Scott’s Mailbag of Doom! — May 6, 2015
As usual, the mailbag runneth over, so let’s see how many we can clean out tonight.
MAILBAG OF DOOM: Ziggler, Luger, Hogan | Cena vs. Undertaker? | Wyatt, Heyman, Rollins
LETTER #1!
Hey Scott, you mentioned in a post a while back that Memphis wrestling was consistently awesome for like a decade or more, and I was wondering if you would give a list of what you think are the best angles/feuds from this era and why. Thanks.
It was pretty consistently awesome for close to three decades, mostly because they had a formula that worked and they stuck to it. It was pretty much like this:
1) Evil heel comes into the Memphis territory, calls reigning champion Jerry Lawler a gutless coward and egg-sucking dog, challenges him to a title match if he has any guts.
2) Lawler valiantly defends against the bigger monster, but succumbs to a cheating manager or a devastating well-timed finisher and loses his title.
3) The heel proclaims himself the new King of Memphis, but will grant Lawler one last match for the title if he agrees to put his hair/career/car/girlfriend/whatever on the line as collateral.
4) Lawler faces off against the heel champion at the Memphis Coliseum on Monday night, figures out the monster’s weakness (usually a fireball to the face), and regains his title to send the bad guy packing for another territory.
Lather, rinse, repeat for the next 30 years. Lawler did the same basic formula with everyone from Terry Funk to Kamala to Sid Vicious and it pretty much always worked, because people knew the Lawler character and believed in it. Plus the heels never got stale because after they lost the rematch, they left town again. And then the REALLY effective angles were the ones where you expected the same outcome and then they changed it up and shocked you.
The most famous one was the Tommy Rich/Austin Idol feud of 1987, where the heels got the better of Lawler (including famously rupturing his testicle in an unfortunately mistimed ringpost spot), leading to Lawler putting his hair on the line against Idol in a cage match. Then, when Lawler had the match won, Tommy Rich emerged from under the ring (back in the days before that spot lost all meaning) and helped Idol retain the title, resulting in Lawler getting shaved bald for the first time ever. That’s my favorite from my early years as a fan, and later on I discovered Lawler’s feud with Terry Funk and the famous empty arena match (which was a deliberate match stipulation and not just an average TNA house show).
There’s also Eddie Gilbert running Lawler over with his car, Lawler’s neverending feud with Andy Kaufman, Lawler and Jeff Jarrett engaging in a blood feud with the Moondogs for an entire year, Randy Savage invading Memphis on behalf of his father’s renegade promotion…the list is endless.
Even in the waning days of the 90s, they still managed to pull out some crazy innovative stuff through various interpromotional angles, like Vince McMahon honing his evil owner act in 1993, or the Rock N Roll Express turning heel with referee Mark Curtis as manager and having crazy brawls with PG-13. There’s tons of footage on YouTube because the rights to this stuff are highly contentious and no one can claim ownership, so it’s pretty easy to track a lot of it down. It’s not about great wrestling, It’s about storylines and angles, so it’s pretty easy to get the gist of what’s going on.
LETTER #2!
Quick lightning round on whether or not you'd like to see a documentary/match compilation DVD of the following wrestlers. Wouldn't mind a little insight as to why yes or no like because it will make money or not enough good matches.
Ted Dibiase - Probably will happen someday. They have the Mid-South match catalog now and can put together a great selection of rarities and house show matches from the WWE’s library alone, so I think it would be worth a go. Plus he’s got a fantastic story for the documentary.
British Bulldog - Not likely. Not much in the way of notable matches (aside from the Bret Hart matches that are already represented on pretty much every DVD set they put out) and the manner of his death and dark turn that his life took at the end was a bit too much of a touchy subject.
Rick Rude - Don’t know why it hasn’t happened yet, to be honest. He should probably be in the Hall of Fame as well. They’ve got all the World Class, WCW and WWE stuff to draw from as far as matches go, and he had some great and memorable storylines and feuds.
Sgt Slaughter - They should at least do a documentary on the WWE Network about him or something. I don’t see them doing a 3-disc set or anything, but with the boot camp matches and his NWA run you could at least get a couple of hours of historical footage out of him. And he’s got an interesting story!
Big Bossman - Only if they used the sign that one guy brought to Nitro as the title of the DVD: “Ray Traylor: Will Wrestle For Food." I personally couldn’t take three discs of matches with John Tenta and IRS, but your mileage may vary.
The Nasty Boys - Just watch one of their matches from the 90s and then replay it 25 times. Same thing.
Scott Hall - Sure. Interesting story, wide array of great matches until his career fell apart, lots of rarities from the AWA and World Class to draw from…I can dig it.
Diesel/Kevin Nash - I’ve already seen his big highspot of lifting his leg in the corner enough for one lifetime.
Roman Reigns - You mean there isn’t one already?
Lex Luger - Interesting story, good selection of matches that aren’t already well-represented (his lost classics with guys like Brian Pillman and Dan Spivey in WCW, for example), but he’s not exactly on the best terms with the right people. He should probably be in the Hall of Fame and get a DVD set, however.
Vader - It would be lacking from a match quality standpoint to a certain extent because all his really classic stuff was in Japan, and I think most of the good stuff they have was already on that Giants DVD set they put out. Not a particularly interesting story, either. I wouldn’t do it.
Sid - Kinda surprised they haven’t done one already, actually. He’s on good terms and his son was briefly famous as a contestant on Big Brother that one season. The match selection would be garbage, but the bonus promo disc would be epic.
Goldust - Did you not live through the 90s? I don’t think “Goldust’s Least Boring Matches” would be a very good selling point. Maybe a whole Rhodes family deal would work, though.
Shane McMahon - Another one where I’m shocked they didn’t do one already. And it would be a heck of a match selection, too!
OK, that one was pretty lengthy, so we’ll wrap it up with one more.
LETTER #3!
Scott, What was the deal with the main event of King of the Ring 1994?
I’ve just finished watching the show and the world title bout between Diesel and Bret, while an incredible contest, was placed in the middle of the card and the main event was seemingly a random encounter Roddy Piper and Jerry Lawler.
The whole show was touting this whole “new generation” angle and it seemed odd to not end on either the title match or at least Owen’s victory? Was there a specific agenda for the chosen main event i.e. sending people home with a face winning (yet having to endure a terrible match) or was it more political?
The deal was that they were dying for star power and they felt that Roddy Piper was the biggest star they had available, so that’s what they went with as the main event.
In theory this would send the people home happy, since the Bret/Diesel match ended up as a big schmoz and Owen Hart was a heel winning the King of the Ring tournament. But then much like communism or geometry, that theory didn’t pan out.
That’s all for this round, but check out my blog at www.rspwfaq.net for more random Q&A!
