Favourite Mid-carder

[King Pitcos]

I forgot Road Dogg and D-Lo! Bulldog and Owen are both in the running as well.

[Teq]

Dustin Rhodes. I can't get enough of his WCW stuff as 'The Natural'. Arn Anderson also says a big hello with a spinebuster from hell.

 

Whenever I think 'midcarder' though I'm taken back to my childgood and that early 90's period with the usual suspects like Martel, Valentine, Dibiase, Hennig, Santana, Michaels, Bret, Ramon, Jake etc. Guys who made gold out of what they were given and created memorable feuds and matches.

 

I know they eventually so rightly so made it to the top, but Bret and Shawn were tremendous midcarders. Watching their careers gradually climb was just glorious to watch. Their 'micard' parts of their careers are some of the most memorable stuff in wrestling history, especially Bret from the Hart Foundation split up until the World Title win.

 

Owen needs mentioning, as does Pillman. Wrestling would be almost rubbish without all of these guys filling out the shows.

[JohnnyChimpo]

The Road Doggy-Doggy-Doggy for me. He was mega popular in the late 90s and he could work an entertaining match for that level of the card. He was great. And he had one of the best t-shirts of all time as well (the green dog one).

 

This one? I had that. (Obviously, I kept the sleeves on mine!)

 

Road Dogg and X-Pac for me. I freakin loved that verison of DX. And they were my two favourites in the group. Even when it was just to two of them left and they were fighting Trips, Billy Gunn and Chyna for the rights to the DX merchandise, they were awesome.

 

X-Pac, and all this "X-Pac heat", is the most underrated wrestler ever. Others get forgotten and what not, but X-Pac actually get this insane "X-Pac heat" tag where people run down the guys work to a crazy degree. Pretty much from the start of 99 until his heel turn in October/November that year, he was the 3rd most over guy on the roster behind only Austin and The Rock. Getting involved in PPV main events, drinking beer with Austin to close out PPV's, feuding with The Undertaker, his run with Kane, the guy was incredibly over. He was getting better reactions then, than anybody does now. If he was around today with those kind of reactions, he would be a World Champion by now. They could have even put it on him for a short run. They teased it a couple of times. He came close to winning it the night HBK joined The Corporation, and the crowd was devastated. I think they would have bought into him with an underdog type run for a short period.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Pretty much from the start of 99 until his heel turn in October/November that year, he was the 3rd most over guy on the roster behind only Austin and The Rock.

I'd say it ran before that. Mid-to-late 98 he was on fire. His feud with Jeff Jarrett was brilliant. He had so much sympathy when he got the guitar wood in eye at one of the In Your House PPV's. Then there was the time he made it to the final of the IC tournament and Ken Shamrock made him pass out to the ankle lock. He squared up to Shawn Michaels at the tail end of 1998 as well and the fans were going insane for it. He had believable and exciting title matches with the Rock as well. From about the Summer of 98 until the Winter of 99 X-Pac was one of the most popular wrestlers in the business. There was really no need to turn him. He was still hugely popular.

[Daaaaaad!]

His theme was brilliant too.

Is that some kind of sick joke?.

I think it was just a test.

[JohnnyChimpo]

Good little segement here with X-Pac and HBK the week after Michaels cost him the WWF title v The Rock. Triple H returned later on this show, during the match that Michaels set up.

 

I agree with you on a lot of what you said. I would agrue that in the summer of 98, Triple H was more over than him too, during the Nation v DX and HHH v Rock feud. But when Trips got injured, and X-Pac became the defacto leader of DX, you're right, he was insanely over. He was certainly on the level with others just below The Rock and Austin, such as Mankind. He had a good little back and forth with D'Lo over the European title for a month or two right after he finished with Jarrett, but he sort of treaded water after that for a bit. He was meant to feud with the MANS MAN~ version of Willian Regal, but that got canned the night he debuted at Survivor Series, then he didnt even appear at the Rock Bottom PPV, and had a European title defence v Gangrel with absolutely zero build or advertising before it. But definitely from the point that he started to feud with Shane McMahon, and then Triple H turned on him at Mania 15, he just sky rocketed. Your right about all the sympathy the guy could generate, he also lost in the King of the Ring final in 1999 to Billy Gunn, having "sustained an injury in the first round" earlier that night. They did a great job of building him up, and letting him get so, so close to making it, only for him to fall short, either by being screwed over, or his mates turning on him or whatever. A lot like Jeff Hardy for years. The fans were just aching for him to final making that last step. Never happened though.

 

I was so pissed off that they turned him when they did. At the time, I was glad that DX was back together, and while he got a few months of a Kane feud out of it, as soon as that was done, they completely fucked him up. They made him and Road Dogg nothing more than henchmen who would regularly be in handicap matches against whomever Triple H was feuding with, ala Legacy. Only they had more charisma in their baby toes than Rhodes and Dibiase will ever have, combined. It was such a waste for two of their most over stars. The matches they were producing v The Dudleyz through the summer of 2000 were still of a high quality, but they just became limp dicks of characters.

[jimmyjojojunior]

Lance Storm, especially his Dub C run, wicked stuff

[King Pitcos]

I really wanted that Road Dogg t-shirt. At Rebellion '99 I was in the queue at the merchandise stand for ages to get it. When I made it to the front, they'd sold out of them. I asked for about four other shirts, all of which were also sold out. I ended up just buying a crap Kane one that had his mask painted on the front and "tortured soul" on the back because there was nothing else left. I was still wearing it walking back into town after the show when I bumped into a girl I really liked, who was on a proper night out with some other kids from school. I'd spent all my money on that Kane t-shirt that I didn't even want, so not only did I look an absolute tit, I had to sit in a curry house drinking a small coke and eating bits of curry that the girls shared with me.

 

We all went back to her house afterwards, and at one point it was just me and her in the garden. She put her arm around me, and I gave her the people's eyebrow and told her "don't touch what you can't afford." I didn't really, it would've been a stupid remark to make considering I was too skint for a korma. I did tell her not to touch me though, and I did do the eyebrow. Fear, it was. Ever since then, I've bitterly regretted not making a move (or responding to her move) that night. It was probably just a friendly gesture on her part anyway, sympathy because I was wearing a t-shirt that only a disabled would wear. If I'd been quicker to the t-shirt stand and come away wearing the shirt with a green dog with ginger dreadlocks on it, I'd probably have pregnanted that girl.

 

Anyway, roughly ten years later, I was at the Raw house show at the Echo Arena. I spent the night debating whether to get the DX cowboy hat. Thirty quid it was. My girlfriend talked me out of it, but I ended up buying it about a week ago because it was on sale on WWE Euroshop for a tenner. It doesn't fit my head.

 

None of that has anything to do with favourite midcarders, sorry.

[Sheffbag]

Brian Pillman for me

[Richie Freebird]

I really wanted that Road Dogg t-shirt. At Rebellion '99 I was in the queue at the merchandise stand for ages to get it. When I made it to the front, they'd sold out of them. I asked for about four other shirts, all of which were also sold out. I ended up just buying a crap Kane one that had his mask painted on the front and "tortured soul" on the back because there was nothing else left.

 

No word of a lie, my mate got that very t-shirt from that very show. I don

[pgi86]

Probably Wrath. I was BIG TIME into him back 1998. He had a bit of a winning streak going on, a bad ass look and a great finisher. He was gaining popularity too but then Kevin Nash beat him on Nitro and that was that. To this day, one of my biggest disappointments as a wrestling fan is that I never got to see a streak vs. streak, Jackhammer vs. Meltdown, Goldberg vs. Wrath PPV match which was a huge dream match for me back in the day.

 

Honourable mentions: Saturn, Raven (particularly his WCW stuff), Buff Bagwell, Lance Storm (only for his WCW 2000 run), Konnan, Kid Kash (he was awesome in TNA) and probably a couple more guys that I'm forgetting to mention right now.

[Loki]

Who is your favourite "nearly man"?

 

Bret Hart for me.

 

If only they'd given Bret that push he never got.