SirSmUgly

Astrobot is my GotY five hours in. Your move next, Echoes of Wisdom.

Show #220 – 27 December 1999 “The one that is NEW YEAR'S EVIL and also missing about a half-hour chunk on the Network” It’s Nitro: New Year’s Evil! More importantly, it’s the last Nitro of 1999! We made it through a notorious year of WCW wrestling that, in the midst of a lot of mediocre-to-bad stuff, actually had some pretty great matches and segments. Some good work has been overshadowed by the dumpster fire that it’s taken place within. Recap: Goldberg is on the warpath, at least if he still has both arms still functional after punching out the windows on Russo’s limo. The new nWo walks, and the only reason I mention this is that Scott Hall is noticeably absent. Welp. As Tenay narrates video Goldberg smashing out limo windows, he notes that this dumbass sliced a tendon in his arm. He smashed the hood of the limo and blood splattered everywhere – gross! Tony S. mentions that Scott Hall hasn’t been seen since Goldberg beat him up on Thunder. Tony S. says that Bill Busch sent in an angry memo stating that if Hall didn’t show up by the start of the show tonight, the Outsiders are stripped of the gold. Russo and Ferrara must acquiesce to Busch since he outranks them, but they’ve decided to book… *deep breath* A NEW YEAR’S EVIL LETHAL LOTTERY TAG TEAM TOURNAMENT TONIGHT ON NITROOOOOOO *whew* I guess it starts tonight and continues on the first Nitro of 2000. I assume this is adios to Scott Hall, and whether he pops up again for a short while in early 2000 or not, frankly, that guy should have been fired a long time ago. He was a walking mess for YEARS. And I note that Hall won four titles in 1999 and didn’t lose any of them in the ring – he won two U.S. Championships and forfeited both, won the World Tag titles and has now forfeited them, and won the TV title and tossed it in the trash. Absurd. Other matches tonight: Jeff Jarrett vs. Billy Kidman for the U.S. Championship; Bret Hart vs. Jerry Flynn (?!) for the World Heavyweight Championship; there will also be segments with TTP and Liz as well as Scott Steiner, who is purportedly retiring because his back is wrecked. Chris Kanyon (w/J. Biggs, ladies) hits the desk. Kanyon is wearing a headset and commentating his own entrance. Kanyon calls the upcoming year THE TWO TRIPLE ZERO. What a dork, and I say that as a compliment. Brian Knobbs comes out while Kanyon swears that the Oscars have been renamed the Kanyons and that he’s been nominated in a little-known category: Best Pro Wrestler Performance in a Major Motion Picture. Yeah, it’s good to have Kanyon back on WCW television. Knobbs and Bam Bam Bigelow go at it in a hardcore bout; Knobbs jumps Bammer while Bammer is getting in Kanyon’s face. This is a nothing trash match, so let’s talk about Kanyon on commentary instead, since that’s actually entertaining. Kanyon gave himself a belt for beating DDP and Bam Bam Bigelow both individually and in a triple threat, which he technically did! They brawl through the crowd while Kanyon tries to get through the swarm of people to commentate on the action up close: MOVE IT, MOVE IT, YA MARKS. Seriously, you can’t see anything, the fans are in the way of the brawl. I mean, seriously, it’s literally unwatchable, not just figuratively unwatchable. I think that Kanyon does something to Bigelow and Knobbs pins Bam Bam for three. What the hell was this? Fucking Craig Leathers (FCL!)! Syko Sid has been allowed to rent cars again; he shows up in one with Chris Benoit in tow. In the distance, we get a lingering shot of an nWo-branded monster truck. The remaining nWo members bully J.J. Dillon and sack tap him while handing over the tag titles. After a commercial break, the nWo members go outside, surround the monster truck and admire it, then declare that they have some business to attend to. Sid walks onto the ramp and bad mouths the nWo. He, Benoit, and Goldberg have formed an alliance of convenience to combat them. Might wanna get another third considering Goldberg’s injury, fellas. Sid announces that he’s received a WCW World Heavyweight Championship shot at Souled Out, but that’s not ever going to happen, as most clued-in American wrestling fans know even if they haven’t watched the actual shows from this era in WCW. Benoit comes out, takes the mic, and challenges Jeff Jarrett because RESPECT and EGO and GREED and such. Benoit is facing off with Jarrett at Souled Out, presumably for the U.S. Championship if Jarrett still has it. Benoit proposes something called a Triple Threat Theatre, basically a Three Stages of Hell Match. This one includes these matches: Dungeon Match, Bunkhouse Match, Caged Heat. I’m not entirely sure how the Dungeon Match is all that different from a Bunkhouse Match, but I’m not sure that anyone in power knows at this point either. The nWo spray paints Sid’s car. Well, at least it’s not crunched into a cube! That’s a bright side to this! [EDITOR'S NOTE: LOL, dear reader, LOL] The audio has been borked during this whole show so far, by the way. FCL! Sid and Benoit find the car. Sid is bummed, understandably. As another aside, Russo is putting up the re-formed nWo against the McMahon-Helmsley Era as his competing main angle. I don’t even like Triple H, and it's still not close. The McMahon-Helmsley Era angle was really good to my memory (though I haven't seen it since it originally aired, either). Buzzkill hits the ring, and Leia Meow is out next (w/The Varsity Club). Mike Rotundo/a is tagging with Buzzkill – it’s Lethal Lottery, remember? – to face Konnan (w/The Filthy Animals) and (of course) Dean Malenko (w/The Revolution). Ah, the “random” drawing for Lethal Lottery strikes again! Tony S. pretends to be surprised about this unlikely pairing, then says that Kevin Nash and “Scott” will be entering the tag tournament tonight. Something tells me that Scotty Steiner won’t actually be retiring! Rotundo/a and Malenko have like, the most Rotundo/a and Malenko opening ever. Buzzkill also kicks Malenko’s ass, so Malenko blindly tags Konnan, who takes over and immediately dominates the proceedings. Malenko decides that now is the time to attack Konnan, which sparks a brawl between the Filthy Animals and the Revolution. While that happens outside the ring, Asya tries to interfere. Leia Meow jumps on her back and draws the ref’s attention; Hacksaw Duggan runs down, clocks Malenko in the head with his 2x4, and leaves Malenko laying for an academic three count after Buzzkill makes the cover. Jeff Jarrett and Bret Hart yank some plugs out of a production truck backstage. The fuzzy picture caused by the plug yanking captures a limo pulling up. Rick Steiner meets the limo and helps brother Scott out of the back. Tony S. apologizes for the poor production that’s not up to WCW’s usual standards, by the way, and that got a guffaw out of me. Jeff Jarrett spray paints some walls. This would have been a lot more pioneering if it hadn’t happened multiple times on Nitro in 1996 and 1997, y’know. It’s Shane! He’s going to get mauled by Tank Abbott. Abbott does his whole deal. It is quite dull. Abbott wins by KO in about thirty seconds. Security immediately swarms the ring and backs Abbott away. Do you think Rick Steiner is excited about being in on a Scott Steiner fake injury angle for once? Promo: Thanks to Electronic Arts and WCW Mayhem for the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color consoles for supporting the Nitro New Year’s Evil sweepstakes! I’m shocked that WCW announced and successfully followed through on a sweepstakes, by the way. We get a shot of the row full of winners. Retrospective: This one covers Scott Steiner’s career, which won’t be over in terms of regular competition for another decade or so. This is actually a decent tribute, by the way, but that’s not going to get me to buy the SWERVE, BRO. Rick Steiner rolls Scotty out here in a wheelchair and a back brace. The crowd buys it, though, and why wouldn’t they? Scott's crying, for one thing, and WCW crowds are not used to Russo swerving left and right and then left again for every angle quite yet. Actually, Russo has been somewhat restrained about all the swerves, at least for him, in this first run. Scotty really sells this, by the way. He absolutely kills it in this segment. I’m shocked that this guy is crying. I didn’t know the Steiner Brothers even knew what tears were. The nWo music playing immediately after the speech should be the canary in the coal mine that Scotty is secretly as healed as much as a pro wrestler can possibly be. Bret: “Get your stinkin’ ass out of the ring because we don’t have time for a washed-up nobody like you. Scotty, I’ll be really honest: You were never very good anyway.” OK, that was so mean that it made me laugh. The crowd BOOOOS once they chuck Scotty's wheelchair out of the ring. Bret, speaking to the jeering crowd while trying not to burst into laughter: OH, STOP IT. Houston is legit pissed at these dudes. One of the PA’s at ringside gives Nash the WRAP IT UP, B treatment, so Jarrett goes out there and KABONGs him. Nash, faux-surprised: “Ohhhhhhh, it’s a break.” That was so dumb. What a dad joke from Nash. Anyway, these fellas garnered some legit heel heat and were extremely entertaining. Wait, they’re still here when we come back from break. Nash is mad that someone stole the nWo's bats from their locker room, then tells Bill Busch to chill in his nice Atlanta-area office and let the nWo and TPtB run things in WCW. Nash gives away the game by declaring: I PROMISE YOU THAT TONIGHT, SCOTT [no last name] WILL BE HERE. Nash amps up the cheap heat by declaring the Astrodome a shithole that they were supposed to tear down by now and then calling everyone a bunch of, and I quote, “Houston cowboy pussies.” They should have stopped at the break when they’d actually done some really good heeling. Bret’s talking now, and it’s not great like it was when he was shitting on Scotty Steiner. Jarrett calls this Nitro location the ASSHOLEDOME. OK, this nWo version is only good on the mic if they’re bullying other wrestlers, I guess. OK, we’re learning something about Turner S&P over the past handful of weeks: The word “pussy” = unbleeped. The word “asshole” = bleeped. The word “head” when it refers to a penis, even if used in a double entendre = bleeped. Huh. Sid and Benoit turn out to be the guy to have stolen the nWo's silver bats; they drive down the aisle in Sid’s tagged car, bust out of it, and clear the ring while swinging them. Curt Hennig runs in so that he can get beaten up and launched over the top rope and onto the hood of Sid’s caddy. I hope Sid got insurance on this ride. Pre-taped promo: THE REVOLUTION’S ASSAULT ON AMERICA continues. This is extremely bad, but at least it's short. Saturn chases down a guy wearing a Bill Clinton match outside the White House while Douglas blathers on. No more of these, please. Screamin’ Norman Smiley is dressed like an umpire. I’m glad that he carved himself out a nice midcard niche on these shows, but they’re gonna need to iterate on Norm’s single joke, and they’re gonna need to do it sooner rather than later. Asya (w/The Revolution) gets the shot at Norm’s Hardcore Championship is Norm’s partner in the tag tournament. Sorry; they showed Smiley surviving last week’s title defense, and I assumed wrongly that it was leading in to another title defense for Norm. Their opponents: Saturn and Jim Duggan. Duggan beats up Saturn before Norm can even lock up with the latter. Norm jumps Saturn, hits a swinging slam, and teases a Big Wiggle. He doesn’t hit it, but does land a crisp vertical suplex for two. He smacks Saturn’s ass, but still doesn’t full-on wiggle. Instead, he dances way too much and gets caught with a release German. Saturn hits a bunch of suplexes on Norm, then goes up and lands a Savage Elbow. Of course, he lands it on Norm’s chest protector, so it’s ineffective. Norm tags out and Asya comes into the ring. Saturn lifts her up for a DVD, but lets her down and dismissively waves her over to Norm to tag back out. A miffed Asya, who isn’t good at pro wrestling, whiffs on a low blow before landing it the second time, then hits a weak clothesline. She puts Saturn up on the top rope and then takes awhile to figure out how to position herself to land a superplex before finally doing it. Asya walks back over and tags Norm, then is distracted by arguing with Malenko and Douglas, who are upset that she attacked Saturn. In the background, Duggan lands an Old Glory kneedrop on Saturn, and Norm covers Saturn for three. Asya belly-to-belly suplexes Norm; Duggan clears the ring with his 2x4 calls his family to the ring to celebrate, but Houston is more muted about that celebration than I expected. Promo: Souled Out on January 16th – wow, Russo is gone before that show. It’s already December 27th! Come to think about it, most of Russo’s dumbest ideas must come in his second run, then. Sure, this first Russo run has been bad, and there’s the December 20th Nitro episode that is a total nightmare even compared to the worst Nitros from Bischoff and Nash’s runs, but taken as a whole, I’d rather watch this three-month Russo run over Nash’s nine-month run every day, and I’d take any of Russo’s TV builds leading to PPV over Bischoff/Sullivan booking their way to Road Wild ’98. I’m also saying that about the run to Souled Out ahead of time, and I feel confident that I won’t have to change that statement, especially because I really hated a lot about Road Wild ’98, both the show and the build. Jeff Jarrett vs. Billy Kidman seems like it could be good, though I’m not sure that it’ll get enough time to really amp up. Tony S. talks about the Triple Threat Theatre match, and I recall what happens as soon as he talks about the matches again. Jarrett fights a different legend in each match while Benoit is moved into a match against Sid for the big gold. Actually, that sounds dope. Is Souled Out going to be good, maybe? Kidman tries to stay one step ahead of Jarrett, but he gets popped in the junk while throwing ten punches in the corner, and Jarrett takes over. He lands punches and whips Kidman hard into the corner, but Kidman lands a dropkick after ducking a clothesline. Kidman shoots Jarrett in and tries another dropkick, but Jarrett stops short, then catapults Kidman to the floor, where Bret and Nash run up on him. Nash bashes Kidman’s head into the apron and then tosses him back into the ring for Jarrett, who lands a nice stalling vertical suplex for two. Jarrett lands a lovely dropkick of his own, then goes up and hits a crossbody that Kidman rolls through for about 2.7. Jarrett is up first; he lands a nice right, chokes Kidman on the ropes, and then keeps the ref’s attention so that Nash can throw a soupbone before going back to the choke. Jarrett tries to leap onto Kidman’s back and crotches himself, but he recovers quickly enough to land a lariat for two. Jarrett tries a sleeper next. Funny: Heenan starts singing a lullaby as Kidman goes out, and Tony S. says, “Thank you, Lee Marshall.” BURN. Heenan responds with a WHY, YOU DIRTY...; that made me laugh. Anyway, Kidman fires up out of the sleeper and reverses it. Jarrett shoots him out of it and into the ropes, but Kidman ducks Jarrett’s arm and lands a Sky High for two. Kidman quickly climbs the ropes and hits a crossbody of his own for another two; Jarrett tries a suplex, but Kidman turns it into a sunset flip for two more. Kidman runs at Jarrett against the ropes, but Jarrett ducks and Nash pulls the top rope down so that Kidman flies to the floor. I wondered where the Filthy Animals were; they run down and attack the nWo, but Nash uses the baseball bat to knock down former Wolfpac partner Konnan. Bret and Eddy go at it outside the ring in what would be a dream match that probably only exists if you're playing Legends of Wrestling: Showdown, while Rey cracks Jarrett in the back with a crutch. Jarrett stumbles backward into a Kidman roll-up for…2.9. The crowd is hot for this, and it’s quite awesome, to be sure. Jarrett tries a powerbomb like an IDIOT and eats a facebuster. Heenan: NEVER SAW ANYTHING LIKE THAT. Come on, Heenan. Kidman goes up for an SSP, but Nash makes it over and tags Kidman’s ankle with the bat. Kidman topples to the mat, and Jarrett hooks him and lands a Stroke for three. That was excellent televised pro wrestling. After the match, the nWo uses their bats to beat down the Filthy Animals; Nash destroys Rey’s knee with the bat. OK, so zendragon said in a post upthread that he felt that it would have been better if Jarrett had stayed at the U.S. title level. I have to kinda disagree. Look, I was neutral-to-low on Jarrett coming into this watch, but his first WCW stint made me a huge fan, and this stint reinforces that he’s an excellent worker. He’s just not good enough to be the guy you build your main event around, but that’s like ninety-five percent of pro wrestlers. Hell, I could say that about Booker, Benoit, Nash. I’d even say that about Jericho, and Jericho is a guy who I think WCW desperately needed to hold onto for their corporate health (I think, like JBL, you get one long run out of Jericho as an annoying heel who barely holds onto the big gold, and then after that, he’s a spot guy at that level like everyone else I listed). Jarrett being in the world title mix and even holding it for a while is fine with me, but Russo wanting to build around him is a mistake, and NWA-TNA would soon prove why. Jarrett’s just not good enough to be a featured player long-term in your main event. But that's a high bar; he’s still pretty great! Okerlund says that he has the displeasure of introducing The Total Package and Liz; TTP, dressed as Sting, comes out to Sting’s music. Tony S. tells us that Sting is taking a few weeks off to make some purchases of local real estate and maybe relax in Aruba heal his wrist and head and should be back end of January 2000. Package is funny; Gene doesn’t like Package’s antics and Package pleads, “C’mon Gene, work with me here.” TTP pretends to be Sting and does some awful howls. Package-as-Sting, listing off facts to prove Package’s awesomeness: “Six-foot-four! OWWWWW! 275 pounds! OWWWWWW! Four percent body fat and a thirty-two inch waist! OWWWWW!” This guy is fantastic. Sting pulls an Undertaker: The lights go out while Package crows. When they come back on, Okerlund has disappeared and a bunch of black roses have appeared in the ring in his place. The crowd chants WE WANT STING, but Sting can’t hear your chants from the beach, where he’s sipping a Mai Tai. Nash, on the phone: “Scott, it’s—45 South Kirby. It’s a big dome building!” That’s also very funny. I’m sure Scott’ll be here in time. Holy shit, Tenay buries Hall by asking if “Scott” has a designated driver. Goddam! Fit Finlay comes out for another Lethal Lottery match. Guess who his partner is. Go on, guess! So, Fit Finlay and Meng face off with, uh, I’ll tell you in a second as Finlay and Meng start brawling before the second team even gets announced. The second team: The Harris Boys. This crowd is DEAD, folks. This turns into a senseless brawl that soon ends with Finlay and Meng being counted out after brawling with one another while the Harris Boys chillax in the ring. Eventually, as Meng and Finlay brawl up the aisle, the lights go out and someone attacks the Harris Boys. I thought they’d dropped that angle for a second. David and Daffney are way too into the very bad Oliver Stone joint Natural Born Killers. BOOO, we missed a Three Count performance. Vampiro has come into the ring and tossed Helms and Moore out of it, but left Karagias untouched, I suppose because Vampiro and Karagias are tagging up tonight. David Flair (w/Daffney) comes to the ring to tag with – of course – the Maestro (w/Symphony). Crowbar jumps Maestro in the aisle and knocks him out so that he can tag with David Flair instead. I am going to type something that I didn’t expect to type; I’m sort of enjoying lunatic David Flair right now. The Kimberly stuff sucked, but subtract her and add Daffney and Devon Storm, and this is actually a fun and weird little midcard gimmick. Vampiro, who hates pop music as a punk fan, hasn’t endeared himself to Evan Karagias, so he finds himself in a bad spot almost immediately as he catches a beatdown from Dopey Dave and Crowbar. Vampiro is able to hit a double-facebuster on a Dave-and-Crowbar duck-down, then tags in Karagias. Karagias tries a monkey flip, but gets tossed outside and then hit with a running splash off the apron. Karagias flips the momentum of the match and hits a crossbody to Crowbar on the outside. Vampiro clubs Dave and tries to pin him, but Karagias is the legal man. Vamp and Evan argue, and Vamp first dispatches of an onrushing Helms and Moore, then tosses Karagias. That leaves him alone, and Dave gets Vamp to the mat so that Crowbar can hit him with a legdrop to the balls. Still, Vampiro is able to dispatch of Crowbar and hit Dave with a Nail in the Coffin, but Three Count distracts the ref for long enough that Crowbar can hit Vampiro with a pipe and put Dave on top of him for three. Three Count clear the ring so they can re-start their dance routine. Dave does his fucking Running Man again, HAHAHAHA, and then he and Crowbar beat down Three Count with weapon shots before Daffney and Dave make out. Wait, hold on, this segment isn’t over. Lenny Lane, Lodi, and Stacy Standards & Practices and Miss Hancock hit the ring and tell Dopey Dave, Crowbar, and Daffney to stop their degenerate behavior or risk removal from Turner Network Television. Dave and Crowbar respond by whapping S&P in the head with their weapons. Let me paraphrase Tony S. here as he declares that this was the most bizarre segment he’s seen on WCW television. He’s not wrong, but this is a rare case where the busy, overbooked nonsense that Russo produces is actually very fun, if a giant mess. I don't know why it was fun. Maybe all these weird, different personalities clashing together was what made it work for me. The nWo worries about Scott making the show in time. Nash is sanguine about things. Disco Inferno is in Lethal Lottery, tagging with Big Vito. Kanyon opposes them alongside Buff Bagwell. Wait a minute: Tenay lists a bunch of teams who have advanced, and that includes Lash LeRoux and Midnight. Buh? Hold up: So, this episode showed the ‘technical difficulties” and “most complete form" notice at the beginning. That tells me something about why I didn’t see that match, but now I wonder what’s missing? Let’s check DDT Digest: Lash LeRoux and Midnight defeated Harlem Heat; discount Scream-mask person attacked Chavo Jr.; Bret Hart defeated Jerry Flynn; PG-13 defeated Berlyn and Rick Steiner. What the fuck? That’s like thirty minutes of wrestling that's gone missing! I don’t feel like I can even properly grade this thing with that much wrestling missing. I did some cursory searches for the missing matches and segments, but no dice on YT or DailyMotion. And it’s too bad for Russo’s side of the ledger, as I think I’ve pretty much liked this show. Johnny the Bull tries to get with Kanyon’s ladies, so Kanyon overprotectively marches them out of there and leaves Buff alone. Buff tries his best, but the numbers game gets to him and Vito and Disco take over. Buff ducks a lariat and hits a swinging neckbreaker, but he’s got no partner to whom he can make a hot tag. He throws punches at both Vito and Disco, then ducks a Disco chain shot that hits Vito instead. Buff lands a Blockbuster on Vito and wins this one on his own. Kevin Nash comes to the ring with the rest of the nWo for the final match of the night, a Lethal Lottery bout against Sid Vicious and THE WALL, BROTHER. Nash sells an upset stomach to try and stall for time, but it’s all a ruse! Jeff Jarrett gets on commentary while Nash attacks TW,B, who quickly turns things around. TW,B is big, but that’s about it. Being the heavy for a midcarder is about his ceiling. He hits a shitty back suplex/slam for two then throws a few more punches. Bret manages to land a pipe shot to TW,B’s lower back to help Nash get some space. Nash draws Sid and the ref in so that Jarrett can get a few shots in as well. The nWo uses misdirection to hammer TW,B until, after a ref bump, Sid jumps in and attacks Jarrett. Bret catches TW,B in the head with a bat shot and revives the ref while Nash covers him for three. Benoit runs in for the save as the nWo attacks Sid post-match, but Scott Steiner comes to the ring with a bat and attacks Sid as Sid sets up to powerbomb Jarrett. Scotty shows his nWo colors and hits the Hulkster cupped ear celebration. Leaflets fall from the sky like it’s 1996. Also, they load Sid into his car, which is still in the aisle, and drive it out to the back where Bret runs off toward the nWo monster truck; the truck crushes poor Sid’s car. It’s back to hailing cabs for that guy. I mean, if he’s still alive. One more thing, before I get to my final thoughts. Here are the winners of these first-round Lethal Lottery matches: Buzzkill and Mike Rotundo/a, Norman Smiley and Asya, David Flair and Crowbar, the Harris Boys, Lash LeRoux and Midnight, PG-13, Buff Bagwell and Kanyon, and Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner. This show gets a Provisional 2 out of 5 Stinger Splashes just for being consistently entertaining even with the typical Russo-Ferrara booking and layout issues, but this review and the score will be updated if and when I can get my eyes on the rest of this show, even if that somehow doesn’t happen for a few weeks/months/years(?!). If anyone knows where these matches and segments are online, please hook a dude up.

I forgot to mention their Mayhem '99 match, which did make my Good Matches list as well. It was the opener, which helped quite a lot as it was only the first match of the night to have a fucky-fuck ending and not the sixth or eighth or whatever.

Thunder Interlude – show number ninety-two – 23 December 1999 "The WCW Gang invites you to sing along with Three Count for the first time" It’s the final Thunder of the year…I’ve nearly reached 2000 just in time for Astrobot (and Zelda!) to come out and my workload to pick back up…I’ve almost made it!... Of course, the downside is that Russo and Ferrara are still heading up the booking committee…And they brought back the nWo…I cannot wait until I’m done talking about that faction in these reviews outside of referencing the past…The distant past… We get a whole recap of the nWo re-forming on Nitro to start… FUCK, it’s “Rockhouse”…Here comes the nWo, and let’s look at the bright side – at least there’s no Hulkster out here…I have less than zero desire to boo Bret, I’m sorry…Why in the world would I want to do that?...In 1999, no less?...At the same time, I have no desire to cheer Jarrett (who is an excellent heel) or Hall and Nash (who vaguely annoy me at this point)…They run a super-cut of all the ways they swerved the fans and Goldberg...YES, WE ALL SAW THIS SWERVE COMING, RUSSO…It was obvious…Russo thinking he’s actually out here fooling people is pretty funny, in a way… Bret does make me laugh by calling himself “Fred Sanford” over some footage of him faking an injury…Poor Redd Foxx actually died of a heart attack and help was delayed because they thought he was doing his routine…Nash tries to get over that they fooled the ham ‘n eggers, but look, to get me mad that you fooled me, you’d have to get me to care first and then actually fool me second…Jarrett calls the crowd a “Slapnuts Convention,” and these four do NOT fit together at all…Jarrett: “This nWo is gonna be different; no bastardizing, no watering down…Cuz once you’ve had THE BLACK, you never go back”…I mean, I like Jeff Jarrett, but this was painful…Goldberg walks to the top of the ramp and is very upset about what happened to him on Nitro…Goldberg: “Compassion is DEAD, and so are you”…I kinda like that line… For the second year in a row, we have Goldberg losing at Starrcade so that he can case a re-formed nWo…Russo re-uses every idea he encounters, doesn’t he?...It’s wild that nothing this company has done has been able to cool Goldberg off…He’s a true megastar… The commentary desk is the same combo as on Nitro, but reconfigured so that Tenay is lead PBP man and Tony S. is on color…Tony’s just not comfortable in that role, I don’t think… Tonight’s matches: PG-13 vs. The Varsity Club; Hacksaw Duggan and the Filthy Animals vs. The Revolution; Norman Smiley vs. Fit Finlay in a Hardcore Championship match; Diamond Dallas Page vs. THE WALL, BROTHER; and a main event of Bret Hart defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Chris Benoit…Boy, Bret got a concussion and then got sent out to work the stiffest dudes around immediately after… Leia Meow does the splits in the back…This tawdry bit of male gaze camerawork is disgusting, just disgusting!...I can’t believe it…Let me just replay it a few times so that I can really feel that sense of disgust I’m talking about… (As you know by now, teenage me would have run through cinderblocks for Leia Meow)… Some dudes pull up on motorcycles…Who they are, we’ll find out later… Okerlund talks to Benoit about his title shot against the Hitman…Benoit cuts a mediocre babyface promo in which he’s shocked and appalled at Bret choosing the easy way of cutting corners over the hard way of commitment and sacrifice…He tries to get an emotional sort of “you let me down, Bret” promo over, but he’s just not good at projecting human emotions other than anger… PG-13 gets some work in dying days WCW against the Varsity Club…Wolfie D raps before the match…JC Ice asks whether this is supposed to be where The Big Boys Play…Yes, and the Nitro Grill is where The Big Boys Eat…Anyway, Leia Meow comes out here…And I guess the Varsity Club or whatever is with her…These dicks abuse poor Leia and make her do a bunch of fitness tests…Tenay demands more jumping jacks, that pervert…DISGUSTING…She should totally do more jumping jacks just so we can truly reveal what a perv Tenay is…Eventually, she leaves the ring and this WCW-ass WCW matchup begins…Steiner does more suplexes and lariats and less boring maulings, so all of a sudden, he’s watchable again…Sully opines upon the DC Screwjob over on commentary while Steiner and Rotundo/a dominate…They refuse to conform to the tag rules laid out in the match contract because they’re too busy dominating…The match gets thrown out, and Sully jumps in the ring and kicks the shit out of PG-13 as well….Steiner whips Leia in and she lands an elbow on Wolfie's junk…Leia is wearing a lei, and she puts it on Ice and kisses him before the Club tosses him out of the ring…They make her do some more push-ups after that…THOSE BRUTES… The biker guys, helmets still on, stomp through the halls backstage… Daffney encourages David as he attacks a guy working the drive-thru of a local restaurant for getting his order wrong… Hennig and Russo make fun of the rest of Russo’s Mooks, who I guess are out of a job now that the nWo exists…The bikers reveal themselves to be Creative Control; they jump in, attack Hennig, and complain about being used and then left out of this whole nWo reformation deal…They end up threatening Russo and leaving…I assure you that no one cares about you or your quest for vengeance, sirs…This has serious “Big Bubba Rogers goes on a quest for vengeance against the nWo” energy… The Filthy Animals (including Eddy Guerrero) troop to the ring…Hacksaw is out next…Tenay calls Duggan “a patriot…a true American”…He agreed to a stipulation, then didn’t follow through on it…What a scumbag…I’d like to think he’s not a true American based on those actions…Duggan and the Filthy Animals are the weirdest combo ever, maybe…This is some WAR-ass shit… Eddy tries to do some boilerplate patriotic stuff on the mic and I feel embarrassed for him…So wait, Kidman and Eddy patched things up off-screen, or like what?...I guess they did, and they ditched Torrie in a “bros before hoes” sort of deal…I only use that phrase because, look around, we’re in the Russo-Ferrara Era…Kidman says that he and Eddy only had problems because sometimes he “think[s] with the wrong head,” which gets bleeped…Kidman flouts Turner S&P and gets bleeped again…Konnan hits the Catchphrase Roulette, which is still over…Konnan gets bleeped…Hacksaw looks entirely shocked in the background at all the bleep-worthy comments his partners are making…This is actually pretty funny…Misterio gets bleeped dropping his "hump you like the dogs" catchphrase while Hacksaw awkwardly humps the air in support…What the fuck, man, this was so weird…And we still have a match to come…Duggan: “I’m not gonna use that SALTY language like these boys do”…Duggan tries to say the word “bitch,” but can’t do it and replaces it with HOOOOOOOO, which is genuinely funny… Aw man, now the Revolution is here…Malenko does some mic work in which he demands that everyone pledge allegiance to the Revolution’s flag…The crowd chants U-S-A…Saturn: “Okay, you know where you are, but can you spell it?”…Saturn helps Tony S. cross-promote the Turner networks by comparing the Filthy Animals getting beaten down by the Revs again and again to Fred Flintstone not understanding that the rack of ribs is too big for his car every episode…Tony S. at least doesn’t insult adult Cartoon Network watchers like the last time he cross-promoted the channel (Show #121)…Douglas vows to force Duggan to denounce America…I have to admit; live crowds are into this feud…I’ve come around to this use of Duggan as actually worthwhile to WCW television…It’s a midcard thing that has heat…It’s fine!...I can’t believe I typed any of that, though…Douglas calls everyone lazy welfare cheats, then drops a NOT like he’s Borat…This was such bad mic work from Douglas that I actually came around and enjoyed it as an example of goofy ‘80s heel mic work, but with more cusses…. This was all so dumb that I ended up enjoying immensely…This was the most talking from a bunch of people whom I typically don’t want to hear talk that I’ve ever enjoyed in my life… Russo books Curt Hennig and Jeff Jarrett to take on Creative Control; then, he makes a point of saying that he’s going to hide out in his white limo… Tank Abbott looks like a bum in this setting…He’s going to roll an entirely mis-used La Parka…Abbott clubbers and clubbers and no-sells a chair shot to the dome, but I don’t buy it…He clubbers Parka so bad that the ref calls for the bell and security tries to back Abbott off…Abbott puts Dellinger’s lights out before leaving… Norman Smiley prays for safety before his match with Fit Finlay…Smiley’s hiding while he prays, and he hears steps and thinks that it’s Fit…It’s Goldberg, so yeah, a bit more dangerous even than Fit…Smiley breathes a sigh of relief as Goldberg continues walking… We see a taped promo labeled TAFKAPI’s recording session number two…Uh, I didn’t see the first recording session…I guess that got cut for some reason…Paisley shits on the engineering guy for not understanding TAFKAPI’s lyrics… Norman Smiley is in college football gear this time around…He rolls a bin of crap to the ring for his match with Finlay…Fit kills poor Norm…Norm shrieks…Finlay beats Norm through the crowd…They wander into a concession stand, where Knobbs jumps Norm and helps Fit beat him down…Finlay orders Knobbs to bash Norm’s head into a lowering door, then plans to jam his head under it…Meng rushes up and destroys both of them before it happens…Meng drags Norm’s leg on top of Finlay and gets three…Smiley hugs Meng’s legs, but Meng was just being a dick to Fit rather than a friend to Norm…Norm gets TDG’d… Jarrett gets a note from Russo to come see him and crumples it, annoyed, as he’s on next… Ah, Goldberg left that note; he goozles Jarrett as Jarrett enters Russo’s destroyed office and tells him to take a message to the nWo…He’s gonna get the Outsiders first, Jarrett at some time in the future, and then “when Bret Hart stands alone, I’m gonna rip out his heart and eat it”…Bad ass, dude… Creative Control demands to be called the Harris Boys from now on…Man, these guys suck…Stop letting them talk, you idiots…Everything in this era is a blip…Creative Control lasted under that name with the suits for what, six weeks, eight weeks?...Alright, well, it’s not Gerald and/or Patrick and Patrick and/or Gerald anymore…Now it’s Ron and/or Don and Don and/or Ron…Hennig comes to the ring, but there’s no Jarrett when “Rockhouse” hits…Jarrett, of course, was accosted by Goldberg and is probably more concerned with other things…Hennig goes it alone and catches a beatdown…Hey, is Virgil/Vincent/Curly Bill/Shane off WCW television for good now?...If so, our long national nightmare is over!...Tenay is shocked that Tony S. can tell the difference between Ra/oD and Da/oR, but Tony replies that 1) he has twins, so he’s used to looking for differences and 2) the tattoos are the clue to telling them apart…I don’t care enough to see which twin has his SS tattoo on his left bicep and which twin has his SS tattoo on his right bicep, personally, so I’ll leave that to Tony…The Harris Boys win with a, um, side slam…The nWo runs down with baseball bats after the match and everyone in the group destroys the Harris Boys… The Harris Boys get loaded into an ambulance after the break… Chris Kanyon (w/J. Biggs and ladies) comes to the ring, obviously with a dubbed theme because it drowns out the commentary…Kanyon joins the desk while the Maestro plays and Symphony appreciates the music…Kanyon is pretty funny…He tells the commentators that they’re welcome because he got them into Ready to Rumble…Then he says that their acting stunk, but at least it’s not as bad as their commentary…A shocked Tenay starts to speak, so Kanyon says “Especially you” and then starts a BRING BACK JUVI chant…Man, Kanyon is pretty funny sometimes!...Oh, okay…the Maestro faces Bam Bam Bigelow next while Kanyon jabbers on at the desk…Bam Bam rolls over Maestro, but runs into a kick…The desk asks Kanyon about what’s in his suitcase…Kanyon says he got Hudson and Tenay some Rogaine…Bam Bam quickly shakes off the boot to the head and re-takes control…Symphony tries to cover Maestro so Bammer won’t drop a diving headbutt…Kanyon’s ladies get on the apron to distract the ref…J. Biggs tries to hit Bammer with the champagne bottle, but Bam Bam blocks it, takes the bottle, and cracks it over Biggs’s head…Kanyon takes a title belt out of the briefcase, then gets in the ring and mows down Bam Bam with it…Maestro rolls on top for three…Very busy match, especially the finish… Gene Okerlund asks DDP about getting cucked, to use a word that Russo probably wishes were in the common lexicon when he was writing television, to caley's point…Page: “FACT – Bagwell ain’t doin’ my wife Kimberly”…Every feud DDP has had this year outside of when he was the World Heavyweight Champion has been centered around Kimberly, have you noticed?...Page just exists to fight guys over their treatment of Kim…DDP, bumming me out, says that he overreacted when he saw Buff and Kim sitting together in the cafeteria and continues on to say, and I quote: “Hey, they want to make an angle out of this? Works for me.” Yes, please keep reminding me that this show isn’t grounded in anything real, you imbeciles…I already had no interest in DDP/Buff, but this promo managed to drive me into negative interest in that feud…DDP declares that he won’t be wrestling until he gets a match with Buff, so I guess tonight’s bout against THE WALL, BROTHER is off… Recap: Madusa and Evan, sittin’ in a tree/Evan got fooled by S-P-I-C-E…Lost his lady/Lost his belt/Got so mad he gave Chavo a welt/…Not my best work, but the best I could do on fewer than seven hours of sleep… Evan Karagias is in the ring to declare that he’s tired of playing around with these foolish women and plans to get all of womankind back by seducing as many of them as possible, and then YESSSSSSS FUCKING THREE COUNT IS HERE…YEAHHHHHH…Shane Helms and Shannon Moore make their first appearances on one of WCW’s two major shows in the Nitro Era…I shit on Russo all the time for having stupid ideas and bad gimmick concepts, but this one, in fact, totally rules…He should get his props for this…Now let me find out that it wasn’t his idea…I almost expect someone to post that it wasn’t his idea below… Karagias plans to steal all the girls from the fellas in the crowd, sleep with them, and then never call them again…Forming a boy band in the ‘90s is a good vehicle for using women as mere bodies with which to quell your inner pain…The Three Count music video plays…And for the first time in this watch, I hit mute and go to YouTube to restore the proper feeling for this trio…I love this gimmick, I am a huge fan of late-stage WCW Shane Helms, I dug their feud with the Jung Dragons…I’m now looking forward to something on WCW television…That feeling has been restricted mostly to bookers and execs going away lately...To be excited about actual pro wrestlers and angles rules…Anyway, Chavo attacks Three Count from behind and starts what should be a pretty great rivalry with Shane Helms from the jump…Chavo clears the ring and then dances poorly… David Flair stops for some gas and gets into it with gas station attendant Crowbar, in what is a night for debuts, I guess…Crowbar is a crazy dickhead, so David and Daffney vibe with the dude… After the break, Vampiro and the Misfits drive up on Dave at the gas station, jump him, and grab Daffney…Crowbar runs in and makes the save with a foam pipe… Poor Dave Penzer wears a neck brace and winces at the video of Crowbar going to town…He probably will be getting revenge on Davey Flair at some point…Tony S. announces that DDP’s walkout has caused Russo to change the THE WALL, BROTHER’s opponent to Kevin Nash…The trios tag is up next…It’s Konnan, Kidman, and Duggan against Malenko, Saturn, and Asya…Douglas gets on commentary…Kidman overcomes Malenko early…Malenko tags out and Saturn gets his ass beat next…Asya breaks up a two-count off a Kidman crossbody, so Kidman knocks her out of the ring…Kidman turns around into an actual T-Bone Suplex that dumps him damn near on the top of his head… Kidman is now the FIP…Saturn drops a sick Savage Elbow in the heel control segment for two…Then he tries a powerbomb, the foolish fool…So, Kidman manages a hot tag after that counter-facebuster and Duggan gets in the ring…He dominates Saturn, but Malenko grabs him…Duggan pops Malenko, but refuses to hit Asya, and that allows Saturn to low blow him…Douglas gets up and tries to get Duggan to denounce America while Shane chokes him over the middle ropes, but Duggan refuses…In fact, the demand fires him up…Duggan stalks Douglas outside the ring…Rey gets in the ring on his crutches and double-ball-shots Saturn and Malenko with the ends of said crutches…Kidman and Konnan hit double sunset flips on the hunched over Revolution members for three…Saturn and Malenko take Rey’s crutches and smash Konnan and Kidman with them after the match… Kevin Nash (w/Scott Hall) hits the ring for his match with THE WALL, BROTHER…Hall joins commentary…Nash hits a series of knees and elbows, then a boot choke…TW,B makes a comeback and lands punches and a running clothesline in the corner…TW,B runs into a boot on a corner charge, but ducks Nash’s follow-up clothesline and scores one of his own…TW,B looks for the goozle…Hall jumps in the ring with a bat and clobbers TW,B, drawing a disqualification…Bret Hart and Jeff Jarrett come down with bats and cans of silver spray paint…They mark TW,B while “Rockhouse” plays… Bret might as well stick around because he’s facing Chris Benoit next…Before that, THE WALL, BROTHER smashes his way off the gurney that he’s been placed upon in a rage and tears apart the backstage area in anger… Nash prepares to take a shower, and Hall lovingly caresses him and asks if he can join…No, wait, this is a wrestling show review and not someone's wrestling-focused slash fic blog on Tumblr...Hall walks around looking for a trainer…He (unfortunately for him) finds Goldberg…Meanwhile, we see Nash lathering up in the shower and singing…He asks Scott to hand him the conditioner, but he turns around and is grabbed by Goldberg…We cut to Hall, laid out through a table…We cut back to Nash, laid out in the shower…This was nonsense…FAAAAAAAAKE…Try not to remind me that I’m watching a television show…All the cuts and the camera tinting were immersion breaking... OK, now we get Bret/Benoit…Benoit immediately stomps out the Hitman…He continues chopping away during an obligabrawl that is sparked when Bret rolls out of the ring to escape…Bret manages to kick Benoit in the gut and take over…They get back in the ring, where the Hitman lands a nice inverted atomic drop…They fuck up a Benoit flip out of a side slam, but Bret moves things along like Benoit was supposed to drop ineffectually on his face…Benoit finally chops his way out of an assault in the corner…He lands a back elbow for two…A snap suplex gets two more…Let me give Russo some more credit…He finally made Benoit look like a legit main eventer with how he booked the guy…Benoit comes off like a dangerous potential company ace at this point…The Hitman regains control and drops headbutts, then chokes and clubs Benoit in the corner…His follow up whip gets reversed, though, and Bret takes a chest-first bump…In a cool sequence, Bret reverses a whip and positions Benoit for a side Russian, but Benoit catches Bret’s arm and drops into a Crippler Crossface…Jeff Jarrett runs down and KABONGs Benoit, then spray paints him…Goldberg runs down for the save and spears Jarrett while Bret escapes…That ending sucked, but the match was excellent and well worth checking out... We see Goldberg chase Bret to the back, but Bret takes off in his car…Hey, Russo’s white limo is there…Oh no, is this where Goldberg almost loses his own arm by smashing the limo’s windows?!...Are we about to end up with Goldberg and Bret both off WCW television indefinitely?!...I mean, Russo was a terrible booker, but he also had awful luck…He never should have been in a position to suggest Tank Abbott as emergency champ in the first place…And look, about that, they’re pushing Abbott like a mindless killer, so I can’t sit here and act like Russo came up with that out of nowhere…But that’s for later… For now, this Thunder got me excited about the future and had enough fun stuff on it that I give it a sound WOOO…

Of course there isn't. However, I do think that wrestling fandom has become something more, hmm, limited in cultural scope, maybe, since the territories died and WCW closed down. As much as WWE and AEW fans online go at one another, they basically like the exact same product: compelling storylines, big characters who they can identify with and root for, long matches full of cool moves and maybe a bunch of 2.9s and false finishes depending on how big the match is. Yes, these are all broad tropes related to pro wrestling, but WWE is basically Vegas or Times Square after their corporate cleanups, and as much as Tony Khan thinks differently, he's doing pretty much the same product except with more 2.9s and blood. Ted Turner was a Southerner who actually liked Southern-style wrestling, and once he lost control of his company, it was over for that style. That was the last style that was different in some appreciable way from the wrestling we have now. It took a while for me to get comfortable with its presentation, but I turned around on Lucha Underground after I stuck with it. Now I sorely miss it; it was the first U.S. promotion with national television since WCW died to actually feel like a different product from the major competition. I think this is a common story with a lot of modern American pop culture, though, not just wrestling. Between corporate consolidation, more corporate scrutiny of their popular IPs, and narrowing fandoms who are loud and visible enough to get creators to cater to them and their constantly-flowing dollars toward the product, quite a bit of pop culture feels blandly similar to me. There's a reason that I watch more modern-day English-speaking television from other countries than I do from the U.S. at this point...though that's probably beyond the scope of this thread.

When Morrus showed back up, I was expecting a move toward becoming General Rection, so this surprised the crap out of me. Maybe General Rection is in Russo's second run? Charitable read: It's not about Russo having plausible deniability; it's about Russo making Piper do something that will mortally wound Piper's pride. Uncharitable (and almost certainly correct) read: Yeah, you're right, Russo is an idiot and thought that he was really radiating heat like post-SurSer '97 Vinnie Mac. Russo booking in the Twitter Era would be hell on earth. He'd have a bunch of main eventers march the ring during a match between four promising upper-midcarders holding tiki torches and chanting YOU WILL NOT REPLACE US, he'd have this Karagias shirt, he'd have...you know what, I don't want to even glimpse into the abyss anymore and think about what Russo would do in the Twitter Era. Agreed. Something something end of the day, something something logic.

This is, of course, entirely correct. And I do think that it's important to note that wrestling, like everything, changes. Let me update my statement, having seen only one Cirque du Soleil show in my life: Modern pro wrestling isn't even Cirque du Soleil because Cirque du Soleil performers don't stop their performance every few minutes because they're trying desperately to get a THIS IS AWESOME or FIGHT FOREVER chant for their work. As a member of the in-depth wrestling fandom club, and therefore as part of the problem, maybe the issue is with fans. Most modern wrestlers grew up as fans and are now fans working for other fans. And not just "fans working for other fans," but "fans working for an increasingly monocultural and ever-smaller niche of wrestling fans."

HA I bet he used a soft Scottish accent and talked about the "wee lassies" he watches for a wealthy Baltimore-area family. Piper, just live your best life instead of having all this negative tension inside you. Not yet, and with only about three weeks to go, I'd guess he doesn't show up on screen until he comes back in April of 2000 (IIRC). I was too appalled by the stuff on this show to keep it up. This could absolutely have worked from a logical standpoint, but of course, they spent all night making it about THE BOYS versus THE OFFICE and tying it into the DC Screwjob, so the nWo siding with Russo makes them THE OFFICE, which is the exact wrong way to go about things. Yeah, VACANT is going to eat good in 2000, isn't it? Oh yeah, it's that Sullivan puts the belt on Benoit at Souled Out to try and keep him from leaving, right? Why did Brad Siegel insist on making Sullivan the head of the booking committee after Russo left? Why not have someone else take the book and thus take away the reason that the Radicalz (or at least Benoit) wanted out? Was Siegel doing some stealth cost-cutting by pushing the Radicalz toward the door or what? I can see why Bischoff genuinely thinks that Siegel was trying to kill off WCW once and for all.

I think Bret's critique of Ric was from the perspective of what he thinks makes a great worker, and "drew in the South every night for decades" simply doesn't enter that equation for him. YMMV.

I think this is a rigid definition of "routine" compared to the point Bret was making. Bret did moves and spots across matches, but those moves were worked in without seeming illogical, which I think is the point Bret makes. On the other hand, (for example) Flair still working in his heel stooge spots as a babyface against heel Sting is illogical. It's an immersion breaker. Bret going to the side Russian as a setup makes sense from a pro sports logic. You run your best plays in crunch time. To make a pro sports analogy since Bret's philosophy is to embody realism as much as possible within the confines of a worked sport, that's like calling Steph Curry looking for a three while down two late in the fourth "routine" rather than "logical." Flair going up top when he hit a top-rope move once every couple years at most is illogical. He's supposed to be one of the finest wrestlers of all time. That's a defining aspect of his gimmick. Consistently going for a low-percentage move every match works against that gimmick. It explains why as a kid, I far more easily and quickly bought into Bret's matches than Flair's: Flair stuck moves and spots in as a routine without thinking about how they fit the logic of the match. Flair's philosophy about why he did the same spots no matter whether he was face or heel makes sense from a certain standpoint, but it reinforces that he has certain spots that he is doing specifically as part of a routine to give the crowd the spots that he thinks they expect to see, first and foremost. The psychology of the thing is entirely different than Bret taking a chest bump every other match or whatever. I'm not saying Flair is objectively wrong in his approach (obviously he's not, considering his level of stardom and success). However, I think Bret makes it fairly clear in his book/interviews that he defines "routine" as "contriving spots into a match because you want to pop a crowd whether or not that spot fits the logic of the match," not the broader definition you're using.

Show #219 – 20 December 1999 “The one that might be the worst televised pro wrestling show in history, and also the nWo is back. Again.” This Nitro is PRESENTED IN THE MOST COMPLETE FORM POSSIBLE, etc., according to the Network. Maybe that’s ominous; did the recording frizz out because the booking on this show is bad or something? We get a three-man booth with Tony S., Heenan, and Tenay. Madusa and Spice hit the ring. Madusa cuts a promo crowing about how she’s the first woman to win the Cruiserweight Championship. It’s not as awesome as Chyna becoming Intercontinental Champion or even close. Madusa cuts a vile promo, just vile. She offers up an open challenge and then calls out Buzzkill promoting equality on a sign in the crowd. She challenges the guy to a match. I keep hoping this is where the recording goes out, but no dice. I watch Madusa take his sign and beat him with it. I again would like to point out that WCW keeps trying to reproduce Chyna in multiple ways and failing because Chyna is a singular talent. Buzzkill lands a nice dropkick after Madusa hits three of her own, but Spice hits on Mickey Jay, so Jay misses Buzzkill landing a side Russian and pinning Madusa. Spice tosses something to Madusa; Madusa tees off and pops Buzzkill in the jaw with it, then hits a bridging German for three. That was very bad television. It’s sort of making me hate even seeing Spice on TV, which is shameful. Commentary hypes yet another Montreal Screwjob knockoff, this one at Starrcade. Then, we get our matches for the night: Jeff Jarrett vs. Chris Benoit in another ladder match; The Jersey Triad EXPLODES and wrestles a triple threat match; Jerry Flynn vs. Tank Abbott; Meng and Norman Smiley vs. Fit Finlay and Brian Knobbs; Sid Vicious vs. THE WALL, BROTHER. Russo is desperate to redo this Montreal Screwjob thing to the hilt. He tells Hennig and the Mooks that “emotions are running high and it’s a powder keg [backstage]” as if this is a shoot, not a work. So was everything else on Starrcade a work except for this, Russo? Or are you just an idiot? Hennig warns Russo that Hugh Morrus is back, and a disgusted Russo tells Hennig to finish him off and get him out of the company. Then, he demands that Piper be brought in front of him ASAP. Piper and his annoying kid get out of a car. Sorry, kid, it’s not your fault that Russo is a moron. I take it back. Piper and his kid, who have been booked on this show by annoying-ass Russo, get out of a car. Piper’s kid helps his pops tape up; Creative Control pops in on him and demands that he meet up with Russo immediately. “That big goof” Hugh Morrus, as Russo called him, is back! Shit. He faces Curt Hennig next. We cut away to some guy in an off-brand Scream mask beating Shane down in the back. Morrus dominates early and, uh, an old guy in a hospital gown wanders out? What the fuck is happening? Is Russo trying to outdo the Fingerpoke of Doom Nitro, the Nitro with no matches in the first hour, and the Ric Flair field beatdown Nitro all in one single show? Morrus meets this guy in the aisle, and apparently it’s his senile dad. Um, what? Who wrote this crap? Morrus gets back in the ring and is jumped by Hennig. This match is a heavy fart in a packed elevator. They keep chopping one another and then staring each other down for awhile after that. Morrus has to go calm his pops down again, and this time he goes back to the ring and walks into a Perfect Plex for three. Morrus’s senile dad does wacky Alzheimer’s hijinx after the match. WHAT. THEE. FUCK. Russo tells Piper that if Piper touches him, their unseen deal is off. Piperjust has to do one more thing to seal the deal and tell everyone in Baltimore (where Nitro is located) that he sold out and that screwing Goldberg was his idea. WHOOOOOO CARESSSSSSSS. Piper yells about SHOOTIN’ with the MARKS, and this is so bad. Oh man, oh wow, I can’t believe just how bad this is even though it involves Piper and Russo. Roddy yells about his life and his career and I don’t give a good goddam. Also, he calls Russo a “poor, filthy-lookin’ drag queen.” I really wish that I’d started a “drag queen mentions” counter for Piper when he showed up back in ’96. Piper tries to cut an intense promo and he just doesn’t have it anymore. His fastball is gone. He’s metaphorically lobbing softballs that Sid would launch into the bleachers. Terrible television. Tony S. talks about Bret getting SCREWED by Vince McMahon and explains the whole fucking Montreal Screwjob, then says that Russo was possibly the guy who came up with the Screwjob in the WWF. Nope. Then we get some stills of the Starrcade main event. After that, Tony S. says that Nash has been vocal about Goldberg getting screwed and how wrong it is, which makes NO SENSE. He has ETERNAL BEEF with the guy in kayfabe stemming from the previous Starrcade. Nash now walks out here to cut a worked shoot promo. I bet he’s just glad that someone has outdone him in terribleness when it comes to booking Nitro. This guy has stayed getting off the hook for stuff he did that everyone assumes was Russo's ideas for years now. This promo is garbage and basically is Nash talking about getting’ SCREWED and the code of conduct in pro wrestling. Dire. He complains about being an independent contractor. Then unionize, you little bitch, but shut the fuck up about this nonsense either way. Edgelord Nash: “Bill Goldberg, I don’t give a damn about you, but what happened to you last night at Starrcade is BULLSHIT.” So, are you telling me that the final nWo revival that I suspect will happen tonight is basically a corporate nWo that’s tacitly supported by Russo? If so, are you telling me that the nWo started out as anti-corporate company destroyers and ended up as a pro-corpo arm of the Russo-Ferrara Era? And if I end up being right about that, is this the biggest misunderstanding of a major character or stable and the very point why it exists in the history of television writing? I don’t think Russo has it in him to bring this Nitro back from any of what's happened so far. This is headed straight toward being the worst Nitro of all time. Jarrett and Benoit having another great ladder match might not even be enough to stop that. Bret shows up at the arena; Creative Control tells Okerlund that Kevin Nash is the biggest politician in the locker room, and I deeply hate what’s happening on this Nitro. Tank Abbott faces Jerry Flynn. I repeat: I deeply hate what’s happening on this Nitro. They do some mediocre clubbering and bump the ref thirty seconds in; security runs in to break it up, and eventually a swarm of security mooks break things up. They cuff Flynn, but not Abbott, and Abbott gets a cheap shot in before he gets to walk out by himself. This was SHIT. Tony S. says that the last Nitro of 1999 is, in fact, still called NEW YEAR’S EVIL. Wow, the name stuck! [Editor's note: On the Network, the last Nitro of 1999 is even subtitled with NEW YEAR'S EVIL] The Revolution comes to the ring. Dammit. We’re only a half-hour into this wretched show. Everyone, including Saturn, does bad mic work. Wait, Asya just stands there carrying a flag. I can’t blame her for the bad talking. They demand that a pouty Hacksaw come down and denounce the United States since Hacksaw lost at Starrcade. Baltimore has stayed engaged with this show somehow, bless them. Best wrestling fans on earth, for my money. Duggan refuses, that dirty debt-dodging scumbag. He yells I LIED and is also the heel, actually, somehow. It’s a ring full of heels. Malenko plans to burn an American flag while everyone else stomps Duggan out. Who comes down for the save? It’s the Filthy Animals (minus Eddy Guerrero). Misterio’s knee is busted AGAIN, by the way. Someone give him a cyborg knee already. How is that man still walking near the age of fifty, much less wrestling? Roddy Piper comes to the ring. Back in Russo’s office, he made a point about having guards watch his kid, so I sure hope we don’t get Creative Control kidnapping the kid or some dumb shit like that. Bret and Goldberg watch on monitors backstage as Piper declares that he sold out and lists a bunch of popular angles he was part of back in the ‘80s when he didn’t completely suck. Piper complains about the skit-heavy approach to these shows – join the club on that one, Pipes – and then continues ranting about REAL FIGHTERS and finally quits because the booking sucks. Join the club on that one too, Pipes. This dipshit starts giving parenting tips and mentions Jesus being the real reason for the season, then quits again. I SWEAR TO FUCK ALL THIS HAPPENED. Piper’s kid runs up and meets him in the aisle. Goldberg walks out and meets them both in the aisle. Goldberg Jackhammers the kid. No, wait, that doesn’t happen. Instead, Goldberg talks about the DC Screwjob and lectures Piper for being a disappointing dude. This is NOT what I want to see Goldberg doing! This is not what ANYONE wants to see Goldberg doing! Now the Hitman walks out here to talk about gettin’ SCREWED by the office. Sweet fuck, I think I hate pro wrestling now. Russo, you’ve done it, you bastard. You've made me hate one of the finest performance arts around. Bret says he doesn’t want the belt and is going to go back there right now and tell Russo to shove said belt up his ass. Goldberg spears Piper. No, wait, he says, “It’s alright. Everybody makes mistakes, brother, I understand.” What is he, Piper's stern and disappointed, but loving father who wants Piper to learn a lesson from trying and failing to hide the scratch he left on Goldberg's car when he borrowed it? Bret yells at Russo in Russo’s office. I don’t give a fuck. Russo’s like THIS WAS A MAKE-GOOD FOR MONTREAL and Bret’s like STICK IT UP YOUR ASS and Russo’s like YOU CAN FACE GOLDBERG AGAIN TONIGHT THEN and I’m like NO, YOU HAVE A CONCUSSION BRET, SIT THE NEXT FEW WEEKS OUT INSTEAD OF MAKING THINGS WORSE. The world title is VACANT. I should say now that I’ll be tracking World Championship changes in 2000. I expect VACANT to have quite the run, and I’m glad to see it getting started early. Screamin’ Norman Smiley, in Ravens gear, comes to the ring. Tony S. tries to convince us that the big angle Russo is pushing tonight has been “compelling TV,” and that’s a shill too far even for him. Meng comes to the ring and attacks Smiley before their opponents can even get out there. Norm heads back up the aisle with his bin of junk and is jumped by Finlay and Knobbs. People bash each other with shit. What-the-fuck-ever. Norm eventually runs away, right past a NORMAN = RATINGS sign. Knobbs and Finlay pursue him. WCW, which is living off the glory days of a time when it was good, does it again by having Smiley get cornered right in the same bathroom that Sully and Benoit fought in three years ago in Baltimore, as Tony S. excitedly notes. Smiley gets pinned for three on the tile. Piper makes a clear point of telling his kid to stay here, nice and safe in the dressing room. Then, he grabs a baseball bat, hits it on the wall so we can hear that it’s wood, then declares NOTHIN’ RUBBER HERE, BABY. Maybe don’t call out Sting’s gimmick as fake, you idiot. After the break, Bret runs into Piper in the hall; Bret tries to calm Piper down as Piper quotes, uh, Martin Luther King Jr. and then cackles. You know that I couldn’t make any of this up if I tried. The Maestro and Symphony arise from their piano and make their way to the ring. Evan Karagias is Maestro’s opponent. While these two have a short blip of a match, let me trace the Cruiserweight Championship this year: Kidman > Rey > Psicosis > Rey > Lenny Lane > Psicosis > Disco Inferno > Evan Karagias > Madusa. Look how they massacred my Cruiserweight Championship. Fucking Russo and Nash. This match is acceptable. Karagias kills a leapover with a powerbomb, then shrugs off Symphony as she tries to seduce him. Symphony falls down, selling an ankle injury that she doesn’t actually have, and Karagias drops off the top rope to check on her, gets kneed in the head by the Maestro, and loses. Bitches, man. Bitches. Piper yells about his dead wrestler friends while taking out Russo’s office set with his bat. This is fucking sad. And not for the reasons that it’s supposed to be. Chavo checks on Evan Karagias's mental health in the back and tries to sell him a PUA book so that Evan has better luck with the ladies. Evan repeatedly punches Chavo in the face in response. That’s pretty much what you should do to anyone who tries to sell you a PUA book. Chris Kanyon (w/J. Biggs, ladies) comes to the ring for this triple threat match against Bam Bam Bigelow and Diamond Dallas Page. Biggs and Kanyon do some cursory mic work when they get out there. Biggs joins commentary, but his voice is cooked, so it’s hard to hear him basically saying that Kanyon’s beat both of these dudes already. The crowd has decided to root for DDP in this one. Page and Bammer get a double arm wringer on Kanyon and punch him in the face. They beat the crap out of the guy for a while. Kanyon tries to get some space, but whenever he knocks one man away, the other man gets him. Even after Page misses a shot at Kanyon and hits Bam Bam, Bammer and Page wrap up their arguing so they can knock Kanyon around some more. DDP and Bam Bam have a discussion about whether to hit Kanyon with a Diamond Cutter or a Greetings from Asbury Park. Page lets Bigelow hit Kanyon with the Greetings, then shakes hands with Bammer, pulls him in, and hits him with a Diamond Cutter. As he did at Starrcade, he teases hitting the ref with a Diamond Cutter. He leaves the ring instead, kisses a lady at ringside, and walks out. Biggs gets up, distracts the ref, and hands a bottle of champagne to Kanyon. Kanyon lands a champagne bottle shot on Bam Bam and scores a three count. This was pointless and stupid. Creative Control wrestles Kevin Nash in a handicap match. I mean, if it even is a match; Tony S. points out that there’s no ref. Nash points to the entrance, and Scott Hall comes out here on crutches. Hall directs traffic from ringside as Nash tries to keep control of two guys at once. Eventually, the numbers game gets to him and he sells for a little bit. Hall gets in the ring after Nash takes a few punches and swats CC with his crutches. Oh look, he’s not even injured! I guess he just didn’t want to job to Chris Benoit or something! Creative Control just leaves. TTP, dressed as Sting, stands in the rafters with Liz and laughs about how they took Sting out. Jeff Jarrett and Chris Benoit have their Ladder (re-)Match for the U.S. Championship next. I really wish that they didn’t book this, actually. It’s almost certainly not going to be as good as the Starrcade match, and it’ll end up being the one that more people see since it’s on free television. Benoit and Jarrett cut a pace to start; Benoit lands an enziguri and a basement dropkick, then hammers away at Jarrett in the corner. Benoit puts Jarrett in the Tree of Woe and lands a baseball slide. He’s dominating the proceedings, but he whiffs on a second baseball slide, and Jarrett crotches Benoit on the post. The ladder, standing in the aisle, gets knocked down when Jarrett goes after it and Benoit catches him. They brawl around ringside, and Benoit blocks a head bonk into a chair and hits one of his own. That allows Benoit to acquire the ladder. He drags it back to the ring, dodges Jarrett’s baseball slide tonight where he didn’t the previous night, and grabs a chair. That chair ends up wedged between the buckles in the corner; Benoit shoots Jarrett in from the other corner, then un-wedges the chair and claps Jarrett in the back with it. Benoit is dominating the proceedings once more. He lands a snap suplex on the chair, then wedges it in the other corner after hitting a snot rocket. Benoit tries another whip, but Jarrett trips and sells that his knee blew. Benoit eyes Jarrett, then decides that he’s in the clear. He sets up the ladder and tries to climb it, but it’s rigged! The stairs break as he starts up the ladder. In a funny spot, Benoit was trying to remember which step was rigged and he stomped one step too early. No break. The step after that one broke. Benoit tries to climb the other side – those stairs break. Jarrett magically recovers from his knee injury, grabs a guitar, and KABONGs Benoit, then pulls another ladder from the ring and climbs it to claim the title. Benoit has that epic ladder match with Jarrett the night before, and then we get this nonsense based around gimmicked ladders as a rematch. BOOOOOOOO. Okerlund accuses Jarrett of gimmicking the ladder backstage, but Jarrett isn’t hearing any of that. Hennig rushes up and tells Jarrett that Russo needs to see him right now. Sid Vicious enters the arena to face THE WALL, BROTHER. Sid lands a series of boots at the bell and clotheslines TW,B to the floor, then beats him down in an obligabrawl. Back in the ring, TW,B gets some blows in, but Sid goozles him after ducking a lariat and hits a chokeslam. Berlyn runs out and hops on the apron; Sid goes for a powerbomb, but decides to release TW,B and go after Berlyn. TW,B jumps Sid from behind and goozles him, but Berlyn enters the ring and tries a missile dropkick. Sid moves and Berlyn drills TW,B, which I guess means that Sid is DQ’d? I don’t know. The bell rings, and Sid powerbombs Berlyn, then shakes hands with TW,B. Jarrett is told by Russo that TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT. Russo’s in the backseat of his car, so I guess he’s taking off before the big fix happens. Disco meets with Tony Marinara’s pops. Pops says that Disco can either join the family and take orders from Marinara or get dumped in a river somewhere. Disco is bummed. The Varsity Club is here, but far more importantly than that, Leia Meow is here. This is a match involving two of them and Harlem Heat, who I guess are okay with one another again? Rick Steiner and Mike Rotundo/a participate in this bout while Kevin Sullivan tries to sell this DC Screwjob shit on commentary. Rotundo/a gets a mic and insults the University of Maryland. Rick Steiner yells a lot and tries desperately to get the some of the worst catchphrases in the business over. Where has Rotundo/a been, anyway? Japan? Actually, wherever he’s been, I wish he were still there. Wait, unless he's been in the hospital or something. I'm not a monster. I feel like Sid’s been doing too many jobs on TV lately when I just want to see him spike dudes with powerbombs and get victories. I feel the same about Booker, who I want to see winning more matches and doing more missile dropkicks and stuff. Booker plays FIP in this very dull tag match with only one worker whom I like. Book tries a comeback, but Steiner stops short on a Booker dropkick and squelches that. So, Rick Steiner switches spots with Kevin Sullivan mid-match because nothing matters, but he is actually hilarious! Steiner: “I got my Ph.D at Michigan – mathematics! Two plus two, I know it all! Ask me.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Then, Rotundo/a comes over and Steiner grumbles, “Here comes this Syracuse idiot, hold on,” and trades places at the desk with Rotundo/a. I can’t believe he had that in him. Booker finally stops an assault from the Syracuse idiot and gets a hot tag to Stevie. Sully jumps Booker at ringside. It’s three-on-two, so the lights go out, and when they come back on, Midnight is in the ring. She walks over to Stevie as Stevie punches Rotundo/a and, uh, argues with him instead of helping out. Rotundo/a takes the opportunity to roll up Stevie from behind and get three. Harlem Heat walk away arguing as Tenay hits an I KNOW WHO THEY ARE and PG-13 (???!!!?!?!?) rushes to the ring and attacks the Varsity Club with trash can lids, then runs away. Wait, PG-13 were in this company?! The Misfits harass Daffney while she digs around a bin for an ice cold Surge. They insult her tats, so Daffney sidles up to Jerry Only seductively before kneeing him in the sack and biting the bridge of his nose. Vampiro removes her from his orbit, and she threatens YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TOUCHED ME before taking off. David Flair and Daffney (the latter wearing an I *heart* DAVID shirt) come to the ring. Flair uses his crowbar to club Penzer, and he and Daffney lay in some boots on top of it. Flair grabs Penzer’s mic and overdoes it on the crazy, but eventually calls out Vampiro for touching Daffney. Vampiro comes out alone and tries to beg off. No, wait, he fake apologizes, and when he faces Daffney to insult her, Flair whacks him with the crowbar, then gives the crowbar to Daffney so that she can get a shot in as well. Jerry Only runs in and they stomp and crowbar shot him as well. Then she and Dave smooch. That’s it. That’s the segment. The Misfits shouldn’t have harassed Daffney for no reason. Seems like they earned that beating. EMTs try to attend to the weirdo Misfits in the back. Gene Okerlund interviews Buff Bagwell in the ring. Buff thinks Baltimore is totally the best, etc. He talks about his neck injury. He says that he’s a four-time tag champ with three different partners, which has never been done in wrestling. Obviously, any wrestler would (and should) claim that last phrase in the sentence in kayfabe, but that’s probably not true, right? He wants some more gold, and he won’t be held down, dammit! Oh no, now Okerlund says that there are rumors that Buff is shtupping Kim Page. He doesn’t say that directly, but that’s the implication. Buff starts to walk away, then denies it when Okerlund presses. Okerlund’s like I GOT SCOOPS, STUPID and says that Buff was out with Kim while DDP was shooting Ready to Rumble. This segment sucks. Buff says to be honest, Kim’s a dime piece and if DDP wasn’t with her, Buff would totally hit it. He even says if she happened to fall into his bed, I mean, look, what is he gonna do? Not have sex with her? That one triggers Page’s entrance, as he jumps a goofy-looking Buff from behind. Tenay says that this explains DDP attacking Buff on Thunder – okay, so they were shadow beefing, then. I guess that spot retroactively makes sense two weeks after it happened on a show that nobody watches. Piper and Sid have a lovefest in the locker room. Then, Roddy tells the locker room that he’s leaving WCW. This is so stupid. They haven’t earned a fucking bit of this. Piper hasn’t done anything to make me even remotely think of caring about him walking away like it’s the end of Shane. Fuck off. Piper gives what is supposed to be a stirring speech to get the boys in the back to revolt against the office, but there’s been far too much Piper on this show, and he hasn’t been able to achieve what he's been asked to achieve with his segments, not even close. This is as tempted as I’ve ever been to just skip ahead on a segment, even more than while suffering through Bischoff-as-Leno. Piper’s like UNIONIZE, YEAH, AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS; there’s scattered, unenthusiastic clapping from the crowd of wrestlers. Jeff Jarrett sits down in front of a backstage monitor with a refreshing can of Surge to survey what’s going down in tonight’s main event. Let’s get this fucking main event over. Goldberg dominates. There’s an obligabrawl. They go back and forth, including a struggle over a Figure Four. There’s a ref bump. Kevin Nash comes down. Remember when we all thought he was mad at Bret? Nope! He and Hall clobber Goldberg with baseball bats and Bret joins in on the fun. Piper runs out and covers Goldberg’s body to stop the beating, and Billy Silverman’s goofy ass counts a pinfall. Piper should be the champ now, I guess, and Jarrett runs down and KABONGs Piper before they all spray paint the babyfaces, and “Rockhouse” plays, and look, the long and short of it is that we have a NEW NEW NEW NEW WORLD FUCKING ORDER revival, speaking of things that were a part of the pro wrestling fabric in 1997 and that I never want to ever see on my screen again. OK, I’ve had enough. Fire Russo, please. Then hire him back so he can run the Hulkster out of WCW. Then, fire his ass again. As for this show? Someone once asked me way earlier in this thread when I’d bust out the crazy numbers. I think we’ve reached a nadir in the watch that demands that I put up a number that’s a little out there. We haven’t reached “square root of infinity” or “NaN” levels of badness yet. But I think we need to establish that a show this bad, this full of terrible talking and angles, this void of redeemable pro wrestling matches, this committed to deeply stupid ideas about building feuds, will have to be surpassed in its badness on a meaningful level to be worse than this. I have full confidence that Russo and Ferrara or Russo and Bischoff can find a way to do that, but I’m setting the bar in hell and letting them travel all nine circles and dig under Satan’s cloven hooves besides to get there on the score. -9,274,650,535 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

I enjoyed the Revival in NXT, and they'd occasionally bring back classic spots (like the Arn Anderson feint/DDT spot). But at some point, that's all they became. A shitty cover band. A facsimile of a facsimile. Why watch them cosplay Tully and Arn when I live in the Information Age and actual Tully and Arn are a click away? That's a lot of what makes up modern wrestling in America: Cirque du Soleil performed by a bunch of cosplayers.

Starrcade ’99 notes: Scott Hudson runs down the card for the penultimate Starrcade. I see WWE brought the name back at some point based on my lookup for this show in Peacock, but I don’t count anything WWE did under this name, so “penultimate Starrcade” it will be. According to Hudson in that voice over, Vampiro is known as “The Dark Angel.” I thought that was Jessica Alba? The only babyfaces who have consistently come out on top in the build to this show are Disco Inferno and Lash LeRoux. The Mamalukes (w/Tony Marinara) need to win this tag opener to save any face. Well, they don’t need to. They could always lose this, then be relegated to the Worldwide/WCWSN circuit until this company closes. Or, you know, WCW could just release them instead of releasing better talents (Mona, for example). Vito beats down LeRoux to start. Bobby Heenan, on color with Hudson and Tony S., complains about how cheap LeRoux’s beads are. Heenan’s got to be near wrapping up with this company. I know WCW execs shed a bunch of salary in 2000, from Bret Hart to the aforementioned Mona. I complain about Heenan, but even 1999 Heenan is leagues better than Mark FUCKING Madden. Anyway, Disco is the only remotely interesting worker in this match, so after Lash comes back and tags him in, things are okay. Disco scores a couple of one-and-two counts on the Bull. While Disco takes a shot to the head from Vito and transitions to playing FIP, let me also say that Scott Hudson’s style reminds me a lot of Mauro Ranallo. Unlike many wrestling fans on the internet, I am exactly neutral on Ranallo and therefore Hudson as well. This FIP segment exists as a perfectly acceptable segment, honestly. The Mamalukes hit a couple of nice double-team moves. Vito takes waaaaaaaay too long to drop a second-rope splash, which allows Disco to score a hot tag to LeRoux. Lash lands punches and back body drops; the Bull and Vito cross wires when the Bull charges Lash in the corner and hits Vito instead. They again cross wires when whipped into one another; Lash and Disco score more offense. Disco and Vito spill outside while Lash and the Bull go at it in the ring. The Bull tries a springboard that he nearly blows, which seems about right, and misses a springboard guillotine legdrop. Lash puts the Bull down and Disco follows with a Frog Splash; Vito breaks the pinfall up with a diving double axe. Vito rolls the Bull onto Disco, but Lash saves. This finishing run actually ended up being quite good. Disco and Lash are the next – and last – to get their wires crossed, as Vito shoves his way out of a Chartbuster attempt, and then ducks a charging Lash who runs himself right into a blind Chartbuster from Disco. Vito hits an elevated DDT on a stunned Lash as the Bull holds Disco back and the ref counts three. Disco catches a beatdown after the match and gets chloroformed and stuffed in a body bag. The Mamalukes carry him out of the building. Boy, a ten-plus minute tag match with no run-ins, minimal outside interference from Tony Marinara, and a proper shine-heat-comeback segment with a nice finish. You know what? Maybe I’m overrating things because this match is a beacon of regular-ass quality wrestling in a sea of short matches, overbooking, and run-ins, but it’s (improbably, considering the workers in this thing) going on my Good Matches list. For some reason, after the Mamalukes take him backstage, they take time to rip Disco out of the bag and toss him in the trunk of their car before they drive off. Scott Hall is out of the ladder match with Benoit – bummer – so Hall is once again stripped of the U.S. Championship! It's the second time this year! Hall’s apparently nursing a knee injury. Benoit is now the U.S. Champ by forfeit. He comes out here to a nice babyface pop. Benoit was going to win that ladder match, I’m sure of it, and I wonder how *ahem* legit Hall’s knee injury is. Excuse me if he actually is nursing a knee injury, but it’s Hall. For obvious reasons, I wonder. Benoit issues an open challenge for his gold because he’s not about winning titles by forfeit. Evan Karagias (w/Spice) defends his WCW Cruiserweight Championship against Madusa in the second bout of the night. I could be paranoid since Russo is booking, but this screams swerve, right? I said it in one of the more recent reviews, but Spice showing up out of nowhere to get with Evan seems like exactly the type of misdirection Russo loves. Karagias is absolutely a joke character, so using him like this is fine. Using the Cruiserweight Championship like this is another story. Madusa attacks Karagias early and Evan gets a pop when he finally tags her back. He tries an Asai moonsault and misses; Madusa lands a jumping back kick and then a missile dropkick. Well, more like a front dropkick; she’s not shaped like a missile when she jumps. A second front dropkick is blocked, and Karagias goes back into control before Madusa bridges out of a pinfall attempt, then lands a very sloppy powerbomb. Karagias gets out of further control by snapping Madusa’s neck on the ropes, then hitting her with a top-rope splash at ringside. At this point, we go into the finish; Evan puts her back in the ring, so Spice distracts Evan by seducing him over, then weakly ballshotting him while Madusa equally weakly forearms him from behind. Poor old joke character Evan has to sell all this before Madusa hits him with a bridging German for three. Heenan, stating Vince Russo’s theory on womanhood after the match: “Women always set up men, and men always fall for it!” Norman Smiley’s wearing a Redsk Commanders jersey as he tries to cut an interview about wrestling Meng without freaking out. He freaks out anyway, then admonishes a producer for “making sudden moves like that…I almost soiled my pants.” Gene, looking at the seat of Smiley’s tights: “You did.” Heh heh. Meng, who I know is the final WCW Hardcore Champion, looks to win it for the first time against Normam Smiley, who brings the requisite bin full of plundah. Norm has a Champ Bailey jersey on, but his helmet does not sport the then-logo of the Washington Football Team. Meng clubbers. Meng plundahs. Norm screams. The match goes immediately to the backstage area. Tony S. gamely does his best to explain the screaming as a kayfabe strategy to shock a guy and get him to beg off for a second, theoretically giving Norm an opening. They brawl through catering; Meng misses a cinderblock toss. Norm sprays an extinguisher at Meng, then dives through a screen to escape when that doesn’t work. Finlay and Knobbs run up from out of nowhere and attack Meng. THA MONSTA hangs on for as long as he can, but gets clocked with a lead pipe and laid out. Smiley, who was hiding behind a table and under the cloth screen for that attack, sneaks over and pins Meng for three. The crowd thought that Norm was very funny and he got a nice pop for winning. After the match, Meng wakes up when the ref checks on him, and that poor bastard Nick Patrick gets TDG’d. Daffney’s sent another present to Dopey Dave: A golden crowbar. Dr. Death and Oklahoma get the latter’s mic ready in the locker room before their match. Oklahoma leaves the room while Doc is still tying up his boots, and the Misfits jump Oklahoma and drag him off somewhere. Recap: How did we get here with the Revolution and why are they feuding with midcard janitor Jim Duggan? Mike Tenay asks Duggan who his partners are, but he pledges to keep them a secret until the moment they hit the ring. He hits a HOOOOOOOO and the crowd also hits a HOOOOOOOO and, look, Duggan is still over as a babyface. I clown on the guy all the time, but he’s just over, man. WCW’s primary audience at this point is into him. The Revolution hits the ring. Shane “The Fraudchise” Douglas insists on doing some generic yammering over the house mic before the match. I get a kick out of Duggan’s TurnerTron video including shots of him cramming down Ex-Lax brownies and scrubbing a toilet. Duggan now insists on grabbing the mic and introduces his partners: The Varsity Club?! Hold on. Mike Rotundo and Rick Steiner? With Kevin Sullivan? And Kimona Wanalaya Leia Meow in a skimpy cheerleading outfit? I don’t even remember reading that the Varsity Club came back at the time. I have so many kayfabe-focused questions. For one, why would Russo give Kevin Sullivan a special dispensation to wrestle again after Sully was forcibly retired by Chris Benoit almost three years ago? Why would Rick Steiner, who we last saw was a heartless prick (except when he helped his buddy Sid away from ringside after Sid was mauled by Goldberg) agree to help Hacksaw? Which one of them contracted Leia for her managerial services? This match is what it is. Duggan works the match while ignoring his partners and getting his ass kicked; Douglas yammers on commentary. The Varsity Club finally rushes the ring after the Revolution all triple team Duggan at once. They clear most of the ring and hit Asya with a Sullivan charge out of the Tree of Woe before turning on Duggan and leaving him lying. Douglas gets up from commentary, slides in the ring, and covers Duggan for three. Then, he talks some more on the house mic. This wasn’t bad enough to make a list or anything, but it’s a perfect example of overbooked, over-talky nonsense from this era. Okerlund interviews the Misfits in an unidentified location. They’ve appropriated the shark cage from the Revolution or whomever had it last; Oklahoma’s in it as “can’t run, can’t hide” insurance if Vampiro does manage to take down Doc. Vampiro wrestles Dr. Death next; if Vamp wins, he gets a five-minute match with Oklahoma. The Misfits wheel Oklahoma to the ring as he begs Tony S. to use whatever stroke he has to get him out of the cage over the mic. Tony S. says he doesn’t have any stroke, then tells Oklahoma that the family says hello. Heh. So, this match exists. The big draw, depending on how you feel about Ed Ferrara’s ability to do comedy, is that Oklahoma commentates this match from the cage while alternating between confidence and terror depending on whether or not Doc is in control. They fight outside, get in the ring, and trade chops back and forth before Doc lands a couple of football tackles and takes over. Doc lands a gunshot of a chop in there, and he hits a big overhead superplex, too. The rest of this is nondescript. Doc is still good, but Vampiro sucks, so there’s a lid on the quality of this match. The Misfits flood the ring after the overhead superplex. They stink at fighting, but they give Vampiro enough time to recover and hit a spinning front kick. Vampiro next tries a wheel kick and gets back suplexed. Doc does some clubbering, tosses the ref away once when the ref tries to break it up, and then goes back to clubbering. He tosses the persistent ref away again, and that’s it. That’s the finish. Charles Robinson DQs him and awards the bout to Vampiro. Oklahoma, after initially freaking out that Doc lost, realizes that Vampiro is down after all that clubbering and wants to get out of the cage as quickly as possible to press his advantage. After security backs a crazed Doc away and the crowd starts a BORING chant, Doug Dellinger unlocks the cage. Oklahoma commentates his own beating of Vampiro. Black Snow did this sort of thing like a billion times better roughly a decade from then. So, get this: Oklahoma holds his own against Vampiro. He even gets a jumping DDT off and turns back an initial Vampiro comeback. Eventually, Vampiro hits a uranage and the Misfits jump in. They all beat up Oklahoma before Vampiro lands a Nail in the Coffin for three. Boy, we’re edging closer to the Dirt Worst list with each match. I have to think about if this makes it. Yeah, just the Oklahoma match does. Curt Hennig and Russo’s Mooks try to get some direction from Russo himself, but Russo's distracted by something big that’s going down later. Tenay interviews Harlem Heat. Booker is trying to paper over the cracks in this team, but Stevie is now jealous of Midnight. Stevie is always jealous of anything that gets popping without his direct involvement. Crab-in-a-barrel ass dude. He walks out on their team before the six-person tag they’re having against Russo’s Mooks. So, Curt Hennig and Creative Control think they have a three-on-two advantage against Booker T. and Midnight. Maybe they do! This seems like a place where Paul Orndorff might pop up, but as it turns out, he never does. Creative Control sucks, man, and Ga/oP barely understands the concept of getting into position for an arm drag at one point. This match stinks, and I have no interest in heel control segments with Booker selling for Creative Control and Hennig, which is what most of this match is. Most of the rest of it is Midnight selling for Creative Control and Hennig. Stevie comes out to make amends with Booker, but Book has finally had it with his jealous-ass brother. This match goes on FOREVER. This is the one time that Russo should have just had a two-minute special. PLEASE get to the finish already. Midnight finally dodges an ugly second-rope elbow and gets a hot tag, but Stevie distracts the ref. Hennig jumps in and punches Book with brass knuckles, and Pa/oG covers Booker while Stevie prevents Midnight from breaking up the pinfall. The best this dipshit Russo had for Booker is breaking up with Stevie again. Hmph. Anyway, this was fucking garbage. Remember when this show started out with a fun tag opener? It feels like years ago. Dustin Rhodes interviews with Mike Tenay. Dustin’s still mad about his dad being fired, but he can’t even finish the interview before Jeff Jarrett jumps him and they brawl toward the ring. It’s another weapon-heavy brawl, which again, is not what I want out of a Bunkhouse Brawl. I want punches with taped fists and cowboy boot shots. It’s too bad because I was interested in a bloody brawl between these two, or even a brawl with minimal or no blood. Instead, I get Dustin slamming Jarrett into a wheelbarrow, which is a dumb garbage bump for a dumb garbage brawl. I feel somewhat cheated, so Jarrett’s taking that bump for nothing as far as I’m concerned. They finally make the ring, and Dustin grabs a cowbell, one of the few appropriate weapons for this type of match. Eventually, Billy Silverman gets in the way to try and stop the brutality too much even though this is a fucking Bunkhouse Brawl, so Dustin duct tapes him to the ropes. He also tapes a yelling Silverman’s mouth, which gets a pop. Curt Hennig comes down to get involved. Oh my gosh, this is not the wave. Hennig frees Silverman while Jarrett has Dustin under control. The only spot in this match that I love is Jarrett slamming a kendo stick over Dustin’s back; half the stick flies into the crowd with a loud CRACK, and both Hennig and Silverman stop their spot over in the corner to watch the sliver of stick fly as the crowd goes OHHHHH. Hennig interferes from the outside and eventually, after Dustin covers Jarrett after a Shattered Dreams and Hennig yanks Silverman out of the ring, Dustin lands a Shattered Dreams on Hennig before being dumped back to ringside by Jarrett. They brawl back up the aisle, and eventually Hennig joins them. Dustin hits Hennig with a bulldog on the floor, but that gives Jarrett space to climb the ladder on the set and leap off with a guitar shot that gets three. Look, I can’t say that was a terrible match, but it was maybe the most disappointing match of the night. They worked another junk hardcore match instead of a proper hateful brawl. Backstage, David Flair uses his golden crowbar to beat another headless teddy bear that he’s received. Recap: The Page vs. Flair feud is being worked in almost every possible combination. Unfortunately. Okerlund interviews DDP about this Crowbar-on-a-Pole Match that should only last like two minutes. Page should kill this guy. I mean, Page should kill this guy after he finishes cutting this standard mediocre interview. Flair jumps Page with his golden crowbar before the match. Lil’ Naitch takes it away and tells Dopey Dave that he hasn’t won until he gets the crowbar on the pole. While Robinson attends to Page, let me tell you that it’s wild how quickly these feuds and angles pass now. Russo was only in power for a total of, what, seven months across two stints? Robinson consults with Penzer over DDP's fallen form, but Page stops Penzer before he can relay Robinson’s decision to end the match by forfeit. OK, shouldn’t Flair lose for attacking his opponent before the match? That’d be a DQ win for Page, not a forfeit loss for Page. Meanwhile, David Flair isn’t what you’d call good, but he’s acceptable enough. He’s a joke character, and he wrestles well enough for a joke character (who is, admittedly, crazed and therefore at least slightly dangerous). Page also bumps around for Dave quite nicely, which helps. DDP lands a discus clothesline to stop a Flair flurry, but Flair lands a ball shot and thinks about going up for the crowbar before deciding to lock a Figure Four on Page. DDP turns the hold over, so Dave releases it, goes after the crowbar, and grabs it. He gets down, swings wildly at Page, and whiffs; Page hooks him in a quick Diamond Cutter and gets three. After the match, Page puts Dave up in the corner and hits an elevated Diamond Cutter, then prepares to whack Dave in the nads with the crowbar until Daffney’s nutty ass runs down and covers Dave; Page backs off, threatens to hit Robinson with a Diamond Cutter, and decides to just leave the ring without doing any further damage to anyone. I typically dislike that goth look, but Daffney makes it work. I’m glad she’s going to be on WCW television regularly. Recap: Liz, Sting, and The Total Package have a feud over Liz’s managerial services. Sometimes friends, sometimes foes The Total Package and Sting (w/Liz) hook it up. This seems like an almost too obvious spot for Liz to swerve Sting. There is a “free Liz from her contract” stip on this match, by the way. I think this stip got mentioned at some point in the last week or ten days before this show, but I’m not sure if I relayed it in any of my reviews. Before the match, Sting makes Liz swap out her mace for his can of “super high octane” stuff. I’m so glad that Sting is smarter than he’s ever been before. Sting making precautions against getting screwed over is the best. So, the finish will involve Liz trying to mace Sting and only spraying water or something in his face. What else do we get as part of the finish? First, we have to go through the match itself, which starts with Package jumping Sting as Sting gets into the ring. There’s an obligabrawl early on, and speaking of things that happened and that passed by as if a blip, Sting was a heel this year. Do you remember that? He was a heel for like two months. This year has been something. Can you believe that this is the same year in which Rey was both a reluctant member of the lWo and an enthusiastic member of the Filthy Animals? He feuded with the ICP at one point! Boy, nothing felt even medium-term important this year except for DDP’s short run with the big gold and the Goldberg/Sid feud. Oh yeah, this match. A bunch of punches and a double-clothesline spot later, Liz gets in the ring with the can of mace. She checks on Package; Sting, back to his feet, totes expected this. She stands up and sprays Sting with silly string rather than the mace that she expects to spray at him. Package tries to jump Sting while Sting kicks Liz out of the ring, but it doesn’t work. Sting then goes back to kicking the crap out of Package and lands a top-rope splash for two. Sting follows up with a face crusher and a pair of Stinger Splashes, then locks on a Scorpion Deathlock…no, wait, Liz gets in there holding Sting’s bat. Sting releases Package and lectures Liz. She releases the bat, then as Sting turns around and wraps Package in a Scorpion Deathlock, she picks it back up and waffles Sting in the face to draw a disqualification. Liz quickly grabs a chair and wedges it on Sting’s wrist; Package Pillmanizes Sting’s wrist while Sting is still in night-night land from the bat shot. Recap: Kevin Nash and Sid think they’re each the best at powerbombing dudes, decide to try and powerbomb one another. Sid comes out to his un-dubbed theme. Actually, the Network dub of his WCW theme has definitely grown on me, though I still think they should have dubbed his WWF theme over his WCW appearances. Tony S. mentions that Scott Hall is out “for an indefinite amount of time.” It’s almost 2000; is last week’s Nitro the last we’ve seen of Scott Hall in WCW, except for his portrait cameo in that one Jeff Jarrett/Booker T. title match? If so, I’ll just reiterate what I said before: Hall might have been the most over guy in WCW during the Nitro Era, and yes, I’m including Goldberg. If Goldberg is 1, Hall is 1B at worst. Nash makes it to the ring, and look, I generally like Nash and I almost always like Sid, but they’re typically not good dance partners for one another. Nash dominates early, but Sid comes back with a quick boot and sets up for a powerbomb that Nash dodges with a shot to the nads. Sid spills outside, and Nash follows. He tries to powerbomb Sid on the floor, but Sid shoves him away and they have a slow obligabrawl outside the ring. Sid’s back is slashed open somehow. A chair gets involved, but it means almost nothing considering that almost every other match had a bunch of weapon spots. Back in the ring, Sid hits a clothesline and then a nice legdrop. I really like Sid’s legdrop. Sid signals for a powerbomb, but lands a body slam instead. He does look for a powerbomb after that, but Nash pokes Sid in the eye and then is reversed on a whip and sandwiches the ref. *sigh*, so after the ref bump, Sid barely gets a heavy Nash up for a powerbomb that the ref misses. Sid checks on the ref, Jarrett runs out and KABONGs Sid from behind, and Nash – get this – can’t powerbomb Sid because he’s selling a back injury from being powerbombed himself, so he just tells Slick Johnson that he hit a Jackknife and Slick calls for the bell. What THEE fuck. That finish launches this one into Dirt Worst territory. Even for WCW, that is a godawful finish. DDP and Flair are heel-leaning tweeners, so take them out. Tonight, the babyfaces have won THREE TIMES – Smiley over Meng and Vampiro over Doc and then Oklahoma. And Vampiro’s win over Doc was by DQ as Doc was kicking the dog shit out of him. Also, is Vampiro even a babyface? I really can’t tell. OK, the only guy who is clearly thought of as a babyface by the fans to win tonight is Smiley. Maybe Chris Benoit will win his special challenge match tonight? He tells Tenay that his challenge is still open to be filled in a backstage interview. Chris Benoit defends his United States Championship against THE CHO CHO CHOSEN ONE Jeff Jarrett, who I just know is going to win this thing as soon as his music hits [Editor’s note: WRONG, and I’m glad I was]. I like Jeff Jarrett, but Jeff Jarrett is being overused tonight. The crowd is kind of quiet when he appears. Though, look, Jarrett working a ladder match against past Horseman foe Chris Benoit is probably gonna kick ass. Jarrett: “I’ve already kicked one ass tonight; might as well make it two.” OK, that was a pretty good line. This is still a ladder match, so Benoit meets Jarrett in the aisle and brawls with him, then brings him back to the ring and lands chops and a superplex. This last move gives Benoit time to go out, grab the ladder, and bring it back to the ring. Jarrett hears Benoit dump the ladder in the ring, revives, and knocks Benoit outside before baseball sliding the ladder into Benoit’s noggin. Jarrett takes over as Benoit bleeds badly from being split open, either on the baseball slide or from being dumped face-first onto the ladder right after that. Benoit is able to dump Jarrett outside, but Jarrett catches him and crotches him as he tries to climb the ladder. Jarrett smashes Benoit into the ladder as Benoit’s facial wound spills blood onto the mat. Jarrett tries a whip into the ladder and gets reversed, but he’s able to crotch Benoit on the ladder, then hit a sort of elevated, ladder-assisted side Russian while Benoit’s leg is threaded into the ladder. That was a cool spot. Jarrett figures he’s got things under control after that and tries to club for the belt, but Benoit catches him and crotches him in the ladder, then hangs him Tree of Woe style on the ladder before attempting to climb up the other side while Jarrett’s caught. Jarrett frantically wrenches the ladder from side to side even though his knee is caught in it and eventually topples it. Ooh, that spot was also very creative and cool. A bunch of reviews ago, when I was talking about Scott Hall/Goldberg at Souled Out, I mentioned three good ways to develop the work around a ladder match gimmick: 1.) High-flying daredevil stuff using the ladders; 2.) Brutal spots using the ladder as a blunt force object; and 3.) Limb attacks to disable your opponent from being able to climb the ladder efficiently. Let me add a 4.): Creative ladder spots in which you use it as an assisting object to hit moves with or an object to obstruct your opponent’s movement with while you try to simultaneously climb it. Those last two spots were very much in the vein of 4.), and this match has been mostly an quite effective mix of 2.) and 4.). So, back to the match: Both men climb the ladder, meet each other at the top, and throw punches. Jarrett punches Benoit off the ladder, but Benoit lands on his feet and shoves the ladder from the front, knocking Jarrett into the ropes. Benoit goes up, but Jarrett shoves the ladder from the side and essentially Hot Shots Benoit across the ropes. Jarrett climbs, but Benoit does the same to Jarrett and Jarrett crotches himself on the top rope. Benoit goes up again, and Jarrett squirms off the ropes and onto the apron. He goes up and dropkicks the ladder from underneath Benoit, who takes a face-first fall onto the mat to a bunch of applause. This match rules so hard. Jarrett, who probably should be more tired from swinging weapons at Dustin Rhodes earlier in the night, is up to his feet first. The only remotely negative thing about this match is that Benoit should probably have a clearer advantage over a guy who already wrestled once. Jarrett tries to set up the ladder, but Benoit is able to stagger to his feet and dropkick the ladder into Jarrett. Benoit places the ladder and goes up, but instead of grabbing the belt, he drops a diving headbutt to a legitimate standing ovation from the crowd, then goes back up and unstraps the belt. That match was borderline great. No, you know what, it was legitimately great. It’s one of the best matches I’ve seen in this whole run. Benoit managing to have great matches even with Russo booking these shows is pretty amazing. Nobody ever talks about this match, either. Much like Sid/Goldberg at Havoc, it’s underrated and under-discussed because of the shitty booking going on around it. That’s a shame. As one final note before we move to the main event, Jarrett is one of Benoit’s best opponents. Benoit and Jarrett show up multiple times on the Favorites and Good Matches lists, and they’ve now placed two Starrcade matches against one another – in 1996 and 1999 – on one or the other of those lists. Recap: The Hitman is our crusading babyface World Heavyweight Champ! Aw yeah, babyface Hitman as champ! I’ve been waiting two years for this moment. I’m sure nothing bad will toss this off course. No career-ending injuries, no wonky Russo booking to turn Bret heel again for no fucking reason – nothing’s going to stop this Hitman babyface run! The Hitman interviews with Mike Tenay, and I have so much trepidation. I don’t want to see punch-drunk Bret work with a concussion that possibly (probably?) contributed to his life-altering stroke and ended his career. Bret once again guarantees victory before we toss things over to Michael Buffer. Michael Buffer’s Ring Announcing Quality Control: I don’t know how many more Buffer intros we get, so we might be retiring this one after tonight, but Buffer does fine. He even changes up his intro to make it a statement that we as an audience are ready for this main event, not a question. You know, I realize as Goldberg comes out here (second, even though he’s the damn challenger, BOOOO), he won’t do better than .500 at Starrcade. And you know, I’m not sure he makes it out of WCW with even a .500 record at Starrcade. My hazy memory is that he loses at Starrcade 2000 to Totally Buff and is forced to retire. Is that right? I’ll see when I get there at some point in 2025. So, like I said, I’ve been dreading coming to this match. This and the Sid leg-breaker match – I have no desire to watch either of them, but I'll do it for the sake of analyzing the pro graps. I’m looking away in the Sid match when he goes up top, though. I can’t even really concentrate on this opener or anything like that. I’m just waiting for WATCH THE KICK to happen, and it happens late in the game. Bret’s mentioned this, but I think it gets lost in the discussion about the kick, but he does a ringpost Figure Four spot before the kick and he bonks his head HARD on the floor because Goldberg doesn’t help him ease his way downward by holding Bret up with his leg strength. You can see that Bret hurt himself even though there’s a mat underneath him. I hate this match, is what I’m saying. I hate it because I know too much about it. Let’s just get to the finish. (I should note that there are cool spots in there, like Bret almost reversing a Goldberg roll-through legbar into a Sharpshooter. This could have been a good or even great match, but that FUCKING Goldberg worked himself into a shoot after bashing his head into his door and injured one of the true GOATs.) There are multiple ref bumps, obviously. WATCH THE KICK and a spear happen after the third ref bump, if I’m counting correctly. Roddy Piper walks down in a ref shirt looking dour. Bret jumps Goldberg from behind and locks on a Sharpshooter while Piper calls immediately for the bell because it’s 1999, and we will never escape the Montreal Screwjob. Never, never, NEVER! The Hitman chases down Piper looking upset, but Piper simply awards him the title and slouches away. That’s it! That’s how the fucking show ends! This was an awful Starrcade, but at least I had that fun tag opener and Benoit/Jarrett in one of the all-time great Ladder Matches. Take my advice and watch that last one for sure. The rest of this was just overbooked mediocrity with a bunch of babyfaces losing in cheap and shitty ways.

I would have loved that because, based on how Philly reacted to Sid, they would have absolutely loved Duggan appearing.

Pretty much everyone who is hyped in modern American wrestling today. I'll never run out of old stuff to watch, but I miss being into a modern weekly wrestling show. There's nothing like the anticipation of waiting for the next episode of a hot wrestling show.

That, or bust out a dance. Dancing will get you over all day, every day.

Thunder Interlude – show number ninety-one – 16 December 1999 "The WCW Gang manages to land most of their attempts at comedy, overbooked nonsense" It’s on to Thunder and then Starrcade…Let’s, as Tenay says, MAKE THUNDER SPECIAL AGAIN… Sid Vicious comes to the ring while Tenay moves on to promoting Starrcade…Scott Hudson joins Tenay on color…Cool!...Vicious is joined in the ring by Chris Benoit…They dap each other up…Sid drops the funniest HEY YO ever…They cut promos against each of the Outsiders…The talking is fine…Sid will powerbomb Nash to the core of the earth…Benoit’s seen those WWF ladder matches Hall had, and he plans to supplant Hall as the king of those matches…They challenge the Outsiders to a tag match for a little tune-up…Curt Hennig and Russo’s Mooks interject from the top of the ramp…The Outsiders are already booked for a House of Pain match with Goldberg and the Hitman…Also, TPtB doesn’t like all the demands…Hennig books them against one another tonight and says that Russo wants them to fight or they get suspended for six months with no pay…That’s how you know it’s a work…WCW would never suspend any of its wrestlers for six months without pay, no matter what they did… Tonight’s matchups, other than the ones I just mentioned: Vampiro vs. Buff Bagwell; Hacksaw Duggan and Midnight vs. Saturn and Asya; David Flair vs. Screamin’ Norman Smiley in a Hardcore Championship match; and Chris Kanyon vs. Diamond Dallas Page… Juventud Guerrera, still in a sling, comes out alone…Tenay describes his work with Juvi last week as “two hours of hell”…Juvi’s running gag is to shout out the town he’s in over the house mic, but of course he gets it wrong and shouts out the city Nitro was in the night before instead…Then, he yells IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE WE ARE…This is absurd…It feels like Thunder episodes give me tons of chances to talk about how the Rock basically has every other pro wrestler in the U.S. shook in 1999… Sting (or someone who is dressed like him) jumps DDP as the latter warms up in his locker room… After a commercial break, Page is up and looking around for Sting…Hudson seems confused about why Sting would attack Page…Have you not been watching Thunder or Nitro lately, Hudson?...They’ve been side-beefing since Page got a cheapie victory over Sting a week ago… Vampiro wrestles Buff Bagwell while Hudson works out his confusion…Oklahoma is out five seconds into this thing…He comes to the desk…Four people are now on commentary…Four people on commentary, one of whom is Oklahoma, and Vampiro wrestling Buff Bagwell in the ring…This is textbook 1999 WCW…If I asked someone to describe what a random terrible late ‘90s WCW segment might involve, it’s this…But even then, one cool thing happens in this bout…Buff ducks a kick and counters a Vampiro leap up with a sit-out powerbomb that looks great…Juvi: “Nice move! That surprised me; he never does that move”…Juvi’s out here describing how I feel about these pro graps spots… Adrian Aaron Neville is in the crowd…Vampiro confronts Oklahoma…Dr. Death confronts Vampiro…Jerry Only jumps Dr. Death…In a dumb finish, both Buff and Vamp go up top in opposite corners…Instead of jumping down since their opponent isn’t anywhere near them, they stand up there until Oklahoma can hit Vampiro with a bottle of barbecue sauce…Vampiro sells the shot by leaping down and stumbling into perfect position for a Blockbuster that ends the match…FAAAAAAAAKE…Post match, Dr. Death murders Vamp with a double-underhook suplex on the floor…Whew, that was pretty sick…Two good moves in that whole thing didn’t make it entirely worth watching, but that’s better than we get in a lot of these matches… Before the break, Spice flirts with Evan Karagias as she walks him to the ring to face TAFKAPI… After the break, DDP is still looking for Sting… TAFKAPI and Paisley cut an interview…Well, Paisley cuts the interview…Which is probably a good call…Paisley: “Tonight we’re going to party like it's *beat* 2000”…What a gimmick!... Juvi declares this match “The Jabroni Match of the Week”…HAHAHAHA…Juvi’s out here unnecessarily burying these dudes…Anyway, Evan Karagias (w/Spice) hooks it up with TAFKAPI (w/Paisley)…They do their little mic deal where Paisley asks what TAFKAPI’s creative juices have produced and then TAFKAPI answers with one mysterious word….The bummer is that TAFKAPI is a fun worker!...He has a nice headbutt to the groin lower abdomen here…But the match breaks down almost immediately when Madusa comes out here…Madusa, Spice, and Paisley all get in the ring and bicker…The ref is drawn by this and misses Karagias hitting a missile dropkick and covering…Karagias gets up to get the ref’s attention and TAFKAPI schoolboys him for three…Juvi is confused about whether or not TAFKAPI won the title, and that sets Tenay off…Madusa slaps Karagias, and he leaves with Spice…Wait a minute, are we gonna get a Russo Swerve where Spice helps Madusa at Starrcade and it’s like THOSE TREACHEROUS WOMEN ALWAYS STICK TOGETHER, BRO, YOU KNOW THAT… DDP finally runs up on Sting in the back and brawls with him…Oh great, there was a second Sting…Alright, so someone in Sting clothing attacked DDP and now there are at least two (maybe twenty, who knows) Stings running around out here…Was one of the fake Stings Barry Windham, perhaps?... The Revolution comes to the ring…Juvi is as bored by them as I am…You’re not supposed to say it, bud, but yeah, they suck…The lights go out before Shane Douglas can talk…Midnight is in the ring, and Jim Duggan quickly joins her…Saturn locking it up with Hacksaw is some WCW-ass WCW shit…Midnight tangles with Asya and is run over by Saturn…She fights back as Douglas gets all edgy by dropping a “bitch” on commentary…Harlem Heat walks down…Midnight is FIP…Hey, a tag match in the Russo Era with proper shine-heat-comeback structure…WHOA…Duggan gets two on a running clothesline, and Asya comes in to spoil the cover…Midnight enters the ring and the match breaks down… Harlem Heat checks on Midnight after she gets dumped to the floor, but Stevie just tosses her back in…Stevie and Booker argue about that, and Midnight soon joins them in their spirited disagreement…Meanwhile, Shane Douglas runs in and tries to land a cast shot…He misses and hits Saturn…Malenko tries to interject by using Hacksaw’s 2x4…Hacksaw plonks Malenko, gets the 2x4, and hits Saturn with it, then covers for three…Harlem Heat leave ringside while squabbling, so there’s no backup for Duggan in this post-match beatdown by the Revolution…They strip him to his flag boxers and kick the shit out of him…Aaron Neville jumps over the railing, grabs the 2x4, and clears the ring…What a segment!...That was the most enjoyable WCW/Russo/1999 segment so far, maybe…It was dumb and busy and full of stuff, but it all somehow worked and was pretty fun to watch… Gene Okerlund tries to talk to a pacified David Flair…Dopey Dave’s upgrading from Torrie to Daffney…Good for him!…David tells Gene to pet his headless bear in a placid voice…Gene does, and Dave yells NEVER DO THAT, NEVER and storms off…That was actually pretty funny!... Sting is swinging a baseball bat in the back…The real one…Apparently, TTP was dressed as Sting in that initial attack on Page… Screamin’ Norman Smiley (in Crimson Tide football jersey and pads) faces a crowbar-and-headless-teddy wielding David Flair…There’s a back body drop in this thing…Huh…Dave wanders around like a lunatic, then gets hit in the head with a can lid and swinging slammed…In a genuinely funny spot, Norm starts a wiggle, and Dave gets up behind him like some sort of goofball slasher flick villain holding a trash can…Dave does the worst Running Man in the history of dance as Norm initiates a Big Wiggle…Norm feels someone behind him, turns around, and sees Dave finish his dance before delivering a trash can shot…Dopey Dave cackles after doing that, and man, that was so fucking funny to me…Dave tries another back body drop, but Norm blocks it and knocks him down…Norm, who next grabs Dave’s bear, tosses it at Meng when Meng comes out to face him…Norm runs and Meng destroys the bear…Flair gets up and freaks out over his destroyed bear, rubbing the bear’s fluff against his face and shrieking…I think I enjoyed this match?!...I mean, it was a Russo Special…There wasn’t even a proper match ending…Things just wound down…That should annoy me, but this match had like two actual wrestling moves in it, which is novel for a hardcore match, and the Wiggle/Running Man spot absolutely killed me…Yeah, this somehow finds its way onto the Charming Uniquities list…Whether you get a kick out of it, dear reader, depends on how funny you find the spots that are supposed to be funny…That’s Dave’s first appearance on one of my good lists, I think… We come back from break to see Smiley running like Trent Richardson (but you know, with better cuts) out of the parking lot while he screams…That was also very funny… Sting hits the ring…He’s irritated at TTP mimicking him and then calls Package out for a fight right now because he doesn’t feel like waiting another three days…Package’s heel schemer character is top-notch…No one noticed this because it’s 1999 WCW and most everyone was watching 1999 WWF instead for one, and 1999 WCW hits you with so much stuff that it’s easy to lose the few good crumbs in the morass of junk, for two…But Package has done excellent character and segment work since his return from the bicep injury…Package runs in dressed as Sting and gets his ass kicked… Juvi is genuinely confused over who was dressed as Sting and why…“I thought [fake Sting] was DDP,” Juvi says with what I am pretty sure is SHOOT confusion over this angle…HILARIOUS…I am enjoying this Thunder for only some of the right reasons…Liz comes out here as Package takes over…Has someone asked Tenay if he was actually annoyed with Juvi on commentary?...I feel like he is shoot annoyed, which only enhances the fun…This time, he goes off about Juvi deciding to double down on his confusion over this fake Sting angle…Oh yeah, so Sting comes back, hits a Stinger Splash, and gets a boot on another one…Package tries to hit Sting with a bat…Liz stops Package…Sting tries to rack Package…Liz just happens to get in the way (HMMMMMMM) and gets knocked over…Sting drops Package to check on Liz, and Package grabs the bat and whales away on him… Paramedics check Sting and ask him how he’s doing after the commercial…Sting: I GOT HIT WITH A BASEBALL BAT LIKE FORTY TIMES…ahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA, what an annoyed response from Sting...Genuinely funny…The medics asks where it hurts…Sting, now super-annoyed: MY BACK…Meanwhile, as Sting tries to get up and look for Package, we cut to Package hastily stuffing his suitcase in his car and driving away… Dr. Death (w/Oklahoma) is out here…Oklahoma gets back on commentary…Poor Tenay has already had to deal with Juvi trying to make a coherent comment about Doc and failing miserably…Berlyn is Doc’s opponent…THE WALL, BROTHER is with Berlyn again…Um, last we saw, TW,B was chasing Berlyn out of the BLOCK…So when did they make up again?...Well, never you mind…Berlyn sends TW,B into the ring to face Doc…OK, so it’s Doc/TW,B…Sorry about that…Doc hits a stalling body slam…That’s actually a pretty cool spot…Oklahoma, after a TW,B big boot: BIG BOOT, BIG BOOT, BIG BOOT…Juvi, after TW,B follows up with another big boot: SECOND BOOT, SECOND BOOT, SECOND BOOT…Oklahoma, perturbed: “Stop stealin’ my gimmick, son”… OK, that got me to laugh, as did Oklahoma spotting Chavo shilling some of his wares in the crowd and saying, “There’s Chavo, the only guy in this company who sells”…When even Oklahoma gets me to laugh, that’s how you know it’s a magical night where most of the comedy, whether intentional or unintentional, is landing…I just saw caley pan another joke of this type in a post that popped up as I edited this review…The difference between this Russo-riffic joke and the one on Nitro is that Ferrara delivered the punchline way better than Malenko did…Anyway, the pocket of the crowd in which Chavo is working starts a CHAVO chant, HAHAHA…What is even happening right now?...Oklahoma tries to hit TW,B with his boot, but Berlyn takes it away…That’s good…However, Berlyn then hits Doc with the boot in full view of the ref, causing TW,B to get disqualified…That’s bad…TW,B punches Berlyn in the face for screwing up his trip to the pay windah…Doc clotheslines TW,B to the floor, then walks out with Oklahoma…Weirdly entertaining segment… Recap: Nitro advances some feuds for Starrcade… Buzzkill passes around a petition to fans outside the arena…OK, fucking BUZZKILL makes me (and the fans) laugh with the following comment…Buzzkill: “This petition is to stop…uh...what is this petition for again? *pauses, thinks a bit* I forget, but it’s a GOOD PETITION! It’s gonna work!”…HAHAHAHAHAHA, perfect line delivery… Curt Hennig and Dustin Rhodes hook it up next…Dustin grabs a mic and gets bleeped for calling Jeff Jarrett a “slap happy bastard”…It’s so weird what they choose to bleep or not bleep…Dustin promises to be Jarrett’s “fat daddy” at Starrcade…Oooooh, kinky!...Shane enters the ring like right after the bell rings and gets hit with a Shattered Dreams…That might be the first one Rhodes has hit in this run within the company, at least on Nitro or Thunder…Hennig uses the distraction to jump Rhodes…Dustin’s music starts again as Hennig cranks his neck…Someone is floated to the ring in Seven’s garb…It’s Jeff Jarrett, who bashes Dustin with a guitar…Russo’s Mooks help Jarrett kick Dustin’s ass…Jarrett lands a Stroke… After the break, Jarrett cuts a promo on Dustin backstage…Jarrett calls Dusty and Dustin “two old hornyackers”…Auto-caption hears this as “two old horny actors”…HAHAHA, even the captioning is unintentionally adding to the fun…Jarrett can’t say “bale of hay”…He tries twice…First, he says “bay of hale,” then tries again and only gets it wrong in reverse by saying “hale of bay”…This Thunder is semi-unironically hilarious… Even Roddy Piper showing up in a ref outfit can’t bring me down… Syko Sid Vicious wrestles Chris Benoit next…This is a good pairing, though I doubt they’ll be doing much in a TV match during the Russo-Ferrara Era…Sid gets a mic and says he and Benoit are cool with six months off…That covers at least three months of softball season in the spring…Sid says before they roll out for their suspension, they want to fight TPtB…Sid wants ‘em to take of their girly-girl weaksauce dresses that indicate their physical and moral weakness and come out for a real man’s fight…Hennig and the rest of Russo’s Mooks respond…It’s a two-on-five handicap match…Sid powerbombs Shane, chokeslams Parka, and helps Benoit beat down CC even though Benoit’s holding them off on his own anyway…Sid beats up Hennig in the aisle while Benoit sets up a ladder in the ring…Benoit pulls off a cool spot where he rolls under the ladder after being shot into the ropes, then pops up and shoves the ladder onto CC…Benoit gets a Crossface on one CC member, but is jumped by the other one…Hennig cracks Benoit with the ladder, drawing a DQ loss for Russo’s Mooks…Sid gets back in and tries to help Benoit, but gets jumped with a ladder shot…The babyfaces almost never stand tall in the RFE, have you noticed?...That’s kind of a bummer… Gene Okerlund interviews Roddy Piper backstage…Piper stinks at cutting a promo…He’s refereeing the House of Pain match in a few minutes… Chris “Champagne” Kanyon (w/J. Biggs and ladies) hits the ring…Kanyon lets the crowd know that he’s now a star and no one can beat him…DDP is up against CCK tonight, as a reminder…The Jersey Triad EXPLODES…Again…Biggs yells at Hudson off-mic, and Hudson gives his headset to Biggs…Page and Kanyon have a decent match for the Russo TV era while Biggs talks about how much of a huge star Kanyon is…Kanyon shoves his way out of a Diamond Cutter, but walks right back into a huge uranage…Tenay calls that last move a Diamond Death Drop, but isn’t a DDD a Razor’s Edge?...I guess Page is trying to reclaim that move name for himself… Juvi keeps insisting that Chris Kanyon’s nickname is “Shampoo,” and when Tenay corrects him, Juvi claims that the guy just needs some shampoo for that greasy hair of his…Biggs, calmly responding: “I’ve heard it through the grapevine from The Powers that Be that if Juvi has a repeat performance [on commentary] like he did last week – green card”…Juvi yells SHUT UP, JABRONI, LOOK AT THE MATCH…Biggs is such a dick, man…He gets up and tries to help Kanyon cheat, but his punch tags Kanyon after Page reverses a whip…Page gets two on a rollup, then gets up and hits a Diamond Cutter on his third try after Kanyon blocks a second one…Biggs talks to the ref, and therefore Charles Robinson doesn’t see David Flair run down with his crowbar and hammer Page with it…There’s a standing ten count when Robinson turns around, and Kanyon manages to cover at nine and win the match…Bam Bam runs out to tell the ref what happened, so Kanyon crushes a champagne bottle over Bammer’s head…Juvi is incensed because he thinks smashing bottles of alcohol on people’s heads is his gimmick… Piper knocks out Creative Control when they try to bar him from the building, then makes sure production will play his music when he cues them… BREAKING NEWS: According to Gene Okerlund, Scott Hall has been attacked in the Outsiders’ dressing room…Roddy Piper comes to the ring…They set up a cage for a match that is going to go fewer than four minutes, if it goes at all…As Goldberg makes his way to the ring, Creative Control and Jeff Jarrett jump Piper at ringside…Bret Hart and Kevin Nash go at it in the cage…The bait-and-switch doesn’t bother me…Goldberg finally makes it out here and helps Piper fight off Jarrett and CC…Goldberg rips off the cage door, which was locked…Nash tries to cut Goldberg off, but Piper gets in the ring and clobbers Nash with a steel pip that Jarrett had brought out here…Jarrett comes back and lands a guitar shot to Piper…Jarrett lands a second guitar shot to Goldberg, who just gets up and spears the guy…Nash hits Goldberg with the pipe as Goldberg prepares to land a Jackhammer…Jarrett and Nash cuff Bret to the cage to get him out of harm’s way…They also handcuff Goldberg and land a couple pipe shots…They land one to Bret just for plausible deniability’s sake…They cuff Piper next…Oh yeah, since both team members are cuffed, that ends the match…This is the same type of match the Revolution had against the Filthy Animals that I forgot about until now…This poor crowd just wanted Goldberg to stand tall…They’re too dead to even boo that much…Goldberg rips the cuffs off the cage and the heels run away... On to Starrcade!...I will say this: I genuinely enjoyed this Thunder…In the immediate aftermath, I can’t quite explain why it worked for me when most overbooked Thunders don’t beyond the fact that I laughed pretty much all the way through this thing…I give it a WOO (surprisingly!)…

Haha, okay, I've seen this. It's even dumber than I remember, somewhat because he barely gets the springboard off in the first place. Mostly because that's a dumb bump to take on the floor, though. What a dope! Oh yeah, we used to watch those UFC tapes. I don't know that Tank doesn't care or that he just doesn't have the ability to project himself. I err on the side of giving him some grace. I think a lot of people don't really get pro wrestling and what an art/talent it is to project one's character outward in a believable way. They think it's all like Hogan and Macho yelling (which in and of itself is not just "yelling," but there's a cadence to how they do it, etc.) or spamming catchphrases like the Rock or Stone Cold (again, there's a cadence and art to it when done right). I think Tank came in and didn't understand that how to project his tough-guy KO artist gimmick because in a UFC cage, he just gets in there, throws heavy punches, and gets over. He's sort of like Kimbo Slice in that way. Sort of a boring, low-energy dude when not in a fight. Ken Shamrock got it, but I think Ken Shamrock is a special pro wrestling talent. If you stick him in WCW in 1997 and push him like Goldberg, I am convinced that he'd get over like Goldberg did in front of that crowd. Maybe not to Goldberg's extent, but not that far off.

I watched every single one of them to accurately log them all for the Absolute Dirt Worst list. The payoff of DDP destroying Bisch and the set in the last of FIVE of these segments did not make up for the pain of watching them all. This is too much pro wrestling, and I love pro wrestling. Check that: This is too much 1999 U.S. pro wrestling. Absolutely, though Russo has restrained himself so far on rapid-fire heel turns. I'm guessing that it only gets worse in his second stint. In fairness, I'm not also watching WWF C-shows or whatever the hell while I'm doing this. Just Nitro, Thunder, and PPVs. I find that I balance out remembering stuff I watched days or weeks ago with totally misremembering the stuff that I haven't gotten to yet, though.

Show #218 – 13 December 1999 “The one that sets in motion yet another pointless and stupid Bret Hart heel turn; if Russo and Bischoff ever want to bond over what they have in common, 'turning Bret Hart heel when everyone wants him to be a babyface'” It’s wild that Vince Russo just got into WCW, and we’re only like another five or six Nitros away from him being ousted for at least a little while! We open in media res, with Jeff Jarrett destroying Chris Benoit backstage before missing a briefcase toss, which allows Benoit to come back and whip him into a pile of boxes, then snot rocket him. Now we get the opener. The Artist Known Formerly as Prince Iaukea – TAFKAPI in the previous Thunder review and for as long as this guy is on camera in this gimmick going forward – comes to the ring with Paisley. I’m waiting for someone out there, maybe Russo himself in a backstage segment, to mention that her last name is PARK, BRO. Iaukea is trying to act like Prince Rogers, but Prince Rogers has flair and style, you know? It’s only replicable by comedians who have a gift for noticing his tiny quirks and adding them to an imitation based on the broad behaviors everyone associates with Rogers to make a full picture of their impersonation. In other words, effectively lampooning Prince as part of this gimmick is way beyond TAFKAPI’s talent in playing a character. Most people think of Dave Chappelle’s Prince impersonation in one of Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories sketches as a guiding example of what an over-the-top, but still realistic-feeling impersonation looks like (just the description you want for a pro wrestling gimmick), but you could also look at the comedian who played Prince knockoff “Charade” on Sherman’s Showcase as another reasonable example of what Iaukea would need to do to make this thing work at a bare minimum. Iaukea’s trying his best, but I just feel bad for him. We’re just going to get the obvious matchup – TAFKAPI vs. the Maestro (w/Symphony) – out of the way, I guess. These entrances with the music and such take legit like four or five minutes. I’m certainly that they’re going to be longer than this match, which has some energy and is perfectly fine for the length it gets. OF COURSE Symphony and Paisley get on the apron in tandem; each one slaps the face of the other lady’s charge. TAFKAPI rolls the Maestro up for three as he staggers backward from Paisley’s slap, but he doesn’t get long to celebrate because snobby country music star J E DOUBLE FF J A DOUBLE R E DOUBLE T, HA HA hits both of these musical frauds with guitars, then challenges Chris Benoit to a Bunkhouse Brawl later tonight. That sounds awesome, but again, it’s almost certain that twenty or thirty dudes will run in on that one just as it’s getting good. Other matches tonight: Tank Abbott vs. Meng; Syko Sid Vicious vs. Dr. Death; Sting and DDP vs. David Flair and TTP in a no-DQ tag match. I get a kick out of Tony having to promote the Jarrett/Benoit match since it’s part of the graphic that pops up to list out tonight’s big bouts and covering for it by saying that everyone just assumes Benoit will accept any challenge issued to him, so they put it on the list ahead of time. Evan Karagias is macking on Spice, which would be quite the upgrade on Madusa. Unfortunately, Madusa comes up on Evan and goes after Spice; security, back to work this week, swarms Madusa. Double champion Bret Hart, who is most of the way through being booked like an ace for a single month before Goldberg gives him such a terrible concussion that he has to retire, comes to the ring to cut a little promo in the ring about his Starrcade match against Goldberg. Hitman: “I’ve got nothing but infinite respect for Bill Goldberg.” Give it six days, buddy. The crowd starts a GOLDBERG chant while the Hitman speaks, and three guys try to counter with a GOLDBERG SUCKS *clap* *clap* *clapclapclap* chant, but it doesn’t take. Bret gets booed for guaranteeing that he’ll win at Starrcade, and I can only imagine Russo being certain that having Bret say that would cement that no one in the audience is predicting yet another Hitman heel turn. Goldberg comes to the ring to respond. He says that matches aren’t won on confidence level, then shows high confidence that he’ll win and that Bret is next. The Outsiders join this spirited discussion from the ramp. Nash facetiously feeds Hall his line, and Hall hits a HEY YO to rapturous applause. The Outsiders want the tag belts and make a challenge for them, and it’s a legit 60/40 in favor of the Outsiders when Hall makes the initial challenge. Hall quotes Something for the People’s single hit, then hands the mic to Nash, who says: “If you two can find it in your hearts to kiss and make up – I’ll wait, go ahead. Go ahead. *grins* How about a little embrace?” OK, that made me chuckle a bit. The Hitman accepts the challenge for his team. On another note, if Scott Hall could have stayed on the straight and narrow, he could have been the world champ in this company forever. He might be the most popular WCW wrestler in the whole Monday Night Wars Era. People love the hell out of Scott Hall. Since Mona got dismissed from WCW by Russo on Thunder, Gene Okerlund has now reduced himself to staring at Madusa’s cleavage. Madusa redirects his attention, then asserts that she’s going to wrestle Spice tonight. Ref Roddy Piper gets out of a car and yells about TPtB and New Orleans in general. Terry Taylor tells TTP the bad news about his match for later tonight. Luger: “The NITWIT David Flair in a tag team with The Total Package, *sigh*.” I again assert that TTP is really funny. This style of television really suits him - short matches as he gets worse and worse in the ring, but more speaking segments where he's asked to do comedy, which he's excellent at. David Flair, speaking of, scares a delivery person away with his crowbar. The delivery person drops a package for him that he picks up. Aw, that wacky Daffney has advanced to mailing things to her target. Soon, she’ll be shrieking in his ear and trying to scratch his eyeballs out. Madusa vs. Spice is next. Spice’s Eurodance entrance music rules. That’s some very ‘90s shit right there. Madusa jumps on Spice. Evan Karagias runs down and tries to stop Madusa, who wants Evan to punch Spice in the face. Evan doesn’t, and Spice ends up sandwiching Madusa into Evan in the corner, then covering Madusa while her body is halfway off the apron and somehow gets a three count. After the match, Madusa pretends to make up with Evan, slips behind him, and hits him with a German suplex, then kicks him. They bicker as they leave not-quite-together. Russo asks Shane if he’s got the remote control ready for use in Curt Hennig’s upcoming match, but before he can go over any more plans, Rhonda Singh jumps into the frame and boisterously asks for her next assignment. Russo refuses to talk to lower-midcarders and tells her that he’ll only talk to her agent. We know that’s a lie because Russo talks to Creative Control all the time. Russo sends Shane off in search of Roddy Piper. Recap: The Revolution has gone entirely off the rails as a gimmick. What the fuck?! Janitor Jim Duggan has had quite a few problems with the Revolution, and he gets interview time here in the Year of Our Lord 1999 with Gene Okerlund. In the ring, too, not just backstage. Amazing. The counterpoint to this complaint is that Duggan’s very over in the Midwest and South and especially over in Louisiana. He does his typical “for God and Country” shtick for entirely longer than he needs to before the lights go out and someone jumps Duggan in the ring. I guess this is Russo’s new deal for jumping guys in the ring and explains the remote control thing he was talking about earlier. Roddy Piper is given his next refereeing assignment: Curt Hennig vs. Buff Bagwell. Russo emphasizes that Piper should make wise decisions while reffing this match if he wants to keep his WCW career. The Total Package looks for Dopey David Flair, that nitwit. He’s just walking, but I get a kick out of Package’s frustrated insistence that Dave’s a nitwit. Roddy Piper comes to the ring to referee another Buff Bagwell/Curt Hennig match. I stopped to watch Piper’s best career match, which is against Keith David in They Live. Piper hit a gutwrench suplex to end that fight and force David to wear the sunglasses. I totally forgot about that; it was a sweet gutwrench suplex, too. That movie is more proof that Piper with some reins on him is pretty fantastic. That’s easy to forget after this Piper run where everyone got all laissez faire with him and let him just do whatever. Before the match, Piper declares this match a no disqualification match. A bunch of annoying kids are walking around on the hard camera side with huge signs that block the view of some frustrated fans. Where did they get that dumb idea from? Anyway, Buzzkill walks by the hard cam holding a sign that is at least smaller and blocks the views of fewer fans while Buff and Hennig have a match that is so bland that no one at this show probably even remembered that it happened the next day. Piper fast counts for Buff, who I guess he hates slightly less than Russo now that his heat with Buff over the summer has faded, and Piper slow counts for Hennig as the crowd, loving his antics, chants RODDY. Creative Control comes to the top of the ramp to survey the action; Buff makes a comeback, but leaps into knees on a splash. Piper makes Hennig break on his follow-up punches in the corner even though this is no DQ because it’s only no DQ for one of the men in the ring. Hennig gets in Piper’s face, and Piper clocks him. Buff jumps on top of Hennig and Piper counts a quick three. TTP, upon finding the door to David’s room: “Huh, he’s got his own locker room. [Takes after] his old man after all.” Package knocks, but hears weird noises coming from the room and cuts a very funny facial expression. Jeff Jarrett (w/prop guitar, barstool) comes to the ring for the Bunkhouse Brawl against Chris Benoit (w/ladder). Benoit is properly dressed for such a match: cut-off t-shirt and blue jeans. Jarrett goes with black jeans and no shirt, but he’s wearing elbow pads. Elbow pads? In a Bunkhouse Brawl? What a WUSS. This match has too many weapon shots and not enough punches. Further, in a proper Bunkhouse Brawl, the most commonly used weapon shot should be someone putting a cowboy boot over their fist and punching a dude with it until said dude is bleeding. In this match, a cowbell gets the most play. Acceptable, but not ideal. I also don’t think a ladder fits in one of these matches at all. Finally, there are ropes on the ring, which is fine, but I do prefer a ropeless ring in this type of match. Still, for a ‘90s style garbage brawl on free television, this is about as good as you’re going to get. You can see the clear step up from a random Hugh Morrus vs. Bam Bam Bigelow match of this type or whatever. Everything is just more crisp. Anyway, the finish: After Jeff Jarrett beals Benoit from the ladder by using the cowbell as a lasso in a cool spot, Dustin Rhodes runs in, punches Jarrett, and sets Jarrett up for a Shattered Dreams. Ref Charles Robinson blocks it, so Rhodes sets Robinson up in the other corner for a Shattered Dreams. Jarrett grabs another guitar and goes after Rhodes; he turns Rhodes around and swings it at the same time that Rhodes kicks his leg out. Rhodes gets bashed with the guitar; Jarrett gets punted in the balls. Chris Benoit gets back up, surveys the carnage, and heads up the ladder for a free diving headbutt on Jarrett. Benoit ends up taking a wild bump when Jarrett is able to recover and fling Rhodes forward into the ladder; Benoit lands flat on his face, and Jarrett sneaks away with a three count. TTP tries to discuss match strategy with David Flair, but Flair is too busy hugging the teddy bear that Daffney was hugging in last week’s Nitro Party video and apparently sent him in that package. Oh, I forgot two important details. One, Flair is creepily cackling as he hugs it. Two, the bear is now missing its head. So, a quick break here: I knew that Crowbar and Daffney were a pair, and I basically enjoyed them in 2000 WCW, but does Crowbar get his name as a result of feuding with Dopey Dave, whose signature weapon is a crowbar? I’m assuming something like this: Dave rejects Daffney at some point, and Daffney brings Crowbar in for revenge, giving him that name as a vestige of Flair’s once-preferred weapon. Also, Devon Storm had at least one or two matches on Nitro back in 1996, so it’s been awhile for him! He’s working WCWSN shows under that name right now, so at least he’s back on WCW television semi-regularly. Finally, which is the dumber weapon gimmick to try and work realistically: Dopey Dave’s crowbar or Hopeless Hunter’s sledgehammer? A nice Roadster pulls up. Who could be inside? WHO, WHO INDEED?!?!?!?! Russo tries to signal La Parka to attack Piper again, but Piper staves him off with a baseball bat. Unfortunately, he doesn’t see Curt Hennig coming and eats a chair shot while Russo crows at him. Tank Abbott stinks. Ken Shamrock is the perfect fit for WCW – can’t talk, but lots of physical charisma and is super-intense. Shamrock was never going to get very far up the card in 1998/1999/2000 WWF, which is flooded with great talkers, but he would have been a surefire main eventer in 1999/2000 WCW, I think. Abbott is like a facsimile of a facsimile of Shamrock. He has no physical charisma and can’t project intensity. He just looks like a dumpy dude in basketball shorts. He and Meng clubber one another to start this match. They clubber one another in the middle of it. They clubber one another to end it, as they clubber themselves out of the ring and into the aisle, where both men are counted out. So, here’s who was in that Roadster: Chris Kanyon, dressed up like a pimp; two ladies in low-cut dresses; and Clarence Mason. I didn’t make any of that up, I swear! I could have written anything about who got out of that Roadster, though, and it would have been roughly plausible in the Russo-Ferrara Era. But honestly, that’s really who got out of the Roadster. Piper got dumped out of TPtB’s office and is stopped by security before he can use a fire extinguisher to try and break the handle. Just like on Thunder last week with Stevie Ray and Saturn, Meng and Tank Abbott have an extended brawl through the arena. The Revolution is terrible. Also, they’re in the ring right now. I remind you once more, dear reader, that Saturn was over like rover after that Raven feud ended with their excellent Fall Brawl ’98 match. Then, he got over again by wearing a dress after doing nothing for a few months after that Fall Brawl match. I’m also baffled why he’s doing a slowpoke gimmick in the middle of a wider anti-American gimmick. Malenko tells Saturn that they have heat tonight, and Saturn blows off what “the boys in the back” are saying about them, but Malenko clarifies that he means that they have to wrestle Harlem Heat. Speaking of guys who are being bafflingly misused, here’s Booker T.! The lights go out when he and Stevie get to the ring, and I’m confused. OK, so Midnight shows up when the lights are back on, but Saturn is also pummeling Malenko. Was the idea that Saturn tried to attack in advance, but was too confused to tell that he was attacking Malenko? This is now a trios tag, I think, including Midnight and Asya. Or maybe it always was a trios tag. I don’t know. Stevie signals that he’s going to tag in Midnight, but Booker takes the tag instead. Oh great, more Harlem Heat discord! I love it! That hasn’t gotten old yet! Booker ends up as FIP, and I can say one thing: At least the babyfaces got some shine in this match. Booker uses a Book End as a transitional move to get a hot tag and end this truncated FIP segment. Book does get hung up on the ropes, but Saturn whiffs on a springboard forearm and takes out Asya. Shane Douglas, who was over on commentary, gets off commentary and tries to intercede, but he gets forearmed to the floor. Midnight leapfrogs Malenko, sells a knee injury on the landing, and Stevie gets rolled up by Malenko for three. Stevie is upset. *sigh*, let’s just do this fucking Harlem Heat feud. Again. Mike Tenay tries to interview TTP and David Flair, but Dave’s not very responsive and Package is more worried about getting an injunction against Liz managing Sting. Roddy Piper storms in after Package leaves, swinging a chair and yelling that he plans to get revenge on TPtB at some point tonight. Rhonda Singh runs down Clarence Mason (I know that won’t be his name in WCW, but I’ll go with that until we find out what his name actually is). She begs Mason to be her agent, but he declines. Chavo, who hears Singh claim that she can dance and is worthy of being represented by Mason, jumps in and tries to sell an interested Singh some dance outfits. Meng and Tank Abbott continue to brawl backstage. Hey, Paul Orndorff! I just remembered that Orndorff tried another comeback, got a stinger, and retired. Orndorff is greeted by Mike Graham and relays that TPtB have called him in from his position at the WCW Power Plant for reasons that he can’t fathom. The three heel Nitro Girls do a dance routine. Rhonda Singh jumps in on their routine in the dance outfit that she bought from Chavo and spoils the whole deal. Fit Finlay stands outside in that rural area which has apparently moved to New Orleans from Milwaukee and makes Knobbs do sit ups in a creek. Norman Smiley sports a Ricky Williams Saints jersey and a Saints helmet. He wanders into the BLOCK and gets his ass kicked. Meanwhile, Tank Abbott and Meng are still brawling, and they brawl into the BLOCK. Abbott and Flynn and Meng and Smiley pair off and go at one another and uh, the segment just ends? Vince Russo tells Paul Orndorff that he heard that Orndorff trained Midnight. Russo is apparently mad that Orndorff treated her kindly and fairly during her training, and probably even barely tossed racial slurs her way in the bargain. Anyway, because Midnight has turned out to be a pain in TPTB's ass, Russo fires Orndorff. Russo tells Orndorff to take his “Howie Long haircut” outta there, and Orndorff tells Russo to kiss his ass. Russo responds to that insult by booking Orndorff in a handicap match against Creative Control. Sid Vicious works out with a young man with Down Syndrome in the back; this young man named Seth is Sid’s ringside coach for tonight and shows supreme confidence that “[his] boy” Sid Vicious will kick the shit out of Dr. Death. YEAHHHHHH, Seth gets a front row seat for a chokeslam and hopefully a powerbomb, too. Dr. Death is out here with shitty-ass Oklahoma. Maybe we can get a powerbomb on Oklahoma for Seth, too. Anyway, Oklahoma craps on Saints coach Mike Ditka and then declares that this match has been made into a powerbomb-vs.-suplex match. Dr. Death jumps Sid while Sid escorts Seth to his seat at ringside. BOOOOOO, DR. DEATH, BOOOOOO. Oklahoma does his crappy Jim Ross impression on commentary while Williams tries and fails to hit a backdrop driver on Sid. Oklahoma gets up and slides his cowboy boot to Dr. Death, who clocks Sid with it. Vampiro runs out and chases Oklahoma around and then into the ring, where Dr. Death clocks him. Sid takes advantage of the distraction to try a powerbomb, and though Dr. Death gets away once, Sid big boots him and tries again, and that attempt is successful and ends the match. Sid follows up with a chokeslam on Oklahoma. The Outsiders run in, and the numbers game gets to Sid as the crowd begs for GOLDBERG. Alas, they get Nash landing a Jackknife on Sid. After the break, Sid sells a concussion and a neck injury backstage as medics check on him. Mike Tenay chastises the Outsiders for their attack on Sid, but they’re not particularly remorseful; in fact, they’re looking forward to defeating Bret Hart and Goldberg later tonight. The Total Package comes to the ring to tag with that nutty David Flair. Commentary hasn’t quite put together where that headless teddy bear Flair is hugging might have come from, which makes sense – it was a blip in a Nitro Party video that, in the context of these very busy shows, would be easy to forget a week later. Flair walks into the ring with his crowbar and his headless bear while Package poses and suspiciously eyes the dopey little guy. Diamond Dallas Page comes onto the ramp, and the way they switch camera angles, I almost suspect that Sting will jump him from the side. Page doesn’t get jumped, though. He makes it to the ring safely, with Sting eventually getting to the ring himself a couple of minutes later. Sting dominates Page even though they’re tag partners. Meanwhile, Package tosses Flair’s teddy away and jumps Sting, then grabs Flair’s crowbar while Flair scrambles for the bear in the crowd. TTP clobbers sting with it; Package tries to land another crowbar shot on Sting, but Liz runs down takes it away; then, she shields Sting with her body while Package tries to land a chair shot. Flair, miffed that Package tossed his bear away, sneaks back into the ring and hits Package in the lower lumbar with the discarded crowbar. Liz assesses the situation, then places Sting’s arm on top of Package’s body; the ref counts the three. Nonsense, busy nonsense…but entertaining busy nonsense, I have to say. If the whole show wasn’t just finishes like these, I actually would have liked that particular busy finish a lot more than I already did. Meng walks the halls, looking to re-engage with Screamin’ Norman Smiley, who is presumably hiding from him somewhere backstage. Chris “Champagne” Kanyon (w/ladies, Clarence Mason) thinks that his participating in the Ready to Rumble shoot has made him a bonafide movie star. Ah, I see, Mason is Kanyon’s Hollywood agent. Anyway, first Rhonda Singh clatters into the interview that Okerlund is holding with Kanyon to pitch her dance routine to Mason. She is very bad at delivering dialogue, even by WCW’s standards. Mason: “Who are you? Security! Get this woman out of here! Get this mad, crazed woman out of here!” Next, Bam Bam runs up, all excited to see his old Jersey Triad friend. When Mason cuts him off because he gets too close to the talent, Bammer turns on Mason and is jumped by Kanyon. Man, Kanyon used to be cool, but the money and stardom really changed him. Also, Mason’s WCW name is Biggs, I think. That’s what I’ll use for him going forward. After the break, Bammer storms to the ring upset that Kanyon did him like that. He calls out CCK (as Kanyon likes to be called) for a match, and CCK (w/Biggs and ladies) responds. Maybe this a take that no one ever makes because no one cares about Mason/Biggs, but I think Biggs is actually a fun little personality and a solid talker. I suppose if he actually defends cases in court in his day job as a legit attorney, he needs to have some good talking ability and solid charisma. Biggs gets a mic and prepares to set a few legal ground rules for this fight, but Bam Bam doesn’t have a lawyer on retainer and would rather throw punches than negotiate guidelines. Bammer dominates to start. He continues dominating, actually. He really kicks the shit out of Kanyon. Unfortunately, he slows down after the first minute or so and his shitkicking gets sort of boring. Well, at least until the point where Bam Bam drops a flying headbutt to Kanyon’s dick. I feel like that should get three, but Bigelow is distracted by Biggs getting on the apron, and Kanyon hits one entire-ass offensive move, a Flatliner, that gets three when Bigelow turns back to him. Wait, hold on, it’s not a Flatliner anymore. CCK wants it to be known as That’s a Wrap. Meng tracks Norman Smiley through the halls. Smiley is wise enough to drop pieces of his football uniform on the ground, breadcrumbing Meng down a long hall and away from the pillar that Norm’s hiding behind. Heh, that was pretty good. The Mamalukes make their first appearance on this show about ninety minutes in less commercials, which is a big part of the reason that I think I’ve had a better outlook on this show’s quality. Vito and the Bull plan to stuff Disco in a bodybag and dump it in a nearby river. Roddy Piper rants about how much he dislikes Curt Hennig and TPtB, then I guess challenges Hennig to a chair match? I think they’re wrestling one tonight? It seems like tonight, according to Tony S. Disco Inferno and Lash LeRoux are is wrestling as a tag team a singles match against the Mamalukes Big Vito in what is apparently a Body Bag Match as well as a tag team match. LeRoux is allowed to speak before the match because he’s in Louisiana, so the crowd is partisan and makes him come off like he might be more broadly popular. They even chant along with Lash when he speaks French Cajun. Smart move to let him talk in front of a crowd that is rooting for him. So, Vito and the Bull are not good at pro wrestling. I get it, the Bull crotches himself at high speed on a guardrail at some point, if I recall correctly, and tears his urethra. The dopey pro wrestler taking a super-dumb bump that isn’t on his head and neck is sort of novel, right? But these dudes STINK. Look, at this point in time, Elix Skipper, Kid Romeo, Mike Sanders, Sonny Siaki, and half the dudes in the future Natural Born Thrillers are getting in time on WCWSN. I’d rather watch any of those guys on Nitro than the fucking Mamalukes. This match is complete ass; I guess it is a singles match since Vito and Lash are the only guys to wrestle, so let me just fast forward to our finish. After some shitty control work from Vito – I don’t blame LeRoux for this part of things – Disco takes a chair and hammers the Bull with it, then hits Vito with it on a Vito rope run. The timing on this finish is WILDLY off. First, Lash forgets that to win the match, he’s got to put Vito in a body bag, so he covers Vito after the chair shot, and Vito has to kick out at one – the ref also forgot that this was a Body Bag Match – to avoid the dreaded WCW Special Finish (definition: the way the match ends is at odds with either the stipulation or the legal participants in the match). I give Vito credit for averting this even if he basically had to no-sell the chair shot to do it, but then he had to pretend to be hurt enough to lay there and get zipped into a body bag with no resistance even though he just kicked out at one. But, as Chavo might say if he were trying to sell someone backstage a set of knives, THAT’S NOT ALL! LeRoux also struggles to zip this bag up, so the Bull eventually has to pop up after selling the chair shot for fifty years and just club Disco in the back like he was probably supposed to do thirty, forty-five, maybe sixty seconds earlier. The ref sees this, and also sees the Bull entering the ring for the spot he’s very late to do at this point, and he calls the match for Lash even though Vito’s head and part of his torso are still sticking out of the bag because the Bull’s got to come in and club Lash from behind at some point, and they don’t have all damn night. The Mamalukes stomp out Lash and pop him with a chain, then bag his body and carry him out, presumably to dump him in the river. That was such badly timed and executed television that it can go nowhere else but on the Absolute Dirt Worst list. Truly an awful match in every fashion. After a break, we see the Mamalukes dump the bag and split off to find their car. They don’t recall where they parked it, you see. As soon as they're gone, Lash busts out of this poorly-zipped body bag. Paul Orndorff has his first Nitro match since (I believe) Show #15, when he defeated Disco Inferno. We hadn’t even made it to 1996 yet the last time Orndorff wrestled on this show. It’s a much different Nitro here in late 1999, four years and one Eric Bischoff firing later. Orndorff trying to come back in 1999 seems ill-considered even without knowing that he hurts his neck soon after. Orndorff dominates Creative Control for a while and even hits his Wonderful Elbow on Ga/oP. Then he lands one on Pa/oG. He even brought a rope to choke dudes with, as is standard for this devious old veteran. CC turns it around and chokes Orndorff with the rope, but Larry Z. and Arn Anderson come down and help Orndorff out by kicking the shit out of CC; Orndorff drills one of them with a piledriver and gets three. I assume that these three men might be helping Hacksaw Duggan in his quest to defeat the Revolution? Or maybe they’ll hire some other vets. Anyway, Slick Johnson is a heel ref again, so he runs out and overturns the decision. Hall wants to hit a strip club after the Outsiders win the tag titles, but Nash claims not to have any cash on him. Hall, accusatorily: “You never have any cash on you.” The Mamalukes come back to grab the body bag and check to see that Lash is still in it; he’s not, but Norm Smiley is, as he needed a more secure hiding place from Meng. Here’s this Piper/Hennig chair match. There’s been way too much Curt Hennig on this show, and in general, I’m just done with the guy. I’ve truly hated this WCW run. I talk all the time about wrestlers who have gone up in my estimation during this watch-through. Hennig is one of the guys who has gone way down in my estimation. So has Piper, obviously. They clash chairs before Piper goes low and swings high. Hennig gets knocked loopy as he bumps over the top rope, stumbles to his feet at around six, and walks away from the match. That’s it. It took under a minute, maybe. Tenay and Goldberg hover near the Hitman’s dressing room; the Hitman has been attacked! Or not so much, but you'd never guess that because no one is seeing this obvious heel turn coming. Hart fakes a concussion that presumably was given him by the Outsiders, for which Sid eating a concussion from the Outsiders has come in handy as a bit of extra cover. Aw man, the Hitman is out here faking concussions before getting a career-ending one on Sunday. This is some cosmic bullshit, ain’t it? Well, it looks like Goldberg might be about to lose match number three (not counting any losses in multi-man matches where he wasn’t pinned or submitted) tonight. In the back, Goldberg yells BRET, LET’S GO, then impatiently takes both tag titles and mutters, “I’ll handle this myself.” Uh, he’s the babyface, right? I mean, even though Bret is faking, he doesn’t know that. What a dick! I liked it better when he was polite to that doofus Jerry Flynn. Goldberg comes out here himself, and yeah, that superkick Goldberg hits looks stiff as hell. He hits Nash with one that looks sick. Goldberg dismantles Hall, gets two on a pumphandle slam, then goes back to forearming Hall until Hall falls backward and is able to finagle a tag. He pretty much dominates Nash, too, before a distraction from Hall causes him to turn around into a big boot. Goldberg plays FIP for a bit as he’s regularly doubled up on by the Outsiders. The Hitman charges out here to try and, uh, “help” Goldberg. Hart jumps in the ring and beats up both Outsides, then tries to put a Sharpshooter on Nash. He turns Nash over, but Hall clubs him almost immediately. Goldberg gets up and beats up hall as Bret stops Nash from landing a weapon shot on either him or Goldberg. Goldberg drills Hall with a spear, but Hart suddenly falls over “hurt” on that ankle that Luger worked over two months ago and that Hart is still selling lingering effects of. Nash covers Hart while Goldberg lifts Hall for a Jackhammer, and the ref counts the three and awards the tag titles to the Outsiders. We just saw Kanyon do this exact sort of spot before turning heel a few months back, so it's the first thing anyone who has been watching 1999 WCW regularly should think of after seeing this finish. WHYYYYYYYYY are Russo and Ferrara going to turn Bret heel a third time? And the crowd wants him to be a face! How do you turn a guy heel who was on the wrong end of the Montreal Screwjob and then the guy who did him dirty in that incident killed his brother through negligence eighteen months later? No one wants to boo Bret! Stop turning him heel! I hate it! Stop it! This show stunk, but it was way more watchable than the previous Nitro. -7 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

I have more trepidation for watching Daffney in WCW than I did Benoit. I feel it will be tough to see her take head shots and dangerous bumps in the hardcore division knowing that the long-term chronic pain she attributed to those shots and bumps caused her to take her own life. How I'll extricate from that the joy I get from watching her be a fun all-around personality, we'll see.

Thunder Interlude – show number ninety – 9 December 1999 "The WCW Gang welcomes Juventud Guerrera to color commentary; Juvi on commentary provides us with the good (shitting on Shane Douglas's mic skills and asking about how The Total Package got all those muscles), the bad (his Wish.com Rock impression), and the ugly (using a homophobic slur to describe TAFKAPI)" We’re creeping up on a hundred Thunder episodes…Around the close of the Russo-Ferrara Era or so, we should get there… Tenay says that TPtB is determined to Make Thunder Special Again…I sort of want to get that printed on a blue cap (to match Thunder’s color scheme, of course) in late WCW-era lettering and wear it around…I’m a proud MTSA supporter, but I wonder: Was Thunder ever that special to begin with?... The Outsiders tease discord with one another as Hall makes a sulky Nash help him carry a ladder to the ring for their opening promo…Hall shouts out Chris Benoit for his wrestling skills, and Benoit gets slightly booed…A kid yells BENOIT SUUUUUUUCKS…People love the hell out of Scott Hall, let me tell you…Hall gives props to Benoit, but says that he’s better than Benoit in regular matches, much less ladder matches…He says that Benoit needs to go check out those WWF’s Greatest Matches tapes at Blockbuster…His ladder matches against Shawn Michaels apparently earned him enough money to buy his first house… Nash takes the mic and is annoyed at the dudes in the back with chips on their shoulders…He says that Sid must think this is a video game if he’s out here calling himself the “Master of the Powerbomb”…Nash thinks he’s a much badder man than Sid…This gets a mixed reception and some silence, as the fans like both of these dudes…Nash turns Sid’s threat from last week against Sid and threatens to powerbomb him straight to hell… Now Sid comes out and, aw man, talks about Nash holding him down with political games…No one wants to hear Sid talking about office politics…We want to hear him talk about kicking the shit out of a dude in a whisper, then shouts…And then maybe top it off with a crazed cackle…Russo and Ferrara have gone over the top with the shoot-bang shit in this promo…Now Nash responds to Sid’s declaration of powerbomb supremacy by asking him why he’s so sure he’ll win…“Is Vader booked?”…Because, you see, Sid was booked to win a similar type of match against Vader back in 1996 WWF…Whoa, it’s a reference to match that I know about!...Mindblowing!...Nash referenced something from another company to talk about a guy’s push!...What a clever thing to do!... Sid thinks Nash’s response is some cornball shit (which it is), and attacks Nash…He wins their punch battle, then shoves the ladder over with Hall still on it…Sid prepares to powerbomb Nash, but Hall recovers and hits Sid with the ladder…Nash prepares to Jackknife Sid into the ladder, but Dustin Rhodes runs down for the save…Jarrett is out fifteen seconds after and KABONGs Rhodes…Chris Benoit comes down and attempts a save, but gets his whip into the ladder reversed…The heels stand tall…Well, I can take a wild guess at what tonight’s main event might be… Mike Tenay is alone at the desk…Oh no, are they going to send Oklahoma out here to replace Larry Z. for the night?...Matches: Bret Hart and Goldberg vs. Creative Control for the tag titles (?!?!)…Evan Karagias vs. Rhonda Singh for the cruiser title (?!?!?!)…I actually thought it’d be Mona getting the shot and started to type her name in before Tenay finished his sentence…Madusa comes down the ramp, yapping immediately about Singh not hitting the 220-pound limit for the division…Probably, but Disco’s over 220, and they let him be champ, so my point is that caring about the cruiser division is over and DONE, sis…Madusa says it’ll happen over her dead body, then tries to be sexy…She fails, IMO… Other matches: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sting; The Total Package vs. Buff Bagwell; TAFKAPI’s debut…And yes, Sharmell becomes Paisley, which I’ll use as her name going forward since it makes sense in reference to the gimmick that she’ll be a part of… Juventud Guerrera, arm in a sling, comes to the ring with Psicosis and does the Rock’s shtick…Yuck…Why would you do something like this?...It makes you look fiftieth rate...Juvi joins commentary…Juvi continues dropping Rock catchphrases because the Rock made him get in his feelings while randomly name-dropping him in a promo on RAW three months ago…Tenay: “That’s original…is this a rib?!”…But Juvi does make me laugh by saying, “I’m the new play-by-play announcer” and then cackling like a goof… Nitro recap: This show was a steaming pile of shit...More specifically, it was the steaming pile of shit on the glass table that Jimmy Valiant was laying under as he pleasured himself… Sid, Chris Benoit, and Dustin Rhodes are looking for TPtB to get a trios tag match made… The Revolution comes to the ring and Shane Douglas cuts a mediocre promo while challenging Jim Duggan to a fight…Weirdly, “jabroni” is dashed out on the auto caption…Not the C-bomb, though!... Juvi is starts out terribly on commentary, no selling Tenay’s questions and talking over or under the guy…But as he starts to get comfortable, he drops a few gems…In this case, he gets warmed up as Shane Douglas, cutting this bland promo in which he challenges Duggan and three friends to a Starrcade eight-person tag in which the loser has to be janitors for thirty days, yells SHUT UP at the crowd even though they don’t care…Juvi giggles and says, “The people [are] already quiet”…Yes they are, Juvi…Yes they are…Juvi’s out here exposing this fraud midcard chump on commentary, and it’s hilarious…Douglas says some boilerplate heel shit, and Juvi mockingly BOOOOOOOOOs before scoffing and asking, “What else do you have, you’re killing me”…The man is not wrong about Douglas being a net-negative on the mic!... Oh, also, a correction: Only the Revolution have to be janitors if they lose…If Duggan and his guys lose, Duggan has to renounce his American citizenship…Douglas shows his watch to the camera and says it’s worth more than anyone in the crowd makes in a year…Juvi, talking under Douglas: “He [bought] that watch in a subway”…HAHAHAHAHA…OK, Juvi should be on commentary specifically for Shane Douglas segments…Fucking hilarious…He roasted that dude…Malenko hates Penzer for some reason…Saturn gets the “united we stand, divided we fall” saying backwards…Juvi, about Saturn's mixing up of the saying: “That’s pretty good for him”…Holy shit, Juvi's cracking on Saturn’s mic skills now... Booker T. (w/Stevie Ray) comes to the ring…Juvi: “I like that guy”…Me too, Juvi…Me too…Douglas and Juvi are now BOTH on commentary while Booker and Malenko have a match…Booker is over…Do something with him…Booker misses a Houston Side Kick, crotches himself, and gets clocked by Douglas in the back of the head with Douglas’s cast…Malenko locks on a Texas Cloverleaf and gets a KO victory…So much for doing something with Booker…Fucking Russo, that moron…Duggan runs down after the match…Juvi is a fan…I’m kind of turning around on Juvi’s commentary…Juventud yells HOOOOOOOO and then asserts how much he likes Hacksaw, then yells HOOOOOOOOO some more…Juventud basically MS3TK’ing this show is kind of entertaining, which I didn’t expect… Dustin Rhodes, Sid, and Chris Benoit kick the hell out of Creative Control and Shane outside of TPtB’s office…Hennig and Russo talk about Russo's boys getting washed out there from the safety of the office…Russo wonders why Hennig’s not out there with them…Hennig’s too busy supervising the ass kicking his guys are taking… Sid, directly to Russo after the light work he took care of outside the office: WE WANT A MATCH WITH THE OUTSIDERS AND JARRETT OR I’LL REACH IN AND TEAR YOUR THROAT OUT…Yeah, that’s more like the Sid talk I’d expect and hope for… So, it’s okay to have this “Purple Rain” knockoff theme un-dubbed, but we can’t give a few pennies to Jimmy Hart and Howard Helm for all their knockoffs?...Of which I assume this is one?...If this knockoff is okay, tell me how the Cat’s James Brown knockoff isn’t?...Juvi: “THAT’S Prince Iaukea?! *hoots* That’s a great gimmick for the worst wrestler in the company!”…Hold on, I think the guy is a solid worker…He’s not, like, Adrian Byrd or Buzz Stern or Luther Biggs, y’know?...Juvi undoes all of the funny work he’s been doing recently by calling TAFKAPI a gay slur…It’s wild that he just casually dropped that word on commentary…Tenay, floored, is silent for a couple of beats before moving on…Juvi bitches about Vampiro copying his Juvi Driver as Vamp walks down to the ring with Jerry Only…Oklahoma stomps out here next…Tenay wants Juvi to stop talking about "the juice" on top of maybe cooling it on the homophobic slurs…Oklahoma joins color… This show is a complete disaster, if you couldn’t tell from this review…Oklahoma, Jerry Only, and Juvi all talk over each other on commentary while TAFKAPI does a terrible Prince impression…Of course, then he takes a WILD corner bump to the outside, bashes himself off the stairs, and rolls into the guardrail…We cut away to see Roddy Piper showing up at the arena…Oklahoma tries to hit on Paisley…He propositions her, and she slaps him…Vampiro lands on his feet out of a TAFKAPI monkey flip and lands a superkick for three…TAFKAPI attacks Oklahoma for macking on Paisley after the match…Dr. Death runs up on TAFKAPI and lands a backdrop driver…Oklahoma stomps TAFKAPI while Dr. Death applauds… Russo fires Mona while Shane tries to hit on her…Rhonda Singh walks in and takes her place and Shane is bummed…Singh offers a secondary plan just in case she doesn’t win to juice the ratings…She whispers it to Russo, who recoils…Whatever, I don’t care…Wait, I do care about the fact that WCW couldn’t find anything cool for Mona to do (I believe she’s released in 2000 at some point)…She can work and she’s incredibly physically attractive…Those are literally all you need to have as attributes to do well in the pro wrestling business regardless of gender!...Talking well is optional if you have those two traits, no matter what people might otherwise claim… Piper and Nick Patrick yammer on about how ref decisions are final according to a Russo memo…Piper encourages Patrick to use his newfound power to annoy TPtB, then thinks about how he might do that as well… So, I guess that Stevie Ray and Saturn brawled their way backstage during the Malenko/Booker match at some point because they’re apparently "still" (according to Tenay) brawling backstage… The Hitman and Goldberg talk about their tag title shot against Creative Control…Of course we need to get the tag belts on two feuding opponents…This is a Russo special…And if I’m wrong, and if CC somehow walk away with the belts, that would be a true swerve… Juvi is excited to see, and I quote directly: “The Excellence of the Execution and The Excellence of…uh…of the Killing Machine”…I’m going to start calling Goldberg “The Excellence of the Killing Machine” now…That’s a tremendous nickname for the guy… Evan Karagias (w/Madusa) faces Rhonda Singh…No wait, Singh faces Madusa…What the heck; I thought this was a title match?...Either I was mistaken or Tenay was...Karagias joins commentary, to Juvi’s consternation…Juvi and Karagias squawk at each other over who is the better cruiserweight before Karagias gets on the apron and watches Madusa hit a trio of missile dropkicks…Madusa makes out with Karagias, dodges a Singh charge that knocks Karagias off the apron, then rolls up Singh as Juvi cackles…Singh goes to plan be and stripteases in the ring while Juvi cheers…The lights go out before Singh can get more than her gloves off…She’s jumped by someone while the lights are off, and she’s out when they come back on… Gene Okerlund tries to hold a conversation with David Flair…Oklerund asks about Flair clanging Flynn with his crowbar on Nitro and then asks for a few words from Flair about his upcoming BLOCK match with Flynn tonight…Flair goes nutty and destroys stuff with his crowbar… Roddy Piper talks to himself about Russo’s ref memo…Who is nuttier and more incoherent, Piper or Dopey Dave?... Stevie Ray and Saturn are still fighting…Remember, there’s no security because they walked off the job at the end of Nitro… David Flair enters the BLOCK…Dave misses Flynn walking past him and is about to get jumped when Buzzkill tries to stop them from fighting…Flynn then finishes jumping Flair, who gets his crowbar knocked away and then quickly choked out…Tank Abbott jumps Flynn from behind, KO’s him with a punch, and says this type of fighting is HIS WORLD in the flattest voice possible…I appreciate Tank, as shitty as he is at everything pro wrestling, because he indirectly got Russo fired after Russo suggested putting the big gold belt on him…That’s the one bit of usefulness that chump has ever had… Creative Control seems to have paid off Slick Johnson, who walks with them and acts like quite the agreeable referee!...Goldberg gets his security contingent, despite security not really bothering to do anything else on this show… Creative Control defend the WCW World Tag Team Championships against Bret Hart and Goldberg next up…Bret and Goldberg take about two minutes to polish off CC and win the belts…Once again, this match has NO shine segment and goes straight to Bret in FIP for a few seconds before he makes a comeback despite Slick Johnson’s quick count attempts…Piper comes down after Slick tries to cheat for the heels, takes out the crooked ref, and counts the three/calls the submission for a stereo Sharpshooter/Jackhammer on the CC members…Bret wishes his tag champion partner and world title opponent good luck in their upcoming Starrcade bout after the match… Russo demands that Hennig bring Piper in, and Hennig gets Shane to do it for him instead… Stevie beats on Saturn right past a merch table and through the crowd as Juvi steals the Rock's catchphrases some more…They end up in the ring, and I guess this is a match now…Creative Control run back out and jump Stevie, helping Saturn get the win…Booker runs out for the post-match save… YA KNOW, PIPA, lectures Russo to Piper backstage, as he laments Piper counting the three in the tag title match…Russo cracks his knuckles to signal La Parka, but Piper cuts Parka off before Parka can swing his chair…He makes Parka SIT LIKE A DOG in the chair and then slaps him…I can’t wait until Parka can get out of this company and go be a star in Mexico…Russo wonders if Piper is on drugs before saying that he’ll run Piper out of pro wrestling if the latter ever does anything like he did in tonight's tag title match again…Piper leaves something on Russo’s desk in supposed friendship, but maybe I missed something…That’s easy to do with this show… Sting and Liz stand in the back…Sting yells at Okerlund about Diamond Dallas Trash and The Total Trashy Package and such…Sting’s a really bad mic guy in the late ‘90s, isn’t he?...I get his Surfer Sting stuff…It fits the times…I get his wry veteran act in TNA…But late ‘90s WCW Sting…Woof… The Total Package is on his way to the ring…Juvi: “The Total Package, he looks good, but, mmmm, I wanna—I wanna see some JUICE”…Are you sure you’re looking closely enough at The Total Package, Juvi?...Hahaha, this dude Juvi says this when TTP unveils: “Is that genetic? Nah, that’s THE JUICE”…You know if Luger heard that shit and confronted him, he was copping pleas and saying that English wasn’t his first language… Diamond Dallas Page joins commentary as Buff Bagwell gets in the ring and prepares to hook it up with TTP…Um, is Buff still feuding with Russo and Ferrara, or what?...Juvi, about a silent DDP: “I think he’s mad; I think he’s angry”…DDP: “Hey. Shut the hell up”…Juvi: “OK. *quietly* See, he’s mad”… Fucking Juvi. When he stops trying to get his Dollar Tree Rock act over, he’s actually pretty funny a lot of the time…For some reason, Buff and Page end up brawling a minute into this thing during an obligabrawl…Did they have beef at some point?...Package holds back Page and we get a wide shot for some reason…That’s it, the match just ends after a couple of minutes...I’m baffled by this Buff/Page thing…Maybe it’ll get an explanation on Nitro… Russo admonishes Duggan for trying to wrestle again when there are toilets to be cleaned, but Duggan wants to stand up for WWE America…Russo clears the room of his cronies to talk one-on-one to Hacksaw…Russo says that Americans can’t possibly care about Duggan because they don’t buy tickets to see him or buy his merch anymore…Russo: “This country stands up for three things: me, myself, and I”…Sometimes even the heels have a good point…Duggan has faith in America and Americans, and Russo sends him out there to fail because he thinks otherwise… Asya (w/The Revolution) faces Jim Duggan in a match…Juvi and the crowd both love Hacksaw…The ref sends the rest of the Revolution away from ringside, but Russo’s cronies run in and attack Hacksaw…It’s a four-on-one beatdown…The Revolution come back out with their flag and a bunch of hot dogs and apple pie… They jam Duggan’s janitorial suit with hot dog buns and squirt mustard on him while Saturn eats the apple pie…Who booked this crap?...Harlem Heat run down for the extremely late save… Gene Okerlund interviews Syko Sid, Chris Benoit, and Dustin Rhodes before their trios match with the Outsiders and Jeff Jarrett…They threaten their opponents…Sid > Rhodes > Benoit in terms of speaking in this promo segment… DDP turns right back around and makes his way out to face Sting (w/Ms. Elizabeth)…There are fewer than nine minutes left in this Thunder when Sting hooks up with Page…Sting dominates and locks on a Scorpion Deathlock, but Page gets the ropes…Page and Sting slug it out and then, maybe a minute in if I’m being generous, Page takes out the ref…TTP runs down and clobbers Sting with a bat…Page makes to check on Sting, but hits him with a back elbow and a Diamond Cutter instead, then pins him for three even though the bell rang wildly for a no contest when Package ran in… This trios tag is booked for just under five minutes after entrances…What, that long?...They rush through the shine to get to the FIP segment…It really irritates me that babyfaces don’t get much shine, if at all, in tag matches during the RFE…Part of the fun of a tag match is getting hyped as the babyfaces dominate early and tricking yourself into thinking that they’re going to coast to victory even though you know they’re not because of the obvious structure of American tag matches…Anyway, Dustin gets a hot tag three minutes in and the finish is chaotic…Nash wins it with a pinfall on Sid after Jarrett KABONGs the latter… The thing about this show is that it was an entire car wreck, like most RFE shows…Matches are extremely short and don’t really matter…The humor is often puerile at best and slur-or-stereotype-based “humor” at worst…There are a lot of annoying personalities on this show…I’ve thought a lot about why Russo and Ferrara shows are typically scoring so much worse than the worst Bischoff-overseen shows even though I also think Russo and Ferrara shows, as low in quality as they are, are far more watchable than the lowest-quality Bischoff ones…Especially the Nash-booked shows under Bischoff…I’d rather watch Russo shows than those, I think, maybe… The big reason that Bischoff-era shows score better is basically a much greater volume of quality matches…For example, SuperBrawl IX was a mediocre show that culminated a bunch of poorly-booked feuds and came off the back of a bunch of bad Nitros, including Show #179, which featured Ric Flair getting destroyed, left in a field, and driven back to the show by a rando to get destroyed some more…And that show still placed four matches on my Good Matches list… So, are terrible Bischoff-overseen shows (we’re talking mostly post BatB ’98 here) scoring better than Russo-overseen shows?...Yes, BUT…It’s only because the former put on good, if often aimless wrestling matches…I love good wrestling matches, but in an episodic show, they end up being empty calories of sorts…Russo shows move way too quickly and are filled with nonsense, but I can’t say they’re boring…Irritating, sure…Nonsensical, yeah…Illogical, of course!...But they do hold my attention better than, say, Bischoff doing an awful, ten/fifteen-minute-long Tonight Show bit week after week…Still, this Thunder holding my attention ended up being bad for its grade…All that attention I put on it revealed the depths of its sucktitude more than if I glazed my eyes over for a neglected Thunder with two good TV matches on it in the Bisch Era…OWWWWWWW…

Mongo's chihuahua was only the second-most over animal in the company with that name during the Nitro Era, funny enough.

Show #217 – 6 December 1999 “The one that demonstrates the unique challenges of doing comedy on a pro wrestling program and delineates key differences in the broad skillsets of the WWF and WCW rosters in 1999” Gene Okerlund is in the ring for what might be the first time in the RFE to interview the CHO CHO CHOSEN ONE Jeff Jarrett. What I hate about this dub is that it’s almost all twangy guitar, and the “Cowboy” knockoff, like most Kid Rock music from that era, liberally borrows from hip-hop. Also, why was Kid Rock called that when he is the progenitor of this awful-sounding modern country music that’s done with hip-hop production for the backing track? I digress. Jarrett conducts his own interview, drops the worst catchphrase of the Nitro Era, and complains about Dustin Rhodes screwing him out of the WCW World Championship while Milwaukee actually starts an asshole chant and Okerlund chuckles at their choice of profanity. Jarrett is annoyed enough to challenge Dustin to a Bunkhouse Match (that Dustin’s “old fat daddy” invented) at Starrcade. Huh. Wait, hold on, I vaguely remember Jarrett fighting legends around this time. Doesn’t Ricky Steamboat show up at some point? And I guess this tracks with Terry Funk coming in. I’m interested in some old WCW/JCP faces wrestling Jeff Jarrett, honestly. Bring it on. Jarrett says that in the meantime, he’s ready challenge the big stars like Bret Hart, Goldberg, or…Mike Tenay. Jarrett crows about bashing Tenay with his guitar and threatens to do it to Okerlund. This brings Tenay out to say that since TPtB is doing nothing about what Jarrett did to him, he’s going to bring matters into his own hands. Jarrett faux apologizes to avoid a lawsuit, but after he makes to leave, he comes back and knocks Tenay down, then puts him in a Figure Four until Goldberg runs down for the save. So Tenay is going to track down Dustin, use that connection to get in touch with Dusty, and get Dusty and his friends to come after Jarrett? Again, I’m actually interested in that. Tonight’s featured bouts: Kevin Nash vs. Chris Benoit; Scott Hall vs. Sting; Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sid; and Creative Control against Roddy Piper in an I Quit Match that Piper will also be assigned the ref for. OK, this sounded great until the last match. I note that this is what typically happens when Schiavone or Tenay lists the matches for the night. The first two or three sound really interesting, and then by the end, we’re getting stuff like Madusa vs. Evan Karagias in a Sex Toy on a Pole match or whatever. Tony Marinara and his mobster doofus buddies are already triggering the EWR-style “You overused these talents on the show” pop-up in my brain. We get a review of Finlay cutting Brian Knobbs’s hair before, what the fuck, we have Knobbs walking through a wooded area somewhere outside Milwaukee. Oh, no. OK, so last week, Knobbs called himself a “hardcore soldier,” but I didn’t think enough of the phrase to make note of it; I thought it was just more of Knobbs’s babbling. I didn’t even think enough of Finlay saying to the corner camera, after he’d cut Knobbs’s hair, that if Knobbs wanted to be a soldier, he’d look like one. But I should have mentioned those things, apparently! Do you want to guess why? Go on, guess! Yep, Finlay has Knobbs participating in Finlay’s own personal boot camp. Finlay is an IRA man, I guess? That surprises me; I always took him for a Protestant. I don't know, maybe Finlay’s a loyalist. Actually, who the hell knows Finlay’s politics or how he feels about the Good Friday Agreement and whether or not he voted for it. The point is, he’s using what he learned dodging and/or making bombs on the streets of Belfast to whip this chump Knobbs into shape. I’m pretty sure that’s the implication, but maybe I’m wrong. Probably not, though. Norman Smiley, in a Mark Chmura Packers jersey and a cheesehead, comes to the ring and declares that Fit Finlay is lucky that he’s in a forest somewhere and not in the arena, or Fit would see what it’s really like. Smiley offers up an open challenge to anyone for his Hardcore title, and Rhonda Singh answers that challenge. Actually, WCW uses what I think is the shoot spelling of her last name, Sing. I think they’re doing that with Knobbs’s last name too (Knobs). I’ll keep using the most well-known and oft-used kayfabe spelling of her name, though, as I do with Knobbs. Singh hits Norman with various plunder while he screams and she yells C’MON, BE A MAN. I don’t think you get to define manhood, ma’am. Milwaukee pops noticeably huge for Smiley clobbering her with a trash can, which I’m not sure how to feel about. Smiley is way over working this gimmick, even if I think it’s kind of a waste of him. Singh misses a corner charge and slumps over the ropes. The crowd begs for Smiley to hit her with a Big Wiggle, but she uses a fire extinguisher to shoot foam in his eyes before he can dance. Shortly after, Singh chargers herself into a propped-up table in the corner, and Smiley covers for three. WCW should stay in the Midwest forever because they love this company there. But maybe not in Milwaukee specifically, considering that the Maestro and Symphony try to tune their piano backstage while a contingent in the crowd chants a homophobic slur. Anyway, David Flair runs up, slams the top of the piano on the Maestro, and abducts Symphony. That hanger-on Virgil got himself another damn job. He’s there wearing a suit in Russo’s office, standing next to Curt Hennig and Creative Control. I’m sort of kayfabe impressed at his ability to keep finding a group to glom onto. Russo talks to Psicosis and La Parka about Liger being given a return bout for the IWGP Junior Heayweight Championship, but Juvi being too injured to defeng the title. Russo says that whichever of the two is still standing and able to walk out of the office first will stand in for Juvi. Psicosis wins that short battle. Psicosis/Liger sounds amazing in theory, but I know it’s going to be bullshit in practice. The Total Package tries to ply Liz with champagne, but she’s not interested. Package needs her, though, as he earned a shot at the big gold against the Hitman tonight by beating Sid on Thunder. He mentions the champagne as he tries to get her to be his manager again, and Liz relents, like some kind of secretly alcoholic wine mom who just needs one more glass of champagne to get through the day, or worse, like Chris Jericho. Pizza delivery for Tony Marinara! No, actually, it’s Disco and Lash, looking threatening. Jushin Thunder Liger tries to get back his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (that he never really lost as far as New Japan is concerned) by beating Psicosis. This is the second title in like three months that Psicosis never won, then defended and lost in his first defense. It’s the third title in 1999 that Psicosis lost in his first defense, whether he actually won it or not. WCW, I’ll never forgive you for what you did to this guy. Nash is just Russo with height and a much more pleasant-sounding voice. We cut away from this opening to look at Buzzkill wandering around in the crowd, handing out flowers. You know what, showrunners, you’ve made it clear that this match between two awesome workers – one a legit top-ten guy ever in the history of wrestling – doesn’t matter. Liger and Psicosis barely get going before Liger induces Psicosis to take his signature bump off the ropes rather than in the corner and La Magistrals him for three. La Parka then runs down and crowns Psicosis with his chair. Tygress, Stacy, and Fyre talk shit about Spice while playing cards; the fucking mobsters show up and are fucking annoying. They eventually try to play strip poker with these ladies. I bet you can see where this is going. Package tries to woo Liz with this line: “What’s a train without the caboose? No, no, that’s not a good—Tracy and Hepburn? Sonny and Cher! What’s a bagel without the cream cheese?” This guy is really fucking funny. Anyway, Liz is still resisting Package's overtures. The difference between me never wanting to see these damned mobsters on my screen and me being open to The Total Package getting a bunch of blipments, in fact, is purely that TTP is funny and the mobsters are not. One major issue with Russo and Ferrara’s run is that they write a lot of comedy that is mediocre-to-bad, then expect the wrestlers to pull it off for them. You can get away with that in the WWF of 1999, where there are so many guys with awesome comedic timing and quick wit that it’s almost impossible to ask them to do something funny and have it fail miserably. In WCW, though, most of these guys can barely talk, and now you’re asking them to also be clever and funny on top of that. I wonder what we think of Russo and Ferrara’s run if WCW still had Chris Jericho and Raven under their employ. Those two would have been all over these shows saving these comedy sketches and making them work. I assume Russo and Ferrara still would have failed, but we’d think of their tenure somewhat more fondly because there’d be at least two or three promos or sketches that would still get endless views on YouTube and be mythologized as among the few classic things that late-stage WCW was able to pull off. The Maestro goes ballistic backstage screaming for Symphony. Gene Okerlund is still locked on Mona’s cleavage window. After she redirects his eyes, she promises to win this next Triple Threat Match between her, Evan Karagias, and Madusa for a Cruiserweight title shot at Starrcade. Since Evan is the champ, if he wins, neither of them get a title shot. They can’t find anything better to do with Mona? Come on, man. Some dude yells YOU’RE HOT, *wolf whistle* TAKE IT OFF right near the mic as she gets in the ring. This guy is annoying, man. Evan Karagias doesn’t even participate as Madusa and Mona wrestle. Instead, he walks over and gets on commentary, which he is bad at. Mona takes over and lands a missile dropkick, so he pulls Mona away from the follow up to protect Madusa. He leans over Madusa to check on her, and she cradles him for three. Jeff Jarrett runs in and tosses Karagias out of the ring; Madusa kicks him, and he KABONGs her, then grabs a mic and challenges Goldberg to a match. Disco and Lash tie up Marinara while the latter threatens to get his dad involved. Please don’t tell me that we’re expanding the mobster presence on this show. Package has finally convinced Liz to rejoin him for his title match tonight. He uncorks the champagne, and no, actually he hasn’t convinced her. She grabs the bottle, pours its contents over his head, and storms out. The Maestro looks for Symphony and fails to see Dopey Dave silently dragging her along the hallway behind him. Okerlund talks to Vampiro and Jerry Only; Vampiro threatens Dr. Death and Oklahoma, who will face them NEXT. Oh no, Oklahoma wears a headset to the ring so he can call the match as it happens. The worst thing about Vince McMahon taking bumps is that every goofy fuccboi writer and promoter wanted to do it, too. Vampiro stole Oklahoma’s cowboy hat last week, by the way, and he wears it to the ring. Here’s the bad thing about guys who aren’t funny trying to be funny, encapsulated in one match. I’ll give Oklahoma credit for firing himself up to start the match, then running to make a tag the second that Vampiro advanced on him. That’s the only comedy spot that landed at all. Dr. Death makes the hubristic mistake of pulling Vampiro up at two, then furthers that mistake by tagging Oklahoma in to finish off Vampiro…except neither move is a mistake. SWERVE, BRO, FUCK YOUR WRESTLING TROPES. Oklahoma hits a top middle low-rope elbow for three and reclaims his hat. DUD. I don’t even like Vampiro much, and I think this is absurd booking. The Nitro Girls divert the mobsters so they can yank cards out of their clothing and cheat to win, like some sort of female card-playing Eddy Guerreros. Lash and Disco prepare to tar and feather Tony Marinara. Gene Okerlund interviews the Outsiders. Hall threatens to put Sting in the trash along with the TV title and feels good about beating Benoit in a ladder match at Starrcade, especially with Nash softening him up beforehand in their match tonight. Bret Hart defends the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against The Total Package in our next bout. The Hitman has no time for Package’s unveiling and attacks him to a pop. We go right to an obligabrawl that Bret controls. I remember, oh yeah, Package destroyed Bret's ankle five or six weeks ago, so of course the Hitman is more aggressive than normal to start. TTP reverses a whip into the rails, but gets a post shot reversed and ends up right back where he started by the time Bret dumps him in the ring. Bret targets the knee and ankle after long; Package keeps trying to beg off, and eventually has to resort to raking the Hitman’s eyes as Bret tries a backbreaker. Liz comes down almost immediately, but Sting runs down behind her and asks her if she’s going to represent “garbage or…me.” Liz picks Sting, but this is an obvious future swerve, even if it cost Package the world title in the moment. Package watches Liz leave with Sting and is summarily side Russian’d and locked in a Sharpshooter that he quickly submits to. Wait, hold on, Hennig hasn’t quite gotten Virgil Vincent Curly Bill hired yet. Russo asks Virgil Vincent Curly Bill what his new gimmick idea is. Virgil Vincent Curly Bill: “One word. SHANE.” Russo is correct to say that he’s not sure if that or “Vincent” is worse, but takes Shane on at minimum wage anyway. I will note that Russo in kayfabe thinks that “Shane” is dumb, but he and Ferrara surely shoot giggled to themselves about that re-naming when writing this show. Rhonda Singh randomly busts into the room to demand an opportunity at the end of this blipment. She got one earlier tonight, so I guess she wants another one. Russo has decided that he likes La Parka even if Park is Mexican. Russo makes Parka his official chairman and tells him that whenever he gives the signal, Parka should clobber the person he points at with a chair. Harlem Heat (whom Midnight was walking around looking for before the break), comes in next, and you know what happens. After Russo gives Harlem Heat a tag title shot at Starrcade, he gives the signal, and Parka and Creative Control jump them. Roddy Piper gets out of a limo and screams incoherent insults about Russo. David Flair scrapes his crowbar on the concrete and muffles Symphony’s terrified cries. What the fuck is up with this David Flair gimmick?! Dopey Dave screams at the voices in his head, which appear to talk to him, but don’t seem to understand very well by the looks of things. I doubt they even bother to counsel this guy. Okerlund talks to an upset Jerry Flynn. Specifically, Flynn is upset about Berlyn breaking the rules of THE BLOCK by running in on his fight with THE WALL, BROTHER last week and makes another open challenge for this week. The Revolution comes out here dressed like they bought their clothes from Che Guevara’s catalog. This is so dumb, folks. It’s so, so dumb. What is happening right now? What are Russo and Ferrara’s major malfunctions? Asya is going to face Midnight, but not before Shane Douglas absolutely sucks on the mic. He threatens the American flag. Oh no, Shane! Don’t violate the Flag Code! That would make you as dastardly a heel as Madusa! Milwaukee just loves being crude, so they start an ASSHOLE chant. They actually have a flag with their logo on it. Saturn says they’re like the Black Panthers and throws a Black Power fist up. Saturn in the Nation of Domination…now I’m into that bit of absurd fantasy booking. Midnight shows up in the ring after the lights go out, and yeah, she’s rough, but she’s way better than Asya. She’s an impressive athlete. This match isn’t good, but huge swole (not Swoll) ladies hitting dropkicks and suplexes and stuff is pretty cool, even if the match isn’t great! They’re just very slow, especially Asya. Someone should have laid this match out better with more tests of strength and overhead backbreakers and shit. Anyway, the Revolution yank the ref out of the ring and attack Midnight. I suppose Harlem Heat are indisposed after that beating, but Hacksaw Jim Duggan makes and appearance with the foam 2x4. Milwaukee is very weird in that they pop for Duggan in general, but REALLY pop when he tosses Asya to the mat. This crowd is, like, super into dudes beating up women. Jarrett hammering Madusa with the guitar got a huge pop that stood out, too, and of course Norm cracking Rhonda with a trash can. Anyway, the numbers game gets to Duggan, and they knock him out and lay the Revolution flag over him. Larry Z. asks Mike Graham about this meeting that TPtB has asked him to attend, but Graham knows nothing about it. Piper is still ranting in an incoherent manner. Speaking of guys who can’t do comedy…wait, actually, Piper can do comedy when good writers write it for him and he sticks to reciting what they write, a la his appearances as the Mauler in It’s Always Sunny. But a Piper who is told to let his creative juices fly? Nope. Tony S. says that they’re bringing back Nitro Party tapes, and I’m like, really? And then this tape is from DAFFNEY! I fucking love Daffney! Daffney, AKA “Crowbar’s Personality,” hugs a stuffed animal while rocking back and forth; she looks like she might understand David Flair far more than the voices in Davey’s head understand him. And in fact, she says: “I just want to say that I think David Flair is totally cool” and, whoa, I now notice that she’s got a shrine to David set up behind her, something like Helga Pataki’s shrine to Arnold. Daffney fucking RULES; let’s get her on regular television ASAP. Roddy Piper doesn’t rule, and I hope we can get him off regular TV ASAP. He’s, if you’ll recall, the ref and competitor in this handicap match against these voids of charisma and entertainment Creative Control. Piper insists on talking before this match, unfortunately. He thinks that calling CC “Coneheads” is funny. Piper uses his ref powers to pat down both Pa/oG and Ga/oP. Milwaukee thinks this is funny. I guess Piper grabbing a guy’s junk is hilarious to some people. As Piper lays out the rules of this I Quit Match, I think about my favorite ever Looney Tunes short, “To Duck or Not to Duck,” and how it did the whole “crooked ref uses the pre-match period to abuse an opponent” thing to perfection. That short was hilarious when I was four, and it’s equally as hilarious to me now that I’m old. I don’t know whether the duck referee’s introduction of Elmer Fudd was funnier (“What a dog…what a tramp…you can have him” *cackling laughter at Elmer’s general pathetic nature*) or whether his introduction of Daffy was funnier (“That champion of champions, your friend and mine, Daffy ‘Good to His Mother’ Duck” *crawls into Daffy’s lap and affectionately nuzzles him*). I should have just watched that short again instead of enduring this segment. Piper does a lot of cheap shotting and trickeration to get the advantage, falls to the numbers game, and eventually is saved by Goldberg. Ga/oP that big goofy bastard, is like a lead weight as Goldberg tries to Jackhammer him. Meanwhile, Piper chokes out Pa/oG with a belt until Pa/oG quits. HOLY SHIT, THIS SUCKED. Piper raises Goldberg’s arm and kisses him on his dome, and Goldberg says that they’re now even for last week. We cut back to (too much) Disco, Lash, and Marinara. They muss Marinara’s hair and then tar and feather the guy. NO ONE CARES ABOUT THIS ANGLE. The annoying mobsters are getting washed at cards by the heel Nitro Girls. This is a sentence that I could only write in the Russo-Ferrara Era. The Maestro finds one of Symphony’s shoes. Recap: Dustin Rhodes throws off TPtB’s plans by hindering the title aspirations of their CHO CHO CHOSEN ONE. Dustin Rhodes hooks it up with Meng next. Young Dust still uses the Seven theme, which is funny. This match is what it is, which is to say that it’s below average. Jarrett runs down in a couple minutes anyway and gets the match thrown out. Dustin sets Jarrett up for a Shattered Dreams, but the Outsiders hit the ring and bail Jarrett out by jumping Dustin; Jarrett lands a guitar shot on Meng, but it takes a big boot from Nash to fully put him down. Nash then hits Dustin with a Jackknife. Larry Z.’s meeting with Russo goes poorly. Russo asks Larry why Thunder sucks, and Larry says that it’s bad because Russo sucks at booking. This is all SHOOT true. Russo agrees and says they’ll send more A-listers to Thunder, and while he’s at the business of making over Thunder, he’s going to replace a certain shitty-ass announcer. Larry’s like FIRE ME, I’M ALREADY FIRED BOOKED FOR EIGHTEEN HOLES AT A PENNYSLVANIA COUNTRY CLUB. Larry Z. says he’ll never stick around and be a puppy dog for TPtB like that washed up bum Curt Hennig. Hennig, standing right next to Larry, is not pleased with those words. Russo immediately books Larry Z. vs. Curt Hennig, and if Larry Z. loses, he’s out of WCW. Larry says that’s fine, as long as if he wins, Russo goes back to New York and fucks himself, and not necessarily in that order. He wasn’t nearly that harsh about it, but that’s basically what he intimates. Russo agrees. Well, I see The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Iaukea has gotten his new gimmick. Some knockoff Prince music plays while TAFKAPI allows a dove, which is not crying, to perch on his outstreched hand. Prince Rogers was an outsized personality, and Iaukea is not that, so this gimmick will never work. Did Sharmell get repackaged as Paisley, or was that someone else? Curt Hennig (w/Shane, *sigh*) faces Larry Z. next. Larry comes out to the classic Nitro theme. I MISS YOU, CLASSIC NITRO THEME *sob*. Uh, excuse me for that tiny breakdown. Anyway, Larry actually looks pretty good, but I guess he doesn’t have to wrestle that often, so he looks way fresher than washed-ass Hennig. There’s a ref bump maybe ninety seconds in, of course. Heenan: “Hennig is not employed by WCW; he works for The Powers that Be.” OK, but aren’t TPtB employed by WCW? Anyway, the ref is out on this simple corner charge for a long fucking time. Larry turns a Perfect Plex attempt into a guillotine choke, but Shane helps Hennig clobber Larry. Arn Anderson runs down with a weapon, batters Shane and Hennig, and Larry Z. covers Hennig for three. Alas, all the legal paperwork that WCW has to process means that TPtB will be in these positions until the end of January. No, wait, Creative Control run down and point at the replay for Charles Robinson, who knows where his bread is buttered and reverses the decision. Arn and Larry batter Hennig and Shane, but it’s too late. Now, hold on, shouldn’t Larry be the winner because Shane interfered first? No, never you mind, I’m using logic where none exists. Disco and Lash finish trussing Marinara by stuffing an apple in his mouth. At the poker table, Vito has lost his tighty-whities. I. Don’t. CARE. Did I tell you yet, dear reader, that Benoit’s new music starts with him yelling SILENT BUT VIOLENT? I never heard this theme before this watch-through of Nitro, since I wasn’t watching Nitro at all by late ’99, but every time I hear it, it gets worse somehow. Benoit faces Kevin Nash (w/Scott Hall, ladder). Hall joins commentary, but sits on the ladder instead of at the desk. Nash throws a few soupbones to start. Benoit eventually answers with chops and mudhole stomps. I can’t get too much into this match because we all know what’s going to happen. It doesn’t take all that long before, after an obligabrawl, Benoit snaps on a Crippler Crossface out of a Nash Jackknife attempt, and Hall runs in. There was a good match somewhere in here, though. They had good chemistry. Anyway, Hall attacks the ref with the ladder to induce a ref bump. Benoit fights both guys off for a bit, but his attempt at a diving headbutt gets diverted into a splash on Hall when Hall advances on him. That give Nash time to land a big boot and a Jackknife. Hall positions the ladder and puts Benoit in crucifix position, but Sid runs down and yanks Benoit out of the ring before Hall can land a Razor’s Edge across the ladder. After some dudes walk around backstage and a “Mayhem for the Holidays” sweepstakes is promoted by Tony S., we come back to Sting telling Okerlund that he’s trying to stay one step ahead of TTP by hiring Liz. Oh Sting, you fool. You foolish fool. Anyway, the Stinger steals a Scott Hall catchphrase and uses it to challenge Hall before their match later tonight. Vito and the Bull, and I guess I’ll call ‘em the Mamalukes now, come to the ring and are too damn much, man. Russo and Ferrara just love this gimmick and these performers, and I’m bewildered by it. Vito demands that Disco Inferno and Lash LeRoux get down to the ring, calling them two “John Travolta wannabes.” When did Travolta play a Cajun dude with sub-mediocre mic skills? Anyway, the twins from last week skip out here instead. The Bull plans to hit the ladies, but Disco and Lash jump them from behind. Tony Marinara apparently got free somehow; he runs in and attacks Disco and Lash with a pipe. The Mamalukes carry Disco and Lash out of the ring. After the Maestro yells a lot backstage, we see the Mamalukes stuff Disco and Lash into their car. They celebrate, but they are so busy celebrating that they forget the keys are in the car and Disco drives away. HARDY HAR HAR. Back to the Maestro, he accidentally wanders into the Block and gets into a brief brawl with Jerry Flynn. The way this is shot is almost fucking unwatchable, by the way. There’s a weird filter over the action and a shaky cam. Flynn quickly knocks out the Maestro, then walks toward a door to leave, and it opens; David Flair hits Flynn with the crowbar, drags Symphony over to a knocked out Maestro, declares YOU FOUND HIM, and then yells at her to shut up as he drags her away. Oh my goodness, so much bad television, so many shitty angles, such garbage gimmicks. Gene Okerlund talks to Nick Patrick backstage; Patrick says that the Outsiders and Jeff Jarrett have run in on matches way too often, and the refs are striking back! He bars everyone from ringside in the Sting/Scott Hall match unless they have a legal reason to be there. As it turns out, Liz just got her managerial contract with Sting signed and filed with WCW; she shows it to him as he makes his way toward the ring. There are two more Nitro Series videos out: One for Sid, and a second one for Sting. I’m actually interested in seeing those. Anyway, Scott Hall comes back to the ring with Kevin Nash at his side. Sting comes to the ring with Liz at his side. Nash gets on commentary, so I guess he can stay out here? I don’t know. Liz definitely can stay out here as Sting’s manager. Nash says that if Piper was allowed to search Creative Control before their match, “Scott should be able to search Liz with the same vigor.” Nash is absurd sometimes. He gets up from the desk early to attack Sting and is ejected from ringside. Hall goes with abdominal stretches and sleepers and chokes and punches. I’m not really into anything that’s happening right now. Sting eventually makes a comeback, lands ten punches in the corner, winds up a big eleventh one, and lands that, too. Hall gets control with an eye poke and lands a fallaway slam. Liz gets on the apron, so Hall walks over and crotch chops her; she maces him in response. Hall wobbles into the corner, blinded, and gets hit with a couple of Stinger Splashes and wrapped in a Scorpion Death Drop; he quickly submits. Commentary makes a point of noting that Sting didn’t see Liz commit that fuckery on the apron. David Flair drags Symphony behind him on his way to the ring, and Tony S. announces that Davey will face DDP at Starrcade (I think). Guess what kind of match they’re going to have. Go on, guess. That’s right, a CROWBAR ON A POLE MATCH. Russo is such a clown, man. Ferrara is too. I don’t want to forget him. Anyway, Davey comes out and yells into a mic that the Maestro had better get out here before he does something unspeakable to Symphony, but DDP’s music plays and Page walks out. Symphony escapes as Davey swings the crowbar at Page, whiffs, and eats a Diamond Cutter. Page insists on continuing to talk, this time about internet rumors. Apparently, the rumor was that Page wanted out of his contract with WCW to go to the WWF. Yeah, this vaguely sounds like something that got kicked around on RajahWWF back then. Page is a babyface again, maybe? He says he believes in loyalty, so he’s staying in WCW. That’s a babyface thing to say. But then, he says he’s only out for himself because people who were close to him have let him down, so that’s a heel thing to say. I don’t care, actually. I’ll find out soon enough, SHADES OF GRAY, BRO and all that nonsense. Tony S. announces that Dr. Death will face Vampiro at Starrcade; if Vampiro wins, he gets five minutes with Oklahoma. Harlem Heat will be joined by Midnight to face Creative Control and Hennig at Starrcade, but it’ll still be for the tag titles even though it's now a six-person tag. And yes, that Page/Davey match will be at Starrcade as well. My “Starrcade 1996 was the last good Starrcade” take becomes more apparently true by the minute. Page and Sid have like a ninety-second match that end when Sid blocks a Diamond Cutter, shoves Page into the ref to bump him while countering it, and hits a powerbomb. He calls for a second, and Nash runs down to interfere. So does practically every other main eventer in the locker room, and we get a giant schmozz. Security tries to break things up, but fails. Nick Patrick says that he’s sick of all the ref abuse, and they should just make Goldberg/Jarrett a lumberjack match because these refs have had it with the unsafe conditions and are walking out. Goldberg runs out to the ring as everyone brawls, and by that I mean all the main eventers and also Creative Control. The babyfaces rule the ring. As the only ref left in the company right now, Roddy Piper comes out and declares everyone out there but Jarrett and Goldberg LUMBERJACKS, one by one. YOU, LUMBERJACK. YOU, OUT, LUMBERJACK. Jarrett backs away from the ring, but a few linemen for the Green Bay Packers hit the ramp and bar his way; Dustin Rhodes comes from nowhere, jumps Jarrett, and tosses him in the ring. They should just run every show in Milwaukee, as this rotten piece-of-shit show has kept them pretty engaged all night! This Goldberg/Jarrett match is whatever. Jarrett gets beaten up, bails to the wrong side of town, and gets clobbered. Goldberg jumps into the heel side willingly to throw strikes. Jarrett eventually gets a spot of control on Goldberg by clobbering him in the head and back with a chair. The cover after those chair shots gets like 1.9. Jarrett slaps on a sleeper, but a mere sleeper won’t stop the supreme fighting machine that is Kama Goldberg. Goldberg fights up, avoids heel intervention, and eventually gets three with a Jackhammer on Jarrett to send the crowd home happy. But not me! I’m not happy with this show. Bad. -35 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Thunder Interlude – show number eighty-nine – 2 December 1999 "The WCW Gang throws spaghetti at the wall, also probably does a lot of acid while throwing spaghetti at the wall" Thunder is live, and I note no opening intro with the HOLLYWOOD sign…Could our long-awaited revamp be coming?...This show moved to Wednesdays sometime around this point, maybe at the start of 2000, so it’s possible that it’ll happen then…Can you believe we’ve almost survived 1999 WCW together, dear reader?... Norman Smiley, in judo gear (including helmet) opens the show by defending his Hardcore title against THE WALL, BROTHER…Berlyn comes out almost immediately, even before the match starts…He joins commentary, actually…Boy, there are a lot of dudes wrestling in suit clothes in this company right now…Berlyn gets on the mic and says that he accepts TW,B’s apology that I’m pretty sure TW,B never made…TW,B kicks the hell out of poor Norm…Smiley gets boots up on a TW,B corner charge as TW,B holds a trash can in front of him…Smiley hits a flurry of weapon-assisted offense and does a Big Wiggle instead of pressing his advantage…TW,B hits a Hot Shot and gets back to beating down Norm…Norm tries to break a goozle and gets help from Berlyn, who clocks TW,B (accidentally?) with the Hardcore belt…Smiley falls on top of the wall while still locked in the goozle and gets three, then has to work to extricate himself from the woozy TW,B’s grip…Smiley’s character work is getting these hardcore matches just barely on the side of watchable… Tenay offers tonight’s lineup: The Total Package vs. Sid Vicious, with the Hitman on color for the main event; Chris Benoit vs. Jushin Liger (!!); and Jeff Jarrett and Mona vs. Evan Karagias and Madusa, in a WCW-ass WCW matchup…Glad to see those WCW-ass WCW matchups are still happening even in the Russo Era, even if the match ending (all the ladies get KABONG’d) seems obvious… TTP is upset about being booked against Sid, but he didn’t exactly deliver on that Liz-in-the-mud deal for Russo…Package storms into the production truck and has them play back what Tenay just said about the main event…That FUBU-wearing pillhead is in total disbelief… Silver King and Villano V (R.I.P.) bust in on Oklahoma and Dr. Death…Ah, Silver King wants his check back from the pinata match a few weeks back that he feels he earned before Dr. Death destroyed all the luchadores…Dr. Death and Oklahoma are annoyed, but not annoyed enough to fight until Silver King says the magic words: FOOTBALL IS FOR GIRLS…OK, this was actually funny because that is what gets Dr. Death and Oklahoma to hold one another back in rage…Oklahoma says that Dr. Death will challenge Silver King and Villano V to a handicap match later tonight… Kaz Hayashi does this dumb dubbed dialogue shit with Gene Okerlund in the back…Then, he heads out to face the Maestro…Tenay talks about meeting up later in the week with TPtB over that Jarrett guitar attack on Nitro…He’s planning to ask for Jarrett to be suspended and fined…Who knows what TPtB will decide?...They’re capricious…Maestro and Kaz have a perfectly decent match…Where’s Symphony?...Tenay next announces that Hitman/Goldberg at Starrcade will be no DQ…Gee, I wonder if there will be any run-ins during that main event…David Flair and his crowbar make an appearance…The Maestro’s music has set Flair off one too many times, I guess…There’s a ref bump because there always is, all the time, here in WCW…Flair whiffs on a crowbar shot and yams Kaz with it…The Maestro runs, chased by Dopey Dave…Dave wants to know where Symphony is…So do I; that’s what I asked earlier…Kaz wins by count-out…*sigh*… Disco Inferno and Lash LeRoux drive their nice car up to the show, and let me guess, we are getting that car bomb spot that I just knew would happen at some point under Russo and Ferrara [Editor's note: Not yet!]…Johnny the Bull and Big Vito pull up shortly after, looking for those two stupid gavones… Chavo Jr. gets a call backstage…He sells something to someone on the other end… Terry Taylor catches The Total Package trying to sneak out of the arena…Taylor takes Package’s duffel bag for safekeeping to keep him in the building…Package: “Thanks, Terrence, you’re a nice guy"…Ah, Package is unconcerned because he was holding that bag for Jimmy Hart, who was holding his bag in turn…For what reason these two would hold one another’s bags, I do not know…Just ignore things like “logic” and “sense” and revel in TTP getting away free and clear after he gets his rolling case back from Hart and tells Hart that Taylor has his bag…Package pops his bags in the car and, uh, notices that he has FOUR FLAT TIRRRRRRRRRRES [(tm) Johnny B. Badd]…Just call a taxi, stupid… Chavo Guerrero Jr. (w/product) wrestles Buzzkill, who comes out to a New Age Outlaws-theme knockoff and cuts a Shopify.com version of Road Dogg’s opening spiel…This isn’t second rate or even third rate…It’s, like, eighteenth rate…Buzzkill lectures Chavo on the evils of capitalism…Chavo opens his briefcase and shows that he has a lot of tie dye that he’s got to sell at a low price…That and a bundle of incense…Slick Johnson approves of the scent of said incense… Chavo opens a box and gets a lava lamp sort of deal out of the bag…And it doesn’t work when he plugs it in, HAHAHAHAHA…WCW fucking sucks…The crowd is booing, but I do get a kick out of Buzzkill trying to save it…He’s supposed to be enthralled by this lamp, but it's not cutting on, so he sits down and looks closer, asking how they can get this thing to work…Chavo puts headphones on Buzzkill, presumably with some Deep Purple playing on the Discman…Buzzkill lays back to vibe out, and Chavo covers him for two…Chavo tries to sell some tie dye to Slick, but Buzzkill picks up the suitcase and batters Chavo with it for three…Buzzkill feels bad afterwards, and he borrows some money from Slick to give to Chavo, then takes off with the lava lamp that doesn’t work and some of the tie dye…Chavo wakes up and is just glad to have sold something…This was very bad, but it was unintentionally funny because a) the crowd vocally hated it and b) the lamp didn’t work…That’s what saves it from being on the Absolute Dirt Worst list for me…And yet, it wasn’t nearly funny enough on its own merits to get on the Dumb, but Entertaining list… Okerlund interviews Chris Benoit about his upcoming match with Liger…Benoit talks about his past experiences facing Liger…He respects the guy, but still feels confident that he will take it to the cruiserweight/junior heavyweight legend… Lash and Disco go to Meng’s dressing room and replace the notice that it’s Meng’s room with a notice that it’s Lash and Disco’s room…Did we ever get any explanation as to why Lash and Disco are pals now?... Evan Karagias is still trying to get a little something something from Madusa in exchange for that title shot, but she’s A FRIGID BITCH, BRO, YOU KNOW HOW CHICKS ARE, BRO, THEY’RE ALL FRIGID, NONE OF THEM WILL SLEEP WITH YOU, THEY ALL JUST LEAD YOU ON WHILE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF YOU, BRO…I mean, that’s not my experience, Imaginary Russo who probably has the same views as IRL Russo, but you do you, champ… Nitro recap: This show is busy as hell…I guess they weren’t allowed to show video of the food fight by Turner S&P and are only allowed to show stills…HAHAHAHAHA… The Total Package is a coward backstage…He tries to fire himself up for his match against Sid by looking at his own muscles… Sid is hilarious…As Okerlund asks him about the Powerbomb Match that he’s booked for against Kevin Nash at Starrcade, Sid plays with a TTP action figure in a goofy manner, then creepily whispers about powerbombing Nash to hell…He wants Package to get a glimpse of what he's going to do to TTP while TTP “ponders what the rest of his life will be like as a vegetable”…Well, Luger is able to stand for short periods now, but that’s a classic “Harsher in Hindsight” TV Tropes example…Anyway, Sid tears apart TTP's action figure while cackling…We cut back to Luger, and the look of horror on his face induces laughter from the crowd…He hurriedly yanks out his cell phone and calls for a cab…That’s what I said that you should do a few paragraphs earlier, dummy… The wider internet wrestling commentariat complained endlessly about ’99 – ’01 Luger at the time, but the wider internet wrestling commentariat was wrong, as usual… The mobsters are looking for Disco and Lash…These dudes are awful, man…Everything about them sucks…They shove some security guys around… Dr. Death (w/Oklahoma) faces Silver King and both Villano IV and V in that handicap match for the 10K check…Oklahoma barges in and kicks an upset Larry Z. off commentary…Larry storms to the back…Oklahoma’s not doing the Bell’s Palsy sneer anymore…He claims that the healing power of his barbecue sauce that the Misfits poured on him cured his palsy…GODDAM, this moron Ferrara sucks…Vampiro comes out a minute in and bullies Oklahoma, who barely has time to promote the Dr. Death/Oklahoma vs. Vampiro/Jerry Only match that’s booked for Nitro…Silver King takes the now unattended check from where Oklahoma was sitting and runs off while Dr. Death finishes off Villano IV with an Oklahoma Stampede… SOMETHING’S GOING ON IN THE BACK…Something’s ALWAYS going on in the fucking back…The Total Package walks past the mobsters to try and catch his cab…The mobsters ask Package where Disco and Lash are, and he points the mobsters toward the locker room with Disco and Lash’s names on it…OK, this next bit is actually pretty clever, and I laughed…That little delay in which Package told the mobsters where to look for Disco and LeRoux gives Silver King enough time to burst through the back of the arena, hop in the cab with the check, and take off…That was actually pretty good!...Package futilely chases the cab as it peels off… The mobsters find Meng’s incorrectly-labeled dressing room and loiter around waiting for Disco and Lash to come out of it…If only they watched backstage monitors like TTP does!... Chris Benoit comes to the ring for his match against Jushin Liger…What if they just gave these two fifteen minutes with no commercial break?...HAHAHA, no, Juventud Guerrera comes out in a sling before they can even hook it up, followed by La Parka and Psicosis…Juvi joins commentary…Juvi: “I used to see [Liger] as an icon, but now I think he’s a con…He’s a con man because he doesn’t have respect for the Juice”…The caption, which dashes out minor cuss words like “ass,” reads Juvi’s accented pronunciation of the word “con” as the C-bomb (!!!)…And that’s not a word that’s dashed out; it’s clearly spelled out in the captions (!!!!!)…Uh, someone at the Network might want to manually review the auto captioning in this episode… Anyway, this match has a promising feeling-out opening…So, I haven’t mentioned this in these reviews yet, but Juvi is currently in a one-sided cross-company feud with the Rock…I think it all got set off during Chris Jericho’s WWF debut, when Rocky said this to Jericho: “You think you impress the Rock? Why? Because a couple of months ago, you were down south beating some jabroni named Juventud?!” Juvi, since then, has made oblique references to the Rock into the camera during his matches, like hitting a move on an opponent and then asking YOU SMELL THAT? or whatever…Obviously, that burner of a line hurt the guy's feelings IRL…The Rock was burying everyone on the mic in 1999 Juvi; you have to let it go…But now Juvi is out here dropping every one of the Rock’s catchphrases…Which, again, is something that Randy Savage was also doing earlier in the year…He drops an IT DOESN’T MATTER and is now calling himself the Juice… This match is presented as though it basically doesn’t matter and is actually a showcase for Juvi the Juice to get himself over on commentary…Juvi claims that he made the Cruiserweight division, and Tenay cuts in to announce that Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Nash has been made for Nitro and that Benoit will face Scott Hall in a ladder match for the U.S. Championship at Starrcade…Liger hits a dive to Benoit on the outside…I feel like maybe I’m hallucinating again at this point…These shows are straight up fever dreams…Liger locks on a surfboard…Liger rules, man…Liger hits a brainbuster as things finally calm down a bit on commentary…Liger’s got Benoit reeling, but Benoit blocks a tornado DDT and hits a lariat…There’s a standing ten count…Liger gets up and tries an enziguri, but Benoit ducks it and drops an elbow…Snap suplex, angled back suplex, cover for Benoit, but it only gets two because Liger gets his leg over the ropes… I think this match has been quite good…I’m not entirely sure, though…I’ve been distracted by all the other nonsense with the commentary and captioning and match announcements…Liger catches Benoit going up top for a headbutt and hits a superplex…Psicosis and La Parka jump in the ring and stomp out Liger, but Benoit gets up and helps Liger clear the ring…The crowd applauds as Liger raises Benoit’s arm…I think that was legitimately good enough to be on the good matches list even with the fuck finish, but trust me – watch it on mute to fully appreciate it… Buff Bagwell promises to be a road block rather than a speed bump to Meng’s recent domination…No, Roadblock is a road block…You’re an annoying babyface… Russo and Ferrara giving a million segments to Vito and the Bull on every show is the dumbest shit ever…The mobsters bust in on Meng and get their asses kicked… Luger has me cracking up…Now he puts on maybe the worst attempt at a stereotypical German accent I’ve ever heard and pretends to be “Dr. Lipschitz,” Lex Luger’s father's doctor, in a phone call to Terry Taylor…I mean, this accent is fucking hilarious…It’s like a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s real-life Austrian accent and Madeline Kahn's Germanic accent in Blazing Saddles...And of course, Package can’t hold the accent at all, which makes it even funnier…Unfortunately, Package makes this call right outside of the room that Terry Taylor is sitting in, so Taylor pokes his head out of the door and lets Package know that he appreciates the attempt, but it didn’t fool him… Can you believe that, as Buff Bagwell makes it to the ring to face Meng, we haven’t even made it fifty minutes into this show, less commercial breaks?...So much stuff has happened...My goodness...Buff tries to avoid the wrath of Meng by firing up with dropkicks and lariats…This is actually a solid little TV match because the crowd gets into Buff’s attempted comebacks…I mean, there are a lot of boot chokes, but if you can get past that, the layout itself is solid…Eventually, the mobsters come down the ramp…They jump both men in the ring…Meng destroys both mobsters, no help from Buff needed…Buff’s a little sneak fuck, though, and climbs the ropes…In an awkward spot, Meng and Vito both have to wander toward Buff so Buff can Blockbuster Vito after Meng ducks…Meng TDGs Buff when Bagwell gets up and the ref, who was earlier bumped, comes to and counts three… Okerlund interviews Mona and Jeff Jarrett…Okerlund’s eyes are locked on Mona's cleavage window…She notices…He tries to pretend that he wasn’t looking, but we all know he’s lying…Cleavage windows are almost impossible not to look at, IMO, so I can’t fault that skeezy bastard Okerlund for looking…But man, look away, give yourself some plausible deniability…And yes, Mona is scorching hot, IMO, but still, play it cool, Gene…You’re fucking it up for the rest of us who have the sense not to leer…Anyway, yes, Smellynetico has settled down... Mona is aggrieved that Madusa gets a Cruiserweight title shot when Mona won their Evening Gown Match…Jarrett’s like BLAH BLAH BLAH, STOP TALKING SO I CAN TALK and then complains that neither Goldberg or Dustin Rhodes are here and shares his plans to see them on Monday…He also tells Okerlund to watch himself when he conducts interviews, or he’ll give Gene some of what Tenay got… Why the fuck are we getting another Bull and Vito blipment?...These guys fucking SUCK…What is the point of watching them cough in pain and lust after cheese sandwiches?...There is none; that was a rhetorical question… Jeff Jarrett and Mona hit the ring for their bout against Evan Karagias and Madusa…Jarrett makes Mona wrestle Karagias because he’s a dick…This sparks a JARRETT SUCKS chant…Mona and Karagias have a very good feeling out process, to my shock…They do some smooth chain wrestling (?!?!)…Mona is good, obviously, but I didn’t expect that from Karagias…Mona does her best in this match, but she’s outnumbered with Jarrett refusing to even get on the apron… Madusa and Karagias kick the shit out of Mona…However, Madusa takes a long time to go up top and Mona recovers and presses her to the mat…Karagias tries to go up, but Mona crotches him and hits a top-rope Frankensteiner…Unfortunately for her, Madusa comes up from behind and lands a sick German suplex…Karagias follows with a corkscrew splash for three…What the fuck, that was really fun?!...Jarrett gets in the ring and dresses down Mona…Mona dropkicks Jarrett in frustration, so Jarrett clobbers Mona with the guitar…That looked gross as FUCK…There’s a lump forming on Mona’s forehead almost immediately after she takes that guitar shot…GODDAM…Was that good television?...I don’t think it was, but it did entertain the shit out of me…That’s one for the Charming Uniquities list…And maybe a great example of how Crash TV in pro wrestling can be entertaining, if not very nourishing… Review: Bret Hart’s career in WCW so far…I sort of dig the idea that Russo and Ferrara are going to build their big angles around the Hitman and Chris Benoit…Of course, the execution will involve the Hitman turning heel, so as usual, the idea doesn’t live up to the execution… Gene Okerlund talks to these dopey secessionists in the Revolution…What the fuck is up with this sudden turn in the Revolution's stated goals?...It’s so weird…Saturn has taken one too many hits to the head and thinks they’re really forming a country… The Total Package has been reduced to pleading with TPtB about unbooking this match against Sid…TTP wants to know what’s in it for him…A potential world title shot on Nitro is in it for him, at least based on Package’s end of the call…Someone in production got wise and cut off the Thunder outro music while Package was talking about halfway through the phone call so we could hear him speaking… Okerlund talks to Disco and Lash, who are facing a couple of Revolution members in a second…Disco thinks it’ll be easy to keep outwitting the mobsters…Lash is now on CATCHPHRASE STEALING ALERT after he actually dares to call himself the “Ayatollah of Shrimp Creol-e”…Also, you’re Cajun, not Creole…Ricky Starks is the Creole wrestling icon, dammit…Not you…Disco tells Lash not to do the Bourbon Street Blues since dancing is his gimmick… Lash LeRoux and Disco Inferno end up paired against Dean Malenko and Saturn (w/Shane Douglas and Asya)…Malenko does some sub-average mic work about how badly America sucks…Again, this twist in the Revolution's gimmick has come from absolutely nowhere…What a strange fucking twist…It makes no sense…Malenko is confused at how someone can be proud of being Cajun and American at the same time…Uh, what?!...My God, Douglas and Disco have a mic “battle” now…What the fuck, man…Douglas is like I HATE ITALIANS SO MUCH…Now the GODDAM MOBSTERS walk out here…The mobsters attack the racist secessionists…Disco and Lash roll out while Asya ball shots the mobsters…Wait, no, Disco and Lash jump the Revolution as security backs the mobsters out…I guess we’re having our match now… Shane unfortunately joins commentary…If you’ve ever played Divekick, you’ll recognize what I’m going to type about Mr. Douglas next: FRAUD DETECTION WARNING – FRAUD DETECTED *Certified 100% Fraud*…Might as well put this doofus in a dress shirt and tie and call him “Dean” again…He sucks…Douglas rants about his dead veteran father and how that gives him the right to hate on America…Larry Z. goes all “centrist who is actually just an embarrassed Republican" in commentary and I blame Douglas for setting off Larry's inclination to act like a guest on CNN's Crossfire…This segment has been pure hell, and Saturn and Disco having a nice match segment isn’t going to change things…But wow, as bad as this has been, I can’t say that I’ve been bored…It’s like watching a house collapse in on itself…This must be how it would feel to watch the House of Usher fall in on its creepy residents…It's horrible, but I have to look, you know?...In the finish, Asya distracts Lash at ringside so that Douglas can clobber him in the head with his cast…He rolls Lash back into the ring, where Malenko puts him in the Texas Cloverleaf for the submission victory…That was pure, uncut WTF?!... Sid Vicious and The Total Package meet in the main event…Bret Hart hits the desk before the competitors come out…It strikes me that this company is turning Bret Hart heel again in about two weeks…Now, Terry Funk must come into the company pretty soon because I feel like he interacts with the Hitman in some way and tells Bret that he’s probably badly concussed…I don’t have Bret’s book near me right now, but I think that’s what the Hitman wrote about his hazy post-Starrcade remembrance of things… Wait, hold on, The Total Package gets a mic and says that they can do it the easy way or the hard way…Sid wants to do it the hard way and then stops Package from using an international object that TTP had hidden in his tights…Sid controls until TTP lands a low blow…Liz walks to the ring maybe a minute in…There’s a weak double-forearm spot a few seconds after that…The crowd chants for SID, who unfortunately for them is sprayed with mace after Package takes it from Liz…Sid blindly powerbombs Charles Robinson while trying to defend himself…Package quickly rolls a still-blinded Sid up while a second ref runs in and counts three…I mean, Sid’s legs were in the ropes and everything…Sid powerbombs a celebrating Luger after the match… This show was straight fuckery…It landed matches in the Good Matches and Charming Uniquities lists…It also landed matches/segments in the Dirt Worst and So Dumb, It’s Entertaining lists…I don’t know, this has to be on the positive side of the ledger just for holding my rapt attention for ninety minutes…Even the terrible stuff kept me watching…Just barely, WOO…