Fifth Avenue Forum

I don't know if Vince was ever a masterful character maker. His biggest stars of the 80s and early 90s were created elsewhere. When Vince raided the territories, the wrestlers took their characters with them. Even Hulkamania started in the AWA. Once Hogan left, the company nearly folded because Vince failed to create a new megastar. I'm the biggest Bret mark there is but he was nowhere near Hogan's level of popularity. The only thing that saved WWF was the Attitude Era. The two biggest stars of that era were Austin, who came up with Stone Cold on his own after being saddled with the Ringmaster gimmick, and Rock, who came up with The Rock on his own after being saddled with Rocky Maivia. Let's not forget WWF wanted to name Stone Cold Chilly McFreeze or Otto von Ruthless.

That's not to say that there haven't been 100% WWE created characters. Undertaker, Million Dollar Man, Kane off the top of my head. But most of the time it's less Kane and more Isaac Yankem, DDS.

I think he's had a few solid ones. Ultimate Warrior, The Brood, The Shield, New Day (after a few changes), Bray's characters/Faction, Goldust. Basically I do give them creation rights or assists, if these people can't use that character outside of the WWE.

But yes - for every successful one, there's 5-20 failures lol, but I suspect that's really no different anywhere.

Warrior's character was already established before he came to WWF. He had the entrance (minus the song) and the look. The only thing Vince did was made the smart choice to change that stupid "Dingo Warrior" name. Gangrel was doing the vampire gimmick prior to WWF though Vince did add Edge and Christian. The entrance is really what made them and yeah Vince should get credit for that. Those modern ones you mentioned are solid too. Bray Wyatt is probably the best character they created in the last 10 years and look at how they treated him.

Given that I just read the Shield chapters in Moxley's book, the only credit that can be given to Vince for the Shield is that he nixed the masks they wanted them to wear originally.

Wtf.

Yeah, just read that. Awful.

People are mad at Seth Rollins for calling that black dude "boy"

I mean his adrenaline was going. Still, when "boy" is the first insult that comes to mind it's not really a great look. Mother **** is much more acceptable.

Now this is some good ****.

I realized I never commented on Full Gear. The title match had my wife and I on the edge of the couch. Fantastic show.

Now this is some good ****.

Great great stuff.

just realized there hasn't been a post here in almost two weeks.

I saw the video of him at the house show when he tagged out, exited the ring, went over the barricade into the fans, and just walked off. Kind of figured something was up. How many opportunities has Jeff Hardy had and wasted?

I hope this isn't another situation like Angle where the WWE wanted him to get help, he refused so they fired him, and then he showed up on TNA and just kept getting worse. Get the help, Jeff. Then show up in AEW and have one last tag run with your brother.

Supposedly he did refuse help/rehab and that was when he was released.

Really unfortunate.

Hope he gets his act together. Would love to see a last hurrah of the Hardy but only if he deals with his issues.

A few thoughts after catching up on Rampage...

If I never see The Bunny or Penelope Ford again, it will be too soon. I don't like their work in the ring, and they are annoying overall (I realize the latter may be intentional). Add in Vicky Guerrero screeching non-stop throughout the match and you have a recipe for fast forwarding.

The women's division is very top heavy and has some up and coming talent that is still pretty green. If I'm TK, I'm looking hard at some of those WWE layoffs to improve here.

I like FTR. I like the Lucha Bros. I don't need to ever see them wrestle each other again, however. Their styles don't work together for me. FTR has to basically just stand around and act like geeks for The Lucha Bros to get a lot of their stuff in. It looks really fake.

It looks like FTR will be taking on Sting and Darby next, that should work better I think.

Winter Is Coming this Wednesday... Last year saw the debut of Sting. Not sure if they will have any big ones planned for this year, but looking forward to some of the matches quite a bit... Notably MJF v Dante Martin and of course Danielson v Page.

You said “top heavy.”

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts ... g-aew?s=09

Oh man...

**** that was a hard read.

That was a real hard read. I glossed over it until the part where it started talking about his death. Absolutely brutal, and hard to not get emotional, especially thinking of my own kids. That being said, TPT knocks it out of the park when it comes to putting out content like this.

sections 26 and 27... wow.

That is a tough read.

I don't have kids, and I was in tears towards the end.

“Why won’t you answer me?”

What got me was everybody coming together to do anything they could to make it easier on her and her children. Jericho immediately letting Brodie fly on his private flight to Dynamite, the whole AEW crew watching over this kid and making sure he's having a good time and is safe while he's at Dynamite on his own, Kenny filming a segment after the show where Brodie beat him for the title, and of course Big E and Cody being there when Amanda told her children about their father. I can't imagine how hard that was for everybody.