Turned 19 this year, but wasn't around for the monday night

People were over and arenas would be filled

WCW was far better 96- late 98.

HBK and Hitman almost killed WWF

>>2773887
Infinitely better than it is now.

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this is what the top TV ratings looked like in 1999

>>2773887
Everyone was over and smarks didn't ruin everything

>>2773942

>Late 90's British Bulldog
>Blue Meanie
>Mideon
>Mark Henry
>Over

Almost everyone was over. Crowds were there to react to whatever happened in the ring and weren't there to get themselves over. The wrestling was average to good, but the superstars made up for it by just being otherworldly.

>>2773969

Those where all great. Especially Blue meanie and Mideon they are awesome.

>>2773931
Damn

>>2773981

Blue Meanie was my WWF Champ in WWF WM2000.

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>>2773931
>nitro getting beat out by Vegas vacation
Should have seen it coming

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Thanks for some insight guys, I feel mad to this day that I was alive for arguably the best 6 years in wrestling history but never actually got to experience it all.
The only things I remember is late attitude era/invasion when wcw was dead

>>2773931
fucking russo

>>2773887
Overrated as fuck. For every good segment, there were a dozen shit ones.

>>2774015
Networkfag detected.

>>2774015
>you will never switch between Raw and Nitro again
>new fans won't ever experience that again
When one show had a shit segment or went to commercial you could just switch. Felt good.

>>2773887
The women had much bigger boobs.

>>2773931

woah

>>2773931
>when you realize sunday night heat had more than double the ratings of Ram

>>2773887
>I'm getting this old

I should just fucking neck myself already.

To put it simply, wrestling was several times more popular back then then it is now. Don't be fooled by youtube views. You even had wrestlers doing angles within mainstream pop culture. Like Hogan feuding with Jay Leno, Dennis Rodman being a part of the nWo and it actually feeling legit unlike the cringe celebrity appearances that WWE has been doing for years. In general celebrity appearances in wrestling back then were much more meaningful and less cringe.

I used to live in NY and wrestling would get talked about a lot on UPN 9 news. Point is it shows how much more popular wrestling was in the 90's compared to today.

One thing that really annoys me with today's fans is that they act like today's wrestlers have a workrate that is thousands of times better than wrestlers from decades ago and this is simply not completely true. Yeah they probably are more athletic on average. Yeah they probably are better workers on average. To say that wrestlers sucked in the ring back then though? It is absolute bullshit. There were plenty of greats in the ring. Modern fans have this perception that roided out guys can't work. These faggots never seen a prime Scott Steiner. They have never seen Chris Benoit and Bret Hart matches. It is laughable really. The modern wrestling fanbase is way different. Heels actually got booed. Faces actually got cheered. Even midcarders from those days were often more over than just about everyone on the rosters for WWE today.

Then you had great wrestling to watch between WCW, WWF and ECW. All being massively popular to btw. Unlike today where TNA is the so called number 2 and gets laughable ratings. Not to mention other feds if you looked for them.

It is a shame those days will likely never come back.

>>2774004
Guess you were born in the wrong generation.

>>2773887
The rumors of wrestlers maybe jumping ship added to the overall appeal.

>>2773887
It was fucking awesome and exciting as fuck. Anyone who tells you differently wasn't a fan during that time. It was truly incredible, not even kidding. An absolute blast to live through.

>>2774015
But double the amount of garbage/shit in the new era

Literally one of the most over things in current wrestling was Broken Matt Hardy - right out of Attitude Era booking.

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>>2773887
Every monday would be like a PPV
You'd have master ruses and promos
You'd have Piper, Sting, Hogan, Nash, Goldberg, Macho, Lex, Giant (who was a big deal,) Hall, Scott Steiner, Flair, DDP, etc. wrestling every monday, I mean the last 3 matches of the night were PPV material and the midcard was just... Jericho, Benoit, Hennig, Guerrero, Raven, Konnan... The undercard and jobbers were on EVERY show, sometimes they'd jam them all into 6-man tags because people like Disco and La Parka and Jim Duggan were fun to watch and had the energy for the schedule, probably because they were on the stuff that is now "properly" banned.

WCW was a horribly mismanaged company, that bit is not revisionism on WWE's part. BUT. WCW's strength was that every match and promo was delivered by big guys or at the very least capable guys.

The talent today is less oriented toward bring idolized and more about relating with the audience, and that's why I don't watch wrestling. The audience they're reaching is composed of Jimmies so they have New Day out there doing silly ironic antics and pretending to like video games for them.

>>2773931
Wow, Nitro was practically dead by August '99 and they were STILL doing 4.1 million. That's incredible.

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It was lightning in a bottle. You know how people talk about the Super Bowl each year around the Super Bowl? In the late 90s that's how America treated pro wrestling, but every single week. It was literally a big deal everywhere, all the time.

As far as the content, it was far superior. Say what you want about Russo but late-90s wrestling on both WCW and WWF did it right: storylines and cliffhangers and backstage segments were more prevalent and more interesting and much more of a focus. As a result, you couldn't wait to see what happened next. You never knew what was going to be said, or what was going to happen. Everything was so intense and passionate.

The men were real men: tall, ripped, independent, pulled-up-by-their-own-bootstraps, hardened by years of experience wrestling around the world in a time where political correctness was literally the enemy to the under-35s. Laser pointers constantly shined in wrestlers faces, trash and other things constantly thrown in the ring, people constantly jumping the barriers, every fan extremely rabid.

Even after Thunder and Smackdown were first added, the content was still far more concentrated. None of this watered down shit spread out over 5 hours & 15 minutes of TV and 6 hours of PPV a month. All of the attention, energy, money, brainpower, talent, and focus was on 2 hours of RAW and 3 hours of Nitro every week.

It was fresh. Nobody had seen this shit before and they fucking loved every second of it. And by "they" I mean over 10 million people per week (counting RAW, Nitro, et. al). It was a "fad" but a pretty long lasting one shared by the entire country.

(1/2)

Before the internet, it was all real to us kids. Think of it like when Pokemon Go caught fire and everyone was united and it was legit cool to love this shit. I don't know what modern phenomenon brought people together, but for us kids this was it.

Nobody actually watched WCW tho, saved for those weird playground kids and country hicks. The fucking segments made me cringe then as they do now. Only Goldberg was the legit boss.

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>>2773887
It was alpha and badass.
actual stars who were cool and larger than life, jacked as fuck and got chicks.

>>2774162
Contrast this with today: everyone thinks wrestling is an embarrassing joke, even wrestling fans. When people refer to wrestling they still call it "WWF", which tells you a lot. Crowds are made up of moms, little autistic kids, and 20-30 something beta numale nerds who are proud of the fact that they discuss how awesome some random vanilla indie flippy shit liberal cuck wrestler is on reddit and twitter or who wear New Day shirts with unicorn headbands. Each week you forget what happened the last week storyline wise (until they replay it 3 or 4 times to catch you up) because most of the time, nothing really interesting happened. At the end of the show you're kind of relieved it's finally over and you're not really excited for next week because there's no reason to be. Matches are boring and most of the time, meaningless. The wrestlers are numales more focused on tweeting, instagramming, being vegan, and voting for Hillary than they are hitting the showers, hitting the gym, getting a clue, and improving their skills. Promos are boring and uninspired and passionless. Wrestlers have no idea how to work crowds or react to crowds. They have no idea about pacing, or ring psychology, or storytelling. They are sissies and have no intensity. There are very few exceptions to all of this - Lesnar being the biggest example.

(2/2)

>>2774162
>It was lightning in a bottle.
It absolutely was the perfect storm when you think about all three companies and everything that transpired. Nothing will ever come close. If you grew up watching this era, you can never go back. You will always compare it to this era, and you will always be let down. It completely ruined wrestling for me. I will always compare every champ to '98 Austin. I will always compare every faction to the nWo.

It's over. It was a fun time though.

At least I grew up with the ruthless aggression era, not gold, but better than the shit we got now by far

>>2774174
Don't forget the announcers are lifeless and the shows look and sound like Disney on Ice. A huge part of the reason I can't watch the show today is the presentation is so incredibly sterile with there neat backstage promo office, the stage that has way too many lights, the ring that has lights all over it. Just horrible.

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>>2774102
>unlike the cringe celebrity appearances that WWE has been doing for years
This. WWE picks guests that were never relevant, then waits for them to get even LESS relevant, to participate in their biggest event of the year. Sometimes forcing a match off the card to make room for them.
>Al Roker
>Drew Carey
>Flo Rida
>Gary Coleman
>Jamie Kennedy

I'll never forget "coming back" to wrestling and being so shocked at how horrendous it had become, and I would read online and people would talk about how good so and so is and how great the show was and I thought they were out of there fucking minds. I can't sit through 5 minutes of modern wrestling.

>>2773931
>>2774093
What was the year that Rock faced Mankind on Heat during the Owl? I'm sure that must have did very good ratings.
>>2774155
It also shows how absolutely embarrassing modern WWE is.

>>2774223
'99 Super Bowl

>>2774223

that was in january of 99. it did a monster number.

damn this shit making me feel some kinda way

at least i got to grow up with some good cartoons.

Kill yourself.

I wasn't even allowed to watch wrestling yet as a kid in school so many of my strongest memories are related to pro wrestling. Kids wore the t-shirts, they talked about it, you saw it talked about on TV, it would be on at my friends houses, you saw the toys and merch everywhere in stores, kids would role play as wrestlers, Austin 3:16 shirts everywhere. One of the only disappointments I have looking back on my childhood is that I never got to actually watch the wrestling itself and be more a part of it - but I'm not sure I'd let my own kids watch it either, if I was a parent at the time.

Internet killed it and is why you will never see wrestling blow up again. Having this board for example is a big detriment to modern wrestling. Everything is being ruined because nothing is a surprise anymore. When Mike Tyson pushed Stone Cold you didn't know if that was bullshit or not so it enticed you and you came back next week. Now if I see that I come here in seconds and see a thread with someone spamming "Smarks" or Hulk Hogan tweet.gif over and over and some leaked info showing me it's nonsense.

>>2774252
No, it's shit regardless of the Internet.

There are very few things I miss in life, but pro wrestling is one of them.

>>2774259
Social media has become a symbiotic part of wrestling now. Also we know everything because it's so easy to spread information. I used to be a member of an AOL email wrestling group that mailed out maybe like 10 rumors from both WCW and WWF and that was crack to me. Now everything has become so jaded. Even in the Money in the bank general it's people talking about a match as it's happening, saying how it's going to end and then getting mad even though they knew how it was going to end. Like why do we even watch wrestling anymore if it came to this?

>>2773887
Check this promo out whenever you can by the based Dudley's in ECW. This will show you everything that was so right with wrestling and the world back then compared to our pussified, pc, feminized, beta world today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6-7AKUqG_8

A promo like this would be absolutely impossible in today's world. Keep in mind that ECW was able to eventually get a television deal to. The video is long but it is worth a watch for the promo at the beginning. This will also show you why the Dudley's were that fucking good and should have gotten at least one more title win when they returned.

Watch Impact to get a feel for the booking of the attitude era, if not the crowds.

>>2774274
>Like why do we even watch wrestling anymore if it came to this?
I don't know. I don't watch. It's been terrible for well over a decade.

>>2774283
Bubba would make those crowds seethe so fucking hard they'd legit want to fight him. It was great.

>>2774283

holy fuck lol

>>2774283
Wow D-von said the F word

>>2773887
>>2774283
In addition to this OP. This video should be a mandatory viewing for every wrestling fan regardless of age. This is how you get heat. This is how you get over as a heel. This is what pro wrestling should be like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hILCw66sLU

>>2774315
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5yG56iOtOg

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I feel like 9/11 made people not as susceptible to "fake wrestling". They wanted news bites to feed them reality and to be reassured. News channels were doing record numbers documenting the war on terror.

Pre and post 9/11 entertainment example: Home Alone 2 just doesn't work anymore

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>be from canada
>couldn't watch wcw if i wanted to

nitro sucks

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>>2773887
'90s wrestling was an environment big enough for Scott Steiner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD9SXH4T4Fc

>>2774357
The attitude era was a wave and the wave just ended around there thats all. How many times can you retell the boss getting put in his place by the blue collar guy storyline because Austin did it many times, so did the Rock so did Angle.

>>2774344
Compare this crowd to most WWE crowds in 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHucO5nKAdg

Also take note that the fans didn't meme chant for this match like they do every week.

>>2774376
That was pretty cool how the "fans" threw him back in

>>2773931
>heat with a 5.6

I remember it being a fun thing on Sundays but damn that is some rating

>>2774389
Plants or not doesn't matter. Would WWE do something like that today or allow real fans to do that? I doubt it.

>>2774392
Not to mention heat was literally smackdown dark matches. WWE's scraps got a 5.6 rating.

>>2773887
Late WCW is what current WWE is.

>>2774376
Raven was booked like a Stage 3 video game boss

>>2774398
Now you have to combine the Smackdown and RAW ratings to get close to old Sunday Night Heat ratings lmao

>>2774367
Steiner was so damn hilarious.

>>2773931
What was WWF War Zone? I always assumed that was the same as Raw.

>>2774371
While true, and WWF would have had to have come up with something different or they'd run it into the ground like NWO was, WWF still had GOAT talent and big draws

>>2774399
Late WCW had better talent at least.

>>2774415
If I remember correct it was considered the second hour of Raw.

>>2774367
>TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF, I'M WORKING OFF

>>2773931
>DELET THIS

>>2774376
That video literally made me misty eyed. Just pure, innocent, unadulterated elation at what they're seeing. And smarks think they're superior to marks, holy shit.

Notice too the sound of the crowd. Everyone is flipping their shit, not just the women and kids or the men.

I remember Jim Ross put out a blog of the 10 worst towns/cities the WWE had gone to

Now it's funny that every town is the worst town, basically.

American wrestling needs to be over the top crazy shit from the wrestlers to promos otherwise it's fucking garbage because the wrestling is dogshit tier and any wrestler that is moderately good gets half of their moveset taken away from them when they join the company.

If you're going to do "sports entertainment" you need to go all the way. It's barely even PG at this point, might as well be G rated.

You know that feeling you get when's it's wrestlemania? Imagine that feeling sustained, everyday, for several years. Everyone talked about it, celebs wanted to be part of it, so much good content weekly, you could drown yourself in it. Raw, nitro, smackdown, thunder, WCW Saturday night, jakked, WCW worldwide, heat, Hardcore tv, ecw on tnn. You could even get AJPW and NJPW on the internet or if you had the right foreign cable channel. Best time in wrestling history desu.

>>2774155
Nitro had hardcore fans 'til the bitter end. Many did not want to switch over to Vinnie's variety hour so they dropped rasslin' altogether.

>>2773887
There were almost no children in the arenas, it was full of grown men that went crazy for the cream of the crop wrestlers. Plus there was 2 giant wrestling corporations trying to one up each other which brought out great talent and a whole bunch of shitty gimmicks that were stupid, but at the time very normal

I remember the Nitro was 3 hours long. So I could watch the 1st hour of WCW and then switch it to the USA network to watch Raw. TNT would always replay Nitro at around 9 though, so I would stay up late night to watch the last 2 hours I missed.

When NWO happened it was the best thing ever. Even though there was internet around, people wouldn't really go online to read spoilers and what would happen next. So when Hogan turned on WCW, the crowd and fans really couldn't believe it. This lead to WWF and WCW always ending shows with something big happening, such as a major superstar laid out in the back and no one knew how it happened, some superstar getting beat up at the end by people, but what usually happened was a superstar arrived/left/broke a limo and then the program would end with the announcers yelling how crazy it was

But some of the best parts was how adult it was. You had tits, ads and sexual innuendo almost every week. The divas were there to show off their bodies, sort of wrestle in gimmick matches and nobody was offended by it. It just seems like you could get away with storylinesome and semi nudity a lot more back then

>>2774762
Don't forget the crowd had a lot of fine women in it

The women weren't just going to it, their boyfriends were taking them along. Girls are still the same today, if you ask your girlfriend to go, she will. The problem is that there's a significant lack of college and 20 something men going to the shows and dragging their bimbos with them. Sad honestly.

>>2774762
>nobody was offended by it


yeah... right...you honestly sound 17 years old

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>>2773887
What's it like to be 19 right now

Back then we didn't have smartphones and the internet was rare so... How do you get by in such an impersonal time?

It was incredible.
you had two huge companies competing head to head for ratings and talent, both were pushing the envelope because you had to or fall behind.

not everything worked, there was a LOT of Russo/Bischiff, and roster depth overall wasn't great, but it was very good.

I miss that there really isn't another genuine competitor to WWE as far as how large they are and how they can outspend everyone else. for us consumers, it's always better when companies on equal footing are vying for our attention.

>>2774833
It's pretty shitty unless you drink, smoke or both

I was a WWF lad, was shit in 96 mostly until austin bret fued started and raw started becoming quite based after royal rumble 97 and then thursday raw thursday started turning it on with hbk fucking off

>>2773887
WCW Chris Jericho was the funniest heel ever in existence

Me and my best friend and our dad's went to a couple Nitro's and RAW's growing up. Didn't realize until I was older the amount of nostalgia I would have over those experiences. When I was young it was just something everyone knew about, it was really mainstream at least where I grew up.

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>>2774283
>>2774315
>>2774344
>>2774376
>>2774471
Fellow youngfag here. That was so fun to watch; it happened like 20 years ago, but it felt so alive and enjoyable to watch. It's a shame the modern show is so bad.

Which promotion would you say is closest to this kind of atmosphere? Impact?

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>>2773887

>all of these posts talking about no longer watching wrestling

Yeah okay, I'm sure you all just happened to drop into /asp/ tonight to see what people are saying about that thing you supposedly haven't watched in 15 years

>>2775060
>Which promotion would you say is closest to this kind of atmosphere? Impact?

Impact before Hogan/Bischoff fucked it up was awesome. The current Impact crowd barely cheers.

>>2775062
I'm literally only here for the bants and the only thing I watched wrestling wise was half of this years Wrestlemania. Outside of that, I catch a few rando matches put on YouTube like that Kenny Omega 6 star match.

>>2775087

Similar case here, I just scroll past all the threads about whatever happened in the WWE the previous night but look for the threads about wrestling over the years.

>>2773887
Like WrestleMania weekend every Monday night only it was cool and socially acceptable at the same time. Plus the shows & talent were much better than today.

>>2775080

Hogan & Bischoff years were not that bad imo. It got bad after they left because TNA had little money left to spend due to how much they had been paying Hogan & Bischoff + their ideas.

I think shitting on Hogan & Bischoff years is just a bandwagon narrative.

>>2774155
Not only that Nitro had 4.1 million HEAD TO HEAD with Raw.

>>2775150
There were some good moments, sure, but Hogan/Bischoff era basically killed off the TNA womens division. There was little net benefit to having them there (oh wow change our name and change the ring that's only something they could do)

>>2775080
I didn't watch that era, and have nothing to compare it to, so I won't bother commenting on that. Is the modern product any good? I've heard the owner changed, and it's been getting better.

>>2774130
This pretty much

You had to be there.

>>2774415

It was the second hour of Raw.

>>2774399
No, it was better.

>>2775053
I didn't even realize that wrestling was awesome during that period. I just thought it was always like that. I started watching in '97 and thought there would always be three awesome companies with tons of great talent.

>>2775192
>I didn't even realize that wrestling was awesome during that period. I just thought it was always like that.

Same, years and years later I found out that I had actually been part of a surge in new interest in wrestling so it had been at its peak and could only go down from there.

>>2773887
>but wasn't around for the monday night wars
18+

>>2775195

Yeah it's a shame. I was 14 in 1998 so grew up right in the middle of it. The lack of competition the WWE has now has completely killed wrestling, there's literally no reason for them to take risks or try to push the envelope anymore.

>>2774709
Pretty much describes me. My first experience with WWF was a negative one, HBK and HHH were massive turnoffs. I gave wrestling another chance and really got into WCW. I only followed WWE until 2001 before I had enough and stopped watching wrestling altogether.

>>2773887
Fucking amazing. God I loved the shit out of the Monday night war. Only reason anyone even thought of getting cable in the 90's in Australia was for wrestling

>>2775062
I actually just come here one in a while to see if anyone is talking about older wrestling.

>>2774833
>What's it like to be 19 right now

not op but fellow youngfag, everything is shitty

like, best thing about being young is the probbaly technology, but thats about it, and even that ends up shitty.

social media gets shitty, tv sucks, movies sucks, games suck, anime sucks, everything just sucks in comparison, save for a few outliers.

i've resorted to fucking smoking.

>>2773887
If I didn't grow up in MNW, I doubt I'd be a wrestling fan now. Feel sorry for people introduced to wrestling after 2007.

>>2775269
Same here pretty much.

>>2775508
Serious question, but how can you watch the modern stuff when you grew up during that period? I can't do it.

>>2773931
>11 million people watching wrestling on Monday
>lucky to get 3 now
WWE has ran off 8 million people, wow.

>>2773887
It was awesome. I was in highschool in the 90s and everyone watched it so you weren't a loser if you talked about it

>>2774376
He jack hammered the Yetay!

>>2774376
All that crowd reaction for a mid card belt

>used to get ppv quality matches on tv every week
>now get tv quality matches on """"ppv"""

most based era of wrestling, all thanks to competition. hope one day some billionaire decides to start his own fed just for giggles

Remember being legitimately excited to watch wrestling? Remember the adrenaline rush you got when the opening theme hit? Remember actually caring about a main event match?

It was can't-miss TV. Wrestling was everywhere: on covers of TVGuide, in commercials, on other TV shows.

It was a really great time -- just in general, let alone wrasslin'. The fact you could choose between WCW and WWF was great because you could flip back and forth. Usually, I would watch Nitro from 8-9 and then switch to RAW.

It was the best of times.

>>2775637
>>used to get ppv quality matches on tv every week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK2b0NL6dtE

Really?

Granted this is just a random example that came to mind when I read what you posted.

>>2775760
didn't say every match was ppv dude

wwf raw undercards mostly blew until the radicalz joined but the main events were great most weeks

wcw nitro undercards were generally better, with the luchadores and benoit and co putting on ppv quality matches weekly, with the main events generally sucking

>>2775585
More than that anon when you consider the newer fans that make up the 3 mill today

>>2774762
>There were almost no children in the arenas
Biggest lie right there, sure kids weren't the biggest part of the crowd, but there were a lot of them, whole families even.

>>2775790
Yeah but those kids were based as fuck, giving the camera the finger and yelling suck it at the puppies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqgRqYvaKaw

even the intros were better

>>2773931
What the literal fuck happened?

>>2775803
>even the kids were better back then

Compared to what we have now, it makes too much sense

>>2773969
Sexual Chocolate was over

>>2774283
Fucking amazing

>>2774399
Late wcw was light years ahead of where current wwe is. We still had roided up macho man, Steiner, booker t, etc

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>>2775999
Trips of truth confirm

>>2773887
Wrestlers were allowed to get over and fans didn't hate what they were watching.

>>2775999
>yfw Mae Young giving birth to a hand

>millions of people drop wrestling after Vince gets a monopoly

Really makes you think...

>>2773942
>smarks cheered Austin when he was a scumbag heel in late 1996-early 1997
>smarks booed the fuck outta Rocky Maivia

What did he mean by this?

>>2774004
We also had great wrestling video games too. Like every single release was fantastic from the N64 all the way up to the PS3.

>>2774051
my dad set up 2 tvs so we could watch both at once. shit was incredible.

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>>2773887
>yfw wwe is going to literally be WCW 2001 in your lifetime

>>2776050
>MNW
>PS3

>>2774283
Who's the Insane Clown Posse reject?

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>that RAW is WAR intro and the amount of signs in the crowd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKW5roRtEwk

>>2776077
It will never be like that again... ever.

Also, this reminds me of the Saturday morning show Michael Cole hosted that would recap the RAW of that week and had some other shit.

>>2776077
to think they can't even afford pyros anymore...

>>2776088
Can't even afford multiple sets, anymore.

>>2775651
>Remember being legitimately excited to watch wrestling?
nope

>>2774283
>A promo like this would be absolutely impossible in today's world.

PWG gave Adam Cole the gimmick of "attempted rapist".

>>2775060
Impact is terrible WWE-lite. Try LU, PWG or ICW.

>>2776101
28+

>>2775820
the internet, 9/11 and chris beniot

>>2774252
>When Mike Tyson pushed Stone Cold you didn't know if that was bullshit or not so it enticed you and you came back next week.

No it didn't you fucking idiot. I remember watching this segment live and me, nor my brother or my friends thought it was real. It is and was a fucking tv show. I never thought Jerry and Newman hated each other in real life either.

WWE fags and their "smarks" and "kayfabe" shit is literally fucking insane.

>>2774162
>>2774174
Do you think AJ would survive in those days?

>>2776242
AJ Styles wrestled for WCW

>>2774252
>>2774274
WWE had been awful for long before the concept of "hashtagging" existed

>>2774174
WWE guys don't get to layout their own matches and improv their own promos

>voting for Hillary

ONE DAY
SIX MONTHS AGO
MOVE FUCKING ON

>>2774315
Hogan is the definition of a wrestler.
Jesus, this Hogan and a 98 Austin facing each other... I can't imagine how many millions of dollars that would make.

>>2776086
Superstars with Kevin Kelly was the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYtyww-vGnQ

>>2776288
Hogan whipping David Flair with his weightlifting belt as Ric Flair is crying handcuffed to ropes at Souled Out 99 is a another great heat getting moment. Flair was legit pissed and said he was going "fucking kill Hogan".

>>2775820
WCW died. Even before nWo, the two companies combined were doing 5s on Monday

>>2776077
I love that sound at the beggining of the intro

>>2776086
>>2776088

The fact that they went public makes it even more of a likelihood that they'll never be TV-14 again. Imagine TV-MA ratings.

>>2776452
WWE going public happened in 1999

>>2776103
>PWG

Who the fuck is even watching PWG?

>>2774709
Nitro was wrestling done right, while Vince was busy trying to convince everyone it was wrong and lure them to the dark side, which was truly wrong and has the REAL evidence to support that, with all the deaths, overdoses, scandals, lawsuits, and failed miserable lives.

Despite all the backstage politics and power struggle, the talent was still allowed to get over, work an easier schedule, and be creative in the ring. If something failed, they just scrapped it, and repackaged the person with something else. They didn't force feed it to you nonstop. WCW losing was like Hitler losing. The opposite outcome would have been better and the winner's lied and demonized the loser and took credit for things that never even happened.

>>2776503
Had a bigger gate in 1 night than Impact has all year :P

>>2776242
AJ styles would have been a cruiserweight. He also wrestled for WCW although at the very end and he also didn't really do much.

You would have never gotten a lightweight guy holding the main titles. Not even WWF a the time would do that. It took them many years before giving the title to a guy like Chris Benoit who was regarded as a small guy in those days and even Benoit weighed more than modern WWE cruiserweights.

>>2776506
don't forget huge guaranteed contracts for everyone from veterans to vanilla midgets

>>2776526
Bret & HBK weren't exactly giants, nor was Flair

Sammartino was BILLED at 5'10"

>>2776517
I'll say it again.

Who in the fuck is even watching PWG? Wrestling is dead. The second biggest wrestling company in American can't even manage to get half a million people watching their show anymore. WWE is nearing Spike TV TNA numbers. PWG is an absolute blip on the radar compared to modern WWE.

None of these shitshows compare to the popularity of wrestling in the 90's. Not even close.

>>2776550
I'm not talking about height here. I'm talking more about weight.

If you think AJ Styles is truly 217 pounds or however they bill him as you are sadly mistaken. There is no way that tiny guy weighs that much. Benoit was billed as 229 pounds often in WWE and look how jacked he was for his career in WWE.

Wrestling has always inflated the size of their wrestlers but never to the degree they do now.

>>2776552
TNA isn't even a Top 5 American promotion

Your local shindy outdraws Impact

>>2776569
hue wrestling had far more exaggerated billing in the decades previous to this, modern stats are the closet to reality in decades

Benoit was also a roid mutant who had a heart that would've exploded in a month if he hadn't hung himself so there's that.

>>2776576
No it didn't really at all. You are a fucking idiot if you think such a thing. They may have over billed certain wrestlers like Giant who they often claimed was well over 7 feet (7'4 was often said) when he isn't. But they weren't over billing weights nearly to the extent that they have to now with their midget wrestlers.

In fact I don't know how true it is since i don't pay attention when that faggot is on but I heard they won't even announce Fin Balor's weight since he is so thin.

>>2776590
There was a point where Christian's weight fluctuated by anywhere between 10 to 30 lbs on a weekly basis, nong, 18+

>>2774833
When I was a kid, early 2000's, there was concern of the then teenagers being too apathetic and self-abosrbed.

It's so much worse now that no one complains about it.

Keeping in touch with friends is easier than ever, but now some people see meeting their friends as a chore. Finding something in common to connect with people is fucking rare since there's so much to choose from and nothing to be passionate about.

Except from anime, but I fucking hate anime.

>>2776596
kek you are some pants shitter aren't you?

For you to say the billing today is more accurate when never before in history has there been this many puny wrestlers in the main events is absolutely laughable. What you think a guy like Vader was only 285 pounds? You think a guy like Finn Balor is 210 pounds?

Have you ever actually been to a gym before? The guys today are way smaller and are getting billed as much bigger than what they really are more so than they did in the 90's. This isn't an opinion this is a fact.

>>2776077
nowadays most of those signs would be taken out by the fucking security

File: laparkagif2.gif (469KB, 240x176px) Image search: [Google]

469KB, 240x176px

>>2773887
switching between channels when commericals were on to see wrestling and stick with the one that had the better matches. Getting calls on the landline when something big happened so that you could switch channels. People jumping from company to company. The nwo, dx, the crusierweights. IT was based as fuck man.

>>2776532
It was the only way to prevent all the purging from Vince because that's the only way he knew how to beat competition. Vince didn't know how to win a straight up quality of entertainment battle. He had to steal talent, steal ideas, and use undermining tactics that hurt the business as a whole.

If Ted Turner remained in charge or someone else bought WCW, it'd still be around today and would have probably had plenty of more periods of out drawing WWE.

>>2776609
On Austin's podcast John Morrison said he weighed 205lbs. Morrison is MUCH larger than Balor.

>>2774376
Raven deserves a WWF job as booker since he secretly the forefront of ECW

Raven as NXT Commissioner when?

>>2774834
>I miss that there really isn't another genuine competitor to WWE

NJPW is our last chance to give the WWE so much hell in the long run.

>>2776077

it's so fucking loud

>>2776776

I love NJPW, but they're not competition to the WWE. Nobody is.

>>2776843
Not yet but NJPW is HOT. And Kidani wants them to be a presence in the US. It will be interesting to see how much, if any, traction they make by the end of the year after having held G1 shows in the US.

>>2776598
>Except from anime, but I fucking hate anime.

Anime did nothing wrong

You know what I miss most about it desu. Having the boys over for a ppv was an event. Some of the best times, make a day of it. N64 and PlayStation, WCW/NWO revenge, No Mercy, Wrestlemania 2000, bike rides and trying to flirt with girls. The ppvs themselves. I miss it bros I really do.

>>2776635
It's all about the brand and family business anon

>>2775637
>hope one day some billionaire decides to start his own fed just for giggles

I'm hoping there's something more than a work with the HHH/Vince thing. Imagine if Trips split off with NXT (he legally can, he owns the shares) and bought either TNA or Meme Culture Wrestling but all of this not as a work.

The fact that enough people still even watch WWE to warrant a wrestling board on 4chan is still fucking shocking to me.

>>2776871
Anime never drew a dime in America and is relegated to selling itself in bingo halls in Japan

>>2776944
It's literally one of the slowest boards, like slower than /vg/ and /g/.

File: WWF Raw is War intro.webm (2MB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 480x360px

Its my life in a box and its hard to be

>>2776875
This.

The best part about it was that it was fun. Hanging with the bros smoking cheap but good 90's weed, using two tvs and a splitter to watch both shows at once, going to work the next day and there's plenty of work folk to bullshit about Monday night with. It was fun.

>>2776944

SEETHING DESUWA!!!!

>>2776056
At least wcw was funny bad, now it's just bad bad

File: adolf the hitler.jpg (107KB, 781x1023px) Image search: [Google]

107KB, 781x1023px

>>2776506
>WCW losing was like Hitler losing. The opposite outcome would have been better and the winner's lied and demonized the loser and took credit for things that never even happened.

pic related

>>2774051
This. In the UK, Cartoon Network would 'close' for the night at 9pm then immediately hit that WCW Nitro theme - was awesome then when the adverts hit your switch over to RAW. Also, you'll never get to see someone attemp a spot and a whole arena of camera flashes would go off. Still, you've got the network OP. You could rewatch an episode of you missed something. We used to have to buy VHS tapes and they where expensive.

>>2774168
> ywn pump iron at the gym while hanging with giants of the business both literal and figurative

>>2774197
It was silver. Still precious, still valuable, anyone would be a fool to discard it.

>>2774055
This was the best part of the monday night wars. Debra and Sable alone must have filled basements with dozens of gallons of jizz

>>2776086
Live Wire

>>2774197
>ruthless aggression era

Actually this era was better wrestling wise. It gave us some of the greatest technical wrestling. It gave us suplex gods such as Lesnar, Angle and Benoit.

>>2776944
> Anime never drew dimes in America
> what are Dragonball Z, Pokemon, and Yugi-Oh?

>>2776054
fucking noice

>>2775573
We all watch it out of habit

>>2778117
Oh, you mean all those things that are dubbed in English? That's called an exception

>>2778718
> moving the goalposts
Everyone knew those were Japanimations. You lost. Get over it.

If you want to watch one show that perfectly encompasses all that was awesome 90s WWF: watch SummerSlam 1998

>Stone Cold vs Taker
Main event, both men at their primes

>HHH vs Rock IC Ladder Match
Billed as the future of the company, I think both these guys met expectations
>Based AF Lions Den Shamrock vs Owen Hart match
>Val Venis doing Val Venis stuff

>>2776875
This really brings back memories.

>>2778876
>>Based AF Lions Den Shamrock vs Owen Hart match
remember their Dungeon match? I like to imagine that after they went off air that Ma Hart brought down some cookies for the boys to eat

File: Summerslam1998.jpg (40KB, 348x459px) Image search: [Google]

40KB, 348x459px

>>2778876
My favorite show of all time. Greatest video package ever, Highway to Hell, and the best poster ever. WWF was so hot then, crowd was so into it, and MSG is the best.

In 7th grade I was a huge Goldberg fan and this other kid was a huge Stone Cold fan. We got in a fight to prove who was the better and we both just had to shake hands to not get suspended because american hadn't been pussified yet.

>>2778876
>Not based 2000 PPVs

>>2778876
I've seen the show so many times that I can still hear JRs voice opening the show...."it's a HOT....summer night...in New York City. Madison Square Garden has been sold out for months."

>>2778965
SummerSlam '98 did 700k buys, pretty much more based than any non-WrestleMania show they've ever done, and the show is fun as fuck.

>>2778981
Invasion did more buys. So what? I'm talking about quality. The undercard sucked on that show

>Outlaws vs Mankind
>X Pac vs Jarrett
>Edge vs Mero

>>2778992
It literally took the INVASION to beat SummerSlam. Think about that.
>the undercard sucked
Kid, shut the fuck up, you're an idoit.

>>2779000
It did. Sorry get over it. WWE's midcard sucked until 2000 with guys like Benoit, Jericho, Angle etc

>>2779019
No one fucking cares.

2000-2001 was a based time no doubt. But this kid asked specifically about the 90s.

Also while the midcard in 2000 was definitely more stacked than in 1998 the upper card was still hot but slightly less hot than it was in 98-99. This led to the beginning of smarks crying that their midcard favorites needed to be the main event guys

98 had a better flow

>Based legendary main eventers
>Rising stars making a name
>Comedy midcard
>stacked chicks

>>2774363
The fuck you talking about We would just get Nitro on Saturdays on channel 22 and Raw replays on channel 11 and TSN

Montreal fag here

>>2778876
I'd recommend Royal Rumble 2000, just my humble opinion.

It's an amazing, timeless event, pretty much 11/10 the whole of it.

>>2776077
This.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gKFQBa0Kpk

>>2779248
>This led to the beginning of smarks crying that their midcard favorites needed to be the main event guys

Yeah, like that Austin guy back in 1996?

>>2774102
This. The stupid numale fanbase today believes hunters meme that the roster needs to be a bunch of skinny vanilla midgets because even though they always talk about wrestling being fake, they want it to look real for some reason, when they should be taking advantage of it being fake to make it more entertaining.

>>2776506
>>2776704
this is correct

>>2776973
you must be the only person to ever understand the lyrics to that song

>>2780468
Do you even know what you're mad about or attempting to say, here?

>>2776734
Vince hates Raven because he got Shane into drugs during the time when Raven was a WWF producer.