Paid Members BomberPat Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 I find it mental how many wrestlers are bad at, or just don't get, tag psychology, because the first time I had the psychology of a singles match explained to me, instantly the way I visualised it was of thinking of the entire thing as a tag match with yourself. The heat/beatdown into a comeback is so much more visually apparent when that comeback is the hot tag and one person swapping places for the other, and the exchange of energy that comes with it. These days, I tend to think of a lot of wrestling matches in terms of motion and momentum, and a tag match just has more people in it that can be moving when the others aren't, so it can keep up that level of energy in ways that singles matches physically can't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 2 hours ago, TheScarlettChad said: Shawn Micheals 2002-2010 run was boring melodramatic shite I would agree hugely with this. I never liked this run. Him coming out with his shit gear to Sexy Boy while praising God on the stage was an instant channel changer for me. Possibly the most overrated wrestler ever. I hated the vast majority of his matches. I love mid-90s HBK though. An incredible in-ring performer with seemingly endless energy and one of the best bumpers of all time. The Hell In A Cell against Undertaker is one of the great wrestling performances in my book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 Michaels the character during that era was abysmal. But I always enjoyed his matches, his Wrestlemania match with Angle is an all time favourite and his Raw match with Cena too. I didn't think his work during that time was even a notch below his original singles run, but the god stuff was immensely shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said: Michaels the character during that era was abysmal. But I always enjoyed his matches, his Wrestlemania match with Angle is an all time favourite and his Raw match with Cena too. I didn't think his work during that time was even a notch below his original singles run, but the god stuff was immensely shit. I thought it was fantastic but I'm under the impression most of the regulars here thought it was hammy or a finisher spamfest. I thought they told a superb story. The rematch at Vengeance is up there, if a little hampered by the fact it was pretty clear Shawn would win. 1 hour ago, LaGoosh said: I love mid-90s HBK though. An incredible in-ring performer with seemingly endless energy and one of the best bumpers of all time. I love that during 93-95 Prichard and Patterson were constantly imploring Vince to consider turning Shawn face and that he was clearly a future WWF Champion if they did, and Vince absolutely refused because he didn't see "babyface" when he looked at Shawn. Then at Mania 11 Shawn bumped and flew his way to getting cheered in Hartford against Big D and Vince's reaction was "God damn it, he's a babyface! Why didn't anyone tell me?" Edited February 7 by air_raid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 6 minutes ago, air_raid said: I thought it was fantastic but I'm under the impression most of the regulars here thought it was hammy or a finisher spamfest. Yet most of them are AEW fans! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 37 minutes ago, air_raid said: I love that during 93-95 Prichard and Patterson were constantly imploring Vince to consider turning Shawn face and that he was clearly a future WWF Champion if they did, and Vince absolutely refused because he didn't see "babyface" when he looked at Shawn. Then at Mania 11 Shawn bumped and flew his way to getting cheered in Hartford against Big D and Vince's reaction was "God damn it, he's a babyface! Why didn't anyone tell me?" What I find so odd about that is that surely Vince originally put the Rockers together on the basis that Shawn was going to be his Ricky Morton? He knew the guy could bump and sell, he'd seen it for himself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Factotum Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 52 minutes ago, air_raid said: I thought it was fantastic but I'm under the impression most of the regulars here thought it was hammy or a finisher spamfest. I thought they told a superb story. I think it suffered at the time for being such mad expectation around it. I remember being utterly pumped to finally see it and felt slightly flat. I have watched it since a few times and I was wrong. It's great. I do prefer their rematch though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 3 hours ago, Factotum said: I think it suffered at the time for being such mad expectation around it. I remember being utterly pumped to finally see it and felt slightly flat. I have watched it since a few times and I was wrong. It's great. I do prefer their rematch though I was in the other boat. I’d been so jaded by matches not living up to my expectations that I expected HBK vs Kurt to be another letdown, that their styles wouldn’t mesh or it would be another Shawn vs Perfect situation. But it surpassed what I expected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members WeeAl Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 (edited) @air_raid mentioned the World Title match on Raw with Shawn and HHH that I've long felt was one of their two best. Another match he had on Raw was the street fight with Edge, when both men remembered to wear jeans and bring their blade, as should be general rules. He got a turn out of Chris Masters when Masters was still green as grass during his big push. Always thought he worked well with Orton, either in singles or tag. A lot of the character work and promo's could often be dreadfully hammy (apart from his brief 1 month temporary heel turn for the Hogan feud in which he seemed to remember what the best iteration of Shawn was), but in the ring he was usually pretty golden on this run. Edit: Also the 2nd feud with Jericho, in 2008? That had a lot of impressive stuff in it too, worth seeking out if you haven't seen it. Edited February 7 by WeeAl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew "the ref" coyne Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 10 hours ago, herbie747 said: Yeah solid points. I just assumed Taker was revered as a legend & a great worker, when IMO he was just very lucky with his gimmick and his opponents and tenure. Oh he was very lucky. Don't get me wrong he deserves the credit, but he only really excelled in ring towards the latter stages of his career. Great character, great positioning on the card and great opponents will take you a long way. He made the absolute most of it, but it makes you wonder how good certain people would be if fortune shined on them and they were giving a gimmick of being nigh on invincible and wrestling Steve Austin / Shawn Michaels / Bret Hart regularly, instead of being deemed a preliminary talent from day 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted February 8 Paid Members Share Posted February 8 I think the bigger stroke of luck for Takers longevity was in the early days. He was brought in to get built up so Hogan could knock him down and not much further thought went into it. Even his title win was an afterthought, a means to an end so they could test if they could pop a buyrate with a midweek shorter cut price PPV at short notice with the rematch. Going into that time, tentatively they were considering a Mania around Hogan vs Flair for the belt, Macho Man vs Jake the Snake to finish it, and babyface Sid vs heel Taker - which obviously all changed, but one catalyst was the audience reaction at Survivors prompting the office to think “Hey, they dig Taker, maybe we need to make him a babyface” - and so they did. It’s long been a suspicion of mine that actually Detroit cheering that night was less to do with Undertaker and more to do with them being sick of Hogan, who’d dominated the WWF for near 8 years and had just made himself look like a tit on Arsenio. Either way, I think Taker getting turned right when Hogan was going to fuck off for a bit, Savage was going to slow down and Warrior leave before the end of 1992 was a big factor in him becoming so many kids’ favourite and flog so many foam gravestones, little toy urns and so on. If he’d stayed heel maybe he’d have had to lose to Justice at Mania (thus no “Streak”), or even if Sid got his wish to turn heel still, there’s a chance Taker would have been back to losing to Warrior every night after Hogan left. So it’s possible, butterfly effect and all, that if the fans hadn’t started turning on the Hulk when they did, we wouldn’t have a load of 40 year old Nando’s Legends proclaiming Undertaker the best ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheScarlettChad Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 The Nandos legends thing is painfully accurate. So many casual dickheads asking when is undertaker or austin coming back. I blame them for The part time era we've been suffering from in the last 13 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted February 8 Paid Members Share Posted February 8 4 minutes ago, TheScarlettChad said: The Nandos legends thing is painfully accurate. So many casual dickheads asking when is undertaker or austin coming back. I blame them for The part time era we've been suffering from in the last 13 years. And the rest!! Mania XIX was where it started. They got Hogan, Rock and Austin back in at No Way Out and proceeded to do 3 out of the biggest 4 matches around Hogan vs Vince (non wrestler vs Hogan, who you never knew how long you'd have him), Y2J vs HBK (who wasn't working a full schedule or decided yet if he would be) and Austin vs Rock - Austin knowing it was going to be his last match, Rock only sticking around long enough to put Goldberg over. So the main event scene in the months that followed, with Kurt being completely fucked, centred around Hunter making do with barely mobile Kevin Nash and Lesnar wasting time with challengers that were never going to beat him, because the biggest stars of Mania weren't showing up every week. That was the start of the "what can we throw at Mania that we can't for the other 11 months" idea. Rock came back and they unretired Mick Foley for XX and with very few exceptions since it's been "who can we get for Mania." With varying results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted February 8 Paid Members Share Posted February 8 I think there was enough balance across the card at XIX; they weren't to know that Lesnar was on the way out within a year, they had Goldberg coming in, guys like Batista, Orton, Edge and Cena on the way up, as well as Guerrero and Benoit still being around, and Shawn Michaels might not have been quite full-time, but he wasn't as part-time as guys like Lesnar, 'Taker and Triple H became. So they could afford to do the big showcase matches like Rock/Austin and Vince/Hogan, while still at least believing that they were building up the next generation beneath them. I'd say it was around 25/26 that it really started to change - that's when you're starting to get The Undertaker being a once-a-year attraction or not far from it, then 27, 28 and 29 are all built around The Rock vs. Cena, and after that you've got Lesnar back, Triple H going part-time, Batista at 30, Sting vs. Triple H at 31, Goldberg coming back in, and so on. The most egregious for me was Wrestlemania 32. Shane McMahon booked to go toe-to-toe with The Undertaker in Hell In A Cell, The Rock fucking about, Triple H going thirty minutes in a main event that should have just been Reigns steamrolling him, Jericho going over AJ Styles, and bringing out Austin, Michaels and Foley to beat up The League Of Nations for no good reason - I remember that one particularly annoying me at the time, because they had a goofy heel jobber stable in The Social Outcasts who could have been fed to those guys for a cheap pop, rather than needlessly squashing established heels after a win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted February 8 Paid Members Share Posted February 8 32 minutes ago, BomberPat said: bringing out Austin, Michaels and Foley to beat up The League Of Nations for no good reason - I remember that one particularly annoying me at the time, because they had a goofy heel jobber stable in The Social Outcasts who could have been fed to those guys for a cheap pop, rather than needlessly squashing established heels after a win. I found that one particular egregious too, because it rendered the participation of New Day forgotten in comparison, and I was already upset that they'd even lost that match. Once the League had stopped being relevant to Reigns' story, they should have been giving New Day the win as they clearly had more future than any of the meandering heels. Yes, I include recent WWE Champion Sheamus in that, at the time he was stale as month old bread. I'm joking. It was Mania 32, I was far too weary by that point to be upset. I was able to get the first bus home instead of a taxi when it finished! The sun was coming up! I very nearly went to work despite having it booked off, for all the good trying to sleep was going to do me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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