I remember attending a WWA event in Glasgow which Buff was wrestling at. Our group wouldn’t stop chanting “We Want Judy” until he eventually turned round and told us to f*ck off. Good times
To answer your question about Muta, he was there for the same reason a lot of Japanese stars came to the states, to nurse an injury. Everyone knows that the work rate here in the states is A LOT lighter than in Japan. Also, just so you know, it was Johnny Ace that brought Muta in, not Russo.
I was part of that "event", if you saw the police escort of the Limo arrival of the Canadian champ, I was playing a cop in the front police car. Had a blast back stage watching the wrestlers just hanging out being themselves.
Brian, being a longtime newLEGACYinc fan, I have to correct you on the 3 Count lyrics. It’s “We LIKE The Backstreet Boys, *n-sync too, Britney Spears is kinda cute!” That song is legendary for any nL fan
Everytime i get a wrestling game, I want to make a Kanyon CAW, but I also don't want to keep editing the moveset to match his differing offense from match to match lol
@@Ariurotl Bagwell was one of those natural heels that they kept using for dumb plotlines. Not their whipping boy perse, but definitely their "He'll do what we ask" guy. If he had a better attitude in his early years, I think he could have gotten into serious upper midcard status at the very least. Fantastic mic work and charisma, and he always looked like he was getting into what was going on, even if it was objectively stupid and bad.
It's sad when you realize how many wrestlers from this show are dead now: Kanyon, Brian Adams, Sean O'Haire, Mike Awesome... three of them from suicides.
@Gene Bone Mike Awesome, Sean O' Haire and Kanyon killed themselves far past their wrestling careers ending and all three were related to depression not drugs.
I cheered audibly when he said minus 2. I didn't see that coming. Maybe Brian went into business for himself!?! Wait a minute! I guess he already was in business for himself, bro! Cheers from Canada
I put on the show really quick just to see Bret Hart's moment and holy hell. I remember not liking Madden, but it was insufferable listening to the 2-3 minutes that I watched here. He's beyond bad.
@@richardtheconquerer He's also an annoying loudmouth radio broadcaster in Pittsburgh. All he ever goes on about is how no football team could ever hold the jocks of the '75 Steelers, and how the Penguins are this and that, I don't know how any sane person in Western Pennsylvania could willingly tune into him. He's someone who thinks he's always the smartest guy in the room, he's repulsive.
@@richardtheconquerer People always talk about how much WWE's commentary sucks nowadays and how it used to be better before Vince started shouting in everyone's ears. But in all my years of watching pro wrestling on TV, I will take Michael Cole at his most over produced any day over Mark Madden, because Cole doesn't make me feel greasy and uncomfortable whenever he opens his mouth.
As bad as the announcing was Madden did have an all time great line. Schiavone: "What a relief for Buff, What a relief for Judy, what a relief for the whole Bagwell family" Madden: *as Judy's fat ass is getting lowered* "What a relief for the forklift" About spit my drink out when he said that.
Also, can we all appreciate Arn Anderson's reactions during the Flair-Keibler wedding (even if it wasn't on this show)? I swear it's the best acting he's ever done.
He couldn't talk. Jim Cornette explained the Devil's Advocate promos had to be rehearsed with multiple takes because he couldn't ad-lib. He's one of the guys that was hurt the most by the extinction of managers. A Bobby Heenan, Paul Heyman or Paul Bearer type of mouthpiece could have done him wonders. The drugs eventually caught up with him but as for why he wasn't pushed, that's why.
I always liked him. He wasn't that great in the ring but he was funny as fuck. I even liked him as a WWE commentator and I wish he had a longer run in the WWE than he did.
28:20 Thanks Brian, for being a good sport and seeing the match for what it was. Good for WCW as well. If we flip the coin. In 97. The WWF held half a dozen PPV's and Raws in Canada. Yes the Brett storyline had a lot to do with it but even Ottawa got 'Breakdown, in your House 98'. As far as PPV'S, in Canada. After September 98, the Next One, in the entire country, was Wrestlemania Toronto, with Hogan Vs. The Rock. I drove 5 hours to be there. As far as the high volume of shows in Canada, while WCW ruled. I've read, in more than one book, that the reason for so many Canadian shows, was because the Canadian revenue numbers, stayed much higher in Canada, as opposed to the U.S. during the lean years for WWF. In other words, we did watch WCW but Vince used to run 1 or 2 shows a month, in Montreal and Toronto during the later 80's and 90's. The funny thing is. After the Montreal Screw Job, Vince did not book a televised event in Montreal, for 5 years!!! I don't know if it was the crowd, the new arena owners or the bad memories of being Punched out by Brett? All we can do is speculate but Toronto, Ottawa Vancouver. Essentially all the big markets got a Raw, Smackdown or PPV. Montreal still got house shows and we had fun chanting and screamed and we yelled, 'You Screwed Brett' at Earl Hebner and HHH. The only one who never showed up, while I was there, (7 times in 5 years) was Vinnie Mac himself!! Maybe he had prior arrangements. I don't know but they missed a lot of chances, for crazy shows and the company we has stood behind, for decades...dropped us like a bad habit, as soon as the U.S. numbers were back up. In Montreal, we had no televised shows from November of 97 until the night after Wrestlemania in Toronto. That was the only time the two cities 'worked together' and it was to help resurect HULKAMANIA Okay, maybe not the only time But definately the most important time.
he probably is. michael cole from 2008-present is up there as well as corey graves, david otunga, and josh matthews. they're atrocious. what mark madden is to wcw, corey graves is to wwe.
@@tonyjackson4078 Idunno, it sounds like every other theme they used for anyone Japanese. Bull Nakano had this, Yuji Nagata had this at some point. It's just generic racist's understanding of oriental music.
Cornette is awesome he’s a nice guy too. I met him in a bar in Georgia we talked about wrestling then he took me in the bathroom and face fucked me like a wild animal. Huge pecker too but overall nice guy
he is right. No japanese wrestler will ever get over in the US. I know smarks want to bring up nakamura but he literally did nothing on the main roster and most people forget he is there. Russo was right
The one pro to the cluster F that was the tag title match: it proved that the tag team division had depth. Kronic, MIA, Dark Carnival, Perfect Event, O'Haire/Jindrak, Filthy Animals. That's a good division when all are not literally used at once
0:50 - one incredibly minor nitpick: that arena, near as I can tell at least, has _always_ been named the Pacific Coliseum, it's just located on the Pacific National Exhibition fairgrounds in Vancouver, as well as owned by a non-profit of the same name. Not a big deal, I just thought I'd mention it -because I'm a huge arena nerd-
I'm glad that this review finally resurfaced some time ago, even if cuts were necessary to get it unblocked. Personally, I miss the 'She's turning heel!' reaction from Mark Madden, but you gotta do what you gotta do to keep the good content on here, unfortunately.
I was a little surprised at some of the artifacts of this show: David Arquette was still with the company? Sting still came down from the rafters? After the infamous Owen Hart incident?
About Sting coming out of the rafters, Sting asked Bret for his blessing after Owen's fall in order to do so. It's not a one-off claim, either, I've heard at least three different people from this time claim that Sting was given Bret's blessing before coming down from the rafters again.
Russo did had grief with Owen’s death, he regrets the stunt but I don’t believe Russo didn’t care about Owen, he loved Owen. Russo is many things but he would never kill someone on purpose, what happened to Owen was an accident and Russo is not at fault. Also, he would have took the stunt out is Owen didn’t want to do it.
This was David Arquette's final appearance with WCW. Before this, his last appearance with the company was on the May 8, 2000 edition of Nitro. New Blood Rising was in Vancouver, and Arquette may have been in town to shoot a movie around this time.
I'm hoping WCW at least took better safety precautions than WWF did. Because fun fact: the harness that Owen used for his fatal stunt wasn't even made for humans. It was a shitty make-shift harness with a nautical clip made expressly for the quick release of a sailboat mast.
If you listen really carefully when madden screams "she's turning heel" , you can actually hear Russo backstage achieving orgasm at the level of cringeworthy forth wall breaking achieving
Eric Bischoff Was Going To Push Him After He Buy WCW During Or After The Magnificent Seven Storyline Which All The Top Babyfaces Scott Steiner Hurt Returning-Sting, DDP, Kevin Nash & Goldberg And Hulk Hogan Who Vince Russo Fired To Feud With The Magnificent Seven And At Fall Brawl War Games 2001 It Was Going To Be Kevin Nash, Sting, Goldberg, DDP, Booker T & Kronk. . And The WWE Don't Pysh Another Company's Wrestlers To The Top Unless It Will Kill Them If They Don't(Sid Vicious In 1996 And Goldberg In 2003), If Their In-Ring Work Wasn't The Best(Steve Austin & Triple H) And If They Are Vanilla Midgets And Small Fat/Nonbuilt-Nonmuscular Heavyweights In Cruiserweights Bodies). They Probably Should've Pushed Sean O'Haire & Batista At The Same Time Instead Of Pushing Randy Orton And John Cena.
After that gaffe about Lance winning the TV, Now I really wish that they still kept The TV title active so Lance can win it and rename it the CBC title.
@@ShinRyojin I still have no idea why WCW deactivated the TV Title after Russo and Bischoff stripped all the belts. After Duggan was stripped of the belt, it just went away. It was always a good lower mid card belt that gave people who weren't doing much something to fight for, similar to the European title in the Federation at the same time. Slightly unrelated, but I loved the final design of the TV Title belt, it was like a mini version of the big gold belt. I know there were several hundred other problems with WCW in 2000 that were bigger than the TV Title disappearing, but it always annoyed me. It just went away with no explanation.
@@TheTrainFan9 Because, as usual, Russo had no idea how to book wrestling. The TV title was basically the workhorse wrestling title from the 80's to the late 90's and since Russo has no idea how to book wrestling, he had no use for it. I agree with the OP that Storm should have won it and renamed the CBC title to go along with the others if they had no plans for the belt. The TV title should have been feuded over by guys like Palumbo, O'Haire, Jindrak, etc to get them some exposure and promoted as new stars.
My favorite part of this PPV is Lance Storm telling the story of that match. How he felt the only reason Bret came down to give him support was because the concept of the match was fucking bizarre and that with Bret's endorsement, no one would boo him. "I think that's why you're here Bret". That and after the match Lance was the one who had to get them to pose for the hard cam. "I shouldn't be the one in here that knows this!" Lmao, I love that story.
I just want to say as someone who drove a Forklift (before this pandemic happened), what they did with Judy was insanely unsafe. I know WCW isn't the only one to use one, Big Show used the forks of one to pin in Boss Man & Bull Buchanan in a car as well as Broke using one to win his stretcher match with Big Show. But trust me, those things are multi-ton crusher's & impalers if someone makes a mistake, someone could easily die or suffer a truly terrible injury. So to see them so casually use one as a prop just kind of makes me nervous to watch.
Yes, I learned that from the short movie "Forklift Driver Klaus" that you always need some kind of lifting platform for forklifts with a guardrail on it if you wanna lift a person with it.
For clarification, the PNE is the name of the grounds that Pacific Coliseum is located at. PNE stands for Pacific National Exhibition, which is a historic amusement and fair grounds just east of downtown Vancouver. The arena has always been known as Pacific Coliseum since first opening back in the 60s.
I think the only person who suffered more than Bryan during this PPV was Tony Schiavone. You can see his soul leaving his body with every "comment" from Mark Marsden.
26:45 I do still have my copy of the Canadian Wrestling Rulebook and it does explain the slippery ropes. Rule 24ch says: All ropes are to be coated in Authentic Maple Syrup. You're Welcome, for my expertise ;)
I think it might have been in reference to Mike Awesome's "Fat Chick Thriller"/chubby chaser gimmick which may or may not have run its putrid course at this point.
1. To quote Doctor Doom from the 2005 Fantastic Four movie: *This is gonna be fun.* 2. (3:15-3:36; 21:32-21:43; 22:53-22:54; 27:59-28:03; 30:35-30:40) *LOL* 3. (8:00-8:02; 11:38-11:40; 12:09-12:12; 16:34-16:37; 31:34-31:36; 36:21-36:23; 38:03-38:06; 38:15-38:18) *Another rare f bomb by Brian Zane*
Surprisingly it's a Conan O'Brien joke he had been doing for a few years up to that point. I remember once he sent out the guy wearing the "Pubes" t-shirt. He was hiding in the bushes as the San Antonio Spurs passed by he kept yelling "Pubes", to psych them out (supposedly).
@@Sweat404 Actually nah. I wanna say probably Liger or Ultimo Dragon had it. Maybe Kurasawa or Yuji Nagata, but certainly not EVERY Japanese wrestler in WCW.... then again. This is WCW. A company that Sonny Onoo filed a racism lawsuit against, so.....
So in this event We got the proto 3mb The Kiss demon in a "main Event" but its not near the main event Ernest Miller defeating the Great Muta Judy Bagwell in a "pole Match" What a great Pay Per View
also Vampiro and Muta winning the tag team titles for one day (Vampiro's ONLY gold in WCW despite his occasional bouts with main event players like Sting and Luger)
Right after the review I youtubed the Lance Storm match.... I had to check it out. Oh wow was Storm over. I'm surprised there were not "If I could be serious... Storm for PM" signs!
@@zacharyrodriguez4348 Madden tried to be Bobby Heenan but failed miserably. Guys like Jerry Lawler, Bobby Heenan and Jesse Ventura made great heel commentators because of their ring days but Madden was basically acting like a dick for no reason. Imagine if Rob Bartlett was heel in 93, that was Mark Madden in 2000.
Fun fact. Caught the insider references early in the show watching it months ago and turned it into a drinking game. By the main event I saw 3 booker T's throwing axe kicks
True but I agree what Meltzer and Joey Styles:" I applaud WCW for trying to built new guys up but you can't just all of sudden after months or years of bad booking be like these guys are main eventers now without any build up whatsoever"
The thing about Vince Russo is that he's good as a starting-point advisor, where he can suggest a few things to be done, but you keep him as far away from creative as possible. I liked him trying to showcase more of the midcard talent, I liked the idea of using more tournaments in wrestling, but the execution was absolutely horrid!!
Just a correction on the venue, Brian. It was always known as the Pacific Coliseum but it's also known as "The Pacific Coliseum at the PNE" or colloquially as "PNE Coliseum" when it became associated with the Pacific National Exhibition which is the fair that runs in Vancouver in August and September.
37:00 I like this philosophy Comedy, more specifically meta comedy is for the undercard You can have a comedy wrestler come up to higher levels, but they need to treat it more seriously Like Colt Cabana when he won the NWA title You can do some comedy, but the other main eventers shouldn’t play along. I think of it this way Wrestling came from the carnival At the carnival There are clowns If the clown was told to fight the strong man, what would happen?
I was a giant WCW fan until about this time period, when I kinda faded from watching wrestling at all. I think it might be accurate to say that this era of booking is what made me lose interest in the entire scene. I hadn't realized it until you talked about it today, though. Thanks for putting words to it.
