Chat! culturecrossfire.slack.com

WWF New Generation Thread III

BruiserBrody

Integral Poster
Messages
30,782
Reaction score
3,181
Points
293
Location
[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
Minus the fact that I believe Drose was outed as drugging women (and getting Bradshaw shower treatment for it), I still think a Dumpster heel turn, leaving his common man gimmick behind and wearing suits for the Million Dollar Man, might have worked for a bit. We miss out on HHH and Dumpster epic feud, but it gives Dibiase a younger, fresher guy to replace IRS, Volkoff, and later 95 Tatanka, who were all gone or stale as hell. Or heck, he can replace Bigelow in the summer of 95. Dibiase talks up Drose's scummy job past, while semi aligning with heel HOG to do the grunt work. Eventually Drose hears one too many snide remarks and goes back face.
Austin and Drose have a ***1/2 hidden gem at WM 12 and Drose sticks around into 1999 as a 23 time hardcore champ.

Or not.
 

BruiserBrody

Integral Poster
Messages
30,782
Reaction score
3,181
Points
293
Location
[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6

Gert

Integral Poster
Messages
4,584
Reaction score
396
Points
168
It is pretty crazy to think that they didn’t change his ring gear when he joined the Million Dollar Corporation.
 

BruiserBrody

Integral Poster
Messages
30,782
Reaction score
3,181
Points
293
Location
[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
For the longest time I've thought Lex not actually being the one who took the money and becoming cocky, rich heel Lex in WWF was one of the big mistakes WWF made in the mid-90s.

Heel Lex vs. Bret matches up so well.
You wonder if Vince was too prideful to admit defeat on that one after spending so much time and effort the previous year to make Luger a star.
But Yoko was getting depushed, Crush failed to get over big time despite feuding with Savage for 6 ,months and so on, so Luger aiming to be a top heel fits.
Then again, Tatanka had his balls chopped off the moment Borga and Yoko destroyed him and he needed a reboot too. As mentioned, he should have gotten a refreshed look other than "Chris, snarl at the hard cam after you win"
Borga breaking his ankle in January ruined Tatanka's Rumble revenge match (assuming Tatanka was going to win, and not put Borga over again to set up USA Lex with an opponent). By WM 10, Tatanka was slotted in a 10 man, technically lower than Borga, who was supposed to wrestle Quake.

Is Quake/Borga lowkey potentially an all time stinker if it isn't the same squash style that the Adam Bomb match was?
 

Valeyard

Retarded sexuality and bad poetry.
Messages
15,415
Reaction score
7,277
Points
253
No way. Borga/Quake has sneaky fun big dude meat slap potential, as well as the outside chance Borga goes full Kitao and kills his whole career.
 

alfdogg

Alfdogg
Messages
7,047
Reaction score
1,032
Points
228
Location
Anderson, IN
Random thought I had the other day. With all the old acts that were brought back in 1994, how do you resist bringing back Akeem for a dance-off with Mabel?
 

BruiserBrody

Integral Poster
Messages
30,782
Reaction score
3,181
Points
293
Location
[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
Random thought I had the other day. With all the old acts that were brought back in 1994, how do you resist bringing back Akeem for a dance-off with Mabel?
May have been bad blood:

OMG also has said they told him to switch to the Akeem gimmick or be fired.
 

Hawk 34

Integral Poster
Messages
8,112
Reaction score
3,085
Points
248
Then later he “happened” to have lost too much weight to reprise Akeem for the Gimmick Battle Royal so he just did it as OMG instead.
 

SuperMachine#1

Very Active Poster
Messages
56
Reaction score
42
Points
18
Former WWF Magazine writer Lou Gianfriddo who was famously put in the cross face chicken wing by Bob Backlund on Monday Night Raw during the period where Backlund was hitting it out the park as a heel in late 1994. Gianfriddo was an avid body builder as well. Lou saddenly passed on Friday at 55.
 

BruiserBrody

Integral Poster
Messages
30,782
Reaction score
3,181
Points
293
Location
[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
Former WWF Magazine writer Lou Gianfriddo who was famously put in the cross face chicken wing by Bob Backlund on Monday Night Raw during the period where Backlund was hitting it out the park as a heel in late 1994. Gianfriddo was an avid body builder as well. Lou saddenly passed on Friday at 55.
As a 10 year subscriber to the WWF magazine and a 4 or 5 year subscriber to RAW magazine, I read a lot of Lou's work. Russo has said the magazine staff was gutted during the lean years and Russo had limited help writing and filling out the mag.
I have to assume that's why we had goofy gimmick writers like Janus, the Informer and such.
 

Valeyard

Retarded sexuality and bad poetry.
Messages
15,415
Reaction score
7,277
Points
253
Informer was so much fun.

I dug Keith Elliot Greenberg a lot in those days. Didn't know what he looked like until just now and see he looks like former Stern personality Dan The Song Parody Man.
 

Cackling Co Pilot Kamala

Integral Poster
Messages
62,263
Reaction score
8,605
Points
293
Location
Vacationland
I really feel like the “anything can happen” aspect is one of my favorite things about the New Generation era but sometimes it was befuddling. Why debut a potential monster heel (in a time when the roster was shedding worse than a golden retriever) by having them put over Virgil? I don’t think Virgil beat a non jobber after this match!
 

HarleyQuinn

Laugh This Off... Puddin'!
Staff member
Messages
22,533
Reaction score
2,115
Points
313
I really feel like the “anything can happen” aspect is one of my favorite things about the New Generation era but sometimes it was befuddling. Why debut a potential monster heel (in a time when the roster was shedding worse than a golden retriever) by having them put over Virgil? I don’t think Virgil beat a non jobber after this match!
I think a lot of the 90s era is "rose-colored glasses" nostalgia like that because there wasn't the IWC in the same way we have it now. Imagine the IWC outrage over Diesel/Shawn holding all the belts at once or situations like your post where the WWF "ruined" a monster's debut by having him lose to Virgil out of the gate lolwaytopushhimRIPhiscareer hot take.

I legit think corners of the IWC would've been bitching about the WWF "turning" Austin face after WM 13 because he was so great as a heel (and not believing Bret could pull off the heel role).
 
Top