El-P

Amazingly ignorant. Pass the bong.

Nah. Warrior, Johnny Ace. The guy I've never heard anything against was Bobby Eaton. Even Steamboat has a few guys who aren't big fans like Honky. But Eaton, I'm scratching my head and can't find one reference of a guy speaking badly about him.

WEEK 39 (September 27 to October 02, 1999) Match of the week : Kidman vs Psychosis (Nitro). Started up pretty cold but developped into a nice match with some effort to draw the crowd into some effective nearfalls, despite Psycho never having been pushed to the level of Kidman. This was hair vs mask, and they had an actual barber with a chair and hairclippers at the entrance set. Kidman is nothing much of a worker as far as having low-end offense or holds to kill time, but he's truly effective as a sympathetic babyface because he's a hard bumper and he's got a connection with the crowd. Psych is Pysch, with all the good (good heeling, good offense, some insane spots, impressive bumping) and bad (tendancy to be spotty, use of awkward set ups for some spots). The match gets hotter when Juvy and Chavo helps Psych behind the referee's back, leading to some good nearfalls, before the predictable finish occurs. Psych loses his match on a throwaway Nitro match instead of building it with a real feud for a PPV. They learned nothing. Grudge match of the week : Mona vs Brandi Alexander (Thunder) Mona gets interviewed by Gene O, when Brandi attacks her from behind and delivers quite the beating. The match takes place immediately and it's one of those good Mona matches. Alexander is a decent Sherri Martel 2.0 like worker, Mona bumps like hell. Solid stuff with the usual impressive Mona spots at the end, including a beautiful top rope frankensteiner. Vignette and "debut" of the week : Lex Luger's funeral and The Total Package debut. (Nitro) What a bizarre concept. This screams Kevin Sullivan. We get this horror-movie like scene of Luger's funeral, with a woman in a black veil, with Luger's voice explaining that Luger was basically gone. We see the "soul" of Luger getting out of the coffin and standing next to the woman at the funeral, with the coffin going into the ground at the cemetary. And then cutting back to Nitro, the woman unveils herself as Elisabeth. She was 39 and she was at her absolute peak of foxyness. Just überhot. And then with the ominous music and the whole light show, Luger does a posing show like it's the Narcissist era all over again. Which it basically was, only done better. Nice way to "refresh" Luger I thought. He would also wear those new tights and kneepads with Total Package colored logo on it. Lucha match of the week : Juventud Guerrera & Psychosis & La Parka vs Silver King & Villano IV & V (Thunder) This is the comeback match for Villano IV, or V, I'm not sure which, who was injured by Kanyon (and not Raven apparently since he's gone from the company) 11 months earlier. It's also the first unmasked match for Psychosis. They were a lot of these during Nitro's heyday, but these days it's a lot more rare, so it's nice to get a mexican spotfest with lots of dives and goofy comedy spots. It's the best use of these guys you can expect at this point, so I might as well enjoy it. Barry Darsow of the week : Barry Darsow thinks he's the Blacktop Bully (Saturday Night). Nothing more to say. Shitty vignette of the week : Tony hears a menacing voice calling him, then we see a window with some storm outside. (Nitro) WCW had signed Dustin Rhodes away from WWF (why did he leave anyway ? I don't remember the circumstances of him leaving, Goldust was still pretty over I think) and they had a terrible idea for him... Moving along toward Halloween Havoc. They are building Sting vs Hogan return match, Flair vs DDP and Hart vs Luger on top. In a bizarre twist of fate, Vampiro did a clean job to Buff Bagwell, which seems totally illogical to me. Berlyn is packing up wins building to Brad Amrstong, whom they are pushing in B and C shows somewhat. Fit Finlay made his comeback at ringside to support Regal & Taylor against the First Family. Goldie has got his old intro back, I mean complete with security guys and long walk backstage. Shane Dougas "apologized" to Saturn on Thunder, and it looks like his left elbow is badly injured *again*. That's sad, Douglas was making nice showing thus far in the ring, but he was pretty banged up from ECW. Also, Coach Buzz Stern made his debut on Thunder. This is Glacier doing a wrestling coach gimmick beating down his inept student. Right out of mid-90's goofyness. And last but not least, Torrie Wilson is siding with the Filthy Animals.

My impression is that guys who are loners, not big partyers (or even at all) and smarter than the average wrestling immature fuck-up and who take wrestling for what it is, a job, are not well liked in general. Pro-wrestling is a sleazy business and the "old-school" mentality of "paying your dues" and stuff is pretty much a bunch of shit. Goldberg who from all acount is a really smart and nice guy also got shit for not being a wrestling fan and treating wrestling as a job.

I have a feeling of dejà vu.

WEEK 38 (September 20 to September 25, 1999) Match of the week : Sting vs Chris Benoit (Nitro). This is interesting because it shows the WCW audience were ready to accept Benoit as a credible guy working with Sting in a WCW title match. Match is very good too, which doesn't hurt. Begins slowly, Sting works a more deliberate style which suits his heel personna, but sells and bumps well for Benoit's intense offensive moves, including his hard suplexes. No close call like in the DDP match, but you can feel Benoit could have been pushed to the main event without much backlash at this point, he could only get more over working big matches like this regularly. He didn't need the whole ill-fated Revolution angle. This turns into a schmozz with a ref bump, Luger hitting Benoit with a bat leading to a pinfall. Flair shows up, get beats up by DDP until Hogan runs in. You know what, I enjoyed this very much. Sadly Benoit would not stick in this main event status, which he clearly belong in. Brawl of the week : Ric Flair vs DDP (Nitro). Flair is back as a fiery babyface and he's programmed with DDP. This is good, as no one makes Flair look good better than DDP now, and this one exemplifies that fact again. They begin to brawl outside a-la WWF before going into the ring. Good short match which ends up with, guess what, a Luger baseball bat shot and a Flair beatdown. Hogan runs in again. Sting & Luger surely take out their frustration after three years of nWo crapping on them. Heel turn tease of the week : Shane Douglas hits Eddie Guerrero with a chain (Nitro). Good, he wasn't getting over as a babyface, he really needed to turn, and the whole Revolution angle was a dead as soon as it was born. The story is that Saturn doesn't agree with those tactics, which fit his character of being a very loyal guy (which has been demonstrated before in the Raven & Jericho feud). C-show match of the week : Norman Smiley vs Scotty Riggs (Saturday Night). Nothing special, but any Norman Smiley on my TV is good, and I enjoy Scotty Riggs too. Fun little match. Promo of the week : Scott Steiner (Nitro). Yeah, Big Poppa Pump is back, and he's not happy with Hogan having left the nWo to get cheers from the fan. it made him "puke yellow and red !". Ah ah ah ! Steiner challenging Hogan was the right idea. I don't think it actually led to anything, but Steiner was to be put in the main event picture. Again, Nitro was pretty decent this week. Sting & Luger as a heel duo helped by DDP is good thus far. Sid is still doing his amazingly annoying Millenium Man gimmick, but I pretty much now which match he'll interrupt so I can FF easily. Goldberg is given guys to squash quickly like it's 1998 again. In a very bizarre angle, the ICP have been attacked by a "fan" three times in a row now. I have no idea and I don't give a damn. Chavo Guerrero is apparently a heel and aligned himself with Juvy and Psychosis, and he managed to put together a Kidman vs Psych hair vs mask match for the following Nitro. Yeah, because they need to take off Psych mask for no good reason too. Damn, if you're doing the same shit Bischoff was doing, what is the point ? Mona is having fun little matches on Thunder & Saturday Night, while Madusa has been turned into a C-show interviewer, and not a very good one at that. Also, they are building Berlyn vs..... Brad Armstrong. Okay, I understand the point, they need Berlyn against a guy who can make him look good after the previous debacle, but Brad Armstrong, really ? Poor Wright, he was fucked since day one with this gimmick which had potential.

I'm enjoying whatever good and whatever so-bad-it's-good I get from this. I'm not enjoying watching the horrible shitty stuff. WEEK 37 (September 13 to 18, 1999) Match of the week : Eddie Guerrero vs Perry Saturn (Nitro). Nothing special but it's still the best I've seen from Saturn in single in a long while, maybe since the beginning of the year. It's also planting the seeds for the Filthy Animals vs Revolution feud which will developp under Russo. Yeah, the Revolution is doing lateral steps it's not even funny. The whole "let's put good workers together" feud in the undercard was a Sullivan trademark in Nitro's heyday, so they're getting back at it now. Korakuen Hall/ECW Arena match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Dean Malenko (Nitro). They were the last two in a Battle Royal last week, so now they fight to get a World title shot. Yeah, very believable to have Malenko put in that situation. Anyway, this is your classic Malenko style exhibition match, the same kind he was doing in ECW in 95 with Eddie. Very smooth, very technical, but it would get over much better in a japanese setting. They still get cheers and claps, but to me it's the kind of purely technical stuff I've grown tired of ten years ago. Angle/promo of the week : Sting & Luger fuck up Ric Flair (Nitro). Ric Flair is back and he's all happy and shit. Wonder why ? Basically, and without mentionning it by name, he's glad that Bischoff has been demoted, I mean as a shoot. He almost makes fun of his last six months bunch of nonsense angles like the heart attack and the crazy Ric stuff. Shooty-shooty isn't too far, but it's not bad. He's just good old Ric coming back. Where it gets good is when Sting & Lex Luger interrupt him and basically say that Flair never passed the torch to them ten years ago, so now they have taken the torch and Flair should just leave. They are actually quite good here, and Luger's attack on Flair from behind looks great and brutal. Since we're not building to the future anyway, having Sting & Lex reclaiming what they were "due" in the early 90's is a pretty nice touch. Hogan and his new pal Bret Hart run in to save Flair, as Hogan says he's got respect for him despite their past differences. Okay, this is as "fresh" as can be using those guys together, and I enjoy Sting as a heel, he's convincing on the mic thus far. On the other hand the announcers acting like Sting is an asshole when Hogan was the biggest douche ever for three years and Ric Flair has been a raving maniac for the last 6 months make no sense but whatever, I like this angle. Main event of the week : Hulk Hogan & Bret Hart vs Sting & Lex Luger. (Nitro) Decent match. Luger and Sting attack Hogan's previously injured knee, so we have a story here, and Hogan sells quite a bit this time around. Bret looks as crisp as ever despite the long layoff. At the end DDP shows up to help the heels, and while the referee's back is turned, Luger bashes Bret with a baseball bat right in the face, and it looks pretty awesome, with Bret great selling. Hey, this whole main event scene is actually interesting me again, against all odds ! Charity title switch of the week : Chris Benoit wins the TV title from Rick Steiner (Nitro). So, Benoit supposedly will challenge Sting next week for the WCW title because he beat Dean Malenko following a goofy gimmick battle royal. Meanwhile, he gets the TV title after a short and bad match with Steiner, with a lousy cradle pin (which Rick almost kick out of anyway). At least Rick isn't the champ anymore, but really, what was the point of giving Sid, who's feuding with Goldberg anyway, the US title ? Rebuilding match of the week : Berlyn vs Buff Bagwell (Nitro). Yeah, do the job, bitch. At least Bagwell worked pretty hard. It's sad they gave up on Wright, this character had potential at least on the upper mid-card, the audience hates his guts. Xenophobia always work it seems, and the arrogant interpretor was a nice touch (although she clearly wasn't ready for the role at this point). WTF C-show angle of the week : Barry Darsow thinks he's Krusher Krushev (Worlwide). Yeah, they showed this on Saturday Night. Apparently Darsow was hit by Harlem Heat's title belt too hard and now he's confused. This week he's back at being the golfer guy. I would care if they could bring back Repo-Man. Otherwise, I don't. Line of the week : "For the first time in five years, I have a real job ! I'm free ! Free ! Free! Free at last !" Ric Flair on Nitro, followed by "We can't go there !" from Gene Okerlund. Well, Nitro was much better than the previous weeks thanks to the Sting/Luger heel duo which works well thus far. I enjoyed their angle with Flair and their match with Hogan and Bret. Sid is still shitting all over the product, it is unbearable, this is a TV killer. Bischoff being gone, so are the New Limit Soldiers Swoll & 4x4, and the KISS Demon gimmick is doomed. This is clear now that they won't push the younger generation as Sting & Luger are actually talking up the role of the guys Flair should have passed the torch to 10 years before. Let's pretend Macho Man in Hulk's locker room two weeks ago was an hallucination.

Seriously ? Flair going to the tope rope only to get thrown out every damn time (as a heel at least), Flair choping no-selling Sting or Luger with him looking like a complete idiot and begging off like a clown, Flair bumping for the referee. Seriously ? Come on... ANd I don't even talk about the entire figure-four deal that John described in details earlier on. I never thought it made his opponent look technically sound to the point he could reverse the dreaded hold applied by the master, it only made Ric Flair look like a complete fool. In term of psychology, Flair's use of the figure four was not much different from "you can't powerbomb Kidman", really (which, surprisingly, hasn't annoyed me that much on rewatch). Flair was supposed to be the master, but anyone that was above JTTS level reversed it the exact same way to the exact same result. It didn't make the opponent look specifically good, it made for a fun spot that the crowd loved because Flair looked like a fool and he sold it like a bitch. Flair was the bitch of all bitches, and he was great at it.

I often found with the poor sound in many arenas, that Goldberg's Megadeth theme, if one wasn't paying a lot attention, sounded a lot like The Bodydonnas exercise theme and I used to often break out laughing as I'd heard the music and expected the Bodydonnas and only to see Goldberg come out looking ANGRY, it was great in an absurdist way. Ah ah ! It didn't occured to me, but now that you say it, I can totally see what you mean. Yeah, it was the same beat ! PPV 9 : Fall Brawl 1999 Match of the night : DDP vs Goldberg. Even in a company that is going down the drain, even now that is friend Eric Bischoff has been demoted, DDP refuses to comply and suck. He goes full fledge old-school cheating heel here, as the referee actually finds a chain when he checks him before the match. DDP would have yet another foreign object hidden in his trunks. So it's not an all action go-go-go match with cool counters and sequences like their 1998 match, it's DDP cheating his ass off to try to beat Goldie, who in the end will even take care of Kanyon and Bam Bam before getting the pin. Seriously, DDP is probably the VIP of the company, he's doing what's right, he's creative, he's working hard. Yes, he's doing lame "fat joke" before his matches as part of a heel routine that isn't the best, but I'll forgive him everything, he's been a trooper and kept himself fresh. Bad main event of the night, with swerve : Hulk Hogan vs Sting. Sloppy, poor execution from Hogan. Kinda half-brawling babyface match, that is totally dominated by an old guy who works like an old guy. It's your turn my turn, but it's more Hogan's turn really. Doesn't get much reaction either. The finish sees DDP Diamond Cutting Hogan, then Sid shows up, but Hogan still takes care of them. Then Luger shows up with a baseball bat, which ends up in the hands of Sting. And he uses it on Hogan !! Huge pop from this, which is the clear sign the WCW audience had it already with Hulkamania 3.0. Sting wins the belt for the 9th time (really ?) and he and Luger leave the ring together. The announcers seems outraged by what they saw. Nice, I guess they forgot about three years of nWo brutally beating WCW guys (including Luger) down. This isn't short memory, this is pure senility. Good but sad match of the night : Vampiro & ICP vs Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman. This was the opener, rightly so, as it was a rather quick moving and exciting match, although the ICP do work like indy self-taught workers, which they are. Violent J is pretty decent though. So, this is pretty good and Vampiro continues to make good figure. He's clearly a guy that they could push, he's got a distinct look and actually shows charisma. Works pretty hard too at this point. The sad part is Rey badly injures a knee, probably blowing it out. Once he gets injured, he can't even stand up, and stays the rest of the match outside. He'll have to be carried out by Eddie, Kidman and another guy after the match. Damn. Shitty title match of the night 1 : Rick Steiner vs Perry Saturn. Rick Steiner has all the tools to be a good heel, but he just doesn't put it together. He's working a plodding deliberate style with spots thrown around seemingly without much reasons. I didn't remember that Scott was out for so long in 1999, and I can't wait for him to come back, this Rick Steiner push has been mostly unbearable, he's having bad, boring and heatless matches with everyone. Saturn certainly isn't a guy that will get a good match out of Steiner, as he's another spot worker who looks better working in tags (or with Raven...). This is pretty bad and also ends up by Steiner pinning Saturn clean with yet another extremely awkwardly set up top rope bulldog, one of the worst finisher ever as it requires his opponent to stand up his back turned to Steiner in the right corner. Revolution 0-1. Shitty title match of the night 2 : Chris Benoit vs Sid Vicious. Sid is putrid. Comically bad. Benoit isn't allowed to throw any chops, which is frustrating because you're waiting for them like you would in a Ric Flair match. So he bumps around for Sid's godawful offense and works his legs too, which leads to hilariously shitty selling and bumping from Sid. Of course, Sid wins clean, getting the US title in the process. Revolution 0-2. Average tag title match of the night : Harlem Heat vs Barry & Kendall Windham. The Windham brothers could have excellent matches with the right opposition. This isn't the case with the Heat, yet another case of nostalgia booking. Booker T was making waves as a single worker (although I never cared for him), so this is a step back. Ray sucks, but he doesn't suck as much as Sid. Nothing much to say about this; it was fairly heated while most of the matches of the night were cold as hell, so at least that says something about the Heat. They get the belts back too, which was pretty much garanteed. I think the Windhams would leave the company before the end of the year and work the Real Tag League in AJ. Missed opportunity match of the night : Lenny vs Kaz Hayashi. Hayashi has done nothing in WCW since he debuted. He's one of the best worker in the company, could easily get over by his sheer work and charisma like Rey Jr. or Ultimo did, but they never saw fit to push him. He's having the best match possible with Lenny, who's the worst Adrian Street ever, and yet does not get the title. It's depressing. Honorable mention of the night : Shane Douglas & Dean Malenko vs Hugh Morrus & Brian Knobbs. No DQ match that is worked first as a brawl outside then a regular tag match. Pretty good considering who's involved. Douglas has to be given props for working as well as he was, sporting his old plain yellow trunks like it's 1993 again, as Malenko doesn't particulary shine with this kind of opposition. And it ends up with the First Family losing. Revolution 0-3. Nice, they killed the faction dead already. And you wonder why they all wanted to leave when Sullivan was brought back as a booker in 2000 ? "We're a bunch of unprofesionnal bitches" match of the night : Berlyn vs Hacksaw Duggan. Yeah, Bagwell actually refused to do the job so he "arrived late". Even in storyline, this reeked of "I'm a whiny bitch". This gets better, since Berlyn's debut has turned into a lame jingoist angle, who better than Hacksaw Duggan to do the job, right ? Wrong. This is seriously one of the most unprofessionnal outing I've ever seen. Amazing stuff. Duggan no-sells everything and at times simply doesn't cooperate with Wright, who's got a puzzled "What the fuck is this guy doing ?" look on his face. At one point it turns into a slight shoot with Wright trying to throw Duggan amateur style only to have Duggan refusing to bump and countering the throw with a facelock. Duggan went into business for himself and only did the job after a horrible looking neckbreaker that Wright had trouble applying. Nice job Duggan, you old sack of unprofessionnal shit, you jingoist cheap-heat whore, nice job. He should have been fired on the spot, like Kitao was by SMW after the Tenta debacle. After the match, who's coming down the right to "apologize" to Duggan but Buff Bagwell, probably wanting to get some sympathy heat ? Pathetic. Duggan pushed him back, legit pissed I guess. Two bitches and a new heel character dead in tracks. Line of the night : "Saginaw, Michigan !" Shane Douglas adressing the fans, asking them if they were ready for a Revolution. They were in Winston-Salem, NC. Douglas did correct himself but still, pretty funny. The PPV, only post-Bischoff & pre-Russo, was a disaster. The Revolution faction, with all the supposed younger angry guys, has been killed off. Rey Mysterio, the best worker in the company, is badly injured. Berlyn, a new heel character, has been killed because a little bitch didn't want to do the job and an old bitch went into business for himself instead of doing the job he's being paid for. The Cruiserweight title is still on a homophobic unover character/mediocre worker. The TV title is still on an old, bad, boring and not over Rick Steiner. The US title is now on an old, godawful and not over Sid Vicious. The tag team title is on Harlem Heat, a team whose "peak" was in 1995/1996, and which includes Stevie Ray, one of the worst worker in the company. Babyface champ Hulk Hogan being bashed by a baseball bat by Sting got a huge pop. I'll use an expression I was using left and right about joshi puroresu back in the early 00's, WCW was now a zombi promotion, there's no two ways about it. I had underrated how much damage Nash had done to the company in the past, but going through it really makes the picture clear. I'm not sure it could have been saved. They had ONE star, not two, ONE : Goldberg, and he has been demeaned all year long since losing his title at Starrcade by being put in second rate feuds, far away from the title picture most of the time. The nail in the coffin was him aligning with Hogan and playing Randy Savage. Goldberg was a phenom in 1998, now he's just another guy. He's still the biggest star they have, but he's been damaged beyond repair to look like what he used to be again. Nash also killed the cruiserweight title, the TV title and the US title. When he stepped down from booking, you can see the commitee tried to salvage things up, but they did it all wrong by pushing Lenny, Steiner and having Sid pinning Chris Benoit clean. The main event scene is a bad parody of 1995, with the main guys being Hogan, Luger and Sting, with Goldie playing Savage. And Flair will come back. I seriously doubt that anyone could save this company at this point. Maybe with the right guys at the helm right when Nash was demoted. But Sullivan, Taylor & co did a pretty horrible job to begin with. In 6 weeks Russo would leave WWF and jump to WCW, seen as the savior of the company. In the end, he would just finish the job Nash began, kill WCW dead and rape its corpse several time around. This will be a bumpy ride...

Don't think I ignore that fact John, I'm trembling each time I check out the WCW booker calendar. WEEK 36 (September 6 to 11, 1999) Mark Curtis died on the day before Saturday Night. There was a mention at the beginning of the program. Match of the week : Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman vs Juventud Guerrera & Psychosis & Blitzkrieg (Nitro). Juvy is dressed exactly like Kidman, which makes Kidman quite angry. No idea if that will lead to something or if it's just Juvy booking his own shit. There's few and few substantial wrestling matches on TV at this point, lot of JTTS matches actually, so this is the best match of the week. About as good a short Nitro match these six could have. They tease an angle with Chavo, as he gets angry with Kidman at one point because of a minor fuck up. They do the same thing on Saturday Night, with Chavo getting frustrated with Rey not watching his back. Uncle Eddie sees that everyone gets along at the end. Random match of the week : Norman Smiley vs Disco Inferno (Saturday Night). Disco says that the Wiggle has been banned and that the ref should DQ Smiley if he tried it. Of course it's bullshit, but Disco still tries to prevent Smiley from doing the Wiggle during the match, which is pretty funny. The production crew makes the laziest effort ever to zoom in on Smiley's face when he actually does the Wiggle (they can't show it on TV). Nice little match. Disco overuses the counter to his finisher, but Steve Austin was doing the exact same thing at the time so it's no big deal. These two can be on my TV every week on every show against good opponents. Hilarious bad timing/production fuck up/stupid idea of the week : The Maestro (not named) plays the piano descending from the ceiling on a large an expensive set-up while Sid Vicious is killing guys in the ring (Nitro). Yeah, we've heard the piano the previous week on Nitro, without knowing what it was all about. I have no idea why they would do this stuff exactly when Sid is coming down the ring to crap on another match. It all looks like a completely absurd and fucked up mix of terrible stuff all at once. Honorable mention of the week : Steven Regal & Dave Taylor & Chris Adams vs Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn & Shane Douglas (Thunder). It's a shame that Finley's injury basically ended both his career in WCW and the semi-push for the UK faction. This is decent enough and at least we get some good action for a while. Shane Douglas is not catching up at all despite being really solid in the ring. You can see he's trying too hard to be a face cattering to the audience, and it's not what The Franchise character is all about. Miscasting. He needs to turn heel quick. The whole Revolution deal look more and more like the laziest way ever to try and build some "young" guys. And giving each of them the mic to cut promos is not a good ideas. Three of them are wooden and overly stern, and the fourth one is only really efficient as a heel on the mic. Stupid main event angle of the week : Who attacked Sting in the dark ? (Nitro) So, Sting wants to talk with Hogan. I forgot to tell that the previous week, in an amazingly idiotic cliffhanger, Sting tried to get into Hogan's locker room only to see Randy Savage & Gorgeous George there. So, there is a lot of MYSTERY and INTRIGUE. Anyway... Hogan was talking with Bret Hart (yeah, Bret came back and said he needed to have this big match with Hogan that he always dreamed of) when Sting stormed into the locker room with Luger and asked to talk with Hogan. Hogan agreed, then all became black, and we hear a comotion. When the light goes up again, Sting is down and Luger accuses Hogan of having attacked Sting. Oh, great... After the main event (a cage match with Hogan & Goldberg vs DDP, Sid & Steiner which saw Hogan do a clean pin on DDP after Sting came to the aid of the babyfaces), Luger and Sting argued until Luger finally hit Sting from behind. My head aches. We have moved into 1996 territory, Lex & Sting having issues. Nice. Can Liz come back already ? New West Texas Redneck of the week : Curly Bill aka Vincent (Nitro). Bobby Duncum is injured, so Vince propose himslelf because he's a redneck from the South. Okay... Maybe they have found a way to make me enjoy Virgil in WCW. Or not. Goldberg has his old music theme back. That's excellent, because the Megadeath theme didn't fit him at all. That's the only really positive thing I can think off. Fall Brawl looks bad and boring on paper. I can't stand Lenny & Lodi. Saturn vs Rick Steiner will probably be bad. Sid vs Benoit will be depressing for many reasons. Douglas & Malenko vs Morrus & Knobbs is a Thunder match main event at best. Berlyn vs Bagwell will probably be bad too. Harlem Heat vs The Windhams will be as good a Heat match can be in 99, which doesn't mean much. The only interesting match on paper (as far as work goes) is Goldberg vs DDP, and it's a rehash of a rehash at this point. Goldie should be the champ and be fed fresh and dangerous opponents. Hogan vs Sting has been built in the most ridiculous way imaginable. Hulkamania died in 1996, and it was great. Its comeback in 1999 was cute for a week. Then it got completely ridiculous.

It comes from the WCW thread. I talked about how Sid was a giant unprofessional pussy for refusing to take Benoit's chops while even guys like David Flair took them. Made Benoit look awkward not using one of his usual and primary moves too.

WEEK 35 (August 30 to September 4, 1999) Really stupid angle of the week : Was Hogan driving the hummer ? (Nitro). SO, Lex has the proof that Hogan is an hypocrite. Mean Gene acts all outraged, seemingly having forgotten three years of nWo. I hate Gene the Hulkamaniac. Anyway, later in the show, Luger shows a stupid photo of Hogan standing next to a Hummer (a white one to boot) like it was the proof that Hogan was the one who was driving the Hummer that crashed Kevin Nash. Of course this is Luger being an lousy manipulator, but this is still so stupid for so many reasons. The funniest part is Hogan taking the photo from Sting's hands and hiding it like it was some kind of proof, and instead of just rationalizing things, which would be easy, is acting all hyped up and defensive, asking Sting to look into his eyes and believe him. Hulk Hogan is still a terrible character, Sting is still a complete dumbass and Luger is the only legit fun part of the whole deal, being obviously portrayed as a heel stirring shit up in a very awkward way. But man, what a load of crap. Death of WCW match of the week : Hulk Hogan & Goldberg vs DDP & Bam Bam Bigelow & Kanyon (Nitro). Could be called "Death of Goldberg match of the week" also. Goldie being portrayed as Hogan's pal makes no sense whatsoever to begin with, has he forgotten the Starccade match and the Fingerpoke of Doom already ? But this isn't the worse part. In this match, Goldberg plays face in peril, selling for the Triad while Hogan is outside. Complete ass-backward psychology. At this point Goldie is nothing special anymore, he's just another guy who's playing along, and under, Hogan. This is brutal. Squash of the week : Goldberg vs The Cat (Thunder). THIS is how to maintain Goldie over. The Cat calls him out. Spear + jackhammer. Who's next ? Goldberg was their only hope, and Hogan made sure he would just not make it because the future of the company certainly was Hulkamania 1999. Depressing. Debut of the week : Berlyn (Nitro). I like the look, I like the Carl Orff's ripoff music, I like the idea of a blonde german woman being his interpretator. The issue is that Wright is not a very good promo, and it shows even when he speaks German (from the few things I can pick up). And the woman fucked up his catchphrase too. But at least there was some idea here for a fresh new heel. He calls out Buff Bagwell. Man, Bagwell's push surely dropped dead after the Piper program, now he's a bottom feeder to put over a newcomer. Can't say I disaprove. Match of the week by default : Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio Jr. vs La Parka & Bliztkrieg (Nitro). Short match, sadly, but really sweet for what it is. La Parka is a JTTS. Meanwhile Lenny Lane doing a truly offensive homophobic baiting gimmick is the cruiserweight champ. Stiffest match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Jerry Flynn (Nitro). Because stiffness is fun, especialy with two workers who are intense and know what they do. Bad promos of the week (every week) : Revolution (Nitro & Thunder). This doesn't work. The whole idea behind Douglas aligning himself with Malenko, Benoit & Saturn was to feud with Ric Flair, who lost power on the same show he debuted. Now they are feuding with the First Family. Okay, this is not entirely true, Benoit is calling out Sid (who himself is calling out Goldie, so it works like a charm to make Benoit look like an afterthough) and Perry Saturn is calling out Rick Steiner. But they really aren't very good promos, Benoit & Malenko especially are wooden. Douglas is trying too hard to sell his group as something special, but they have no big issue at hand so it just doesn't work, especially since Douglas just hasn't been established to the WCW audience. And he's a heel at heart. Sid is all over the TV, so is Hogan and he's as bad as he was in 1995. The Hulkamania comeback has overstayed its welcome after the second week. The Revolution crew doesn't catch up. Vampiro is working a bizarre angle where he interferes in JTTS matches then tells them that they owe him. And he gets challenged by the KISS Demon, which has been Brian Adams thus far actually. Don't ask me, I have no idea what the fuck this is about. So there it is, the whole "intrigue" on top is pretty awful. The undercard is not exactly exciting because the three single titles feuds involve Sid, Rick Steiner and Lenny "let's chant faggot at him" Lane. And the tag team situation still revolves around Harlem Heat getting a return match. So yeah. Not good.

I think this deserves its own thread.

This. Dropping an extremely fake looking legdrop for years has hurt Hogan's body way more than Sting taking a thousand of Flair's stiff chops. Benoit wasn't about chopping people until they bleed either in WCW. The whole issue was Sid being an unprofessionnal bitch.

The whole "stiffness sucks" is so 2008.

It was not the case back then. It became that way in the 2000's when wrestling totally turned post-modern. I guess it was beginning to emerge by 1999 or so, but it was not the pavlovian chant-along spot it became later. I understand your point, although I never minded good stiffness. I'm a Tenryu fan, so... Now, did it became a short cut to get some heat in the 00's when even guys like Shawn Michaels were doing it ? Totally agree. But when a few workers do it, like Flair, Hennig and Benoit, it's a trademark that is as valid as any other stiff spot. But anyway, that's beyond the point. Even if you think it's a useless spot, the fact is *everyone* was taking Benoit's chops, no one asked not to be choped except Sid. Nash took it. Sullivan took it. David Flair took it. That's just unprofesionnal and it shows what a complete bitch Sid was. It makes Benoit look stupid as all of a sudden he just doesn't use one of his primary weapon when it's something he can do to anyone no matter their weight or height. It doesn't make any sense at all.

It could. Or it could drive us insane.

double post

Nope, this is not what happened. Just checked it, the referee never gets into the ring and makes the bell ring (a number of times, not the requisite three times to start a match) from the outside as a way to stop the action. He's also clearly signaling with his hands gesture that this is not a match. Luger didn't screw Goldberg. Liz screwed Goldberg.

Nah, it wasn't gonna be an actual match. Who do you think Hogan is ? Yokozuna ? That's a pretty great way to describe each character.

I'll play devil's advocate here. First, Luger has always played first and foremost for his own interests and agenda. He himself is not the most sincere guy around, and he manipulated Sting before. Then, he didn't exactly joined Hogan per say. He was already a member of the Wölpack which he joined when they opposed the nWo Hollywood, and stayed mostly around Nash when both factions got together. Business is business and Luger is that kind of guy. But I thought it was a nice touch to have Luger coming back and trying to stir shit up like it's 1995 again. I wonder how it will play out since both Sting and Luger will eventually turn heel in the upcoming two months, although I don't think both turn will coincide. And Sting will turn back face in no time afterward to feud with Luger under Russo. Oh boy. Luger never cost Goldie the title. But anyway, Goldie is now Hogan's little pal along with Sting. I'm telling you, it's 1995 again, Goldie is playing Savage here. I said half-consistency from the Luger character only. Of course Sting and Goldie aligning themselves with good ol' Hulk makes no sense whatsoever, although a few weeks before he went back to his shiny colors, Hollywood asked Sting to tag with him and Sting said okay but he would get him back if anything fishy happened. The whole Hogan face turn earlier in the year was pretty awkward anyway, the whole heel/face structure was unbalanced under Nash, so Hulk going back to the yellow/red was just a natural progression into nostalgia mode, and the audience was ready for it. Managing to stay consistent with Goldie/Sting and all the other characters was just downright impossible at this point unless you get Cornette around the booking commitee.

Hey caley ! WCW still draws to this day I see. Bischoff as an announcer then was unbearably obnoxious. The whole cigarette incident was not on that show but several weeks later. Made himslef look like a big shot. the funniest part was Bischoff basically attacked Hak then when Hak tried to reply he was hooked by 5 security guys and Bischoff acted all though and shit. Way to work a bayface turn Uncle Eric... WEEK 34 (August 23 to 28, 1999) Match of the week : Barry & Kendall Windham & Bobby Duncum Jr. vs Rey Mysterio Jr. & Eddie Guerrero & Kidman (Thunder). I love to watch the Windham brothers against Rey. Barry is still so smooth despite age and weight, it's crazy. Tons of cool shit in this match, and it's also notable that Duncum made a lot of progress. Tagging along with those guys and Hennig surely paid off. This is pretty hot action without any wasted time, both Windhams are just dynamos in there. I love the Rednecks. Nostalgia match of the week : Hulk Hogan vs Sting (Nitro). Well, that's what it is. It's pretty decent although Hogan as Hollywood is a much better worker to me. But there's a sense of just old and been-there done-that to these kind of Hogan match at this point, it really doesn't feel like anything but revisiting the past, unlike during the nWo years which had a new and fresh twist to it. They work a rather nice counter sequence at the end, then of course Sid and Steiner show up to spoil the fun. Giant pussy of the week : Sid Vicious (Thunder). Match on Thunder against Benoit & Saturn, tagging along Steiner. The match sucks anyway, as Sid is not only shitty, but he's lazy as fuck, 90% of his "offense" consist of horrible restholds. Rick Rude circa 93 would be proud. Well, no he wouldn't because the last 10% consists of horrible punches. Anyway, the interesting thing in this match is that Benoit doesn't throw any chops *at all*. Weird uh ? It's not like Rick Steiner would care, but Sid would not take Benoit's chops and he requested that Benoit would not use them when he would work against him. What a giant fucking pussy. David Flair took Benoit's chops ! Sid's stock found a way to drop even lower than he was before with this project. Amazing. Promo of the week : Lex Luger (Nitro). Hey, Luger shows up to support his friend Sting and warns him about Hogan. He tells Sting he shouldn't trust Hogan, who all of a sudden is wearing the yellow and red like nothing ever happens. Sting, as the lovable doofus that he is, syas Hogan is his friend. Luger would still show up with Goldie at the end of Hogan vs Sting, but I thought it was an interesting show of actual half-consistency from Luger's character, not buying into the sudden change of attitude from Hogan. Stiffest match of the week : Vampiro vs Eddie Guerrero (Nitro). I enjoy Vampiro way more than I thought I would. He's working hard and shows personnality. I guess he was totally washed up in MLW (he was godawful there). Some really stiff stuff here, from both part. The whole Vamp & ICP vs Rey/Eddie/Kidman stuff has been enjoyable, as there was a nice little ICP vs Rey/Kidman on the same show. Competitive squash of the week : DDP vs Chavo Guerrero Jr. (Thunder). DDP cuts a decent promo shooting himself back into the main event picture which is really a good thing as he's their best guy to work on top, and the heel side is depleted with Sid/Rick Steiner. Then the match with Chavo (where has he been anyway) is pretty awesome for what is it. Crisp, brutal, energetic. DDP has added a spinebuster that is the best ever this side of Arn Anderson, seriously. Really, DDP's work in 1999 has been nothing short of excellent, so I forgive him for his so-so promo catchphrase and lame jokes. He's still working as hard as ever and probably is as good as he ever was. Title change of the week : Barry & Kendall Windham wins the tag titles over Harlem Heat (Nitro). Well, that was a short comeback for the Heat. Fuck yes, the Windhams get the belts !!!!! Embarrassing moment of the week : Crowd chanting "Faggot !" at Lenny. (Nitro). The gimmick sure works getting homophobic reactions. Nice... Funniest moment of the week : Sonny Oono singing Purple Rain. (Thunder). Said to The Cat that Prince was here, then sung the chorus. Pretty damn funny. Of course the Prince in question was Iaukea. So that's where Russo got his idea for his new gimmick I guess... Debut of the week : The KISS Demon !!! (Nitro). It was supposed to be Brian Adams, I have no idea why Dave Torborg got the deal. I think they had a clause in the contract that the KISS Demon was supposed to work a certain number of main events or something. Made it look like a huge deal, after a KISS performance that looked right out of 1982. Cultural relevance at its best. Pretty busy week. Ironically, they were talking all week about some new president for WCW, the rumour being Eric Bischoff would get the job. It would be only two weeks or so before he would be actually demoted, for real. One of his last great idea was to say in a meeting that anyone disgruntled could get up and leave the room and the company. Raven got up and left. Nice. First Jericho, now Raven, two of the most over guys in the mid-card, upper midcard just getting the fuck out of this place in like 3 months. Nice job.

WEEK 33 (August 16 to 19, 1999) Get off my TV character of the week : Sid Vicious. Interrupted no less than 6 matches during Nitro and Thunder. It's just unbearable. Can't work worth a lick, cuts horrible promos. This is ugly I don't understand why the booking comitee went this route after Sid was brought up by Nash. I guess they thought they had no one else. Wait, Goldberg is still doing nothing of note. This Sid superpush is the worst and most boring thing thus far this year (yeah, worse than tons of shitty stuff that at least was so ridiculous it was entertaining). Title switch of the week : Lenny Lane wins the Cruiserweight title from Rey Mysterio Jr. (Thunder). It's really a "slip on a banana peel" win, not the right way to put back some focus on the cruiserweight title. And Lenny & Lodi doing homophobic baiting gimmick doesn't work for me. It's dated, stupid and rather offensive. Match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Disco Inferno (Nitro). Yeah, Benoit the US champ defends against the Disco Inferno. Best exemplifies the glass ceiling. Really good match though, I always enjoy Disco working hard. Benoit and the Revolution get involved with Sid & Rick Steiner on Thunder which may sound like they are actually gonna work with some higher ranked talent, but... 1996 match of the week : ICP vs Public Enemy (Nitro). Seriously, why even hire back PE ? They worked so well the first time around in 1996 I guess, when putting people through tables seemed fresh, hardcore and original. This is 1999, PE still can't work but they are taking space on TV again. This is visually interesting, as both PE and ICP wear the exact same kind of clothing. ICP goes through a table. Ladi ladi ladi, we like to party... Raven is fat and bored. Leaving very soon. Horrible main event of the week : Hulk Hogan vs Sid Vicious (Nitro). It bombed at Mania in 92, it should be a big match in 99. Sid is fast forward material to me at this point, he's unbearable. He managed to surpass Stevie Ray in term of pure suckiness. Really nothing happens anymore. Really seems like a transitionnal era, which it effectively was. They are going toward a Hogan vs Sting babyface match as their big main event feud. The heel side is totally dead.

After watching the build to Road Wild, I will take a wild guess and say the commitee was already in place right after the Bash at the Beach debacle. There was a notable difference in how the TV done at that point.

PPV 8 : Road Wild 1999 Match of the night : DDP vs Chris Benoit. For the US title no DQ. Strong effort by DDP, although I noticed at one time they worked pretty much the same sequence twice. Two things that are noticable here : they work a whole sequence with DDP using the referee's belt to choke and hang Benoit, and it is pretty awkward to watch now; the other thing is that this match was obviously a way to put Benoit over big time, as the Triad interferes while the Revolution guys stay backstage (the idea is that they trust Benoit to win by himself), and Benoit indeed takes care of both Kanyon and Bam Bam and gets a clean pinfall win on DDP. Really good stuff. Honorable mention of the night : Perry Saturn & Shane Douglas & Dean Malenko vs Curt Hennig & Barry Windham & Bobby Duncum Jr. Good six man tag with especially solid work from Windham and Douglas, who are the two fat veterans. Hennig seems to have a knee injury again but he still works around it. This is everything this kind of match should be , nothing special but kept things moving and the right guys were put over. Oh, and the Rednecks are using Rap is Crap during their intros, so it was fun. Decent opener of the night : Vampiro & ICP vs Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman. Although I shouldn't expect too much out of ICP and Vamp, I was still a bit disapointed with this. I think they worked too much heat segments without having the offense to do it, the ICP are better as bumping goofs. It was still pretty good though, and the crowd got into it. Again, clean pinfall, which basically happened in every match, and the right guys go over. Car crash of the night : Randy Savage vs Dennis Rodman : "Where is my bitch ?" Rodman. "Tonight you are my bitch" Savage. Really ? Anyway, this isn't good, as Savage can't do anything anymore, and Rodman is only good for a few minutes or so, but it has its moment, especially when they go backstage, including a now infamous spot. I understand what they were aiming at, doing a crzay brawl, but they didn't really succeeded, using smokes and mirrors like abusing referees. Savage really had nothing left, sadly. Nostalgia match of the night : Hulk Hogan vs Kevin Nash. Hogan is much more interesting as Hollywood to me. As a 1999 Hulk match against a monster, this is pretty decent, although it's a hell of a basic match. Nothing bad per say, but really nothing above the least requisite to make it work. The career vs career stipulation was useless, it dodn't work at all and the two guys didn't bother work like it was a huge deal. Really Hogan getting the belt back as a nostalgia act was fine, as Nash was a failure, but it really showed that the company was dry on top. Even with Goldberg winning the belt, nothing was hot anymore, and especially not Sid. Shitty performance of the night : Sid Vicious vs Sting : God Sid sucks. And he not only sucks, but he's really lazy as all hell. The way he feeds Sting is amazingly goofy. Sid was not a guy to put on top anymore in 1999, he was a proven failure at every level, it's mind blowing WCW still tried with him. Bad match, although Sting was energetic. Sid gets a clean pinfall, but he didn't even bother use the powerbomb on Sting. One chokeslam and that was it. Ugh... Useless match of the night : Goldberg vs Rick Steiner. As much as Scott figured it out, Rick just didn't. Slow, plodding, boring offense from Rick until Goldie spears him. Jackhammer, end. No business on PPV. Harlem Heat won the title in a decent match for a Harlem Heat match in 99, but it is not a good thing to anchor the tag team division around an act from the past which involves Stevie Ray. Bagwell vs The Cat wasn't good, both these guys needs a good worker to work with, they just didn't click. The most striking thing about that PPV is the lack of bullshit finish and screwjobs. All clean finish, mostly with the right guys going over (only Sid pinning Sting is very questionnable at best). It was obvious Nash wasn't booking alone anymore. The best parts were delivered by the Triad, the Revolution and Eddie & Co. The main event scene looks dull, dry and totally without appeal, with terribles heels in Rick Steiner and Sid. And Hogan is a nostalgia act at this point. Not looking good at all...