Loss
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Everything posted by Loss
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The bigger philosophical stuff has been moved to a thread in the main folder. Please continue the discussion there. -
Bischoff makes his apology then ends up beating up David Flair. Brian Adams and Barry Windham hit the ring and Adams holds Reid in the corner while Beth is restrained at ringside and Barry continues to lay in the beating. Then Eric puts a bow on things by kissing Beth at ringside. They went too far in this angle, as the whole thing was kind of uncomfortable. Reid is too young to be involved in something like this.
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Last few minutes. Chyna low blowing Rock gets the crowd alive and sets up a strong nearfall, but I don't know what it says that they can't get that reaction before that. Shawn comes in and hits HHH with the belt behind the ref's back. HHH gets a surprise kickout. Chyna goes after Shawn Michaels at ringside when TEST debuts (well, makes his first appearance since he was Motley Crue's bodyguard) and does a pumphandle slam on HHH to give Rock the win.
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The McMahons are unhappy that Austin has now qualified to be in the Royal Rumble. But they are here to draw his number and reveal that he drew number one. Shane requests a re-do and once again #1 is drawn. Vince is also here to reveal one more participant in the Rumble, the only guy who could save "Ted Turner's Dubbya See Dubbya", but the WWF has him, and that's Vince McMahon! Michael Cole's fake indignant reactions here are pretty unbearable. Shane draws Vince's number and reveals that he is number 30. The NO CHANCE IN HELL tagline gets dragged out for the first time to describe Austin's chances. Mankind interrupts and challenges Vince to a match here tonight since he is fancying himself a wrestler now.
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Anyway, I'll split off all this stuff as dawho requested so this thread can be more about Lawler again.
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I understand that, but the point made was that wrestling is "better than ever" in 2013-2014. Those exact reasons you cited, among others, are reasons why it's not and it can't be. I don't even blame the wrestlers so much, but the end result is no hot heels and matches with far less heat. There are more wrestlers capable of dazzling than in years past, but I don't see how that translates to wrestling being better now.
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Michael Cole's laugh is even more fake in 1998 than it is now. X-Pac once again shows surprising aptitude in this sort of segment. Chyna as Boss Man was amusing. But I could do without HHH or the Outlaws. Jason Sensation as Shawn Michaels is great too! "You've dropped the ball again, Shawn" made me laugh. Shawn and Rock are out to interrupt. Shawn actually called HHH "Midcard 4Life" and said he just hangs out with main eventers, but he's never actually been one. Interesting. This ended up escalating Rock-HHH from a non-title match to a title match after HHH fired back. I loved Rock responding with all of the WCW catchphrases - Hogan, Flair, Savage and Bret - before getting around to his own.
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Those moments still happen for sure. But they are more rare than ever. And it's usually not generated by a heel doing something awful. "Indy respect" has gone national.
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Bischoff is out dressed differently to address the Flair situation. He makes this seem like he's shooting as he somberly explains that Flair had a mild heart attack. He apologizes to Ric Flair and his family for the stress he's brought upon them all. He hopes he receives the opportunity to look them all in the eye soon and tell them how sorry he is. That interview made the initial angle even more tasteless.
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Jericho is out to explain the Magic Foreign Object Theory to recap how he lost the TV title. He brings out a guy pretending to be Konnan and I'm laughing that some of the idiots in the crowd actually thought the real Konnan was going to come out when the music started. Jericho's account of the match is hilarious. Konnan apparently hit Jericho with a chain and a huge shovel, among other things. The good news is that you can't stop rock and roll, and you can't stop Chris Jericho either.
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The answer to most of your questions is kayfabe being dead, not anything to do with wrestling being smarter. If anything, wrestling was dumbed down in that era, because they could get away with it. What is so "smart" about heel Lawler playing hide & seek with a foreign object for an entire match? Or the babyface Lawler formula of selling & selling & selling until pulling down the strap and hitting the piledriver? Just because they could get away with simpler, more basic psychology, doesn't make it "smarter". That is complete & total Pollyanna "back in my day" bullshit. The word you guys are looking for is "simpler", not smarter. Kayfabe has been dead for a quarter century, if not longer. I'm not a fan of Lawler's hide-and-seek tactics, so you're not going to see me defending it. I am a fan of Shawn Michaels nearly inciting a riot at a European pay-per-view because he was willing to go for the jugular. Who's doing that now?
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All in all, it's weird to call wrestling "better" now when guys hit each other twice as hard to get half of the reaction.
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It wasn't "acceptable" at any point. People did it anyway because there were heels who cared enough about raising their ire and were good enough to do it right. Most WWE matches don't have any heat until the finisher teases start because for whatever reason, they haven't found a way to make people care about the other stuff enough. The point of the mat wrestling comment was actually to evoke guys like Tamura and Han, who I think it would be foolish to not consider great athletes. Tamura probably had better cardio than any worker in the world in the late 90s. Who's out there pulling off anything similar now? Who has shown that the might be capable?
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If that's not true, why were the best wrestlers far better at evoking emotion from an audience back then? You see genuine emotion occasionally now, but rarely do you see a fan jumping the railing or stuff being thrown in the ring anymore because people are so angry. Where are the great working heels? For that matter, until very recently when guys like Drew Gulak and Timothy Thatcher started getting play, no one could point me to a wrestling company anywhere in the world that had great matwork as a key part of their style when I posed the question on Twitter, other than CMLL as sort of the de facto choice.
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The quality of his WCW run in 1998 should be discussed, as should his AWF matches with Tito Santana. How did he adapt to getting older?
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If we're being consistent with how we're treating certain other people, their inability to perform at the same level in 1996 WCW or 1998 WWF should be held against them. And how are those nostalgia matches against the Midnights from 2004?
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For people who are interested in peaks and valleys, some ***-***1/2 matches they had might be worth pulling out too. Let's pull their 1/7/99 match against Kobashi-Akiyama into the conversation. Let's pull their June match with No Fear in as well.
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This discussion is awesome, I have to say. Matt, your post was everything I hoped it would be, although I'm sorry if it took a lot out of you. Dawho, your post is awesome too. It's a tough watch for sure, even though it's a classic in every sense of the word. Dylan once said he felt couldn't watch the match again because he felt like there was rape subtext. I wonder if he still feels that way and he'd be willing to elaborate.
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Bischoff says the difference between himself and Flair is that Bischoff is living for the future (is he now?) and Flair is living for the past. He points out that he's a "trained killer" and spent seven years studying martial arts. Flair comes out and chases him all over the ringside area and wow can Flair run. Flair debuts the mat elbow drop, along with the knee drop. Flair cuts an awesome promo talking about the history of Florida since they're in Tampa. He also does a picture perfect Flair Flip. He gets so worked up in this promo that he starts clutching his chest. He ends up collapsing in the ring and oh yeah ... this is sold as Flair having a heart attack. This was such a tasteless desperation tactic to score a quarter hour. Flair's acting was a little too convincing here. Tony Schiavone has no idea what to do or what to talk about since Flair is still in the ring. A stretcher comes out to art Flair out. There's an angle that looks like it's thrown together on the fly purposely where Bigelow attacks Scott Hall at a vending machine. Nash comes in to break it up and ends up having to be restrained from Bigelow. Goldberg follows suit.
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Raven is out to talk about how no one cares about the pain he has to suffer. Kanyon comes out to tell him everyone is sick of him complaining. He reveals that Raven has a pre-med degree and a $3.2 million trust fund, and that he grew up in plush Palm Beach, FL. His parents also bought him a Mercedes as a teenager. Raven walks away sulking.