Brigstocke Re-lives the WWF/E 97 - Present.
 

Guys, Obviously my opinions are of massive importance to all of you and I feel bad that you didn't get to hear them throughout the best 'era' of Wrestling history.

I plan to use this thread to put this right, I am going to watch every episode of WWF Raw/Smackdown and all of the PPV's from 6th January 1997 to the present day. (the day I get to it not today), and will report back here with my findings.

Also, feel free to make your own comments and discussions throughout.

:heart:

good fucking luck with that

2000+ hours.

From the Vault:

THE VAULT DRINKING GAME

- Attitude Era was better than current WWE (anytime you think this instead of chat)
- Why are the logos blurred?/Why are they bleeping WWF?
- Current ECW Sucks/It's not the real ECW
- You guys stream (xyz)?
- TV-PG Sucks and is ruining the product/(xyz) Era was better
- Kane needs to put his mask back on
- Hart/HBK/Montreal/Hebner/SS '97
- Chyna is a dude/Chyna has a dick/Chyna is hot/Chyna is Fuckable.
- Cena Suxorz
- The Roster Split Sucks
- Michaels Hayes: Racist


- Pat Patterson gay joke
- IS DAT A TRET?
- Randy Savage/Stephanie McMahon joke
- Shane Douglas CUTTING THE FUCKING MUSIC
- Vintage ________
- Heidenrape
- Shane Douglas/Target
- Justin Credible/Olive Garden/Catering
- TAINTBUSTER!
- Any time Theddy (Albert) Appears on screen
- Stone Cold beating up Debra
- Someone says "RIP" when someone who has died is on-screen
- Ahmed the Drug Dealer
- Any time "My Time" is used
- Blackman reference
- Someone is IN THE ZONE
- Any time an Attitude Era (Non-Clean) Finish Happens
- Running Powerslam/Squeezing the Genitals
- When the same person is on the stream and TV (RAW, PPV, etc)
- Sid shit his pants joke
- Every time Brian Christopher laughs


- Any time Juan goes to The Sto or is assumed to be at The Sto
- Xero brings up Scorpio's Dick
- Someone doesn't check the status/"What year/show" is this
- ....YOUR MOM!
- MC Says something random
- Something Undertaker related/smoke worthy happens while MC is in the room
- HS says something random
- HS Rewrites History
- Any time MC comments on Jeff Hardy stripping/being on screen
- Someone does a Noid Post (message gets cut off)
- Someone claims to be King of the Vault
- Someone complains about wrestling not being shown

All kicks off tonight guys, I've downloaded the first 8 episodes of RAW.

Excited about Vince being on commentary :nostalgia: also first episode has a Mankind vs Owen Hart match so that will likely be awesome.

when you get to the 2002-2005 RAW's and you see HHH at the start of every episode you'll want to quit. Good luck.

52 (weeks of raw) x 14 (years) x 2 (hours) = 1,456 hours of Raw alone meaning it will take you just over 60 days to do this assuming you dont sleep and watch it all back to back. Incase you are wondering, yes, you are a moron

I dont think anyone on this forum knows what 'present day' means. look at this guy for example, watching every last drop of the last wrestling boom! wrestling never seems as awesome as it actually is until two years down the line.
Eugene and musical chairs was average when i saw it live, now its fucking hilarious, same with Orton RKO'ing Stacy and HBK superkicking Mike Knox at the start of the dream teams survivor series win. :heart:

It's madness! And I love it.

RAW 6th January 1997 - Albany, New York
 

Really looking forward to this as I havn't watched any 'old' wrestling for ages.

The first thing that hit me was the difference in the arena set up. No Ramp, No Titantron, No Pyro. Steel barriers around the ringside area and the old school announce tables.

Theres a huge difference in how the WWE works now. They used to rely much more heavily on the talent to get people interested and keep them watching where as now they use a lot of extra production to garner your attention. The whole thing nowadays is such a big spectacle where as the way this arena is set up makes the whole 'wrestling' part seem more legit.

First thing I get to see is a promo from Vader. I don't remember him ever being special on the mic and he wasn't, he got his point across that he was going to show Bret Hart what time it is later in the show and I believed his legitimacy as a 'tough guy'.

Next up is a short replay of Ahmed Johnson hitting the plunge on a member of the Nation of Domination on the roof of a car on the previous 'Shotgun Saturday' Remember that show? I have no recollection at all.

RAW intro music and video. Seems like this was produced much longer than 13 years ago.

First match up is Mankind vs Owen Hart.

Mankind dressed in the old brown attire love the way Foley portrayed this gimmick, his sitting in the ring and rocking back and forth is genius. Paul Bearer has come out with him.

Owen out to a pretty good pop from the Crowd there. God I miss this guy :wavesad: He really did have it all except size.

Pretty good back and forth match, Owen goes in early for the Sharpshooter but Mankind gets to the ropes before he's sinched it in.

Vince already talking about Shawn Michaels.

Action moves to the outside Mankind hits Owen with what looks like a tray that had no business being at ringside.

Mankind gets the pin after sending Owen shoulder first into the ringpost.

(No finisher needed, but the ending still looked legit) Imagine someone winning with this now?

Backstage segment here now Shawn and Jose and Pete Lothario they can't wait to hear from Sid later in the show. (Not sure about the background of this storyline so no clue why?)

Fake Razor Ramon and Fake Diesel (Glen Jacobs? Questioning myself here because this guys build is barely similar to how I remember Kane in his early days in the gimmick) Vs the as yet undefeated team of Doug Furniss and Phil LaFon. Honky Tonk is on Guest Commentary.

Furness and LaFon are technically sound and work as a 'cohesive unit' nothing overly exciting about this match. wasn't really into it. It went about 2 minutes longer than the previous match which I'd have happily sat through another 5 minutes of. It seems that they only went so long because they were trying to get Honky over on the mic. Anyways Furness got the pin on the Frazor.

Match announcement for next week. Hunter Hearst Helmsley/Jerry Lawler vs Marc Mero/Golddust. It has some sort of back story about HHH and Marlena who In believe is Golddusts valet?

Promo from Bret, He says Vader is big but he is also stupid. and that he hopes Shawn Michaels puts his nose in the match later.

JR in the ring to interview Sid who is champion. Sid has a 'Sid Pyro' above the ring. Crap Promo from Sid he looks like he plays the part of the 'bad man' well but his speaking seems really monotonous and at one point he looks like he's reading from a cue card at ringside.

Shawn out to a huge pop starts dancing/stripping? on the announce table. Vince has a semi erection. Sid looks incensed and makes some sort of apology in advance for what he's going to do later.

Undertaker Tombstone's Cornette in a replay from what looks like superstars?

Vader vs Bret Hart.

Bret pulls Vader through this match giving him lots of offense and generally making him look golden for the most part. Vader Bomb attempt but Bret gets the knees up. Sid comes back out and grabs a cameraman and takes him backstage. It goes to the outside and out of nowhere Austin stuns Bret. Vader rolls Bret back in hits the Vader Bomb for the win.

Vader celebrates and camera flicks backstage to Sid who powerbombs Pete Lothario onto a table, this actually looked brilliant because the table wasn't gimmicked and didn't break and the bump looked truely painful.

Shawn and Jose Lothario run to the back then we see the two of them with Savio Vega and who I think was Aldo Montoya but didn't get a good look tend to Pete Lothario.

----------------------------

In summary, show was Good, didn;t blow me away but I enjoyed the slower pace of the matches compared with todays product and the general 'feel' of the whole thing was great as it seemed more real.

Love Mankind character, Bret was great in his match, the two guys who beat Frazor and Fake Diesel looked Good as a team and Owen was excellent all round.

The show was mainly let down by the promo's Bret stumbled through his, Sid and Vader were never great. Honky did a good job on colour commentary though. Looking forward to next show.

Where you downloading these from Brigstocke?

Isohunt buddy. Theres a torrent file of every episode of Raw from 1997 so I'm stealing them 8 at a time from there.

Pretty sure I will be able to find something similar for 1998 once I'm done with these.

Actually, it's Doug FURNAS

Am I bovvered? He's insignificant in the long run.

1997 was turd.

Skip to the latter months when Austin and Owen have that sick feud over the IC belt, thats when WWF got lively.

I want to watch '97 I want to see how the attitude era began etc. as I wasn't a regular watcher at this time. I started watching in roughly 2002 and have no prior knowledge IE had never seen 'Rocky Maivia' or 'Hunter Hearst Helmsley' and am not informed about any feuds from the time period.

This is where 1997 really started to heat up:


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Spoiler alert, man! Brigstocke gonna be pissed!

I'd rather refer to it as "a preview" lol.

Skip to the 2nd half of 1999 as that is where Triple H starts to carry the company and entire industry on his massive and entertaining back.

For once, I have to agree fully. This was pre-Stephanie for you complainers. Autoplay within spoilers btw.

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/6896/h01gp3.jpg

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/6824/9904fb8.jpg

Triple H, being the true Champion of the People that he is, won his first WWF World Heavyweight Championship on the August 23, 1999 edition of RAW in a classic matchup against fellow People's Champion and RAW IS WAR World Title winner...Mankind (Mick Foley).

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Easily the greatest night of my childhood.

Was Bret's turn actually a full turn?
Everyone loved him but Americans.

Americans are the only ones that matter, so yes.

lol at him pushing over Stacy Keibler.

But make sure you stop prior to 2003 and HHH's "Reign of Terror".

James, did you know they are releasing a 3 disk set next year for HHH. This one will most likely have a long documentary

Fuck yes! I was deeply disappointed in the "Triple H: King of Kings - There is Only One" DVD set. Thank you for this tremendous news!

yep, should be an awesome set. So far I know him, Goldberg (which was posted here) and Big Show are on plan

Been a few days since I had any spare time guys, will hopefully watching up to the '97 Rumble tonight.

So there will now be only TWO documentary dvds for the game. Guess they need to change the name of the first dvd or put an asterisk.

If you are going to do this then do it right. Every ECW and WCW need to be watched also to get the full effect of the "attitude" era.

But ECW was pretty shit and I think Sting is a wanker.

The "Triple H: King of Kings - There Is Only One" DVD didn't have a documentary.

97 is the best year for Monday Night Raw on all accounts.

Any updates or did you realize this was too much work?