In so many ways they were basically the perfect opponent/foil for eachother imo. Both in terms of ringwork and general personality. You just believed their matches were a contest between two extremely talented people. One of whom was more orthodox and serious, and the other who was a flashy dickhead. Probably because that is exactly what they were I guess.
Yeah it was a great mesh. HBK was the opposite of a ring general usually but the thing with him was, the more he worked with good talent, he would lift the quality of the matches up exponentially.
HBK and Shawn were great but Austin v Bret was the greatest feud ever for me, both inside and outside the ring. Austin pre-neck injury was absolute dynamite in the ring. Both the survivor series and WM matches between Bret/Austin them are 5 star classics IMO.
Yeah, true. One of the things about HHH was that he was probably the best ever in violent stipulation matches. I don't mean this as an underhanded compliment because the attitude era which was his prime was full of those. His 3 stages of hell match with Austin, HIAC with Mankind, Ladder Match with the Rock, and later his Street Fight with HBK in 2002 are some of my favourite matches ever.
I don't remember much about the first of those matches. In fact I don't remember that WM at all really.
Yeah, fair enough. It was a pretty good match but the overbooking irritated me, along with the 'end of the era' finish to the match when HHH and Undertaker were not actually retiring.
Yeah that's the worst part of the whole thing imo. Especially considering what's happened since. And especially the awful matches both of them have had withe eachother in Aus/Saudi Arabia.
Probably the most overrated wm match of all time imo. They'd already done the taker is broken down thing the previous year and that one was pretty tedious as well. And the kickout after the sweet chin music+ pedigree was completely ridiculous. I remember jumping out of my seat when it happened and immediately after said "yeah no. bullshit". Taker had a way better HIAC match with Brock in 2015 imo.
Vince
So great they were one and the same...
Really? People were getting behind SCSA even back in 1996 from what I've seen.
Yeah big omission. Fell away from wrestling for a couple of years at the time, only to come back to find Justin Hawk Acolyte Bradshaw had morphed into JBL. One of the truly great gimmicks of all time, despite being so hard to buy into given the character's tough guy past. Totally breathed new life into the cowardly conniving heel routine.
Nice bro. I wish I was watching wrestling back in 1996. As a youngster, I only realized wrestling existed in 1998 personally (largely due to the buzz created by that famous Undertaker/Mankind HIAC match). Looking back, I find the new gen/attitude era transition to be so enthralling. Back when they still sort of presented it like an actual sport, but the "attitude" was slowly kicking in.
Kurt Angle? Brock Lesnar?
Angle was around back then, I haven't seen Lesnar talked about in those terms but I obviously don't have much exposure. Is he good is he?
