I'm off work today and bored so it's time to revisit a classic topic I'm sure we did at least once on the old PW.

*I'm going to try avoiding character changes for the most part (heel to face and vice versa) since I'd change my mind on 95% of the wrestlers who turned between 87-95.

Negative to Positive

Michael Hayes & Terry Gordy- Hated the Freebirds growing up. Thought they were crap. Michael Hayes was the double whammy of bad + annoying while Terry Gordy was a boring skinny fat goober with goofy hair. Gordy getting the Hulk Hogan treatment when he showed up at The Arena to fight Raven was one of the biggest mind screws of my life as a wrestling fan. Gordy was also in the running for THEE worst wrestler in WWF during his brief 1996 run feuding with Undertaker as The Executioner. And keep in mind Fake Razor, PIG & Crush were in the company at the time. That's how bad Terry Gordy was. But then I watched the Freebirds 86-87 UWF run in the early 2000s and realized the Freebirds really did rule back in the day. Hayes was gold on the mic and one of the best heels of around. Definitely a guy I'd build a promotion around had I owned one back then. While Gordy was just a straight up wrestling machine. They also ruled in World Class and during their brief Memphis run. Still haven't come around on Buddy Roberts & Jimmy Garvin though  :lol:

Buddy Landell- I was legit pissed when this skinny fat Ric Flair cosplaying geezer showed at In Your House December 1995 to job in under a minute to Ahmed Johnson. Like I found his mere existence offensive. And I was even a little pissed at Vince for trotting this turd out on a show people paid good money to see. Buddy followed that inglorious appearance up by actually winning a match! With a simple elbow drop! In 1995!   :lol:  At that moment my opinion changed from loathing "the worst wrestler in the world" for sucking so much, and being an insult to the legendary Ric Flair, to finding ironic amusement in the sheer audacity of his level of suck. Here was a guy who turned sucking into an artform. He was now the Ed Wood of pro wrestling. Oh, but it gets better. The (false) story we heard was that Buddy Landell broke his ankle leaving the ring after a match with Bret Hart  :rofl: Now cruel as it is, we saw this as the ultimate Buddy Landell move. For months, if not years after that, my wrestling fan clique used "pull a Buddy Landell" as a euphemism for screwing something up. Like "Rick Buddy Landelled his driving test." Rick & I marked out when Buddy showed up to job to HHH on a 1998 edition of Shotgun (naturally taking the Pedigree in the wimpiest, most "Buddy Landell" way imaginable). I got online in 1998 and quickly learned that some people had very odd opinions on wrestling like thinking 1995 WWF sucked, the Freebirds were good, Fit Finlay matches were more exciting than watching paint dry, and, weirdest of the weird, Buddy Landell was a good pro wrestler! I just dismissed this as trolling. For I knew first hand that Buddy Landell didn't just suck in your run of the mill Freebirds or Fit Finlay kind of way. Oh no! Buddy went above and beyond that mere commonplace suck. For Buddy Landell was the God of Suck. He was the living embodiment of suck in its wrestling form. But at some point I got Mid South & mid 80s Crockett tapes and, what the hell?!?! Buddy Landell legit rules! Holy shit! Mind blown! Maybe everything I thought I knew is wrong. The world is flat. John Elway isn't the GOAT QB. Buddy Landell rules. And I know nothing about pro wrestling.

Goldberg- I was a brainwashed WWF fanboy who never even really saw Goldberg yet dismissed him as an overpushed turd of a wrestler without an ounce of originally who stole Austin's look and Shamrock's gimmick. His shitty 2003 WWF run just reaffirmed my belief. But now I think Goldberg was pretty damn great at what he did. He was an awesome squasher with some killer moves, great athleticism, and 10/10 look, intensity & persona. I'd never say he's anywhere near an all time favorite or anything but I dig me some Goldberg nowadays.

DDP- Started out like Michael Hayes, but worse. Annoying & bad, stuck in an endless feud with the equally awful Johnny B. Badd. DDP winning Lord of the Ring was one of the weirdest things ever. Right up there with Roadie & Rockabilly getting a super push as an ace tag team. I quit watching WCW not long after that and could never believe they were pushing this turd as a big star. And as a babyface, no less! In fact, "lol DDP is one of your big stars!" was one of my big arguments for WWF > WCW over the next few years. Had no interest in him when he came to WWF after the buyout. Was perfectly fine with him being squashed by Taker. He grew on me during the awesome motivational speaker gimmick and was rapidly climbing my Favorites List when an injury caused him to leave. Around the same time I started watching all that late 90s WCW stuff I missed in real time and what the hell?!? DDP really did get good?!? And ever since then he's been one of my favorite late 90s WCW guys to watch.

Roddy Piper- Kind of a Freebirds situation in that I still think he sucks post-1987 but at least now I know he rules before that. Until a few years ago I thought Piper had ALWAYS sucked, and his "great" mid-80s heel run was just a myth/WWE propaganda. Now I know better. He was one of the best in the business during the mid 80s and probably would have been in my Fave Five had I been watching in 85-86.

Positive To Negative

Disco Inferno- Found him very amusing at first. Was one of my WCW faves in 95-96. Can't stand watching him any time after that. The worst was when TNA tried pushing him as a serious main eventer. Ugh. It's no wonder people always thought that TNA was days away from going out of business.

Hurricane- Like Disco, he was amusing at first. One of my favorite wrestlers in 2001. Then the gimmick got stale. Yet they kept it going and going and going. I was also disappointed by his wrestling. I had been lead to believe he was this big movez guy when in reality his wrestling style was more akin to a cruiserweight Basham with occasional dumb "comedy" spots. The only thing worse than post-2001 Hurricane is regular ol' Gregory Helms: world's most boring cruiserweight. 

Brian Christopher- I've been through this one before. Apter Mag hype + a few cool moves went a long way with me. Was actually a big BC fan from 97-00 but when I turned on him, I turned hard. Now I find him incredibly annoying and a sad case of wasted talent. 

William Regal- Kilgore is gonna hate this but Lord Steven Regal is honestly one of my Top 10 favorite wrestlers of the 90s. Loved him. Great gimmick. Great sports entertainer. Gold on the mic. GOAT tv champion. Favorite WCW wrestler in 93-94. The Bluebloods were literally the only thing I'd watch WCW for during most of 1995. Wanted him to main event in 1996. I was still a pretty big Regal fan in 2000-01 WWE. Early William Regal wasn't all that much different than my man Lord Steven. But then they changed him from a wimpy heel Honkytonk Man-type to a "great wrestler" pseudo-badass. Meanwhile he's having back to back to back shitty series with Jericho, Edge & RVD- 3 wrestlers I enjoyed against just about everyone else. By 2002, I just wanted him gone. No such luck. That's around the time I declared him the new worst wrestler in the world- a title he would hold for much of the 2000s. 

SAT/Maximos- Loved these guys at first. Had a bunch of awesome double teams. Thought they were the next evolution in tag team wrestling in 2001.  But they got exposed in record fashion. Those scramble matches on early ROH shows were brutal. Then they shit the bed against Daniels & Morgan in a traditional tag match and were barely booked anywhere important after that. Few in wrestling have ever went from hero to zero quicker than Joel & Jose Maximo.

Kane- Some of this is booking. But most of this is just Kane sucking. Loved Kane at first. Great gimmick. But he also didn't seem THAT terrible in the ring. He'd break out a new move here and there, and could be pretty good in the right situations with the right opponent. I remained a Kane fan through 1999. But the bottom fell out at some point during the endless X Pac feud. They had a hundred matches. None of them were particularly good. And Kane remained a bad wrestler having bad matches for the rest of the 2000s, with only the rare, occasional bright spot. His 2003 deserves a special mention. And a special place in hell. I'd take Isaac Yankem over EVIL PSYCHO Kane. At least Yankem only had a bad match with Bret. EVIL PSYCHO Kane couldn't even have decent gimmick matches with nutters like Shane & RVD. Kane probably has the lowest good to bad ratio of any longterm upper midcarder in WWE history. Just a bad pro wrestler.

Shelton Benjamin- Loved WGTT/Team Angle, which he was the clear star of. Remained a fan of his as an up and coming babyface in 04-05. Then I lost interest. He never progressed beyond "athletic good wrestler guy" and he wasn't even THAT great to begin with outside of ladder matches. No personality. No mic skills. Goofy offense. They turned him heel and face a couple times after that. Yet he always remained boring and yesterday's news.

Konnan- I have a soft spot for early, colorful, Aztec Warrior WCW Konnan. Psicosis made him look like a million bucks in his Clash debut which had me buying into Konnan as not just a "good wrestler guy" but a "new style" good wrestler guy, which is totally better than just a regular good wrestler guy. Well, the more I saw of Konnan, the less impressed I was. And I was done with him even before he became Disco Inferno-levels of annoying as the bowdy bowdy rowdy rowdy gangsta guy. And the less said about his TNA run & ROH appearance, the better. Easily one of my least favorite wrestlers from 1997 on. 

Val Venis- Basically the wrestling equivalent of Bart Simpson's "I didn't do it" shtick. One of my favorite guys in 1998 entirely due to gimmick. I didn't want to see Val Venis wrestle. I just wanted funny (for a minute) vignettes and double entendres. Any time he strayed from the "Hello Ladies" stuff, he flopped. Oh, but it gets worse. Because even the Rick Rude 2.0 stuff got old. So Val soon became a case of "damned if you, damned if you don't." His non-fake Rick Rude heel stuff was always met with apathy. But then reverting back to proper Val would get old again in a week or two. A lot of people praise him as an in ring competitor but I always found him far too...mechanical (for lack of a better word). Like too pre-planned, or something. 

Al Snow- This one actually hurts a little. Aside from Regal, all those guys were more like 2nd tier favorites even in their heyday. But Snow was a first tier guy as Leif Cassidy in 1996 and then again in 1998 ECW & early WWF. He fell fast and he fell hard. I was already over Snow by the time 1998 ended. His "comedy" was dreadful. The Head gimmick was one of the dumbest things ever (again, very much an "I didn't do it" kind of thing). His wrestling became lazy as he transitioned from "new style" to bad hardcore stuff. Oh, but it gets worse. Because even his "new style" stuff doesn't hold up well. Yeah, Leif Cassidy broke out a new variation of a move just about every time I saw him in 1996. But looking back now, most of those "new moves" were just old moves with a sitout. 

*And then you have guys like Michaels, Booker, HHH, Edge & Christian, Goldust, etc. who fluctuated back and forth several times. Hell, I turned on just about every wrestler I ever liked at some point, even if it was only for a week or two in a lot of cases.

I was just thinking about this the other day.

POSITIVE TO NEGATIVE

Shawn Michaels - Always enjoyed his presence on the show where he was the authority figure who'd make occasional cameos, but then he just stuck around. I wouldn't have had a problem if he was actually relevant, but he just assumed the role of a living legend with little to say and it felt like he was having the same feuds over and over again. Also, I blame his matches with HHH for my disdain for self-aware classics. If you want to know why I really don't care for the PWG style, just watch HHH-HBK at Armageddon 2002, Royal Rumble 2004 and Bad Blood 2004 and you'll get the picture.

NEGATVE TO POSITIVE

X-Pac - For years I just saw him as the guy who face-fucks everybody. I hated the Bronco Buster and anytime X-Pac was in the news it was never for the right reasons. However, I became less of a mark, stopped giving a shit about the X-Pac heat meme (which always felt like bullshit, even in 2001 as much as I wanted it to be true) and sat down and watched more of his work. His early WWF 90s stuff held up incredibly well and I could see how smart he was in the ring. I agree with you Bake in regards to the Kane/X-Pac program. It dragged on for way too long and actively became the worst segment on any show it was on. However, the Survivor Series '99 and Armaggeddon '99 matches are really smart matches for what they are. If you look at it from the angle that it's David v Goliath and Goliath is the blue eyed babyface then the matches somehow hit that mark and then some. Also for whatever reason, I couldn't stand X-Pac, but under the monicker of Syxx, I thought he was awesome. A large part of that is because of how others talked about his run in 96-97, but there was also that River Phoenix 'gone too soon' appeal to it.

I'll post more later on, but I flip flop on wrestlers all the time. Usually the cycle goes that I become fans of them initially, I see way too much of their stuff and begin to hate their weaker material. The weaker material then exposes flaws in their other work I hadn't seen before I write them off, only for somebody to remind me of something they did and I come around to them again. Foley and Jericho are pretty good examples of this cycle. Foley during his TNA run started to bother me, especially when every promo essentially became some form of Cane Dewey. Jericho was around the time he made a comeback in 2014, jobbed out to Fandango before going into a feud with Bray Wyatt who was red hot at the time.

Oct 31, 2017 11:20:50 GMT Big Pete said:

NEGATVE TO POSITIVE

X-Pac 

Good call on Pac. He's a guy I like far more now than I ever did while he was active (aside from Sid & The Kid, of course). 

Underdog babyface 1-2-3 Kid (who usually won) wasn't my cup of tea as a character and I didn't care much about workrate, or match quality yet.

Sid & The Kid obviously ruled. I liked Kid until he lost the Crybaby Match to Razor. It was hard to view him as anything but a loser after that.

Then came the "sellout" phase where I was an obvious hater.

I liked XPac for almost one night when he returned to cut a fun promo the night after Wrestlemania 14. But then he screwed Funk & Foley, so screw him.

By this point I was a movez guy, so I was excited to see The Kid back. But Kid was no longer a state of the art movez guy by 1998-99. So he was a pretty annoying character (I was not a DX fan) who didn't even have cool movez. I had no use for him.

Then came the X Pac heat phase where I was obviously a hater. There was one night where I liked him again. He returned from an absence to clobber Hogan with a chairshot and (possibly) cut a good promo. 

So during his 9 year run in the Big Two I liked X Pac for about 4-5 months + 2 random nights. That puts him roughly on par with....I dunno, Typhoon, maybe. Hardly a Baker Guy. Let's put it that way.

But now he's one of my favorite guys to watch when I revisit the New Generation or early Attitude Era. He was a great bumper, good energetic underdog babyface, and an even better sleazeball heel. Just a solid midcard hand. The sort of guy who makes a promotion better.

Oct 30, 2017 17:25:41 GMT Baker said:

Negative to Positive

Goldberg- I was a brainwashed WWF fanboy who never even really saw Goldberg yet dismissed him as an overpushed turd of a wrestler without an ounce of originally who stole Austin's look and Shamrock's gimmick. His shitty 2003 WWF run just reaffirmed my belief. But now I think Goldberg was pretty damn great at what he did. He was an awesome squasher with some killer moves, great athleticism, and 10/10 look, intensity & persona. I'd never say he's anywhere near an all time favorite or anything but I dig me some Goldberg nowadays.


Positive To Negative

Kane- Some of this is booking. But most of this is just Kane sucking. Loved Kane at first. Great gimmick. But he also didn't seem THAT terrible in the ring. He'd break out a new move here and there, and could be pretty good in the right situations with the right opponent. I remained a Kane fan through 1999. But the bottom fell out at some point during the endless X Pac feud. They had a hundred matches. None of them were particularly good. And Kane remained a bad wrestler having bad matches for the rest of the 2000s, with only the rare, occasional bright spot. His 2003 deserves a special mention. And a special place in hell. I'd take Isaac Yankem over EVIL PSYCHO Kane. At least Yankem only had a bad match with Bret. EVIL PSYCHO Kane couldn't even have decent gimmick matches with nutters like Shane & RVD. Kane probably has the lowest good to bad ratio of any longterm upper midcarder in WWE history. Just a bad pro wrestler.

Shelton Benjamin- Loved WGTT/Team Angle, which he was the clear star of. Remained a fan of his as an up and coming babyface in 04-05. Then I lost interest. He never progressed beyond "athletic good wrestler guy" and he wasn't even THAT great to begin with outside of ladder matches. No personality. No mic skills. Goofy offense. They turned him heel and face a couple times after that. Yet he always remained boring and yesterday's news.

Val Venis- Basically the wrestling equivalent of Bart Simpson's "I didn't do it" shtick. One of my favorite guys in 1998 entirely due to gimmick. I didn't want to see Val Venis wrestle. I just wanted funny (for a minute) vignettes and double entendres. Any time he strayed from the "Hello Ladies" stuff, he flopped. Oh, but it gets worse. Because even the Rick Rude 2.0 stuff got old. So Val soon became a case of "damned if you, damned if you don't." His non-fake Rick Rude heel stuff was always met with apathy. But then reverting back to proper Val would get old again in a week or two. A lot of people praise him as an in ring competitor but I always found him far too...mechanical (for lack of a better word). Like too pre-planned, or something. 

Al Snow- This one actually hurts a little. Aside from Regal, all those guys were more like 2nd tier favorites even in their heyday. But Snow was a first tier guy as Leif Cassidy in 1996 and then again in 1998 ECW & early WWF. He fell fast and he fell hard. I was already over Snow by the time 1998 ended. His "comedy" was dreadful. The Head gimmick was one of the dumbest things ever (again, very much an "I didn't do it" kind of thing). His wrestling became lazy as he transitioned from "new style" to bad hardcore stuff. Oh, but it gets worse. Because even his "new style" stuff doesn't hold up well. Yeah, Leif Cassidy broke out a new variation of a move just about every time I saw him in 1996. But looking back now, most of those "new moves" were just old moves with a sitout. 

Parsed this down to emphasize exactly where Baker hit the nail on the head for me.

Can't echo you and Big Pete about Waltman though... fucking loved him since Day One.

Negative to Positive 

AJ Styles
Started life as another TNA spot monkey, I actually considered Chris Sabin the better worker at that point. He was never especially great on the mic, could barely cut a promo and was a charisma black hole for much of his career. Over time, he became a fantastic worker. His move to NJPW, and his reincarnation during the BC years turned him into one hell of a cool guy. 

Trish Stratus
She was all Tits and Ass in the beginning, not a lot of talent really. And I didn't especially think, she was that hot at the time. WCW had one over WWF in regards to hot women. When she started wrestling more, toned up a lot and got super-hot, at the same time becoming one hell of a character, and one of the pioneering women in wrestling everything changed. 

Edge
I couldn't stand Edge. I remember him headbanging awkwardly to Rob Zombie on stage, and fuck it was painful. He was cheesey as a babyface and tried way to hard to be cool. He had the super long hair, the bright attire, that stupid grin on his face.... becoming the Rated-R Superstar changed that. 

Positive to Negative

Eddie Guerrero
Not a fan. I said it. I don't like Eddie Guerrero. I liked him in WCW, I liked him in the WWF, the first time around. I liked Los Guerreros, I liked the heel turn. I hated babyface Eddie, the same tired, boring, lie, cheat, steal routine every single fucking week. 

Jeff Hardy
Great tag team guy, I just thought, he was a sloppy, weak worker, with shitty offense that made everything look so fucking hard. It always feels like, the other guy in the ring is working so hard to keep the match together. 

More Negative to Positive

Writing about Tito Santana in my AWF post last night reminded me of how he fits this thread. I didn't care about Tito at all growing up. Whether he was in Strike Force, a Matador, or wrestling in rounds, the result was always the same- apathetic boredom. He just wasn't my type of wrestler. It wasn't until I went back to watch some old 80s WWF in the late 2000s that I grew to appreciate the man Jesse Ventura called "Chico." He was a good fiery babyface and a surprisingly great brawler. I think his historical legacy is hurt a little by spending so much time in WWF. Something tells me he'd be much more revered had he spent the bulk of his career in the South having blood feuds in NWA, Mid South, and/or World Class. He's still not an all time favorite, or even a second tier favorite, by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not going to pass on a Tito vs. Somebody Decent match nowadays.

Barbarian is another. Growing up I liked his antlers and furry attire. And he had a good match with Eddie Guerrero once on Nitro. But the Powers of Pain were just a poor man's Demolition, he had no hook as a singles wrestler (unless you count the antlers, which to be fair, is perfectly acceptable), and I thought the Faces of Fear were dull, boring, and much too 80s WWF for their time and place. Well, since coming here I've grown to appreciate this antler-clad warrior. He was an above average big man. Again, he's not Ludvig f'n Borga god tier all of a sudden, but I dig the Barbarian nowadays.

Van Hammer- Thought he sucked as a kid outside of one miracle match with Cactus Jack. Now I think he could have made Vince and himself millions of dollars. Sylvester Stallone ain't got nothin' on Van Hammer when it comes to performing in worked arm wrestling matches.

Toru Yano immediately comes to mind. When I first saw him, most likely in some tag match at Wrestle Kingdom 9, I was far from impressed. A goofy-looking, pale, out-of-shape wrestler with stupid hair and a goofy RVD-like taunt. He'd sometimes say something in Japanese and the crowd would laugh and I wouldn't laugh because I don't know Japanese and fuck Toru Yano. I remember at the time Baker kept praising him, and like most Baker guys, I didn't even try to empathise. But as I kept watching NJPW, he grew on me. Slowly but sure, I started to change my mind. I guess that the turn completed at G1 Climax 2015, because Yano in the G1 is the best Yano. In multi-tag matches he doesn't get to show his stuff. In singles, you get the full Yano bag of tricks, and they are awesome. Genuinely funny wrestling. Plus he's always finding ways to freshen up his act. Yano is an absolutely highlight of every G1.

Jeff Hardy
The Hardy Boyz were one of my early favourites. They looked cool and had cool music and flew around the ring and jumped off tall things. That's cool to a preteen kid. But as I matured, and as Matt and Jeff matured, I stopped liking them as much. Jeff in particular. I thought, and I still think, that he's a pretty bad singles wrestler. He can sell alright, but his offense is god awful and his wacky attire can't disguise the fact that he's one of the skinniest wrestlers ever. These things made it hard for me to suspend my disbelief. I remember in 2007 he kept beating Umaga over and over again and I thought it was stupid as fuck. But the crowd worshipped him, and I never understood why. I never turned on Matt Hardy. At some points I was indifferent to him, but V1 was awesome, his run in WWECW was awesome, and Broken Matt was awesome.

Drew McIntyre
A lot of people have flip-flopped on Drew McIntyre in recent years. They thought he was the shits in WWE, then he went to the indies and now he's the shit. My view is the opposite. Drew was one of my favourites when he arrived on the Smackdown roster in the mid 2000s. His style wasn't flashy but was somewhat original. He had a gimmick of using the ring structure to deal offense and turn the tides of the match. It wasn't anything groundbreaking, but it was fairly fresh, and I liked him. His heel work was phenomenal as well. Savage. As much as I want to like McIntyre now, I think he sucks. I wouldn't say his wrestling ability has regressed, it's just I find him so boring to watch. He doesn't really have a character. There are better power wrestlers than him. There are better brawlers. There are way better strike finishers. He doesn't stand out in any way besides getting overpushed everywhere he's gone since leaving WWE.

Negative To Positive

Miz:
I HATED miz when he first showed up and I hated him as well when he was teaming with John Morrison. I thought Morrison should have been the break out star of the two. He did gain some traction with me though in his first feud with John Cena and then kept that momentum going and got his wrestlemania main event run. Then after that he went to shit. He had a horrible run as a babyface which just isn't Miz, Miz is to easy to hate and should never be the traditional good guy character. Then when I suspected his career would never rebound, he gets Maryse in his corner, beats Zach Ryder to win some gold and ever since then he's been one of the few consistently good performers in WWE. He's got a very effective style that is perfect for his persona and on the mic I think he's as solid as he's ever been. As a total package performer, Miz is probably the best talent on the roster.

Positive to Negative
Ken Shamrock:
I remember being really into the guy when he first burst on the scene and thought he was a total badass the way he beat the shit out of the rock so bad at wrestlemania 14 that they reversed the decision and disqualified Ken Shamrock. lol. Good times. As time wore on though it became obvious that Ken Shamrock lacked the personality to be a top dog in the attitude era. If Shamrock had come into WWE in like 1995-1996 I think he could have got a title run but he came in at a time when it was all about the big personalities and he just lacked that. His persona was being intense but that was about it. I think they tried to remedy this with the heel turn but any magic he had long disappeared and Kenny just seemed content to float along and towards the end of his run it kind of resonated in his matches that he didn't really want to be in WWE anymore. Shamrock was nothing more than a flash in the pan whose high point was mania 14. After that he was pretty much just a dude on the roster.