AndrewTS

L4W: Yeah. They didn't seem to be happy with what he COULD have been as a performer, and were more concerned with what they wanted him to be. Instead of trying to play to the strengths of the guys they have, WWE tries to shove the people they do have into a mold of how they'd like that performer to be. If Vader had been up and coming in WWE now, he'd have never become as big as he was in WCW. He'd have been forced to lose weight, conform to the standardized WWE big man moveset, talk regularly, never go to the top rope, and probably wouldn't be pushed even if he managed to get over because he's not that tall and he wasn't exactly a spring chicken when he started to come into his own. For all of his faults as a booker, Heyman gets praise for taking a worker and using that worker's strengths to the fullest while trying to hide the weaknesses. For example, RVD was given a manager to cover for his bad mic skills, 911 hardly ever wrestled but he got pops for clearing the ring when the fans got pissed at some one, Spike beat big fat heels and bumped like an SOB, Dudleys were complete dickhead heels all the time, Bigelow was a monster heel who had plenty of guys to bump for him, Douglas ran his big fat mouth and used his injuries to help his heel character.

Still less with shipping. Slightly more, better game.

I'm not going to reply to every single comment Coffey made (because most I agree on at least in part), but there were a few I wanted to touch on. Same problem as Rico: too old or he'd be on to something. Despite the shit Mick "Russo was great" Foley gives him, he's able to put on good matches when motivated. However, when he's not he's the pits, and that, his age, bad gimmicks, the false start in WWF, getting pretty over in ECW--he was doomed when he signed to WWF again. I think my fandom for my ex-avatar is well-known. Yeah, he's ex-TE but he was a great natural heel on the mic, very good in the ring for his experience, and could still be a manager if he is unable to wrestle again. In my opinion, for the year or so he spent in the indies, he seemed more composed and crisp than some guys who spent twice as long in OVW. I think he's got that "intensity" i.e. natural charisma that Brock and Benoit have, but without anywhere near the skills. He's improved at selling but seems to be disinterested in improving his moveset. I also agree he's immensely overpaid. It baffled me why Vince would bother signing him when his drawing power had apparently evaporated in 2000 and Vince himself had been able to make a version of him superior in every way, and for far less money. I don't hate him as much as usual, and while he's been a far more worthwhile investment than the nWo and a number of guys WWE hasn't even tried to use, he wasn't worth the money. Pretty much agreed. Although I remember him mainly for being an HBK knockoff with about half the skills. I don't know how good or bad he is now because he's in short matches where he almost always loses. If Heidenreich would quit injuring him he might be able to get a good gimmick and be an opening card comedy act. In the meantime, he can recoup and sneak long gazes at Vicky's ass. When he started out, he was an RVD of power wrestling: spot, spot, spot, with no logical transitions or flow. He'd do some kick-ass looking power moves, had that awesome Savage elbow, and moved pretty well. He looked like he would be the freakish love child of Nash and HBK. However, he put on muscle and turned to absolute shit in the ring. Instead of learning how to progress, pace, and transition, he simply had his move set castrated and resorted to punchy, kicky, big boot. Add that to his Billy-Gunn-level mic skills, and you have a completely worthless addition to the roster. Aside from rare moments like "Heartbreak Cracker," I agree and I'm glad I'm not the only one. No one gives a shit about him, Henry, or Mack, but he had a lot to work with with D'Lo. Didn't happen though. I want to see male managers return, but Teddy isn't going to help the case for it much.

I've been stocking up on old Genesis game boxes that used places around here were just going to throw away. If anyone's interested, reply or PM me, I'll let you know what I've got, and if interesting you can make me an offer. Some of them I've kept to go with my cart-only used games, but a lot of them are for games I don't have and don't plan on getting.

Even with "32 bit" technology, and the fact that everyone by that point that played fighters should have had 6-button pads, you STILL can't pause the game during gameplay either. I still don't get that...even the SNES version was only pauseable during the battle plan.

Except for point number 2, which I don't remember, basically already said, and agreed upon.

Exactly. Push the midcarders to the main event, push the OVW guys to midcard. When the OVW/midcard guys are ready, have the current midcard/should-be-future-main-eventers job out to the young guys and make them the top stars, and so forth. Yeah, the current midcarders may not have a long shelf life, but Austin had a good 4 years (give or take absences) as an active wrestler after he became a bonafide main eventer and that's considered a long time. Even the biggest stars often have a limited shelf life. In the meantime, let the guys with the experience work with the younger ones, teach them to improve and get better. Have them learn from the mistakes to prevent certain injuries. Of course, this is all crazy talk...

Wow, give them a medal. Obviously, your standards for "basic" are lower than mine. That's terrific if you're a jobber waiting for a push, but as a guy on TV, winning, and being put over by the announcers--not good enough. Basic is boring. It's a waste of time to use those sorts of guys on what should be WWE's flagship shows. Point made, but I don't see how that translates to "good enough for prime time." They're on the "big" shows more than guys who already are developed workers (albeit from other companies) who could be fleshing out their characters, having interesting feuds and matches, and making money. Let them develop their "hook" and characters on the small shows and keep them off the big time ones. Vince has developed one recently that's any good. The others are getting injured, sucking, or getting apathy. Morgan's not outright terrible, but isn't fit for prime time yet either. Hossenfeffer sucks right now. That's how they pushed him, but he didn't show his skills until after the heatless God-push ended. However, he had the ability and power to set himself aside from the slugs who lack the natural charisma, ability, and mobility he does. We had heard about it from OVW reports but it took a while for WWE to apparently let him play to all his strengths. Until then, he was a generic monster heel. Er, no. There's a huge difference between a character and a gimmick. You don't have to "shove" some one into a character. The ones that have worked were just exaggerated versions of the real person's personality: Rock, Austin, Foley, Cena, the current Taker, etc. They WILL be comfortable in it. It's not a gimmick, it's them being themselves, but turned up to the nth degree. As it's been said, the goofy cartoon character gimmicks are done with, so I doubt there's any persona that's flat-out so bad that it would hurt future chances at success. Also, wasn't it stated already that few people watching WWE now probably even remember Spark Plugg? That's not Holly's problem, his problem is that he's Bob Holly and he's not going to be a star,ever. That's all WWE's fault. Kidman was gotten over in WCW by a combination of push and good opponents. He could never get himself over because his blandness. Since he doesn't have a ton of other cruisers to work with now he isn't getting much attention. Big surprise. Vince hired Dragon because he thought he was going to be a Japanese Rey Mysterio. A little bit of checking would have made it unnecessary to hire him because they would have realized he wasn't what they were looking for. He's been rusty since he came back from a career-ending elbow surgery botch, and hasn't been up to even his old self since. Again, this is a surprise to WWE? If WWE checked their shit before signing people (Nathan Jones?!) then their roster would be used more efficiently. As it is, Vince will sign damn near anyone. Again, CHECK TO SEE IF THEY HAVE WHAT YOU WANT (the right style, basic motor skills) before signing them. It's not that hard. You're trying to tell me that the fans could have cared about a feud involving Test? Yeah, because everyone follows the model Rock did. It's also not a big deal that they're ready for any excuse to get him a championship run when his problems are little things like "lack of heat" and "lack of wrestling?" What you call a "developing wrestler" WWE calls a "fully developed sports entertainer." Teach them the same uniform style and moveset, have them find a couple signature moves, and they're ready to go as far as Vince is concerned. Rather than encouraging them to develop different styles from the ground up, they just get them into the habit of doing the same old shit. WWE doesn't encourage or care if their "sports entertainers" develop their wrestling. Orton just needs to stay healthy and he's virtually guaranteed a little run. Show me where the incentive is for him to improve his wrestling. If anything, he has less incentive. If he wrestles a slowly, more boring style instead of something more fast-paced and exciting (a guy Orton's size should have pretty decent paced matches), he's less likely to get injured. If he tries to improve as a performer, does he get anything as reward? No. The only ones who want to improve as wrestlers are the ones with the "wrestler" mentality. Cena seems to have it, as does Brock. Kurt and Benoit have it almost to their total detriment. If you improve your ring skills and put on better matches, WWE officials say "big fucking deal." In fact, if you develop your own character, it gets over, and WWE doesn't think it fits into their plans, all the pops in the world still amount to "big fucking deal. Get your ass out there and lay on your back for Orton." So, what kind of persona are they going to be able to transition to that this gimmick won't hurt? You said yourself that you think a GIMMICK that doesn't really fit a guy could be a detriment in the future. Wouldn't this kinda fit that description? If they wiped the slate clean it would be easier to work with them from there rather than leaving it as-is. Of course, they're counting on the fans completely forgetting it before they give them something else to do.

So you think that WWE should have their guys "develop" before pushing them as new characters? That's a novel concept that I don't disagree with, but WWE doesn't do it much. What a horrible attitude. Sign with WWE before anyone else, get buried, start from scratch and get over, get buried, get pushed to the main event, get humilated with racist comments, lose, get buried, retire because of back problems, come back because you think you have a couple years left in you but don't think you'll be able to work much more than that, get used barely at all... Yeah, what a selfish son of a bitch. Let's bury him! But Vince doesn't want wrestlers to get over for their wrestling and punishes them if they do, refusing to even give them a chance. He wants to get these young guys over without a character, so he doesn't give them one or let them develop one for a while. Nevermind that popular characters are the ones that have become proven main eventers and draw money. Nevermind that over midcarders only draw when they are characters the fans care about. Jindrak and Cade, yeah, that'll put butts in seats. If their wrestling sucks and they're devoid of any sort of character, why the hell should the fans care about them? A few years ago, WWF had popular money-drawing characters, and popular, likeable characters that, even if they didn't draw money by themselves, were fun to watch and get into, some of them also were good wrestlers. Right now, the guys on top are stale and boring, and the guys being pushed as midcarders and future main eventers are mostly bland, devoid of character, and suck in the ring. So I fail to see a bright future for anyone but the few who are developing characters that are gonna click with the fans. Even so, if they only have a couple, not that many people are going to stick around to watch the void of nothingness and blah surrounding them. Yeah, but it makes no sense. *looks at own sig* Yeah, yeah... However, having all those guys under contract he isn't using who wouldn't be a threat to him if they went elsewhere is stupid. He could use that money to fund another bound-to-fail non-wrestling project.

Comes with exposure and experience. Everyone's used to a time where people came up elsewhere or unnoticed, it's what made WWE and WCW seem like "the major leagues". Now that luxury no longer exists, so they have to really try and use and develope the guys at the same time, which is better in the long run but tough early on. Come again? When you watch the guys working in a farm league, you can tell which guys have the basics down and have charisma. If they're so abysmal they *can't do the basics*, don't put them on TV. Example: Nathan Jones. Worthless in every way imaginable. Can't work in the ring, can't work on a mic. He's too goofy-looking to even be a bodyguard, but too unstable and ill-tempered to do comedy. His size isn't a big deal on SD where there are bigger guys. There isn't a single good reason he was hired. Mark Henry: See above.

Is anyone not of that opinion? The team was entertaining in and out of the ring, were part of some of the funniest segments on WWF TV ever, they'd worked solid wrestling matches and spotfests alike with many other teams, and always drew great reactions as heels. Before they teamed up, Edge was a sloppy spot worker who had no character and couldn't work a mic worth a damn. Afterward, Edge was a bland, overpushed babyface who had some good matches but didn't really develop a great singles character. He was just one-half of that kick-ass E&C team. Christian's been great with Jericho, and he's pretty good on the mic, but he fizzles as a singles wrestler. When he only has to work for part of a match and bump, his limited ring skills aren't a problem. He gets exposed in singles matches where on a good night he can reach about **. I'm shocked they haven't paired him with Gunn and prayed for a miracle.

Then explain the uncharismatic slugs and horribly bland OVW workers. They can't do the basics and they have no character. Brock doesn't have much of a character, he just has natural charisma but it was that and his ring work that got him over. Most of Brock's current success was due to push, marketing, his impressive ability AND strength, and a well-timed face turn. Cena found a character after about a year in WWE where he was pushed over Jericho in a fruitless feud. Shouldn't they be helping them find characters right away instead of trotting them out there with nothing? If those other guys aren't going to be used, again I ask: why sign them? WWE has plenty of jobbers who could at least be improving as workers if they aren't going to be pushed. Explain why Kidman still has a job, then. Explain why the hell they bothered hiring Ultimo. Don't say "to keep anyone else from having them" because TNA isn't that big a threat, and if that isn't the product Vince is presenting why should he care if he doesn't have those workers? They're catering to different audiences and they aren't even competing head to head. In other words, that was a long, pointless feud. It made no money, helped no one, didn't provide a decent storyline and was complete crap other than Stacy fanservice. Agreed. Still learning. Overpushed a bit but I honestly don't have a single problem with his work other than having to work on his offense (which is the last thing a worker should work on BTW). Let him learn and work on his offense on Heat and the Raw undercard then. Nobody remembers or cares why they should be heels. Repackage, please.

No, you'll get banned because you act like a jackass. Then why hire them if you're going to attempt to do anything with them? HHH hits **** without trying? I don't think so. HHH hit **** when HBK carried his gimp ass, and that was once. The second match sucked, and the third match, while good, wasn't that good. Right out of the gate, you make me laugh. Molly's a decent worker, and for a North American female wrestler, she's very good. However, the rest suck. Trish can bump but her offense blows. The rest of the females are varying degrees of suck. She's ti--well, legs and ass. She at least looks a bit different than the typical blond bimbos WWE trots out. However, that's all I can say good about her. He sucked before he was injured, doing 3 different versions of the chokeslam and a spinebuster. No, he's going to be pushed to the moon by WWE because he's the kind of guy they want to push AND he is decent on the mic, which would make me cry if I paid attention to WWE much anymore. He calls himself a journalist. He said in a couple years, and I guess they should bury HHH now because with his injuries he's not going to be wrestling in two years. Eh, that's about my opinion, but their ring work doesn't thrill me other. They've been lazy for a long time. What a painstaking analysis you have there. Jericho's bulletproof, deal with it. If WWE wanted to give him a serious push, he'd be able to be run with it because he can get the job done in every way. Boring worker, decent on the mic. In WWE he's nothing but a bump machine and that's all they'll use him as. I can accept that. What? Don't care about them. You're a moronic knee-jerk Goldberg-hater. He has adapted somewhat, and if Vince didn't want to deal with him he shouldn't have signed him and given him creative control. Blame Vince, not him. I don't like him as a worker but even I'll admit that I don't hate him as much as I did when he was in WCW. However, I don't think that the sacrifices made to push him right to the top are worth it. Deal with what? Deal with the fact that he was drawing decent ratings until Shane made him his bitch in that feud? Most of us agree with that. Above-average workers plagued by injuries. Storm lacks the charisma to be a star. Venis is a great actor with more charisma than most who could be an upper midcarder easily if he had a decent character and could stay free of injury. HHH is smarter. Henry still does not deserve his push, though. *ding, ding* *Buries the needle on the Bullshit-o-Meter* Rock's not that hard to match in ring skills, because he doesn't do many moves but does them with full force and he either doesn't sell or oversells. Orton doesn't have 1/10 of Rock's charisma, which was apparent right as he came back with the big heel turn and was cutting kick ass promos and got better from there. Conway > Orton, and at Dupree's age he could be an excellent worker in a few years if he tries to improve. Grenier is worthless. Fire him. *ding, ding* Hurricane's entertaining, and while he's too scrawny to be a World Title threat, he should be a midcarder and be milked for merchandise. Rosey's not the worst worker in the world, but his willingness to do whatever WWE asks him to do will probably pay off in a push later, not that that's a good thing. I like RVD but I admit his faults. I'd rather have Lynn on the roster instead right now if he'd be used right, but he probably wouldn't be. Fire them. Test a solid worker? You're an idiot, unless by "solid" you're referring to human waste. When was the last time HHH-HBK got ****1/4? Also, you do realize WWE doesn't give a damn about how good your matches are, so this point is moot, right? HBK is great, but is there a reason that he's a main eventer now other than that he was one in 96-98?

If they let Lita within 50 yards of a live mic, they shouldn't have any problem letting Kanyon have promo time. There's no reason Kanyon shouldn't be a mid-card fixture on either show. He's got everything the WWE would want in a midcarder: good size, can wrestle, can talk, is comfortable on camera, great bumper, can do comedy, and has cool moves to pop the crowd. He isn't homegrown, though. That's the only reason I can see for why they won't push him. Well, I guess also that he isn't very good looking (like that matters when he'd probably be playing a heel anyway), but that never stopped them from making Kane a perennial upper midcarder. The Mortis mask would take care of that. Maybe they'll wait to send them down until Taker comes back and makes them famous again.

I recall at least the first and last ones being in there, but they aren't, you know, a selling point to us. So, basically, the consensus I get here is that II's definitely worth owning, but may not really be worth its current secondary market value.

MK II 32X used a paper box. I could have sworn that was in a plastic box, too. Eh, well, at any rate, Wrestlemania the Arcade Game, WWF Raw, and NBA Jam T.E. were in plastic boxes on 32X for certain.

...I don't think so. "Everywhere" my ass. Although, Square got FFC and FFA re-released, so maybe they'll be able to re-release this one.

Maybe they're getting sent to Ovary W. Is that near Nipple H? I don't think it is "sticking it" to them if they don't care. However, it's really a shame. Thankfully, they didn't pair him with Jackie Gayda, but at least Rico is on TV regularly. I don't see how creative could have nothing to do for him. Despite the lisp (which could be easily fixed up), the guy has tons of ability, natural charisma, and he's kinda tall (6'3" ain't he?). He could easily make a half-decent gimmick work. The guy also was able to be in matches with Glacier and the Cat and make them enjoyable. That alone deserves a medal.

This wasn't the news I wanted to hear about Maven, Henry, and Test. I guess Shane has grapefruits, too.

Did anyone say that? Nope. You inferred that. Survery says....no. Your Olympic hero stated: Thanks for playing. Okay, so someone said it. You said "people" though.

Well, at least there's a bit of good news to go with the usual bad news. Ha-ha! O'Haire sucks! He sucks so bad even WWE won't push him for a while.

Did anyone say that? Nope. You inferred that. The point is, Bob Holly's always sucked. He wasn't some underrated talent held back by a bad gimmick at one time. Holly sucked then, he sucks now, he'll always suck. He's a bitter fuck who asked to be dropped on his head, and he was. He gives younger guys a hard time because he knows he'll never amount to anything other than "that guy who does a good dropkick." Someone like that doesn't deserve a push, ever. Someone like that deserves a pink slip, so he can go to Japan where shitty, stiff wrestlers can be stars.

I'm not sure what RVD would do on Smackdown. He didn't have very good matches with Benoit and Brock, and RVD/Eddie is done to death. Eh, I liked Benoit/RVD at Summerslam 02. Sure, there were selling issues, but it wasn't half as glaring and distracting as the ones in that HHH/RVD Raw match everyone creams over. Also, all of Brock's matches at that time sucked, except for the ones with the Hardyz bumping their asses off for him. Things could be a lot different now. Although, yeah, there isn't really anything for RVD to do, except for possibly teaming up with someone and going after the tag titles. He might be a little more motivated on SD, although not as much as he might have a year ago.

Yeah. It's currently being exchanged between Madusa and Oklahoma, right? Well, if not, they're about the only worse choices to hold the Cruiserweight title.

Well, even so it isn't as stupid as when HHH takes a shot with a real sledgehammer. You can see him palm the sledge and tap his opponent in the head with his hand on the "impact."