Let's Talk About.....The Hummer Angle!

[cabbageboy 0]

Those that were amused by the Vince Russo thread on here likely read that while Russo's booking in WCW was mostly hideous that I feel there was one angle WCW did in 1999 that was worse than anything Russo ever did. That of course would be the disaster known as the WCW Hummer Angle from 1999, which to me is the single worst angle in the history of wrestling. It was bizarre, incoherent when it didn't need to be, spanned too many months, wasn't really resolved, and generally wrecked WCW's business to the point where they went from a still somewhat viable #2 promotion to a laughingstock.

 

It all began after Kevin Nash defeated DDP for the world title at Slamboree 99, with the aid of Eric Bischoff returning to restart the match (how I don't exactly know since Bisch had zero power in storyline). DDP wasn't ever meant to be a long term main eventer, Hogan was hurt, and Goldberg was filming Universal Soldier 2, so Randy Savage was brought back from injury to feud with Kevin Nash.

 

The feud got off to a fairly amusing start as Nash used a contortionist woman to dump sewage all over Macho on Nitro. So of course Savage must retaliate and he does so with the aid of his alluring female cohorts Gorgeous George, Miss Madness (Molly Holly), and Madusa. They lured Nash into a limo rendezvous (with champagne) and before Nash knew it they bolted and a humvee came crashing into the limo, seemingly either killing Nash or seriously injuring him. Bear in mind this was a week before the Great American Bash PPV, so it seemed odd to do an angle where one of the two main event guys would be seriously injured and thus might not wrestle on the PPV.

 

GAB 99 of course is one of the worst PPVs ever for various reasons, but the main event is what I'll focus on. Nash and Macho had a mediocre match that ended with Sid Vicious returning to WCW and attacking Nash for a DQ. This was actually a pretty interesting surprise as many assumed Sid was simply the hummer driver Macho hired to take out Nash. However....he wasn't. And that was the problem.

 

The angle kept going on and on into July, with Sid clearly NOT being the driver and Savage insisting that he had the real driver under wraps to attack when the time was right. Somehow Sting was involved in this now as well, with Macho alluding to him maybe being the driver and fake Stings showing up all over TV in hummers doing god knows what. This was all head scratching stuff, but at least Savage vowed to reveal the real driver at Bash at the Beach. That main event was an insane tag match with the WCW title on the line, where Sting could actually win the world title from his own tag partner, Nash. As an aside there was a dubious angle with Macho beating Gorgeous George and Nash "rescued" her during all of this.

 

None of this happened of course. No driver was ever revealed at BATB, but instead Savage won the title when George obviously turned on Nash and cost him the match. Sting and Sid didn't factor into much of it and all the red herrings with Sting being the driver went nowhere. Savage's epic win lasted all of one night, as the returning Hulk Hogan beat him on Nitro and went back to the red and yellow soon after.

 

If this angle hadn't gone totally off the tracks by now, it soon would. Nash was now furious at Hogan for being the champ and turned heel, demanding a match with Hogan at Road Wild and even put his career on the line. Savage went on to do a silly feud with Dennis Rodman of all people, even threatening that the hummer driver might be lurking to attack again. Other than that slight mention, the angle was put on the back burner. So of course at the PPV Hogan beat Nash and sent him into retirement (for now) and Savage beat Rodman only to then quit the company immediately after the PPV as the company itself was clearly tanking beyond belief.

 

Instead of just dropping the whole Hummer Angle nonsense, WCW actually went back to it for lack of anything better to do once Bischoff was removed as WCW president. We now have Hogan as champion with Sting challenging him at Fall Brawl, but add in Lex Luger to stir some shit. Luger claimed that he had definite proof that Hogan was in fact the Hummer driver, though the pics with Hogan showed Hulk with a humvee of a different color than the one that ran over Nash. Luger insisted to Sting not to trust Hogan and for once Sting wasn't a moron. At Fall Brawl Sting sorta turned heel and attacked Hogan with a baseball bat, had multiple run ins, and won the title (I say sorta because the crowd cheered all of this, clearly not buying Hogan's face act).

 

Let's back up and survey the carnage. At this point we have Lex Luger accusing Hogan of being the Hummer Driver, when in fact the man who was initially hit by the Hummer (Nash) was now retired in storyline terms and did a heel turn before retiring to boot! Further, the man who hired the job to be done (Savage) had walked out on WCW over disagreements with Hogan and Co. over the booking. Luger himself was never directly tied to any of these events, and Sting was mostly a red herring.

 

After Fall Brawl WCW had a few lame duck weeks before Vince Russo took over the booking. They basically ignored the Hummer angle from this point and Russo dropped it entirely during his initial run. So basically after all this crap the angle was never resolved, never went anywhere, and WCW's ratings had plummetted from a 3.9 or so to a 2.6.

 

In April of 2000 Russo and Bischoff returned after the ill fated Kevin Sullivan booking era and on this initial Nitro outing Hogan was the victim of a Hummer attack, as Eric Bischoff and Billy Kidman ran down the Hulkster to start that feud. It is still debated as to what exactly this all meant. Was it Bischoff all along that was the driver? Was it a silly tribute and nothing more? No one really knows for sure. Let's say Bischoff was the real driver though since no other solution was presented. Why would Bischoff want to run over Nash in the first place? He had just restarted the Slamboree match that helped Nash win the title from Page, so it makes zero sense.

 

This angle along with some other 1999 debacles (Fingerpoke of Doom, No Limit Soldiers, etc.) really sent WCW spiralling into the abyss. But those other angles at least on some level made sense and had some resolution to them. The Hummer Angle was truly the most horrendous, idiotic nightmare of a storyline I have ever seen in pro wrestling.

 

Discuss.

[Diamonddust 0]

My brain hurts after reading the recap of this one.

[Corkscrew_Senton 0]

The Hummer angle killed WCW for me. The Fingerpoke pissed me off, but I was still engaged in the product. Bret Hart feuding with Will Fuckin' Sasso didn't kill my interest. But the summer of '99 was such a collective crap heap, with this being the culmination, I didn't go out of my way to watch WCW anymore (at least, until the last three months in 2001 when it was surprisingly good). I can't believe bookers would have an angle with such little foresight. It certainly had potential, which makes the horrible execution that much more frustrating. I mean, getting things wrong like the fucking COLOR of the Hummer is inexcusable.

[cabbageboy 0]

The angle would have worked fairly well if it had simply been Sid and they wrapped it up after a couple of weeks. Trying to make it this huge mystery for months and months with no payoff wrecked the main event scene and the promotion in general.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

This stimulating discussion harkens me back to a thread discussion but a few days ago. I thus dub thy thread superflous.

 

 

 

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

The angle would have worked fairly well if it had simply been Sid and they wrapped it up after a couple of weeks. Trying to make it this huge mystery for months and months with no payoff wrecked the main event scene and the promotion in general.

 

The ultimate irony is that WCW's hummer angle began the very same night as the anticlimactic culmination of the long-winded Higher Power angle over in the WWF. At least WWF went out of their way to explain why it was Vince all along, and a few good angles were spawned from it.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

The angle would have worked fairly well if it had simply been Sid and they wrapped it up after a couple of weeks.

 

Exactly.

 

At least WWF went out of their way to explain why it was Vince all along, and a few good angles were spawned from it.

 

Why did Vince do it?

[King Kamala 0]

The beginning of it all

[Enigma 0]

I mean, getting things wrong like the fucking COLOR of the Hummer is inexcusable.

 

Both Sting and Gene Okerlund mentioned the hummer color when Luger showed him the pictures. Luger defended it saying, "How do you know he doesn't have a white one?"

[Hawk 34 0]

Wasn't one of the long running jokes/rumor that Nash used to say it was meant to be Carmen Electra? What was worse? WCW never effectively wrapping this angle up or WWF using a similar plot and ending it with an asinine heel turn in Rikishi? At least the WWF version had Detective Foley on the case.

[cabbageboy 0]

Oh of course it was worse in WCW since it sent the promotion spiralling horribly out of control and they didn't recover. The WWF doing it again with Austin and Rikishi was kinda bad as well but at most it sent them into a creative funk. In fact the unspectacular Rikishi heel turn, the TNN move, and the crappy end to HHH/Angle/Steph is really what started the WWF's decline in business in roughly Sept. 2000.

[Corkscrew_Senton 0]

Oh boy, the HHH-Angle-Stephanie storyline. That was a great angle with a massively fumbled conclusion. Did it even HAVE a conclusion? I would have preferred that angle turn Trips face, culminating with the two facing off at Wrestlemania. But I suppose that's discussion for a different time.

 

 

[Silence 0]

Oh of course it was worse in WCW since it sent the promotion spiralling horribly out of control and they didn't recover. The WWF doing it again with Austin and Rikishi was kinda bad as well but at most it sent them into a creative funk. In fact the unspectacular Rikishi heel turn, the TNN move, and the crappy end to HHH/Angle/Steph is really what started the WWF's decline in business in roughly Sept. 2000.

 

This also drove away most of the Attitude Era fans from what I read back then on some boards.

[cabbageboy 0]

I don't know if that angle really drove people away, but I would certainly think that Austin's heel turn at WM 17 where he joined up with Vince was something that did drive people away. I went to a SD taping in Oct. 2000 and that show was sold out at Freedom Hall. The next WWF show here was another SD in May 2001 and they had the upper deck tarped off.

[Corkscrew_Senton 0]

I don't know if that angle really drove people away, but I would certainly think that Austin's heel turn at WM 17 where he joined up with Vince was something that did drive people away. I went to a SD taping in Oct. 2000 and that show was sold out at Freedom Hall. The next WWF show here was another SD in May 2001 and they had the upper deck tarped off.

 

Yeah, I know my friends were into the HHH-Steph-Angle angle, but tuned out for the Austin heel turn.

[JohnD 0]

All those hummers..... product placement? or more of Uncle Ted's money?

[cabbageboy 0]

If it was intended to be product placement it was the single worst example of it in the history of marketing. Every time I see a Hummer on the road to this day I cringe and I can't help but think about this angle.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

All those hummers..... product placement? or more of Uncle Ted's money?

 

Hummers were the "cool" alternative to a limo or other SUV at the time.

[JohnD 0]

All those hummers..... product placement? or more of Uncle Ted's money?

 

Hummers were the "cool" alternative to a limo or other SUV at the time.

well watching WWE you'd think everyone on earth drives crown vics and towncars.

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

This stimulating discussion harkens me back to a thread discussion but a few days ago. I thus dub thy thread superflous.