Against the grain wrestling opinions

[LaGoosh]

27 minutes ago, Statto said:

It was such an overnight carbon copy I can only assume it was a network directive as that's what "big time" wrestling looks like to them.

They hired a new head of production who was ex-WWE under Kevin Dunn and yeah the TV morphed into WWE-lite look wise pretty rapidly afterwards. 

[Browser Brady]

Thumbtack spots are completely overdone in wrestling in 2025.

[Lorne Malvo]

14 hours ago, Statto said:

This winds me up something chronic when it's the TV show of a smaller promotion and it's so very obviously a taped event chopped up into TV episodes but they still try to give the pretence it's live every week, rather than doing an honest presentation of taped matches with studio links. You're being given the opportunity to do something a bit different, take it.

ROH is terrible for this. Most of the time it's cobbled together from about 3-4 weeks of pre-Dynamite/Collision matches and the entire venue changes from match to match, but they never present it as 'here's a collection of matches over the past few weeks, Riccaboni and Caprice are commentating from the broom cupboard' but more 'this is all happening live, just ignore the fact we've obviously gone from Jacksonville to Chicago and the commentary team are invisible!'

I'd rather my intelligence (what there is of it) didn't get insulted, thanks.

[Statto]

I think it bugs me so much as I'm scarred from WCW on Channel 5 pretending it was a continuous live show even when the entire look of the show magically changed from Nitro to Thunder in the space of an ad break.

[The Gaffer]

Been watching back a lot of timeline style videos of Austin feuds between WrestleManias 14 and 15 and...he's distinctly bad on the mic. 

His catchphrases are so over, and the audience wants every ounce of him so badly, and he is so protected as a top act that of course it didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now, but it stood out to me. It's particularly noticeable when interactions get a bit looser in terms of script and cueing (say...Commish Michaels is in the ring as well, there's a heel on stage, everyone's got the mic etc) and especially whenever he has a commentary headset on.

As soon as those safe lanes of what he's meant to be saying, the catchphrases etc come off, Austin quite noticeably trips over himself, repeats himself etc more than you'd like to remember. It's all "Well hell I'll give him all the credit in - uh - the world but - ah - you know he's got to know that - ah - Stone Cold's out for his...what I got to say...I'm out for his ass and that's that!" 

It makes sense of Austin always being happy to concede he was far more comfortable playing a heel. Both in 1996 and 2001 he never really came off as flustered, even if the improv skillset was the same. There was a dead-stare silence (1996) or psychotic repeating of himself (2001) that he could fall back on, but if you watch back closely in 98/99 there's points where he's floundering around trying to keep up with the stream of Austin-ness that the shows and the crowd are demanding of him. 

Edited August 28 by The Gaffer

[CTXRussomark]

I think "distinctly bad on the mic" is a crazy exaggeration.  Things were far rougher around the edges at the time and there were definitely times where his mouth moved faster than his brain and he would mispeak or pause or use an odd turn of phrase, but that rawness was all part of his appeal.  He was the antithesis of what would become the scripted Rock/HHH/Jericho etc. style promos over the next few years.  Just a straight up trash talker who you believed was making it up as he went.

[RedTwoster]

OK, this is a risky one because the tide could turn pretty quickly, but…Chris Jericho re-signing with AEW has ended up being a good thing.

The stuff with Ricochet was crap, and dropping his first name was an odd thing to do, but the Nick Wayne feud alone has made it worthwhile. Without Jericho, I don’t think you get this version of the Nick Wayne character and I think he may well have been floundering. As it is, I reckon we’ll look back at this feud as the moment Wayne truly broke out. He’s elevated absolutely everything in a way I did not think he could. I’d been pretty dismissive of him for the bulk of his career. I was wrong to be. 

On a related note - this surely has to be the hottest ever contest for the Breakout Star category at the UKFF Awards - you have Wayne, Thekla, Kevin Knight, Oba Femi, Trick Williams, Royce Keyes, Mark Davis, arguably Penta and perhaps even Willow Nightingale given that she finally became an undisputed main event talent for AEW after years of underutilisation. 

Edited 5 hours ago by RedTwoster

[BomberPat]

I think the question remains as to whether there's mileage in this Nick Wayne act after the Jericho feud; I hope there is, but we still need to see him interacting with other wrestlers on the show.

[Dai]

I rewatched the entire Nash/Goldberg Starrcade match last night. The prevailing thought has been that its a great match, and much better than you'd expect from them. Turns out its shit, and way, way shorter than I remembered. Its an 8 minute Nitro main event, when the run ins start out of nowhere. No idea why at the time it was thought of as a great match. Very average.

[TheScarlettChad]

26 minutes ago, Dai said:

I rewatched the entire Nash/Goldberg Starrcade match last night. The prevailing thought has been that its a great match, and much better than you'd expect from them. Turns out its shit, and way, way shorter than I remembered. Its an 8 minute Nitro main event, when the run ins start out of nowhere. No idea why at the time it was thought of as a great match. Very average.

Its Goldberg and Kevin Nash tbf. It was never gonna be a classic. Goldberg's WCW run had very few great matches, vs. Hogan, DDP, Raven

[gmoney]

I honesty can't recall anyone saying it's a great match...

[Infinity Land]

From the Powerslam review of Starcade 

"Throughout his celebrated undefeated streak, Bill Goldberg has encountered three types of opponent: the majority, who quickly succumbed to his Spear and Jackhammer combo, those headliners who put up a commendable scrap, yet failed to disquise his limitations, and Raven and DDP; the only men, thus far, who have been capable of tapping into Goldberg's style and extracting a fine bout.

Whatever the outcome of the World champion's defence against Kevin Nash in the main event of Starrcade '98, the educated money had to be on 'Big Sexy' falling into the middle band. So much for education.

While not as thrilling as Page's minor miracle at Halloween Havoc, Nash vs. Goldberg certainly surpassed expectations and was the second best WCW pay-per-view main event of 1998."

From that I think you can take the bar was so low that something passable was considered good enough. This was the year of Jay Leno, Eric Bischoff,  Dennis Rodman, and Karl Malone being in PPV main events. 

 

 

[Chico Torres]

Yeah have never heard any opinion about the alleged greatness of the Goldberg Nash match. You may be confusing it with the awesome Goldberg vs Sid bloodbath. And the build up had one of the all time great Sid moments

 

[RedTwoster]

Has Kevin Nash ever had a match widely considered to be ’great’? He’s been in decent matches, sure, but I can’t think of anything better than that. I wasn’t watching wrestling during his peak years, so theres every chance I’ve missed something.

[wandshogun09]

His matches with Bret (Survivor Series 95) and Shawn (In Your House 7) are generally considered his best and pretty much universally highly rated matches. Both absolute belters. Obviously who he was in with had a lot to do with it but he played his part as well as you could ask of him in those matches.

I also thought his match with Razor at SummerSlam 94 was really good as well. And that Kliq tag with him and Shawn vs Razor and 123 Kid on Action Zone. 

Edited 54 minutes ago by wandshogun09