mcstoklasa
Hank Scorpio
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Post by mcstoklasa on Apr 14, 2015 7:25:42 GMT -5
I'm talking WWF/E specifically, brother, and I mean in in-ring roles.
What I mean is, imagine if the Wrestlemanias in the Attitude Era, had Sammartino, Graham, Hogan, Backlund, Warrior coming back for the "main events" and Austin and Rock fighting lower down on the card. This is jut hypothetical as I know Bruno and Graham were too old by this point most likely.
So Wrestlemanias nowadays, are great don't get me wrong, but you often have a lot of relics of the past wrestling on the card: HHH, Undertaker, Sting (this year), Rock, The Local Men, Mark Henry. I'm not including Lesnar because the dude is awesome, relevant, only 37 and fans actually want to see him (yeah I know they wanna see Rock and Taker too). Plus he's around for a few matches a year for the next three years which is more than can be said for any of the guys other than the most local of men.
Anyway, in WWF in the mid 90's, WWF lost the likes of Hogan, Hall, Nash etc. This meant their young guns had to be turned into new stars: Austin, Rock, HHH, etc and Undertaker was still young and still had tons to offer. We know how that went: the hottest era in wrestling began.
How many old guys would you say were clogging up the WWF cards from 97 to 2001? If any? No, Austin doesn't count even if he was heading towards his late thirties at the time, he was their new big star. Taker was still improving.
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Post by Wolf Hurricane on Apr 14, 2015 8:06:15 GMT -5
There weren't any, really. Pretty much everyone had either gone to WCW or left the bidness altogether. To me, this whole business reeks of throwing in the towel. In this same period of the Attitude Era, they were more or less cleaning their closet or pushing their older stars to the wayside for the likes of up-and-comers like Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Rock. Even with Ruthless Aggression, they were starting to slow down on people like Triple H (save for the Reign of Terror) and the Undertaker so they could put more steam behind guys like Lesnar, Cena, Batista, and Orton. Nothing like what's happening now where, with more television time than ever before, the whole thing and just about everyone involved has become a big filler show for the annual (biannual, if you're lucky) Wayback Main Event, "featuring stars from back when wrestling was good and we didn't have the losers we have now."
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thecrusherwi
El Dandy
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Post by thecrusherwi on Apr 14, 2015 8:19:55 GMT -5
In 1998, the WWF had almost no old guys. Other than Terry Funk, I can't think of anyone over 35.
And say what you will about WCW relying on old stars, at least Hogan and Piper and those guys weren't just showing up to main event Starrcade. Sure they would take breaks of a month or two, but when they were there, they were at every Nitro wrestling in matches and cutting promos. And they were at Spring Stampede and Souled Out and World War 3. When they were there, they were there 100%
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Crappler El 0 M
Dalek
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Post by Crappler El 0 M on Apr 14, 2015 8:24:17 GMT -5
'Middle-aged and Crazy' Terry Funk.
Occassionally, Vince McMahon, Pat Patterson, and Gerald Brisco wrestled, but obviously they were not portrayed as active superstars.
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mcstoklasa
Hank Scorpio
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Post by mcstoklasa on Apr 14, 2015 8:30:15 GMT -5
I'm a massive hypocrite because I would mark if Austin had one more match next year. It 100% won't happen though as Austin knows its not his time any more and doesn't want to risk tarnishing his legacy.
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Post by giraffe4hire on Apr 14, 2015 8:35:08 GMT -5
John Tenta.
Mind you, briefly.
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Crappler El 0 M
Dalek
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Post by Crappler El 0 M on Apr 14, 2015 8:38:16 GMT -5
John Tenta was in his mid-30 when he came back to WWE as Golga. He was younger than Cena is now. He was about the age that Punk was when he walked out.
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Post by Gravedigger's Biscuits on Apr 14, 2015 8:40:24 GMT -5
Big Boss Man was also 35 when he returned to the WWF in 1998.
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mcstoklasa
Hank Scorpio
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Post by mcstoklasa on Apr 14, 2015 8:44:23 GMT -5
Stone Cold, Foley and Undertaker were around 33 or 34 in 98.
Kane was around 31.
Rock was in his mid twenties.
HHH was 28 or so.
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Crappler El 0 M
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Post by Crappler El 0 M on Apr 14, 2015 8:48:22 GMT -5
Barry Windham, Road Warrior Animal and Jacques Rougeau were there for the very beginning of the Attitude Era, but they were only a year or so older than Cena is now. Hawk, Ricky Morton, and Robert Gibson was in their early 40s.
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Post by Brian Suntan on Apr 14, 2015 8:48:24 GMT -5
Big Bossman and Sgt Slaughter as well I guess. I'm watching Raw from '98 and Honky Tonk man has just introduced a match between Brian Christopher and some dude called Pantera for some reason. But yeah, not many.
It's very easy to say bin off all the old stars, but would anyone seriously do it if they were in charge? Sure maybe you could repeat the Attitude Era, or maybe you bankrupt the company because you've ditched all your proven talent on a whim. It's a huge gamble to make at a time when things are going pretty well. If The Rock, HHH, Sting, Taker, Brock etc didn't draw it'd be different, but they do.
11 out of the 22 who made it to the main Wrestlemania card have been on the main roster five years or less, which isn't too bad I don't think.
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Post by Gravedigger's Biscuits on Apr 14, 2015 8:52:27 GMT -5
Haku returned to the WWF in 2001 at the age of 41.
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keezy
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Post by keezy on Apr 14, 2015 8:52:29 GMT -5
The Road Warriors if you'd count them, they were probably around Big Show's age doing the LOD 2000 and people consider him old.
There was also that weird brief Rock n' Roll Express run.
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mcstoklasa
Hank Scorpio
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Post by mcstoklasa on Apr 14, 2015 9:03:39 GMT -5
Yeah, but Haku and the road warriors weren't around a lot, really.
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Post by OldDirtyBernie on Apr 14, 2015 9:31:05 GMT -5
I don't think it's so much throwing in the towel as much as it's Vince & Comany relying on the stars that made them money during that Era in fear of trying to create new stars, which may entail a down period to reach a new boom period. The same can be said for their reliance on Cena for so long - they see him as the only viable commodity that's gotten to the level of people like Hogan, Rock, or Austin in the past 10-12 years so they see him as their goose that laid the golden egg. It's a dangerous line they're walking, however, because if they fail to have anyone catch on in the same way soon, the down period is going to be much worse than a building period when they have to start entirely from scratch rather than at LEAST having established guys they can rely on. They seem to have averted this a bit with their Super-Indy in NXT but even that only reaches so far, plus any any time someone makes it to the main roster they're handled horribly as the company falls into the same old shit.
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Post by molson5 on Apr 14, 2015 9:36:17 GMT -5
Wrestlemania has changed a lot since those days. It was held at a regular arena through all of the mid to late-90s. So it was always a big show, but not a hugely epic one with a $12 million gate and 60,000+ fans like today. Today they need a bigger hook than just having the same guys and matches you see on every other show. Manias 13-16 really weren't that much different than any RAW or PPV. There's probably things they could have done to make those shows as huge as Mania is today, but it's be tougher in the middle of the Monday Night Wars where top guys wrestled each other every week on free TV. As others have said, there wasn't the option to draw big part-timers really. One other route could be celebrities. There was always talks to have Tyson do a match, that's something that could have sold out an arena and gotten modern-era-level Mania hype.
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on Apr 14, 2015 9:52:00 GMT -5
Stone Cold, Foley and Undertaker were around 33 or 34 in 98. Kane was around 31. Rock was in his mid twenties. HHH was 28 or so. Mick was 34 in 2000 when he retired.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2015 9:57:45 GMT -5
Back then, that's what WCW was for.
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auph10imitated
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Post by auph10imitated on Apr 14, 2015 10:23:35 GMT -5
Funny thing is during those days I liked it when older guys came back or whatever, gave me that sense of nostalgia when everything was changing, I hated change at that time despite how crappy the New Gen area was, as I kid I missed all the old guys so loved it when one showed up. In hindsight I understand why its important for change and I got used too it and then began to enjoy the change of the guard.
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Post by Gravedigger's Biscuits on Apr 14, 2015 10:29:27 GMT -5
Stone Cold, Foley and Undertaker were around 33 or 34 in 98. Kane was around 31. Rock was in his mid twenties. HHH was 28 or so. Mick was 34 in 2000 when he retired. Yeah but Mick turned 33 in 1998 so what he said was right.
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