El-P

Bingo. I've seen too many supposedly "great" Cena match that were in the range of "good-very good" and way too many ones that were self-conscious über-rehearsed WWE Epics™ that were actively annoying so I just can't take him seriously as a great worker at all. He's been the perfect big match worker for modern WWE style, and that's coming from someone who hates the modern big match WWE style. He's been an absolutely unbearable character for his entire career and the one thing I really enjoyed about him was his way to troll his haters. All in all, year, pretty good worker with his ups and downs, capable to have some quite excellent match and also quite horrible ones. He's really not someone I would want to revisit for this poll. (actually, I do now)

Holy shit.

He actually got a good match out of RVD in 96 in ECW. Well, I guess his power spot style meshed well with the bullshit cool stuff of RVD (which wasn't nearly as annoying then as it became with the years), like Taz did too. Then again, Kroffat probably got RVD's *best match ever in All Japan* the year before.

He did get one of RVD's best match in 2000 when I was at the point in my ECW watch where watching RVD was plain torture. That's a major feather in his cap.

And I thought the Hayes stuff was embarrassing… Nice Paint atwork too.

Totally agree. Luger was also the saving grace on WCW TV a lot of times in late 99, early 00, simply because he put much more effort in his character than most of the guys at this time. His most shining moment during this time is the match during the Spring Break edition, ending in the sea, as he just goes way over the line to make it a ridiculously entertaining moment. He's almost Terry Funk-like godlike in this. No chance for the top 100 though.

(self-edit because it's Pro-wrestling only, but Hayes looks like your average hypocrite bigot here with his "I'm not preaching but this is for the kids, it will make them better" bullshit) And this is an atrocity musically speaking. Not the first one Hayes had commited though.

Bischoff said in a TV interview that Luger was the original plan, but then they felt that would be too predictable. Apparently up until a couple of days before the event, the plan was to have Sting as the third man. Hogan then read the tea leaves and inserted himself into the angle. Hum… Sullivan said many times that Hogan was the number one idea and Sting the back-up plan in case Hogan refused at the last time. Both he and Bischoff said it took a lot of work and persuasion to have Hogan agree to turn heel, as most of his entourage was getting in his ears saying it would be bad for his career. So I don't believe Hogan throwing himself in the angle at the last moment.

Not very much, calling him one-dimensional but giving him credit for being able to get a lot of heat for the product.

Who ? (yeah, I'm out of the loop. But seriously, never even heard of this WWE guy). It seems like Teddy Long is also doing a Youshoot. Good old Terry is going to the pay window, it seems.

The biggest match in the history of pro-wrestling. Again. Because we kinda fucked up the previous one. But no finish shown on TV. Sting looks like nothing special coming to the ring, just another guy. Yet this match is much better and more heated than the previous night in an otherwise underwhelming post Starrcade Nitro. The company was on fire at the beginning of the year, and now, they are clearly without a direction. It's been fun while it lasted.

Jericho could have broken his neck with this botch. Hennig has been pretty good as the US champ actually, but in 98 he would be mostly terrible. I think he got injured at some point. Or he just got super lazy. He only showed up again during the West Texas Redneck angle, which was clearly the best part of his WCW stint. In other news, Jericho becomes a futur star for the WWF : step 1.

Damn, that one totally eluded me ! Flair quoting Metlzer putting him over on Nitro ! Amazing ! Great little promo from Flair. An intricate booking like the one circa early 96 would have been awesome with Bret feuding both with the nWo and Flair at the same time, in a kinda tweener role. But it's 1998 coming up, sadly.

Good babyface promo (although a little bit vanilla considering the great promo work he used to do in WWF, but he was always a better heel on the mic anyway) building up to Bret vs Hogan. Of course. Makes sense. Oh, wait...

YOU FUCKED UP !! YOU FUCKED UP !! YOU FUCKED UP !! Yeah. The action is not that bad because Hogan is working pretty hard, to show up a completely depressed looking Sting. Man, he is eating him alive or what. Godawful finish aside, WCW totally failed to produce this to make it like the biggest thing ever. Even the entrance are flat, Hogan should have come to the ring along with the Outsiders and Savage & Liz, on a gigantic Harley Davidson, with huge boas on his shoulders. And Sting should have dropped from the ceiling instead of walking like a zombi looking like "fuck, I have to actually work a match now ?". This is the point where Hogan has became poisonus to the company, and the goodwill and efficiency he showed during most of the nWo angle will now be replaced by an evil insecurity that will end up killing any chance of being productive again. The only exception would be the job to Goldberg. That being said, Sting just doesn't look like a guy who is going to be your ace at all. It would take a few months before he would get back into his groove. But still, Hogan's creative control killed this match. As far as attention to detail goes, something that had been so great during the initial part of the nWo angle, one of the first guy entering the ring to celebrate with Sting is the Renegade. Fuck. And Bret Hart in all this mess having to work the first of many Montreal referential angle. I guess he saw the writing on the wall immediately. You've got one year WCW, and once chance left. Then, you're going down. Down where ? Down there : http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19237-wcws-highway-to-hell/

Bret Hart being in this ruins the moment, it distracts from the match and the ending is awful and stupid, as there's not even a cut clear decision rendered. And it ruins Bret Hart also, all the momentum he had coming from Montreal is just dead at this point. Too bad, as Bischoff falling down the ring from the apron and later punching himself out of it were two funny moments. Both this match and the debut of Bret hart should have been the easiest stuff ever to book, and they missed the point twice in one occurence. The foreign object flying off while a bemused Bret Hart looks on is pretty hilarious though.

They lost the crowd during a long resthold segment and never really got them back, but until then it was actually pretty heated and a good match. I've been pleasantly surprised by Hennig as US champ, but maybe it's me lowering my expectations after watching his terrible 98. I still think he was actually good during this period and got injured in early 98 or something. DDP winning clean was a perfect feel good moment, and it's better than Flair to me, as the Flair vs Hennig feud had already been diluted during the neverending match at WWIII. Plus DDP winning his first major title was a great way to cap off this year and personnal storyline arc (getting it from Hennig who double crossed him earlier in the year). The WCW wrestlers in the audience was a nice idea, but it looked a bit goofy, especially the shots of Valentine, Mortis, Wright and Vandenberg.

Ah, the good old days of Spider Twist. Yeah, it was a fucking jungle. I was such an asshole too back then. Fun memories though. But we are a lot more civil and mature right now. That's the good thing about getting older. That and finally listening to jazz (yeah, more clichés).

Considering Nash didn't show up, this is about the best segment WCW could produce, with Hall being absolutely great with his facials and maneurisms. The powerbomb was a nice touch too. Disappointing maybe (although the actual matches between Nash & Giant aren't something to brag about anyway, especially the first one ending with a disaster), but for what it is, it's really well done.

Wonderful classic RF editing fuck up at the end.

Bret has no business being there. This angle is corny mid 90's Undertaker bullshit, which doesn't fit the nWo vs WCW angle at all to me. They really fucked it up big time after months of great angles. Starrcade was doomed.

Great news. I haven't read his book and don't want to hear about TNA.

This is right out of 1996 during the peak of the nWo take over. Sure was a ballsy move to spend so much time on live TV on this. Rick Rude is great in his role of intimidating the crew. Bischoff is at his heights of obnoxiousness. Hogan kissing him on the top of the head as he recieved the gift was pretty funny. Hey, Hogan drops a "ho ho ho" when he sees the girls in the limo. Yeah, it would have been really perfect is the nWo would have collapsed six days later. As it was, it only happened a bit too late when the angle already had lost some of its shine. Oh, and Bobby Heenan begging and being a total suck-up was one of his finest hours in WCW (weren't a whole lot either).

It's wrestling. We should always factor ring attire. That's why Randy Savage will remains one of my all-time favourite ever. If you add the glamour factor of Liz (going over more than ten years and looking better with the time) and Queen Sherri, the overall presentation is the greatest ever. If you add the character and promos. Well… Yeah, Savage had a terrible final year (with Nash booking. Argh, the nightmares of last year's experience are coming back). But he had at least one great segment on Thunder where he confronts Rey Mysterio Jr. That one was awesome. The great feud that could have been if WCW had some balls and brain left.

But this is our small circle. I mentionned the heavy pimping of Lawler and such, and yeah, I agree this also played a simultaneous role (although talking strictly about Memphis, Dundee is really a guy that is all about workrate, and I say that in a positive way). The excess of indy wrestling too, but I never really followed the scene, but I guess you mean the Alljapanism cosplayers from ROH and the absurd contrived work of the X division in TNA (Canadian Destroyer anyone ?). Speaking for myself only, I remember already kinda turning the corner in the early 00's when I was going through NJ & AJ TV. It got obvious when I ended up enjoying Choshu's simple yet super effective matches better than Liger vs Benoit state of the art junior stuff on the same TV blocks, and also enjoying the hell out of the Blood Outlaws. Also, my love for Onita always came from the fact the guy was all about milking the shit out of everything he was taking and doing über dramatic sell job, and not because of the electrified stunts, and this was reinforced when I went through most of FMW later in the decade. As far as Misawa goes, this hit me harder than Benoit as far as my perception of pro-wrestling went, because the Benoit incident to me had nothing to do with his style of work. But Misawa clearly died from an injury he got because of the the toll his body took over the years. Because of this, I really never watched an AJ match again since then, and really have no urge to do so. And I loved 90's AJ big match style (not talking about the ridiculous headdropping that really marred the style in the later days then in NOAH). I'd probably rather watch the whole HUSTLE history with subtitles if I could now.