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So I've worked for Bigfoot the monster truck off and on for the last several years. We were the ones that did the famous Hogan-Giant "monster truck wrestling" match at Halloween Havoc. We also had various WCW themed trucks around this time. Anyways, I was reading through Bischoff's book recently, and he actually talks about it. He said something about after he saw what we were charging him, he refused to work with us and said we were unreasonable or some poo poo. I asked the guys in the shop about it today, and they said the "wrestletruck" bullshit was very expensive and major pain in the rear end to do. First off, countless transmissions were melted just for that tiny segment to be filmed. Hydraulic cylinders were mounted to the trucks chassis. A driver would hit a switch to toggle the cylinder, which would lift the truck's front off the ground slightly, therefore letting the other truck have more traction to push it. It was a colossal pain in the rear end and was very expensive to do. Bischoff sounded like a prick. Figured you guys would find it interesting.
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Aug 17, 2011 22:04
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I really hate myself for not watching WCW back in the day. I was a wrestling fan forever, but I stopped watching in 1996 as a 12 year old, after I watched the first In Your House "Buried Alive", I thought that was the point that wrestling became way too loving stupid for my liking). While Buried Alive was my "gently caress this" point, the WWF had been so terrible for so long that I'm surprised I even watched up to that. I was quite the mark back then, so when the "fake" Diesel and Razor Ramon debuted, I was pissed, and since I didn't watch WCW I had no clue that those guys were mocking Hall & Nash. I thought it was just a lovely WWF bait and switch. I returned to watching WWF in December 99, after the Wrestlemania 2000 game came out, and proceeded to watch Nitro every night for an hour before RAW came on. WCW was a joke by that point, though. At the time, we had one of those "scrambled" satellite cards where we got all PPV for free, so I routinely watched all the WCW PPVs in 2000/01 for comedic value. They were so loving bad near the end that there was no way that lovely company could continue. I really hate that I missed the Monday Night Wars (by late 99 it wasn't a war anymore), as I most certainly would've LOVED WCW during it's heyday, as it was the answer to everything I hated about WWF. I remember that back in middle school, NWO shirts were loving EVERYWHERE, yet I still wouldn't give it a shot, because WWF killed my interest in wrestling that much:( I should've listened to my friends who said to give it one more shot.
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Aug 22, 2011 15:17
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Did Too Cool ever hold the belts? Man, they were over as gently caress for a time. The worm was almost on the level as the people's elbow in terms of audience reaction, which is crazy looking back.
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Jan 21, 2012 06:04
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Since this thread is sort of a generic 90s/Monday night wars type of thing.....I've long heard that Austin became very "hoganesque" later in his career. I know the jj thing was just talked about, but are there any other famous Austin stories like that?
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Jan 23, 2012 05:08
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The Austin stuff is very interesting. I don't blame the guy one bit that he was smarter than shithead bookers. Wasn't the original idea at WM 18 to be Austin vs. Hogan in the Icon vs. Icon, but both guys basically refused to job to the other? I loved the poo poo out of Rock/Hogan, but had it been Austin/Hogan instead (knowing they hate each other), I'm sure the crowd would've still turned on Austin (although it wasn't so much they turned on Rock, they just LOVED Hogan). That would have really pissed him off, methinks. You have to hand it to HHH. HBK was a total shithead back in the day, but he at least acknowledges he was and has changed. Hunter has always been a huge rear end in a top hat, and seems to always take pride in the fact. He really is the son that Vince never had.
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Jan 23, 2012 20:03
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I've read drat near all the books from the big stars, and I think Bret's book is BY FAR the best. I don't think anything is close really. The book is hilarious, gut wrenchingly sad, and extremely insightful. The highlight for me was finding out that Bulldog smoked crack before the famous summerslam match, and bret had to carry him.
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Jan 25, 2012 22:03
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ColeM posted:Yeah he talks a lot about the drug usage in the industry during his entire career. Lots of sad stories and some not surprising. Did you know that 3 out of 5 members of the Hart Foundation in 1997 were massive drug addicts? But he does talk a lot about his drug usage too so its not entirely one sided. Yeah he was extremely open about doing steroids. He basically picked drinking beer and loving chicks as his drug of choice after the shows, whereas all his buddies would pound beers and do pain killers/coke/anything else that was around. Outside of the aforementioned "Bulldog smokes rocks" story, something I found the most surprising was that he didn't make Hogan out to be a terrible person per se....but just as an extremely selfish dick. Hulk would still dress with the boys, and did lots of charity work at least. The Ultimate Warrior, though.....man that guy sounds like a piece of trash. Telling Make-A-Wish kids to gently caress off is pretty awful. He sounded like he was an awful human being. It's not surprising that to this day he's pretty much universally hated by everyone in the industry.
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Jan 25, 2012 23:31
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Echoing what everyone else said, we are just focusing on some of the silly poo poo. It's the best wrestling book ever written. Bringing it back to this thread, it's entirely depressing to read EVERYTHING involving WCW in this book. It's a good thing that Bret has a nice sense of humor, because the ending of this book is basically black as can be (starting right when he leaves WCW). I remember that the end of the book was really hard to get through, because it was soul crushingly sad. So happy to hear that Bret is on good terms with everyone now. Did he ever add anything else to the ending of book - post WWE return? It's been awhile since I've read it, but wasn't it Bret's idea to "get some juice" for the famous WM13 Austin-Hart match, and Vince got super pissed? It's really funny how that famous shot of Austin bleeding out in the Sharpshooter is one of (if not THE) most iconic shots in WWE history.
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Jan 30, 2012 17:46
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The whole ending of that angle really is one of the biggest WTF!? moments, considering how PERFECT of a build up it was. Even Sting's intro that night was underwhelming IMO. He's been loving flying down into the ring dramatically for a year.....and his intro is that he just basically walks out to the ring, hardly any pyro or anything. If there EVER a time for some crazy Undertaker like entrance, THAT was the time.
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Feb 13, 2012 18:43
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While everyone is doing this "What if..." stuff, in Bischoff's book (i think it was his) he said that "the third man" was going to be Sting if Hogan refused the idea at the last minute. Sting was even backstage ready to do the run in, if need be. This isn't too far fetched considering how Hogan was terribly nervous about what this heel turn could do to his character. Hell, you can even see how he looks nervous when he's heading down to the ring. Now that is a massive What If?
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Feb 14, 2012 17:51
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Bocc Kob posted:Crow Hogan could have collapsed WCW years ahead of time. I've literally been loling at this. The thought of Hogan dropping from the ceiling and stalking someone from the shadows is loving hilarious.
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Feb 14, 2012 17:57
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bobkatt013 posted:So he was going to turn in the middle of the match? He was on Team WCW. Whoops my bad on that, it was right before the match where Sting had agreed to it if Hogan didn't, but Hogan wound up doing it. EDIT - gently caress, it's been about a year since I read Bischoff's book. It went down like that somehow. I just remember him saying that Sting was ready to be the third man if Hogan wouldn't do it. ColonelJohnMatrix fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Feb 14, 2012 |
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Feb 14, 2012 17:58
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Skinty McEdger posted:The back up plan was if Hogan wouldn't do the spot that Sting would've been taken out of the match the same way that Luger was (in the spot that teased a Luger turn)and then turn at the end of the match. Something amusing to note is that the thinking was that they couldn't turn Luger because he had turned so many times it would've been meaningless, but at the same time because everyone expected him to turn it made for a great misdirection spot. Ah, thanks for the clarification. I thought I remembered Bischoff saying that he had plan in case Hogan got cold feet during the match.
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Feb 14, 2012 19:55
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Astro7x posted:Nothing changed about his character though other than that he wore black. He was the same ole Hulk Hogan, saying the same catch phrases and saying the same one liners. Those promos remind of me of "Millionare's Club" Hardcore Hogan, where he kept trying to setup tables to put people through, but (accidentally) kept breaking them while trying to correctly unfold them. It was loving hilarious.
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Feb 14, 2012 22:46
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Those promos are hilarious. To change it up a bit, the first half of this video is Sting's promo for Starrcade 97, and it's loving awesome! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2TsrM_niOw
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Feb 15, 2012 16:47
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I started watching wrestling again in December '99 (my first event back was Armageddon, where Miss Kitty showed her tits), so my normal Monday night viewing habit was watch 1 hour of nitro, followed by just Raw the rest of the way. My only WCW exposure (after hearing for years how awesome it was) was during the death run of 2000 to 2001. It was pretty loving terrible.
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Feb 17, 2012 16:16
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I work for Bigfoot and I've watched much of that stuff with dusty. He isn't incomprehensible, he is just stupid about monster trucks. Can't blame him for that. He normally wouldn't talk much on that show.
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Feb 26, 2012 15:13
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I have nothing to add to this thread at the moment but I just wanted to say that nothing makes me happier than seeing new posts here. Reading about WCW is so loving entertaining, and I miss it terribly. Long live the Monday Night Wars.
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Jun 19, 2012 18:14
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Wojtek posted:You should probably start watching it as it's been a lot better than WWE lately. I've heard this lately. What exactly do you mean by better? I tried watching TNA around Jan or Feb, and was confused by various convoluted storylines. I finally turned it off after seeing Sting repeatedly falling down while walking down the aisle (I found out later it was his Joker gimmick). Conversely, I happened to stumble across the ROH tv show a few weeks ago during the day, and while it looked like the production was straight out of high school A/V, the action in the ring was loving AWESOME. If anything, the ROH stuff reminded me of old WCW. The action was very physical with a more "real" style, and the production was poo poo.
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Jun 20, 2012 03:43
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left.
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So what happened with Macho Man and Vince? Yes, I've heard the Stephanie rumor, but with El Gallinero Gros snapping like that, I'm assuming it's been debunked?
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Jun 20, 2012 19:56
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In RE: to the WWE Network stuff, Vince mentioned on a conference call today that a very in depth series is in the works to comprehensively cover the Monday Night Wars. (his quote was something like that). I'd love to see that, even if it will surely be pro-WWE.
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Aug 2, 2012 20:34
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That wayback machine is awesome. It's so weird reading through those old reports.
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Aug 16, 2012 20:36
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I posted it somewhere else in this thread but in RE: to the monster truck thing, I worked for Bigfoot for a long time (the monster truck team that built and ran this stunt). Bringing up this stunt conjures up bad memories for everyone involved. The stunt was nearly impossible to pull off because the trucks constantly would melt transmissions and that shoot took forever. Monster trucks are hard enough to keep running with no other forces....being forced ram another monster truck is an insane amount of stress on the already stressed drivetrain. That's why the roof top was wet. No way in hell would this have ever worked if the trucks had ample traction. Both trucks had braces built that welded them together as well as hydraulic ram rods that would "lift" the front end off the ground slightly to make one truck lose traction (thereby letting the other truck push it). I believe 7 or 8 transmissions (takes 20-30 mins to switch one out) were melted during this shoot and all the takes were spliced together. The guys in the shop said WCW (Bischoff) was insanely hard to work with were not understanding of the engineering difficulty at all. From what they describe, Hogan and Giant were cool but the production dudes were jackoffs. When I read Bischoff's book last year I saw he actually mentioned how much of a pain in the rear end a certain monster truck team was to work with (he kept it unnamed). The guys got a laugh out of that when I showed it to them. EDIT - Here is the Macho Man truck was that was built but never ran because the deal fell through! A Bret Hart body was also being developed. 
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Jan 8, 2013 15:31
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triplexpac posted:Only if we duel with monster trucks I know some guys that could help you with this.
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Jan 8, 2013 16:12
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Another worthless fact about the Hulk Hogan monster truck...the design of the body w/ muscular (roided) arms was originally for a deal with American Gladiators.
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Jan 8, 2013 20:02
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I started to post about this in the Rumble thread but I figure it's correct to put it here.... Back in 96 I found the WWF to be completely boring and filled with cartoonish garbage and was slowly drifting from wrestling thinking I had just outgrown it. Keep in mind that I had never watched WCW and had always thought it was some lovely minor league...i.e. I had no loving clue that Razor Ramon and Diesel went to the WCW. I just knew that two guys I had liked were no longer on TV. When Jim Ross announced they were returning I got pumped....only to be loving pissed at the fakes. This soured me on the product even more. I had no clue they were mocking WCW, I just thought they were trying to fool people into thinking they were real for some reason! (I was 12 at the time). The final nail in the coffin (pun intended) for me was the Buried Alive Match between Mankind and Undertaker the month after the fakes debuted. Immediately after that match I said I was done with this lame poo poo and didn't watch again until ALL my friends got me back into it in December 1999. Was there any other little marks confused as hell by the "fake" Razor and Diesel when they debuted? Again, I had no clue about anything in WCW and just felt like WWF was trying to rip me off. Too bad I didn't know of WCW at the time otherwise I would've surely gotten caught up in the NWO. The NWO was basically against everything I was sick of in WWF at the time and it's no wonder they started murdering them in the ratings.
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Jan 8, 2013 23:15
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The American Dream posted:Wasn't the hat from the Macho Man truck found in a warehouse somewhere? I think I saw a picture once. I believe so. The rest of the truck is really just a basic Ford truck with nutty paint and a few modifications to the cab.
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Jan 9, 2013 19:46
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Oatgan posted:Do you have any insight into the show Monster Wars and if so who can we send a petition to for a DVD release/new season? What do you want to know? Every episode is on youtube and it was extremely short lived (for obvious reasons). They tried to tap into the KIDS LOVE PROWRESTLING SO THEY'LL LOVE THIS! and it failed. The "wrestletrucks" would've fit in great. The comedy of macho man cutting a promo after his truck won a race would live on forever as youtube gold. I actually have a thread in AI about my time in the monster truck industry, go ahead and ask about it there so I don't derail this - http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3482958
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Jan 9, 2013 20:13
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I love that this thread is on the brink of breaking out into a pre-2000 internet war of WCW WAS BETTER, WWF SUCKS rear end! In RE: to the wrestling sets - I generally agree that WWF just looked better....except for Halloween Havoc. I always thought that looked cool as hell and WWE should've brought that into the PPV fold after the purchase. Question about Souled Out since I didn't watch WCW then - when it was meant to be a separate brand what did this actually entail? Did the NWO members just wrestle other NWO members? That's what it sounds like when they talk about wanting to split the brand and run their own shows.
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Jan 17, 2013 23:26
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New back issue from December 1995 is out and I loved this story -Wrestling Observer posted:The show opened with one of the weirdest interviews probably in wrestling history. Hulk Hogan, Sting and Savage came out. First Hogan dumped his black wrestling attire in a burning garbage can. He then went off on a tangent about "rag sheets" which is a term those in the business unfamiliar with how the real world operates refer to newsletters such as this (as if this newsletter should be put in a grouping with anything else). Hogan threw a tantrum about a report that said The Giant was going to win the Battle Royal (which couldn't have even come from here because the last thing we wrote on the subject was that Sting or Savage were the best bets to win) and how they were wrong, which pretty well tipped everyone off that the Giant wasn't going to win. He also said it was reported Savage wouldn't be in the show because of an arm injury (it had been known for weeks here that Savage was going to eschew surgery and work the Battle Royal). He then said that the Savage arm injury was a total swerve on everyone including the wrestlers in the dressing room and that Savage's arm was fine (Savage had legitimately torn his tricep and his left arm was barely half the size of the right). Even weirder was even if the injury wasn't real, the major storyline of the show is that Savage had an arm injury and the announcers never acknowledged Hogan's saying Savage's arm was fine. He then threw the "rag sheet" in the same burning garbage can saying "Observe this," and said that it was a dinosaur and that the internet is the real story. I suspect as his popularity and drawing power continues to drop he'll get even more bitter. Since it appeared to be directed at me, I took it as a tremendous compliment.
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Jan 30, 2013 17:27
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TealShark posted:It's production music; you pay a yearly fee to a music house and can use anything from their library in your work. I have boxes full of production music CDs next to my desk at work and all of it wreaks of something 1990s WCW would use. Yep, the old place I worked that did dvd editing had loads of that poo poo. It was amazing how some of it was so recognizable due to being used in old wrestling themes, commercials, and various other sporting events.
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Feb 3, 2013 05:20
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Strenuous Manflurry posted:Youtube links are okay so add it! Yes please do.
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Feb 13, 2013 22:02
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That match is loving hilarious. People were making GBS threads on Hogan HARD. I love how everyone boos after he no sells Arn's Spinebuster (and a beauty of a spinebuster at that) and gets the pin. That promo is great because it's obvious none of the wrestlers knows what the hell is going on.
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Feb 14, 2013 02:35
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Toffile posted:It was even better because they did a post show analysis where Bischoff pointed out how everyone hosed it up. Is this the time that Pillman infamously grabs Heenan even though he was "off limits" due to his bad neck, which prompts Heenan to exclaim (uncensored on live tv) "WHAT THE gently caress ARE YOU DOING?!" edit - wikipedia cleared it up for me. Bobby Heenan's Wikipedia posted:At one notable Clash of the Champions event broadcast live on TBS on January 23, 1996, Heenan screamed, "What the gently caress are you doing?" when Brian Pillman grabbed him by his neck, which he had surgery on not too long before, during Pillman's "loose cannon" gimmick. Heenan returned to the air later and apologized for his audible cursing on air. According to Heenan, Pillman apologized to him for the incident backstage, citing he did not know of Heenan's history of neck problems beforehand, and more specifically that Heenan had been labeled "no-touch" by management because of his injuries.
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Feb 15, 2013 00:15
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Reading through these bleak Observers of the week (up to mid December 1995) is pretty crazy knowing that the incredibly dark times are about to be followed by the greatest boom period in the history of the business. Being a guy who never watched WCW during this time, watching these nitros on youtube where Hogan is getting mercilessly boo'ed around this time period really makes it far less "revolutionary" that Hogan went heel (as it's always been sort of implied). It sounds like the guy really had no choice at this point as everyone hated his guts.
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Feb 15, 2013 16:23
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New Observer is up from late December 1995. I thought this quote was a bit interesting. For those that didn't know, WCW was planning on taping 2 Nitros at an event (one live, and one in the can for next week) to save production costs. It mentions thisWrestling Observer posted posted:WCW has reconsidered the original decision to tape Nitros bi-weekly starting the New Year. The belief at least from WCW is that Titan is on its last legs and they want to keep up the full court press so they'll be going live at least through April. Nitro dates for the New Year are 1/8 in Charleston, SC, 1/15 in Miami, 1/22 in Las Vegas, 1/29 in Canton, OH, 2/5 in Lakeland, FL, 2/12 in the Tampa area, 2/19 in Salisbury, MD and 2/26 in Cleveland. Crazy that this isn't even the low point for WWF as ratings were fairly equal. I'm very interested to hear what was going on at WWF around the time the NWO caught fire and WCW started beating the poo poo out of them. I also found this quote funny since the thought of Vince "chatting" with fans and being an rear end in a top hat is hilarious. Wrestling Observer posted posted:Vince McMahon was online after the 12/11 Raw. He was less of a smart-rear end this time although many people were complaining that he was dodging all the hard questions.
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Feb 20, 2013 15:59
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Rodney the Piper posted:Probably went better than this one. That was a great read. Vince is a lunatic!
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Feb 20, 2013 16:45
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I can't wait to see the Observers when the NWO angle kicks off. For you all that know, did business almost immediately pick up (in turns of tv ratings and live gates) when the angle started (when Hall showed up)? I'm going to guess that while it caused interest, the business got real hot after the "official" dubbing of the NWO at Bash at the Beach.
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Mar 13, 2013 14:40
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That Pillman story is extremely fascinating and depressing. I did get a chuckle out of Joey Styles being disgusted at the "Loose Cannon" angle after Pillman took a poo poo on a living room floor.
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Mar 15, 2013 17:13
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The American Dream posted:I know Bret said that bulldog wrestled super hosed up sometimes Yes, as was noted in his book the Bulldog had to be carried in the famous Summerslam main event IC bout because he had been up the day/night before SMOKING CRACK!
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Mar 20, 2013 14:22
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