El-P
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Everything posted by El-P
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The real post-Vince WWE could be fascinating for a while, watching how they handle the change.
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Jerry Jarrett I guess fits the bill. Giant Baba was at one time a great booker. Riki Choshu was at one time a great booker making NJ a money printing machine. Gary Hart in Texas I would guess is pretty damn impressive. Paul Heyman and Jim Cornette I don't see how they fit the "great booker" moniker. Neither have booked a successful promotion. Both are great promos, great managers, have some great creative ideas, but great bookers ? I don't see the argument. Gabe who ?
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What are we arguing about ? That WCW never pulled the trigger when they should and that Hogan ruined any chance of mid-carder being elevated ? Of course. I think they were close to pull the trigger on Austin in 1994 though. He was getting closer and closer to the top of the cards. I believe eventually there would have been a Flair vs Austin passing the torch deal. I mean, they had Vader, who still ruled, Sting in his prime, Flair was past his prime, Steamboat was done, Rude was done, they didn't had many other options but to elevate younger workers at the time. Of course Hogan coming in killed it. But really, to go back to Sulivan, a few awful months in 2000 can't erase two great money making years as far as WCW goes. There's no way he should be on a "worst booker ever" list.
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Agreed. Giant Baba was a great booker. Then he lost it. Everyone gets burned out eventually. The issue with modern WWE is that it's a revolving door of a bunch of writers, so it's hard to pinpoint who's really responsible for what.
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All of which was treated like a meaningless sideshow compared to the old guys on top. Not true. They were a very important part of the undercard. Of course, after a while the nWo took too much space, and things were never gonna change, but let's be realistic for a moment, does anyone think Perry Saturn or Dean Malenko deserved to be main eventers *anywhere* ? Even Benoit, I never really thought he was a guy that should be put on top except for some transitionnal stuff, he just didn't had the charisma or promo ability to do it. Eddie was the only one who had the star potential (like it was showed in WWE eventually). Of course WCW didn't make any new main event stars, but they did make a lot of upper-mid card names. If they were just a meaningless sideshow, I don't think they would have been seen as any big deal coming to WWF. Same thing for Rey. Yes, he was never pushed to the top by WCW, which was stupid, but he didn't became a star in WWF from nowhere, he was already a "star" in WCW. Well, they made Goldberg. Nash & Hogan had to kill him off. Of course their frustration was understandable, but in hindsight, did Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn had their best years in WCW or WWF ? The answer is pretty clear. I'm not defending Sullivan's booking in 2000, I'm just saying the idea that the Radz left because they were afraid they would get buried was a bit ridiculous. I'll have to check Sullivan's 2000 at one point, because my memorie is very fuzzy. I'm not sure I was watching very much at that time, Russo drove me out of town 6 months after driving me out of WWF.
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Come on now. Hogan fucked over WCW as much as anyone. He helped them oin the short run, especially when he turned heel, but in the long run Hogan surey contributed to kill the company. Starrcade 97 + the Evil Promo after Souled Out killed Sting dead. The Fingerpoke of Doom reset the company two years back. Not to mention his ridiculous merchandise contract. Hogan fucked WCW really bad and the balance of positive/negative he brought to the company is way on the negative side.
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What young guys were left to push? He put the belt on Benoit before him and the other three took off. Rey was injured and Russo ran off most of the luchadores. He did a lot to push Vampiro and the Wall up the card, he repackaged Silver King and El Dandy. He did what he could with what was left. I don't think anyone could of done anything with WCW in that state. Agreed. The company looked like a toxic waste after three months of Russo.
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He was also booking during 96 and 97. Word. It's funny Sullivan still gets shit for 2000 while everyone still tend to forget Sullivan booked the best Nitro years ever. I guess it's a syndrome of "oh, the Radicalz left because of Sullivan", which is something I never got anyway. Who pushed Dean and Eddie with titles reigns galore in 96-97 ? Who made Chris Benoit look like a star while he was having an affair with his own wife ? I mean, when did Sullivan tried to bury Benoit, Eddie or Dean at any point ? He's the one who pushed them and made strong undercard figure, and even a little more than this with Benoit. The Radz freakout out when Sullivan got the book back because of Benoit & Nancy, but in reality I don't believe Sulli would have buried any of them, he's too smart for that. Then when they left he found a depleted company robbed of its two best workers and the rest of it was turned into a freak show by months of Russo booking. Not easy to follow through when you're burned out anyway. Yes, Sullivan also did book some shitty stuff, but he also had to deal with Bischoff getting ear-fucked by Nash & co and Hogan being a bitch with his creative control power. With WCW in 96/97, Sullivan can be credited for booking the hottest period ever in the company and the basis of one of the hottest period in wrestling. Everyone gets burned out after a while, by 1998 Sullivan wasn't so good anymore and the inmates run the asylum at this point.
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Russo. Killed WCW. Made TNA unwatchable for a good while. Was a small part in WWF's success, and it would be good to remember that the product became ten times better when he left after a godawful 1999 (until the Invasion angle of course, which is the lowest of the low in term of booking). At least Ole's summer of boredom in 1990 had Dutch Mantell on WCW TV working competitive matches. Some hardcore Russo fan are still defending him though : cf Youshoot with Russo which is a total waste of time and a pile of the usual bullshit to the sound of a few marks clapping for every retarded statement the guy makes.
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Ross was in a strange mood during all this show, plugging his hotline all the time, and being a chill basically. I wonder when this match was taped because Steamboat had a tag belt in hands while at this time Arn & Eaton were the champs. Ah, good old TV tapings with championship issues. Really good TV match, Steamboat is on fire and you see Austin learning from him. I must admit that sometime the übertheatrical selling from Steamboat kinda bothers me a bit when he's selling a simple shot like he's being tortured. It's like he's selling like a heel, going overboard for comical fashion (like Rude would do with the atomic drop), only he's a face. I dunno, sometime I can't help but think about what HTM said about him, that he sold a punch like he'd been shot. But hey, he was still one of the best worker in the world in 1992 no matter what. The Madusa spots are fun, and for once she's not wearing a ridiculous outfit.
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Did I mentioned how much I love Woman from this era ?
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Worst than the limo driver ? Worst than Koko B. Ware ? I mean, Lanny did work a match with Hulk on SNME at least. That's more than Koko ever did. The HoF is bullshit anyway, but objectively Lanny isn't any worse than some of them already in it.
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Totally disagree. The Steiners *are* spot monkeys. They throw people around with no rhyme or reason, they have no idea how to build or structure a match at all, they just throw huge spots left and right, which is fun to see since they have so many but doesn't amount to much. Their matches can be fun spectacle but more often than not they need someone to structure the match for them. This is an exemple of the Steiners being complete spot monkeys as Rick goes into his finisher 2 minutes in, and Sting has to kick out and no-sell it because it's the beginning of the match, and it's a go-go-go match anyway. So yeah, it's a rather fun spotfest because there are some great bombs, Rick blocking Muta in mid-air into a german is awesome. The finish sucks though, very confusing.
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Van Hammer was bad. Cactus was insane. Missy was hot as hell. Infamous match which looked 6 years before his time, as this kind of stuff would become weekly features during the Attitude eras. So yeah, the novelty is gone, but to me it still works, and it remains Van Hammer's best match I would guess. (ah, humiliating a good looking woman never gets old on good ole rassling shows... yeah, that was a shitty thing to do)
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