WCW's Highway to Hell

[El-P]

At this point, people can say what they want about a good booker coming in, but it would have taken YEARS to rebuild WCW to the point of really competing again. They had no one fresh that was ready to move into the main events, so you were pretty much stuck with rotating line-ups of Hogan, Luger, Sting, Sid, Nash, Flair, etc. I guess you could try to build around Goldberg again when he comes back from injury, and maybe try to build a new monster heel while he's out for him to slay on return but I don't think they could have ever got him back to his peak.

In the "Death of WCW shoot interview", from KC, Sullivan explained that his plan was basically to slowly build Sid as a monster champ until the Summer, then he would get beat by a returning Goldberg. Then he would have run with Goldie for the longest time possible, get back to what had gotten him over (not talking, beat people, not lose). And in the meantime try to elevate the best guy on the undercard, and find a monster heel to finally beat Goldberg eventually down the stretch.

 

They only really had Booker T & Scott Steiner left as fresh guys to move up, but they could have had a lot more.

The biggest loss were Jericho, Raven, Eddie & Benoit, who all had fresh main-event potential. Giant was already used up when he left after all the turns back & forth. Scott Steiner I agree should have been elevated, along with Rey Mysterio. Booker T quite frankly I don't see him as a main eventer (and his work certainly doesn't warrant it). Oh, and Jeff Jarrett should *not* have worked in the main event scene. Upper midcard along with Booker was the right place for them.

[goc]

Giant was dead the moment they had him join the nWo after losing the title to Hogan. He could have been the pre-Goldberg version of Golberg, running through all the new scrubs the nWo was picking up like Wallstreet and Big Bubba while Hogan, Hall & Nash desperately avoided him. He could have still been salvaged after his first turn against the nWo but WCW did seemingly everything to ruin what they had with him. I agree that he probably had to leave WCW before he could be a main event threat again, but they never needed it to come to that. The nWo needed a big threat at the end of 1996 a lot more than they needed a new member.

 

As far as Rey goes, I don't think they could have pushed him to the main event without the mask. They would have had to find some way to put it back on him. It worked better in the WWF where he just showed up with the mask again and no one ever talked about it.

[El-P]

As far as Rey goes, I don't think they could have pushed him to the main event without the mask. They would have had to find some way to put it back on him. It worked better in the WWF where he just showed up with the mask again and no one ever talked about it.

Of course. That's the best thing WWE did with Rey, putting the freaking mask back on. WCW could and should have done it anyway. After the long layoff when he was injured, instead of coming back with stupid devil's horns on his head, they should just have Rey make a grand intro with the mask back on. It's not like anyone would have cared since he lost it in a throwaway tag match in early 1999. Rey Mysterio reborn with a super hero aura. WCW made the less out of the most amazing roster ever (although WWF made the less out of the biggest potential angle ever too).

[ButchReedMark]

This is around the point when WCW subjected the UK to one of the worst tours of all time, including one show with a Harris Brothers vs Marmalukes main event in front of 16,000 people.

 

WCW @ Birmingham, England - NEC - March 10, 2000 (11,812; sell out)

Featured an appearance by Bret Hart who thanked the fans for their support and said he wanted to compete but was still recovering from his concussion; included a segment where David Flair came out and danced with the Nitro Girls, with Norman Smiley appearing until David gave him a low blow; the segment finished with Daphne dragging David backstage

Norman Smiley pinned David Flair after dropping an interfering Daphne ontop of Flair

Booker T pinned Fit Finlay

Bam Bam Bigelow pinned the Wall by reversing a back suplex into a splash; after the bout, the Wall hit a chokeslam on Bigelow

Jim Duggan pinned Brian Knobbs in a hardcore match after hitting him with the 2x4 and several chair shots

WCW Tag Team Champions the Mamalukes defeated Ron & Don Harris when Big Vito scored the pin after Ms. Handcock distracted the challengers

Lex Luger defeated Vampiro via submission with the Torture Rack after Elizabeth interfered

Ric Flair defeated Curt Hennig

 

WCW @ London, England - Arena - March 11, 2000 (10,450; sell out)

Norman Smiley defeated Brian Knobbs

Bam Bam Bigelow defeated the Wall

Dustin Rhodes defeated Terry Funk

WCW TV Champion Jim Duggan defeated Fit Finlay

WCW Tag Team Champions Big Vito & Johnny the Bull defeated Ron & Don Harris

Vampiro defeated WCW US Champion Jeff Jarrett via disqualification

Booker T & Curt Hennig defeated Ric Flair & Lex Luger

 

WCW @ Manchester, England - Evening News Arena - March 12, 2000 (16,318; sell out)

Norman Smiley defeated Brian Knobbs

The Wall defeated David Flair

WCW TV Champion Jim Duggan defeated Fit Finlay

Curt Hennig & Vampiro defeated Ric Flair & Lex Luger

Terry Funk defeated Dustin Rhodes

Booker T defeated WCW US Champion Jeff Jarrett via disqualification

WCW Tag Team Champions Big Vito & Johnny the Bull defeated Ron & Don Harris

At one of the shows Bagwell came out at the end and said " You don't get Goldberg and you didn't get Sting, but you've got Buff and he's the stuff". Which went over about as well as you could expect.

[goc]

At one of the shows Bagwell came out at the end and said " You don't get Goldberg and you didn't get Sting, but you've got Buff and he's the stuff". Which went over about as well as you could expect.

That's great.

[El-P]

At one of the shows Bagwell came out at the end and said " You don't get Goldberg and you didn't get Sting, but you've got Buff and he's the stuff". Which went over about as well as you could expect.

That's great.

 

Holy shit.

 

WEEK 62 (March 6 to 11, 2000)

 

Promo of the week : Arn Anderson (Thunder). This was the only really good segment of the week. On Monday David was chokeslammed through two tables by the wall. Of course Ric didn't show up, but Arn and more surprisingly Hennig did (Hennig is feuding with Flair). Later on, during the Hennig vs Flair match, Arn runs in as Luger is breaking Hennig's wrist. Luger is ready to attack Arn from behind, but Flair signals him not to do it. Ok, so now Flair wants Arn to apologize to Luger because his intervention made him look bad, and wants Arn to join Team Package. Arn cuts a great serious promo, talking about their relationship over the years, what bad daddy and husbands they have been, but how Ric could take care of his 21 year old son now that he's on the road with him. Just great Arn stuff. Of course Ric is all hysterical and stuff, doesn't want to be a dad and wants to ride with Luger. Luger acts pretty laid-back and confident, saying either Ric gets with Arn or he stays with Team Package, giving him until Monday to make up his mind. Arn and Luger look good in their own way, while Ric looks like a hysterical bitch, which I guess is the point.

 

Match of the week, I guess : Ric Flair vs Curt Hennig (Nitro). Better than the previous week because they gets more time. Hennig feeds and sell for Ric well, Ric does his usual routine old guy match, being much less intense than he was against Funk, but much better than he is when he works against a younger guy. It's old guy wrestling, it's a watered down version of what they were doing in 1997 which was a watered down version of 1993. Curt looks better than Flair here.

 

Bad angle of the week : Dustin Rhodes brings out barb wire, Terry Funk brings out a chicken in diapers (Nitro). Oh god, this feud is going nowhere fast. No one cares, they cut bad promos and the chicken deal just gets into cheese territory which sucks for a supposedly blood feud.

 

Beatdown of the week : The Wall beats up Bam Bam, David Flair & Crowbar again (Thunder) They sure build up this guy by having him chokeslam people through tables. Bam Bam apologizes to David & Crowbar for what the Wall had done to them, because he's the one who broke him into the business. The Wall shows up and destroys everyone. It's actually pretty well done. Too bad The Wall sucks as a worker, has a terrible look and no charisma.

 

Sex symbol of the week : Miss Hancock (Thunder). Shows up during an Idol vs KISS Demon match. Lane wants to escort her backstage so she doesn't distract the match, but she ends up coming back and kisses Idol. They are building Lane & Idol vs Demon & Norman Smiley. The pervert part of me pictures Norman doing the Big Wiggle on Stacy, which won't happen I guess.

 

Vampiro is having bad matches with Jarrett, so yeah, he isn't that watchable outside of a garbage match environment. He can't cut promos either. So yeah, Saturn was much better all around. The comical part is that they are trying to sell Vamp as a new Sting, comparing his bad 5 minutes match with Flair on Thunder with the 45 mn classic from Clash in 88. Hogan sends video package promos to hype up his match on most shows. Sting has limited dates so he doesn't show up often either. At least Ric Flair & Lex Luger show up. 3-Count had won the hardcore title from Knobbs the previous week, so now they are feuding with him and The Dog. Just awful stuff. Why is Al Green still employed ? Seriously ? They are building Tank Abbott vs Meng. Nothing much happens. This promotion needed a mercy killing at this point, which will soon happen.

[Matt D]

I feel like all of us are just sort of waiting to see who will throw the white flag in first to save this poor bastard.

[goc]

As far as The Wall goes, I thought he'd really improved by the time he showed up in early days TNA as Malice. His look was completely different too. So there you go, some motivation for you to seek out TNA once you're finished with this.

[Johnny Guitar]

As far as The Wall goes, I thought he'd really improved by the time he showed up in early days TNA as Malice. His look was completely different too. So there you go, some motivation for you to seek out TNA once you're finished with this.

I thought so too. I enjoyed the Ladder match with Sabu. El-P should seek that out.

[artDDP]

I think during this time Hogan was only appearing in taped promos because then WCW didn't have to pay him his additional appearance fee.

[Matt D]

As far as The Wall goes, I thought he'd really improved by the time he showed up in early days TNA as Malice. His look was completely different too. So there you go, some motivation for you to seek out TNA once you're finished with this.

Yes, those weekly TNA PPVs are great. Highly Enjoyable. You'll love them. You should watch them all. Then start on GLOW.

[Ditch]

Yes, those weekly TNA PPVs are great. Highly Enjoyable. You'll love them. You should watch them all. Then start on GLOW.

You're a sick man...

[Death From Above]

Juggalo Championship Wrestling should come before either of those.

[El-P]

You're all totally insane.

 

WEEK 63 (March 13 to 18, 2000)

 

Match of the week : Jeff Jarrett vs Booker T (Thunder). This is Booker's best match in eons. For some reason they really click from the get-go. Although I'm not a big fan of Jarrett's tough guy style (he was much better in 95-96 strutting around), he's still a very solid worker who can have really good stuff with a reasonnable quality opposition, and while Booker isn't exactly *good*, he's working hard to make up for it when paired with a good worker. Screwjob finish.

 

Tag-team of the week : Los Fabulosos working against La Parka & Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Villano VI & V (Thunder & Saturday Night). So Silver King & El Dandy are getting a tag team name. Cool. Too bad it's way too late to matter. Plus they still do the job to Chavo on Thunder, but at least we get some really smooth all-action lucha style matches fro these guys. Miss Hancock apparently wants to manage them. That could have been cool if they had been seriously pushed.

 

Last WCW match I've seen of the week : Hulk Hogan & Curt Hennig vs Lex Luger & Ric Flair (Nitro). Yes, this was the last WCW match I had seen back in the days, after a long layoff, I must have been channel surfing or something. I didn't get why Hennig was teaming with Hulk, nor why Flair & Luger were together. I still got this on tape somewhere. This is decent considering who's in the ring, Curt being way better than the other three. Luger bumps like a freak (well, for his age and in-ring talent that is) for everyone, and Liz sporting a great golden dress swings a mean bat to Hogan's leg. More beatdown. On Thunder Flair & Luger would injure Jimmy Hart again and strap his ass, so Hogan would take them on two on one. Hogan's ego was as bad as it ever was again. Just a few weeks after being injured, he doesn't have the cast anymore while everyone else in the company who was injured before him does.

 

Comeback of the week : Hugh Morrus (Thunder). This man wants a push. He works against Vampiro and has a better match with him than anyone else had in the last few weeks. Vamp should only do brawls like this. Hugh does a Cactus Jack elbow to the floor and takes a nasty piggybackdrop through a table. Way too much tables being used these days, with The Wall breaking down table like he's Brian Lee in 96, but that spot was pretty spectacular.

 

The build to the PPV really shifted from Sid & Jarrett toward Hulk & Flair. Creative control. The undercard is all gimmicked up since it's Uncensored. There's a lot of shit that looks bad on paper, like Mamalukes vs Harris Boys, Booker & Kidman vs Harlem Heat, Brian Knobbs vs 3-Count (it could be funny at best, but the Dog is making me fast forward all these segments), Artist vs Psychosis, The Wall vs Bam Bam (I guess). The triple main event of Hogan vs Flair in a strap match, Luger vs Sting in a cast lumberjack match and Sid vs Jeff Jarrett just don't look very good on paper. Maybe Terry Funk vs DUstin Rhodes will end up being the sleeper after all, despite a terrible build. Then again, it will probably be heatless too. This PPV will draw almost two times less that ECW's Living Dangerously that year. That's how dead WCW was.

[cm funk]

The YAPAPI STRAP MATCH is truely one for the ages

[El-P]

PPV 15 : Uncensored 2000

 

Hulk Hogan fucks WCW's corpse in the ass match of the night : Jeff Jarrett vs Sid Vicious. This is watchable for a Sid match, although Jarrett really is using the same routine every damn match at this point. What's amazing with this is that Hogan found a way to interject himself in the match after Sid was KOed by a guitar, Hulks shows up, prevents the crooked referee from countinf Sid down, gets rid of both Harris boys, drops the leg on Jarrett and drags Sid's carcass over Jarrett's. What a piece of shit. I don't even know why Sullivan was even *trying* at this point. His whole plan was to build Sid as a super champ monster for Goldberg, and now he can't even beat Jeff Jarrett clean without having Hogan take all the credit. Sullivan had no chance whatsoever with Hogan and his creative control around.

 

I don't give a shit match of the night : Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair. So Hogan gets a guitar shot from Steiner, who's back, and Flair directly attacks him. He beats up the KOed Hogan for about 30 seconds before Hogan takes control and beats the shit out of Flair for ever until Luger bashes him with a chair. At this point Flair takes over and I thought it could developp into a decent match. But, we have to get the requisite pinfall attempt in a strap match (and when Mark Madden is the voice of reason noticing it shouldn't happen, you know you're deep into it) so Hulk can do his shitty and tired hulk up routine that was annoying by 1985. Then we get Hulk taping three corners, then pinning Flair. Ok, fuck you. You know what, if I ever get to Bash at the Beach, I might actually enjoy Vince Russo's promo on this guys, he was as responsible as anyone, Nash & Russo included, for the death of WCW.

 

Okay, why should I even talk about the rest...

 

Retarded spot of the night : The Wall chokeslamming Crowbar from a scaffold through the stage. Yeah, this is 2000, we're still deeply into this kind of shit to get attention. Sadly, a dying ECW outdraw this PPV so Crowbar died for nothing, again.

 

Amusing spot of the night : Lex Luger being scared of doing his posing routine with all the lumberjacks at ringside. That was pretty funny. Luger is still the best character on this show, and at least he seems to care. His match with Sting is nothing, STing obviously doesn't give a flying fuck anymore. It's all built so that Vampiro ends up the only lumberjack at ringside and helps Sting winning, ending up with the Brothers in Paint (what a fucking idiotic name, this is gonna drive me crazy) hugging. I understand the idea and it was actually a nice try to get Vamp over and give him the rub. Too abd Vamp kinda sucked, and was doing terrible 3rd rate Raven-like promos.

 

Better than expected match of the night : Booker T & Kidman vs Harlem Heat . Yep, that was surprisingly watchable since Kidman bumps well for the two big goofs who can throw him around and look good, hum, watchable, in the process. Booker worked hard too, so in the end it was a lot better than it looked on paper.

 

Heatless brawl of the night : Terry Funk vs Dustin Rhodes. Way too many brawls anyway on this card. This unsurprisingly doesn't get any reaction despite having probably the best execution of all matches that night (thanks to Dustin). It needed some blood too to get over. One problem is that Funk is acting like a heel a lot during those matches, including forcing an "I quit" match on the referee and beating him up. The ridiculous part involved a giant chicken, but the match itself was the most solid of the night.

 

Garbage brawl of the night : Brian Knobbs vs 3-Count . Yes, way too much garbage and brawling spot all over this card. No sign of the Dog, only 3-Count and Brian Knobbs beating the hell out of each others with plunders and 3-Count doing really stupid dives. Knobbs beats the three guys and wins back his title. Take whatever fun you can I guess.

 

Goofy match of the night : XS vs The Demon & Norman Smiley, dressed as another Demon. XS are Lane & Rave (no Idol anymore, no idea why they had to change his name). Not much happening, the highlight is Miss Hancok doing the Big Wiggle to Norman.

 

The Harris Boys won the tag titles. Gawwwwwwwwwwwwd. Artist vs Psychosis was as bad as any other Artist match. Vampiro vs Finlay was decent enough for a third rate Benoit vs Sullivan Bash 96 reenactment, complete with them fighting all over backstage and in the bathrooms. But the PPV was no fun to watch, there was nothing I would call really *good*, and tons of stupid and plain bad stuff. Seriously, when a match involving Harlem Heat 2000 is called "surprisingly good", you know how low the standards have sunk. Mercy killing, now. Oh, almost forgot, Chris Candido showed up during the cruiserweight match, telling the announcers he was gonna be the next champion. It would have been awesome in 1996, when WCW was a hot pro-wrestling promotion.

[artDDP]

It's only going to get much, much worse from here.

[El-P]

WEEK 64 (March 20 to 24)

 

12 Months countdown to the Death of WCW match of the week : Ric Flair vs Sting (Nitro). Almost day for day, one year later, they would have that last WCW match ever on Nitro. The match itself is everything you can guess about Flair vs Sting. Wrestling audiences are like little children, they like to be told the same freaking story over and over again it seems, as it still works for this crowd depsite being the most tired and overdone match in the world at this point. They are raelly giving the rub to Vampiro in all those segemnts, which is good I guess.

 

Whiner of the week : Hulk Hogan (Thunder). After the Sid turn (more later), Scott Steiner cutting a promo on Hogan and Dustin challenging him, Hulk basically complains to Jimmy Hart that everyone is after him. This comes off so whiny and lame. What a terrible babyface Hogan was.

 

Turn of the week : Sid Vicious turning heel on Hogan (Nitro). Damn, and I didn't see it coming before the last moment. I though Sid acting like a puppy and a Hogan cheerleader was pretty pathetic, especially his promos with Jimmy Hart. In the end, I was fooled like a 10 year old mark when during the tag match against Jarrett & Steiner, Sid looked annoyed by the Hogan chants and turned on his partner with a chokeslam. Hey, Sid turning heel on Hogan when he has all the reasons to never gets old with me, it's like 1992 all over again, and I'm happy about it. That being said, I don't see how Sullivan could have kept the belt on Sid with this Hogan program looming in. The Sid turn was a necessity to bring Goldie back as a super face to dethrone the evil monster champ, but I doubt Hogan would have let it happened.

 

New feud of the week : Jung Dragons vs 3-Count (Thunder). This is a short match, but it's already full of cool spots and dives that are already much better and fun than anything done by the overrated WWF crew of Hardies/E&C/Dudleys at the same time. This will carry me through those trying months to come hopefully.

 

Debut of the week : Chris Candido (Nitro). Had a match with Lash Leroux, then another one with CHavo on Thunder, and he already looks like the best worker in the company, and cuts funny promos as usual. Candido remains one of my all-time favourite, and it's too bad his WCW stint was so short. He was a breath of fresh air in the undercard, and brought back some of what had been lost with Benoit & Eddie.

 

Random match of the week : Jung Dragons vs PG-13 & Frog (Saturday Night). Jamie Dundee doing his goofy martial art against Jimmy Yang was the highlight of this fun little match. PG-13 were criminally underused. No idea who the hell The Frog was, he was a guy with green long hair.

 

Repackaging of the week : Los Fabulosos with Miss Hancock (Thunder). Yeah ! Silver King & El Dandy wearing funky bodysuits, managed by Miss Hancock. This had so much potential of actually having tons of good matches and sex-appeal to boot, so it would have gotten over (although Miss Hancock would have drawn too much attention to her probably). The idea of Dandy & Silver King finally getting a serious push was too good to be true.

 

This week's TV was much better than the previous ones, with some positive things like the comeback of Scott Steiner, the debut of Candido, Los Fabulosos, Luger having a decent match with Vampiro and keeping on being a trooper (his facials during the match were really funny), Chavo Guerrero getting back on TV. Sadly, it would be the last week before the apocalypse. On March 22, Kevin Sullivan was demoted as a head booker and the nightmarish team of Russo/Bischoff got Brad Siegel's endorsement. They already announced on Saturday Night that Bischoff was coming back, and they teased Russo coming back. When your big news on TV is talking about the freaking writer/booker, you know you're fucked. It's amazing to me that after his godawful and gigantic failure of a first run, Siegel gave a second chance to Russo at all. Just complete retardation. It would take two more weeks before the Russo/Bischoff era would really begin, as the next Nitro on Spring Break would be some sort of a transition.

[Bix]

Frog = Toad from OMEGA.

[El-P]

WEEKS 65 & 66 (March 27 to April 5)

 

Death of WCW "angle" of the week : Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo are back. (Nitro / Thunder / Saturday Night). This is it. It's useless to explain why this was the worst decision ever that could be made, but watching the entire TV shows being about these two was just nauseating. Not only did they bought their own hype, but they were in denial to the point they thought *they* were the draws and stars of the show. It's insane to se how much time was devoted to Bischoff & Russo, between the announcing repeating the same stuff ad nauseam and the countless vignettes of WCW workers, out of characters mind you, because it's a shoot, kissing their asses. The only two that didn't were Booker T and Ric Flair, who actually cut a funny short promo ending with "give me 10 minutes on Nitro and I'll tell you what I think of those two. Call my lawyer.". WCW is dead.

 

Death of WCW evil promo of the week : Terry Bollea needs to reinvent the Hulk Hogan character. (Thunder, the following week). The first week of April was all recap shows from the history of Nitro & Thunder, plus there was that infamous Hogan interview, mixing shoot and kayfabe, in-character and out-of-character bullshit, but mostly meta-wrestling backstage insider shit. What comes off is : Hogan turned WCW from a southern based rasstlin' company in small arenas to superstardom and success; Hogan creating the Hollywood character was a stroke of genius; Billy Kidman wouldn't draw in a flee market; young and smaller guys needs to hit the gym more often and gain statures (= take steroids people if you want to get a push); Hogan vs Sid drew a lot on house shows because it's the classic bad guy turning on good guy storyline; Terry Bollea will reinvent the Hulk Hogan character. Holy shit.

 

Debut of the week : Michael Modest (Nitro). The Artist wants to defend his title against some scrubs, so he picks this guy. Of course Candido and Chavo show up, screw things up for Artist, who gets pinned by this guy who looks like the older brother of Candido. They sure could have made a great Suicide Blondes team. I remember the hype about Michael Modest back in the days, he was talked about like he was some sort of über worker. He did look good. He never went anywhere I believe.

 

Last random C-show match of the week : Jeremy Lopez & Tommy Rogers vs Los Fabulosos (Saturday Night). The show would become all recap, but we get Tommy Rogers one more time in 2000 against Silver King & Dandy, sans Miss Hancock since it's a C-show.

 

Last random women match of the week : Mona vs Little Jeannie (Satudray Night). Yeah, as much as Stacy & Torrie look good (and I don't mention the three nWo strippers), they are still essentially useless at ringside (well, Stacy does dance). Meanwhile, Mona, who was young, attractive, a very good worker and who was getting over when she worked with Savage & Co, is doing meaningless women's matches on a C-show. This girl could have been something, but no, let's not have her do anything important nor get any TV time. Stupid, oh stupid WCW.

 

Greatest match in the history of our sport : Ric Flair & Lex Luger vs Sting & Vampiro (Nitro) Texas Tornado match. So, Flair & Vamp have a boring, useless match in the ring. Meanwhile, Luger & Sting go all over the place. It's important to know that this was a Spring Break edition of Nitro, which I always loved, so we get near a pool so Luger can take the requisite back-bodydrop in the water. Ah, Luger. Wait, it's just the beginning, they are still fighting around the pool, and at some point Luger bumps (litteraly), into a waiter, so Luger throws him in the pool also. And they are going behind the kitchens or something, so that Sting can put Luger's face in a plate of sauce, guacamole and mustard or something. And then they go toward the beach. Liz, who's sporting a delicious miniskirt, follows them around, but she doesn't do much except hit Sting at one point, she was probably too busy having a good time. Wait, Sting puts a swimming ring aroung Luger's head. Now Luger uses a bunch of surfboards on Sting ! And they go toward the sea ! And yes, Luger takes another backdrop, this time in the sea ! And it gets even better, Sting does a freaking piledriver into the sea !!! And the referee is counting in the fucking water !!!!! This is seriously awesome. And Luger is not finished yet, he's feeding Sting *again* so he can take another bump into the water !!!! Okay. I just loved this. This is the apex of Luger's work of being a bumping goofball for the last few months.

 

Okay. I guess I should just stop here, as I realize that there is still one year to go, including nearly eight months of a probably torturous Bischoff/Russo run which I've only glimpsed at through some out of context PPVs later in the decade.They haven't began their run and it's already infuriating the way they are putting themselves over and the way they are breaking the fourth wall. WCW was a zombi promotion anyway at this point, and Bischoff probably already had the idea of buying it for a few bucks at some point while Russo was running it deep into the cemetary ground.

 

I'm taking a break. Will be back doing this after a while. Or not.

[Matt D]

you should at least do the crazy first crash tv episode of Nitro with all the debuts.

[Mando]

Greatest match in the history of our sport : Ric Flair & Lex Luger vs Sting & Vampiro (Nitro) Texas Tornado match.

A few years back when some friends and I watched a ton of Nitro and put together a Top 200 list and video discussion series that match actually got some decent support and ended up ranked #114 overall with its highest vote being #17 (and I had it at #96). Terrificly fun "match". The bump into the sea is cemented into my memory.

[Bix]

Try to find some Worldwide, it still had an exclusive match or two each week after WCWSN went all recap.

[mookeighana]

Try to find some Worldwide, it still had an exclusive match or two each week after WCWSN went all recap.

Yeah. Those last few months are full of random WCW-esque gems (Harris Twins vs Yang & Kaz - check; Chris Harris, Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles - check; no less than four Kevin Northcutt appearances? You betcha!)

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/worldwide00.htm

[Ditch]

Modest had a long run in NOAH during its prime, that's not "nowhere". Hmpf.