Official WrestleMania Thread

[thebigeasy59]

jack that was POTY

[LurchySoprano]

My cousin has a book on the fall of WCW that is absolutely hilarious. It's probably like ~ 250 pages and a really quick read but some of the decisions they made near the end are just absolutely horrible.

I think the highlight for me was that WCW kept paying Kiss something like $200,000 per Nitro appearance despite the fact that their appearance was constantly their lowest rated segment by far. There's a lot more, I may have to read it again sometime.

[4thstreetpete]

LOL! I can't believe we forogt about the Hulk Hogan/Russo incident that led to Hogan leaving WCW. I remember watching the PPV at the time thinking what the hell just happened? It made no sense. At the time Russo booked Hogan to lose clean to his good buddy Jeff Jarrett (who Russo made world champ LOL). Hogan refused (and rightfully so, IMO), and what happened next became a complete shoot. I remembered watching this and I was confused out of my mind like the audience was at time, but we knew something was definately up.
For those that didn't see it,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTmhVhFlwVo

it's quite absurd watching it. Keep in mind this was the main event of a PPV that people paid good money to watch and this was what they got. Pay attention to what Hogan says to Russo at the end.

Aftermath, Russo fires Hogan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cps9...eature=related

Hogan never returned to the company. This was Bash at the Beach 2000, soon aftterwards ratings tanked and company started losing money again. The last episode of Monday Nitro aired on March 26th, 2001. WCW went out of business, LOL.



as per wikipedia........

Bash at the Beach 2000
Russo was involved in an incident with Hulk Hogan; Hogan was booked to lose a match against reigning world champion Jeff Jarrett at Bash at the Beach in 2000, but Hogan refused to lose the match (invoking his contract's "creative control" clause to override Russo), due to Russo's apparent lack of direction for Hogan's character following the planned loss. In the end, Jarrett literally "laid down" for Hogan, which resulted in Hogan doing a shoot on Russo and scoring the pinfall victory by placing his foot on Jarrett's chest. Russo would come out later in the broadcast to nullify the result of the match, as he publicly fired Hogan. This action restored the title to Jarrett, which set up a new title match between Jarrett and Booker T.

As Russo promised, Hogan never resurfaced in WCW and even filed a lawsuit against the company (which was dismissed in 2002). Russo claims the whole thing was a work (with both Hogan and Bischoff in on it); Hogan claims (in his autobiography, Hollywood Hulk Hogan) that Russo made it a shoot, and Hogan was double-crossed by Turner executive Brad Siegel, who did not want to use Hogan any more due to how expensive Hogan cost per appearance; and Bischoff, in his autobiography, Controversy Creates Ca$h, contends that Hogan winning and leaving with the title was a work which would result in his return several months later - the plan was to crown a new champion at Halloween Havoc, only for Hogan to come out afterwards and ultimately win a champion vs. champion match - but that Russo's coming out to fire him was a shoot which led to the lawsuit filed by Hogan. Bischoff claims that he and Hogan celebrated after the event over the success of the angle, but were distraught to get a phone call saying that Russo interfered unplanned after Hogan left the arena.

[VickreyAuction]

Originally Posted by LurchySoprano

My cousin has a book on the fall of WCW that is absolutely hilarious. It's probably like ~ 250 pages and a really quick read but some of the decisions they made near the end are just absolutely horrible.

I think the highlight for me was that WCW kept paying Kiss something like $200,000 per Nitro appearance despite the fact that their appearance was constantly their lowest rated segment by far. There's a lot more, I may have to read it again sometime.

It's an awesome book, very interesting to see how badly disorganized WCW was for pretty much its entire lifespan. It's called The Death of WCW.

[4thstreetpete]

Jack, I'm almost positive Judy Bagwell on a pole was a Russo creation. I looked it up and it appears to be in New Blood Rising 2000 PPV.

Judy Bagwell on a Pole:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2z...kanyonju_sport

and while we're at it, Viagra on a Pole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH0SM...om=PL&index=57

[Jack Bando]

Originally Posted by thebigeasy59

jack that was POTY

Originally Posted by VickreyAuction

It's an awesome book, very interesting to see how badly disorganized WCW was for pretty much its entire lifespan. It's called The Death of WCW.

That's where I got most of my last post was from the last chapters of the book. Someone on another board did a WCW 1999 notes thread where he watched and gave cliff notes, I'll post highlights later.

Originally Posted by 4thstreetpete

Jack, I'm almost positive Judy Bagwell on a pole was a Russo creation. I looked it up and it appears to be in New Blood Rising 2000 PPV.

Judy Bagwell on a Pole:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2z...kanyonju_sport

and while we're at it, Viagra on a Pole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH0SM...om=PL&index=57

My only reference was Bagwell's wiki which didn't give a real date, you are right though. I also forgot the Viagra on a Pole match.

I also remember Russo claiming that the Montreal Screwjob was a 100% work to this day

[VickreyAuction]

Periodically, someone starts uploading old 1999-2001 era Nitro or Raw episodes to Youtube. I'll post a link to the user the next time I see one.

[MegaFossil]

I loved Nitro during that era, but thought the PPVs always seemed epically terrible. Just so many interesting gimmicks and guys with tremendous mic skills. Also though a lot of the lucha libre style wrestling was pretty entertaining.

[4thstreetpete]

Originally Posted by VickreyAuction

Periodically, someone starts uploading old 1999-2001 era Nitro or Raw episodes to Youtube. I'll post a link to the user the next time I see one.

It would be awesome if WWE put out a collection of all the episodes of Raw and Nitro during the Monday Night wars on DVD. New viewers who watch wrestling now growing up with Cena missed out on how great wrestling was during the war, with the rise of Rock/Austin/Bret Hart etc.. I remembered how compelling each week was.

[ajohnson16]

WCW hit gold during Spring 1996 to ??? (Fall 1997? Can't recall when the nWo's started blowing up).

But from Hall/Nash appearing to the buildup for BATB to the nWo being the elite group for a few months... some of the best wrestling TV I've ever seen.

I know I'll get blown up for this, but I think the initial nWo angle was the greatest wrestling angle of all time. To me, its > Austin/Vince, etc. Just amazing stuff.

[ajohnson16]

Originally Posted by 4thstreetpete

It would be awesome if WWE put out a collection of all the episodes of Raw and Nitro during the Monday Night wars on DVD. New viewers who watch wrestling now growing up with Cena missed out on how great wrestling was during the war, with the rise of Rock/Austin/Bret Hart etc.. I remembered how compelling each week was.

Would def. love this, but something about watching the rehashed versions (blurred logos, canned music for themes they dont' have the rights to anymore., editing) sucks.

Find a tape trader. It might be expensive, but I think you could get what you want. Plus WWE had started uploading old RAWs to their WWE Legacy online, I think they are up to late 1994 now. $3.99/mo. and you can watch a ton of ****.

[4thstreetpete]

Originally Posted by MegaFossil

I loved Nitro during that era, but thought the PPVs always seemed epically terrible. Just so many interesting gimmicks and guys with tremendous mic skills. Also though a lot of the lucha libre style wrestling was pretty entertaining.

Speaking of lucha libre, WCW and AAA did a joint effort PPV event and brought lucha libre on PPV to North America back in 1994 called "When Worlds Collide". To this day it was the best PPV I have ever seen and it was my very first introduction to lucha libre.
This was also the first time I ever saw Rey Mysterio (then 19yrs old but already a pro for several years), Eddie Guerrero, Art Barr, Pegasus Kid (Christ Benoit), Psicosis, Konnan as well as Octagón,Perro Aguayo and other lucha libre stars.
I was literally blown away when I saw these guys for the first time.

I read somewhere that when WCW saw the athleticism of the wrestlers on that show compared to their own roster, whoever that was in charge of WCW at the time made the call to not follow up on this PPV and stopped copromoting the two companies. It wasn't until later that Paul Heyman in ECW brought them over from Japan and Mexico to the states and later by Eric Bischoff to WCW. It's quite amazing how politics played such a major role in shaping the history of pro wrestling.

[4thstreetpete]

Originally Posted by ajohnson16

Find a tape trader. It might be expensive, but I think you could get what you want. Plus WWE had started uploading old RAWs to their WWE Legacy online, I think they are up to late 1994 now. $3.99/mo. and you can watch a ton of ****.

Hey, didn't know about this. Do they show every episode? I would love to rewatch the rise of Austin and Rock all over again. I'll definately check it out.

I don't think anyone should blast you about the NWO angle. That angle really did turn the company around and will always be in history as one of the greatest angles ever, if not the most important. It was really well done and during those few months/years it was the most compelling TV at that time.

EDIT: holy crap, WWE legacy is fantasic!!! They have Raws dating back to the very first episode, including the very first episode of Wrestling Challenge LOL and a ton of older WCW stuff. I didn't know about the legacy line, this is great stuff. They're really putting the tape library to good use.

[Jack Bando]

-Nash once won a powerbomb match by waking up the ref and telling him he did a powerbomb while he was out.

-Ric Steiner was attacked by a masked man. Next week said man unmasked himself. He was Ric Steiner...

[4thstreetpete]

Originally Posted by Jack Bando

-Nash once won a powerbomb match by waking up the ref and telling him he did a powerbomb while he was out.

-Ric Steiner was attacked by a masked man. Next week said man unmasked himself. He was Ric Steiner...

LOL!!! Moar!!!