[1999-02-08-WCW-Nitro] Bret Hart vs Roddy Piper

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Last few minutes of an embarrassingly heatless (seriously, it's so heatless that it's uncomfortable) and awful looking match with Sasso at ringside. Piper wins the U.S. title when he has no business being in the ring at all. Will Sasso takes a beating from Bret at ringside and helps Piper celebrate the win. Fans end up chanting for Roddy when master wrestling psychologist Will Sasso senses a dead crowd and starts a "Roddy!" chant. Then there's a ref bump because just booking a wrestling match with a winner and a loser is too much to ask from WCW. The title victory gets a pop but it's not at all the moment the announcers hype it to be since Piper has zero left in the tank. And WCW putting a title on Roddy Piper when Steve Austin and The Rock are on the other channel doesn't help the perception issue of WCW being filled with older guys at all.

[Tim Evans]

Sasso is probably the best worker of the 3 at the time. Poor Bret. I love that the announcers totally no sell Bret attacking Sasso or don't know what the hell is happening. WCW is just in a awful funk after the Fingerpoke of Doom. Awful.

[soup23]

Sasso gives Bret his comeuppance and PIper wins the US belt which was worthless with him holding it. WM 8 this was not.

[PeteF3]

Sweet merciful fuck, a WRESTLING match on Monday night. And, oh dear God, it's enough to make me want to go back to the vignettes. Will Sasso jumps the guardrail to continue this hot-button angle as the audience is, frankly, stunned. The announcers are all acting like their dogs have died--and not in an Owen Voice "put the severity of the Kimberly angle" over way, in a "we've checked out of this shit" way. This finishing sequence goes on, and on, and on, at half-speed, and--stupefyingly--Roddy Piper wins the U.S. title after a 16-year gap.