cjh
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,767
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Post by cjh on Apr 14, 2019 10:25:22 GMT -5
Looking at History of WWE, it appears the Rougeau Brothers disappeared from TV from about October 1987 (except for their appearance at Survivor Series) until their heel turn in the spring of 1988. They seemingly worked house shows on a regular basis, but that's it. Any idea why?
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Post by Aceorton on Apr 14, 2019 10:54:54 GMT -5
Looks like they had a couple of Prime Time matches, one from Paris and one against the Conquistadors. They were arguably the No. 5 face tag team, after Strike Force, the Bulldogs, the Bees and the Stallions, so I guess it makes sense there wouldn't be a lot of focus on them at that stage.
I'm curious when they knew they'd be turning them heel. The splitting of the New Dream Team and the Bolsheviks becoming borderline jobbers probably influenced that decision. They were acting mildly heelish at WM4.
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Post by ThankGodForSidJustice on Apr 14, 2019 15:26:00 GMT -5
If I'm not mistaken the Bees weren't on weekend syndies at all or if not very little during that stretch. I bought a set that has all of the episodes of Superstars from 1988 and when watching all the episodes through I remember being surprised when the Rougeau's popped back up again in May as they hadn't been on at all. They were already setting up their heel turn as they ended up continuing attacking their jobbers opponents after the match with Vince and Jesse acting surprised by the aggression.
I think it was a case of with their being so many teams they only had time to focus on teams that had a program or were new and needed some exposure. Bees and Rougeaus fell into neither of those boats (and Bees weren't a team much longer anyways) so they both got MIA treatment. Stallions were a new team, Strike Force was new and the champions, and Bulldogs had the Islanders Matilda dog napping storyline which as odd as it sounds was like the second most featured storyline going into WrestleMania after the Hogan/Andre/Dibiase storyline. Even on the heel side the Harts, another team that had been around a while, weren't on that much taking a backseat to Demolition and the Islanders who were both getting a lot of squash wins on TV.
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Post by jason1980s on Apr 14, 2019 17:19:04 GMT -5
The funny thing is about that era and not having PPVs every month is you didn't notice when a wrestler either left or was taken off TV. The Rougeaus were on many PPVs during the 80s so if they were gone from TV you wouldn't notice.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Apr 14, 2019 17:47:21 GMT -5
The months following WM3 saw a wild influx of new talent arriving over the next few months. Post-WM, they added Outback Jack, One Man Gang, a returning Ken Patera, Killer Khan, Ultimate Warrior, Rick Rude, Sherri Martel, Barry Horowitz, Ted DiBiase, Virgil, Bam Bam Bigelow, Ivan Putski, Boris Zhukov, Scott Casey, Sam Houston, Brady Boone and Big Bossman. All of these came in between WM3 and the Rougeaus heel turn. There was just less and less spots and time to devote to a tag team that had already been treading water to begin with.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Apr 14, 2019 17:49:30 GMT -5
The funny thing is about that era and not having PPVs every month is you didn't notice when a wrestler either left or was taken off TV. The Rougeaus were on many PPVs during the 80s so if they were gone from TV you wouldn't notice. Not just showing up on PPVs, but the promos they did helped out a lot. Those backstage ones and the insert video they'd show during matches - they shot hours of those at a time and would use for weeks/months, so guys who didn't get a match in a long run of shows would still be showing up on them. |
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