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Post by autisticgeordie on Dec 14, 2019 17:39:19 GMT -5
For whatever reason, Steve Austin was miffed at the idea of having to work with the 18 year old Alex Wright (even though Austin has worked with Erik f***ing Watts, so it's not like Wright was the worst opponent that Austin had ever faced!) and that was one of the reasons why he was frustrated with his position with WCW.
Then former Four Horsemen member Paul Roma no sold the shit out of Alex like an unprofessional asshole and made himself look like a dickhead who thought that he was someone special and I believe that Jim Duggan also went out of his way to make Alex look bad, or that might've been me misremembering it.
But, like, what was everyone's problem with this 18 year old German kid who hadn't been employed by the company for that long? He wasn't a bad wrestler, there's no stories about him having a big ego or anything and he worked well, especially considering how insanely young he was.
Is it just a case of how cutthroat wrestling was back then or was it a case of the veterans going "Let's be massive bell-ends to the new foreign exchange student." kinda deal? But, I've never understood what the wrestlers' issues with Alex were?
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Post by floundertime on Dec 14, 2019 17:40:56 GMT -5
They were all jealous cause no one could dance as good as Wright
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Post by OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 on Dec 14, 2019 17:57:20 GMT -5
They were jealous that a 19 year old greenhorn got such a push.
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Post by autisticgeordie on Dec 14, 2019 18:00:19 GMT -5
They were jealous that a 19 year old greenhorn got such a push. That 19 year old greenhorn wasn't stinking up the joint, though. He was a talented guy, He and pre-Loose Cannon Brian Pillman apparently had a belter of an opening match at Great American Bash in 1995. Wright was a talented guy and therefore he deserved to get a push.
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Post by Allie Kitsune on Dec 14, 2019 18:00:50 GMT -5
Looking back on it, somebody in WCW management was REALLY high on the dude.
They were always looking for new ways to push him, even though various things (Egos, Injuries, a Brain Aneurysm) always managed to keep him from breaking through.
And he was a pretty damned good wrestler, IMO.
But I think if he came along 10-15 years later and got handled similarly, he'd be seen as an obvious management favorite and see some backlash over it.
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Post by Tiger Millionaire on Dec 14, 2019 18:06:48 GMT -5
He made them all feel bad for loving their grandpas.
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Post by XIII on Dec 14, 2019 18:28:04 GMT -5
Because he was young, talented, and obviously liked by management and wrestlers are almost always insecure about their spots to begin with, especially back then, especially especially in WCW.
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Post by Mozenrath on Dec 14, 2019 18:33:05 GMT -5
Same reason a lot of them dislike Van Hammer, probably. Young, pushed, probably paid well, even if the payment resentments wouldn't kick into heavy gear until later than his arrival.
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Post by thirteen3 on Dec 14, 2019 18:45:01 GMT -5
WCW was pretty big in Germany, I guess the executives at Turner thought having a German star was a good idea. Thus a lot of the boys resented his the big push he got despite not working the territories like them.
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Post by Shark on Dec 14, 2019 20:32:22 GMT -5
They were jealous that a 19 year old greenhorn got such a push. That 19 year old greenhorn wasn't stinking up the joint, though. He was a talented guy, He and pre-Loose Cannon Brian Pillman apparently had a belter of an opening match at Great American Bash in 1995. Wright was a talented guy and therefore he deserved to get a push. I honestly think he was just a young, good looking guy getting a push, not even that big of a push he was the opening match guy. Not like he was put into a huge US title program or anything like that. The veterans just likely resented having to go out and make him look good, talented worker or not I think they were going to treat him that way regardless. And Duggan did sandbag Wright in a match. It was when Wright had just debuted as Berlyn. Wright was supposed to face Bagwell, but Bagwell didn't want to put Wright over so they sent out Duggan since he was the rah rah USA guy and Duggan just did not want to do business. I think that was at Fall Brawl 1999. A thing to remember too is that the guys you mentioned maybe save for Austin, as well as Bagwell, are famous for having egos and not being the easiest to work with.
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Post by Cyno on Dec 14, 2019 22:46:30 GMT -5
WCW backstage politics were a bitch.
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Post by Shark on Dec 14, 2019 22:58:13 GMT -5
Just to clarify what I meant by egos, I mean of the men listed, Austin was probably the only one where ego wasn't a factor. The way I wrote it, it seems like Bagwell didn't have an ego and that is just laughably false.
If I was to guess about Austin, he probably wasn't happy to have to have a competitive match with a rookie in Wright. Probably felt he was too far up from Wright's place on the card to have that kind of match.
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Post by ThankGodForSidJustice on Dec 15, 2019 8:37:16 GMT -5
Just to clarify what I meant by egos, I mean of the men listed, Austin was probably the only one where ego wasn't a factor. The way I wrote it, it seems like Bagwell didn't have an ego and that is just laughably false. If I was to guess about Austin, he probably wasn't happy to have to have a competitive match with a rookie in Wright. Probably felt he was too far up from Wright's place on the card to have that kind of match. In the one match I saw Austin to his credit actually did seem to be at least willing to work with and sell for Alex unlike Duggan and Roma who both just completely ate the kid up and made him look like crap. Alex ended up going over by DQ so I don't know if maybe he was supposed to go over by pinfall and Austin balked at it leading to a different finish. Although I don't know if I would say he was difficult Austin even back then his WCW wasn't afraid to put his foot down and say no if he didn't like something. He also refused to do jobs for Erik Watts and Renegade although in those cases he might have justified as unlike Wright both of those guys were downright horrible. As for Alex Wright I don't think it was a case of people not liking him or having a problem with him. I think it was just an old school thing where a lot of these guys who had been around for a while thought it was beneath them to be putting over some 19 year old who they felt hadn't "paid any dues".
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Post by Natural Born Farmer on Dec 15, 2019 8:44:14 GMT -5
I think he was perceived as not having gotten his spot the Wright way.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Dec 15, 2019 9:04:47 GMT -5
Same reason a lot of them dislike Van Hammer, probably. Young, pushed, probably paid well, even if the payment resentments wouldn't kick into heavy gear until later than his arrival. Hammer was also a colossal douche, that probably had a lot to do with people hating him. Wright seemed to be liked by management, but wasn't well connected backstage so was a guy they could take their frustrations out on without having to explain themselves to the likes of Flair or Hogan.
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Post by The Thread Barbi on Dec 15, 2019 10:06:42 GMT -5
He jobbed out the future Game. Of course anyone would have it in for him.
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Post by Magnus the Magnificent on Dec 15, 2019 10:23:20 GMT -5
Zey vere jealous of his hell of a wictory, I pwomise!
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Post by autisticgeordie on Dec 15, 2019 15:49:04 GMT -5
Same reason a lot of them dislike Van Hammer, probably. Young, pushed, probably paid well, even if the payment resentments wouldn't kick into heavy gear until later than his arrival. Hammer was also a colossal douche, that probably had a lot to do with people hating him. Wright seemed to be liked by management, but wasn't well connected backstage so was a guy they could take their frustrations out on without having to explain themselves to the likes of Flair or Hogan. Wouldn't Wright have been connected with other European talent like Regal and Finlay since Regal and Finlay both worked in Germany quite often, then again, wrestling in the same country that Wright's from doesn't mean that they'd even met, let alone were friends.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2019 17:41:32 GMT -5
Hey, man! It's Alex Wright, the German! If you want to know what the Germans are about, pick me and you're gonna have a hell of wictory. I PROMISE!
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Post by Dang! on Dec 15, 2019 17:50:47 GMT -5
They probably could not understand why the hell a very young foreign kid would get that much of a massive push. It was different than Erik Watts or Randy Orton who they probably knew before. He also looked like a boy band type of kid which probably also did not go well with the purist veterans.
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