Rick The Model Martel

[justtxyank]

Actually Martel was going to beat Booker T in their match where he got hurt. They changed the match after he got hurt. He was going to get a decent push because he was well liked by people in power. He never would have been world champion, but I imagine he would have had the Fit Finlay push from 1998 at the very least.

Booker T getting the push he got was totally by accident thanks to Martel getting hurt.

 

[Staaaang]

Martel is one of the great French-Canadian workers of all time. I'm a huge fan. His comeback to WCW with Booker T was one of the few well-executed midcard programs of that era.

 

[Gibby]

I'll give Martel credit. You believed he was a model and believed he was that full of himself. His feud with Jake 'The Snake' Roberts was very underrated, but it ended up leading to the worst match in WWE history with the blindfold match.

The story behind it was Martel blinded Snake with his Arrogance cologne, which led to a very good promo from The Snake which involved showing graphic pictures of his eye, which looked messed up.

So the execution was there, but the match itself was just awful. The stipulation would have been better if they put four boxes in the ring and hid a blindfold in one of them. Whomever gets the blindfold has to put it on the other person the rest of the match.

Instead you get a piss poor ending to a feud that had great potential to lift Martel back up.

Alas, Martel was a great heel and had a great look to him. He was just misused.

The heat for that match was incredible and the contest was pure psychology. It's no five-star classic but they're both remembered for it and the match is better than people give it credit for. How many people get cheers as they're stumbling around looking for someone? The pop for the DDT was incredible too.

Big Martel fan. I'm always informed that what I have seen of him was his endgame, so I'd be really up for watching some of his 80s work.