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Your most "Against The Grain" thought on wrestling?


Liam O'Rourke

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Had to agree with some of the contributions on Shawn Michaels. I loved the Rockers and the angle where Shawn turned on Marty was all sorts of brilliant

there can't be many angles in wrestling history that has had the lasting effect of that angle. That and the Macho Man/Snake angle, anyone who grew up in the 90's remembers them two moments.

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Sorry, late to the party...

 

Fairly controversial one for me…but the NWO just never really did it for me. The initial tag with Hogan coming out as the mystery partner was cool, seeing Hogan turn heel was cool…but from the moment he wasn’t sure what the new faction was called “this is the new world…..organisation…or professional wrestling brother” I started to lose interest.

 

I appreciate that within the next 500 years that the NWO took over WCW there was some pretty cool stuff, when they took over the production for the night it made me chuckle...for 5 minutes….then every time they had a “WCW” match on they would show the crowd…funny the first time, but call me crazy but I actually want to watch wrestling.

 

Week in week out every match would be a DQ or just a huge cluster fuck as Horace Hogan and Virgil ran in and jumped whoever Nash or Hogan were facing that week, yawn. Again call me crazy, but now and then I’d like to watch a wrestling match actually have a coherent and legitimate finish.

 

Goldberg beats Hogan…YAY
Finger Poke of Doom...Boo

 

Just fuck off with your self indulgent self promoting bullshit booking decisions and let me watch decent wrestling stories unfold. It got to a point where it stopped becoming “maybe the good guys can win a match” to “I wonder how everyone will get screwed tonight”.

 

So yeah…NWO...fuck off.

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Was going to start a new thread on "unpopular opinions", but this is pretty much the same thing isn't it?

Another one of mine is NXT. I just hate the idea of it.

Now don't get me wrong, from the WWE's point of view they have played a blinder. Created what WCW tried to do with the nWo in many ways, their own alternative brand.

But fuck me, it doesn't mean I have to like it...

To me,  if you want to watch a promotion that has an indy feel, watch an actual indy, or ROH or Impact at least. 

Whereas, if you like the WWE’s (over-produced) product, watch Raw or Smackdown.

To me, NXT is an unnecessary encroachment on the indy wrestling scene just so that the WWE can grab an even bigger slice of a marketplace they already have too much of a hold on.

Have an irrational hatred of it tbh.

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A match having one slightly protected chair shot to the head is apparently the worst thing that can  ever happen in wrestling since Benoit but head drops with no story behind them and other big dangerous moves just give you more risk of causing similar damage, yet it only adds * ratings to a match. 

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Contrary to popular belief there is a lot of good shit that doesn't get enough attention in the dying days of WCW.

The matches pitting Jarrett v DDP at Spring Stampede and Slamboree, Steiner v DDP at Greed, Steiner v Nash v Goldberg at New Blood Rising, Steiner v Booker-T at Mayhem, Steiner v Goldberg at Fall Brawl etc. all off the top of my head. The rise of Lance Storm who WWE didn't know what to do with. Fun segments with guys like Filthy Animals and M.I.A.

Now a fair few of the matches I mentioned have an asterisk next to them because of questionable booking decisions, but, if you were a 12 year old kid like me during the final year of WCW TV their TV was fun to watch and I preferred it to WWE.

Of course being exposed to the internet and all the cynicism that's attached to WCW and Russo is going to color your views on something eventually, but, at the time, I liked it. I even liked Russo as an onscreen character, but even I think he's irritating as shit watching as an adult.

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On 19/01/2018 at 8:20 AM, King Pitcos said:

And yet the indie scene has thrived since NXT became its daddy.

Very true. It’s went the opposite way everyone expected since the biggest names have started to be swept up. 

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My biggest against the grain thought from convos with other fans seems to be that I blame the wrestlers more than creative these days. If you want to be a top guy, go fucking make it yours, be more creative in your character, own more. Don’t be the same wrestler move for move and look exactly the same and expect them to suddenly find an idea for you. Make a relationship with Vince, don’t hide from him. 

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12 minutes ago, Louch said:

My biggest against the grain thought from convos with other fans seems to be that I blame the wrestlers more than creative these days. If you want to be a top guy, go fucking make it yours, be more creative in your character, own more. Don’t be the same wrestler move for move and look exactly the same and expect them to suddenly find an idea for you. Make a relationship with Vince, don’t hide from him. 

Problem there is that it's not necessarily a matter of willingness, but ability. Barring the elite exceptions, most trained actors aren't expected to nail just any role thrown at them, hence why they tend to get cast in roles that people envision them being suitable for. Wrestlers for the most part are even less likely to be that adept in terms of acting, so it's an even bigger ask to impose a character on them and expect them to make it work without working with them on it.

Also, as we've seen before, making a relationship with Vince isn't as simple as doing what he tells you. Indeed, from all the stories we've heard, that's probably a sure-fire way to earn his contempt, he's that much of a weirdo.

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I disagree, you could look at half the rosters pic from 2014 and now and struggle guessing which was which. Sammi Zayn getting his biggest push just now and was all indifferent about even trying to build his relationship with Vince on talk is Jericho. Any wrestler who made it to top level who’s book you read, or interview you hear made that leap to being on friendly terms with Vince made it through persistence. I don’t get the impression anyone’s trying to do that from what I see and hear now 

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It's not necessarily being mates with Vince, but being willing go stand up to him and argue your case if you disagree with what you're given. It seems that earns Vince's respect. Sure, insisting you should be working main event in a program with the champion when you're only on the lower rungs will make you look a twit, but being able to stand up for yourself and sell a better idea, or a better version of their idea, counts for a lot.

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7 hours ago, Louch said:

My biggest against the grain thought from convos with other fans seems to be that I blame the wrestlers more than creative these days. If you want to be a top guy, go fucking make it yours, be more creative in your character, own more. Don’t be the same wrestler move for move and look exactly the same and expect them to suddenly find an idea for you. Make a relationship with Vince, don’t hide from him. 

To be fair, that's only against the grain in some cases. The double standard has always been that if a wrestler is popular on the Internet, it's never his/her fault, and if the wrestler isn't popular on the Internet, it's always his/her fault. That works for times their performances and stories are shit, and for when someone gets injured. Cesaro being the most dull man in the world as a singles wrestler has always been widely blamed on creative. Bret Hart turned Internet heel when he said Seth Rollins might be reckless just because Rollins injured a disproportionate amount of other main event wrestlers.

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