El-P

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.

This is not a debating thread about Mark Henry, this is a bukkake.

Well, the true WCW fanatics here should already know what the next "line of week" will be...

These two were so wasted in WWF. Shit, it was the time of blood and gimmick matches, they could have done so much with Los Boricuas. Give them a hot latino valet to help them get some attention, put them into feuds with valuable players, book garbage matches with bucket of bloods on PPVs. This thread seriously gives me the urge to watch that batch of WWC I have on some DVDs. Once I get done with my own WCW cross to bear.

Holy motherfucking shit.

Russo drove me off WWF in mid 99 and off WCW before Starrcade of the same year. I have no idea how much I'll be able to endure this time around. Maybe I won't go that far.

WEEK 3 (January 18 to 23, 1999) Shitty booking of the week : Lex Luger and Kevin Nash beating Rey Mysterio Jr. up. Now, it wouldn't be that bad if Konnan, who swore vengeance on Nash & Co on the streets and in airports earlier on, didn't run in *after* they both kick the shit out of Rey and put their finisher on him for 5 minutes. If I didn't know best I could smell a swerve. Makes Konnan look like a complete fool. Stupid match of the week : David Flair vs Eric Bischoff. Man, David looks worse than El Gigante in the ring, I swear. If Bischoff wins, Flair (Ric) shaves his head and loses the company. David gets kicked a few times then KOs Eric with a roll of coins, one of the worst punches ever. Eric gets shaved, his hair are actually grey. Promo of the week : Ric Flair (Thunder). Once again, gotta go to the B-show to see Flair cut a pretty intense and passionate promo about Hogan, and comparing the way their careers went. Nothing earth-shattering but good and devoid of nonsense like David Flair running in and fucking it up on Nitro by challenging Bischoff. Match of the week : Hector Garza & Lizmark Jr. & Super Calo vs Juventud Guerrera & La Parka & Silver King (Saturday Night). Yeah, a trio match that get a little bit of time, and no intervention from the nWo. Cool dives, lucha comedy, fun stuff. Honorable mention of the week : Booker T vs Norman Smiley (Thunder). Norman keeps on ruling, the guy is getting himself over in a big way. Meanwhile, Booker T remains one of the least compelling pushed wrestler in the company. Really not doing anything remarkable but his few token spots, some of which require abnormal collaboration. This guy is the RVD of WCW, the king of athletic wasted motions and useless idiosyncrasies (he's still much better than RVD though, and much less offensive). Good little match because Norman is just having his way with Booker more than his push should warrant. I enjoyed this quite a bit. The ending shows Norman was even protected a bit. Nobody gives a fuck angle of the week : Vincent takes over nWo B-Team. Yeah, because of all the workers on the roster who need TV time and actual angle and mic time, Vincent, Stevie Ray, Brian Adams, Scott Norton and Horace Hogan just are the right ones. Completely useless, but funny in a humiliating way. Homophobic line of the week : "Now Perry Saturn (who was wearing a dress), I always said there's two things from Texas, steers and queers (bliped). Now I know you're not from Texas, and I don't see no horns, so you must be a little..." Scott Steiner (Nitro). Well when you think of it, since Saturn is not from Texas, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense... Rey Mysterio should enjoy his mask while he can... The tag team tournament is announced. Again. Scott Steiner stalking Kimberly was pretty good, planting the seeds for his feud with DDP.

You want to make a poll about when I'll raise the white flag ? Worse than WWF under Russo at the same time ? I wouldn't say that. Russo killed my interest in WWF once and for all in 99. Summer was often a pretty terrible period for WCW. Well, I'm curious about that. If I go that far. WWF too ? At the *same time* ? You're insane.

I'm glad Big Poppa Pumb is getting some love. He'll probbaly get a whole lot from me and will be a bright spot during these trying times. As far as his promo on Flair goes, seriously, I know he gets a pass for mostly everything he does because he's Flair and he was Bischoff's victim at the time, but the guy was an asshole as much as anyone else in this business.

PPV 1 : Souled Out 1999. Match of the night : Norman Smiley vs Chavo Guerrero Jr. Yeah, the Pepe storyline sucks, but damn this match is fun. Smiley was just awesome in every possible way, and he was so much fun as a heel that he already gets some loud cheers, and not just for the big wiggle (which may be the most crass gimmick maneurism ever). Chavo has also imporved quite a bit in 98, but Norman is the star here, streching Chavo in funky submission holds, making fun of Pepe, being a dick and giving it to Chavo doggystyle, I mean, litteraly at one point. Maybe a little bit on the long side, and the referee sucked at not seeing Norman use Pepe's "ashes" at the end, but really a very good match. "WTF" match of the night : Mike Enos vs Chris Benoit : Yeah, Mike Enos is basically a guy who loses matches on Thunder. This guy has been on the roster for three years, and his most famous moment remains being in the ring when Scott Hall showed up on Nitro the very first time. Why the hell he gets a match with Benoit on PPV no less ? No idea, but he sure deserves to be on more PPV slots, as he's a super solid worker. So it's a super solid match, stiff, hard hitting, pretty bad ass. "Looks like shit on paper but is actually good in reality" match of the night : Lex Luger vs Konnan. Luger turns heel and he's automatically ten times better than he was as a face. Shit, this match is not pretty, but if you like wrestling matches that actually make sense, with a beginning, a middle and an end, this is solid and quite fun. I have a soft spot for Konnan. Despite the horrible work ethic. Despite the catchphrase. Despite the music video. And Luger works much better when he's a deliberate heel who can also show his ass. Of course his execution is not exactly crisp like Benoit, but at least he didn't kill anyone. Wait, bad exemple. Anyway, Konnan does a decent job selling Luger's abuse, although at some point you wonder if he's selling or just grasping for air. His comeback is the most unergetic babyface fiery comeback ever, but that's why I love him too, he's such an awkward putz. And when this match couldn't get any better, Liz huge boobs are on my screen, as she walks to the ring in a leather miniskirt and high heel boots. I'll say it once and let it rest, but Liz was so ridiculously hot at this point, in all her Milfesque glory. She was what, 39 or so. Shit, in two years I'll be the same age. Anyway, she sprays Konnan's eyes, Luger wins, we know where it'll lead, but damn it was better than it had the right to be. "Flatest" match of the night : Chris Jericho vs Saturn. Loser wears a dress/heel referee. What is this, Smokey Mountain Wrestling ? Man, Jericho's stuff hasn't aged very well, and Saturn, well, he's Saturn. Sloppy shit, no heat. Scott Dickinson is an ugly motherfucker and a shitty performer. Ralphus was neat for a one shot at Goldberg, but he overstayed his welcome the second time he showed up. This gets better toward the end, as they trade big spots, which they know how to do, but of course, you guess the finish. Saturn wears a dress. Yawn. "Shitty gimmick" match of the night : Kidman vs Juventud Guerrera vs Psychosis vs Rey Mysterio Jr. 4 corners match, no elimination. I hate this kind of gimmick, as there's no reason for wanting to tag out. Hence, none of this stuff makes any sense at all. They play up the fact that Kidman & Rey are friends for a while, but it leads nowhere but to a texas tornado match, which is better than tagging in and out at least, with some pretty insane spots and bumps, which really is the whole point of such a match. But really, as far as wrestling match telling a story, Konnan vs Luger was better. There, I said it. Kidman doesn't kill Juvy with his shooting star press, which I guess is a plus. "Not good but fun" match of the night : Barry Windham & Curt Hennig vs Ric Flair & David Flair. David has no business being in the ring, he looks totally out of place in every aspect. Barry is a trooper taking his "offense", which looks effectively offensive. Flair is all about chops, ditto Hennig who is fun again it seems after a horrible 1998. The finish sucks as David gets the pin on Hennig (thanks to complete cheating by Arn), but the following beatdown is awesome. I mean, brutal stuff. Flair must have been crying for real. Gets monster heat too. So yeah, not exactly a good match, but fun as hell once David is out of the way. Windham rules BTW. "Death of WCW" match of the night : Goldberg vs Scott Hall. Because when you think Goldberg, you think ladder match. Right. It is exactly everything a Goldi match should not be : long, deliberate, slow, plodding. I guess Goldie was legit injured (he was "attacked by the nWo in the back), as there's no way he would have sold his left knee like that during the whole match. One cool spot at the end, as Goldi gets the tazer, throws it in the air and spears Hall as he's trying to catch it. Do you get Goldie celebrating over Hall's dead body ? Of course not, Bam Bam (who had a nothing match with Wrath earlier on), attacks him, Hall gets back the tazer and shocks both of them. Oh man... Anticlimatic and Goldie-killing finish aside, this was a pretty fun PPV with nothing really bad on it and tons of fun stuff. MVP : Norman Smiley. Line of the Night "Lex Luger you'll toss my salad and peel my potatoes." Konnan. Holy shit, do people in the office actually understood what he was actually saying ? Between this and the big wiggle spot on Chavo earlier on, this was a dirty night.

I wouldn't say he looked stronger than Nash. Nash got like 90% of the offense, the announcers said Nash was a better big man, more agile and stuff... Yeah, they let Giant chokeslam Hall before he was fucked by the wrench (which was conviently let under the ring by Bischoff earlier, I thought that was a nice touch). At least it pushed further the notion that Hall & Nash were dipshits heels. And yes, he was humiliated without a comeback, so in the end no one remembers he chokeslamed Hall. I'm okay with that one.

WEEK 2 (January 11 to 16, 1999) Bad booking of the week : Ric Flair is killing off the lWo because he doesn't want more attacks on the luchadors by the nWo. The whole bunch drop the T-shirt, except for Rey who seems disguted at the sheepish attitude by his luchadors compadre. Doesn't make a whole lotta sense since Rey never wanted to be in to begin with. Plus, although Eddie was out of the game at this point, it would have been easy to keep on with the angle with Juvy as the leader. It gave the Luchadors more airtime and some actual angle to be part of, I guess Nash wanted none of this. Stupid angles of the week : Chavo Jr. is throwing a party for Pepe (stick wood)'s birthday. Norman Smiley crashes the party, beats up Chavo and "kills" Pepe. This is retarded. Also, we have Chris Jericho along with Ralphus, challenging Saturn, who has a personnal issue with a referee, to wear a dress if he loses their next match. This is way goofy and stupid. Jericho dropped a lot since the awesome Dean feud, ditto Saturn since the awesome Raven feud. Match of the week : Scott Steiner vs DDP (Nitro). Big Poppa Pump is such a better wrestler than suplex throwing Scotty. My only issue with him is that the Recliner looks like shit, but hey, John Cena made a career out of having a finisher that looks like shit. He's really got the heel routine down pat, he's stooging, stalling, cheating, showing ass, he was born to do this. Buff is fun antagonizing the crowd. And with DDP laying down the match and being super dynamic, this is a fun little match, with a shitload of heat. Honorable mention of the week : Ric Flair vs Curt Hennig (Nitro) : better than I though it would be considering Henning has been pretty awful in 98. Here he works harder since he's in with Flair I guess. David Flair is at ringside. Funniest moment of the week : Eric Bishoff having to put up the ring was pretty funny (nothing jaw cracking but made me smile), Eric being great at his character. And it also is a cool little look at the pre-show stuff. Line of the week : "The Titanic has sank. Say hello to Kevin Nash , your nWo Corporate Giant" Eric Bischoff (Nitro). That was a pretty funny and smart-ass thing to say, as of course Paul Wight was departing to Titan, he just was squashed (basically) by Kevin Nash, and the rumour had it that he would be the lastest addition to Vince's heel faction of the Corporation. Awkward moment of the week : "It's like robbing a bank and then shooting the employee who is already in a wheelchair". Konnan (Saturday Night). Talking about the nWo beating up Rey the previous week. Did he just compare his "little brother" to a guy in a wheelchair ? Way to put your friend over Carlos... The nWo is killing off pretty much every tag-match because they don't want a tag-team tournament to happen. Souled Out looks like a total B-show, the build has been quite poor.

I have no idea how long this will take nor if I'll go the whole route... Maybe I'm just masochistic. WEEK 1 (January 1 to 7, 1999) : Death of WCW angle : The Fingerpoke of Doom. What can be said that hasn't been said already ? Actually in term of execution it was really well done and nobody saw it coming. I had forgotten that they also beat the shit out of Goldberg in the post-match celebration and that no one comes to his aid. No one. Man, WCW sure was depleted in term of babyfaces, as the Wolfpäck had been the big babyface faction for the last 6 months, and most of them (save for Konnan and Sting) turned heel there. I don't remember what was Bret Hart status at the time of Starrcade, I think he had been injured of something at some point while he was playing Hogan's pal and basically manipulating everybody. He's not there at this point. Anyway, it's a reset two years back. The nWo is in full force and Hulk is the champ. Turn of the week : Lex Luger. Of course, Nash turning was a pretty big swerve, but he had been the big time heel until the split with Hogan anyway, so it's only a return to his roots. Luger on the other hand, was basically the second or third biggest babyface during the entire nWo angle, and he only joigned the Wölfpack when they were already full fledge faces. Him attacking Goldberg was a big change for Luger, and the first time he was clearly a heel since he came back to WCW in 1995, and basically since his Narcissist stint in 1993. This freshens things up, but also cuts deeper into the babyface front. Promo of the week : Ric Flair cut a nice little "tradition" promo on Thunder, which was worlds better than his first big time President of WCW promo on Nitro (that was not very good not exciting and was basically a backup to the whole David Flair angle). Nothing special this week. Match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Barry Windham (Thunder). Nice little back and forth action packed match, although way too short (but that's a given usually during this era). I love that old fat Windham wan still do his float over suplex like he's 20 and lean. He's not as smooth as he was before, but he's still a really solid worker. Benoit is Benoit in 99. Shocking revelation during the post-match : Mongo was still on the roster at this point ! Random match of the week : Bobby Eaton & Kenny Kaos vs La Parka & Silver King (Saturday Night). That's why you have to love WCW. This is part of the non-bracketted Tag Team tournament BTW. That's why you have to hate WCW. Kaos was the least useless part of High Voltage, so there is that, and Eaton isn't the guy he used to be 6 years before (plus I doubt he was über motivated at this point), but it's nice to see him in a different capacity than the jobber he'd been relegated to. Park & King are awesome, but this is not the kind of match for them to shine. Pretty fun though, and you'd never guess who got the pinfall. Funniest moment of the week : Oh, *that* "Raven at home" vignette, with the Sandman showing up (I guess playing his brother). The way he says "Hi Kanyon" in a very disgusted way cracks me up every time, as does Kanyon doing a complete flip bump into the pool despite having been barely touched by the Sandman. Then you get Chastity (remember her ?) not wanting to kiss him, and Sandman talking about Tyler being 9 years old now ! Line of the week : "Mick Foley, who was Cactus Jack on our TV show, will win their version of the World Title. He's gonna be their World Champion. Ah !" (well, that was both petty and quite the epic fail) You also get a bad lWo vignette with Eddie throwing a party (which would lead nowhere since Eddie had just crashed in a bad car accident which would help to kill the lWo angle) and Liz accusing Goldy of being a stalker (and she was pretty good at the end of the vignette too, while "apologizing").

Was this on RAW ? I don't have recollection of Goldust feuding with Lawler at any point. What was the context of this ? Was that a KOTR qualifying match or something ?

Whaou. After watching him being the best commisisonner ever in SMW, and being such a great babyface (although I was sick of his feud woth Cornette after a while), that sounds pretty awesome.

I suggest you put in only Demolition matches in there.

Everything is overrated. New Japan is overrated by Dave & Co (hey, last time I tried to watch a NJ show, I think the Dome show in 2012, I couldn't pass the first match), Lawler & Fujiwara are overrated by this board and DVDVR, Takada & Raven are overrated by me myself and I. Everything is overrated and we're all idiots arguing about grown men pretending to fight in funky underwears and doing goofy acting. Rebels without a cause.

I don't think DiBiase had a better match than Bossman vs Perfect either.

Seriously ? I mean, maybe it is because here in France the auteur theory pretty much still is the predominant cinema critic ideology, but to me it's pretty much always what happens when discussing the merits of directors. (this is a footnote in the discussion though, as I pretty much agree with a lot of what you're saying here. I've watched most of the famous Lawler matches in the WWE the last few years, and thought it was "fun for a 60 year old guy", but to hear about Lawler being a great wrestler in 2011/12 is just insane to me. I have seen some indy stuff he did from earlier in the decade too, mostly against Funk, and again it was "fun for what it was". Then again, I don't think Jerry Lawler is a GOAT worker either)

That's the way Candido died. Flair is a complete idiot.

Simon Reynolds approves Dan's posts. (so, is it ok to use the word "trend" now ?)

Too bad the story was very much likely bullshit and Corino recanted it completely. Do people assume any wrestling stories are true? Yeah, who cares really. When I watch stuff like this, I'm pretty much considering I'm watching a scene from a movie with characters I'm familiar with. If Corino recanted it that doesn't change the fact it was a hilarious *story* and he was great at putting it together. Come on, a drunk pro-wrestler telling a story, there's at least 90% chance it's bullshit. EDIT : well, I found out the whole Missy reaction and Corino's retractation. Well, I have to say Missy is right about the stuff about Gilbert. But come on, her Youshoot interview was all about telling stories of guys she banged and the size of their penis. I guess if those were true then there's nothing embarrassing... (I still wonder how people from Highspots and others allow the guys they interview to be drunk as fuck though... pro-wrestling I guess)

Yep. If you listen to Regal's interviews, he also don't think of himslef as a guy who should be pushed as a main event act.

Just heard Steve Corino's story about him having sex with Missy Hyatt, and it's pretty hysterical. Long build story to a great finish. Gotta love the fact that Corino says "I know I'm not good, and she's overselling my shit !". Corino is just a great storyteller.

Pretty much agree with this.