The Old School Questions thread

[(BP) 4,404]

8 minutes ago, Michael Sweetser said:

Man, whatever you're on, share.

Based on Roland's name and avatar, he's all strung out on heroin on the outskirts of town. 

[Curt McGirt 8,107]

Or just gallons upon gallons of Stoli

[Niners Fan in CT 12,725]

I thought WCW was still pretty good until sometime in 1999. I have fond memories of the wolfpac split and thinking it was pretty cool despite Sting being involved which made no sense.  The Hogan/Warrior stuff was terrible but it was surreal up until that shitty match at Halloween Havoc.  But on the same show you have that awesome Goldberg vs. DDP match. So I don't know, I was still very much into it.  The handling of Goldberg's first loss wasn't good and then the fingerpoke, that's probably when I stopped watching it. Shortly after.

[twiztor 753]

around March, when you have the Flair/Hogan double turn is when i really feel the show took a steep downturn as a whole. the summer was largely terrible. 

the period from road wild to halloween havoc was ok but pretty forgettable.

[zev 2,497]

7 hours ago, (BP) said:

Based on Roland's name and avatar, he's all strung out on heroin on the outskirts of town. 

C'mon now, the proper answer is that of all the salty margaritas in Los Angeles, he went and drank 'em up.

 

 

[RolandTHTG 2,432]

Fuck y'all hivemind honkies.

WCW '99 from Road Wild to about Starrcade ages very well. Everything else from there on in till about Halloween Havoc '00/Russo getting canned again is garbage. 

Dare you to revisit it. 

[cwoy2j 3,419]

Halloween Havoc 99 aged well? The show where they hotshotted Goldberg/Sting in a 3 minute match with zero build-up? The Filthy Animals burying Ric Flair in the desert aged well? Evan Karagias trading the cruiserweight title with Disco Inferno and Madusa? I don't think it's a hivemind so much as you must have a much higher tolerance for crap than most people.

[RolandTHTG 2,432]

8 hours ago, cwoy2j said:

Halloween Havoc 99 aged well? The show where they hotshotted Goldberg/Sting in a 3 minute match with zero build-up? The Filthy Animals burying Ric Flair in the desert aged well? Evan Karagias trading the cruiserweight title with Disco Inferno and Madusa? I don't think it's a hivemind so much as you must have a much higher tolerance for crap than most people.

Aged well in the context that the majority of those things have occurred countless times since and no-one's batted an eyelid to it.

They hotshotted Reigns going over Owens like a week into Owens' title reign about a month ago, no-one cared. I'm not saying it's great, but that it happens countless times since then and it's hardly the exception to the rule. We're desensitized to it.

Filthy Animals burying Flair in the desert? You could loosely make the comparison of the majority of last week's Smackdown being dedicated to Bray Wyatt being locked in a container. Or numerous Undertaker/Kane related burial segments since 1999. Spirit Squad being put in a crate to OVW. The constant "heel gets buried in feces" segments. Even Karagias trading the Cruiserweight title with Disco and Madusa sounds like the halcyon days compared to what happened to it in the WWE - Jacqueline, Chavo Classic, Hornswoggle.

I'm not saying its great, but to compare it to what happens literally months later in the same promotion, is chalk and cheese.

[zev 2,497]

21 hours ago, zev said:

C'mon now, the proper answer is that of all the salty margaritas in Los Angeles, he went and drank 'em up.

 

 

For future reference, heartbreak motor oil and Bombay gin is also an acceptable answer.

 

As for burial segments, am I remembering it right in that after Mil Muertes lost a casket match, weeks later he showed up on the wall in King Cuerno's trophy room as if he'd been stuffed and preserved?

 

[RolandTHTG 2,432]

Probably worth noting/debating as well just how poorly WWF from around the same timeframe holds up also. 

Not just for the awful misogynistic, homophobic crash TV stuff, or how much it relies on blood, unprotected chair shots, stupid bumps for throw away TV stuff, but simply because it's the same concept being used 17 years later also (albeit with less talented cast).

Was definitely WCW's Achilles heel at the time that they couldn't compete with the type of content being produced by the WWF, but I think in hindsight, it doesn't age *as poorly*. Not better, just not as badly.

[Niners Fan in CT 12,725]

I don't know I've watched a lot of WCW from around that time lately and though I agree WWF in 1999 is pretty ridiculous,  it's miles better than WCW.  I feel like everyone in WCW was mailing it in.  For all the crap that WWF was producing you had Austin, Rock, Foley, McMahon etc.  to make up for it.  The characters were on point and everything was over. 

[sydneybrown 2,051]

1999 WCW was the ultimate "throw shit against a wall and go with what sticks."  There was just no coherency.  If you just watched a random episode from the latter half especially, you'd have no clue what was going on.  WWF at least maintained a storyline for the most part despite their crash TV.

FWIW, the exact moment WCW died to me was in 1999 no less.  11/29/99.  Shane Douglas and the Revolution are cutting a promo and Jim Duggan comes out to saves the day and starts hitting people with his 2X4.  Which bends in place.  And stays that way.  And then he has a tug of war with Dean Malenko where the 2X4 completely twists.  And then Duggan gets assaulted with a clear piece of foam.  And you can absolutely tell everyone involved knows how incredibly stupid they all look.

Then Steve Williams wrestled The Misfits' Jerry Only in a cage to seal the deal.

[Mr Harms 434]

4 hours ago, sydneybrown said:

Shane Douglas and the Revolution are cutting a promo and Jim Duggan comes out to saves the day and starts hitting people with his 2X4.  Which bends in place.  And stays that way.  And then he has a tug of war with Dean Malenko where the 2X4 completely twists.  And then Duggan gets assaulted with a clear piece of foam.  And you can absolutely tell everyone involved knows how incredibly stupid they all look  

Well that's nitpicking isn't it

[Wyld Samurai 1,683]

WCW 2001 right before they collapsed is what holds up well. The next generation of Cruiserweights like Kid Romeo, Elix Skipper and the Cruiserweight Tag Titles are definitely highlights as they're carried / shown the ropes by Rey & Kidman in their Filthy Animals days.

For the Heavyweights you had Scott Steiner doing the best millenium Billy Graham impersonation ever as he battled DDP and the newly elevated Booker T. All good stuff. 

[RolandTHTG 2,432]

Agreed - although I think the seeds get planted from the minute Russo gets canned again. Steiner as the top heel from when he goes over Goldberg in a fucking awesome match at Fall Brawl is one of the better heel runs of that decade.

They made a point of the titles meaning something (albeit the US title being stuck with shit workers), O'Haire was clearly being groomed to be the next big thing. Him and Palumbo were a good act - had some good matches with Storm and Awesome.

WWF early 2001 was probably as good as it ever was, so was never going to compete, but it was putting out perfectly inoffensive TV week in week out during the last few months.

[Wyld Samurai 1,683]

Who had the book the last few months? Dusty? A lot of the stuff looked like Dusty's work. I know Kevin Sullivan had it in January 

[cwoy2j 3,419]

16 hours ago, Mr Harms said:

Well that's nitpicking isn't it

I can see Bill Busch telling Scott Steiner that his promo was sexist and Steiner responding with, "Well, so what? What's wrong with bein' sexy?"

[cwoy2j 3,419]

And I remember DDP getting turned on and beaten up for pretty much the entire last 6 months of the promotion. He was practically begging for someone to kick this ass for a man, that's all.

[cwoy2j 3,419]

On 10/13/2016 at 6:06 PM, RolandTHTG said:

Aged well in the context that the majority of those things have occurred countless times since and no-one's batted an eyelid to it.

They hotshotted Reigns going over Owens like a week into Owens' title reign about a month ago, no-one cared. I'm not saying it's great, but that it happens countless times since then and it's hardly the exception to the rule. We're desensitized to it.

Filthy Animals burying Flair in the desert? You could loosely make the comparison of the majority of last week's Smackdown being dedicated to Bray Wyatt being locked in a container. Or numerous Undertaker/Kane related burial segments since 1999. Spirit Squad being put in a crate to OVW. The constant "heel gets buried in feces" segments. Even Karagias trading the Cruiserweight title with Disco and Madusa sounds like the halcyon days compared to what happened to it in the WWE - Jacqueline, Chavo Classic, Hornswoggle.

I'm not saying its great, but to compare it to what happens literally months later in the same promotion, is chalk and cheese.

You're kidding right? Plenty of eyelids have been batted to the stuff you've mentioned. And just because they're still doing the same stupid shit that happened back then doesn't lessen the stupidity of the stuff that happened back then.

[Jerome Miller 92]

Anyone ever hear what happened to Maryland money mark/manager Royce Profit?  He pretty much vanished off the face of the Earth back in 1999.

[Michael Sweetser 2,927]

On 10/13/2016 at 3:06 PM, RolandTHTG said:

Aged well in the context that the majority of those things have occurred countless times since and no-one's batted an eyelid to it.

They hotshotted Reigns going over Owens like a week into Owens' title reign about a month ago, no-one cared. I'm not saying it's great, but that it happens countless times since then and it's hardly the exception to the rule. We're desensitized to it.

Filthy Animals burying Flair in the desert? You could loosely make the comparison of the majority of last week's Smackdown being dedicated to Bray Wyatt being locked in a container. Or numerous Undertaker/Kane related burial segments since 1999. Spirit Squad being put in a crate to OVW. The constant "heel gets buried in feces" segments. Even Karagias trading the Cruiserweight title with Disco and Madusa sounds like the halcyon days compared to what happened to it in the WWE - Jacqueline, Chavo Classic, Hornswoggle.

I'm not saying its great, but to compare it to what happens literally months later in the same promotion, is chalk and cheese.

Just because wrestling kept serving the same terrible meal since doesn't make it any more edible seeing it being made the first time.  Just because the same things happened again doesn't mean WCW gets a pass for being the first to fuck it up.  

My general guideline was that WCW was pretty much shit at any point Russo had power, because the second he did, he turned it into WWF-lite, and even the WWF was having its own teething problems with their content at that point.  For every good thing they did, they had ten more shit things to balance it out.

And Chavo Classic was miles ahead of anything you compared it to.  Don't diss Chavo Classic.

[Thomas Bugg 232]

This is more of an opinion based question, but why did the WWF Light Heavyweight Division fail?

[PetrolCB 7,603]

Vince McMahon. 

[(BP) 4,404]

The Light Heavyweight division was initiated at a time when Vince was trying a lot of things at once and keeping what stuck. A lot of stuff from that time was tossed to focus on the crash TV angles by late 98/99 because that was their bread and butter. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 19,246]

8 minutes ago, (BP) said:

The Light Heavyweight division was initiated at a time when Vince was trying a lot of things at once and keeping what stuck. A lot of stuff from that time was tossed to focus on the crash TV angles by late 98/99 because that was their bread and butter. 

Don't forget Ultimo Dragon appearing on WCW tv with the 8 titles making up the J Crown, one of which was the old and long forgotten, WWF Light heavyweight title. You know that had to drive Vince insane.