Great Interviews/Promo lads

[WWFChilli]

A counterthread to the worst promo's thread. There is not enough love for classic vocal ticket sellers recently so lets get cracking on this. Who HAS it, who HAD it, who WAS capable of having it and who MADE others look better on the mic. I am going to name the obvious suggestions to start off, plus most of them are everyone's and my own general favorites.

 

Ric Flair

Flair just works. It's impossible to deny (unless you argue for the sake of it) how good Flair is in almost every aspect on the microphone. His NWA days are my personal faves. He is the Man to use a phrase of his. Like Hogan in his heyday, Flair always LOOKS like the champion, and talks like it. His over the top phrases and his pick-up lines to the ladies in the audience craft around his brilliant promos where he enhances the challenger for his title and rips the piss at the same time, showing his superiority over them. Flair could do the sympathy to a tee as well. Watch his stuff in the feud with Terry Funk or when he was challenging for the title as a face. He was over the top as ever, but somehow put over a humble aspect to himself, and portrayed himself more as a dedicated athlete at the same time, the humble star who deserves his respect and it's understandable to know why he can be such a pompous git on the flip side. His later stuff is still great but it can be hit and miss for me, in TNA and his later years in WWE Flair can sometimes go a bit weird with some of his comments (making Orton the virgin bleed for example) but his NWA/WCW days are a thing of beauty.

 

Roddy Piper

Piper is the best 'powder keg' promo for me. Just from his demeanor you know he is a complete whack-job. A right unstable character. Piper had no shame in getting any kind of heat imaginable. He said any old shit, being out-right racist, saying something just plainly offensive or just hammering his lines in a full on coked up fury. Piper could do all the short-cuts but he had an intagable skill to tap into the emotions of the fans. "One day, they were chucking eggs, the next they were chucking roses" is the line he uses in his 1987 retirement promo, it's a fitting statement since Piper is an example of one of those heels who's such a cunt, in the world of wrestling, this makes him babyface eventually. Even in the kayfabe times. Piper's face promos are a bit of a complex to me. It's not as good as his heel work, but he is more excitable and I guess you do not lose much of the magic. As a kid, I liked seeing Piper's stuff, his words fasinated me. For a wrestling promo he has good range. Piper is a man that can talk, and break your heart and then get you to shit yourself, when he looks like he is going to kill you the next. He still crops up on Raw and 90% hits a homerun.

Hogan/Andre Pipers Pits (Pipers performance here is really understated)

Pipers WCW Debut

 

Jake Roberts

I guess Jake is the inspiration for most of the processional dark, brooding, maybe even gothic themed wrestler promos (Raven, The Flock, The Brood, god knows who else). Jake is a fucking wizard at promos. He might play blackjack and have the two of those, but back when he knew what his shit was, Jake was the scariest man in wrestling for me. He was just a terrifying man, and not in that 1980's wrestler "I'm gonna break your neck, you geek" Dino Bravo shite, Jake Roberts was one of the scariest men of my childhood. I became a wrestling fan around the time of his 1991 angle with Savage, I was not a fan of snakes, Jake brings out a fuck-off cobra, and Chilli_Dog cries a lot. I hated Jake Roberts. But watch him back from this period especially, the man is on FIRE. He is having a blast with this angle, and while at it, pulling out the best promo's of his career. There is one week in 1991 where he pulls out THREE classic promos, all with classic traits of what made Jake Roberts brilliant. The Survivor Series 1991 interview, where suspended he relishes in what he did to Macho Man and makes ominous remarks, followed by his blinding double header at Tuesday in Texas. His post-match promo is something else! He slaps Elizabeth and is downright euphoric about it. Jake Roberts was a scary fucker, not the type you would want to watch a VHS with, alone, for any price

Jake at Survivor Series 1988

Jake promo on DiBiasi - Wrestlemania VI

 

Of course I am overlooking many others, these are just my all time faves.

, Rock, Austin, Dusty,

,

,

, Foley and a handful of others carry some of the traits of the above three and I hold them high as well. I might highlight a few of them later. People back then, knew how to lay it down on the mic.