as large as those two. Low Desert Punk posted this gif:  in the WCW thread and it just seemed like a bad spot to do if they're physically unable to catch you.
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May 4, 2020 21:25
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I think it's probably pretty hard to get strong if you are that fat.
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May 4, 2020 21:34
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davidbix posted:It turned out that the interview was completely made up and someone (successfully) trying to prank newz sites by seeing if they wouldn't bother doing the most basic fact checking in aggregating the quotes. Huh. Is there a source for this?
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May 4, 2020 21:40
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Has there ever been a Huge Wrestler (Yokozuna/Haystacks Calhoun/etc.) that was also strong and not just fat? The best example I can think of is Vader and he wasn't quite as large as those two. Is that Loch Ness? Because if so I'd not be too harsh, he was dying of cancer when WCW brought him in
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May 4, 2020 21:43
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Has there ever been a Huge Wrestler (Yokozuna/Haystacks Calhoun/etc.) that was also strong and not just fat? The best example I can think of is Vader and he wasn't quite as large as those two. Mark Henry, depending on your definition of "huge".
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May 4, 2020 21:45
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Randaconda posted:Well, a clean finish, I guess, against other stars. Gotta pay to have a real ending to Austin/'Taker
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May 4, 2020 21:48
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Julio Cruz posted:Mark Henry, depending on your definition of "huge". Mark Henry is definitely a large man, but he's got the power-lifter gut rather than just being a fatass. Bam Bam Bigelow is probably the biggest guy I can think of that could really move and go in the ring.
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May 4, 2020 21:57
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Earthquake was pretty strong and agile for his size
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May 4, 2020 22:00
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Randaconda posted:Earthquake was pretty strong and agile for his size Talk about sad endings. Everything I read painted him as a super nice guy, and he corresponded often with the WrestleCrap site.
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May 5, 2020 00:49
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Red posted:Huh. Is there a source for this?
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May 5, 2020 02:02
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Earthquake is definitely a good answer. Tenta had legit sumo matches in Japan and you don't get to do that unless you're strong as gently caress.
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May 5, 2020 02:08
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We'll never get a hoss-off between Mark Henry and Earthquake; the world is a little bit grimmer for it.
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May 5, 2020 02:19
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Keith Lee billed as 320, kind of an inbetween between heavyweight and superheavyweight
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May 5, 2020 02:33
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Superheavyweight is 300+ imo, especially with WWE cruisers being less than 205. I guess you could bump it to 305 just to get a 100 lb. interval if you care that much.
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May 5, 2020 03:47
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I'd say the super heavyweights in the WWE are the 500+, Yoko, Andre, Mabel or Mo/Viscera, Big Show, or at least 400, if you wanna add like Mark Henry/Earthquake Or these guys who should have never lost a match  The McGuire Twins – 770 Lbs (Each) or this guy, who has a great story  Happy Humphrey – 800 Lbs quote:Humphrey was huge, 800 pounds huge. He was also known for his strength. He was a farm worker before he began to wrestle, and actually started his wrestling career in 1953 when he wrestled a bear for 28 minutes. He was weighed before matches on a factory meat scale. He once became stuck in a telephone booth in Alabama and it took 8 police officers to get him out. In another version of "you can't make this stuff up" he had to retire due to a heart condition, and then lost an unbelievable 570 pounds. He lived into his early 60s.
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May 5, 2020 03:53
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If Big John Studd counts, he was legitimately strong. Haku and Umaga were both pretty heavy for their height and famously strong. All guys who didn't look obese but didn't have a bodybuilder physique either.
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May 5, 2020 14:58
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If the McGuire Twins could do a moonsault I would pay $69,420 for a ticket
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May 5, 2020 15:16
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Who has the Big Show moonsault footage?
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May 5, 2020 15:40
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Halloween Jack posted:If Big John Studd counts, he was legitimately strong. Haku and Umaga were both pretty heavy for their height and famously strong. All guys who didn't look obese but didn't have a bodybuilder physique either. How come Studd is never really mentioned along with the 80s icons? Promotional nostalgia stuff from that era always focuses on Hogan, Savage, Warrior, Andre, and to a lesser degree Dibiase, Roberts, Rude, and Perfect or the tag division at the time. Over the years I rarely heard them mention Big John Studd as a mainstay of that era, but he was a pretty big deal back in his day and he was even a Royal Rumble winner.
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May 5, 2020 18:19
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Earthquake once caught Big Bossman coming off the top rope with about as much effort as it would take to catch Rey Mysterio. Dude was freaky strong
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May 5, 2020 18:25
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big john retired for a couple years, came back for a short run, and was out of wwf by 1990. the 80s icons of WWF were really set in stone around that 1986-1990 period rather than the whole 80s, outside of wrestlemania stuff
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May 5, 2020 18:38
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Halloween Jack posted:If Big John Studd counts, he was legitimately strong. Haku and Umaga were both pretty heavy for their height and famously strong. All guys who didn't look obese but didn't have a bodybuilder physique either. This is how I feel about Adam Page, at least the strength part, I mean he's listed as 6'0 215lb, but he looks like he could lift up a horse  I know JR keeps going on about country farm strong blah blah, but his strength seems incredible in the ring, and he looks like one of the safest workers to work with, catch-wise. And I love that overhead suplex toss thing he does  (I don't know how those lariats hoss-off's he has dont loving hurt)
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May 5, 2020 19:04
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Alexander Hamilton posted:Not letting them beat the heel 6 times before they beat them at the PPV would help, I think.
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May 5, 2020 19:25
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Randaconda posted:how long until Fox cancels Smackdown As a hardcore tv watcher for the last 30 years from what I can tell Friday is a bad night for networks. You’re either trying to get families with corn ball sitcoms like TGIF in the 90s or old people dramas like cbs does. And every couple years someone will put on a sci fi or supernatural type show that gets replaced with date line after it gets cancelled in 6 weeks. I’m not sure what fox is paying per episode of smackdown but it’s probably comparable to some celebrity hosted game show or talent show. Especially if they can use it to make people aware that they have sports on all weekend. Wwe is actually going to be important when there’s no new programming this fall because no one was filming for several months. And the fact that fox sports can put on clip shows like they’re currently doing to fill time.
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May 5, 2020 19:37
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The American Dream posted:As a hardcore tv watcher for the last 30 years from what I can tell Friday is a bad night for networks. You’re either trying to get families with corn ball sitcoms like TGIF in the 90s or old people dramas like cbs does. And every couple years someone will put on a sci fi or supernatural type show that gets replaced with date line after it gets cancelled in 6 weeks. Fox is paying literally a billion dollars for Smackdown. Even with the pandemic caveats, they can't be happy with going 0.2 in the demo every week. They were expected to dominate the summer rerun months but if the quarantine ratings are any indication, that was always a pipe dream. Benne fucked around with this message at 21:55 on May 5, 2020 |
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May 5, 2020 21:39
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Its hard to judge these ratings while the pandemics going on and its a great out for WWE at this time. However they were sliding before they're just awful and putting together anything interesting. I hope they don't recover or at the very least i hope more people watch Wednesday night wrestling because that's the best night of North American wrestling.
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May 5, 2020 21:59
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The American Dream posted:As a hardcore tv watcher for the last 30 years from what I can tell Friday is a bad night for networks. You’re either trying to get families with corn ball sitcoms like TGIF in the 90s or old people dramas like cbs does. And every couple years someone will put on a sci fi or supernatural type show that gets replaced with date line after it gets cancelled in 6 weeks. Friday and Saturday were both fine until advertisers and networks settled on The Demo as the one part of ratings they actually cared about. That was really the death of things like TGIF or family-oriented adventure shows like Dr. Quinn/Little House on the Prairie/etc.- before that it made sense to capture families who are usually staying in on weekends, but when singles with disposable income are your main target, no point trying to get anyone else.
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May 5, 2020 22:02
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sticklefifer posted:How come Studd is never really mentioned along with the 80s icons? Promotional nostalgia stuff from that era always focuses on Hogan, Savage, Warrior, Andre, and to a lesser degree Dibiase, Roberts, Rude, and Perfect or the tag division at the time. Over the years I rarely heard them mention Big John Studd as a mainstay of that era, but he was a pretty big deal back in his day and he was even a Royal Rumble winner. 1) Big John Studd's main WWF run was only about four years and happened mostly before whatever metric that 'starts' the 1980s Nostalgia era, whether it's Hulkamania or Wrestlemania or The Rock & Wrestling Connection or WWF really going national. He came in as Big John Studd at the end of 1982 and was gone by the end of 1986. He had the big $15,000 Body Slam Challenge thing with Andre at the first Wrestlemania, but was relegated to the NFL Battle Royale (also won by Andre) at WM2 and was gone before WM3. He didn't have that many memorable promos (either Blassie or Heenan were his mouthpiece 90% of the time), and most of the TV matches he had were squashes to build to house show loops with Hogan or Andre or whatever. I guess the most memorable angle he had that there's footage of is the Super Machine gimmick which was very silly and his role in it was essentially standing behind a flustered Heenan looking mean? 2) His third and final PPV appearance was when he came back and won the inaugural Royal Rumble PPV before it meant all that much, and I guess technically his last PPV appearance was as a special guest referee at WM5 for an Andre/Jake Roberts match. He quit over the summer of 1989 over money, and never came back. It's much easier for WWE to skip over the 89 Rumble and call Hacksaw Jim Duggan the winner of the first (non-televised) Rumble and then skip straight to ones won by Hogan/Flair/Michaels/Austin/etc. 3) The fact that Studd quit the company over money in 1989 and then died in 1995 means they never had him come back for anything that they can use for nostalgia pops or packages, either. 4) He wasn't really that good? Everyone you mentioned as nostalgia mainstays may not have been great in the ring (or even good, if you factor in late career Andre or any career Warrior) but all of them (except maybe Andre and Warrior) were excellent promos and have all sorts of vignettes and interviews and catchphrases to trade off of. Big John Studd was just... big, and not nearly as famous or beloved or charismatic/memorable as Andre. Memory-holding Studd lets WWE pretend Andre was the be-all-end-all Giant of the 1980s. Honestly, Paul Orndorff getting memory-holed out of nostalgia makes similar sense in terms of him not being around for the peak of Hulkamania/Wrestlemania (and therefore not being in all of the video games, merchandising, etc. that help make everyone remember midcarders like HIllbilly Jim/Jim Duggan/Koko B Ware/etc) but he was actually good.
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May 5, 2020 22:26
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Since I'm asking everywhere: Are there any non-Observer citations for Vince McMahon claiming a fictional Harvard MBA as part of his bio in the mid-late '80s? Dave has mentioned it on and off since the Montreal issue in 1997, but I've been unable to find a trace of it on newspaper archive sites, in library databases, etc. Same goes for others who have checked after hearing about it from me, looking in places like LexisNexis's newspaper search.
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May 5, 2020 22:28
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I hadn't heard that! I'm not surprised at all, but that's news to me. I'm also not surprised it's not as big a deal in the business world, because Jim Valley's been making some excellent points about everybody knowing wrestling's fake and extending that "fake" perception to the actual people, companies, business practices, etc.
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May 5, 2020 22:46
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Maxwell Lord posted:Friday and Saturday were both fine until advertisers and networks settled on The Demo as the one part of ratings they actually cared about. That was really the death of things like TGIF or family-oriented adventure shows like Dr. Quinn/Little House on the Prairie/etc.- before that it made sense to capture families who are usually staying in on weekends, but when singles with disposable income are your main target, no point trying to get anyone else. I wonder what the cracker companies are doing with all the money they don’t spend on marketing now?
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May 6, 2020 00:14
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Basing everything on the 18-40 Young male demo is a very bad thing for diverse TV and I suspect online streaming will chase it as well leading to streaming TV being very samey despite the initial promise of having different types of shows
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May 6, 2020 00:23
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SatoshiMiwa posted:Basing everything on the 18-40 Young male demo is a very bad thing for diverse TV and I suspect online streaming will chase it as well leading to streaming TV being very samey despite the initial promise of having different types of shows It's a bit weirder with streaming because it's mostly not ad-driven, so instead of what demos sponsors value most it's more about how many subscriptions can you get. *So far* Netflix has kinda cast a broad net trying to program individual shows to capture slices of the market (but also cancelling things quickly because a brand new show is more likely to drive subscriptions than something going into its third year.)
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May 6, 2020 00:49
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Edge & Christian posted:Honestly, Paul Orndorff getting memory-holed out of nostalgia makes similar sense in terms of him not being around for the peak of Hulkamania/Wrestlemania (and therefore not being in all of the video games, merchandising, etc. that help make everyone remember midcarders like HIllbilly Jim/Jim Duggan/Koko B Ware/etc) but he was actually good.
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May 6, 2020 02:50
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This is obviously a subjective one, but I just watched the 1996 Survivor Series and I've got to ask just how Sid got so over around that time. He's big and can do a few decent power moves, but otherwise I don't think he's very good at all, and as a character he's invariably a giant doofus, albeit one who seems to enjoy playing off the crowd. The show is in MSG and has a fairly "smart" crowd, so I was really surprised by how much over he was than defending champion Shawn (except amongst women). Had Shawn just completely bombed as champion?
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May 8, 2020 17:36
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Hedgehog Pie posted:This is obviously a subjective one, but I just watched the 1996 Survivor Series and I've got to ask just how Sid got so over around that time. He's big and can do a few decent power moves, but otherwise I don't think he's very good at all, and as a character he's invariably a giant doofus, albeit one who seems to enjoy playing off the crowd. The show is in MSG and has a fairly "smart" crowd, so I was really surprised by how much over he was than defending champion Shawn (except amongst women). Had Shawn just completely bombed as champion? I don't know that Michaels had bombed as champion, but looking at his year prior to the match from a "smart fan" perspective: 1) Michaels got injured/'injured' and couldn't drop the IC belt to Shane Douglas, who by this time was back in ECW, so this may have soured 'smart' ECW fans on him 2) Michaels got injured/'injured' again with the Owen Hart Enziguri Concussion angle, which got called out by a lot as a bad/poor taste angle 3) This is only a few months after the "Curtain Call" angle in the same building, which I think most fans were fine with 4) The match was originally supposed to be Michaels dropping the belt to Vader but the Kliq allegedly politicked Vader out of the spot in favor of Sid, which was reported by the Observer/etc. 5) We're only a few months out from Shawn "losing his smile" and refusing to drop the belt to Bret at WM13 after quickly winning it back from Sid Sid's charisma carried him a long ways, and I don't know if any of those single things is a smoking gun for people turning on Michaels, but he was definitely an rear end in a top hat circa 1996 (which they converted into his onscreen DX character within a year) and it's entirely possible that enough 'smart fans' in MSG knew about it and held it against them.
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May 8, 2020 18:06
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Hedgehog Pie posted:This is obviously a subjective one, but I just watched the 1996 Survivor Series and I've got to ask just how Sid got so over around that time. He's big and can do a few decent power moves, but otherwise I don't think he's very good at all, and as a character he's invariably a giant doofus, albeit one who seems to enjoy playing off the crowd. The show is in MSG and has a fairly "smart" crowd, so I was really surprised by how much over he was than defending champion Shawn (except amongst women). Had Shawn just completely bombed as champion? It was an odd time in the (then) WWF. WCW was taking off, Hall and Nash were gone, and Shawn had to carry everything. One of the other major faces in the company, Ultimate Warrior, flaked out of an advertised 3-on-3 match with Shawn Michaels and Ahmed Johnson against Yokozuna, Owen, and Bulldog; his replacement was Sid. Cornette sold the return of Sid like a champ, and though Shawn ate the pin, Sid was booked to look like a monster while the only other monster in the company, Vader, ended up looking like a chump. By that point in the fall, Shawn's face character had been overexposed. The boyhood dream thing was a great storyline for the Rumble to WrestleMania, but after a few months, it hadn't really changed - he had some really good matches with Diesel, Mankind, and Vader, but he spent too much time in a feud with the Bulldog that didn't really help either guy, and he had some bad matches with Goldust. Plus, the occasional appearance of Bret weighing retirement suggested Shawn may not be the main guy after all. By Survivor Series, people were tired of a one-dimensional hero, and a smart crowd was happy to watch Sid destroy him. Shawn would have been much better off if he'd been beaten by Vader at SummerSlam, taken a month or so off to heal a worked injury (broken ribs from a Vader bomb?), and having Lothario get taken out as well; then he could come back as the man, instead of the underdog kid. For me, personally, I was in high school during this time, and I definitely started to lose interest after SummerSlam. It, to me, seemed like Shawn was the generic superhero who was always going to triumph, because there was no one who could really threaten his spot. I didn't start paying attention to WWF again until Bret came back, but I was the weirdo who cheered Bret regardless and hated Austin. Remember that SS event was also when we got Rocky Maivia, who fell apart a few months later. I wonder if Bret kind of saw how faces like Shawn and Rocky were treated, and started tweaking his character to slowly turn heel to keep fresh.
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May 8, 2020 18:28
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Edge & Christian posted:It was ostensibly a face vs. face match and in those the champion is always kind of the defacto heel, and Michaels seemed fine with playing that up.
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May 8, 2020 18:33
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