When has a work actually worked?

[thatvinylgeek]

This might die a painful and quiet death...but inspired by watching Unreal and seeing it mentioned in another thread...

The powers that be were so proud of themselves for working everyone with the Seth injury (even though they clearly hadn't), that they failed to even notice that it made zero bloody difference to anything, and Seth could have just cashed in anyway after the Summerslam match.

However, it did get me thinking, have there been any "works" in the past that have genuinely been brought into from the fans and have actually impacted the product? I know it's hard when it's all laid out anyway, and it's increasingly difficult with everything being spoilt online, so we are just going with subjective perception here.

The first ones that came to mind to get us rolling were:

• Cena returning at the Rumble at no.30, which whilst at least started at as a legit injury was a genuinely surprising moment that no-one saw coming
• The Outsiders and Hogan being the 3rd man...although I might just have been young and naive at the time
• Jarret and Russos Bash at the Beach "shoot", I initially believed this, probably more because of Hogans reputation that it actually being convincing
• Mark Henry's retirement, surely the greatest

[Slapnut]

5 minutes ago, thatvinylgeek said:

Mark Henry's retirement, surely the greatest

Not to take away from his performance because it was obviously very good, but I didn't buy it for a second. He literally came out during an unrelated Cena promo if I remember correctly. It seemed obvious to me what was about to happen.

[LaGoosh]

47 minutes ago, thatvinylgeek said:

Cena returning at the Rumble at no.30, which whilst at least started at as a legit injury was a genuinely surprising moment that no-one saw coming

I'm not sure this counts as a work? Cena just returned earlier from injury than expected.

I wasn't watching at the time because I was about 8 years old but I remember reading that The Sandman blinding angle in 1996 ECW apparently worked. Anyone watching at the time that can confirm?

[Chili]

JYD being blinded by the Freebirds lead to a gentleman in the crowd pulling a gun on Michael Hayes. But it almost seems cheating adding anything during the 'cigar filled rooms' period of the business (even though the business wasn't that terminology).

Edited February 9 by Chili

[thatvinylgeek]

10 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I'm not sure this counts as a work? Cena just returned earlier from injury than expected.

I wasn't watching at the time because I was about 8 years old but I remember reading that The Sandman blinding angle in 1996 ECW apparently worked. Anyone watching at the time that can confirm?

This is an example that Heyman talks about on Unreal, I wasn't watching ECW so can't comment but the clips they showed made it seem like the standard "somone is blinded" angle...although I think they ran a retirement speech

[thatvinylgeek]

13 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I'm not sure this counts as a work? Cena just returned earlier from injury than expected

Yeah the reason I added it was because I seem to remember they were still claiming he was nowhere near ready to return...

[BomberPat]

The story I always heard around that angle was that Sandman really played it up outside of the ring, barely left his house, would be selling the blindness if he was ever out in public, or if anyone came to his door. Which sounds really committed, but then makes you wonder how any of the fans were expected to even know about any of that? It definitely feels like a bit of Heyman hype that's been allowed to become the "real" story. 

[Lorne Malvo]

This may not be the sort of thing OP is looking for, but there was a moment during the Garcia/Mox mini-feud a few months back where I was convinced Garcia wasn't working. They had a face-off on the outside of the ring and everything about Garcia's facial expressions and body language just screamed 'I'm utterly pissed off with this bloke', to the point I thought it may have been an off-script / shoot moment. It's nice that in the post-kayfabe era, there's still a few guys who can blur the lines and convince me what they're doing is real. 

[The King of Old School]

Didn't the Hogan/Earthquake one around 1990 work when Quake "injured" Hogan, and they were inundated with get well cards and fan mail etc after they put the address on TV for everyone to send to?

In reality I think he was filming Suburban Commando or something wasn't he?!

Edited February 9 by The King of Old School

[FUM]

A lot of people thought The Miz promo on Daniel Bryan on Talking Smack was a shoot - they probably still do. 

[DCW]

49 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

The story I always heard around that angle was that Sandman really played it up outside of the ring, barely left his house, would be selling the blindness if he was ever out in public, or if anyone came to his door. Which sounds really committed, but then makes you wonder how any of the fans were expected to even know about any of that? It definitely feels like a bit of Heyman hype that's been allowed to become the "real" story. 

Aye, even if you do believe Heyman, it wasn't as if Sandman was a  recognisable star to regular folks. Even to wrestling fans, ECW was niche back in those days. Wouldn't be like if Hogan or Bret were walking about in Stevie Wonder shades, whilst buying bread and milk down the shops like. 

Edited February 9 by DCW

[LaGoosh]

11 minutes ago, DCW said:

it wasn't as if Sandman was a  recognisable star to regular folks. Even to wrestling fans, ECW was niche back in those days. Wouldn't be like if Hogan or Bret were walking about in Stevie Wonder shades, whilst buying bread and milk down the shops like. 

ECW was a local promotion so I guess it might have been fairly easy to find places where fans were likely to be. It's probably all typical Heyman nonsense though.

[The Reverend]

51 minutes ago, The King of Old School said:

Didn't the Hogan/Earthquake one around 1990 work when Quake "injured" Hogan, and they were inundated with get well cards and fan mail etc after they put the address on TV for everyone to send to?

In reality I think he was filming Suburban Commando or something wasn't he?!

This was a clever marketing ploy by the WWF too - by getting everyone to send in their get well wishes they were able to harvest all of the addresses to add to their mailing list for years of junk mail. 

[The Reverend]

1 hour ago, Chili said:

JYD being blinded by the Freebirds lead to a gentleman in the crowd pulling a gun on Michael Hayes. But it almost seems cheating adding anything during the 'cigar filled rooms' period of the business (even though the business wasn't that terminology).

Yep, it's difficult to include the 'When Wrasslin' was real' era. But when Chris Adams was 'blinded' by Gino Hernandez (allowing him to go back home to the UK for a holiday) and then Hernandez subsequently died, Adams was visited UK police who thought that he may have had something to do with it. 

There's also the story of, I think Kamala, who after winning a $25,000 Battle Royale, went home to find Mrs Kamala waiting at the door demanding the cheque. 

[Chico Torres]

2 hours ago, thatvinylgeek said:

However, it did get me thinking, have there been any "works" in the past that have genuinely been brought into from the fans and have actually impacted the product? 

Not to sound too glib about it but yes basically the entire point of wrestling prior to the mid 1990s was based on getting fans invested enough in the work in order for them to pay money. The sad part is that it is a foreign concept now when the selling point of a (spoiler) fake sport is shite like athleticism or explicitly having the stated goal be a great match or “stealing the show” or fulfilling a dream or some other nonsense.

So…what’s the point of wrestling any more?