|
Post by driver1980 on Dec 30, 2023 12:00:24 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Dec 30, 2023 12:24:45 GMT -5
The Portland Sports Arena also hosted a weekly flea market, which was a staple of the place. That was how Rip Rogers got the name "Hustler" Rip Rogers. He was wrestling there, in 1982, with Playboy Buddy Rose and Rose saw a Hustler magazine, at a sellers stall (along with other porn mags) and told Rip, "I'm the Playboy, you be The Hustler."
Rip has told several Portland stories on his Youtube Channel, especially about Elton Owens, Don's brother, who ran some of his shows. He was a mark for real wrestling and used to pay wrestlers to have "shoot" matches, for the first 5 minutes (or so) of their match). He gave extra money to the winner, but couldn't figure out that the boys were working him by having worked matches, then splitting the bonus he gave them for the "shoot." He also used to do the payoffs, in cash and the boys would distract him and swipe money from the pile on his table. Since he was invariably lying about the house, they felt they were evening things up.
Rip credited his time in Portland, with Buddy Rose and Roddy Piper as really helping him progress, as a wrestler, when he then went back to ICW, as part of the Convertible Blonds, climaxing in his Eye of the Tiger match (hair vs hair) with Leaping Lanny. Prior to Portland, Rip had wrestled as The Disco Kid, at the initial ICW tapings, and for Nick Gulas, as well as for Dick the Bruiser, under his own name (plus various outlaws). Rip was never trained for wrestling, but was a fan. He got gear and Steve Cooper, a wrestler and later Randy Savage's manager and a referee, got him booked on an outlaw show, in West Virginia, without him having any knowledge of "working." He grew from there, wrestling and, as he puts it, "Keeping my f-ing mouth shut and listening to the boys." That is an element missing from modern wrestling, the ability to work multiple shows a week, to work out the bad stuff, and work with and travel with veterans, absorbing their knowledge and experience and developing. In the indie world, you work a couple of time s month, maybe once a week, if you are lucky, but mostly against other inexperienced wrestlers. It's the equivalent of sandlot football. Even in the big companies, they are doing fewer shows, which means less ring time to develop, which means they are trying to cram ten years of lessons into their training, as the average wrestler took about 10 years to really develop into a worker.
|
|
|
Post by commond on Dec 30, 2023 16:52:20 GMT -5
I was watching a WCW Saturday Night from 1992, the first episode where Bill Watts took over, and he's made some rules changes. First, ramming a guy into the ring post (or top turnbuckle, I think) is an automatic DQ. A bit draconian, but okay, fine. Next, he's removing the [padding from the floor so it's just exposed concrete because the WCW wrestlers are "real man". Uh, okay. That effectively eliminates high spots onto the floor, I would think. Finally, you can't come off of the top turnbuckle or top rope and make contact with an opponent. What the hell? What would Superfly Snuka or Macho Man Savage think about that? Remember how I mentioned here a couple of days ago how the Superbrawl II match between Pillman and Liger for the Light Heavyweight championship was one of the most exciting matches I've ever seen? Well, that match could never have happened with these stupid new rules. No more Doomsday Bulldog from the Steriners, either. You've probably eliminated half the signature moves from the exciting light heavyweight division. Well, maybe not that bad, but still, does Watts think it's still 1979? It's 1992, dude, where have you been? I strongly recommend watching the Kip Frey era instead. He introduced workrate bonuses which immediately saw the wrestlers up their game. There are a lot of great weekly television matches from that era, including some excellent Dangerous Alliance bouts.
|
|
|
Post by commond on Dec 30, 2023 17:15:49 GMT -5
The Portland Sports Arena also hosted a weekly flea market, which was a staple of the place. That was how Rip Rogers got the name "Hustler" Rip Rogers. He was wrestling there, in 1982, with Playboy Buddy Rose and Rose saw a Hustler magazine, at a sellers stall (along with other porn mags) and told Rip, "I'm the Playboy, you be The Hustler." Rip has told several Portland stories on his Youtube Channel, especially about Elton Owens, Don's brother, who ran some of his shows. He was a mark for real wrestling and used to pay wrestlers to have "shoot" matches, for the first 5 minutes (or so) of their match). He gave extra money to the winner, but couldn't figure out that the boys were working him by having worked matches, then splitting the bonus he gave them for the "shoot." He also used to do the payoffs, in cash and the boys would distract him and swipe money from the pile on his table. Since he was invariably lying about the house, they felt they were evening things up. Rip credited his time in Portland, with Buddy Rose and Roddy Piper as really helping him progress, as a wrestler, when he then went back to ICW, as part of the Convertible Blonds, climaxing in his Eye of the Tiger match (hair vs hair) with Leaping Lanny. Prior to Portland, Rip had wrestled as The Disco Kid, at the initial ICW tapings, and for Nick Gulas, as well as for Dick the Bruiser, under his own name (plus various outlaws). Rip was never trained for wrestling, but was a fan. He got gear and Steve Cooper, a wrestler and later Randy Savage's manager and a referee, got him booked on an outlaw show, in West Virginia, without him having any knowledge of "working." He grew from there, wrestling and, as he puts it, "Keeping my f-ing mouth shut and listening to the boys." That is an element missing from modern wrestling, the ability to work multiple shows a week, to work out the bad stuff, and work with and travel with veterans, absorbing their knowledge and experience and developing. In the indie world, you work a couple of time s month, maybe once a week, if you are lucky, but mostly against other inexperienced wrestlers. It's the equivalent of sandlot football. Even in the big companies, they are doing fewer shows, which means less ring time to develop, which means they are trying to cram ten years of lessons into their training, as the average wrestler took about 10 years to really develop into a worker. I'm not the biggest indy guy, but I have been watching a fair bit of stuff from the early 00s recently -- guys like Homicide, Low Ki, Danielson, AJ Styles, CM Punk, Samoa Joe, Steve Corino, Christopher Daniels, etc. -- and I've been fairly impressed by their development. What Rip says may have been true for his day, but Danielson's generation grew up watching tapes from all over the world and interacting with the wrestling community on the internet. I doubt Rip was going back to the motel room each night to watch his latest batch of tapes from Highspots. Of course, nowadays, even if you pay your dues at the indy level, the WWE retrains you anyway in NXT, but I don't think the first, or second, wave of American indy talent suffered from a lack of development. If anything, they were more hellbent on becoming great wrestlers and having great matches because of the internet.
|
|
|
Post by driver1980 on Dec 30, 2023 17:29:09 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Ricky Jackson on Dec 30, 2023 18:18:59 GMT -5
Yeah, today's workers are fine. Some are great, some are good, some are bad, just like ever. Today's fans are mostly interested in different things from their wrestling than ye good ol' days. Fun characters, impressive spots, irony, comedy, etc. The blood feud and hot angles, my favorite parts of wrestling, are looked at as old fashioned by a lot of modern fans, but you can still get traditional presentation from time to time. But I only read about what AEW and WWE are doing these days, I never watch, other than a few AEW matches over the last few years, so I'm hardly an authority on the biz
|
|
|
Post by commond on Dec 30, 2023 18:35:37 GMT -5
Great big match worker. Check out his matches against Terry Gordy and Riki Choshu.
|
|
|
Post by driver1980 on Dec 31, 2023 8:36:16 GMT -5
LOL: ![](https://i.imgur.com/7gbpZyr.jpg)
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Dec 31, 2023 9:29:07 GMT -5
I was watching a WCW Saturday Night from 1992, the first episode where Bill Watts took over, and he's made some rules changes. First, ramming a guy into the ring post (or top turnbuckle, I think) is an automatic DQ. A bit draconian, but okay, fine. Next, he's removing the [padding from the floor so it's just exposed concrete because the WCW wrestlers are "real man". Uh, okay. That effectively eliminates high spots onto the floor, I would think. Finally, you can't come off of the top turnbuckle or top rope and make contact with an opponent. What the hell? What would Superfly Snuka or Macho Man Savage think about that? Remember how I mentioned here a couple of days ago how the Superbrawl II match between Pillman and Liger for the Light Heavyweight championship was one of the most exciting matches I've ever seen? Well, that match could never have happened with these stupid new rules. No more Doomsday Bulldog from the Steriners, either. You've probably eliminated half the signature moves from the exciting light heavyweight division. Well, maybe not that bad, but still, does Watts think it's still 1979? It's 1992, dude, where have you been? I strongly recommend watching the Kip Frey era instead. He introduced workrate bonuses which immediately saw the wrestlers up their game. There are a lot of great weekly television matches from that era, including some excellent Dangerous Alliance bouts. Yeah, I've watched some of his reign, as he was (I believe) the predecessor to Bill Watts. Yeah, I'd read he offered a $5,000 bonus to whoever had the best match at a show (maybe only PPV's for that amount, I don't remember) and yeah, the wrestling was really good, I agree. He was the one, however, who stated that anyone who propels his opponent over the top rope onto the floor is automatically disqualified. That rule seemed to get ignored a lot, though. And I agree that the Dangerous Alliance is a lot of fun.
|
|
|
Post by driver1980 on Dec 31, 2023 10:33:23 GMT -5
Is it true that Bill Watts insisted every performer must stay in the arena until the end of the show? Anyone know?
If so, what do you think about that rule? On the one hand, I understand the whole respect thing (and learning; a rookie opening card wrestler could learn something from watching the main event). But at the same time, if it’s a four hour show, you might want to leave and catch a flight, sleep, go to the hire car, etc.
|
|
|
Post by driver1980 on Dec 31, 2023 10:38:00 GMT -5
Who wants to buy this for me?
|
|
|
Post by Batflunkie on Dec 31, 2023 11:38:14 GMT -5
So various outlets are reporting that Kevin Dunn is leaving the WWE after three decades because of clashing visions on the product with Endeavor
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Dec 31, 2023 19:10:02 GMT -5
Is it true that Bill Watts insisted every performer must stay in the arena until the end of the show? Anyone know? If so, what do you think about that rule? On the one hand, I understand the whole respect thing (and learning; a rookie opening card wrestler could learn something from watching the main event). But at the same time, if it’s a four hour show, you might want to leave and catch a flight, sleep, go to the hire car, etc. I don't know about Bill Watts, but I did hear that about Vince McMahon, so I wouldn't be surprised.
|
|
|
Post by driver1980 on Dec 31, 2023 19:14:44 GMT -5
I don’t know what to think about it. Wrestling is unique and comparisons are often hard.
I mean, on film sets, is everyone from the costume designer to director of photography forced to stay on the set until the day’s filming is completed? Are actors forced to stay on the set once their scenes are done?
Some WWE PPVs are 4+hours long. Maybe if you are on the pre-show segment, you might not want to hang around for 4+ hours when maybe you might want to get home.
Some might say you should respect the main event and watch it. Fine. I get that. But it is a job as well. Do wrestlers watch wrestling as fans? Some may. But I am not sure someone like Ultimate Warrior would have wanted to stick around to watch Hogan vs. Randy Savage in the main event of, say, an MSG taping. Should he? I don’t know. Did Hawk and Animal, who opened SummerSlam ‘92, stick around to watch Hogan wrestle…erm, I mean the main event of Bret/Bulldog? I don’t know.
Genuinely interested in all views for and against this.
|
|
|
Post by commond on Dec 31, 2023 19:19:34 GMT -5
I strongly recommend watching the Kip Frey era instead. He introduced workrate bonuses which immediately saw the wrestlers up their game. There are a lot of great weekly television matches from that era, including some excellent Dangerous Alliance bouts. Yeah, I've watched some of his reign, as he was (I believe) the predecessor to Bill Watts. Yeah, I'd read he offered a $5,000 bonus to whoever had the best match at a show (maybe only PPV's for that amount, I don't remember) and yeah, the wrestling was really good, I agree. He was the one, however, who stated that anyone who propels his opponent over the top rope onto the floor is automatically disqualified. That rule seemed to get ignored a lot, though. And I agree that the Dangerous Alliance is a lot of fun. The over-the-top-rope DQ had been a rule before Frey took over. I can't recall whether he reinforced it or not. It was Watts banning moves from the top rope that stands out to me, although a lot of folks forget that he ended up admitting it was a mistake and rescinded the rule (except for diving knees off the top, for some reason.)
|
|