What/who do you miss in wrestling that you will never see again?

[The Total Package]

A good announcing team, that got wrestlers over and made you laugh, Heenan, JR, King before he cameback, all the old greats etc.

 

Tag Team wrestling like someone mentioned, LOD were the shit, the Hogan of Tag Teams there were.

 

Cruiseweight division, something that made you care about the mid carders and high flyers, these days they are just jobbers to the big boys.

 

Looking forward to big epic clashes on PPV's, the star power is just not there anymore.

 

WWF the old logo, I dunno I just miss that thing.

 

Having a show that had more wrestling than talking, I mean there was always talking even back then, but it was interesting and not a bore or too long, I dont know Ive just noticed it more, even with The Rock like a WM recently.

 

Molly Holly's bubblebutt ting.

 

[ColinBollocks]

The thing I miss is an alternative that is truely competitive. TNAs alright but they constantly kill their own product/momentum with daft stuff and the iMPACT! Zone makes anything that may be great into just good or average. We woz robbed when WCW folded - even at their worst they were still touring the USA to crowds that reacted like things meant something.

 

I also miss colour in wrestling - maybe more than that, individuality even. Some of the lads still think it's 1998 and all black is the thing to wear. For me it's one of the things that has always made Jeff Hardy over - the coloured hair, the sleeves and later the face paint. He looks like nobody else and is still the top 3 biggest draws in wrestling (he still draws TNA money but a run back in WWE will be huge for both).

 

I miss being REALLY into seeing a wrestler do well. It's been a while since I've got behind a wrestler and wanted him to win the big one. One of the biggest reasons is WWE and TNAs current lack of ability to build people up over a period of time, so when the time comes you care about their big win. I was really into Jeff Hardy but they killed that by waiting three months too long, I was into Randy Orton but they went too far into babyface territory and they even had me not really caring that much for The Rock by the end of Monday.

[spotlightmagnet1]

1. Non-scripted promos. I truly believe that the previous era where guys like the Rock and Austin were relied upon to develop there own promo styles and characters were much more beneficial to the product than some washed up hack from Seinfeld writing the speech for the entire undercard.

 

2. Comedy being the exception, not the norm. I remember when the wrestlers in backstage skits were usually being dead straight and borderline sociopathic, with a light relief of the 24/7 hardcore title and maybe a feud enhancing prank. Now it's all singing, all dancing all fucking terrible and rarely enjoyable.

 

3. People caring about the undercard. Repetitive matches and poor booking killed off most undercard stars.

[PunkStep]

The name WWF. 9 years on and I still cringe when I say wwE. I fucking hate it. I thought I'd have gotten used to it, especially as its been WWE almost ad long as i knew it as WWF, but if anything I hate it even more today.

[Vito]

I miss wrestling companies having people in charge who actually care about wrestling.

 

WWE has the McMahons at the helm who are clearly ashamed of the sport that has made them all rich, they have countless legends at their disposal to pass on knowledge to the younger guys, a massive budget available, and more tape in their archives than any one can possibly imagine yet don't seem to do anything with it. With all of the tools at their disposal WWE wrestlers should be the greatest wrestlers in the world and their events should be of the highest possible quality, yet they constantly disappoint the fans and drop the ball when it comes to making important decisions. Careers are deliberately sabotaged, feuds are dropped or forgotten at the drop of a hat and great potential storylines are ruined for no good reason.

 

TNA on the other hand has its own problems. Dixie, despite coming across as a nice person, is ignorant and apparently puts her faith in too many people who really shouldn't be getting involved with booking wrestling shows. I don't know exactly who is in charge of booking TNA's events but there doesn't seem to be any continuity or logic to a lot of their booking decisions, TNA's last PPV was shockingly bad and totally pissed on several weeks of decent television, the less said about Jeff Hardy the better.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

1. Non-scripted promos. I truly believe that the previous era where guys like the Rock and Austin were relied upon to develop there own promo styles and characters were much more beneficial to the product than some washed up hack from Seinfeld writing the speech for the entire undercard.

The Rock never developed his own promos. The Rock's the standard which they set as to why they feel scripted promos are the way forward. Brian Gewertz, Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera wrote all the Rock's material. You can even see it on Beyond the Mat, where Rock is relaying his script word for word with Ed Ferrera and Ferrera even says the last line for him. The Rock's promos were filled with songs and catchphrases. You dont come out with them off the cuff. He was brilliant, but he's the most obvious scripted promo in the business.

[Super Cena]

The name WWF. 9 years on and I still cringe when I say wwE. I fucking hate it. I thought I'd have gotten used to it, especially as its been WWE almost ad long as i knew it as WWF, but if anything I hate it even more today.

 

I was a fan for less than two years before it turned to the WWE, and I still think it sounds wrong not calling it the WWF.

 

I really miss the overselling and use of the title belts as weapons. The heel champ rolling out of the ring to the outside, grabbing the belt and rolling back in to utilise it as the most lethal weapon going was ace.

 

Obviously there are things that I miss more, but I certainly wish we'd see more of them today.

[Super Cena]

1. Non-scripted promos. I truly believe that the previous era where guys like the Rock and Austin were relied upon to develop there own promo styles and characters were much more beneficial to the product than some washed up hack from Seinfeld writing the speech for the entire undercard.

The Rock never developed is own promos. The Rock's the standard which they set as to why they feel scripted promos are the way forward. Brian Gewertz, Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera wrote all the Rock's material. You can even see it on Beyond the Mat, where Rock is relaying his script word for word with Ed Ferrera and Ferrera even says the last line for him. The Rock's promos were filled with songs and catchphrases. You dont come out with them off the cuff. He was brilliant, but he's the most obvious scripted promo in the business.

 

I think far too many people overrate 'freestyle' promos. Like Ian says, The Rock's promos were all scripted; a well-written speech has every right to be as memorable as anything thought up on the fly.

 

I'd go as far as to say that there's more chance of something getting over from a scripted promo than there would be of a mid-carder coming up with it as they went along.

[tom]

1. Non-scripted promos. I truly believe that the previous era where guys like the Rock and Austin were relied upon to develop there own promo styles and characters were much more beneficial to the product than some washed up hack from Seinfeld writing the speech for the entire undercard.

The Rock never developed is own promos. The Rock's the standard which they set as to why they feel scripted promos are the way forward. Brian Gewertz, Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera wrote all the Rock's material. You can even see it on Beyond the Mat, where Rock is relaying his script word for word with Ed Ferrera and Ferrera even says the last line for him. The Rock's promos were filled with songs and catchphrases. You dont come out with them off the cuff. He was brilliant, but he's the most obvious scripted promo in the business.

 

I think far too many people overrate 'freestyle' promos. Like Ian says, The Rock's promos were all scripted; a well-written speech has every right to be as memorable as anything thought up on the fly.

 

I'd go as far as to say that there's more chance of something getting over from a scripted promo than there would be of a mid-carder coming up with it as they went along.

People point to Austin's off-the-cuff 3:16 stuff as proof but if he'd not been as creative then he might just have come out with garbled nonsense or "I'm the willy man, I am". Some element of freedom is good but creative having an input is generally a good idea seems as it's their job. Also, the brilliant Christian peeps stuff was all scripted by Gerwetz too I believe

[spotlightmagnet1]

Then I'll change it to 'Wrestlers making scripted promos sound spontaneous and not at all wooden' better?

[Super Cena]

^ Add to that, I'm sure if any main eventer really had a eureka moment whilst they were cutting a promo then they'd no doubt just say it anyway.

 

And if a mid-carder has a '3:16' moment then he should have to clear it with the higher-ups anyway. Otherwise you'd just see wrestlers left, right and centre throwing random catchphrases at the wall in the hope that they'd stick.

[Super Cena]

Then I'll change it to 'Wrestlers making scripted promos sound spontaneous and not at all wooden' better?

 

That's a whole different point though. A good stick-man will get his words over, scripted or not. The Rock got "Can you smell what The Rock is cookin'?" and "Candy asses" over.

 

I'm not discounting Cena's credentials as being an awesome promo, but his cartoon voice and expressions can be blamed almost as much his material as being the reason the majority of adults don't buy into his act.

[Reznor]

My other choice would be Brian Pillman. I loved all eras of Pillman, from his initial breakthrough as Flyin' Brian to the Hollywood Blondes to the Horsemen to the Loose Cannon and so on. He was never the tidiest in the ring but never monumentally fucked anything up either - CM Punk is quite similar in that regard, for me. And continuing the Punk comparison, although he had fine matches his character and his promos were almost more important than what he could do in the ring. I do still genuinely miss him in wrestling.

That was one of mine too. I suppose it's a bit of an obvious one considering the general nature of my posts. I think he tends to pop up in more than a few of them.

 

For similar reasons, although they're not dead; Marty Jannetty and Jake Roberts. Guys i loved watching, but who never fulfilled their potential, and spent what should have been great parts of their careers out of the WWF/WCW limelight when they should have been on my TV screen.

 

Other small things that spring to mind;

- no longer being surprised by wrestlers switching and debuting in different feds.

- That neon square arch around the curtain in the WWF around 92/93

- Wrestlers having their own little logos which were shown on the captions before matches, on the big screen during their entrances before the days of titantrons, or in the background when they were being interviewed

- All the theme tunes, graphics, ring aprons etc for the old Wrestlemanias, Rumbles and Summerslams.

- PPV reports on weekly TV, waiting to find out if anything's been added to the card. The mixture of feud and random matches was great back then.

- The 'next week' segments at the end of Superstars and Challenge.

- WCW's top 10 contender rankings.

[gmoney]

Steroids.

[Super Cena]

Steroids.

 

Word.

 

 

Also, the wrestlers having their websites advertised underneath their names during their entrances.

 

EDGE

www.wwfedgechristian.com