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Post by eDemento2099 on Jan 18, 2011 21:54:10 GMT -5
As a long-time fan of ECW (since 1994), I dug Justin Credible as a main eventer, but I thought he was even better as a tag team wrestler (with Lance Storm and manager Dawn Marie, they were the Impact Players).
Corino did not impress me too much in terms of his ring work. He seemed adequate, but nothing too special. Not that I support his decision, but he bladed the hell out of his forehead toward the end of his ECW run.
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Post by derrtaysouth95 on Jan 18, 2011 22:01:07 GMT -5
Steve Corino is like an early version of CM Punk to me just in his wrestling style and look and all. I never liked him but never hated him either. Honestly never saw a lot of his work.
Justin Credible on the other hand was awesome with the Impact Players. I could buy him as the champ as well despite his size.
As for Rhino....how can anyone not buy him as a champion?
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Post by eDemento2099 on Jan 18, 2011 22:09:12 GMT -5
Rhino made a very big name for himself, very fast. But it didn't feel forced at all, like some feel Credible's main event status / world title reign was. Rhino was hella over with fans despite his affiliation with the network and his ultra-heel persona. The only wrestler from recent memory whose rise reminds me of Rhino's in the sense that a very big, very convincing splash was made very early is Brock Lesnar.
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Urethra Franklin
King Koopa
When Toronto sports teams lose, Alison Brie is sad
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Post by Urethra Franklin on Jan 19, 2011 0:20:25 GMT -5
I did like the build of Corino into a legit main eventer, but I still never got behind him as a babyface, which is what he was at the time he was champ.
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Jimmy
Grimlock
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Post by Jimmy on Jan 19, 2011 0:24:34 GMT -5
Credible didn't seem credible (pardon the pun/phrase) as the top guy in ECW. He would have been fine as Tag Champ and TV Champ but Heyman was determined to turn him into his big heel and the majority of fans just weren't buying it.
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Post by Caglar13 on Jan 19, 2011 0:47:25 GMT -5
For whatever reason I don't really remember Corino's run that well but I know I marked really hard for Credible. He had some really good matches with Dreamer and I always loved his character. I thought it was well deserved.
As far as RVD getting the belt. I don't know if anyone else remembers the newz from that time but I always read that he never wanted the title.
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Post by romafan87 on Jan 19, 2011 0:53:09 GMT -5
For whatever reason I don't really remember Corino's run that well but I know I marked really hard for Credible. He had some really good matches with Dreamer and I always loved his character. I thought it was well deserved. As far as RVD getting the belt. I don't know if anyone else remembers the newz from that time but I always read that he never wanted the title. I remember that as well. There was also a newz story every week that he was going to WCW, with the rumor that near the end of WCW, he had reached an agreement with them. |
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Post by Danimal on Jan 19, 2011 2:08:05 GMT -5
I was meh on Credible as a main eventer but I didn't like the treatement he got in the E. He should've gotten the opportunity to do more than job on Heat.
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Post by cmpaul31 on Jan 19, 2011 2:50:18 GMT -5
I loved Justin Credible and had no problem with his title run. I do remember the people who had problems with his run at the time it was happening mainly hinged on his loose affiliation to the Kliq. I honestly don't remember much of Corino's run with the belt. I remember him being there of course, doing the King of Old School gimmick with Jack Victory, feuding with Dusty, and the whole Network deal. But for the life of me, I can't remember anything about his title reign. While Corino was indeed champion, he never actually got to "hold" the physical belt. If I remember correctly, Sandman took it moments after losing it at November to Remember and refused to give it up. It was at Massacre on 34th Street, the PPV a month later from the Hammerstein, that Sandman stole the belt. At the time, I still couldn't quite see Corino as being quite a main eventer... he wasn't far off, but I still remembered him as Rhino's whiny manager a little too much, and for that reason, him being champ kinda symbolised to me the fact that ECW was on its way out. I love his matches and promos, but at the time, his old act was just a little too fresh in the memory, so I can see why that'd annoy people. Also, the booking of him was a little flimsy, with the result being a pretty strange tweener that'd sometimes be the underdog with a heart of steel who would bleed buckets, and other times a variation on his wuss heel gimmick as manager. Credible, I don't know why people weren't into him as champ. Guy had been in the main event scene for a long time and feuding with many former or future world champs. When he and Lance Storm were feuding with Dreamer and Raven over the tag team titles in early 2000, that was getting more TV time and being treated as a bigger deal than Awesome's world title defences against Tanaka, Spike Dudley and Kid Kash. He was in the main event of 2 or 3 of the 1999 PPVs, from what I remember. I loved Justin's act, really edgy, even in the Attitude era. Maybe what people didn't like is that he was given what felt a long reign and made to look too dominant. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2011 11:45:57 GMT -5
While Corino was indeed champion, he never actually got to "hold" the physical belt. If I remember correctly, Sandman took it moments after losing it at November to Remember and refused to give it up. It was at Massacre on 34th Street, the PPV a month later from the Hammerstein, that Sandman stole the belt. At the time, I still couldn't quite see Corino as being quite a main eventer... he wasn't far off, but I still remembered him as Rhino's whiny manager a little too much, and for that reason, him being champ kinda symbolised to me the fact that ECW was on its way out. I love his matches and promos, but at the time, his old act was just a little too fresh in the memory, so I can see why that'd annoy people. Also, the booking of him was a little flimsy, with the result being a pretty strange tweener that'd sometimes be the underdog with a heart of steel who would bleed buckets, and other times a variation on his wuss heel gimmick as manager. The very last thing I remember about the old ECW (vaguely) was on the syndicated show, "ECW Hardcore TV". Steve Corino's plan about how he intended to get the belt away from the Sandman. He was talking to us in front of a doorway about how he was going to send Jack Victory in to distract him while Steve would sneak in and take it. The whole time he was telling us (the TV viewer) his idea, Jack opened the door, saw the Sandman waving him forward. Sandman grabbed him by the jersey, pulled him in and kicked the crap out of JV behind the closed door. When Victory came out looking worse for wear, and Steve would be yelling at him, "Come on Jack! Let's go get that belt! Don't be like that, we have a job to do!" Steve would open the door and only Victory looked in to see a smiling Sandman gesturing for him again, puffing on a cigarette and holding his rattan cane. Steve Corino had no idea what happened. Pretty much the only time I ever found Steve Corino to be amusing. His overall look was like a bum; badly bleached-blond hair (with roots showing) and scruffy "Robin Williams" beard. Yeah, he really fit the mold as a champion.  |
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Post by poi zen rana on Jan 21, 2011 12:07:59 GMT -5
I don't think there should be mold for a champion.
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Post by BlackoutCreature on Jan 21, 2011 16:43:23 GMT -5
I was just never able to buy either guy as a World Champion. Credible was, at best, a good worker. Not a great worker, but you put him in a match with someone who knows what they're doing and you'll get 3 stars out of him. Beyond that though he really didn't offer much. He was pretty small and wasn't very built, didn't have much in the way of charisma or personality or mic skills, and had probably the most generic late-90's look imagineable (he literally looked like the love child of Steve Austin and X-Pac). He had surprisingly great chemistry with Lance Storm as a tag team, but as a singles wrestler he just screamed "mid-card".
My problem with Steve Corino was a mix of too much/too soon and him just playing a character he wasn't meant to play. He got surprisingly over as a comedy jobber/chicken "poop" manager, so he got rewarded with a main event World Title run? Then completely remade into a bad-ass babyface? All within like a year? I'm sorry, but you can't just do that. It would be like in the late 80's Bobby Heenan got tired of all the guys he manages losing to Hulk Hogan, so Bobby trains up and challenges Hogan himself. Then wins the title. Clean. Then has a decent title reign where he's treated as a totally legit World Championship caliber wrestler. On top of all that told him to tone down the buffoon comedy in his promo's and act more like a bad-ass. Actually that does sound kinda awesome in its own way, but do you really think that would've worked in any way business wise? But that was Steve Corino.
ECW's always been outside the box when it came to there characters and champions, but atleast guys like Raven, Douglas, Taz, Sandman, etc. actually felt like real world champions to the ECW crowd. Corino and Credible felt more like guys who if they had come along 5 years earlier would've been fed to 911.
Never liked Rhino either. He was just too green and too one-dimensional to ever feel like a main eventer. Maybe if, like Taz, Rhino got a few years to improve and get his character over, given a few hot angles and feuds in the meantime, build him up as a bad ass, then run the unstoppable "Goldberg-esque" monster bit with him 3-4 years after his debut, things might've turned out different. But just having this green rookie show up out of nowhere, declare him the next Taz, and pretty much tell him to carry the company on the heel side of things? That's such a recipe for disaster.
The impression I always got from watching ECW's later years was that Paul Heyman went into full panic mode after Taz left. Taz was his baby. Taz was the one that Heyman was behind step by step, building up to be his guy. And everything with him worked perfectly. Taz and the Taz-led company were exactly where everybody wanted and thought ECW should be at the time. Now he was gone. So Heyman started throwing everything against the wall hoping to get lucky with something really hot as a replacement. Unfortunetaly he never found really hot, just kinda lukewarm and ran with it hoping it would be enough. It was to the first 6 rows of the ECW Arena that would chant "ECW" at every spot monkey that walked through the door, but couldn't expand ECW's audience beyond that to be the national promotion that Heyman wanted them to be.
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Post by basicxdugganomix on Jan 21, 2011 16:58:11 GMT -5
As far as i was concerned back then rvd's title meant way more because unlike taz and shane douglas he did not lose.
The tv title was the main belt in my eyes because of how hard rvd was pushed.
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