douglas

Shane Douglas

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Hey Scott,

Great work, longtime fan, I really love the old school Raw and Nitro reviews.  My older brother would send me printed out postage versions of your original Raw rants back in 1998 and 1999 when I would go away to summer camp in the summer so I could stay up to date while away at Christian-centered YMCA camping retreats.

I have been listening to Stone Cold's podcast with Shane Douglas lately, and it's interesting to reflect on Shane's potential as a young fiery babyface in early 90s WWF, then continuing with Johnny Ace as a Dynamic Dude in WCW, until reinventing himself as the badass bitter ex-employee rebel of ECW.

What was the RSPW viewpoint on Shane in 1990-91 in WWF?  Did anyone think he had potential to be a successful top-tier babyface?  Or was he always slotted as an opening match geek?  Watching old shows in retrospect, I have a soft spot for Shane and his Shawn Michaels-esque sympathy he could generate.  Did the Clique screw him over because he was trying too hard to take Shawn's spot?

Furthermore, what do you think Shane's ECW legacy will be remembered for?  I recall the clips of throwing down the NWA belt, feuding with Taz, and walking around in a cast injured with Chris Candido and the Triple Threat.  Do you think Shane could have ever drawn money for the Big Two?   Or was he just not that good?   He's made a pretty significant narrative that he was important during the golden age in the last 15 years with interviews, promotion, and hardcore revival shows.  Was Shane a significant part of the golden era, or just a bitter ex-employee?

​He probably could have been bigger, but there's no question that the Clique screwed him over in the WWF and the gimmick was death to begin with.  The hole was just too deep.  But I mean, let's be serious, he wasn't THAT good.  Being a top level worker and talker in ECW at that time wasn't exactly high praise on the national stage, ya know?  Heyman very carefully controlled what you saw and heard from people like Douglas, which was obvious when he was left to die in the WWF alone.  Not to mention that 90-93 Douglas bouncing around the ring and having ***** matches with Ricky Steamboat as a partner is a far cry from 95-2000 Douglas having garbage brawls and nursing a sore back that whole time.  
So yeah, he might have been a solid IC title level heel, but Shawn Michaels?  Forget it.  ​

Douglas vs. the Kliq in Titan Sinking

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Got busy at work, but I'm just about done with Titan Sinking–awesome read indeed. In the second half of the book, Dixon thoroughly covers the Douglas/Kliq beef.  In short, he surmises Douglas didn't do much to deserve it outside of a lousy gimmick, bad first match with Waltman and finally, not working through a back injury.

Does that fit with everything else you've heard or has been rumored?  It seems to me like the Kliq had SERIOUS venom for Douglas that can't be explained by just protecting their spots and seeing he was an easy target due to his misfortunes.  Then again, they were (are) pricks so maybe that's all it took.

​I would surmise that perhaps Shane Douglas was one of Dixon's sources and thus we're getting a bit of a biased viewpoint on it.  Certainly the Observers at the time made it sound like Douglas had some of the abuse coming due to his attitude, but he and Candido REALLY got shit on by the Kliq.  Often literally.  I think there was a lot of resentment towards Douglas for the whole "ECW legend" thing that he projected around himself, where they wanted to prove that he was still small-time or something.  ​

Buster Douglas

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From the Feb 90 SNME… I realize Buster Douglas pissed in the punch bowl of WWE's plans by knocking out Mike Tyson, and his appearance was largely uninspiring. But let's say Tyson won as expected. Would his appearance have gone the same way, or were there any different or long term plans for him?
​There were tons of crazy rumors at the time, but the Observer notes in the week where Tyson pulled out that WWF was talking to tons of different celebrities and boxers as the replacement ref (George Foreman, a couple of football players, etc) and the finish would always be Savage getting knocked out by the boxer and pinned by Hogan.  The context was basically that Tyson was doing the same thing and the goal was never getting Tyson over, but getting Hogan v. Warrior over.  ​

Shane Douglas

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What's up with the constant Shane Douglas bashing on the blog? Shane Douglas is my favorite active wrestler. He's still having awesome brawls week after week, while BoD commenters defend the Rock's ringwork, or "oh it's ok Cena's champ again because I can watch old SNME for 10 bucks a month' or "Adam Rose would be huge if he had more people in his entourage". Absolutely silly to me. Meanwhile someone's gotta stick a SHANE DAGLAZ WORKS TEH TARGAT into the comments for every friggin article. You've got guys on there lamenting the loss of Santino but a real WRESTLER is supposedly a joke?  This year alone I've seen Douglas vs. Rhino tear the house down twice. Douglas will also stand around and shoot the shit with whoever wants to after the show. Does John Cena or Dolph Ziggler or Fandango do that with you guys? I'd rather watch a 2014 Shane Douglas match than any 2014 WWE match featuring anyone but Wyatts or ex-Shield.
Even Wyatt is debatable because it's not all that fun watching him job to Cena every week. If Douglas came back to WWE and jobbed to Cena every night and got called "the dean of POOPY admissions" in promos you guys would be cheering the hell out of him and complaining he isn't pushed more.  
4/10.  

Match of the Day: Steamboat & Douglas v. Blonds

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Hello again Scott, I just found this little gem on youtube. it’s the
match where the Blondes first won the titles. It’s a very good match,
but the crowd seems a little off. Was this during the period when they
were taping at Disney? Well anyways hope everyone enjoys it: Disney tapings didn’t start until after the Blonds won the titles.  This was from Worldwide, although they had another match before this that hit ***** and circulated on a bunch of tape traders’ lists.  It was a hell of a feud. 

Shane Douglas on the new Foley DVD

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> So I was just watching For All Mankind when I saw that Shane Douglas appears as a talking head early in the doc. It’s obviously a new video, too, shot for the documentary. Is this his first appearance on a WWE release aside from old footage?
Yup, dude’s been basically blacklisted since he tried to jump with the Radicalz and then “changed his mind.”  I’m pretty surprised actually.

Shane Douglas “threatens” Vince and Dixie.

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Scott,
How pathetic and delusional does Shane look here? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzJDh-UwO68
Does he really think his one-time reunion of has-been (and in some cases, never-were) losers is going to pose any kind of threat to WWE or TNA? He sounds like he really does believe his own hype. All that was missing was a petty shot at Ric Flair. 

No, his master plan is clearly to show up at RAW with a mask and cause a scene.
Oh, wait, he already tried that.
I love how the tiny flyer is posted like 10 feet in the air, so no normal human being could even see it walking down the street.   Vince is shaking in his boots now!  You can't compete with that kind of advertising power!