WCW's Highway to Hell

[cowboy hats]

for how long had vampiro-sting been going on by this point?

[caley]

Russo is back on TV, calling out Goldberg and making idiotic shooty-shooty remarks like "If this was real, Goldberg thinks he could beat anybody.". If this was real ? Really ? Anyway, so Russo wants to fire Goldberg but can't apparently. And Goldie is going after him. On Thunder Nash attacked Booker T after cutting a "I respect you" promo, so I guess it's a heel turn of sort. Or not, who knows anymore ? This was marginally better than the godawful product of the last few weeks, witha few watchable match and some more fresher stuff.

I was at this show and it was totally baffling as Russo came out shouting before the show actually started and shouted phrases like "Oh sure, cheer for your hero Goldberg!" and you could see people looking at each other and going "Wait, is he supposed to be a face now? I thought we were supposed to hate him."

 

I have to tell my little Nitro story here. A friend of mine had boxseats for the show and invited me along. My cousin was in town and really wanted to go but I couldn't very well invite him along to box seats that weren't my own, so he ended up buying tickets for himself and my brother up in the nosebleed section. So we get there early trying to find wrestlers (Followed David Penzer around for a while) and this guy comes up to my cousin and brother and asks if they're going to the show tonight, they say yeah and he says "Here you go, compliments of Mr. Goldberg", so we laugh about that, part ways for the night. So I'm up in the boxseats, at a terrible angle where I can't see the Tron, and I look down to see if I can find my brother and cousin (This is in the pre-cellphone days) and I spot them: dead-centre behind the announce team. Throughout the night, my cousin and brother are constantly on camera, almost get run over by the Harris Bros., my cousin does the RVD point repeatedly on live TV. Going to bed that night, my cousin, who'd been having a rough time in school says to my mom "Auntie Liz, that was the greatest night of my life." He still talks about it to this day.

 

So, it was a completely terrible show, but I have nothing but goodwill for it!

[El-P]

Vamp vs Sting has been running on and off (with the Demon taking the place of Sting after the injury angle) since April 10, the day of the reset. And it produced nothing but complete shit in and out of the ring. Worst feud of the year, easily.

 

WEEK 88 (September 4 to 9, 2000)

 

Carry-workers of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. & Juventud Guerrera (Nitro/Thunder). They already are doing a fantastic job with the NBT, but this week they managed to have a fun match with the ICP and a watchable match with the Harris Boys. Hat's off to them, despite Juvy's sloppy execution at times. Awkward spot of the week was Tygress doing her bronco buster spot (which they call "face full of stuff, that's classy...) on a Harris boy followed by Rey doing one of his own while Tygress was basically sitting on the guy's face. You don't want to know what I was thinking at that time... (but you can figure it out easily).

 

Angle of the week : Bret Hart lures Goldberg into a trap. (Thunder). Damn, Bret Hart is such a great whiner. Here he is talking about getting screwed (okay, that's old, but the good stuff is coming) until Russo came on board, then goes into how Goldberg potatoed him (that was a bit too shooty for my taste) and ended his career. Goldberg shows up, they have an argument. Bret Hart basically trolls Goldberg into attacking him despite having played the pity party card during his whole promo, and when Goldie finally jumps on Bret's throat, Steiner runs in and beats him up from behind. Bret's smirck is one of the best ever, he's so great in this role. Good angle and it served its purpose into building the Steiner match at the PPV, Bret playing the part of a heel manager here basically.

 

Beating of the week : The Natural Born Thrillers beat down Paul Orndorff at the Power Plant (Thunder). Again, good classic wrestling angle, the young punk shows up and bully people at the training center, then go into Paul's office and gang up on him. Simple, basic stuff that makes sense and looks good.

 

Match of the week : Shane Douglas vs Crowbar (Thunder). Good solid match with Crowbar selling his back injury from the balcony drop and Douglas focusing his attack. Daffney shows up when Torrie Wilson was getting involved, which leads to Torrie taking a bodyslam outside the ring. Well, credit to her for taking that bump. Ends up with Madusa showing up and beating the shit out of Torrie with a brutal spinning kick that really hit its mark. The build to the PPV match with Kidman is odd since Kidman has been off TV for weeks so they work around it by using Crowbar and now Madusa.

 

Squash of the week : Goldberg vs Shane Douglas (Nitro). Revenge match from the previous week's incident. And it's just as great. Douglas has been the most consistently solid performer work and promo wise this week, he's just awesome spewing shit about how things turned out the previous week and selling Goldberg's entrance. What makes it even better is the NBT get involved, and Goldie takes care of them at the same time. Double spear, cool gorilla press dropped while he goes into his spear and other impressive Goldie killer spots. It's like 98 again. On Thunder Goldie would take care of Elix Skipper and Lance Storm too, and it was almost as fun, with Lance basically throwing Skipper to the wolves.

 

Godawful gimmick match and idiotic swerve of the week : Wargames 2000 (Nitro). Gawwwwwd. They teased during the whole show that Kevin Nash was turning his back on Russo after an altercation at the beginning of the show where Russo said he was going to win the title. And of course "it was a plan all along". Wait, didn't we hear that same exact phrase last week ? Seriously ? Again ? Was anyone stupid enough to not see that one coming from a thousand miles ? When you do the same swerve two weeks in a row, it really reaches the apex of retardation. Anyway, the match was awful too. Decent first few minutes with Jarrett vs Sting then Scott Steiner, but then Kronik (who won a "qualification match" against The Cat, which makes no fucking sense at all) entered and the match turned into a gigantic and boring clusterfuck. Worse than Hogan & Savage vs a thousand heels in a cage, which at least had comedic values.

 

So bad it's good segment of the week : Lava Lamp Lounge with Mike Awesome (Thunder). Fuck, poor guy. In his limitless creativity, Russo basically redoes the Love Shack segment from 1998, only with a guy who isn't comfortable on the mic, and with awful lines to boot. The set is pretty sweet though. First guest : Pamela Paulshock. WTF ? Oh, I guess Awesome is using his set to hit on women now. Okay. Paulshock kinda plays the airhead a-la Dawn Marie here, and it suits her better than doing interviews with that dear caught in a headlights looks she has all the time. Jarrett shows up and tells Awesome he looks like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Live". Epic fail. They brawl, Awesome gets a guitar shot. Well, it was bad and ridiculous, and Jarrett really sucked on the mic here, but I enjoyed this segment nonetheless.

 

Nitro was atrocious with awful gimmicked "qualifiying matches" for the awful Wargames match, but Thunder was actually pretty decent with some good angles, one or two decent matches and the ridiculous yet fun Lava Lamp Lounge segment. They ran a good little cruiserweight match to determine a challenger for Skipper, who's running around with Major Gunns. Kwee-Wee beat Chavo, because he's got Paisley with him and we need to have a catfight in every cruiserweight title match. That's the rule. It's about the boobs and ass. Another goofy but rather fun angle was Lance Storm making Major Gunns train hard so she could became a true Canadian. Of course the whole point was to show sweaty breasts. Ended up in a pool with Pamela Paulshock and the MIA litteraly jumping in. The PPV doesn't look that bad on paper thus far (except the awful Kronik vs Harris tag match and probably yet another Sting vs Vamp crapfest), but with Russo booking I don't want to have any expectations. The good thing is, that will be his last PPV. Still a few weeks and he's out of the picture for good.

[Sidebottom]

Amazing pic. I do miss heel Don West though, I actually think replacing him with Tazz is TNA's biggest mistake, and that's saying a lot.

Heel Don West calling people pricks was fine with me.

[jdw]

Reading this is amazing now as it seems clear El-P is past his breaking point but simply refuses to let Russo defeat him.

This.

 

Fuck that asshole Russo, Jerome, you can kick his ass and finish the thread when Vince & Skippy show up!

 

"What the fuck happened to the PWO I used to know? Where's the spirit?

Where's the guts, huh? This could be the greatest thread of our lives, but

you're gonna let it be the worst. "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Jerome,

we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I'm

not gonna take this. Bischoff, he's a dead man! Russo, dead! Nash..."

-El P-luto

 

 

John

 

PS: no... not trying to sidedrain but fire Jerome up since he'll get the Animal House reference.

[El-P]

Ah ah ! I need some fuel indeed.

 

WEEK 89 (Septemer 11 to 15, 2000)

 

Angle of the week : Jim Duggan passes the torch to Gen. Rection (Nitro) I was always annoyed by Duggan's unidimensional über patriotic gimmick, but in term of execution, this is actually pretty good, and makes sense too, as Gen. rection is as close as a patriotic loud-mouth goofball himself as Duggan ever was. So yeah, all teary and shit, Jim Duggan "retires" and passes the torch and Old Glory to Hugh Morrus. Lance shows up, insults are being thrown then a pretty hot sprint with Rection winning the non title match and celebrating with MIA & Duggan. Well, at least it's a good build-up and a fine use of Duggan at this point.

 

Wedding of the week : David Flair & Stacy Keibler (Nitro). Yeah, this is stupid, but I actually kinda enjoyed the stupidity of this, simply because everyone involved was pretty good, really. Ric Flair shows up on TV for the first time since the Russo debacle and cuts a serious, toned down promo because it's supposed to be about his son. The best and legit funny part if Arn giving his "advices" to David before he marries, the best one being "it's better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission". Arn was excellent here. Then the thing gets all stupid with Flair getting arrested for a very vague reason, a ceremony reboot later in the night with Stacy telling David that he was not the father. Feel the drama ! Well, at least she hasn't had a miscarriage yet.

 

Swerve of the week : Johnny the Bull helps Big Vito. Not ! (Nitro) Gotta have at least one swerve, don't you think ? As usual, this was totally transparent. Johnny is the new member of the NBT. Why not, he fits.

 

Swerve of the week 2 : Kevin Nash & Scott Steiner don't get along anymore (Nitro) They are booked in a match for the World Title at the end of the show, so Nash wants Steiner to do the job for him, and Steiner doesn't go with that. Of course at the end of the day they go along perfectly fine and beat up Booker T and Goldberg. Shit, Russo wrote the same exact swerve three weeks in a row at this point.

 

Woman abuse of the week : Miss Jones gets a guitar shot, Tygress gets double-teamed by Jindrak & O'Haire (Nitro / Thunder). Well, you also get Shane Douglas in a mix tag with Madusa so at some point he hits her, but I'll pass on that one since Madusa is a special case as she's considered a true wrestler. Still, tons of useless woman abuse shit all over the TV, with Major Gunns being treated like a property and Miss Jones being somewhat kidnapped (AGAIN !) and threatened by Jarrett on Thunder. This poor guy's character really borders on pathetic with his systematic guitar crashing, woman abuse and horrible catchphrases.

 

Porn segment of the week : Lava Lamp Lounge with Major Gunns (Thunder). Between the set up, the music, the horrible "acting" and double-entendres by Gunns, this totally looks like an old-school porn movie. This segment was so bad-it's-good the previous week, here it's just so so bad.

 

Swerve of the week 3 : Jim Duggan has been laid out backstage so he can't rescue Gen. Rection (Thunder) Not even mentionning the MIA look like retards since they are supposed to be a team and don't jump in the ring as soon as Rection gets in difficulty (they wait until after Duggan crawled his way to the ring), but it's yet another ridiculous, über obvious swerve coming up at the PPV. How many swerve per show can you get, really ? Russo was not only the shittiest writer ever, but it seems like he was already totally out of "ideas" after just a few months. The show is all about swerves and woman abuse at this point.

 

The whole "Flair is the father of Stacy's kid" rumour has been launched, culminating in an interview on Thunder with Tenay asking Flair the question. Flair left the set, dejected. I guess this TV drama will go on at the PPV. One good thing at least, Sting vs Vampiro seems to be over and done with, finally. Kanyon is sadly missing. I think he didn't want to do the Positively Kanyon gimmick anymore since DDP's future was in jeopardy at this point, so it made the whole thing useless. On paper the PPV looks like it could be decent enough on the undercard with NTB vs Filthy Animals, Vito & Orndorff (but we know this will end badly), Rection vs Storm (but we know there will be a swerve) and Skipper vs Kwee-Wee. The scaffold match has no chance in hell of being good because of the gimmick. I'm throwing a blank on Jarrett vs Awesome, as Jarrett has really soured very badly with me, having yet another bad match with Sting this time. I've always been a Jarrett defender, but his stock has dropped immensely after watching this stint, only the first few months were enjoyable in term of in-ring work. Goldie vs Goldberg could be a fun monster match. Kronik vs Harris Boys I will fast forward thank you very much. Nash vs Booker in a cage I have no faith in. So yeah.

[Smack2k]

The Nash / Booker cage match isnt terrible by any means...and Steiner - Goldberg is actually really good......

[El-P]

PPV 21 : Fall Brawl 2000

 

Match of the night : Goldberg vs Scott Steiner. The best match of Goldberg's career at this point. Everything you would except from two athletic monsters who throw bombs at each others. It was better than I thought it would be, and shows that Goldie had improved quite a bit in term of showing vulnerability and selling against the right opponent. He hasn't lost a step into throwing some amazing power spots. Steiner is just the best heel in the company, and he too plays his role perfectly, not afraid to bump and show ass either. The only bad part is when Russo jumps in, but in all honesty he doesn't detract from the dynamic and actually shows good thinking by covering up for a really terrible looking Midajah lead pipe shot. This is clearly the best match I've seen on WCW TV this year (not that it means much), and a legit very good, very enjoyable one.

 

Hot opener of the night : Kwee-Wee vs Elix Skipper. I like those two quite a bit, and not because of their respective valet, although Paisley looks awesome. Good 2.0 cruiserweight action with a lot of nice looking spots and a fine pacing. They get enough time to sell some as well and build the match to a climax, so it's all good. Skipper is grating in a good way.

 

Better than expected gimmick match of the night : Shane Douglas & Torrie Wilson vs Kidman & Madusa. This was very watchable despite the impossible gimmick. The platform was wide enough for Douglas & Kidman to work a few sequences that looked rather decent. The falls were also pretty decently built, especially Madusa falling off the ladder, but at this point this stunt-like spectacle really doesn't get that much of a reaction. At least they took safe falls onto professionnal stuntmen stuff. Torrie Wilson was visibly petrified, which worked since she was supposed to be.

 

Surprisingly good match of the night : 3-Count vs Lt. Loco & Corporal Cajun & A-Wall. Not a fan at all of MIA, as only Chavo is good, but this flowed pretty damn well, thanks to Shannon & Shane mostly. 3-Count also brought back their old song, which is great.

 

Swerve of the night : Hacksaw Jim Duggan turns on the USA and Gen. Rection. This was obvious as hell since the angle on Thunder, that's the issue with running "shocking turns" every week. Still, this was executed pretty damn well by Duggan, and Rection took a great looking bump face first into the corner after being hit by the 2X4. The match itself with Lance Storm was an efficient sprint with some good heat thanks to Duggan firing up the crowd.

 

Guilty pleasure of the night : Jeff Jarrett vs Mike Awesome. Gary Coleman is in the 70's bus. Oh man... Jeff Jarrett is cutting a long-ass promo talking football, because the local football team is at ringside. This reeks of clusterfuck. Anyway, the match goes on and it's decent brawl, Jarrett looks better here than he did in months and Awesome delivers some brutal looking stuff. Of course at some point Jarrett's trolling of the football team works against him and they end up doing a lumberjack job on the apron, with Jarrett playing their bitch. The killer is Gary Coleman throwing a low-blow (what did you expect) on Jarrett, before Jeff crashed the guitar on the little motherfucker. Well, that was a guitar crash I popped for. And at least there was no swerve. Finally Sting interferes and kills off Jarrett, so that will be the next feud. Fun match and fun bullshit.

 

Good match turned into a debacle of the night : Natural Born Thrillers vs Filthy Animals & Big Vito & Paul Orndorff. Until the Orndorff injury it was a really fun elimination match that was worked better than most Survivor Series bullshit rushed elimination stuff. They had a nice dynamics between the big guys and the team of Rey & Juvy, they worked the fact Disco was an overbearing idiot as he accidentaly cost Konnan to lose the pinfall, it flowed well, it had a good storyline with Rey, Juvy & Orndorff ending up overmatched. Sadly, Orndorff injured himself pretty badly on a piledriver, and it took a while before they realized it was severe. Watching these guys bump around him and make the ringfloor shake was kinda cringeworthy knowing it was a neck injury. They tried their best but there was no way to not stop the match, as Orndorff had to be attended. Orndorff should have come in for a few simple shots and not tried for such a hard bumping move as his piledriver. He didn't look that good either to begin with. Too bad, the match was really fun until that point. The NBT are really growing on me, especially O'Haire who a few weeks before I couldn't have cared less about.

 

Anticlimatic main-event or the night : Booker T vs Kevin Nash. Couldn't follow Steiner vs Goldie. Plodding, very few heat. Worked a few good spots at the end, but it was pretty much a nothing match. Booker T still doesn't look like a main-event worker at all and it was glaring here following the two guys that should work on top on every show.

 

Well, all in all this was the best PPV of the year, with the legit best WCW match of the year and some good stuff all over the undercard. Jarrett's bullshit match was actually fun to watch, and the Duggan turn was well done if predictable. Good opener, surprisingly good 6-men match thanks to 3-Count, Douglas, Kidman & Madusa making the most of a horrible gimmick match. There was a bit of garbage with Kronik vs The Harris and a lame and sloppy three way (or handicap match, I'm not even sure) between Vamp, Muta & Sting (so this was the official ending, at fucking last !), and the main event was just a dull affair, but I had more fun watching this show than I had in ages. Steiner needs to get the belt tomorrow, his performance with Goldberg solidified the fact he's the man to push at this point.

[Smack2k]

Well, all in all this was the best PPV of the year, with the legit best WCW match of the year and some good stuff all over the undercard. Jarrett's bullshit match was actually fun to watch, and the Duggan turn was well done if predictable. Good opener, surprisingly good 6-men match thanks to 3-Count, Douglas, Kidman & Madusa making the most of a horrible gimmick match. There was a bit of garbage with Kronik vs The Harris and a lame and sloppy three way (or handicap match, I'm not even sure) between Vamp, Muta & Sting (so this was the official ending, at fucking last !), and the main event was just a dull affair, but I had more fun watching this show than I had in ages. Steiner needs to get the belt tomorrow, his performance with Goldberg solidified the fact he's the man to push at this point.

That pipe shot from Madejia was really really bad as she tapped him with it, but they covered fine with Steiner beating the hell out of him instead...

 

His push towards it will begin now....and the Booker - Steiner feud is golden, all with Steiner just trashing Booker on the mic...the true GREATEST HEEL WORLD CHAMP RUN (in terms of sheer dominance...no I dont put this anywhere near some of the all-time greats.......this run has begun...and it gets better) ANd before I get shot down for that comment, name another HEEL champ in a BIG organization that goes on the beat down streak (regardless of how he does it) that Steiner goes on here without getting TRUE retribution for it for 6 MONTHS...until a meaningless last match MONTHS from now...FUCK yeah, Steiner WCW 2000-2001 Champ Run has begun...The lunatic is loose.

 

Rection - Storm feud is getting going now, it gets better...

 

Glad you like the NBT now, they are entertaining.....Nash will get with them soon for some funny...

 

Goldberg gets going again quickly as well in a cool storyline that I think would have paid off down the line...

[El-P]

WEEK 90 (September 18 to 23, 2000)

 

Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Juventud Guerrera (Thunder). This is a throwback to the days of old. Beautiful matwork sequences and smooth flying, Juvy heeling it up after a babyface match beginning, cool reversals and big spots galore. I wonder how it would look next to a 98 and 96 match between those two (not mentionning their AAA classics), but in this context it really was a terrific little TV match. The winner gets a shot at the cruiserweight title, and they are booked against each other because of Disco, who's getting thrown out of the Animals during the match and beat up afterward. He's carrying an inflatable duck with him now. And he "lost" Juvy & Rey's tag title on Nitro by losing a match to The Cat. Yeah, that was more bullshit nonsense making titles irrelevant.

 

Garbage match of the week : Mike Awesome vs Vampiro (Nitro). Hell is freezing over, a watchable Vampiro match. Props to him for taking the hard bmps, including the infamous Masato Tanaka bump through the table outside from a powerbomb. The FMW fan in me enjoyed this match quite a bit. Vamp should only work this kind of brawling match where he takes heelish bumps, that's the best he can do, really.

 

Heel spot of the week : Shane Douglas shorthands the tag to Torrie Wilson and beats up Paisley himself (Nitro). I could live without the woman abuse, but the spot was actually really well executed. Douglas had Kwee-Wee beat, but Paisley wanted the tag so she could beat up Torrie. Douglas got her in the ring, pointed to Torrie who acted all pumped up, Torrie tried to tag and Douglas just took off his hand and turned back toward Paisley with a shit eating grin. Totally dickish and quite great to watch. Douglas is the second best heel behind Steiner in term of maneurisms, promos and overall work. It's ridiculous to have him at this level when Jarrett is crapping the main event scene with hundreds guitar crashed and awful slapnutz heavy promos.

 

Trooper of the week : Mike Sanders losing to both Tygress and Lea Meow (Nitro/Thunder). Yep. I guess it's a way to balance things up a bit, and Sanders isn't afraid to bump for the girls, even the really petite Lea Meow. It kinda makes him look like a bitch, but since he's acting more like a manager who wrestles, it's fine I guess.

 

Promo of the week : Jim Duggan (Nitro) A short-hair clean shaved Jim Duggan is truly a surreal thing to see. And really, he gave a solid promo on why he turned on the USA, to the point it seems he could be a really decent heel. The odd thing is that it took place in Canada, so although he was acting heelish, he still got the huge pop from the crowd, which, for his first appearance on TV as a heel, is kinda unique. The crowd was more than just pro-canadian BTW, it was a total heel crowd, booing the name of Goldberg, booing Booker T and cheering for Scott Steiner. Team canada beats up Gen. Rection some more. I enjoy this feud thus far. Lance Storm is the third best heel on the show, you just want to slap his face each time he's on the screen.

 

Chauvinist pig interview of the week : Mike Tenay interviewing Stacy (Thunder). See, I don't get the point of all this, unless it's to humiliate a beautiful woman yet again. Tenay just brutalizes this poor girl, including saying that even he would have taken a shot if he wasn't married. And Stacy doesn't get to reply to *this* ? Really ? Tenay is really good in his role, to the point of being creepy, but really this is uncomfortable misogynic shit to me.

 

They are building to Vince Russo getting a title shot on the next Nitro, with a lot of nonsense on Nitro leading up with a Jarrett & Steiner vs Sting & Booker T match that endend when Vince Russo pinned Scott Steiner. Yeah, it makes sense. Funny bit backstage when Kevin Nash was coaching the NBT and wrote "You Suck" on a chalkboard while explaining them what strategy they should employ. More Lava Lamp Lounge nonsense on Thunder, this time with the contestants of the Miss WCW bikini contest on the next Nitro, the one Pam Paulshock threw a fit about if she didn't win it or something. The joke is that the set gets destroyed each week. Well, that's a joke that overstayed its welcome the very first time. Still, Nitro was more watchable that it had been since Russo was off TV for a few weeks during the summer.

[Hollinger.]

I feel really bad about how much Smack2k is overselling the rest of the WCW run to you. He really might be the only person on the planet that believes it. It is still definitely nothing better than ok, it is just not as mind numbingly awful as the previous two years. Watchable is about right.

[Sidebottom]

Agree with Hollinger. It has its moments, but lets not get carried away...

[Smack2k]

Fuck that, enjoy it for what it was...its a fun different thing the rest of the way that has its good and bad moments, but overall is really good shit. I dont watch things and look for ways to tear it down for "work rate" or other IWC favorites (and I not saying you guys do either...just giving some context for me)...I watch it to enjoy it and this was enjoyable, as EL-P is starting to see from some of his writings (not all of it, but certain things). Is it top of the line shit that should be celebrated with teh best of all time? Fuck no...but its fun and has some great moments..

 

And seriously....name another WORLD TITLE Reign over a 6 month period where another champ was so dominant...

[stomperspc]

I agree that Smack2K is overrating it a bit but there is some good stuff in 2001. From Sin until the end I would say that the television and pay-per-views were legitimately good which I think is a bit better than just "watchable".

 

The real selling point to watching 2001 WCW is to see how e promotion had set itself up to potentially have a legitimately good year from a television and pay per view quality standpoint. The renewed focus on the cruiserweight division is the most obvious. By March they elevated Helms to champion and he had gotten very good as a singles wrestler in a short period of time. Chavo had the best run of his career to that point as the heel cruiserweight champion. Rey & Kidman were good veteran anchors for the new cruiserweight tag division and were starting to shake off the rust of not doing much cruiserweight style wrestling in a year and a half. Throw in Jung Dragons, Skipper, Kid Romeo, Shannon Moore, Noble, and AJ Styles and you can see they the foundation for a good CW division in 2001. Christopher Daniels and Mike Modest had also recently been on Nitro and there is a safe bet some other indie/ECW guys would have been brought in as well.

 

The main event story was progressing clearly and logically. WCW was clearly heading towards Steiner taking out the top faces one by one leading to the return of Goldberg to take him out which had been built really well. They were pushing mid carders well. Palumbo and O'Haire rapidly improved in 2001 and were pretty over as tag champs by the end. Jason Jett (EZ Money), Kid Kash, a newly returned Alex Wright, Mike Sanders, Shane Douglas, Lance Storm, Alan Funk, and Mike Awesome made for a good midcard. For the first time in forever they brought in a midcard wrestler like Jason Jett and gave him an honest-to-goodness push right out of the gate based on his in-ring work. There were a lot of positive things happening.

 

I liken it to 70-win baseball team that goes 18-10 in September. When the season ends the team and fans are left with the memory of the good play in September that helps build hope for next season. When next season comes maybe they are still a 70-win team or maybe the end of the season was a sign of good things to come. With WCW we never got "next season". However, there was enough good things happening in early 2001 to at least establish realistic hope that the promotion was truly turning the corner. That's why I like watching and discussing 2001 WCW. WCW probably was not "great" in 2001 (actually, I am pretty certain of that) but it was more than watchable and clearly heading in a very positive direction.

[Mando]

After Vince bought WCW a lot of their undercard guys especially the NBT got shipped to then training grounds HWA outside of Cincinnati. They had weekly shows on Tue. nights and we got to see a lot of guys come through like David Taylor, Meng, Kaz Hayashi, Brian Adams, etc. I worked at a mall at the time that was right near the apartments most of the wrestlers were staying at so ran into them frequently. I worked at Suncoast Video and recall Shannon Moore asking me for horror film recomendations and OG Ekimo (Umaga) asking me if we carried the WWE tape where Rikishi went off the top of the Hell in the Cell. Somewhere I still have a picture I got taken in the food court with Mike Sanders and Jindrak. Lance Cade (future WWF talent now deceased) was around a lot too. Always found it humorous saw Jimmy Wang Yang once eating food court Chinese and carrying a Sex in the City box-set he'd just purchased.

[El-P]

WEEK 91 (September 25 to 30, 2000)

 

Death of WCW title change of the week : Vince Russo, WCW champion (Nitro). He had to do it. In his delusionnal vision of him being as important as Vince McMahon, he got the idea of putting the title belt on himself and giving it away. The cage match with Booker T is complete trash, it also sees the return of Lex Luger who gives Russo a baseball bat through the fences (despite the fact he left as a babyface fighting Russo's guys) and Ric Flair dressed as an EMT. The finish is infamous for Goldberg spearing Russo through the cage, so Russo gets the first out and therefore gets the belt. Because you see, it's ratings, for sure.

 

PPV main event gimmcik match on free TV : Goldberg vs Scott Steiner in a cage (Nitro). Yeah, hotshot the hell out of the last big program you have at your disposal, why the hell not. The match itself is good enough, but it features the most idiotic cage spot I have ever seen. So yeah, it takes place in that huge HITC cage so no one gets in (although everyone figures a way, but still). So at one point, Midajah shows up, simply opens the door and gives Scott his lead pipe. JAW DROPS. She simply FUCKING OPENED THE DOOR AND GOT INTO THE CAGE !! Not to mention a few seconds later, a huge football player who was in the crowd prevents Steiner from getting out by standing right in front of the door !! Uh... wait, where was he like, one minute before ??? It is so stupid and ridiculous. Cage matches have became such a joke at this point.

 

Return and swerve of the week : Lex Luger (Thunder). Eh, a swerve. How swerving ! So yeah, on Nitro he helped Russo, then on Thunder he pretended he hated himself for that and that it was a mistake. And of course at the end of the day he turned against Gen. Rection whom he tagged with against Jarrett & Storm. What a swerve ! I wish Liz would have came back with him, their act together was so good and fun.

 

Unexpected return of the week : Alex Wright (Thunder). So, he's Disco's new partner. The dancing fool are back I guess. Poor Alex, he was totally screwed over with the Berlyn character and now he's back doing silly dance moves with Disco. Well, it's better than nothing I guess.

 

Match of the week : Lance Storm vs Sting (Nitro). The best Sting match I've seen in a long time, very dynamic, with some cool counters, especially Lance turning the Scorpion Deathlock into his half-crab. This was a very short sprint of course, but this is the best we can get out of this show.

 

Stupid stop of the week : Shaggy 2 Dope powerbombed on the top af That 70's Bus and slidding to the floor (Nitro). Holy shit, that looked dangerous, with Awesome running on the slippery roof of the bus. Shaggy really slides off and crashes like some blobby creature.

 

Car crash segment of the week : Miss WCW 2000 (Nitro) The freaks from the Howard Stern show are the judges. Okay, just what we needed. Pamela Paulshock wins the contest despite not officially be a part of it, because she threw a fit backstage or something I seem to recall. When Lea Meow did her thing, Madden dropped the Full Metal Jacket line "me love you long time". Classy.

 

Pretty awful week with all the focus on Russo winning the title. The hardcore title has been vacated, Norman is nowhere to be seen (no idea why). So we get a short hardcore tournament with a decent crowbar vs Reno match. The tag titles have been won in a battle royal by Jindrak & O'Haire. Jeez, is there a title that hasn't been vacated or given away this week ? Russo is teasing that he has a revelation on Flair that could break up his family apart. I think this was the infamous "Ric Flair is the father of Stacy's baby" angle that would never see the light of the day.

[Ditch]

"some blobby creature": The Shaggy 2 Dope Story

[Dooley]

All this time I thought Violent J was the blobby one in ICP. This thread continues to bring new things to my attention.

[El-P]

WEEK 92 (October 2 to 7, 2000)

 

Idiotic gimmick match of the week : Plastic duck ladder match. (Nitro). Yeah, Rey & Konnan are gonna kill themselves using a ladder against Disco & Alex Wright to get the fucking plastic duck. Makes a lot of sense. The match was enjoyable nonetheless thanks to Rey's flying, which was gorgeous at times.

 

Shitty title change of the week 1 : Reno wins the Hardcore title thanks to a reversal of decision due to interference (Nitro). Or so says new commisionner Mike Sanders. Makes no fucking sense. Another gimmicked title change. It's not like the hardcore title shouldn't be put to rest at this point, but still, it's crap.

 

Shitty title change of the week 2 : Mike Sanders wins the cruiserweight title in a handicap powerbomb match, tagging with Kevin Nash. (Nitro) Yeah, more stupid gimmicked title change. The fact Team Canada are some of the most over heels on the roster doesn't help either. Crap.

 

Shitty main event title match of the week : Jeff Jarrett vs Booker T in a boxes on a pole match. (Nitro) Man, Russo sure piled up a lot of shit, I mean actual shit, for his last week at the helm. Jarrett vs Booker in a horrible gimmick match on free TV, the perfect combination of Russo's reign with a very underwhelming match yet again ending up with, not a swerve sadly, but one of Stern's dwarf hitting Jarrett in the balls. Ah ah, hilarious. Or not. Complete shit. And I have given up on Booker. I waited a long long time for him to show me something better than average at very best. Steiner can't get this belt soon enough.

 

Squash of the week : Scott Steiner vs Jung Dragons (Thunder). Excatly what you'd expect, Steiner just kills those guys, who take hellish bumps for him, making him look like the monster he is. Lea Meow strangling Midajah with her whip at ringside is the cherry on the cake.

 

Shoot interview of the week : The Misfits in Action (Thunder). Talking about having the best matches on the show, giving to other guys what they haven't been given, about ratings, about untapped potential, well, more backstage insider bullshit that isn't relevant. They really paint a shitty picture of Rection too, as he's complaining about brain damage, not being able to see well or walk by himself in the morning. I guess they wanted to make him look like Mick Foley or something, but what comes off that interview is that the guy is a cripple basically. Sure puts him over strong for the upper mid-card. Oh, they talked about "getting over" too. Yawn...

 

Kidnapping of the week : David Flair has kidnapped Buff Bagwell (Thunder). So there it is, after all Buff impregnated Stacy. I have no idea who's supposed to be the heel here. Anyway, as stupid as it would have been, I would probably enjoy Ric being the father more, it maybe would have been atrocious but entertaining in a pervert way. With Buff I'm just glad he's not getting involved with a worker I care about.

 

So, now Goldberg has to win all his matches of he's being fired. Going back to the streak now is way too late, the damage had been done a long time ago. Feels like a rehash, especially by litterally mentionning the streak and making it like just another gimmick on the show. Shane Douglas is getting Konnan, this guy can't get a break and a good feud to save his life. Well, at least maybe we'll have some fun promos back and forth. Kronik apparently have turned heels (as far as I can tell) so they'll get programmed against Goldie. Jarrett vs Sting and Booker vs Steiner are the logical big feuds on top, with Lance vs Rection supporting on the upper undercard. I wonder how they'll build to the PPV with Russo officialy gone in two weeks. Well, since he won't be back on WCW TV ever and since basically he was already gone when they hit Australia, let me have myself a nice FUCK YOU RUSSO ! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCKING IDIOTIC FUCK !!!! I'M STILL THERE AND YOU'RE GONE YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAG CRETIN FUCKTARD !!! FUCK YOU SO MUCH !!!! Gawdddddd it feels good. Really, and it's two weeks in advance, but I can say I can totally empathize with a guy like Cornette after going through these two horrific stints. I can totally understand that a guy like Cornette who loved wrestling as his own life would lose his mind and go insane watching what Russo did to pro-wrestling TV. The absolute retardation and total lack of understanding of every basic rule and inner workings of pro-wrestling are just infuriating, even more than a decade later. Even I was getting furious and frustrated as all hell watching this shit in 2013. So yeah, fuck Vince Russo, once and for all. Whatever good he did under the umbrella of the WWF machine from 96 to 98 is nothing compared to the piles of unfiltered shit he threw on TV after that point, especially in WCW. I'm sure there will still be Russo's fingerprints over the TV at times in the weeks and even months to come, but still, I can say I turned the corner. I never thought I would keep on watching, there was several times I just wanted to throw all the remaining files in the basket and delete the whole thing. This was way worse that I thought it would be. The worst wrestling TV I've ever seen. And I've seen shitty stuff before. But this has been the absolute nadir.

[The Chief]

Congratulations El P! It really takes a special kind of awful for me to get mad at stuff that happened over ten years ago, but I was legitimately pissed reading a lot of this stuff. Talking about scripts on TV, no face/heel dynamic, nothing ever making sense, endless swerves. I dare somebody to defend this shit. I can't believe TNA would want to have anything to do with this guy. I actually think Vince Russo may have done more long term damage to wrestling than anyone in history. I'm struggling to come up with anybody else who even comes close.

[Sidebottom]

In America, certainly Russo has left a negative footprint everywhere he has had ample power and no filter.

[jdw]

And seriously....name another WORLD TITLE Reign over a 6 month period where another champ was so dominant...

Hulk Hogan from 1984-88.

[jdw]

Jerome losing his shit over Week 92 is great. God this was a long unending nightmare back in the day.

[Smack2k]

And seriously....name another WORLD TITLE Reign over a 6 month period where another champ was so dominant...

Hulk Hogan from 1984-88.

 

Touche'.....well played sir...well played.....I will be watching you...LOL...

 

I actually meant during that era of wrestling (into the 90's and 2000's BOOM Period) but I didnt say that...with that said....VERY NICE!

 

Good call though....

[El-P]

WEEK 93 (October 9 to 14, 2000)

 

Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Elix Skipper (Nitro). A hot cruiserweight opener to start the show, is this 1997 ? Okay, it's not up to that level, but I enjoy Skipper quite a bit although at time he's trying to push the limits of glamorous spot alittle too far. Here he's trying something really funky where he walks the rope to jump into a hurricanrana on Rey who's on the top rope, but it fails quite miserably and he kinda fall on Rey's face in a terrible botch which looks painfull for Rey. Outside of that, there's plenty cool flying. Still it's a short match ending up with a catfight at ringside (Torrie Wison & Tygress), but very enjoyable for what it was.

 

Competitive squash of the week : Scott Steiner vs Rey Mysterio Jr. (Thunder). It's too bad WCW never figured how to push Rey to a main event status star, as he's the bets babyface they have and a legit star if they wanted him to be. So this is as good as it can be considering the respective spots on the ladder these two have, but it's obvious they have a terrific match in them together if only Rey was allowed to be what he should be.

 

Failed angle of the week : Jeff Jarrett as surfer Sting (Nitro) Jarrett disguised as the old-school Sting could have been a good idea, but the execution just isn't there. In typical poor WCW production fashion, they don't use "The Man Called Sting" music theme for Jarrett but rather the current Mettalica song, which makes the thing sloppy to begin with. Then, Jarrett just isn't a good promo and doesn't do anything with the old-school Sting character, he's just spewing boring stuff about Sting being a hasbeen and manages to utter his boring Jarrett catchphrases about having all the stroke around there. Gawd... Then he fights with the actual Sting (which Mark Madden calls Jeff Farmer in yet another useless smarky comments that goes over the head of 95% of the remaining audience), puts him through a table, which Sting totally no-sells. Damn this feud is already in the crapper to me.

 

Bullshit fake title change of the week : Mark Jindrak & Sean O'Haire vs Boogie Knights (Nitro). Seriously, where was Alex all this time ? He looks really fine and is clearly the best worker of this bunch by a wide margin. Decent little match which ends in a bullshit Dusty finish after Disco & Alex cleanly win the tag titles. They pull the same shit on Thunder with the MIA. This is gonna get old quick.

 

Surprisingly nice match of the week : Konnan vs Lance Storm. (Nitro) Once again, Storm works very well with Konnan, making him look better than he had in ages. Lance understood what Konnan's strenghts were, and they worked some smooth counter sequences which is the thing Konnan can be good at. Lance really gets back into my graces and despite looking way to soft at times (his superkick can look like the most inoffensive ever sometimes), he delivers the good including with no so good workers thus far. Douglas shows up and hist Konnan from behind to give Lance a win. They have another nice little tag match along with Gen. Rection on Thunder.

 

First week in Australia, and first week without Russo backstage. His name is still dropped once or twice, but he's nowhere to be seen and not given much importance anymore in the storylines. A little bit more actual wrestling time, although still a lot of bullshit finishes. I don't care about the Goldberg streak angle. At this point of his career it's not like anyone cares about him squashing Chuck Palumbo, and certainly no one believe he's gonna lose. Plus it leads to him vs Kronik at the PPV, which should be quite awful. The Australian crowds are much bigger than anything in the US and it's kinda cool to see WCW back in huge and packed arenas with hot crowds like it's 96/97 again.