Sadly, I did not make it to see New Jack vs. White Mike. Logistics didn't work out; who starts a show at 5:30 on a Friday?
Closest thing I have at the moment is this promo from White Mike:
I really hope somebody filmed that shit.
The Wrestling Thread
Re: The Wrestling Thread
Been watching these videos by wrestling collector on YouTube and he or she put up a bunch of wwf superstars of wrestling and wrestling challenge and prime time wrestling videos leading up wrestle mania 3. Man the build up of every match. Hurcules and billy jack, hogan and Andre, steamboat and savage, hell even killer bees and sheik and volkolf has build up to where you want to see these matches.
I'm going to binge watch every episode leading to wrestle mania 3 then I'm going to watch wrestle mania on the original box set from 1997
I'm going to binge watch every episode leading to wrestle mania 3 then I'm going to watch wrestle mania on the original box set from 1997
Re: The Wrestling Thread
I've been binge watching more 1998 WCW if anyone wants to talk attitude era. I'm currently in 1999 for WWF. I started in 1996 early last year and have been working my way up.
Few notes on WCW:
- Crow Sting sucks. I have no idea how people got behind him back then, but they did. They spent the entirety of 1997 hyping him up with no matches, then as everyone knows he was having substance abuse problems and the match with Hogan was awful. The bits I've seen of Surfer Sting and his ring work is so much better.
- How the Wolfpac initially forms is a complete clusterfuck and seems to signal the potential downfall in May/June 1998. Way less wrestling matches and longer non-wrestling segments popping up now. This is the midst of Rodman's second return against DDP and Carl Malone. The majority of the 1998 PPV's sound dreadfully bad so I've been skipping some.
- The angle here with Bret sucking Hogan's dick is insanely weird. He's like in the NWO but also not. It makes no sense whatsoever. And it felt like there was going to be a feud build up for him and Macho which could have been amazing, but then they pushed Macho against Piper again... and DDP... and none of the booking makes sense. Macho had his ACL tear here though so he doesn't last long, which is a shame. Probably could have saved the Wolfpac for me.
- The Wolfpac probably saved Lex at least. He was getting extremely boring and they weren't putting any belts on him. But Curt Hennig actually joins the Wolfpac for about two nights until he betrays them on some PPV. Made no sense.
- Heel Jericho has been amazing here and got Dean SO over when he was out recovering, it's hilarious. The work horses of WCW have still been great, Jericho, Dean, Booker, Benoit, Eddie, etc.
- Boy do I hate Raven, but no denying he does a decent job getting other people over. Saturn has been cool though and gets better breaking from the flock.
1998 WWF sucked. The good points are Vince becoming his character, Austin and Rock's rises, and the birth of Kane... though he got boring pretty quickly for me. Undertaker vs Kane is already overplayed. The roster was thin and yeah, it was just crap. Such a shame Shawn Michaels had to step away from all this after his injury and only do weird commissioner things and random crap until his big return in the 2000's. 1999 has been a bit better but still has inconsistent Russo storytelling all over it. It's been fun to see Rock's evolution again though, he was my favorite over Austin. But I'm starting to like Triple H more than I did growing up, since he's actually a better wrestler than both... though Austin was amazing and seemed to be on a Bret like level until Owen injured his neck.
I'm looking forward to later 1999 WWF and hear 2000 is pretty good, when the roster starts to thicken out and they start getting some of my WCW favorites over there. I fell off back in the day around the invasion angle but I hope to watch more this time.
As for WCW... I'll have to see how it goes, but 1999-2001 look pretty dreadful and were from what I remember.
Few notes on WCW:
- Crow Sting sucks. I have no idea how people got behind him back then, but they did. They spent the entirety of 1997 hyping him up with no matches, then as everyone knows he was having substance abuse problems and the match with Hogan was awful. The bits I've seen of Surfer Sting and his ring work is so much better.
- How the Wolfpac initially forms is a complete clusterfuck and seems to signal the potential downfall in May/June 1998. Way less wrestling matches and longer non-wrestling segments popping up now. This is the midst of Rodman's second return against DDP and Carl Malone. The majority of the 1998 PPV's sound dreadfully bad so I've been skipping some.
- The angle here with Bret sucking Hogan's dick is insanely weird. He's like in the NWO but also not. It makes no sense whatsoever. And it felt like there was going to be a feud build up for him and Macho which could have been amazing, but then they pushed Macho against Piper again... and DDP... and none of the booking makes sense. Macho had his ACL tear here though so he doesn't last long, which is a shame. Probably could have saved the Wolfpac for me.
- The Wolfpac probably saved Lex at least. He was getting extremely boring and they weren't putting any belts on him. But Curt Hennig actually joins the Wolfpac for about two nights until he betrays them on some PPV. Made no sense.
- Heel Jericho has been amazing here and got Dean SO over when he was out recovering, it's hilarious. The work horses of WCW have still been great, Jericho, Dean, Booker, Benoit, Eddie, etc.
- Boy do I hate Raven, but no denying he does a decent job getting other people over. Saturn has been cool though and gets better breaking from the flock.
1998 WWF sucked. The good points are Vince becoming his character, Austin and Rock's rises, and the birth of Kane... though he got boring pretty quickly for me. Undertaker vs Kane is already overplayed. The roster was thin and yeah, it was just crap. Such a shame Shawn Michaels had to step away from all this after his injury and only do weird commissioner things and random crap until his big return in the 2000's. 1999 has been a bit better but still has inconsistent Russo storytelling all over it. It's been fun to see Rock's evolution again though, he was my favorite over Austin. But I'm starting to like Triple H more than I did growing up, since he's actually a better wrestler than both... though Austin was amazing and seemed to be on a Bret like level until Owen injured his neck.
I'm looking forward to later 1999 WWF and hear 2000 is pretty good, when the roster starts to thicken out and they start getting some of my WCW favorites over there. I fell off back in the day around the invasion angle but I hope to watch more this time.
As for WCW... I'll have to see how it goes, but 1999-2001 look pretty dreadful and were from what I remember.
Re: The Wrestling Thread
Whoa, daddy! Let's not get to talking bad about the Stinger—that's my childhood and them's fighting words! 
That angle was probably the biggest/hottest thing in wrestling ever besides Stone Cold Steve Austin. The amount of heat built up to finally see Sting take out the nWo was insane. Starrcade 1997 should have been the moment that skyrocketed WCW to wrestling immortality. Instead, due to a number of problems including overbooking, Bischoff's anti-WWF stance leading him to involve Bret Hart and try to poke at Vince McMahon & the Montreal Screwjob, Hogan's creative control/ego, Sting's personal issues, and just the overall hubris of the entire WCW setup at that point, we got that shitty, dirty finish when we should have gotten Sting triumphantly and cleanly defeating Hogan for the title and putting an end to the nWo.
But what happened happened, and it was the beginning of the downfall for WCW, imo.
That angle was probably the biggest/hottest thing in wrestling ever besides Stone Cold Steve Austin. The amount of heat built up to finally see Sting take out the nWo was insane. Starrcade 1997 should have been the moment that skyrocketed WCW to wrestling immortality. Instead, due to a number of problems including overbooking, Bischoff's anti-WWF stance leading him to involve Bret Hart and try to poke at Vince McMahon & the Montreal Screwjob, Hogan's creative control/ego, Sting's personal issues, and just the overall hubris of the entire WCW setup at that point, we got that shitty, dirty finish when we should have gotten Sting triumphantly and cleanly defeating Hogan for the title and putting an end to the nWo.
But what happened happened, and it was the beginning of the downfall for WCW, imo.
Re: The Wrestling Thread
I'm not sure I'd put the full blame on Bischoff (he had an unlimited amount of bad ideas though and definitely got way too cocky), since Sting had a lot of personal issues here... having watched the match last year, it's clearly evident that even if it was a clean traditional match, Sting couldn't work. Hogan carried the entire match and it was really dreadful to watch. From that point on, it's been a starking contrast to how limited Sting suddenly becomes (weight issues perhaps, some argue that's why he started wearing the full body suit)... he's got like that Five Moves of Death syndrome going on. Stinger Splash! How many times do we need to see that now? On the flip side, I was caught off guard seeing how awesome he worked with some of the late Surfer stuff I caught... the dude could do everything and was really technical. I hear him and Vader have an awesome rivalry, I'll dig watching his older stuff... but rewatching this era just confirms why I was never much of a Sting guy. He's not very good on the mic most of the time either, lol. I thought Kane was a cooler character for someone comparable, but yeah.
No worries, he's not like Jeff Jarrett or Mongo McMicheal level for me or anything...
I was always neutral on Goldberg growing up and still hold a little resentment against him because of his kick to Bret's head. But it's been fun watching his rise here in 1998 and after two months of getting a huge push and winning the US title, they slapped the world belt on him fairly quickly. Quite a difference compared to Crow Sting's entire 1997 year buildup, haha.
Plus I realized, I would rather watch Goldberg than see more of Giant. It's painful and scary to know I have more Giant to see from this point on... was never a big fan and rewatching old stuff is just making me hate him more. 90% of his WCW career can be summed up in... 1996-1998 casual feud with Hogan. His promos are some of the worst ever. For awhile he didn't even have entrance music... and his jumps to and from the NWO multiple times, makes no sense. Man, he is painful. Goldberg is greener than grass, but I'd much rather watch him than Giant. Some of my friends say his WWE career is basically the same, his turns against people never make sense. Sounds like one of the best parts is when he tag teams with Jericho or something.
For the record, 1997 completely kicked ass for both the WWF and WCW. WCW had a devastatingly awesome tag division then and a hell of a mid card, just nonstop good wrestling everywhere... before Thunder came in (Thunder was a jobber show from the start haha, even as a kid I lost interest in it after awhile. The network doesn't have it I don't think so I'm not even bothering). And the WWF was insane with heel Austin, heel DX and Shawn, heel Bret... everyone was crazy, but it still had crazy good matches and a focus on the ring with good storytelling. Badass year.
I've been very slowly going back and watching some of the classic stuff too. I'll watch that full time once I finish up later WCW or so. I stopped around WM3. Gonna check out as much Prime Time and Saturday Night Main Event that I can and hit up those PPV's. I'm really pumped to see the prime of some of my favorite guys, like Curt Hennig or Scott Hall, Bret, Shawn, etc.
No worries, he's not like Jeff Jarrett or Mongo McMicheal level for me or anything...
I was always neutral on Goldberg growing up and still hold a little resentment against him because of his kick to Bret's head. But it's been fun watching his rise here in 1998 and after two months of getting a huge push and winning the US title, they slapped the world belt on him fairly quickly. Quite a difference compared to Crow Sting's entire 1997 year buildup, haha.
Plus I realized, I would rather watch Goldberg than see more of Giant. It's painful and scary to know I have more Giant to see from this point on... was never a big fan and rewatching old stuff is just making me hate him more. 90% of his WCW career can be summed up in... 1996-1998 casual feud with Hogan. His promos are some of the worst ever. For awhile he didn't even have entrance music... and his jumps to and from the NWO multiple times, makes no sense. Man, he is painful. Goldberg is greener than grass, but I'd much rather watch him than Giant. Some of my friends say his WWE career is basically the same, his turns against people never make sense. Sounds like one of the best parts is when he tag teams with Jericho or something.
For the record, 1997 completely kicked ass for both the WWF and WCW. WCW had a devastatingly awesome tag division then and a hell of a mid card, just nonstop good wrestling everywhere... before Thunder came in (Thunder was a jobber show from the start haha, even as a kid I lost interest in it after awhile. The network doesn't have it I don't think so I'm not even bothering). And the WWF was insane with heel Austin, heel DX and Shawn, heel Bret... everyone was crazy, but it still had crazy good matches and a focus on the ring with good storytelling. Badass year.
I've been very slowly going back and watching some of the classic stuff too. I'll watch that full time once I finish up later WCW or so. I stopped around WM3. Gonna check out as much Prime Time and Saturday Night Main Event that I can and hit up those PPV's. I'm really pumped to see the prime of some of my favorite guys, like Curt Hennig or Scott Hall, Bret, Shawn, etc.
Re: The Wrestling Thread
New Generation era WWF is great for seeing all those guys you mentioned, but boy is there some wacky crap going on in those early 90s.
I was never a big Goldberg mark myself. I thought the Jackhammer was a pretty sick move, and it was cool when he would hit it on massive dudes. But his biggest asset was also his greatest curse—the streak gimmick. Once it was over, he had to actually compete, and that wasn't the best thing for a relatively green dude that had been pushed to the moon and gained a bit of an ego because of it. He's got some undeniable natural charisma though, and his most recent stuff since he's been back in WWE has been pretty good (if you can look past the whole part-timer issue).
Giant was a victim of the WCW atmosphere from the day he started in there getting pimped by Kevin Sullivan as "the son of Andre" and the Dungeon of Doom's answer to Hulkamania, all the way through his various nWo in/out runs. His best work would come later as Big Show; that feud he had with Bossman in the late Attitude Era was and still is hilarious, for example. He's looking super jacked these days, if you haven't seen him. Might be gearing up for one more big run before he hangs it up.
I was never a big Goldberg mark myself. I thought the Jackhammer was a pretty sick move, and it was cool when he would hit it on massive dudes. But his biggest asset was also his greatest curse—the streak gimmick. Once it was over, he had to actually compete, and that wasn't the best thing for a relatively green dude that had been pushed to the moon and gained a bit of an ego because of it. He's got some undeniable natural charisma though, and his most recent stuff since he's been back in WWE has been pretty good (if you can look past the whole part-timer issue).
Giant was a victim of the WCW atmosphere from the day he started in there getting pimped by Kevin Sullivan as "the son of Andre" and the Dungeon of Doom's answer to Hulkamania, all the way through his various nWo in/out runs. His best work would come later as Big Show; that feud he had with Bossman in the late Attitude Era was and still is hilarious, for example. He's looking super jacked these days, if you haven't seen him. Might be gearing up for one more big run before he hangs it up.
Re: The Wrestling Thread
Yeah I saw how jacked he looks... my friend says, for a match with Shaq? Oh lordy.
You're right that the whole son of Andre thing was a huge dent and the look sucked. I guess it's amusing how comparable him and Goldberg were for the WCW pushes on the green dudes, yet they had a goldmine of mid card talent that should have been pushed to the top. That's been really easy to notice while watching the later 90's for both promotions, the WCW seems like they were overall mostly content with all their big named older veteran talent, but failed to be future proof. The WWF on the other hand always has the better upper card and always wanted to develop new guys for the future. Until immortal John Cena.
I think above all else the one guy I'm excited to see the most in the mid 90's is Scott Hall and the Razor era. It's been disappointing to realize how subpar his WCW run is in retrospect, outside of 1997 and the NWO origins, he really falls to the sidelines and then the alcohol abuse becomes really apparent, he isn't on his A game. But I hear nothing but praise for his Razor run and he was a workhorse. As everyone says it seems crazy he never held the world title.
You're right that the whole son of Andre thing was a huge dent and the look sucked. I guess it's amusing how comparable him and Goldberg were for the WCW pushes on the green dudes, yet they had a goldmine of mid card talent that should have been pushed to the top. That's been really easy to notice while watching the later 90's for both promotions, the WCW seems like they were overall mostly content with all their big named older veteran talent, but failed to be future proof. The WWF on the other hand always has the better upper card and always wanted to develop new guys for the future. Until immortal John Cena.
I think above all else the one guy I'm excited to see the most in the mid 90's is Scott Hall and the Razor era. It's been disappointing to realize how subpar his WCW run is in retrospect, outside of 1997 and the NWO origins, he really falls to the sidelines and then the alcohol abuse becomes really apparent, he isn't on his A game. But I hear nothing but praise for his Razor run and he was a workhorse. As everyone says it seems crazy he never held the world title.
Re: The Wrestling Thread
Yeah, Scott's best ring work was as Razor, working with Shawn Michaels and Sean Waltman and so on. From what I've gathered in a number of interviews, he never really saw himself as a World Title guy, more like the upper-midcard guy you had to get through first to prove you could hang—he compares himself to Tito Santana a lot in that regard.
Re: The Wrestling Thread
He's too humble, lol. So glad he's doing great thesedays thanks to DDP.
I mean he's easily better than Nash in my book, whom was at the top for several periods. The Diesel run looks pretty dreadful. Better than Yokozuna I guess!
Nash and Waltman are some cases of dudes I probably like more outside of wrestling. Love hearing their stories and such. But their ringwork... hit or miss.
I mean he's easily better than Nash in my book, whom was at the top for several periods. The Diesel run looks pretty dreadful. Better than Yokozuna I guess!
Nash and Waltman are some cases of dudes I probably like more outside of wrestling. Love hearing their stories and such. But their ringwork... hit or miss.
Re: The Wrestling Thread
I have a soft spot for Waltman. I always liked him through his various incarnations, thought he was really good at playing both scrappy underdog and obnoxious heel. He seems so genuine in interviews and such, and he's never shy to talk about some pretty rough shit he's been through. His early work in GWF as Lightning Kid is fun to watch. Him and Jerry Lynn went round and round a bunch back then.
Nash never has and never will be a "workrate" guy. He was smart enough to figure out he didn't have to, hahaha.
The Kliq as a whole gets a lot of shit from various people, but these are some of the smartest guys in the entire industry. Some of them decided to try and fuck their lives up with drugs and alcohol, but they all seem to be doing OK now. I wish they'd give Hall and Waltman jobs down in NXT; I think new guys could learn a lot from both their successes and mistakes.
Scott Hall will always be my favorite out of the group though.
Nash never has and never will be a "workrate" guy. He was smart enough to figure out he didn't have to, hahaha.
The Kliq as a whole gets a lot of shit from various people, but these are some of the smartest guys in the entire industry. Some of them decided to try and fuck their lives up with drugs and alcohol, but they all seem to be doing OK now. I wish they'd give Hall and Waltman jobs down in NXT; I think new guys could learn a lot from both their successes and mistakes.
Scott Hall will always be my favorite out of the group though.