Topic: The Pro Wrestling Thread

[metaldams]

I'm the MIZ................and I am.......................A W E S O M E !!!!!!  What a tool!

Wait a minute, THAT guy is headlining Wrestlemania?  A while ago my brother and I watched Raw for five minutes, saw this guy with the "awesome" catch phrase, and thought he was the lamest thing ever.  He's the guy who's champ and headlining Wrestlemania?  Wow.

[shemps#1]

I've watched this guy pretty much since he first hit the scene and I have to say he's pretty good at what he does. He's one of the few guys that draws heel heat (the only other performers that draw more heat than him are Cena from adult males and Vicki Guerrero) and can actually cut a promo. He wasn't shoved up into the main event picture like so many people are nowadays only to be knocked back, he actually paid his dues (as much as one can these days) and worked his way up the ladder.

I watched WM this year and wasn't impressed. For the most part the show bored me and there was no "fantastic match". HHH/Taker was ok but not awesome and I thought the whole stretcher ride was a bit much. The main event was a clusterfuck with the double countout and Rock getting involved. Who knew he could restart a match and make it no DQ?

[Mike Lipincranz]

That is the problem today.  There are no more WHITE hats and BLACK hats.  They are all GRAY, light GRAY.  Have to agree with Metal though, the MIZ just reminds me of a spoil brat you'd like to slap the shit out of!

[metaldams]

That is the problem today.  There are no more WHITE hats and BLACK hats.  They are all GRAY, light GRAY.  Have to agree with Metal though, the MIZ just reminds me of a spoil brat you'd like to slap the shit out of!

We live in a society laced with irony.  Irony in healthy doses is a good thing, but it's gotten to the point where it's taken over so much that we don't take anything seriously anymore, i.e. good guys and bad guys at face value.

Remember the absolute shock when Hogan leg dropped Savage and joined the NWO?  That was because for years Hogan was a good guy, no if's and or but's about it, and to see him turn heel was shocking.  With all these shades of gray, you can never have a swerve that effective again.

[shemps#1]

We're a bunch of jaded old men in the eyes of WWE. The product they put out today isn't marketed towards us but towards younger folk. With that said I think Miz is a very good heel with potential to be a great one. He understands that you need to have a personality to be one of the best of the best, which is more than I say for most of the wrestlers today (Orton, Punk, Danielson etc). Also I completely agreed with putting Miz/Cena on last as it said "hey we got this guy who is actually fresh in the main event". How they booked the match is a completely different story.

Of course we all know the just announced Rock/Cena will main event next year's WM, as it should.

[Lefty]

A few notes from the four-hour WrestleMania 27:

1.  There was 1 hour, 41 minutes, 6 seconds of wrestling time -- about twice what Raw or Smackdown has, about triple that of TNA (There's No Action) Impact.
2.  This was the first WM with zero title changes.
3.  This was the second WM where the bad guy won the closing match -- after Triple "Haitch" won a 4-way match to keep his title in 2000.
4.  IMHO, this was worth every penny I paid for it -- see #2 for the number of title changes, which equals what I paid.

[Lefty]

That is the problem today.  There are no more WHITE hats and BLACK hats.  They are all GRAY, light GRAY.  Have to agree with Metal though, the MIZ just reminds me of a spoil brat you'd like to slap the shit out of!

GRAY is right.  It seems like every month, there's a face turn (conversion) or a heel turn (defection).  Go through the rosters of World's Worst Entertainment and There's No Action (at least on TV) and see who has been only one or the other throughout his/her career, if any.  From 1965 to 1983, before Hulk Hogan came back and wrestling changed forever, this is what happened just in the WWWF/WWF:

Heel turns:  1965 - Bill Watts; 1967 - Johnny Valentine, 1971 - Jimmy Valiant, 1974 - Spiros Arion, 1978 - Peter Maivia, 1980 - Larry Zbyszko.
Face turns:  1969 - Gorilla Monsoon; 1979 - Pat Patterson; 1982 - Jimmy Snuka. 

That's 9 turns in 18 years, total!

[Mike Lipincranz]

Sure----Hogan came in in 1979 and was a heel managed by one of my favorite bad guys....CLASSY FREDDIE BLASSIE, then turned into a good guy, back to a bad guy and then back to a good guy only to end up somewhere in the middle of the road.......Hogan did make the "sport" more popular with Vince McMahon running the show but it has tailed off quite a bit since those days.........

[shemps#1]

I wanted to share the awesomeness with you guys. I recently picked up these three glasses (this pic isn't of mine, just a pic I found on Google). We have a cup featuring six man tag action with Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant and Junkyard Dog vs Roddy Piper, Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff as well two big ass beer mugs: one with Hulk Hogan and one with Andre The Giant. The Andre one is my favorite because it is rare to find any Andre memorabilia outside of dolls.

[BeAStooge]

Randy Savage killed in car crash

[metaldams]

Randy Savage killed in car crash

Jesus Christ man, that's awful.  Definitely a major figure from my childhood gone.  He was very entertaining.  Well, this bums me out.

[Boid Brain]

He was my favorite rassler from his era. And of course, I had the hots for Miss Elizebeth. "Oh Yeah!"

[JazzBill]

Randy Savage killed in car crash

I just put $10.00 across the board on "Mucho Macho Man" in the Preakness tomorrow in his honor.

[shemps#1]

It me kinda hard when I first heard about it; like Doug said he was a major figure from the childhood of anyone in my generation who watched wrestling and really anyone from my generation didn't even have to watch wrestling to know who he was. It really sucks and hit me harder than the vast majority of wrestler deaths over the years.

I'll be "honoring" him in my own way today: watching some Macho Man matches and playing as him in WWE All-Stars.

[metaldams]

It really sucks and hit me harder than the vast majority of wrestler deaths over the years.

Same here, man.  The thing is, he lived to be 58, which is actually old for a wrestler in his generation, but like you said, he was such a huge star to anybody our age.  I was explaining that to my Dad today, saying you gotta be my age to get it, as he couldn't understand how this warrants a mention on Fox News.  How the hell can Randy Savage be dead?  His death is simply a reminder our childhood is gone.  I still can't believe it, and I thought i was used to wrestlers dying.

Wait to Flair and Hogan go.  That will be really strange.

[shemps#1]

Same here, man.  The thing is, he lived to be 58, which is actually old for a wrestler in his generation, but like you said, he was such a huge star to anybody our age.  I was explaining that to my Dad today, saying you gotta be my age to get it, as he couldn't understand how this warrants a mention on Fox News.  How the hell can Randy Savage be dead?  His death is simply a reminder our childhood is gone.  I still can't believe it, and I thought i was used to wrestlers dying.

Wait to Flair and Hogan go.  That will be really strange.

Fox News huh? Did they blame it on Obama?

You're spot on with my feelings on the whole thing. Losing the British Bulldog or Mr. Perfect is one thing, not to cast aspersions on them, but this is Macho Man Randy Savage: a wrestler who was in totally different stratosphere than guys like that. As a WWF fan since 1983 I grew up watching him at or near the top of some of the biggest wrestling cards of my youth. He was one of those very few guys in wrestling who even people that didn't watch wrestling knew. "Oh Randy Savage, the wrestler who does the Slim Jim commercials" or just "oh I know who Macho Man Randy Savage is".

In my opinion he is one of the top ten wrestlers of all time. I told my brother when he came home and it was like I punched him in the gut. It will be strange when Hogan and Flair go, but something tells me they will beat the odds and live into their 70's.

[Lefty]

I found out about Savage's passing from an email from a coworker who got a text message from a mutual friend yesterday afternoon.  A heart attack causing him to crash into a tree.  I can't say one way or the other about steroid involvement, because he could  have used them like so many other wrestlers, but my father had his first heart attack at 53 and the second and final one at 76 (from cigars).  Fortunately, neither time was he driving -- he was just a few minutes from doing that.

R.I.P., Macho Man.  Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

[metaldams]

I have a few more days vacation left, I think I'm going to head to Borders, buy the Savage DVD set, and watch a lot of his matches.

Flair and Hogan are the two biggies, but the only one I'd consider on the same level of Savage in his generation still living is Roddy Piper.  I think he had a battle with cancer recently.  Of course, there are other wrestlers who will hit me hard on a personal level, but I'm not naive enough to think Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat, among a few others, will have the same cultural impact.

....and Jake "The Snake" Roberts somehow is still with us.  Watch his DVD documentary sometime, what a hard life he's had.

[shemps#1]

Here's a great article on Savage from Bill Simmons at ESPN.com. It's definitely the best written tribute to Macho Man IMO.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/110524

[metaldams]

Here's a great article on Savage from Bill Simmons at ESPN.com. It's definitely the best written tribute to Macho Man IMO.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/110524

Geez man, that was a great article.  Thanks!

[Lefty]

For those who haven't heard yet about WWE's new oversized individual, Kia "Kharma" Stevens, all 5'9" and 888 pounds of her, she is scheduled to be out of action for 9 months, hence that ridiculous scenario on Raw Monday night.  Nine months -- that sounds like a familiar phrase.  Maybe the father is The Pope or R-Truth.  Or Hornswoggle, even!

[falsealarms]

I've been nostalgic about wrestling since Macho Man died. My life kind of revolved around wrestling when I was growing up (born in 1985) but I completely abandoned it in late 1990's. From the tail-end of the 1980's to about 1997 or 1998, not much was more important to me than the WWF ... and, to a lesser extent, WCW. I couldn't wait for Monday night's back from about 93 to 97/98 with Monday Night Raw (and later, Nitro). I had to tape it most of the time because it was on too late/ended too late and I was in elementary/middle school. I was obsessed with those Hasbro action figures and that Royal Rumble video game for SNES.

I think I began to lose interest when guys like Steve Austin emerged -- just got a lot more vulgar/trashier and lost the innocence it used to have... I think that was the "Attitude Era." And it just got ridiculous when McMahon started to wrestle and his family got involved in the plots. Wrestling nowadays is garbage and pales in comparison to the stuff that they were doing back when I was fanatical about it. But there's a lot of retro wrestling stuff out there and it's been a major trip down memory lane.

This guy has done 10+ minute commentary on every Wrestlemania - very good stuff ... http://www.youtube.com/user/retrowrestlingnight

Here's his commentary on WrestleMania 10, which I always used to have a soft spot for.

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[youtube=425,350]DXTqb9xZyRE[/youtube]

[shemps#1]

It's funny how different people of slightly different ages look at the different "generations" in wrestling. I've been watching WWF/E since 1983, right before my personal favorite era, the Hulkamania Era. Back then you had colorful, larger than life characters led of course by the biggest name in wrestling history, Hulk Hogan. You had a great supporting cast like Macho Man, Piper, JYD, Andre, Studd, Bundy, Jake, Demolition (they might have been Road Warrior rip-offs but they ruled in their own right), Samoans....the list goes on and on.

The era that you (who, I am guessing, are a few years younger than I am) love so much I would consider to be the absolute worst. Led by the likes of Bret Hart (lacking charisma) and Shawn Michaels (bonified horses ass) I actually stopped watching for a period of time during the New Generation era. An obviously fake greasy Cuban in Razor Ramon, a guy who thought he was truck (Diesel), a sloppy fatass (Yokozuna)...not to mention bad rappers, clowns, plumbers, hockey players I thought that time in WWF was menagerie of shit. I started getting back into wrestling when Hogan jumped to WCW but didn't really have a passion for it anymore until the whole nWo angle broke and started that bitter war between the two companies. Looking back the Attitude Era does not hold up very well but it much better than the New Generation which almost killed the WWF.

I watch today's product knowing full well I am not the target audience. You see I think Vince and company had been targeting my generation (those of us who were children in the 80's) since the heyday of Hogan. They nailed it with Hulkamania, missed big time with the New Generation and won us back for a bit with the Monday Night Wars and Attitude Era. Eventually they realized that they needed some new blood as we were getting into our 30's and they found a new Hulk Hogan for today's kids in John Cena. I may not be a huge fan of today's WWE but I will most certainly admit that watching John Cena wave his hand in front of his face is much better than seeing a 500 lb black man covering his ginormous man tits with a top that says "WHOOMP THERE IT IS".

[metaldams]

I watched wrestling religiously from 1985 to about 2005 or 2006.  Jim hit the nail on the head when he said wrestling was geared for our (meaning those of us born in the late 70's and early 80's) generation.  WWF, at least, was for kids when people my age were kids, and grew raunchier with the attitude era when my generation became teens.  I still remember being shocked when I heard the word "ass" muttered in wrestling and there was a character named Val Venis.  Of course, ECW really started the attitude era, but it was WWF who made it mainstream since they had the exposure.

I watched all wrestling as a kid, it didn't matter.  I was a big WCW/NWA nut too.  6:05 PM, Saturday nights was just as exciting to me as all the Saturday morning WWF programming (and don't foget THE POWER HOUR for NWA at 9:00 AM).  I also watched any wrestling that showed up at 4:00 on ESPN weekdays, be it USWA, WCCW, AWA, or GWF.  Then of course, WCW had THE CLASH OF THE CHAMPIONS events a few times a year....I was a wrestling junkie. 

The New Era was OK, but not my favorite era.  I do like Bret.  He was great in the ring and while he wasn't one of the greats on the mic, he was certainly above average.  WCW was kind of fun in that era too.  Sure backstage it was a mess and they had their dumb angles, but I loved The Great Muta, Vader, Sting, and The Dangerous Alliance.

[falsealarms]

I remember waiting religiously for weekend shows like LIVE WIRE and SUPERSTARS... Saturdays and Sundays, respectively. I missed some of the WCW stuff back then because my cable provider used to curiously treat TBS as a premium channel.

I definitely remember the Hogan era, but my most vivid memories are of the end of it.... i.e, the 1993 King of the Ring. I followed wrestling prior to that (tail-end of the 80's) but I was too young to remember most of the specifics of that stuff now. I was only 7 going on 8 when Hogan departed in 1993... 1993-1997/8 is what I remember most.

Seeing clips of those old PPVs on YouTube etc is interesting. Being an only child, I got my way with a lot of things, but never could get my parents to buy the PPVs. I can remember trying to watch some of them through the fuzziness of a blacked out PPV channel. At least I had a friend growing up who had access to some of them. It used to be a lot different back then before the internet, cell phones, and everything else. I can remember going into school the day after a PPV and there usually would be a big mystery as to who won what because most of my friends didn't see the PPVs either. Nowadays, things get tweeted and texted about as they happen... that probably takes some of the fun away. PPVs used to be something special when there were only 4 or so a year... now there's a million of them and much of that luster is gone.

Probably my most vivid memory of seeing a live tour event was in 1995, when the main event was a steel cage match between Bret Hart vs Diesel for (I think) the WWF Championship.

Speaking of Diesel, it seems like he made an appearence at Royal Rumble 2011... apparently, the first time that character showed up in the WWF in 15 years.

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