Rhyno: Classic or Dud?

I think it comes down to what people never acknowledge about Paul Heyman which is that he's got an even bigger jones for "big men" than Vince McMahon. Remember 911? "Prime Time" Brian Lee was pushed as a world title contender in ECW. Scotty Anton headlining PPVs? And lest we forget he booked Sid Eudy to beat the Impact Players in a handicap match once.

Rhyno got over, like Mike Awesome, because other members of the ECW roster were prepared to bump like crazy for him. He should leave Kid Kash in his will.

he's got an even bigger jones for "big men" than Vince McMahon.
OK, that's ridiculous. Heyman knows how to book big men. Mike Awesome was a good worker, whereas 911 was not so he was booked to chokeslam people in order to look strong -- not work 20 minute matches.

Vince pushes below average workers like JBL and expects them to work long main events, while much better workers are stuck wrestling five minute matches in the midcard. Heyman rarely wasted people like that.

JBL has been GREAT since he turned. Not so much in the ring, where he is still only quite good, but his speeches have mostly been terrific entertainment, and the story has been pretty good.

Rhyno is dull. He does give a good impression of being powerful, but not much more, so he works well down the card, but nowhere near being a headliner. It highlighted to me how bad the tag situation in the WWE is now, that the big tag team title match at Unforgiven was La Resistance versus Rhyno and Tajiri. Who is there other than the Dudleys in the whole WWE who is above average?

Case for the prosecution against "Heyman knows how to book big men": Big Sal no selling a Balls Mahoney chair shot on the way to squashing him in under a minute at a PPV.

Heh, that's why I used the word "rarely" up above.

But Big Sal was fine as the big lug who accompanied the FBI to the ring and interfered in their matches. IIRC, that's all he did for months before Paul put him in an actual match.

OTOH, Vince takes a guy like Luther Reigns and immediately puts him into matches squashing the likes of Funaki and Paul London, and then segues into a program with Eddie Guerrero.

When was the last succesful introduction of a WWE "bigman" then? Was Lesnar a bigman? The Big Show's debut was hot, just a shame about the following five years.

Next "big" big man: FWA'S Burchill

http://www.frontierwrestling.com/jpg/superstars/burchill.jpg

If we take "successful bigman" to mean "good ring and promo work" and not "pushed to the moon for his look despite lack of talent", then yeah, I guess I'd say Lesnar (although his promos were never great). Batista's doing a decent job in his role right now.

When Rhyno came to the WWE, Heyman was so desperate to get him over, using the "GORE GORE GORE !!!!!!!!" phrase at every oppurtunity, matching him against guys like the Rock within a few months of his debut, and so on. But it really bugged me how he'd say "6'2", 275 POUNDS, FROM DEE-TROIT MICHIGAN" and then you'd see him in the ring with the Rock, who's billed at 6'5" 275 and he (Rhyno) was CLEARLY a midget compared to him (heck, he was even a midget compared to people like Edge and Christian, who he was paired with a lot at the time).

I know Paul was just importing the catchphrases from ECW, but I couldn't suspend my disbelief with this one. If he'd just hyped Rhyno as a crazy animal and altered his style a bit to become more of a Taz-like badass, then it would have worked better (or maybe not, since Vince fucked up Tazzzzzzzz'z'z's''szz's' push too).

i know zero background/history but yeah rhyno is a midget and the tag team situation is totally lame. why are he and tajiri partners anyway? or on raw for that matter. bump 'em both down to heat and split 'em until they get some personality. can either of them even speak? at least la resistance have a tried-and-true gimmick and matching trunks.

after tonight i'd go for hbk and y2j as a semi-permanent team but of course intercontinental title lust screws that up. they looked good though. basically i never liked shawn michaels as a solo guy since back in the day but thought the rockers were cool.

Back in 2001 most people thought Tajiri was the best worker in the United States...

One thought: we in the UK get Raw on Thursday and Smackdown on Saturday, so can US posters try to remember to warn us about spoilers?

I think Tajiri is good, and could shine in the lighter division. Rhyno is fine down the card, as a tough guy with no great hopes. They don't look like any kind of tag team.

Rhyno is hefty, but certainly not 6'2 by any means.

"pushed to the moon for his look despite lack of talent" - HEINDENREICH

Tajiri used to bust his ass back in 2001, thats why. He does some good work nowadays too, but only gets rewarded with shitty angles with coach scroachman for his success in getting moderately over with fans.

Heyman is pushing Heidenreich on camera, but off-camera it's Vince who is determined to get Heidenreich over and involved in a big money (in his and his eyes only) feud with Taker.

Looks like the Tajiri-Rhyno team is already done for, after months of buildup. They weren't even on RAW last night.

martin - apologies for the spoilers. i actually made it a point to avoid this place lest i catch a spoiler cuz i downloaded unforgiven on monday and watched it and raw in the wee hours but yeah, bad form on my part.

Sorry about that, I didn't notice the no-spoiler request.

how does one download ppv??

I used to find PPV's on KazaaLite, usually only a couple of days after the event. Or if you use BT, go to pwtorrents dot calm. (you'll find all sort of stuff there, not just WWE)

BT is good because you get good quality videos with the adverts cut out, whereas Kazaa you can just kind of pick the matches you gave a shit about seeing and download them individually without like, waiting three days for it.

I wasn't really complaining about any spoilers that have been here, just that something made me think to say it.

Heidenreich looks good so far, but I need to see more before that looks a plausible feud, especially as Taker isn't good at selling the quality of opponents.

i don't like that heidenreich doesn't have pectorals.

Didn't Big Sal job to Spike Dudley most of the time?

Giant-killer gimmick though. Spike Dudley beat Kamala once!