Professional Wrestlers

[caldonna]

Originally posted by Esoteric2112:

Originally posted by mmahorn:

Originally posted by Esoteric2112:
From what the guys used to say, Dusty Rhodes was one of the best bookers in the business.

Mike

I've heard just the opposite. His style of keeping the title because of a DQ was used so much that it became known as the "dusty finish".

Maybe I just hung out with Dusty's friends? ;-) And anyway the idea os keeping the title on a DQ became THE gimmick for heel wrestlers and still works today. It was very innovative and has become an industry standard. Care to weigh in caldonna? You have far more experience in this realm than I.

Mike

This post was edited on 5/13 12:22 PM by Esoteric2112

Actually, a "Dusty Finish" was letting the face go over at the arena, and letting the fans go home happy that they saw a title switch. Then, they turn on the tube on Saturday and discover that the decision had been reversed for whatever reason. It was effective to get heat on the champion and sympathy for the face, and it extended the program with everyone believing that the face could win the title if only he could get a break. The big payoff came with a blowoff match that was a gimmick, say a cage or no dq match. Where Dusty screwed up was that the heel would win, but not really conclusivley. It was more of a "face steps on a bannana peel" type of ending (my favorite example was that Lex Lugar suffered a cut during the big blowoff against Flair; since they were in Baltimore, the state athletic commisoion mandated all matches be stopped at first sight of blood, even though Lugar had Flair up in the rack at the time). After a while, it killed the title, and it killed interest because no one believed a face would win.

Had Rhodes tweeked it just enough that a face--say Nikita Koloff or Lugar--eventually won the belt, it would have put things right. You don't have to make it a long reign, either. You could let Flair regain the belt in some out of the way arena

Hey, the best ECW manager was Quintissential Studmuffin, Joel "So Big I couldn't help hurtin' her" Gertner.

Cg
This post was edited on 5/13 5:06 PM by caldonna

 

[Esoteric2112]

That is fascinating. For all the stories of the production side of things, I know very little about how wrestling actually works. I have heard lots of stories, but I never really talked to any of the bookers about what they did and why. That is the side of the business I find fascinating.

I do know we got really, really tired of JBL and his stupid limo entrance as champ. Talk about a pain in the a** for us on the production side. And we thought Mark's motorcycle was bad.

Mike

 

[mackryan08]

Originally posted by Esoteric2112:
That is fascinating. For all the stories of the production side of things, I know very little about how wrestling actually works. I have heard lots of stories, but I never really talked to any of the bookers about what they did and why. That is the side of the business I find fascinating.

I do know we got really, really tired of JBL and his stupid limo entrance as champ. Talk about a pain in the a** for us on the production side. And we thought Mark's motorcycle was bad.

Mike

Del Rio does the same thing with his Bently/Rolls Royce/Maserati every week. That's got to drive the production guys nuts.

 

[red river rat]

rear most of this thread very interesting stuff...

if you want to laugh a bit see if you can find the ole' roy mercer trank on bill goldberg...really funny...

 

[Esoteric2112]

Originally posted by mackryan08:

Originally posted by Esoteric2112:
That is fascinating. For all the stories of the production side of things, I know very little about how wrestling actually works. I have heard lots of stories, but I never really talked to any of the bookers about what they did and why. That is the side of the business I find fascinating.

I do know we got really, really tired of JBL and his stupid limo entrance as champ. Talk about a pain in the a** for us on the production side. And we thought Mark's motorcycle was bad.

Mike

Del Rio does the same thing with his Bently/Rolls Royce/Maserati every week. That's got to drive the production guys nuts.

Well, we only used half of the arena so the actual size of the limo wasn't that bad in that scale (we would roll the entire 19 semis that the show came in into the arena at once), but we had to build a huge backstage platform to have it on, a LONG ramp to get it up there, and then the driver (who was a stunt driver) had to drive it very carefully (once when the driver had a stomach bug, a local guy drove the car and drove the right front wheel off of the stage, did $15000 of damage). It was out there "in view" for about a minute, but it took an extra 8-10 stage hands and 2 hours or so to get it out there. What a pain.

Mike

 

[40acrefanatic]

I used to love when stone cold would drive a beer truck in

 

[fatfootball101]

Originally posted by 40acrefanatic:
I used to love when stone cold would drive a beer truck in

or Kurt Angle and the milk truck.

 

[Esoteric2112]

Originally posted by fatfootball101:

Originally posted by 40acrefanatic:
I used to love when stone cold would drive a beer truck in

or Kurt Angle and the milk truck.

N I G H T M A R E!!

Mike