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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jan 18, 2010 12:53:15 GMT -5
What I don't get is...
Why did they put Mr. Ken Anderson out there to wrestle a match his first night in? His talent is that he's a very, very good talker, not because he's a good worker.
I'm thinking of Christian's debut. He was far better in-ring than Mr. Anderson, and the way they debuted Christian on PPV is the same way they should've debuted Anderson. Show up, get a pop, cut a promo about how great it is to be in TNA and what we should look forward to, call somebody out. Anything other than wrestle.
They could've built Kennedy up by having him call people out for weeks before wrestling. But now, after the way Kennedy looked in his match against Abyss, I don't want to see him in TNA anymore.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jan 8, 2010 15:04:45 GMT -5
I was actually thinking about the old FSN ticker during Monday's show.
It would've been helpful to have a news ticker during the last Impact, saying stuff like "Jeff Hardy returns to Impact Zone after Steel Asylum match, lays out Homicide" and "Ric Flair arrived at 8:42pm EST, is talking backstage in dressing room of TNA World Champ A.J. Styles".
Maybe a ticker could be annoying during a wrestling show, but they do work in catching the eye of people flipping channels.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jan 6, 2010 20:01:19 GMT -5
Brad was a pretty awesome worker. Early in his career, he got great pushes in Georgia, Mid South, Mid-Atlantic, Continental (obviously, since that's where he and his father worked on top the most). After the 80s, he kinda grew out of being the young babyface that he was always booked as and just settled in as a solid utility guy...then jobber.
Like those guys they call "actor's actors" in Hollywood, always felt that Brad Armstrong was a wrestler's wrestler. Always thought it was a testament to his talent that WCW kept him around for so long even though they had rarely had any ideas for him. Just a guy they felt very comfortable sending out to have a good match with anybody.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jan 6, 2010 19:49:45 GMT -5
When he's "on" in interviews, he reminds me of Flair in the mid-80s doing those studio interviews with Schiavone and Bob Caudle. Pope's not at that level yet, but he's only gonna keep getting better if they give him more mic time.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Dec 14, 2009 15:47:28 GMT -5
IMO, Lance Storm couldn't be more wrong about this. If Hogan shows up and is anything less than the yellow/red wearing, "brother, brother, brother, watcha gonna do..." raving Hulkster, he's gonna look like he's not excited to be in TNA, and make TNA come off second rate.
Never been a huge Hogan fan, but I'd be disappointed if he showed up as Terry Bollea. And so would a lot of people. And TNA would've wasted alot of money on advertising a product (The Hulkster, brother) that it didn't deliver.
The only way for TNA to get a rub from Hogan is if the Babe Ruth of Wrestling shows up and puts over the company as the youngest, high-flying, action packed wrestling product on TV. The legend endorsing that company as "the future". Dressed in yellow and red, saying corny stuff like "Our champion AJ Styles is phenomenal, brother. The Hulkster's never seen anything like him, and I know Vince hasn't, dude!"
It's funny that Boring Lance Storm wants to see a Boring Hogan.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Oct 13, 2009 22:37:57 GMT -5
The success of the Austin era had just as much to do with WCW completely sucking after it was really, really good for about one year at the beginning of the NWO. Vince McMahon and Steve Austin have Eric Bischoff, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, heel Hogan more to thank for their grand success than Mike Tyson.
NWO brought those 18-34 fans before Mike Tyson showed up on RAW. McMahon signed Tyson to a huge deal out of panic. We all know that WCW was doing 4s and 5s before WWF was. Those fans left TNT on Monday nights for USA because WCW started to suck because their angles were directionless and boring, and Austin was pretty awesome on the "other wrestling".
But it was all a fad. Austin and The Rock (as much as they're "The biggest stars in wrestling history" to some) couldn't keep those fans. Once Vince bought WCW, wrestling fans disappeared en masse. Flair was never a fad.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Oct 13, 2009 22:20:38 GMT -5
This Austin "defined an era" stuff doesn't really hold water.
What people (and usually people who only listen to WWE's version of history) fail to realize is that wrestling was far more popular nationwide in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, up until the mid-1980s than it was in The Attitude Era.
Was the merchandising as strong in those territory periods? No. Was there as much mainstream media attention paid? No. Were the TV ratings as good? Yeah. Especially in local markets. Was attendance as high? No, but WWE and WCW would only go to towns once or twice a year. Wrestling attendance was far higher nationally during the territory era than it was in The Attitude Era. People like Meltzer have figures to back that up.
Flair was a huge deal to a lot of people as a travelling NWA world champion in the 1980s. Younger fans act like territories were on the level of indy promotions or ROH. They weren't.
The territories drew tons of fans. Current ROH and old ECW were basically successful territories, but didn't come close to the crowds that Flair would draw when he came in as champ. He could draw 7,000 in Memphis, 12,000 in Dallas, 10,000 in The Meadowlands (running opposition to McMahon), 11,000 in Greensboro, 15,000 in New Orleans. Even lesser territories like Continental (Alabama) drew bigger regular crowds than places like ROH, and built their hottest cards around when they could get Flair for dates up until 87 or so when Crockett stopped sending him out.
I hate how people act like Flair's nothing because they compare him to Attitude Era Austin. Austin was great, but he was the right guy in the right place at the right time when Vince McMahon caught lighting in a bottle ONCE (basically by stealing ideas from ECW and early NWO WCW).
Apples and Oranges. Saying Austin is more important than Flair based on the Attitude Era is like saying Tobey Maguire is a more important actor than Robert DeNiro, just because DeNiro wasn't cast as "Spiderman".
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Oct 13, 2009 21:33:49 GMT -5
I'll give you Austin being a bigger star for those five years he was at his peak.
However, Austin's Stone Cold character was already getting stale, and already failing to be a draw for anything other than nostalgia pops by the time he got out of WWE. It took Flair 20+ years to get that stale. Austin was that stale after six years. Austin was a fad. Flair was pretty timeless. Could've you imagine if Stone Cold would've never left WWE and was still around today? Without a major character overhaul, he'd be as lame and boring as 1995 Hogan.
In Flair's defense, I could bring up facts like Flair main evented in front of the biggest crowd in wrestling history (over 170,000 vs. Inoki in Korea), or drew one of the highest paid indoor houses in wrestling history (upto that point) at "Starrcade '83: A Flair For the Gold". Not to mention thousands of great promos and matches from the 1970s-through 1990s.
But barely any of Flair's success happened in WWF, especially during The Attitude Era, so I guess none of it counts. I think it's hilarious that somebody at the level of "Mr. Perfect" is considered an "all-time great" on here, yet so many hate on Flair. Hilarious.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Sept 26, 2009 7:34:07 GMT -5
He's a bad heel only in the way that Ric Flair was a "bad heel" in the 1980s, or The Rock was a "bad heel" in the late-1990s. He won't get as big, but we live in different times. Not his fault. He's really, really great.
On promos, "The Pope" D'Angelo Dinero is the closest thing we have in the wrestling business to 1980s Ric Flair, and that puts a smile on my face. Not just promos, but the look, the way he carries himself. He's not as good as Flair in the ring, but he's better than 1970s pre-World Champion Ric Flair, by far.
Couple weeks ago, The Pope referenced Dusty Rhodes' "Hard Times" promo, told Lauren "Pope's gonna lay his hands on you!"...totally Space Mountain, and fit in a couple Spidey/Suicidey references.
Burke freaking "gets it". Could you imagine how much cooler his interviews would come off to the average viewer if he walked in each week with the TNA World Belt? He'd own it. THAT's the guy you build your company around. Like 80s Flair and 90s Rock.
Your Pope's pretty much the best thing going. WWE is INSANE for letting that character slip out of its hands. Let's hope TNA doesnt F it up. Or even if they do, let him go back to WWE and be this character on a grander stage. He could've had great feuds as an entertaining heel against Shawn Michaels & Undertaker, then played great as a face afterwards against Orton (I'm not saying that in a "OMG, Colt Cabana should've been WWE Champ!" sort of way either). This Elijah Burke Pope character is WWE-ready, made, and money.
PS: I liked him back when he was Elijah Burke, referred to himself as the "Silver Tongued Pugilist" and such in WWE, but he has really stepped his game up from even then.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Sept 17, 2009 15:21:12 GMT -5
Barry Windham in '88 when he joined the Horsemen. He and Sting were the two most over acts on the face side. Windham turns on his tag partner, Luger (who were insanely over as a tag team), and joins up with Flair, Tully & Arn, three guys that couldn't beat him for the past year. Didn't make sense, it was like when Joe joined MEM. Nice "swerve", but in wrestling logic, why would somebody be okay with being relegated to being the paid off lackey of a bunch of dudes that he was destroying.
I was a kid at the time, so I didn't realize that Dusty was booking it because they already had Luger, Sting, Nikita Koloff, Dusty, and the Road Warriors as the main faces...and Windham was the best fit for The Horsemen, who'd been running with three members for months. Plus, so many of those NWA crowds hated Luger and Dusty so much, heel Windham would get cheered anyway. Wasn't it Great American Bash '88 in Baltimore where Windham's beating the crap out of Dusty and the crowd's cheering for him?
But that turn kind of ruined Windham a little bit. After joining the Horsemen he got fat, left for WWF to become "The Widowmaker", came back and was pretty good but never close to the guy who from 1986-88 was one of the best around. He was never anywhere close as over as a face as he was before the heel turn.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jun 19, 2009 4:29:51 GMT -5
Kennedy would be huge in TNA. I've seen the Steve Austin going from WCW to WWF comparison, which makes sense since Kennedy suffers from the same stuff that kept Steve Austin from being a big star in WCW.
For instance...both were
1. Always over with the fans (face or heel). 2. Could talk (Kennedy more than Austin at that stage). 3. Could work (Austin more than Kennedy at that state). 4. Presented as a bigger deal than their actual "spot" on the card. 5. Were injured a ton. 6. Mis-cast roles. (For most of Austin's WCW time he was playing a poor-man's Ric Flair, for most of Kennedy's WWE time he was playing a poor-man's The Rock). 7. Had Main eventers weren't on his side (Kennedy with the HHH crowd in WWE, and Austin with the Hogan crowd in WCW).
Kennedy will never be as important to TNA as Steve Austin was to WWF as a castoff, but Kennedy & Austin are supposedly decent friends (Austin at least likes Kennedy and supposedly calls him), so maybe Austin will give him a few pointers.
That said, I'd like to see Kennedy re-invent himself. He could make some money for TNA if he develops the right character that plays to his strengths. The guy is undeniably talented.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jun 12, 2009 2:59:47 GMT -5
I've never really liked Shane Douglas.
Promo-wise, he's overrated. His in-ring work was above-average until about 1996 when he returned from WWF to ECW, and looked juiced-up and was dragging ass.
All that said...if you told me he'd show up in 2009 against AJ Styles, but...he's too fat to wrestle, wearing a T-shirt over a backwrap to cover his fathandles, and with 1991 leg tassles(!!!)...and it WASN'T terrible, I would've say you're out of your mind.
He was pretty damn awesome on Impact.
Shane Douglas is 10 years past his prime, and I didn't enjoy him back then. But I DID enjoy him as the 2006 TNA Backstage Announcer, and DO enjoy him as a 2009 TNA low-card old star trying to brawl with younger stars on the roster.
I never saw it coming, but I actually enjoy Shane Douglas right now. His bumping and brawling were so much more crisp now than when he last worked there trying to be a serious wrestler/character. I was amazed that he wasn't totally gassed, and was bumping harder for AJ Styles than he ever did when he was a regular competitor in TNA.
I like "Nothing to Lose" Shane Douglas better than "The Franchise". I could buy him as a poor man's version of the "crazy, old guy" like Terry Funk in 1989 NWA.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jun 12, 2009 2:36:45 GMT -5
With the new WrestleMania III Savage tights, he needs yellow kickpads over his boots.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on May 7, 2009 4:55:51 GMT -5
At the time...really, really awesome.
Now...really, really overrated.
ROH over the past couple years was way better IMO than any ECW. And I kind of can't stand ROH. ECW was 1980s Memphis cheap, goofy heat...trying to wear a leather jacket and look like 1994 MTV (and Paul Heyman never went past what was cool on MTV in 1994...ECW TV on TNN in 2000 looked outdated and really hacky, uncool, and amateur.)
Even the classic ECW parts that stand up to this day....Cactus Jack promos, Funk v. Sabu v. Douglas, Malenko v. Eddie for the TV title, Lucha Libre, Raven/Sandman/Dreamer, Austin's little stay, TAZ's era of dominating....everybody stole from ECW and made it better. During the late-1990s boom, WCW and WWE/F did everything ECW did and did it better.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Apr 10, 2009 1:19:35 GMT -5
I'm paraphrasing, but Meltzer said something to the effect that TNA was hoping to get Hamada and/or Sarah Stock to replace the role Gail Kim had as good-worker/main babyface pn the women's side.
Losing Gail Kim hurt...she was kind of the old-school AJ Styles for TNA on the Knockouts side.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Feb 18, 2009 7:03:09 GMT -5
"The Renegade of Punt."
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Feb 18, 2009 7:00:11 GMT -5
I grew up in North Carolina...Mike Hogwood will be worse than David Crockett on NWA-Mid Atlantic...he's pretty terrible...terrible enough that he was the guy we used to make fun of during all of the local sports highlights for not having a clue....can't believe ROH would hire him.
Having seen his work for years since 1990 or so...this HAS to be a joke.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Sept 28, 2008 2:18:32 GMT -5
It's quizzical that back when Robert Roode was obsessed with/defined by Wall Street and money, most people thought it was stupid and terrible...yet now, there's not ENOUGH character development for him to be the "Money" part of a tag team called "Beer Money".
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Sept 20, 2008 6:32:42 GMT -5
Fan of his from his Mid-South days, but like JYD and Duggan, the magic was gone and let himself go a tad when he hit WWF. Correct. Koko Ware was awesome in Mid-South and Memphis. In Memphis, when he worked as a heel in the PYT ("Pretty Young Things") tag team, he was great. I saw a clip on tape of Koko working against Flair for the NWA title during one of Flair's last World Title defenses in Memphis (1985 or maybe early-1986?), and he looked like a million bucks. Koko was a "high flyer" that was never much of a "high flyer" in WWF, but in the early-to-mid 1980s Memphis days...Koko, Bobby Eaton, and Randy Savage did all kinds of high spots that are rather pedestrian by today's standards...but back then, it looked like Space Wrestling from the year 2027. Koko as a heel in 1983 Memphis...looking like a sawed-off midget linebacker with a 40-inch vertical leap, jumping off things and kicking people in the face...he would've been an Internet favorite if the Internet was around. And I agree with Madison about JYD & Duggan. Both of their legacies are kind of tainted by being guys working the overly theatrical, staid Vince/WWF 1980s style at their highest prominence...but both JYD & Duggan were semi-outlandish/cartoonish in interviews...but four-star, straight-up, ass-kicking brawlers in Mid-South from all the stuff I've seen in-ring. I'm a big fan of that style.
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Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Sept 20, 2008 6:06:28 GMT -5
Harris always had a ton of potential, IMO...he's worked some of the best matches TNA's ever had as part of AMW (and during his singles chase of the NWA World Title right before "Impact" launched), and is surprisingly, a really underrated promo guy in certain "serious bizness" scenarios (like this one). He's not a charismatic, motor-mouth, but he's the type of guy that would've excelled in the 1970s/1980s as an ass-kicking, straight-shootin' babyface in the Bill Watts/Mid-South style...which is rare now, and super old school....but kind of like how WWE books HBK and Batista.
Hopefully he gets back into 2005-ish shape and gets another shot in TNA, because the WWE version was an enormous bag of suck...and maybe that style isn't his style, but he's so much better than that if you've seen his best TNA work...as a worker and talker.
From TEH SHEETZ, apparently Harris's biggest problem in TNA was that he was a whiny malcontent, locker room cancer (which Russo tried turning into a character before he left), but maybe his ECW run was humbling and they'll take him back. The dude's pretty good.
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