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Mulaney Power Move
Dec 30, 2004

16-bit Butt-Head posted:

promoters having a wrestler beat the poo poo out of another wrestler for real wasnt unheard of and sheiky once said (so maybe not true lol) that a rival promoter once offered him a lot of money to break hogan's leg during a match to stop his push and cripple the wwf's momentum

That was Verne Gagne, from the AWA. Vince poached all his talent and bought out his TV. Hulk Hogan was from the AWA - before AWA he was an arrogant bad guy with a hairy back. Mean Gene, Bobby Heenan, Jesse Ventura, and a lot more, all poached from AWA.

Vince paid them more to leave and not finish whatever they planned to screw up the booking.

It was his strategy for all the wrestling territories.

Mulaney Power Move fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Apr 29, 2023

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FilthyImp
Sep 30, 2002

Anime Deviant

PneumonicBook posted:

The Jeff Jarrett thing was because he had either the ic or euro belt, and wasn't under contract anymore. He knew Vince would give him the payday so he wouldn't show up in WCW with the belt similar to what happened to the women's championship.
Jarrett was always super lame. Felt like a wannabe DDP with a guitar gimmick.

Vince should have let him leave and made DeGeneration X fake steal the WCW belts.

Sydney Bottocks
Oct 15, 2004

Mulaney Power Move posted:

That was Verne Gagne, from the AWA. Vince poached all his talent and bought out his TV. Hulk Hogan was from the AWA - before AWA he was an arrogant bad guy with a hairy back. Mean Gene, Bobby Heenan, Jesse Ventura, and a lot more, all poached from AWA.

Vince paid them more to leave and not finish whatever they planned to screw up the booking.

It was his strategy for all the wrestling territories.

Of note, Heenan was the only one out of the guys Vince poached from the AWA who insisted on finishing out his contract and working his remaining dates. Roddy Piper was the same way when Vince hired him away from the NWA.

Dell_Zincht
Nov 5, 2003



Before Darren Drozdov became "Droz", he pitched an idea to Vince for a character called "Puke", utilising his apparent ability to vomit on command.

The whole meeting was filmed and featured in the 1999 documentary "Beyond The Mat."

It did not go well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWn1odAk3IA

Mulaney Power Move
Dec 30, 2004

Dell_Zincht posted:

Before Darren Drozdov became "Droz", he pitched an idea to Vince for a character called "Puke", utilising his apparent ability to vomit on command.

The whole meeting was filmed and featured in the 1999 documentary "Beyond The Mat."

It did not go well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWn1odAk3IA

This is also the documentary that shows Jake the Snake smoking crack

Animal-Mother
Feb 14, 2012

RABBIT RABBIT
RABBIT RABBIT

Mulaney Power Move posted:

This is also the documentary that shows Jake the Snake smoking crack

I think that was just chocolate.

Cat Hatter
Oct 24, 2006

Hatters gonna hat.
Why was Jake the Snake smoking chocolate?

Skios
Oct 1, 2021
I was recently reminded of one of my favourite Crazy Vince stories. Back in the early 2000s, when Jim Ross was still head of talent relations, he really wanted to sign Gail Kim. But Vince wouldn't go for it, until he explained to Vince that some men found Asian women attractive. He proved this fact by explaining how porn sites will often have 'Asian' as a category. Vince seemed genuinely shocked by this revelation.

X JAKK
Sep 1, 2000

We eat the pig then together we BURN
https://imgur.com/D3IK0Ea.mp4

Hyrax Attack!
Jan 13, 2009

We demand to be taken seriously

In one of the N64 games wrestlers had ability stats I believe between 1 to 5, & I was confused Jeff Jarrett had pathetic numbers like 1-1-1-2-1 (or something like that it’s been a while) & thought it was a programming error.

Cornwind Evil
Dec 14, 2004


The undisputed world champion of wrestling effortposting

Hyrax Attack! posted:

In one of the N64 games wrestlers had ability stats I believe between 1 to 5, & I was confused Jeff Jarrett had pathetic numbers like 1-1-1-2-1 (or something like that it’s been a while) & thought it was a programming error.

I decided to try and take a look.

The only WWE N64 game Jarrett was in was Wrestlemania 2000.

Wrestlemania 2000 released on 31/10/1999, on Halloween at the very end of October.

Jeff Jarrett's last appearance, where he held up McMahon for 200 grand, was October 17th, 1999.

Jeff Jarrett's stats according to a guide.

Offensive Attributes:

Head: 2
Body: 3
Arms: 2
Legs: 2
Flying Attack: 1

Defensive Attributes:

Head: 1
Body: 2
Arms: 2
Legs: 2
Flying Attack: 1

.....yeah. I can DEFINITELY see Vince being that petty.

Animal-Mother
Feb 14, 2012

RABBIT RABBIT
RABBIT RABBIT
Nerf him, drat it!

BigBeefCity
Oct 26, 2022

~*Special Delivery*~
~*For Anime Fans*~

OVERSIZE
PACKAGE
In HS we did back yard wrestling at parties.
I was "The Disco Kid" and wore a white leisure suit I found at Good Will.

Hyrax Attack!
Jan 13, 2009

We demand to be taken seriously

Cornwind Evil posted:

I decided to try and take a look.

The only WWE N64 game Jarrett was in was Wrestlemania 2000.

Wrestlemania 2000 released on 31/10/1999, on Halloween at the very end of October.

Jeff Jarrett's last appearance, where he held up McMahon for 200 grand, was October 17th, 1999.

Jeff Jarrett's stats according to a guide.

Offensive Attributes:

Head: 2
Body: 3
Arms: 2
Legs: 2
Flying Attack: 1

Defensive Attributes:

Head: 1
Body: 2
Arms: 2
Legs: 2
Flying Attack: 1

.....yeah. I can DEFINITELY see Vince being that petty.

Ahahhahaha good work!

I liked how the storyline mode was winning every PPV, obtaining every belt, then defending them but never losing.

Hyrax Attack! fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Apr 29, 2023

FullLeatherJacket
Dec 30, 2004

Chiunque può essere Luther Blissett, semplicemente adottando il nome Luther Blissett

there's zero chance that they would have been able to change stats on a wrestler two weeks before release date on a game that came in cartridge format and had to be physically shipped out to stores (remember stores?)

maybe they just decided that jeff jarrett was bad, by watching him wrestle

Kennel
May 1, 2008

BAWWW-UNH!

Cornwind Evil posted:

I decided to try and take a look.

The only WWE N64 game Jarrett was in was Wrestlemania 2000.

Wrestlemania 2000 released on 31/10/1999, on Halloween at the very end of October.

Jeff Jarrett's last appearance, where he held up McMahon for 200 grand, was October 17th, 1999.

Jeff Jarrett's stats according to a guide.

Offensive Attributes:

Head: 2
Body: 3
Arms: 2
Legs: 2
Flying Attack: 1

Defensive Attributes:

Head: 1
Body: 2
Arms: 2
Legs: 2
Flying Attack: 1

.....yeah. I can DEFINITELY see Vince being that petty.

AEW should do the same to Cody in their game. AFAIK he's still going to be in it.

wesleywillis
Dec 30, 2016

SUCK A MALE CAMEL'S DICK WITH MIRACLE WHIP!!

Baron von Eevl posted:

Iron sheik is hilarious, I'll bet it was his idea.

Nah, if Shiekie baby came up with any ideas, it would be to put him in the Camel Clutch, break his back, then take out his ten inch cock, gently caress his rear end and make him humble.

Vandar
Sep 14, 2007

Isn't That Right, Chairman?



FilthyImp posted:

Jarrett was always super lame. Felt like a wannabe DDP with a guitar gimmick.

In all seriousness, Jeff Jarrett is doing the best work of his career right now in AEW. He's being genuinely entertaining and helping put a bunch of other guys over.

Szyznyk
Mar 4, 2008

BigBeefCity posted:

In HS we did back yard wrestling at parties.
I was "The Disco Kid" and wore a white leisure suit I found at Good Will.

You were probably a better wrestler than Disco Inferno.

Mulaney Power Move
Dec 30, 2004

My favorite "crazy Vince" story is the time he made everyone stay in the parking lot after a show and eat snow cones. He kept saying, "I LOVE snow cones, pal!"

Then he gave the police chief a briefcase full of cash to get Jimmy Superfly Snuka out of murdering his girlfriend.

16-bit Butt-Head
Dec 25, 2014

Mulaney Power Move posted:

My favorite "crazy Vince" story is the time he made everyone stay in the parking lot after a show and eat snow cones. He kept saying, "I LOVE snow cones, pal!"

Then he gave the police chief a briefcase full of cash to get Jimmy Superfly Snuka out of murdering his girlfriend.

the duality of vince

That DICK!
Sep 28, 2010

the brief case was filled with snow cones

spaceblancmange
Apr 19, 2018

#essereFerrari

I wonder how quickly vince would shave his hosed up moustache if someone called it a sneeze catcher

Timby
Dec 23, 2006

Your mother!

FullLeatherJacket posted:

there's zero chance that they would have been able to change stats on a wrestler two weeks before release date on a game that came in cartridge format and had to be physically shipped out to stores (remember stores?)

maybe they just decided that jeff jarrett was bad, by watching him wrestle

Yeah, for an October 31 street date, cartridges would have had to start production by ... late July or early August at the latest.

MrQwerty
Apr 15, 2003

LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL
(づ ̄ ³ ̄)づ♥(‘∀’●)

Timby posted:

Yeah, for an October 31 street date, cartridges would have had to start production by ... late July or early August at the latest.

yeah I was gonna post that too, lead time on manufacturing a cart is way too long, Vince just hated the gently caress outta that dude

Timby
Dec 23, 2006

Your mother!

MrQwerty posted:

yeah I was gonna post that too, lead time on manufacturing a cart is way too long, Vince just hated the gently caress outta that dude

Right. The rare exception to that in the N64 era was a high-budget title like Ocarina of Time; the first run of those cartridges began in the third week of October for a release in North America at the end of November ... but that was because Nintendo could afford to throw a ton of money at production, and Howard Lincoln made it clear that heads were going to roll if Nintendo of America didn't have the game on shelves for the holiday season that year.

Cornwind Evil
Dec 14, 2004


The undisputed world champion of wrestling effortposting
Yeah, in this era of data only games, online patches, online mods, and stuff like 'going into a game's code and making one change that had ended up utterly destroying the monster's AI' (Aliens: Colonel Marines), one forgets that at that time the stats were locked in long before Jeff decided to be a bastard like McMahon.

Also, while Gavok did Undertaker's No Good Very Bad 1994 already, I have decided that next I'll just expand on it and do Undertaker's No Good Very Bad (Half Of) 90's, covering his career from his initial face turn post Wrestlemania 8 to Mick Foley's debut post Wrestlemania 12.

WAR CRIME GIGOLO
Oct 3, 2012

The Hague
tryna get me
for these glutes

HES BROKEN IN HALF

OHH MY GOD

THE MANDIBLE CLAW!!!!

HE JUST TOOK HUM DOWN TOWN

AlmightyBob
Sep 8, 2003

the segments they did where jr would interview mick were so good, just letting him go hog wild on character work

Saucer Crab
Apr 3, 2009




I believe the story goes that Jarret didn't hold up Vince for a bunch of extra money but to get royalty things like PPV bonuses that got paid out over time, that he wanted all paid out then and there so they couldn't fail to pay them later.

Marmaduke!
May 19, 2009

Why would it do that!?

Kennel posted:

AEW should do the same to Cody in their game. AFAIK he's still going to be in it.

AEW: Fight Forever? More like AEW: Fireworks Factory

Dell_Zincht
Nov 5, 2003



AlmightyBob posted:

the segments they did where jr would interview mick were so good, just letting him go hog wild on character work

Or Kane setting him on fire

Wee
Dec 16, 2022

by Fluffdaddy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XesuznnHaA

fatherboxx
Mar 25, 2013

https://twitter.com/nezumi_ningen/status/1646399186894565376

Cornwind Evil
Dec 14, 2004


The undisputed world champion of wrestling effortposting
All That Glitters: Part 3

“Mind games”

It’s the subtitle name of one of the WWE In Your House PPVs. It’s an excuse for bad AI in WWE video games in a certain context. And in the end, it was the given reason for all of Goldust’s more controversial actions. He wasn’t gay, actually attracted to the men, and taking his chance to essentially molest them. He was doing it to get in their heads and get them to make mistakes.

That’s a long established strategy across all of human history and experience. I think of a battle in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where ‘the most brilliant strategist alive’ (I can never remember any of their names in this story except Lu Bu, because it’s so simple), (Later Edit: His name was Zhuge Liang) knowing he had no chance in defending a castle, sent all his soldiers away, threw open the castle’s gates, and sat in its courtyard playing some instrument. His rival, ie ‘the second most brilliant strategist alive’ (Same Later Edit: His name was Sima Yi) leading the approaching enemy army, psyched himself out thinking that the strategist had SOMETHING planned, and withdrew (this story’s actual accuracy highly subject to doubt, as is the whole Romance account of this period of China’s history). Or for something more recent and known, there’s Arnold Schwarzenegger in his early bodybuilding years, where he would also use his studies in psychology to manipulate his opponents in competitions into making mistakes. And plenty of wrestlers had mind games of some sort as part of their gimmick. George “The Animal” Steele and his turnbuckle eating. Abdullah the Butcher and his forks (except a fair amount of the time he’d actually USE the fork as well). The Undertaker and his whole schtick. Runnels, with Goldust, just took it and the gay panic concept and took a new step or two.

Or rather, that might be what happened. Some reports say that Goldust WAS originally going to be gay, in storyline. But LBTGQ (is that the shorthand? I can’t remember that either) raised complaints at the ‘first’ obviously gay wrestler being evil, and as McMahon was still stuck in the 90’s death spiral he apparently decided to not chance any sort of unneeded fight and switch it to the question of ‘mind games’; Marlena was debuted to help plant the seed that surely, a legit gay man wouldn’t want to hang around with a pretty woman, would he (more on that assumption in a bit…)? And so, in the end, that is what it was. Mind games.

The funny thing is, in retrospect…the change kind of shows in an accidental brilliance sense, as Goldust the character was actually RATHER BAD AT USING MIND GAMES. Namely, in the sense that he never seems to know when to stop with the mindfuckery and get to work fully on the bodyfuckery (not like that). He wouldn’t just do his homophobic poking before the match and during advantageous parts of the match, but also when it did him no good at all. The idea behind the mind games was that the opponent would be bothered and hence make a mistake or two and it could be exploited, but Goldust would keep up the ‘mind games’ even when the opponent was down, and this would come back to bite him repeatedly. The end of the Hollywood Backlot Brawl had Goldust with Piper down, and then he decided to molest him and it enraged Piper, who trashed Goldust as shown in my last post. Later, when Goldust lost the Intercontinental Title to Ahmed Johnson, it was the exact same reason; he had Ahmed down, and instead of going for a pin, he decided to again kiss the man/’give him mouth to mouth’, even though this did him absolutely no good. And lo and behold, Ahmed got enraged and promptly smashed Goldust and took his IC Title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT26e6w5d-g
(As shown here: the actual 'dumb kiss' is at 16:40)

If the WWE was capable of more subtle writing, there was probably some depth to mine that maybe Goldust couldn’t help himself, and that he compulsively did this even when he didn’t need to. Or, when said actions’ reasons were changed in retrospect, he kept doing it because he didn’t know when to stop because he wasn’t actually gay. As is, it’s more of an amusing aside for obsessive wrestling overthinkers.

The other mistake that Goldust seemed to make was picking fights with other wrestlers who wouldn’t react to his mind games. His brief feud with the Ultimate Warrior basically had Warrior ignoring all of Goldust’s tricks, yelling that he didn’t care what the guy was into, and steamrolling him, basically ‘mind gaming’ Goldust instead (though this could just as easily be attributed to Jim Hellwig being…well, himself, as other recent posts have talked about). Then, when Goldust essentially ‘befriended’/entered an alliance with the newly debuted Mankind/Mick Foley around the same time, this put him in the crosshairs of the Undertaker, who did not like that Mankind kept interfering in his matches, and transferred that dislike to anyone in Mankind’s vicinity, and whose whole gimmick was immune to the same nonsense, whereas Goldust was presented as not, as show in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tEAOfGFiMM

(On a side note, it seemed like every time the Undertaker entered a feud with someone that resulted in a Casket Match, the opponent would ALWAYS be revealed to have always been afraid of caskets, it was just never mentioned before. Kamala, Yokozuna, Goldust here, later Heidenreich, and probably others, all conveniently afraid of caskets. Now, I can get a general fear, but all of them? That’s just ye old wrestling recycling).

It would be the Goldust/Mankind alliance that would take up most of Dustin’s next several months. With a brief ‘side story’ that resulted in him losing the IC Title to Johnson, as mentioned, Goldust would have a Casket Match with Undertaker in May (which he actually won when Mankind interfered by hiding in the casket and pulling Undertaker in), then have another match with Undertaker in July (thrown out by more Mankind interference), and then would have a weird brief storyline with the recently debuted Marc Mero and Rena “Sable” Mero/Lesner where he convinced Mankind that Sable was Mankind’s ‘mommy’, which actually let Goldust win the Summerslam match the two had as Mankind stalked Sable at ringside and distracted her then RL husband. After that, he’d be back to facing Undertaker for a third time at the September 1996 PPV (which ironically was the one subtitled “Mind Games”), in a ‘Final Curtain match’, where after the schnozz finishes of the last two times, was a match where the rule was “There MUST be a winner, and it MUST be by pinfall.” Goldust, trying out a new style of outfit where the white chest flare of his gear extended and covered his shoulders (it didn’t work, and he ditched it swiftly and never returned to it), finally took the loss on that match, which would separate him from the Mankind/Undertaker feud, for a little while at least (I cannot think of any other occasion in wrestling where one wrestler was basically feuding with two other wrestlers at the same time; yes, there have been solos against tag teams and groups, but Goldust and Mankind were a rather loose alliance and hence felt more ‘separate’ than the norm).

After that, Goldust would spend the next few months playing “Jobber To The Stars” on house shows, losing to Intercontinental Champion Mero (Ahmed got injured, the title was vacated, and Mero won the tournament, which strangely, Goldust was not in despite being the former titleholder), Shawn Michaels (including an obscure ladder match which was broadcast for an experimental online PPV called Xperience), Psycho Sid, and then later in ‘Armageddon Rules’ (ie no holds barred) tag matches with Mankind against Undertaker and Michaels, while occasionally getting TV wins over lower ranked jobbers. Goldust would also get the dubious honor of being in the Survivor Series 4x4 match as part of the-then Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s feud with Mero (Goldust was on Hunter’s team, to be clear). Mero’s team consisted of two past their prime veterans in Jake Roberts and Barry Windham…and a newly debuted ‘blue chipper’ who was going by the name of his two forefathers’ in the business, Rocky Maivia. Not-yet-The-Rock would be his team’s sole survivor, last eliminating Goldust with his finisher…the Shoulderbreaker.

Didn’t even call it the Boulderbreaker.

But, after all that, and with Goldust’s ‘mind games’ having receded into the background, December 1996 would roll around and Hunter, having defeated Mero for the IC Title, would begin flirting with Marlena. Marlena would not reciprocate, and Hunter got aggressive, prompting Goldust to come to her rescue. In a rather cringe moment, this would happen while Jerry Lawler was in the ring (I think he was interviewing Marlena and Hunter showed up), and questioned just WHY Goldust would help her, because wasn’t he…? Goldust pressed him on what he was going to say, and Lawler finally just said, quickly, “Queer?”

Again, the idea being that since Goldust seemed to be gay, why would he help his female assistant, if not for sexual reasons? Then again, considering Lawler’s TV and RL personality, that DOES seem like the sort of logic they’d believe. Goldust, after a moment, would reply with an angry “NO!” and deck Lawler, turning face and basically confirming that yeah, all the mind games were just that, mind games, and that Goldust was very much heterosexual. It’s kind of funny; for all the retroactive talk about how ‘controversial’ OG Goldust was, he really only got to operate on that level for half of one year, maybe a touch longer. Then AGAIN, it was 1996. Boundaries change.

Later Edit (from looking for video evidence): Oh wait, no. the reality is even better. The Hunter makes a pass thing happened, but, in one of the last remnants of the child friendly 'New Generation' era, there had been a 'Karate Fighters Tournament' (basically altered Rock 'em Sock 'Em Robots) and the finals were Jerry Lawler and Sable. Mero was in his wife's corner, of sorts, so Lawler brought Mero's then feud opponent, Triple H, to back him up. They had their 'final', Sable won, Lawler got ticked off and insulted her, Mero got in his face, Hunter jumped him, Lawler and Hunter beat on Mero, and THEN Goldust came out to drive off Hunter, which prompted Lawler to ask why, and then the rest happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz1fPLoCSYY

What more can be said?

As mentioned, perhaps the notable event of the Goldust/Hunter feud was the debut of Joanie “Chyna” Lauer, who finally got Hunter some legit heat by stalking and manhandling Marlena. Goldust’s luck wasn’t so great even before that though, as he lost to Hunter at the Royal Rumble in January 1997 due to interference (Chyna having not yet debuted, it was from Hunter’s first try at a minion, the oddly repeatedly kept popping up in the 90’s Mr. Hughes, who also served as Goldust’s bodyguard in his lone match with the Ultimate Warrior earlier in that same year), and then ended up on the losing team in a six man tag match against the Nation of Domination for…some reason, in February, before resuming the Hunter feud, having Chyna debut, and Chyna helping Hunter defeat Goldust against at that year’s Wrestlemania. The two would keep fighting on house shows afterwards, but on TV, it seemed like the idea that Goldust could be in any way ‘queer’ had to be FULLY buried, so in May, Goldust would come out on one Raw and finally admit his ‘true self’, that being Dustin Rhodes (the family’s stage name), that Marlena was actually his wife Terri, and that they had a young daughter named Dakota, who even showed up to utterly prove that Goldust WAS NOT GAY.

It was like some weird inverted coming out. As dumb and in hindsight retroactively unfortunate as it was, Goldust didn’t fall down the cards from it. Instead, he got involved in 1997’s major feud, that being the reformed Hart Foundation and newly heel turned Bret Hart’s battle with Steve Austin, which drew in others, including Goldust. Goldust would be on the losing team in July’s In Your House PPV, which was a ten man tag match (five on each side), which took place in Calgary, where the Hart family was basically national heroes, and is considered one of the greatest PPVs the WWE ever put together, with a crowd that was molten hot and every wrestler seemingly jazzed by it and putting in extra effort for their matches, and the crowd more or less going nuclear for the main event. One commentator said of the match that this was probably Hart Foundation member Brian Pillman’s last happy moment, as he would be dead by October of that year by an undetected heart condition, and besides that his body was so ravaged by injuries that his last matches before it showed a man a shadow of his former self. So, before it all tragically ended, at least Pillman got to be part of one last epic moment, and if you watch the match you can see him grinning ear to ear the whole match from the sheer utter INFERNO of ‘face heat’ he was helping cause. Goldust would have more luck at Summerslam, as the Hart Foundation split up to challenge various members of the team that had faced them in July. Goldust would face Pillman, with the stipulation that if Pillman lost, he would have to wear a dress. Pillman lost, and was embarrassed to have to wrestle in dresses on TV for the next few weeks, but Goldust got a little too into mocking Pillman for it, and Pillman challenged him to another match where if he lost again, he’d leave the WWE forever, but if Goldust lost, then Terri/Marlena would be at his service for a month.

Yes, in this case Terri was essentially a piece of property. To his credit(?), Goldust refused, so Pillman yanked out more-aged-very-poorly Attitude nonsense and said that Goldust’s daughter was actually Pillman’s lovechild, which enraged both Runnels and Terri and made TERRI accept the match. It backfired, as in by accepting (and the anger Pillman caused) Goldust ironically fell prey to mind games himself, as during the match Terri tried to hit Pillman with her purse, later revealed to have had a brick in it, only for Pillman to steal it and smash Goldust, pinning him and dragging Marlena off. What followed were several weeks of Pillman dressing up Terri in ‘provocative’ clothes and insinuating he was essentially regularly raping her (a harsh term, but she didn’t want to be there, but she ‘had to’ because of a wrestling match stipulation, he made insinuations, sorry, that’s rape). It might(?) have been made better had original plans went forward; Mick Foley, as Dude Love, was scheduled to face Pillman at the October 1997 PPV, which was just before the 30 days of the storyline was up. IIRC, Goldust would get involved, and the next night on Raw, the two would do a storyline ‘renewing of their vows’ and Marlena would turn on him and reveal she had willingly joined with Pillman, turning herself heel.

Then Pillman died suddenly, and all that was completely dropped. However, the WWE looked at the situation, and decided that if they couldn’t have one, they could have the other. Despite Goldust and Marlena ‘happily’ reuniting on WWE TV afterwards, it seemed that the process had ‘broken’ something in Goldust, as he started turning cold towards Marlena swiftly afterwards. With Crash TV speed, Goldust would then be the one to turn heel, as a seemingly nice interview with Jim Ross with Marlena would have Goldust suddenly say he couldn’t do it any more, that he was sick of living in service to people, like his father, and Terri, and that he had ‘found someone’ who had let him ‘be himself’, and ended their marriage and stormed off, leaving Terri weeping on the couch.

(And this is actually pretty drat uncomfortable to watch now because Dustin and Terri were only a year and change away from legitimately splitting up)

Now ‘forever unchained’ (which let him write 'F U' on his face with his makeup) and having been recruited to once again battle ‘Team Canada’ at the November 1997 PPV in Montreal, where some other stuff happened, I don’t remember, Goldust would decide that fighting for his country wasn’t for him any more, and refused to help his teammates, walking away mid match and resulting in the USA team losing. Angered, team leader Vader entered a feud with Goldust, who was rapidly deciding that a LOT of things weren’t for him any more. Like not being ‘The Bizarre One’. He’d been normalized. He had, in a sense, been repressed for too long. That had to be fixed. HARD.

Goldust was old news, last year’s release. It was time for…

The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust.

Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 04:23 on May 2, 2023

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

Cornwind Evil posted:

All That Glitters: Part 3

“Mind games”

That’s a long established strategy across all of human history and experience. I think of a battle in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where ‘the most brilliant strategist alive’ (I can never remember any of their names in this story except Lu Bu, because it’s so simple), knowing he had no chance in defending a castle, sent all his soldiers away, threw open the castle’s gates, and sat in its courtyard playing some instrument. His rival, ie ‘the second most brilliant strategist alive’ leading the approaching enemy army, psyched himself out thinking that the strategist had SOMETHING planned, and withdrew (this story’s actual accuracy highly subject to doubt, as is the whole Romance account of this period of China’s history).

In case you care, it was Zhuge Liang that was putting on the impromptu concert, while Sima Yi was the one that noped out.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
It's just the age old tactic, no one wants to fight the crazy guy.

Gavok
Oct 10, 2005

Brock! Oh, man, I'm sorry about your...

...tooth?



I was at this show. loving classic.

King of Trios 2009 was an interesting show. Of all the different KOT weekends they did (12 total), this was the one with the best roster of indie talent, plus it was when Chikara's roster was at peak quality. Like, Chikara's main face trio team was the Colony (with AEW's Orange Cassidy, WWE's Drew Gulak, and ROH's Tracy Williams under the masks) and they wrote them out of the tournament months before the show to make room for the other teams.

At the same time, what should have been the most solid trilogy of Chikara shows had some awkward stuff working against it.

1) Night 1 of most KOT events is usually dedicated to the opening round of the tournament. Sixteen teams compete in eight matches and the rest of the weekend is built on the fallout. Despite the awesome first seven matches, the main event killed the show. On one side, you had the UnStable (Vin Gerard, Stigma, Colin Delaney). They were the big heels in 2008 and having eaten their climactic losses as a group, KOT09 looked to be their big rebound. They actually did NOT win the tournament and they never really did anything of note for the rest of their time as a team. But they were at least a pretty solid team and the problems with this match was not their fault.

The other team was supposed to be the Cold Front, made up of Al Snow, Glacier, and some large indie guy named Iceberg. Iceberg did not make the show, so he was replaced with D'Lo Brown. This team definitely had star power, at least. While Glacier was never very good in the ring, at least he tried. The same could not be said for Al Snow, who proceeded to poo poo up the ring for nearly a half hour until one of them lost to a flash roll-up pin. Snow phoned it in so hard that he at one point pulled off a standing hot tag. As in, he was standing dazed and dramatically reached over to tag in D'Lo. He couldn't be bothered to do the usual crawl stuff. Unsurprisingly, this would be his one and only Chikara appearance.

2) One of the teams was made up of guys from the indie promotion EPIC WAR. Mike Quackenbush wanted to book the team as a face, a heel, and a third guy who was confused who to follow. The main draw of Team EPIC WAR was Austin Aries, infamous burner of bridges. Aries disagreed with Quack's booking because elsewhere in the indies, Aries was a heel. Quack said, "Well, here you're a face." Aries decided to be an entertaining dick about it by going 500% into being a happy, smiling face. He laid it on so thick, smiling all the time, constantly giving the thumbs up, and even doing the Tatanka hulk-up spot. His team ended up losing the match and he wrestled the next two nights as a grumpy rear end in a top hat, as he wanted to do in the first place.

3) Night 2 normally had four tournament matches, two Rey de Voladores tournament matches (four-man elimination matches, which is what that clip is from), and two special attraction matches. For 2009, they had two indie promotion showcase matches. One was Player Uno (these days known as Evil Uno) vs. Twiggy for the Inter Species Wrestling title, which went over well because it was a good match and they were Chikara regulars. The other was a showcase for the Lethal Wrestling Alliance, with a tag match of Evan Gelistico and Pierre Abernathy vs. Davey Vega and Gary The Barn Owl. The match was... less than stellar. At any other Chikara show, it would have been fine. Unfortunately, this was the weekend where Bryan Danielson, El Generico, the Young Bucks, Kota Ibushi, etc. were featured. The crowd was NOT having this one. They were apathetic at best and chanting "DON'T COME BACK!" at worst. The match stuck out like a sore thumb.

This actually had a fun follow-up. As Chikara kept overdoing the invader faction storyline, the four men in the match eventually announced their return as one unit. They would become the Submission Squad and were intent on getting revenge on Chikara and its fans. The joke was that they were completely inept when it came to invading Chikara. For instance, King of Trios 2012 was supposed to have them compete as a "four-man trio." Vignettes showed up on YouTube with the four on a road trip to the venue, having conversations like, "Are we overreacting?"

On the first night of KOT12, fans would pass by the Submission Squad's car about half a block away from the venue, as it had apparently broken down. The four were more intent on fixing the tire than simply making the walk. Because of that, they didn't make their match in time and the referee picked three random names out of a hat for replacements (including Tito Santana!). The four showed up late in the show, only to be pulled away by security.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Wrestling seems to have pretty much the same problem with comic books in overdoing epic crossover events until they become a convoluted, tedious nuisance more than anything.

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AlmightyBob
Sep 8, 2003

I'd like to see wrestling do a canon resetting ppv lmao

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