SirSmUgly

Two games that I got in the last week: Super Mario Run - I had three dollars in credit at the Google Play Store. It's about as good as a mobile auto-runner Mario game could be. I'm not a huge fan of the Toad Rally or palace building stuff that's tacked onto the core game, but the core game is pretty good, and when I'm in the flow of nailing my jumps, it feels just like a solid Mario game. Boy, do I hate this NSMB aesthetic, though. It looks and sounds ugly. We Love Katamari: REROLL and Royal Reverie - It's more Katamari, which is good! But there's way too much King of All Cosmos being a self-deluded prick, which is bad! That guy is only funny in very small doses. This game varies things up with different types of challenges, etc., but there's too much wandering around a hub world talking to people, then talking to the King of All Cosmos, then doing some challenge, then talking to the King of All Cosmos again, etc. The first game is so simple. You skip past the King's nonsense, and boom, you're rolling up cows into a giant ball of detritus. Some games are just better when they're simpler.

Vince is far better at PBP, IMO. Better voice for it, and his theatrical nonsense just works in the environment that he's in. THAT'S GOTTA BE--THAT'S GOTTA BE KANE at the first HiaC is an iconic call, IMO, for example. Bischoff doesn't have anything half as memorable as that on commentary. I actually don't mind "1, 2, HE GOT 'IM--no, he didn't" because as someone who "watched" a ton of PPVs on scramblevision in the mid '90s, it worked for me to sell false finishes that I couldn't see.

Cody sort of had something as a fiery proud millennial babyface. Jarrett sort of had something as an upper-midcard prick. Neither guy was able to sustain it. Jarrett is about five billion times better than Cody in the ring, though, so there's that. Jarrett was also a good white meat babyface in Memphis. I mean, Cody wishes he was one-one hundredth as good at pro wrestling as Jeff Jarrett is.

Larry Z. is too inconsistent to be good. I am low on Tenay; I think he's best as the fourth man who drops in to educate the fans about lucha and then leaves the desk. If you have him do that and also handle most of the backstage or sit-down interviews, you're probably getting your money's worth out of him in the right way. He's not a great color commentator (though he's better when he's got a color guy opposite him to play off of, which isn't Larry Z. or end-of-career Heenan), and he's a bad PBP guy, IMO.

My Mt. Rushmore of English language PBP commentators is Ross, Russell, Walton, and yeah, probably Schiavone at this point. I'm not sure anyone could overcome late-stage WCW's production problems, and if Schiavone was good everywhere else he went, then...

Yeah, as for HBK/Undertaker, my counter hot take is that they only had two great matches, one at Badd Blood and the other one at the Royal Rumble '98 in that Casket Match that no one ever talks about, but should.

My hot take (which crosses over with the "former wrestlers on color" conversation) is that Tony S., Stevie Ray, and Mark Madden are a top three team on WCW television. I only have Tony/Heenan/Dusty and Ross/Ventura in front of them. I'll also make the further fiery hot argument that if Tony S., Stevie Ray, and Mark Madden had more time to gel in front of a better television show being produced by a more stable company, they would have been legitimately good enough with time that people would think of them all more fondly in those roles. I'm pretty certain this is a take at the sort of level that would get Woody Paige immediately muted on Around the Horn.

It's a dense book. I only remember those parts because I recently re-read to the end after it stopped dropping plot spoilers once it got past the second Russo Era. Sorry if I wrote that post in an ACKSHUALLY, THIS WAS COVERED IN THE NITRO BOOK ALREADY sort of tone. I did not mean it that way!

Did it, though?

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and thirty-nine – 6 December 2000 "The WCW Gang finally gets it right, heats up heel champ Chavo Jr." CEO Ric Flair walks through the backstage area of the arena with purpose, ready to make an announcement about the injured Arn Anderson…And thank goodness: Stevie Ray is back on commentary!...I repeat, Stevie Ray is back on commentary!... Wow, we just leap right into Thunder here, what with the purposeful walking and the intro video… Stevie Ray sends Mark Madden packing from the commentary desk while CEO Ric Flair walks to the ring…Stevie is upset that Mike Tenay has been spreading the news that Stevie was retired from WCW completely…CEO Flair is struggling with his biggest challenge as a wrestler…Being a suit…I mean, he didn’t do too well in this role the last time he was in it…Flair strives to do better tonight… The CEO’s first proclamation: No Scott Steiner or Sid Vicious in the building tonight, which obviously draws BOOOOOs because we want to see some stars, dammit!...Flair laments that habitual line-stepper Scott Steiner’s actions and then, uh, suspends Scott Steiner and strips him of the gold?...Commissioner Mike Sanders steps onto the stage and thankfully attempts to negate this second proclamation…Sanders thinks that the CEO is scared of that maniac Scott Steiner…But rather than a fear borne of not wanting to get mauled by a ‘roided-up nutbar, Sanders says that Flair fears that Steiner looks better and gets better ladies than Flair ever did… Our extremely smarmy commissioner tells Ric, “You’re better than that,” which did make me laugh, but it just annoyed CEO Flair, who reminds Sanders who outranks whom…Oh, come on, is CEO Flair really going to hold the title up?...Please, no…Thank goodness, here’s Arn Anderson on the TurnerTron to stop this rash decision from being enacted…Arn tells Sanders to see his way out of this conversation lest he find himself beaten down by the neckless, yet still dangerous road agent on the screen right now…Then, Arn tells the CEO that Steiner is angrier than he’s ever been…But that anger is driving him to make enemies…Arn suggests that when one of those enemies takes Steiner out, it’ll be sweeter because Scotty will have lost the one thing he’s worked so hard to get over the years…It’s a solid promo…Even better than solid, since it changes the CEO’s mind!... So how do we get to Ric Flair turning heel and joining Scott Steiner, then?...I don’t want to see that…I do want to see Dusty and Dustin make Ric Flair kiss the hindquarters of a donkey, though…AAARGH, I’m conflicted… Evan Karagias baffles and confuses Jamie (K)noble, but Noble decides to team up with him anyway…They wrestle the Thrillers’ good tag team, Jindrak and O’Haire…The arrogant Thrillers take Noble and Karagias lightly early on and get double springboard dropkicked for their arrogance…Lucky for them that Karagias is also arrogant and prefers to dance rather than press his team’s advantage…Karagias makes blind tags, flirts with ladies in the audience, and generally annoys Noble, who just wants to do a professional job out here and maybe go to the pay windah for once…Shoot, if Karagias’s antics caused me not to go to the pay windah, I’d demand that he pay for the Golden Corral meal that I was planning to eat after the match, except for I couldn’t afford it because I didn’t get to go to the pay windah because Karagias wanted to do a bad dance routine… O’Haire and Jindrak manage to trap Noble in FIP hell…They slow the match down and land a series of double-team moves…It helps that Karagias is easy to bait…the ref spends more time dealing with Karagias than he does stopping O’Haire and Jindrak from kicking the mess out of Noble…Jindrak is arrogant, though, if you’ll recall, so he lazily catches a Noble kick and stands around laughing, which gives Noble the time to land an enziguri…Noble gets a hot tag and the match breaks down into a tag obligabrawl…Noble and Karagias grab a ladder, ram it into O’Haire’s solar plexus, then toss it into Jindrak’s chest and double dropkick it… The odd couple of WCW is doing so well, except of course, they can’t agree how to use the ladder next…They get caught up in an argument about it and are hit with a double lariat from the recovered O’Haire…Jindrak and O’Haire super beal toss Karagias into the ring and then super beal Noble right on top of him…O’Haire gets in the ring and presses Karagias right back out to the floor…In the other corner, Jindrak seats Noble up top, then leaps up and ranas him to the mat so that O’Haire can follow from across the way with a Seanton Bomb that nets the Thrillers a victory…Very fun match!...Jindrak and O’Haire are legit prospects and even though neither of them hit it big in WWF, I’m sure that at least one of them would have been a main event guy if WCW had continued to exist… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…In some cut content from this episode of Thunder, Crowbar apparently gifted Daffney a new outfit…I bet you can see where this is going…Daffney walks out here, shaking her head and looking like (as Stevie Ray puts it) “a reject from Josie and the Pussycats”…Actually, her marvy flower girl-ish late ‘60s/early ‘70s duds look super cute on her…They join commentary, and Stevie has the fucking nerve to say, “Hi Daffney, I like your new outfit”…Then he tells her that Tenay called her a reject from Josie and the Pussycats while Tenay protests to the contrary…HAHAHAHA…Ol’ Stevie being petty toward Mike Tenay is killing me…Daffney, sadly: “It was all Crowbar’s idea”…Stevie, ever the supportive gentleman: “I know, baby”…I would pay so much money to hang out at this commentary desk with these people… Anyway, Daffney and Crowbar are here to watch Bam Bam Bigelow and A-WALL wrestle one another for a shot at Crowbar’s hardcore title…Meng must be about to win this belt, right?...It’s almost January…Anyway, I pretty much love any and everything Daffney is doing on commentary, from her mocking of the insignia on the seat of A-WALL’s pants to her nonplussed “Oh, wow” when they beat each other with plundah…This is the type of commentary that you’ll either love or hate, no in-between, and I unabashedly love it…These two dudes smash each other with trash, and it’s whatever…The fun of it is in Crowbar saying things like, “A-WALL is the most technically sound chair swinger in WCW today”… Both men fight around the commentary table, but don’t break it…Bammer hits A-WALL with an unprotected chair shot to the dome…For a random Thunder in December of 2000?...One of the worst things about this era of wrestling is how cheap chair shots became…You’ve gone straight to excess the second you’ve devalued chair shots, especially unprotected ones to the head…Both men goozle one another on the apron, and Mike Awesome runs in and knocks both men off the apron and through the table…Daffney: “What’s up with his clothes? He looks like a doofus”…Awesome stands over Bammer and lectures him as the ref calls the match off entirely… Lance Storm and the rest of Team Canada enter the ring for a bout against the Jung Dragons (w/Leia Meow) and the Cat (w/the lovely Ms. Jones)…Storm promises to deal with the problems in Team Canada expeditiously…The Cat walks out and lets the heels know that after he beats up everyone in Team Canada, he will invite the folks in the crowd to finish them off for good… While Elix struggles to get a foothold in the match until Storm acts as a decoy and allows Skipper to DDT Yang, I have this potential realization for the first time in my life: Hey, are the Jung Dragon’s WCW’s discount version of Kai-en-tai?...Storm slides under Yang and rolls him into a Canadian Maple Leaf, but the ref is focused on everyone else invading the ring and misses Yang tapping out…That unfortunate series of events for Storm allows Yang to eventually make the hot tag after Storm has to let him go to deal with the opponents coming at him in the ring…This leads to a loss for Team Canada after Hacksaw’s 2x4 swing goes wayward and nails Elix…The Cat catches Skipper with a Feliner and hooks the leg for three…Thunder continues to be imminently watchable…After the match, the Cat and his old sparring partners the Jung Dragons boogie it out together… Commissioner Mike Sanders defends his WCW Cruiserweight Championship…Let’s get that strap onto Chavo as soon as possible, please…Aw yeah, here’s his opponent, Chavo Guerrero Jr.!...Tenay lets us know that the Thrillers have been banned from ringside…Sanders is actually pretty large for a cruiserweight…I realize that seeing him standing next to Chavo…He’s usually surrounded by guys in the 6’6 range or above, so he often looks smaller than he actually is… Chavo comes out hot and rolls Sanders to start…He lands a back suplex after an initial flurry, and he doesn’t let up…Sanders is able to use Chavo’s aggression to catch him coming forward and pull him into the buckles, but Chavo quickly reverses and continues to land strikes…In a nice spot, Sanders kills an Irish whip, slides underneath and behind Chavo, and then scores a release pumphandle slam…Sanders has to work hard to keep Chavo from making a comeback and eventually settles on a Shinonomake as his method for grounding Chavo down… It doesn’t work…Chavo works out of it and lands a diving lariat…He throws chops and punches at Sanders, then launches him over the top rope and follows with a slingshot crossbody…They have a pretty solid obligabrawl out here in which they trade control and Sanders jaws at Tenay…Sanders also grabs his title belt and brings it into the ring…Chavo charges him and gets knocked into the buckles…Sanders tries a tornado DDT onto the belt, but Chavo blocks it and hits a Northern Lights, then bridges over for two…Chavo has decided that he needs to end this one by any means available, so when the ref backs Sanders off and Sanders shoves him to the cround, Chavo grabs the belt and waffles Sanders…Then, he pulls a trick out of the Guerrero Family bag full of ‘em and pretends that they hit some sort of move on one another to allay any suspicion that he cheated…He feigns struggle as he gets to his feet, grabs Sanders, and scores a brainbuster for the three and the title…AWWWWWWWW YEAHHHHHHH… WCW World Cruiserweight Championship title change count: 12 (Madusa > Oklahoma > VACANT > TAFKAPI > VACANT > Candido > Daffney and Crowbar > Daffney > Chavo Jr. > Lance Storm > Skipper > Sanders > Chavo Jr.)… That was a good match, too!...Look, we’re in late 2000, so I think it’s safe to come in hot with this opinion because I don’t think I’ll be changing it at this point: WCW Thunder was generally and broadly enjoyable throughout its run…Even when WCW itself was at its worst, Thunder would be the most likely place to see a good match or cool little conceptual promo or show layout…I think Thunder being sort of disconnected from whatever was going on every Monday or every fourth Sunday actually helped the quality of the show rather than harmed it… After a break, Chavo Jr. tells Gene Okerlund to shut the fuck up and let the champ speak…He looks into the camera and points out to General Rection that it only took him a week to win the Cruiserweight Championship after his change in approach even though it took Rection's change in approach three months to win the United States Championship…Chavo Jr.: “My new attitude got me the Cruiserweight Championship; your attitude is gonna get you [put] in the hospital”…Chavo Jr. absolutely RULES… Mike Sanders throws a tantrum in the back…He’s upset that CEO Flair apparently booked that match, which I guess we missed earlier, maybe?...We’ll find out when I do the weekly cut content roundup for these Thunders… Our next bout pits Alex Wright (w/Disco Inferno) against Buff Bagwell…Tony S. informs us that Cat/Lance Storm is on for Starrcade…We also missed some segment where Wright told Disco to maybe not try to offer advice to him or intrude upon his match tonight…Stevie pointedly ignores Disco as Disco joins commentary…This match is perfectly cromulent…Disco, as Wright chooses to press his advantage rather than waste time: DANCE, ALEX; I TOLD HIM TO DANCE…Stevie, baffled: “Why would you tell him that?”…Wright dives into double boots and Disco decides that Alex needs his help, no matter what was said in segments that the editors at the Network decided to remove…Alex blunts a Buff comeback by putting knees up on a splash attempt, but he misses a dropkick when Disco holds up Bagwell on the rebound by grabbing Buff’s ankle on a rope run…Buff shrugs him off and goes up for a Blockbuster…He scores it and gets three… It's Vito…So, uh, Vito, Reno, and Marie/a are all related?...What?!...They’re siblings?...Uh, nothing about how this feud has been presented indicates that these people are related…Ah, so Vito is quickly confronted by KroniK…Vito engages them, and they beat the shit out of Vito as they did Reno on Monday…OK, it’s actually a match this time: Clark vs. Vito…Adams joins commentary, expresses disbelief that Vito attacked them both before the match, and then has the audacity to say this: THEY SHOULD CALL BIG VITO “BIG POOP-FOR-BRAINS”…This guy is too dorky for pre-Attitude Era WWF, much less this company…Adams gets up and helps Clark kick the hell out of Vito in what I guess is a hardcore or no disqualification match or something…Who knows?... Anyway, this match exists as an inoffensive thing wrestled by competent enough workers…Vito sells an injured knee upon landing when he tries a Savage Elbow…Clark quickly lands a Meltdown for three…KroniK continues to beat Vito down after the match…Reno tries to make the save, but can’t hold off both members of KroniK…Marie/a runs to the ring to check on her boys…So the new mystery with these two is the question of who's paying KroniK to kick the shit out of them?... After a commercial break, the other Thrillers confront Reno for running out there to help Vito…Reno says that he’s taking care of family business, but the offended Thrillers are like WE’RE YOUR FAMILY NOW…Their disagreement remains unresolved by the end of the segment… Before the main event, let me note all the cut content from this episode of Thunder right here: Crowbar gifts Daffney a new outfit…Flair books Sanders/Chavo Jr. for the cruiserweight belt, and the Thrillers are barred from ringside…Chavo Jr. tries to sell Cpl. Cajun on joining him in adopting a more aggressive attitude, but A-WALL is unhappy with Chavo…KroniK gets another call from their mysterious client in regards to punishing Vito…Pam Paulshock interviews Shane Douglas…Jarrett and the Harris Bros. attack the Filthy Animals in the parking lot…The Cat has a strategy meeting with the Jung Dragons and Leia Meow backstage…Buff Bagwell interviews with Gene Okerlund…Lance Storm tells Duggan that he needs to sit these next few plays out after causing yet another Team Canada loss…Vito and Marie/a discuss their brother Reno…Stevie Ray interviews the Insiders, who insinuate that Tenay is trying to push Stevie out of his commentator job and has been going around claiming that “retired” means “retired from the ring and commentary,” which explains Stevie’s attitude tonight…We got to miss a Shane Douglas promo, so that’s a win right there… Shane Douglas does his usual routine, and as usual, he does it poorly…Goldberg’s going to come out here and roll him after he gets done cutting this shitty pre-match promo…Douglas takes about twenty years to insult the fans, insult Goldberg, and insult the fans for being into Goldberg…Finally, Goldberg gets out here, walks through the chain-assisted strikes of Douglas, and prepares a spear…Lex Luger walks out onto the stage, and he’s got Goldberg’s old buddy Sarge in the Torture Rack…Goldberg makes the decision to risk a count-out to save his buddy, but Douglas cuts him off and tries a Franchiser…It goes poorly…One SPEAR, JACKHAMMER, SPLAT later, Goldberg runs onto the stage to check on Sarge, as Luger has dumped him and run away…Goldberg, into the camera: WE AIN’T WAITIN’ UNTIL STARRCADE…NEXT MONDAY, YOU’RE MINE, BOY…YOU PRIMA DONNA SONUVABITCH…Now, that’s how you cuss without sounding like a try-hard cornball, Shane… Good show!...WOOOO…

Well, here's a hint from Variety that covers April of 2001: https://variety.com/2001/tv/news/april-cruel-to-cable-1117798316/ From the article, a couple of notable tidbits: However (as the Nitro book notes), the folks running the networks were fine with that. They saw two broad audiences to serve (general public fans of sitcoms, general public fans of hour-long dramas) and punted both the high-end TNT viewer who was into stuff like Ted Turner's historical miniseries and the low-end TNT viewer who was into WCW. For the former, it cost more to make them happy than the new leadership wanted to spend, and for the latter, they couldn't get decent money from ads, which is pro wrestling's big issue and always will be, at least on OTA or cable networks, I suppose. The Nitro book even mentions an internal survey that showed that some significant amount of WCW fans (like one-third of them) didn't have jobs, though I'm not sure if that includes children or college-aged adults or how they ocnstructed those numbers. They also found a low number of four-year degrees among WCW fans, which is tied to purchasing power (I was just about to start working on mine, but they got rid of WCW before I could positively affect those numbers). My guess is that Kellner et al. were just fine with the dip because they were more interested in chasing a broader, deeper audience that they could get more ad dollars to program to. I liked Chavo/Kwee Wee as a straight match. Not super-great, but fun stuff. I'm about to post the Thunder review, and let me say the nature of their triangle relationship threw me for a loop. I must have missed something somewhere along the way regarding their relationship. I really liked Crowbar and Dave, but they were pushed as joke champs. KroniK was actually over as big bully babyfaces, so of course Russo took the belts off them and turned them heel. But no, there's not one memorable or well-booked reign in the bunch.

Heenan's not nearly "true sports" enough for ol' Watts.

Bret claimed that Vince wanted to get value back after having paid for Neidhart's lawyers during his countersuit against whatever airline claimed he attacked a flight attendant.

I one hundred percent get your point here, but let me explain why I typed that by highlighting this part of your post: My belief is that Elix Skipper isn't essentially out of the business by 2005 if WCW sticks around. I think Elix has a run into the New '10s as a tag team specialist. A guy like Van Hammer stuck around WCW for what, nine or ten years? And I actually enjoy Van Hammer, but I'm a fairly extreme outlier! A relatively low-cost talent like Skipper who could be a part of very good tag teams in the only national wrestling company in the U.S. that even remotely values tag team wrestling is making a longer career out of it than he was able to manage otherwise.

Show #269 – 4 December 2000 "The one with a surprisingly effective quick build of a few feuds for Starrcade" At the point this show was originally aired, Eric Bischoff and Fusient Media were closing in on a deal to buy WCW that would be blown up about ten days before the final Nitro when Jamie Kellner cancelled WCW programming in what I would describe as a terrible mistake. It’s not like I or anyone I knew took TNT more seriously as a drama network for lack of a wrestling show. WCW with cost controls (like not having to pay out that ridiculous Hulk Hogan contract) was a profitable concern with a large media library worth a whole lot more than four million bucks to boot. Then again, would Eric Bischoff trying to recreate his theme park tapings strategy in Vegas rather than Orlando have provided a much better fate for WCW? I’m not sure how long the company would have been able to operate as a national organization even had Fusient been able to negotiate a, say, five-year no-cut deal with TNT and TBS for two weekly shows. Tony S. talks up Lincoln, Nebraska, the location of tonight’s show, as well as the Cornhusker football team. He doesn’t sell these things as convincingly as he did WCW Backstage Assault for the N64, I must say. Some doofus in a corn hat screams about Cornhusker football, but Jeff Jarrett wanders up and KABONGs him. I’m ready to end this “Jarrett KABONGs randoms before each show” skit count at two, please. Recap: We’re shifting into a whole new set of feuds and storylines across the company. Mike Sanders waits for his cue, gets it, and then tells the chatty Thrillers that he has a plan. He walks up to execute that plan with, um, Oklahoma (the person)? He’s sending that ol’ Okie out to insult Nebraska, I bet. It seems like Nebraska and Oklahoma (the state) would have some sort of feud over which state sucks the least or something. Oklahoma (the person) wants to know that he’ll have backup from the Thrillers after making whatever incendiary remarks that Sanders wants him to make, and Sanders disingenuously assures Oklahoma (the person) that they have his back. After a commercial break, we get our opening sequence. Scott Hudson sells a Scott Steiner/General Rection world title match for later in the show. Oklahoma enters the ring to make his opening remarks while Tony S. lets us know that CHOKE ON THAT, SLAPNUTS is a phrase that can be purchased on an overpriced Jeff Jarrett t-shirt, so please call and buy one, because they’re not moving stock and things are getting a little desperate in terms of warehouse space. The Nebraskans don’t like Oklahoma (the state) even though YOU TWO STATES ARE LITERALLY THE SAME, RIGHT DOWN TO YOUR SAMEY-ASS COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAMS. *ahem*, so Oklahoma (the person) crows about Oklahoma (the college football team) being better than Nebraska’s football team. He does the whole dad joke where he pulls out a salad bowl and says that this is as close as anyone in Nebraska will get to seeing a bowl this year. Finally, he makes an official statement about Sid Vicious on behalf of Commissioner Mike Sanders. The crowd chants ASSHOLE at Oklahoma (the person) while Oklahoma (the person) threatens Sid with arrest and removal from the grounds if he gets too physically insistent with his opps tonight. Sid has been sitting in the back and listening to this, but he decides that he could instead be out here handing out daps and powerbombs, so he walks onto the ramp. He hands out daps to fans and a chokeslam to Oklahoma (the person) and I suppose a metaphorical chokeslam to Oklahoma (the state). He preps to deliver a powerbomb, but Mike Sanders shows up a touch too late for Oklahoma (the person) to avoid taking damage and sends a cadre of cops to the ring to arrest and remove Sid from the premises. Well, the crowd is hot for all this. They chant YOU SUCK at Sanders, who asks WHAT DID YOU SAY?! to induce a louder chant. Sid gets put in a cop car and driven downtown. Scott Steiner and Midajah arrive; Steiner asks Sanders to get Sid in the ring for him right now, and Sanders says that, Oops, he'd like to, but um, CEO Ric Flair had Sid arrested. It was definitely not him, Commissioner Mike Sanders, who had Sid arrested, and there’s not even a point to checking the tape of tonight’s show to see whether or not that’s true. Steiner is enraged immediately, as usual, and therefore is too heated to consider whether or not he should check the tape. He is just the right amount of heated to hit things with a lead pipe in frustration, though! Pam Paulshock interviews the Filthy Animals; Konnan challenges Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Boys to a street fight at Starrcade, basically. Jeff Jarrett must have been quite disappointed about his big push evaporating so quickly that he's now working with the Filthy Animals and the Harris Boys in the midcard for Starrcade. After some quick recap of Chavo Guerrero Jr. quitting the Misfits in Action, he comes to the ring looking to kick the shit out of someone. AW YEAH. Chavo’s finally going to get a reasonable push two years too late. Welcome to WCW, everyone! Kwee Wee (w/Paisley) is his opponent. Paisley is such a cutie. Chavo jumps Kwee Wee as he smooches said cutie, and then he amps up the violence and the pace as he dismantles Kwee Wee his unfortunate hairdo. Kwee Wee does make a pretty active and intense comeback, or at least he tries to, but Chavo cuts that out pretty emphatically and goes back to work. Kwee Wee gets a kneelift in and makes one more comeback, but he can only get a two count before Chavo reverses a Kwee Wee duckdown into a floatover DDT. Chavo goes outside and gets a chair, but Paisley manages to grab it and toss it. Kwee Wee jumps Chavo from behind and tries a rollup, but only gets two; Chavo responds by initiating an obligabrawl. Chavo wins it, but loses control for a second or two back in the ring. He has to boost Kwee Wee face-first into a turnbuckle when Kwee Wee charges him to escape that bit of trouble, and he quickly follows up with a brainbuster for three. Fun little match there! Commissioner Sanders tries to play CEO Flair by saying that Steiner threatened Flair specifically after finding out that Sid was arrested, but CEO Flair isn’t ‘roid raging right now and therefore quickly pins blame on Sanders for causing a problem that didn’t previously exist. Flair tells Sanders to beef up security while he makes some calls to get Sid out of jail. Bryan Clark talks to a client on the phone; he closes a deal and informs his running buddy Brian Adams that they’ve got a surprise client who has hired them for a job, but he’ll give all the juicy details about it off camera. Gene Okerlund interviews General Rection and the dwindling Misfits in Action. Rection whines about being misunderstood after he crushed Torrie into the corner buckles on Thunder before cutting a promo in which he notes that this might be his only shot at the big gold belt. Let’s fucking hope. I actually do want this Lance Storm shirt with DON’T BLAME CANADA…BLAME YOURSELF on the back. Somehow, this shirt is both a modern political statement and a retro “I enjoyed Lance Storm’s WCW run” wrestling fan shirt at the same time. Anyway, Storm wears it as he promos and Tony S. also promotes it at the desk. I can’t tell whether Storm is more annoyed at these Nebraskans in the crowd or at the wandering Jim Duggan in the ring. Storm believes that Elix Skipper will be winning the hardcore title back for Team Canada tonight and demands that in honor of Canadian mores w/r/t pro wrestling, WCW techs remove all the plundah scattered around ringside, but before he can stand at attention for the anthem, the Cat comes to ringside with the incredibly lovely Ms. Jones. Storm sits at the desk, and the Cat comes over and grabs a house mic, threatens Storm, but also notes that he’s threatening Storm for later and not right now, as he’s merely a commentator and spectator for this hardcore match. Speaking of, it’s Crowbar and DAFFNEY (w/RATINGS and an upward-pointing arrow on her shirt). Wait, did the Network editors cut all the segments where they actually ended up getting together, or what? So, this match is absurd in all the best of ways. Elix and Crowbar attack each other with the scattered parts of a car while the Cat declines multiple opportunities to insult Mark Madden so that he can focus on insulting Lance Storm. Gunns slaps Crowbar, and an enraged Daffney tackles her. Madden says that he’s pretty sure he can get the Cat to insult him instead of Storm, and then when the Cat dismisses Madden's claim, Madden calls he and Ms. Jones “George and Weezy.” The Cat immediately gets up and strangles Madden, which I guess proved the portly fellow right! Storm attacks the Cat while the Cat is focused on Madden, but when he holds the Cat in place for a Duggan 2x4 shot, you can guess what happens: Duggan whiffs as the Cat ducks and clears Storm out instead. The Cat beats down Duggan and tosses a bottle of water on Madden while, in the ring, Daffney unnecessarily has the referee tied up while Crowbar hits Elix with a Mindbender onto a car grille for an eventual three count. I really enjoyed this segment, which was busy nonsense that actually worked for me. I’m wavering on whether or not to put this on one of my good lists. Paid announcement from Jimmy Hart: Please stop this angle. Oh, that's not what he said. It's just how I feel. David Flair asks Stacy Keibler why she came back even though she blew up their wedding. Stacy just wants to be a part of this dope's life, even if she’s not ready for marriage, but she also doesn’t want to talk about this whole “baby’s daddy” thing until she’s ready. CEO Ric Flair interrupts them and immediately stops asking about how they're doing with their reconciliation to complain about all his problems. To his credit, he does want them to have security protection just in case Scott Steiner decides to go on a rampage, and so he assigns them a detail. Elsewhere in the backstage area, there’s more relationship stuff going on: Reno is upset that Marie’s family has turned their back on them, but Marie is determined to make amends. Lex Luger (w/Goldberg’s autobiography) is in the ring to yap a bit. He’s allowed to yap as far as I’m concerned because he’s often quite good at it. Even something small, like disingenuously thanking the crowd for “that very warm reception” after they’ve chanted GOLDBERG at him, cracks me up. Luger is an entertaining dude. Speaking of disingenuousness, Luger builds up how awesome Bill Goldberg is, but he points out that Dewayne “Sarge” Bruce deserves the real credit for training Goldberg into the monster that he is. Sarge is in the front row, and he stands up for a small round of applause; his face looks like he’s trying to shit a cinderblock. That’s our Sarge! Luger then reads a couple of passages that Goldberg wrote about Sarge in the book in a tone of voice that indicates his disgust with said passages. He also makes me chuckle after reading the word reminiscent and remarking, “Ooh, that’s a big word for Bill.” Luger seemingly finishes the segment by asking for another round of applause for Sarge, but he doubles back and decides to talk shit about Sarge being a poor lil’ bitch who lives “in a tin shack – a trailer, which I’m sure you’re all familiar with” because he helped out Goldberg, and Goldberg gave nothing back to him. Luger says that if Sarge helped Luger like he helped Goldberg, Luger would have gotten him paid, unlike that ungrateful Bill Goldberg. Sarge looks ready to fight Luger, but we have heavier security upon CEO Ric Flair’s request, so two mooks are immediately out to keep Sarge from jumping the rail. Luger thanks the crowd once more and leaves. Goldberg shows up; Norm Smiley talks to a Nitro Girl about being booked against Goldberg and expresses low confidence that he can win. Sounds like you need a martial arts guru to help you get up that confidence, buddy! Anyway, Scott Steiner comes upon Smiley. The Nitro Girl scatters as Steiner beats Smiley with the lead pipe, presumably to take his place against Goldberg later tonight? Pam Paulshock interviews Shane Douglas, and as terrible as a Douglas/Rection feud sounds, at least it would act like a quarantine feud to keep two of the shittiest acts in this or any wrestling company away from the actual good pro wrestlers on these shows. Actually, I’m surprised at how vehement I am in my searing dislike of Shane Douglas, but I think since his return in 1999, he’s had one of the worst runs I’ve ever seen for a prominent midcarder on stateside television. His work has been that putrid in all areas, and right now, he’s got me pining for the days when he was merely trying to secede from the United States. I have no clue why the Kliq saw this guy as a threat, either. Main eventing ECW is the exact right level for him. He’s basically a somewhat more annoying Nick Aldis – real “Big Fish in a Small Pond” energy. Anyway, he’s mad about Torrie’s dumb ass getting crushed and promises to revenge himself upon Rection both until and during their match at Starrcade. While A-WALL and General Rection chat in the foreground, Chavo Jr. has an animated conversation with Cpl. Cajun in the background. Rection has to yell at Lash a bunch before he finally disengages from Chavo and joins them. Ric Flair tells Arn Anderson and Fit Finlay that as soon as wrestlers re-enter gorilla after their matches, they are to be taken out of the arena to keep Scott Steiner from getting to them. Two Count is going to get rolled by the Insiders in this upcoming tag title match, but what I’m really interested in is the promotion of this Triple Ladder Match at Starrcade pitting the members of Two Count, the Jung Dragons, and the castoffs from those previous two groups against one another for a cruiserweight title shot. Huh. So it’s a six-man scramble, then? I assume there are no true teams in this bout with a singles title shot as a prize. It strikes me as Shannon Moore and Shane Helms do some cursory pre-match heeling on the mic that we have almost no time left for all the feuds at the death that I remember. Like, Shane Helms still has to turn babyface and start dropping dudes with Vertebreakers, and there are under four months to go. I sure hope Helms/Chavo at least gets two months, which I seem to remember as being true. Then again, I remember a lot of things about this era of WCW being true that a review of the tape shows are actually not so true after all! The Insiders have physical possession of their belts again, so I guess that in kayfabe, some officials got them back from The Perfect Event or something. They proceed to use their weight and height advantage to bully the undersized Two Count members as a cacophony of WE WANT HALL chants rain down on them. We cut back to Commissioner Sanders standing with TPE at a backstage monitor and declaring that he’s about to SET IT OFF. Back to the match: Page ends up in a spot of trouble after Moore lands a guillotine legdrop on him to break up his pinfall attempt on Helms, but he’s never in much danger. It doesn’t take long before he lands a back elbow on Moore and gets a hot tag to Nash. Nash blows through these young fellas and Jackknifes Moore while Page cuts Helms off up top and lands a Super Diamond Cutter; Nash stacks both of his opponents on top of one another and pins them at the same time for three. The Perfect Event and Mike Sanders try to spoil the Insiders’ post-match celebration. Sanders is like LOL U 2 R GAY and then asks CEO Ric Flair to join him for a bit of tag team title business. The business is that Sanders tries to do some rules doctoring a la Luger last week. He has a bunch of footage roll to indicate that the Insiders pinned the wrong dude at Mayhem. Nash looks annoyed and confused by this even though he literally just pulled this bullshit earlier in the year with Sid pinning the wrong Harris Brother to strip Sid of the big gold belt. CEO Flair is not pleased that Sanders is airing this business in front of a live crowd, but he asks the Insiders to hand the belts back to Sanders in the spirit of honest competition. The Insiders drop the belts at their feet, and CEO Flair orders Sanders to go in there and get the belts if he wants them so bad. Flair then sets a rematch between the Insiders and TPE at Starrcade and leaves. Sanders manages to snatch the belts without getting killed and returns them to the boring and shitty tag team in the Thrillers, though Page promises to get them right back in a few days at the PPV. WCW World Tag Team Championship title change count: 16 (VACANT > David Flair and Crowbar > The Mamalukes > The Harris Bros. > VACANT > Buff Bagwell and Shane Douglas > KroniK > The Perfect Event > KroniK > Vampiro and Great Muta > Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera > VACANT > Jindrak and O’Haire > Boogie Knights > The Perfect Event > DDP and Nash > The Perfect Event)… Don’t look now, but the tag titles have been booked almost as poorly as the world title has been this year. Mike Awesome wanders past an ambulance parked outside and complains about the chill in the air; Bam Bam pops out of the ambulance and beats up Awesome before letting him know that they will continue their beef at Starrcade. I wonder if we’re getting an Awesome specialty bout considering the ambulance that was used in this attack. Reno comes to the ring, but he is surprised by KroniK entering the ring instead of his opponent. Ref Jamie Tucker throws this match out as KroniK plants Reno with a High Times. Marie, looking at this on a monitor in the back, takes off. Back in the ring, Reno is planted with another High Times. Vito actually makes the save, and then Marie runs down there and, uh, Mike Awesome was not wrong about it being cold tonight, let me tell you that. Marie remonstrates with Vito, who blows her off and leaves. Hype vid: Glacier is debuting. Again. Crowbar thanks Daffney for her help at ringside. She offers him a ride, but he’s got one with a couple of Nitro Girls already. She hisses at them like a pissed-off cat as they leave with Crowbar, but then she looks pretty down about it. Oh good, I didn’t miss out on the catharsis that I’ve been waiting for when she and Crowbar finally get together. A WCW tech tries to get into the bin that Daffney is sitting on, so she hisses at him too. He gets the point and leaves. CEO Ric Flair marshals his security forces; he tells them that he won’t be able to spring Sid before the end of the show, so he gives security a plan for protecting everyone from Scott Steiner, who (wouldn't you believe?) is pissed off and ready to fight. As usual. Actually, instead of Scott Steiner replacing Norman Smiley against Goldberg, someone instead booked M.I. Smooth to replace the guy. Logically, it’d be Sanders, since Smooth is Flair’s limo driver. It’s a mauling; Goldberg murders Smooth with a spear and then Jackhammers him in what is another fun little Goldberg squash. At ringside after the match, Goldberg hugs Brutus Judas Iscariot Sarge and raises his hand. Scott Steiner pumps up and threatens at least one member of the Flair family if Sid doesn’t show up before the end of this show. Jeff Jarrett comes to the ring and racks up a Jeff Jarrett “Slapnuts/Slapass” Count of, uh, only one, somehow, as he accepts Konnan’s Starrcade challenge on behalf of both himself and the Harris Bros. He also claims that he has a “crapload” of guitars to use on the Animals’ heads, and when Madden wonders how many guitars that is, Tony S. responds, “Somewhere between a gross and a peck.” I blame all of the bad Schiavone commentary on WCW’s production, and I credit all of the good Schiavone commentary to Schiavone’s talent. Jarrett demands that the ref send Konnan’s buddies to the back and then has a one-on-one match with Konnan, though the Animals trip Jarrett before leaving. This match is what it is; it’s acceptable. After a short obligabrawl, Jarrett fakes a knee injury to draw the ref’s attention. The Harris Bros. run in and hit Konnan with an H-Bomb; while the Animals run back out and engage these charisma voids, Jarrett hits Konnan with a Stroke and covers for three. It's main event time! Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) defends his WCW World Heavyweight Championship against General Rection (who is Misfit free) Scotty reminds CEO Flair that he’s running through the whole roster, and he demands that Sid Vicious be in this ring after the match, or he’ll be putting the CEO out of commission next. We cut to CEO Flair, who is displeased with Scotty’s threats. He walks off to handle some business while muttering I KNOW WHAT’S GOIN’ ON. Rection comes to the ring, and commences upon delivering a slightly below average beefy guy match. I think this is mostly attributable to Rection. And the guy hits a couple decent moves, too, so it shouldn’t be this way. The problem, to paraphrase Juventud Guerrera, is that the guy just has no juice. He's devoid of juice entirely. Midajah jumps onto Rection’s back, but Rection has a little trauma from the previous Thunder and refuses to back into the buckle; thus, Steiner has time to line Rection’s balls up for a big boot. Steiner embarks upon a cromulent heel control segment. I will say that maybe I should give this match slightly more love and Rection slightly more credit for his comebacks. Rection eventually lands a powerslam and hits a No Laughing Matter for a delayed two count after Midajah distracts the ref. Rection tries a Vader Bomb next, but eats knees and doesn’t get another chance to score any offense. Steiner lands a suplex and locks on the Steiner Recliner for the quick submission. OK, that started out meh, but it got better and better as it progressed. Rection worked hard, too, I have to give him that. He usually does, honestly, but he’s simply not very good. After the match, a few things happen in quick succession. First, Scott Steiner declares that he’s coming back there to see CEO Ric Flair; on his way, he stops to beat down Arn Anderson in gorilla and drag him onto the stage. At the same time, Shane Douglas leaps out of the crowd and lands a series of chain-assisted jabs on an injured Rection. Meanwhile, Steiner hoists Arn into the ring, hits him with the pipe, and puts him in a Steiner Recliner. Fit Finlay tries to stop CEO Flair from going out there and getting into a physical confrontation with Steiner, but Goldberg charges past them to save Arn. He runs toward the ring…and is cut off as Lex Luger comes out of nowhere, swinging a chair. He pops Goldberg a couple times; then, he creases Sarge with a shot after Sarge comes over the guardrail. Meanwhile, CEO Ric Flair and a phalanx of guards jog down the ramp. Some of those guards surround Luger and attempt to detain him while he tries to throw stomps at Goldberg. In the ring, Sid Vicious has come out of nowhere; the guards hold him back from Scott Steiner, who is also surrounded by guards. Steiner backs off, but sees an opening while Sid is held back and throws blows at our fair babyface hero. Other than the production truck missing Sid’s entrance into the ring, this was really good stuff. It’s a hot ending that sparks a SID chant and that crossed over all these Starrcade feuds that they have to heat up quickly, considering the quick turnaround time between Mayhem and Starrcade. I can’t believe I’m typing this, but they absolutely succeeded. The Luger attack was especially well done because it totally surprised me. I was relaxed, looking forward to seeing Goldberg and Steiner square off, when Luger suddenly popped into view. This Nitro had decent wrestling and managed to build a bunch of feuds that have me sort of excited for Starrcade. That has to count for something, especially after the last two-plus years of television. I’m feeling an inkling that Starrcade 2000 could be the last good-to-great WCW PPV, which would be appropriate. Even if it’s not, you can’t blame this show; it did a fine job of building hype for the PPV by sprinkling little interviews and vignettes throughout the show that culminated in that interesting post-main event schmozz at the end. 3 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

This is a good point and came to mind first for me as well, but I think it doesn't hold up for two reasons: The shows mostly don't have the notice that parts of the show were lost and that they saved what they could even when they're missing segments. That could be an oversight on the part of the editors, but... ...there is a pattern in what is cut, mostly the sitdown interview segments that started in the Ruschoff Era, but also backstage skits and interviews only on Thunder episodes. It's not likely that every Thunder master tape only has technical issues with those segments.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and thirty-eight – 29 November 2000 "The WCW Gang is just fine with being just fine" We’re only five shows away from the final Starrcade…Let’s continue the quick build to that show… After the opening video, we get a Tony S./Madden/Tenay desk…Look, I just hope they let Stevie back on television to do commentary at some point…CEO Ric Flair comes to the ring for an opening address as the desk talks about the return of Syko Sid Vicious…Sid should be the number one contender, considering that he never lost the world title back in April… Flair tries to pretend that he’s in front of a hot crowd that portends WCW’s return to the top wrestling promotion spot in the United States…Flair books Scotty Steiner in a title match against Buff Bagwell for later tonight…These two on-again, off-again douchebag dudebros are now off again!...Flair then introduces Sid, who comes to the ring to speak with the crowd…I totally thought that Sid didn’t return until January…I assumed that Steiner retired someone else at Starrcade…Whoops…Some of this stuff, I definitely remember, but I remember very little about the Starrcade build for some reason…Maybe I was preoccupied with the holidays… Sid actually has production queue up the footage of Eric Bischoff stripping Sid of the world title to explain why he thinks that he deserves a shot at the gold…Sid thinks that the creative direction back in April stunk…True!...Sid said he basically just went home after that…I mean, he did show up to turn heel by attacking DDP and joining Bischoff before going home again (Nitro Show #240), but we’re all going to pretend that didn’t happen…Sid puts over Booker T. and General Rection for stepping up in his stead before, uh, addressing Scott Steiner and promising to win the world title by talking about moments in history…He finishes up his promo by quoting the Iceman…King Parsons, of course, not Dean Malenko…Malenko’s never been quotable in his life… Lance Storm (w/taped ribs, Team Canada) walks to the ring…I will note that this show runs short, so I’ll figure out what’s missing later on…I sure hope this isn’t how it’s going to be for every Thunder going forward to the end…Storm is annoyed at his shitty team being bad at backup on Nitro, but he swears that this was a one-time mistake…However, he cuts a glare at Duggan that makes me think that Mike Awesome will soon be replacing Duggan as a member of the team…Actually he cuts many such glares at Duggan, who aimlessly wanders around the ring instead of standing at attention while the Canadian National Anthem plays…Leia Meow leads the Jung Dragons to the ring…Tony S. is excited that Leia's making an appearance on this show…Who isn’t, really?... I need to clarify…This is the Jung Dragons facing Elix Skipper and Lance Storm in a tag match…It’s a decently worked, if completely heatless affair…Kaz knocks Storm to the floor, then poses like Storm does during the anthem…How rude…This is a solid match, of course…As we get closer to the end of this watch, I'm thinking more about how some of the wrestlers who went to the WWF needed to go there to reach a new level…Eddy Guerrero and Booker T., for example, took about ten levels in talking and character work when they left…Then there are guys like Storm and Skipper, who would have been excellent long-term WCW wrestlers, but who were never going to do much outside of that forum…Storm went from upper-midcard gatekeeper potential to Sunday Night Heat potential with his move to the WWF…Skipper would have had a longer career as a tag team guy than he did if WCW were still around… Kaz gets a hot tag after taking a beating, if you wanted to actually know what's happening in this match instead of hearing me wax speculatively on the careers of some WCW guys…Storm and Skipper crash into one another, but Storm is able to recover and trip Kaz as Kaz goes up to finish it…Skipper superplexes Kaz to the mat, but Yang makes the save at two…Gunns attacks Yang with a flagpole…This draws Leia over, and Storm soon follows in trying to pull the ladies apart from scrapping…Everything completely collapses for Team Canada from here…The Cat jogs to the ring and beats up Duggan while the Dragons double up on Skipper and eventually put him away with a combo splash… After a commercial break, Storm excoriates Duggan for not watching Skipper’s back…Duggan tries to explain that the Cat attacked him, but Storm doesn’t want to hear it…He leaves his erstwhile stablemates to go deal with the Cat…[Editor's note: If he did deal with the Cat, it was not shown on the Network edit of this show]... Lex Luger is devoid of much heel heat…I think the issue here, as with Sid not having a ton of babyface support from the crowd tonight, is that these guys blunted their momentum by being off television for so long…Sid was very over as a babyface when he left television in April…Luger had solid heel heat before he left in the summer…Speaking of guys who aren’t on television enough, Norman Smiley walks to the ring to oppose Luger…Smiley is one of those examples of booking malpractice in WCW that we don’t discuss enough…He actually is still over enough to get a decent NOR-MAN chant, at least… This is a short bout in which Smiley works hard and gets maximum entertainment out of wrestling the athletically challenged Luger…I mean, you don’t have to push Siley to the big gold, but he should be an important part of WCW’s midcard…Smiley frustrates Luger early by being crafty, as is proper for a British wrestler…Luger finally trips him and yanks him outside for an obligabrawl…Luger takes things back into the ring after winning that obligabrawl and commences upon a slow-as-mud beatdown while the crowd chants for GOLDBERG…Madden notes that Smiley is still the Backyard Wrestling Champion…Y’know, we never did see him drop the belt, now that I think about it…Norm makes a comeback and Big Wiggles Luger to what is the biggest pop I’ve heard from a WCW crowd in literal weeks…Luger hits Norm in the junk, lands a metal forearm, and locks on a Torture Rack for the submission victory…That was genuinely fun stuff…Luger refuses to drop Norm after the bell rings, so Goldberg charges out and chases Luger out of the ring and into the crowd… We come back from ads just in time for a WCW Hardcore Championship bout between the defending champion Crowbar and his old running buddy Dopey David Flair…We get a video package of the two winning the tag titles in January and then breaking up over Dave’s treatment of Daffney in the summer…Crowbar has a gold wrench tucked into his pants…Apparently, he got it from a mysterious admirer…AWWWWW, I bet I know who it is!...Crowbar got some flowers from that admirer at Mayhem, too, apparently…I do not remember that happening, but okay… Anyway, these two old friends hit each other with plundah…Crowbar lands a Vader Bomb onto a chair that is laying on Dave’s chest outside the ring…Everyone suddenly remembers that Crowbar was working at a gas station when Dave met him…Did they remember that he showed up and did high spots under a different name back in 1996?...This Nitro Era Performers document that I’m slowly piecing together is a pretty entertaining list to construct…I’ve decided to list wrestlers who showed up under multiple different personas (for example: Christopher Ford as Devon Storm and Christopher Ford as Crowbar)…I’m still trying to figure out if I should list Johnny B. Badd and Marc Mero separately even though they played the Badd theme for Mero’s single appearance under his own name… Anyway, Crowbar gives a ton to Dave before using a trash can lid to bash his way out of a Figure Four…Then, he lands a Mindbender that drops Dave across the trash can that the lid belongs to…Crowbar is all like FRIENDSHIP OVER…He whacks Dave with the golden wrench right at the base of the neck…Crowbar covers for three, and hey, here's Stacy Keibler, looking all serious…She tries to help David Flair to his feet…Dave tries to walk away from her, but she’s persistent about helping him to the back… After ads, Dave actually does some nifty pro wrestling acting…A trainer checks on him in the back…Stacy asks him if he’s alright…Dave, upset and frustrated: I’M HURT. I’M HURT, I’M HURT, I’M HURT. I’M TOO MAD RIGHT NOW, JUST LEAVE…He said that shit like he’d hit his limit…I sorta felt for his goofy ass…But not that much considering how he did Daffney dirty…I’m glad she sent Crowbar the wrench that put Flair out for the count… Shane Douglas absolutely stinks…One of the good things about the WWF buying WCW is that there was no room for ol' Shane…On the other hand, they hired Torrie Wilson, so it’s not all bread and roses…She is awful on the microphone…Just awful…She can’t deliver a line to save her life…There have to be like ten thousand as hot or hotter fitness ladies who can also read a fucking line...Hire one of them instead, WCW...Now Douglas is talking again…Basically, this is going to be the black hole segment of the night because Douglas is about to wrestle General Rection (w/M.I.A.) for the United States Championship… Well, while this match stinks it up, I’m going to check on what segments from this show are missing in the WWE Network upload…OK, they cut an earlier Misfits interview with Gene Okerlund for some reason…Whatever the reason, thanks, dear editors!...I find out via a recap of that interview that A-WALL is wrestling Bam Bam Bigelow in a Tables Match later tonight…We also missed Bigelow responding in an interview of his own and Crowbar getting that wrench from his adorably screamy secret admirer… Oh, hey, something notable happened in this match…Torrie dove onto Rection’s back, and he instinctively sandwiched her in the corner…That sentimental bitch Rection is upset that he crushed Torrie…Lt. Loco doesn’t have time for all this sadness, though, and tries to shove Torrie out of the ring while exhorting Rection to finish off Douglas…Meanwhile, Douglas takes out a chain and wraps it around his fist, but nothing comes of it…I mean, Chavo trying to shove Torrie out of the ring with his boot was fucking hilarious…Now, he leaves in disgust at Rection metaphorically showing his weak, gooey center… Torrie does a stretcher job…Rection acts like he didn’t just do us all a favor by kayfabe putting Torrie out of WCW for a few weeks with a neck injury…Rection keeps yelling I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS HER, SHANE, I’M SORRY…Chavo’s right…This dude doesn’t have any killer instinct…This segment was worth it just for Chavo accelerating his heel turn…I mean, insofar as you can be a heel for trying to shove Torrie Wilson to the floor with your boot… After the break, Douglas helps stretcher Torrie out…Meanwhile, Chavo Jr. quits the Misfits because he’s lost confidence in leadership…It took you this long to lose confidence in the leadership, buddy?...Oh well, better late than never, right?... Next up, it’s Jeff Jarrett and the Heads of TNA’s Production Crew Harris Bros….They’re here for that six man tag against the Filthy Animals (w/Tygress)…Tygress joins commentary to flirt with the boys…This is a perfectly acceptable trios tag…Rey ends up in FIP jail…He eventually slips Jeff Jarrett and tags Kidman for an ice-cold tag…Boy, Kidman was legitimately way over in early 1999…His plummet back down to pre-Flock levels of heat has been wild…He also does the job here, as Jarrett KABONGs him for three… Glacier demonstrates the most martial of arts in this promo as Tenay decides to believe that this Glacier re-debut is going down…Tony S.: “I guess this is really happening, huh?”…Tony S.’s wry comments on these shows are wonderful, by the way…When he stops trying to earnestly sell this nonsense and chooses to just make dry observations about the show, he’s very funny…Like right now, he’s earnestly selling WCW Backstage Assault for the Nintendo 64…Someone tell him how bad the game is so that he can make fun of it instead, please… SGT. A-WALL carries a table to the ring and barks at Bam Bam Bigelow, already out here awaiting him, as Tony S. does such a good job of reading the copy that I almost think WCW Backstage Assault for the Nintendo 64 could be a good game…This match is inoffensive and short…Bam Bam ducks a lariat, hooks A-WALL, and back suplexes him through a table…Since both guys go through the table, ref Billy Silverman decides that they need to keep going until one guy clearly puts the other through a table without actually going through it themselves at the same time…Mike Awesome comes through the crowd and pops Bammer with a chair…A-WALL follows by chokeslamming Bigelow through a table at ringside…Awesome talks shit to the downed Bigelow as Bam Bam writhes in pain…I don't get why there was a false finish like the one this match had, but WCW loves overcomplicated finishes... OK, so before Buff Bagwell wrestled Scotty Steiner (w/Midajah) for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, Gene Okerlund interviewed Buff, and Daffney came back, let Crowbar know she had dumped Crowbar Lite, and was now interested in dating Crowbar, uh, Classic?...No, Crowbar Special…Well, look, the point is that Crowbar was surrounded by Nitro Girls at the time and more interested in saving face than getting with Daffney, so he said that he wasn’t interested…But apparently, he was totally interested…Get it together, dude…We also missed a Mike Tenay interview of the forcibly-retired Stevie Ray…Why are these idiots at the Network cutting chunks out of these late-era Thunder shows, seriously? Steiner gets a mic before the match and says that since he’s in a good mood tonight, he’ll let Buff leave this ring without getting murked…Buff says he’ll take that opportunity and shakes Scotty’s hand, but it’s a ruse, dear reader!...He kicks Scotty in the gut and takes it to the guy…They have an obligabrawl…Buff wins that, but loses control back in the ring when he tries to leap over Scotty and gets caught and Oklahoma Stampeded…Madden quotes Scotty’s inspiration Superstar Billy Graham as Steiner cranks Buff’s neck…Scotty mauls Buff, jawing at fans as he does it…It’s Slamboree ’99 redux as Steiner generally rolls Bagwell…Buff does make a small comeback, but he’s caught on a duckdown, tossed into the lights, and locked in a Steiner Recl--…no, Scotty pulls off to yell KISS MY ASS at a fan… Buff tries to come back, but Steiner squelches that, accidentally drops Buff when trying to put him up top, and then just drapes him over the ropes so that Midajah can choke him…From somewhere in the arena, Sid yells STEINER, OVER HERE, DUMBASS…That distracts Steiner enough that Buff shoves him down after Steiner actually puts him on the top rope successfully…Buff hits a Blockbuster, but Steiner kicks out at two…Midajah dives onto Buff, who dumps her, but Scotty recovers, lands a lariat, and locks on the Steiner Recliner for realsies and truesies this time to get the win…Weird, busy finish that didn’t do much to heat up Steiner/Sid, but this match was acceptable…Steiner locks Buff in the Recliner again just for the heck of it…The lights go down and Sid walks out to confront Scotty in person…They yell at one another from a safe distance… I just appreciate a show that’s consistently watchable at this point…I will, however, be hoping for something more than that as we move into 2001…WOO…

Show #268 – 27 November 2000 "The one where WCW starts to center its shows around a long-term heel champion as its anchor for the first time since about 1997 " It’s been a long week. Let’s fuckin’ Nitro. WCW thinks it’s cute to do a “we figured out who won the election” skit where Jeff Jarrett pops up and KABONGs the press guy. It’s not cute. Recap: Mayhem was solidly mediocre. After the show intro, we kick it over to Tony S., Scott Hudson (BOOOOOO) and Mark Madden. Two Count is already in the ring, feeling themselves after scoring a victory at Mayhem, but they don’t even start to boogie before Lt. Loco and Cpl. Cajun jog down the ramp to fight them. Shane Helms and Chavo Jr. battle it out. I would like to see more of that. The babyfaces control the ring early; they absolutely punish Moore with a bunch of nice double-team moves – a Boston Crab/basement dropkick combo is my favorite – until the match slows down a bit and Helms can stick a knee into Cajun’s back on a rope run. Cajun finds himself as the babyface in peril; Two Count land their own doubleteam moves; Helms also chokes Cajun an awful lot. Helms lands a superkick Sugar Smack, but he tags Moore back in, and Moore loses control of the match when Cajun runs the ropes and manages a springboard facebuster, followed by a hot tag. Cajun actually doesn’t do much to help Loco, who is double-teamed while Cajun barks at the ref, but Jamie (K)noble and Evan Karagias make their presence known and use a ladder to batter Moore, who is easy prey for a Loco brainbuster that scores three. That was a decent little opener. Elix Skipper is still trying to score with Ms. Jones; she's like, You better go on with your broke ass. Ouch. Elix is persistent, which seems like a mistake since he's being persistent right outside of the Cat’s locker room. The Cat steps into the hallway and confronts Elix, but Skipper’s running buddy Lance Storm supports his young charge and clobbers the Cat with a chair. Commentator recap: Scott Steiner has put Sting and Booker T. on the shelf, though Booker will be back at some point soon. I wonder how soon. I’m hoping Sting gets back on television before the final month of Nitro, for that matter. This show hasn’t had enough Sting over the past two years, and when it has had Sting, he’s been paired with poor feud partners. In the ring, Gene Okerlund interviews Scott Steiner (w/Midajah). Steiner tries to kill the slight babyface pop he initially received by declaring that everyone in the audience should kiss his ass. Then, he talks about how many ladies he banged in his post-championship celebration, which is what’s getting him over as a babyface in the first place. Then again, it’s not Scotty’s fault that these dudes in the crowd are into general degeneracy. Steiner wants a fight, and he suggests Booker and Sting are too injured and Goldberg is too tied up with a dumb angle that Vince Russo shat out before he quit (again). Scotty’s like, Since I don’t have a match, I legit am going to have you dudes in the crowd kiss my ass to entertain myself, but CEO Ric Flair interrupts what would have surely been a nauseating scene. Flair says that since Scotty’s the champ, management is going to build the company around him as WCW goes into the new millennium. However, Flair notes, the champ does need to continue beating some men to be the man, so he’s gone and got a special world title contender for Steiner at Starrcade. Flair teases that Scotty is entirely fucked when he gets in the ring with this guy. Steiner, while speculating on who that opponent is, goes off on all the asses he’s kicked – Booker, Sting, Stone Cold at some point in 1992, apparently – and asserts that the Rock is too much of a punk bitch to fight him while also stealing one of the guy's catchphrases. That last comment/bit of catchphrase thievery gets a pop from the crowd. The CEO doesn’t take the bait, though. He says that Scotty’ll find out who his opponent is later, but as he turns his focus to how a champion should conduct himself, Stevie Ray storms out and demands a match against THAT SYNTHETIC JACKED UP FRUIT BOOTY in the ring, and he wants that match to happen tonight. Stevie and Scotty talk a lot of shit to one another, and actually it’s pretty rad, and Scotty Steiner says he’ll put his belt up against Stevie Ray’s career. Oh no, not his commentary career, right? Just his in-ring career? Please? Don’t stick me with Scott Hudson on Nitro and Mike Tenay on Thunder, but no Stevie on either show. Anyway, CEO Ric Flair makes the match, and Stevie promises to make Steiner his freak. The crowd enjoyed that verbal exchange as much as I did. Disco and Alex Wright try to negotiate with KroniK for more assistance. KroniK writes an estimate on a sheet of paper that prices Disco out of the market entirely, unfortunately for him. Fuuuuuuuuuuck, General Rection is crowing in the back about how awesome a United States Champion he is in an interview with Pam Paulshock. He challenges Bam Bam Bigelow to a match as a way to revenge himself on Bammer for that treacherous surprise attack at Mayhem. Lt. Loco seems especially interested in Rection committing violence against Bam Bam’s person. Lance Storm (w/Major Gunns) meets up with Jimmy Yang (w/Leia Meow, jobber entrance); before the match, Storm is serious for a minute. He’s serious about how he’s not making excuses for losing at Mayhem while making a number of excuses for losing at Mayhem. He also promises to work around the FINAL MATCH EVER stip to get back at Rection down the road. Yang uses the playing of “O Canada” to jump Storm and focuses his attacks on Storm’s wrapped ribcage. Storm manages to superkick his way out of immediate trouble and slows the pace down a bit. Yang sneaks offense in by poking at Storm’s ribs, gets Storm over on a sunset flip by punching Storm there, in fact, and takes back over. Storm struggles to get control of the match; Gunns tries to help, but Meow attacks her. They scrap at ringside, which draws Billy Silverman’s attention. This causes Silverman to miss the Cat entering the ring and kicking a chair into Storm’s face. Yang immediately gets a three count that was pretty well deserved in kayfabe despite the extra help; the Jung Dragon wrestled a smart game and looked like a threat as a result, even if in reality, his reach continues to exceed his grasp on some of these more complex spots. We’re back from break, and I think that Lance Storm is right to be upset at Hacksaw Duggan and Elix Skipper, neither of whom had his back out there as he had Skipper’s back a few segments ago. Things seem rocky with Team Canada. Stevie Ray talks to someone on the phone about what he plans to do to Scott Steiner tonight. These broke boy Boogie Knights go to the Family Dollar of hired guns – the Harris Bros. The Harris Bros. aren’t all that fussed about getting back on television, but for the low price of two drinks and two sandwiches, they agree to back up the Knights. Lex Luger walks to the ring, celebrating as though he won at Mayhem, but of course, he got his ass beat at Mayhem. Luger announces that Goldberg is finished in WCW because Luger made sure to do the business at Mayhem, and boy, is he excited about it! Actually, he’s just out to stump for an appeal that he has filed to have Goldberg being disqualified for spearing Mickey Jay even though Luger’s the guy who pulled Jay in front of Goldberg in the first place. Luger appeals to CEO Ric Flair for a favorable ruling on his appeal. It's a limo! Whoa! The following is a paid announcement from Jimmy Hart: It’s more shock jock nonsense. Please stop this, WCW. Jeff Jarrett calls Okerlund JURASSIC SLAPASS; Okerlund calls Jarrett NUMBNUTS. They do a raunchy "comedy" routine around the words SLAPASS and NUMBNUTS and SLAPNUTS and BLOWING THINGS OUT OF ASSES. It bums me out. Jarrett is booked against Rey Misterio Jr.; the Filthy Animals crash the interview and toss stuff at Jarrett. Vito talks to Maria backstage. Or Marie, I guess, is her name now. Anyway, Vito leaves Marie/a behind, and Reno sneaks up to talk to her; Marie/a walks off with Reno to have a conversation. I don’t know why the Boogie Knights are so convinced that they need help to beat the oddball tag team of Evan Karagias and Jamie (K)noble. On the other hand, it did bolster their heel credentials to bring the fucking Harris Bros. back into a televised role. Disco has their brews and sammies in a paper bag, which he trades to the Harris Bros. in exchange for Da/oR taking Disco’s place in this tag match. Anyway, this match is fine, I suppose. It breaks down, and Noble is able to use his speed to control Da/oR. Alas, ref Jamie Tucker is focused on getting Evan Karagias to stop illegally punching Alex Wright in the head, so Ra/oD hops in the erring and combines with his brother on an H-Bomb to Noble; Wright manages to cover for three. Promo: My blood can’t possibly run any colder, Glacier. Tony S.: “This has gotta be a rib, right?” Heh. Pre-tape: CEO Ric Flair has checked the footage, and Luger yanked Mickey Jay into Goldberg’s path, which means that Luger should have been DQ’d. However, just to make suresies on who the real winner is, Flair will be booking a Goldberg/Luger rematch at Starrcade. Well, at least Goldberg will win that, right? At least as long as Buff Bagwell isn’t shunted into the angle suddenly. We’re only six shows from Starrcade, actually, and only eight shows from 2001 (not counting end-of-year recaps). Holy crap, our long national nightmare – that being WCW programming in the year 2000 – is almost over. This has got to be the single worst year of televised wrestling from a major wrestling company in the United States. This year has made 1991 WCW look like 1997 WCW and 1997 WWF combined. New tag champs DDP and Kevin Nash spend some time chatting in the ring. The crowd loves chanting along withNash's IN THA HOUUUUUUUSE. Page steals some of Scott Hall’s catchphrases. This dude - by which I mean Hall - is insanely over. Holy shit, Scott Hall is still at worst the second-biggest babyface in the company. And he was never an actual babyface in this run! Or ever in any of his WCW runs, I don’t think! Page gives a brief summary of his past WCW history with Hall and Nash, which is an explanation that occurs about four years too late for all the people who were confused back in 1997 about why Page was hurt that Hall and Nash didn’t try to recruit him for the nWo way earlier than they did. Page puts over the Outsiders and everybody is like WOOOOO HALL and Madden, who is going to get fired for saying that WCW should re-hire Hall in an interview in a few weeks (among other things he said), is like PLEASE HIRE HALL AGAIN on commentary. Page dubs his team with Nash by the name of the Insiders, and then their little lovefest is interrupted by the Wolfpac music. Madden: “No, it couldn’t be, could it? Well, no, it couldn’t, but let’s see what happens.” This man is trying to get fired. Convince me that he’s not. It’s just Mike Sanders, Mark Jindrak, and Sean O’Haire, by the way. A terrible mic battle ensues between Sanders and the Insiders. The short of it is that Sanders thinks Page came back to WCW to leech off the Thrillers’ heat. Sanders books the Insiders against Jindrak and O’Haire at Starrcade for the tag titles; Page challenges them to an immediate title match instead, and the rookies rush down and have an entertaining little brawl with the Insiders to start. The match slows down; O’Haire and Nash have an enjoyable little sequence that culminates in some sort of blown or mistimed spot to bring Page into the ring. O’Haire soon tags Jindrak, who keeps Page in trouble for a bit. The crowd sustains a DDP chant, and maybe in kayfabe, it inspires DDP to hit a headscissors and a discus clothesline to escape the jam. Nash clears O’Haire out while Page lands a Diamond Cutter on Jindrak for what should be a three count. This is when all hell breaks loose, as Sanders yanks the ref out of the ring on the count, and the rest of the Thrillers bring rubber bats and help Sanders attack Nash and then Page. The Perfect Event takes the tag belts for their very own as the segment ends. Stevie Ray promises to avenge his brother Booker later tonight in his backstage interview with Gene Okerlund. Reno tries hard, but he’s so freakin’ BORING, man. I know that in reality, I am merely bored by Reno rather than Reno being objectively boring, but either way, he’s a yawn. At least Goldberg is going to come out here and murder him. That should make him entertaining tonight! Ragdolls are pretty entertaining! There’s actually a neat spot where Goldberg is casually killing Reno, and Reno desperately struggles into position for a Roll of the Dice as Goldberg hoists him up, but Goldberg reverses again and lands a shoulderbreaker before it’s SPEAR, JACKHAMMER, SPLAT. Lex Luger shows up with a chair and swats Goldberg in the back with it. Goldberg sells on delay, like a good two seconds after the impact of the chair. Luger finishes his chair attack and puts Goldberg in a Torture Rack. Torture Racks are rad. Gene Okerlund fake laughs at the Filthy Animals' antics and Rey Misterio Jr.’s suggestion that Jarrett is reminiscent of Gomer Pyle. On the other hand, Konnan did get a laugh out of me by callings Jarrett the KING OF PUBLIC ACCESS TV in a mock Southern drawl. Bam Bam Bigelow versus General Rection for the WCW United States title is uncalled for. This is a match more appropriate for a random WCW show in February of 2000. We don’t have to do this anymore, bookers! There are good wrestlers in this company! Suffice it to say that this match sucks. Madden points out that sadly, this isn’t Georgia Championship Wrestling anymore, so the United States Champion isn’t the number one contender to the world title. Wait, maybe in this case, it's not so sad that this isn't Georgia Championship Wrestling anymore. Bigelow powerbombs Rection, then leaves the ring to get a table. He sets it up and then turns his attention to Morrus, but A-WALL comes out and claims the table. This distracts Bigelow, who summarily falls to a No Laughing Matter. Gene Okerlund stops Scott Steiner in a hallway to ask him about this upcoming Stevie Ray match. Steiner struggles with his sentences, but ultimately, I can report that he is sanguine about his chances against both Stevie Ray and whoever his opponent is for Starrcade. In fact, Steiner storms out to the limo and opens the door. Some lovely ladies get out of it, but the crass and insulting Steiner yells WHO OWNS THESE UGLY BITCHES because of course, he does. M.I. Smooth requests that Steiner maybe not mess with this limo that he’s driving for CEO Ric Flair, so Steiner beats the crap out of him. Jeff Jarrett works with Rey Misterio Jr. (w/Filthy Animals) in what is an interesting matchup, but which I don’t expect to get anywhere near the level of awesomeness that I know it can due to the Animals at ringside and Jarrett’s reliance on gimmicks. Jarrett gets a mic and complains about the Animals barging in on his interview time and threatens revenge against them forthwith. Jarrett is preoccupied with the Animals, and he should be; Tygress trips him early to help Rey land a facebuster. They proceed to have a match that is entertaining for what it is; it’s worked around the Animals running a series of distractions to help Rey either keep or regain control of the bout. Rey tries a Bronco Buster, but leaps crotch-first into a boot. It doesn’t matter because the Animals immediately run another distraction, and right in front of ref Charles Robinson, too! Charles is not in charge tonight. Rey ends up landing a seated splash and an Asai moonsault for two. Konnan immediately draws the ref’s attention so that the other Animals can hit a baseball slide to Jarrett’s nads, a FACE FULLA STUFF, and a Bronco Buster in short order. Jarrett is entirely flummoxed, which makes it pretty impressive that he still manages to destroys Rey with a powerbomb counter on a springboard splash attempt. Jarrett follows up with a Stroke, but Tygress chooses this moment to have an involved conversation with Robinson; Konnan and Kidman beat Jarrett down, so Jarrett grabs his guitar and KABONGs Rey right in front of Robinson, who calls for a DQ. Madden is apoplectic that Robinson managed to miss or ignore every instance of Animals interference, but was disqualified Jarrett after Jarrett’s first illegal move in the match. As Kurtis Blow intimated, these are the breaks, Madden. After the break, Jeff Jarrett is heated. He berates Pam Paulshock for even thinking about talking to him and challenges the Animals to a six-man tag on Thunder. Oh no, does this mean more Harris Bros.? Stevie Ray getting clobbered by Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) is nominally the main event, but the real pull here is who Steiner’s opponent is at Starrcade; another limo pulls up outside the arena, so I guess that’s the dude. After a commercial break and a Starrcade promo, Steiner makes it to the ring and I remember that as much fun as Stevie and Scotty barking at one another was, they actually have to wrestle now. Actually, this is perfectly fine brawling in a Nitro special; Midajah saves Scotty from a beating by hitting Stevie in the back with a lead pipe (while yelling LEAVE HIM ALONE like this isn’t a wrestling match, now come on, sis). Stevie does make a comeback, but Midajah diverts Stevie’s attention one more time, though Steiner’s casual approach to the situation leads to him leaping into a Book End. Stevie’s cover is delayed and gets 2.8. They blow a spot in which Stevie can’t get his leg up for a kick that needs to be reversed, and Madden points out that Stevie is blown up. Stevie is very blown up, yeah. This match is probably a touch too long and has cooled down in intensity a bit; the crowd has cooled down, too. Stevie also hits a Slapjack, but can’t get a cover. He goes up top, and Midajah completes the rule of threes and gets on the apron to distract him; Scotty pops up, lands an Electric Chair Drop, and locks on a Recliner for the victory. That’s when Syko Sid Vicious’s music hits, so I guess we’re running with two months of Sid vs. Scotty. More importantly, the image for the next Nitro pops up in auto-run, and Crowbar is having a laugh with Daffney! YEAHHHHHHHHH So yeah, this show was fine. At this point in WCW's existence, "fine" is good. 2.5 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

I am the farthest thing from a Tolkien fan, but I did enjoy Mordor, which was one of the early PS4 games that I played. The Nemesis System seemed to have so much potential, but it never got unlocked. And Shadow of War was so similar to Mordor, but just longer and grindier. It was sorely disappointing. Warner Brothers' mismanagement of its studios outside of Netherrealm is staggering. Gunbird 2 has been re-released digitally, too. This isn't like Capcom not re-releasing AvP Arcade due to licensing snarls; they own all the characters in Cannon Spike. Capcom personally hates me, I just know it. They'll remake every RE twice around before even thinking about doing a Dino Crisis remake. They won't re-release Cannon Spike. They won't throw Capcom Bowling on one of their Arcade Stadium releases. They seem okay with Marvel again, but I know better than to hope for an X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse/Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems re-release, even though this recent Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection package would have been perfect for it. Carny-ass Jeff Jarrett and carny-ass Acclaim together in 2025? Amazing. I'm sure Global Force Gold will somehow be involved in this partnership.

Mayhem 2000 notes: It’s our second and final Mayhem, and you know what? As much of a mess as it was, I kind of miss the World War 3 pay-per-view that was in this November spot. Not that WCW ever really paid off the winner very well. Not that the match was visually appealing. I just love the good old “win a battle royal on PPV, build to a title shot on another PPV” pro wrestling scheme. Pre-tape: Speaking of loves both past and present, I loved Highlights Magazine when I was a kid, and one of the best features in the thing (other than the Hidden Pictures section) was Goofus and Gallant (and the later parody of this feature on All That, Peter and Flem, was also great). Anyway, WCW has its own version called Booker and Scotty: When Booker arrives at the building, he signs autographs for all the excited planted fans. When Scotty arrives at the building, he bashes up the security station with his lead pipe. Show opening: Booker and Scotty has been built to feel like a more serious rivalry than it’s actually been, I think. I remembered it that way, but looking at this opening, I do think that WCW’s hyped it well enough that it feels more substantial than what’s been produced so far. Pre-tape: CEO Ric Flair addresses the crowd here in Milwaukee, or “that place I flew into so that I could get to Madison, where I really wanted to go.” He promises a great show for tonight. In our opener, Kwee Wee (w/Paisley) gets his shot at Mike Sanders’s Cruiserweight Championship. Chavo’s got to get the belt soon as a heel, so it’s possible Kwee Wee gets the duke here and transittions it over. It’s also possible that Chavo just steamrolls Mike Sanders after re-finding his mean streak in a couple of weeks. As an aside, this very well might be the final major show that runs Tony S., Stevie Ray, and Mark Madden out as the commentary team, and so I’m going to enjoy them as much as possible. Mike Sanders bitchslaps Kwee Wee before the match and turns Kwee Wee into Angry Allan. Angry Allan rolls Sanders and knocks him to the floor, so Sanders calls for a bit of backup from the Thrillers. Said backup kicks the shit out of Kwee Wee on the floor, then beals him from the floor and into a Sanders powerslam in the ring, which is a cool spot. Paisley, who left to find help, comes back looking all sexy, wearing a wig that’s all blown out, Meng backing her up. I’m sorry, I’ll settle down in a minute, but WCW had a cadre of insanely good looking women in the Nitro Era. Never has another company ever had a collection of women as gorgeous as Nitro Era WCW did. CEO Ric Flair charges down with security and leads the mass of humanity brawling at ringside to the back while Sanders presses his advantage in the ring. This match is fine, but honestly, Paisley on the hard cam is extremely distracting. I’ll settle down, I’m working on it, hold on a second. OK, I’m good. I think. Stevie lectures Madden over not calling Sanders’s Shinonomake by its proper Japanese nomenclature. He is correct about this. Madden names it correctly when he notes that Kwee Wee back suplexed his way out of it to start his comeback. Stevie cracks me up in many ways, including that he's unable to contain the fact that he’s a huge AFL fan. He talks about the AFL in his shoots, he has mentions legendary AFL kicker Jan Stenerud on commentary, and he pretends – as he did now when Madden complained that Paul Tagliabue never had to take a beating as commissioner like Mike Sanders does – that he has no idea who Tagliabue is. I just know that Stevie hasn’t accepted this Houston Texans branding nonsense that sucks and is bland and encapsulates a lot of what stinks on the marketing side about the modern NFL. He’s still rocking the powder blue Earl Campbell jersey, I bet. Oh yeah, you probably want to know about this match, which has been good! There’s been excellent action in between the fuckery. Theres more fuckery, including Paisley slapping Sanders, Kwee Wee using her wig to cover Sanders’s face, and then Paisley hitting a half-decent Muta handspring elbow, but Sanders manages to slip an advancing Kwee Wee and land a quick 3.0 for the victory. Look, this had some fun spots, a pretty and charismatic lady getting involved, and some enjoyable commentary. I liked it for what it was. Gene Okerlund holds court with CEO Ric Flair; Flair bans everyone who isn’t holding a manager’s license from coming to the ring during the rest of tonight’s matches. Disco tries to cut a deal with KroniK to stand in for him in the Boogie Knights' handicap match against the Animals. KroniK holds them up for Alex Wright’s bonus prize for winning the titles in Germany, but again only offers one of them as a partner for fifteen minutes. Disco instead argues that he should be able to purchase both of them as Wright’s partners, but for half the time of a theoretical fifteen-minute bout. He wants them for eight minutes; they counter for seven-and-a-half minutes, and not a second longer. I think I see where this is going. So does Alex Wright, who walks away, bummed and realizing that he’s probably going to get gigafucked. And no more Germany bonus, either! Poor bastard. Jamie Noble and Evan Karagias are the oddest couple in the company right now; they interview with Gene. Karagias calls North Carolina “North Cacalacky,” which is also what Road Dogg calls it, if you wondered how the tenor of this interview is going. Noble, also from North Carolina, starts to bond with Karagias over this accident of birth until he finds out that Karagias dated his sister in high school and dumped her because he wanted some new pum pum. Karagias, annoyed that Noble is getting upset: “Why you talkin’ about the past?” As Evan walks away, a rattled Noble remarks, “I think he played my sister.” It’s funny! Okerlund tries to make an inbreeding joke. It’s less funny. Crowbar has a couple of nu-Nitro Girls at his side as he walks into the arena; they seem super interested in him. He’s feeling good about himself, his title, and his luck with the ladies, and I almost expect him to walk into his locker room and see Daffney sitting there to throw him off, but it doesn’t happen. Dammit. Two Count is not pleased with Karagias’s arguments from the previous segment that they’re just jealous of him and the Caddy that he rides in North Cacalacky. Helms is like, EVAN U HAVE A SMOL PENUS and I’m like, Hurry it up and get to Sugar Shane killing mooks with Vertebreakers, please. Two Count’s dance routine is cut off by the theme of the Jung Dragons (w/Leia Meow, see-through top damned near made me fall over in my chair like Vince McMahon looking at Stacy Keibler do table dance). Evan Karagias and Jamie (K)noble soon follow; Noble’s hilarious facial expression indicates that he’s still trying to figure out if he should team with Evan or clobber him for screwing around on his sister. So, this is a giant mess per the match type, but there are fun spots in it. If you like some light comedy, as when Two Count stop themselves from being shot into one another and dance, followed by the Jung Dragons doing the same thing, you get that. If you like dudes diving onto one another, you get that. If you like Evan Karagias trying to play bully ball with his less vascular opponents, you get that. After a burst of frenetic activity to start, the match calms down into a standard Triple Threat Tag, which bums me out, but we get a close-up of Leia Meow at ringside, which perks me back up. You know who isn’t perked up? Noble, when he eats a nasty high-angled back suplex/wheel kick combo from Two Count. That was nasty, as was Noble managing to hit Moore with a sick powerbomb in response. Kaz and Moore then have a nice sequence. Everyone but Jimmy Yang is useful in this match, I’d say. After lots of nice spots and big saves, here’s the beginning of the finishing run: Ref Scott James struggles to survey the action and misses a couple of pinfall attempts for visual threes. He also counts a couple of 2.9s. Kaz hits a sick fucking brainbuster on Helms, then gets Tombstoned by Noble. This is just a rad series of meaty impact spots at the end. There’s a Helms Final Cut in there, too. They all dive onto one another. Sometimes, you want some fun empty calories, and that’s what this match provides. The crowd gets hot for all the dives, then stays hot when Leia Meow crowns things with a dive onto all the dudes from the top rope. Noble brings a ladder out just for the sake of fuckery, but no one dives off it, and Two Count manages to land their team TKO on Yang for three. Every WCW PPV in 2000 should have had Three Count wrestling a ten-minute spotfest on it. This is another match that, while I wouldn’t call it quite good enough to playlist at first glance, actually might be good enough? I’ll have to think about it. You’ll find out where I fell eventually when the updated list comes out. Tony S. kicks it to the back, where Bam Bam Bigelow plants Awesome through a table (Bigelow, adding words of pain to the physical damage he’s caused: AND THE ‘70s SUCKED). THE WALL, BROTHER chases Bigelow off and looks to maybe be a last-minute replacement for Awesome in the Bammer/Awesome match booked for later in this show. Pam Paulshock interviews the Boogie Knights and KroniK. Disco is wearing a Randy Moss Vikings jersey in Wisconsin, as a good heel should. Pam asks if the Knights are broke; Wright calls her a gold digger, and then Disco says that they’ll be winning their handicap match in under eight minutes. Adams reminds Disco that they negotiated for thirty seconds fewer than that. Jimmy Hart works an injury in his interview with Okerlund. He also claims to have been misquoted in his remarks about the attractiveness of the local ladies. A WCW tech drags him away for his match. It’s Hart/Mancow (w/retinue of complete losers) II on PPV. Fuck off, WCW. I was enjoying this show so far. God, I wish I could yell insults and stupid-ass social and political opinions into a microphone and get paid a ton of money to do it like these shock jock idiots. Mancow yaps on and on and does two things that are useful in this time: First, he clarifies that since this is not a WCW-sanctioned match, he’s allowed to have his retinue of complete losers out here with him. Second, he calls Mark Madden a “fat tub of shit,” which isn’t funny in and of itself, but which does spark a reaction from Madden at the desk that is funny. Was it Bobby Whioux who said that he liked Madden’s work at the desk? If it was you, buddy, I’ve watched his run again, and I finally get your position. He’s an inconsistent color commentator, but he’s genuinely valuable at the desk even with all the misfires and jokes that don’t land. Madden seems genuinely upset that people keep talking about the rotund nature of his body shape while Jimmy Hart wears yet another cast to the ring on a 2000 wrestling show. Hart tries to beg off; Mancow calls himself George W. Bush, which, uh, is that a heel move? Stevie is solidly on Hart’s side after that happens, I do note. After a few more weak “hanging chad” and other such comments about the state of Florida and the Supreme Court finessing a Republican presidential victory for that modern-day Rutherford Hayes named George W., Two Count run back out here and Mancow no-sells their blows while I head right over to the Dirt Worst list and, hey, while I’m here, how about a place for this ongoing feud on the Worst Feuds list while I’m at it? Oh, and Mancow wins after poking Jimmy Hart in his taint. Backstage, Crowbar checks on Awesome as he does a stretcher job. Chavo Jr. and the Misfits talk about being banned from ringside; Hugh Morrus tries to reassure them. CEO Ric Flair knocks on their dressing room door and asks for a moment of THE WALL, BROTHER SGT. A-WALL’s time. I can’t tell if TW,B/A-WALL is half-in or half out of the Misfits at any given time. My apologies. Lance Storm and Bam Bam Bigelow seem to be cutting some kind of deal in another backstage area. Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman talk to Pam Paulshock; Rey says that Konnan isn’t here because he got the clap from some untested partners or something. I don’t care. Billy Kidman talks next. He shouldn’t. They’re confident that they’ll be winning their handicap tag match regardless of whether or not Konnan is in attendance. Vito, Reno, and Crowbar have a three-way dance for the WCW Hardcore Championship. Reno and Vito brawl while Crowbar jogs his way to the ring. Crowbar runs like a seventy-year-old man who stopped working out for two decades, had a heart attack, and then started jogging three times a week to try and recover his heart health. This thing is what it is, with the smashy and trashy and Crowbar destroying his body to try and get over. I think it was a mistake to cross Vito and Reno’s feud over with Crowbar and the hardcore championship, but that’s just me. Matters progress and everyone ends up going backstage. There’s a nice powerslam spot in which Reno dumps Vito through a table. Maria makes a sudden appearance for the first time in weeks; she tries to stop Reno from hitting the downed Vito with a chair. This argument draws Reno’s full attention, so he doesn’t even sense Crowbar’s blindside chair attack that puts him down for three. Eh, it wasn’t actively bad. Buff Bagwell (w/stupid grin on his face) asks some techs a question that I can’t catch the nature of. He seems to be scheming, though. Speaking of, DDP and Kevin Nash have a conversation that’s hard to hear. It’s Crowbar’s music, which is still playing in the background, that is the problem. Fucking Craig Leathers’s replacement. That skeevy Gene Okerlund hits on the incredibly hot Ms. Jones, and the Cat threatens to stick a boot in Okerlund’s posterior. That doesn’t stop Okerlund from offering her a shot of ‘Vitamin Gene” at the end of the promo. Ewwwwwwwwww, no. In between, the Cat tries to crack Okerlund and promises to kiss Shane Douglas’s feet and leave the country for thirty days if he loses tonight. So, our handicap tag match pits Alex Wright and KroniK (w/Disco Inferno) against Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman (w/Tygress). Tygress joins commentary and Tony S. and Madden drool over her. Stevie, on the other hand, is reserved in his enthusiasm; he asks her if she likes his shirt, but Tygress doesn’t fall for it: “It’s aight.” Everyone laughs at Stevie for failing to land his sick burn. Disco walks over to the desk and complains about something off mic that I don’t care about. KroniK tosses the lil’ guys around for a while. It’s entertaining because who doesn’t like watching good bumpers bump for power moves? The issue is that Alex Wright wants all the valor, so instead of just letting KroniK annihilate these dudes, he tags himself in and loses control of the bout. Adams keeps time on a stopwatch, which is actually a pretty funny visual. Meanwhile, Clark lands chokeslams and sitout powerbombs on Rey that look nasty. He wraps Rey up and prepares a Meltdown…but Wright demands a tag like an idiot. You know what happens next. Wright fails to finish Rey, KroniK leaves, and Wright gets his ass entirely beaten. Disco tries to buy a couple more minutes with his gold chain, but KroniK only deals in cash. Rey lands a Nutcracker Suite for three. That was dumb fun. Mike Sanders and the Thrillers think about how to SET IT OFF after seeing Reno lose his title match. They think they have a plan. Gene Okerlund interviews Scott Steiner, who claims that SOME PEOPLE SAY MAYBE MY X-Y CHROMOSOME AIN’T CONNECTED as an excuse for his hair-trigger rages. Oh, Scotty, you utter lunatic who also didn’t pay attention in biology class. Let’s get this Shane Douglas (w/Torrie Wilson) vs. the Cat (w/Ms. Jones) match over and done with already. Douglas inflicts some mic work upon us. The Cat responds. A match happens. Ms Jones kicks Shane Douglas in the head like she’s in Mortal Kombat. The Cat randomly attacks Mark Madden while obligabrawling near the desk. Torrie grabs the Cat’s ankle to help transition into some boring Shane Douglas heel control. I at least have Stevie Rey feigning concern for Madden’s health while Tony S. chides him for being disingenuous to get me through this. The Cat makes a comeback and hits a Feliner, but he delays on the cover and only gets two. The valets clash outside the ring; Ms. Jones wins a short obligabrawl with Torrie Wilson. In fact, both women end up in the ring, and while the ref is busy pulling Jones away from her rear naked choke on Torrie, Torrie passes a chain to Shane Douglas, who lands a chain shot for…oh, only 2.9. The Cat got his foot on the bottom rope. The Cat further manages 2.9 on a rollup as Shane barks at Charles Robinson about the count. The Cat blocks a DDT, and Ms. Jones helps him load his foot with a red slipper. Torrie tosses another weapon to Douglas, but after he snatches it out of the air, he turns right into a loaded Feliner for three. After the match, Ms. Jones revives the injured Cat. Dancing occurs. Much mirth is made. I’m gonna miss that Ms. Jones, I tell you. Don’t worry, I’m well and truly settled down. Okay, it seems that Buff Bagwell asked about where Jeff Jarrett’s guitar stash was delivered to because Jarrett walks up and sees that they are destroyed. That was probably a pretty penny's worth of cost, too. Interview time with Pammy: Lt. Loco exhorts Caption Rection to do whatever he has to do to defeat Lance Storm tonight. Cpl. Cajun is all like GUNNS IS A BITCH. Why is WCW producing Okerlund and Paulshock to have a final comment for the camera after the interview is over? It’s a dumb idea. Stop having them do that, please. Promo: HELL YEAH! OUR WORLD IS ABOUT TO CHANGE AGAIN! Tony S. and Mark Madden are incredulous. Stevie thinks that it’s a Stargate promo for a second. Amazing. This is one of my favorite ever little aborted storylines where Glacier acts as Norman Smiley’s woefully ineffective mentor. Let’s do this angle while my blood is still running cold(er). Bam Bam Bigelow declares himself the victor over Mike Awesome by forfeit, but CEO Ric Flair informs Bammer that SGT. A-WALL is replacing Awesome in tonight’s bout. Is Bam Bam still mad about what A-WALL did to Ric Flair’s dumbass kid, or like nah? Stevie is baffled that A-WALL is allowed to bring tables out to the ring in matches that are not hardcore matches, which is fair. This match sucks. Awesome would have at least done a cool spot or two. Why is this so long? And I say that even though it’s not all that long. Bam Bam fights off a chokeslam attempt and lands a Greetings From Asbury Park for three. It looks like he hurt himself while hoisting A-WALL up there or something because he goes out. Honestly, ref Jamie Tucker is playing this like it’s a work, but the desk is playing it like it’s a shoot. That they kept the camera on things makes me think that it’s a work, but who the hell knows anymore. This show will simply not end. I was really interested in it coming into things, but boy, the middle of this bout is full of stuff that I have little interest in. Buff Bagwell cuts an interview with Gene Okerlund, a promo delivered by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. He accidentally says DICK FIX instead of DISK FIX, which gets a pop, though. They put Bigelow on a backboard and take him out of here. You know, a few months ago after winning the world title, Ric Flair fell to his knees because of an inner ear imbalance (Thunder show number one hundred and ten), so maybe something like that is happening here. Hype video: We get B-roll for the Storm/Rection feud that will finally fucking end tonight. Lance Storm (w/Major Gunns and her legitimate managerial license) defends the WCW Canadian Championship against General Rection. LET’S FREE CHAVO JR. FROM HIS WAKING NIGHTMARE, LANCE STORM, LET’S GOOOOOOOOOO. Before the match, Storm notes that he’s taken everything from Rection except for his country, which honestly he’s not interested in, not even if it’s sold at a Value Village for under ten bucks. And honestly, this country might actually literally be on sale in the global equivalent of a Value Village at some point in the next couple of years. OK, Rection stopping to look at Bam Bam makes me think it’s a work, and oh yeah, it reminds me that Storm was talking to Bam Bam in the back about a week ago when this show started. Of course, Bammer jumps off the stretcher and attacks Rection before the match even starts. Wow, I totally forgot about Storm and Bam Bam plotting until just before the fix was in. This show is so full of noise, you know? Still, I can’t believe that I forgot about that. Credit to Bam Bam for doing a solid job of selling a potential injury! So, Storm continues the assault after they get Bam Bam up outta here; he focuses on Rection’s knee. This match is worked around Storm trying to finagle a Canadian Maple Leaf and Rection trying to survive for long enough to land an impact move for the finish. It’s perfectly fine. Rection actually wins the match with a No Laughing Matter that he overshoots so badly, it ends up looking more like a flipping headbutt. Dammit. The U.S. Championship is going to be in hell for the next few months between this guy and Rick Steiner. WCW United States Championship title change count: 9 (Jarrett > VACANT > Jarrett > VACANT > Scott Steiner > VACANT > Storm > Rection > Storm > Rection) Mike Sanders tells Doug Dellinger to give the WCW security team the rest of the night off. Promo: Our final Starrcade looms. Jeff Jarrett is guitar-free as he makes his walk to the ring. Unfortunately, the ringside area is not mic-free, so Jarrett gets on the house mic and whines about his lack of KABONGin’ instruments. He almost calls himself the STUPIDSTAR before correcting himself and calling himself a SUPERSTAR, but Stevie calls him out on commentary. Meanwhile, Jarrett has to take what feels like a literal minute to recover from his error before he starts speaking again. In any case, Jarrett informs us, he’s got a backup for his lost guitars that he’ll be deploying against Buff in this bout. Buff struts to the ring, basks in the adulation of the crowd, and flicks Jarrett off. Maybe it’s the shock that Jeff feels from this show of disrespect that helps Buff shove Jarrett back into the corner after a collar-and-elbow. I don’t know. What I do know is that Jeff Jarrett is good enough to carry Buff to something decent. I think what we get to start is good, and it’s enhanced by the desk talking about how Buff is a bit too arrogant in big matches, which is maybe why he’s never quite earned the big win he’s been looking for. Buff continues to dominate early; he’s choking Jarrett with a cable camera as part of an obligabrawl until Jarrett swings a leg backward and busts Buff’s balls. Jarrett grabs a chair and uses that instead of his poor ol’ lost geee-tar. Jarrett’s heel control spot is a boilerplate deal. I mean, it’s fine, and there’s a diving fistdrop in there, which rules. Diving fistdrops are awesome. Actually, so is Ted DiBiase Sr.’s measured fistdrop that he liked to drop at ground level. I like how he delivered it. But we get a dead Jarrett sleeper spot, if you wondered how things were going. Jarrett’s in cruise control tonight. Buff escapes it and then goes boots up when Jarrett tries another fistdrop. Stevie rightly points out that both men are second-generation stars, considering that Judy Bagwell was a tag champ a couple of years ago. Buff hits a bad double-arm DDT and goes up for a Blockbuster, but Jarrett ducks out of the way and Buff unceremoniously crashes to the mat. Jarrett runs himself right back into trouble and Buff is able to get boots up on a corner charge; Buff hops to the second rope, but opts for a tornado DDT instead of another Blockbuster. His cover gets two, and right after that, *sigh* there’s a ref bump. David Flair interjects himself and DDTs Jeff Jarrett onto a chair that Jarrett is planning to use on Buff. Buff covers, but only gets two. Buff is upset at his dopey buddy Slick Johnson for the slow count. He decides to go all the way up top to try a diving crossbody, which Jarrett rolls through for two. Jarrett tries a suplex, but Buff hops behind him and lands a Scorpion Death Drop for two. Buff and Slick are verbally sparring in the ring, and when Jarrett whiffs on a crossbody and dives to the floor, he’s able to grab an extra guitar that he left under the ring apart from his usual stash. Buff, finally done remonstrating with Slick, shoves him out of the way and pursues Jarrett, who KABONGs him and then covers while Slick Johnson recovers from being shoved and makes the three count. Hype video: Coach Nash got fired, got his ass kicked, and got DDP as backup. Commissioner Sanders joins commentary to watch the upcoming tag title match between The Perfect Event and Nash/Page. Sanders claims that he has set a plan in motion for this upcoming match. It’s so strange how many wrestlers just stop showing up for months at a time. Page was gone for months, will be back for long enough to job to Scott Steiner, and will be gone again. Will Sting be off television and selling the injuries from Scott Steiner until the final Nitro? It’s possible. Vampiro is gone for good after busting up his neck. Stacy Keibler’s been off television for weeks. So has Daffney. Sid left television after the first week of the Ruschoff Era, came back for one show to turn heel a couple months later, and will leave again until he shows up to be retired and also to snap his leg in January. Terry Funk was badly overused for three months; he left television when the Bull first got injured and hasn’t been on TV since. Hell, Dustin Rhodes has been sitting at home on a three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar contract since the end of March! WCW’s management of its roster is bananas. You can’t get excited for most of these wrestlers because they could be gone for months at a time. Scott Steiner is legitimately the only guy in the company with any real forward momentum as a talent. The crowd chants for Scott Hall while the rest of the Thrillers join us at ringside as the security team that apparently Sanders has drafted to replace Dellinger’s guys he sent home earlier in the show. Anyway, this match is what it is, but I do think Palumbo has a nice haymaker. Nash survives an early Palumbo flurry and lands soupbones and Snake Eyes. Though Stasiak ambushes him, DDP comes in and helps Nash clear the ring. The Thrillers working security attempt to get in the ring, but Nash and Page hold them off until CEO Ric Flair and Doug Dellinger replace the Thrillers with the original security members. I will give this match credit for following through the theme that what one can’t endure alone, they can endure with a friend. That’s a relevant lesson for anyone watching in 2025 in the United States I think. Anyway, Flair tries to eject Sanders from ringside, but Sanders smarmily whips out his managerial license that he managed to get before this match; Sanders keeps his seat at commentary. Stasiak is almost completely useless, but being used as a ragdoll for DDP’s dynamic offense is about as good a use as you’ll get out of him. Alas, the heels need a control segment, so that ends soon enough. At least TPE is using a double slingshot suplex, though! That spot is rad! Page manages to get his spots in, getting two on a flash discus clothesline and trying to fight up from a corner charge, but TPE’s numbers keep Page from managing a hot tag. We’re even assaulted with a whole eyeful of Stasi-ass when Page yanks down his tights on a sunset flip; I assume this is karmic retribution for me not being settled down for huge chunks of this show. Sanders has moved from his seat and is now standing at ringside, managing his charges and encouraging TPE to keep Page from making a hot tag. They’re pretty good at it, and there are some solid cutoff spots here, but the Thrillers are completely void of heat. It’s too bad about that; a hot heel team would have the crowd caring about all the solid heel tag spots they’re doing. Page survives a sleeper and reverses into a sleeper drop; this allows him to beat a standing ten count with a tag to Nash. The big man cleans house, and this crowd on the hard cam gives negative fucks. Wow. Nash Jackknifes Stasiak as DDP cuts off a charging Palumbo by hooking him and hitting a Diamond Cutter. Sanders yanks ref Billy Silverman out of the ring to break the count, but Page hits Sanders with another Diamond Cutter, and Silverman slides back into the ring and re-starts his count. This time, it reaches three, and Nash and Page are the new tag champs after what was a solid, yet ice cold title bout. WCW World Tag Team Championship title change count: 15 (VACANT > David Flair and Crowbar > The Mamalukes > The Harris Bros. > VACANT > Buff Bagwell and Shane Douglas > KroniK > The Perfect Event > KroniK > Vampiro and Great Muta > Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera > VACANT > Jindrak and O’Haire > Boogie Knights > The Perfect Event > DDP and Nash)… Lex Luger excoriates Pam Paulshock for her inexperience and mediocrity as a backstage interviewer before threatening Goldberg in fairly intense and entertaining fashion. Hype package: Luger! Goldberg! Dumb nu-Streak angle! It’s Ready 2 Rumble’s Michael Buffer in the ring to announce this co-main event. The crowd is faintly depressed by this, it seems. Seriously, maybe this crowd is just tired? I think the build to these matches positioned later in the show has been solid-to-very-good, but the muddled middle of this thing has just worn everyone out. This show was too long, quite honestly. Hell, even Goldberg’s pop is muted. I like that Mark Madden tries to fill a plot hole by saying that some viewers have noted that Vince Russo hasn’t been on camera in weeks, so why is the streak stip that Russo started still a thing? He answers that Russo tied the stip directly to a title shot or contracts or some nonsense; it doesn’t matter. I just like that Madden addressed head on why they haven’t dropped even this angle, though WCW doesn’t hesitate to drop almost every other angle. As I watch Luger creak his way around the ring, I think to myself that 1991 Luger vs. 2000 Goldberg would have been rad, probably? I think they could have done a nice match built around trading simple power moves. Oh man, Madden is doing a fine job on commentary. He now pulls a Heenan and claims that the metal pin in Luger’s arm is enhancing the damage of his blows. Alas, the match simply isn’t very good because Luger is physically finished; he doesn’t seem like a real threat at all here. Having him win an obligabrawl isn’t going to help that perception. There are maybe two guys who I would buy as a threat to Goldberg right now: Scott Steiner and Sid. I can’t believe they didn’t put Steiner over Goldberg again, except cleanly this time, if they were going to retire the guy anyway. The soporific crowd dozes its way through a ref bump when Luger pulls Mickey Jay in front of him on a spear attempt. Goldberg Jackhammers Luger and Slick Johnson slides into the ring to make the three count. This crowd is like, Cool man, yeah, whatevs. I’m super-duper excited for the coming world title reign of Scott Steiner. Let’s see: He retires Kevin Nash, Sid, and DDP from WCW, I’m pretty certain. Who else? Well, I’m excited to find out. I’m not excited to have to dodge seeing a replay of Sid’s leg snapping, though. Ugh. I don’t know how surgeons do their jobs. Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) jumps Booker T. as Book enters the cage. This is a Hell in a Cell Caged Heat Match, and as a bonus, there’s a straitjacket hanging from the top of the cage that is available for use. These fellas have an decent match in here that is marred by a couple of meh spots. Both men trade control back and forth in the early going, until Steiner finally manages extended control after reversing a vertical suplex attempt and crotching Booker on the top rope. Unfortunately, in the middle of match, Steiner spends time working bad submission holds. His surfboard sucks; so does his bear hug. Between those holds, one of Booker’s comebacks is aborted. The second one sticks for a bit longer; he lands a missile dropkick and has space to try and get the straitjacket, though Steiner Samoan Drops Booker as Book climbs. Steiner goes up after the jacket, slips, and barely manages to get his footing and grab it…which is when Booker comes up from behind and lands an Electric Chair Drop. Book grabs the jacket and takes about fifty years to try and put the straitjacket on Steiner, but he can’t manage it, so that sort of elongates this spot. Book even has to get up and stomp the dude so that it makes sense that Steiner is still just laying there. No one reminded Booker to strap the jacket on from the front. Anyway, Book grabs a chair and hits Steiner in the dome with it, but a groggy Steiner rips off this flimsy straitjacket, lands a lariat, and locks Booker in a Steiner Recliner. Booker manages to stand up out of the Recliner and dump Scotty over the ropes, but he’s injured, so Steiner attacks again and goes up top. He dives, but is caught in a Book End; Booker’s delayed cover only gets two. Book lands a series of clotheslines and a swinging neckbreaker, then knocks Steiner back down with another lariat after Steiner pops up. That last lariat gets two. Book lands an Axe Kick, but he’s slow to get up, and for what feels like the tenth time this month, he Spinaroonies up and gets immediately cut off with an attack, this time with the chair that he originally used on Steiner. The crowd pops, as they should, as Steiner has actually been built like a beast. Steiner hits a Bubba Bomb and then forces enough air from Booker’s lungs with another Steiner Recliner to get him to pass out. Alright! Let’s get the first dominant title run for a world champion in this company since Hollywood Hogan (I don't count Goldberg, who barely beat anybody during his run). WCW World Heavyweight Championship title change count: 25 (Hitman > VACANT > Benoit > VACANT > Sid > Nash > Sid > VACANT > Jarrett > DDP > Arquette > Jarrett > Ric Flair > Jarrett > Nash > Flair > Jarrett > Hulk Hogan > Jarrett > Booker > Nash > Booker > Russo > VACANT > Booker > Scott Steiner) This list is at its end for 2000. There were 26 champions! Counting VACANT, and not counting repeat champs, there were 13 different champs in 12 months! Booker T. went from zero to three world title reigns in about four months of time! Jeff Jarrett went from zero to four title reigns in about two-and-a-half months of time! VACANT was a four time champ! Ric Flair won his final world title by having Kevin Nash simply hand it to him! David Arquette and Hulk Hogan had the same number of world title reigns, and Arquette’s lasted longer! What a year for the big gold belt, folks! After the match, Scotty Steiner tries to destroy Booker T.’s knee with the chair because he’s out here ready to retire dudes. Refs try to stop him, so Steiner hits Slick Johnson in the head with a chair to a pop. Heh. This show had some good spots, and other than Mancow/Hart, nothing was particularly terrible. It was just so long, man. A truncated version of it might have possibly been the final good WCW PPV. Alas. Well, we have four more shows to maybe get that elusive last good WCW PPV.

I didn't know about the Game of Thrones thing. I would guess it was Magnus ver Magnusson since he was basically the John Cena of the whole competition back in the '90s.

I used to love watching these as a teen. Big Nordic dudes (and occasionally a Polynesian or a dude from the West Indies) shoving around small cars and hucking cinderblocks was a good time!

Early, early ESPN definitely looked a bit more like the Ocho than the people who make jokes about that imaginary channel might realize.

IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE HE'S COVERED IN HIS OWN PISS, PAL Seriously, that 2002-2004 era of WWF was fucking dire. Are we sure that someone didn't have a gimmick like this during that era?

I don't know about that, but I do find the general trait of "talented + supremely unflappable" to be an attractive one. I'm sure she has something to do with it. ESPN was such a vital part of my childhood. The Patrick/Olbermann SportsCenters. Baseball Tonight. Watching pool or the LPBT late at night (I like a woman who can hit the 1-3 pocket repeatedly too, for that matter). And of course, the AWA was where I first saw the Midnight Rockers (and is also how I knew to ask for their Remco figurines as a kid), which brings me to my next (somewhat lukewarm) take: ESPN should be airing a pro wrestling show. It's as much a part of their early development (which I count as running through the '80s) as anything else.