Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 26, 2012 4:32:14 GMT -5
They should have been a Power Rangers themed team.
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hitch
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Post by hitch on Dec 26, 2012 5:22:53 GMT -5
I thought they were great. It was something different. People ask for diversity and then complain when what they get served isn't identical to what they just had. I enjoyed their counter-masculinity. It made a change from the "I'm going to beat you up"/"No I'm going to beat you up" stuff.
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Post by CATCH_US IS the Conversation on Dec 26, 2012 5:27:32 GMT -5
^I wish the Spirit Squad members were given a chance to have their own distinct personalities and individual (or 2 or 3 guys) feuds rather than becoming some weird hive mind using the Freebird Rule.
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Post by Epidomy on Dec 26, 2012 9:15:15 GMT -5
They need to start getting them Individuality and then make a return for a couple of weeks or so. Mix it up, then take it away.
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Post by ________ has left the building on Dec 26, 2012 9:19:58 GMT -5
They should have been a Power Rangers themed team. Better yet, a Ginzu Force themed team.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2012 9:54:29 GMT -5
I could've swore they were around for like 2 years or am I crazy? Their run lasted 10 months (January-November 2006). So they were around for Wrestlemania..........and weren't on the show. Yeah, that was an over concept, Vince.
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Post by cabbageboy on Dec 26, 2012 10:12:18 GMT -5
Didn't they do a run in on the HBK/Vince match at WM? Or was that the God match at Backlash? As someone who watched a lot of 2005 era OVW under Heyman it's hard to fathom just how much of a disaster the Spirit Squad really was. This terrible gimmick wrecked an entire crew of OVW workers. Johnny Jeter and Ken Doane were top prospects in OVW and were totally killed by the gimmick, especially Doane/Dykstra, who never even got off TV long enough be repackaged. At least Nick Nemeth was sent back down to developmental for a while and brought back with a different gimmick in Dolph Ziggler. Nemeth wasn't even a top tier guy in OVW and he's now on the brink of being world champ.
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Post by kingoftheindies on Dec 26, 2012 10:26:23 GMT -5
For the question, they pretty much weren't ready to wrestle actual matched at the time. Johnny was and they actually started grooming him for ECW (he was wrestling dark matches on ECW as Jayden Jeter) but those plans were scrapped because of Paul Heyman leaving. Heyman booked Jeter amazingly in OVW and was a huge fan of him, but pretty much everything Paul wanted to do in ECW and who he liked outside of Punk flopped.
Kenny could wrestle well enough, but he had the personality of a wet rag. He was decent as a cocky heel who knew he was good. But you had so many people at the time that did that better than him.
Mikey was kind of ready, but his size at the time hurt him. Now he'd probably be received better
Dolph and Mitch had no business being on the main roster at the time. Mitch also had a bad back I think that prevented him from wrestling
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Post by Metalheadbanger Man on Dec 26, 2012 10:52:31 GMT -5
The gimmick did have a short shelf life, plus they were squashed by DX at every turn.
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Post by eJm on Dec 26, 2012 13:30:22 GMT -5
Squashed is putting it nicely.
I would say pulverised, annialated, destroyed, torn apart, crucified, ripped to pieces...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2012 13:39:58 GMT -5
For the question, they pretty much weren't ready to wrestle actual matched at the time. Johnny was and they actually started grooming him for ECW (he was wrestling dark matches on ECW as Jayden Jeter) but those plans were scrapped because of Paul Heyman leaving. Heyman booked Jeter amazingly in OVW and was a huge fan of him, but pretty much everything Paul wanted to do in ECW and who he liked outside of Punk flopped. Johnny wrestling ECW dark matches had to have started after Paul was gone. Johnny was already in the Spirit Squad when ECW started in June, then the end of Spirit Squad and Paul leaving happened just one week apart around the end of 2006.
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Allie Kitsune
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Dec 26, 2012 13:55:58 GMT -5
Johnny worked an ECW Battle Royale on TV. I remember that much.
And then he was gone, right after that.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2012 14:23:03 GMT -5
Johnny worked an ECW Battle Royale on TV. I remember that much. And then he was gone, right after that. Yeah, and that had to have been after Paul was gone. During the entire period where Paul was running the ECW brand, Johnny was on Raw in the Spirit Squad.
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Post by Hit Girl on Dec 26, 2012 14:26:47 GMT -5
They should have been a Power Rangers themed team. That concept would still work today, with a group of colour coded masked wrestlers, male and female, with unmasked "alter-egos". WWE could make a mint on kid-friendly merchandise.
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Post by Cyno on Dec 26, 2012 14:26:51 GMT -5
I'm really surprised Johnny Jeter never really went anywhere. Kenny was an OK worker, and it was pretty obvious he was supposed to be the breakout star of the group. But he just became mind-numbingly boring. He had zero charisma or personality on his own.
Funny thing is that I'm amazed at how well Dolph turned out. He sucked as Nicky. He was seriously terrible. After Mitch, I thought he'd be the most likely to be shipped back to OVW and quietly released.
Otherwise I have no fond memories of this group. Watching them get buried by the reformed DX was about the only entertainment I got out of them.
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Post by ThankGodForSidJustice on Dec 26, 2012 15:26:42 GMT -5
It was one of those things that was fun for at first but got old pretty quick. They got the most they could out of it but it just wasn't a long term gimmick. Once they got squashed by DX their really wasn't much use for them anymore. The freebird rule was a decent idea but they executed poorly as it was pretty much always Kenny and Mikey defending, thus making it kind of pointless.
It really is amazing how great Ziggler became as to me he was fourth in the group in talent with only Mitch being worse. He really had nothing going for him at all back then. Kenny seemed to have all the tools (young, decent size, good worker) to be a future player, but apparently had a bad attitude and got depushed pretty quickly as he didn't much in his singles run other then getting a couple of fluky rollup wins over sixty year old Ric Flair.
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Post by Hit Girl on Dec 26, 2012 15:28:06 GMT -5
Ziggler had the advantage of not being noticed too much in the Spirit Squad. Thus he was able to start virtually afresh.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 26, 2012 16:51:20 GMT -5
They should have been a Power Rangers themed team. That concept would still work today, with a group of colour coded masked wrestlers, male and female, with unmasked "alter-egos". WWE could make a mint on kid-friendly merchandise. I agree. Shame Hunico unmasked, he could have been turned to the side of good and we could have a Sin Cara Corps.
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Post by Danimal on Dec 27, 2012 1:57:33 GMT -5
I believe they wanted to give Kenny a run at the top. Hence why they had him feuding (and beating) Ric Flair. By that point, beating Ric Flair didn't really mean that much and Kenny never went anywhere. They screwed Kenny by immediately pushing him upon disbanding the Spirit Squad, a group of jokey glorified jobbers. They should've did the same as with Ziggler. Send him back to developmental for a bit, let the Spirit Squad stigma die off, and bring him back as a fresh character. When Dolph came back I only recognized him as a Spirit Squad guy when it was mentioned here. With Kenny one week he's in a group of cheerleaders that has to gang-up to beat anyone and the next he's whipping Flair? Really?
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