El-P

This is awfuly sad. Ric must be in be really really rough shape.

I appreciate the support. Still two months of Nash to go (amazing he wasn't demoted earlier, his booking is a tragedy), one of Sullivan & Taylor before the Man comes in. WEEK 25 (June 21 to 25, 1999) Comeback match of the week : Eddie Guerrero vs Juventud Guerrera (Nitro). Finally, Eddie is back, looking pretty ripped. He's still the asshole Eddie although he came off as a babyface a few weeks earlier when he made his first appearance back. Nice detail as he actually refers to the LWo angle at the beginning of the match, mimicking Juvy taking off the shirt and quiting the faction. He proceeds to slap the shit out of him and have a really fie match, although too short (Juvy really was a total afterthought sadly at this point, not even being defined clearly as a face or a heel). Glad to see Eddie back, he looks as great as he was in late 98. He also has a good match with Psychosis on Thunder. Comeback match of the week 2 : Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn vs Fit Finlay & Dave Taylor (Thunder). I would be tempted to call this an hidden gem, as it involves two european guys working stiff and doing some stretching, but this is just a really good Nitro-style match. Finlay & Taylor should have been pushed seriously right into the tag team division, they are really excellent together. Oh, and the awesome and unexpected comeback comes after the ending of the match, as Steven Regal shows up to reconcile Taylor & Finlay who were arguing. He's a man's man, and I'm glad he's back. Honorable mention of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. & Konnan vs DDP & Kanyon (& Bam Bam) (Nitro). This is a tag-title match, and Bam Bam is tagging along with DDP at points. The explanation is that since Flair aligned himself with the Triad, they can do whatever they want. Well... This is a good match too, and Kanyon works really well with Rey once again. Konnan only doing short bursts of offence makes him tolerable. I must say I'm embarrassed every time Rey does this hip-hop shout out before the matches. The No Limit Soldiers got an actual worker in their rank now, because when you talk about O.G.'s you gotta think about Brad Armstrong. But hey, I'm all for more Brad Amrstrong on TV, even in a stupid hip-hop getup that makes him his brother's wannabee (and it will only get worse, I know). This ends up in a big brawl with Hennig and the rednecks running in, then Benoit & Saturn too. Master P. does his ridiculous "Hoody Hooo !" shout, only to get more boos. That's because he didn't had enough of "his people" in the crowd, as he complained later. Yeah, it's not because he sucks and no one wants to see him. Epic Fail of the week : Curt Hennig crashes Master P's little brother's birthday party (Nitro). Don't even ask why they would have a birthday party for P's little brother in the ring and why I nor the WCW audience should care. P already embarrassed himself earlier in the night with a terrible playback rendition of his "Hoody Hoo" shitty song, to a very mixed reaction, in his own town no less. So, Hennig offers a cowboy hat to P's brother, who proceed to stomp on it (well, he tried at least), and P and the gang threw the cake on Curt. All of this terribly executed. Since Curt got alone into a ring full of at least 15 gang members, and didn't do anything offensive, you know what the reaction was : he came off as a babyface bullied by a bunch of buffoons shouting more "Hooody Hoos" to more boos. Master P sucked, and the WCW audience let him know about it. Jeez, couldn't they have contacted, I dunno, Snoop Dog or something ? Or Cypress Hill ? I mean, even by 1999 these guys were more relevant that fucking Master P. I'm not asking for Eminem, but the No Limit Soldiers were looking like a complete stereotype of goofy-ass fake gangsta rappers. Dream match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Barry Windham (Saturday Night). Yeah, this is a dream match of mine. Of course it's only three or four minutes of action, and I would have loved to see Barry and Rey go at it for 10 minutes, but still, I thought it was neat. Barry was sporting a super tight jean mini-shirt, which along with the worker gloves made him look like a Village People reject. Awesome terrible look. The Rap is Crap angle is so much fun. I'll go so far to say it's some of Hennig's best work he's doing here, at the very least post-injury. Not only is he rejuvenated as a worker, but he's having and is so much fun, doing his little jig to his fantastic theme song. And although I would have them come out to "Rednecks" by Randy Newman, "I hate rap" was terrific and is one of these songs that you just can't get out of your head once it's in it. Really really infectious. Which makes it ever more annoying and great. The fact that the audience is shitting on P makes all the bad stuff tolerable too. The main event scene is officially rotten with the addition of Sid. Now we get a realy stupid angle where Kevin Nash thinks Sting was driving the hummer because he popped up out of one last week to attack Rick Steiner. So the main event for BatB is Sting/Nash vs Savage/Sid. Great idea. Sid vs Sting bombed in 90, bombed in 93 and Sid vs Diesel bombed in 95. The Piper/Flair vs Buff Bagwell could be cool if a worker I cared about was put in that position, and although Bagwell is over, he's just not the right guy to push. Booker T coming back from injury and having a good match with Kanyon. The seeds of Lenny & Lodi are planted, with Lodi coming out during Lenny's matches to look after him. The cruiserweight, TV and US belts are all but forgotten.

Yes. Rewatching all the TV in context makes this painfully obvious. This and aborted pushes of undercard guys who aren't supposed to get over. Norman Smiley early in the year is the most flagrant case of getting himself over big time, before he got basically dropped off TV. When he resurfaced (on Saturday Night more than elsewhere mind you) he couldn't do the big wiggle anymore. Then he got dropped off TV again. The "Raven is a rich kid who idolized Roddy Piper" got litteraly dropped right after the vignettes aired on TV.

Agreed. And he really quickly declined once he got in the WWF.

WEEK 24 (June 14 to 19, 1999) Match of the week : Barbarian vs Booker T (Thunder). It's been a while since we've seen Booker. not that I missed him much. He's only as good as his opponent, and I'm glad Barbarian was allowed to be competitive with him. Nice little match with Barbie kicking the ass of Booker a whole lot, and allowing Booker to make only timely comebacks. I enjoyed this more than most of Booker matches this year. Young guards vs Old guard match of the week : Ric Flair & Roddy Piper & DDP & Kanyon vs Chris Benoit & Buff Bagwell & Dean Malenko & Perry Saturn. (Nitro). So, we get that old vs young feud that will surely put WCW back on tracks. Yeah, right, like this was the way to do it. Not as simple to create stars. BTW, where the fuck is Goldie ? Anyway, the two most featured guys here are Benoit, as the workhorse, and Bagwell, as the guy who gets the pin pinfall on Ric Flair. See what's bound to fail here ? And really, you think Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko look like future main event talent anyway ? Chris Jericho did. Last time he was seen was at the last PPV on the Internet location. He's waiting to leave to feud with The Rock. Anyway, this is an action packed match with DDP and Kanyon shining, Roddy looking useless (depsite the announcer putting him over as smarter than the Benoits and such...) and Flair throwing a thousand chops. Payback match of the week : Hak vs Rick Steiner (Nitro) These guys go backstage to bust out Harley Davidsons and Hummers, which is decently fun, until Sting springs out of said Hummer to attack Rick Steiner with a baseball bat. Apparently the dog bites weren't too severe. Hopefully this ends the Sting vs Steiner feud, which has been terrible. Comparison match of the week : Disco Inferno vs Scotty Riggs (Thunder). It's sad for Riggs he never got the opportunity. He's obviously a much better worker than Bagwell, especially at this point. Now he's settled with a Narcissist kinda gimmick, complete with a small mirror in which he's looking at himself during matches. He makes the most of it though, despite being a glorified JTTS. This match is better than Disco vs Buff from the PPV, and the reason why is obvious. Epic fail of the week : "Hoody hoooo !! Hoody hooo !!! " > chorus of boos. (Nitro) Who the fuck is Master P anyway. From what I gather he sucks as a rapper, and certainly was shit on by WCW audience when he tried to have them do his goofy-ass shout. Interrupting the great "Rap is Crap" song, now with complete verses and all, maybe wasn't the best idea as obviously, as much as they love Rey, they don't want to see or hear Master P at all, and would rather sing along with Curt Hennig. Gigantic waste of money and time. It'll get even better the following week I think. Line of the week : "She's a movie star you know. I still haven't seen it but I've heard about it." Eric Bischoff, talking about Chastity on Nitro. So, they already knew at this point that she did *one* blowjob scene in a porn but she wasn't fired yet. Dumbfuck puritans, like anybody cared. I liked Chastity, she had that fun sleazeball look to her. Cameo of the week : Sable is sitting at ringside on Nitro. Which of course, and thankfully, will lead to nothing. Bischoff was getting agressive again, but it was the wrong strategy at this point. He also made fun of JR during the show. Well, that worked when you were gaining viewers in 1996. This doens't work now. The big main event feud will be Nash vs Sid. Yeah, because it drew so much money in 1995. The Rap is Crap angle will be fun for all the wrong reasons, namely WCW crowds shitting on Master P.

Flair wasn't exactly treated as a nobody. He was in the main event scene for the first few months, got the belt from Hogan, was the insane president of WCW. And really his work didn't deserve that much, he was mediocre at best in the ring at this point. Flair had no business being at the top of the card anymore to be honest.

Yes, Eddie Carpentier was French. I'm not sure he ever got the Canadian citizenship.

I'm hardcore ! I'm hardcore ! I'm hardcore ! PPV 6 : Great American Bash 6 Match of the Night : Curt Hennig & Bobby Duncum Jr. vs Rey Mysterio Jr. & Konnan. Hennig finally got the "Rap is Crap" theme song. Awesome ! Master P and his goofy-ass gangsta crew is at ringside. Oh boy, for two seconds I actually forgot these guys were involved and it was better that way. As much as Konnan sounds pretty natural spitting hip-hop stuff on the mic, I always though Rey came off as really cheesy doing the same thing. Let's be honest, Rey is just not a very good promo at all. ONe thing about Hennig that is striking is that he's taking good bumps again, and not the awkward way he was doing it in 98, which is a part of why he's so much better. He's also clearly working way harder too. Him and Rey ae really fun together, Duncum is decent enough, and Konna doesn't get in the way and delivers short burst of energy. At the end Barry Windham shows up with working gloves (??) so to eve the score, Master P.'s bodyguard Swoll gets involved and Rey wins the match. Good stuff, as it is. Second best match of the night : DDP & Kanyon vs Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn. The work is better than in the previous match, but it goes a bit too long so it kinda drags a bit at points. Kanyon is a really good bumping heel, I feel the guy was underrated, and he works especially well in a tag team setting as he doesn't have the burden of carrying the load by himself. DDP still is one of the most efficient worker in the company, alwyas trying to do some good and exciting sequences. Saturn is also better in tags, for obvious reasons. Nice old-school tag match with face in peril and hot tag, it's simple but it works. Tag team wrestling should have never died. The final is a bit bizarre, as you get Dean Malenko coming out to aid Saturn get up on the outside, but the execution was a bit odd and at times it kinda look like Malenko was preventing Saturn from entering the ring back to save Benoit. Maybe the toxicity of WCW has already affected my brain and I except a swerve in every match... Title change *again*. Mike Tenay said a really stupid line about it's ironic Benoit had to leave the Horsemen to finally get a title. Yeah, he has been a title holder on and off since the beginning of the year, but let's not be bothered by facts. The announcing was terrible at this point anyway, Tony was an asshole and Heenan was not giving a fuck, only spewing clichés every time he opened his mouth. ECW match of the night : Hak vs Brian Knobbs. Hey, this is better than it had the right to ! Knobbs "shines" in this kind of match much more than Bigelow because his awkwardness actually add to the aura of brutality, and he's willing to take stupid bumps and shots. Hak sells pretty well, so all in all it's a good garbage match. Plus it makes sense as at the beginning of the match, which was supposed to be a cane match, Knobbs asked that they let go of the cane and fought the old-school way, and at the end he would get beat by a stiff cane shot, which was nice. So yeah, one of the most enjoyable Hak match, and I credit Knobbs for being a mindless goofball. Better than on paper match of the night : Disco Inferno vs Buff Bagwell. Nothing special, but Disco did a good job with Bagwell. Washed up match of the night : Ric Flair vs Roddy Piper. Again, "better than it should" considering Piper is rotten, or simply embarrassing to see these two old guys looking exactly like what they are : washed up oldies. Flair is basically a comedy worker to me at this point, especially facing Piper who you can't take seriously anyway. Finish is stupid as hell, as Bagwell *jumps in the ring* to help Piper, so Piper loses the match and the shot at presidency. Of course, Piper turns of him, and it's the "old vs young" issue that was a big real problem in WCW turning into a "shoot". Where is Shane Douglas when we need him ? Vince Russo angle of the night : Sting is attacked by dogs. I HATE this kind of shit. Just hate it. So, Sting and Rick Steiner work a rather long and plodding match until Rick drags Sting backstage where he gets assaulted by Tank Abbot and then Scott sends the dogs. Stupid, offensive, ridiculous. Sad match of the night : Randy Savage vs Kevin Nash. Sad because it's obvious that Savage has nothing left in him. As much as I hate Nash's booking, as a performer he's been quite good thus far, and here he's having a match by himself, selling his rib injury. Savage half-ass attacks it, but he's lost all explosivity, doesn't bump, doesn't do any kind of spot, plods around. Pretty sad to watch. Easy to understand why he had the Girl Gang with him, to distract from the fact he wasn't able to work anymore. So, Madusa drops some cool and sexy kicks to Nash's side, and Mona gets the two spots of the night, first kicking off a great missile dropkick from the top rope and then later taking a huge snake eyes in the corner, which looked devastating. Basically Nash had a few fun spots against Madusa and Mona. Then of course the final toxic affair, with the comeback of no other than Sid Vicious ! Gets a pop, looks great. Ok, can you go away now ? I won't talk about Cat vs Horace Hogan, because it was supposed to be Scott Norton so it's nowhere near as fun, although it's the debut of the red slippers. And you also get Mickey Whipreck on PPV again, after not being on TV basically ever, this time doing the job for Van Hammer who's gone through yet another gimmick change, this time as a bad motha a-la Wrath. One month to go until the next PPV and I'm taking a break.

This isn't good... Hopefully nothing real bad happens.

Thank you !!!! Nash is killing me !!! I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking that way. Yeah, Piper was just awful, he perfectly embodied the term "hasbeen" at this point. And he got long promo time every damn week.

WEEK 23 (June 7 to June 12, 1999) Death of WCW angles of the week : Female contortionnist in a bag throwing sewage over Savage's head/Savage's ladies hitting on Nash to have him enter the limo and get squashed by a hummer. (Nitro) I won't even go into details. These are infamous, and this is just embarrassingly bad. Russo was all over this product way before he was even hired. And of course it leads to the immortal question : who drove the hummer. My guess is Rikishi Stupid promo of the week : Roddy Piper (Nitro) Yeah, *that* Piper promo when he made fun and light of the younger workers in the back complaining about not getting opportunities. Sure, because that wasn't a real issue with the company. Remember Piper is supposed to be a babyface. And who does he want to carry the ball, after making fun of him in the most absurd and stupid way imaginable (asking a WCW bred worker if he ever worked in Madison Square Garden... dumb) ? Buff Bagwell, who's been exposed at this point as a terrible babyface (awful over pandering promos) and a rather poor worker (blame either the injury, lazyness or the fact Buff was roided as all). And he puts him in a PPV match with Disco Inferno, who had also complained that the young generation didn't get any opportunities. Of course, Buff already beat Disco clean the previous week on Nitro. Kill me. Swerve match of the week : Ric Flair & Chris Benoit vs DDP & Bam Bam Bigelow (Nitro). Flair convinces Benoit to work their differences out and gives themselves a title shot. Good little match, Bam Bam is much better in that setting. Of course Flair ends up betraying Benoit when he was going for the hot tag, which led to Arn first proposing himself as Benoit's partner, to the delight of the crowd, until Saturn came out, got the tag and "won" the titles. But it was a Dusty finish, since Saturn really wasn't officially in the match. Which led to : Shitty title change of the week : Perry Saturn vs Kanyon (Thunder). Yeah. You read it right. Kanyon is technically able to defend the tag titles since the Triad uses the Freebirds rules. Why not. What I hate though, is that it's a single match which turns into a tag match 4 minutes before ending, when DDP then Benoit jump in the ring. And it actually is a tag title match, with the belt changing hands. I just hate when this kind of shit happens. The tag division was the most fun part of the product, but in a week they managed to shit over it with a Dusty finish and a completely illogical and anti-climatic title change, three days before the PPV, in a match that was a single match for the 3/4 of its duration. Kill me. Stupid match and announcing performance of the week : La Parka & Silver King vs Damian & Ciclope (Nitro). "A Mexican, falls count anywhere, hardocre match ! Ah ah ah ah !" Yeah, *that* match, with Bobby and Tony just making fun of the entire deal while thse guys were killing each others in the ring. That being said, I blame the workers too for going all out for nothing and just doing stupid shit to no reactions. This is just a gigantic mess. Match of the week : Juventud Guerrera vs Psychosis (Saturday Night). At this point we've seen a hundreds of these, but in such a terrible week it was refreshing nonetheless. When Juvy works against Rey, he's a rudo, when he works against Psychosis, he's a technico. Go figure. Spot of the week : Sting doing the Stinger Splash in the corner on Mona first, then Madusa (Nitro). These girls are aces. ALthough the idiotic WCW crew had to zoom in right when Sting asked Debbie if she was allright and she was visibly nodding yes as an answer. Spot of the week 2 : Mona doing a missile dropkick on Brian Adams (Thunder). Yep, those girls were aces. And it's a good thing, because Savage really looks like he doesn't want to do much of anything in the ring sadly. That was one hell of a horrible week. The Rap vs Country angle is keeping on developping, with a decent Rey Jr. vs Bobby Duncum match on Nitro, and we still get that bizarre First Family vs Kidman & Hak affair going on too. The main event and upper mid-card scene is cluttered with horrible angles and Rick Steiner being pushed while his brother was injured (I think). I'll have to take a break after Bash at the Beach, if I don't want to destroy all my brain cells and will to watch this.... stuff.

WEEK 22 (May 31 to June 5, 1999) Match of the week : Konnan & Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Curt Hennig & Bobby Duncum Jr. (Nitro). It says a lot when the match of the week involves Konnan and Bobby Duncum. This is a nice tag match with Rey playing face-in-peril, and we're at the beginning of the whole Rap is Crap angle. Earlier on Curt sang a country song (and got booed out of the building), but no Rap is Crap song yet. Return of the week : Eddie Guerrero (Nitro). Back from the horrific car accident. He shows up and gets to tell his story. Babyface mode. He announces the first match and leaves. He can't come back soon enough. Godawful angle of the week : Randy Savage beats up a fake Kevin Nash in drag. Kevin Nash retaliate by empting a sceptic tank on Savage's limo while he and the girls are inside (Nitro). No comment. This is straight out of what Russo is doing on the other channel. This is shit. Forget the cool angle Savage had with Rey that led nowhere, the Savage vs Nash feud is officialy in the tank. The septic tank, indeed. Godwaful main event of the week : Sting vs Rick Steiner in a cage with Tank Abbott as the referee (Nitro). Angle sucks. Match sucks. There's a swerve at the end, as Abbott allies himself with Rick Steiner whom he confronted on Thunder. There's no reason why Rick Steiner, who's got the TV belt, should be feuding with Sting in main events. The whole Tank Abbott is just a waste of time. They should have got Jim Neidhart for the job. Title change of the week : DDP & Bam Bam Bigelow vs Perry Saturn (Nitro). So, DDP and Bam Bam attacked Raven at the beginning of the show and put him out. They also attacked, or so it seems, Kanyon, so Saturn defends the titles by himself, and does a good job. Kanyon jobs up for the hot tag, wearing a hospital wrist band, but get KOed by a simple punch from DDP, who wins for his team. That was pretty well done, and a nice change from the usual "partner turns on partner" deal we see all the time. Of course we can see it coming from a mile away, but the execution was nice, and the detail of the hospital wristband was a nice touch. Ruined match of the week : Hak vs Kidman (Nitro). Starts out well and looks like it will build into one of the most interesting Hak match, so of course we have to have Hugh Morrus to attack Kidman, and then Brian Knobbs to attack Hak. What a waste. Brawl of the week : Fit Finlay vs Brian Knobbs (Saturday Night). One of the best solo Knobbs match I've seen. Take a wild guess why that is ? Short brawl, but it suits Knobbs "style", and Finlay does wonder kicking his ass and selling for his awkward stuff. Line of the week : "The commercials are better then the matches." Bobby Heenan on Nitro. It's getting really tough to watch to be honest. Except the premise of the Rap is Crap angle and the tag team situation, nothing is remotely interesting or fun anymore. The Savage vs Nash feud has turned into awful stuff. The TV belt is dead because Rick Steiner is working a program with Sting instead of defending it on the undercard like he should. The US belt is not defended either. Goldie is nowhere to be seen. The cruiserweight belt is not defended either since Rey is feuding with heavyweights. Ric Flair pushing David could be fun if David was at least at the Erik Watts 92 level of work, but he's far removed from this, so it's not watchable. Flair himself had a decent match with Benoit on Thunder, but it's a match that underlined how much he wasn't able to work well with the younger guys at this point. He bumps slow and like an old guy, and against a dynamo like Benoit it shows. No wonder Jericho left, and Raven would follow in a few months.

That didn't bother me for several reasons. One is that she really wasn't injured, it was a set-up and used the crutches to attack Piper. Second is that Francine was using crutches with high heels depsite being legit injured in ECW, so... But yeah, only in pro-wrestling. It was obvious by this point that they had no idea how to fill the first hour or the three hours Nitros anymore. I'm amazed they didn't cut back as soon as the Fall season.

Glad people are enjoying it. WEEK 21 (May 24 to 29, 1999) Owen Hart had died on Sunday. Turn of the week : Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko (Nitro). No idea if this has anything to do with Owen dying and thus the impossibility to have Benoit as a heel anymore. Anyway, this comes a bit from nowhere, as earlier on in the show, we see Benoit & Dean complaining to Arn that they don't get title shots and opportunity despite what Flair had promised them, and that you have to be 45 to get somewhere in this company. Ok, I get the feeling, Bischoff was trying to push the notion that the glass ceiling will become a storyline here, and that it's time to push younger guys. But really, Chris & Dean complaining about not getting shots despite being the anchor of the tag-team division for months now is a bit odd. They basically bitch because Flair gave DDP & Bam Bam the next title shot at the PPV. Ok. So later in the evening, Flair, DDP & Bigelow were supposed to face Piper and two guys he selected. The Horsemen show up, Flair thinks they are coming to support him, but they align with Piper. Malenko is not even dressed to work, and we don't know if he's got an injury or something. Anyway, this also seals the history of the 4 Horsemen once and for all I belive, as this split marks the last ending of the stable. Roddy, Benoit & DDP were wearing black armbands to honor the memory of Owen. Match of the week : DDP vs Chris Benoit (Thunder). Benoit is a face but doesn't get a big time reaction like he did as a heel. Too soon I guess. Well worked match, I'd probably say it's better than the matches they had in 98. It's obvious DDP's stint as a world champion hasn't changed his status very much in the long haul, as he works with Benoit like they are equals, which is good. No finish, Bam Bam then Flair come up to attack Benoit. Honorable mention of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Lash LeRoux (Saturday Night) : LeRoux is one of those young cruiserweight who can do some impressive spots but who lacks a lot in term of basics. Sadly, it will become the norm. Good little match considering his level of greeness, Mysterio works like a chief around him. You can feel the cruiserweight title has lost a lot of luster in 1999 though. Which leads me to : Retarded angle of the week : Hugh Morrus interrupting a Cruiserweight Battle Royal (Nitro). Yeah, because Cruiserweights are boring midgets, and we need to have a JTTS like Morrus kill a bunch of them and challenge Rey Mysterio Jr. Nash really killed the division dead in its tracks way before Russo. The last time the division had an hot angle was in late 98 with the LWo. The Kidman reign was treated as an afterthought, they Rey won the belt was all the focus was on the tag belts which he had to defend to. And now this. Video of the week : Eric Bischoff recap video (Nitro). They did a pretty damn good job of recaping the entire Eric Bischoff character arc since he got power in 1993, including his rise to success with Nitro and the way he betrayed his own company by joigning the nWo. The only criticism I have is that we still don't know for sure what the deal is with who is actively in power. But the piece is well done. Hot stuff of the week : Madusa. And she was kicking ass too, attacking Kevin Nash and confronting Piper. Pretty awesome S&M vinyl outfit. Promo of the week : Curt Hennig doesn't like that rap crap and wants some good "country rythm & blues" instead. (Nitro) This is gonna get good really quick. Really not much in terms of good wrestling this week, and the Savage vs Nash feud doesn't advance a lot. Savage attacked Nash and painted his face with lipstick again. The issue I have with Savage is that it's very obvious he's dropped a lot as an in-ring worker. His match on Thunder with Buff really exposed him as someone who doesn't want to do much anymore, probably because of his injured knee he doesn't do any top rope jumps anymore (and when he does his big elbow he protects his knee by landing with all his weight on his opponent, which broke the ribs of Charles Robinson) and basically looks slow and plodding. As much as I enjoy his character and new look, I haven't seen anything good from him from the few I've seen him work. We get more Sting & Luger aligning against the Steiners, including a stupid monster truck spot. We also get Tank Abott on Thunder talking down to WCW wrestlers, which leads to heel Rick Steiner confronting him. Pretty weak-ass week.

WEEK 20 (May 17 to 22, 1999) Match of the week : Raven & Perry Saturn vs Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko (Nitro). Really good tag team match once again. This has been the best stuff in WCW since the beginning of the year, and I might say it's the best stuff in US wrestling that year thus far. The whole Tajiri vs Crazy feud in ECW was cool but a bit samey after a while. The tag team division in WCW was more varied with Windham/Hennig, Rey/Kidman, Raven/Saturn and the anchor team of the Horsemen. I'm loving this. Funniest match of the week : Ric Flair & Charles Robinson vs Randy Savage & Madusa (Nitro). Good mixed match part 2. Robinson keeps on ruling as Little Naich, and it's even more striking to see him tag with Flair. What's cool about this match is that there are no sexual innuendos whatsoever, which is refreshing and surprising. Madusa kicks Robinson's ass, and she even gets Flair to sell for her, which I guess must have been a real kick. They fumbled the back bodydrop spot a bit (yeah, Flair took a backbody drop from Madusa !), but all in all it was extremely fun. Savage does look older and slower than he ever has before in term of his in ring work. Being roided up like hell surely didn't help. Keep in mind that Savage is a babyface at this point of the show. Nonsensical turn of the week : Randy Savage. (Nitro) Because we need a heel to feud with Nash on top, and really there are no one else at this point but Flair and DDP. Savage came in as a hot babyface for the last month or so, and right after a super hot match against Flair he's basically turning heel again by requesting a match with Nash from Piper and Bischoff. Who are not in power. I'll get back to this in a moment. Anyway, Savage is so good that he has no problem turning himself heel, but still... Shooty-shooty nonsensical promo of the week : Eric Bischoff apologizing for all his screw ups and promising to do a better job in the future. (Nitro) So, Bischoff basically said he interfered in matches despite having no official authority, while at the same time acting like he's been the boss of WCW since 1993 and still is today and in the future. Even Schiavone has no idea what to say following this shit in term of who's supposed to be in power. When you add the fact that Piper says that he's the President of WCW later on, this is a gigantic mess. During the week we'll learn that Flair indeed still is the President, while Bischoff I guess is the "shoot boss". Just a clusterfuck. Hardcore match of the week : Hak vs Fit Finlay (Nitro). Less "hit each others back and forth with stuff" and more wrestling and actual brawling with a dynamic. Anyone surprised ? Of course Brian Knobbs has to ruin this by showing up and busting stuff on their heads, because we need Knobbs on TV, he's ratings, he's over, he's reliable and a positive contribution to the product. Surprisingly decent match of the week : Curt Hennig vs Konnan (Nitro). Hey, Curt Hennig is really having a resurgence in 1999, there's no way he should have that decent of a match with Konnan. At the end Savage interferes to screw up with Konnan, because he's a friend of Kevin Nash again... Wait, what ? They made up after the whole Mysterio debacle ? Anyway, fun little match that took me by surprise. Hot angle of the week : Randy Savage tries to recruit Rey Mysterio into Team Madness (Thunder). As you see, Savage is all over the TV, which I won't complain about unless it's in terrible angles. This isn't one of them. Savage puts over Rey because he defeated Nash earlier in the year, so he wants him in the team. Savage is pretty great as he's got a way to put him over while being slightly condescending. The reaction of the audience is puzzling, as they boo and cheer without any logical reasons : they cheer heel Savage when he tries to recruit face Rey, then boo Rey when he first declines. Anyway, Rey would rather not, so Savage and the girls beat him up (from behind). Total dick move from Savage, who's using the girls to his advantage. Kidman runs in for the save, he gets clocked by Madusa, who is seriously bad ass at this point. Then finally Konan runs in and gets beat up too. Cool stuff as it made sense, got great heat for Savage, showcased the girls as being tough and bitchy, also showcased Savage as being a psycho backstaber. Of course it could have led to really cool stuff with Savage and Rey in a well booked company. That would have been awesome. But this little moment of TV was excellent as it was, on its own merits. Random match of the week : Jerry Flynn vs Juventud Guerrera (Saturday Night). Oddly, Flynn is working heel and Juvy babyface, despite ususally working the opposite way. But hey, I love both guys and it's cool to see Juvy gets a win over a big guy. They do screw up a spot, but they mostly work a very nice match. Other angle they ran this week : Ric Flair pushing his son by having guys like Buddy Lee Parker and Barry Horowitz take a dive for him. It could be fun, but David is so awful that I don't care. Savage has been excellent both as a face and turning heel, no matter how abrupt it's been, but the whole Nash feud begins with Savage humiliating Nash with lipsticks all over his face, which isn't exactly compelling. Plus Nash is having a feud on the Jay Leno show with Bret Hart, which will be cut short the following week for obvious reasons. Lex Luger returned to help Sting against the Steiners, but it seems very fishy to me... Goldberg was nowhere to be seen, which is nice, way to use your biggest potential star... Bam Bam is aligning himself with DDP, although they didn't mentionned the Jersey connection yet.

He's okay when he's in with great workers like Eddie, Rey or Juvy. Good babyface in that he's able to get sympathy, and he's got a few good spots and a will to take death bumps outside in big matches. Odly, the infamous "you can't powerbomb Kidman" spot hasn't bothered me nearly as much as I thought it would. What has, however, is that awful short powerbomb spot. Looks really bad to me, with the opponent obviously jumping while Kidman basically looks like he's barely doing anything expect placing his hands under his opponent's armpits. Kidman was good in his own little spot, he got over allright and was sympathetic. Not a guy with a lot of upward mobility nor the ability to have good matches on his own though. It always bothered me that guys like Kaz Hayashi or Silver King were basically JTTS despite being a hundred time more talented. It's not like foreigners like Ultimo didn't get over the previous years despite not speaking any English.

You know what I think about the Hotta Queedom match. And it was a one of a kind experiment that doesn't reflect Asuka's style. And slower pace comes from Bison Kimura. Lioness was a go-go-go worker at heart. She was interested in doing a lot of spots, not in selling.

I'm so far removed from my joshi watching days that I couldn't point to references at this time. I enjoyed Lioness in Jd' and NEO facing fat Kyoko or still slim Jaguar, doing garbage inspired brawls/all action go-go-go matches. But Lioness had this issue with selling that made her annoying after a while. When she came to ARSION she really derailed what was left of the old-style (which wasn't much) and buried everyone to put herself over. That was my big issue with her. Very selfish worker. She could go but would only give to her "peers", she never did shit to elevate the great Bloody or Yuko Kosugi in Jd'. Her brawling matches always looked the same after a while, and the lack of selling was just tiresome. I enjoyed her a lot, then less so, then less so, then was annoyed. In her prime she just wasn't nearly as good as Chiggy, basically for the same reasons. Not even close to Aja Kong or Dynamite Kansai as a worker to me. Way too selfish. Against the right opponent she could have very fun match if you enjoy go-go-go style, which has fell out of favour these days. The Kyoko feud in the laste 90's is the best stuff she did post-Crush Gals, and I give credit more to fat Kyoko for bumping like crazy and killing herself, which made Lioness look a lot more dangerous and bad-ass than she really was. In a way she was a bit like Mike Awesome during this time, she needed a huge-ass bumper would could also give her back some stiff shit (although Awesome wasn't a selfish worker, but they had the same limitations).

Yes and no. Made no sense whatsoever. He's "in power" as a shoot, but not in storylines, but still interfered, yet had no offical right to, therefore Flair is still the president, but Bischoff is the actual "shoot" boss of WCW. It's coming up. This is brain-frying.

You're the exception to the rule. I have crossed path with very few. I remember Miko Kubota who was a huge joshi fan back in the late 90's. A girl named Tina also dating back from the Spider Twist board I think....

Hum... I'm watching WCW's Highway to Hell, and it is not a matter of marketing. The product was going to the shitter and people just stopped watching because they got fucked over and over again and were sick of the same old shit. Then Russo made wrestling irrelevant and the core WCW fans were true wrestling fans so they left never to return again. WWF's product was shit in 1999, but you had AUstin and Rock (and Mr. McMahon) who were so ridiculously over that it didn't matter. They were over and fresh. WCW's product was neither. WCW's bad product killed the company, there's no arguing about that one. WWF's product was shit in 1999, but it was also new hot shit that got over by being good (on top at least) in 97 and early 98. And then when Russo left, the product got better and better, and the company peaked with a good product again.

This is what struck me the most when watching WCW 92. As much as the matches were fun because they were so many quality workers involved, the booking was just unspectacular as all hell. They threw good workers together and let them had matches. They was never any big angles with dramatical follow ups nor big storylines inside the matches. There were barely any great promos from Heyman to build the feuds. Really, it was all about random matches between members of the Alliance and WCW, without much thought put into it. Lot of fun to watch on TV, but without much depth at all. With good booking it could have been amazing. In the end it was just good matches.

Thank you. WEEK 19 (May 10 to 15, 1999) Match of the week : Kanyon vs Silver King (Saturday Night) Kanyon works really well with the luchadors, as he can take their offense and bump well for them despite his size. He also gives Silver King more than I thought he would, which is neat. Cool little match. Honorable mention of the week : Fit Finlay vs Kendall Windham (Saturday Night) Short but sweet, I like Kendall as a second rate Barry, and Fit is one of the best worker in the company, sadly they do nothing with him (and no, I'm not asking for a program with Brian Knobbs). Not fancy, but stiff. Line of the week "The nWo Black & WHite is the most cohesive group in all of wrestling, and it also got the most depth." Mike Tenay on Saturday Night. Stevie Ray, Brian Adams, Horace, Vincent, Scott Norton. Can we talk about meaningless depth here ? Nitro & Thunder were preampted this week because of some sports event. NBA playoff maybe. Fear not, WCW tv is back full force next time around for four glorious weeks of build to the Great American Bash, and the beginning of the Summer of Hell 1999.

I can't speak for him / her (lol, yeah right "her"), but I think the idea is that if you look at films for example, it's frequently the case that poor films -- which even the people going to see them don't think are very good -- do very well. And, of course, the inverse. The same is true across most forms of entertainment. To the extent where the relationship between "the product" and its popularity almost seems random. To the extent where films that almost no one likes (or admits to liking) make all-time boxoffice lists. I don't know if the "50 Shades of Grey" craze has hit the US or not, but I've literally never heard a single good word said about that book by anyone. Not in life, or on TV. But it's a smash bestseller. A "product" that virtually everyone shits on, a product that is by all accounts putrid. And yet it's a smash. Why is wrestling different from that? Agreed. We're getting into tricky territory when talking about quality and the success of a wrestling product. Hell, of any "cultural" product. Would anyone argue that 1999 WWF was a great wrestling product and that's why they were so successful ? WWF in 1999 was nearly unwatchable to me, to the point of driving me away. The booking was awful. The wrestling was awful. But the product was hot. WWF fans loved Sable, her platic tits and her godawful delivery. WWF audience in 1999 didn't give a shit about *wrestling* and only wanted to chant along with catchphrases and show their sign on TV. The product delivered that in spades. The product was hot. But was the product *good* ? There was this movie in France a few years ago, "Bienvenue chez les Ch'ti", which beat nearly every box office records in the country, including the biggest grossing comedy of all-time dating back from the 60's "La Grande Vadrouille." It nearly beat "Titanic" ! It was a cultural phenomenon, nobody could escape it. There were people that supposedly didn't go to the movies in more than 20 years suddenly going to see that one. And why ? It was a decent popualr comedy, nothing shameful but nothing to brag about either. There are reasons why this huge success happened, we can analyze them after the fact, as it wasn't even a huge marketing campaign that made the movie this awesome grossing machine. It just happened. Same thing happened again with "Intouchable" two years ago, attaining the third place in biggest box-office success ever for a French movie. Again, decent comedy at best, nothing special. Yet it became like this amazing phenomenon. The "product" was nothing exceptionnal, hell some would argue it wasn't very good at all. Yet it clicked like no one's business. I heard one interesting remark about Steve Austin. Dutch Mantell said in an interview, talking about the all-time great talkers, said that Austin had to "cheat" a little bit. Don't get me wrong, Dutch gives full credit for Austin and his talent but he also points out that Austin had the luck to be the very first one to say "I'm going to kick your *ass*" on national TV on a wrestling show. And since he was the first one, it set him apart big time. Of course it totally fit his character, more than it would have with anyone else, but still, I thought this was an interesting remark. I always thought that guys like the Road Warriors having to say "I'm gonna kick you butt" did feel a bit goofy and cartoonish. Austin said *ass* first. Set him apart. Just a side remark.

That's what I figured. But hey, people who followed WCW got fucked a lot too. I love Big Poppa Pump so... But yeah, Bagwell was really not the same coming back from injury. And he was way too buffed. Yeah, the announcing helped, oldy enough. And that final bump. Seriously... Yep. Just perfect. Which is a very odd thing to say about WCW in 1999.