You ain’t lying. Good wrestler, average worker.
He’s also an idiot for changing his finisher to the stunner like an indy mark. It looks like shit too.
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The star power on display here 
will we ever see it’s like again?!
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Best Smackdown endings? Hmm I’ll have to think about it but I’m sure there’s been better endings, crowd has been more hyped for other endings (Vince McMahon winning the WWF Title vs HHH from a Stone Cold run in for one, another is The Rock & Stone Cold vs Rikishi and HHH). Overbooking imo.
This was near the end of the Alliance Invasion Storyline which clearly didn’t work.
They mainly involved Austin even though he was a Raw man.
When he came back during the Invasion angle to help out Team WWF (before his defection) and wiped out all of the coalition.
The other one was when Brock nicked his quad bike on Raw but Austin came to recollect on Smackdown. The Smackdown locker room was meant to beat Austin up, but let him through lol
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Yeah that’s also the thing. There was no such thing as a brand split back then so separating into Raw and Smackdown made no sense. The same story was being told on both shows.
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For the Austin and Brock one there deffo was.
That’s why it was astonishing to see Austin on Smackdown.
The invasion angle, you’re right. There was no draft back then, etc
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Always thought the very first brand split was a mistake. Vince McMahon had the right idea with trying to restart WCW Post-Purchase. Shame it didn’t work out but the booking didn’t help to showcase WCW in the best light and at some times felt very intentional (DDP for instance).
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Yeah he bought WCW to destroy it.
He didn’t need to rush the angle like they did. It’s the most botched angle in wrestling history.
Look at how weak the invasion teams were.
Imagine if they brought over;
Mike Awesome, RVD, Sabu, Sandman, Dreamer, Rhyno, Tazz from ECW.
Steiner, Booker T, Sting, Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg from WCW
Could have just waited a bit until the Time Warner contract was going to expire. WrestleMania 18 could have been the beginning of the Invasion
Instead we ended up with DDP being a stalker, Booker T getting clowned out by The Rock and WWE fixtures defecting to the Alliance to give them credibility.
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I often wonder why they didn’t just wait for the end of those deals. Most of the guys ended up coming in in 2002 anyway.
All the WCW lot became jobbers. Even Goldberg is a jobber now.
If one of the 4 (or 5) pillars of AEW eventually go over to WWE, he’d ruin them
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I actually think the Wrestlers while very important are overstated and the storyline could’ve worked without them. First of all Booker T and DDP were no mugs and could’ve helped carry most of it if put in the right position (Who said there had to be 5v5 matches anyway?). Thanks Undertaker for destroying DDP you arsehole.
What the angle really missed though was Eric Bischoff. If People associated WWF with Vince, they definitely associated WCW with Bischoff. Either that or “President” Ric Flair would’ve been a big help too.
What really sunk this angle was definitely Shane and Stephanie McMahon’s involvement. They were good in small doses in the right roles but during this time they were absolutely overexposed and possessed not anywhere close to the charisma and personality and skills Vince McMahon did.
Stone Cold switching sides really helped with the promo work element of the alliance but it was too late by then. Stephanie’s screeching and Shane chatting shit hurt way too much.
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Yep. Just Vince being desperate to further humiliate WCW.
To me WCW was at an all time low in 2000/01 anyway. Could easily have waited and let the absence bring around some extra clamour.
You heard the pop when Steiner, nWo, Goldberg debuted there was obviously clamour for those guys just needed some time off the screen.
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They really need a performance centre
They need to stop hiring Indy clowns who just want to do circus stunts and instead hire wrestlers who can make work look stiff.
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Was just browsing the true crime section of 4OD (I do not recognise the legitimacy of All4) last night and came across The Dark Side of the Ring doc series by Vice. Watched 3 episodes and stayed up way later than planned.
Episode 1: The Killing of Bruiser Brody. I hadn’t heard of him before, but I had heard of Tony Atlas and Abdullah the Butcher, two other key figures in this particular tale. This felt like it was from a kind of wild, slightly lawless era of wrestling that was well before my time, and perhaps before things got more polished and commercial. A very interesting story.
Episode 2: The Perfect Match. This was about Macho Man Randy Savage and Elizabeth’s professional and personal relationship, and latterly about Lex Luger too. This was very, very sad. Based on the doc, I felt incredibly sorry for her, seems like she went from one unhealthy relationship to another, in the end with tragic consequences. Randy seems like a compulsively controlling partner, but by the end you sorta leave with the impression that ultimately he was a healthier partner than Lex Luger. I don’t think I have all the facts as documentaries can often mislead, but it’s a very sad story regardless.
Episode 3: The Montreal Screwjob. Now this was more familiar territory, and no less enjoyable for it. Definitely brought some new perspectives to light for me. I very much enjoyed how much Vince Russo and Jim Cornette despise each other. I know nothing of them, but Jim Cornette definitely struck me as being a more likely bullshitter and bigger dickhead than Russo did. Anyone got a view here? Haha
I thought it was interesting to see Scott Hall vehemently state that he thought everyone was in on it, even Brett Hart. Without belittling his struggles, you see the state he is in, and then the respectable way Bret Hart carries himself in in the documentary, and I know which one seems more convincing and reliable to me. An interesting tale though, cos I could appreciate where Vince and his cronies were coming from, in expecting Hart to take a fall and pass the belt on to his replacement on his way out and he was out of order to refuse to, but I also get why given what a monumental cunt Shawn Michael’s was being, with that stuff about saying he couldn’t return Bret’s promise to be professional and not hurt him in the ring because of personal animosity.
It’s amazing that Vince exposing the industry with that blatant screwjob didn’t destroy WWE, but basically made it what it is today, as he became one of the greatest heels of all time with his “evil, conniving, manipulative CEO” shtick becoming wildly popular. I got into wrestling a few years later so it was great to see the origins of “my era” of wrestling, as while I knew about the Montreal Screwjob, I didn’t realise it was basically Vince’s springboard into both notoriety and total dominance of professional wrestling.
Might watch an episode or two before we face Leeds this evening.
Good stuff.
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Rip Jakey.
Haha, is this contentious in the fandom? Or is it RIP Jakey cos I’m massively out of sync with everyone else in thinking it’s Cornette who is the bigger twat, and it’s not a point of debate at all?
In my view Russo is a bit of a joke. A guy who was in the right place at the right time and threw enough shit at the wall that some of it stuck and now 20+ years later he’s still thought well of because of it in some circles.
Cornette is a wrestling man to the core though. Brought up on it and involved from an early age. Ran his own shows and federations, been involved in the game at various levels for 40 years at this stage.
There’s no question in my mind who is more credible between the two. Which isn’t to say Cornette isn’t a dickhead, he can certainly be considered so even if I ultimately respect his opinion.
But the Rip was more so that I assume @SRCJJ is just being polite in liking your post now before coming back when he has more time to tell you how wrong you are as I think he may have done preciously in this thread with someone else actually.
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I’m choosing to belive this was intentional and you didn’t intend to write “previously”
To be fair, Cornette absolutely did come across as the one who knows wrestling and has lived, slept and breathed it his whole life. Russo even basically (or literally, it was like 2.30am) says “fuck wrestling it’s a load of bollocks” so yeah lol. So I totally get everything you said.
Just in terms of who came up with the idea to have Michael’s put Hart in the Sharpshooter and have the ref ring the bell without Hart submitting, I felt like with Cornette it was a case of “the lady doth protest too much”, it just gave me insincere/deceptive vibes. But maybe thays just cos he eas so worked up and being really animated and OTT. The one thing that nobody would question the genuine nature of is how much they clearly both despise each other haha
Cornette is talking about having his wife wheel him to Russo’s grave if he can’t get himself there so he can piss on it ffs 
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Lol. It was an autocorrect but I’m not changing it now as it’s pretty funny. 
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