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Ed Leslie post having his face caved in


Judy Bagwell

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is this one of the worst runs ever? I tolerated his work before the parasailing incident but when he came back everything was just one steaming pile of crap after another

which was his worst gimmick? is there a worst big PPV championship match than him vs Hogan at Starrcade 94? how long did it take you to work out it was him as the Disciple?

anyone ever encounter the man in the flesh? he has a horrible reputation form what Ive gleaned online

Terry doesnt even return his calls now

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I remember watching a clip from an Ed Leslie shoot where he blamed Patterson for the Barber gimmick (saying it was a sick joke, or something) and stopping him from getting over. Is there any truth to that? It sounds like shit to me, since Leslie had a few stinky gimmicks even before he became the Barber, if I recall correctly.

 

Also, there are two years of Starrcade I refuse to ever watch: 1994 and 1997. As for the latter I just don't want to subject myself to the finish (which, apparently, made Sting and Bret, my all-time favourite, look like chumps). But it's the former that I refuse to watch out of principle.

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Why is Ed Leslie so hated?

 

The Barber gimmick was super over, even if Leslie shit on it later like complete idiot and buffoon.

 

In WCW, he got bad gimmick after bad gimmick after bad gimmick, but that's nothing new for them. You can also include Ray Traylor, John Tenta, Fred Ottoman, and many others in the same category. WCW was woefully inept - creative and otherwise.

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the backlash against him seemed to really crank into gear once he returned from the parasailing incident. I have vague memories of him giving an emotional comeback promo where he was booed

The WM9 tag match lead in felt rushed and the match itself was horrible with beefer wearing that shitty face protector, did he do anything in the Fed afterwards before leaving ?

Its hilarious that he rips on the Barber gimmick as that was his best by far and a lot of WWF late 80s kids will have fond memories of his run as the Barber

Im still pissed he ended Curts streak

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I remember watching a clip from an Ed Leslie shoot where he blamed Patterson for the Barber gimmick (saying it was a sick joke, or something) and stopping him from getting over. Is there any truth to that? It sounds like shit to me, since Leslie had a few stinky gimmicks even before he became the Barber, if I recall correctly.

 

Also, there are two years of Starrcade I refuse to ever watch: 1994 and 1997. As for the latter I just don't want to subject myself to the finish (which, apparently, made Sting and Bret, my all-time favourite, look like chumps). But it's the former that I refuse to watch out of principle.

If he really thought the Barber gimmick "stopped him from getting over" then he's a complete idiot because that's pretty much the only reason he ever WAS over. There is really nothing even wrong with the gimmick, especially since they had him cut enough people's hair (even if mostly jobbers after squash matches) that there was always at least the possibility of him cutting the hair of whatever heel he was feuding with.

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I remember watching a clip from an Ed Leslie shoot where he blamed Patterson for the Barber gimmick (saying it was a sick joke, or something) and stopping him from getting over. Is there any truth to that? It sounds like shit to me, since Leslie had a few stinky gimmicks even before he became the Barber, if I recall correctly.

 

Also, there are two years of Starrcade I refuse to ever watch: 1994 and 1997. As for the latter I just don't want to subject myself to the finish (which, apparently, made Sting and Bret, my all-time favourite, look like chumps). But it's the former that I refuse to watch out of principle.

If he really thought the Barber gimmick "stopped him from getting over" then he's a complete idiot because that's pretty much the only reason he ever WAS over. There is really nothing even wrong with the gimmick, especially since they had him cut enough people's hair (even if mostly jobbers after squash matches) that there was always at least the possibility of him cutting the hair of whatever heel he was feuding with.

 

According to him that was all Hogan and not part of the original idea. He also sounds loooaded in the clip C.S. posted

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Why is Ed Leslie so hated?

 

Hogan's buddy and a genuinely bad worker, with plenty of awful gimmicks as mentioned. should be easy to see how that would do it!

 

i'm in the camp that thinks he was approaching "decent" in early 1990 or thereabouts...he at least seemed more motivated. that disappeared for good after the accident though, and his 1993 comeback was especially brutal; Judy Bagwell's memory is correct on that promo, as he was going for sympathy but came off so poorly that someone in the crowd shouted "KILL YOURSELF!"

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Why is Ed Leslie so hated?

 

Hogan's buddy and a genuinely bad worker, with plenty of awful gimmicks as mentioned. should be easy to see how that would do it!

 

i'm in the camp that thinks he was approaching "decent" in early 1990 or thereabouts...he at least seemed more motivated. that disappeared for good after the accident though, and his 1993 comeback was especially brutal; Judy Bagwell's memory is correct on that promo, as he was going for sympathy but came off so poorly that someone in the crowd shouted "KILL YOURSELF!"

 

 

Well, yeah, he was shit after the accident. But if one of the "darling" wrestlers was shit after an accident, injury, etc., everyone would still view their earlier contributions more positively.

 

Brutus had a good few-year run with the Barber gimmick, even if he's too much of a butthead to realize what that did for his career. He was okay in the ring, very over, and had a good gimmick for the time and fed he was in.

 

I know people resent the hell out of him for main eventing Starrcade in '94 or whenever it was, but count me as someone who liked the heel turn (was a genuine shocker, if nothing else) and thought the match could be fun. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a "dream match" but at least there was history between them. Obviously, the match sucked (or so I hear), but at least it was a real stab at a main event and feud. That, to me, is better than the random crap WCW had been doing with Starrcade in the '90s - Battlebowl before that and some weird NJPW tourney after that, when none of the audience had been educated about any of those guys.

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as bad as the 94 Starrcade main event was and as much as it hurt to see Ed given that slot, the Uncensored 96 match between him and DDP was far worse. Watching Page endure 17 minutes of wrestling hell, trying to drag a match out of the f##king Booty man is hell on earth, then to make things worse Kimberley lets him stick his greasy tongue down her throat

Then in further trolling he hands rubber frying pans to Hulk and Savage so they can defeat 100 heels in a 50 foot cage

I hate the man

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Well, yeah, he was shit after the accident. But if one of the "darling" wrestlers was shit after an accident, injury, etc., everyone would still view their earlier contributions more positively.

What positive contributions? Aside from having a goofy gimmick which got real over with the toddler demographic, Beefcake's very best work could be characterized as "eh, that didn't suck as hard as I feared it would". It's hard to be a darling when you've never done anything worth being darl'ed for.

 

 

I know people resent the hell out of him for main eventing Starrcade in '94 or whenever it was, but count me as someone who liked the heel turn (was a genuine shocker, if nothing else) and thought the match could be fun. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a "dream match" but at least there was history between them. Obviously, the match sucked (or so I hear), but at least it was a real stab at a main event and feud. That, to me, is better than the random crap WCW had been doing with Starrcade in the '90s - Battlebowl before that and some weird NJPW tourney after that, when none of the audience had been educated about any of those guys.

The problem is, Beefcake was a huge letdown compared to what WCW fans had come to expect. Even at its weakest points, WCW fans viewed their product as a much more workrate-heavy product than the WWF's cartoonish showmanship. But then Hogan came in, hogged the spotlight in an unprecedented manner with the most ridiculously overblown push of his career, and even dragged in a bunch of his older-every-day buddies to fill up the card as aging novelty acts. WCW went from their top heels being Vader and Flair to, well, Brutus fucking Beefcake in the span of less than a year. Hell yeah it was badly received, of course, why wouldn't it be?
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What positive contributions? Aside from having a goofy gimmick which got real over with the toddler demographic, Beefcake's very best work could be characterized as "eh, that didn't suck as hard as I feared it would". It's hard to be a darling when you've never done anything worth being darl'ed for.

It was a fun midcard gimmick and he was over. Nothing more, nothing less. But people retroactively act like it completely sucked. It was fine for what it was and what the WWF was at the time.

 

The problem is, Beefcake was a huge letdown compared to what WCW fans had come to expect. Even at its weakest points, WCW fans viewed their product as a much more workrate-heavy product than the WWF's cartoonish showmanship. But then Hogan came in, hogged the spotlight in an unprecedented manner with the most ridiculously overblown push of his career, and even dragged in a bunch of his older-every-day buddies to fill up the card as aging novelty acts. WCW went from their top heels being Vader and Flair to, well, Brutus fucking Beefcake in the span of less than a year. Hell yeah it was badly received, of course, why wouldn't it be?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I have no fondness for the pre-nWo Hogan era of WCW. It was atrocious. I'm just saying, an actual singles match and feud was preferable to some of the random shit WCW did before and tried after. Battlebowl was okay but not fitting for what was supposed to be the biggest PPV of the year for WCW. And as much as I like the NJPW workers, Starrcade '95 wasn't ever going to get too many people ordering it on PPV because WCW never bothered to educate anyone about most of the NJPW guys.

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the thing is that Starrcade wasn't *always* supposed to be the biggest PPV of the year. that was something they went back & forth on, we've talked about this before.

 

at one point it was supposed to be Superbrawl, because of how close it was to Wrestlemania. think of '92, where it was headlined by Sting winning the world title from heel Luger. or '93 with the Sting-Vader strap match!

 

when Bischoff took charge, he wanted Halloween Havoc to be that show. the main events for '94-'96 all bear this out: Hogan-Flair retirement match in a cage, Hogan-Giant with the monster truck wackiness, Hogan-Savage.

 

tl;dr Starrcade was only "the granddaddy of them all" for the first few years and from '97 to the end

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Why is Ed Leslie so hated?

 

Hogan's buddy and a genuinely bad worker, with plenty of awful gimmicks as mentioned. should be easy to see how that would do it!

 

i'm in the camp that thinks he was approaching "decent" in early 1990 or thereabouts...he at least seemed more motivated. that disappeared for good after the accident though, and his 1993 comeback was especially brutal; Judy Bagwell's memory is correct on that promo, as he was going for sympathy but came off so poorly that someone in the crowd shouted "KILL YOURSELF!"

 

I think he was fairly average inring with bouts of above average at points in 1989. I would say there are no points where he stands out as particularly bad in the sea of crap that was 1980s WWF. He absolutely sucked post injury.

 

I think if people went back and actually watched the Dream Team or his 1989 run they would have a generally better opinion of him.

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