|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 2, 2022 20:00:50 GMT -5
As an addendum, trying to quantify popularity/star power by viewership or tickets sold or world title reigns only goes so far. All those count, but only in the sense that they typically go to guys who already have the intangibles to make people remember them and want to see more out of them.
Like with HBK specifically, since there's the usual debate in this thread over how big a star he really was, the Wrestlemania X ladder match and its influence is easily a bigger deal than his actual headlining run in '96-'97.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 2, 2022 14:35:35 GMT -5
Bob Backlund was WWWF champion far longer than Billy Graham, but it'd be hard to argue he had anywhere near the same influence or recognition. Being a top name for an extended period doesn't put you over stars who made bigger impacts during shorter bursts.
As of this year, Roman Reigns will have headlined more Wrestlemanias than the Rock. He passed Austin years ago. Would anyone seriously try to argue that Roman's surpassed either of them in star power?
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Apr 1, 2022 19:13:40 GMT -5
It's certainly a factor, but the lack of memorable characters feels more like a symptom than the underlying cause IMO. Everything's just so formulaic, and it's been that way for most of the 21st century. So much about the presentation and plot tropes is still just recycling things that worked in the Monday Night Wars or earlier. That's not just on Vince, that's on every semi-big promotion in the US right now. The ones that aren't WWE are still playing follow-the-leader, doing a combination of WWE fanfiction and/or parroting the WON "wrestlers not sports entertainers" line that became meaningless over a decade ago now that WWE's filled with the same quality of workrate guys.
The only real stab we've had at completely overhauling the entire pro wrestling format and creating something fresh and interesting in recent years was Lucha Underground.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 31, 2022 14:10:18 GMT -5
wait what if shane is the new stardust
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 31, 2022 1:03:54 GMT -5
If we're going by WWE titles, it's gotta be Matt Hardy, then maybe John Morrison.
If we're going off top titles in any semi-big promotion, probably MVP. Kennedy and Ryback both hit that Ahmed Johnson wall of getting over but flaring out fast by being too unreliable to be trusted with an important spot.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 30, 2022 0:45:44 GMT -5
So if Wrestlemania sucks, they'll say it was all his fault and fire him again, right?
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 29, 2022 16:06:27 GMT -5
Well, that's one name apparently not coming back. Guess he must've spelled Jon with an H.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 28, 2022 14:47:42 GMT -5
One day, sad Cody tuned in the other channel and was all "Damn, if only we'd put Ogogo in a Bane mask and named him Z-Stick, they'd still be cheering me" and resolved to go back to WWE to learn the true booking master's wisdom.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 26, 2022 22:25:16 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 26, 2022 21:48:05 GMT -5
I never really thought Captain Insano was particularly Hogan inspired. It's been a while since I saw the waterboy granted... from what I remember it was just generic big tough guy wrestler talk... nothing even really specifically Hogan... for starters a can of whoopass is closer to Stone Cold than anything Hogan ever said... I mean YMMV, but I was watching the wrestling promo he was doing at the beginning of the clip linked to in the other thread and thinking "lol, it's Big Show cutting a promo but he's acting nothing like Big Show because that's not exaggerated enough to come across as an archetypal pro wrestler persona to a mainstream audience" and then realized the "archetypal wrestling persona" people expect is basically just Hogan. It's not an Austin promo either despite the lines, listen to the growly/shouty voice and the way he's flexing and keeping his arms animated. It's an old-school Hulk Hogan promo. It might not be 100% Hogan but it's as much Hogan as Johnny Largemeat was John Cena doing Hulk Hogan.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 26, 2022 19:47:13 GMT -5
The thread about Tony Khan buying the rights to Captain Insano got me watching the Waterboy clip again, which felt weirdly relevant to this discussion, because it's totally Big Show doing a Hulk Hogan pastiche. Because that's what you do in mainstream entertainment when you want to have a pro wrestler who immediately reads as a pro wrestler to the general audience, even when they're being played by an actual pro wrestler who's nothing like Hulk Hogan, they're still going to be doing a Hulk Hogan impression because that's the shorthand for "pro wrestler" that anyone and everyone who isn't a hardcore fan associates with pro wrestling. Even decades later, nobody else has supplanted that cultural shorthand. That's Hogan's legacy, and it's going to endure no matter how much of a piece of shit Terry Bollea is.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 25, 2022 19:54:56 GMT -5
Yeah, I heard about Tubi removing LU; speculation is it might be related to Amazon acquiring MGM. Going to be a damn shame if even more media ends up locked behind proprietary subscription services.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 24, 2022 20:26:23 GMT -5
There's something brilliantly meta about putting Brian Cage in an angle about a guy pissed off that he's stuck in a bad contract.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 24, 2022 2:06:45 GMT -5
WWE isn't at its worst when it's egregiously terrible, it's at its worst when it's formulaically mediocre. Objectively awful shit like Retribution and RAW Underground still makes better viewing than watching the same dozen or so competent, relatively-pushed wrestlers cycle through trading wins with each other in rote angles while commentary parrots the same rote lines they've all been doing and saying since the turn of the century.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 23, 2022 20:48:07 GMT -5
There's a good argument for Hogan as the single most significant performer in the history of professional wrestling. Certainly, if we're just talking about the last 50 years or so, there's no one else who comes close.
So many notable figures in pro wrestling were and still are such loathsome shits that I don't think Hogan's racism will really stand out once he's past the point of being able to make money off our dimes anymore. His reputation's only going to go up once he's too dead for that to be a concern.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 21, 2022 21:43:47 GMT -5
Maybe Cody debuts by bursting out of VEER's chest Alien-style.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 21, 2022 17:35:32 GMT -5
Aw, I was hoping he'd squash Cody for the reactions.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 21, 2022 3:29:43 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 20, 2022 20:58:23 GMT -5
He doesn’t like fun. That’s the best way I can explain the problem with AEW, its too pretentious. There’s not enough characters or storylines, everything is grounded in reality. A lot of “good at wrestling” guys. Most storylines are this person doesn’t like this other person, so they jumped them after a match or backstage. I need something more than good matches. Since most of the results are forgone conclusions. It's weird, I get where you're coming from, yet I'd describe it almost the exactly the opposite way. It's all weightless fun. It's a lot of sweet little boys who grew up playing video games and pretending to be pro wrestlers and got hooked on reading the WON and giving a damn about workrate and now they're still playing pro wrestler but they're doing it on a big stage. Everyone's friends and everyone's watched the same wrestling shows as kids and makes the same winking in-jokes at each other and it's impossible to hate or love any of them. The only pushed acts who don't fall into that paradigm are the ex-WWE guys they're starstruck by enough to be given free reign to do their own thing, and Eddie Kingston.
|
|
|
Post by rnrk supports BLM on Mar 19, 2022 23:56:40 GMT -5
I remember Sunny splitting from the Bodydonnas because they did a big thing about her teasing what team she'd manage instead that involved her coming out with the Gunns and the Godwinns and probably others in a thin excuse to show Sunny in different fetish outfits every week.
And I had Cloudy filed away in the back of my mind as "the third Bodydonna" like the third Demolition member, as one of those obscure trivia answers that has no other relevance, only a hell of a lot less important since the Bodydonnas themselves are barely more than a trivia answer about guys who Shawn Michaels f***ed over during his peak junkie years.
|
|