Jump to content

When shitarses get over


tiger_rick

Recommended Posts

  • Paid Members

Don't worry, its not a Hogan thread...

Konnan. Late 90s WCW. I'll never know how he was so popular. He'd get blown up cutting promos. Fucked up ten spots a match. Had catchphrases I could barely decipher. People ate it up. 

There's not been a worse guy as popular. Prove me wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 122
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Paid Members

I loved Konnan in WCW. I don't think I could tell you a single match of his I gave a fuck about, it's all about the charisma for me. He was all gimmick and catchphrases, but it still felt authentic, not corny. The modern comparison would be Enzo Amore. Over like rover and never went to wrestling school.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

Apart from Jack Evans, I don't think I've ever hated anyone in wrestling more than Konnan. I used to throw an absolute shit-fit when he did that fucking shoe spot. Total bastard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Konnan is a good shout. 

Shane Douglas is one for me. 

Everything about him made me switch over:

His look

His promos

His moveset

Everything.

Also that ego, jeez he thought he was on another level in the business in that mid 90s period. 

Nothing about him screamed anything other than midcard to me (at best) 

I'll give him credit though, he made a while career out of the fact that Ric Flair didn't give a fuck about him when he was a greenhorn (get over it mate) 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

A controversial one, but if we're going by rick's criteria, surely an argument could be made for the Ultimate Warrior? Didn't have good matches without someone else's input, had no catchphrases, and his promos were nigh-incomprehensible. He had a body which was also a reactor for converting coke into sheer energy and charisma.

Same could almost be said for Goldberg, except he had an excellent catchphrase, and didn't seem to need the gack.

I'm not trying to say that Warrior and Goldberg shouldn't have been over - just that they're usually the reason why we on this particular forum tend to say that it's not about ability in the ring. I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to say that Konnan was over for the same reasons those two were over: he had that intangible charisma that some people just have and nobody can explain when they try to analyse it.

Only one other potential, explicable factor comes to mind, which is that he was the nearest a Latino wrestler came to the main event in a major US company.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

On similar lines to Konnan, gracing WCW following getting over like gangbusters in Mexico, Vampiro. I struggle to see anything he was good at. Useless. I'll never for the life of me figure out how he managed to become as big a star as he did, down Mexico way.

He was shown up for being terrible when he arrived in Atlanta, but managed to make a killing by the time everyone figured out that they had been sold a dud. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
34 minutes ago, WeeAl said:

I'll never for the life of me figure out how he managed to become as big a star as he did, down Mexico way.

A good (and, for the time) unique look. He was a handsome young lad, with long hair, facepaint, tattoos and a good body, at a time when that look was not at all common in Mexico.

Rock music - concerts, broadcasting, radio play, recording - was banned in Mexico from the early '70s through into the '80s, so at the time Vampiro debuted in the very early '90s, rock and metal was only really breaking out from an underground culture into something more mainstream, and his look tapped into that, and was suitably exotic and exciting enough to capture the public imagination, and he was good looking enough that he drew in female fans that otherwise weren't being catered to by Lucha Libre.

Taken out of that context and supplanted into a late '90s WCW that didn't know what to do with him, it's no wonder he never replicated that success stateside.

 

More a triumph of protective booking than anything, but surely 911 in ECW is the pinnacle of shitarses getting over? Only capable of performing one move well, and he was arguably the most over babyface in the company for a time. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
2 hours ago, Carbomb said:

A controversial one, but if we're going by rick's criteria, surely an argument could be made for the Ultimate Warrior? Didn't have good matches without someone else's input, had no catchphrases, and his promos were nigh-incomprehensible. He had a body which was also a reactor for converting coke into sheer energy and charisma.

Same could almost be said for Goldberg, except he had an excellent catchphrase, and didn't seem to need the gack.

I'm not trying to say that Warrior and Goldberg shouldn't have been over - just that they're usually the reason why we on this particular forum tend to say that it's not about ability in the ring. I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to say that Konnan was over for the same reasons those two were over: he had that intangible charisma that some people just have and nobody can explain when they try to analyse it.

Only one other potential, explicable factor comes to mind, which is that he was the nearest a Latino wrestler came to the main event in a major US company.

Warrior looked incredible. He was super human. And weird. Couldn't work much originally but did improve.

Goldberg isn't in this discussion ever. He had insane charisma right from the off. He was well booked but he was the right guy because he was so believable.

If Konnan had Vampiro's look, it would be understandable. If he cut promos like he did in LAX years later, same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
3 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Warrior looked incredible. He was super human. And weird. Couldn't work much originally but did improve.

Goldberg isn't in this discussion ever. He had insane charisma right from the off. He was well booked but he was the right guy because he was so believable.

If Konnan had Vampiro's look, it would be understandable. If he cut promos like he did in LAX years later, same.

I get that, but from what I've understood from people on here, Konnan had a shit-ton of charisma, was booked to look quite strong, and had a good look. He didn't look like Warrior, but he wasn't exactly a skinny kid or a blubbery mess. In which case, by the criteria you've set, either Warrior and Goldberg are shitarses, or Konnan wasn't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

How on earth is Goldberg a shitarse? While no ring general, everything he did in the ring looked great, and like he was murdering people. Also Konnan in WCW did not have Ultimate Warrior levels of charisma, as I am sure you would agree.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd say Road Dogg is a decent candidate for this. Not the best look but thrown in with the group he was hanging with, and an instantly recognisable and quotable entrance shtick and catchprashes he was over like the proverbial rover. One of the names lapsed Attitude Era fans will always talk about, despite him being a bit dogger once the bell rang.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

This is part of what I'm asking, and why I made the original suggestion - I am not massively familiar with Konnan, only his TNA work and what people on here have said about him in wCw, but am familiar with Goldberg and Warrior, so it's helping me understand what exactly it was that was wrong with Konnan that wasn't with Warrior and Goldberg. 

If we look at the criteria that rick's laid down, it's difficult not to class them as similar. Warrior had a shit-ton of charisma and a great look, but got massively over considering his capacity. Konnan may not have had his level of charisma, but it's a question of type than degrees. If anything, the argument could be made that it was exactly that Warrior's charisma was that much greater than Konnan's that means he's a better case than Konnan for a "shitarse who got over".

Goldberg had a similar kind of energy - and a big chunk of why his work was believable was because a lot of the time, he was barely "working". 

I guess that I should've phrased the argument more as: "Where are Konnan, Warrior and Goldberg different that the first is a shitarse who got over, and the others were good?"

Rick's argument was that he blew spots, had catchphrases he could barely decipher, and blew up cutting promos. Warrior blew spots, cut promos people could barely understand, and blew up just running to the ring. 

I concede regarding Goldberg. On closer inspection, he holds up better - his work was believable, and if we can accept stiffness in favourites the Steiners, Vader, and LOD, we can accept that in him. Catchphrase was over and perfectly intelligible (for good reason). Didn't cut promos, so couldn't be incomprehensible. Didn't seem to blow up doing anything.

EDIT: Sorry, that's in response to gmoney.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
10 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

This is part of what I'm asking, and why I made the original suggestion - I am not massively familiar with Konnan, only his TNA work and what people on here have said about him in wCw, WCW but am familiar with Goldberg and Warrior, so it's helping me understand what exactly it was that was wrong with Konnan that wasn't with Warrior and Goldberg. 

If we look at the criteria that rick's laid down, it's difficult not to class them as similar. Warrior had a shit-ton of charisma and a great look, but got massively over considering his capacity. Konnan may not have had his level of charisma, but it's a question of type than degrees. If anything, the argument could be made that it was exactly that Warrior's charisma was that much greater than Konnan's that means he's a better case than Konnan for a "shitarse who got over".

Goldberg had a similar kind of energy - and a big chunk of why his work was believable was because a lot of the time, he was barely "working". 

I guess that I should've phrased the argument more as: "Where are Konnan, Warrior and Goldberg different that the first is a shitarse who got over, and the others were good?"

Rick's argument was that he blew spots, had catchphrases he could barely decipher, and blew up cutting promos. Warrior blew spots, cut promos people could barely understand, and blew up just running to the ring. 

I concede regarding Goldberg. On closer inspection, he holds up better - his work was believable, and if we can accept stiffness in favourites the Steiners, Vader, and LOD, we can accept that in him. Catchphrase was over and perfectly intelligible (for good reason). Didn't cut promos, so couldn't be incomprehensible. Didn't seem to blow up doing anything.

EDIT: Sorry, that's in response to gmoney.

Warrior matches were energetic, regardless of whether he was dangerous or not. His promos were entertaining even if they didn't make sense. He was super intense and looked like an insane neon barbarian. Konnan was a dull, lazy berk with trousers hanging around his arse. He was a lot less interesting. I am struggling to see why this needs pointing out 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...