The above video kind of sort of tipifies the things that make wrestling special - namely the fact that pretty much every 'taboo' is on the table and if you're a hardcore fan when they're referenced, you geek out.
6:30 starts the Heyman promo from the invasion, which kind of made the whole invasion thing worth it. I like it better than his ECW One Night Stand Promo, actually. The last bit features the Rock 'roast' which I thoroughly enjoyed too - and I liked how that planted some of the seeds for the ultimately underwhelming Cena v. Rock stuff.
What are your favorite wrestling feuds / promos based on 'real-life' animosity?
What are your favorite non-wrestling related feuds?
For starters there's Shawn / Bret, Edge / Matt Hardy, Mick Foley / Ric Flair, CM Punk / WWE, Jericho / Goldberg (sorta), and probably tons more I'm forgetting.
My favorite of all time though is tricky, if I had to pick it'd probably be all the small jabs directed at the WWE via one infamous group of employees who broke kayfabe wide open...
Favorite beef in wrestling: Mickie James.
ReplyDelete*drops mic, takes a bow*
Bret and Shawn by a mile imo
ReplyDeleteHas anyone heard that Chris Jericho interview from O&A yet? Pretty crazy 1)Vince legit freaked the fuck out on Jericho for that Brazilian flag kick thing even though he thought he was just doing typical paint by numbers heel stuff 2) Batista and Jericho had a cage match at a house show in England and Batista bladed in the match. Jericho, Batista and Malenko (agent for the match) were all called in to meet with Vince almost immediately. Vince had a secret camera above the ring none of the wrestles knew about and it caught Dave blading. Vince fined Jericho and Malenko 5k each and then fined Big Dace 100k!!!!!!! That's huge money for these guys. Batista probably isn't even making that in a month. Dave paid the fine, along with Jericho's and Deans. It honestly sounded like Jericho is done with wrestling.
ReplyDeleteHis podcast is pretty interesting. I was listening to the Chavo / Benoit stuff the other day and it provided some interesting insight that kind of brought a strange closure to the whole shebang for me.
ReplyDeleteEven I don't agree with HHH going over at SummerSlam, I can see his POV(and Vince's) of wanting Goldberg to win the title 1on1.
ReplyDeletewat
ReplyDeletePretty sure Jericho had no problems with that.
ReplyDeleteYeah. They even had a press conference deal beforehand.
ReplyDeleteI think it also ushered in some bad stuff (along with Pillman on a much smaller, smarkier scale in ECW) with the worked shoot. I know at the time I and many others lapped that shit up, but ultimately worked shoots became tiresome and detrimental to the business. You can do a worked shoot right, like Punk did where it could all still be seen as kayfabe, or you can do it completely wrong like Shawn did when he said that you need a note from the almighty himself to get Bret to lose the belt. No kayfabing that stuff.
ReplyDeleteHe put over Bryan but threw a lot of water on punk and sheamus. The Goldberg thing is terrible, as is the Jericho stuff. He also tried to take a lot of the steam out of Angle. I personally can't stand hhh but I might be the last one.
ReplyDeleteSure. But since Hunter was injured, make the Chamber a #1 contender's match instead and have Goldberg run through everyone, win, and win the belt at the next PPV when Hunter was all healed up, which happened anyway.
ReplyDeleteThere was no reason for Triple H to be in that match, period.
Eh, it was a different time. All the breaking kayfab fit in and worked.
ReplyDeleteWell...one reason
ReplyDeletenWo vs Ric Flair is a favorite of mine just because it is so hilarious to me. Team nWo all the way.
ReplyDeleteI always wanted John Morrison to try and shoot on Melina for cheating on him. Would he be as crappy on the mic shooting as he was cutting a kayfabe promo?
ReplyDeleteAnd kayfabe and real life seamlessly blended in 1997 anyway. Kayfabe Bret spent the whole year being paranoid about being screwed...and then it happened in real life, perfectly bookending Bret's character arc.
ReplyDeleteI wish I was a teenager during that segment in the Summerslam buildup where Bret attacked Vince at the announce table because that must've been BONKERS at the time.
for who? Remember we've been told by some for so long what tiny piece of the wrestling audience the IWC is, so why do those? God knows the Russo WCW stuff went over the head of even some of the smarkiest smarks. Utlimately you have a large portion of the audience wondering what the hell they are talking about so that a small percentage (at that time) could gasp in disbelief that Pillman mentioned bookers and that HBK said "sunny days."
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Bret and Shawn doing it in 1997 but I hated Shane Douglas for basically being a guy whose gimmick was doing shoots on guys in other companies. How do you pay that off? And then Russo era wcw ran that shit into the ground.
ReplyDeleteUltimate Warrior vs everyone is my favorite. I feel like we never even scratched the surface of his hatred of people and their hatred of him.
ReplyDelete"Remember we've been told by some for so long what tiny piece of the wrestling audience the IWC is, so why do those?"
ReplyDeleteBecause that line is probably bullshit.
and while I was not huge Shane fan (he was ok, I didn't hate him) I had less of a problem with them doing that in ECW because of the nature of the promotion, vs. WCW and WWF where it was still treated as "real" and most of the audience (unlike ECW) wasn't scouring internet sites for dirt so they could be in on the shoot comments.
ReplyDeleteI would have loved a Shatner's world-esque interview show where Warrior just airs his problems with people from the past.
ReplyDeleteyeah and I might get bashed for speaking ill of the dead, but I think the guy was just clueless enough to think that all the apologies were letting him off the hook when they were more the type that people give when it just isn't worth it anymore while not really agreeing either person was wrong.
ReplyDeleteAll the real life feuds and crazy backstage stories and politics just reinforces my belief that a dramatized version for a TV show would be a smash hit.
ReplyDeletePaul Heyman vs. Jim Cornette is a classic one. Great promos, two guys with passion for the business and fruit rumors.
ReplyDeleteit is, which is why I said it, but it wasn't in 1997 and it even wasn't in 2000 when Russo was going way beyond the typical IWC fan to make remarks that only a few got. But yes in 2001 or so I'd suggest that the IWC could no longer be termed a tiny minority and I hated listening to those who claimed it was.
ReplyDeleteLooking back, some of Shawn's promos leading up to Survivor Series are REALLY cringe worthy.
ReplyDelete"They're burying us, they're burying us!"
and I love both of them even they are both batshit insane and difficult to deal with. Both are genuises for the busines of wrestling (not paychecks, booking, getting guys over, etc.)
ReplyDeleteinsanely cringeworthy. Again because I was pretty new to the internet and reveling in fineding out all the backstage dirt of the past 20 years of wrestling, I dug that stuff. But in retrospect it was hurtful to the business and was lost on most of the fans.
ReplyDeleteThe weakest one was Matt Hardy/Edge. I was just watching ECW ons and heyman comes out and points at edge and says "I JUST HAVE TWO WORDS FOR YOU... MATT HARDY" and of course the mutants all start cheering. Hey Edge, you know that guy you're better and more successful than, whose girl friend you fucked?
ReplyDeleteAlso it cumulated in a bad match with Matt jobbing. Yawn
The 2000 WCW era is just beyond terrible, but the nWo, Bret/Shawn, and ECW stuff absolutely worked. I think the difference is those things bent kayfabe while Russo broke it.
ReplyDeleteRusso certainly broke it bad, but I would suggest Shawn in particular, and Bret to a lesser degree also said a lot of stuff that couldn't be explained in kayfabe like Punk's promos. The NWO skirted the line all the time and occasionally went well over it, as did DX.
ReplyDelete"What are your favorite non-wrestling related feuds?"
ReplyDeletePaul Meekin vs. Writing Quality Content
Edge had a pretty awesome pseudo-shoot promo on Matt in the leadup to Summerslam, but otherwise the feud was kinda weak in hindsight: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xihcya_edge-and-lita-on-the-matt-hardy-feud-raw-8-8-2005_sport
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