Spiner Watches Old WWE PPVs

But it was 2012 when I stopped watching it weekly completely. The shit they pulled to have Cena vs Rock: Twice in a Lifetime was the final straw for me. The moment when Rock announced on the 1000 episode of RAW he was challenging for the title at the 2013 Royal Rumble, you knew damn well where they were going. Rock was winning the title from Punk at the Rumble and Cena was going to win the event so he could get his win back.
The Rock is genuinely confusing because he came back in January of this year and cut a very weak promo. Then he somehow stole the Wrestlemania spot from the Royal Rumble winner, and received so much negative feedback that WWE has now pivoted and The Rock is almost embarrassing everyone else on the roster with how good he is at building this Mania. He's gone full heel and it's awesome.
 
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The Rock is genuinely confusing because he came back in January of this year and cut a very weak promo. Then he somehow stole the Wrestlemania spot from the Royal Rumble winner, and received so much negative feedback that WWE has now pivoted and The Rock is almost embarrassing everyone else on the roster with how good he is at building this Mania. He's gone full heel and it's awesome.
I can't comment on his run this year because I haven't seen any of it to give my two cents on the matter, but I do agree. If he's gone full heel Hollywood Rock, then that definitely does make things more interesting.
 
I'm currently watching Summerslam 2004. This was an interesting PPV because I was at it! I was 11, and I'm not sure when I stopped watching but it was probably sometime shortly after this.

In the PPV's prior to this, the highlight was definitely Orton vs. Foley at Backlash. Another very brutal hardcore match for Mick, and it feels like one of the few that is outside the Attitude Era/with a younger generation (even if Orton is now the old generation).
 
Good thing Randy Orton beat Chris Benoit for the World Heavyweight Championship there or WWE would've un-personed that title reign as well as everything else Benoit did in the ring.
Interestingly enough, WMXX and Backlash didn't seem too censored. Obviously I don't recall everything on the original broadcasts, but they certainly didn't shy away from mentioning Benoit.

That said, I'm starting Triple H vs. Eugene, so maybe some storylines should have been erased altogether.
 

VashTheStampede

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I finished Summerslam 2002 and that was a truly excellent PPV. 3 all-time great matches: Rey Mysterio vs. Kurt Angle, The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar, and Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H. It was great to see Michaels back in action, and this was also the first Mysterio sighting so far. While Rey is looking a little old these days, his younger years were something amazing to watch.

Top 10 WWE PPV and the HBK/HHH match is one of my 10 favorite matches of all time.
 
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Interestingly enough, WMXX and Backlash didn't seem too censored. Obviously I don't recall everything on the original broadcasts, but they certainly didn't shy away from mentioning Benoit.
The unpersoning reference, Spiner, comes from how, following the murders of Nancy & Daniel Benoit, WWE went out of its way to scrub and erase Chris Benoit's name from everything in their video vault.

Even today, as they've started to re-person him, there's lots of WWE video out there where his name is either censored out or scrubbed in some manner.
 
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The unpersoning reference, Spiner, comes from how, following the murders of Nancy & Daniel Benoit, WWE went out of its way to scrub and erase Chris Benoit's name from everything in their video vault.

Even today, as they've started to re-person him, there's lots of WWE video out there where his name is either censored out or scrubbed in some manner.
There's a video of him being silhouetted out at Wrestlemania XX, when he celebrated with Eddie.
 
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Debating whether I should do one on Austin's heel turn in 2001 or not. That was something I wouldn't mind looking back on.
motivational just do it GIF
 
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That's what is so strange about Backlash 2004 - if you had no idea what Benoit did, you'd think he was a hero. That PPV was in his hometown and his family is sitting ringside. I actually found that harder to watch that the WMXX main event where he celebrates with Eddie at the end.
Imagine what David Benoit - Chris's son from if I remember correctly a previous marriage - probably has to deal with as he makes his way through the wrestling business. :eek:
 

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Kinda off-topic here, but seeing these discussions want to make me chime in with some retrospectives on angles that happened in the past.

Debating whether I should do one on Austin's heel turn in 2001 or not. That was something I wouldn't mind looking back on.

I think that could be cool. I just got a bootleg blu-ray set that has the entire Sting vs nWo storyline and I've been planning on doing a write-up on it in here. Would be awesome for several people to do similar threads.
 
So what was going on in 2004 with some of the guys getting screen time? They have all these completely faceless people: Heidenreich, Luther Reigns, Gene Snitsky, Mark Jindrak, etc. It doesn't seem like any of these guys are any good or have any personality. I know that every era had people get pushed who weren't good, and we've forgotten most of them, but it seems like there are more than ever here.
 

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So what was going on in 2004 with some of the guys getting screen time? They have all these completely faceless people: Heidenreich, Luther Reigns, Gene Snitsky, Mark Jindrak, etc. It doesn't seem like any of these guys are any good or have any personality. I know that every era had people get pushed who weren't good, and we've forgotten most of them, but it seems like there are more than ever here.
because Vince liked his beef beefy guys with long wet hair
 
He's always had that obsession though. That was basically the basis for WWF pre-steroid trial. As I'm typing aloud here, I wonder if it's because they didn't have the well of WCW/ECW stars to draw upon anymore. 2002 saw the arrival of all the WCW guys who didn't come over in the Invasion angle. 2003 had Goldberg + Scott Steiner (he showed up in 2002, but didn't do anything until '03), and Kevin Nash doing a bit more. Then they pushed Guerrero/Benoit in early '04, and I guess they were out of ideas after that?
 
Ok I might have found one of the least-appropriate WWE segments in history that is never talked about.

At Wrestlemania 21, Eugene comes out and starts talking about "midgets" (his word, not mine) at Wrestlemania 3. He's interrupted by Muhammad Hassan and Daviari. They start attacking Eugene, until Hogan comes out and starts beating them up.

So we have 3 characters who aged poorly to begin with. Lawler says people hating Hassan isn't racist because there are plenty of reasons to hate them. And then notorious racist Hulk Hogan comes in to beat them up.

Of all the offensive WWE moments in history, I'm surprised this one never gets brought up because it's all sorts of terrible. The first ever Money in the Bank match that preceded it, however, was incredible. I thought I stopped watching after Summerslam 2004 because I didn't remember a single thing about Survivor Series, but two matches in and this show is very familiar to me.
 
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Ok I might have found one of the least-appropriate WWE segments in history that is never talked about.

At Wrestlemania 21, Eugene comes out and starts talking about "midgets" (his word, not mine) at Wrestlemania 3. He's interrupted by Muhammad Hassan and Daviari. They start attacking Eugene, until Hogan comes out and starts beating them up.

So we have 3 characters who aged poorly to begin with. Lawler says people hating Hassan isn't racist because there are plenty of reasons to hate them. And then notorious racist Hulk Hogan comes in to beat them up.

Of all the offensive WWE moments in history, I'm surprised this one never gets brought up because it's all sorts of terrible. The first ever Money in the Bank match that preceded it, however, was incredible. I thought I stopped watching after Summerslam 2004 because I didn't remember a single thing about Survivor Series, but two matches in and this show is very familiar to me.
The worst offender for me is always that storyline in the fall of 2002 which shall not be mentioned. It was so egregiously bad TSN had to cut to commercial during one of the segments.
 
*continues* And there were two signature matches that night (@Spiner202 brushed on one of them earlier)....per the Tropes,By the way, if you thought Michaels' 2002 match was awesome Spiner, wait 'til the 2005 match HBK had with Hulk Hogan....Jerry Lawler said it best that night,
Just watched the Summerslam 2005 Hogan vs. Michaels match. That was super entertaining, especially Michaels' sell of the final big boot. I understand why we don't want every match like this, but it was great.
 
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Just watched the Summerslam 2005 Hogan vs. Michaels match. That was super entertaining, especially Michaels' sell of the final big boot. I understand why we don't want every match like this, but it was great.
I loved it for how Michaels responded to Hogan pulling the "That doesn't work for me, brother!" card. What's equally as memorable is the build-up towards the feud and Michaels' work as a heel. Don't get me wrong, his face run after returning was amazing, but damn, does Shawn play the role of prick well.




 
I'm temporarily taking a break from old PPVs and instead going backwards from the point at which I started re-watching WWE (Summerslam 2023). I'm on Day 2 of Wrestlemania 39 and it's pretty incredible the string of PLE's that they had from Mania 39 through Money in the Bank. And I say that knowing that the 2023 Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber have some huge story beats to them. In hindsight, I probably should have just started around Wrestlemania 38 and gone forwards, but this is an interesting way to watch them too.
 

Dead2009

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I'm temporarily taking a break from old PPVs and instead going backwards from the point at which I started re-watching WWE (Summerslam 2023). I'm on Day 2 of Wrestlemania 39 and it's pretty incredible the string of PLE's that they had from Mania 39 through Money in the Bank. And I say that knowing that the 2023 Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber have some huge story beats to them. In hindsight, I probably should have just started around Wrestlemania 38 and gone forwards, but this is an interesting way to watch them too.

In terms of watching the old PPVs, I started at the '92 Rumble and now I'm on the '01 England show they ran before the whole "winner take all" Survivor Series thing. It's been a struggle lol.
 
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I was foolish enough to watch through every episode of WWF RAW, plus the PPVs during the New Generation Era. It was so bad.

Granted, there are some gems here & there, but I trudged through A LOT of shit. 1995 was the fucking worst.
 
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