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Team Angle Pusher

I just watched Royal Rumble 1992

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Guest Lawlerm

A lot of your arguement is just a nostalgia factor though. From your list of "credible contenders for the WWF Title" none of Sid, Bulldog, Martel, Piper or Jake held the title during that particular time period (and only Sid of that group EVER held it).

 

Going into that Rumble only 5 guys realistically had any chance of winning the Rumble (Hogan, Savage, Taker, Flair & Sid) and you need to remember the 1992 Rumble was for the title therefor everyone was in it. For this years Rumble there were 2 men in the RAW title match and 3 in the Smackdown one who would all have been contenders had they been in the Rumble match.

 

Realistically Jericho has as much (if not more) or a chance of winning the title at Summerslam than Martel or Jake had of winning that Rumble.

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I also find it to be that not everyone stands out anymore.  Even in the days of terrible gimmicks, at least Max Moon could be told apart from Papa Shango.  Nowadays, you've got all these prettyboy types (Masters, Conway to an extent, Swinger/Parisi), the generic hosses (Snitsky, Heidenreich)...there's really not much diversity to the roster, and that takes away from the ability to get into certain characters.

 

I disagree, Hercules, Barbarian, and the Warlord were very similar.

 

Well, I disagree with your disagreement.

 

Hercules = had a chain, pasty white guy, 'heroic' entrance music, used the full nelson, a pretty balanced power/brawler guy

 

Barbarian = no music, managed by Heenan, darker skin, looked like he got dressed in a taxidermist's shop, more of a brawler

 

Warlord = tanned, bald, wore the 'Phantom' mask and shoulderpads, managed by Slick, more of a power wrestler

 

Compare them to Masters, Snitsky, Heidenreich, Matt Morgan, Bill Demott, and a lot of the other generic guys who have come into the WWE in recent years with similar movesets, similar basic ring gear, similar entrance music, similar one-note 'angry, intense' personas, and almost identical finishers (most using a powerbomb variation). I'd say Masters and (now) Heidenreich are the exceptions to that, since at least they have their own distinctive gimmicks now.

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Realistically Jericho has as much (if not more) or a chance of winning the title at Summerslam than Martel or Jake had of winning that Rumble.

 

Martel, yes. He was only a 'threat' because he had the record from the year before and there was thus a storyline running throughout the match of him vs. Flair. Before the show Martel was an afterthought.

 

But you are ignoring how big Jake Roberts was at the time. He was the unquestioned #2 heel (arguably #1, as Flair didn't really take off until this win) and realistically had a better chance of winning the thing than even Taker, his buddy at the time. Savage/Roberts was the feud of the year and Roberts was getting unreal heel heat.

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Am I crazy for thinking Martel should've been booked as the runner-up @ the 1991 Royal Rumble to Hogan? I'm not denying the fact that Hogan should've won that Rumble (b/c there was no other way for it to go w/Slaughter having won the belt from Warrior), but Martel got INCREDIBLE heat for most of that match that the WWE promptly killed with his 'blindfold match' with Jake Roberts.

 

I think the final four should've been Bulldog, Earthquake, Hogan, and Martel (instead of Brian Knobbs, like WTF?!?!) and then have Earthquake/Martel eliminate Bulldog, Hogan rally against Martel/Earthquake and dump Earthquake, and then duke it out with Martel for the win. I believe this could've lent Martel some credibility.

 

Sorry, I'm just a bit of a Martel fan and was wondering what others think. I always thought he should've gotten @ least one reign as IC champ.

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I think a big problem is the announcing.  Back in the day announcers used to pump up everybody, from Koko B Ware to Hulk Hogan, with very rare exceptions (Danny Davis, wrestling managers, etc.).  They made it seem that even though Tito Santana would be a underdog against Ted Dibiase, that at least he stood a chance if he the match went his way. 

 

Kahran, while I agree with you that the announcers had a lot to do with it, in my eyes the bigger part of the perceived threat is that someone like Dibiase would give someone like Tito more offense and give more of an impression of fear than we see in matches today. Above and beyond letting Santana have some offense, he'd also stall, he'd climb out of the ring, he'd use the ropes to demand a clean break, etc. A Dibiase/Santana match would go 6-8 minutes or so.

 

Compare that to the 3-4 minute matches we see now, and even if the announcers tripped over their dicks to hype the 'underdog', the guy would look less credible purely by not getting much in offensively.

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I don't mean hyping the hell out of an underdog, I mean in merely treating both wrestlers as competitors instead of a superstar and a jobber. Just look at Royal Rumble 1992 since we are talking about it, Sgt. Slaughter was a midcarder by this point and had no chance of winning, but the announcers were talking long before he came out that he was a former WWF Champion and was one of the major threats to win, so that when he does come out, it gets our attention. These days when a similar competitor, like say Chris Benoit last year, comes out the announcers barely make a peep. The only time they get excited if is they are a big part of the storyline like Batista or Shawn Michaels. In 1992 when Haku comes out, Gorilla acts like anyone can win the Royal Rumble. In 2005 when Luther Reigns comes out, JR acts like he doesn't have chance in hell. It only hurts the performers when the announcers do that.

 

You're right about the rest of course as well. That only adds to the problem. Basically the company treats too many performers as jokes, instead of using them to their full potential. Some wrestlers are going to pushed and some not, but if Hurricane is used as a proper opening act performer rather than as just a complete joke the fans would respond more positively. Even five years ago they did this well enough with guys like the Godfather. You don't have to be pushed to be a valuable asset to the show, and they have seemed to have been missing this, like I said, ever since the Invasion angle where the WCW guys got buried on a regular basis. It hurts the big guys too. In the old days you could get a big monster over by just killing guys that would be competitive in a normal match. Why should we care if Chris Masters can destroy Hurricane if another joke like Rob Conway can do it?

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The thing that makes that rumble so special is that it seemed that although Hogan, Savage, Flair, Sid and were the favs, the others were popular enough so that the fans really thought they could win.

 

If you listen to the crowd they were going crazy for Piper, Dibiase, Bulldog and the Taker.

 

The rumble that year had that feel that anyone could actually win, where in regards to recent years you could almost figure out who would win by December and go on there way to Wrestlemania.

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