El-P

YOU FUCKED UP !! YOU FUCKED UP !! YOU FUCKED UP !! Yeah. The action is not that bad because Hogan is working pretty hard, to show up a completely depressed looking Sting. Man, he is eating him alive or what. Godawful finish aside, WCW totally failed to produce this to make it like the biggest thing ever. Even the entrance are flat, Hogan should have come to the ring along with the Outsiders and Savage & Liz, on a gigantic Harley Davidson, with huge boas on his shoulders. And Sting should have dropped from the ceiling instead of walking like a zombi looking like "fuck, I have to actually work a match now ?". This is the point where Hogan has became poisonus to the company, and the goodwill and efficiency he showed during most of the nWo angle will now be replaced by an evil insecurity that will end up killing any chance of being productive again. The only exception would be the job to Goldberg. That being said, Sting just doesn't look like a guy who is going to be your ace at all. It would take a few months before he would get back into his groove. But still, Hogan's creative control killed this match. As far as attention to detail goes, something that had been so great during the initial part of the nWo angle, one of the first guy entering the ring to celebrate with Sting is the Renegade. Fuck. And Bret Hart in all this mess having to work the first of many Montreal referential angle. I guess he saw the writing on the wall immediately. You've got one year WCW, and once chance left. Then, you're going down. Down where ? Down there : http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/19237-wcws-highway-to-hell/

Bret Hart being in this ruins the moment, it distracts from the match and the ending is awful and stupid, as there's not even a cut clear decision rendered. And it ruins Bret Hart also, all the momentum he had coming from Montreal is just dead at this point. Too bad, as Bischoff falling down the ring from the apron and later punching himself out of it were two funny moments. Both this match and the debut of Bret hart should have been the easiest stuff ever to book, and they missed the point twice in one occurence. The foreign object flying off while a bemused Bret Hart looks on is pretty hilarious though.

They lost the crowd during a long resthold segment and never really got them back, but until then it was actually pretty heated and a good match. I've been pleasantly surprised by Hennig as US champ, but maybe it's me lowering my expectations after watching his terrible 98. I still think he was actually good during this period and got injured in early 98 or something. DDP winning clean was a perfect feel good moment, and it's better than Flair to me, as the Flair vs Hennig feud had already been diluted during the neverending match at WWIII. Plus DDP winning his first major title was a great way to cap off this year and personnal storyline arc (getting it from Hennig who double crossed him earlier in the year). The WCW wrestlers in the audience was a nice idea, but it looked a bit goofy, especially the shots of Valentine, Mortis, Wright and Vandenberg.

Ah, the good old days of Spider Twist. Yeah, it was a fucking jungle. I was such an asshole too back then. Fun memories though. But we are a lot more civil and mature right now. That's the good thing about getting older. That and finally listening to jazz (yeah, more clichés).

Considering Nash didn't show up, this is about the best segment WCW could produce, with Hall being absolutely great with his facials and maneurisms. The powerbomb was a nice touch too. Disappointing maybe (although the actual matches between Nash & Giant aren't something to brag about anyway, especially the first one ending with a disaster), but for what it is, it's really well done.

Wonderful classic RF editing fuck up at the end.

Bret has no business being there. This angle is corny mid 90's Undertaker bullshit, which doesn't fit the nWo vs WCW angle at all to me. They really fucked it up big time after months of great angles. Starrcade was doomed.

Great news. I haven't read his book and don't want to hear about TNA.

This is right out of 1996 during the peak of the nWo take over. Sure was a ballsy move to spend so much time on live TV on this. Rick Rude is great in his role of intimidating the crew. Bischoff is at his heights of obnoxiousness. Hogan kissing him on the top of the head as he recieved the gift was pretty funny. Hey, Hogan drops a "ho ho ho" when he sees the girls in the limo. Yeah, it would have been really perfect is the nWo would have collapsed six days later. As it was, it only happened a bit too late when the angle already had lost some of its shine. Oh, and Bobby Heenan begging and being a total suck-up was one of his finest hours in WCW (weren't a whole lot either).

It's wrestling. We should always factor ring attire. That's why Randy Savage will remains one of my all-time favourite ever. If you add the glamour factor of Liz (going over more than ten years and looking better with the time) and Queen Sherri, the overall presentation is the greatest ever. If you add the character and promos. Well… Yeah, Savage had a terrible final year (with Nash booking. Argh, the nightmares of last year's experience are coming back). But he had at least one great segment on Thunder where he confronts Rey Mysterio Jr. That one was awesome. The great feud that could have been if WCW had some balls and brain left.

But this is our small circle. I mentionned the heavy pimping of Lawler and such, and yeah, I agree this also played a simultaneous role (although talking strictly about Memphis, Dundee is really a guy that is all about workrate, and I say that in a positive way). The excess of indy wrestling too, but I never really followed the scene, but I guess you mean the Alljapanism cosplayers from ROH and the absurd contrived work of the X division in TNA (Canadian Destroyer anyone ?). Speaking for myself only, I remember already kinda turning the corner in the early 00's when I was going through NJ & AJ TV. It got obvious when I ended up enjoying Choshu's simple yet super effective matches better than Liger vs Benoit state of the art junior stuff on the same TV blocks, and also enjoying the hell out of the Blood Outlaws. Also, my love for Onita always came from the fact the guy was all about milking the shit out of everything he was taking and doing über dramatic sell job, and not because of the electrified stunts, and this was reinforced when I went through most of FMW later in the decade. As far as Misawa goes, this hit me harder than Benoit as far as my perception of pro-wrestling went, because the Benoit incident to me had nothing to do with his style of work. But Misawa clearly died from an injury he got because of the the toll his body took over the years. Because of this, I really never watched an AJ match again since then, and really have no urge to do so. And I loved 90's AJ big match style (not talking about the ridiculous headdropping that really marred the style in the later days then in NOAH). I'd probably rather watch the whole HUSTLE history with subtitles if I could now.

Indeed. But to me this has nothing to do with workrate. This is the definition of a spotfest. And a spotfest can also have terrible workrate, meaning sloppy execution, useless stiffness, bad selling, contrived spots, bad setups etc… That's the problem I have with this whole question, I feel like we're confusing spotfest and workrate a bit here (and that is my issue with a lot of exemples you gave in your first post when you refered to what the word "workrate" makes you think about, Matt). I think the issue there is whether workrate can actually mean "to work slower if it is appropriate to work slower," a balance. If that's the case, then I don't think it's ever used that way. "Proper and balanced workrate." Workrate isn't used as "to work at the appropriate speed for a match." Maybe it should be used that way but I don't think it's generally used that way. I don't think it was used that way in the statement I was countering. To me "workrate" has taken a negative connotation in the late 00's following what I like to call the "Post Benoit trauma workrate guilt", which came more or less at the same time when if you wanted to enjoy the current product, you had to find ways to like the"storytelling oriented" matches of John Cena + the heavy pimping of some 80's guys like Lawler at the time following the Memphis set (pardon me if the dates don't all match-up, but all of this was around these years, more or less I believe). This is when workrate became a bad word I think.

Indeed. But to me this has nothing to do with workrate. This is the definition of a spotfest. And a spotfest can also have terrible workrate, meaning sloppy execution, useless stiffness, bad selling, contrived spots, bad setups etc… That's the problem I have with this whole question, I feel like we're confusing spotfest and workrate a bit here (and that is my issue with a lot of exemples you gave in your first post when you refered to what the word "workrate" makes you think about, Matt).

I respect that and I know you have a very precise, definite and specific idea of what you seek and enjoy in pro-wrestling. Which isn't mine, but that's fine with me. I spent so much time revisiting the 90's (WCW from 89 to 2001, ECW and SMW) because I wanted to check that one last time before I finally put it to rest. I don't think I'll ever come back to watch that stuff, ever. What do I want out of pro-wrestling at this point ? I dunno. I enjoy a lot of little things. A good angle. A good promo. A good announcing spot. A solid match. A fun vignette. A great nearfall that I didn't see coming. A stupid but fun and unexpected line during a promo. A manager/valet doing good work at ringside. I don't think I'm looking for the great matches anymore. When I stumble onto one, that's great (like rewatching Eddie vs Rey at Havoc, which is one hell of a "workrate match", if I might say so), but I've been enjoying more the characterization aspect of the US wrestling of the 90's. SMW was all about the promos and Dirty Dutch at the announcing table for instance. I really don't have a definite idea of what I want. But I know what bothers me and what I don't want. Kinda like in life actually.

No. If it looks like shit, my perception of it will be : it looks like shit but the other guy is selling it like crazy because he's John Cena. Giant Baba's offense looked like shit, but people were bumping hard for it because it was Baba. It didn't make his offense look any good. And it didn't change my perception of it looking like shit. Of course you can accept it and even find amusement in the fact it looks like shit yet it still sold like crazy. But it will change neither the fact it's badly executed (and the work of a pro-wrestler is also to make his shit look good) neither the perception that I have from it, which is that it looks bad. Yeah, I get the symbolism. But I don't watch a pro-wrestling match to get symbols. I want two guys who are pretending to fight, and if their execution suck, I don't care how "great" the "storytelling" is (and yeah, I'm putting storytelling under quotation marks, because in all honesty, the storytelling of a pro-wrestling match remains pretty damn basic at best), it's a bunch of goofs doing awkward looking stuff that just isn't very fun to watch. There's a reason why pretty much all the guys who are considered great workers are guys whose shit looks *good*. Would Lawler be loved as much if he punched like RVD ? Hell, not just the punches, but Lawler is a guy whose execution is terrific in general (and I don't love Lawler nearly as much as other guys around here). This is workrate too. The moves, the selling, the facials. And when you move like John Cena, punch like RVD and make facials like Edge, you're a pretty shitty worker to begin with in my book.

Looks interesting. I wonder how much credit he'll give to Sullivan for the early success of Nitro.

Awful debut for Bret. I'm sorry but he doesn't look like that big of a deal. Guest referee during the Larry Z vs Bischoff match. Fuck. Bret should have come out, cut a venimous promo about the WWF, dragging them in the dirt, then turn his attention to little Shawn's big friends here, Hall & Nash, that he made stars himself in the past, and Hulk Hogan whe fled in 1993 instead of facing him like a man, and that he would be at the Starrcade to ensure no one was gonna get screwed, and that if there was anything left of Hall, Nash & Hogan after that point, he would take the reminder of the nWo down piece by piece, not for WCW, but for himself. And then you have months of programs, throw in a big Flair feud and a big Savage feud at some point, and you're set. And you book fucking Nitros and one or two PPV in Canada. Meanwhile, you try Sting on top and you build Goldy so you get to something nice and easy for Starrca de the following year. It was so basic and easy.

This is exactly how the luchadors should have been used every week. Hell, WCW could have created a tag team cruiserweight title at this point and use all the mexican guys in a positive way instead of making them do jobs on Saturday Night. Terrific Nitro match. And I loved yellow La Parka.

Damn ! Where's Mike Oles when you need him ?

Okay, the dummy turning into Sting was a nice touch, but I don't think Hogan's promo was too good, and although he looked worried, he certainly looked scared shitless like he should have. Decent angle but after weeks of beatings, it felt a bit goofy and not that great to me. Efficient on the cute side, which is not exactly what the Starrcade build should have been.

This is so random. That Flair mentionned Hall & Nash vs Steiners shows how out of the loop he was. Booking himself in a cage match with Hennig when he basically already had transitionned into a feud with DDP. Jeez. The Bret Hart part of the promo was the good part, but damn they are already fucking up Bret's momentum coming off the biggest newsworthy event in modern wrestling history by mentionning him as part of the nWo without even showing his face. Starrcade has been extremely poorly built up thus far, top to bottom.

Problem is with these two promos : Nash looks cool and kinda has a point about Giant challenging him while he was out injured. Meanwhile, Giant looks like a giant sweating goof. CHOKESLAAAAAAM !!! Yeah, I had to do it too to underline the fact Nash looks a lot better here.

So he's a racist and general scumbag with or without alcohol? Does WWE not realise the potential for continued PR nightmares having someone like this in a prominent production position? Isn't Hayes a goner as soon as Stephy & Trip get full power anyway ?

I've been pleasantly surprised by Hennig thus far, but in this match he didn't work too hard, like he was just waiting for the eventual beating at the end. They had a better match on Saturday Night. Another nWo beatdown. Yawn.

Ditto. And it's yet another nostalgia buil-up with a 50 year old guy who retired more than ten years ago. But that's what WM has become anyway. Since Taker will most probably never work again, they have to rely on the last few huge names they can still drag from their last golden era. It won't be pretty once they really all get too old to show up. Austin is ONE OF THE BIGGEST WRESTLING STARS OF ALL-TIME God, I hate to sound like a dick, but some of the reactions to the idea of Austin @ WM are so myopic and "in the bubble" You don't even watch or like WWE anyway, jeez How am I in the bubble if I don't watch WWE ? As far as not liking it, I was more interested by WWE as I've been in 15 years last year around Mania. And in a matter of a few weeks, they drove me off like they usually do, except this time around I really thought for a moment I could be back following them, to a point at least. As far as Austin goes, thanks for pointing to me he was a huge star. I really missed that piece of information before making my statement. Austin is 50. Hasn't worked in years, probably shouldn't work again. Yeah, it could make for a really cool moment. Probably some really cool promos, although there's no way Austin can be as abrassive now as he was during his peak. And there's the risk of putting on a shitty match that will tarnish the good memories. Taker had one match too many (well, a few too if you ask me). Bret Hart should have never done this pathetic "match" with Vince a few years back. I don't really want to see Austin in anything but a great moment, and having him work a match at 50 after years of layoff just doesn't sound like the greatest idea. He had a great sendoff a few years back. So yeah, Austin working another match will make a huge WM and create a lot of excitement. For a nostalgia pop, again. It reminds me the streak of big retirement Tokyo Dome shows NJ put on for Inoki and Choshu around 97/98. At one point, there won't be anyone left to call back.