El-P

Yeah. Kanyon's bump into the pool cracks me up every time. I think I remember Chastity sucking on a lollipop and the announcers making some joke out of it. It's too bad Raven left WCW, he was so much fun there, and really never was the same afterward, as ECW was pretty much dying and WWF never understood the character (and Vince hated him anyway : "Who the fuck hired Raven ??").

I don't see the strict separation between "two RVD" in ECW. The thing is, RVD hadn't developped his biggest signature spots nor his routine earlier on, but that doesn't mean he was a better wrestler. He was fresher in a sense that it seems he would throw out more random stuff and was less predictable. He was a totally chaotic worker doing some really bizarre looking spots with no ryhme or reason whatsoever, and it could be fun to watch in a spectacular trainwreck kind of way (like the Sabu matches, which I enjoy because of Sabu). One thing I agree with Dylan is that he was better on defense, which makes sense because he could be a great bumper and his offense looks like contrived shit most of the time (the guy is unable to throw a simple punch worth a damn). Once he found his routine he quickly got unbearable, because despite being spectacular athleticaly, he's just a shitty worker with an annoying character. So yeah, RVD was always bad. He's someone I really would be happy to never watch a match again. Jerry Lynn and Tracey Smothers gets major proprs from me for making me care about a RVD match at a point watching him was pretty much a complete drag (although Lynn did it while cattering to RVD's worst instinct and pushed them to their limits, while Tracey used his classic veteran skills)

Damn, of course. I always forget these guys were in the WWF in 98. But that's because my brain wants to forget about it. TAKA vs Rey, vs Eddie, vs Juvy. Same for Togo... Argh !!

Me too. And would probably not have died either. Main guys I would have liked to see in WCW instead of WWF during this period were Owen, Snow and Scorpio.

I'm pretty sure there is still yet to come a PPV match between Terry Funk and Norman Smiley with Ralphus, where Tony absolutely loses it by the end. If you haven't seen it... well, you'll enjoy that. It's a classic. Sounds good to me. Especially since Terry Funk vs Norman Smiley already sounds damn fun to me. (BTW, thanks for all the kind words, people)

I haven't watched WCW 96/97 in years, so no, I don't have a list of matches in mind (plus I really don't keep records anymore). I'm not saying he was having excellent matches weekly in WCW, he was *fun* and *solid* at best, but he sure wasn't a bad worker like say, Curt Hennig was in 1998. Of course probably none of his matches there would make a top 100 WCW list. Neither would any Disco Inferno match. Doesn't mean that Disco was bad.

I disagree. Hall had plenty of good matches in WCW, tags or single. And he was a good worker, much better than he was ever given credit for. The ladder matches with Shawn are as much his work as Shawn's to me, especially the second one. Was he past his prime in WCW and was he lazier here than he was in WWF ? Absolutely. Hall was also 38 in 1996. But the "Hall sucked in WCW" talking point is a myth to me. His ladder match with Bam Bam on January 25 1999 was quite good, and he worked hard at making it good. Hell, he worked hard to try and make Piper look half-decent, which was a lost cause to begin with. Hall gets a bad rep because of the hate for the nWo, but his work in WCW, although not as good as his WWF work, doesn't deserve that kind of bashing to me. The "Hall does the job but still makes people look bad" stuff is vastly overstated too. To be honest it never struck me at all. Hall was big on comedy goofying when he worked as a heel in WCW, and he was fun at it.

The stuff with Cactus was worthless. Scorpio/Bagwell was a good team who could get a decent match out of pretty much anyone (Scorp ruled). Plus Canterbury was a decent worker. Knight was the shits, always had been, never improved one bit.

I'm glad I'm not alone thinking Dennis Knight was a worthless worker. He may very well have been a hilarious guy to be around, but he was shit in the ring, from the first day I saw him as Tex Slazenger to his Naked Mideon days. Complete shit worker.

That's a good call too. Also, he wasn't really *over* by himself. He was over the day he figured he would come to the ring with a dozen strippers in thongs. I don't consider that being *over*. That's the Lance Storm syndrom : you don't get over by yourself, add a slutty looking girl at your side to hide that fact and get some reaction. Dawn Marie and Major Gunns represent.

I don't always include spoilers.

Hum... "including a Booker T vs Bret Hart which saw no TV celebrity and a clean finish (although it did get interrupted by a Disco Inferno backstage skits which was infuriating). They really have no idea what to do with Hart again after a few months of being Hogan's pal. Poor guy."

Going through WCW 93/94, Maxx Payne was a huge disapointment. For whatever reason was under the impression the guy was a decent worker. Not exactly. He couldn't have a good match with Dustin Rhodes in 1993, that says it all. I agree the character was fun though, and he was pretty decent on promo too. And yeah, the Badd Blaster in the face would be the highlight of his career. Wait, actually, him bashing the Nasty Boys with the guitar at the end of Nasties vs Sullivan/Cactus was the highlight of his career. He had the athletic ability (legit college wrestler, no wonder he was recruited by Bill Watts), but he never put it together. I also enjoyed him almost killing the Nasties Steienr-style at Superbrawl. Maybe with some time he would have developped into a decent worker, but as it is, the guy really wasn't good. The brawl with the Nasties was fun and all, but he really played the third Nasty in it in term of talent, and it's no surprise to me that once you replaced him with Sullivan the same match got a lot better. And no, his "documentary" was never released in any shape or form. I'm surprised it didn't pop out somewhere though.

WEEK 8 : (February 22 to 27, 1999) Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Kevin Nash (Nitro). I'll say some good things about Nash for a change. For all the deserved shit he got for being a manipulator and a terrible booker, he doesn't strike me as a selfish worker, and this demonstrate it. Also, he happens to have a few good ideas. So, Rey has lost his mask and he wants revenge on Nash. Nash laughs it off, accept the challenge and... gets beat. And it's not like he slip on a banana peel, Rey countered the jacknife and beat him. Nash's selling of the loss was great, he had a completely shocked facial while Rey was celebrating. So, although the deal about losing the mask was beyond stupid, I think Nash was not trying to bury Rey. Rey lost his mask in a tag match in which he got a visual pinfall on Nash and got cheated by Hall. Then he beat Nash clean on Nitro the very next day. Plus Rey said something interesting in the pre-match promo, that "the mask doesn't even matter anymore", which was kinda smart in a way to make people forgot that Rey had lost it, now the big deal was Rey beating Nash. And the match was actually very good, with Nash bumping really well for Rey. The last thing that really shows me Nash had no bad intention as a booker is that they re-showed the entire match on Thunder, which is something they usually never do. And they re-showed it on Saturday Night too. All in all, what comes out of this is that Rey losing his mask wasn't such a big deal, but Rey pinning Nash on Nitro was a huge deal. (of course they should have kept on pushing Rey, but... that's another matter) Promo of the week : Scott Steiner (Nitro) : Man, did he buried and made fun of DDP here, talking about getting his wife for 30 days (which was a lie) and her calling him Big Bad Booty Daddy. And then he calls out Goldberg, which got a big time reaction. WCW had all in the palm of their hands here. Steiner vs Goldberg seemed so much promising and fresh than rehashing Flair vs Hogan. But Steiner was just a midcarder sadly to the eyes of Bischoff & Co, while the audience already accepted him like a major top of the card heel. Hardcore match of the week : Hak vs Damian (Thunder) : Hey, it took Hak to get a fun Damian match in WCW. Until then he was basically treated as a jobber. Tenay was nice enough to mentionned his FMW past too (well, he didn't say FMW but you get the idea). Funniest moment of the week : Bobby Heenan cracking jokes after jokes about Ralphus in a dress, and Tony Schiavone just being unable to keep it straight. (Nitro). Once he saw Tony was beginning to seriously laugh, Bobby just wouldn't stop at all. Really funny stuff. The match was Chris Jericho vs Hugh Morrus, and it was quite decent too, a rare opportunity for Hugh Morrus to be featured in something else than a squash. Honorable mention of the week : Juventud Guerrera vs Blitzkrieg (Thunder) : Blitzkreig sure gets over with the crowd while doing jobs to Rey and Juvy. He was a spot machine, but damn was he smooth and explosive. Juvy gives him a very strong match which looked like a struggle, with lot of nearfalls. They may have had something with this guy. The more I watch him, the more his outfit look cheap though. And he came down to the ring with the Hollywood Blond music, which by this time had been used by a tons of JTTS including Marty Jannetty. Lack of production here. Random match of the week : Mike Enos vs Jerry Flynn (Nitro) : This is why I still love WCW. Enos had quite the enjoyable stint as a bad ass babyface in 1999, and Flynn put in against the right worker could produce some fun little stiff matches. This is one of them. Comeback-I-don't-care-for of the week : Rick Steiner showing up at the end of Scott Steiner vs Goldberg. Uh.... I didn't miss him. With the exception of a rotten nWo comedy vignette with Hogan as Flair, Nash as Arn, Hall as Piper and David Flair in the middle of it, Nitro was actually pretty good this week, with lot of fine matches, including a Booker T vs Bret Hart which saw no TV celebrity and a clean finish (although it did get interrupted by a Disco Inferno backstage skits which was infuriating). They really have no idea what to do with Hart again after a few months of being Hogan's pal. Poor guy. Raven finally came back with his "sister" Chastity at his side, which is great.

And since I have a Disciple match running in the corner of my computer screen, well Ed Leslie is a good candidate too. What a shitty worker. His best years probably came during the Dream Team era, and that was 99,99% Valentine.

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

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

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

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

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

Bam Bam was all over Superstars from 92 to 95.

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

That almost gives me the urge to check it out !

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

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