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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Mar 3, 2015 16:51:21 GMT -5
But no-one captures a crowd now the way Rock did, and that is as much about the crowds of the time as it is about The Rock. Let's not forget the era The Rock was working in. I'm assessing this on the quality of the mic work more than the crowd interaction. How many of these seem like they'd be great speeches wherever they were given? I'd say Cena has more of that than Rock does. Hogan even has more of that than Rock does, Rock, however, has more of it than Austin does. Austin was more one-dimensional for the majority of his run on top than any of the other three guys. Austin had a run of great promos in ECW, but even they weren't that different to his WWF work. Catchphrases are one thing, but don't make the promo guy. How would you rank them? 1. Cena 2. Rock 3. Hogan 4. Austin Wrestling wise, though? 1. Austin 2. Cena 3. Hogan and Rock are about even They're a lot easier to compare promo wise than wrestling wise, I'd say. Because there's a fair argument to be made that Hogan is the greatest wrestler of all time because doing almost nothing in the ring got him such great reactions.
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Post by Mid-Carder on Mar 3, 2015 16:56:03 GMT -5
Passionate, serious Cena is absolutely magic. It gets overlooked far too often because of his silly side.
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Woo
Hank Scorpio
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Post by Woo on Mar 3, 2015 17:11:42 GMT -5
First of all I don't think Cena belongs on that list to begin with, but whatever...
Cena has never been able to get completely over as a face. Half the stuff he says is met with boos. This isn't helped by almost all of his promos being done in the ring whereas the other three were mostly backstage promo guys. He also has two of the most abysmal promos ever- his Star Wars oneand the one just before he won the Royal Rumble. The promo were he tried not to swear was freaking awful too. Either way, he's clearly the worst.
Hulk Hogan has too many botches for me- right gay guy, forgetting Saddam Husiens name etc. I am a little biased against him because I think as a human he's completely horrible though.
So that leaves Rock and Austin. Rock has some of my favourite promos ever such as the one at the 2001 Rumble, his "everyone is gonna win the Royal Rumble" 2002 one and as Hollywood Rock his "leaving Sacremento" song and famous Montreal promos were golden. He also had tons of over catchphrases (for God sake WWE why can't you see these days that catchphrases are so important to wrestling?).
However then we have "cookie puss" "ladyparts", "kung pao bitch" and all those other horrid ones.
Austin wins, a little by default, but also because the guy was incredible on the mic. He also has one of my favourite promos ever on the Raw after the 2002 Royal Rumble he asks if the crowd want to hear a story, goes on a 5 minute tangent and then says "but I'm not hear to tell you that story." Hilarious.
Savage (and Foley) for that matter would destory them all though and it could be argued that the Machoman should be on that list.
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Post by MichaelMartini on Mar 3, 2015 17:22:38 GMT -5
I'd rank them as - 1.Austin because he doesn't have as many bad promos as Rock or Hogan. 2. Rock would be next because of his hilarious trash talking, but there are many lame insults mixed in, which is why Austin is above him. 3. Hogan for his ability to get the hulkamaniacs pumped up and his believable emotion. Check out the promo after Mr. Perfect smashes his belt. He makes it seem like he just murdered his kid. 4. (but more like #12) Cena would be a distant fourth because he almost always comes across as corny and disingenuous to me. One minute he's a boston thug, next he's a southern preacher, next he's a stand up comedian. But perhaps he is a victim of the horrible writing of the past decade.
Better promo guys than Cena off the top of my head - Ric Flair, Chris Jericho, Randy Savage, Big Show (totally underrated), CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Roddy Piper, Jake Roberts, and probably a few more I'm forgetting.
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Woo
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Post by Woo on Mar 3, 2015 17:25:58 GMT -5
I'd rank them as - Austin because he doesn't have as many bad promos as Rock or Hogan. Rock would be next because of his hilarious trash talking Hogan for his ability to get the hulkamaniacs pumped up and his believable emotion. Check out the promo after Mr. Perfect smashes his belt. He makes it seem like he just murdered his kid. Cena would be a distant fourth because he almost always comes across as corny and disingenuous to me. One minute he's a boston thug, next he's a southern preacher, next he's a stand up comedian. But perhaps he is a victim of the horrible writing of the past decade. Better promo guys than Cena off the top of my head - Ric Flair, Chris Jericho, Randy Savage, Big Show (totally underrated), CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Roddy Piper, Jake Roberts, and probably a few more I'm forgetting. I'd add Edge, Christian, Angle, Foley, Shawn & Eddie to that list as well.
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Post by MichaelMartini on Mar 3, 2015 17:28:33 GMT -5
I'd rank them as - Austin because he doesn't have as many bad promos as Rock or Hogan. Rock would be next because of his hilarious trash talking Hogan for his ability to get the hulkamaniacs pumped up and his believable emotion. Check out the promo after Mr. Perfect smashes his belt. He makes it seem like he just murdered his kid. Cena would be a distant fourth because he almost always comes across as corny and disingenuous to me. One minute he's a boston thug, next he's a southern preacher, next he's a stand up comedian. But perhaps he is a victim of the horrible writing of the past decade. Better promo guys than Cena off the top of my head - Ric Flair, Chris Jericho, Randy Savage, Big Show (totally underrated), CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Roddy Piper, Jake Roberts, and probably a few more I'm forgetting. I'd add Edge, Christian, Angle, Foley, Shawn & Eddie to that list as well. Damn, can't believe I forgot Foley. I wouldn't argue with any of those but I'd say Cena is about as good as Edge and HBK. People might scoff at Christian but they probably wouldn't be familiar with his TNA promos.
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Woo
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Post by Woo on Mar 3, 2015 17:32:55 GMT -5
I'd add Edge, Christian, Angle, Foley, Shawn & Eddie to that list as well. Damn, can't believe I forgot Foley. I wouldn't argue with any of those but I'd say Cena is about as good as Edge and HBK. People might scoff at Christian but they probably wouldn't be familiar with his TNA promos. I thought you'd kick yourself with Foley! I was thinking of Edge's early stuff with Christian moreso than his later promos. It is funny that Cena is supposed to be this hilarious jokey character yet Rock, Austin, Foley, Angle, Eddie, Christian, Edge, HBK (in my opinion) are so much funnier than him and most of them can do serious promos better too.
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comahan
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
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Post by comahan on Mar 3, 2015 17:39:54 GMT -5
Austin before he fell into most of his promos being comprised of catchphrases and crowd participation was amazing. One of my favorite promos ever is the little 30 second interview he does backstage before coming to the ring at Survivor Series '96 against Bret. Just phenomenal. If we're talking a career, it's Hulk, who was consistently great for years. But if I could take any time period from any of these guys as mic workers, i'd take Austin from the 1996-97 era.
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mcstoklasa
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Post by mcstoklasa on Mar 3, 2015 17:56:03 GMT -5
Austin before he fell into most of his promos being comprised of catchphrases and crowd participation was amazing. One of my favorite promos ever is the little 30 second interview he does backstage before coming to the ring at Survivor Series '96 against Bret. Just phenomenal. If we're talking a career, it's Hulk, who was consistently great for years. But if I could take any time period from any of these guys as mic workers, i'd take Austin from the 1996-97 era. His intensity was great.
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Post by Mid-Carder on Mar 3, 2015 17:59:48 GMT -5
I'd add Edge, Christian, Angle, Foley, Shawn & Eddie to that list as well. Damn, can't believe I forgot Foley. I wouldn't argue with any of those but I'd say Cena is about as good as Edge and HBK. People might scoff at Christian but they probably wouldn't be familiar with his TNA promos. Cena is far better than Edge. Shawn is certainly up there with these guys, though. Savage is probably better than all of them.
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Post by sportatorium on Mar 3, 2015 20:06:38 GMT -5
I won't say a bad word about the Rock. I just prefer SCSA, so he got my vote. I'd have been interested in Cena were he in an unscripted era to see how much better he would be. Hogan is Hogan.
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Post by Savage Gambino on Mar 3, 2015 20:27:03 GMT -5
Other: Macho Man
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Post by psychokiller on Mar 3, 2015 20:29:28 GMT -5
1. Austin 2. Rock 3. Hogan 4. Cena
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Mar 3, 2015 20:31:41 GMT -5
I would rank Rock higher maybe if I felt like he came across as sincere more, which we usually didn't get. I did like when Jericho was Undisputed champion and called out Rock for basically looking past him and acting like winning the match was some foregone conclusion, and that he was not a joke. It was nice to see Rock drop the bullshit a little and actually address him, acknowledging that he did consider Jericho a valid threat. Which I guess helped him look less ridiculous for not winning it off of Jericho than he would have otherwise.
Austin could joke and did from time to time, but he seemed a little more believable to me, generally speaking.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2015 20:33:30 GMT -5
Rock.
He could sell you on anything. He can be funny to the point you'd think you were watching Martin, he could sell any match if he needed to, he could be serious and finally he could put over the opponent. He could do all of this while grabbing the crowd. There's nothing that man can't do on the mic.
Austin is a close second and then Cena and Hogan is a tossup to me.
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ASYLUMHAUSEN
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Post by ASYLUMHAUSEN on Mar 3, 2015 20:38:38 GMT -5
Austin is a top 5 mic worker of all time, so he gets my vote.
But, as I said in the Raw thread last night, Paul Heyman is the great mic worker in the history of the business. Period.
As for that top 5 I mentioned? For shits and giggles here you go.... 1.Heyman 2.HBK 3. Flair 4. Austin 5. CM Punk
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Crimson
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Post by Crimson on Mar 3, 2015 21:07:37 GMT -5
Other: The Ultimate Warrior
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2015 21:16:53 GMT -5
I'm kind of surprised and kind of not surprised that Hulk isn't getting that much love here. I think that part of it is a generational thing.
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mcstoklasa
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Post by mcstoklasa on Mar 4, 2015 8:17:11 GMT -5
Well unless something changes, we have a winner of both polls.. AUSTIN WINS! AUSTIN WINS! STONE COLD! STONE COLD!
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The Ichi
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Post by The Ichi on Mar 4, 2015 8:53:48 GMT -5
It's funny.
If you gave all four of these men a few hours to think up a promo with absolutely zero interference from Vince and creative (and let's put Hogan in his prime just for the sake of fairness), I have no doubt that both Austin and Cena would come up with the best ones.
However if it's about simply having a crowd, ANY crowd, in the palm of your hands? Hogan and Rock are the best.
So my answer is...I really don't f***ing know.
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