Crappler El 0 M
Dalek
Never Forgets an Octagon
I'm a good R-Truth.
Posts: 58,479
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Post by Crappler El 0 M on May 11, 2013 13:25:23 GMT -5
Can we not just give Hulk credit for not only putting on a series of decent to good matches at 50 years old, but also putting a bunch of people over? -Putting on decent matches in his fifties? Yes. -Putting a bunch of people over? True, he put over The Rock, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar very cleanly and convincingly, but he had little choice. Hogan has shown that when he has creative control, he very rarely loses in a clean and convincing manner. He lost pretty cleanly to Piper, Luger, and Goldberg while he had creative control. That's all I can think of right now. When he came back to WWE again to face Michaels and Orton, he got his creative control back. I don't think him beating Michaels was that bad since they were both legends at the time, but I really thought he should have put over Orton on his way out. Of course he had creative control for those two matches. I don't think we should be too critical of Hogan rarely putting people over clean once he became a huge star. As the top babyface and face of WWF, he shouldn't have had many clean losses. However, I think he could have lost clean more as the heel Hollywood Hogan, though he did put over Piper, Luger, and Goldberg cleanly. Still, that wasn't enough. He should have put over Sting in a better way at Starrcade 1997.
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Post by cabbageboy on May 11, 2013 13:55:46 GMT -5
The irony is that Hogan making one last stand against Brock for the title actually is a far better storyline than what WWE actually DID. I can see Hogan making me care about that match and then Vince could somehow royally screw him and set up the WM XIX match. Instead we got Brock jobbing to a totally heatless Big Show and having to go through Angle's jobbers en route to regaining the title.
Let me comment on the list of main event marks:
Bret: Yeah I would say Bret is a mark for himself, given the way he puts himself over and also at times has put down other great wrestlers (Flair, HHH, etc.). Look, losing 1 match in Canada wouldn't have hurt his rep at all, especially if he had gone to WCW and actually done anything.
Austin: Honestly I don't think Austin is a mark for himself. Some of his refusal to work feuds with guys to me makes sense. Billy Gunn had already tanked as a singles guy, so why would Austin feud with him for the title? At best that's a Raw match. Ditto Jarrett. Decent 10 minute Raw main event, but hardly anything PPV worthy. I disagree with him walking out in 2002, but frankly I think he realized he was toast anyway.
HHH: Biggest mark on this entire list. Frankly I don't think HHH really is that much of a great talent. He isn't all that naturally athletic and left to his own devices is kind of a boring and uninspiring wrestler (Bret has a point here folks). There's more on screen evidence of his markdom for himself than anyone. Just look at the self serving 20 minute promos, the way he has been booked, the politics he has played, the guys he has buried.
Lawler: Not a mark for himself at all. Sure he was on top in Memphis for decades, but even as booker and part owner he would job at the drop of a hat to basically anybody that came through to put feuds over.
Dusty: Yeah he probably is kind of a mark for himself, at least at the tail end of his NWA run. But really, it's not like Dusty constantly booked himself the world title or anything. The dude had the belt for all of 3 weeks in 1986 to go along with a couple of other brief 1979 and 1981 title runs. The Dusty Finish stuff got way out of control by 1987-88, but I really won't begrudge Dusty the occasional US/TV level belt.
Nash: Probably a mark for himself, but it's curious that he managed to amass any power in both the WWF and WCW. I think Nash would at least admit to it though and have fun with it.
Michaels: Oh lord. The track record from 1993-98 speaks for itself. The guy had to be threatened with physical violence to do the obvious job to Austin at WM XIV. Vacated the IC title at least twice. Vacated the tag belts once. Vacated the WWF title and lost his smile. The only reason I would put HHH above him on the "mark for himself" list is that HBK is more talented and at least most of his antics only served to hurt himself in the long run instead of burying others.
Gagne: Eh he probably was, but really just near the end. Much like Lawler I don't begrudge a guy that is a principle owner of a company booking things around himself.
Fritz: I wouldn't say mark for himself exactly, but the Rest of Wrestling Scumbag thread had a lot of Fritz mentions.
Sheik: Not familiar enough with him but another regional star booking around himself. Probably a mark for himself, but so what?
Abdullah: I'd say he was more concerned with keeping his madman image intact, kind of like Bruiser Brody in that regard. His markdom mainly served to keep himself strong rather than hurt anyone else. I mean he had no booking power or anything really.
Jarrett: Yeah, in TNA I'd say Jarrett was kind of a mark for himself. That 2003-06 era of TNA is more jarring because he really never seemed anything like that before or since. He probably felt in the beginning that booking TNA around himself was the way to go, but eventually he lost the power to do so and TNA had bigger stars.
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babyfootball
Don Corleone
At least as good as Ron Garvin!
Posts: 1,320
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Post by babyfootball on May 11, 2013 15:36:17 GMT -5
Lawler: Not a mark for himself at all. Sure he was on top in Memphis for decades, but even as booker and part owner he would job at the drop of a hat to basically anybody that came through to put feuds over. Yeah, I think a good point to be made is that even though Lawler won the USWA belt something like 30 times, he lost it approximately 30 times too. Now, a lot of people might feel that this kind of booking is really goofy, and giving 1 week reigns to part-timers like Papa Shango and Owen Hart only for Lawler to come back the next week at the big local auditorium and sell the place out while winning the belt AGAIN probably doesn't last that long, but for what it's worth, Lawler managed to keep that territory going for a good several years after a lot of the other territories were dead and buried. The thing about Hogan is, he reached a point in like 1996 where he failed due to oversaturation; he was just plain stale. His heel turn and the nWo revitalized him but it wasn't too sustainable... he had about 2 and a half hot years between the turn and early 1999 when WCW's buyrates and ratings went in the tank with him on top. He even tried to go back to the red and yellow Hulkamania stuff but nobody was watching by that point. By the time he came back to WWE, he had been gone long enough from weekly TV (or unwatched might be a better way of putting it) that he wasn't totally stale anymore. But he was definitely officially old. He reached that point when you're no longer really a top draw, you're a nostalgia act. Most wrestlers don't want to accept it when it happens, and it definitely falls under diminishing returns. With Hogan, starting out his return doing the nWo thing again made no sense and should've been a lot better of an angle than it was, so it was actually lucky that the fans just demanded that he be the WWF Hulk Hogan, the Real American. Winning the title was a nice little 1 month thank you run that I had no issue with, though it didn't exactly set business afire like Hulk and Vince hoped, I'm sure. Another title run would have been ridiculous, although I can absolutely see that underdog chase for the title scenario making a good b-story to keep Brock busy as champion and ultimately put Brock over more while letting Hogan have one more big angle. Then I really wouldn't care if he did the thing he did for a few years there, just coming around once in a while for a fun nostalgia or old-meets-young angle, but his days of being the focal point of any weekly wrestling show should have been over a decade ago. But there will always be a place for him to pop in, as he remains the most recognizable wrestler of all-time. He is the Babe Ruth of wrestling. So in a way can't blame the guy for having a bit of an ego and being concerned about his image, justifiably or not.
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trollrogue
Hank Scorpio
Nashville City of Music!!
Posts: 5,607
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Post by trollrogue on May 11, 2013 21:45:56 GMT -5
He really is setup as the ultimate enemy of Swagger and Coulter, as the true Real American of the WWE. Well I guess they can just give it to Bo Dallas as an easy backup for the Hulkster!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2013 10:02:53 GMT -5
It was the only time since 1994 that he didn't have creative control over his match outcomes. When he came back for the Michaels and Orton matches, he had creative control again. Which was why HBK oversold a lot of Hogan's offense, now that I think about it. And, if Orton HAD beaten Hogan, that would've cemented the Legend Killer gimmick for sure.
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