What I never see get mentioned about pre-Monday Night wrestling is WCW Saturday Night was sort of a ramping up from the squash model to what would become modern matchmaking before Raw debuted, and when I first started watching already seemed head and shoulders above the pure squash atmosphere of WWF daytime television. WCW already had an exotic quality to it, but the fact that they had a weekly show where you would see at least a couple competitive matches was advantageous, really made WWF TV seem boring in comparison. Like I would literally wish WWF did that at that time. By the time Raw did debut, WCW Saturday Night's pendulum had already swung to more competitive than squashes.

Not to say Raw didn't change the game, but it's just another example of WCW getting the short end of the stick for helping change things.

Jan 26, 2022 3:14:13 GMT Big Pete said:

So if I'm reading that right, you would have liked to have seen JBL receive more credibility by scoring a definitive win to win his first championship and then you'd like to see him face Kurt since Kurt could put on better matches and bump more for JBL? So instead of turning JBL into a Honkey Tonk-style chicken shit heel you'd actually put him over stronger, but the half & half approach by the WWE just didn't do it for you? Have I got that right?

Also, would you have gone with JBL? It sounds like you're settling, if you had to pick one of those names you mentioned earlier - Christian, Eddie etc. who would you have gone with?

Eddie. He & JBL meshed well together 

Eddy's reluctance to the spotlight is probably a big reason they went with JBL. Makes you wonder if they had any real plans nearly a year later when he died. Yeah Steph like to proclaim he was gonna win when he died, but I don't buy it especially since Eddy supposedly said Orton should get it.

Jan 27, 2022 20:49:12 GMT @ness said:

Eddy's reluctance to the spotlight is probably a big reason they went with JBL. Makes you wonder if they had any real plans nearly a year later when he died. Yeah Steph like to proclaim he was gonna win when he died, but I don't buy it especially since Eddy supposedly said Orton should get it.

Court Bauer was working in the company at the time and said the original plan was to book Shawn Michaels vs. Eddie Guerrero as the show-stealer match on the card.

Batista would defend the World Title against Randy Orton.

Would have been interesting if Eddie had lived but Batista still got injured. Do they just go ahead and do the same thing except remove Rey from the picture? Do they still suspend Randy? Does King Booker even become a thing?

Am I wrong in saying the NWO swallowed WCW's identity? after all, perception is reality. The faction lasted 3 years & was brought back 6-9 months later?

"General Wrestling Talk" vs. THIS THREAD, what even is that? Because I'm not sure where things like this go.

Anyways BLADING... how insane is this? Taping a blade to your wrist to use in a match.

How do you even explain that to the first timer?

"Ya know how wrestling's fake, so what's gonna happen..."

There was pushback when WWE did away with blood and even bitched out with black and white footage. There was pushback. WWE fans pointing to TNA and be like "how can he color?". It enhanced certain matches but does it even matter?

Apparently Harley Race loved nothing more than to do it the hard way.

THIS IS A BUSINESS people wanna be in. I'm not making this stuff up.

Feb 2, 2022 23:35:58 GMT @ness said:

"General Wrestling Talk" vs. THIS THREAD, what even is that? Because I'm not sure where things like this go.

Anyways BLADING... how insane is this? Taping a blade to your wrist to use in a match.

How do you even explain that to the first-timer?

"Ya know how wrestling's fake, so what's gonna happen..."

There was pushback when WWE did away with blood and even bitched out with black and white footage. There was pushback. WWE fans point to TNA and are like "how can he color?". It enhanced certain matches but does it even matter?

Apparently, Harley Race loved nothing more than to do it the hard way.

THIS IS A BUSINESS people wanna be in. I'm not making this stuff up.

I remember watching The Wrestler. RAM was taking bumps with glass & shit. I found myself more disgusted by the blade close up than anything else.

Steve Blackman when he debuted in the WWF was legit a time-traveling copy pasta of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine/Logan.

🤯, I always wanted a Steve Blackman IC but, if that came at the expense of the formation of Head-cheese, HEAD CHEESE ALL DAY EVERY DAY!

Blackman only HC champ who carried weapons with him.

The Lion's den match was a sneaky fun match. Owen & Shamrock made it work.

You think WWF was hoping they could groom and push Kurrgan to be an André (or at least Bundy) level Goliath for Stone Cold to eventually slay?

Does anyone else sometimes confused Marc Mero and Lanny Poffo for one another?

Did anyone else ever think for as much as they pimped D-Lo Brown's accounting degree/CPA background that they should've just repacked him as IRS 2.0?

BTW, son & I are watching all the 1998 RAWs.

The first episode of the year is a really great standalone time capsule show.

Feb 10, 2022 22:40:47 GMT 🤯 said:

BTW, son & I are watching all the 1998 RAWs.

The first episode of the year is a really great standalone time capsule show.

So it this background noise into his head at this point? Hoping "you stuff" sets a foundation for him when he can choose what he wants later on?

Also no clue what the hell I typed just now, but I feel it made sense when I posted.

Had no idea Steve Blackman was such a PW darling. Unlike Hardcore Holly, this is one PW boy I cannot get behind. He was more like Steve Boringman to me what with his sub-Lance Storm charisma level. Nor was he over with either of my real life wrestling fan cliques. Only praise I can remember him receiving from a member of either group came from my friend Lauren The Rock Fan who simply liked his theme.

Feb 10, 2022 22:17:30 GMT 🤯 said:

You think WWF was hoping they could groom and push Kurrgan to be an André (or at least Bundy) level Goliath for Stone Cold to eventually slay?

Probably

Feb 10, 2022 22:25:49 GMT 🤯 said:

Does anyone else sometimes confused Marc Mero and Lanny Poffo for one another?

No

Feb 10, 2022 22:35:18 GMT 🤯 said:

Did anyone else ever think for as much as they pimped D-Lo Brown's accounting degree/CPA background that they should've just repacked him as IRS 2.0?

No, but I totally should have.
===========
Match is nothing special, but the crowd sure is. You won't find many acts more over than the Rock & Roll Express in mid 80s NWA...

Been listening to a lot of wrestling podcasts- Bruce, Cornette, JR, and Jarrett. Here are a few interesting tidbits I picked up along the way...

The original plan for Aldo Montoya was to have him portray a Portuguese soccer star nicknamed "The Portuguese Man O' War" who would kick soccer balls into the crowd. Prichard made fun of the idea on his podcast and Vince allegedly didn't like it either simply because he didn't know if PJ Walker could play soccer (as if that matters!). WWF kept the name and nickname, but dropped the soccer aspect of his character.

Call me crazy, but I think the soccer gimmick would have been better than what we got from Aldo. Real life Aldo Montoya was just a guy from Portugal. There was no hook beyond that. Which is precisely why I booked him as a 16th Century Portuguese explorer in my Rebooking The New Generation fanfic. An Arriaga (or Arriaga II) gimmick would have worked just as well.
==========
Hunter Hearst Helmsley allegedly volunteered to work an ECW Arena show while Undertaker was also open to showing up in ECW when WWF & ECW were working together in 1997. I can buy this because Taker & Heyman went back a long way and Triple H is a proven bandwagon hopper always ready to latch onto the latest hot trend in order to further his own career. It's one of the reasons he was the shrewdest political player in The Game for a quarter century.

Helmsley obviously would have been booed out of the building, but I'd have been mighty curious to see how the ECW Arena crowd would have reacted to Taker making a surprise appearance in the sacred bingo hall.
==========
Vince McMahon: Genius Talent Evaluator

Steve Austin: Decent enough mechanic. Can't cut a promo. Annoying Texas twang. Never let him anywhere near a microphone (according to Bruce)

Undertaker: "Big red-headed failed basketball player." Vince was so unimpressed with Taker's Great American Bash 1990 performance opposite Lex Luger that he cancelled a meeting with him scheduled for the following day. Bruce was allegedly high on Taker so he kept pestering Vince to just meet with him. Vince finally gave in after a few months of Prichard's badgering. Vince & Taker hit it off in that meeting. The rest is history. (per Bruce)

Mick Foley: Poster boy for the sort of rassler Vince wants nowhere near his company. Awful look. Takes too many dangerous bumps. Vince won't have this shlubby looking nutjob dying on his watch. (per Bruce. Confirmed by other sources, including "Mike" Foley himself)

Chris Jericho- Vince (and Others) didn't see the appeal. He was too short. Too goofy. But mostly just too short. Vince pulled him from a potential Wrestlemania 16 main event slot because he was "too short." (according to JR. Confirmed by others)

In fairness to Vince, I would have hated seeing Jericho in that 'Mania main event. But I also hated seeing Big Show in that match and nobody could ever accuse him of being too short. 

I wonder if that's the reason Stevie Richards was in the No Mercy 4 way instead of Show. Like Jericho in the main is what happens "in the books" or some nonsense. It was an idea that got scrapped. Watching indie wrestling is the definition of "well in the books...".

Who was it Kilgore? that often reminds us that Vince is just an idiot who got lucky in spite of his judgment. Dude just got lucky.

"and he shook the hand of every promoter"

Oh shit brb gonna do a mock tipping scene between Vince Sr. and the other territories.

How soon was Vince unsold on Jericho? Soon as he sees he's "short"? What a debut and he isn't even in a marquee match for his first ppv. It's like Bane breaking the Bat. What do you do now? How to do you top yourself, kill Alfred? Don't be absurd. You can't go from the Rock to Road Dogg though bringing BOBCORE into the ic title picture for a minute was nice. I even sometimes mistake that for a BOBCORE ic title win. Jericho really is the goat. Clawed his way up from Vince thinking he's a GEEK and kliq sabotage... that he managed to become Undisputed Champ. Didn't he only ever have like 1 match with Taker and not until he was in 2009 DED SRS heel Jericho. Dude had some weird booking. Reinvented himself. Had a world title run after people thought he was done. Turned midlife crisis into a gimmick and payday. JUDAS IN MY MIND. Beat Rock and Austin in the SAME NIGHT. Back to back wins. Not many people even have a win over Austin, tainted as fuck or not. It took a lot to put him down and usually had a lot of fluff behind it. Jericho did it. The list. Redoing heel work in a time when guys like him were respected (the Eddy heat)... got super likeable and over with the list... "dad trying to be cool" in AEW. He was never the guy, but he had a lot of different characters just underneath. Always a page 1 no mercy type wrestler. Ain't no one picking D'lo for serious. Jericho's the man. Remember when he punched a fan and told the security guard to do his job?

If "a boy" ever had a mascot it's GOTSTABE Steve Blackman. Test you can buy as a potential. He was tall and had a look so you could buy the potential there. Steve Blackman, never a doubt where he belonged, and that's what made him great. I liked what he did and had no delusions about a "serious Blackman world title program". Obviously like 65% of that is in his theme, but still. Ain't he a bails bondsme? Like he practices with nunchucks when he gets you out. You gonna be in court? I think ya are. Just like Taker and WM14 (allegedly)... lmao what ya gonna do Taker beat the fuck out of him if he didn't do the right thing. If he was coked out of his mind he might not even feel it.

Feb 10, 2022 22:42:28 GMT @ness said:

Feb 10, 2022 22:40:47 GMT 🤯 said:

BTW, son & I are watching all the 1998 RAWs.

The first episode of the year is a really great standalone time capsule show.

So it this background noise into his head at this point? Hoping "you stuff" sets a foundation for him when he can choose what he wants later on?

I understood you. This is exactly the scheme.

Feb 11, 2022 0:07:05 GMT @ness said:

Who was it Kilgore? that often reminds us that Vince is just an idiot who got lucky in spite of his judgment. Dude just got lucky.

"and he shook the hand of every promoter"

It is me beating the unpopular (but correct) drum that not only is Vince not a genius, but he's actually a huge fucking idiot failson who just happened to be adopted by the promoter of the wrestling company in the biggest media market in the world, and thus was able to big dick better promoters in smaller markets (and still needed to shamelessly swerve them all, to boot). Basically the second he had competition with the same bankroll he was almost immediately put out of business until a southern rassler he didn't even want to hire got hotter than pretty much everybody ever and found the perfect foil in Vince himself who very accidentally became a heel after bad damage control when he publicly chose Shawn over Bret (and only got about 20 more matches out of Shawn for the remainder of the Monday Night Wars, like this was low key one of the dumbest things he ever did and would have absolutely sank if not for Austin). Vince is approaching his 40th year as the head of the (W)WWF/E, and only about 10 or 11 of those years saw the company on the upswing of traditional metrics indicating a successful wrestling company (ratings, attendance and PPV buyrates when that was still a thing for 30 of those years). Basically he fucking sucks at his job. One of GOATs of a rich kid failing up, the true American Dream.

Programming note: My laptop is fucked and I hate posting on my phone, thus my posts have been, and will continue to be, down until I get my shit together.

2-hour RAWs IMO really benefited from being formatted as two separate but linked 1-hour shows, Raw is War and Warzone.

The thing about Vince and that list that Baker presented is funny - bag on him all you will but the fact is that all of those guys rose to prominence and elite levels under Vince. So clearly he has a hubris that no one would ever get him credit for.

He's not perfect , he's probably insane and definitely is out of touch but he got it right a lot of the time. Even if it took a while.

Also after watching Attitude Era Raws, I can't help but think that son is going to scream PUPPIES at a nekkid Wife and that'll be the end of that experiment by 🤯.

Jericho was his own worst enemy when he came into the WWF. He was a Vince Russo/Terry Taylor hire and Terry already had heat after bringing in some duds like The Public Enemy. However, The Rock was a fan and The Rock hated working Billy Gunn so any excuse to step away from that was welcomed by The Rock. They did the promo but contrary to popular belief it wasn't well received by the office. It was fine, but Jericho selling The Rock's comeback like he was going to cry turned management off. A week or so later, Taker cuts the infamous desert promo and Jericho buried Taker and everyone backstage took it personally. Jericho's whole shtick was pointing out how bad the WWF was and how they desperately needed somebody of his charisma to take over, but the guys actually took it personally. Then he got a rep for being dangerous in the ring and he broke Stevie's leg in a match.

However they needed somebody to work Chyna and nobody was game. You could count on one hand the amount of people who were willing to have a serious match with her, so Jericho who had nothing better going on was thrown in. The feud was actually designed to bury Jericho with Chyna completely emasculating him but the fans started to get behind Jericho. It was also around this time, Jericho was supposed to beat The Rock and receive a push but Russo left the company while the talent was in the UK for Rebellion. That all got scrapped, Chyna pointed out that Jericho wore lifts in his boots which again made it difficult for Chris to perform.

Jericho was booked to keep Chyna busy and parlay the title to Kurt who they loved from day one. However it was around this time Jericho's luck started to turn and the Radicalz appeared. Eddie was able to take Chyna off of Chris' hands and Benoit became the yin to his yang. On top of that, Brian Gerwertz formed a strong friendship with him and used him more and more which led to the stuff with Stephanie. Vince had come around and while he had detractors (it's all about the game...and how you play it) Jericho had won enough people over.

I think the turning point came when Jericho proved he could be a utility guy and work any role in the company. Then The Rock, the guy who was a big fan of Jericho's since they had a lot in common, stepped up and worked that program with him in 2001 and did everything he could to put him over. Peepshow touched on his reign, but there was one promo on SmackDown where The Rock engaged in one of his typical promo battles about SmackDown being his show when Jericho cut him off and in one of his most passionate moments told the Rock 'THIS IS NOT A JOKE. I AM NOT A JOKE! I AM SERIOUS AND YOU WILL NOT LOOK PAST ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!' which the Rock sold brilliantly and it was the one moment Jericho actually felt like a serious champion.

Of course they threw all that out the window, Jericho became Steph's man-servant and that was the end of that.

Then both Batista and Cena injured themselves at SummerSlam 2008, so Jericho found himself as champion. Fast forward, they needed somebody to defend the championship against Edge at Wrestlemania, so enter Jericho who did just that before handing it off to Jack Swagger and now the two are best buds and they're teaming together THIS WEDNESDAY ON DYNAMITE. I know Baker won't miss it.

I wonder how fans would have reacted to Stevie winning the title in the 3 way Dance instead of Terry Funk.

Feb 11, 2022 13:30:55 GMT UT said:

Also after watching Attitude Era Raws, I can't help but think that son is going to scream PUPPIES at a nekkid Wife and that'll be the end of that experiment by 🤯.

Wife, son & me all love puppies. Different kinds for each of us. Although I guess son loves both kinds.

Scott Taylor of January 1998 looks like a skinny fat shrunken Val Venis.