|
Wee Bairns posted:When Earthquake took out Hogan so Hulk could leave tv for a bit was a huge memory of mine. I remember all the updates on the devastating injuries Hulk had and where you could write him your best wishes. I’m surprised they didn’t have a 1-900 number to call to leave Hulkster a get well soon message. I remember in one of the WWF Sega games Ultimate Warrior was the final boss & nearly impossible to beat (with my skill set) but he had one of the worst special moves as he’d freak out for a second or two then dive at the opponent for massive damage, except your opponent could easily move out of the way.
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2023 13:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 18:18 |
|
|
I have vague memories of watching all this happen but what stands out most to me from the 80s era was the cartoon (I can still recall the incidental music to this day) and how I loved the villains so much more than the faces. My favorite Warrior memory comes a little later in the saga so I won’t spoil it for the youngins reading along but I think it’s my last childhood memory of going “…whoa, is this real?!?” when it clearly wasn’t (I had a vague idea there was some level of performance going on even if I didn’t know the particulars yet).
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2023 17:42
|
|
|
The boots that sgt. Slaughter got as "a gift from Saddam Hussein" back in them days were stylin' as gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 02:25
|
|
|
lol the story that may or may not be true where the iraqi wrestler who was wrestling andre a match in front of a crowd consisting of saddam and his cronies having to quickly change the outcome of the match because they were genuinely worried they would kill andre if he won
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 02:33
|
|
|
Aside from Warrior, who had a reputation for working stiff & unintentionally injuring opponents? Guessing the locker room wouldn’t put up with that for non-big names.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 02:53
|
|
|
Dino Bravo's finisher was a sidewalk slam, to me that says everythingGavok posted:I believe it. Something I've noticed in wrestling is that few things mess you up like being the face champ for an extended amount of time when business isn't great. Shawn Michaels wasn't the nicest guy to start with, but he and Bret will both admit that it was his initial title reign that really drove him over the edge. You've hit this major goal, followed immediately by having to maintain that level of effort as all eyes are on you and you have the company on your back. And as you work your rear end off, you are told that you aren't good enough and that your dream is a failure. Then you get paranoid and bitter whenever somebody is brought up as a potential next champ because if you hold onto the belt longer, there's a chance you can turn this around, but if you don't, it's over and they may never put you in this position ever again. I recall being in that position nearly broke Eddie Guerrero and I'm sure it didn't help Benoit's psyche. definitely not trying to defend the guy but I've always thought that about Savage too, being the top guy didn't seem to play well with him either. Plus, you better believe Vince was almost certainly playing him and Hogan off each other 16-bit Butt-Head posted:lol the story that may or may not be true where the iraqi wrestler who was wrestling andre a match in front of a crowd consisting of saddam and his cronies having to quickly change the outcome of the match because they were genuinely worried they would kill andre if he won it's extremely crazy to me but not particularly surprising that they repackaged the Iron Sheik as an Iraqi soldier in Slaughter's entourage lol
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 02:55
|
|
|
sheiky baby just really hated america
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 02:55
|
|
|
THE DIMINISHING RETURNS OF THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR: PART 4 Ultimate Warrior vs. “Macho King” Randy Savage was signed for WrestleMania VII in a “Career Ending Match.” Despite there being only two months between Rumble and Mania, there was absolutely zero story during that time. Savage interfering at the Rumble was literally all there was to it. For those two months, we just got a handful of pre-taped promos from the two of them, which is all the entertainment you needed. Though there was something interesting about the Warrior’s ramblings. He claimed that a jewel from Savage’s scepter had been embedded into his skull from the attack. He talked about how the jewel allowed him to see Savage’s past, present, and future. He swore that Savage would lose at WrestleMania, but in defeat he would find that which he once lost. It sounded like your usual Warrior madness, but it was a cool bit of foreshadowing. With WrestleMania VII, they hyped it as a double main event with this match taking place before an intermission halfway into the show while Hogan vs. Slaughter for the title ended it. While Hogan vs. Slaughter was a boring slog of a bout, Warrior vs. Savage was easily the best match in Warrior’s entire career. Prior to the match, the commentators spotted Miss Elizabeth in the audience, looking sad and distraught. She and Savage had broken up in kayfabe slightly over two years prior and she made her last televised appearance at the previous WrestleMania. The match went 20 minutes and ended as decisively as possible. Partially because Savage really did plan to retire at the time. Partially because Savage was buddies with Warrior in real life and trusted him. Late in the match, Warrior hit his finishers on Savage and Savage kicked out. Warrior was so devastated by this that he questioned the gods and wondered if it was his time. Savage recovered and took down Warrior, delivering FIVE top-rope elbow drops. Warrior kicked out, turned invincible, and spammed his flying shoulder block finisher to the point that he was able to pin the lifeless Savage via foot on the chest. The post-match had Sherri scream at and attack the hurt Savage before Elizabeth ran out to protect him. Then there was this huge, emotional reunion between Savage and Elizabeth to write them off. Later in the night, Sherri aligned herself with Ted Dibiase, so everyone was a winner in this storyline. Savage, now a face, stuck around as a commentator. Warrior was put up against the Undertaker, a rivalry that made so much sense, but was still surprising as it was the kind of pairing where neither guy should lose. Warrior was coming off his big WrestleMania win and this was Undertaker’s first actual storyline. At the time, the Undertaker’s manager Paul Bearer had his own interview segment called the Funeral Parlor. Warrior was his guest. As there were several caskets setup in the background, one of them had Undertaker hiding inside. He stepped out, clobbered Warrior from behind with his urn, then shoved him into an airtight casket to murder him on TV. They played this completely serious with officials having to race against time and try to drill into the casket. When they finally got it opened, Warrior was unresponsive and the inside cloth had been torn apart from his desperation. Meanwhile, Savage on commentary had the best performance in this. When the attack happened and Warrior was thrown into the casket, Savage thought it was the best thing he had ever seen. He enjoyed seeing Warrior get his. Then as time went on, Savage started to get uncomfortable. It increased until he finally broke down and screamed for somebody to save the poor guy’s life. About six months later, Undertaker would pull the same poo poo when Hogan was the guest on Funeral Parlor. That time, Piper and Savage on commentary immediately dropped what they were doing and grabbed steel chairs to save him, as they were NOT going to sit by and allow that all over again. Speaking of Hogan, a segment on Saturday Night’s Main Event had Undertaker manhandle Warrior in the ring, only for Hogan to rush out to make the save. Hogan had the WWF Championship in hand and used it to smash Undertaker in the face and knock him out of the ring. Undertaker simply landed on his feet and no-sold it while Hogan looked a bit disturbed. It was an impressive scene to see Undertaker get a rub from the top two faces in one segment. Warrior vs. Undertaker was one of those feuds that only culminated on the house show circuit. I was fortunate enough to see one of those matches, where it was a Bodybag Match. Same as a Casket Match, but way easier to carry the prop from show to show. Warrior ended up winning by running across the ropes, jumping, and smashing Undertaker with the urn to knock him out. Most of their house show bouts ended with Warrior winning by DQ. Also, this series of matches went on for four months! Interesting about this is that Warrior had a tendency to no-show house shows. To make up for it, WWF used Randy Savage as a last-minute replacement at times. Sometimes he’d even wear a mask and compete as Mr. Madness because he kayfabe wasn’t allowed to wrestle. Regardless, this meant that the only instances of Randy Savage vs. Undertaker in wrestling history happened at a few random house shows that nobody filmed. The angle took a turn when Jake Roberts offered to help Warrior tap into the dark side so he could better understand Undertaker. That led to a series of hammy pre-taped segments where Jake buried Warrior alive, stuck him back in the casket, and put him in a room of snakes. The payoff was that Jake was secretly in league with Undertaker and betrayed Warrior’s trust by having a cobra bite him. No idea how Warrior got out of that situation, but he did and it looked like Warrior vs. Jake Roberts was on the horizon! But first, Warrior had some unfinished business. Minutes after Hogan won the title off of Slaughter at WrestleMania, he went backstage to the locker room area and ate a fireball to the face from the dumpy military man. Hogan vs. Slaughter was a regular house show battle as well and I got to see them in a Desert Storm Match at MSG. It was just a hardcore match where Hogan got to wear camo and a green mask. For SummerSlam 1991, there was a bizarre double main event put together. One was the wedding of Randy Savage and Elizabeth, dubbed the Match Made in Heaven. The other was Hogan and Warrior vs. Slaughter and his two subordinates General Adnan and Colonel Mustafa. Mustafa was the Iron Sheik repackaged as an Iraqi soldier which was... certainly a choice. Still, this was an incredibly one-sided match despite the numbers advantage. Two overpowered top faces vs. a major heel, a midcard heel, and a manager. To complicate things further, WWF was making a big deal about WCW import Sid Justice. Sid was made the special referee of this match as nobody knew what side he would be on. In real life, Warrior was frustrated with how he was being paid compared to Hogan, especially in terms of WrestleMania VII. He demanded Vince make it right or he would no-show SummerSlam. Vince told him he agreed to his terms, then waited for the SummerSlam match to end to say, “Haha, just kidding! You’re loving suspended!” Warrior wanted to quit, but that’s not how Vince’s contracts work so he would at the very least have to wait for over a year before his contract expired. The last thing we saw from Warrior was him chasing Adnan and Mustafa backstage with a chair so that Hogan could take on Slaughter one-on-one. After Hogan won, fully ending the whole heel Slaughter storyline, Hogan and Sid proceeded to celebrate in the ring for a while in what was partially a big distraction. So much focus on these two while Warrior’s throwaway exit practically faded off the radar. Back in those days, it took a while to realize most wrestlers were gone from the roster. It’s not like you’d check the internet or anything. You would just go a couple months before realizing, “Wait, when’s the last time anyone brought up the Ultimate Warrior? Is he still a thing? Did they fire the Ultimate Warrior?” One guy who was livid about this was Jake Roberts. Years earlier, heel Jake had an unaired run-in with Hogan where he DDT’d the Hulkster to set up a feud. Unfortunately, the crowd absolutely loved it, which was reason enough for Hogan to nix what would have followed. He didn’t want to fan the flames against him. Because of that, Jake lost a bunch of decent paydays that would have come from being Hogan’s high-profile foe. Now Jake was being cheated out of his Warrior feud as Warrior was sitting out before they could have a single goddamn match! Cooler heads would prevail for a bit months later. Though it would still be terrible timing for Jake.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 17:22
|
|
|
I will always remember the Ultimate Warrior disappearing from TV because of what I heard about it on the playground. A kid who was one grade ahead of me said that he was off TV because the Macho Man "sexually assaulted" him backstage. Now I was in first grade so I didn't know what that entailed, but the older kid helpfully explained to me that "it's where you attack someone and you have a knife taped to your ding dong."
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 17:27
|
|
|
Defiance Industries posted:I will always remember the Ultimate Warrior disappearing from TV because of what I heard about it on the playground. A kid who was one grade ahead of me said that he was off TV because the Macho Man "sexually assaulted" him backstage. Now I was in first grade so I didn't know what that entailed, but the older kid helpfully explained to me that "it's where you attack someone and you have a knife taped to your ding dong." Holy poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 17:40
|
|
|
The terribleness of the Warrior and the general shittiness of 1993 WWF is what finally put the nail in the coffin of my childhood love of wrestling. About 12 is when you should stop watching wrestling I suppose, until you become a middle-age nostalgic and start flipping on AEW just to see.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 19:19
|
|
|
Gavok posted:Holy poo poo. Don’t gently caress with the Macho Man.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 19:32
|
|
|
I only ever used to have access to watch the PPVs from that era as my neighbours used to tape them. Never saw main event, WCW etc so wrestlers did just disappear with no context. I certainly remember being confused where Warrior was when Survivor Series, Tuesday in Texas and Royal Rumble came around before his return at Wrestlemania 8. It was also confusing when wrestlers arrived in WWF such as Sid Justice or Ric Flair when I had no exposure to them before and they were main event big deals. Occasionally I read a WWF magazine so did get some backstop hype but not when wrestlers left.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 21:49
|
|
|
I do recall WWF Magazine occasionally explaining a wrestler leaving the company via kayfabe. Like how Big Boss Man's career ended after Doink the Clown squirted ink into his eyes. THE DIMINISHING RETURNS OF THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR: PART 5 The Ultimate Warrior was gone for eight months and a LOT happened while he was gone. WWF was in a transitional period. The Hulkamania Era (also known as the Cartoon Era) was fading out and the New Generation era was bubbling to the surface. Hogan was champion, but he wasn’t overwhelmingly the top name in the company. Not only was Sid being treated like a big deal, but Roddy Piper returned to in-ring action and Randy Savage was reinstated. Undertaker and Jake Roberts were major heels. Bret Hart looked unbeatable as the new Intercontinental Champion and looked like he could be inserted into the main event with little issue. Shawn Michaels turned on his longtime partner Marty Jannetty and started a heel run that looked like he was going to really go places. Sgt. Slaughter repented for his actions and became a midcard face, ultimately starting a tag team with “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan. Most importantly, WWF brought in Ric Flair. This culminated in the 1992 Royal Rumble, where the title had been vacated going into the show, so Jack Tunney decided that the winner would become the new champion. With a stacked roster taking part, Flair lasted an hour to win thanks to a heated moment between Hogan and Sid. They played it up like we were getting Hogan vs. Flair for the title at WrestleMania VIII, but that’s not what we got. Hogan vs. Flair was the biggest dream match in wrestling at the time. They had been building it up for months and even did a house show run on it. So why didn’t it happen? The main reason is simply that Sid had it in his contract that he would get to main event the PPV. They turned him heel and had Hogan relinquish his #1 contender spot to face Sid. Flair instead defended the title against Savage halfway into WrestleMania VIII. They had a feud built around Ric Flair’s use of Photoshop. Hogan vs. Sid got very complicated at the last minute. They were starting to play up the idea that Hogan was considering retirement and was at the very least taking time off after Mania. They definitely needed somebody to fill that void. The other last-minute aspect was the inclusion of Papa Shango, a newcomer who was a voodoo witch doctor. Shango had zero to do with Hogan or Sid, but he was shown doing some anti-Hogan voodoo stuff backstage of the show and was supposed to break up the pin when Hogan legdropped Sid, causing a disqualification. Well, Shango totally missed his cue. Sid became the first person to kick out of the legdrop. To improvise, Sid’s manager Harvey Whippleman jumped onto the ring apron, causing the ref to call for DQ. THEN Papa Shango entered the ring to make it two-on-one. Moments later, the Ultimate Warrior’s music kicked in and he ran out to rescue Hogan. The PPV ended with the final in-ring meeting between Hogan and Warrior in what was supposed to be a surprise passing of the torch moment. Now that I think about it, it’s also the last time we would see the Ultimate Warrior show up in the main event of a WWF PPV. I guess in terms of wrestling in the main event, his final appearance was Survivor Series 1990. The Savage/Elizabeth wedding went on last at SummerSlam 1991. Meanwhile, that night’s card included a newly-face Undertaker vs. Jake Roberts. Jake was pissed about being passed over for a job as a writer for the company and threatened to no-show WrestleMania if he didn’t get his release. So whoops, guess he missed out on that Warrior feud again! One of the big talking points about Warrior’s return was his new look and the widespread rumors that came with them. As he hadn’t been on the road for months, his body was still shredded but not as bulky. His hair was shorter and looked different. His facepaint was different. This led to claims that the original Ultimate Warrior died in a car accident and they had to get somebody to replace him. Some claimed that the new Warrior was really a repackaged Kerry Von Erich. It’s kind of impressive how much this spread as I’m under the belief that it was suggested at recesses all across the country. Then again, it is something Vince absolutely would have done. Hogan and Jake were gone. That would mean Warrior vs. Sid, right? They did do a couple pre-taped promos after the event to hype up the house shows. Then after wrestling Warrior twice in one day during that tour, Sid had decided he was just done with the company and walked out. Fantastic. That left Papa Shango. It worked on paper. Throw the face-painted cartoon superhero with magic powers up against the face-painted cartoon supervillain with magic powers. Shango decided to target Warrior by stealing one of his tassels and doing creepy chants in his general direction. After Warrior won a match on Superstars, he collapsed. Officials brought him to the back to look at him and Warrior proceeded to vomit all over the place. Sometime later, Warrior showed up in front of a crowd to cut a promo on how Papa Shango’s black magic was nothing compared to the power of the Warriors. As Warrior spoke, black goo started to trickle down from his scalp (in actuality, he was wearing a jacket with a pump inside of one of the pockets). Warrior saw this goo and responded by screaming, “WARRIORRRRRRS!!” The build was metal, but Warrior vs. Shango had little actual payoff. They filmed a match of Warrior defeating Shango in what was a big pile of nothing because, as I’ve mentioned earlier in this thread, Papa Shango was NOT good in the ring. He had a presence and had charisma as the Godfather, but from bell-to-bell, it was rough. Warrior was not all that much better. I don’t even think the match they filmed was on TV. I think it was just for Coliseum Home Video. Maybe it was on Prime Time. Anyway, what happened was that WWF wrote out Jack Tunney and had him replaced with Gorilla Monsoon. They played up Monsoon as the WWF President who tried to do the popular thing and made matches people would be excited to check out. His first announcement was that at SummerSlam 1992, WWF Champion Randy Savage would be defending against the Ultimate Warrior. That left Papa Shango in the dust. He didn’t have a storyline for the remainder of his tenure with the company until being repackaged as Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine years later. Warrior vs. Savage was a face vs. face title match, but they added some extra intrigue with Ric Flair and his advisor Mr. Perfect. The two kept suggesting that one of the wrestlers was in cahoots with them. That only created a mystery and distrust between Warrior and Savage. The two were even put together as a tag team against the Nasty Boys, but they couldn’t coexist and their conflict caused the Nasty Boys to win via count-out. Apparently, the original plan was for Warrior to turn and align himself with Flair, but he refused to go through with that. Instead, they went with the reveal that neither was in league with Flair. Flair was just using the threat to mess with them. He ended up smashing up Savage’s leg with a chair, causing Savage to be too weak to re-enter the ring and getting counted out. Understanding Savage was a good guy after all, Warrior ran off Flair and Perfect and celebrated with his enemy-turned-friend. To go back to my main event talk from earlier, the reason why this wasn’t the SummerSlam main event was because it took place at Wembley Stadium and the main event spot went to Bret Hart dropping the Intercontinental Championship to British Bulldog. While it would be Bulldog’s greatest height, Bret dropping the belt was helpful to free him up for what the next few months would ask of him. Flair’s big plan turned out to be a success, as he had a championship match with Savage days later at a house show (that was being filmed) and thanks to both Savage’s bum leg and surprise interference from newcomer Razor Ramon, Flair made Savage pass out to the Figure Four. Funny thing with this match was that they only showed the last few minutes on TV. Apparently, Vince HATED the match. It was just a regular by-the-numbers low effort boring house show match. Vince had them go out and do the match AGAIN and still hated how they did it. Normally, you would have expected Warrior to dethrone Flair. The two even did some house show title matches that ended in DQ or no contest. Flair insists they were the worst matches he had ever had, which is impressive when you remember that Flair wrestled El Gigante. Unfortunately for Warrior, his physique did not go well with all the heat on WWF for steroid accusations, so he was probably not going to be champion any time soon. It didn’t help that he messed up Flair’s inner ear thanks to dumping the guy on his head. So instead, Flair dropped the title out of nowhere at a house show to Bret Hart. So began the New Generation Era. I seem to remember hearing that Warrior was asked to put over the new champion at one point and he refused. Not that Bret Hart minded, I imagine, since the guy loving hated Warrior for the time he refused to leave the locker room and greet a dying child decked out in Warrior facepaint and a Warrior shirt. Because fascinating as Warrior’s career was, it can’t be understated that Jim Hellwig was a colossal piece of poo poo. So now that the WWF Championship was out of the picture, the big match being built up for Survivor Series was Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair and Razor Ramon. Warrior and Savage became the Ultimate Maniacs, decked out in matching outfits, and for several weeks we got the apex of absolutely batshit promos. “No sleep, no FOOOOOOOOOD, no nothing. Just maniacism. As a skeleton we stand before you as Ultimate Maniacs. We're already dead. What are you going to do? Bury us now?” For the final classic edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event, the Ultimate Maniacs faced tag champs Money Inc. The Maniacs won by count-out, brawled with Money Inc. by the entrance, then got jumped by Flair and Razor. At one point, Warrior tried to shield Savage’s body and take the beating for him. This show was pre-taped and Warrior did do a series of house show matches against Kamala after the fact. The details vary, but Warrior was caught either doing steroids or HGH and was either let go or suspended and no-showed enough shows out of protest that he got released from his contract. In kayfabe, they explained that the beating from Saturday Night’s Main Event caused massive injuries and Savage no longer had a partner for the coming PPV. Survivor Series 1992 aired a mere ELEVEN days after that SNME episode (Series used to be a Thanksgiving Eve tradition, hence the weird Wednesday airing). That meant they had to come up with a replacement that people would care about ASAFP. To the company’s credit, they knocked it out of the park with one of my all-time favorite face turns. Prime Time Wrestling was in its final days before being replaced by Raw. The format was two hours of a panel discussing current wrestling events along with some random pre-taped matches from house show tours. Two of the regular panelists were Mr. Perfect and Bobby Heenan, both cornermen for Flair. Savage appeared via satellite to explain that he had the “perfect partner” in mind and made it apparent that he intended to have Perfect come out of retirement to join him. Perfect and Heenan laughed at this suggestion and Flair later appeared via satellite to refute it as well. Over the next two hours, you could see the gears turning in Perfect’s head. Were Flair and Heenan really holding him down? Were they really trying to take him off the table because they saw him as a threat? Was being Flair’s lapdog really in his best interest? It didn’t help when Heenan and Flair would let something slip like, “Perfect would have no chance against Flair anyway!” Finally, Perfect angrily declared he would take Savage’s offer. Heenan slapped him in anger, IMMEDIATELY apologized profusely, and got a pitcher of ice-cold water dumped on his head while Perfect cut a promo on Flair. And once again, the stink of Warrior abruptly leaving the company was washed away. It wasn’t going to be the last time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 23:17
|
|
|
Defiance Industries posted:"it's where you attack someone and you have a knife taped to your ding dong." I think New Jack did this spot in XPW.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2023 23:52
|
|
|
Hyrax Attack! posted:Aside from Warrior, who had a reputation for working stiff & unintentionally injuring opponents? Guessing the locker room wouldn’t put up with that for non-big names. I heard the nasty boys lived up to their name and were well known for hurting people
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 01:37
|
|
|
Which event was it where Warrior had a trapdoor hidden in the ring for his entrance but it was poorly designed and a serious trip hazard for other wrestlers? Or did he do that multiple times? Does WWE still do house shows or when did they stop? Or when did they stop having the top cards show up? I remember watching a little Sunday Night Heat but it didn’t have my favorites or seem to impact the big storylines.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 03:21
|
|
|
Hyrax Attack! posted:Which event was it where Warrior had a trapdoor hidden in the ring for his entrance but it was poorly designed and a serious trip hazard for other wrestlers? Or did he do that multiple times? it was multiple times during his wcw run and it nearly paralyzed davey boy smith when he was slammed on it
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 03:30
|
|
|
16-bit Butt-Head posted:it was multiple times during his wcw run and it nearly paralyzed davey boy smith when he was slammed on it Hachi machi! I had thought WCW was slightly better about in-ring safety but maybe not
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 03:34
|
|
|
Hyrax Attack! posted:Hachi machi! I had thought WCW was slightly better about in-ring safety but maybe not lol no they were pretty bad they just didnt kill someone during a show like vince did with owen
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 03:38
|
|
|
Oh yeah that’s what I was thinking of, I believe the WCW book mentioned when Sting was lowered into the ring there was a slight delay to unhook both harnesses because why wouldn’t there be a backup safety? Forgot about Goldberg and the car windows although they did give him a pipe to use. Did we already have an effortpost about the WCW Power Plant? Was it just total garbage?
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 03:45
|
|
|
Hyrax Attack! posted:Oh yeah that’s what I was thinking of, I believe the WCW book mentioned when Sting was lowered into the ring there was a slight delay to unhook both harnesses because why wouldn’t there be a backup safety? the power plant was garbage and didn't really teach anyone how to wrestle like most wrestling schools it was just an excuse to haze people and make them do hundreds of pushups instead of teaching anything wrestling related. goldberg is the only notable graduate from it and he was notoriously very unsafe to work with because he was never taught how to properly pull his punches or work safely
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 03:52
|
|
|
Hell, the rumor that Warrior had been replaced by the Texas Tornado in a new getup was one of the first wrestling/kayfabe rumors I ever remember hearing, and this was well before the internet was a big thing, but still heard scuttlebutt in rural Canada.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 09:29
|
|
|
Thank you, Gavok, for laying 5 effortposts worth of destrucity on us.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 17:04
|
|
|
Hyrax Attack! posted:Aside from Warrior, who had a reputation for working stiff & unintentionally injuring opponents? Guessing the locker room wouldn’t put up with that for non-big names. I don't know if it was specifically working stiff instead of just being extremely careless but I'm pretty sure Mabel nearly ended a bunch of careers accidentally.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 17:31
|
|
|
Hyrax Attack! posted:Aside from Warrior, who had a reputation for working stiff & unintentionally injuring opponents? Guessing the locker room wouldn’t put up with that for non-big names. bruiser brody would refuse to do anything if he felt he wasnt getting paid and would do poo poo like no sell everything or just sit in the middle of the ring and do nothing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 19:27
|
|
|
Sure Sold that E: Looked it up out of curiosity and turns out it was a knife wound. wesleywillis fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jul 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 19:30
|
|
|
Ambassadorofsodomy posted:Sure Sold that gunshot though. im imagining it like that snl skit where an old timey quaterback got to keep his gun after the league outlawed them so he was just drunk on the field daring people to rush him. like some old timey wrestler used a gun in his gimmick then its ruled noone gets to use guns in their gimmick but this guy gets to keep it so he starts just going rogue and making poo poo up on the spot because he has a gun what are you gonna do stick to the act?
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 20:05
|
|
|
What is Jimmy Heart like? Seems like I don't hear too many stories about him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 20:15
|
|
|
jimmy hart is the best manager gimmick of all time (tied with paul bearer)
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 20:54
|
|
|
Bonzo posted:What is Jimmy Heart like? Seems like I don't hear too many stories about him. he knows how make a song sound just close enough to licensed music without breaking copyright laws
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 21:01
|
|
|
Also he is clearly a lich.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 21:21
|
|
|
THE DIMINISHING RETURNS OF THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR: PART 6 Having left WWF, Warrior went on to wrestle here and there for a couple years, usually taking on Hercules Hernandez. He also starred in the movie Firepower, which I have only seen once back in 1993 in the middle of the night on HBO while wondering, “Wait, is that the Ultimate Warrior?” It was about an underground fight club version of Mad Max’s Thunderdome, where Hellwig played the final boss character the Swordsman. During these fights, random weapons would be lowered into the battleground and his deal was that he got to basically cheat by always getting twin katanas as his powerup. He also decided to legally change his name to “Warrior,” figuring that it would allow him to bypass copyright law. It somehow worked. While he was gone, the wrestling landscape had changed a lot. The New Generation Era was in full effect. While it began with Bret Hart’s groundbreaking “fighting champion” reign, Hulk Hogan hosed over Bret’s spot by becoming champion himself and setting up a passing of the torch match at SummerSlam 1993, only to bow out of the company and soon go to WCW. As WCW brought in Hogan, they also started to bring in a lot of his buddies and people who were WWF names in the 80s and early 90s. Sometimes they would have to change up their names and gimmicks, but even then, that meant that Big Boss Man and Earthquake would be the Boss and Avalanche. Everyone from Randy Savage to Junkyard Dog made their way over, so when Hogan hyped up the “Ultimate Surprise” and showed the silhouette of a jacked, long-haired man with tassels, many eyebrows were raised. I can almost applaud WCW for what they must have been thinking. If people thought the real Ultimate Warrior was an imposter after being gone for the better part of a year, maybe they could create an Ultimate Warrior imposter that people would think was the real deal! And so, Richard Wilson arrived as the Renegade. He was what you would expect if Warrior came over to WCW and had to make his persona similar, but legally distinct from what WWF owned. His outfits were a bit different. He had a facepaint “R” in multiple colors. He still acted like a wild man and he was aligned with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. Renegade had a run with the WCW TV Championship, but otherwise, his career never took off. It didn’t help that he was arguably worse in the ring than Warrior. He became a throwaway jobber for years in WCW before being let go. With no other promotions interested in him during wrestling’s cultural high point, Wilson fell into despair. Tragically, the man Hogan introduced by claiming he would bring Hulkamania into the 21st century wouldn’t even make it that far and took his own life in 1999. When Vince decided to bring Warrior back to WWF in early 1996, the company was in a rather volatile situation. Diesel’s year-long title reign killed business and they were in a spot where Diesel was no longer champion, and he and Razor Ramon were on their way out of the company. Shawn Michaels was being set up to get his first WWF Championship run. Bret Hart was about to take a lengthy vacation. They had fresh, new heels in Mankind, Goldust, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and especially Vader. Yokozuna was on his way to a face turn. Ahmed Johnson appeared to share the same mystique as the Warrior, but in a mid-90s, grounded package. Then there was this guy Steve Austin, who was shaking off his failed Ringmaster moniker. He seemed to have potential. This company was very different from what Warrior left behind four years earlier. But that’s okay because Warrior was fuller of himself than ever before! He was going to be a huge special attraction and in return, WWF had to promote his comic book, wrestling school, and show some motivational videos about living your life like the Warrior. Something about how it’s okay to steal from a blind man if you really need that money. The comic was your usual third party 90s comic Rob Liefeld knockoff. I’ve never been able to bring myself to read it, but I have read articles about it. Like many failed comics of the era, the first issue or two were colorful while a few issues later, it was nothing more than sketches and inks. The comic is infamous for Warrior doing S&M with Santa Claus and constantly talking about “destrucity.” Apparently the word means “the truce between destiny and reality.” That almost sounds like a thing. Almost. Little is known about Warrior University, where he turned his private gym into a wrestling school. We just know that he charged a shitload of money for what had to be a terrible learning experience. There are no testimonies from people who went there and no success stories of people who came out of it and had any kind of career. Similarly, in 1995, Warrior released his own 30-minute workout tape. It was literally just him working out for a half hour with zero instructions. Bringing Warrior back might have been a big mistake on Vince’s part, but at least he was smart enough not to completely poo poo the bed with it. The main event scene was pretty busy at the moment, so it was best to reestablish Warrior for a few months before putting him on top of the card. Without showing him, Warrior was announced as coming back for WrestleMania XII. His first opponent would be one Hunter Hearst Helmsley. I think I remember Jerry Lawler on commentary insisting that he has word that Warrior gained like 400 pounds since he was gone, only to be shocked when Warrior came out looking like his normal self. Thing about this run is that nearly all of his late-80s/early-90s comrades were gone. He had no friends to keep his ego in check. No veterans to respect. He wasn't going to be generous like he would with Rick Rude or Randy Savage. Apparently the only guy on the roster he really gave a poo poo about was Owen Hart. That meant that when they asked him if his match against Hunter could be at least slightly competitive, Warrior told them to gently caress off. And so, Warrior hit the ring, Hunter attacked him, hit the Pedigree, Warrior sprung back to his feet, and then hit his finishers to win. Just over a minute. Many see this squash as a villain origin story for what kind of an rear end in a top hat Triple H became down the line. Warrior’s next feud was against Goldust. An odd choice to be sure, as Goldust was Intercontinental Champion and also injured. Even if Goldust could wrestle at the time, the IC title seemed a bit below Warrior. The two had a PPV “match” that was seven minutes of Goldust stalling outside of the ring and not getting counted out while Warrior sat in Marlena’s director’s chair and smoked one of her cigars. Goldust had a bodyguard (played by the former Mantaur) there for the sake of getting beat up by Warrior while Goldust disappeared and finally got counted out. The two had a rematch, which was a qualifier for the King of the Ring tournament. This one was at least a match, but it wasn’t a very good one. It ended with Goldust deciding once again to just walk away. The ending was awkward as Warrior decided to exit the ring and slowly stalk Goldust and Marlena. Instead of getting attacked or anything, Goldust simply backed away into the curtain. The two were counted out and Jerry Lawler decided, rather out of the blue, to pick up Marlena’s golden director’s chair and try to sneak up on Warrior. Warrior noticed him before he had a chance and then destroyed the chair in the ring. So now we were getting a PPV match of Warrior vs. Jerry Lawler and there was this exhausted feeling of, “OH MY GOD nobody wants this!” But then again, that’s how I felt about any time Jerry Lawler had a feud in the mid-90s. Yes, he threw a good punch, but to people who didn’t grow up in Memphis, he just came off as a chubby commentator who was about as threatening as your run-of-the-mill manager. One segment between the two was based around Lawler (a talented artist) giving Warrior a peace offering in the form of a framed Warrior painting. Warrior would admit the talent and effort that went into making it, but still insisted he would destroy Lawler at King of the Ring. Then Lawler would smash the frame over Warrior’s head. It was sugar glass and Lawler had already promised to use the back of the frame anyway. Warrior was in no real danger, but he was really paranoid, so without telling anyone, he wore a baseball cap with cushions inside it to protect him from the blow. This removed some of his wild man mystique and annoyed the hell out of Lawler, who never really had a reputation for shooting on his opponents. The match happened at King of the Ring 1996 and was three minutes of garbage. It was Warrior’s last WWF PPV match. Not much happened on this show, well, other than that Steve Austin guy winning the big tournament and cutting some legendary promo on Jake Roberts. Oh man! If Warrior didn’t chase after Goldust and get eliminated from the tournament, we totally could have finally gotten Warrior vs. Jake! Over these few months of Warrior’s return, his usual house show opponent was Vader. From Royal Rumble to SummerSlam of that year, Vader was being treated as the most unstoppable heel monster. So it was good that none of those Warrior squashes saw TV. In fact, Vader was pissed about these matches, feeling that word would get to Japan and make him look bad. He even walked out during a match and was told by officials in the back to get the gently caress back in the ring or go home. Considering his losses to Hogan caused him to leave WCW, dude was probably having flashbacks. They were going to finally pull the trigger of bringing Warrior into the main event. The next In Your House was going to have a six-man tag match of Camp Cornette (Vader, Owen Hart, British Bulldog) vs. Shawn Michaels, Ahmed Johnson, and the Ultimate Warrior. This would not play out as hoped because Vince was getting extremely frustrated with Warrior’s tendency to no-show house shows regularly. He had finally had enough and suspended him, which led to him being full-on fired. Now, back then, Raw had a schedule where they would do a live Monday show then tape the next week’s episode on Tuesday. That worked out great for the promotion, as by the time Warrior got suspended, they already had an episode in the can where after a match with Owen Hart (easily the best one of Warrior’s 1996 run), Warrior got jumped by Camp Cornette and Vader completely hosed him up. With no follow-up to this, optics made it look like Vader had destroyed Warrior to the point of sending him out of the company. Everything's coming up Leon! When the episode aired, it began with Gorilla Monsoon announcing Warrior’s suspension and airing the dirty laundry about Warrior’s no-shows. He said the suspension would take place after his match with Owen and that Michaels and Ahmed had to come up with a replacement. Near the end of the episode, Michaels and Ahmed were shown via satellite, revealing their new third man: Sycho Sid. Jim Cornette was always being interviewed via satellite and looked like he poo poo himself. Once again, Sid would be getting a push to distract us from Warrior being sent back to Parts Unknown. WWF was still hurting and WCW was getting stronger with their New World Order storyline. Over time, WWF started to figure itself out while WCW proceeded to make mistake after mistake. The momentum shifted and Eric Bischoff started to realize that WCW needed a shot in the arm if they were going to retake the lead. Perhaps they could go back to that Renegade idea, but get the real deal this time...
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 21:59
|
|
|
I saw the OSW review of the Warrior comics, and something about the depiction of Parts Unknown triggered some neurons in my head that lead to me deciding that Archaon from Total Warhammer should have the voice and cadence of the Ultimate Warrior. It is a marked improvement over the default presentation.
SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jul 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 23:06
|
|
|
Gavok posted:Similarly, in 1995, Warrior released his own 30-minute workout tape. It was literally just him working out for a half hour with zero instructions.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2023 23:54
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:I saw the OSW review of the Warrior comics, and something about the depiction of Parts Unknown triggered some neurons in my head that lead to me deciding that Archaon from Total Warhammer should have the voice and cadence of the Ultimate Warrior. It is a marked improvement over the default presentation. Back when they were airing that short-lived Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon from the early 2010s, I wanted to see Hercules voiced by Randy Savage and Ares voiced by Warrior.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2023 00:02
|
|
|
Macho Man was a sick voice actor. There's an episode of Dexter's Lab he guest stars in and he's just drat good.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2023 00:28
|
|
|
Literally A Person posted:Macho Man was a sick voice actor. There's an episode of Dexter's Lab he guest stars in and he's just drat good. I once cosplayed as Savage's greatest role. https://twitter.com/Gavin4L/status/784458309831131137
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2023 00:32
|
|
|
Literally A Person posted:Macho Man was a sick voice actor. There's an episode of Dexter's Lab he guest stars in and he's just drat good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmAPZB9jzHs 'NO AGONY, NO BRAGONY' has lived rent-free in my head.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2023 01:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 18:18 |
|
|
Gavok posted:I once cosplayed as Savage's greatest role. Didn't even need to click to know it was Leonard Ghostal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2023 01:54
|
|