I think it's a bit of a stretch for them to claim Andre showing up for one segment of one clash counts as being "in WCW", but it's not my call to make.
They could do millions of these focusing solely on the Russo and Bischoff security forces from the New Blood era. Paul London and Chris Harris are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head.
Surprised at no mention of Kane or HHH, even though they were both jobbers in WCW.
The Kane-Sting (surfer gimmick) match is sort of surreal to watch now. Sting steamrolls him with his offense and picks him up for body slams like he's a medium-sized ginger machine instead of the big red one (or THEDEMONKANE).
Raw in May 2002 is getting down right sad to watch. Attempting to seriously push tough Texan Bradshaw as a face, Tommy Dreamer eats nasty stuff, Paul Heyman is a pervert who hits on Trish and Lita, Bubba Ray defends Trish, Undertaker goes on a depressing streak of awful PPV matches, and Austin is at the end of his rope.
Oh well, I'm getting to the awesome era of SmackDown soon and Eddie-RVD Ladder Match is up next!
That segment really is horrible to watch in hindsight. Yeah he was terrible, yeah he wasn’t going to be a star, but this guy really had just fallen from the absolute heights, convinced he was going to be a megastar and just a few months later was jobbing on TV. Did they have to be so MEAN about it? This was such a burial. Maybe they intended him coming back strong but I very much doubt it.
I think it’s pretty reasonable for the title to be held up. Hart put that stipulation in but then deliberately got Hulk disqualified. That’s enough shenanigans for the committee to say that ain’t right.
The saddest part was... ANY guy would have jumped at that role- "Hey kid, we're gonna deck you out like one of the biggest stars in history, having you win the TV Title, and make you a top-level guy". ANY kid would say yes, even if they knew they were too green. Therefor, he was effectively set up to fail. SURE he sucked, but WCW should have KNOWN enough to not through him out there like that. There had to have been guys more capable.
Whenever I see shows from 96-98 and he’s on them, it’s pretty sad. All hope is gone for any future push. I’m sure I saw him job to someone like Hardbody Harrison once, he was even jobbing to jobbers. He isn’t even THAT bad later on, he definitely improved when he was sent away to the power plant after this Nitro.
I’m probably projecting massively though when I connect this segment to his suicide though. I imagine a wrestling gig he had for a few years probably wasn’t the MAJOR reason he took his own life, but there’s so little other information out there about the guy.
Flair is just in the zone as a heel during this time though. The Flair - Austin main event is fantastic stuff. You also have the rise of Brock Lesnar without the shitty "cool off" period they do now. Things do get kind of shitty for a minute after Austin leaves though.
Booker T was showing signs of greatness too. And for the record, I don't think it's the WM 19 HHH win that stopped his momentum. It was the quarter finals KOTR match against Brock. WWE basically had a choice, and they chose Brock. Booker was still hot, but VERY cooled off by the time he faced HHH at WM 19.
2002 was a really bad year for RAW. Especially after the Brand Extension.
Paul Heyman invading Lita's dressing room was awesome in it's scumminess. Paul Heyman taking her panties and making sure to keep them even after he got thrown out and Lita slapping the hell out of him was hilarious.
As sad as it is to see Andre so broken down in that Clash of the Champions clip, I always loved his custom-made apparel. It's a cross between pimp and Princess Bride. Pimpcess Bride chic.
Edge is the only one I didn't know about on that list.
Owen I knew about from the WCW internet show as they said the wrestlers in the locker room that monday were trying to figure out when he was with the company but this is the first time I've seen footage.
I know WCW had bigger issues bla bla bla but I wonder how things could have been different if some guys had stayed. Edge, RVD, Owen and so on. They aren't game changer wrestlers but still.
Putting Sunny on there was basically saying "we know you weren't watching WCW during Russo era" I could never figure out why they brought her in. Hey we are WCW! Remember when she was hot? well now she's up a few dress sizes and in our company! WCW where the big boys...and girls play!
Yes, but as a tag team midcarder. Even then, they kept failing. To be honest, as big of a fan as I was, he just seemed to be thrown in there at the last minute by winning a random battle royale, because HHH didn't have an opponent for the secondary WM world title match. The magic was already gone.
Well really, making sure your champions are actually under contract and won't pull an "Alaundra Blayze/Meng" on you is a smart thing. A very rare smart thing for TNA.
I totally understand it's the smart move (Didn't TNA have Devon as the TV champ and then his contract expired, or am I misremembering?), but it still indicates that the promotion is in its dying days when the only options for title holders are the only guys that they know will be there in six months if the company is still around.
Edge wouldn't have been a gamechanger in WCW, he would've been a midcarder at best.
Guys like Austin, Hunter, Benoit, and Jericho are good examples of how WWF used to know how to elevate guys. WCW never really elevated guys with the exception of Vader, Sting and Goldberg. Every other main eventer was either an ex-NWA guy (Flair), an ex-WWF guy (Hogan, Savage, Nash), or just stuck around long enough that WCW eventually had to stick the belt on them (DDP, Booker T, Steiner, Jarrett) because every other main eventer had left or was stuck in some stupid Russo angle.
Strange thing, I remember TSN having AWA's final year, and I don't remember that. (Also, I think Bischoff was the one responsible for it airing on TSN, he mentioned in his book that it was his job to find new affiliates for the show)
I know all this and I don't think Edge would have been a game changer if they had made him a star anyway. It's really fascinating that Bischoff never changed. I mean I hope I'm self aware enough that if I had Austin...let Austin go and now Austin was almost single handedly beating my company..I might start looking around my locker room for young talented charismatic guys and start pushing them to the moon hoping I had an Austin.
Absolutely. Letting Austin go was obviously a mistake, but Bischoff couldn't have known how HUGE he would've been. But yeah, at that point Bischoff should've looked at the approximately 180 guys who were on the WCW roster at that time and figured out which one of them could be pushed into a better place on the card. I mean, when you have a guy like Jericho who is the most interesting guy on the roster in late 1998, you have to do SOMETHING noteworthy with him. I mean, they couldn't even put him in a program for the U.S. Title?
Then again, because the main event scene was basically controlled by the Hogan crowd, who knows if Bischoff could even control that. Let's not forget that when Goldberg, the hottest guy on their roster EVER, was champion he frequently mid-carded shows so Hogan and the nWo could do some bullshit with Jay Leno or Karl Malone. Even before that when WCW got Bret Hart -- the biggest name in the WWF at the time and who left under ugly circumstances -- he didn't get a main event push until late 1999.
In other words, it was kind of hard for Bischoff to get his head out of Hogan's ass to look for midcard talent that could be pushed further up the card.
The storyline with the WCW title made no sense at the time and still doesn't now. Except if you consider it was Hogan's way to take as much attention humanly possible to the fact that he "lost" the title. Hell, it took them two weeks to even announce the title had changed hands and when they did, they fabricated the DQ stip. And then take the belt off the guy who "beat" Hogan. Sheesh, the buildup to WM IV made a ton more sense than this. And don't get me started about Nick Patrick and Starrcade 97...
One undeniably GOOD thing the IWC has done for wrestling is put those ridiculous 900 lines put of business. Or maybe I'm just bitter I could never get my parents' permission to call back in mark days :).
My wife, who has watched Big Brother since day 1, says Derrick would have gotten his ass kicked if he was in Dan's first season. In other words, Derrick was surrounded by morons.
Yeah, this isn't even the first time such an occurance has happened with the Network on Roku. I seem to recall it took them two and a half months to put up the 3/26/2001 episode of RAW on the Roku app.
''Meanwhile, in Venice Beach, the Megapowers chill out on the dark side with what appears to be a homeless guy and a guitar player on LSD. This was a weird period for Hulkamania, brother.''
I forget the timing of when the Renegade angle happened but i would assume Vince wasn't paying any attention to it and when it flopped (and flopped hard given that they hard sold the notion that Renegade WAS the Warrior) hard due to fans realizing the bait and switch, Vince probably just chuckled at WCW's failure and didn't even bother to alert his lawyers......
Cena/Orton is more Dusty/Flair than Sting/Flair. The closest thing Cena has to a Flair would be Edge, since unlike Punk, Edge fully committed to the villain role in a way that Punk never could, as far as Edge being willing to be a bastard who was a bastard as opposed to Punk being Frank Grimes to Cena's Homer Simpson
Look at me, I'm "putting someone over" without really doing a job! It's okay though since I'll make sure I completely squash them in four minute Raw matches in a couple months because I'm John Cena. I don't need to do jobs, because someone else will do them for me! Oh, hi, Mr. McMahon! I'm the most hated wrestler on the roster. Time to go home to my mansion and nail my Bella! What's this? A contract to wrestle The Rock, twice, we'll I'll just take it because I'll get my win back! *gets squashed twice*.
They really couldn't have come up with any sort of stock, generic music they had laying around for Cobra? I started getting Ikari Warriors 2 flashbacks for a moment there.
I think you mean Sexton Hardcastle.
ReplyDeleteIN before Chris Benoit joke.
ReplyDeleteNot a fan of this Tom Phillips 'Pee Wee Herman' 'wannabe. He reminds me of Craig DeGeorge for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a bit of a stretch for them to claim Andre showing up for one segment of one clash counts as being "in WCW", but it's not my call to make.
ReplyDeleteThey could do millions of these focusing solely on the Russo and Bischoff security forces from the New Blood era. Paul London and Chris Harris are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head.
ReplyDeleteI like that the mystique of the Undertaker still transcends stuff like this.
ReplyDeleteSurprised at no mention of Kane or HHH, even though they were both jobbers in WCW.
ReplyDeleteThe Kane-Sting (surfer gimmick) match is sort of surreal to watch now. Sting steamrolls him with his offense and picks him up for body slams like he's a medium-sized ginger machine instead of the big red one (or THEDEMONKANE).
Well Triple H at least had a PPV match in WCW so he wasn't *as* obscure as an Edge or RVD.
ReplyDeleteRaw in May 2002 is getting down right sad to watch. Attempting to seriously push tough Texan Bradshaw as a face, Tommy Dreamer eats nasty stuff, Paul Heyman is a pervert who hits on Trish and Lita, Bubba Ray defends Trish, Undertaker goes on a depressing streak of awful PPV matches, and Austin is at the end of his rope.
ReplyDeleteOh well, I'm getting to the awesome era of SmackDown soon and Eddie-RVD Ladder Match is up next!
They should do a list: Guys who were in WCW before they came from WWF to WCW. ;) Like Nash, Hall, Luger or Jeff Jarrett.
ReplyDeleteNeither Cena nor Orton is in Flair's stratosphere, sir.
ReplyDeleteor YOU CAN'T WRESTLE
ReplyDeleteoh I mean RASSLE
HHH wasn't really a jobber, I'm sure he was probably going to be at that TV title level if he'd stuck around.
ReplyDeleteThat segment really is horrible to watch in hindsight. Yeah
ReplyDeletehe was terrible, yeah he wasn’t going to be a star, but this guy really had
just fallen from the absolute heights, convinced he was going to be a megastar
and just a few months later was jobbing on TV. Did they have to be so MEAN
about it? This was such a burial. Maybe they intended him coming back strong
but I very much doubt it.
I think it’s pretty reasonable for the
ReplyDeletetitle to be held up. Hart put that stipulation in but then deliberately got
Hulk disqualified. That’s enough shenanigans for the committee to say that ain’t
right.
The saddest part was... ANY guy would have jumped at that role- "Hey kid, we're gonna deck you out like one of the biggest stars in history, having you win the TV Title, and make you a top-level guy". ANY kid would say yes, even if they knew they were too green. Therefor, he was effectively set up to fail. SURE he sucked, but WCW should have KNOWN enough to not through him out there like that. There had to have been guys more capable.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I see shows from 96-98 and he’s on them, it’s pretty sad. All hope is gone for any future push. I’m sure I saw him job to someone like Hardbody Harrison once, he was even jobbing to jobbers. He isn’t even THAT bad later on, he definitely improved when he was sent away to the power plant after this Nitro.
ReplyDeleteI’m probably projecting massively though when I connect this segment to his suicide though. I imagine a wrestling gig he had for a few years probably wasn’t the MAJOR reason he took his own life, but there’s so little other information out there about the guy.
He was Wolf Hawkfield I. All Japan. Virtua Fighter FTW~!
ReplyDeleteHey Scott, are you going to repost the PPV rants in between episodes of Nitro, or are you on strike until the 09/25 Nitro returns?
ReplyDeleteFlair is just in the zone as a heel during this time though. The Flair - Austin main event is fantastic stuff. You also have the rise of Brock Lesnar without the shitty "cool off" period they do now. Things do get kind of shitty for a minute after Austin leaves though.
ReplyDeleteI remember Owen Hart on Worldwide as my Dad would tape it for me as it aired at 3 in the morning on one of the local channels.
ReplyDeleteBooker T was showing signs of greatness too. And for the record, I don't think it's the WM 19 HHH win that stopped his momentum. It was the quarter finals KOTR match against Brock. WWE basically had a choice, and they chose Brock. Booker was still hot, but VERY cooled off by the time he faced HHH at WM 19.
ReplyDelete2002 was a really bad year for RAW. Especially after the Brand Extension.
ReplyDeletePaul Heyman invading Lita's dressing room was awesome in it's scumminess. Paul Heyman taking her panties and making sure to keep them even after he got thrown out and Lita slapping the hell out of him was hilarious.
Eventually they'll make a DVD documentary that highlights Mean Mark in all his glory.
ReplyDeleteThat tommy dreamer thing was fucking gross.
ReplyDeleteHe was still way over teaming with Goldust.
ReplyDeleteI didn't really miss Sunny. Well, I did miss her but I wasn't a big fan of her ever increasing weight and her pathetic drunkenness.
ReplyDeleteAs sad as it is to see Andre so broken down in that Clash of the Champions clip, I always loved his custom-made apparel. It's a cross between pimp and Princess Bride. Pimpcess Bride chic.
ReplyDeleteTJ: Prince Devitt's name got changed to Finn Balor. I'm sure it will be discussed in the Daily Update.
ReplyDeleteEdge is the only one I didn't know about on that list.
ReplyDeleteOwen I knew about from the WCW internet show as they said the wrestlers in the locker room that monday were trying to figure out when he was with the company but this is the first time I've seen footage.
I know WCW had bigger issues bla bla bla but I wonder how things could have been different if some guys had stayed. Edge, RVD, Owen and so on. They aren't game changer wrestlers but still.
Putting Sunny on there was basically saying "we know you weren't watching WCW during Russo era" I could never figure out why they brought her in. Hey we are WCW! Remember when she was hot? well now she's up a few dress sizes and in our company! WCW where the big boys...and girls play!
Yes, but as a tag team midcarder. Even then, they kept failing. To be honest, as big of a fan as I was, he just seemed to be thrown in there at the last minute by winning a random battle royale, because HHH didn't have an opponent for the secondary WM world title match. The magic was already gone.
ReplyDeleteDo not question TNA! It's sound decision making like this that got them to where they are today.
ReplyDeleteWell really, making sure your champions are actually under contract and won't pull an "Alaundra Blayze/Meng" on you is a smart thing. A very rare smart thing for TNA.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand it's the smart move (Didn't TNA have Devon as the TV champ and then his contract expired, or am I misremembering?), but it still indicates that the promotion is in its dying days when the only options for title holders are the only guys that they know will be there in six months if the company is still around.
ReplyDeleteplease just post your old rants if you can buuuuuud :).
ReplyDeleteMaybe a year long team tournament could save them! The teams would be
ReplyDeleteRoode's Legends
Storm's Snipers
Young's Blitzers
Edge wouldn't have been a gamechanger in WCW, he would've been a midcarder at best.
ReplyDeleteGuys like Austin, Hunter, Benoit, and Jericho are good examples of how WWF used to know how to elevate guys. WCW never really elevated guys with the exception of Vader, Sting and Goldberg. Every other main eventer was either an ex-NWA guy (Flair), an ex-WWF guy (Hogan, Savage, Nash), or just stuck around long enough that WCW eventually had to stick the belt on them (DDP, Booker T, Steiner, Jarrett) because every other main eventer had left or was stuck in some stupid Russo angle.
And maybe they could forget about crowds and film their shows in a giant pink room!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wrestlecrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/stv38.jpg
Strange thing, I remember TSN having AWA's final year, and I don't remember that. (Also, I think Bischoff was the one responsible for it airing on TSN, he mentioned in his book that it was his job to find new affiliates for the show)
ReplyDeleteI know all this and I don't think Edge would have been a game changer if they had made him a star anyway. It's really fascinating that Bischoff never changed. I mean I hope I'm self aware enough that if I had Austin...let Austin go and now Austin was almost single handedly beating my company..I might start looking around my locker room for young talented charismatic guys and start pushing them to the moon hoping I had an Austin.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. Letting Austin go was obviously a mistake, but Bischoff couldn't have known how HUGE he would've been. But yeah, at that point Bischoff should've looked at the approximately 180 guys who were on the WCW roster at that time and figured out which one of them could be pushed into a better place on the card. I mean, when you have a guy like Jericho who is the most interesting guy on the roster in late 1998, you have to do SOMETHING noteworthy with him. I mean, they couldn't even put him in a program for the U.S. Title?
ReplyDeleteThen again, because the main event scene was basically controlled by the Hogan crowd, who knows if Bischoff could even control that. Let's not forget that when Goldberg, the hottest guy on their roster EVER, was champion he frequently mid-carded shows so Hogan and the nWo could do some bullshit with Jay Leno or Karl Malone. Even before that when WCW got Bret Hart -- the biggest name in the WWF at the time and who left under ugly circumstances -- he didn't get a main event push until late 1999.
In other words, it was kind of hard for Bischoff to get his head out of Hogan's ass to look for midcard talent that could be pushed further up the card.
He's Bubba Tough!
ReplyDeleteThe storyline with the WCW title made no sense at the time and still doesn't now. Except if you consider it was Hogan's way to take as much attention humanly possible to the fact that he "lost" the title. Hell, it took them two weeks to even announce the title had changed hands and when they did, they fabricated the DQ stip. And then take the belt off the guy who "beat" Hogan. Sheesh, the buildup to WM IV made a ton more sense than this.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get me started about Nick Patrick and Starrcade 97...
One undeniably GOOD thing the IWC has done for wrestling is put those ridiculous 900 lines put of business. Or maybe I'm just bitter I could never get my parents' permission to call back in mark days :).
ReplyDeleteThere's a YouTube app on the ps3. Just watch that episode using that if you really need to see it.
ReplyDeleteI'd say yeah. Not as good as the Renegade Warriors though.
ReplyDeleteexcept Flair vs Sting is always a good match. big difference
ReplyDeleteYou'd think they would've used this to end the Renegade experiment and repackage him as something else but I guess not.
ReplyDeleteSting-Flair is still my favorite wrestling feud.
ReplyDeleteI watched every early Nitro and have no recollection of this show, which is strange, given how bizzarre it sounds...
ReplyDeleteMy wife, who has watched Big Brother since day 1, says Derrick would have gotten his ass kicked if he was in Dan's first season. In other words, Derrick was surrounded by morons.
ReplyDeleteI saw nothing wrong with any of this. Even the Hogan stuff, at least it was different.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this isn't even the first time such an occurance has happened with the Network on Roku. I seem to recall it took them two and a half months to put up the 3/26/2001 episode of RAW on the Roku app.
ReplyDeleteCena/Orton is the exact same thing as Flair/Sting, just without people caring and showing interest
ReplyDelete''Meanwhile, in Venice Beach, the Megapowers chill out on the dark side with what appears to be a homeless guy and a guitar player on LSD. This was a weird period for Hulkamania, brother.''
ReplyDeleteThis promo was full on Gummo.
.....good lord, WCW had a native american-themed stable right in front of them and they didn't pull the trigger. (Or should I say "loose the arrow"?)
ReplyDeleteThey left a lot of wampum on the table by missing that oppurtunity.
ReplyDeleteI remember the gimmick but not the Hogan promo. Is it on Youtube?
ReplyDeleteI forget the timing of when the Renegade angle happened but i would assume Vince wasn't paying any attention to it and when it flopped (and flopped hard given that they hard sold the notion that Renegade WAS the Warrior) hard due to fans realizing the bait and switch, Vince probably just chuckled at WCW's failure and didn't even bother to alert his lawyers......
ReplyDeleteRegarding Sting/Flair; they always managed to make the feud work by way of keeping the two apart just long enough to make their matches worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteCena/Orton is more Dusty/Flair than Sting/Flair. The closest thing Cena has to a Flair would be Edge, since unlike Punk, Edge fully committed to the villain role in a way that Punk never could, as far as Edge being willing to be a bastard who was a bastard as opposed to Punk being Frank Grimes to Cena's Homer Simpson
ReplyDeleteI fully expect them to be in the main event of the last Raw ever.
ReplyDeleteLook at me, I'm "putting someone over" without really doing a job! It's okay though since I'll make sure I completely squash them in four minute Raw matches in a couple months because I'm John Cena. I don't need to do jobs, because someone else will do them for me! Oh, hi, Mr. McMahon! I'm the most hated wrestler on the roster. Time to go home to my mansion and nail my Bella! What's this? A contract to wrestle The Rock, twice, we'll I'll just take it because I'll get my win back! *gets squashed twice*.
ReplyDeleteSee Randy Orton vs. John Cena for opposite.
ReplyDeleteActually he stripped Giant of the title by the sneaky underhanded way Jimmy Hart tricked Hogan
ReplyDeleteNo - he just became a Saturday night JTTS.
ReplyDeleteTHIS!!!!
ReplyDeleteEven if it is a arm wrestling contest
ReplyDeleteThey really couldn't have come up with any sort of stock, generic music they had laying around for Cobra? I started getting Ikari Warriors 2 flashbacks for a moment there.
ReplyDeleteEdge/Cena is easily my favorite Cena feud. Brought out the best in each other.
ReplyDelete