"The Franchise" Shane Douglas: Overrated or Underrated?

[NSL]

This should be interesting. Shane Douglas is a solid wrestler. He basically helped ECW get the attitude it so dearly needed during the mid to late '90s with his shoot promos and him throwing the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Title down and proclaiming himself the ECW Champion. He also wrestled during the last legs of WCW at the time with Torrie Wilson as his valet.

He also wrestled in the NWA/WCW in the late 80s and early 90s, and was also known as Dean Douglas in the WWE. Sure the time spent as "Dean" was a bit of a waste, but it was the attitude he had after getting burnt by the WWE that helped him be so successful in ECW when he returned.

And in doing all of this, Douglas couldn't draw a dime. He was good on the mic because he spoke his mind, but he's also a bitter, average worker who can only bad mouth wrestlers that are galaxies better than him. He talked himself up a lot bigger than what he really was. He was just a loudmouth with average work in the ring and an average look. Nothing special. So I think he's HIGHLY overrated. What's your thoughts?

Couldn't draw? Are you crazy? ECW didn't get to go to the world's most famous bingo hall until he arrived and started to make a name for himself. Once they got there, it was Shane Douglas throwing down the NWA title that made Eastern Championship Wrestling change to Extreme Championship Wrestling. Heyman was the mad scientist behind the curtain, but it was Douglas that made it work. Francine might be the most beloved person from ECW, and she was managing Shane. She was the one who turned hyeel to give him the TV Title, and was involved in the match where Shane legitimately broke Gary's neck, creating one of the most intense rivalries ever. It wasn't intense because of the booking, it was intense because it was real, and Shane had the fans wanting to hate him. When he threw down Gary wearing the halo, do you remember the scene? Fans jumped the barriers, fans ran through the locker room, and the fans chased him down the street. He couldn't even stay in his hotel that night. Shane Douglas was the reason I started watching ECW, and he was the reason I couldn't stop watching.

Shane Douglas: OVERRATED or UNDERRATED?

Underrated. He's one of my favorites ever. He was solid in the ring, and was the best wrestler in the 3rd biggest company of the 90s. His promos excelled past so many others, and his matches regularly main evented shows.

Shane Douglas wasn't the reason people watched. RVD, Sandman, Raven, Tommy Dreamer and others were.

RVD would have been nothing if it wasn't Shane making the TV Title worth more than the main title. RVD was a tremendous talent, but he still held nothing better than the midcard belt.

Sandman is most remembered because of his entrance, and then because of his feuds with Dreamer and Raven. ECW could have survived without Sandman, Sandman could not have made a career without ECW.

Raven is remembered for the gimmick/character. People don't remember him as "the greatest wrestler in ECW", they remember him as a great character that also worked for a while in WCW. Without his time in ECW, we'd remember him as what? Johnny Polo?

Tommy Dreamer is only known for his feud with Sandman. Before that, he was the guy with green suspenders that wouldn't sign with WCW. He was hated, he was a jobber, and he wasn't going anywhere past that. By feuding with Sandman, he became the "Innovator Of Violence", and got the following that he has today. Like Sandman, ECW could have survived without Dreamer. Dreamer could not have survived without ECW.

Shane was a solid wrestler, but was overrated in my opinion. I don't even factor his first run in WCW and his run in the WWF, because he was given shit gimmicks to work with, however, if he indeed played a character, then I'll change my stance again, but to me, it seems as if he was really bitter toward people that were simply better than him at his job.

Shit gimmick in WCW/NWA? In case you didn't ever watch Starrcade, he was involved in a tag match with Ricky Steamboat as his partner, against two legends of their time, Brian Pillman and Barry Windham. You don't need a gimmick when you're in the ring with that kind of talent. Gimmicks were reserved for guys like Johnny B. Badd and the Repo Man.

As far as I know, he was only ever "bitter" towards Ric Flair, blaming him for holding him back. If you're going to hate on him for that, then lump in anyone who didn't hold the title in the 80s because "Hogan plays politics". Everyone hates someone who is better than them, it's a part of the business. If he channeled that into his promos or character, then great. That's part of what made people love ECW. Everyone shit on the "Monday night shows", not just him.

Totally Overated, Yes the guy braught ECW to the stage it was supposed to be with an attitude immitated by its competitors, but remember the guy who put him their, Paul Heyman.

I mentioned earlier that Heyman was "the man behind the curtain", but you can't just plug people in and make it work. It failed quite often, actually. Remember Johnny Storm? Furnas and LaFon? Probably not. They couldn't work in Heyman's system. Not only did Douglas excel at it, but he evolved it into a totally different animal.

The guy was given the ball and ran with it by cursing alot, Shane has been given the ball countless times by the WWE and WCW, he won numerous titles in WCW in its final days in hopes that he would get his world title shot, but in the end he ended up doing nothing but saying how he was going to franchise tourie wilsons ass.

This may not be a credible argument in the big scheme of things, but who at that time didn't want to "franchise Torrie's ass"? you would have said the same thing, and you know it.

Can you remember a match outside of ECW that Shane douglas was involved in?, I can't.

He had an IC match at SummerSlam against Razor Ramon, he had matches on RAW against Ramon and 1-2-3 Kid, and he also had a few matches against guys like Pillman in WCW's early days. I've also seen some matches against Candido at XPW, and a few more against Funk out there too.

Apart from being an average worker with little to no mic skills Douglas always kept bashing the Hogans, the Flairs and anyone else above him on the totem poll because he knew that he couldnt do much else, he could only get over with a crowd by cursing and ripping people, he couldnt work with a gimmick had no carisma, and by all else couldnt even carry a big company or any big feuds without the crowd going dead, remember his match against hugh morris for the US title?, first blood?, it was actually declared the worst match of the Year by PWI and WCW was putting out alot of stinkers that year.

Like no one else has dissed Hogan or Flair for clogging up the title scene. I can name a few posters on here that do that. And again, he wasn't the first or only guy to do it. Russo and Jarrett did it on a live PPV to Hogan.

So reitterating Overated, he is one of the pioneers for ECW thats where it ends.

Pioneering the 3rd biggest company of the 90's, and the company that was running rampant in NYC and Philly. Seems like a good career to me.

UNDERRATED

 

[RVDgurl]

No Offense to RVDGurl and JMT225. I love you guys, I love reading your posts because they are always insightful, but in this case you guys are dead wrong. I understand that you both love small promotions. ECW though... sucked, and it sucked hardcore. You can thank Shane Douglas for that.

I sincerely appreciate your kind words, but I have to respectfully disagree with your opinion of ECW as whole, and of Shane Douglas as a talent. Why did ECW suck hardcore? I don't want to assume anything, but this comment leads me to believe that you have very little experience with ECW. I hope you are not one of those people who think ECW was nothing more than barbwire baseball bats and blood. Although that small aspect of it was fun, there was alot more going on in that bingo hall in South Philly than hardcore matches.

Here is a guy who wants everything thrown to him on a silver platter. He thinks he's the shit when in fact he is just shit. You claim that he took an indy company, and took it to the 3rd highest promotion. Congrats, you were almost good enough. Shane Douglas is the epitome of a nothing superstar. If he was as good as you say he was how come he couldn't compete in WCW or WWE? RVD turned out just fine in WWE. So if Douglas is as good as you guys think he is, tell me...why didnt he turn out the way of RVD? It's because he is a talentless hack who whines and bitches way too much about his own inadequacies.

Why didn't Shane Douglas turn out the way of RVD? Ya know, asking me that question is kinda silly- but I'll give you my answer: because RVD is the greatest wrestler ever! Douglas was great, but he can't hold a candle to RVD. It's comparing apples to oranges.

Shane Douglas had all the talent in the world when it comes to mic skills and in ring work. However, you answered your own question here: Douglas never had major success in WCW or WWE because he was a whiney guy who bitched way too much. He had a terrible attitude and it cost him his career. Douglas was his own worst enemy. To truly evaluate his talent, you have to look past that. Wrestling is like any other business. Skills and talent will only take you so far. No one wants to employ someone who's attitude is like a cancer. Douglas had the talent to be successful in both WCW and WWE. Yes, he was given some pretty shitty gimmicks to work with, but ultimately it was his attitude that was his downfall.

 

[byrnside]

Shane Douglas had all the talent in the world when it comes to mic skills and in ring work. However, you answered your own question here: Douglas never had major success in WCW or WWE because he was a whiney guy who bitched way too much. He had a terrible attitude and it cost him his career. Douglas was his own worst enemy. To truly evaluate his talent, you have to look past that. Wrestling is like any other business. Skills and talent will only take you so far. No one wants to employ someone who's attitude is like a cancer. Douglas had the talent to be successful in both WCW and WWE. Yes, he was given some pretty shitty gimmicks to work with, but ultimately it was his attitude that was his downfall.

I gotta agree with you here. I personally liked Shane Douglas, as I've said before. I'm a sucker for a great heel, and he was definitely that. He always in a lot of ways reminded me of a pissed off Curt Hennig [not as good of an athlete though.] But I like I said, I have to agree with RVDgurl.. It was all about the attitude. Even Triple H was saddled with a shitty gimmick around the same time as Douglas was saddled as the deranged teacher. But Triple H busted his ass and proved he was better than the snobby blue blood didn't he? Shane could've easily done that. But he chose to pick up his ball and run back to Philly. Not that I can complain, because unlike the stereo type, I loved WWE and ECW, it was WCW I couldn't stand.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

To be honest i wasn't really a fan of anything that Shane Douglas did. I didn't really enjoy his matches and thought that his promos were way to overboard. You don't need to be calling the countries favourite wrestlers '********ers' to make a name for yourself. I may have agreed with everything he said about Hogan, but half the stuff he said about Flair was totally unnecessary.

He had talent i'll give him that, but it wasn't anywhere near the level of guys like HBK or Bret Hart or Sting was it? He was a top dog in ECW, and while that may not mean much to a lot of people, they were still #3 throughout the '90s and he made the first big crash for that promotion. Him throwing the Eastern Championship Belt down was their equivalent of Hogan joining the NWO. The difference was, after Hogan did that, next to no one got to become a ME talent unless they came from WWE first or were THAT good i.e Goldberg, Benoit etc but after Shane threw the belt down, every no name and pee-on became significant in ECW, thereby watering down Shane Douglas' significance as a whole. Apart from breaking Gary Wolfe's neck and throwing down the belt, i can't really think of much else that Shane Douglas did in ECW, whereas Raven was crucifying people, Terry Funk was hanging in there for as long as he could, RVD became the top guy for a brand no one knew of despite never being the champion, and fueds like Taz/Sabu, Raven/Dreamer, Raven/Sandman were what people tuned in for, as well as the other talents who were a breath of fresh air compared to what WWF and WCW were churning out at the time.

Shane Douglas put ECW on the map, but everyone else kept them there.

So basically, i think he was overrated too.

 

[GameOver]

He seemed like someone who had to depend on others to get him over,.

You mean like John Cena LOLz
yay someone got that shot in.

Personally i agree though i don't think he amounted to anything, all he was was a jacked up yeller, he could easily have moved to death metal and he wouldn't have had to change his vocal talents at all.

He sought of had a bit of Flair's arrogance, a bit of the main event brawler style and the valets but thats it.

Hell he's gone to TNA and he did what a couple of promo's and 2 really poor matches and what;s he doing now? he can't even get on TV there. and i wouldn't blame TNA for that move, he really can't cut it.

Raven, now there's someone who was highly underrated as far as main event exposure, and i think he did far more for ECW/WWE/WCW than Shane Douglas ever did

 

[Nature Boy]

I would say that Shane Douglas is very overrated.

I refer to him as the David Brent (From The Office) of Wrestling.

I quite liked some of the stuff he did. I liked him teaming with Ricky Steamboat, largely because I'm a huge Ricky Steamboat fan, and even then I thought it was far far beneath Steamboat.

I liked some of his angles in ECW such as his feuds with Cactus Jack and 2 Cold Scorpio, but that was largely down to Cactus and Scorpio.

I never thought Shane Douglas was anything special in the ring, and I found watching him a pretty boring experience.

Even worse were his promos. I found him really irritating, not in a love to hate way like Roddy Piper, but in a nauseatingly boring way.

I give him credit for the Hardcore Homecoming stuff as I am really into that, but as far as Douglas goes, I was never a fan, and I was seldom entertained by anything he did.

 

[mvp216]

Let me preface this by saying that I bought every ECW DVD released by Pioneer Video and enjoyed the DVD's very much.

As far as Shane Douglas goes, the fact that we are talking about him right now tells me he is overrated because the guy was simply never relevant. He has bored the heck out of me in all of the matches I have seen him in. The belly-to-belly suplex finisher was awful. Personally, I think he was really good on the mic though. He was like a poor man's Curt Hennig. He just doesn't stick out though like other big ECW guys: Raven, RVD, Taz. He just never separated himself from the other wrestlers, he had a generic look, wrestling style and personality. He was never a relevant figure on a big stage and yet he is being discussed right now.