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Fall From Grace

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Pakistan was not exactly a hot bed of pro wrestling in the early 90s. It really caught the attention of the Pakistani public during the Monday Night Wars with the introduction of cable and the plethora of extra international TV channels which were unheard of before. But this story is not of the Monday Night Wars. This is of a time before that when the only wrestler one had heard of was a big muscular guy donned in red and yellow. He would sport a big blond handle-bar moustache and would rip up his shirt when entered the ring. His name was Hulk Hogan.  There was no doubt that Hogan was perhaps, the most charismatic and popular wrestler of the time. Sure, there were other wrestlers who were way better (Savage, Bret Hart come to mind) and there were others who were better as characters as well (Ric Flair, but he did not have the hype machine of the WWF). However, there was no doubt, Hogan was the man who put WWF on the map.  I was really young at the time and would actually belie...
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Bret Hart's Heel Turn in the WWE

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Right off the bat....Bret Hart has always been one of my favorite wrestlers of all time. While Hulk Hogan had the hype machine behind him and seemed to be more mainstream; it was really wrestlers like Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and others - the workhorses, who really held WWE together. So, the 15 year old me was kind of distressed and puzzled when the honorable and all-around good guy in Bret "The Hitman" Hart, who had every right to be aggrieved was being booed out of the building every week. He had the Royal Rumble stolen from him by Stone Cold. He was screwed out of the championship match by Stone Cold as well. He had every right to be upset at the system. He had always been the 'good' guy. He gave it his all in every match. He never cheated and fought with honor. Then why was it that such a nice guy was being booed whereas a foul mouthed redneck was cheered even when he broke every rule in the book? This has always puzzled me; not just because of my personal bias ...
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The Piledriver

 Paul Heyman is a mad scientist.   He is someone who truly understands the psychology of wrestling. I remember the Stone Cold podcast where he appeared as a guest. He explained how one can make a simple headlock as the most devastating move in history. He explained how to make a move ‘special’. Just have a man like Mark Henry perform the move and have no one else perform it. Have Mark Henry win matches with the headlock over a year; and before you know it, people will actually fear the headlock as a finishing move. Heyman’s comments did not register completely at the time. However, these words made great sense after watching AEW and the feud between Randy Orton and Kevin Owens. The piledriver has been a long forbidden move in the WWE. The move has a very slim margin of error and can be actually devastating if performed incorrectly. Stone Cold himself would testify to the fact. And I have to say, how WWE used this move in the Orton/Owens rivalry is nothing short of rema...
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AEW...What Went Wrong?

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  I have watched wrestling through the Monday Night Wars, Attitude era, Ruthless Aggression era, the PG era and the post Vince McMahon. My favourite wrestlers have been Bret Hart, Triple H and Stone Cold. And since my family, my friends and colleagues refuse to understand wrestling and give it a chance, there are a number of opinions that I am unable to communicate to anyone. Therefore, decided to put these in writing. Let me start by saying that I am a WWE fan through and through. I was siding with WWE in spite of the fact that I could only access WCW on TNT in Pakistan at the time. However, I will not deny that there have been multiple times where WWE had become complacent; being the only game in town. So, I was pleasantly surprised when a certain Tony Khan came out of the blue and decided to start a wrestling company. And suddenly, everything was changing for the better. Things became exciting. Cody Rhodes and Chris Jericho joined the company. This obviously showed that Tony Kha...
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