Eighteen Months – WCW Starrcade 1997

WCW spent eighteen months building to Sting vs. Hollywood Hogan… only to trip over their own feet at the finish line. In this episode of Grapple City Rewind, Brad and Aaron break down the spectacular chaos of WCW Starrcade 1997—from the overhyped “greatest night ever” promises to the infamous not-fast fast count that derailed the biggest payoff in company history.

Brad also opens the show with a full recount of attending WWE Survivor Series 2025 live at Petco Park, describing the nightmare seating, the hours-long entry lines, the obstructed views, and how the Dominic Mysterio injury angle worked the entire stadium in real time.

Then it’s back to 1997, where confusion reigned backstage, referees and managers looked like they’d been handed new script pages seconds before going live, NWO interference suffocated half the card, and Bret Hart wandered into the main event like he wasn’t sure why he was even there. We also cover the matches that quietly stole the show, the production choices that aged like milk, and the moment many fans consider the beginning of WCW’s collapse.

If you’ve ever wanted a blueprint on how to ruin an 18-month storyline in 18 seconds, this is the one.

This episode brought to you by Weber4Law - your tag team partner when life body-slams you out of nowhere. Call (818) 502-9200 or visit https://weber4law.com/

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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.

Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

Transcript

00:04.16
Aaron
Hey everyone, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. Make sure to subscribe to us with whatever podcast platform you use so you never miss an episode. And please leave us a review on whatever platform you use. It'll go a long way in helping us to be discovered by more wrestling fans like you.

00:21.27
Bradley Palermo
Hey, hello, and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the iconic pay-per-views and television specials that shape professional wrestling history. This week, we're covering one of the most anticipated and and also controversial pay-per-views,

00:44.20
Bradley Palermo
In wrestling history, WCW, Starrcade 97, the culmination of an 18-month storyline, the peak of NWO era, the night where WCW had the ball on the goal line with the biggest homegrown babyface of the decade. We will break down all the production, the booking, the matches.

01:02.02
Bradley Palermo
The finishes, the behind-the-scenes decisions that still fuel that still fuel debate nearly three decades later, go match-by-match with times, finishes, melt to ratings, examine how this looked, sounded, how it felt in the moment, and whether it holds up today.

01:18.35
Bradley Palermo
Might even discuss the fallout, the long-term impact in WCW. We'll get into all that very soon when we talk about Starrcade 1997. ninety seven I'm Bradley Palermo, here as always with Aaron Fink.

01:31.04
Bradley Palermo
And Aaron, before we go back to the 90s, let's talk a little bit about this past weekend because it was WWE Survivor Series 2025.

01:42.62
Aaron
It was.

01:43.41
Bradley Palermo
I think you were watching from home.

01:45.26
Aaron
I was watching from home. You were watching from Petco.

01:50.55
Aaron
You were there.

02:15.44
Bradley Palermo
Sit the fuck down. You know.

02:18.86
Aaron
ah Yeah, yeah, definitely didn't seem like the best ah arena or stadium for a show like that. um Could you imagine like sitting in the top deck of the like the the stands for that?

02:33.61
Aaron
Like you're just watching the screen the whole time, probably.

02:35.99
Bradley Palermo
Well, I mean, yeah, even on the field, we were pretty much watching the screens. Even when i when I sat down, because everyone was like, oh, we got field tickets. And we're like in the first like, you know, whatever, 30 rows. And everyone around me was like, man, these tickets fucking suck. And the other guy says, to these are horrible fucking tickets. Because there's this huge structure around the ring to build like a canopy.

02:57.17
Aaron
Yeah.

02:57.40
Bradley Palermo
or and in case it were to rain, I guess, over the wrestlers. Then there's there's the ring itself, and then for half the thing, there's a structure of the cage itself. It's going around two rings, so for the singles matches, you might be getting the ring that's closest to you.

03:10.60
Bradley Palermo
You might be getting the ring that's even further away that's got the view of another ring in front of it. like there was

03:15.08
Aaron
Right.

03:15.82
Bradley Palermo
When I went up to get concessions in, I guess, what would be section one, the the first section of actual seatings off the field, there were, I mean... their view kind of sucked too.

03:24.74
Bradley Palermo
You just see some weird structure and a huge screen.

03:27.44
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

03:27.55
Bradley Palermo
And then when you look up in like the outfield and the people that were seated up, like kind of in the bleachers and the cheap seats, like that would have been like, you're not even there. I mean, I don't know. i think unless you were like one of the 300 people that were in the first six rows, I don't think there was any way it, it was a good seat for, there was a good seat in the house, you know?

03:46.58
Aaron
People are just there for the vibes, I guess.

03:46.68
Bradley Palermo
So,

03:48.46
Aaron
I mean, that's kind of the thing that I'm concerned about with WrestleMania at Allegiant Stadium. I want to go because it's ah Saturday is my birthday, night one.

03:58.50
Aaron
And to get a seat that I feel like I would actually enjoy and see what's happening in the ring, it's going to cost me $900 a day.

03:58.31
Bradley Palermo
yeah

04:06.99
Aaron
And it's just so much.

04:07.92
Bradley Palermo
yeah i the time i went to mania uh well i went to allegiance for summer slam and section one section one was okay i mean i guess if you're if you're

04:14.32
Aaron
SummerSlam, I remember, yeah. that was Wasn't that the one where Becky beat Bianca in like 27 seconds?

04:24.12
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, because Mercedes Monet didn't show up, whatever they used to call her, Shostakovich on But that that was okay. Section one was okay, I guess. I think the problem is with a baseball stadium.

04:49.46
Bradley Palermo
So, I mean, i would rather go sit. I'd rather go to WrestleMania and sit like in the first section in a football stadium.

04:55.02
Aaron
In a football stadium. Yeah. It makes sense. Cause it's all like tiered and stuff.

04:57.84
Bradley Palermo
Right.

04:58.82
Aaron
Yeah.

05:09.15
Bradley Palermo
It's hilarious because if you see these old photos, it's like a small group of like press and managers around the ring, like you know like seven people around the ring. It looks like almost like COVID times did where there's no one around unless they have to be there.

05:22.91
Bradley Palermo
And then you look in the stands and they're full. So like no one was anywhere near the ring at all. And there were no Videotron screens.

05:31.42
Aaron
yeah but there was no scaffolding and not probably nothing obstructing them per se they just like would see two tiny dots wrestling like fighting each other

05:38.69
Bradley Palermo
You see two times. Yeah. and And in those days, a lot of times it was two guys going for like the full four hours and it was really boring.

05:46.10
Aaron
Just in a submission, yeah.

05:47.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

05:47.82
Aaron
Just in a headlock.

05:57.01
Aaron
Wrestling homies.

05:59.89
Aaron
Well...

06:03.50
Bradley Palermo
Anytime you're in a crowd with that many people, you're just like, fuck all these people. I want to be on my couch without them. You know?

06:18.30
Bradley Palermo
Into it.

06:21.99
Aaron
There wasn't a bad seed just because of the way that it's made. And there definitely was like a giant ass screen going all the way around ah like there is at SoFi.

06:30.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

06:32.28
Aaron
But it I don't know.

06:32.64
Bradley Palermo
Right.

06:34.45
Aaron
the vibes were good. Arenas are much better. I think baseball stadiums are kind of dumb because like there's so much verticality.

06:37.69
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

06:43.66
Aaron
And then there, but then the whole entire field is completely flat. Right. So you're just like, let's take a floor seat at a concert.

06:47.54
Bradley Palermo
Right.

06:49.42
Aaron
If you're not like in the first 10 rows, if you're like in the 30th row, you're never going to see anything.

06:52.18
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

06:55.22
Aaron
Cause there's always going to be people standing up in front of you. and it's just.

06:58.68
Bradley Palermo
Oh, that was z that was the other problem with the baseball field is baseball fields aren't meant to let thousands and thousands of fans onto the fucking field. So there's this...

07:08.28
Aaron
Yeah.

07:09.64
Bradley Palermo
there's no looks First of all, it's the the line was like seven blocks long to get in. it was

07:14.24
Aaron
My God.

07:14.88
Bradley Palermo
i thought by the time I got up, it was going be some heavy security. It wasn't. It was just like walk on in. So I don't know what their problem was, but took it took literally hours to get in through the normal line. Then... You go up, there's only one way to the field ah that we knew of at least. And it's like stuck in between like the line to the bathroom and like all this like shitty concession area. So now there's thousands of people lining up like to to fight to go through this one part where they'll let you down the field, which is like...

07:39.88
Bradley Palermo
you know, only meant to seat a little portion of a section. Now everyone's funneling through that and they don't tell any of us that you need a floor wristband. So everyone is in that line getting down to the bottom where the fucking workers, like you don't have the wristband. Where do we get the wristband?

07:55.66
Bradley Palermo
Oh, it's all the way back up where you walked in.

07:57.53
Aaron
Oh my God.

07:57.30
Bradley Palermo
So after, so, um so yeah, like everyone's getting turned around, but there's really no way for the people that are getting turned around to come back up through all that line.

07:58.11
Aaron
It's

08:04.44
Bradley Palermo
So it's just like pissed off people. And, uh,

08:07.80
Aaron
all smushed together.

08:09.20
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I got down there at like 1.30. I barely got there for the bell to ring in my seat for the first match. um I mean, we could talk about the show a little bit. I guess I more just wanted to talk about what an unfortunate place that was to hold a wrestling event.

08:21.81
Aaron
but

08:23.21
Bradley Palermo
I thought the...

08:23.65
Aaron
ah yeah

08:24.47
Bradley Palermo
the Dominic versus Mysterio versus John Cena match was probably my favorite we called this entire card it's only four matches we got everything right winners and losers wise but um yeah that was it was the Dominic match had me going like i was excited i liked that people were kind of torn between the San Diego thing and the John Cena marks you know the the the chance going back and forth but um

08:30.26
Aaron
We did. Yeah. yeah

08:46.57
Bradley Palermo
My friend that I bought totally got worked by that Dominic Mysterio injury. He's like, oh man, oh mate. I'm not going to try to do his British accent, but he's like, oh mate, he's really hurt.

08:57.63
Bradley Palermo
You can see his shoulder. It's visibly popped out of socket. Like, that looks so bad. And he won't shut up. And I won't acknowledge it. Cause I'm like, Oh, this is a work dude. Like, because all they did was bring out like three more like referees to, and they're not even really doing medical anything.

09:09.85
Aaron
Uh-huh.

09:12.02
Bradley Palermo
They're just kind of like acting like, obviously he's like, Oh my God, he's fucked. And then people around me are shouting, we want refunds. We want refunds. So they're all, they've all been worked also.

09:20.70
Aaron
oh ahha

09:22.81
Bradley Palermo
And then of course, Dominic wasn't really injured. And then used that distraction to have the judgment day and a little eventually live Morgan come out and kick John Cena in the balls and all this stuff.

09:34.70
Bradley Palermo
And and that's the kind of how Dominic Mysterio won that. But, um, I guess I was kind of surprised by live Morgan, uh,

09:42.71
Aaron
Yeah.

09:44.42
Bradley Palermo
jumping into John Cena's arms, I thought, wait, is she gonna? Is she gonna? Is she fucking with him right now? Or is does she really just turned on Dominic, you know?

09:52.30
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. That was probably my favorite match as well. I was watching with my brother and and when the injury angle happened for a few, for a little while, i was like, well,

10:06.21
Aaron
it's It's not real. And then i was like, oh maybe it is. I don't know. You know, and then but then the the three medical staff came out and they like just were like plain clothes people. And I was like, okay yeah, this is this is part of the story.

10:20.37
Aaron
But but I had fun.

10:20.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, those those guys didn't seem real. Yeah, it was fun. um

10:23.98
Aaron
Women's Wargames is fine.

10:23.88
Bradley Palermo
i

10:25.22
Aaron
Like, ah you know, they they were the like they used all the weapons. They had all the fun. I liked Io's swanton inside of a trash can. She always finds way to to do something with a trash can on her head, but slightly differently for the past three years.

10:42.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, she, we all knew it was going to happen, but everyone was like waiting for it. It's like the band playing the the hit single or whatever.

10:49.26
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

10:49.88
Bradley Palermo
But I feel like the women's war games suffered a little bit in some of our eyes because we'd just seen a very good women's match of the same basic rules at blood and guts with AW, which I would say was probably better, but, um,

11:04.44
Aaron
It was, but it's almost unfair to compare the two because, I mean, yes, they are essentially the same type of match, but the companies are so different.

11:13.77
Aaron
like you know Almost all of the women in the AEW blood and guts match were bleeding. They were doing crazy things with glass and thumbtacks, and you know that's just not going to happen in wwe WWE.

11:23.60
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

11:26.21
Aaron
So it almost feels unfair to compare the two, but I agree. Out out of the two, I liked the women's blood and guts match more.

11:32.54
Bradley Palermo
I mean, compare it or not, it it took some of the steam out of the sales for this match for me because I just seen something similar. You know what I mean?

11:41.48
Bradley Palermo
It's just, it just did.

11:41.94
Aaron
Yeah.

11:42.44
Bradley Palermo
it just wasn't as through. It's hard to be like as stoked when you know, like this is the more sanitized version, but, um, but yeah, it was fine.

11:48.88
Aaron
never

11:50.61
Bradley Palermo
I mean, sometimes WWE's WWE's women's matches do, they get kind of like, we're all standing around. We're really kind of acting with our mannerisms.

11:59.29
Bradley Palermo
And then somebody like, I see like the kind of like the slow motion fight and the big, like kind of lower impact stuff.

12:03.57
Aaron
Yeah.

12:05.61
Bradley Palermo
I don i don't know. It's a little cheesy moments, but it's fine. It was cool. i was always watching without like commentary and stuff. So it's just, just different, you know?

12:15.20
Aaron
Yeah, super different. And then, yeah, we talked about Dom versus Cena. Stephanie Vaquera versus Nikki Bella was fine.

12:25.31
Aaron
You know, Yeah,

12:25.64
Bradley Palermo
It was like a popcorn match, I feel like. No one really... Yeah,

12:28.83
Aaron
yeah the go get your popcorn match.

12:30.84
Bradley Palermo
yeah after um everybody... That's what I meant. Yeah, after everybody saw John Cena and Dominic, I think they were kind of all out of steam.

12:34.64
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

12:39.89
Bradley Palermo
I thought the match was fine, but nobody really gives it gave a shit about anything other than Stephanie bouncing her ass for the devil's kiss twice.

12:41.65
Aaron
Yeah.

12:48.57
Aaron
Right. And then um she does have a great finisher, her like corkscrew moonsault thing. um then, yeah, the men's war games, obviously lots of big names, lots of pomp and circumstance on the entrances.

12:55.20
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

13:03.91
Aaron
But again, like it was fine, you know, like punk got busted open, but it was only for like two minutes and then he stopped bleeding all of a sudden.

13:11.92
Bradley Palermo
yeah

13:12.32
Aaron
And Cody's cut over his eye. ah came came undone for a couple minutes. and you know i don't yeah Bronson to tsunami everybody.

13:20.08
Bradley Palermo
Brock got to F5 everybody. Cody got to Cody cut everybody. Roman got.

13:27.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

13:28.14
Aaron
it It was just a lot of trading of like big moves and finishers. It didn't... i guess When I think of war games, the war games matches that I enjoy the most besides the ones from the nineties are the ones from NXT because those I felt like had a lot of story in them, had a lot of death defying, crazy shit happen. So it's kind of hard to compare. Um, and, and, you know, I don't think that this one lived up to those, but it was entertaining. It was just kind of predictable until,

13:57.52
Aaron
Mr. Mystery Man in the in the mask and all black came out. And ah yeah, that's what people think.

14:02.17
Bradley Palermo
Mystery Austin Theory Man, as everyone says. Yeah.

14:06.70
Aaron
i I assume that they're right because they pay more attention. Although I will say that the the stomp that the mystery person gave looked exactly like a Rollins stomp, like down to the way he moved his arms and stuff.

14:20.28
Aaron
like Whoever it was, if I assume it wasn't Rollins, so whoever it was really spent some time

14:21.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

14:25.96
Aaron
watching how Rollins does the stomp because that was obviously the intention is to make you think that it was Seth. And the the crowd went crazy for that.

14:34.44
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, so I don't know. I just watched, i just rewatched that that part because I got up finally for like one second and it was over. figured like the bell just rang for war games.

14:43.98
Bradley Palermo
I had time I could go pee.

14:45.66
Aaron
Yeah.

14:45.75
Bradley Palermo
And i like I like duck out for a second and it's like, what the fuck? Like I saw the mystery man jump in and I was like, oh, this is going to take a minute to play out. Like,

14:54.78
Aaron
ah man

15:06.59
Aaron
if you

15:12.38
Aaron
Yeah. So overall, I guess I would say mid- mid

15:17.39
Bradley Palermo
yeah

15:22.76
Aaron
Okay, we're here to talk about Starrcade 1997, December of be exact was at the mcci i center in washington d c with twenty four thousand fans thank you rick This was the highest grossing pay-per-view in WCW history, the most bought pay-per-view in WCW's history. And as Brad mentioned previously, this was supposed to be the culmination of an 18-month storyline between Sting and Hollywood Hulk Hogan.

16:08.98
Aaron
And um we saw that in the intro setting up this, you know, pay-per-view before everything started. You're getting a ah very crowish vibe and, and, you know, ominous poetic voiceover setting up the event.

16:22.48
Bradley Palermo
He's witnessed the ruin of an empire.

16:26.11
Aaron
Yeah, a bunch of bunch of silly silly voiceover. On commentary, we had ah Brad's favorite, Tony Schiavone, and then Iron Mike Tenet, and the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes.

16:36.60
Bradley Palermo
Boom.

16:39.56
Aaron
So right off the bat, they start talking about referee controversy and how they there have been lots of discussions about who the referee would be for this match between Hogan and Sting.

16:45.71
Bradley Palermo
Boom.

16:52.26
Aaron
And so...

16:52.31
Bradley Palermo
You know what that means.

17:06.23
Aaron
Strangely...

17:05.94
Bradley Palermo
How many times in the intro do they have to tell us that this is the greatest night in wrestling history? This is going to be the greatest night ever.

17:16.60
Bradley Palermo
This, this is the most anticipated event and wrestling his, I was like, okay, you guys are pushing that pretty hard, but

17:23.13
Aaron
Yeah, and with the with the benefit of hindsight, they're definitely hammering this a little too hard.

17:27.70
Bradley Palermo
ah yeah.

17:29.16
Aaron
ah The other interesting thing that I noticed is they keep calling out, yes, there WCW wrestlers in attendance as fans watching because before they were wrestlers, they were wrestling fans.

17:37.68
Bradley Palermo
Oh God.

17:41.36
Aaron
And I'm like, OK, it's kind of weird, but whatever.

17:43.86
Bradley Palermo
This is super insulting that you put like big ass wrestling names in the audience with the marks just to sit there eat eat popcorn. It's just weird.

17:53.08
Aaron
Yeah, we had. And once the pay-per-view is over, I realized, oh, so you sat Rey Mysterio and Harlem Heat in the fucking crowd instead of putting them in a match. And you had these matches instead.

18:06.17
Aaron
And I won't get ahead of myself.

18:05.88
Bradley Palermo
Right.

18:07.69
Aaron
We'll just move on to the first match of the evening, which was Dean Malenko versus Eddie Guerrero for the Cruiserweight Championship. I got to say, I did enjoy this match. It was a typical cruiserweight match, fast-paced.

18:18.86
Aaron
These guys are both terrific. We've seen plenty of Eddie in WCW before. We've seen a little bit of Dean Malenko as well. It gets hard hitting.

18:26.10
Bradley Palermo
Eddie's the champion here.

18:27.35
Aaron
Yeah, dean Eddie is the champion, and you know Dean, I guess they've been having a feud. They they hit each other pretty hard, pretty fast on in this match. um The crowd is excited for this one. They they hate Eddie. They're chanting, Eddie sucks.

18:41.45
Aaron
and One of the the highlights that made me laugh out loud was ah Eddie was on his knees like pleading or something. And then he like ran out of the ring, but he didn't run on his feet.

18:52.10
Aaron
He like ran on his knees and like.

18:53.57
Bradley Palermo
He ran on his knees.

18:55.07
Aaron
see

18:55.17
Bradley Palermo
I've never seen someone run across a wrestling ring on their knees like full on sprint.

18:56.90
Aaron
you He moves so fast too. Yeah.

19:00.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

19:01.26
Aaron
It looked really funny. ah

19:03.07
Bradley Palermo
It was really weird.

19:04.77
Aaron
was.

19:04.51
Bradley Palermo
And the he used the ref as a shield at one point too, which I thought was kind of a good little heel move.

19:10.92
Aaron
Yeah, definite classic Eddie Guerrero stuff. um You know, watching Dom at Survivor Series, you could kind of see how Dom's just doing the Eddie shtick.

19:21.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he is.

19:22.02
Aaron
Like that's all it does. And it's great. It works. Yeah.

19:24.34
Bradley Palermo
How come Shivani wouldn't shut up in this match about Kevin Nash is not in the building? Kevin Nash is not going to be here tonight. We are not sure why Kevin Nash is not in the building.

19:36.03
Bradley Palermo
You guys are Kevin Nash.

19:38.20
Aaron
He kind of jumped the gun a little bit because because Scott Hall comes out after this match is over and starts talking about what Shivani has already talked about for 10 minutes.

19:38.42
Bradley Palermo
Like, who gives a fuck?

19:46.32
Aaron
And it's like, yeah, you kind of kind of put the cart before the horse, Shivani. Anyway, um like I said very entertaining match. It was very intense. lot of back and forth.

19:56.53
Aaron
Eventually, Eddie starts targeting Malenko's knee on the outside using the steps and the ring post. And that becomes Eddie's focus. And ah Eddie hit Malenko with the frog splash, but he sort of aimed it onto Malenko's knee and he got the pin. So Guerrero retained. um I think this was probably, is terrible to say, but I think this was probably a match of the night, honestly, because it kind of just all goes downhill from here, if I'm being honest.

20:25.40
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, this was a good one. um There might be another contender for match the night, but I'll call it when I see it. Match two is Scott. Well, before match two, we had ah Scott Hall come in comes out and also starts rambling about Nash. I don't know what he was talking about.

20:40.38
Aaron
I looked it up.

20:40.16
Bradley Palermo
um The giant interrupts, power bombs Hall. I don't know. what Giant leave, segment ends. like what What was going on there? did look up?

20:48.78
Aaron
Yeah, so they they basically, Nash just decided that he didn't want to show up and fight the Giant. And so Scott Hall was like trying to explain why he wasn't there.

20:59.85
Aaron
And then that's when Giant comes out, talks a bit, and then, yeah, gives him gizzi hall orb sorry gives him Nash's jackknife powerbomb, his finisher, then leaves.

20:59.62
Bradley Palermo
Oh, is that what was?

21:10.21
Aaron
It was a pretty worthless segment. But before we move on, I want you to tell me what Dave Meltzer gave Malenko versus Eddie.

21:17.33
Bradley Palermo
Dave Meltzer gave that four stars.

21:18.93
Aaron
Damn right he did. That was a good match. Okay.

21:20.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's a good match. It was, uh, Yeah, I don't know. Milenko kind of worked that power off it. Like for a cruiserweight match, you know, there was a lot of power moves going on in there.

21:29.24
Bradley Palermo
I liked it.

21:30.11
Aaron
Yeah, Malenko was kind of like... A hidden gem. i mean, he was he was certainly popular at the time, but he didn't get any of the attention that Eddie eventually got, that Ray eventually got. Granted that the attention those guys received was in WWE.

21:44.42
Aaron
But yeah, i I kind of feel like Malenko was passed over and he really was a terrific wrestler.

21:44.45
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

21:50.96
Bradley Palermo
So the second match was Scott Norton, Vincent, Randy Savage with Elizabeth versus Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner, Ray Taylor with trailer Ray trailer.

22:00.43
Aaron
Ray trailer. What a horrible fucking name.

22:05.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

22:06.37
Aaron
i was like.

22:06.28
Bradley Palermo
TR is it T R A Y L O r trailer like Taylor, like ah with Ted DiBiase.

22:09.28
Aaron
It is. Yep.

22:12.31
Bradley Palermo
Um,

22:12.61
Aaron
Yeah. And this is big boss man. And I'm like, dude, what the fuck? Why did you make his name Ray trailer?

22:19.36
Bradley Palermo
That's weird, yeah. um I think that at one point they tried to make him like the boss or something to that effect and WWF squashed it like right away.

22:25.14
Aaron
and Maybe maybe someone went after him.

22:29.78
Aaron
if Okay, well.

22:35.51
Aaron
Conan was supposed to be there. yeah And Savage took his place. I don't know why.

22:43.61
Bradley Palermo
i um i am we're like only in match two and i'm already thinking like man everybody coming out to this nwo theme that's not a it's not a good theme song and they just overuse it so much it kind of kills the individuality of these wrestlers like you know fucking macho man comes out to the para bla wow it's like it's like some shitty like i don't know porn 80s porn song reject track um

23:09.40
Aaron
Yeah, but they do, you know, they try to add little bits of color to everybody. Like Macho Man comes out to that, but every once in while there's a, ooh, yeah, like interspersed in there.

23:18.01
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah, like what they're go to yeah what they're gonna say in the voiceover or whatever.

23:21.69
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

23:22.49
Bradley Palermo
yeah, you're right, man.

23:23.13
Aaron
But yeah, no, and not good.

23:24.33
Aaron
that this This match was pretty disappointing and and made me think of you because I know you hate multi-person matches. And this was just such a messy, ugly six-man tag.

23:35.84
Aaron
I wrote down, Ray Traylor is really bad. His punches look fake. He doesn't move well. Steiners are good. Scott Steiner, I think, was probably the standout of the match just because...

23:45.34
Bradley Palermo
yeah

23:46.05
Aaron
He's so big and does lots of powerful moves. They they did do something cool. The Steiners. um Rick had somebody up on his shoulders and then Scott got on the top rope and did like a DDT off of Rick's shoulders from the top rope. That was pretty cool.

24:02.62
Bradley Palermo
Scott Steiner was already getting pretty huge. I know he wasn't at his max right it out look, but he was pretty huge here and

24:09.73
Aaron
Yeah, but he was pretty pumped.

24:11.83
Bradley Palermo
And Scott norton probably had the mullet of the night. It was kind of like a buzzy, like buzzed on top mullet of Hardy in the back, you know, like almost like some kind of coon skin cap.

24:23.56
Aaron
That guy was a frigging brick wall, dude. that that Scott Norton was thick as a brick.

24:26.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

24:29.61
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um Standard NWO formula. Nothing too special.

24:35.63
Aaron
Lots of interference.

24:35.56
Bradley Palermo
NWO.

24:36.87
Aaron
Yeah.

24:36.97
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, i win.

24:38.53
Aaron
Savage broke up a pin, hit Scott Steiner with the elbow.

24:38.64
Bradley Palermo
Cool. First for them.

24:43.02
Aaron
NWO wins.

24:44.22
Bradley Palermo
Meltzer gave it two stars. And then we move on to JJ Dillon. He's going to announce who the referee is. And he scrambles for a few minutes. And of of course, I thought of you, Aaron.

24:56.03
Bradley Palermo
It was your least favorite person in all of wrestling history that he decided will be the referee, Nick Patrick. And it was instant fan deflation in the audience.

25:05.06
Aaron
Yeah.

25:05.73
Bradley Palermo
Everyone was kind of like, what? Because Nick Patrick... has been known as the cheating n w o ref.

25:11.84
Aaron
NWO ref. Yeah. Yeah.

25:13.78
Bradley Palermo
And they said it was picked at random.

25:14.16
Aaron
And they even mentioned that somehow he was let go of the company and reinstated once he learned the error of his ways. okay

25:23.18
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he's been reformed, apparently.

25:25.54
Aaron
We'll see. We'll see about that.

25:28.53
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

25:29.32
Aaron
Don't forget. Mean Gene also pushed the 900 number too

25:32.18
Bradley Palermo
Oh, he did fix it. I kind of like that.

25:34.80
Aaron
1-900-909-9900.

25:36.88
Bradley Palermo
And for our third match, it was Bill Goldberg bro goldberg versus Steve Mongo McMichael.

25:44.90
Aaron
This kind of a carryover from um Halloween Havoc 97.

25:44.93
Bradley Palermo
Two.

25:49.09
Aaron
I think like it was Mongo against somebody, but that was the one where Goldberg like interfered and stole Mongo's Super Bowl ring or something.

25:55.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

25:58.92
Bradley Palermo
Well, good old Shivani was calling this chapter four of Goldberg. i don't know if it was chapter four of Goldberg Mongo. I don't really know if Tony knew what he was talking about or if I just didn't know what he was talking about.

26:06.61
Aaron
Oh, maybe.

26:10.11
Bradley Palermo
but okay, that's chapter four, whatever the fuck that means.

26:13.01
Aaron
No.

26:14.46
Bradley Palermo
Goldberg has been unbeaten at this point. He's part of his winning streak.

26:18.31
Aaron
No.

26:18.53
Bradley Palermo
Um, so the, I mean, you know, he, he wins here against Mongo, but it's not really a true squash. I mean, it takes a few moments to, to happen.

26:26.01
Aaron
no Yeah, and Goldberg was a little better than i remember.

26:28.76
Bradley Palermo
Um,

26:30.93
Aaron
Like, in this match in particular, it it didn't, like you said, it wasn't a real squash. It was like a semi-squash. But Goldberg did some moves that I was like, oh, I didn't even know he knew how to do that.

26:43.46
Aaron
So...

26:43.71
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

26:44.95
Aaron
ah

26:44.67
Bradley Palermo
There might've been one or two Some of these guys that have gone down in history as being boring in the ring, just bulky guys that can't wrestle. Like when we watch it, I'm okay.

26:53.28
Bradley Palermo
My expectations were low. Cause they're doing more than I think when I think of the names, mainly when I think of Goldberg or I think of Luger, i'm like, well, there, there is more there than I thought Luger, especially would put him but a better in ring than Goldberg, but,

26:57.68
Aaron
e

27:03.58
Aaron
Yeah.

27:07.100
Aaron
Yeah, for sure. And um there was a table used in this match. a Mongo got punched in the face and landed onto the table. um Got an ECW chant when the table broke.

27:18.47
Aaron
That was kind of funny.

27:18.87
Bradley Palermo
Oh, i yeah.

27:20.34
Aaron
And yeah, Jackhammer Goldberg wins. And then...

27:23.69
Bradley Palermo
For a Meltzer rating of one and one half star.

27:27.18
Aaron
One and a half. Yeah, that tracks. So then ah Raven walked out to no music. Apparently he was supposed to wrestle Chris Benoit, but he cuts a promo as he's sitting in the corner of the ring, as he typically did at that time, saying he can wrestle whenever, whoever, and he's not going to wrestle Benoit tonight.

27:46.36
Aaron
Instead, it's going to be Saturn, better known as Perry Saturn. So we get...

27:50.49
Bradley Palermo
There's been a lot of guys that aren't, that were supposed to wrestle that haven't wrestled in this match already.

27:55.34
Aaron
Yeah, what's what's this about?

27:55.91
Bradley Palermo
Like, like Savage wrestled instead of Conan and then Nash didn't wrestle the giant.

27:59.24
Aaron
Conan. Nash didn't show up to wrestle Giant.

28:03.28
Bradley Palermo
And then wasn't there someone at the beginning who didn't wrestle too? i don't know.

28:07.42
Aaron
No, yeah, but this but this makes three.

28:07.82
Bradley Palermo
no but then now this guy's this guy's not gonna wrestle and he's like he's like real grunge edgelord you know with his his eyebrow piercing his dinosaur junior shirt and his leather jacket guys he's like real douche though i mean i like i like you know dinosaur junior but he's got a real douche vibe like man the corporate structure here but he doesn't really know what that means yeah

28:15.21
Aaron
yeah

28:19.54
Aaron
I did like his Dinosaur Jr. shirt.

28:27.40
Aaron
Yeah, well, he's a 90s. He's just he's the grunge guy. Yeah, yeah. So ah we get Saturn versus Chris Benoit. Benoit, obviously, noticeably younger. It did is 1997. We've been seeing him in the early 2000s as of late. And um I didn't really like this match. You know, Raven's flock was interfering. The ref didn't call it a DQ. And then I find out like a minute or two later, commentary is like, well, it's being fought under Raven's rules, which means there are no rules.

28:59.26
Bradley Palermo
Oh.

28:59.64
Aaron
Um, and, uh, I mean, there were some cool things like Saturn hit a really cool moonsault where he like climbed up the rope. Like he does the thing that LA Knight does where he like just walks up the ropes without any hands. And he did a moonsault without like steadying himself. That was pretty cool. Um,

29:16.60
Aaron
But like, it got kind of confusing because there's no dq But then I'm pretty sure ben wa like stopped a pin because he put his foot on the rope.

29:28.49
Aaron
Like that's pretty consistent.

29:29.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

29:30.34
Aaron
Maybe I'm just overanalyzing, but...

29:31.54
Bradley Palermo
No, i um wrote I wrote in my notes, the rules are unclear and there's chaos everywhere. And we could have cut this out completely. And that everyone, including myself at this point, just wants Benoit and Raven because that's the only thing that you've made kind of interesting leading up to this.

29:46.31
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

29:47.72
Bradley Palermo
And now you just switch the guy, put Saturn in there. I don't give a shit about And now it's just like, why did you hype me up for this Saturn fool? If he's not, I mean, for this Raven guy, if he's not going to fight, but

29:58.81
Bradley Palermo
I did notice how Shivani mentioned... all the wrestlers in the crowd here tonight paid their own way to sit in the audience.

30:07.40
Aaron
but

30:07.21
Bradley Palermo
see You're telling me that like Ray Mysterio like paid to watch this bullshit for his foresee.

30:12.08
Aaron
For a floor seat. Yeah.

30:14.60
Bradley Palermo
Like that's bad optics. You guys like you can't pay for your wrestler. They paid for their own flights, their own tickets because this is the night of wrestling history.

30:24.33
Bradley Palermo
Anyways. i mean, this was more fodder for them to carry on about how awesome the main event is supposedly going to be. But

30:29.02
Aaron
Yeah.

30:29.28
Bradley Palermo
um Dave Meltzer gave it a surprise surprisingly high rating of three stars um you know there was a Saturn one after the flo the Ravens flock interfered if anyone's wondering how this one culminated but i don't know that is what it is

30:35.46
Aaron
Hmm.

30:44.06
Aaron
I mean, Benoit was good. like he It was kind of interesting to see Benoit a fiery babyface. Obviously, we get that in wwe WWE eventually, but for the majority of his time there, he was a heel.

30:50.21
Bradley Palermo
yeah

30:54.83
Aaron
Yeah.

30:55.79
Bradley Palermo
There was nothing in the match that was bad. It was just kind of like you gave us something you didn't didn't really ask for.

31:01.36
Aaron
yeah

31:01.18
Bradley Palermo
And now there's not a whole lot on the line.

31:03.45
Aaron
It just felt like it was thrown together and it was unclear what the rules were. And there was so much interference that the match never felt like it was fair. Benoit got his head butt off and was ready to pin. But as soon as he he went to pin, that was when the flock interfered and sat and put on the submission and won. So it just kind of like had a mar finish.

31:24.60
Bradley Palermo
And then getting into match five, it was Buff Bagwell versus Lex Luger. Heels call him Lex Loser. Someone called him that. um

31:33.85
Aaron
I think it was probably Bagwell.

31:34.04
Bradley Palermo
this is Yeah, this is one of those repeated NWO interference spots that kind of...

31:41.51
Aaron
I do like Bagwell. I mean, he he he has charisma. I'll give him that. i feel like at this point, Luger is like, what the hell am I doing here? He walked to the ring and it looked like he was going to take a nap. like he was He was just so unenthused.

31:55.62
Aaron
He did wake up a bit when he got to the ring.

31:55.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I don't...

31:57.42
Aaron
It seems like he had some some bad blood with Bagwell, but the crowd was just dead.

32:02.88
Bradley Palermo
the ah The commentary was telling us that these fans have been lined up around the block all night and they had tickets. Now, if you have tickets for an event, why the fuck are you going to line... Like, you're a moron if you're going to line up all night around the building.

32:17.56
Bradley Palermo
if You're going to sit at the same place no matter what, fool.

32:20.11
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

32:20.92
Bradley Palermo
So I don't know. So now the commentary is telling us how stupid the fans are. It makes WCW sound of disor disorganized a bit. But yeah, um Norton interferes. Savage is in there at some point.

32:33.88
Aaron
Luger gets the rack.

32:33.78
Bradley Palermo
Luger Rex Savage.

32:35.84
Aaron
Yeah, that that that was the only time the crowd got any bit of excited was when he was like, all right, I'm going rack him. And people were like, yeah, rack him.

32:43.61
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah. So, it was fine. I mean, whatever. i'm i'm not, like, mad at these matches. It just kind of feels like anything in this era is kind of the same.

32:53.88
Bradley Palermo
I just felt kind of little deja vu-y for me.

32:56.08
Aaron
hmm.

32:56.47
Bradley Palermo
But um it's always funny to see Buff Bagwell, especially since I knew that he went on to become a gigolo after this. kind of a hilarious, trashy dude.

33:06.42
Aaron
DDP.

33:05.62
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Oh, did he? Yeah.

33:08.77
Aaron
Yeah. Would Meltzer get this one?

33:09.62
Bradley Palermo
So... Not that, not the thing you know, Gigolo is a respectable job, you know.

33:13.90
Aaron
That's true, i suppose.

33:15.96
Bradley Palermo
um It's one and one half star from good old Papa Dave.

33:22.80
Aaron
Yeah. All right. Well, we next match i was pretty good, actually.

33:23.42
Bradley Palermo
and

33:26.71
Aaron
Maybe this is match of the night or close.

33:31.97
Bradley Palermo
Champion.

33:32.55
Aaron
Yeah, no, it was good for sure. This was Kurt Hennig, also known as Mr.

33:36.04
Bradley Palermo
Champion.

33:36.83
Aaron
Perfect versus Diamond Dallas Page for the United States Heavyweight Championship. I still laugh at DDP's entrance music because it's such a clear ripoff of Smells Like Teen Spirit, like the opening riff.

33:47.49
Bradley Palermo
Oh, that's funny.

33:48.74
Aaron
It's just like, oh my God, could you try any harder to make this not sound like it's a Nirvana ripoff?

33:55.10
Bradley Palermo
That's funny. i didn't I didn't think of it that way.

33:55.89
Aaron
And this was another one. This was another one where i was like, it was actually supposed to be Ric Flair facing Kurt Hennig, but thank you, Rick. But he was injured a couple of weeks ago on Nitro.

34:07.35
Aaron
So Diamond Dallas Page decided that he wanted a shot. Um, and, and,

34:11.39
Bradley Palermo
yeah this card is all just fucking whatever they decided it's it should be like this afternoon you know but before they went on the air

34:16.78
Aaron
yeah Yeah. and And, you know, I do like these guys. This one was entertaining to me. But again, i feel like the crowd was very uninterested for the majority of the match.

34:27.65
Aaron
um DDP's ribs were taped up, which I think they were also taped up for the Halloween Havoc that we watched.

34:33.92
Bradley Palermo
they're always taped up yeah

34:34.36
Aaron
like Yeah, he's just living in a state of permanent back injury.

34:38.13
Bradley Palermo
i think they mentioned it they were they were like well those those like dusty's like those ribs are never gonna heal so you just always have to you have to work through the pain or whatever and i was like oh okay uh yeah and they always kind of use that they tear him off of them so it just looks a real brutal like oh man his uh taped ribs are all fucked up but it works hes he's in his blue jeans and he looks like he's yeah i'm

34:46.26
Aaron
yeah Yeah. okay

34:58.75
Aaron
Yeah. He's the baby face. Crowd does like him. They do like his finisher and this, I did enjoy this. It had a good back and forth and DDP hit hits Hennig with the diamond cutter sort of out of nowhere. I I,

35:11.66
Aaron
I like that the diamond cutter never, it doesn't really feel the same every time. There's always like a little bit of a spin on it, which is kind of cool.

35:19.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

35:20.34
Aaron
Kind of like the RKO where it can come out of nowhere.

35:22.73
Bradley Palermo
I like when Mr. Perfect was low blowed on the post. um You know, his legs were sticking out of the ring with the post between his legs and and and Dallas pulls him back to to crush his crotch and and Dusty goes, ah

35:29.84
Aaron
Yeah. And he pulls them.

35:36.80
Bradley Palermo
what do you call that one brother is that one of them hurricane runners like i'm i'm bad at the accent right now but he's ah kind of like oh is that one of them hurricane runners like obviously it's not a hurricane rana

35:44.98
Aaron
No.

35:51.98
Aaron
And then what did Shivani say? he was like, no, let's just call it the crunch or something stupid.

35:56.11
Bradley Palermo
oh yeah shivani's you know whatever he said wasn't funny but he tries he's just not very good at his job that's most people in the world

36:04.00
Aaron
Yeah, but DDP did get the win with the diamond cutter and was the new United States champ. Crowd loved that. And he so went out into the audience to celebrate with the fans and just like, all right, I'm out of here. I'm I'm going through the concourse.

36:16.83
Bradley Palermo
I think that was Diamond Dallas Page's first championship title ever.

36:22.50
Aaron
I think so. Yeah.

36:23.20
Bradley Palermo
He never held the title. And yeah, the actual like content of this match was good. Both these guys are just so great in the ring, but it's like,

36:29.99
Bradley Palermo
It's like in the ring, back out of the ring, in the crowd, back in the ring. fast It was fast. It was a brawl match, but with two very athletic guys that do more than just like stomp and punch.

36:39.84
Aaron
yeah who

36:42.57
Bradley Palermo
So, I mean, I love to see these two guys wrestle.

36:42.98
Aaron
Yeah.

36:46.63
Bradley Palermo
Match seven was a special guest, special referee.

36:51.12
Aaron
Wait, what about what about the Meltzer rating for this?

36:54.02
Bradley Palermo
Oh, three and a half stars.

36:56.60
Aaron
Okay.

37:15.30
Bradley Palermo
You know, this is a really unfortunate match because Bret Hart is in the match and he's not wrestling. He's a referee. And not only that, but one of the people wrestling in the match is not a wrestler.

37:23.13
Aaron
yeahp

37:28.21
Bradley Palermo
It's fucking TV guy Eric Bischoff and his clowny... pre-pubescent karate outfit.

37:32.52
Aaron
Karate outfit. Yeah.

37:34.86
Bradley Palermo
He's a black belt in something apparently. He doesn't, clearly doesn't wrestle. He doesn't do anything in this match. except for like a few kicks versus Larry Zabisco, who's more of legendary wrestling. He's, he's in his mid forties at this time.

37:48.03
Bradley Palermo
um Funny people in 1997 that were in their mid forties looked so fucking old.

37:53.46
Aaron
Old. Yeah.

37:54.26
Bradley Palermo
I wasn't like, man, he looks, little it looks, looks like he's in his late fifties at best sixties. And then looked at him like 45, like the hell. Yeah.

38:02.47
Aaron
He had a hard life, man. Wrestled thousands of matches.

38:03.84
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

38:05.28
Aaron
Didn't they say he wrestled like 5,000 matches?

38:06.98
Bradley Palermo
I've found he's won 5,000 matches.

38:09.47
Aaron
He's Yeah.

38:11.06
Bradley Palermo
He's won over 5,000 matches.

38:12.93
Aaron
that's crazy yeah

38:13.99
Bradley Palermo
I mean, if, if that's true, but the stipulation is that the winner of this match will gain control over Monday Nitro, which was their names, which was their, I guess their namesake, right?

38:24.89
Bradley Palermo
At the point that was their premiere Monday night show.

38:26.34
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Their Monday night show. Yeah, their Monday night Raw, if you will.

38:30.57
Bradley Palermo
That's, that's what I should say. Yeah. There, it was their big show of the week. So, um,

38:35.08
Bradley Palermo
What was saying?

38:35.46
Aaron
This was bad, but Larry had the crowd behind him. You could say that. I mean, what what was stupid about it was Larry was doing things to Bischoff that feel like they would be totally fine in most wrestling matches, but for whatever reason, Bret Hart like kept stopping him from doing them.

38:52.40
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, like instead of giving him a five count when he's got him up with the ropes, he's got he gets Bischoff in the corner and Brett pulls him right off.

38:55.62
Aaron
He's just like,

38:58.83
Aaron
yeah yeah, it was weird.

38:59.47
Bradley Palermo
and But then when Bischoff would have Zabisco in a corner, Brett didn't do anything and Bischoff did all his like goofy... It's just insulting to wrestlers, I feel like, that this guy was on the car when Rey Mysterio was sitting in the audience and Eric Bischoff in his little karate outfit.

39:09.49
Aaron
Yeah.

39:14.77
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

39:17.57
Bradley Palermo
Oh my God, what the fuck? But yeah, Bret seemed to be playing into Bischoff's best interest, but that's not really how it how it culminated.

39:24.52
Aaron
Right. That's what they wanted us to think. No, no, definitely not. Scott Hall gave Eric a steel plate that just looks like a fucking rectangle of aluminum foil.

39:36.52
Aaron
but

39:36.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

39:37.35
Aaron
And then put it Bischoff's shoe kick pad or whatever. he kicks Larry in the head. It flies out, goes 50 feet in the opposite direction. And is where ah Brett decides that he's going to punch Bischoff. and and then Scott Hall comes in, gets a sharpshooter for his troubles. And I think this was probably the loudest that the crowd got for the entire match was when Brett...

40:01.92
Aaron
started doing things as the referee when he put Scott Hall on the sharpshooter.

40:04.30
Bradley Palermo
yeah

40:07.11
Bradley Palermo
Is the scorpion death hold or whatever the fuck, um, the scorpion death like the same as a sharpshooter

40:10.61
Aaron
Scorpion Deathlock.

40:14.00
Aaron
I don't think so. i think it, it's, it's very similar.

40:16.04
Bradley Palermo
things

40:19.46
Aaron
I'm not sure, but I think maybe i know that they turn different directions, but I think also maybe the legs are reversed.

40:25.40
Bradley Palermo
yeah.

40:29.27
Aaron
Like one of them, I don't know, something like that.

40:30.26
Bradley Palermo
Okay.

40:32.13
Aaron
Like,

40:31.84
Bradley Palermo
It's like almost like they're modified versions of the same move.

40:34.83
Aaron
Yeah, they're very, very similar, but they are different if you look at them side by side. Like one one turns one way, one turns the other, and I think they swapped the legs.

40:44.88
Aaron
But this, like, a weird ending.

40:45.27
Bradley Palermo
I see.

40:47.11
Aaron
Like there was no pin, there was no... The bell didn't even ring. It was just like...

40:52.29
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I was like, wait, I guess Bret Hart's just going to kick everyone's ass and then let the match continue. And they're like, no, it's over.

40:59.17
Aaron
no Larry wins, yeah.

40:59.53
Bradley Palermo
the controls and layers.

41:00.64
Aaron
Yeah.

41:01.17
Bradley Palermo
was like, OK, then I guess if I had to make sense of it, it was a DQ. But no one ever rang the bell, like signaled for the bell to be rang even. you know And there was no like, we're winner of this match.

41:12.04
Bradley Palermo
and kind no new controller of nitro it was nothing it was just kind of like uh there's bret hart i feel like some and they barely knew what they were doing over there it was a circus

41:22.85
Aaron
Yeah. Oh, on Wikipedia, it does say Larry Zbysko defeats Brett or sorry, Eric Bischoff by disqualification. so you're right.

41:31.01
Bradley Palermo
but that was the only sense you could make out of it you had to come to that conclusion kind of on your own um and then yes

41:35.40
Aaron
Yeah. And then the big one, the match that we've been waiting for, for 18 months, the greatest wrestling match of all time, Hogan versus...

41:44.71
Bradley Palermo
And Michael Buffer comes out to say it again. Michael Buffer, before he says, but let's be ready to rumble, he says, the most anticipated match in the history of professional wrestling.

41:56.92
Bradley Palermo
Wow. And then Chavoni goes, it's the biggest moment ever. He says, ever. fucking hate that guy, man. I wish I could fucking. Oh, yeah. but One time I was behind Tony Chavoni.

42:08.59
Bradley Palermo
at AEW when he came out to the to the floor. Everyone was like, Tony, we love you. And I'm fuck you. You piece of fucking shit. Fuck you.

42:19.49
Bradley Palermo
FTR. Because FTR was like threatening him at that time.

42:22.70
Aaron
yeah

42:23.14
Bradley Palermo
i was like, oh man, I get to fucking tell Shivani. I mean, he's he's not looking back, but he's lucky. Yeah.

42:29.48
Aaron
I do like Michael Buffer. Michael Buffer always added some ah some prestige to things, even if they ended up being poopy.

42:34.42
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

42:37.13
Aaron
But yes, Hogan versus Sting for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

42:37.44
Bradley Palermo
He does.

42:43.40
Aaron
Yeah, Nick Patrick. You must have been talking about Nick Patrick, macho. so

42:46.99
Bradley Palermo
And Hulk Hogan.

42:47.76
Aaron
So before we get into the actual substance of the match, let's talk about the controversy, the aftermath, everything. So the controversy of this match... is that supposedly Nick Patrick was supposed to count to three quickly after Hogan hits Sting with a leg drop.

43:04.18
Bradley Palermo
Fast count, making it not a clear, yeah.

43:40.67
Aaron
Um, I, and I guess we'll never really know, you know, that they had a rematch the following night on nitro and that's everything really started to go downhill from here with WCW Hogan beats sting again on nitro, but then another referee comes out and restarts the match and then sting beats Hogan.

43:59.13
Aaron
And then eventually they vacate the title and sting wins it again. But like, it's just so messy and convoluted. I don't know. Like I,

44:06.01
Bradley Palermo
Here's I mean, I guess the issue that for anyone that hasn't watched this, that

44:21.98
Aaron
Which he did.

44:21.70
Bradley Palermo
And that's what it was. It was a clean loss.

44:22.86
Aaron
Yeah.

44:23.33
Bradley Palermo
Like Hogan won. He was the, in this scenario, he was presented as the better man. He won fair and square, the nice even count. So So if he, if he quick counted and and Brett was like, no, for the integrity of the sport, we've got to redo this.

44:38.48
Aaron
Mm hmm.

44:39.25
Bradley Palermo
then that could have made sense, but there was no, all it seemed was that like Bret Hart was cheating. And you're like, how are you, how am I supposed to, ah well, Hogan's a bad guy, but now he finally does something fair and square and they're going the good guys are going to cheat. Like I just, it ruined that one speed of the count switcheroo kind of ruined everything. And the match itself was kind of a snooze fest.

45:12.43
Bradley Palermo
Um, the match itself is, is pretty, yeah, pretty bland.

45:13.58
Aaron
Yeah, it was pretty bland.

45:16.28
Bradley Palermo
And then the Bret Hart thing just brought in a bunch of confusion. the crow aesthetic is, it's so on the nose that it's like crow cosplay more than it, more than sting made it himself.

45:25.98
Aaron
I think it it it was cooler back then because not a lot of people knew about The Crow.

45:25.92
Bradley Palermo
Um,

45:30.93
Aaron
like It kind of went under the radar in the 90s. It became a cult classic you know after this. um

45:38.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

45:38.61
Aaron
So I do remember at the time enjoying the whole sting.

45:42.07
Bradley Palermo
Hold on a second. Hold on. Well, Well, I mean, this it's going to be too hard to edit all this.

45:43.53
Aaron
You hear my siren?

45:46.99
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

45:47.32
Aaron
Yeah. Sorry.

45:48.53
Bradley Palermo
No, you're good.

45:49.28
Aaron
Okay. Okay.

45:50.88
Aaron
Yeah.

45:52.08
Aaron
I know that the crow aesthetic kind of feels hokey now in, in having the benefit of hindsight, but I think at the time the crow kind of flew under the radar as a movie, like it, it became a cult classic in the early two thousands and beyond.

46:06.52
Aaron
So I think it worked. I mean, when I was younger, i liked the look and, you know, he he seemed ominous and,

46:11.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

46:14.20
Aaron
i liked I liked the build-up to this match as a fan when I was a kid. um i actually don't remember watching this when I was younger. And, you know, despite all of the the screw-ups and the negativity that came afterwards, I do have to say that when Bret Hart restarted the match and Sting started you know hitting Hogan with the splashes and then got him in the Scorpion Death Lock, like, crowd win!

46:41.35
Aaron
nuts They were so happy that someone had finally dethroned Hogan. And, know, well it was just so weird because Hogan hits the leg drop. We get the normal count.

46:52.18
Aaron
Crowd's just silent. They're like, what? What? Like, what is going on?

46:54.83
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

46:55.40
Aaron
You know?

46:55.14
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

46:55.100
Aaron
um and It was pretty amazing how ballistic the crowd went. You know, the crowd is screaming and the rest of the WCW wrestlers start filling in the ring and they're all celebrating with staying like it feels like the moment itself in the moment.

47:11.70
Aaron
It was a success, but then they just fumbled it.

47:13.66
Bradley Palermo
yeah

47:15.52
Aaron
And like the more you think about it and the more you look back on it, you're like, this is this is terrible. Like you screwed up the one important thing that you had to get right, which was the fast count.

47:25.33
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and it seems it seems likely because we've heard about ho Hogan having creative control and that being a really important thing for him. It doesn't seem impossible that, like you said, Hogan could have gone Bischoff and and you know ran his own little screw job out of it.

47:40.64
Aaron
made demands.

47:42.97
Bradley Palermo
But you know if you're going to do that, you kind of got to make it make sense.

47:43.39
Aaron
Yeah.

47:46.47
Bradley Palermo
it it just didn't translate on TV to like, what is this? But... um

47:51.22
Aaron
Yeah.

47:51.05
Bradley Palermo
but

47:51.37
Aaron
I think, I think this is, uh, this moment might be where the famous that doesn't work for me, brother started from, um and,

48:00.02
Bradley Palermo
Right. Okay. Yeah. And this, this kind of was sort of, this had to be the beginning of the end for WCW, right? Like NWO's reign kind of culminated.

48:08.65
Aaron
Yeah.

48:10.83
Bradley Palermo
They didn't really have another trick up their sleeve. Hmm.

48:14.58
Aaron
Yeah, it it definitely feels like it. um You know, watching Who Killed WCW, people certainly make the argument that there's a whole variety of things that led to their downfall.

48:25.54
Aaron
But this, they went from the most bought and, ah you know, the most bought pay-per-view with the highest revenue they've ever gotten to steadily going down and down and down afterwards.

48:37.07
Aaron
So it's...

48:37.47
Bradley Palermo
Because if you watch by like 1990, even 98, if someone says 98 WCW, it doesn't have a ring to it that's like, oh, like 1996, 1997.

48:51.10
Bradley Palermo
You start to feel the tone kind of switches in my head. If someone's like 99 WCW, you're like, what?

48:54.62
Aaron
and good yeah I mean at least in 98 you still had the Goldberg run and like 98 was the year that Goldberg beat Hogan for the belt so so I guess they did all this back and forth with Sting and Hogan and then Hogan got the belt again and then dropped it to Goldberg later on in 1998

48:57.14
Bradley Palermo
What the fuck is that? Right.

49:02.49
Bradley Palermo
Right.

49:22.14
Aaron
Yeah. And, you know, one final thing I'll say about this is I remember hearing and I don't remember who this is from, but I remember hearing someone say that part of the reason why Hogan changed his mind was that he saw Sting wasn't wasn't tan enough for the match.

49:38.09
Aaron
Yeah.

49:37.92
Bradley Palermo
other I see people online complaining. They're like, Sting didn't look like he was and like he was in ring shape. It didn't look like he had gotten a tan. He didn't look like he was the size that he was before he disappeared.

49:49.39
Aaron
He's been wearing a fucking like giant jacket for 18 months.

49:49.14
Bradley Palermo
so people have a...

49:53.18
Aaron
Of course he's not going to be tan.

49:53.55
Bradley Palermo
ah yeah well know what i thought was funny is i mean as far as i know sting is just this fucking white boy i don't know where he's from but i don't think of him as like a guy that if he hasn't spoken in two years or whatever the fuck it was the first thing he would yell out is mamacita but that's what he did

50:01.75
Aaron
hmm.

50:12.28
Aaron
Yeah, something in Spanish. No, but he said something else before it, too, like something, something, Mamacita.

50:13.72
Bradley Palermo
so

50:16.92
Bradley Palermo
He like mu mumbled something and then said, Mamacita. And I was like, what? Maybe...

50:21.41
Aaron
Shivani was like, was that was that Spanish?

50:24.44
Bradley Palermo
Like, why do you, like, i don't know. It just, wasn't like Eddie Guerrero saying that. It was like just some fucking big crow looking white guy who's all quiet and um ominous.

50:29.23
Aaron
Yeah.

50:34.23
Bradley Palermo
And now he's, he's mumbling like some shit in Spanish, all funny accented. I don't know. Um, WCW. Yeah. Quite a celebration. All the baby faces fill in the ring. The ring looked like, i don't know how it handled that many big dudes at once, but, uh,

50:48.47
Bradley Palermo
They did what they could do. it was it landed a little flat for me. But let's go ahead and get into our rating system, which is fast forward play or rewind three tier system. Fast forward being boo play being like, yeah, it's it's it's all right. It's kind of mid and rewind being like, this is fucking awesome. was your call, Aaron. So let's take your rating first, if you don't mind.

51:24.69
Aaron
watching a car crash in front of your house where you're like, I know I don't really want to see this, but I kind of do at the same time. I did.

51:32.100
Bradley Palermo
What happened there?

51:33.70
Aaron
I did also enjoy Hennig Hennig versus DDP and Malenko versus Guerrero, but I think I got to go fast forward on this one and just say, watch the, watch the good matches on their own.

51:45.63
Aaron
Skip this.

51:47.90
Bradley Palermo
and there

51:50.72
Bradley Palermo
All right. Well, I'm going to go with my original rating. I'm not going to be influenced by what you said because i do see why you would go all the way to fast forward on this.

51:57.17
Aaron
Okay.

52:02.92
Bradley Palermo
But I picked play because of the cultural significance of this one and WCW being the only wrestling company that ever got on top versus...

52:15.94
Bradley Palermo
wwe or wwf and this was kind of a change point for that whole saga i did like ddp match a lot there with um with kurt henning um yeah there was some bullshit too but as far as like in the over so over putting all things being considered in all these pay-per-views we've watched, I would, compared to other pay-per-views we're watching, I would put this kind of as a mid sort of pay-per-view. So um not a strong vote of confidence for me, but I am going to stay with play on that. Normally at this point,

52:54.87
Bradley Palermo
I would go ahead and tell you guys what I'm going to pick to watch for next week. But this was actually our final full-length episode of the year of season one. So thanks to the everyone who listened to us this first year of us podcasting. We will still be here every week.

53:12.42
Bradley Palermo
through the end of the year with bonus episodes where we're going to pick matches, mostly December themed matches and just talk about one match and how we felt about that. Hopefully we can get, you know, some Santa Claus matches or some holiday fucking whatever. Somebody somebody cracking somebody else with a Christmas tree or a fire poker. I don't know. We'll see. But we're going to hit you with some bonus episodes. And then in January, as long as we can still have access to old pay-per-views.

53:39.42
Bradley Palermo
We will start right back up with entire pay-per-view episodes. I feel like WWE and who will put those pay-per-views somewhere, but I think they're not going to be on Peacock for very much longer.

53:49.64
Aaron
Hopefully.

54:09.96
Bradley Palermo
And we always love to hear from you out there, the Grapple Gang. You can contact us via social media. We are at GrappleCityPod on TikTok, Instagram, X, Threads, you name it.

54:23.31
Bradley Palermo
We are GrappleCityPod.com. GrappleCityPod.com. at gmail.com. If you'd like to send us an email, let us know what you'd like us to cover. Let us know what you agree with, disagree with. Or if you want to call and leave a message on our Google voice line, it will go straight to voicemail. You don't have to have the awkwardness of us actually picking up. You can just drop a message right there. The number to call 626-657-SLAM. That's six five seven slam

55:18.42
Bradley Palermo
WCW Uncensored AWA Super Clash 3, or Heroes of Wrestling type disasters. Those episodes are always fun. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Mark in Spokane. Hey, i' yeah well we I'm totally down with all those, but Aaron, have you ever watched Heroes of Wrestling?

55:37.55
Aaron
No.

55:38.14
Bradley Palermo
You know about this?

55:39.23
Aaron
I don't.

55:39.85
Bradley Palermo
Okay, so Heroes of Wrestling, which I have not watched. um We should watch this. It's not good. But it's from 1999.

55:48.90
Bradley Palermo
And somebody, some promoter dreamt up this thing where he would just go get... all of these 80s wrestlers like big fucking names to wrestle for a pay-per-view like an indie pay-per-view and i everyone dropped off and it was it was a huge mess every match apparently sucked um let's see i can pull it up here

56:10.40
Aaron
Oh, yeah. I see these names. Yeah, I recognize pretty much every single name on here.

56:14.94
Bradley Palermo
Vader, Terry Funk, Bigelow, Honky Tonk Man were all approached but declined. Nick Bockwinkle was advertised, did not appear.

56:25.68
Bradley Palermo
Yokozuna and the Bushwhackers were referred to as former Yokozuna and former Bushwhackers. Okay.

56:34.58
Aaron
Got Jimmy Snuka, we got Abdul of the Butcher, Tully Blanchard, Greg Valentine, George the Animal Steel. my God. Yeah, we should watch this.

56:51.06
Bradley Palermo
King Kong Bungie's in there. That's funny. Jake Roberts. So yeah, we should watch it, but it's known for being like a failure.

56:57.38
Aaron
Terrible. Okay.

56:58.29
Bradley Palermo
And I think it was a financial disaster, but back then there weren't a lot of companies trying to kind of go rogue on it and just collect a bunch of old talents so i mean it's probably a pretty interesting time but um the iron sheiks match was extremely negatively received according to wikipedia i don't know uh i'm glad this guy brought this up because what's his name uh

57:09.68
Aaron
Yeah, I would check this out.

57:23.38
Bradley Palermo
I'm glad you brought this up, Mark, because I think I'm going to put it in our little notes of recommendations we can get to at one of these days. I wonder what time a year what time a year Heroes of Wrestling was.

57:34.83
Aaron
It was October.

57:35.02
Bradley Palermo
It was in October.

57:36.46
Aaron
Yeah.

57:36.38
Bradley Palermo
Oh, fuck it. We don't got to we don't wait until October. We can do it before then.

57:39.28
Aaron
Yeah.

57:40.09
Bradley Palermo
Well, that is all the time we've got for today. Thanks again for listening. to our first year of grapple city rewind. We'll be back with some short bonus episodes in about a week.

57:54.01
Aaron
Catch in the cheap seats. Adios.