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Post by eudypfohl on Jun 8, 2022 0:36:23 GMT -5
I liked Lawler but always saw him a bit like a subpar replacement for Heenan. His attempts at humor early on in his WWF tenure really fell flat to me. Just too...grating. Abrasive. Not as witty or clever as Heenan.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Jun 8, 2022 1:00:23 GMT -5
I liked Lawler but always saw him a bit like a subpar replacement for Heenan. His attempts at humor early on in his WWF tenure really fell flat to me. Just too...grating. Abrasive. Not as witty or clever as Heenan. At least early on, I get that the point of Lawler was that he was still a fairly active wrestler, so getting heat on him made sense, but yeah, he absolutely was overdoing it to obnoxious levels.
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Post by eudypfohl on Jun 8, 2022 1:05:18 GMT -5
I liked Lawler but always saw him a bit like a subpar replacement for Heenan. His attempts at humor early on in his WWF tenure really fell flat to me. Just too...grating. Abrasive. Not as witty or clever as Heenan. At least early on, I get that the point of Lawler was that he was still a fairly active wrestler, so getting heat on him made sense, but yeah, he absolutely was overdoing it to obnoxious levels. Yea you're right I forgot that. When he arrived in the WWF I thought he was a bit older...but I think he was only 42 or 43 and still an active in ring performer, although fading. I did enjoy him getting his comeuppance after taunting Hitman and Jake though, so he did a nice job getting heat in those feuds. The WWF audience though just didn't buy him as a legend or any kind of big deal.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Jun 8, 2022 1:35:31 GMT -5
At least early on, I get that the point of Lawler was that he was still a fairly active wrestler, so getting heat on him made sense, but yeah, he absolutely was overdoing it to obnoxious levels. Yea you're right I forgot that. When he arrived in the WWF I thought he was a bit older...but I think he was only 42 or 43 and still an active in ring performer, although fading. I did enjoy him getting his comeuppance after taunting Hitman and Jake though, so he did a nice job getting heat in those feuds. The WWF audience though just didn't buy him as a legend or any kind of big deal. The WWF would be better at presenting him as a big deal later on, but it did seem like Vince couldn't make his mind up on whether or not he wanted to go all in with Lawler. He'd get a lot of airtime and some prominent feuds, but they'd also lean into comedy with him a lot, and it didn't do much for his credibility that the WWF was pretty loathe to get into the goings-on of other companies. Granted, even if they did educate the audience, the reverence for legends that weren't locally important guys wasn't that high at the time, anyway. It wasn't like youtube was a thing, and outside of tape trading, it isn't like people in Wisconsin, etc, were going to give a shit about Lawler being a god somewhere else.
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Post by tafkaga on Jun 8, 2022 9:02:35 GMT -5
I liked Lawler but always saw him a bit like a subpar replacement for Heenan. His attempts at humor early on in his WWF tenure really fell flat to me. Just too...grating. Abrasive. Not as witty or clever as Heenan. Lawler wrote books of one liners, and he had a lot of good ones, but his whole schtick to me came off too prepared, like he went into the show knowing what lines he was going to use and then he just waited for the moment to crank them out. Not to do disservice to the King, because he had many great moments, but he was not at Bobby's level. Bobby was a great ad libber, but I think about 70% of his value as a performer was lost by putting him behind the camera. Bobby was hilarious without saying a word, just with his facial expressions or his antics, but that was pretty much lost when they put him behind the camera. Yes, he was great next to Gorilla, but that was like capturing lightning in a bottle. There was no way they were going to do that again by pairing Bobby with Tony, and I love Tony, but Tony had no answer for Bobby's style of comedy. Put Tony with Dusty and they could have each other rolling all night, but Tony and Bobby was the square peg in the round hole analogy.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Jun 8, 2022 9:28:18 GMT -5
Would have been awesome. He was never really the same in WCW. He never wanted to leave. He knew how poorly WCW was run...he only jumped ship because WCW offered him health insurance, more $ and a chance to be closer to his daughter who I believed lived in the Atlanta area. He wasn't his old self there and did not have the same purpose and direction. Just basically getting paid and mailing it in. I would too probably if I was in his situation. If Vince gave him what he wanted then I feel he too would've probably been disillusioned with the decline in talent around him in the WWF, but working for a guy like Vince would've kept Bobby more on his toes and this mailing it in stuff would never fly Pretty sure Vince had bigger things to worry about in 1994 then keeping Bobby Heenan on his toes.
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Post by eudypfohl on Jun 8, 2022 21:21:44 GMT -5
He never wanted to leave. He knew how poorly WCW was run...he only jumped ship because WCW offered him health insurance, more $ and a chance to be closer to his daughter who I believed lived in the Atlanta area. He wasn't his old self there and did not have the same purpose and direction. Just basically getting paid and mailing it in. I would too probably if I was in his situation. If Vince gave him what he wanted then I feel he too would've probably been disillusioned with the decline in talent around him in the WWF, but working for a guy like Vince would've kept Bobby more on his toes and this mailing it in stuff would never fly Pretty sure Vince had bigger things to worry about in 1994 then keeping Bobby Heenan on his toes. It was all tied together...he lost a ton of his talent to WCW, and Heenan was one of them. The top guys, the depth guys, they were all coming over
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Post by Milkman Norm on Jun 9, 2022 8:42:15 GMT -5
Pretty sure Vince had bigger things to worry about in 1994 then keeping Bobby Heenan on his toes. It was all tied together...he lost a ton of his talent to WCW, and Heenan was one of them. The top guys, the depth guys, they were all coming over I was referring to the steroid trial in the summer of 94.
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Post by jason1980s on Jun 9, 2022 8:45:28 GMT -5
I wonder how long into Bobby's time with WCW did he really start missing WWF. I imagine him working with Gorilla on a Bingo Break segment may have been the first time since it would probably rekindle their working friendship.
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