tafkaga
Samurai Cop
the Dogfather
Posts: 2,151
|
Post by tafkaga on Feb 14, 2023 20:03:23 GMT -5
Totally agree and great breakdown. For as iconic of a character Jake Roberts was, his style made for some really boring matches at times. It's not that noticeable just watching PPVs or SNMEs from this era because matches are shorter and half of them are multi-man matches like Royal Rumble and Survivor Series, but if you see his house show main events, a lot of them are like the Rick Rude matches. Just slow, plodding, and a whole lot of nothing happening until the finish - which was usually a DQ or a flash pin before a post match DDT. His matches with Dibiase are ok, but nowhere close to as fun as Dibiase's matches with Hogan or Savage. Great point about Rick Rude too. Warrior was really a perfect opponent for Rude's style. In WCW, Rude's style messed better with Sting and Steamboat to have some fun matches, but some of those dragged a bit as well. As silly as it sounds, some of my favorite Rude WWF matches are against Hacksaw Jim Duggan, because Rude can bump all over for Jim's brawling offense. With Jake the only genuinely really good one on one matches I can think of during his big WWF run are the series he with Steamboat and his SNME with Savage in 1986. And those were all when he was still heel. And that might have been some of it too in that he was probably just a much better worker as a heel then he was a face. Problem was he was a face for about 90% of his six year run as he was only a heel for his first year and then like eight months at the end before he left. I don't know what I would say was his best match as a face was. I guess maybe the Wrestlemania VI match with Dibiase which was probably the second best worked match on that show after Hogan/Warrior but even that's probably only like a **1/2 star match. I always thought he was really good in the Survivor Series. In 88 in particular he's great especially when he's left 4 on 1 against Andre, Rude, Perfect, and Bravo as his psychology could really come to the forefront in spots like that. However when it comes to one on one matches there isn't a lot of great stuff. Duggan in a way is kind of the opposite of Jake for me. While Jake was maybe a little overrated when you look back at his stuff, I think Duggan is maybe a little underrated. Not so much after like 1990 and onward as he was pretty bad then as he had probably realized he didn't have to do much by that point. However his first couple of years he some surprisingly good matches. The Duggan and Andre series in 1988 might be the most shockingly good string of matches I've ever seen. On paper you would think those two in 1988 would have horrible matches but similar to Warrior/Rude they had really good chemistry and their styles meshed well. Funny to read posts like this about Jake, when I made a thread many months ago about Jake the great ring psychologist being so boring to watch, and it got thumbs downed from just about everyone who replied. As you say, I think Jake was far better as a heel, and it's almost a tragedy that he only got to play to his real strengths so late in his run. As a babyface, he was fun to watch when he was fired up, e.g. hot tag, fisticuffs, stomach breaker, short clothesline, go for the DDT. Past that babyface Jake was like watching paint dry. |
|
|
|
Post by Toilet Paper Roll on Feb 14, 2023 20:28:43 GMT -5
Remember the rumors of guys getting hammered at the casino the night before and some guys were brutally hungover and barely able to perform. Apparently Roberta and Rude were two of them. Nothing can top Beefcake out front scalping his comp tickets. Nothing. I’m shocked they went back there again the next year. A bunch of wrestlers with too much spare time in a casino… what could go wrong |
|
cjh
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,627
|
Post by cjh on Feb 14, 2023 20:32:28 GMT -5
Remember the rumors of guys getting hammered at the casino the night before and some guys were brutally hungover and barely able to perform. Apparently Roberta and Rude were two of them. Nothing can top Beefcake out front scalping his comp tickets. Nothing. Beefcake gave tickets to sell to a man he thought was just a worker at the hotel and told that man to bring him the money if the tickets got sold. The guy was actually an executive at Trump Plaza who then told WWE employee Basil Devito. |
|
Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
Posts: 41,975
|
Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Feb 14, 2023 20:43:10 GMT -5
Nothing can top Beefcake out front scalping his comp tickets. Nothing. I’m shocked they went back there again the next year. A bunch of wrestlers with too much spare time in a casino… what could go wrong Last year the NHL had the All Star game in Vegas. Players were caught yawning on camera. They tried saying it’s just nervous energy. I totally believed a bunch of 23 year old multi-millionaires in Vegas for a weekend were nervous for a meaningless game. |
|
|
|
Post by lildude8218 on Feb 18, 2023 14:06:22 GMT -5
Bobby Heenan: We challenged Roberts for the pay per view but the fact of the matter was Jake was already embarrassed about Rick Rude stealing his floozy of a wife and he didn't want to suffer the embarrassment of losing to the Ravishing One in front of millions of fans. The man is yellow.
|
|
|
|
Post by Milkman Norm on Feb 18, 2023 14:16:01 GMT -5
Did you see their Mania 4 match??? It has to be the most boring match between two huge stars in wrestling history. Wasn't that match before the angle though? I thought it was just a random heel vs face tournament match that was hampered because the booking of the even required a draw. |
|
Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
Posts: 41,975
|
Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Feb 18, 2023 15:19:13 GMT -5
Did you see their Mania 4 match??? It has to be the most boring match between two huge stars in wrestling history. Wasn't that match before the angle though? I thought it was just a random heel vs face tournament match that was hampered because the booking of the even required a draw. Yeah, I believe right before. At the most interesting thing didn’t even happen on camera. Jake chased, let’s call Ivana T with Damien and she fell over trying to get away. Then screamed at her bodyguards that they should have shot Damien. |
|
