mackdadday
Juniors
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Not watching anything in particular but enjoying a lot of Something to Wrestle With and 83 weeks podcast clips on youtube.
IV would have been such a strange show to experience live. I'd imagine going in it would have been hotly anticipated since it was coming off the back of the Hogan/Andre rematch which drew a monster rating and sent shockwaves through the promotion. I could only imagine the disappointment after Hogan/Andre where you had three really anti-climatic results. First Steamboat is eliminated in the first round denying the fans of a Steamboat-Savage rematch, then Rude/Roberts stall for 15 minutes before Hogan and Andre are both eliminated through some typical shenanigans. Outside of the tournament the only real distraction is the WWF Tag Title match which was a solid piece of business. Savage winning the championship would have salvaged the show, even if the win was marred somewhat by Hogan's interference. It reminded me a lot of Wrestlemania XXVII which was just a lead into Wrestlemania XXVIII with the main takeaways being Taker fluking a win against HHH and The Rock coming to blows with John Cena.
IX would have to have been the worst card. Bret was a solid champion but lacked the star power of all those who came before him and he was in the ring with this virtual unknown in Yokozuna. I could only imagine the reaction to not only seeing Hart do the job but watching Hogan come out on top again. It would have been like Goldberg beating The Fiend but on steroids (or maybe not due to wellness). I really wanted to like the show because I liked the Caeser Palace theme and thought a lot of the guys worked hard but the booking just killed the show. There were only two matches with clean finishes - Razor/Backlund and Steiners/Headshrinkers. The latter is a solid tag team match but the former maybe the worst match in Wrestlemania history and it didn't even last 4 minutes.
XI just came around at a weird time for the company. The WWF had yet to find their Hogan, so the card felt extremely weak and outside of LT-Bam Bam all the marquee matches under-delivered. Bret-Backlund maybe the worst match in Bret's career and Diesel just seemed out of his element against Shawn. It was the least remarkable Wrestlemania at that stage and as cheesy as Hogan winning the title was, at least he was still a star that fans cared about.
I just watched one night only from 1997 which was one of the last WWF shows from the 90’s that I had never watched before. For those that don’t know this was the first of the UK PPVs that were a staple of the 97 – 02 period in the WWF.
Every other UK PPV from that period that I have seen has been ordinary at best so I went into this show with low expectations. I have to say though that I was pleasantly surprised the show was well worth the price of admission. It’s important to note that I watched the show in context i.e. I was familiar with the storylines of the time (September 1997) as I had watched the RAWs leading up to the show.
The PPV started off with HHH against Dude Love which turned out to be the 2nd to last match of a 4 month feud between the two (Mankind as opposed to dude love in most of the matches). This was a great opener and 2nd best match of their feud IMO with the best being the cage match at summerslam earlier in the year.
Leif Cassidy (Al Snow) vs Tiger Ali Singh was next which was just filler and a dud
Next comes what is in my opinion the best match of the headbangers career when they defended their titles against Savio Vega and Miguel Perez
Another filler match followed with LOD defeating the Godwinns
Next came a surprisingly good match between Owen Hart and Vader. Being in the UK and keeping in mind the Hart Foundation vs USA feud at the time Owen played the face and was mega over. It was surreal seeing him as a face as the vast majority of his career was as a heel. Anyways, he played the role perfectly and this was a fun big man vs little man match with the little man almost pulling out the victory. IMO this is the 2nd best match of Vader’s WWF career behind his match against Shawn at summerslam 96
Bret Hart defended against the Undertaker in the next match and in my opinion it was the best match they ever had bettering both the Royal Rumble 96 match and their summerslam 97 match. Both wrestlers gave a lesson in psychology and it was clearly a MOTY candidate although clearly outdone by both Bret/Austin at mania and HBK/Undertaker in HIAC.
The main event was HBK defeating the British Bulldog for the European Championship in an infamous match. This was a complete shock for most people especially the crowd as it was thought that the bulldog would never drop that title in the UK. I have heard that he was told that there would be a bigger pay off match in Manchester down the road where HBK would return the favour which obviously never happened. As it was the bulldog was completely destroyed by DX at the end and the Hart foundation did not come to his rescue. In Hindsight this is the first real lead up to the Montreal Screw job as the Hart foundation had been dominant in 97 until this point and were made to look extremely weak on this occasion. The match itself though was great at around the 4 star mark bettered only by the previous match on the night.
If you haven’t seen this show I recommend you do, great wrestling from top to bottom with two 4 star plus matches and three other 3 plus star matches. As a show it was the 2nd best PPV in 97 including WCW shows behind only Canadian Stampede in July IMO.
In the process of compiling the best matches in SmackDown history, does anyone have any recommendations?
Here's a few matches I'm considering
Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho vs. Edge & Christian vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. The Hardy Boyz (Tables, Ladders and Chairs)
Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Chris Benoit
Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle (Iron Man)
Brock Lesnar vs. Chris Benoit (Debut of the Brock Lock)
Eddie Guerrero vs. John Bradshaw Layfield (Steel Cage)
Rey Mysterio vs. Brock Lesnar
In the process of compiling the best matches in SmackDown history, does anyone have any recommendations?
Here's a few matches I'm considering
Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho vs. Edge & Christian vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. The Hardy Boyz (Tables, Ladders and Chairs)
Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Chris Benoit
Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle (Iron Man)
Brock Lesnar vs. Chris Benoit (Debut of the Brock Lock)
Eddie Guerrero vs. John Bradshaw Layfield (Steel Cage)
Rey Mysterio vs. Brock Lesnar
Wrestlemania XIV set the standard for what a Wrestlemania should be. Every match had a purpose, it was a very diverse card from top to bottom and it ended with a huge moment. Say what you will about Wrestlemania X-7 but the build up to XIV was unreal.
I actually find myself preferring a lot of the 1999 product over 1998, largely because there's more Benoit and Mysterio on the show. It felt like I was watching a prototypical version of the SmackDown Six in Benoit/Malenko/Rey/Kidman/Raven/Saturn. Throw in Kanyon/Bam Bam/DDP and you've got a fun mix.
I've been going through some of the old material from the territories on the WWE Network... Was watching AWA and came across an in-ring promo involving Scott Hall and Curt Hennig. I never really paid much attention to Scott because I didn't watch WCW at the time, and the WWF from 91-96 was pretty cringe, but was genuinely surprised at the dude's size in 86. He was massive standing next to Curt Hennig.
I don't know if it's because most of the time I saw him standing next to Kevin Nash or whatever, but I never realised the guy was huge.
Started WCW with the first Nitro Sep 4th 1995 intending to watch all the Nitros, PPVs and Thunders until the end in 2001. Got to October and had to stop... Probably skip ahead to Scott Hall's 1996 debut where it actually got good when I eventually try again. WWF Superstars in 1999 on Channel 10 made boy me a WWF wrestling fan and I missed all of WCW outside the very occasional video rental or butchered Nitro on Channel 9.
Would like to do all the WrestleManias and Royal Rumbles in order. Give that a go when I move and have a more reliable internet connection.