Greetings, Superfriends. Today we have a daily double. The first is from Jeff Bailey:
"Looking back on Dusty Rhodes' stint as booker, does the knowledge that Ric Flair is such a gigantic cock alter your perspective on it?"
Well, not really. I've never really heard a bad-word about Flair during that era. It was only when he started to look like a piece of beef jerky with bleached strands of hair coming out of the top that he became a prick. I've often wondered what would happen if Triple H from 2003 and Dusty Rhodes from 1988 were in the same company. It would have to implode. Like in Time Cop when two beings take up the same space.
Second question comes from QOTD Hall of Famer, Mr. Gavin Lee.
"Looking back on Dusty Rhodes' stint as booker, does the knowledge that Ric Flair is such a gigantic cock alter your perspective on it?"
Well, not really. I've never really heard a bad-word about Flair during that era. It was only when he started to look like a piece of beef jerky with bleached strands of hair coming out of the top that he became a prick. I've often wondered what would happen if Triple H from 2003 and Dusty Rhodes from 1988 were in the same company. It would have to implode. Like in Time Cop when two beings take up the same space.
Second question comes from QOTD Hall of Famer, Mr. Gavin Lee.
"Not a wrestling question today but with the impending release of Star Wars ep7
What do you want to see or what storyline should they follow? There's rumours
there bringing back the original cast Luke han leia etc I'm unsure if I could
belive a 70yr old (!) mark hamill pulling Jedi shit any more hopefully JJ won't
make a Star Trek clone."
It's no longer rumors, as I believe most of the original cast is returning. I have
no problem believing in older Jedis being able to bring the goods. Look at
The Emperor. He looks older than dirt and he's the biggest bad ass of them all. Yoda
is ancient, about 2 feet tall and he's feared completely. The Jedi only get stronger as they
get older.
I always thought they'd just film the Heir To The Empire books, which I read a few
years ago and are great. I'm all about bringing The Emperor back, as he's my favorite
character. There's so much material to work with it's ridiculous. Not only are there
100's of books, but 1000's of comics. There is honestly to excuse for fucking
this film up. There are tried & true stories that are great, and that fans want
to see.
I apologize for the font, blogger is a piece of crap and believes letting you
choose your format is something of an antiquated notion.
Why is a flair a "gigantic cock?" Because he's been divorced and has bad credit? And now he's just some piece of shit???? Lol ok
ReplyDeletenot trying to be a dick but i dont believe you answered the 1st question he was asking.
ReplyDeleteother than that THRAWN!
Someone please elaborate on why Flair was a "gigantic cock."
ReplyDeleteSo 2013 minus 1951 is 70?
ReplyDeleteHave we ruled out the possibility that the e-mailer meant that Flair HAD a giant cock?
ReplyDeleteOnly problem I've ever had with Flair was not letting Luger win the World Title from him. Luger looked like a chump for years because he could never beat Flair. Flair couldn't even lay down for the guy just once. No excuse not to do it in 1991 on his way out of WCW.
ReplyDeleteHe spent too much money and has really bad credit and has ex wives. So people hate him now because all that is really important
ReplyDeleteHe asked if Flair being a dick changed my perspective. I said no, because he wasn't a dick until the 2000's started.
ReplyDeleteI thought about the Thrawn trilogy as well. Man, Star Wars fans are going to lose their fucking mind if this 7th film blows. Myself, even though I'm a major Star Wars fan, fucking up the films and altering the originals doesn't bother me because I still have my favorites. Matter of fact, I didn't become a major Star Wars fan till my early 20's, so I prefer the enhanced versions from the late 90's as opposed to the original ones.
Dusty is one of my favourite ways to gauge super-smarks. 15 years ago he was totally despised (check out Scott's review of his shoot interview). Since then, almost 100% of the people that worked with him say how much they love him. And the tune has been changed.
ReplyDeleteRe: Star Wars 7.
ReplyDelete70 year old Mark Hammil wouldn't be running around like a madman. He'd be in the role of Obi Wan and that's exactly who should be in the old and wizened wizard role. As long as they set the world thirty/forty years after the events of Episode 6 it'll work out splendidly.
Should we ask people from the flight from hell?
ReplyDeleteAll this talk about bookers and being booked makes me reflect on the greatest tragedy and coolest titantron in sports entertainment history.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-udzBWFHDs
I kinda argue about Flair suddenly being a dick - how many top guys were willing to job to a lot of guys, Luger excepted? Seems like he was willing to job to anyone late in his career, including Shane Douglas. ESPECIALLY Shane Douglas.
ReplyDeleteThere are many worse people out there. True, Flair's inability to stay rooted in reality and take care of himself and the others around him as a responsible adult isn't the best thing, but I think that's more of him whoring himself out to the highest bidder rather than any malicious intent.
Besides, Rhodes-Flair was a hot feud, even if Rhodes' selling was dropping an elbow on kayfabe and putting it in a crappy figure-four.
I liked him as a booker for a couple of his ideas, namely the Dusty finish (used sparingly) and WarGames. As the top face, and having almost all the heels put him over even in feuds not involving him? Yeah, a bit much.
ReplyDeleteAnd his selling was ATROCIOUS. I remember a Horsemen beatdown where they worked on his one leg, and when he was saved, he held the OTHER leg. Someone opined that the Horsemen beat him so bad he forgot what leg hurt.
or any person who was in the same motel bar with him
ReplyDeleteYour username and avatar are most superior, sir.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure X-Pac knows. You want to drive or should I?
ReplyDelete*bows respectfully*
ReplyDeleteRobert Williams brings up another question (and I'm not sure if this warrants a QOTD, but whatevs) - Flair refusing to lay down for Luger did hurt him (and helped to build him up forever as a "choker"), but I can not remember a time when Flair laid down for Luger AT ALL, even in the late days of WCW. Yeah, Luger had multiple visual wins over Flair, but I don't think he ever pinned him. Surely he did at some point, didn't he?
ReplyDeleteBut that brings up my question: what feuds out there have involved one guy NEVER pinning the other, over a long period of time? The only thoughts that come to mind are Hogan/Savage and Raven/Dreamer (and even then I gotta think TD got at least one pin). Thoughts?
Tommy Dreamer pinned Raven on his last match in ECW before heading to WCW. I think you're right about Hogan v Savage though. Also, anyone who feuded with Hunter from 2002-2005
ReplyDeleteDid Jericho ever get an official win over Triple H? His title win was quickly reversed and eradicated from history. He lost at Fully Loaded and WrestleMania in their best known matches. I really can't recall Jericho pinning Triple H.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Hogan ever pinned Piper.
ReplyDeleteTBF, in the 80s WWF, almost no one pinned Piper. But Hogan did get a win over him at SuperBrawl VII in one of the most intelligence-insulting finishes known to man, even byb pro wrestling's standards.
ReplyDeleteLet's not rewrite history here. Flair was WCW through and through. But he was THROUGH with Herd. He wasn't going anywhere until Herd pulled the trigger. Flair's lack of desire to lay down for Luger stems from the fact that Luger wasn't the right guy for the World title. A quick title reign in '88 could have proven that, but Flair knew it before he even got in the ring with him.
ReplyDeleteAsk Missy Hyatt.
ReplyDeleteAnd he did lose the IC title to him some 5-6 years ago. But at least he had that visual pinfall on RAW. But yeah, other than that, Jericho always lost.
ReplyDeleteI think Hogan/Savage wins b/c Savage was always positioned to be 2nd rate next to Hogan - the constant jobs, the sheer length of their on/off feud, WM V, Havoc 96, being clowned by Bubba during his rap "concert" (shoot, the "Reviving Elbow").....I could go on.
Well, not really.
ReplyDeleteI've never really heard a bad-word about Flair during that era. It was
only when he started to look like a piece of beef jerky with bleached
strands of hair coming out of the top that he became a prick.
Flair's attitude didn't change, people's willingness to put up with his bullshit did. We all heard about HHH holding down Jericho in 2000 but we were more willing to accept it as a wash because HHH in 2000 was a wrestling god.
Dreamer pinned Raven before Raven went to WCW. Hogan/Savage is the big one in my mind.
ReplyDeleteBenoit?
ReplyDeleteRock. I'll talk shit on the Rock's last run but Rock was all about putting people over. HHH was the Mr. Negative to Rock's Mr. Li
ReplyDeleteWhich raises another question: how many feuds had awesome build/awesome heat/awesome expectations (let's be realistic: you can't say that Hogan/Rock was a crappy match because Hogan's body being held together by tanner and hope in 2002) but failed to deliver during the match?
ReplyDeleteAh hell, just do him in CGI.
ReplyDeleteI'm honestly too young to have much of an opinion on Dusty. From what I've seen of his matches I'm not a huge fan and I'd need to be refreshed on when he booked from to have an opinion.
ReplyDeletetag title match: Jericho & Benoit vs 2 man power trip
ReplyDeletePiper out-and-out refused, saying it would hurt him and his bookings in the future, just like it did to all the other Hogan Victims. And Piper was one of the only guys in wrestling big enough to get away with telling Vince "No". And really, Piper was kind of right to do it- it didn't hurt Hogan at all, and Piper was a huge star continuously.
ReplyDeleteJericho pinned Austin in that match.
ReplyDeleteEdge vs. Hardy was so frustrating because after Summerslam they had plenty of crazy and fun matches. But their first meeting and it's an 8 minute no contest? Beyond stupid.
ReplyDeleteTriple H vs. Batista at WrestleMania. Awesome build but just a decent match. I guess technically it probably met most people's expectations but build vs. match quality it didn't live up.
ReplyDeleteGoldberg vs. Lesnar.
It's an official win but I don't think he ever pinned him anywhere else
ReplyDeleteFlair came across pretty selfish and egotistical in his book, but of course egotism is nearly expected in a worker of Flair's magnitude (we all know Bret's the same way, as are quite a few others. You almost HAVE to have an ego to succeed on their kind of level). But his Party-All-Day schtick is and was amusing to people, particularly his buddies. Yet it's the classic situation where partying all the time is acceptable as a top-draw in your 30s & possibly 40s, but gets less acceptable with each passing year. Partying like that in your SIXTIES is just pathetic. The fact that his home life is and was utter crap is just icing on the cake to make Flair look completely pitiful.
ReplyDeletePeople in the business seemed to like Flair back in the day- remember Bischoff's whole "I'll sue him and his family into BANKRUPTCY" thing? The other wrestlers were all over him for that- Flair seemed to have been well-liked. Even in WWE years later, everyone deferred to him and treated him like the legend that he was. So I think a lot of his behavior just got worse over time, and his egotism became a lot less acceptable the older he got.
Shawn Michaels-Mr. Perfect immediately jumps to mind.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Sting-Bret (it was OK, but disappointing....pretty much like all of Bret's WCW run)
Goldberg-Lesnar, but that was entertaining in a different sort of way
Austin-Rock from WM XXXIX - it was good, but given the build and their reps, it couldn't hold a candle to their previous outings.
Yeah, Rock is one of the few guys where a loss didn't hurt him, so he was free to do whatever he wanted, get on the mike, and would lose no heat whatsoever (last run excepted, like you pointed out).
ReplyDeleteDaniel Bryan is probably the most recent case of this - seemed like he couldn't win a singles match for a long time, and he just kept getting over. I'm actually afraid that this proves to the WWE that they don't need to have a guy have wins to get him over.
Wholeheartedly I agree that Luger was red hot; however, Luger's passion was money and not wrestling. Flair must have seen that right off the bat.
ReplyDeleteAnother important thing is that even when Rock would beat someone, they still came out pretty good. Angle-Rock at No Way Out 2001 is a prime example. Angle lost the match but came out of it so much better than he had in beating Taker at SS or Triple H at RR.
ReplyDeleteFlair came up through Mid-Atlantic with Steamboat and knew he would have spectacular matches with him. Flair loved Dusty when he entered the territory. Sting has that passion for wrestling. Flair must have known that Luger wasn't the second coming of Hogan.
ReplyDeletethe way im reading the question it says does flair being a cock change your perspective on dusty's booking.
ReplyDelete"it" being the booking, not flair.
Stop.
ReplyDeleteFlair dropped the belt for people he knew had no passion for wrestling and could manipulate to get it back easily.
Herd was setting up Luger to be their Hogan.
As much as people say Magnum would have been their Hogan, Luger in 88 eclipsed him in every way. Better worker, Better talker. Better body.
The problem is that once he had the belt, it wasnt coming off of him.
Whereas Steamboat cared more about Bonnie's ass and Sting wanted to be the nice guy and give respect to those who came before him.
Luger would have been all business (he was the only guy with an agent at the time) and with Herd backing him, he would have had the office backing. So of course, if im Flair im not dropping the belt. Thats all the leverage I have.
How did he know that? Because he cut him off at the knees. Hogan's passion was money and not wrestling as well but that worked out okay, didn't it?
ReplyDeleteThis guy gets it.
ReplyDeleteFlair cared about one guy: Ric Flair. If it made him money and kept him on top he was all for it.
Wrestlemania 39???? Well, I guess someone did mention Timecop...
ReplyDeleteI remember in one of Hogan's first DVDs it was patently obvious that he STILL resented the fact that Piper hadn't laid down for him. Amazing. Between that and the whole Warrior rubbish, Hogan was and is a huge mark for himself.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember Flair ever getting the better of Hogan, save for the ending of RR92.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree, I was following closely in 88 (primarily through PWI, as we only had WWF Superstars in Australia), and the storyline arc could not have been more apparent - Flair cheats and stalls like a mofo to keep the title off Luger. It was pretty much the same storyline as Honky Tonk. The obvious and cathartic end to that storyline was Luger shredding Flair and winning the Title. This was just as obvious as how the ending of Starrcard 97 should have gone.
ReplyDeleteInstead, Luger was knee-capped twice - first with the Great American Bash Dusty finish (with the 'paper cut' blood rule finish), and then at Starrcade, when in a match where DQ = loss of title, Flair manages to win after 30 + minutes.
Luger was in a number of storylines with a logical conclusion that was taken away from him :
-=- Flair in 1988 and again in 1989
- Against Yokozuna leading up to Summerslam
- (Possibly) in Wrestlemania X, with another non-finish in the Yokozuna match.
- Winning the Title against Hogan then having to drop it back in 6 days time.
The good:
ReplyDeleteWarGames
Dusty Finish (sometimes)
Rock 'n Roll Express matches (he said he could've booked Morton to get beat up for an hour but people wouldn't believe it)
Road Warriors winning the tag titles over the Midnight Express
Horsemen formation
Parking lot
The bad:
Rick Steiner winning the world title over Flair in 5 minutes
Ego against his opponents (and his selling was horrible)
Never had a clean loss (especially as a champ)
Dusty finish (Starrcade 85 + 87)
Had people not involved with him talk glowingly about him
I mean, I could probably go on, but he's like any other booker who also wrestled. But he does get a ton of credit for WarGames.
Yeah, and I said no. Because he wasn't a dick until the 2000's started. Thus, if he'd been a dick the whole time, then Dusty being a prick to him wouldn't bother me.
ReplyDeleteYoko, too. I'd bet Hogan would have paid his contract out of pocket to come to WCW and give Hogan his win back.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Douglas vs. Taz, it just felt more like WWF-hardcore than ECW-hardcore.
ReplyDeleteif the accusations from his exes are true, he's an abusive psycho who went around cheating on his wives for years but would beat the shit out of them for looking at another guy. He also has worse than "bad credit", he repeatedly hired contractors to do work for him and then never paid them for it. Abusers, hypocrites, and thieves are my least favorite kinds of people on earth, and Flair is all three.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to compare it too much to Sting-Hogan but it should have stayed in the ring and had Taz just annihilating Douglas to end his title reign. Taz also had the Davey Richards problem: by the time he won the title there weren't enough main event level talents to challenge him.
ReplyDeleteFlair did beat Hogan in 99 right after the Fingerpoke of Doom in that stupid "first-blood Yapapi cage strap on a pole" match.
ReplyDeleteThat's the beauty (or something) of Hogan - he ALWAYS had to get a win (visual or actual) over everyone he faced. Pinning Sting at Starrcade 97, visual win over Brock, pinning Rock in that tag match, making Angle tap out to the anklelock (yes, that happened), Yoko's title defense.....the list goes on.
ReplyDeleteThe only guy that didn't fall to that was Goldberg.