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Re: The Wrestling thread
I recall Hogans matches in the 80s would basically be some power moves, the hand press, then him losing, him losing badly, then him put in a headlock while sitting down. The ref lifted his arm to see about submission, the arm fell. Ref lifted again, arm fell. Ref lifted the thrid time, fell halfway, suddenly Hulk got a jolt of energy, stood up, got punched and it didn't affect him, was thrown into the ropes and gave a shoulder shove, then a body slam, then he did the leg drop & pinned his oppenent.
He would lose until the final minute or two.
Indeed. It was a successful formula though. When he would start Hulking up, the crowd would go ballistic.
Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart completely changed the game.
McMahon could've (should've) changed course a few years earlier than he did. He was too afraid to risk it though.
Here's the moment when WWF should've changed styles and entered a new era.
Summer of 1988
The Savage WWF title reign is three months underway. He's mainly feuding with Dibiase at this point.
Other smaller and/or technical wrestlers on the roster:
Ricky Steamboat
Rick Rude
Jake Roberts
Tito Santana
Rick Martel
Greg Valentine
Bam Bam Bigelow
Bret Hart turns face
Within months, these wrestlers will join the roster....
Barry Windham
Tully Blanchard
Arn Anderson
Curt Hennig
Terry Taylor
Also take into consideration McMahon and Flair briefly discussed Flair coming in at this time. If McMahon pulls the trigger, it completely alters and possibly kills the Mega powers storyline.... making Hogan the odd man out at a critical juncture.
McMahon could've phased out the cartoonish aspect of WWF earlier than he did and something resembling the Attitude era can start taking shape.
Re: The Wrestling thread
Barry Windham
Tully Blanchard
Arn Anderson
Curt Hennig
Terry Taylor
What's funny, McMahon had no idea how to book/push these guys. With the exception of Hennig (who should have had a real run as world champion; he could have been on a Nature Boy level for a heel champ) those wrestlers were ridiculous, but were bad asses in the NWA and were clowns in WWF. The Brain Busters? The Red Rooster? It's embarrassing. Windham started out cool as The Widow Maker, and of course they instantly dropped it, then turned him into The Stalker, who ran around.... Stalking people. Terry Taylor was a good wrestler and a terrific heel.
Poor Mike Rotunda was fucking awesome, and neither company used him him well. The Varsity Club had epic potential.
Re: The Wrestling thread
What's funny, McMahon had no idea how to book/push these guys.
A BIG problem...and it bit him on the ass many times...is the fact he didn't like acknowledging the success of other wrestling promotions....or their wrestlers. McMahon let his ego get in the way. While he was a genius and had a killer product, he squandered tons of potential.
Some examples...
The Junkyard Dog
In 82-84, JYD was MASSIVE in Mid-South. He would sell out their venues and was essentially that promotions Hogan. He was so popular that Mid-South's owner, Bill Watts, a notorious racist, had to keep him on top.
McMahon talks JYD into ditching Mid-South, he does it because McMahon pays big money, and is expecting similar treatment.
He doesn't get it.
While JYD is popular in WWF, especially with kids, he is kept on the "B shows" and other than a couple matches against Valentine in 84, never even sniffs a WWF title. A few years later he drops further down the card and then is fired.
The Von Erichs in 82-84
McMahon loved the Von Erichs(David, Kerry, and Kevin). Through the history of WWF magazine, he had a few segments of the Von Erichs and World Class the only other promotion whose existence was acknowledged.
He had a deal in place with Fritz where talent would be exchanged sometimes...most notably Steamboat appearing on some World Class cards.
He wanted Kerry and Kevin but him and Fritz could never come to a deal. Fritz wanted too much...he wanted part ownership. World Class was red hot at the time... McMahon should've figured something out.
Tully and Arn
You're right....The Brain Busters was a dumb name. While Tully and Arn were a GREAT tag team (in NWA & WWF), his mistake was not using them as singles wrestlers. The IC title picture gets very interesting when including these two.
Terry Taylor
Easily one of his worst mistakes. Taylor was a great technical wrestler and really showed his potential in 1985 as National Champion in NWA. Good on the mic.
Out of the blue two years later....and a jolt to the wrestling world....Taylor reinvents himself as a Flair style heel in UWF as their TV champ. He had major buzz in the magazines at the time.
What McMahon did to him two years later is inexcusable. I've heard the various reasons/excuses over the years.... it's still unforgivable. He didn't deserve that and McMahon should've known he could get so much more out of him.
Since he couldn't get Flair at the time, he could've let Taylor shine as a Flair clone like did with Demolition in place of the Road Warriors.
Having said that.... Taylor just gave up and cashed his checks. He didn't even try to make the gimmick work. In hindsight, he should've had the Rooster character be an unstable, unconventional loose cannon. When the face turn happens, give it a 180 approach.
Dusty was handed a shit gimmick meant to embarrass him as well. The polka dots from hell with a pure cringe manager with zero experience.
Did Dusty pout and give up? No. He embraced it full throttle and ran with it. It rejuvenated his career and he became a main event act on the B shows.
Barry Windham
He marketed Windham and Rotunda perfectly in 84-85. Unfortunately, Barry ditched WWF out of the blue because he was sick of the schedule and left McMahon holding the bag. He had to use Spivey to fill in dates with Rotunda.
While McMahon will rehire wrestlers who fuck him over, he punishes them for past sins. Windham should've known this. The Widowmaker definitely had potential and Windham had just come off a killer run as a heel with the US title in NWA, it was all squandered here. His career never recovered.
McMahon did the same thing to Steamboat during his second run.
As far as Hennig goes, yes he was a great singles wrestler and wasn't used properly, I would've had him debut with his dad as a tag team. They were popular in AWA... especially during their feud with the Road Warriors. McMahon could've gave them a brief feud with Demolition. After that, let him go single with his dad a temporary manager.
A few other mistakes....
Bam Bam Bigelow
I don't care if Andre hates him and he's being a bit arrogant in the locker room....you keep riding Bam Bam until he runs out of gas.
For a brief period there, Bigelow is the #2 face, only behind Hogan. In that WM 4 tournament, only Savage and Bigelow the legitimate possibilities.
The nanosecond they decided to go with Savage to set up the year long Megapowers storyline, get that Intercontinental title off Honkeytonk Man and give it to Bigelow.
If not, at least make him Honkeytonk's nemesis and let fans get invested in Bigelow chasing the title.
Intercontinental title
This belt was not handled well at all. From 84-88, the world title is welded to Hogan's waist with the Savage reign the exception...yet it still revolves around Hogan. This is understandable.
From 84-88, the IC belt is held by Tito, Savage, a short Steamboat reign, and then Honky.
That is insanity. The WWF had a strong roster during that period. Having the world title locked down for Hogan makes sense....only allowing several IC title changes was a colossal mistake.
There were so many great feuds where nothing was at stake. Legends like Orndorf, Piper, Bigelow, Jake Roberts, etc did not have a title is mind boggling.
I always thought that the WWF needed a TV title to shuffle around the roster and give feuds more meaning.
Nikita Koloff
The Wrestlemania extravaganza that never was.....
Hulk Hogan vs Nikita Koloff
It would've been the wrestling world's Rocky vs Ivan Drago. McMahon tried to get him but at the last second Nikita decided to stay loyal to Crockett and Dusty and turn it down. McMahon should've offered him even more.
I'm sure Nikita quickly regretted it. He got one more good year in WCW. His wife got cancer, he quits, and when he came back he wasn't the same and he never moved up the card again.
The only problem is that Nikita signing literally alters the course of history. We don't get Hogan-Andre. On the other hand, it might have been equally as huge.
The Varsity Club had epic potential
I mentioned this earlier in the thread but NWA wasted the potential of its stables not named the Four Horsemen.
Out of those crucial years of the Horsemen, they didn't feud with an actual stable. Pure stupidity.
Yes it would've been heel vs heel but NWA fans liked these types of matches.
They should've tested the waters with a mini-feud with the Horsemen against Paul Jones army.
Have Paul Jones interrupt a Flair interview saying Flair is dodging any title matches against his men. Flair talks shit, offers to wrestle one of them on TV next week, and it winds up being the Barbarian.
They have a good 10-15 minute match but then both stables interfere. This could set up a one or two month feud.
Flair
Tully
Arn
Ole
Vs
Barbarian
Abdullah
Baron Von Rashke
Shasta Whatley
If this is successful, they could repeat the feud a couple years later against the Varsity Club.
Re: The Wrestling thread
I hear the gobbling gooker won the 24/7 championship tonight.
https://www.wwe.com/superstars/gobbledygooker
I love old wrestling but the shit that’s going on now doesn’t even resemble wrestling
Re: The Wrestling thread
James wrote:Barry Windham
Tully Blanchard
Arn Anderson
Curt Hennig
Terry TaylorWhat's funny, McMahon had no idea how to book/push these guys.
Let's be honest though...guys like Hogan refused to do business with these guys. All the huge guys we're trying to keep their spots at the top of the card. The only guy from that era who put over guys like Bret was Piper and clearly he wasn't a huge guy.
We missed out on a lot because of Hogan's way of doing business. Andre passed the torch to Hogan (which is wrestling tradition). Eventually...you're supposed to pass that torch to someone else. Can you say Hogan ever really did that? He wouldn't even lose to an undefeated Goldberg in the late 90s.
Also...for as historic as the Hogan/Andre passing of the torch match in 1987 was...the match itself was god awful. Andre could barely move.
Even though business was down in the mid 90s...I thought some amazing stuff happened then. From 1992-1997...the WWF was Bret's backyard and everything went through him. Shawn's best matches....Austin's rise to the top of the card...many other events surrounded Bret's rise and Bret put people over in a way Hogan wouldn't.
Re: The Wrestling thread
Also, I never heard of Hogan ever fucking with other wrestlers like HBK, Nash and those other guys did. Not only would they hold wrestlers back, they'd get them fired, alter their gimmicks/storylines, haze and harass them. They had a ridiculous habit of shitting in people's suitcases. From what I've read, everyone liked being around Hogan.
From what I gather, Bret Hart was a stand up guy in the locker room.
