Insider trading
Uh oh, I knew the Razor & Diesel talk would prompt someone to e-mail me…
“Was recently reading Mick Foley’s new book, and read a section claiming that
Terry Funk and Vince had a falling out dating back to Funk humorously
walking out on a PPV in 1993. I had no idea Vince had dealt with Funk in 93,
and wondered if you knew what PPV he was referring to? My guesses were The
Rumble (as an entrant) or as Jerry Lawler’s sub against Bret at Summerslam.
Do you or your bloggees know anything about this?”
I do not know anything about this, no.
“Second of all, just more of a general curiosity on your opinion of an angle.
I’ve tried defending this before but I never get any agreement, so thought
I’d see where you stood. Basically, I firmly believe Fake Razor and Diesel
could have been a brilliant angle if the story stuck to it’s original roots.
To me, it seemed pretty clear that the point was to get JR over as a heel
who wanted to screw with Vince and the WWF. The characters were set to
embarrass the whole company, which was JR’s intention. Slowly, Razor and
Diesel would be fazed out, but JR the Heel Manager/Announcer would stick
around as a fully fledged heel. However, the problem lay in the fact that
they just seemed to accept the fakers as a generic heel tag team, eventually
daring to just call them Razor and Diesel. Moreover, JR’s absolutely
phenomenal heel character (the absolute must-see moment of the Buried Alive
IYH and the highlight all Raw’s from that period), was quietly dropped, as
was his association with the doppelgangers. Thus the true intention of the
storyline was dead, and the characters were merely laughable imposters. It’s
always a little controversial to stick up for these guys, your thoughts? Am
I just over thinking this one or what?”
No, I agree with you. They actually had a very interesting idea, especially JR as a crazy heel announcer, but didn’t know where to go with it after that. I would have been fine with them just accepting the Insiders as a generic heel tag team, but only if they dropped those gimmicks after they were like “We’re our own men!” or something. I know the intention was never to do anything with them and they were just out there to protect the copyright, but it’s really interesting that they seem to stumble ass-backwards into neat ideas and can’t think far enough outside their confined notion of what the product is to do anything about them.
Well first I want to thank Scott for rescuing my post from the other thread from spam folder hell.
Second, I have to admit that I don’t remember anything about JR being a heel announcer and to me, the entire “Insiders” characters were just WWF’s attempt to: 1) make fans forget that the real Razor and Diesel were gone by offering up substitutes, or 2) making fun of the two of them for being in WCW. I never saw anything deeper in either character. Maybe it was because at the time I didn’t really have any insider knowledge? Well, anyway, that’s an interesting theory about them.
-Martman
as far as i can remember it from 11 years ago, what happened was that after Hall and Nash left, the fanbase (such as it was at the time) kicked off because the two were still over (especially Kev the heel, who i believe was the first person to PROPERLY flip someone off on WWF TV), so one week ‘WWF president’ Gorilla Monsoon was sitting in on commentary on RAW and basically apologizing for outsider-less shows, when suddenly JR was all like ‘you know what, the fans want to see Razor Ramon & Diesel so bad, well I’m gonna bring ‘em back, BY GOLLY!’ (this was before ‘WWF Attitude’ was what the fans demanded) i think, hazy as my thoughts are, that this was also tied into JR claiming to be in the process of bringing back Bret Hart from his first Long Sulk. Anyway, Monsoon dismissed his claim as grandstanding, so JR promised them the next week. When the next week rolled around, JR went into the ring and cut a bitchy promo about how he used to be a respected wrestling announcer who also got to call NFL games on radio and he gave that all up to wear togas and be the token southern hick and stuff and how Vince McMahon was a dick for being such a dick (which i think was the first time that vince was named on TV as the owner) and for letting Razor & Diesel go against the wishes of the fans, but now JR was going to show them, he was going to show them all, and he was going to start by bringing back…Razor Ramon. Except it wasn’t. people booed, and Gorilla was all like ‘That wasn’t Scott Hall’ and JR was all like ‘well I never said I was going to bring back Scott Hall, I said I was going to bring back Razor Ramon, and the angle began to pick up speed, eventually making TENS of dollars for the WWF.
This is how i remember it at any rate, if anyone can correct me feel free, because i literally pulled that from the top of my head, so i’m sure some of the details are a little hazy
Funk was supposed to be one of the Knights at Survivor Series 93 and was then going to be the booker for the WWF afterwards. Instead, he sent Vince a note saying his “horse was sick” and couldn’t make it. Funk covers this is in his book, I think.
I’m not sure why Vince brought the grudge back last year, considering he worked with him in 97 and 98, but that’s Vince.
Speaking of the Funks, though. Here’s a blast from the past. What was your problem with Dory Funk Jr., Scott? I seem to remember you ripping on him as sort of a running joke back in the late 1990s.
According to Graham Cawthon, the April 2, 2007 WON reports that Funk was to be one of the Knights at the 1993 Survivor Series:
http://historyofwwe.ipbfree.com/index.php?showtopic=4700&hl=terry+funk+survivor+series
It seems hard to believe that Funk was supposed to be a knight since they were all meant to just be jobbers in that match. However, it would explain how Jeff Gaylord became a knight since he never did anything in the WWF before or after if he was a last minute replacement for Funk. Funk has a long and storied history of screwing over McMahon from running out on McMahon with no notice in the 1980’s to doing the same thing in 1998 including no shows, such as Royal Rumble 1996 (it is acknowledged on commentary). Funk is lucky McMahon ever does any business with him.
Jim Ross never wanted to be a character at all, much less a heel character. Ross was made a heel after being brought back from 1 of his many firings to make sure he was going to do whatever he was told. After Ross passed his loyalty test the heel angle was dropped and he was given power backstage. The Insiders had nothing to do with making fans forget Hall and Nash (they made Hall and Nash more remembered) or making fun of Hall and Nash (McMahon and Nash have always had a good relationship to this day), it was simple copyright protection to keep WCW from using WWF copyrights and to preserve the Razor and Diesel copy rights for when Nash and Hall came back (Nash was going to do Diesel again before they released him and even dyed his hair for it).
Hall and Nash? Don’t you mean some extremely witty pun nickname, like “Stall and Stash”, or something like that?
The ironic thing about those nicknames is that Scott Hall is Stash.
Well, I’m posting this at 10:12 AM PST on Sunday April 22nd. Hopefully, it won’t take a day to be posted like many of my other posts seem to for some reason.
Anyway, from the Terry Funk autobiography, “More Than Just Hardcore” (an excellent book, by the same guy who wrote the unofficial Death Of ECW book and the Bill Watts book, Scott E. Williams), page 192:
“I was actually supposed to work in the WWF in late 1993. They had called me about becoming head booker. They were doing their big Survivor Series show in Boston and wanted me to wear some silly outfit with a blue mask, to be one of Jerry Lawler’s knights, taking on Bret Hart and three of his brothers in a big tag match. Their plan was, Bret was going to beat me, then take my mask off and put his finishing hold, the SharpShooter, on me and beat me again. After that, ‘they’ said, I would become the creative head of the company, replacing Pat Patterson, my old friend. Patterson had gome from being Ray Stevens’ tag partner to being the WWF’s booker, but Pat was looking to step down and take it a little easier.
I went to meet with them about it, and going from my ranch, with all the open space, to New York City, with the cabs and people, the hustle and bustle, was culture shock. It was an hour to get here, an hour to get there. There was no place to go that I was going to get to very quickly.
I met with them and then had dinner with Pat. It was great–we laughed a lot and told old stories. Then, I went up to my hotel room and went to bed. As I lay there, I got to thinking, ‘I’m not sure if I want to follow through with this deal.’
I got up the next morning and left a note for Vince. It read, ‘My horse is sick, I think he’s dying. I’ll see you later.’
A couple of hours later, I was at the airport, when I heard them call my name for a call on the airport paging system. I was running by that time!
And I came home. I escaped again.
As it turned out, that was when Lawler was having his legal troubles, so they replaced him with Shawn Michaels. I would have been one of Shawn Michaels’ knights!
When I came to work for him in late 1997, one of the first things Vince said to me was, ‘So how’s your horse?’ “
Thank you for the information. I bought Funk’s book, but did not get around to reading it. I really think that is doing business the wrong way to agree to do something, then walk out without notice. Foley is lucky McMahon brought in Funk at all last year.
You’re welcome.
It’s quite a good book. reading it, you feel as if Terry is in the room speaking to you even though it was done by a co-author/ghost writer.
I read it and Harley Race’s books back-to-back and it was very illuminating getting insight into the politics behind the NWA World Title in the 1970 and 1980s. I tried reading the Dusty Rhodes book afterwards but gave up after a few chapters as I got sick of reading how he was the biggest start of all-time bar none and how he could’ve been much biiger than “yellowfinger” (his name for Hogan) if only he’d gotten the chance.
Does anyone know why my posts take hours to show up instead of going through right away? Should I try registering for a new account here?
Your posts get caught in my spam filter for whatever reason. It’s very aggressive sometimes and I just have to keep telling it that you (and Martman) aren’t spam, and it’ll eventually get the hint and let your stuff through. I’m aware of the problem, either way.
I read Harley Race’s book, it was okay, but lacked details. When I had jury duty years ago I read Jimmy Hart’s book, Death Of WCW, Race’s book, and Wrestling’s 1 Ring Circus by our Zen master Scott Keith before I got stuck on a trial. I wish more wrestling books were on audio cassette or compact disc because I just never have the time to read them as much as I want to. I hope you get your posting problems sorted out (I had problems posting when I would try to insert a link or if I tried to do a numbered list, such as top 5 finishers or something).
The Funk book is great. One of the few wrestling book that made me laugh out loud. Race’s was good too…just more serious.
I liked learning about what Race did in wrestling after he left the business.
I mean I liked learning about his school, which is now starting to churn out some hot prospects. I also liked reading about him being a process server.
I never cared too much for Snarley Face’s wrestling school or work as a process server.
Most people do care about the life and work or 1 of wrestling’s greatest legends. You are entitled to a differing view on that. As far as your other trolling post on here, I will not dignify it with a response. I do not believe in feeding internet trolls who are just looking to fight and be disruptive.
You’re oblivious.
not sure if anyone will read this, but a while ago when he kept a lj, cm punk had the GREATEST Harley Race story ever. cmpunk.livejournal.com, i’d paraphrase it but I wouldn’t be doing it justice.
That would’ve been so weird seeing Terry as one of those knights, because you would know its him the first punch.
I suppose its better than having Funk play one of the Doinks. Although the visual of a clown carrying a branding iron would be hilarious.
That should’ve said after the first punch.
Thank you for the replies, Scott and MRobert. I’m glad to know it’s just a technical glitch of some kind. I thought maybe my posts were under porbation/approval-required but I didn’t think I’d said anything in the past that would have warranted that so I really couldn’t figure it out.
I do hope it gets fixed soon and I appreciate your effort in trying to resolve the issue, Scott.
I’ll keep checking your site daily, though. I’ve been a fan of yours since I stumbled onto…think it was still called Rantsylvania just after the 2001 Royal Rumble and I’ve bought all 4 of your books so it takes much more than a technical glitch to keep me away. ^_^
Was this more or less the same storyline that had J.R. setting up his own announcing desk with Dr. Death Steve Williams standing by as a bodyguard? Or was that a separate “evil Jim Ross” storyline?
That was a different angle, run around WM XV, created by Vince Russo, largely in an attempt to replace JR with Michael Cole for good. It was right after Jim returned from his latest Bell’s Palsy to commentate the main event of WM XV. After a few weeks it was dropped and JR returned to Raw.
Thanks….they kind of blur together after a while. Man, you could put together a whole DVD of failed attempts to punish and/or replace and/or humiliate Jim Ross.
JR has come a long way since then. I remember he could barely even move his mouth at all. He recovered from that really well.