Chico Torres

I wholeheartedly reject and condemn the modern era which coincidentally began as soon as Todd Pettengill left the WWF.

The real Nature Boy Buddy Landel showed up in the WWF in late 1995, had a few matches and then sadly slipped on some ice and he was done. While watching some WWF tv from 1988 recently, I was surprised to see old Memphis psychopath Jos Leduc (of cutting his arm with an axe fame) showing up as The Headbanger. He couldn’t have lasted long. Someone who was discussed recently on here, when the Truth Commission showed up in 1997 one of the original members was Tank aka Mantaur, I assume Vince saw him and got rid of him quickly since he looked comically short and round next to the others. In 1993 I was watching Worldwide and Scott Norton appeared and he looked awesome and was supposed to face Sting at Slamboree but he left very quickly and was replaced by the equally short lived Prisoner (aka our Nailz). Scott Armstrong in the WWF in 1992 as Lance Cassidy the signing cowboy.

The most WCW of all WCW shows, Worldwide, turned in to a recap show for the last month of its existence and the final original match on there featured….The Harris Brothers But in true Worldwide fashion, the show lived in and its final broadcast was technically after WCW was sold and died so it remained the last gasp of the greatest promotion that ever was, and poetically the last match shown was the Wargames from Fall Brawl 1994 which was also fittingly the last gasp of WCW as a southern territory after Hogan had come in, featuring territory royalty like The Rhodes’, Terry Funk, Arn Anderson, Bunkhouse Buck, Colonel Parker, Bunkhouse Buck and the Nasty Boys in the classic double cage. Intentional or not it was the right way to go. “And this wraps up WCW Worldwide. Not just for this week, but forever and a day. WCW gone, Worldwide gone. We want to thank you for joining us each and every week here on WCW Worldwide. What a great crew we’ve had, it’s been a lot of fun taping these show, and you can see we have a really good time. For Mike Tenay, I’m Scott Hudson, we’ll see you down the road somewhere else.”

Good way to watch late stage WCW is to go with the C and D shows. Saturday Night when it was being booked by Jimmy Hart as a shadow Memphis-like territory within WCW with Hail as his monster heel, storylines and characters from the green rookies and veterans like Robert Gibson, Tommy Rogers and Hacksaw in the mix. And for the D shows like Worldwide it’s just random meaningless but fun matches with the infinite roster of luchadors, Japanese wrestlers, British wrestlers and random others like The Bezerker, Barry Darsow in many gimmicks, the Beverley Brothers and neat little feuds like Chris Adams super kick vs Glacier’s cryonic kick, and various Armstrongs vs the likes of Disorderly Conduct. Outside of mandatory Nitro and Thunder recaps they basically exist in their own universe.

Years ago this was speculated about a lot, when Maxx Payne/Man Mountain Rock was in the WWF in 1995 he recorded his fellow New Generation superstars getting fucked up on the road and then WWF shut it down and he disappeared but this teaser suggests the footage may soon be released?

Newly discovered mid south is always great. The Dream, The Cowboy and the Doctor teaming up to get rid of the evil Russians. Plus Sting and Warrior against the Freebirds, Terry Taylor vs Buzz Sawyer, Dibiase vs Michael Hayes and more. Yes they often repeat things on the Vault but this really is an unseen gem.

Arguably (but quite obviously) the peak of wrestling, prime Dangerous Alliance against the top babyfaces in 1992 in a multi-man match on WCW Worldwide. Rude at the height of his powers along with the A team of Arn and Bobby against The Stinger and Steiners. Tony and Jesse on commentary. Perfection.