Wrestling thread

[Warlord]

What was it about the Hitman that made you a fan? For most kids, a wrestler's gimmick is what sucks them in, not necessarily the in-ring abilities of the wrestler. That's how guys like Hogan and Warrior were so huge.

Hart is, I believe, the greatest technical wrestler that there ever was. But at the same time, he really didn't have a gimmick to speak of, and his promo skills were far below most of his peers in the GOAT discussion. What is it about Hart that you liked as a kid?

I can honestly say I was apathetic on Hart as a kid. I didn't hate him, but I certainly wasn't a fan. He just didn't have the kind of natural charisma of a Sting or showmanship of a Shawn Michaels (who was absolutely my favorite WWF wrestler as a kid.)

As an adult I have really grown to love the Hitman, and regret not appreciating his talent at the time, but still remian curious what his appeal was to young kids like you who loved him growing up.


As for WCW, I agree that the old guys helped kill the org, but it was mostly the backstage shit they did that was so destructive. Bischoff was buddies with Hulk, who was a real cunt to anyone who was getting over on him, so you saw a lot of ridiculous shit happen that was designed to bury guys that should have been getting over.

Examples include burying Hart, which was all Hogan's doing. Or burying Sting at Starcade by having the ref count Sting out at regular speed when it was supposed to be a quick count, but instead comes off looking like Hogan pinned him clean and that Sting and the Hitman screwed Hogan out of the title.

Pinning Goldberg was another shit move, and is the single biggest shit move they ever did, according to Bobby Heenan. Once they buried Goldberg, Heenean said he knew there was no coming back from it. He tried to tell them not to do it, but he said nobody cared and that Nash and his boys hated Bill and were pals with Bischoff, so that was that.

Bringing in Russo only compounded the problem. Russo was just one writer out of dozens from the WWF's creative staff at the time, and WCW thought he would somehow turn shit around, not knowing that it was Vince who was the engine of the WWF, not some pencial pushing geek from creative. It was like bringing in a coordinator from the Patriots and giving them a headcoaching job, and then being shocked when he didn't build a Bill Belicheck style Patriots team.

Russo tried to drop the dinosaurs (Hogan, Macho, the Outsiders), but had no one to take their place except Sting and Hart (who Bischoff had already buried) and a bunch of cruiserweights (which you mentioned earlier). And then a bunch of dumb shit like David Arquette winning the title, and all the angles with Flair's son, and just on and on.

The biggest single weakness of WCW is that they never had anyone who understood the business running things. If they could've just brought in someone like a Jim Cornette, who lived and breate the business, and paired him up with guys like Larry Zbysko, Flair, and Heenan, and had them run it, WCW would still be around today.

But they didn't. So we had Jay Leno, David Arquette, Dennis Rodman, and a bunch of other guys who had no business being there booked in main events, while vets and fan favorites like Sting and Bret Hart got shit on.