Verne Gagne is one of the most boring wrestlers, ever. He makes Dory Funk Jr. look like Rey Mysterio. Yeah he was a great promoter in the 70s, but he ran his company into the ground because of his nepotism in the 80s. Yeah he was a big deal in the NWA, I don't care, the man is one of the least entertaining wrestlers I've ever seen.
Muta, on the other hand, is one of the few Japanese legends to reach a great deal of success in the United States. Former NWA champion as well, just like Gagne. The deciding factor that gave him my vote? He's one of the most entertaining professional wrestlers of the last 30 years. The NWA, WCW, NJPW, AJPW, he's dominated in all of them and that's more than can be said for Verne "I'm going to push my talentless son until it literally bankrupts my company" Gagne in my book.
Not the most scientific of voting methods, but there's no way I could justify voting for Verne Gagne with how much I dislike the man.
Seriously X? Seriously?
You think we should vote through a self confessed child murderer, animal abuser and drug dealer to the next round?
There was a time when I'd worry about getting called out on comments like that over accuracy, but you've made pretty clear that we're just allowed to make up our own information now, so fuck it; Muta touched children, caused the financial crisis and listens to Insane Clown Posse for entertainment.
Firstly, what the fuck are you talking about when you say "Verne 'I'm going to push my talentless son until it literally bankrupts my company' Gagne"?
I know I just swore at you in a rather impolite way (which you completly deserve) but that's a legitimate question. The accusations that Verne insisted on pushing Greg over more deserving talent, or that Greg wasn't a deserving talent in his own right, are ones that never seem to go away on the internet, but never, ever, seem to be made by anyone willing to back them up.
Not to blow my own horn more than necessary, but I've done quite a lot of reading on Verne Gagne and have found not one iota of evidence for either of these hypotheses being true. Fuck, five minutes on wikipedia will prove the assertion to be a crock of shit.
So X, perhaps you and I can get together and get to the bottom of this for the good of humanity. When you were talking about Verne Gagne running his company into the ground through nepotism... what the fuck were you going on about?
Tell you want, because I like you, I'll do you a personal favor. I'll point out a bunch of ways in which your statement is wrong before you try and reply, so when you do give me a reason you don't look ignorant.
1) Greg Gagne did not get his push through nepotism. He started working in AWA in 1972. Payed his dues as a jobber. Formed a midcard tag team and didn't see his first piece of gold until 1977, five years later. Gagne didn't get his first actual singles fued until 1984, over a decade after his debut. The man paid his dues.
2) Greg Gagne was not untalented or unpopular. Upon his transition to singles wrestling he worked some of the most popular programs AWA had going. Nothing the promotion could put out at the time could touch Gagne vs King Kong Bundy or Gagne vs Henning. The man was an established draw.
3) Greg Gagne was not made the focus of the promotion or pushed ahead of more deserving talent. You call Verne a nepotist, but in 1987, with top draw Brockwinkle retiring, Verne chose Curt Henning (who'd been in the promotion half the time of Greg) to be the face of his promotion ahead of his son. When Henning deserted and Lawler didn't work out Greg Gagne was suddenly the fans favorite to become world champion, but once again Verne elected to pass over his son and give the title to Larry Zbyszko instead.
Verne Gagne was not a nepotist.
4) Verne Gagne did not book AWA into the ground. This is the stupidest one you've come up with. If you look hard you can find disgruntled former AWA guys who will bitch about Greg, but the claim that AWA folded because of Verne's booking is just comical.
What Verne Gagne did was book one of the most successful wrestling promotions in history, and kept it running for thirty years. That's twice as long as WCW, and three times longer than ECW. Verne Gagne is one of the greatest promoters in wrestling history.
AWA did not fold because of booking. It did not fold because of backstage politics. And no matter how much history revisionists and the ignorant try to push the idea, it did not fold because Hogan left. AWA folded for the same reason all the other territorial promotions folded. Simple economics and Geography. Vince controlled the east coast, AKA, where all the damn people lived. He could run bigger cards more often and had infinitly more capital than his rivals. He could buy all the best talent and invest in expansion whilst all the AWA could do (from it's massive home base of Minnesota) was fight to survive. Hogen, Martel, Heenen, Henning and every other star the AWA built jumped ship because they could make better money elsewhere. You can't fight that, and condemning Verna Gagne for the promotion's collapse is even more stupid than those people who blame Russo for WCW's demise whilst completly ignoring Time Warner.
So there you go X... perhaps you could inform me exactly how your statments make any kind of sense, because as far as I can tell they're just a rather poor work of fiction.
...
As for the idea of Gagne being boring... if you hate old school wresting then good for you, and to be honest well done for admiting it. I sound sarcastic but I'm not. Most people chiefly interested in flips and highspots insist of making random comments about how "Andre the Giant was pretty good" or whatever, instead of just admitting what they're watching for. Cudos.
You do appreciate that Verne Gagne wasn't
actually boring through right? I mean I personally find Hulk Hogan boring, but 80,000 paying customers say differently, so I'm forced to conclude that mine is a valueless minority oppinion. Gagne was one of the biggest draws of his time, and with the possible exception of Antonio Rocca, was a great deal more 'exciting' (from a modern perspective) than almost all of his contempories.
Not to your taste... fine, but Verne Gagne wasn't boring. He drew far too much for that.
...
Now, the votes gone too far for Gagne to actually have a shot at this, but I'll spend a few minutes talking about the match. It takes place in America where Gagne was one of the most successful and dominant characters in history. Advantage Gagne.
In the US you aren't usually allowed to hit someone with a chair because they're outside the ring, smack them with a blue crate because you feel like it or spit colorful paint in their eyes. That takes out a significant portion of Muta's offence. Advantage Gagne.
Muta is a perfectly capable technical wrestler when he wants to be. Lou Thesz called Gagne the greatest technical wrestler he ever faced. Advantage Gagne.
Muta showboats, Gagne doesn't. Advantage Gagne.
Gagne drew far more in Japan that Muta ever did in the US. Advantage Gagne.
Gagne had a far greater impact on the development of professional wrestling around the world. I've posted before how Gagne pretty much saved technical wrestling in the US helping to popularize the style, then training names like Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Curt Henning, Bob Backlund almost 100 others to keep it going. Without Gagne the entire American industry would very likely have gone the way of the muscle clad bodybuilders, and an entire demographic of internet fans might never have been born. According the tdingle Muta wrote the book on heel psychology, but I'm not quite clear on exactly what elements of heel psychology he introduced that other people weren't doing twenty years previously. Advantage Gagne.
Like I said, I'm not here because I care who wins, it's too late for that and this is nothing but a popularity contest anyway, but if people are going to knock Gagne then could they at least try and be accurate whilst doing it.
*The following post was brought to you as a result of Lou Thesz having a completely uncompetitive first round match*