Strummer Posted February 24, 2007 Report Share Posted February 24, 2007 I was thinking about the "time honored tradition" of a wrestler leaving a territory or promotion being "jobbed out" and whether the jobbing hurt their debut/initial run in a new territory/promotion. Meaning if a guy was buried so badly on the way out that it really affected how much they were over in the new territory. The first name that popped into my head was Rick Steamboat in 1989. He was treated so poorly his last year in WWE, including doing a humiliating job to HTM and getting squashed by Kamala and the like around the circuit, that you have to believe that it was a factor in the Flair/Steamboat program not drawing that well and Ricky struggling to get over as a big babyface. That may be a stretch but you can make the case he never recovered from that job to Honky Tonk Man ( I know there was big gap between Ricky leaving the WWF and joining the NWA but I still think the point stands.) JYD was buried by Watts on the way out. Don't know if that really hurt his WWF run as a result though. Any examples? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted February 24, 2007 Report Share Posted February 24, 2007 I always thought the problem with Ricky was that the "family man babyface" schtick wasn't getting him over. It was supposed to be Family Ricky vs Ric Flair the playa, but Flair ended up more of the face in the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted February 24, 2007 Report Share Posted February 24, 2007 Steamboat didn't really job on the way out. 03/05/85 - Steamboat debuts in WWF 06/02/87 - Steamboat vs. HTM (airs 06/13/87) 06/22/87 - Steamboat stops touring regularly for the WWF 07/25/87 - Steamboat vs. HTM in MSG (18,100) 08/22/87 - Steamboat vs. HTM in MSG (18,000) These were surprisingly strong crowds for MSG that year. Perhaps summertime had an impact with more kids being able to go, but I've never paid attention to seasonal drawing. The credit went to Steamer-HTM, as even without a national angle to hype those matches that local promos did the trick. Ricky came back to work more often leading into Survivors, and then for the balance of the year. He wasn't getting beat on TV. 01/24/88 - Steamboat vs. Rude at 1988 Royal Rumble 01/26/88 - Steamboat vs. Rude rematch (aired 02/06/88) Steamer didn't job in either of those. Feuded with primarily with Rude and Bravo with a few matches against HTM through Mania 03/27/88 - Steamboat vs. Valentine at 1988 Wrestlemania He had been scheduled to face Valentine in post Mania matches, but quite the promotion. He did job to Valentine, but it wasn't the case of going around the horn to lose. Even the loss there seemed spur of the moment rather than trying to bury Ricky. He was out a full year. Showed up in NWA in Jan/Feb 1989. Left in the summer. He was out a year and a half, though he did some local work in Mid Atlantic. 02/16/91 - fire breathing Dragon vignettes start airing in the WWF 10/18/91 - final match in WWF 11/19/91 - back in WCW for Steamboat & Rhodes vs. Anderson & Zbyszko I don't think how he went out of the WWF had much of anything to do with how Ricky drew in the NWA. More likely a variety of things: * as sek69 points out, NWA fans didn't really take to Ricky as a face with his Family Guy persona It didn't help. I don't think it was the only thing, but it didn't help. * a general anti-WWF vibe among Crockett/Turner NWA/WCW of the era Not to say that they hated all things WWF, but they seemed to care for their "own" guys and storylines more than folks from the WWF heading in. Flair-Luger in 1988 and Flair-Funk in 1989 did some strong box office for the promotion relative to other things they were putting on. Flair-Sting in early 1988 did do as well, but it almost was a life saver considering how poorly Crockett closed 1988 and opened 1989. They all had good storylines that helped, but Flair-Steamer had a good storyline as well. There were some WWF guys who came in and did well... again "relative" for a promotion that was horrible at the box office for most of 1988-95. Rude did decent. * What was touched on above - Crockett/Turner NWA/WCW box office in the era was horrid John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted February 24, 2007 Report Share Posted February 24, 2007 I'm honored jdw would confuse me with Loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted February 24, 2007 Report Share Posted February 24, 2007 Fixed. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 I think Vader was hurt pretty badly by the infamous Hogan powerbomb no sell, but also by the Orndorff backstage incident, which is one of the first "shoot" events I remember seeping into non-smark circles with regularity (I believe PWI covered it actually). Not the same thing as jobbing on the way out really, but it still seems somewhat relevant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted February 26, 2007 Report Share Posted February 26, 2007 I think he was hurt more by "jobbing in". As in how the WWF used him. I saw five of Vader's first six matches in the WWF live in the buildings: Rumble Mania vs. Yoko (Raw after Mania) vs. Fatu (Raw after Mania) vs. Taker (Raw after Mania) The sixth was: vs. Savio (Raw after Rumble) Which was live on TV rather than taped, edited and tinkered around with sweatening and whatnot. Vader was over like hell at the start of *every* match. This is with WWF crowds. They knew who he was. They'd seen him go through the Hogan feud. If they knew about the Orndorff thing, they didn't care. He was over like hell and they were super interested in seeing him in the WWF. Any changes in how over he was happened "as things went along" in the matches or shows. At the Rumble, he was over tossing out a fair number of people. But then he got bogged down with another even bigger guy - Yoko. And then Shawn eliminated both of them. To a degree he was put into a no-win spot - Shawn was going to win the Rumble, which means he was going to get eliminated. Then again, even seen a Big Man put into the match, elminated lots of people, and get out of it more over. That was happening here, but the decision to put him opposite of Yoko was a mistake. At Raw, he squashed Vega and then did the angle squashing Monsoon which got him suspended (for the shoulder surgery). He actually was over very strong there and after the angle. Good stuff. He was over coming out at Mania, but got stuck in a 13+ minute six man tag. He won, but the length and the fact it wasn't a single sucked some heat from him. The next night at Raw, he taped the angle "breaking" Yoko's legs which got him over. He was *super* over in the match with Savio, to the point when he went up for the Vader Bomb, a large chunk of fans who knew him from WCW were pointing upward, he paused, then went up from the second to the top rope and hit the moonsault. The crowd went freaking bonkers seeing the big fellow do that. On TV the crowd noise was edited into boos. The WWF of the era still had the mindset of freaking out when heels had fans or did anything cool, and it was far too early in the run to have Vader go face. Then later in the show they sent Vader out to job to Taker. Which sucked Vader's heat right out of the building. *That* crowd of fans would never look at him the same in the WWF. It was also after this match where Taker told Vader that if he ever worked that stiff with him again, Taker would go to Vince and get him fired. And it wasn't like Vader worked very stiff with him. Vader jobbed again the following night in San Diego to Taker. You can look up his results from there until he got booked into the feud with Shawn later in the year (July IYH leading into SummerSlam), and then coming out of it. He jobbed a surprising amount to Taker, Yoko and even Ahmed Johnson. And then, other than the initial pin over Shawn in the IYH six man tag, Vader jobbed around the horn to Shawn. Hell, he even jobbed to Shawn at SummerSlam. The WWF booked Vader to fail. They were sort of the mindset that what happened at house shows didn't matter. One of the problems is that house show business was on the upswing at the time, while PPVs in general were on the decline (IYH and overexposure didn't help at that point, and wouldn't come around until 1998 with Austin). The WWF was drawing it's *core* fans to house shows and PPV at that time, rather than the earlier and later fanbase that was expanded to include more mainstream fans. So many of these fans were the same ones who saw Vader jobbing around the horn. Pretty much a blown opportunity. He could have been a very strong drawing heel in the WWF if used better. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resident Evil Posted February 26, 2007 Report Share Posted February 26, 2007 I always thought the atmosphere in the WWF hurt Vader as well. He was just more at home in the atmosphere of the WCW. wp -- has to put "the" in front of WCW now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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