Interesting Column

[Guest MikeSC]

Taz was like Goldberg...he was pushed to be a legitimate bad ass, and people were made to believe it. Hey...didn't Heyman book Taz to be a star...nah, probably wasn't. Probably all the reactions from those damn mark ECW fans.

 

Taz is not a good draw. ECW didn't do any better business with him as the top guy. You can get pops all day long --- if you don't draw, you don't draw.

 

If the Head gimmick was so 'crappy', how the hell did it get so over. Aren't crappy gimmicks supposed to be bad gimmicks that are an embarrassment to people watching?

 

Mr. America got over. Doesn't make it a good gimmick.

The Godfather got over. Crap gimmick nonetheless.

 

Head was a very idiotic gimmick. And that it didn't catch on for squat in the WWE shows how crappy a gimmick it was. WWE didn't "ruin" the gimmick --- they kept it as it was.

 

I dunno about you(you probably would be embarrassed, because it's ECW), but I'm not embarrassed when I see an ECW event with Al Snow and Head on. Because it's mindless comedy. Because it's off the wall. Because the fans were 100% behind it. Watch Living Dangerously 98 and tell me this 'crappy' gimmick didn't get over. Exactly. Nothing that could bring that sort and amount of widespread crowd support could be crap.

 

It is CRAP. Hurricane, much as I like the worker, is a bloody asinine gimmick. Fans like him as much as possible (hard to like a guy who gets buried), but it is stupid.

 

ECW fans ate up idiotic crap as if it was Jell-O. That was what ECW fans were known for. Not a bad thing, but let's not call it anything more than it was.

 

You're getting desperate now with Nova. He made moves up. He was known as an innovator, and once it got over, he set about 'creating' new moves. God forbid he should do something different and innovate moves rather than use other people's moves.

 

When your moves are so absurd that it destroys the suspension of disbelief, then it is bad. And he BITCHED about the whole thing all of the time ("I invented that move") and it became a running joke.

-=Mike

[Guest Jay Z. Hollywood]

and Steve Corino is a REALLY good heel, and is good at telling a story in the ring.

 

Gotta disagree big-time here. Nothing Corino did impressed me. He is the definition of mediocrity. He's X-Pac, without the potential to be carried to a legit good match.

 

We then come to guys like Maritato, Tajiri, Tony Mamaluke ( underrated wrestler ), Kid Kash ( OK a bit of a spot monkey at times but has talent ) and CW Anderson. These were all guys who made a name for themselves in the US in ECW.

 

Not a Guido fan, but I can appreciate why people like the guy. He seems to be able to work a good ring style --- it just doesn't work for me. Tajiri is gold and the fact that he's still over in spite of the WWE's schizophrenic booking of him is a miracle. Tony might be decent, but he made his name with insane stunts and that, combined with his injuries, would make me REAL hesitant to touch him. I could see Jeff Hardy V 1.0 with him.

 

Kash is nothing. Kash never was anything. He's little more than a spot monkey, and he's not a good spot monkey. C.W is solid, but I assume he's not a big guy (ECW was full of smaller guys) and his style will be harder to sell in the WWE where everybody is half-giant. I didn't like the C.W v Dreamer series, but I did think Anderson could work pretty well.

 

Here's where indy geek~! comes in.

 

-Corino has produced greatness repeatedly since leaving ECW, the most recent example being the absolutely brutal match for Ring of Honor against Homicide. He also dragged a great dramatic match out of Barry Windham in Dusty Rhodes' promotion TCW. As far as his ECW work goes, I LOVED his matches with Lynn and Tajiri. Corino is not athletic in the slightest, but he knows how to produce a good match simply by bumping and selling and knowing how to tell a story in the ring. Zero One doesn't take stiffs.

 

-Tony Mamaluke has since moved away from the reckless spot style and adopted a technical, quasi-shoot style like Maritato/Nunzio. Lately, everything Mamaluke has done has impressed the hell out of me, in CZW (against Reckless Youth, Nick Berk and Trent Acid) in ROH (against Jason Cross and as part of the Purists) and in NWA Wildside (against Rainman.) His dramatic selling alone can make matches memorable, and he's brilliant at pacing a match. Mamaluke reminds me of a young Bret Hart so much at this point it's scary.

 

-Kash, I think, has deteriorated in terms of talent, but he's definitely not "nothing." He's developed such a great charisma and heel persona that at one point he was the most hated guy in NWA-TNA, and is still in the top 3, in my opinion.

Edited October 11, 2003 by ShooterJay

[Guest MikeSC]

Here's where indy geek~! comes in.

 

-Corino has produced greatness repeatedly since leaving ECW, the most recent example being the absolutely brutal match for Ring of Honor against Homicide. He also dragged a great dramatic match out of Barry Windham in Dusty Rhodes' promotion TCW. As far as his ECW work goes, I LOVED his matches with Lynn and Tajiri. Corino is not athletic in the slightest, but he knows how to produce a good match simply by bumping and selling and knowing how to tell a story in the ring. Zero One doesn't take stiffs.

 

Well, I can't comment on Corino's indy work, but his ECW work was blah. ECW tried their hardest to push him as a "serious" wrestler, but his matches in ECW were basically him blading and just a tediously slow match.

 

I, again, won't say a word about his work in the NWA, Zero-One, TCQW, etc as I have not seen it.

 

-Tony Mamaluke has since moved away from the reckless spot style and adopted a technical, quasi-shoot style like Maritato/Nunzio. Lately, everything Mamaluke has done has impressed the hell out of me, in CZW (against Reckless Youth, Nick Berk and Trent Acid) in ROH (against Jason Cross and as part of the Purists) and in NWA Wildside (against Rainman.) His dramatic selling alone can make matches memorable, and he's brilliant at pacing a match. Mamaluke reminds me of a young Bret Hart so much at this point it's scary.

 

I sincerely hope he has, because I thought he had tons of potential, but I saw him eventually killing himself in the ring (smacking his head on the ringside barrier in the match with Whipwreck was scary to watch). I'm glad to hear that he changed that.

 

-Kash, I think, has deteriorated in terms of talent, but he's definitely not "nothing." He's developed such a great charisma and heel persona that at one point he was the most hated guy in NWA-TNA, and is still in the top 3, in my opinion.

 

Kash was just a horrendous spot monkey in ECW. I never thought his style was any good.

-=Mike

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

"Do you think a single ex-WWF'er in TNA would rather be in TNA?"

 

I guarantee that Raven is happier now than he was in WWE.

 

He makes more money working indys AND he doesn't get jobbed out every night.

 

Easier scedule, control over storylines, better pay.

[Silence 0]

"Do you think a single ex-WWF'er in TNA would rather be in TNA?"

 

I guarantee that Raven is happier now than he was in WWE.

 

He makes more money working indys AND he doesn't get jobbed out every night.

 

Easier scedule, control over storylines, better pay.

Do you think Raven had control over who won the match between him and Jeff Jarrett for the NWA World Heavyweight title? I don't think so, because otherwise he probably would have won, but Jarrett's politics took over that night much in the same way HHH's politics have always taken over Jericho in WWE. Don't bring up the "TNA didn't know if Raven would sign a new contract or not" shit either, if Raven let them know before his contract was up or TNA knew Raven was signing a new contract with the company, then Raven should have been booked to win the belt from Jarrett so he wouldn't be stuck in some shit feuds with Vampiro and Shane Douglas right now.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm GLAD Raven's out of WWE and making more money in the indies, but it's not like TNA's using him all that well either right now. The only two promotions I know of that are probably using him well are MLW and ROH, despite the many losses to CM Punk (who I'm also a fan of).

[Guest Coffey]

Don't bring up the "TNA didn't know if Raven would sign a new contract or not" shit either

 

Actually, Jeff Jarrett was ready to lose the title to Raven. It was Raven's fault for not signing the NWA contract.

[Silence 0]

Actually, Jeff Jarrett was ready to lose the title to Raven. It was Raven's fault for not signing the NWA contract.

I have a hard time believing that Jarrett would have dropped the title to Raven due to the fact that Raven never got a rematch to win the belt from Jarrett, even if it didn't have as much impact as the first time. Raven did compete in a Triple Threat match for the title, but guess what? He sunk down the card just to feud with Shane fucking Douglas.

 

Maybe it is Raven's fault for not signing the contract earlier, but Jarrett isn't out of the clear either.