9/22/97. On Raw, Steve Austin stuns Vince McMahon and Mick Foley brings back Cactus Jack. On Nitro, Bill Goldberg debuts. Quite a night.

I remember seeing Goldberg's debut as it happened. Hugh Morrus got a full entrance, and then there was some rando that appeared to be an Austin ripoff who was just standing in the ring waiting for him. My immediate assumption was that they were just letting a JTTS go over an Austin look-alike for the laughs. In mid-match, I realized, "Oh, the Austin guy is gonna win." Still obviously had no idea that it was headed somewhere big.

This blew me away the first time I watched it. That finish had me wincing...

I'm pretty sure I had outright forgotten what a VHS tape looked like.

I've been working my way through WWE 2000 and now on to 2001, but holy **** the ****in website is awful. I can watch one episode, then I get the "something went wrong" error for about 24 hours and there doesn't seem to be any way to fix it.

How can a company making that much money have this many holes in its package. **** this ****.

I get the "something went wrong" error a lot, too. However, refreshing the page gets rid of it for me. Weird.

Another thing I've noticed is that the site buffers a lot. I have fast Internet that's capable of watching HD videos on every other streaming service without interruption. WWE Network? Buffers at least once every show I try to watch.

Clearing browsing data and cookies/cache doesn't help.

They overhauled the interface at some point and in doing so certainly made it worse, but I haven't had the same bad luck when it comes to functionality issues.

Never had heard Arn speak at length about that abortion of a promo by Nash. This video makes for an interesting listen.



It's clear that it upset him, but he's very classy about it.

I think there was a short conversation about it when the podcast came out about a year ago. He wasn't upset with Nash, but seems to hold a grudge on Terry Taylor.

I'm wracking my brain to think of anyone who is willing to speak kindly of Terry Taylor, and I'm coming up empty.

If he's that unlikable, I'm glad the Red Rooster happened to him.

Watching Jericho and Rock go toe to toe on both mic and in the ring is a joy

At the start of the Badd Blood, in the middle of calling the opening match, Vince just casually drops in, "So you may have heard during the countdown show, but Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel room today. Anyway, we don't wish to belabor that point..." Then immediately he slips back into the match call. Cold-blooded.

Most wrestlers weren't selling much effect from the Pillman tragedy during the event, but it's pretty obviously all over Owen Hart's face as he comes out. It was noticeable enough that it caused Vince to bring Pillman up again.

I hadn't remembered that they gave Owen his new solo theme while the Hart Foundation was still going on. Such a needless downgrade. This company forgets to replace "Sexy Boy" after it clearly passes its sell-by date in 1996, it will now never fix Becky Lynch's theme, ****ing Stephanie McMahon's terrible theme lives on, but for some reason they yanked "High Energy" from us.

Not only did Bret follow his SummerSlam WWF Title win by undercarding three straight PPVs that Shawn Michaels main-evented, but the third one was just in a tag team flag match. It felt like Owen vs. Austin was a bigger Hart angle at this point since they had so aggressively cooled Bret off from the second they gave him the belt.

Still don't think Steph's current theme is worse than

Do they have Benoit/MVP 2 out of 3?

No, but I think they had Hardy/MVP covering that era.

SNME from April 1991.

Vince: "The Bushwhackers, so unorthodox! The Nasty Boys can't figure them out. But then again, who could?"
Savage: "I've got 'em figured out. I feel that The Bushwhackers are going to get beat here in about 10 seconds."
Vince: "Sigmund Freud couldn't figure out The Bushwhackers. How could you?"
Savage: "Pavlov's dog, Vince McMahon! What have you got to say about that?"
Vince: "How about him?"
Savage: "Aha!"

They did "Earthquake is deathly afraid of snakes" too? If you're huge, you're deathly afraid of snakes. If you're Greg Valentine's size, you're chill about them.

Savage continuing to work heel in the announce booth after WM VII, despite seemingly face-turning in his reconciliation with Elizabeth, makes good sense and I appreciate it, especially as he openly rooted against Ultimate Warrior in his SNME match.

Ted DiBiase being accompanied by Sensational Sherri presented an obvious conflict in terms of the kayfabe sense of Savage supporting heels. Seems that Savage worked through it by just pretending not to notice she was out there.

and coffins (kamala/yoko)

Funny thing with referencing Greg Valentine as a counter-example to Earthquake: the setting was a battle royal, and I was just trying to scan the ring for a mid-size heel to draw a contrast. Then the battle royal to a final three of Mr. Perfect/Barbarian/Valentine. I was truly confounded. "Three heels as the final three? WTF? This has to be the only time this has ever happened." I was eventually forced to process the fact that this was part of that very short Greg "Babyface" Valentine run.

On the Raw after Badd Blood, the Hart Foundation comes to the ring.

Lawler: "You have to give this Hart Foundation credit. They lost someone like Brian Pillman, and do they ask for a night off? No! Is Owen Hart defending the Intercontinental Title tonight? Yes!"
Vince (muttering uncomfortably): "Certainly Brian Pillman is everyone's loss...don't need to go there again..."

I always wonder how Vince communicated to others at the same announce table that he was really was pissed at something they said. It's an odd balance to strike between being the babyface announcer firing back at a heel commentator and having to express shoot displeasure with them, which surely had to happen at times.

The live Raw interview of Melanie Pillman the day after Brian died was really gross and exploitive to an extent that never really draws the appropriate level of scorn. I remember thinking this before, but rewatching it, it's even worse than I remember. For bonus points, they kept teasing it before commercial breaks in order to exploit it for maximum ratings.

I definitely did not know that this was how Lita first appeared in the WWF.

I see that one of the Nitro Girls caused occasion for pixels.