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Sad to see that this once-informative thread has devolved into random wrestling clips before we could definitively settle whether or not Vince McMahon is, in fact, old.
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May 9, 2022 22:34
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Prof. Crocodile posted:Sad to see that this once-informative thread has devolved into random wrestling clips before we could definitively settle whether or not Vince McMahon is, in fact, old. well the effortposters stopped posting also all those clips own and the thread title does not contain a ? (question mark) so there's nothing to settle
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May 9, 2022 22:51
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Has there been an effort post on ECW/Paul Heyman?
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May 9, 2022 22:55
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he's aging backwards and getting younger by the minute
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May 10, 2022 00:07
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SirPhoebos posted:Has there been an effort post on ECW/Paul Heyman? I like that he's essentially hanging on Brock every time he's in the WWE like some kind of lamprey or bird that picks out crumbs from Brock's musclefolds.
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May 10, 2022 00:28
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FilthyImp posted:Paul Heyman being insane is definitely a thread in itself. Yeah Paul is messed up but in my opinion he has earned his place in the modern pantheon of people who were great promos and effective onscreen characters alongside SCSA, The Rock, Vince, and even Bischoff. Both Paul and Bisch were fantastic adds and i feel like their work in the early-2000's WWF have or should have earned them more than just a hanger-on status
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May 10, 2022 00:35
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titties posted:Yeah Paul is messed up but in my opinion he has earned his place in the modern pantheon of people who were great promos and effective onscreen characters alongside SCSA, The Rock, Vince, and even Bischoff. Both Paul and Bisch were fantastic adds and i feel like their work in the early-2000's WWF have or should have earned them more than just a hanger-on status Bischoff doesn't belong on that list at all. He's poo poo and was always poo poo.
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May 10, 2022 00:44
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Elephant Ambush posted:Bischoff doesn't belong on that list at all. He's poo poo and was always poo poo. Listen, i know sometimes people say some things they don't mean and I'm feeling charitable so I'm going to give you some time to really think this over. I'll give you about ... three minutes
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May 10, 2022 00:47
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Another Raw Report would be good
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May 10, 2022 01:27
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Bonzo posted:Another Raw Report would be good
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May 10, 2022 01:36
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Elephant Ambush posted:well the effortposters stopped posting Should I talk about Earthquake next? It would mean I'd get to talk about the absolute worst segment in WCW history.
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May 10, 2022 02:20
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Gavok posted:I'd get to talk about the absolute worst segment in WCW history. 
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May 10, 2022 03:30
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Gavok posted:Should I talk about Earthquake next? It would mean I'd get to talk about the absolute worst segment in WCW history. But Typhoon was the one with the rather shocking botch that shocked the world!
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May 10, 2022 03:40
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Gavok posted:Should I talk about Earthquake next? It would mean I'd get to talk about the absolute worst segment in WCW history. All the worst WCW segments have been posted but feel free to add another one to the pile
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May 10, 2022 04:02
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Baron von Eevl posted:But Typhoon was the one with the rather shocking botch that shocked the world! Believe me, the Shockmaster has nothing on the endless pain that is the Piper Family.
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May 10, 2022 04:08
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Gavok posted:Believe me, the Shockmaster has nothing on the endless pain that is the Piper Family. It was around for two week... Gavok posted:Believe me, the Shockmaster has nothing on the endless pain that is the Piper Family. ....you are correct. Also I am still working on effortposts, I'm not done yet.
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May 10, 2022 07:15
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Okay so you all didn’t like my 3MW joke so let’s talk about Eric Bischoff. Even before what has been an undeniably astonishing career in pro wrestling, Eric Bischoff was an interesting guy. In his early adulthood he worked in a surprisingly diverse number of fields. He had been a butcher, a landscaper, a catalog model, vet tech, and a professional kickboxer. Bischoff was a high school folk style wrestler. Apparently he attended and competed his senior year in Minneapolis, an area known for producing high-level wrestlers both collegiate and professional. I don’t know whether he was a good wrestler. I don’t know if wrestling was something he really enjoyed or if it was just an extracurricular he did to improve his chances at getting into a nice college. I only know that he gave it up after a knee injury. You know, the kind of knee injury that forces you to give up high school wrestling but doesn’t keep you from going on to earn a black belt in karate and compete as a professional kickboxer. Still, it’s kind of cool to be able to say that you were a Minnesota wrestler. Minnesota is a breeding ground for pro and collegiate wrestling. Apparently Mr. Perfect, Scott Norton, The Z man, and Nikita Koloff all went to high school together in the same Minnesota town. You know how your dad’s stepfather’s cousin is the uncle of that guy in Reel Big Fish so you basically kind of know the band? In that same way, just being able to say you were a Minnesota wrestler lends you an exceptionally nebulous and entirely imagined connection to real collegiate wrestlers like NCAA champion and All-American Bob Backlund, or NCAA champion and former UFC Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. Heck, you’re only one or two degrees removed from famous actor, WWE Hall of Famer, and former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura. Basically. You know. I’ve gotten off track here but the point I was trying to get to was that for someone who was a wrestler in a wrestling state, Bischoff didn’t seem like he was working towards a wrestling career. It doesn’t even look like he was particularly interested in wrestling in general. This dude managed to accident himself into an extremely influential pro wrestling career which would include such events as headlining a pay-per-view with hulk Hogan and DDP, a reign as WCW Hardcore Champion, and a WWE Hall-of-Fame induction as some of his lesser, minor acheivements. Bischoff was a salesperson for Verne Gagne’s AWA in the late 80’s. I don’t know poo poo about the AWA but the story goes that the regular TV announcer couldn’t make the broadcast or taping and Bischoff was already wearing a suit and had been in front of the camera as a model and as an actor in workplace training videos or some bullshit so congratulations kid you’re on TV. After the AWA went under, Bischoff got hired as a Todd Pettingill for WCW. He did absolutely nothing for like 4 years, and then somehow staged some sort of coup and seized control of World Championship Wrestling from Ole Anderson who was later tried and summarily executed. I’ve never heard an explanation of how exactly Bischoff managed to do it, but he beat out experienced broadcasters Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone with his grab for the pencil. Jim Ross was so pissed off that he immediately went to the WWF to gain moderate fame and a lifetime of shoddy treatment from Vince McMahon. Everybody knows the story from there. We’ve heard a million times how Bischoff jammed his hand so far into Ted Turner’s pocket that he was brushing grapefruit, grabbed a fist full, and shoveled cash into Hulk Hogan’s face to poach the biggest fish of all time. How he prospected in Ted’s trousers again and built a whole new television show with the specific intent of farting into Vince McMahon’s open mouth. How Vince got pink eye for 83 weeks because of the farting. Bischoff got the book, helped create the NWO, put himself over, and made millions for acting like a turd and broing down on TV every week in front of millions of people and he was loving good at it. So smarmy, so unlikeable, so arrogant, so cowardly. So yeah, he loving sucked. In the way that all great heels suck: all or any as needed. As has been covered previously itt, Vince McMahon is cartoonishly petty and has a demonstrated history of treating the WCW guys like poo poo. Not only was Bischoff a direct competitor in the Monday Night Wars, he had also been a direct competitor in Vince’s eventual buyout of WCW. Bischoff, back by investors, had made a lucrative bid to Turner to purchase WCW’s properties and network timeslots. The deal fell through when WCW programming was cancelled, since Bischoff’s backers were not interested unless TV was part of the deal. In an unusually magnanimous display Vince Hired Bischoff, didn’t bury him, and even allowed him some creative input. Bischoff’s RAW debut contains what I consider to be some really good examples of quality heeling. Bischoff greets Booker T like that guy you went to high school with greets you when he’s about to tell you all about how you can become an independent business owner like him if you just attend this seminar. He introduces himself to the Undertaker, seemingly completely unaware of Undertaker’s WCW tenure that happened while Bischoff was WCW backstage interviewer. He actively ignores and dismisses Bradshaw to focus completely on the Undertaker. When Bradshaw aggressively gets in Bischoff’s face he simply utters a platitude and moves out of the way a little while continuing to talk to the Undertaker. When he encounters Ric Flair, someone he shares almost a decade of contentious history with, he asks forgiveness in a way that is completely without regret or insight and is based solely in the way that business professionals talk to each other when there’s money to be made. If you can go back and watch that episode and still say that Bischoff wasn’t good at what he did then maybe we can’t be friends but we can still kiss
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May 10, 2022 09:43
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THE HISTORY OF EARTHQUAKE (1 of 2) In late 1989 going into 1990, WWF had a real problem on their hands. They were absolutely hurting for top heels. Not only was Hulkamania in full swing with Hogan smacking down any threat that got in his way, but they were also strongly pushing the Ultimate Warrior as Hogan 2.0 with him doing the same. Guys like Savage, Dibiase, Andre, Rude, Big Boss Man, and so on were damaged goods. I mean, Hulk Hogan was in the middle of a feud with a literal movie villain and it was so dead in the water that the penciled-in Hogan vs. Zeus main event at WrestleMania 6 was transformed into Hogan vs. Warrior. Warrior was the only one on his level that anyone cared about. Luckily, WWF had a new hire who could help out. Tall, fat but muscular, and strangely athletic, John Tenta was a former amateur wrestler, football player, and sumo. After spending a couple years wrestling in Japan, he made his debut in WWF. It was a memorable debut as well. The Ultimate Warrior was feuding with Canadian strongman Dino Bravo. Bravo acted like he was the strongest man in the world and all of his labors usually came with an asterisk, like how he broke the world record for benchpressing... while Jesse Ventura definitely aided him as a spotter. Jimmy Hart pulled the “random” John Tenta out of the crowd as a volunteer to sit on Bravo and Warrior’s backs as they did push-ups. After he moved up and down to accommodate Bravo, Tenta then started to slam himself down on Warrior’s back and left him crushed and bamboozled. Initially, he was the Canadian Earthquake, but over the months it was changed to just Earthquake. You know how in the Royal Rumble there’s always that bit when like 6 guys team up against one really big guy to hoist him out? Earthquake was the first time they did that. Going into WrestleMania season, he was mainly there to crush Jimmy Hart’s former client Hercules, but he was also a third wheel in the Hogan vs. Warrior main event. The two were top faces and needed reason for conflict, so they would repeatedly save each other from Earthquake’s wrath, then get in arguments over it. Warrior won at WrestleMania 6 and the record books show his lone title reign as being a lousy one. Really, he never had a chance. Hogan was the one who got to feud with Earthquake, leaving Warrior with virtually nothing. Again, the company had a huge heel problem. Less than a year earlier, Warrior had a lengthy feud with Rick Rude and they restarted the feud merely because Rude was the most legitimate contender on paper (he beat him at WrestleMania 5 via cheating). Then Warrior got involved in a feud between the Legion of Doom and Demolition. The guy was given a run with no compelling opponents, so of course he dropped the belt after about nine months. As for Hogan, his storyline involved Earthquake kicking his rear end and doing his Earthquake Splash (running and jumping rear end-first onto the opponent’s chest) to him several times. Hogan was off TV for a while due to damaged ribs and Tugboat, a guy who looked like Earthquake dressed as Popeye, rallied children to write letters to Hogan in the hospital. This was a ruse for WWF to get fans’ addresses so they could send them merch catalogues. Hogan and Earthquake had their big singles match at SummerSlam 1990, ending in a count-out. Afterwards, Earthquake continued to attack Hogan and showed that their feud was long from over. They continued to Survivor Series, where Earthquake and Tugboat ended in a double count-out, and then the finale of Royal Rumble 1991. Hogan shrugged off all of Earthquake’s big moves and easily eliminated him, putting a final nail in any chance Earthquake had as a main eventer. Besides, Warrior dropped the belt on the undercard to Sergeant Slaughter, so by doing away with Earthquake for good, Hogan was able to move on to being the top guy again and return to the title picture. Earthquake had a nothing win over Greg Valentine at WrestleMania 7, but his next notable match was in Japan, as WWF did a joint show with Super World of Sports. Earthquake was put in a match with Koji Kitao, another sumo-turned-wrestler, who even made a special appearance at WrestleMania 7. Unfortunately, Koji was a total rear end in a top hat and moments into the match, the two started getting openly pissed at each other over miscommunications. Koji kicked the ref for an abrupt DQ, grabbed the mic, cut a promo about how wrestling is fake and Earthquake could never beat him in real life, and got fired for it. Way to go. Earthquake moved onto two different feuds at the same time. For one, WWF was playing up the idea of Andre the Giant getting back to the ring and different managers asking to let them represent him. This included Jimmy Hart, who was refused. Earthquake then brutalized him and broke his leg in return. Around this time, Earthquake clashed with Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Freaked out by Jake’s pet Damien and just because he was a gigantic bully, Earthquake tied Jake up in the ropes and proceeded to Earthquake Splash the pour snake to death on TV. Not for real, natch. They had some hamburger meat shoved into pantyhose inside that sack. Regardless, it was a kind of intense situation for the cartoony Hogan era. As a kid, I got to go to a house show that featured Jake vs. Earthquake. Andre was in Jake’s corner, grabbed the microphone, and garbled out some kind of inexplicable promo that sounded like Darth Vader on novocain. Notably, Andre cutting a promo on Earthquake during a Brutus Beefcake's Barbershop segment was Andre's final WWF TV appearance. After the Jake stuff petered out, Earthquake was put in a six-man tag match of himself and the Nasty Boys vs. Tugboat and the Bushwackers. There was an odd moment where Tugboat and Earthquake were tagged in, but Tugboat awkwardly tagged out. It became clearer minutes later, when Tugboat attacked the Bushwackers and revealed that he and Earthquake had become a tag team. Tugboat was reborn as Typhoon and the two became the Natural Disasters. Initially, it was good timing. The Legion of Doom won the tag titles and they really needed worthy challengers. For months, they took on the Natural Disasters. They fought them at Survivor Series, at Royal Rumble (where the Disasters won via count-out), and in the pages of the comic series WWF BattleMania. Even on the house show circuit, there was never a clear winner and the Legion of Doom continued to hold onto the belts. Due to LOD being both real life dipshits and Hawk having some major drug issues, they were gone from WWF for a few months. Just before that, they dropped the belts to Money Inc. (Ted Dibiase and IRS), another tag team managed by Jimmy Hart at an unaired house show. In order to churn a story out of this, the idea was that the Disasters were guaranteed another title shot after their count-out victory, but Jimmy Hart just gave the shot to Money Inc. instead. The Disasters felt betrayed, fired Hart, and turned face. LOD came back shortly after, but not for long. For some reason, somebody on the booking team decided that these post-apocalyptic Chicago badasses needed a ventriloquist dummy added to their act. They were gone shortly after SummerSlam 1992. But hey, that allowed the Natural Disasters to be the top face tag team. They got to dethrone Money Inc. and become tag champs for a little while. Granted, Money Inc. got the titles back eventually. The problem here was that because WWF tag team wrestling is so formulaic, at least one of these gigantic dudes had to play up being prone and weak for much of their matches and that didn’t always work. The rise of other popular face teams like the Nasty Boys and the Steiner Brothers caused the Natural Disasters to fade quite a bit. Just as bad was the rise of Yokozuna, the latest giant, fat guy monster wrestler. At Royal Rumble 1993, the Natural Disasters took each other on and Earthquake eliminated his partner. Minutes later, he took on Yokozuna one-on-one and got tossed out. Yokozuna went on to win the Rumble match and was the top heel in the company for well over a year. The night after the Rumble, Earthquake took part in two matches during a WWF Superstars taping. In a dark match, he lost to Yokozuna. In a televised match, he lost to Bam Bam Bigelow via count-out. After that, Earthquake left the company and wrestled in Japan for a year. Typhoon remained in WWF for another four months. Funny enough, his last televised match was also a loss against Bam Bam. Funnier still, he went on to WCW to be the Shockmaster and we all know how THAT went. Earthquake returned to WWF in early 1994 as a face and started getting wins over jobbers and midcard heels like IRS, Kwang, and Bastion Booger. One of the matches at WrestleMania X was supposed to be Earthquake vs. Ludvig Borga, but Borga was let go from the company going into the show and was replaced with Adam Bomb. Earthquake won the match in about 30 seconds and Vince McMahon on commentary talked up the potential match between Earthquake and Yokozuna. Yokozuna ended WrestleMania X losing the title and he needed something to do in the aftermath. On Raw, they played up footage of Earthquake’s old days as a legit sumo and had Yokozuna get pissed off over it. A week later, Earthquake and Yokozuna would have a sumo match as the main event of Raw. It wasn’t very good, but Earthquake did get the win, which was kind of a big deal. On the house show circuit, the two had a series of matches that ended in double count-out. In real life, Tenta wasn’t really happy with his place in the company and especially his pay. He wanted out, especially knowing that WCW had interest in him. His last matches were house shows where Yokozuna defeated him via Crush’s interference. Earthquake was supposed to take on Owen Hart in a King of the Ring qualifier (for the tournament Owen went on to win), but footage of the house show was shown, explaining that Yokozuna put Earthquake on the shelf. What’s strange was that that wasn’t supposed to be the end of that. Typhoon returned to WWF and it looked like they were supposed to be setting up a Natural Disasters reunion against Yokozuna and Crush for SummerSlam. Without Earthquake, it just kind of petered out with no SummerSlam match for Yokozuna (who main-evented the previous WrestleMania as champion, remember). Instead, they just did Typhoon and Mabel vs. Yokozuna and Crush on an episode of WWF Wrestling Challenge, which nobody really watched back then. Up next: Earthquake becomes colder, aquatic, and really gets into South Park.
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May 12, 2022 00:44
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titties posted:This dude managed to accident himself into an extremely influential pro wrestling career which would include such events as headlining a pay-per-view with hulk Hogan and DDP, a reign as WCW Hardcore Champion, and a WWE Hall-of-Fame induction as some of his lesser, minor achievements... In essence, Bischoff benefited the most from the terrible see sawing WCW went through when it got purchased by Turner, which caused a constant back and forth between 'corporate business' and 'wrasslin'. First we had Jim Herd, who was 'business', but since he was in charge, he also tried meddling with the pro wrestling, saying stuff like Ric Flair was too old, should cut his hair, get an earring, and call himself Spartacus, and that his contract was too big, never mind that Flair was still the top guy and that rendered any issue with age moot, also the idea he needed a gimmick change moot, and proved that he deserved that big contract. He also had brilliant ideas like the Ding Dongs, a tag team that constantly rang bells (that he was sure would get over huge with kids) and the Hunchbacks, whose gimmick was since they had hunches, they couldn't be pinned because their shoulders would never be down. Supposedly someone, thinking the idea was completely idiotic, responded that someone could dig a hole in the ground, shove their hunch into it, and get a pin, and Herd supposedly took this completely at face value. Now yes, plenty of 'wrestling' people have had terrible, stupid ideas for 100 different reasons, but Herd was a 'slick suit' which basically made the fact that he was having these ideas (and forcing them out, since he was in charge) even worse. Flair utterly tears the man to pieces in his book, disliking him almost as much as he did Bischoff at the time. Eventually, Herd's choices (namely, firing Ric Flair, which basically led to months of Lex Luger main eventing empty arenas, because see, Flair was still the TOP STAR despite what Herd thought) got him canned. There was a brief period where a guy called Kip Frye was in charge: he seemed to also suffer, to a lesser extent, of being 'a suit'. On his good side, he put out a legit financial bonus for whoever had the best match in a night (which motivated the workers), but he had no storytelling talent or anyone who could cover that aspect for him. So his stay was brief. His replacement went too far in the other direction, being Bill Watts. Watts was so old school in thought that he just forced a whole NEW set of bad ideas on WCW, like no jumping off the top rope, no throwing people over the top rope, and removing the mats outside the ring, because to him, wrestling was huge hosses stiffing each other and smaller guys doing flips was not 'wrestling', never mind that WCW had a bunch of really talented wrestlers in that vein, including Brian Pillman in his prime (supposedly, Watts told Pillman that either he would renegotiate his contract or be jobbed out, and Pillman responded with "Fine, I'll be the world's most highly paid jobber."). Watts also promptly dove right into Ye Old Nepotism, bringing in his son and pushing him to the moon, bringing in his old pals Steve Williams and Terry Gordy and pushing them to the tag belts (at least they had a drat cool name, the Miracle Violence Connection), and, showing that old rule about broken clocks, also brought in Leon "Big Van Vader" White and made him the top heel and the biggest monster heel seen in the States in a while. Oh yeah, and Watts was also a racist who gave an interview that said "If a person owns something, they should be allowed to not serve blacks if they don't want to." In the 90's, someone saying something like THAT in the world of faux corporate equality and non boat rocking was far too much mask off (especially since then-Home Run number record holder Hank Aaron having a high position in Turner Time Warner) and Watts got himself canned. After the headache he was, I'm certain that the suits really didn't want another 'wrasslin' person like Ross or Schiavone running things, and oh along comes Bischoff, supposedly a master in schmooze, and he basically swiped the job out from under them because he was far more 'suit' than 'wrasslin' and after Watts, the Time Warner folks were sick of 'wrasslin'. Which fits Bischoff's general attitude of 'businessman, not a wrestling person' to a tee. Running WCW was just what he managed to slick personality his way into: had he met different people in his life he would have probably been doing the same in, I don't know, an ice cream company or something. Still, as said, Bischoff did end up having some great showman's instincts, which in theory would have made him a good balance between suit and wrassler...but as I myself laid out in depth, his failings ended up consuming him instead.
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May 12, 2022 02:29
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Every time Vince farts, he adds an hour to his life. Every time he sneezes, he loses a day.
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May 12, 2022 02:50
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Cornwind Evil posted:Watts got himself canned. After the headache he was, I'm certain that the suits really didn't want another 'wrasslin' person like Ross or Schiavone running things, and oh along comes Bischoff, supposedly a master in schmooze, and he basically swiped the job out from under them because he was far more 'suit' than 'wrasslin' and after Watts, the Time Warner folks were sick of 'wrasslin'. Which fits Bischoff's general attitude of 'businessman, not a wrestling person' to a tee. Running WCW was just what he managed to slick personality his way into: had he met different people in his life he would have probably been doing the same in, I don't know, an ice cream company or something. I forgot completely about Jim Herd and all his dumb bullshit but i was ignoring the Cowboy Bill Watts part because afaik Ole Anderson had taken over for him. But then i suppose Ole was another wrestling guy and while he'd probably have had ideas more progressive than those of Bill Watts, he did also love stupid poo poo if he thought his black scorpion / Shockmaster voice was cool and intimidating.
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May 12, 2022 05:05
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A while back I did a bit of an effort post on the old NWA territory days, in regards to how things were before Vince McMahon took over the WWF and began aggressively expanding outside the Northeast during the mid-1980s. I enjoyed writing that up, so I figured I might take a look at some specific territories here and do a little writeup on each of them. Some of these territories could have an entire post dedicated just to them, in regards to how important they were to wrestling history, and I may do more detailed writeups on specific ones later, but for now I'll just do a little mini-history of some of the more notable ones. Pacific Northwest Wrestling (PNW) - probably one of the more overlooked/underrated territories when people think of the old NWA territories of the 1970s and 1980s, a lot of people who went on to become big stars (if not legends) in wrestling either got their start or passed through the Don Owen-run PNW territory. Owen, one of the founding members of the NWA in 1948, had good working relations with many of the other NWA territory owners and would often exchange talent with them in order to bring new faces to his flagship "Portland Wrestling" weekly TV program. Names like Roddy Piper, Rick Martel, Curt Hennig, Jesse Ventura, Raven, Scott Norton, Buddy Rose, and many others appeared in PNW at various times over the years the promotion was active. Probably the most well-known homegrown star from PNW was Billy Jack Haynes, who never quite achieved the level of success people felt he would be capable of outside of the confines of PNW. There are some episodes of "Portland Wrestling" available on YouTube, and they're worth checking out if you want to get a taste of how a small-time local TV station handles producing a weekly wrestling show. That's not meant as an insult, either; I think the episodes I've seen of "Portland Wrestling" (disclaimer: I have yet to visit any part of the Pacific Northwest, though I'd love to one day) have a very distinct low-key charm, with the announcers plugging local businesses and vice versa. Eventually, though, time caught up with Don Owen, who was the last surviving original founder of the NWA when he passed away in 2002, after having sold off his interest in PNW and retired from promoting wrestling ten years earlier. Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF) - probably one of the most well-regarded of the old territories, and arguably the territory that featured most of the wrestlers that would become huge stars in the 1980s. A number of wrestlers got their big break and made their names in CWF: Lex Luger, Rick Rude and Percy Pringle, Mike Rotunda, Barry Windham, Kevin Sullivan (who debuted his valet, the Fallen Angel...who was Sullivan's girlfriend and later wife, a young woman named Nancy who would later meet a tragic end at the hands of another wrestler named Chris Benoit), and many others. However, two of the most well-known names in wrestling made their bones in Florida. One of them was legendary announcer "The Dean" Gordon Solie, who called pro wrestling in a very erudite and intellectual way, while still getting across the necessary stories and emotions going on during whatever matches or feuds he was calling (and always pronouncing suplex as "su-play"). The other legend to get his big break in Florida was The American Dream himself, Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes initially started out as a heel in Florida, but in 1974 he turned face and the Dusty Rhodes we all know was born during that time in the Sunshine State. Rhodes feuded with numerous villains during the 1970s in Florida, doing huge business and allowing promoter Eddie Graham to bring in many new faces during that run (even bringing in WCCW star David Von Erich in for a run, during a talent exchange with David's father Fritz, with David working as a heel during his time in Florida and learning a lot about the business in general). Unfortunately, while Graham and Rhodes did big business during the 1970s, the 1980s was not as kind to Graham's CWF; Rhodes eventually moved on to other areas, finally arriving in the Carolinas to work for Jim Crockett Promotions. More tragic was Graham's inability to conquer his own personal demons, having battled alcoholism and depression for years, ultimately leading to his taking his own life in 1985. CWF would eventually be sold to JCP two years later. In 2007, the WWE (having purchased the rights to CWF when they bought WCW after it folded) would revive it as a developmental territory called Florida Championship Wrestling; eventually this too would be shuttered in favor of what would eventually be called NXT. Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW)/Championship Wrestling from Georgia (CWG) - started in Atlanta in 1944, GCW would run without a weekly TV show until 1971, when their show "Big Time Wrestling" (not to be confused with the Detroit promotion of the same name, or the Dallas-based promotion that would eventually become WCCW) premiered. GCW would eventually become a cornerstone of an independent TV station known as WTCG owned by a man named Ted Turner; Turner would eventually change the station's call letters to WTBS, turn the independent station into a superstation that would be broadcast via satellite on cable TV, and he made sure that wrestling was a huge part of that plan, with Georgia Championship Wrestling eventually changing its name in 1982 to something more familiar to fans of today: World Championship Wrestling. However, it wasn't all peaceful and easygoing behind the scenes of GCW/WCW: promoter Ray Gunkel died in the early 1970s shortly after the deal with Turner's network was made, setting off a power struggle between his widow Ann (who had attended Brown University around the same time as Ted Turner, leading to speculation that the two might be romantically involved) and Oklahoma-based promoter Bill Watts (more on him later). Eventually, a third outside party was called in, a promoter who'd run territories in numerous states as well as Australia (fun fact: the original use of "World Championship Wrestling" was the name of Barnett's Australian promotion), and eventually Barnett assumed control of GCW. GCW was the first program by an NWA affiliate to be broadcast nationally on WTBS, and Barnett also began starting to expand the promotion's booking to areas outside of Atlanta and the southern US, reaching into areas like Ohio and Michigan. This displeased some of the other NWA promoters, and it has been argued that Barnett was actually trying to take GCW/WCW from a regional to a national promotion even before Vince McMahon would successfully do so in the mid-1980s; Roddy Piper once opined that the only reason Barnett didn't pursue this strategy any further than he did was due to his fear that some of the other promoters might use their reputed ties to organized crime to remove him from the picture. Eventually, another power struggle occurred, and Barnett eventually sold his interest to a group that included three wrestlers: brother Jack and Jerry Brisco, and a booker and wrestler named Al Rogowski, who wrestled under the name Ole Anderson. However, stability was still not in the cards for GCW/WCW under this group, either, and this led to the incident still referred to as "Black Saturday" by wrestling fans. In 1984, the Brisco brothers decided to sell their stock in GCW, but not to Ole Anderson. Instead, they sold it to the man who'd taken over the Northeastern WWWF territory from his father, a man called Vince McMahon. McMahon, who already intended on making the renamed WWF a national promotion, inherited GCW's timeslots on WTBS (as well as hiring both Brisco brothers to work for him). Naturally, Vince replaced GCW programming with WWF programming. However, this didn't work as well as Vince had hoped, partially due to Southern wrestling audiences' distaste for the Northeastern style of wrestling ("Southern rasslin'" was more hard-hitting and promos were only there to help stir up interest in feuds and matches; Vince had already begun transition to the more cartoony, family-friendly style of wrestling the WWF became known for later in the 1980s); and partially due to the fact that he used the WTBS timeslots for recap shows, after assuring Ted Turner that he would air original matches similar to the GCW programming format. Eventually, low ratings led McMahon to sell off the timeslots to Jim Crockett Promotions, who were based in the Carolinas and were more familiar with the style of wrestling Southern fans preferred (more on JCP later). (As an aside: it's often been claimed by people such as Ric Flair, that after the Briscos sold the timeslots to Vince, an enraged Ole Anderson offered various wrestlers thousands of dollars to attack and injure the Brisco brothers, either inside or outside of the ring. In particular, Flair's claim was that the Road Warriors were approached by an "unnamed source" and offered $5,000 to injure the Briscos during a match (the Road Warriors reportedly informed the Briscos of this offer, and assured them "we're not that kind of business people" and that they would take no liberties with them during their match.) Ole Anderson attempted to continue promoting wrestling in Georgia, running a promotion with the original name of Championship Wrestling from Georgia. However, this was also eventually merged with Jim Crockett Promotions, which was rapidly becoming the only NWA-affiliated promotion that had the potential to challenge Vince and the WWF. World Class Championship Wrestling/World Class Wrestling Association (WCCW/WCWA) - just to get a personal aside out of the way, the first ever wrestling I ever saw as a kid in the 1980s was a WCCW show that was aired on a syndicated Chicago-area TV station. Originally known as Big Time Wrestling (as mentioned earlier above), in 1969 former German Nazi stereotype heel turned beloved babyface Fritz Von Erich (real name Jack Adkisson) took over the Dallas/Fort Worth Wrestling Office, which controlled wrestling in the DFW area, after his business partner died. He also assumed ownership of the Dallas Sportatorium, and would routinely feature himself in feuds with villains managed by Gary Hart, who would become a very important figure in WCCW as the promotion began to head into the 1980s. WCCW is synonymous with the Von Erichs, and I could seriously do a huge effortpost on the Von Erichs and their tragedies alone. So I won't touch on that for now, except to say that it's obvious the fortunes of the Von Erichs and WCCW were inextricably interlinked for both good and ill. In terms of the non-Von Erich wrestlers in the company, for the longest time the formula was simple: if a wrestler was a babyface, they were often pushed as a family friend of the Von Erich boys; "Iceman" King Parsons and "Gentleman" Chris Adams in particular were nearly as hugely popular as the Von Erichs with Dallas wrestling fans. Similarly, if you wanted a heel to receive deafening boos, you just had them face off against the Von Erichs. Many top heels got a big break in WCCW, with Rick Rude and Percy Pringle (later to be more familar to WWF fans as Paul Bearer) being among the stars who started to receive top billing and big pushes in WCCW before hitting the national stage in the WWF or Jim Crockett Promotions. Speaking of the national stage, it's worth noting that WCCW was another promotion where it could be argued that they made a bid for not just national, but international expansion before the WWF managed to do it more successfully. WCCW was syndicated both across America (which is how I was able to watch it on Chicago-area TV, having never even been to Texas until the early 1990s) and to various global markets (in particular, the WCCW shows were hugely popular in countries as far afield as South Africa and Israel). Another innovation that is largely credited to WCCW was making the usage of entrance music much more commonplace than it had previously been. Kerry Von Erich was called "The Modern-Day Warrior", which in turn was a lyric from his entrance music, "Tom Sawyer" by legendary Canadian rock band Rush. Similarly, The Fabulous Freebirds used the Lynyrd Skynyrd song "Free Bird" as their entrance music, at least until Michael Hayes decided to try his hand at music and record "Badstreet U.S.A.", which became their new theme. "Iceman" Parsons coming out to Sister Sledge's "We Are Family"...I could go on, but you get the point. It's important to remember that this was in the early 1980s, well before it became common practice for wrestlers to have their own entrance music. One more thing that should be noted is that WCCW also innovated in terms of presentation of their wrestling programs. The shows were given a very sports-like feel, and WCCW was arguably the first promotion to move away from the "hard cam" (where the action in the ring is shot largely with a camera fixed on one side of the ring), instead utilizing multiple cameras and angles. WCCW even popularized the usage of cameramen at ringside, often having them enter the ring before matches started, or having them stand on the ring apron during matches. This gave WCCW a more dynamic and "action-oriented" feel than a lot of their contemporaries. Probably the best indicator of just how great WCCW's production team were at filming and presenting their TV shows was that they made the Dallas Sportatorium, a former cattle showground for county fairs, look like a major sporting venue. As I said, WCCW's fortunes were tied in with that of the Von Erichs, and as they began to decline in popularity and suffer several tragedies, the promotion also suffered a serious decline. At one point they broke away from the NWA in the hopes of going national, similar to how Vince was taking the WWF national; but unlike the WWF, Fritz didn't poach talents from other companies to replace the talents that left for other promotions (at one point, the promotion lost several mainstays such as Chris Adams, "Iceman" Parsons, The Missing Link, and even the Freebirds, as well as up-and-comers like Rick Rude and The Dingo (soon to be The Ultimate) Warrior). Eventually, in a bid to try and stay alive to compete with the now-dominant WWF, WCCW (having rechristened itself the World Class Wrestling Association, or WCWA) joined forces with Verne Gagne's AWA (which was itself similarly floundering) and Jerry Jarret's CWA, during the late 1980s to form a short-lived working agreement known as Pro Wrestling USA. This resulted in one PPV called AWA SuperClash III, which is mainly remembered for the title unification match between AWA/CWA champion Jerry "the King" Lawler, and WCWA champion Kerry Von Erich; the match itself was primarly notable for how bloody it was, due to a very heavily drugged Von Erich managing to cut the poo poo out of his arm while trying to take off his ring jacket, due to getting the taped-up blade he had hidden somehow getting caught in his jacket sleeve. This working arragement didn't last long at all, Pro Wrestling USA soon folded, and Fritz sold WCCW to Jerry Jarrett, who renamed it USWA. The most notable thing about the Dallas version of Jarrett's USWA was that it was where a young wrestler by the name of Steve Austin got his start, having been trained by Chris Adams (and eventually marrying Adams' ex-wife, a Brit herself, who reportedly inspired Austin years later when she told him his tea was getting "stone cold"). By the mid-1990s the Dallas-based USWA was dead. Fritz Von Erich, by this time no longer a beloved figure in Dallas wrestling but reviled by fans as the man who was responsible for the death of not just three of his five sons (four, if you consider David's death as being Fritz's fault in some way), but the death of a one-beloved Dallas wrestling promotion. Mid-South Wrestling/Universal Wrestling Federation (MSW/UWF) - former wrestler Leroy McGuirk (father of Michelle "Mike" McGuirk, who was the first female ring announcer for a brief time in the 1980s, predating Lillian Garcia by almost a couple of decades) ran a territory that covered the states of Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi. One of the most popular wrestlers that worked for McGuirk was "Cowboy" Bill Watts, who eventually bought the territory from McGuirk in 1979, renaming it Mid-South Wrestling. Watts had a vision for wrestling: big beefy men slapping beef (though he did make the odd exception for smaller guys, more on which in a bit). And it has to be said, he was drat successful with this strategy. I mentioned Florida as being a territory that produced a lot of stars, but it's arguable that MSW under Watts has just as strong a claim to that accolade. Watts had a ton of stars make their way through MSW at one time or another: Jake "the Snake" Roberts, Ted DiBiase, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, Jim Duggan, the Junkyard Dog, Magnum T.A., Dick Slater and his valet Dark Journey (and remember, back in the early-mid 1980s, the sight of a white man and a black woman being involved in any sort of an intimate relationship was still a very controversial thing in the Southwestern U.S.)...well I could go on. I mentioned that while Watts like to see big beefy dudes like Butch Reed and JYD beating each other up, he did make some exceptions for smaller guys, in particular two tag teams (one with a manager) he received in a talent exchange with Jerry Jarrett: the Midnight Express with Jim Cornette and the Rock and Roll Express. The RNR's were hugely popular with the young female portion of the audience, which Watts noted and pushed them accordingly. And when Watts heard Cornette cut a promo for the Midnights, he reportedly said that Cornette irritated him, and he realized that if Cornette could get him that mad, he'd absolutely infuriate the fans. While Watts is undeniably a prime example of the type of American conservative we tend to refer to as being a "chud" nowadays, it is often noted that he didn't let his own racial prejudices get in the way of his making money. One of his closest advisors was "Big Cat" Ernie Ladd, and when he saw just how popular the young JYD was with fans, he pushed him to the moon. Of course, none of that absolves Watts from being a bully, a racist, and just a piece of poo poo person in general. In the late 1980s, like Fritz Von Erich in Dallas, Watts decided to take MSW from a regional to a national promotion; and like Fritz, he renamed his promotion to something with a less-regional feel. Watts thus renamed Mid-South Wrestling to the Universal Wrestling Federation. Along with this, he managed to snag more than a few (justifiably disgruntled over being underpaid) stars from Fritz, which helped accelerate WCCW's decline. I mentioned a few in my writeup of WCCW earlier, but I left a few out, who would help make the UWF shine very brightly for a brief time. One of those people was Missy Hyatt, a young buxom blonde from Florida who had been a heel female valet during her time in WCCW. Watts recognized that Hyatt was very popular with the male fanbase, and hired her to act as both a valet and a color commentator (by this point, Hyatt had begun a romantic relationship with the man she managed, "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert, eventually marrying him). But as mentioned previously, the most shocking acquisition by Watts was convincing the Freebirds to return to his employ. Best known for their absolutely savage wars with the Von Erichs, the Freebirds showed up in the UWF and began feuding with the top faces in the territory, namely DiBiase and Williams, with Freebird Terry Gordy defeating Jim Duggan (who left not too long after for the WWF) in the finals of the tournament to crown the first UWF champion. It was here that Michael Hayes began to start wrestling less and doing color commentary more, something he'd do a lot of in WCW a couple of years later, and alongside the same man in both cases: an announcer who looked up to Watts as a mentor and friend, by the name of Jim Ross. In my opinion, during the time the UWF was active, it was arguably the best American pro wrestling had to offer. Watts wanted his wrestlers to work "snug", so that punches and kicks looked as real as possible without actually causing serious injury. He also had no problem showcasing some controversial (and frankly distasteful) topics in feuds, such as when "Iceman" King Parsons began a feud with another black wrestler Savannah Jack, with Parsons working heel and constantly making disparaging remarks about Savannah Jack's "blackness", claiming Jack wanted to "be white" and calling him "Oreo". It was also during this time that several young wrestlers got their first exposure in the UWF, in particular a couple of rookie wrestlers who often teamed with Eddie Gilbert as part of his "First Family": Rick Steiner and a young bodybuilder-turned-wrestler known only as Sting (earlier, Sting had been part of a tag team known as The Blade Runners, which ended when his partner departed for WCCW, changing his name from "Rock" to first The Dingo Warrior, and then later The Ultimate Warrior). Unfortunately, like Fritz Von Erich before him, Watts misjudged his ability to expand and take a promotion nationwide. Part of this was due to Vince McMahon poaching some of his biggest stars; DiBiase, Duggan, and former UWF champions One Man Gang and the man he lost the belt to, "Big" Bubba Rogers (later to be known as the Big Bossman) all eventually departed the UWF for the WWF, depriving the company of some of its most popular draws (as well, several other UWF stars left the company to return to Dallas and WCCW, though it was likely too little too late for that promotion at that point). And then there was the recession Oklahoma's economy faced, when the oil industry fell on hard times, which meant that the fans in the UWF's biggest market suddenly found themselves without a bunch of disposable income for wrestling shows. Finally, in 1987, Watts threw in the towel and sold the UWF to Jim Crockett Promotions. Almost immediately, JCP began featuring stars from their programs on UWF shows, including NWA/WCW booker Dusty Rhodes. JCP also began putting their stars over many of the UWF's stars, in an early preview of how Vince would handle the WWF/WCW "Invasion" angle many years later. The few UWF stars to escape this fate would include Rick Steiner and Sting; Steiner was teamed with Kevin Sullivan and Mike Rotunda to form the Varsity Club, a heel stable of wrestlers with accomplished amateur backgrounds (Steiner from the U of Michigan, Rotunda from Syracuse University, and Sullivan kayfabe from U of Massachusetts. Steiner would eventually turn face and be replaced by Steve Williams, a former U of Oklahoma wrestler). Sting, on the other hand, began receiving a massive babyface push almost instantly, as he was hugely popular with fans. Jim Ross was also kept around, as part of the broadcast team. Eventually, though, JCP stopped trying to run the UWF as a separate promotion/brand, several of its' titles were deactivated or merged with their NWA/WCW counterparts, and the UWF ceased to exist as a seperate promotion about a year after it was sold. The Bill Watts UWF should not be confused with the UWF run by Herb Abrams, that was founded in 1990 and was more notable for the behind-the-scenes antics of Abrams than for any of its' matches or storylines. Indeed, the manner of Abrams' eventual death is probably the most noteworthy event in Abrams' UWF history: after being arrested by the police when they found him naked and covered in baby oil, destroying furniture in his Manhattan office with a baseball bat, Abrams had a fatal heart attack in police custody. The autopsy showed he had both valium and cocaine in his system. Reportedly, his ex-girlfriend said he was likely destroying the furniture due to his paranoid belief that people he owed money to had bugged his office and were recording him. Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling/World Championship Wrestling (MACW/WCW) - formed in 1931 and run under the auspices of Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), MACW/WCW was one of the oldest promotions, predating the formation of the NWA in 1988. Run out of the Carolinas, MACW had numerous TV shows they taped in various cities. Eventually, they consolidated production to a single show taped in Raleigh, North Carolina, before moving to a new studio in Charlotte during 1981. During this time, JCP began working on syndicated shows (such as World Wide Wrestling), in the buildup to their eventual regional expansion; as well as their homebase in the Carolinas, MACW began to run shows in areas such as Tennessee, West Virginia, and parts of Georgia and Ohio. As we all know by now, Vince McMahon had started aggressively expanding the WWF beyond the borders of his father's Northeast territory. Jim Crockett Jr., having taken over JCP after the death of his father, was himself working on taking his promotion to a national level. To this end, Crockett began purchasing many of the smaller NWA-affiliated territories, primarily ones that couldn't hope to compete with the WWF and had begun experiencing financial difficulties, such as the Florida territory. Getting the WTBS timeslot from the WWF (in the fallout from the previously mentioned "Black Saturday") also gave JCP a huge leg up; as part of taking over the WTBS timeslots, JCP also inherited the "World Championship Wrestling" show name, and would run that show (filmed out of Turner's studios in Atlanta) as their flagship program under that name for several years. As well, having purchased several smaller NWA territories (including Ole Anderson's Championship Wrestling from Georgia), Crockett eventually envisioned himself running a united NWA, with all territories operating under a single brand. It should be noted, however, that JCP did not own the NWA; they still licensed the branding and titles from the NWA itself (for their part, the NWA was happy to continue this arrangement, in order to help combat the WWF). However, Crockett's drive to expand his territory via acquisition would prove to be his downfall. When he purchased the UWF from Bill Watts in 1987, outwardly the NWA/WCW under JCP seemed poised for success; they had an influx of several popular new stars, as well as established legends like Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair, and they were running shows in new markets seemingly almost every week. But behind the scenes there were problems. For one, head booker Dusty Rhodes kept falling back on his now-infamous "Dusty Finish" in order to keep the title on Flair; needless to say, the constant reversal of match outcomes left the fans eventually feeling cheated and frustrated, and eventually started hurting attendance. Which is understandable; if the end of the match is always going to get overturned for some bullshit, why bother going to see it? As well, Dusty and Crockett made some serious misjudgments when it came to certain booking decisions in the new markets they were trying to push into. To take an example, there was a Dusty Finish during a Road Warriors tag match for the NWA tag titles in their (kayfabe) hometown of Chicago that is often cited as the thing that absolutely killed the Windy City as a market for JCP from that point forward. But far more damaging was the fact that, during his push to expand by acquiring new territories and stars, Crockett also acquired debts owed by the companies he bought. It's been noted that when he purchased the UWF, the company was practically underwater as the Oklahoma oil recession caused Watts serious financial issues. And now those financial problems were JCP's financial problems. Inevitably, Crockett had to face the facts: his dreams of national expansion, of a united NWA competing directly with the WWF under his guidance, were not going to happen. On the brink of financial ruin, he accepted an offer to sell JCP, to the one man who had his own set of gripes with (and desire to compete against) Vince McMahon. In 1988, Jim Crockett Jr. sold JCP, the company his father had founded in 1931, to Ted Turner. For most of 1989, WCW under Turner was absolutely red hot. You had the legendary Flair-Steamboat feud, which saw some amazing matches and Steamboat beating Flair for his first world championship. This was then followed up by the even more legendary Flair-Funk feud, which saw Terry Funk piledrive Flair on a table, turning Flair face, and involving both Sting and the Great Muta at points (having their own series of great matches, feuding over the TV title). Flair was head booker at this time, and guys like Brian Pillman and the Steiners got a ton of TV time. It honestly seemed like WCW was primed to become even better as 1989 drew to a close and the 1990s loomed. I saw some posts on the guys who were put in charge of WCW in the 1990s, and who, in one way or another, managed to supremely gently caress things up over the following decade. I won't dwell too much on that here (other than to point you to the excellent DDT Digest series of articles called "The History of WCW"). Instead, I'll just provide a quick list of the guys who ran WCW during the 1990s: -Jim Herd, EVP of WCW (1989 to 1991 when he finally quit) -Kip Frye, EVP of WCW (1991 to 1992 when he stepped down) --Ole Anderson, replaced Flair as head booker under Herd (1990, fired by the end of the year) --Dusty Rhodes, replaced Ole as head booker/"WCW Goodwill Ambassador" under Herd and Frye (1991 to 1992, demoted to commentator) -Bill Watts, replaced Dusty as head booker/Frye as EVP (1992 to 1993, makes racist comments, gets demoted, refuses to accept demotion and quits instead) -Eric Bischoff, replaced Watts as head booker and EVP (1993 until 1996 when he is promoted to President of WCW, subsequently removed in 1999 when things go tits-up, his position is eliminated, and he gets replaced by Bill Busch, appears one last time in 2000 before trying to buy the company, fails to do so and WCW is sold to Vince McMahon instead) As I mentioned, there's a ton of stuff here that could have their very own effortposts, and I might just do some of those one of these days. Sydney Bottocks fucked around with this message at 06:13 on May 12, 2022 |
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May 12, 2022 06:00
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Prof. Crocodile posted:Sad to see that this once-informative thread has devolved into random wrestling clips before we could definitively settle whether or not Vince McMahon is, in fact, old. There's more then a few long running threads on SA that are close to or at least 10 years old, this thread could literally continue until the cocaine snorting constantly angry 76 year old Vince McMahon literally explodes on live TV.
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May 12, 2022 07:11
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titties posted:I forgot completely about Jim Herd and all his dumb bullshit but i was ignoring the Cowboy Bill Watts part because afaik Ole Anderson had taken over for him. IIRC Ole's thing was 'Harass the younger, more talented wrestlers to quit so he could bring in his friends at rock bottom prices so that he could get the saved money as a kickback' or something like that. Again though, hearsay.
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May 12, 2022 07:24
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I totally remember Earthquake’s first appearance during the push-up contest cause there was an empty seat in the crowd and then you could see this fat motherfucker wander down the stairs and sit in it like 30 seconds before they called out for someone to come into the ring and even as a young idiot kid it was obvious he was who they were going to call.
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May 12, 2022 09:52
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I didn't see this mentioned here but they're making a pro wrestling RPG video game https://gamerant.com/wrestle-quest-pro-rpg/ This got me curious so I looked around to see if there had ever been a tabletop wrestling rpg, which seems like a no brainer and I found this https://ndpdesign.com/wwwrpg Instinctively, WWF and an RPG seem like a perfect match. The battle mat is right there and you can make other ones for backstage poo poo. You got stats, special moves, alignment, feats and (or course) role playing. Usually PvP or evil characters ruin a regular D&D campaign but in this case I'd think it would be encouraged. It doesn't matter if players don't show up for sessions since you only really need two. The GM is basically a Vince character. Stories and campaigns can go anywhere really. New characters can come in any time and it would be fun to create some wild gimmicks. Anyone ever played any of these games?
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May 12, 2022 12:19
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pentyne posted:There's more then a few long running threads on SA that are close to or at least 10 years old, this thread could literally continue until the cocaine snorting constantly angry 76 year old Vince McMahon literally explodes on live TV. We'd have to change the name to "vince McMahon is dead".
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May 12, 2022 17:04
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Cornwind Evil posted:his failings ended up consuming him instead. I feel like this has been the ending of like 90% of the effortpost bios itt. Not complaining, just saying.
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May 12, 2022 17:08
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Prof. Crocodile posted:I feel like this has been the ending of like 90% of the effortpost bios itt. it's a story as old as time literally, Gilgamesh is about that
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May 12, 2022 17:10
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MrQwerty posted:it's a story as old as time Enkidu was the first face turn when you think about it.
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May 12, 2022 17:55
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THE HISTORY OF EARTHQUAKE (2 of 2) John Tenta moving to WCW was only natural. Back in the mid-90's, that was the trend. WWF was doing the New Generation and all the names who flourished only a scant few years earlier would end up in WCW, trying to remind you of the good times of the Hulkamania Era. As Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage ate up screentime fighting monster henchmen, Tenta fit in perfectly, going back to what got him popular in the first place. Tenta became Avalanche, because of course he did. Fittingly, he'd spend much of his WCW tenure with and against Ray Traylor, who went from being the Big Boss Man in WWF to the Boss in WCW (looking just like Big Boss Man, but wearing black). Both Avalanche and the Boss were hit with cease-and-desist letters from WWF. The Boss became the Guardian Angel (and later Big Bubba Rogers) and Avalanche became the Shark. Though speaking of Guardian Angel, there's a moment with Avalanche that I always thought was funny as gently caress and for some reason it's never become a big wrestling meme. They did Avalanche vs. Sting with Guardian Angel as the special enforcer. During the match, he turned heel on Sting, but Sting still won due to another referee showing up. Post-match, Guardian Angel was interviewed by Mean Gene and yelled like a frantic Boomhauer, "Thatthererefereewasn'tevensupposedtobeintheREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENG!!" God, I wish I had a clip of it. Once Tenta became the Shark, he figured this was going to be his big gimmick and lead to him being a top star. He was so into it that he spent 24 hours getting his trademark tiger tattoo reworked into being a shark. Not the best idea since all Shark really did was be a throwaway goon in the Faces of Fear/Dungeon of Doom. He had little going on during this time outside of the occasional failed title shot. After losing to the Giant, Big Bubba came to the ring and shaved off half of Shark's hair. In the following week, he turned full-on face and cut a memorable promo about how he wasn't a fish but a MAN! Other than beating Big Bubba in the blowoff match, he just kind of fell into obscurity and drowned in WCW's gigantic roster. But his last WCW appearance? Hoo boy, that was a rough one. A lot has been said about the worst of WCW. David Arquette winning the title. Vince Russo's writing. The Shockmaster. The Alliance to End Hulkamania. The Fingerpoke of Doom. One segment that is arguably worse than all of those is the infamous never-ending "Piper Family" segment on Nitro. It was the early days of the New World Order, back when they were utterly unstoppable and we've yet to see Crow Sting or Goldberg get involved. Roddy Piper was being treated as Hogan's biggest threat at the time, though for whatever reason, he was unaffiliated with WCW. He was supposed to be a loose cannon who was neither WCW nor nWo. If you've never seen Piper in WCW, the whole thing was kind of sad. He always came off as a middle-aged man with dementia who could not stop calling people gay if you paid him. Going into WCW Uncensored, it was announced that there would be a team-based battle royal main event: Team WCW vs. nWo vs. Team Piper. If WCW won, the nWo had to be off TV for like a year. If nWo won, they would get a title shot of their choosing. If Piper's team won, he would get a cage match against Hogan. Piper needed a team, so he dedicated a big chunk of TV time to impromptu try-outs. For about 20 minutes, random shirtless tough guys would come out to fight him and the crowd would judge whether they were worthy of being on his team. These guys were also either not trained at all or very, very green. It was incredibly hard to watch, especially as Piper began to get winded. He threw his rules out the window when he was faced with a no-name boxer and no-name kickboxer as they were stuntmen friends of his from working on B-movies and he intended to recruit them no matter how much the fans booed. And the fans booed for a reason, because they looked like poo poo. Then Tenta arrived and the crowd finally popped huge. He hadn't been on TV in about a year and people actually knew who he was, so it was nice. He beat down on the tired Piper until the other two guys reentered the ring and started fighting Tenta for the hell of it. Then Piper told them all to stop fighting, as they were now his family. Piper, John Tenta, and two dudes. The commentary put a lot of emphasis on Tenta's sumo days to make him seem like more of an outsider instead of just another WCW dude. Not that it would really matter in the end. The next episode of Nitro was the go-home show before the PPV. Piper had his team decked out in kilts, ready to follow orders. Then Ric Flair came out and basically told him, "This is stupid. Why don't you just borrow my teammates from the Four Horsemen for your big battle royal PPV thing?" Piper took him up on the offer and Piper's Family was never heard from ever again. nWo won the match, naturally. Tenta left WCW, cut a lot of weight, and returned to WWF. Due to his very different body size, they didn't want him to be Earthquake again. Instead, they put him in a mask (hiding his kayfabe deformities) and had him as a member of the Oddities, a midcard stable made up of fellow large dudes Kurrgan and Giant Silva, as well as Luna Vachon, George "The Animal" Steele, and the Insane Clown Posse. As Golga, Tenta's side job was to mentor Kurrgan and Silva. Try to teach them how to work and make something out of them. Tenta would say years later that he tried his best with Silva, but it was no use. Golga was also depicted a gigantic South Park fan, for whatever reason, wearing a Cartman t-shirt and carrying a Cartman plush. I always felt bad for him as this was probably one of the big things keeping him out of the game WWF Attitude. The Oddities were just there for the most part. They were portrayed as dominant, but they never got title shots. As Golga, Tenta was mute and didn't get to cut any promos or anything. Really, outside of being destroyed by Steve Austin in the 1999 Royal Rumble, the only notable thing to ever happen with Golga was his unaired match with William Regal. "Man's Man" William Regal was going through some poo poo with drugs and alcohol and was put in a singles match against Golga on a taped Raw. Regal tore off Golga's mask and threw it out of the ring for the sake of being an rear end in a top hat. Tenta hid under the ring while they tried to find the mask, all while the crowd chanted "EARTHQUAKE!" Regal was fired after that and Tenta didn't last much longer. Earthquake did return at the end of the Attitude Era. WrestleMania 17 featured a Gimmick Battle Royal featuring various random wrestlers from yesteryear. Earthquake was involved and even eliminated Tugboat, but ultimately lost. The Iron Sheik had to win because he was so old and banged up that he literally couldn't handle being thrown out of the ring. In late 2001, he returned as Earthquake one more time to take part in a filmed dark match against Joey Abs. While it was a time when Big Boss Man and Mr. Perfect were able to get one last run in the big time, Earthquake's tryout didn't amount to anything. He wrestled a bit more in Japan and retired. He ended up doing an interview for the website WrestleCrap, which led to him both working on the site and even writing the foreword to the first WrestleCrap book. Sadly, Tenta developed bladder cancer and fought it for two years before finally succumbing in 2006. He was a very young 42. Yeah, that ended on a downer. But the dude rocked and was one of my all-time favorites.
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May 12, 2022 20:41
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The two guys I always picked for my tag team in the arcade game WWF Wrestlefest were Mr. Perfect and Earthquake. That game ruled.
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May 12, 2022 21:07
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BiggerBoat posted:I didn't see this mentioned here but they're making a pro wrestling RPG video game I owned a copy of the WWE's official D20 RPG that came out around '06: WWE Know Your Role. Without ever playing it, I could tell that it was awful. And the writing style was...well I don't want to overuse the word 'cringe' but I can think of nothing else that fits. Here's a review from a goon recorded at GenCon 2019 that even includes a guest appearance of an indie pro-wrestler Jim McClure: https://systemmasterypodcast.com/2019/08/13/wwe-know-your-role-system-mastery-154-live/ SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 04:01 on May 13, 2022 |
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May 13, 2022 03:58
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empty baggie posted:The two guys I always picked for my tag team in the arcade game WWF Wrestlefest were Mr. Perfect and Earthquake. That game ruled. Hell yeah. Same.
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May 13, 2022 11:34
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SirPhoebos posted:I owned a copy of the WWE's official D20 RPG that came out around '06: WWE Know Your Role. Without ever playing it, I could tell that it was awful. And the writing style was...well I don't want to overuse the word 'cringe' but I can think of nothing else that fits. That's really weird that it sucked. You'd think a D&D type table top RPG would be tailor made for a WWF style approach and I'm having a hard time figuring out how, exactly, you gently caress that up. Just draw a grid on a square wrestling ring, use 3.5 movement rules, throw some stats, skills and feats in there then let the GM (promoter) set up stories and rule on poo poo. You just make up a character and build on it then read the dice. Let's say it's cat themed so your guy is fast, acrobatic and has a claw, a bite and a hiss attack. Maybe he/she can piss in the opponent's corner and that's like a spell effect. We'll call that The Litterbox. Added damage for coming off the top rope. Or you're a Big Russian Bear. You get bonus attacks for hugs. Or careening off the ropes requires a skill check against a counter but if you make it, your slam/leg drop/whatever adds more damage but if the other guy counters, now he has control and can gently caress you up. You just stat out every character and roll attacks based on defense/offense/risk/modifiers, adjust HP/stamina then go to initiative. Roll for pin attempts/kick outs that are stamina/HP based. You can try to grab a chair, distract a ref, table slam a bitch or risk yourself getting counted out. Costs you a turn to climb up the rope or remove a turnbuckle. Put some managers in there that can gently caress with poo poo. Certain moves deal more damage but require higher rolls to do and they're modified by the opponent's skills and stats. Whoever wins gets to level up and poo poo like that. Seems like it'd be even easier than making a wrestling video game since you don't have to animate it or worry about collision detection and a million different moves. You don't need a license since you can recreate Andre, Flair or Hulk if you want to. Maybe I'll kickstart this.
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May 13, 2022 19:06
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SirPhoebos posted:I owned a copy of the WWE's official D20 RPG that came out around '06: WWE Know Your Role. Without ever playing it, I could tell that it was awful. And the writing style was...well I don't want to overuse the word 'cringe' but I can think of nothing else that fits. tbf if I played this I'd just scream at everyone like Steiner until we gave up
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May 13, 2022 19:08
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MrQwerty posted:tbf if I played this I'd just scream at everyone like Steiner until we gave up I want a tabletop game where all the rolls and calculations go by Steiner math.
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May 13, 2022 19:13
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Crowetron posted:I want a tabletop game where all the rolls and calculations go by Steiner math. THESE D20S SAY UR 183% FAT
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May 13, 2022 19:15
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Crowetron posted:I want a tabletop game where all the rolls and calculations go by Steiner math. But that is how 3.5 worked
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May 13, 2022 20:29
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Crowetron posted:I want a tabletop game where all the rolls and calculations go by Steiner math. "And I get a +1 to the check for wearing chain mail to this week's session..."
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May 14, 2022 01:54
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