El-P

I agree on what you say about Bret's promos. But Bret coming from WWF after getting screwed was the easiest guy to book in the world at this point, he was red hot, he had been fucked by "the other company". WCW needed some fresh blood on top and Bret was perfect. A feud with Hogan could write itself. Really, WCW was just totally incompetent with Bret, not to mention people who just didn't want to do business with him (how ironic that Flair was the one to put him over in his first match).

Wasn't this the year of the awful Flair interview segment A Flair for the Gold or something ? Agree, Flair wouldn't be a good color man. I would disagree, since what I've seen of his WWE work looks like shit. The infamous WM Taker match is just an embarrassment to watch for a Flair fan like me. As far as WCW goes, I don't know, I don't remember if he was much better in 99 and 2000 than he was in 97. Agree, although Bret didn't help as he was dull as hell during this feud. But Bret's booking in the first months of 1998 is jaw dropping bad, the poor guy had no chance in hell to be anything relevant, it's fascinating how they did nothing with him and how he was settled with albatros like his in-laws (who didn't mean shit in WCW and weren't over at all) and Curt Hennig (not over, washed up, lazy, midcarder). I'm at mid April 98, and it's the first time Bret is featured as a player on Nitro, coming to Sting's aid and kicking the nWo ass by himself, then tagging with Sting against Savage & Nash on Thunder. I don't remember much about what's coming next, but I think it'll fall apart quite quickly with a heel turn or something... Yeah, Waltman was obviously thrilled to work with Flair, it should have been more fun than it was. I remember Flair having a suprisingly good match with Piper in 97.

Come on John, you know Shawn had the "flu" at Royal Rumble... Revisiting this era of Shawn's career is really amazing when you think how many times this guy didn't drop a belt in the ring.

I thought Flair looked older in the ring too from this point on.

Those were the days.

I love how Shane Douglas hooks both legs on Beulah to make the pin. What a douchebag move. I thought it worked really well, typical cool ECW bullshit match with crowd popping spots.

Yeah, it was a work. A very stupid one, but a work nonetheless. In a way it was the perfect work for Hotta since she's an unprofessionnal cunt and a bully so potatoing each other might be the only way to make her look decent. Really closer to the equivalent of Vader vs Cactus Saturday Night matches rather than a UFC fight. She looks even more incompetent in a real shoot than in a shoot-style work, which says a lot. AJW had some bizarre ideas about putting some of the girls in horrible shoot fights. I remember a young Shimoda in a shoot. I wonder what was the point of this. ARSION booked some shoot fight too, some were actually quite fun. I agree shoot fights in a wrestling promotions should get lumped into a Shoot-fight yearbook if that ever occurs, and worked shoot-style matches happening in shoot promotion should appear in wrestling yearbook. Maybe you should send some of these to Dave...

That would take getting some fat guys with actual characters and not cookie cutter well built guys with short tights and crew cuts. It won't happen in the current environment.

Yes it does. First WM I saw was WM 8. I didn't miss one until 15. Then I was gone and only watched WM from the mid-late 00's. Time flies. And really, WM doesn't seem that special anymore despite the settings being much more spectacular than when I used to watch it (the dreaded 90's).

Come on Dan, coming from you who old me once that PRIDE was pro-wrestling.

It's a shame because WCW had an excellent tag team scene in 1996.

Look at me, I'm at home with grandpa. No wonder people shit all over him at Survivor Series and embraced Sid.

Yeah, Luger's career really was boosted by his jump to WCW after a year doing nothing in WWF. Like you said, after the great victory on Nitro and his short title reign though, he crashed down and became dull as hell (despite still being over) and did nothing worthwhile until his "Total Package" heel turn in late 1999 I believe.

Ok, I checked her out, well, it is totally ridiculous, she's a hot woman by any standart.

Maybe Natalya screwed Natalya. But yeah, what Ditch said, the Molly Holly bullshit was ridiculous. I don't know what Natalya looks like, but I have no trouble believing she's perfectly fine looking.

Which is also why it was an awesome promo.

It seems like they don't want stars anymore, they believe the WWE brand is the star. Then Rock shows up on Raw, and you see the difference it makes.

The rush? The fans? The love of the business? You could make the same argument for making movies. The love of the business would require a whole lot of money from Vince to get The Rock back on the road and bumping again after years in Hollywood. Making movies and working WWE is not exactly the same thing. And like Loss said, really, the only new guy he could work with would be Cena. He would dwarf anyone else and make them look like a bunch of jobbers. The only other match I can think of is a Rock vs Taker, but really, who want to see that in 2011 ?

The Rock has zero reasons to work even one match with WWE. He doesn't need the money at all. Returning full-time is not happening.

Great angle and great promos all around. "Goodbye Flash."

Just watched it. Amazing promo, just amazing. He *killed* Cena and had me rolling with the U can't C me part. Always thought it was cheesy as hell. Gotta love how he talked about Austin and himself, but no mention of HHH as an iconic star... Well, I don't know where they will go, but it's obvious The Rock is a much bigger star than anyone on the roster, even Cena who's been head and shoulders abover the rest for years (as much as I know from watching WM only every year). That's kind of a big problem...

Tell me if I'm wrong, but thus far the two most important things at WM seems to be The Rock showing up and 61 year old Jerry lawler vs anouncer Michael Cole. Wow.

Well, that was deserved.

March 98 : _the build to Uncensored was pretty bad, with the focus on Hogan vs Savage and the World title clearly secondary business. Everything that touches the nWo is dull at this point, and it doesn't help that useless, heatless, talentless hacks like Brian Adams and Brutus Beefcake get some TV time. _the Scott Steiner heel turn was good. Too bad they did nothing of note with him. And I don't get why nobody told Steiner that if you can't make a hold look good, you shouldn't use it, as his Steiner Recliner looks like it couldn't hurt a kid. _Nash & Hall show up totally wasted on the Spring Break episode, and get thrown in a 4 feet deep pool by the Giant, resulting in them both hitting the bottom of the pool. _Ric Flair is nowhere to be seen. Hall quickly disappears too. As noted in a semi-shoot comment by Nash on Thunder, Syxx has been fired and Hall is "too dangerous" for TV. _The way they handled Bret is absolutely pathetic. They put him with Curt Hennig who is either the laziest wrestler on the roster at this point or is totally washed up, and they have a match that get showed up by Sting vs Hall on PPV. Bret gets less TV that the Bulldog and Neidhart and when he does, after 4 months in the company, he makes references to Montreal and how he won't let people get screwed like he has been. In the span of a few month, Bret turned from a legit star with ton of heat to a guy working mid-card every now and then with less direction than Chavo Guerrero Jr. Good job. _The Goldberg machine has launched, complete with a bogus number of victory and the infamous "who's next". By the end of the month he's beating guys like Ray Traylor now and he's clearly the most over guy in the company. They're gearing toward him vs Saturn, which was very smart as Saturn could seem like a legit threat and could work within his style. _They're doing a very good job with keeping the undercard fluid and interesting, not going into dull rematch with different stips at every PPV, but shuffling the opponents. Benoit goes from Raven and DDP to a feud with Booker T since he couldn't get the US, he's targetting the TV, and they're doing a good, no bullshit build of the feud with two "10 minutes" (more like 7-8 minutes) draw on Nitro. DDP vs Raven works really well too, and Raven is so hated that he turns Buff Bagwell into a face. In each promos they allude to the fact their mentor is Jake Roberts, without mentionning him by his whole name, I remember he was supposed to come at some point. Jericho "retires" Dean, with the infamous interview where Okerlund tells Malenko he's a loser, then moves toward Prince Iaukea for a transitionnal feud to build him even more. They do a good job giving Iaukea some wins before he even gets into an argument with Jericho. And the great Eddie mentors Chavo storyline begins, with the "Eddie Guerrero is my favourite wrestler / Cheat to won" T-shirt that Chavo is forced to wear. Add a nice push for Juvy in exchange for losing his mask, with a PPV victory over Konnan, and some good matches with Disco and Psychosis as usual. _Oh man, they brought Piper back. Well, he's over and it freshens things for a week or two. But as much as it was fun in 1996, Piper had already overstayed his welcome in 1997, and this reeks of desperation while WWF was getting hotter and hotter. _The tag-team title is dead by this point. _Brian Adams is the worthless addition to the WCW roster. Curt Hennig on my TV = bad heatless match. _The Flock was a good vehicule to establish Saturn and Kidman, who gets over despite never winning a match. _Kaz Hayashi is debuting, I liked how they would bring those random japanse guys. _Not much glamour anymore in WCW at this point, Liz is the only valet/manager left. Like tag-team wrestling, this is something lacking.

Yeah, at the same time WCW was running Hogan vs Warrior which may be the worst major program the promotion ever did until this point. So the fact that über hot Austin was still on TV went unnoticed as far as stupid angle went. More bizarre is the fact that the Vickie stuff is second in the poll.