El-P

Oh no ! Candido is the only fun part of SMW left at this point.

Yep, another great offensive promo from New Jack. But after the first few matches between the two teams, I have to say I already don't care anymore about that feud. Gangstas aren't good in the ring, and it ends up being another feud that doesn't deliver as far as matches go.

Interesting point. And really, since the beginning of SMW, Robert Gibson does look like he's around for the ride. Decent little brawl, but the Gangstas just don't do it for me in SMW either after all. Still fun promos from New Jack.

And there you go. New Jack cuts a great promo, but in the ring the Gangstas are pretty much greenhorns with no much talent to showcase. Nothing match, boring beatdown. I feel I won't enjoy the SMW Gangstas much more than I did the ECW ones.

That's pretty glorious.

Funny you should drop Brad's name here, as to me he's the perfect exemple of underwhelming as all hell. He's got more babyface fire and charisma than Taylor, but his matches often (I'd say 90% of the time, and I watch shitloads of Brad Armstrong lately) are quite bland because his work never gets past a rather pedestrian babyface formula. The Vader squash is the best thing I've seen Arsmtrong involved in because Vader and the very short time prevented him from working that way, but usually Brad is always a disapointment to me to the point I don't subscribe to the "underrated" or "underpushed" talking point anymore. What has been said at the time of his death explains a lot though, he just didn't care about performing at a higher level because he was happy just doing his work. Taylor was a total natural heel, and he has said in interviews he loved working as a heel and not much as a face, which is telling also. I can't figure who's worse between Knobbs and Vampiro. What I've seen from Knobbs lately has been both embarrassingly bad and pretty dangerous. Vampiro was just embarrassingly bad so I would go for Vamp ahead of Knobbs. Both are at the very bottom of the barrel anyway.

Ok, I didn't say anything. Inoki's just batshit insane.

Agreed. The York Foundation was my favourite part of WCW all year long.

Well, before the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was a "good guy". Inoki's totally insane anyway.

I'll never get the Terry Taylor hate. Yes, he's rather dull as a babyface, but he's solid as hell nonetheless. And he's tons of fun as a heel. I like Jarrett quite a bit too, although obviously once he was pushed to main event by Russo with a horrible gimmick and a horrible finisher, things got awry. Jarrett as a Memphis style heel like he worked with Michaels in 1995 would have been the best way to go. Wait, this is a negativity thread. Can't think of anyone right now. I've became too much a positive wrestling fan I guess.......

Horribly boring match. The Birds were pretty awful at this point.

Man I think that Eddie match is overrated as fuck. I'm not saying it's a bad match, but it sort of reminds me of the Bret match from Souled Out 98 in that it's two guys who are all time greats and it goes pretty long so you expect it to be something special and while it's not bad it's just really there. Maybe I should watch it again Having watched the Bret match a few years back, this is a something I find perfectly good. But I didn't expect anything special at this point from Flair either, so maybe that's why I'm happy with the match as it is. On the Eddie match, it's a totally different story, to me it looked like a style clash and big time generation gap between two workers who just can't work well together. Flair is doing old man Flair stuff (meaning : same Flair spots he was always doing, only in a slower, less athletical way) while Eddie was drenched into his own Japanese/Lucha-infused cruiserweight style, and it just didn't click at all. I guess both would be to blame here, although it's obvious at this point Eddie was a pretty terrfic worker while Flair was simply a "fun veteran". And they didn't find a way to make it work together. I would guess Eddie later in his career would have found a way. I think anyone expecting automatic great matches from Flair after 1993/4 just because he's Flair is fooling himself. I remember mostly really enjoying Flair in 1996, but by no mean he was a great worker anymore at this point. I'm eager to revisit that period for many different reasons, but I would be surprised if my opinion on Flair would change much.

Edge says hello.

That reminds me the Shining Wizard craze in the early 00's. That move was all over the place, a sign of Mutoh's incredible popularity at this point when he reinvented himself.

Yeah, but I love Dick Murdoch.

Both are great fucking wrestlers. If you don't love both your are wrong at some point.

Hey, I still like Muto, although he can be the most infuriating wrestler ever too. I second the hate for the McMahons as in-ring performers. Shane was doing retarded stunt shows that would get him ridiculous praise despite raising the bar to absurd level in term of dangerous spots, coming from a guy who wasn't working more than a few PPv's a year. His match with Angle is one of the stupidest match ever. And Vince, oh Vince. I get the performance side of his character, but at some point you'd have to deliver some actual moves, even punches for god's sake, who don't look like complete fake shit. Yep, the McMahons becoming in-ring performers were a big time turn-off to me. To the point I really did turn off the TV. Dick Slater post Mid-South. I liked him a lot in Mid-South, everything I can think that he did after that stint I really don't care for. Jake Roberts. Now don't get me wrong, I love Jake as a character, I love Jake's promos. But really the guy doesn't deliver in the ring and his matches are always a big disapointement to me. He was awesome at doing the little things, but the problem is that he was only doing the little things, making the big picture seem minor and dull. Another one who peaked in Mid-South, and never delivered much afterward to me inside the ring. Mark Henry. Average monster guy. Not that I dislike him, but I just think he's been insanely overrated over the last few years, never saw anything from him that would make me go "oh, he's damn good". Am I banned ? Yumiko Hotta. I know I mentionned her already, but she's worth being mentionned again. Selfish piece of crap with an inflated ego who was giving shit and taking everything. Plus she was careless with her opponents, to the point of being dangerous or/and downright mean. I canno't forget that kick to the side of Plum Mariko's head. Fuck you Hotta. The Fabulous Ones. Steve Keirn can kill any interest I have in a match like no one else. What a chore to watch. He even managed to drag Bobby Eaton down. Anyway, I guess it's not fair to Lane, but I don't think I ever saw a Ones match that didn't bore me.

Randy Orton is a black hole to me, and pretty much everything I hate about WWE's modern style, including look and pre-progammed maneurisms.

From my ECW watch a few years ago : Spike Dudley. Balls Mahoney and RVD aren't too far behind. From my current SMW & WCW watch : Jimmy Golden. BORING, DULL, SLEEP INDUCING, UNINTERESTING, ZZZZZZZZZ Add Yumiko Hotta too. Yeah, Bad News was a good promo and looked like shit in the ring. Like Stevie Ray level of shit.

Starrcade really didn't feel like a major show at all. Really, GAB and Halloween Havoc were the big time shows in 1994. That doesn't change the fact that having Brutus Beefcake in the main event was a huge slap to WCW fans and workers. A guy with no talent, who hasn't been relevant in... well was never relevant but at least over during his late 80's midcard WWF stint, with no promo ability, who wasn't over in the least with WCW crowd, put into a main event, whatever the show, was a complete joke on par with David Arquette, if not worse actually because at this point you already had non wrestlers work matches all over the place. A total travesty, a joke of a match, a joke of a booking, and an epic fail as it felt like a throw away Saturday Night match. Hogan also showed how much of an asshole he was as earlier on the show, "Hulkamaniac" brother Dave Sullivan was beaten down merciless by his brother after Jimmy Hart encouraged him to interfere into Kevin's match, and no one comes to defend him. Way to go Hogan. He did show up to defend Sting later on, but Sting is a star, so you know Hogan was full of shit in kayfabe too, only caring for the big names and not for the weak. teh announcing is also considerably suffering, as Heenan in particular is at point unbearable overselling shit like the Butcher and making jokes without caring for the in-ring product. Schiavone is not the same anymore as you can feel he's not enjoying himself a lot of the time, and has zero chemistry with the Brain. Anyway. I thought Hogan's arrival was gonna be bad, I didn't think it would get that bad that quick actually. The company took a huge nosedive during that year, despite an already pretty shitty 1993 overall. I wasn't that hot about the first 6 months of 1994 eithet, although it was way better than most of 93, but a few weeks after Hogan shows up the company jumps off a cliff in term of content. Sad to watch, even in retrospect. The final picture of Starrcade, with Hogan and Savage together really pointed the finger toward what Bischoff wanted for WCW : to be the WWF in 1988. Ultimately the company would regain an identity with Nitro and the whole undercard of cruiserweights, luchadors, japanese wresters, the likes of Raven and the nWo, but for now, WCW was washed out.

I mentionned in another thread that I would most probably never revisit WWE 00's, but if I make one exception to this, it might be to take a look at WWECW. I'm intrigued about several things that have been pimped over the years, Flair as "The American Onita" being one (and being a big Onita fan, I'm scratching my head at this very notion to be honest).

That's true. Still, I always get a kick out of listening to Lance Storm explain what should and shouldn't be done, including talking about cutting promos.

Seriously ? Well, he's the best athlete in WWF history so that has to count for something.

Youth movement in WCW on PPV. Nice. both showed potential, but the match went way too long (eh !). But the one thing that strikes me rewatching this, is that Levesque (who is announced from Saint-Pierre L'Eglise, in Normandie, I guess it's fairly exotic) in this gimmick looks exactly like... oh man, the high boots, the hairstyle, he's FUCKING FRANCIS LALANNE !!! Oh man I'll never be able to watch HHH the same way again !! I can picture him crying on a booking commitee because he doesn't want to do a job or something : "Hey you ! Rond-de-cuir bookers ! There are plenty young workers like me who can work and you want them to do jobs, while you can't work yourself !!" (I realize I'm entertaining only myself here, but what the hell, this totally stroke me watching this match. And made me laugh to no end too.)