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Question for older IWC members

2K views 34 replies 31 participants last post by  headstar 
#1 ·
Was the hatred towards JBL when he was randomly pushed and given the title as severe as the hatred towards Mahal is now?

They have almost identical careers - complete midcard players until suddenly they were pushed to the moon with no build up. For JBL it was because they needed someone after Brock left, Kurt Angle was injured and Eddie wasn't drawing. For Mahal it's them pandering to a foreign market.

So which push got the worst 'Backlash' so to speak?
 
#3 ·
Here's the thing-uhh...

JBL was just as undeserving champion-uhh as Mahal is.

The only reason he was a champion for so long... is because The Haitch didn't want to work on Tuesdays.

However.... having said that...

JBL's push had been consistent and was already a decorated tag champion-uhh.

He was tag-teaming (as Bradshaw) with Austin in 2002 on RAW..

He was booked to win some meaningful matches on Smackdown, like that bar room brawl.

His break-up with Farooq was well booked... to push him into singles competition-uhh.

And the way he transformed from a ******* brawler to a Wall Street businessman... was superbly executed-uhh.

Unlike Jinder the Jobber, he wasn't handed the title simply because of expansion in a new market.

Though JBL's friendship with old man Vince helped.

:trips2

He was hated but unlike the X-Pac heat that Jinder the Jobber gets, JBL was getting real heel heat.

His promos made people despise him with passion-uhh.

JBL may have been one of the weaker champions, but Smackdown was thin on star power.

In today's Smackdown, there's no such lack of starpower.

Guys like AJ are booked to compete for a midcard belt, while jobbers like Jinder are winning the top title.

That shows how incompetent B+ Bryan and estranged son Shane are.

:tripsscust
 
#13 ·
Yes, the hate towards the JBL push was pretty strong. The IWC hated it and honestly, there still seems to be revulsion whenever it is brought up.

My comment at the time was that I hated he was being pushed so fast. If they wanted to build him up for six months, then I'd probably buy it, but as is, it just felt super rushed.

However, I was one of the ones that kind of defended it for the following reasons:

1) The Smckdown Roster got gutted. Coming out of Wrestlemania, Angle was hurt, Lesnar left, Big Show was hurt, Hogan was long gone by then, Triple H was supposed to move to Smackdown but that got changed (whether or not that decision was supposed to stick or if it was just part of the angle to move Trips there and then trade him back to Raw, I don't know). Taker came back as the dead man, but was strangely working part time AND was involved in dumb angles with Booker T and the Dudleys (Never forget Concrete Crypt). They tried to build the roster up with a slew of new characters like Mordecai and Kenzo Suzuki, but clearly, they didn't cut it. Cena was obviously the end game, but they needed to save him for Mania and he needed a heel to work with. There just weren't many strong options. They had RVD and Rey, but both of them were typically fed to the bigger stars and that was before JBL was a thing. They also served as anchors for the tag division at this time because, fuck it, who else was going to do it? Everyone else worth a damn was on Raw. Over there you had HHH, HBK, Benoit, Foley, Orton, Batista, Shelton, and so on.

2) JBL was actually good in the role. With the country's youth increasing hatred of President George W. Bush, it actually made sense to have a blow hard Texan conservative as a heel and JBL did play the part well. My only two issues with his reign were how it started (pushed too fast) and how it ended (match with Cena was anti-climactic). Everything in between though was some solid heel work and I didn't think it was a bomb by any means.

Jinder might turn out the same way. I don't know, but that still doesn't make up for the fact that they did a horrible job of getting him to that point to begin with.
 
#22 · (Edited)
Here's a some of the 2004 smark reaction to JBL winning the title:
http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/lofiversion/index.php?t57194-200.html

FUCK! Kurt reversed the decision. Your new WWE Champion....John Bradshaw Layfield.... :(
Bradshaw's shoulder touched the final pad because Eddie's hand. This is fucking gay!
Ladies and gentlemen...Smackdown is officially dead.
Dear God....Smackdown is even more in the shitter. Let's just look at the champions:

World: BRADSHAW
US: John Cena (horrible babyface)
Tag: Stale Dudley Boyz
You guys arnt serious are you???
Jesus christ.....what a horrible ending.


Well I will be free Thursday night now. Good job WWE.
This is too shitty to be true! Please tell me this is a joke.
I can't get the picture of Bradshaw as he was when he first came to the WWF in 96. That is the current WWE champion. What a sad day in wrestling.
Dear Christ, Vince has his head up his ass... I'm glad I quit watching after the Bradshaw push started.
You're fucking kidding me, this company is beyond repair now.
It's really a shame to see the Real WWE World Title, the belt with all the lineage unlike the Raw Title, become officially the #2 belt in the company. It just can't be taken seriously anymore.
I guess you had to see this coming eventually. With the amount of effort and constant hype he has gotten ever since early April, I had a feeling they would eventually just give him the title to justify all this time and effort.

But in the end is still sucks regardless because its fucking BRADSHAW holding the WWE title.
Make that #3 title, if Eddie dosent win it back on Smackdown this week, then the IC title is also much better then the Smackdown world title.
Who in their fucking right mind thought giving Bradshaw the belt was a good idea? Seriously ratings have tanked since he's been on the top.
Both reactions to Jinder and JBL are just as bad.
 
#8 · (Edited)
When JBL was being pushed towards the title, it was a way WAY different scenario.

First of all, I was 10 years old when JBL was being pushed, so from a kids perspective, it was more of a "...what? What happened Bradshaw? Why aren't you the APA beer drinking guy anymore? Why are you picking on Eddie Guerrero? Why are you shooting scenes near a Mexican border? So that's it, Farooq is just fired? WHAT, BUT PEOPLE VOTED FOR JOHN CENA TO FACE Guerrero for the title at the PPV, why did you rig the poll!?". Those are the kind of questions people who believed the kayfabe were asking.

Secondly, to my even older peers who watched this, there wasn't a resistance met with the push like for Jinder because everyone thought that an Attitude Era veteran who was a mid-carder was going to get a push. He had been around consistently for years, so if anything it was more of a "ah, it's about time you gave him a shot, type of deal". Yeah he was being groomed to beat Eddie Guerrero which people were always going to be resistant towards, but the initial resistence was pretty low (despite further negative reception as the title reign went on). It helped that he had a pretty decent legacy during the Attitude Era which made him already iconic (even if he was a mid-carder) before getting this push.
 
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#12 ·
JBL and Mahal are two totally different scenarios.

JBL had actually done things of note on the main roster with Tag Team title reigns and a memorable comedy gimmick with Ron Simmons in the APA.

Tell me one thing Jinder had done on the main roster in his two runs before this push outta nowhere? I can tell you what it was. Losing, losing, losing to put over the stars.

Secondly, JBL totally reinvented himself into a new character that succeeded against expectations even if it took a while for people to get used to, Jinder is still playing more or less the same character he always played, a bitter foreigner who hates America because yea no one has ever played that role in WWE before right?

Its not his fault but I'm burned out on characters like that now

That being said, he's getting a chance and trying to make it work. I tend to be a very patient person when it comes to things like this, just as I was when Billy Gunn got pushed in 1999. Billy Gunn flopped hard but I wish Jinder luck. If it does not work out, he will have at least got a small slice of glory. If it works, Smackdown has a heel that the right guy will universally be cheered to beat for that belt.

The main thing for Mahal is that I am hoping to see him reinvent himself into something more than what he is now which is a cookie cutter "I HATE AMERICA, I'M FOREIGN BOO ME!" stuff.
 
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#18 · (Edited)
I came in to this thread to say something similar.

Bradshaw at least had a legit background of championships and character establishment before he was given the main title. Mahal is the same old jobber who was handed a title just to boost ratings in a country.

Most people wouldn't have an issue with him being champ if the build up was a proper one.
 
#14 ·
Two very different scenarios OP. Bradshaw moving to the top of the card, for me, felt like the early 90s when Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were elevated from tag team wrestlers -- promotions for all three gentlemen from the mid-card. Jinder Mahal has been a complete jobber for years -- not even a JTTS (Jobber to the Stars), but the guy who as recently as February was teamed with Rusev, just so that he could eat the pins instead of Rusev.
 
#16 ·
The thing about JBL's reign is that everything around him was boring, thus even with his steadily consistent good promos, it was never actually entertaining to watch. His stable was completely lackluster. C'mon, Orlando Jordan? BASHAM Brothers? When you're trying to appeal to a young audience and your main heel is a 'stock market tycoon,' you're going to get a lot of people to tune out. The only saving grace was Eddie Guerrero being part of a rivalry with him.
 
#28 ·
You aren't the only one I've heard try to make the comparison and it makes no sense. JBL already had success as a tag team with APA and then some small pushes here and there around 2002ish. Jinder has never been above midcard jobber status until very recently. I will admit I quit watching in late 2002 because of John Cena's push and didn't start back until 2010 so I missed the whole JBL push but you still can't compare their careers up until their first title runs. Completely different.
 
#32 ·
Just for argument's sake on a Tuesday evening let me draw you this scenario. In 1988, Dino Bravo after beginning his run with WWE as a member of a tag team combination with Greg Valentine, starts to receive a singles push. He is billed as "Canada's Strongest Man" after ostensibly winning a dead-lift competition at the inaugural "Royal Rumble" (thank you Jesse Ventura) and goes on a run of success over the next two years being kept strong in programs against Ken Patera, Hacksaw Duggan and even getting some nondescript victories over Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan on the house show circuit. Finally in late 1989, he gets a featured program with Warrior for the Intercontinental championship. Warrior trounces him.

Do you see the point I'm making? Now if you can make a cogent argument that Bravo should've captured the IC belt from Warrior, then fine. But just because a talent has garnered a credible amount of success in the undercard division does not necessarily mean he should be granted the opportunity to have a championship run. I mean over the course of wrestling history, there is a list of guys as long as my arm that I can slide into the "Dino Bravo" slot in this tale and the outcome would be the same.:toomanykobes
 
#29 ·
As headstar showed, he got a fair amount of hate back then. I do remember coming across an old GAB '04 discussion thread and they were shitting on him there too. I also remember everyone praising Cena's performance as the only "good thing" on the show and that he was a star in the making. Go figure lol.
 
#31 ·
In a word: YES!

The hate for JBL back in 2004 was very real and to this day there are a lot of wrestling fans (myself included) who don't rate JBL as a performer because of how he was hotshotted over a decade ago. To me he's one of those wrestlers who was the beneficiary of favorable booking, nothing more and nothing less and I therefore don't put him in the same category with the other legends or top performers of his era.
 
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