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Douglas vs. the Kliq in Titan Sinking

Got busy at work, but I'm just about done with Titan Sinking--awesome read indeed. In the second half of the book, Dixon thoroughly covers the Douglas/Kliq beef.  In short, he surmises Douglas didn't do much to deserve it outside of a lousy gimmick, bad first match with Waltman and finally, not working through a back injury.

Does that fit with everything else you've heard or has been rumored?  It seems to me like the Kliq had SERIOUS venom for Douglas that can't be explained by just protecting their spots and seeing he was an easy target due to his misfortunes.  Then again, they were (are) pricks so maybe that's all it took.

​I would surmise that perhaps Shane Douglas was one of Dixon's sources and thus we're getting a bit of a biased viewpoint on it.  Certainly the Observers at the time made it sound like Douglas had some of the abuse coming due to his attitude, but he and Candido REALLY got shit on by the Kliq.  Often literally.  I think there was a lot of resentment towards Douglas for the whole "ECW legend" thing that he projected around himself, where they wanted to prove that he was still small-time or something.  ​

Comments

  1. I'm always hesitant to take Douglas' side on things. I could totally see him coming in there acting like he was hot shit because of his ECW stuff.

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  2. Both guys arguably got screwed over by the WWF gimmick machine of 1995, much like how guys are screwed over today. Douglas being saddled with a teacher gimmick and Candido with the Bodydonnas gimmick (and losing streak to Barry Horowitz) did nothing for either of them. In Candido's case, Sunny outshined him pretty quickly.

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  3. Yeah. I did think he did what he could with that teacher gimmick, though, and didn't ever consider him to be THAT bad, especially in 1995 when the company really needed more good workers.

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  4. According to Hall and Nash, Douglas worked with Kid when he came in, had a bad match. They thought he was supposed to be some indie superstar. Then in Europe, he was bitching out working hurt and HHH had to work twice in his place and Yoko bitched him out for it in front of the locker room.


    I don't think the Kliq had any "venom" for Douglas. They just didn't think he was any good.

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  5. Fantasy booking alert: Make Candido and Douglas a tag team and call them No Gimmicks Needed.

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  6. Adam "Colorado" CurryJanuary 13, 2015 at 6:24 PM

    They were right.

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  7. Why do so many people hate the dean gimmick? I'm in the minority but I think it's good. A snarky obnoxious know it all that critiques matches isn't terrible. Granted he didn't pull it off well but it's not the worst idea they've had.

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  8. "they wanted to prove he was still small-time or something."

    Mission accomplished.

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  9. I thought the gimmick was fine. Douglas couldn't pull on much of anything though.

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  10. Chris " The Original Cuck" Candido


    Much like Shane Douglas everyone gave him shit backstage, maybe if they rode it out they could have gotten a gimmick reboot but they went back to ECW and had good runs.

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  11. During Shawn's shoot interview where he got all sweaty, nervous and flustered being asked about Montreal, he said that Douglas' main problem was that he carried himself like a legit star and looked like one surrounded by a bunch of garbage workers in ECW.

    He parlayed that into a run in the bigs, but once he got there, he was quickly exposed as not being anywhere near the big fish as he looked in the small pond. His gimmick didn't help (Shawn claims they all hated the gimmick) and that Hunter tried to help Douglas out with ideas to overcome it, but he wasn't receptive and the final straw was Douglas refusing to work because his back was sore in MSG.

    Nash also touched on him, saying that Waltman said wrestling him was like working with a dead fish and he couldn't understand why Douglas had a great reputation coming in, then told the story about Yoko clowning him on the bus in front of everyone for having Hunter take his place wrestling Razor Ramon on a European tour and not watching the matches, saying that if he had, he would have learned what he needed to give Hall so their matches wouldn't suck.

    I don't doubt that some of this (Shawn's interview, as I wouldn't be shocked to learn he was on something as they taped it) is lies, but I think he was spot on in his assessment of Douglas and why he was doomed to fail whether the Kliq fucked him over or not. If Yoko thought he was shit, Taker did too. While Taker is perhaps a little more restrained in his politicking than Shawn ever was, that would have doomed him anyway.

    I also don't think Shawn & Friends saw an ECW guy with a shitty attitude and a bad run of matches coming in as a threat that needed to be neutralized. They may have fucked with him because he rubbed them the wrong way personally, but the writing was on the wall for Douglas before he caught the ire of the Kliq and it's hard to blame anyone but him.

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  12. Douglas is the same douche who constantly dogged Ric fucking Flair and tried to siphon cheap heat from mentioning every NWA champion by name before throwing the belt in a trashcan.


    I cannot bring myself to feel sympathetic for the guy.


    The Kliq were surely politicking assholes in the 90's, but Douglas wasn't held down by them. He was an average wrestler who looked worse than Arn Anderson and had a lame gimmick. Razor squashing him did us all a favor.

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  13. Network is out in the UK and it works, I'm so happy!

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  14. Agreed, he sucks. The gimmick though, I think that could work if done correctly. especially in today's bland, watered down environment.

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