El-P

Orton is a totally different beast. I doubt Swagger will amount to anything now, not that he would have anyway. I mean, does anyone even remember this guys had been a world champ before ?

The thing that people forget about McMicheal, is that he was a banged up 39 years old ex-football player when he debuted. He was an old rookie thrown on live TV every week, it's not like he could have been that much better unless he was some kind of miracle worker. I mean, most wrestler suck during their very early years, only rare exceptions are very good from the get go like Akiyama, Owen or Mika Akino. I always thought he did pretty decently considering those factors. Yes, he wasn't good, but in a tag setting paired up with guys like Arn, Benoit or Jarrett, he did well enough to me. Plus he had charisma and a strong personnality so he didn't look out of place. He wrestled for what, two years and a half ? On the other hand, Brian Knobbs was trained the old fashion way (I mean as opposed as going through the terrible Power Plant), got though territories, worked a thousands of matches and yet was still as clueless, awkward and dangerous after 15 years.

You don't say. Holy shit.

Yep, I remember that one too. WEEK 11 (March 15 to 20, 1999) Good employee of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr., who's given back the cruiserweight title on Nitro with a win over Kidman. I guess this was the reward for playing along. Good match too, and really freshens the scene as Kidman's title reign hasn't been very interesting. He had good matches, but despite being a sympathetic babyface they didn't book him in notable feuds. Rey doesn't waste any time and delivers the match of the week too against Juventud Guerrera on Thunder. These two are just magic against each other, and this is no exception although they have to put a lot into a short match frame. Turn of the week : Buff Bagwell is turned babyface by Scott Steiner, who blames him for the loss of his TV title. It's a good thing, it takes away Buff from Steiner, who doesn't need him at this point, plus Buff is not able to bump like he was before so he'll be better suited as a babyface, and he gets some good heat especially from the girls, so this is all for the better. Scott beats up Bagwell with a chair, attacking his neck. Damn, those Steiners won't give Buff a chance. Rematch of the week : Barry Windham & Curth Hennig vs Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko (Saturday Night). This combination is the highlight of the company thus far in 1999. They just can't have a disapointing match together, although I'd be remiss if I didn't mentionned once again how little Malenko effectively brings to the table in the tag setting. One of these day we'll have to seriously reevaluate this guy's case, as I always thought he was ridiculously overrated just because he was in the package along Benoit & Guerrero and worked a lot with Rey in 96. Anyway, this is the excellent action I've become accustomed to from Windham, Benoit & Hennig, with a little twist in the finish which saw Kendall interfere. Hum... Hennig and the WIndham brothers... Hum... Switch of the week : Ric Flair / Hulk Hogan (Thunder). Flair is a full flegde heel now, antagonizing the crowd, looking down on people, saying he respects Curt Hennig (did he forgot about the cage door ?), looking calm, cool, collected and über arrogant. This wasn't the right time for a Flair heel turn, but I admit this is pretty cool as Flair is always better as a heel, and he hasn't been in this role since the first half of 1996. Meanwhile, Hollywood Hogan is slowly reverting back to good ol' Hulk, which sucks. He's even hulking up in every match now, and although he's still clearly a tweener and not a full fledge babyface, the fact that people are cheering him again after 2 and a half year of hating him shows that the first wave of Hulkamania nostalgia was coming up. Which sucks. I enjoy Hollywood Hogan about a thousand times more than Hulk, and I don't look forward to see the red and yellow come back. Funky pairing of the week : Hulk Hogan & Kevin Nash vs Goldberg & Ric Flair (Nitro) : Yeah, all three guys want a title shot, and we get this match. The best part is the interaction between Goldberg and Flair. Goldie gorilla slams Flair to the feet of Hogan to force him to debut the match, then later on Flair is tagging himself up (not even touching Goldie) to get into the ring. Hulk and Nash work pretty hard again and they actually do a pretty good job with the heat segment on Goldberg. This ends up in a schmozz, but it's quite fun to watch. Funniest moment of the week : Disco Inferno crashing Konnan's video. Yeah, I laughed, I had totally forgot about that. And the match that followed on Nitro was actually pretty damn good for a Konnan match. Gotta love Disco and the billion ways he finds to remain relevant and fun to watch depsite being settled basically with a short term comedy gimmick. And the fact he had a good match with Mr. Yippe Yo Yippe Yeah also speaks volume of his work ethic. Apaprently Konnan wasn't happy with doing a job to Disco and blamed Nash for it. Stupid vignette of the week : A rat (sorry, no other word) is trying to seduce David Flair while Kevin Nash & Torri Wilson watch on camera. It fails, despite the girl clearly showing her stuff to David, who doesn't want pussy because he's "in love" with Torrie. Torrie finds this sweet and Nash is pissed off because the trick didn't worked. I have no idea what this was about. Get a sextape to blackmail David Flair ? I'm sure Nash himself doesn't know. Line of the week : "Are you trying to seduce me, Ms Robinson ?" David Flair, to said rat showing him her stuff (same exact frame as in the movie BTW). I love the idea that 19 year old David Flair would quote The Graduate in 1999. Cultural relevance from Mr. Nash. By the way, did you remember Ricky Rachman hosting Nitro parties on campus ? Me neither. I always figured the Nitro Girls being totally harrassed by drunk young punks during those, and wrestlers fucking tons of girls off camera. Hey, next week is the Srping Break edition of Nitro, I always loved these.

It really didn't played out that way. The referee just looked as dumbfounded as anyone when Hogan went for a pinfall then signaled for the blood when he wouldn't count. Seriously, the whole storyline that followed looks like total damage control to me. And if that story was pre-planned, than it's the worse execution of an angle *EVER*. I have a hard time believing it. Or maybe Flair was just supposed to bleed a little bit and then the referee would ignore it to screw Hogan until Hogan would then bleed a lot after being hit by the tire iron. But having him bleed a gusher after 6 minutes threw that out of the window. Hence the most illogical finish ever > figure four > pinfall. Anyway you put it, nothing makes sense whatsoever in this match, nothing.

Nah, he bladed and it was pretty obvious. Yeah, terrific clusterfuck of a match. Yeah, I remember about this. Bischoff has been off TV for a few weeks now, and Nash is having a blast shooting a hundred nWo vignettes. I also seem to remember grey haired Bischoff coming back all humble and shit as a simple announcer.

PP3 : Uncensored 1999 "Who the fuck is that ?" match of the night : Mickey Whipreck vs Kidman. Not even anounced on TV. Mickey doesn't even get a music theme. Way to produce a new guy. Bobby Heenan makes fun of his name despite Mickey playing heel. On the positive side, it shows how good Mickey was at this point, as he gives Kidman his best match since Starrcade, dies a few times (this Cactus Jack bumps over the guardrail look brutal), and actually gets some heel heat from an audience who apparently doesn't know who he is (Louisville, Kentucky, ECW stronghold). Good job Mickey. Match of the night also "Nobody wants to see that shit" match of the night : Stevie Ray vs Vincent. Meanwhile, Fit Finlay, Bret Hart, Juventud Guerrera, Blitzkrieg, Mike Enos, Goldberg and a few others are sitting at home. There's a comically bad sequence, so awfully timed and executed that I burst out laughing during this. Embarrassing. PLus if you dig a little bit, it could almost be interpreted as a racist angle. Really, a bunch of smart ass white guys playing off two stupid black guys and having them fight each other to be the fake boss of a B-team nobody gives a shit about. Yeah, really. "Stupid turn" match of the night : Raven vs Hak vs Bam Bam Bigelow. They stay in the ring and play around with plunders, which is nowhere near as fun as them fighting off backstage and bumping on cars. A few fun spots mostly thanks to Raven and Hak, who are much better than Bam Bam here. At one point CHastity gives Raven some duct tape to tie Hak's hand together, which only works for a few seconds. And of course, at the end of the match, Chastity turns on Raven and gets with Hak. Which makes no sense since she physically helped Raven against Hak earlier on. Match was okay, turn was nonsensical. "Me want my win back" match of the night : Kevin Nash vs Rey Mysterio Jr.. Okay, forget what I said about Nash doing a good job putting Rey over on Nitro. It was good, but at the end it serves no purpose if Nash just gets his win back on PPV with barely a half-ass intervention from Luger on the outside. The match is very good for what it is though, and Nash's work is actually really good, bumping hard for Rey at times. The problem is that this match does nothing for Nash and even less for Rey who doesn't look like a giant killer after all. Oh, and WCW director never got the notion that Liz was at ringside as an eye candy, so he should, I dunno, get some good shots of her from time to time. Man, WCW's production sucked. Oh, and while I'm at it, there was no backstage interviews at all during this PPV, but they replayed the videos hyping up the matches, the same they showed on TV. Dumb. Most satisfying match of the night : Barry Windham & Curt Hennig vs Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko. Strap lumberjacks outside the ring. Yeah, this is good, Arn Andersons takes the place of a lumberjack to even the balance, as Kendall Windham is also at ringside with a strap. Hennig isn't afraid to fall outside to get strapped. Benoit and Windham are the best workers of the night along with Rey and Whipreck. Dean is okay as an overhyped midget. Heels get fucked by Arn who busts Hennig with a tire iron, ultimate revenge on Curt screwing the Horsemen 18 months before. Horsemen get the tag titles. Good work, good heat, good finish. This is *good*. Funniest match of the night : Jerry Flynn vs The Cat & Sonny Oono. The Cat is the perfect exemple of why you don't need to win any match to get over. He finally found his character, and he's so much fun. Plus he became quite decent in the ring too as a performer. And Jerry Flynn (minus the mullet, which has been cut out by Cat & Oono on Nitro) on PPV is great. Flynn was everything Steve Blackman should have been if he didn't suck. Anyway, this is as fun and goofy as it sounds with Oono playing the chikenshit martial art manager, and some actual stiff action from Flynn & Cat. The Cat is one of the only bright spot of dying WCW. Scott Hall no-showed match of the night : Scott Steiner vs Booker T. It was suppose to be Hall vs Booker T (that's why Hart did a job first to Piper then to Booker, the poor guy), but of course Hall disappeared from TV leading to the PPV, and I don't think it's even mentionned. Anyway, Scott Steiner is the best heel in WCW at this point, and seems so far above the TV title it's not funny. Decent match, but Booker really keeps on not improving. He looked great in Harlem Heat next to Stevie Ray, and paired up with a great worker like Bret or Benoit he can have strong matches, but he's just not very good nor compelling himslef. Most disapointing match of the night : Chris Jericho vs Perry Saturn. Dog collar match, but without any blood and without the usual "touch the four corner" rule. Which already makes it kinda useless. I have been underwhelmed by Jericho's work in 1999, but this is plain bad. A mess of a match, blown spots galore, no heat, awkward and boring. Saturn was so much fun with and against Raven, but he's been really blah in this feud with Jericho. Also, he comes out looking like Marylin Manson, complete with a rip-off version of The Beautiful People, which is a bit outdated already, especially since Raw used it as a theme song for years now. Manson wasn't the freak of the day anymore, Eminem was. Anyway, this is bad. Sad way for Jericho to go out, as it's his last PPV appearance (I don't remember if he was used on TV after that point, he was a goner anyway). Death of WCW match of the week : Ric Flair vs Hulk Hogan Bear with me people, this one is a definite checkpoint in a Death of WCW road. Ric Flair says it's a first blood match. That's news to me. Flair was the babyface until he began to act kinda heelish. Hulk is the super heel. Hogan kinda works like a face. Flair works like a heel. Flair bleeds 5 minutes into the match. Match doesn't stop. Hulk works like a babyface. Hulk wants a pinfall. Referee doesn't count because it's a first blood match. Hulk signals Flair is bleeding. Referee doesn't know what to do. Flair bleeds like a pig after Hulk uses razor wires. Flair uses a foreign object that he *hides in his knee pads*, in a barb wire cage match with a referee who obviously is biased toward him. Hulk hulks up. Remember Hulk has been the super heel who beat the shit of of David then turned him against his father. Flair bleeds like a stuck pig. David Flair and Torrie Wilson showed up. they are heels. Cheering for heel Hogan working as a babyface and getting cheered like crazy. Arn Anderson, babyface who helped babyface horsemen win earlier on, shows up and hits heel David Flair who cheers for heel/babyface Hulk. Arn hits him after spending the last few weeks telling Ric that David was a good kid who was manipulated by heel Hogan (who works face). Babyface Arn passes on a tire iron to heel Flair who beats up heel Hogan acting like a babyface. Ric Flair puts Hogan into a figure four. IN a First Blood match. Referee counts three. In a First Blood match. Crowd is silent. Heel David comes into the ring to check heel/babyface Hogan while heel Flair doesn't get a celebration for winning his 14th World Title and the control of WCW, as he leaves the ring with babyface Arn. THIS IS AWESOME !!!!!! Line of the night : "Well... uh.... are we told this is a First Blood Match ? .... Allright let's just forget about that." Tony Schiavone, dumbfounded. Seriously, this main event is nearly enough to make anyone quit watching the promotion. And seemingly that's what people did, considering the PPV buys would not stop diving off after this amazing debacle. Flair looked like a complete idiot (he just didn't look like one BTW, he totally acted like one too and seems largely responsible for a lot of that shit), the referee apparently had no idea what to do and the announcers were totally lost. Whoever was responsible for that gigantic fuck up of a main event should have been fired on the spot. Like I said, this would be my first checkpoint on the WCW Highway to Hell, I could throw the towel here and not regret it (I won't, because I'm stubborn, and a bit stupid). The Fingerpoke of Doom at least was in itself a great angle that was executed extremely well. This, on the other hand, is the picture of a company dying.

'In the docs, Ric says Jackie went after him -- back in February 2010 -- with a glass object and "shattered it over his forehead, cutting him severely, and requiring medical attention."' Since when Flair is afraid of blading ?

Me want royalties.

So, this is a Megathread now I guess.... WEEK 10 (March 08 to 13, 1999) Match of the week : Raven vs Hak vs Bam Bam Bigelow (Nitro). This begins as only Raven vs Hak, then Bigelow shows up and it turns into a three way. This is you classic backstage hardcore match of the days, and I like these much better than the ones in the WWF at the same time. It's fun nonsense with bumps on cars and such. It was fun as a novelty before it got old, and it was interesting to see how much both WCW and WWF had took the dive into the "hardcore" stuff by then, while ECW was clearly past its prime by two good years. Raven is pretty great here as he always was taking a beating, at one point he's lying on a car, antagonizes Bam Bam who litteraly dives onto him. This doesn't get a finish, of course, as these three meet at the PPV. Give away match of the week : Goldberg vs Ric Flair (Nitro). Yes, they're giving Flair vs Goldie first ever match together for free on Nitro. They were desperate for ratings. Flair has not totally turned heel yet, but he's clearly a tweener and Goldie is the big babyface in this. This came around as David Flair hitchjacked Goldie's interveiw time at the beginning of Nitro and when Goldie got physicall with Flair Flair ran in to "save" his son and of course it led to this as Flair is just hysterical at this point and not the WCW leader anymore. Anyway, I thought this was actually really good, and Flair works exactly like he should against Goldie, first bumping hard, then cheating to get somewhat of an advantage before Goldie just came back on his ass. Of course it gets his share of Goldie no-sell Flair's offense, but since he's Goldie it didn't bother me. Plus you get Flair escaping the spear the first time around, which was nice. No finish, of course. However, Nash & Hogan were pretty annoying on the booth. Annoying shit of the week : A first hour without wrestling on Nitro. Yep, this is it. A first hour only consisting of vignettes, mostly nWo ones with a long, boring Hogan promo, Hogan and Nash having a drink with Torrie and another woman, and some other worthless stuff that they would also reshow on Thunder and Saturday Night. Nash had given up on the first hour of Nitro it seems. So do I Line of the week : "Hak, you don't sweat much for a fat guy." Raven, "putting over" his opponent to build the PPV. Nothing much happening this week really. The build to Unsencored has been decent (Jericho vs Saturn - Tag team title match - Hardcore triangle match) to bad (Hogan vs Flair totally deriving from the issue at hand to an untimely half-ass Flair heel turn and shitloads of boring nWo vignettes). On paper Uncensored is actually looking quite decent save for Vincent vs Stevie Ray (yes, it is happening). The cruiserweight title seems more like an aftertought though at this point since the beginning of the year and the end of the lWo. Kidman just isn't feuding with anyone. Scott Hall hasn't been seen on TV for weeks, so the build to his match with Booker T is inexistent (Booker has been paired up with Scott Steiner on TV). Sting hasn't come back yet. DDP is "injured". Bret is in limbo. The nWo is all over the place but it is really tepid at this point. Only Steiner is fresh, and he really doesn't need to be in the nWo. Rick Steiner has been pretty bad, and Bagwell looks rusty and not near as good as he was pre-injury. Things, overall, don't look too good...

Apparently he also sucked at being an agent.

RVD

No. Bret vs Benoit from the same time period is excellent, maybe better than the infamous Owen Tribute match, he also carried Booker T to one of his best matches so far. Flair vs Goldberg was quite interesting and actually quite good too I thought.

Interesting back to back Bret Hart and Ric Flair matches against the same opponents on Thunder : Disco Inferno. It shows how different their philosophy of working was. Bret Hart vs Disco Inferno happened just after Bret did the job to Booker T on Nitro. The match with Disco was pretty much a rpolongued squash, with Bret taking Disco appart and not giving him a lot of offense. The execution was perfect, and there was a distinct feel of ranking through the match : Bret is a much better wrestler than Disco and much higher on teh totem pole. Him taking his time to take Disco down very deliberately really showed how much he was rebuilding himself after a loss. Was the match entertaining ? Not very much. Did it make sense ? Absolutely, on pretty much every level. Ric Flair vs Disco Inferno happened just before Flair was going to meet Hogan at Uncensored, in a match where he would have to retire if he lost, and get full-time control of WCW and the World title if he won. You'd think Flair would be ultra-intense because of the upcoming match which should be the most important of his life and destroy Disco ? Nope. Flair worked a routine competitive Flair match, complete with every Flair spot you expect from him, which really negates any ideas of ranking. If he has that much trouble with Disco how can he hope to beat Hogan ? He gave Disco tons of offense, got put into his own figure-four despite the fact Disco sucked at it. The execution was also pretty shoddy, as Flair looked old at this point. Was it an entertaining match ? Well, if you're not tired of the Flair routine by the number, yes, especially since it was pretty much back and forth. But it was a Flair routine match that wasn't any different from any other Flair routine match, with no sense of urgency nor a clear feel of Flair being on another level than Disco. Did it make sense ? Absolutely not, on pretty much every level. So there you have it, Flair worked an "entertaining" competitive match which didn't make sense nor in the context nor in term of rankings, while Bret worked a much more dry match which totally made sense both in context and in term of ranking. I would rather watch the Flair match because of his character and the back and forth nature of the match, but watching it I couldn't get into it at all because it appeared to me that it was a pretty stupid watch when you think of it, and not worked very well in term of execution either. In the end, neither were compelling matches, I will keep neither on my hard drive and despite Bret's being not as entertaining on the surface, he was clearly right to work the match the way he did while Flair was goofy doing what he did with Disco three days before a major PPV.

I loved the New Foundation back then. If only for their ridiculous look. Last time I re-watched NF vs Orient Express from RR 92, it had aged really well.

Well, if anthing she's got a good sense of humour...

I'm not arguing, just saying what I think is in Dave & Alvarez' minds.

WEEK 9 (March 01 to 06, 1999) Match of the week : Bret Hart vs Chris Benoit (Nitro). It may very well be better than the infamous Owen Tribute match, because it had the dynamic of Bret being the heel here. Of course the match is hampered by the fact it doesn't really have a finish, but damn what builds toward that non finish is excellent, probably the best wrestling I've seen thus far. Say whatyou want about Bret, but this is the crispest work I've seen all year. Worker of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. He works yet another giant killer match on Nitro against Bam Bam Bigelow, and it's very good, and works a classic cruiserweight match against Juventud Guerrera on Staurday night, and it's excellent. Shows the great versatility of Rey in a 5 days stretch. Promo of the week : Arn Anderson sermoning David Flair. Classic serious Arn, who refers to Torrie Wilson as "that" while she's in standing next to him. Obnoxious promo of the week : Jim Duggan coming back from cancer is great. Jim Duggan praying in the ring, cutting a passive-agressive promo about him not going to change and not doing obscene gestures and not getting tatoos/piercing and waving the flag of the greatest country in the world isn't great. Comes off holyer than thou and very obnoxious to me. Reminds me why I've always hated his character. So yeah. It's awesome that he beat cancer. Doesn't mean I have to hear him wax poetics about religion on a pro-wrestling show. Funniest match of the week : The Cat vs Jerry Flynn (Nitro). There it is, The Cat has got his James Brown music, and he's gonna whoop somebody. Cool stiff martial arts match with Jerry Flynn, with the intervention of Sonny Oono, leading to a handicap match at Uncensored. The Cat is a pretty fun character and has developped into a fun worker to watch too if put against a guy who knows what he's supposed to do. B-show feud of the week : Barbarian vs Meng (Saturday Night). Of course this is a rehash of the feud of the previous year, but hey, I can take Barbie and Meng hitting each other hard every week. This was again a pretty good week actually. Ric Flair is hinting a subtle heel turn, as he doesn't give a shit about his son's double-cross and is only concerned about beating Hulk for the title, much to Arn's disapointment. It wasn't the right route to go, Flair had just won the company from Bischoff two months before and was the ultimate figurehead babyface. Goldberg is still not put back into the main event mix, he's feuding with Scott Steiner on TV, which elevates Steiner's status more than it downgrades Goldie's. Rick Steiner is back and already looks sloppy as shit. Not glad to see him clutter the higher mid-card. Buff Bagwell is back working too, looking buffed (pun intented) as all hell, and looking okay thus far.

Randy Orton is a star to the WWE audience. Mark Henry isn't. I guess it comes down to that in their mind, no matter how bad Orton would be in that spot.

Sex tape anyone ?

The problem with Tammy is that she cried wolf too many times now. She admited to having lied her ass off in every interview she did. Why would anyone believe her now ? So : _she is lying, and she kinda deserves to be dropped for bashing the WWE who aren't obligated to take care of her (for all the fuck ups, guys like Roberts & Hall haven't bashed the WWE while being taken care of). _she's telling the truth, and she fucked herself by being a pathological lyer in the past, as nobody will believe her this time around. I mean, that's the problem when you are labelled as a lyer. And I know the issue, as I have dealt with people like that. After a while, you give them the benefit of the doubt for so long until you reach the point of just not believing a word they say. Tammy has reached that point sadly. She sure needs help, and hopefully she find it somewhere, and I don't mean religion either.

Yep. Probably his best performance ever. I like Disco quite a bit.

If this was 1999, Russo would actually get Kendra Lust signed to work an angle with Cena.

Kendra Lust ‏@KendraLust Be sure to tune into Monday Raw u may see myself and @RachelStarrxxx in the front row Ah ! Hilarious.

And that sounds like a pretty smart worker to me.