El-P

Good for her. This whole "independant contractor" is a complete travesty anyway.

Nope. He was working full time in World Class at the time.

WEEK 16 (April 19 to 24, 1999) Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Juventud Guerrera vs Blitzkrieg vs Psychosis (Nitro). Not a big fan of 4-ways or 3-ways, especially when it's not an elimination match, but this got so ridiculous in term of high flying and big spots that it was actually quite fun. They worked a semi-storyline of Psychosis and Juvy kinda working together at times against technicos Rey and Blitzkrieg, and the psychology or having to get rid of two opponents before being able to pin the third was well established. Obviously a way to get the belt off Rey without having him do the job, but having Blitz take the pin kinda made Psychosis's win a bit minor key. Honorable mention of the week : Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko & Kidman vs Rey Mysterio Jr. & Raven & Perry Saturn (Thunder). Rey and Kidman still are the tag champs, and the two other teams are gunning for them. Fun dynamics with Kidman and Rey not wanting to hurt each others, while the Horsemen are especially vicious. Arn gets physical at the end, which is always fun. Tag team wrestling has been the best thing on WCW TV in 1999 thus far in term of feuds and matches. Funniest match of the week : Goldberg vs The Cat (Thunder). The Cat does his five count deal with Goldie, but actually gets a cheap shot in. Not as dumb as one could think ! Very fun squash. Stupid angle of the week : Roddy Piper sends Ric Flair into a mental hospital (Nitro). He's Ric Flair's friend and wants to protect him from himself. Flair is batshit insane, fires Piper but wants a match with him at Slamboree for the control of the company. Piper accepts. Nothing makes any sense, it's all pretty damn terrible. Flair gets carried away after his match with Nash. Yes, Flair had a match with Nash, which saw Nash do backbody drops on Flair, a spot than Nash never ever does. There you go again Flair, forcing spots on people who never usually do them. Nash was quite good at selling for Flair though, very nice way to register the punches. Tweener turns heel/tweener turns face match of the week : Goldberg vs DDP (Nitro). So, DDP is a full fledge heel now, as he does a clear turn for the bad side during his match with Goldie, getting a foreign object and trying to bust his knee out. Goldi is only saved by Nash, who definitly turns clear cut face. What a mess of a main event scene, but at least now it seems like things are getting a little bit more clear, although Steiner and the rest of the nWo are still heels (except Hogan, who's out injured and who's a face). The match itself was actually quite exciting, no one gets more out of Goldberg than DDP. He let him kick out of his Diamond Cutter, which makes Goldie look like The Man. Good job by DDP. Line of the week : "It looks like you're looking for a job !" Tony Schiavone to Dusty Rhodes, who guest announced the Nitro main event and made a great pre-match hype job for it. Nitro was actually quite solid all around with quite a bit of fun matches and two big time matches/angles at the end. Odd fact, I totally remembered the hot girl behind Scott Steiner when he cut his weekly promo (the one on the right who seemed way into it). The Flair and Roddy angle is stupid, but outside of that, everything else pretty much made sense. They build toward Nash & DDP at the PPV, the three team tag match, now they can have a cruiserweight match too since Rey isn't the champ anymore, Buff challenged Steiner (although I don't expect anything from that match, Buff just isn't the worker he was before the injury). Oh, and Berlyn was sitting in the crowd. And Macho Man brought Madusa back to train Gorgeous George.

What a shock when watching Spring Breakers, from Harmony Korine. 2 minutes into the movie, after the opening credits, who shows up but Jeff Jarrett playing some sort of college preacher ! I got a big kick out of it. (The movie itself isn't very interesting though, full of meaningless depth)

I would have never pegged you as a Brony, John. Nor would have I thought John was a follower of the French right-wing extremist party the Front National. MLP, still hot in her 40's...

You can say that. But to me this is also why I hate the current format so much.

1994's booking wasn't very good. Flair pushed all his old buddies on top. Of course since it means Steamboat and Arn getting pushes, "workrate" fans enjoy it, but seen in context and in retrospect, Flair's booking in 1994 really looks egotistical and doesn't build at all toward the future. Austin, Pillman and Dustin all took major setbacks during Flair's run as a booker in 1994 (not to mention the unbearable Bunkhouse Buck push, which he only got because his cousin Robert Fuller was on the booking comitee with Flair), and Flair was all about getting a big program with Hogan, not work with the younger guys. Shane Douglas is 100% right about Flair during that time. To say I was very underwhelmed with the first half of 1994 is an understatement. The last real cool booking of the company before the good Nitro years was during Watts last months, in very late 92 and especially early 93.

Most certainly. But has there been a good wrestling *writer* thus far we can talk about ? They've all been pretty shitty.

This is the very exact quote I was thinking about. This synthetizes pretty much why Russo doesn't understand shit about wrestling and why he did so much harm. Of course it matters you fucking idiot.

Short answer : no. Wrestling needs bookers. The era of the wrestling "writers" has been worst ever in term of angles and characters.

WEEK 15 (April 12 to 17, 1999) Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Juventud Guerrera (Thunder). They already had a match on Nitro which was stopped after the Horsemen jumped on Rey. Juvy is in full rudo mode. it's sad they didn't get a real built in feud in WCW, seems like they only really got paired in random matches (they had a short deal while in the lWo but that was it). They fumbled on one spot, but the rest of the match is poetry in motion as usual with these two. Rey gets Juvy with a brutal top rope frankensteiner, Rey's execution of the move is explosive, and the way Juvy takes it makes it look even better. One bad thing though, was Juvy using the People's elbow. Made them look totally second rate. I'm amazed no one told him he had to stop doing this immediately. Nostalgia match of the week : Ric Flair vs Sting (Nitro). "For old times sake", as said by a hysterical Sting earlier on the show. Whoever wants to argue was still a great wrestler in 1999 oughta watch this match. He's in total routine mode, doing the same match he was doing 9 years before, looking old and tired doing it. And it's one of these match where Sting no-sells 90% of Flair offense, making him look like an old bitch. He also wears awful looking white shoes. Eventually, since these two knows each other so well, it turn into something enjoyable if you're into that sort of stuff, mostly because Sting works kinda hard at it, but Flair was clearly not even what I'd call a *good worker* at this point. He could be fun to watch at points, and could also be sad to watch. Sad promo of the week : Stevie Ray (Thunder). This to me signs the official death certificate of the nWo. This is Stevie Ray "taking over", burying Hogan who's injured, burying Lex, Nash and Steiner for various nonsensical reasons. The nWo as a main event faction was essentially dead for a few weeks now, but this is what ends it all to me. From now on, the nWo is a mid-card JTTS small group, and while Nash and Steiner still use the Wölfpack music, there is no nWo per say anymore. It's barely an afterthought. It's bizarre to think the biggest angle in the history of the company, and the second biggest one of the decade, eventually just petered out. Stevie Ray wants DDP's belt, he'll do the job later on the show. Bad promo too, as Stevie Ray was not just a bad worker in the ring. Stiff fest of the week : Barbarian vs Jerry Flynn (Saturday Night). My favourite C show feud. Thank you Jimmy Hart for booking this. You know the drill, Barbie and Jerry Flynn exchange stiff offens. Fun stuff. Payback match of the week : DDP vs Scott Steiner (Nitro). DDP was such in a bizarre tweener spot. Here he's full on babyface, coming out with Kimberly and taking revanche on Big Poppa Pump. Fairly heated and dynamic, with enough time to actually build to a very satisfying finish. Kim swings a mean chair. I didn't think we'd have an actual conclusion to this feud that made sense. Good stuff. Stupid angle of the week : Ric Flair signs some paper but doesn't even read it. (Thunder) Arn is going crazy because Flair is not even looking what he's signing. You know what this will lead to... WTF angle of the week : Savage makes a challenge to Flair, his girl vs Flair's "girl" (Nitro) If Gorgeous George wins, Savage is "reinstated". Except he was never suspended of anything, but whatever. George slaps the hell out of Robinson. This is goofy but quite fun actually. Debut of the week : DJ Ran (Nitro). He's all up in ya area. (seriously, he wasn't bad or anything, plus I heard he hated Master P. and thought it was crap) nWo dead. Buff Bagwell and Vampiro had a pretty bad match on Thunder. Bam Bam Bigelow keeps on not showing me much. Mickey Whipreck is a competitive jobber. Hogan gone for some time. Nash seemingly turning face again, or something, not really sure. The heel/face structure at the top is a big mess.

Ah ah ah ! How are you going to refrain yourself from strutting around the desk when the song pops up ?

So Stevie Ray is the ugly girl that the pretty popular girl hangs out with to make herself look even prettier? Exactly ! That's really well put actually.

Yeah, this is one that I would have loved to see. NJ vs AJ. Furnas had an even better Frankensteiner than Scott. With the Steiners it would have been probbaly not much more than bomb throwing, but Furnas and Kroffat more than could hang on with them on that respect.

LCO (circa 97) vs Crush Gals (in their prime). Mita and Shimoda making Chiggy BLEED like a pig and having fun doing it, the sick bitches they were. Make a return match in a cage, I'm sure Lioness can come up with some stupid spot Mita would be more than willing to take. Greatest matches ever.

I was a huge Undertaker fan when I was a teen, so Paul Bearer was a big part of my early fandom years. I was totally shocked when he turned on Taker at SummerSlam 96, and I enjoyed his heel run with Mankind a lot. Sad to hear. Way too young to die.

Has Stevie Ray been mentionned ? He never, ever improved a bit from the day he showed up in 1993 to the day he retired. He did make Booker look like a great worker in comparison for a while though, so he served a purpose as far as "make someone look good", although not in the traditionnal sense.

Watching back WCW, as odd as it may seem to some people, I found out I had no problem watching his matches and enjoying his work. However, there has not been one single time that I haven't thought about it watching his matches, not one single time. And each time it eventually takes my attention away for a while. I have avoided the 95-97 period thus far to concentrate on the downward spiral of WCW, so I don't have to watch him and Nancy work together. I have no idea if that would be more uncomfortable to me at this point. I also don't know if I'll ever revisit this era, and maybe I'm not sure if I want to partly because Nancy and Benoit are all over TV together. Not really sure though.

Exactly. Once they bought off every competition, it was allright to talk about the past, with the twist of being able to rewrite history in a WWE-flavored way, depending on who's under contract at the moment of the DVD release/HoF ceremony/nostalgia show. When did the Hof became the second biggest event of the year ? When did the Streak became the biggest thing ever in wrestling ? When did WM eventually became a show based on dream matches from stars from the past or retiring ? When did "old-school Raw" began to show up ? The past became the future once there was no fighting to do in the present. Once those streams of revenu will have dried up, there's no telling what will happen. They might go searching for the next John Cena really quick.

He wanted to humble that no good Backlund jabroni, I guess.

I'd have a hard time believing that it prolonged his life. Benoit in WWE looked insanely roided compared to his late WCW days. Not saying he was pressured to take them, but still, the environement and being pushed harder against much bigger guys surely didn't help. Both he and Eddie looked badly bloated in their later WWE days, although Eddie looked almost as bad in 1995 in NJ. Both didn't need WWE to take steroid and to abuse them, but to say argue going to WWE actually prolongued his life. I don't buy it. WCW was more money with less insane travel and less pression (even if it was implicite) to take roids (especially, in a way, since they wouldn't have been put under that much pression since they were undercarders 4 Life). The personnal and psychological issue played a major role anyway, so it's not to say things would have been different in the end. Eddie and Grunge dying fucked up his brain probably as much as concussions did. In his shoot interview, Rene Dupree actually has an interesting theory about what could have happened, base don his on experience with drugs + alcohol + roids. He says he can totally picture Benoit getting in a blind drunken/drugged up rage and kill Nancy then black out, and not remmeber anything when he emerges. Leading to him snapping and we know the rest. Makes sense, well, as much as you can make sense out of such a tragedy.

Yeah, Savage was actually good in this role, he didn't get in the way of the match until his spot with Flair, did the job of counting pretty well and had a cool way of putting over the action at times.

PPV 4 : Spring Stampede 1999 Match of the night : Raven & Perry Saturn vs Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko. Most heated match of the card from the get-go. Someone must do something right. Saturn & Raven showed some pretty cool double-team move. Malenko works better as a heel, his wooden personnality plays out better this way. The ending is excellent, but also shows to how much lenghts Benoit was willing to go, which didn't do him any favor in the long haul. Honorable mention of the night : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Kidman. Pretty long match which gets better as it goes, although with Kidman it never goes beyond a your turn/my turn formula, with each one trying big moves to end the match and countering each others. Upset win match of the night : Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair vs DDP vs Sting. So, Macho is the special referee. Comes out with Gorgeous George, who looks like a porn star. Midlife crisis anyone ? I give credit to Savage for updating his look, although it includes getting back on roids which wasn't the best decision. Flair and Hogan look old at this point, and Flair just goes into routine mode instead of getting anything out of the setting of the match. Just bust out his cliché spots against Hulk and Sting, like he's doing extract from older matches instead of actually working the current one. He also blows up some stuff and depsite still looking crisp in spots, basically is the worst of the four. Can't say much about Hogan, as he's carried out after having his knee injured by DDP. Gotta find a way to not look like he lost another match on PPV I guess. DDP vs Sting is the best part of the match, and they work some good little stuff together. No explanation why Sting is back in 1997, but he's still really over. DDP winning the belt was nice for him, as he was the best worker in the match and he deserved it at some point, but it came at least one year too late, he wasn't at the peak of his babyface run anymore, and it's obvious people wanted Sting to win judging by the mild pop he got. Oh, I almost forgot Macho "betraying" Flair (how did he betray him anyway, Macho came off as a face) which basically led him to lose. Match had its moments. Get you win back match of the night : Kevin Nash vs Goldberg. They work Lex and Liz (well, kinda) in the match too as they were involved in the infamous Fingerpoke of Doom angle and the beatdown that followed, which is neat. Nash gets a lot of offense before Goldie's comeback. Nice spot as Nash actually leapfrog over the spear, that was pretty unexpected and showed that Nash was a resourceful worker when he wanted to be. Goldie gets his win back four months too late for it to really matter, but hey, at least now he's even, and also got his shot on Luger, so not complaining. ECW match of the night : Hak vs Bam Bam Bigelow. Chastity is in total slut look now, the announcer are all over her. This is the typical, bust stuff over the head of your opponent match, complete with Tony saying the trash can shots don't jurt as much as they sound like. Hak does alll the cool work and bumps here. Man, Bam Bam never cease to underwhelm, he's not too good and badly blows up a basic spot too. This is nonsensical but kinda fun thanks to Hak. Future of WCW match of the night : Scott Steiner vs Booker T. Steiner is an awesome heel, giving the people their money's worth, antogonizing, sometimes almost in a physical way, people in the front row. Deliberate Steiner kind of match, which works for Booker since he only has a few token spots he can put it in. Works quite well here, and Steiner heel tactics and ref intimidation are the bulk of the match, feeding Booker at the right time for his comebacks. Steiner wins the US belt. Long time overdue. Booker remains the TV title, so now you've got two champions that are over in the midcard and make both belts matter. Pretty good PPV, with a nice stretch of matches during the second half. Considering how horribly this was build (well, mainly the main event to be honest, the undercard was actually decently built), this was a rather good surprise. Steiner winning the US belt and DDP winning the WCW title freshen things up, the tag was very good and had heat, the cruiserweight looked good (with a nice Juvy vs Blitzkrieg opener), with only Disco vs Konnan being way too long and a useless Scotty Riggs vs Mickey Whipreck match thrown in (I like both guys, but this made no sense with zero build at all for either guy, especially Mickey). No stupid shit nor booking that made no sense (actually everything was well balanced in term of satisfying results for heel and faces). Best PPV of the year I would say thus far.

I remember quite a bit of totally disgusting misogynic comments about Nancy back then, from people would just couldn't fathom the idea that their wrestling hero Chris Benoit could have done this. Just horrendous stuff. Not to mention the ever coming up "She must have done something to provoque him" argument so to in a way "excuse" the perpetrator. There was some really terrible shit popping up at the time. The Sullivan theory was just out of this world insane.

I watched the Lawler match. This is about as good a Kamala match I've seen. And it still pretty much sucked. I'm sorry but Kamala brings about as much to the table as Brian Adams does weekly on Thunder in 1999. And I should know. Terrible looking and boring offense, despite having Jerry freaking Lawler selling for him. Comedy selling. He takes one good bump at one time. The gimmick is embarrasing at best and offensive at worst. Yeah. Not good. One Man Gang or John Tenta he isn't. Haku is isn't either. Bad and Boring. (and as much as I enjoy Lawler on multiple levels, 97% of punches as offense still does get on my nerves. His flying punch from the second rope still looks awesome though) (the referre was quite awful too btw)