I've been spending a lot of attention to this year in wrestling for various fictional writing reasons lately. It really is an interesting animal when you look back at it now, where it all was at the beginning of the year coming off of 1995. It was really time for everything to change, everybody knew it, and what you had was like a wide open blank canvas. You had 2 promotions that had dueling prime time network deals, the internet was becoming more and more of a thing, and it seemed like neither promotion was really sure where to go(despite seemingly being aware that the existing model was outdated, and things needed to change, WCW's troubles with Hogan, WWF going proto-Attitude with Goldust and the HBK-Bulldog wife angle). They were reaching for ideas, with Bischoff it was inspiration from Japan with the UWFI-NJPW stuff, which was red hot in 96(and setting the foundation for the formation fo the GOAT wrestling promotion in human history; Pride FC launched a year later in 97). 

Wrestling was so wide open and could have been taken in a lot of different directions. ECW kind of was like the little comet that pushed the planets around to go a certain way, changing the trajectory of the universe. 

96 97 98 are just these amazing years for wrestling in various different ways. 96 is like the pre show velocity steve night heat era where there's some good shit pal but no one is really pay hard attention to it yet, 97 is all this build up and arguably produced the most 5 *****s in US history in the shortest amount of time and even crazier if you stretch it into the end of 96... 98 is when it all comes together into the most mainstream representation of the business from the tail end of the screwjob/Crow sting into TYSON AND AUSTIN. Probably caps with Highway to Hell and might be starting to wear itself out by time we get to Corporate Champ Rock.

Even though I only got into the business at the end of that little blurb... it's hard not to appreciate it all. There's just a atmosphere to that time period that you can't manufacture. It's got that vibe yo. That ECW crowd where sure it's probably fine, but depending on the night it might actually not be the safest place to be. That type of shit you only see in like Mexico and Puerto Rico thinking the shit is REAL and throwing bags of change and locks at the rudos. Goddammit boy how can you now love this side of wrestling? It's that EDGE(~!) where it tows the line of modern wrestling but not too goofy into sports entertainment (yet).

Fuck put it straight into my veins.

Me and all of my friends favorite wrestlers in 1996 while Bret was gone: Ahmed, Warrior, Sid(and they all loved HBK so much that it made me kinda stop liking him as much).

This thread is straight Baker Bait. 

Did you guys know I was a pretty big wrestling fan in 1996? I'm sure you didn't since I only bring it up in at least half of threads I participate in regardless of what they're supposed to be about. 

1996 (really beginning in the summer of 1995) was when my fandom leveled up. When I went from a diehard casual to a wrestling obsessed super duper fan. Wrestling was my life in 1996. No joke. I ate, slept, and breathed wrestling 24/7. When I wasn't watching it, I was thinking about it. I’ll concede to a young Jim Cornette, but that’s about it when it comes to my sheer love of pro wrestling in 1996 (and the surrounding years).

Reading the Apter Mags...ignoring the teacher to furiously scribble down wrestling-related notes in school....talking wrestling with the boys....wrestling with the boys whenever parents were away, or even on another floor...doing moves in our pool...wrestling figure leagues....watching classic pay per views every weekend....listening to the Saturday night wrestling radio show...living and dying with the Monday Night ratings...flashing four fingers and Flair chopping jabronies everywhere I went in my sweet homemade tie dye Four Horsemen shirt...Superstars, Worldwide, and AWF get togethers at my house....pushing ourselves to stay awake until 3 a.m. for AWF (and discovering Doctor Who in the process!)...Monday night & pay per view get togethers elsewhere...WCW Saturday Night (and pizza!) at my grandmother's...getting so excited for literally every single wrestling show. Forget Raw, Nitro, and pay per views. I'd get HYPED for Superstars, Worldwide, Saturday Night, and even AWF!

Camp Cornette! Four Horsemen! Goldust! Booing Michaels! Hating the NWO and all sellouts! Worshiping the Holy Trinity of Flair/Lawler/Funk! Reading about ECW & USWA in the Apter Mags! Me and the boys kicking so much ass in Taboo with wrestling clues that we made our opponents quit! Truly the best of times.

Oh, Nobi listed the favorite wrestlers of he and his friends? Well, two can play that game...

Me: Goldust for the first few months. Vader for most of the year.
Cousin & Best Friend Rick: Bret Hart
Brother & Eldest of the 3 Brothers: Ahmed Johnson
Middle of the 3 Brothers: Razor Ramon
Chuck: Shawn Michaels
Original Baker: Smoking Gunns
Youngest of the 3 Brothers: Eddie Guerrero, maybe? Only one I'm unsure of. 
==========
Kid In Math Class: stupid NWO. Undertaker in WWF
Hoss In Another Class: Godwinns
Neighborhood Associate Salt Who Made Me Jealous By Going To Great American Bash: Chris Benoit

Whaddya want next time? My 10 favorite wrestlers of 1996? A full Baker's Dozen? How about a dyslexic Baker's Dozen? Top 10 matches? Hidden gems? Favorite/Least Favorite moments? Wrestling figure league stories? Want to hear how about the times I’d walk to Value Food, Rite Aid, and even all the way up to Giant to spend a few hours studying the Apter Mags, occasionally skipping my last two classes after lunch to do so? Or what about the time I accidentally gave the Rite Aid staff a major scare? How about the legendary beef cube story which occasionally got brought up from time to time in fairly recent years when my brother was still alive? Have no fear I've got stories for years...

1995 was the first time I turned on wrestling. It was my favorite thing in the world from my first memories until 1994, then 1995 rolled around and I thought, "Fuck. Do I hate wrestling now? Did I outgrow it?" Well, then I stumbled onto ECW in the fall of 1995 and WWF started to become (slightly) less shitty by the end of the year. My beloved homemade VHS collection of wrestling was extremely lacking in 1995, but I cared enough about wrestling again in the beginning of 1996 to tape the Royal Rumble. Then get hyped for the Bret/Shawn WrestleMania showdown, which was really uncharacteristically WWF in its wrestling as sport execution, and I also taped that. 

Even WCW was getting interesting again with Pillman in loose cannon mode, the cruiserweight division beginning to take form, and a very strange main event scene with Hogan mostly missing.

Then a month+ after WrestleMania, Scott Hall shows up in WCW and things really get cooking.

1997 was obviously better, and a case can be made for 1998, too, but there was an excitement in 1996, that sort of excitement that only happens when you can't articulate a change in the air, things are just different, and it's thrilling. 1996 ending up being such an important year in wrestling.

Mar 6, 2023 2:13:24 GMT Kilgore said:

there was an excitement in 1996, that sort of excitement that only happens when you can't articulate a change in the air, things are just different, and it's thrilling. 1996 ending up being such an important year in wrestling.

This is so true. Nobi & Ness touched on it as well. You could feel business picking up. It was like a snowball rolling down a hill. Slow at first, but gaining more and more momentum as it went. It would keep rolling until exploding creatively in 1997 and financially in 1998. 

For me that feeling of excitement started pretty early on. Some of it is coincidental like discovering the Apter Mags which opened my eyes to the world of wrestling being exponentially bigger than I had previously thought. Or having more wrestling fan friends than ever before. But even that can be taken as a sign of business was picking up. Remember going to an Orioles game that summer with a few members of my clique where we had a cool, lengthy conversation with an older 20 or 30something guy in front of us wearing the Horsemen shirt in my avatar. When school started up in September I saw quite a few other kids wearing NWO shirts. Certainly no friends of mine! But, with one exception*, these were the first wrestling shirts I had seen in the wild since the heyday of Hulkamania. That's a sign wrestling was becoming popular again.
*Once saw a poor special needs girl at my school wearing a Jeff Jarrett "Ain't I Great? NOT!" shirt. 

Just the fact both companies were now running multiple star vs. star matches every week was huge. Even on Superstars & Worldwide! People tend to forget wrestling tv was almost all squashes before Nitro kicked off the Monday Night War. Until then something like IRS vs. Marty would be the big match of the week if you were lucky. Now we're getting multiple better matches on just about every show every week. 

Both New Style Wrestling and Hardcore Wrestling started becoming more and more common. WCW Cruiserweights were doing stuff on a weekly basis that was rarely, if ever seen before. Both promotions started incorporating tables into matches. Blood started making a comeback after being absent for many years.  Benoit/Sullivan and Rey/Dean blew my mind while over in WWF you had HBK/Diesel & HBK/Mankind bringing the ultraviolence.

As you guys said WWF started taking baby steps into Attitude, which was something completely different, while still having one foot in the old "Saturday morning cartoon" gimmick era I had grown up on. Not all of it on either end of the spectrum worked for me, but it did provide a little something for everyone, and pave a pathway for the future. 

Point is all this stuff gave wrestling the kick in the pants that would propel it to great heights over the next few years and you really could feel it even at the time. At least I could. What a time to be alive.

I'm faxing a hand written letter to the mods about the 97-98 talk now this thread is only for 1996. This was a different time here, South Park didn't exist yet, I don't think Jerry Springer was a big thing yet(though I'm sure it was on TV), the telecommunications act was passed at some point this year but didn't really take effect for a year or two. Maybe this applies to 1996 as a whole like beyond pro wrestling but it was such a year of limbo maybe? Like it was it's own little vacuum within the 90's? Like everything is about to go a different way but we don't really know where yet.

This was right before Titanic, before NSync and Spice Girls, maybe the last cool year of the 90's.

Mar 6, 2023 2:00:03 GMT Baker said:

favorite wrestlers of 1996? How about a dyslexic Baker's Dozen? Top 10 matches? 

My Favorite Wrestlers of 1996

1. Vader
2. Goldust
3. Owen Hart
4. Ric Flair
5. "British Bulldog" Davey Boy Smith
6. New Rockers
7. Jerry Lawler
8. Arn Anderson
9. Dean Malenko
10. Lord Steven Regal
=============
My Top 10 Matches of 1996
*Any of the Top 4 is a worthy winner imo

1. Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin- Survivor Series
2. Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind- In Your House Mind Games
3. Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan- WCW Great American Bash
4. Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel- In Your House Good Friends, Better Enemies
5. Douglas vs. Pitbull 2 vs. Scorpio vs. Jericho- ECW Heatwave
6. Dean Malenko vs. Rey Misterio Jr.- WCW Great American Bash
7. Togo/Teioh/Taka/Funaki/Shiryu vs. Hamada/Yakushiji/Tiger Mask IV/Delfin/Naniwa- Michinoku Pro 10/10
8. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis- WCW Bash At The Beach
9. Shawn Michaels vs. Davey Boy Smith- King of the Ring
10. War Games- WCW Fall Brawl

Mar 7, 2023 2:25:17 GMT Neo Zeed said:

This was right before Titanic, before NSync and Spice Girls, maybe the last cool year of the 90's.

We're going to have to take it back a year, Shin. 1995, pre Macarena.

Mar 7, 2023 2:25:17 GMT Neo Zeed said:

maybe the last cool year of the 90's.

I would make the argument the '90s only lasted September '91-To early 1997. Before September '91? Still the '80s. After early '97? Proto-Y2K.

Felt like the 10s started early too, around the advent of YouTube/MySpace.

Now we're in some weird culture war/Tik Tok era.

Mar 7, 2023 6:17:28 GMT Kilgore said:

Mar 7, 2023 2:25:17 GMT Neo Zeed said:

maybe the last cool year of the 90's.

I would make the argument the '90s only lasted September '91-To early 1997. Before September '91? Still the '80s. After early '97? Proto-Y2K.

Yes I agree, 1991 was the 80’s on super steroids, exhibit A). Mannequin 2 came out that year, the most pure blooded 80’s movie ever made.

Take me back

Mar 7, 2023 6:17:28 GMT Kilgore said:

Mar 7, 2023 2:25:17 GMT Neo Zeed said:

maybe the last cool year of the 90's.

I would make the argument the '90s only lasted September '91-To early 1997. Before September '91? Still the '80s. After early '97? Proto-Y2K.

I’m interested in why you feel September of 91, I believe Metallica black album came out that month which I would still classify as 80’s on Roids(bigger, faster, stronger, but still the same thing). One look at some of the movies that came out around that time I’m sure would back that up, I’m so fascinated with movies from 91 because of this. I would probably say the 90’s starting point was early 92, maybe the LA riots or when did the Nirvana album come out?

We need a microscope on all of pop culture in 96, feels like the last days of a certain vibe, a lot of stuff on the verge of changing radically, while also still clinging to a certain feeling from 92-95. I talked about this in the Highlander thread that the show felt like the coolest thing on TV in 1996, but just a year later by 97 felt like a dated relic from a different era(it was a product of the early 90’s, launched in 92-93), a victim of the fast pace that things evolved at back then

I feel like it was the end maybe for the Saturday morning cartoons era, if I’m not mistaken was the last year of XMen and Batman started to suck. All sat morning cartoons just kind of changed by 97 no?

Heavy metal music if you’re a fan of the history you know the stories told about how the genre was on its last legs in 96. A lot of pop up record labels that signed up all the extreme metal bands in 88-92 and put all that money into the genre in 93-95 were going out by 96. This was also the last year that MTV was playing Beavis and Butthead and a heavy band like Manson could still get over.

This thread has been sleeping on Hanson

Mar 7, 2023 12:18:18 GMT Neo Zeed said:

This thread has been sleeping on Hanson

MMMBop?

Stan making an entrance to mmmbop would get all the 💰

It's a bag of dimes btw

I got real lucky with wrestling. Watched in the 80's but tuned out totally when Flair came to WWF.

Fast forward to 1997 and my friend was REALLY into wrestling, and showed me Cactus Jack in Japan and some ECW from 96 and 97 over the next. Then did Survivor Series 98 where Rock turned. So first WWE feud I got was the insane Rock vs Foley feud. Still was not super into wrestling, but was watching WWF.

Did not like much from 96, but the Mankind vs Taker buried alive match I remember being very good. Also the FMW 7th Anniversary Show was fucking amazing with Kudo vs Toyota, Cactus Jack vs W*ING Kanemura, and Hayabusa and Masato Tanaka vs Mr. Pogo and Terry Funk. Their summer show in 96 had Pogo vs Funk which was a lot of fire fun.

Mar 7, 2023 11:20:44 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Mar 7, 2023 6:17:28 GMT Kilgore said:

I would make the argument the '90s only lasted September '91-To early 1997. Before September '91? Still the '80s. After early '97? Proto-Y2K.

I’m interested in why you feel September of 91, I believe Metallica black album came out that month which I would still classify as 80’s on Roids(bigger, faster, stronger, but still the same thing). One look at some of the movies that came out around that time I’m sure would back that up, I’m so fascinated with movies from 91 because of this. I would probably say the 90’s starting point was early 92, maybe the LA riots or when did the Nirvana album come out?

1996 in wrestling for me:




This was the year that I really got the full scope of the wrestling business. My cousin who was a bit ahead of me technologically wise got on this world wide web thing and began tape trading. It was here that I got introduced to the likes of Taz, RVD (forgot he was Robbie V back in '93), Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Raven (blew my mind he was Johnny Polo!), the 4 Pillars of All Japan, the Super J Cups in New Japan, Vader shooting in UWFi and the like. Coupled with getting into the Apter mags it was sensory overload with all the new stuff I was being introduced to.

I was still pretty much full on in WCW mode when it came to following the televised product while catching some tidbits of the WWF every few months through the magazines or stumbling on some random interesting stuff flipping through the channels (Iron Man Match video package, Ahmed Johnson causing a stir, Austin vs. Yoko Billionare Ted skits.) Hall coming out on Nitro just amped up my excitement further as the WWF seemed to be following through on there Billionaire Ted skits and an invasion seemed to be on. We know the story afterword, very few years can compare to 1996 in changing the landscape of the industry.

Mar 7, 2023 17:34:39 GMT Kilgore said:

Mar 7, 2023 11:20:44 GMT Neo Zeed said:

I’m interested in why you feel September of 91, I believe Metallica black album came out that month which I would still classify as 80’s on Roids(bigger, faster, stronger, but still the same thing). One look at some of the movies that came out around that time I’m sure would back that up, I’m so fascinated with movies from 91 because of this. I would probably say the 90’s starting point was early 92, maybe the LA riots or when did the Nirvana album come out?

And there's also two 90s. I can't think of a decade so uniquely different at the start and at the end. Including in pro wrestling. 




How it started >> How it ended. 

1996 in wrestling is such an interesting little sweet spot. In my fan fiction I took wrestling in a martial arts heavy direction, modern American twist on what basically UWF was doing in Japan in 88-89. And I feel like this was possibly in reality in 1996, but that it was really the last year where you could have pulled it off. It wasn't going to work in 1997 and definitely not in 1998-99. This is perfectly encapsulated in the Taz character adaptations in ECW from 96 he was more of a martial artist, but he adapted into more of an Attitude Era bad ass by 99 where the shooter/martial arts stuff was kind of left behind. But with 1996 I feel like it was just more wide open for different ideas in wrestling. It was maybe the last year of the 90's where a wrestler like Bret Hart could be super over as a babyface, by 97 those days were really over.

Another thing that seemed to have radically changed from 1996 to 1997 was action movies. I feel like 96 was the end of the big Arnold/Stallone style action films and the last year where guys like Seagal and Van Dam were really cool. You had some good stuff there in 96 in Broken Arrow, The Rock, and I believe Face Off was 97ish but there was a big shift in the genre there from 95 to 96 to it was like all different by 97, almost overnight around that time it felt like Seagall/JCVD were straight to video schlock.

I have as much nostalgia for 1996 as anyone here but watching through a ton of WCW and WWF '96 this year so far it really struck me just how utterly wretched wrestling really was there for the first 7-8 months of the year. Has there ever been a more talent loaded period in the business that was as bad as WWF and WCW was at this time?

The angle with Shawn Michaels seducing British Bulldog's wife the promo she cut on that episode of Raw to tell the story may be the most cringe thing WWF has ever done.

It really bothered me the lengths WWF went to publicly shit on Warrior, all of that dirty laundry had no business being thrown out there on TV that was just bad. That last match he wrestled with them going on and on about him having to post an appearance bond and all that shit jesus. What a waste of TV time.

I had the funniest laugh at work a few weeks back, since I've been watching wrestling again I have been throwing a lot of references and jokes out there while working with my crew(they are all younger, around late 20's early 30's, so all references go flying over their heads). I had the biggest laugh telling them there was at one time a pro wrestler called The Booty Man.

Whoops meant to post that in the 96 thread

Mar 16, 2023 11:40:27 GMT Neo Zeed said:

I have as much nostalgia for 1996 as anyone here but watching through a ton of WCW and WWF '96 this year so far it really struck me just how utterly wretched wrestling really was there for the first 7-8 months of the year. 

This is 1995 for me

I have made it comfortably through August of 1996 of WCW and WWF in the last 5-6 months on the Peacock and I can say with great certainty that at least up to this point in the year ECW was substantially better than both promotions. I remember coming to the conclusion in our AHT watchthrough for 95 that that was the case, but after seeing through the first 8 months of WCW/WWF 1996 it was probably even moreso the case for this year too. At least 1995 WWF had Bret Hart and Michaels seemed way better as a wrestler and character in 1995, plus prime Razor and Diesel. It is really crazy how much better of a show overall ECW was than both promotions. There is no question the unedited Hardcore TV's have aged way better than anything WCW and WWF did, really tapped into the 90's vibe way better where as WCW and WWF still felt insulated from pop culture for the most part. 

Looking ahead into the rest of 1996 it doesn't look like WCW or WWF gets much better. The NWO was spectacular stuff at the time because of the unknown, everything that you didn't know was what made it better, when it felt like it was a legit WWF invasion the first few weeks was the peak of the entire angle to me. Watching some of the early stuff in 1996 makes me realize knowing everything now that it became a big corny Hogan thing pretty quick, with a lot of cringe scenes involving Virgil and IRS, The Nasty Boys, et al. Then The Giant joins and we get a big Piper deal? Everything with Sting was great though.

It's pretty remarkable how over DDP got almost overnight after being a huge dork for such a long long time. I was surprised to see him around in the 92 WCW tapes I'm watching. Just watched him against Renegade from August 96 Nitro and not only does the Diamond Cutter get crickets but fans are doing the thumbs down, like get out of here. Then like overnight he started getting the biggest pops in the biz. WCW fans are so interesting how different they were, the people that were going to shows and were locked into it were really into it maybe on a deeper level than WWF fans. The Stacey Keibler talk in the other thread got me thinking about an interview I remember her talking about how big of a WCW fan she was that she never switched channels during the Monday night wars, that blows my mind. 

Making it into September-October, interesting how the WWF started bringing in a lot of new characters it seems like. The Stalker, Cannon Films gangster Crush, a few others, and I feel like The Sultan and Rocky Miavia are right around the corner. Also I guess I never really appreciated the way they put Mankind over Taker the way they did with the big Bearer turn, and spun that off into him immediately headlining a PPV in Philly in a World Title match(against HBK) at the very next PPV(and then if I'm not mistaken he gets a win over Taker again at Buried Alive). Mankind to me really was bad ass, and a highlight of all 1996 WWF, some way underrated work from Foley all in all making that character work as something really radically different from what he was used to playing.

Everything with Taker vs Mankind gets my feud of the year easily. I would also have to say Mankind is my MVP for 96 overall. Mankind vs Taker I love every bit of it, every time they are on screen together, every match, every promo, Taker in the grave or with that creepy crucifix light behind him, so amazingly great. The Buried Alive match is awesome too I just don't know about the whole Executioner deal.

The WCW stuff is interesting for Sting's saga leading into War Games. I actually really dug Road Wild just for the daylight and the setting. The show just looked really good in the sun, it gives everything a certain magic, like the old Superbowl footage or some of my photos I've gotten from concerts outdoors the daylight shots especially in the west coast just look really rich in color and alive. I've finally pinned down that this is the reason why I've always had a strange crush on Wrestlemania 9, like a love/hate relationship with it(because Bret was screwed) but all the stuff in the daylight there at Caesars Palace was just magical, especially Taker's entrance(and yes I love the whole match against Gonzalez FTW). Also really dug that one Mania recently from Levi Stadium that was in mostly daylight, that was great. 

But on the WCW side I just feel like I remembered Malenko/Eddie/Benoit/Rey/Juvy et al being on TV more? They really were such background figures with really short matches all the time. It could be one of those Mandella things where I only imagine TBS ONLY ever playing Beastmaster and Medicine Man, while I also falsely always remember seeing Malenko vs Eddie every time I flipped over to WCW?

The NWO stuff is interesting if only for how fucking massively hot over it really got. I guess I never realized just how much because of being such a WWF kid at the time, when I got heavy into WCW was really when Bret jumped, so I never really got the grand scope of some of these crowd reactions to the NWO here in the fall of 1996. It was really like a phenomenon as far as shit getting over in pro wrestling.