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Random Thoughts III.


PowerButchi

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Oh, that Harvey Price one is my downfall. I am so going to Hell.

EDIT: Should've put the hammer strike intro from Greg Valentine's 'tron at the beginning of Timmy Mallett's. And maybe every time he hit one of the kids with Mallett's Mallet.

Edited by Carbomb
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JR was all over the insider sniping and bitching at Vince McMahon in late 96, wasn’t he? And especially at that Survivor Series. He was on Vince’s case all night. Then you had Sunny out there taking shots at Sable. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on at the time but watching it back now it’s great listening to all the sarcy digs flying around. Think Cornette might’ve also provided one or two during that Flash Funk Survivors match. 

Bret moaned about the commentary on his match with Austin from that night as well. Saying Vince and Ross were trying to make him look weak saying he had ring rust or something after his layoff. I never got why Bret was pissed off at that. Always thought it made perfect sense from a ‘real sport’ POV that he’d be rusty and, ultimately, wouldn’t Bret only look stronger if they bang on that he’s rusty and he still finds a way to beat Austin? 

I fucking love Survivor Series 96. Start to finish one of my favourite WWF PPVs. 

Edited by wandshogun09
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Vince was snipey the next night too. I've no idea why but he definitely felt like he was dissing Bret. In the end, it all built into that perfect heel turn.

Ross's heel turn that never really took in 1996 is a fantastic promo. You have to forget that it's all to build up fake Razor and fake Diesel like but it's passionately and brilliantly delivered. Pretty unusual at that time to see a worked-shoot promo.

10 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

I fucking love Survivor Series 96. Start to finish one of my favourite WWF PPVs. 

It is excellent. There are a few characters I wasn't really into at the time and the taker stuff, other than the entrance, is a bit flat. Austin/Bret is clearly fantastic (I reckon about 12 stars based on the current scale) and HBK works a miracle job with Sid. It has a real changing of the guard feel too with loads of new characters.

Incidentally, I think Flash Funk looks great. His gear is awesome, the entrance is good, the dancing is cool and his work is always slick. A year later, he'd have made a great Godfather. The commentary is odd in his entrance though when Vince says he doesn't know who he is.

Edited by tiger_rick
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JR was always quick with a little bitchy aside.

When Lex Luger was on his way out of WCW to the WWF by way of the WBF, JR on commentary for one of Lex's last WCW appearances said, "he's got a great physique, but we all know there's no money in bodybuilding", or words to that effect.

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34 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

I fucking love Survivor Series 96. Start to finish one of my favourite WWF PPVs. 

It's the PPV that saved me from being a kid who stopped watching after a few years to being someone who's been a fan for 27 years.  Started watching in 91, but by 96, even though I still watched I'd certainly started losing interest.  Something about SS 96 though, just made me realise I love it.  I credit Psycho Sid almost as much as Steve Austin for getting me back into it wrestling bigtime because I loved that Shawn v Sid match.  Obviously 1997 being a killer year helped keep me on board, but for me Survivor Series 96 started it.

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37 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

 

Bret moaned about the commentary on his match with Austin from that night as well. Saying Vince and Ross were trying to make him look weak saying he had ring rust or something after his layoff. I never got why Bret was pissed off at that. Always thought it made perfect sense from a ‘real sport’ POV that he’d be rusty and, ultimately, wouldn’t Bret only look stronger if they bang on that he’s rusty and he still finds a way to beat Austin? 

Bret Hart in having a whinge shocker.

Bret hadn’t had a match on TV/PPV for nearly 8 months, and like you said the commentary added to the story of the match and yes Bret looked stronger for winning despite the long layoff. But this is Bret we’re talking about, the man who gave everyone their best ever match, as proven by the time they told him so with tears in their eyes

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@The Dart Definitely. It was the same kind of thing with me. I was still watching wrestling over the summer of 96. I was into the Shawn vs Vader thing leading into SummerSlam in a pretty big way and on the other channel I was balls deep in the NWO stuff like everyone else at the time. But apart from that I remember starting to lose interest and drift away a bit around that time. I was getting sick of shite like The Goon, TL Hopper, Alex ‘Pug’ Porteau etc and the WWF being without Nash, Hall and Bret for much of 96 really hurt it for me. Even with new additions like Mankind, Vader and Sid. Survivors 96 was a big part of what kept me hooked though. I’d been waiting for Bret to return ever since he pissed off after WrestleMania. He was only gone about 6 months but it felt like ages to me. And Austin was just on fire at the time. The buildup to that match at SS 96 was brilliantly done. Sid vs Shawn was mental. Last thing I expected was Shawn to be booed and I definitely didn’t think he’d be losing the belt to Sid that night. It shook everything up and I had to see what was going to happen next. And as a boy who grew up on early 90s WCW on ITV, 2 Cold Scorpio showing up as Flash Funk added to my enjoyment. As did Ron Simmons as Faarooq, finally ditching the blue gladiator helmet and getting a revamped gimmick with the Nation of Domination. Then there was Furnas and LaFon debuting and throwing Bulldog and Owen about and looking great in the opener. I was intrigued by them, little did we know their run had already peaked that night. Taker with his fruity dominatrix look confused me but I wanted to see where he’d take it. On top of all that you had Sable and Sunny at their fittest and, of course, that Rocky bloke made his first appearance and was being hyped to the moon. 

Sid shouting ‘FUCK YOU’ twice at Shawn after smacking him with the camera blew me away. This was the era when I was used to watching Salvatore Sincere and Savio Vega on Livewire on a Saturday morning. Last thing my brain was conditioned to expect watching WWF was the words ‘FUCK YOU’. There was a definite shift that night. The first rumblings of ‘Attitude’. There’d been signs earlier in the year like Diesel flipping the middle finger at the Rumble, Diesel powerbombing Shawn through the table, Vader battering Gorilla Monsoon, the early Goldust character, Austin’s KOTR promo, JR’s heel promo, the ’Pillman’s got a gun’ episode of Raw etc. But Survivor Series as a whole just had a different feel to it than any of the other PPVs that year for me. If they hadn’t followed up with such a banging 97 it’d have meant nothing but with how things played out I’ve always looked at SS 96 as the real catalyst for the edgier direction they were going in. It seemed like they’d put feelers out throughout the year but that’s where they really just said ‘fuck it’ and hit the reset button. 

Shittest thing about that Survivor Series for me was that we never got it live for some reason. It was on delayed on the Wednesday night or something. Fortunately for me the internet couldn’t spoil it for me then so I went into it spoiler free but my chips were soon pissed on when I realised there’d be ad breaks all over the show and my mum shouting up at me to “get to bed you’ve got school in the morning”, right when Bret vs Austin was starting.

What was the reason we weren’t getting the PPVs live on Sky in that period actually? I remember SummerSlam 96 being live. We never got the In Your Houses at all then, Survivor Series was on delay as was the 97 Rumble. I was over the moon when they announced that WrestleMania 13 was going to be on live. 

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That’s right! I was chuffed at the time that we were getting to see those Kuwait shows but they were pretty shit from what I remember of them, which is admittedly not much. I vaguely recall a decent Shawn vs Marty match and Ahmed Johnson winning the tournament. 

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