• OLD SCHOOL HISTORY (November 29, 1999) – WCW MONDAY NITRO
On this day in 1999, Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling aired another LIVE episode of their weekly TV show ‘WCW MONDAY NITRO’.
It was broadcasted from Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado and featured matches, interviews & storyline segments on the road to the ‘WCW Starrcade 1999’ PPV.
The card can be found here:
1. WCW World Tag Titles: Creative Control vs. Buff Bagwell & Booker T
2. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Jushin Liger vs. Juventud Guerrera
3. WCW US Title: Scott Hall vs. Sid Vicious
4. Jerry (Misfits) vs. Steve Williams
5. WCW World Title: Bret Hart vs. Meng
6. Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Sting
7. Kevin Nash vs. Goldberg
8. Rhonda Singh vs. Elizabeth
9. Block Match: Jerry Flynn vs. The Wall
10. Midnight vs. Curt Hennig
11. The Outsiders vs. Chris Benoit & Bret Hart vs. Sid Vicious & Goldberg
• Eric Bischoff Recalls Hulk Hogan Being Worried About Vince McMahon Making WCW Star The “Next Hulk Hogan”
During an episode of 83 Weeks podcast, former WCW President Eric Bischoff discussed Big Show (known as The Giant at that time) wanting to go to WWF, why he refused to offer Big Show more money than what Vince McMahon offered him, why Hulk Hogan didn’t want Big Show to go to WWF & more.
Below is what Bischoff said:
“Paul was generally pretty, I don’t know, he was negative: pouty. That is the best way to describe Paul Wight.
Paul was not a b*tch. He never came to me and complain, or corner me in my office or in a locker room or on a plane. He wasn’t that way; he wasn’t pushy, but he was mopey, and you can see it.
If he wasn’t happy it was pretty obvious. Not in a mean, aggressive way. He wasn’t putting on a show, but he wore his emotions on his sleeve, which a lot of guys do that, but he was pretty obvious. He was just unmotivated is another characteristic I noticed about him. You can just tell, he didn’t want to be there.
I think his manager started talking to Nick Lambros (WCW Executive Vice President) around the time that his contract started coming up. I told Nick, look if we can keep him we will keep him. If we can give him a raise, but he certainly wasn’t in the Sting category or the Kevin Nash category, but I told Nick that if we can keep him and negotiate a deal that is fair, great. But if we can’t, we can’t. We will let him go.
I remember Hulk Hogan telling me not to let this cat go because if we let him go to WWF Vince McMahon will make him the next Andre the Giant or the next Hulk Hogan.
And I remember thinking to myself, I don’t think so because he (Vince) is going to have the same problems that we had. We tried all of those ideas.
It wasn’t like, oh my God if he goes to WWF, Vince McMahon is going to sprinkle the Andre the Giant dust on him and make him the next Giant. I didn’t believe it, and when Paul came to me and told me about the offer he had received I had encouraged him to take it because there was no way I could match it despite the knock that I got.
There was no way I could match the money Vince McMahon offered. But number two, even if I could have I wouldn’t have because had I matched or beat the offer I would have been stuck with the same challenge that I would have leading up to that”.
