I've always shit pretty hard on WWF '99, easily my least favorite year and the year where I stopped being a fan after bleeding WWF through the full decade up to that point. To me the Attitude Era had a goldilocks zone there in the very end of 97 up to Summerslam 98. That's just my opinion, a lot of stuff that I liked about the WWF from 1990 to 98 was gone or changed radically by 1999. 

But I still never missed a millisecond of WWF from the start of the year up until the build up to King Of The Ring 99. Then we moved across Texas to an extremely rural town that didn't even have cable as an option. So we went from King Of The Ring 1999 up until early September 1999 without being able to watch at all. I used money from my first Summer of carpenter work(ever) get a satellite dish at our house just for wrestling(!) that August. When I finally was able to start watching Raw, Smackdown, Heat again it was so different and by October I had really almost no desire to watch it and by November I didn't bother with it anymore except for rare occasion.

I was all about ECW, and truth be told I was probably more interested in what WCW was doing with Bret that Fall. WWF sadly had lost me, I had officially lapsed as a fan. By early 2000 I didn't even care what was going on in WCW or WWF. I honestly believed that they could tell what you were watching on your TV and didn't want them to get my ratings, that was how much of a cool aide guzzling fuckhead I was for ECW by that point haha. 

I don't know why but I decided to go back to the period where I missed from KOTR up to early September 1999. I have been working through some Raw's at night after my little man is in bed and truth be told I have actually been digging them. It's like they really mastered the art of capturing a short simple minded attention span, almost like they were following the Friday the 13th formula(studio had a formula they wanted directors to stick to, there had to be either a kill or tits every 90 seconds or something like that). I think I jumped in at the Higher Power episode with Vince revealing IT WAS ME! I do remember watching that and perhaps being the last thing I saw before we lost cable that Summer. 

But I have been getting a kick out of these. They really did have the pedal to the metal and really mastered what they were going for. And with today culture being close to Demolition Man level woke it's just funny to see how fucking outrageous everything was back then. 

I made it up to Fully Loaded and watched a good bit of it this morning. Holy shit what a dead crowd and a shitty PPV all the way around. I stand by my claim that the promotion that was on food stamps and welfare was making the best PPV that year haha. 

The Al Snow scissor lift table spot on D-Lo got me. Just fucking dead. I had never seen this spot before I've worked on one of those a lot at work was just tickled pink by this. That whole episode was like prime Attitude Era, I think like 3 people were violently jumped backstage in Cops shaky cam style, you had pimps and hoes and porn stars, I think Droz and Albert in drag attacked Godfather and Val(one of the hoes was held down and almost had her fucking tongue pierced against her will). Then just the crowd interaction with the wrestlers and just how fucking fired up the crowd was in general, one hell of a Raw.

Also the Jeff Jarrett/Ben Stiller segment was to die for Baker is this not one of your fav Jarrett scenes? D-Lo carrying him to the back like a baby after Jarrett beat him up is crazy this even happened. What a show.

Also don't know if there is anything more 1999 than Ken Shamrock wrestling in tennis shoes and blue jeans. And man he lost all of his mass that he had when he signed with the WWF, he was fucking jacked to the gils at the end of 96 his last UFC event. Seeing Triple H beat the fuck out of him and bloody him was an interesting segment. I'm actually looking forward to seeing the build up to/and Summerslam 99 I don't think I've ever watched that show proper and always looked interesting.

God I loved this(timestamped)

I got into wrestling the year prior (highway to hell to deadly games) so I was all in at this point. 99 was my first WM LMAO, so it took a few years before I accepted it as anything but a regular ppv thanks to this stinker. Middle schooler just marked out for EVERYTHING in this time period.

The Summer of '99 truly was a time of transition in the WWF. The Austin/McMahon/Taker well had truly been sucked dry so you could see the WWF begin to make moves to promote guys like Triple H, The Rock, The Big Show etc. Up the card. What's the general consensus on the Unholy Alliance? There was that infamous promo that Jericho buried but as a concept I thought it was a smart way to get The Big Show back on track. At that point, he'd been a certified flop so it was nice to see them finally commit to a direction.

We're also in prime Big Shot era where Hardcore is mixing it with the upper-midcard. I always liked how fluid the card was and how guys like Al Snow, Val Venis, Test, Billy Gunn could rub shoulders with the main event. It just made everyone come across like a star so up and down the card everyone is getting these main event type reactions. It also raised the standard too, you wouldn't last long if you couldn't get over so everything feels thought out and polished.

You really had to maximise your minutes back then so just seeing all the different nuances or points they'd want to get across is what stands out to me.

Going into the Fall is where things really begin to change and the company becomes more focused on tag teams. It ends up being a down period but by the Winter the show really turns around and the Royal Rumble is a classic show. Easily a Top 10 of that era.

The Big Show flopped as a main eventer. I loved seeing Crash & Hardcore fight each other.

He'd only been in the business a handful of years! Meanwhile you could give Ed 100,000 years to hone his craft and he'd be lucky to be a young boy.

Aug 5, 2023 22:22:20 GMT @ness said:

He'd only been in the business a handful of years! Meanwhile, you could give Ed 100,000 years to hone his craft and he'd be lucky to be a young boy.

Ah. You've been jealous of me for years. Let it go!

In the very short lived WOW Magazine, there was a funny article titled RAW. IS. PREDICTABLE. And the writer invented a Raw using all the cliches of that time, writing a synopsis for every segment, and it just perfectly roasted this era of WWF. 

It was a pretty bad summer of wrestling in general. WWF was in the transitional phase, as Big Pete put it, WCW was trying to figure out what a show looked like without the nWo for the first time in three years (which was not good), and ECW was struggling in a sort of limbo period just trying to survive to get to the TNN deal (Heatwave '99, personifying this best as the most Nothing PPV they ever put on, not good, not bad, simply existing). 

By fall, I had hope! ECW on TNN was just starting, Anarchy Rulz lived up to its name by ruling. WWF was starting to resemble what it would look like in 2000, which was a really good show. And WCW had the Vince Russo defection, which I swear to you all, smarks were very intrigued by and we truly had no idea how bad it was going to be.

Aug 5, 2023 22:48:22 GMT Kilgore said:

In the very short-lived WOW Magazine, there was a funny article titled RAW. IS. PREDICTABLE. And the writer invented a Raw using all the cliches of that time, writing a synopsis for every segment, and it just perfectly roasted this era of WWF. 

It was a pretty bad summer of wrestling in general. WWF was in the transitional phase, as Big Pete put it, WCW was trying to figure out what a show looked like without the nWo for the first time in three years (which was not good), and ECW was struggling in a sort of limbo period just trying to survive to get to the TNN deal (Heatwave '99, personifying this best as the most Nothing PPV they ever put on, not good, not bad, simply existing). 

By fall, I had hope! ECW on TNN was just starting, Anarchy Rulz lived up to its name by ruling. WWF was starting to resemble what it would look like in 2000, which was a really good show. And WCW had the Vince Russo defection, which I swear to you all, smarks were very intrigued by and we truly had no idea how bad it was going to be.

BRO, HEAR ME out. Judy Bagwell will be a star!

WWF during the Summer of 99 you say? Obviously I think of this guy and foremost...



Just kidding. I'll be back with a proper take either tonight or tomorrow.

Aug 5, 2023 23:21:31 GMT Baker said:

WWF during the Summer of 99 you say? Obviously I think of this guy and foremost...



Just kidding. I'll be back with a proper take either tonight or tomorrow.

Is that Grimey?

@ness got it. Neo Zeed that fat Gangrel looking guy is indeed California indie darling and future ECW Baldie "Vicious" Vic Grimes. He had like 3 WWF appearances as "Key." He had internet hype in the late 90s, being pimped as this awesome cross between Foley & Vader. Check out Grimes vs. Erin O'Grady (Crash Holly) on Youtube. Best dark/tryout match ever.
===============
I only vaguely remembered the JJ/Stiller segment but Jarrett whacking celebrities with guitar shots and putting them in the Figure Four never gets old. So I had two reasons to revisit it. Sadly no guitar shot, but at least we got a Figure Four. Choke on that, Slapnuts.
===============
Nobi's take on ratings was similar to my own from 96-98 only I was flying the flag for Team WWF.
===============
Since coming to PW I've decided 1999 WWF was entertaining crap. It didn't make much sense. People turned all the time with little rhyme or reason beyond "swerve, bro." The average tv match went 2-3 minutes. Wrestler X beating Wrestler Y after pinning Wrestler Z would be considered a cleanish finish. They had some real scrubs stinking up the card. It was a purist's nightmare...

But I was no purist! And crap though it may have been, it also really was entertaining. Those shows had a certain undeniable energy to them. WWF business itself was still booming. Wrestling was still "cool." And stuff was always happening. It may have been bad from time to time, but rarely could you call it boring.

A few years back when we did our Favorite Promotion By Year countdown I had 1999 WWF behind 95-98 & 2000 WWF, but it still made my Top 10 (at #9 or #10). Meaning I was still super into the product.

ALTHOUGH I didn't watch a single PPV live from June to December (did watch KOTR a day or two later on tape tho). That was the longest WWF PPV drought since 95 (before I had PPV access) and I wouldn't have another drought that long until 2004.

Was going to mention this in the 1999 ECW discussion but hadn't got around to it yet....there was a narrow window, maybe July-October, when I was maybe a slightly bigger ECW fan than WWF.

Anyway, here are my Summer highlights...

-Ol' Double J was the hottest he'd been since his 97 return, if not on the hottest run of his WWF career. Even Kilgore tolerated him!
-BIG SHOT BOB running his mouth and fighting fellow big boys in Colossal Jostles. Then they killed it by saddling him with Luggage
-Hardys/Acolytes feuding over the Tag Titles was WWF booking for an audience of one- me rather than Vince! As an early fan of both teams I loved it.
-Revisionist take discovered on PW, but Acolytes had two really good Raw matches with Kane & XPac
-The Kane/XPac team in general was one of their better odd couple tag teams and this is coming from an XPac hater
-The AMAZING Undertaker promo about stranding Show in the desert. Love it! Down with the haters! like Big Pete
-The Rock burying Billy Gunn
-Smackdown coming to UPN. This was a huge deal at the time that gave us an additional two hours of prime time WWF programming.

Lowlights

-The Triple H push was to me what the JJ push was to 2000 WCW fans. Or Justin Credible a year early if you prefer. Luckily Trips got better.
-KOTR sucked and I didn't even bother with the next five pay per views.
-Whole lot of tv time was taken up by bores like Mideon & Vis, Meat Stasiak, Albert, Droz, Henry, Road Dogg, Gunn, Crash, Chaz, Blackman, Bossman, etc.
-1998 favorites Al Snow & Val Venis had become boring/bad while D'Lo & Godfather were also starting to get there.
-Way too many non-wrestlers in wrestling matches. Look, I wasn't a stuffy purist, but even I had my limits.
-The Higher Power letdown. 'Nuff said
-Titles bouncing around like our tape of Uncensored 96. They straight up killed the titles during this era. Crazy thing is it didn't even matter because when you're hot you're hot. Sing it, Jerry!
*Truth is WWF broke all the rules of wrestling during the late 90s and still came out smelling like roses. 

Other

-Getting Governor Jesse Ventura to referee Summerslam was a big deal that generated some mainstream publicity. Maybe a bigger deal outside of hardcore wrestling fan circles? Because I personally didn't really care that the bad guy commentator from 10 years ago was back to count a fall.
-Chris Gericho debuts. The fans in attendance that night loved it. The internet loved it. But I didn't get this pouty-faced tryhard plodfoot dweeb with goofy hair. So I became a Jericho hater for the next two and a half years+. Should have made him Excalibur. Or at least the mastermind behind GTV.

Random

Just remembered I was out of town the weekend of Summerslam. Went with my dad and his new girlfriend (my parents split up a few months earlier) to Atlantic City.

Finishing Fully Loaded now, about to watch Austin vs Taker first blood. Never seen this and have no idea what happens or who wins. The pre-match hype video made me want to do a backflip. Lets fucking go.

So many blade jobs in the build up to this match.

That's magical man. I used to pride myself on naming the title lineage from point a to point b so I could never not know things like that, at least when I actively watched.

Frfr counting champion to champion is way better than counting sheep.

WWF in 1999 was a bit of a average year in general (maybe coming off the high of 1998). I remember SummerSlam being a bit lackluster, even with Jesse Ventura being a guest ref in a match, but I guess one positive was Smackdown becoming a new show, and early on it had a few memorable moments, IMO (like a buried alive match, where Big Show "tossed" Foley from the stage over to the grave, and HHH wrestling 5 gimmick matches in one night).

Got to admit that was a good time. This got rid of Vince for a little while? I guess I accidentally already watched the post-Fully Loaded Raw where Triple H destroys Ken Shamrock. We are officially on the road to the Summerslam!

THE Summerslam's build is one my fan fic fantasies. I just want Chyna/Austin so fucking bad yo.

I am looking forward to watching the Summerslam '99 with all of the build up Raws that I never seen. 

Another one of my fan fic things is booking one of my boys TEST in the main event. I love the idea of him remaining relevant and taking the triple threat instead of Show at SurSer.

Aug 6, 2023 16:52:34 GMT @ness said:

Another one of my fan fic things is booking one of my boy's TEST in the main event. I love the idea of him remaining relevant and taking the triple threat instead of Show at SurSer.

1 of the dumbest names in the history of our sport!

Aug 6, 2023 16:58:05 GMT Ed said:

Aug 6, 2023 16:52:34 GMT @ness said:

Another one of my fan fic things is booking one of my boy's TEST in the main event. I love the idea of him remaining relevant and taking the triple threat instead of Show at SurSer.

1 of the dumbest names in the history of our sport!

Don't deny it you were a testicle!

I don't know why I disliked Test so much in real time. Everything they had going with him and Shane/Stephanie in 1999 was a big contributor to my loss of interest.

For me, that was Martin's high note. He was just another body.

I didn’t like Test either. Thought he was an overpushed vanilla hoss. Great match with Shane though. And he would have fit the storyline better than Show. But do we really want Test’s name in DA LINEAGE?

Studying your WWF Champion lineage is pure, wholesome, and what all the cool kids did. Ironically 1999 is when I start getting it confused lol

Also Dawn Marie>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Every single female in the WWF at this time. Another big draw for ECW for me, my first true love. My favorite girlfriends I've ever had were the ones that reminded me of her. 

You guys are ruining this great thread!!!

Aug 6, 2023 17:54:15 GMT Baker said:

I didn’t like Test either. Thought he was an overpushed vanilla hoss. Great match with Shane though. And he would have fit the storyline better than Show. But do we really want Test’s name in DA LINEAGE?

Studying your WWF Champion lineage is pure, wholesome, and what all the cool kids did. Ironically 1999 is when I start getting it confused lol

Speaking of lineage how lucky did WWE manage it with Saint Eddy getting the WWE and Benoit getting the secondary big gold belt. Sure they had to scrub some stuff in the archives but they can freely look at champs and not have to do a Voldemort. Separate thread idea and I probs already did it, but WWE with planning and just dumb Vince luck always protected the precious. I'm sure there's plenty of duds scattered especially as they went through their rapid fire title changes but still in the grand scheme of things she was about as protected as the Razor's Edge.