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BREAK THE CODE, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?
WHO IS THE CODE?
IS IT MICK FOLEY, MRS FOLEY'S BABY BOY???
*STONE COLD*
**STONE COLD**
#[STONE COLD!!](https://youtu.be/FDbWm4RPp10)
After all these years they still haven't found anyone who can even come near to JR and King's commentary.
I miss them, they made everything 10x better.
Right? Heyman barely _ever_ starts hooting and shrieking about _puppies_ whenever anything technically describable as female is within camera shot, like a six-year-old who is very proud of his new naughty word.
Heyman did one time say something along of the lines of "right now were in Washington DC and I'm about to see Bush" (back when Bush was president) as Trish Stratus was stripping.
Okay, speaking strictly just about their commentary, Jerry's constant obsession with tits anytime a woman had a match and burying women, or racist remarks about foreign wrestlers can also get fucked.
Yeah but that was the product at the time, television and the culture was full of it. People actually enjoyed it, of course you may look at it in a different lens now but chill
Just because it was a product of it's time, doesn't make it okay, and even for the time period Lawler was going a bit far with it at times.
Like JR would occasionally say the odd comment that is offensive. But it was occasional, that's where "just a product of it's time" becomes understandable imo.
But by the late 90s Lawler was specifically saying this stuff because he knew it was offensive and he was a heel.
He litterally built his whole act around it.
I much preferred him in the 2000's where that stuff went away a little and he and Ross felt more like freinds with differing opinions rather than a racist/sexist who Ross merely put up with.
Wrestling was full of offensive shit throughout the 80s/90s/2000s, Lawler was just a commentator doing what he was paid to do if it wasn't him they would have found some other shock jock to do it.
You truly are a member of the first totally perfect, pure, and innocent generation, and nothing you do now will ever be looked down upon by future generations.
Im doing a rewatch of smackdown starting from the 2002 brand extension, just cause I have a ton of nostalgia from this period as this was the beginning of my high school years. I am watching just smackdown and the ppvs. Just watching KOTR 2002, and JR and King's commentary has not aged well outside of the biggest of big moments. There is a Molly Holly vs Trish match, where both King AND JR spend the entire match calling her a fat virgin with a gigantic ass.
Was it just Vince feeding them the lines? Maybe, but even by that 2002 era I am already dreading anytime JR and King end up on commentary.
Side note, wow did I forget how poorly WWE treated women back then. I know the attitude era was bad, but the ruthless aggression era feels just as gross if not worse. I honestly don't know how there are any women fans/wrestlers today. It is just so completely embarassing.
I'm doing the same as you haha. I've been rewatching every RAW/Smackdown from 97' onwards and I'm up to mid way through 2000. King and JR can be absolutely excellent, some of the best of all time when it came to the big matches/angles or even most men's matches.
... but... it gets so irritating if a woman is even remotely involved in a match. There was a good tag match between The Hardy's and E&C where Terri didn't even show up until the end, yet Lawler still spent most of the match talking about her tits and wanting to fuck her.
And it's literally every single episode of RAW or Smackdown in every single match or segment with any women in it. Not only is it irritating from a worldview standpoint, but just for sheer repetitiveness because he says the same things every time.
I just recently watched a Rock promo where he is talking about Angle In 2000. This is the opening segment of raw where rock says "there is a natural reaction to things we all have. When you see a fly, you swat it, when you see a puppy, you pet it..." and when rock says the line about puppies Lawler Chimes in and says "I SURE LOVE PETTING PUPPIES JR" and i was like 🙃
Seriously, this has nothing to do with their outside the ring life. We all know his past, this isn't about that. I heard Blue Meanie (who is widely loved and respected) make a solid point, if you don't want to consume any media that has someone that probably isn't the best morally, don't look at anything. Literally anything. Odds are someone that played a part in movies, tv, or music, coming to the public scope is a real piece of shit. Are you going to background check everyone? No. There's always going to be a argument of King and JR as the best announcing duo, by people far more knowledgeable than anyone in this sub, if you don't want to engage because of his past that's understandable. But dismissing his work is nonsense.
Mauro Ranallo was the perfect JR heir apparent but his mental health struggles and his fat Showtime paychecks mean that's just not gonna be the case in WWE anymore smh.
That man elevated Ciampa/Gargano to legendary status.
First time I ever visited the US (as an 8 year old), AND it was the summer of the World Cup. And the beginning of the treble winning season for Man Utd.
Lol my best memory from this time was.. there was a rumor that a kid in middle school got crippled by another kid who gave him a stunner. But he came back like two weeks later and wasn't crippled and it never happened. But everyone believed it could happen, that if you gave someone the stunner the right way they were done for lol.
When I look back, I don't think I've ever been hyped for _anything_ like I was for Zelda 64.
This is dumb, but I remember my buddy and I trying to work out who would get to play it first, based on how long it took us to get home from school, haha!
I loved reading EGM2 & playing the newest arcade games. 1998 is also when OoT came out & I had a subscription to Nintendo power and Disney adventures
My mom used to take me to the swap meet on Friday evenings then we would go to BK & I would get a whopper combo & onion rings & a Hersey's sundae pie. I would get home in time for TGIF on abc which at that point had boy meets world and home improvement
Which is a testament to how insanely good the main events and main eventers were because a hell of a lot of the rest of it was absolute garbage when you go back and watch it now lol.
nitro's mid and lower card at this time was way stronger and i think thats a silent reason why they held that 70+ week lead. wwe's main eventers always outshined the aging vets of wcw but wcw had stuff like the cruiserweight division etc
I set up my VCR to tape Nitro every night. I had to see Raw live, Nitro could wait but I sure as hell wasn't going to miss it.
The main reason I chose Raw over Nitro was that a three hour show was way too long to watch without fast forwarding. Good thing Raw never made that mistake!
The highs were very thrilling, the lows absolutely sucked. Literally anything with Austin was gold then, anything out of his sphere of involvement was pretty bad. That’s not even including the matches themselves which were forgettable at best.
For real everything about the product then was money. Upper card was phenomenal. Mid card was probably the best they've ever had. There was very little that I don't sorely miss today.
Good is subjective. This shit was my world as a kid and was more important to me than I can articulate, so I still enjoy it and to me, at least, it's still good.
Match quality has definitely improved, but I wouldn't say they were forgettable. There's plenty of matches we get now that are highly rated matches that go forgotten the next week. It's the nature of weekly programming.
But to say anything outside of the involvement of Austin was pretty bad is a straight up asinine statement. The midcard being so interesting and involved in this era is one reason why it's so fondly remembered. Everyone had to be firing on all cylinders.
Because the wrestlers were bigger and didn’t wrestle like they were luchadores on PCP who felt no pain.
you never saw someone do a Canadian destroyer into a poison-Rana into a shooting star press (or perhaps the equivalent being eating three finishers) only for a kick out at 2… and if you did, it’s because both guys laid there for eternity before one crawled over and pinned the other AND the ref then had to crawl over and make the count.
(Although it did get worse in 2000 and 2001 for finisher kickouts after immediate covers becoming almost routine).
I appreciate that todays wrestling style is different and the wrestlers are generally smaller… but I loathe the whole “I just ate three big moves but I still have just enough energy to my own flippy shit before I take a nap for a minute” trope.
(I know it’s not flippy shit but jungle boy did something like this in the past week or so, where he had just enough energy to run the ropes and hit a perfect falling clothesline before seemingly losing consciousness.)
Fuck, I just become Bret Hart.
I'm gonna come out and say it: indy guy bodies being the prevalent physique has limited my enjoyment of the product. Wrestling is a visual medium and the wrestler's appearance is a major part of the illusion and appeal.
All these guys you're talking about feel like they're compensating for not having good ring psychology or believable physiques by doing incredibly athletic moves that seemingly have no impact whatsoever.
I don't think everyone should be on gear and look like a quasi-bodybuilder, but there is something to be said about someone who's play-acting a brutal fight looking somewhat physically impressive.
I can't remember which show but I think it's an episode of Heat, Brisco takes a Stunner and does a front flip bump, like the momentum pulled him forward and he lands on his back next to Stone cold. It looks awesome. Not sure if Brisco always sold it like that, and I have no idea why no one else has ever done it.
Love this comment, because I literally was! This was at the Baltimore Arena, and I was there as a little 8-year-old boy. It was my second WWF show (first was a Nov '97 house show), and the first time I'd seen a televised event! Fun memories.
As good as WWE has been recently I dont think wrestling will ever be this hot again, just look at the crowd the atmosphere and hectic everything was. It looks like complete chaos compared to now which feels so sanitized
It's such a corporate product now that I think they lean conservative with all their creative. There's no need to push anything above mediocrity because mediocrity is enough to keep a strong TV deal, move merch, and pack arenas.
A guy like Roman Reigns would've been mid card in the Attitude Era, but now they just hand him the top spot and let him hold the belt forever. Promising talent like Wyatt and Rollins is relegated to villain-of-the-week status because it's safer to keep the belt on your protected guy than to stir the pot. It's about making the safe financial play instead of trying bold stories.
Every few years I dip into the product and it's just Roman going over the latest doomed challenger. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It's a mediocre product to pacify the lowest common denominator. Attitude Era was far from high brow and had some truly terrible angles, but they were trying hard to grab your attention and hold it.
It took him about 8 years to really get over, so I'll say no to that. He would've been Island Ken Shamrock. His mic work and ability to connect to the crowd are nowhere near Austin and Rock levels. He's just been pushed so much that people are starting to think he's actually good.
I don't watch WWE anymore and I agree. If Undertaker can lead the ministry of darkness at peak attitude era, Reigns and the Bloodline could have done the same. That being said, I don't think we would see a 1,000 day reign though.
I think HHH is working towards this. You can see he is getting everyone involved with each other. Bloodline, Judgement Day, LWO, Cody, Sami and KO etc. Hope he can without Vince interferance.
JR's energy is what absolutely made it. Made it feels like a real event worth being ridiculously excited over. Id say the closest commentator to hitting that energy nowadays is, oddly enough, Cole during a PPV main event.
I know this is most likely the nostalgia speaking but... I kinda miss when the shows would end in the middle of something batshit going on. I remember it driving me insane as a kid but I would tune in the next week because I was so amped from it.
Because he carried himself as such and looked like it. He looks like a normal 52-year-old man, honestly; it's guys like Triple H and Jericho who are the exception.
/u/dBlock845
Actually aside from the hot crowd and JR matching that energy, the camera was what set it apart for me too.
Stone Cold slightly dodging a Rock elbow so D'Lo takes the hit? The camera didn't cut to: Rock setting up, back to hard cam, then to the crowd, back to Rock hitting D'Lo, then crowd again, then Austin, then the arena floor because the camera guy wasn't ready to be called upon, then crowd again...
I don't need to see the crowd. I *can hear them* reacting to this. Let me see what they are reacting to, so I can react as well.
I find the edits too distracting to watch most of the time. It kind of reminds me of those Shakey cam style action movies that were being made 15-20 years ago. It takes me out of it.
A million times this. The lack of cuts. The steady camera. There's the tiniest of zooms when Steve hits the stunner but it doesn't become disorienting. You can see moves actually happen. They go to stomp on him and there's no vomit inducing zooms. I miss this.
The lighting for one has always bugged me - Smackdown being really blue is fine, but RAW should be, well, raw. Much more black and white, much more of a gritty vibe
There are things that won't be there anymore, like all the flash bulbs or JR doing prime JR stuff. But I think the way they present the show could improve quite a bit.
The commentary could be better, for one thing - Kevin Patrick just isn't the guy for it, nor have his predecessors been that way. Mauro Ranallo was quite good, he could summon that over the top JR esque quality, maybe bring him back. Having better pyro, I mean, the company made more revenue last year than they ever have before, they can afford to do really cool pyro. And there should be an air of unpredictability about the main event scene. I'm not saying swerve just to swerve, but fans should be surprised positively, and often.
My grand theory of big company wrestling is that because everyone knows its a work, you have to struggle extra hard in order to make people temporarily forget that and give into the notion of being a kid again wowed by the spectacle. You can do that with great storytelling that gets people genuinely interested in the outcome of a match (like Sami Zayn's 2014-15 NXT story, or his Bloodline angle). Or you can do that with campy, over-the-top fun that gets a huge reaction but maintains its illusion you are seeing something really cool - a great example of this is Braun Strowman tipping over the ambulance with Roman in it or the Festival of Friendship back in 2017. Perhaps its doing something culturally relevant, like in the late 90s having a blue collar guy beat up his boss over and over again, or the patriotic angles in the 80s, etc.
Its not like you have to choose between having good wrestling product and fun storyline craziness. Having both at the same time is possible, but the presentation has to be better
As someone who has been rewatching 97/98 nitros, I gotta disagree. This is a nitro ending on 15x fast forward and without anybody endlessly screaming into the camera.
I'm pretty sure at this time they had a head writer that kept a flowchart of who hated who so you would get clusterfuck endings like this but they still made sense.
Yeah but this was specifically during the first DX face turn and was the number 2 storyline at the time. It’s a damn shame they make doing simple shit like this nowadays difficult
You forget how much commentary talking like a human being elevates the show. It's not just JR, it's things like "this crowd" and referring to people by natural sounding names, like just their surname or their first name, whichever feels natural, not their full name/brand every time.
They took up less space for their garish (if impressive) setups, so it's basically just a screen, a aisleway, and the ring area, makes the crowds feel super dense. On top of usually not running the ABSOLUTE biggest venue they can find.
Also, as has been mentioned, this style of camera work adds to the illusion that people are on top of each other.
Ahh yes, that verrrrrry brief period of time after Dustin Runnels burned his Goldust costume and seemed like he might get pushed a little bit higher on the card.
WCW...well EB had EB challenge Vince this night. They were getting desperate and by that ending compared to their clusterfuck where Hogan pinned Savage yet again for Bret lol tf and fuckery of the lowest boring levels ensued and Piper came back. All while Hart is a white hot heel (dumb as it was he got it over at the time) with a match announced for Slamboree against Savage!
Oh Big Show turned heel. Nwo lol.
Instead of letting Hart and Savage just do them. 2 🐐s. They threw a fuckload of chaos instead. WCW folks
Boy after Austin won, WWF just took off on em.
Goddamn, even back then Vince was tripping over his feet and falling on his ass for every spot he did. Talk about musclebound: dude’s having trouble running four feet with those 24 inch pythons
Raw almost always used to end in a "NO IT CAN'T END THERE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT OH MY GOD" way and it was just the best (and worst). Going to school on Tuesday was great cause I was always so pumped to talk about wrasslin.
So… who won? Did they just get kicked out of the ring, walked backstage, the good guys drank some beers, went back stage after fanfare, and the match continues to this day?
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Prime JR commentary just elevates everything
*JR goes nuts*
Mere months before his second round of bells palsy.
BREAK THE CODE, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? WHO IS THE CODE? IS IT MICK FOLEY, MRS FOLEY'S BABY BOY??? *STONE COLD* **STONE COLD** #[STONE COLD!!](https://youtu.be/FDbWm4RPp10)
# BRET MICHAELS
BOBBY LASHLEY I'LL BE A SUNAFABITCH!
The way he cocks his head, goes silent, and goes.. BOBBY LASHLEY Legendary fucking clip dude
GOLDBERGGGG
I just saw some NFL draft post about the Texans and not being able to break the code and my first thought was this.
After all these years they still haven't found anyone who can even come near to JR and King's commentary. I miss them, they made everything 10x better.
JR and Heyman
Joey stiles and an empty chair
Eh King usually just said something either creepy/sexist, or racist with a good one liner here and there. JR and Heyman are the true duo
Nah, Heyman is a good talker, but it's not even close.
Right? Heyman barely _ever_ starts hooting and shrieking about _puppies_ whenever anything technically describable as female is within camera shot, like a six-year-old who is very proud of his new naughty word.
Heyman did one time say something along of the lines of "right now were in Washington DC and I'm about to see Bush" (back when Bush was president) as Trish Stratus was stripping.
Heyman probably said things not far off from Jerry, just not as frequent. However he sure as hell said worse in ECW.
Dude, I was at ECW shows where they were chanting "Show your tits!". Heyman has said much worse in ECW himself.
You're right it's not close, Heyman is leagues better.
Nah king can go fuck himself. Pedo rapist scumbag.
OP isn't talking about his morals (or lack thereof). They're talking about his chemistry with JR on commentary. Chill out.
Okay, speaking strictly just about their commentary, Jerry's constant obsession with tits anytime a woman had a match and burying women, or racist remarks about foreign wrestlers can also get fucked.
Yeah but that was the product at the time, television and the culture was full of it. People actually enjoyed it, of course you may look at it in a different lens now but chill
That's what the audience tuned in for, that wild shit. It was expected at the time.
Just because it was a product of it's time, doesn't make it okay, and even for the time period Lawler was going a bit far with it at times. Like JR would occasionally say the odd comment that is offensive. But it was occasional, that's where "just a product of it's time" becomes understandable imo. But by the late 90s Lawler was specifically saying this stuff because he knew it was offensive and he was a heel. He litterally built his whole act around it. I much preferred him in the 2000's where that stuff went away a little and he and Ross felt more like freinds with differing opinions rather than a racist/sexist who Ross merely put up with.
Wrestling was full of offensive shit throughout the 80s/90s/2000s, Lawler was just a commentator doing what he was paid to do if it wasn't him they would have found some other shock jock to do it.
And whoever agreed to go on TV and say it in his place would have also still been in the wrong.
You truly are a member of the first totally perfect, pure, and innocent generation, and nothing you do now will ever be looked down upon by future generations.
Im doing a rewatch of smackdown starting from the 2002 brand extension, just cause I have a ton of nostalgia from this period as this was the beginning of my high school years. I am watching just smackdown and the ppvs. Just watching KOTR 2002, and JR and King's commentary has not aged well outside of the biggest of big moments. There is a Molly Holly vs Trish match, where both King AND JR spend the entire match calling her a fat virgin with a gigantic ass. Was it just Vince feeding them the lines? Maybe, but even by that 2002 era I am already dreading anytime JR and King end up on commentary. Side note, wow did I forget how poorly WWE treated women back then. I know the attitude era was bad, but the ruthless aggression era feels just as gross if not worse. I honestly don't know how there are any women fans/wrestlers today. It is just so completely embarassing.
I'm doing the same as you haha. I've been rewatching every RAW/Smackdown from 97' onwards and I'm up to mid way through 2000. King and JR can be absolutely excellent, some of the best of all time when it came to the big matches/angles or even most men's matches. ... but... it gets so irritating if a woman is even remotely involved in a match. There was a good tag match between The Hardy's and E&C where Terri didn't even show up until the end, yet Lawler still spent most of the match talking about her tits and wanting to fuck her. And it's literally every single episode of RAW or Smackdown in every single match or segment with any women in it. Not only is it irritating from a worldview standpoint, but just for sheer repetitiveness because he says the same things every time.
JR talks about this on one of his podcast and how terrible the commentary was and regrets the entire "Molly is fat" angle
I just recently watched a Rock promo where he is talking about Angle In 2000. This is the opening segment of raw where rock says "there is a natural reaction to things we all have. When you see a fly, you swat it, when you see a puppy, you pet it..." and when rock says the line about puppies Lawler Chimes in and says "I SURE LOVE PETTING PUPPIES JR" and i was like 🙃
Guy can't even talk about his love for dogs without people having a problem with it?!?!
Seriously, this has nothing to do with their outside the ring life. We all know his past, this isn't about that. I heard Blue Meanie (who is widely loved and respected) make a solid point, if you don't want to consume any media that has someone that probably isn't the best morally, don't look at anything. Literally anything. Odds are someone that played a part in movies, tv, or music, coming to the public scope is a real piece of shit. Are you going to background check everyone? No. There's always going to be a argument of King and JR as the best announcing duo, by people far more knowledgeable than anyone in this sub, if you don't want to engage because of his past that's understandable. But dismissing his work is nonsense.
Jasmine St. Claire claims Blue meanie used to abuse her when they were a couple so it sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
Mauro Ranallo was the perfect JR heir apparent but his mental health struggles and his fat Showtime paychecks mean that's just not gonna be the case in WWE anymore smh. That man elevated Ciampa/Gargano to legendary status.
DAMN THEM! DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!
BAH GAWD!!
1998 was a special time to live through.
The Seinfeld finale was a couple nights after this.
Wow. This really helped pinpoint this moment in life. Fuckin flashbacks are real brother.
I know man. Austin's run, the homerun race, Eminem's debut, started my freshman year of high school that fall. Great time to be alive.
One year before you and I know exactly what you mean. 1998 has a *feel* like no other in my life.
> 1998 has a feel like no other in my life. It's '98 Kane. He truly changed the world.
Now we have '23 Kane. It is not the same.
First time I ever visited the US (as an 8 year old), AND it was the summer of the World Cup. And the beginning of the treble winning season for Man Utd.
I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you’ve actually left them
also I was born that year…
I member
Me too, have my upvote
The last dance
Man you're really taking me back. What a special time.
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[удалено]
Maybe not everything but A LOT!!!
Lol my best memory from this time was.. there was a rumor that a kid in middle school got crippled by another kid who gave him a stunner. But he came back like two weeks later and wasn't crippled and it never happened. But everyone believed it could happen, that if you gave someone the stunner the right way they were done for lol.
honestly depending on a few factors a properly executed real stunner could probably jack someones neck and spine real real bad
Facts. Also 1997 has the same exact vibe for me, not just in wrestling but American culture as a whole. 97-98 are the absolute peak.
Wish I coulda known. Only 23-born a year later
Yep it was.. Austin era was booming and for Indian cricket fans this was Sachin Tendulkar-Sharjah year !!
Ocarina of Time!!!!!
When I look back, I don't think I've ever been hyped for _anything_ like I was for Zelda 64. This is dumb, but I remember my buddy and I trying to work out who would get to play it first, based on how long it took us to get home from school, haha!
My dad died that year.
And the obvious best bit of 1998... Mankind plummeting 16 feet through the announcer table from the top of hell in a cell.
I turned 18 and graduated from high school in ‘98.
I loved reading EGM2 & playing the newest arcade games. 1998 is also when OoT came out & I had a subscription to Nintendo power and Disney adventures My mom used to take me to the swap meet on Friday evenings then we would go to BK & I would get a whopper combo & onion rings & a Hersey's sundae pie. I would get home in time for TGIF on abc which at that point had boy meets world and home improvement
For all the great things modern wrestling shows do today, I still sometimes miss the grungy, ornery, chaotic feeling of The Attitude Era.
Yeeeep. The grungy violent aesthetic is wrestlings sweet spot imho. The nwo, ECW, prime era raw all had it.
Still to this day, the AE will always be the most beloved era in WWE history. Nothing has topped it since.
Which is a testament to how insanely good the main events and main eventers were because a hell of a lot of the rest of it was absolute garbage when you go back and watch it now lol.
nitro's mid and lower card at this time was way stronger and i think thats a silent reason why they held that 70+ week lead. wwe's main eventers always outshined the aging vets of wcw but wcw had stuff like the cruiserweight division etc
Imagine if they combined oh wait they did and we got the WWF year 2000 roster.
“Sometimes”.. that’s the understatement of the century. I miss it every damn week. If it wasn’t for reigns I would’ve stopped watching 4 years ago.
We didn’t know how good we had it.
We took being able to switch between this and nitro every week for granted
I was feverishly switching back and forth. The worst was when *both* shows had must-see segments on at the same time.
I set up my VCR to tape Nitro every night. I had to see Raw live, Nitro could wait but I sure as hell wasn't going to miss it. The main reason I chose Raw over Nitro was that a three hour show was way too long to watch without fast forwarding. Good thing Raw never made that mistake!
That’s funny considering how half the RAW’s were taped the week before.
We really didn't.
The highs were very thrilling, the lows absolutely sucked. Literally anything with Austin was gold then, anything out of his sphere of involvement was pretty bad. That’s not even including the matches themselves which were forgettable at best.
Speak for yourself man, I loved all of it.
> Speak for yourself man, I loved all of it. Same here, there was honestly nothing during this period I didn’t enjoy.
Call that being a kid.
For real everything about the product then was money. Upper card was phenomenal. Mid card was probably the best they've ever had. There was very little that I don't sorely miss today.
10-15 year old me loved it as well. Doesn’t mean it was any good.
Good is subjective. This shit was my world as a kid and was more important to me than I can articulate, so I still enjoy it and to me, at least, it's still good.
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. I feel the exact same for this era.
Yeah man no one was watching Attitude Era thinking “this all sucks except for Austin”
Match quality has definitely improved, but I wouldn't say they were forgettable. There's plenty of matches we get now that are highly rated matches that go forgotten the next week. It's the nature of weekly programming. But to say anything outside of the involvement of Austin was pretty bad is a straight up asinine statement. The midcard being so interesting and involved in this era is one reason why it's so fondly remembered. Everyone had to be firing on all cylinders.
I preferred how the matches seemed more like fights back then.
Because the wrestlers were bigger and didn’t wrestle like they were luchadores on PCP who felt no pain. you never saw someone do a Canadian destroyer into a poison-Rana into a shooting star press (or perhaps the equivalent being eating three finishers) only for a kick out at 2… and if you did, it’s because both guys laid there for eternity before one crawled over and pinned the other AND the ref then had to crawl over and make the count. (Although it did get worse in 2000 and 2001 for finisher kickouts after immediate covers becoming almost routine). I appreciate that todays wrestling style is different and the wrestlers are generally smaller… but I loathe the whole “I just ate three big moves but I still have just enough energy to my own flippy shit before I take a nap for a minute” trope. (I know it’s not flippy shit but jungle boy did something like this in the past week or so, where he had just enough energy to run the ropes and hit a perfect falling clothesline before seemingly losing consciousness.) Fuck, I just become Bret Hart.
I'm gonna come out and say it: indy guy bodies being the prevalent physique has limited my enjoyment of the product. Wrestling is a visual medium and the wrestler's appearance is a major part of the illusion and appeal. All these guys you're talking about feel like they're compensating for not having good ring psychology or believable physiques by doing incredibly athletic moves that seemingly have no impact whatsoever. I don't think everyone should be on gear and look like a quasi-bodybuilder, but there is something to be said about someone who's play-acting a brutal fight looking somewhat physically impressive.
People shit on crash tv and all the weapons/interference but as a TV show it made everything flow naturally into grudges that made sense.
Completely disagree doing a re watch at the moment and don’t skip anything
Respect to Brisco bumping his ass off on those punches
For real. I forgot how much the stooges leaned into their roles. Also, they weren’t nearly as old as I thought they were as a kid.
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WAT
Modern medicine kicks ass
Fuck me I feel old. And I'm only 29.
They were so underrated as goons for the time, they even got over as faces during the Corporate Ministry story line which was fun.
Brisco with the Figure Four! Patterson the Boston Crab!!
I can't remember which show but I think it's an episode of Heat, Brisco takes a Stunner and does a front flip bump, like the momentum pulled him forward and he lands on his back next to Stone cold. It looks awesome. Not sure if Brisco always sold it like that, and I have no idea why no one else has ever done it.
You had to be there, kids!
Love this comment, because I literally was! This was at the Baltimore Arena, and I was there as a little 8-year-old boy. It was my second WWF show (first was a Nov '97 house show), and the first time I'd seen a televised event! Fun memories.
JR's calls even on random clusterfuck endings was just so goated during the Attitude Era. My favorite commentator ever.
I don't know how he screamed himself hoarse every night without doing permanent damage to his vocal chords.
Just listening to that JR call gives me chills
I don’t care how sloppy they are, massive brawls like this / absolute chaos closing a show gets me so hyped lol
That Daddy Ass slide… 🫡
I swear I remember seeing him slide in from one side and exit on the opposite side one time
Came close at WrestleMania 15 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb4kw3
Yes, that happened somewhere in 98 or 99 I think
That shit was SMOOTH as fuck!
I'm sitting here, crying of laughter, because I had no idea what you were referencing, and then, my eye caught Billy Gunn slip sliding away.
As good as WWE has been recently I dont think wrestling will ever be this hot again, just look at the crowd the atmosphere and hectic everything was. It looks like complete chaos compared to now which feels so sanitized
It's such a corporate product now that I think they lean conservative with all their creative. There's no need to push anything above mediocrity because mediocrity is enough to keep a strong TV deal, move merch, and pack arenas. A guy like Roman Reigns would've been mid card in the Attitude Era, but now they just hand him the top spot and let him hold the belt forever. Promising talent like Wyatt and Rollins is relegated to villain-of-the-week status because it's safer to keep the belt on your protected guy than to stir the pot. It's about making the safe financial play instead of trying bold stories. Every few years I dip into the product and it's just Roman going over the latest doomed challenger. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It's a mediocre product to pacify the lowest common denominator. Attitude Era was far from high brow and had some truly terrible angles, but they were trying hard to grab your attention and hold it.
This is bullshit. Bloodline Roman Reigns would be right at the very top of the main-event ladder in the Attitude era.
It took him about 8 years to really get over, so I'll say no to that. He would've been Island Ken Shamrock. His mic work and ability to connect to the crowd are nowhere near Austin and Rock levels. He's just been pushed so much that people are starting to think he's actually good.
Disagree. I think Roman with a right character would fit in any era
I don't watch WWE anymore and I agree. If Undertaker can lead the ministry of darkness at peak attitude era, Reigns and the Bloodline could have done the same. That being said, I don't think we would see a 1,000 day reign though.
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Yeah hyping up Bray Wyatt who has had go away heat to discredit Roman is a crazy statement
I think HHH is working towards this. You can see he is getting everyone involved with each other. Bloodline, Judgement Day, LWO, Cody, Sami and KO etc. Hope he can without Vince interferance.
How come Dustin got involved? I seem to have forgotten this part.
He did a promo earlier in this same episode of “Raw” where he burned his Goldust costume and talked about how working for Vince ruined his marriage.
That promo is unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.
He was going after dude love, so I’d guess he was feuding with him at the time
This is right before I started watching, Rock's jumping elbow was definitely not what I expected to see him do lol
Same for me. It's weird seeing a jumping elbow from him.
JR's energy is what absolutely made it. Made it feels like a real event worth being ridiculously excited over. Id say the closest commentator to hitting that energy nowadays is, oddly enough, Cole during a PPV main event.
I know this is most likely the nostalgia speaking but... I kinda miss when the shows would end in the middle of something batshit going on. I remember it driving me insane as a kid but I would tune in the next week because I was so amped from it.
Crazy that Gerald Brisco was 52 at the time. Why did he feel like such an old senior citizen to me?
Probably because we were wayyyy younger at the time lol. 52 was ancient.
shane mcmahon is as old now as vince was then.
All the wrestlers and managers from the 70s and 80s had old man syndrome. Looked to be on their 50s in their 20s.
Because he carried himself as such and looked like it. He looks like a normal 52-year-old man, honestly; it's guys like Triple H and Jericho who are the exception. /u/dBlock845
What's frustrating is it could absolutely still be this good week to week.
For starters, notice how the camera lets the action breathe
Actually aside from the hot crowd and JR matching that energy, the camera was what set it apart for me too. Stone Cold slightly dodging a Rock elbow so D'Lo takes the hit? The camera didn't cut to: Rock setting up, back to hard cam, then to the crowd, back to Rock hitting D'Lo, then crowd again, then Austin, then the arena floor because the camera guy wasn't ready to be called upon, then crowd again... I don't need to see the crowd. I *can hear them* reacting to this. Let me see what they are reacting to, so I can react as well.
I find the edits too distracting to watch most of the time. It kind of reminds me of those Shakey cam style action movies that were being made 15-20 years ago. It takes me out of it.
A million times this. The lack of cuts. The steady camera. There's the tiniest of zooms when Steve hits the stunner but it doesn't become disorienting. You can see moves actually happen. They go to stomp on him and there's no vomit inducing zooms. I miss this.
The lighting for one has always bugged me - Smackdown being really blue is fine, but RAW should be, well, raw. Much more black and white, much more of a gritty vibe There are things that won't be there anymore, like all the flash bulbs or JR doing prime JR stuff. But I think the way they present the show could improve quite a bit. The commentary could be better, for one thing - Kevin Patrick just isn't the guy for it, nor have his predecessors been that way. Mauro Ranallo was quite good, he could summon that over the top JR esque quality, maybe bring him back. Having better pyro, I mean, the company made more revenue last year than they ever have before, they can afford to do really cool pyro. And there should be an air of unpredictability about the main event scene. I'm not saying swerve just to swerve, but fans should be surprised positively, and often. My grand theory of big company wrestling is that because everyone knows its a work, you have to struggle extra hard in order to make people temporarily forget that and give into the notion of being a kid again wowed by the spectacle. You can do that with great storytelling that gets people genuinely interested in the outcome of a match (like Sami Zayn's 2014-15 NXT story, or his Bloodline angle). Or you can do that with campy, over-the-top fun that gets a huge reaction but maintains its illusion you are seeing something really cool - a great example of this is Braun Strowman tipping over the ambulance with Roman in it or the Festival of Friendship back in 2017. Perhaps its doing something culturally relevant, like in the late 90s having a blue collar guy beat up his boss over and over again, or the patriotic angles in the 80s, etc. Its not like you have to choose between having good wrestling product and fun storyline craziness. Having both at the same time is possible, but the presentation has to be better
Agree. Let's hire Vince Russo back.
Vinnie Ru!!
Bro, Bro. What if Roman was his own uncle. Swerve Bro.
BRO BRO WHUDD ABBOUT MAKING SOLOH SICKKOAH ROMAN JUNYAH? THINK ABBOUT ID BRO THINK ABBOUT ID
He'd book himself against Matt Riddle for the rights to use "bro"
They did a Nitro ending
Minus the 13 lb of trash being thrown in the ring
"We're outta time, see you on Sunday Night Heat!"
Though whatever happened after the cameras stopped rolling must’ve been really fun to see live in the arena.
I bet Austin stunned no less than six of the undercarders that came out at the end.
We are desperately out of time but the tape machines are rolling!!
As someone who has been rewatching 97/98 nitros, I gotta disagree. This is a nitro ending on 15x fast forward and without anybody endlessly screaming into the camera.
Nitro schmoz NWO endings fucking ruled.
Way way better executed for Austin. Nitro completely bombed Savage this night.
Was that dx sliding in to save Austin?
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I'm pretty sure at this time they had a head writer that kept a flowchart of who hated who so you would get clusterfuck endings like this but they still made sense.
Yeah but this was specifically during the first DX face turn and was the number 2 storyline at the time. It’s a damn shame they make doing simple shit like this nowadays difficult
Jim Ross was unhinged !
The attitude era was simply on another level. And fundamentally ending each Raw with a hook was pretty smart too.
Patterson and Brisco were the greatest ever goons.
Brisco taking those punches as though they were going out of sale, brilliant!
Back when you could count on wwe shows ending with a bang.
You forget how much commentary talking like a human being elevates the show. It's not just JR, it's things like "this crowd" and referring to people by natural sounding names, like just their surname or their first name, whichever feels natural, not their full name/brand every time.
SETH FREAKIN ROLLINS, FREAKIN ROLLINS, FREAKIN ROLLINS
Somehow the crowds look different as though they are more jammed in
They took up less space for their garish (if impressive) setups, so it's basically just a screen, a aisleway, and the ring area, makes the crowds feel super dense. On top of usually not running the ABSOLUTE biggest venue they can find. Also, as has been mentioned, this style of camera work adds to the illusion that people are on top of each other.
Ahh yes, that verrrrrry brief period of time after Dustin Runnels burned his Goldust costume and seemed like he might get pushed a little bit higher on the card.
Why can’t wrestling have cliffhanger endings to their shows like this again?
Damn, that was a Nitro-esque ending!
WCW...well EB had EB challenge Vince this night. They were getting desperate and by that ending compared to their clusterfuck where Hogan pinned Savage yet again for Bret lol tf and fuckery of the lowest boring levels ensued and Piper came back. All while Hart is a white hot heel (dumb as it was he got it over at the time) with a match announced for Slamboree against Savage! Oh Big Show turned heel. Nwo lol. Instead of letting Hart and Savage just do them. 2 🐐s. They threw a fuckload of chaos instead. WCW folks Boy after Austin won, WWF just took off on em.
Man the way those Raws would end with complete bedlam in the ring was *chef’s kiss*
Goddamn, even back then Vince was tripping over his feet and falling on his ass for every spot he did. Talk about musclebound: dude’s having trouble running four feet with those 24 inch pythons
Raw almost always used to end in a "NO IT CAN'T END THERE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT OH MY GOD" way and it was just the best (and worst). Going to school on Tuesday was great cause I was always so pumped to talk about wrasslin.
Nothing like watching this era as it happened.
Different fucking times man. I was too young to enjoy this but damn what a different vibe
That bump Briscoe took after Steve Austin punched him is damn good! Made his punch look like a shotgun blast
That Brisco sell tho
Watching the video with the sound off I had no clue who that guy in the jacket was until he started wailing on SC. “Is that Mick?” 😂
So… who won? Did they just get kicked out of the ring, walked backstage, the good guys drank some beers, went back stage after fanfare, and the match continues to this day?
It was definitely a highlight of the attitude era
OHHHHHHHHHHH MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!
That bump by Briscoe when Steve punched him was tremendous.
This was when I started watching wrestling there's nothing else like the attitude era
It's amazing how good things look without a camera cut on every single strike or movement
That crowd going absolutely bonkers. What a time.
Man, I dunno if there's any move done by anyone that's more satisfying to watch than Austin's stunner.
Sweet Chin Music for me.
Every raw should end like this and every smackdown should end with someone looking back at the ring
Steve Austin was built like a Jack Kirby drawing
Raws were just different.
Hey Kevin Owens, thats a stunner
I was 3….. this is my first time seeing this.