#4HorsemenWeek: Difference of Opinion

It’s the Final Day of #4HorsemenWeek. In celebration of this month’s Survivor Series, we’re taking a look at famous stables from the wonderful world of wrestling. This is the thirteenth installment in our patent-pending Juice Make Sugar Wrestler of the Week series. As always we started by making The Horsemen a Stable You (Should) Probably Know Better. Tuesday, we gave you the finer points of their oeuvre with some Essential Viewing. Today, in addition to filling in the blanks from the past two days (Happy Thanksgiving!) we have an actual Difference of Opinion (and not, as suspected, a celebration of the Horsemen’s specific brand of awesome.) 

Dave: Hey, Bray. *Brah Damn you autocorrect.

Nick: Bray is fine. My nickname in high school (not the one I gave myself, The Nickster) was Dr. Cornelius. So being called a fat guy from Florida isn’t that bad.

Dave: Wow. That’s a cross-generational burn right there. I’m impressed anybody we went to high school with was even aware of Planet of the Apes. (Outside of the Simpsons Dr. Zaius joke)

Nick: Charlton Heston is an American icon. And people love talking animals.

Dave: Truth.

Nick: And there are no greater American icons than the Four Horsemen.

Dave: If you’re talking 1980s wrestling, are The Horsemen collectively as big as Hogan?

Nick: I think in the wrestling fan zeitgeist, yes. In the zeitgeist zeitgeist? Not so much. I blame Notre Dame more for that, though. Or God.

Dave: I think in terms of being an act on top of a promotion, they were better than Hogan, but as you say, in terms of empire-building cultural icons, they’re not close to him. It’s a funny comparison to start making (which is why I made it right away).

Nick: Well, when you have something like the Horsemen, you don’t compare it to Oregon or LSU, you compare it to Bear Bryant. They are oddly timeless in a way because they are just hyper indicative of a specific era in time. They weirdly remind me of the Road Warriors in that way.

Dave: Oh yeah, nothing’s more 80s than The Horsemen. Private jets? Check. Conspicuous consumption? Check. Cocaine. Check.

Nick: I actually don’t think they checked the cocaine, David. I think they brought that directly on the private jet.

Dave: *Rimshot*

Nick: But when talking about their greatness, are we talking about the original team (give or take an Anderson) or the entire “franchise”?

Dave: It’s funny you bring that up because it’s a dilemma I was having all week. I think when you say “The Four Horsemen,” people think of Arn, Ole, Tully, Flair, and J.J. Dillon. And that lineup was undeniably great. But, honestly, it’s not even fun to talk about Lex Luger or Barry Windham or Steve freaking McMichael being Horsemen. The second the group stopped being something organically awesome and started being a brand to get over guys and angles, it lost a lot of its mystique.

Nick: To the level that the nWo did? Or was this more of a Corporate Ministry “this is a little contrived” situation?

Dave: If anything, I’d compare it to The Corporation, in that today’s “The Authority” is still basically The Corporation in it’s 10th incarnation.Some incarnations have been very good (The original, The “McMahon-Helmsley Regime”) and others have been bad (Austin Loves Vince, Anything involving Linda)…

Nick: Ignoring the heights, then, is there any “franchise” that is on the Four Horsemen’s level?

Dave: No, I don’t think anything’s even close. Look at Arn Anderson, he’s an awesome tough guy midcard wrestler, but because he was a member of The Four Horsemen, he’s this pantheon star. Even failed Horsemen like Paul Roma’s names will be remembered forever because they were Horsemen.

Nick: And you’re saying people don’t say the same things about The Mean Street Posse?

Dave: I’ll say this: Pete Gas sounds like something you get after eating spoiled vegetarian food.

Nick: *Rimshot* I know we talked about this “off air”, but what about The Shield?

Dave: If I could groan through the computer screen here, I would. Look, The Shield are talented guys, and they are over, but they are not even on the same planet as The Four Horsemen.

Nick: How so?

Dave: Well, for one, The Shield are lackeys. They do other people’s dirty work. Not only were The Horsemen not lackeys, they didn’t want lackeys of their own. They were all about handling business “like men,” to use the jargon of the time. Also, and I touched on this in Monday’s A Stable You Should Probably Know Better, The Four Horsemen brought prestige and a “must-see” feel to all the titles they held. And, honestly, I’m digging down deep to find more forgettable title reigns than The Shield have had.

Nick: The Shield definitely did that with the Tag Team belts.

Dave: See, I completely disagree. They dropped them to the right team (The Rhodeses), but I thought their title reign was boring. There’s a difference to being serious title holders and just standing there with the belts on your shoulder to “raise your profile.” To me, it felt like they were just standing there with the belts.

Nick: The crowd seemed to vehemently disagree.

Dave: Right, but as I said before, their heat has largely been an extension of being lackeys for people like Heyman and the Authority, so it wasn’t really even all their heat.

Nick: Isn’t that, as you’ll touch on today, a function of the era, though? They had to bring in them as Heyman’s mercenaries (which is what they’ve been “branded” as, at the very least) and the reason the belt profile wasn’t raised is because no one raises the belt’s profile no one can raise a belt’s profile anymore.

Dave: Well, I think there are “generational differences” as you point out (such as the prestige/portrayal of all non-top champions), but if we were doing the “lick your finger and stick it in the air” test, I think it would be pretty foolhardy to say The Shield were nearly as over as The Horsemen. Could The Shield carry the WWE for three years?

Nick: Well, they’ve only been around for a year, and there’s acceleration now because of the amount of content that comes out, but they’ve been the “Big Dogs in the Yard” for nearly entirety of the last year.

Dave: See, I think we’re hitting on a major problem that emerges when you’re talking about wrestling. They’re *booked* to be the “Big Dogs in the Yard,” but do they actually cause you to suspend disbelief and buy into that? In spite of their great matches with Daniel Bryan, did they ever seen like a threat to him? Would you be scared for John Cena if he crossed paths with them? I think they’re booked to feel like The Four Horsemen, but I think the final presentation falls well short of Horsemen-calibur.

Nick: Yes? I mean, I do. Reigns just destroyed the guy who they call The Best in the World. And won a Survivor Series match by himself. I think what I am saying is that if you don’t think the Shield are on the same planet as The Horsemen. Then you’d pretty much have to believe that nothing will ever be. Is that how you feel?

Dave: I think the original line-up of the nWo (Hall, Nash, Syxx, and Hogan) was close… I think the Triple H, Road Dogg, X-Pac, Billy Gunn version of DX was sort of close also… But in the final analysis, I think The Four Horsemen are just their own deal. Everything that came afterwards is inherently a cheap imitation.

Nick: Even the other Horsemen.

Dave: Exactly.

#4HorsemenWeek: Essential Viewing

It’s Day Two of #4HorsemenWeek. In celebration of this month’s Survivor Series, we’re taking a look at famous stables from the wonderful world of wrestling. This is the thirteenth installment in our patent-pending Juice Make Sugar Wrestler of the Week series. As always we started by making The Horsemen a Stable You (Should) Probably Know Better. Today, we give you the finer points of their oeuvre with some Essential Viewing. On Wednesday, we’ll be asking you to Watch and Learn. After Hump Day, we get our BuzzFeed on with a Top 10 List, before finishing everything off on Friday with a Difference of Opinion (or, more likely, a celebration of the Horsemen’s specific brand of awesome.) 

The entire Horsemen catalogue is Essential Viewing. They are the measuring stick for all wrestling alliances that came after them, cutting the best promos of all time, and working legendary matches that made them the quintessential heels for an entire generation in-and-out of the ring.

Because of their perfect mix of chemistry and the gravitas their in-ring credibility lent them, interview segments helped create the mystique of The Four Horsemen just as much as any five star match could. Everybody had their moment with the mic to get across their individual personality, but the segment always successfully communicated the group dynamic and the collective agenda. This early offering shows the Andersons, Flair, and Tully Blanchard all have time with the mic while displaying their shiny title belts:

The great target of the 1980s Horsemen was Dusty Rhodes. From a creative standpoint, Dusty was the perfect foil for The Four Horsemen. He was on par with the group’s leader Ric Flair in terms of promo ability and represented the honesty and fundamental goodness of which The Horsemen were bankrupt. Practically speaking, however, Rhodes, the booker of Jim Crockett Promotions at the time, knew a good thing when he saw it and kept himself as close to the white-hot Horsemen as possible. Even in light of these blatant political machinations, Dusty vs. The Horsemen was a great feud.

Rhodes and Flair main evented Starrcade ’84, but in the subsequent year, The Four Horsemen were assembled, which allowed the NWA to build towards another Flair-Rhodes showdown with a powerful, natural way to stack the odds against superface Dusty. In the buildup to Starrcade ’85, Flair and The Horsemen jumped Dusty in one of the most memorable moments in NWA history, breaking his leg inside a steel cage in a vicious attack that shocked the fanbase.

The injury angle got over like free money and catapulted Dusty towards a monumental title win at Starrcade. The bit was so good that it even worked the second way around less than a year later when The Horsemen broke Dusty’s arm in a legendary segment. The Horsemen kidnapped a cameraman, forced him to travel with them as they stalked Rhodes, and ultimately jumped The American Dream in the parking lot of JCP headquarters, smashing his arm with a baseball bat. (Dusty famously shouts “MAKE IT GOOD!” just before the moment of truth.) The segment was so revolutionary and gritty that fans watching on TV called local police to alert them of an assault in progress – seriously. The moment cemented The Four Horsemen as the most lowdown, despicable heels in the territory, and was so highly-regarded within the industry that it was copied over a decade later by the nWo.

Of course, these segments, in spite of their greatness, wouldn’t have meant a thing if The Horsemen hadn’t delivered in the ring with Dusty. As this match (oddly dubbed for Japanese broadcast complete with awesome Japanese commercials) illustrates, The Horsemen knew how to get heat and build anticipation for their opponents comebacks. The match sees Flair and the Andersons (The Minnesota Wrecking Crew if you will, daddy) take on Rhodes and The Rock n’ Roll Express, who were at the time just about the three biggest pure babyfaces in wrestling this side of Hulk Hogan.

Their offense, while smooth and expertly-executed, was never flashy, and the goal was always to build the next hope spot for their babyface opponents.  As seen in the above match, the Andersons worked a largely punch-kick style, an effective heel tactic of the era. However, The Horsemen came into their true prime with Ole’s retirement in 1987. This allowed Arn and Tully to become the group’s tag team in residence, which was good, considering Arn and Tully are a prominent part of the “greatest heel tag team ever” discussion.

Arn was big, strong, and no-nonsense, but could bump like a jobber – which is a compliment – while Tully was essentially a midcard version of Ric Flair. Arn looked as credible as anybody in the ring while Blanchard bumped, begged off, and strutted in a way that incensed the crowd. They were the perfect heels in that they were simultaneously dominant and beatable. Arn and Tully could — and frequently did — wrestle  jobbers and have a great match as easily as they could with two main eventers.

It’s a testament to Anderson and Blanchard that the golden age of The Four Horsemen ended the second they left for the WWF (where they were known as The Brainbusters and had a memorable feud with Demolition).

As the 80s became the 90s, it felt like the era of The Horsemen was over. During wrestling’s creative nadir in the early 90s, fans and promoters remembered the greatness of The Four Horsemen, and trying to recreate that instead of build something new felt like a good idea. Whether it was a face run incorporating Sting in the group or a heel run with “Pretty” Paul Roma, these incarnations never had the flair (no pun intended) of the original lineup.

In spite of their lack of sizzle, each subsequent group of Horsemen always fulfilled one fine tradition of The Four: they brought it in the ring. This match shows the least popular Horseman of all time (Roma) put on a great tag match with Anderson against “The Team I Really Wish Was A Real Tag Team,” Steve Austin and Steven (William) Regal.

The later versions of The Four Horsemen had some really talented members (Brian Pillman, Dean Malenko, HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED), but they always fell miles short of recapturing the original magic. Even as the act’s long-standing mystique fizzled, “The Four Horsemen” remained a brand that wrestling fans recognized and respected. When presenting the nWo as beatable finally seemed like a good idea two years too late, WCW used none other than The Horsemen (now featuring way-worse-than-Roma Mongo McMichael) as their logical opponents. By this time, though, WCW had strayed too far for any group, no matter how legendary the name, to make an impact. And so it was that along with WCW, The Four Horsemen ultimately died not with a bang, but a whimper.

A Stable You Should Probably Know Better: The Four Horsemen

It’s the First Day of #4HorsemenWeek. In celebration of this month’s Survivor Series, we’re taking a look at famous stables from the wonderful world of wrestling. This is the thirteenth installment in our (patent-pending) Juice Make Sugar Wrestler of the Week series. As always we’ll start by making The Horsemen a Stable You (Should) Probably Know Better, then give you the finer points of their oeuvre tomorrow with some Essential Viewing, and on Wednesday, we’ll be asking you to  Watch and Learn. After Hump Day, we get our Buzzfeed on  with a Top 10 List before finishing everything off on Friday with a Difference of Opinion (or, more likely, a celebration of the Horsemen’s specific brand of awesome.) 

Any discussion of factions or stables in professional wrestling takes place in the long, dark shadow of The Four Horsemen. The Horsemen were such a successful, over act that they achieved the ultimate goal of professional wrestling: they convinced fans all around the world that they were “the best competitors” in a sport of cooperative fights and predetermined outcomes. To this day, no faction can form without the question “How do they compare to The Four Horsemen?” coming up, and the answer is always the same: “They’re no Four Horsemen.”

So, why is it that The Four Horsemen became the all-time great collection of wrestlers? Was it the charisma of Ric Flair, one of the two definitive stars of the 1980s? Yes, partly. Was it the standard-setting in-ring work ethic of all the group’s members? Yes, partly.  Was it the massive talent pool of strong supporting characters in the mid-to-late 80s NWA? Yes, partly that too.

Like all great moments and movements throughout history, The Four Horsemen were a perfect storm of causes, characters, and culture. As such, nailing down the reasons for their greatness as the definitive stable is difficult, but consider the following five-point-plan to explain what made The Horsemen so special:

1. The Horsemen were an organically-created group

The Four Horsemen didn’t suddenly appear on NWA TV wearing matching trunks and proclaiming themselves the measuring stick of professional wrestling. Rather, they came together naturally over time. The Minnesota Wrecking Crew (in its third incarnation) of Arn and Ole Anderson were fake cousins, and Ric Flair was their fake second cousin. They worked together in trio feuds against the likes of Dusty Rhodes and The Road Warriors, but they were hardly a stable. The Crew were decidedly a tag team, and Ric Flair was a top champion who didn’t need anybody’s help to defend the title. However, as they worked more and more together, it became apparent to anybody who was watching that the future Horsemen had uncanny chemistry. It was never planned ahead of time, but the group was just so good that they couldn’t break them up when the trio angle was over.

To understand the value of the way The Horsemen came together naturally, consider the following counter-example: every faction in the history of TNA. All TNA’s stables from S.E.X. to The Frontline to Aces & Eights have failed because each was created artificially for a specific angle. The groups came together because a writer had a story to tell and needed a group of rude young guys or homegrown heroes or scumbag bikers to tell it. The Four Horsemen, on the other hand, lasted and thrived because they were a group that existed and became involved in angles, not a group that existed for them.

2. The Horsemen were consummate champions

If there’s any objective way to measure success in the crazy world of professional wrestling, it has to be title reigns. The various members of The Four Horsemen had over 30 different championship reigns with various titles, counting only their time in the group. Ric Flair was the default World Champion for the NWA/WCW throughout the Horsemen years, Arn Anderson was the default Television Champion from ’86 – ’91, and Horsemen teams held Tag Team Titles on five separate occasions.

With that said, there’s more to being a champion than being booked to win a title and hold it. Real, historic champions defend their titles in memorable matches against a variety of opponents, cut promos that enhance the story of their reign, and carry themselves in a way that shows fans and other wrestlers alike that they are the cream of the crop. The Horsemen were collectively better at these intangible skills than any group of wrestlers ever.

Consider a current critically acclaimed stable (and recent JMS honoree), The Shield. The Shield had long title reigns with the U.S. and Tag Titles, but did they have memorable title defenses? Did their reigns effectively raise their own profile as well as that of the titles? Did they feel any more special than they would have without the belts? They’re no Horsemen.

3. The Horsemen were taken care of by the bookers

Let’s go example-first with this one: TNA built around Aces & Eights for over a year. Their leader, Bully Ray, held the World Heavyweight Title for nearly a year, and everybody else in the group… was a jobber. Sure, Devon held a Television Title that was never established as anything but a hideously ugly prop, but the Aces & Eights, in spite of their numbers, were never Tag Team Title or X Division Title contenders. They were just an army of lackeys being portrayed as a dominant group. The Four Horsemen, on the other hand, were an actual dominant group.

Tully Blanchard was a bumping chickenshit heel. Ric Flair was a bumping chickenshit heel. The Andersons were bumping tough guy heels. All the great Horsemen, from the originals to Dean Malenko and HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED were givers in the ring – guys who spent the majority of their matches bumping and getting worked over. In spite of their talents largely lying in enhancing their opponents, The Four Horsemen were always portrayed as top talents by the powers that be. This allowed them to work their magic making stiffs look good but also maintain their credibility and never be seen as weak. Even though Tully Blanchard was largely an enhancement talent, he got his wins and held his titles, which made him one of the most useful stars of an era.

Consider 3MB: they can bump, they have a good connection with the crowd, and they always make their opponents look good. Unlike The Horsemen, however, 3MB have never been taken care of whatsoever. All they do is lose, lose, lose. If the WWE just gave them the occasional win, their act would have credibility that would make their losses mean so much more.

4. The Horsemen were a group of individuals with a unified identity

The Four Horsemen were always a unified brotherhood: if you messed with one of them, you messed with all of them; if one of them wanted you taken out, all of them would be fully dedicated to taking you out. With that said, each man had his own personality. Ric Flair was flamboyant and loud-mouthed, Arn Anderson was serious and no-nonsense, Brian Pillman was intense but unhinged. The Horsemen were a club of badasses, and being a Horseman was an honor, but it didn’t mean sacrificing who you were as an individual. This allowed the group’s members two opportunities to get over: once for being their own badass self, another for being a Horseman.

Last week, Nick took a close look at The Nation of Domination, a group that never got as over as they could have because the WWE failed to establish each member’s individual personality fully. Sure, they were The Nation of Domination (Nation. Of Domination.), but who was Kama? Some kind of boxer dude? Who was D’Lo Brown? Some guy with a head tick? Who was Mark Henry? A strong guy? Who was Farooq? Some guy with no personality? The Nation represented a united front well, but the heat was entirely on “The Nation” brand, not any of its actual members. The Four Horsemen found a divine balance of presenting themselves as a top group while also maintaining their identities as individual wrestlers.

5. The Horsemen were an insider group, not an outsider group

The major mistake made in the booking of almost every faction over the last fifteen years is that they’ve all been portrayed as outsider groups that are somehow a threat to the promotion in which they wrestle. Let’s take a break to examine the logic of that tactic… Suppose you ran a frozen yogurt stand. Now, suppose that out of your six employees, three of them worked for Baskin-Robbins and wanted to destroy you and everything you stood for. Would you let them man the register?

Unlike the nWo or Aces & Eights, The Four Horsemen were a dominant, destructive force from within the NWA – heck, they embodied the NWA. They were the bad guys, but they were bad guys that NWA fans could be proud of. They were worthy, legitimate opponents for the top babyfaces of Jim Crockett promotions. They didn’t want to destroy the territory, they wanted to prove that they were the alpha males within a great territory. The nWo were all about proving that WCW wrestlers were pussies, effectively destroying the name value of their employer, but The Horsemen successfully fortified the prestige of the company for which they worked.

***

If the goal was to wax poetic or spill ink, it would be easy to write volumes about why The Four Horsemen are the definitive wrestling stable of all time. The short version is easy to write too, though: the Horsemen were great wrestlers, great talkers, and great champions. They were booked and protected intelligently, and their bosses understood how to put them in positions to shine while also helping others look good. The Horsemen were collectively everything that you’d want to see in a group of wrestlers, and individually, each man was great in his own right. Fifty years from now, wrestling stables will still be compared to The Four Horsemen, and for good reason. They set the standard and they set it high.