Pro Wrestling in the 1990's !

[lboinyamouf4sho]

Back in 1996 WCW seemingly could do no wrong. The NWO was the hottest angle running. The Cruiserweights were routinely stealing the show each week on Nitro. The talent raids of Jericho , Benoit and Malenko were the best things about Nitro. But of course with a hot company , at times they would do some weird ideas. One weird idea was someone in the company likely played Mortal Kombat and thought ....hmmmmmm that Subzero character would make one hell of a nice wrestler to have on TV.




Ok beyond the fact that its literally impossible to take this guy and actually make a pro wrestler out of him , this didn't stop WCW....




As a young fan I was like... this is awesome. The guy literally blows cold ice from his breath and can likely in matches freeze a guy. I mean if Undertaker can bury guys and come back from the literal dead....then this dude can do it. Ohhhh boy how wrong I was. The promos were the best possible thing about Glacier that WCW did. Because for weeks we'd see the tagline "Blood runs cold..."

Sadly the final result was this guy....





It was the ultimate let down if your a fan. Your expecting a cool Mortal Kombat type character and you get a guy with a weird contact lens in one eye. Its no shock that Raymond Lloyd who portrayed Glacier didn't last long. The character according to Lloyd was given such a high profile entrance and special costume designed , the final bill was half a million dollars at final cost. After a short heel turn , Lloyd was able to retire the Glacier character and before he was fired in 1999 due to a cost cutting venture , he had another failed gimmick. Which I'm sure was cheaper than Glacier.

glacier is still over like rover in chikara, look at this reaction


god bless chikara. i remember how awesome it was when glacier sold his entrance to somebody, and his helmet an shit to kaz hayashi.

[Alex]

That's what we call the nostalgia pop lbo, remember that one kevin nash got at the rumble?
BTW, i seem to recall reading an interview with glacier on wwe.com sometime last year, i think he's a teacher.

[lboinyamouf4sho]

That's what we call the nostalgia pop lbo, remember that one kevin nash got at the rumble?
BTW, i seem to recall reading an interview with glacier on wwe.com sometime last year, i think he's a teacher.

how could i forget??

[steve2275]

glacier is still over like rover in chikara, look at this reaction


god bless chikara. i remember how awesome it was when glacier sold his entrance to somebody, and his helmet an shit to kaz hayashi.

he still looked pretty good there

[lboinyamouf4sho]

he still looked pretty good there

that's because since WCW folded he was hibernating in a cryonic chamber and hasn't aged at all.

[Alex]

how could i forget??

I know i never will.

[lboinyamouf4sho]

i hope my WCW PPV's come in the mail on monday, i'm ready to watch sold out 99.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

So in keeping with all things 90's in this thread , this morning I'm reading Wrestlecrap.com . One of the unique things was learning what happened to Max Payne . No , not the video game/movie character. The wrestler Max Payne.




He was in WCW in the early to mid 1990's and actually had a program with Cactus Jack against the Nasty Boys at a PPV. Soon after though he left for the greener pastures of the WWF . I never knew this. Because I basically by the mid 90's wasn't watching much WWF. But I always saw this character and image that RD Reynolds would mock....



MAN MOUNTAIN ROCK.

Which is a very cool name ...MAN....MOUNTAIN....ROCK. Its just lousy execution with a character who was supposed to be a rock guitarist. Did the WWF not learn the lesson of Heavy Metal Van Hammer ?

So RD linked to a cool backstage video Payne shot during his time with the company and backstage during the tour of Europe. Featuring a lot of guys having fun and goofing off. Its kinda sad its never been released by the company.

[lboinyamouf4sho]

watched souled out 1999 and enjoyed it mostly.

benoit vs mike enos, decent. the match had no build going in though, not sure why they even had a match. with the recent ongoings i'd have thought benoit would face an NWO guy.

norman smiley vs chavito. entertaining but went a little too long. norman comes out with pepes remains in an urn. norman wants to keep things on the mat, chavo comes back a few times but gets cut off. in the end chavo gets a face full of pepe(sawdust) and locked into a crossface chickenwing. the finish makes up for any dragging in the match so i can't complain.

finlay vs van hammer didn't care much. hammer is now a hippy, and again this match had no build or reason for happening.

bam bam vs wrath good. bam is almost always fun to watch and wrath/adam bomb was cool too. this had some build as the 2 had a couple of break apart brawls in weeks prior. love the greeting from asbury finish.

luger vs konnan eeeewwwwwww. konehead is actually in decent shape here, but damn i hate his whole act and luger is luger. finsh comes when liz sprays paint in koneheads eyes. there was a build to this though as luger and nash had beat up rey and kickt konehead out of the wolfpac.

jericho vs saturn loser wears a dress. this was good. plenty of build too. saturn has beef with jericho and history with the ref scott dickenson. dickenson screws saturn and he, ralphus, & jericho all leave together happily as saturn wears a leopard print dress.

kidman(c) vs rey vs psicosis vs juvi CW title 4way fun as hell. god i loved the CW division in WCW. plenty of cool spots. starts with rey & kidman sticking together against juvi & psicosis but of course breaks down. finish is cool as rey hits a plancha and kidman hits a SSP and rey can't break up the pin in time.

ric & david flair vs hennig & barry windham ok. they tried to make david look good, too much putting flair over as a badass for my tastes though. dirty finish but appropriate for faces when they're the IV horsemen.

goldberg vs scott hall ladder/stungun match actually pretty good, beats the hell out of a hogan main event. scott hall looked sharper than he did the year before and they did some good stuff. people say goldberg couldn't sell because he did all those squash matches but it's not true. he sold his leg the entire match(he was attacked earlier in the evening backstage). some shenanigans with disco but nothing too major. after goldberg picks up the win bam bam comes out and attacks(bam bam originally came to WCW just for goldberg but got distracted along the way) while they fight hall gets the stungun and show closes with goldberg and bam getting shocked.

it was a fun event and i really like that most of the midcard matches had built up storylines going into the matches. who was booking this shit, russo??

[lboinyamouf4sho]

the nitro following the PPV was pretty good.

i forgot to mention flair getting cuffed to the ropes and david getting whipped repeatedly post match at the ppv, anyways flair does an unintentionally funny promo about it.
booker T and jericho have a damn good match. i think bookers missile drop kick looked very convincing as a finisher back then.
bitchoff gets his head shaved after losing to david flair.
they've been talking about a tag tourney that's going on but NWO crashes the match each week. this week faces of fear(FUKYES) vs bobby duncum jr & mike enos gets crashed. nitro needs more faces of fear.
disco who been paling around with hall trying to join the wolfpac has a match against wrath, hall helps him win. disco was awesome at this time.
steiner sexually harasses the nitro girls all night, mostly kimberly.
steiner vs saturn(now wearing a dress) was good. lots of suplexes. buff & steiner were magic together.
juvi & psicosis have a hot match to set up contendership for the CW title.
rey & konehead still feuding with luger & nash, rey got beatdown konehead made the save.
goldberg, "taser ramon" scott hall, and bam bam continue their feud.

awesome tv show!!

[SUPERECWFAN1]

In the 1990's there was tag teams . The Steiner Brothers , Harlem Heat , Dudleyz , The Hardys, the Road Warriors , Hart Foundation , The Outsiders and more. But one team had so much fucking chemistry and greatness that they could have likely been one of the greatest tag teams in history had they stuck together. It was the Eliminators ...Perry Saturn and John Kronus.

The 2 men had a great chemistry and quickly dominated ECW after winning the gold in USWA. They won 3 ECW World tag team titles from 1996-1997. The fueds with The Gangsta's , Pitbulls and Bruise Brothers was some of the best things about ECW. You honestly felt that Saturn and Kronus was destined to become the greatest tag team of the 1990's and 2000's. They even showed up on WWF TV and showed how bad ass they was.




You could just tell the guys were likely gonna be signed by WWF or WCW at some point and dominate there. The sky was the limit.

Until Perry Saturn tore his ACL later that year. Saturn himself was also growing unhappy with his tag team partner John Kronus. Its been said Saturn felt Kronus wasn't working as hard as he should and he wanted to end the team. Heyman let him go and he signed with WCW.

Kronus would form teams with New Jack and others in ECW. He gained more weight as time passed and it seemed to echo what Saturn felt. Kronus would go on to wrestle for XPW and work the indies til he retired for good in 2003. He came back for the Hardcore Homecoming shows in 2005. Sadly in 2007 Kronus passed away in his sleep. Doctors claim it was due to an enlarged heart.

Saturn would go on to show he could be a very damn good singles wrestler and had a great fued against Raven and the Flock. He'd win a few titles and later work for the WWF when he jumped with the 4. Saturn re-injured his ACL and was sidelined and soon released by the WWE. Saturn would bounce around the indies and later go homeless due to addictions he had. Years would pass and people wondered where Perry Saturn went or if he was still alive. In 2009 Saturn was found and living with his wife in Minnesota . He returned to wrestling after a 9 year absence in 2011 for the AWE Legends show.






The sad part of this is how great these 2 could have been . They won tag team gold not long after they formed in USWA and ECW. Imagine what the 2 could have been as a group.

[Legato]

Folks. What you're about to see is truely hideous....And funny as hell



This right here folks is how Al Snow's "bad match" reputation got started.

[lboinyamouf4sho]

watched a couple more nitros.

01/25/99 was good. disco has a match against a jakked al greene.
hennig gets kicked out of the NWO.
bam bam & scott hall have a good taser/ladder match. earlier in the night bam talked about the bingo halls and being xtreme.
faces of fear(YAY!!) vs finlay & dave taylor is decent.
saturn vs smiley is cool
bret has a match against booker that my dvd skips mid over after the commercial
scott norton vs goldberg was awesome.
steiner/nitro girls(kimberly) feud is great.
horsemen vs hogan/steiner/nash turns into a huge crazy NWO vs WCW brawl.

2/1/99 was awesome
hennig wants revenge, is teaming with barry windham in the tag tourney
steiner vs kimberly escalates!!
NWO B-team shenanigans aplenty
hennig/windham vs benoit/malenko is good.
hammer and kenny chaos get caned by a debuting sandman after their match
sadman calls out bam bam and they have a good hardcore match. awesome debut for sandman!!
kidman has a pretty good match with a redheaded jericho looking lash leroux
steiner w/buff vs jericho w/ralphus, awesomeness ensues. saturn distracts jericho and steiner goes over.
bret beats up will saso on MADtv
norton destorys ernest miller
hall vs benoit is very good. winner gets a shot a brets US title. benoit eats a clean pin for the 2nd time that night

these shows have been better 3 hour shows than what we get on RAW in 2012.

[Alex]

these shows have been better 3 hour shows than what we get on RAW in 2012.

Side note on that, apprently on hulu, when they put Raw up, they edited it, and it cut the Kofi/Dolph match, which was by far the best wrestling match on the show.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

WCW had a lot of ups and downs in its time. Near the late 90's the good up periods of the show would get crashing down periods. A wrestler could be seen as the future and be looked at as a potential future star. The next week be jobbing to someone for no reason. Backstage politics of course played a huge role . The company had a ton of backstage political politicians like Hulk Hogan , Eric Bischoff , Kevin Nash and more. Not such an easy company.

One of the funniest stories happened in 1999. It concerned a wrestler ...named WRATH aka Bryan Clark. Clark was a huge guy ...6'6 290 pounds and had a gimmick in the WWF before this called :



Adam Bomb

Your thinking ... how did this fail in the WWF back when the company was dominated by big men ? Well Clark its claimed by HHH got fired due to turning his back and not getting slopped by Henry Godwinn . The company didn't like that. So he was axed and he went to WCW where they came up with the WRATH name. About Glacier's enemy who was a heel in a mask. Eventually that was dropped and WRATH unmasked.



Once unmasked and after coming back after months on the shelf , WRATH went on a heel roll. He utterly destroyed guys. He had a heel streak going and around this time in 1998 , Goldberg was WCW World champion. Common sense seemed to be that WCW was building WRATH to face GOLDBERG ! 2 big giant men. Both unstoppable. Could Goldberg actually beat WRATH ? I remember watching this with friends and we knew the way WRATH was going he was gonna test Goldberg soon. We all looked forward to the big PPV clash of these 2 unstoppable monsters. One good ...one evil.

Your thinking its a licence to print money right ? Well this was WCW and they fucked up and gave away Goldberg's WCW World title win on free tv and lost Starrcade money. So folks....its not a shock...



Yep... backstage politics sank the streak Wrath was on and killed any money they could have made by keeping this heel monster rolling. Of course in dumb foolish WCW sense only thought up by Nash and Bischoff , Wrath had to lose. Because Nash needed to look like he could snap streaks. To make his match with Goldberg believable . Which it didn't and which sank the company ultimately .

In the end Clark would disappear (the damage was done to Wrath , PPV money blew) awhile and come back under his real name and formed a tag team named KRONIK. Which was modeled after the WWF's "APA" tag team. Now of course as I told friends online WCW blew a chance and could have had the 1st tag team who claimed to smoke weed and partied. Not another tag team who hired themselves out. Oh well....

Kronik would become famous for coming to the WWF in 2001 and during the Invasion period and gave the Undertaker a taste of his own non-selling in a PPV match. The WWF was less than pleased and demanded both Bryan Clark and Bryan Adams to go to OVW. Both declined. (The match if ya watch online was terrible , with Kane/Taker vs Kronik and all 4 not selling for each other lol)

Clark would retire in 2003 due to injuries and sadly Bryan Adams passed away in 2007. Adams was a friend of Bret Hart's as well and mentioned by Hart not long after his passing. RIP