WWE Network... It's Here

[BBscout]

Montreal was and still is the dumbest shit where grown ass men had no perspective of the silly shit they engaged in for a living and couldn't step back to see how ridiculous both sides were. Y'all were dressing up in tights and play fighting for people. On the same show as you, there was a masked horror movie monster who could shoot fire, and his brother was an undead guy who could control lights and sometimes lightning. Shit ain't that serious.

The match and everything around it is my favorite of all time because of the fact that they would go that deep and be that possessive and still have a great brawl and work together. It made me feel how much those two love this crazy wrestling shit.

[flyonthewall2983]

Montreal was and still is the dumbest shit where grown ass men had no perspective of the silly shit they engaged in for a living and couldn't step back to see how ridiculous both sides were. Y'all were dressing up in tights and play fighting for people. On the same show as you, there was a masked horror movie monster who could shoot fire, and his brother was an undead guy who could control lights and sometimes lightning. Shit ain't that serious.

 

I don't think living in the Vince bubble allowed much anyone to have perspective. Hall and Nash at least had the good sense to realize that their family and financial needs were more important than everything else. Bret and Shawn may have felt they were under-utilized for so long while the lumbering beasts like Hogan and Warrior were allowed to be the faces of the company, and that being in their place at that time meant that they had to fight hard to keep those spots. Add to which, this is Bret's legit family business and I'm sure with regards to Shawn's behavior he played over and over again in his head what his father would have done if he were in Vince's place.

 

I believe Vince allowed Montreal to happen, in part because he had some passive-aggressive misgivings about the possibility of losing Bret to WCW in 1996. Almost as soon as they had him back on television, the Hitman character morphed into this guy going down a spiral of jealousy and resentment. Granted you had Steve Austin slowly building momentum towards being the top guy (at the time, you could argue he was the single most interesting character on either WWF or WCW programming), and the seeds of the Attitude era being planted that Bret couldn't ever find his place in. Maybe those things were allowed to happen because the idea of Bret just even talking to Bischoff was enough to make Vince feel like he was being spited. Not to psychoanalyze it too much, but it's an insecurity that clearly speaks to the fact that Vince grew up in a hostile, abusive environment.

[AirJordanFan93]

2009-2010 are as dark as the darkest days of the mid 90s IMO. Just pure trash

Bad times. Smackdown was pretty great in 2009 with Rey/Jericho and Punk/Hardy. Got pretty terrible when Taker came back though. Not to mention we got a bad Kane world title reign in this period as well.

[fxnj]

2009 also had ECW as a consistently good show throughout the year with Christian killing it. 2010-2012 was worse.

[iamthedoctor]

 

As far as timelie goes, Madusa was still in WWF in the fall of 95. She worked against Bertha Faye on RAW in October but I guess left before Survivor Series, rumour has it she didn't want to work with Aja Kong. And then she showed up on Nitro in December.

No, I mean the timeline between her first WCW stint ('91-'92 Dangerous Alliance) and Alundra Blayze. She claims she was homeless before joining the WWF.

 

 

Yeah, isn't this actually the reason why that excuse is bullshit? Because of the lawsuit that resulted both WWE and WCW knew they could never get away with that again.

They actually addressed that too.

 

JBL: "Vince didn't know that."

 

Whether that's bullshit or not, who knows, but I am inclined to believe that Vince would at least be paranoid enough to think Bischoff would try something. After all, Bischoff/WCW was already being sued anyway.

 

I do feel it was a bad decision on WWE's part to let her go.

The problem was, she was miscast from the start as a happy-go-lucky babyface. Anyone who saw her in WCW as Madusa (granted, that was probably a small fraction of the WWF audience) could never buy her as the face of the Women's division - I know I couldn't. I wanted the badass Madusa back (even with a new name).

 

There was a lot of that in the WWF at the time - "Made in the USA" Lex Luger never worked for the same reasons.

 

 

Didn't Lex at the time say the reason he left WWF was because he grew tired of waiting for his World Title run?

 

So if he had won the title either at Summerslam 93 or Mania X then I suppose he wouldn't have turned up at the first Nitro.

[iamthedoctor]

Neither Vince nor Shawn trusted Bret in "doing the right thing" based on Bret being so against jobbing to Shawn.

 

Other wise, why the hell would they have gone through the trouble of making sure the belt ended up around Shawn Michaels at the end of the night?

 

In hindsight, sure, Bret even suggested dropping it to anyone but Shawn, but that was the sticking point, Vince wanted Shawn to have the title at that point, Bret would do the honors to anyone BUT Shawn, and Vince was afraid Bischoff was too much of a POS that he'd have Bret go back on his word, and show up on Nitro with the WWF title. Plain and simple.

 

The only way you could argue this is a "new narrative" to fit the warming of relations with persons wronged in the past is if you buy any theory that the whole screwjob was a work all along (and if you think Vince was going to let a shitty state of morale in the company and locker room get worse than it was that year due to Hart leaving through a screwjob, there is a bridge in Brooklyn that I'd could sell to you), which of course is a whole new kettle of fish anyway!

 

 

This what I never got with Vince, worrying about Bret not doing the right thing but he seemed to let Shawn get away with murder by not wanting to do stuff. A few shhot interviews from various people touched upon the whole I lost my smile so im not losing to Bret at Mania 13.

 

As to why Vince wanted Shawn to have the belt then when HBK's run in 96 was one of the lowest ratings for a World Champion wasen't it? Personally I would have preferred Ken Shamrock to take the belt from Bret.

[stro]

Almost anyone would have been better than HBK at that point. 1997 HBK is absolutely miserable to watch and listen to.

[Migs]

 

2009-2010 are as dark as the darkest days of the mid 90s IMO. Just pure trash

Bad times. Smackdown was pretty great in 2009 with Rey/Jericho and Punk/Hardy. Got pretty terrible when Taker came back though. Not to mention we got a bad Kane world title reign in this period as well.

 

 

Summer 2009 for Smackdown is super fun, and then basically the moment 'Taker comes back everything gets flushed. They spent so much time building up Punk and Hardy, and then 'Taker comes back and its like, "Ha, sorry, these little men couldn't possibly beat the Dead Man, screw them." But from the moment they moved Jericho and Punk over until then, the wrestling is on par with the Smackdown 6 era.

[Alucard]

 

 

2009-2010 are as dark as the darkest days of the mid 90s IMO. Just pure trash

Bad times. Smackdown was pretty great in 2009 with Rey/Jericho and Punk/Hardy. Got pretty terrible when Taker came back though. Not to mention we got a bad Kane world title reign in this period as well.

 

 

Summer 2009 for Smackdown is super fun, and then basically the moment 'Taker comes back everything gets flushed. They spent so much time building up Punk and Hardy, and then 'Taker comes back and its like, "Ha, sorry, these little men couldn't possibly beat the Dead Man, screw them." But from the moment they moved Jericho and Punk over until then, the wrestling is on par with the Smackdown 6 era.

 

 

Agreed, SD had a big new stars feel at the time when they headlined one show with Punk & The Hart Dynasty vs Morrison & The Hardys. Punk/Morrison had an awesome series of TV matches while of course Punk/Hardy had the big feud, plus Rey had a handful of great matches with Morrison and Ziggler.

[AirJordanFan93]

 

 

 

2009-2010 are as dark as the darkest days of the mid 90s IMO. Just pure trash

Bad times. Smackdown was pretty great in 2009 with Rey/Jericho and Punk/Hardy. Got pretty terrible when Taker came back though. Not to mention we got a bad Kane world title reign in this period as well.

 

 

Summer 2009 for Smackdown is super fun, and then basically the moment 'Taker comes back everything gets flushed. They spent so much time building up Punk and Hardy, and then 'Taker comes back and its like, "Ha, sorry, these little men couldn't possibly beat the Dead Man, screw them." But from the moment they moved Jericho and Punk over until then, the wrestling is on par with the Smackdown 6 era.

 

 

Agreed, SD had a big new stars feel at the time when they headlined one show with Punk & The Hart Dynasty vs Morrison & The Hardys. Punk/Morrison had an awesome series of TV matches while of course Punk/Hardy had the big feud, plus Rey had a handful of great matches with Morrison and Ziggler.

 

You kind of forget that Morrison was actually pretty fun to watch in the right for a period. It did seem like at the time he was the going to be the one they pushed big time as opposed to The Miz. But the worst thing about the Taker return was his whole complaining about Punk and his lack of obeying the dress code which led to more or less a poor 12 months in terms of results for Punk. Sure he was still in great programs with Rey I just got so sick of seeing him lose on every PPV throughout 2010.

 

I think I will add that May-August 2009 Smackdown period to my re-watch list on the Network.

[Migs]

Well, they are uploading 2007 Smackdown to the network now (after doing 2005 and 2006 last week), so 2009 might not be too far away.

[Beast]

Very good Table For 3 with Slaughter, Duggan, & Volkoff uploaded now. All three come off well, and this is one case where all three actually had fairly major interactions with the other two during their career so it's intriguing to see them all together.

[Flyin' Brian]

 

 

He was offering several alternatives, all were being vetoed by HHH who got in Shawn's ear. I know that sounds to some folks like "OMG HHH CONSPIRACY" type shit, but it was reported at the time that Vince, Bret, and Shawn all agreed to do a DQ or some other non finish at Survivor Series and Bret would drop it at the next PPV or some Raw in the meantime. Hunter got Shawn all riled up about not beating a guy on the way out and all bets were off and we got what we got.

Shawn openly admits that in the (really well done) WWE Rivalries special they did on Shawn vs. Bret, where the two of them are sitting there side by side, being interviewed by JR. Which is a must see, if for nothing else than to see how much Shawn has since moved on, and how much Bret really still hasn't.

Looking at how the rest of their careers played out from Montreal on, I think it's easy to see why that might be the case. Shawn had to retire temporarily but got to come back, win the World title and have a great run in the twilight of his career up until retiring at a time of his choosing. Bret went to WCW, was badly misused, saw several family and friends in the business die, and got kicked in the head by Goldberg which effectively helped end his career.

[Beast]

 

 

He was offering several alternatives, all were being vetoed by HHH who got in Shawn's ear. I know that sounds to some folks like "OMG HHH CONSPIRACY" type shit, but it was reported at the time that Vince, Bret, and Shawn all agreed to do a DQ or some other non finish at Survivor Series and Bret would drop it at the next PPV or some Raw in the meantime. Hunter got Shawn all riled up about not beating a guy on the way out and all bets were off and we got what we got.

Shawn openly admits that in the (really well done) WWE Rivalries special they did on Shawn vs. Bret, where the two of them are sitting there side by side, being interviewed by JR. Which is a must see, if for nothing else than to see how much Shawn has since moved on, and how much Bret really still hasn't.

Looking at how the rest of their careers played out from Montreal on, I think it's easy to see why that might be the case. Shawn had to retire temporarily but got to come back, win the World title and have a great run in the twilight of his career up until retiring at a time of his choosing. Bret went to WCW, was badly misused, saw several family and friends in the business die, and got kicked in the head by Goldberg which effectively helped end his career.

 

 

Also Shawn is the one who committed the act against Bret so it makes sense that Bret would be the one to have a harder time getting over it...

[sek69]

Went back and watched the Big Event show from 1986, which was the largest show pre WM 3 they've done. The main event vs Orndorff might be the best WWF Hogan match I've ever seen. It deviates from the usual "Hulk vs monster" format and has a fired up Hulkster looking to get revenge for being wronged. Having Johnny V on commentary was a bit distracting at times, but it was a pretty good show if you're looking for something to check out.

[Ricky Jackson]

I love that match. Haven't watched the whole show since I was a kid, but have seen matches here and there. Horrific commentary

[The Thread Killer]

Went back and watched the Big Event show from 1986, which was the largest show pre WM 3 they've done. The main event vs Orndorff might be the best WWF Hogan match I've ever seen. It deviates from the usual "Hulk vs monster" format and has a fired up Hulkster looking to get revenge for being wronged. Having Johnny V on commentary was a bit distracting at times, but it was a pretty good show if you're looking for something to check out.

 

I was at that show, in the 11th row or so. It was years ago, but what I do remember is it being cold, being blown away by how huge Andre was in person (I had a seat right on the aisle and he walked past us to get to the ring) and I remember really enjoying the Jake the Snake (with no snake!) vs. Steamboat and Hogan vs. Wonderful matches.

[fakeplastictrees]

Everyone in the crowd is wearing a jacket or coat. Looks like the coldest it got that month was the mid 40's (Fahrenheit) or so. I wonder how WWE kept the ring warm that night. The cat is out-of-the-bag for WM29, but there is nothing within The Big Event setup that looks sophisticated enough to keep anyone warm.

[flyonthewall2983]

I think it's the one show on WWE Network that has Ricky Steamboat's original theme music (Alan Parson Project's "Sirius") left intact.

[...TG]

So the PTI-style debate show that was rumored a few months back is real. It's called "Bring It To The Table" and is debuting tonight and may god have mercy on our souls.

[hammerva]

From the looks of it it is Peter Rosenberg playing the "internet mark" who loves wrestling and gets the business and JBL and Heyman playing the role of WWE supporters telling people how stupid they are for thinking that way

[The Chief]

If you're going to do a show like that it's probably a good idea to have a moderator.

[C.S.]

I thought Bring It To The Table was surprisingly decent. I always have very low expectations for these "celebrity" hosts, but Peter Rosenberg did a nice job IMO.

[fakeplastictrees]

What really stood out to me was the nice balance of kayfabe and non-kayfabe question and of course the responses to those questions (both worked and otherwise). Just a really good balance that didn't feel as though Vince was feeding anyone lines or trying to push WWE corporate speak too hard. JBL kept it 100 at the end of the show. A good watch to kill time after Raw. Hope to see more.

[goc]

Saw some people VERY upset on twitter about Heyman saying that until fans boycott, complaining means nothing. They were just complaining and not boycotting however, proving him right.