Against The Grain 9.05.09: A Simple Fan’s View of WCW
Posted by Julian Bond on 09.05.2009
When a fan usually speaks of WCW, they tend to naturally speak either of its highs of highs or its lows of lows. But I instead just wanted to talk about the “in-between” items that I personally loved in WCW as a good ol’ casual fan in the late 90s.
Welcome everyone back to Against The Grain, my take on some of the most unconventional and not-often talked about subjects in the wrestling world. After recently watching the pretty good The Rise and Fall of WCW DVD last weekend, I had thought to myself of all of the crap that I and many others had witnessed WCW throw out throughout the years, there were some horribly good moments in the company that I enjoyed a lot but often forget. The only problem is I often don't remember these moments due to the memories of shitty booking overtaking my little brain. So here I want to revisit a handful of these good memories as a simple fan of WCW…and bring just one of the many zany moments up down in my WTF?!? section (Tank Abbott dancing…nuff said).
One of the reasons why I actually liked WCW back in the day…The Flock.
The "Bright Side" of WCW
With my selections below, I honestly just wanted to take a look back at the fond memories I've had of WCW without harping on the obviously negative parts that everyone tends to talk about. So here you'll hear no talk of crappy booking decisions, backstage politics, and plain-as-day bad mistakes. Instead just the simple good memories of what I saw in the late 90s as a simple WCW fan. So here they are…
Chris Jericho's feud against Dean Malenko
I know that a good handful of fans fondly remember this excellent feud with the chickenshit-heel Chris Jericho against the super-serious bad-ass ring technician Dean Malenko back in the good old cruiserweight title days of WCW, but I honestly think it still isn't talked about enough. Not only did the due provide a good long series of good to great matches, but they also provided some of the best out-of-ring drama that also rivaled the main-event storylines of the nWo. From Jericho literally calling out the "1,004 holds" that he knew in comparison to Malenko's nicknamed "1000 holds" to Malenko dressing up as a random masked luchador to sneak in and beat Jericho for the title to Jericho going around Washington D.C. claiming to those who would listen that he was a part of a "conspiracy" by WCW management (as a result of losing his belt). Funny, action-packed, and definitely one of the best memories I've ever had when watching Monday Night Nitros.
The Flock Saga
The storyline surrounding the mysterious heel Raven gathering up random B-list wrestlers (Riggs, Resse, Lodi, Kidman…who eventually broke out of being B-listed) to make up his goth-inspired group, the Flock, started off pretty basic as a standard angle. But WCW did a pretty good job of building up this group from some folks not to be messed around with to slowly having the band split up. Starting off the Flock were bad-ass mindless grapplers that were messing in the affairs of Chris Benoit and DDP due to the will of their fearless leader Raven, until one of the main members Perry Saturn started to question his dirty deeds. This led to a nice back-and-forth feud between Saturn and Raven, a random, but horribly cool in my opinion, inclusion of Kanyon to the Flock, and then finally the slow break-up of the group. I personally wished that the group would have stayed together a lot longer, but it was horribly great while it lasted.
Tag Team Greatness in the form of The Jersey Triad
Simply put, the team of DDP, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Kanyon was a rare near-perfect tag team combination. I was big fan of DDP at the time, was one of the few who was digging the underrated innovative style of Kaynon, and always had a liking for the Beast from the East in Bigelow. Not only did the guys all rock the pretty corny premise of being "Jersey boys" to awesome perfection, but they took the old school "Freebird Rule" of allowing any of the three group members to interchange themselves during any match (i.e. Kanyon and DDP could suddenly turn into DDP and Bigelow at any given moment) and made it an awesome gimmick to frequency use. Despite having a too-good-to-be-true at the time (due to the other really bad crap WCW was showing) awesome as hell TAG TEAM TITLE feud…rare in WCW…I know…with the duo of Benoit and Saturn, the company pulled the plug on the group in only a few short months. Again like the Flock, it's too damn bad cause they were great while they lasted.
Going Out In Style…The Cruiserweight Way
While the entire company was seemingly slowly going down in flames, WCW managed to do one thing totally right in its end days…rebuild their once highly coveted Cruiserweight division. Everyone remembers the early days of WCW with great high-flying action from folks like Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, and Ultimo Dragon, but not everyone stuck around to watch the new wave of title contenders and the introduction of the Cruiserweight Tag Team championship. Watching mainstay folks like Kidman, Mysterio, and Chavo Guerrero get back in the mix to witnessing the uprising of folks like Shane Helms (aka Hurricane) and Jamie Noble (aka James Gibson in ROH) kicking ass. Hell…one could look closely to see short appearances from current stars like TNA's AJ Styles. The one distinct last great WCW show that I watched before they closed (not counting the last Nitro…which was kind of sad...in a "damn…they really are closed" way) was an episode of Thunder with a multi-person cruiserweight gauntlet match (and please tell me if anyone recognizes this match…and even better knows where it's at on YouTube) that was easily one of the bouts I honest to God have ever seen. It involved everyone awesome at the time (Mysterio, Helms, Chavo, Shannon Moore, Kidman…it was great) and it was indescribably perfect.
Of all of the weird, random, and just plain stupid crappy shit that WCW has put on (like with Tank Abbott in my WTF section below) during my heavy viewing in the late 90s, I'm glad that my mind hasn't been so damaged that I don't remember the actual good stuff that the company managed to put on my TV screen. So when one thinks about dumb crap like Kevin Nash laying down for Hulk Hogan via a fingerpoke, please also reach in the back of your mind and think about the cruiserweights, think about the Flock, and more importantly think about few good things that WCW managed to pull of their black hat.
For Your Viewing Pleasure
Jericho talking shit against Malenko…nuff said
Flock craziness...Raven vs. Saturn
The greatness known as "The Jersey Triad"
Bringing back cruiserweight goodness in the end
WTF?!?
Welcome ladies and gents again to another edition of "WTF", the section that covers the weird and strange occurrences that I've observed in my close watching of wrestling in the last 10 or so years. From the Bananas in Pajamas wrestling in a battle royal to really random face and heel turns that make had made sense at the time but seem really strange now, I want to cover it all.
This edition with the inclusion of the positives that I've seen in WCW, I couldn't resist pointing out at least one horrible WTF moment from the company. So below is the sad and hilarious sight of former UFC fighter Tank Abbott dancing and singing his ass off in his mercifully short stint in WCW.
Tank Abbott…Dancing Machine?!?...WTF?!?
I honest to goodness didn't know all that much about Tank Abbott before he came to WCW. All I knew was that he was a super bad-ass that competed in UFC matches, looked like a psycho-biker dude that would kick my butt in two seconds, and supposedly had a killer right-hook. So with all of the hype I heard about him, I expected another possibly cool "Ken Shamrock" type of person to start kicking ass and taking names in the struggling WCW. But like most good potential things in the company, the powers-that-be found a way to perfectly f*ck it up and made the guy, who one thinks would easily be taken ALWAYS as a bad-ass just by his looks alone, was made to be a complete fool by having him dance with the boy-group parody, Three Count. While I totally did find it funny when Abbott eventually turned on the dance crew by randomly punching them all out at once during a routine (!), it was sad but equally gut-busting hilarious to see Abbott be so damn misused. Witness the horror below…
I like to see you focus on positive things instead of pointing out gripes and negatives like most columns, but your use of "horribly good" and "horribly cool" is horrible.
Posted By: NickNitr0 (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 03:34 PM
the jersey triad was freaking off the hook.
Posted By: jd (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 03:37 PM
Yes...thank you. Malenko/Jericho was one of the best storylines going.
And despite being a Jericholic, I marked out @ Slamboree when Malenko took off that mask & beat Jericho's head in.
Posted By: Good Stuff (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 03:44 PM
Hey man! Great Article!
The Cruserweight Gauntlet happened on January 24th, 2001.
Rey Mysterio Jr. defeated Kaz in the guantlet match. Other participants included: Shane Helms, Elix Skipper, Yun Yang, Jamie Noble, Billy Kidman, Lash LeRoux, and Evan Karagias.
Posted By: PurePython (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 04:11 PM
For all of WCWs faults, their undercard was superb.
Some of the only WCW matches I can remember from 1996-98 involve Raven, Saturn, Jericho or DDP.
Posted By: AngryTas (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 04:12 PM
Good column that highlighted the things that were going right with WCW, even when everything else was going wrong. It is noteworthy that all of these either preceded Russo's run or followed it, which shows that Russo had no clue how to run a wrestling company, or at the very least needed somebody to put a stop to his bad ideas (such as giving Tank Abbot the world title after Bret's injury, the idea of which led to his 2000 demotion, and indirectly the departure of many of the best midcarders, who became the Radicals in the WWF).
To that I'd add a couple more:
Steven Regal/Fit Finley: Those two had an awesome, but overlooked feud in 1996. Their Uncensored 96 match was about as stiff as you saw at the time, and they also had a pretty good junkyard match on Nitro (although the latter was hindered by them backing up about a mile away due to the blood).
DDP: One of the rare instances in which WCW made a superstar instead of raiding talent from the WWF, ECW or Japan. DDP's rise in the mid to late 90's was a thing of beauty, and his feud with Savage was perhaps the best single feud of 1997, not just in WCW, but all of wrestling (with the possible exception of Bret/Austin).
Scott Steiner's rise: They turned him at the right time in early 1998, but injuries essentially delayed his push for a year, and just about killed off what could have been a hot feud with brother Rick. When he returned in 1999, he was essentially a midcarder, where he would stay until the latter half of 2000. However, he began to amass credible victories, and his Big Poppa Pump character really became well defined, and eventually the WCW world champion.
Magnificent Seven. With Steiner as the champion, Ric Flair as the key manager (and WCW CEO), and a host of other top players (Luger, Jarrett, Bagwell and US Champ Rick Steiner), along with Animal, this had the potential to be a top stable, and was a pretty well-booked group in the fed's last days.
Posted By: Michael L (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 04:14 PM
Tank really looked like a butch gay..
Posted By: Propagandhi (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 04:38 PM
You wanted that Cruiserweight Gauntlet match? You got it. From the January 24th, 2001 edition of Thunder:
Posted By: Sage Freehaven (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 04:44 PM
I think it is time that the IWC accepts the fact that WCW is dead. It has been gone a long time and it is time to move on. The IWC needs to do the same thing with the Attitude Area.
Posted By: Tugman (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 05:42 PM
Just stopping through here to read comments here and...
-I vow never again to overuse the word "horribly" for any description...for shame
-Holy Crap!!! "PurePython" and "Sage Freehaven" thanks for pointing out that match that I've spent years looking for...just never thought to look on dailymotion! Seriously thanks. Great great match.
-"Michael L"...totally agree with you on all of your memories too! I was going to mention both the Steiner World Title run and the Magnificant Seven here...but I'm saving this for another time. I also did my second Against The Grain column on DDP. You should check it out.
Thanks everyone here for the comments. Appreciated.
Posted By: Julian Bond (Registered) on September 05, 2009 at 06:30 PM
I thought you were gonna talk about all the greatness before as well such as the great careers of Sting The Steiners Pillman Austin the return of Steamboat Muta ext things that most fans today have no idea of how great it truly was and never will. I am disappointed.
Posted By: hateman (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 07:27 PM
I wish Tylene Buck would have shown up in WWE for a while. It would have been nice to see her in the ring with Trish Stratus. I wouldn't have cared if they would have wrestled. They're just both really hot.
Posted By: Zingy (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 10:14 PM
how come on one every remembers the 3 level cage!!i used to love that unsafe bastard of a cage!!! seriously
Posted By: Guest#4135 (Guest) on September 05, 2009 at 10:54 PM
Good shit man. I remember the awesome 3way feud over the U.S. title between Raven, DDP, and Benoit. At the same time, Goldberg was on a rampage and I remember him beating Raven for the US belt the night after he won it at the ppv. After that, Saturn left the Flock. The video you posted of the match at Fall Brawl shows how over Saturn was. When they did things right, WCW was just as capable of putting on a great show as WWF. Somewhere along that road, they forgot how to do that and we all know the rest...
Posted By: amusing comments (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 12:15 AM
The best thing about the Jericho-Malenko feud: Move #4: Armbar.
Posted By: Eddie Mac (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 01:46 AM
This is the best column I have read on here in months. WCW 1996-199 marks my favorite place and time in the business. I was just telling a new fan the other day that he needed to look up the Jericho/Malenko feud.
I will never forget Jericho collecting trophies from everyone, wearing the belt to wrestle, getting Ralphus, etc. Jericho made WCW in those days.
The Flock, Jersey Triad, and Cruiserweights are all great memories. I also loved the Benoit/Booker "Best of 7" and their feuds with Finlay. This is the era that made me a fan.
Posted By: Guest#6006 (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 02:22 AM
I remember watching the cruiserweights back then. Good stuff.
Except when Ernest Miller, in an attempt to punish Steiner, put six of them in a match against Rick. They were squashed as a group.
Posted By: Guest#5769 (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 04:09 AM
Oh, god, I miss WCW. Not just for the good, but for the bad, which wasn't bad in the "Goddammit, Vincehaven!" (Hiya, Sage!) way that Raw is lately, but in the "holy shit, it's so incompetent it's hilarious!" way that made even the *bad* fun to watch.
A few more nominations for Good:
Goldberg. I know that this will get arguments, but Big Bill was booked wonderfully right up until Nash cut his balls off at the end of '98, and was the *perfect* choice for the Man Who Brought Down the nWo. Sadly, politics derailed that, and they made the mistake of putting his title win over Hogan on FREE TV, but for that first year or so until he butted heads with Nash, he was THE hottest thing in wrestling.
The first seven months of the nWo angle, until they failed to blow it off before it got stale. The big moments (Hall's initial appearance, Nash powerbombing Bischoff, Hogan's heel turn) are rightly lauded, but the early parts of the angle's daily grind were just brilliant stuff.
That five week period after Bischoff was fired but before Russo was hired. While there was no actual leadership and the company was being booked by committee, you ended up with five weeks of pure awesome, since nobody had political power backstage and therefore you ended up with people throwing shit at the wall to see what would stick, and the "old-school" types in back sneaking in pushes for talented wrestlers and twenty-minute matches between them. (Remember, this is the period when Benoit was first pushed to the main event level.)
Disco Inferno. While I loved Glen Gilbretti's character, and thought he was actually quite underrated as a worker (watch his TV title match with Dean Malenko from Slamboree '96!), I'm really using him as a representative of the entire roster of midcard role-players who'd never be main eventers, but who always gave you great, solid work that provided the foundation the superstars were built on.
The last year or so of WCW Saturday Night. After Russo arrived and decided that the company should focus only on Nitro and Thunder, Jimmy Hart was given the book for WCWSN. Taking the TV Title that Russo had literally thrown in the trash can, a few veterans who weren't going to be on the big shows (Jim Duggan, Barry Darsow, and a few others), and a whole bunch of recent graduates of the Power Plant, Hart proceeded to put on a classic Southern-style wrestling show that wasn't flashy, just old-school NWA-style wrestling. It also gave us the first look at talents like Elix Skipper, Chuck Palumbo, Sonny Siaki, Allen "Kwee Wee" Funk, and most of the guys involved in the aforementioned 2000 Cruiserweight Revival. (It's also the only wrestling show my mother ever actually *enjoyed*--and she grew up in the Sheik's territory during his TV days!)
Posted By: rdfox (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 11:18 AM
Other good memory...
Television Title best of seven series between Booker T and Chris Benoit.
Posted By: Guest#8190 (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 11:35 AM
how about some love for the dangerous alliance...hollywood blondes..vader
Posted By: truefan (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Thank you. No doubt the horrednous stuff in WCW outweighed the good, but there was a time when WCW had great quality matches and programming. They did beat WWE in the ratings for a while for a reason, y'know.
In the end, main event egos ended up catching up with them. It's a shame that a few ended up ruining what truly was a great company.
I feel Vince's revisionist brainwashing has caused a lot of fans to hate then, when in fact they had some great and forgotten gems.
I grew up on WCW and watched it first before WWE. Lately I've been watching old Nitro matchs on YouTube. Ah, fond memories....
Posted By: lilwayne1 (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 01:18 PM
wow...jericho/malenko i forgot about...that was awesome, complete greatness
Posted By: tazz (Guest) on September 06, 2009 at 01:49 PM
Personally I enjoyed the New Blood verse Millionaires Club, and while it was a bit absurd seeing hogan feud with billy kidman, it was also so weird that it was sweet...Some people (scott keith) think they went to over the top with sting vs vampiro feuds, but I will still always remember the moment on nitro where vampiro lures sting into the middle of the ring only for a ton of fake blood to fall on the mat knocking sting out...from there the new blood hang sting from his harness...awesome visual
some other fast thoughts...Ambulance matches are AWESOME, Seriously team canada was some sick shit....bunkhouse brawl baby...when sid went on his powerbomb fest on thunder i believe and kidman was in the ring and going to be about the 15th man powerbombed...and for a brief moment you believed that sid was gonna be OWNED...he powerbombed the shit out of him oh well...
Posted By: b (Guest) on September 08, 2009 at 04:23 PM
