After watching through quite a bit of 1996 WCW Saturday Night over the last few months it strikes me how long these guys were hanging around in the exact same role. I found it interesting how WCW treated their own home grown Power Plant acts like this, they had no problem jobbing them out to newcomers from ECW Public Enemy there in 1996. It was like they never really even tried to come up with any type of storylines for these guys that I can remember, they were just constant losers, but they came out every week fired up like they were bad ass and on a roll. Very interesting psychological study to be found here. 

Mar 29, 2023 9:47:45 GMT Neo Zeed said:

After watching through quite a bit of 1996 WCW Saturday Night over the last few months it strikes me how long these guys were hanging around in the exact same role. I found it interesting how WCW treated their own home grown Power Plant acts like this, they had no problem jobbing them out to newcomers from ECW Public Enemy there in 1996. It was like they never really even tried to come up with any type of storylines for these guys that I can remember, they were just constant losers, but they came out every week fired up like they were bad ass and on a roll. Very interesting psychological study to be found here. 

I developed a soft spot for High Voltage going through the tapes. I had never really heard of them before, but they bumped their asses off, had solid charisma and certainly looked the part. I think they were just starting to get a push in '98 when Robbie got injured. They were actually meant to have a feud together but Robbie had to get surgery, developed a drug problem and was released. Without a tag partner or any direction, they released Kenny not long after. That was right before Russo had come on board, so you just know they would have fared better with him in charge pushing the younger talent.

Wasn't one of these guys technically a WCW Tag Team Champion?

Mar 29, 2023 11:28:56 GMT NATH45 said:

Wasn't one of these guys technically a WCW Tag Team Champion?

That was how I knew them before I went back and marathoned WCW.

I rented out Halloween Havoc 98 and was so anxious to find out who Rick Steiner chose to be his co-tag partner. I logged online expecting to see somebody like Lex Luger, Konnan, Wrath etc. only to be greeted by Kenny Kaos.

Who?!

That was my only exposure to him.

My knowledge of that Halloween Havoc -- Starrcade run is pretty sketchy. How did Rick go from Kenny Kaos as his co-tag champion to Judy Bagwell?

Mar 29, 2023 11:47:03 GMT Big Pete said:

Mar 29, 2023 11:28:56 GMT NATH45 said:

Wasn't one of these guys technically a WCW Tag Team Champion?

That was how I knew them before I went back and marathoned WCW.

I rented out Halloween Havoc 98 and was so anxious to find out who Rick Steiner chose to be his co-tag partner. I logged online expecting to see somebody like Lex Luger, Konnan, Wrath etc. only to be greeted by Kenny Kaos.

Who?!

That was my only exposure to him.

My knowledge of that Halloween Havoc -- Starrcade run is pretty sketchy. How did Rick go from Kenny Kaos as his co-tag champion to Judy Bagwell?

Vince Russo? 

Mar 29, 2023 11:48:17 GMT NATH45 said:

Mar 29, 2023 11:47:03 GMT Big Pete said:

That was how I knew them before I went back and marathoned WCW.

I rented out Halloween Havoc 98 and was so anxious to find out who Rick Steiner chose to be his co-tag partner. I logged online expecting to see somebody like Lex Luger, Konnan, Wrath etc. only to be greeted by Kenny Kaos.

Who?!

That was my only exposure to him.

My knowledge of that Halloween Havoc -- Starrcade run is pretty sketchy. How did Rick go from Kenny Kaos as his co-tag champion to Judy Bagwell?

Vince Russo? 

You'd think so, but even Vinny couldn't be blamed for this. He was busy booking his magnum opus The Deadly Games.

The idea was so rotten, they actually had Mark Madden bury it in WCW Magazine and he was pitching ideas for tag teams. One I remember was pairing Bobby Eaton up with a young talent - kind of like Bodacious Bob/Cody Rhodes.

Two jacked Alaskans with a penchant for springboarding. Yeah, High Voltage was alright. They came in right around the time I stopped watching. Timing killed them. They were hurt by arriving when WCW had a stacked division and then within a few years decided to go with no tag division at all. Always got a kick out of one of the High Voltage guys being among 🤯's all time favorite WCW wrestlers.

We need to do a deep dive on their win-loss record in WCW, what kind of winning/losing streaks they had in there, they would make for an interesting analytical study.

Just did a quick scan of their cagematch profile and they weren't around quite as long as I thought. Their last match on there is September 1998, I thought they were still teaming well into 1999. They debuted in April 1996 and lost all of their first 17 matches before finally landing their first victory over The Starbuck Brothers(Joe Joe and Rocket, lol) in October 96. That was in a dark match on a Saturday Night taping of all places haha. Talk about humble beginnings.

They were mostly cannon fodder through 1997(they got some big wins over Public Enemy), then in early 1998 they did a tour with New Japan and looks like they were booked 50/50 with quite a few wins over there against teams I don't recognize. When they came back in early 1998 they had a nice win streak over the Saturday Night jobber squad before they went back on another losing streak as WCW defunded tag team wrestling like total morons. Hearing Bischoff's reasoning for why he deemphasized tag teams at this time is so dumb, tag team wrestling was the booking tool they could have really used to build up some guys, that seemed really lost on the dude, which in itself is fascinating. 

It's funny when jacked guys are jobbers. Skinny guy/fat guy jobbers, you might not like it, but you understand. Especially the skinny guy jobber. Hard out there for the skinny guy wrestler. He's going to lose and probably be dropped on his head in the process, just because it'll look cool. But the totally jacked jobber? Against all laws of nature. Surely, by wrestling logic, two incredibly jacked wrestlers forming a tag team will be able to destroy two out of shape fly boys from Philly? Think again. These two jacked guys, go by the name of Kenny Kaos and Robby Rage, they happen to fucking suck. They're going to lose. Every time. For two years. You can skip chest and arm days, fellas, it doesn't fucking matter. Life is cruel like that.

High Voltage

World Championship Wrestling

Year	Wins	Losses	Draws
1996	1	18	2
1997	12	23	0
1998	12	9	2

New Japan Pro Wrestling

Year	Wins	Losses	Draws
1997	1	3	0
1998	2	2	0

Just imagine the pressure, you're 0-17 up against Jo-Jo and Rocket Starbuck with your career on the line. 

The fucking Richie avatar! I sure do heart you 

Didn't they steal the name from a young Hardy Boys mix tape that they sent to WCW in they hope they'd get hired?

I'm curious to hear Bischoff's explanation behind dissolving so many teams.

It was one of the biggest issues WCW had in 1998. Nobody enjoys a break-up at the best of times let alone the half a dozen or so WCW had going at the same time. By breaking up the nWo, The Outsiders, the Steiners, Harlem Heat, the Guerreros, The Flock, The Faces of Fear etc. all at the same time the company was presenting a disharmonious image. It was difficult for the fans to get invested when the show was so messy and if you wanted to get behind a unit they would invariably break-up.

The only positive is that it made the IV Horsemen reunion stand out by contrast. Finally the fans were getting to see one of their favourite units reunite and give them a cause to get behind. They did eventually lose their way, the fake heart-attack took the wind out of the sails heading into Starrcade 1998, but they did get it back for Superbrawl 1999. Of course they'd lose their way again and that would eventually hurt their bottom line, but the IV Horseman reunion clearly appealed to fans.

I'd never made the connection until recently, but the WWF in 1998 was a tag team promotion. If you look at their cards, it's stacked with tag team matches presumably to fit as many people onto the show as possible. By contrast, WCW was predominately made up of singles matches, with tag matches largely being reserved for shows like Saturday Night where The Armstrongs, Disorderly Conduct, The Villanos and The Pit Crew would duke it out.

In Bischoff's defence, breaking up The Steiners and Harlem Heat produced two World Champions.

Mar 31, 2023 7:01:50 GMT Big Pete said:

I'm curious to hear Bischoff's explanation behind dissolving so many teams.

It was one of the biggest issues WCW had in 1998. Nobody enjoys a break-up at the best of times let alone the half a dozen or so WCW had going at the same time. By breaking up the nWo, The Outsiders, the Steiners, Harlem Heat, the Guerreros, The Flock, The Faces of Fear etc. all at the same time the company was presenting a disharmonious image. It was difficult for the fans to get invested when the show was so messy and if you wanted to get behind a unit they would invariably break-up.

The only positive is that it made the IV Horsemen reunion stand out by contrast. Finally the fans were getting to see one of their favourite units reunite and give them a cause to get behind. They did eventually lose their way, the fake heart-attack took the wind out of the sails heading into Starrcade 1998, but they did get it back for Superbrawl 1999. Of course they'd lose their way again and that would eventually hurt their bottom line, but the IV Horseman reunion clearly appealed to fans.

I'd never made the connection until recently, but the WWF in 1998 was a tag team promotion. If you look at their cards, it's stacked with tag team matches presumably to fit as many people onto the show as possible. By contrast, WCW was predominately made up of singles matches, with tag matches largely being reserved for shows like Saturday Night where The Armstrongs, Disorderly Conduct, The Villanos and The Pit Crew would duke it out.

I listened to a few episodes of 83 Weeks and caught Bischoff saying that a big part of what they had going on with tag teams in 98 was because a match would cost twice as much because tag team acts were double price of singles wrestlers. 

Mar 31, 2023 7:19:15 GMT NATH45 said:

In Bischoff's defence, breaking up The Steiners and Harlem Heat produced two World Champions.

Both teams needed to break up eventually, but doing it all at the same time was a bit much.

I listened to a few episodes of 83 Weeks and caught Bischoff saying that a big part of what they had going on with tag teams in 98 was because a match would cost twice as much because tag team acts were double price of singles wrestlers.

I wonder if Eric always held that opinion, or just stole it from Vince in retrospect? I don't remember hearing that line until Freddie Prinze Jr started sharing it when he recounted his time as a writer during 2008.

Both Brian's had something to offer but they strike me as being entitled & owe something because of their look. Fuck off.

Mar 31, 2023 6:11:31 GMT NATH45 said:

Didn't they steal the name from a young Hardy Boys mix tape that they sent to WCW in they hope they'd get hired?

Yep. From Matt Hardy to be specific.

Mar 31, 2023 7:01:50 GMT Big Pete said:

The Pit Crew

Popped so hard for this just because it means there are still new acts from my era to discover here in 2023. Never heard of this team before today. Spent every free moment I had this morning frantically researching them. They have no matches listed on Cagematch or TheHistoryofWWE! But two matches are available on Youtube- a win over Disorderly Conduct on Worldwide and what appears to be a dark match victory over a Luchador and somebody named Tony Carr. Does this mean The Pit Crew retired undefeated? It's possible. They won both matches with a back suplex-neckbreaker combo. Team was Chad Fortune & Dale Torborg doing Sparky Plugg gimmicks in 1998 and I am now fascinated by them.

Dale Torborg as in The Demon?

Mar 31, 2023 20:37:24 GMT NATH45 said:

Dale Torborg as in The Demon?

Yep. Also means Chad Fortune was part of The Pit Crew and Tekno Team 2000. The man should get some kind of award for that.

Zero memory of The Pit Crew. Finally understand how lunatics believe in the Mandela Effect.

The Pit Crew look like whatever network Nitro was on decided to cross promote with some cheap quasi-reality show and sent The Pit Crew over to wrassle.

Like when T-Money shows up from Battledome.

So I got High Voltage confused with Chronic! HAHA!

MVP of this thread goes to the T-Money Battledome reference that’s way too fucking 1999 bra, seriously.

High Voltage vs Kronic would have been solid feud

Why do I feel like if High Voltage were around the Indy’s or NXT today they would be more over than they were in 98?

Apr 1, 2023 0:18:08 GMT Ed said:

So I got High Voltage confused with Chronic! HAHA!

Kronik, it's Kronik and they were awesome as a tag team.

Apr 1, 2023 0:25:58 GMT Lony said:

Apr 1, 2023 0:18:08 GMT Ed said:

So I got High Voltage confused with Chronic! HAHA!

Kronik, it's Kronik and they were awesome as a tag team.

Waste of time. Waste of talent.

Apr 1, 2023 0:30:41 GMT Ed said:

Apr 1, 2023 0:25:58 GMT Lony said:

Kronik, it's Kronik and they were awesome as a tag team.

Waste of time. Waste of talent.

You're killing me, Ed.

Always hated how they got the Buff Bagwell treatment, when they came into the WWE, to face the Brothers of Destruction. Although admittedly the match did suck, I would have liked to have seen them get more than the one match back thoguh.

Apr 1, 2023 0:24:17 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Why do I feel like if High Voltage were around the Indy’s or NXT today they would be more over than they were in 98?

I can agree with this. Best way I can describe High Voltage is as a high end mid 2000s OVW team that happened to come around a few years early. They had a good look and did more in the ring than all those boring mid 2000s teams like the Bashams, La Resistance, Deuce & Domino (all they had was the theme), Highlanders, Heartthrobs, Dicks, Gymini, etc. What a dire time for tag team wrestling. I'm not even this huge High Voltage fan. Don't want people to get the wrong idea. But they were alright. Better than all those teams I listed. Even better than a lot of mid-late 90s WWF teams. WWF had a lot of bad teams during that era!