El-P

Liger was indeed totally goofy here.

Good old-school Flair promo, all dressed up with sunglasses.

Sorry. Well, that's pretty cool. Damn. Well, it furthers what I said about the roster though. Funny, I wouldn't have guessed he was a Samoan. Well, maybe that's why he's got so much potential. The next big thing ? I heard during the broadcast they were Rikishi's sons. Interesting. They sure don't know how to fly like their dad or uncles. I wasn't very impressed. They reminded my of the Youngbloods from 93 WCW. Thanks for keeping me posted about these guys.

The match was actually really good. Simple as hell but very efficient, with Savage trying to injure Luger's right arm. Luger's selling was excellent. Flair's run in was pretty damn funny, and this is the first step toward a renewed Flair vs Savage feud. The post-match arguing worked well, I didn't think Sting came off dumb here, more like really faithfull to his old friendship with Luger to the point of finding him excuses. And since Savage is basically a psycho and Hogan is an asshole, well, why not ?

What was the point of this anyway ?

I loved floppy disk.

I actually watched that show. Don't ask why. I enjoyed the opening a lot. Lot of these guys I don't even know of, but damn, Goldust did look like the best worker on the card tonight, and not in a faint praise way either. No idea who Roman Reigns is, but I enjoyed him and Seth Rollins a lot. The Usos look sloppy and their outfit is right out of the early 90's. Rey was very good for what he had to do. Cesaro looked great too. The Kyoko Inoue giant swing. I'll be damned. Yeah, kinda ass backward booking since the heels went underdogs, but as far as making Roman Reigns look like a monster, it was perfect. Really liked it a lot. Big E. Langston vs Curtis Axel was nothing. So, WWE is pushing a less charismatic Ice Train erzatz now ? Curtis Axel sure looks like his ancestors. Poor guys seems to be a jobber though. No gimmick, no look, no nothing. I didn't watch the Divas match, because I have a life too. Ryback vs Henry was plodding and mediocre big man stuff. I love how suddenly channeling JYD in 2013 is a good thing. Well, I'm not saying I didn't find it kinda cool though. So, Ryback is a jobber too at this point I guess. Cena vs Del Rio was exactly everything I don't care for about modern WWE : too long, sloppy work hidden by camera work, bland as hell, way too many useless nearfalls to try to make it seem like an epic battle. Yuck. Wyatt vs Punk & Bryan was too long for what it was, but ended up quite good thanks to really excellent parts. Bryan looked a lot better than Punk in this match, and that Luke Harper guy seems to be the workhorse of the Godw... of the Wyatt Family. Orton vs Big Show. Awful match. Orton is still a black hole. The finish was embarrassing. And yes, Orton vs Cena at WM !!!! This company is so dead. Not created one single star since Cena, and they are going back to the most horrifying boring formula ever in 2013 after fucking up pushes for CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. Roman Reigns is a big guy, so maybe he'll get a shot. That being said, Ryback was supposed to be something special at some point. It's telling that the entire card had former "world champions" in seemingly every match, yet they're still doing the über tired Cena vs Orton on top. Also telling that all the best workers on the card either come from the indies (Bryan, Punk, Cesaro) or are veterans from the 90's (Rey, Goldust). The only guy who I guess came through WWE's factory that are looking really good are Reigns, Seth and Harper (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not exactly up to date). Also, all the backstage segments are as godawful as ever, with the same deliberate, unfunny, boring WWE "acting" that has been used since the early 00's. In this context, yes Dutch Mantell is just in a different universe in term of promo skills, but I understand Will's point of view too, he's just far far from the awesome old Dutch. Stephy and HHH beginning and basically ending the PPV just says it all about the future... Interesting watch though, if only for the first match and the fact Goldust seems as great as he's been pimped to be recently (although he should not delay his uppercut spot, it looks as bad as Booker T's old ax kick).

I *watched* all those matches before. I thought so little of those that I kept *none* of them on my WCW hard-drive. You think it would be pretty hard to disagree ? Well, I do disagree. It's not the first nor the last time I disagree with the lastest "great lost worker of X era" argument either. But I'm absolutely not getting dragged into that kind of debate at this point. From my own subjective perspective (the Raven fan speaking here, feel the bad taste), Vincent was quite the shitty worker in WCW. And none of the examples you listed, all of which I have seen not so long ago, will make me change my point of view on a matter I don't particulary care for to begin with. BTW, thank you for lecturing me on my lack of attention during Curly Bill matches, but I believe I paid enough attention to be bored to tears, fistdrops galore notwithstanding.

Also pointed out that his name was still on the plate. Man… Hogan was unbearable. Un-fucking-bearable. And still the shittiest babyface ever, delivering a hundred chairshots to the Giant, elbowing an innocent referee and putting all the spotlight on himself. Savage did take a great bump on the concrete. At least he didn't lose the belt the day right after he won it, but he was still totally demeaned as the champion by all this Hogan bullshit.

I don't feel like they were building to a Sting heel turn. Seems more like a tease to me and a way to put more interest and complexity in the storylines on top. I loved this whole Sting/Luger face/heel old friendship. That was shades of grey, not the immature bullshit delivered during the Attitude Era.

Corrected. Ha, very good. I always sort of see the two of you as a tag team. We're like a manzai duo.

Calling Vincent/Curly Bill a "great lost 90's superworker" sounds totally absurd to me, at the very least. And I went through those matches too (and won't ever get back to watch post 97 WCW). Anyway… to each his own. Serviceable low undercard JTTS in the WWF I would agree with. He was perfectly watchable tagging with El Matador vs the Head Shrinkers.

Unwatchable up until the last 5 minutes when only 10 guys are remaining. Just way too many bodies and way too long to be anything but a bore, I never enjoyed the WWIII gimmick. The post-match wasn't as annoying as I remembered it to be, Hogan did look like a whiner, but he did get screwed here (unlike during the Royal Rumble 92). Well, of course the whole idea of Savage only getting the belt because Hogan has to get screwed was usual Hogan bullshit, and it seems like Savage could never get the full credit of getting to the top except at WM 8.

Corrected.

I don't have the will to go through this. I dig the pied-de-poule miniskirt though.

This was a hot opener and exactly what an undercard title match should be. Better than the Fall Brawl match. DDP already had so much presence and heel charisma at that point, but the Diamond Cutter wasn't established yet as a killer move. Post match is good too, with Kim acting stunned then really happy about the result. Really fun undercard feud.

This is classic. Sting is a complete doofus here being all joyful when Hogan says he'll be his friend for ever. What a gullible dork Sting was before the nWo angle.

Sorry, I meant the Liontamer version of course, but I didn't remember about the actual name.

That's the first one I thought about too. Blame the 90's Bret fan in me. It was simple to built into it, it was cool looking, and it gave us one of the most iconic wrestling picture ever, a bloody Austin battling with the pain before passing out. The Rock definitly made sure the move could look like complete shit though. In a samey kinda way, the Texas Cloverfleaf was pretty great looking too. The Walls of Jericho always looked like the best Boston-crab ever. As a shootstyle fan, of course the jujigatame and wakigatame are classics when sold right. Least favourite probably would be something like the ankle lock. Do I need to explain why ?

Definitely not the worst idea. Terrible idea. The peak of WCW is the first two years of the Nitro era. And early 1994 has been quite overrated over the years too. It's good, but it's nowhere near as good as it's pimped to be. Lowering expectations is a good thing. Agreed. Fly over the first year and a half of the Hogan era and go right through late 95/fall 97 and you're getting the honeymoon with WCW at its hottest. The other really good years are 1989 and 1992, and late 93/early 94 to a lesser extent. Some parts of 90 and 93 (around the summer, usually) are absolutely dreadful. BTW, before late 88 is Jim Crockett Promotion, not WCW. Yeah, I nitpick.

Damn, this looks pretty great.

Impressive. I never realized Maurice Vachon was such a huge name. I really only knew him as the crazy uncle of Luna and the guy whose leg was used as a foreign object in the infamous Diesel vs Micheals IYH match. Always sad to see a legend go. Thought some might get a kick out of that : Mad Dog Vachon's beer commercial Or this :

Glad Corny is back. I'll take a good mix of old-school wrestling stories, ranting about wrestling bullshit and political stuff.

Micromanaging the announcers is absurd. When exactly did that began ? I remember Foley leaving because he couldn't handle it.

Uninspired match which goes in no clear direction. First they brawl, then they do matwork, then Sting attacks Hogan's leg. They don't work the obvious tweener dynamic at all except Hogan doing a (very) few heelish things. Him hulking up in that context made no sense and the crowd really shits on him anyway so he should have gone a lot more heelish. Waste of PPV money too, it's amazing they gave such a huge match away on free-TV. Worked as it was, it didn't feel like a huge money match either. Sting wearing Hulkamania colors to get Hogan back on the good side is so geeky on his part.