Best month of WWF TV ever?

[Guest blackjack4x]

May 2001. Benoit/Austin on Raw, Benoit/Austin on SmackDown, TLC 3 and Benoit/Jericho vs Austin/HHH. TV main events were never better, and Benoit and Jericho were in the middle of their big push.

[Guest tombstone]

That was sweet.

I liked my first month of WWF TV, leading up to Rumble 2000, where HHH fired Foley, he turned into Cactus Jack & all that.

The Rocks 29 Jabroni speech, Jericho as IC champion, the arrival of the Radicalz (ok that was after the Rumble)

 

OK so February as well, with the Big Show tossing Rock through the 'plate glass' window backstage.

 

And the lead up to Fully Loaded 2000.  The Hardys vs. Edge & Christian feud, Rock vs.Benoit, Shane's stable (Benoit, Angle, big Show, Edge & Christian) Triple H vs. Jericho, angle trashing takers bike...........great days

[Guest DEEP THOUGHT]

The summer of 1997. The Hart Foundation is by far my favourite angle of all time. The super-heated matches on every episode of Raw, and weekly tirades from the Hart Foundation, bashing the USA. Many of Bret Hart's quotes from this period are  classic, such as the semi-famous "If you were to give the United States an enema, you'd stick the hose right here in Pittsburgh" and "Alberta where I come from is rat free...but the same can't be said here in *insert name of US city here*. I mean just take a look around you. This arena is full of them!!"

[Guest CB2M]

The super-heated matches on every episode of Raw

The only "super-heated" match I can recall from that time was on the 7/21/97 show from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the Flag Match, with Austin, Taker and Dude Love vs. Hart Foundation.

 

People seem to think fondly of that time period, and while the angles were great, most of the matches were bad (DOA, Boricuas, Nation), except for the Austin/Hart Foundation stuff.

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

I don't know when it was.

 

But my favorite moment in the history of WWF tv was when Bret had had surgery and was in his wheelchair...and Austin and Hart had been going at it every week...

 

Austin put a wheelchair in the ring...sat in it...and asked:  "Who wants to see a wheelchair match?"

 

Classic.

 

He even promised not to get out of his.

 

I seem to recall TV being good around then...

 

But as far as actual wrestling goes...I'll agree with May 2001

[Guest CB2M]

"I don't know when it was."

 

4/28/97 Raw from Omaha, Neb.

 

"But my favorite moment in the history of WWF tv was when Bret had had surgery and was in his wheelchair...and Austin and Hart had been going at it every week..."

 

Every week?  Not quite.  They had the street fight the previous week, after their match at the 4/20 PPV.  The match at the PPV was thrown together because Sid bailed with his "injuries" as it was supposed to be Bret vs. Sid.  Bret and Austin were largely kept apart after WM 13 with the feeling that was going to main event the following year's Wrestlemania, which never happened of course.

 

"I seem to recall TV being good around then..."

 

It was good because McMahon started listening to Russo's ideas.  He started writing WWF TV in April 1997.

 

"But as far as actual wrestling goes...I'll agree with May 2001"

 

Up through May 20, it was nothing but boring TV, focusing on the Austin-Undertaker feud, that made me turn off my set quite frequently.  May 21 had an excellent tag match.  The next day was the TLC match, which was a good gimmick match.  The following Monday was Benoit-Austin from Calgary, that had the horrible Montreal finish.  The next day was the great Benoit-Austin match from Edmonton, which was the WWF's best match of the year by a longshot.  So May 21-May 29 is closer than just "May 2001."

[Guest CB2M]

The best moment/segment of WWF TV I've ever seen was on the 8/9/99 Raw from Chicago for Jericho's debut interview and interplay with Rock.  Just an incredible moment that I'll never forget.

[Guest dreamer420]

I liked all of 1998 for WWF tv.  It was when I started to get really back into wrestling again and watching Austin and McMahon every week was just awesome to me because wrestling wasn't like I had remembered it.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

For me, it would be April of 2000. We had Guerrero beating Jericho for the Euro Title and moving into a program with Essa Rios. We had Edge & Christian finally revealing their comedic talents. We had Benoit v Jericho start. Every RAW was quite solid.

               -=Mike

[Guest goodhelmet]

I'm gonna agree with Blackjack4x. From Judgement Day to King of the Ring 2001, the wrestling was great. Benoit, Jericho, Austin, angle all pulling out excellent matches!

[Guest Tony149]

I also liked all of the 1998 WWF TV. But for wrestling matches from May-June 2001. Austin vs. Benoit, etc.

[Guest Anglesault]

August 2000: The love triangle, TLC, RTC when it was fresh.

[Guest ratboy]

Jan-Feb. 2000. Foley-HHH, Radicalz debut, that insane ten-man tag. Interesting stuff, by and large. The "Cactus comes back" promo from SmackDown alone gets my vote. Plus, to me it all seemed to flow correctly into the PPVs at the time.

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

May 2001. Benoit/Austin on Raw, Benoit/Austin on SmackDown, TLC 3 and Benoit/Jericho vs Austin/HHH. TV main events were never better, and Benoit and Jericho were in the middle of their big push.

That was a great period. Awful shame Benoit got injured when he did. Hope he gets back to that stage.

[Guest blackjack4x]

Up through May 20, it was nothing but boring TV, focusing on the Austin-Undertaker feud, that made me turn off my set quite frequently.  May 21 had an excellent tag match.  The next day was the TLC match, which was a good gimmick match.  The following Monday was Benoit-Austin from Calgary, that had the horrible Montreal finish.  The next day was the great Benoit-Austin match from Edmonton, which was the WWF's best match of the year by a longshot.  So May 21-May 29 is closer than just "May 2001."

True. I still consider May 2001 the best month, overall, despite the strong showing only coming in the last week or so, but I'll change my favorite one-month period to May 21 - June 21. That means Austin/Jericho for the title (June 4), Benoit/Angle in a cage (June 11) and Benoit/Jericho vs Edge/Christian (June 14) are now included along with the four strong May matches.

I also liked the Benoit/Jericho vs APA, Benoit/Jericho vs Rhyno/Big Show and Benoit/Jericho vs Austin/Vince segment on the June 7 SmackDown that Regal put together to screw over the Chrisses. Even though it wasn't really what you'd call great wrestling, I really enjoyed it.

[Guest The Vanilla Midget]

April to May '01.  from wrestlemania through to may with the awesome series between the power trip/canadian chrisses.  this was awesome tv.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

February 2000.

[Guest imajackoff?]

January 1999.  Rock/Foley .  Foley as world champ!!

[Guest Shawn]

I really liked some of the '96 stuff and since I missed that Smackdown with the TLC and the whole Benoit/Jericho tag team.

[Guest artDDP]

I liked August 1998.  That was when the WWF made SummerSlam truly seem like the mega-show of the summer, headlining with the first Steve Austin vs. Undertaker main event after three months of hype.

 

At the same time, the DX-Nation rivalry was set to detonate with the ladder match, Edge was on the rise, Val Venis and D-Lo Brown were growing into strong mid-card players, storylines weren't rushed and Vince Russo booking made sense for the most part.

 

I remember that was the first time in years a PPV had me pumped at all, especially to the degree SummerSlam did.

[Guest MrDanger]

It was good because McMahon started listening to Russo's ideas.  He started writing WWF TV in April 1997.

Russo was around at that time but he didn't have any major say as far as booking was concerned. He was only promoted to assistant head booker in April 1998.

[Guest Rick001]

The month of invasion, good midcard matches really.  Like RVD vs Jeff Hardy, RVD vs Matt Hardy, RVD vs Tajiri.  Hmmm I think I'm forming a patern here hehe.  Also Tazz vs Tajiri, Mike Awesome vs. Jeff Hardy.  The midcard matches no one remembers.

[Guest imajackoff?]

It was good because McMahon started listening to Russo's ideas.  He started writing WWF TV in April 1997.

Russo was around at that time but he didn't have any major say as far as booking was concerned. He was only promoted to assistant head booker in April 1998.

The first "Russo Raw" was the Austin/Bret Ambulance angle.  That was in April of 1997.

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Either sometime in mid-97 or Benoit/Jericho push.

[Guest RedJed]

Feb-March 1987, buildup to WM III. Great stuff ranging from the Hogan-Andre confrontation on Pipers Pit......the Steamboat-Savage angles.......Danny Davis turning into an actual wrestler in the feud with the HF and the Bulldogs, so much good stuff intermixed with pointless squash matches, of course

[Guest Some Guy]

I'll go with April 97, all the Austin/Bret stuff kiccked ass. 97 was my favorite year in wrestling and probably the most important year in WWF history.  Watching Bret's last great matches and Austin becoming a huge superstar, HBK when he was around was the best worker/performer ever, IMO (his DX heel run was great)  The undercard wasn't that good, but Owen, Shamrock, Vader, Bulldog hels it together.  The main event picture in 97 was inspired booking and the some of the most creative stuff I've ever seen.