Wrestlers who don't deserve their bad reputations?

[James Fabiano]

A counterpoint thread from the "free pass" one.

[Spider2024]

Ronda Rousey

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

Ole Anderson.

[James Fabiano]

Apr 13, 2022 22:05:14 GMT -5 Spider2024 said:

Ronda Rousey

LOL, but she did have the "Sandy Hook didn't happen" take, didn't she?

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

Also, for a while Bruno Sammartino had a bad reputation. I think that eased up when he agreed to go into the Hall of Fame, but there’s probably still some people who just think of him as a bitter old man.

[sdoyle7798]

Apr 13, 2022 22:17:53 GMT -5 James Fabiano said:

Apr 13, 2022 22:05:14 GMT -5 Spider2024 said:

Ronda Rousey

LOL, but she did have the "Sandy Hook didn't happen" take, didn't she?

Pretty sure that was a theme song joke.

[rnrk supports BLM]

It's dropped off now that they're all at least semi-retired, but the Kliq as a whole spent decades on the receiving end of vastly more vitrolic smark rage than any murderer, rapist, or racist in pro wrestling for their egregious crimes of backstage politicking to win all the time and hog the main events for themselves.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

Apr 13, 2022 23:13:23 GMT -5 rnrk supports BLM said:

It's dropped off now that they're all at least semi-retired, but the Kliq as a whole spent decades on the receiving end of vastly more vitrolic smark rage than any murderer, rapist, or racist in pro wrestling for their egregious crimes of backstage politicking to win all the time and hog the main events for themselves.

A lot of the stuff they got hated for is the political stuff that Bret, Taker, Austin, and every other main eventer in the 90s did as well. The only thing they did differently in that regard was stick together instead of selling each other out.

[Mozenrath]

Apr 13, 2022 23:13:23 GMT -5 rnrk supports BLM said:

It's dropped off now that they're all at least semi-retired, but the Kliq as a whole spent decades on the receiving end of vastly more vitrolic smark rage than any murderer, rapist, or racist in pro wrestling for their egregious crimes of backstage politicking to win all the time and hog the main events for themselves.

The Harris Twins roughing Shawn up backstage when they were going to leave the company. The heroic tale of two white supremacists beating up a guy who was a jerk.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Apr 13, 2022 23:13:23 GMT -5 rnrk supports BLM said:

It's dropped off now that they're all at least semi-retired, but the Kliq as a whole spent decades on the receiving end of vastly more vitrolic smark rage than any murderer, rapist, or racist in pro wrestling for their egregious crimes of backstage politicking to win all the time and hog the main events for themselves.

Except for Hall murdering a guy…

[lucas_lee]

Apr 13, 2022 23:42:12 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

Apr 13, 2022 23:13:23 GMT -5 rnrk supports BLM said:

It's dropped off now that they're all at least semi-retired, but the Kliq as a whole spent decades on the receiving end of vastly more vitrolic smark rage than any murderer, rapist, or racist in pro wrestling for their egregious crimes of backstage politicking to win all the time and hog the main events for themselves.

Except for Hall murdering a guy…

It was self defense though...

[Burst]

Yeah, compared to say, Snuka's situation, I'm like 95% sure there wasn't much more dirt to dig on the Hall case. Never heard any claims of a cover-up and IIRC it was long before he was a public figure anyway.

[Deleted]

Big Cass was going through an illness when he was acting at his worse and Enzo will always have maturity problems but appears to have stayed out of trouble for a while now unless I've missed something, probably fitting that the CYN crew are probably going to replace them as the Jannettyesque washed up ex WWE guys in most peoples minds.

[Jaws the Shark]

Bill Watts the booker. He’s become associated with early nineties WCW crapness, but while he was a bit of an anachronism and got a few things wrong, like pushing Erik, there was other stuff he got right, and I thought he booked a couple of pretty good shows at a time when there had been a lot of rubbish.

I do however feel I should make it clear that Bill Watts the man is an absolute twat and deserves all of the negative perceptions of him and his attitudes.

[Mozenrath]

Apr 14, 2022 5:51:02 GMT -5 Jaws the Shark said:

Bill Watts the booker. He’s become associated with early nineties WCW crapness, but while he was a bit of an anachronism and got a few things wrong, like pushing Erik, there was other stuff he got right, and I thought he booked a couple of pretty good shows at a time when there had been a lot of rubbish.

I do however feel I should make it clear that Bill Watts the man is an absolute twat and deserves all of the negative perceptions of him and his attitudes.

Watts has some strong points in terms of booking. Even if it was for cynical reasons, he did like heavily pushing black wrestlers in a way a lot of other major promotions simply weren't doing, for example. He also paid a whole lot better than some of the other territories. (Probably in large part because the road travel was MUCH worse than some territories combined. Louisiana is known for a lot of things. Good, straight-forward easily traversed roads isn't one of them. Ted DiBiase left Mid-South due to his hair falling out and suffering a nervous breakdown due to how grueling being one of the top guys was.)

In addition, he was brought into WCW to get spending under control, and he did pull back some of the rampant spending. I also get that he was trying to dial back how things had gotten kind of ridiculous, even if his ways of doing it were dated by then.

As for his faults, though, they are glaring, even if you overlook the racism, the domineering relationship with those under him, his ego, his keeping of Grizzly Smith on his staff, etc, all stuff behind the scenes, he did have a severe flaw as a booker: he was deeply formulaic, and even casual fans eventually caught onto this. He was neurotic about how to get successful booking, and when he hit on a popular strategy, he stuck with it and didn't drift away from it if he could possibly help it. Marks are marks, but when even they can tell you're on your fourth or fifth attempt to recreate Junkyard Dog's popularity by pushing a black wrestler in a carbon copy fashion, it means you're creatively stagnant.

[Feyrhausen]

Apr 13, 2022 22:26:59 GMT -5 "Playboy" Don Douglas said:

Also, for a while Bruno Sammartino had a bad reputation. I think that eased up when he agreed to go into the Hall of Fame, but there’s probably still some people who just think of him as a bitter old man.

I dont remember anyone talking about Bruno as bitter. Now I got into things around 2002 so he may have been bitter at one point. Especially the late 80s and early 90s when things were fresh and his relationship with his son was falling apart. But by the 2000s everything about Bruno I read and interviews of his just had him as an old guy, happily retired, who had no interest in the business as it was today.

[James Fabiano]

Apr 14, 2022 4:35:50 GMT -5 @selhurst said:

Big Cass was going through an illness when he was acting at his worse and Enzo will always have maturity problems but appears to have stayed out of trouble for a while now unless I've missed something, probably fitting that the CYN crew are probably going to replace them as the Jannettyesque washed up ex WWE guys in most peoples minds.

And Enzo I'd definitely say. First he was found innocent, let's get that out of the way. Second he's always cool with fans, myself included. His act is pretty much all talk, really. He hasn't harmed anyone, unless you count Joey Janela (and if so, why? LOL. And was that "fight" for real or overblown?)

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

Apr 14, 2022 6:48:54 GMT -5 Feyrhausen said:

Apr 13, 2022 22:26:59 GMT -5 "Playboy" Don Douglas said:

Also, for a while Bruno Sammartino had a bad reputation. I think that eased up when he agreed to go into the Hall of Fame, but there’s probably still some people who just think of him as a bitter old man.

I dont remember anyone talking about Bruno as bitter. Now I got into things around 2002 so he may have been bitter at one point. Especially the late 80s and early 90s when things were fresh and his relationship with his son was falling apart. But by the 2000s everything about Bruno I read and interviews of his just had him as an old guy, happily retired, who had no interest in the business as it was today.

That’s what he actually was, but for a long time he was constantly mentioned along with Ole Anderson as being bitter old men who the business had passed by.

Neither of them were actually bitter. Bruno simply didn’t care for the direction the business had gone, specifically anything to do with steroids, profanity, etc. Ole has always been incredibly blunt and opinionated but he wasn’t bitter, he just didn’t give a shit anymore.

[Mozenrath]

To an extent, Abyss.

People don't hate the guy on any personal level I am aware of, but he did have a severely damaged reputation compared to his peak. He'd always been called something of a Mankind and Kane ripoff, but at least for a time, that wasn't entirely fair. However, he hurt his reputation by constantly upping the ante on the abuse he'd take, and, given his opponents wisely turned down some of the extreme examples, it meant that the "monster" Abyss spent a whole lot of time bleeding and looking like an idiot, falling victim to his own foreign objects, like if Jim Duggan was being presented as Steve Austin while still getting the shit beaten out of him with his own 2x4.

Where I think this is undeserved is mostly in whose fault it is. While Abyss was desperate to please and be validated, people in TNA just... almost never told him no, rarely took any responsibility for him. He's a grown man, obviously, and he ultimately brought it on himself to an extent by not going to WWE when Undertaker was at least curious about feuding with him, but is anyone going to tell me, Jeff Jarrett, Dutch Mantell, etc, any veterans who were high up, didn't know Abyss was destroying his career? That tacks were one thing, but fire, the nail board, glass? That those were just wrecking his body for a company that didn't take him especially seriously?

People have had their criticisms of what Mankind did, or Jeff Hardy, or currently Darby Allin, and all of the risks taken and abuse absorbed, but at least they made bank doing it and were/are featured players. Abyss's TNA run was mostly as a glorified midcarder whose loyalty was rarely rewarded. It's just kind of gross that they got to be hands-off and just let him absorb all of the blame.

[James Fabiano]

Apr 13, 2022 23:02:57 GMT -5 sdoyle7798 said:

Apr 13, 2022 22:17:53 GMT -5 James Fabiano said:

LOL, but she did have the "Sandy Hook didn't happen" take, didn't she?

Pretty sure that was a theme song joke.

Yes, I am aware of that.

But...I wonder if she kept those beliefs in check, mostly?