2007: Most disastrous year in WWE history?

[haVoc 0]

Please, someone remind me of these good matches Triple H had in 2002. Not a one comes to my mind. I recall 02/03 being equally bad.

[haws bah gawd 0]

Those 2 years were VERY rough for him, but the first Elimination Chamber stands out, mainly due to association, but really all 6 guys carried their load in that match. Hell in a Cell against Nash wasn't all that bad either, IMO.

[Hoff 0]

Hell in the Cell was terrible. HHH basically has HBK to thank for sucking less in '02 than he did in '03. Summerslam, the 3 Stages of Hell or whatever at Armageddon (I think Armageddon...the December PPV), and the EC, although that was much more to it being the first EC match, as well as the work of HBK, Y2J, and RVD. Acronyms FTW!

 

EDIT: My personal opinion of the EC is also tainted by the fact that I'm a huge Michaels mark. So are all my friends. We actually got a noise complaint when he won the title. We could not believe it.

[SamoaRowe 0]

The first elimination chamber match was pretty good, but not really that "great."

 

The Nash/HHH HIAC was about *** to me, which is pretty good considering Nash was in it against the 2003 version of Triple H.

 

 

[Hoff 0]

I've heard people speak well of that match; I remember in one of Keith's books he said it was better than it got credit for because everyone would assume it was going to suck. I've rewatched it a couple times and I don't see it, but to each their own.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

HHH spent most of 2003 wrestling Scott Steiner, Kevin Nash and Goldberg. Jesus himself couldn't get a good match out of those guys.

[Papacita 0]

PR-wise, I agree 07 is the worst.

 

Quality-wise...the period from about Survivor Series 01 to about SummerSlam 02 was about as bad as you can get. Say what you will about 95 WWF, but as least Diesel never played second fiddle to a dog.

[goldengreek 0]

PR-wise, this is the worst it's been in a long time, but if you're looking at it as a fan, I don't see how this beats out 2003. If I remember correctly, all of the following nonsense happened in '03:

 

- Scott Steiner @ the Royal Rumble (and in general)

- Brock nearly killed himself

- Angle and Brock: homoeroticism FTW!

- HHH vs. Nash is your main event

- Zach Gowen

- Mr. America

- Vince beats up his own daughter

- Kane vs. Shane, ball electrodes and whatnot

- Kane lighting JR on fire

- Goldberg

- Nathan Jones

- Booker T and "his types" not being championship material

- JR and King, RAW superstars

- G-G-G-G-Goldust!

- Lance Storm's manufactured personality, because being a great wrestler isn't enough

- Steiner vs. Nowinski; Monday Night Debate, y'all!

- probably more I've repressed

 

This was also the height of HHHate, as the few good matches he had in '02 faded into memory and he just killed anyone's momentum and popularity when they stepped in the ring with him. Literally no match had a well-booked finish; common occurences were Evolution cheating during a blowoff match, and HHH hitting the Pedigree, lying hurt for a minute, and STILL getting the cover. We all remember the Goldberg feud. There were some bright spots (Cena's emergence, Benoit's push -- yeah yeah, it was a good thing at the time, HBK lighting up the ring), but given how overall bad the year was it's a miracle WMXIX was as good as it was.

Goldie was G-G-G-G-G GREAT !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

HHH spent most of 2003 wrestling Scott Steiner, Kevin Nash and Goldberg. Jesus himself couldn't get a good match out of those guys.

Having missed out on WWE 02-05, I've started to catch up thanks to Torrent sites and tape trading, watched Jan-Feb03 recently and I thought Steiner/HHH was ok. Their feud was ok in terms of the Promos and Angles, but the matches sucked. The crowd were hugely behind Steiner until the RR Match haha

[Hoff 0]

Steiner definitely had some promise upon his arrival, but his feud with HHH was man-love-tastic. Remember the posedown? Yeesh. And then when it came out he was essentially crippled, the little promise left from his debut went straight down the drain. Steiner has always been a great character, though, and it's a shame he could barely move when he finally got to WWE. Also a shame he got paired up with you-know-who. I still watch their RR match when I need a laugh. it's interesting to see him working again in TNA; it's not as though he's lighting the world on fire, but he appears to have a better range of motion, and he started doing the FRANKENSTEINER~ again, when I think most of us had written that off for good.

 

Remember his feud with Test? Although we did get Stacy giving a lapdance out of that, so it's hard to call it all bad.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

Haha I thought the posedown worked well, if a little homoerotic - the crowd were really buying into it. And Scott Steiner's adlib swearing off mic was golden.

 

As for Steiner's TNA work, he's been giving time to heal where as in WWE he worked through his injuries and it really affected him. If I'm honest, the biggest mark out moments this year in TNA have all been Scott Steiner related, he just seems like he's enjoying himself again, I feel happy for the guy.

[Hoff 0]

Hey, more power to him. I haven't caught a lot, a couple minutes here and there, but I did see a FRANKENSTEINER~ and that rocked. IIRC.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

I'm surprised people don't think 03 is a good year, since Val Venis is a 'major' character as Bischoffs little man servant. And the 3 Minute Warning music rocks! haha

[pochorenella 0]

2003 had some pretty good stuff with Angle/Brock (Mania and yes, I'm even including their Iron Man match), Jericho vs. HBK, and my favorites for that year, Angle vs Benoit from the Rumble and Triple H vs HBK from 2003's final RAW.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah and also Eddie Guerrero started catching fire like a maniac in 2003. And Cena started really emerging as a big star that year. SD was a fairly strong show during that period, but man Raw was the drizzling shits. Oh and people forget the crap with the McMahons all over TV in 2003 in various storylines.

 

I don't excuse HHH for sucking in 2003 due to wrestling Nash, Steiner, and Goldberg. Hell it was likely his idea to feud with all those bums.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I don't excuse HHH for sucking in 2003 due to wrestling Nash, Steiner, and Goldberg. Hell it was likely his idea to feud with all those bums.

Of those three limited workers, it's funny how the only one whose weaknesses he worked around was the guy who just happened to be Hunter's best friend.

[Lt. Al Giardello 0]

As mentioned SD! was very good in 2003.

 

The main event scene was Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, The Undertaker, Big Show(before he was a lazy peice of shit, and was capable of a good match with the right opponet).

 

You had John Cena on his rise to becoming the next big star for the WWE, and arguably his best year as a character.

 

WGTT tearing up the tag team divison having good matches week in and week out.

 

The return of the U.S. title.

 

And overall good wrestling weekly.

[Jingus 0]

Hey Hoof, you forgot Trish/Bradshaw vs. Gayda/Nowinski. And I think we should mention Heel Coachman too. Plus, Eric goddamned Bischoff back on television for no discernable reason. And Austin's lackluster final run. And the bait-n-switch Chuckabilly gay wedding that the WWE actually claimed provided positive homosexual role models. And MONTHS of hearing the letters "HLA" while never actually seeing any. And Pregnant Piper. And Sean O'Haire's awesome gimmick being killed for no reason. And Brian Kendrick: streaker. And we shouldn't discount the early days of La Resistance back before they got "good". (Were Katie Vick and Al Wilson 02 or 03?) Man, 2003 sucked.

[LivingLegendGaryColeman 0]

Hey Hoof, you forgot Trish/Bradshaw vs. Gayda/Nowinski. And I think we should mention Heel Coachman too. Plus, Eric goddamned Bischoff back on television for no discernable reason. And Austin's lackluster final run. And the bait-n-switch Chuckabilly gay wedding that the WWE actually claimed provided positive homosexual role models. And MONTHS of hearing the letters "HLA" while never actually seeing any. And Pregnant Piper. And Sean O'Haire's awesome gimmick being killed for no reason. And Brian Kendrick: streaker. And we shouldn't discount the early days of La Resistance back before they got "good". (Were Katie Vick and Al Wilson 02 or 03?) Man, 2003 sucked.

 

Vick and Wilson were 02, as were Chuckabilly's wedding, the Trish/Bradshaw vs. Nowinski/Gayda, HLA and Bischoff coming back to TV.

 

All those things were late 02, but still 02. That 02-03 run was the most painful.

 

 

[Jingus 0]

Whoops. But yeah, around then was the time I stopped watching consistently. Especially since starting fall '02 I had a booking every Friday night so I missed most of the Smackdown Six stuff, and by fall '03 I was working three-day indy show weekends and felt burned out enough on wrestling by Monday that I didn't feel like watching Vince's crap too often.

[Obi Chris Kenobi 0]

What was HLA?

[LivingLegendGaryColeman 0]

What was HLA?

 

HLA was Hot Lesbian Action. They kept promoting it, even at one point saying Smackdown GM Stephanie McMahon was going to be involved. It wasn't so much of an angle, as am embarrassing, pointless waste of time. They even made a hideous t-shirt for it too, which, if anyone bought one, they probably needed to pass out fliers to all of their neighbors.

 

I think the Stephanie segment was guaranteed for the Unforgiven 2002 PPV, which included Rikishi in drag too.

[Bix 0]

And Sean O'Haire's awesome gimmick being killed for no reason.

It was killed because O'Haire was unable to cut a live promo w/o cracking up.

[Jingus 0]

Really? Hmmm. Would explain why all his promos were pretaped, wouldn't it. Okay, rephrase: "Sean O'Haire killing his awesome new gimmick and then getting fired."

[JPopStarKami 0]

What was HLA?

 

Hot Lesbian Action.

[RedJed 0]

Asctetically (sp?) I would say this year was one of the worst. Just some horrible PR to say the least. Lots of injuries left and right, and unhappy campers within the company.

 

Internally, you have to go with 93 or 94, as their numbers dropped considerably IIRC. 96 into 97, they were hurting tons but was it a slow progressive form from back in 93/94 or not?

 

From a booking perspective, I thought mid 01 into pretty much all of 02 was the drizzling shits.

[Epic Reine 0]

2002 was miles worse than 2003 by far. I personally didn't think 2003 was that bad from a wrestling standpoint but everything up until Summerslam 2002 was god awful and even after Summerslam it only started to get a tiny bit better.

[Enigma 0]

What was HLA?

I think the Stephanie segment was guaranteed for the Unforgiven 2002 PPV, which included Rikishi in drag too.

 

Yeah. The deal was that if Totally-Not-Gay-Now Billy & Chuck lost to 3 Minute Warning, Stephanie had to perform HLA. Billy & Chuck lost, of course. Bischoff came out with two models, one of which was Kitana Baker. Steph came out, the models take their shirts off and start feeling up Stephanie. Then Bischoff told the models to go away because he had something better for Steph. Then this huge thing comes talking out in a business suit which turns out to be Rikishi. But before the big reveal, Steph just totally jumps Rikishi and makes out with him. Then he pops up and beats the fuck out of Bischoff. Meanwhile, the crowd awkwardly watches Rikishi and Steph (whose face is covered in lipstick) dance in the ring. Pretty lame.

 

I always thought involving Steph in the HLA angle was hilarious. Right after Road Dogg was fired from WWE in 2001, I worked an indy show with him. He told everybody about how Stephanie was bisexual and how she would get it on with other girls for HHH.

[cameron chaos 0]

They also lost a couple of international TV deals due to the Benoit tragedy which put their plans for international expansion back. MMA has drained some of their audience and brought back old wrestling fans who have now grown up. UFC now has the same kind of popularity WWE had in 98-99.

[luke-o 0]

He told everybody about how Stephanie was bisexual and how she would get it on with other girls for HHH.

 

Hawt.