NWA (WCW) Clash of the Champions V: St. Valentine's Massacre (February 1989)

Original Airdate: February 15, 1989

From Cleveland, Ohio; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Magnum TA.

NWA (WCW) Clash of the Champions IV: Season's Beatings (December 1988)

Original Airdate: December 7, 1988

From Chattanooga, Tennessee; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Bob Caudle, along with Tony Schiavone and Lex Luger offering analysis between matches.

NWA (JCP) Clash of the Champions III: Fall Brawl (September 1988)

Original Airdate: September 7, 1988

From Albany, Georgia; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Bob Caudle.

NWA (JCP) Clash of the Champions II: Miami Mayhem (June 1988)

Original Airdate: June 8, 1988

From Miami, Florida; Your Hosts are Tony Schiavone and Bob Caudle.

NWA (JCP) Clash of the Champions (March 1988)

Original Airdate: March 27, 1988

After their first attempts at expanding into the lucrative pay per view market were brilliantly countered by the WWF’s counterprogramming in late 1987 and early 1988, the NWA decided to fire back. With the WWF holding WrestleMania IV on pay per view, the NWA created a new program to air the same day (called ‘Clash of the Champions’), promising two hours of pay per view caliber wrestling for free on TBS. Though the WWF was still a hot ticket, fan apathy towards WrestleMania IV gave the NWA a boost, and the Clash was successful – enough so that it was renewed, and became a regular special until 1997.

From Greensboro, North Carolina; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone.

WCW Fall Brawl 1995

Fall Brawl 1995 is notable for being the first major WCW show of the Monday Night Wars. Once again headlined by their popular WarGames match concept, the ’95 edition was sold on a blowoff to the feud between Hulk Hogan and the Dungeon of Doom.

From Asheville, North Carolina; Your Hosts are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan.

WCW Fall Brawl 1994

Fall Brawl 1994 was an interesting lineup. While WCW had received a substantial bump in ratings and exposure with Hulk Hogan’s signing and title win, the Hulkster wasn’t booked for Fall Brawl – the show instead headlined by a WarGames match between Dustin Rhodes’ Team and the Stud Stable. That led to zero interest from fans like me who had started watching solely because of Hogan’s participation, though WCW spent most of the night dedicated to hyping the Hulkster’s appearance at the next pay per view – which did intrigue me enough to beg my parents to order.

From Roanoke, Virginia; Your Hosts are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan.  

Read All About It

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Growing up with the WWF 

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WWF King of the Ring 1999

King of the Ring 1999 was a return to form for the tournament, as the WWF held the full eight man bracket on pay per view for the first time since 1995, and headlined with Steve Austin battling Vince McMahon for control of the WWF in a ladder match that would trigger the infamous ‘who moved the briefcase?’ debate.

Unfortunately, my friends and I never got the chance to see it. In the weeks leading up to the show, we started seeing flyers posted all around the hallways at school, advertising that a local coffee shop would be airing the show. Since we were a bunch of middle schoolers, the prospect of seeing the show for free (sidestepping the usual begging that went with getting your parents to order one of these frequent and increasingly expensive pay per views) sounded great – but when our group of wrestling geeks showed up the afternoon of the show, we found out it was a prank. That would have made for a good wrestling angle too, but much like Steve Austin in the main event, ‘who posted the fake signs?’ was never solved.

From Greensboro, North Carolina; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.  

WWF Survivor Series 2000

After spending most of 2000 on the shelf recovering from real-life neck surgery, Survivor Series 2000 saw the return of Steve Austin to the WWF main event scene to target the man who took kayfabe responsibility for his absence (in an angle involving Austin getting hit with a car a year earlier), Triple H.

From Tampa, Florida; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.  

WWF SummerSlam 2000

Coming into SummerSlam 2000 the WWF was on a hot streak, both critically and commercially, with the Attitude Era shifting away from ‘Crash-TV’ booking and putting more focus on a physical, in-ring oriented product.

From Raleigh, North Carolina; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.

WWF SummerSlam 1999

By the summer of 1999, with WCW becoming less relevant with each passing week, the WWF’s ‘Attitude’ was starting to become unfocused and nonsensical. With head writer Vince Russo becoming progressively overwhelmed with his workload, the direction of the product – while still wildly successful – started becoming almost impossible to follow, and increasingly clichéd. Much like most relationships, all the things we loved about Attitude to begin with were starting to grow repetitive, frustrating, and tiresome.

From Minneapolis, Minnesota; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.  

WWF SummerSlam 1998

The summer of 1998 was such a great time to be a WWF fan – and a wrestling fan in general. With the Attitude Era in full swing (but not yet becoming the stale, cliché filled program it would later), the WWF had recently managed to overtake WCW in the ratings war, and both promotions were fiercely fighting for viewership and pay per view buys. With wrestling the hottest it had been since the 1980s, and getting mainstream attention for the first time in my fandom, SummerSlam because a highly anticipated show – and the WWF delivered, putting on one of the most well remembered editions of their summer spectacular.

From New York, New York; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.