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Post by This Player Hating Mothman on Apr 25, 2016 13:41:50 GMT -5
The thing is, for as much as Sami Zayn might not be 6'5" and chiseled out of marble, once he's able to actually get in there and wrestle, he's going to impress you, and in modern wrestling where we know that it's a piece of performance art, there's a lot more emphasis on one's ability to actually perform over just looking flashy. It's something that you can definitely claim is a smarkier sentiment and has been once for a long time, but it does become more and more mainstream as time goes on. It's the same way our action stars have slimmed up; Chris Evans might be muscular as hell, but he's not anywhere near as big as Schwarzenegger was. The highest grossing actions movies of late tend to not always star jacked up muscle guys, and when they do, they're superhero movies where the onus is on the character rather than the fact they look big. It's why Daniel Bryan, a guy who is in good shape but not like, mind-blowingly so, was able to become the biggest star in the business for a while on the back of a humble personality and a f***ton of talent. It didn't matter how he looked, because he could wrestle his heart out and pull people into it. Same with Zayn. You can make all of the "Kevin Owens looks like half the audience" jokes you please but once he gets in there and wrestles or when he talks trash, people pay attention.
I will forever prefer to watch two guys at the top of their profession put on a great show than watch a couple of massive hosses lumber around for ten minutes and bore me.
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Post by Ruthless Pessimism on Apr 25, 2016 13:53:44 GMT -5
As someone else mentioned, I think it depends on what you're used to (what era you associate with, etc).
I think the New Day are alright. My favorite of the three is Big E. The sole reason for that is because the moment they drop the goofiness, he's the only one I can see as legitimately being able to murder someone in a combat situation (see: wrestling). I tend to dig the bigger wrestlers for the most part, because I find them more believable. Guys like Sami or Ambrose are solid workers but I don't buy either of them as a seriously threatening person.
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Magnus the Magnificent
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Post by Magnus the Magnificent on Apr 25, 2016 14:08:37 GMT -5
Looks aren't be-all-end-all important, even if they play a pretty significant part on how a wrestler "should" be. More important is how they carry themselves, the vibe or aura they give off.
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FinalGwen
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Post by FinalGwen on Apr 25, 2016 14:12:34 GMT -5
In Britain, when wrestling was at its height of popularity, it featured dozens upon dozens of guys who would look tiny next to Zayn, and its biggest draw was an old immovable fat guy. Looks really aren't everything.
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saintpat
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Post by saintpat on Apr 25, 2016 15:31:17 GMT -5
The thing is, for as much as Sami Zayn might not be 6'5" and chiseled out of marble, once he's able to actually get in there and wrestle, he's going to impress you, and in modern wrestling where we know that it's a piece of performance art, there's a lot more emphasis on one's ability to actually perform over just looking flashy. It's something that you can definitely claim is a smarkier sentiment and has been once for a long time, but it does become more and more mainstream as time goes on. It's the same way our action stars have slimmed up; Chris Evans might be muscular as hell, but he's not anywhere near as big as Schwarzenegger was. The highest grossing actions movies of late tend to not always star jacked up muscle guys, and when they do, they're superhero movies where the onus is on the character rather than the fact they look big. It's why Daniel Bryan, a guy who is in good shape but not like, mind-blowingly so, was able to become the biggest star in the business for a while on the back of a humble personality and a f***ton of talent. It didn't matter how he looked, because he could wrestle his heart out and pull people into it. Same with Zayn. You can make all of the "Kevin Owens looks like half the audience" jokes you please but once he gets in there and wrestles or when he talks trash, people pay attention. I will forever prefer to watch two guys at the top of their profession put on a great show than watch a couple of massive hosses lumber around for ten minutes and bore me. I certainly think smaller, less imposing guys can get over. But it takes someone special and it takes the right booking and circumstance. Daniel Bryan did it, but he got a lot of "sympathetic babyface in peril" booking and a whole lot of pop from being a foil to the hated Authority (regardless of how much booking plans were or were not changed, the fact that he was singled out as a B-plus player, etc., helped put him over -- as did developing a character, starting with Team Hell No). I remember when he first came up and people were complaining that he wasn't being booked as badass American Dragon like in the indies, and I believe that never would have worked. I recall a solo match with Batista where he tried to lock in the LaBell Lock and he couldn't really do it because Dave was too big and overly muscled for Bryan to really wrap him up. That works against him being booked as a complete badass -- as much as I like Bryan, no way do I buy him as some irresistible force running amok through the WWE roster like Lesnar. Just doesn't strike me as realistic. I think Owens can pull it off not because he looks "like me" but because he looks like the guy at the end of the bar who's had one too many and is looking for a fight and is the LAST guy I'd want to cross when he's in a perpetually pissed-off mood and looking for someone to take his misery out on. But I do think it takes more than "workratez." Sami is going to have to do more to connect than putting on good matches -- he can do that and be his generation's Ziggler or something, but there's a ceiling there IF his limitations are "I'm a nice guy who can wrestle." There has to be something more compelling to his character than "Underdog in his Underoos." We'll see if he has it. Bigger pitcher (as the Nexus would say), EVERYBODY can't be an undersized, underdog guy who can wrestle. That quickly becomes a bunch of indistinguishable vanilla midgets. Those who can do more, who can really tell stories and connect with the audience and work the mic and draw people in will have a chance to rise, but I'm not sure that Finn Balor (boring guy with a nice entrance), Hideo Itami (hasn't shown me jack) and some others on the way up have IT. We shall see.
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saintpat
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Post by saintpat on Apr 25, 2016 15:34:24 GMT -5
In Britain, when wrestling was at its height of popularity, it featured dozens upon dozens of guys who would look tiny next to Zayn, and its biggest draw was an old immovable fat guy. Looks really aren't everything. Meh, stick a phone both and an old taxi onstage and everyone gets over in Britain. Brits mark for everything. I kid, I kid. (Not really -- they pack out TNA shows over there.)
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Post by Throwback on Apr 25, 2016 15:46:57 GMT -5
I got into wrestling as kid because it was like watching a real life cartoon. Now although I have to admit that aspect that made me a fan in the first place seems to be gone. I also have to except that the kids that are watching these days seem really into the product. From that standpoint I have come to the conclusion that wrestling is for kids and I'm simply out of the demographic of what's considered cool in wrestling As someone else mentioned, I think it depends on what you're used to (what era you associate with, etc). I think the New Day are alright. My favorite of the three is Big E. The sole reason for that is because the moment they drop the goofiness, he's the only one I can see as legitimately being able to murder someone in a combat situation (see: wrestling). I tend to dig the bigger wrestlers for the most part, because I find them more believable. Guys like Sami or Ambrose are solid workers but I don't buy either of them as a seriously threatening person. whenever I see someone say a person isn't believable or can't be taken seriously because they are small. I have 2 words. Bruce Lee. It's not unbelievable to think that someone with speed, agility and fighting experience. Could out maneuver a bigger, slower guy.
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Post by Magic knows Black Lives Matter on Apr 25, 2016 15:56:42 GMT -5
Even if you dip outside the realm of wrestling, with the exception of Brock Lesnar, literally all of the biggest draws in combat sports in the last 6-7 years have been under 215.
Nobody gives a f*** about heavyweights now. That was a past era. Wrestlers come in a smaller size now. You still need personalities, of course, but size really isn't an issue.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2016 16:09:50 GMT -5
The idea of comparing Sami Zayn to Macho Man is a skewed argument anyways because they both serve two different purposes, it would be like holding up Dusty Rhodes next to Ryback and using it to make a point about how fat and out of shape wrestlers were in the 80s. Though it's hard to disagree that today's breed of wrestler is different from yesterday's, whether it's for better or worse I think is subjective.
It's a predictable argument but I think booking has a lot to do with it. There are guys in the WWE with killer looks, Usos have a good look, Reigns has a good look, but the Usos have been doing the same old shit without variation for years now and people are bored of them, and Reigns has been rejected for 2 years now and they come off looking like losers. If Macho Man had to deal with this shit he'd look like some asshole too. D'Angelo Dinero in TNA is a great example of someone who exuded charisma, had a star presence about him, but TNA had him hollering and yelling about such dumb "who cares?" shit with such passion that you look at any picture of him in his dumb glasses and trenchcoat and he just looks like an idiot now. His goofball commentary is no better or worse than Dusty Rhodes, but he doesn't have the pedigree that Dusty has to afford being able to suck so bad at commentary and be endearing about it. Presentation is one thing, but your looks don't matter if you've been booked to a point where people don't really care if you're around or not. The Ascension are no Legion of Doom, but neither were Demolition, even when they were young they looked like a couple of old farts with an S&M fetish, and they're pretty well remembered because they were booked like they mattered.
I think wrestlers deserve some blame too for not putting up a better fight for themselves, or perhaps not knowing better but I can only speculate about that, because who knows. I think wrestlers get a bit too ironic for their own good too, like New Day are a good example, I think they're hilarious and entertaining, and they at least appear to get more freedom than a lot of guys, but if all that freedom amounts to weird promos about unicorns and booty that serve nothing but to get a laugh that night it just seems counter productive. Kevin Owens is another one, I think he's hilarious and fun to watch, but I question if it's worth throwing away the idea of heel heat to be funny, "chinlock city" and walking around wearing JBL's hat and making the commentary team laugh isn't really conducive to heat when you're supposed to be a heel. Like, you read Mick Foley's books and you read about how he's constantly searching for that sweet combination of heel/faces who are a good foil for each other, and how to parlay that into a great storyline where he visualizes himself at the peak of it cutting the promo of his life, how many wrestlers even think like that anymore I wonder?
This is just my long winded way of saying that looks aren't that important. Hulk Hogan is a prematurely bald cornball of a guy who doesn't look cool at all but he looks like a star because he was a star. If booking didn't support him you'd look at a picture of him and just think he's a prematurely bald cornball. It comes down to the old Paul Heyman thing of accentuating the positives and hiding the negatives, and all that. You watch NXT, ROH and Lucha Underground and you see the benefits of good booking. I think the problem with WWE is that it feels like they have that picture of Macho Man next to Sami Zayn and they use that as their inspiration for the way they book.
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Post by celtics543 on Apr 25, 2016 17:28:23 GMT -5
I'd like to first point out that Macho Man wasn't that tall. He was like 5'10" thought admittedly he was huge. It's not the size though so much as just so many guys today lack charisma.
The charisma issue is the biggest problem today. No one is allowed to really be themselves, everyone is following a script, and that isn't getting anyone over. If guys were allowed to be themselves and be charismatic they would be just as big of stars as they were before. A guy like Daniel Bryan got over and could bring people into the building with his charisma but it's much rarer today than it used to be. One of the major things is that guys aren't paid based on live attendance anymore. Really guaranteed contracts have hurt the entire business because now guys get paid regardless of how many people they draw. Back in the Savage days they had to be able to talk people into the building, so those guys got good at that while todays guys have never really had that pressure.
Pretty much overall I don't think size matters as much as charisma and today's guys either don't have the same charisma or aren't allowed to use it for any number of reasons. It's true though, guys today don't look or feel larger than life and that's hurting wrestling. I don't think it's size though, because Austin wasn't huge and he's probably the most popular star of all time. It could also be the access we get now with everything being on social media. In the old days you didn't see Savage other than when he was on the show, now we see Cena and everyone else on twitter/facebook/instagram doing regular people things and it sort of takes you out of it.
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Post by Medicinal Thunder Liger on Apr 25, 2016 17:32:36 GMT -5
How about both? Wrestling needs variety. While i like the group of sami, aries and AJ i think there is always a place in the industry for roid freaks and pot bellies.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2016 18:14:26 GMT -5
Remember Bishoff was obsessed by wrestlers being larger than life and having outrageous tough guy looks.
All went well till he fired a dude as he couldn't see how to market a regular sized baldie in black trunks, wonder what happened to that guy?
In ten years time someone will post a thread saying "I don't get why those smarks like this bland guy from nxt, whatever happened to larger than life wrestlers like that super friendly looking dude with the ska music or that dude who came to the ring dressed like a hobo but still managed to date that hot interviewer".
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Post by darkjourney on Apr 25, 2016 18:35:26 GMT -5
Remember Bishoff was obsessed by wrestlers being larger than life and having outrageous tough guy looks. All went well till he fired a dude as he couldn't see how to market a regular sized baldie in black trunks, wonder what happened to that guy? In ten years time someone will post a thread saying "I don't get why those smarks like this bland guy from nxt, whatever happened to larger than life wrestlers like that super friendly looking dude with the ska music or that dude who came to the ring dressed like a hobo but still managed to date that hot interviewer". Well to be fair to Bischoff.. Hogan,Nash, Hall, Goldberg, helped usher in the 2nd boom period (Hogan TWICE really).. I don't think the small cruiser weights or Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, etc. were ever or would ever be capable of doing that. Just as I don't think the small NXT guys would ever be capable of doing that. Nor would AJ Styles do that. Chain wrestling, Small guys aren't going to draw like heavyweights. Its the way its always been, its the way it will ALWAYS Be. Its why the Mcmahons have ultimately gotten behind the bigger guys. It is and will always be a big man business that will draw. Sure its great to have chain wrestling small guys on the roster but you can't build your company around it. Its just not gonna sell to the masses. Only to the guys that are going to watch WWE. But you're business ultimately will NOT grow as a result.
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saintpat
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Post by saintpat on Apr 25, 2016 18:43:38 GMT -5
I hesitate to throw this out there, but I wonder and somewhat believe this might be part of it. It's overly broad, and I'm not saying this applies to EVERYONE, but it could be a piece of the puzzle:
In the past, the ideal storyline was more about Big Iconic Hero overcomes Big Bad Monster/Villian. It was all larger than life, more like an ancient Battle of the Gods morality play.
Then came more of the "age of realism," where the hero became more of the "everyman who represents ME" serving as a stand-in for the audience. What got Steve Austin over was shooting the boss the bird and telling him FU, because so many people -- especially the working-class types who made up a big chunk of the pro wrestling audience (the same blue-collar types who supported Austin were the next generation of the ones who had supported Dusty Rhodes). They couldn't do it themselves, they needed their jobs, but it was still a by-proxy way to experience someone doing what they wished they could do.
Now comes along a generation that grew up more on video games and comic books and the Internet. (This is the part that might upset some, because it's more about them than times before so please don't take it personally.)They are more, well, nerds. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nerds rule the world -- nerds brought us Apple and Google, etc. Their in-ring heroes are, yes, nerdier -- CM Punk or Daniel Bryan. This audience, to some degree, I think, wants the guy who looks like them to give it to the jock who stuffed them in a locker in high school. The big, bad muscular guy who might have been the ideal hero of two generations earlier is now the thing they dislike, the thing they want to see defeated.
Just food for thought.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2016 18:47:52 GMT -5
This year we had a big family get together the day of mania we had ages ranging from 5 to late 70's.The only people interested in the show was me,my 13 year old nephew & his buddy of the same age.The comments from everybody were interesting to me.The people that used to be fans aswell as the people who has never been fans couldn't believe Everybody in the opening ladder match but Zack Ryder(he looked like a star) was a geek.Zayn & Owens they couldn't believe they had jobs with wwf the consensus was they look like a fan hit the ring.They saw Taker,Brock,HHH,Rock,HBK,Austin and Foley as stars but couldn't believe they still wrestled but the consensus was The current kids weren't real stars so the old guys can't go away.My nephew only really watches because his buddy loves it They like Ambrose,Styles,Reigns and New Day but the passion isn't there when I was their age I saw my stars from that timeframe as superstars They see the current guys as just dudes it makes me sad.
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Post by darkjourney on Apr 25, 2016 18:50:08 GMT -5
If Smaller wrestlers draw on top we would have had PROOF of that in the last 15 years in the WWE since the Mcmahons HAVE tried to push the smaller guys.
Bret Hart- Didn't draw on top Shawn Michaels- Didn't draw on top. Ratings were god awful as him as champion Benoit/Guererro/Jericho- Guerrero I guess you could say drew to a degree. But business wasn't exactly on fire with Jericho/Benoit as world champs Rollins- Didn't WWE lose half a million viewers during his reign? Bryan- May have really caught on mainstream but we'll never know since injuries derailed his career and either way the Mcmahon's didn't really want him in that spot but fans hijacked the show
Now you got them pushing AJ and the numbers clearly have showed no one is interested (outside of the same WWE fans) of seeing him in the main event. As the quarter hour ratings clearly show.
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Sicho100
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Post by Sicho100 on Apr 25, 2016 19:11:11 GMT -5
If Smaller wrestlers draw on top we would have had PROOF of that in the last 15 years in the WWE since the Mcmahons HAVE tried to push the smaller guys. Bret Hart- Didn't draw on top Shawn Michaels- Didn't draw on top. Ratings were god awful as him as champion Benoit/Guererro/Jericho- Guerrero I guess you could say drew to a degree. But business wasn't exactly on fire with Jericho/Benoit as world champs Rollins- Didn't WWE lose half a million viewers during his reign? Bryan- May have really caught on mainstream but we'll never know since injuries derailed his career and either way the Mcmahon's didn't really want him in that spot but fans hijacked the show Now you got them pushing AJ and the numbers clearly have showed no one is interested (outside of the same WWE fans) of seeing him in the main event. As the quarter hour ratings clearly show. If bigger wrestlers draw on top we would have had PROOF of that in the last 15 years in the WWE since the Mcmahons HAVE tried to push the bigger guys. Lex Luger- Didn't draw on top Triple H - Didn't draw on top. Viewership collapsed with him as champion. Cena/Orton/Batista- Viewership continued its downward trend with them on top. Reigns- ...Come on. So, by your reasoning, big guys can't draw.
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Reflecto
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Post by Reflecto on Apr 25, 2016 20:28:50 GMT -5
I hesitate to throw this out there, but I wonder and somewhat believe this might be part of it. It's overly broad, and I'm not saying this applies to EVERYONE, but it could be a piece of the puzzle: In the past, the ideal storyline was more about Big Iconic Hero overcomes Big Bad Monster/Villian. It was all larger than life, more like an ancient Battle of the Gods morality play. Then came more of the "age of realism," where the hero became more of the "everyman who represents ME" serving as a stand-in for the audience. What got Steve Austin over was shooting the boss the bird and telling him FU, because so many people -- especially the working-class types who made up a big chunk of the pro wrestling audience (the same blue-collar types who supported Austin were the next generation of the ones who had supported Dusty Rhodes). They couldn't do it themselves, they needed their jobs, but it was still a by-proxy way to experience someone doing what they wished they could do. Now comes along a generation that grew up more on video games and comic books and the Internet. (This is the part that might upset some, because it's more about them than times before so please don't take it personally.)They are more, well, nerds. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nerds rule the world -- nerds brought us Apple and Google, etc. Their in-ring heroes are, yes, nerdier -- CM Punk or Daniel Bryan. This audience, to some degree, I think, wants the guy who looks like them to give it to the jock who stuffed them in a locker in high school. The big, bad muscular guy who might have been the ideal hero of two generations earlier is now the thing they dislike, the thing they want to see defeated. Just food for thought. This is likely it more- and honestly, it goes beyond just being "smaller, nerdier people" in their look, but also in their gimmicks. Using just the "people are more nerdy and their in-ring heroes" doesn't just come from people who are smaller and don't look like an ancient Battle of the Gods type of person, but rather looks "like them"- but also characterwise, it's important to BE LIKE them as well. Witness how there's been an equal rise of popular stars who keep talking about how "I grew up a huge wrestling fan, and all my life I dreamed of being a pro wrestler until I did everything I could, and I dreamed hard enough and I never let the doubters get in my way, I learned to wrestle, I finally got signed by WWE (or NXT, since most of the people like that came from NXT)- and now, I'm finally getting to live my dream and wrestle every night for the WWE Universe!" to become popular- no matter what their looks are. By the same token, people who are willing to come right out and say "No, I've never been that huge of a wrestling fan growing up- I don't HATE it or anything, I mean, come on- I'm a pro wrestler and getting my ass kicked night in and night out- but to me, this is still my job first and foremost. I'll never dog it and always give 100%, but if it ended tomorrow I wouldn't be a smark on some message boards or anything, either..." get raked through the coals for not LOVING the sport enough, daring to think of it as just a job and not their lifelong dream and the pinnacle of their entire existence, and how this inherently means they DESERVE success less than someone who was a lifelong fan did. Both of those things are combined, and they probably give the same reason for both of those things- whether it be smaller performers and not larger than life people, or people who were lifelong fans of the business: WE GREW UP.Simple as that. We GREW UP. We're adults now, and despite being adults, we still love pro wrestling programming even though, for all intents and purposes, it's a kids' show at heart...and now, the older IWC fans just want to know that WE STILL MATTER to pro wrestling. That the love we have for this business still matters and is still important- and that to pro wrestling promotions, it's not "Okay, you're adults now, you no longer are the people who we need to consume our product- if you're REALLY fans, you'll intermarry just so you can give birth to or adopt some kids who will consume our product, and so on, and so forth"- and that even if we grow up and grow older, what we want and what we enjoy are STILL important. With that in mind, our heroes have changed as a result. Instead of just wanting the larger than life superheroes we'd want as kids, we end up wanting people like us- people who look like us, who were lifelong fans like us, but are THE BEST US POSSIBLE- the version of us who didn't just give up on the dream, who decided to actually run with it and keep going to actually become a pro wrestler and made it to the WWE, and are able to succeed against all other claims they can't- to say "yes, we still do matter. We still are important members of the WWE Universe even if we're adult fans...hell, if you really had the urge, you could probably go join that wrestling school running a couple classes every week for exercise, get in shape, and maybe even manage to become a pro wrestler yourself- and if you did that, then anything is possible."
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2016 20:42:28 GMT -5
I think there's a place for both types of physiques, or characters, in wrestling. Wrestling shouldn't be all jacked up superheroes but it also shouldn't be all scruffy underdogs, and I don't think either type should be discriminated against just because of the way they look. You can tell an effective story with a dude who looks like Roman Reigns just as well as you could with a guy like Sami Zayn - the stories wouldn't, and shouldn't, be identical, but they can be effective in their own ways nonetheless.
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Woo
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Post by Woo on Apr 25, 2016 21:27:56 GMT -5
Yes Savage was a larger than life character, but Bret Hart wasn't. Sami Zayn isn't, but then you have Nakamura.
It's a terrible point to make. If I compared Ronnie Garvin and said "this is what a wrestler used to look like" and then Finn Balor dressed as a demon it'd look like an improvement.
They just so happened to pick the most flamboyant wrestler from the 80's/90's and compared him to the most endearing guy-next-door guy from today simply to make their point.
And yes if AJ and Zayn were protected and pushed well then that could easily be just a big a Mania main event as Roman Reigns vs HHH.
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