The Classic Wrestling Thread

[Bandit]

Right, it's still sexual harassment. But he's not a threatening guy who's going to try to rape her in the parking lot or something.

[Big Boss Man]

So watching TNT and Vince says to Bobby about being involved with the "white stuff". Brains demeanour changes to an annoyed look when Vince says this. Was Bobby known for using cocaine? Haven't heard that before about him.

[Bandit]

Maybe. It was the 80s. He was arrested for trying to take Marijuana on a plane in 1991, though. But that was in the middle of the Hogan on Arsenio stuff, so nobody even noticed.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea good point about the 80s. Vince also said something weird to Alfred too. I think they used to do these insider type comments on commentary too. It's that in the modern era you know what they mean. TNT seems like Vince was trying to push the envelope even then.

[Bandit]

[Big Boss Man]

That included the Montreal Screwjob type finish with Sting "tapping out" to the sharpshooter by Hulk IIRC. After all the build up it turned into a crock. They should have went with Sting going over clean but again WCW didn't really do much when Sting was champ. It was more about the chase and Sting vs the NWO. I wonder had it been a team WCW vs NWO Survivor Series style match for WCW if that had worked better.

[Bandit]

No, Hogan pinned Sting. Nick Patrick was supposed to count really fast but just counted normally. Either Bischoff was mad that Sting hadn't been working out and told Patrick to count normal or Hogan pressured him to. It was supposed to give Bret a reason to side with WCW. He was going to feud with Hogan most of 1998. But those idiots did all of that and then just put Bret in a feud with Booker T for the TV title and had him join the nWo.

I always thought the angle should have been Bret joins the nWo but it turns out he was really a spy aligned with Sting, Luger and Giant the entire time. Like he's saying he's a member January through September and then sets them up to get their asses kicked at War Games and reveals on Nitro the next night Luger is his friend and they hatched a plot to bring them down from the inside. Then Starrcade 1998 could have had Hogan vs Bret.

[Big Boss Man]

I thought they did a rehash of Montreal and they had Patrick call for the bell and Bret came out, punched out Bischoff and was guest ref for the rest of the match. I guess I got mixed up as IIRC Sting got Hulk in the scorpion and Bret signalled for the bell to be rung or something. Been years since I've seen that match! IIRC didn't they tease Bret being an nWo member for a long time.

[Bandit]

It was strange. He was pure WCW until he turned on Savage and helped Hogan win the title back in April '98. But he was just a friend of Hogan's, he wasn't an nWo member officially until 1999 in his final months before he retired. He just wore Hogan's t-shirt and hung out with him and tagged with him a few times. The only thing I can think of is they wanted to give him an out to be a babyface when they went to Canada. They were just lazy and never had anybody like Vince who used to demand everything have logic in heel and face turns (this was before the days where Kane and Big Show turned face and heel 6 times a year.)

[Big Boss Man]

Had they had Bret "pretend" to be nWo to get close to Hulk and gain his trust to then turn on him to get the belt away from him so it's WCWs property so to speak. That would have made some logical sense. Sting joining the nWo, albeit the Wolfpac didn't make much logical sense since he was Mr WCW so in theory he shouldn't have joined, nor Lex. They were synonymous with WCW. nWo should have been ex WWF Vinces boys coming in to takeover WCW. So in that sense Bret coming in but to destroy the nWo in tandem with Lex, Sting and DDP (Team WCW) would have been good.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

[Bandit]

I could watch that gif for an hour.

[Bandit]

I started rewatching 1999 WCW. I forgot how little they gave a shit about their PPVs that year. The undercard are just random matches with few angles. I think Nash booked until the end of September when Russo came in. And the only good thing you can ever say about Russo is at least he gave everybody an angle. It may have been a terrible one (okay, 90% of the time it was terrible) but it was better than the Kevin Nash booking which seems to be "hey, who's here in the building?" with the Jericho and Saturn level guys the last tier he'd attempt to write for. Although Nash did begin the Norman Smiley push, so there's one good thing.

Also this year was Bobby Heenan not even pretending he liked WCW anymore. So that's kind of sad since I mostly see him in his WWF prime where he's working hard to put everything over. Now he mainly sits in silence and chimes in with a recycled line because he hates his job now.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea Vinny Russo always had everyone involved same in the WWF too. Some things like the Nitro Girls fighting each other when they had no real training was a bad idea though. Was it Russo who pushed Rey et al as I know Big Kev wasn't a fan of the smaller guys. Bobby was on auto pilot til they brought in Mark Madden. No one wonder though with the crud going around at that time. 1999 wasn't as bad as 2000 WCW but it was on the downward path. Was 1999 when they did Nairch in the psych ward that was just terrible and the nWo burying him in the mud/sand or whatever which was equally bad.

[Bandit]

Flair in the mental hospital was April 1999 so Nash did that. The burial was 2000 so Russo did that.

Was it Russo who pushed Rey et al as I know Big Kev wasn't a fan of the smaller guys.

Nash put Rey against guys like Luger and himself on Nitro and was booking when he lost his mask (but Eric Bischoff says he suggested it because he thought Juvy and Rey would get over more without masks.) Russo did the Filthy Animals stuff.

[Big Boss Man]

OK thanks. Both Wrestlecrap Platinum. Speaking of which

[Bandit]

The burial also included Ric being saved by hillbillies who took him back to Nitro in a literal turnip truck. Vince McMahon would have loved that one.

[Big Boss Man]

Do you know which episode date of Nitro that's from as I'd like to watch it again, that part sounds hilarious. I vaguely recall the nWo burying Naitch and him like crawling out of the mud or whatever.

[Bandit]

One of the best B&V episodes ever. The Raw episode that night was complete shit too.

[Bandit]

I rewatched the 1/4/99 shows B&V talked about and they were right about everything.

I hadn't seen an Attitude Era full episode of Raw in a long time. I now believe Russo when he says he wrote everything because the show felt exactly like Impact in 2008. The difference is in TNA he didn't have anybody as good as Vince, HBK, Rock, Austin, Foley, etc. to cover it up. It really was a pretty bad wrestling show but with a great roster. But that crowd that night was phenomenal. They were hot for everything. And it was hilarious they had the WWF chiropractor François Petit testing Terri for the miscarriage. I never would have noticed that if Bryan didn't point it out.

The Nitro felt more like Raw from a few years ago when it was really stale. Good wrestling but the main angle was bad and the writers felt disinterested. Man, the Goldberg police station stuff was so bad. Did that get on Wrestlecrap? And it was the TV debut of 13 year old Charlotte who seems to be the same height she is now back then. She didn't look like she wanted to be out there. Maybe she knew it was a bad show.