2010 Pro Wrestling Thread

I have no other opinions than this one: I would be ashamed and embarrassed if I was a fan chanting "Never Give Up" at John Cena. Wow, just wow.

 

Why? The fans are willing to suspend their belief for the show. In an age of the Internet and little kayfabe, it's almost refreshing to see the fans get emotionally involved in a wrestler.

Look back 20 or 30 years. Fans used to riot if they didn't like what the heel was doing. Heck, when Bruno dropped the strap to Koloff in '71, they didn't even announce Koloff as the winner because they feared the fans would riot.

The ref told Koloff to get the hell out of the ring. Bruno even said later that the crowd was so quiet, he thought the ref had a heart attack or something, and was pretty disturbed to see fans crying as he walked back to the dressing room. Heck, he was happy, because he could go on a vacation.

 

I get your point and I think it's fine for fans to be invested in their favorite wrestler. That chant just sounded so lame, I was surprised that a group of fans that usually chants things so sarcastic and such would go with something so corny.

 

That's implying that the fans doing the chanting weren't kids. I'm sure that chant wouldn't have taken in Philly.

 

Yeah, in Philly, you'd have a "F' him up, Nexus, F' him up!" clap, clap, chant.

God, I miss the old ECW.

 

I got more questions...I know "not more questions" LOL. If you guys don't like these let me know and I'll stop asking them. These question will be more in depth this time around. They will be a little harder to answer and you might have to think about it for a while.

1) What are your thoughts on dog collar/strap/biker chain matches?

2) Your three favourite Intercontinental or US Title feuds of the 21st century?

3) What are your thoughts on Chris Benoit's time with the hoursemen?

4) Thoughts on the Mega Bucks? Mega Powers? The feud?

5) Thoughts and memories of Brother Love

6) How much have you seen of Lawler's work as a wrestler? How would you rate him?

7) Is there anything from previous eras of wrestling you would like to see implemented more often in the current WWE product?

8) When did kayfabe die as far as you are concerned?

9) Greatest WWE feud of the decade?

10) A rather strange question this, but if somebody you know who doesn't like wrestling asked you to show them 5 matches to sum up why you enjoy it, which ones would you choose? You can show them an extended video package of the feud which led to the match if necessary, so don't worry about them not "getting it" from the match alone.

This person has obviously heard of Hogan, Rock, Austin and all the other wrestlers who are famous outside of the wrestling world, but they've never watched a show or a match and basically don't understand the appeal.

 

Too many questions.

 

1. Fine and dandy, as long as they're rare, and bloody, and used to cap off a feud.

2. Too many title changes for me to care or remember.

3. Helped establish him as a personality a bit, in his own way. Before that, he was just a good worker.

4. It was OK, I guess. Thought it was fairly hokey.

5. A pain in the butt, but that was a good thing because he could get heat. One time as a teen, I was watching BL, and my mom, who hated wrestling, watched him for a minute. At one point, BL goes, "Ahhh, lovvvve, yuh." And my mom was like, "Yuh? This is stupid. Why are you watching this?"

6. In his prime, he was an OK worker, and a very good ring psychologist. He had a very good ability to get the crowd to either love him or hate him.

7. More blood, enough of this PG crap, although I don't want the gratuitious sex references.

8. The first time I read about wrestling on the internet, where they talked about behind the scenes stuff. I'd known that it was a show, but I wasn't sure how it all worked. I'd say, this was around 1995, or so.

9. It's all really a blur, but I'll say Michaels/Undertaker. I'm sure someone else can come up with something better.

10. Flair/Steamboat (pick any one)
Foley/Undertaker, HITC
Hogan/Andre, WM3
Dynamite Kid/Tiger Mask (from Japan, pick any one)
Some sort of original ECW match.

 

When done right, they're fantastic. However, it's so rare that's they are. The dog collar match between Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine from Starrcade 1983 is one of my favorite stipulation match of all time. Sadly, there's been so few other good ones. Punk had a couple of good ones against Raven and Rave in ROH and AMW had a fun one with Kid Kash and Lance Hoyt in TNA. The problem is that no one is really putting effort into these matches. For regular strap matches, they just whip each other a few times. For the "Touch four corners" they run the same Dusty finish so often. It lacks so much imagination.

Mine are as follows:

Chris Benoit vs MVP (US Title 2007) - Was a rare chance for the US title to be contested in a simple, yet perfect feud. While an early death is depressing and with the events that lead to Benoit's death makes it even more disturbing, the career of Benoit at least ended on a high note. Benoit was able to have the one memorable feud that the US title has had this past 11 years and help establish a newcomer as a top midcarder. I tend to praise this feud often, but for good reason. Instead of instantly pushing the rookie to the top like they have so many times, they allowed the feud to play out with the veteran using his experience to always beat the rookie. By time MVP finally got the win and the title, he had clearly earned it and more importantly, earned credibility. Despite being in some decent feuds since then (The Hardy 2007 one was fairly decent, although the injuries hurt it a lot), he's yet to recapture the magic that was in that feud.

Chris Jericho vs Rey Mysterio (IC Title 2009) - Since being brought back in 2003, the IC Title had failed to capture the attention of the bookers enough to be used wisely. You had a couple of good champions in Randy Orton (2004) and Shelton Benjamin (2004-2005), but even they failed to have a great feud built around the title. Finally in 2009, things changed as the feud of the year was built around trading the IC title back and forth. It could be argued that the feud was more about Mysterio's mask, but at least the title was being used. Think back to Jericho's feud of the year with Shawn Michaels. Was the IC title ever on the line? For those few months, Jericho and Mysterio managed to bring back the old days where the IC title was delivering match of the nights and even my choice for match of the year. Alas, they couldn't keep the momentum going and the title lost it's hype almost immediately after their feud ended.

Chris Benoit vs Chris Jericho (IC Title 2000-2001) - The feud so nice they had to have it twice. Yes, that was a corny rhyme, but the feud did deliver on several occasions. Their matches were pretty simple, they were just great. Here you had two top midcarders who had flirted with the main event scene during it as well, putting on matches on PPV that was given time. This is really what the IC title was built upon. You didn't have the huge stars or was the main reason why fans were coming to the shows, but they just went out there and most of the time stole the show. It's also a sort of bittersweet feud as once it was over, the title was never the same. These two were a major reason why 2000-early 2001 was such a great time for quality matches. I'd even be willing to argue that they're THE reason why the in ring product improved so much from 1999. The main event was mostly delivering in 1999, it was the midcards that needed help.

Benoit became one of my favorite wrestler while with the Horsemen. His performance in the War Games match in 1997 is the exact moment when he went from being just someone I liked to one of my favorites. While he didn't quite have the charisma and mic skills to be a traditional member of the Horsemen, his skills were more than enough to retain the honor that the early Horsemen had. It's just a shame that they didn't do enough with Benoit and the Horsemen during those years. The best time for Benoit was after the Horsemen was disbanded and he and Malenko were putting on those great tag team matches in 1999.

While the feud wasn't a great way to make Savage stand tall as a World Champion, it was a great storyline and feud. The Mega Bucks is exactly what is missing from today's wrestling. Here you had a feud that had been in the making for a full year before finally having their one-on-one match. I do think it was also a mistake depushing Savage after Wrestlemania 5. After this great angle, he should have been a main eventer until he left in 1994. Instead, we had the awful Jim Duggan and Dusty Rhodes feuds.

If there was one temporary team I wished had become full time, it was the Mega Bucks. Andre was perfect for DiBiase since it showed that money could get Ted just about anything. DiBiase is another guy who suffered after the Mega Powers feud ended. He had the feud with Hercules (Who was hinted at possibly joining the Mega Powers as the third member), Dusty Rhodes, Kerry Von Erich, Big Boss Man and Virgil, all of which I thought were poor moves. He did get lucky with a great Jake Roberts feud though. But I suppose there wasn't much of a point to keep them together now that I think about when Vince could have given them the belts. Wrestlemania 5 had to be the blow off between Demolition and Powers of Pain. With the Brainbusters kicking some serious ass, I wouldn't have kept them from winning the belts. By late '89, DiBiase had started the feud with Jake Roberts (Who ironically had feuded approx the same amount of time the year before) so I wouldn't have replaced Haku with DiBiase. Quite the difference from today when I wouldn't keep a team together that I liked because there were too many great teams.

As for the actual feud, it was the perfect way to headline the first Summerslam. With Andre in such poor health, he was best off being in tag matches in order to draw the amount he was capable of, but able to let the partner do the heavy work. That was easily Andre's best match in the final few years.

Brother Love was great and knew how to get the heat. I really wished he would of had a bigger role in the WWE in the late 80's. What made Love so great in his character is that it was so easy to hate him. The Brother Love Show is one of the more underrated talk shows in wrestling history. Some major storylines happened on the show. Earthquake injuring Hulk Hogan to the point that Hogan nearly retires, Rick Martel blinding Jake Roberts with Arrogance, major events in the buildup to Mega Powers vs Mega Bucks and of course the epic start of the Randy Savage/Dusty Rhodes feud.

Lawler was good in the style that he worked. His match vs Kerry Von Erich from Superclash III is one of my favorite 80's matches. Sadly, most of his good stuff fans are unable to see since the WWE doesn't own it. I'm not a huge fan of the Memphis style, but Jerry did do it well.

As far as rating goes, I'd rate him as a performer higher than a wrestler. Meaning, he gets the story across better than the ring action.

Squash matches for me. While it may not seem exciting, I really feel as if big match feel of the past is slowly dying off because squashes went away. If done right, I think people can still be interested. Look at Colin Delaney's ECW run.

The WWE doesn't have any major first time one-on-one matches left(that I can think of at the moment). Bringing back squashes would ease up on the amount of times we have to watch a match.

I dont believe kayfave is something that just died in all honesty. It was a long process of events happening that really did the killing. Even though nothing killed kayfabe as much as the Montreal Screw Job and McMahon's interviews afterward, it's not as if everyone believed wrestling was real prior to that. However, I wouldn't say McMahon killed kayfabe during the Rock 'n' Wrestling era either. You can trace back kayfabe killers back nearly 50 years ago when wrestling results were still published in newspapers. This all ended when a promoter sent in the results prior to the event taking place.

That being said, kayfabe isn't totally dead. Instead, kayfabe has morphed into something new. While we all know it's fake, we still buy into kayfabe. This "Real" hate or love is just a new form of kayfabe. Edge and Lita are a great example of this in 2005. Without knowing anything about how things happened, all the fans knew was that Edge and Lita had an affair. Suddenly, Lita was getting "Slut" chants while Edge was getting some "Edge Screwed Matt" chants. The WWE took this thought of who these two people were and based a character around them. Using this, they became the biggest heels of 2005. Likewise, the bookers realized the hate that Cena was getting in late 2005 and early 2006. They played up to it. Look at the feud between Cena and Hunter at Wrestlemania. Without really knowing anything about Cena, they caused the fans to cheer for a guy that people hated just a couple of years earlier in Triple H. The same thing goes for Rob Van Dam. They didn't simple give him the belt at One Night Stand for nostalgia, they knew Cena would be booed out of the building which caused for great TV. Same thing happened the year before with Eric Bischoff.

How different are those above situations to when we believed it was real? Only now, we know the business is a work, but we can still be sucked into these kayfabe moments because we think we know everything.

There's the Edge and Christian vs Hardys vs Dudley Boyz feud. Even though I'd rather see straight out wrestling instead of spotty weapon use, anything that brought tag team wrestling back to being popular is fine by me. My main criticism is that they didn't really end the feud properly and it just sort of fizzled out.

I also enjoyed the Rock and Triple H feud in 2000. Rock helped Hunter produce some of his best matches ever. I thought the Mickie James/Trish Stratus feud was fantastic. Whenever women are one of the reasons why I would tune in, I have to give them their props. The Benoit vs MVP feud was well booked with experience winning out until the very end.

My favorite one though is Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit. Both men used the feud to stay in the spotlight and were the talk of the WWE. From 2000 to 2003, they tore it up over and over. Besides having one of the best matches of the decade, they never really had a bad one-on-one match. I really enjoyed the tag team storyline and wished it could of been continued longer than it was.

So, my top 5 matches to get people into wrestling:

(In no order, so disregard the numbers) Short matches are key in this situation in my opinion.

1. Randy Savage vs Ricky Steamboat - Wrestlemania 3 - WWE
Very simply storyline of the ultimate asshole finally getting his just desserts from the guy who nearly ended the career of. Minus the lead up to the match, the actual match is just under 15 minutes. That seems like the perfect amount of time.

2. Samoa Joe vs Jack Evans vs Ebessan vs Delirious - The Final Showdown - ROH
Maybe not this match specifically, but any sort of match that shows the lighter side of wrestling, without being lame. This just happened to be the first that popped into my head. Under 14 minutes.

3. Hulk Hogan vs The Rock - Wrestlemania 18 - WWE
Just the crowd reaction alone can suck anyone into the match. With these being two of the more well known wrestlers, it can show just how popular wrestling can be when it's great. The match clocks in just over 16 minutes.

4. Bret Hart vs Roddy Piper - Wrestlemania 8 - WWE
One of my favorite stories in a match. While very simple, it works so well in the different stages of the match. Once again, right around the fifteen minute point.

5. The Million Dollar Team vs The Dream Team - Survivor Series 1990 - WWE
A last minute thought. I think it really sums up what wrestling can be. Characters that you can easily tell what they're about, the arrival of a new mysterious man who just flat out dominates, a face against all odds trying to survive 2-on-1, finally, a good last segment between two talented workers. It's only about 14 minutes long and may not be anything great, but it's fun and showcases a lot.

 

Is everyone familiar with the Haters Gonna Hate meme?

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/haters-gonna-hate

Good.

Here's a badass one.

http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/1275273988994.gif

 

talk about the greatest feuds and matches has me trying to remember what event my favorite match of all time took place at.

It was Kurt Angle vs. Shane McMahon. I think it was a KOTR or Summer Slam. They were flipping and suplexing through stained glass windows set up as props for the event. It was a crazy match from bell to bell between two of my favorite characters and wreslters of all time. I think Shane was a very underrated wrestler. Of course he did so on a limited basis for his own health. Does anybody know the match I am referring to?

 

It was KOTR 2001. I still have a VHS copy of that match. All I could remember thinking was Angle killed Shane when he threw him through the glass and it didn't break. It was a great, great match.