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There must be more than a few giants who never got past a developmental stage, like Buck Dixon. I can't think of anyone who had a career like Reis' though. Like if the Undertaker had a half dozen gimmicks but never rose higher than Texas Red.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Jan 31, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 21:20
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pseudodragon posted:Kurgan from Truth Commission/Oddities? Nah, Kurrgan was getting a push in the Truth Commission, at least.
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Jan 31, 2023 21:28
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Yeah I'm rewatching Raws and the Oddities just debuted and there's only been one match with Golga but before this Kurrgan I don't think has even lost a match while part of the Truth Commission.
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Jan 31, 2023 21:43
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Vince hadn’t seen him dance yet.
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Jan 31, 2023 21:45
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Admiral Joeslop posted:What is Austin's worst match after returning from his neck injury? A real match, not a "match", if the distinction matters. I feel like his initial return against Owen would count, but that might qualify as a "match." Otherwise, maybe his SummerSlam match against Undertaker.
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Jan 31, 2023 21:52
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Kurggan's televised wins against signed WWE talent: 8ball (Ron Harris), Chainz (Brian Lee), Marc Mero (by DQ) Ron Reis's televised wins against signed WCW talent: Chavo Guerrero Jr. (twice), Van Hammer Kind of neck and neck in the push department, though the Truth Commission had a few wins against signed talent (the Headbangers, and two out of five matches against the Disciples of Apocalypse), most of which Kurrgan was just ringside for.
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Jan 31, 2023 22:46
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Gavok posted:By the way, Sisal Two-Step, being that you're new to a lot of wrestling, have you seen Giant Gonzalez yet? Because if you haven't, you're in for a treat. Especially if it's the WrestleMania 9 attire. oh no i don't like this 
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Jan 31, 2023 22:48
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the shoes make it worse somehow
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Jan 31, 2023 22:48
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Kurrgan at least won more matches than he lost, as far as I know.
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Jan 31, 2023 23:04
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DOA were probably higher on the WWF card than Chavo and Hammer ever were on the WCW card. ...That says more about WWF sucking than anything but hey!
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Jan 31, 2023 23:07
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Lid posted:Ron Reese is kind of fascinating because I'm not sure any other company has had a seven foot wrestler that was used just as a jobber. He wasn't even used as a how can anyone beat Reece? The world's ostentatious giant loser.
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Jan 31, 2023 23:29
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Kurrgan was supposed to go over Ahmed on tv but Ahmed refused to do the job and got fired. Edit: this is apparently incorrect. Ahmed was supposed to get beaten down by the Truth Commission but Ahmed left before the match because his sister was having a health emergency. CopywrightMMXI fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Jan 31, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 23:30
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Dr. Quarex posted:Not to mention treated like a job guy AND utterly forgettable at that. I loved Reese and I never understood why he was just a minor background character! I am sure he was bad in the ring, but think about how bad other enormous men have been, surely he was not AS bad as them?!? Wrath and Adam Bomb were pretty cool; we'd never have gotten them if somebody hadn't invested in The Nightstalker
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Jan 31, 2023 23:32
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Dr. Quarex posted:Not to mention treated like a job guy AND utterly forgettable at that. I loved Reese and I never understood why he was just a minor background character! I am sure he was bad in the ring, but think about how bad other enormous men have been, surely he was not AS bad as them?!? He was indeed extremely bad and not even impressively strong considering his size. Here's a question: has WWE's Performance Center/training program improved any over the past couple of years? It's getting brought up a lot lately as a benefit that WWE holds over AEW, but I've never seen anyone good come out of the WWE system unless they were already good on the indies and NXT is basically a pipeline to needing knee surgery.
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Jan 31, 2023 23:47
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CopywrightMMXI posted:Kurrgan was supposed to go over Ahmed on tv but Ahmed refused to do the job and got fired. It's fine. Ahmed was apparently a colossal jerk that nobody liked in other ways. Why do you pick Ron Simmons of all people to start something with?
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Jan 31, 2023 23:59
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CombineThresher posted:He was indeed extremely bad and not even impressively strong considering his size. Everything I've read over the years is that WWE PC is only really good at teaching you the WWE style, which isn't that great imo.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:01
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CopywrightMMXI posted:Ahmed was supposed to get beaten down by the Truth Commission A bunch of white South Africans beating down a black guy. Yikes.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:09
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Sisal Two-Step posted:oh no i don't like this It's worth noting that normally, Gonzalez had fur covering his entire bikini area, like a He-Man character. At WrestleMania 9, not only did they go with that "Ken doll with pubes" look, but he had a fake bare butt painted over the back of his tights.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:14
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Gavok posted:It's worth noting that normally, Gonzalez had fur covering his entire bikini area, like a He-Man character. At WrestleMania 9, not only did they go with that "Ken doll with pubes" look, but he had a fake bare butt painted over the back of his tights. You can’t just talk about it and not post a picture 
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Feb 1, 2023 00:22
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edogawa rando posted:A bunch of white South Africans beating down a black guy. Yikes.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:22
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Gavok posted:It's worth noting that normally, Gonzalez had fur covering his entire bikini area, like a He-Man character. At WrestleMania 9, not only did they go with that "Ken doll with pubes" look, but he had a fake bare butt painted over the back of his tights. I never even noticed the change lmao. I wish I was in the room when that decision was made.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:24
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CombineThresher posted:He was indeed extremely bad and not even impressively strong considering his size. Obviously a mixed bag that mostly checks Vince Boxes, and the four standouts to me (Bianca, Gable, Dawkins, Ford) were all pretty high level athletes that (eventually) got the hang of pro wrestling; Dawkins and Gable have been in the WWE system for a decade so who knows how they might have developed if they trained somewhere else. For reference, some of the bigger non-WWE stars that started wrestling training* after the Performance Center opened: 2013 - Yuka Sakazaki, Jay White 2014 - Darby Allin, Thunder Rosa, Momo Wantanabe, Lio Rush, Wheeler Yuta 2015 - Brody King, Jungle Boy, Lee Moriarty, Max Caster, MJF, Britt Baker, Jamie Hayter, Willow Nightingale, Starlight Kid, Jungle Kyona, Kiera Hogan 2016 - Top Flight, Kris Statlander, Masha Slamovich, Tam Nakano, Shun Skywalker, Kevin Blackwood 2017 - Blake Christian, Chris Bey, Ren Narita, Shota Umino 2018 - Daniel Garcia, Mei Suruga I'm sure I am missing a lot of people but if you want to defend the WWE Performance Center as producing WWE Superstars you can make the argument, though compared to the list of people who have made it outside of WWE PC you probably need to spin it as "WWE Superstars" over "great professional wrestlers".
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Feb 1, 2023 00:42
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Edge & Christian posted:The WWE Performance Center is about to turn ten years old on July 11. Looking at wrestlers who are currently on the WWE main roster who started wrestling around/after that date who had no wrestling training before July 2013, true "WWE Performance Center" products are B-Fab, Bianca Belair, Alexa Bliss, Rick Boogs, Dana Brooke, Carmella, Commander Azeez, Baron Corbin, Sonya Deville, Chad Gable, Nia Jax, Xia Li, Liv Morgan, Madcap Moss, Omos, Raquel Rodriguez, both Street Profits, Braun Strowman, and Top Dolla. Even then if you're limiting it to people who have "thrived" in the WWE universe and aren't relegated to expendable status your list gets far shorter. As with current booking only half of that list is seeing significant TV time and fewer still are being booked on top.
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Feb 1, 2023 00:50
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What about people who were trained in the PC but have since been released?
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Feb 1, 2023 00:52
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Sandman McMahon posted:What about people who were trained in the PC but have since been released? In terms of active wrestlers you've basically got Josh Woods, Tay Melo, Tiger Ruas, Marina Shafir, and Parker Boudreaux?
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Feb 1, 2023 01:38
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Admiral Joeslop posted:What is Austin's worst match after returning from his neck injury? A real match, not a "match", if the distinction matters. His match against Owen at Survivor Series 97 was pretty poor and over waaaay too quickly. His first world title match against Shawn at WrestleMania was not a patch on their King of the Ring 97 match. The first match against Dude Love at Unforgiven is very boring, but they were saving themselves for the amazing sequel at Over The Edge. His SummerSlam match against Undertaker gets a lot of hate but I like it, as well as their First Bood match a year later. He had a terrible terrible match against HHH at No Mercy 99 which is Austin beating him up for twenty minutes and HHH wins by fluke. If you mean post-surgery Austin from 2000 onwards, then his match with Rikishi at No Mercy is pretty bad. Unforgiven 2001 he loses the title to Angle in a match that is nowhere near as good as their SummerSlam one. He had an absolute stinker with Chris Jericho at No Way Out 2002 in which WWE weren't willing to book their new heel champion strong over an established star, so the entire thing is a mess, with a lame NWO interference finish. Which lead to his WrestleMania 18 match with Scott Hall which was a total nothing. Should have been Austin and Angle as uneasy allies taking on The Outsiders. The rest of his 2002 was filled with Big Show and Ric Flair matches that I can't say if they're outright bad or not, but very unmemorable. Austin was a total relic in 2002.
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Feb 1, 2023 01:53
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Austin had a downright terrible Buried Alive match with Undertaker at Rock Bottom in December 1998. Woof (although that can be said for most of that PPV).
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Feb 1, 2023 02:05
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Sisal Two-Step posted:oh no i don't like this He looks like a Titan from Attack on Titan
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Feb 1, 2023 02:13
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Cagematch has Backlash 2002 Austin vs Undertaker as Stone Cold's worst singles match.
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Feb 1, 2023 02:18
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I genuinely have no recollection of that match.
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Feb 1, 2023 03:19
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Edge & Christian posted:The WWE Performance Center is about to turn ten years old on July 11. Looking at wrestlers who are currently on the WWE main roster who started wrestling around/after that date who had no wrestling training before July 2013, true "WWE Performance Center" products are B-Fab, Bianca Belair, Alexa Bliss, Rick Boogs, Dana Brooke, Carmella, Commander Azeez, Baron Corbin, Sonya Deville, Chad Gable, Nia Jax, Xia Li, Liv Morgan, Madcap Moss, Omos, Raquel Rodriguez, both Street Profits, Braun Strowman, and Top Dolla. Dawkins also took like 8 years before he got paired with Ford and they got over. Prior to that he was constantly hovering in that 'generic wrestler-like product' zone. Gable was always gonna be good at the in-ring side, but his size is the issue in the WWE system. If he'd decided to try it on the indies, I'd bet he'd have gotten into that Gresham/ZSJ/Josh Alexander/Timothy Thatcher niche pretty easily.
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Feb 1, 2023 03:37
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Gaz-L posted:Dawkins also took like 8 years before he got paired with Ford and they got over. Prior to that he was constantly hovering in that 'generic wrestler-like product' zone. Gable was always gonna be good at the in-ring side, but his size is the issue in the WWE system. If he'd decided to try it on the indies, I'd bet he'd have gotten into that Gresham/ZSJ/Josh Alexander/Timothy Thatcher niche pretty easily. But yeah, it's hard to know if anyone exclusively in the WWE system would be more/less successful if they'd somehow started working Chikara and PWG ten years ago instead, or to counter what would have happened with Statlander or Caster had they been scooped up by WWE before they started training at Create a Pro. It *is* kind of telling that after more than a decade of allegedly focusing on their own development pipeline instead of hiring people from the indies, and talking about how the priority is to train and develop Future Wrestlemania Main Eventers, the past five Manias have been headlined by three (soon to be four) former Ring of Honor champions, three (maybe soon to be four?) former PWG champions, and basically one (two I guess if you count Ronda) genuinely homegrown WWE PC trainee.
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Feb 1, 2023 03:56
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i think ronda was training at santino bros with marina and jessamyn before she went to the pc but thats probably splitting hairs
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Feb 1, 2023 04:03
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Thanks for the thoughtful replies, everyone! It's been weird seeing the PC brought up so much by people who in particular think Jade Cargill and Britt Baker need to "learn how to work" and point to current NXT as examples of the PC's superior training. The last time I tried to watch NXT, I was so embarrassed for everyone involved that I shut it off after like 15 minutes.
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Feb 1, 2023 04:06
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its very clear that wrestlers in wwe's system with no prior experience are now just taught to rehearse matches and spots instead of learning how to call things on the fly
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Feb 1, 2023 04:24
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angelo dawkins should randomly bring back his backpack rapper gimmick for one show with zero explanation
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Feb 1, 2023 05:40
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edogawa rando posted:I genuinely have no recollection of that match. There are literally only two things I remember about it: 1.) Flair was the guest referee (I think he was kind of sort of feuding with both guys at the time as Raw GM?). 2.) There's a funny bit at the start where it looks like they're going to do a test of strength, only for Austin to give Taker the finger instead; Taker gives out a very loud and very audible "gently caress!" in response.
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Feb 1, 2023 07:27
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Barry Bluejeans posted:Earlier today I was thinking about Cody's run as Stardust - more specifically, I was thinking about the famously bad match he had against Dustin near the end of that run, and how they put on a classic the next time they met at Double or Nothing 2019. Is there another case in wrestling history of there being such a wide disparity in quality between two consecutive contests featuring the same competitors? Hogan/Warrior 1 was one of the best matches that either of them ever wrestled. Hogan/Warrior 2 is one of the worst matches of all time
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Feb 1, 2023 10:14
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Venomous posted:Hogan/Warrior 1 was one of the best matches that either of them ever wrestled. Hogan/Warrior 2 is one of the worst matches of all time Oh, good call - that might be the very worst in terms of difference in WOR ratings (***3/4 to -*****) MassRafTer posted:Yeah, Rude vs Chono in the G1 and then at Halloween Havoc 92. In between Austin broke Chono's neck (on guess what kind of piledriver!) and Chono came back wayyyyyyyyyy too early. That's fascinating, I wasn't even aware that Austin broke Chono's neck (much less the way he did it!)
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Feb 1, 2023 11:17
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Alaois posted:angelo dawkins should randomly bring back his backpack rapper gimmick for one show with zero explanation What is a backpack rapper? Just a rapper wearing a backpack?
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Feb 1, 2023 14:02
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