WWF New Generation Thread III

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1571503419092779008

 

[Valeyard]

That turtleneck is what's up though.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I hated the six months or so of the blue RAW logo. It feels like it directly preceded Nitro's debut so it really did seem kind of like a rock bottom for the New Gen era.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

 

[Fall of Epic]

Legit never knew the Raw logo was ever blue. The Raw Red is burned into my mind.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Yeah, from like February to August '95, the RAW logo was blue for some weird GD reason. They didn't change the set either even which made it weirder. It was just the onscreen graphics were blue. It's one of those things I think I Mandela Effected but didn't!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1573461180181610497

They didn’t call him the Brain for nothing!

 

[BruiserBrody]

View attachment 1508

How did you post this without a "Table for 3" punchline?

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

from a Steiner Brothers/Bron Table for 3 recap

-From there it was to WWF and Rick name drops Randy Savage which gets the attention of Bron. He asks if they worked with him a lot and Rick notes that Macho and Scott drove together a lot. He says it was a circus when they were together. They would wrestle each other and then race each other to the next town. They were in upstate New York and we get the story where Macho and Scott were betting on who could get a cow to come over to them sooner. Scott decided to go first as he thought the first voice they heard they would run to and it didn’t happen. Randy says something and 3 cows start sprinting over to him. To the day Scott thinks Randy knew those cows. FANTASTIC! They would also race to see who could pay for lunch and Randy lost, so he told Scott to race him again but backwards this time.

Mental image of Macho Man and BPP trying to talk to cows fills my heart with peace and joy.

 

[BruiserBrody]

from a Steiner Brothers/Bron Table for 3 recap


Mental image of Macho Man and BPP trying to talk to cows fills my heart with peace and joy.

I don't know whose shoot it was, but I've heard that story before...

Appears to not be in the Hannibal shoot w/Rick.

Anyway..,moo-ving on...

--
Fake edit: Scott said it at the HOF

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/tulxw7

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

John Arezzi's podcast last week was covering his show from the week that Bret Hart won his first WWF World title. '92 Meltzer made an appearance and he said that the other guy that was strongly considered to beat Ric Flair for the title was...CRUSH! Meltz said a year or two earlier, Crush would have been the obvious choice in WWF's mind but steroid scandal made Bret the safer choice.

SHAKA BRAH, @BruiserBrody !

 

[Valeyard]

I mean it makes sense to a degree. Kona Crush could've taken off in different circumstances, and Crush/Yokozuna could've been money.

Bret might be the best call in history though.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Crush fits the classic template for new WWF World Champion. An updated version of the formula they used for babyface World Title wins from the '60s through '84.


Bret was absolutely the best choice for World Champion. I just wish Vince trusted his gut more in making him a top guy and given him at least a year with the World Title. I feel like the uncertainty in the main event is more of a reason than any individual performer as to why the World Title scene was underwhelming more often than not in the New Generation era.

 

[Valeyard]

Bret was the perfect face for the company. My only complaint was that he was booked so well as a fighting champion that it made it somewhat hard to build a credible challenger at times. It's a stupid complaint but it's always bugged me a little that he never got a blowaway ppv main event title match during the best run of his career (arguably).

That said I will die on the hill that Crush should've slammed Yokozuna and Luger should've gotten a big run as the Narcissist. Two big heels and elevating a new guy, who if he fails can be shunted down the card without much issue since he was there already.

 

[Hawk 34]

Harvey Whippleman in 1992 would say "The man I discovered in deepest, darkest Africa...Kamala!"
This was Kamala's 3rd run in the WWF!!
I know...I know... heels lie.

We know the booking in late 92 got all blown up from Nailz leaving, which meant Undertaker needed a new direction, so Kamala was left out in the cold, but I could see a scenario where Kamala stays heel, and Brutus Beefcake returns at the Royal Rumble to try and spark some bonus interest in his comeback. Then we get El Gigante attacking Beefcake instead of Taker, which gives Hogan a opening to return anyway and he and Beefer get to face down a legit Giant and Kamala, who drew big with Hogan in 86/87.
I didn't break down where this leaves Money Inc and Taker for Mania, but was just dreaming up a different scenario. Blame Greetings From Allentown for their week by week breakdown of WWF 1992 filling my head.

Money Inc and Steiners is an easy pivot. Taker can get Bammer or even Tenryu and they can do a DQ fuck as well.

 

[AA484]

Has there been anyone pushed as hard as Luger was in this era that resulted in so few matches of note? I generally like Luger as a worker (depending on the opponent), but he does not have anything that immediately stands out from this era.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Reminder: Segunda Caída never figured out what Lex Luger's best match in WWF was.

What is the best WWF Lex Luger Match?

@The Art of Postin' Segunda Caida is tackling the question that has baffled us for nearly 30 years! http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/06/whats-best-wwf-lex-luger-match-is-it.html

culturecrossfire.com

(It's probably that RAW match with Diesel in July '94 btw. SC never even got past the Narcissist stage IIRC)

 

[AA484]

I also think it isn't the best thing in the world to have to dredge up WWF Mania shows and other d-level programs to try and dig something up. I do remember the Diesel match being pretty good, but he may be the only "name" guy from this time period that doesn't have a (bear with me) ****+ match to his name

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Tbf, as great as it was at times character wise, I don’t remember him having any great matches work rate wise in his 2nd WCW run either.

I think after his nearly fatal motorcycle accident in ‘92, he was understandably done working hard.

 

[AA484]

Tbf, as great as it was at times character wise, I don’t remember him having any great matches work rate wise in his 2nd WCW run either.

I think after his nearly fatal motorcycle accident in ‘92, he was understandably done working hard.

Not to go too far off-topic, but you made me want to go back and see what he did:

Probably his best singles match was with Bret on an August 98 Nitro -- maybe his last best singles match, period.

His match with Hogan is memorable for other reasons other than work, so I'll consider it a highlight, too.

A couple others that come to mind:

Arn at Halloween Havoc '96
Giant at Starrcade '96

Also seem to remember the GAB match with Giant being fun, too.

Lex probably did his best work during this time in tag matches.

 

[BruiserBrody]

A long 1st run might have hurt Bret as he would have even more of a stink of not drawing on him then he did in 1994. At least once he beat Yoko at WM 10, he had heavy crowd support, if he had flunked the first reign, he may not have gotten another shot.
With Luger's push being whiffed, Bret was a conquering hero at 10 as Luger was the lesser of the 2 faces.
However, a full 93 run may have been fine too. Maybe build Perfect up for KOTR, then Luger at Summerslam, Survivor Series you either do a Luger blow off, or maybe do the Macho Man match there, with Crush coming in for the fuck finish - maybe Owen comes down to support his brother but gets knocked off the apron ala what went down at SS 93 anyway. Owen can fume over it and maybe the Hart Bros vs Quebecers split angle takes place on the New Years Raw or something to start the brother vs brother path.... Owen pretty much has to screw him out of the title at RR 94 then so we have an excuse for Bret vs Owen at Mania.... maybe a round robin with whoever beat Bret vs ____ and then Bret wins it back to end the night?

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

A long 1st run might have hurt Bret as he would have even more of a stink of not drawing on him then he did in 1994. At least once he beat Yoko at WM 10, he had heavy crowd support, if he had flunked the first reign, he may not have gotten another shot.

Tbf to Bret, no one would have drawn during that time period. Savage and Flair were doing equally poor during that time period and Hogan's post WMIX comeback tags were a bust too (John McAdam just posted about how Mega Maniacs Vs Money Inc drew 3,000 to the Boston Garden in Spring of '93).

Before '92, I don't think any babyface had gotten such short title runs. Even as bad as Warrior's World Title run was, he still got nine months with the belt. Playing hot potato with the World Title is never a good idea in the long term and it's probably even worse during downtimes. Bret Hart winning the winged eagle was such a shock to the system that I think people needed time to adjust and he needed some strong wins, which he got neither of during that first run. OVP Podcast calls Bret during that first World Title run 'the Coliseum Video World Champ" and it really seems damningly accurate.


Hmmm. Maybe they should have gone with Crush as World Champ.

 

[Valeyard]

Hindsight is weird on Bret's first run. If he had better or more standout opponents for big matches, I think people would recognize it for being as awesome as it was. It feels like he gets slighted for having good matches with lesser guys, in a way, because he never had a classic main event during that time. So I guess I'm saying the roster was too thin and the business was too poisoned at the time to do anything.

Bret winning was fucking huge to me as a kid. The shock was something totally new and Flair losing was great. Had Bret/Savage gone down my child self would've lost his mind.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Part of reason why the list of challengers during Bret's World Title run were so lame though is because the WWF roster was in rapid decline in late '92. Only guys who could have made Bret a "made man" besides Flair were babyfaces.

In retrospect, I wonder if it'd have made sense if Bret replaced Warrior at Survivor Series '92? I know it went on last (and is a borderline classic) but the first Bret/HBK PPV definitely felt less than Savage and Perfect Vs Flair and Razor.

 

[Valeyard]

It might've made more sense to put Bret over Flair at Survivor Series, honestly. He can get a great match and a big moment. Then you can go with Savage/Razor (with Perfect turning face making it really easy to protect Razor) or mix it up and do something like Savage, Perfect, and the Natural Disasters vs Razor, Shawn, and Money Inc.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Even in October '92, it was known that Flair didn't love putting Bret over but he did it constantly so I don't see why he wouldn't do it on PPV. Late '92 Superstars definitely were building towards a Bret/Flair rematch. Before I get Brodesplained, I do know that Superstars in that era was meant to build house shows as much (if not more than) as PPVs.


Am I correct to assume though if Flair didn't give his notice then it probably would have been Bret Vs Flair at Royal Rumble '93? Even though he had been in the defacto main event the previous PPV, Razor Ramon being the top heel at RR93 felt very sudden.

Which brings to mind ANOTHER problem with Bret's first World Title run...every one that challenged him on PPV was also main eventing for the first time on their own.

Although waitadamnminute, now that I think of it...did Flair ever main event a WWF PPV as a singles wrestler? His only big PPV win was Royal Rumble '92, which is admittedly better than 10 PPV singles main event wins but still. What a weird era for Titan.

 

[alkeiper]

If you're booking long term for Hart/Flair at Survivor Series, sure. But they had the Flair/Savage/Warrior story running for months and it was only with Warrior walking that they turned to Mr. Perfect in the first place. They were really flying by the seat of their pants when they strapped Bret to begin with.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Was Savage's 2nd WWF World title run bombing the primary reason why Vince wanted to move Macho Man into the part timer, "Babe Ruth of the WWF" role?

Also did Flair give the notice that he was going back to WCW before or after he dropped the belt to Bret?

 

[Valeyard]

I really wish Flair had stayed just long enough for the career match with Perfect to happen at Wrestlemania. I get wanting to establish Raw out the gate but I can't think of a card that needed that kind of match more.

Bret getting the win during the Savage/Flair feud could've worked. Turn Perfect, Savage distraction (which would lowkey start a build to Bret/Savage), something. It wouldn't matter if Flair ate the Sharpshooter. By then given how things were the title didn't need to be involved with Flair or Savage, but them being pissed and hunting after would work.