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Bigass Moth posted:I definitely remember a gimmicked rubber sledgehammer at some point in the early 2000s that bent when HHH swung it. Regarding Ryder, didn't he have a "proving" promo with Bryan and Punk that he completely whiffed? It seems like Ryder's story isn't the tragedy so many burials are made out to be, he kind of half-dug the grave himself. He doesn't get much TV time at this point but afaik he's still an active low-card face on the house show circuit, getting most of his old spots in before jobbing to Ambrose or whoever.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:04
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Basic Chunnel posted:One of my earliest wrestling memories is watching WCW when Flair's son (David?) came out to interfere in a match with a powder blue crowbar in the waistband of his tights. When he pulls it out it visibly bends and wobbles.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:06
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Basic Chunnel posted:One of my earliest wrestling memories is watching WCW when Flair's son (David?) came out to interfere in a match with a powder blue crowbar in the waistband of his tights. When he pulls it out it visibly bends and wobbles. God, I forget about that a lot. The image of Ryder standing tall with Punk and Bryan (and the one backstage photo that also includes Beth Phoenix, Cody Rhodes, and Air Boom) is so laughable in retrospect. Truly the apex of Ryder's career.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:12
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There was also this really funny WCW moment where Jim Duggan came out to chase some people off, but his 2x4 was wobbling all over the place and it was the most obvious foam 2x4 in the history of man.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:14
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DeathChicken posted:There was also this really funny WCW moment where Jim Duggan came out to chase some people off, but his 2x4 was wobbling all over the place and it was the most obvious foam 2x4 in the history of man. When he was feuding with The Revolution he would often smack one of them with his 2x4 and it would bend comically
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Feb 11, 2014 23:19
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Gavok posted:Mike Quackenbush just did a Reddit AMA and he and the Redditors kept namedropping Chris Masters like he completely poo poo the bed in some way when he did an AMA. What are they talking about? He gave a lot of lovely one-to-three word answers to almost everything. I was bored stupid by question five. It was sort of this, but with Reddit instead of Ruby Rod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsJKdxPwZdk
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Feb 11, 2014 23:22
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oatgan posted:When he was feuding with The Revolution he would often smack one of them with his 2x4 and it would bend comically He'd usually end up with a board shaped like a lightning bolt. That inspired Mike Quackenbush to take his nickname from his hero Jim.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:22
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Tato posted:God, I forget about that a lot. The image of Ryder standing tall with Punk and Bryan (and the one backstage photo that also includes Beth Phoenix, Cody Rhodes, and Air Boom) is so laughable in retrospect. Truly the apex of Ryder's career. From what I remember, Bryan and Punk gave these amazing "We did it!" speeches about coming from the indies to the top. All I remember Ryder doing is his stupid catchphrase, no speech.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:44
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Pinstripe Hourglass posted:Speaking of Ryder, could someone quick recap his career for me? All I know is he started in fake ECW, ended up being pushed off a stage in a wheelchair by Kane, and somewhere in the middle he had an Internet show. Apparently he was really popular at some point? That just blows my mind, because I've seen him on TV maybe twice since I started watching in July. At first he was in the Major Brothers in the WWE ECW along with Curt Hawkins. They did nothing of note. Then they became the Edgeheads. He and Hawkins had long hair that made them look enough like Edge that they made for good decoys during Edge's title defenses. Around this time, Miz and John Morrison had a really fun internet show called the Dirt Sheet and brought the Edgeheads on because Ryder created this terrible catchphrase where he'd go "WOO WOO WEE WOO WOO!" which was a huge step up from he and Hawkins having no personality whatsoever other than really liking Edge. It was later shortened to "WOO WOO WOO!" and he got repackaged on ECW with a guido gimmick and really catchy theme song. On ECW, he had a lot of strong matches. He also had a match against a jobber where the opponent's pants tore and his junk fell out. That was pretty funny. He feuded with Tommy Dreamer and beat him in a Loser Leaves Match, making him kind of a big deal in this small pond. With Dreamer gone, ECW was shortly changed into NXT and Ryder was thrown onto Raw where he became what Heath Slater is now, only without the stable to back him up. He was huge into Twitter back before McMahon even knew what Twitter was, which led to a Raw segment involving Ashton Kutcher via satellite that was jaw-droppingly embarrassing to watch. He also got a spot on Season 2 of NXT where he briefly mentored Titus O'Neil until Titus was kicked off the show for being entirely too unsafe in the ring. He started his Z! True Long Island Story internet show, which was really fun and funny. He poked fun at the company for not using him well and had a ton of great running gags. He started to gain a following, but WWE still didn't do anything with him. This got a little backlash when they did a Long Island Raw and refused to bring Ryder out for anything other than Superstars tapings. Even Dolph Ziggler got pissy on Twitter about that before that was his go-to thing. It was helped that the Ryder Revolution was going on during the smark-loved Summer of Punk storyline as there felt like a bit of a concurrent wave in all of it. Either way, shows in the New York area were incredibly pro-Ryder. Ryder started to really pick up steam and WWE started to acknowledge his show (which was NOT part of their YouTube channel at the time) as being a good thing. He had a really strong feud with Dolph Ziggler over the US title and there was a Raw guest-hosted by Hugh Jackman that really put him over. Hell, even the Rock verbally put him over huge at Survivor Series. He won the US title around the time that Bryan got the World Heavyweight Championship and Punk was in the early days of his lengthy WWE Championship reign, so for one night they played it up that these guys were the future. Then Ryder gave a lovely promo and the main event where they won a six-man tag did a poo poo rating. It became apparent that the fans liked the idea of Ryder, but he didn't have much to support the chants once he was in the ring. His character was overly basic and his matches weren't all that great. Plus a lot of people feel that WWE resented him getting over without their consent. Ryder, who was given the spot as John Cena's sidekick, became the bitch in one of the worst feuds of the last several years. Kane started wearing his mask again and tried messing with Cena to make him HATE. His way of doing this was to terrorize Zack Ryder over and over again while Ryder looked completely inept and never got any licks in. He also lost his belt to Jack Swagger in the last instance of Ryder ever looking credible as despite being injured, it took three Doctor Bombs to take him out. It got even worse when John Cena started making out with Eve (Ryder's would-be love interest) in front of Ryder sitting heartbroken in a wheelchair with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. WWE refused to show Cena in a negative light because of his status and they needed to get his Wrestlemania feud with the Rock in gear, so they finished off the Kane angle, ignored Ryder's gripes, had Eve turn suddenly heel and immediately had Cena slut-shame her in the middle of the ring. Cena termed her a "hoski," which Ryder co-opted and it was gross. Eve befriended Ryder again, only to predictably turn on him during a big 8-man tag at Wrestlemania. Ryder never got revenge and instead fell into obscurity. The whole experience took the wind out of his sails and he never recovered. He started getting really bitter on Twitter and on his show (which was switched over to the WWE channel at some point), which was initially understandable. Then he kept whining more and more. Soon that was all he ever seemed to do and there was a backlash, as the usual fans stopped caring about him. He lost interest in the Z! True Long Island Story, got fat and people forget he even exists anymore. Oh, wait. You said a "quick recap." Sorry.
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Feb 12, 2014 00:09
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LvK posted:iirc, prop departments and film armories get legal exemption in CA California has, ironically, some of the most stringent firearms laws in the USA, and at the same time, the highest ownership of fully-automatic weapons in the country, thanks to prop departments.
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Feb 12, 2014 00:42
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I always thought the sledgehammer could work just fine as long as HHH did the jab to the gut he normally does, but put both his hands on the handle and just "pull" the shot so he just taps the guy lightly in the belly with the head of the hammer. I would imagine a guy who's been wrestling 20 years could make it look tight and anyway the WWE uses 6 cameras so they could definitely find an angle where it would look vicious. Covering up the head just shatters any disbelief anyone could possibly have.
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Feb 12, 2014 03:19
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Then there was that story about how Ryder (at the biggest point where people actually cared about him and he wasn't being used) was told he had a segment, to get to Raw and get ready. So he did, waited, waited, waited, and then it turned out there was no segment.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:03
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I'm pretty sure that was when Raw was in Long Island. It was right around the time Vince pulled his hi-larious prank where he brought out Mark Henry for a post-show dark match and kept playing different music until Henry just left.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:26
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Ryder also had those couple weeks in ECW where the audience literally got to watch his dream sequence fantasies about Rosa Mendes. I've never seen anything like it in WWE. In kayfabe it's even more inexplicable than why Undertaker had a multiple camera setup in his weed limo.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:33
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sticklefifer posted:Ryder also had those couple weeks in ECW where the audience literally got to watch his dream sequence fantasies about Rosa Mendes. I've never seen anything like it in WWE. In kayfabe it's even more inexplicable than why Undertaker had a multiple camera setup in his weed limo. Oh God I forgot about that. That was utterly loving surreal, even more bizarre than the time Vince saw a vision of his younger self in a mirror.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:35
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Jerusalem posted:Oh God I forgot about that. That was utterly loving surreal, even more bizarre than the time Vince saw a vision of his younger self in a mirror. There was also the time Kane was being taken away by an ambulance and had flashbacks.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:36
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Yeah, that was the Ryder saga. I think the issue comes back to WWE's big problem of now: the quality, tone, everything of the writing in-ring on Raw and (to a lesser extent) SmackDown is very different from every other form of WWE media, whether that's the individual twitter accounts or the backstage YouTube shows or interviews. I'm not sure why there's that discrepancy but I feel like a guy like Ryder getting over on the Internet but flopping when given his script...and not the only one who's brought down by scripting...
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Feb 12, 2014 04:40
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Writer Cath posted:There was also the time Kane was being taken away by an ambulance and had flashbacks. I thought he was looking at himself in the mirror for almost two hours while having flashbacks.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:43
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That episode where Kane stalked Ryder like a b-movie horror villain was great. Ryder brushing his teeth, and then Kane shows up in the mirror as he spits it out (with his red light of course!). Kane hides in a closet, Kane stalks Zack Ryder while he fails to fix a tire. We're far enough removed from that feud that I can say it's legitimately one of my favorite feuds of the last five years. 
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Feb 12, 2014 04:48
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Jerusalem posted:Oh God I forgot about that. That was utterly loving surreal, even more bizarre than the time Vince saw a vision of his younger self in a mirror. Is there video of this? Or I guess the Ryder stuff too. But why did Vince see his younger self?
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Feb 12, 2014 05:47
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The Senator Giroux posted:Is there video of this? Or I guess the Ryder stuff too. If I recall correctly it was during the brief attempt to bring back Saturday Night Main Event as a thing, and Vince was taunting somebody about how rich and powerful he was when he saw the vision of himself as he was back in the day. I think it was a hamfisted (kayfabe!) attempt to show Vince realizing what a monstrous character he had become in comparison to his earlier, more "innocent" days, and it could have been accomplished far better if he'd found an old poster or photograph of himself backstage from the 80s/early 90s.
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Feb 12, 2014 05:52
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sticklefifer posted:Ryder also had those couple weeks in ECW where the audience literally got to watch his dream sequence fantasies about Rosa Mendes. Bard Maddox posted:That episode where Kane stalked Ryder like a b-movie horror villain was great. Ryder brushing his teeth, and then Kane shows up in the mirror as he spits it out (with his red light of course!). Kane hides in a closet Jerusalem posted:the time Vince saw a vision of his younger self in a mirror. Writer Cath posted:There was also the time Kane was being taken away by an ambulance and had flashbacks. Gonna need to see vids of all these
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Feb 12, 2014 16:14
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Has the introduction of the PG era actually led to increased ratings and attendance?
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Feb 12, 2014 16:19
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I'm pretty sure the weird dream sequence poo poo was during that span where Stephanie *really* wanted WWE to be a soap opera.
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Feb 12, 2014 16:21
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sleepingbuddha posted:Has the introduction of the PG era actually led to increased ratings and attendance? No, but it's led to better PR and happier sponsors.
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Feb 12, 2014 16:22
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Increased ratings/attendance? Nah. More monies from sponsors (Mattel being the big one)? Absolutely.
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Feb 12, 2014 16:24
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DeathChicken posted:I'm pretty sure the weird dream sequence poo poo was during that span where Stephanie *really* wanted WWE to be a soap opera. Funnily enough, literally every one of my friends that watched wrestling stopped when it became "Too much like a soap opera". Having never had any interest in it before, I didn't know exactly what they meant by that.
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Feb 12, 2014 17:56
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To add to the list of "Surreal moments that wouldn't really work in wrestling and utterly break disbelief" the Stephanie McMahon dream sequence http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvKKa14woLc
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Feb 12, 2014 18:16
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On those line, didn't Katie Lea (possibly Victoria?) spend the first few months of her TNA career as a hallucination/imaginary friend? I seem to remember that being a thing.
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Feb 12, 2014 18:34
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projecthalaxy posted:On those line, didn't Katie Lea (possibly Victoria?) spend the first few months of her TNA career as a hallucination/imaginary friend? I seem to remember that being a thing. Nah, she was just a creepy goth chick who hypnotised/drugged... Angelina Love, I think, into being in love with her. This meant Love could no-sell... for some reason?
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Feb 12, 2014 18:38
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At first it was hinted that she was some weird hallucination but I don't think that lasted long.
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Feb 12, 2014 18:52
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No she absolutely was. Angelina would have full conversations with her and then the rest of the beautiful people would walk in and thought she was crazy because there was nobody there.
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Feb 12, 2014 18:58
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78XbX5tVFeY Don't forget when Ultimate Warrior appeared in Hogan's mirror and Hogan and the commentators could see him but Bischoff couldn't.
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Feb 12, 2014 19:01
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What you should do with an imaginary friend/split personality gimmick is have the imaginary character come out to the ring after the real character has an episode, and have the announcers and everyone sell it as if it is the original character. But you at home can tell that the split personality has taken over! I'm waiting for my call from TNA.
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Feb 12, 2014 19:04
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That had to be a weird initial meeting to be in for Katie Lea. "Well I'm an accomplished wrestler who had a good run in developmental and then got squandered on tv as a weird quasi-incestuous valet. What you got for me?" "You'll be a cheerleader's psychosis. Get out there. Also we're not paying you."
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Feb 12, 2014 19:05
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She should have come out wearing a black and white lucha mask.
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Feb 12, 2014 19:09
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sleepingbuddha posted:Has the introduction of the PG era actually led to increased ratings and attendance? I haven't seen any recent numbers, but amusingly enough Meltzer has said that the PG-era has actually made the WWE audience skew older. There were way more young people watching during the Attitude era. Granted, there were way more people of every age watching during the boom period probably.
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Feb 12, 2014 19:18
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projecthalaxy posted:That had to be a weird initial meeting to be in for Katie Lea. I'm sure she got food stamp. No, not a typo.
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Feb 12, 2014 19:38
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Thauros posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78XbX5tVFeY I love this one. The implication is that Hogan's crazy for seeing the Warrior in the mirror. But the commentators could see him and we could see him. So that would mean that Bischoff was crazy, but he was set up to be the straight man in the bit.  How do you gently caress that up to have the complete opposite of the intended effect?
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Feb 12, 2014 19:51
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Back at Wrestlemania 24, how did people take Undertaker beating Edge's streak at Mania? Were there people who thought it was stupid because they should have kept Edge's streak going, or was it a foregone conclusion he was going to lose?
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Feb 12, 2014 20:29
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