1999 was probably the worst year of the Attitude era. Russo went overboard with the swerves and short matches before he left. It's noticeable that once he left things improved. You got the first TLC match, Jericho moving up the card and Kurt Angle's debut all towards the end of 1999 leading into the great year 2000.
@andu1854 Yeah, they just snuck that in at the very end of 99 and it really blew up the next year. Their match at Royal Rumble 2000 was one of my favourites.
Agree with this. Having just watched the majority of 1999 for the first time since I was a little kid, in-ring was mostly terrible and had me begging for some actual good matches. The storylines became eye-rollingly bad. I'm looking forward to 2000...
It’s been said before, Big Boss Man had a weird year in 1999. The cell match at Wrestlemania and the feuds with Al Snow and Big Show. On a positive, he is one of the great big men in wrestling. RIP
Honestly he might’ve had the most batshit crazy year in pro wrestling history. Definitely the craziest for a relatively high profile performer from a major promotion.
You all look at stuff with weird tinted "now we know better" eyes. Wrestling will never be as hot as it once was because it doesn't have that creativity anymore. After the fake out Boss Man face turn they decided to reinvigorate him as a super heel, and he was, people absolutely hated him. The feud with Snow was entertaining tv, and the whole "he fed him his dog" stuff is poorly recontextualised in the modern day, attitude era never hid their South Park respect, multiple times you'd see the talent (mostly new Age outlaws) wearing South Park shirts. It was an amazingly competitive roster filled with South Park similarities, South Park ripped open culture back then and wwe were wise to associate themselves with it. Feeding somebody their dog is pretty close to feeding somebody their own parents, which South Park did. It wouldn't have worked either if they didn't have such a great roster. Them jumping on South Park fever was inspired and their most lucrative era coincided with the rise of that show. So, y'know, BossMan feeding Al Snow his dog was like Carman feeding Scott Tenorman his parents. It wasn't the main thing that was happening anyway, it was written like a tv show based around all the important stuff The reason the attitude era worked is because the story was Austin ripped a hole in the sky and Vince tried to close it but he got tired of trying to close it so he opened it up even wider and encouraged his roster many of whom started following Austin's example anyway to go wild as f*ck if they wanted to, resulting in many crazy things happening including Boss Man feeding Al Snow his chihuahua. It all flew in the context, saying "that was wrong" would be like saying Terminator was wrong because the action had no respect for property damage throughout. It's all a part of a bigger story they were telling. The only reason "things wouldn't fly today" is because nobodies doing anything that crude in entertainment these days. This is the safe generation, and they have an excuse to not try anything that might open them to scrutiny. People are so afraid to joke about things today they act like they are evolved and maybe they are, but they've left comedy and many other things behind. Tangent over, but everything I said is valid. Criticising attitude era things for happening in the attitude era is like criticising Terminator things for happening in Terminator movies. You might think that's high and mighty not looking at things like that, but you are miles away from having any storyline ideas, which is ironic considering that's one of the most criticised things about wwe in particular but it's the same with lots of things too.
@@TheRealAhoyThe “fed him his own dog” angle was taken from an infamous true story where Mr. Fuji apparently did that to his tag team partner Toru Tanaka and Tanaka’s family. Tanaka wanted to break up their team and when Fuji found out he invited him to dinner and fed them their own dog as a threat.
Poor Ivory. One of the best women wrestlers of her era, and a pretty decent promo as well. Yet they always had her drop the Women’s Title in embarrassing situations. She deserved better. Big Bossman go stuck with a lot of RUBBISH booking in 1999, jeez. WWE being petty when someone dares to get over on their own, what else is new. 🤦♂️
The Boss Man/Big Show feud was CLASSIC!! Show surfing on that coffin and Boss Man yelling "you hear that big show? You're a nasty bastard and your momma said so!" are STILL 2 of the funniest things I've ever seen on any TV show.
I haven't seen a lot of live wrestling but I was there for The Kennel From Hell match. Of course, there wasn't much wrestling going on during that trainwreck.
I had never seen a crowd so silent and disinterested in a match before until I saw that match. I could tell the crowd was begging for the match to end after the first 10 minutes
He did say that, if Bart shot in for a takedown Butterbean wouldn’t have been able to defend it. The rules were stupid tho, it’s one of the worst ideas in pro wrestling history
@@BombaLuLu84 That's right, well remembered! Yeah, no doubt it was absolutely stupid. Punishing a guy for winning something your company put up only compounds the stupidity as well.
@@RobCrowley85 Especially when said company decided to try and use this shoot fight unscripted tourney event to try and push one of the entrants only for THAT same entrant ends up knocked out by the actual winner.
1999 WWF was Vince Russo's style of confusing, at times unwatchable and swerve filled Car Crash TV the product literally improved after he left. But man Kennel from Hell was hilariously terrible and man did WWE screw over Bart Gunn
The kennel from hell match is right up there with the doomsday cage match as some of the most wonderfully and insanely “so bad it’s good” things ever to come out of the industry.
Even worst when you find out Bart offered to job to Steve Williams and they said no (also thinking they were getting late 80’s Williams and instead they had the broken down Williams who looked old, didn’t help)
@@BombaLuLu84oh, duh, completely missed that. Yeah, they absolutely screwed over Bart Gunn and it’s still ridiculous to this day. Imagine if someone was signed to a record label and in turn for the artist going platinum with no promotion the label dropped them? He got fired for doing the job he was assigned. Not just that but he got knocked out and got embarrassed in front of the world before getting fired. Then they turn around and try pushing his former tag team partner like he’s the second coming of Shawn Michaels.
To make matters worse (although dropping it to a woman double her age comes close) moolah was never a good wrestler due to the era she was from where all she did was snapmares and hairpulls ivory was ahead of her time and could've had great matches today
1999 was not a good year for wrestling, I think my favorite match was the Hardy’s vs E&C ladder match, which is when Vince left and the product started to improve storyline wise
I’m re watching slot of wwe 2001 and 2000 and I feel like wcw had two solid years of good wrestling from 98 to 2000 then wwe would get interesting from 2000 to 2002. I feel like wcw like changed wrestling within two years has the stories starting getting realistic and wwe started getting edgy with “hardcore” style matches which made the product reach its peak of the time. Austin would have a solid run as the anti hero but I believe the difference was wwe would start building their main event guys to be the faces of the company at its peak in 2000 and 2001. While wcw would lose its viewership from having to many Nwo members and just always making hogan the main focus of its company when wcw like wwe should have used the Nwo faction to build wrestlers by having them in the group and take hogan out of the main event. I feel like the Nwo faction should always been 4 or 5 guys while dx could have been the same but dx should have been the group that would come back and forth as the stable that always rebel against authority
The way the WWE treated Ivory in 1999 was ridiculous. The division was atrocious and the fact that they didn't make her have a dominant reign for months on end by defeating everyone on the roster within 5 minutes I think killed her longterm credibility. Over the years fans kind of just gave her the meh treatment whenever she did a match aside from the ROTC era because of how bad this year was for her. I don't think people remember how bad that women's division was but Jackie and Ivory were victims of sex appeal being favored over in ring ability unfortunately.
Ivory was ahead of her time she could've had great matches today and I agree her loses against the untrained women and a 76 year women did hurt her credibility Ivory was hot but was also solid in the ring but sadly it was all about the sex appeal in that era
Boss Man was in the last match of 2 Saturday Night Events one which was pivotal to the Mega Powers Explode main event of WrestleMania 5 and one where was in a steel cage match for the WWE title held by Hulk Hogan . So your statement of Boss Man as a career mid carder was slightly economical with the truth .
It’s really ironic that 1999 was one of the hottest years in WWE history and yet there were hardly any great matches that came out during that time. Besides the tag team ladder match at No Mercy, there were really no 4 star matches in 1999.
Yeah it's strange, 1998 had quite a few great matches despite Russo's best efforts and then 2000 did as well. I think they got lazy because they had done so well in 98. WCW sucking more and more probably made things look great by comparison.
Definitely. The Attitude Era was so entertaining, so iconic and gave us so many legends. Yet it was arguably the worst era for work rate. Even the golden era and the new era had quite a few people who were truly great in ring performers. The Ruthless Aggression era and the current era has had some of the greatest in ring performers in pro wrestling history. The Attitude era was possibly the company’s worst period for ring work and definitely is its most entertaining, at least for a few generations of fans. I always wished that we could have had Paul Heyman booking and writing, him and JR as head of talent then just let Vince run the actual business side of things. Give them all a good writing team with creative people, let the wrestlers have more space to fill out their characters or gimmicks and let things go from there. It could’ve combined the best elements of that era and then brought it into modern times.
@user-kq7rf6uq4m I wouldn't say the golden era was better in ring. NWA was better in ring in the 80s. For every Ricky Steamboat you had an Ultimate Warrior getting pushed way harder. Attitude had Hardyz, Edge and Christian, Eddie, Benoit, Jericho, X Pac , DLo, Owen, Blackman, Shamrock, RVD (hey I count the invasion as Attitude 😛). If you're into Kenny Omega flipping around the place, they may not seem like full-on work rate guys, but they were a lot more than 80s WWF, in my opinion.
@@LongLiveRockAnRollthe golden era had Randy Savage, Bob Orton, Mr. Perfect, Rick Rude, Snuka (vomit), Jake Roberts, Steamboat (for a time), Paul Orndorff, Roddy Piper, The Rockers, The British Bulldogs, The Steiner Brothers, The Hart Foundation and the Headshrinkers. They also had people like Bam Bam Bigelow, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Teddy Funk, The Texas Tornado, The Legion of Doom and The Brainbusters at one point or another. Many wrestlers needed to be good ring workers simply because kayfabe still existed and you needed to be believable. Obviously people like Ultimate Warrior and Hogan being exceptions, but that’s what got them over. That’s in addition to all of the crazy characters and even crazier promos that they had. The New Generation Era had HBK, Bret Hart in his prime, Bam Bam Bigelow, Brian Pillman (for too short of a time) Davey Boy Smith, Hakushi, Jeff Jarrett (not my cup of tea) Marc Mero, Owen Hart, Razor Ramon, Taka Michinoku, The Kid and Vader. It also had a rotating roster of incredible tag teams that would come and go. The New Generation Era also brought us a large amount of the people who’d bring the Attitude Era into existence and take it to its prime. To be clear, I fell in love with wrestling during the golden era, witnessed the new generation era, grew up watching the entire attitude era and stopped watching it about halfway through the ruthless aggression era. So I haven’t really watched in the past decade and a half. I don’t watch it now although I do watch some content about it. Mostly I just watch stuff like this about the previous eras. There’s plenty of incredible mic workers now but WWE dictates every single word they say while giving them about the worst ever material to work with. Without even including all of the high flying stuff or the convoluted moves that there is within some modern wrestling the majority of the more successful and respected performers could wrestle rings around the attitude era roster. TLDR: The Attitude Era was the peak of my fandom but I think only the most dedicated Attitude Era fans try arguing it was tops for actual wrestling. In ring skills simply weren’t a priority.
@@LongLiveRockAnRollthat's true but think how many minutes were those stars even given fr. Like I'm remembering matches and stuff and the one thing I hated when I watched it for the first time (I was born too late like 96 and mostly have memories of the ruthless aggression era) was the short length and how they'd usually go to DQ or countout falls. The story was OBVIOUSLY more important.
Honorable mention to the Fatal 4-Way Evening Gown Pool Match at Armageddon '99 where Ivory defended the Women's Title against Jacqueline, Miss Kitty and B.B. In the end, it is mostly remembered for the moment after where Miss Kitty momentarily flashed her breasts to the crowd after winning the title as Sgt. Slaughter missed his cue and covered her up far too late.
Slaughter didn't miss his cue, it was the cameras who were late. Kat said in an interview that she was suppose to take the bra off however the cameras were suppose to face towards her back. They messed up and the rest is history
It's crazy looking back at how many bumps Mae Young took for someone of her age. She would later take a powerbomb off the turnbuckle through a table off Bubba Ray Dudley.
Definitely, he challenged, was number one contender and was regularly in number one contender matches. He was pretty much Vince’s main muscle and the wrestler closest to him for a good period of time. Wasn’t this feud with The Big Show over the title or number one contender spot? He’s had plenty of high profile feuds and isn’t remembered as such an iconic big man for no reason.
Can we talk about the fact that moolah won a title at the age of 76 😮😮 I'm pretty sure she's the oldest champion we'll ever have in the wwe just think about it, unless the 24/7 title has a older winner but eh
Pat Patterson was 78 when he won the 24/7 title. I know that the 24/7 title is kinda irrelevant but I say we go with that just to give Moolah even less attention.
@@monarchedcouldn’t agree more. It could’ve been really fun with the massive and massively diverse roster they have. With all of the different sizes, physical capabilities, skills and styles they could’ve it a blast to watch. Instead they turned it into the 24/7 rule hardcore title with none of the originality, violence, energy or overall entertainment value.
Pretty much every match with the 6 pack challenge at Unforgiven being an exception. Jeff Jarret vs Chyna No Mercy was decent And there was a match with D Lo Brown on Raw that was kinda fire but I forgot which match. Other than that 1999 (including WCW) was a rubbish year
He got punished for beating Steve Williams (who was meant to win the tournament and get a push where he would be put in a program with Steve austin) they even told Gunn to lay down for Williams but Gunn had bar brawl experience and suffered harassment telling him he wasn't going to win to which Gunn didn't took to kindly and went out there to prove them wrong
It still doesn’t take away of how awfully the match was booked. Endless mid-carders, empty rings, just an overall boring rumble and a bad show. Only thing good about it is the Rock/Mankind match.
It's a wrong that I feel bad for Bigg Boss bad even though hes dead now And in the hall of fame, I can't help but feel sorry for the guy with some of these matches.
I mean, the Finn Balor vs Edge Hell In A Cell match wasn't exactly a gruelling fight to the death, but would you really consider it worse than Colonel McSweaty Bollocks's showing?
Also, Butterbean himself has said that Bart Gunn was done dirty by being forced to train in boxing and don gloves for their bout. If Bart had been allowed to fight how he had in Brawl For All, they might have had an interesting power versus quickness battle.
This kinda stuff is why I always laugh at these legends when they mock AEW as if EVERYTHING they did in the attitude era was always epic all the damn time. They'll legit sit there and mock one botch throughout the whole show when footage of them doing this kinda stuff exists
1999 wasn't the final year of the millennium. 2000 was the last year as was the 20th century. 2001 was the first year of the new millennium and the 21st century.
Wasnt The Rock vs Billy Gunn - Kiss My Ass match in 1999? That match was bad. And The Rock vs The British Bulldog where The Rock Rock Bottomed Bulldog in dog poop, that was a bad match to.
