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Piper

Scott.........

Started watching Nitro on the network which got my mind thinking about Roddy Piper.........

When he showed up in WCW at Halloween Havoc 96 - was this a "big deal"???

Did Piper still have enough value to justify a big match with Hogan and the push that came along with it???


Yes.  Vince was dumb enough to never run it on PPV, so WCW did and made the money off it.  Now, whether he was worth it AFTER the one big Starrcade buyrate is another argument entirely.  But they made their initial investment back with no problem.  


Comments

  1. Aside from putting down The Giant... Piper's Halloween Havoc return promo was just a big mess. Even Hogan is trying to reel him in a bit. WCW always had these timing issues.

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  2. Charismatic eNegro Jef VinsonSeptember 2, 2014 at 1:45 PM

    Something that bothered me about the Hogan/Piper feud in WCW is that in their first altercation Piper bragged about Hogan never beating him. Well in "Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" didn't Hogan trash Warrior for doing the exact same thing?

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  3. Vince did run it on PPV.

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  4. I remember this being a BIG Deal. Because the WWF never blew off the feud in any effective way, so WCW capitalized on it. Who was gonna take Hogan out? The one guy who Hogan couldn't beat! Now they were 10 years out of their prime but still... Piper had just wrestled at Wrestlemania in 1996, so it wasn't like he wasn't relevant.

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  5. The Wrestling Classic, their first PPV ever.

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  6. yeah that was the "Ultimate thing you don't do"... Which is ridiculous, that's what your'e selling the match on... Again, who is gonna take Hogan out? The guy who already beat Hogan.

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  7. Piper smells. I just couldn't stand him in WCW. Was the round curvy or straight to your house? Who cares!!!

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  8. Yeah but they didn't really blow it off.

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  9. There's a great story Scott Hall tells about Piper in WCW. Piper beats Hogan clean at Starcade and then Piper was supposed to the job to Savage and because Piper doesn't do jobs for people and Piper refused to lose to the elbow and instead had to lose to the "Tape" (Brass Knucks) whatever. And they went to the bar and Hall had been drinking (shocker :) ) and starts laying into Piper...


    "What is it real? Hogan does the job for you and you cant do the job for Savage? Is that tape gonna leave a rash? What are we too close to Portland?"


    ...... Wow, that last one is awful.

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  10. How else would you sell a Hogan/Warrior match in 1998?

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  11. the essential problem with the entire nWo run was the role Piper played was awesome ... he was just 15 years too old to play it. And really ... would it have been so bad if Piper had won the world title from Hogan at Starrcade?

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  12. No doubt the lead in for the first Hogan-Piper match in 1996 was worth it, but a heel Hogan and Piper without a good worker in there wasn't going to do much. I almost fall asleep every time I try to watch it. Although Piper vs. Mr. America is even less believable -- it had that familiar heel Piper/face Hogan dynamic - so it was at least watchable, if not totally laughable the same time. Piper actually did a shoot for high spots after that match in 2003 and said he really cringed that some people actually wanted to still see him work because he was downright embarrassed by it.

    Back to 1996: Plus they really needed to have come clean and admitted from the start it was non-title. It was a no brainer that Hogan was jobbing there. Hollywood Hogan jobbing was like Hulk Hogan never jobbing -- it never really elevated anybody other than Hogan. Sure Piper got two jobs out of Hogan, and a phantom third one from that Superbrawl 7 match that had the stupid Savage heel turn that had them restart the match because clearly Randy Anderson wasn't in the middle of the ring when Hogan went out from the sleeper. And people think the whole slow fast count at Starrcade was the biggest fraud in 1997 for WCW.

    Should have expected the whole Sting gets messed over by Hogan legit after cleanly putting over Luger only for Luger to do a quick boring PPV job a week later or the whole Piper cage debacle that was so bad that Hogan worked a babyface formula match with Dallas Page the following night - same bWo non-finish that always happened -- but better than seeing Hogan job to Piper again. We get it - Hogan can't beat Piper. Their last believable match together was Wrestling Classic 1985 and Hogan was winning that one by sleeper prior to the DQ finish so please quit boring me with the selling point that WCW drove into the ground.

    In short, the Havoc promos was gold. The build up was junk. The match was boring. They should have done it once and had Piper either win the title at Starrcade and surrender it - where he can vanish and Hogan can win it back to start a new feud - maybe have Giant win it - and have Hogab feud him like H and Orton in 2004.

    But please enough of Piper already. First one -- great decision -- but it was a drag after the Natch of the Century.

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  13. I was surprised to hear so many people cared about Roddy Piper, at least initially, in WCW. He's not someone who really did it for me, for the most part, anyway, so maybe it's just me, but it was a stretch having to sit through his feud with Goldust, having him a focal point in WCW a year later seemed ridiculous. But I also find him obnoxious so the promos don't make up for that stumbling around punching trying not to hurt his hip.

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  14. So, I'm pretty old by internet standards. I was definitely on IRC when Piper showed up at Havoc, and yes it was a big deal. I remember watching it on scramblevision.

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  15. Hall seems to have his dates mixed up. Piper didn't wrestle Savage until 1998. Maybe he was talking about the Superbrawl match with Hogan or something.

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  16. Yeah Scott must have but that's the story he tells.

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  17. Being 11 years old at the time it didn't feel like a big deal and felt like a huge step back. You would have had to be at least 18 to be old enough to care and they kept dragging on with Piper for awful match after awful match. One of the few times I *didn't* want Hogan to job. Hogan should have decimated Piper at Starrcade.

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  18. There's a 40 minute youtube video detailing the heat between Flair/Piper and the Wolf-Pac. I just assumed the Wolf-Pac were the assholes all along because the internet said so, but it sounds like Piper was being a mark for himself and Flair was his usual bitch-ass self.

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  19. He said Piper didn't want to take the elbow and insisted on the "tape"....didn't Savage hit Piper with something to give Hogan a win over him at one point?

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  20. And then Savage dropped a 120 elbows on him after the fact. Savage was ready for a epic face turn comeback and all of a sudden he joins the nWo. I was a Hogan fan during that time and I couldn't stand Savage joining him after what happened at Hovoc.

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  21. That really made no sense. Crazy face Savage was always over, joining the nWo really made no sense and he didn't really do much other than the DDP feud.

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  22. Hogan wanted an excuse to trash Warrior. Because they didn't trash Piper for it.

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  23. i just watched two days ago. It is awesome. I love Piper but he's always been a mark for himself and was really at this point he should have started doing some jobs and putting some young guys over.

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  24. Superbrawl 1997. Savage cost Piper the match. I guess he meant that.

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  25. Still waiting for Hogan's response to Dana Warrior's request to never talk about Warrior ever again.

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  26. I was 17 when he came back to feud with Hogan. I liked Piper when i was little, but as a late teenager, Pioer came across more as a blathering idiot than a legit threat. The whole ICON deal was about as corny as it got for me back then. In the 80s, when Piper said something, people listened. In 96 Piper was all one liners that were either incoherent or just too weird. He was obviously trying too hard to be cool.

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  27. Yeah, I'm guessing Piper was supposed to be beat by Savage's elbow, which would have been a better moment because I recall the "tape" thing being pretty lame.

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  28. "Vince was dumb enough to never run it on PPV"

    You're obviously forgetting the gem of a PPV called "The Wrestling Classic"

    Anyway, we know Randy Savage left the WWF because Vince had no interest in letting 42 year old Savage wrestle full-time (though Bob Backlund was 45 in 1994 and wrestling full-time). But Piper was only 40 in 1994 (i.e., only 3 years older than Bret Hart) and was certainly a much bigger name than Nash, Michaels, Hart, or Backlund at the time. Piper came back for this spot matches (King of the Ring 93, WrestleMania 12)... so why didn't Vince ever give Piper a try at the top in the early/mid 1990s?

    He was desperate for a star, and Piper was easily the third biggest WWF star of the 1980s after Hogan and Savage.

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  29. Wasn't Piper horrible in 1994?

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  30. Blathering idiot, yes, that about sums it up. I think he thought he was really clever but I thought he was lame. Loud, but lame.

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  31. I was a huge Piper mark when he was in the WWF...BUT, is it just me or did he age something like ten years between WrestleMania XII and Halloween Havoc 1996 or whenever he showed up in WCW later that year? I just couldn't buy him against Hogan at that point.
    And almost as bad was how out of place he was in the middle of the nWo angle. Hall and Nash were, in 1996, the hottest, freshest act wrestling had seen since the 80's boom. Hogan was pretty old when he hitched his wagon to them, sure, but it was part of the biggest heel turn in wrestling up to that point, so I'll look past it. But then a just as old and much more broken down Piper becomes WCW's best hope to defeat the now? I just wasn't buying it. Besides, Piper was a WWF guy through-and-through. If anything he should have been on the nWo's side as a WWF "invader" not WCW's surprise savior.

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  32. Strange how the WWF passed on a Hogan Flair PPV, and WCW jumped all over that too. 2 major money matches that the WWF just decided not to really bother with.

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  33. Oh, King of the Ring 94 and Mania 12 were dogshit. But I think it's hard to count against him because 1) King of the Ring 93 was against Lawler, who isn't exactly a great wrestler and 2) Mania 12 was a wacky gimmick match.

    I'm willing to guess 1994 Piper vs. Hart, Michaels, or Backlund would've produced something watchable.

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  34. I never understood how piper got such a huge status. As far as I saw, outside of WM3 he never really beat anyone and hardly ever wrestled anyway. Was he some kind of draw pre-WWF?

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  35. Piper in WCW always seemed a bit wrong to me, he didn't fit. It did, however, demonstrate that he still possessed some drawing power and Vince possibly missed the boat by not doing anything substantial with him between 1993-96.

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  36. he never beat anyone, but he never really lost either

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  38. Most of the time, they didn't even advertise his appearance ahead of time--Summerslam 92, WM X, WM XI, etc. He'd come out to a huge pop and it was a nice surprise for everyone but it was all before a captive audience. They'd already bought tickets and/or the PPV.

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  39. Yeah, I pointed out below that I think Vince might've missed the boat by not getting more out of Savage and Piper from 1993-1994. It's funny in hindsight because now WWE is full of 40+ wrestlers, and back in the mid-1990s Vince wanted nothing to do with any over 40 wrestler not named Bob Backlund.

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  40. Does anyone have a list of people Piper actually did the job for? I'm talking pin fall, three count.

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  41. Wasn't that the match where Piper beat him clean, then they just randomly mentioned afterwards that it was non-title? That was strange, even by WCW late 90s standards

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  42. Yep, especially for Starrcade. Like sorry guys, but WM 30 was not for the title, so enjoy the Daniel Bryan win, but Randy Orton is still the champ!!

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  43. the only name I can think of during his whole time in the WWF is Bret Hart.

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  44. thought the same thing (and even did a record buyrate with the Hogan/Flair match).

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  45. I think Bret and Snuka. Is all i can think of.

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  46. They did stupid things like that often. Like when they counted "wins" for Sid's streak when he would chokeslam jobbers after the match.

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  47. He even no sold that one in the build to WM 12 talking about Bret Hart:
    "I heard he even beat Roddy Piper once, I don't know, I wasn't there"

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  48. By the time he got to WCW he was beyond washed up and the sight of two old men fighting for the title was just dumb at that point. Let alone arguing over who the ICON was.

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  49. He was fine if used right - say a commissioner (before it became stale) or a guest ref in a heated feud that no one wanted to mess with. But watching him fumble around the ring as an old man was a waste.

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  50. I think he was in no way trying to "no sell" it, he was just joking about it for laughs (which also explains the reactions from Hart and Michaels).

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  51. I know it was joking but underneath i think was a bit.

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  52. I'm still pissed that Flair didn't face Hogan in Wrestlemania VIII. I know everyone says how good the Flair/Savage match was, but I still feel they missed on their biggest payday. It was THE dream match of the 80's hands down.

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  53. You'd of defended it.

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  54. The rematch at SuperBrawl VII did a good buyrate and their third match (Halloween Havoc '97) did a buyrate north of 1.0.

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  55. Naah, I had confidence that the end game of SummerSlam 2013 was for Daniel to somehow, someway end up as champ at WM 30. It was a bumpy road, but we got there!

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  56. Yep, especially after the 1992 Rumble. the bastard actually made me believe that he could somehow outlast Hogan and steal a win.

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  57. "WHAT DO YOU SAY??? WHAT DO YOU SAY?? WHADDAYA SAY???"

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  58. Thank you, you petulant child, you!

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  59. I think that was because Piper inexplicably got away with never doing a job

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  60. I just watched this today. I've been very much enjoying the 96 Nitros (and accompanying PPV), but Piper being treated like a big deal 10 years after his run on top is going to be very troublesome. He was basically a part-timer and didn't work TV matches at all to build his feuds. The problems were numerous and in my opinion, started things along the path of "great undercard, terrible main events" that plagued WCW for the rest of the nWo era. Previously, the main event matches weren't great, but the angle going along with it carried the day. Once Piper showed up, Hogan started acting like more of a coward rather than a cocky heel. He had the entire nWo, Piper had no one (even explicitly saying that he wasn't representing WCW in the HH promo). 16 year old Sirplss didn't buy him as a threat to the belt.

    I know that the Sting angle was the long-term plan (and was excellently executed outside of the end), but 15 months is just too long, even for 1996-1997. I think it would have made more sense to run the same angle but end it at the GAB or Bash at the Beach in 1997. A quick look shows Hogan MIA from the Bash. The Sting angle was RED HOT after Souled Out. By the time Starrcade 97 rolled around, plenty of people had cooled to it, and obviously the match itself was basically the beginning of the end of WCW as a relevant competitor for the WWF.

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  61. Don't you love the smark rage when your wait and see attitude is right? I have no doubt Bryan winning the big one was the plan all along, punk had nothing to do with it. Now cue the crazies to say I'm wrong and attempt to insult me

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  62. He lost to Rick Rude at a house show I was at. It took a ref bump, a Bad News Brown distraction, and a ring bell to the head, but Rude got the pin on him. Cawthon's site also lists a pinfall loss to Adrian Adonis when guest referee Andre the Giant laid across Adonis as he was pinning Piper and counted 3, which is a pretty damned clever fuck finish.

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  63. Blathering works in this instance (it means long winded incoherent speech), the we'd you're looking for is blithering. It essentially means the same thing but it's the proper fit in the context provided.

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  64. Huge star in the Pacific Northwest (not major territories, granted) and a major star in Mid-Atlantic/Crockett. As Vince mentioned, Piper never really lost and the fact that he rarely wrestled on TV actually made him more of a draw. He didn't wrestle a lot, but he was on television in the middle of major angles every week. Kicking Cyndi Laupe, bodyslamming her husband, and attacking various veejays during MTV appearances were pretty big deals, too.

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  65. Rowdy Roddy is one of my all-time favorites, but his WCW run is painful to watch.

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  66. Yeah, that's not true but whatever helps you sleep at night.

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  67. The segment where Piper confronts Bischoff only to find out Easy E is in the nWo was AWESOME when it happened.

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  68. I think you could do a 15 month storyline with Sting, but there's a lot of things that have to be done right to make it work and WCW just didn't do it - looking back, watching the shows, they just scream "making it up as we go along". It feels like they just book a show just to book a show and figure out the rest later - how many times did Sting appear to be against WCW? Only to show he was with WCW? Only to cause doubt as to if he was with WCW? Or how many #1 contender matches were there? Or multi-man matches for vague stipulations? If they had something hotter to fill the time (like Luger, or Savage, getting actual feuds with Hogan over the title) they could have pulled it off but they just had Sting dick around week to week until they had him finally reveal his intentions, which I'm sure they decided on that day because it was what? 10 months before the planned blowoff?

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  69. Piper really was one of the biggest heels going around the territories (and that was key--he moved around and stayed fresh). Even if you don't 100% take his version of events, the truth is he really did pay his dues, raised the craft of being a heat-drawing heel to an artform, and was a huge part of the Rock & Wrestling Connection and the first WrestleMania being the pop culture successes they were. The thing that keeps some from seeing him as a big deal (and I do get that sentiment) is that they never built to that big one-on-one match with Hogan after WM 1, and this sense that he'd been a part-timer and semi-retired ever since WM 3. As terrible as everyone knew it would be going in, WCW doing the feud between the two really did feel like a big deal, and that the WWF had dropped the ball.

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  70. I'm usually highly skeptical of any decisions WWE makes but even I always thought Bryan was getting the title at Mania from the moment SS13 ended. I just wasn't sure that it'd go on last.

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  71. I watched it yesterday. And I saw it live in Florence back in 96. The only Nitro I ever went to.

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  72. Remember Piper gathered those goons together to fight the NWO and had these strange tough man challenges in the ring to decide who made it? I can't recall a longer segment of complete silence during the Monday Night Wars.

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  73. And in theory, it wasn't a horrible idea. If they had a big jump ready to be Piper's last try out? Or some young guy they were ready to Reigns?

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  74. CruelConnectionNumber2September 2, 2014 at 4:38 PM

    Funny you say that as the future LUTHER Reigns was in that segment.

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  75. CruelConnectionNumber2September 2, 2014 at 4:39 PM

    "Now that everybody KNOWS... who's working for WHO..." = $$$$

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  76. CruelConnectionNumber2September 2, 2014 at 4:40 PM

    Piper had an ECW style match at Mania that year and kicked ass. The dynamic of babyface Piper and heel Hogan was super fresh to me.

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  77. I thought the whole Sting angle was great, right until the end and the match with Hogan. Then again, when the blow off is ruined, sort of ruins the whole angle. The patience they showed with it though was excellent. Now, they'd start and finish the angle during the course of one raw.

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  78. I agree, one of the only good swerves WCW ever pulled off. Didn't Piper call Bischoff a piece of shit on live TV during that segment?

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  79. Wise & Wicked Gobbly goober
    an hour ago
    Proofreading is a lost art, especially here. Every single article has a typo, and most of the "news" reports do as well. It's awful on Scott Keith's blog. Here is supposedly one of the best, most entertaining wrestling writers and all he can bring on board to write articles and review events are complete, paint-by-numbers morons who would rather hold their Johnson and wait for people to positively reply than come off as semi-professional.

    Sorry, I had to vent about that and your comment seemed like the perfect place. Plus, I'd probably get banned for speaking my mind on his actual blog.
    0 Reply

    We're famous!

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  80. Yep. It was left in in the Network's version.

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  81. CruelConnectionNumber2September 2, 2014 at 4:42 PM

    Mania 12 match was awesome.

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  82. The Backlot Brawl was mildly entertaining. "Kicked ass" and "ECW style" is going a bit far.

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  83. CruelConnectionNumber2September 2, 2014 at 4:45 PM

    Uh... yeah, it was only the biggest purchased match in WCW HISTORY. It's th Hulk/Andre of WCW. It was still red hot in December 1997, EVERY EVERY EVERY bar around me had it on.

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  84. CruelConnectionNumber2September 2, 2014 at 4:46 PM

    Tranny clothing, hit with car, murder-case humor, etc. For March 1996 this was big-time stuff. The company didn't get as edgy as that for another 9+ months.

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  85. I lost interest in Sting when the nWo attacked him in 1997 and the following week the announcers said Sting suffered a concussion. It was like, 'the nWo destroy everybody every week and Sting is the one that gets a concussion?!?!?'

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  86. I agree, but that Wyatt detour was discouraging to say the least.

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  87. Did Piper once do an interview segment on Nitro where he literally did a stand up comedy routine making old jokes about Ric Flair? I have vague memories of this debacle.

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  88. Piper was one of THE reasons that I got into wrestling at all. Seeing him and Hogan on MTV brought a whole new generation of viewers. He was the guy I LOVED to hate, a racist bully that was also funny as Hell.

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