El-P

I never got all of that. WCW was too subtle for me I guess. That said, there was no reason for Liz to be concerned about Savage after spending the year with Flair and fucking with his money. Oh well. Liz looked great at the time so more TV time for her was good.

Didn't it led to a Outsiders vs Nasty Boys vs Faces of Fear match where Saggs got injured and had to retire ? If the injury never had happened, I do think the Nasties would have had more stuff to do with the whole angle. I'm kinda glad they didn't though (although I'm not saying Saggs getting injured was a good thing). Why was Liz staying with Hogan and the nWo anyway ? I never quite got the whole thing, in one way or another (she spent the previous months fucking with Savage anyway). Then when Savage came back, Hogan "gave" her away to Savage again, and everything is fine and everyone gets together. Nothing made much sense there.

Cena may be the closest thing to Austin, Rock or Hogan the WWE ever had, but Orton as a "superstar" is laughable. Plus this match has happened more time at this point than Hogan vs Flair in WCW by 1999. It's played out to death.

I agree, things should be a bit sloppy and disorganized if it's supposed to be chaotic. That's what has been missing from wrestling in the last decade. Plus the fact that they wouldn't let the Giant talk isn't much of a big deal when you know how long it would be before the Giant would quit the nWo because he got frustrated by Hogan and the Outsiders getting more than him. Tremedous angle to me.

She wasn't that bad I agree. She wasn't that good either. She does porn now. How the mighties have fallen.

Watching WCW from January 1998 : _the Steiner heel turn was actually quite good, as they were very patient with it, having Scott refusing to tag his brothers for no reason and stay in the ring by himself to win matches, and it grows and grows to the point of big frustration for everyone involved. I like the fact that it was about Steiner slowly developping a big ego but still beating the shit out of the nWo, there was no sudden reason out of nowhere. The funny thing is the rather homoerotical aspect of his connection with Buff, both love to show off their biceps to each others. I remember the actual brother vs brother feud was rotten, but the build to the heel turn is quite good. _cool to see Rick Martel with an old-school style getting pushed right away. It was refreshing. _cool to see Marty Jannetty having good matches with everyone, including a very good one with Malenko and two fun ones with Raven. He was a JTTS, but he delivered. Too bad he wasn't pushed into the TV title picture _Booker T's work doesn't hold up at all. The guy is incredibly limited thus far, every match looks the same as far as what he does. And he's sloppy as hell with his kicks, giving Martel a concussion ith his Harlem Hangover. I always thought he was being overrated as a worker, but I wasn't prepared to see him look as mediocre as he was. He can thank Martel and Saturn for giving him good matches. _The world title booking is a huge mess, they seemed embarrassed themselves that they fucked it up at Starrcade. Only interesting thing in the main event picture was Randy Savage being the loose screw of the nWo. His work was intense too, despite being programmed with Luger, who at this point was cruising. _Amazingly random guys showing up like Black Cat from NJ, which gives us Black Cat vs Marty Jannetty on Nitro. Or Steiners & Ray Traylor vs Black Cat, Gedo & Michiyoshi Ohara. Yes. I loved WCW for those. So WAResque. _Louie Spicolli as Scott Hall little suck-up was funny. _Bret Hart was handled so poorly it's mind-blowing. Dull "feud" with Flair, built by dull interviews and Flair attacking Jim Neidhart. Granted, their match was very good, as good as Flair vs Bret would have been in 1998. But then, Bret just goes "Flair, you'll always be the Man", now I'll wait to get into the title picture." yawn. _The British Bulldog looks like complete crap. Oh my God, really terrible. _Chris Jericho is developping his character, whines, bitch, make hypocritical apologies each week, hurt Rey Mysterio Jr. Great stuff. _DDP was getting soft in term of character (compared 96-early97), too much "I'm the people's champion". But man, was he over like crazy. You don't deny being over like that. _Goldberg was getting a streak going, although there's no "Who's next", smoke or count yet. And squashing people like Mark Starr and Jim Powers isn't exactly the most impressive stuff. Still, it was obvious this guy was going to be something already, the people started to notice him and by the end of the month, they pop like crazy for his moves. _Tons of Super Calo, Juvy, Lizmark Jr., Psychosis, Silver King on my TV, which was cool damnit. _Souled Out was a very good PPV in terms of matches. Hall vs Zbyszko sucked, and the Dusty heel turn was useless, and Nash vs Giant ended up by Nash ganso-bombing Giant, but outside of that, really good PPV, much better than anything the WWF could put on at the same time. And a lot of diversity too, which was why these WCW undercards were so fun. A "lucha" match, a brawl (Raven vs Benoit), a classic heel vs injured face match (Jericho vs Rey), a tag match with a twist (Steiners & Ray Traylor vs Bagwell, Norton & Konnan), a face vs face title match (Booker vs Martel), a dream match (Flair vs Bret), a grudge match, angle driven (Lex vs Savage). It felt minor because there was no world title nor US title match, but the work was mostly excellent. _Thunder looked like a bad idea from the get-go, the first two shows really deliver nothing special. Add to that a third hour for the last Nitro of the month, and you get to the point of overexposure, filling the time with matches like Konnan vs Jerry Flynn, Hacksaw Duggan vs Meng, and boring interviews with JJ Dillon, Ray Traylor, and more nWo (always the same, Nash, Hall, and the obligatory boring Hogan promo each week).

I hold judgment until I see the Kai vs Chiggy matches (if I ever do), but from what I've seen, Malenko smokes Kai. Hokuto vs Rumi from late 93 for the All Pacific (I think title) is an excellent match that felt special, especially when you realize it's Rumi here.

I knew someone would brought up those Chiggy matches, which I haven't seen, but on paper it doesn't tell me much, as having an excellent match with Chiggy in her prime is like having an excellent match with Hokuto in her prime, something Rumi Kazama was able to have so...

The very smart move was to have Bischoff take that great bump just a few minutes after they answered clearly that they didn't work for the WWF. That awkward part of the angle was just brushed away by Bischoff getting powerbombed into oblivion. Great stuff.

I have seen very few of Kai in her peak, but she never seemed that good to me. The best american female worker I've seen is Debbie Malenko, by a wide margin.

Best WWE female worker is such a backhanded compliment to begin with. But quite frankly, the infamous Trish vs Mickie WM match was much better than any Alundra Blayze match that wasn't about her getting killed by Bull. And even then, I think Trish vs Mickie was much more interesting as a match. I'm not sure I would call Madusa a *good* worker anyway, never been impressed by her japanese work, and her US stuff isn't exactly stellar despite working with Bull and Hokuto. And Moolah's trainees were all vastly inferior to anyone trained in Japan, Moolah's style really sucks. So, yeah, Trish being the best woman worker in WWE history isn't very far fetched (I don't include the Jumping Bomb Angels, of course, who were outsiders). But it's not like it means much in the grand scheme of things. She worked a style that was good for what it was in the WWE setting. I would have been very curious to see her tour Japan a bit, just to see if she was any better than Cheerleader Melissa or Bionic J (who worked ARSION tours in 2002 or so). I think she would have done ok but would have also been exposed as a much lesser worker than she was pimped to be.

I forgot about the last one, but hey, that's true, that rumour was coming back regularly. Ah, to be 22 again...

That's one of the many reasons I can't watch the current product. I thought I would watch the Rumble just to get an idea of all the faces in WWE, but in the end I didn't even download it.

As a sumo fan, I thought it was godawful. I have nothing against him turning pro-wrestler obviously, but this fake-ass shit "sumo" match was eye-gouging to me.

I think the New Blackjacks are back actually... Plus Barry really looks like his father now.

What you said. It's funny that the only "exciting" stuff in WWE these days seems to be : Kevin Nash and Booker T showing up at the Rumble. Jerry Lawler probably getting a match at Mania. Speculation about Sting showing up in WWE. Well, that's the vibe I get as someone who doesn't watch the product but kinda follows what happens.

It's Seven.

I always enjoyed Disco as a worker and a character, and he really got a lot of milleage of what was a pure comedy gimmick at first. Good match there, and Disco best up to that point.

Yeah, I do like this match a lot, although I thought Dean wasn't at his best against Rey and grounded him too much at times. But yeah, Rey was allowed to shine by doing *his* stuff and got himself over like crazy. This is what was great about WCW, they let their guys do their own stuff, and this created an interesting mix and diversity. The opposite of the modern WWE philosophy.

The end of Yoko meaning anything anywhere sadly.

I remember that match. Man, Lawler could be hilarious. I wish he was used more back then.

I don't think so since she was pretty much on TV every week in late 96, only in useless roles.

It's kinda surrealistic to watch Angle in ECW 3 years before he debuted. The Taz confrontation is quite great too : "You maybe a great amateur.... but I'm a great professionnal". Taz could be so great at times.

Devil has been forgotten and overlooked after years of bitching about no-selling, not jobbing to the younger girls and the Super Heel in the late 90's. But Devil was an awesome wrestler all around, one of the best I've seen, no matter the era, territory or gender.

Awfully boring match. Taker really wasn't much of a worker at all yet, or just wouldn't work past the dead-man gimmick just yet.