Connor McGrath
Every now and then, Culture Crossfire’s Connor McGrath digs through his attic and finds some of the useless stuff he’s accumulated over his twenty years of being a wrestling fan. Occasionally, he shares his thoughts on them with the readers of this fine website.
In the last edition of this column, I took a look back at the July 1995 issue of WWF Magazine. North American Wrestling was probably at its lowest point in the past thirty years. Both WWF and WCW were driving away fans with over the top, airheaded cartoon gimmicks that felt woefully out of place in 1995. Only a budding, Northeast independent promotion called ECW gave long term wrestling fans (or really any fan with a brain) some semblance hope for the future.
Now for this edition, we flash forward four years and wrestling is arguably at its peak in popularity. WWF had aired an ad during the Super Bowl in 1999. Wrestlers were gracing the cover of TV Guide and Rolling Stone and as hard as it is to believe now, wrestling was actually kind of hip amongst young adults. This was a great, great time to be a wrestling fan. There was wrestling on television almost every day of the week (only Tuesday lacked a rasslin show).
The cool factor of pro wrestling in the late ’90s and the explosion of the internet which gave way to a deluge of insider news led to the creation of WOW Magazine, a pro wrestling magazine for adults. And by adults, I mean for slightly older kids. Unlike Pro Wrestling Illustrated, which still operated under the conceit that professional wrestling was real, WOW Magazine hoped to be the voice of the cynical and snarky Internet Wrestling Community. To give it a sense of credibility and give a nod to the old school, WOW Magazine gave the editor in chief position to Bill Apter, longtime PWI editor.
Yet, the signs of a downfall were already evident. Though we were all aware WCW was continuously making mistakes, we had no idea that these were the gaffes that would lead to its demise. ECW had just officially gone national with a show on TNN but few would realize that expansion would lead to its implosion and as great as WWF was, even it could not change the tides. And the Internet Wrestling Community that WOW Magazine hoped to draw would end up killing the publication entirely.
So let’s take a look back at what was going on in the World of Wrestling right before the bubble burst.
Speaking of the IWC, the front cover of WOW Magazine advertises Wrestleline.com, which introduced Scott Keith and The Rick to a much bigger audience. Damn them! Our cover story promises to reveal the dark secrets behind Kane, who was undergoing his first monster babyface run in WWF. There’s also a surely enthralling debate on which iteration of Hulk Hogan is better; red and yellow or Hollywood, since Hogan had just recently readopted his classic WWF look after three years of black and white.
We open with a full color photo of Hardcore Holly! GREAT START!
We start with Letters to the Editor which in hip late ’90s talk is dubbed BACK TALK! Talk of the town is about Eric Bischoff’s recent firing by the WCW Board of Directors, a lot of people were pissed at a two part interview with Rena Mero in WOW, and the controversial angle where Macho Man pretended to beat his valets to…uh…try and sucker Dennis Rodman into a porta potty so he could tip it over. WCW in the Summer of ’99 really was the shit. One geezer reminisces about watching Bruno at the B0ston Gahden to end this letters section on a classy note.
Next, we get a word from the man himself as Bill Apter shares his thoughts on the comings and goings in the world of wrestling. Apter has a sympathetic if not outright supportive stance towards Eric Bischoff when talking about him getting fired. Speaking of bosses, Apter talks about Vince McMahon’s brief WWF World title run and you can tell he hated the idea but since he’s a nice guy, he really minces his words. He finishes with a review of Beyond The Mat and a preview of the issue.
Next, we get the WOW Zone, a whimsical (IE dopey) look at the lighter side of wrestling. We start with a enthralling article about World Championship Wrestling’s candy buffet (would it surprise you if I told you that Dusty Rhodes was a regular?) and how Mean Gene and Michael Buffer got into a fight over the last Milky Way Dark. WCW paid those guys how much to sit around backstage and goof off and quabble over fun sized candy bars? No wonder why that company went out of business.
A bunch of stuff not worth noting (Fan Encounters with wrestlers—they’re just like us! Streets that have the same names as wrestlers’ last names! COOL!). We talk about the NEW (rap) Rock N Roll Connection with Stone Cold Steve Austin showing up at the MTV Music Awards and Billy Corgan hanging out at ECW shows. Then we get a review of Return to Savage Beach, a soft core porn movie made for Showtime featuring Buff Bagwell. Maybe B. Patrick will review it for a future edition of Not Coming to A Theater Near You.
Next is THE GOSSIP ZONE, which should be filled with some interesting tidbits but really isn’t. In the WWF section, they talk about Shawn Michaels contract negotiations with Vince McMahon falling apart and how we might have seen the last of him in the company (and he was gone for a while but fortunately returned a few years later, less of a druggie and less of a dick), newcomer Buh Buh Ray Dudley’s stuttering gimmick from his early days in ECW being brought back, and the return of Curtis Hughes as Chris Jericho’s bodyguard (he was probably fired long before this was published).
WCW’s is mildly more interesting with a story about how Kevin Nash, Dusty Rhodes, and Kevin Sullivan forming a trio to try and take over the booking team. Imagine a conversation between those three. Plus talks about how Macho Man’s run in WCW may be over, which more or less turned out to be true. He did wrestle a few house shows against Sid in early ’00, filling in for Bret Hart and he made a random ass appearance on a Thunder like six months later where he made amends with Hulk Hogan before leaving the company for good.
WOW columnist Chris Sabga delivers a scathing critique of Sting’s short lived heel turn in WCW in the Fall of ’99. Here’s the thing about that. I understand why the WCW writing team made Sting turn and the execution of it wasn’t completely terrible (Sting in the far, far distant future would prove to be a damn decent heel) but there are just some guys who will never get booed by some fans. WCW fans could never, ever boo Sting especially against Hulk Hogan, a guy that WCW fans truly took to as a babyface.
Speaking of Hogan, next we get the fan vote over whether the WOW Universe likes the red and yellow “Real American” Hulk Hogan or the black and white, evil “Hollywood” Hogan better…or if you’re one of those haters of fun that thinks The Hulkster sucks regardless. This is a topic of discussion because Hulk had recently returned to the red and yellow. Hulk readopting his classic look was one of those things that seemed like a big deal at the time but is now completely irrelevant in discussions about WCW history. It’s very, very low on the totem pole of things that destroyed WCW. If anything, WCW was just a few years too early to book a Hulk Hogan nostalgia run as people fondly looking back on the ’80s wouldn’t really become a thing until ’02/’03.
Next, we get a rare semi-kayfabe article (written by future ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky) where then ECW World Champion (and then soon to be WWF superstar) Taz talks about how he would defeat Steve Austin and Goldberg in hypothetical matches. Sort of interesting and it actually doesn’t hurt the magazine too much as it goes over in-ring psychology a bit. It’s weird we never got a Tazz-Austin match and if we did it was a complete throwaway.
WOW presents an enthralling biography of Chyna to that point that discusses her early career and life before it completely fell apart. YAWN!
We see an ad for a Stone Cold Steve Austin Beanie Baby bear (knockoff). Stone Cold Beanie Baby Bear is going to open up a can of CUTE!
Then we get a column called “The Smark” (ugh) about WCW’s recent boneheaded decisions which spells out WCW’s demise (the company pays too much attention to the old guys, not enough to the younger wrestlers/ etc) and is accompanied by a picture depicting a Chris Jericho rat and a Raven rat floating on life rafts to a WWF cruise ship (captained by a Stone Cold Steve Austin rat) and an ECW pirate (or should I say piRATe) ship respectively as the WCW ship sinks. I will never, EVER forget the cuteness!
There are stories about The British Bulldog returning to WWF (again, he’d be on his way out the door again by the time this was published) and Sable’s legal troubles with WWF. We get a story about Tazz’s impending WWF debut and WWF’s soon to be debut, awful piece of shit digital camera, THE SLAM CAM, that I got for Christmas in ’99. Then, another editorial about how there’s too much talkin’ and not enough rasslin’ on Monday Night RAW. The more things change…
Our first Top 10 of the magazine. We start with WWF;
10. Edge (kind of weird since he was exclusively working tag teams at this point)
9. Chyna
8. Chris Jericho
7. Jeff Jarrett
6. The Undertaker
5. Kane
4. Steve Austin
3. Mick Foley
2. The Rock
1. Triple H
Crap on a cracker, the WWE roster was starting to get LOADED at this time. Eight surefire Hall of Famers here…and two surefire, never going to be in the Hall of Famers.
We get profiles of some WWF superstars, which again are semi-kayfabe for some reason. They talk about storylines as if they’re real life feuds but then they call them storylines, regardless. Anyway, the best part here is this quote from Big Bossman “The bottom line is, you’ve got understand one thing. Nobody’s crazier than me. Just think one thing, if I’m crazy enough to feed you that dog. I’m crazy enough to rip out the heart of anybody who stands in my way!” God, Bossman RULED in late ’99. RIP homey.
There’s an ad for Monster Truck Madness ’64 but it doesn’t feature Kevin Nash, unfortunately. Speaking of NASH, WCW news follows. More talk about Bischoff getting fired, some talk about the line of WCW SURGE cans, Jimmy Hart taking over the booking for WCW Saturday Night, and DDP appearing on the revival of Hollywood Squares.
WCW’s Top 10 circa December ’99;
10. Dean Malenko
9. Rey Mysterio Jr
8. Eddy Guerrero
7. Perry Saturn
6. Diamond Dallas Page
5. SID
4. Chris Benoit (this doesn’t make any sense at all since Benoit had JUST gotten squashed by SID on PPV)
3. Goldberg
2. Hulk Hogan
1. Sting
Funny…this list is almost as stacked talent/name wise as WWF’s but four of these dudes would be gone in just a few months. This company!
WCW Profiles are followed by a semi-kayfabe article on the New Jersey Triad. Again, this is kind of funny because the time this was published, I think they were done. DDP had that weird feud with David Flair, Bigelow turned face, and Kanyon was riding the coattails of his appearance as a stunt double in Ready to Rumble. And I just realized that everybody in the stable except DDP is now dead. Hope the yoga is working for Dallas!
ECW news on its struggles in the ratings for TNN, the impending departure of Taz, and the return of Raven. Also a tidbit that made me oddly depressed is about how Sign Guy Dudley isn’t going to WWF because nobody wanted him there. I guess it did lead to Lou E. Dangerously, which was kind of funny.
ECW Top 10!
10. Danny Doring
9. Sabu
8. Axl Rotten
7. Tommy Dreamer
6. Justin Credible
5. Lance Storm
4. Raven
3. Mike Awesome (I always hated how ECW booked the Television Champion over the World Champion…it really doesn’t make any sense)
2. Jerry Lynn (World Champion wasn’t even #2! I mean, really!!!)
1. Rob Van Dam
Next, an article on the rise of Chris Chetti’s career. Which was exactly as exciting as an article about Chris Chetti sounds.
We take a look back at Shawn Michaels’ life after wrestling. This was a low point in Michaels’ professional life as he had been taken off TV at this point due to his battles with drugs and was in the midst of his first retirement. This is sort of a sugarcoated version all of that as its focused on his marriage and the impending arrival of his first child. Michaels says the only two reasons he’d come out of retirement is if Vince McMahon was in a bind and had no other options or if his kid wanted to see him wrestle. Random fact I laughed at: Shawn Michaels revealing he proposed to his wife over takeout from Chili’s. I thought he was cute, I knew he was sexy, but now I know he’s a romantic!
We also get a look Shawn Michaels’ new wrestling academy which is notable for the group photo which features underaged Daniel Bryan and Brian Kendrick wearing dopey grins. There’s also a funny photo of Michaels training with the class that unfortunately is taken in mid-squat. It looks like Shawn Michaels, Daniel Bryan, and the rest of the class are pretending to take a giant dump.
Our cover story is a zany Mad Magazine take on the REAL story behind Kane and a veiled commentary on how ridiculous and convoluted it had become. And this was only two years into Kane’s WWE run—think of all the wackiness that’s happened in the past thirteen years. It claims Kane was REALLY burned in a grease fire at a fast food hamburger joint. I kind of wish pictures from this were online and I had a working scanner because there are some mildly amusing cartoons in here, including one of KANE WITH AN AFRO! I get a chuckle out of excerpts from Kane’s high school yearbook which are basically his victims talking about how he’s maimed and tortured them but all of them end with them saying “Don’t ever change! Have a great summer!”
Next, WOW gives the rundown on the September 1999 PPVs; WWF Unforgiven (a mediocre PPV as any salvaged by a pretty good main event), WCW Fall Brawl ’99 (a less than mediocre show “highlighted” by that woefully misguided Sting heel turn mentioned earlier), and what was probably the PPV of the month, ECW Anarchy Rulz. This show is an underrated highlight in ECW’s history. I think it was their biggest crowd of all time. Even ECW hater Scott Keith gave it a begrudging thumbs up.
WOW’s Rookie of the Month is young WCW cruiserweight Lash LeRoux. I remember everybody on the internet was really, really high on this guy for some reason, at least WCW fans. He was moderately talented but man, people went over the top to try and praise this guy…probably because he was one of the only wrestlers who knew how to use the internet in 1999. Unfortunately, he never really got a shot with WWE or TNA after WCW went under and a neck injury ended his career prematurely in 2005. He now works full time as a cartoonist.
WOW then gives us an interview with Paul Heyman on the state of ECW as it ends the ’90s and heads into the ’00s. We know now that the state of ECW was not very good. Heyman talks about the internet’s effect on ECW. It’s interesting that the time where ECW had its most exposure was also its weakest state since its early days, and its demise was imminent. However, at this time, WOW seemed to be portraying ECW as just a half step below WWF and WCW, maybe even at the same level of the latter.
There’s another semi-kayfabe profile. This time, it’s of “The King of Old School” Steve Corino.
Next is the Women’s section featuring a brief profile on “Miss Kitty” Stacy Carter and an interview (inexplicably conducted by Dory Funk Jr’s wife, Marti) with upcoming ECW starlet Miss Congeniality, who would shortly go onto approximately 10,000x more fame as Lita. Young Lita reveals her favorite pastime is going to minor league hockey games and heckling the visiting team’s goalie. Make of that what you will.
In a much, much sadder note, we get an obituary of former wrestling referee and manager, Brian Hildebrand, who passed away of stomach cancer in September 1999. Hildebrand is one of maybe a half dozen people who have been in the wrestling industry in the past thirty years that I’ve never heard anybody say a bad word about. Chris Jericho, Bill Apter, and a number of famous wrestling referees share their thoughts on Hildebrand’s life. In a lighter moment in the article, we get a terrible photo from a Brian Hildebrand Tribute Show where most of the wrestlers aren’t looking at the camera and one wrestler in the front row (possibly Shane Douglas. Can’t see for sure!) is bent over, tying his boots.
Then I look at the photo again and realize half of the wrestlers in it are dead. Somehow, Bruno Sammartino and Dominic Denucci are there and still kicking fifteen years later. FUCK!
Speaking of depressing, there’s an article about life after wrestling for Kevin Von Erich. Like an article about Kevin Von Erich from the past twenty years, not a lot of good vibes in it but I guess Kevin managed to have a pretty good life after wrestling especially considering all of the trauma he’s been through.
We continue looking at the SEEDY/depressing side of pro wrestling with an article on the danger of anabolic steroids! Although it’s not exactly a shocking revelation, it’s nice to see someone still remembered that it was just five years before that Vince McMahon nearly went to jail over them and that countless wrestlers’ deaths/health problems can arguably attributed to the use of them.
Now we take a look at the indies scene…which looking at the listings seems rather depleted. Major news was that indy star Erin O’Grady was signed to WWF and has debuted as Crash Holly. There’s a profile of a New Jersey based indy called Independent Superstars of Pro Wrestling. Their heavyweight champion at the time was Ace Darling (one of those late ’90s indy guys who seemed on the verge of getting a contract with one of the big three but never really broke through. He might have done some shots in ECW, though?). More notably, their Light Heavyweight Champion was a 14 year old Afa Jr. (who even at half my age could still grow a better mustache than me) and their EVIL heel commissioner was The Iron Sheik…who feuded with King Kong Bundy. What I wouldn’t give to see King Kong Bundy and Iron Sheik ripoff Austin Vs McMahon…
Also the fake AWA did a fake WrestleRock main evented by Johnnie “Not the host of The Daily Show” Stewart Vs Demolition Ax. Ax’s legal troubles with Vince left him in financial trouble, how he’s got to do the WrestleRock Rumble. RAP ON!
We get a column for former Stampede Wrestling ring announcer Richard Berger about the Los Angeles territory in the ’50s and ’60s and his thoughts on the current state of wrestling. This is exactly how you think a column on the state of wrestling in 1999 written by someone who was a fan in the ’50s and ’60s would go.
We continue with articles that only people over the age of 50 and Andrew Lutzke are interested in reading, with classic articles about Hans Schmidt and Hardboiled Haggerty.
More end of the magazine filler follows trivia (which is actually difficult for even someone who has acquired useless wrestling knowledge as myself), reviews of WWF Attitude and NFL Blitz 2000. And Testosterone Rock Music Reviews where they rate albums on the basis of how many balls they have. Man, mainstream rock music sucked in 1999! The weird thing is its written by respected music critic/public radio host Jim DeRogatis though I can’t imagine he had much editorial control over the column…
We finish with a monthly column for Uncle Zeb Coulter himself, Dutch Mantell. He does some cliched for 1999 jokes about pro wrestlers entering politics, shares some mundane facts about what wrestlers did before they entered the business (The Undertaker was a bouncer at a sports bar! Fascinating! *rolls eyes*), and badmouths indy geeks. He does have a very accurate prediction of the year 2000 when he says the wrestling boom is about to end. That proved to be entirely accurate as WCW and ECW were on their death beds by the end of 2000 and even WWF which enjoyed unprecedented success in the first three quarters of the year started to see its bubble burst in the last few months. As I mentioned earlier, looking back on it, I’m surprised that people were surprised when the bubble burst. Heck, I’m surprised it didn’t happen a little bit sooner.
Dutch Mantell did put forth a very interesting theory that I’m not sure I agree with; he says the late ’90s wrestling boom made haters’ argument that the show sucked because “it was fake” irrelevant. That argument has always been irrelevant to me since 99.9% of television is “fake” but I guess the over the top hokey nature of 1999 WWF was impossible for anybody with a half brain to conceivably consider real. Then again, it’s always been that way.
Wrap Up: It’s interesting to look back at a magazine from when wrestling was arguably at the peak of its coolness if not popularity as well. I mean, back in ’99, tons of bars would show RAW and sometimes even Nitro. Now if a bar shows wrestling, it’s probably very, very nerdy or a Hooters. And the wrestling boom benefited everybody from the top down to the lower rungs of the rasslin circuit. I remember going to indy shows in the early ’00s with no notable names that would draw 200-300 people. Unfortunately, I think the overexpansion and over ambition of wrestling promoters ended up helping usher in the crash in the early ’00s. WOW Magazine ended up being a victim of that. Ultimately, I think it’s biggest problem was it tried too hard to play to all sides; both the young, impressionable fans and the cynical, smartened fan. It’s somewhat ironic that WOW Magazine, the wrestling magazine for the internet age fell flat on its face after a year or two and Pro Wrestling Illustrated, the kayfabe magazine that the internet was supposed to kill is still limping along in 2013.
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