caley

I also forgot just how much Ron and Don Harris you've got coming up! I, uh, I don't envy you there...

This is amazing. Not only is a completely tired worn-out catchphrase by 1999 but he's not even really using it right. Somehow I did not remember Hogan coming back and winning the title. I know I was still watching but apparently this period was so dire that I had mentally blocked most of it out (Case in point, I've seen the Kidman SSP botch but had no idea of happened here and not say earlier in his career! I would say you're in the WCW endgame but you've got several periods left -The Bischoff doldrums where he both sucks up to internet fans (there's a stable of relatively old young guys fighting back against being held down) while also booking against them and a lot of older guys (Hogan, Savage, Piper?) just kind of shuffle off for a while, even Nash just kind of stops wrestling IIRC -The first Russo era where it gets really shoot-y then quickly ends -The weird Sullivan-booked treading water era where they try to turn The Wall into a mega superstar -The Russo/Bischoff era which just...sucks -The Russo solo era which might be a bit of an upgrade -The Let's Build Some Homegrown stars whoops too late era which is definitely an upgrade

And after typing that, I see that SirSmUgly used the exact same term above!

I think the biggest thing is you can name quite a few matches/moments/spectacles with the other guys but as much as the show was often built around Douglas, are any of his matches really that highly rated? Any big promos that stand out? Even the big moments usually feature him but don't "star" him. He was, to use a sports metaphor, maybe more of a "glue guy" who kept things together but even when he was the star, he never really "starred".

Now I get along great with my dad, we've grown to basically just be friends; go to movies together, hockey games etc. He's the best. So a few weeks back I was watching Raw and Rey Mysterio sommersaulted off the top, landing crotch-first right in his sons face then basically repeated the move off the apron to the floor and I thought "I love my dad but we do not have that kind of relationship. I can think of no scenario where either of us would be happy where his crotch area were to come into contact with my face." Anyways the above times one million applies to the quotes text. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen, threatening to murder his opponent's abducted girlfriend! I saw a tweet yesterday where some guy basically said "My cousin got shot but don't wish him well cuz I owe him $700" and I like to imagine he's the same guy shouting at Bret here just completely obliviously focused on himself. That's amazing. Kudos. Is this the one that starts with George saying "What up Mach?" followed by the " Oohhh yeah"? I used to amuse and annoy my brother by imitating it and drawing "Oooh" for way too long and way too guttural. It's no wonder that he stopped watching wrestling with me within about two years of this time period.

I actually didn't think Billy and Chuck were all that bad (With the caveat that I haven't seen it since it aired and maybe I just didn't see or get a lot of the badness at the time), but IIRC they were kinda gay, then they were slightly gayer and the audience kind of begrudgingly got behind them which was staggering in the early aughts WWE, then they pulled the ripcord on it. So it wasn't, you know, great but it was sorta mid-level in terms of effectiveness and offensiveness. Unlike, say, the Chris Kanyon thing which served no purpose other than to punish the homosexual wrestler (violently, I might add) and was basically a straight guy's viewpoint of what a gay person acts like straight out of the 1960s...maybe even more old-fashioned and outdated than that. I'm now trying to think what the most awful/offensive and pointless LBTQ angle in big wrestling was...I'm thinking it might be the HLA of the Bischoff era which was particularly grotesquely homophobic AND misogynistic. I'm sure there's worse...but I can't think of any (Googling Lane, I see that he tagged as part of the Rainbow Express in TNA and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that COULD be the answer). Anyways, I'm just trying to create a scale, so that I can put the Lenny/Lodi characters near the bottom of it.

More like put=upon 90s sitcom older daughter, really. Somewhat like Kristen Ritter but not as cynical. He's basically normal now but the other day is having problems now but we're more mentally prepared for that because he's 19 years old! Not to mention The Fat Chick Thriller, Mighty Heidi (because she's plus size!), Kwee Wee, and the thing that still haunts my nightmares: "Snootchie Bootchies, Tony, Snootchy Biotchies!"

That WAS great It kind of speaks volumes about how valuable AEW considers ROH when Briscoe has allied with Team AEW to take down the power-mad EVPs who have used their influence and pull to get the Tag Titles, the TNT Title, and the Continental Title, and the EVPs haven't even bothered to try to screw Briscoe out of his ROH Title. Briscoe: "I bet they're going to come for my title now for going after them!" Bucks: "No that's okay, we don't want it!" Briscoe: "But it's a World Title!" Bucks: "Sure it is, that's okay" Briscoe: "You know Hangman's the only guy who doesn't have a title..." Bucks: "Hangman says he doesn't want it!"

Around the 33 minute mark, I was super into it and then it just became too much. Like you I really noticed the repeated spots. And after numerous brutal spots (poison ranas, Ospreay on the apron, the table spot, the figure fours) ending it on a loaded punch felt weak. MJF should have beat him clean to sow the seeds for a rematch down the line. I kinda thought Mariah's promo felt wrong. I don't know if it was the faux-Toni thing or the delivery but after such a hot angle, felt like a letdown. In Mick Foley's book, he tells a story about Vince booking him in an angle with Marc Mero to get him on the WM card and Foley responding something like "Well if that's all you have, I'd rather skip Wrestlemania". Well if I was Nyla Rose and THAT was the match they had to get me back on Dynamite, I would be paraphrased Foley there. Just a ludicrously booked match where Nyla seemed to spend more time fighting from underneath against someone, what, half/two=thirds her size?! And the ending where Mone slowly puts on the glove, pins Nyla down to give her Maker's finish and Nyla can only bite her before being bludgeoned and submitted?! Mone is like 90 lbs! Just stand up!

"Why are you treating me like an outsider?" Isn't your tag team called 'The Outsiders'?! Didn't you INVADE WCW?! You've spent the bulk of the last three years trying to destroy WCW,of course people consider you an outsider! "WCW doesn't want me to be champ!" That's cuz the last time you had the belt you GAVE it to Hogan in a mockery of a match! Late-NWO to end of WCW Nash drove me crazy. It was all either insider-y jokes (Though I do have a soft spot for his commentary where he mocked Jim Duggan's Old Glory Knee Drop by adding "Old Glory" to every other move in the match!) or senseless, completely lacking in motivation aimless angry promos. Is this the stretch where Regal is in such TERRIBLE shape that he starts wearing a singlet to cover up his...well...boobs (This is much funnier if read in the voice of the sweet little vet tech who was looking after my cat a couple weeks ago and stammered "This will help him with the pain because it's quite painful because the walls tend to harden up in his...well...his um...his puh-....his.......[almost whispered] penis" (The cat is doing much better, too!)). IIRC correctly Regal stays around longer than you think, maybe into the early Russo era. This got quite a laugh out of me. Flair is getting old, to be fair, maybe he had a cameraperson-sized cataract At some point in the MIA run they try to humanize...[ahem]...General Hugh G. Rection by talking about him battling through numerous concussions and I'd hazard a guess that nearly all of them came from his hardcore run because it's the only semblance of push he's had in years so he goes way overboard trying to get himself over and just takes numerous dumb weapon shots and moonsaulting onto unsafe surfaces.

It's weird, you're right, but my brain has replaced every musicless Paul Wight entrance with "Welllllllll..." I kinda liked Bam Bam not having music at first because it gave off the aura that "Hey this guys not supposed to be here!" I also loved the one time he got out of the car to attack Goldberg but I had also repeatedly misremembered it. At first I remembered it as him leaping at Goldberg from a moving car and cloitheslining Goldberg which would be awesome but basically impossible. Then I remembered it as him nearly running Goldberg before storming out of the car to attack him . I can't find the clip now but I think ultimately he just kinda stepped out of a parked car but it was still kinda cool!

I'd like this in my tombstone! So Kanyon wrestled twice in this show!? That's bizarre for a company with about 7 thousand wrestlers under contract

I was worried that I had downplayed your concerns because I do also think you're spot-on that there's definitely a portion of the audience that covers their feelings about race as an argument about musical taste.

Uh oh...I'm having WCW PTSD memories of La Parka with someone doing voiceovers for him calling himself "The Bone Man"...did I...did I dream this?! Hahaha, I'm the same way. I don't have it on any playlists but something about the fact that they did not really, you know, over-produce it or rehearse it or...try...makes it kind of endearing to me. Like, you can hear the smile on Curt Hennig's face as he sings it. And the whole "rap is crap" was such an OLD dad joke made it sillier to me. In fact, I think there was an episode of NewsRadio around this time where Bill did an editorial about rap music (preceded amazingly by Bill having the bass up so high on his stereo that he had no idea that rap music had lyrics) that concluded with "It's not rap music, it's crap music" followed by Dave suggesting he invent a time machine to go back ten years to when anybody would have even cared about it. I can understand the cultural problem mentioned above by Smelly , but to me, admittedly a middle-aged white guy, I enjoy the whole "Rap is Crap" as a mark of WCW ineptitude: "We're going to team up with a "Cool" hip hop superstar, create a rival faction for them to play off of, and the only ones who get over out of the whole thing will be the band of over-the-hill wrestlers we toss together with an uninspired, goofy parody song". It's SO WCW! "Hey, you know who could really get some traction off this No Limits partnership? Barry Windham's younger, less talented brother!"

I remember the nerdy music message board I was posting on obsessing over the song, speculating on what Miley's favorite Jay-Z song actually was then completely turning on her/the song when Miley's Jay-Z ignorance was revealed. People are strange.

Is that the match where Bischoff flips out about how violent it is and keeps yelling at the cameraman to pull back?! But he also does in kind of a smug way like he's expecting the fans to be on his side: "That's right, Bisch! We don't want to see something violent!" I loved that match almost as much as them murdering each other on WCWSN I forgot to mention the Mexican Hardcore match from a page or so back blew my mind live because it was so much more violent than anything going on in WCW or WWF at the time with luchadors getting hit out of the air like baseballs with steel chairs and the sickening last power bomb on the chairs. So I'd bring it up anytime I got into a "Hidden Gems" type discssion, and then when we had a Best WCW matches way back in the day at Smarks Choice, I got all excited to put it really high, watched it back and was rather non-plussed. It's was still pretty violent, but it was also kind of a mess and I seem to remember the announcers laughing as guys were scrambling each others' brains. And, yet again, those are a couple more guys they could've thrown in the hardcore division, Damien for sure would have sacrificed himself nonsensically to get the division over.

I was REALLY irked by the WCW Hardcore divison at the time, maybe moreso now. As a guy who couldn't watch ECW at the time, I was blown away by the ECW mini-invasion (Sabu and RVD in particular) in WWF and thought the Hardcore division was great. So when WCW brought in Hak (Whom I knew of on reputation) and seemed to be building a Hardcore division around him, I thought it was great. And when he started battling Bam Bam (who had ECW experience and I was super into at the time), I was all-in. That they had Raven and Kanyon in Hak's intro vignettes made me think they'd come co-mingle there, and the hiring of Mikey Whipwreck (who iirc was hired specifically to learn how to make that collapsible ring dealy) had me all excited and...then Brian Knobbs strolled in, then Hugh Morrus and then Fit Finlay (Whom I was a few years away from truly appreciating). And Knobbs seemed to ALWAYS win, and the few times he didn't, it was because of something screwy. The crowd liked Hak, partially on his ECW rep and partially because he did a handful of things that weren't prevalent on the big rosters), and he should have been the big goofy babyface of the division even without the smoking/drinking entrance he had that great "drunk uncle at a party"-energy and mixture of insane disregard for his own body that the crowd would have cheered him battling guys like Bam Bam; you could have Raven mentoring Kanyon into the hardcore style; you could have used Mikey in the same way they did in ECW as a perennial underdog who runs from everyone; mix in the various big guys with nothing to do (Hammer, Enos, Wrath, Scott Norton as a hardcore guy who refuses to use weapons because he doesn't need them would have been funny) and you'd have a perfectly entertaining little segment for every show. The other thing is that they took an ETERNITY to actually bring in a belt. I actually kind of think that they brought in the hardcore division because WWE had one but the agents in the back had absolutely no interest in running one, so they basically just said "Go out and hit each other for five minutes and get lost" because it had no direction whatsoever. The WWE hardcore stuff definitely grew tiresome, but they had enough deviation from the routine that it kept it generally interesting.

"The Nitro Girls dance in an ostensibly shit-stained ring" This line made me laugh really hard. Way harder than the "hilarious" shitty contortionist angle. What made it so stupid was that who got the most over from the segment?! The contortionist who is NEVER seen again! Like if she was Nash's manager or even a previously-established onscreen girlfriend of his, it would be one thing. But the fact that Nash (presumably) hired a contortionist to hide in a bag and no one goes "Hey he's carrying a large bag onscreen, that's weird!" is just so audience-insultingly STUPID that it drives me bannaners! IIRC I believe that is Chastity's final appearance. I don't think it's quite Hak's (I think Bischoff mocks him once more at least) but his time is running short. Same for Raven. But do not despair, Shane Douglas is on his way! And the hummer returns at some point too!

While the storyline is pro wrestling All About Eve, Toni was channeling Bette Davis' look and sobbing from 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane' with the white facepaint really accentuating the blood. Great ending to the show and Mariah really savaged her with that shoe, one shot struck Toni right in the mouth and she just barely flinched and put her hand to her mouth before letting her hit her some more. By the way, I kinda really DESPISE Nigel on heel commentary, especially during Danielson matches. When it seemed like the whole thing was building to match, it annoyed me but I overlooked it, but now that it just seems to be "Nigel hates Danielson for the sake of hating" it's kind of really bad and distracting. Like even Heenan and Ventura would concede that Hogan was really strong or really good while they despised him, but when Danielson wins he's lucky or cheated or what have you every time, per Nigel. Or else maybe i just don't like his style or whatever it is, but it's a HUGE downgrade to go from Taz' brand of heel-leaning madness to Nigel's cartoony 'All heels are good/Bryan Danielson is terrible' act. The Calgary Flames are going to be very angry about Jericho driving the forklift through that newly-errected cardboard wall. I pay no attention to modern hip hop, but are Max Caster's rap videos as corny as they seem to me. Like, it looks like the set of 'Parents Just Don't Understand'-era Will Smith. And the music feels like it's...what 10-15 years out of date? Or has it circled back to this level of corniness?!

I did not remember the Savage-Nash feud with much fondness, largely because of this sewage angle (and I think there is even more coming iirc) and that's WITHOUT remembering the Nash crossdresser aspect. Yikes! Was the Jesse Ventura attack just because Ventura was returning to WWE that summer?! Or was it just Bischoff doing a hatchet job for Hulk? Weird. Bischoff becoming a face just because Hogan ostensibly did was so awful. You had a guy who fired and threatened people and their jobs, especially the announcers, and they're just supposed to act all buddy buddy with him for no reason. Plus Bischoff was (is) completely unlikable. Bad

The Flair-Stevie high-five sounds like the funniest thing ever...I thought I could remember it and see it my head but upon further reflection, I'm thinking of Larry David giving Krayzee Eyez Killa a bro-like slap on the arm followed by Krayzee menacingly going "Don't do that!" I don't think there's any wrestler I was more disappointed by than Horace Hogan. He showed up, joined the Flock and someone (Either a WCW announcer...unlikely...or someone online) talked up his FMW background and I was of the age/wrestling education that anybody who had wrestled in Japan was some sort of super worker and then he wrestled and he was so bland. Disappearing down the Horace Hogan Wikipedia rabbithole, I see that he had on televised match as The Predator as well as a brief ECW foray as 'Prey of the Dead' which might just be the worst wrestling name I've ever heard; so, he's preyed upon by dead people? Most shockingly, is that in 2002 WWE signed him to a developmental deal at the age of 37 and he somehow made it to the main roster but only in dark matches and who could see Horace's work and his lack of much work since the end of WCW and think that he was somehow improved and employable in...it's because of Hulk isn't it?! (Checks notes, yup, Hulk returned to WWE in 2002!). Also...was Van Hammer's finisher called 'The Flashback'?! I feel like hippie Van Hammer's finisher was The Flashback....[checks] so his other finisher which sounds like it might be an Alabama Slam was called 'The Flashback' but it looks like his cobra clutch slam had no name. Hey I wonder what Van Hammer's been up to [checks]...oh...oh no.

I was a huge Jericho fan and so excited for the countdown but ended up having to work that night so when I got home I asked my little brother and sister if it was Jericho and they told me it was about Jesse Ventura so I didn't even watch the tape, it took my brother and sister 24ish hours to talk me into watching Raw, so their little rise worked a little TOO well!

"Bam Bam Alley Oops Page into the buckles, then goes for some plundah outside the ring while Larry Z. gets psychics and psychiatrists mixed up on commentary…" I don't remember this, I have no idea what exactly was said, yet somehow I can absolutely HEAR this in my head!

Maybe I'm an old man, but I thought the biggest problem with Uncle Howdy's group is that it was so dark I couldn't tell what was going on until the final shot. You kids with your low light action! This isn't some Marvel-trying-to-save-money-on-CGI-by-making-everything-dark, this is WWE! Turn on some lights!

Awww man that's a name from the past! RIP