Go2Sleep

Cena is way above a gimmick like that now, but it would be hilarious if they used it for someone like Mojo Rawley when he gets called up.

Randy Orton is very good when he wants to be. His timing and pacing his excellent, and he mixes up his spots better than just about anyone. I think most of the hate he gets is because it appears that his effort level varies greatly. I think he's just been doing it for 12 years now, so if the writing/his opponent isn't fresh, he tends to coast. You don't even have to look back far to see this phenomenon. His work when he was paired with Show and Cena at the end of last year/beginning of this year was really uninspired. Then when he got paired with Bryan and The Shield, he looked like a top guy again. As far as Roman goes, while it's clear his ring-work isn't up to speed for a main eventer, he's still getting very good reactions. He just needs to work with guys who can hopefully boost his game in the upper midcard. I think a program with a freshly-turned Sheamus would do both guys a lot of good. Cesaro would be another option if he hadn't been jobbed out all summer.

As I prepare to move on to 2000, here are some quick references for the 1999 WCW ppv section of the network. Best matches: 1. Raven/Saturn vs. Benoit/Malenko (Spring Stampede) 2. Hollywood Hogan vs. Ric Flair (Superbrawl) 3. DDP vs. Ric Flair (Strap match - Halloween Havoc) 4. Kidman vs. Mikey Whipreck (Uncensored) 5. Goldberg vs. Sid Vicious (Halloween Havoc) 6. DDP vs. Chris Benoit (Road Wild) 7. Raven/Saturn vs. Benoit/Malenko vs. Kidman/Rey (Slamboree) 8. Juventud Guerrera vs. Blitzkrieg (Spring Stampede) If you're a glutton for punishment, Worst Matches: 1. Hardcore Invitational Junkyard Brawl (Bash at the Beach) 2. Stevie Ray vs. Vincent (Uncensored) 3. Berlyn vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan (Fall Brawl) 4. Roddy Piper vs. Buff Bagwell ("Boxing" match - Bash at the Beach) 5. Jerry Flynn vs. The Cat and Sonny Oono (Uncensored) 6. The Cat vs. Buff Bagwell (Road Wild) 7. Kevin Nash vs. Sid Vicious (Powerbomb match - Starrcade) 8. Kevin Nash vs. Hulk Hogan (Road Wild)

I don't know if Lesnar is a better "promo" than Heyman, but he's probably the best "talker" in the company if that makes sense. Put it this way, I wouldn't want to hear Lesnar read a script meant for Heyman, but when they let him be himself he projects this very old-school, authentic, legit crazy/dangerous aura that I think would be a big hit around these parts. "Party's over grandpa" was better than Heyman's long-winded speech in every way except that you can't make a video package around it.

Her name was Tracy. That was a really awkward angle. It was sandwiched between a million other things and seemed completely out of place in that feud. Brock and Taker don't need superflcial reasons to fight each other. At least this type of shit makes sense in a Steph/Brie feud. Best part of the show was everything Lesnar. Of course "Party's over, grandpa" ruled, but I also liked him just pointing to the mic at the end of Heyman's promo, and Heyman going to pick it up and saying whatever Brock wanted. I can't decide what was the worst part of this show: Cesaro being cemented as a glorified jobber, or Cole yelling "hashtag Hogan's birthday, hashtag Hogan's birthday" during Hogan's entrance.

The journey of WCW's downfall took me to Starrcade 1999. It's a fairly bad show, as you would expect, but check out the end of the Sting/Luger match to see the most sickening baseball bat shot in wrestling history (from Liz of all people). If you watched the show live and knew that one person had a career ending head injury, you sure as hell wouldn't have guessed Bret after seeing this segment.

No, people were getting tired long before that. They tried everything they could to make Angle a heel against Cena (such as cutting anti-military promos and pairing him with Daivari) but nothing took. Most of the heat Cena got from the Edge feud was winning the title back just a couple weeks after losing it. Edge winning was really fresh at the time, and most people saw that angle as wasting a huge opportunity for Edge just to continue shoving Cena down everyone's throat. The HHH feud was the best thing that ever happened to John Cena, and though it looked bad at the time, I think we should retrospectively give HHH and the writers a lot of credit for being ahead of the curve on that one. HHH just kind of took what was there and went with it instead of fighting the current. It helped Cena develop the "I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks" aspect of his character and you could tell it was a big weight off his shoulders to be in a situation where being booed didn't look terrible (like the Angle and Edge feuds). Then he went over HHH clean at Mania to cement himself and prove he could "wrestle" with the best. They followed it up with the RVD feud which was another good spot for Cena at the time, and things just settled into place after that.

When did this happen? I've never thought Cena was overly lazy and I'm not sure there's anyone in the company I'd agree "can work circles around him". I think he might be referring to pre-2006 Cena. I don't think Cena was lazy at all, but he certainly didn't have it all together in the ring and you'd be hard-pressed to find too many quality Cena performances before Mania 22, which I would say is part of the reason people got tired of him at the top. Guys like Rey, Finlay, Eddie, and Benoit were working circles around him in 2004-5, and don't think even Cena himself would argue that. Now if this is referring to after 2006, I have no idea. Since then Cena has mastered his character and has consistently been an elite worker, including a few WWE MOTDC level matches.

Mania 17 and the 05 NOAH dome show are both great answers. To add, I would've liked to be at No Way Out 04 to witness Eddie winning the title.

That's why you need someone who's universally loved like Bryan. No one would cheer for corporate Cena against him. Now if you put heel Cena against someone like Sheamus, then yeah, you've got problems.

I still think Cena will have an awesome past-his-prime heel run that lasts about 6 months or so a la Austin, but that's on hold until Bryan gets back at the very least. There's no one else that can carry the face side of things right now. Maybe Ambrose or Reigns can get there, but they're still a ways off. Bryan was the only guy since 2006 that looked like he could take Cena's spot (unless you count those 2 weeks of CM Punk in 2011).

Del Rio's legacy is being the king of "almost but not quite" guys like Kennedy, Carlito, Morrison, etc. He definitely had some great moments, including a couple high-end MOTDC level matches. My lasting memories of him will be the double turn match with Ziggler and that one time he did guest commentary and Micahel Cole ripped him a new one over calling everyone a perro and a gringo. Del Rio: Here's what I think about (wrestler)... Cole: Let me guess, he's a gringo and a perro. Del Rio: ... And later Cole dropped a really annoyed "Yeah, yeah, gringo perro, we get it" or something similar.

Man, Eva Marie has zero natural talent in the ring. She was maybe a half step ahead of Jenna Morasca in her match tonight. Outside of the rarity of the divas match being the worst on NXT, this was a pretty solid show. I actually kinda like what they did with Cass and Enzo. Both tag matches were solid and Woods/Parker wasn't too bad for a CJ Parker match. Hopefully they don't drag out the losing streak gimmick with Xavier, because that's pure death for any wrestler. Adam Rose continues to be 100x better in NXT than on any of the main shows and Sami is Sami. For a slopped together "we have no idea what to do with you guys" team, they could be pretty good.

Taking a break from WCW, I decided re-watch Cena/Lesnar 1, as promoted on Raw. Still easily the match of the decade and an all-time great WWE match. Brock looks like a monster in every way, from all the super stiff strikes to the innovative ways he tries to hurt Cena to picking up an unconscious Charles Robinson with one hand like a duffel bag, everything he does looks fantastic. The match layout is refreshingly different from most big WWE matches, including all of Lesnar's since. The opening sequence with the intentional hardway blood really set the pace and even the parts with the cut doctor that should've been annoying fit right in as the only way to keep believably keep Cena from being killed in the first minute. Cena's never-say-die attitude was in top form here, as he really came across as someone desperate to stay alive, let alone win when he couldn't string more than two moves together. WWE probably regrets Cena going over here, but in the context of the match it was a perfectly sensible finish. They built up the chain as Cena's only hope, and Lesnar went out of his way to lean into the shot busting himself open as well. Brock already had a visual pin off the F5 when the ref was down, and an AA on the steps is pretty credible following a blood-drawing chain shot, so no one came away looking bad. Lesnar spent most of the match toying with Cena, who was just desperate to get out of there in one piece. The hype around Lesnar coming back, the brutality of this match in 2012 WWE, and the perfect character work by both guys make this one a classic.

For me, it's actually been harder to think of worst booking. For as good as the NWO was in 1996, there a couple obvious examples of terrible booking afterwards that played a noticeable role in the company's downward spiral. Of course, there was Starrcade 97, which was the easiest thing in the world to book, but Hogan had to be protected for some reason. All you had to do was have Sting kick Hogan's ass for 10 minutes, with Hogan getting a couple minutes of offense by cheating, then Sting comes back for a clean, decisive win. Instead we got a match where Hogan controlled most of it, and a screwy finish that wasn't even executed well and the biggest WCW show ever only served to drag out their biggest angle instead of blowing it off. The other one is the fingerpoke of doom incident, which was the nail in the coffin for me as a WCW fan at the time. Nash beating Goldberg was questionable, but not necessarily terrible by itself. Following it up with this, however, was. The fake arrest on Goldberg, Tony's "butts in the seats" comment, and all the shenanigans surrounding the match and post-match were awful. Any angle that makes you stop watching a promotion entirely has to qualify as one of the worst ever.

All this fantasy booking about Dean's hobo army is just gonna make it all the more disappointing when we see Sin Cara and Zack Ryder collecting their meager ppv bonus checks.

Fall Brawl 96 and Sting going crazy was amazing stuff, and hits so many subtle notes for human psychology. The first beatdown on Luger in the rain was damn near cinematic, and actually provided some cover for Luger not being able to tell the NWO Sting was obviously a fake. Then Luger gets it in his head that Sting turned and poisons his reputation in the locker room and nothing Sting says can convince anyone otherwise. Then he shows up in Wargames and wipes out the NWO by himself before leaving team WCW in a lurch because they wouldn't give him the time of day for no good reason. Luger's slow crawl up the ramp begging Sting to come back, before the NWO finished him off was a rare perfectly-acted Luger moment. The fallout was dead on too, with Sting becoming more and more of a recluse, while the rest of Team WCW (instead of introspecting on where they went wrong) just proceeded to blame each other, allowing the NWO to entrench themselves at the top even further (and also a series of surprisingly great Luger/Arn matches). Really, the whole of the NWO from Memorial Day 96 through Starrcade 96 was almost flawless, but that angle with Sting and the booking around Fall Brawl stands out among everything. One of my other faves is Nigel's heel turn in ROH as champ. The match with Bryan in February of 2008 was a thing of beauty. The milking of his legitimate injuries finally went overboard with Bryan doing everything he could to be an upstanding competitor, and the crowd reacted perfectly. The finish with Nigel using his head that Bryan so valiantly went out of his way to avoid to nail Bryan's lingering injured eye that he never complained about was absolutely perfect. Then he added the elbows for extra dickishness and took a pass-out victory off an "injury" to his opponent. I honestly didn't follow the rest of Nigel's reign too closely, but this one match was about as good as it gets for in-ring story-telling.

Has there ever been a good lumberjack match? Ugh. Not to mention, any kind of "enclosure" stipulation doesn't make a lot of sense here, because Rollins hasn't really been running from Ambrose, he's just unsurprisingly tired of Ambrose stalking him. Rollins has shown multiple times he's willing to mix it up with Ambrose and even invited it at MITB. This feud really needs a street fight or falls count anywhere type of wild brawl. Obviously that could still happen down the road, but who knows how painstakingly dragged out the feud may or may not be when they get to that point. Strike while the iron's hot, people. God damn it, a fucking lumberjack match, really? I seriously don't think there was a worse choice. A normal match or some fucking object on a pole match would've even been better. A normal match is the logical continuation of Battleground, something on a pole could at least somewhat convey the threat of serious injury... Hell, even an evening gown match would've accentuated Ambrose's crazy character. I'm not sure I've ever been more pissed reading spoilers. Completely ruins one of my most anticipated matches of the year, and not with some obvious chickenshit heel booking that's supposed to get negative heat. It's the supposedly crazy face beating the odds and coming up with the most limp-dick revenge stipulation imaginable.

And they tried hard with Kenzo Suzuki before they figured out he had no talent.

I was going to post the same thing, except I never caught the guy's name. It's hard to pinpoint what he was doing since I've never worked in wrestling, but he always came across as the most natural, "true professional" in that position, similar to a ref for a legitimate sport. He had the perfect balance of keeping the heat on the wrestlers, but still selling big moments by reacting like a normal person who didn't know what was planned. On TV, I think a big thing is how the announcers put over a ref doing his job well and calling him by name (eg "Referee Mike Chioda was in great position to see that foot on the ropes). WWE went through this weird phase where they didn't want to call refs by name, and it just made everyone look silly. You want to create the illusion that the matches are being competed fairly and at a high level, so acknowledging the presence of the ref when appropriate is a big help.

That Rose/Kidd match has to be the best I've seen Rose look. I think the one thing his gimmick is really missing is a "get serious" moment in his matches for his comebacks. When he did the "choo choo" and followed it up with a stiff clothesline instead of a that stupid bronco-buster looking thing, I actually marked a little for him (as much as one marks when watching wrestling alone anyway). If he could sandwich Leo Kruger between Adam Rose segments, he could probably be a pretty viable midcarder in the big league. Tyson did pretty well in that match too. If they cut out those 3-4 minutes of restholds, this would've probably been a top 5 NXT match this year. Also, Nattie is a lot more likable in this role.

The best Undertaker character was the post-ministry, proto-bikertaker during the summer of 99. It's too bad he got hurt around Summer Slam, because that character was awesome. Couldn't find the guest commentary where Lawler asked Show how he knew if Taker wouldn't stab him back, and Taker jumped in with "Jerry, if you ever ask something that stupid again, I'm gonna stab you in the face." Oh well, this will do.

So in my quest to watch every dying WCW ppv, I stumbled into an absolute gem of a show (for the wrong reasons): Halloween Havoc 99. The tagline is "what nightmares are made of," and it's Russo's first WCW ppv. Holy shit, it is an absolute must-watch if you are a fan of wrestlecrap or shows that are so bad they're good. Up there with Havoc 95 for best shows in that regard. Here's what happened. - Disco works heel in his CW title defense against Lash Leroux. Disco wins clean after a hard-fought match. Lash turns on him afterwards with a fake handshake and beatdown. - Backstage interview with Harlem Heat and Mike Tenay, featuring the following exchange: Booker: Now can you dig that?! Tenay (deadpan): Yes, I can relate to that. - Goldberg attacks Sid backstage and busts him open. Sid refuses help from the trainers. - Konnan and Kidman come out with the allegedly vacated tag titles for a falls count anywhere/anything goes match with two refs. Their opponents are the First Family and Harlem Heat. Stevie Ray delivers a world's strongest to slam to a mummy prop on Knobbs for the pin backstage, but with no tron or any way to communicate with the second ref, Kidman thinks he wins with a pinfall on Morrus in the ring. After some arguing, Harlem Heat walk out with the belts. - DDP comes out and cuts a promo about "spanking it" to convey how mad he is at Ric Flair for spanking Kimberly (who was looking mighty fine here). Their match later is now a strap match, as DDP tried to explain while struggling to remove the concealed strap from his pants. - Backstage segment from earlier in the day where Malenko and Benoit tell Saturn they're done with the Revolution. - Eddie and Saturn have a passable back and forth match that ends when Flair runs in and hits both guys with a crowbar and retrieves his Rolex, which was stolen by Eddie. - Buff Bagwell comes out for an "unscheduled" promo about how the "writers from up north" won't give him a chance, so he has to make his own opportunities. He calls out Jarrett. The two brawl until Luger comes out to "help" Bagwell, but ends up stiffing the shit out of him with a guitar handle on accident (Luger then hits the turnbuckle to break the guitar). - Brad Armstrong gets a rare ppv win against the one-month-old Berlyn in a boring match. Berlyn attacks him after. - Eddie is seen backstage in pain calling Rey and Konnan to take care of some Filthy Animal business. - Goldberg cuts a semi-heelish promo about attacking Sid despite the video package suggesting Goldberg should be the face. - Rick Steiner beat Benoit for the TV title in a somewhat sloppy match. Malenko hit Benoit with a chair and hugged Saturn in the entrance way. - Luger and Bret had an ok match where Bret was supposed to be hurt. If you told me a match existed where Lex Luger beat Bret Hart with a half crab, I wouldn't have believed it, but then this happened. Highlight was Liz looking great at ringside. - Madusa comes out in a bikini to shill WCW's new brand of cologne. Heenan buries the cologne for the entire segment. He then gets a little chirpy with Madusa, who says that it's "BULLSHIT" that the new writer from New York is making her shill this product in a skimpy outfit. She then dumps the cologne on Heenan, who continues to complain about how awful it smells. - Sting vs. Hogan for the World title is scheduled 3rd from last. Hogan doesn't come out for his first entrance. Sting comes out, then Hogan comes out the second time in street clothes. Hogan lays down for Sting who takes the cover. This incident is only mentioned a couple more times in passing throughout the show. Goldberg vs. Sid for the US title is next. Hall and Nash attack Goldberg before the match, but it's of little consequence. Actually not a bad match, almost has to be Sid's best in his second WCW run. Sid's cut gets re-opened and Goldberg focuses on it throughout. Sid makes some spirited comebacks but is overwhelmed by Goldberg and the ref eventually calls it off and awards Goldberg the title. It looked like a double turn, but I think it was just some classic "shades of grey" booking. - Sting comes back out and says he wants to fight. Issues an open challenge for the apparently open main event slot. - DDP and Flair have a pretty fun, hate-filled strap match. Finish is a mess, though. DDP uses the strap around Flair's neck to pull him into the diamond cutter, which looked fine, but I think Flair was supposed to kick out. Charles Robinson quit counting after two, but awarded the match to Page anyway. David Flair ran out with the crowbar, which was easily confiscated by Kimberly. Page then used the crowbar, diamond cutters, and low blows to lay waste to Ric, David, and Lil Naitch. - Flair gets stretchered out, but the Filthy Animals hijack the ambulance and drive off with Flair's corpse. - Sting is back for his open challenge. Goldberg is the one who answers. There's no ref, and Schiavone says "Well, we know it won't be Charles Robinson." Out comes Charles Robinson. Schiavone also says this is a non-title match. Goldberg wins clean in a quick match, and Robinson gives him the belt. Penzer announcers that Goldberg is the new World champ. Sting yells at Robinson. When Robinson goes to leave, Sting grabs him for the scorpion death drop, while Heenan utters the most fitting words to close this show: "Why not?"

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I dare anyone to write a more depressing epilogue to the Real Americans break-up.