C (or D) Show Appreciation

[HarmonicGenerator]

I stuck Superstars on this past weekend, and though it wasn't the best episode I've seen (Kofi Kingston vs. Michael McGillicutty, who looks more like his dad each time I see him, and The Usos vs. Primo & Epico) it reminded me how much I used to LOVE watching the non-flagship WWE programmes.

 

SmackDown I would watch most weeks, because it was on Sky One, but I have only very rarely watched full episodes of RAW. These shows - like Metal, Heat, Superstars and the like - would very handily condense the happenings down to their essence, so you could keep up with the main storylines without having to put up with any of the shitty bits around it - particularly in the Attitude Era where, quite frankly, I'd have been embarrassed if anyone had walked in during an episode of RAW.

 

My first C Show love was for this gem of a Sky One weekend:

 

 

FUCK yes. From 2000 until 2002 I loved Metal. In fact, one of my main concerns about the brand split in 2002 was what would happen to Metal. You only got the lower-lower-undercard wrestlers as regulars on Metal, guys who would rarely, if ever, get on RAW or SmackDown, but amongst highlights from those shows, you'd get some great little matches (often commentated on by a Dr Tom Prichard or a Michael Hayes) with the likes of...

 

 

Essa Rios!

 

 

Dean Malenko! (In fact, I'm fairly sure the majority of Malenko's WWE matches happened on Metal)

 

 

Crash! (I'm pretty certain I recall him having a gimmick on Metal that never made it to the main shows where he was afraid of heights. He'd go to the top rope for a move, have a look, think nah, this is too high, and climb down to the middle rope. He'd do it again, and go down to the bottom rope and hit an elbow from there. Crash was great.)

 

Actually, I'm sensing a theme here. Basically, if you were a light heavyweight in 2000 WWE, you were probably going to be on Metal a lot of the time. Jerry Lynn was on loads as well. Mind, so were Just Joe, K-Kwik and a post-Brood Gangrel, and they were heavyweights (just about in Kwik's case).

 

Gangrel - now there was a reason for me to watch Metal, every week, just in case I'd get to see

.

 

And jobbers! You'd get a proper recurring cast of enhancement guys on Metal - Low Ki was on loads, as was Bobby Roode. I think those two were on as frequently as the proper roster members some months. Arch Kincaid, he was another one, and a pre-ROH John Walters as well. Oh, and Julio Dinero back when he called himself Julio Fantastico.

 

Anyway, I may be in a vast minority, and if I watched an episode now I dare say I'd be disappointed, but if all I watched of WWE in a week was Metal, I'd have been okay in 2000.

 

But I didn't have to be just okay, because at the tail end of the year, Channel 4 got hold of this gem:

 

 

Sunday Night Heat that was usually on on a Sunday afternoon!

 

Here we got to see all three Hollys together - Hardcore, Crash and Molly. Most of Haku's 2001 run took place on Heat, and he was fucking brilliant, an absolute monster. Real shame he never got on the WrestleMania X-Seven card with Rikishi.

 

The real highlight of Channel 4 Heat, however, were these two:

 

 

I am never forget the day I first saw their 'EVIL! INDEED.' routine, nor when they took on APA, got destroyed in seconds, pinned, but got back up and challenged them to a rematch, only for the same thing to happen two more times. And the same thing with the Brothers of Destruction.

 

It was always an Event when an uppercarder, or even the likes of Edge & Christian, turned up on Heat. Made you feel like you were watching an extra-special episode.

 

But then the brand split happened, and we got a RAW under-show, and a SmackDown one. RAW kept Heat, and SmackDown got this

 

 

And I'd watch both of them every week. Even if I'd had Sky Sports, I'd have probably picked Heat over RAW, and Velocity was a little like 2002/3 SmackDown in miniature, with three or four matches (at least one of them a cracker) per week.

 

Even after they became web shows, I kept watching. Heat hit an absolute highpoint with this guy at the helm

 

 

Anyone else remember Stevie and Victoria's Stevie Night Heat? It was superb. He came up in discussion in another thread recently, and I think the consensus was that he was much underrated.

 

Anyway, much like Metal and old Heat, new Heat showed you plenty from the RAW guys who struggled to get onto the main show. D'Lo Brown, Christopher Nowinski, Stevie as I mentioned - not all of them great, but all allowed to show off a bit more than you'd see from them if they ever got on RAW. With its mix of competitive matches between two established wrestlers and squashes (with many of the same enhancement faces as the Metal era), plus the highlights of RAW, it was exactly the kind of wrestling show I could happily sit down and watch for an hour.

 

Velocity, meanwhile, just hosted a load of cracking matches. Benoit, Regal, London and Kendrick, Kazarian's entire WWE run, loads of Funaki, Hurricane, Tajiri, John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan back when he was Bryan Danielson... in-ring, it was probably the most consistent WWE show of the mid-2000s.

 

Then ECW came along, but that got its own thread not that long back, so I'll skip ahead to the current day.

 

 

Yeah, okay, you get some rubbish on Superstars - there are a fair few matches I don't anybody is that fussed about seeing, not that the above is an example, nor that I seem to have developed an irrational dislike for Jinder Mahal. And it does already have its own appreciation thread, but it's worth talking about it again here. Superstars is a great hour of WWE TV.

 

Just like the weekends-on-Sky-One shows in years past, Superstars gives you the lower card you don't usually get to see, having proper matches that are usually decent (and sometimes absolutely fantastic obligatory Chris Masters vs. Drew McIntyre mention) and then all the essential bits of RAW and/or SmackDown, without the shit filler bits. It's an easy watch, and I like it when I catch it. Just like with Heat and with Metal, I'd probably go for Superstars over RAW.

 

Have I gone a bit wrong in the head, or do others share my love of the C/D/Z shows? Post your memories, etc!

[PowerButchi]

WCW C and D show piss all over WWF/E ones from a great height. Villano IV vs Bobby Eaton and shit like that? All day. All fucking day better. If I'm watching wrestling it's normally an episode of Prime featuring a MOO match or WCW Pro from 1991.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Even during the bad times WCW's C shows were of the highest order. WCW's C show in 1999/2000 was actually better than Nitro and Thunder. If Jimmy Hart wasn't such a nice guy/push over he'd have been a great booker for WWE or TNA. He knew how to pace and structure a card perfectly. He even put together a cracking card for WrestleXpress before he found out he was doing nothing more than writing names on a format sheet and some knobber wasn't booking the wrestlers.

[PowerButchi]

Yeah, that little world in which Saturday Night lived in late '99-2000 was tremendous. Using the TV title as their own title on Duggan and having him defend against people like Regal and Robert Gibson was great fun (SATURDAY NIGHT IS MY NIGHT!). Also, stuff like Mark Jindrak in a basketball gimmick, Fidel Sierra turning up and all these great self contained angles like The Armstrongs vs First Family and stuff like that.

[Forrest]

WorldWide and Saturday Night are probably my favourite shows ever. They were a goldmine of really weird nonsense like Meng vs. Jerry Flynn that is seemingly picked out of a hat and works very well. It also gave us an excuse (like we needed one) to see the Villanos, Damien and Ciclope, Silver King, El Dandy, Lizmark Jr., Super Calo and Hector Garza even more.

 

I would much rather watch Glacier vs. Van Hammer or Wrath vs. Jim Neidhart from Worldwide than anything on Raw or Smackdown absolutely.

[ninevisions]

WCW:Pro, the only time in WCW when you ever got to see guys like Kurasawa, Chip Minton, Chris Adams, RoadBlock and Damon Striker!

[Callum1993]

I can remember watching HEAT on a Sunday Afternoon in hospital when I broke my arm in '99. Superstars were putting on some great matches a year or 2 ago like Masters vs Mcintyre, Kidd vs Barretta and Hawkins vs Barretta. Not forgetting the 6 man tag of Kidd, Gabriel and Slater vs Barretta and The Usos.

[garynysmon]

Not sure if it can be classed as a C show in the proper sense of the word, but WWF Mania was always my 'can't miss' show of the week.

 

How on earth did you guys manage to catch WCW Pro? Tape trading? I don't recall that even being on DSF back in the day.

[PowerButchi]

There's always DVD sets somewhere online, also a while back someone put loads on Youtube so I ripped them off there.

[Reznor]

The WCW shows did seem great, but not seeing them at the time puts you at a loss, no matter how fun they are browsing through youtube and the like today. That wcwmainevent1991 channel that was around for a while was a treat especially, it;s a shame it seems to be no more.

 

I grew up on WWF syndicate/recap shows and I just loved the hell out of Superstars, Challenge and Mania in the first half of the 00s. Shotgun was good at first too.

 

I always watched it, but my memories of things come 1999 were that Shotgun/Metal had become a bit crap really. Maybe that's because I pretty much hated that year in general. I remember during the summer of '99 on Metal there was a pretty lively undercard tag scene with the Hardy and Edge & Christian facing loads of different teams like Too Much, Mideon/Viscera, Goldust/Meanie, Henry/DLo, Albert/Droz etc, but other than those, there wasn't much that was memorable.

 

On the other hand, Heat on Ch4, was ace. Loads of fun 5 minute matches, the stars making appearances now and again, angle development and PPV build, backstage skits/mini-storylines, and they often had decent little features on WWF stars in the outside world, whether working on side projects, charity work etc. It was just always a really entertaining hour, helped by the fact the roster was pretty huge and great, with the remnants of the attitude stars added to all the athleticism and talent that the guys who came in late 99/early 2000 brought.

 

I don't know if this was just my telly and how it picked up sky compared to terrestrial tv, but heat on Ch4 always seemed so much more colourful and livelier than Metal/Shotgun on Sky also. The former benefitted from good graphics, presentation etc and felt more vibrant compared to the dullness of Metal.

[Vamp]

I tend to think these kinda shows capture my idea of what wrestling should be perfectly. There tended to be sillier gimmicks, everything was kept short, there'd be variety, you'd get glimspes of the big stars that you'd then want to see on PPV because it'd be really special and it was all over in an hour. If somebody did shows like this but with a little bit more story they'd be perfect. I won't be popular for saying this but I was disappointed when TNA went to two hours. If they wanted to be a true alternative one hour was the way to do it, but I digress.

 

Wrestling's way too over indulgent. It wants way too much of my time. So does CMLL really but I tolerate that by dipping into the matches that interest me and at least they splits matches into three sections or gives me time limit matches (which there aren't enough of).That's not to say I'm fond of spot fests either, I'm definately no fan of working twenty minute matches in five, and you never really got mcu hof that on C or D shows, because matches would be kept pretty sensible, perfect. Nor to say that I don't like watching three hour big shows or long matches, but three hour (two if I'm honest) TV shows and so forth, meh.

[DCW]

We didn't get Sky til mid 2001 so the only WWF shows I could actually watch were Heat on C4 on and Superstars and Metal on Sky One.Smackdown was on Sky One on Saturday mornings also, but my da liked to watch Football Italia and the BBC football show after,so I never got to watch it much.Used to watch Livewire too,which had a cracking little intro featuring everyone's catchphrase at the time iirc.

 

Never really watched Afterburn or Bottom Line cos that Marc LLoyd fella who hosted them annoyed me tremendously.Velocity was always good fun,especially when The Cat was on commentary.

[Loki]

I loved Heat onC4, as I've said many times before.

 

That was my first taste of wrestling, and amazingly I stuck with it despite a diet of T&A v Lo Down with Tiger Ali Singh at ringside.

 

Check out this card:

 

 

01.02.2000

 

Tag Team Match

Too Cool (Grandmaster Sexay & Scotty 2 Hotty) defeat The Mean Street Posse (Joey Abs & Rodney) (w/Pete Gas) (4:41)

 

Singles Match

Christian defeats Funaki (4:27)

 

WWF European Title Match

The Big Bossman defeats Val Venis © by DQ (2:01)

 

Tag Team Match

The Hardy Boyz (Jeff Hardy & Matt Hardy) defeat The Head Bangers (Mosh & Thrasher) (6:03)

 

Singles Match

Prince Albert defeats Viscera (2:56)

[PowerButchi]

The WCW shows did seem great, but not seeing them at the time puts you at a loss, no matter how fun they are browsing through youtube and the like today. That wcwmainevent1991 channel that was around for a while was a treat especially, it;s a shame it seems to be no more.

 

The wrestling king that was DSF showed a lot of them at the time.

[Oliver]

Good thread.

 

Yes, Heat was tremendous. One of our (me and my mates at school) moments was when Crash Holly beat Dean Malenko for the light heavyweight championship. Belts seldom changed on Heat, so it was quite something when Holly won the belt.

 

Before that you had Essa Rios managed by Lita, who would get involved in his matches and hit hurricanranas on his opponent.

 

While The Rock wasn't making any appearances on the show in 2000 or 2001, Scotty 2 Hotty was and he came up with a move even more outrageous than the people's elbow.