This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can see the video here: https://youtu.be/4RXTl9unVF4
Back in December of 1999, WCW's on again off again head writah Vince Russo, booked a rather legendary several month run of Nitro's that were so bad they were at times hilarious. I have several memories of this run of Nitro's which I'm sure I'll get to, but let me know yours in the comment section below. Near the end of that first run he seemed to have gotten bored of pissing off the Western world, and turned his efforts to angering New Japan pro wrestling, the company WCW had been working with since the early 90's.
One thing that New Japan is known for taking very seriously, is the handling of their talents when they travel overseas. One notable example of this is when they ended their several year relationship with TNA over the way one talent on excursion was booked to be a joke. He was known as Okato in the impact zone, heavily inspired by Kato from the Green Hornet, and mainly wrestled on lower cards and syndicated shows. This man would return to Japan in 2012 and would go on to become one of NJPW's biggest stars ever, Kazuchika Okada. Incidentally, who do you think TNA's writer was at the time? Any guesses? Nowadays the relationship between the two companies seems to have been rebuilt given that several New Japan talents have worked in Impact over the past couple of years, some even initiated into the Bullet Club, but it took a long time, a complete regime change and several rebrands for this to happen.
Another thing New Japan takes very seriously is the lineage of its championships, usually. The current ongoing situation with Karl Anderson feels like a strange anomaly from this. Usually if a champion fails to make an an advertised match they are promptly stripped of the championship, and they are often strict about this. Togi Makabe was once stripped of his Never Openweight title for being stricken with the flu, but won the title back two months later and resumed the run he was intended to have. More recently in 2019 Jon Moxley was stripped of the IWGP US title after a Typhoon in Japan meant he would be unable to get into the country. He also would win the title back at earliest convenience and hold it for another six months. The reason I bring these things up is that Vince Russo managed to annoy New Japan on both of these grounds on the November 29th 99 episode of Nitro.
On this night, Russo booked a match between the IWGP Jr heavyweight champion Jushin Thunder Liger and Juventud Guerrera. Neither man got any entrance or introduction as we came back from the ad break and both men were already in the ring. Seconds into the match before the two can even tie up, Buzzkill walks down the ramp. Buzzkill was a hippy played by Brad Armstrong, who was supposed to be a parody of his own brother in the WWE, Road Dogg Jesse James. In the ring Liger and Juvi try their best to have a good match, but its hard to focus on it with Buzzkill being insufferable on commentary. He acts as though he has no concept of what wrestling is with Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan having to explain that they are competing for a championship, begging the question why is he even there? Tony then mentions that Juvi is fighting for his work visa in this match which makes even less sense.
When Juventud signals he going to try for the Juvi Driver Buzzkill gets up and starts distracting the referee for seemingly no reason, as he has no affiliation with either man. With the referee distracted, Juvi smashed a tequila bottle over Ligers head, and the ref counts the three despite there being glass all over the ring. We don't even get to see Juventud celebrate with the title as seconds after the three count we cut to something completely different backstage. In fact, we never actually saw the physical belt at all.
In the following weeks Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer writes that the booking of Liger was forced upon Russo, and he indicated that bro wasn't happy with it either. Dave also points out that WCW is only watched by hardcore fans in Japan, and they perceive Juventud as a lower card wrestler who never gets a push. WCW forcing Russo to use Liger might explain the awful segment, and his solution to retcon it the following week. He couldn't book a straight rematch because Juventud injured his elbow on a dive in the match, so to pick his replacement the "powers that be", played by Russo himself but only his voice, called Psychosis and La Parka into his office, he explained that the first man to leave the room would defend one of the most prestigious titles in all of wrestling. Psychosis wins this dubious honour, and even walks out with the title belt on his shoulder.
Once again Liger and Psychosis attempt to have a good match, and once again Buzzkill lives up to his name, this time handing out flowers in the crowd. This is made worse by there being so many crowd signs that they can barely get a camera shot of him. To be fair though, this match got a lot more time and focus than the prior weeks match did, and was a very good cruiserweight match that Liger wins cleanly with La Magistral. This moment of good wrestling is overshadowed in seconds by La Parka coming out to get his revenge on Psychosis, but at least Liger got the title back. This whole situation made New Japan very upset, and only years later did they officially recognise either title change.
Over the years and as recently as 2022 ahead of the Forbidden Door event, Vince Russo has been critical of the use of international talent, and still can't see their value. This feels like a very narrow minded approach given how several years after WCW folded, Smackdown was very popular among hispanic viewers thanks to two of its top stars being Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio. These days most top level wrestling rosters are extremely diverse with many more countries represented, which can only be seen as a positive in todays world of global media.
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