Alright Scott!
Hope you're well. Give my regards to the missus and your youngster
I just wanted to throw some questions at you and give you the option of A or B. Elaboration would be highly welcomed!
Better opponent for Rob Van Dam
A. Jerry Lynn
or
B. Jeff Hardy
I've always found the Lynn series to be overrated, but the Hardy matches were a bunch of spot-monkey nonsense that don't really hold up, so I'll go Lynn.
Better Tag Team Partner for British Bulldog
A. Dynamite Kid
or
B. Owen Hart
The Bulldogs in their prime blew away anything that Davey and Owen did as a team.
Better show
A. Great American Bash 96 (Benoit Vs Sullivan, Mysterio Vs Malenko, Flair and Arn Vs Mongo and Kevin Greene)
or
B. Bash at the Beach 96 (Outsiders Vs Sting, Savage and Luger, Mysterio Vs Psychosis, Giant and Sullivan Vs Benoit and Arn)
The Bash is a better wrestling show, but the second one is a bigger show obviously, so I'll go with BATB.
Better Match
A. Shawn Michaels Vs Bret Hart at Wrestlemania XII
or
B. Shawn Michaels Vs Bret Hart Survivor Series 92
The Survivor Series one keeps growing on me, so I'll go with that one.
Better character
A. Adam Bomb
or
B. Wrath
Adam Bomb had a lot of goofy wasted potential. Could have been a lot bigger, I think
Better choice to win King of the Ring 95 instead of Mabel
A. Kama
or
B. The Roadie
Out of those two? Kama. Would have at least gave us KING KAMA and he could have melted down the urn to make his crown.
Better main eventer
A. Justin Credible
or
B. Steve Corino
Bleh. Credible, I guess.
Better use of smoke and mirrors
A. 911 comes in and Choke Slam's people but hardly ever wrestles. Gets over
or
B. The Boogeyman scares people by foaming at the mouth and eating worms but hardly ever wrestles. Gets over
911 by a mile.
Gimmick you would most like to have seen more done with
A. Sean O'Haire as a Devils Advocate
or
B. Waylon Mercy
O'Haire, but he couldn't talk on a live mic and basically killed his own gimmick.
and one more
Better opponent for Tajiri
A. Super Crazy
or
B. Rey Mysterio
Crazy.
I always really liked Steve Corino. Although I didn't hate Justin Credible either, but looking back that was probably just because he was emulating the style of other guys that I liked better. But Corino I still dig.
ReplyDeleteI know Scott's original stance was that the RVD/Lynn series was overated, but it seemed Scott mellowed out on the series in recent year by upgrading the star ratings every time he re-ranted on their matches.
ReplyDeleteWrath was headed for a main event title match with Billy Boy before Nash killed him dead.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but I thought Bomb was the better gimmick. Wrath wasn't really a money gimmick, they just happened to be pushing the guy with a winning streak.
ReplyDeleteBecause people care what I think..
ReplyDeleteA. Jerry Lynn (but his matches with Styles were way better than his matches with Van Dam)
A. Dynamite KidB. Bash at the Beach 96
B. Shawn Michaels Vs Bret Hart Survivor Series 92
A. Adam Bomb
B. The Roadie
B. Steve Corino (he's still highly entertaining, but his best work is clearly his commentary)
A. 911
A. Sean O'Haire as a Devils Advocate
A. Super Crazy
oh, and...
A) Tanahashi
I liked Shawn/Bret from Survivor Series '97 better than both those matches. I can still watch it and wonder, "I wonder how hard he's hitting him there."
ReplyDeleteI liked Corino, too. He was pretty good on the mic as well. I remember he cut a promo on David Flair before an indie match and said something like, "It took your father thirty-five years to build his name and it took you one year to ruin it."
ReplyDeleteAdam Bomb was the most underrated guy ever. People forget how good he was in the ring for size. And the gimmick was actually getting over a bit as a babyface before he quit.
ReplyDeleteI've always been a sucker for Van Dam's matches with Jeff. They were my first real intro to Van Dam and they made him seem like the coolest motherfucker on the planet.
ReplyDeleteAnd over the years Corino has grown on me. When I first started watching ROH in late 08 from what I had seen of him I didn't care for him. And as I went back and started watching ROH from the very beginning I couldn't stand his commentary. But as I've reached mid 03 and his feud with Homicide I can't help but admit he's grown on me. His overdone ring intro is great and something that could only be done in an indy.
Too bad WCW closed before Corino got there. Would have fit in nicely.
ReplyDeleteHas Corino gotten better on commentary? All I've heard of his commentary was ROH in 2002 and I thought he and the other guy were pretty horrible.
ReplyDeleteA perfect indicator of how out of touch Vince was in 1995. Mabel wins King of the Ring and neither Shawn or Taker are in the finals.
ReplyDeleteCorino is a great mic worker.
ReplyDeleteWith hindsight I think I could have dug Corino in the Invasion. I didn't watch ECW before that so I didn't know him but I think he could have been one of the stand outs just because of his heat getting ability.
ReplyDeleteKOTR was below them both.
ReplyDeleteIn 2000 WCW? Dunno about that.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that Corino could've totally carried the ball in a larger promotion though.
Totally. I wonder why he became a jobber. He seemed like he had all the goods: size, muscles and not a bad worker.
ReplyDeleteAnd both of them were out in the first round, Taker jobbed to Kama for Christ's sake.
ReplyDeleteThinking about it now, I would have had Bigelow win it. Him and Diesel would have drawn better than Diesel/Mabel (and it would have been a far better match), and it would have helped Bam Bam get some heat back after jobbing to a football player in a WM main event.
He just didn't have the right connections.
ReplyDeleteOh, dude, he's a fucking riot on commentary. The old school heel shtick he does is hilarious. Not quite "PWG drinking contest" hilarious, but damn funny.
ReplyDeleteLynn because Jeff Hardy has no value.
ReplyDeleteDynamite
WCW. Didn't watch.
SS92
Bomb. Goofy yet awesome.
Kama
ECW. Couldn't watch.
O'Haire
Crazy.
Anything would be better than Mabel. At that point KOTR was still a relatively big deal. The previous 2 winners were Owen and Bret. Plus a title shot at Summerslam and the title feud throughout the summer. Taker's wrestling Kama while Mabel's working Main events.
ReplyDeleteBut wrestling Kama over a necklace was right in his wheelhouse?
ReplyDeleteThey were elevating(or trying to anyway) Kama to Taker's level, not lowering Taker to Kama's level.
ReplyDeleteAll Corino could do was blade, very over rated.
ReplyDeleteCause it was fairly body heavy. Lotta young guys in good shape. Steve looks like somebody draped a white sheet over a bag of potatoes.
ReplyDeleteI mean, there was probably a chance of him getting over, given how chaotic it was, but damn if it wasn't just a major clusterfuck.
I take it you've never heard him cut a promo?
ReplyDeleteHe was in decent shape back then. And was infinitely more talented than 90% of the roster at the time. He would have got over.
ReplyDeleteI thought Kama melting the urn down into a chain was cool as hell, though it was a bit goofy how the chain was so huge. You'd need at least 2 or 3 solid urns to make a chain that big.
ReplyDeleteI think that we're officially through on the looking glass on the WM12 iron man backlash.
ReplyDeleteHis in-ring work isn't that great either, outside of hardcore matches. I mean, he's not shitty or anything, but he just doesn't do anything to grab my attention outside of his heel antics. There's just nothing flashy to his moveset. I think ROH is using him perfectly right now as an upper-midcard mouthpiece for S.C.U.M. He's often the most entertaining guy on the show.
ReplyDeleteThe connections didn't come until he teamed up with Brian Adams.
ReplyDeleteHe got modestly over in both WWF and WCW, but rumor is he was also quite dim-witted.
ReplyDeleteHis promos were basic trolling.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. The previous two winners were A) former WWF champion and triple crown winner Bret Hart and B) the next challenger to the WWF title Owen Hart. HBK hadn't yet won the WWF title in '95 so I don't see how it could've been below him at that point.
ReplyDeleteThey used KOTR as a storyline tool and to further cement Owen as a main eventer. They used Bret to get the concept over. Shawn just main evented a WM, he didn't need it.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that too.
ReplyDeleteThat match with Earthquake is pretty funny
ReplyDeleteHe may not have needed it (and I think history has shown he didn't), but I still wouldn't say the tournament was beneath him. Every year they had upper midcard guys in it. And had Shawn won, it would've put him back in the WWF title picture instead of staying in the IC title hunt for the rest of the year.
ReplyDeleteHow do you reckon someone who has been one of the most consistently over guys of the last 15 years and an absolute merchandising monster has "no value"?
ReplyDeleteHis poetry alone moves him to the top of the list!
ReplyDeleteSome people are blinded by their hate so they aren't able to objectively look at someone and their accomplishments.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen anything of him besides his "match" at WrestleMania X.
ReplyDeleteYeah he sells merch and whatnot. I wouldn't argue that he doesn't bring value to the organization.
ReplyDeleteIt's just a personal thing. His flippy floppy, whiff on every second move, just cannonballing himself like some kind of an idiot style of wrestling is terrible to me. Any time he talks he sounds like even he's not convinced of what he's saying. And everything about him that I've seen on screen, or read in interviews or whatever, he just seems like the absolute opposite of a person that I would respect.
He was in ring shape sure (kind of looked like Punk without the tattoo) but I think his look and gimmick are too niche for a national audience.
ReplyDeleteI love Steve, but I just don't think he would've made it out of the mid-card.
I agree with pretty much all of this.
ReplyDeleteVery underrated talent though.
You:
ReplyDeleteA. Distracting us
or
B. Just senile
I must admit I haven't watch any of his squash matches in years and was just going by memory here (I was pretty sure there were several times the audience audibly gasped when he destroyed jobbers using his high impact offense).
ReplyDeleteYeah...I watch an unhealthy amount of 1995 WWF.
ReplyDeleteI have a lot of the older ECW stuff on an external hard drive...
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the event, but the first match was a pair of jobber tag teams botching every other move. Joey's ragging on the kids, comparing them and their match to WCW... right up until the music hits. Hello 911, Goodbye jobbers via chokeslam.