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Post by Citizen Snips on Apr 19, 2020 7:07:20 GMT -5
The first show I ever saw live was in November 1988 at the Spectrum. Looking back, it was also the first time I ever saw what we now call "smarks"; the adults in the first few rows had signs ragging on Hogan and cheered heavily for Tully/Arn and some of the other heels. Much like today, if the heels had better workrate or were more interesting than their opponents, these dudes would cheer them.
But that whole building HATED Honky Tonk.
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Post by jason1980s on Apr 19, 2020 10:55:50 GMT -5
I wonder if the IC title had been a thing 10-15 years earlier and Honky had been around then, if he could have kept the title for 5 years like Bruno. Like someone else mentioned, after the Warrior loss Honky went way down on the card which sucks because he was an amazing heel but the times were changing and title runs weren't going to be much longer than a year. I wonder how the gimmick would have gone if it was around during Elvis' lifetime. I'm thinking fans would have hated him even more but the gimmick was a little too colorful for wrestling back then and I don't see Vince Sr. liking it much.
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Post by johnnyk9 on Apr 19, 2020 15:11:33 GMT -5
Amazing heels can do amazing things
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2020 7:36:14 GMT -5
Honky at his peak could’ve turned Hitler face, that dude was so goddamn hatable Holy crap. I-I didn't think this was a thread worthy of a Hitler bomb, but it was & it happened in the 1st reply no less. .......bravo?
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Post by The Summer of Muskrat XVII on Apr 22, 2020 7:42:20 GMT -5
Honky at his peak could’ve turned Hitler face, that dude was so goddamn hatable Holy crap. I-I didn't think this was a thread worthy of a Hitler bomb, but it was & it happened in the 1st reply no less. .......bravo? Ya know, when I was typing it I was thinking it might’ve been a little excessive, but as I sat there thinking about it I realised it’s really not that big a stretch to believe that if Hitler himself came out and bitchslapped HTM in 1988 he honestly might get a Road Warrior pop. For that brief moment, I honestly believe a crowd could’ve been baited into treating Hitler like the lesser of evils. Guess that says a lot about wrestling fans, especially 80’s wrestling fans.
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Post by Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite on Apr 22, 2020 10:44:21 GMT -5
This is one of my favorite examples of Honky not working out as a babyface. He’s wrestling Mr. X who’s the most generic heel you can get. It really has to be watched to be appreciated how much the crowd hates HTM. m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-_PGECB6ckAHAHAHAH, probably the warmest reaction Mr. X ever got from a crowd
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Post by Aceorton on Apr 22, 2020 14:14:32 GMT -5
This is one of my favorite examples of Honky not working out as a babyface. He’s wrestling Mr. X who’s the most generic heel you can get. It really has to be watched to be appreciated how much the crowd hates HTM. m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-_PGECB6ck Ooooh, that was brutal - even Honky and Mr X seemed taken aback by the reaction. The fact that Gorilla acknowledged the boos makes me think they knew they had no choice but to turn him. Checking some dates on this (and corroborating against the commentary), it seems the match took place after the Vote of Confidence Poll had started, but before the results were shared on TV. The match aired on Prime Time a few weeks after the poll results were shared. I suspect Gorilla and Johnny V either redid the commentary, or did the commentary with the numbers in hand that they knew would be shared on TV within a week. Main takeaway: Honky was already being turned at this point. Toronto just knew where the poll was headed and shit on him accordingly. It was his third appearance there.
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Post by badkarma on Apr 22, 2020 23:02:57 GMT -5
The more I read this thread, and the more I thing about it, Honky Tonk Man might have been the greatest heel of all time during his peak. I can't think of a more universally hated wrestler who was actually doing everything right to draw that kind of reaction. These days were so used to X-Pac heat being the norm for heels that truly great heel work, like Honky's, is almost lost in time. The only one I can even think of who still does that style of heel work today is MJF and thank god he does.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Apr 22, 2020 23:49:04 GMT -5
HTM had everything except an abundance of athletic talent. He was mediocre as an actual worker, but he leveled everything else about him up to 11 and it worked. This is one of my favorite examples of Honky not working out as a babyface. He’s wrestling Mr. X who’s the most generic heel you can get. It really has to be watched to be appreciated how much the crowd hates HTM. m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-_PGECB6ckCouple of things to note regarding this: 1. Mr. X is Danny Davis, a future stablemate of HTM's in Jimmy Hart's group. 2. This crowd was already VERY familiar with HTM, as he had been a mainstay in the bigger Canadian territories for the previous four years as Honkytonk Wayne. A lot of his 1982-1985 career was spent bouncing between Stampede, Tomko's All-Star Wrestling and whatever smaller promotions existed around them. They knew exactly who and what he was.
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Post by mrpeacock on Apr 22, 2020 23:51:28 GMT -5
HTM had everything except an abundance of athletic talent. He was mediocre as an actual worker, but he leveled everything else about him up to 11 and it worked. This is one of my favorite examples of Honky not working out as a babyface. He’s wrestling Mr. X who’s the most generic heel you can get. It really has to be watched to be appreciated how much the crowd hates HTM. m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-_PGECB6ckCouple of things to note regarding this: 1. Mr. X is Danny Davis, a future stablemate of HTM's in Jimmy Hart's group. 2. The crowd was already VERY familiar with HTM, as he had been a mainstay in the bigger Canadian territories for the previous four years as Honkytonk Wayne. A lot of his 1982-1985 career was spent bouncing between Stampede, Tomko's All-Star Wrestling and whatever smaller promotions existed around them. They knew exactly who and what he was. I know Davis played Mr. X but I don’t think Danny ever looked that good or could bust out a springboard splash. So I always wondered if that was him.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Apr 23, 2020 0:03:00 GMT -5
HTM had everything except an abundance of athletic talent. He was mediocre as an actual worker, but he leveled everything else about him up to 11 and it worked. Couple of things to note regarding this: 1. Mr. X is Danny Davis, a future stablemate of HTM's in Jimmy Hart's group. 2. The crowd was already VERY familiar with HTM, as he had been a mainstay in the bigger Canadian territories for the previous four years as Honkytonk Wayne. A lot of his 1982-1985 career was spent bouncing between Stampede, Tomko's All-Star Wrestling and whatever smaller promotions existed around them. They knew exactly who and what he was. I know Davis played Mr. X but I don’t think Danny ever looked that good or could bust out a springboard splash. So I always wondered if that was him. I actually questioned that myself, but I'm not seeing anyone else doing the Mr. X gimmick for them at this point in the results I'm going through, and they list him as the one in this match. Didn't Davis infamously have a tattoo that was the reason he always wore long sleeves as a ref, so people wouldn't ID him as X? If so, anyone know what it was and if it's present in this match?
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Post by "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik on Apr 23, 2020 0:34:54 GMT -5
Not to detract from Honky's hateability, because I agree he's an all-time master, but if there were two heels the fans didn't need to be asked twice to start cheering for in 1987, it was Jake and Savage. Honky or no Honky, face turns were inevitable for both guys within the year. I would totally watch a redneck gameshow called Honky or No Honky.
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