El-P

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I gotta say Savage looked cool as hell in his black nWo outfit, made him fresh again as the loud Vegas look was clearly outdated by 96, and he hadn't been a heel since his Macho King days in 1991.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.

Liz is there and is still unhappy. Solid Hogan promo, who kinda makes up for the awful Piper one. Sting and Savage showing up, this time Savage prevents Sting from taking actions. I wonder why...

Damn, this is the first bad Nitro in terms of angles. The Steiners car accident. Prince Iaukea winning the IC title. And now this. Piper in Alcatraz was idiotic, the promo was awful and had no point. There you go, Piper has officially overstayed his welcome and for the first time in a long time really, signs of bad booking.

Brainfart booking here. Hey, the WWF is pushing a young samoan guy and is giving him the IC title from nowhere, let's do the same. Why ? Prince Iauea was mediocre at his very best, had no charisma and was a jobber until then. First time during this hot Nitro era that WCW did something totally defensive and looked up at the WWF. Just a bad, stupid idea, and the "celebration" looked lame as hell.

I thought it was really well done and produced. Found footage segment ! But yeah, it goes a little bit too far off wrestling for me too. "You drove us off the road and nearly killed us, we're going to beat you in a wrestling match." Ok, it was an accident, but it was still the Outsiders fault.

I guess Anderson worked backstage for a while as he was brought back as a referee by Ric Flair during the first Nitro of 1999. I dunno, it was a fun little segment, but it didn't struck me as *great*. Maybe because it felt to much like comedy after the seriously heated segment of the previous week.

Because Russo is a cretin. And he's not creative, contrary to the "popular" belief. He already recycled the nWo once in WCW, with the amazingly horrible results we know (http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19237-wcws-highway-to-hell/). He had no other idea for the WWF invasion than to recycle the nWo again. Even worse, recycling the original angle. Just like he tried to recreate the Montreal screwjob, that dumbfuck.

Gotta love the fact that they announced a new promotion without having any talent basically. And now this. This is glorious already.

Precisely what I go through.

Porn.

Hum :

Good segment with a lot of intensiy on Piper's part. But like I said before, Hogan vs Piper felt fresh the first time around, not so much at this point. It's already a rehash, and the result can't be as satisfying and fun as the Starrcade match.

Of course it matters. You have to establish a clear cut line. Otherwise it becomes a clusterfuck. If Flair comes on a WWF shows and bashes the entire roster and talks shit about babyface Austin, babyface Rock and babyface Taker, he won't get cheered. Now, having the WCW guys get babyface reactions by running southern cities like they were running Canada during the Bret heel stint, that's another thing. Russo is a complete dumbass anyway.

Last week Piper, now Rander Anderson. These babyfaces have no dignity in bringing their kids around to get sympathy. But seriously, this is great. "Can you please tell your daddy, that he's STILL fired !" is one of the all-time great dick heel punchlin ever to me. Just classic stuff. Bischoff was great, just despicable and sleazy, as were the Outsiders laughing in the face of poor Randy Anderson.

Terrific angle for putting DDP at the same level with Savage and Sting.

Russo's idea for rebooking the Invasion could seem "logic" up until that point : Sean asks "But are they heels or faces ?". Russo answers "It doesn't matter". There you go. Russo doesn't understand shit.