El-P

Ok, it was corny. But I still liked it.

Yeah pretty much. The first 2/3 of the interview is fascinating. Yep, it's almost always the case. I don't care for fantasy booking to begin with, and it seems the most interesting part of the deal is always the preceding talk about booking or context.

Yep, on the previous Nitro Sting was given his nWo colors and he didn't budge, so there was nothing clear enough to make Scott Hall jump on Sting. The psychology as all over the place during the match, with Team WCW and Team Piper fighting among each other without even trying to gang up on the nWo once, which made them look kinda stupid. Luger making three guys submit in like 30 seconds was too much, although the pop it got was amazing. The Rodman stuff and the Sting angle at the end was MONEY though.

Amazing that WCW actually had the first pro-wrestling Playboy centerfold and they really weren't aware of it before it happened. Savage is excellent here, all ironic and shit. Liz spraypainting Kim was totally bitching. Love this angle. Savage turning back heel really propelled him to the last great feud of his career. Kim back on TV is good too, although I wish they had found a way to explain why she was indeed "back" with DDP (after she left him in 96).

Really good match, much more interesting than their so-called "technical masterpieces" to me. Odd that the crowd choosed to support Dean as he was portrayed as the more heelish one during the build, blaming Eddie for a mistake. I wonder if Eddie called an audible here, but he was excellent showing heel maneurisms. Malenko does show some personnailty here, as usual when he's in the fiery babyface role. The not so pristine execution made it look more a struggle than usual with these two. Gotta notice Randy Anderson being already reinstated, making the grand angle in early 1999 with Flair "getting his job back" totally irrelevant.

Rusev IS a Lana vehicle. That was honestly the intent since the beginning. WWE loved Lana's speaking and acting ASS since day one.

Bischoff no-selling the suspension was odd. DiBiase is officially as useless as Vincent, which is sad. Good team promo, Hogan being the standout. Nash was sooooo wasted. Savage was fun and Liz looked hot as usual in the nWo dress. Sting standing in the middle of an unsuspecting pack is cool. Way too many bodies though, diluting the star power of the faction, it really shows here as the B players don't say anything because they basically have no purpose.

Always loved Club La Vella's setting for Nitro. Each year the question would be who would end up in the pool (this year was Hardbody Harrisson beat up by Sullivan and Jacquelyn in yet another super fun squash match, bodyslam in high heels and all). Yeah, Flair has fallen, very clearly. And Piper really shouldn't make dig at anyone for being un-hip at this point. Damage control segment to repair the godawful Piper's tryouts disater from the previous weeks. Tenta is applauding the fact he's basically out of a job and just got called an amateur by Arn Anderson.

What Francine had was the talent of being a damn good heel valet working along Shane Douglas. Her signaling to break the neck of that jobber was bitchy as hell. That's how she was hot. She didn't work nearly as well as a face. And as ECW went on and became more and more tired clichés and they had women rely on obligatory cat fights in every match, she wasn't as fun either. Dawn Marie never served a purpose to me apart from taking the attention away from no-charisma Lance Storm. And for the record, I got Johnny's intent too.

Namely, he had Kevin Sullivan to book most of the product, with lot of inpunts from Hall & Nash as far as the nWo stuff went (this is from Sullivan himself). Apparently, Piper being used was pretty much Hogan and Bischoff's idea. God awful angle. To me Piper on TV every week and thrown into PPV main events in 97 is the first alert sign for an incoming decline. He was fine for the Starrcade main event. But he overstayed his welcome bad and quick. The Superbrawl main event was shitty, the Alcatraz idea was corny at best. Now this. Just a terrible terrible segment. Piper cutting promos every week was exposing him as dated, uncool and rambling. And him working matches regularly was… the less said the better. So yeah. Add in Souled Out which petered out, the Steiner car accident and Prince Iaukea mimicking Rocky's IC title win, and you got a bunch of misfires dating back from late January 97. I wonder exactly when we can point out to Sullivan getting burned out and the inmates finally running the asylum (the main event scene was trashed as soon as early 98, and we know who's fault it is).

What hurts Savage is that he doesn't even get to explain why he turned. He basically defers to Hogan. He also didn't seem to know what he wanted to say here. Sting with his blank stare in the corner was cool, his character really was intriguing.

Eric was great here, just obnoxious as hell then acted like a kid caught up doing bad things yet still acting defensive. So sleazy. Bischoff deserves a ton of credit for playing the evil authority figure one year before Vince, it's almost always forgotten these days. Nice touch to have a real big gun from Turner sport show up, although Eric had to repeat the same sentence twice at one point before Schiller got the cue. Good segment, and yes, it was not yet totally one-sided and frustrating, WCW was not completely bullied at this point.

Oh yeah that story was glorious.

Wait, what? They we were really signing it in French!? I thought "disrespectfully signing gibberish" was their whole gimmick. Yep. The first sentence is "Ô Canada ! Terre de nos aïeux, ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux.". You can hear them sing those words. They sing it very very badly and offbeat (like they use to sing their Quebecers song) but they say the right words (and the French version seems to be the original one too). So yeah, the announcers look like complete idiots there.

The same here. The way Cornette tells it probably helps quite a bit, as was Austin totally cracking up. However, stories of guys like the Rockers drugging up and abusing girls, or Flair exposing himself to fly attendants and stuff like this, yeah, totally repulsive.

Solid promo from Luger. The idea behind the Uncensored match was nice for a giant WCW vs nWo titles match. I had totally forgotten this Sting segment though. Good cliffhanger ending although it's obvious he hasn't joined the nWo. I like how they slowly slowly build the Sting storyline, which is obviously the big time one.

So, Liz and Savage reunite inside the nWo after getting humiliated and beat up in October. And they seem happy, although it's not the most warm reunion ever. Liz seems the happier of the two. It's kinda weak Savage doesn't get to cut a strong promo to explain his actions, as the spotlight remains on Hogan and the Outsiders. I really loved the fact Savage turned heel again, and it was cool to have Liz again with him, but they kinda look like Hogan's bitches still.

Nice way to kickstart the second starmaker feud of the year behind Bret vs Austin. I gotta say Savage looked cool as hell in his black nWo outfit, made him fresh again as the loud Vegas look was clearly outdated by 96, and he hadn't been a heel since his Macho King days in 1991.

And who had the Goldberg music theme in 1997 ? No other than Pat Tanaka as a jobber. Kinda surrealistic.

The Faces of Fear were so bad ass that they always got babyface pops at this point. Very good Nitro match, playing to the strenghts of every guy involved. Barbie's top rope belly to belly suplex was an insane spot he was doing in every match. He really adapted with the times well in term of offense. And yeah, matches as good as these weren't happening that often on Nitro after all. Things were already moving too quickly.

Very true (and I agree with pretty much your entire post). And remember, in the infamous Vince promo preceeding the birth of the Attitude era, he talked about having "more reality based storylines" with more "adult issues" and "shades of grey". Yes, the Attitude era was supposedly the WWF growing up from a children product to something more mature. Yeah, suck it ! Well, I guess they grew up to teenage years, but never went beyond, and regressed into kids soon after. Adult pro-wrestling I guess exists (or has existed) in Japan with the salarymen audience like it's been said at least until the 80's/90's (no idea what the audience is today), because it was presented as more real, as a sport basically. I totally disagree that they have to go into even more fakeness, until you want your kiddie show with super-heroes and such. But they would have to really make it truly a family entertainment show like you said (which means cut down on violence even more and go the entire way, so it means scrapping everything sexual, too violent and whatever sense of realism. I believe that's what Jacques Rougeau is promoting in Quebec actually). Just rambling here...

Yeah pretty much. But still, Savage once again looks like Hogan's bitch, after all the beatings he went through in October. The finish was complete shit, I didn't even understand what the hell happened. Neither did the announcers "Is this match finished or not ?" Tony Schiavone. Piper has overstayed his welcome, he brought nothing to the table. Lightning struck once at Starrcade, they should have kept it a one-shot miracle. Sadly, they would go over this again a third time…

Amazing heat. Huge Luger chants before he came out. Say what you want about the Outsiders, but they did make the Giant look like a monster, bumping all over the place for him and not being able to get the best out of him without cheating despite this being basically 3 on 1. The powerbomb spot was terrific, and Nash sold the hell out of the toll it took out of his back. Luger gets a monster pop, and him throwing Bischoff on the side on his way to the ring is fantastic. This reeks of Dusty finish though, and this is basically where the WCW tag titles die.

I really don't know what match you were all watching. This is really good, as Malenko is at his best playing fiery babyface, and Syxx is excellent here. Sure, it didn't look like your traditionnal fly around cruiserweight match but it was more traditionnal old-school heel vs face stuff and *got heat* from this crowd. Syxx is basically Norio Honaga and that's a good thing. I always liked that finish too, thought it was well executed, and it looked like a fuck up from Guerrero, as the momentum throws the belt right into Deano's face, which is why the referee doesn't DQ Syxx.

I've mostly not been bothered with rewatching Benoit & Woman on WCW TV in late 96, but the very personnal promos leading to Chris vs Sullivan at Superbrawl 7, with Jackie involved, have reached a whole new level of uncomfortable.