I was watching the WWE Macho Madness Ultimate collection stream on Netflix. The VERY FIRST MATCH showed Savage vs. Quick Draw Mcgraw. I had no idea who the challenger was. It's possible he was a huge name and I somehow missed it based solely on my age. But man. I was getting so into that match by the end. The suplex onto the concrete had me put my hand over my mouth and say. "Ooooh!!". Now this is a guy I have never seen, but I was still invested in the match. I didn't know who would win. I actually cringed and had an emotional reaction to the outcome. So my question is, why the hell can't the WWE make me do that today? Is it pacing? Is it talent? I didn't know the other guy. He could have been a jobber for all I knew and yet I cared. has the WWE lost something? If they have can you name what they've lost?
Rick "Quick Draw" McGraw was pretty great, dude. He would have been a player in the midcard for a long time if he didn't self-destruct in spectacular fashion.
But yeah, it's a totally different product now. I know we always make fun of how they're "telling stories" and stuff, but that's really what their focus is on now, not crafting professional wrestling matches. Having a great match is considered to be a pleasant side-benefit to increasing ratings or getting your character over these days. And the thing is, the more removed from that generation we get, the less guys are going to have that connection to those who can train them to recapture it. Dolph Ziggler for the longest time was like someone doing an imitation of Curt Hennig without understanding WHY the big bumps were so effective when Perfect did them. It's like the young guys now are doing imitations of stuff they remember from their childhood, but they've got no one to show them how to do it. That's what's lost, I'd say.
Savage/McGraw might be the greatest squash match of all time. And Savage's debut has to be up there for the best ever. Dude had the entire crowd in the palm of his hand as soon as he went through the curtain.
ReplyDeleteI must have been in a bad mood when I watched it but I remember that match being pretty boring and forgettable.
ReplyDeleteA lot of fun is (rightfully) poked on this blog for the WWE's navel-gazing about how great they used to be.
ReplyDeleteYet so many reader e-mails that are posted here are about something in wrestling that used to be great, and aren't that way anymore. Fucking lord, the wistful reminiscing is just overkill sometimes.
"He would have been a player in the midcard for a long time if he didn't self-destruct in spectacular fashion."
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of this guy, but am really interested to hear more about the spectacular self-destruction.
"Having a great match is considered to be a pleasant side-benefit to increasing ratings or getting your character over these days."
I don't see getting your character over meaning jack shit. Look at Daniel Bryan.
Bret Hart's book is quite detailed about Rick McGraw's fall from grace. It's also very detailed about Jim Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith's problems although their downfalls were less surprising.
ReplyDeleteRick enjoyed the drugs. A LOT of them. He's generally considered to be the first guy to die from the now-standard "heart explodes due to coke and painkillers" cocktail that's gotten so many other guys, and he died a couple of days after taking a hellacious beating from Roddy Piper in a squash match while McGraw was blitzed out of his mind. He was an interesting guy.
ReplyDeleteThe product sucks today because literally everything, save for a few bouts involving the Undertaker, has been done to death. A few years ago I tallied the amount of times that some form of Cena/HHH/Orton took place and the number was hovering around the 50 mark, and it was only a two year span I was covering.
ReplyDeleteIn the 80's squash matches dominated television. You got to see your favorite wrestler make his entrance, hit his trademark moves, perform his taunts and get the win. Meanwhile, inside of a box, his current rival talked shit. Simple and effective. How many times did Mr. Perfect wrestle a known superstar on TV/PPV in, let's say, 1990? I'm sure it's somewhere in the 10-20 region. Compare that to how many known superstars Ziggler has wrestled in 2012. Not only have they killed the suspension of disbelief for a lot of people, but they have killed the magic of seeing two top level guys face each other.
Something I never understood is that why, in a "universe" that you absolutely control, can Vince McMahon not script a better product than the completely random outcomes of UFC or any other sport.
Right now WWE is building to a Punk vs. Ryback match for Jan. 7th. They've been building to it for what, a month or so? Prior to this match happening, they've met in the ring AT LEAST three times. Why is the forth meeting so interesting? Is it a special "We're not going to screw the fans this time" match? Is it a special "The feud ends after this one, we promise" match?
The bottom line is that WWE is still acting like they are in a life and death struggle against WCW and they must put as many of their stars on TV as possible each and every week. It's killing them.
This post... made me so sad. We're so far gone from the way wrestling used to be that we're never going to get it back.
ReplyDeleteAh, OK. Though I wouldn't call that "spectacular" that's pretty much commonplace. I was expecting a story like that old WCW guy that got pinched and thought it would be a good idea to burn down the police station to conceal the evidence. Don't remember his name though... Ranger Ross, or something like that?
ReplyDeleteThat was pretty spectacular for 1985, man.
ReplyDeleteI suppose... I was 3 years old in 1985 and didn't start watching wrestling until 1995, so I have to take your word for it here. Still, wasn't blowing up your heart with Bolivian marching powder even common in the 70s?
ReplyDeleteAlso, c'mon man, lets hear the story about the guy that got locked up and burned down the jail!
I was in a down mood myself when I first saw the Savage DVD so on first viewing I just kind of ignored it. When I saw that match again on the day of Randy's death last year, I paid more attention to it and I think it's quite the great match.
ReplyDeleteThe MSG crowd was in total shock at seeing that kind of high-impact wrestling during a preliminary match. They were used to seeing the likes of Salvatore Bellomo and Tiger Chung Lee stink up the ring during those horrible preliminary matches so to see Randy Savage jumping off the top rope onto the floor was amazing and so different from anything anyone had ever seen to that point.
I think Randy Savage's work in general has aged extremely well, much like how "Dr. D" David Schultz's in-ring and promo work continues to age well. If Schultz hadn't thrown his career away by slapping John Stossel and trying to attack Mr. T, Hulk Hogan would have never had a four year title reign.
That said, I'm absolutely about to go look for this on Netflix. G'night!
ReplyDeleteWhat is this, story time?
ReplyDeleteWell, I'll tell you Mike. I wrote the email and it wasn't reminiscing. I got in way late. The first WWF PPV I saw was Kurt Angle winning the European belt. (Not sure if that was a PPV or a Raw, etc.) But he won it off of Test. So I'm not reminiscing for Savage. But I remember marking out every time Kurt didn't lose the belt. I remember marking out at TLC, I remember marking out a lot and it hasn't happened in years. But then I was marking out at this match. Why? I have no idea.
ReplyDeleteBut it ain't wistful reminiscing. I didn't know from Randy Savage. Just that at points during that match my hand was over my mouth and I was concerned, I was wondering if the guy was hurt. I was a mark.
ReplyDeleteThere's lots of great WWE content on Netflix. The recent Stone Cold doc is quite entertaining and the Randy Orton doc is pretty good for unintentional laughs considering everybody in the doc praises Randy for "getting clean" even though he got popped for another Wellness violation shortly after the DVD got released. But make sure to avoid the godawful 2006 DX set at all costs unless nine hours of horrible comedy is your thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to be a contrarian, but I believe the art isn't lost; it's just not currently on display in the WWE. There will always be guys like Danielson, Seth Rollins, and CM Punk who figure out how to do great wrestling in the indies or whatever and eventually we'll see that stuff on the main shows someday. Things are cyclical and we're in a story heavy/wrestling light part of the circle right now.
ReplyDeleteOh there's tons! though, yeah, the DX sets blow. I wouldn't mind a documentary featuring a full history of Degeneration X. From it's very first inception, through the attitude era, to it's finale.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a great idea, especially now that Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, Sean Waltman and even Vince Russo are available to do the talking head bits rather than say Jerry Lawler or Steve Lombardi.
ReplyDeleteOf course. Hell, the TV Guide summary for the 5-27-13 Raw will probably be "Kane gets locked up and burns down the jail. Now he seeks revenge against the man responsible." Granted, it'll lead up to a PPV match against the Big Show, but that's less important than telling stories.
ReplyDeleteWe've been saying "things are cyclical" for almost 10 years now as the audience has continued to dwindle. I think the death of the territories and then, years later, the death of WCW is partly to blame. That, and Vince going senile and no longer running the WWE like a wrestling company - at least the TV product.
ReplyDeleteThe Stone Cold character is derivative of Dr. D in some ways.
ReplyDeleteI can only imagine how the WWF would have played out had Schultz not got fired and if Slaughter never left. It certainly had an impact on the first Wrestlemania card.
I think the indies are the rebirth of the territories. We used to have only ECW as a viable indie and the WWE totally reinvented itself by copying them. After ECW died, CZW and ROH found success. Now, we still have ROH and CZW, but we also have PWG, Chikara, DGUSA/Evolve, and probably a couple more I'm forgetting about. Guys are learning their craft there and coming to WWE and TNA fully evolved. At some point, the guys from the indie background will dominate the main event scene and change wrestling again. We're seeing it now with CM Punk, Daniel Bryon, and the Shield. Or it might be TNA that gets its act together and has a main event scene of Austin Ares, Joe, Daniels, Styles, and King or whatever. Vince and Hogan won't be in control forever.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a whole bunch of revisionist history like the nwo dvd
ReplyDeletesure it would. and Chyna would barely be mentioned. But the clips would be fun.
ReplyDeleteare they learning their craft? For every CM Punk, there are 50 spot monkeys who don't know a damn thing about putting together a wrestling match, and 50 guys who want to be hardcore and take chairshots. Back in the territory days, 50% of the guys at least could work a standard 2-3 star match and knew all the basics.
ReplyDeleteIn Vince's eyes, the indies are not like the territories and that's the only opinion that counts. Back in the day, guys didn't sit in development for months, sometimes years, before debuting. Sometimes they were repackaged, but many times, they walked right in fully formed and inserted into a program.
ReplyDeleteThe last guy to not get a name change was Punk and even he had to go through development hell to learn "wwe style".
Don't think HHH or Steph will change this practice.
You've apparently never witnessed the joys of a Bugsy McGraw, Brian Adias, or Jake Milliman. There's rose-tinted nostalgia for the territories today. The workrate in most places was considerably lower compared to what we get today. Watch an old episode of AWA on ESPN. Even during their prime most of the guys they had on their roster sucked. It was only the top talent that could ever work, and that's why they were top talent.
ReplyDeleteThe main difference between then and now is that because there were more places to work you had a larger talent pool of top workers because every territory had to have 5 to 6 guys who could keep the fans entertained while the rest were there to pad time. So instead of just WWE and TNA having 5 to 6 excellent workers, you had about 10 to 15 companies with that same amount. Vince was smart enough to pull most of that talent into one place at the same time.
But WWE has sort of reverted to jobber matches. It's just that the jobbers now have to be name talent too, so instead of regional stars like Iron Mike Sharpe and The Duke of Dorchester acting as squash fodder, the new jobber is Zach Ryder, Tyson Kidd, Justin Gabriel, and Primo & Epico.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0do83v2z9E
ReplyDeleteClearly, that guy was destined to be the face of a national entertainment company.
Pretty sure Curt Hennig, a champion for a national wrestling company, was given a new name, Mr. Perfect. Ted Dibiase became the Million Dollar Man. "Mean" Mark Callous became The Undertaker. And countless other examples.
ReplyDeleteVince has always been about making things his own. Changing names isn't new, it's just less creative today because they give them jumbled celebrity knock-off names like Dolph Ziggler instead of stuff like Mr. Perfect.
hmm, I did say "sometimes" they were repackaged.
ReplyDeleteBTW, "The Million Dollar Man" was a nickname for Ted DiBiase. They used his name plenty. Mark Callous was a total nobody when he got to WWF. He had a short lived stint as part of the Skyscrapers as a substitute for Dan Spivey in WCW.
However, when the territories were thriving, the majority of the guys Vince signed were not changed one bit. Ricky Steamboat, Bret Hart, The Bulldogs, The Killer B's, Iron Sheik, etc, etc, etc. I could literally list almost the entire roster from the mid-80s and the were left intact after signing from the AWA or the NWA.
Now, no one comes straight from (fill in the blank) and debuts. No one. I wouldn't be surprised if someday they sign AJ Styles or Samoa Joe and they're not only subjected to "developmental", but also are re-named.
On your point, using your data, that means that in the territory days there could be up to 50-80 top workers in the US/Canada, and now we have 10-18 (WWE/TNA/ROH). That's quite the difference.
ReplyDeleteThey created characters for the guys regardless of a name change, so it wasn't even the same person. Ted Dibiase in Mid-South is not the same Ted Dibiase we saw in the WWF. And at various points they jumped back and forth between calling him Ted Dibiase and referring to him exclusively as the Million Dollar Man.
ReplyDeleteAnyway: Barry Windham became The Stalker and The Widowmaker at various points, Mike Rotundo became IRS, Steve Keirn became Skinner, Matt Bourne became Doink, One Man Gang became Akeem, Tito Santana became El Matador, and so on. All were pretty big stars outside of the WWF before coming to the company, and in Santana's case he'd even been with the company for years before they made him change. But very few guys ever came to the WWF unchanged by Vince. Even guys like Steamboat were forced to tweak their character to become stuff like The Dragon in his second run. It's why Ric Flair's original debut with the company was such a big deal. It was one of the few times Vince let someone completely run with their pre-existing name, character, etc.
No, I'm saying that half the roster for most territorial promotions in 1983 couldn't pull a 2-3 star match just because. Most of the undercard guys in a territory, like a Bugsy McGraw, were as god awful as most of the guys here today. AND most of them were less athletic than the guys we see today.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that based on top workers there's a definite lack of talent. My original point of contention was the undercard for companies like the AWA or WCCW, which were terrible even at those company's peaks. I think the territory system was good in that it was a numbers game. You had so many places to go of course you were going to produce more top talent. I just don't think that working through a few territories meant a guy was talented, as most of us are familiar with the cream of the crop and not the opening card guys who never amounted to anything because they were shit.
Changing gimmicks after being succesful in the company doesn't count. OMG came in as OMG. Mike Rotundo and Barry Windham came in as such in the mid-80s and were only changed much later on. Rick Martel came in as Rick Martel and was later changed to The Model.
ReplyDeleteTweaking to the character is totally cool. Shit, Tully and Arn were called The Brainbusters and were a touch more "chickenshit" than when they were in the Horsemen, but essentially, they were still the same dudes wrestling a smart heel way.
The death of the territories gave Vince much more power and allowed him to do this kind of stuff, because if you're a wrestler and want to earn a living and your options are slim, you're willing to make these compromises. Even then, it didn't become a 100% policy until after WCW died off. There were exceptions (Goldberg), but now, EVERYONE gets their character re-done, re-packaged, re-named and they have to go to "WWE Wrestling School" which is a joke.
I agree with your last point. But yeah, having more places to work allowed more guys to work and by simple mathematics, there are going to be more quality workers.
ReplyDeleteGreat point. They have done virtually everything to death.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies, you just happened to be an incidental target of something that's bothered me for awhile.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I bought the DX set when it came out. I...have no idea why.
ReplyDelete