Best WWE Year After the MNW?

[Brocklock]

It shows how much people were just checked out at the time, that 2009 Raw isn't mentioned among the worst times of the company. As bad as the show is nowadays, there are sometimes multiple three star matches every show. 2009 Raw, you'd be happy for a match to break ** 1/2. The Vince comedy with Hornswoggle and Santino was more at the forefront than usual. And the pandering to washed up celebs legit annoyed me.

WWE from like 2004 to 2010 when they wouldn't even look at smaller indie guys and everyone had to be 6'5, 250 pounds was so brutal because there wasn't a Daniel Bryan or AJ Styles or Cesaro to have a good to great match to look forward to. Wasting so many years where the top younger prospects in WWE were guys like Ken Kennedy, Kenny Dykstra, Ted Dibiase Jr, or Carlito was so brutal considering how the indies at that time were ridiculously stocked with talent and they were refusing to sign them because Big Johnny, Vincey, and Buck Teeth just wanted either size or second/third generation superstars.

 

[King Kamala]

2005 I think was a sneaky good in ring year especially in the first half, but there's so many brutal angles and segments that drag everything down. Heel Linda McMahon, Tim White's suicide, Doing a segment where they pull stuff out of a Fake Jim Ross' ass for ten minutes, The Eddiesploitation stuff, HHH having a ten minute match with Jim Ross and stiffing him, Matt Morgan stuttering, Jillian Hall's mole, The Undertaker's feud with the Ortons after Summerslam, Kurt Angle threatening beastiality rape on Sharmell, reenacting the UK terrorist attacks with Muhammad Hassan, Vince saying the n word, and on and on.

The bad stuff was so arrogantly mean spirited that it took the shine off of a lot of good ringwork throughout the year.

I've been listening to STWW on the '05 PPVs throughout the year plus I did my 10 Years Later rewatches in 2015 and if you were judging purely by PPVs, you'd think it was a pretty damn good year. Yeah, a few of the Smackdown! exclusive PPVs stunk on ice (Great American Bash '05 anyone?) but great WrestleMania, memorable SummerSlam, and a few other really good sleeper shows (Vengeance '05 comes to mind). Not to mention ECW One Night Stand although I think that show is non canonical.

But yeah, the bad stuff is worse than anything in the past 20 years.

 

[tekcop]

If that happened in the early 2020s, I feel like TSM that still watches WWE would be psyched. At least if they were non Baron Corbin hosses.

Nathan Jones and Matt Morgan dragged down the hoss boys.

I did dig Heyman's Hosses bullying Shannon Moore on Smackdown every week during that period, though.

 

[King Kamala]

A lot of "experts" in the business from Cornette to Heyman to Bischoff had Matt Morgan as a can't miss prospect. And now he's a QAnon believing Mayor in Central Florida. *shrugs*

 

[Laz]

I mean, I can see it. Jones had a presence and charisma to him, but he was asked to do too much too soon and never had a chance to really learn. Morgan, too, had quite a bit of potential but just never put it all together, only turning in good work when he was paired with great talents (Angle, Styles in TNA).

 

[King Kamala]

He's a big , fairly attractive guy (who was the TOTSM poster that had a bear fetish and loved Albert?) that obviously has some personability due to his post career in politics. I think if he was an even marginally less shitty worker, he would have been a World Champion and I'm kind of surprised Impact didn't do it in 2010-11.

 

[Brocklock]

I'm not that great about remembering posters before I stopped lurking and started posting, but I think that person's name might of been Buffybeast.

Nathan Jones ended up doing better than being random hoss number 6 by having a very memorable supporting part in Mad Max: Fury Road. The guy still should've been can't miss with his look, presence, and intensity. He seemed like someone that would cut some really good promos with time and left to his own accord.

 

[King Kamala]

If Nathan Jones and Matt Morgan had come along today with the development system and indies like they are now, I don't doubt they would have succeeded. And they probably would have succeeded in the "bigger is better" era '80s/early '90s. I just think that for whatever reason, '00s were an awful time for big men in North American wrestling.

(waits for someone to ironically defend Khali)

 

[Laz]

Yeah, buffybeast had her major obsession with hosses, Albert in particular.

 

[tekcop]

I just think that for whatever reason, '00s were an awful time for big men in North American wrestling.

Two things jump out at me: Brock broke the mold for what could be expected of a hoss and ruined it for everyone. And WWE's roster was full of 240-250ish pound guys like Renee Dupree, Mark Jindrak, and Billy Gunn who were too small and too big to match up well with really big guys.

(waits for someone to ironically defend Khali)

I'm literally right here, Kamala.

 

[King Kamala]

It really is too bad that timelines never matched up for us to get Brock Lesnar Vs Great Khali match. By the time Brock returned, Khali was almost strictly a comedy guy and not someone you'd stick in the main event.

But it's probably for the best cause someone probably literally would have died during that match.

 

[tekcop]

My first thought was the someone would be Khali because he's so obviously fragile. But I'd like to imagine the universe would have thrown us a curveball and had Khali break Brock's neck with his cool spin kick.

 

[Brocklock]

Jacked up and still mobile and athletic 2002 NJPW Khali was the perfect version to face Brock Lesnar but he might of legit killed Brock

 

[King Kamala]

My first thought was the someone would be Khali because he's so obviously fragile. But I'd like to imagine the universe would have thrown us a curveball and had Khali break Brock's neck with his cool spin kick.

Of the two of them, Khali is the only one who has actually killed someone in the ring.

The Great Khali - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I looked at Khali's Cagematch to see if his NJPW run lined up with Brock's. They missed each other by quite a bit but I did find this TRTSM Dream Card

AJPW 2ND WRESTLE-1 « Events Database « CAGEMATCH - The Internet Wrestling Database

Internet Wrestling Database

www.cagematch.net

 

[tekcop]

That gif is blowing my mind.

 

[tekcop]

I looked at Khali's Cagematch to see if his NJPW run lined up with Brock's. They missed each other by quite a bit but I did find this TRTSM Dream Card

Man, outside of US indies, Toryumon, and CMLL, wrestling was really in it's death throes in 2003.

 

[King Kamala]

Two things I have thought to get into next year RE: old wrestling is either '00s independent wrestling or getting an Impact Plus subscription and rewatching '03 TNA and '03 WWE on Network to see if it is as terrible as I remember. Leaning towards the former cause why would I want to do that to myself.

 

[Gary]

2004 had Snitsky kicking babies and Heidenrape. So awesome.

I unironically love the Snitsky character at that point. Like they realized a storyline with Lita having a miscarriage was already dumb, so they just went all out over the top with it. It's my kind of tasteless wrestling shit.

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1406991548135337994

Women friggin love the emergence of Sheamus and The Nexus apparently.

Incidentally, OVP last week was talking about how terrible 2010 WWE was and a real creative lowpoint but I didn't really see it. Definitely wouldn't argue it as a good year but I thought it was a significant step up from 2009 and you had some seeds planted for good stuff that happened later. Kind of to the modern era (or at least, 2nd to last era in early-mid 2010s) what 1996 was to the Attitude Era.