The General Wrestling Thread

[EmpireWF]

I watched an episode of RAW on 24/7 a week or two ago...June 99, week after Vince was revealed as the HIGHER POWER (lol).

It was an entertaining 2 hours (fuck this 3 hour shit), but yes, the in-ring stuff was not the star of the show. It was the talking segments (this was the week Austin was CEO after Linda tried to fuck over Vince, so there were videos throughout with Austin at Titan Towers, all hilarious), Rocky doing his catchphrases and Brisco & Patterson's comedy.

The matches on the show:

Road Dogg vs. Billy Gunn - quick gimmick match ends when Chyna beats the hell out of the D-O-GG
Ivory vs. Debra - PUPPIES~~~~~~!!!!!!!
Test vs. Bossman -
XPAc vs. Big SHow - match never starts as Kane gets involved
Shamrock vs. Jarrett - Ken's in a straightjacket and still wins
Brisco & Patterson vs. Viscera & Mideon
Kane vs. Acolytes
Rock vs. Taker - HHH ends up involved and Rock picks up the win as HHH & Taker can't get along

[FedEx227]

I suppose if you follow the progression of every week, the angles will build and it will be fun but shit watching them as on-offs is nearly impossible.

[Guest]

Nitro holds up amazingly well in large part because of the first two hours being filled with awesome matches. Sure, you get your 25 minute nWo promo where 19 guys stand around in the ring but for the most part it's not an annoying show at all from 96-late 98. 99 it starts showing cracks and late 99-mid 00 it's completely off-the-rails.

Raw, is, yeah, I mean Stone Cold stuff is fun but the show is just manic. So much stuff happens, the undercard is utter shit and it's cool to see Austin wreck shit but he was at a Poochie point in the middle of 98. Where's Stone Cold he hasn't arrived yet? / Match / Segment showing Stone Cold arriving / Promo / Match / Stone Cold hassling some guy backstage asking where McMahon is / GTV segment / Beaver Clever promo / Stone Cold walking backstage / Val Venis porno / Austin comes out and tells McMahon he's going to kick his ass. Scene.

Late 99/mid 00 is when they brought in Russo in WCW, no? I think I remember that correctly, and if that's the case, Stone Cold single-handedly saved the game for Vince. Because all of the rest of the angles during SCSA's height were what Russo booked, and what failed in WCW. It's not a stretch to say that WWF goes down without Austin.

[FedEx227]

Yeah Russo came in late 99, fucked around for a bit, did a bunch of worked-shoot bullshit and was eventually taken out of Creative when he wanted Tank Abbot to win a Battle Royal for the vacant WCW Championship.

He was brought back in April alongside Eric Bischoff where they did the whole New Blood vs. Millionaires Club then was out of power again by around September-October.

[Guest]

Former head Smackdown writer Alex Greenfield on Danielson

“You look at the way Bryan’s been booked since Summer Slam. An argument you see a lot is that Daniel Bryan’s PPVs didn't increase numbers and neither did his RAW segments well you gave him sh**** booking that involves belittling him every single week. This is something went with Rey (Mysterio). We had Mark kill him and the Great Khali killing him. We were burying our champion every single week. Of course that’s going to turn people off when you don’t give them what they want. Telescoping forward, I have the feeling that this is all going to come to a head and that they will put the title on Bryan in a big of a way as they feel is right and Vince is going to start booking him like Rey. Here’s a guy whose job is to get his ass kicked, and slip over every now and then. I think it’s terrible storytelling, it’s not what the people want and when people bitch about Bryan’s ratings and say well that’s the reason they’re not going with him they gave him a shot already. I don’t think they gave him a legitimate shot. I think they gave him a story that undercut him at the knees from the moment he walked out of the curtain.”

“WWE seems to want to fight against the crowd just doesn't make any sense to me. Why aren't you taking advantage of the lighting and that’s one of the things that frustrated me so much about the Rumble is I don’t think you can get that moment of triumphing over adversity in that way and there’s so many stories it opens up like did Kane help him get in? So many things you can do. Even if they change plans and give him (Bryan) a big WrestleMania moment I feel like the lightning in the bottle has been lost because now it’s all repairing shit they broke. It’s silly if they didn't have some idea of what would happen before the world title match started. If you get to the end of that world title match and you don’t call the audible to get Bryan into the match, hell even having Batista eliminating him and having them be the final 2 I think would have sent people home a lot happier. But that you don’t even call that audible just to me indicates the calcified my way or the highway thinking that makes wrestling not very fun.”

[Leftwich]

http://isdanielbryanchampion.com/

[Warner2BruceTD]

I watched an episode of RAW on 24/7 a week or two ago...June 99, week after Vince was revealed as the HIGHER POWER (lol).

It was an entertaining 2 hours (fuck this 3 hour shit), but yes, the in-ring stuff was not the star of the show. It was the talking segments (this was the week Austin was CEO after Linda tried to fuck over Vince, so there were videos throughout with Austin at Titan Towers, all hilarious), Rocky doing his catchphrases and Brisco & Patterson's comedy.

The matches on the show:

Road Dogg vs. Billy Gunn - quick gimmick match ends when Chyna beats the hell out of the D-O-GG
Ivory vs. Debra - PUPPIES~~~~~~!!!!!!!
Test vs. Bossman -
XPAc vs. Big SHow - match never starts as Kane gets involved
Shamrock vs. Jarrett - Ken's in a straightjacket and still wins
Brisco & Patterson vs. Viscera & Mideon
Kane vs. Acolytes
Rock vs. Taker - HHH ends up involved and Rock picks up the win as HHH & Taker can't get along

I've said it a million times.

Despite the constant bitching about how bad the show is, people will look back on 2012-??? as the "golden age" of workrate of RAW.

The previous gold standard of RAW was horrible, just horrible, in the ring. Yes, i'll concede the booking was great in the sense it appealed to the fanbase, which was much larger than it is now, but as a guy who would rather watch a great match with no context than a great storyline with a shitty match, I prefer the modern era.

I also question whether the Attitude Era was truly great, or just happened to feature two of the most dynamic and charismatic stars of all time at the same time. I guess it doesn't matter either way. It's like saying "were the Bulls great, or was it just Jordan & Pippen?"

[Warner2BruceTD]

Former head Smackdown writer Alex Greenfield on Danielson

I agree with most of what Greenfield has to say.

I have been confident from day one that they'd build to a true Bryan moment, but after that, I agree with Greenfield that all bets are off. I can totally see them booking him like Mysterio, and underdog champion doesn't work. This is why to me, the big key moving forward is to get away from the goat stuff (JBL every fucking match, "It;s a flying goat!"), have him shave, and give him a serious edge going into his run.

If they don't, he'll still be a tongue in cheek type babyface, and he'll fail. And it will be a self fulfilled prophecy.

[s@ppisgod]

JBL is a lot like Nash. You think he'd make an ok color guy because he can talk and occasionally be witty (moreso Nash than JBL), but they have no way of getting anyone over. Even the way he talks about heels doesn't do much for them. And yeah, he always takes a dump on Bryan.

I don't think he has to shave. The guy is money, he doesn't need to be re-tooled in any way aside from being a more serious, intense champion who is presented simply as such.

[BigBiss]

so ... is there any chance Omaha, give the full Daniel Bryant effect, or even better a CM Punk chant or two?

[Ravin]

There is the CM Punk chant already.

[Kuzzy Powers]

so ... is there any chance Omaha, give the full Daniel Bryant effect, or even better a CM Punk chant or two?

WWE's production team is well aware that there might be CM Punk chants at tonight's RAW from Omaha but they expect it to be more of a problem when they get closer to the Northeast part of the country and actually in Chicago. They don't see Omaha as a hotbed of "internet fans."

[Ravin]

And JBL just linked Bryan to Hornswoggle.

[Ravin]

They just said the fans pay $675 a year for PPV's and could pay $120 for the network. Way to say you pay to much for your product.

[EmpireWF]

Is "face of the company" the new WWE championship?

Otherwise, they really need to shut the fuck up.