Forgotten Favorites 07.06.10: Breakdown 1998 – Owen Hart vs. Edge

Welcome back, wrestling fans. In a summer where the Orioles have robbed me of all joy and satisfaction in my life, I am thankful that I have the sweet consolation of Forgotten Favorites to keep me from ending it all. Come, friends, and join me, as we embark on a journey where we can forget about what it’s like to be constantly disappointed by the worst team in baseball.

A hot topic the past couple of weeks within the IWC has been Martha Hart’s most recent battles with Vince McMahon and the WWE. The word on the street is that Owen’s widow doesn’t want her deceased husband showing up in any way, shape, or form on any kind of wrestling programming. Well, readers, today we’re going to pick this whole thing apart as we take a look at one of Owen’s least talked about matches.

In a year of stellar PPVs, Breakdown ’98 was one of the WWE’s only missteps. Aside from a Cage match that was once featured right here on Forgotten Favorites, the event didn’t feature a whole lot of must-see-wrestling. That is, except for the opening contest between two of the E’s young Canadian performers.

There was zero build to this unannounced PPV opener, so we’re going to just jump right into the match and then follow it up with some discussion. You guys be sure to sound off down in the comment section and throw your thoughts into the conversation. Agree or disagree; let’s hear it!

So yeah … who wants great wrestling?

Breakdown – September 27, 1998
Owen Hart vs. Edge

WHY IT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED

To mark the tenth anniversary of the release of the groundbreaking and generation-shaping album Nevermind, September 2001 was at one time set to see the release of a box set of previously unreleased material recorded by Nirvana. Since lead singer Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994, the band had released two live albums to both critical and commercial success, with both Unplugged in New York and From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah going to number one on the US charts. Surviving band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl had planned the box set to be a “wonderful gift” to all Nirvana fans, ensuring and protecting the band’s legacy while giving the diehard still-rabid fanbase something meaty to sink their teeth into.

However, release of any Nirvana material (at least at this time) was determined by three parties: Novoselic, Grohl, and the estate of the deceased Cobain, represented by the singer’s widow, Courtney Love. While initially agreeing to the terms of the box set’s release, Love eventually changed her tune and objected on the terms that she believed the box set which Grohl and Novoselic were preparing actually served to damage the legacy and reputation of Nirvana. Lawsuits and countersuits were filed left and right, and in the midst of everything, Grohl and Novoselic released “An Open Letter to Nirvana Fans” that stated their position in the legal battle and argued their case.

A few of the open letter’s particular tasty tidbits — which wrestling fans may find strangely relevant to current events — read as follows: “Courtney claims that her lawsuit is concerned with the proper management and revitalization of Kurt’s legacy. In truth, her actions are only about the revitalization of her career motivated solely by her blind self-interest. She couldn’t care less about Nirvana fans. She is using Nirvana’s music as a bargaining chip to increase leverage for her personal gain, without any regard for the Nirvana legacy. Our music is just a pawn in her endless legal battles and her obsessive need for publicity and attention.”

Sound anything like 411’s comment section the last couple of weeks?

While the Nirvana debacle was certainly a messy situation, a tangled web of legal complications, the current saga of Owen Hart’s name and legacy has proven to be even more mind-boggling. In the case of Nirvana, you had two surviving band members duking it out with their fallen friend’s widow over the rights to material that only two out of the three had any hand in creating. But in the case of Owen Hart, you’ve got a widow going up against her deceased husband’s former employer, a public corporation that, while technically only having paid Owen as an independent contractor, essentially owns the rights to all the footage of Owen inside a WWE ring. Courtney Love and Owen’s widow Martha are granted legal power over the protection of their husbands’ names and reputations, but in both cases the men’s legacies are all tangled up in the affairs and legacies of other individuals. Nirvana’s legacy is not just Kurt Cobain’s, but Krist Novoselic’s and Dave Grohl’s as well. This isn’t too different from Owen’s legacy being more than just his own, being a part of the legacy of guys like his brother Bret, Davey Boy, and the countless others that Owen worked with in his career.

You can’t have talk about the new Hart Foundation without talking about Owen.

Case in point: Edge. Since his WWE debut in June of 1998, the man who made his name as the Rated R Superstar has become one of the most successful wrestlers of the modern era, winning nine World Championships and main eventing multiple WrestleManias. But once upon a time, Edge was nothing more than a halfway Raven-knockoff, a guy who was only moderately over and basically only with the female demographic and basically only because he had long hair. He had the tools necessary to make it to the big stage, but at this point he was entering another phase of his career, that being proving whether or not he had what it took to stay on the big stage. Edge’s schooling and evolution in front of the camera came much the same way that all other young grapplers hone their craft and elevate their game; he learned from working with the veterans and ring generals that already had years of experience under their belt.

Breakdown 1998 saw the Canadian rookie lock up with one such experienced ring vet in what was easily the biggest match of Edge’s career to that point. One month earlier, Edge had made his PPV debut as the tag team partner to the insanely over Sable in her battle against Jacqueline and the man retired by Baltimore’s legendary Duane Gill, Marvelous Marc Mero. Breakdown, however, was another story, in that it was the first PPV of many in which Edge would step into the ring for singles competition. And while Owen was the one who came out with one in the win column, it was Edge who benefited the most from this encounter, showcasing his ability to hang on PPV and go move-for-move with a guy who had won nearly every championship in the WWE. It was Edge’s first major singles outing and it was a performance that he can, to this day, look back on and still be proud of.

Or can he? If Martha Hart has her way — which, based on all online reports, seems to be a desire for a Benoit-like erasure of Owen from the WWE history books — Edge’s first big singles match would cease to exist within the E’s history. Marth’s intentions may be to protect the name of her husband — according to her, at least — but in the process she is risking doing very serious damage to the legacies of Owen’s peers, her wishes basically being a cancelling out of all the good that her husband did for the careers and lives of his fellow performers. One man does not a wrestling match make. It was Owen and Bret who both made WrestleMania X so special. It was Owen and Davey Boy who both brought prestige to the Tag Team Titles. Just as Kurt Cobain’s legacy is inseparable from his bandmates’, so too is the legacy of Owen Hart forever linked to all of the gifted athletes that he stepped into the ring with.

WrestleMania X is Owen’s legacy, but it belongs to Bret too.

I have never met Martha Hart, and I would never pretend to know the extreme hardship of losing a spouse, but from the standpoint of a wrestling fan it seems that her wishes are self-defeating. She says that she is only looking out for the best interests of Owen’s memory, yet she seems to ignore the fact that her husband’s memory is already greatly revered and cherished by all those who saw him perform. I’ve been reading the dirtsheets for well over a decade, watched more “shoot” videos than I can count, and kept up with the ever-evolving opinions of the IWC on forums and message boards. In all my time as a wrestling fan, there is one thing that has always remained constant: Both wrestlers and wrestling fans alike have an unlimited amount of respect for Owen Hart. There is an endless list of performers who’ve been trashed or “shoot on” by fellow wrestlers, from Austin to Michaels to Bret; and yet, I can’t recall a single instance of reading about Owen being difficult to work with, refusing to put people over, or engaging in any of the other ego-driven childish antics that find their way into pro wrestling. The “Raw Is Owen” special that aired the night after his death is a testament to how well-respected Owen really was among his peers, and the emotion showed by the WWE’s wrestlers that night truly showed what an impact Owen had on those around him, both from personal and professional perspectives. Owen’s legacy, both as a man and as a wrestler, is inseparable from his career inside the squared circle. The lives he touched and the goodness that he inspired in those around him were all a direct result of his life within the pro wrestling industry. To erase his life as a wrestler is to basically erase the life of Owen Hart.

If matches like Breakdown ’98 are given the Benoit treatment, not only does Edge lose an historic moment in his career, but we also lose the ability to have discussions that would only further elevate the memory of Owen. When I look back at Breakdown, not only do I think, “Wow, Owen worked well with Edge in ’98,” but I’m also thinking, “Wow, I bet Owen would’ve worked even better with Edge in ’08.” Owen and Edge made the wrestling audience take interest with a great match back at Breakdown ’98, but I think that within a few years — had tragedy not reared its head — Owen and Edge might have made the wrestling audience put down their money to watch them engage in a great match.

The King of Harts showed no signs of slowing down athletically in his last year, and the sky really could have been the limit for the youngest of the Hart brothers. Had he not suffered a tragically early death, Owen might have stuck it out for the long haul in the E, likely eventually making it to the only belt that eluded him throughout his career, the World Championship. Had he been around in the current era of the brand extension, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would’ve been wearing one of the two brand’s top prizes. In his time, Owen had long been kept out of the main event spotlight that he seemed completely capable of standing in, but once the “sports” aspect of sports-entertainment became a higher priority — with IWC darlings Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, and Angle taking center stage — Owen might have finally made it to the brass ring that was always kept just out of reach.

Yet, if Martha Hart’s lawsuit is successful, such discussions are thrown out the window. Fans won’t be able to look back at Breakdown ’98 and wonder what kind of money-making pairings Owen might have had with the newest generation of stars. From my perspective, looking at these “lost” matches that might have been — be it against Angle, Jericho, or whoever — does nothing but to further elevate Owen’s memory while also serving as a harsh reminder of how truly tragic his sudden passing was. Owen was not just a wrestler, but the wrestling industry was a significant part of his life, and he was one of the most gifted performers of his time, clearly having been capable of achieving so much more than he did. It’s saddening to imagine the great work he might’ve done with a more mature and experienced Edge down the road, but it’s still a testament to just how damn good Owen really was at his job, and how well respected he remains within the wrestling world.

Owen did great things in his career, and, as this match shows, he was only going to continue doing even greater things, both for his own name and the reputations of all those he worked with. To erase what Owen accomplished, as well as discussion of what he would have accomplished, is disrespectful to both Owen Hart’s legacy as well as the careers of all of those who became better performers as a result of working with him.

WHY IT ISN’T REMEMBERED

As it stands, Owen Hart’s name is one that, while not forgotten by any stretch of the imagination, isn’t exactly the most heavily promoted or revisited. He achieved a significant amount more in his career than several of the WWE’s recent Hall of Fame inductees, and yet his name remains absent on the Hall’s long list of members. He falls somewhere in between fellow gone-in-their-prime performers Brian Pillman and Eddie Guerrero in terms of relevance and significance within the industry, and yet both Pillman and Guerrero have received the multi-DVD career retrospective treatment while Owen has not. The fans haven’t forgotten about Owen Hart, but you can’t really credit WWE for having gone out of their way to keep that memory alive.

With all that’s been made public about Martha Hart’s most recent lawsuit against WWE, something that remains unclear is the manner in which her previous lawsuit against the company ended. Martha’s claims that WWE agreed to cease using Owen’s name and likeness entirely could have WWE in a lot of hot water if proven to be true, considering that, while Owen has never been the feature of his own exclusive DVD, he has popped up from time to time on other DVD releases. While I don’t really believe WWE would agree to the deal Martha is describing, I still wouldn’t be surprised if they had kept Owen so far out of the spotlight for the last ten years simply to avoid having to do any business with his widow. It’s likely been well within the rights of WWE to release an Owen Hart DVD or to induct Owen into the Hall of Fame. Hell, it’s probably something that Vince McMahon would genuinely like to do. But when he considers the complications that would arise from royalties to Owen’s estate, specifically including having to negotiate with someone who is adamantly against negotiation, McMahon probably sees the cons far outweighing the pros.

And so, over the last eleven years, Owen Hart’s career has not gotten the same kind of exposure that many superstars of the past have received. When he is acknowledged by WWE, his most famous accomplishments are usually only revisited, the usual focus being his rivalry with his brother Bret. Rarely is Owen’s last year of competition looked back on, as the span of time between Owen joining the Nation of Domination and Over the Edge ’99 are often swept up under the rug.

Now, that’s the general, Martha-related reason why this particular Breakdown match is not so easily remembered. As for the specifics as it pertains to Owen’s career, the Black Hart was going through a transitional period for his character. For the past several months prior to Breakdown, Owen had stood at The Rock’s side as the co-leader of the Nation of Domination, having been forced to join the heelish side of things when bitter rival Triple H and his degenerate accomplices began gaining serious crowd support. The Nation’s war with DX raged on throughout the summer of ’98, and in the midst of all that Owen developed a rivalry with rising star Ken Shamrock. In order to properly train for facing the former UFC star, particularly in preparation for the E’s inaugural Lion’s Den Match at SummerSlam, Owen called upon fighter Dan “The Beast” Severn to help him sharpen his skills.

SummerSlam didn’t turn out too well for Owen, who lost to Shamrock inside the Lion’s Den while Severn, his once dedicated trainer, abandoned him. Business continued as usual for Owen over the next couple of weeks, who, while remaining out of the forefront of angles, maintained a constant presence on WWE television. This led to the unannounced Breakdown opener that, while not having a serious impact on Owen’s career, was a strong showing and a solid PPV victory.

The next night on Raw, however, everything would change for Owen. The rivalry with Shamrock had seen Owen distancing himself further and further from the Nation, and the past few weeks of slight stagnation had further driven a wedge between the Owen we knew in the Summer months and the Owen we were getting as the Fall progressed. On the night after Breakdown, Owen’s career entered onto a new path when he stepped into the ring with former “mentor,” Dan Severn.

Calling upon the very real botched Piledriver that Steve Austin suffered just a year earlier, the WWE replaced Stone Cold with The Beast and made the whole thing into a storyline. It was the last match Owen would wrestle as a Nation member, as he came to the ring the following week on Raw to announce that he, overcome with guilt, was leaving the wrestling business. Coincidentally, Owen’s announcement came just before what was scheduled to be a rematch against his Breakdown opponent Edge.

This all gave way to the “Is Owen really retired?” angle, which saw the re-emergence of the Blue Blazer and an alignment with Jeff Jarrett. The whole period, from the immediate post-Shamrock time to the match with Edge to the Severn “accident,” anything leading up to the tag team with Jarrett was just a transitional phase to move Owen into the next stage of his career. Breakdown being caught in the middle doesn’t help it to stand out in the midst of so many changes for Owen’s character and direction.

There’s a lot to be said about Owen’s changes affecting the legacy of this Breakdown match, but then you’ve also got to keep in mind that Edge’s character was also evolving at a rapid rate, with plenty other important things going on at the time. Earlier in the summer, a mysterious rivalry had begun between Edge and the literally bloodthirsty Gangrel; each man would randomly attack the other seemingly without any rhyme or reason, with no explanation given as to the circumstances of the bad blood between them. One guy would jump the other, a brawl would ensue, and eventually somebody would be covered in blood.

The video above took place just two weeks before Breakdown, where, at the conclusion of his match with Owen, Edge would be distracted and cost the victory by the appearance of a mysterious figure at ringside. The Edge-lookalike would of course turn out to be his “brother” Christian, who would eventually settle the rivalry between Edge and Gangrel by bringing the two together under the banner of the Brood. This was a slow burn for a little while, with the mystery of the past relationships between all three guys kind of hanging over everything before the Brood was united. Even then, little explanation was given as to just why Edge and Gangrel had once been at each other’s throats, or why they were so easily able to put their differences aside, and just how did Christian fit into it all anyway? These were questions that loomed over anything involving Edge at the time, and it was a mystery that sort of overshadowed anything else he was a part of at the time that wasn’t Brood-related.

Of course, Breakdown being Edge’s first singles PPV match counts for something, and it’s not a moment that he or any Edge-fans are soon to forget. Regardless, if WWE’s going back to revisit this period in Edge’s career, they’re going to focus on the Brood storyline unfolding, not on a title-less, card-opener that, while a fun match, was against a guy that Edge had no serious beef with. With the lack of any history between the two going in, as well as the lack of any serious crossing of paths after Breakdown, it makes sense that Owen and Edge’s one and only major confrontation has sort of lost its place in wrestling history.

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BONUS MATCH(!)

Backlash – April 25, 1999
Owen Hart & Jeff Jarrett vs. The New Age Outlaws

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Feedback! (or, The 57th Return!)

The Attitude Era gets a lot of deserved praise and shit heaped upon it, but damn if the WWF-fans-cum-WWE-universe didn’t care about every single performer on the roster. I think that’s what I miss most about today’s product; right now it’s Main Event and Everything Else. Yes, wrestling’s always had, and always will have, a great divide between the tippy top guys and those that aren’t, but the lines were blurred to an unheard of degree in the late 90s. You always had the sense that any match, on any given night, could steal the show with the right amount of effort and crowd response.

Posted By: neverAcquiesce

This is the thing that always gets me when I go back and watch any full event from the Attitude Era. You can pop in any tape or DVD from ’98 through ’00 and the crowd is electric from start to finish. If WWE could refocus its efforts like it did a decade ago and pay the proper attention to everybody, we’d be watching compelling television for two full hours every Monday and Friday night. As it stands, we now get hit-or-miss segments with the top players, sometimes providing entertaining material but oftentimes rehashing the same old stuff, all while the rest of the show floats along blandly without anything significant or distinctive happening. It isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s just … not exciting. That wasn’t a problem back in the days of actual stables and a 24/7 Hardcore division.

Mmmm, odd choice this week. Seems like more of a choice you made so as to give you an excuse to write a column decrying the poor tag division in modern-day WWE.

I remember SS 1999 as it was the first PPV I saw on VHS and it just wasn’t a very good match after Hardyz and E&C finished, not to mention that it featured two teams that were just singles wrestlers put together and the Holly cousins who I’d actually forgotten were a tag team since their true peak came from the Hardcore division in 2000. If you wanted to highlight tag team diversity I would have picked either a) the Survivor Series 1999 4-team Survivor Series match or b) the Armageddon Tag Team Battle Royal.

Actually, another forgotten favourite while we’re speaking about Hardyz and E&C is their No.1 Contenders Match at No Way Out 2000

Posted By: mr_wishart

The match is certainly its best when its just the Hardys and E&C, but I still think the rest is entertaining stuff. My only complaint against the match is that E&C clearly should have gone the distance and picked up the win, as the crowd was way hot for them that night and the victory could’ve seriously established them at even earlier point. But of course none of that really matters now in retrospect, considering their total domination for the following couple of years. And No Way Out is definitely a fun match, and one that I’ve got on the list for a future column.

The Attitude Era gets a lot of deserved praise and shit heaped upon it, but damn if the WWF-fans-cum-WWE-universe didn’t care about every single performer on the roster. I think that’s what I miss most about today’s product; right now it’s Main Event and Everything Else. Yes, wrestling’s always had, and always will have, a great divide between the tippy top guys and those that aren’t, but the lines were blurred to an unheard of degree in the late 90s. You always had the sense that any match, on any given night, could steal the show with the right amount of effort and crowd response.

Posted By: neverAcquiesce

You are so right man, and I don’t even think people will understand what you just said. I have old vhs tapes recorded from about mid 99-late 2000, and it just seemed like time was actually invested in every part of the card unlike it is now, no matter if it was the women’s division, comedy skits or everything else. I cared as much about Crash Holly defending his hardcore title as I did about Y2J/Kurt Angle/Benoit as I did about The Rock/Austin/HHH. You just don’t get that same feeling today. It’s basically the same rotating cast of the main event, then 4minute/DQ/meaningless everything else. You can pick whatever eventlead to the decline of wrestling, but I think not investing in your ENTIRE product is just another reason for it.

Posted By: SS87

I think this raises an interesting question: Austin and Rock drew the majority of the money/attention/everything, but how would the WWE had done if Austin and Rock were all they had and/or cared about? What if there weren’t any sophomoric DX pranks or any of the Godfather’s Ho’s? What if you didn’t have the workrate paradise of a midcard with Jericho, Angle, Benoit, and Eddie?

On what may have been the Monday Night War DVD (no idea), Eric Bischoff talked about Nitro finally taking off because it began to offer something to every segment of the audience. Nitro eventually lost its way, but for a period of time there was a balance between cruiserweights and heavyweights, workhorses and legends, sports and entertainment. Bischoff wanted his entire show to be better than WWE, and Nitro became from start to finish a hell of an entertaining wrestling show. There isn’t much that WWE should bother learning from WCW, but they might want to take a look at the series of Nitros that outdrew them in the 90’s if they want to make their show a better one today.

Still gonna keep saying Tazz vs Triple H from SD in 2000 and Team Austin vs Team Bischoff from Survivor Series 2003 until I see either one of them here

Posted By: SHADE

I’m not crazy about Tazz/HHH, but then again I haven’t watched it in a while. From what I remember it was brief and heavy on the burying. Maybe I’m remembering wrong and Trips actually sold for the guy, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t learn how to do that until somewhere in mid-2004.

Team Austin vs. Team Bischoff, however, is a different story. This match gives me all the good happy feelings on the inside, and I’d love to cover it at some point.

These turmoil matches were cool in theory, but were always limp in practice. It seemed like it should be an epic struggle to emerge as the dominant team in the division, but instead they were just a bunch of midcard teams trading wins in really short matches with one of the last couple teams to come out usually getting the victory. I’m pretty sure this Summerslam one was just used to set up the new Stevie Richards gimmick where he would try to join different teams by dressing like their gimmick. He did the Acolytes here if I’m not mistaken. It’s a shame because it would have been awesome to see one of these matches where they bothered booking it to tell a real story and actually made an effort to get someone over in the process. The WWE just can’t waste time thinking things through when it comes to the midcard.

Posted By: Lotsa

This match seems to have a story to it … all the way up until Edge and Christian get eliminated. As I said in a response just above, I wish E&C could’ve gone over in this match since their careers could’ve really benefited at the time. Plus, going from the first team all the way to the end and picking up the win would’ve been a great story to tell for a young up and coming team looking to make a name. Regardless, I still think the match is a fun one to watch.

Can you review WCW and ECW forgotten favorites as well or do you just review WWE

Posted By: laparkinator

I mean … I guess I can. I probably won’t, but I think I could if I, like, wanted to. My reasoning here is I don’t like covering something that I didn’t watch. This just came up recently in Right Move/Wrong Move, and I’m of the opinion that a writer writes best when he sticks to what he knows. I kept up (generally) with WCW and ECW from ’98 until they closed their doors, but I have since gone back and watched more tapes/videos of the companies than I ever watched live during their existence. Yeah, I was keeping up with and can recall pretty well stuff like the rise of Goldberg and RVD’s TV Title reign, but I can’t speak anywhere near as confidently about that stuff as I can anything in WWE from ’98 and on. And since 411 thinks my opinion matters, I’d rather write opinions that I can actually back up on stuff that I know about.

You are the Big Show, but I’m the Big Shot! Ha Ha!

Posted By: Guest#0783

I still think Holly should’ve gotten the IC strap at some point that year. Dude was money like he never had been and never would be again. Then again, I guess Chyna deserved it more.

WECLOME BACK!!!! I thought you had left us, went through the archives over the weekend again making sure I had not just missed the article the last 2 weeks… personally I kind of like your older format better as I just did not have a lot of interest in reading about the tag team units history. Also not a big fan of this match but still look forward to next weeks!

Posted By: Chad

I do have a tendency to disappear, but worry not, Chad. I know that the people need their classic wrestling, and I know that they need me to give it to them. Hopefully this week’s match delivers your fix.

The deterioration of tag team in WWE is sad and pitiful. Vince seems to hate tag teams for some odd reason and probably during the 80s if he could get away with it would’e split Demolition, The Hart Foundation The British Bulldogs and others. They are always looking fo the next HBK or Cena so when the team today somehow manages to get at least a bit over the idea is to split them up and turn one of them heel and push him to the moon despite the fact he’ unready and odds are both will be released by the end of the year. At least TNA and ROH gave a damn about the Tag division this past decade

Posted By: Michael

I think that Haas & Benjamin and Miz & Morrison were two of WWE’s biggest missed opportunities within the tag division in the last several years, and it’s for the reasons you just listed. Both teams were split up before they had the chance to firmly establish themselves and the tag division itself, and both times it was because the teams got “too” over. Now both Haas and Benjamin are out of the company, and Morrison — the one who was supposed to be the breakout star — is floundering around the midcard without direction.

I only remember this match for that guardrail-walk spear that Jeff and Edge managed to pull off. That was one of the best spots ever.

Posted By: AJP

The first of many awesome spots that Jeff and Edge would pull off together. It’s definitely a trip to go back and watch these matches now and see that the speculation over Edge and Jeff being the modern equivalent of Bret and Shawn actually turned out to be kind of true. It could be more true if Jeff could, like, make up his mind, but that’s another column for another day.

Yeah, another lame pick this week, just an excuse to bash today’s WWE and their tag scene…?

Posted By: Bree

This looks like it’s going to be a statement but then it goes crazy and turns into a sort of question at the end. I am confused and thus admit defeat.

The deterioration of tag team in WWE is sad and pitiful. Vince seems to hate tag teams for some odd reason and probably during the 80s if he could get away with it would’e split Demolition, The Hart Foundation The British Bulldogs and others. They are always looking fo the next HBK or Cena so when the team today somehow manages to get at least a bit over the idea is to split them up and turn one of them heel and push him to the moon despite the fact he’ unready and odds are both will be released by the end of the year. At least TNA and ROH gave a damn about the Tag division this past decade

Posted By: Michael

That is the big problem with Tag Team wrestling in WWE. It seems as soon as a tag team’s getting over they split the team up. Or if they do have regular tag teams they always job them out to whatever mix and match pair of established stars they already have.

We’ve seen it recently with MNM, Deuce and Domino, Legacy, and Cryme Tyme. I don’t doubt The Usos and The Hart Dynasty will eventually be on the chopping block.

Sadly I really doubt the classic teams Like The Roadwarriors/LOD, Demolition, or the British Bulldogs would have survived in today’s WWE.

Posted By: Guest#7289

The part that gets me is that fans obviously still care about tag team wrestling. Tag matches still get excellent responses from crowds, with all of the usual tag spots still earning the same heat they always have. WWE has been criticized over the last couple of years for being repetitive and featuring nothing but the same old stuff every week. Re-establishing a consistently showcased tag division could really add some much needed variety to Raw and SmackDown.

You know why it seemed like every guy on the card mattered back then? Russo was booking.

Posted By: joe blow

In my neverending quest to make Forgotten Favorites the bomb diggity, I have been considering new ways of presenting this column. One idea was to branch out from time to time into covering particular moments in wrestling history or even other areas of the business. One column topic I considered kicking around for a Forgotten Favorite is Vince Russo’s Booking, which, at one time, really did help the wrestling business a whole hell of a lot. Russo takes a lot of crap from the IWC — some of which is warranted, some of which isn’t — but you can’t ignore the fact that he tried to give every guy on the roster an opportunity to shine.

The Attitude Era gets a lot of deserved praise and shit heaped upon it, but damn if the WWF-fans-cum-WWE-universe didn’t care about every single performer on the roster. I think that’s what I miss most about today’s product; right now it’s Main Event and Everything Else. Yes, wrestling’s always had, and always will have, a great divide between the tippy top guys and those that aren’t, but the lines were blurred to an unheard of degree in the late 90s. You always had the sense that any match, on any given night, could steal the show with the right amount of effort and crowd response.

Posted By: neverAcquiesce

As the guy above me said, that was a calling card of Russo. If you give him credit for anything, at least he did that. Who else would try to make you care about Steve Blackman, Val Venis, and the Headbangers. Not saying those guys weren’t talented, but Russo did give some lower-card guys at least a brief run of shine. The truth is though, not every under card guy will be able to get over. That period was just magic in that everything just seemed to click and work. I think that would be like guys like the Dudebusters and Primo being stars. Guys like MVP, Miz, R-Truth, Morrison, and Cody Rhodes would be bigger stars than they are now. Of course, Mark Henry would still be Mizark Henry. But yea, I miss the time when they at least TRIED to make you care about everyone, and everyone had a different personality, unlike this cookie cutter bullshit today where most of the guys AND girls looks, talks, and works the same.

Posted By: Guest#3398

Indeed, as I was just saying above, Russo did indeed go out of his way to try to give each guy something unique to work with. But even then, it wasn’t all Russo, as the whole company would’ve had to have been on board with the guy’s ideas. There was time devoted to nearly every guy or girl on the roster back then, and fans were given a reason to care about each performer. Unfortunately, these days the WWE is too caught up with how to book the same six guys in the main event to worry about how the rest of the show is going to come off.

Great writing. You’re a big fan of the Attitude Era, eh? I like random matches like these with a shitload of partcipiants just to see a crazy melee sometimes.

Posted By: Guest#4920

This is the purpose of Forgotten Favorites, and I thank you, sir. When I see comments along the lines of “This match wasn’t that good” I can’t help but feel that these commenters are missing the point of the column. I’m not featuring classic thirty minute matches, or even any of the best matches in wrestling history. Last week’s match was nowhere near any of the TLC, Tables, or Cage matches that those teams would go on to have, but Tag Team Turmoil is still a fun fifteen minutes to spend reminiscing about the old days. When we get caught up in assigning star-ratings to matches or deciding what is or isn’t a classic, we forget that watching a wrestling match is just about having fun. Rock on, Guest#4920. Rock on.

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That’ll do it for this week, my young students. Can I call you guys students? …no? Well, I just did. Eat it.

All lecturing/kidding aside, keep the suggestions rolling. I’m only so original, and thus the well’s got to end up running dry at some point. Don’t let me go dry, guys. It’s your job to keep me wet. I mean … uh … word.

Until next time, stay safe and out of Dundalk.