The Kane/Big Show match was short, and there's been some pretty fine wrestling on this show. To each their own, but I didn't watch TNT for the last couple years of WCW, because of how much it bored me.
Anyway, would that WPB in your location by any chance be West Palm Beach? I lived there for 13 years, before moving out after graduating high school in 1996.
No matter how bad things may get, just imagine what would happen if Vince Russo was booking again, and you will feel better.
Being a mark is one of my lesser virtues. I tried to watch after the Vince/Flair segment. I even sat through the beginning of the Maven/Jericho match. But I couldn't sit through anymore. I'm not bashing RAW or anything...I'm just really critical of things that take up my time like wrestling.
Raptor,
Yup, West Palm Beach. I graduated from Palm Beach Lakes in 97, tried to get out for good in 99, but after college moved back. "Everytime I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in." Or something like that.
Lol, I lived like two blocks away from Palm Beach Lakes - Lone Pine, off Military Trail, right across the street from the Rapids waterpark. Went to school at Suncoast though.
No matter how bad things may get, just imagine what would happen if Vince Russo was booking again, and you will feel better.
Awesome show. If you remember my thread of "Must-See" matches in the WWF, The Book vs The game was #1 on my list. I got that match and a win by The Book. The only thing I can ask for now is that at No Way Out I get a rematch. A 30 minute rematch, because I was digging that match big time. I knew these two would tear it up if they got in the ring together. The WWF Tribute was awesome. I taped the show and noticed the new NWO footage they put in with Hall, Nash and Hogan. Awesome wrestling tonight. Damn that was a great show!
That was one of the best RAWs I have seen in a while. I have one issue. I think JR should have sold the fact that Vince is going crazy, that is why Flair should not sell his 50% to him. If the NWO comes in or Vince gets all the company, it doesn't matter becase in Vince's state of mind, he will destroy the company anyway.
Other than that, I was digging this show, totally. I love the fact that we might have to wait until next week to even see the NWO. Why blow your load all at once? Give it some time. The WWF is being run correctly now, atleast for tonight. I guess they learned something from Invasion. OK, gotta go watch the history video again.
January 4th 1999 - The day WCW injected itself with 10 gallons of Liquid Anthrax...AKA...The day Hogan "Defeated" Nash to win the WCW title in front of 40,000.
Wow! An awesome Angle/Austin match, Triple H gives Booker a job, Undertaker gives a cool promo... even Kane/Big Show was much better than expectations!
This show rocked.
The Flair/Vince promo was well done. I loved the montage (I thought for a second there that the NWO took over the montage when it started to show Hall and Nash), and the way Vince put the onus on Flair to save the WWF by selling his stock back to Vince definitely was a good storyline move. I hope the NWO story continues to play out slowly... it will heighten the anticipation for the appearance of the NWO Three.
Can you believe how over DDP is there. THAT was pretty damn cool.
The video package was a thing of beauty the coconut shot, Cowboy Bob Orton, Don Murraco, Superstar Billy Grahm, Foley with his big win, NITRO, Owen, Bret, Heenan, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Nikoli singing the Russian National Anthem!
Maven/Jericho with a good match...and Taker ROCKS...the short hair has given him new life
HHH/Booker T was a good match as well...plus CHRISTIAN CHRISTIAN CHRISTIAN
Austin/Angle solid as always, nice sell job on the Stunner by Angle...Angle is GOD
6 letters I despised a year ago: nWo...ECW (not to say that I don't still despise them)
Who would have thought that the best 2 Raws of the last year would have them majorily involved. ECW returns in Atlanta and tonight's. That Flair/Vince segment was quite possibly the best segment I've EVER seen. Then you add in good wrestling (hell Kane/Show was GOOD. That's right, G-O-O-D.) I even had a HHH segment that I didn't want to change the channel during and Booker T won! Undertaker cut a flat-out awesome promo. Man what a night!
And I think you're fat. So how do you like me now?
I'm really enjoying reading this board right now. For the past week or so everyone has been worrying about locker room morale and the glass ceiling and other things that have no bearing on us as fans and viewers. Then the WWF gives us a kick ass show tonight and everyone is now enjoying the slow burn and can't wait to see Smackdown. Thank God the WWF does not cater to the internet.
Raw did everything in its power to not suck tonight! The Flair promo/video was some of the best television I've seen in a long time, and if you can show me a better video the WWF's ever done, please do. I'd like to see it.
Goldust continues to cut fantastic promos playing to the best aspects of his character. Of the four that made their return at the Royal Rumble, he's been the one paying major dividends already.
Jericho/Maven was quite acceptable in the vein of Bret/Waltman esque title matches (though nowhere near that classic in terms of length or quality). In fact, outside of segments involving Billy Gunn, Raw was a complete, solid show. Certainly one of the best in a long time in terms of direction and cohesion, something the Atlanta ECW/WCW Alliance Raw lacked.
James F'n X Witness to the death of WCW - July 2, 2001, Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell
I've always thought Undertaker made a better heel than a face, and now I know for a fact. That promo he cut (“Are we done here, Coach?” “Uh, yes, sir, we are.” “Why are you still here, Coach?”) just rocked all. Not to mention watching him go completely STEINER on Maven like that.
The Kane/Big Show match was surprisingly good-- not great by any means, but acceptable. Anyone who can have a decent match with Big Show has to be good-- and anyone over 6'10" who can do that is nothing short of ultra-rare. But why isn't Kane being pushed? He's not face, he's not heel, he doesn't seem to have any sort of set goals at all. He's not going for titles, he doesn't have any friends, doesn't really have any arch-enemies, he simply... exists. Whassupwidat?
Neither Curt Hennig nor Val Venis even showed up tonight. What's up with that? And while we're on the subject of the four guys that returned at the Royal Rumble, why did Goldust return in the first place? Last I'd heard, Dustin was in the TWF, his father's promotion, doing quite well for himself. Didn't he hate the freak character? Why'd he go back to it, I wonder?
Booker T beat Triple H!! WHOO! Did he do it cleanly, no... but he did it, regardless! YaY!
But damn, I was upset that Austin beat Angle. Now I see Austin beating Jericho at No Way Out, and then facing Hunter at WrestleMania. And if Austin does beat Y2J at NWO, I'll be able to tell everyone “I told you so.” Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, and Y2J will do the unthinkable. He's already beaten Rock and Austin on the same night at Vengeance. Beat The Rock at the Royal Rumble. What if Jericho were able to beat Austin at NWO and then beat Triple H at WrestleMania? Holy shit, that would be one hell of a four months!
...Like that would ever happen. But I'm keeping my hopes up.
No nWo tonight? “Damn.” But I can see the need to build it up nice and slowly. What really interests me is Vince's proposal tonight. He'll shelf the whole nWo idea if Ric Flair sells all of his stock back to Vince. But somehow you know Flair won't do that-- but how he justifies that decision will make for some very interesting television.
One last thought. Earlier in the thread, the Jericho/Maven match was compared to a Bret/Waltman match. Come on, people... Maven isn't that bad. HA!
Eddie
“You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth.”
That Flair/Vince segment with the video montage, and Flair genuinely trying to make peace with Vince to keep the nWo from showing up, has to be one of the best 20 minute interview segments they've had in a long time. If they can manage to make them all that good now, maybe people will stop complaining about them.
And Christian interfering in HHH's match? Cool! Maybe it'll actually go somewhere, too, even if it's just a squash type match. Playing with the big boys is a good thing.
Umm...That video package and Flair/Vince promo were neato.
That combination of promotional video and one-on-one promo was the best I've seen in recent years.
The "Flair salutes Vince" video was indeed one of the best-produced videos I've seen from the WWF. Some of the footage I saw in that video was wholly unexpected - WCW Nitro footage of the nWo, Bret Hart's rage at Vince after Survivor Series (including the spit and the "WCW" hand gestures), the *long* shot of Owen (wonder what Bret will have to say about that?). That video could be sold at the T-shirt stands, and I could see people buying it. (Alternatively, they could add it as a special feature on an upcoming DVD).
The Flair-Vince promo - Flair's really backed into a corner. It's a "desperate seller - deliberate buyer" situation that invariably turns out badly for the seller. Both Vince and Flair sold their roles well, however.
Steph
I'm going twenty-four hours a day...I can't seem to stop - "Turn Up The Radio", Autograph
That was an amazing video indeed. The only thing I can think of that they left out was DX, unless I blinked too long and missed it. Other than that, there are only about 5-6 other historical angles/moments during the 80's they left out. Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks these events were historical because I was too young to know the difference at the time.
Anywho, great video. I hope they have it up on WWF.com soon. I also believe they showed every single WWF champion. Did they miss anyone? I also gotta hand it to the WWF for not leaving out the not-so-great moments of the past like they usually do. I've never seen that footage of Bret after the screwjob writing the letters " W C W " in the air, only read about it. Pretty damn cool.
Oh yeah, the rest of RAW was really good too. And where *IS* Stacy Keibler?
They showed D-X towards the end when the song went into heavy mode and showed the attitude years. It was just a split second shot of them all doing the crotch chop.
Am I the only one who who just thinks this whole tihing is surreal? I have loved wrestling now for almost 20 years and I used to dream of this stuff and now it happening. As much as I hate Hogan the backstage politician its time to bury the smart in me and enjoy this ride.
At first I thought, if I were Superman, a perfect secret identity would be "Clark Kent, Dentist," because you could save money on tooth X-rays. But then I thought, if a patient said, "How's my back tooth?" and you just looked at it with your X-ray vision and said, "Oh it's okay," then the patient would probably say, "Aren't you going to take an X-ray, stupid?" and you'd say, "Aw f*** you, get outta here," and then he probably wouldn't even pay his bill.
Of all the Steamboat footage available, did they have to use footage from the "rubber suit/flamethrower" era? ________________________________________________________
Agreed. Steamboat is the all time best and that gimmick was downright blasphemy as far as I am concerned.
At first I thought, if I were Superman, a perfect secret identity would be "Clark Kent, Dentist," because you could save money on tooth X-rays. But then I thought, if a patient said, "How's my back tooth?" and you just looked at it with your X-ray vision and said, "Oh it's okay," then the patient would probably say, "Aren't you going to take an X-ray, stupid?" and you'd say, "Aw f*** you, get outta here," and then he probably wouldn't even pay his bill.
Actually, I would argue that the upcoming influx of the NWO Three is catering EXACTLY AND ONLY TO the internet ... Instead of having them show up as the cool heels who want to "take over" (like the marks were going crazy for back in WCW), the WWF writers are portraying them in exactly the same way that all the self-proclaimed experts have been - as self serving egomaniacs who will be backstage poison!
I mean, Vince even flat-out spelled it out during that promo with Flair :
"The NWO will squash fan interest, they will squash fan interest around the world until the WWF is driven out of business!" (I'm paraphrasing here)
It's unbelievable; Vince is actually ADMITTING that re-hiring three guys will make fans no longer care about the WWF product and will thus cause them to stop watching WWF programming to a point where the entire company will lose money and be driven out of business ... Exactly what the internet doom-and-gloomers were predicting once the rumors of an NWO revival were started.
It's such a surreal way to introduce these guys, but I'm actually digging it ... It'll be interesting to see how everything plays out once these guys apppear on-camera.
Thread ahead: What ever happened to... Next thread: No Way Out logo...what do you think? Previous thread: Stand back... There's a T-Shirt commin' through!!!
Wow the 2 replys above me is my thoughts exactly. I think Raw is doing the most they can with the little they have while Smackdown seems to be doing really good in main event talent (jericho/H.. Angle/Edge) they hit all the time well.