A Look At One Of WWE's Most Pointless Storylines

In 1999, a series of grainy, black and white hidden camera videos started airing on Raw. The videos would capture members of the WWE locker room in compromising positions, these would start out with pretty small, but no less embarrassing events. These videos were branded at first as GDTV but the letter D was quickly dropped, and these videos became known as GTV. GTV caught Al Snow picking his nose, Billie Gunn checking out his own ass, and various superstars in the bathroom among other things. As time went on though, GTV started capturing more and more scandalous footage and GTV started furthering angles and storylines up and down the roster.

GTV would capture footage of Shane McMahon and the Mean Street Pose faking injuries, it would capture Meat cheating on Terri Runnels as well as Val Venis stuffing his tights with a sock. Weeks and months went on and the mystery of GTV remained unsolved. Who was behind the videos? What was the purpose of capturing these hidden events? What was the endgame behind it all? For a long time, these questions went unanswered and as we moved into the summer of 1999, the GTV videos started to become more and more infrequent, and then GTV disappeared completely, without the mystery being answered.

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A year later in 2000, GTV made its surprising return, showing a simple video of Terri Runnels and the Kat talking. It would capture a few more hidden moments before it once again disappeared, this time never to return.

So who was behind GTV? What was the reason for the videos? What was the point of any of it?

What Was GTV?

Originally, GTV was supposed to be an idea to reintroduce Dustin Rhodes’ Goldust back into WWE. At the time Dustin Rhodes had renounced the Goldust character and had burned the Goldust outfit in a trashcan. The idea was a precursor of sorts to the Right to Censor gimmick and that Dustin would become a born-again Christian that would fight against everything the “Attitude Era” had become.

The issues with the GTV angle started early on, as the USA Network was dead against the idea of bringing back Goldust. These videos were originally labeled as GD TV, though this was later simplified to GTV, probably as GD TV was pretty obviously referring to Goldust. Even more, problems began arising with GTV as Dustin Rhodes, the guy on who the whole GTV angle was based, left WWE and joined WCW.

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Instead of dropping the angle completely, WWE writers Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara carried on with the gimmick and GTV lived on in WWE without an endgame or reason for existing. Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara then had the bright idea of the person who would be behind GTV, instead of making a wrestler the one behind the videos, they pitched a comedian named Tom Green to be the man behind the videos. Tom Green was a popular name at the time (not to mention having the letter G in his name) so Russo and Ferrara saw this as a golden opportunity to get some lucrative cross-promotional advertising. But there were problems with this idea as well.

Vince McMahon didn’t think Tom Green was very funny.

Vince McMahon was shown some of Tom Green’s work and was thoroughly unimpressed, killing any chance of Tom Green being the one behind GTV. A third idea for the man behind GTV was apparently Headbanger Thrasher. Thrasher, whose real name is Glenn Ruth, was injured at the time and GTV was seen as a way he could be reintroduced into WWE with a big push. This idea seemed to have legs as Thrasher had a segment with GTV to reveal that his tag team partner Mosh was being used by his ex-girlfriend. Though, this idea was also dropped leaving GTV completely rudderless. After 2000, the GTV segments disappeared forever with no real payoff as to who was behind the whole thing.

GTV Was Ultimately Useless

In the end, GTV was completely pointless, it didn’t get anybody over, it didn’t create any classic segments, and the whole thing was just weird.

So what was the point of the whole thing? Well, this was 1999 and Vince Russo was the head writer. It wasn’t uncommon for Russo storylines and gimmicks to begin and/or end without any rhyme or reason.

GTV’s legacy will go down as one of WWE’s strangest unsolved kayfabe mysteries, like who threw the pie at Kevin Owens in the food fight? What was in Shane McMahon’s Lockbox? Who blew up Vince McMahon’s limousine? Though at the end of the day, for a storyline that ran for over a year on and off, the whole thing became one of the most pointless storylines in WWE history.