El-P

I find it fascinating that in 2013, when kayfabe has been buried a long long time ago and everything is sold as "entertainment", the true selling point of a hot angle still remains "well, I know wrestling is fake, but these two truly hate each other for real.". It's pretty cool I think, because it's truly the essence of pro-wrestling in its carny old self, and that it's still alive in some form today makes me smile.

The download is $9.99 with 4 matches: http://www.highspots.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?...e=VD_dd_mia_yim Well, now I'm browing through their stuff : 3 hours shoot interview with Ivelisse Velez Mmkay.... (what the hell happened with the guy who actually won the thing BTW ?)

Yes. Because all the big time long-ass shoots with big time veterans have already been done. Good for her. You are right on that. One of the most interesting shoot interviews I've heard is Ranger Ross. I'm serious. Hum... You seemed to take umbridge that I said "Who the fuck ?", replying with "Seriously ?". Well, yes, seriously. Who the fuck. And then you added "She works pretty much everywhere." So either working "everywhere" made her ultra well-known and in that case my "Who the fuck ?" warranted a "Seriously ?" reply, either working "everywhere" means shit in term of visibility to a guy like me who doesn't know shit about the indies, therefore my "Who the fuck ?" comment was very justified and didn't warranted a "Seriously ?" reply form you. Well, if working "everywhere" means I should know her, then "everywhere" should be places like WWE and TNA. If working "everywhere" means the indies like ROH, SHIMMER, CHIKARA and even smaller indy feds, then "everywhere" means zilch in term of visibility to a guy who doesn't follow the indies, therefore my "Who the fuck ?" comment was very justified. Hey, you said "Seriously ?" like she was an obvious name to know. She isn't. And like I said, maybe she's indeed very smart and talented and a very interesting interview to boot and that's all good for her. Don't take it too seriously. I sure as hell don't

What is everywhere ? Every indies ? Ok. So she's a girl who has work every 2010's indies for the last few years. That makes for a fascinating interview, I'm sure. Sorry to sound condescending to some extent, but really, I don't see what the point is of doing shoot interviews with indy workers who've been in the business for a couple of years and haven't worked one bit in the major leagues either. When you think shoot interviews with actual relevant guys almost always end up being one good half of bullshit anyway... What difference does it make ? Interviewing people who have worked a bunch of years on the indies is okay for digital downloads I guess. Really, everyone that was anyone is the grand scheme of pro-wrestling history has already been interviewed. The only company that's doing a different job is KC, sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, but at least they still try to do some relevant stuff. I guess fans of the indy scene are interested about shoot interviews from indy workers of today. I really don't see the point myself, but maybe I'm wrong and she has tons of fascinating stuff to say about wrestling history (well, from 2009 to today on the US indy scene that is...). Hey, a girl piledriven through a table, with ECW chants to boot. How fresh. She sure as hell doesn't. (hey, nothing against the girl actually, and she may be really smart and talented for all I know. I'm just fooling around the fact she's supposed to be that ultra-known worker when in fact, well, she isn't really, unless you follow indy wrestling. Hell, maybe I'll check that Shoot Interview now, just out of curiosity, ah !)

The idea that an average indy wrestler who I guess hasn't worked more than a few years gets a Shoot Interview deal shows how desperate these guys are at this point. Most everyone of interest has already be done, in most case pretty badly by the RF crew. BTW, the Timeline WWF 1993 with Lex is pretty good. Nothing real in depth, but it's cool to see Lex in such good spirits after all he went through. He also shows no mercy about his old-self, admitting he was not the best worker around and that he was infact pretty arrogant back then. Gives major props to some guys including Bret and Hennig and says a lot of nice things about Yoko. Really positive, enjoyable stuff.

Who the fuck ?

Well, this is pretty much the story of Jake's career. The only time I thought he was really solid in teh ring was in Mid-South. After that... Same story in SMW. Awesome promos and terrific angles. Matches were dull, well, until he no-showed that is. What is great watching Tuesday in Texas, is to see how much heat a simple slap on Liz got, and how it was sold like a huge deal. Fast forward to the late 90's : people cheered for the Dudleys (heels) putting Terri Runnels through a table. Something got very wrong at some point. And although I still define myself as an ECW fan, violence against women is one of the really terrible thing this promotion made "cool", although it didn't always looked *that* terrible in its own deranged settings. The transition to the major leagues on the other hand really bothered me. Once again, Russo was a big reason why it happened, and he went totally crazy with it in WCW. Sorry for sidetracking the thread.

Wonder why he left wwf back then. He wanted to wrestle. WWF would not let him do that. He was working at production and pbp only.

The issue with Savage vs Jake is that it really never got resolved, they just transitionned it toward Taker. Jake's drug issue really ruined his heel career at this point, because he was awesome in the role, and had the best music theme ever to boot.

The problem is those days is that being over often meant having a catchphrase people liked to chant along with. The NOA got tremendous reactions during their intros, but the matches usualy got zero heat. The Attitude crowds didn't care about wrestling nor most of the characters. They cared about the catchphrases, the puppies, retarded signature spots (the worst of all being the WORM) and people being put through tables. Oh, and be seen on TV with their signs, of course. Very few workers on the undercard really were "over" in the sense that the audience cared for them like in the 80's. That's also why the Attitude era was such a horrible product, no matter how much money it made. Things only got better once Russo left and the WCW crew and Angle got on board.

Good question. I think she played a part as a novelty act in 1997, then was effectively more over in her role than HHH was during the early DX days. I don't think Huter with Mr. Hughes would have garnered the same reactions. Huge amazonian Chyna brutalizing petite Marlena was a big part of HHH vs Goldust, then HHH had his first feud with Foley when he was getting over strong as a babyface after the Ross interviews. By then Chyna was established, the nolvelty was wearing of but I'd say she still got HHH more heat than he would have got on his own. Hell, HHH cracking jokes behind Shawn in late 1997 got crickets.

For fucks sakes. Fully Loaded 98 - Fresno, CA - Selland Arena - July 26, 1998 WWF IC Champion The Rock 1-1 Triple H in 2/3 match WWF World Champion Steve Austin & The Undertaker defeated WWF Tag Team Champions Kane & Mankind (w/ Paul Bearer) to win the titles Summer Slam 98 - New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 30, 1998 Triple H (w/ Chyna) defeated WWF IC Champion the Rock (w/ Mark Henry) in a ladder match to win the title WWF World Champion Steve Austin pinned the Undertaker So basically a shot at Austin, Taker, Mick and Kane. Weeeeeeeeeeeee~! Even funnier when you think how poor of a match that 2/3 falls was (in comparison with the admitedly excellent 60 mn Iron Man match they'd have in 2000, thanks to Rock improving vastly and creative booking mostly) and how awkward that ladder match was, with tons of sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooow climbs up the thing with a ridiculous oversell of the damage done that apparently only hampered their ability to climb up steps since they were moving fine on the flat ring. Yeah, Rock was beginning to recieve supertar reactions, and DX was very over (and really, the NOA & X-Pac coming back from WCW really beneficiated HHH who wasn't over a bit as Shawn's little buddy), but to say it made the main eventer step up their game is plain ridiculous stuff. What killed the main events in the months to follow SummerSlam was the überRussoification of the product with ridiculous stipuations, 2 on 1 matches and swerves. Hunter was not seen as a credible main event player before he and Stephy feuded against Cactus who put them over huge. 4 years of a nearly non-stop push, kissing up to Shawn's ass and marrying the boss' daughter. Indeed, stuff of what legends are made.

WEEK 94 (October 16 to 21, 2000) Match of the week : Shane Douglas vs Booker T (Nitro). Shane carries Booker to his best matches in eons. At this point Douglas really makes me think about an old Arn Anderson style worker. Not flashy but solid as hell, doing the deliberate tough guy yet showing ass routine, pacing the match better than most everyone in the company does. He's focusing his attack on the neck of Booker, using some streching moves and actually working them instead of just resting in it. Gotta like the little headbutt he did while doing the streching the arms in the back bit. It's a pity he's not used better, but he really has pleased me these past few weeks, he's working the best way possible with what it's thrown to him. Booker is the same boring, sloppy, robotic, unengaging worker he is all the time, a Booker match is only as interesting as his opponent. I liked that one quite a bit, all the credit goes to Douglas of course. Bad injury of the week : Johnny the Bull hurt his *left* ankle. (Nitro). After being gone for a while, Johnny gets another injury, this time on a monkey flip move where he landed badly on his *left* ankle. Emphasis on *left* because that idioit Mark Madden insisted on calling it the right ankle despite two consecutive slo-mo. This guy is so inept at his job it's unbelievable he was maintened at his spot after Russo was axed. Enjoyable tag match of the week : Mike Awesome & Crowbar vs Perfect Event (Nitro) Crowbar is now Awesome's buddy, and he dresses 70's style too. Well, I enjoy this team, very ECW/FMW style, so it's all good for me. The Perfect Event is engaged in a storyline where Stasiak and Palumbo don't get along anymore. Palumbo reminds me of an overgrown Dr. Tom Prichard for some reasons. He's improving somewhat too. Stasiak doesn't strike me as very much improved, but he's ok in a tag team setting. Nothing to write home about, but I found a way to enjoy every NBT at this point, so there's that. C-show match of the week : Kwee-Wee vs Chris Daniels (WorldWide) This is as proto-TNA as it can be, although it's obvious Daniels would have had a future in WCW if it had not folded. I never got the hate toward this guy. He almost kills himself here on a very oddly executed dive from the top rope to the outside, where he doesn't get enough hights and nearly falls right on his head and neck. He was really lucky on that one. Kwee-Wee keeps on being fun in the ring, these two are spot machines, but smooth and (mostly) crisp ones. Slow week in term of angle developpment, it's obvious they were transitionning toward the new booking team. I don't think Russo's name was ushered on TV. It feels so good to see him gone for good. On the next Nitro, Johnny Ace & Terry Taylor (with the help of Ed Ferrara sadly) would officialy take the spot of Russo of putting the show together. I can't believe it took so long for the company to get rid of that cancer. The shows in Australia have been immediately better without his presence, with more wrestling, no swerve, no shoot interview, no woman abuse (well, Jarrett still crashed a guitar over a girl, but he's *the* Russo goon around really so that is to be expected), no on-a-pole match. Feels good, really. In other news, they ran an angle and an interview with Sam Greco, which will lead to nothing. Kidman is back with the Filthy Animals, which ties up nicely with them feuding with Douglas (and since Juvy has been injured on Nitro a few weeks before then being arrested in Australia for assaulting a woman at the hotel or something). Ric Flair tried to get David Flair back on track, but David is insane. It seems like the idea of Ric being the father was still in the air somewhat but nothing concrete never really happened with this. They definitely go with Bagwell in a stupid DNA test match. Yeah, the Russo inheritance for a few weeks still...

Yes. And also very safe and light as fuck (chops excepted) to work with apparently. I don't remember who talked about Haku being as light as a feather in the ring.

That's pretty cool. Talking about women, of course Luna Vachon was supposed to be tough as nails (the infamous story of a young Luna being slapped by Sullivan and shouting at him after the take because he hit her "like a pussy"). I believe I heard about Etsuko Mita from LCO being a tough one too back in the days.

Raymond Rougeau was an honest-to-goodness ass stomper? Wow! The guy looked like a youth pastor. See, I love finding out shit like that. Reminds me of the time I learned Dr. Ruth was a sniper for the Israeli army. Astonishing. Bret Hart told in a shoot interview that Dynamite Kid would mess around with Jacques but didn't go after Raymond even when he was injured because he knew Ray was not a guy to be fucking with. Not to mention he was a smart guy too, getting out of the ring at 35 with his health and plenty of money.

Now.

Meng, Barbarian, Bad News, these are the obvious ones. Not that obvious : Raymond Rougeau was not someone you'd want to mess with apparently. Bob Backlund was a gentleman who probaby was a legit tough guy. Cornette told a story about Hercules Hernandez once that would make you think twice about it. Gary Hart said that Don "The Spoiler" Jardine was a vicious son of a bitch. JBL would tell you to not fuck around with Joey Styles.

No, I judge WCW 2000 against my global standarts of enjoyment of pro-wrestling. That's why I often refer to "nice little match" and "decent little match" in my WCW thread when I enjoy some of the stuff, because in the grand scheme of things that's just at this level usually (yet these end up being the most enjoyable matches of the bunch). I'm not gonna bring down my standarts because I'm watching a shitty product. Although you have to at some point to get some enjoyement out of it, but overall I judge like I would any other wrestling product from any other era or promotion. Of course context matters, but context doesn't change the fact that shitty pro-wrestling is shitty pro-wrestling to me. It's not a matter of expectations to me.

To be fair, I was crying pretty hard by the time that match ended. I kept thinking about how those were minutes I could have spent doing something, anything else besides watching that match. I was thinking about how I could've spent the money for that ppv on something useful like anything else besides that ppv. It was an emotional moment for me, too. Ah ah ah. I feel your pain.

Sounds like the greatest revisionnist shit put out by the WWE Universe yet. Wonderful.

No. Of course you can. That's called growing up. What brought me to watch pro-wrestling is WWF in late 89/90. Superstars shows with Beefcake squashes and Volkoff vs Zukoff. Do I have a soft spot for this shit ? Probably, but it's more nostalgia for what I loved when I as 14. Have I turned my back on it and would I call it crap today ? Of course I have. Of course I would call it crap today. No pity for nostalgia.

WEEK 93 (October 9 to 14, 2000) Match of the week : Rey Mysterio Jr. vs Elix Skipper (Nitro). A hot cruiserweight opener to start the show, is this 1997 ? Okay, it's not up to that level, but I enjoy Skipper quite a bit although at time he's trying to push the limits of glamorous spot alittle too far. Here he's trying something really funky where he walks the rope to jump into a hurricanrana on Rey who's on the top rope, but it fails quite miserably and he kinda fall on Rey's face in a terrible botch which looks painfull for Rey. Outside of that, there's plenty cool flying. Still it's a short match ending up with a catfight at ringside (Torrie Wison & Tygress), but very enjoyable for what it was. Competitive squash of the week : Scott Steiner vs Rey Mysterio Jr. (Thunder). It's too bad WCW never figured how to push Rey to a main event status star, as he's the bets babyface they have and a legit star if they wanted him to be. So this is as good as it can be considering the respective spots on the ladder these two have, but it's obvious they have a terrific match in them together if only Rey was allowed to be what he should be. Failed angle of the week : Jeff Jarrett as surfer Sting (Nitro) Jarrett disguised as the old-school Sting could have been a good idea, but the execution just isn't there. In typical poor WCW production fashion, they don't use "The Man Called Sting" music theme for Jarrett but rather the current Mettalica song, which makes the thing sloppy to begin with. Then, Jarrett just isn't a good promo and doesn't do anything with the old-school Sting character, he's just spewing boring stuff about Sting being a hasbeen and manages to utter his boring Jarrett catchphrases about having all the stroke around there. Gawd... Then he fights with the actual Sting (which Mark Madden calls Jeff Farmer in yet another useless smarky comments that goes over the head of 95% of the remaining audience), puts him through a table, which Sting totally no-sells. Damn this feud is already in the crapper to me. Bullshit fake title change of the week : Mark Jindrak & Sean O'Haire vs Boogie Knights (Nitro). Seriously, where was Alex all this time ? He looks really fine and is clearly the best worker of this bunch by a wide margin. Decent little match which ends in a bullshit Dusty finish after Disco & Alex cleanly win the tag titles. They pull the same shit on Thunder with the MIA. This is gonna get old quick. Surprisingly nice match of the week : Konnan vs Lance Storm. (Nitro) Once again, Storm works very well with Konnan, making him look better than he had in ages. Lance understood what Konnan's strenghts were, and they worked some smooth counter sequences which is the thing Konnan can be good at. Lance really gets back into my graces and despite looking way to soft at times (his superkick can look like the most inoffensive ever sometimes), he delivers the good including with no so good workers thus far. Douglas shows up and hist Konnan from behind to give Lance a win. They have another nice little tag match along with Gen. Rection on Thunder. First week in Australia, and first week without Russo backstage. His name is still dropped once or twice, but he's nowhere to be seen and not given much importance anymore in the storylines. A little bit more actual wrestling time, although still a lot of bullshit finishes. I don't care about the Goldberg streak angle. At this point of his career it's not like anyone cares about him squashing Chuck Palumbo, and certainly no one believe he's gonna lose. Plus it leads to him vs Kronik at the PPV, which should be quite awful. The Australian crowds are much bigger than anything in the US and it's kinda cool to see WCW back in huge and packed arenas with hot crowds like it's 96/97 again.

WEEK 92 (October 2 to 7, 2000) Idiotic gimmick match of the week : Plastic duck ladder match. (Nitro). Yeah, Rey & Konnan are gonna kill themselves using a ladder against Disco & Alex Wright to get the fucking plastic duck. Makes a lot of sense. The match was enjoyable nonetheless thanks to Rey's flying, which was gorgeous at times. Shitty title change of the week 1 : Reno wins the Hardcore title thanks to a reversal of decision due to interference (Nitro). Or so says new commisionner Mike Sanders. Makes no fucking sense. Another gimmicked title change. It's not like the hardcore title shouldn't be put to rest at this point, but still, it's crap. Shitty title change of the week 2 : Mike Sanders wins the cruiserweight title in a handicap powerbomb match, tagging with Kevin Nash. (Nitro) Yeah, more stupid gimmicked title change. The fact Team Canada are some of the most over heels on the roster doesn't help either. Crap. Shitty main event title match of the week : Jeff Jarrett vs Booker T in a boxes on a pole match. (Nitro) Man, Russo sure piled up a lot of shit, I mean actual shit, for his last week at the helm. Jarrett vs Booker in a horrible gimmick match on free TV, the perfect combination of Russo's reign with a very underwhelming match yet again ending up with, not a swerve sadly, but one of Stern's dwarf hitting Jarrett in the balls. Ah ah, hilarious. Or not. Complete shit. And I have given up on Booker. I waited a long long time for him to show me something better than average at very best. Steiner can't get this belt soon enough. Squash of the week : Scott Steiner vs Jung Dragons (Thunder). Excatly what you'd expect, Steiner just kills those guys, who take hellish bumps for him, making him look like the monster he is. Lea Meow strangling Midajah with her whip at ringside is the cherry on the cake. Shoot interview of the week : The Misfits in Action (Thunder). Talking about having the best matches on the show, giving to other guys what they haven't been given, about ratings, about untapped potential, well, more backstage insider bullshit that isn't relevant. They really paint a shitty picture of Rection too, as he's complaining about brain damage, not being able to see well or walk by himself in the morning. I guess they wanted to make him look like Mick Foley or something, but what comes off that interview is that the guy is a cripple basically. Sure puts him over strong for the upper mid-card. Oh, they talked about "getting over" too. Yawn... Kidnapping of the week : David Flair has kidnapped Buff Bagwell (Thunder). So there it is, after all Buff impregnated Stacy. I have no idea who's supposed to be the heel here. Anyway, as stupid as it would have been, I would probably enjoy Ric being the father more, it maybe would have been atrocious but entertaining in a pervert way. With Buff I'm just glad he's not getting involved with a worker I care about. So, now Goldberg has to win all his matches of he's being fired. Going back to the streak now is way too late, the damage had been done a long time ago. Feels like a rehash, especially by litterally mentionning the streak and making it like just another gimmick on the show. Shane Douglas is getting Konnan, this guy can't get a break and a good feud to save his life. Well, at least maybe we'll have some fun promos back and forth. Kronik apparently have turned heels (as far as I can tell) so they'll get programmed against Goldie. Jarrett vs Sting and Booker vs Steiner are the logical big feuds on top, with Lance vs Rection supporting on the upper undercard. I wonder how they'll build to the PPV with Russo officialy gone in two weeks. Well, since he won't be back on WCW TV ever and since basically he was already gone when they hit Australia, let me have myself a nice FUCK YOU RUSSO ! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCKING IDIOTIC FUCK !!!! I'M STILL THERE AND YOU'RE GONE YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAG CRETIN FUCKTARD !!! FUCK YOU SO MUCH !!!! Gawdddddd it feels good. Really, and it's two weeks in advance, but I can say I can totally empathize with a guy like Cornette after going through these two horrific stints. I can totally understand that a guy like Cornette who loved wrestling as his own life would lose his mind and go insane watching what Russo did to pro-wrestling TV. The absolute retardation and total lack of understanding of every basic rule and inner workings of pro-wrestling are just infuriating, even more than a decade later. Even I was getting furious and frustrated as all hell watching this shit in 2013. So yeah, fuck Vince Russo, once and for all. Whatever good he did under the umbrella of the WWF machine from 96 to 98 is nothing compared to the piles of unfiltered shit he threw on TV after that point, especially in WCW. I'm sure there will still be Russo's fingerprints over the TV at times in the weeks and even months to come, but still, I can say I turned the corner. I never thought I would keep on watching, there was several times I just wanted to throw all the remaining files in the basket and delete the whole thing. This was way worse that I thought it would be. The worst wrestling TV I've ever seen. And I've seen shitty stuff before. But this has been the absolute nadir.

You're my new hero.