WCW's Highway to Hell

[Marty]

This is my favourite thread on the board. Enjoying reading your thoughts, El-P.

Seconded. Fun thread, cheers for all this El-P.

[Death From Above]

I've never understood the "Bigelow is up there with Vader" thing some people throw around. I can't think of anything Bigelow has done that would threaten Vader's top 30, to be conservative and kind.

 

Granted, I'm a giant Vader mark.

[goc]

If only Bam Bam had been satisfied making $600 a week and stayed in Memphis then we could be talking about him like an all time great. Unfortunately he had to go and wrestle with people other than Jerry Lawler and be exposed as a guy who has all the physical tools but never seems to actually have a good match with them.

[Matt D]

Bigelow had a good 1993. A bunch of Hart matches, some fun things against the Steiners. The Jannetty match on Raw. The Quebecers match.

[Ditch]

Bigelow had a good 1993. A bunch of Hart matches, some fun things against the Steiners. The Jannetty match on Raw. The Quebecers match.

A couple good matches isn't much to hang your hat on. Bigelow's best year would maybe be on par with a lesser Vader year like '98, but the lack of depth and lack of true standout matches really hurts. Albert/Tensai probably has a better body of work than Bigelow at this point and nobody touts him as a great big-man. Bigelow is only good relative to other 350+ pounders who tended to be total slobs.

[goc]

I don't want to come off as anti-Bigelow, or act like I think he was "bad" but I don't think he was particularly good or one of the "best big men ever" either. He's a guy who had a great look, was a great athlete and could do some really impressive things but never actually seemed to put it all together. The best matches I've ever seen him in were from what's probably his first year in the business when he's having a Texas Death Match with Lawler or teaming with Lawler in what were essentially hardcore tags against Austin Idol & Tommy Rich. That's what I mean with my "staying in Memphis" line. In Memphis he was going to stay near the top working with guys who were more apt to work around his strengths, and probably more importantly, he'd have a lot more out of control brawling matches. That was his strength and it wasn't something he could really do once he got to the WWF.

 

*I'm hoping a mod can break off the Bigelow discussion and put it into a Microscope thread.*

[Jingus]

*I'm hoping a mod can break off the Bigelow discussion and put it into a Microscope thread.*

No need, I'm on it.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Bigelow had a good 1993. A bunch of Hart matches, some fun things against the Steiners. The Jannetty match on Raw. The Quebecers match.

A couple good matches isn't much to hang your hat on. Bigelow's best year would maybe be on par with a lesser Vader year like '98, but the lack of depth and lack of true standout matches really hurts. Albert/Tensai probably has a better body of work than Bigelow at this point and nobody touts him as a great big-man. Bigelow is only good relative to other 350+ pounders who tended to be total slobs.

 

I agree, though in fairness, I haven't seen any of Bigelow's tag work with Vader in Japan. What's your opinion of his stuff there?

 

I think a lot of the love for Bigelow is the fact that he was obviously very athletic and was more than willing to do a flying headbutt. He also looked like a bad ass. But his work qualitatively speaking is very underwhelming but in spots.

 

EDIT: Goc hit the nail on the head with him.

[goc]

Stupid angles of the week : Chavo Jr. is throwing a party for Pepe (stick wood)'s birthday. Norman Smiley crashes the party, beats up Chavo and "kills" Pepe. This is retarded.

Just watched this. It was really stupid but it did make me laugh. Mostly at the fact that WWE even went through the trouble of copying this angle a few years later with Raven shredding Perry Saturn's Moppy.

 

Now I'm watching the nWo beatdown on Rey, then Konnan. And by the end of it the fans are chanting "We want Sting." They aren't chanting Goldberg. And there has been absolutely no mention of Sting for the last 2 weeks as far as I can tell. I find this amusing because while Hogan was doing his promo earlier I kept thinking they needed to go all the way 97 with it and show Sting lurking in the rafters.

 

After watching The Giant's departure, I can't help but think that was really one of WCW's worst decisions. They just threw all that money at Bret Hart the year before, when they didn't know what to do with him, he didn't really fit in the main event at the time while making main event money, almost solely to take him away from the WWF. Well The Giant is a guy right up Vince's alley, 15 years younger than Bret, and would have fit perfectly in the main event from the beginning of the nWo storyline if they knew what they were doing. They could have probably kept Giant and Jericho for what they paid for Bret and not only kept WWF from making those two even bigger stars but kept two young guys they could build into their own top stars.

 

I really wish that Vince would have ripped off this angle with Eric Bischoff being bumped down to ring boy. I'd love to see someone yelling at Vince while he's putting up ring ropes.

[El-P]

Stupid angles of the week : Chavo Jr. is throwing a party for Pepe (stick wood)'s birthday. Norman Smiley crashes the party, beats up Chavo and "kills" Pepe. This is retarded.

Just watched this. It was really stupid but it did make me laugh. Mostly at the fact that WWE even went through the trouble of copying this angle a few years later with Raven shredding Perry Saturn's Moppy.

Holy crap, I totally forgot about that (mostly because I'm not familiar with that period of WWF of which I've seen mostly PPV's)

 

Now I'm watching the nWo beatdown on Rey, then Konnan. And by the end of it the fans are chanting "We want Sting." They aren't chanting Goldberg. And there has been absolutely no mention of Sting for the last 2 weeks as far as I can tell.

Remember that Sting had been a part of the Wölfpack, but he had been injured by Bret Hart late in 1998, and there had been no news of him since then. They do mention Sting and wonder what does he think of the whole shake up regularly.

 

After watching The Giant's departure, I can't help but think that was really one of WCW's worst decisions. They just threw all that money at Bret Hart the year before, when they didn't know what to do with him, he didn't really fit in the main event at the time while making main event money, almost solely to take him away from the WWF. Well The Giant is a guy right up Vince's alley, 15 years younger than Bret, and would have fit perfectly in the main event from the beginning of the nWo storyline if they knew what they were doing. They could have probably kept Giant and Jericho for what they paid for Bret and not only kept WWF from making those two even bigger stars but kept two young guys they could build into their own top stars.

Getting Bret Hart was not a problem though. Using him well was the issue, and he totally fit in the company to me, it was just a matter of shitty booking. As far as money goes, they threw so much money to produce shitty vignettes and to guys like Master P and KISS, and I'm not even talking about ridiculous salaries for guys like Stevie Ray, that it would have been easy to cut down the crap and keep the right players. I totally agree, losing the Giant, Chris Jericho and Raven (who was *over*) during the year was a big mistake and a big hit in term of perception. But at this point the morale was getting lower and lower and the balance had clearly shifted toward the WWF. Only Jeff Jarrett would be a *big* transfer from WWF to WCW, and we know how that worked.

[El-P]

WEEK 8 : (February 22 to 27, 1999)

 

Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Kevin Nash (Nitro). I'll say some good things about Nash for a change. For all the deserved shit he got for being a manipulator and a terrible booker, he doesn't strike me as a selfish worker, and this demonstrate it. Also, he happens to have a few good ideas. So, Rey has lost his mask and he wants revenge on Nash. Nash laughs it off, accept the challenge and... gets beat. And it's not like he slip on a banana peel, Rey countered the jacknife and beat him. Nash's selling of the loss was great, he had a completely shocked facial while Rey was celebrating. So, although the deal about losing the mask was beyond stupid, I think Nash was not trying to bury Rey. Rey lost his mask in a tag match in which he got a visual pinfall on Nash and got cheated by Hall. Then he beat Nash clean on Nitro the very next day. Plus Rey said something interesting in the pre-match promo, that "the mask doesn't even matter anymore", which was kinda smart in a way to make people forgot that Rey had lost it, now the big deal was Rey beating Nash. And the match was actually very good, with Nash bumping really well for Rey. The last thing that really shows me Nash had no bad intention as a booker is that they re-showed the entire match on Thunder, which is something they usually never do. And they re-showed it on Saturday Night too. All in all, what comes out of this is that Rey losing his mask wasn't such a big deal, but Rey pinning Nash on Nitro was a huge deal. (of course they should have kept on pushing Rey, but... that's another matter)

 

Promo of the week : Scott Steiner (Nitro) : Man, did he buried and made fun of DDP here, talking about getting his wife for 30 days (which was a lie) and her calling him Big Bad Booty Daddy. And then he calls out Goldberg, which got a big time reaction. WCW had all in the palm of their hands here. Steiner vs Goldberg seemed so much promising and fresh than rehashing Flair vs Hogan. But Steiner was just a midcarder sadly to the eyes of Bischoff & Co, while the audience already accepted him like a major top of the card heel.

 

Hardcore match of the week : Hak vs Damian (Thunder) : Hey, it took Hak to get a fun Damian match in WCW. Until then he was basically treated as a jobber. Tenay was nice enough to mentionned his FMW past too (well, he didn't say FMW but you get the idea).

 

Funniest moment of the week : Bobby Heenan cracking jokes after jokes about Ralphus in a dress, and Tony Schiavone just being unable to keep it straight. (Nitro). Once he saw Tony was beginning to seriously laugh, Bobby just wouldn't stop at all. Really funny stuff. The match was Chris Jericho vs Hugh Morrus, and it was quite decent too, a rare opportunity for Hugh Morrus to be featured in something else than a squash.

 

Honorable mention of the week : Juventud Guerrera vs Blitzkrieg (Thunder) : Blitzkreig sure gets over with the crowd while doing jobs to Rey and Juvy. He was a spot machine, but damn was he smooth and explosive. Juvy gives him a very strong match which looked like a struggle, with lot of nearfalls. They may have had something with this guy. The more I watch him, the more his outfit look cheap though. And he came down to the ring with the Hollywood Blond music, which by this time had been used by a tons of JTTS including Marty Jannetty. Lack of production here.

 

Random match of the week : Mike Enos vs Jerry Flynn (Nitro) : This is why I still love WCW. Enos had quite the enjoyable stint as a bad ass babyface in 1999, and Flynn put in against the right worker could produce some fun little stiff matches. This is one of them.

 

Comeback-I-don't-care-for of the week : Rick Steiner showing up at the end of Scott Steiner vs Goldberg. Uh.... I didn't miss him.

 

With the exception of a rotten nWo comedy vignette with Hogan as Flair, Nash as Arn, Hall as Piper and David Flair in the middle of it, Nitro was actually pretty good this week, with lot of fine matches, including a Booker T vs Bret Hart which saw no TV celebrity and a clean finish (although it did get interrupted by a Disco Inferno backstage skits which was infuriating). They really have no idea what to do with Hart again after a few months of being Hogan's pal. Poor guy. Raven finally came back with his "sister" Chastity at his side, which is great.

[Loss]

If I recall correctly, Kevin Nash did the job to Rey to set an example for Bret Hart, as ridiculous as that sounds. I'll put over Rey, so how can you have a problem putting over anyone, basically. Bret put over Booker in a really good match earlier on the same show, which I'm surprised you didn't mention at all.

[El-P]

Bret put over Booker in a really good match earlier on the same show, which I'm surprised you didn't mention at all.

Hum...

 

"including a Booker T vs Bret Hart which saw no TV celebrity and a clean finish (although it did get interrupted by a Disco Inferno backstage skits which was infuriating). They really have no idea what to do with Hart again after a few months of being Hogan's pal. Poor guy."

 

[Loss]

Ah, I see it now.

[El-P]

I don't always include spoilers.

[Dooley]

With the exception of a rotten nWo comedy vignette with Hogan as Flair, Nash as Arn, Hall as Piper and David Flair in the middle of it

Isn't that the one where Nash opens a beer with a crowbar and asks "is that not the greatest thing you've ever seen in your life"? If so, I can't hate on that.

[Death From Above]

Funniest moment of the week : Bobby Heenan cracking jokes after jokes about Ralphus in a dress, and Tony Schiavone just being unable to keep it straight. (Nitro).

I'm pretty sure there is still yet to come a PPV match between Terry Funk and Norman Smiley with Ralphus, where Tony absolutely loses it by the end. If you haven't seen it... well, you'll enjoy that.

 

It's a classic.

[El-P]

Funniest moment of the week : Bobby Heenan cracking jokes after jokes about Ralphus in a dress, and Tony Schiavone just being unable to keep it straight. (Nitro).

I'm pretty sure there is still yet to come a PPV match between Terry Funk and Norman Smiley with Ralphus, where Tony absolutely loses it by the end. If you haven't seen it... well, you'll enjoy that.

 

It's a classic.

 

Sounds good to me. Especially since Terry Funk vs Norman Smiley already sounds damn fun to me.

 

(BTW, thanks for all the kind words, people)

[blueminister]

Now I'm watching the nWo beatdown on Rey, then Konnan. And by the end of it the fans are chanting "We want Sting." They aren't chanting Goldberg. And there has been absolutely no mention of Sting for the last 2 weeks as far as I can tell. I find this amusing because while Hogan was doing his promo earlier I kept thinking they needed to go all the way 97 with it and show Sting lurking in the rafters.

Butbutbut according to dudes on this board Sting's popularity and drawing power were easily eclipsed by Goldberg and nobody cared about Sting after Starcade 97! this simply cannot be

[Strummer]

Raven finally came back with his "sister" Chastity at his side, which is great.

Now I'm remembering all the stuff that went down during this time. Chastity was supposed to get a push after turning on Raven and joining up with Hak. But it got out that she had done a porn and WCW immediately took her off TV to never be seen again. Colin Quinn even did a joke about her on SNL

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOz55l5yIqM

 

this is awesome! Too bad Hogan killed off the angle by getting in Bischoff's ear

[El-P]

Yeah. Kanyon's bump into the pool cracks me up every time.

I think I remember Chastity sucking on a lollipop and the announcers making some joke out of it. It's too bad Raven left WCW, he was so much fun there, and really never was the same afterward, as ECW was pretty much dying and WWF never understood the character (and Vince hated him anyway : "Who the fuck hired Raven ??").

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Yeah. Kanyon's bump into the pool cracks me up every time.

I think I remember Chastity sucking on a lollipop and the announcers making some joke out of it. It's too bad Raven left WCW, he was so much fun there, and really never was the same afterward, as ECW was pretty much dying and WWF never understood the character (and Vince hated him anyway : "Who the fuck hired Raven ??").

I have a hard time believing that Vince said that given that he personally signed Darren Drozdov in Beyond the Mat. Vince is too hands on to have some full-time WWE performer to not know that Raven was signed.

[El-P]

WEEK 9 (March 01 to 06, 1999)

 

Match of the week : Bret Hart vs Chris Benoit (Nitro). It may very well be better than the infamous Owen Tribute match, because it had the dynamic of Bret being the heel here. Of course the match is hampered by the fact it doesn't really have a finish, but damn what builds toward that non finish is excellent, probably the best wrestling I've seen thus far. Say whatyou want about Bret, but this is the crispest work I've seen all year.

 

Worker of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. He works yet another giant killer match on Nitro against Bam Bam Bigelow, and it's very good, and works a classic cruiserweight match against Juventud Guerrera on Staurday night, and it's excellent. Shows the great versatility of Rey in a 5 days stretch.

 

Promo of the week : Arn Anderson sermoning David Flair. Classic serious Arn, who refers to Torrie Wilson as "that" while she's in standing next to him.

 

Obnoxious promo of the week : Jim Duggan coming back from cancer is great. Jim Duggan praying in the ring, cutting a passive-agressive promo about him not going to change and not doing obscene gestures and not getting tatoos/piercing and waving the flag of the greatest country in the world isn't great. Comes off holyer than thou and very obnoxious to me. Reminds me why I've always hated his character. So yeah. It's awesome that he beat cancer. Doesn't mean I have to hear him wax poetics about religion on a pro-wrestling show.

 

Funniest match of the week : The Cat vs Jerry Flynn (Nitro). There it is, The Cat has got his James Brown music, and he's gonna whoop somebody. Cool stiff martial arts match with Jerry Flynn, with the intervention of Sonny Oono, leading to a handicap match at Uncensored. The Cat is a pretty fun character and has developped into a fun worker to watch too if put against a guy who knows what he's supposed to do.

 

B-show feud of the week : Barbarian vs Meng (Saturday Night). Of course this is a rehash of the feud of the previous year, but hey, I can take Barbie and Meng hitting each other hard every week.

 

This was again a pretty good week actually. Ric Flair is hinting a subtle heel turn, as he doesn't give a shit about his son's double-cross and is only concerned about beating Hulk for the title, much to Arn's disapointment. It wasn't the right route to go, Flair had just won the company from Bischoff two months before and was the ultimate figurehead babyface. Goldberg is still not put back into the main event mix, he's feuding with Scott Steiner on TV, which elevates Steiner's status more than it downgrades Goldie's. Rick Steiner is back and already looks sloppy as shit. Not glad to see him clutter the higher mid-card. Buff Bagwell is back working too, looking buffed (pun intented) as all hell, and looking okay thus far.

[El-P]

So, this is a Megathread now I guess....

 

WEEK 10 (March 08 to 13, 1999)

 

Match of the week : Raven vs Hak vs Bam Bam Bigelow (Nitro). This begins as only Raven vs Hak, then Bigelow shows up and it turns into a three way. This is you classic backstage hardcore match of the days, and I like these much better than the ones in the WWF at the same time. It's fun nonsense with bumps on cars and such. It was fun as a novelty before it got old, and it was interesting to see how much both WCW and WWF had took the dive into the "hardcore" stuff by then, while ECW was clearly past its prime by two good years. Raven is pretty great here as he always was taking a beating, at one point he's lying on a car, antagonizes Bam Bam who litteraly dives onto him. This doesn't get a finish, of course, as these three meet at the PPV.

 

Give away match of the week : Goldberg vs Ric Flair (Nitro). Yes, they're giving Flair vs Goldie first ever match together for free on Nitro. They were desperate for ratings. Flair has not totally turned heel yet, but he's clearly a tweener and Goldie is the big babyface in this. This came around as David Flair hitchjacked Goldie's interveiw time at the beginning of Nitro and when Goldie got physicall with Flair Flair ran in to "save" his son and of course it led to this as Flair is just hysterical at this point and not the WCW leader anymore. Anyway, I thought this was actually really good, and Flair works exactly like he should against Goldie, first bumping hard, then cheating to get somewhat of an advantage before Goldie just came back on his ass. Of course it gets his share of Goldie no-sell Flair's offense, but since he's Goldie it didn't bother me. Plus you get Flair escaping the spear the first time around, which was nice. No finish, of course. However, Nash & Hogan were pretty annoying on the booth.

 

Annoying shit of the week : A first hour without wrestling on Nitro. Yep, this is it. A first hour only consisting of vignettes, mostly nWo ones with a long, boring Hogan promo, Hogan and Nash having a drink with Torrie and another woman, and some other worthless stuff that they would also reshow on Thunder and Saturday Night. Nash had given up on the first hour of Nitro it seems. So do I

 

Line of the week : "Hak, you don't sweat much for a fat guy." Raven, "putting over" his opponent to build the PPV.

 

Nothing much happening this week really. The build to Unsencored has been decent (Jericho vs Saturn - Tag team title match - Hardcore triangle match) to bad (Hogan vs Flair totally deriving from the issue at hand to an untimely half-ass Flair heel turn and shitloads of boring nWo vignettes). On paper Uncensored is actually looking quite decent save for Vincent vs Stevie Ray (yes, it is happening). The cruiserweight title seems more like an aftertought though at this point since the beginning of the year and the end of the lWo. Kidman just isn't feuding with anyone. Scott Hall hasn't been seen on TV for weeks, so the build to his match with Booker T is inexistent (Booker has been paired up with Scott Steiner on TV). Sting hasn't come back yet. DDP is "injured". Bret is in limbo. The nWo is all over the place but it is really tepid at this point. Only Steiner is fresh, and he really doesn't need to be in the nWo. Rick Steiner has been pretty bad, and Bagwell looks rusty and not near as good as he was pre-injury. Things, overall, don't look too good...

[goc]

It's pretty clear what WCW needed from the beginning of the year: Goldberg running through the nWo one by one. They had so many expendable guys, they could have even used the departure of The Giant as the big start, then he takes out all the scrubs like Vincent and Brian Adams. Drag it out until Spring Stampede in April or the Bash in June as the absolute latest for Goldberg to beat Hogan and take back the belt. Should have been a long road of killing the nWo B-Team before getting to Hall, Nash then Hogan for the belt.