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Your Wrestling Guilty Pleasure


Liam O'Rourke

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So for this week's podcast, we're looking to talk about guilty pleasures in wrestling, and are looking for your contributions on wrestlers, matches, angles, feuds, shows, whatever it may be, that for you is a guilty pleasure - someone or something that typically gets plenty of derision and scorn, but deep down you enjoy, perhaps against your better judgement.

 

And of course, please explain why you enjoy this particular person or thing, and your perspective as one of the few who takes enjoyment in it.

 

As always, the best contributions will be read on the show and you'll be credited accordingly. So what's your guilty pleasure in wrestling and why?

 

EDIT - Our show on Wrestling's Guilty Pleasures, featuring many of your contributions is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/yqebpp/SCG_Radio_81_-_Wrestlings_Guilty_Pleasures.mp3
 

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1995 WWF, but I'm not super guilty about it because I think it's absolutely bastard awesome.

 

Aside from the raft of quality matches littered throughout the year (mainly because Shawn and Bret are both having the in-ring runs of their lives around this era), I'm a big fan of Diesel as a world champion, even if he's got to shoulder the blame for tanking the numbers. I loved his character as a kid and though I can see how softening him was really detrimental, I think Nash is ace enough to make Big Daddy Cool a believable gimmick.

 

Visually the show is also pleasing. There's something great about WWE experimenting with smoke, pyro and lights a bit more, especially in some the dimly lit school gyms they were having to run shows from back in the dark days. It's all got a sharper, colourful edge to it because they roster is still early-90s gimmicked up the arse, but production values seemed to improve in an attempt to make it seem like everything was a-okay when it was all collapsing and Vince was getting the water coolers taken out of Titan Tower to save a few quid.

 

Put it like this, TNA has been on life support for a few years now, and it's really, really, really shown. Though ludicrous and laughable as SO much of that cartoon content was, with morale and finances in the toilet, Vince and the Roster seemed to constantly cling on to just enough quality control to keep the WWF as a relevant entity. Just.

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Lex Luger Nitro squashes. I can't get enough of watching Flexy Lexy clothesline, powerslam and rack the likes of Rick Fuller, T.Rantula and Roadblock. For the late part of 96 to late 97 I was a huge fan. Went nuts when he beat Hogan at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

 

Early into our relationship my misses caught me doing the Luger poses during his entrance on a Nitro match. She wondered why she wanted kids with me. Thank god I knocked her up soon after so she couldn't continue that thought.

 

Oh and Alex Wright's techno music. Just awesome.

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Bret Hart vs Yokozuna from Wrestlemania IX.

 

I've been a wrestling fan for about 15 years but had failed to watched this match until about two months ago when I was watching all of the Mania main events in the lead-up to this years Dallas card. I think I avoided it for so long as I'd only ever heard about how bad it was, a stinker of a main event well in keeping with the atrocious nature of the Mania IX card leading it to be considered one of the worst WWF shows ever.

 

Not a chance!

 

I found it to be a really intriguing match with that classic Bret cinematic streak; both men really got the story of 'plucky undersized underdog against much more powerful and dominant opponent' over whilst the action, considering one man was more beached whale than human, was perfectly acceptable. The fact that Bret only loses because of that cheating foreigner Fuji gives Bret loads of sympathy going forward that sustains his ascent towards mega babyface relatable star he got four good years out of, so its not even as if the match is useless in the grand scheme of things like some claim. It's also only eight minutes long, so it doesn't drag or feel a chore to sit through unlike many other matches I watched during that binge.

 

Disclaimer: this pick in no way whatsoever counts Hogan's involvement at the end of the match in this, its for the bell-to-bell Yoko vs Hart only. Hulk swanning in and beating the Samoan Suzuki remains the wrestling equivalent of chewing tin foil while pouring Tasbaco in your eyes.

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Reverend D-Von: this gimmick is looked upon as the nadir of the erstwhile Dudley's career but for me it was pure money. The collection plate, the green as grass Deacon Batista by his side, the rump-shaking gospel tune and the televangelist promos were all fantastic. I still think if they'd have really backed this it could have been an effective satire on American religious fanatics, and an absolute heat magnet. If he strutted out on tonight's Raw in the dog collar my life as a wrestling fan would be complete and I could take up carpet bowls or something.

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Mindless Spot Fests.

 

Yes, i like Bret/Owen or Bryan/Punk as much as the next guy, but i get big satisfaction from just seeing a mindless spot match with lots of flippy shit and i can just take no notice of the lack of story or psychology. Ladder matches i guess fall mainly into this category, but something like Tanaka/Awesome too. 

 

The PWG Threemendous Ladder match being the prime example. It;s as perfect as any 'technical' match for me.

 

P.S Keep up the good work guys.

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I genuinely fucking loved Sid. I marked out like an idiot when he powerbombed someone and I could happily watch him beat the shit out of anyone. I don't even mean a squash the standard of the legendary Lee Scott match, I mean utter shit like when he squashed Aldo Montoya on his first Superstars match since turning on Shawn. I didn't care that his selling was a bit naff and his punches looked daft, I loved watching him chokeslam and powerbomb someone half to death. Bonus points for press slam, a million stars for a whirlybird. His twatting of Bradshaw on Raw right after he came back as babyface in 1996, I went nuts for! DQ finish? Don't care! He splattered Bradshaw like the shitehawk I thought he was and would FOREVER think he was. By the time he got in the ring with HBK at Survivor Series 96, I was frothing at the gash to see him beat Shawn. Largely, perhaps, to the fact that I despised the "Boy Toy" at the time, having supplanted my hero at the top of the card. If Bret wasn't getting an immediate crack at taking the belt back from his homosexual nemesis *, then Sid would be my guy. I was enraptured watching him hurl Michaels around like a rag doll and MURDER some of Michaels' lamest ** comeback spots - the skin-the-cat, the nip-up... to quote the big man himself, shortly after belting him with a camera, fuck you! I jumped for joy with Sid lamped the little shit with the match winning powerbomb.

 

Best of all, right after Survivors aired on the delay on Sky Sports, on a night that I know you remember Liam... I got to see the mighty new World Wrestling Federation Champion in all his glory live and in person at the NEC! In the ring with a loser like Farooq, Sid rightly gave him exactly what he deserved - an utter twatting. I continued to mark for Sid long after I should. Even crushing the Dudleys and powerbombing poor Spike off the ramp in ECW, I got a massive kick out of Sid hammering people. It was only when WCW decided he was still a national level main event player deep into 1999 when Stone Cold was running the show on Raw that I lost my conviction that Sid was great. Probably because WCW put him in lengthy matches with limited opposition most of the time, or worse still, had him going over my newest real favourite, Chris Benoit. But I still marked out like a complete idiot when he got to lamp Heath Slater not all that long ago. There was just something about the big dumb guy and his powerbomb that I always loved.

 

* Childhood homophobia, now long gone, preserved for historic accuracy only.

** Childish hatred of Shawn Michaels, as above.

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WrestleMania 9. Not that I feel guilty about it. I just feel like I'm right and the 99% of people who hate it are idiots. It's the best setting the WWF have ever put on a show in. It looks glorious and the commentary team are great. Jim Ross is so out of place but he does a great job. The opener and post match angle is really good, Doink and Crush could be a guilty pleasure all on it's own, Luger is great, Taker/Gonzalez is a spectable - though horrible wrestling, Steiners/Shrinkers is the most under-rated match of any WrestleMania, Money Inc vs. Mr. & Mrs. Hogan suffers only from a lack of a finish and the main event is a really good carry job by Bret. The post-match angle with Hogan is shit but doesn't harm the show.

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I've always been a bit embarassed to admit i love the blindfold match from Mania 7. I understand its cartoony and theres no work rate but i love it. The lead up in Jake getting blinded with the arrogance spray and the character work with this is superb. The crowd interaction is phenomenal using the crowd to help Jake find Martel is very clever and it has the spot where Martel trys to Irish whip Jake and he just runs away,it still gets a belly laugh out of me. It does beg the question why doesnt anyone else try this.

 

I can honestly say this is definately one of my 10 most watched matches ever and as strange as that may seem its a fantastic example of a certain type of wrestling.

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Martel was sensational in that blindfold match, his body language was so good you could practically see the expression of fear on his face, loved it.

 

I always liked it when HHH was supposedly burying all and sundry, the finish to the Mania match against Booker T was ace. Tripper is ace for making people lose their shit whilst he swans off into the sunset like a cowboy with a massive nose. Bow down to the King.

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