El-P

I don't think those guys are nearly bad enough to list here. They were not very good and I usually fast-forwarded through their matches, but think of them compared to oh let's say Tank Abbott or late-90s Piper or most of the Divas or botchtastic indy wannabes with Hot Topic gear or Great Khali or other truly world-class bad workers. I've now seen shitloads of Harris Bros matches from pretty much every territory and to me they are that bad. And boring as hell to, which is the killer. They are not even entertainly bad, they are just bad and boring. Bottom of the barrel workers to me. Well, that's a good point from a co-worker point of view, which I can respect, but that being said, Boogie Woogie Man was also probably super safe to work with. And so was Lance Storm.

The Harris Brothers. Couldn't work, couldn't talk, had no charisma, never drew a dime, couldn't make anyone look good. Yet got and stayed employed in both major companies and the two biggest small compagnies during the 90's.

Just watched this. It was really stupid but it did make me laugh. Mostly at the fact that WWE even went through the trouble of copying this angle a few years later with Raven shredding Perry Saturn's Moppy. Holy crap, I totally forgot about that (mostly because I'm not familiar with that period of WWF of which I've seen mostly PPV's) Remember that Sting had been a part of the Wölfpack, but he had been injured by Bret Hart late in 1998, and there had been no news of him since then. They do mention Sting and wonder what does he think of the whole shake up regularly. Getting Bret Hart was not a problem though. Using him well was the issue, and he totally fit in the company to me, it was just a matter of shitty booking. As far as money goes, they threw so much money to produce shitty vignettes and to guys like Master P and KISS, and I'm not even talking about ridiculous salaries for guys like Stevie Ray, that it would have been easy to cut down the crap and keep the right players. I totally agree, losing the Giant, Chris Jericho and Raven (who was *over*) during the year was a big mistake and a big hit in term of perception. But at this point the morale was getting lower and lower and the balance had clearly shifted toward the WWF. Only Jeff Jarrett would be a *big* transfer from WWF to WCW, and we know how that worked.

Yeah, I would guess, sadly. I was thinking strictly as a wrestling angle. Not compelling stuff to me. Mantell can be so much better than this.

Watched it on Youtube. Shit, people are STILL doing the annoying as fuck WHAT chant ? That's unbearable. Anyway, the promo left me completely cold, it's run of the mill dated racist stuff. It was okay I guess, but really nothing special at all. Of course, in the context of current WWE, maybe it seemed fresh and really good, but after going through years of Mantell in SMW, not impressive at all.

Bam Bam was all over Superstars from 92 to 95.

My opinion of Bigelow began to sour when I went through my ECW project. Until then, Bam Bam was "supposed" to be that great worker because, well he was supposed to, and I never had given any thought about it despite the obvious lack of great matches or performances. And then I watch all of ECW's footage I could find, and I was underwhelmed. I liked part of what I saw, but Bam Bam never went above a certain "solid" level of work at best. Yes, on occasion he would click with someone, or a gimmick would help his case, but for instance the long match with Shane Douglas demonstrate his inability to work as a true ass kicker and monster for a long stretch. And like Dylan said, he was often happy to just go by on rep and a few toke, highspots, and do nothing otherwise, especially on house show. When Mike Awesome showed up in ECW, despite being a limited worker himslef, he showed how much better he was at playing the monster role. That's why I'm curious to revisit Bam Bam's work from WCW. Thus far, the ladder match with Hall on Nitro is the only one that has been notable. The short Sandman match was nice enough too. I wouldn't say Bam Bam wasn't good, but I would never say Bam Bam was great or even close. Very underwhelming guy, and yes, he also probably ahd a bad attitude, and never came off like someone very smart either in interviews. Not that my expectations have been lowered, I may be able to enjoy his work more thought.

That almost gives me the urge to check it out !

PPV 2 : Superbrawl 9 Death of WCW match of the night : Outsiders vs Rey Mysterio Jr. & Konnan. They had a legit superhero who they could market toward kids (and sell them tons of mask), a young and great worker with tons of charisma and upward mobility. So what do they do ? Make him lose his mask in a tag team match against two giants, at the very first attempt. I mean, if they had built a huge match for Starrcade after 6 months of storylines (Rey should not lose the mask anyway but it would have been big at least)... The match itself it pretty good, and Hall and Nash actually work well with Rey bumping around for him pretty nicely (even Nash at the end), and Rey does get a visual fall on Nash, who also sells for quite a bit post-match. But they kill what should have been the mystique of a great babyface star with this shit. Thankfully Rey looks charismatic withouth the mask too, but it's plain ridiculous and serves no purpose. The best thing WWE did with Rey is putting back his mask on. Well, of course they also gave him the 619 and pushed him to the World Title to exploit Eddie's death so... But that's another matter. Shit booking match of the night : Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair. The match itself is pretty good, even then Hogan was working harder than he did in 1995. What's interesting is that he's basically working almost like good old Hulk Hogan here, no chickenshit stuff, no begging, no stalling, just a more agressive and heelish version of his former self. Kinda odd. Flair is coming up very collected and calm, which is a nice touch. So yeah, match is actually good, but the ending reminds me of the infamous match they had in the Fall of 1994, in reverse (well, almost, since Hogan still wins) : stupid post match involving a woman (Torrie Wilson, hot and useless at this point) and a masked man who reveals himself as the closest man to Flair : David !!! More tazer stuff. Man this was getting old. David Flair had no business in the ring at this point, and his involment and stupid turn ruins the ending what should have been a cool grudge match. Another point, don't give me that Horsemen shit about Benoit & Malenko. They were nowhere to be seen here, they didn't jump the ring to defend Flair. Horsemen my ass. And where was Goldberg ? Hey, those guys stole your title, remember ? Match of the Night : Barry Windham & Curt Henning vs Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko. The tag team tournament, although shoddy booked, was the only saving grace of this period, as it was a simple wrestling angle, teams fighting to get a prestigious title. What a concept. Curt Hennig is making a really surprising comeback thus far, I thought he was done in 98. Benoit is Benoit, and Windham is looking better than he did during his entire WWF stint. I guess being himself and not a Stalker or a Blackjack helps. Malenko doesn't seem to grasp the tag team psychology that well as at one point after a pretty long babyface beating, he just turns thing around and make a complete heatless tag. Anyway, this is really good when Benoit is in. The second match barely happens, as Windham chokes the hell out of Malenko with his belt while the referee tries to get Benoit out of Hennig, and Malenko gets pinned like an idiot by smart cheating heel Windham. Good stuff here. Breath of fresh air. Worst match of the night : Scott Hall vs Roddy Piper. Don't blame Hall, Piper is just putrid at this point. Nothing he does looks remotely decent and he has a shitty timing to boot. Really pathetic to watch. Plus he's not even really over anymore, as most of his comebacks fall flat (well, when your work look so bad, at some point it kills the match) and Hall gets a huge pop when he wins. Piper doesn't get any pop in the (badly done) post-match either. Awful awful stuff, Piper had some decent matches left in 1996 and 97, but he's so done and useless at this point. He looks horrible, dated and embarrassing. Good old woodpile. Honorable mention of the night : Scott Steiner vs DDP. Good match, although not pretty in term of execution. Steiner is a fantastic heel, and he knows how to structure a match now, which is pretty shocking. The way he builds toward a surprise top rope frankensteiner is pretty cool. What's interesting is that this match also clearly points the direction the company should take. Although this crowd was pretty difficult for babyfaces at times anyway, it's pretty clear that DDP is not as over as he once was as a babyface. He's also past his prime now, his work doesn't look as dynamic as it did two years earlier. I think I heard a "DDP sucks" during the post-match when he was put on a gurney ! It was time for him to turn back heel. On the other hand, Steiner is over, and although he's not cattering to the crowd like Nash does, he gets some big time cheers because in a way he was a cool heel like Austin was in 1996. They should have pushed him to the top immediately, they had a strong heel that would have turned himself into a strong kick-ass antihero babyface eventually. "Whatever" match of the night : Bam Bam Bigelow vs Goldberg. I'm afraid this project will confirm my underwhelming impression of Bigelow. As good as he was during the ladder match, here he's not shining at all, and he's pretty boring on offense, working on Goldie's knee in the most yawn inducing fashion. This feud doesn't work, it doesn't comes off as anything special or important. And the rose was clearly off the bloom with Goldie, he doesn't get that huge of a reaction. His explosives stretches of offense do, but it's obvious the guy is damaged goods already. Goldberg should have squashed Bigelow like a bug. The rest of the show was okay but nothing special, Booker T vs Disco was a nice enough opener, Jericho vs Saturn was basically the same kind of match they had the month before, and the angle goes on. Chavo Jr. vs Kidman was pretty good but Chavo is still searching himself as a heel (he was still obviously the best of the two and is always improving). All in all it was a pretty good PPV work wise, as only Piper vs Hall was really bad and Bam Bam vs Goldie underwhelming. The work was at least decent (Jericho vs Saturn) to very good (tag match), but the booking was, well, pretty damn bad, actually worse than I remembered. It may get harder than I thought it would. MVP of the night : Rey Mysterio Jr.

WEEK 7 : (January 15 to 20, 1999) Godawful angle of the week : Hulk Hogan and the nWO hitchjack Flair's limo and beat him up in a field. Not only this is awful, horribly acted and badly produced, but the killer is that, much like the Torrie Wilson vignettes (which are still going on BTW), the announcers act like they don't see what happens. It makes the entire angle ridiculous and stupid, and the whole show nonsensical. The invisible camera is bad enough, but the invisible video segment is even worse. This feud was built well for two weeks then it went to hell with those terrible ideas. Match of the week : Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko vs Fit Finlay & Dave Taylor (Nitro) : the tag team tournament is a little bit clearler now, at least we know which team are still going for the finals. With one loss, Benoit & Malenko need to beat basically every other team that haven't been eliminated. This one is really good, especially when Benoit is in the ring. Malenko is okay. Really stiff work from the other three. Would-be match of the week : Fit Finlay vs El Dandy (Saturday Night) : of course the status of Dandy doesn't allow this to got to great lenghs, but what they do in the limited frame they have is, obviously, really damn good. Honorable mention : Blitzkrieg & Juventud Guerrera & Psychosis vs Super Calo & Hector Garza & Dandy (Nitro) : really good lucha style Nitro match, with Psychosis & Juvy keeping things together on the "rudo" side, and Dandy having the opportunity to shine. Super Calo is the worst here, not working smoothly with indy sensation Blizkrieg. Pretty hot match which eventually gets some good heat from the so-so Nitro crowd. WTF match of the week : Bret Hart vs Will Sasso (Nitro). So, Bret Hart beats up some guy from some TV show. Okay. And we even get a swerve turn, as Debra Wilson prevents Hart from hitting Sasso with a chair, only to do it herself (and almost showing a tit in the process). And you wonder why Hart's heart wasn't into it. He's also off the PPV now since freaking Roddy Piper has been given the US title. Other lucha match of the week : Psychosis vs Villano V (Saturday Night) : cool little match showcasing Villano V in another capacity than jobbing hard, which is pretty cool. Nash's booking has been uninspired at best (heels costing rival babyface a match against a JTTS, partners turning on each others without much reasons) or downright horrible (facsination for awful vignettes and terrible ideas of stipulations and sitcomish angles). Goldberg has been reduced to an afterthought, as one can easily argue that Hogan vs Flair, the mask vs hair tag and Scott Steiner vs DDP are much more important than Goldberg's match against Bam Bam Bigelow, who has failed to look like a legit main eventer and threat to Goldie. The last angle they run to build this match was Bam Bam making fun of Goldie's support for animal rights, which prompted a few choice insults toward Goldie's wife. Two months after losing the WCW title, Golberg is not in the picture anymore, and is not even feuding with the guys who screwed him... Sad.

That is something I never could stand.

The last one was Horace Hogan. And he was probably the best worker of the bunch, which is pretty scary. Yep, they came off like bitches. But hey, Virgil is a wrestling superstar.

Martel was basically working part time at this point, being involved in real estate business at the same time. He stated in his shoot interview that he takes the blame for the whole Model not working out great because his heart wasn't 100% into wrestling at the time. Smart guy though, made money in wrestling to support his own business.

WEEK 6 (February 8 to 13, 1999) Debut of the week : Blitzkrieg in a match vs Rey Mysterio Jr. (Nitro). Hey, now I remember why this guy was the Internet darling for a few months when he popped up on TV, in an era where MOVEZ weren't evil yet. This guy had amazing explosiveness, he was quick and smooth as hell as a flyer, and had a cool little superhero outfit. In term of working impressive acrobatic sequences, he was just head and shoulder ahead everyone else in the company save for Rey, and it shows here. He does the job but gets over in the process, as he pushes the king of cruiserweight Rey pretty hard. This would probably be my match of the week too. Honorable mention : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Juventud Guerrera (Saturday Night). You can't go wrong with these two together, although it's pretty much a routine match at this point, but a routine match between Rey and Juvy is better than most match. They actually screw up a spot, but cover it pretty well. The difference between those two and most of the young guys they had in the cruiserweight division is that they take the time to actually sell a bit between big moves. Of course it's still a go-go match. Useless title change of the week : Roddy Piper wins the US Belt from Bret Hart (Nitro). Yep, Roddy Piper, who at this point is really awful in the ring. Bret plays around with his whole "I'm injured" gimmick, but it can't save the match especially when the finish sees the involvement of a fat guy from a TV show (Will Sasso). This stinks. Slut of the week : Torrie Wilson, debuting in very bizarre vignettes shot in a subjective sort of view, but we don't even know if the guy who she's vamping is filming or if it's supposed to be a porn-like POV stuff. What's even more puzzling is that none of this is even acknowledged on TV by anyone. I remember being intrigued by all of this back then and very, *very* let down by the payoff. Anyway, she also can't act to save her life, which makes it even more look like some sort of stuff from a porn movie. Nonsensical turn or the week : The Barbarian turning on Meng (Thunder). These two were feuding in 1998, then Jimmy Hart put them back together without much explanantion then after a few weeks of competing in the non-bracketed, nebulous tag-team tournament, Barbie turns on Meng from nowhere. Blah. I was so glad to see the Faces of Fear back together, they're much better as a team than individual wrestlers. Nonsensical vignette of the week : Raven is working his depression. Yeah, all of this was a ruse apparently, to piss off his mother. Raven is a rich kid who's happy with his life and isn't depressed at all. He breaks kayfabe with Kanyon and goes shopping with him. And really Kanyon playing Pretty Woman is an obvious sign of his sexual preference, he's gay as all hell during this sequence. Well, it is kinda funny if you like Raven, but it also makes no sense whatsoever. This is the first time the funny, sarcastic and smiling Scott Levy we all came to know in a hundred shoot interviews shows up on screen, complete with winks to the camera. Stupid angle of the week : Scott Steiner drops Kimberly from a car. I hate this kind of overacted, overscripted angles. Steiner stalking Kim was good enough, and it was "credible". This is not. Line of the week : "What a mark !" Raven talking about Kanyon. So this week we also had tons of nWO B-team segments, which is something that needs to die. And also Kaz Hayashi buying Glacier's gimmick, save for the blue lense that The Cat actually bought. Ah ah. Nash is so funny, or so he thinks. Wait a minute. Woman portrayed as a slut : check. Violence against woman : check. Nonsensical turns (Chavo Guerrero also turned on Kidman for no good reason BTW) : check. Surprise title change involving a shitty worker and a TV "celebrity" : check. Nonsensical character developpment : check. Matches interrupted by backtage "comedy" segments : check. Shooty-shooty stuff with meta comments about gimmicks and carny vocabulary being used on camera : check. I think Vince Russo is already in the place.

Coke.

That's what I thought. I would guess Raymond Rougeau should get in the discussion somewhere.

Now that's surprising. I though you hated Kroffat. But yeah, Kroffat would be in my top 10 for sure.

The funniest part to me is when Bruno said on the Observer podcast that he never heard anyone tell anything bad about HHH, he only heard good things about him. Corporate as hell already.

Martel was supposed to come back to the WWF with Callis as the Super Models, and turn on Callis, at least that what he said in his shoot interview. Then something didn't work out and Martel ended up alone in WCW instead.

WEEK 5 (February 1 to 6, 1999) Pussy of the week : Curt Hennig. "Hey, Barry, the nWo beat the shit out of me and dumped me off the side of the road. Why don't we team up in the tag team tournament and win the titles. Now that will piss Hall & Nash pretty bad, uh ?" Match of the week : Barry Windham & Curt Hennig vs Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko (Nitro). It's part of the infamous tournament. Still no bracket. Double elimination tournament now, your team has to lose twice to be eliminated. Okay... But it's a really good match, and the good news is that Hennig seems to be back in working mood. Probably teaming up with Windham motivates him more than teaming with Brian Adams against the Bulldog & Neidhart. Debut of the week : The Sandman, or at least a guy with no name wrapped in wires. (Nitro). Of course let's pretend those vignettes with Raven at home never existed, as the announcers don't seem to recognize that Jim dude who was visiting him and blowing kiss to that girl with no name at poolside. He cuts a goofy promo talking about extreme and hardcore, and we get a fun little match with Bam Bam Bigelow. And Hak does the job in 6 minutes. Way to go to get a new guy over. But hey, Sandman is on my TV again, and I missed him since the end of my ECW watch a few years ago. Stiff-fest of the week : The Cat vs Scott Norton (Nitro). Oh my god, this is brutal. The Cat calls out Norton, and gets the living shit beat out of him. The crowds gets into this big time. Norton comes off looking like a monster, and The Cat sells his ass off (and gets a purple chest in the process). In term of competitive squash, or just a plain monster abusing a loudmouth, it's pretty awesome. Random match of the week : Barry Windham & Curt Hennig vs Brian Enos & Bobby Duncum Jr. (Thunder). Well, not so random as it's a tournament match, but still, Duncum & Enos are pretty random. Once again, Hennig keeps on being fun again, that's the best news of this early 1999. Bobby Duncum on the other hand, was not much of a worker at all, seemed green and sloppy, while his partner provides the badassery needed to make this match interesting. Windham is Windham in 1999, which means he's still a damn good worker. Despite the nebulous (to say the least) booking, this tag team tournament has delivered some cool stuff thus far. Shitty booking of the week : Rey puts his mask on the line against... Liz's hair. Ok, I understand the reasonning behind this, as it's a direct reference to the tradition of hair vs mask. But it's not Mexico, it's not lucha libre, nobody believes Liz will lose her hair (and she didn't sell the stip like she was concerned at all), and if you add the fact that we already had Bischoff losing his hair (well, kind of) a few weeks ago, it just makes the odd impossible for Rey to win this in any way shape or form. It wouldn't have been very complicated to find a stip that would at least be credible, like Liz becoming Konnan's valet for a month for instance. That I can buy. Liz shaving her head, nope. Well, of course, Rey's mask shouldn't be put on the line in a tag match against Lex & Nash, but that's beyond the point. Ah, if Russo would be booking we'd have Rey's mask vs Liz stripping to her underwear at least. I should also mention that while Nash came off cool as hell during his promo, totally cattering to the crowd like he's still a babyface (he just can't help himself), Rey's promo was pretty poor and awkward, and full of nonsense (talking about how Nash and Luger showed him nothing but respect since he came in WCW... uh... forgot about the dart throwing against the wall in 1996 Rey ? He also said he was watching both of them when he was a little boy and admired them. Well, for Luger the timeframe can match at least, but was Rey really a fan of Oz ? Anyway...). Idiotic angle of the week : Hulk Hogan and Chuck Zito are stalking David Flair. Nitro ends on a stupid cliffhanger leading to... nothing basically, at least that's what we're led to believe to on Thunder. Okay, this is the part where Nitro crosses into Attitude Era WWF sitcomish shittyness, complete with full invisible camera mode on (although the cameraman was actually acknowledge in those vignettes). Line of the week : "I'd like to say hello to my cat Smokey". Bret Hart, guest announcer on Nitro during Chris Benoit vs Scott Hall. Yeah, he didn't give a fuck. The whole show was ponctuated by sequences of Eric Bischoff being plunged into a pool of cold water by WCW employees. It was not funny and poorly done, but Eric was a trooper and went into a water several times. Also the never ending storyline nobody gives a fuck about gets a lot of airtime, I guess to fill the 5 hours of Nitro/Thunder. I'm talking about Vincent vs Stevie Ray for the control of nWo B-Team. And the luchadors are now mainly back to being jobbers. Lash Leroux debuted on Nitro (he was working solely on Saturday Night until then) and looked actually pretty decent for a 22 years old spot machine cruiserweight, and not as annoying as I remembered him to be. I guess this will evolve into nothing too good. Perry Saturn has turned the whole "wear a dress" gimmick into his advantage, and now totally embrace the freak look, complete with makeup and "Life's a drag" catchphrase, which fit the character and was a pretty smart twist on the whole gimmick.

I'll rephrase this : "Too bad Booker T and Stevie Ray are dangerous workers who don't protect their opponents, they fucked him up three times in a row (concussion, knee injury and finally neck injury) and ended an excellent comeback."

Thanks for reminding me how much I hated Bossman in WWF in 99. Some of the shittiest Attitude era stuff I can think off.

All this concern about my mental health is heart-warming. I'll hang on for as much as I can, good people. I won't quit on week 4 though, as it was actually really good. WEEK 4 (January 25 to 30, 1999) Stupid beating of the week : nWo beats up Curt Hennig, because he wasn't wearing the nWo colors I guess. Now this is truly stupid, there's no reason why they would get rid of Hennig, especially that way. He was the one feuding with Flair, which kickstarted this whole David Flair beating. He didn't do anything to piss people off except team up with Windham who is not part of the nWo. I guess that was the rational here, but this beating would make sense only if Hennig would turn face. Which of course, he won't. Gimmick match of the week : Scott Hall vs Bam Bam Bigelow (Nitro). Now you're taking. Bam Bam can certainly work a ladder match with Hall, and I thought this was quite good. Hall is recycling a lot of spots he was using with Shawn, occasionnaly taking Shawn's role too. To me this is better than any WWF stuntfest or the ridiculous Rock vs HHH match from 98 with the 90 year old ladder climbs, as they didn't do those awkward sequences of ultra slow climbs, they first used the ladder to beat each others up, then after a while they tried to get the stun gun, and the counters were pretty timely and quick. Nice enough selling, some brutal bumps. Yeah, I liked this. The finish is a non-ending but it doesn't matter as it's Goldberg getting his revenge from the PPV, spearing and both of them at the same time, and shocking them to boot. Stiff-fest of the week : Meng & Barbarian vs Fit Finley & Dave Taylor (Nitro) : For those who wonder, Jimmy Hart put together Meng and Barbarian as members of the First Family. This is basically four guys beating beating the crap out of each others, and it's fun as hell. Just exchanging stiff shots back and forth, and those four sure can do that. It's supposed to be a tournament match, with a wall of wrestlers around the ring to prevent the nWo to clash the scene. I think Tenay utters the words "It's like a reverse Lumberjack match". Somewhere, Russo was listening. Random match of the week : Chris Adams vs Lenny Lane (Saturday Night) : Chris Adams was the best B & C shows-only worker in 1998. And he's back with a vengeance, and a judogi. Don't ask. He went back to his roots or something. Lenny Lane really had potential to me, he's the most fun JTTS they had, so it's a fun little match with no implication at all on the big picture. Best beating of the week : nWo beats up Rey Mysterio Jr. while Konnan has to watch, on Thunder, as a reenactment of the David Flair beating. This was good as this time it made Rey Mysterio look like a big deal, he's the center of an angle involving the big wheels. It should have led to Rey not losing his mask and being pushed as a major babyface, of course, but hey... At least I thought this was a very good heel beating, plus the announcers mentionned that Flair & the Horsemen weren't in the building so to explain the lack of save (Goldi & DDP weren't here either), so it's all fine with me. Plus you get Kevin Nash "singing" Whipping Post by the Allman Brothers at the end, which is pretty funny. Crassiest move of the week : Norman Smiley lifting up Saturn's dress and giving him the big wiggle (Nitro). Holy shit, that was dirty. Of course the crowd went crazy for this. And he got his ass kicked for it. Match of the week : Hulk Hogan & Kevin Nash & Scott Steiner vs Ric Flair & Chris Benoit & Steve McMicheal (Nitro). For once a main event that delivers ! Benoit vs Hulk, not something you see everyday. Of course Mongo sucked, but he didn't get in the way too much, it's mainly Benoit in here, as they smartly milked the hell out of Flair vs Hogan. So yeah, it is really fun, Steiner is actually bumping for Benoit at the beginning before a nice face in peril segment, which leads to a hot finish. Bischoff interferes, as always, but then something happens that should have happened like two years ago : the entire WCW roster jumps in the ring to fight off the nWo with the Horsemen, and I mean everyone, including Ciclope, Fit Finlay, La Parka, everyone ! This is awesome to watch, as the nWo retreats. And then it's not over, on the entrance ramp shows up Goldberg, who then proceed to kicks the shit out of every nWo guys who tries their hands at him !! Holy shit, did Nash really book this show ?! Promo of the week : Bret Hart (Nitro) Yeah ! Hart is back, he's still the US champ depsite his groin injury. Of course he's not happy he has to fight Booker T and speak in a totally condescending tone about him and list a bunch of names who should be contenders to his belt instead, dropping random luchadors and other cruiserweights, to the outrage of Mean Gene. Bret was so awesome here, with an asshole smirk the whole time. I know he said his heart wasn't into it at the time, but my theory is that his lack of interest actually fed his heel character, which had a "don't give a flying fuck" feel to it which made it so fun. And of course, it's during this promo that he uttered the famous words... Line of the week : "Who are you to doubt El Dandy ?". This is classic. This may be the greatest line in the history of our sport. Seriously an excellent episode of Nitro, and some other good stuff on B-shows. Norman Smiley has been my favourite wrestler in the company thus far. Another guy they should have pushed like crazy once he got himself over.

Yep. It was a standing ovation, and I don't think they anticipated that reaction because they cut away pretty quickly. The roof is going to blow off MSG when he walks on the stage. I think there's a potential for "Biggest pop ever candidate" at MSG when he shows up. It's pretty interesting that this is basically only HHH's doing. Is that the first big statement of HHH as the days of him getting control of the company are getting closer and closer ?

Not really, although it is refreshing to hear him on Saturday Night, he seemed to get along Tenay pretty well. It seems like he was into wrestling history to some extent, as he would refer to actual older stuff during the show, which was pretty cool.