______________________________________________________________________ I drove in to the office last week (one hour round trip) to upload my web site over the direct connection in the office. Of course, the server was once again inaccessible. Argh. Now, I've got this nasty flu. Please be advised that there are updates from the past couple of weeks. Just click the "previous" buttons. ______________________________________________________________________ I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! ______________________________________________________________________ - Because of this bout with the flu, I haven't had much energy to put into this update. I do have a few neat things planned for 2000, though, so I'll try to make up for it as the year goes on. For now, though, I figure we should take a look back at 1999 to understand my generally negative attitude towards pro-wrestling over the year. To see where we are, we have to look at where we've been. Think back, oh, some 15 years for a period of way too many years. WWF. Hulk Hogan ruled the roost, more character than wrestler. Matches were generally bad, with some shining (and future) stars on the undercard working to steal the show. Storyline was everything. The guys that eventually took over the show were amongst the best wrestlers we've ever seen in North America. Jump ahead to 1999. Steve Austin ruled the roost in 1999, more character than wrestler, adding a garbage wrestling edge to the mix, but still hardly a great wrestler. Matches were either garbage wrestling or bad legit wrestling. Some shining stars, albeit green ones, managed to have some good matches on undercards. With Austin faltering, the decidedly mediocre and tremendously charismatic Rock will step up to be the next Hulk Hogan replacement, with the mediocre and less charismatic Hunter Hearst Helmsley fighing so hard for his share that he holds down the guy that should be positioned for the role, Chris Jericho. There's little difference between these two eras of the WWF product, at least when judged from the wrestling quality perspective. Sure, breasts, profanity, lewd characters, and garbage wrestling are in the mix now. In the end, though, it comes down to the fact that the WWF barely managed to deliver THREE * * * * or better matches in 1999, and all of those were either garbagy matches or stunt man matches. It's hardly a great record. The weirdest thing to me is that there are people, even net personalities, who would criticize the financially successful Hogan era from a wrestling quality perspective while at the same time praising the current era, which sucks just as badly by the same measure. At least be consistent. I have no problem with somebody who thinks storylines and characters rule, who praises both successful products, while at the same time acknowledging that the actual matches are mostly not noteworthy. In WCW, 1999 was also pretty much a waste. With egos screwing things up in the first chunk of the year, Kevin Nash decided to show us that as bad as things were they could get worse. He did that. With just about the impact of the Y2K bug, Vince Russo took over the promotion's book. It is still the case that the great matches in WCW are state of the art deals involving guys who will never be pushed or involving Chris Benoit, who is one of the two best wrestlers in North America at present, the other being Bret Hart. But the booking by Russo through to year-end had more bad moments than good. The big event, meant to revitalize the company, was to return to Eric Bischoff's success story: the NWO. It's too weird. The slight differences are that the NWO seem to be working hard to come off as heels, rather than cool, anti-establishment babyfaces. They work alongside the "Powers That Be." Oh, the big embarrassment in WCW through this whole run has been the "Powers That Be"/"Powers To Be" screw ups that occur on every show. It's like Mideon/Midian in the WWF, except that the PTB characters are supposed to be focal points for everything, making the flubs more embarrassing. List of * * * * or better matches in North America this year: 01/17/99 Kidman & Misterio Jr. vs. Juvi & Psicosis * * * * 1/4 04/11/99 Juvi vs. Blitzkrieg * * * * 1/4 04/25/99 Austin vs. Rock * * * * 1/4 09/02/99 Kidman vs. Lane * * * * 10/04/99 Hart vs. Benoit * * * * 1/2 10/21/99T Juvi & Silver King vs. Hayashi & Blitzkrieg * * * * 1/4 10/18/99 Edge & Christian vs. Hardy Boyz * * * * 1/2 10/18/99 HHH vs. Austin * * * * 11/07/99 Tanaka vs. Awesome * * * * 1/4 12/19/99 Benoit vs. Jarrett * * * * In New Japan, the junior heavyweight wrestlers continued to deliver some of the best wrestling in the world every time out. Unfortunately, the heavyweight division isn't looking so good, suffering from similar problems as WCW. The guys who were stars in years past are breaking down early in New Japan, and the promotion has been unable to elevate the younger guys to the same level. At least they have tried (unlike WCW). There have been some great heavyweight matches in New Japan, but the promotion's future success is cloudy. All Japan also suffers from the same problem. Vader injected some freshness into the mix in 1999, but the problem remains that the new generation of wrestlers just aren't there. Jun Akiyama is the only awesome younger guy whose body is still in shape to run the show. The loss of Giant Baba surely added to the tumult in the promotion. In years gone by, there's always been (at least) one promotion somewhere in the world that was delivering many awesome matches. In 1999, there wasn't. Every promotion might have a few guys or a division that delivered great matches, but those matches couldn't hide the cracks that were developing elsewhere in the group. I still saw a lot of great wrestling in 1999, but, because of the increase in TV programming in North America, I had to suffer through a lot more mediocre-to-poor wrestling as well. I'm a fan who watches any wrestling I can (when I have the time!) in the hopes of seeing some great matches. Every promotion has guys that can deliver a great match. But they were so few and so far between this past year. When I've caught up on the Japanese TV from this past year, I'll use the program that I wrote earlier in the year to sniff through my tape list and build a chart of wrestlers, counting great matches delivered. ______________________________________________________________________ If you have any feedback regarding my web pages, please send me e-mail. Don't forget to delete the leading "x" from my e-mail address; that "x" is my web spider spam guard. ______________________________________________________________________