hallo und guten tag lieber scott! based on another post: when did the following wrestlers reach their "peak" in terms of being over? not necessarily their most successful or interesting period, but the time when people loved/hated them the most?
1) Undertaker
2) Steve Austin
3) Chris Jericho
4) Macho Man
5) Edge
6) Bret Hart
7) DDP
2) Steve Austin
3) Chris Jericho
4) Macho Man
5) Edge
6) Bret Hart
7) DDP
Hmm, OK.
1) I'd say sometime around the Ministry of Darkness stuff.
2) 1998-99, no question. He was World champion, stunning people and hosing them down with beer.
3) The moment in 2000 when he "beat" HHH for the World title on RAW.
4) Turning on Hulk Hogan right after the Main Event, but before losing the belt at Wrestlemania.
5) The Rated R Superstar / sex celebration era.
6) The Hart Foundation v. Steve Austin in 1997. Peak being Canadian Stampede.
7) The moment he hit Scott Hall with that Diamond Cutter to decline nWo membership.
1. Just before his rematch with Shawn. I'd suggest Taker is more over now than he was for most of his career.
ReplyDelete2. The time in between when he lost the title in 98 and regained it at Wrestlemania XV. People were desperate for him to win it back
3. The instant his name appeared on the titantron when he made his WWF debut
4. When he lost to the Ultimate Warrior and reunited with Liz at Wrestlemania VII
5. His return and victory at the 2010 Royal Rumble
6. Agree with Scott on that one
7. This one too
For full time Undertaker, I guess the ministry period was his peak of "overness." Id argue though that hes much more over during "special attraction WM" phase of his career, especially since they started playing up the streak.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Taker. Its easier to get over as a special attraction type guy, but hes been more over since like WM 23 then at any other point in his career, IMO
ReplyDeleteScott is dead on.
ReplyDelete1) His twilight years defending the streak
ReplyDelete2)What Scott said
3)Still what Scott said
4)Scott is good at this game
5)When he was fucking over Taker and Batista by fucking bent over Vickie.
6)Maybe what Scott said, how over/not over was Bret's long run with the belt by comparison
7)When he got Jake sober. Never before was he seen as such a hero.
I still remember Edge's first Cutting Edge segment on the Raw after Survivor Series. He tore Arn Anderson and Michael Hayes to SHREDS. Though I was 13 at the time, I could tell as I was watching it that Edge was going to be WWE's next big heel.
ReplyDeleteThe DDP one is tough because hitting the Diamond Cutter on Hall was clearly the one thing that got him over, but he really didn't become a surefire main eventer until later in the year and didn't have a World Title until two years later.
ReplyDeleteDDP was actually more over way before he got the title in 99. He was super over in 97
ReplyDeleteI still think he never reached that level again. He was an awesome heel but the whole Vicki alliance and wedding turned him into just another goofy heel character. The moment Lita left the act, he was never perceived the same way.
ReplyDeleteYeah DDP was mega over all of 1997/1998 pretty much. I would say June/July 1997 was probably his peak, towards the end of the Savage feud but it was pretty steady through the Goldberg/DDP feud.
ReplyDeleteHow about HHH? As a mid carder when he led DX or when he hit his main event groove during the McMahon-Helmsley era?
ReplyDeleteAgree about Savage too -- he did feel like the #1 guy for sure in the short period between the turn and WM, but you always sort of had a hunch he was keeping the belt warm for Hogan.
ReplyDeleteThe 1991 ascension was much more impressive to me, because even though business was in the toilet I think his storyline pretty much propped up the WWF during that period, especially when the Hogan booking was so uninspired (foreign menace redux with Slaughter, terrible stuff with UT aside from the setup, blown Flair feud, standard Hogan/monster feud with Sid).
What is always so funny to me too is that Savage lost the retirement match and yet that loss and the reuniting with Liz lent the whole thing a kind of pathos that nothing Hogan had done could touch. It propelled him right out of the Jim Duggan/Dusty Rhodes mid-card feuds right back on top even when he didn't want to be and even when Hogan was the defacto top guy. Simultaneously, in what should have been the peak of his career after WM6, the Warrior flamed out and was gone within five months.
2000 for sure. He was a top two draw for the company during almost the entire year.
ReplyDeleteFoley RR match. The heat he got after that was incredible
ReplyDeleteI'd say Taker has been at his peak of overness the last few years.
ReplyDeletePeak overness during Ministry of Darkness for the Undertaker? I disagree, unless you're saying that's when he was watched the most? Cause in 1999 he was at best the 3rd most interesting guy on the roster, behind Austin and Rock.
ReplyDeleteI'd say the year before in 1998 Undertaker was at his peak in popularity, or maybe WrestleMania XXV through 26?
Would you have had him beat Hogan for the title instead of Luger in 97?
ReplyDeleteFor full-time Undertaker in terms of most over I still don't think it's 99 (cause Rock, Austin and at times HHH are all more over than him). Maybe 93-94 when he's pretty much the top guy without the belt.
ReplyDeleteI think you can make a plausible case for DDP beating Hogan in 97, but even though the Luger change was a nice moment (and something needed for the WCW side at the time), i think in retrospect they should have held off on any win over Hogan until the Sting match. I guess it didn't matter in the end, based on how they even messed that up too (slow match, bad ending).
ReplyDeleteI agree. Everyone goes nuts over him and he wrestles like three times a year.
ReplyDeleteMaybe my memory is fuzzy but I don't really remember the MoD stuff being that over. I mean, sure it was featured but I don't remember any red-hot heat because of it. I went to a few live events and the segments just seem to drag.
ReplyDeleteAside from the streak, I'd say Taker was pretty damn over the first few months after his debut. People were really in awe of him at first. Yeah we can make fun of Old School and the no-selling but back then he really seemed like an invincible undead man.
DDP has been my hero ever since he convinced me that my terrible life is not a bad thing, but a good thing. Because all I can go from here is up.
ReplyDelete3 downvotes eh? just what did I say that pissed you all off so much :P
ReplyDeleteWhen Page hit that Diamond Cutter, he became the most over guy on that roster (outside of Sting) and never looked back. It still infuriates me that the best the WWF could think of for him was Diamond Dallas Page: Professional Stalker.
ReplyDeleteIt's Flea, Slash, and Ozzie I'm sure. Don't sweat it.
ReplyDeleteI assume the fourth was Magnus?
ReplyDeleteWhich, of course, is probably why he's so insanely over.
ReplyDeleteDownvote for getting his name wrong. It's Magus, and that sort of disrespect is probably why he turned you into a toad in the first place.
ReplyDelete2002 return from injury - MSG. Biggest sustained pop ever.
ReplyDeleteGo watch the pop he got when he came out as HHH was firing Laurinitis
ReplyDeleteOthers I thought of
ReplyDeleteDaniel Bryan - NOW
CM Punk - Summer 2011
John Cena - One Night Stand ( Cena must have feared for his life)
Kane - Royal Rumble 2001
Jeff Hardy - Feud with Randy Orton
Bubba Ray - "Brooke Hogan! I screwed You!"
Owen hart - Beating Bret Hart at WMX
Shawn Michaels - During Hogan feud where he teased a Bret Hart return on Raw. (In his entire 20+ year career, that was probably his best crowd reaction ever, strangely)
Argh, phone typing means shitty autocorrect. Ive played through chrono triger 4 times (not counting new game plus)--I know what his name is. What an embarrassment. Fixing now
ReplyDeleteAbout Shawn, while, yeah, that's my favorite promo ever, it only shows his overness in that one arena (and it basically had to be Montreal for that). From about Summerslam '97 through Mania '98 he was the most over heel (and yet, kind of a tweener) I've ever seen. For a big chunk of that run he had more heat than Austin OR Hart.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing what accidentally hitting the Undertaker with a chair and not apologizing for it can do for a character.
ReplyDeleteThat angle was GREAT for one fleeting moment where DDP said he was doing it just to get into a feud with Undertaker so he could "make him famous." Then the writers were like "Aw, fuck dat shit... let's just have him be obsessed with Sara again with no explanation. Also: throw in Kanyon."
ReplyDeleteBret Hart's career was most over when he got kicked in the head by Goldberg.
ReplyDeleteOr am I confusing carny lingo again?
I know what you mean. I was genuinely shocked when DDP was revealed as the stalker...and then Taker used the guy as his personal punching bag.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I don't even remember him being that over during the Ministry angle. Although he did give one awesome line during a promo:
ReplyDelete"I...hate...everyone."
To me, Taker always looked old and awkward during the Attitude Era.
ReplyDeleteHA.
ReplyDeleteDID YOU KNOW - 3 of the 7 things happened when Vince Russo was around.
ReplyDeleteDisagree with Page.
ReplyDeleteThe cutter on Hall was big but it was merely the beginning of his rise. His peak, I think, was when he hit the diamond cutter on Goldberg and every fan in the MGM Grand lost their sh*t in some way, shape, or form. That was his *peak*.
DID YOU KNOW - so did 95 of the 100 stupidest things in wrestling history
ReplyDeleteHe'd have been great as a Bret Hart-type character as a champion of the old WCW fans.
ReplyDeleteI think at least 50 happened during the "PG Era".
ReplyDeleteGreat topic, I just wanted to add I think Jericho has never been more over than when he was working with Shawn in 2007
ReplyDeleteI'd say 1996 Owen was the most over. He was viewed as a legit top heel in 1995/1996
ReplyDeleteYou never seen ring of Glory then, that shit is AT least 15 and the promotion only ran one show
ReplyDeleteI wish they would have brought in Bigelow too. The Jersey Triad could have had legs in WWE
ReplyDeleteAgree. I recall Taker being like 4th on the popularity depth chart in '99.
ReplyDeletePrecisely. He's booked stronger than any character in wrestling history and he works one match a year that is more heavily promoted than any other on the biggest show.
ReplyDeleteI think he at LEAST should have worked a PPV main with Hogan. Use the Savage feud to give him that credibility, maybe a win over Hall, then an underdog title shot with Hogan?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I remember thinking in '99 that the time had come and gone for a DDP title win
ReplyDeleteUndertaker's more recent "Streak" matches are his peak...and it's not even close.
ReplyDeleteAs an addendum, what was the moment you realized each of those guys had fallen below that peak?
ReplyDeleteThey should have run a DDP-Hall match, then the Savage program, and have Hulk cheat him out of the title in a PPV match. Good underdog sympathy heat for Page and even more heel heat for Hogan leading to the Sting job
ReplyDeleteI loved that heel Michaels run. The Hell in the Cell (HBK-UT) is possibly my all time favorite match. He was custom made for the edgier direction WWE was taking.
ReplyDeletetoken gay guy
ReplyDeleteThe Ministry stuff was retarded and was not over. It was a band of jobbers getting kidnapped by Taker in cartoonish fashion. The Acolytes got over, but not in the MoD. That came later, when they were just beer-drinking mercenary ass-kickers playing poker backstage. Mideon and Viscera were jobtastic. The cartoon cult-leader thing seemed out of place in the more "reality show" approach of the Austin/DX Attitude era
ReplyDeleteYes. He was just taking up space in 1999 and was most unwelcome in 2000 beyond the initial return pop. Dude was boring and pedestrian on a roster with Angle, Radicals, HHH, Rock, Jericho tearing it up
ReplyDelete