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| The 1997 WCW Thread | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 18 2014, 05:17 AM (655 Views) | |
| Mad Dog | Jun 18 2014, 05:17 AM Post #1 |
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ho ho who the hell are you?
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I mentioned I got a Roku box recently and there's a program called Plex on there. I can dump video files into a folder on my PC and watch them on the television. So I dumped the entire run of 1997 WCW television into there and I plan to watch it. This includes Nitro, Main Event, Saturday Night and Worldwide. So enjoy! |
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| Mad Dog | Jun 18 2014, 05:56 AM Post #2 |
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ho ho who the hell are you?
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Main Event: 1/4/1997 Hosts are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan They recap Starcade. Piper beats Hogan and then gets the absolute shit kicked out of him on Nitro. They wonder if his career is over or not. This goes into an ad for Starcade. It's Hollywood Hogan putting the belt on the line against the Giant. We're back and they recap the nWo helping Eddie Guerrero winning the U.S. Title at Starcade and then attacking him and stealing the belt. Then we get a recap of Glacier defeating Disco Inferno on Nitro in an okay looking match. Tonight on Saturday Night we've got U.S. Champion Eddie Guerrero in action and Lord Steven Regal defending the Television Title against Ice Train. Also in action will be Chris Jericho, Public Enemy and Arn Anderson. Nice, I had forgotten about the 1-800-Collect Road Reports! They recap Jeff Jarrett beating Benoit at Starcade. This is really sad to watch. Match time! Chris Benoit beats Renegade in a pretty short and intense match on WCW Pro. Not a bad little match for the weekend B shows. I need to find 1997 WCW Pro. Nice the Mean Gene Hotline. Only a $1.49 a minute. That's cheap for hot insider information like that. We head back to Nitro. Piper's screaming on the strecher after his shit kicking. Hogan mouths off to the Giant a little too much and the Giant grabs him back by the throat and orders the nWo out of the ring. He loses his shit and demands his title shot and Hogan begs to be let go and gives him the title shot. Hogan orders the nWo to attack. The Giant gets beaten down. That was a good fucking segment. WCW really knew how to push the Giant as a world killer more than the WWE ever did. Clash of the Champions later this month. Chris Benoit takes on Kevin Sullivan in a falls count anywhere match, the Steiner Brothers take on the Amazing French Canadians, Lord Steven Regal puts the TV Title on the line against Rey Misterio and Konnan, Psicosis and Juventud Guerrera take on La Parka, Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Super Calo in six man tag action. They recap the minis wrestling on Nitro. Match time as Akira Hokuto is putting the Women's Title on the line. Speaking of something that didn't work at all in 1997, the Madusa/Akira Hokuto feud. I never got the endgame to this program as Madusa jobbed and had to retire at the end of it. It's weird to see how much Madusa fell apart as a worker just from that 1994/1995 era where she was really good. You can tell that Akira is just miles ahead of her as a worker here. Match ends on a count out as Madusa abuses Hokuto and Sonny Onno too much on the outside. Overall Thoughts: It's mostly a recap show so what can you do? The two matches shown weren't too bad. |
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| Mad Dog | Jun 18 2014, 06:41 AM Post #3 |
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ho ho who the hell are you?
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Worldwide aired at 11 am on Saturday's in my market so I'm going to do these before Saturday Night for these recaps. Worldwide 1/4/1997 Hosts are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan Now, this is what I'm talking about. Worldwide was always one of my favorite programs because you literally never knew who was going to show up on any given show. Jimmy Graffiti d. Billy Kidman. Graffiti is Jimmy Del Ray in one of those weird, blink and you'll miss it runs. I looked it up on Wikipedia and he was forced to retire due to a knee injury that he suffered a little later in the year. Decent little match here, they had some good chemistry together. Disco Inferno d. Ron Thompson. Disco Inferno actually got a pretty good reaction from the lame studio crowds for these shows. Inferno is trying to master that leg lock of his and can't quite figure it out. Disco almost gets upset a couple of times before finally getting his leg lock on for the win. Lee Marshall is backstage with the Nasty Boys. I don't think they ever wrestled as a team in 1997. Saggs was injured at some point in 1996 and had to retire. Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis d. the Southern Posse. I look up the Southern Posse and they aren't anyone of note. Guerrera and Psicosis are over here big. They piped heat in for these shows but you can see the crowd reacting to everything they do. Weird. This was a really entertaining squash and a good showcase for Guerrera/Psicosis. Alex Wright beat Casey Thompson. This is a nice high energy match that ends with Wright hitting a nice missile drop kick. Lee Marshall is backstage with Hacksaw Jim Duggan. I think Duggan did a big old line of coke before that promo. Big Bubba beat Kenny Kendall. This is where the tv tapings have some drawbacks. Big Bubba came out to the Dungeon of Doom music but Tony and Bobby acknowledge the fact that he's now a member of the nWo. This is one of the reasons I love Ray Traylor. This is a shitty tv taping, he's probably been stuck there for 8 hours with nothing to do, the match means nothing and he brings his fucking A game. He's super intense and into beating the absolute shit out of this jobber. Harlem Heat vs. Faces of Fear ended in a no contest. Both teams started brawling wildly and Randy Anderson tossed the match as a result. This was a fun little match and a pretty good main event for the time for a B show. I didn't have any idea who was going to win and that was a refreshing feeling. Overall Thoughts: A nice energetic batch of squashes matches and a fun main event made this an enjoyable episode of Worldwide. This is around the time period I started watching and I loved Worldwide because I liked seeing the guys that didn't necessarily win on Nitro much getting victories. I'll admit that I'm biased to Worldwide and will probably always say it was an enjoyable show. |
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| Mad Dog | Jun 20 2014, 02:33 PM Post #4 |
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ho ho who the hell are you?
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Funny side note to this. My wife responded to WCW TV a lot better than she ever has to WWF/WWE TV of any kind. |
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| Mad Dog | Jun 20 2014, 07:07 PM Post #5 |
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ho ho who the hell are you?
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WCW Saturday Night: 1/4/1997 Hosts are Tony Schiavone and Dusty Rhodes Chris Jericho beat Jim Richland. This was a quick and energetic match. Jericho is taking on Chono at Souled Out later this month. Arn Anderson beat Chavo Guerrero Jr. This one was a pretty good squash match here. Chavo got a lot of offense in before Arn hit the DDT for the win. Kind of sad to realize this is one of the last Arn matches for WCW. Arn was backstage with Mean Gene and expressed doubts about Jeff Jarrett being a member of the Horsemen. Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko ended in a no contest. This didn't get a ton of time so don't get too excited here. A good showcase of some of the stuff they can do but the count out came almost as soon as they kicked it up a notch. There's a promo for Chris Jericho vs. Masahiro Chono at Souled Out. This is what I miss about WCW. Every match on the PPV got some amount of hype on the B shows. If you were watching all of the tv, you knew what the card was going to be from top to bottom. Masahiro Chono beat Mark Starr. It's weird seeing Chono doing an appearance on Saturday Night and not Nitro. Not a bad squash but it was a slower pace kind of match. Big Bubba beat J.L. I didn't dig this match as much as Bubba's Worldwide match. There was less intensity and his chemistry with Lynn wasn't great. Oh well, can't win them all. The Outsiders cut a promo on the Steiners in another Souled Out ad. Public Enemy beat Scott and Steve Armstrong. If you've seen one Public Enemy squash from this era, you've seen them all. Pretty forgettable match here. No Larry Zbyszko so we don't get regaled with tales of the Armstrong Curse for 20 minutes here. They do a little recap of Lex Luger beating the Giant at Starcade and Sting talking to both of them. Lex Luger beat Mike Enos. Surprisingly solid little match here. Luger has a great 1997 for WCW and this is a good start for him. WCW Television Title Match: Lord Steven Regal vs. Ice Train ended in a time limit draw. Ice Train sucks but this wasn't the worst thing ever. Ice Train tried beat Regal with power moves and Regal tried grounding him with mat work. The time limit draw kicked in when Ice Train got the upper hand. This match also featured Teddy Long! We get a brief recap of the end of Nitro to close out the show. Overall Thoughts: This was a really fun episode of Saturday Night. They did a really good job of hyping Souled Out. I mean a really good job. This ends one set of weekend shows and I can tell you with confidence what the cards for Clash of the Champions and Souled Out are. The matches were all pretty fun and it's awesome to hear Dusty Rhodes on commentary again. |
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| Scrooge McSuck | Jun 21 2014, 09:46 AM Post #6 |
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I'll get you next time, toilet!
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I can just imagine Bubba sitting back, stewing, waiting for something to do, and going "if I don't get out there soon, I'm stiffing the punk I'm paired with." Those WCW TV tapings were ridiculous. At least it isn't like 1993 where key matches were taped and angles were spoiled 3-4 months in advance. By 1997, only meaningless matches were usually taped, and even then, something like this (having someone jump stables, then come out on a taped show to their old music) happens. |
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