El-P

Which is another thing I hate about WWE. Yeah, that wasn't what I meant exactly. I meant he kept things simpler. Less selling ? I ask because although I've seen most of Benoit's big matches from 2000/2001, my viewing of the next years is really scattered to a few matches there and there. That's what I meant. Which, well, sucked. I agree, although Jericho was much more the total package in term of star power. Jericho and Eddie had *it*, Benoit, less so.

Did Benoit really changed his style that much in the WWF except slowing down like he did with DDP in WCW and doing shitty german suplexes ?

And why would that be ? Maybe because Jericho had the charisma and mic skills (not to mention in-ring skills) that HHH didn't have despite being shoved down WWF fans throat for years, and years to come afterward. Did the Russo booking helped HHH in 1999, probably not, with the idiotic WM 15 multiple turns which confused the fans. But still, at this point HHH was pushed for a good 2 years and a half, winning most of his feud, getting tons of mic time and matches on PPV. Like John said it took Vince, Foley, Rock and Steph to finally push his ass to a level where the fans accepted him as a top guy. At some point, when the company puts everything behinds you, you're gonna get over no matter what, to a degree. Jericho was getting over from the get go because he had *it*, while HHH never did and never has, no matter how hard Ross would put him over in the booth as this huge star and great wrestler (I don't think I've ever heard a face announcer praise a heel so much).

Terry pretty much said it again in that interview. Ouch.

Fair enough. Honestly I don't know ROH's product so I'm not aware if this is all about stopfests or not. Just poiting out that Cornette was a fan of "workrate" matches even back then, as Flair was not exactly the greatest psych even at his peak and was more about go-go-go really. As far as big spots, well, yeah, although Flair for a 80's US wrestler had a pretty large moveset.

Holy shit... That's sad.

Add me to the "interested about Curtis Hughes" crowd. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything positive about Hughes. The irony is that Hughes was the butler of HHH for a couple of weeks in January 1997 before something happened again and Hughes was dropped. I believe Laurinitis was grabbed as soon as WCW was bought, I'm not sure when he replaced Ross as talent relation big shot though.

Well there's a little contradiction there, but Cornette enjoys workers who work, he's a huge Flair fan, and Flair was all about big spots to pop the crowds. And Cornette loves the old-school, wrestling-wrestling atmosphere of ROH's product I guess. But yeah, there's a contradiction. At least it's better than "UFC is what wrestling used to be". I've heard both Cornette and Terry say that before.

"Masato Tanaka is better than the AJ big 4."

I am a drama queen, you should know that by now. True, although at the time, when you watched Nitro, you could see who was *the* guy who had star written all over him, and it was Jericho. Flair was gone fro most of 98 which was when Jericho developped into a strong act. I know Goldberg was the big star, but personnally, I hated him and his act back then. I thought it was boring shit, squashing jobbers on Nitro every week with Heenan screaming "THE MAN" was getting on my nerves quite a bit. But hey, what do I know. Jericho and Goldberg really stuck out on Nitro. Because The Rock didn't make silly facial expressions at all. Jericho is a bit hard on himself. Well, having to work against Bob Holly to be considered a good worker is kind of ironic to me. To say the least. The modern WWE style is unwatchable to me actually so... I wonder when things became so micromanaged to the point everyone had to work a certain way. Well, indeed. Of course not, it was a silly joke on my part. The Vince/Jericho relationship seems fascinating.

So they acknowledge who her parents are, yet give her one of those stupidly obvious "take two celebrity names and put them together" developmental names. Fuck corporate wrestling. It is so ridiculous at this point.

Austin was just pure gold here.

Sabu and 2 Cold had a great chemistry together at this point. I like the FanCam perspective too for the reasons Tim mentionned.

Yep, interesting to watch Pillman do his Loose Cannon gimmick in three different promotions in a span of only a few months.

I don't remember the WWF saying anything about Piper at the time. Can you refresh my memory ?

Well RVD *really* doesn't know how to work though. But that's another thing. But yeah, all these are good exemples.

Namely, HHH, who was just getting his very first main event push after years of carrying to Shawn Michaels bags. And HHH wasn't over as a main eventer in 1999 despite years of sustained push. Jericho came in as hot shit, people knew him from Nitro because he was the star of the show, a guy who was fresh, funny, had excellent matches, had shitloads of charisma. Jericho got the biggest debut in WWF of the decade with the Y2J hype, interrupting a Rock promo. Quite frankly, WWF could have put him right into a program with The Rock, and the audience would have bought it. Jericho would have made HHH look like a complete mid-carder with mediocre wrestling skills, no charisma, mediocre mic skills and boring matches from the get go. And all of a sudden, Jericho is feuding with X-Pac, losing on his first PPV, Ken Shamrock who was on its last leg and didn't mean shit anymore by then, and most of all, Chyna. Fucking Chyna. And he gets told he doesn't know how to work. Seriously. Meanwhile, It takes Stephy and Cactus Jack killing himself to finally put some heat on HHH. While Jericho is working matches with Chyna and the august talent, I guess a WWF style specialist, of the über worker Bob Holly. And soon enough, they put Jericho and Benoit together to rock the undercard, WCW style, I guess "not knowing how to work" didn't keep him from having the best match of the card each and everytime. And I guess they threw rookie Angle into the mix to learn them japanese style boys how to work "da" style too. Unless Jericho and Benoit were suppsoed to make him look good, which would be odd since Jericho was supposedly not a good worker. This is such obvious bullshit from the HHH camp it's funny.

That is too much details.... Yeah, Sunny looked absolutely great back then.

What about Raven ? Wasn't Waltman the first guy who complained about jericho anyway ? I still think this is mostly bullshit. Two years later, Jericho was having great matches with Rock and Austin, toning down his style to work the infamous "WWF style". That didn't keep HHH from stunking up the joint with him in overlong boring matches that did nothing but bury Jericho. Anyway, the book does sound very interesting, and I'm looking forward to read more of your thoughts about it.

Probably, but Jericho spent years in WCW working with different kind of workers, from guys like Dean and Eddie to luchadors like Juvy and Rey to ECW guys like Raven and had no issue at all. Suddenly he gets into WWF and problem occurs. Reminds me how Shane Douglas was already excellent in 94, gets in WWF and Waltman & Hall decide Douglas can't work, then when Douglas gets back in ECW in 96 he delivers matches better than anything that was happening at the same time in WWF against Sabu, 2 Cold Scorpio and Whipreck. Way too much bullshit with the so-called "WWF/E style".

I'm aware of that, I'm being overly simplistic on purpose. I just dislike the WWE for all these bullshit rules, that make wrestling much less fun to me.

"Knowing how to work the WWF style" always seemed funny to me since really, "WWF style" = toned down, simplistic wrestling. WWF style really is the lesser style ever anywhere. Throwing tobacco spit would have got over just fine in Mid South or Memphis in the 80's.

If HHH hadn't married the boss's daughter and wasn't such a politician, it's pretty obvious Jericho would have been a much bigger star. It always cracked me up when I heard about Jericho "not knowing how to work" when he first showed up in WWF in fall of 1999. Yeah, right.

2011 : the year of the official rehabilitation of Marc Mero.

Yep, totally agree. I've argued about Mero in another thread, and Buff Bagwell pre-neck injury was quite good and a really fun douchebag chickenshit heel.