The General Wrestling Thread

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Attitude Era WWE might hold up worse than any major promotion in the past 25 years. 99% of the matches are punch, punch, kick, punch, sloppy shit, kick, punch.

 

[JimLeavy59]

lol people are losing their shit about HHH not possibly wrestling at WM30.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

Attitude Era WWE might hold up worse than any major promotion in the past 25 years. 99% of the matches are punch, punch, kick, punch, sloppy shit, kick, punch.

I've been fighting this battle on the Observer board, and preaching it on Twitter. It needs to be a VoW podcast topic.

Attitude Era is largely utter shit, and the modern in ring product being so great really makes it look even worse in hindsight. I get that people were into The Rock, Austin, and DX, but if you are like me and that stuff wasn't really interesting to you, then there is almost nothing redeeming left during that period. The undercards were brutal.

I watched Royal Rumble '99 last night. Aside from being probably the worst Rumble match ever (Vince doing commentary the whole match and then winning, the Austin bathroom attack, Mabel turning into Vicera, Kane being taken out by an army of orderlies, multiple instances of guys alone in the ring twiddling their thumbs for the next entrant,etc, etc) the undercard was pure trash & The Rock vs Mankind is really, really hard to watch (even as someone who largely doesn't get wrapped up in head shots or care what other people choose to do to their own bodies).

My biggest takeaways from Network reactions so far are people turning on the Attitude Era (which to me has a lot to do with how great the product is now in terms of in ring), and ECW holding up better than expected. There is something goofy & charming about rewatching ECW. Rewatching Atitude Era isn't charming or "feel good" at all. ECW is like rewatching Showgirls. AE is like rewatching the rape scene in Showgirls.

 

[EmpireWF]

98-99 specifically was all about the main event scene, emergence of Rock, Foley turning into a star, red hot Austin playing off Vince with Taker/Kane/DX as supporting cast.

Everything else was moving a mile a minute with quick title switches, short matches and wacky assorted stuff.

By 2000, the roster was ridiculous and you had the likes of Angle, Jericho, Benoit, HHH in his physical prime, Guerrero, Rock at his absolute peak as a full timer all in the upper midcard-main event picture.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

98-99 specifically was all about the main event scene, emergence of Rock, Foley turning into a star, red hot Austin playing off Vince with Taker/Kane/DX as supporting cast.

Everything else was moving a mile a minute with quick title switches, short matches and wacky assorted stuff.

By 2000, the roster was ridiculous and you had the likes of Angle, Jericho, Benoit, HHH in his physical prime, Guerrero, Rock at his absolute peak as a full timer all in the upper midcard-main event picture.

Yeah, 98-99 is the worst.

I really love 1997, and while I don't love 2000 like most do, I think they started to turn the corner in 2001 and 2002 was really good with the "Smackdown 6" and Heyman booking SD. RAW was pretty bad though, all story driven, so if you weren't into the creative you were out of luck.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

I think its no cooincidence that the further you get from Russo in either direction, the better it is. Even when he was there, the best stuff was the main event stuff that the other Vince largely controlled.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

I've been fighting this battle on the Observer board, and preaching it on Twitter. It needs to be a VoW podcast topic.

Attitude Era is largely utter shit, and the modern in ring product being so great really makes it look even worse in hindsight. I get that people were into The Rock, Austin, and DX, but if you are like me and that stuff wasn't really interesting to you, then there is almost nothing redeeming left during that period. The undercards were brutal.

I watched Royal Rumble '99 last night. Aside from being probably the worst Rumble match ever (Vince doing commentary the whole match and then winning, the Austin bathroom attack, Mabel turning into Vicera, Kane being taken out by an army of orderlies, multiple instances of guys alone in the ring twiddling their thumbs for the next entrant,etc, etc) the undercard was pure trash & The Rock vs Mankind is really, really hard to watch (even as someone who largely doesn't get wrapped up in head shots or care what other people choose to do to their own bodies).

My biggest takeaways from Network reactions so far are people turning on the Attitude Era (which to me has a lot to do with how great the product is now in terms of in ring), and ECW holding up better than expected. There is something goofy & charming about rewatching ECW. Rewatching Atitude Era isn't charming or "feel good" at all. ECW is like rewatching Showgirls. AE is like rewatching the rape scene in Showgirls.

Match quality was trash. Watching these matches in a bubble and not having the momentum of storylines or being involved in the hype of the Monday Night Wars and not being 15 years old made these one off events/matches crap. There was SOME good...I won't deny. But it involved Rock, Triple H, Michaels, Taker, Austin, and Foley. If it wasn't one of those...it was truly trash. Undercard in the Attitude Era is straight up unwatchable. RAW Main Events, even including those aforementioned guys...trash.

It was all about brawling. And there was no semblance of class to the brawling either. Just punches and kicks for 15 minutes before the finishers.

 

[FedEx227]

I was talking with someone on Twitter and yeah, people say it was all about the main event but start really watching 98-99 main events. 90% of them are Austin and whomever brawling on the outside and getting Irish whipped into the entrance structure. Trash.

 

[FedEx227]

Re: Royal Rumble 99. Such garbage, absolute trash. Did a live review of it for the Rumble Rewind series and couldn't get over how overbooked and terrible it was. There's consistently more action outside the ring than in it. In a rumble match. How is that possible?

 

[TheImmortalGoud]

Anyone know the Survivor Series when Bradshaw was supposed to go over, but the ref messed it up?

EDIT: It was 96.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

 

[ThomasTomasz]

Without the Attitude Era, I would never have joined into discussion in this forum and started watching again. Watching it again, it is definitely trash, but I can't hate on it too much because that was what I grew up with watching wrestling from ages 10-12 and why I'm here right now.

And with that said, please carry on. At least we no longer have the WCW QVC Special though.

 

[Bigpapa42]

Interesting that the network might changing the perception that many have of the Attitude Era. Its always been overrated, notably with those who talk about it as the great era ever. Like Thomas, I have a soft spot for it and in watching through it again (all the way through 1998, starting to work on 1999), you do see what appealed. And you can also see what simply doesn't hold up. It was all about the big names and big stars. Like Warner says, if those don't appeal to you, there is no solid undercard to compensate.

Watching show by show does help somewhat. RR '99 being a prime example of that. I watched the recently. I enjoyed it. Recognizing that so much of what happened was really stupid, but because you so the flow of the stories, you overlook a bit more of the negatives.

Watched a couple of Triple H versus Mankind matches from 2000... Things had improved by then but even they kinda disappointed. Too... gimmicky...

The funny thing to consider is that while 98 and 99 were awful in some ways for the WWF, WCW was far worse in this period.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

The stories are dated, too.

The whole "Badass v. The Boss" is a pretty dated concept...they are even running some anti-establishment angles now, and they still feel kind of dated, but the Austin v. McMahon story was insanely dated and there isn't matches that stand the test of time. Austin had some good matches at this time, but they were all brawls and those got old quick. Even today, these angles have been done TO DEATH, so not only do they feel dated, but they are re-hashed and boring.

You don't see these angles being run constantly in Japan. They've evolved a bit. The WWE and even TNA just run these anti-establishment angles over and over and over. New GM, new face or heel...over and over and over.

As for anything other than the main event scene on RAW...total crap. As in, unwatchable. I'm not even talking PPV, which was crap, but fuck, undercard of RAW was so fucking bad.

Tons of gimmick matches weekly to cover up the lack of roster depth and keep bad programs going.

WCW main event scene was pretty awful, More unwatchable than WWF but their undercard was pretty great.

Jericho, Mysterio, Benoit, Malenko, Juvy and some other Luchas (Super Calo, Lizmark Jr., La Parka, Silver King, Psicosis, etc), Kidman, Eddie. And they always put them on during notorious down quarter hours so they were given time to have fun matches when no one was paying attention.

In the upper mid card area, DDP could work a little bit and got some good matches under his belt in 98/99. Randy fell off the damn map by mid 98 (he was already a shell of his former self)...but he had his last good run with DDP in late 97.

 

[s@ppisgod]

Loved that DDP/Savage feud. DDP was still in the process of evolving as a worker, people forget he was pretty crappy as recently as his Johnny B Badd feud in 95/96. They were both flawed workers at the time, as you mention it's right before Savage COMPLETELY falls apart as an in-ring wrestler (both figuratively and literally.) But they were both natural overachievers, so the end result is something very watchable even today.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Loved that DDP/Savage feud. DDP was still in the process of evolving as a worker, people forget he was pretty crappy as recently as his Johnny B Badd feud in 95/96. They were both flawed workers at the time, as you mention it's right before Savage COMPLETELY falls apart as an in-ring wrestler (both figuratively and literally.) But they were both natural overachievers, so the end result is something very watchable even today.

You had two guys that were very very meticulous about their match layout and planned everything in advance and it led to some good matches by two old guys.

I need to rewatch some of these matches, because I am curious to see how they hold up. The WCW main event scene was TERRIBLE. So, I'm hoping that if I watch these matches in a bubble, they aren't underwhelming because at the time, they were just "better" than the shit WCW was trotting out there with Nash, Hall, Hogan, Goldberg, Sting, etc.

 

[FedEx227]

I think that feud made DDP a better worker, in fact there's no way around it. What came of it was DDP becoming a lot like Savage in wanting every move mapped out ahead of time.. obviously there are pros and cons to that approach but for someone like DDP it was the impetuous to finally "getting it" and finally harnessing his potential into something tangible.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

I think that feud made DDP a better worker, in fact there's no way around it. What came of it was DDP becoming a lot like Savage in wanting every move mapped out ahead of time.. obviously there are pros and cons to that approach but for someone like DDP it was the impetuous to finally "getting it" and finally harnessing his potential into something tangible.

I'm really curious to see how those hold up.

I'm hoping that I don't remember the ring work fondly simply because it was decent work masquerading around as great work in a sea of utter shit.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

So, I guess word on the street is that Solomon Crowe debuted, but didn't debut as a hacker or Adam Rose's DJ...he just debuted as Sami Callihan.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

The stories are dated, too.

The whole "Badass v. The Boss" is a pretty dated concept...they are even running some anti-establishment angles now, and they still feel kind of dated, but the Austin v. McMahon story was insanely dated and there isn't matches that stand the test of time. Austin had some good matches at this time, but they were all brawls and those got old quick. Even today, these angles have been done TO DEATH, so not only do they feel dated, but they are re-hashed and boring.

You don't see these angles being run constantly in Japan. They've evolved a bit. The WWE and even TNA just run these anti-establishment angles over and over and over. New GM, new face or heel...over and over and over.

As for anything other than the main event scene on RAW...total crap. As in, unwatchable. I'm not even talking PPV, which was crap, but fuck, undercard of RAW was so fucking bad.

Tons of gimmick matches weekly to cover up the lack of roster depth and keep bad programs going.

WCW main event scene was pretty awful, More unwatchable than WWF but their undercard was pretty great.

Jericho, Mysterio, Benoit, Malenko, Juvy and some other Luchas (Super Calo, Lizmark Jr., La Parka, Silver King, Psicosis, etc), Kidman, Eddie. And they always put them on during notorious down quarter hours so they were given time to have fun matches when no one was paying attention.

In the upper mid card area, DDP could work a little bit and got some good matches under his belt in 98/99. Randy fell off the damn map by mid 98 (he was already a shell of his former self)...but he had his last good run with DDP in late 97.

Yes, the undercard in WWF was awful up until Jericho/Benoit/Malenko/Saturn/Guerrero made the jump over. Until then, you had a good group of tag teams, none of which were really established as singles performers, with the upper mid card saved only by the fact that there wasn't always room for some of the guys to be in the main event scene.

I think the Hardcore championship came about as a way to combat it.....truly gimmicky at times and that was also a reason they continually swapped the belts to different guys.