Pro Wrestling in the 1990's !

[lboinyamouf4sho]

super you mentioned he won tag titles(IWGP is the name of the titles in NJPW btw) in NJPW but didn't mention he held the main title(IWGP heavyweight).

anyways, norton was bad ass and NJPW knew how get the max potential out guys like him. they still do.

here's a nice match a lot of you guys may have never seen norton vs "crusher" bam bam bigelow

[SUPERECWFAN1]

As we have seen in the 2000's , a wrestler usually starts out on the indie circuit and gets attention from the WWE or TNA. Said wrestler usually has one sure fire way of success in today's time. Get trained , grow as a talent until Ring of Honor sees you and gives you a shot. Its there you will gain the attention of TNA or WWE. CM Punk is proof of how a man can go from indie darling to ROH ...to big time WWE superstar. His 2012 year inspired a lot of talents to realize the WWE has long started true change. With smaller guys without the long belief of the fabled "WWE look" holding them back. Daniel Bryan and CM Punk destroyed that in 2012.

But before there was a Ring of Honor , before there was a Deep South Wrestling , or a Florida Championship Wrestling for WWE to send hopeful indie stars to get themselves ready for the call up....the WWE didn't actually have much of anything in the 1990's. Nope...basically the WWE was in a spot where they didn't have a WWE developmental program really. Lets go further....




The need for talent ...over talent in the Monday Night Wars was a big deal. WCW was raiding ECW for every star they could every year nearly. The WWE lesser so. But we will look at what WCW decided to do. The company had a ton of stars signed to contracts (240+ wrestlers) but they were always looking for that next , can't miss star. Its just that "can't miss" star basically was 2 guys who would go onto having the biggest impact in the business.... The Big Show Paul Wright and Bill Goldberg.

Beyond that the WCW Power Plant was a dismal failure. It was such an epic failure that it was joked of all the Powerplant kids , 90% of them had to suck since 1995 they had ran it and only 2 had really done anything of note. But by 2000 WCW was losing the Monday Night War so bad and had lost 4-6 stars since 1998 that had been a big part of their programming that the company was forced to pull up nearly everyone in the Power Plant. Not just 1 or 2 guys. I mean a TON of people.

Mike Sanders
Sean O'Haire
Lash LeRoux
Matt Jindrak
Chuck Palumbo
Allen Funk
Shane Helms
Shannon Moore
Jimmy Wang
Johnny the Bull


I'm sure there was more. But the situation was this . People over WCW by 2000 wanted to cut costs since in 1999 the company had lost millions of dollars. And was projected to lose millions more in 2000. So they asked why the company was running a developmental program and had never graduated much . So they cut a lot of expensive stars who weren't ever gonna be on TV anymore like Scott Hall and decided to pull all the cheap alternate kids up to use.

Vince Russo himself had wanted to use the Power Plant better than what it had been and wanted to focus more on the younger talent the company had waiting in the wings. It made a lot of sense to give these kids a shot since they had been there awhile and hadn't done much on TV , plus were cheaper to use at a time the company was cutting costs . Of course the WWE itself had , had a youth movement and took awhile to lure fans. The same situation hurt WCW in 2000. There was a lot of new kids like Chuck Palumbo , Sean O'Haire and Sanders on TV and fans didn't know what to think of them. But quite a few had some talent. The WWE would get them all in 2001 and piss them all away in record time though.


The WWE didn't have a development or a school per say. But they did have Dory Funk Jr run the Funking Dojo which was a way for them to scout and use wrestlers he'd have there. Funk must have did a hell of a job because the talent that walked through his school...is still doing things on the scene for the most part :

Christian
Kurt Angle
Lita
Steve Corino
Jeff Hardy
Matt Hardy
Rhino
Mickie James
Gail Kim

In all the dojo seemed to help get a lot of stars on WWF TV quicker than what the Power Plant would ever do. The WWF also had a working agreement to send talent to Jerry Lawler's USWA promotion to get young talent some seasoning so to speak. The WWF would send quite a lot of talent to the USWA in the 1990's and bring them back. One of the biggest stars in the industry was sent to USWA....you know....this guy...




The Rock was then going by the name Flex Kavana in USWA and the time there helped him development. After a 1 year stint there the WWF came calling to bring him in...rest is history. Anyhow this is how it was for the WWF then. They really would just in the 1980's and some of the 1990's cherry pick stars who they wanted . Like a Chris Jericho or Big Show. Also would just sign stars and talent raid. But by the 1990's the need for young talent was intense and going into 2000 the WWF would sign a deal that would land them their next big star.

In 2000 the company worked out a deal to start its 1st real farm league promotion. One they could get a 1st chance at talent and call them up. Ohio Valley Wrestling was a former NWA territory and owned by Danny Davis since it started in 1997. This would be a big move for the WWF as they would have 2 working developmental farm leagues to call wrestlers up from. Like think of MLB in a way.

Anyhow one of the very 1st men they sent to OVW was ...John Cena.

So the company likely wanted more than a school or Power Plant in a way , they also didn't wanna have to send talent out to USWA or ECW anymore to get seasoning. So they decided the best investment would be to get behind OVW and use it. The results speak for themselves. OVW has helped get stars ready for the WWE like Cena , Punk , Mr. Kennedy and more.

So one approach seemed to work for the WWF in 2000 and even today. After the 9 year relationship with OVW ended . The company still runs 1 to 2 developmental farm leagues for talent they scout and sign. Even with OVW now a farm league for TNA , the belief is you need a farm league to get some talent seasoning and get them ready. Not a bad idea.

[lboinyamouf4sho]

so i got back on the WCW horse and things are looking up. yeah the main event scene is still wack with hogan & nash but lots of cool groups popping up.
vampiro, raven & ICP are together and eddy, rey, & konehead are working together against them.
shane douglas has shown up and is aligned with saturn, benoit, & malenko.
the west texas rednecks are doing their thing.
the jersey triad is still around, and harlem heat is getting back together.

not sure where the hell scott steiner is though. also flair is no longer president so hopefully he won't be hogging so much airtime. macho is still being awesome but wasting time with dennis rodman.

nitro has my interest back even if a lot of stuff doesn't make sense.