I Am....Jacques Rougeau! Promo (1992)
Thought you may get a kick out of this. A "Jacques Rougeau" promo for a match in Ottawa in November 1992 (which didn't happen because Rougeau quit well before then), with the Mountie moniker excised after the RCMP got involved.
Did you have any recollection of these promos? I don't know the time-frame between when he had to go by Rougeau exclusively in Canada and when he left, but it couldn't have been long.
Weird, I have no memory of this. I thought he just disappeared after the Summerslam period. Could have been that he was only doing local shots around Ontario and Quebec, because he certainly wasn't out as Rougeau in my neck of the woods at that time.
The WWF promoted a British Bulldog/Mountie IC Title Match for Survivor Series on TV, with graphics shown, so he was around but he an Bulldog were gone by the PPV. Mountie was not allowed to work in Canada as the Mountie due to a lawsuit from the actual Mounties in 1990-91 which portrayed them in a negative light.
ReplyDeletebest IC transitional champ ever.. if thats a thing
ReplyDeleteHe was around for another year after Summerslam 1991, although I can't recall him really doing anything besides the IC transition and a match vs Bulldog that was going to happen at Survivor Series 92.
ReplyDeleteI love the Jericho promo on Chyna where he lists the great IC Champions of all time and includes the Mountie.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Hart's bouncing around and being really annoying made his guys' interviews even better.
ReplyDelete'Cause the [REDACTED]!!!
Always gets his man!!!
Well, unlike the Mounties they always got their man
ReplyDeleteAnyone else here mark more for Billy Red Lyons at the beginning of this thing than for Rougeau?
ReplyDeleteDon'tcha dare miss it!!!
I'm an old man...
By Late 1991 they were still referring to him as "The Mountie" in Canada, but he couldn't dress like when they went there because the RCMP threatened to arrest him for impersonating an officer. There's a few matches on Youtube from Fan Cams around that era where you can see him wrestling in a T-Shirt and Zubaz. They RCMP finally got their injunction sometime after Summerslam 1992, and that's when they had to start referring to him in Canada as "Jaques Rougeau" rather than The Mountie.
ReplyDeleteIt was probably a hassle to have to film multiple sets of promos and commentary tracks, so that's why they stopped using him. He was gone for maybe 8 months until they repackaged him and brought up Pierre as The Quebecers, lampooing the RCMP situation.
The.....Jacques Rogeau always gets his man!
ReplyDeleteIt's like old Smackdown vs. Raw commentary.
ReplyDelete''Jacques Rougeau...is a really nice guy!''
According to the Survivor Series '92 program, Mountie was suppose to challenge Bulldog for the IC title
ReplyDeleteWith Vince loving bad press these days, if this happened today he'd probably make Mountie world champion.
ReplyDeleteI imagine Chyna being clueless to the business and not knowing he was the odd man out.
ReplyDeleteI'm not baiting you at all, I'm simply saying that in Cena's absence, they would have just put the machine behind someone else and gotten the same (or similar) results. Whether that person became as big of an attraction as Cena or not is completely hypothetical and thus unanswerable, but it seems awfully convenient that WWF/E always lucks into having a superstar who carries the company when need be - Hogan, Austin/Rock, Cena, etc. The company deserves a lot of credit, too, for helping make someone into a superstar.
ReplyDeletegoing by this argument: wouldn't Charlotte be the one who is around the day after that?
ReplyDelete"I have yet to contradict myself"
ReplyDeleteYou have repeatedly, examples were given.
"By the way, you do know that USA & SyFy are both owned by the same company, don't you?"
But which nonetheless are still going to have separate contracts etc. etc.
"If USA had the booking power you keep intimating they have, they would either force WWE to put Lesnar on RAW every week, or force them to change the title to someone else, rather than "let" them have a champion who wrestles only on PPV & the Network."
I'm going to read that as, "I don't think that you're right because if that was true then I think it would be like this, not like how you described, and because it's not like that then you must be wrong even though all of this is just supposition on my part. Anyway, you're wrong because I suppose that if it worked, it would work in this other way, and because it's not that way, then you must be wrong", which is again, bizarre and arrogant of you.
"Yes, yes, there is communication between USA and WWE regarding what WWE is putting on their (USA's) network. But they are not micromanaging WWE."
I can only wish that I had your inside knowledge of USA here.
"there is definitely not someone from USA at all concerned about NXT talent beating WWE talent in matches."
I envy your industry contacts!
"But there is not someone from USA in the room going "hey, why don't you use John Cena more!?""
Oh I 100% agree with you here - certainly television networks have never been known to ask that during e.g. Sweeps, the top stars on the top shows on their network all make appearances to help garner the one thing that they care about - ratings! Actually, I've just checked and apparently that IS the way that they operate.
"If there were we'd have heard about it years ago."
I'm going to read that as, "Dave Meltzer hasn't said anything about this before, and lord knows that in wrestling you never find out about anything years after the fact e.g. in Shoot interviews, so it must be wrong!"
This is becoming fun. Thank-you for your reasoned argument, even if I couldn't disagree more.
I am sure that the tv companies that are paying for the c shows right now would/will be thrilled.
ReplyDeleteOn the 'next day' of WWE programming shown on USA?
ReplyDeleteNo it's okay. Apparently - I have been informed elsewhere in this thread - the WWE can use any stars that they want across any of their shows without it affecting the value of those shows, or how much companies have paid to air those shows, so they can do it as much as they want! Hooray!
ReplyDeleteif we're just talking WrestleMania, the solution seems simple: overbook it like crazy!
ReplyDeleteThis. ..handicap match...is turning into a two on one affair!
ReplyDeleteYou took things I said, interpreted them incorrectly, said they contradicted other things, which they didn't.
ReplyDeleteYour interpretation of what happens during network sweeps weeks is laughably inaccurate, not pertinent to the discussion of what happens weekly on a TV show, and you can be as sarcastic as you want, but I do happen to have some knowledge of how TV works.
I guess if you're going to play the whole Meltzer card then what's the point of any of this? I've pointed out your lack of evidence to support your theory, pointed out evidence that proves the opposite in fact, and your response has been to dance around what I said and ultimately dismiss it because I'm not in the business and can't possibly know otherwise. Clearly no point in continuing this...
"you can be as sarcastic as you want, but I do happen to have some knowledge of how TV works."
ReplyDeleteAs I said, I'm in awe of your specific knowledge of USA and WWE contract negotiations.
"your response has been to dance around what I said and ultimately dismiss it because I'm not in the business and can't possibly know otherwise."
I haven't danced around what you've said at all, I've been taking large chunks of it and pointing out the flawed arguments within.
"I've pointed out your lack of evidence to support your theory"
I've repeatedly said that this is all supposition on my part as much as anything said by anyone here can be, without actually *knowing* the details of things. Your response has been to repeatedly say, without reasons or evidence that these suppositions are wrong but that a bunch of other, very, very similar suppositions of your own are in fact correct, for no reason other than you say so, which is why I have also been repeatedly remarking as to your bemusing arrogance.
"Clearly no point in continuing this..."
I said that a few posts up in response to you, owing to the above.
At last we are in agreement! Hoorah!
You do get former NWA World Champion Dory Funk, Jr.!
ReplyDeleteJakked?
ReplyDeleteI do too. You know what I don't miss? Most people complaining that the brand extension didn't work, was shit and WWE needs to get rid of it.
ReplyDeleteWell it's interesting if you destroy your whole product only to get one interesting TV show during the year. ;) I want to have 52 interesting RAW shows and not only two (the show after wrestlemania and the draft). If I would be a booker I couldn't have too many wrestler wo to work with. The more the better I would say. And I would want all of the stars to work with in the shows and not be artificial limited.
ReplyDeleteWell you could say that you can't use everybody in every show BUT, I could if I wanted and if I need. If you have a strict split you just can't. For example, there was never a Goldberg vs Undertaker match, because unfortunately they were both in different rosters. And I think, without a split, this match would have happened eventually. Also Triple H vs Brock Lesnar would have been the real main event for Wrestlemania XIX and maybe this show wouldn't have tanked so much and RAW wouldn't have gone from 5 to 3.3 in 2002.
It's not the Rock Bottom, it's MY ASS!
ReplyDeleteBack in the days when WWE actually customized promos to the local markets. Now house shows are just treated as another show of the Ringling Brothers circus.
ReplyDeleteHey now, commentary was only that bad for Just Bring It!
ReplyDeletePhenomenal.
ReplyDeleteDid the Quebecers get away with wrestling anywhere, as I do not recall a ban on their characters? Yeah new name, and the theme song said "they're not the Mounties," but they still had the distinct uniforms.
ReplyDeleteIsn't NXT like a second brand?
ReplyDeleteThe Mountie jail scenes from Summer Slam is one of the greatest things the WWF has ever done.
ReplyDelete(almost as fun as the months afterward when the Mountie would beat a jobber, and the jobber would call him a jailbird causing the Mountie to flip out before tasering him)
You want the finger?!?!
ReplyDeleteI scooped him up, teamed him with Pierre, and the rest is history.
ReplyDeleteHe had a USA vs. Canada thing going on with Sgt. Slaughter, and got a new souped-up shock stick.
ReplyDeleteJust realized Roman Reigns is a mix of The Rock (Samoan), BossMan (dresses like him) and Bret Hart (long greasy black hair).
ReplyDeleteYou'll love your new counselor......Mister Black!
ReplyDeleteYou even got them his second-best theme ever!
ReplyDeleteI think he worked as Jacques Rougeau in Canada after the RMCP lost their shit. I remember this being a thing in PWI.
ReplyDeleteIf he had Rock's mic skills and Bret's wrestling ability, he might actually become what WWE hopes he becomes.
ReplyDeleteThe Madden that had Gus Johnson on play-by-play was the worst video game commentary ever.
ReplyDelete"The STEELERS....start the drive at...the....THRITY-FIVE YARD LINE."
Punk was never "mega-popular" and became as popular as he did only once the company was promoting him as a big deal. Not the same situation as Bryan.
ReplyDeleteAnd we already talked about the Batista thing.
So we'll see. I bet I'm right.
Jacques Rougeau was the Canadian hero Bret Hart wished he could be. Even Hulk Hogan put him over in Montreal!
ReplyDelete"Booker T is an idiot!"
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, I remember one picture-in-picture promo Macho Man cut one time while Sherri was with him. During his entire promo (I think a little over a minute), Sherri was behind him with her back to him and slowly flailing her arms like some kind of weird octopus. And screaming like a banshee the whole time.
ReplyDeleteIt's was the most hilarious and entertaining sight I've ever seen during an interview.
Yeah I remember this now.
ReplyDelete"the man that i am, the champion that i am!"
ReplyDeleteYou know I actually agreed with you until they tried that with Batista last year and that failed. The fans got behind austin/cena first before they took notice. Same to a lesser extent with Bryan and punk. They cant just pick someone to be a star and have them be it. Because then you have a nash/early 2000 orton/ luger on your hands. I wish they were a bit more subtle with Reigns, because all he's missing now is a tour bus. And I actually like the guy.
ReplyDeleteFunniest shit the WWF has ever, ever done was Jacques Rougeau before the Jailhouse Match lecturing the "hick cops" of NYC not to take it easy on Boss Man and after the Jailhouse Match where Jacques REALLY explored the space as a comedic performer.
ReplyDeleteShawn Michaels inherits 2.5 million from a mark, keeps it quiet from the other guys that helped make him the star to get the money, then gives nothing to a charity ever... what a hero
ReplyDeleteyeah because he's "born again" and looks like a jerk for first hoarding it and then wasting it all... and even pocketing it in the first place!
ReplyDeletehe got a pretty solid push in late 94 first half of 95
ReplyDeleteYep thats why im 50/50 split because we never got eddie/hbk either. But I did enjoy the dynamic of having 2 distinctly different brands. You had Raw doing the sports entertainment stuff and you had smackdown with the pure wrestling. Now it's all the same.
ReplyDeleteVince watched ECW... he was bankrolling it
ReplyDeletelol no he didn't. Beating Steve Lombardi doesn't constitute as a push.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about the '96 Rumble was the appearance of Jake's snake.
ReplyDeleteJake's return was a markout moment...until he started wrestling and the crowd then died.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the WWF roster was bloated as hell from 01-04 thanks to all of those ex-WCW and ECW guys. Once they started hoarding guys from SmackDown to beef up Raw in mid-04 and '05, though, they should've nixed the split.
ReplyDeleteIf he just has a few well booked feuds, without being involved right at the top every week, he will just grow on people. The bad scripting and pushing him before people believe he's a main evente r will just turn him into a Samoan Shamus.
ReplyDeleteI think it would probably help if you didnt come to the snarkiest wrestling writers blog. Thats like hating sex and going to a porn conventiom to get away from it.
ReplyDeleteSo (Cal Val), a needle pulling thread
ReplyDeleteIf it wasn't for Smackdown being kept separate, I'd argue that WWE would have nobody at all due to HHH killing everyone stone dead on Raw. But you're right that the current creative would still fuck it up. If they didn't waste the 3 hours of Raw and two hours of Smackdown they could easily feature a ton of talent in promos and matches.
ReplyDeleteSHOTGUN Saturday Night, of course!
ReplyDeleteNew day coming!
ReplyDeleteThe Quebecers outfits weren't as blatant as The Mountie's which was an identical replica of the Serge thing actual Mounties wear. The shirts were red, but had black trim and resembled something you might wear when boating. They also didn't have the the jacket or the glasses.
ReplyDeleteThe Quebecers outfits weren't as blatant as The Mountie's which was an identical replica of the Serge thing actual Mounties wear. The shirts were red, but had black trim and resembled something you might wear when boating. They also didn't have the the jacket or the glasses or anything.
ReplyDelete"Don't you just love the way leather feels against your body?"
ReplyDeleteThe brand extension was a phenomenonal time my friends... Because we had on smackdown... The predecessor to the revolution setters.. The reverend dvon... Who saw the new day before the day was new! And now we will spread the way for it is... A NEW DAY BABY!
ReplyDeleteHe's the #2 merchandise seller. He gets good responses from the crowd. He is growing on people!
ReplyDeleteHe did the blade job after going into the steps head first.
ReplyDeleteI got ya. For some reason I thought it was bulldog ramming his back into the ring post.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately he has Bret's promo skills and Bossman's 3 moves and done offense. That Rock blood is good enough for a main event push on it's own.
ReplyDeleteNo offense to anyone in particular, but this meme needs to die. I love the omments section of this blog, but thiz has seriously jumped the shark.
ReplyDeleteBilly Red was the man... May 89 house show from Hamilton has Gorilla doing commentary over it and just about loses it when he sees Red dancing with Hillbilly
ReplyDeleteMacho King telling Sherri to "shut up!" during promos always makes me laugh
ReplyDeleteThe Quebecers never had a problem, and is a reference to some in Quebecer referring to themselves as "Quebecers" instead of "Canadians" so it was partly an inside joke likely from Pat Patterson (from Quebec)
ReplyDeleteBILLY RED LYONS!
ReplyDeleteThe Mountie owns pinfall wins over Bret and Hogan.
ReplyDelete..........is he the only person?
The only thing of note that i remember him doing was sort of helping Jake Roberts in his feud with Lawler.
ReplyDeleteHe pinned Lawler on a fluke and I think Lawler treated him like a jobber in their rematch.
ReplyDeleteChris Jericho...has an excellent.....WALLS OF JERICHO!
ReplyDeleteYokozuna.
ReplyDeleteKevin Steen has the funniest story about the Hogan match on one of the Colt Cabanba podcasts.
ReplyDeleteI wish it was a second brand.
ReplyDeleteBeauty work.
ReplyDeleteNot sure but Lex Luger owns submission wins over Bret and Hogan and I'm pretty sure he has to be the only one to do that. Both were in WCW....but still.
ReplyDeleteYes. If you think you're cute, you think you are attractive. If you know you're sexy, that means you KNOW that others want to have sexual intercourse with you. You KNOW you are desirable to the opposite sex (or the same sex).
ReplyDeleteWhen he had the best entrance theme ever:
ReplyDelete"There are all of the superstars of the World Wrestling Federation, and then there's ME."
this is dumb and forced. try to be original. it really is spam
ReplyDeleteon twitter in 2012 a fan asked him and shawn said the inheritance thing was just an urban legend so believe who you want
ReplyDeleteThat sounds about right. Even as a pretty big mark for face wrestlers as a kid, i really disliked a lot of the faces around this time. Aldo and Thurman Plugg (his friends call him Sparky) were just the worst.
ReplyDeleteThat hadn't started yet while Austin was there.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Heyman himself, WWE started giving $1,000/week to ECW after a meeting he and Vince had in September 1996. ECW was going to lose a $1,000/week sponsorship from Tommy Boy Records if WWE signed away 2 Cold Scorpio, so Vince agreed to replace that money himself.
No brand extension, match type, PPV/event name changes, etc., is going to change anything. The WRITING AND BOOKING need to change, and no other ancillary changes will do anything meaningful for the shows.
ReplyDeleteThe brand extension was awful anyway, the first nail in the coffin of my 'golden era' of fandom (I believe most fans have this, even if they don't word it that way). I hated that there wasn't one person as undisputed top dog, THE world champion. There were two, supposedly equal titles, and that sucked. Also, people talk about solutions, which boom period featured a brand extension? None. You can say it's to replace the vibe of competition, but c'mon, we all know it doesn't work like that. The idea that we need more brands is one of those wrestling fan's imagined problems.
An example of an imagined problem - too many/too few titles. The problem isn't too many titles or too few - both of the biggest periods had completely different title amounts, the 'Hogan' era with a mere three belts, the 'Austin/Attitude' era had, at times, six or more title belts. Though if you ARE looking for these sort of extra elements of success beyond the writing/booking, than hey, you can also see quite clearly that every single successful era in wrestling had one, undisputed top dog in that promotion.
Who won that match between backlund and rougeau?
ReplyDeleteOh it's not just here I read it and now it's not just here I read about how the brand split needs to return.
ReplyDeleteProbably Goldberg.
ReplyDeleteIt's never the number of moves you know, it's how you use them.
ReplyDeleteThunder. That show was never on Classics On Demand either.
ReplyDeleteYeah, syndicated television really played to the wrestling industries strengths back then, because the house show revenue was the bread and butter until after the boom died and they started expanding the PPV schedules.
ReplyDeleteCable TV made more sense after house shows become less important, but it did lose some of that charm too I think in that switchover.
Unfortunetly The Mountie didn't get his man, but got canned before the bout.
ReplyDeleteCourtesy of HIstory of the WWE:
October 26, 1992
WWF World Champion Bret Hart defeated the Mountie at the 30-second mark (Jacques Rougeau's last match for nearly a year
But if you didn't liked one roster, you could skipped all the shows and all the brand only ppvs of this show. If all wrestlers and all stories are on all shows, you have to watch every show, which is the way it should be.
ReplyDeleteThey did that spot right after, and that's when it became obvious Bret was bleeding. Especially when he was on all fours on the mat dripping blood. But it was definitely the stairs spot (look for Cornette's bloody foot prints leading from the stairs, definitely an "ick" moment).
ReplyDeleteCole shilling supermarket tabloids. "King, it's the hottest thing, on the cover of..." ugh fuck WWE.
ReplyDeleteAs the ultimate Steiner Brothers mark, the QUEBECERS are arguably my MOST HATED TEAM OF ALL TIME AS A KID. I HATE HATE HATE THEM.
ReplyDeleteBacklund tried to run. (He could never hide.)
ReplyDeleteBret has awesome promo skills. Best heel of 97.
ReplyDeleteLa (Parka), comes right after So
ReplyDelete(Booker) T, a drink with jam and bread
And that brings us back to Doe, doe, doe, doe.
I never would have forgiven myself if I didn't finish that off.
For me it's more a second brand than Smackdown ever was.
ReplyDeleteIt's just too forced. "We want this Reigns to be our nex star" "But the fans like Ambrose more" "Who cares about the fans, Reigns is tall and strong."
ReplyDeletePossibly Shawn Michaels too. The Rougeaus fueded with the Rockers throughout 1989, and there were several 60 minute ironman matches where the Rougeau's took the first two falls. Nothing on historyofwwe.com about who took those falls sadly.
ReplyDeleteEh, I'd compare Reigns more to Diesel than Lex Luger. Especially since next year will be the year of Reigns, exactly twenty years after the infamous bad year of Diesel in 1995. Here's hoping that's not a bad omen of some kind.
ReplyDeleteI think the booking is everything. If the booking is really good, it doesn't matter if you have 4 or 20 main event stars or if your roster has 20 or 200 wrestlers. BUT a brand extension affects the booking, because it is harder keep the shows interesting if you have less wrestlers to book in the first place. So why make the booking harder on purpose?
ReplyDeleteWhen I read that the bookers have nothing for a talent I could slap the bookers in the face, because they are too stupid for the job.
Even as a young lad, I could tell those two had a total blast working together.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's a testament to how dire things are that people are looking to a new fucking brand split as a potential remedy. When the brand split existed, we did nothing but bitch about it - and with good reason.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, on the other hand, I can see why a brand split works when the booking is so poor. Having two titles is the only way undercard talent get an opportunity to really shine through.
I'd have to assume so. Everyone always says how he was a jam-up guy.
ReplyDeleteBut he wasn't the odd man out...just had a very short reign.
ReplyDeleteThose two meatheads weren't in the Quebecers class.
ReplyDeleteTwenty-one years later, I still don't get that title change. Those goofs had wrestled a handful of squash matches, and all of a sudden they were beating the best team of the '90s? Even if Vince had to get the belts off the Steiners immediately for some reason, he should've used the Heavenly Bodies (R.I.P. Gigolo Jimmy).
ReplyDelete