WCW's Highway to Hell

[Mando]

El-P, was that the same Keibler pregnancy angle where they unveiled her baby to be a bunch of 8x10 publicity shots (either of Stasiak or one of the Flair's)? If so it birthed one of the more quoted lines amongst my friends and I: Tony on commentary losing his mind (as always): "Those are 8x10 glossy prints!"

 

Some of my other favorite commentary moments was Schiavone flipping out when the Harris twins were doing their corporate gimmick: "Look, look.. at those suits and cases!" and also when Scott Hudson I believe flipped out when Tank Abbot approached Tony's young son Jon Michael in the crowd on a Thunder in 2000: "That's Jon Michael Schiavone! That's Jon Michael Schiavone!" Then the kid tossed a soda in Tank's face. Couple that with Stevie Ray and Juvie's stints as color commentators and I laughed harder watching WCW during that era than any comedy show.

[El-P]

El-P, was that the same Keibler pregnancy angle where they unveiled her baby to be a bunch of 8x10 publicity shots (either of Stasiak or one of the Flair's)? If so it birthed one of the more quoted lines amongst my friends and I: Tony on commentary losing his mind (as always): "Those are 8x10 glossy prints!"

Yes, that's the angle, with Stasiak's publicity shots.

 

PPV 27 (fuck yeahhhhhhhh!!!!!) : Greed 2001

 

Match of the night : DDP vs Scott Steiner. There you go, the last ever WCW PPV main event, and DDP surely deserves to get the shot. And once again, he delivered, having Steiner's best match since his the Booker feud. Since a "falls count anywhe" stip had been added at the last moment, they worked a bit of garbage brawling stuff early on, but didn't go overboard with it. Then they basically stayed inside the ring and had a very solid, well built match, leading to one false finish interrupted by Rick Steiner (which sucks, since Midajah was here to do the job). Page was all bloodied at the end, although I'm not sure if this wasn't hardway, but it only made the finish look better. Good job guys.

 

Hot opener of the night : Kwee-Wee vs Jason Jett. Bonus match which launched the PPV on the right track. Fairly exciting match, and Jason Jett's offense is quickly winning him the support of the fans. I got a kick out of Jimmy Hart giving him a rip-off of his ECW theme song too. Jimmy rules.

 

Build to the future match 1 : Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman vs Kid Romeo & Elix Skipper. Good stuff. Skipper is a bit sloppy at times, but Romeo is holding things together on the heel side. The fact that he pinned Rey clean made it a very satisfying end to a strong cruiserweight match. Exactly what the new cruiser tag-team division needed for a good, exciting start.

 

Build to the future match 2 : Shane Helms vs Chavo Guerrero Jr. Helms gets the supertar entrance, and he's got a new look with classic wrestling tights. The audience didn't get into this match, I would presume because Chavo built a slower-paced bout with more emphasis on actual wrestling instead of doing a spotfest. They even chanted "boring" at one point, which is infuriating since the match was very good. Anyway, Helms wins the belt with his dangerous finisher. Once again, exactly what the promotion needed.

 

Grudge match of the night : Kanyon vs The Cat. Kanyon's got a new theme song too, which sounds good although I always loved his classic one. He also gets a new entrance coming from under the stage a-la Gangrel. They sure put some real effort here to make things look fresh and important. Good match again, with Kanyon's bumping being always impressive. His new character is a sociopath, we get it, kinda like a newer version of heel Jake Roberts. Post match sees a run in by MI Smooth to save Miss Jones from another beating.

 

Random match of the night : Lance Storm & Mike Awesome vs Konnan & Hugh Morrus. Not much heat early on, but Team Canada always manages to get some at some point. Hey, Hugh Morrus and Konnan together like it's 1997 again, and here they look exactly like the two JTTS they were during the Dungeon of Doom days. Tough luck for Konnan, who'd have been better off doing the announcing during the Filthy Animals match. Decent little match.

 

Better than expected match of the night : Jeff Jarrett & Ric Flair vs Dustin & Dusty Rhodes. Jeff vs Dustin was good, Flair, in street clothes, basically chopped, punched and sold, and Dusty only came in to drop elbows and do some comedy dual spots. So yeah, it was a lot of fun actually. When Dusty dropped his pants down Flair went crazy, leading to the best line of the night bu Scott Hudson : "Flair sold the underwear !"

 

Squash of the night : Chuck Palumbo & Sean O'Haire vs Totally Buffed. Ten seconds match and double pin by O'Haire & Palumbo. I have no idea why this happened, but it sure put the young team over strong and prevented a bad match from happening, so I'm cool with this.

 

Failed build to the future match of the night : Sean Stasiak vs Bam Bam Bigelow. Wow, they put a lot of effort to get Stasiak over. Introduction by Stacy, brand new music and tights and brand new bad haircut. The guy still shows no improvement in the ring though, and no charisma nor promo skills. Stacy looks like she's channeling Sunny, and it's obvious she would have gone over strong, letting the guy in the dust. And really, this gimmick was Meat 2.0, since the idea is that despite Stasiak calling himself the Mecca of Manhood, she's wearing the pants and controlling him. Bam Bam doesn't do much anymore. I appreciate the idea of producing a brand new single heel though, but Stasiak just wasn't the right guy.

 

Bad match of the night : Rick Steiner vs Booker T. Hey, what did you expect ? Plus they re-did the exact same finish than on TV, with Booker winning thanks to Shane Douglas sneaking up.

 

Well, that was a pretty damn good send-off for WCW PPV's, as this one probably was the best of the last 27 months. How ironic. Plus it showed a true will to actually do what should have been done back in 1998 : build the new talents up by giving them time, solid matches, wins that mattered and a production effort. All of that was there, they did more to elevate new talents here than they ever did in the past four years. In a way it's sad that it finally happened just before the end, but on the other way with Bischoff buying the company, we know what it would have meant eventually : Hogan coming back and WCW turning into what TNA became. So yeah, as it is, it was a really fun PPV to watch, with very few bad stuff really and some really strong and fun matches. The fact that it had Flair vs Rhodes for a last ride on PPV was kinda cool too. So there you go, you couldn't expect a much better PPV, especially considering how not-so-good the TV had been.

[RWOOD]

This thread has me watching all the PPV shows leading up the close of the company and its so fucking hard haha.

 

I'm in the middle of Spring Stampede 1999 ...

 

Thanks for writing all of this. It's really entertaining.

[tim]

I love that Rhodes vs. Jarrett/Flair tag. I shudder to think how high it would be if I made another list of my top WCW matches.

[El-P]

WEEK 115 and last week of WCW TV (March 19 to 21, 2001)

 

Match of the week : Elix Skipper & Kid Romeo & Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman & Shane Helms. (Thunder) Good stuff involving the fresh cruiserweight talent mixed in with the godfather of the genre, Rey Jr., and Chavo who has become the most solid worker of the division over the last months. Despite the grand intro, Helms really isn't over yet. Kid Romeo definitly had the most potential of the young guys. Cool dive sequences. This was what the cruiserweight division was all about and why WCW looked so different five years earlier.

 

Idiotic angle of the week : Ric Flair has to kiss a donkey's ass. (Nitro) What would a WCW TV show be without a really stupid angle, and most preferably a Ric Flair humiliation ? So here we go, Dusty Rhodes brings a donkey with "Dusty's ass" written on its rear end, and Flair ends up with his face rubbed in it.

 

ECW match of the week :Jason Jett vs Cash. (Thunder) After EZ Money, now Kid Kash shows up on WCW TV, and they get the ECW chants. These were two of my favourites late ECW performers, so I enjoyed this both as a match itself and a cool hommage to that other little promotion that could and went down a few weeks before.

 

Random match of the week : Kanyon & Road Warrior Animal vs The Cat & MI Smooth. (Thunder) Ah, the old "random pairings" that only WCW (and WAR) could deliver. Really, this is Ernest Miller, Mortis, Animal & Ice Train in the last ever real WCW TV show, how glorious is that ? Animal looks like The Missing Link these days, and his work is nearly as bad.

 

Promo of the week : Eric Bischoff announcing the Night of Champions.(Nitro) So, I understand that WCW already had been cancelled by then, as they already talked about the "season finale" for both the following Nitro and Thunder, and Bischoff deal had fell through because of it. It's surreal to think none of these guys (expect the one who cut the deal…), knew what would happen at the end of the week and what the last show would actually reveal. Anyway, Bischoff invites any former WCW champion to show up.

 

Last real WCW TV match ever : Scott Steiner & Jeff Jarrett vs Dustin Rhodes. (Thunder) Yes, I consider this the real last WCW match since the following week was already a WWF broadcast in a way. After the end of the show, they showed a picture of the crew with a big Thanks graphic, which I thought was a nice touch.

 

So there it is. Thunder was a pretty good show thanks to the cruiserweight matches and the random tag, but you can see the crowd is sitting on their hands. There's a sense of sadness when Tony talks about the season finale and when you see the picture of the crew, really it's already over. WCW was a messy promotion, but it brought a lot of really good stuff over the years. Well, before 1999 I mean. One last stop before the end.

[Bix]

Jerome, you have to review the real last WCW TV show ever: The Worldwide finale.

[El-P]

I don't have the Worldwide 2001 shows on my hard-drive. And really, I couldn't care less at this point. I'm doing the last Nitro later tonight and I'm done. Nine months exactly after my first post !!!!

[Bix]

BOO!

 

Also, you never reviewed Millennium Final, did you?

[Karl]

You deserve a reward...or perhaps a psychological evaluation. Cant wait for the final episode.

[El-P]

BOO!

 

Also, you never reviewed Millennium Final, did you?

Nein.

 

Hey, I have gone through 27 months of WCW bullshit in 9 months, cut me some slack will you !

 

You deserve a reward...or perhaps a psychological evaluation. Cant wait for the final episode.

I deserve to get laid. Now.

 

Final episode later tonight.

 

(I can't believe I *actually* went through this)

[El-P]

DAY 0 (March 26, 2001)

 

Death of WCW : Vince McMahon on Nitro : "I just bought my competition". The most surrealistic moment in modern wrestling history, Vince opening Nitro.

 

Match of the night : Rey Mysterio Jr. & Kidman vs Kid Romeo & Elix Skipper. The tag match involving Team Canada was pretty nice too, but really, and as said Tony Schiavone, the cruiserweights is what separated WCW from all the other promotions, so this gets the nod.

 

Promo of the night : Ric Flair. Chilling, intense, great promo from Flair, talking about the history of WCW going back to the NWA and the days when Vince McMahon Sr. was on the commitee who voted him as the world champion. Flair says that McMahon can't hold their lives in his hands. Sadly, he could. But this promo was exactly what the invasion angle should have been, Flair leading WCW against Mr. McMahon. But before the night was over, all would be forgotten.

 

Classy tribute of the night : DDP adressing and thanking the WCW fans. That was cool, Page out of character (well, which means he was still in character in a way) thanking the fans (and his wife) for allowing him to become a wrestling star despite being told he would never make it. Inspirational speach from Page.

 

Sign of the night : "Vince 1st XFL, now WCW, you're a dumbass" I laughed.

 

Tribute match of the night : Sting vs Ric Flair. Flair is wearing a Nitro T-shirt because he got fat. This is every Sting vs old Flair match. The post-match was cut short so we didn't get to hear Schiavone and Hudson say goodbye, which sucked. You can feel the emotion was genuine during the night, as most of these guys really didn't know what would happen with their jobs, and it was the end of a long story they lived through together.

 

Death of WCW Invasion angle : Shane McMahon has bought WCW before Vince. (Raw) So there we go. Long winded promo by Vince which reminded me why I didn't care for what the WWF format had become (the same format they're using to this day), with some funny parts like the "up/down" stuff. Scott Steiner and Goldberg got the two biggest pop. Wonder why. It was also striking to see Raw in a huge building like Nitro used to be up until early 99. The second striking thing is to hear Paul Heyman on commentary, a reminder that ECW has died too a few months before. Anyway, Shane shows up on Nitro, and the entire angle is all about the McMahon name. The ego stroking has begun. Flair wouldn't be around for the angle. Nor Sting. Nor Scott Steiner. Nor Goldberg. Nor even Rey Mysterio Jr. The following week, Wrestlemania X7 would happen, with the anticlimatic Steve Austin heel turn, putting an effective end to those glory days of pro-wrestling that started with the Monday Night Wars in the second half of the 90's. ECW was dead. WCW was dead. WWF was the only promotion in town, with no competition left. Game over. And the long road to stagnation, post-modern corporate sports-entertainment, revisionnism history (as always, written by the winners) and nostalgia shows could begin.

 

 

I began this project exactly nine months ago. You could say I got pregnant with shitty wrestling and I delivered 27 months worth of reviews of the worst, most painfull, booking fuck up you could think of.

 

In 1998 WCW was still making shitloads of money. They had found a golden goose in Goldberg. They chopped its head off at the end of the year, and began 1999 with the two worst possible ideas imaginable : the Fingerpoke of Doom and directing their audience toward the competition. Since January 1999 it's only been a downward spiral. At no point the promotion could have been called good. Kevin Nash's booking was awful, a lot worse than I remembered it to be. But I still believe the company was salvageable when he was demoted.

 

Of course they made the worse choice possible, and Vince Russo was soon exposed as the worse booker/writer (whatever you want to call it) ever, showing a total lack of understanding of what the WCW audience wanted, and of every basics of the business of pro-wrestling. His "writing" quickly made Nash's shit look like Riki Choshu booking New Japan in the early to mid 90's. After his first stint, it was done. A tired Kevin Sullivan having to work with a depleted roster couldn't save the day. Hulk Hogan and his creative control fucked the company a hundred time over too during the past two years, and he was still an egoistical, destructive asshole at this point.

 

The second Russo stint is just the worse, eye gouging stuff I have ever seen. The kind of stuff that would make anyone hate pro-wrestling. The long, painfull road until he was removed nearly made me go crazy watching so much stupid shit. And by then, it was all too late, especially since the remaining booking team quickly showed their own incompetence by still not understanding that Goldberg was the *only* saving grace of the promotion. Of course by then it was too late anyway, and the promotion had been doomed for a long long time. And if Bischoff had bought it instead of Vince, hindsight shows it would have turned into Hogan-era TNA.

 

So yeah, WCW deserved to go under, because of the upmost incompetence of the people who ran it into the dust. It's a pretty pathetic story. And when you think of how Vince McMahon screwed up the WCW Invasion, it's only poetic justice because when you think about it, the whole angle was fucked up in a way only WCW itself could have fucked it up.

 

I'm done.

 

The pleasure wasn't all mine.

 

And BTW, one last time : fuck you to Kevin Nash, Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, and especially fuck you so much Vince Russo.

 

I'm really done this time.

 

FUCK YEAH !

[Karl]

Excellent work!

[goc]

Take a bow and soak in your much deserved Internet awe.

[Kevin Ridge]

Bravo! I'm very impressed that you made it all the way through. You actually got me into tracking down some of this stuff as I subscribed to a Death of WCW youtube channel. Anyways, well done, take a break but hopefully you have another wrestling viewing project in the works down the road.

[Ricky Jackson]

*Standing Ovation*

[s1rweeze]

[flyonthewall2983]

I too add my thanks. Let's hope Karma rewards you well for this.

 

I don't remember it word for word, but Flair's promo stuck with me that night. I desperately wanted it to be a shoot, but even then knew it wasn't because I'd known how much he enjoyed his time working with Vince before. It felt pretty hollow once the show went off the air, when they aired a commercial for WrestleMania. The party was over, and the last golden age of pro wrestling was finally dead.

 

I don't think I could even watch Vince's promo again. Much as I liked seeing him fire Jeff Jarrett, it feels like a total shoot looking back. This is where Vince and Mr. McMahon were as one, with his denigration of "rasslin'" and so on. True, they have survived as a corner pocket of pop culture, but it's dragging behind it instead of ahead of it (if they were even ahead of it, really). What we have now is sound and noise, signifying mostly nothing. There are exceptions to this, but they are rare. What's missed most of all is the actual live feel of what now Kevin Nash has described as the most canned live show that you'll ever see.

 

Controversially I think "fuck you's" go all belong to Russo in my opinion (for obvious reasons). Without him, even with what Bischoff, Hogan and Nash had done, they could have survived. They weren't smart decisions but they were based in at least a modicum (and years of knowledge all between them) of respect for what they were putting on the air. He doesn't really merit a "fuck you" but Ted Turner is partly to blame as well, for giving Hogan such a deal that favored him more than the company.

[PeteF3]

I don't know if anyone in history has ever gotten laid by dropping the "I just watched the entire final two years of WCW" line. But if anybody deserves to, you do, Jerome.

 

I just beg you, for your own sanity, that if you must watch any other wrestling at all that you pick an '80s set, or a Yearbook, or a high-quality Japanese TV season.

[Blehschmidt]

Watching great stuff like the 1989 NWA set, and the Dangerous Alliance comp really makes how it all ended that much sadder.

 

Props to you for doing this. Take a break, you earned it!

[Timbo Slice]

Bravo, sir. Absolutely incredible stuff to read.

[Alucard]

Great stuff, enjoyed this all the way thru!

[Ditch]

You could say I got pregnant with shitty wrestling and I delivered 27 months worth of reviews of the worst, most painfull, booking fuck up you could think of.

Clearly you saved the best for last.

[goodhelmet]

I think I am going to give this another day of replies and then lock it and pin it. Just like WCW, this project needs to be laid to rest and Jerome deserves props for seeing it through.

[artDDP]

This brought back a lot of memories for me from a time when I was a teenaged, high-school wrestling fan. Thanks, El-P!

 

I certainly would have never thought back in 1997 when WCW seemed unstoppable that in just a few years the entire promotion would cease to exist and their final telecast would end with a commercial for the WWF's WrestleMania.

[cheapshot]

El-P, you've done a sterling job covering all this dross. I am saddened that you didn't enjoy 2001 WCW as much as I did at the time. Maybe if I went back and revisited it, I would probably come to the same opinion as you.