Hi Scott,
MikeyMike from the BoD here. We've often had discussions on what wrestling matches or shows you'd show your friends to get them hooked on wrestling.
Conversely, what are some shows that you would show a friend to make sure they hated it so much they'd never watch again? Felt that this would make good blog discussion.
Bash 91's scaffold match would be a good start, given the match makes no sense within its own context and is completely embarrassing to watch. The other extreme is something like the Sabu-Terry Funk barbed wire match, where it's so sickening even for actual fans that non-fans would probably run away screaming. Also, that match where the Mountie wins the title from Bret Hart, because you'd have to be really stupid or possibly brain-damaged to accept that as something that could happen.
Superbrawl 2000 and Heroes Of Wrestling. That's all you would need to scare off any casual marks.
ReplyDeleteGuerrero vs. JBL - World Title Match at Great American Bash 2004. It was horrifically boring then Guerrero did the deepest of blade jobs to try and save it and it went from extremely boring to horrifically disturbing that someone forced to watch with no interest in wrestling, would be scarred for life.
ReplyDeleteJust about any Raw since the Three Hour Era began.
ReplyDelete2003 RAW was extremely shitty and rage inducing too.
ReplyDeleteAny finish to a high profile Dean Ambrose match since Summerslam.
ReplyDeleteI showed nine of my closest friends the Mountie/Bret match and they loved it. Loved the Mountie. One said he was going straight out to buy a Mountie t-shirt. I told them none existed. One other said they needed the Mountie DVD in their hands right away. I told them WWE never released one. Everyone else was sad but said they were looking forward to at least watching Network stuff and seeing the Mountie elevated to the world title status he so richly deserved. And so I told them what happened to the Mountie's push after January 1992. And yeah, all nine of them said they now hated wrestling so much they would never watch it ever again.
ReplyDeleteMost of Raw post-Invasion through 2004 was sucky. I really gave up as a fan during that time.
ReplyDeleteThe Vince vs. Stephanie match from 2003. Watching a creepy old man beat up his daughter would send any normal person running away from wrestling.
ReplyDeleteMan, how did WWE get away with some of this stuff? Did the PTC all go on holiday? Glad the internet didn't exist back then because I'm sure it would've gone nuts.
ReplyDeleteI remember when i showed Sabu/Funk to my cousin. Ah, good times.
ReplyDeleteThe digs at The Mountie marks are the reasons I come here.
ReplyDeleteThe time of the day finally reached the point where the broken clock that is Jerry McDevitt was stuck on and the WWE won a lawsuit that basically stipulated that the PTC has to fuck off. They had to apologize to WWE and everything.
ReplyDeleteI can't see WWE gaining any new fans at all with the current product. I could also see life long viewers finally giving up.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding,
ReplyDeleteIt was so bad that Vince came on the show and told Bischoff , "This show SUCKS!"
ReplyDeleteJake "The Snake" Roberts vs Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart -
ReplyDeleteHeroes of Wrestling
That was Judgment Day 2004. GAB was the Texas Bullrope match.
ReplyDelete"Mountie". Psh.
ReplyDeleteI LIKE HIM IRONICALLY! - everyone.
ReplyDeleteAny of the 1+ hour Lou Thesz matches.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed a lot of regulars from here, within the last year, not even watching RAW anymore.
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience watching with casual/ non fans. They can tolerate 90 % of the in ring stuff even if they don't really watch it from the same viewpoint I do. The comedy sketches that have a success rate just below the Mendoza line almost always bring demands to change the channel and mocking from my peers, and I have no real way to defend it.
ReplyDeleteWWF In Your House 4 where even McMahon was so offended by the main event that he took the title off Diesel on the next PPV.
ReplyDeleteAh, my mistake. Thanks for the clarification.
ReplyDeleteThat whole thing sorta irks me, and im not the biggest Diesel supporter in the world. But in '95 Diesel was fucking trying as much as someone his size could. The results were a way better match with Mabel than it had any right to be, and if he was with a Bret, Shawn or Owen, the match was spectacular. That match quality solely falls on a lazy Davy Boy--chinlock master.
ReplyDeleteEVERYONE!
ReplyDelete... dear God, I just pulled a Dougie. Someone slap me. Now.
Katie Vick.
ReplyDeleteI figure halfway through Over the Edge '99 should suffice*
ReplyDelete* Rant coming April 1st.
And even if the product was really good, a lot of us are working / students and would find it really hard to devote three whole hours to.
ReplyDeleteHHH vs. Scott Steiner from the 2003 Royal Rumble.
ReplyDeleteMost New Jack matches.
ReplyDeleteMost WCW PPVs from 1998, especially Bash At The Beach, Roadwild, the atrocity that was Fall Brawl, World War III, and of course Starrcade, which is what set the wheels in motion for the complete downfall of WCW.
ReplyDeleteMan you are not kidding about Born To Be Wired. I threw that on from one of the ECW dvds after watching Raw with a friend and his girlfriend who were both casual fans and they looked at me like i was watching scat porn.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, if you wanna repel an MMA fan, from what i gather the trick is to show them a submission-heavy indie style match, because they'll see where none of it would actually work and think the whole thing is ridiculous, whereas if you showed them a. TLC match they'd just accept it as spectacle.
The Jenna vs. Sharmell match.
ReplyDeleteHas the BOD's Mountiemania caused Scott to have a meltdown on his own blog? Discuss
ReplyDeleteWWECW December To Dismember 2006
ReplyDeleteThe Hart/Michaels IronMan match
ReplyDeleteYeah that match sucked.
ReplyDeleteI respectively disagree with this pick.
ReplyDeleteOver the Edge 99 would be a good start.
ReplyDeleteWe're just naming shows we know as wrestling fans to be bad. A non-fan isn't really going to know or care what the difference is.
ReplyDeleteIf people dislike- or at the least, don't care about- wrestling to begin with, you don't need to show them a horrible PPV to confirm what they already think.
I like it OK myself, but I think anyone seeing wrestling for the first time would be bored to tears
ReplyDeleteI'd say it was a phenomenal piece pf work that has little rewatchability.
ReplyDeleteKennel in a cell
ReplyDeleteTJ: For as popular as "Friends" was, do you actually find any of the characters likable in the least? (Aside from Jennifer Aniston looking good)
ReplyDeleteIt bugs me that those two could have had the most exciting, back and forth, high-scoring best iron man match of all time but shit got in the way and we ended up with that.
ReplyDeleteThe death March of back-to-back PPV main events, Lawler/Piper and Taker/Faker from 94. Fuck man, I bet that if most people here watched those 2 dumpster fires they'd swear off wrestling for life.
ReplyDeleteNo.
ReplyDeleteAt least Seinfeld knew that all of the characters were jerks and acted accordingly in the finale.
And not the other kind of tears?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rspwfaq.net/2014/12/the-most-unwatchable-wrestling-match.html
ReplyDeleteI asked this question just over a month ago, so if anyone wants to look for any good answers to this, try the previous thread!
I wish they had just done a match. Then when it goes 60-ish minutes on its own, it feels like something special where both guys are just that evenly matched
ReplyDeleteI liked Pheobe. Outside of her, fuck no, which is why I always hated that show.
ReplyDeleteI LIKE HIM NON-IRONICALLY HE IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES FROM MY YOUTH AND REMAINS A KEY PART OF ONE OF MY FAVOURITE WRESTLING MOMENTS EVER!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteFucking HATE that match.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one. The dudes are all chodes and the girls are all annoying. Jenn is smoking hot at least. I particularly hated Phoebe, for what it's worth
ReplyDeleteBut there are so much more better reasons to slap you!
ReplyDeleteWell vince knows that wrestling fans have very short memories.
ReplyDeleteYeah true. At least that show embraced the idea of annoying New Yorkers
ReplyDeleteas said often before: also didn't help he was basically stripped off everything that made him cool in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThis is my issue with it. I just don't like Iron Man matches in general. That's probably why I loved the HHH/Rock one so much, because the overwrought, AE-style car crash booking of it was so starkly different from what the match type is supposed to be.
ReplyDeleteAt least they have a good soundtrack.
ReplyDeleteShow them the hologram from Hell in a Cell. That will turn them off
ReplyDeleteMy girl and I don't bother anymore. We just watch the excerpts of it on the other three shows, which are all shorter and at least as entertaining.
ReplyDeleteWWE wishes Reigns was as over as The Mountie.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Rock-HHH one is my favorite too.
ReplyDeleteThere are some people who might love it. There are lots of hardcore UFC fans who seem to find it "art" when two fighters do absolutely nothing for 5 rounds but engage in a fascinating game of human chess that kills the crowd entirely.
ReplyDeleteScott's rage over our Mountie mischief makes me feel like I've disappointed my dad for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI tried watching the Shamrock-Severn UFC fights back in 1998 and found them so terribly boring that I never tried MMA again until a few years ago. So bad
ReplyDeleteOnly issue with that is that the fan would go "hmmmm the show has another 75 min to go and we only have the main event left"
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking of the Lawler/Piper match. What a disappointment that was,
ReplyDeleteAnyrhing from WCW in 99 or 2000. Hell WWE in 2014 works too.
ReplyDeleteunfortunately many of the viewers actually didn't feel the same way (one could argue they didn't "get" the idea of the creators) and liked them anyway.
ReplyDeleteFriends was fucking terrible, I don't know how people watched it back then, much less today.
ReplyDeleteCosign on WWE in 2014.
ReplyDeleteI assume you're not being sarcastic.
ReplyDeleteI would buy the fuck out of a "The Best Of WWE's Supporting Characters - 90-92" DVD. I'd pay so much money to have lots of new documentary footage and 'best matches' from The Mountie, Repo Man, Berzerker, Skinner etc.
I'd care WAY more than that than say, yet another collection of the same old matches from the same boring group of 'legends' AGAIN.
If they had just promoted it as a match between the two best athletes in the business and promised "something special", I think there would have been a great context to that match. At a time when WCW was running the Giant, Hulk Hogan, and every other retread (prior to the nWo), telling those two to go out and fill an hour without announcing a 60-minute match would have been epic
ReplyDeleteI agree. My wife is re-watching the series and I am reminded why I could never connect with that show in the 90s
ReplyDeleteWatching people scramble for approval with various shows of disapproval at anyone daring to like a 90s mid-card wrestler whom they didn't, has been equally depressing and hilarious!
ReplyDeleteDisappointment? I saw it a year after it happened, but I can't imagine anyone thinking that match would be even remotely watchable, especially with the dogshit angle they used to build it up.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there is always that for sure. I think it would be just fine though. If you're the kind of fan noticing that, maybe it actually enhances the experience if you realize "holy shit, these guys are gonna go broadway"
ReplyDeleteJust show a UFC fan a 90s Shamrock-Severn circlejerk. I watched one in 1998 and it turned me away from MMA until a few years ago
ReplyDeleteRazor, Bret, and Savage would all be deserving tournament winners. I voted for Razor but expect Bret to win the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteI cancelled mine instead
ReplyDeleteAs much as I hate voting for Bret here, he was really the man when he had that belt. He treated it as something super important and made you feel how invested he was as champ. Headlining SS92 was also a really big deal.
ReplyDeleteYep. With the same booking as Bret/Piper from the year before. Both go in as babyfaces, during the match Savage reverts to his old heel ways in an attempt to win, he loses clean, then he endorses Bret making both himself and Bret more over babyfaces than they were coming in.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the schoolyard was divided into thirds and I was in the ultra-hip Flair & the Horsemen camp and we would regularly make fun of the milk drinkers and vitamin takers with our Garanimals suits, Casio watches and Kmart sunglasses.
ReplyDeleteMy only complaint is how long it's taking to upload 1997 Raws and Nitros. At least I saw them when they happened and have them all on my hard drive. But 13 year olds of today that sit through these shitty Raws are probably growing impatient waiting for the era they've been told is by far the best to be uploaded
ReplyDeleteHahah ... I grew up in the DC area so I was right in the middle, we got both WWF and WCW/NWA - usually Vince did the Cap Center and WCW did the DC Armory. For whatever reason, all my friends could talk about was Hogon-Warrior.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Yoko was still fairly new and Bret wasn't an established at the world champ level yet. Put Yoko in the undercard and give him a big win (Perfect would be my choice here, but you could also have him end Tatanka's undefeated streak). Now you go to KotR or Summerlsam with both guys much stronger in their roles. Better yet, have Bam Bam challenge Bret at KotR so fans will believe that Bret can beat a monster heels. Yoko wins a #1 contender's match (do the Hogan match without the title) and now you have 2 guys who beat the old guard now fighting for the title.
ReplyDeleteWent with Razor over Bret. Really a toss up no matter what criteria you use.
ReplyDeleteWarrior over Savage. Warrior was just a beast. If a superiior 1989 WWF Champ Savage couldn't figure out how to beat Warrior, there's little hope for a 1986/87 Savage.
No matter who wins here, the finals should be great. Bret would beat Warrior because beating Bret requires you to outthink him(Owen at WM10, Bulldog at SS92, Mountie paying a sick kid to sneeze on him as Bret gave him his shades hours before their title match in 1/92) and Warrior just isn't that type of wrestler. Savage beats Bret because Savage is that type of wrestler. Razor beats Savage because Ramon would flirt with Elizabeth and Savage would try to overpower and out brawl him which he won't succeed at. And Warrior would beat Razor because Warrior would be able to out brawl and overpower him.
Sufferin' Succotash!
ReplyDeleteThe live stream is a mess. What other streaming service would put something on demand without context (weekly tvs, hype shows or even new video packages for new fans) and then debut it on the live stream months later AND not understand why the viewership for the live stream is so low?
ReplyDeleteBut Angle was the first Eurocontinental Champion!
ReplyDeleteGo for the Warrior.
ReplyDeleteGet then rocket fuel ready.
ReplyDeleteSon!
ReplyDelete