WCW Blunder - The Complete 1st Season

thank you [Music] [Music] lately I've been covering a lot of great wrestling shows and great wrestling matches on this channel from the 1997 stuff on reliving the war to the hand-picked matches such as Shawn Michaels versus The Undertaker and all the highlights from the new generation here's the thing though sometimes with pro wrestling you just want to watch something truly awful Just for Laughs it helps us appreciate the good times better and it makes us question what on Earth a promotion was thinking when they booked a terrible March a terrible promo or they introduced something that just completely Falls flat on its fears the bad times in wrestling gets just as much attention as the good times and rightfully so there's nothing like watching a good old train wreck sometimes and hey we should never take pro wrestling seriously anyway you can't let stuff that happened 20 odd years ago get you angry it's funny to look back on with all the great wrestling I've had the privilege of watching over these past few months I thought it was time to get my hands dirty and watch something bad and when we we think about bad wrestling shows WCW Thunder Springs demand instantly I already talked about how the show was created and how he Thunder was more of a headache than an actual opportunity and as time went on Thunder would become more and more of an afterthought eventually WCW would hold two episodes of thunder on one night the first episode was live the second was taped for the following week this sounds straightforward enough but when you have live Nitros going on every week too you've got to be careful about what you put on that tip Thunder show everything gets booked in advance and an injury or a short notice change of Direction could make thunder nonsensical so this leads to the 10th episodes always being uneventful and pretty boring Kevin Nash talked about this in a shoot interview he explained how booking four live night drones two live Thunders and two tip Thunders during one creative meeting would cause massive problems considering the guys who had limited dates guys who said that doesn't work for me but brother guys who got injured planned title changes storylines evolving things of that nature plowing ahead wasn't a WCW strong point so the easiest thing to do was to throw together Thunder episodes that didn't mean anything on the grand scheme of things still every now and then they'd try to do something to make the shows worth watching but most of the time especially in 2000 the show sucked balls I reached out to you guys to get some inspiration for the hell I'm about to put myself through today I wanted to find the worst episodes of Thunder or at least some that are comically bad I got some suggestions from viewers David Arquette winning the word title came up a few times someone suggested the final episode of Thunder is being one of the worst osw review covered the October 15 1998 Thunder and people felt that it couldn't get much worse than that maybe because it was a gentle reminder of how thunder was usually a big old load of nothing as the day went on more and more suggestions came rolling in and I thought hey this could actually be a series there's so much crop on WCW Thunder that this is something I could come back to a few times a dead horse that I could Vlog over and over again and then I thought hey why just limit this to thunder why not expand this to cover all of the absolute nonsense we witnessed in WCW especially during the later days I made a first cut of this video that went on patreon where I said this will be a thunder only show named Thunder blunder I also announced this on Twitter but I'm gonna change that I've dropped under from the name so welcome to WCW blunder a mini series covering all sorts of WCW [ __ ] array yeah I'm keeping that longer name because I like it WCW blunder now to be clear sometimes I'll cover full WCW TV episodes and sometimes I'll just cover moments matches and promos if there's enough to talk about I'm already doing the full episode thing on reliving the war so I'll use blunder to change things up a little and give myself a little more foreign although for episode 1 we are gonna check out a whole Thunder episode because this one had a running theme that was truly something else this is some prime WCW [ __ ] you're gonna see here today folks also this won't be weekly I'm not going to put pressure on myself to get one of these out on a schedule but I do want to build up a little library of WCW nonsense because there is quite a lot to look at so the idea started as a WCW Thunder exclusive show but I've opened up the doors for all sorts of WCW Shenanigans everything's welcome on WCW blunder foreign of May 2000 episode of Thunder is what we'll be looking at today where every March is contested under New York roads was this episode held in New York [ __ ] no it was held in Memphis but never mind that what exactly is a New York March well every march on the show does not have a referee but marches can only end via pinfall or submission so who cuts the pinfalls and who checks for submissions well the wrestlers do yeah let that sink in for a moment you pin your opponent and you count to three easy payday brother fast count that [ __ ] and run out of the building this all happened during the millionaires Club versus New Blood rivalry so it's straight out of the Vince Russo Playbook although Eric beshoff was also Landing a hand in the creative Department too and really what we end up with is a perfect example of way too much chaos creating a messy incoherent parody of a wrestling show now you may think this actually could be fun and you might bring up the old well at least it's something different argument I'm guilty of doing that too when I try to see the good and things but the show feels so out of control and so thrown together and so ridiculous that it almost becomes a joke but let's see how this taped episode of Thunder all came together we're four days away from Slumber A2000 the one with the Triple Cage WCW World title match featuring David Arquette Jeff Jarrett and Diamond Dallas Page and also the one with possibly the worst pay-per-view poster in the history of pay-per-view posters our commentary team of Tony Shivani Mike tenae and Bobby Heenan hype up the Slumber email event before letting us know that the millionaires club and a few allies are wearing outside for the new blood to arrive we see a limo pull up to the arena the millionaires club and their mates were on out and they jumped ventruso Eric pescioff and a few other New Blood guys who were in the limo including Buff Bagwell and Shane Douglas we come back from a commercial break and Russell's absolutely livid that the new blood guys who were already in the arena didn't bother to help so he rounds up the troops and the whole faction goes to the ring to cut a promo Miss Elizabeth is being held by the new blood against her will by the way we won't get into why but just keep it in mind Rizzo calls out the millionaires club and their friends and Russell says the new blood is gone the war tonight due to the unprovoked attack at the top of the show Vince has gone about everyone's name in his boat and draw names to face the new blood why a boat and not a Hut I don't know I'm sure someone had a [ __ ] hat and Russell says the matches are going to be contested under New York rules No Holds Barred no referee the wrestlers count the pinfalls every march on Thunder will be contested in this fashion by the way well all except the main event but that is a giant [ __ ] anyway so it doesn't really matter Ric Flair has some Choice words for Vince Russo [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and there's no way the new blood can bait this collection of superstars so the challenge gets accepted the baby faces then storm the ring and we have another brawl the new blood get out of Harm's Way and yeah it's messy you can see Dallas Page getting frustrated with the amount of people bumping into him Russo runs away the baby faces are left in the ring with security and 15 minutes have passed on Thunder including commercial time and there hasn't been a match yet fortunately a match happens next it's Double J versus Canyon Jared says a hand-picked canyon to fight tonight on thunder so one March in and that whole thing about pulling names from Russell's boat has already been thrown down the toilet and yes I know he's the chosen one but it still takes away from the whole theme of random guys facing the new blood Kimberly then takes time to cut a promo on DDP and when I say she takes the time I mean she takes the time she talks longer than what Jared did and if you combine Kimberly and Jared's promos it's actually longer than the Jared vs Canyon March the March is a whole 3 minutes and 20 seconds basically Kimberly says everything Paige achieved in WCW was thanks to Eric Bischoff and everything he's achieved as a man is because of Kimberly she calls the fans Liam marks she says Paige needs to hurry up with the divorce papers it all gets zero reaction Canyon comes out in the two fight outside the ring we get bumps at the guard reels bumps at the ring steps they get inside the ropes where they do some more work before once again going back to the outside there's more fighting by the guardrails Jarrett uses a steal chair and then it Dawns on you that every match on this show is probably gonna play out in the exact same fashion I mean what else can they do except maybe use different weapons Kimberly tries to get involved but DDP comes out and he takes away Double J's guitar from his wife he then gives her a hug and then he smashes the guitar over her head that's his wife guys [ __ ] hell Pidge then wins the March for Canyon when he hits a Diamond Cutter on Double J and Canyon counts his own pin gonna be honest this isn't too bad because it's the first New York rules March that you'll see on the show but there's no way this novelty won't wear off by the end of thunder so that's one point for the millionaires Club zero for the new blood Russo is naturally pissed off backstage but he's gonna send the wall out to destroy Lex Luger no it isn't made clear but this is a tables March that also doesn't have a referee obviously you end by putting your opponent through a table so you won't need to count your own pin what what's the point why is there no reference don't even think about sitting down to watch this tables much here because there's so many distractions first Russell comes down to the ring with Liz this was all done to distract Luger Russo goes on commentary and then Rick Flair comes down he too joins the commentary desk just to make sure Russo doesn't screw legs over the competitors in the ring play nice they don't use any weapons they aren't really fighting dirty there's no issues on the outside Russell hits Flair with a butt he passes the bat to the wall but the wall drops it when Luger gets him up for the torture rack Russo ends up using the bottom instead Vince walks Luger Luger falls back but it's the wall who goes through the table and the total package wins ah Russo then challenges flare to get in the ring Flair jumps in and Russo then uses Liz as a shin Liz kicks Russo in the balls Buff Bagwell and she and Douglas then come out to attack Flair and then chronic come out to attack the franchise in Bagwell oh we aren't done yet by the way Billy Kidman then shows up and what do you know he stuck his hand and Vince Russo's Boot and he drew out Rick Flair's name so we now go straight to a Rec Flair versus Billy Kidman march on Thunder I need to take a break already so Nature Boy Ric Flair you kinda associate Slick Rick with the traditions of the NWA in the early days of world championship wrestling here he is wrestling against Russo New York march on Thunder against Billy kedman nothing against Kidman by the way excellent talent and a standout during these dark days of WCW but Flair vs Kidman on Thunder in this kind of match in the year 2000 it just doesn't feel right does it to his crowded flare bumps around quite a lot for Kidman and everything Kidman does is on point but neither man takes advantage of the no DQ rule this is a standard one-on-one match with no referee and what's more there's no pen attempts at all it ends with Conan and Rey Mysterio hitting the rank to attack Flair big sexy Kevin Nash then shows up to help Flair and Conan takes a jackknife Kidman goes to leave the arena but Hulk Hogan then shows up and he brings Kidman back down to the ring Kidman gets dragged out to safety by Conan and Mr stereo Mike Awesome's music then players and for whatever reason he hits the ring when three enemies are just waiting to attack him well two seeing as flares having a break in the corner awesome takes a jackknife Kevin Nash then says the winner of this mod Studio outside interference is Mike awesome and I'm not even gonna try to make sense of this statement I don't know what's going on I assume Kidman vs Flair is an old contest so much for your New York Rules matches absolute dog [ __ ] someone out there is going to defend this I know there's always people in the comments just waiting to defend the honor of [ __ ] wrestling but this show already has me dreamed out and I'm the guy who watches raw Nitro every week plus pay-per-views for YouTube videos we're only at the 35 minute Mark of this episode of thunder and already I want a top out Diamond Dolls page versus vampiro's up next another New York March it sounds interesting enough on paper but don't get your hopes up because Stang attacks Vampiro during the entrances we even see sting getting himself in position for the surprise attack using a black sheet to remain undetected [ __ ] hell Sten grabs a conveniently placed bucket of red liquid and Vampiro takes a red liquid bath yep that's what it is it's only red liquid Vampiro gets thrown in the ring Dallas hits the cutter right away and it's over the only good thing to come out of this match is this shot right here what a glorious wisdom TV time the baby faces now have three victories while the new blood have one Russells again shown backstage and he's calling his team a bunch of losers I mean listen to this guy Scream the baby face has been wild they're having a great old time so your eventually so will end this predicament your boys are getting completely wrecked and you've lost three out of four marches you're gonna send out one of your biggest baddest dudes and you're gonna manipulate the draw so you can claim an easy Victory right I mean you're [ __ ] squealing backstage like a child about your team sucking balls so what do you do well Russo decides to send Mike Awesome to the ring to see a Mike Awesome who just got destroyed by Kevin Nash under 10 minutes ago and Mike Awesome announces that he drew Sting's name out of Russell's big smelly boot great work Lads great work sting Rex awesome during the opening moments of the March Mike goes to the outside and he gets attacked by The Misfits in action these guys were [ __ ] candle in the previous episode of nitro The Misfits throw awesome back in the ring sting hits two Stinger splotches he applies the Scorpion death lock and awesome tops out it's a small net pack here but Russo didn't mention mentioned anything about submissions when talking about how a New York rules March plays out but we'll ignore that 2 minutes and 15 seconds almost a whole one and a half minutes longer than the DDP versus Vampiro much these new blood losers better get it together because Russell's plan has been absolutely [ __ ] so far this is a job for Scotty Steiner [Music] Big Papa Pump tells Russo not to touch him he'll go out and have a match but he isn't doing it for Vince he's doing it for himself Steiner comes out and he tells Hulk Hogan to get his ass in the ring so much for drawing names hold Mike Awesome got the short end of the stick didn't they Steiner says he and his freaks will visit Hogan's house after the March and big Linda's gonna call Scott the big bad booty daddy this was one of the best things about this entire episode of Thunder out comes Hulk Hogan and Steiner doesn't get in a single piece of offense to start this one off absolutely nothing the fight goes to the crowd where Hugh Morris shows up and it becomes a two-on-one March two baby faces versus one he'll mind you Scott Those monies they had a double low blow followed by a double clothesline he calls for someone anyone from the new blood to come out and help him but no one shows up when Hulk and Morris fight back and when it's made clear that Scott isn't winning big popper pump decides to just leave the ring and that's how the smart jams I don't even know what I'm watching anymore and why can't the new blood win any matches why is this so one-sided another limo pulls up outside the arena f-u-n-b can be seen on the front plate we'll see who gets out of the vehicle later on tag team champion she and Douglas and Buff Bagwell take on chronic next another New York March and well this one is actually mildly entertaining and honestly this is where a New York rules March could actually work because you don't need to tag your opponent in and your teammate has to perform the three kind this this isn't a bad idea at all for a tag team match type and if done with the right teams it could be interesting they don't do a terrible job here on Thunder either but there isn't enough near Falls chronic when the mods but they don't win the Tag Team titles even though they take the belts after the match okay Russo's plan completely backfired almost to the point where the new blood feel like sympathetic baby faces there's still 30 minutes left on this episode of thunder and WCW decided to just completely top out and put everyone in the ring for a bottle Royal it's kind of like when you create a pay-per-view in a wrestling video game and you run out of ideas so you just say [ __ ] it Battle Royal that'll pop a rating for sure before we go to the ring a bus pulls up behind the limousine Eric did talk about bringing in backup so who's in the limo and who's in the bus we'll find out in a moment Eric Bishop challenges the millionaires club and their buddies the step in the ring for a big old hardcore fight and Ric Flair says that'll only happen if it's a Battle Royal with the winner getting a world title shot bishop and Russo agree so we have ourselves a hardcore bottle Royal and look at this just Luke Bishop said before the boat it was 11 New Blood vs 11 baby faces but 41 guys end up getting involved in this match and what's more it takes ages for guys to start getting eliminated so you're watching guys trying to find Space while throwing punches and yeah this is generally what happens in all battle Royals but they drag this out for so long that it makes you wonder why did they rush through the earlier marches in the middle of the battle royal the mamalukes and the Harris brothers join the fight Harlem hates music then plays and then you remember that this is WCW in 2000 it's Stevie Ray and Ahmed Johnson not Stevie Ray and Booker T Kash is also here and so's uh Norman Smiley he must have became an honorary member of Harlem hate Incorporated for this episode of thunder and just look at the state of this noise Jesus Christ tank of it then comes down people start getting eliminated but it's not happening quick enough there's still no room for guys to do anything at all Medusa Asia and Mona get involved Hacksaw Jim Duggan runs down to do some damage and then the guy from the limousine steps episode and he begins heading to the ring and it's the Macho Man Randy Savage I know right how dare I [ __ ] on an episode of Thunder that has the return of Randy Savage well don't you think there'd be a much better way to use Savage than have him get involved in this absolute mass of a March and this is also Randy's final WCW appearance what a way to go out in the [ __ ] Battle Royal he hits nine double ax handles and then he exits the rang via the metal rope to fight on the outside and that's the Macho Man's involvement completely done with he doesn't get back inside the ropes until after the March Brad Hart then shows up and he clocks Hogan on the back with a chair Hulk rolls under the bottom rope and he too doesn't get back in the ring I then started questioning if this battle royal wasn't actually over the top rope but it was Savage and Hogan were the only guys who didn't go over the top up it comes down to flare in she and Douglas Vince Russo runs down to hit flare with a bot but he ends up hitting the franchise the camera is completely miss this flare chases Russo out of the ring he hits Douglas and flare wins the Battle Royal and he wins a title shot another loss for the new blood on the outside of the Ring beshoff hits Hogan with the bad but this too is missed by the cameras what's going on for whatever reason Kidman covers Hogan and Bishop counts to three I'm not even gonna question it anymore DDP and Jeff Jarrett fight on the entranceway scaffold David Arquette is supposed to come out and hit Jared with the guitar but he [ __ ] falls through the gimmick stage floor you couldn't make this up the commentators pretend he was never there and the cameras quickly cut over to Randy Savage helping Hulk Hogan clearly the show was supposed to end with the big bump off the scaffold but since our cat failed through the [ __ ] floor they just cut the chef Jared standing on the stage and then the show Fades to Black and DDP and Jerry continue their battle [Applause] so the show did have Randy Savage Brad Hart and Scott Steiner saying Linda Hogan's gonna call him the big bad booty Daddy I'll give it that much but my God what a train wreck I feel annoyed that I watched this show I feel tired after watching this show I've wasted time scripting this upload Gathering Clips double checking that our cat actually fell through the floor I wanted to watch some absolutely awful wrestling and I definitely got what I asked for so that was the first episode of WCW blunder I hope you enjoyed it I've got a list of episodes marches and promos I'm going to cover but if there's anything you want covered in this little mini series then please let me know this isn't gonna run long it's just a sad project that I think could be fun and there maybe only be two episodes a month maybe less maybe I'm feeling particularly awful about myself and I'll do three but let me know what WCW blunders that you want to see and remember guys please check the channel because I may have covered your request already thanks for watching episode 1 avoid this episode of Thunder at all costs and take care [Music] [Music] oh God welcome back to WCW blunder the series where we take a look at some of the mishaps mistakes and general nonsense that Greystar television screens when WCW was in business as mentioned in episode 1 this was gonna be a WCW Thunder exclusive show but I wanted to include all of WCW programming in the series because I may have been limiting the potential of the series by just having Thunder marches and moments So today we're going to look at two shows that didn't even take place on the Turner Network you've probably heard of these before but if not you're going to be seriously confused WCW snowball in WCW [ __ ] brawler shows that aired on MTV the channel would have thin blocks of programming during spring known as spring break and another in Winter known as MTV Snowden during these blocks MTV would alter their usual shows to fit in with the thing so for example there was a Snowden version of total request live but MTV also put on others shows to fit the programming theme and you guessed it they partnered up with world championship wrestling they put on a few events both events if you can even call them events happened in 1999 with snow brawl airing on the 6th of February and Beach brawl airing on the 12th of March now this all sounds absolutely fine right it's exposure for WCW on a different Channel and it's even more pro wrestling for us to sit and enjoy well no these shows were the absolute [ __ ] I'll say this before getting started though one thing I do like about these shows are the venues themselves I do like when wrestling rings get taken out of Arenas and put in unique locations so that part is good the rest terrible absolutely terrible let's get started and we'll take a look at these two abysmal shows before that though I covered the other MTV WCW show quite a while back the ultimate video bash so you can watch that when you get done here snowball takes place in the Snow Summit Mountain Resort in Big Bear Lake California the 20-minute broadcast opens up with three Nitro girls dancing in the ring to the offspring's Pretty Fly for a White Guy [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's maybe another positive from these shows the fact that actual released music could get played and not music from the Turner audio library whether you care much for The Offspring or any other music you hear in the show is another question only three Nigel girls though I think that spice Shay and Whisper don't quote me on that though I need to brush up on my natural guards knowledge we go to our commentary team of Larry cipesco Jimmy Hart and Rob Zombie Jimmy hard puts Rob over as a legend of heavy metal he's holding a snowflake trophy yeah a snowflake Trophy and he says we're going to see a seven-man Battle Royal tonight I guess the winner becomes king snowflake Why seven guys couldn't they get at least another three people in to make it a 10-man Battle Royal uh Larry zabisco who doesn't look too thrilled to be at snow brawl explains the rules of a bottle Royal probably for those who have no idea what wrestling is or those who have no [ __ ] idea why this is on their TV screens and Rob Zombie is actually okay here he doesn't harm it up and he gets the job done it's got to be the most violent brutal display of Carnage and carnality to happen all weekend at snowed in so Jimmy take it away [Music] we go to Stuttering John from the Howard Stern Show John's our ring announcer and boy does he have some [ __ ] jokes for us today here's a few of his ring announcements must stand six foot two inches weighs 250 pounds and would love to kick Marilyn Manson's ass he has Sandra Bullock's home phone number and refuses to use it on his way to the ring now is a man that would love to get his hands in those little handsome kids eventually he just gives up and the jokes stop by the time the last Lantern comes to the ring the first guy to enter this bottle Royal is Conan he comes to the ring he cuts his promo but more probably than all that big birdie birdie then and out next we have Kenny chaos something tells me we aren't going to see Goldberg sting and Hollywood Hogan of this show Disco Inferno comes out next Jimmy Hart says disco is not in the NWO as the luggage carrier for Scott Hall and Kevin Nash don't hold back there Jimmy cruiserwear Champion Billy Kidman is gonna take part in this mess Brian Adams representing NW black and white he comes out and he cuts a promo Brian Adams cutting a promo and you know a member of the New World Order show a little more passion okay or I'll kill your stuttering Problem by slapping the taste out of your mouth Autumn says he's very impressed with the resort he's never seen so many gigs punks and weenies in one place at the same time he says he'll be practicing his clotheslines later on the snowboarding and skiing gigs at the bottom of the hill the NW went all out for this one didn't they the white and blacks and Brian Adams and the elite San Francisco Inferno Raph is our next entrance Rob Zombie has said a few times that Stuttering John looks nervous in the ring but I think the guy just doesn't want to be there the final entrance is Booker T and that's your seven guys Conan candy chaos disco Kidman Adams wrath and Booker it isn't a list of nobodies but it isn't a list of Main Event Talent at that time either it gives the impression that WCW didn't care about the show or the big dogs on the big contract simply turned it down or they just weren't asked to go with that in mind we all know who would have been perfect for this Glacier Not only would own Frosty balls be right at home in these cold temperatures but he also fit the bill as a mid-card guy hell he was lower mid card at this point Glacier could have won this thing and revitalized his career with his snowflake trophy but someone clearly didn't think ahead could have been the greatest thing the glacier ever achieved we're about to go to commercial break we see the natural girls dancing before we cut away we come back and the first thing we see is some dude wiping out on the slopes let that be a sign of things to come and the Nitro guards are still dancing this time to the Backstreet Boys what's a bit concerning is that this thing is already at the halfway point and we're yet to see any grapples but as much as we'll rip these shows apart they really aren't wrestling shows although they were promoted as such honestly I don't even know what these should be classed as I'd probably find them under the giant waste of [ __ ] time category after the dance Whisperer gives Rob Zombie a bite to eight oh thank you Ivan food Rob never trusts a woman [ __ ] hell Jimmy and the March gets underway not by ringing a bell but with Rob Zombie killing a pigeon so here we go a march with what Jimmy Hart called some of the biggest stars in WCW while the Deftones my own summer plays in the background I like how the wrestlers kind of delay at the beginning as if they say oh we're supposed to have a March annoy aren't we you can tell the usual WCW production team didn't work on this the camera work isn't what we're used to and the camera cuts are also a bit messy and if you think this is bad looking weird until you see Beach brawl it's all strike moves to start us off punches kicks chops nothing much in the way of actual wrestling the guys team up on Disco Inferno for a bit and when Roth decides to perform the Meltdown you know a wrestling move the rest of the guys are like oh no no wrestling moves in this one loud out you go wrath ends up being the first guy eliminated Kidman kicks the [ __ ] out of disco in the corner and Conan ends up heading disco with the fierce Jam or X Factor or k Factor whatever first wrestling move of the March though Conan then eliminates candy chaos Kidman hits a hurricane runner on Autumns and Conan continues to Stand Out by heading his rolling clothesline unfortunately for K-Dog though he gets eliminated next when NW guys Brad Adams and Disco Inferno team up we come back from a commercial break and Billy Kidman gets eliminated by Booker T spinning hey kick disco and Adams Then team up and they go after booger booger manages to hit a double close line but it's not enough that's going Adam's throw picker over the top rope so it all comes down to two NWO guys the illustrious historic WCW snowball Battle Royal ends when disco can't stop himself from dancing so Adams lifts him up and disco gets thrown into the snow I was about to say that this is the only thing of relevant's bran ever won in WCW while he was in the NWO but this thing was far from relevant I was also gonna say the WCW passed away an opportunity here to Showcase their brand of pro wrestling to a wider audience or at least an audience who would never dream of watching pro wrestling but I honestly don't think they give a [ __ ] as disco gets whacked with snowballs Jimmy and Rob Zombie get in the ring to present items with his snowflake award Adams calls the fans little people and he thanks himself for looking so good and then oh who's this a surprise at WCW snowball who could it oh it's Conan Fox sake the Beastie Boys Body moving players Conan lifts the snowflake Trophy and that's it over it looked like a terrible amount of effort with getting the ring set up and whatnot for very little payoff I'm sure regular viewers of MTV didn't care WCW fans didn't care I don't think the guys involved cared but hopefully they got a night at the ski resort at least positives to take away would be the location and how the show looks WCW were always better than the WWF when it came to Unique venues so I'll give it that Rob Zombie was also pretty decent on commentary and uh I've got nothing else watch it for how you think it is as a wrestling broadcast fast but don't watch it for anything else so a few months later and we have the WCW MTV Beach brawl no lessons were learned this one is even further away from being an actual wrestling show Cancun Mexico is our location and once again it looks unique and it looks different so points for that the show starts again with three natural girls dancing in the ring and our commentary team this time consists of Jimmy Hart Raven and Kid Rock wrestling freaks of America welcome to MTV's Beach brawl I'm Kid Rock with the legendary Jimmy Hart and my main man Raven from world championship wrestling Rob Zombie Captain simple Kid Rock is well he's being Kid Rock he briefly tells us how a Battle Royal Works their mission is to be the last mean mother left standing and when the Music Stops the last one when the Music Stops got that so uh Last Man Standing When the Music Stops what if there's two people left standing When the Music Stops ignore this anyway it's just another bottle Royal only this time there's six guys who agreed to do this thing and not seven Ted Cox says there's a slamming band who's going to give us a beat while the wrestlers take a beating very good and that slamming band is Fear Factory Jimmy Hart then shows us the coveted much soil after Beach brawl Trophy and he says only the mainland's baddest guy will leave Beach blast with this in their hands Raven then talks about Battle Royal marches it's the last man standing is the winner you got to toss everybody out it's Last Man Standing like that Bruce Willis movie of course that thing's a Tony box office but that thing sung faster than the Titanic I don't even want to get into that yeah Ravens loaded at Spring break Kid Rock then Compares pro wrestling to Pimpin hey wrestling is a game of quickness agility all that you got a new one to make your moves kind of like macking you know kind of like pimping right is that correct okay I got that Fear Factory then get interviewed they say Chris Jericho is a Fear Factory fan of course he is but Fear Factory are fans of the Nitro girls so [ __ ] you Y2J can drop there and introduces the wrestlers Billy Kidman managed to get suckered into another one of these [ __ ] shows and we learned that Billy Kidman's favorite band is the Beastie Boys Kid Rock Says Kidman's beastly in the ring Hugh Morrison's favorite music video is the Ramones rock and roll high school and Kid Rock says if Morris had his way he'd make mints made out of Marlon Monson the same thing that Conan apparently said it's snowball and if he had his way he'd make mincemeat out of Marilyn Manson well go figure that out weighs 250 pounds and would love to kick Marilyn Manson's ass sounds like some MTV jack off who didn't like Marlon Monson wrote These cue cards Morris wears a Fear Factory shirt to the ring and Raven rips him apart for doing so saying it's bad for him to wear a band shirt at one of their games apparently Rey Mysterio's favorite band is Pantera and his dream tag team partner would be Snoop Dogg Kid Rock says that Chris Jericho is a Metallica freak even though it says his favorite band skin row on the screen and Chris cuts a promo after making his entrance it's probably the best thing about this show Chris gets the audience fired up he asks if the fans are having fun and then he swerves the crowd we know the problem with all that is is you should all be home try to increase your intelligence and quit wasting your parents money he does have a point there Chris says these people will end up taking orders at Harry's Burgers if they don't change their ways Raven wonders where this burger establishment is because he's never heard of it Chavo Guerrero's favorite music video is Michael Jackson's Thriller and Perry Saturn likes AC DC and Marlon Monson there's Marlon Monson again Saturn's all over the Rengar and Raven cheers them on from the commentary table and then we go to commercial break but first kid rocks just got a big head Rock stick around like some Backstreet Boys groupies stay tuned MTV's beats frog right here in Cancun weather thank you we come back we get more natural girl dancing Jimmy Hart thinks either Hugh Morris or Chris Jericho who's going to win this thing while Raven gives us a try cast he thinks Morris is going to win Kidman's gonna place and Saturn will show the match gets underway not with a ring bell not with a pigeon falling out of the air but Kid Rock saying this so here we go Fear Factory make like Jenna Jameson's in front of you and hit it so Fear Factory began playing as the March gets underway and look at the camera Cuts here if you tuned in to see WCW Wrestling you aren't going to see much of it if you tune in to see Fear Factory you're not going to see much of them either if you wanted to hear fear Factory's live performance then you'll have Jimmy Hart Raven and kid [ __ ] rock talking all over the audio so it begs the question who exactly was the cmdot it pleases nobody the camera Cuts make the wrestling match really difficult to talk about but I'll give it a shot Southern hits a leg drop on Mysterio and Kid Rock holds this a nice cracker oh Mysterio says Kidman on the top rope and the wasted Raven says this Rey Mysterio Jr up to the top here we go here we go Veronica or how do you pronounce it Mysterio and kedman stay parched on the top rope for ages maybe waiting for a cameraman to come back or something I don't know but in that time frame Hugh Morris pulls off an elbow drop on Chavo and then Mysterio pulls off a top rope Bulldog it begins to feel like eclipsio as we see solder and pull off a falcon arrow and then he performs a top rope leg drop the cuts the Fear Factory are really really annoying Saturn and humorous fight on the outside and Raven Raven does not give a flying [ __ ] about this much he wants to know where the party is after the show yeah what's the what's the party scene after this where are you going yeah that's right what's going on later today absolutely Jimmy hardhausen said half as much as what he did at snow brawl either it's due to editing Kid Rock getting on his nerves Raven's unprofessionalism or Jimmy can't keep his eyes off the Spring Breakers and the tandems Morris has a perfect chance to eliminate Mysterio but he decides to throw him onto Kidman and Chavo instead that makes absolutely no sense mortis then misses the no laughing mother Moon soul and the rest of the competitors decide to gang up and throw Morris out the show then goes to commercial break we come back and the focus is immediately put on Fear Factory you could be a Fear Factory fan and this is what you wanted to see so you got to be fair too when we get to in-ring action Saturn has his dress over Jericho's head and Raven thinks this is amazing Chavo gets eliminated by Jericho the commentators have a little fun a travel's expense don't even come over here with that and man I think Chavo would [ __ ] Rock up soldering hits a great looking German suplex in the ring on Mysterio and what's evident here is that the guys are actually working hard in the ring but the production style is doing the March no favors at all snow brawl was presented way better but the wrestling wasn't nearly as good Jericho eliminates Kidman Ray gets a good look of Saturn's dress next and Jericho then eliminates Saturn it comes down to Jericho in Mysterio and again it looks like they're doing some good work against each other but you don't really get a good look at the action Ray hits an Arabian press moonsold and he follows this up with a Bronco Buster Jericho ends up catching Rey and he gets Crotched on the top rope and Mysterio ends up getting eliminated Chris Jericho's the king of spring break as the crowd chance Jerry Gould sucks Jericho accepts his award that first of all rock kid I just want to say I'm sorry Kid Rock excited to win an award That's good I've always thought our ends up heading the ring to attack Chris just like Conan did the Adams at snow brawl the trophy ends up getting destroyed and it's thrown into the sea where it rightfully belongs it's not a buried treasure Pirates have tried to find the coveted Beach brawl trophy for over 20 years and it still hasn't been located Kid Rock tells the fans that there's a party in his room tonight and everyone's invited and the show ends with another dance from the natural Gardens I honestly think Raven was completely checked out of WCW at this point and it only lasts for another few months anyway before packing his bags and rejoining ECW as for Chris Jericho well when he won this thing he already informed Eric Bischoff that he wasn't signing a new contract Chris wrote in his book I Wrestled a bottle Royal during MTV Spring break in Cancun I won and went out drinking for 14 hours straight with the host a relative unknown named Kid Rock who I referred to as raw kid in celebration only in WCW could you get a bigger push and a hell of a party when you were leaving the company I'm not so sure this was a push Chris I think WCW just didn't give a [ __ ] either way so another waste of time another WCW blunder MTV execs knew that wrestling was hot around this time period And even years later they'd pick up the unintentionally hilarious wrestling Society X and air around 9 or 10 episodes of that although they went a step further with added audio and visual effects snow brawl and Beach brawl took place when everyone wanted a piece of the wrestling pie and well both shows let us see how a production can suffer when wrestling falls into the hands of folks who never produced a wrestling show before and I get it too these were made for MTV they were MTV Productions featuring WCW wrestlers and they were broadcasted on a music channel well it used to be a music channel this isn't Monday Nitro and this isn't even Thunder but you're still expecting something anything to come with this wrestling and music managed to coexist 15 years earlier and the whole WWF MTV Rock and wrestling thing helped to bring a 10 attention to the World Wrestling Federation but I thank the WCW and MTV partnership would have honestly turned people away I mean who would have watched this and said yeah I'm going to start watching WCW every Monday night it's [ __ ] baffling to think that these shows really benefited nobody not MTV not WCW not the wrestlers involved not the fans Not Kid Rock Not Raven not the guy who fell off when snowboarding nobody maybe a better idea would have been to have one singles March at snowball where the hill wins have the rematch build up on Nitro and then host that match on MTV Beach brawl I don't know anything has to be better than six or seven man battle Royals for shitty trophies that'll do it for this one though I don't know what else to say absolute crop I've saved you the trouble of watching the whole shows yourself but if you really must see these in their entirety then don't say I didn't warn you thanks for watching guys and take care foreign [Music] [Music] active professional wrestler is really fascinating to look back on it feels like at certain points of his career legs really hot at all his early work in the NWA has been praised as some of the best work of his entire career and he had a true Resurgence and genuine unmanufactured popularity in WCW from mid-1996 onwards looking back at the ex's work during this time period on reliving the war proves that there's many misconceptions out there about Luger yes the lacks expressed stuff in the WWF is worthy of criticism but he was red hot during the early days of the wcwnwo feud as time went on and as WCW started to change and go through its own highs and lows Lex tried to change with the times too he became part of the NW wolf pack the red and black version of the NWO that also became very popular but when the NW stuff started to dry up and when WCW attempted to build a future that didn't involve its most popular storyline and faction blacks went through another change now I'm not saying that they actually have been winning world championships at this point and I'm not saying legs could have reverted back to a 1997 baby face and carried the company into the New Millennium but what you have to understand before continuing on here and what you have to keep in the back of your mind as we look at this character evolution is that Lex Luger was once one of wcw's most beloved Superstars and that's not an exaggeration again those who join me every week for reliving the war would know that Lex had an incredible following and if you don't believe me just watch his appearances in marches during 1997. trust me A2 was part of the echo chamber when it came to Lex Luger but watching it all back made me realize that Superstars today would kill for the same crowd reactions that Luger received no one will ever consider Luger the greatest wrestler in the world let's make that clear but Lex was Ultra over he could have been someone the company went back to if they just kept him a straight Babyface but this is lit WCW we're talking about here Lex would get injured at the beginning of 1999 and when he came back later in the year he said the old Lex Luger was dead while promising the show was the next evolution of his character the presentation was a little weird the change itself was forgettable and it could very well be argued that the lacks of the group we're going to look at today is the worst legs Luger the greatest RTV screens thank you okay first of all the injury that happened on Thunder Lex Was preparing for a tag team March at Super Brawl 9 against Conan and Rey Mysterio Kevin Nash was gonna be his partner on the February 1899 edition of Thunder Luger got legitimately injured when Rey Mysterio slammed the limousine door in the Luger's biceps Luger was taken out of the Super Brawl March although he still made an appearance at the show Luger had to take time off and during his time away from The Ring WCW went through drastic changes you'd thank you for watching a completely different wrestling company by the time Luger came back sting was getting ready to wrestle Hulk Hogan on the August 23rd episode of nitro and Lex Luger came back to warns thing not to trust the hulkster Hogan was back in the red and yellow and this didn't sit well with Luger sting said he had to take the title opportunity and he didn't really have any other option right enough there was interference during the sting vs Hogan man event and sting didn't win the championship but it wasn't in instigated by Hogan Goldberg and Luger come out to clear the ring Hogan promises to give Stang another shot and he also says Luger and Goldberg can watch their backs while they have the match the next week Luger caught a promo with main Gene okerland and he said he had undeniable concrete and refutable evidence that Hulk Hogan was a con man that Hulk Hogan was still up to no good and that Hulk Hogan was scamming everyone nuger said the evidence was going to arrive to Monday Nitro and all the fans had to do was wait Hogan came out later and he pretty much said he doesn't care his hands are clean and Luger has nothing on him Hulk says he'll wear it in the back and see what Lex Luger produces Lex comes back out later and he wants them to join him in the ring Lookers holding an envelope and Luger says inside the envelope is proof that Hulk Hogan was pretty busy while he was out rehabbing his injured knee back in June Kevin Nash was hit by a Hummer while big sexy sat in a limousine we thought this storyline had been dropped when Kavanaugh battled Randy Savage the man who orchestrated the attack but the true identity of the driver was never revealed they actually staying what's in the envelope and there's Hulk Hogan and an NWO shirt standing beside the wide Hummer Hogan comes out and he says this doesn't prove anything Luger says Hulk tried to end Nash's career and sting sting seems to side with Luger here tempers began to flare and security steps in and at the very end of nitro stengos and the Hogan's dressing room and who does he find sitting there the Macho Man Randy Savage [Music] the next week Hogan said the photo was doctored Hogan does indeed drive a Hummer but his Hummer doesn't watch the one that hit Nash back in June stingenegger wanted to discuss the photo with Hulk backstage in the two visit Hogan's locker room Brad Hart's here having a conversation with the hoaxster Hogan says he'll give sting five minutes to discuss the photo we go to commercial break and when we come back Sting's been knocked out nuger blames Hogan Hogan and Brad William Luger no one knows who attacked the Stinger Goldberg Hogan and Stang were set to face Rex Steiner said in DDP in a cage match in the main event Stang arrives later the March and Luger tries to stop the Stinger from joining his teammates but sting goes anyway the baby faces win the March and Luger argues with Stang afterwards Lex is trying the Tails thing that it was Hogan who attacked him earlier on so we get the Fall Brawl Stang vs Hogan is our main event and the big question is who can sting trust DDP interferes in the match Brad Hart gets involved Sid Vicious runs them too and finally Lex Luger makes an appearance holding Sting's baseball bot Hogan takes Luger out with a big boot and sting picks up the bot Hogan tells sting that Luger was lying all along he wants sting to hand over the bat but sting attacks Hogan and he turns Hill it was all a big setup Hogan gets knocked down he can't raise his hand for the third time while in the Scorpion death lock so sting wins the margin he becomes the New World Heavyweight Champion he Embraces Lex Luger afterwards so not only did Sting turn Halo Fall Brawl but so did Lex Luger Luger hadn't worked as a healing WCW since rejoining the company back in 1995. the next night on the September 13th episode of nitro sting and Lex confirmed their new healed status by attacking Ric Flair and by beating Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan and a tag team March Luger used the baseball bat during the bugs so now we've established exactly where Lex Luger was and how he got up to this point this is where it begins to get a little weird everything up to this point has been pretty straightforward stuff we can talk about wcw's decision to turn staying hail another time because right now we're gonna focus on the death of Lex Luger well the death of Lex Luger as we knew him on the 27th of September episode of nitro we get brought into a funeral home we see a book of condolence with Lex Luger's name above it in the sitting room there's a lady with her face covered in a veil and Lex Luger and lacks lugers and the coffin we we then see the ghost of Lex Luger leave his physical body and the ghost talks to us I'm not kidding the ghost of legs Luger says here lies Lex Luger a fine man a great Champion but he's no longer with us the lady walks towards the camera we then go to the graveyard the woman approaches Luger's grave and once again spooky Luger shows up he watches the flowers getting thrown onto his casket and then we go to the arena before we go on can we please just take a moment to appreciate the ghost of Lex Luger this is [ __ ] nuts and it also fails it also feels unnecessary like they literally killed the character to introduce a new one but it's not like Lex Luger even harder character he was just you know Lex Luger the total package all that stuff he didn't play a character he was just himself really this kind of thing works for those superstars who lean more towards the supernatural inside of pro wrestling but first straight up wrestler with no real gimmick to speak of it's just strange the lady walks out into the arena she unveils herself as Miss Elizabeth as ominous music players in the background she walks down to the ring and this all feels very Grand the darkened Arena lights along with the music make it feel like something begs about to happen is this gonna be some sort of Supernatural version of Lex Luger no he's the exact same Lex Luger is in the ring and Tony Shivani explains that the commentary team were told earlier that evening that Lex Luger is not to be called Lex Luger anymore this is the total package nothing more nothing less Joker poses in the ring showing off his body for the first time since making his has returned and the commentators say this is the rebirth Lex Luger is no more you're expecting more to be honest the ghost thing was absolutely hilarious and silly but it tastes something big Miss Elizabeth sandrons was good at built up suspense for just a little moment and well the rest was really nothing we hadn't seen before with the exception of flexi Lexi's new muscular body I don't know some people may have liked this but I think the payoff wasn't great there's another major problem though WCW could have left it like this and make fans tune in next week to learn more about this new Luger sorry this new total package but they haven't worked in the main event he teams up with Stang and DDP to face Brett Hart and Ric Flair and we see him backstage before the March acting like the CMO lacks liquor he comes to the ring with DDP and sting while stings music players so we don't get to see a new entrance or anything like that and he wrestles the exact same way too only difference being he's got an new logo orange Trunks and knee pads that's the only difference I can see between the Lex Luger of old and the new total package the following week we got to see Luger's entrance he comes down to the ring with a sleeveless shirt on along with Miss Elizabeth his entrance theme has been updated to the same music that played during the whole rebirth promo he gets in the ring while a circle of Spotlight surrounds him the shirt comes off and we get a little posing it kind of reminds me of the narcissist Lex Luger even though it's still completely different but Lex being obsessed with his body sort of hearkens back to his early WWF work it does make you wonder though why do this why go through the trouble of changing the name changing the music adding a little color to your gear when in essence it's the exact same as it was before I wish I knew the answer I'm guessing it was all done because Lex was not a hill but imagine if every wrestler who turned Halo also died in color promo is a spooky ghost topping it all off with a name change I said it before but unnecessary is the word that Springs to mind Luger would continue like this right up until the closure of WCW which means he also flipped flopped around from healing the baby face when Vince Russo took control and you know what it's like explaining all that stuff so what we'll do now is look at some of the more noteworthy matches that the total package took part in Halloween Havoc 99 the total package faced Brad Hart and Luger actually made the Hitman submit in this March something you don't see all that often the total package had injured Brett the week prior with a baseball bat so Brett went and hurt a half Boston crowd made hard top out so it should have been considered a pretty big win for Luger but it kind of feels forgotten about the March itself wasn't good Luger pretty much did absolutely nothing he took a beating from Brad right at the opening Bale in the only real offense he pulled off was the half Boston crab it should have been better I should also mention that sting dropped the world title later that evening The Goldberg Luger would then in storyline begin treating Miss Elizabeth Bard at WCW Mayhem the total package was scheduled to take on Ming Luger said he was suffering from a bad neck injury at the hands of Bret Hart and he wouldn't be able to compete but Meng didn't want to hear any excuses legs worked the March while wearing a neck Prius clearly there was nothing wrong with him and then this was supposed to Blind me with Miss but she had a little trouble using the ball this ended up looking really bad and it looked like Liz had intentionally spread legs even though it wasn't meant to look that way but nonetheless this started a chain of events where Luger and Elizabeth's relationship would become more and more strand legs tried to put Liz in a match with Ming yeah a match with Meng as punishment that's wild they just ran away and she locked herself in a cage Lex managed to get the key from Liz while she was still locked in and he promised to drop the cage into the ring later on if he had to Luger was hell-bent on feeding Elizabeth domingue sting walked by and Liz would ask for some help and sting said no there was no way out of this Liz ends up getting dropped in the rang via a forklift truck and Meng has some trouble getting through the metal bars so the total package tries to hand the key over the Ming Luger takes a Tonkin death grip for his trouble and just when Liz was about to get grabbed then came out to save the day after free English sting has a march with Ming Liz comes back out and she tries to help sting by using the mess but sting won't allow her to do so the total package ends up coming down to get Liz but staying once again saves her and this heroic act leads this thing losing the March [Music] this kind of thing would continue on Luger threatened the sulas and he presented court documents to her backstage he promised the powers to be that Liz would take part in a mud bath match on Nitro and when Liz refused the total package lifted her up and he threw her into the mud lacks had gone from the total package to the total [ __ ] once again staying saved the day and it looked like Sting was showing more and more sympathy towards Liz Liz even protected staying from a chair shot from Luger and she helped sting and beating Luger and a Nitro tag March it looked like Liz was completely done with legs and she had moved on to make this right Luger wanted the match with sting and that March would take place at Starkid 99 at Star kid Liz wearing her own sting gear was handed a bottle of Miss from sting sting said this is the good stuff the extra strength stuff and Liz was told to get rid of her other bottle Liz brought the Stinger down to the ring for his March against Luger and Liz would help sting during the early moments of the bout at one point Liz runs into the ring and it looks like she's checking to see if Luger's okay sting knew this was gonna happen he was too used to the swerves bro so he also went through the trouble of giving Liz a can of Silly String not a can of highly concentrated mess The Jig was up this had been another long swerve steng Sans lives out of the ring and he continues the March he goes for the death lock but Liz again tries to interfere this time with a baseball bat sting tells her to put it down she follows his orders sting turns his back and he ends up getting smacked across the face anyway the ref rules the march at DQ but listen Luger aren't finished yet Liz puts Sting's hand in a chair and Luger proceeds to destroy stings wrist and arm this is something Luger would do to other opponents following this matchup it all ends with Stan getting carried up the entranceway Luger and Liz would then show up the Nitro and Thunder with legs dressed up and sting somehow I'm managing to look even worse than the nwo's thing the real Stinger stayed out of action for a few weeks but he'd send messages to Luger letting him know that he was coming after him this would go on for quite some time sting was expected to return at the end of January but that didn't happen so Luger would move his Focus onto a new tag team with Ric Flair known as team package these two would Feud with Hulk Hogan and the sting return March didn't happen until uncensored Stang ended up winning the match the match was contested under Lumberjack rules with the Lumberjacks wearing casts The Lumberjacks had all gotten their arms broke by the total package boy that's a lot of injuries right there and Luger tried to even the odds by bringing out the Harris brothers and Harlem heat 2000 as his own Lumberjacks but it didn't matter let's try to get involved but Vampiro and Jimmy hard kept her away The Lumberjacks all for each other and they ended up going back up the entranceway and sting got the win when Vampiro hit Luger with the baseball bat it felt like a long build up with a pretty average ending there's not much point in going much further because the new blood angle would then begin in WCW and with that baby faces and Haley switched roles and everything that was established previously got thrown in the bin Luger would become a face in the millionaires Club while still teaming with flair one week fans were being conditioned to boo Flareon Luger and the next they were expected to cheer them Flair was fine in this department by the way but Luger definitely suffered since coming back from the biceps injury Lugar had done absolutely everything included to get fans to hear him and as much as I don't think he should have turned hail in the first place he done a pretty good job of being pretty unlikable it was too late for the total package to go back to the old 1997 Lex Luger so he just carried on getting warm receptions WCW did try to push Luger Again by once again turning him heal and having him work marches at Mayhem and star kid against Bill Goldberg the latter had Goldberg's career on the line but WCW was Dead in the Water by this point and nobody cared Luger would then form a short-lived tag team with Buff Bagwell name totally buffed but that's a story for another time the short of it is though again nobody really cared nuger changing to the total package kind of captures where WCW was at this point they were all over the place with no clear plan on what's going to come next we talked about how redundant the character change was but making redundant decisions was something WCW would do as a whole as time went on the company had done something with Luger at one point the same way the company had done something during the Monday night Wars but it all went South and people stopped caring and once people stopped caring it's incredibly difficult to get those people back did the total package stuff tarnish Luger's Legacy I'm not sure I think Elizabeth's passing in the circumstances surrounding our passing may be a more contributing factor there but in a professional sense the total package definitely didn't do lugarani favors maybe he was past the point of unwavering popularity too though it's hard to say because after the Wolfpack collapsed he was pretty much immediately turned heel upon his return but anyway that's gonna do it for today personally I didn't care much for the reborn leg Slugger and I think it's a shame that the company never really truly capitalized on Luger's Newfound WCW popularity in the mid to late 90s but let me know your thoughts in the comments thanks for watching guys and take care [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign CW blunder for you Glacier a frosty fan favorite over on the reliving the war series Ray Lloyd got dealt a rough hand in terms of his WCW debut those who watch my channel and those who watched Nitro back in 1996 would remember the constant blood runs cone vignettes and how glaciers arrival in WCW was delayed over and over again when Glacier was finally revealed through yet more vignettes the character was met with indifference the Mortal Kombat inspiration was painfully obvious we don't need to get into all that but the whole Glacier revealed also in a way represented a slight identity crisis for world championship wrestling the nwo's arrival felt Cutting Edge the lengths WCW went through to make the New World Order fail real with something that made fans pay close attention to Monday Nitro and when you compare the unpredictability of this outlaw faction trying to take over a company to a Sub-Zero rip-off giving us martial arts demonstrations on top of his Ice Palace then glacier sure ends up looking Posse before he even has a debut March Glacier may have been a new wrestler but it felt like he wouldn't have been out of place in WCW a few years prior still the one thing that Ray Lloyd had going for him was the fact that he wasn't bad at all in the ring he brought something new to the table in terms of his moveset and while it's very easy for us to look back and laugh at the bulletin Mortal Kombat ripoff God knows I do it enough but Glacier was spared becoming total mean material thanks to how well he performed in the ring also those who have met Ray and spoke with Rey say that he's an awesome guy too so this would lead you to think that all Rey had to do was ditch the glacier gimmick and try something else right surely it was just the glacier gimmick that was holding him back and a change of character would work wonders for this guy well yeah Glacier was gone by August of 1999 and Ray Lloyd sure did get himself a new gimmick and somehow I don't know how they did it but somehow WC had we managed to give Ray something even worse than the glacier character this is just one of the downfalls that we're going to look at today here is the multiple downfalls of Glacier this should be fun Eric Bischoff said the glacier was created as a WCW marketing project and if that's the case WCW seriously failed Bischoff said the driving force behind the glacier character was merchandising things like action figures and video games and I say WCW field in that department because they didn't even bother bringing out an official Glacier action figure and there was no blood runs called video game either yes you may say Glacier was featured in WCW Revenge but so was Jim Neidhart and the Anvil didn't have to dress up like Sub-Zero to get a spot either with that in mind Glacier certainly wasn't the first game it created with the sole intention of sailing merchandise and Eric beshoff did hold a lot of experience in sales and marketing the intentions aren't the problem here but the fact that Glacier only got this race car toy and not a fully fledged action figure kinda shows us that WCW shut the bed with its initial idea you've got wrath and mortis too again two good wrestlers portraying glaciers biggest enemies and they too wouldn't have looked out of players in a Mortal Kombat game or a Saturday morning cartoon But as time went on you could tell that nobody not a single soul knew what to do with the glacier story arc it was the end of you bringing in the merchandise money not the Sub-Zero knockoff so in terms of generating Revenue it made sense for the marketing department to put all their focus onto the NWO and boy did they ever go overboard NWO posters and wo pens multiple variations of the NWO shirt it seemed like every other week New Year NW merchandise was being advertised and you know what it made good business sense fans wanted to buy this stuff the NW brand was probably making more money than every other superstars merchandise put together what fans clearly didn't want to buy was a glacier shirt a glacier replica Helmet or heaven forbid a glacier video game the blood runs cold storyline was nowhere near as successful as Eric Bischoff had hoped but it did provide fans with a change of pace during WCW television shows as big as the NW were fans weren't going to set through full shows dominated by the New World Order and bishop's attempts at creating NWO exclusive shows proves this as silly as it was at times the blood runs cold storyline was different from everything else on WCW television and I thought this was fine it remained in the mid card it didn't eat up too much TV time and we got to see some good performers in the ring while all this was going down at the beginning of 1998 though the company decided to end the blood runs code storyline and turn Glacier Hill because why the [ __ ] not it's not like the story was going anywhere at this point anyway on the January 24th 1998 episode of Saturday night Glacier turned on his friend Ernest Miller and he let mortise and wrath score a tag team February which technically means mortis and wrath were the winners of the the whole blood runs cold Feud if you thought big things were on Horizon for the evil Frosty balls then you've got another thing coming Glacier went on a losing streak after turning Hill made all the more noteworthy because he spent his debut year being undefeated in singles competition it's usually at this point in the Superstar's career when it all goes downhill we have seen it countless times an idea fails but the guy's still on payroll so just use them and get other people over but WCW to their credit did try a few more times with Glacier still those few months Glacier span losing matches did him absolutely no favors he was already perceived as a lower midcard guy at this point and losing to the likes of Steve [ __ ] McMichael and Prince IKEA on Nitro didn't help mothers another thing that didn't help too Glacier would limit his moveset considerably when wrestling is a bad guy the commentators even made a point of saying that Glacier was now focusing on pro wrestling and not martial arts so one of of the things that made Glacier stand out one of the only redeemable qualities he had from a TV standpoint was also taken away and I get it taking away fancy cakes and unique moves gives the crowd less opportunities to cheer but WCW was also giving people more reason not to care about Glacier let's call everything we just talked about downfall number one the televised losing streak came to an end on May 11 1998 when Glacier got a win over SEC boy a member of Raven's flock before the March Glacier cut a promo saying that one of the things he brought with him to WCW during his debut was the cryonic kick Glacier felt like too many people were ripping off the move but nobody could do it better than old frosty balls himself so if Glazier caught anyone trying to steal his finisher no matter who it was Glacier would take them out after Glacier defeated sick boy Perry Saturn hit the ring to launch an attack on the 25th of May episode of nitro Glacier cut another promo where he said he knew there would be imitators when he brought the crayon and kick the WCW Perry Saturn's running around saying his kick is better than the original and Glacier isn't gonna stand for it clears your mock Saturn for high heat dresses that's ironic and Glacier says what he created is something he can also destroy so Glacier challenges Saturn to a march to see who has the best kick the the March happens later on Nitro and it ended with Saturn performing the death volley driver not a cake brilliant Saturn had another storyline going on Raven was trying to get Saturn back in the flog So Raven and his cronies were getting involved in causing distractions throughout this whole mini Feud on Thunder later in the week Glacier wrestled Von Hammer Glacier locked in the rings of Saturn during the march so Saturn came down he hit Glacier with a cryonic kick and Glacier took another death volley driver the two would then trade victories over the next two episodes of thunder in the first March Canyon dressed up as a referee and he took out Saturn Canyon then pulled out the mortise mask and he showed it the glacier before Frosty balls pinned Parry Saturn but this was merely a tease and nothing more on the following Thunder Saturn defeated Glacier the flock once again got involved and Glacier got distracted but Saturn once again put Glacier away with a death volley driver and then glaze your fist Goldberg on the 29th of June 1998 episode of nitro this was in glacier's first march with Phil Goldberg the two had a match the month prior that ended in two minutes and they had two other matches before that but this one right here is a March that Ray Lloyd wouldn't forget during the boat Glacier suffered a knee injury a pretty serious knee injury that would keep him out of action for around five months it looks like this leg lock caused the injury Glacier grabs his knee immediately after the move but to his credit he did finish the March Goldberg of course won the bite after a spear and a jackhammer Glazier would have to take some time off he'd make his comeback on the November 5th episode of thunder and he offered his support to Ernest Miller Miller had also turned hill by this point Glacier was robbing some new gear too not sure if this was an improvement or not but it sure was different and Glacier said guys like he and Miller will never get a break and WCW so the two should watch each other others box Ernest Miller didn't seem to care all that much the next week Glacier had his return much once again on Thunder he wrestled Chris Adams in the opening contest but before the match would begin cleisher once again said he's the originator of the cryonic kick and guys like Chris Adams were ripping him off Adams was actually credited as one of the first wrestlers to use the super kick in the end autumns hits Glacier with the Keck but Sunny Ono and Ernest Miller get involved Glacier then shows off his new finisher afterwards The Ice Pick and yeah glaciers back in the opening matches of Thunder not exactly the comeback story of the year but it's better than nothing Monday Nigro on the 11th of November was a bit of a weird one Raven refused to wrestle wrath so Canyon jumped in the ring to begin his match with Glacier rap ends up wiping out both Canyon and Glacier and this sets up a wrath vs Glacier match at World War III good example though of how things had changed in WCW just a year earlier these guys guys were way more in character in terms of the blood runs code stuff but at this point all three men were very different anyway at world war three wrath defeated Glacier and this was glacier's last WCW Pay-Per-View March even though he stuck around for another year at this point it was decided that Rey needed a complete change of character he went on another losing streak there was no moving up the cards for Rey so drastic times called for drastic measures on the February 11th episode of Thunder Glacier said Ernest Miller may be a word karate champion but he doesn't have the biggest and best entrance of all time this is something Glacier could provide the cat with Glacier than pokes fun at his own debut saying he got sick of watching the video vignettes just like everyone else but he was able to debut with the biggest ring entrance of all time and Glacier is willing to sell his entrance for a reasonable fee Sunny Ono cuts a deal and the cat gets the entrance car's Hayashi comes along Sunny Ono does some Weyland and Dylan and Hayashi ends up overpaying for glacier's iconic entrance gear this is downfall number two here's a man admitting his gimmick was absolutely [ __ ] Glacier wanted to leave it all behind and he was willing to sell his gear and is entrance on pretty much his identity to whoever was stupid enough to buy it I mean it's funny but it's also miserable at the same time the cat came out to glacier's music but he was annoyed about the lack of lasers and heavy snow in the ring so he got rid of the entrance the following week cars Hayashi would come out a few times wearing glacier's gear but that too was soon scrapped Glacier then completely disappeared from WCW television the gimmick ended with Glacier making fun of his debut selling his [ __ ] and riding off into the sunset I really want to joke about this but I can't think of a better way for a guy to disappear okay so are you ready for downfall number three Ray Lloyd wasn't done in WCW just yet oh no glacier was gone that fact remained true but what comes next we'll make your wish to the glacier never left in the first place the summer of 99 and WCW wasn't a great summer in terms of creativity and what we have here folks is a fan example of why WCW was rapidly going down the toilet WCW Thunder august 19 1999 Mike tonight says we're going to take a look at a guy who will soon debut in WCW and there he is coach Buzz Stern [ __ ] hell does stern is here to teach guys how to be proper athletes he's strict he's disciplined and he's also a dick rule one both star and makes all the rules rule two if a trainee has any questions at all they need to refer back to rule one okay but says if these jabronis want to make it they need to follow the coach's three s's sweat plus sacrifice equals success the next week we see Buzz darn in the WCW power plant it looks like that guy in the background is butt naked [ __ ] sake yeah Buzz is giving his trainees a hard time but he wants everyone to succeed I'm not sure what they were thinking with their stuff but hey at least it provides good blunder material the week after that the coach announced the first member of the buzz star and winners Club the clumsy Luther Biggs Luther didn't remember a single [ __ ] thing about Stern's three asses but he promised he wouldn't let his coach down a few weeks later Biggs was ready for a March both Stern told begs he wasn't the best athlete in the world but he has hard and he'll never give up so the coach was going to bring bigs to thunder and Biggs was gonna wrestle on the 30th in September edition of Thunder big squared off against Bobby Eaton and the whole match was met with silence the audience couldn't have cared less and they seemed annoyed with Luther's attempts at comedy they messed up the ending too Buzz darn was supposed to dive in and break up with three kinds but he he didn't make it on time the referee hesitated when counting the three but there was nothing the ref could do Bobby Eaton pens Luther Biggs and Buzz star and applies to Phil Nelson on beautiful Bobby afterwards for losing the March Biggs also gets put in a Full Nelson and Buzz starn rips his [ __ ] apart as they leave the ring it's absolute dog [ __ ] Luther would win two matches on worldwide and Saturday night before stepping back in the ring on Thunder Biggs would face Ming in his final WCW March and as expected Luther got annihilated the Tongan death grip gets applied to both Biggs and Buzz Stern and I don't know what else to say this thing just wasn't working and there wasn't a fan in attendance who cared at all there's one Saving Grace here though this is the episode of Thunder where Kevin Nash was thrown on commentary and he really didn't give a [ __ ] about what he said on TV Nash talked about how sweet Ming's hair was and how lutherberg should have known he was going to get beaten because WCW aired a video package dedicated to Ming before the mods took place Kevin Nash was not taking this seriously one bit but that just kind of reflected what everyone else was doing in the arena the whole Buzz star in the bottle came to an end when Buzz wrestled his final WCW march on the 4th of November episode of thunder and hey at least he went out with a match against the greater point Guerrero before getting released by WCW as a cost cutting measure and I'd love to say this boat was good but it was a standard WCW Thunder March absolutely nothing to write home about Eddie Guerrero wins with his frog Splash buzz starn and Luther Beggs take a bidding from the filthy animals and the story of Buzz Stern and the story of Glacier comes to an end or did it [Music] Redemption stories usually have a way of making us feel good and in wrestling a good successful return can quickly become the top of the whole wrestling world Ray Lloyd had a chance at Redemption but seeing as his WCW comeback would take place at the beginning of 2001 you should already know that this wasn't the feel good story that many people hoped for or probably didn't hope for a WCW Mayhem 2000 a familiar vignette played the old 1996 blood runs code video was broadcasted during the pay-per-view and this could only mean one thing the old original Glacier was gonna make a comeback like before these promos would air on WCW television for a couple of weeks as WCW intentionally or unintentionally recaptured the frustration that Manny felt in 1996 when these [ __ ] things wouldn't stop airing on Nitro blood runs colder apparently Frosty balls gets more Frosty and you know what I could actually see some fans getting into this I mean WCW was not what it was in late 2000 or early 2001 a call back to the Glory Days of 96 and 97 may have been welcomed by some fans who were still hardcore enough to watch WCW during this time period Norman Smiley was absolutely ecstatic that a real hero was on his way back to WCW and Glacier even sent a message to Norman saying if he ever needed help Glacier would be there for him well Norman did need help almost right away but Glacier didn't show up Norman was the victim of underhanded tactics by the Harris brothers so Norman expected help and he didn't get it on the 24th of January 2001 episode of Thunder though Norman got a surprise when a certain hero of his was wearing the great hand backstage Glacier had returned and he was here to back up Norman Smiley Norman wrestled the match against Mike Awesome he clearly needed help again and then comes Glacier wearing a brand new attire complete with a new mask and Glacier was just too busy shaking hands with fans at ringside to even notice what was going on in the ring Norman tried to get glacier's attention but old jelly chode was way too busy with his adoring fan base Norman took a loss Glacier then hit the ring to help out and when Glacier noticed he was too late he pushed Norman aside so he could do his little pose routine the next week the same thing happened Norman faced Bam Bam Bigelow he looked all around for Glacier but Glacier was way too lit because he was too busy giving out high fives after the boat Glacier with a typical superhero voice said he just got rid of another evildoer in Bam Bam Bigelow Norman lays on the mod and pain Glacier poses and thunder moves on to its next segment all this could have maybe went somewhere I'm not saying it was brilliant I'm not even saying it was good but it could have been interesting seeing Glacier act like an oblivious goof while Norman grew increasingly frustrated with his Hero's lack of action it all ended just as quick as it started though the week after the Bam Bam match Norman politely asked glacier to show up on time this week when Norman left Sean O'Hare and Chuck Palumbo entered glacier's locker room and they took out our Frosty superhero Glacier was never seen again on WCW television and that was the multiple downfalls of Glacier he had such a rough time in WCW didn't they at least he got paid well though and at least he got out still in good health he's still associated with pro wrestling too this very day and that's a [ __ ] Marigold saying hi utterly indigress some of his WCW storylines were not to mention the whole idea of the glacier character itself being laughable to begin with over on reliving the war We are following the adventures of Glacier on a weekly basis sometimes he'll show up other times he won't but check out the series if you want to follow glacier's path to mediocrity thanks for watching this one guys and take care [Music] thank you [Music] WCW seemed to have a thing for musicians coming in during the last few years of the company's existence and these musicians would do more than just play a few Tunes Master P the Misfits ICP all these guys got used in storylines but no one was probably more Infamous than kiss in the kiss demon kiss a band who had their biggest years from the late 70s to the mid 80s performed live on WCW Nitro and on paper it kind of makes sense bringing a big over-the-top band put them on your TV show and hope and pray it grabs some attention from folks who maybe haven't seen WCW programming before there's an argument to be made there though that generally speaking no one really cared about kiss in 1999 and this could potentially be another colossal waste of money WCW were paying for a band that didn't have the same following that they once did and niching down this hard was never gonna bring in any big returns but I digress I'm not going to talk about how popular Kessler and 1999 I'm going to talk about the kiss demon a gimmick that was born out of the kiss live performance on the 23rd of August 1999 edition of nitro it's funny when I research these kind of videos I always come across articles and posts from folks stating that things like this should have worked but no just no I don't mind taking [ __ ] for this one the kiss demon was a horrible horrible idea and I find it quite funny that die hards would defend this one Dale torborg the guy under the face paint comes across as a really nice guy in interviews and he sounds really really humble his stories about WCW and the Genesis of the kiss demon are very insightful but I'm talking about the general idea here the absolute outrageousness of having a guy dressed up in cascia wrestling matches on a TV show that desperately needed more viewers strap yourselves in welcome to another episode of WCW blunder this is the cast demon Dale torborg played baseball before getting into wrestling his dad Jeff torborg was a catcher with the Dodgers and Angels before switching to coaching in the late 70s going on to coach the Yankees and the White Sox for his dad Dale would form a friendship with George Steinbrenner and another guy who was friendly with Steinbrenner was Hulk Hogan Dylan Hogan ended up on the same flight from Tampa to La where the two spoke about baseball and pro wrestling and when the plane landed in LAX Hogan introduced dildar Andy Salvage when Salvage her deals surname he immediately asked if Dale was Jeff's son remember Savage played Minor League Baseball through this conversation Dale was asked if he ever considered becoming a pro wrestler and when deal realized he was the CM height as Hogan and Savage he thought he could maybe give it a go and see what happens he was trained by the warlord and Jim The Anvil Neidhart and he had his first dark match after just two months of training he would join WCW as part of the pit crew tag team along with Chad fortune and on the 12th of October 1998 deal me with his Nitro debut defeating Kendall Windham and what the commentators called an upset Victory thiel's rank time was then severely limited but he would get another opportunity very very soon Eric beshoff wrote on his book that he met Cass at the beginning of 1999 and he had discussions with the band about potentially starting up a partnership with WCW most of this would center around licensing deals but she offer wrote that test maintained a fan base that would buy anything that had the kiss name attached to it so he felt using Quezon WCW programming could benefit both entities Eric wrote I've never met anyone who understands promotion to the extent that Gene Simmons does we said if we're going to work together we need a line of merchandise and collectibles if we could do that the licensing alone would be a good return on our investment as part of our daily work together I broadcast on the Nitro I overpaid for their appearance but in the big picture to launch the kiss WCW merchandise it made good sense and Gene Simmons book sex money kiss Jane revealed that he'd also been talking with the World Wrestling Federation in regards to Bringing kiss to the world of pro wrestling summoned for wrote I saw the enormous success of wrestling for years I'd been telling our legal people to send letters to various wrestlers the cease and desist using similar makeup it became clear and clear to me that wrestling had simply become a cash show the characters wore outfits and even though they wrestled the intros to the events were pure kiss the Peril came right out of our shows we went down to New Orleans to be on the Super Bowl TV Extravaganza while we were there I tracked down Linda and Vince McMahon the owners and founders of World Wrestling Federation leader entertainment I invited them down and in my hotel room we started talking about kiss wrestlers my idea was there would be a demon a guy who'd Been to Hell and back and the star child who looked really pretty everyone wanted to beat him but because of his athletic skills no one could touch him Linda and Vince love the idea we started to negotiate right then and there I told them I would get back to them in the meantime I also spoke with their competition WCW and they simply offered a battery we signed with them if we take what Simmons says as the truth WCW were throwing around big money to secure kiss and if we believe what Bishop said WCW wanted kiss for merchandising trying to Target kisses Die Hard audience and not so much the die-hard wrestling audience it's been said that Gene Simmons wanted an entire kiss faction in WCW and that was apparently part of the agreement and get this the case statement would have the headline a WCW Pay-Per-View that's right a main event matched with the kiss demon was agreed upon before the character even made its debut it sounds like this is all backwards Gene Simmons and kiss should have been paying WCW for this kind of nonsense you can understand a live performance on Nitro but even that's pushing it a little when you talk about a kiss demon a kiss faction and This Kiss demon headlining a WCW Pay-Per-View that's when you get in the WCW blunder territory if Eric best you have agreed to do all this while paying a reported half a million million dollars just so we could sell WCW action figures while hoping to pop a rating With a Kiss concert on Nitro then yeah it's no wonder WCW went on the toilet it has to be one of the most ridiculous Partnerships in wrestling history and it's hard to believe that anyone saw any upside in this you may very well love kiss and that's all good I like them too it doesn't mean there should be a [ __ ] kiss character main Eventing wrestling pay-per-views there's no justifying it so on August 23 1999 in Las Vegas Nevada has performed at the very end of WCW Nitro if you were really in the kiss then I'm sure you would have had a good time and certainly the performance would have created a few new Young kiss fans but WCW execs wanted a return on their investment the TV rating came in the show drew a 2.9 a truly abysmal number saying it's the week before drew a 3.3 and the week after drew a four in the kiss segment totally bombed with a 2.25 rating it was laughably bad and there's no defending this one guys complete [ __ ] the lip sync performance wasn't awful by the way but it's Crystal Clear the wrestling fans didn't want to watch kiss and kiss fans didn't tune in either or maybe their Die Hard fan base had dwindled in numbers anyway the kiss demon makes his debut here our guide Dale was told he'd be betraying the demon but the role was instead given to Brian Adams that's right died Crush was the original castemon and it didn't take long for Adams to realize that he made a big big mistake Bishop came up with an idea that would enrage the WCW roster and other members of wdcw Staff inspired by the whole Y2K problem that would occur on New Year's Eve 1999. Eric wanted to put on a WCW Pay-Per-View named new year's evil that also featured a Kiss concert it would run over the 31st of December and the 1st of January and immediately you can see why this would piss people off nobody wanted to work New Year's Eve never mind setting up a full pay-per-view production and so there was a ton of Backstage turmoil reportedly guys threatened to walk out if they were forced to work New Year's Eve and to try and squash the beef Eric had the brilliant idea of calling everyone in their meeting and verbally ripping everyone apart this is the well-documented meeting where Raven got up and walked out this Talent meeting also happened at the Las Vegas Nitro work has performed and Bishop thought he would Fight Fire with Fire by accusing his performers of using profanities on TV and speaking negatively about WCW to the Press the backstage tensions the drop and ratings The shuffling going on within Turner and the ridiculous amount of money getting spent for no return resulted in Eric Bishop getting fired and the future of the kiss demon was Naya and Jeopardy although I'd like to hope that was the least of everyone's concerns bran Adams made one more appearance as the cast demon showing up on the next episode of nitro after a Mike anus and Evan courageous March that also included a run-in by Vampiro the demon made it clear he was coming after Vampiro but then Adams decided he didn't want to portray the character anymore according to Dale torborg bran didn't want the gimmick in the first place and he felt pushed into it but Dale who had the MVP gimmick at this time a gimmick inspired by The Warriors movie and the baseball Furies Dale actually wanted to play the role of the kiss demon and keep in mind he was the original First Choice he was a massive fan of the band and he felt a certain amount of pride representing his favorite group so that's all good unfortunately though things didn't quite work out that way Dale said he was approached by WCW Executives by bringing the demon back to TV after the character hadn't been seen in a few months and he was flat out told that the demon character was going to get buried specifically to make Eric Bischoff look bad Bill Bush was calling the shots during this time period and deal was apparently told that he'd be doing WCW a massive favor by wearing the face paint after the demon run had ended and after wcw's obligations toward kiss it also ended Dale was promised a push with a new character Dale would actually fight it he wanted to keep the kiss demon going as long as possible and he had no desire to help WCW Barry Bischoff deal just wanted to be the kiss demon on TV so the new year's evil pay-per-view doesn't happen there's not going to be a kiss faction Bishop was gone and it was time for the demon to re-emerge on WCW Thunder Dale came out on the 26th of January episode of Thunder the wrestle Terry Funk and he was defeated in around three minutes on the next episode of nitro Norman Smiley got locked inside the Demon's casket he then re-emerged in full kiss gear and he went out to have a match against Sheehan hounds the big scary badass kissed him and had to run to the cops and he ordered the boys in blue to find out who stole his gear and after Smiley defeated Helms the demon came down the ringside to get his gear back Smiley ran away and nitral moved on later in the week again on Thunder Norman Smiley defeated the demon this time in under two minutes the demon didn't care about winning the match he just wanted his gear back so he spent the March ripping Norman's clothes off only to get locked in a chicken wing and forced to submit think about all that WCW and kiss crossover merchandising think about the New Year's Eve pay-per-view featuring WCW and a kiss concert then take a look at the demon getting a [ __ ] jacked by Norman Smiley and Topping out on WCW Thunder even if you didn't follow the backstage happenings in professional wrestling and you'll watch WCW in the most casual way possible you can still tell that something was up here all the Fanfare and build up for kiss in 1999 and then in 2000 the demons getting completely wrecked on TV it wasn't all bad though the demon did get a win over Bobby Eaton on WCW Saturday night with uh with this right here still on Thunder and Nitro things would progressively get worse while the matches got shorter it took belly Kitten around two and a half minutes to defeat the demon on the 7th of February 2000 episode of nitro and on the next episode of Thunder the demon got a shot at the hardcore title it lasted about five seconds the demon came out of his casket he got whacked with a Candlestick and he got pinned immediately by Bigelow WCW had to put the demon on TV because they were contractually obligated to do so and then wcw's Infinite Wisdom they decided to bury the character together the former executive producer WCW were still obligated to put the kiss demon in that pay-per-view Main Event also and that much would take place at Super Brawl 10. the March was built as a special main event March but it was fourth on the card a total of seven matches took place after the kiss demon March so you come to the conclusion that they were [ __ ] around here while still technically honoring their agreement by building the March as a main event WCW expected fans to pay for these shows and to completely bury a character and then put that character in a pay-per-view match really isn't the way to put fans first they could have at least tried with the kiss demon they were stuck with the character after all they could have tried to do something but no it all turns into petty [ __ ] and it's the fans who ultimately pay for it you do feel bad for deal too still really wanted to do something with the character is badly conceived as it was but anyway the Demon versus the wall took place at Super Brawl and surprise surprise nobody cared it's absolute silence in the arena from bail to Bell the wall wins with a choke slam from the top rope and WCW could not say they presented the demon and a March build as a main event I have no idea if this was ever contested by the way and I don't care enough to find out either you'd think that was it done and dusted there was no further use for the character and WCW could put this all behind them but remember it was Dale who wanted to keep going as the kiss demon funnily enough Eric Bischoff was brought back to WCW as an on-screen character and co-writer along with Vince Russo and maybe bishop still believed in the kiss demon who knows but the demon would stay with WCW right up until the very end of the company although the bar was already set incredibly low things did improve for the demon in terms of his role on TV he started a feud with Vampiro the guy who the original case demon was supposed to begin his run with back in August of 1999 and the demon was able to pin Vampiro while Nitro in the month of July it barged at the beach 2000 the demon had another match against Vampiro a graveyard match and you know something this was actually pretty interesting and it could have been better if the lighting was turned up a little sometimes it's difficult to see what's going on but the demon along with his new manager Asia who would also become his real wife life go on a little Vampiro hunt in the graveyard and we have ourselves a fight it's explained that the winner is the first person to get back to the arena and Vampiro ends up winning this one the demon gets whacked with what looks like a piece of Tombstone and he gets put in a casket while this was going on Vampiro screams for the demon to join him and the demon refuses so he gets locked in the casket and Vampiro heads back to the arena inside the arena Vampiro says the demon is dead vampiro's gotten rid of Dale torborg once and for all along with another guy who vampiro's had problems with recently the man called sting but Vampiro ends up meeting a bunch of dudes wearing sting masks and he himself ends up in a coffin the Stinger wasn't finished with Vampiro just yet the next night on Monday Night Raw Vampiro claimed the Demon's Soul and the demon became part of vampiro's dark carnival they were then attacked by Sting wearing a ski mask but nonetheless the demon and I had something he could properly sink his teeth into turning Hill wasn't a bad idea at all at this point the demon joined forces with Vampiro and the ICP soon they were joined by the great murder but let's not get ahead of ourselves either here the dark carnival was another somewhat decent idea in WCW that suffered due to inconsistent booking that's gonna do it for this well not much more I can say really the case demon in my opinion was a bad idea from the start and it's really really difficult to imagine this idea ever having any positive outcomes even a die-hard kiss fan who watches wrestling on a regular basis wouldn't have been very excited for this thanks to wcw's track record at the time kiss as a band still has a good following today but a band who was more popular in the 70s and 80s wasn't the answer to wcw's problems towards the very end of the 90s let alone a character based off the same band much respect to deal torborg though Who Loved this time as the character and much respect for Dale fighting for what he believed in but in the end as predicted it's a colossal waste of money on an idea that was never gonna work anyway in terms of merchandising and profiting off the kiss and WCW relationship no merchandise was ever created I found this shirt online that was shared by a collector and apparently this shirt was handed out for free at the Las Vegas this Nitro but there was nothing else not even a WCW produced action figure Dale said there was no March for the demon because WCW didn't want to pay kiss any more than what they already had rendering the whole reason for the relationship beginning in the first place completely [ __ ] pointless Dale would bring the demon back at impacts Bound for Glory show in 2021 and it looked like a lot of fans got a kick out of saying the elevated character once again it also looks like Dale had fun too so all's well that ends well anyway thanks for watching this one and take care foreign [Music] [Music] CW is really fascinating to me Hulkamania was synonymous with the World Wrestling Federation throughout the 80s and early 90s and the wwf's main event scene was built around Hogan during a period of significant company growth for many Hulk Hogan joining WCW in wrestling for what many Die Hard saw as the enemy was both shocking yet very intriguing while Hogan was dominating the WWF with similar larger than light Superstars WCW Ford maintain a sense of tradition it didn't always work out that way because there were people in charge who wanted WCW to become more wwf-esque but the purest of WCW fans generally enjoyed a known nonsense wrestling show without cartoony and over-the-top characters for many NWA and WCW fans the WWF was seen as a company that presented caddy wrestling shows and you know to a certain extent those WCW fans were right we shouldn't Overlook the fact that wcw's biggest Babyface at the time wore colorful Tides had his face painted and referred to as fans as the little Stingers but still generally speaking the WWF did seem to specifically Target the young demographic while WCW would put on marches that an older audience would maybe appreciate too both companies had success but it was Hulk Hogan who helped launch the WWF into orbit with his matches against the likes of Andre the Giant Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior and through this whole lucrative WWF run Hulk Hogan's character didn't change throughout it all he wore the yellow and red he was the real American who fights for the ride of every man the idea here was if it ain't broke don't fix it and indeed for the longest time hogamania wasn't broke the news that Hogan signed with WCW in 1994 sent shock waves throughout the wrestling world and it became one of the biggest stories of the year but those traditional WCW fans who didn't care all that much for New York wrestling weren't sold on the idea and saying as Hogan and WCW still thought that Hulk and Mania wasn't broke Hogan would enter the company still talking about taking your vitamins and saying your prayers while attacked out in the classic yellow and red gear WCW fans were just getting the big WWF guy and what's maybe worse he was booked to destroy WCW Legend Ric Flair in his first March while capturing the WCW Heavyweight Championship that's not exaggerate things either though if you watch boss hit the beach in 1994 from Orlando Florida you'll see an audience who were jumping for joy when Hogan defeated Flair and the crowd celebrated alongside Hogan after the final Bell but the most vocal of WCW fans the ones who were there for years the ones who bought the after magazines and collected the tips they weren't sold on Hogan and when Hulk Hogan was booked to wrestle in Atlanta or the Carolinas that vocal minority became the vocal majority showing their inability to read the crowd and predict where things were going WCW Double Down with the creation of the three faces of fear and then the Dungeon of Doom a group of villainous bastards who arguably were more cartoony and ridiculous than the villains the WWF presented on their TV shows the Dungeon of Doom were specifically put together to Feud against Hulk Hogan their mission was to end hogamania once and for all and some of the promos and pre-tips that air during this time period would become infamous because they really were that bad there's no hockey Maniacs here Hogan would maintain rivalries with the Dungeon of Doom and The Four Horsemen during the early days of WCW Nitro and the reactions Hogan received on live TV were getting more and more negative as time went on you can understand fans cheering for Flair and the horsemen and the Carolinas but when fans started cheering for Kevin Sullivan over Hulk Hogan on episodes of nitro then you know things were starting to get bad I must reiterate though there were fans who still cheered for Hogan but it was a far cry from Hogan's Heyday and even a far cry from bash at the beach in 1994 the booze seemed to catch Hogan off guard sometimes and it's unclear if it was Hogan or Bishop he came up with the idea for hokumania to turn to the dark side for a little while and it's unclear if the experiment was going to lead to something more substantial but I do believe that the fans negative reaction towards Hogan drove him to do something different with the character the thing is the evil Darkseid Hulk Hogan felt like more cartoony nonsense and nobody bought into it it confused fans more than anything else and it came across as so bizarre that it actually became funny let's take a look at how it all went on this is WCW blunder Dark Side Hulk Hogan foreign Hogan's main enemies in WCW the horsemen and the Dungeon of Doom Hulk had some friends though mainly sting and the Macho Man Randy Savage at 4 brawl 1995 Hogan sting module and Lex Luger took on the Dungeon of Doom consisting of the shark the Zodiac Kamala and Ming if Hogan's team won he'd get five minutes all along with Kevin Sullivan Inside the Cage but during those five minutes the giant came out and he attacked Hulk Hogan snapping his neck in the process the pay-per-view ended with Hulk's teammates surrounding him looking very concerned and calling for help two weeks later on Monday Nitro Hogan appeared in a pre-taped interview wearing a neck brace and he says he'll be ready to go again soon he challenges giant here to the infamous monster truck Sumo March at Halloween Havoc but not only that Hulk runs the giant a title shot at the pay-per-view if he can survive the chaos of the monster truck march Hogan was wearing his black Crosshair along with his usual gold cross and he says once he beats the Giant and quote Liz and under arrest next to his father in reference to Andre the Giant remember WCW tried to say that giant was Andre's son but yeah once Hogan lets the giant the Reyes next to Andre Hulk says the Dark Cloud that's hanging over his head will pass him by Hogan removes the black cross while saying this line to be honest you really wouldn't think anything was going to come of this it's just another Hogan promo filled with hoganisms for lack of a better term but then the next week on Nitro Hulk lost his superpowers when he got his mustache shift off you guys who watch reliving the war may remember all this but it's worth a second look for sure it's just so ridiculous Hulk goes to the rank for an interview with main Jane still wearing the neck brace Hogan says he spent time with a little hulkamaniac who was getting ready for a lung transplant and the kid ordered Hogan to take on the giant Hogan plans on finishing the job before Halloween Havoc so he announces he's gonna go look for the giant right here on Nitro poke leaves the ring he's giving fans high fives in the front row but then this old lady right here throws powder in Hogan's face the dastardly old [ __ ] the granny starts hitting Hogan with her walking stick as the Giant and the Zodiac make their way to the ring we learned that the old lady was actually Kevin Sullivan in the giant snaps Hogan's neck one more time surely Hulk's head would have fallen off with all this neck abuse but with there's more Kevin Sullivan shaves off Hogan's mustache in the middle of the Ring an act that shocks Eric Bishop off on commentary but it makes Bobby Heenan and the fans at home laugh their asses off the American meals and The Nasty Boys try to put a stop to this but they're no match for the Giant and the Zodiac Hogan's been embarrassed on live TV how would he respond to this next week on Nitro well he would wear all black and he would Embrace his dark side it's almost like the mustache kept Hogan on the straight and narrow hope didn't appear on the next episode of Saturday night the Giant and Sullivan cut a promo instead where the big man said Hogan's going down at Halloween Havoc pretty standard stuff on the next episode of nitro however a clean shave and Hulk Hogan walked out in the black ear and he better explain himself here because this is just crazy Hulk says he's dressed like this because he now understands the rules of the game and it's time to take care of business that's it there's no further explanation the crowd booze as Hogan says he defeated Andre the Giant in the silver Dome and he plans on doing the same to his son at Halloween Havoc Hulk again wants to get things started early on Nitro but minjin lets him know that the giant has been barred from the show so there goes that idea Hogan then says he wants to give us a Hulk millionaire history lesson can't wait he says back in New York when hookah Mania was running wild the promoter's eagle Vince McMahon's Eagle got bigger than the wrestling business itself Hulk was looking for a place where hokumania could grow so he took his little hook Maniacs with him to WCW I'm not kidding by the way this is what he said Hogan goes on to say Sullivan and the giant are burning down the trees in the forest but Hogan's here to plant the seeds again Hogan Compares Sullivan shaving his mustache to someone graffiting the Washington Monument or burning the American flag again I'm not kidding and then the Dungeon of Doom drive up to the arena in their monster truck and security stops them from going any further I mean you're in a [ __ ] monster truck Lads floor it and don't look back Hogan then leaves the arena to go find that monster truck and Nitro moves on to its main event so in short Hogan said he understands the rules of the game and that's why he's dressed in black he's fighting fire with fire it seems people try to say this was a hail turn and people use it as a kind of gotcha moment when talking about Hogan's real heel turn at barge at the beach 1996 trying to say Hogan turned bad a year before the MW even existed but that's just wrong Hogan was still fighting for his little Helga Maniacs here he was still feuding with the Dungeon of Doom he maybe talked a little more aggressively maybe but it's still Hulk Hogan trying to be a do-gooder when nobody really cared this was not a hidden turn maybe it was a small test or experiment but it wasn't a heel turn [Music] Dark Side evil Hulk Hogan then recorded two pre-tipped promos one for WCW Saturday night and one for Nitro the Saturday night promo ended the show and while American mid played in the background Hogan explained that everything Sullivan said about the evil in Hulk Hogan is true Brothers but he's using his Dark Side to protect the training the prayers and the vitamins Hogan says that this side of the hulksters been hiding but it's come out so Hulk can play the dungeon of Doom's game if he doesn't do this then the training prayers and vitamins could be left in the hands of the giant hulk then compares the Shaving of his legendary mustache to Kevin Sullivan slapping every little Hulk of maniac across the Fierce and he then says it makes him remember all the little Hulk Maniacs who are no longer with us those who died of illnesses Hulk says it makes him want to take all those diseases and make them alive yeah he bangs on about taking out the giant at Halloween havoc and he wraps It Up by saying what you got want to do when the shuttle of Hulkamania covers you moving on the Nigel Horgan's night calling the Hulk of Maniacs the manioids yeah but the message is the exact same Hogan's going to protect his three demandments he's talking about putting the giant down just like Andre the Giant back at WrestleMania 3 and Jimmy Hart gets nervous he's afraid of what Darkseid Hogan is gonna do to his enemies hog says fear not little Jimmy this needs to be done on the next episode of Saturday night the master and the Taskmaster say they have a surprise for Hogan at Halloween Havoc they've only gone to the Himalayas and found themselves a Yeti who will call the yeti from this point forward I covered the yeti previously on the channel so I won't go into detail here but just when you think this [ __ ] couldn't get any more clustered it definitely does Hogan appears in another pretty tip and he says all the gems have closed from Venice Beach to Tampa because owners are afraid Hogan's gone a band and wreck their equipment Hogan says he's gonna appear on Nitro he's got a surprise that will make Sullivan and that big stinky giant shaking their boots and Hulk says he's gonna be the most evil person in the building when negro Comes live from Huntsville Alabama he then says when he disposes of the giant Hogan's gonna have to dispose of his black gloves and his black bandana he's also gonna dispose of his Dark Side meaning Hogan's probably gonna go back to the red and yellow once he defeats his opponent at Halloween Havoc so we get to the Nigel before Halloween havoc and Hogan could a promo here that some of you may remember he makes reference to the O.J Simpson trial by saying everyone knows what a man wearing a pair of black gloves and a black rag on his head is capable of that's not very wholesome there Mr Hogan and Hulk also says he might just keep the black gear after defeating the giant later in the week Hogan carries the little hulkamaniacs on his back as he continues running wild in WCW Hogan isn't gonna lick his wounds anymore though Hog's going to get himself a Harley and drag the giant around until he's no more and that'll be the end of Andre's son in regards to Hogan's friends not caring much about this dark side business Hogan surprisingly calls out sting for wearing red and yellow and trying to grow a Fu Manchu and Hogan calls the Stinger the Macho Man and Lex Luger little puppies who can all line up to take a shot at Hogan Hogan seems to be disregarding his Babyface friends here and letting them all know he's not there Ally anymore you can completely forget about that though as hell comes out at the end of nitro to help Randy Savage he magically no longer needs needs the Mac produce either Hogan tries to do some damage to the giant but the big man now sells everything and Hulk goes down after a clubbing blow to the back Hogan hugs up and then the Dungeon of Doom hit the ring Macho and Hulk fight the doomers off and the only thing that can stop Hulk Hogan is head of security Doug Dillinger Nitro then Ends by showing fans the yeti breaking out of a block of ice and yep way to sell a paper for you guys good job Halloween Havoc 95 has been done to death here on YouTube so I'm not going to go into too much detail but we need to take a quick look in order to understand what happens next with darkseid's super evil Hulk Hogan Hogan wins the monster truck Sumo March but Jan apparently falls to his death afterwards this match took place on top of Kobo Hall and yeah you know the story but what's interesting here is that the evil no good Hulk Hogan actually shows remorse and he asks for help after Jan takes the plunge Hogan appears at the end of the show for the main event and he says there was a terrible accident that happened earlier on meaning the main event isn't going to happen but then the giant just walks down the ramp and Hogan's reaction says it all really Giovanni says the giant has risen from the dead as the Challenger steps in the ring and then the main event goes ahead as planned Hogan's replaced his mustache with taskmaster's eyebrows and lightning bolts and the match plays out like a typical Hulk Hogan fight he doesn't work either or anything like that turns out Jimmy heart out evil Hulk Hogan when he turns on Hulkamania to join the Dungeon of Doom Hogan gets his ass kicked he loses the WCW championship and then the yeti comes out to hump Hogan a dark cloud over Hulkamania indeed so Hogan didn't defeat the giant and therefore evil Hulk Hogan would stay with us for another little while Hogan didn't appear on the next episode of nitro but on the 6th of November episode we learned that Randy Savage had joined Hulk on the dark side Hulk and Savage said on a bench in Venice Beach along with a random dude who looks completely wasted and Hulk says he's glad his buddy Randy has joined him on his evil Conquest The Dungeon of Doom are still the targets but Hogan isn't sure who he can trust anymore the black durag has clearly started affecting his brain and he's getting all paranoid Randy says don't even sweat it the Macho Man will go back to the light side or Nitro and he'll find out who the friends are and who the foes are of Darkseid Hogan as for this guy I have no [ __ ] idea in the arena The Dungeon of Doom learned that the world championship's gonna get stripped from the giant due to the dubious nature of his title win at Halloween havoc and whoever wins the World War III Battle Royal will become the new champion on The Following episode of nitro the 13th of November episode that's when the winds came them off that's when all control was lost and that's when the drugs kicked in because there's just nowhere to make sense of what fans were traded to next Hulk Hogan wearing a mask and a dark-hooded cloak carrying a [ __ ] sword talking absolute unfiltered bollocks for a solid two minutes it starts like this fear because Hulk Hogan walks around with the power of the training the prayers and the vitamins every creature that breathes Dungeon of Doom is afraid of Hulkamania because the three demandments of Hulk Hogan are Immortal Hogan says the brother Randy Savage is on a mission tonight he's gonna deliver Ming's head on a silver platter later on Nitro Ming's on the destruction hit list of Hulkamania and Hogan hopes that hookah Maniacs are with Randy as he walks on the light side evil batshit crazy Hogan says he doesn't know if stings on the dark side or the light side of Hulkamania yeah it's getting confusing Hogan doesn't know if Sting's Friend or Foe so Hogan promises to look at sting quote somewhere in the eye and see where he's coming from it stings on the dungeon of doomside then Sting's gonna get moved to the top of the hit list the thing is Sting didn't hint at being a Doomer at all during this time period he had a troubled friendship with Lex Luger and Luger was also friendly with the dungeon of dome but not once did Stang ever so much as hint at being a member of of the elevated faction anyway Hogan tells Machu to bring a Ming's head on a silver plotter and he says what you gonna do when the Macho Man and Hulk Hogan take the darkness of the doom and turn it to destroy you wouldn't really work on a t-shirt that one would it Savage defeated Meng but the doomers and Lex Luger hit the ring before Randy could cut his opponent's head off and at the end of nitro Ming Jin informed sting that Hogan wants him one on one next week on Nitro sting says he never thought he'd see the day when Hogan came knocking on his door looking for a fight but here we are sting can let it slide when Hogan talked [ __ ] about him before Halloween Havoc by calling him a little puppy but Hogan needs to realize that around the neck of the woods nwcw stings a big dog Sting's been through it all in world championship wrestling and he's got a pretty long list of Victories Stang won't run away he's actually looking forward to fighting Hogan next week our adventure ends then on The Following episode of nitro steng vs Hogan the 20th of November 1995. this is the closest we get to hail Hulk Hogan during this short run it's one thing to go up against the irredeemable Dungeon of Doom it's another thing to go up against sting wcw's most beloved Superstar the fans go nuts for sting as he wears the red and yellow once again when Macho Man and Hulk Hogan come up with a plan to catch sting off guard the crowd booze these fans definitely wanted sting to win here tonight and throughout the match they continued cheering for the icon this match actually wasn't all that bad and it's never really brought up either it ends with Hogan breaking the Scorpion death lock and putting sting down with a big boot he goes for the leg drop sting Dodges it and Hulk finds himself in the death lock again screaming that Sting's gonna break his leg the good times end though with the Dungeon of Doom coming down to attack both men staying Hulk and Randy Savage work together to clear the ring and Nitro ends with Hogan and sting taking out the giant with a chair World War III happened later in the week and it shows started off with Hogan getting rid of the black ear Hogan said the hulkamaniac stuck with him on his walk to the dark side but he didn't take the final step Hogan knows who his friends are he'll never question sting a game The Boys Are Back in Town and Hogan won't be turning evil again anytime soon eight months later he joined the NW and his biggest rival would turn out to be sting I'm sure a lot of this can be explained the Shaving of the mustache and Hogan series of pre-tips were likely due to Hogan filming a movie and I'm sure in his head Hogan thought the dark side stuff was a good idea again maybe the test of waters maybe to see if it got him a more favorable crowd response I'm sure it wasn't supposed to come across as bad as it did but man some of this stuff was absolute prime WCW blunder material as it would turn out Hogan turning Hill would actually be the best thing he could ever do as evidenced by the new world order but it does go to show that things need to be done the right way turning heel can be great if it's handled properly if you're gonna show up with a mask and swinging a big sword about the place though fans might not buy into it nothing was ever going to advance or change during this Dungeon of Doom stuff either it was as one dimensional as it comes with Hogan taking on a bunch of unsavory villains and trying to deviate away from that evidently would give comical results it would take a bit more for fans to buy into Hulk Hogan turning the of the dark side and thankfully that's what happened when Scott Hall and Kavanaugh showed up on Nitro a few months down the road thanks for watching this one guys and take care [Music] 's marches have been part of wrestling for a long time and there's been loads of different cage variations used throughout different promotions the big blue cage in the World Wrestling Federation the war games double cage and Jim Crockett promotions in WCW the Hell in a Cell the WCW triple kids the Punjabi Prison the Thunderdome elimination chamber the list goes on all these cages have something in common though they surround the ring or they at least let the competitors utilize the ring ropes one of the most important things of any functional wrestling ring now there have been cages used in wrestling that didn't include ring ropes the Lion's Den for example but the Lion's Den worked because it was built for Ken Shamrock and his MMA history plus it was usually placed away from the ring and its own separate location the WCW Asylum cage however was not put in a separate location oh no this giant bird cage was placed right in the middle of the Ring limiting the amount of available space considerably while also taking away those ring ropes and this bird cage wasn't developed for a legit cage fighter it was developed for Scotty Steiner confused yeah I wish I could say everything will get cleared up by the end of this video but you're probably going to leave this one even more confused as you think to yourself what was the point of all that but let's see how it all played out on TV this is WCW blunder the Asylum cage matches big bad booty Dolly Scotty big popper pump frigzilla Steiner was one of the more entertaining aspects of Leah WCW because the guys filter was seemingly broke and he'd say pretty much anything that was on his mind while on TV that little bit of thought processing that goes on before you speak Scott Steiner didn't have that and what we'll hear from Steiner on TV sometimes was nothing short of absolute gold even if it didn't make a whole lot of sense with his freaks his Peaks and his [ __ ] tiger Scotty Steiner's character Evolution was truly something to behold even if some fans did miss the old Steiner of the lady at least the mid 90s 2000 though would be the year when Scotty Steiner finally won the World Heavyweight Championship some would see it as too little too late but it does show us that Russo had no issues pushing Scott and placing him right at the top of the cards the Asylum cage marches though took place before Scott won the world title and in typical WCW fashion it wasn't really explained why Scott Steiner needed his own special specialty much or why the kids was even necessary in terms of storyline In fairness the cage looked different and the visual itself was pretty good not gonna lie and I'm all for Scotty Steiner getting his own match type because why not the blunder in today's episode isn't necessarily the idea of the Asylum cage but rather the comically bad matches that took place inside the Asylum and how those matters were booked I do wish there was an interesting story about the creation of this much type with quotes from Russo and Steiner but there's nothing out there really even doing a search on the Asylum March type leads us right to TNA where they too have their own version of the cage March although the only similarity is the name so we're just gonna watch the matches talk about what happens and ponder over the business decision to hold these matches on TV when the WWF were destroying WCW in the television ratings [Music] May 22nd 2000 WCW Nitro comes from Grand Rapids Michigan Scotty Steiner's home state we find even more blunder material on this episode of nitro with Vince Russo holds a funeral service for Ric Flair's career but we'll cover all this nonsense on reliving the war in like three years time can't wait anyway Scotty Steiner comes to the ring and he says it's good to be home right here in Michigan is where Big Papa Pump first took his freaks to ecstasy apparently and he says this oh my freaks no there's nothing finer than doing the 69er was shot Steiner uh-huh Scott continues on by saying his friends have warned him he'll end up in jail if he doesn't straighten himself out Steiner says he's been in the sale and he's been through hell completely contradicting the last sentence but anyway he says he's always survived whatever's thrown at him and from now on wherever Steiner goes the sail comes with him I know I know don't try to make sense of it Steiner directs our attention to the ceiling and we see the Asylum Tony Shivani acts all surprised even though the cage was blatantly shown multiple times during nitro's opening sequence but yeah Scotty says it's easy to get into the Asylum but in order to get out you must say I quit okay so it's a submission only kids March got it the only way is to give up there's two dudes that Scott wants to get inside the Asylum his brother Rick and tank Albert the genetic freak invites both guys to come to the ring but only Rick comes down so we assume it's a one-on-one Asylum cage match between The Steiner Brothers Shivani starts confusing viewers when he says there's no way out of of this cage even though Scott just said you can give up to get out but let's see what happens here the two start fighting before the cage lowers the Asylum then slowly comes down and it surrounds both men and it made me think you know what I would have done here I would have quickly ran out of the ring let Scotty get locked inside the birdcage throw some [ __ ] at him from the outside and then steal his freaks but Rick wasn't thinking about any of those things unfortunately the competitors have lost the use of the Ring ropes and you can see the mesh has a lot of give it isn't the tightest of key instructors and it looks a little I don't know cheap Scott realizes he hasn't got much for him when he tries a suplex and it looks absolutely [ __ ] so he tries an overhead belly to belly right beside the cage and it looks a little better before you know it Scott locks in the Steiner recliner but then Goldberg's music begins playing in the arena we don't get Goldberg we get tankberg what a genius play onwards he's holding a pair of boat cutters too but what tank for God is that there's no way into the Asylum and there's is no way out those bolt cutters [ __ ] useless tank gives it two Snips before giving up so he punches Maggie J he takes the controller away from the referee and he pushes a big old button to make the cage disappear remember guys the only way it ends is via submission after a devastating historic three and a half minutes of absolutely [ __ ] all the first Asylum match ends in the no contest Tank Abbott attacks Scotty Steiner Kevin Nash comes down to help out Scott and Vince Russo watches all this in the backlight telling Jeff Jarrett it's such good [ __ ] pal so much number one was awful it consisted of what two suplexes a few bumps on the springy cage and a standard recliner Steiner promised there was only one way out of his own personal sale of torment and that was by giving up but he totally forgot that the dude that controlled the cage was referee Mickey J and Mickey J is no prison guard either surely WCW would take this idea rethink their strategy spend a little time to actually plan out a proper March and build up the next Asylum match as something special absolutely not the next march took place the following week and it was a whole one minute shorter than the first match two and a half minutes of Asylum action that should make those pesky viewers switch over from WWF Raw shouldn't it just for shits and giggles I checked out what happened over on Raw on the 29th of May the date of the second Asylum March the WWF scheduled a Rock vs Undertaker Main Event although it actually didn't happen to be fair there was also a European title match between Kurt Angle and Eddie Guerrero and uh we also had Bill Buchan Cannon taking on Steve Blackman it wasn't a [ __ ] hot episode of Raw but it still would have kept viewers hooked in Nitro on the other hand with its 20 matches promos and pre-tips on this one night was such a mess with their Jeff Jarrett vs Ric Flair Main Event footage of DDP getting kicked out of his own house by his lovely wife Kimberly and of course our second Asylum cage March Big Papa Pump comes out and he says he's a genetic freak and hate and and tonight he's gonna do something special for all the ladies in Salt Lake City he's going to give them all a chance to get on the big bad booty Daddy they only have to do one thing all you gotta do is separate your hips and put your ass out and the daddy will make you pass out all right seems straightforward enough Steiner announces he's gonna take on Tank Abbott at the Great American barge and that much takes place inside the Asylum but tonight she and Douglas is going to face for exilla inside the most unforgiving structure in the history of pro wrestling Sheen wasn't too eager to get inside the Asylum but Vince Russo buttered Douglas up by putting Scotty Steiner's U.S title on the line in this very much no even though this Asylum watch was way shorter it was still much better than the first encounter because both guys actually tried to wrestle in there but it's still not what anyone would consider a good match it's over painfully quick it doesn't really get started and because Sheen and Scott actually try a few different moves The Limited space really gets highlighted I mean just just look at this I really can't see why anyone thought this would be a good idea and I'd say it was probably a pain in the ass adding that cage up and raising it above the ring before the show went live it's a lot of effort for two and a half minutes of TV time but there's really no point questioning these things either WC W around this time period was just completely insane anyway Scotty gets the win with his Steiner recliner take a look at referee slick Johnson calling for the bell ring the bell ring the bell you stop ring the bell ring the bell it's over it's over ring not Bell again Scott Echo Neko please don't hurt me there's an episode of nitro just before the Great American bash but unfortunately or fortunately there was no Asylum action in Atlanta Georgia a different kind of cage hangs above the ring tonight it's wcw's take on the Hell in a Cell this would get used twice on this evening and not only did this cage hang above the ring but also there was a big old bag of quote red liquid that would drench Nature Boy Ric Flair no room for stupid Asylum cages when there's nature boys that need embarrassed on TV guys come on on this evening Scott had a pretty good match with Vampiro that while entertaining also included a ton of WCW nonsense as expected Vampiro was getting ready for his Human Torch March against staying at the pay-per-view so he comes to nitro with gasoline and a Blue Torch wanting to make frigzilla a little crispy tonight it doesn't take long for the march to spill to the outside where Scotty does some serious damage using chairs and slamming bump Hero on the announce table but back inside the ring vampire was able to take Steiner out by wagging him with his trusty Blue Torch hits Vampiro with a crossbody and the crowd loved this by the way but then Vampiro stock made Asia back up the entranceway while holding the Blue Torch and gasoline the Stinger comes to the rescue Vampiro gets forced back in the ring and Scotty wins with the scanner recliner once again it doesn't sound good but against everything else WCW put on Nitro on this evening it comes off as a five-star classic Tank Abbott meanwhile took a loss to Bill Goldberg in the next matchup you may wonder why I'm talking about these matches and not skipping straight onto the last Asylum March well honestly I wanted to cleanse myself a little and talk about something different I've watched around 6 minutes total of Asylum March Madness and already I don't want to watch anymore there had to be something remotely interesting to look at in this video so here here's Ric Flair taking the bloodbath again sorry the red liquid bath again all right let's do it Great American Bosch a Cornerstone of WCW dating back to Jim Crockett promotions an event that has a history filled with tradition memorable moments and unbelievable awn-sparing matchups and then we've got Scotty Steiner's big [ __ ] bird cage tanky boy Abbott better bring his a game to the Great American bash because technically speaking big papa pumps undefeated inside the Asylum he spent an extremely long time inside the birdcage in the marches now it became his special holiday my God there's no Scotty Steiner promo before the match so already this one loses points Tank Abbott makes his entrance first outcome Scott with his Freaks and his Peaks the big bad booty daddy lets his valets know he's gonna make this one as quick and painless as possible and the March begins again before the cage is fully surrounded the competitors almost instantly an announcement gets made the ring announcer gives viewers some information from Eric besie off and Vince Russo and I quote since the Asylum is Scott Steiner's signature March and an effort is establish an even playing field Rick Steiner has been added to the match making this a two-on-one handicap match a signature March that's hilarious Rick Steiner comes down to join in on the fun and I swear to God it's remarkable how little happens in this part Scott stays on the mat while reckon tank wait for the cage to fully lower the two kicks got a few times while he's down Scott then gets launched into the birdcage he gets kicked again he gets launched into the birdcage again he gets kicked again he gets launched into the birdcage again oh he gets kicked again really here's something different an elbow to the groin and then he gets kicked again and it's time for the Finish holy [ __ ] wank Albert pulls a chain out of his crotch and rectal's tank he doesn't need to do that Rick showing a bit of mercy here it seems for his brother so tank ends up smacking the dog face Kremlin with the chain and this of course gives Scotty a chance to punch tank in the balls smack him with his own chain and then lock in the Steiner recliner that's the match over three and a half minutes again about absolutely nothing and it's no wonder the March type got scrapped after this boat at least they had the sense to call it quits it's baffling how they thought putting another guy in there was a good idea saying the ring space was already severely limited no more Asylum matches in WCW though thankfully and Scotty went on the bigger and better things alright so I'm sure some of you guys may have thought this actually wasn't all that bad and you'll want to put forward your comments and statements about why this was actually good or at least possible I hear you and hopefully I can address some of those comments now that I pretty much expect after putting this video together first of all some may say it made sense for Asylum watches to end quickly because in a real cage fight one wouldn't expect a fighter to last all that long anyway two things there this isn't a real cage fight and I hope I don't sound like a dick when I say that either but when you buy a ticket a pro wrestling show or you switch the channel to watch a pro wrestling show you kinda expect to see pro wrestling and not MMA cage fighting the guys in the cage wrestled at least they tried to wrestle they didn't pretend to throw stiff shots or try to make things look like an MMA fight so that argument doesn't really work secondly I don't even think WCW were thinking about how a real cage fight would play out by limiting the time because Nitro matches during this era were incredibly short anyway take for example the night of the first Asylum cagematch that much went three and a half minutes the March before that Mike Awesome versus the wall went for 1 minute and 25 seconds the match after Chuck Palumbo vs DDP was three minutes some of you might say that the cage actually looked different and at least WCW were trying something new and I would completely agree with you there we joked about bird cages and all that stuff but it was something we hadn't seen before and it looked pretty unique during Arena shots so I'm with you on that one the visual worked some of you may think this was all really done for Tank Abbott with his MMA history and it wasn't really built around Scott Steiner in the first place yeah you probably could say that but tank also lost his first and only Asylum mod so I'm not sure how it benefited him in any way finally some may say to me to stop being such a picky bastard and just have fun with it it's only a cage in the ring for [ __ ] Sig and you know I try my best to have fun watching pro wrestling and even when things are bad I can still have a laugh really this whole blunder series is all about laughing at some of the more silly things WCW put on TV but Asylum cage matches simply were not fun to watch the most fun I had putting this video together was when Scotty Steiner had a microphone in his hand and I really mean that it's incredible how these matches are so short yet you still want to skip over them or move on to the next segment and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there were no plans made for how the boats would actually play out there's guys out there who would look at this monstrosity and still think of a few creative spots they could do inside outside or even on top of the cage there has to be something there but it seems like the plan was yeah do whatever you can just end up with a standard recliner and that'll do nicely bro I really do hope and I really do like to believe that it was Scotty stanner who put the kibosh on these matches I can just imagine Scott threatening to shove a baseball bat or Brussels ass if he bricks another Asylum Arch ever again as long as he lives still I guess oldswell that ends well Steiner did end up winning the world Bell towards the end of the year and the Asylum cage was turned into scrap metal so it worked out fine quite a while back we took a look at Robocop and WCW in a video that wasn't part of the blunder series but it really should have been old Alex Murphy showing up to help out the Stinger on a WCW Pay-Per-View event was definitely a side to behold but you know RoboCop was still a pretty cool franchise and while it was weird seeing these two completely different words crossover there still would have been younger viewers out there who would have thought RoboCop showing up in WCW was pretty awesome RoboCop still had some sort of relevancy in 1990 with the second movie coming out and all that stuff WCW and their Infinite Wisdom decided to do it again the following year but they went backwards this time in 1991 they introduced a character from a movie released in 1939 and that movie was based on a book written in 1900 I'm of course talking about Oz not The Wizard of Oz just ours he had a wizard bring him down to the ring the obvious question is why why on Earth did anyone think it was a good idea to put a monster like Kevin in one of the most ridiculous entrances hires in the history of wrestling and have him portray a character based on the [ __ ] Wizard of Oz let's have a look in today's episode of WCW blunder in March 1986 Ted Turner made a big announcement he was gonna buy the MGM film studio for a massive 1.5 billion dollars the purchase landed Turner and a whole lot of debt in just three months later he sold many assets back to Kirk herkorian the same person who Turner initially bought the MGM film studios from Turner was ridiculed for the purchase by other entrepreneurs and the entertainment field he ended up only getting around half his money back but all along Ted had a plan you see Ted held on to something from the purchase that could potentially earn him a lot of money in the long run and that's the MGM movie catalog and the cartoon catalog movies the Turner Nelly owned included Timeless Classics like 2001 A Space Odyssey Singing in the Rain Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz He also now I owned the Looney Tunes and merry Melodies cartoon series and the Popeye cartoons so he had quite a lot of content along with his own network to distribute that content in 1988 Turner Network television TNT made its debut and that channel began with an airing of Gone With the Wind and the cartoon catalog would act as the foundation for Cartoon Network TCM Turner Classic Movies would debut in 1994 and TCM would air classic MGM and pre-1950 Warner Brothers movies so effectively Ted's purchase of MGM created three incredibly successful channels in the end that initial loss the Turner took wasn't so bad after all they say Ted was a Visionary once a king in the land of broadcast media it's hard to know if his plan all along was to take a loss and recoup the funds but it all paid off of course Turner entertainment had been established it was rumored that Ted Turner himself wanted to see something done with the Wizard of Oz on his WCW shows and I'm not so sure if I believe that to be honest from everything I've learned over the years Ted Turner had a hands-off approach when it came to WCW and anything created was handled by executive producers or Burgers but nonetheless hires up and Turner had the ability to tell WCW what they wanted and WCW would have no real option but to do what they were told this is also made a hell of a lot easier when you have Jim heard calling the shots in WCW as we have discussed before heard wanted to introduce cartoony and ridiculous characters to WCW and a prayer attempt to compete with Vince McMahon and his ideas are still ridicule to this very day so if Jim heard and Dusty Rhodes were told to come up with a Wizard of Oz character then I can't imagine there being any real pushback it was right up her Sally really still do keep in mind that it's never been confirmed if the higher-ups of Turner actually requested this character or if Jim Hart and Dusty Rhodes just put it together because Turner owned the rights to The Wizard of Oz but it also doesn't really matter a character inspired by the famous book and movie would debut in WCW and in short it was absolutely awful beg Kevin Nash's journey to super stardom wasn't an easy one no matter what his detractors may say during his initial stint in WCW he portrayed four characters state of the Master Blasters Dr X the wisecrack and Vinnie Vegas and of course he portrayed oz in the middle of these other three gimmicks Vinnie Vegas wasn't too bad I quite enjoy looking back at Vinnie and that character got him noticed by Sean Michaels so it wasn't a complete failure the master blaster's tag team was seen as a pair of Road Warrior rip-offs and the team went through a few changes too with Master Blaster iron getting replaced with Master Blaster Blade The Blasters lasted all of five months and big Kev knew it was time for a change he was excited when Dusty Rhodes approached him in regards to a singles run he wasn't so excited when Dusty pitched the odds character though with Kevin telling Dusty you do know that Oz isn't a person but a geographical location still Kevin didn't really have a choice he was still getting paid and Kevin Sullivan advised him to go along with it take the money and make the most of it on Steve Austin's Broken Skull sessions Kevin said does the sold it like the movie Tron you had to get through all these other guys to get to oz so he was gonna be an attraction if you will sounds like Dusty was just saying anything to get Nosh in those emerald green Tides but Nash is also thankful for Dusty and the big man holds no ill will if it wasn't for odds there'd be no Vinnie Vegas and if there was no Vinnie Vegas there'd be no Big Daddy called diesel still big Kevin Nash was falling victim to some sort of Turner WCW crossover [ __ ] and really there was no good that could come of this Naj wasn't going to be the Tin Man he wasn't going to be the Cowardly Lion he wasn't even going to be The Wizard of Oz and that probably would have been even more stupid anyway seeing as the wizard was just a normal guy but anyway let's look at the character debut and we'll see how the Geniuses at WCW stumbled their way through this one Oz would debut at the first ever WCW Super Brawl event on May 19 1991 the event took place in Saint Petersburg Florida right in the middle of the card after Paulie dangerously's danger zone with Stan Hansen the camera Cuts away to the entranceway where green lights begin to flash if you thought Oz was just gonna walk out here all alone with no Pomp and Circumstance then you'd be absolutely wrong because here's [ __ ] Dorothy the Scarecrow the Tin Man and the lion from The Wizard of Oz getting led up the entranceway by a wizard with a pet monkey that wizard is Kevin Sullivan by the way a voiceover says once upon a time in a land far away there lived a wizard but not the Wizard of Oz his name was the great wizard and he ruled the kingdom of Oz so I guess that explains it Kevin Nash is the great wizard he's like the ruler of Oz and he's named oz so he's oz of Oz the voiceover continues now our wary Travelers are at the end of their Journey as they face the m Emerald City Kevin Sullivan keeps saying Welcome to Oz and it becomes really annoying too we see oz of Oz standing at the gates of his castle or says come forward I am Oz the Great and Powerful who you the Great and Powerful Oz knows why you've come how dare you come to me I'll show you who yours really is I'll show the world what is this a I'll show that I'll show the world who yours really is Dorothy and her cronies run away and the little monkey wants to leave too little guys on a short leash and he's freaking out seeing the Paro and this giant [ __ ] goon here wearing a cape a stupid heart and a rubber mask complete with an old man's Gray beard all this is the music players and you can hear Queens another one bites the dust and the bass line I'm not kidding either by the way [Music] Sullivan keeps saying Welcome to Oz and that little monkey is clearly terrified those masks the guys have on are absolutely horrific and creepy and look at their names here we have Oz and the wizard so to confirm Kevin Sullivan is the wizard but not the Wizard of Oz Oz is the ruler of Oz he has a cape and I don't know is that a Wizard's Hut I don't think it is but Oz is also not The Wizard of Oz he's just Oz my head hurts anyway ozone wizard get in the ring Oz removes his mask and hot and Kevin's only gone and died as her gray imagine that he performs a shoulder tackle on uh Tim Parker we see a body slam osden performs an admittedly awesome looking spinning crucifix Power Bomb for the win 26 seconds of action here folks the entrance was about five minutes longer so Oz wins in his big debut March there you go Thought Monkey by the way yeah that monkey died after the entrance Kevin Sullivan said he snapped the monkey's neck when pulling the leash after the monkey he got scared during the Pyro and he [ __ ] laughs when telling the story too you can look up the soul of an interview yourself on YouTube because I'm not gonna link to it the little monkey's still moving around after the entrance by the way but yeah according to Sullivan the monkey died shortly afterwards alright so far we have a [ __ ] gimmick and a dead monkey things aren't going too [ __ ] well are they well the fun didn't stop on television according to Nash on the Steve Austin Broken Skull show that kid weighed around 100 pounds and he had to carry it and the mask and the big stupid hat in a big old crate that crit would have to get checked on the airplanes and brought to hotels and Arenas Austin said that was the biggest rib in all this the [ __ ] crit Nash would take his Emerald tights to Clash of the Champions 15 next to Knoxville Tennessee for a match against Johnny Rich yeah Oz only wrestled the big names as you can clearly tell Oz has his big stupid castle entrance way he has his big stupid mask and big stupid Kip the stupid little Wizards here too but of course there's no monkey one and a half minutes of action this time and Oz could have ended it sooner after a big boat but he brought the illustrious Johnny Rich back to his feet and again we see that impressive spinning crucifix Power Bomb if there's one good thing we can take from all this it's Oz's finisher from here it's straight to the Great American bash on the 14 10th of July 1991 Oz vs Ron Simmons Oz's first real test in WCW and keep in mind too Oz still hadn't wrestled on any weekly WCW shows this march here at the barge would be the one I'd recommend out of all the odds marches but it's really just picking the best out of a bad Bunch it's probably the most competitive of all his marches but admittedly it's hard to get over the way Oz looks too Kevin Nash is one of those guys who really didn't need any kind of gimmick anyway it starts off as a back and forth affair with neither man getting any kind of Advantage Oz manages the floor Simmons with a big boat but Ron replies with a drop Toe Hold the crowd pops when Oz gets sent over the top rope with a clothesline and then the camera Cuts over to the wizard and you get completely taken out of the March just look at this nonsense look at this Simmons over powers during a test of strength but he hits them out hard after a missed drop kick Simmons finds himself on the outside where that little [ __ ] bag wizard gets in a cheap shot but all this still leads the ROM picking up the win after a jumping shoulder block and with that Oz just becomes another guy with an elaborate entrance there's nothing special about him he isn't Invincible he's just another wrestler with a horrible gimmick and anyone with any relevance in WCW should have no problems taking this jump down even with the defeated the Great American Bosch WCW still decided to book Olsen three more squash matches that would air on WCW television on Saturday night jumping Joey mags thought he could take on Oz on the 17th of August episode of WCW but he got destroyed in just over three minutes Oz didn't bother to bring the wizard to this match and he didn't bother to perform his spinning crucifix par bomb either it ended with a sidewalk slam he also didn't bother to dye his hair gray the ruler of Emerald City and I had blonde hair and the mullet was gone too the following week Kevin Grant stepped up to the challenge and take a look at Mr ground here that's one confident individual right there Oz performs two body slams he performs a backbreaker where the illustrious Kevin Grant gets his back annihilated multiple times we see a few strikes to the lower back we see the sidewalk slam and Oz wins another one I've Got a Feeling we won't be seeing that crucifix powerbomb nor the wizard ever again next up we have Jimmy McKinnon again the confidence is just dropping off this lad right here his his face seemed to really annoy because who not tried to crush his skull with his bare hands Jimmy looks like he got hit by a car when he takes a clothesline and there's a moment in the match where he looks directly at the camera almost as if to say please someone anyone watching this TV show help me Oz gets all pissed off with this guy for absolutely no reason and it's hilarious Oz ends it with another sidewalk slam and I've changed my mind this is actually the best Oz March I laughed my ass off when watching this one back in the middle of these tapings though another mods took place that's quite noteworthy Oz teamed up with the diamond stud to take on the z-man Tom zank and big Josh better known as mod porn Scott Hall's diamond stud character also made its debut at Super Pro 1 the same event where Oz debuted and here we have Scott Hall and Kevin Nash teaming up for the very first time and what serves as an incredible contrast to what they bring to the table as The Outsiders in 1996 Eric Bischoff likes to say that the outsiders were not supposed to to be Invaders from the word Wrestling Federation he maintains that Hall and Nash were trying to get revenge on WCW for their per treatment in the past this tagged him much here with oz in the diamond stud is that per treatment so if you want to take Eric's word for it you could say that this here is the true origin story of the new world order for the record I think Notch and Hall were brought in to look like WWF Invaders and apothes me how Eric would think others would look at it any other way but there you go if you want to look at it from this point of view the true Genesis of the New World Order started with big Nash wearing a rubber mask and ruling over Emerald City it's [ __ ] ridiculous big George and Tom zank won their disqualification the diamond stud whack Josh with Josh's own ax handle there was also an oz versus sting match in the middle of these tapings two Beach blonde dudes with pink and green aluminous tights sounds awesome but it's nothing special Stang of course got the pinfall win Oz's journey through mediocrity took him to Clash of the champion 16 next in Augusta Georgia Oz would compete in a Battle Royal a March that should be right up Kevin's alley but there were a few other big boys in this one including PN news one man gang an eventual winner Elegante Oz didn't even bother wearing his rubber mask for this one and it's kind of funny how every time Oz made an appearance something else would get removed from the gimmick first it was the monkey because it died then the wizard [ __ ] off the gray mullet then got changed Oz stopped doing his finisher and now he doesn't have the mask he ended up in the final four of this battle royal with Dustin Rhodes Elegante and one man gang but Elegante eliminated both Oz and gang at the end to win the match check out Oz trying to get his ass over that top rope after the clothesline after class 16 oz went on quite the losing streak on the whole show Loop but he got the chance to wrestle sting twice a game and he also got to team up with Sterling Steve Austin in October and saying that he was also getting beat by Tom zank back Josh and Van Hammer while on tour so yeah things weren't looking too good as a matter of fact things never looked good really did they Oz went to New Japan for two dates on October 2 winning two tag team matches while teaming up with douche and lager in the first and nakira nagami in the second Nash was billed as The Great Oz when working in Japan and the character was well received too still as soon as he got home the losing streak continued Oz would competed the 1991 Halloween Horror Show and a match against strongman Bill kasmar a very strong man indeed but a man who had the personality of a doorknob you'll notice that Oz lost something in this March too the emerald green Tides were not gone there's a hint of grain still visible in his new black tights though to be fair but new Tides couldn't help Oz at Halloween Havoc 91 because he took another loss after around four minutes of action big has won with a torture rack and the March was brutal Oz would make one more televised appearance he lost the Rick Steiner on TV in about 90 seconds and Oz wouldn't be seen on WCW television ever again Ian he did continue to wrestle on House shows but things didn't get any better I lost the arachna man on the 7th of December shows us how the higher-ups in WCW knife felt about the Oz gimmick it was a colossal waste of time and a colossal waste of money it's been said that WCW job.orgs because Kevin Nash refused to sign a 300 per night guarantee WCW were losing money but still they wanted to retain Kevin Nash so the Oz character went on a losing streak until something else came up for big sexy to do Kevin took the initiative himself and he came up with Vinnie Vegas a character inspired by actor and comedian Andrew Dice Clay and a character that without a doubt suited Kevin way way more the Oz experiment had ended thank God Kevin continued working as Vinnie Vegas he was close to giving up wrestling altogether but Sean Michael saw Vinnie Vegas on TV and he thought the VIN man would make a great bodyguard for the Heartbreak head over in the World Wrestling Federation foreign [Music] [Music] so another WCW blunder in the books and another tale of WCW completely messing up Oz lives on and then for me though it's one of those gimmicks that you can't help laughing at and even big Kavanaugh doesn't shy away from calling out how ridiculous it all was either he even refers to his sick or as hot as a dunce cap Notch also said that Dusty's vision for us wasn't what we got on TV that thing about Oz being a kind of final boss and Superstars having to defeat a ton of other superstars the finally Ray Charles didn't see the light of day but even that sounds too convoluted for WCW standards during this era if it did happen I couldn't see it lasting more than a few weeks it was doomed from the start though that entrance attire completely destroyed and he hope the character had and Kevin's also the first person to admit that he was still green back then both from an attire standpoint and from an in-ring work standpoint not said he only started grasping pro wrestling when he stood outside the ring and he watched Sean Michael's marches while acting as his bodyguard so what we really get with Oz is a bad character portrayed by a wrestler who at the time wasn't overly confident in the ring there are no good matches here the job match with oh Jimmy McKinnon gave me a good laugh but there's nothing here that I'd recommend thank God Kevin would move on to bigger and better things and thank God he didn't let this WCW run be the end of him thanks for watching guys and take care [Music] thank you it might be hard to believe but this Invasion right here was not the worst Invasion angle the WCW was involved in I know crazy WCW had a weird history of cross promotion throughout the 90s but the one we're going to look at today was book like a typical wrestling Invasion where Superstars would invade their competitors shows and whatnot only one big problem though the other company involved in this storyline wasn't a wrestling organization in the year 2000 an invasion started where WCW went up against bottle dome which to my understanding was a gladiator's knockoff that lasted only two seasons and Trust Me by the time this video ends you'll be thinking that WCW vs WWF was a masterpiece in comparison to this nonsense right here this WCW versus battle dome thing is a total mess and because Battlezone tip shows well in advance while WCW produced live TV on Monday nights there were some serious continuity problems with both shows telling different stories work championship wrestling at the best of time struggled with continuity when just booking Nitro and thunder every week so the mere thought of WCW trying to streamline angles taped for another show well in advance into their already messy schedule sounded like a really bad idea let's see how this all played out on TV and you'll see what I mean this is WCW versus battle dome so I'm gonna come clean I've never seen an episode of battle dome until a few days prior to scripting this video and I thought I'd really need to learn more about the show before trying to speak about it I want you guys to meet Nick or Rebel light as he's known on YouTube a guy who helps me out with some wrestling bios videos and a guy who really helped in maintaining the upload schedule on the channel in short a dude who saved my ass multiple times I said and like hey I really want to cover this bottle Dome thing for blunder but I don't know anything about it and Nick was like yeah I remember that show so I thought why not bring Nick on the blunder so he can explain what part of Dome is all about so to get you up to speed on this television show before we look at the segments that are on TV here's Rebel light hey Ryan thanks for bringing me on to the channel today I don't know if you can tell but I'm really freaking hyped to be here and everyone watching the video I just want to say thank you ahead of time not only for checking my section out but also watching the video it's genuinely crazy and blowing my mind that I'm here right now I've been a big fan of the channel since like for a couple years now so just having the opportunity to jump on today and talk about a topic is literally blowing my mind but I'm done jerking the channel off for now let's go ahead and talk some battle dome battle dome began airing in the US on September 18 1999 and would air Monday nights on UPN a fun fact both this and SmackDown appeared on UPN at the exact same time both shows were running I'll do my best to stream on this here so we can get you all back to Ryan but there is some interesting information on the show unfortunately there isn't as much on battle dome as you'd think that there would be Ryan was correct to say battle dome was like the American Gladiators TV show Bob Levy who is responsible for directing the 1991 to 1993's Gladiators also directed battle dome both shows also contained the man who was most likely created in a laboratory by Vince McMahon himself Michael O'Hearn more on him a bit later though now aside from General Aesthetics you know like the look of the show and the name Gladiators being changed to Warriors the biggest difference between the two shows was that American Gladiators challenges had a more like more or less gimmick key feel to them while battle domes was more full contact I say that somewhat Loosely because despite the fact the warriors were able to really kick the crap out of some of the contestants they were still constrained as some very weird gimmicky events of the 22 Episodes present in season 2 a total of 104 games are played this includes episode 21 for the Women's Championship but does not include the final battles because those would never contain any Warriors and featured the contestants going head to head for the final prize speaking of the Warriors let's run through the 13 warriors present in season two and while I do I'm gonna let you know how many games each Warrior played throughout the show first off the jobbers taking the lowest spot we have Commander with a Godly one game played in season two Jake Fury with two who at the time let me recording this I actually did think that he had the lowest because I legit forgot Commander existed then we have wish.com Brock Lesnar moose with five finally Prince and baby blue at six next we got our mid card guys starting with mad dog at nine Johnny Rocco at 11 which in my opinion out of all the warriors on the show this guy had the least amount of Personality even linking up with three beautiful women he's still the most boring Warrior out of the entire Bunch next up we have Vince McMahon's wet dream Odell at 12 and rounding out the mid card we have snake at 13. we now arrive at the main eventers they do to give you the most bang for your money or the ones at the very least I hope got paid for each event they played we start off with this dirty old [ __ ] named DOA and no unfortunately he's not chains or any of the other DOA members from WWE but he did play a total of 16 games next up we get T-money at 19 Cuda at 21 and probably the most unlikable dude on this show we have Bubba King at a whopping 22 different events played personally I didn't really like the guy but if you look at him as a sort of a heel which isn't exactly how they portray him on the show like if you watch it back he's constantly running to the crowd high-fiving people and giving hugs but if you were to take a step back and look at him as a heel I'm yeah I'm stretching a bit but you know it kind of works love him or hate him Bubba King is probably the most recognizable Warrior from the show next to Bubba the most obvious of the most like personality driven warriors on the show would be T-money played by Terry Crew reason to me out of all the Warriors here he's the one with the only real personality on the show I don't know everyone else just kind of Screams or stares off into the distance whenever they come out to the battle dome or competing in any of the events even Michael Hearns Odell who they painted the very first episode is like this really really big deal Warrior as he you know slowly descends from his little star like Crescent looking thing oh he's painted like this really big deal but to me he just comes off really plain vanilla just super generic uh you can tell they were banking off his look and previous experience in American Gladiators I've seen a couple interviews with Michael Hearn and despite the fact that he comes off as a really nice guy uh when you watch this show back and see some of the promos you can kind of see why Terry Crews is the only notable person to come out of this entire series quick side note the only reason Bubba King got 22 games was because Odell was hurt in episode one and needed a substitute for aerial kickboxing and let's run through the events real quick as well and again I'll let you know which ones were played the most and by who starting with the lowest we have have a tie battle wall only being played four times in the show and right away we have a three-way tie between loose Prince and the dirty old [ __ ] himself after competing twice each the other event tied for the lowest amount of usage would be Battle Bridge with T-money competing twice and taking the top spot next up we have roller cage used eight times with T-money and the dirty old [ __ ] tied for first competing twice in the event we then move on to Battlefield being used 13 times and again T-money takes the top spot competing five times in the event we then get to the Staples of the show battle wheel which was used 16 times with Cuda competing in the event 14 times it's the one he's most known for playing in battle hoop was used 17 times which colored me surprised to find out Johnny Rocco was the top dog here competing five times in the event now I'm not trying to be an [ __ ] with this but this guy left such a little impression with his personality I forgot entirely that he competed in these events next up we have takedown which was used 20 times with snake competing nine of the times and finally we get to Aerial kickboxing that was used every single episode of season two so 22 times with Bubba King competing 21 times only missing out during the Women's Championship episode I'm serious they freaking love this Challenge and for me I don't know after about the third or fourth time I just kind of got tired of seeing it and I knew it was going to come up every time when I was like making my notes every time the freaking aerial kickboxing would pop up I'm like oh hey Ariel kickboxing Bubba King again and I imagine at the time watching the actual show it probably was way more hype but uh today in 2022 it's just it gets really old really fast during Battle Dome season 2 there was only ever two tiebreaker matches this occurred on episode 13 and the season finale with the challenge body slam basically they stuck two contestants on two pans and swung them at each other this wasn't used very often because the one dude in episode 13 completely busts his chin wide open like basically at the very beginning of the event then hilariously in the season finale dude here loses his grip right at the beginning but you know he he takes it well but when we move on to the final challenges they all were basically the same thing with the exception of episode 18 where they had all three contestants on that episode beating the [ __ ] out of each other because of the tiebreaker usually the final challenge consisted of the two contestants with the highest points beating the crap out of each other attempting to knock the other one off the platform while this is a really cool visual can we just appreciate how freaking dangerous this is sure they took out wrestling slash takedowns in season two but that doesn't stop these dudes from taking the scary bump in the very first episode of the season and I know they have helmets and pads on but that's not going to help stop from breaking your freaking neck still cool idea but man there is no way in hell this would get made today you wanna know the kicker with all this Wikipedia didn't have any of these stats laid out for me so I legit had to go through and tally all of this myself thanks Wikipedia all joking aside there is actually an issue on the Wikipedia page itself that I wanted to address uh the page says Battle Dome season 1 and 2 are available to watch on iTunes and Amazon and I confirm that that's just not true while season two is absolutely viewable to buy on Prime season one isn't streaming anywhere in the US thankfully it's not that important though when pertaining to this particular video so after going through all of that you're probably wondering the same thing I did what the hell does any of that have to do with WCW honestly not much but there is a couple of connections here and there if we're talking specifically just the show before we get to the WW bit in season one the contestants would all fight for the battle dome belt allegedly again I don't have season one so I can't confirm and here's the thing if you started watching battle dome during season two you would have no idea that this was even like a concept or a thing in the show because aside from the WCW stuff which Ryan's going to get to in just a bit they've like never bring the belts up aside from maybe a handful of times throughout this entire season most notably aside from just random shots on the bike are before the final challenge in episode 11 it's just kinda there I don't know if this was an attempt to remind viewers that oh yeah we have a belt for the WCW crossover or what but uh yeah it's it's definitely there in episode 12 they have a zoom in shot again right before the final challenge talking about the battle dome belt and how the contestants are gonna fight for it but again they they don't get it they don't even mention the belt again after the final challenge they instead get a ring and a chance to win a chopper in the Battle Dome season finale making the belt a prop status symbol I guess more than anything the icing on the cake though is the season finale after a grueling match between the two competitors contestant Philip Miller wins and gets his bike his prize he's ecstatic and just watch how they give him this illustrious battle dome World title belt this would make anybody cry with just the amount of Love attention and just excitement he feels the belt coveted by billions the Ultimate Prize that Philip Miller has finally won [Applause] yep neither one of them give a [ __ ] so that was battle dome in a nutshell and I'm gonna kick it back over to Ryan for the WCW crossover event so we're not caught up on bottle Dome and we understand what's going on here you've got an idea of what the show was all about and you're probably thinking the same thing I'm thinking WCW doing any kind of business with a show like this in the fall of 2000 was never going to get good results it's another bad idea get this though get this I've watched every episode of battle dome that featured WCW guys and every WCW show that featured the battle dome guys and certain things were aired in the complete wrong order because battle dome shows were taped so far in advance it's clear that whoever was putting these shows together on both sides did not take the time to put things in chronological order and what ended up getting shown on Battlezone did not line up with what was being shown on Nitro it's a complete [ __ ] mess so what I've done for this video is realigned every segment in order to show you how this angle was supposed to play out on TV if you just watched Nitro back then it wouldn't have mattered likewise if you just watched bottledome it wouldn't have mattered either but if you were into both shows and you were trying to follow along week by week you'd be so confused that you'd just give up so to the best of my knowledge and using Common Sense here's the bottle Dome angle as it played out across two separate TV channels and two separate TV shows okay so again keep in mind I've put everything in the order that I believe this Mass was supposed to air on TV if you're gonna hunt down the battle dome episodes in Agro episodes and watch them as they aired you're gonna get completely confused so do keep that in mind if for some insane reason you want to go back and watch this stuff yourself for example the WCW guy show up in season 2 episode 3 of baldum they don't show up again until episode 13 so that's 10 weeks in between appearances yet over on Nitro the battle dome appearances don't last longer than four weeks so please just keep that in mind WCW wrestlers showed up on the battle dome show and they took over the commentary desk I believe this is the first WCW appearance because Ernest Miller introduces team WCW for those watching at home who may not know who they are we have Ernest Miller Rick Steiner Buff Bagwell and diamond dollars page Battlezone Warriors Cuda and Michael O'Dell have just finished up a game of battle wheel and they along with the battle dominancors are shocked to see WCW Invaders trying to take over their show Ernest Miller says he had calcutta's Voodoo head off and Buff Bagwell says world championship wrestling is number one the bottledome referee tells the WCW guys to shut up because there's a game that needs played in the battle Dom Arena so the WCW guys stay and they call the action basically they put themselves over they make fun of the Battle Zone Warriors and the contestants and the real kick in the balls here is the fact that the usual commentators still talk over the WCW guys so you hardly hear a thing they have to say once the game ends Kuda and Odell chase the WCW guys away T-money comes out and he's angry that the commentators allowed WCW to take over their headsets so easily so T-money has a question an important question what night is Nitro on that's a tough one isn't it T-money needs to know what night Monday night rows on because he promises to show up on the next episode to get a little payback we go to some backstage footage where the WCW guys run to their limousine while battledale Warriors and other battle dome staff give Chase Odell cuts a promo afterwards saying it's funny how WCW ran away as the Warriors approached them and later on T-money says the WCW guys are fake fake ass punks and T-money can't wait to show up on Nitro so on what was supposed to be the Nitro following this episode of bottledome The Warriors are saying setting front row and they Heckle WCW Superstars during the first part of the show DDP then comes out to cut a promo and when he gets finished he notices Odell tea money Cuda Bubba King and DOA sitting at ringside paid says oh look it's the battle dome boys where did these jocked up monkeys come from Dollar says these boys are trying to make a name for themselves by appearing on a higher rated show but Dallas has a surprise for the Warriors out comes Ernest Miller Bagwell and Rick Steiner the captain says he's fixing to say something that will make all five of these guys jump the guard rail and Miller will happily slop each and every one of these wannabe jumps Buff Bagwell calls the group the battle dome queers and Rick Steiner says if these guys want some come get some the Warriors try to jump the guardrail but they are held back by security Bagwell continues to throw unsavory insults at the Battle domers as the five try their best to get in the ring but they're held back so looks like you got a tune in the bottle though next week to see what happens next only you don't because the tapings were so out of order that you'd see absolutely nothing but let's continue putting the pieces together and see what was supposed to come next the WCW boys were retaliate by showing up on another episode of battle dome Bubba King got done with a round of aerial kickboxing and he went straight after Diamond Dallas Page calling him old and calling him fake I should bring this up to the battle dome Warriors the commentators and practically everyone who spoke on the show would try to drill in the fact that battle dome was real there was nothing scripted and nothing phony about battle dome and this would get used against WCW and the WCW wrestlers involved in this storyline because you know Cuda was a real voodoo practitioner yeah no doubt the games that were being played were legit but battle dome was seriously character driven and hey those characters were doing an angle with the fake WCW guys so there's that too you know anyway Bubba King calls DDP the fakest and funniest wrestler ever and everyone knows it seeing as Dallas is a 75 year old man in WCW still at his old wrinkled ass wrestle after after Bubba gets done with another round of aerial kickboxing the WCW boys show up and DDP says the master of The Diamond Cutter looks pretty good for a 75 year old while Old Bubba King here's just a pimple on Paige's ass Rick Steiner grabs the Battle Zone championship belt as DDP tells Bubba to shut his mouth and Bubba Says that's the same mouth that kisses ddp's wife and Dallas shouldn't forget it buff says that this bubble dude ain't the stuff and the WCW wrestlers then sped on the battle dome belt the other Warriors then come out for a fight but once again it's broken up by security so again there's no physicality I just want to see some of these Warriors actually try to wrestle that would be fun Rick Steiner steals the Battlezone championship belt and the WCW guys leave the arena and after the next round of aerial kickboxing Bubba Says team WCW just ran off to cash in their Social Security checks and they don't belong inside the bottle Dome the next bit of this storyline happens when nitro travels to London England only it doesn't because let me explain I'm not sure how this is gonna look on YouTube but the overseas shows that WCW taped around this time period don't look too great from a quality standpoint there's a bit of motion blur in the videos and there's a lack of definition throughout the entire episodes things look a little washed out in these London shows and the Australia shows for that matter however when we get to the battle dome versus WCW part of the show the quality suddenly bumps up and it looks like any other episode of nitro so this was recorded in the states and they played off like the battle dome guys actually traveled to the UK to get their belt back from Rick Steiner T-money says the Warriors traveled from America to England to quote bust that ass and Doug Dellinger is like you won't be busting any asses around here beat up losers the WCW Lads then show up and finally things get a little physical but it's over just like that nobody gets the upper hand nobody takes any notable bumps it's a scuffle and it just cuts back to the arena once it's over the next meeting between these two illustrious teams takes place in the bottle Dome Rick Steiner would challenge T-money to a battle dome uh bottle and it's all [ __ ] up here because when we see the WCW guys arrive in the arena they're wearing the same clothes as the last time they were on the show but when they get to the locker room they're wearing totally different clothes buff bagwell's psyching wreck up telling him he shouldn't let anyone say he's fake Rex Steiner is all real Rick doesn't say a word he's totally in the zone Bubba King takes the low road by making fun of Rex Steiner's appearance and we quickly cut over to see the WCW guys sparring I think King called Steiner a fake and phony little man and he's gonna get his ass handed him later Rick and T-money then are gonna play Battlefield you stick your ball in the Warriors hole while the warrior tries to guard his home from Invaders like Rick Steiner sorry T-money says he's ready in these WCW cats just live in a Dreamland with all their fake junk it's all about money holes and clothes according to Lieutenant Terry Jeffords and Rick Steiner's gonna go down tonight T-money comes out with all the Warriors and Rick comes out with his three WCW buddies DDP says Rick's gone ahead team on me so many times that big Terry will think he's surrounded and Terry says yeah we'll see about that the bottle gets underway and wreck almost instantly puts money down but he trips up when climbing the pyramid wreck again puts money on the mat when Terry misses a punch and the referee forces a stop when money throws punches while rex on his knees Steiner then says [ __ ] this he drops the ball and the two start throwing punches t-money's cronies run in to break up the fight while the WCW guys are busy with the other Warriors and T-money gets in a cheap shot while Rick can't defend himself Rick decides to take it out on the referee in the WCW guys leave the arena so I think it's a draw I'm not sure we see Team WCW backstage and DDP says it was a four against 20 fight out there but Rex gonna take care of business on Nitro T-money should show up on Monday night because Steiner's looking for a fight and this needs to get settled inside a wrestling ring Warriors show up to Nitro once again and Doug Dellinger tries to throw him out but he has no luck Rick Steiner comes to the ring holding the bottle Dome championship belt he stole ages ago and Rex says he's getting a bit sick of hearing these Goofs talk about how wrestlers are fake and battle domes real Rick says he walked into the bottle Dome and he took their championship belt a few weeks back and there was nothing the Warriors could do about it so if any one of these guys want to come and get their belt back they should step into the ring with the dog face Kremlin T-money gets inside the ropes and there's not much of a match here they hit the mod pretty quickly and they roll around a bit before the other Warriors jump in and Rex not outnumbered Steiner takes a kick to the balls and the Warriors reclaim the belt it [ __ ] begs the question why didn't DDP Bagwell and Miller show up they were absent throughout this whole thing and they let their brother get embarrassed it didn't make any sense the final meeting between WCW and battle dome then featured Rick Steiner sitting in the audience holding signs that said fairy Dome and bottled homes sucks while sitting in the bottle Dome Arena Rick makes fun of the Warriors and the Warriors approach Rick and this leads to Steiner threatening to Smosh a few scolds with his steam chair throughout the entire show Rick continued to haggle the bottledome boys and towards the end of the show Steiner walked out wearing t-money's suit and Rick says it's not T-money anymore it's all Rex Money crew says this ends tonight and he challenges wrecked a game of tecton with Rick on defense Terry needs to get past Rick and hit a light switch to win the match but forget about the rules here T-money charges in the wreck right at the start of the bottle and that's about as good as it gets my friends the WCW boys planned a snake attack it's a shame they didn't do this on Nitro and WCW get the upper hand here when they attack T-money and his cronies you could say the same thing here really why didn't the other Warriors show up to held T-money WCW laughs at the battle dome boys before leaving the building the commentators say this is far far from over but that's a big old lie ladies and gentlemen because that's the end of this Invasion this cross promotion from hell this WCW blunder that benefited absolutely nobody I read somewhere the WCW refused to pay the bottledome Warriors airplane tickets and that's why the Rivalry ended not sure if that's true or not and really who cares I can't think of anything good that came from this except maybe the novelty of Terry Crews appearing on a WCW ring and I bet there's quite a lot of folks out there who don't know a thing about this and they never knew it happened and that's because it was only those holding on to the bitter ant who stay tuned in the WCW around this time period plus Terry Crews wasn't really a huge recognizable name in later 2000 to be fair the angle didn't get finished so things could have ended up differently but I bet there wasn't even a Finish Line or ending to the story written because WCW really struggled during this time period from a creative aspect I seriously doubt that there is anything said in stone for this to somehow pay off so that was WCW versus battle dome and this is neck to close out the video now there never has been a concrete reason as to why this crossover took place at least one that I can find uh but we can follow a couple of breadcrumbs nidaja who was at the time this show was on the air was one of Scotty Steiner's freaks she was also married to Michael O'Hearn during this time frame prior to joining WCW she worked on battle dome as one of the valets in season one clearly she had a very particular set of skills now it was through her agent Rich minzer that she met Terry Taylor and the rest is WCW history at that point in a relatively recent shoot interview Michael Hearn stated that it was through Terry Taylor again that the Crosser between battle dome and WCW happen it's unclear who initiated the talks between both shows however Michael o'hern alludes to the fact that this initial run wasn't going to be the end of their crossover in fact he States him and other battle domers had started going to quote-unquote Camp which I would assume was the power plant at the time unfortunately it was only a couple months later that Vince McMahon would purchase WCW and the battle dome crossover wouldn't it turns out the McMahon's were also scouting or Hearn back in the early 90s for a potential WWF run but because of his contract with the American Gladiators TV show it just never happened and O'Hearn alludes that it was because of this first attempt and not going through with his original plans to join the WWF that he wasn't carried over when the WCW buyout happened sure there's more to it than that but that's the reasoning that o'hern had alluded to I did also read somewhere that there was a potential Scott Steiner connection that he might have had a hand in making this whole crossover happen but as far as I could tell there was no evidence to suggest that I could be completely wrong there or just missed out on something entirely but I think what might be happening if there was no connection with Scott Steiner is people were just assuming there was a connection because of the whole midaja connection and her being part of Scott Steiner's freaks but that was the battle dome crossover again I want to say thank you to Ryan for bringing me on the channel today but I also want to thank you guys for watching this whole video through and hopefully enjoying it I don't think I need to say this but like you guys I'm always eagerly anticipating the next reliving the war the next blunder and I'm also very saddened for the fact that someday it's all gonna come to an end you know when we get to the actual Invasion storyline and everything but I'll say this it's been a hell of a ride so far the only question I have left is to what Heights will Steve Blackman climb in his reliving the war Journey because we all know exactly what blunder's Glacier will eventually come to and I'm also kind of curious as when the hell he's supposed to come back I guess I could look that up but I'll we'll wait and see what happens anyway if you guys want to check in my stuff out my YouTube channel is youtube.com if you want to check me out on Twitter it's just at light Rubble uh capital L capital r and I should pop up pretty easily on Twitter I'm rev of the live variety if you want to see Ryan and I collab on something else we actually took a look at the Buff Bagwell movie quite a few months back on my channel and uh without exploring anything it was pretty hilarious again thank you Ryan for bringing me on the channel today and thank you all for watching foreign [Music] [Music] Arquette winning the World Championship was going to be the second blunder video in the series here's the old original thumbnail I put together for back in February this year I had a few reasons for putting it off though firstly it's a topic that's been covered to death and I wondered if there was anything I could really say that's not already out there and secondly I hadn't seen David's documentary film that covered his Championship win and his efforts to return to pro wrestling I want to make something very clear before continuing on this blunder the final episode in the blunder series is not about David Arquette the person it's about wcw's decision to make Arquette the world champion I watched you cannot kill David Arquette very recently and quite simply the guy loves pro wrestling just like you and I you find yourself cheering for Arquette when you learn about his professional and personal struggles and you can tell his heart was and still is in the right place when it comes to pro wrestling I highly recommend you check out the documentary even if you're not a fan of David's and even if some parts I feel were a little dramatized but I'll talk about this after we look at everything that happened on WCW television because I watched this documentary re-watched The WCW television stuff and watched and read almost every interview I can find on the subject I can hopefully give you guys a different look in the arcade winning the World Championship which by the way is still a massive blunder on WCW side that was equally as detrimental to arkhead and his career aspirations so here it is we end blunder on the most requested topic it's David Arquette winning the World Championship [Music] Arquette's WCW relationship started with ready to rumble a movie that received a largely negative reception but still a guilty pleasure for many wrestling fans you know who you are ready to rumble is all about Gordy and Sean two wrestling super fans who see their favorite wrestler Jimmy King get screwed out of the world championship by Diamond dollars page an evil WCW promoter Titus Sinclair this was originally supposed to be Eric Bischoff but it got released when filming began Gordy played by Arcade and Sean then go on a mission to bring Jimmy King back to the top of WCW and it all culminates in a tripled steam cage March there's a lot of WCW guys in the movie and if you look closely you'll also see John Cena in a gym scene before he turned invisible but yeah to promote ready to rumble our cat would appear on WCW television and that's how this whole thing began David grew up as a wrestling fan and he remains a resident fan to this day he was very willing to appear in this movie and the WCW appearances that followed were like a dream come true we would learn that David's love for pro wrestling and his decision to star in the movie and make WCW appearances would kinda hurt his chances for further roads as many people in Hollywood thought he lost his mind for doing all this but we also learned that things had started going downhill for David ever since he appeared in the 1996 Scream movie serious movie roles became Out Of Reach for Arquette when the aloof Deputy Dewey appeared on screen apparently but still Arquette loved wrestling so much that ready to rumble in the WCW partnership was a no-brainer for him our cat's first WCW appearance on Thunder happened on April 12 2000 this was the episode right after Vince Russo and Eric peschoff reset the company our cat was shown sitting in the audience at the beginning of the show all fired up and Tony Shivani mentioned that David was the big star of ready to rumble which had already been released at the time diamond dollars page and Bam Bam Bigelow wrestled in the main event and when Eric Bishop and Jeff jar got involved Arquette jumped the guardrail to help Dallas David ends up getting destroyed by Double J and he's actually taking bumps here DDP and Chris Canyon had shown David some very basic fundamentals before the show so he was able to protect himself and take bombs without injury Canyon ends up running down too but Bishop uses a chair and the baby faces get taken out Thunder and with Canyon Dallas and Arquette LED out on the canvas later that week springstown paid 2000 happened and in the main event Diamond Dallas Page faced Jeff Jared for the vegan WCW championship this was a tournament final Kimberly Page ended up turning her back on her husband to join the new blood so Jared they have spring Stampede is the new world heavyweight champion and Dallas left without the belt or his wife on WCW Nitro on the 24th of April DDP confronted Kimberly and Bishop in the ring but once again he was attacked by Jeff Jarrett Arquette jumped in the ring again and he got in some interesting offense against Bishop when jarrah pulled him away Chris Canyon again ran in for the save and Bishop wasn't happy Eric wanted to know if Arquette wanted a fight and David agreed saying he'll wrestle Eric Bischoff ftdp was given a title shot against Jared inside a steel cage later on Nitro but she off agreed so David Arquette just got booked in a March Arquette was very excited during his promo and you can instantly see why some fans wouldn't like him but if he could go in the ring this wouldn't be a problem right DDP and Canyon got David All Fired Up backstage before the March Bishop comes out with Kimberly and Jared while arcade comes out with ph and a whole lot of power and as soon as the bell rings Jarrett grabs Arquette from the outside and this allows Bishops to take advantage Eric layers in some of those Karate kicks and David Gets choked on the mat David gets up and he Spears Eric before pulling this face right here that's wild and then David rips off WWF Scotty too Hardy by doing the worm adding his own little twist but it's still Scotty's move gimmick infringement brother our cat covers Bishop but Jara pulls the referee out DDP then accidentally wipes the referee out and Double J then hits Paige with his word title back inside the ring Bishop hits our cat with a low blow Jared then plans on hitting David with his guitar but our cat moves out of the way and Bishop takes the head Canyon then takes care of Jared as referee Mickey J runs in to count the pin fall Arquette beats [ __ ] off on Monday night row this is an offensive really it's Eric Bishop versus David Arquette not sting versus David Arquette absolutely no issues with this and we have seen way worse stuff on WCW television later that night DDP defeated Jared for the word title so Arquette was really instrumental in bringing the gold back to Dallas Page the 26th of April episode of Thunder later on the week took place in Syracuse New York and the show opened up with Bishop Kimberly and Jared pulling Arquette out of their car Arquette gets brought to the ring where he's used as a bargaining chip Double J wants a tag team match he and Bishop vs DDP and Arquette ddp's World title must be on the line and whoever scores the pinfall wins the championship DDP rushes down alongside Chris Canyon and Dallas doesn't accept so the franchise and buff daddy appear and Double J says Dallas really doesn't have a choice if he says no Then buff and Douglas are going to run down and attack Paige and Canyon Ric Flair and Lex Luger show up to even the odds while DDP and Canyon storm the ring Jarrett manages to get out of Harm's Way while still holding on to arkhead so the offer is still on the table if DDP wants arcade brought the cfd face you off Kimberly and Jared give David a hard time and Dallas ends up agreeing to the March Arquette refuses medical attention he's ottoman about wrestling this much but Paige tells him minister before the main event that he's not going to wrestle tonight Dallas will take on Double J and Eric beshoff all on his own we come back from a commercial break Dallas makes his way down to the ring but our cat shows up and it looks like David isn't gonna listen to Paige's demands he also pulls off some gang signs and then he shits himself when Dallas's Peril goes off fantastic it's then revealing that Kimberly Page has gone a referee this much so the odds are stacked against the baby faces big time arcad and Bishop fall out of the ring and they fight all the way to the back the focus of the match then goes to the ring where Kimberly Page won't crank Jared shoulders to the mat and moments later Bishop returns with no David Arquette he's been taken out apparently Paige has to dig down to try to overcome his opponents but he gets a hand when David comes limping back to the ring DDP gets a chance to kiss his future ex-wife so naturally he takes it and arcade Spears bet you off while ddps and a lip lock while our cat pins best you off Jared hits DDP with a guitar Jared then pins dollars but referee Mickey J runs down again and he decides to count Bishop you off shoulders to the mat and that's idea of the dark had won the World Championship David can't believe it Paige can't believe it Tony Shivani goes into a State of Shock on commentary and the wrestling weren't collectively groaned as Arquette lifts the championship in the air a triple cage main event was also booked for a slambery featuring Jared and DDP for the world title so no one knew if that match was not going to happen but that was really the last thing on anyone's mind Arquette won the World Championship and many still to this day see this as one of wcw's darkest moments foreign went along with it though without protest David had no idea he was going to win the championship and it was DDP who broke the news Arquette thought DDP was joking he didn't believe it but Pete said he wasn't messing around and our cat immediately went looking for Russo for confirmation when Russell said David was winning the gold and David would need to hang around for another few weeks for the slam bery show Arquette said to him he didn't think it was a good idea but after a little convincing David admitted to feeling excited about winning the gold Eric Bischoff said on his 83 weeks podcast that this was a stunt and nothing more a business decision to promote a movie and that's it he understands that heater continues to get from fans But Eric really sees it as nothing more than a promotional vehicle while saying it's not like our cat defeated Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair speaking of Ric Flair it was reported that Flair told David he needs to show up at the hotel bar later that night with the championship and he has to buy the boys drinks it would maybe be a way to smooth things over in a way that David could show respect for WCW and the championship he just won Arquette said he went to the hotel that night he was walking around talking to the wrestlers and talking about winning the championship and a lot of guys gave him the cold shoulder he mentioned Rick and Scott Steiner not being very receptive but no other names are brought up and he also said that it was when these wrestlers gave him the cold shoulder that he realized what the championship meant to these guys Vince Russo meanwhile was delighted with how things turned out Arquette was featured in USA Today following Thunder and that's what Russo wanted WCW coverage in mainstream media Russell said when he sang with the company he was signed to a television deal not a wrestler deal not a book or tail a television deal his job was to get ratings up and get more eyeballs on WCW and he was convinced that this coverage was nothing but a good thing but Russo actually ended up alienating those fans who remained loyal to the company the fans who stuck with WCW throughout all the hardships the fans who were Irreplaceable WWF die hards meanwhile would laugh that the competition just crowned David Arquette as their new Champion so all in all bishop and Russo may have seen it as nothing more than a publicity stunt that got some headlines but for anyone who truly cared about WCW and its history it was just too much you can also say it's just a belt it's a prop and it really doesn't matter and that's fine too but the vast vast majority think otherwise when it comes to David Arquette a few things before continuing on I hear all the time that narcad didn't want to do it and I always wondered why he just didn't flat out reviews I mean they can't force him to do it right well when you watch the documentary and learn more about David as a person you can see he's maybe a little sensitive than a guy who maybe tries too much to please others I think he may have been easily sweared into this next the business with David's pay what isn't mentioned in the documentary yet it's confirmed by DDP and the WWE Legends of Wrestling Roundtable show and also confirmed by Ric Flair and his book David Arquette donated every Sandy yarn from WCW to the families of Owen Hart brand Pullman Darren drozdov and Bobby Duncan Jr I find that way more respectful to the business than walking around a hotel bar and buying people drinks Dallas also brought up a question to fans if you were asked to do this if you were told you're going to be WCW Champion for a few weeks would you say no it's something to think about the next episode of Nigel started off with our cat pigeon Canyon meeting the new blood in the parking lot but their meeting was rudely interrupted by Hulk Hogan's awful driving later on we see footage of David on the set of three thousand miles to Graceland his wife at the time Courtney Cox thanks David's lost his mind and she's telling him this new Venture is very dangerous Kurt Russell meanwhile laughs at arcad when Courtney tells him he's the current WCW Champion arcadius's Russell and Courtney screams that David's not a wrestler our cat goes to the ring and he announces that he's relinquishing the WCW Championship he's an Entertainer not a sports Entertainer he appreciates how fans have cheered for him over these past few weeks but someone more deserving should hold the championship so he wants to vacate the belt and put it up for grabs later in the week at slumbery Paige versus Jared inside the ready to rumble Triple Cage whoever wins will leave with the gold Jared and Company come down to the ring and Jared says David isn't the commissioner David decided to cross a line and become a wrestler so that's exactly how he's going to get treated Russo and Bishop on Cornell allowed David to Forfeit the championship instead that triple cage match is going to be a triple threat and David's gonna compete along with Jared and Paige Bishop thinks our cat could do with a warm-up though so we booked so much Arquette versus tank Abbotts Abba comes down to the ring and Pete says that much ain't gonna happen we get a big old brawl in the baby faces have to leave the ring and Albert says if Paige can beat him tonight then the Arquette March is off but if tank wins then arcad's pretty much done for Canyon and arcad get locked in a room while the March takes place Jeff jar breaks a ball over Paige's head and Dallas gets knocked out so tank Albert wins and tank Albert faces Arquette later on Nitro David's in an absolute Panic backstage before the match but he has no choice Abbott laughs his Arquette tries to choke him out he intimidates David in the corner before slamming him to the mat Arquette then tries his deadly Spirit but it's like a child running to their parents for a hug and then an ambulance pulls up to the arena DDP gets out and he comes to rescue your cat the cameras Miss The Diamond Cutter but we see it in the replay DDP puts our cat's arm over Robert and David Arquette wins another match on WCW television not a lot happened on Thunder that week except David falling through the gimmicked entrance way before the end of the show yeah you don't hear much about this one for some reason but it happened the Triple Cage March happens then on pay-per-view and you'd think this would be an easy win for dollars page after all Dallas has got back up in the form of David Arquette so what could possibly go wrong swerve bro you kinda expected it really but it's a swerve Arquette turns his back on Dallas and he helps jar become the new Heavyweight Champion quite a lot of title changes over these past few weeks right almost like the legacy of the championship had already been truly diminished before arcade got his hands on it but I digress to be fair Arquette mostly stayed out of the ring in this one only doing the odd spot here and there while letting the professionals handle most of the heavy work we also got to see Canyon getting thrown off the cage at the end of the March so there's that too I guess the next night on Monday Nitro it was reveated that David was now part of the new blood but this would also be David's final appearance in WCW Bishop says this was a plan all along and our cat wasn't just swayed before going out for the Triple Cage March the title win the tank Albert stuff all of it was done so so Eric could screw around with dollars page and Bishop said he even fooled all those Smart internet wrestling fans who were so upset about Arquette winning the gold David delivers his promo here in that CM ever so slightly annoying manner that we witnessed during his first WCW promo only it's been ramped up a lot he says Paige should never have trusted someone from Hollywood on the set of ready to rumble Arquette told Dallas he wants to become a professional wrestler and Paige told David he'd get hurt and David says here it turns out that Dallas was the one who got hurt Arquette rubs it in that he was the World Heavyweight Champion and he has Eric Bishop to thank for it DDP then shows up the new blood get out of the ring after a brawl but they leave Arquette behind David then takes a Diamond Cutter here and give him credit he took the cutter well and that's it that's why David spent his time in world championship wrestling the whole thing became the stuff of WCW legend in the worst way possible fans absolutely hated it and the heat didn't go away years and years after wcw's closure it still gets brought up as one of the worst things WCW ever did and it became one of the top examples of why the company went down the toilet I thought the same as everyone else you kind of look at this thing and just shake your head really being a WCW fan and seeing it all unfold felt like another nail in the coffin and it's always been a moment in WCW history that you point at and say well eventually so explain this then I watched you cannot kill David Arquette and like everyone else I learned more about David's thoughts on all this and I kinda felt bad for the guy foreign spoilers about the documentary in this last bit so if you plan on watching it soon I'd recommend stopping this video now but I won't give too much away what you'll learn about David in this documentary early on is that he deals with a lot of anxiety I'm not sure if his downfall in popularity attributes to this or if it's more to do with his life choices but David deals with his own internal struggles winning that Championship really bothers him 20 years after it happened that decision made by WCW is something that hasn't left him and in a way it defined him in the worst way possible his involvement in wrestling really hurt his acting career and on top of that his involvement in wrestling was really negatively received so Arquette completely lost with this one a headline in USA Today doesn't buy what this dude went through trust me he even feels like he needs to redeem himself by learning what it actually takes to become a professional wrestler he wants to give back to the wrestling business he wants the respected and he wants to have decent marches where fans would maybe say you know what David Arquette really isn't all that bad and we get to see how David trains for this while completely going against doctor's orders and family requests it's a really personal thing that David wants to put the rest and find peace with it's truly remarkable how the WCW Championship win affected him for so long and because he's such a ball of anxiety we can see how he struggles with pro wrestling even though he has an undeniable love for it and seeing him try to get back into things and realizing that some folks still don't like him and some fans still laugh at him can actually be quite emotional at times what struck me most about the documentary was how much respect he has or respect he learned to have for pro wrestling there's one moment where Luchador Mr maldido gives him a signed mask and he begins to cry he talks about his love for Miss Elizabeth and how he was infatuated with her growing up we learn about him wrestling with his family as a kid and going to shows but all that's is bundled up with superstars talking about how creative it is as a person but his Championship win is something that's maybe unforgivable David goes through a lot to try to get that Redemption culminating in a horrific march with Nick Gage that I'm sure you heard about and finally about with Ken Anderson and you're left hoping that David got rid of those things that were once bothering him when the journey is all over but you're also unsure if he's truly truly content it's a fascinating documentary for sure and I'm also confident that it'll sway many fans into liking a guy who they maybe once thought was a bit of a goofball some may see it as a vanity project but I still think it's very much worth your time there's also the question about why the documentary was made you know did he make the documentary because he was getting back into pro wrestling or did he get back into pro wrestling because he needed to make a documentary there are Parts in it that come across as setup because the cameras were rolling and I'm pretty sure that Nicki age March 2 was always supposed to be super violent for the documentary but a legit accident did end up happening so you you will have some of these thoughts in your mind while watching it certainly helped me change the way I think about David though I always knew about him donating his paycheck and I heard the stories about him not wanting to win the championship too but the documentary gives us real insight into David as a person and even after how badly pro wrestling treated him from the guys in the business to the fans watching at home it's incredible how much he still loves the business so this whole thing in my opinion wasn't a deal with our cat blunder it was a WCW blunder that's it guys WCW blunder has wrapped up and the series is over if you're wondering of a series 2 may be coming out I honestly don't know I know there's more stuff out there you'd like to see covered such as Mike Awesome the NWO breaking apart Russell's title when Goldberg's hail run the Dungeon of Doom and all that stuff but I'm taking a break from blunder for now to focus on a few other things if there is a season two I'd want to plan it out ahead of time and lay out the roadmap a little better with uploads scheduled on certain days just so you guys know exactly when they're coming out but again I'm not sure if it'll be a second series right now it is possible though there's also the possibility of a WWF or WWE version of the series that I spoke about before but again there's no real plans I just want to be honest with you guys but thank you very much for watching and I hope you guys enjoyed watching the 10 blunders we witnessed in world championship wrestling take care everyone foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Wrestling Bios

Views: 1,469,179

Keywords: Wrestling lists, wwe lists, wrestling bios, wcw blunder, wcw, world championship wrestling, wrestling botches, kevin nash oz, lex luger, glacier wcw, hulk hogan, darkside hulk hogan, dark side hulk hogan, hollywood hogan, vince russo, wcw wrestling, wrestling bios blunder

Id: I1hW6iXHb7c

Length: 215min 47sec (12947 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 19 2022