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Vice: Dark Side of the Ring


SuperBacon

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12 hours ago, BomberPat said:

if you can point me in the direction of Cena, Lesnar, Orton or Rollins ever having said anything to that effect about Cornette, I'd agree with you.

IIRC, I've heard Batista say he learned almost nothing in OVW. A fact he quickly realised when he got to the main roster and had not a clue how to get over.

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1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

It's not something you can quantify, but I'd wager there are just as many times that Cornette missed the boat with someone, a la Batista, or backed the wrong horse as there were times he got someone over to the next level - no one's exactly singing the praises of SMW headliners Tom Prichard, Dirty White Boy, Bobby Blaze and Bull Buchanan, and in terms of getting a second wind for old Southern stalwarts, Heyman in ECW probably had a better crack of the whip with Tommy Rich, Tommy Rogers and Tracy Smothers in Philadelphia than Jim Cornette did in Kentucky. 

As someone who has watched every episode of Smoky Mountain television up to November 1994 and an awful lot of the major shows, I've got no qualms whatsoever about singing the praises of the Dirty White Boy who was awesome in the territory.  Face, heel, it didn't matter, he excelled in either role.  He was a tremendous interview, he was a great brawler, could induce sympathy, had an amazing partnership with Ron Wright and had  good matches too.  I'll happily sing the praises of Tom Prichard also and there's not a chance Heyman did better with Tracey Smothers than Cornette did either.  I'll give you Bobby Blaze though!

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they're all decent, so "singing the praises of" probably wasn't the right way of putting it - I love Tom Prichard, personally - but I don't think it did anything for them as far as their career goes. Tracy Smothers didn't have an extended run working trendy indie shows, getting booked all over the world, and being a nostalgia act in his later years because he was a headliner in SMW, or even because he was a midcarder in WCW or the WWF, it's because of ECW. And when SMW's raison d'etre was supposedly Southern Wrestling Like Mama Used To Make, it's pretty damning when the Philly/New York promotion is ripping off Memphis and MId-South angles, and using Memphis and Southern talent, to greater success than SMW ever did.

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I dunno. SMW did loads for Tony Anthony. I doubt he'd get nearly the love he gets if it wasn't for his great run there. Ditto for Dr Tom after the Heavenly Bodies. Another second lease of life situation and got Dr Tom a decent enough WWF run. 

Edited by PowerButchi
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Batista in OVW seems to have been a problem of Cornette having a dual role. As a developmental territory, the correct thing to do would be Batista working long matches with veterans and learning how to pace matches, sell, etc. The problem was that OVW was also a self-sufficient promotion where Cornette was booking to sell tickets and thought it more effective for Batista to be a Goldberg-like monster who always won quickly and rarely sold.

It's similar in a way to how NXT has sometimes been awkward in transforming from a purely developmental affair that's about getting inexperienced people ring time, to a promotion that was trying to sell tickets nationally in proper arenas to demanding hardcore/indy style fans, and later to become a "real" TV show.

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36 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

The story Cornette told about WWE getting one of his OVW guys to cut his hair made me chuckle. Cornette of course threw a fit because he didn't have a storyline reason for the change of appearance.

Guaranteed that they did shit like that just to troll the crazy old prick.

Yeah it was Doug Basham. Corny had him and Danny Basham feuding on OVW TV so WWE, having previously shown no interest in either, brought them up to WWE TV as a tag team, completely shitting on Cornette's biggest feud.

 

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And I bet Doug and Danny Basham were made up that they were, to be Frank. 

 

If you're going to work as a feeder territory its what happens. If he was so angry about it he shouldn't have taken WWE's cheques (which were probably bigger than his gate receipts over the period) to use a promotion he had points in as a developmental promotion. 

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12 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

still surprised by Regal’s contribution to it

Why? I think he, like Jericho claims about himself in his book, probably suspected foul play having known Benoit better than many, so he avoided saying something he would be haunted by afterwards. If anything I think his contribution is less surprising now than it was at the time.

Edited by Daaaaaad!
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