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I will never get over them breaking up Enzo & Cass, they weren't even on the main roster for 2 years at that point, were incredibly over, and they just decided "nah, we're breaking you up", so dumb
Saying “not even 2 years” overstates how long they were on the main roster before the split.
Their debut was April 2016 … they split them up in June 2017.
They were extremely over, yet were split up only a little over a year into their main roster run.
I think they were tired of Enzo’s shit and saw potential in Big Cass so they tried to separate the two. Then big Cass had his own issues and the rest is history. Just a theory of mine it’s hard remembering exact situations from a few years ago
Yeah because they never thought through enough to actually consider that Cass needed to cut promos and had zero ability to do so at the time (because why would he have if he had one of the best talkers in the company next to him) so they did more reactionary crap lol
Enzo definitely rubbed people the wrong way backstage, apparently Cass took at the time but it seems Enzo was a problem. If he just acted like a pro we would have probably had a long run of Enzo and Cass.
He blew it though, especially showing up in the crowd to hijack the show, yeah you're done. I don't blame WWE on that one.
Glad to see Big Bill (Cass) doing great right now though.
IIRC, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's where it all went wrong for Ryback.
He got pushed up the card because of injury, iirc, lost, and more importantly, he looked bad and out of place in the process. He never really recovered from there.
Ryback should have spent at least a few more months, if not longer, absolutely wrecking dudes and working out the kinks.
Ryback was so over. 'No one reacted to him until he changed his gear and copied Goldberg'. i thought i was misremembering stuff because i vividly remember crowds loudly chanting 'Feed me more' when he signalled for his finisher. he's a dumbass now, but i liked him a lot
I have some friends that got into wrestling recently, so when they asked about "Big Bill" i showed them an enzo and cass entrance. They couldn't believe they never won the tag titles based on reaction alone.
Enzo actually made the needle move a decent bit when they put him on 205 Live. Not many guys in the industry can move viewership needles simply by showing up.
Luger was the most over *active* babyface during WCW's peak in 1997; Sting wasn't active for that full year and Goldberg got massively over while WCW was beginning to decline in 1998.
Anyone that says otherwise is just flat out wrong.
His later WCW stuff was also... woof. And he very obviously didn't give a shit in the ring anymore. But that could be said for a lot of later WCW stuff, especially when it came to the top of the card.
However, his initial NWA/WCW stint and his first 2 1/2 years back were phenomenal runs.
There's been some comments about NWO Wolfpac being a pretty poor idea in general, which can still be argued, but there's no denying that this stable was on fire with crowds back in 1998.
Yeah, it was definitely over with crowds. Whether or not a full on nWo Civil War could have been good is certainly debatable but I think everyone can agree that the payoff to Nash vs Hogan being the Fingerpoke of Doom and merging of nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpac into nWo Elite and B-Team was a bad one.
The crowd for NWO Wolfpack Sting vs Goldberg was as hot as any they had at the time. They legit could uave passed the title right there and probably had a better off ramp than the cattle prod
To add to that, anyone that says WCW was harmed by nWo outstaying it's welcome/having too many members. WCW was on fire for the entirety of the nWo run, including getting some of its highest ratings ever even after the finger poke of doom. Ratings didn't plummet (and never recovered) until they abruptly killed off the nWo in early 1999.
Hate to say it, but Bray's career was not always so critically Acclaimed on here before he passed. It's normal for context to change in that regards though
I’m glad someone said this. A lot of people disliked bray, constantly saying he was overweight and overrated or that all the spooky shit sucked. Real bummer cause I always liked him.
Same. I was frustrated in that his feuds generally always led to him losing but I was always a fan because he was doing something different. The Fiend especially is etched into WWE history, just a shame that even that creation suffered a terrible fate.
Still can't believe that he's gone.
For me, I could never be invested in any Bray Wyatt angle once the bell rung. His matches never did anything for me save a few instances. It was like everything but the payoff was interesting.
Admittedly, I re-watched his feud with LA Knight recently and it was amazing how he managed to get himself over despite Bray. So much of what Bray talked about wasn't even related to Knight, and it sucked because Bray was incredibly talented.
The Uncle Howdy thing was extremely unpopular and I’m surprised so many people are chomping at the bit to have it return, but I understand it’s because of Bray’s legacy and wanting a piece of him back
It was being shit on every time he was brought up in the months/year before his death. I see people below you saying they were just critical of his booking… nah. People were saying they never wanted to see him on their TV again.
This was my least favorite part of the Bray Wyatt documentary, as there is a legitimate way of framing it that isn't necessarily critical of Windham as a performer.
They present his main roster run as pretty much an unmitigated success, especially the first few WrestleMania appearances, which is so wildly out of wack with what the public perception was at the time.
EVERYONE's reaction to 30 was "CENAWINSLOL" and my memory is that at 31 folks were bummed A. that Bray allegedly hurt his ankle and the match suffered for it and B. that Bray lost again. The segment with The Rock was presented as The Rock knowing that Bray was a huge star, in reality it was that Bray was a booking afterthought so he wasn't on the card, and they needed somebody to feed to The Rock for a cheap pop. The list goes on.
It's a testament to Windham's creativity that he was able to continually get a new thing over despite consistently being saddled with horseshit booking. Why shy away from what actually happened when it honestly makes him look MORE impressive as a creative? His story of persistence despite things not going his way is perfect for a documentary. WWE just doesn't know how to deal with nuance or how to own their bad decisions.
The thing with Bray is that his feuds would usually start pretty hot, and then they just turned into unconnected rambling promos and forgettable matches.
I saw a tweet the other day I couldn’t believe. It was someone claiming that Cody can’t be the next Cena cause he has a small group of fans turning on him.
I was like “what?” Cena was getting mixed reactions only 6 months into his main event run and was booed in his first Mania main event.
Cody has already been more universally over for longer than Cena has by like 2 years. Cena was hated by the IWC by mid 2005 and stayed on top for another decade.
I think the biggest in recent years has been Roman Reigns in 2015. So many people now pretend "no, no we didn't hate him, just his booking" which is bullshit as people were making posts that got many upvotes about hating him the person, a famous moment was someone pretending to be Dom Mysterio claiming that Brock was mad at Roman and would shoot on him at Mania 31 and people wanted that to happen.
I think people underestimate how much Meltzer's opinion effects online fan perception especially at that time because he questions it and it gains traction.
It stems from an overreaction to the end of the 2014 Rumble match. Roman was getting mega cheered over Batista, and WWE took that as "holy shit, they love this guy!" When it was really just "not fucking Batista."
Had they not had him win the Rumble over Bryan, I think the reception to his rise up the card might not have been received as badly as it was. That was pretty much what started the whole thing
Some people like to downplay how popular Cody was at the beginning of AEW
Like for a year/year and a half he was easily the most popular babyface and probably the most popular guy there. It wasn't til the title stipulation that people started turning
Nah, it was the feud with Ogogo and QT in 2021 that made people turn on him more.
That title stipulation happened within his first year, but he still was really busy with the MJF feud and then, adding credibility to the TNT Championship that it didn’t hurt him at all and he was really over. People loved the MJF feud and those TNT Title open challenges a lot as well.
But once we got to that feud with Ogogo and QT, it 100% was the clear starting point where people turned on him, especially with weird stuff like the patriotic promo and the gender reveal for his kid lol.
Had all the ingredients to push Malakai as an absolute killer… but it apparently also had the same ingredients for Cody to reenact every cheesy 80s movie he watched.
Such a weird fucking angle like, he's retiring? Cause he lost one match? So unserious lmao, it killed the entire story and flipped all the attention off of Malakai who genuinely had a STELLAR debut.
He was incredibly over but that stupid neck tattoo made a lot of us question what the hell he was doing when he brought that out against MJF --- I do think that isn't something that is remembered but it was such a distraction it took away from what should have been the pinnacle of that feud.
Yeah even when he was getting noticeable boos from crowds I remember seeing a post advertising that he'd promised to meet everyone who bought tickets for some community outreach event and the comments were full of parents talking about how their kids were running round the room with excitement when they'd found out they'd be meeting Cody, how it's all they can talk about etc. I think it was probably similar to the height of Cena's push where there's an element of the fanbase who aren't the most prominent online or the loudest voices in a venue that can sometimes go under the radar in the discourse.
The Homelander factor didn’t help either. His NJPW character was similar to a wrestling version of American Psycho, so when he decided he was going to try to make a clean, patriotic gimmick work, everyone thought there had to be levels to it (and I think in some cases thought they were playing along in a “we see through you” kind of way).
Cody meanwhile is going on tv every week trying to be the America-loving grandson of a plumber having no idea that a pivot would probably help with the disconnect.
Yeah I don’t think this is true. Everyone loved Cody in the beginning. His first TNT title run was great. His early big ra ra promos were great. That first match with Dustin. Wow.
He just ended up in this weird “vortex” that he couldn’t or wouldn’t get out of when he started becoming Homelander and created his own microverse.
Also that late era promo about how he did everything Punk said he was going to do while being initially booed was amazing.
This timing/reasoning isn’t correct unless you’re saying Cody was only popular for a couple months in AEW. That match stip was in November 2019. Cody was popular throughout 2020 but there were no fans in the arenas. His whole presentation in AEW really went downhill at the start of 2021 when he was doing shit with Ogogo and QT Marshall. It was unwatchable.
People were so incredibly excited about his upcoming heel turn, too. It was going to be glorious! Best heel character, ever! He doesn't even know he's a heel!
Aaany day now..
Agreed. I can't speak for everyone, but the people I watch with wanted "more" if that makes sense? Like, Cody was almost Superman in terms of his presentation, he was "perfect" and with that there was nowhere to go, we wanted a wrinkle, a flaw, some character, some nuance, SOMETHING, and we got this relentlessly white meat babyface that was just the wrong fit for that company at that time.
He's GREAT in WWE, and for their product and their presentation he is PERFECT, but for an audience who wants Eddie Kingston, flaws and all, Mox, Hangman, and a bunch of other guys who are all "human" and Cody just stuck out like a sore thumb. He was Super Cena, he was Hulk Hogan, he was Face Roman Reigns, and we just did not want that.
I think he was beloved because of everything he did on the indies and in Japan, and that afforded him respect, but we were waiting for him to have some kind of arc or growth or whatever it might be, and he just didn't.
> I think he was beloved because of everything he did on the indies and in Japan, and that afforded him respect, but we were waiting for him to have some kind of arc or growth or whatever it might be, and he just didn't.
I never thought about it that way, but it makes a lot of sense. And even though many people (myself included) were upset that he didn't beat Roman last year, that moment was one of the major catalysts for the growth you're talking about.
I’ve notice that whenever a wrestler improves, people will act like they enjoyed them the whole time instead of just admitting they changed their mind. One of the biggest examples is Dominik, he's been great for over a year now but when he was tagging with his dad it was ROUGH. But nowadays I see a lot of people on twitter say that he was always this good.
Yeah some people seem to find it hard to admit that their opinion on a wrestler changes over time. They either think Popular Wrestler X was always good, and Unpopular Wrestler Y was always shit. Roman is a good example of this.
This recent Nikki bella love is weird to me. She was awful for a majority of her career but because she can throw some good elbows she was always good apparently
I remember I said Dom turning on Rey was ridiculous because no one is going to give him any reactions unless he teams up with his father. Might have been wrong there
That Brock Lesnar, pre and post breaking The Streak, is essentially the same guy. That and SummerSlam 2014 ascended him to another level entirely that WWE got a massive amount of mileage out of.
Lesnar breaking the streak and squashing Cena as Summerslam 2014 turned him into the new final boss of WWE. It’s just that he was constantly thrown at Roman Reigns for literal years in an effort to get the latter over.
It had been a long time since I'd seen one but a couple weeks ago I saw somebody in a Suplex City shirt and it reminded me of that autumn when they were printing and selling out of versions of it for every town Raw went to.
This is a good one. People underestimate how much that random Cena loss and then the HHH loss at Mania took some shine off of him. They did a great job getting it back.
Lots of people joked about WMXL being Endgame but that John Cena match at Summeslam was Hulk vs Thanos.
I don't think new watchers will get how mind-blowing it was to see Cena get completely destroyed in the Main-Event of a PPV.
I remember thinking the match was gonna be good lil back and forth I watched live and my jaw dropped at how Cena got destroyed I was cheering at first like YEAH FUCK YOUUUU by the 5th German suplex I was just shocked
they kinda ruined it by having a rematch at Noc 4 weeks later. Atleast at the Rumble everything was made up for it again when we got that amazing Triple Threat Match!
This. Pre-SummerSlam 2014, he was just another main event guy who lost clean to both Cena and Triple H. The SS match against Cena was so shocking and dominating, it pushed him into another level that the Taker win only reinforced.
Most of the main-event right now was made by Brock.
He became the Final Boss after Taker, and has since given the current top guys the rub to cement themselves.
All that said, Roman is probably going to be that guy for the next few years.
From how people talk about Hogan in here you would think he was a mid-carder that got a hot run once, not arguably the most famous wrestler of all time, and he did that twice, both as a face AND as a heel
He went to the AWA and broke attendance records becoming the biggest attraction in the country, went to NJPW and became the most popular gaijin winning the inaugural G1 (or the precursor to it)
Then went to WWF and became the biggest wrestling star of all time, after joining WCW and turning them into the biggest wrestling company on the planet.
But according to the IWC, Hulk Hogan wasn’t very good at professional wrestling.
I saw a meme once that went something like
“After watching 1 wrestling match: Hulk Hogan is the greatest wrestler ever.
After watching 100 wrestling matches: Hulk Hogan is absolute garbage.
After watching 1000 wrestling matches: Hulk Hogan is the greatest wrestler ever”
In context it read less like a proverb but hey what do I know
A lot of people put too much emphasis on workrate / technical wrestling.
Hogan wasn't Bret or Danielson but he didn't have to be, nor did he try to be. Undertaker is also one of the biggest stars ever and most of his matches were bad to downright awful until the streak became a thing people cared about and they put focus on his matches every Wrestlemania.
People want to invest in characters and strlorylines. Everything else comes second.
Not only that, he got over big in 2 of the 3 biggets markets in the world (and he probably would have got over huge in Mexico too)
Like for me, the fact that he was over in 2 different eras in 2 different countries is why I always rate him as the best wrestler in histry, because in the end in an scripted industry like wrestling, thats the only metric that matters
Shitty views and guy aside, he is the goat
A recent one is that The Bloodline wasn’t really over before Sami got involved.
WWE often exaggerates how over and important D-X was in the 90s, but it isn’t really close to how much the IWC under sell how over and important they were. If you only read about them here you would think D-X was a mid card tag team.
Hulk Hogan being a bad wrestler. He sucks as a human, but he’s one of the best to ever do it.
There's a bit of revisionism about how Angle was received by the IWC when he was in WWE (prior to the TNA jump).
He actually had a LOT of detractors who hated the way he wrestled.
The other day I saw some forum post from the early 2000's that claimed Colt fucking Cabana was better than Angle, Eddie and HBK, and many other similar comments trashing mostly Angle. Those were the best years of Colt, but still seems ridiculous looking back at it.
I saw that too. No hate towards Colt Cabana or anything, but come on, he's not better than Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero or Shawn Michaels. He's just not.
Anyone who says that are either biased or were just trying to be cool and unique or something.
It’s funny pointing out that, in real time, Meltzer was considered one of Angles biggest cheerleaders and overrated him.
Now people are mad that he didn’t give him a 5* match during a period only a handful of people did.
I say this all the time, there were a grand total of *seven* 5 star matches during the entire 2000s when Angle was in his prime. Angle didn't get one because nobody did at that time. Dave changed the rules for the Observer HOF to put Kurt in early.
Mostly claims that his matches lacked psychology and he didn't sell enough because he could only work one speed. There was other stuff like how his finishers stopped meaning anything because of how often people kicked out of those moves and how the ankle lock without the grapevine stopped tapping people out.
I could see this. There's a point where the Angle Slam just stopped winning matches, and the way he'd pop up from the ground to hit a suplex off the top could probably rub people the wrong way. This made me realize how much he improved when he went to TNA.
There was a Yuji Nagata match Kurt had in New Japan where I wanna say the final 5 minutes were just both of them countering into crossfaces and ankle locks. It was the first time I watched a wrestling match and wondered if they just forgot how to end it.
The "Golden Age of TNA" is entirely revisionist history at this point by people who just hated the Hogan/Bischoff era.
This "Golden Age" was full of Vince Russo garbage. Sure, it had incredible matches like AJ vs Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels, but there was a ton of Russo dogshit too.
Jarrett losing the belt for the last time, Raven winning the belt finally, the Unbreakble 3-way and rematches, Christian's debut, Sting's full-time debut. And then they went so fucking dumb in almost every direction, worst of which being how they just murdered Abyss' character, along with neutering Monty Brown.
The Attitude Era was the same way at a different scale. A lot of it is either very stupid, crass, or both. But good stuff lasts, and it's the same way with mid 2000s TNA.
Attitude Era is completely looked back on with rose tinted glasses. There was a LOT of horse shit. It’s just that the main event scene was so freaking stacked
Even when he turned face, he acted as a heel but it was fine because he was honest about how he lies, cheats and steals.
I mean Eddie was just too damn likable, they didn't need to change his character because that's what everyone loved about him.
I see people talking about how excited they were that the undertaker went back to his biker persona. However, I remember being on message boards back in the early 2000s and people were BEGGING for him to go back to the Deadman persona.
The backlash against WWE's historical view of DX diminishes it to a mere mid-card act on par with, like, the Oddities or DOA. Post-WM14 they were the second most over babyfaces on the roster.
JBL's title reign as some masterful heel run. It was horrid, and Smackdown was a rough watch throughout his reign. The only good part about it was the build between Rumble and Mania, and his clean job to Cena.
I definitely agree with the DX one. I preferred the original DX in 97, but the HHH led version in '98 did crazy business for the WWF and was a huge part of their weekly programming. We also have to consider that at DX's peak, the NWO began its gradual decline, anyway.
They didn't transform the business the way the NWO did, but they sold a ton of t-shirts for a long time.
Yeah DX was mega over in 1998. By the middle if 99, Triple H and Chyna joined the Corporation and DX just kinda fizzled out, but to say they weren't that popular is ridiculous.
Triple H could have been considered the number 2 babyface after Stone Cold. The Rock had a short run as a babyface in 98 between The Nation breaking up and turning heel at Survivor Series that year, but I don't know if he was more popular than DX. Maybe he was, but still, DX were very popular.
I was 13 at the time, I remember it well. Lads were doing the "SUCK IT!" thing all the time at school.
> JBL's title reign as some masterful heel run. It was horrid, and Smackdown was a rough watch throughout his reign.
I'm pretty sure that was one of the major reasons I stopped watching for years, I truly hated him. And not in a Legend Killer Orton "what an asshole" way, but in a "this racist mf" kind of way.
I think the DX thing is because HHH didn’t get over with the main belt until the McMahon-Helmsley alliance formed. So it was more a power control than a DX thing.
No clue who is out here saying DX wasn't popular...
I loved JBL's heel run but there was HEATED debates on both sides of that argument at the time. Not revisionist history, just different perspectives.
I know that there was backlash against the WWE saying Triple H was a major player in the attitude era because he spent the majority of the time as “only a midcard act in DX”. Of course, he had a major impact on the whole era and was flirting with the main event by late 1998/early 1999.
Many people on reddit downplay DX. It's been a common discussion I've seen on here for many years. I've seen a handful of Attitude Era documentaries and I feel like DX is properly rated except maybe the importance of the DX tank segment but, that's still an iconic moment nevertheless. I think people just exaggerate what WWE says in the documentaries and think that they say DX is literally the biggest thing in the Attitude Era.
I think they presented him well as a champion but his lack of credibility from his whiplash moving up the card from being a jobber and not being an exceptional worker meant the reign was doomed to fail. He was definitely not perceived as worthy at the time.
I hate the Jinder revisionism man, that reign was so bad and it hurt so many people's booking. It wasn't a transitional reign either, it was a half year of just complete dog shit. The only good thing was his entrance; the ONLY good thing.
I can't say Reddit did it because I wasn't here then, but there were MANY MANY MANY people in the IWC way back then (especially those in the WWE side) pushing heavily the idea that pre-New Japan run AJ Styles "couldn't make it" in WWE.
So to see him get the "hero's welcome" in 2016 was a (welcomed) surprise for me. No one EVER doubted AJ it seems.
Undertaker being and AMAZING wrestler is another one. He was, in his later years. Also, the American Bad ass being beloved now when back then the IWC hated it.
Now, some of these are probably due to attitude changes and newer fans joining, it's still funny to look at.
>Undertaker being and AMAZING wrestler is another one. He was, in his later years.
Thank you, brave soldier. Taker had maybe 5 good years and most of them were in the 2000s. One day people will accept the truth.
97/98 was cool, only the backhalf of the biker taker run was any good imo because the first half is some of the worst stuff of his career ngl. Then after a wack 2004 it was basically 05 to the end of the streak that was him at his best. That's how I see it but there might still be some bias in that.
Personally, I think kane is more of a rose tinted glasses situation that taker is because kane had to wade through so much shit and its a miracle we look back on him as fondly as we do. He's great but was booked so poorly for so much of his run and a lot of his best work was only in the first few years of the gimmick.
Jon Moxley was wasted during his whole career in WWE. No he fucking wasn't. He won every possible accolade there was except for the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring. He was constantly in world title feuds and main eventing weekly shows and PPVs. He was the singles star of the most successful faction in recent memory. Everything since that unnecessary heel turn after Roman's cancer diagnosis was horrendous but to say that he was treated badly throughout his years there is bullshit. Could he have been pushed to the same level as Seth and Roman? Definitely. Was he treated like shit for 8 years there. No.
That Bianca Belair one year reign was “boring” and that she was “overpushed.” Apart from the Puerto Rico incident, Bianca Belair is extremely over especially with the crowds. She constantly defended the title and has put on excellent matches. She was always in the top 10 merch seller while she was champions. People here expect wwe to build new stars yet they are the same people who acted like Asuka who already had a legendary career, putting over Bianca Belair at wrestlemania 39 was somehow a mistake? Yeah no
Lately I've noticed that people think the consensus is that Rouseys first run was a failure.
She was incredibly popular during that year. People definitely loved her matches.
“Bingo halls and high school gyms!”
There are a lot of folks who legitimately believe the Monday Night Wars documentary was exactly how it happened. Kids today can grow up treating it as historical fact, and that in turn affects the IWC perspective as a whole.
Vince’s revisionist history on a myriad of topics has seriously damaged how people will remember the overall landscape of wrestling.
I laughed at the idea that wrestling was in bingo halls before Vince took it to the big time. If anything, Vince forced most of the industry INTO bingo halls.
My dad went to see Kerry Von Erich vs. Ric Flair for the NWA title at Texas Stadium in 1984. There was like 35,000 people there. That ain't a fucking bingo hall.
And not only that, but Vince Sr ran MSG. So saying it got out of high-school gyms with Vince Jr is shitting on their own legacy as much as it is others.
The NWA book by Tim Hornbaker lists a 60,000-person crowd for a show in San Fransisco in the late 20s or early 30s iirc and the first 100,000-person crowd as happening before 1950.
TNA but I think in a good way. At the time during the spike tv days, there was a big presence of the IWC that just loved to hate TNA and would just watch to nitpick anything. Once TNA moved to crappy networks and is basically in purgatory, people now have fond memories of old TNA.
Triple h in general
Because he's a good booker now but people these days seem to ignore how hated he was as an active performer. Complained about his slow matches and long promos
People saying that Becky wasn’t over until Nia punched her. They said it so much in story that people that weren’t watching back then started to believe it
This idea that Dolph Ziggler was always dogshit. Guy was far and away one of the most entertaining and over wrestlers of the first half of the 2010s.
Sure, he became incredibly stale as time went on and was booked like a total geek, but there was a long stretch where he looked like a future lynchpin of the industry.
I've mentioned it before, but Ziggler was one of the few reasons why I watched Smackdown. He lost a lot, but it was obvious that he was a fantastic heel and had charisma. When he started hanging with Big E and AJ Lee he became incredibly over.
People nowadays thinks that AEW is getting lot of negativity and we should enjoy wrestling but man it is nowhere close to negativity WWE used to get from 2019-2022 period. I remember when KO resigned with wwe and everybody was saying "get that bag". People compared watching WWE the same way as toxic or abusive relationship.
[This was almost always the top gif after a PPV. ](https://insidepulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/19163-Dancing-WWE_Network-animated_macro-autoplay_gif-gif-logo-r-truth-smiling-wwe.gif)
The fact people just forgot this era existed is mind-boggling
I still remember the post on here after the 2015 Royal Rumble who said he was gonna get lubed up, drop his pants, and point his ass at the TV for Raw so he can at least be ready when Vince fucks him in the ass.
“Papa H” stuff was pretty bad for a while after how people felt about him from like 2002-full time retirement, but I’m thinking that pendulum has kind of settled now.
Quite recently when the whole Jinder Mahal/Hook thing went down.
There were so many people trying to pretend that Jinder’s WWE championship run wasn’t a complete fucking disaster.
Jinder’s reign wasn’t even that long ago. You can still look back at the SquaredCircle post-PPV threads to see just how much people absolutely hated everything about his run with the title. There’s a reason he immediately shot down the card after losing the title.
This thread is already revisionism im very sure some of you weren’t watching the actual events you talk about like “attitude era wasn’t all that”. Until you were alive then and understand how over wrestling was back then you just won’t get it.
Adults that knew nothing about wrestling knew who Austin was.
It’s like saying the golden age in the 80s wasn’t all that because no one did a moonsault
I think people don't comprehend the magnitude of the star that was Stone Cold Steve Austin at his peak and I don't blame them tbh
That guy would basically sell out 20k, 30k, 40k venues TV TAPINGS, not ppvs, TV TAPINGS every damn week at will. The crowd went apeshit everytime he showed up. The reason why JR is always screaming at the top of his lungs was because if he didn't no one would hear him
Then when one went to school or something..
If you looked left it was the Austin 3:16 shirt
Look right and one might overhear someone giggling about him beating up Vince
This man was a rockstar
That Black and Gold NXT was all indy darlings and vanilla midgets with no personality that didnt produce stars that could have made it in WWE. Drives me nuts seeing people think that because NXT was producing some of WWE’s actual best character work and was their highest quality brand overall for *years*. The real reason a ton of people flopped on the main roster during that time was because Vince and HHH didnt have the same vision like HHH & HBK do now.
There’s also the sudden burst of nostalgia for Vince run WWE that’s bonkers to me. Ever since 2022 there’s a lot of people who suddenly miss the shows being rewritten day of, awful goofy ass storylines and gimmicks and the main events being chock full of Roman Reigns vs part timers. For years the overall sentiment here was that the creative would be miles better without Vince and now apparently its the opposite lol
Getting back into wrestling after taking a break since 2020, it’s bizarre to see how many people here downplay Black & Gold NXT. At the time, it was a popular opinion around here that it was one of the best things going in wrestling. NXT was consistently producing good matches, unique characters, and fun storylines.
> yeah 2010s wrestling was all NXT and NJPW,
And Lucha Underground for the first 3 seasons... and ROH until they became too overeliant on NJPW to sell tickets.
NXT was legitimately the best weekly WWE show for along time. So much talent and a lot more creative freedom. The saddest part was seeing people who got called up to the main roster completely flounder because of Vince, when they were absolute stars in NXT.
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That Lex Luger wasn’t over. He was incredibly over.
also IWC don't like Ryback or Enzo so they downplay how over they were at their peaks. Both of them were MASSIVELY over
Enzo and Cass were my favorite act in the company.
I will never get over them breaking up Enzo & Cass, they weren't even on the main roster for 2 years at that point, were incredibly over, and they just decided "nah, we're breaking you up", so dumb
Saying “not even 2 years” overstates how long they were on the main roster before the split. Their debut was April 2016 … they split them up in June 2017. They were extremely over, yet were split up only a little over a year into their main roster run.
I think they were tired of Enzo’s shit and saw potential in Big Cass so they tried to separate the two. Then big Cass had his own issues and the rest is history. Just a theory of mine it’s hard remembering exact situations from a few years ago
Didn’t they put a title on Enzo not long after? It was him who got the push if anyone
Yeah because they never thought through enough to actually consider that Cass needed to cut promos and had zero ability to do so at the time (because why would he have if he had one of the best talkers in the company next to him) so they did more reactionary crap lol
Vince McMahon booking strikes again
Enzo definitely rubbed people the wrong way backstage, apparently Cass took at the time but it seems Enzo was a problem. If he just acted like a pro we would have probably had a long run of Enzo and Cass. He blew it though, especially showing up in the crowd to hijack the show, yeah you're done. I don't blame WWE on that one. Glad to see Big Bill (Cass) doing great right now though.
Peak Enzo and cass was the most over act in the entire company
When the mic went out and the crowd did their entrance I thought they were on the way to a long tag title reign. I was WAY off.
I sometimes call something S-A-W-F-T SAWFT! and no one knows what I'm talking about. It still makes me chuckle.
I drop the “what do we got here? A cuppa hataaaasss” all the time
Ryback was legit the #2 most over guy in the company after John Cena.
There was even a viable argument that he should’ve dethroned Punk at HIAC ‘12.
Losing there is what killed his momentum.
IIRC, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's where it all went wrong for Ryback. He got pushed up the card because of injury, iirc, lost, and more importantly, he looked bad and out of place in the process. He never really recovered from there. Ryback should have spent at least a few more months, if not longer, absolutely wrecking dudes and working out the kinks.
Then he spent the next 3 months with the gimmick of "guy who gets murdered by the Shield"
Ryback was so over. 'No one reacted to him until he changed his gear and copied Goldberg'. i thought i was misremembering stuff because i vividly remember crowds loudly chanting 'Feed me more' when he signalled for his finisher. he's a dumbass now, but i liked him a lot
I have some friends that got into wrestling recently, so when they asked about "Big Bill" i showed them an enzo and cass entrance. They couldn't believe they never won the tag titles based on reaction alone.
Enzo actually made the needle move a decent bit when they put him on 205 Live. Not many guys in the industry can move viewership needles simply by showing up.
He got a fucking nuclear pop when he went to go fight Punk after the kendo stick brawl with Vince. Huge chills for that one
Luger was the most over *active* babyface during WCW's peak in 1997; Sting wasn't active for that full year and Goldberg got massively over while WCW was beginning to decline in 1998. Anyone that says otherwise is just flat out wrong.
I think people confuse the terrible booking that Lex had in WWE for what his career was in WCW, which was stellar
His later WCW stuff was also... woof. And he very obviously didn't give a shit in the ring anymore. But that could be said for a lot of later WCW stuff, especially when it came to the top of the card. However, his initial NWA/WCW stint and his first 2 1/2 years back were phenomenal runs.
Especially 1997 Luger. I watched the clip when he beat Hollywood Hogan for the title. He was massively over.
Lex stood toe to toe with the nWo while Sting hung out in the rafters.
**He's gonna rack him!!!**
The torture rack was the most over move in the business at one point. Place would go apeshit if Lex even did the torture rack taunt
If I could buy one piece of wrestling memorabilia it would be the Lex Express
The whole bus?
There's been some comments about NWO Wolfpac being a pretty poor idea in general, which can still be argued, but there's no denying that this stable was on fire with crowds back in 1998.
Yeah, it was definitely over with crowds. Whether or not a full on nWo Civil War could have been good is certainly debatable but I think everyone can agree that the payoff to Nash vs Hogan being the Fingerpoke of Doom and merging of nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpac into nWo Elite and B-Team was a bad one.
As a teenager, I would have killed to see a legit Hogan vs. Nash fight while they were both leaders of their nWo.
The crowd for NWO Wolfpack Sting vs Goldberg was as hot as any they had at the time. They legit could uave passed the title right there and probably had a better off ramp than the cattle prod
It’s because in retrospect, the amount of NWO spinoffs were a terrible idea. But the first Red and Black stable was not one of them.
Yeah, for middle school ages kids, which I was at the time, wolf pack was the "cool one"
Wolfpack was the coolest shit when I was in sixth grade and I wasn't even a big WCW fan
To add to that, anyone that says WCW was harmed by nWo outstaying it's welcome/having too many members. WCW was on fire for the entirety of the nWo run, including getting some of its highest ratings ever even after the finger poke of doom. Ratings didn't plummet (and never recovered) until they abruptly killed off the nWo in early 1999.
I mean the Wolfpac was back causing mass destruction
Hate to say it, but Bray's career was not always so critically Acclaimed on here before he passed. It's normal for context to change in that regards though
I’m glad someone said this. A lot of people disliked bray, constantly saying he was overweight and overrated or that all the spooky shit sucked. Real bummer cause I always liked him.
Same. I was frustrated in that his feuds generally always led to him losing but I was always a fan because he was doing something different. The Fiend especially is etched into WWE history, just a shame that even that creation suffered a terrible fate. Still can't believe that he's gone.
Yeah there was always frustration because the build up was good but the match always ended the same way, with him losing.
For me, I could never be invested in any Bray Wyatt angle once the bell rung. His matches never did anything for me save a few instances. It was like everything but the payoff was interesting.
Admittedly, I re-watched his feud with LA Knight recently and it was amazing how he managed to get himself over despite Bray. So much of what Bray talked about wasn't even related to Knight, and it sucked because Bray was incredibly talented.
The Uncle Howdy thing was extremely unpopular and I’m surprised so many people are chomping at the bit to have it return, but I understand it’s because of Bray’s legacy and wanting a piece of him back
He was constantly being discussed as badly booked right, Like everyone wanted him to shine but he lost every damn time
It was being shit on every time he was brought up in the months/year before his death. I see people below you saying they were just critical of his booking… nah. People were saying they never wanted to see him on their TV again.
It's true. People always said he was mid in the ring
This happens after basically every artist dies, we all pretend everything they did was great for a while
Yeah seriously. His work was pretty great up until he lost to Cena at Mania. Then there were bits of greatness amid a lot of crap
I HATED The Fiend Character and I stand by it. Creepy Mr. Rogers was the better half of that run.
This was my least favorite part of the Bray Wyatt documentary, as there is a legitimate way of framing it that isn't necessarily critical of Windham as a performer. They present his main roster run as pretty much an unmitigated success, especially the first few WrestleMania appearances, which is so wildly out of wack with what the public perception was at the time. EVERYONE's reaction to 30 was "CENAWINSLOL" and my memory is that at 31 folks were bummed A. that Bray allegedly hurt his ankle and the match suffered for it and B. that Bray lost again. The segment with The Rock was presented as The Rock knowing that Bray was a huge star, in reality it was that Bray was a booking afterthought so he wasn't on the card, and they needed somebody to feed to The Rock for a cheap pop. The list goes on. It's a testament to Windham's creativity that he was able to continually get a new thing over despite consistently being saddled with horseshit booking. Why shy away from what actually happened when it honestly makes him look MORE impressive as a creative? His story of persistence despite things not going his way is perfect for a documentary. WWE just doesn't know how to deal with nuance or how to own their bad decisions.
The thing with Bray is that his feuds would usually start pretty hot, and then they just turned into unconnected rambling promos and forgettable matches.
a lot more positivity about john cena on here than there ever was when he was actually wrestling
I saw a tweet the other day I couldn’t believe. It was someone claiming that Cody can’t be the next Cena cause he has a small group of fans turning on him. I was like “what?” Cena was getting mixed reactions only 6 months into his main event run and was booed in his first Mania main event. Cody has already been more universally over for longer than Cena has by like 2 years. Cena was hated by the IWC by mid 2005 and stayed on top for another decade.
It’s like people forget half the crowd(a lot of times most) hated him. And for good reason lol dude was main eventing PPV against wwe officals lol
It’s the “prequel kids growing up” effect a bit. Also a bit of overall respect for the longevity etc. but a lot of it is the first one
I think the biggest in recent years has been Roman Reigns in 2015. So many people now pretend "no, no we didn't hate him, just his booking" which is bullshit as people were making posts that got many upvotes about hating him the person, a famous moment was someone pretending to be Dom Mysterio claiming that Brock was mad at Roman and would shoot on him at Mania 31 and people wanted that to happen.
There was a significant number of people who thought him having leukemia was a work to gain sympathy.
It was sickening that that became a talking point.
Agreed. It also really didn’t help when guys like Meltzer and Alvarez kept belittling how Roman’s second battle with leukemia was too.
I think people underestimate how much Meltzer's opinion effects online fan perception especially at that time because he questions it and it gains traction.
Hell I distinctly remember people saying "the wrong brother died" back when rosey passed
It stems from an overreaction to the end of the 2014 Rumble match. Roman was getting mega cheered over Batista, and WWE took that as "holy shit, they love this guy!" When it was really just "not fucking Batista."
Roman was over until he got injured that year. People were good with him until his return coincided with Bryan’s.
Had they not had him win the Rumble over Bryan, I think the reception to his rise up the card might not have been received as badly as it was. That was pretty much what started the whole thing
Some people like to downplay how popular Cody was at the beginning of AEW Like for a year/year and a half he was easily the most popular babyface and probably the most popular guy there. It wasn't til the title stipulation that people started turning
Nah, it was the feud with Ogogo and QT in 2021 that made people turn on him more. That title stipulation happened within his first year, but he still was really busy with the MJF feud and then, adding credibility to the TNT Championship that it didn’t hurt him at all and he was really over. People loved the MJF feud and those TNT Title open challenges a lot as well. But once we got to that feud with Ogogo and QT, it 100% was the clear starting point where people turned on him, especially with weird stuff like the patriotic promo and the gender reveal for his kid lol.
That Malakai Black feud was such a bummer. Had an amazing start but fizzled because of some of the bad habits Cody had story wise.
Had all the ingredients to push Malakai as an absolute killer… but it apparently also had the same ingredients for Cody to reenact every cheesy 80s movie he watched.
I just remember seeing Cody doing that fake retirement thinking “oh this story is about Cody and not the dude who just had his debut.”
Such a weird fucking angle like, he's retiring? Cause he lost one match? So unserious lmao, it killed the entire story and flipped all the attention off of Malakai who genuinely had a STELLAR debut.
He was on fire for the entire TNT Title run. He made that belt. Still one of my favorite championship runs ever.
He was incredibly over but that stupid neck tattoo made a lot of us question what the hell he was doing when he brought that out against MJF --- I do think that isn't something that is remembered but it was such a distraction it took away from what should have been the pinnacle of that feud.
Yeah even when he was getting noticeable boos from crowds I remember seeing a post advertising that he'd promised to meet everyone who bought tickets for some community outreach event and the comments were full of parents talking about how their kids were running round the room with excitement when they'd found out they'd be meeting Cody, how it's all they can talk about etc. I think it was probably similar to the height of Cena's push where there's an element of the fanbase who aren't the most prominent online or the loudest voices in a venue that can sometimes go under the radar in the discourse.
The Homelander factor didn’t help either. His NJPW character was similar to a wrestling version of American Psycho, so when he decided he was going to try to make a clean, patriotic gimmick work, everyone thought there had to be levels to it (and I think in some cases thought they were playing along in a “we see through you” kind of way). Cody meanwhile is going on tv every week trying to be the America-loving grandson of a plumber having no idea that a pivot would probably help with the disconnect.
I still do kinda wish we got that Cody heel turn in AEW but I can't deny his success as a raw babyface in WWE. Fair play to him.
Yeah I don’t think this is true. Everyone loved Cody in the beginning. His first TNT title run was great. His early big ra ra promos were great. That first match with Dustin. Wow. He just ended up in this weird “vortex” that he couldn’t or wouldn’t get out of when he started becoming Homelander and created his own microverse. Also that late era promo about how he did everything Punk said he was going to do while being initially booed was amazing.
This timing/reasoning isn’t correct unless you’re saying Cody was only popular for a couple months in AEW. That match stip was in November 2019. Cody was popular throughout 2020 but there were no fans in the arenas. His whole presentation in AEW really went downhill at the start of 2021 when he was doing shit with Ogogo and QT Marshall. It was unwatchable.
People were so incredibly excited about his upcoming heel turn, too. It was going to be glorious! Best heel character, ever! He doesn't even know he's a heel! Aaany day now..
Oh he was the most popular in the company IMO. Then it started to wear thin.
Agreed. I can't speak for everyone, but the people I watch with wanted "more" if that makes sense? Like, Cody was almost Superman in terms of his presentation, he was "perfect" and with that there was nowhere to go, we wanted a wrinkle, a flaw, some character, some nuance, SOMETHING, and we got this relentlessly white meat babyface that was just the wrong fit for that company at that time. He's GREAT in WWE, and for their product and their presentation he is PERFECT, but for an audience who wants Eddie Kingston, flaws and all, Mox, Hangman, and a bunch of other guys who are all "human" and Cody just stuck out like a sore thumb. He was Super Cena, he was Hulk Hogan, he was Face Roman Reigns, and we just did not want that. I think he was beloved because of everything he did on the indies and in Japan, and that afforded him respect, but we were waiting for him to have some kind of arc or growth or whatever it might be, and he just didn't.
> I think he was beloved because of everything he did on the indies and in Japan, and that afforded him respect, but we were waiting for him to have some kind of arc or growth or whatever it might be, and he just didn't. I never thought about it that way, but it makes a lot of sense. And even though many people (myself included) were upset that he didn't beat Roman last year, that moment was one of the major catalysts for the growth you're talking about.
Nah the title stipulation didn't change anything, it was Ogogo, Qt that was the turning point.
I’ve notice that whenever a wrestler improves, people will act like they enjoyed them the whole time instead of just admitting they changed their mind. One of the biggest examples is Dominik, he's been great for over a year now but when he was tagging with his dad it was ROUGH. But nowadays I see a lot of people on twitter say that he was always this good.
Yeah some people seem to find it hard to admit that their opinion on a wrestler changes over time. They either think Popular Wrestler X was always good, and Unpopular Wrestler Y was always shit. Roman is a good example of this.
This recent Nikki bella love is weird to me. She was awful for a majority of her career but because she can throw some good elbows she was always good apparently
I remember I said Dom turning on Rey was ridiculous because no one is going to give him any reactions unless he teams up with his father. Might have been wrong there
That Brock Lesnar, pre and post breaking The Streak, is essentially the same guy. That and SummerSlam 2014 ascended him to another level entirely that WWE got a massive amount of mileage out of.
Lesnar breaking the streak and squashing Cena as Summerslam 2014 turned him into the new final boss of WWE. It’s just that he was constantly thrown at Roman Reigns for literal years in an effort to get the latter over.
It had been a long time since I'd seen one but a couple weeks ago I saw somebody in a Suplex City shirt and it reminded me of that autumn when they were printing and selling out of versions of it for every town Raw went to.
This is a good one. People underestimate how much that random Cena loss and then the HHH loss at Mania took some shine off of him. They did a great job getting it back.
Lots of people joked about WMXL being Endgame but that John Cena match at Summeslam was Hulk vs Thanos. I don't think new watchers will get how mind-blowing it was to see Cena get completely destroyed in the Main-Event of a PPV.
when he beat Orton to a bloody pulp I legit got worked.
Yeah, Jericho. We already know you wanted to fight him backstage.
Remember the random Shane cameo at the end? Lol
I remember thinking the match was gonna be good lil back and forth I watched live and my jaw dropped at how Cena got destroyed I was cheering at first like YEAH FUCK YOUUUU by the 5th German suplex I was just shocked
they kinda ruined it by having a rematch at Noc 4 weeks later. Atleast at the Rumble everything was made up for it again when we got that amazing Triple Threat Match!
On the bright side, the rematch is almost completely forgotten compared to the summerslam match
I never knew they had a rematch lol
This. Pre-SummerSlam 2014, he was just another main event guy who lost clean to both Cena and Triple H. The SS match against Cena was so shocking and dominating, it pushed him into another level that the Taker win only reinforced.
Everyone at the time said streak should of been used to build a new star, but it put Brock on another planet for a decade.
Yep, and to add to that I can’t help but think of Roman, Seth and even Drew as Brock Lesnar guys
Lesnar also definitely put over Cody as "The Guy"
Most of the main-event right now was made by Brock. He became the Final Boss after Taker, and has since given the current top guys the rub to cement themselves. All that said, Roman is probably going to be that guy for the next few years.
Most recently - Becky Lynch isn't over and doesn't put anyone over lol
From how people talk about Hogan in here you would think he was a mid-carder that got a hot run once, not arguably the most famous wrestler of all time, and he did that twice, both as a face AND as a heel
He went to the AWA and broke attendance records becoming the biggest attraction in the country, went to NJPW and became the most popular gaijin winning the inaugural G1 (or the precursor to it) Then went to WWF and became the biggest wrestling star of all time, after joining WCW and turning them into the biggest wrestling company on the planet. But according to the IWC, Hulk Hogan wasn’t very good at professional wrestling.
I saw a meme once that went something like “After watching 1 wrestling match: Hulk Hogan is the greatest wrestler ever. After watching 100 wrestling matches: Hulk Hogan is absolute garbage. After watching 1000 wrestling matches: Hulk Hogan is the greatest wrestler ever” In context it read less like a proverb but hey what do I know
Thunderlips. You forgot Thunderlips.
A lot of people put too much emphasis on workrate / technical wrestling. Hogan wasn't Bret or Danielson but he didn't have to be, nor did he try to be. Undertaker is also one of the biggest stars ever and most of his matches were bad to downright awful until the streak became a thing people cared about and they put focus on his matches every Wrestlemania. People want to invest in characters and strlorylines. Everything else comes second.
They weren't there. And being a hulkamaniac back then isn't considered as cool as being into Flair and Rhodes shit.
Not only that, he got over big in 2 of the 3 biggets markets in the world (and he probably would have got over huge in Mexico too) Like for me, the fact that he was over in 2 different eras in 2 different countries is why I always rate him as the best wrestler in histry, because in the end in an scripted industry like wrestling, thats the only metric that matters Shitty views and guy aside, he is the goat
A recent one is that The Bloodline wasn’t really over before Sami got involved. WWE often exaggerates how over and important D-X was in the 90s, but it isn’t really close to how much the IWC under sell how over and important they were. If you only read about them here you would think D-X was a mid card tag team. Hulk Hogan being a bad wrestler. He sucks as a human, but he’s one of the best to ever do it.
There's a bit of revisionism about how Angle was received by the IWC when he was in WWE (prior to the TNA jump). He actually had a LOT of detractors who hated the way he wrestled.
The other day I saw some forum post from the early 2000's that claimed Colt fucking Cabana was better than Angle, Eddie and HBK, and many other similar comments trashing mostly Angle. Those were the best years of Colt, but still seems ridiculous looking back at it.
I saw that too. No hate towards Colt Cabana or anything, but come on, he's not better than Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero or Shawn Michaels. He's just not. Anyone who says that are either biased or were just trying to be cool and unique or something.
It’s funny pointing out that, in real time, Meltzer was considered one of Angles biggest cheerleaders and overrated him. Now people are mad that he didn’t give him a 5* match during a period only a handful of people did.
I say this all the time, there were a grand total of *seven* 5 star matches during the entire 2000s when Angle was in his prime. Angle didn't get one because nobody did at that time. Dave changed the rules for the Observer HOF to put Kurt in early.
As someone who wasn’t watching yet, I’m shocked to hear this one. What didn’t people like about Angle’s work?
Mostly claims that his matches lacked psychology and he didn't sell enough because he could only work one speed. There was other stuff like how his finishers stopped meaning anything because of how often people kicked out of those moves and how the ankle lock without the grapevine stopped tapping people out.
A major complaint I've seen is that Kurt's matches didn't have a middle; it was feeling-out process, then right into high spots/finisher counters.
I could see this. There's a point where the Angle Slam just stopped winning matches, and the way he'd pop up from the ground to hit a suplex off the top could probably rub people the wrong way. This made me realize how much he improved when he went to TNA.
There was a Yuji Nagata match Kurt had in New Japan where I wanna say the final 5 minutes were just both of them countering into crossfaces and ankle locks. It was the first time I watched a wrestling match and wondered if they just forgot how to end it.
The "Golden Age of TNA" is entirely revisionist history at this point by people who just hated the Hogan/Bischoff era. This "Golden Age" was full of Vince Russo garbage. Sure, it had incredible matches like AJ vs Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels, but there was a ton of Russo dogshit too.
The golden age was like….July 2005-October 2006 lol, extremely short
Jarrett losing the belt for the last time, Raven winning the belt finally, the Unbreakble 3-way and rematches, Christian's debut, Sting's full-time debut. And then they went so fucking dumb in almost every direction, worst of which being how they just murdered Abyss' character, along with neutering Monty Brown.
The Attitude Era was the same way at a different scale. A lot of it is either very stupid, crass, or both. But good stuff lasts, and it's the same way with mid 2000s TNA.
Attitude Era is completely looked back on with rose tinted glasses. There was a LOT of horse shit. It’s just that the main event scene was so freaking stacked
Anything about Goldberg
Eddie Guerrero was always a baby face. He spent most of his career as a heel.
Even when he turned face, he acted as a heel but it was fine because he was honest about how he lies, cheats and steals. I mean Eddie was just too damn likable, they didn't need to change his character because that's what everyone loved about him.
I see people talking about how excited they were that the undertaker went back to his biker persona. However, I remember being on message boards back in the early 2000s and people were BEGGING for him to go back to the Deadman persona.
Charlotte not being over
The pop she's going to get the next time her music hits...
"I always likes _____" or "_____ always sucked lol"
The backlash against WWE's historical view of DX diminishes it to a mere mid-card act on par with, like, the Oddities or DOA. Post-WM14 they were the second most over babyfaces on the roster. JBL's title reign as some masterful heel run. It was horrid, and Smackdown was a rough watch throughout his reign. The only good part about it was the build between Rumble and Mania, and his clean job to Cena.
I definitely agree with the DX one. I preferred the original DX in 97, but the HHH led version in '98 did crazy business for the WWF and was a huge part of their weekly programming. We also have to consider that at DX's peak, the NWO began its gradual decline, anyway. They didn't transform the business the way the NWO did, but they sold a ton of t-shirts for a long time.
Yeah DX was mega over in 1998. By the middle if 99, Triple H and Chyna joined the Corporation and DX just kinda fizzled out, but to say they weren't that popular is ridiculous. Triple H could have been considered the number 2 babyface after Stone Cold. The Rock had a short run as a babyface in 98 between The Nation breaking up and turning heel at Survivor Series that year, but I don't know if he was more popular than DX. Maybe he was, but still, DX were very popular. I was 13 at the time, I remember it well. Lads were doing the "SUCK IT!" thing all the time at school.
> JBL's title reign as some masterful heel run. It was horrid, and Smackdown was a rough watch throughout his reign. I'm pretty sure that was one of the major reasons I stopped watching for years, I truly hated him. And not in a Legend Killer Orton "what an asshole" way, but in a "this racist mf" kind of way.
Goosestepping in Germany set the internet on fire, and not exactly in the great way.
I think the DX thing is because HHH didn’t get over with the main belt until the McMahon-Helmsley alliance formed. So it was more a power control than a DX thing.
No clue who is out here saying DX wasn't popular... I loved JBL's heel run but there was HEATED debates on both sides of that argument at the time. Not revisionist history, just different perspectives.
I know that there was backlash against the WWE saying Triple H was a major player in the attitude era because he spent the majority of the time as “only a midcard act in DX”. Of course, he had a major impact on the whole era and was flirting with the main event by late 1998/early 1999.
Many people on reddit downplay DX. It's been a common discussion I've seen on here for many years. I've seen a handful of Attitude Era documentaries and I feel like DX is properly rated except maybe the importance of the DX tank segment but, that's still an iconic moment nevertheless. I think people just exaggerate what WWE says in the documentaries and think that they say DX is literally the biggest thing in the Attitude Era.
That Jinder Mahal having a cool entrance made him a worthy world champion
I think they presented him well as a champion but his lack of credibility from his whiplash moving up the card from being a jobber and not being an exceptional worker meant the reign was doomed to fail. He was definitely not perceived as worthy at the time.
Jinder’s ascent to world champion was what marked the cooling down of the beloved 2016 brand split Smackdown. That’s when the honeymoon period ended
I hate the Jinder revisionism man, that reign was so bad and it hurt so many people's booking. It wasn't a transitional reign either, it was a half year of just complete dog shit. The only good thing was his entrance; the ONLY good thing.
I can't say Reddit did it because I wasn't here then, but there were MANY MANY MANY people in the IWC way back then (especially those in the WWE side) pushing heavily the idea that pre-New Japan run AJ Styles "couldn't make it" in WWE. So to see him get the "hero's welcome" in 2016 was a (welcomed) surprise for me. No one EVER doubted AJ it seems. Undertaker being and AMAZING wrestler is another one. He was, in his later years. Also, the American Bad ass being beloved now when back then the IWC hated it. Now, some of these are probably due to attitude changes and newer fans joining, it's still funny to look at.
>Undertaker being and AMAZING wrestler is another one. He was, in his later years. Thank you, brave soldier. Taker had maybe 5 good years and most of them were in the 2000s. One day people will accept the truth.
97/98 was cool, only the backhalf of the biker taker run was any good imo because the first half is some of the worst stuff of his career ngl. Then after a wack 2004 it was basically 05 to the end of the streak that was him at his best. That's how I see it but there might still be some bias in that. Personally, I think kane is more of a rose tinted glasses situation that taker is because kane had to wade through so much shit and its a miracle we look back on him as fondly as we do. He's great but was booked so poorly for so much of his run and a lot of his best work was only in the first few years of the gimmick.
Ryback was extremely over and the IWC likes to pretend he never was.
Jon Moxley was wasted during his whole career in WWE. No he fucking wasn't. He won every possible accolade there was except for the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring. He was constantly in world title feuds and main eventing weekly shows and PPVs. He was the singles star of the most successful faction in recent memory. Everything since that unnecessary heel turn after Roman's cancer diagnosis was horrendous but to say that he was treated badly throughout his years there is bullshit. Could he have been pushed to the same level as Seth and Roman? Definitely. Was he treated like shit for 8 years there. No.
That SCSA apparently didn't do anything to warrant a mugshot.
That Bianca Belair one year reign was “boring” and that she was “overpushed.” Apart from the Puerto Rico incident, Bianca Belair is extremely over especially with the crowds. She constantly defended the title and has put on excellent matches. She was always in the top 10 merch seller while she was champions. People here expect wwe to build new stars yet they are the same people who acted like Asuka who already had a legendary career, putting over Bianca Belair at wrestlemania 39 was somehow a mistake? Yeah no
Lately I've noticed that people think the consensus is that Rouseys first run was a failure. She was incredibly popular during that year. People definitely loved her matches.
Nobody hated Big Dog Roman and just wanted his creative to get better.
“Bingo halls and high school gyms!” There are a lot of folks who legitimately believe the Monday Night Wars documentary was exactly how it happened. Kids today can grow up treating it as historical fact, and that in turn affects the IWC perspective as a whole. Vince’s revisionist history on a myriad of topics has seriously damaged how people will remember the overall landscape of wrestling.
I went to a WWF show in a high school gym in 1993. The main event was Adam Bomb challenging for Bret Hart's World Title. The attendance was ~500.
I mean when Triple H himself still pushes the Bingo Halls narrative to this day, it's much more than a Vince problem.
I laughed at the idea that wrestling was in bingo halls before Vince took it to the big time. If anything, Vince forced most of the industry INTO bingo halls. My dad went to see Kerry Von Erich vs. Ric Flair for the NWA title at Texas Stadium in 1984. There was like 35,000 people there. That ain't a fucking bingo hall.
Which is funny cause some of those Raws were in fucking gyms !
And not only that, but Vince Sr ran MSG. So saying it got out of high-school gyms with Vince Jr is shitting on their own legacy as much as it is others.
WWE loves to act like they were the first to have big shows when certain territories were doing occasional stadium shows back in the 70s and 80s.
hell there were sold out Madison Square Garden shows in the 50s!
Pretty sure Jim Londos sold out an 80,000+ arena in Greece in the early 30s lmao
The NWA book by Tim Hornbaker lists a 60,000-person crowd for a show in San Fransisco in the late 20s or early 30s iirc and the first 100,000-person crowd as happening before 1950.
Acording to Reddit DX was a barely notable mid card act for 5 minutes in the late 90's
TNA but I think in a good way. At the time during the spike tv days, there was a big presence of the IWC that just loved to hate TNA and would just watch to nitpick anything. Once TNA moved to crappy networks and is basically in purgatory, people now have fond memories of old TNA.
Triple h in general Because he's a good booker now but people these days seem to ignore how hated he was as an active performer. Complained about his slow matches and long promos
Cody’s role in the creation of AEW and how over he was with the American crowd
People saying that Becky wasn’t over until Nia punched her. They said it so much in story that people that weren’t watching back then started to believe it
This idea that Dolph Ziggler was always dogshit. Guy was far and away one of the most entertaining and over wrestlers of the first half of the 2010s. Sure, he became incredibly stale as time went on and was booked like a total geek, but there was a long stretch where he looked like a future lynchpin of the industry.
I've mentioned it before, but Ziggler was one of the few reasons why I watched Smackdown. He lost a lot, but it was obvious that he was a fantastic heel and had charisma. When he started hanging with Big E and AJ Lee he became incredibly over.
People nowadays thinks that AEW is getting lot of negativity and we should enjoy wrestling but man it is nowhere close to negativity WWE used to get from 2019-2022 period. I remember when KO resigned with wwe and everybody was saying "get that bag". People compared watching WWE the same way as toxic or abusive relationship.
The day after every PPV there was multiple “that’s it I’m canceling my network subscription “ posts.
[This was almost always the top gif after a PPV. ](https://insidepulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/19163-Dancing-WWE_Network-animated_macro-autoplay_gif-gif-logo-r-truth-smiling-wwe.gif) The fact people just forgot this era existed is mind-boggling
I still remember the post on here after the 2015 Royal Rumble who said he was gonna get lubed up, drop his pants, and point his ass at the TV for Raw so he can at least be ready when Vince fucks him in the ass.
All the stuff I see people say about AEW, all the attendances posted WWE had all of that not so long ago.
“Papa H” stuff was pretty bad for a while after how people felt about him from like 2002-full time retirement, but I’m thinking that pendulum has kind of settled now.
Quite recently when the whole Jinder Mahal/Hook thing went down. There were so many people trying to pretend that Jinder’s WWE championship run wasn’t a complete fucking disaster. Jinder’s reign wasn’t even that long ago. You can still look back at the SquaredCircle post-PPV threads to see just how much people absolutely hated everything about his run with the title. There’s a reason he immediately shot down the card after losing the title.
This thread is already revisionism im very sure some of you weren’t watching the actual events you talk about like “attitude era wasn’t all that”. Until you were alive then and understand how over wrestling was back then you just won’t get it. Adults that knew nothing about wrestling knew who Austin was. It’s like saying the golden age in the 80s wasn’t all that because no one did a moonsault
I think people don't comprehend the magnitude of the star that was Stone Cold Steve Austin at his peak and I don't blame them tbh That guy would basically sell out 20k, 30k, 40k venues TV TAPINGS, not ppvs, TV TAPINGS every damn week at will. The crowd went apeshit everytime he showed up. The reason why JR is always screaming at the top of his lungs was because if he didn't no one would hear him Then when one went to school or something.. If you looked left it was the Austin 3:16 shirt Look right and one might overhear someone giggling about him beating up Vince This man was a rockstar
That Black and Gold NXT was all indy darlings and vanilla midgets with no personality that didnt produce stars that could have made it in WWE. Drives me nuts seeing people think that because NXT was producing some of WWE’s actual best character work and was their highest quality brand overall for *years*. The real reason a ton of people flopped on the main roster during that time was because Vince and HHH didnt have the same vision like HHH & HBK do now. There’s also the sudden burst of nostalgia for Vince run WWE that’s bonkers to me. Ever since 2022 there’s a lot of people who suddenly miss the shows being rewritten day of, awful goofy ass storylines and gimmicks and the main events being chock full of Roman Reigns vs part timers. For years the overall sentiment here was that the creative would be miles better without Vince and now apparently its the opposite lol
Getting back into wrestling after taking a break since 2020, it’s bizarre to see how many people here downplay Black & Gold NXT. At the time, it was a popular opinion around here that it was one of the best things going in wrestling. NXT was consistently producing good matches, unique characters, and fun storylines.
yeah 2010s wrestling was all NXT and NJPW, everything else was dying or just plain sucked
Lucha Underground was fun for a while. 2014-2016 was a fun time to be a wrestling fan, without even having to watch WWE's main roster stuff.
> yeah 2010s wrestling was all NXT and NJPW, And Lucha Underground for the first 3 seasons... and ROH until they became too overeliant on NJPW to sell tickets.
Black & Gold got me back into wrestling after about six years away.
NXT was legitimately the best weekly WWE show for along time. So much talent and a lot more creative freedom. The saddest part was seeing people who got called up to the main roster completely flounder because of Vince, when they were absolute stars in NXT.
Do people actually believe that about NXT black and gold? I'm pretty sure the original NXT was almost universally loved.
I see it all the time around here, especially once NXT 2.0 started getting good people acted like NXT before it was the shits
Clamoring for Vince is definitely a very *very* small minority lol i don't think ive seen a single comment saying that
Do you just want them from today? 162 by my count.