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Abeyance in WCW

I always knew that WCW was a clusterfuck, but just seeing it listed out like this really puts a new perspective on how worthless the WCW title was by the end of 1999 / start of 2000. Half a dozen straight reigns end with the title being vacated. Abeyance never had a stronger run!



​Yeah, but any time someone in WWF vacated a title, Abeyance had its contract renegotiated in WCW for even more money!​

Comments

  1. Crikey Mate Down Under AussieSeptember 14, 2014 at 9:52 AM

    I keep forgetting abeyance is actually a word, my first thought is always our Abeyance.

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  2. Welcome to the WCW.

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  3. Crikey Mate Down Under AussieSeptember 14, 2014 at 9:59 AM

    Zayn is recently 30, he still has time up his sleeve I think. For sure he could have come up to the main roster already but he might have got lost in the shuffle.

    If the reports are true about NXT guys working more quick raw matches then that's the way to do it, have him win on Raw over a long period, once a month is all that's needed, and become a special attraction before the call up, have the regular fans going "how is this guy not on the main roster yet" and it'll create interest in him and NXT.

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  4. The incredible thing is that most of these happened IN BETWEEN Russo's 2 stints. And the Bret one wasn't his fault due to the severe concussion. But wow, WAY too many Harris Brothers involved title changes. Horrible to even read.

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  5. The WCW World Title from 1999 to 2000 is one big clusterfuck. It's hard to know which reigns even count

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  6. I think Zayn should come up as part of a faction or a tag team. A singles debut may get him lost in the shuffle.


    Let him gradually come up like Seth Rollins did, winning people over with his ring skills.

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  7. "As for Sami, he should have come up with the Shield and could debut tomorrow if they wanted. And yeah, he's got that Daniel Bryan everyman vibe going on and is such an awesome babyface that he could work in several roles."

    This is the type of guy WWE needs to look for as a top face, someone vulnerable. It's time to stop booking the hero as Superman.

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  8. Even Superman watches John Cena overcome the odds and be like, "damn...that dude is unstoppable!"

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  9. Huh, I always thought Daniel Bryan was "too small" to make it too. He's like, ten pound heavier than Neville, same size. Same with Breeze. Zayn is only two inches taller than either of them. Too small is BS

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  10. Now Cena has his personal Doomsday (Brock).

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  11. I'm not familiar with the NXT guys, but I've always found Daniel to at least have a strong looking build, so he still likes believable against bigger guys. Like he can take a beating and fight toe to toe with them.

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  12. Except that he's jobbed 100% clean on 3 different PPVs in the past 13 months, and that might possibly be 4 in 14 months very soon.. But let's not let facts get in the way of Cena bashing.

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  13. Promoters need to drop the "he's small, so he can't beat the guy". Did they ever heard of Royce Gracie beating guys twice his size in a real fight.

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  14. The WCW title was a joke from the moment Flair left in '91. It just became a funnier joke as the years went on.

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  15. Try watching the product, VJ and see if you have the same affinity for Cena.

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  16. What the hell does that have to do with anything? I see the results, and Cena jobs clean more often than just about any other top face in WWE history.

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  17. If you actually watch the shows, you will see that Cena's constant superman-dom is VERY stale.

    A few jobs? Great...does it help the product at all? Nope.

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  18. I would go the other way and suggest that maybe you take a break from the product, as you sure as hell don't seem to enjoy it much. Maybe if you just watched a few shows here and there, you'd enjoy it more.

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  19. Kidd: Should probably just stay in NXT for the rest of his WWE career at this point. He's been awesome in his current role, but I can't see WWE giving him a real shot, so he's better off being one of the top heels on NXT (especially since it's a legit weekly show now on the Network as opposed to a local training promotion that nobody can see outside of Florida).

    Breeze: I think he has potential as a midcard guy. Can't see him rising above that, but I think he could have some staying power there.

    Neville: I think he's got potential as a high flyer, maybe as part of a tag team or as an occasional IC/US title challenger. I think Bourne is a good comparison, and Bourne was doing fine as part of a tag team and as a midcard singles guy. They weren't going to push him much higher, but he could have had long term staying power ala Kingston if he didn't keep getting injured and getting busted for pot.

    Zayn: Most upside of the four I'd say. Should probably already be up. He could be up right now stealing shows with guys like Cesaro at the US/IC title level. Long term, it's not impossible he could pull a Daniel Bryan and end up there, but more likely I could see him as a long term IC/US title level guy who occasionally challenges for the WWE title (maybe in multi man matches) with the chance to go higher if the crowd really gets behind him.

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  20. Vintage Vince being Vince.

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  21. I love wrestling. Enjoy watching the Shield guys come up and compete to see who will be the next star. I like Daniel Bryan's angle in the past year, love watching Dolph, enjoy seeing how hard the Usos work, was intrigued by Rusev vs. Swagger and always have a soft spot for bad-ass Mark Henry. Loved the NXT shows, too as I like watching fresh and new talent.


    But do I like Cena, Randy Orton, Big Show and Kane? No, I don't and I am allowed to be vocal about it.

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  22. Apparently even though you like all of those things, if you don't like John Cena then you shouldn't be allowed to watch the shows.


    I fall into the same category as you, personally, but for some reason the police haven't shown up yet and made me stop watching due to not liking Cena.

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  23. I met Bryan a ton of times when he was in ROH. *Super* nice guy. But yeah, he's at least half a foot shorter than me (I'm 6'4"), but he's HUGE. His biceps and shoulders are ridiculous. I've met guys with bigger builds at the gym, but Bryan has a very believable build in person.

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  24. Anyone that injures anyone with a 450 splash should get cut yesterday. It's a silly move, and it should be a one and done mistake.

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  25. WWF/E title was so great either.

    From Austin's first reign through Big Show's first reign, longest title reign was 3 months.

    From Rock's first through Big Show's first, no one had it longer than 2 months.

    After HBK's first reign, the next guy to have it more than 6 months was JBL.

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  26. We need Zayn to stay in NXT long enough to have some sort of interaction in NXT. Even if it's just Zayn asking how their mutual friend's orphanage is doing.

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  27. It was a fine title until about late 1998 when Nash won it at Starrcade.

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  28. A lot of it is how a small guy works when paired with a bigger dude. Bret was so good at psychology and technical moves like working on a body part that it wasn't unfathomable for him to beat a giant. Same with Shawn as his reputation was his resiliency and athleticism to defeat a super-heavyweight.

    Even Daniel Bryan recently made you believe because of his energy. His in-match comeback is more spirited than HBK's was.

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  29. They should call his Mexican cousin too.

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  30. If you devoted 8 hours a day to work, 8 to sleep and 8 to JUST watching the catalouged Nitro's and RAW's it would take you 2 months and 3 days to cover them all. That doesnt even cover EVERY Clash, SNME and PPV that has ever happend. Chill out with the I need more content shit.

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  31. You're way to optimistic about the potential of that Mabel push. Hbk, lex, diesel, Sid, incoming Ahmed Johnson, returning Bret, Owen, razor, Douglas. They had plenty of ammo, just didn't use it all that well. Although things improves after sur series I think.

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  32. Little guys just have to make it believable and many of them aren't very good at that.


    If you watch a little guy square off against a big guy in a legitimate fight and the little guy wins, well, that's legit, what can you say besides "damn!". If a little guy squares off against a big guy in a fake fight and wins with a skydancer fairy press that barely grazes the other guy, that's stupid and no one will buy it.


    Little guys can absolutely beat big guys, but you've got to overcome the obvious advantage that the big guy has in a believable way.

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  33. I just think Shawn was in the zone at that point. He could have feuded with the proverbial broomstick in 95 and made it work.

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  34. Soon they will have the option of pairing him up with Steen. The chemistry between those two was undeniable. They should have been an oddball, one-off team up, but they gelled so well during the Briscoe feud that they both became major stars in ROH. Something about that has to be translatable to WWE.

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  35. Yeah but wcw was dead in the water but spring if 2000 and everyone knew it. All the shenanigans they pulled were attempts to get people to care but it was way too late

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  36. Many guys aren't very good at it, not just little guys. But yeah, your point still stands.

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  37. CruelConnectionNumber2September 14, 2014 at 10:45 AM

    Good, the one-word replies by less intelligent posters "at the top" was really distracting to conversation.

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  38. Eh, Hogans reign in red and yellow was awful, Flair and Savage traded it, hogan then had it for basically the next year and a half. It was horrid but wasn't great.

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  39. You don't like 1995-early 1996 dubya CEE dubya?

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  40. "What the hell does that have to do with anything?" should be tagged underneath each post of his. Who needs to watch something to enjoy it anyway? Reading a results page is breathtaking enough, and it gives a great way to come in all half-cocked with partial truths in an argument.
    And picking arguments with people every single day of one's life for a good nine months on a wrestling website is a sure sign of living a healthy life while in your 30s.



    And, yes, it's clear we hate wrestling. That's my favorite conclusion to jump to even though we talk about our favorite wrestlers, matches, events constantly.

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  41. You mean black people in 1994 didn't just walk around waving thier hands in the air like they just don't care yelling whoomp there it is????

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  42. Short title reigns is one thing. Repeatedly vacating the title for purely storyline reasons is quite another.

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  43. You're absolutely right. Nothing makes pro-wrestling more exhilarating than reading 411mania's account of Monday Night Raw!

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  44. "As for Sami, he should have come up with the Shield and could debut tomorrow if they wanted."


    Generico wasn't even in NXT at the time, his last ROH match was a couple months after the Shield made their debut. Anyway, count me in the group that would rather just see him stay in NXT. Neville too, unless WWE gets serious about a cruiser division, and we know that ain't happening.

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  45. I think it changed hands/was vacated 27 times in 2000. That's every other week. To see the decline in business that year, then the big drop off in viewers when David Arquette won it... it still boggles the mind.

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  46. I liked the balance of the title reigns in 2000. Triple H, Rock, and Angle all held the title for roughly the same length. Trips had a 118 day reign, Rock had a 119 day reign, and Angle had a 126 day reign. Not counting the short reigns where Rock and Hunter traded the title from Backlash to KOTR.

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  47. I like the Disturbed version as well. Hated the one he used during the Alliance days.

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  48. He saw the opening and knew he still needed to work for it. Incredibly motivated.

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  49. What about the Blog search feature? That was useful.

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  50. Apathy quickly crushed intrigue. Apathy, and eventually disgust. I'm sure there was at least one week in the stretch where they changed the title at the PPV, stripped the belt the next night on Nitro, awarded it to someone else, who then lost it in the main event, only to switch it back later in the week on Thunder. Then you-know-who won it and something like a half million WCW fans just gave up and stopped watching the next week.

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  51. I was at the arquette show live. First off - why was ddp celebrating with him? He just lost the title. And bichoff got booed out of the building after the cameras went off. Not effective bad guy heat either. - it was a "we think you and your product sucks heat". And I got my hands on about ten tickets through a third hand contact for free. I can't imagine anyone shelled out money for a wcw show by that point.

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  52. Virgil's Gimmick TableSeptember 14, 2014 at 11:22 AM

    Now I want to see what a skydancer fairy press looks like.

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  53. I wouldn't be surprised if Daniel Bryan is legitimately stronger than someone like Dolph Ziggler.

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  54. Good lord. The WCW TV title was treated with more respect, and Jim Duggan fished that thing out of the garbage.

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  55. Virgil's Gimmick TableSeptember 14, 2014 at 11:25 AM

    You know, for someone with such a sunny and positive outlook on WWE, you sure do have a problem with people who disagree.

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  56. Seeing Bret at the top of the list there puts me in mind of the WCW Mayhem tournament. It kind of seemed like they finally got their act together with him there booking-wise and put together a series of smart moves -- they did the PPV in Canada and seeded it so the last match would be best potential match of the tournament, and made sure two it was between two Canadians. Sticking him in a match against Goldberg at Starrcade was a good idea too -- it certainly had some intrigue and seemed a worthy ME for the show.

    Of course then they did the whole Montreal-redux thing for some reason and the concussion ended his run, but I do wonder what suddenly turned them onto him as "the guy" in the eyes of Russo and company after all that time.

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  57. I'm watching Superstars from July 95 and they are showing a Fatu vignette. You know what? It's not that bad. Of course, everything else about it was.

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  58. She's fat, she's thin. She's fat, she's thin. Pick a weight and go with it!

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  59. You know the warning signs were all there in 1998 if not earlier. Everyone got blinded by the TV ratings and PPV buyrates--both just numbers on paper. The problem is there was never really anyone in charge who looked at what it was costing the company in salaries & production, crunched the numbers and realized just how well the company would have to *continue* to do for a couple years to maintain that level of success & profitability. For a company that never actually made a profit before the boom, and a larger corporation that owned it, the blame really does extend beyond Bischoff, Russo, Nash, Sullivan, Hogan, etc. By 1999 the debate over which Monday Night company was better was over, and everyone should have been asking if WCW could become fiscally sound before getting the axe.

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  60. Bret got pushed the moment Russo took over. Simple as that.

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  61. Yeah but when it's done well, it looks amazing-balls.

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  62. This Vacated is quite the wrestler. Strange I don't remember him.

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  63. It would be great if Zayn and Steen were to work together, but remember that the WWE never gave us a Kings of Wrestling reunion in the years Cesaro was there, even when they were both appearing on NXT or when Cesaro was stuck in the mid-card with nothing to do.


    Not saying that's just the WWE dragging their feet, just that it may be their policy to take guys "out of their comfort zone" and therefore not have them go back to their "indy" years.

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  64. Zayn has always been so much fun to watch from his early days as the skinny comedy character doing insanely over-the-top moves, to the King of the Indies era to now as the best worker on NXT.

    What I think I love most about him is his quite unusual physicality. He moves differently which I think stretched back to him working under a mask and therefore having to rely more on his body mannerisms because he could never convey how he felt through promos or facial expressions. The fact that he can actually cut a good promo and has fantastic expressions now makes him feel like the complete package. I agree that he has the potential to reach Daniel Bryan levels of popularity - especially if they embrace the fact that there will be fans in every arena that will start the 'Ole' chant. If he's in the main roster by the time of WM31 then he may be the one to get the superstar reaction on the post-WM Raw.

    I know that this is ridiculously high praise, but he's such a good pure babyface that he could be this generation's Ricky Steamboat.

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  65. Despite the huge numbers WCW was doing in 1998/1999, I actually don't think it was ever REALLY on anyone's radar in the Turner empire. Even with the huge business they were doing in 1997/1998 and the losses they were doing in the early 1990s and early 2000s, I don't know that either made much of a difference to their stature in the organization.

    I mean, they'd lose money when they hired cost cutters during Bill Watts and Bischoff's early reigns and nobody really blinked. Despite how horrible things were, I don't think it was until after the second merger that it was ever really in jeopardy of getting pulled or sold when the culture of the company changed.

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  66. I totally agree. El Generico couldn't have worked anywhere near as well as it did if Zayn wasn't so physically charismatic, which was a skill Steamboat also possessed in spades.

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  67. I think that spoke more to the level of top talent that was around in that time. All of those guys were credible champions. Its one thing to lose to a credible main eventer and another when a belt is vacated for an overbooked or screwjob finish.

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  68. I enjoy your Month in Review pieces particularly. Some nice trivia and detail in there. Fun seeing how important the house show circuit *used* to be.

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  69. How about Sting and DDP trading the title pointlessly on a single episode of Nitro?

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  70. 2000 was the biggest mismatch in quality between two national promotions ever. I don't even think there was a year of competition between tna and wwe that came close. Did anyone actually watch Nitro in 2000, after the first unopposed hour?

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  71. The biggest issue is that WCW ran that Sting/Goldberg impromptu match at Halloween Havoc 1999.



    Because when you're going to run a PPV match between two of your biggest stars, why bother advertising it?

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  72. Extant1979 - Ghetto SuperstarSeptember 14, 2014 at 1:17 PM

    I don't think those are going to stop just because the top 5 is gone. He was just treating the Blog comments section like an AIM chat.

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  73. Extant1979 - Ghetto SuperstarSeptember 14, 2014 at 1:19 PM

    Except you can still see it if you know where to look.

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  74. Extant1979 - Ghetto SuperstarSeptember 14, 2014 at 1:22 PM

    I have been the Network's no. 1 defender around these parts, and even I think they need to make some changes to the updates at this point. Hopefully they update more old Raws and Nitros before this 6 month period ends.

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  75. I have 0 interest in watching anything other than old Nitros and NXT. I'm also not angry about the Network. But the Network doesn't have the majority of the Nitros I'm interested in watching. If they don't add them, I'll cancel. I'm not upset about it or feeling ripped off, it's just a price versus returns evaluation. I'm glad people enjoy the Network and I hope people continue to enjoy the Network.

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  76. Blame Canada (or more accurately blame Rogers Cable).

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  77. Same for Hogan/Goldberg really, advertised just like 5 days in advance. But yep, that one was probably even worse.

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  78. Funny thing, there were lots of Rasslin' fans at my job in 2000, and a good group of my supervisors admitted to preferring WCW. Our team leader even called our group "The New Blood".

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  79. I feel sorry for those dweebs.

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  80. Well they made more money than I did, so... I felt more sorry for me. :)



    But I guess they were more into swerves than Star ratings. So WCW was their clear choice. I guess!

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  81. Still wasted potential money, giving away big name matches with 0 hype. The match quality really had 0 to do with the topic in hand.

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  82. Abeyance has been running wild since he debuted at Moe's Tavern because his customers weren't gonna stick around for the abeyance.

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  83. Nothing is more important than the number of *****. NOTHING!

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  84. Didn't Austin hold the title in 2001 from Wrestlemania till Vengeance in December, with only a slight break in September of Kurt Angle holding the title?

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  85. Star ratingz pay the bills and put fool on the table, baby!

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  86. Well that was the thing, pre-Nitro era... whenTurner bought it from Crockett

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  87. Yeah, but at least it had 5 days to be promoted and it wasn't something people had to pay for.



    Still bad, but Havoc was worse especially since the advertised title match for Halloween Havoc 1999 (Hogan vs. Sting) consisted of Hogan lying down and being pinned.

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  88. Reading the notations of the final year of WCW Title reigns is more confusing than trying to explain the entire series of LOST to people. By the end, I'd just say that it ended up making zero sense and we're all glad it's over.

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  89. So you are saying that Knight Valentine is only equivalent to Sir Mo?

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  90. I sure didn't after the Radicalz jumped ship (January?). Those guys were about the only reason I stuck with WCW.

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