Boo!
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,417
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Post by Boo! on Dec 1, 2014 12:08:13 GMT -5
Another example is Hogan was tomb-stoned onto a chair at the 91 survivor series and although he jarred his neck the doctors/trainers etc coming out to help him up was pre-planned. Warrior smashed over the head with a sceptre at the 91 Rumble and within seconds he's running after Savage. If that would have been Hogan he'd have been helped to the back with concerned fans, kids in tears and all the rest of it.
I know the "that's how it was booked" argument will apply but the reason these things were booked like that is because you could do stuff with the Hogan character that simply wouldn't have worked for Warrior, and visa versa. Warrior was impenetrable most of the time whereas Hogan was often an 'over come the odds' guy. Warrior rarely looked like he had the odds stacked against him at all, even when with anyone else they would.
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wgdj
AC Slater
Posts: 187
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Post by wgdj on Dec 1, 2014 12:47:18 GMT -5
Warrior's selling at RR91 was pretty damn good, IMO. He sold the back injury really well -- certainly much better than Savage delivered it, LOL. The blow from the scepter was sold relatively appropriately. Warrior was dazed long enough to be pinned. Once his head "cleared," he raced to the back to find Savage. The back injury "lasted" longer because it was portrayed as being more serious. Even when Warrior "hulked" up, he kept selling it. It was only at the end of the match that he "hulked" out of it, and that was just so that it could be replaced with the head injury. You're right in saying that Warrior's gimmick was largely that he was impervious to pain, etc, but RR91 was one example -- possibly the only example -- of a match where he came across as a victim and somewhat vulnerable. I remember watching it with my cousin (a Hogan fan who hated Warrior, heh) when I was a kid, and whenever I've watched it since I've been taken back to that time. I recall shouting at the screen, urging the Warrior to crawl back to the ring in time, feeling like he'd won it when he hulked up, and being genuinely shocked when he lost. Being all of 5-ish years old helped, mind you.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2014 13:22:52 GMT -5
wgdj basically said what I was going to about the scepter shot at RR91, verbatim. There is no "Hogan would have been helped to the back..." because that's not how it was scripted to play out. In one match, a guy can get beat half to death with a chair and still kick out, win the match, and celebrate at the end. In the next match, the same guy can have a collision with his manager on the ring apron and be down for the count. This has much more to do with how the match was scripted than the selling ability of the wrestler. I will agree that the fans identified more with Hogan, and that Warrior was more of a short-term fascination, whereas Hogan was a dynasty. Warrior also climbed to the top much faster and peaked much earlier than Hogan, and much like Goldberg, his character was not multi-dimensional enough to keep the fans interested once he finished his climb to the top. In that respect, he was much like Sting, always much more interesting as a challenger or a top contender than he ever was as the top guy.
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Post by quackyquack1 on Dec 1, 2014 13:27:59 GMT -5
The fact Warrior may have had the most interesting and popular feud of the summer of 1991 is not related at all to the fact he didn't draw that well as champion throughout 1990. The Slaughter feud was probably responsible for much of the decline in overall audience at the time because of the negative publicity WWE got from it. But why is it that in 1990 Hogan having the most interesting feud and not being champion is Hogan's fault and in 1991 Warrior having the most interesting feud and not being champion is also Hogan's fault? It's also very possible that it was the Undertaker hook that meant the feud drew more, in the Warrior DVD he spoke of Taker becoming nervous at the pops he was getting as heel, to which Warrior allayed those fears and said it just means the character was getting over. It's probably the only time the two (Hogan and Warrior) have been with the same company and Warrior's house shows drew better than Hogan's. In that case you've got to look at why. Hogan was involved in a character that was driving people away from wrestling -Warrior was in a feud with an evil heel who was getting babyface reactions in an era where such a thing was pretty unheard of. The Gulf War was long over by the time Hogan-Slaughter started their house show run, all of the bad publicity was only during the buildup to WM, it didn't do well because the fans didn't buy Slaughter as a main event threat, Meltzer even talked about this in a July 1991 WON article. It's not who is the champion itself that draws the crowd, it's the storyline that does, although sometimes having the title adds to it. Hogan's drawing power was the same whether he had the belt or not. Warrior-Rude not doing spectacular business had more to do w/lack of heat than Warrior. It didn't draw that bad anyways, compared to the title programs in '92 after WMVIII that were tanking business.
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