The Iron Yuppie Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Even in the 90's, there were a lot of us who often said "WCW's midcard with WWF's main events would be the best thing ever." Then Vince signed Jericho, HWSNBN, Eddy, and Malenko, and we basically got just that. And 2000 was a really great in-ring year for the WWF. Great point. I think the specific moment that sticks out most to me as the nail in WCW's coffin was April 2000. WCW had already gone off the rails and WWF was red-hot and had taken over the ratings in '99, but because of its deep mid-card compared to WWF, there was still a glimmer of hope WCW could get something going again. Even there in early 2000 with the company's hottest act (Austin) injured and a really lackluster WrestleMania, I still believe WCW could have picked up some momentum. But then WCW hit the reset--a good idea in theory, given how bad the product had been for awhile, but absolutely atrocious in practice. Just a couple weeks later, WWF puts on Backlash. I distinctly remember ordering this PPV in high school when my parents were out of town (some kids threw keggers, I ordered WWF shows). At the time, I was absolutely blown away from the start of the show to the finish and re-watching on the Network, my opinion hasn't changed. Dean Malenko pulls a freaking classic out of SCOTTY 2 HOTTY(!!?!), E&C are planting the seeds for their awesome heel turn, Bis Crenoit and Jericho have a predictably excellent match, Eddy and Essa Rios was unlike anything WWF was doing at the time even with the goofy angle, and the main event felt like a fitting blow-off to the years-long Rock-HHH feud. Not the case of course, but at the time it seemed huge. To me, that show was WWF dumping the last pile of dirt on WCW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buy Me a Burrito Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 I'm re-watching No Mercy 2002 because I wanted to watch Brock murder the Hardys and the crowd does a small, but noticeable "Goldberg" chant during the match. Hilarious. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 2000 Watching early '94 ECW and alot of the match quality is low but the overall booking has me hooked. Sandman is the man, dig the angle with his wife Peaches. Jason looks like he could be related to Paul E. There weren't many good workers outside of Funk, Douglas & Sabu. I can't wait till I get to point where Cactus & Scorpio. The few episodes I've seen I haven't seen JT Smith outside of a promo. For some reason I never looked at Woman like a diva but she looked hot in the intro. I haven't seen much Kevin Sullivan be before NWO era WCW I've enjoyed seeing he & Taz team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eikerir Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Currently watching Royal Rumble 97 and holy shit that's a big crowd for a not Wrestlemania show, specially pre 2001 when the whole "Huge Arena Wrestlemania" trend really stuck. I think it was around 60.000 in attendance for the Rumble. What are other non WM PPVs with extraordinarily large crowds/arenas besides this and Summerslam 92? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PetrolCB Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Summer Slam '94? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sydneybrown Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Currently watching Royal Rumble 97 and holy shit that's a big crowd for a not Wrestlemania show, specially pre 2001 when the whole "Huge Arena Wrestlemania" trend really stuck. I think it was around 60.000 in attendance for the Rumble. What are other non WM PPVs with extraordinarily large crowds/arenas besides this and Summerslam 92? Official PPVs, they aren't any. The only taped non-WrestleMania shows to draw over 50,000 were the Big Event in Toronto in 1986 and the Australia Global Warning show in 2002. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Guy Named Tracy Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Currently watching Royal Rumble 97 and holy shit that's a big crowd for a not Wrestlemania show, specially pre 2001 when the whole "Huge Arena Wrestlemania" trend really stuck. I think it was around 60.000 in attendance for the Rumble. 60,000 people in attendance and yet you could hear a pin drop during the Lucha match. I never understood why everyone was so quiet. The event was held in San Antonio so you would think there had to be some lucha fans in attendance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eikerir Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Currently watching Royal Rumble 97 and holy shit that's a big crowd for a not Wrestlemania show, specially pre 2001 when the whole "Huge Arena Wrestlemania" trend really stuck. I think it was around 60.000 in attendance for the Rumble. 60,000 people in attendance and yet you could hear a pin drop during the Lucha match. I never understood why everyone was so quiet. The event was held in San Antonio so you would think there had to be some lucha fans in attendance. Not only the lucha match, they popped for HBK, Bret and Taker, everyone else got almost total silence. Austin's music when entering the Rumble was specially awkward with him coming to almost no reaction at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sydneybrown Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Currently watching Royal Rumble 97 and holy shit that's a big crowd for a not Wrestlemania show, specially pre 2001 when the whole "Huge Arena Wrestlemania" trend really stuck. I think it was around 60.000 in attendance for the Rumble. 60,000 people in attendance and yet you could hear a pin drop during the Lucha match. I never understood why everyone was so quiet. The event was held in San Antonio so you would think there had to be some lucha fans in attendance. The issue was it was a HEAVILY papered show. Of the 60,000 in attendance, only half actually paid full price to get in. 20,000 tickets were sold the week of the event at prices under $10, and then another 10K were just flat-out comped. I think as a result, you had an inordinate amount of people at the show who didn't know what the hell was going on. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Perhaps acoustics were poor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwoy2j Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Currently watching Royal Rumble 97 and holy shit that's a big crowd for a not Wrestlemania show, specially pre 2001 when the whole "Huge Arena Wrestlemania" trend really stuck. I think it was around 60.000 in attendance for the Rumble. 60,000 people in attendance and yet you could hear a pin drop during the Lucha match. I never understood why everyone was so quiet. The event was held in San Antonio so you would think there had to be some lucha fans in attendance. The issue was it was a HEAVILY papered show. Of the 60,000 in attendance, only half actually paid full price to get in. 20,000 tickets were sold the week of the event at prices under $10, and then another 10K were just flat-out comped. I think as a result, you had an inordinate amount of people at the show who didn't know what the hell was going on. Cornette gives the exact figures in the clip below. About 35 seconds in: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rehabilitated Rick Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Watching Extreme rules 2011 on the network. Big Show vs. Cody in a tables match, Show's standing on the apron with a table on the outside, Cody dropkicks Show and Show ''slips'' and one of his feet go through the table on the outside essentially ending the match. Botch surely? Never seen anything like it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilUK Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Decided to use a random number generator to choose my viewing tonight. Currently watching Ken Patera v Bruno Sammartino from a WWF Old School card. Fascinating to see some of the 1970s shows on here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eikerir Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Watched Survivor Series 96 yesterday and was surprised by it, it was pretty entertaining overall and it may be one of the only good Sid matches that i can remember. Loved Shawn's reaction to the crowd turning on him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offspring515 Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Watched Survivor Series 96 yesterday and was surprised by it, it was pretty entertaining overall and it may be one of the only good Sid matches that i can remember. Loved Shawn's reaction to the crowd turning on him. I remember being disappointed by Taker/Foley on that show. What did you think of it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eikerir Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Watched Survivor Series 96 yesterday and was surprised by it, it was pretty entertaining overall and it may be one of the only good Sid matches that i can remember. Loved Shawn's reaction to the crowd turning on him. I remember being disappointed by Taker/Foley on that show. What did you think of it? It was pretty solid, arguably the best straight wrestling Taker match at that point. Only thing is that It was a bit short, i felt they could have gone for a couple more minutes in the end considering this was the blow off to their feud at the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton showing up in ECW seemed so epic. Seeing Arn and Funk side by side makes me mark out. I wish Eaton had a run during the TNN era. It's weird seeing Hawk in ECW, he was still very good, he is an underrated promo guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offspring515 Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Watched Survivor Series 96 yesterday and was surprised by it, it was pretty entertaining overall and it may be one of the only good Sid matches that i can remember. Loved Shawn's reaction to the crowd turning on him. I remember being disappointed by Taker/Foley on that show. What did you think of it? It was pretty solid, arguably the best straight wrestling Taker match at that point. Only thing is that It was a bit short, i felt they could have gone for a couple more minutes in the end considering this was the blow off to their feud at the time. I'll have to give it another look. I don't think I've seen it since the ppv aired. I will say that in going back and watching these old shows I find myself digging guys like Backlund and Greg Valentine that I thought were boring as a kid. Funny how much your tastes change. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Just watched Sing/Luger from SuperBrawl II. Good lord, Luger looked like he would have preferred to get his wisdom teeth pulled than be in that match against Sting. Really did not feel like a World Title match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mco543 Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 I love that Sting/Luger match just for how weird it seems to me. Luger is by far the biggest I've ever seen him and the way they structured it was bizarre, like something went long and they decided to cut out the first 10-15 minutes. It's not a great match by any means but when I first saw it on COD I was really surprised by it, it was nothing like what I expected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 It was definitely bizarre. A finish out of no where. I was expecting a really good match since both Luger and Sting were quite good at the time and they were good friends in real life. I did like how Jesse made mention of how bulked Luger was and how JR insinuated that the only way he bulked up that much, that quickly, was probably thanks to PED's, without actually accusing him of such. Good ol' passive aggressive JR doing what he does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillThompson Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Shawn/Razor from SummerSlam '95, and it really doesn't hold up well, mainly due to Shawn and his decision to stop selling the leg, pulling out too many ridiculous spots that only serve him, and botching the finish three freaking times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 How does it compare to the Mania match? It's been a long time since I've seen the SS 95 rematch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Johnny Polo guest-commentating on RAW is wonderful between his random '90s references and how annoyed/befuddled Vince McMahon genuinely sounds in response to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pipGofern Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 According to Raven, Vince really doesn't like him so that annoyance/befuddlement probably was genuine. Pity because I always thought Johnny Polo/Raven was one of the most underrated color men ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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