Wilfred's Debate 2022 Round 1 Tie 3 - kdestiny vs Dave Wyndorf

WILFRED'S DEBATE 2022 ROUND 1 TIE 3

@kdestiny vs @Dave Wyndorf

BEST GIMMICK IN THE GOLDEN ERA

The Golden Era between 1982 and 1993 is considered one of if not the best eras in WWF and wrestling as a whole that helped revolutionise the industry as a whole including expanding the company out of the territorials and the kickstart of PPVs including Wrestlemania. It was home to many great matches, storylines and gimmicks. However it has been considered that it was home to some awful stuff as well including gimmicks which is what we will be focusing on for this topic.

Your topic is to choose what and who you think had the best gimmick in the Golden Era. You must argue why you think yours is the best choice and also why your choice is stronger than your opponents. I will allow team gimmicks and other non-wrestling characters as well as singles wrestlers.

RULES

Each participant will be allowed 3 posts each with a word cap of 400 words maximum per post. This must not be exceeded.
No editing of posts is allowed. Once it is down it is down.
Responses must be staggered. Each participant must wait until their opponent has gone until they can post again.
No rebuttals are allowed for the person posting after their opponent original post. Once both opening posts are down then you may rebut your opponent's choice.
Videos, gifs, pictures etc can be used and will not count towards the word count.
If you quote your opponent, the quote will not count towards the word count. However if you choose to cite words from an article, outside source then those words will count.
Ties will last exactly the one week and will be timestamped. No extensions will be allowed UNLESS they are extenuating circumstances.
If all 6 posts are not in then they will be judged on what has been put down.
For the opening posts, each person will have 48 hours maximum to respond. If the person chosen to go first has not responded then they may respond themselves in which case the other person has 48 hours to respond. If there are no responses within those 48 hour periods then whoever has posted will win automatically.
For all participants and anyone posting in the discussion thread, please do not comment on the ties while they are going on.
Once the ties have been completed, it will be down to the 3 judges to judge on who they think did best and to PM their votes to me. They will know this already but please give reasoning for your votes.

The coin toss has revealed that Dave Wyndorf will be going first!

Happy Debating! Any questions about your individual ties then please PM me.

The greatest era of wrestling, the Golden Era, was full of awesome, memorable gimmicks. As a youngster during that period, I can for sure say I legitimately believed every wrester was who he or she said they were. I was very gullible. But today, looking back, I see beneath it all. People really weren't from Parts Unknown, Deepest jungles of Africa, etc.

So that's why for my pick for this debate, I went with someone with a more believable gimmick. Someone who's regarded as one of the best to ever grace the squared circle. Someone who is absolutely...Perfect.

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.e214e8cd...pid=ImgRaw&r=0

In a land of giants, muscles, and spray tan, Curt Hennig helped to show the world that you didn't need to be bigger than life to entertain. You didn't need to be doing powerslams, gorilla press slams, and other high power moves. Just sprinkle a little bit of amateur wrestling into your arsenal, and go bell to bell with anyone and put on a good match.

Who can forget his vignettes? Hitting home runs with Wade Boggs. Bowling 300 each game. Throwing a football and then running and catching it? Yes, obviously not real, but certainly believable, even to this day. The way Curt Hennig wrestled, you felt as if he actually was perfect.

One of the most memorable gimmicks on the 80s and early 90s, but unlike the others, he had the in ring talent to back up his gmmick.

You are sorely missed Curt. Think about you daily.

Choosing the best gimmick of this era would be like choosing your favorite film or TV show. You could easily go with 8-10 different options, but once I sat down and I really thought about it, there is still one person whose influences on the business and what they did with their character still is taught today. That just goes to show how effective this man was at his gimmick work.

Attachment 38

If you want to talk about someone who truly embodied that time period I think you can look no further than Jake “The Snake” Roberts!

The innovator of the DDT, the master of psychology, and maybe one of the most unique and effective promos of all time. This man was such an interesting character, and not just for the snake that he brought to the ring. He embodied a lot of the snake. He was someone who could talk the talk, but made you listen. He made you believe in what he was doing.

I do think one of the things that does go overlooked for Jake is that he was effective as a babyface or a heel. Hell, rumor has it that he started getting bigger reactions than Hulk Hogan at the height of his powers. Jake had the audiences in the palm of his hand even in matches that weren’t the best like that blindfold match with Rick Martel.

You can’t forget some of his heel work. I think he just gets it. He created one of the most memorable visuals with his cobra biting Macho Man and not letting go. Somehow he became one of the most despised men after a few years of being one of the hottest acts in the company.

This man is an absolute legend and embodies this era better than anyone. He is the best gimmick of this time without question!

Mr. Perfect lived up to his gimmick by consistently having great matches with everyone from Bret Hart to Doink the Clown. No matter heel or face, you can bet that Mr. Perfect would have the best match on the card. Even when he wasn't wrestling, he was great as the consultant to Ric Flair.

Jake Roberts, as great as he was, was always missing something that kept him from reaching that main event level status. He was a master at psychology, and had memorable moments such as the Savage/cobra incident, but the technical wrestling and smoothness of Mr. Perfect's wrestling are more felt in today's wrestling world.

Mr. Perfect was more trusted than Jake, shown by Mr. Perfect's lengthy IC title reigns, and main event matches with the likes of Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior. Yes, Mr. Perfect was a great bumper before we knew what a bumper was.

In closing, Jake and Perfect were both memorable gimmicks, but Perfect's in ring work was superior, and even though he had a manager in Bobby the Brain Heenan, he was no slouch on the mike either.

He was what he was, he was absolutely perfect!

We are not talking about best in the ring. Mr. Perfect was a completely different style in the ring to Jake.

Though you say, no matter as a heel or face… I can’t recall him ever being necessarily great as a face other than the match he had with Flair.

Peffect never really hit main event status either. Jake got popular though, supposedly popular enough for higher ups not to match Jake with Hogan due to fear of him getting a better reaction than Hogan.

That is something we should talk about.

It’s all well and good to say “he had the best match on the card”. What stories did he tell with his character that made you believe? I can’t really tell you one. He had the deal with Texas Tornado as a fun one off, but once again that was as a heel.

Jake was able to play both sides very well and his promo skills would get crowds to eat out of the palm of his hand and truly listen to what he had to say. Every time he had the mic in his hand he was magic.

Being a champion does not a good gimmick make. Many would argue that Jake was bigger than the IC title and didn’t need it. He truly didn’t. The dude oozed charisma to the point that stars like Alice Cooper. He had memorable feuds as a babyface against guys like Rick Rude and Rick Martel. Intense heel feuds against Macho Man and The Ultimate Warrior. His gimmick and the way he approaches the business continues to live on. Perfect has that, but now everyone can wrestle like Mr. Perfect, not everyone can be like Jake the Snake.

Jake had a top tier promo every time. Mr. Perfect was a part of maybe the greatest of all time… oh wait, no, he was in the background for Flairs promo at the Rumble.

Jake the Snake still gets a pop today, and he will for the rest of time. Unique. One of a kind. Will never die.

ROUND OVER
@Mazer and @Psycho666Soldier please send me your votes. I’ll break it if there’s a tie.

HOT DOG WE HAVE A WIENER!

Results incoming shortly.

RESULTS

JUDGE MAZER

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mazer

This was an interesting debate.

Honestly, as I was scrolling dowb....as soon as I saw the top of each poster's selection pic, I thought "Oh.....that's a really good choice"

Dave came out swinging, and clearly established the justification. His paragraph that differentiated Perfect from others was very good.

kdestiny did a lot of solid character points. I felt like he could have spent a little more time determining WHY this particular gimmick was important.

In round 2, Dave established the longer runs for Mr. Perfect was good. But I felt like he needed to lay harder into Jake, with his main critique being around not being a main eventer. It didn't pop for me

kdestiny got on the attack here. he referenced storylines and made a convincing case for jake being more memorable in character driven events, and did just enough to tie iy back to story


Kdestiny wins

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JUDGE PSYCHO666SOLDIER

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022...ticleLarge.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psycho666Soldier

Dave starts with a good choice. The argument he's making is that Mr. Perfect was a great character that was believable and was backed up by someone who could actually wrestle. This was an argument I bought into simply because that is something that can really make or break a great gimmick at times. If your wrestling stinks, it's harder to overcome that with gimmick. Perfect was, well, damn near perfect as far as a technician goes. And on top of that, the vignettes that Dave pointed out really were memorable.

kdestiny comes back with a hell of a choice that relies heavily on how much Jake grabbed the crowd's attention. And it works, because that is probably the most fundamental aspect of a wrestler's gimmick being successful, is how much the crowd buys into it.

I think Dave is a little too honest in his first counter when he puts over how good Jake was and agreed about the memorable moments, to follow that up with Mr. Perfect being the better wrestler. I think in a pure technical sense, you can definitely argue Mr. Perfect was the better wrestler, and I liked the anlge of Mr. Perfect being more trusted by the company and how his style of wrestling is more in-line with what's valued in wrestling today. He mentioned that he was no slouch on the mic, but I wish he had done more to talk about this.

I think kdestiny really hits the nail on the head in his final post. When I think gimmick, ring-work isn't the driving factor behind that. It's important in the sense of what you do with your character, though. And kdestiny continued to argue that everything Jake did grabbed the audience. I do think he missed the opportunity to talk about how this did translate into ringwork and how the wrestling may not matter, but he still was great at it. But even without that, he makes a great point that he made memorable feuds and moments, and the biggest thing for me was what was formerly a strength of Dave's last post: "now everyone can wrestle like Mr. Perfect, not everyone can be Jake the Snake." This is completely true, and as kdestiny points out, Jake is unique and has many things that stand out, whereas no one really remembers Mr. Perfect moments other than some matches.

Dave starts strong, and maybe with another round he could have covered some of these deficiencies in memorable moments for Perfect, but kdestiny takes the dub here.

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@kdestiny wins 2-0. @Dave Wyndorf sorry bud!

I disagree.

My vote didn't matter, but if it makes you feel better, I think I would have gone with Donald. His debate was, well, almost Perfect.

It makes me feel a lot better. Thank you for brightening my day. :heart: