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| Posted By | Discussion Topic: The Rock Cooks Up a Nice Batch of Shit | ||||
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| diceisgod I ALWAYS LOSE. | posted on 03-17-2002 @ 8:35 PM |    | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Dec. 01  | This guy is so over with already. All he does is spew the same crap over and over again, playing it up worse and worse as he goes along. His little Wrestlemania diatribe was the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. If ya SMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEELLLLLLL what I'm cookin. Ughhh!! Nobody fucks with Dice, Dice does the fuckin! | ||||
| Se7en | posted on 03-17-2002 @ 8:54 PM | | |||
| Psychopath Registered: Oct. 01 | I got this from a commentary done by Eric S. over at the 411 site. Normally I think Eric is a piece of shit scumbag, but on the subject of The Rock, I agree with him totally. When asked why he dislikes Rocky, he had this to say: ********* You have to remember one key fact when reading this: I do not hate Duane Johnson per se (with one of the few exceptions listed above). I liked the heel character known as "The Rock". My hatred is for the current face character that Duane Johnson plays on WWF television, the character I call Flex. Remember, the following are my judgements. I am thoroughly convinced of them, and no matter what alleged evidence you bring, my mind is made up. Better people have tried to convince me of the contrary and failed, so don't bother. 1) He hasn't improved as a wrestler since 1998: Flex has had one **** or better one-on-one match in his career, the Ladder Match with Trip at SS '98. Since his debut, he had been improving as an in-ring performer (although that isn't saying much considering the shabby quality of his matches). That progression continued until he started to get over as head of the Nation. At that point, he stopped and put his entire effort into improving his persona. His evolution as a wrestler hit a dead stop. Any innovation he brought to his game has been pale imitations of other people's moves (viz. the Sharpshooter), and he performs them horribly. He has also been carried by superior performers to the better matches he's had. He has zero ability to take inferior competition and elevate their in-ring performance. In other words, the broomstick would carry Flex if Flair allowed the broomstick to come out of retirement. 1a) The (yech) People's Elbow as a finisher: I don't mind goofy signature moves so long as they're not used as finishers. This is the same phenomenon that turned me against Scott Taylor and the Worm. "But," you say, "he always sets it up with the Rock Bottom!" The Rock Bottom is an uranage, for God's sake. For everyone else, that's a wear-down move, not a setup for a finisher (notice that Booker stopped using the Book End as a finisher because of its unrealism). It's not high-impact enough to make people lay down for the fifteen seconds that Flex requires to bounce around the ring to hit his shitty elbow drop. I don't care that it pops the crowd; it doesn't pop me, and that's all that matters. 1b) The World's Shittiest Sharpshooter: Bret made it look painful. Flex makes it look like mild discomfort. 1c) Inability to sell properly: Flex has two sell modes: no-sell and oversell. There are wrestlers whose personae allow them to no-sell on a frequent basis (UT, Kane, Hogan in the 80s). Flex's persona is not like that, yet he no-sells everything in sight constantly. When he does decide to sell something, it's done to such a ridiculous basis that it threatens to expose the business. It's not as bad as Hennig in his prime, but Hennig was at least entertaining when he did his oversell. 2) Complete lack of character evolution: I made a case in a column a couple years ago that the way out of wrestling's boom-and-bust cycles would be if wrestling started to follow the rules of entertainment, rather than trying to make Sports Entertainment into some kind of sui generis beast. Audiences are more comfortable with the familiar in this regard. Following the rules of entertainment means to create three-dimensional characters with realistic and understandable motivations for their actions. The WWF has done so in the cases of Steve Austin and Triple H, and somewhat in the cases of Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho (although Jericho did most of the work for this in WCW), and even Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley. And then there's Flex. He's a caricature, a one-dimensional walking id who has no rhyme or reason for his actions. Duane Johnson been performing this same act for over three years now, both as face and heel, and the character hasn't changed. Familiarity breeds contempt, and I became too familiar with the character right around Survivor Series 1999 for my own good. We know as much now about the character Johnson plays as we did back when he was running the Nation: nothing. What this means is that the WWF has no impetus to actually put in some work on making characters three-dimensional and realistic. They got Flex over without doing that, so why bother? This is impeding the growth of wrestling as a form of entertainment and stopping it from evolving to the next level. That's why I've always said that the WWF needs to get real writers experienced in drama involved rather than people experienced in comedy or soap operas. 2a) Same persona as face and heel: He's cutting the same damn promos that he did in 1999, using the same boring catchphrases (and he's usually reliant on them to get an audience reaction), and acting in the same way. The only difference is that he's now getting cheers instead of boos. In comparison, Austin made subtle adjustments to "What?" when he was turned back to being a face that made the catchphrase more appropriate to the ethos of the character. It's still repulsive, but the adjustments were made. Flex isn't even in the top five promoers in the WWF. If people would listen instead of just marking out over his appearances on-screen, maybe they'd realize that. 3) Flex the Heat Killer: Everyone who gets involved in a feud with Flex somehow has whatever heat they brought into that feud with them sucked dry. Booker is, of course, the best proof of this. The reason for this happening is that the WWF is neurotically protective of certain performers for fear that jobbing them at the wrong time would be fatal to the organization (Flex, Austin, and UT are at the head of this class). People bitched at me for comparing Flex to Hogan by saying that Flex, unlike Hogan, is willing to job. He jobs, true, but his jobs are calculated to never hurt him or his heat to any large extent. Therefore, he never jobs to someone who needs a rub to get over. Flex must not be allowed to show any sign of weakness, after all. I know what your counter-argument will be: Jericho and the Undisputed Title. Care to take a wider perspective? Jericho has been made to look so weak as champion that jobbing to him didn't hurt Flex's image one bit. The WWF can't see that losses would help broaden Flex's character and provide him with that realistic motivation for his actions that I was talking about earlier. This, of course, is in a world where the WWF would know how to do a negative push properly. Considering Christian's recent escapades, I have no confidence in that. 4) Flex is pushed down our throats: His amount of camera time is ridiculous. He's already over, so why not spend a little more of his allotted promo slots on performers who need it more? His presence may be a road block toward elevation of other performers who, arguably, deserve it far more than he does. That list is very large, and includes everyone from Edge and Regal to Storm and (when he comes back) Benoit. The only competition that he's received for the WWF's Camera Hog award has only come in the last year, and that's Steph. That's just some of the reasons, as I said. But there's enough there to give you a good overview on why I consider him to be a detriment. He's the most prominent symptom of a chronic illness: the way the WWF, post-Russo, approaches its own booking. Hatred of Flex is actually an indication of your feelings toward that. If you're content with the way the WWF does things, you probably like him. If you, like me, think that the WWF is following a path that will lead to its own long-term ghettoization and stagnation of wrestling as a whole, you hate him.  "Being a bastard WORKS." --Spider Jerusalem | ||||
| rageparty 123...Not so bare anymore since I got a number underneath my name again I also have an imaginary girlfriend. | posted on 03-17-2002 @ 9:22 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Aug. 01 | I fucking hate the Rock as much as you do too. And once he beats Hogan, all we'll hear is how great he is. How is the Rock so great if Austin has beaten him 2 times at Mania? Blue Chipper Rocky Maivia sucks shit. | ||||
| OAAWITE | posted on 03-17-2002 @ 10:06 PM | | |||
| Hanger-On Registered: Jan. 70 | quote: This just might be a guess out of left field, but I'd venture to say that the reason was probably becuase it was scripted that way.  New Poster with a question? Reach me through ICQ Remembering; YellowDiscipline | ||||
| Bloody Anus P.L.F. Portugese Liberation Front- Liberating Status' everywhere from the Tyranny of Portugal HYBRID THINKS I'M A GENIUS | posted on 03-17-2002 @ 10:47 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Jul. 00 | quote: Anyone else remember the Maivia Hurricane? That was the only worthwhile thing he's ever done. That and making an ass of himself on O&A. That was fun.
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| JackDan1974 | posted on 03-18-2002 @ 12:18 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Jul. 01 | I hate him.. YAHOO sucks big donkey dick becasue none of my sig pics are working. | ||||
Displaying 1-6 of 6 messages in this thread. |