Paid Members Supremo Posted January 29, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted January 29, 2021 (edited) The Fiend gimmick. The lead up and debut of The Fiend was absolutely brilliant, and for the first few months he was the most exciting thing in the company. Unfortunately though, it’s turned into consistently awful, hokey shit this past year. He never recovered the momentum he lost after that awful Hell in a Cell finish and the empty buildings have allowed them to descend further and further down the rabbit hole of shitty magic and first-year-film-school camera cuts. And now with the added bonus of Alexa’s weird nonce-baiting. Awful. I feel bad for the guy because it was a fantastic concept and I do appreciate that he’s at least doing something on a roster of guys who just exist for years on end. But ultimately, I think this run has proved what everyone was saying at the start - it just wasn’t a gimmick that could translate successfully to being a full-time onscreen character. I made a reference to Bray ripping off the Three Faces of Foley 1998 spot in the Rumble thread just now and I think comparing him to Foley highlights why The Fiend hasn’t worked. Mick flirted with silliness whenever transitioning between the characters, like that one time they were all chatting together on the Titan Tron in late 97, but it ultimately stayed within reasonable levels of believability. He was either crazy, or a genius who acted crazy to gain an advantage. That’s how you play it. It fell apart for Bray the moment he stopped being either a nutter or a psychotic genius and became an actual spooky monster with actual magic powers. My favourite spot in all of wrestling history is Mankind morphing into Cactus Jack by whipping off the mask and tearing open the shirt leading into Royal Rumble 2000. God bless Bray, he’s tried to recreate that at least two or three times with The Fiend, but it always falls flat because it’s surrounded by supernatural bullshit. Literal smoke and mirrors. You wonder how much is Bray and how much is Vince becoming invested and taking it in a whole new, shit direction. You hear it all the time in interviews that almost as bad as Vince not giving a shit about you is Vince getting super invested and sticking his fingers in everything you do. Certainly, for the longest time now it’s just felt like Bray’s doing all the spots Vince wished he could have done with Undertaker in the early 90s if technology was advanced enough to allow it and Undertaker wasn’t too busy being such a man’s man. Not really relevant to the topic because, “jumped the shark,” suggests someone was at least good to begin with, but this seems as good a place as anywhere to mention this. Watching old Royal Rumble matches back I had a look at how long Tamina has been employed. Eleven fucking years! I honestly couldn’t tell you a single thing she’s ever done. Mental. Edited January 29, 2021 by Supremo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted January 29, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted January 29, 2021 The argument could be had for every one of those ex WWE guys who walked out on a TNA show and immediately cuts the sour grapes promo about not getting "the respect they deserve from that other company". My personal one is that they jumped the shark with Sting at Starrcade 1997, be it because of Hogan's fuckery around changing the finish or whatever. Even if it'd gone the way it should and he'd squashed Hogan clean in the middle of the ring where could they go from there? He'd have been treading water while they built up Goldberg to go over him, and then nothing. IT was his biggest moment. I love him, and still lose it whenever he turns up to stare at Team Tazz on Dynamite because I'm a massive Sting mark, but once they'd had that near 18 month build and that title match he'd peaked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thevestofdeanambrose Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 Not mentioned but would you consider Rusev a contender for this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted January 29, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted January 29, 2021 Rusev's moment is surely when he had the full Ivan Drago Russian national anthem and a tank entrance at Wrestlemania. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_3165 Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 56 minutes ago, thevestofdeanambrose said: Not mentioned but would you consider Rusev a contender for this? He should have been a main eventer for years. His I Quit match w Cena was brilliant.. Such a shame he wasn't used properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sukhy Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 He had already jumped the shark, but he set the damn thing on fire as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted January 29, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted January 29, 2021 A thought occurs: Jericho's current gimmick is sort of based on his having jumped the shark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Blog Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 7 minutes ago, Carbomb said: A thought occurs: Jericho's current gimmick is sort of based on his having jumped the shark. Yeah but then he will do a perfect Lionsalt off of the shark's back to prove us wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted January 29, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted January 29, 2021 I’m going to suggest babyface Romans moment ; the SummerSlam 14 match with Orton. The Shield had done great and people were ready for Roman to be a big deal in its wake. He’d developed a good hit and run sequence around the Drive By, Superman Punch and spear. He was explosive as a closer in Shield tags, made to look the unstoppable force, and generally a badass. Tags by their nature hid his shortcomings and realistically longer matches always posed a risk to expose them, like Goldberg before him. On paper, Orton was perfect for him to go through on the way to becoming a full blown main eventer, probably culminating in a Rumble win. In reality the match went 16 minutes but felt like twice as long for the amount of time well-built monster Big Dog sat on his arse in Orton’s chinlock, lacking any of the explosiveness it should have, and generally was a paint-by-numbers WWE upper midcard match with too much back and forth which gave Orton far more than he needed. Some people probably think the win was decisive enough for Reigns, but they’re wrong. Overnight he was just another guy, and I no longer clamoured for him to get to the top. Listening to TV reactions before and after that match, I wasn’t the only one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomJones233 Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 35 minutes ago, air_raid said: I’m going to suggest babyface Romans moment ; the SummerSlam 14 match with Orton. The Shield had done great and people were ready for Roman to be a big deal in its wake. He’d developed a good hit and run sequence around the Drive By, Superman Punch and spear. He was explosive as a closer in Shield tags, made to look the unstoppable force, and generally a badass. Tags by their nature hid his shortcomings and realistically longer matches always posed a risk to expose them, like Goldberg before him. On paper, Orton was perfect for him to go through on the way to becoming a full blown main eventer, probably culminating in a Rumble win. In reality the match went 16 minutes but felt like twice as long for the amount of time well-built monster Big Dog sat on his arse in Orton’s chinlock, lacking any of the explosiveness it should have, and generally was a paint-by-numbers WWE upper midcard match with too much back and forth which gave Orton far more than he needed. Some people probably think the win was decisive enough for Reigns, but they’re wrong. Overnight he was just another guy, and I no longer clamoured for him to get to the top. Listening to TV reactions before and after that match, I wasn’t the only one. And then they kept the fucker as a face for 6 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIDDUM_N_STYLE Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 Cena getting drafted to Raw in 2005, within a matter of weeks he'd began to lose everything that had got him over on Smackdown and was paired off in title defences against over heels in Jericho and Angle which began the long trend of Cena getting booed out of most buildings and getting morphed by the booking into SuperCena. Its only since going into semi/full retirement and only appearing sporadically that he's got any face heat back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronSheik Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 - Warrior's 92 run. (WWF) - Warrior's 96 run. (WWF) - Warrior's 98 run. (WCW) I'll always hold a nostalgic place in my heart for The Ultimate Warrior, but all of these runs were poor by previous standards in my opinion. 92 less roided, shiter haircut, not-as-cool-face-paint, airbrushed muscles singlet wearing Warrior didn't have the same aura. 96 hat wearin, walking-comic-book-bill-board, trench coat wearing, cigar smoking Warrior bombed. 98 WCW, 15 minute promo, trench coat and jeans, injured Warrior just didn't hit the mark either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members seph Posted January 31, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted January 31, 2021 (edited) 4 hours ago, IronSheik said: 98 WCW, 15 minute promo, trench coat and jeans, injured Warrior just didn't hit the mark either. That also involved the trap-door bollocks that essentially ended Davey Boy's career and at least partly led to the dependency that caused his fatal heart attack, didn't it? Edited January 31, 2021 by seph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kfogg1991 Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 The Fiend - Started off so strong and different had everyone's attention then the cataclysmic disaster that was the Hell in a cell match with Seth Rollins happened and he has not been able to pull it back ever since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronSheik Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 18 minutes ago, seph said: That also involved the trap-door bollocks that crocked Davey Boy for a while, didn't it? Yup. The back injury pretty much crocked Davey for the remainder of his life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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