SirSmUgly

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and four –22 March 2000 "The WCW Gang seems not to understand its own Hulk Hogan-focused angle" When did Russo and Bischoff agree to come back?...Usually by now, Thunder feels like it’s in a holding pattern before the new creative comes in, but that’s not true this time…We start with a recap of Sid’s sudden, out-of-nowhere heel turn…They’re going to drive on with that storyline until, what, Sid and Hogan immediately make up to stand against the New Blood or something?...Eh, we’ll see soon enough… Tank Abbott opens the show by, uh, talking?...OK, he just cuts an unconvincing short promo in which he calls for an opponent he can quickly feed a two-piece to…Fit Finlay responds to the call…They do a mediocre approximation of shoot fighting in a wrestling ring…Finlay controls for most of this, but get gets up to shove the ref away after a break and catches a right…Tank makes to leave, but Meng comes out next…Finlay, who hadn’t been KO’d and was still moving to try and get to his feet, jumps Tank from behind and knocks him outside into Meng…Tank and Meng have a pull-apart brawl as the match is thrown out… We suddenly cut to Hulk Hogan getting the best of Sid Vicious in a backstage brawl…Only three more PPVs between me and Bash at the Beach 2000… We cut back to the ring, where Gene Okerlund interviews Finlay…Finlay says he’s going to beat some respect for pro wrestling into Abbott…Hogan beats the hell out of Sid into the aisle and interrupts the interview…Sid rolls into the ring to get some space, and Finlay shoves him for interrupting his talky time…Sid chokeslams Finlay…Do I agree more with the guy holding the WHY AM I HERE sign or the guy with the I’D RATHER BE AT SMACKDOWN sign?...Hmmm… Sid grabs Okerlund’s tie and threatens to break Okerlund’s neck if Hogan advances…Sid is tired of Hogan being on screen, basically…Aren’t we all…Apparently, Sid prepared a video to help explain himself…At Uncensored, it seems that that Sid was like, Meh, do you really need to step in on my match, which was part of their alliance-making conversation that kicked off Uncensored…He sort of agreed to the alliance, but reluctantly, I suppose…I wrote that he did agree, affirmatively, no reservations, in that review...Sid's actions in the segment didn’t come off as a clear storyline catalyst to me, but what the hell, I also could have just been bored with the show and didn’t pick up the marker that they were supposed to be putting down…Sid thinks Hogan needs to stop putting himself into other champions’ affairs…He’s like STEP OFF, HULK…He challenges Hogan to a fight; Hogan agrees, but off-mic, and he’s ultimately backed away by a phalanx of security men… Now they’re trying to get this angle over by asking other wrestlers what they thought about it…Buff Bagwell gives an opinion and then we cut immediately to the nWo dressing room…Steiner, laughing derisively at Buff: “What a kiss-ass; he sucks”…Ah, still mad at one another, I see…Good, I don’t want you two bros making up and getting back together… Now we’ve got Sid commandeering a bunch of security dudes for some purpose...I stupidly didn’t think Sullivan and Company could do worse with their main event feud scene than they did leading up to Uncensored, but here we are… Now Okerlund is in the back and asking Dustin Rhodes about what happened to Hogan…OK, I have to stop here to, um, complain some more, I suppose…Sorry about all the complaining, honestly…Way back when I first started writing these reviews, I responded to a post about this period of WCW in which I said that I’d try to focus on what is good about the shows more than go on these rants about the bad stuff that everyone else in the history of reporting on late-stage WCW has done…What I didn’t realize is that there would be so little good stuff!... Anyway, this show is doing the WHERE’S POOCHIE HULKSTER thing again…That would work only if you are portraying Hogan as the delusional shithead heel who sticks his nose into everything even when he’s not wanted…Instead, they’re doing this deal with Hogan and keeping Hogan as a babyface…Who in hell thinks that spamming Hulk Hogan, a guy who is beyond old and tired on television and who can’t draw a single eyeball to WCW at this point, and then telling fans NO, UR DA HEELS via heel commentator Mark Madden and heel wrestler Sid’s critiques of Hogan for the same things the fans critique him for, is going to draw a single crusty dime?...Of all the baffling storylines that WCW has done, this might be the most baffling…Russo leaves, Hogan comes back, and we go from the low-3s to the mid-2s for Nitro, and WCW thinks pulling a Principal Skinner and saying NO, IT’S THE FANS WHO ARE WRONG and spamming babyface Hogan against a bunch of heels who are kayfabe tired of him will do anything to arrest that slide?...What thee fuck?!... Also, The Simpsons has a multitude of references that can be applied to this angle, and probably to pro wrestling...or life...in general... Dustin Rhodes threatens Hulk Hogan in an interview with Okerlund...Rhodes calls him a disease that is killing the company…He challenges Hogan to a match later tonight…Why are guys who have been on television ten-plus years the ones who are targeting Hogan for being old and tired, by the way?... Now we see Hulk Hogan watching a monitor in disbelief…He’s baffled as to why nobody likes him…There are a list of reasons, dude…Kayfabe, shoot, doesn’t matter…You’re a terrible human being and no one with any sense would want you around…Jimmy Hart is like, They’re just jealous of you, bro…What an enabler that guy is…Hogan decides to accept Dustin’s challenge… Aw, yeah, it’s Three Count!...Hey, stop interrupting their dance routine…What the hell, their music keeps going in my office because it’s played in-house…The Jung Dragons hit the ring to oppose them…Heh, Helms makes fun of Noble’s headband, and Noble makes fun of Helms’s protective mask…Noble disposes of Helms, but is cut off on a dive by Moore…This starts a chain of moves in which each member of the team takes out the other and culminates in a trios dive from the Dragons onto Three Count at ringside…Noble tries to pursue Helms back in the ring, but walks into a sweet superkick from Sugar Shane…We get a couple of tags, and Kaz and Moore trade moves on one another… OK, Karagias and Helms exchange a tag, and we get a sick move combo from Three Count…First, Karagias draws the attention of the ref by facing off with the other two Dragons…Moore takes the chance to hit a vertical suplex on Kaz, but instead of suplexing him to the mat, he suplexes him across a kneeling Helms’s bent knee…Then Karagias comes back over and hooks Jimmy Yang before atomic dropping him…He drops him so that Yang’s outstretched leg gives his own partner Kaz’s throat a guillotine legdrop as he plummets toward the mat…Kaz tries to fight back, but runs into a Karagias press slam…Karagias thrusts his hips and gets a SQUEEEEEE from the ladies in the crowd…Karagias shoots Kaz into the corner, but gets reversed and wheelbarrow slammed… Yang gets the hot tag and takes care of all three Three Count members…He chucks Karagias to the floor, but Moore hits a drop toe-hold on a charging Kaz in the background…Kaz’s momentum sends him sliding to the floor…Holy shit, there is a lot going on in this match…Karagias hits a nasty powerslam to Noble on the floor…Moore and Helms combine on a top-rope Frankensteiner/Frog Splash combo on Yang in the ring for three…That was fun as fuck, folks…Three Count lines up to dance, and the Dragons recover, triple-dropkick Three Count to the floor, and steal Three Count’s dance circles…Three Count is irate when they discover what has happened… The guy with the WHY AM I HERE? sign has END THE MISERY written on the other side of that sign…This was the wrong match to debut that side of your sign, buddy…This match was so enjoyable that even though it was short, it’s worth putting on any YouTube playlist of random WCW matches…I have spent months shitting on Evan Karagias, but he’s found his niche as the power guy in a high-flying cruiserweight tag team or trio…He’s been very fun in the ring since Three Count came together…Obviously, Moore and Helms are fantastic (and helped by having tagged together for a while now – it really shows)…But Karagias integrating himself into this trio successfully is meritable… Gene Okerlund interviews Chris Candido, who is facing Chavo Guerrero Jr. for a shot at TAFKAPI’s gold…Candido talks way too fast and claims that he once tied up Lou Thesz and Karl Gotch…Uh, at the same time in a handicap match, no less…So, yeah, that’s his gimmick…As far as delusional heel gimmicks go, it’s pretty good…I’d rather watch it than Hogan’s delusional heel gimmick…Uh, hold on, being handed a note…Hmm, after reading it, it seems that Hogan is still meant to be a babyface…Sorry for the confusion… Pre-tape: Hugh Morrus thinks Sid has the right idea… Chris Candido and Chavo Guerrero Jr. hook it up…Paisley and The Artist view the proceedings by candlelight in their locker room…With a gesture, TAFKAPI sends Paisley somewhere…Probably out here soon enough…There’s a nice pacey opening to start…Chavo holds on to a headlock out of a rope run, but Candido works Chavo to the corner and breaks it with a shoulderblock, then whips Chavo to the corner…Holy shit, Candido takes a great bump when Chavo, in the corner, backdrops Candido to the floor…Chavo follows with a dive…Back in the ring, Chavo grabs the ropes when whipped in and avoids a Candido leapfrog, but he charges Candido and gets overhead suplexed while Paisley joins commentary… Paisley is not impressed by Candido, who scores a pair of two counts and then scores a nice stalling vertical suplex for two more…Heenan and Paisley have good rapport as heels who, unlike everyone else, understand TAFKAPI’s genius…Chavo fights back and hits a spinebuster for two…They save a floatover DDT spot that is slightly mistimed, and it comes off okay… Paisley leaves the booth and gets on the apron…She shouts at Chavo, who gets rolled up from behind for two…Candido hits a powerslam and goes up, but TAFKAPI sneaks up and shoves him to the mat while Paisley yaps at the ref…OH WOW, TAFKAPI “hits” a jumping DDT in which he overshoots Candido so badly that he barely hooks Candido’s lower back, and Candido has to launch himself face-first into the mat…STOP LETTING TAFKAPI DO THAT MOVE…A picture of him attempting to land it should be in the wrestling encyclopedia next to the term “business-exposing”…Chavo gets three, and Candido attacks him after the match…In a rage, Candido drops a diving headbutt on a prone Chavo… Backstage, Ms. Hancock is totes turned on by Los Fabulosos…She is also the victim of another late cue from WCW production staff… Scott Steiner warms up by lifting the giant enhanced tits of Midajah and Kim as they rest on either side of a weight bar…I didn’t make this up, I swear!... Excess wrestles Los Fabulosos (w/Ms. Hancock)…She comes out alone first for a great unveiling of her new team…They come out dressed like Power Rangers…I mean, if you’ve ever wanted to fuck a Power Ranger, folks, these might be your men!...Hancock joins commentary while the teams go at it…Lodi hits an ugly diving bulldog from the second rope…We see less of the match than normal because, you know, Hancock is standing out here in a pencil skirt…At least I think she’s wearing what you call a pencil skirt…They just dressed her in one way too short for someone so leggy…This match, or what we see of it, isn’t particularly good…Dandy scores a La Magistral on Lenny Lane for three… Disco Inferno orders a pizza under Vito’s name, but Vito and Johnny the Bull storm into the dressing room and demand that he order fewer pizzas and order more tag title rematches, then say that they got Disco a match against Vampiro, which they hope he enjoys alone because they have dates to go on… Chuck Palumbo makes his Thunder debut, if I’m not wrong…He’s got little chance against Scott Steiner (w/Midajah, Kim, and Tylene)…Steiner encourages the ladies to hang around at ringside, unlike Jeff Jarrett…This is Steiner’s first real match back on television, maybe…He was in the tag tournament in January, but he didn’t actually wrestle because he was still hurt…Palumbo gets mauled…He does score a nice counter-superkick in there…He goes up and hits a diving shoulderblock for two… Big Poppa Pump isn’t having any of this upset attempt nonsense and kicks Palumbo low, then wraps him in a bearhug and lands a belly-to-belly suplex…Steiner lands chops and stomps in the corner…Clothesline, bicep kiss, elbow drop…Backbreaker, double bicep pose, push-ups…Palumbo makes one more comeback with an inverted atomic drop and a crisp dropkick…He goes up top again and jumps himself into an overhead suplex...He is then locked in the Steiner Recliner for a BPP victory…That was a decent semi-competitive squash… Pre-tape: Curt Hennig makes some remarks on Sid/Hogan… Some kid in the crowd hits Disco’s dance better than Disco himself hits it…Disco angrily dances, then has the kayfabe audacity to grab a mic and yell a DISCO’S IN THA HOUUUUUUUUSE…Hilarious…Disco tells everyone that he’s done with wrestling now that he’s a world-class manager and prepares to leave, but Vampiro’s music plays before he can split…They immediately obligabrawl, which Vampiro gets the best of… Back in the ring, Vamp continues to dominate…Disco manages to get a spot of offense, and he even garners a legit DISCO SUCKS chant…He wants to dance, but Vamp won’t stay down…A couple of two-counts on a side Russian and a spinning neckbreaker is as close as Disco gets to victory…Vampiro leapfrogs over and lands a, uh, reverse enziguri?...Disco gets some space, but jumps off the top rope and into a uranage for two…Vamp goes up, lands a diving wheel kick, and then drops Disco with a Nail in the Coffin for three…Team Package immediately hops in the ring and jumps Vamp from behind…Liz gets in on the proceedings and slaps Vampiro…The heels scatter when Sting races to the ring… Stop playing Sting’s music while Ernest Miller tells Okerlund that he needs a new attendant…OH WOW, Mike Jones (WHO?!) is his new attendant…That guy is a wrestling barnacle…The Cat promises to kick the Dog’s ass, then “get the hell out this town”… Jeff Jarrett is defending his United States Championship against Buff Bagwell tonight…Jarrett cuts a Jarrett-in-2000 level of promo on Buff while being interviewed by Gene Okerlund in the back… WCW is one giant dad joke tonight, I guess…Here’s the Cat (w/Mr. Jones) to face the Dog (w/Brian Knobbs)…So, is Ms. Jones going to be introduced as the storyline betrothed of Mr. Jones until the Cat steals her?...Knobbs whips the Dog with his choke chain on the way to the ring, and the Cat grabs a mic and exclaims WHOA, Y’ALL TWO NEED TO LEAVE YOUR LOVE AFFAIR AT HOME, YA FAT-ASSED PERVERTS…The Dog clobbers the Cat, who fires himself up for a comeback and, uh, Flair flops…That gets a chuckle from the crowd (and me), but this match is already longer than it needs to be… Mickey Jay keeps Mr. Jones from handing the Cat his slippers…That allows Brian Knobbs to hit the Cat with the chain…The Cat kicks out at two and lands a quick standing side kick for three shortly after…This was definitely too long, but I’m stoked to get to Commissioner Cat, hopefully sooner rather than later, so it’s good to see him on screen…The Cat dances as Knobbs whips the Dog for failing him… Pre-tape: Tank Abbott gives a nonsensical comment on why Sid turned on Hulk Hogan: “Can’t beat 'em, join 'em”…Sid lost a couple TV matches to Jarrett, but he beat Jarrett twice on PPV for the gold…And he hasn’t joined the nWo, either…Stop asking Tank Abbott to talk, WCW Creative… The Dog ran away from Brian Knobbs backstage…The former is tearing up the locker room…Knobbs grabs his choke chain and beats him with it…What the fuck?... Norman Smiley tells Okerlund that he is being attacked by “ruffians” each week…His pronunciation of that word almost gets Okerlund to start laughing…”Ruffians,” Norm repeats, “hooligans”…Ah, RUFF-ians…Well, that’s what happens when an Englishman attempts to speak English... The KISS Demon exits his coffin for a match against Hugh Morrus…This match isn’t good, but at least it’s short…Morrus does a dumb gagaful elbowdrop…The Demon hits a clothesline and a shoulderblock that don’t do much…Morrus: NAH, GIMME SOMETHIN’ ELSE…The Demon lands an enziguri instead, which does knock Morrus down…Still, Morrus is mostly untroubled by the Demon’s attempts at offense…He plants the Demon on the mat and lands a No Laughing Matter for three… Knobbs puts the Dog in his car to go dump his dumb ass in the countryside… Gene Okerlund stands outside of Syko Sid’s dressing room and promises to try and talk to him at some point… The KidCam catches a different shot of Buff Bagwell finishing his pre-tape from earlier in the show...It keeps rolling, and we see Buff shooting his shot at, and getting his shot turned back by, the production lady immediately after…She rejected his shot like she was Dikembe Mutombo (RIP)…All that was missing was a finger wag… Gene Okerlund barges into Sid’s dressing room and finds it vacant… Hype video: We’re supposed to get a package of THE WALL, BROTHER’s huge push…Production fucks it up…Heenan calls Tenay “Tony” out of habit…Finally, we get this package to play… Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart cut an interview with Gene Okerlund…Hogan and Okerlund think that Sid has fled the scene…That’s some classic dumb babyface assumption-making right there!...Hogan promises to beat up Dustin Rhodes later tonight… Brian Knobbs dumps the Dog and drives off…The Dog howls at the moon…I think you know which list this is going to hit… Jeff Jarrett defends the United States Championship against Buff Bagwell…Are we ever going to find out who is shooting all these videos of Buff striking out or nah?...Based on a couple of the crowd shots, Buff would have an easy enough time getting a date if he asked a lady in the audience…Jarrett and Buff flip-flop control early…Buff lands a Vader Bomb for a quick two…The Harris Bros. come to ringside immediately after, only a minute or so into this match…They interject themselves immediately to help Jarrett gain control… Jarrett lands a seated splash against the ropes on Buff…Buff tries to come back, but whiffs on a crossbody…The Harrises get involved again, but Curt Hennig randomly shows up and bashes one of them around while the other one backs off…Buff makes a comeback and lands a double-arm DDT…The Harris Bro who is not being currently bashed by Hennig gets on the apron, so there’s no count…Jarrett and that Harris Bro try to team up, but they smash into one another…Buff lands a Blockbuster on Jarrett, but gets up and celebrates, giving Scott Steiner plenty of time to make his way to the ring and spoil the match…He helps the rest of the nWo tear off Hennig’s cast and attack Hennig's injured arm…Hennig tries to fight back, but gets KABONG’d by Jarrett while Steiner locks Buff in a Steiner Recliner…Tenay: THAT DAMN nWo!...Sorry, it just doesn’t hit the same in March of 2000, buddy…Not even close… Hogan sends Jimmy Hart to find Bill Busch and get a contract for a match with Sid signed while he goes to the ring to polish off Dustin Rhodes… The (Original) American Nightmare Dustin Rhodes enters the ring for a match with Hulk Hogan…You know what you’re getting with this match…Let’s just get to the nonsense finish…After another obligabrawl that scatters our commentators away from the commentary table (Vampiro/Disco was the first one), we get a long Rhodes chinlock spot…Now is the time for you to hold up your END THE MISERY sign, fan…Hogan does his Hogan babyface comeback nonsense after spending about a year in that chinlock…Rhodes blunts his comeback by hitting Hogan with the cowbell and then tossing Nick Patrick…That’s the match…no, wait, Patrick gets up and says the match shall re-start or Rhodes will get fined…Hogan wins with a big boot and a legdrop when Rhodes gets back to the ring…Sid is on the TurnerTron…He has intercepted Jimmy Hart, and he chokeslams the diminutive Hart through a table and drops the signed contract on top…Hogan runs backstage to check on Jimmy and gets a chair to the back from Sid…*yawn*… Too much Hogan on this show, but when they focused on putting good wrestlers in the ring and letting them wrestle, it was enjoyable…Not enough of that, unfortunately…OWWWW…

I watched the first couple of episodes with my wife. She enjoyed it, even though I'm annoyed by it being weird about the action being a shoot sometimes or the way it displays retirements and the mandatory retirement age. It's a very pretty show with some lovely cinematography.

Look, just tell me where the KISS Demon falls in all this.

Show #232 – 20 March 2000 “The one that is acutely aware of how tired and busted it is” Aw yeah, two more weeks until they cancel the A- and B-shows and then hit a total reset! (I think it’s sort of strange that they cancelled their shows entirely, if what I see on the upcoming schedule is accurate. That’s not going to help them get traction at all, and neither is continuing to destroy the continuity of these title histories.) Nitro starts with a bunch of stills from the NEW Worst WCW PPV Ever, Uncensored 2000! Sid Vicious celebrates with a few fans before the show because he won the big world title match last night. And by “he,” I actually mean Hulk Hogan. We’re in Gainesville, where Okerlund opens the show by calling Sid Vicious to the ring for an interview. Sid cuts a promo about Jeff Jarrett still not being the CHO-CHO-CHOSEN ONE because he’s still a pig midcarder chump. He figuratively spoke about Jarrett being a pig, but he literally meant that he was never going to let any midcarder get the jump on him and his title. Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Bros. hit the ramp and promises to drag this feud along for another month. He says that Hulk Hogan is the only reason Sid won their match. Uh, he’s got a point. Jarrett challenges Sid to a tag match in which if he pins Sid, he gets another title shot, but if Sid pins him, he’ll drop the whole title shot request deal. Jarrett chooses as his tag partner Scott Steiner (wearing a piece of tape that says CENSORED on it over his mouth). Oops, there goes the tape, and here comes Steiner trying to say full sentences and struggling at it. Basically, Steiner is going to kick Sid’s ass, but Sid is going to kick Steiner’s ass. Sid doesn’t think he needs help to beat these two, but he went and got Hulk Hogan as his tag partner anyway. Hogan walks out here and cuts his usual whatever promo, but he agrees to help Sid out in what is yet another Nitro main event that I am praying ends up being a four-minute special. Jeff Jarrett “Slapnuts/Slapass” Count: 3. Mark Madden does the RVD point while Tony S. runs through the Uncensored results. WCW should have hired Rob Van Dam at this point. That guy is money for the first six or eight months of his runs before the novelty wears off. Sign him and rocket him to the top for a quick, short-term boost to your show, easy peasy. Sting will face Ric Flair later tonight in what is a fresh matchup. TTP will face Vampiro. Team Package fires each other up backstage. Ooh, free Better than Ezra concert at WCW Spring Break-Out! Actually, I know that band name, but I couldn’t tell you anything about their music. We go into a pre-tape with Riki Rachtman doing Riki Rachtman stuff. They’re at Florida State, but unfortunately, famed alum Ron Simmons is nowhere to be seen. Ron Simmons rules. The Acolytes are pretty great, too. What if WCW had its own version of that team? What if, indeed? Chavo Jr. asks Okerlund what the hell WCW was thinking, not giving him a Cruiserweight Championship tournament spot. No one knows, Chavo. He also uses a bit of misdirection to yap Okerlund’s wallet, which gets a light chuckle form the crowd. Paisley cuts off Tony S. and his incessant questions toward TAFKAPI while she and the Artist sit at the commentary desk. When WCW started using the Nitro Girls as personalities, it became clear that most of them were not cut out for those roles. And then there’s Paisley, who transitioned into one of those roles without missing a beat. They sit on commentary for Lash LeRoux vs. “Hard Knox” Chris Candido. Candido grabs a mic before the match and bigs himself up. He says that he’s basically doing Benoit’s “no gimmick needed” gimmick and claims that he eschews catchphrases, costumes, or *looks at Paisley* trashy valets. You say that, but I’m going to be subjected to that pillhead Tammy Sytch soon enough, I’m pretty sure. Candido starts ranting about how great he is, and LeRoux dropkicks him from behind. Paisley does the talking for TAFKAPI – wise move! – while Candido and LeRoux rush through a match that is pretty enjoyable because Candido isn’t going to come out here and put up something bad unless something dire happens or the booking gets in his way. LeRoux does get a comeback going, but gets caught going up top; Candido lands a superplex, then rushes up the ropes again and drops a diving headbutt for three. Madden claims that Candido beat Baba, Inoki, and Dr. Death in a handicap match in Japan, which makes me chuckle. We spend some time with Excess backstage. They ask Ms. Hancock who she ditched them for as she passes by, and she mentions that they can meet her new duo on Thunder. Lenny and Lodi are confused when she names Los Fabulosos: “Is that Spanish?!” Hey, it’s Randy Savage! Alas, it’s only Randy Savage in a Slim Jim commercial. Fit Finlay’s coming off a loss at Uncensored, but maybe he can work out his disappointment on tonight’s opponent, La Parka. They do this Parka dub thing before the match. I wonder if this was a Ferrara initiative since they’ve kept doing it off and on while Russo’s been out of the company. Madden: “That voice didn’t sound Latino.” How can a voice sound Latino? That is a nonsense thing to say. Then he says that the voice sounded like a Wu-Tang member. Reader, that voice sounds like exactly none of the Wu-Tang Clan members. I’m beginning to doubt Madden’s claim that he grew up with Stevie and Booker in Harlem. And that’s not just because Stevie and Booker grew up in Houston, not Harlem! Oh yeah, there’s a match going on that you might be wondering about. It’s fine. Finlay dominates early. The crowd gets up for Parka’s comeback, specifically his gorgeous suicide dive. They also laugh when he does a crane pose. Soon after, he loses to a Finlay flipping slam from the fireman’s carry position. Madden thinks Ol’ Dirty is doing Parka’s voiceovers. Has this man ever heard the Wu Tang Clan in his life? Booker and Kidman are friends again! For now. They chatter on in the back. Vampiro sits backstage, cuts a promo on TTP in which he correctly blames Package for putting his hand in a cast, and then bashes the cast against a wall so that he can break it off. He says that he’ll be returning that pain to Package later tonight, but in an unsatisfying way that makes me wonder why they’re giving Vampiro regular mic time. Gene Okerlund is back in the ring to interview David Flair, who walks out wearing a neck brace. Daffney follows him to the ring. Dopey Dave sets up a table while Tony S. talks about the stills they just showed from THE WALL, BROTHER’s rampage at Uncensored. I mean, if we can call it a rampage. It wasn’t that serious. It was more like a minor dust-up. Dave gets in the ring and says that Bammer and Crowbar are in the same hospital room, but there’s one bed left, and he calls TW,B a “big, fat, hairy goof” before demanding his presence so that he can put him through the table that he set up. Huh, that was alright mic work, Dopey Dave. Low bar, but you cleared it. TW,B comes out, clubs Dave (who ripped his neck brace off earlier), and goozles him. He lets him go, and Dave turns to leave even though he was supposed to be out here on a mission to hurt TW,B. TW,B jumps him anyway, just playing with his food, and ignores a Daffney extinguisher blast before sticking Dave through the table with a chokeslam. Replays will show that the table snapped back and bonked poor Dave in the head on his impact. PSA: Brian Knobbs tells the kids to save their heads for school and not for bashing each other with trash can lids or other plundah. Billy Kidman (w/Torrie Wilson) walks the ramp; they are soon joined in the ring by Booker T. That win they got the night before at Uncensored earned them a tag title shot at the Harris Bros., whose title reign at least isn’t going to last very long, whether or not it ends tonight. Booker starts out with Da/oR and outwrestles him, then lands an axe kick and a Spinaroonie before covering for two; Ra/oD breaks up the pinfall. Both men tag out and Kidman is FIP, like immediately, in fact. Kidman does score a counter-dropkick out of a slam attempt and get a hot tag pretty soon. Booker jumps in and lands a pair of Book Ends on each guy, but one of the brothers breaks up the tag. The twins ram into one another, but Kidman lands a rebound bulldog on one. Book goes up to land a Houston Hangover on the other one, but the other Harris Bro hits him with a tag belt. Torrie jumps on a Harris Brothers’ back at ringside and gets tossed off, but Kidman saves her with a chair shot. Pointless television match. Disco tries to cheer up a despondent pair of Mamalukes, but they’re mad at Disco for not securing their tag titles rematch. They threaten him, and Disco scurries away. Vito seems like he’s about ready to fire Disco, which would get him out of that whole “manage our mob guys because you’re in debt to us” deal pretty clean and free, actually! I mean, if that’s still a story beat that we’re acknowledging. The Total Package (w/Liz) wrestles Vampiro next. Package cuts a pre-match promo in which he is unsure of his opponent’s name and then says that he shall be showing him how midcarder chumps get treated by a main eventer like himself. Vampiro does a fake-out and jumps Package from behind while his music and pyro play at the entrance. Vamp lands a bunch of offense on Package, but TTP forearms him in the testes when he sets up for a top-rope rana. Package takes over, lands a back suplex, and ponderously lands strikes. An ASSHOLE chant breaks out as Package lands a press slam and grins, then initiates an obligabrawl. I have to say this for TTP; he’s definitely over as a heel in these arenas. He’s absolutely still got value, but I don’t think it’s in wrestling in the semi-main on PPV or in having singles matches much longer than six or eight minutes on television. Package wins that obligabrawl I mentioned, takes it back inside, and fires off a kneelift before landing a powerslam. He signals for the Torture Rack and, maybe with a bit too much confidence, yells HERE WE GO before lifting Vamp for it. Vamp slips out of the back and lands a flurry of offense that he caps off with a diving clothesline from the top that gets 2.5. That’s about when Ric Flair makes his appearance. Vampiro hits a diving crossbody, kicks Flair off the apron, and then knocks Package back down, but Liz tosses him the bat while Flair engages the ref. TTP tees off with the bat and waffles Vampiro, then locks on a Torture Rack for the submission victory. TTP and Flair stomp out Vamp until Sting races in and runs them off. Okerlund enters the nWo office and interviews Jeff Jarrett, who says nothing of consequence or notice. Scott Steiner, on the other hand, castigates Okerlund for walking into an nWo locker room joyfully even though Okerlund's a WCW employee, says that he’s fully erect (basically), and then tells Hogan that he was only the nWo's champion because he had guys like Steiner for backup. Yeahhhhhhh, even though doing so always constitutes a risk, maybe let Steiner do the talking and Jarrett can sit there quietly, wielding his guitar. Just keep the production truck on notice and get that bleeper bleepin’. Pre-tape: Rachtman’s hoodie advertises a skateboard company that clearly appreciates more about Krispy Kreme than just its donuts, if the logo on that shirt is any indication. The Nitro Girls dance. Gene Okerlund interviews Dustin Rhodes backstage. Rhodes threatens Curt Hennig, his opponent for the night. He also shits on the olds, including Funk, DDP, Piper, and Hogan. I don’t know, buddy, you’ve been on TV for like a decade at this point. You might not be the best guy to trumpet this message. Pre-tape: We get Sid Vicious at a press conference supposedly held right after Uncensored. Ha, as if anyone from the press would actually go to Uncensored. I can’t suspend my disbelief for this segment. The Hulkster walks in to steal some of Sid’s shine support his new buddy who just so happens to also be WCW World Heavyweight Champion, huh, maybe they can have a title match between friends soon? Norman Smiley and Hugh Morrus hook it up. It’s almost the end of March, and no Misfits in Action yet. I assume that when the calendar turns to April, we’re finally going to get to that angle, which I have to say looms large in my mind because when I tuned back into WCW again in the middle of 2000 as a curious teen wondering What’s going on with this wrestling company that I used to love?, I spent a lot of time shitting on the whole stable while I watched. Smiley gets beaten up. Smiley screams. Smiley gets control. Smiley tries a Big Wiggle. Smiley gets beaten up. Smiley screams. Smiley tries to do some damage. Smiley gets beaten up again. Smiley eats two of Morrus’s embarrassing attempts at establishing a gaga-ful elbowdrop, a la the People’s Elbow. Smiley gets pulled up at two on covers a couple of times. Smiley gets a flash pinfall attempt for two. Smiley then gets hit with a No Laughing Matter while the KISS Demon’s music plays. Smiley is checked on by the Demon, and the Demon gets attacked by Morrus. Smiley should probably be used more effectively. Curt Hennig cuts a backstage promo with Okerlund in which he demands RESPECT, even from a fellow second-gen like Dustin Rhodes. Okerlund stands outside Syko Sid’s dressing room and blathers on about this underwhelming Nitro main event that is still to come. Curt Hennig faces off with Dustin Rhodes; the latter is coming off a PPV win over Terry Funk that honestly doesn’t mean much after Funk’s previous PPV losses to Kevin Nash and Ric Flair. What if, instead of this ill-advised Dustin Rhodes heel turn, you tagged Rhodes and Funk together? Neither of them should be wrestling solo all that much in 2000, Rhodes because he’s going through a career downturn and Funk because he needs some help and can’t be run out here in his mid-50s two-to-three times a week for singles matches. I find myself opining on how these wrestlers are being used and not on the matches, which is a bad sign. Tonight’s matches aren’t shitty; they are rote and boring, though. This one has another typical obligabrawl that leads to a DQ when Rhodes rips Hennig’s cast off and then punches the ref. Rhodes attacks Hennig’s arm with the chair, but – oh man, too much of this fucking guy – Hulk Hogan power walks in and makes the save. Madden sarcastically speaks for me: “Why doesn’t he run in on every match? Every match, every segment, do a promo, save somebody, pin somebody, HOGAN HOGAN HOGAN HOGAN. This is wonderful; I love this.” Hogan raises Hennig’s arm while Madden gets mock excited that yet another wrestler has Hogan’s “stamp of approval” so graciously bestowed upon them. Then, no lie, we cut to Okerlund in the back, standing next to Sid, and Okerlund’s first words are, “I was hoping to get a few words with Hogan…” I mean, I get that Madden is trying to commentate as though he spends far too much time posting on RSPW, but also, he’s saying something that all the people who aren’t watching this show anymore actually think – especially in WCW’s home base of the Mid-Atlantic and Deep South. Anyway, this show is really bumming me out. It’s not doing so in a bombastic way, like your typical Russo show or in a baffling way like a Nash show, but boy, it’s out of any ideas whatsoever. And furthermore, it wants you to know it, considering Madden’s commentary about how stale all this nonsense is. Sid insults Jarrett and then tells Jimmy Hart to watch for interference when Hart wanders into the shot. Sting joins Okerlund backstage next. Sting’s first line about his match with Ric Flair: “How many more times, Ric?” Is this show trying to make me question why I still watch it? Tank Abbott walks to the ring as Tony S. ignores another anti-Hulkster rant from Madden to instead unenthusiastically recount Abbott’s actions at Uncensored. We cut to the back where Meng snarls and promises to kick Tank’s ass soon. I wonder if it’ll even happen considering the change of power in creative. The chyron audibly and visually glitches when Barbarian walks to the ring. Barb moves the ref out of the way and then goes at it with Tank; they trade blows. Barb wins the first exchange and lands some chops, but Tank catches him on a rope run, slams him, and grapples with him. Barbarian finagles a belly-to-belly and then whales away on Tank in the corner. Ref Billy Silverman jumps in to break it up, so Barb backs him off again and turns around into a left-right combo that knocks him out. Tony S., hyping the Flair/Sting match that is next after the break: “We’ve seen it before, but what’s gonna happen this time?” I bet we can guess, buddy. Once Bischoff came back to television in 1999 and joined the desk to talk extensively about how WCW was getting washed in the Monday Night Wars and how it was his fault for taking his eye off the ball, we’ve gotten more and more open commentary about how much WCW sucks now or how old and busted it is from WCW itself via its commentators and wrestlers. I’m not sure about that strategy, to say the least! One more pre-tape: It’s Rachtman, who has learned the term “gimmick” and uses it to refer to the fake bird that is perched on his shoulder, as in he says something like, I guess I need a gimmick now *points to bird*. Other than Sting/Ric Flair on the final Nitro, which is understandably booked on that show, I don’t need to see these two cross paths again. They didn’t even manage to change it up all that much in late ’99 when Sting was the heel and Flair was the babyface. Anyway, they do the spots they always do, in the rough order that they often do them. Madden ironically expresses disbelief when Sting is suckered in on a spot that Sting is always suckered in on when he wrestles Flair. Again, maybe don’t point it out, but also, you are correct, Madden. A paranoid Ric Flair, realizing that he’s over fifty and that the vigor of his youth has long evaporated, using the power of the WCW Presidency to hang on to his belt even as he is clearly outwrestled by younger challengers (and not Sting or Nash or Hulk fucking Hogan, let me make clear, when I say “younger challengers”) was a money angle. Oh well, ever since Flair in the presidency was aborted without creative ever giving it the development that it rated, Flair has been a massive negative on these shows. The bad DDP feud, the weak feud with the Funker, this shitty run with Team Package – it’s a bummer to see him on my television. Sting fights off Flair and an interfering TTP after he makes his inevitable no-selling comeback. Package rips Charles Robinson out of the ring before the ref can signal that Flair has submitted to a Scorpion Deathlock; the bell rings for a DQ or no contest or what the hell ever. Team Package finally gets Sting down after a ball shot, but Vampiro runs them off. The main event pits, if you’ll recall, Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner (w/Midajah, Kim, Tylene, and the Harris Bros.) against Sid Vicious and Hulk Hogan. The ladies get sent to the back before the match; Jarrett lampshades that they should know how this goes by now. Scott Steiner drops a HULK HOGAN AIN’T SHIT into a microphone at the desk. Well, we get a six-minute special, which is two minutes too long for my tastes, but I can deal. Since, as we all know by now, none of the action leading up to the finish matters in a Nitro main event, let me just skip you right to the finish. Sid gets a hot tag after spending a couple of minutes as FIP. The crowd gets hot for Scotty flicking the Hulkster off as part of that FIP segment, by the way. Well, with Steiner back, there is zero need to try and push Jeff Jarrett as your lead heel anymore. Hogan gets a hot tag and they close in on Sid’s perturbed face. Hogan kills both heels, and even if this is a self-aware sort of deal, it’s still annoying that Hogan is centered on this show. Sid pops up, powerbombs Hogan, and, um, pins him for three? Look, it doesn’t need to make sense. This show-ending angle was so bad that if I didn’t know that Russo was on his way back to get Hogan to feud with Billy Kidman – a humiliating experience for Hogan, which is what tickles me the most about it – I would be in complete despair of another Hogan/Sid feud where Sid has turned heel to accommodate Hogan doing his tired babyface act. We saw that shit eight years ago, WCW Creative. Geez. And you can't talk about how old and tired you are, and then go back to an old and tired angle as your response to your own negative self-evaluation, either. So once again, thank goodness for Vince Russo. Say what you will about him, but he neutered Hogan’s bullshit more than once during his pair of runs as WCW’s head of creative. The phrase “what’s old is new again” only works when the old thing goes away for awhile and then comes back, feeling fresh and interesting to a new generation. In WCW, it’s more like “what’s old is still fucking old, please switch things up already.” -250,000 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Latter years WCW Horsemen were kind of weird, though, in that they were off and on. Flair disappeared from television for long stretches (particularly in his contract dispute with Bischoff after he didn't show up to a Target Center show to instead attend Reid's wrestling meet). They didn't get nearly as much television time as the graph would suggest, whereas the famous Ric, Tully, Arn, Ole, Dillon combination was all over television across multiple feuds for that eighteen months they existed. To me, the impact of the latter means more than the former having more longevity, but members dropping out randomly, Flair going out for a while, Arn going on the shelf, etc., all while being far overshadowed by the New World Order. YMMV.

This goes to my point; I don't think AEW fans really want things to change, so why change them? Tony S. wants to book for the sickos, so let him do that. Not everything has to show quarterly growth every three months to be valuable. AEW is doing fine just as it is.

AEW is for niche fans, so it's not a surprise that it hasn't grown in viewership. On the flip side, there's an audience of a half-million people who are more or less going to turn up for the A-show almost no matter what (low number for the previous Dynamite aside). Part of the issue is that TK has the money to play EWR, but in real life. That's probably hard to give up for a wrestling nerd like him. The other part of the issue is that the company has a general house style/cultural wrestling preference that probably won't change the flow of these shows much even if different guys come in to book them. They're all part of the same sort of cultural approach to booking shows. Maybe if they got someone like Scott D'Amore in, you'd get a show that feels appreciably different, though IMO, D'Amore TNA didn't really grab me or strike me as something different enough to watch more than I did. I'm not saying you need to bring an old walrus like Jim Cornette back to get the REAL WRASSLIN' back on TV, either. Just that AEW as very purposefully constructed is never going to be huge, pretty much no matter who they bring in or if they hit a hot storyline. I think it'd be a miracle if they got back to 900K - 1M weekly viewers for Dynamite. Luckily for them, they don't need to do that to be financially successful or aesthetically and artistically pleasing to long-term AEW fans!

As a huge fan of the headache-inducing Virtual Boy, I was glad to come across at least one chance to mention it in these reviews. I don't know if this is a neutral note, something that makes it funnier, or something that takes away the magic, but I only write a *sigh* in a review when I have actually *sighed* in real life (usually also attended by an eye roll). I dug that match; it was on the (first?) WWE Greatest Ladder Matches set, which I still have in a CD case somewhere, I'm pretty certain. Also on the (almost as) positive side, KroniK is on the way! WOOOOOO, KroniK!

To the point that I asked my wife if buying one was too DINKy. She thought it was neat and told me "why not?" (Yes, I realize how lucky/privileged I am to be able to spend a hundred dollars on a neat little gadget just for the heck of it). I was in the market for a proper alarm because I am paranoid and usually use my phone alarm as a backup rather than a main alarm. Instead of paying thirty bucks for a regular clock radio with an alarm, I figured I'd pay an extra seventy bucks for the sleep data and the eventual chance to have Isabelle wake me up while 6AM plays softly in the background.

I said what the hell and bought an Alarmo. Nintendo coming out with a smart alarm clock is just so weird that I have to get in on this particular weird thing. Besides, I needed a new alarm clock, so might as well go for the deluxe one with "Jump Up, Superstar!" and a sleep tracker.

Uncensored 2000 notes: It’s the final Uncensored! This show has a rep for being sub-mediocre, but the reputation for the show is probably a tiny bit unfair. Then again, this last edition of Uncensored is on a pace to be the worst of them all, and I don’t mean just the worst Uncensored show. I mean the worst WCW PPV, period. Team Package fires themselves up on the way into the building. Hulk Hogan and Sid Vicious get over that whole Royal Rumble ’92 incident and make an informal alliance. Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Bros. bring their midcard act into the building. We haven’t had a mysterious limo pull up to the show in a month or two, so here one is outside the building! We’re in Miami, which is a bummer, as those crowds generally always suck. TAFKAPI (w/Paisley) opens the action in the ring with a defense of his WCW Cruiserweight Championship against Psicosis (w/Juventud Guerrera). Look, anyone with a smidgen of sense would book Psicosis to take seventy percent of this match and win the gold, but *waves arms frantically* it’s WCW 2000 and the company is on fire, so I don’t know about any of that. Chris Candido randomly walks to ringside before the match starts; he joins commentary. He can talk, he can work, and thus he seems like a useful guy for this division. He chatters on as Psicosis and TAFKAPI trade control back and forth. TAFKAPI rams Psicosis while Psicosis hangs in the Tree of Woe position and then lands a superkick. Paisley gets her shots in while Candido complains that TAFKAPI’s got Paisley with him, but he doesn’t have Tammy Sytch by his side. TAFKAPI controls with mundane offense until Psicosis reverses a whip to the corner and hits a top-rope Latino Frankensteiner for two. Psicosis follows up with a Falcon Arrow and signals that this match might be just about over. He pulls TAFKAPI into position and goes up. Paisley screams at him from ringside, so Juvi comes over and gives her a very unwanted kiss. She swats at him while Psicosis refocuses and lands a guillotine legdrop. He covers, but stops covering because he's un-refocused himself again. Paisley is yelling at him some more, which allows TAFKAPI to get up, stroll over to the second rope, and jump off with a diving DDT for three. What a bummer of a finish and result, man, and the match was mediocre to boot. Gene Okerlund tries to help Bam Bam Bigelow heat up his underdeveloped, freezing cold feud with THE WALL, BROTHER. Bammer’s motivation for this impromptu face turn and his disgust with TW,B is so unconvincing that I can’t find a reason to care much about any of this. To Excess is apparently just Excess now. Miss Hancock walks out after they hit the ring and Lodi insists on talking to her. Oh no, now so is Lenny. They hate on her in the dumbest way possible and display terrible mic skills, particularly Lenny. Hancock riffs that XS (Excess, if written properly, which it is because I have no respect for these bums) stands for “Xtra Small.” Vince Russo, are you sure you haven’t returned to work a couple weeks early? The KISS Demon and Norman Smiley step out of the coffin, dressed exactly alike. Aw, the Demon got Norm his own outfit and face paint so that Norm wouldn’t have to steal any of the Demon’s anymore. The faces get some early shine and a two-count off a Demon double-underhook suplex. The match breaks down and Lodi obligabrawls with Demon outside the ring while Lenny and Norm do sexually suggestive spots and Lenny struggles to stick a landing. The match stinks, obviously, and I’m just skipping past the bad work and to the finish. After the Demon is FIP for a minute, Norm gets a hot tag and clears the ring, but gets shoved out of his Big Wiggle attempt and hit with a Breakdown by Lenny for two; the Demon makes the save. The Demon and Lenny spill outside; Lodi is watching them and doesn’t see Norm pop up behind him and lock on a Norman Conquest for three. Bad match. After the match, Lenny and Lodi yell at Ms. Hancock, blaming her for the loss even though she was just chilling there on commentary. They try to frog march her out, but Norm and the Demon knock them down and escort Hancock back to the ring for a dance. She hits Norm with a Big Wiggle. Then, Billy Silverman and the KISS Demon hit Big Wiggles. Bad post-match. Booker T. and Billy Kidman bicker; Booker threatens Kidman with violence if kidman gets distracted tonight. Dopey Dave and Crowbar plan payback on THE WALL, BROTHER; Dave makes Daffney promise to stay safely backstage. She promises, but then she snickers in a way that makes me doubt that her promise is a solid one. A recap of THE WALL, BROTHER’s table-busting ways plays before TW,B goes at it with Bam Bam Bigelow. It’s Bammer in the year 2000 versus TW,B, so there’s another obvious lid on the quality of this match. They try hard, of course. I’ll never call out TW,B for lazing about in there or going half-assed. Bam Bam is physically falling apart, but he’s trying to wrestle like he’s still living in 1989. Bam Bam gets the best of a ton of clubbering and drops an early top-rope headbutt that TW,B kicks out of at two. TW,B comes back with a big boot and a high knee that just didn’t look very good for a two count of his own. Bammer turns the tide with a jumping DDT for another two, and TW,B resorts to an eye rake before landing a Cactus clothesline that spills everyone to the floor. They have an obligabrawl up the aisle, and that ends with TW,B chokeslamming Bigelow through a monitor-stacked table, which I suppose ends the match since the bell rings wildly. Crowbar and David Flair choose that moment to run up and attack TW,B, who fights them off while Bammer does a stretcher job in the background. Bless their hearts; they did their best. Meanwhile, Crowbar hits a couple of punches and then wanders to the back; TW,B follows, and in a minute or two, they appear at the top of the set scaffolding, where TW,B chokeslams Crowbar off the scaffolding and through the gimmicked set. Then we get a close-up of TW,B smiling like he’s just been complimented on the basket of corn muffins that he brought his neighbors as a gift. I think it was supposed to be more of a slasher smile, but he didn’t quite pull it off. The crowd initially cheers, but then switches to chanting JUMP JUMP JUMP at TW,B, so I think Miami just hates humanity in general. They try to get this over by having other babyfaces concernedly follow the stretcher to the ambulance. Furthermore, Brian Knobbs cuts a quick promo with Okerlund in which he dedicates his upcoming match against Three Count to Dopey Dave and Crowbar. I actually sort of feel bad for everyone involved because they’re trying so hard and doing so much, but this is just never, ever going to get TW,B over as a monster heel. EVERYBODY THREE COUNT, ONE TWO THREE! Shane Helms walks out in a faceguard to protect his nose and looks like a proto-Hurricane. They set up the dance circles and Evan Karagias tells the ladies that they’ll be on South Beach after the match, but Brian Knobbs’s music plays before they can boogie. Commentary goes on about how tough it is to watch a hardcore match after seeing Crowbar take that dive, and it’s still not working. I’m slightly embarrassed for the folks attempting to get this over. Anyway, Knobbs rolls up a bin of crap, and Helms gets a mop, goes up top, and dives onto Knobbs with it. I don’t want to see Knobbs going over probably at least two and possibly all three of these guys. Three Count actually is getting over as heels with the fellas and slight babyfaces with the ladies, so they should be just a bit better protected than the comedy trio they started out as. Knobbs beats all three guys up and hits a triple Pit Stop, but the numbers game gets to him. Helms and Karagias climb a ladder and hit splashes from the top. Moore follows with a senton that he hits, but Tony S. thinks he missed it because a) the camera angle is bad, and b) Knobbs no-sells it anyway to get a fire extinguisher for the next spot, in which he sprays it at them as they line up to dance in celebration. I don’t blame Schiavone for missing that call. The extinguisher sends Moore and Karagias from the ring; Helms remains inside the squared circle, and Knobbs eliminates him by pinfall after putting a chair on his broken nose and hitting it with a mop handle. Knobbs’s music plays, then stops as someone tells production that the stip is that Knobbs has to beat all three guys to win. Knobbs actually hits the best table spot of the night so far by powerbombing Karagias from the ring and through a table set up on the floor. I feel like someone should have told him that he couldn’t do that since the table is THE WALL, BROTHER’s gimmick. Only Shannon Moore is left, though Helms does stick around and get an attack turned back by Knobbs. Knobbs tries to slam Moore through a table in the ring, but Helms dropkicks Moore backward onto him for a three count for Three Count – oops, no, Knobbs is all in the ropes on the pinfall attempt, and ref Nick Patrick re-starts the match. Moore tries to just hand Knobbs the hardcore title, but Knobbs kicks it into his face and then lands a diving trash can shot for three and the title. Can you believe they tried to book some drama into this thing with the false finish? Also, can you believe they booked worthless-ass Brian Knobbs over all of Three Count? Actually, now that I think about it, I can believe that WCW creative tried both of those things. Never mind. The desk tries desperately to get over how tough and hardcore Knobbs is. Well, at least the powerbomb through the table was a cool spot. Harlem Heat Incorporated tries to sow discord between Booker and Kidman in an interview before their tag match against one another. Believe it or not/A limo’s outside/What wrestling secret/Does it keep?/Who will get out?/And make themselves known?/Who could it be?/Believe it or not, it’s outsiiiiiiiiiiide/ Vampiro cuts a shitty promo on Fit Finlay. I man, it’s fucking awful. In short, he awkwardly claims that Fit Finlay’s constant attacks are sparking something violent deep inside him. You’d never guess that this is the guy who was one of the best color commentators ever on Lucha Underground. Oops, no, I mean, you’d definitely guess that this is the guy who was one of the worst color commentators ever on Lucha Underground. Sorry about that. Booker T. and Billy Kidman continue to tread water in the next match. Actually, how did Kidman get pulled into the tow of having to feud with Harlem Heat Incorporated, but Vampiro get matches against Ric Flair and Jeff Jarrett? Explain yourselves, WCW bookers, and I say that as someone who doesn't like Kidman all that much. Mark Madden keeps trying to get over this running joke where he grew up with Booker and Stevie in Harlem, and it’s never ever funny. So, here’s HHI (w/J. Biggs and Cash), and I thought they were going to move Booker away from them, dammit. Biggs joins commentary as Booker and Stevie get to clubberin’. Thank goodness for Biggs; after Tony S. asks him about Crowbar: I DON’T CARE ABOUT CROWBAR; WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HIM, HE HAD COMIN’ TO HIM. I genuinely enjoy Biggs talking shit. He’s a pretty good slimy heel manager type. Anyway, if you wanted to see Kidman wrestle a rotund Ahmed Johnson, this is your match! Booker and Kidman are good enough that when they’re on offense, things are actually fairly enjoyable. Booker destroys Stevie and Big T., and hits an axe kick on Cash besides, but when he tags Kidman in, Kidman jumps into a wild right to the gut from Stevie. Kidman plays FIP. Torrie gets on the apron to stop a pinfall attempt on Kidman while Biggs calls her a SQUAWKIN’ YAK on commentary. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ring this butterball Big T. thinks he can do a running, diving clothesline over the rail to Kidman on the other side. Imagine how badly he misses, just imagine it in your head. Then realize that he came up even shorter than you imagined on that fucking bellyflop in reality. OK, that was such a bad idea and a shitty botch that it came back around and was very funny, as is commentary pretending that it was an impressive move. Anyway, this FIP segment goes on too long, if Big T. huffing air on the apron is any sign, but finally Kidman hits a rebound bulldog on Stevie and gets a hot tag to Booker. Booker quickly lands a Book End on Big T., but Stevie makes the save on the cover. Booker hits Stevie with a Book End next, but Big T. clubs him from behind. HHI teams up on Booker and hits a weak double spinebuster, but Kidman juuuuust makes a well-timed save. T. tosses Kidman outside, but Kidman escapes a Cash powerslam attempt and shoves Cash into Stevie. Inside the ring, T. is trying to hit a vertical suplex on Booker, but Kidman hops back in the ring and sunset flips T.; Booker helps T. over with a Houston Side Kick, and Kidman gets three even though he’s not the legal man. Ah hell, whatever, they didn’t job Booker and Kidman to HHI; that’s good enough for me. Recap: Poor Bam Bam could barely get off the ground to hit that table bump. Look, I don’t want to see totally washed Bam Bam or completely cooked Ahmed Johnson being bad at pro wrestling, as funny as it was that the latter’s ambition did not at all match his ability. After the initial laugh, now I feel bummed as a guy who was huge into Ahmed in 1996. Hype video: Finlay started attacking Vampiro for some reason, and I don’t know that I remember what caused it or if it was just random. Anyway, this has been a secretly shitty feud, but it’s been off-and-on enough in between Finlay focusing on Three Count and Vampiro focusing on trying to hang with WCW’s main eventers that it hasn’t been overwhelmingly shitty. OK, this Finlay/Vampiro match is next. Finlay drops a couple elbows early and goes to a nerve hold almost immediately. It’s a decent nerve hold because he claws at Vampiro’s nose, at least. Vampiro takes over, lands a diving spinning wheel kick, and then proceeds to have a nondescript match with Finlay. Commentary tries to get over a Mankind gimmick for Vampiro, putting over that he seems to thrive on pain. Vampiro can’t emote one-one millionth as much as Mick Foley can, though, so Vamp himself isn’t really selling this idea in his work even though commentary has tried to sell it the past couple of weeks. You know, when Mick would rip his own hair out of his head while squealing, that sold me on the idea that he enjoyed the brutality of his wrestling matches. Vampiro doesn’t have to go that far, but give me something. Anyway, Vampiro kicks a chair into Finlay’s face, which sparks a wandering hardcore brawl that heads into the crowd. It’s dull, but it’s watchable enough. They tease a fight into the women’s bathroom, which is fucking tired, man, it’s fucking tired. They go into the men’s room while Madden makes a puerile piss joke by saying that the best move to use in the men’s bathroom is the uran-age. The auto-captioner reads it as a puerile gay joke by writing "uranage" as “you are not gay.” I’m disappointed in you both, Madden and auto-captioner. Boo. Boo. Vamp climbs a stall door and whiffs on a leap, and then they fight outside, where it is dark and everything that happens is impossible to see. They’re not out there for long, but now they fight into an area of the building that is lit in red. It's like playing a WCW Virtual Boy game. Suffice it to say that “watchable” is not an adjective that I’d use about this match anymore. Thankfully, Vampiro hits a Nail in the Coffin and wins it while surrounded by a mass of hooting fans. This should be cool, right? A bunch of fans surrounding Vampiro and cheering after he wins? But it is decidedly not cool because no one thinks about lighting when they lay out these matches. Vito and Johnny the Bull cut a threatening promo on the Harris Bros. Okerlund is on interview duty. The Harris Bros. get their tag title shot against the Mamalukes (w/Disco Inferno) next. Disco joins commentary. Funny enough, Tony S. references the recently-fired Tony Marinara while talking about the Mamalukes’s story in WCW so far. Random thought: My favorite thing about Vito is his shitty WWE TitanTron. It’s second only to Dopey Dave’s TitanTron as my favorite shitty TitanTron. Someone on YouTube did a Ric Flair TitanTron in the style of Dopey Dave’s, but with the positions of Dave and Ric reversed, and I think I laughed at that stupid thing for a good two or three minutes. The Mamalukes, like TW,B, aren’t good, but they try hard. They’re better than TW,B, at least, so they can have decent matches with good talent, but they’re wrestling the sorry-ass Harris Bros., so this is another snoozefest. Actually, wait, they do their double hip-toss into a slam, and that’s just an H-Bomb. This match has an extended shine for the babyfaces. This is the one time that “extended shine for the babyfaces” was totally unnecessary, but unlike with most of WCW’s other tag matches from this time, they went ahead and made sure to have it. Of course. Johnny the Bull eventually gets caught and put in FIP hell as the Harrises do some shitty, ponderous clubbering. That feels like it takes forever, but eventually, Vito gets a hot tag. The match quickly breaks down. Vito goes up and lands a Savage Elbow on Ra/oD, but it only gets two. The Bull takes care of Da/oR, and he and Vito hit a Hart Attack, but the pinfall gets broken up. The Harrises toss Vito to the floor and attack the Bull, but can’t get three on a double pancake. They try an H-Bomb, but that gets broken up as well. Disco gets up and clocks a Harris Bro with a belt, but the Harris Bro kicks out, which is absolute fucking nonsense. Fuck this match. The Harris Bro gets the belt, attacks Disco and the Mamalukes with it, and then helps his shitty bro land another H-Bomb for three and the belts. This was extremely awful stuff, especially that nonsensical finishing run. "What does this limo mean for Jeff Jarrett?" So asks Tony S. Oh, let me ponder this mystery deeply like I’m Encyclopedia Brown trying to figure out how Bugs Meany managed to swindle a rare penny from a nine-year-old kid in my peaceful Idaville neighborhood. Finlay gives Vampiro respect in a short promo in the back. Okerlund talks to Team Package. It’s the same ol’, same ‘ol. Package was far better as a cowardly heel than he is as an arm-breaking menace. Recap: If Dustin Rhodes and Terry Funk have a feud, but no one around cares about it, does it actually happen? I guess this Rhodes/Funk match is a bullrope match now, at least according to Okerlund in this interview with Dustin before the match. Anyway, Funk has a raw chicken with him. He’s written Dusty’s name on it. He tells Dustin that the only difference between he and his father is that his father is fatter than he is. Then, get this – GET THIS – a guy in a chicken suit who Funk says is Dustin’s baby brother runs in the ring and taunts Rhodes; Rhodes chases him right into the aisle, where Funk ambushes him. Yeahhhhhhh, welcome to the Worst Feuds list, fellas. Meanwhile, we get yet another aimless garbage match. Holy shit, this show just careens between “historically awful” and “interminably boring.” Funk lands some cowbell shots, but Rhodes is in the ropes when he covers; Funk turns around to argue with ref Billy Silverman and gets hit in the balls. There just aren’t very many good bullrope spots in this thing, which you’d hope for, though the punches are decent at least. Dustin scores a series of two counts in the middle of this run of offense, then does a weak spot where he tries to hit a bulldog on the cowbell, but it doesn’t really look great. The chicken-suited person runs back in and attacks Rhodes. Rhodes rings him up with the cowbell and pursues him. The desk shits on the chicken suit gimmick, which is a) correct, but also b) not helping this match get over. Anyway, it’s yet another match that feels like it goes on forever. Funk catches Rhodes on the top rope and tortures his crotch, then grabs a mic and declares that the match is now an I Quit Match; he knocks out Silverman when Silverman protests. What is fucking happening right now? Funk hits Dustin with the cowbell until Dustin quits over the house mic. Funk declares that he’s won, gets into an argument with an injured Silverman over it, and turns back around into a cowbell shot. Rhodes piledrives Funk onto the cowbell for three in a match that was laid out so badly that it fucking defies belief. Holy shit, folks. Imagine booking a match in which you don’t feel that either guy can take a loss, so instead of doing literally anything else - maybe not booking the feud in the first place, for example – you instead have Funk get Dustin to quit after randomly declaring it an I Quit Match so that he can save face when he loses the actual pinfall. FUCK OFF. Everyone involved in this match, even if they just floated a single, solitary idea to try and help lay it out, should have been fucking ashamed of themselves. If you’d told me that Dustin versus Terry Funk would hit my Absolute Dirt Worst and Worst Feud lists before I started this watch-through, I would have had a hard time believing it, but then I probably would have incorrectly blamed Russo. It just goes to show that anything is possible in the World Wrestling Federation dying days WCW. Sid tells Okerlund he’s watching his own back tonight. Recap: Sting and The Total Package have been feuding for months, but considering that Sting’s been on television like three times in the past three or four months, you might have forgotten that they were feuding. Sting faces The Total Package (w/Liz) in a Lumberjacks-With-Casts match. Package talks in the ring before the match; he tries to apologize to the lumberjacks, which is a pretty good cowardly heel move. He also calls down some lumberjacks of his own to even things out. You see, since wearing a cast is the only requirement for being a lumberjack in this match, he got Harlem Heat Incorporated, the Harris Bros., and Hugh Morrus to put casts on and join the lumberjacks at ringside. I guess you can do that, kayfabe contracted wrestlers for this match be damned. Anyway, Sting hits the ring and beats up Package early. Package rolls toward his lumberjacks to get some space; all the lumberjacks flood the area and threaten one another. Package gets back in the ring and gets beaten up some more. The crowd is awake again for the first time in quite a while; they chant LUGER SUCKS, but they’re quieter than you’d hope for Sting’s return match in general. Sting tosses Package to the wolves, and they stomp him out, even that tubby rent-a-cop Doug Dellinger. Package gets back in the ring and takes over; Tank Abbott walks to ringside and knocks out Doug Dellinger because they have been feuding off-and-on, remember? Remember how hot that feud was? Remember how much everyone cared about that? The rest of the lumberjacks fight to the back, so there are no lumberjacks in a lumberjack match. Wait, Vampiro’s still out here, watching TTP's chinlock on Sting with rapt attention. Ric Flair hustles to the ring and gets into a brawl with Vampiro while Sting makes a comeback. I didn’t think this would be any good, but it managed to be worse than I figured. Flair takes care of Vampiro and then hops in the ring to get beaten up by the Stinger. *sigh*, look, I’ll just tell you the finish. Liz hits Sting with a baseball bat. Vamp takes it away, and Jimmy Hart threatens to whip Liz with a weight belt. Both men in the ring are down. Package crawls over, covers for two, then motions for a Torture Rack. TTP racks Sting, but Vamp jumps in behind the ref’s back, hits Luger in the ribs with the bat, and Sting hops out and lands a Scorpion Death Drop for three. That match was dangerously close to being about as bad as the previous one, what with the overbooking. Sting and Vampiro hug it out after the match, but I know Vampiro is going to turn on Sting soon enough. Gene Okerlund asks human puddle of tapioca Tank Abbott what the deal was with knocking out Dellinger, and Abbott uses the limited vocabulary he has available to him to explain. If I translate, I think Abbott is saying that Dellinger can’t fine him for that punch since Dellinger was out there as a lumberjack and not as security. Recap: Sid/Jarrett isn’t quite bad enough to make the Worst Feuds list yet, but there’s still time! Who is getting out of the limo? We almost find out, but we cut away to see Jeff Jarrett WALKING. Apparently, there’s been a kayfabe only(?!) format change, and Sid Vicious is defending against Jeff Jarrett next instead of going on last. Of course not; we have to see Hogan and Flair tear the house down in the true main event, don’t we? DON’T WE?!?! Jeff Jarrett (w/Midajah, Kim, and Tylene) is out to the ring first. Jarrett yammers on endlessly about winning the big gold, then does his thing where he teases the ladies stripping, with the twist that he claims that if he wins, they can strip. This makes me think he might win just so he can then take that promise back, but actually, I’ve seen videos where Sid is the guy who hands the big gold over to Eric Bischoff in a couple of weeks when they reboot the promotion and vacate all the titles, so maybe not? Speaking of Syko Sid Vicious, he’s somehow still a star to the live crowds even considering the terrible all-around booking of WCW shows, so good for him! He came into WCW at its lowest and managed to do some genuinely memorable stuff, so I reiterate that I'm just about done hearing that Sid couldn’t work, just had a big aura, etc. Nah, fuck that. He was a legitimately good pro wrestler. Sid out-punches and out-maneuvers Jarrett early. Jarrett escapes a chokeslam with an eye poke, but Sid goes outside with him, slams him across the broadcast table, and jumps off the table with a double axe – don’t DO that, Sid! They brawl through the crowd because of course they do. Sid controls, but the Harrises jump him in the aisle and toss him back in the ring. A straight wrestling match between these two without the wandering obligabrawl or the Harrises jumping in would have been good because Jarrett is a good worker, and Sid always raises his game with guys under 6’2 who can work. Alas, we get this instead. Jarrett locks on a sleeper, and I think that it’s really too bad that these are the choices everyone made in laying this match out. Sid fights out of it, lands a big boot, and readies for a legdrop when a Harris Bro grabs him and allows Jarrett to try and cheat. Jarrett’s attempt goes awry when the other Harris Bro holds up the big gold, but Sid is the one who sends Jarrett’s head into the plate. Sid covers, but only gets two. He tries a chokeslam, but Jeff kicks Sid in the balls on the way up. Nick Patrick takes Ye Olde Ref Bump, and Jarrett KABONGs Sid. Jarrett calls down Slick Johnson to replace Nick Patrick, but Hulk Hogan walks out and yanks Slick out of the ring, then punches him. OK, sure, whatever. Hogan gets in the ring and beats up Jarrett and the Harrises, then drops a leg on Jarrett, rolls Sid on top, and Hogan wins the title! No, wait, Sid wins the title. Scott Steiner runs to the ring a smidge late to save Jarrett and KABONGs the Hulkster. He and the Harrises stomp him out until Sid gets back up and wipes out the Harrises. FUCK OFF, WCW. Ric Flair rushes out here with Hogan laid out and Mickey Jay quickly follows; here’s the main event! Flair hooks both himself and Hogan to the strap while Jimmy Hart stomps out while holding a weight belt. I mean, not that he’s needed, as Hogan starts a comeback without any help at all. We get another bad ringside brawl; the match goes back in the ring and Flair takes a low-impact ass kicking. But hey, at least he gets to do all his heel spots that he loves doing! Flair gets a bit of control, and we get some STRAPATION, DUDES, and it sucks. Corner punches, Hogan forehead biting because he’s SERIOUS, DUDES, and this goes on and fucking on, yet another match that could have been five minutes and it still might have been too long. Flair bleeds. No one cares. Here’s the finish to this pathetic display: Package interjected himself about seven minutes from the end of the show while Hogan threw weak punches at Flair in the aisle and hit him with a chair shot to the head. Hogan blades off the shot. Flair is back on top with mediocre offense for like three or four minutes after that, then finally tries to win the thing by touching all four corners. He even loads his fist to try and get a recalcitrant Hogan to just be dragged along behind him, and then after landing a punch, he goes for a pinfall so Hogan can power out and Hulk Up, and I’m beginning to think that Hogan is one of the worst wrestlers of all time and Flair is mediocre because they did that spot because it was expected, not because it made sense in the logic of the match type. Hogan touches three corners, fights off a charging TTP, and then legdrops Flair, pins him – the bell rings as the ref calls it – and touches the fourth corner besides. This was, no exaggeration or hyperbole, one of the worst matches that I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I cannot wait for Russo to get back here and marginalize Hogan again. I was going to say that Uncensored was kinda shit, but just mostly dull, per the usual for this show. Of course, it then veered into a ditch and set itself on fire at the point that Dustin Rhodes and Terry Funk came to the ring for their match. I’m not quite sure if this was worse than BatB ’99, but the last half of this show was cursed and certainly worse than the last half of any WCW PPV that I’ve ever seen. Actually, after pondering it for a while longer, I think this was worse than BatB ’99 and is now the worst WCW PPV ever. Good job, Uncensored! You finally, truly lived down to your anti-hype!

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and three – 15 March 2000 "The WCW Gang frontloads the episode with all its best workers, but it's not enough to make Thunder a completely watchable show" I’m going to go ahead and THUNDERRRRRR, but I’d rather be slamming the reboot button that Russo and Bischoff are going to press a couple weeks from now… Our opener pits La Parka and Chavo Jr. against Los Fabulosos…They do this stupid-ass dubbing gimmick with La Parka in the ring before the match…It’s not funny…It’s never been funny…Los Fabulosos make Penzer announce them as “Latin America’s Most Desirable Men”…This is a fun bout…It’s very pacey…Parka dances a lot…He also struts...He avoids a double-team move from the Fabs and then hits a corkscrew splash onto Dandy outside the ring…Chavo dropkicks Silver King to the floor and lands a slingshot crossbody…Parka brings Dandy back in the ring and gets a perfectly-timed 2.9 on a split-legged moonsault…He slaps the shit out of Dandy, but rams himself into the post on a corner charge… The Fabs take over…They hit double leapfrogs (just barely) and a double drop toehold…King gets two on a jumping DDT to Parka…Dandy tries a superplex, but Parka gets him into electric chair position and dumps him while Chavo takes out King with a crossbody…Parka clears out King while Chavo drops Dandy with a tornado DDT for three…Oh look, you put four awesome workers in a tag match and give them more than two minutes, and you get something enjoyable…Who knew?!...Incidentally, this is the first match to hit my Good Matches list since a Three Count vs. Disco and the Mamalukes match on the January 26th, 2000 version of Thunder…What has happened to my werkrate promotion?!?... (Also incidentally, I haven’t placed a Nitro match on my Good Matches list in the year 2000 so far. Yeesh.) After the break, Los Fabulosos commiserate in the back…Ms. Hancock is apparently less grossed out by Los Fabulosos being creepy than she was on Monday as she walks up decides to help them upgrade their style…Silver King: “Would you like to help us out of these clothes?”…Aw, you know what you were trying to do, Silver King, don’t act like you barely habla Ingles and accidentally said what you said…Hancock ignores the double entendre and takes them shopping for new wardrobes…This is such an odd pairing that I’d love to see together for at least a month or two, if not for the big reset coming up… Team Package hits the ring to jabber on and on and fucking on…TTP calls Sting a coward for playing with the lights before attacking him on Nitro…Flair does his whole FAT BOY deal and is almost a parody of himself at this point…He dares Sting to try TTP tonight, then declares that Hulkamania is dead…Jimmy Hart storms to the ring with a determined look on his face…He calls out Ric for turning his back on David Flair and Arn Anderson…Aw, Jimmy, you turn your back on Hogan every other year, so who are you to talk?…Hart says that CNN and Entertainment Tonight are here to do segments on Hogan and not Flair or Luger, which proves that Hogan is the man, not anyone in Team Package… This is a dreadful and overlong talking segment, which is wild considering the cumulative high levels of effective talking that these workers have reached in their pasts…Everyone talking smack in this segment is just washed as hell, and it’s sad…They shove Hart to the ground, so Hart attacks Flair with a weight belt…He gets stomped out and Torture Rack’d…Then they rip his dress shirt off and whip him with a different weight belt… Psicosis uses some unfortunate language when he runs up on TAFKAPI and Paisley and snatches the Artist’s Cruiserweight Championship backstage…Kaz and the Jung Dragons show up…There’s a small dust-up, and Charles Robinson restores order and hands out bans for what I suppose is an upcoming rematch between Kaz Hayashi and Psicosis…We’ll see… Jimmy Hart does a stretcher job…There have been so many stretcher jobs the past few weeks that they really don’t matter…Damn near everyone has done one…Hogan has shown up at the arena and demands that J.J. Dillon book him in a handicap match against Team Package later tonight…So is there no commissioner anymore, or like, what?... Alright, Psicosis is indeed re-matching Kaz Hayashi…The winner is facing, and hopefully going over, TAFKAPI for the Cruiserweight Championship at Uncensored…Psicosis tries to run early and eats a back kick in the ring and a lovely somersault splash on the floor…You know what, I don’t know what Kaz’s post-WCW career was like at all, and I feel like I want to look into that when I’m done watching WCW…They counter-counter-counter and trade near falls…Psicosis manages to roll through on a wheelbarrow slam attempt and steal a quick three…It was too short to make the ol’ Good Matches list, but so far, this Thunder has the best wrestling on a non-tertiary WCW show in a long time… TAFKAPI runs out and smashes Psicosis from behind as the latter shakes hands with Kaz…In a rare event, he lands a diving DDT that actually looks good on Psicosis…Whoa… Gene Okerlund interviews Jeff Jarrett…He’s upset that he’s got to put his U.S. Championship on the line against Booker T. later tonight…Look, this should have happened literally fourteen months ago, but now’s your chance, WCW…Put the U.S. title on Booker T. already, you dumb fucks… Bam Bam Bigelow and Oklahoma have a quiet conversation backstage…Bam Bam says that he’ll “take care” of something or other… Tank Abbott is out to the ring…We cut to the back where they don’t cue Meng properly and, a tad late, he woodenly says that one day, he and Tank are going to get it on in the ring…Tank is going to knock out Buzzkill right quick…Tank breaks Buzzkill’s anti-war sign before also breaking his face in short order… The Harris Bros. having a conversation with Harlem Heat International of their own volition is the sort of thing that would only ever happen in kayfabe…It’s a lot easier to guess what these groups would be having a convo about than it is for Bammer and Oklahoma… THE WALL, BROTHER attacked Crowbar and kidnapped David Flair in the backstage area during the break…TW,B’s music hits for an upcoming in-ring bout, but TW,B is too busy beating Dopey Dave down in the concourse to make that bout…He continues the beating onto the balcony…TW,B raises his hand in a goozle signal, but Bam Bam Bigelow runs up and keeps him from chokeslamming Dave off the balcony…The cameraperson takes a spill…Bammer puts TW,B through a table in the concourse before security breaks things up…The folks working the concession stand nearby are enjoying their front-row seat… Booker T. is WALKING, and the only reason I mention that is because he passes Billy Kidman, who pauses his make-out session with Torrie to disingenuously wish Booker good luck in his match… The cops arrest TW,B just like they did the Harris Bros. a couple shows ago, so you know for certain that these are the three toughest wrestlers on the show…Practically as tough as Stone Cold Steve Austin, who also always gets arrested, as a matter of comparison…Anyway, Bam Bam yells at him through the window of the cop car that when TW,B gets out of the slammer, Bam Bam will be waiting for him… Jeff Jarrett (w/Midajah, Kim, and Tylene) defends his WCW United States Championship against Booker T….Jarrett does his whole deal with the ladies; Midajah almost face plants while leaving the ringside area…The crowd seems actually hyped for this match, audio juicing aside…Maybe it would be a good idea to have more of your over wrestlers compete in title matches?...Jarrett and Booker are very good opponents for one another with lots of natural chemistry together…Jarrett has to go to an eye poke to slow an early Booker flurry, but Booker lands a dropkick to kill Jarrett’s attempt at progressing his offensive onslaught…Jarrett tries a hip toss next, but gets blocked and countered into a lariat…Booker lands a running lariat to Jarrett in the corner and lands about seven punches out of a set of ten…Jarrett tries to reverse into an inverted atomic drop, but Booker blocks it and lands a standing side kick… This is very pacey…OK, so Book whips Jarrett to the ropes, who halts himself and then ducks away from a Booker Houston Side Kick that hangs Book on the ropes…Jarrett takes it outside for an obligabrawl that actually feels heated…Jarrett uses the guardrail and steel steps to his advantage, then dumps Book back in the ring…Jarrett goes up and waits for Booker to rise, then hits a diving crossbody that Booker rolls through for two…Jarrett gets up first and hits a short uppercut to regain control…He shoots Book in and finagles a sleeper hold…Jarrett yells GET READY TO RING IT at the timekeeper as Booker sinks to his side…Booker fights up before his arm can fall three times and manages to shoot Jarrett in…Jarrett ducks a kick, but gets locked in a sleeper…Jarrett escapes it and manages to go up to the second rope, but he jumps into a Book End for about 2.7…Booker lands an axe kick and hits a Spinaroonie, then lands a spinebuster for another 2.8… The Harris Bros. come to the ring and distract Booker…Jarrett rolls away while Book jaws at them, grabs the U.S. title, and brains Booker with it…Jarrett covers, but Booker's shoulder is up at about 2.7…Jarrett lands a flurry of rights, but his Irish whip is reversed into a Houston Side Kick…Book takes out one Harris Bro, then Book Ends the other one, but they pop up and H-Bomb him while Jarrett distracts the ref by grabbing his guitar and threatening to use it…Jarrett drops the guitar after the H-Bomb and polishes off Booker with a quick Stroke (HAHAHAHA, I did indeed write that on purpose to make a cheap double-entendre)…The shittiest nWo configuration in existence moves to spray paint Booker, but Sid runs in and manages the save…Booker should have won that, but it was still a very fun, very good match between two guys who would probably chart on one another’s list of top five opponents…This Thunder is actually delivering in the ring, which I didn’t expect at all… Dustin Rhodes cuts a boilerplate threatening promo against Terry Funk and then promises to kick Billy Kidman’s ass later tonight…Dustin calls himself the “American Nightmare”…Aw, Dustin, about that nickname you’re trying to establish, let me tell you from the future that you should give up on it… Booker passes Kidman backstage and yells at the guy for not watching his back out there…Just, I don’t know, get a better tag partner, Booker?... Vampiro, who Tenay tried to sell as joining the “WCW elite”, is out next…His opponent is Hugh Morrus…Hey, what ever happened to ol’ Hugh’s senile pops?...My kayfabe explanation is that the poor guy passed away from advanced dementia shortly after the Nitro at which he appeared (Show #219), and Morrus has been off television grieving and getting his late father’s affairs in order…Or hell, maybe I should just treat it as the dropped angle that it is after Russo got sent home…This match is not the level of work that the previous matches have been, but it’s perfectly solid… Morrus is so weird…He’s technically a spot monkey, I think…He’s got a nice Savage Elbow, the No Laughing Matter, and the double elbowdrop/legdrop combo as really neat spots…In between that, he sucks, he’s a void, he’s a zero…He’s not what we think of when we think of spot ,monkeys, but he’s totally and completely the sum of his best spots…He hits the combo and a Cactus Elbow in this match, and in between, it’s whatever… Vampiro has one comeback aborted by a counter-powerbomb and eats a No Laughing Matter, but Morrus doesn’t cover…Instead, he goes outside for a table…Morrus brings it in and puts Vamp on it, then tries another NLM…This is his downfall, as Vamp gets off the table and hits Morrus with an Electric Chair Drop through it instead…That only gets 2.9, but a follow-up Nail in the Coffin gets the full three count…Both guys worked hard and tried to do something that would stand out, so it was as good as you’d hope to get from them… Gene Okerlund interviews Billy Kidman and Torrie Wilson…Kidman admits that maybe he should have gone down to watch Booker’s back, but he was busy getting ready for his match…Then he goes back to getting ready for his match making out with Torrie…He’s sort of like Billy Everyteen making out with Marilyn Monrobot while civilization crumbles around him…DON’T DATE ROBOTS TORRIE WILSON…*Spaaaaaaaace Pope* The KISS Demon wrestles what is probably a super-special Thunder main event (as is contractually required)…He partners with Norman Smiley against Brian Knobbs and the Dog…Well, we couldn’t have good wrestling matches the whole show…This is WCW in 2000…That would just be completely out of character for this company at this time…The Demon and the Dog fight in the ring as Knobbs tosses Smiley around at ringside…They switch off…Norm recovers from a Pit Stop and tries to Big Wiggle the Dog, but he gets slammed instead… Well, now that zendragon has pointed out that the Dog is the worst possible Buzz Sawyer ever, I hate this gimmick even more than I already did…It just makes me want to watch some Buzz Sawyer, a guy who was actually crazy and had that come through his work, than whatever Al Greene is attempting to do…To Excess run out and trip the Demon as he goes up top…Knobbs follows up with a superplex, and then he hoists the Demon up on the Dog’s shoulders for a second-rope powerslam that ends the match… Gene Okerlund interviews Team Package backstage…A certain EWR message would be popping up after this show regarding overuse of certain talents… Billy Kidman (w/Torrie Wilson) hooks it up with Dustin Rhodes next…As the commentators try to play up Dustin Rhodes’s new attitude, I think that there are just too many midcarders walking around who have suddenly changed their motivations without much, if any, clear signaling…And now we’re going to have another creative regime change in a couple of weeks…Nothing can get going in terms of storyline or character development because of the constant changes in creative leadership…It's been like this since Nash got tossed from the position in late September/early October of '99...Anyway, this match is dull, but inoffensive…Dustin uses a covert bullrope shot and a simple slam for three…Booker runs out and chases him away before he can use the bullrope to do more damage…Booker leaves after Torrie cuts him off when he goes to check on Kidman…Book’s face screams that he’s fed up with his annoying doofus of a tag partner and the doofus’s equally annoying girlfriend… The handicap match main event is next…There are going to be nine or ten minutes dedicated to this thing…That is wholly unnecessary…I cannot wait until Russo sends Hogan home for good…I’m going to get no more Hogan AND get Booker T. as WCW World Heavyweight Champ at the same time…We’re so close…Oh, I am going to deserve this burst of wrestling joy for putting up with almost two straight years of awful WCW shows in general, but for putting up with everything WCW has done from November of 1999 through July of 2000 in particular… Anyway, this match…Hogan beats up two men at once as everyone moves like they’re underwater…I cannot imagine why I’d think that Flair has any chance at beating Hogan after Hogan barely struggles to take care of both he and Package at once…Unless I’m a Hogan fan who wants to see a sure Hogan victory, what is my motivation for wanting to pay for their Strap Match at Uncensored?...Hogan marauds these fellas for the bulk of the match…This sucks…It’s the wrong match to build to a future PPV bout, and Hogan’s act is so awful that I never want to see it again in my life…Genuinely, if I had been watching this in real time back in 2000, I think it would have altered my enjoyment of that 2002 run Hogan had where he became World Champ…I was checked out on WCW by this point, so I hadn’t really watched Hogan since 1998-ish with any regularity and hadn't seen him as a babyface since 1996…By 2002, I could get on the nostalgia wave for red-and-yellow Hulk like everyone else… Anyway, after legitimately five or six of the match's eleven-ish minute runtime, Flair finally catches Hogan in the balls so that two guys can manage to finally overtake one…Package and Flair beat down Hogan for roughly half the time he beat them down before he pops up and shakes his shaggy mane of flaxen hair to signal his comeback…Hogan hits a couple of big boots, then blocks a Liz chair shot and uses the chair to beat down Package…Flair runs away from Hogan while Hogan whips him with the weight belt…This was one of the worst matches I’ve seen in my life on multiple levels… I’d like to reward this Thunder for putting two whole matches on my Good Matches list, but then I look at most of the rest of this show, and as much as I’d like to, I can’t…I would tell anyone reading this to only watch the matches that made the list and skip the rest of this show, after all…And the main event was all wrong for so many reasons…OWWWW...

Vampiro is the only guy who they've really aligned "overness" with "push" on, but then again, he only defeated Flair by DQ and Curt Hennig went over Flair cleanly the next week. You can see the issue here. I think what's more baffling is the guys who got over and then shunted into strange gimmicks. Lash LeRoux was sort of getting over while paired with Disco, so they took him off regular television. Norman Smiley and the Big Wiggle are still way over, so why not push him as more than a comedy character? I won't even go deeply into what I think about what they're doing with Booker or Kidman...or Chavo Jr., who is legitimately a massive missed opportunity if you re-watch the tape. I cannot believe how badly they missed on Chavo Jr. What hurts is that, outside of Booker, none of the guys I mentioned are really primed to get over significantly in front of a WWE audience, so once WCW shut down, it was over for them. Chavo Jr. especially should have had a better career, and he would have if he were wrestling in front of WCW audiences. But also, guys like LeRoux and Kidman were cooked without WCW's existence, and even if I'm not huge fans of them, it's a shame. On the other hand, Buff Bagwell was also cooked without WCW's existence, so you know, there's good and bad to every change in life. Which Simpsons episode? Wait, are they going to send the Dog back to his home planet, literally? They showed a bunch of Power Plant elite in the audience a few months ago who needed to be on TV yesterday. I'm not saying that, say, Sean O'Haire or Elix Skipper are all-time greats, but they are FUN. You can see why they're being put on TV and given pushes. This company also has Air Paris and AJ Styles show up toward the end. Pair them with your Mike Modests, your Chris Daniels, basically sign a bunch of dudes who showed up at ECWA's Super 8 tournaments in the late '90s, and you at the very least quickly rebuild the cruiserweight division into something that is a draw. Huh. It is, isn't it, except played for comedy rather than for violence? Great point. I vaguely remember this, but I think Gorman was just writing about PPVs from around this time that showcased this feud. As for Jericho leeching off the younger wrestlers now, I'm not surprised! This guy should have gone home and been a family man over a decade ago. Working a work until he works himself into a shoot (even though its a work) doesn't make it sound remotely watchable. Being ironic doesn't make bad television suddenly good all of a sudden. I also have no idea what angle this is, though I assume it's in AEW, but Coach TK's really got to stop letting wrestlers do whatever the hell they want on television. The only way it makes sense, and I can buy it that Arn is misremembering the sort of stuff he and the Horsemen got up to because he's old and his days in the ring are gone, which is sort of the point of the angle. But still, even considering that much, maybe babyface Arn should say that he's grown past those days and putting men out of wrestling just to do it isn't something he wants to go back to. What makes you assume this? I mean, I'm sure Jimmy has a hand in booking Nitro and Thunder just because it's all hands on deck, but the newsletters around this time indicated that Sullivan and Dillon were dominating the booking and that Terry Taylor gave up on trying to get his ideas through. Ferrara apparently was mostly doing the formatting rather than offering up ideas outside of his own on-off program with Madusa. Of course, the sheets could be not entirely accurate! I will at least say that the TW,B super-push is being executed fairly well outside of Bam Bam turning babyface randomly and with no real backing to explain why he's changed his mind about destroying people with weapons. The issue is that it's TW,B and not, I don't know, Mark Jindrak or someone who has at least a little promise. This is almost certainly a big part of it, but Sting and Goldberg also stayed over while getting continued screen time in the midst of the first Russo-Ferrara booking crisis. I think you're right, but also based on the above point that Sting and Goldberg are seen by WCW's audience as megastars and Hogan/Flair/Package are seen as a clear level or two beneath them. It's up there! I have to go back through these as I edit them, but it's certainly a contender for the most overbooked angle/series of segments. Again, I note, Vince Russo is nowhere near the booking of this string of segments, either. I'm genuinely baffled why Sullivan and Dillon thought it made sense to keep trying to book shows in a Vince Russo style. Russo's ideas about how to book and format shows are bad, but he's certainly the best guy at executing those bad ideas about booking and format. Sullivan and Dillon are clueless about how to book a show in Russo's style. One of many so far!

Show #231 – 13 March 2000 “The one that is now one less Nitro between me and the point where the show is good again” Finally, it’s the go-home Nitro before the final Uncensored. More importantly, we’re one PPV away from the Russo-Bischoff era, which at least should be good at focusing on pushes for a few guys who are actually possible stars rather than stop-start pushes for guys like Vampiro and baffling megapushes for guys like THE WALL, BROTHER. Backstage, Ric Flair promises TTP and Liz that Arn will be on their side tonight. The story is that Ric is trying to hang on to his faded glory days by glomming onto someone else, which would make sense if he weren’t glomming on to another guy whose best days are also far behind him. This would be more effective if he were leeching off some young, hot heel’s heat. Imagine Flair trying to hang out with smarmy young heel Chris Jericho, for example. That would make a lot more sense. You could pair Leia Meow with Jericho and get the same effect as TTP and Liz, but younger. Of course, you’d have to keep Jericho in the company and then push him, but you get the point. Ric's character beat would actually come across rather than it just being strange that Ric Flair is trying to kiss up to old-ass TTP. While I’m at it, Raven would be better in Vampiro’s spot than Vampiro could ever dream of being. Boy, did this company alienate a bunch of useful talent. But I digress. Ric Flair makes his way to the ring to open the show. I don’t mind this Flair/Arn thing. I see a place for the older guys in the middle of the card as the veteran acts to support the hot new main eventers. However, I don’t think it should be opening the show. An angle that is hotter and younger should ideally be placed here instead; that, or a Cruiserweight Championship match that does not include TAFKAPI in any way. Ric calls Arn out. Flair’s act is doing zero for me. He tries to hype this hole deal for both the crowd and Arn; he wants long limousines, jet airplanes, etc., and he wants Arn to join him in those things. I’m baffled that Arn says the Horsemen weren’t into putting their opps out of wrestling like Package and his ol’ Pillmanizing chair are, but okay, that’s his specious reasoning for declining. Arn then invites Hulk Hogan out to join the discussion and apparently is in support of this red-and-yellow doofus. Arn promises not to help Ric in his match against the Hulkster at Uncensored. This crowd is fairly quiet for all this talking. It might have gone better over in North Carolina, though I wonder if Winston-Salem or Chapel Hill would have turned on Arn for supporting Hogan. Hogan says THIS IS HULK COUNTRY, and they sorta cheer, but Providence, Rhode Island isn’t all that fired up for him. The Hulkster runs down, no-sells a bunch of Flair offense, and then lands a big boot before TTP hops in the ring and jumps him with the baseball bat. Flair gets back up and whips Hogan with the weight belt. This crowd is indifferent. See? This feud has barely any heat. A small Hogan chant fires up as the Hulkster is walked out by medics, selling a shoulder injury all the way. Pre-taped segment: Riki Rachtman hangs out at Brown with a few midcarders and the Nitro Girls. Almost fifteen minutes in, the ineffective and annoying commentary duo yammer on about Hogan being injured. At exactly fifteen minutes in, we cut to the back to see Hogan and Jimmy Hart with a few medics as everyone checks on Hogan’s shoulder. Oh look, Three Count is getting over organically. Maybe give them more television time? I love Three Count’s whole deal as a group of annoying little gnats who use their speed and numbers to pester their opponents. They’re an actually-good Spirit Squad...or rather, is the Spirit Squad a bad Three Count? The Jung Dragons run down and attack Three Count; the dudes in the crowd starts a light THREE COUNT SUCKS chant. There’s a very short FIP segment that leads to Kaz getting a hot tag and landing an array of moves on Shannon Moore, ending in a corkscrew bodypress to the floor. The match breaks down and everyone dives on everyone else. Karagias presses Jimmy Yang onto everyone on the floor, then lands a springboard crossbody onto the mass of people at ringside; Shannon Moore hops onto the apron and follows with a springboard moonsault. Moore goes up top, but Jamie Noble, looking like a lost ninja turtle in his headband, catches him and lands a superplex. Everyone just drops top rope moves on everyone else. It’s structureless nonsense, but that’s fine. It’s an actual cruiserweight sprint in this company for once. Moore drills Noble with a sleeper hold drop for three. TTP and Flair are fired up about what they did to Hogan. Arn Anderson runs into Curt Hennig backstage and wishes him luck before leaving the building in total disgust with the whole damn business of professional wrestling. Ms. Hancock walks up to Los Fabulosos going through their fan mail; she’s shocked by all the mail they’re getting, and Silver King explains that they are shoot popular in Mexico. Dandy ruins the vibe by asking if he’s “excit[ing] her groin (or loins, whatever),” but he and Silver King are both sure that “she’ll be back.” Vince Russo? Is that you ghostwriting this show?! Bam Bam Bigelow and THE WALL, BROTHER have a grudge match on Nitro. Whoops, nope: TW,B handcuffs Bammer to the corner thirty seconds in and the match is thrown out. Crowbar and his busted neck run in, but TW,B wins their battle and lands a chokeslam, then tosses the guy out of the ring. Dopey Dave runs in after that to get chokeslammed while Bam Bam begs the guy not to. Well, TW,B chokeslamming Crowbar a couple Thunders ago was pretty awesome, but this feud has rapidly racked up Pro Wrestling Bad Place points since then. TW,B chokeslams Dave through a table that has a prone Crowbar on it. I still don’t buy TW,B as a killer. Sorry, WCW. Now Jeff Jarrett (w/the busted-ass nWo) is out to the ring. 1997 Jeff Jarrett and 2000 Jeff Jarrett are staggering in how much they diverge in quality. Jarrett in 1997 was a fantastic heel. Jarrett in 2000 is one of the least credible heels I’ve seen in this (or damn near any) position, and since it’s 2000, he’s not even being booked to have good fifteen minute matches to help cover up the incredibly low-rent heel work. Jarrett sends the ladies to the back; Providence gives a few pity boos out in response. After that, we get a boring promo about how Jarrett has Sid’s number, complete with a video full of KABONGs on Sid. And yes, Jarrett narrates this video as it plays. I guess he’s still the commissioner or something because I think he booked Sid against the Harris Bros. Whatever, I zoned out. Madden makes a “With My Baby Tonight” reference because he is sooooooo clever. Sid hits the ramp and responds somewhat incoherently, but it’s fine. He’s Sid. He doesn’t exactly have a lot to work with considering his dance partners. Sid introduces Vampiro, who is going to partner with him against the Harris Bros. later tonight. Everyone, not just Jarrett, uses the word “slapnut[s].” I contend to you that SLAPNUTS is worse than WHAT?! Crowbar gets put in an ambulance for yet another show while Bam Bam yells a challenge to THE WALL, BROTHER into the camera and as I consider popping their little feud on the Worst Feuds list because it still makes no damn sense, besides also being a black hole of entertainment. Gene Okerlund interviews Stevie Ray, who threatens Disco for later tonight and tells Kidman that he can’t trust Booker T. J. Biggs agrees with Stevie. The New Nitro Girls – Nitro Girls 2000? Nitro Girls Incorporated? – dance, and then Paul Orndorff apparently got hired back to his job as a recruiter in kayfabe because he’s in this pre-taped video about the dude with the crazy huge biceps. They do a corny sketch where Big Jakes, I think his name is, and his manager pretend to be floored that Mr. Wonderful is trying to recruit him. Billy Kidman (w/Torrie Wilson) teams up with Booker T., a guy he doesn’t even like, to face Lenny and Lodi. Lodi is going by the name “Rave” now. I mean, not in these reports. He’s Lodi then, now, forever as far as I am concerned. Ms. Hancock comes to the ring, and I think this deal with Hancock busting in on To Excess’s matches and segments has gone on longer than the original Standards and Practices gimmick went on. Hancock joins commentary, which is what we end up seeing. I mean, she’s very pretty, but there’s a match going on in the ring, you know? Hancock doesn’t much appreciate Los Fabulosos, but – oh no – she’s into Kidman. Torrie Wilson comes over to insult Hancock, who cuts a face like she’s smelled a fart. OH NO. Please, no, please don’t feud these two women as they fight over Billy Kidman of all people. I’ve given up on this match. And this show, really, even though there is still just under and hour to go. Booker saves Kidman from a two-on-one attack, destroys Lenny and Lodi, lands a Spinaroonie, hits a Houston Side Kick on Lenny, and goes up top…as Kidman slips in and schoolboys Lenny for three. Booker and Kidman argue over Kidman stealing Booker’s pin after Booker did all the work leading up to it. Tony S. decides that WCW stands for “We Can’t Work…Together,” which is the funniest thing that I’ve heard on one of these shows, whether intentional or unintentional, in months. If this show needed something, it’s definitely more of The Total Package (w/Liz). It’s funny – the one over-forty wrestler in the crisscrossing Ric/TTP/Hulkster/Sting storyline who is actually still over enough to warrant a reasonable amount of TV time, Sting, is the one who hasn’t been on TV much at all. Hulk Hogan came back in the ambulance to get at TTP, which we cut to before cutting back to Curt Hennig walking down the ramp. Hennig starts giving high fives, then daps, with his “broken” arm before remembering that it’s supposed to be broken and pulling back awkwardly. Hennig gets in the ring and beats up Package until Liz runs a distraction and Package takes over. They have a somewhat awkward transition when Package runs into the back of Hennig, who turns around and punches him with his cast arm. Flair runs out and sparks a DQ; Team Package beats down Hennig until Hogan makes the save. He’s healed! It must be the power of Hulkamania! The Hulkster makes a challenge to Team Package for a tag match between them and a team of Hennig and Hogan. Vampiro cuts a poor promo on Jeff Jarrett in a darkened boiler room while I wish it were Raven cutting this promo instead. Whoops, I’m digressing again. Brian Knobbs has lost his Dog, who has apparently torn up Knobbs’s dressing room and is now drinking water out of the toilet bowl. Knobbs teaches the Dog how to act by taking him to well-structured training classes run by experts. No, wait, he teaches the Dog how to act by whipping him. Riki Rachtman, the Nitro Girls, and Three Count make fun of Disco Inferno in another pre-tape from Brown. Sid cuts another promo, this time with Okerlund backstage, on Jeff Jarrett. He warns Vampiro off of trying to finish Jarrett with a Nail in the Coffin tonight before he can do it himself with a powerbomb. The Dog (w/Brian Knobbs) wrestles Norman Smiley. Smiley Big Wiggles the Dog while the Dog has a hood on and is kneeling in the middle of the ring. What is the point of any of this? Norm does get a chant from the crowd, though. The KISS Demon runs down and attacks Brian Knobbs, so I guess the Demon and Norm are friends now after that little tiff over Norm stealing the Demon’s gear. Lenny and Lodi then follow and attack the Demon. Meanwhile, Scott Dickinson has come over from Boston to work this nearby show, and the Dog backs him into the corner; he is saved by Norm running up and locking on a Norman Conquest for the submission. After the match, the Dog bites Dickinson’s leg as Madden points out that Dickinson works for the USPS. So they brought Scott Dickinson in for a “dog bites mailman” joke? OK, just to let y’all lovely readers know, I chunked the whole post-Russo period before Russo comes back with Bischoff onto my Absolute Dirt Worst list, but I still plan to put specific segments and matches from these shows onto the list as well. Think of it as being the dirt worst twice over. That’s how I’d describe this match. After the match, Knobbs sticks around and challenges the KISS Demon or anyone, really, to an immediate hardcore match. Terry Funk seems like the guy who will answer the call. I should note here that I’m watching this show on a Chromebook while I type, and twice during this show, my Chromebook has dropped the internet connection entirely and had to be re-started so that I could reconnect to my router. Twice! In about an hour! That has never happened before. Could it be that my Chromebook is simply getting older? No, it’s WCW that’s wrong. Anyway, after a sketch where the Dog chases around a Norman Smiley who is once again scared and no longer newly brave, we cut to Funk and Knobbs hitting each other with plundah. They fight into the crowd, where I see some dude wearing a DDP BANG t-shirt; boy, does this show need DDP badly. He’s another over-forty wrestler who can still go and as a bonus, he’s still young in terms of television time. Shannon Moore and Evan Karagias run in and attack Knobbs; apparently, Helms broke his nose in their earlier match. Moore and Karagias have enough firepower to help Funk beat Knobbs; they then dropkick the Funker out of the ring and dance. Knobbs and Funk recover and beat them up. Funk using a chicken as a weapon is a real bummer. Dustin Rhodes jumps out of the crowd with a bullrope and attacks him with it. Jeff Jarrett informs the Harris Bros. that he won’t be joining them at ringside for their match against Syko Sid and Vampiro. Alright, Syko Sid Vicious and Vampiro face the Harris Bros. next. I really like Sid and am upset that they’re not giving him much to work with. He’s the champ, and yet I feel that even though he is, they still didn’t do enough to capitalize on that Havoc match against Goldberg. Their Mayhem I Quit Match was laid out exceedingly poorly and had a shitty finish, and then he turned face in a nondescript way instead of turning face immediately after looking like a fucking boss in that loss to Goldberg at Havoc. And now he’s here wrestling the Harris Bros. every other week. Fucking WCW. Sid gets a little shine in before Vampiro plays FIP. Sid has to tag himself in, chokeslam one Harris Bro, and powerbomb the other for three. Sid is pretty awesome, folks. Gene Okerlund stands around outside of Hulk Hogan’s dressing room and promises to cut interviews with all four men in the main event, which is a promise that I wish he’d break. We get one more pre-taped video with Riki Rachtman at Brown. The ladies love Sugar Shane. Probably shoot, not merely kayfabe. Okerlund talks to TTP, Ric Flair, and Liz. Nothing of value was said. Harlem Heat Incorporated (w/Cassius Cash and J. Biggs) are ready to wrestle the Mamalukes. Disco wants his music to play for some reason, so he goes to get that cued up and leaves the Mamalukes alone, where they are immediately attacked by the Harris Bros. Disco once again doesn’t realize that he has no backup. I laugh for a second time tonight when Disco sings the Fat Albert theme to the three non-Biggs HHI members in the ring and Biggs, who has joined commentary, drily responds with, “Now see, this here borders on total stupidity.” And they were intentionally trying to get me to laugh, too! Disco goes full-on racially insensitive Italian-American New Yorker and calls J. Biggs “J.J. Walker.” Those are the only two black people Disco knows, and both of those are from watching TV as a kid in the ‘70s. Disco offers HHI a tag title shot, but the Mamalukes are nowhere to be found, so Stevie just beats up Disco instead. Disco finally gets a little space after dodging a corner charge, but he gets Slapjacked for the L soon enough. Y’know, J. Biggs is a reasonably good talker in a company that has few of them; he has some value that WCW should try to unlock. Okerlund talks to Curt Hennig, Hulk Hogan, and Jimmy Hart. Nothing of value was said. OK, here’s the main event. The Total Package and Ric Flair (w/Liz) come to the ring first. Curt Hennig follows and is quickly joined by Hulk Hogan (w/Jimmy Hart). Some guy holds up an old-school WWF logo in the background while Hogan does his best to be aggressive. It’s acceptable. I’m going to say, though, that twelve minutes for this match is about eight minutes too many. This is the perfect time for a four-minute special, unless we’re getting an overbooked mess with lots of run-ins, this match could be shorter. Hennig and Hogan get a proper babyface shine, though Hogan does hit Ric with a chair in front of the ref, who is cool with it, I guess. The faces get an extended bout of initial control, actually. This match goes on and on and on until Hogan finally gets trapped and plays FIP. He manages his half of a double-clothesline on Package to spark a standing ten count from ref Mickey Jay. Both men roll to their corner for tags, and Hennig dominates the lukewarm tag before the match breaks down. Liz gives Package the baseball bat, and Package breaks up a Perfect Plex with it by bashing Hennig in the stomach, then tags Jimmy Hart with it besides. Hogan beats up both of the heels and tries to whip them with his weight belt, but Mickey Jay rips the belt away. Hogan shoves him and gets DQ’d; Liz jumps in the ring from behind and hits Hogan in the knee with the bat. The heels beat down the babyfaces until the lights go out and Vampiro and Sting both appear for the save. I’m running out of ways to talk about how these shows are historically bad. -500,000 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and two – 8 March 2000 "The WCW Gang is determined to break me, follows up violently terrible wrestling show with another show that is almost as violently terrible" Let’s Thunder and keep Thundering until we Thunder into the last six months of this company’s existence, already… Oklahoma dropping an elbow to a camera shake and a guitar riff in the Thunder opening is shameful…Take that shot out of this opening, you doofs… WCW is trying to establish the Cruiserweight Championship again, but in the dumbest possible way…We get another Cruiserweight Championship defense to open the show…TAFKAPI (w/Paisley) comes out with a totally different dub than usual…He’s defending the title against Psicosis (w/Juventud Guerrera), which wouldn’t make any sense since Psicosis lost that match on Monday…Luckily, Tenay points out that Psicosis missed his semifinal matchup in the Cruiserweight Championship because of visa issues, so he at least explains how or why Psicosis would get some sort of a make-good shot here… Juventud Guerrera does his deal and tries to join commentary, but Tenay reveals that Rey Misterio Jr. will be joining he and Heenan on commentary instead…Rey is still over, especially with kids and ladies by the sounds of the crowd…Rey says that he should be able to get back in the ring in three months…Too long, man…It’s wild that between injuries and WCW’s incompetence, Rey never actually became the obvious star that he should have in WCW…He basically burned five years of his career in America waiting for WCW to die so that he could go to WWF and be elevated into an actual star by Vinnie Jr…. The match in the ring is fine…Psicosis controls for the most part, and we get a ref bump in which TAFKAPI literally grabs the ref and forcefully uses him to break an abdominal stretch…That should be a DQ…Psicosis gets a roll-up, and Juvi hops in the ring and counts the pinfall…Robinson gets back up and DQs TAFKAPI for the grab, at least...Psicosis and Juvi are upset… Other matches tonight: Jeff Jarrett defends the United States Championship against Vampiro…The Mamalukes defend the World Tag Team Championship in a Four Corners Match against Harlem Heat Incorporated, Booker T. and Billy Kidman, and the Harris Bros….Why book this match a few days before Uncensored, where the Mamalukes are tapped to work the Harris Bros. for the titles?...Unless you’re taking the belts off the Mamalukes and away from the Harris Bros., which I guess would be fine if they go to Booker T. and Kidman, but a depressing thing if they go to HHI… Bam Bam commiserates backstage with a neck-braced Crowbar and equally-as-neck-braced David Flair…Also, Daffney is there…Bam Bam promises to make things right with THE WALL, BROTHER… The Total Package and Liz want to break Arn Anderson’s arm if Arn’s not going to join Team Package, but Ric Flair promises to get Arn to join them… The KISS Demon exits his coffin…Wait, he struggles to exit his coffin…Tenay wonders if Lenny and Lodi broke it, but odds are that it just malfunctioned…He does make it out after about 45 seconds, though…Lodi (w/Lenny) is the Demon’s opponent…To Excess judges a young lady who genuinely might be underage as “not rat material”…When are these fellas off TV, finally?...Lenny joins commentary…Ms. Hancock is looking to do another table dance, but Lenny cuts her off at the pass… Oh yeah, there’s a match in the ring…Lodi lands a DDT, but Hancock gets on the apron and distracts Lodi by motioning him over and then smooching him…The Demon sneaks up behind an enthralled Lodi and hits a uranage for three…Lenny lands a Trip Down Memory Lane Breakdown on the Demon, and To Excess continues the attack until Norman Smiley returns the favor from Nitro and makes the save…Oops, no, he stops to wiggle and gets jumped from behind by Lenny…Production starts Norm’s music, realizes that he’s down and out, and then starts To Excess’s music instead…Lenny and Lodi do a mock version of Too Cool’s dance routine…It strikes me that most of the bad wrestling skits are like one half-rung above “so bad it needs to go on the Absolute Dirt Worst list,” but when strung together, make for a more painful show than one that only has a couple of all-time-bad segments chunked into the middle of an otherwise okay show… Curt Hennig cuts a promo in which he’s upset about getting his wrist Pillmanized…He promises to come after The Total Package on Nitro and rekindle their ferocious feud from 1993 WWF… Jeff Jarrett meets up with the Harris Bros. backstage…They enjoyed county jail…I’m sure they made a few friends there and are now flying back to North Carolina for quarterly meetings in the woods while wearing hoods… Bam Bam Bigelow comes to the ring…We see a replay of Bammer sliding off that table that he leapt onto in the stairwell on Nitro…That was probably a very unpleasant bump to take…I am mesmerized by Bammer’s shirt…It’s a WCW shirt, but it also promotes (I think) the Kansas State Lottery…It’s got a bunch of different wrestlers’ faces arrayed in a circle around a graphic of a flaring sun…I want to see more of this shirt… Bammer, with no real motivation, is now a babyface who is upset about David Flair and Crowbar getting their necks jacked up by THE WALL, BROTHER…The latter two come to the ring and are joined by Daffney…Unless this is a swerve and TW,B and Bammer are going to be a heel duo, I am baffled by this…Bam Bam beats himself up mentally while Dave and Crowbar sit there in chairs looking weak…He says that he broke TW,B into the business and that he thought they were close friends…I mean, this is such obvious babyface pandering that Bammer’s got to be about to flip a switch and heel it up, right?...TW,B comes to the ring after Bam Bam apologizes to Dave and Crowbar for TW,B’s actions, and…Uh, TW,B punches Bigelow, then attacks Dave and Crowbar…So no, nothing Bigelow is currently doing makes any narrative sense or is aligned with anything we’ve seen out of his character so far…TW,B sets up a table and chokeslams Bigelow through it…He then rips off Dopey Dave’s neck brace and attacks Dave…Crowbar hits a weak chair shot, but alas, his neck is jacked up and he can't get any power on the swing…TW,B attacks him next…It’s too bad that THE WALL, BROTHER sucks because this booking is completely lost on him…Anyone who argues that Goldberg was only really over because he was put over everyone and framed as a total killer, I can just list off a handful of other mega-pushes that WCW tried with guys far less charismatic than Goldberg that didn't come close to even making those lesser wrestlers viable upper-midcarders, much less megastars... After a commercial break, everyone still at the ringside area does stretcher jobs…Then we cut to a pre-tape with Hogan whipping a trio of weight belts while yelling WHATCHA GONNA DO at Ric Flair… The Maestro (w/Symphony) is out…Maestro gets in the ring, some non-Maestro-y music plays, and then production figures out that the Maestro is supposed to talk first…He does, and then the Cat comes out to a totally different dub than normal…This dub actually sounds alright…OK, hold on, so why is this random Thunder from March of 2000 dubbed with totally different songs for TAFKAPI and Ernest Miller than across all the other WCW shows?...The Cat dominates early and uses a slipper to grind the Maestro’s Adam’s apple in the bargain…The Cat hits a Body Slam, but misses a Boogie Elbow…The Maestro gets up and charges, but gets dropped on his face…The Cat grabs the boombox from Symphony, crowns the Maestro with it, and gets three…Oooooookay...So is this weird mini-feud over?...The Cat dances as the Maestro crawls away… Vampiro stands on a rafter, then jumps down from the rafter, then throws stuff around…I guess he’s fired up for his match against Jeff Jarrett… We get a commercial break, and we cut back to Vampiro yelling out a dumb promo in which he cribs at least one ‘90s song, bashes a chair, threatens Finlay, and then threatens Jeff Jarrett… Lash LeRoux cuts a promo with Okerlund somewhere in the arena…Ah, Lash cuts a boilerplate “I love the fans” promo, which enrages Dustin Rhodes, who hates the fans…Rhodes jumps the guy and beats him up all the way down the aisle and into the ring…They have an impromptu match…It’s acceptable…Dustin survives a LeRoux flurry and lands a bulldog for three, then continues his assault after the match…Terry Funk brings a plucked chicken to the ring and beats Rhodes down with it…*sigh*…Rhodes comes back and then elbowdrops the chicken…They brawl into the crowd…I didn’t remember a thing about this feud ever happening, and I wish I hadn’t been reminded that it ever did… Team Package hits the ring to talk for a bit…Winston-Salem is so happy that Ric Flair is actually in the building and on camera for one of their shows…They cheer him…They WOOOOO when he calls someone in the crowd a “fat boy”…Winston-Salem has low-key become one of my favorite wrestling towns for sticking with this stupid company and trying to get excited about it even as, year after year, WCW tries desperately to kill the town… Ric Flair calls Arn Anderson out…He wants Arn to stop making him look bad and to join Team Package…Why Ric would care about losing face in front of The Total Package, I don’t get, but okay…Flair used the word “subservient” to describe Arn, who takes exception to that…Arn wants to talk things out, but Ric doesn’t want to work, he wants Arn to do what he says because Arn’s his friend…See, this sort of attitude is shoot gonna get you in trouble with Arn in a few years, Ric!... Arn is going to talk anyway…Arn lists out a bunch of stuff Flair owns (and says he’s got “money in the bank,” but no, Ric charged all that other shit he owns)…He claims that they’re bad dads, which is probably shoot true, because they lived on the road…He’s disappointed that Ric isn’t helping Dopey Dave out and is instead focused on his own career…Arn puts over TTP as a good wrestler, but not as Ric Flair’s friend, unlike the truth-telling Arn…Arn points out that it’s called Team Package, not Team Flair, after all… The crowd wants Ric to listen to Arn and cut a babyface turn…Ric does not listen to Arn and cut a babyface turn…Basically, Ric is like, Going home and being a family man is for the birds. Ric says that Dopey Dave is an adult and can handle his own business; then, he tells Arn to stop being a father and start being the Enforcer again…Arn says he’s going to choose his last couple of fights, and neither of them will be alongside Team Package…TTP takes the mic and says that Arn’s got one more chance to join, or Arn’s gonna get it, and maybe Ric too…What is the production truck doing back there?...The audio mixing is a mess…Anyway, the angle here is that Ric’s got to figure out whether to stick by Arn or stick with TTP…This wasn’t mind-blowingly good talking, but it was so much better as a talk-heavy segment than anything else they’ve done in probably months that it was almost refreshing… Finlay’s walking backstage, heading to the ring for a match, but Vampiro jumps him and brawls with him… Liz questions TTP’s ultimatum-giving approach as they get in a limo, but Package is sure that he’s made the right move… THA MONSTA MENG comes to the ring…He’s Fit Finlay’s opponent…Tank Abbott runs in and attacks Meng shortly after the match starts….Some Power Plant trainees hit the ring in security shirts…Finlay and Meng destroy them…I have no idea where Tank is at this point…The match, and the segment, just trails off into an impromptu ending… In the back, Booker T. unfairly blames Torrie Wilson for causing Kidman to be unfocused…I didn’t know these two ever shared camera time together…Torrie's face looks like she’s never actually talked to a black person before, which could have been shoot true at that point, actually!...Kidman comes out and complains to Booker about Booker’s complaining to Torrie…Seriously, WCW Creative, you have so few babyfaces who are over with the crowds and ready for elevation…Why would you take two of them and have them work a gimmick where they can’t get along with one another?... Gene Okerlund interviews Disco and the Mamalukes…It goes poorly, but it goes less poorly than it typically does, at least…They have threats for their opps… OK, so anyone can tag anyone else in and one partner getting pinned leads to the team being eliminated in this tag titles match…The Mamalukes (w/Disco Inferno) face Booker T. and Billy Kidman, Harlem Heat Incorporated (w/J. Biggs and Cassius), and the Harris Bros….The first and last teams in that list start brawling before the middle teams even make it to the ring…HHI comes out next; J. Biggs joins commentary…So are there no tags, then?...Everyone brawls in the ring…Booker comes out alone, but Kidman is nowhere to be seen…After about fifty years, Kidman and Torrie deign to come out here…Finally, the match is ordered into a proper tag match… This match pretty much stinks…Here are some eliminations…Booker eliminates Stevie with a side Russian after Big T. tries to hit Book and clears out Stevie instead…There’s a commercial break…We come back to Kidman and Booker T. being eliminated the same fucking way HHI was, damn near…They whiff on a team attack and Kidman gets H-Bombed and pinned…So all that for a fucking Mamalukes/Harris Bros. match, huh?...We get an extended FIP segment with Johnny the Bull in that role…Vito gets a hot tag and hits a bad Savage Elbow on Da/oR, but his cover is broken by Ra/oD…Shortly after, the Harrises H-Bomb the Bull…Disco jumps in and clocks Da/oR with a tag title belt…The Bull covers for three…The tag titles are in hell either way…Oh yeah, the Harrises attack Disco after the match… Okerlund shits on Harlem Heat Incorporated backstage, and Stevie and Biggs run up on him and yell at him for being a meanie head… Here’s the Latest Twist in Booker T.’s Criminally Bad Booking: Also, Stevie challenges Booker T. and Kidman to a tag match against HHI at Uncensored…OH MY GOD, MOVE BOOKER AWAY FROM STEVIE ALREADY…Goddam, this company fucking sucks… After a commercial break, Okerlund is back on the job and interviewing Brian Knobbs, who threatens Three Count…The Dog jumps into the shot and fizzes with foam from an Alka Seltzer tablet while Okerlund yells HE’S RABID…Did I mention that this company fucking sucks?... Jeff Jarrett (w/Midajah, Kim, and Tylene) defends the United States Championship against Vampiro in our main event…He does his whole thing where he gets the girls to agree to flash Vampiro to throw Vamp off his game, and then of course sends them to the back instead…Vampiro comes to the ring and we get a little six-minute special…Vamp stays a step ahead of Jarrett to start, but Jarrett is finally able to land a soft lariat on Vampiro and get some control…The Harris Bros. hit the ringside area…Vamp gets a sloppy go-behind and rolls Jarrett up for two, but he gets caught going up top and punched all the way from the top to the floor… The Harrises attack Vamp, but the Mamalukes come out and attack them…They brawl, which draws Nick Patrick’s attention…He’s late to count a Vampiro uranage that gets a visual three count…Jarrett grabs a chair, but Patrick takes it away…Jarrett switches it up and lands a DDT for two…Jarrett tries a Figure Four, but Vamp small packages him for two…Vamp follows up with two on a schoolboy…Oh wow, a ref bump, I never would have guessed that this spot would happen!...Jarrett goes to get his title belt and tries to swing it at Vamp, who ducks it, catapults Jarrett into the corner, and hits Jarrett with the title belt… In a very dumb spot, Red-Haired Ref Guy runs in and counts to two, but a revived Nick Patrick yanks him off the count and is like I’M NOT UNCONSCIOUS ANYMORE, LET ME DO IT, I’M THE REF…Do those idiots Sullivan, Dillon, and Ferrara sit backstage all day and brainstorm new ways to make their refs the least credible guys on this show, or like, what?...Jarrett gets up and hits a Stroke into the title belt in front of Nick Patrick, who counts three…That was fucking horse shit…Truly, it’s one of the worst finishes that I’ve ever seen in my whole life…No exaggeration…The Harrises run out and H-Bomb Vamp after the match…Vampiro gets spray painted because, oh yeah, Jeff Jarrett and the Harrises comprise nWo 2000 at this point… Do I even have to explain this grade?...OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW IT HURTS REAL BAD…

Show #230 – 6 March 2000 “The one that would be the breaking point if I hadn't committed to watching all of these shows for this project” Finlay is all in Vampiro’s face backstage as we get the ol’ in media res opening. Vampiro, whom they are apparently trying to push, goes fifty-fifty with Finlay in a backstage brawl. Juventud Guerrera is still doing his Dollar Tree Rock nonsense, but at least he’s got his sling off! He and Psicosis are in the ring, and the latter is specifically here to face Kaz Hayashi of the Jung Dragons – that’s what Tony S. says, which is a heck of a way to debut the Jung Dragons on Nitro - in a match that should be alright, man, look at the talent in this ring. Kaz out-quicks Psicosis and eventually lands a back kick for two. Commentary keeps talking about the Jung Dragons and how Kaz is the leader, which makes me think that they debuted on WCWSN or something. This is so strange. How are we supposed to know anything about these guys the way they're presenting them unless we saw it on WCW.com or WCWSN or whatever? Anyway, this match looks like it could be great fun, but almost immediately after I let myself grow some investment into this bout, Finlay and Vampiro brawl their way through it because things are WILD and WACKY and shit, so forget this match being as good as it could be. Psicosis gets 2.8 off a Latino Frankensteiner as now TAFKAPI and Paisley walk to ringside. WCW could fuck up a wet dream, man. If they just properly debuted the Jung Dragons and then let these two have a good opener, that would be enough. TAFKAPI and Paisley jabber at Juvi outside the ring while Psicosis hits a guillotine legdrop inside the ring. He doesn’t cover, and Paisley distracts the ref while TAFKAPI hits him in the head with the belt. I’m glad that Kaz is put over strong here, what with needing to roll Psicosis up off that belt shot to win. What a dangerous guy that leader of the Jung Dragons is! Juvi and Psicosis beat down TAFKAPI after the match. Why is it so hard for Sullivan and Company to book a simple segment properly?! Tonight’s matchups: Sid and Vampiro vs. Jeff Jarrett and NO, I am not calling him Heavy D. He’s Da/oR Harris. God, WCW is stupid, and not in the fun way. Also, we’ll get yet another Ric Flair vs. Curt Hennig match. We cut to a backstage pull apart between Finlay and Vampiro that no one in their right mind would give a shit about. We then cut to Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Bros. crowing about what an easy target Vampiro will be in the main event. Disco and the Mamalukes cut a promo on the Harris Bros., who are getting a tag title match with them at Uncensored. This promo is fucking DIRE. What is up with this cheese sandwich gimmick that Johnny is trying to get over? Vampiro kicks stuff around backstage while in a rage. ENOUGH VAMPIRO, and I say that as a guy who thinks he should be pushed since he somehow got over in the past three or four months even with WCW creative being a void. Riki Rachtman is down the road from Chapel Hill at rival Duke University. Some kid won a trip to South Padre Island. We get a B-Roll of college kids hanging out earlier in the day at this WCW Spring Break event. You know, the usual. Vampiro stormed out of the building; TTP and Ric Flair get into the building at the same point of entry/exit. Tony S. is blown away by the synchronicity of these events. Ra/oD Harris faces Vito (w/Disco Inferno and Johnny the Bull). The Harris Bros. use “Rockhouse,” and it makes me long for the days of Horace Hogan and Crush coming to the ring to “Rockhouse,” somehow. This match isn’t good because, I mean, come on. At least it’s short. Vito hits Ra/oD with a Paisan Plunge, but the Harris Bros. do a switcheroo with a chain shot assist and get the victory…at least until Billy Silverman sees the replay on the TurnerTron and reverses the decision. I think these short matches with lots of overbooked nonsense prove one thing: Whatever it was that Vince Russo was trying to do with his style of booking a show, he is far better at it than Kevin Sullivan et al., who are doing that same style, but at a markedly worse level of quality. Oh yeah, the Harris Bros. destroyed Disco, the Mamalukes, and some Power Plant trainees masquerading as security after the match. I cannot believe that these bookers are dumb enough to push the Harrises as a dominant force. Even Russo was smart enough to book them as goofy mooks. Holy shit, Russo coming back is going to be a clear improvement over this era of Sullivan et al. That is wild. David Flair promises Gene Okerlund that he’ll be giving himself a 21st birthday gift that you can’t wrap, unless you count it that he’s fixing to wrap his golden crowbar around the head of THE WALL, BROTHER. The Harrises shoved a uniformed cop in that earlier melee, so they get arrested backstage as Jeff Jarrett whines about it. David Flair (w/Daffney, Daffney’s “DAVID’S LEGAL” shirt) is not possibly going to have as fun a sprint against THE WALL, BROTHER as Crowbar did on the previous Thunder. Bless TW, B’s heart; he tries very hard, but he’s simply not any good. TW,B stacks two tables on top of one another. They’re meant for Dopey Dave, who celebrates by standing on the ropes after a crowbar shot and gets goozled and chokeslammed through the tables in short order. Honestly, if they’re going to mega-push guys who aren’t any good, I much prefer they do it with TW,B instead of the Harrises. Daffney shrieks in terror as she kneels over Dave's broken body and then lets out a hopeless sob that touched a note in my brain and genuinely made me feel deeply sad for her. Curt Hennig, Arn Anderson, and Terry Funk come down to check on Dopey Dave and are shocked that Papa Ric doesn’t give a fuck about his kid getting slaughtered. Uh, they still have beef from early 1999 that didn’t ever get a proper resolution, remember? Why is Bam Bam Bigelow so mad about TW,B slaughtering Dopey Dave? Bammer’s done worse to opponents, especially in those hardcore bouts he was so proud to try and win. Anyway, he stands in a stairwell backstage and yells at TW,B that he didn’t teach him to go chokeslamming young dopes through tables, so TW,B shoves him off the stairs and onto a table weirdly set up in the stairwell for some reason before walking off. The Hardcore Champ(ions) Three Count are in the ring, and Shane Helms is dressed in a FUBU football jersey and Oddjob’s hat. It’s amazing. They face The Dog Al Greene (w/Fit Finlay and Brian Knobbs). I am baffled by this Al Greene push. What is happening?! Three Count get murked, but land a team-up dropkick, which is when Knobbs and Finlay jump in the ring. Finlay hits a Pit Stop, to tell you how low this guy has fallen. You’d never guess that the awesome run of 2005-2007 Finlay is ever going to be a thing from his 2000 work. This match goes on way too long and The Dog gets way too much offense in on Shane Helms. Helms eventually falls to a second-rope powerslam as Tony S. promotes a Knobbs vs. Three Count Hardcore Championship match at Uncensored in which Knobbs must pin all three men to win the title. Woof (pun intended). The Total Package, Ric Flair, and Liz cut a promo with Gene Okerlund. Package thinks that Sting is scared of him. Ric Flair thinks his dopey son is twenty-one and needs to take care of himself, and he also thinks that Hulkamania will soon be dead. They somehow killed the Nitro Girls off and made them irrelevant, and they were only ever meant to hype the crowd in the first place! Anyway, they do a dance. Sid pleads with Vampiro to hang around and tag with him in the main event. The nWo ladies have finally been named on television! Jeff Jarrett (w/Midajah, Kim, and Tylene) hits the ramp to cut a shitty promo. Jarrett, who told the ladies to come out here with him, now tells them to hit the bricks. This is by far the least effective version of his misogynist gimmick possible. Jarrett doesn’t like incompetent Southern cops or working main events without the Harris Bros. around, but he pledges to get a partner from the back anyway. That partner is, in an intertwining of massive over-pushes, THE WALL, BROTHER. Lenny and Lodi think talking about the RIZZATS is funny. It’s not. They’re dressed more like off-brand Hardy Boys this week. They come across the KISS Demon’s casket and goof around with it. Mark Madden spins a very dumb yarn about the fictional Yappapi tribe and their propensity for violence as Curt Hennig comes to the ring to face Ric Flair. Papa Ric cuts a promo before the match in which he tries desperately to get Chapel Hill to boo him. He insults UNC basketball, but they cheer him. He finally gets a few boos for saying that he’d rather be wrestling in Durham, but there are enough Duke fans in the crowd that he still gets mostly cheers. God, Flair sucks, man. His outdated bag of heel cheap heat tricks is not going to cut it. It’s over, Flair. No one wants to fucking boo you. Just be a babyface. This dude is determined to ignore what fans want or the internal logic of a wrestling match. When he’s great, he really is as great as consensus says that he is, but I find that after about 1997, Ric Flair’s inability to adjust to the progression of the times or to his stature with WCW fans makes him mostly fucking garbage. As for the match, it is what it is. 1992/1993 was a long time ago. Tony S. tries to claim that the crowd is chanting for Hogan. It’s like two people for a handful of seconds! Flair works the knee after an initial Hennig flurry. He locks on a Figure Four in the center of the ring to a pop; so much for heeling and HOGAN chants and all that. Hennig survives and turns it over. They get to their feet and fight over a backslide that Hennig wins and scores a two count with. Flair goes up top and, even though Hennig is practically missing a knee, the latter still catches him and launches him. TTP and Liz make their way to the ring, but Hennig fights them all off and snugly hooks Flair in a Perfect Plex for a quick three. TTP jumps in after the match and attacks Hennig with the bat while I appreciate that at least the booking committee isn’t even trying to pretend that Flair will have a remote chance at beating Hogan at Uncensored considering he can’t beat midcarder Curt Hennig. Arn Anderson comes down to try and interrupt TTP’s Pillmanizing of Hennig’s arm, but he’s ineffectual. Arn and Ric face off; Package circles around and sets up a bat shot on Arn, but Ric calls him off, and the heels leave the ring. Well, the match was inoffensive, but why not give Vampiro the clean win and Hennig the reversed victory since Vampiro is actually (theoretically) a part of WCW’s future, and Curt Hennig is a midcard guy going forward? The KISS Demon comes upon To Excess trying to blowtorch their way into his casket; he attacks them, but they beat him up and take off. Pre-tape: Riki Rachtman promotes Friday Nitro Parties, featuring Three Count and the Nitro Girls. Curt Hennig’s wrist is broken according to the medics who help him out backstage. Team Package laugh about breaking Hennig’s wrist backstage. To Excess is still acting like Too Much, but they’re dressed like the Hardy Boys. Their whole stupid-ass gimmick is incoherent. They don’t even understand which (far more over than them) WWF tag team they’re parodying. Lenny’s going to wrestle Norman Smiley, who I guess is brave now? He didn’t work a scaredy-cat gimmick for very long, only about three months. I thought that gimmick lasted longer. Lodi joins commentary, and it sucks. The in-ring competitors do some awkward spots and Norm completely fails to catch Lenny on a dive. This is the worst that I’ve seen Norm look. Tony S. tries to steer Mark Madden away from talking about the “loose moral character” of the RIZZATS. The ref is some red-haired dude whom I don’t recognize. Ms. Hancock walks to ringside while Norm and Lenny work mediocre comedy spots. The crowd is excited for two things: 1) Norm hitting a Big Wiggle, and 2) Ms. Hancock teasing a table dance. Norm wins with a Norman Conquest and is attacked by Lenny and Lodi after the match. The KISS Demon hits the ring to help Norm make a comeback. Sid tries very hard to get this feud with Jeff Jarrett over in a backstage interview, but as fun as he is, he’s not a miracle worker. Tank Abbott yells at people backstage even though HE’S NOT S’POSETA BE HERE, according to a desperately selling Tony S. After a commercial break, we get Abbott cutting a shitty worked shoot promo in which he calls Sid a “big, white…headed oaf” and says he only tapped because WCW was threatening to take him off television, which they probably legit did after he held a knife to a dude’s throat on PPV. He’s refusing to leave the ring in a move that has, at this point, diminishing returns from when Randy Savage first did it on Nitro over three years ago (Show #72). La Parka comes to the ring with a chair and gets beaten up. Meng comes out next (to a small pop!). He wants to fight Tank, but J.J. Dillon threatens him with a suspension for two months, no pay. Heh, here’s Hogan with the classic NUMBER ONE promo that Botchamania has used to wonderful effect. He’ll get a “so bad, it’s good” nod for this one. OK, let me just fucking write this whole promo out word-for-word: FIRST THINGS FIRST, I WANNA LET DR. PROPER KNOW, I WANNA LET DR. UNGER KNOW, AND DR. HUGHES KNOW THAT THE RELEASE FORMS HAVE BEEN SIGNED. YOU GUYS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LAST COUPLE FRACTURES IN THE FOREARM, BROTHER. THE MAIN PRIORITY IN THE YAPPAPI INDIAN STRAP MATCH IS TO HAVE FLEXIBILITY OF THE WRIST THAT YOU’RE STRAPPED TO YOUR OPPONENT WITH, BROTHER. BECAUSE IN THE YAPPAPI INDIAN STRAP MATCH, WHEN YOU’RE IN THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE BATTLE ZONE, THE MAIN PRIORITY IS, IS TO GET THE BODY IN THE PROPER POSITION FOR THE STRAPATION, DUDES. WHEN I GET RIC FLAIR RIGHT WHERE I WANT HIM, WHEN I GET HIM OUTTA WIND, SUCKIN’ AIR, SWEATIN’ FROM HEAD TO TOE, I WILL CALL TO THE STRAPMASTER JIMMY HART ON RINGSIDE, AND I WILL SAY TO JIMMY HART AT RINGSIDE, “GIMME YAPPAPI INDIAN PUNISHMENT STRAP NUMBA ONE” *swings weight belt*. AND AS I STRAP YOUR BODY, RIC FLAIR, AS YOU SCREAM TO THE HEAVENS FOR MERCY, AND AS I SEE YOUR SKIN START TO BUBBLE OFF YOUR BODY, YOU WILL DROP TO YOUR KNEES, AND YOU WILL SAY, “PLEASE MR. HOGAN, PLEASE, I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE, PLEASE, I’M SORRY I CROSSED THE LINE.” AND AS I HEAR YOU BEG FOR MERCY, RIC FLAIR, THAT’S WHEN I’LL CALL TO THE STRAPMASTER JIMMY HART FOR YAPPAPI INDIAN STRAPPAGE NUMBA TWO. *swings weight belt twice* THAT’S WHEN THE HEAVIER BELTS COME OUT. THAT’S WHEN I WILL STRAP YOUR SKIN, AND THE FLESH WILL BUBBLE. THAT’S WHEN THE FLESH WILL START TO PEEL FROM YOUR HIDE. AND AS I SEE THE RAW. PINK. MEAT. ON YOUR BACK, BROTHER, I’M GONNA TAKE IT TO ANOTHER LEVEL. I WILL TRANSFORM FROM HULK TO HOLLYWOOD. I WILL DOUBLE-STRAP YOU WITH BOTH FISTS, AND YOU WILL SCREAM TO THE HEAVENS, “PLEASE HOLLYWOOD, DON’T HURT ME ANYMORE,” AND I WILL NEVER. STOP. *snarls* This promo was entirely out of the context of the time and possibly a bit cheesy even if he had cut it in 1986, but unlike his promo about going to the hood and being called ‘Wood, this was, in fact, so terrible that I came back around and enjoyed it. But not in the way that would be a compliment! I enjoyed it because I enjoyed laughing at Hogan being a complete failure of a wrestler in 2000 and going back to his bread-and-butter of cutting mid-‘80s promos, but slightly worse, as a way to compensate for being old and out of touch. This promo was the wrestling equivalent of Grampa Simpson talking about tying an onion to his belt because it was the style at the time. It helps that Maffew has gotten so much traction out of it for years and years of videos about lower-quality wrestling. I loved it because I hated it, if that makes sense. After that, we go back to the arena and the future sworn enemy of Hulk Hogan; Billy Kidman (w/Torrie Wilson) makes his way down the ramp. Mark Madden implies that Hulk Hogan jacks off a lot, and therefore will have lots of flexibility of the wrist when he sets up for the STRAPATION, DUDES in that strap match. Tony S. pauses, says nothing, and moves on after a few seconds. Stevie Ray (w/J. Biggs, Big T., and Cassius) is his opponent. Kidman grabs a mic and says that he got some back up, but Big T. and Stevie jump him and stomp him out before he can introduce said partner, Booker T. Somehow, Booker gets a pop upon entering even though he’s been booked into the dirt over the past few months. This was supposed to be Stevie vs. Kidman, but it’s now Stevie and Big T. vs. Kidman and Booker. Booker disposes of Stevie and hits Big T. with a Book End that poor Tony Norris barely gets up for because he is cooked, washed, done, finito. Kidman follows with an SSP, but Cassius pulls the ref out of the ring and Stevie attacks Kidman. Big T. rolls over and covers for three. Here’s the Latest Twist in Booker T.’s Criminally Bad Booking: Booker and Kidman get destroyed after the match. Jarrett yaps at THE WALL, BROTHER to try and fire him up for the Nitro main event. In another Nitro Party pre-tape, Riki Rachtman talks to Three Count about how much the ladies love them, which is actually sort of true because on Thunder, there was a high-pitched cheer for them at one point during their segment. Then, some young folks do awful dancing to close this segment out. Here’s Dustin Rhodes with another promo where he piles on a bunch of insults and cusses to try and get his heel character over. He loses his place while searching for an insulting adjective to pair with “ungrateful.” He hates the internet marks in the crowd here in, uh, Chapel Hill, and he threatens to use the spool of rubber-tipped barbed wire he’s brought to the ring with him to attack Terry Funk with. Terry Funk (w/Hefty garbage bag) limps down the ramp to respond. It’s depressing how shitty Dustin Rhodes and Terry Funk are, man. I don’t want to see these guys suck at pro wrestling. Terry Funk calls his opps a "chicken" like fifty times. Funk claims that he has Dustin’s bastard of an illegitimate baby brother in the bag, and it’s Cody a raw whole chicken in a diaper. They brawl. Funk takes a beating, but comes back, and Dustin ends up running away while wrapped in the barbed wire. Jeff Jarrett (w/Midajah, Kim, and Tylene) teams up with THE WALL, BROTHER to wrestle Syko Sid and Vampiro. I’d complain about the U.S. Championship being stuck on Jarrett and mostly sidelined, but what would they do with it if not put it on him? Use it as a tool with which to push Booker or Kidman or something crazy like that? Jarrett tells the ladies to stick around and put on a show for the crowd, but psych! He’s kidding. He sends the ladies to the back. What a daring heel move that was. So, Tony S. reveals that the stip for Sting/Package at Uncensored is a Lumberjack Cast Match in which every guy who has had his arm broken by Package and is now in a cast will be the lumberjacks. It’s almost like Russo never left, but worse somehow. Wild. This match is weak beer even though Madden drops an OH SHIT on commentary while the workers have a boilerplate brawl to open things. It’s also another tag match where the shine is abbreviated and so is the FIP segment because the match is four minutes long or whatever. Sid hits Jarrett with a chokeslam, but TW,B breaks up the pinfall. TW,B knocks Vampiro into the guardrail as Sid dispatches of Jarrett. Sid and TW,B hit a double goozle, and the ref takes a bump off the most obvious, fakest-ass spot where Sid swings his elbow back for no reason and hits Nick Patrick in a spot that Patrick wouldn’t logically stand in kayfabe. Jarrett KABONGs Sid and TW,B completes his chokeslam; Jarrett covers for three. In brief, and in spite of Hogan’s shameful failures as a wrestler actually amusing me for once, this was the worst WCW show I’ve ever seen and is on the short list for worst wrestling shows I’ve ever seen, full stop. If I had committed to watching every Nitro, Thunder, and PPV until I really, honestly, truly couldn’t take any more, this is where I finally would have tapped out. Alas, I’m planning on writing about Thunder tomorrow. -100,000,000,000 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Jarrett was certainly best as a midcarder in 1997 WCW, when he was excellent, but I still submit that if he was megapushed in 2000 WWF, he'd have gotten just as over as HHH did. Not yet! We've still got two weeks of promos for Uncensored, though, so it should be soon.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and one – 1 March 2000 "The WCW Gang has a path to immediately improving the midcard, but whether they'll take it is another matter" Alright, it’s the weekend…Time to Thunderrrrrrrrrrr… According to the sheets from around this time, Terry Taylor is OUT and J.J. Dillon is (and has been) IN when it comes to the booking committee…I want to make sure to spread the blame for this first post-Russo era around to everywhere it belongs… Recap: Nitro still doesn’t have any good angles…I’m no Vampiro fan, but this half-assed Vampiro push is still disappointing… Terry Taylor meets Sid as Sid enters the building…Sid apparently had some request of Taylor, and he verifies that Taylor (and the executive committee, I assume) met that request… We open with the WCW Cruiserweight Championship still stuck in jail…TAFKAPI (w/Paisley) defends the title against Chavo Guerrero Jr. (!!!)…PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF IT ALL, PUT THE BELT ON CHAVO…Tenay tries to sell that TAFKAPI has changed his in-ring style so much, it might vex the returning Chavo…Uh, the guy just added a shitty diving DDT…Chavo should be fine…Tenay desperately sells Juvi Guerrera and Rey Misterio Jr. coming back sooner rather than later this year, so please don’t give up on this poorly-booked division…There’s a tiny CHAVO chant…This guy is still over with part of the crowd even with the shit booking and gaps where he’s not on television…I’ve personally turned into a MASSIVE Chavo Jr. mark after this watch… Anyway, Chavo survives an early diet of strikes from TAFKAPI and gets a couple of two counts…TAFKAPI tries a whip, but Chavo reverses it and sends TAFKAPI through the ropes and to the floor…He follows up with a dive…Paisley senses danger and gets on the apron…She has the belt behind her back…The ref is distracted by Paisley, but turns around to see that TAFKAPI has taken the belt from her and hit Chavo with it…Chavo wins by DQ…Look, if this means that Chavo gets another title shot at Uncensored and wins it, that’s fine with me… Tenay tells us that Sid’s request was for the match that comprises tonight’s main event: Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Bros. vs. Syko Sid, Booker T., and Billy Kidman…Sure, why not?... Gene Okerlund interviews The Total Package and Ric Flair…Through this mediocre promo, we find out that TTP will face Vampiro later tonight…Sting is mentioned in this promo...By the way, Sting came back for like one show, then left again…That is so strange…Sting is clearly disinterested in exerting any energy for this stupid company… Chavo Jr.’s dumb ass talks to Okerlund and explains why he’s not selling cheap products anymore…Holy shit, he sounds just like Dee Reynolds trying to explain the Invigoron pyramid scheme in her marketing video…Hold on, here's what he said: “You know that multilevel marketing program that I subscribed to? Well, it turned out to be a fiscal albatross resulting in the net worth of my liquid assets downsizing to the point where my venture capital could not—could not sustain…In layman’s terms, I went broke”… Holy shit, Chavo, you’re the best…He slyly steals Okerlund’s watch on the way out of the interview to help recoup some of his lost assets…I see Uncle Eddy taught him a few tricks before venturing up north… Dustin Rhodes cuts another heatless promo…He calls everyone “smarks”…You’re in fucking Fargo, North Dakota, stupid…This isn’t Reseda or some bingo hall in Philadelphia…No one in this crowd knows what the FUCK you are talking about…God, Dustin SUCKS right now…Cussing and telling the fans to get screwed is not going to help make rest of your nonsense work in these promos…He’s got pre-taped footage of Terry Funk at an autograph session…Dustin does the same thing Sting did to the Hulkster back in October of ’99 (Show #208) and sneak up behind his opps to ask for an autograph before attacking… Back in the arena, Dustin pillories the fans some more after the footage plays, and Terry Funk sneaks into the ring and attacks him with a chair…And the crowd goes mild!...Funk lands a bunch of chair shots and insults the Rhodes family in general for being hot trash…All I have to say to the Funker is that if you think out-of-shape, creatively bankrupt Dustin sucks, just wait until you see Cody!...HOLY HELL, this segment will simply not end...Dustin makes a comeback, calls Funk a piece of shit (EDGY!!!), and hits the Funker with a bunch of chair shots to the dome…All this for this nothing-ass feud?...Fargo did wake up a bit during this long-ass segment, but not to the level you’d hope for all the cussing and chair shots to the head that went into it… Gene Okerlund inflicts an interview with the Harris Bros. on us…They threaten the Mamalukes, who sent them another ominous package…Jarrett jumps in on the promo and talks about the strong bloodline that the Harris Bros. come from…Uh, okay, that comment is a little unfortunate considering who he’s talking about…Then, he tells the nWo ladies that he’s firing one of them…He’s going to run a night-long contest and fire the one who does the worst at the end…I cannot imagine who thought that this would be compelling television… Sid tries to get Booker T. and Billy Kidman on the same page backstage… Three Count poses in the ring with the Hardcore Championship…I’m so proud of these guys…Even that dopey Evan Karagias…Brian Knobbs busts up the dance routine by yelling a lot…OK, he tells Fit Finlay to bring out THE DOGGGGG…It’s just Al Greene…Heenan: “[Greene] told me in the back, I WANNA BE CALLED THE DOG”…Are we entirely sure that this is meant to be a joke?...The Dog almost kills Helms by spinebusting him into the ropes…Greene no sells a bunch of Three Count moves, and you know what, I refuse to take any of this seriously…The Hardcore Championship is so meaningless that putting it collectively on Three Count is fine with me, but deciding that Al Greene needed to get involved with any of this is a bridge too far…These three destroy Three Count before the Dog hits a diving powerslam on Helms through a table for three…I think they meant to play this straight…I don’t think it was meant to be a joke at all!... Okerlund does an interview with a dubbed-over La Parka, who steals Konnan’s gimmick by SPEAKING ON DIS…Parka leaves and Okerlund goes into the nWo locker room to harass the ladies… I guess the first contest is a spelling bee in which the "joke" is that all these ladies are as dumb they are physically attractive…Midajah starts spelling in Spanish though, and sorry to be base, but her accent is extremely hot…Overall, however, fuck this show and fuck these skits and fuck WCW creative… The KISS Demon comes out for a contractually obligated super-special Thunder main event!...His opponent is La Parka…The match is dull, though there is a spot where La Parka gets launched into his own chair…Oh wow, Demon does a fucking People’s Demon’s Elbow…It looks incredibly dumb…La Parka lands a Corkscrew Body Press for three shortly after… Nick Patrick lets Slick Johnson know that he’s got another match against Mickey Jay tonight…OH JOY… Jarrett beat the first three ladies in an arm wrestling contest off camera, but the fourth one, for whom the fix is in, quickly defeats Okerlund…Okerlund gets excited about the swimsuit competition while I wonder when Vince Russo gets back to work…Russo was bad, but in ways that were far more interesting than the Sullivan et al. booking committee has been since it took over in January… An unpainted Sting yells out a quick promo and informs us that he’s going to fight TTP at Uncensored…Package responds with threats while walking backstage as he prepares to face Vampiro…There’s a break… The KidCam catches Buff a) not knowing who “Lane and Idol” are, which makes sense since they are forever known as Lenny and Lodi, and b) actually earning the affections of Ms. Hancock…The funny thing is that Buff isn’t trying to hit on Hancock, so because she’s not feeling pressured, she is relaxed enough to get into the idea of going on a date with Buff…Heenan says he hasn’t seen Buff ever strike out with the ladies, which Tenay refuses to acknowledge just like Heenan has refused to apparently acknowledge the last few weeks of WCW television… The Total Package (w/Liz) wrestles Vampiro…Tenay thinks that Vampiro is reminiscent of a young Sting…Um, no?!...Package disrespectfully slaps Vamp, which fires Vampiro up…Vamp hits a run of offense on Package and slaps him back…Package realizes that he actually has to try against Vampiro and suckers him in before tossing him into the buckles…Package hits a nice back suplex, huh, a nice wrestling move from Package for the first time in too long…I think the last match Package has been in that I’ve appreciated was that Havoc match against the Hitman… Package controls with offense that is mostly less good than that back suplex…Ah, he hits a press slam and then does Vampiro’s headbanging taunt…Powerslam, Torture Rack signal, but Vamp flips out of the Torture Rack and hits a spinning wheel kick…He lands a diving clothesline, and the crowd is legit into the guy…Vamp lands a facebuster, which is when Ric Flair comes to the ring and tries to involve himself…Vamp fights them both off, but Liz hops onto the apron and tags Vamp in the back with the bat…Package locks on a Torture Rack for the victory…Flair straps Vampiro with Hogan’s weight belt after the match…Luger wraps his chair around Vamp’s wrist and Pillmanizes him… Let’s run this Mickey Jay/Slick Johnson thing already…Can you believe that Mickey Jay is only 37 at the time of this show?...This man looks like he’s older than he actually was when he died…Are we sure that COVID-19 didn't somehow already ravage his body before 2000,much less in 2021 or whatever it was when he died?...Ref Nick Patrick helps Jay win by handing him a roll of quarters…Tenay says some nonsense about the series being one apiece…Aw, hell no… Okerlund is excited to skeeve on the ladies, who walk out in swimsuits…Jarrett picks the one blonde who has won all the contests so far…I’m bored, move it along… Crowbar (w/Daffney and David Flair) faces THE WALL, BROTHER…Crowbar does what he can to make this interesting…And TW,B does as well, considering that he takes an unprotected chair shot, to boot…Crowbar lands a running splash off the apron, which is one of my favorite signature spots in the company right now…He can’t suplex TW,B back into the ring, though…TW,B turns it into a front suplex…He goes up, but Crowbar hits a running dropkick on him, knocking him backward onto the apron, before he can launch…Impressive vertical jump from Crowbar!...Crowbar gets on the apron and runs at TW,B, but TW,B goozles him and chokeslams him from the apron and through the broadcast table (!!!)…The match is immediately called off…Well, this was a two-minute special that goddam RULED…I didn’t expect that!...It wasn’t long enough to be a full-on good match, but it was a most charming and unique little garbage sprint… After a break, they stretcher Crowbar out of the arena…They get a couple of AWESOME slo-mo replays of the chokeslam in here…If this match were just a handful of minutes longer at the same general quality level, it would have legit been good…PUSH CROWBAR,YOU IDIOTS, YOU MORONS, YOU RUBES… Recap: Team Package and Hulk Hogan are having a feud so boring that I’m actually more interested in a potential Crowbar/TW,B feud right now than I am TP/Hogan feuding... Gene Okerlund interviews Billy Kidman, Booker T., and Syko Sid in the back…They seem to all be on the same page…Now see, pairing Booker and Kidman with Sid long term is an interesting idea…The former two fellas need to be elevated ASAP with this gutted WCW midcard…Sid mentions being buddies and tag partners with Booker from way back…IRL, but also in kayfabe from back when none other than THA SHOCKMASTERRRRRRRR burst through a wall… Jarrett is still running this fucking competition and making me long for Kevin Nash pretending that he thinks he’s Commissioner Gordon…The other ladies attack the one who won all the other contests and douse her in baby powder…Jarrett fires Ms. Baby Powder…Is WCW’s creative team trying to get this show cancelled?... We immediately cut away to EMTs working on Crowbar to continue putting over what was indeed an awesome high spot from a few segments ago… Buff Bagwell hits the ring to wrestle Ric Flair…Buff Bagwell wrestling a north-of-fifty Ric Flair sounds like it could potentially be hell…Let’s see how it goes, though…Buff locks on a Figure Four early, but Flair gets to the ropes…Buff dominates the early going…Flair eventually lands a pair of shots to Buff’s sack…Flair hits his typical offense before losing a strikefest and doing his typical heel spots where he’s getting overwhelmed…TTP and Liz come to the ring…Buff lands a Blockbuster, but Package hits Buff in the head with a bat as ref Charles Robinson desperately looks for Liz so he can be credibly distracted…Package puts Flair on top of a KO’d Buff for three…This sucked…It wasn’t hell, just bad and boring…Team Package destroys Buff after the match like they did to Vampiro…Curt Hennig runs down to make the save… HAHAHAHA, so after the break, Buff comes upon the blonde who got fired, and she sobs out that the “NWA” turned her down…He comforts her while I laugh at her unintentional punchline… Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Bros. face Syko Sid Vicious, Booker T., and Billy Kidman in the main event…Booker overwhelms Jarrett to start…Jarrett gets a quick punch in and tags out to Da/oR, but Booker gets back on top and tags out to Kidman…Kidman keeps the train rolling until he whiffs on a dropkick, but he quickly drop toeholds a charging Ra/oD before eventually getting clotheslined and put into a spot of trouble…Kidman is our FIP in this four-minute special, I suppose…The crowd wants SID SID SID and finally get him after a Kidman double-tag…It’s a bit awkward, but Book and Sid control the ring…Sid chokeslams Jarrett while Booker clears out the Harris Bros…Sid powerbombs Jarrett, and Booker covers for two before a Harris Bro yanks the ref out….Kidman tries a missile dropkick, but Jarrett ducks and Kidman hits Booker… Here’s the Latest Twist in Booker T.’s Criminally Bad Booking: Booker eats the pinfall and gets tossed from the ring before Kidman gets H-Bombed and Sid gets KABONG’d… This show, as badly as it sucked, showed a way forward for this midcard…Heavy pushes for Vampiro, Kidman, Booker, Crowbar, and Chavo Jr….And quickly, too, as this show is in dire need of over midcarders…OWWWWWWWWW…

I've always been bummed that the rumored mass beatdown of Rick Steiner by a bunch of WCW workers he abused on the last Thunder or Nitro or whatever didn't end up happening, but Vordell giving Rick Steiner that work is a pretty good consolation prize. On a side note, I've always enjoyed the random Vordell Walker matches from the aughts that I've come across.

I thought that was regular hell.

Pretty sure we already got that in 1998 when Euro Champ D'Lo was announced as now residing in Budapest.

It was. The darkest and funniest parts of the book are cut (the urinal cake incident, the multi-way phone call about where to go for dinner) in exchange for keeping most of the murders. That book is barely filmable, but Mary Harron did the best possible job with the adaptation. Unintentional comedy, I presume, but let's find out if WCW can surprise me by being intentionally funny. And who can tell what you might have imagined as a '99-'00 WCW viewer? I wouldn't believe that I witnessed half of what I write about if I hadn't put it in writing. This is going to be a Where's Waldo? type of game for me, which should help me stay engaged through the upcoming months of Tank Abbott and Harris Bros. run-ins. Yeah, they did, proving that tOSU students aren't as smart as their reputation would suggest. Did Rachtman, you know, train at all before this match? Even for one second? At any point?

Show #229 – 28 February 2000 “The one that is a night full of disappointing championship matches” Welcome to Nitro, where we’re still trying to get Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Bros. over as massive threats! The good thing about Nitro is that it opens with quick-cut recaps of the recent proceedings in the big angles. The bad thing about Nitro is that every angle is dogshit, so I’d prefer to watch RAW, the Westminster Dog Show, Monday Night Football, a regular season NBA game, etc., etc. instead. I mean, they think I’m getting fired up for Mickey Jay waging war on Slick Johnson and Kevin Nash pretending to have amnesia. WCW’s going out sad. HAHAHA, okay, Sid Vicious versus Tank Abbott for the big gold is the major match for tonight. Mike Tenay runs up and asks Jeff Jarrett what he thinks about this match, and Jarrett says he’s not concerned about who wins that match, but he’ll still be sure to interject his over-pushed ass into it somehow. We’re in Minneapolis tonight, so I hope Daffney is still wearing what she was wearing on the previous Thunder. I mean, I hope she’s washed it since then, of course. The Mamalukes (w/Disco Inferno) open the show with a defense of their tag titles against To Excess, it looks like. Ms. Hancock woodenly says that “it’s time to teach these boys a lesson” after Lenny and Lodi blow her off backstage. Remember when Lenny was ostentatiously gay? That was two gimmicks and eight months of television ago, but it feels like an eternity. The extremely leggy Ms. Hancock walks out immediately and joins commentary along with Disco. No one cares about this match, so her being a total distraction is fine. Mark Madden does get a rare laugh out of me by escalating his offers of various amenities to Ms. Hancock. He starts by offering her a chair and ends by offering her some French vanilla ice cream and a glass of sherry. That was honestly quite funny. He also yells at Disco every time Disco tries to cut in and get some attention for himself. Eventually, Miss Hancock once again table dances. Lenny and Johnny the Bull offer her dollar bills while Lodi and Vito have a match. Vito lands a Paisan Plunge on a distracted Lodi for three and let me assure you once more: No. One. Cares. Vito is allowed to talk after the match for some reason. He does ask Hancock to celebrate with them by shaking her non-existent ass (sorry, but she keeps trying to shake it, and there’s nothing there, and this is not body shaming, but a mere observation, and she’s a very physically attractive lady regardless!), so the crowd is fine with him daring to cut a promo. The Harris Bros. run in and attack the Mamalukes. One of these zeroes yells about wanting to be tag champs on the house mic. The Harris Bros. versus the Mamalukes for the tag titles makes me long for the days of Harlem Heat vs. the WTRs. Tonight’s matches: The aforementioned Tank Abbott/Syko Sid match for the big gold; Jeff Jarrett vs. Vampiro for the United States Championship. A bunch of guys who I don’t particularly want to watch are here, and also so is Sting. Buff Bagwell has zero shot at Liz, right? She shuts him down hilariously on the KidCam. Apparently, the KidCam caught this incident earlier in the day because Liz sits in a locker room with TTP and Ric Flair and watches the segment. Package and Ric are incredulous that Buff even bothered to shoot his shot. They claim to have plans for Bagwell and leave to execute them. They’re trying to hype this Sid/Tank match by asking midcarders who is going to win. Bam Bam Bigelow picks Sid. Riki Rachtman still exists as a WCW employee, and he’s on the scene with Chae, doing the university rounds before another WCW Spring Break show. They do a little pre-taped promo at THE Ohio State University, where some college dudes do some obstacle course stuff and Three Count gives a check to a charity. Also, some young lady wins a raffle and gets to go to South Padre Island on Turner’s dime. Good for her! Hahaha, here we go with Hulk Hogan cutting wacky-ass promos to set up a strap match with Ric Flair. He’s going to edge toward “so bad, it’s good” with each promo, and this is a nice start. He dramatically talks about Jimmy Hart, almost dead on a stretcher last week, muttering the word YAPPAPI, and Hogan knew what a barely-clinging-to-life Hart was suggesting: THE YAPPAPI STRAP MATCH. Let’s let Hogan tell it to Flair: AS I STRAP THAT FLESH, AS YOUR FLESH BUBBLES AND BURNS OVER YOUR WHOLE BODY, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT THE YAPPAPI MEAN BY THE INDIAN STRAP MATCH. Hilarious! It's Yavapai, goddammit! They live in Arizona! Hogan mishearing that tribe name once and yelling it five billion times in overdramatic promos over the next few weeks sounds like a hell of a time, man. I’m glad that Hogan is embracing his shitty promo abilities and just going overboard with them in this feud. Madden, somewhat rattled: “Hogan…was a bit overwrought there, don’t you think?” I would agree, buddy! Ric Flair, The Total Package, and Liz come to the ring. Someone found that one picture of roly-poly 280 lb. Ric Flair on the internet and printed it out for their poster. Flair yells a lot like the lunatic that he is. Someone in production points him to the camera parked practically underneath his chin, and he responds I KNOW WHICH CAMERA TO LOOK INTO YOU IDIOT, I’M RIC FLAIR. Look, Hogan, Flair, and Package are absolutely not draws, so it’s wise to silo them off away from the main event and let them work their own silly feuds on the side. Package threatens Sting, then challenges Buff Bagwell to a match. He hates on the weather and women in Minneapolis, which brings Curt Hennig out from mothballs to cut him off. Hennig cuts a very Hennig-in-2000 promo, and he ends up challenging Ric Flair to what may be the final match in their long-running saga. The long and short of it is that Hennig thinks he’s the greatest wrestler ever from Minnesota, not Flair. Hennig tells Flair to show everyone his puppies, which got a chuckle from me, and promises to “streak down Hennepin Avenue butt-ass naked” if he doesn’t beat Flair tonight. Booker T. stands in the back and cuts a promo with Tenay; Book’s upset about Kidman commiserating with “his hoochie” during last week’s match against the elite main event tag team of the Harris Bros. Elsewhere in the building, Kidman and Torrie are a couple, but you wouldn’t know it based on their on-screen chemistry! They try to figure out who lost “it,” “it” being the KidCam, I suppose. Oh, look at this economically prosperous guy Tony S., what with his personal cell phone in the year 2000! He uses it to take a call in which he apparently receives insider information that Sting will be at the show. Mark Madden is skeptical of this info in an exceedingly annoying fashion. Jeff Jarrett complains about Tank Abbott and Vampiro getting title shots instead of him getting a world title shot. He uses the word “slap” in a variety of annoying colloquialisms. He refuses to tell Okerlund where the Harris Boys are. Well, good news: Booker T. has new music. Bad news: It stinks. Ah well. Billy Kidman (w/Torrie Wilson) is his opponent. Booker forces a break after shoving Kidman into the corner; Kidman locks up and lands an arm drag, but Booker powers out of Kidman's follow up move, slams Kidman, and gets two off a back elbow. Kidman tries a move that he’s not agile enough to do and eventually gets over on a sunset flip for two. Kidman follows up with a dropkick, but Booker gets on top of things again with an axe kick, when, oh, hold on. Here’s the Latest Twist in Booker T.’s Criminally Bad Booking: The Harris Bros. run out and destroy Kidman and Booker both. Gene Okerlund talks to Harlem Heat Incorporated, and they cut a bad promo about Booker getting beaten up by the Harris Bros. I thought you lot were leaving Booker behind and focusing on something, anything else? Lash LeRoux also picks Sid Vicious in tonight’s matchup against Tank Abbott that Vince Russo must have suggested via fax, right? Ah, his Turner email is probably still active. I bet that’s how he sent this booking idea in. Pre-tape: Arnold Schwarzenegger is at some bodybuilding deal, and a dude with freakishly-developed arms named Big Jax is there. He’ll be on Thunder. Unfortunately, we’re not going to get a confrontation between Big Jax and Scott Steiner on that show. Gene Okerlund talks to Norman Smiley backstage; Smiley complains about Dustin Rhodes beating down Terry Funk and says that the Funker was his inspiration for being a constantly terrified Hardcore Champion. He challenges Rhodes in a match later tonight. Brian Knobbs comes to the ring with a bin fulla plundah while Tony S. pimps this month's WCW Magazine and its insert on Knobbs. Why in the world would that insert convince me to buy that magazine? Three Count is already in the ring and wants a three-on-one match for the WCW Hardcore Championship, and you have to be kidding me that they’re going to feed these three fellas to Brian FUCKING Knobbs. A graphic tells us that this is the Night of Champions, which explains why we have to suffer through Mamalukes and Brian Knobbs title matches. Anyway, I report on this match under protest. Knobbs murders these guys with plundah, no sells their weapon shots, and powerbombs Karagias through a table. Well, at least they don’t job: Helms gets a kendo stick shot in and Three Count dogpile Knobbs and pin him to become the Hardcore Champion. Yes, I wrote that previous sentence, and yes, it’s accurate. Vampiro sits in darkness and cuts a mediocre promo on Jeff Jarrett that’s hard to discern. LEVELS, Leathers, you moron. Some ham ‘n eggers chant for SID outside the arena. I think they back him to beat Tank Abbott. Gene Okerlund interviews Fit Finlay and Brian Knobbs. Knobbs yells and sweats and spits about his loss and basically demands a rematch. Finlay promises to help Knobbs make Three Count miserable until that rematch. He wants to start with a six-man tag against Three Count on Thunder. Okerlund inquires as to who the third member of their team will be. Knobbs: IT’S TIME TO BRING OUT THE DOG. I don’t know what that means, but I assume it will be very stupid. Norman Smiley, to slightly alter a Killer Mike line, is about to catch a beatdown running like Randy Moss. Smiley wears Moss’s jersey, but he doesn’t have Moss’s elite speed or ability to high point the ball. Rhodes kicks his ass. This is not a good match. Norm actually is fairly aggressive and bounces Dustin around inside and outside of the ring, but after my least favorite transition, Dustin takes over, though he gets reversed on a whip into the corner and hit with a swinging slam. Norm wiggles and then turns around, right into a Dustin lariat. They obligabrawl for a second time, and Dustin wins this one definitively. He dumps Norm back in the ring and soon after lands a diving lariat for three, then clocks Norm with Norman’s football helmet and drives it into his junk after the match. Nick Patrick is the first person to pick Tank Abbott in tonight’s match. I get a kick out of how ineffective all this hype is. Tank’s not over, WCW. Sorry. Jeff Jarrett (w/nWo ladies) defends his United States Championship that I keep forgetting he's holding against Vampiro. Jarrett sends the ladies to the back before the match, and they’re upset about it. I don’t get the whole thing with Jarrett and these ladies, but you know what, it probably doesn’t matter. Vampiro and Jarrett fight over a collar-and-elbow and counter each other with headlock takeovers and headscissors. They’re trying to bring some fire to this match. Jarrett shoots Vamp in and tries to club him, but Vampiro rolls through and kicks Jarrett, then goes up and whiffs on a somersault splash. This last spot triggers an obligabrawl that Jarrett wins. He tosses Vamp back in the ring and launches a crossbody from the top, but Vamp rolls through for two. They run again, and Jarrett kills a Vampiro rana attempt with a powerbomb for two. Jarrett tries a monkey flip, and though Vamp lands on his feet out of it, he can’t get any advantage; Jarrett hits him with a clothesline, celebrates, and then covers for only two. Jarrett shoots Vamp in again. Vamp ducks a back elbow, but Jarrett locks in a sleeper that Vamp quickly works out of. Vamp shoots Jarrett in and slips on his own sleeper. Jarrett finagles his way out and tries a back suplex, but Vampiro topples to the ground while trying to flip out of it and lands a uranage for 2.7. They go back at it, and Vampiro attempts a sunset flip. Jarrett holds on to the ropes, but Nick Patrick kicks his hands away and Vamp gets another two. Vamp turns a Jarrett Figure Four attempt into a small package for two, then fights off the onrushing Harris Bros. Sid runs down and attacks the Harrises in the aisle, which is too bad for Vampiro. Vamp lands a Nail in the Coffin, but Patrick is distracted by the brawl outside the ring and doesn’t see Vampiro's cover. Jarrett clocks Vamp with the belt and covers for two, but the timekeeper thinks that it’s three and rings the bell because of course they do, this is WCW. Vamp fights back, lands a back suplex, and goes up one more time. He misses a guillotine legdrop, and Jarrett grabs him in a Stroke and scores three. That was forgettable. It wasn’t bad, but they’re trying to sell it as Vamp pushing Jarrett to the limit, and really, it just felt very rushed. It was also quite sloppily worked and had too much gaga at the end. Disco and the Mamalukes hand some WCW tech a box and give him twenty bucks to deliver it to the Harris Bros., then take their bags and exit the arena. Pre-tape: Some more fans are asked who will win. One lone kid, maybe caley’s little bro, yells TANK ABBOTT and is drowned out by everyone else chanting for SID SID SID. Pre-tape: Riki Rachtman and Disco do an annoying promo in which Rachtman says that the ladies love Three Count and don’t love Disco while the Nitro Girls sit around and watch. It was an irritating couple of minutes. For the second straight show, Fit Finlay randomly attacks Vampiro backstage after Vampiro’s match. Dopey David Flair sucks, usually, but not when he busts in on a Nitro Girls routine and does some terrible dancing. It’s genuinely hilarious. There are like seven Nitro Girls now instead of just the four from last week. Daffney enters the ring with Dave’s crowbar, very unhappy about Dave trying to hit on the Nitro Girls, but Dave supplicates, and Daffney forgives him. Crowbar gets on commentary and does his Gordon Solie impression. This guy is a gem. He’s one of the very few people on this show whom I look forward to seeing. He sits in on the TAFKAPI (w/Paisley) vs. Dopey Dave (w/Daffney) Cruiserweight Championship match. Early 2000 in WCW is hell, man. I mean, not only is the product complete fucking garbage, but comparatively, WWF in 2000 is excellent, probably the last truly great full year of WWF television in my view. Crowbar eventually leaves the desk to help Dave by knocking TAFKAPI off the ropes and to the mat, but Dave only gets 2.7 on the cover. Daffney and Paisley go at it outside the ring while the match continues on inside the ring. The Artist hits yet another bad jumping DDT for three while Daffney chokes Paisley and cackles. Daffney’s HUNGER FOR UNGER shirt is fantastic. I sure wish they’d center the hardcore or cruiser division around Crowbar and Daffney right now. Medics check on Sid Vicious; he’s been KABONG’d off-screen. Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Bros. make to leave, but before they do, the WCW tech delivers the Mamalukes's package to them: It’s a threat in the form of a dead fish and an ominous message. Jarrett and the Harrises seem unthreatened and feeling the exact opposite of ominous by the looks of them. In a short interview with Gene Okerlund, Sid threatens his opps and sells a concussion in between bouts of threatening his opps. The Cat hits the ring, speaking of guys who I am actually happy to see on these shows. He’s still on the high of having actually produced James Brown for the crowd. He asks for tape of himself dancing with James Brown to play on the screen and exults in his glory. Then, he dances for the live crowd before his dope theme music is cut off by Paul Orndorff’s old WCW theme. The Maestro comes to the ring, Symphony a few steps behind him and carrying a boombox. They have a short match in which the Cat hits a DDT? Huh, I didn't know he knew how to do that. The Cat lands a body slam and a Boogie Elbow, and then Symphony fires up the music on the boombox. It’s Three Count’s theme; this causes the Maestro to freak out and use the boombox as a weapon upside the Cat’s head. He gets a pinfall off of this. Why is the Maestro getting so much TV time? After we see Ric Flair and Curt Hennig WALK, TTP and Liz sit in their dressing room and argue over who was supposed to keep track of the baseball bat that they brought to the show. Billy Kidman picks Tank Abbott as the hyping of a match that about twelve people care about continues on unabated. Ric Flair brings Hulk’s weight belt to the ring for his match with Curt Hennig. Hennig wins a shoulderblock early. There are chops. Flair does his whole heel shtick. The crowd enjoys it well enough. Hennig targets the knee and walks through Flair’s attempts and reversing the flow of the match. Think of every Flair heel spot that he typically does; Hennig ignores all of Flair's offense just like Hulk Hogan would or just like TAFKAPI would or just like I would if I were tossed into the ring with Ric Flair. There’s a ref bump so that we can ignore Hennig landing a PerfectPlex for a visual three count before TTP runs in and breaks it up. Package immediately leaves, and Hennig grabs a chair. He brings it into the ring, where ref Nick Patrick has revived. In an extremely weak finish, Patrick takes the chair away from Hennig, and Flair kicks Hennig low and covers him for three, then whips him with the weight belt a bit. I’d complain about Flair barely surviving a challenge from 2000 Hennig and making it seem quite unlikely that he could ever hang with Hogan, but in truth, we all know that Flair is almost certainly doing the J-O-B anyway. Meng, who I wish were on TV more often, rebels against this whole sorry exercise by not picking a winner and just declaring that he wants to enjoy seeing Sid and Tank “kick the hell out of each other.” Pre-tape: Rachtman shoos Disco and Three Count off the stage, demands that the Nitro Girls dance instead, and then does a stage dive. The Total Package (w/Liz) is wrestling Buff Bagwell next, and I totally forgot that they ran a whole mini-angle tonight with these two. They’ve popped this 20 DAYS UNTIL UNCENSORED graphic up on the screen (complete with ugly new logo for the show) every match, it feels like. Speaking of this match, it’s replete with weak clubbering and a dull obligabrawl. I get a kick out of Buff being massively cooled down since July of 1999 as I watch Package roll him in this bout, but ultimately I feel like Patrick Bateman after he tricks Evelyn into eating a chocolate-covered urinal cake, in that the joy of watching someone who I don't like suffer misfortune is overcome by the fact that I had to spend time, energy, and attention on them to be able to watch their suffering. Anyway, Buff finally fights up from a very loose chinlock and has his first real run of offense all match. He hits a swinging neckbreaker and signals for a Blockbuster, but TTP cuts him off. Buff back elbows his way out of trouble and gets a close count on a Vader Bomb, but Liz puts Package’s foot on the ropes. Buff chases Liz, and Ric Flair runs down with the strap and attacks Buff, then gets his ass kicked. Buff fights both dudes off until Ric chop blocks Buff, who wins the match by DQ. Sting walks to the ring and stops a Pillmanizing of Buff’s arm with his baseball bat that he stole back from Package and Liz’s locker room. Sting is still very over even after all of his bad booking in 1999. And 1998. Oh, and the end of 1997. Tank Abbott rides a motorcycle to the ring for this super-huge mega bout against Sid. Sid’s ribs are taped, so Tank attacks those before locking on a front headlock and yelling HE’S GOIN’ TO SLEEP over and over. Sid’s in the ropes, but Charles Robinson just lets Tank keep that front facelock on for like forty-five seconds. Tank knocks Sid to the floor, then dumps him to the mat when he gets back in the ring. He does one cool thing where he stands on the small of Sid’s back and yanks his hair back, but then he goes into a sloppy camel clutch and the moment is lost. Tank gives up on that hold and backs Sid into the corner, yells in his face a lot, and throws a few body blows. Tank is a guy with legitimate punch power who has won actual UFC fights; why doesn’t he come off as the monster they’re pushing him as? It’s hard to project it in pro wrestling even if you have it, I guess. Tank gets up and talks shit in the corner, but Sid pops up and locks on a bad Crippler Crossface that he loses his grip on before Tank taps out. That was bad. It wasn’t the absolute worst, but it certainly made a run at being the absolute worst. WCW, why are you so bad? Even with all the talent that’s off television right now, they should still be able to string together a few compelling feuds. It’s hard to think of another period in a major wrestling company that has managed to under-utilize this much talent. Ah well, at least this show was regular bad instead of all-time bad. Though please note that -115 Stinger Splashes somehow does not count as all-time bad when it comes to Nitro Era WCW. -115 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred – 23 February 2000 "The WCW Gang attempts to be whimsical and weird, fails miserably" Unless my count is off, we’ve made it to Thunder number one hundred!...Thunder number two hundred is as entirely out of the question as Nitro number three hundred is… Recap: This Sid/Jarrett feud has no juice, and it’s not Sid’s fault… Kevin Nash (w/two other nurses) pretends to have amnesia when Mike Graham runs up to him as he’s wheeled in…Wow, I’m glad to see Nash didn’t get lost in Cleveland…Seriously, did they secretly hire Dusty Rhodes back for a position in creative, or is this just WCW deciding that nWo rehashes are old hat and the same ol' Flair/Sting feud won’t cut it, so they need to dig deeper for mid-’90s WCW angles to rerun?… Three Count does what must be one of the worst dance routines in history in the center of this very ring, full stop…Fit Finlay’s music cuts in and Finlay comes to the ring to club on Evan Karagias in a match full ‘o plundah…The rest of Three Count jumps in, and Finlay fends them off…The latter even no-sells a chair shot from Helms…Finlay full-on rolls Karagias…They end up in the ring, where Karagias tries to fend Finlay off with a chair…Finlay dodges a tentative chair poke and clatters Karagias with a trash can lid… This has been a pretty entertaining bout, honestly…This is the best hardcore match WCW’s put on television in literal months….Helms jumps Finlay from behind with a dancing circle…He hands a trash can to Karagias, who dives while holding it right into Finlay double boots…Moore hits Finlay with a springboard drop kick, but he and Helms get all mixed up on a trash can attack…Finlay takes them both out, then Tombstones Karagias for three…Oh wow, put Finlay and Three Count in a trash match and something fun happens, who could have guessed it…It’s a lovely rare thing to put an early-aughts WCW match on a positive list… Tonight’s matches: Sid Vicious vs. The Total Package…Ric Flair, Buff Bagwell, and Tank Abbott are also in the building…We cut to the back, where Kevin Nash does a bad comedy act…I probably undersold how bad his comedy is by merely calling it “bad”…He pretends that he thinks he’s a character in the ‘60s Batman TV series… This complete fucking animal Gene Okerlund is in Jarrett’s dressing room, where he remarks to the seated nWo ladies, “You don’t spend too much time on your feet”…This absolute CREEP…Jeff Jarrett cuts a heel promo on Sid…BOOOOOOOOOOOORING…Jarrett promises that the Harris Bros. will again be all over this show and then says SLAPNUTS…Terrible… Whoever stole the KidCam catches Buff striking out with Daffney…I hope this leads to a Buff heel turn as soon as possible… Ric Flair (w/the Hulkster’s weight belt) enters the ring to cut a promo…I assume that this weight belt attack is what’s going to lead to THE STRAPATION, DUDES…YAPPAPI…THE FLESH WILL BUBBLE AND BURN…Flair does some boilerplate heeling about how much Reno sucks…You know the typical crazed old man Flair promo?…That’s what he does…Eventually, he gets around to complaining that TTP has a match against Sid, but he remains unbooked…Vampiro is the guy who randomly answers the call (!!)…Yeah, this is a WCW-ass WCW matchup, and I am genuinely looking forward to seeing how it turns out… There’s an interview backstage led by Okerlund…They’ve brought back the English voiceover for La Parka…Uh, nah, I’m good…Okerlund: “Not back to this crap again”…I guess he’s the vessel for the at-home viewer’s thoughts… Dopey Dave is angry at Daffney for talking to Buff Bagwell…Daffney is obviously not interested, Dave, you dope…Her response: *scoffs* “C’mon, it’s Buff Bagwell”…HAHAHAHA… Kevin Nash does more bad comedy. He’s usually only funny when Scott Hall is around. Hall is the more consistently funny one of the duo…Nash calls Wayne Manor to talk to Alfred Pennyworth...After he hangs up, we see who was on the end of the call…Ralphus (!!!) punches the END button and confusedly asks, “Who the hell was that?!”…I love that between the amnesia angle, the La Parka VO, and the Ralphus cameo, Sullivan/Taylor/Ferrara are at the point where their strategy is built around reminding us of stuff from WCW that we may have liked in the past so that we feel more affection toward their awful booking…Hey, remember Cactus Jack, when he got amnesia and all?...That was good, right?...OK, OK, it wasn’t good, but Ralphus, you liked him!...He sure was funny, and maybe this could be a signal that Chris Jericho is also coming back, if you think about it…Keep watching to find out if he does!... I like when WCW's bookers do the equivalent of huffing nitrous oxide for a whole show and does a bunch of random and baffling shit…If you’re gonna be bad, be interesting, at least… Berlyn is still Berlyn…He’s not back to being Alex Wright yet…He rants in German for a few seconds before his match while I wonder when the Boogie Knights are coming back…Get Disco away from the Mamalukes already…Berlyn switches to English and complains about how much Reno sucks…His opponent is La Parka…I have no idea what’s happening right now…This show is nonsense…Parka wins in a minute or so with a corkscrew splash… Buff Bagwell walks up to Billy Kidman and complains about the KidCam shooting him in unflattering situations…Kidman is irritated that someone stole his camera and tells Buff that if he finds the guy, make sure to come back and tell him who stole it… Tank Abbott cuts a promo with Gene Okerlund when, oh come on, Virgil Vincent Curly Bill Shane Mike Jones (WHO?!?!) busts in and challenges Abbott to a rematch, claiming that Abbott almost ended his career…Did like a ton of guys miss a flight or something?...Is that what happened?...Explain this card to me, please… Buff Bagwell wrestles David Flair (w/Daffney)…Daffney somehow looks adorable in a colored wig…She’s wearing a purple wig, and her shirt says PEOPLE EATER on it…This would be a more appropriate look for St. Paul than Reno, but I like the idea…Dopey Dave freaks out on Daffney before the match…He slams Buff to no effect, then hits double biceps and makes smoochy lips at Daffney while Buff stands there, looking peeved…Buff controls Dave from there, but suddenly, Dave boots Buff in the balls…He does an awful Papa Ric-style strut as the Maestro and Symphony storm to ringside…In a strange spot, Daffney gets on the apron and wields the golden crowbar to keep Maestro at bay…Dave has to run at a slant on a reversed Irish whip to knock into her…She falls into the Maestro’s arms as Buff lands an inverted DDT on Dave for three…Maestro dumps Daffney and jumps in the ring to attack Buff after the match…Buff turns things around and clotheslines Maestro to the floor… I love that this punk-assed cornball Buff complained about having to job to Ernest Miller and got his clock cleaned before spending the months after that feuding with guys like the Maestro and being put into angles where he jobs on demand and can’t score with any of the ladies backstage…It’s fantastic…He got a win over Roddy Piper that got his mother over instead of him and thought he was the next big star in the company…NOPE…On the other hand, it’s an indictment of WCW’s creative leadership that Buff was very over as a babyface and other than the Scott Steiner and DDP feuds, they’ve done nothing to capitalize on that… Tank Abbott is actually knocked down by Mike Jones (WHO?!), but Jones celebrates and turns around into a short right from Tank that ends the match in thirty seconds… OK, the Ralphus gag was good, but they actually have him show up in Nash’s room as Nash cries about Batman not being able to answer the call…Ralphus listens patiently, then asks the nurses, “Guitar shot?”…Nurse #1: “Bingo”…Nash: *sings the lyrics to “Bingo”*…Nash is really crashing out now that his buddy Hall is out of WCW for good, huh?...They might as well have released Nash along with everyone else they’ve gotten rid of for cost-cutting measures… Ric Flair and Vampiro lock it up…Vampiro rolls into a legbar early, but Flair gets the ropes, then staggers up and gets punked by ref Billy Silverman…Vampiro and Flair just barely manage a sequence based around an armbar reversal…When Flair wrestled Rey Misterio Jr. on Nitro (Show #183) they made it work…This is a much more awkward clash in styles…Flair turns around a chopfest with an eye poke, but eats a spinning heel kick on an Irish whip…Vamp goes up, but whiffs on a guillotine legdrop…Flair targets Vamp’s landing leg with stomps and chop blocks…Flair casually lands a few chops and goes for a Figure Four, but Vamp turns it into a sloppy small package for two… TTP and Liz power walk to the ring as Vamp escapes a Flair attack with an enziguri…Vamp lands a spinning front kick, then goes up again, where TTP slams him in the leg with his baseball bat…Liz was distracting Silverman, who turns around to see Flair lock Vamp in a Figure Four for a submission victory…After the bell rings, TTP jumps in and stomps out Vampiro…Flair whips Vamp with Hogan’s weight belt…That match was a cluster, but at least it was interesting, if not any good…When we come back from break, Fit Finlay attacks Vamp backstage while Tenay announces that Vampiro got a reverse decision over Flair…Yeah, that’ll really put him over… We miss some of the audio from Booker and Kidman barely liking each other enough to cut a deal on watching one another’s backs… Dustin Rhodes comes to the ring to a dubbed theme…I listened to his actual theme from this time and don’t know what it’s a mimic of…This Dustin Rhodes heel turn would mean more if Terry Funk were even the least bit over as a babyface…Dustin threatens a couple of crowd members, then cuts a promo in which he tries real hard to be a heel and cusses a bit…His life has been ruined by DA BIZNESS and he lost his wife and apparently only kept a few Goldust suits in the divorce… Speaking of crashing out, Dustin appears to be halfway to his level of work during that whole Black Reign period…It’s partially not his fault because he hasn’t been put in a position to succeed…But yeah, this also isn’t the promo he needed…Dustin’s bringing back the Rhodes/Funk hatred for the culture…That’s the long and short of this promo…Funk responds on the TurnerTron…The Funker cuts a mediocre promo, sadly…Man, Funk in 2000 WCW has been shockingly bad for the most part…Outside of the compelling angle with David Flair, he’s been a net negative on these shows…I think part of it is simply that he’s being overused…Rhodes beats up a few WCW crew members once Funk is done talking… Mickey Jay asks Terry Taylor to lift WCW’s suspension on Slick Johnson so that they can continue their all-out wrestling war in another five-snowflake affair… TAFKAPI (w/Paisley) defends the WCW Cruiserweight Championship once more, this time against Crowbar…Just please crown Crowbar, booking committee…This guy is one of the few consistent bright spots on these shows…TAFKAPI slaps Crowbar…Crowbar responds by slapping himself and hitting a few crisp back bumps…TAFKAPI jumps Crowbar, but Crowbar skins the cat when TAFKAPI launches him over the top rope… Crowbar headscissors TAFKAPI to the floor, then lands a wicked baseball slide and a running splash to the floor…Crowbar grabs his pipe, which allows TAFKAPI to jump him as Charles Robinson tries to take the pipe away…TAFKAPI hits a sloppy dragon whip and then tries a diving DDT that Crowbar reverses into a picture-perfect Northern Lights with a bridge for three…Come on, give this guy the title!...Crowbar goes up, but the Artist gets up and cuts him off…They fight one another, but Crowbar wins a super face crusher… Daffney runs down and flirts with TAFKAPI while Paisley does the same to distract Crowbar…Ah, I suppose that explains the purple wig and the Minnesota Vikings reference...Paisley lures Crowbar in and slaps him, but then gets upset when she spots Daffney making eyes with the Artist…Paisley rips off her wig and beals her…Daffney comes back at her and they have a pull-apart…Meanwhile, Crowbar gets kicked in the head by TAFKAPI and then front bumps himself in a vain attempt to make that jumping DDT look good…Fuck off, WCW…Push Crowbar, you idiots… Gene Okerlund interviews Syko Sid…Sid cuts a biblical promo on TTP…Then he cackles like a nutter…We cut to Kevin Nash, who is watching Sid on a monitor and claims that Sid is the Joker…One of the nurses suggests calling for Superman, but Nash is annoyed because everyone knows that Supes is a fictional character…It’s funny because so is Batman, but Nash thinks he’s real, don’tcha see… THE WALL, BROTHER (w/inexplicable push) faces Disco Inferno (w/the Mamalukes)…Wait, Lenny and Lodi attack the Mamalukes as they make their way to the Gorilla position with Disco…Disco apparently doesn’t notice the giant brawl behind him until he gets on the apron…Disco grabs a mic and tries to cop a few pleas with TW,B…Disco was going to try to get out of his match with TW,B like he did with Booker T., via subbing the Mamalukes in for a handicap title match…Since they’re not here, he tries to leave, but TW,B murks him…Disco avoids a corner charge and clips TW,B’s knee…It works for a bit, but he doesn’t have the power to keep TW,B down for long…Disco manages to duck a strike and hit a swinging neckbreaker, then lands a Disco Elbow…That doesn’t get three, so he goes on the run again and runs himself right into a goozle and a chokeslam that records a three count for TW,B… Gene Okerlund interviews TTP and Liz in the back…Package promises to be the next world champ, and he looks to prove it against Sid tonight… Billy Kidman (w/Torrie Wilson) comes to the ring…Booker T. comes out after him…They’re facing the Harris Bros….I can’t believe that they didn’t give Book new entrance music…Ah well, we can only take care of one midcarder at a time…Let’s relegate Book and Kidman to a mini-feud with the fucking Harrises and focus on getting THE WALL, BROTHER over instead…There’s an obligabrawl, the Harrises get far too much offense, and for reasons beyond me, WCW creative is uninterested in pushing two guys who fairly easily got over with the audience…There’s no real babyface shine segment and Booker’s first entry into the match is as a hot tag… Here’s the Latest Twist in Booker T.’s Criminally Bad Booking: He loses clean to an H-Bomb…GET ABSOLUTELY FUCKED, WCW… Look, I have cod cheeks to broil for dinner, so let’s get this The Total Package (w/Liz) versus Sid match over…This show started out as a mildly weird and amusing one, but the Sullivan/Taylor/Ferrara team couldn’t keep that up for longer than about a half-hour…We cut to the back, where Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Bros. view Sid’s entrance with derision…This is a four-minute special that Ric Flair involves himself with in short order…Sid fights them both off initially, but eventually falls to the numbers game and gets clobbered with a bat… We cut back to Jeff Jarrett and the Harrises enjoying the beatdown…They decide to go out and join the party…On their way, they come across a wall of security…Mickey Jay steps up to tell Jarrett that he’s not getting to the ring tonight and gets KABONG’d…That’s it, that’s the show… I went from “mildly amused” to “annoyed and unentertained” very quickly, didn’t I?...OWWWWWWWW…

Sorry for the double-post. This board hates me. I just made it to say that Downwell rules extremely hard, so as much as I was planning to get to this game eventually, maybe I need to bump it up the list. It's just been a loaded year for games, y'know? But this sounds like something that might be a personal GotY contender on its own, much less packed in with 49 (50?!) other games.