|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 2, 2007 2:17:02 GMT -5
The WWF first aired on the USA Network in 1984, when Southwest Championship Wrestling decided to sell their timeslot to Vince instead of continuing to pay $7,000 a week to USA for the time slot.
Southwest Championship Wrestling left the USA Network as the channel's #1 rated program.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jul 30, 2007 19:09:14 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jul 30, 2007 3:02:05 GMT -5
Kerry Von Erich in USWA?
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jul 30, 2007 2:51:48 GMT -5
This really isn't trivia fellas as all you two have done is state facts. triv-i-a [triv-ee-uh] plural noun1. matters or things that are very unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential; trifles; trivialities. noun1. a fact of small importance.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 8, 2007 2:47:12 GMT -5
Poor Enos and Bloom. In 1989 they were AWA World champs, and seemed to be headed for big things in the business. A year later, and they're a jobber-to-the-stars team in WCW: The Minnesota Wrecking Crew II. The Wrecking Crew/WCW run actually happened during their AWA Tag Title reign. AWA loaned them to WCW for TV squashes, then to job to the Steiners, during the Steiners mega-push in 1990 where they beat a different tag team on every PPV and Clash. I think the reason they wore masks is because they were AWA world champs and jobbing to holders of WCW's lesser tag belts (U.S. Tag Champions = Steiners). Probably Verne Gagne's idea of a compromise for doing the favor to WCW. It was kind of pointless at first, because when they came in, they were wearing Destruction Crew ring gear but with Doom masks. They later got outfits and masks with U. of Minn colors. Maybe that's how TNA and ROH can re-open their working relationship: masks.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 9, 2007 8:31:28 GMT -5
Never knew Andre gave him the Magnum moniker, interesting. I was just watching Magnum on WWE 24/7 on the NWA 11/16/85 show and one of the big matches they were hyping for Starrcade that year was the "I Quit" match with him and Tully. That was hardcore even for today's standards. That I Quit match was awesome. One of the most amazing things about the "I Quit" match is that once Blanchard and Magnum broke that wooden chair, they had 17,000+ people (without the aid of a TitonTron video screen) screaming at the top of their lungs while watching two guys try to simply "disfigure" the other guy with a five-inch sliver of splintery wood. And Tully never said "I Quit", he just said "yesssss!!!!"...so they set-up a built-in angle that they never could follow through on once Magnum got paralyzed less than a year later.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 9, 2007 8:22:47 GMT -5
This is the semi-infamous Magnum "I'm gonna come on you!" promo, but in its entire context (not the "edited for humor" clip) it's actually decent... www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXSUXQBVUqUThat segment was pretty cool since backstage attacks came off far more realistic in those days. Plus, bonus points for TBS producers slightly pulling the curtain back to show Magnum botching a promo in his first take, trying again...but it TOTALLY works, because he seemed so PO'd (kayfabe) at the guys he was talking to. Realism...so lost on the business. Everything backstage for the last 15 years has been a "skit". Magnum TA ruled. For the heck of it, here's the opening segment of a certain wrestling show re-debuting on Saturdays on The Superstation in 1985 (right after Vince gave the TV spot back) featuring Flair and Magnum... www.youtube.com/watch?v=--O2KZtjgSEMagnum was a Ted DiBiase-style babyface, and nobody promos like that anymore in the mainstream, except for maybe Cody Rhodes or Chris Harris. That style of babyface interview is a lost art since the Monday Night Wars, but it usually drew money and ratings...because it was actually sincere and not average/bad acting.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 8, 2007 0:45:34 GMT -5
I grew up in North Carolina, and Magnum's accident was a huge deal...all over the papers, and led off on the 6:00 evening news. This happened a few months after I first got into wrestling as a kid, it was a huge bummer, since I had just seen him wrestle Nikita Koloff in person a few months earlier.
If he stayed healthy, he would've won the NWA World Title from Flair, probably around the time that they gave it to Ron Garvin for no reason. And eventually, he would've jumped to WWF between 1989-92 and became a wrestling guy from the phone company named "Terry Ringer" or something, and wrestle with a flannel shirt, hard hat, and cowboy boots.
He had a really unique, calm, collected asskicking charisma that you don't see that often anymore. Plus, he was super over, because on TV, he would do these Goldberg-esque 30 second jobber squashes, getting the belly-to-belly suplex super over.
And Andre The Giant gave him his ring name...
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 9, 2007 6:43:38 GMT -5
^ I always thought that Kawada, Hashimoto, and Maeda were very intriguing as well. Sorry for leaving them out of my morning rant.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 9, 2007 6:41:53 GMT -5
Hansen Brody Gordy Steve Williams Vader Terry Funk (70s/80s)
If Gaijin workers don't count, I'm going to go with the ultimate hacky puro list of Kobashi, Misawa, Liger, and Muta, but that's only because those were the guys I felt like I needed to see when catching puro.
I never "got" Jun Akiyama. In my opinion, he stunk when he was younger and stinks worse now in NOAH. I saw a NOAH supercard that Akiyama main evented, and, for no reason, it was probably worse than Khali vs. Snitsky, and thankfully....I couldn't understand the announcers.
And of course, Marifuchi and KENTA are the bees knees. But since I can't bring myself to watch Antonio Inoki do anything for more than four minutes...I'm gonna have to go with Stan Hansen as my favorite puro.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 7, 2007 21:25:07 GMT -5
This signing is the worst, least money-making idea that TNA could've possibly come up with.
On the bright side, the guy's a tremendous athlete, and will easily be the best athlete in TNA. All he has to do is learn how to run the ropes properly, get the timing down, and he won't be a disaster in the ring. He's too small to get away with the normal "football player" moves (clothesline, scoop slam, shoulderblock), but he'd only have to learn about 10 X-Divison style offensive moves well to be pretty exciting. And I only say this because Dragon Gate guys are quick, some ROH and X Division guys are quick, but they can't run a 4.3 in the 40. Pacman's incredible speed and quickness was his NFL calling card before he and Nelly made it rain, and somebody got shot.
If he screws up his NFL career permanently, he's got a ton of potential as a wrestler if he applies himself. If Jarrett really built a ring in Pacman's backyard, and Pacman works at it, he could surprise people. But even if he does surprise (and a ton of "ifs" factor into the equation), he still won't draw a dime on name value or reptuation.
However, the fact that any of us have to ponder what he'd be like as a wrestler is absolutely insane. Very dumb signing, but I wouldn't be shocked if he surprises some people with his athletic ability.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 4, 2007 8:13:44 GMT -5
Pretty uneventful but to be honest Taylor couldn't wrestle to save his life. To be honest, Terry Taylor absolutely could wrestle, especially if his life depended on it.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 5, 2007 8:30:10 GMT -5
Dude, I think you missed my point. It's not who they sign, it's the fact that, whenever they sign someone from the outside, someone who they'd been featuring is dropped nearly off the map. It's the fact that, in five years, we've seen the feature attraction (the X-division, the one thing they had that made them completely different from WWE) turn into a damned sideshow that no one on the booking team gives two damns about. We see one guy under 30 get the chance to be the focal point, and suddenly, after three runs that didn't last a total of six months, he's playing lacky/job boy fill in for a pair of former WWE guys. To top it off, the fact that the owner (or co-owner, or whatever he officially is now) has had the title for a total of over a thousand days in five years, while the next closest to him has had it for barely 200 overall is not good. We (myself included) slam HHH for his title hogging ways, right? Does it strike you as odd that the difference between Jarrett's time with the title and the next guy closest to him (Christian) is longer than the combined reigns of Trips since 2002? Were you replying to me? I was replying sarcastically (at first) to the Russo one-liner under your post. Personally, I think TNA should fire everyone except for Angle, Joe, A.J., Christian, Daniels, LAX, Motor City Machine Guns, Senshe, Lethal, Dutt, Harris, Rhino, Tomko, Abyss, Kaz, and Storm. Then, turn Impact into weekly squash matches with those guys over local jobbers, building them up as huge stars, and cutting interviews against one another. That way, maybe people would pay to see the great talent cross paths on PPV. As far as my bringing up the terrible recent TNA signings, I was saying that they've done far worse and are still here (again, in response to the "Russo running them out of business in a year" post after all of your research).
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 5, 2007 6:54:48 GMT -5
If things continue the way they are the only thing they'll have in common by the end of next year is that Vince Russo will have run them both out of business. YEAH!!!! OMG Because if TNA gets two hours of TV this fall, and start running more house shows, they'll TOTALLY be out of TEH BUZINEZZS!!!! HAHAHA! SEE YA LATER TNA!!! HAHAHHA!!! Ugh. They sign Test, Dustin Rhodes, Pacman Jones and they're screwed, right? Well, in 2004, they survived signing D-Lo Brown, Dustin Rhodes, and NASCAR's announcer, and now they've somehow grown into getting ad revenue from a major cable network in primetime...NOT paying FOX Sports Net for a weekly Friday afternoon informercial at 3:00pm like they were back in '04. PPV and merchandise revenue has grown substantially since then, too. Relax.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 4, 2007 22:50:53 GMT -5
Steiner quit WCW not long after this match (a week or two)...he and Bill Watts couldn't get along.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 4, 2007 8:11:18 GMT -5
I don't remember WCW in 1993 signing WWE rejects. They had Davey Boy but that was about it. Most of the stuff going on was with guys like Vader, Flair, Steamboat, Austin, Sting, Cactus Jack, Ron Simmons, etc. 1993 WCW also brought in.... Paul Roma, Sid Vicious, The Nasty Boys, Tugboat, and.... NAILZ! So I guess you could be thankful that TNA's only brought in Test and Dustin Rhodes so far.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 3, 2007 8:04:24 GMT -5
Four guys, out of 16 are homegrown TNA talent. That's NOT good, not by any stretch of the imagination. TNA isn't WCW, people, it's bordering on much, much worse. What does homegrown talent have to do with anything? When, in the history of wrestling, has a major national company made waves with all homegrown talent? You can't say ECW, because some of their biggest stars were rejects and jobbers from WWF and WCW. You can't say ROH, because I only got into ROH because I'd heard of guys like A.J., Daniels, Joe, etc. from TNA's TV (even if they were in ROH first). Even Vince McMahon built his empire on Hulk Hogan (AWA), and the AWA/NWA/Mid-South/WCCW all-stars. He's still riding that wave. While doing so, Vince kicked all of his "homegrown talent" (Bruno/Backlund/Morales/Strongbow/Garea/Santana) to the curb or the bench when it came time to expand his promotion. I'm not in favor of TNA signing Test, I think it's pointless. But Jarrett and Carter have said in interviews that the company would go back into "acquisition mode" when they were certain of getting a two-hour show. Pretty sure the Test, Morgan, and Pacman signings are signs of that. TNA has always been corny and lame. But when they had two-hour weekly PPVs, at least they had some really great matches to offset it. Hopefully that's where they're headed. TNA's in no way like WCW in the Russo death years. It's more like WCW around 1993 in that they grasp at straws to sign any worthless WWF reject, but still have some cool matches, and great young talent.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Aug 2, 2007 2:12:07 GMT -5
I got the Heyman/WCW 1993 (-3) that some keep throwing out there.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jul 30, 2007 8:59:35 GMT -5
If the Internet was what it is now back in early 1998, we would have crucified Mike Tyson going to WWF worse that this, and that turned out really damn good for them. They did good with Brian Urlacher and that got some good pub, so this might be good for them as well. I'll reserve judgement until I see how it goes down on TV. Tyson was a far bigger star, and Vince wasn't bringing in a screw-up during a time (the past month) when many news and sports shows have devoted an insane amount of negative mainstream coverage to pro-wrestling due to the Benoit tragedy and drug scandal. Plus, Mike Tyson was arguably the most dominant athlete in the 1980s. Pacman Jones is just a random NFL knucklehead. And with the Michael Vick thing in the news, Pacman's even been eclipsed as the NFL's top knucklehead. There's more money for TNA to make in keeping talents like Samoa Joe, Homicide, and Alex Shelley happy than there is in signing some guy that will only bring them bad pub. I'm a TNA apologist. But this signing is pointless.
|
|
|
Post by "Nature Boy" Ric Moranis on Jul 30, 2007 7:14:49 GMT -5
This signing is so stupid, it's unbelieveable.
These are no longer the days of "any mainstream publicity is good publicity for TNA". Unfortunately, a tragedy shined a light on the darker side of the entire wrestling business, and the mainstream media no longer has a **wink, wink**/"nudge, nudge" cutesy attitude towards it. Hate to say it, but now most of them treat the business like a cesspool where many go to abuse drugs, destroy their lives, then die.
So TNA's going to go out and sign arguably one of the top three most hated/crapped on guys by the sports media. Behind Vick and Bonds, the biggest sports villian is Pacman Jones, since he's the only guy to get suspended an entire NFL season for brushes with the law. ESPN isn't going to have the same tone with Pacman as they did with Wycheck, and that dude from the White Sox, especially after all the bad publicity wrestling's gotten in the past month.
Yeah, Pacman's a heel (even Jarrett, Mantell, and Russo will get that part right) and we're supposed to cheer along with Tenay and West as babyface Jeff Jarrett beats him over the head with his guitar. However, the smartass sports experts on PTI and Around The Horn will show a stupid little clip of 1980s-looking Jarrett hitting him with a fake-ass looking guitar and will say "look what Pacman has subjected himself to! Seriously, can this man sink any lower?".
Great publicity, TNA.
On the brightside, he's a hell of an athlete. There's no way he'd ever quit football to pursue this. But, with the proper training, he'd probably be the fastest guy to ever run the ropes.
|
|