El-P

WEEK 28 (July 12 to 17, 1999) Hilarious title change of the week : Hulk Hogan gets the WCW title back pinning Randy Savage (Nitro). Was that in Savage's contract that anytime he would get the title he would have to drop it to Hogan the very next day ? Seriously, this is getting comical. This is also a good thing since Savage was obviously done. They work smokes and mirrors around Savage, involving the girls (more violence against women resulting in a aggravating pop and a catfight between Mona & Madusa who blame each other) and shitloads of weightlifting belt shots eaten by Hogan, as it's the only thing Savage seems willing to do. Savage actually missed his elbow, which is an über rarity, I don't even remember another occurence. Another rarity is Hogan hulking up after the escape and not after eating his opponent's finisher, which is a hundred times better. Damn, why didn't he do *that* all the time ??? Coming back to Hogan was of course no go forward for WCW, but considering where they were at the moment, it was the less worse solution for the time being. Nash helps Hogan at one point but also challenges him after teh match, reminding everyone of the Fingerpoke of Doom. Well, at least it makes sense and it's a big match that haven't happened yet. And it doesn't involves Sid. Mexican dream match (of sorts) of the week : Konnan vs Vampiro (Nitro). This is supposed to be the first time they even meet in a single match. They say they hate each other from their Mexico days. It's watchable, surprinsigly. Ends up in a DQ when Vamp used a chair outside. I guess it could be a decent shooty-shooty feud. Match of the week : The Triad vs West Texas Rednecks (Thunder) Since it's Triad rules, not only can DDP and his partners tag in and out freely, but so can the Rednecks, who are four. This is nothing special, but it's pretty good. Of course it won't lead nowhere since soon we'll get the unfortunate reformation of Harlem Heat. Cruserweight match of the week : Mickey Whipreck vs Kidman (Thunder). Mickey was so underutilized it's criminal, he was an excellent worker at this point. Should and could have been pushed hard in the cruiserweight division, as showed by this match. He reigns Kidman worst tendency very well, and shows how superior a worker he is too. WCW were clueless about who they signed and how to used them. Fucked up spot of the week : Kidman screwing up his shooting star press (shocking) and taking a bump on the third rope instead of Steven Regal. Ouch. Slow week but nothing offensive. They are still runnig the useless David Flair angle. Ric Flair had a mediocre match with Dean Malenko. Stevie Ray went to save his brother from a beating by the Triad. The Rap vs Country angle is over. Goldberg certainly came back, only to not showing up this week. It was all about Hogan coming back and getting the title. The Eddie Guerrero angle from the previous week (his wallet was stolen and he had all the masked guys show him his face so he could identify the thief...) was not followed up. Tons of injured people from the Hardcore Battle Royal. They plugged tons of shit for the following week, including Sting vs Flair for controm of the company so it looks like Old vs Young guys is over too, and Buff is feuding with The Cat now. Yep. Going forward...

I agree. Why don't we all talk about Shawn Michaels for a change ? ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................

Jeez, I have zero curiosity about WM this year. Two years ago I was interested in watching Rock come back. Last year I was interested in watching Rock wrestle. But this year, with all I heard about the build ups of the main feuds, including that godawful Taker vs CM Punk shit based around Paul Bearer legit dying, I have zero interest in the show. I know it will be the biggest WM of all time yaddi yaddi yadda, but I will have to force myself to throw an eye at it, while usually I'm at least intrigued about watching my yearly WWE megashow. Sad state of affair for me.

Kevin Nash says hello. WM13 says hello It didn't make sense for Bret to make a JTTS look like a million bucks. Bret had more of a sense of hierarchy. Stan Hansen would not give JTTS shit, it doens't take way from his body of work. Winning the IC title from Hennig. (hey, don't blame me, I picked Flair over Bret anyway.)

I haven't read the book, but I can totally understant why he felt it was the best thing for him. Getting immersed in work while being surrounded with supportive friends, yeah, I can see that.

PPV 7 : Bash at the Beach 1999 Super match of the night : DDP & Bam Bam Bigelow & Kanyon vs Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn. I never saw this before, and I'm glad that I did. I like this a whole lot, and it maybe it's one of the best match I've seen in WCW since the beginning of teh year, and a legit excellent match to me. The psychology of the match is pretty interesting : Benoit & Saturn dominate their opponent whereas they end up 2 vs 2 or even 1 vs 2, but it's always the third guy who fuck them up and reverses the momentum. It's simple, but it works on every level, putting over the Triad gimmick as an efficient heel team gimmick, putting over Benoit & Saturn as two bad asses, and giving the match it's own dynamic and storytelling. The work is strong thanks to Benoit, Kanyon & DDP, with Saturn and Bam Bam showing some of their best work too. They get quite a bit of time but it never gets dull, boring or nonsensical. And the finishing stretch is excellent, with actual false finishes (and I'm not talking about those pseudo-epic obligatory "countering your hold / kicking out of your finisher" crap we'll see at Mania), that we can probably attribute to DDP. Loved this. The Triad is the best thing Bam Bam was ever involved with. Death of WCW match of the night : Invitationnal Hardcore Battle Royal. Nuff' said. Oh, they re-hired Public Enemy too. Now that's also some well spent money. Honorable mention match of the night : West Texas Rednecks vs No Limit Soldier. I feel like it could have been much better. It started out really good and heated, but as soon as the first elimination occured, it kinda died down. Brad Armstrong had some very awkward exchange with Rey, of all people. Swoll was green as fuck and shouldn't have been put in this match. My main issue with this is that the Soldiers came out with Chase and 4X4 (two big meatheads with no talent) at ringside, and they proceeded to kick the ass of the Rednecks when they got eliminated, which kinda comes off like a dick heel move. Plus the Rednecks were effectively outnumbered. That in the end Curt Hennig was alone one against two worked because he was the asshole that got the thing started, but still, there was a feeling of the Rednecks being the underdogs and being ganged up. Rey got the pin on Hennig, so I can't complain too much, but it was nowhere near as good as it could have. Decent opener of the night : The Cat vs Disco Inferno. What you would expect. Disco is pretty good and the Cat is pretty funny, so there you go. Nobody gives a fuck match of the night : Rick Steiner vs Van Hammer. Nitro match. Hammer jobs. Things never change. Bad and boring. No business on a PPV. Should be a Saturday Night undercard match. Death of WCW match also : David Flair vs Dean Malenko. Usual bullshit. Malenko beats on David for a while, then Ric and the other guys attack him. Dean actually hits Asya, which gets a huge pop. Yeah, violence against women was a cool babyface move in the late 90's. Asya is the most useless valet ever : she doens't do anything, she can't work, she can't cut a promo, she doesn't look good, she has no personality. Why did this girl even got a paycheck ? Oh, so Nash could make a not-so-clever pun about the WWF and remind everyone that WCW is now a second rate product looking up at New York. Anyway, this is shit. Oh, and Torrie Wilson is back with David Flair. Whatever happened with Nash apparently was unimportant. Awful gimmick match of the night : Roddy Piper vs Buff Bagwell. In a boxing match. With a old boxing judge from a TV show a a guest referee. And Judy Bagwell in Buff's corner. I didn't even look at this shit. Depressing main event of the night : Randy Savage & Sid Vicious vs Kevin Nash & Sting. Man, Sid is really godawful. Just unbearable to watch. And since sadly SAvage doens't do anything at all anymore, this is as bad as it sounds. Sting get most of the time. There's a big swerve as George gets into Nash's corner (Savage actually slapped her on Monday, for whatever reason), but in teh end she'll betray Nash and give him the worst balls shot ever, leading to Savage hitting the elbow and winning the WCW title. Yeah, because it's a great idea to put your title on a guy who can't work anymore. But hey, it won'y last long, as the hilarity of all hilarity profiles itself already. If you know your Hogan/Savage dynamic, you know what I'm talking about. I'm laughing already. I can hear Hogan's voice from here "Hey, dude, Nash, Flair and this bunch of guys dropped the ball brotha. I should get the belt back to take this company back on track jack !" Aside from probably one of the best match of the year in any US company, this PPV was rotten. I never saw it before, and man, what a ride.

Thanks. I needed some references to plan my watching schedule. Maybe will try to end the Nash era before taking a long break of a few weeks.

WEEK 27 (July 5 to July 10) Godawfull PPV build of the week : Roddy Piper challenges Buff Bagwell to a boxing match / Ric Flair puts the US title on David / Kevin Nash puts his WCW title on the line in a tag team match (Nitro/Thunder). Don't even ask, this is so shitty on every level. Also, Van Hammer asks for a TV title match against Rick Steiner, and The Cat fights Jerry Flynn in a kickboxing latch that get shit on to build his match with... Disco Inferno, who doesn't even appear. Oh, and Nash says even Sting can get the WCW title if he pins him, despite being his own partner. Yeah, I couldn't make this shit up. Oh and I forgot the Invitationnal Hardcore Battle Royal in a junkyard because Flair banned all hardcore matches from WCW. Oh man... Match of the week : Chris Benoit vs Kanyon (Thunder). The more I watch Kanyon, the more I enjoy him. If he was strictly a goofy spot machine during his Mortis days, I think he got much better by this point, controlling the pace as a true heel would do, antagonizing the crowd, using little elbow drops and such between his bigger spots and taking the time to sell. He's a superb bumper and has an interesting looking offense, but not in a ridiculous indierific way like Edge or this kind of guys had. Yep, I always enjoyed him, but looking back I'm actually pleasently surrprised by how solid his work was at this point. This gets quite a bit of time too, so this is really a nice match. The Triad was as fun as I remembered, and DDP wasn't that bad on the mic, despite the goofy "Two times" lines. At least he was always trying to evolve. Honorable mention of the week : Barry & Kendall Windham vs Rey Mysterio Jr. & Konnan (Saturday Night). I always get a kick of watching the Windham brothers working against Rey. Barry had a pretty poor look at this point, although the fatigues shorts are much better than the übertight jean shorts. But he could still outwork a bunch of people, no matter how fat and how fucked up his knees were. Rey is clearly heading for best worker of the year in the company, he's just delivering in any situation against any kind of opponent. The only guy who didn't work well with Rey thus far is Ric Flair, which is telling. Fun live song of the week : "Rap is Crap" by the West Texas Rednecks (Nitro). Of course this is terrific bad playback, and Barry is pretty hilarious behind the drums. Bobby Duncum is the only one making an effort trying to pretend he's playing guitar. Curt is great and goofy. I will have trouble to get that damn song out of my head. Shitty live song of the week : "Crush 'Em" by Megadeth (Nitro). Cultural relevance. This is a really poor, commercially formated song. Megadeth was in the shitter at this point, and even less relevant that Master P, although at least they used to be great. Like 13 years before. Seriously, what's next ? KISS ? Anyway, as everyone remembers, at the end of the song a big explosion occurs and Goldberg emerges from the smoke. Line of the week : "I'm back ! With a new shitty theme song that will hurt my entrance heat like hell !" Goldberg on Nitro. Well, he didn't say quite all of it, but that was totally what was gonna happen. Fuck you Kevin Nash match of the week : Juventud Guerrera vs Kidman (Nitro) They have a perfectly good, action packed match at the beginning of the show, they work and bump hard for like 8 minutes, the crowd is into it, so of course this has to be a backdrop for Sid and Savage showing up, destroying the cruiserweights (because nobody wants to see them I guess), and cut a rambling shitty promo. Fuck you for ruining good matches like your name is Vince Russo, and fuck you for making me dislike Randy Savage who otherwise is one of my all-time favourite. "Promo" of the week : Bret Hart talking about Owen and what he will do with his career in the future (Nitro) This was rather touching, although at points it did sound like a wrestling promo when he was talking about not knowing what he was gonna do. Still, him thanking every wresters in every locker rooms everywhere in the world he ever worked with (with the great, halk snarky line "I hope I wasn't too stiff", with the emphasis on stiff) sounded both genuine and a way to say goodbye for real. He probably shoud never had come back, especially under a complete tool like Russo. That would have been a sad but fitting way to end his career. Certainly beats getting a concussion from Goldberg and reacting the Montreal screwjobs. The product sucks. WTR vs No Limit Soldiers & Triad vs Benoit & Saturn carry the entire company on their backs.

Does anyone know the exact dates of the last show Kevin Nash booked and the first show that Russo wrote in 1999 ?

WEEK 26 (June 28 to July 3) Death of WCW aka "Has Russo been hired already ?" angle of the week : Kevin Nash vs David Flair in a lumberjack match (Nitro). Kevin Nash surrounded with Flair, Arn (referee), DDP, Kanyon, Bam Bam, Sid, Madusa, George, Mona, Torrie Wilson gets beat up a bit, then beats up David until he gets attacked by the pack again. Grabs a tazer from David, shocks everyone in sight, kidnaps George while Torrie seems to follow him willingly. Gets into a limo, sees a black hummer and notices a Sting face in the rear view mirror (all with dramatic "cinematic" shots). Then on Thunder gives Savage a rebdez-vous to give him back George in exchange for his title belt, which Randy got while he was running away. They meet at a street corner, Nash gets beat up, Randy grabs the girl in the car's trunk. He later realizes that the girl is actually Torrie Wilson, who apparently is siding with Nash now. I wouldn't blame anyone for just throwing the towel now. Russo wasn't in the company yet, but his influence was all over the product already. This is pure shit, and why I stopped enjoying US wrestling. Default match of the week : Chris Benoit & Perry Saturn vs Steven Regal & Fit Finlay (Nitro). By default because Finlay & Regal are not supposed to be *really* competitive. So it's as good as it's allowed to be, as the big time tag team match of the show was DDP & Kanyon vs Malenko & Buff, which was decent but... Mysterio had a decent match with Blitzkreig too on Thunder, but cruiserweight matches are an afterthought now. Disapointing video of the week : "I hate rap" video. Yeah, they really could have done something great with this, but it's really half-ass work to me. The song is still great though. Stupid WWF reference of the week : Brad Armstrong, sorry, B.A. using "Oh you didn't know" before his No Limit Soldier promo (Thunder). I'm telling you, Vince Russo is already all over this product. Somewhat funny angle of the week : Dance context between The Cat & Disco Inferno (Nitro). Nothing special, but at least it's kinda funny thanks to The Cat, and it's just classic and basic wrestling stuff : The Cat dances and gets booed, while Disco dances and gets cheered, so The Cat attacks Disco from behind and beats him up, setting up a match on PPV. See, it's not hard. I really dragged my feet watching this week of programming. The TV is so awful and boring at this point, with nothing interesting happening and godwaful stuff at the top. Kevin Nash may be the worst booker ever, seriously, I don't see how Russo could be worse (and yet...). Eddie Guerrero is running through his former LWo members, getting wins and looking good. Rey Mysterio jr. doing the No Limit Soldier shouts is annoying and a bit embarrassing. Lenny & Lodi are a gay couple. I'm seriously YAWNING at WCW TV right now. It's terrible but it's not even "so bad it's entertaining" stuff, it's just dreadful. Next week we get a Megadeath performance. Pop culture relevance at best.

Thanks ! This is great ! Never saw L'Ange Blanc before. My father told me once he and his highschool friends used to sneak in to watch his match at times. Great submission hold at the end. Seriously, this is some amazing stuff. Roger Couderc punching a heckler just made my day ! And really, although I knew about his reputation as an all-time great sport announcer (he was mainly calling rugby matches) but I've never quite heard him before. Just take my word on this : he's *awesome*. He doesn't know the technical aspect of the game, but damn can he talk and sell the action, with some fun lines thrown in at the right moment. I can see why Eddie Carpentier respected him so much.

Yeah, there's certainly a lot that can be said about Benoit's work, especially in WWE, but if there's someone who showed emotional attachment to his matches it's him. His sheer intensity was emotional, whether as a face when he would never quit or as a heel when he would beat up his opponent unmercifully. His post-match reactions also showed how much he cared about winning.

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.