Official WrestleMania Thread

[Russ M.]

wat

[EMc]

lol this is great

[LurchySoprano]

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.

Ahh thank you, I could not for the life of me remember the title. This thread has basically prompted me to read it again soon and when I do I'll post highlights.

[Jack Bando]

More Death of WCW goodness

-Stevie Ray (for some reason) was given a lot of mic time in early 1999. Some highlights include him calling Meng/Barbarian "two fish eating chumps from Giligan's Island" and Scott Steiner "synthetic" and a "sad sack-ass fruit booty." (A reference to roids and ....IDK)

-Mark McGuire was a wrestling fan and him and Goldberg had batting practice together. WCW didn't bother to film it or ever mention this.

-Nash's first Nitro as booker had no wrestling on hour one

-At Uncensored (a WCW PPV that was "unsanctioned" so WCW wouldn't be held responsible for anything that goes on. How titles changed hands made no sense) it was Hogan v Flair for Hogan's title+Flair wins means he's commissioner for life+he leaves if he loses. This is a First Blood match in a cage. Flair bled first, yet the match went on. Then Hogan bled. Then Ric's son came out to help Hulk by telling him to hulk up. Then Arn Anderson came out and slipped Ric a tire iron. Flair hits Hogan and pins him...in a First Blood match.

-Flair gave a promo on one Nitro in his underwear saying he was the President of WCW, USA, and the WCW champ, leading to being put in the mental institution. (Scott Hall for some reason was in there for some reason. He was back for Thunder yet still in the loony bin next Monday until Arn Anderson BAILED HIM OUT.

-Randy Savage's brother, Lanny Poffo, was in WCW for 4 years with a 150K contract per year. He may have had one match.

-One Thunder advertised Slamboree would be tomorrow at 8. Thunder is on Thursdays and PPVs are on Sundays...

-Dennis Rodman no-showed Nitro, came to the PPV in no condition to perform and sued WCW for 500k. They gave him a new contract. He no-showed the first date.

-Master P had a 200K per show contract. He made 1 million dollars in a month and did not wrestle.

-Master P's group attacked the West Texas Rednecks one night on a 10-4 advantage and lost. Master P was supposed to be the good guy.

-The Rednecks (Henning, Windham's and Bobby Duncan) theme song "Rap is Crap" was getting play on country stations around the US. WCW killed the angle shortly there after.

-One of Master P's sidekicks made 400k a year.

[Russ M.]

Please stop, I can't take any more.



Actually I remember some of these as well. WCW was hilarious.

[LKJ]

I wish I could find some of these on YouTube. These are incredible.

[ajohnson16]

Just fired up Bash at the Beach 96 after talking about it in this thread.

Thoughts:
-Rey/Psychosis was an awesome opener. Good stuff. Wish they would've gotten more play, but the WCW Cruiserweight scene was awesome. The match Rey and Ultimo Dragon had at WW3 (maybe 96 or 97) was just insane. Prob. one of the greatest matches I've ever watched.
-The Tenta/Big Bubba Carson City Silver Dollar (death?) Match was fast forwarded. Bad wrestling, a lot of sweating and immobility.
-The taped fist match between DDP and Duggan was a major waste of time, also fast forwarding. Diamond Cutter has nothing on the RKO.
-Dog collar match between Public Enemy and Nasty Boys was like the previous two matches, but I watched a bit instead of fast forwarding. The table not breaking at the end was pretty LOL.
-Watched all of Malenko/Inferno. Wish they would use moves today like they did then (brainbusters, double-underhook powerbombs, etc.) Good match. Even though Disco was a gimmick waste, he could wrestle better than 90% of WWE roster today.
-Mongo/Joe Gomez (I don't even remember this guy) was worthless. Did get to mark out to the old Four Horsemen theme though.
-Flair/Konnan was pretty good. Sad seeing Elizabeth and Woman with Flair though. I never used to think either were good looking, but watching now, I'd have fked both very, very hard. Total schmoz ending though, with Flair pinning Konnan after Woman hit him (more like slow-mo tapped him) with her "spiked" heel. Flair pins in ultra-Flair fashion, with feet not only on the ropes, but on the top rope, putting his body at a near 60-degree angle (which Nick Patrick ignores).
-Didn't watch most of the Benoit/Anderson-Giant/Sullivan match, as I remember watching it a few years ago and hating it.
-Main event is still awesome, awesome, awesome. I wish they would've teased it a little better (had Luger come back out and questioned him), and Heenan still screwed it some by questioning Hogan's loyalty when he came out. When Hogan drops that leg is one of the best sounds I've ever heard watching wrestling. It's like you have hear the souls being sucked out of 85-90% of the fans. Hogan cuts a memorable promo, and the nWo has arrived.

Also noticed how nice it was to have minimal non-wrestling stuff. A few Mean Gene interviews, but nothing too crazy. Also forgot how WCW used to do the slow-mo replays after each match, and thought that was a really, really nice touch. Wish they would do that again.

Anyways, mediocre PPV overall with a few very, very good matches and an awesome ending. Just felt like writing about it!

[LKJ]

WCW PPVs back then were so blatantly bottom-heavy. I liked a lot of their shows, but they rarely had a good main event, and this one was only cool because of one of the greatest heel turns I've ever seen.

Wrestling in general was better then than it is today, but I'm glad that WWE of today actually has a few great workers at the top of the card, and that the main events can sometimes actually be the best match of the night.

[littlekeed]

Originally Posted by ajohnson16

J Sad seeing Elizabeth and Woman with Flair though. I never used to think either were good looking, but watching now, I'd have fked both very, very hard.

WAT?

Skip ahead to 7:30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4SlpXoEn94

[Russ M.]

Originally Posted by littlekeed

WAT?

Skip ahead to 7:30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4SlpXoEn94

This was the first PPV I ever watched. I was 10. I must have watched this moment like 100 times. Miss Elizabeth

[Russ M.]

Also something extremely well done about this match: after the pin, Savage goes to celebrate in the corner. Elizabeth runs up behind him to hug him or whatever but Savage shooes her away, so she goes and gets a big hug from Hogan. As they cut to a wider angle, you can clearly see Savage still on the turnbuckle staring at them. He hops down and Elizabeth runs to him and hugs him, but Savage doesn't reciprocate and instead gives Hogan a big WTF look. Awesome subtle beginning to their feud. I remember that it kinda registered with me at the time that Savage didn't look too pleased. Unfortunately Monsoon and Billy Graham missed it completely.

[moorobot]

Chris Jericho claimed that when he was in WCW he once received a FedEx package from WCW with nothing inside of it.

During Hogan/Warrior II, for some reason the plan was for Hulk Hogan to shoot a fireball at Warrior in order to 'blind' Warrior. However, Hogan screwed up, and ended up igniting the fire in his own face.

On the topic of the Warrior in WCW embarrassment, Warrior often used smoke that somehow knocked out his enemies. When the smoke covered the ring, Warrior would 'disappear' by using a trap door in the ring. However, the trapdoor was still part of the ring during other matches, and 'British Bulldog' Davey boy Smith suffered a very serious back injury landing on the trap door during Fall Brawl 98 which hospitalized him for six months. Smith was fired via FedEx during the injury.

[4thstreetpete]

Originally Posted by Russ M.

Also something extremely well done about this match: after the pin, Savage goes to celebrate in the corner. Elizabeth runs up behind him to hug him or whatever but Savage shooes her away, so she goes and gets a big hug from Hogan. As they cut to a wider angle, you can clearly see Savage still on the turnbuckle staring at them. He hops down and Elizabeth runs to him and hugs him, but Savage doesn't reciprocate and instead gives Hogan a big WTF look. Awesome subtle beginning to their feud. I remember that it kinda registered with me at the time that Savage didn't look too pleased. Unfortunately Monsoon and Billy Graham missed it completely.

What? I remember watching this match and don't remember anything about Elizabeth taking off her skirt. I must've been too young or had the ghey but I totally don't remember that part at all. Damn she's so sexy, too bad they don't have classy women anymore, they're all so sleazy looking now.

Is this the same match where after the match Elizabeth sat on Macho's shoulders and Hogan came from behind and gave her a little "pet" on the butt?

I don't think Monsoon and Graham missed it to be honest. Back then wrestling was still treated more like a competive sport where wins and losses mattered. That's why it was such a big deal for guys like Bret Hart to excercise their creative control that was put into their contracts. Bret didn't want to lose to Shawn Michaels in Canada in front of his family and friends. By today's standards, that would be ludicrous but back then things were different.

That being said, storylines were more well thought out in advance. They would literally come up with the idea for next year's wrestlemania main event a full year in advance. There were no 5 or 6 hrs of weekly television like we do now (raw, smackdown, ecw, and recap shows).
I'm pretty sure WWF at the time set it up so it would lead to a slow build to when the mega powers explode. They planted all the seeds very early and I'm sure Monsoon and Graham were specifically told not to point it out.

That storyline was over 21 yrs ago and we still remember it. We look more fondly at all the angles back then because they were more well thought out, compared to today where WWE don't even know the direction they're going week to week. And don't even get me started on TNA.

[LKJ]

Originally Posted by 4thstreetpete

What? I remember watching this match and don't remember anything about Elizabeth taking off her skirt. I must've been too young or had the ghey but I totally don't remember that part at all. Damn she's so sexy, too bad they don't have classy women anymore, they're all so sleazy looking now.

That's just bizarre that you didn't remember that, that was amazing...and I was only like 8. The likes of Stacy Keibler and Maria are definitely trashier, but I can't really say that I don't like it.

Everything was generally better back then though. The model of having everyone wrestle jobbers, with one main event between two name wrestlers, was really good I think. Unfortunately there seems to be no way that they could go back to it even if they wanted to.

What they COULD do, at least, to stop cheapening things so much, would be to have almost no title matches ever happen on weekly TV...it seems like the IC belt changes hands more on free TV than on PPV (not sure if it actually does or not). I remember how crazy it was that Demolition took the titles off the Brainbusters on Superstars...same for Money Inc. taking them off the Natural Disasters a few years later.

And I'd rather they never have the world champion wrestle on free TV (aside from Saturday Night's Main Event, it'd be okay then). Hogan wrestled four or five times a year, on PPV or SNME, and it was great. Yeah, it was still obvious that he wasn't that great at wrestling, but the spectacle of Real American playing and the posing and all of that was a special occasion.

And feuds that are leading to PPV matches should never have the wrestlers facing off on Raw/Smackdown. Not even in tag matches. Interact on the mic, ruin each other's matches, etc., but they should only be wrestling each other on PPV.

Vince and Co. never even make moves back in this direction though, so it's all baseless wishful thinking.

[littlekeed]

Originally Posted by Russ M.

Also something extremely well done about this match: after the pin, Savage goes to celebrate in the corner. Elizabeth runs up behind him to hug him or whatever but Savage shooes her away, so she goes and gets a big hug from Hogan. As they cut to a wider angle, you can clearly see Savage still on the turnbuckle staring at them. He hops down and Elizabeth runs to him and hugs him, but Savage doesn't reciprocate and instead gives Hogan a big WTF look. Awesome subtle beginning to their feud. I remember that it kinda registered with me at the time that Savage didn't look too pleased. Unfortunately Monsoon and Billy Graham missed it completely.

That might not have been fake... long running rumor says Hogan was hitting that.