Speaking of cringeworthy mic moments from people who were generally masterful talkers:

At Royal Rumble 2000, Michael Cole interviews The Rock backstage. Rock gets mad at a question and says, "The Rock says this: you should be concerned with fixing yourself a nice, tall glass of shut up juice." He repeated this "shut up juice" bit on Raw at least one time also, before growing some self-awareness and discarding it.

I've spent decades thinking, "Yeah, The Rock was one of the GOATs on the mic, but there was that 'shut up juice' incident that nearly brought the entire empire down."

At one point in the 2000 Rumble match, Too Cool and Rikishi came together in the ring at the same time. Instead of wrestling each other, they did the dance routine. I was going to absolutely hate it...and then Rikishi attacked them and dumped them both out. Made the whole sequence worth it.

Pretty good chance WWE would like to forget about the whole "Rock calling Kevin Kelly a hermaphrodite" bit, too

His nickname for Kane is also not going to be on any highlight reels.

But things that age badly are one thing; I have no ****ing idea why "shut up juice" ever happened.

Dok Hendrix wearing Hardy Boys clothing was unnecessary.

I have no real recollection of this period of time when D-Lo Brown embarrassed himself by glomming onto The Godfather's shitty gimmick. In early 2000, they were seemingly teaming up on a weekly basis. Didn't realize they had any involvement with each other after the Nation days.

El Dandy is defined in two ways for me: Chris Jericho ring-announcing him as "the winner of the Lou Ferrigno look-alike contest," and the Bret Hart promo above.

I always think maybe the most charismatic tag team promo ever occurred at the first WrestleMania, right before the Windham/Rotundo vs. Sheik/Volkoff match. Gene asks the babyfaces for comment.

Rotundo: "All the talking's done. We're going in the ring now." Gene, getting absolutely nothing out of Rotundo, turns to his partner and hopes for a better result. Windham: "Gene, we're on our way to the ring now." And then they leave.

Like, this promo would seem reasonably normal if he was trying to catch a last-minute word while they were actually in the middle of walking out, but it's always been super weird to see them stop off at the interview area to tell him "we're leaving now."

I've never seen the first Wrestlemania. Which seems ridiculous.

It features Ricky Steamboat vs. Doink the Clown.

Maniac Matt Borne?

I maaaay end up watching it tonight. The reason I haven't is likely because it predates my birth and falls under that media cutoff.

The only thing I really know about it (outside of rhe main event matchup) is the little vignette they showed during Wrestlemania X, which I watched many times. Liberace I think and some other nonsense. Looked old AF.

Holy ****, now the media cutoff has become 1985? That's psychotic.

Anyway, it's nothing special and is more a time capsule than any sort of great show, but it's got some fun stuff. King Kong Bundy has the longest nine-second match in the history of the business.

Lol, no thats not the cutoff. Just pointing out it falls into too damn old category.

I like all the Friday the 13ths that came before me, etc.

Enjoyable things from the original WM:
1. The Executioner's bad pre-match promo. "I am a big leaguer!"
2. Everyone pretending that the King Kong Bundy match lasted nine seconds when that's just a laughable claim.
3. Windham/Rotundo vs. Sheik/Volkoff is the best match of the night, probably the only one I'd truly call a good match.
4. Main event is fun for what it is, though not in a way where I can actually bring myself to call it a particularly good match.
5. Overall vibes of WWF finding its voice when it didn't quite yet have it, but had probably...85% of it; it's just interesting to watch.

On the bad side, there's things like:
1. Giving 12 minutes to David Sammartino vs. Brutus Beefcake, way more than any other match outside of the main event, when it's a really bad match and had no reasonable path to being anything but really bad. David was utterly talentless, and this was Brutus at his greenest. Woof. The one thing I like in this match is Jesse Ventura making a comment about how a loss in a match at WrestleMania was the type of thing that "set a guy's career back six months." Like, he said it very believably, and setting those kind of stakes inherently makes a match way more interesting; it was a subtle but great way to put over the gravity of this new huge event.
2. The Andre vs. Studd bodyslam match is dumb, and WWF always insisted on pretending that it was one of the great original WM moments. And I say this as someone who really enjoys a lot of Andre stuff even after he became less and less mobile.
3. Wendi Richter vs. Leilani Kai was supposed to be the second-biggest match on the card given the involvement of Cyndi Lauper, but it's nothing. Vibe of watching it today would probably be cooler if they didn't have to dub over the use of Cyndi Lauper's music.

Solid summary.

Bighurt, have you seen Mania 2? Thoughts? Mania and Mania 2 always felt super dim and prehistoric compared to 3 and forward. I dunno if it's legit b/c of the different presentation/atmosphere/etc., or if it's b/c 3 is the first one I watched as a kid, and thus the first two were relics.

Clip is just 1:17 long, but as I was getting toward the minute mark I thought, "WTF, I assumed I was clicking on a link about Haku." Interviewer finally cuts to the chase with, "So who's the toughest guy you've been in the ring with?" and Animal pretty much scoffs at the concept of it being an open question as he says, "Well, Haku."

I did see it, but elementary school age. Thing that stands out to me is I guess it was in 3 locations.

King Kong Bundy was just such a weak WrestleMania main eventer. It felt like it was until the build to a Yokozuna main event at WM IX that they put anything that weak in what purports to be the biggest match of the year.

WM 2 has a couple of good tag matches, and I'm actually more positive toward the Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper boxing match than many are, but it feels like it holds up worse than the original. The original Mania has some built-in grace for its historic value, the fact that they were still finding their footing, etc. It's imperfect, but it was inarguably a real achievement. However, once it was a success, WrestleMania 2 was an inevitability, and all of that historical value is gone. It's not an achievement; it's the result of an achievement a year prior. The three-city thing feels hacky, which they clearly agreed with since they never seemed to entertain the concept of doing it again. And then they basically trotted out a worthy Saturday Night's Main Event match as a WrestleMania main event.

I don't hate WM 2 - shoutout to Elvira for being surprisingly fun on commentary - but it definitely just feels like a placeholder in between the first and the third. And there's no question that WM III was just a massive step up. The footing they were searching for was found.

What do you mean about Yoko main eventing WM9? You don't think that was appropriate?

In fairness, part of that is that I also didn't accept Bret Hart as a world champion. Over time, I was obviously convinced to accept that part, so it doesn't seem weird. But at the time, it sure did. "Oh yeah, this dude who always seemed like the weaker half of his tag team, this dude who gives up extensive offense to Virgil, he should be the heir apparent. Hashtag workrate."

But yeah I thought Yoko was a weak opponent. He had been hotshotted and it never felt like he was all that over. It felt like Bundy 2.0, except that then he went over (temporarily). In a similar effect to Bret, albeit just less because Bret obviously put together the much stronger career, Yoko in the main event seems less weird because they let him have the belt for the better part of a year.

Yeah the earlier days of Bret Hart seem funny when compared to how he finished. Yoko seemed a natural fit to me. He was large.


I just saw Droz puke in D-Lo's bag on GTV. Ugh.

Bastion Booger was also large.

To be clear, Yoko was a pretty good wrestler and did fine with the role. But at WM IX, he didn't have Jim Cornette, so it was just Yoko and Fuji, and...what was I supposed to care about? He had no apparent personality, no real gimmick. Oh, he throws ceremonial salt before the match? I spy a WrestleMania main event heel.

Obviously Cornette was a game-changer. He made the whole package way more interesting.