First WWE Post...ever (a look back to 1999)

For those of you who don't know, I am a big fan of Pro Wrestling, currently known as "Sports-Entertainment".  I do follow Total Nonstop Action (TNA) on certain occasions, but for this first Wrestling post, I am going to discuss the brand known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).  It was the Wrestling brand that got me hooked nearly 15 years ago and I still watch it to this day.

Speaking of 15 years ago, the year 1999 was a special year for the then-WWF.  On the first edition of Monday Night Raw in the new year (Jan. 4), a legendary wrestler by the name of Mankind (real name:  Mick Foley) became the WWF champion by defating The Rock (real name:  Dwayne Johnson; I think some of you may know him now).  Now during this time, WWF was going head-to-head with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) on Monday Nights with their show Nitro.  On certain occasions, WCW would actually leak what happened on Raw because the show was taped during the previous week.  On this occasion, they did exactly that and got caught in the "Triple Whammy," leading to a serious setback that would lead to its fall in 2001.  That triple whammy for WCW went like this.

Whammy 1:  Change the main event of their program---Kevin Nash was ready to defend his WCW title against Bill Goldberg (both names are real) in Atlanta (Goldberg's hometown).  Unfortunately, Goldberg was questioned for a crime that wasn't actually committed, but the situation made him unable to compete in the title match.  Hulk Hogan took Goldberg's spot in the Main Event of the night and face Nash later for the WCW title.  I'll get back to that in a moment.

Whammy 2:  Give away the outcome of Raw's Main event---WCW leader Eric Bischoff informed his announcer to give away the fact that Mick Foley was going to win the WWF title that night.  The Announcer, Tony Schiavone, decided to go ahead and give it out, ending with a line similar to that fact that no one is going to want to watch that happen.  Was he wrong, as more than half a million people switched over to Raw to see the title change take place.  This helped Raw win the rating for the night against Nitro.

Whammy 3:  "The Finger Poke of Death"---This goes back to Nitro's Main Event, which became Hogan vs. Nash.  As soon as the match got underway, Hogan poked Nash in the chest and Nash went down.  Hogan got the three count and became the WCW champion.  Fans realized after that had taken place that Hogan and Nash (who were in different factions of the NWO at the time) were in on a coup that led to Goldberg being taken out of the WCW championship equation and opened the door for Hogan and Nash to pull off the trick.  Unfortunately, it really didn't help much and turned fans off of WCW Nitro and on to WWF Raw.  In March of 2001, WCW ceased operations and closed its door forever.

1999 was a great year for the then-WWF as Raw was dominating the Monday Night War with WCW, but a tragedy took place in May of 1999 that nobody saw coming:  The death of WWF star Owen Hart.  Hart had returned to his Blue Blazer character that he was in his early days with WWF and was ready to be brought down to the ring from the rafters when an incident involving the device he was in led to him falling to the ring from 40-50 feet away and killed him.  This tragedy would lead to one of the most amazing moments in Raw history as the next night was all about remembering Hart.  The matches from the show aren't as important as the interviews done by the stars of WWF at the time about Owen's life and memory.  It was an emotional evening and I recommend all of you (even those who aren't Wrestling fans) to watch this (note:  it goes an hour and a half, but again, you don't have to watch the matches, just the interviews).
1999 also brought the debut of a television show on broadcast TV for the WWF:  Smackdown debuted in April with a pilot episode, and aired its first episode in August.  Smackdown at the time wasn't even a word in the dictionary, but became a word  thanks to the show (and a certain wrestler using the phrase).  It was also when I got into the WWE.  It was in the middle of the "Attitude Era," when the wrestling was enjoyable, no matter what type of match it was (regulary or specialty matches like Hardcore and Tables matches, among others).  I've been hooked on WWE programming ever since and it still gets me hooked on every single time I watch it.  If you want to know why, I'll write about what happened over this past week at some point this weekend.

One last thought on WWF in 1999 before I go:  There were a lot more great moments that took place during that year, but these are the main moments that I thought I'd talk about.  If you would like to know more about this, message me either here, on my Facebook page or on my Twitter feed @theploofer and I'll be happy to answer.  Thanks for reading and I'll get back to you soon.