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https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1644392959645712435?s=20
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Apr 9, 2023 18:29
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So they googled "prison images" and nobody was paying particular attention to what came up? I believe they didn't do it on purpose, but they really need to put more effort in than a highschool student doing a book report.
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Apr 9, 2023 19:19
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Cat Hatter posted:So they googled "prison images" and nobody was paying particular attention to what came up? I believe they didn't do it on purpose, but they really need to put more effort in than a highschool student doing a book report. that's asking a lot from Vincent Price McMahon
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Apr 9, 2023 19:25
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Harald posted:John Cena is a chinese spy That's a lot more commendable than actually feeling indebted to Vince
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Apr 9, 2023 19:28
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John Waters would be really disappointed in y'all for saying Vince looks like Garage Sale Vincent Price with that mustache.
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Apr 9, 2023 19:37
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When asked about what he's done, Vince said he's apologized and is ready to move on. Well, that solved everything!
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Apr 9, 2023 19:57
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The Last Call posted:When asked about what he's done, Vince said he's apologized and is ready to move on. "I'm ready to forget all about that time I stole your money to cover up my affair. I guess I'm the only mature adult in the room."
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Apr 9, 2023 20:42
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Well, everything old is new again, so... I meant to talk about an in depth history of wrestling, but as it turns out, I have a LOT more trouble doing effortposts outside of my own area of experience, especially one as far back as I was trying to go. Then I saw that WWE has trademarked ‘Gruesome Twosome’, and I was reminded of something…which expanded into several other somethings. But the main point of the expanded somethings is people the WWE got behind and wanted to make into big deals (fairly quick), but the fans just did not bite, or never did despite repeated efforts. It’s a sad fact, but in pro wrestling, if you don’t have that special, intangible “it factor”, then you will hit a ceiling. The only real good thing is that said factor has multiple stripes. Bret Hart got over with ringwork, the Rock got over with cocky rear end in a top hat charisma, Roman Reigns INITIALLY got over with PHYSICAL charisma, and so on. But it’s not something that can necessarily be learned or taught. When you don’t have it, you will never break through to the top. And man oh man, that just plain sucks. Do you want to hear that sorry, you’re a B+ player and that’s where you’ll top out? I wouldn’t. But, as I’ve mentioned several times in the thread, want doesn’t always translate to ‘do’. Perhaps there’s few examples that demonstrate this as strongly as the following man. This is Monty Kip Sopp.  Or as he’s generally far better known, Billy Gunn. A STAR IS SCORNED: BILLY GUNN (Part 1) Now, don't get the title wrong. In terms of wrestling careers, Gunn STILL had a top five percent career. He’s wrestled for nearly 35 years, had multiple appearances at Wrestlemania, and in his twilight is overseeing his sons into maybe having wrestling careers of their own. I’m sure there are hundreds if not thousands of other wrestlers who’d kill to have his wrestling career. And yet… The WWE has always had a bad habit of seesawing, holding down those who weren’t ‘supposed’ to get over, and trying again and again with those who didn’t get over, or didn’t break through. I think of my college newspaper, which had a wrestling column, and one time it compared DX to the Spice Girls (late 90’s), and which member applied to which girl. Billy was matched up with Sporty, IIRC, (nee Melanie C), on the basis that of the five girls, Melanie was considered to have the most raw talent and potential to break out as a singles star (which she did, to a degree), and how many a time, Billy would be talked up as one of the most well-built, athletic, agile, and other such terms and so on, wrestler’s in the company. They wanted him to break out…but he never did. And boy oh boy, did he go through a bunch of zigs and zags along that path. Gunn’s name, much like Triple H’s Pedigree finisher, is an aspect of a character relic that stuck around far longer than the rest of the original setup. In Gunn’s case, he debuted in the WWE in 1993 with his storyline brother, Bart Gunn (nee Michael Polchlopek); the two were presented as a pair of wrestling cowboys, the Smoking Gunns.  Fittingly, Billy HAD done some bullriding in his early life before being trained as a wrestler, which was more accurate than some ‘wrestling doesn’t pay’ gimmicks that have come through the years (doesn’t a dentist make really good money? Why would they need to wrestle? More notable in that in the last generation and change we’ve had TWO wrestling dentists, albeit one much more successful than the other, in both 'being a wrestling dentist' and 'being a wrestling DENTIST'). The pair did fairly well over the next few years (as well as anyone in the WWE could do in the mid 90's death spiral years), winning the tag titles three times, before breaking up in the fall of 1996. The two would have their lone blow off match on the pre-show of the 1996 Survivor Series, in one of its classic four on four tag team elimination matches, before Billy took some time off to nurse a shoulder injury. This would be a recurring aspect of Billy’s career, as his upper body got maimed more than the average wrestler, likely due to the usual suspects. In any case, he would return to wrestle on the pre-show of Wrestlemania 13, which I tried to find video of, but couldn’t (outside of joining Paramount Plus, which I am not going to do), because I wanted to check under what sort of gimmick he did so. Assumingly, he was still using the cowboy appearance, as that’s what he’d wrestled under at the Survivor Series. And now we take a detour… This is Jeff Jarrett.  Son of Jerry Jarrett, a legendary southern local promoter; I’ve mentioned both father and son a few times before. Jeff, fittingly, like Billy, was a B+ guy: he had a ceiling and he’d never go further, and any attempt to break it never worked. And due to nepotism (he wasn’t the first, or the last, to benefit from it), he got a lot more chances to get to the top than the average joe would. He would end up debuting in the WWE the same year as Billy Gunn did, and like Gunn, his gimmick was cowboy-related, to a lesser degree. Dubbed “Double J” Jeff Jarrett, Jarrett was presented as a would be country music superstar, who wanted to become big in that industry and ‘show them up’...by being a successful wrestler. Because that would get him exposure. Or something. Hey, I haven’t forgotten how some of the first eliminated female contestants of the first Tough Enough got onto the show and wanted to get into wrestling as a springboard to appear in Playboy, only to discover very quickly just how FREAKING HARD pro wrestling was and swiftly dropping out. Maybe truth is stranger than fiction. In any case, Jarrett did manage to get over to a degree in the midcard, becoming IC champion at the start of 1995 and getting involved in some larger storylines (like the infamous 1994 Undertaker Saga: Jarrett helped ‘bury’ the Undertaker and was the sole wrestler who actually got kicked by Chuck Norris at the Survivor Series match that was the coda for that year long storyline…and that’s ANOTHER story…) and would play JTTS to some of the top people like Bret Hart and Kevin Nash. After Wrestlemania 11, Jarrett would debut a lackey to aid him, one of the sons of “Bullet” Bob Armstrong (nee Joseph Melton Hames), dubbed “The Roadie”, which would become a semi affectionate nickname of ‘Road Dogg’ on screen IIRC correctly.  Roadie/Road Dogg/Jesse James Armstrong (nee Brian Girard James) was a former Marine who’d served in Iraq and did have several years wrestling experience, but his primary job as The Roadie was interfering in Jarrett’s matches like any good heel lackey did. Shortly after the Roadie showed up, Jarrett ‘debuted’ his country single, “With My Baby Tonight”, and this was presented as his grand stroke against the country music industry, shoveling crow down the bigwigs who said he couldn’t make it’s throats. Seriously, I remember my WWE magazines making a BIG DEAL about ‘making the country people eat crow’ on the basis of this song’s existence. Jarrett claimed it came on an album, “Ain’t I Great”, which of course did not actually exist. Neither did Jarrett’s ability to sing, in storyline and real life. Brian had actually recorded the song, and it was going to be revealed as such in the storyline that Jarrett had stolen the credit and lip synched his singing appearances where he’d performed it. The groundwork for this was laid by Roadie somehow getting into the semi finals of the 1995 King of the Ring, which was the infamous “King Mabel” one, so maybe it was fitting that one of the final contestants was a supposed gofer for a would be country music star, and WWE Magazine even promoted a Roadie vs Jeff Jarrett match for the 1995 Summerslam, though it did not mention the alleged song theft, just that Roadie got tired of Jarrett’s poor treatment and decided to switch from playing toady to beating Jarrett up. Of course, these magazines take a few months to come out. Plans change. By the time said magazine was out, Jarrett had dropped the IC title to Shawn Michaels in July, beaten up the Roadie immediately thereafter for Roadie making an error that cost him the belt, and then suddenly vanished from the WWE, as had the Roadie, meaning there was no Summerslam match between the two. According to Jarrett, he didn’t want to do the breakup angle so quickly, and being forced to, instead chose to ‘take a powder’ and just didn’t show up the next week. Somehow he wasn’t immediately fired outright, as well as this choice being a harbinger of future choices Jarrett would make. Wasn’t this supposed to be about Billy Gunn? Yeah we’re circling back to that. Deciding that they might as well use part of the angle, Brian would return in 1996 under the name “Jesse James”, proclaimed ‘The Real Double J” and the fact that he'd been the song singer, an angle that did not set the world on fire.  Ah, that shining 'I'm such a classic face!' smile. Sure worked well for Kevin Nash. Or Dwayne Johnson. James would languish as an undercard wrestler whose only real aspects I remember were singing his theme song on his way to the ring (he’d do THAT again throughout his career) and being one of Steve Austin’s swift victims in his 1997 Rumble win, being the wrestler that came out just before then mortal enemy Bret Hart and getting tossed out near immediately despite the fact that by logic James was fresh and Austin had entered 15 numbers previously and should have been tired. And now we have to make ANOTHER small detour to bring it all together. This is Roy Wayne Ferris, nee The Honky Tonk Man.  The longest reigning Intercontinental champion of all time (yes, even now), though that’s another story. By 1996, Honky’s glory days were well behind him, but between his record breaking run, his effective heel work during that time, and being one of the more memorable characters of the 80’s wrestling boom, Honky would pop up several times around the tail end of the 90’s and 00’s. This would be the first of those pop-ups, as he’d show up in the WWE in December, both doing commentary and coming out on shows to say he was looking for a protege. I don’t know what friends Ferris had in the back, but it seemed like that they basically let the man go out and make up his own angle as he went. Bad enough, but it also suffered from the original sin of ‘we have no ending planned’ (see: The Black Scorpion). And so, basically, for months, Honky was coming out on every show, declaring he was seeking a protege, and left, with no progress being made on that front. For MONTHS. Finally, FINALLY, he extended the offer to James…who turned it down because being a good heroic face (lookit that smile!) he’d never want to associate with the dastardly Honky Tonk Man. Swearing revenge, Honky promised that he would have James be destroyed by his actual protege, who he conveniently found another candidate for VERY quickly, and would debut… Billy Gunn.  Or rather, Rockabilly. As said, the sole thing Gunn had done since his return was his Wrestlemania 13 match, but that was seemingly enough for Honky. So now, HE was Honky Tonk Man's protege! ...what precisely did that mean? Well...not much. Or anything.Needless to say, fans hadn’t cared much before and they sure didn’t care now, and so Rockabilly and Jesse languished in the undercard further, feuding on and off during 1997 and getting nowhere. I remember ANOTHER story from my WWE magazines that suggested that Rockabilly wasn’t actually Honky’s protege, but that rather he was a last second replacement and that Honky had by now gotten his TRUE protege and they might soon kick Rockabilly to the curb. That didn’t happen. Instead, it was Honky who got kicked to the curb, when James suddenly showed up on a September 1997 show, no longer ‘The Real Double J’, but now well and truly ‘The Road Dogg”, his original character with a harder edge, and declared that he and Billy should work together instead of fighting each other. Billy agreed, and smashed a guitar over Honky’s head to officially end their partnership, discarding the Rockabilly gimmick at the same time. So, clearly he needed something new. Nothing complicated. At first, as a play on the whole ‘original Double J’ thing, James billed himself as “The Road Dog” Jesse JamMes, and Billy would redub himself “The Badd rear end” Billy Gun (the Jammes name would be dropped quickly). They were a tag team for a new era, the Attitude Era, the New Age Outlaws.  And THAT finally sparked a fire, as the two, despite how they'd formed, actually drew from Honky’s bag of tricks by getting attention by the most annoying, loud mouthed, cheatsy punks they could be (one description of Brian during this time was that he developed his mike skills on the basis of ‘never, ever shutting up’); I, still very marky at the time, found them infuriating. But they were getting a reaction, and a big one. The tag titles would be on them by December, and after Wrestlemania 14 and Shawn Michaels’ seeming retirement, Triple H would reform DX with the returning Sean Waltman, and the New Age Outlaws. In some ways, this would be Billy’s best and glory days. It would also be the days where he was bulking up (compare the top photo to him as Rockabilly and the start of the Outlaws), and once Vince saw a big, muscled man with a nice head of hair, you can bet the usual wants and needs came to him. Let’s make him a star! Or rather, a singles, main event star! Perhaps the fact that during the end of the 90’s, Billy Gunn’s character somehow went from “The Bad rear end” Billy Gunn, who was a cheating punk with a high opinion of himself, to simply being known as “Mr. rear end”, whose gimmick was, as I’ve said, somehow seizing onto part of his new nom de plume and ending up being obsessed with his own derriere (and before the days of twerking and thicc!), was a sign of how the efforts would go. (Note: I’ll do some other ‘wet fart’ debuts/star makings, but those will be a lot shorter, and Billy Gunn’s got more than one, so he got a long writeup) (Also, can someone page Hefty Leftist and get the table of contents in the first post updated? Also, this is a long thread, did anyone effortpost the Brawl for All? I might bring that up if not... Edit: Yeah, Gavok did, how did I miss that listed in the first page?) Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Apr 15, 2023 |
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Apr 14, 2023 09:13
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Great post. Would the timeline be right for Little Shop of Horrors to serve as a possible explanation for the evil dentist gimmick? I can only imagine what Vince might have thought when he saw Martin's sadistic dentist on screen.
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Apr 14, 2023 09:58
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Cornwind Evil posted:I don’t know what friends Ferris had in the back, but it seemed like that they basically let the man go out and make up his own angle as he went. Bad enough, but it also suffered from the original sin of ‘we have no ending planned’ (see: The Black Scorpion). And so, basically, for months, Honky was coming out on every show, declaring he was seeking a protege, and left, with no progress being made on that front. For MONTHS. There actually was an ending planned for this. The plan was for Glenn Gilbertti, WCW's Disco Inferno, to jump ship to WWF and become the new Honky Tonk Man. This fell through and he stayed with WCW, meaning they had to draw it out a bit and figure out a new resolution. quote:(Also, can someone page Hefty Leftist and get the table of contents in the first post updated? Also, this is a long thread, did anyone effortpost the Brawl for All? I might bring that up if not...) I'm pretty certain I covered Brawl for All. I should really get around to doing an effortpost about the history of WWE comic books. It gets so, so weird.
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Apr 14, 2023 19:33
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oh, man someone should do a Glen Gilbertti effort post. I'll just leave this here: https://twitter.com/CodyRhodes/status/980680154098757632?s=20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v22x4MAHW7A
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Apr 14, 2023 19:36
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I forgot how much La Parka owns and am ashamed.
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Apr 14, 2023 20:01
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Jonny Nox posted:oh, man someone should do a Glen Gilbertti effort post. I might have to try that. Not that there's TOO much to talk about. He was kind of a 6 at best who was never pushed higher than he should have been (showing up during Nash vs. Goldberg excluded) and never amounted to much, but now thinks of himself as king poo poo these days. To be fair, I did find him amusing at times and I've seen someone refer to his abandoned nWo angle as kind of a prototype for Sami Zayn's recent run.
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Apr 14, 2023 20:27
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Jonny Nox posted:oh, man someone should do a Glen Gilbertti effort post. quote:They're posting inaccurate, unfactual information. 
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Apr 14, 2023 20:53
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I had no idea who that was and looked him up, and honestly even though he started at WCW when I was still watching I have no memory of this guy. His wikipedia is dripping with condescension, describing him as a midcarder who's whole gimmick was that he was incompetent and extremely annoying. It also notes that as of 15 years ago he was working as a host at a strip club.
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Apr 14, 2023 22:27
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Baron von Eevl posted:His wikipedia is dripping with condescension, describing him as a midcarder who's whole gimmick was that he was incompetent and extremely annoying. This is actually accurate. One of his gimmicks for a bit was that he started doing this figure four variation that was too complex for him, so he had to pull out a piece of paper mid-match and follow the directions. Even his own tag partner openly hated him in kayfabe.
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Apr 15, 2023 01:12
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iirc, his big move was "The Blockbuster," which was just the Stone Cold Stunner. Then Booker T stole the Rock Bottom and called it "The Bookend." Then they hired a female bodybuilder who was supposedly even bigger than Chyna and they called her "Asya." (and she was noticeably not bigger than Chyna) WCW was incredible.
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Apr 15, 2023 02:09
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Animal-Mother posted:iirc, his big move was "The Blockbuster," which was just the Stone Cold Stunner. Then Booker T stole the Rock Bottom and called it "The Bookend." Then they hired a female bodybuilder who was supposedly even bigger than Chyna and they called her "Asya." (and she was noticeably not bigger than Chyna) Please tell me Booker T also stole The People’s Elbow and called it the Booker’s Elbow.
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Apr 15, 2023 02:22
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Cartoon Man posted:Please tell me Booker T also stole The People’s Elbow and called it the Booker’s Elbow. I'm afraid not. Although he did briefly become "GI Bro." 
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Apr 15, 2023 02:31
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I know this is a little late, but my favourite "crazy Vince" story is from Brian Gerwitz's book in which he reveals that Vince hates Giraffes on principle. Because he cannot stand the idea of an animal that big that limits itself to only eating plants/vegetation. My least favourite story about Vince is that he is a rapist that uses his wealth to pay off his victims and get away with it and has done so for decades. That is not as funny.
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Apr 15, 2023 02:37
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The other best Almost a Jobber: the Italian Stallion.
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Apr 15, 2023 03:25
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BrigadierSensible posted:I know this is a little late, but my favourite "crazy Vince" story is from Brian Gerwitz's book in which he reveals that Vince hates Giraffes on principle. Because he cannot stand the idea of an animal that big that limits itself to only eating plants/vegetation. Amazing
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Apr 15, 2023 03:26
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Giraffes do not like well done steak with ketchup or turkey on wheat sandwiches.
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Apr 15, 2023 03:28
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A Star Is Scorned: Billy Gunn (Part 2) Right then. So, if you said Billy Gunn failed at being ‘a star’, that’s an outright lie. But when it came to being a top singles star… Well, maybe he got kneecapped right out the gate by things out of his control. After a very successful 1998 where most of the year had the Tag Belts around the Outlaws’ waists, the Outlaws were trying their hands at singles competition as 1999 began. While Road Dogg was trying for the ‘lower’ belt of the Hardcore Championship, Billy set his sights on the ‘secondary singles title’, the Intercontinental one. What screwed it up was Vince Russo, his Crash TV ways in full swing by now, adding in a storyline where Ken Shamrock’s fictional sister, Ryan (not a typo), who was presented as being ‘wild’ for lack of a better term, got involved by being involved with Sean “Val Venis” Morley, while Billy was hitting on her and clearly angling to ‘score’ with the ‘easy’ chick, while Ken Shamrock was flipping out over his sister acting like a 'whore' and somehow Goldust got dragged into it and Ryan was dumped by Venis and went to Goldust and Russo wanted implications that Ken himself had inappropriate feelings for her and ARRRGGGHHHHH. Oh, and just before Wrestlemania, where Gunn would challenge for the IC Title in a four way match with these three men? Road Dogg would unexpectedly win the IC title…and Billy Gunn would unexpectedly win the Hardcore Title. Which meant that the show ended up with the pair switched in their matches and the main driving force of the four way match now not even IN IT ANY MORE. For further irony, despite being the one who was most interested in her, the storyline was basically dropped with the ‘if you think about it’ implication that Gunn was the only one involved in it (yes, including possibly even her storyline BROTHER) who DIDN’T score with her. Also he lost the Hardcore Title in his switcharoo match, while Road Dogg was able to retain the IC Championship in his, despite the fact that he hadn’t been involved in that match setup in any way until a week before. Vince Russo has/d his critics for a reason. Then again, maybe all that nonsense was irrelevant. Triple H would turn heel and break up DX at the same Wrestlemania, and Gunn would side with him, breaking up the Outlaws as the WWE made Try 2 at pushing Gunn as a singles star. Gunn would win the King of the Ring that year, on a rather odd show where, on the Monday Night Raw beforehand, he’d stolen one of the Tag Belts from then-champions the Acolytes on the basis that he’d pinned one of them in a six man match, and therefore the tag belt was his, and upon winning the last match, defeating former DX compadre X-Pac, he didn’t even bother being crowned, instead strutting to the back waving his stolen tag belt around like he was much prouder of IT. Austin 3:16, it was not. After another month of feuding (and losing the rights to, in story) the DX name, the WWE made try 3 at making Gunn a top star, and put him in a feud…with the Rock. As Mr. rear end, Billy Gunn liked to moon people. But nowhere was he exposed as much as he was against the Rock, shown to be so hilariously out of his depth in mike confrontations against the man that it went from painful to sad to almost annoying to how ill-suited he was to try and play top guy against the Rock. True, it was THE ROCK, who very few could ever hold their own on the mike against, but it says a LOT that out of the whole feud, the only memorable thing that happened was Rock coining one of his most memorable catchphrases at Gunn’s expense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdGTIfv-NDY&t=180s Losing in a ‘Kiss My rear end’ match at Summerslam didn’t much help either. With Russo soon to be gone, the WWE cut their losses and put Billy and Dogg back together, and then went further by putting DX back together to serve as the also-trying-to-be-gotten-over-as-a-top-guy Triple H’s goons once more, but after a few more title reigns, Gunn would again be sidelined at the start of 2000 with a shoulder injury, missing most of the year. And when he returned… This WAS one of the WWE’s most irritating ideas, the Right To Censor.  Formed and put on TV solely because there was an advocate’s group, the Parent’s Television Council, who was hassling the WWE about their content and getting advertisers to pull out. On one hand, they were one of those moral crusader type groups that wanted to decide everyone’s tastes for them, so they deserved mockery. On the other hand, 1) The WWE was not the type to do it with their usual brick to the face bluntness, and 2) Vince tended to go far beyond what should have been because as demonstrated, he just ain’t quite right in the head. So for the good part of a year, the RTC would show up, with their incredibly grating ‘theme music’, to ‘spoil the fun’ and also spoil wrestlers, doing things like turning the ‘ho’ parading Godfather into the had-nothing-special-at-all-now “Goodfather”, and getting Val Venis on their side, where Venis briefly stood out amongst the group by wearing white pants instead of black pants, which I believe Jim Ross commented made him look like an evil ice cream man. I bring them up because, as said, most of this time Billy Gunn’s gimmick was “Mr. rear end, the guy who really loves buttocks, especially his own, to the point of obsession”, and when he came back, the RTC immediately went after him, wanting to censor his foul, indecent name and gimmick. I can almost side with them, in one of those ‘the rear end in a top hat has a point’ moments. In any case, Gunn would lose a tag match against RTC at the October 2000 PPV, and due to the stipulation, he was banned from doing the Mr. rear end gimmick and calling himself such. So, what does one do now? Well, he COULD just go back to being “Bad rear end” Billy Gunn, but nah. Clearly a new name was needed! And so Billy Gunn became…Billy G! For about two weeks. Then he abandoned that name, and based on what I swear was commentators brainstorming, took up a new name. The name that would surely bring him into the heights of the top guys! He was now…”The One”, Billy Gunn.  If I had any photoshop skill, I’d do something with the Matrix or that Jet Li movie (speaking of, I really liked this front page article back when the site did that stuff), but no. Billy Gunn was now…The One. What precisely did that mean?  Yes, nothing. Now I’ll admit, all the top wrestlers in history basically had, well, basic gimmicks that they didn't take to ridiculous, literal levels. The Rock didn’t toss foam boulders to the crowd. Steve Austin didn’t go around turning everyone’s heat off (though based on what the WWE tried with the initial Stone Cold name, in another universe he might have). Bret Hart didn’t do finger guns to pretend to shoot his opponents after he was done with them. But, as said, you need a certain something to make that general basicness work, and Gunn didn’t have it. And the WWE went in with this gimmick. They changed his tights. He got a new finisher, which was called The One And Only. He even got his own lyrics-based theme music about how great he was, always a sign someone is going somewhere (see also: Rob Conway). He even finally managed to win the Intercontinental title at the very end of 2000, before losing it two weeks later. A few months into 2001, he also regained the Hardcore title…for a literal few minutes before the defended 24/7 title was grabbed back by the very guy he’d beaten for it. But what started this whole return (of mine) based on ‘stuff that happened and was dropped and by extension big things or new things that failed’ came when he and Big Show had a meetup and a good tag team match, and decided to form a tag team. The next week, Big Show was workshopping tag team names to various people backstage, though the only two I remember were the Show-Gunns (which ended up being used) and the “Big Gunns”, in relation to their muscley arms. After talking with a not-pleased-about-other-stuff Vince McMahon about such possible names, Vince, with acid sarcasm, said he didn’t care if the team called itself “Double Trouble” and stalked off. Big Show then looked like a light bulb had gone off over his head, and took Vince at face value. “Of course! Double Trouble!” They didn’t end up using that name. And the Show-Gunns lasted a few weeks before the Invasion angle ended it and it was never mentioned again. So yeah, when I saw “Gruesome Twosome”, that made me think of the never-happened “Double Trouble”, and from there, this and more. Gunn would play no real role in the Invasion storyline save WWE background soldier, but what came out of the Invasion would be a considerably larger tag team. No, that’s not a bad joke. One of the signed WCW names was Chuck Palumbo. Once the Invasion ended, Billy and Chuck (kicked out of the Alliance shortly before it was defeated) decided to form a tag team. No need for a workshopped name here. They would just be Billy and Chuck. …Yeah. About them. When I actually started mentally putting together this effortpost, I’d actually wholly forgotten about this part of Billy’s career. Which is…surprising. You might recall I briefly mentioned the original state of Rikishi’s pals Too Cool, in which they were a pair of ‘hot young men all the ladies loved (in theory) but they were actually rather mincing and homoerotic’ called Too Much, and that they were getting such little reaction that, before a knee injury and repackaging, it was floated that the two would admit that they were actually gay and get married. …NEVER LET A BAD IDEA GO TO WASTE.  And so, the entire Billy and Chuck tag team basically became The Ambiguously Gay Duo Except Wrestling (which of course is innately homoerotic by default). They’d get matching outfits, oil each other up, do sexy poses together, Chuck would wear his hair in pigtails for a time, and just to ensure this got eyeballs, the pair would win the tag titles twice over the main part of their existence. Finally, WWE ‘pulled the trigger’, with Chuck proposing to Billy and the wedding set to take part in September 2002. The WWE actually got positive press for this ‘forward’ and ‘enlightened’ storytelling, with the two wrestlers appearing on talk shows and GLAAD actually gifting the pair a wedding gift. Showing that these people really had no idea what they were looking at and the kind of guy running it (Vince has always had a very adversarial relationship with other media and tended to operate on a wavelength of ‘I’ll trick them into promoting my shows for me’), shockingly when the wedding happened the two stopped it, saying that it was all a publicity stunt that had gone too far and that both men were strictly heterosexual. At which point the priest was revealed to be evil-other-show GM Eric Bischoff in what was admittedly a drat good makeup job (Bischoff himself says that he was going around backstage playing the ‘priest’ character and no one who wasn’t in on it actually recognized him, according to him), and Billy and Chuck’s ally Rico then turned on them and Bischoff’s goons beat them both up. The Billy and Chuck team didn’t last much longer, mainly because Billy would shortly thereafter injure his shoulder AGAIN, and by the time he returned in the summer of 2003, he was back to being Mr. rear end. But the days of WWE trying to make him a top singles star were long over, and Gunn would do nothing special until being released at the tail end of 2004. That wouldn’t be it for Gunn, of course. He’d go on to try some more silly nonsense in TNA with his old tag partner and friend James/Brian, forming the ‘Voodoo Kin Mafia’ which was basically ‘we’re DX but we’re also mad at the WWE and the reformed DX there so we’re gonna break kayfabe and made inside comments about it’, which of course always draws big money, before the pair settled into being New Age Outlaws With WWE Serial Numbers removed for a time. Afterwards, Gunn would join up as the male minion of TNA female faction The Beautiful People, wrestling as “Cute” Kip, before ultimately leaving TNA in 2009. Despite harsh words for the WWE and the people in charge, by 2012 all was forgiven and Gunn and James were back in the WWE as the New Age Outlaws, even getting one last tag title reign in 2014, and after getting released from the WWE due to failing a drug test, Gunn now works for AEW, managing his real life sons (or he was, I think they turned on him, as what tends to happen in wrestling). But none of that was as head shakingly amusing as those years when they wanted to make Billy Gunn something. Alas, sometimes you are the poo poo, and sometimes, you’re just poo poo. — Coda: Punching Down While not quite as interesting as his tag team partner’s misfires to stardom, Bart Gunn had his own memorable-for-the-wrong-reasons incidents as well. As a refresher, this is Michael Polchlopek, nee Bart Gunn.  Turns out I was wrong, he did have a blowoff singles match with Billy, on a Raw in December 1996. That would basically be it for him for the next year, as he’d spend 1997 as a jobber before vanishing. When we next saw him, he’d have undergone a repackaging, as legendary manager Jim Cornette proclaimed he had recreated his most famous tag team anew, the Midnight Express. Behold! Bombastic Bart and Bodacious Bob!  With tag title belts that were not WWE! So yeah. Bombastic Bob. Ie Robert William Howard, formerly known as Thurmond “Sparky” Plugg, or Sparky T. Plugg, or Bob “Spark Plug” Holly once they realized both those names were terrible. Presented as a racecar driver turned wrestler, Holly had had a LITTLE success and a brief (actually WWE) tag title reign, but by 1998 he was long into jobber territory and his gimmick of ‘Once this job, but now a wrestler’ didn’t fit in the emerging Attitude Era. So after barely showing up at all during 1997, Bob Holly would return as listed: Bodacious Bob. …yeah. While the Midnight Express HAD drawn a ton of money in years past, that was a different time and a wholly different environment. The New Midnight Express showed up sometime in early 1998 and proceeded to do more or less nothing; just to drive that home, Cornette had said in interviews he doesn’t consider the team to be a true successor to the Midnight Express versions he managed in the past. With that sinking like a stone, Bart Gunn was one of many wrestlers who had nothing going on. And then, as Gavok spoke about, came the Brawl For All. The opinions of some things soften in time, but not always. Gavok gives more details his own way, but the Brawl for All was stupidity compounding into stupidity, all because Vince Russo wanted to see John Bradshaw get knocked out for being a loudmouthed bully. He got his wish, but the cost was drat high, and he wasn’t the one who paid it. But perhaps the two biggest stupid aspects of all the stupid was 1) It turns out a bunch of amateurs doing super amateur and unrefined MMA WITH the additional factor of A) Most of them having used steroids, HGH, and other performance enhancing drugs to bulk up rather than get ‘stronger’, and B) Even if they hadn’t done that all that much, men who had gone through the general wear, tear, and grind of a pro wrestling career really shouldn’t be trying to do MMA with minimal preparation. The staggering number of injuries suffered by the contestants speaks for itself. But maybe even that pales to the other stupidity pinnacle, ie 2): If you want to have a specific winner, DON’T EXPECT A drat KAYFABE RESULT IN AN ACTUAL, NON SCRIPTED FIGHTING CONTEST. Or else you’ll get expected-newly-crowned-badass Steve Williams getting knocked out cold by expected-fodder-along-the-way Bart Gunn, who according to Gavok, had boxing experience (though I was unable to confirm this with some Googling). Whether Gunn did or just discovered he had untapped potential in heavy hands at the Brawl for All, Gunn would ruin the WWE’s plans for Williams’ to be Vince’s new rough and ready enforcer to challenge Steve Austin as the then-next part of the legendary Austin vs McMahon feud. There’s all sorts of claims about the BFA from various sorts, and who knows how true any of them are. Russo claims that Jim Ross talked up his good friend Williams’ toughness for weeks on end and how he was going to blast through the tournament so much that the wrestlers gathered to watch hoping that Williams would be flattened. Others say that Williams was actually paid the BFA’s purse in advance under the assumption he’d easily win it. The general presentation, though who knows how RL true it is, is that by knocking Williams out, Gunn incurred the wrath of Jim Ross in real life as well as on screen. And as has often been lamented in this thread, what could draw money in some form will always get kicked to the curb to tend to personal issues and grudges. Gunn could have been made a small something out of this unexpected win. Instead, according to the man himself, he sat at home for months afterwards. Creative had nothing for him. Possibly, Jim Ross, who was in charge of creative then, outright had no interest in pushing the man who’d made his good friend look so bad, who knows for sure. Never mind that even IF Williams had won that fight, he’d suffered two injuries during it that would have ruined the angle anyway. But like those who got over when they ‘shouldn’t have’, Gunn dared to succeed. And oh boy, he would arguably get a special punishment for it. If that was what it was. Wrestlemania had long been a showcase for special one time gimmick matches. Often, in them, celebrities would compete: hell, one of those cases (Bam Bam Bigelow vs football star Lawrence Taylor) MAIN EVENTED a Wrestlemania (it is perhaps not ironic that said Wrestlemania is considered among the worst of said events. Yes, Mr. T also main evented the first Wrestlemania, but he was in a tag team with an 'actual wrestler', Taylor competed on his own), and they could even be entertaining, as Big Show vs Floyd Mayweather at Wrestlemania 24 was, due to being an overbooked bunch of nonsense in the vein of McMahon vs Shawn Michaels. And so, Bart Gunn would be given one of those matches for himself. He would fight, in a legit actual fight, Eric Esch.  Better known as “Butterbean”. A toughman fighting competition champion who had moved into four rounder boxing and found a great deal of success in it. He’d even appeared in the WWE once before, working a (worked) match with former Golden Gloves competitor Marc Mero (nee…huh, Marc Mero IS his actual name). To be fair to Bart Gunn, he seemingly took the fight very seriously and trained as hard as he could for the short timeframe he had. And it was said that the contest would be contested under ‘Brawl for All’ rules, which meant that stuff like takedowns were allowed, which might give Gunn an advantage. Unfortunately, whatever was planned, by the time Wrestlemania 15 rolled around, it was going to be a straight fistfight. Or maybe it WAS under Brawl for All rules, and that didn't matter. See, Esch, despite his tubby frame and choosing to primarily/exclusively to compete in much shorter than normal boxing matches, for whatever reason had/has IMMENSE punching power in those arms of his. Shortened matches or not, at the time of the WM ‘Match’, Esch had a record of 42-1-1. So at the very LEAST, he had a LOT more experience than Gunn. Not to mention a hundred pounds of weight, and Gunn was no small man by any traditional standards. It went about as expected, and worse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9fmrvYXgtY And that was Bart Gunn's reward: to be utterly pulverized in less than a minute, and shortly thereafter, released from his contract from WWE. Was it just a case of bad luck, wrong assumptions, and so on, or had there been some form of malice in setting up this utter destruction of a ‘match’? We’ll probably never know for sure. Bart Gunn, at least, got a last laugh. During his time sitting at home, he did some work in Japan, and after being released, went there, where he would become one of All-Japan’s biggest stars for several years, working under the name ‘Mike Barton’. Gunn/Barton, after one last appearance on the 15th anniversary of Raw to participate in the ‘One Man from Each Year Of Raw’ Battle Royale, would retire from wrestling, and return to work as an electrician, which is what he’d been doing before he got into wrestling. And unlike a lot of wrestlers, at least Gunn has a legit, organic “Wrestlemania Moment”, even if it was completely at his expense. There’s probably a great number of wrestlers who’d kill for that too. Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Dec 12, 2023 |
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Apr 15, 2023 05:09
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Animal-Mother posted:iirc, his big move was "The Blockbuster," which was just the Stone Cold Stunner. Then Booker T stole the Rock Bottom and called it "The Bookend." Then they hired a female bodybuilder who was supposedly even bigger than Chyna and they called her "Asya." (and she was noticeably not bigger than Chyna) Billy Gunn chat reminded me he used to do a poo poo version of Goldberg's jackhammer
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Apr 15, 2023 05:42
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drat butterbean gave him the same hit he almost killed Knoxville with Knoxville had it worse, though, with the head impacting on a display counter thing and all
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Apr 15, 2023 05:42
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MrQwerty posted:drat butterbean gave him the same hit he almost killed Knoxville with Was Butterbean ok?
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Apr 15, 2023 06:06
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Cornwind Evil posted:Despite harsh words for the WWE and the people in charge, by 2012 all was forgiven and Gunn and James were back in the WWE as the New Age Outlaws, even getting one last tag title reign in 2014, and after getting released from the WWE due to failing a drug test, Gunn now works for AEW, managing his real life sons (or he was, I think they turned on him, as what tends to happen in wrestling). I'll elaborate on this because Gunn's run in AEW has been pretty great. Billy Gunn showed up in the early days of AEW as a backstage employee who occasionally showed up on TV. He was there for stuff like battle royals, six-man tags, and the like. He was fine in that role, but iffy in singles matches, so those were rare. Despite his advanced age (he's pushing 60), he's crazy tall and statuesque in the same way Stallone was in Rocky Balboa. He was soon joined by his sons Colten and Austin, who only started wrestling in 2017. The trio called themselves the Gunn Club as a play on the Bullet Club. Also, early on, there was some legal issue where he was only allowed to be called "Billy," but his sons were allowed their wrestler last names, so they were usually called "Billy and the Gunn Club." Kind of like how Cody Rhodes didn't have his last name for a while and we'd hear about "Cody and Brandi Rhodes." The Gunn sons were incredibly bland in a company bursting with charisma and talent. Tragedy led to opportunity as COVID hit and for a long time, there could be no crowds. Well, except for wrestlers. Colten and Austin would just be at practically every AEW show in Jacksonville, cheering everything on. Meanwhile, they kept getting featured on AEW Dark alongside their father and would constantly win six-man tags. Not that the wins really meant anything. The Gunn Club were affiliated with Cody Rhodes and his forgettable collection of white meat protege talent. AEW brought in Paul Wight. While Wight has been holding his own as a commentator for the YouTube shows, the former Big Show did have a brief run wrestling matches in AEW. During a nothing feud with QT Marshall, Paul Wight was betrayed by the Gunn Club. After dealing with QT, Wight seemed like he was going to feud with the Gunns, but then he was taken off TV for medical reasons and that storyline just ended abruptly. Still, the Gunn trio won every match they had on Dark and Dark Elevation and used that as bragging rights. Now, one guy who had just joined AEW at the time was Danhausen. Danhausen is a goofball version of that subliminal demon face from the Exorcist. Via online videos and the like, Danhausen coined the term "rear end Boys" to describe the sons of "The rear end Man." Billy was always legit entertained by his antics (laughing especially hard when he namedropped "The rear end Ranch"), but Colten and Austin were always visibly annoyed. Over time, this nickname would reach TV and whole crowds would be chanting "rear end BOYS!" at the duo. Billy didn't see the issue. Enter the Acclaimed. Rapper Max Caster and his hype man Anthony Bowens were formerly two singles wrestlers that Tony Khan specifically chose to team together, wanting to see if they could make it work. And boy could they! They ended up making quite the team over time and Caster's pre-match raps were over as hell. They were heels initially, but even then, Caster's rhymes had people hyped to see them get destroyed for poking the bear. Caster joking about banging Jon Moxley's wife Renee certainly got a big reaction of, "Oh, that man is going to slaughter you." Other than shouting that "EVERYBODY LOVES THE ACCLAIMED!" one of their big trademarks was to each poke out two fingers and then fold them into each other. "Scissoring" as they called it. At one point, the Gunn Club and the Acclaimed thought it would be a cool idea to join forces. Become a team of four with Billy Gunn as their coach. The two sides were able to work as a unit pretty well and Billy really seemed to enjoy the Acclaimed's company. The problem was that Max Caster always chose to end his raps by calling themselves "The Acclaimed and the rear end Boys." Eventually, the Gunn brothers turned on them and laid them out for the constant insults. When push came to shove, Billy Gunn chose to remain loyal to the Acclaimed and treated them with more affection that he did his actual sons. It was this connection that created the amazing Anthony Bowens catchphrase, "SCISSOR ME, DADDY rear end!" You can buy a t-shirt of it. With the initial feud, the Acclaimed not only won via a Dumpster Match (a match Billy competed in back at WrestleMania 14), but they became INSANELY over. So much that after losing a tag title match at a PPV against face team Swerve in Our Glory, the reaction from the crowd was so explosive that it was universally accepted that the Acclaimed would easily get a rematch ASAP and win it. Meanwhile, the Gunn brothers joined the faction the Firm. Sadly, due to the CM Punk/Brawl Out situation, plans for the Firm got sidelined and it took a while for them to figure themselves out. The Gunns started antagonizing the team FTR, went back to feuding with the Acclaimed, constantly poo poo on their dad for never being there for them when they grew up, and ultimately won the titles off the Acclaimed. Everyone was wincing at the expected result of Billy helping them win, but that never came to pass. Billy is still loyal to the Acclaimed. Only recently did the Gunn Club lose the tag belts to FTR, who put their AEW careers on the line. Meanwhile, the Acclaimed are feuding with Chris Jericho's goons, which includes a guy who really loves his hat and an intense man who is constantly talking about his rock-hard nipples.
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Apr 15, 2023 07:40
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Animal-Mother posted:I'm afraid not. Although he did briefly become "GI Bro." gi bro was one of the dumbest things in history and it was amazing to see happen
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Apr 15, 2023 08:39
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BrigadierSensible posted:I know this is a little late, but my favourite "crazy Vince" story is from Brian Gerwitz's book in which he reveals that Vince hates Giraffes on principle. Because he cannot stand the idea of an animal that big that limits itself to only eating plants/vegetation. "He hates giraffes on principle." is the greatest sentence in any language.
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Apr 15, 2023 09:08
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Cartoon Man posted:Please tell me Booker T also stole The People’s Elbow and called it the Booker’s Elbow. Animal-Mother posted:I'm afraid not. Although he did briefly become "GI Bro." WCW also booked a PPV match where Booker T and Big T (né Ahmed Johnson) feuded over the exclusive rights to the letter T this was approximately one year before they went out of business forever
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Apr 15, 2023 09:47
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Cornwind Evil posted:
One of the only good things about RTC was it allowed Ivory to stand out more and get a ton of great matches that weren’t hampered by all the Diva crap. Loved to see her work around that time.
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Apr 15, 2023 16:25
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FullLeatherJacket posted:WCW also booked a PPV match where Booker T and Big T (né Ahmed Johnson) feuded over the exclusive rights to the letter T "This motherfucker forgot everything!"
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Apr 15, 2023 16:38
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Gavok posted:I'll elaborate on this because Gunn's run in AEW has been pretty great. The entire rear end-claimed storyline was great. The Acclaimed have a gimmick where one of the guys says "(WHATEVER CITY) THE ACCLAIMED HAVE ARRIVED" Colton and Austin tried to take over that role but always hosed up the city. Here is the initial backstage video that started everything https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1525235804343263233?s=20 This segment was also incredibly funny https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCir...nt=share_button SalTheBard fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Apr 15, 2023 |
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Apr 15, 2023 17:20
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FullLeatherJacket posted:WCW also booked a PPV match where Booker T and Big T (né Ahmed Johnson) feuded over the exclusive rights to the letter T
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Apr 15, 2023 17:44
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A Star Is Scorned: Of Piercings, Paleontology, and Pelts And once again, we come to something that was meant to start somewhere else, but expanded and got re-arranged when it turned out a link had more meat than the OG idea. First off, this is Darren Drozdov.  Or it was, in ‘better’ days. Because less than two years into his pro wrestling career, Drozdov would suffer a tragic accident/mistake in taking a running powerbomb wrong, which broke his neck and rendered him a quadriplegic (though he’s since regained movement in his upper body and arms). But, before that misfortune, Droz was a shining example of ‘Don’t bring up anything unique about yourself to Vince McMahon when you’re trying to get hired or else Vince will make that the whole basis of your hiring’; in stuff that was actually filmed for the wrestling documentary Beyond The Mat, Droz revealed a biological quirk/party trick/spasm he had; he could vomit on command. Vince promptly seized on this, dubbing him ‘Puke’ and going right into his hammy announcer persona (“HE’S GONNA PUKE! MY GOD, HE’S GONNA PUKE!”). Fortunately for Droz, being able to vomit on cue was almost immediately dropped and ‘Puke’ was just a not-very-often-used nickname, as the man debuted as the new ‘third man’ in the aging and troubled Road Warriors/Legion of Doom tag team, and promptly got involved in two horrible wrestling bits, first being part of the Brawl For All, and then being part of the disgusting ‘Hawk is a drug addict’ storyline that was both real life being written/exploited by the plot and ended with Hawk attempting a fake suicide on air, among other things that I can discuss another time if anyone’s interested. IN ANY CASE, once that was done, Droz started rebuilding his character as a person of ‘alternate’ interests. To do that, he recruited the man he claimed was his personal ‘body artist’. This is Matt Jason Bloom.  Or as he was called, Prince Albert. Which, as some of you probably know, is a style of male genital piercing. No, I am not going to link anything in regards to it, you can make yourself wince or hmmm in interest yourself. Bloom was yet another college football player whose pro career hadn’t shaken out, and interestingly had actually worked as a teacher for special needs kids before a chance meeting with legendary wrestler and renowned trainer Walter “Killer” Kolowski (he’s the guy that trained Triple H, if you’d forgotten) reminded him of his own childhood desire to wrestle, which Kolowski aided him with. The name and gimmick of one of Droz’s fellow ‘bizarre people’ fit Bloom, as he did happen to have numerous body piercings and a unique look, being a top heavy, high on body hair type of man, a factor that unfortunately would work against him in time. After a very brief stint with a third man named Key, who is yet ANOTHER story, Droz and Albert’s tag team would come to an end with Droz’s career ending injury. Bloom, who only had a few years in the business, proved himself to be a consummate joiner, as he would swiftly, albeit briefly, become the protege of everyone’s favorite supervillain, the Big Boss Man.  (This really bad picture was included because it was the best one that had Droz's ridiculous outfits of ultra colored vests and PUA style top hat, which I thought looked...notable. That's Key behind them) As said though, that was brief. After that, he would be recruited with fellow wrestler Test by the newly debuted fitness model Trish Stratus to form a tag team; dropping the ‘Prince’ from his name, they were dubbed…T&A. Ha ha. While the pair would compete throughout the year 2000, they were just sort of ‘there’, neither getting hot or falling into jobberdom, until the team broke up in December when Bloom attacked his tag team partner on orders of Stephanie McMahon. Trish would manage Albert as a singles act briefly thereafter, but she swiftly ended up moving up past him to become a much bigger star than Bloom or Test ever managed, in America anyway (the highly attractive fitness model with the nice large breasts that she prominently displayed became a bigger hit than two green-as-wrestlers-in-every-way men, whoda thunk it?), and after a few months wrestling on the C-shows Albert would join ANOTHER team…in this case, with Sean “X-Pac” Waltman and the newly added to WWE PJ Polaco, nee Justin Credible of ECW, to form the team X-Factor. Who was renowned for having one of the worst pieces of theme music ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sksLPq2gNsk You tell me. This team would actually get Albert the only piece of WWE championship gold he’d ever have, as he won the IC Title for two weeks. Once that was done, X-Factor went from a trio to a tag team when the Invasion Angle put Credible on the invading Alliance’s side, and the team would come to an abrupt end in November 2001 when X-Pac suffered an injury, leaving Bloom on his own again. Like a remora seeking a shark, Albert promptly formed ANOTHER tag team almost immediately, teaming with Scott “Scotty Two Hotty” Garland, after Scott’s Too Cool tag team partner, Brian Christopher, was released from WWE after being caught transferring drugs over the Canada/US border. Dubbed ‘The Hip Hop Hippo’ and this new team/Too Cool Mk 2 dubbed by some as ‘The Zoo Crew’, this was probably the most entertaining Albert/Bloom had ever been, even if he was just aping Scotty’s schtick. So of course, several months later the team broke up when Bloom turned on Scotty. As it turned out, this was an example of fortuitous timing, as Scotty had suffered a neck injury the previous year and after the turn went to the doctors to examine fresh pain in said neck, revealing it was not fully healed properly and ‘forcing’ Scotty to undergo neck surgery, putting him out of action for over a year. With no chance of a break up feud, Bloom promptly fell back to the C and D-shows, until December 2002 rolled around and Bloom found himself being recruited by none other than Paul Heyman. Who told Bloom that it was time to debut a new name, a new look, and take what he deserved. And so, Albert was gone. In his place was…A-TRAIN!  (For fans of the Boys, this predates the comic by several years) Unfortunately, on the basis of being in this effortpost, you can probably guess how well A-Train got over. It was not helped by that fact that Bloom had a heavy degree of body hair, which, while it had been somewhat shown off in his first wrestling singlet outfit, had been mostly covered up by the pants and shirt outfit he’d worn since he’d started the T&A team a few years earlier. Now down to classic wrestling briefs, Bloom’s hirsute form was now on full display, and rather than get any attention through trying to be a classic monster heel, the fans’ sole attention was mostly to chant ‘SHAVE YOUR BACK!’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuPpMNyg8G4&t=127s (Unlike some other mentioned, he did do more with 'A-Train' than just let it be a name, as his entrance here shows) The WWE would make a few efforts to get A-Train over, with Bloom being the 11th victim of the Undertaker’s Wrestlemania streak, losing to Undertaker in a Summerslam match later that year, and being part of Brock Lesner’s 2000 Pounds O’Beef Survivor Series team (not an official name, instead coming from the fact that the five members of said team were all giant even-in-the-world-of-wrestling men and their collective weight added up to nearly a ton)...which is more notable for being the first springboard John Cena would take to his ascension to the top of the cards for years and years. Alas, it would not work, and after suffering a shoulder injury, Bloom would be released from his contract, a ‘failure’. Or not, as Bloom would pull a ‘Bart Gunn’ and promptly head to Japan, where the different environment and further experience and seasoning would see him actually become a top star over there over the course of the next eight years, wrestling under the name of ‘Giant Bernard’. Perhaps ever fittingly, most of that success would come as part of the tag team ‘Bad Intentions’, where Bloom would hold the IWGP Tag Title for a record setting 564 days with his partner, Karl Anderson, who’d go on to have more tag team success in Japan. Bloom, on the other hand, had gotten the interest of WWE again. After all, he’d made a lot of himself in Japan, surely they could do SOMETHING with him in the States? They did. No, he did not return as Prince Albert, or A-Train. No, he would be a new man. A warrior elite from the far east. A force known as…LORD TENSAI.  …this was, in retrospect and even then, a bad idea for several reasons. First of all, the promo packages, for those not in the know, presented the idea that Tensai would be Asian. And more damningly, and unfortunate, but as said, even if you discounted that assumption, Bloom had a very distinct look. So when he debuted to the WWE in April 2012 and removed his elaborate robe…  (The face tattoos are fake, the chest ones are legit, as a nod to Japan, the country that gave him his greatest success) The fans just promptly chanted ‘Albert’ at him. No chance was given to the new character, because fans still remembered him on sight and he hadn’t done anything for them then. After a few weeks of trying to build up Bloom as Tensai, giving him a winning streak and fucky ‘wins’ over a few top stars, and the fans not biting at all save for more “Albert!” and “Shave Your Back!” chants (which he’d DONE, which showed how drat ingrained the memory was) the WWE gave up and, losing the ‘Lord’ from his name, his elaborate robe, and his Japanese follower over the next few months, Tensai/Bloom ended up a jobber once more, to the point where at the end of 2012, comedy wrestler Santino Marella mocked him as “Fat Albert”...before defeating him. Some people just have no luck at all. And some might have deserved exactly what they got, as we finally detour into what was ORIGINALLY going to be the main focus of this post. This is George Murdoch.  He is, as of this writing, part of the Fox News machine and many, many people on this site and elsewhere likely have a very intense negative opinion of him, and we will leave it at that. In the years before that fact though, Murdoch would be a possible big thing, being a very large man with good movement and agility. He would enter the WWE circle as part of the final ‘serious’ season of NXT, before it became the endless nonsense of Season 5 and eventually segued into what it is today. Considered a favorite to win (he came in second), Murdoch, under the name of Brodus Clay, continued on from the show as muscle for his ‘Pro Sponsor’ of said show, Alberto Del Rio for a time, before leaving to film a movie and returning solely on the C-Shows to squash jobbers for the middle of 2011 before vanishing off TV in the fall. In November, the WWE began running promo packages for him, despite him having officially appeared in several forms, this was apparently going to be his official ‘coming out’. Week after week, his return/emergence was touted… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyUJjZGSDiI And week after week, there was no Brodus Clay. The promos stopped in late December, before it being suddenly announced in mid January 2012 that Clay WOULD be re-debuting. Essentially everyone expected another try at a monster heel. Needless to say, we did…not…get…that. Instead, we got THIS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZISp3t5u79I  Yes. Out of nowhere, Brodus Clay was now “The Funkasaurus”, a dancing goofball face with his two assistant dancers, the “Funkadacytls”. With music recycled from the briefly-in-WWE Earnest Miller, Clay had seemingly done SOMETHING backstage that had prompted this drastic character change. Despite himself, Murdoch went with it as a time, even getting a little spectacle at that year’s Wrestlemania, which supposedly John Cena was so determined to let Clay have, that he actually ‘went to the bathroom to prepare for his match’ so that the WWE would have to put on Clay’s bit to fill the time. Murdoch would have a seesaw 2012, getting a fair chunk of TV time, several feuds, and generally some spotlight, even if it was as a ‘dancing fool’ gimmick. Then would come 2013. I forget the EXACT details of how it happened, but an episode of Monday Night Raw was happening in Vegas. This had happened before, and the WWE would do a gimmick of spinning a roulette wheel to decide match stipulations and setups. Tensai, by now thoroughly jobbed out, ended up in a ‘dance off’ with Clay…with another stipulation that actually ended up being removed…without telling Tensai. So when the dance off began, Tensai incredibly grudgingly came out in a bathrobe, to reveal he was wearing women’s lingerie.  As said, I forget exactly WHY this ‘This has to happen/no it doesn’t but Tensai isn’t told’ situation happened. But you know why. It’s the WWE. If you are perceived as having failed, you WILL be humiliated for it. Because Vince McMahon, as recently revealed, is the kind of man who hates giraffes because he is mad that such a large animal is a herbivore. Does that make any sort of sense? Nope. Is it the giraffe’s fault or choice? Nope. But never let the truth get in the way of a severe mental issue. In any case, being the good hearted face he was, Clay encouraged Tensai to just goof off and dance anyway. So Tensai did, and it lead to, yet AGAIN, Bloom ending up in a tag team, renamed ‘Sweet T” and the tag team being “Tons of Funk”.  Which means that Bloom had ended up having this kind of tag team gimmick happen to him TWICE. Which is weird. Insert two nickels joke here. Tons of Funk would end up being the final part of Bloom’s in ring career. Though this time, it wasn’t him who broke up the team, but Clay, who started getting jealous over the newly debuted Xavier Woods, and whose irrational anger and desire to do Woods harm eventually drove away the Funkadacytls and Bloom. His heel turn did him no good, as he promptly lost to Bloom (and Woods), and would be released by the middle of 2014. Woods would go on to become part of perhaps the most successful tag team of the 21st century in WWE, the New Day. And Bloom, after besting Clay, would be taken off television and recruited to be an announcer for NXT. Seeing the writing on the wall, Bloom would retire from in ring work in August 2014 and take over as (eventually) head trainer for WWE’s training center, where he remains to this day. And so that was the odd intertwined fate of Matt Bloom and George Murdoch. One a body piercing man, then a dancing fool, then a hairy locomotive, then a success elsewhere, then a man damned by his past back where it started, and once more a dancing fool. With a guy who was supposed to be the original focus of this post, on the basis that after being promoted as the latest big dangerous threat, emerged as a dancing dinosaur. And you thought being called “Puke” was a sign that your wrestling career was probably not gonna reach the top levels.
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Apr 15, 2023 18:46
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WWE tricked a guy into training his own replacement. They regretted hiring Sin Cara, so they told him they were going to do an impostor Sin Cara storyline. "We want the fans to think he's exactly like you, so make sure to carefully teach him all your moves." Then they fired the real Sin Cara and kept the impostor for years.
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Apr 15, 2023 21:10
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Animal-Mother posted:WWE tricked a guy into training his own replacement. They regretted hiring Sin Cara, so they told him they were going to do an impostor Sin Cara storyline. "We want the fans to think he's exactly like you, so make sure to carefully teach him all your moves." Then they fired the real Sin Cara and kept the impostor for years. Didn't this lead to a storyline where Real Sin Cara came back and fought the Fake Sin Cara?
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Apr 15, 2023 21:53
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Some random stuff about Albert: - One of the ideas they were going to go with at one point was that Albert was the son of George "The Animal" Steele, due to his size and body hair. Honestly, I would have believed it. - Albert had a couple matches with Kane that were a hundred times better than they should have been. I always figured it was because the two were big dudes whose bodies were consistent (ie. not lanky), so when you put them together, they scale into two regular-sized guys having a match in a slightly smaller ring. At least one of the matches had Kane pull off a hurricanrana, which was crazy. - Tensai's debut showed off one of the things that made that era of WWE one of the hardest to sit through: obnoxious heel Michael Cole on commentary, acting as Vince's mouthpiece. Lawler was doing commentary, trying to put over Tensai's backstory in a way that made plenty of sense. Albert went to Japan to train and Japan has some ruthless, violent wrestlers, so it transformed him into something more brutal and dangerous compared to his Albert/A-Train days. Cole kept screaming over him, explaining that those people in Japan aren't in WWE and therefore aren't worth poo poo, so shut the gently caress up about Japan.
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Apr 15, 2023 22:38
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Gavok posted:- Albert had a couple matches with Kane that were a hundred times better than they should have been. I always figured it was because the two were big dudes whose bodies were consistent (ie. not lanky), so when you put them together, they scale into two regular-sized guys having a match in a slightly smaller ring. At least one of the matches had Kane pull off a hurricanrana, which was crazy. I always liked the random Kane vs Big Show match were they chain wrestled
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Apr 15, 2023 23:24
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