Pro Wrestling in the 1990's !

[SUPERECWFAN1]

My dad is watching the Road Warriors story on netflix. Its one of those stories that shows that maybe a team can stick around too long sadly. In the 1980's the Road Warriors were bad asses. I mean legit , take no fucking prisoners , lay waste to everyone in their fucking path...BAD ASSES.



The duo dominated whatever promotion/territory they were in of the 1980's. Wherever they went , they laid a path of utter destruction and fans loved it. They were the tag team of the 1980's. Its just sad and pathetic on what the WWF did to this team in the early 1990's.


When Hawk and Animal jumped to the WWF in the early 90's the fans expected the same destruction and that tag teams were in trouble. Namely the team of Demolition "Ax" and "Smash". Nothing against Demolition , but fans more or less saw them as Road Warrior clones. Within no time did Animal and Hawk crush them and win the WWF tag team titles. Becoming the 1st tag team to win the NWA , AWA and WWF tag team titles. But what started the derailment of the Road Warriors ? Several causes...


1.) The theme music and name - The Road Warriors have the name. Ass kicking , take no prisoners . Of course like most talents who came into the company , Vince wanted to establish them a new identity in a sense. The RW used their moniker "The Legion of Doom" to inspire fear . It was a nickname in the NWA. In the WWF it became their new name. For fans they shrugged their shoulders and wondered why the Road Warriors were now going by their nickname. But the loss of the theme music was a bigger surprise.



Something says pure ass kicking like coming down to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man". The new theme tried using some of the beats and having Hawk growl "What a Ruuuuush !" It paled in comparison.

2.) No Precious Paul Ellering : Precious Paul was that genius who held these 2 growling , angry beasts and made them smart. Its clear he was someone that traveled and kept both men together on business dealings and being a friend. The loss of Ellering (who decided he wanted to run Alaskan sled dogs in a race there then) was a blow. The fans wondered where he went and his direct promo skills were sadly missing.


3.) Ellering returns , brings puppet.

The Road Warriors were ass kicking animals. By 1992 Vince had brought the manager back for them and decided they needed something else to appeal to children. They needed Ellering to have a puppet named Rocco. The utter horse shit of this pissed Hawk off so much he walked from the company after Summerslam 1992. The fans image of the mighty Road Warriors kicking such ass was shattered . They were now a comedy act who carried a puppet around.

The downfall started that moment. Sure they went to Japan there awhile and had some great success. But sadly in America the illusion that the Road Warriors were fucking beasts and could kill anyone in ring ...died the moment the puppet was seen. Animal and Hawk would return to WCW and WWF for the rest of the 90's and they were never able to have the success and win the tag team titles again. The curse of Rocco seemed to hang over them.

[ForeverTaskmaster]

good timing, i finished my reliving of WCW nitro & PPV sept 97-sept 98 and due to AWESOME circumstances i got a dvd set of nitro for the entire year of 1999 for free. this seems like a good place to chronicle my journey.

just got done with 1/4/99,

Is Vampiro already there? That was some cool stuff with him and ICP. Vampiro was just awesome. Too bad he never got the real break, although he did wrestle Hogan once.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

With the news that the WWE is getting back into the Saturday morning business (they had a show on Sundays at 12pm ...ill get to that) ...ok the weekend early business the company is doing a new show. WCW ...or Jim Crockett used to have a show on back in the 1980's with wrestling on at 9am. Those were the fucking days people. Wrestling on twice on Saturdays on TBS , once on Sundays and on Mondays . It was a great era to belong to . Of course the WWE is coming back with their new Saturday Morning Slam. Which will be a far decline from their late 80's/90's WWF Superstars.



Now for those of you who don't remember WWF Superstars ...it was the main show really for the WWF. A lot of what they would do at times would be seen on Superstars. Like for instance...this moment.



The show would have matches or ...TV spots like the Barbershop. It was the key show for the company and one they knew they could catch a lot of people watching. It was Sunday , an hour before the NFL. People were home and relaxing and watching the WWF. The best thing about Superstars was Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan as you can tell. The 2 flowed so well and you honestly as a young fan felt the 2 didn't like each other. But now realize they cared so much for the business to do that act.

Everyone would be on Superstars it seems. Its hard to bring up specific memories of things. Because I was young and it all seems to float together. But its hard to not remember flipping it on and watching then.

[Brandon Hanvey]

Heenan makes that video for me. His commentary on the promo is pure gold.

"Jannety tried to dive through the window to escape! What an act of cowardism!"

[lboinyamouf4sho]

Is Vampiro already there? That was some cool stuff with him and ICP. Vampiro was just awesome. Too bad he never got the real break, although he did wrestle Hogan once.

he showed up in 98 on my nitro set in his debut and then nothing(On nitro at least). i'm only finished the 1st nitro of 99 and he wasn't on it, now i'm waiting for my WCW 1999 PPVs to come in the mail before i continue.

man i still wish i could see a vampiro/taker feud, i think with mania having the big attractions they have already they could give taker a match like that, real gimmicked up so he doesn't have to kill himself for a year and add a win to the streak. make it a casket match and have a bunch of guys like la secta helping vampiro get destroyed all over the place by taker for the majority of the match. would be fun, plus WWE has all the vampiro footage they need for their top notch team to put together some awesome video packages to hype vampiro.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

In the early 1990's WCW seemed to have problems. They wanted to try and challenge the WWF for sure. But they also drove away Ric Flair , Arn Anderson , Tully Blanchard and Barry Windham at some points. It was an organization that struggled to find new workers and when it did they found some of the silliest characters they could. In fact in the early 1990's WCW had seemingly a license on creating some of the worst gimmicked wrestlers in both companies. So lets look at some....



Rap Master PN News : Paul Neu was an indie wrestler who started in 1987. To the shock of everyone , WCW decided that with rap becoming a big deal , the southern audience would take to it in 1991 . Of course this never happened and the biggest thing Rap Master could do was yell out "Yoooo baby , Yoo baby , Yoooo !" to silence. News lasted less than 2 years in the company and was gone. Interestingly years later in ECW , Paul Heyman would hire Neu and make him a heel using this gimmick to join a heel stable called "The Baldies".




Big Josh - Its hard to look at that picture above and not realize ...that is the same guy who would play Doink the Clown in the WWF 2 years later. But that is Matt Osborne and he played a dude who was a lumberjack who danced with bears. No lie... that was his character . He danced with bears. Josh like PN News wouldn't last long in the company and was gone within 2 years.




Van Hammer - Known as "Heavy Metal" Van Hammer , Mark Hildreth portrayed a character who as Mick Foley joked ...never played electric guitar , even though he'd come down to the ring with it. Also as Mick claimed , Hildreth would proclaim he was there to save the company and pretty much piss everyone off backstage. It wasn't a shock Van Hammer didn't last long as the Heavy Metal character. By 1993 he was released. But in a weird , wild move and showing you wrestling is always about reinvention , Van Hammer returned to WCW as a member of Raven's flock in the 90's.

[ForeverTaskmaster]

man i still wish i could see a vampiro/taker feud, i think with mania having the big attractions they have already they could give taker a match like that, real gimmicked up so he doesn't have to kill himself for a year and add a win to the streak. make it a casket match and have a bunch of guys like la secta helping vampiro get destroyed all over the place by taker for the majority of the match. would be fun, plus WWE has all the vampiro footage they need for their top notch team to put together some awesome video packages to hype vampiro.

I wouldn't mind seeing Vampiro have a run in WWE. I dig your Vampiro vs Taker idea. And I believe Vampiro would be over just like that. And he would probably be more over than most people on the roster today.

[Evolution]

I was watching wrestling since I was about 3-4 years old in '86-'87. Myself, I was more in tune with the WWF growing up. I didn't much know about the other promotions. In fact, when someone who spent years in NWA/WCW would come over to the WWF, that was actually the first I would hear/see of said person. (e.g. Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Arn Anderson and many others who were huge stars elsewhere and came over to WWF for a stint). So for me, when the WWF presented the Legion of Doom, I was the kind of fan they changed their name for, ignoring their past affiliations and rebranding or renaming them. I certainly didn't know anything about the Road Warriors' runs in AWA or Japan or NWA/WCW. As far as I was concerned, the Legion of Doom was a bran new team. That was just me being simply a WWF fan.

In the mid-90's when the New Generation Era came in following the big steroid scandal, I have to give massive credit to Bret, Shawn, Yoko, Diesel, Taker, Razor, Owen, and a few others who really kept the company afloat during those "dark days", whether they were WWF champ, IC champ, or just main event players. I give these guys a little more credit than I do Hogan or Warrior MAINLY because even if those two drew a lot more money and bigger houses, they also had an undercard that was a real support to their markee matches. Hogan and Warrior had guys like Bret, Shawn, Rude, Perfect, Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Tornado, DiBiase, Demolition, Rockers, Foundation, Rougeaus, Bulldogs and other midcarders who played a role in attracting a crowd/viewer. Meanwhile, while Bret and Diesel were headlining orTaker and Yoko were, they had guys like Aldo Mantoya, Hakushi, Smoking Gunns, and the Godwins among others carry the undercard. Not exactly your pick of the litter in terms of supporting cast. And this is not to undermine the guys I mentioned because these guys were given these gimmicks by the WWF. But that was pretty much what the headliners of '93-'96 had to contend with. And they did what they could to keep the company going. And it is also fitting that these are the guys that helped dig the company and business out its hole because it's guys like Shawn, Nash, Hall, Bret, and Taker who played a big role in ushering in the Attitude Era where guys like Steve Austin, Hunter, and Rock eventually took things to a whole other level.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

In speaking of lame characters/gimmicks the WWE was no different . They themselves faced their own dark period of the mid 90's and trotted out a few lame gimmicks that would make you roll your eyes. The company was in its final years of trying to present to children as the main audience had grew up by this point. So to start some funny forgettable guys.




Knuckleball Schwartz : Back in 1994 Vince had a great idea , with the MLB strike he would have a disgruntled , angry MLB player show up. Of course no one would do that actually played pro ball. So he decided that the Brooklyn Brawler (Steve Lombardi) needed a repackage and made him this character. At 1st Schwartz was called MVP (Most Violent Player) but they changed it. In time Lombardi would go back to being the Brawler and continue his job as a road agent for the company.


In the Attitude era that came along , Vince Russo himself would create a lot of zany characters that either clicked (Val Venis , Godfather) or seemingly failed by a wide margin . The funniest failure was Beaver Cleavage. In this idea Chaz Warrington who was part of the Headbangers. So once his partner got hurt with a knee injury , he needed something . So Russo made him...Beaver Cleavage...



Within weeks of WTF looks and hints that the storyline angle with Warrington and his mother were having an incest relationship , Vince McMahon pulled the plug on it. Having Warrington reveal his real name and claim he hated the character of Beaver Cleavage. Of course things didn't get better as poor Chaz then had a fued with another failed packaged guy below and run an angle he abused his girlfriend.




Meat aka Shawn Stasiak was a 2nd generation wrestler and son of Stan "The Man" Stasiak. Of course what made Meat insanely funny was that Russo (who seemingly had some sexual kick ) decided that 3 older cougars would manage a man and hint he was basically used for sex. Stasiak was named MEAT. The 3 ladies was Terri Runnels , Jacqueline , and Ryan Shamrock . Shamrock would leave the company months in . As well the company decided to depush Stasiak and a storyline reason he was losing matches was that he was being wore out from sex before matches.

Stasiak lasted til 1999 and was released when he taped a heated conversation between 2 wrestlers. He claimed it was a joke. Months later he was in WCW and actually was rehired by the WWE in 2001. Stasiak however by 2002 grew tired of the business and requested his release and he's now a chiropractor !

[Kevin M.]

Anyone remember the "Mass Transit" incident?

The one where New Jack almost killed a kid pretending to be a wrestler?

As morbid as this is going to sound, this was the main reason why my friends, and I became ECW marks. I mean, the wrestlers were so crazy, they even tried to legitimately kill one another.

Good times.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Anyone remember the "Mass Transit" incident?

The one where New Jack almost killed a kid pretending to be a wrestler?

As morbid as this is going to sound, this was the main reason why my friends, and I became ECW marks. I mean, the wrestlers were so crazy, they even tried to legitimately kill one another.

Good times.

New Jack on the Forever Hardcore documentary discussed that. The match originally was supposed to be Axl Rotten and someone else. Paul was scrambling backstage because he needed someone. Up walked a kid who claimed he was an adult with his father and an indie wrestler. Heyman asked if he could handle being busted open since Rotten was supposed to against the Gangsta's. New Jack himself is very cold (guy has 4 Justifiable Homicides as a bounty hunter and doesn't give a shit) and claimed the kid knew it was coming and claimed he could handle it.

The kid couldn't handle it , bled like crazy ...his dad went ape shit. Sued the company and New Jack claiming New Jack assaulted his son. Also the fact his real age came out later and it pissed everyone off...including New Jack . As he said some dumb kid fucked up and should have known better to get in ring like that. The case was tossed out from what he explained once witnesses there claimed the father and him claimed he was an adult.

[Legato]

New Jack on the Forever Hardcore documentary discussed that. The match originally was supposed to be Axl Rotten and someone else. Paul was scrambling backstage because he needed someone. Up walked a kid who claimed he was an adult with his father and an indie wrestler. Heyman asked if he could handle being busted open since Rotten was supposed to against the Gangsta's. New Jack himself is very cold (guy has 4 Justifiable Homicides as a bounty hunter and doesn't give a shit) and claimed the kid knew it was coming and claimed he could handle it.

The kid couldn't handle it , bled like crazy ...his dad went ape shit. Sued the company and New Jack claiming New Jack assaulted his son. Also the fact his real age came out later and it pissed everyone off...including New Jack . As he said some dumb kid fucked up and should have known better to get in ring like that. The case was tossed out from what he explained once witnesses there claimed the father and him claimed he was an adult.

Hate to be that guy but New Jack should have fucked up the kids dad for putting his kid in that kind of danger

[Legato]

In speaking of lame characters/gimmicks the WWE was no different . They themselves faced their own dark period of the mid 90's and trotted out a few lame gimmicks that would make you roll your eyes. The company was in its final years of trying to present to children as the main audience had grew up by this point. So to start some funny forgettable guys.




Knuckleball Schwartz : Back in 1994 Vince had a great idea , with the MLB strike he would have a disgruntled , angry MLB player show up. Of course no one would do that actually played pro ball. So he decided that the Brooklyn Brawler (Steve Lombardi) needed a repackage and made him this character. At 1st Schwartz was called MVP (Most Violent Player) but they changed it. In time Lombardi would go back to being the Brawler and continue his job as a road agent for the company.


In the Attitude era that came along , Vince Russo himself would create a lot of zany characters that either clicked (Val Venis , Godfather) or seemingly failed by a wide margin . The funniest failure was Beaver Cleavage. In this idea Chaz Warrington who was part of the Headbangers. So once his partner got hurt with a knee injury , he needed something . So Russo made him...Beaver Cleavage...



Within weeks of WTF looks and hints that the storyline angle with Warrington and his mother were having an incest relationship , Vince McMahon pulled the plug on it. Having Warrington reveal his real name and claim he hated the character of Beaver Cleavage. Of course things didn't get better as poor Chaz then had a fued with another failed packaged guy below and run an angle he abused his girlfriend.




Meat aka Shawn Stasiak was a 2nd generation wrestler and son of Stan "The Man" Stasiak. Of course what made Meat insanely funny was that Russo (who seemingly had some sexual kick ) decided that 3 older cougars would manage a man and hint he was basically used for sex. Stasiak was named MEAT. The 3 ladies was Terri Runnels , Jacqueline , and Ryan Shamrock . Shamrock would leave the company months in . As well the company decided to depush Stasiak and a storyline reason he was losing matches was that he was being wore out from sex before matches.

Stasiak lasted til 1999 and was released when he taped a heated conversation between 2 wrestlers. He claimed it was a joke. Months later he was in WCW and actually was rehired by the WWE in 2001. Stasiak however by 2002 grew tired of the business and requested his release and he's now a chiropractor !

While those praised The Attitude Era this post also showed the ugly side of it. PMS(Pretty Mean Sistas) was the worst stable of that era. Next to the racist biker gang

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Hate to be that guy but New Jack should have fucked up the kids dad for putting his kid in that kind of danger

He likely would have really. I know there is talk of guys your legit scared of. I know some claimed the Road Warriors were vicious guys and all. But I'm sorry ... New Jack has killed some people and with his demeanor I'd be like HELL NO ...I don't wanna wrestle him.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

While those praised The Attitude Era this post also showed the ugly side of it. PMS(Pretty Mean Sistas) was the worst stable of that era. Next to the racist biker gang

Terri was smoking back in the day though. I will say that...I saw her bikini contest at Royal Rumble 2000 ...dear lord.