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SirSmUgly

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SirSmUgly last won the day on May 1 2023

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  1. I do love some FirePro feel, yeah. I've started a quest to (re-)build my N64 collection. I don't need everything - I don't like OoT enough to spend a lot of money on a physical copy - but I am going to get all the wrestling games that got stateside releases. And I've never played WCW Backstage Blast, but as someone who is writing about late-stage WCW, I am looking forward to hating it. On another note, this No Mercy mod looks insane. The mod community in general has done some great work with No Mercy, but this is especially impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOMAog5eotw
  2. Most of those posts were truthful, but I do not condone the unnecessary DDP slander.
  3. Thunder Interlude – show number thirty-five – 8 October 1998 "The WCW Gang is infected with the sick that is Nitro’s awful featured feuds” Tony S. tells me that we’re still seventeen days’ worth of shows away from Havoc…My goodness…Chucky starts laughing over the P.A. system, likely at my distress and pain…Tony S. says that Mike Tenay, roving reporter, is off finding Scott Hall at some bar in the area to talk to him…Stevie Ray/Lex Luger is hyped as the main event…I didn’t realize before this re-watch just how fucking awful late ’98 WCW was…People focus on the terribleness of ’99 (for obvious reasons) and ’00 (fair, but there’s some of that stuff that I do remember liking, especially in the back half of the year or so)…’98 WCW heads south about July and is truly awful by September…Staggeringly terrible wrestling programming on their parts… Mike T. interviews a (possibly?) sauced Scott Hall…Hall invites Kevin Nash down for a beer or maybe a punch up…All I can say about this segment is that I could go for a Rolling Rock in a bottle right about now…Rolling Rock and Heineken were the finer beers that we’d drink in college…You know, compared to the complete trash we’d drink because it was the dirt cheapest…I’m not arguing that Rolling Rock and Heineken are great, but they are two levels above the most widely available and cheapest beers IMO and maybe YMO if you enjoy an occasional brew…We see a limo purportedly belonging to Kevin Nash racing away from the arena, presumably to meet Hall at the bar… Kanyon (by himself) opens the wrestling action for tonight…He doesn’t get the right response from the fans to his question w/r/t who is better than him…He’s frustrated about it even though he keeps feeding the crowd the correct answer beforehand…Hey, it’s Prince Iaukea…I expect something decent out of this matchup…I was right, it’s fun stuff…Iaukea busts out a wheel kick and hits a senton body press early on…Kanyon ducks a punch, sits Iaukea up top, and lands a hanging neckbreaker…Iaukea is sporting a small ponytail, and Kanyon keeps using it to help him get Iaukea positioned for moves…Heenan tries twice to set up a dumb punchline, but he really didn’t have to…He’s worse than Lee Marshall out here…My man Bobby the Brain is going out sad…Kanyon scores a series of two counts…Iaukea makes a nice comeback and scores 2.9 off a springboard somersault senton…That’s as close as he gets, as Kanyon drops him with a Flatliner for three shortly after…Fun stuff… Chris Jericho takes the chance to challenge Goldberg since Goldberg’s not in the arena tonight…He bangs on a door looking for the champ…He’s hastily added a “2” to his t-shirt listing out his “wins” over Goldberg so far…If you’re good enough at heeling, you can make me believe that you believe that running away from the ring while Goldberg kills your bodyguards somehow equals a victory…I am certain that this incarnation of Chris Jericho believes this with all his heart… We get the Scott Steiner black-and-white promo against brother Ricky that played on Nitro…Scotty makes his way to the ring with Buff Bagwell backing him up after the video is over…Buff grabs the mic, shares his hatred for the state of Indiana (reasonable), and promises that the Steiner Brothers will not have their match at Havoc because Scotty is out of shape (not reasonable)…Scotty gets the mic and tells Buff that he needs to put a (metaphorical) leash on his mom…Buff doesn’t like this…Scotty threatens to slap Buff if Buff gets physical with him…Buff blames Scotty for blowing up this whole Ricky Steiner feud…Scotty tells Buff to learn how to control a woman or he’s not nWo material…Buff ditches Scotty in response…I assume it’s all another ruse… This video package for the WCW Mastercard launch on Wall Street uses the Hardy Boys' WWF theme…Oh yeah, the ‘90s were full of licensed wrestling crap…What a time to be alive… Meng disappeared from TV for a minute after inexplicably letting Goldberg out of the TDG…He squashes Jerry Flynn, who gets a jobber entrance…Flynn hits a nice flying clothesline for less than one, but he’s got no shot…Flynn tries some more kicks, but Meng walks through them and locks in a TDG for the win… Jericho and Ralphus (w/2x4) stands in the parking lot pretending to want a fight with Goldberg tonight… After the break, Chris Adams comes to the ring and sees Meng still out there; the feared Tongan is bored after what was an easy victory…Meng wants to fight Adams and eventually catches Adams as Adams gets in the ring…We get another TDG…They’re really trying all sorts of stuff to vary these show segments over the past couple of shows…OOOH, Wrath comes down…He was supposed to wrestle Adams…Wrath gets in Meng’s face…They brawl, and I’m into it…There’s a bad chairshot spot where Wrath doesn’t want to hit Meng in the head, so he catches his initial chair swing and pauses in order for Meng to bend over and show his back…It’s okay, though, this is still exciting stuff…And there’s no need for chairshots to the head just to make things look smoother… Some cops issue a restraining order to Ric Flair and Arn Anderson outside the arena…This angle stinks…It’s because Bischoff is involved with some legalese-type shit when what everyone wants to see is the Four Horsemen in the ring fighting actual wrestlers in nWo Hollywood… El Dandy makes a WCW appearance…Hey, it’s Tokyo Magnum!...I dig this guy…They,ve dropped the Boogie Knights as a going concern (for now), and it’s too bad because I thought Magnum trying to win their approval had great potential as a midcard angle…Magnum and Dandy trade a series of two counts off flash pinfall attempts…Tony S., in talking about weight classes for this belt, basically calls Dandy fat…Tony S. also basically called himself fat on Nitro…Tony, don’t be so weight conscious…Chucky starts laughing in the middle of this match, which is the sort of disrespectful nonsense toward two professionals that you’d expect from a doll inhabited with the soul of a serial killer…Tony S. continues to freak out about not knowing whose voice this is…OK, then after that, Scott Norton comes down and powerbombs both guys…Fuck off, WCW…Thanks for letting us all know that neither of these guys matter… After the break, Eddy Guerrero comes out and recruits Dandy into the lWo by blaming Eric Bischoff for Norton’s attack…There’s a lot of garbage angles going on in this company, so this use of Eddy Guerrero coming off the amazing feud with Chavo is floating under the radar a bit…Creative has absolutely fallen apart…Eddy is supposed to be crapping on heel Bischoff with this, but these very non-Latin American crowds aren’t exactly fired up to cheer for a group centered around Mexican wrestlers that explicitly is portrayed as an ethnic Latin stable…Do Bisch and Sullivan not understand their base audience?... Tony S. tells us Mark Curtis is very sick…Both Curtis and Pee-Wee Anderson would pass away in the next four or so years from this show’s original airing…That is sad, man…Saturn comes to the ring to face that supreme scallywag of the Seven Seas, Scott Putski…Saturn doesn’t have much issue with Putski to start…He scores a nice superkick…Putski fires back and lariats Saturn to the floor…Putski is really sort of dull outside of the jacket, tights, and ostentatious Jesus piece…Saturn avoids a sleeper with a jawbreaker, then mows Putski down…Saturn lands a GORGEOUS top-rope splash for two…Putski gets a floatover powerslam for two of his own, kicks out of a flash pin attempt at two, and then keeps control until he whiffs badly on a corner charge…Saturn hits a Falcon Arrow and rings Putski up with a DVD for the win…You know, Saturn came out of that Raven feud hot…If only he had something to do, like maybe engage in a feud for a secondary title…Like the United States Championship, which sure would be a useful tool for continuing a guy’s elevation if it weren’t around Bret Hart’s waist for no good fucking reason… Too much crappy Nitro angle garbage has leaked into this Thunder…Now the Disciple comes to the ring and is allowed to talk…Why?...He reiterates that he can stand on his own (or with some friends, he’s not too picky, I guess)…This dude says that Hulk got a few chumps employment in WCW even though they're a waste of roster space…I think he’s going to finally admit that he's a fucking fraud, but no, he calls out Horace, who I’d much rather watch than Ed fucking Leslie…This guy Disciple won’t shut the fuck up…Just get Horace out here and have Horace kill Disciple off in sixty seconds or fewer…Oops, no, Horace runs out and struggles badly against Disciple…Horace finally gets in some offense which Disciple no-sells before hitting a Stone Cold Stunner for an easy three…MINUS FIVE STARS…Horace was actually a useful piece of the Flock…He wasn’t the best wrestler ever, but he worked hard and did some fun stuff on television…He attacks Disciple post-match to get some heat back, but this was a really dumb use of him… Tony S. interviews Chris Jericho in the ring…Even Jericho’s not too big a heel to wish Brian Hildebrand well…Jericho promises to beat down Goldberg tonight even though Tony S. has made it clear that the WCW World Champion isn’t in the building…Goldberg’s music hits and no one comes out…Jericho demands that Nick Patrick count Goldberg out…Jericho celebrates his third-straight win over Goldberg…None of these wins are official or go in the record books as wins, but you know what, Jericho seems pretty pleased with them all the same… I am reminded of the Sting/Hitman rip-off main event from Nitro because Lee Marshall insists on narrating stills of said rip-off main event…Tony S. is still in the ring, and he introduces Bret Hart for an interview…Bret Hart being badly booked and completely wasted is shitty, yeah, but this booking committee and the executive producer who oversees it seem intent on badly booking and wasting as many people as possible…Bret challenges Sting to a match for the U.S. Championship at Halloween Havoc…OK, that match sounds amazing, but maybe can we take the title off the Hitman next Nitro so we can free that up for a couple of guys who need it?... This Four Horsemen hype video is great, but what if they actually wrestled instead of standing around and getting kicked out of arenas?...Dean Malenko is allowed in the arena tonight, I suppose to wrestle?...The rest of the Horsemen are banned (I guess Mongo and Benoit were too, but I don’t care enough to go back and watch that segment)…Nope, wait, they sent Malenko out here to talk…What the fuck?...Why not let Mongo talk then as he’s a clearly better talker than either Benoit or Malenko?...Malenko doesn’t fit the Four Horsemen because he’s boring and has zero style…Malenko does a sit-in, demanding a match…Eric Bischoff walks out and books him against Barbarian…Fine, I see why they sent him out here…And at least Malenko didn’t talk for too long…Bisch offers Barb a million bucks to injure Malenko…Minus Jimmy Hart’s forty percent commission, of course… Oh great, Bisch joins commentary to yap about how he set Malenko up…Bisch talks about how long his contract runs and says he’ll be around for a long time…Meanwhile, I desperately calculate how many more shows I have to wade through until September of 1999…Malenko takes a beating, but takes out Barb’s wheels and locks on the Texas Cloverleaf…Malenko coaxes Barb to tap out, and in an admittedly funny visual, Bischoff gets up and yells NO NO NO NO NO NO NO while whapping Tony S. in the head with his booking papers on each NO…Well, even guys who absolutely SUCK as on-TV authority figures can do something entertaining every once in awhile, I suppose…Though Bischoff as a scumbag, used-car-salesman type of authority figure on WWE television was actually very good…If WWE authority figure Bischoff were transported to 1998, I wouldn’t mind him getting all this mic time… Raven comes to the ring, sits down in the corner, and talks about his unhappy childhood…He notes that his mother told him that he was a zero of a human being at the tender age of eight…He says his ma told him exactly this: “You’re just a cinder in the furnace of the damned”…I have to tell you, that is way more hurtful and abusive than Judy Bagwell slapping Buff…Raven compares himself to DDP and notes that even though he fought his way through a sad life, Page is the guy that gets all the breaks…What about him?...What about Raven?!...Page cuts in and decides to fight Raven right then and there…Raven jumps Page as Page slides into the ring…This might be a wild thing to say, and I have no idea if it is or if it’s something that fans mainstream see as a reasonable position, but I think Raven is Page’s best career opponent…Even though they had that cage match blow-off earlier this year that underwhelmed (largely because of the overbooking), they are still an awesome feud pairing overall and brightened up 1998 WCW considerably when they worked together… Page tries a Diamond Cutter, but Raven slips out of it and boots Page in the sack…Raven takes over and cuts off Page at every turn…He hits Page with a side Russian into the guardrail…Raven grabs a chair, but gets caught when he tries to post Page’s nuts and pulled into the post himself…Raven recovers quickly and lands a drop toehold into the chair…Lodi comes out and stands on the apron, which distracts Raven as Raven tries to land an Evenflow…That allows Page to push Raven into Lodi and then use the chair to bonk Raven in the face…A DDP lariat gets two…Raven back elbows himself out of back suplex position, but Page holds on and hits a belly-to-belly for two…This is a great fight, man, it rules…Raven locks on a sleeper after some more back-and-forth…Page breaks it with an elbow, then as both men fight over a backslide, he slips out and lands a Diamond Cutter for three…I get that Raven’s not a guy you build the company around, but he’s a guy you keep as a gatekeeper…I apologize for bringing this back up, but Raven’s a guy who would be better positioned as the heel secondary singles champ right now… I have no idea why Lex Luger and Stevie Ray get the Michael Buffer Special, but okay…Tony S. hypes a movie star being at Nitro…How about if you hype me with a handful of decent matchups and fewer bad angles instead?...Lex Luger might as well be invisible at this point…Not every guy can be the focal point all the time, but Luger was way, way over…Now, he’s just a guy…If this company pushed the Wolfpac as a threat better, he’d be fine, but it didn't, so he’s badly underused…There’s not much to say about the match itself…Luger goes for a Torture Rack, but Scott Hall runs in…I sure hope he didn’t drive himself here…I did wonder how they were going to pay off Nash leaving to find Hall…OK, so it was a set-up to get Nash away from the building, but where are Konnan and Sting?...They said Sting was in the hospital, but so was Bret, and Bret made it to Indianapolis to talk...Stevie whaps Luger in the head with the slapjack, and then Konnan runs out both a) late and b) alone and gets beaten up…The booking for the Wolfpac is criminal… This show was bad, but as with the previous Nitro, Raven and DDP are part of a small group of people (Wrath, Meng, Kanyon, and Iaukea included) that kept watching this show from feeling like I’d hit my thumb with a hammer…By the barest of margins, it’s a WOO…
  4. Austin/Rhodes best of three falls at Starrcade and Sting's Squadron vs. Dangerous Alliance War Games would be on that top ten list for me.
  5. Everyone says it so often it's cliche, but nothing really has recaptured the pacing, cadence, and meaty weight of movies like AKI's WCW and WWF games. I had to go get a new HDMI/USB combo cord to get the N64 to work on my modern television, but it was worth it. These games still feel incredible to play. So did Def Jam Vendetta and Fight For New York. AKI just had insane fighting/wrestling game talent. I'm not sure any stateside wrestling game has made me feel like I can break down an opponent through targeting like the AKIs. I'm glad that I didn't settle for emulating them on my PC this time around and busted out the carts.
  6. SCSA hot take incoming: He and Kurt Angle had their career best match against one another at SummerSlam '01. Most people prefer Bret/Austin at WM 13 for Austin, and lots of folks prefer Benoit/Angle at the '03 Rumble, which is why I think this classified as a hot take.
  7. Show #160 – 5 October 1998 "The one where WCW Nitro tries to be like WWF RAW even though Vince Russo isn't involved in booking or formatting the show" Sting and Bret Hart are feuding now. Unfortunately, they’re doing it under the least interesting circumstances possible, and somehow Hulk Hogan jammed himself into the middle of this whole deal. Eric Bischoff didn’t even have the decency to silo Hogan and Warrior off into their own universe so the rest of the show could breathe. Tony S., after a video recap of all this garbage, says that, “[Bret's turn] will go down as one of the most shocking moments” and come on, this was one of the most telegraphed turns ever. Poor Tony S., having to hype this crap and sound like an idiot. Nitro Girls routine. Halloween Havoc promo. Fireworks. Commentary desk chatter. Confusion about Chucky cackling like an idiot. Bret Hart vs. Sting for the United States Championship - do any of you remember that this title even exists? – will happen later tonight. Somehow, I doubt it’ll have an ending that is even remotely un-clusterfucky. Video of Roddy Piper cutting a crappy promo about/to Bret Hart from a few Nitros back. More video recaps of this Hogan/Hart/Sting stuff that happened in past weeks. Enough! This has been completely uncompelling television! Show intro. Finally. That all took seven-and-a-half minutes, but it felt like seven-and-a-half hours. Lizmark Jr. comes to the ring to face Saturn in the opener. At least the opener will probably be decent. A dude in the crowd holds up a sign with red facepaint Sting next to white facepaint Sting. Red Facepaint Sting is, quite sensibly, crossed out. Stingiagree.gif. This match is fine. Lizmark is having a strange night: He takes a weird, overelaborate bump off a superkick, then so badly telegraphs a corner splash that it looks comical. Saturn scores a Falcon Arrow after that missed corner splash and wins in only a couple of minutes with the DVD (no Video Review). DDP/Goldberg hype video. This feud is so good and should get somewhat more time than it’s gotten, but it’s been crowded out by the awful nWo-adjacent stuff. Speaking off, Warrior/Hogan hype stuff is grafted onto the second half of this hype video. Nitro Girls routine. Kimberly’s a charming and pretty lady, but what if we got some pro wrestling on this here pro wrestling show instead of a second Nitro Girls routine in the first fifteen minutes of the show? Kaz Hayashi has, I guess, accepted Sonny Onoo’s tutelage at what I’m sure is a step managerial fee. That must have happened on SN. They come to the ring together; Kaz is opposing Ernest Miller, who is still repping what is now an overlong gimmick that should have been squashed by Goldberg two weeks ago. Miller does his same heel routine. It stinks. I guess Kaz has no idea what the fuck is going on, and Onoo doesn’t help him at all by translating or anything, because he just stands there while the Cat counts, takes off his robe, and then kicks him right in the chest. Onoo is the anti-James Vandenberg. This match has a cap on it in quality, obviously. The Cat does a relatively long pressure hold on Kaz’s ribs. Kaz has some bursts, but leaps off the top rope and right into a leaping kick counter. Oops, no, the timing is horrid and it looks awful. The Cat has terrible timing at this point and should probably stop it with all the kick counter spots that need good timing to pull off for awhile. Miller hits a Feliner after that for the win; Onoo gets in the ring and immediately dumps Kaz for Miller. Seems about right. There are lots of hype videos tonight. This is not a complaint; it is merely an observation. DDP gets a cool little video package of him dropping fools with Diamond Cutters even though his ribs are taped because of kayfabe injuries a whole bunch of the time. The man’s a fighter! Jerry Flynn and Juventud Guerrera are next up, and I know that Juvi is on his way out here because his music plays for a few seconds while Flynn is still on the ramp. Dammit, Leathers! We don’t get into this match at all before Disco comes out and boots Tenay off the desk. Disco verbally shits on Juvi. Also, Disco calls himself “slim in the waist and cute in the face.” This guy cracks me up. Hahaha, Disco claims that Juvi is used to the metric system and miscalculated Disco’s weight in pounds. What a dumbass. In the ring, Juvi and Flynn have a surprisingly decent little man/big man match. I never would have guessed that these two have some solid chemistry. I’m honestly somewhat shocked at how fun this nothing little match is, which ends with Juvi winning a series of counters by backflipping out of a back suplex attempt and drilling a Juvi Driver for three. Huh. I think this reaches "charming uniquity" status. In a pre-tape, Mike Tenay asks the humanoids outside the arena who will win the Goldberg/DDP match at Havoc. A woman wearing a DDP shirt is brave enough to pick DDP when everyone else picks Goldberg. But in an illustration of the thin line between bravery and stupidity, she then holds up a sign which exhorts Hulk Hogan to shake his dick at her. I did not make this up. God knows that I wish I had. The desk talks about Hogan/Warrior. A Hogan/Warrior hype video plays. Did I mention that there are lots of hype videos tonight? Wrath crushes the fifth Villano in a quick squash. I’ll tell you, Wrath and Crush both have some excellent tilt-a-whirl backbreakers. Wrath’s Meltdown looks great tonight. Another Warrior/Hogan video package plays. Then, we cut to more pre-tape of Tenay yammering at the humanoids. I must credit one fan who predicts DDP countering a Jackhammer attempt by slipping out of the back and hitting a Diamond Cutter because he’s seen himself a wrestling show or two. This group of fans seemed comparatively savvy about pro wrestling, how to cut a faux-promo while yelling catchphrases, and also none of them begged Hulk Hogan to shake his dick at them. So that’s a plus. An incredibly tacky Hummer limo pulls up to the arena. Of course the Wolfpac are in it. Of course. They pop out and we get a tracking shot as they walk from the limo all the way into the arena and, uh, as they wander around trying to find the nWo locker room; we stick with it until they find a few B-Teamers backstage and kick the shit out of them. Dellinger and the fuzz show up and stumble around ineffectually; the Giant and Scott Steiner show up and don’t do much. I respect the Wolfpac moving like an actual wolfpack for once, I have to say. This is a lukewarm backstage brawl. This thing goes on forever, man, forever. The fans in Columbia appear entertained by what they’re seeing on the big screen, though. Sting finally finds the room Bret’s in and ambushes him. Dellinger and the LEOs try to break it up as we go to commercial. We come back and this thing is still going. Sting hijacks a forklift and then rams it into nWo Hollywood's non-Hummer limo. In what is pretty boring TV, but which must have been fun for Sting, Sting picks up the limo with the forklift and then dumps it over on its hood. In fairness, once Sting drops it, that’s fun to watch. I'm a man and therefore enjoy watching cars getting crushed or dropped. It's science. Nash was using a sledgehammer (™Triple H) to hit the limo from beneath while Sting had it in the air, which seems like an inadvisable thing to do! Damian 666 shouldn’t have a ‘90s pop theme, I don’t think, but hey, this is WCW and they had it in the licensed music catalog they have access to. Damian faces Hector Garza. This match starts out shading slightly more toward “tumbling competition” than “simulation of an actual fight,” but it only lasts a minute because Eddy Guerrero cuts in with a mic and basically pitches these dudes on the lWo as a way to get back at Eric Bischoff booking anyone with Mexican heritage into the ground. Eddy whines about Bisch and Hogan controlling the money and the main event spots and then proposes that he and the other Latino WCW wrestlers band up in the lWo, complete with an lWo shirt that has a logo in the colors of the Mexican national flag. Damian and Garza join up immediately. This is our third “[Something] World Order” group in the fucking company, by the way. Mike Tenay tries to sneak into a Wolfpac huddle backstage, then interviews Kevin Nash, who plans to run up into a few local-area bars until they find Scott Hall so they can beat the fuck out of him. Tenay hopes to bring a cameraman and tag along on this fantastic voyage. More Bret Hart/Sting recap, specifically with a snippet of a Hart promo from a couple weeks ago. It only lasts a few seconds, at least. The Nitro Girls dance. Psicosis heads to the ring after this latest dance routine and faces off with Billy Kidman for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. Psicosis tries to intimidate Kidman, which fails, and then tries to work the arm, but that fails too, as Kidman works out of the hold and hits an armdrag, then follows up with a release overhead suplex for two. Kidman hits a plancha to Psicosis after Psicosis heads outside; he rolls Psicosis back in the ring and brings himself back in with a guillotine legdrop for another two count. He tries to follow up, but ducks down and gets caught and Falcon Arrow’d for two. Hey, that’s the second Falcon Arrow of the night. Psicosis celebrates and clowns and doesn’t seem to be taking Kidman very seriously, but he still scores a top rope wheel kick. This only gets two, but man, is Psicosis consistently casual about staying on top of Kidman. Psicosis goes to the chinlock. Kidman doesn’t take too long to work his way out of it, and he manages a dropkick. They trade counters once they’re back to standing, and Psicosis hits a wild guillotine legdrop from the ring to Kidman laying on the protective mats below. Psicosis sure loves pulverizing his spinal column. Psicosis beats Kidman up outside the ring, then back inside the ring, but he is so distracted tonight. He bitches at Charles Robinson, yells at the refs, and gives Kidman plenty of time to recover and score a counter lariat for two. Kidman tries to follow up, but misses a corner splash and gets back suplexed for a two count himself. Psicosis is on top, so he goes back to the chinlock. It’s not a very good looking chinlock. Kidman is out of it again and hits a sunset flip for two, but Psicosis is up and hits a lariat of his own. Psicosis follows up with a piledriver. Oops, no, he jaws at the fans and goes back to the chinlock. But, as unfocused as Psicosis is, he makes his biggest mistake by standing with Kidman and trying to powerbomb him. Kidman counters with a facebuster. Both men trade two counts after this, with Kidman’s 2.9 on the sit-out slam getting the closest to ending the match. Psicosis tries to hit a top-rope rana, but Kidman holds onto the ropes and then, as the crowd volume rises expectantly, lands an SSP for three. No, he doesn’t have good aim. But yes, the crowd loves the hell out of that move. This match was fine, but they have better in them. We get a pre-taped Warrior promo. He talks about giving Hogan that work at WrestleMania VI. In a weird bit of theming in this promo, Warrior mentions the famous Santayana phrase about people who don’t remember history being doomed to repeat it. Then, his promo argues that Hogan clearly remembers losing at WrestleMania. Doesn’t that mean, implicitly, that Hogan is less likely to repeat history and more likely to overcome Warrior at Havoc, then? I’m probably nitpicking. This pre-taped promo is too long, but there are parts of it that are actually decent, like when he says that he sleeps easily at night because he’s haunting Hogan’s dreams at the same time. He doesn’t say it that way exactly – he's a bit more wordy - but it's not a bad line. There was a lot of nonsense to get to that line, though. Scott Steiner cuts a pre-taped promo on Rick Steiner with the B-Team theme playing in the background. Scotty pretty much says that he carried the team for years. It’s a decent enough promo. Mike Tenay drives behind a Hummer limo. It’s exciting. You know, if you’ve never seen someone driving behind another car. I think they’re playing with the formatting of the show here and trying to hit the high notes that Attitude Era WWF hit with stuff like Steve Austin riding trucks into the arena and spraying dudes with beer. It’s not working for me, really, but it’s a moderately interesting attempt. Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell come to the ring. Scotty hits the line BIG POPPA PUMP IS YOUR HOOKUP, HOLLA IF YA HEAR ME, which is a good sign. Scotty re-hashes the promo he just gave in the pre-tape. Rick Steiner rolls out onto the ramp to rebut. Ricky’s so unsympathetic. Who gives a shit about this dude at all? You can’t get any heat on him because of how unsympathetic he is. Ricky is upset about Buff playing on his past injury; he’s so upset that he calls out Buff’s mom Judy. Judy takes the mic and gets in the ring like she pulled a switch off a plant outside and is going to whoop Buff’s Marcus’s ass. The crowd cheers appreciatively. Judy cuts a diabolical, screechy promo that Vickie Guerrero would be proud of. Then, like any Southern mom worth her salt, she guilts her son for not even calling her anymore, what the fuck, Marcus?! Buff takes the mic and tries to assert himself against his overbearing helicopter mom. Then he says that he makes the money that keeps his family housed, clothed, and fed. That is a mistake because, like any Southern mom worth her salt, Judy slaps the shit out of her disrespectful child. Look, you might be horrified at the babyface mother repeating an instance of child abuse against her son in his adulthood, but this is the south. Judy gets a massive pop. Also, I popped. Don’t judge me too harshly. Judy drags Buff away from the ring by his earlobe to loud cheers while Rick jumps Scott. During the break, Crush helped Scotty turn the tide, and they beat Ricky down. Scotty throws up the double birds while Ricky writhes in pain after getting tossed into a guardrail. Yeah, I’m sure Bischoff didn’t have an eye on what RAW was doing. I fucking bet. Crush versus Rick Steiner is the match that was next before Scotty and Buff crashed the proceedings, and that match goes on right now while J.J. Dillon comes to ringside and gets cops to escort Scotty away from ringside. Crush works a chinlock, hits Ricky with a big boot, eventually drops him with a piledriver, and casually covers for 2.9. I mean, wow, this Crush control segment goes on for about fifty years. I don’t even think it’s bad on an aesthetic level, necessarily; it’s just that Crush is so fucking boring. Finally, Ricky makes a comeback and lands the top-rope bulldog for three. The crowd was into the finish. I think what we’ve learned from this segment is that the crowd wants Judy to use corporal punishment on her adult manchild fuck-up of a son, and that they really dig the top-rope bulldog. The Wolfpac stalk Scott Hall at one of Hall’s favorite Columbia, SC haunts. See, this is straight out of the late ‘90s WWF playbook to run a series of segments like this where a story is told outside of the ring area, or outside of the arena itself, building toward a final confrontation and/or punchline. Anyway, they don’t find him at this spot, so they move on to the next one. Eric Bischoff escorts Hulk Hogan to the ring. David Flair is in the front row so that Eric Bischoff can taunt him. Hogan cuts a promo. It’s a fucking bummer. He cuts a far worse promo against Warrior than Warrior did in the pre-tape against him. I can scarcely believe it, but Warrior has been a consistently better promo than Hogan in this feud. I’m not saying Warrior is good at promos or even average, but he’s better than Hogan. The Four Horsemen are the next to get hyped via video package. Then the Nitro Girls dance. After that, Kanyon comes out, flanked by Raven. DDP comes to the ring to face his fellow Jersey scumbag. Someone holds up an EDGE STEALS MOVES sign. Edge stinks on ice, but everyone steals moves, man. Page gets a couple of flash pinfall attempts after Kanyon focuses on taunting the crowd instead of facing off with his opponent. That puts Kanyon out of sorts as he struggles to get going in the match. Page gets two on a big belly-to-belly, then sends Kanyon tumbling outside with a wild haymaker. Lodi comes out here begging Raven to take him back, which distracts Kanyon and allows Page to leap onto both of them. The whole kerfuffle distracts the ref enough that he leaves the ring; this allows Raven to hop in and hit Page with a shitty Diamond Cutter, but that only gets 2.9 when Kanyon gets back in the ring to cover (and Charles Robinson gets back in the ring to count). Kanyon chokes Page, then lands a second-rope Rocker Dropper. Kanyon is just too distracted, though; he celebrates and gets ambushed by Page strikes before landing a well-aimed kick to the ribs and a second-rope facebuster for two. Kanyon sinks in a chinlock, but that doesn’t last long; Kanyon gets to standing and puts Page in TKO position, but Page slinks out, and both men trade counters until finally Page scores a counter-clothesline that induces a standing ten-count. Or, uh, kneeling ten-count from Lil’ Naitch. Both men are up around seven, and Page wins a punch-up and bashes Kanyon’s head into the buckles; he then lands a back suplex for two. Page picks Kanyon back up, but Kanyon grabs him and gets two off a desperation small package. It’s not a bad move, but Page is up, out, and back on top with a DDPancake that gets two. This is enough for Raven to get on the apron, and though Page knocks him off, Kanyon gets a flash pin for two, then finds a swinging neckbreaker for another two. Kanyon tries to follow up, but Page counters him with a jawbreaker, follows with a tilt-a-whirl slam, and signals for the Diamond Cutter. Raven’s had enough of this shit, and after Lodi runs in and gets cleared out with a lariat, Raven runs in and spikes Page with a microphone. Goldberg runs out for the save, spears Kanyon, absolutely clobbers Lodi with an overhand right and a Jackhammer, and then turns around to face off with a revived DDP after Page lands a Diamond Cutter on Raven. J.J. Dillon power-waddles on out to keep them from fighting one another. The match was entertaining enough, but the aftermath in particular was really fun stuff. We cut back to Tenay and the Wolfpac showing up at tavern number two for the night. Konnan is convinced that Hall would be in a strip club instead of this dive bar, but Nash swears that he’s had drinks with Hall here. Unlike the last spot, the bar is full of awestruck patrons who wonder what the hell is going on. Konnan desperately wants to visit a strip joint or two (heh heh heh), but Nash is adamant that Hall isn’t allowed in any strip joints in this area anymore. Yeah, I believe it. The Disciple has new music, but he’s the same old shitbrick. He’s going to squash Lenny Lane. Lane runs around pretending to be the Warrior, and it hurts Disciple’s feelings. Disciple does a rope shake and then no-sells Lane’s offense. I don’t get why this had to be on Nitro. Or SN. Or on TV at all. Disciple eventually lands a Stone Cold Stunner for three. Oh no, Penzer gives this goof a microphone. Penzer, you dumbass. Disciple says he’s done carrying Hogan’s bags. Wow, Hogan should get Judy Bagwell back out here to slap the hell out of this disrespectful bastard. Hogan comes onto the ramp from, uh, somewhere, and follows Disciple to the back through the normal entrance. But the Disciple has disappeared, OOOOH SCARY. So, this is the dumb thing that no one thought up where Warrior appears in the mirror and Eric Bischoff is the only one who can’t see him. We see him, the announcers see him, Hogan sees him. Bischoff looks like the crazy bastard, not Hogan. This was the sort of bad television that eventually gets a TV show canceled. OK, so the third place the Hummer pulls up to just looks like some dudes mother-in-law that he turned into an illegal drinking spot against his spouse's wishes after the ol’ M-I-L passed away. Hall is here, and Nash brawls with him while a bunch of twenty-something dudes cheer and a tiny smattering of twenty-something women look around confused. Well, a couple of those young ladies find the camera to get some camera time. Nash drags Hall in the bathroom and gives him a swirlie. Or possibly a guy who is dressed vaguely like Scott Hall since it was hard to see the dude’s face. Whatever. I give Bischoff a few points for trying to do a style of episode-long storytelling that the WWF excelled at in this time period. I mean, I took away a bunch of points for the previous segment, so he’s well in arrears, but still. Oh great, more Eric Bischoff! I’m so excited to hear him cut a promo on Ric Flair. I’ve wondered where they were going with this whole “the Horsemen are banned” thing, and I think actually I know. We are headed toward Flair/Bischoff, maybe at Starrcade, and then Flair being the new commissioner or WCW executive committee leader or whatever, right? And then Flair tries to pull off a double turn with Hulk Hogan that absolutely no one wants except for Flair and Hogan? Arn Anderson comes out, but I’m distracted by thinking about what is the least straightforward booking of this angle that anyone could possibly come up with. Arn introduces “the champ,” and that brings out Reid (w/terrible haircut, medal). Reid looks terrified as fuck to be on television. He cuts a bad promo, but I don’t judge him. Basically, he is down here to kick Bischoff’s ass. What is happening right now? Everything Bischoff is personally involved in fucking SUCKS. Fuck, this is some awful television. I’m depressed to see Arn Anderson on my screen, imagine that. Reid hits a couple double-legs on Bisch. Whatever, it got a pop. Columbia wrestling fans are good sports. There’s a commercial break, and when we get back, Bischoff is still fucking standing out here. He’s got Liz on the phone calling someone, and I don’t fucking care. Bischoff rants while Liz tries to get Ric Flair on the phone. This is the opposite of compelling television. Now Bischoff pretends to have a conversation with Ric’s wife. Oh, I should clarify, huh? Ric’s wife Beth. He has a fake conversation off-mic (Larry Z. is confused as to why we can’t hear any of this) and then “Thus Sprach” hits and the elder Flair comes to the ring. The crowd gets catharsis as this is what they wanted to see, and immediately a bunch of B-Teamers run down and surround the ring. The Horsemen quickly run down and clear them out. I can imagine what Bisch would say: The crowd was hot, so obviously something about it worked. And hell, Nitro even barely lost the night, so look, who am I to say that this was wretched television? Oh, yeah, I’m a wrestling fan who is still devastated that WCW went out of business in part because Bischoff is bad at creative. That’s who I am to say that this was terrible fucking television. Sting/Bret Hart gets the last nine-ish minutes of the show. Bret comes onto the ramp and then decides that walking to the ring for a wrestling match is a stupid idea. He leaves. Sting runs after him. *sigh* We follow to the back where Sting catches Bret and beats him up. As Tony S. points out that we’re watching yet another backstage event, some EA exec has a great idea for a game if they ever get the WCW license. They brawl throughout the backstage area. Bret gets the upper hand, attacks Sting’s knee and ankle, and then, sliding around on the floor, tries to Pillmanize Sting’s knee with a chair and a garbage can. This is fine as a wandering brawl, but I was promised a match in the ring. Bret tries to use a cart to VROOM at Sting, but it doesn’t start, so Bret abandons the spot. What a fucking ripoff this whole main event was. This brawl just goes on forever. Bret gets a Sharpshooter for a bit; Sting gets a Scorpion Death Lock for a bit. The crowd finally runs out of what I thought was an endless well of patience; they boo and chant BULLSHIT because they realize that they got ripped off. It was like I fell in a portal and went to a world where Bischoff booked RAW in 1998. Oops. Let me amend that statement. It was like I fell into a portal and went a world where Bischoff booked RAW very badly in 1998. As it turns out, while there were bright spots (Judy dressing down Buff Marcus, Juvi and Jerry Flynn having decent chemistry), the Raven/Kanyon/Lodi/DDP/Goldberg segment saved this show from a null or negative score, it was so much fun. 0.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.
  8. This was duplicated in one of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark volumes, in which someone was terrified in their office by a man of vague Eastern European ethnicity calling their phone ("I am THE VIPER, I will be at your office at one," "I am THE VIPER, I am only thirty minutes away," "It's THE VIPER, I am coming up the stairs to your office"). Why this person in the Scary Stories tale didn't just vacate the premises, I don't know. At least the Joes had the excuse that they were trying to protect their base of operations.
  9. Hey Curt, I know who to talk to if you want to experience the sheer magic of a bad '80s cartoon with episodes that include a red-haired Princess Toadstool and Captain Lou trading jokes with a Cher impersonator!
  10. Did you know you can get a degree at home now? At home! Not like some rube who has to live in a dorm in Philly, sharing a microwave that no one wants to clean.
  11. I watched some Super Mario Bros. Super Show! the other day, starring one of the only two actors whom I recognize as Mario, Captain Lou. It's dreadful, of course. One episode at a time is enough. But I'll always deeply love it.
  12. I just heard Tenay explain that Psicosis means "Psycho" in Spanish on a random SN episode. Bless that guy. I do think his Lucha Libre and the Mexican Luchadores series that ran on Nitro in 1997 was probably genuinely important for getting a non-negligible amount of WCW fans to watch more lucha. A kid from Acworth or Biloxi or somewhere saw those segments and is now a huge CMLL fan or something. So that's cool!
  13. St. Joseph's and Temple grads always make sure to proofread. Or so I have been told.
  14. Harris could bump athletically. I've seen him bump a handful of times in Mid-South and Dallas where I was surprised at how cool it looked. I forget that by the time he was reasonably high-profile, he was already in his mid-30s. He aged like milk, but he was also well past his athletic peak by the time he was a notable worker. I think the first time I saw him, I was very, very young and he was wrestling Hogan in 1987 or whenever it was, and he was already physically shot.
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