El-P

I always enjoyed fat and old Windham. Enjoyed him as a Blackjack. Enjoyed him as a "NWA" representative. Enjoyed his last WCW run. Windham is a guy that was so good that even when he got fat and banged up and lazy, I always enjoyed him to a degree.

I'm watching WCW 1998, and Hennig is in my top 5 of worst performers on TV on a regular basis, along with Konnan and Brian Adams. In September he seems to get a bit more motivated again, and he's wearing long shorts to hide a huge knee brace. But up to the Summer, Hennig was just awful. He also had a very awkward way of bumping, trying to do some half-ass "insane" bumping like he used to, but always pivoting to never fall on his back, which made for very odd looking bumps. From memory I think he was actually decent in 99, but we'll see. Another guy that just looked like crap in 98 was the British Bulldog. And I'm talking about way before fucking up his back on Warrior's trap in September. This is the same guy who had a legit MOTYC with Owen the previous year, some excellent tag matches and another very good single match with Michaels depsite being banged up in fall of 97. In WCW the Bulldog was just atrocious to watch. Seemingly no power left in his body, no desire to do anything, screwing up simple spots. Amazing. After the trap door accident it was over, his comeback in WWF was even worst, just godawful at that point. He could look halfway decent in tag matches but the workload had to be carried by Jim Neidhart. *gasp*

Because Tiger Mask was all about believability you see... And he never exposed the business by screwing up spots... He never did. No.

It's not like his mega push in 1997 worked very well either. Some say Sasaki getting the IWGP title was the first sign of the dawn of puroresu... But seriously, Sasaki really didn't make it before the 2000s.

I'll rewatch Goldberg vs DDP pretty soon. I used to like it a lot, mainly because I was amazed DDP was able to get such a match out of Goldie, I wonder how it aged. Good Goldie match ? Thus far, I've seen exactly one, and it was thanks to Raven and his bag of tricks. It was not a *good match* moreso than a *good Goldberg match* like you said. The first competitive Goldberg matches against Saturn sucked, Goldie was just lost. You can argue Regal got an interesting match out of Goldberg, but it was more about him not being the most cooperative which made it fun to watch. I know people pimp Goldberg vs Sid matches, which to me doesn't make any sense. I haven't seen them in ages, but apart from lot pof blood, it was freaking Sid against Goldie. Didn't Sting got a good match out of him at one point ?

You don't want to use the Goldberg analogy. I'm currently rewatching WCW 1998, and Goldberg really wasn't fun to watch most of the time. Squashing a bunch of jobbers only goes so far with me, especially when you do the exact same three moves in every match. It was kinda fun for a while at the beginning, then quickly became extremely boring to me, especially when Goldberg was facing guys like Scott Putski and Barry Darsow, guys who couldn't buy a win on Thunder to save their lives, while he was the WCW champ. Not exactly compelling. Goldberg was interesting only depending on who his opponent was. And still, he couldn't work a lick really, and was lost as soon as something unplanned happen. He had his three or four moves that looked good, and that's it. Smokes and mirrors. The DDP match is a miracle Page got out of his ass because he was good at those sort of things. Raven and the Flock got a good match out of him by making him look like a total monster. But Goldberg really wasn't much of a worker, Warrior in his prime was much better. But Goldie was green as fuck, so maybe with time he would have gotten better. Anyway, the Goldberg analogy, bad.

Good point. It was also the first time Hulk slammed Andre. And the first time anyone slammed Andre.

This 93000 people or not talk is well and good, but the main issue no seem to talk about here is all about Andre weighing 700 pounds or not. Hulk says it's true.

Well, I stopped watching a decade ago. Got to watch some matches for the GWE poll at SC, and batch an eye at WM every year or so, but I mostly stopped watching because I can't stand modern WWE style. I'll watch WM this year with an open eye, and mostly to see the Rock.

Now that the career spipulation is out, what's the point of it being the biggest match of the show, seriously. If HHH beats Taker, huge deal. If Taker beats HHH, so what ?

I knew that was coming too. Eh eh !

Amazing. What the fuck? I drew 30.000 people to Kawasaki Stadium without having any TV. Who the hell is that cartoon guy ?

Apparently not:http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=54186 Anti-japan bias. If Power Hall isn't the greatest wrestling theme ever, it sure is very close to it.

Aww shit... My interest goes down a notch. The double World title matches always made main eventing WM lesser than it used to be anyway. When will this nonsense stop ?

Interesting. Nash pretends he didn't book before Starrcade (read : "I didn't put myself over Goldberg"). It'll take me some will to go trough the rest of the year. Although I know some good shit with Eddie is coming up eventually.

The Meng push was actually kinda fun, but Road Wild was a pretty bad PPV. No build for the undercard, some really shitty matches (McMichael vs Brian Adams, Chavo vs Stevie Ray, Disco & Alex Wright vs PE). When did Nash begin to book exactly ?

I don't know if there was a booking commitee change around the summer of 98, or if Sullivan simply jumped the shark, but the product took a huge nosedive around that point. It seems like they totally forgot why their product was so efficient a few years and even months ago, stars on top and strong undercard with good matches. The strong undercard is gone, the shows are one nWo segment after another, mostly with guys nobody cares about, Norton, Brian Adams, shitty workers like Konnan or Stevie Ray, the same interviews each week... The Steiner/Bagwell vs Rick Steiner feud had so much potential, but they turned it into a complete joke with terrible comedy segments and not delivering the match on PPV. After being booked as something important, the TV title seems like an aftertought, probably hurt by the Stevie Ray debacle. The US title basically became meaningless once Goldberg got it, and although Bret Hart had a streak of good US title match, it doesn't seem like it's anything more than a prop at this point. The cruiserweight title, after being hot for most of the year, is kinda forgotten once Juvi finally gets it from Jericho. And god, they put Evan Karagias on TV, and this guy was rotten. Seriously has two of the worst matches of the year against super workers Kaz Hayashi and Juvi, he's just godawful. Add to that the Warrior debacle, which was as terrible as I remembered, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, not even in a "so bad it's good" way. Really, the only good thing on TV at this point is the Raven vs Saturn feud. And the tease of a Horsemen comeback delivers some excellent Arn Anderson promos. The rest of the product is either dull or plain terrible.

No shit. Put Marty Jannetty, Tammy Sytch and some youngsters in a house... Money...

Which is understandable. It's obviously the biggest match on the card. I mean, Cena vs Miz ? Seriously...

This Memphis stuff looks the most interesting to me from the whole yearbook. I know *nothing* about USWA.

Great angle and all. But Cactus getting stiffly powerbombed on the cement was just retarded and unecessary. You can work great injury angle without actually giving the guy you're working with a concussion. Foley wankery.

A reality TV show is where it's at. Put some of the boys and some of the divas in a house and roll that beautiful bean footage. Put some of the WWE legends like Iron Sheik and Dusty Rhodes in their own reality show and that's where it's really at. I don't get the appeal of batshit crazy Iron Sheik. This poor guy is pathetic at this point. I hope he works his gimmick to a point, but I doubt it. I guess he made some money out of milking his insanity, but still... But yeah, I agree a crass reality TV show is the logical evolution at this point. Put some young punks and some old cranky workers. And forget about PG ratings. That would be awful, but perversely entertaining.

Hilarity on my part. And really, what's to hope from such a match in 2011 ? Either HHH retires, which is way overdue, I don't understand how anyone would want to watch him in 2011 (well, I didn't understand it in 2001 either but that's another matter), either the streak is finally broken (which I don't think will happen quite honestly). Their match in WMX7 was really bad, so ten years later, as HHH is old and Taker is broken down, it probably will be ugly to watch. So the only real interest to me is to have a memorable result. If Taker just beats HHH and nothing comes out of it, yawn.

God I hated the finish, and I was a mark then. Hogan's character was so detestable, it's amazing people bought into him as a *face* during all those years. I think there's a social and political issue that should be discuted about it, but I guess it's better not to, because it would be opining a huge can of worms... Bret vs Yoko was as good as it could have been. As a 17 year old mark I kinda liked this WM a lot, because I loved the setting (I'm a mark for outdoor settings). And Luger's entrance.

I realized things got fucked up during the Attitude era in that infamous show where the NOA thrashed Cactus and Funk into a dumpster. They made it seems like a huge deal in the first hour, it was an awesome angle. Then Cactus and Funk got back during the main event to do a run in, and everything was ruined.