SirSmUgly

I could swear he's on the last Nitro as a babyface, losing to Shawn Stasiak. I'm interested to see how wrong I am on that (false?) memory.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and thirty-five – 8 November 2000 "The WCW Gang continues to stabilize Thunder into a consistently watchable show" It’s time for another short Thunder, so I’m guessing that for whatever reason, the WWE Network’s editors cut another interview…Strange…I wonder what’s behind those editing decisions… Here’s the Thunder opening, still prominently featuring Juventud Guerrera and Tank Abbott… Evan Karagias is exactly in the position where he’s the least useful…On his own as a singles talent…Not for long, though, as future semi-reluctant tag partner Jamie (K)noble joins him in the ring as his opponent in this Thunder opener…Noble quickly takes it outside, hits a running flipping senton to the floor, and wins an obligabrawl so short that it maybe doesn’t even qualify as one…Noble hits a back elbow in the ring and commences to score a series of quick two counts… Karagias finally gets some purchase in the match by tripping Noble as Noble springs to the top rope…Stevie Ray, thankfully back on commentary this week, talks about how much his six-year-old daughter likes the Backstreet Boys…Tony S. prefers both N’Sync and 98 Degrees to the Backstreet Boys himself…Absolutely not to the first, but sure, why not to the second of those boy band alternatives to Backstreet…Stevie, as Tony S. complains about what new music the kids like to listen to: “Hey, leave the kids alone”…Good dad Stevie has already improved this televised wrestling program… Karagias has an acceptable enough heel control segment…He can’t get a three count, though, which is partially because he’s too busy dancing to cover sometimes…Noble blocks a superplex, shoves Karagias to the mat, and follows with a guillotine legdrop…They battle back and forth, but Noble comes out on top with a rolling vertical suplex into a Northern Lights with a bridge for two…Noble starts to pour on the offense… Karagias stops the onslaught by posting Noble…The ref is busy looking at Noble and counting to ten to see (or apparently hear or feel) Shane Helms and Shannon Moore rush the ring and hit a team TKO on Karagias…Stevie: THAT’S WHAT THE TEMPTATIONS DID TO DAVID RUFFIN…I love that this is his go-to for music group backstabbing treachery metaphors…Anyway, Noble beats the count and covers a knocked out Karagias for three…Even though he got the duke, he’s still nice enough to come back after the match and chase off Helms and Moore as they pick Karagias’s bones…Decent opener… After a break, Reno and his trusty kendo stick defend the WCW Hardcore Championship against Crowbar…Put the belt on Crowbar, dammit!...Actually, I’m pretty sure that Crowbar becomes the hardcore champ at some point soon…Crowbar and Meng might have been the last couple of hardcore champs in the company, or at least among the last couple of champs…This match is mostly more of the same with the trashy and the smashy…I don’t like how Crowbar dives onto ladders for sandwich splash spots…He’s trying way too hard for this division and this company…I am all for varying the flow and tenor of these hardcore matches in WCW, but maybe in a less personally injurious way…This is a better-than-average hardcore bout because Crowbar tries really hard and is a solid worker… One thing I can say that I appreciate about the last few shows is that the matches are longer…Even if, as in 1998, sometimes they could use a bit of editing or feel a bit overlong, I prefer that to all the shorter match times of the past year because these longer matches have more of a chance to be good…They also have distinct segmentation...Like, there are actual shine segments for the babyfaces now...Crowbar tries everything, including a diving apron clothesline to a seated Reno and a tussle to the back, where Crowbar gets a fire extinguisher and uses it as a weapon…They fight back onto the stage, where Vito pops up and surprises Reno by hitting him with a Mafia Kick that sends him plummeting to the floor below…Vito actually gets a small VI-TO chant, too…Crowbar follows with a stage dive onto Reno for three and for the hardcore title…This is a well-deserved title for my man Crowbar… After the break, Mike Awesome and General Rection celebrate in the ring with Crowbar…You will never, ever, ever make me care about General William Hugh DeMott-Morrus Rection, WCW. Rey Misterio Jr. has unfortunately colored his hair magenta…He looks like a doofus, sadly...He and the Filthy Animals come to the ring, where Konnan’s pre-match SPEECH ON DIS is still somewhat over…His insults are dumb, though…Apparently, this match between Konnan and Disco Inferno (w/Alex Wright) has the stip that if Disco wins, Konnan has to keep Disco's name out of his mouth going forward…Stevie Ray is apparently not a huge Kidman fan, but he thinks Rey is peachy…Kidman checks a very married Tony S. for asking, “Where is Tygress? Is she going to join us at this desk?”…Tony S. is shameless, though!...He cannot be shamed!... It feels like Disco and Konnan have been off-and-on feuding for a decade or so…Billy Kidman is not good at commentary…He calls the Boogie Knights the worst tag team in history, and Tony S. must feel the need to fill in for an absent Mark Madden because he responds like so: “Worse than the Ding Dongs?”…Also, Scott Armstrong is the ref, but he’s going by Scott James, and Stevie Ray seems on the verge of asking a question about the name change…He lets it pass, though…Anyway, ref James and Disco get in a shoving match… Disco makes me laugh by doing an elaborate celebratory dance on the second rope before coming off with a double-axe…Konnan by that time has gotten up, stepped to the side, and cocked his fist, patiently waiting for that idiot Disco to dive…Konnan continues his comeback, which is when Wright, Rey, and Kidman all get involved…Konnan manages to DDT Disco, but Wright pulls him off the cover…It doesn’t matter…Konnan hits a sit-out facebuster for three…Disco claims that Scott James retaliated against him with a fast count… After the break, we see Disco hire KroniK to get back at Scott James for the perceived fast count… It’s Dopey David Flair!...Dopey Dave's new theory is that the father of Stacy's baby is Rey Misterio Jr. because Stacy has said that she thought Rey was cute…This is so random…Rey and Tygress answer Dave’s demand for them to present themselves…Stevie: “Now, Rey’s got his own yak, so what would he need with David Flair’s yak?”…Tony S. and Mike Tenay inquire upon the difference between a yak and a squack…A yak is a regular girlfriend, but a squack is a lady on the side, if you were wondering…Rey denies being the father…Tygress slaps Dave, and then we get an impromptu match…Rey posts himself somewhere in there, but there’s absolutely no chance that Dopey Dave is going to capitalize on that mistake with a victory… While Rey summarily makes a comeback on Dave, Stevie expounds on his thoughts w/r/t the Battle Domers…He basically calls T-Money a broke bitch…I guess even with the budget cuts, there’s more lucre in WCW wrestling than in chasing guys who work in the L.A. fitness scene and are trying to get some TV time around a poorly-lit arena…We get a FACE FULLA STUFF YAK and a Bronco Buster…The desk is in full-on fuckery mode…Rey drills Dave with a guillotine legdrop for three…Stevie and Tony S. on commentary is improving this generally meaningless Thunder for me by leaps and bounds… Coach Kevin Nash leads his pupils in the Thrillers to the ring for a bout against Shawn Stasiak, that wayward son of theirs…Stasiak was wise enough to keep KroniK on retainer as his backup for this match…Mike Sanders is still the commish, so he grabs a microphone and suggests that KroniK avoid a suspension by leaving the ringside area…Since KroniK gets their money up front, they roll out and keep the cash…Nash says that Stasiak is S.O.L….Tony S.: “And we know what that means”…Stevie, inquisitively: “What does it mean?”…Anyway, Nash is suddenly fired as head coach of the Thrillers by Sanders, and he catches a beatdown from Stasiak et al….Booker T. runs down to make the save, and all seven Thrillers clear out… A post-ad segment sees Nash being checked out by a trainer and selling a concussion from the attack… Now, Lance Storm (w/Team Canada) done pissed off THA MONSTA MENG…They’ll hook it up next…Storm basically argues that general competence is on the decline, particularly in the United States and Tonga…He then stands at attention for “O Canada”…We don’t get through the first stanza before Meng (w/Kwee Wee and Paisley) walks the ramp, his theme music bringing an end to those solemn proceedings… Tony S. to Paisley: “Hello, beautiful!”…He gets a “Hello, handsome” in response and also probably another talking-to from his wife when he gets home…Paisley argues that Kwee Wee Angry Allen is like a smaller version of Meng…A mini-Meng, if you will…Stevie insults Paisley’s hair, which gets Tenay and Tony S. up in arms…Tony S. apologizes profusely for Stevie’s conduct, and I’m going to be honest, almost none of WCW’s feuds matter so I’m sort of okay with the clowning at the desk… Paisley: “Stevie Ray, I notice you call me ‘Miss Paisley’ to my face, but when my back is turned, I’m a YAK”…Hilarious…To crib an idea from Roger Ebert, sometimes instead of a random semi-meaningless Thunder, I’d rather just get in its place an hour of the people who would have been otherwise booked on the show having lunch together, talking about wrestling, and cracking on one another…If Thunder was pre-empted by a proto Table for Three show with Stevie, Tony S., and Paisley having lunch and chatting at a mid-priced café, I’d watch the hell out of that ten times out of ten… Anyway, the rest of Team Canada runs a distraction on Meng and takes out Kwee Wee…Meng manages to land a Samoan Drop on Storm, then leaves the ring to attack Elix and Duggan…Meng breaks Duggan’s 2x4 and Tongan Death Grips both men…Unfortunately for him, he gets counted out while doing so…Kwee Wee recovers and gets in Lance Storm’s face…Storm decides to vacate the premises when Meng backs Kwee Wee up…This was fine as a match, but genuinely fun as an exercise in commentating while only half-focusing on the action in the ring… Booker T. defends his WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the middle of the card against Mike Awesome…Bless your hearts, WCW bookers…Anyway, Tony S. notices Booker’s new gloves, and I suddenly see a lack of Breathe Right strip and try to recall when Book stopped wearing them to the ring…Maybe when he became a singles guy?...Anyway, Awesome gets outmaneuvered by Booker early…Book scores a couple of two counts before being hit with a lariat that sends him to the floor… Awesome instigates an obligabrawl that he wins, mostly by using a steel chair (in front of the ref, no less)…It’s sort of a long obligabrawl, and I’m glad when Awesome brings it back to the ring and lands a slingshot splash for two…You know what?...Awesome’s facial features are too small for his face…Just an observation…Awesome is really heeling it up out here, so maybe we are done with this nonsense ‘70s gimmick the poor bastard has been working…Good news if so… Awesome sets up a table…Awesome loads Booker onto his shoulders for a running Awesome Bomb through the table, but Booker hops out…Alas, Awesome ducks Booker’s roundhouse kick and back suplexes Booker through the table…Awesome covers, but Booker kicks out at 2.9…Awesome tries a top-rope splash next, but Booker rolls away…Book manages a leap over into a sunset flip for two…He gets up to his feet first and lands a reverse neckbreaker for two more, then a spinebuster with a bridge for another two count…Axe kick, Spinaroonie, Houston Side Kick, and all that only gets another 2.9…Excellent timing on a couple of these kickouts from both guys…Awesome is cooked…He swings a wild right that Booker ducks…Book hooks Awesome for a Book End and hits it for three…Decent match, but man, that long obligabrawl dragged it down a bit… So, here’s what was cut: We missed a sit-down interview-slash-insult battle between Mark Madden and the Cat…Scott Steiner asked Mike Sanders for a bit of cover by having Sanders order him to attend anger management courses to appease Ric Flair, then tried to kill the commissioner because he’s CRAAAAAZY…Lenita Erickson, who gets a whole-ass chapter in the Nitro book, was introduced as a backstage interviewer…She won’t be around for long, I don’t believe…Also, we missed her interview of Bob Sapp!...Did he ever make it into a WCW ring for a match?...I don’t believe he did, but I’m happy to be surprised… Post-review update: I was listening to Between the Sheets for this week of television, and that's when I learned that the Lenita Erickson/Bob Sapp interview was posted online. It was a terrible segment, but it was so bad, and Bob Sapp in particular was so hammy (like some sort of pantomime villain in a kung-fu flick) that it came back around and was Dumb, But Entertaining. The link is here for anyone who is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UP6A43eHk8. How this made it on television in the first place, I'll never know, but whoever edited these shows for the Network did the world a disservice by cutting it. All that stuff I listed above would probably have been a net-positive to this episode of Thunder for me and my tastes were it included in this version of the ep… The main event is a Triple Threat Match between Lex Luger, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Goldberg…Bigelow’s t-shirt has ominous text in tiny letters on the front: Nowhere is safe…You’re telling me, Bammer…Before Goldberg can enter the ring, KroniK makes their way down the ramp and kicks the shit out of ref Scott James per Disco’s paid request…If this isn't going to end with Bullet Bob showing up, flanked by Brad, Scott, and Steve and throwing punches at Disco, this probably won't have the end result that I'd most desire... After the break, Goldberg finally makes his entrance…Stevie and Tenay debate whether or not ref James’s count in the Disco match was, in fact, fast…Mickey Jay is now the ref in charge for what is essentially a handicap match…This match is what it is…Shine, heat, comeback, SPEAR, JACKHAMMER ATTEMPT THAT FAILS BECAUSE BAMMER WEIGHS A TON, JACKHAMMER, SPLAT on Bammer…Luger bails out rather than take the loss…This was perfectly fine for what it was… Speaking of things that were perfectly fine for what they were, let me introduce you to this edition of WCW Thunder!...Anyway, I'll next see you in the UK!...WOO…

I'm wondering if I should put him on my master list of Every Personality Who Showed Up to Wrestle in WCW During the Nitro Era that I'm making. If he at least makes it in the ring for a scrap, the heck with it. I will.

This "Daffney was a fantastic personality" truther agrees 100%

How have you not been kicked out of Mississippi for holding this opinion? As for a Repo Man face turn, you'd just make him a Robin Hood type character and feud him with Dibiase's Money Inc. stable. Which sounds terrible, but which could work from the standpoint of making Repo a babyface. Darsow could play a mischievous trickster, so I bet in the alternate universe where this turn happens, he has at least a couple of fun segments on those dreary late 1994/early 1995 RAWs.

Really hoping he's not living the "Charlie Kelly washes down his steroids with beer" part of the gimmick, though.

Show #265 – 6 November 2000 "The one with a bonus Battle Dome review!" Recap: Ric Flair is WCW’s new CEO, and I ask you, what the heck is the point of keeping the commissioner’s position, then? Also, Shawn Stasiak is still boring and Booker T. is still questionably booked. In a pre-tape, Midajah walks up to Sting as a diversion; Scott Steiner jumps him from behind and they have a short brawl before security pulls them apart. We cut to Nash suggesting to Mike Sanders that he fill a segment by having Sting and Scott Steiner wrestle one another during it. For fun, he further suggests throwing Jeff Jarrett into the match just for the fuck of it all. He and the rest of the Thrillers cackle. “S.O.L.” isn’t catching on as a catchphrase, fellas. Here's our ugly Nitro intro. Bring back the desolate city blocks, dammit! Chicago is subdued for the opening of tonight’s show. Alas, few are excited to see local suburbanite Lex Luger. Luger’s got a rolled up magazine in one hand and a microphone in the other. Luger walks to the desk and asks Mark Madden to stand up. OK, so this is hilarious. Last week, after Luger said that he was six-four, two-eighty, and had five percent body fat rather than his usually-stated two-seventy-five and four percent body fat, Madden off-handedly commented with something like, Huh, he got a little chubbier since the last time we saw him on Nitro. I half-chuckled, but I didn’t think enough of that comment to even write it into the Nitro review. So, that comment has been eating at an irate Luger all week, apparently, as he calls Madden an endomorph. Hey, Lex, how would you personally define an endomorph? “A gigantic glob of cellulite celluleet (that's how he pronounced it!), fat, poor conditioning, slovenly eating habits, and a piece of garbage.” He says that he has mesomorphic magnificence. Wait, hold on, Lex, what is mesomorph—“Six-foot-four, two-eighty, four percent body fat, and [in] the greatest shape of any athlete on the planet Earth.” OK, thanks, Lex. Though I don’t know why Luger is so mad; Madden’s comment obviously drove him to drop a full percentage point of body fat in a single week. Madden: “So much for the heels sticking together.” Luger gets in the ring and talks about his motivation for beating up Buff Bagwell last week, which mostly was to send a message to Bill Goldberg. Basically, Luger cuts a promo about how much he hates Goldberg’s streak, and the subtext is that he actually hates that Goldberg was booked to get a streak in the first place because he didn’t suffer for DA BIZNESS like everyone from Ric Flair to the Road Warriors. Luger is surprised that Goldberg has a book about to release, mostly because he didn’t think that Goldberg could read. He’s got with him an excerpt of it that was written in WCW Magazine. Ross Forman is at ringside taking snaps, and Luger asks him to come into the ring since he also edits the magazine. Luger asks Forman whether he liked the Goldberg book excerpt in the magazine more than the Luger feature in that same magazine. It’s a trap, Ross! He even called you his friend, which is an obvious set-up! Poor old Ross confusedly notes that Luger doesn’t have a feature in the magazine. Luger complains about the Power Plant graduates and the lovely ladies of WCW getting more attention than he gets from WCW's promotional arm before attacking Forman for not respecting him. Luger racks the guy for a good minute or so. Well, closer to two minutes considering that like eight refs slide in the ring and can only manage to all politely ask Luger not to rack the poor bastard anymore. Luger drops the erstwhile magazine editor and declares that Goldberg – just arriving to the arena – is next. After the break: Everyone in this company does stretcher jobs! Even Ross Forman! Kevin Nash browses Goldberg’s book and tries to be funny about the content, but I just want him to cut this promo with Pam Paulshock and get it over and done with already. With the Thrillers flanked behind him, he chastises both Shawn Stasiak and the guy who accidentally drops something off camera during his promo. Nash demands a match against Booker T., but before he can say much else, Stasiak walks up and again apologizes to Kevin Nash. Stasiak tries to make up with Nash by promising to be in his corner if he wrestles Booker tonight; Nash ain’t having it. Lance Storm (w/Team Canada) talks about the 2000 United States Presidential Election by saying that no matter who we vote for, we lose since we’re still Americans in the end. Well, I'd say that there are levels to this shit, Lance. Also, your suggestion to immigrate to Alberta really would just create the same problems in a new province. I talked to some British Columbians recently who might as well have been in DX because they were all like ALBERTA CAN SUCK IT, and look, I’m not here to talk Canadian or United States politics to you even though Team Canada will provoke me into doing so over the next couple of weeks, probably. I’m here to tell you about this Storm/Kwee Wee (w/Paisley) match. Upon joining the desk, Paisley immediately tells Madden: “Mark, you’re not funny” and then, when Storm gets in her face, gets up and yells YOU’D BETTER GET OUTTA HERE; I’M NOT SCARED OF ANY CANADIANS. Oh, Paisley. You are the absolute best. While short, the match in the ring is good because Kwee Wee is a solid worker, as is Lance Storm. I really like Kwee Wee’s tilt-a-whirl facebuster, especially. Someone who is currently on television should steal that move if it hasn’t already been stolen. Alas, Storm catches Kwee Wee as Kwee Wee leaps onto Storm for a monkey flip attempt; Storm dumps Kwee Wee and locks on a Canadian Maple Leaf for the tap-out victory. Storm doesn’t release the hold, so Paisley calls out a request to save her man. Her call of CODE BAD HAIR DAY brings Meng and his majestic ‘do out to clear the ring. Goldberg talks to Okerlund, the latter of whom lets him know that Bam Bam Bigelow is once again challenging him to a match later tonight. Goldberg takes the chance to be like, What the hell was the office doing leaving this guy at home the past few months? I mean, he was healing from a few burns for part of the time, dude. Goldberg is also unimpressed with Lex Luger’s boasting, and when Luger walks up and gets in his face, it turns out to be a simple ruse so that Bam Bam can crack Goldberg over the head with a pipe. Mike Sanders has booked Thriller outcast Shawn Stasiak in a hardcore title match with Reno. They’ve seemingly dropped the long-teased beef between Reno, Vito, and I guess Vito’s sister, but I still feel like it did get picked up again eventually. Reno never makes it out here. Interesting – Palumbo was attacked before he could wrestle Stasiak on Thunder, and now Reno has been downed before his match with Stasiak. This time, we see KroniK walking away from the scene. Stasiak is announced as the winner by forfeit, which Tony S. is quick to note does not count as either a pinfall or a submission. I thought forfeits also counted for title changes, but the hardcore title is dumb and also not going to make it through January, so I actually don’t care enough to dispute any of this. As the Thrillers try to figure out who attacked Reno, Palumbo picks up the (bent) weapon of choice and says this: “Y’know Kev, I’m no Columbo, but I am Chuck Palumbo” before showing everyone the weapon and positing about its use on Reno. That was very dumb, but I grinned, so it’s the good type of dumb. It’s interesting how much stuff from Russo’s final run that Terry Taylor, Kevin Sullivan, and whoever else is helping to book these shows are just running with. Ric Flair is still forcibly retired, for one, which originally happened on Russo’s watch. Goldberg still has to replicate his streak or be fired. What else? I’m sure that I’m missing something else. I just wish we could finally find out who was cutting out the lights and attacking wrestlers in the ring from back in Russo's first run with Ed Ferrara. Or who the heck was in that knockoff Scream mask back in those days, for that matter. Anyway, Flair walks to the ring for his nightly proclamation and hypes Mayhem by announcing a few matches. Storm/Rection: The Final Encounter is the first one, so we’re starting out at the lowest possible hype here. It’s okay; we’ll crest with the good stuff at the end. He also announces Luger/Goldberg and Booker/Scotty Steiner, the latter of which will be in a cage. Flair, in what I feel is an obvious signal for this upcoming swerve, says that the winner of the world title bout will be considered the flagship wrestler in the company and then immediately threatens Scott Steiner if his conduct doesn’t improve. Why not just outright tell me that Ric is going to turn heel yet again and team up with Steiner? Even if I didn’t remember that this happened, I would have known it was coming just from that sentence. Scott Steiner and Midajah walk to the ring to retort, and Scotty gets a small pop for calling Flair an OLD BASTARD and a SONUVABITCH. Steiner grabs Flair, but Booker runs in and wins a short brawl that sends Steiner tumbling to the floor. Security has to back an irate Steiner off. Flair resumes talking and makes the cage match a Straitjacket on a Pole Dangling from the Cage Ceiling Match. He also threatens to fire Steiner if Steiner physically accosts any more WCW officials. I’m looking forward to Steiner retiring dudes from WCW, but I feel the exact opposite about seeing Flair be a heel authority figure AGAIN. The time for doubling down on heel authority Flair passed eighteen months ago, fellas. I have no interest in Flair heeling it up in this position into 2001. Jimmy Hart hypes himself and begs AM radio DJs to please help get some attention on this failing wrestling company, please. He pretends that Casey Kasem wrote him a challenge letter and would deign to show up on Nitro. Shaggy Rogers absolutely would not spend one second on this fucking show. Mancow walks up and cuts an annoying fucking promo in the style of a typical untalented AM radio show host before Two Count jumps Mancow from behind and assists Hart in beating down the talentless Chicago-area bag of wind. Fresh off that victory, Two Count hustles to the ring. They’re still calling themselves Three Count, but the name doesn’t work unless they get a replacement for Evan Karagias. They’re hyped about not having to carry their former partner anymore. Leia Meow walks the Jung Dragons out and the desk falls out because her pants are sitting very low on her waist and we can see her thong. I mean, that’s a good reason to fall out, at least if your T-levels are anywhere near healthy! This is apparently a Triple Threat Tag Title Match, actually, as Jindrak and O’Haire make it out to the ring and start tossing around cruiserweights almost immediately. This is another short match. It never settles into an ordered affair and is mostly full of spots where cruiserweights leap at the bigger rookies and sometimes team up with one another to try and double-team their larger foes. The Dragons and Two Count manage to send Jindrak and O’Haire to the floor, but after dispatching of Two Count inside the ring, the Dragons both dive right into the arms of the champs, who dump them and beal Kaz back into the ring from the floor. Back in the ring, Helms covers Jindrak, but Evan Karagias runs in and breaks it up; O’Haire lands a springboard Seanton Bomb on Yang for three. After the match, two things happen. First, outside the ring, Jindrak and O’Haire square off with Terry Crews and his fellow Battle Domers, the latter of whom are in the front row. I did watch Battle Dome at the time, by the way, and I remember seeing this angle in first run as well. It’s not hindsight at all to say that Crews’s performance as T-Money was obviously levels above the performance of any other Battle Domer. I’m not expecting guys who can actually act to be on these shows, as Crews can, but give me at least a few more guys with incredibly punchable faces like American Gladiator Nitro. That’s a place where Battle Dome was lacking. No support for T-Money in his lead heel role. Oh yeah, the second thing to happen: Inside the ring. Two Count and the Dragons stomp out Karagias until Jamie Noble runs in with a chair and makes the save. While M.I. Smooth teases revealing an apparently reinstated wrestler who is a passenger in his limo, I wonder if they even teased this Battle Dome crossover elsewhere on WCW television. I mean, Battle Dome was a syndicated show that barely anyone watched, so it’s not like the audience would have known who they were, for the most part. Tony S. went all Mike Tenay and was like OH WOW, IT’S THOSE BATTLE DOME GUYS, but this is the first we’ve seen of them on Nitro or Thunder that I can recall. Maybe a recap of this feud was cut out of a previous Thunder or something? Also, did I just totally miss Ric Flair saying that he was reinstating a WCW wrestler in his earlier talking segment? Hudson said that Flair teased that he reinstated a mystery wrestler, but I must have blanked out. After the break, we see who the reinstated wrestler might well be: Diamond Dallas Page. We didn’t see him get out of the limo directly. Either way, it’s nice to see Page back; this show needs another big match wrestler badly. Page gets a pretty nice pop and then *sigh* cuts a promo that he claims is “a shoot, for real” about how he wanted to leave WCW because it sucks, but they wouldn’t let him out of his contract. He only decided to come back to keep the paychecks coming in when he heard the crowd pop for him as he walked out for a house show bout against Booker T. a month ago. Page purposely garners as many cheap pops from the excited Chicago crowd as possible in his promo. We see the Battle Dome guys taunting Page from the crowd. Page mocks Battle Dome by saying that they must want to be on a “highly-rated show for once.” Uh, no, they didn’t show up to Monday Night RAW, Page. Page calls out Buff Bagwell, the Cat, and Rick Steiner for backup. The Cat calls out the Battle Dome guys for a fight. Buff suggests that the Battle Domers have a fluid sense of their own sexuality. Rick Steiner attempts to speak English. Anyway, Terry “T-Money” Crews leads the change over the rail and security keeps everyone apart as Buff once again opines upon how little the Battle Domers care to align with heteronormative concepts of sexuality and gender presentation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update: Holy shit, so before I could edit this review and post it, I had to go to bed. When I got up and started to put in a shift for work in my office, I thought to myself that I’d see if there were any Battle Dome episodes posted to YouTube. In fact, one of the contestants on the show posted a VHS recording of his episode…and the WCW wrestlers are on it! Battle Domer Baby Blue gets his nose busted open and exclaims “WCW Guys…this is the REALLLLL THING.” Immediately after, the PBP man, whose name I don’t remember because he’s just some dude as opposed to his partner on color commentary Ed Lover (!!), tells us that Rick Steiner and his buddies are pulling up to the building. We cut to a limo, where DDP, the Cat, Rick Steiner, and Buff Bagwell step out. OK, this is now a Battle Dome interstitial right smack in the middle of this review. If you want to see this incredibly silly crossover for yourself, by the way, here’s the link: https://youtu.be/wgFIxkxQw10?si=p4Eb1avgdxUiRml0 Review: This quartet of WCW stars have made two previous incursions into the Battle Dome, and while their first invasion attempt went well, they were turned back the second time around. These WCW stars were tormented by the nWo for literal years, and they couldn’t figure out how to effectively utilize the nWo's tactics or anything? It’s Battle Dome! You should be able to successfully invade Battle Dome with relative ease, fellas! Anyway, this episode also shows clips from the segment that just ended, so it can be placed sequentially as happening right after this Nitro. The commercials are also left in this recording, which is fantastic! Battle Dome is sponsored by Nintendo (with the 3D N64-era logo), and we get a Banjo-Tooie commercial in which Banjo refuses a parachute on a skydive because he’s got Kazooie to help him safely land. Unfortunately for him, Kazooie isn’t in his backpack at this moment of truth and is instead chilling out by the pool while Banjo plummets to the ground. Luckily, Banjo only takes a single bar of fall damage. Also, they had Folgers Café Latte crystals at one point, which is amazing and sounds like the best bad latte-while-camping one could have in 2000. Nescafe has long surpassed Folgers at this point. Wait, there were fried crawfish bites at Popeye’s! Holy shit! I want those! An eleven-piece bucket of chicken at Popeye’s only costs ten bucks in 2000, by the way. OK, this is now also a “2000 commercials” interstitial, I suppose. After some dudes jump through a wheel for points, we see Rick Steiner and Buff Bagwell shadowboxing somewhere in the back. Commercials: UPN still exists and has hired Brian Dennehy to host Arrest and Trial, which is real-life Law and Order and even uses the same or similar font as the latter show. We also get a bunch of local commercials from some SoCal city, including a local plumbing company that cribs The Shadow for its ad. Rick Steiner and Buff Bagwell interview with some dude. Apparently, Ricky Steiner is facing off with T-Money later tonight. Buff does most of the talking because Steiner is IN THE ZONE! AAAAAHHHH! So, the problem with Battle Dome is that it’s got far worse events than American Gladiators. The Battle Wheel is a worse Pyramid. This Aerial Kickboxing event is a less-aesthetically pleasing Hang Tough. I like the idea of doing real competition, but making your gladiators be more overtly pro wrestling with the promos and taunts and stuff, especially in 2000, but they needed to license a few of the events from AG. Commercials: Holy shit, a Shenmue commercial! SEGA DREAMCAST: IT’S THINKING. The kid who is playing it in the ad turns out to be in a psych ward because he’s so into the game that he thinks he’s Ryo. Also, the Geico gecko is rendered in some very early aughts CGI. Yeesh. We get Jack (of the eponymous Jack in the Box) and Albertsons commercials; we also get a Tekken Tag Tournament commercial, but I was always a Virtua Fighter dude. Tekken feels more fun to play, though, what with all the juggling. I prefer VF taking it’s high-middle-low guessing game in a more deliberate direction, though. Aerial Kickboxing master Bubba Steel dispatches of all three of his opponents and then cuts a promo on Rick Steiner and Rick Steiner’s ugly face while Steiner and Page do a little light wrestling to get Steiner fired up in the back. Usually, when Page wrestles a Steiner in the back, he gets nearly killed, so I hope he’ll be okay this time around. Also, Mr. Steel calls Steiner a “fake, phony athlete,” which is a kayfabe mistake and honestly feels like it could be a shoot mistake if ol’ Ricky’s feeling testy. Commercials: I haven’t eaten a frozen dinner in years, maybe coming up on decades. This guy in the store looks at a bunch of Healthy Choice and Hungry Man dinners and sadly walks away, but Carl’s Jr. is there for him! I mean, if by “there for him,” we really mean, “ready to give him diabetes and cripplingly unhealthy weight gain.” Also, we get another video game ad: Driver 2 (which I’ve never played, but which people really like as I recall). I forgot about the hoodoo-practicing Jamaican Battle Dome guy. He is the Battle Domer on patrol in the Battlefield event, which is a game that is essentially what happens when you take Powerball from Gladiators and make it far worse and almost completely unentertaining. The guy who posted this show just runs in circles the whole event and doesn’t even make a move toward the goal in a “run out the clock” sort of deal because he’s so far ahead that he’s locked a spot in the final event already. T-Money cuts a fun promo on Rick Steiner in which he says that Steiner “has been livin’ in Never Never Land – welcome to reality” and promises to show the WCWers that “money, hoes, and clothes is what it’s all about.” This is an obvious thing to say considering Terry Crews’s success as a comedic actor, but if WCW put him on their television regularly right now, he’d already be a top-five promo guy in the company. Maybe top three. Maybe top two? Even that last one is not a stretch. Video Allen Iverson is upset at some preppy dudes from a Los Angeles high school who beat him at basketball in the video game world of NBA 2K1. Man, do I miss console-company Sega. I’m glad that they’ve stabilized as a third-party publisher, but video gaming is far poorer for the lack of new Sega consoles, and a bunch of their intellectual properties are basically dormant now. Other ads: Twix is extreme! Some kid practices his greeting for working at McDonald’s in the mirror, though we are led to believe that he’s practicing an attempt to ask a lady out. The Tekken Tag Tournament ad is our first repeat ad; speaking of, I just rescued the Heihachi Bot in one of the latest Astro Bot DLC levels. When you interact with him after rescuing him, he’s training his buddy Kuma, and Kuma poots on him, much to his dismay. Yes, that sentence makes sense in the context of the game. As another aside, Tekken had Kuma and VF/Fighters Megamix had Kumachan, and I always get the two mixed up. DDP cuts a terrible promo on T-Money while Money and Steiner get gloved and helmeted up for a game of Shitty Powerball. Steiner easily shakes Crews because Steiner is a legit athlete, but he slips before he can get up the pyramid and score. Anyway, they drop the ball and work a fight. Steiner is very gentle with the future Everybody Hates Chris and Brooklyn Nine-Nine star. Everyone else jumps in and has a weak pull-apart; T-Money cheap shots Steiner while some refs and security have him pinned against the cage, and Steiner responds by punching some refs in frustration. Commercials: Cars, razors, but not enough video games. Wait, just at the last, here are Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley to help advertise for WWF No Mercy! YEAHHHHHHHHHHH Rick Steiner sells T-Money’s overhand right by icing his forehead while DDP promises that T-Money is catching an asswhipping on the upcoming Nitro! YES! I LOVE IT! THIS IS NOW UNIRONICALLY MY FAVORITE ANGLE ON NITRO AT THIS MOMENT! The final event is between the final two competitors, and it’s a faux-UFC fight. What a show this Battle Dome is. It is entirely of its moment – a mashup of Gladiators, early-era UFC, and Attitude Era pro wrestling. This show could not exist at any other time than the time that it did. Anyway, the dude who posted this episode to YouTube wins it by executing a clean judo throw to toss his opponent off the platform, for which he gets a motorcycle and a Battle Dome ring. Will we ever see Nintendo sponsor a show this edgy again? Again, probably not as Nintendo's edgy period was really for five years specifically within this time and place. Battle Dome sort of stinks as a going concern, but this episode should go in a time capsule or a museum because it’s so singularly unique a piece of entertainment. The preview of next week’s Battle Dome promises more WCW vs. Battle Dome action! Also, as we see a few final ads from show sponsors, there’s a BowFlex commercial, which is spot on sponsorship for this type of show. And after the Battle Dome, the next show is…Creflo Dollar scamming his existentially frustrated viewers out of their hard-earned money. 2000: What a fucking year! Okay, back to our regular Nitro action (though I wish that after going back to writing about this Nitro, I could then literally go back to 2000, maybe early invest in Chipotle, Nvidia, and Amazon, and play Sega Dreamcast and N64 with my friends. Would it be weird if I tracked down my teenaged wife and told her that we’d be getting married some day, so let’s hang out and get some coffee together? Yeah, it’d be weird, probably). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shawn Stasiak is getting far too much talk time tonight and television time in general. He denies causing Reno to be attacked in response to Pam Paulshock's hard-hitting investigative questions and again asks for forgiveness from Nash and the Thrillers. WCW is off to London and Manchester next week. I wish I were off to London and Manchester next week. Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) are tagging together, it appears. Sting’s partner in this bout is Buff Bagwell. As Steiner jaws at some rube in the front row, Mark Madden suggests that CEO Ric might get a kick out of Steiner literally killing a fan, and the tone of admonition in Tony S.’s voice seems shoot-y, in a Don’t you dare be bringing Turner S&P down on me, man sort of way. Madden responds by basically daring someone at WCW or Turner to fire him. Boy, did I not remember that Madden was basically trying to get let go for his last few weeks of work. It’s actually perversely entertaining. As for this match, there’s barely any babyface shine; Sting whiffs on a splash early and ends up as FIP. The production truck misses Steiner interference that would have been helpful to see and which prevents Sting from making a hot tag. You know, just a typical Monday night here in WCW! Steiner slaps on a somewhat shitty-looking surfboard, which maybe explains why Sting is about to fight up from it and land buckle bonks before getting kicked in the balls and losing control of the match again. It takes a Sting escape from a Steiner suplex attempt and a counter DDT for a hot tag to occur. Buff clears out Jarrett and gets two on a double-arm DDT to Steiner. Buff goes up for a Blockbuster and lands it, but Jarrett KABONGs him right in front of everyone but Slick Johnson, who has somehow stumbled into a seated position in the corner and missed it. I mean, even if you missed it, how are you going to ignore the guitar pieces, buddy? Sting chases Jarrett away from the ring, but Steiner locks Buff in a Recliner for the knockout victory. This was fine. Except for the dumb finish, of course, but that almost goes without saying here in World Championship Wrestling. Promo: Has anyone browsing this thread read this Goldberg book? It’s probably not worth seeking out, but I would love to be wrong about that. Lance Storm joins the desk to complain about Alex Wright (w/Disco Inferno) getting a United States Championship shot tonight, and he is correct in kayfabe about his argument that a) Wright hasn’t done enough to warrant a shot at the second-biggest singles title in the company, especially since he’s been working in mostly tags since he’s come back, and b) as a guy who hasn’t been pinned for any of the three titles that he won, Storm should get the first shot at General Rection’s (w/Major Gunns) title belt. Disco does his unfunny deal where he translates Wright’s pre-match German speech. Mark Madden is out here making WW2 jokes: “When was the last time Germany won on their own soil?” OK, I’ve decided that Madden not giving a fuck, making jokes and challenging the office, and sabotaging what fabric of narrative believability this show has is actually pretty funny. I’ll allow it. This match is so enthralling that a small segment of the crowd audibly starts a WE WANT PUPPIES chant. What’s so weird about WCW is that, if they could have hired someone with reasonable creative ideas to run this show at any point in the last two years, Alex Wright would probably actually be over at this level. There was a point in about 1997 when Wright was feuding with Ultimo Dragon that it seemed like he might be a long-term upper-midcard talent for WCW someday. Even in this match, he unloads some nice offense and has wonderful timing. That Berlyn repackaging just destroyed this guy’s WCW career. The finish is that Disco tries to get involved with a chair, but the other Misfits rush the ring and chase him away. Meanwhile, Gunns draws the ref’s attention to no purpose whatsoever because Rection simply catches Wright going up top, presses him to the mat, and lands a No Laughing Matter to retain his title. If Storm had gotten involved somehow, drawing the ref might have made sense. This match was also fine. Pre-tape: Hacksaw Duggan whispers. Then he yells. Mostly, he yells about what’s wrong with the United States. Oh man, where to fucking start? He estimates that he needs ten whole days to list everything. I mean, that’s a low estimate. Actually, what he does complain about is low voter turnout. Might I suggest that low voter turnout is good? Fewer idiots voting means better outcomes, probably. He also notes that the candidates, as much as they may be middling-to-bad, are chosen by the electorate, which is why I don’t want to hear anything about how the parties don’t serve the people. The parties are imbued power by the people! Organize and change the party if you don't like it, dammit! That’s how it’s always happened in a two-party system like this one! That’s what the Republican electorate has done to their own party over the past twenty years! Neocons – sidelined! Isolationists - centered! So, in conclusion: Stop pretending your leaders aren’t a reflection of your wider culture or community in some way and also, most people are too uninformed and confident in their own ignorance to make good choices at the booth, so high turnout doesn’t mean much but high idiocy. Thank you for coming to my Poli Sci seminar. Goldberg/Bam Bam wasn’t interesting in late 1998 and early 1999, so you can imagine how I feel about it in late 2000. Luger walks onto the ramp to view the proceedings. He momentarily distracts Goldberg, but you know the end of this song, don’t you? Spear, Jackhammer, SPLAT. Kevin Nash finally gets a return world title shot after his Fall Brawl loss to Booker T. Scott Steiner and Midajah walk out here first; Steiner threatens both Ric Flair and Booker and finally gets the “you are fatherless” insult right. It only took him multiple tries and many weeks to land that insult. Bless his dangerously enlarged heart. So, after a commercial break and introductions, we get a classic six-minute Nitro main event special in which what action there is means nothing because some sort of fucky-fuck finish will be the focus anyway. Hold on: Steiner is incredulous when Hudson and Tony S. claim that Booker might not have the height advantage over Nash, but that he does have “the heart advantage” over Nash. Steiner, scoffing: THE HEART ADVANTAGE?! ARE YOU HIGH?! Hahahahaha, fan-tastic. Anyway, there’s a ref bump off a Houston Side Kick. Stasiak runs in and hits Book with brass knucks as Book sets Nash up for a Book End. Nash loads Booker up for a Jackknife, and Stasiak punches Nash with his loaded fist, tosses Booker on top, and revives the ref to count three. This whole main event was a vehicle for centering Shawn Stasiak. I am staggered, folks. This Nitro wasn’t good, but I loved the Battle Dome episode, as bad as Battle Dome's events are. Only as a one-off, though. If I started a thread and reviewed every Battle Dome episode, it might look mostly like the 2000 WCW part of this thread. Anyway, this review is special; it gets two scores! 0 out of 5 Stinger Splashes; 3 out of 5 T-Moneys.

I left town for the President's Day weekend and bought two books, both of which are very good reads. Theresa Runstedtler, Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA: '70s NBA is an under-chronicled period for the league, which is a shame. People pretend the league didn't exist until Magic and Bird were drafted, but this book is a very well-researched look at how black NBA players, shaped within the era of civil rights and labor rights that they came up in during the '60s, in turn won a series of labor battles that modernized the NBA and gave players more control over their careers (and I'm very much fine with the modern player-controlled NBA in comparison to any other period where owners had more control than they do now, which might be a minority opinion). It also covers the misreported and misrepresented "cocaine problem" that this era of the NBA is still known for. I've read statistical studies that show that criminality isn't particularly more common in a random sampling of, say, NBA or NFL players than it is in society at large, and this book is clear about how the media was able to center Bernard King and Spencer Haywood and their drug and alcohol issues as emblematic of the whole NBA. Anyway, this is a fine book for NBA fans who enjoy learning the history of the league. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Warming Up Julia Child: The Remarkable Figures Who Shaped a Legend: If you were to ask me whose life I would like mine to be almost exactly like if I could choose, it'd be Julia Child's. She got to live in Paris and Marseille, learned to cook in the French way, made close friends, and had the support of those friends (and her amazingly supportive spouse Paul - I can say that this is incredibly important to one's success in life because I also have a supportive spouse, though she's not named "Paul") to help her craft and publish a seminal cookbook and then go on to also develop and host a seminal cooking show. Julia Child is just an incredibly impressive person, you know? Even being this impressive doesn't get you as far as you can go as being impressive and having the support of people who care about helping you express your impressiveness. Anyway, this book is also a wonderfully researched work that delves into the archives and uses letters from Paul, Julia, Avis DeVoto (friend of the Childs and editor/shepherder/publisher go-between), Simca Beck (co-author and great chef in her own right), and everyone else who helped Julia achieve so much as a chef, a writer, and a television personality. The big takeaways that I have from this book are that 1) people who are very individualistic underestimate what they are able to achieve only with the help of a supportive community and 2) everyone should write more letters because when people were regular letter writers back in the day, they were much more engaging and used lovely language more often than I see in today's writers - including myself.

They still have 'em in my neck of the woods, I'm pretty sure. Try Safeway/Albertsons if you haven't.

IMO, the store ones suck, sadly. They don't have that Rally's umami-and-heart-stopping-grease-bomb flavor. ...we need more food-based gimmicks in pro wrestling, dammit. I want someone to work a Julia Child gimmick where she takes nips of brandy or cooking sherry during the match and attacks her opponents with a chicken carcass a la Terry Funk in 2000 WCW. Of course, the chicken would be impeccably roasted in the French way.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and thirty-four – 1 November 2000 "The WCW Gang attempts to entertain its viewers by trying this whole 'put on a bunch of decent-to-good pro wrestling matches' strategy that they hear is amenable to the pro wrestling fans who are still sticking with them" OMG, it’s a car with a New Jersey tag on it pulling up to the arena!...What a start to THUNDERRRRRRRRRRRR… It’s already November of 2000, so please get good again quickly, WCW… It sure is nice for WCW to book Three Count on one of their shows…Evan Karagias snatches the mic from Shannon Moore to talk about how awesome his dick is…By "his," I mean "Karagias's," to be clear...Shane Helms asks Karagias to keep focused, but Karagias declares himself the leader of this group, and also, since he has the best abs (also his declaration), he gets to make the rules…Three Count doesn’t even get to dance, but it’s okay because Leia Meow leads the Jung Dragons to the ring… Where the fuck is Stevie Ray?!...Tony S./Madden/Tenay is a commentary team fit for hell…Helms and Moore put together some solid combos, but Evan Karagias is on his Shawn Stasiak shit right now…This unfortunately isn’t the best match these trios will ever have with one another…It’s not bad, but they’ve worked at such a high level in the past that having a decent, but unmemorable tag match is sort of disappointing to me…Karagias gets tagged in, but doesn’t tag out because he wants the spotlight…A frustrated Helms tags himself in eventually… Huh, so at the same time we're working a sudden dissention angle between Karagias and his band mates, we’re also working a sudden dissension angle between Jamie (K)noble and Jimmy (Wang) Yang…Knoble accidentally clocks Yang…Helms and Moore combo Yang on a team TKO, and Karagias hops into the ring and steals valor by taking the pinfall…Helms and Moore kick the shit out of Karagias while Meow slaps Jamie Noble around…Kaz and Yang proceed to kick the shit out of Noble…The ejected group members are left laying in the ring, and as they stir, they look suspiciously at one another...Suddenly, a burst of a long-forgotten memory comes back to me that Noble and Karagias became a tag team and there was some sort of three-way tag feud between these teams… All I have to ask after the execution of this angle is the following…How much longer until we break Helms and Chavo away from their respective teams and have them feud with one another already?...Are we there yet?! Gene Okerlund holds court with Kevin Nash and Chuck Palumbo…Nash talks about kicking Stasiak out of the Thrillers…Palumbo faces Stasiak tonight...Palumbo threatens Stasiak…Everyone swats one another on the ass… Bam Bam Bigelow walks into the arena, tosses a friendly Crowbar ("Hey, Bam Bam!") into a door, and then demands that, uh, head of security Doug Dellinger give him some interesting matches or something like that?...We’re really scraping the barrel with these mysterious vehicle spots…Teasing Bam Bam Bigelow returns in 2000 and shit… Elix Skipper gets in the ring and cuts a mediocre promo against Lt. Loco…Skipper’s not happy with Loco's "Whine Time" nonsense and is all like SAY IT TO MY FAAAAAACE…We are reminded of said extremely shitty Lt. Loco impression from a couple Nitros ago…I forgot about that segment and am not angry, but rather disappointed that WCW reminded me of it…Loco and Major Gunns make their way to the ring…Once everyone stops talking, we get a typically good wrestling match, which doesn’t surprise me with Chavo leading the way against a green, but game worker… Gunns tries to start a LO-CO chant which weakly takes, though after ten seconds, it turns into a much stronger TAKE IT OFF chant…Welcome to the year 2000, everyone!....Loco sets Skipper up to get slapped by Gunns…Skipper is so awkward…He fucks up his part of a tilt-a-whirl slam…Even with the botch, the match is good…Skipper mostly gets his ass kicked, but manages to land a desperation lariat after managing to rana Loco onto the apron… Loco is clearly a couple of levels beyond Skip, though…He makes a comeback when the action gets back in the ring…Gunns gets in the ring and rips off her shirt, but the ref stops her before she can boot Skip in the balls…As the ref - is that an Armstrong Boy? – backs Gunns out of the ring, he misses Loco rolling up Skipper for a visual three…Skip tries to load his fist with his Grey Cup ring, but Gunns grabs his arm…That doesn’t stop Skipper, though, as the ref is drawn to Gunns again and Skipper kills a Loco sunset flip by planting himself and punching Loco right between the eyes with his still-loaded fist…After that, dropping down and getting an easy three count is academic… Kevin Nash joins commentary for this Chuck Palumbo/Shawn Stasiak match that no one with any sense would care about…Nash, after he sits down: “What an incredible pop”…Then he laughs because there are about twenty-seven people in the building…They tried to darken the completely empty upper deck on the hard cam side as the show ended, but we all saw it…I think this week of television really cements that WCW is fucking cooked…Even, like 1995 WWF or 1991 WCW didn’t feel this dead…This is so bad that they might as well just have all their matches in a pink room... (Okay, maybe it’s not quite that bad, but it’s not that far off…) Palumbo doesn’t make it out here because someone put him through a table backstage…Nash gets up and confronts Stasiak himself…They don’t fight or anything, though…Stasiak just shrugs as Nash points at him…Somehow, in a segment that promised a match between two midcarders with no heat whose feud I don’t give a shit about, this still came off as anticlimactic… Billy Kidman and Rey Misterio Jr. (w/the Filthy Animals) work a tag match against the Boogie Knights…Konnan speaks on many things, such as the health of the familia and the nice texture of his headband…Kidman buries Jindrak and O’Haire by saying that they suck at the art of pro wrestling…What the fuck?...Why is Kidman talking about carrying guys to good matches like he's writing for a dirt sheet?...That makes no sense…Kidman fucking sucks, get the mic away from this dude…The presentation of Jindrak and O’Haire is baffling...They’re two big athletic dudes with promise…Why in the world would you portray them as two chumps who can barely win a match and can’t work a lick?... Anyway, Kidman also calls out the Boogie Knights, both of whom charge the ring…As I watch Rey and Disco work a fun sequence, I wonder why we don’t talk about WCW fumbling Rey more often…That’s a bigger fumble than fumbling Benoit or Eddy or almost anyone else whom you can think of…Rey damned near concusses himself by spiking his own head into the mat on a headscissors attempt, but he gets over it and gets back to work…The Animals keep Disco deep in trouble with quick tags until Alex Wright is able to pull the top rope down on a Kidman rope run and beat him down at ringside… Can I get back to talking about how dumb it is that WCW spends a lot of show time talking about how much of its own roster and show sucks?...Jindrak and O’Haire suck…Disco Inferno sucks…WCW itself sucks…What if the showrunners at least pretended that their characters were good at the art of pro graps, whether they actually were or not?...It wouldn’t change anything major, but it would make this show more fun to watch by building its wrestlers as worth watching… Anyway, Kidman is your FIP…He eventually is able to suplex his way out of trouble…Rey and Wright meet up after Kidman makes a hot tag, and Rey lands a bunch of impact offense before getting clubbed away from a pinfall attempt on Disco after hitting an Asai moonsault…The match breaks down...Kidman lariats Wright to the floor, then lands a springboard dropkick > baseball slide to the junk > Bronco Buster combo in tandem with Rey…Wright makes his way back into the ring and hits Kidman with something, but we miss it on camera…His cover gets two…Rey manages to rana Disco to the floor while Kidman dumps Wright…The Animals set up for a Nutcracker Guillotine Legdrop, but Rey chooses to dive onto a recovering Disco instead…Wright gets to his feet and tries to suplex Kidman, but Kidman hops behind him and twists Wright into a Kid Krusher for three…Hey, look, a good match acting as an oasis in the desert that is the rest of **waves arms** all this… As I went to put that previous match on my Good Matches list, I realized that Nitro is deep in the midst of another good match drought…After parking a match on the list for three straight Nitros in August, there has only been one Nitro match placed on this list since August 21st, 2000…Yikes… SGT. A-WALL sets up a table at ringside…Lance Storm is his opponent…No, wait, Storm got an opponent for A-WALL…Storm presents THA MONSTA MENG...So, if Meng got fired because he couldn’t beat Goldberg, did Storm give up some of his own pay to get him back?...Actually, that’s what Storm alludes to when he joins commentary…It’s strange to me that Storm has the rep of being boring, because he’s actually a solid heel personality…This match isn’t any good, so it’s a real bummer that A-WALL takes a clean chair shot to the dome in service of a match that isn’t any good…Then again, at least this wasn’t terrible or anything…In a bit of a surprise finish to me, Meng goes up to the second rope and leaps right into a goozle…A-WALL deposits Meng through a table via chokeslam for three…I’m somewhat surprised that WCW hasn’t put the hardcore belt on A-WALL yet…He’s got the whole table gimmick that the fans are at least somewhat interested in, and he works hard…Storm gets in the ring and slaps Meng while yelling YOU FAILED…Meng deposits Storm at ringside with a TDG in response… After a commercial break, Storm walks right back out here, holding a mic in one hand and his injured throat in another…Storm sells a wrecked larynx as he TRIES TO BE SERIOUS FOR A MINUTE…He gives up on attempting to talk and just waves for the truck to hit the Canadian National Anthem…Norman Smiley makes his return to a major WCW television show tonight…Lots of returning talent on this show…Storm and Smiley work a series of arm wringer reversals before Storm trips Smiley, but whiffs on a follow-up elbow drop…Back to standing, they lock it up again…They reverse full nelsons, after which Norm trips Storm, then cartwheels away from a Storm attack and wiggles… Wow, two dudes working holds in 2000 WCW?...This is novel…They exchange some lovely escapes and counters before trading two counts on a series of pinfall reversals…Smiley backdrops Storm to the apron, but he charges and Storm is able to hang his neck over the top rope…Storm boot chokes, then lands a dropkick for two…Smiley’s Irish whip is reversed, and Storm catches him with a knee to the gut… Storm continues his assault…He scores a backbreaker for two…I suppose it’s obligabrawl time…Storm dishes Smiley to ringside and knocks him around a bit…Storm wins it, but when he tosses Smiley back into the ring, my absolute least favorite transition happens…Smiley starts his comeback and lands a back elbow for two…Unfortunately for him, Storm blunts his momentum with a lariat and a lovely vertical suplex…Storm manages a nice side Russian that he transitions directly into an octopus hold…Norm fires up and elbows his way out, then grabs an ankle lock that Storm rakes Norm’s eyes to escape… Storm’s up and in control, landing a series of chops in the corner…Storm whips Norm in and tries to follow, but Smiley escapes and hits some loud return chops of his own…A stalling double-underhook slam gets two for Smiley…Norm avoids another corner charge with a boot and a back elbow, then goes up to the second rope and hits a diving back elbow…Norm lariats Storm to the floor, then tries to suplex him back into the ring…Storm flips behind Norm, who blocks his back suplex attempt and rolls through and into a Big Wiggle…Norm’s swinging wind-up slam attempt is stopped cold with a jawbreaker…They struggle over a Northern Lights, but Storm manages to get Norm over and bridges for two… It's so nice to get a couple of good matches that are given ample time on this show…This was Thunder’s whole deal for most of 1998…Let’s get back to that style of show layout again…Norm leverages himself back to his feet after being snapmared, then trades small packages for close two counts with Storm…Norm struggles to hit a double underhook takeover, but does and floats over for two…Storm whiffs on another lariat, but scores a back kick to the nuts when Norm goes behind and tries a piledriver…It gets blocked and reversed into a back body drop…Storm gets right back up and powers into a bridge for two…*sigh*…Norman tries to bridge up out of it, but can’t, and Madden is the bright boy who points it out by saying, “They’re trying to do that Flair/Steamboat ’89 spot, but they’re both pretty tired”…What a dolt…Back to standing, Storm manages to trip Norm once more and transition into a Canadian Maple Leaf for the submission victory…After the match, Meng chases Storm away from the hold and eats a Storm superkick for a light snack besides…Storm scurries off before Meng can attack him… Wow, look at what WCW can do when it puts its talent that can go in a ring and gives them eight to twelve minutes on television!... I sure do wish someone on the booking committee would advocate for giving Crowbar a small push…He’s just around to get punked by less enjoyable wrestlers in the back and to do jobs in the ring…He’s out here to get killed off by Bam Bam Bigelow…It’s a noble thing that Bam Bam saved some kids from a fire…But also, feed someone else to him on his return…Actually, they should have played up Bammer's heroism and brought him back as a babyface...Anyway, there's a long obligabrawl in the middle of this thing…Back in the ring, Bammer hits a Samoan Drop and calls for a Greetings, but he instead wastes time with a choke…This gives Crowbar a chance to come back, but he runs the ropes and rebounds right into Bigelow’s grip…A Greetings From Asbury Park later, and Bammer gets a win…This was bang-average, which I think is fine considering it involved 2000 Bam Bam Bigelow… After Jeff Jarrett gets done complaining about Ric Flair being the new Chief Executive Officer of WCW, our main event commences… Jeff Jarrett “Slapnuts/Slapass” Count: 3, by the way…Jarrett and Vampiro tag up in a match against Mike Awesome and Sting…After a break, the match starts with Awesome and Vamp going at it in the ring while Sting and Jarrett throw hands at ringside…Awesome deposits Vampiro to the floor and dives onto him while Sting and Jarrett re-enter the ring… Sting lands ten punches in the corner, but Vamp has somehow dispatched of Awesome and clubs Sting from behind…Awesome follows…He and Sting send Jarrett and Vampiro spilling to the floor and rule the ring for a bit…Jarrett does a nice little heel spot where he excoriates ref Billy Silverman for not settling the match down…He pleads for order…Then, as soon as Silverman manages a bit of order and Vampiro squares off with Sting in the ring, he quickly disorders things again by hopping into the ring and clubbing Sting in the back…What a PHONY that guy Jarrett is!... Sting is your FIP, but only briefly…He comes back, but Jarrett dodges a Stinger Splash…Vampiro tags in and does get two on a back kick, but he never really feels in control and trades blows with Sting before managing to put knees up on a Sting splash…He tags back to Jarrett, who locks Sting in a sleeper while Madden exclaims that the crowd is ELECTRIFIED FOR THIS MATCH…Spoiler alert: They are absolutely not…Madden keeps calling attention to stuff on this show that he shouldn’t be calling attention to…He gets fired in December, so I am guessing that this is Madden approaching his most checked out…Of course, the very most checked out he got was when he got fired for criticizing management and giving info on a potential sale of WCW… Oh yeah, this match…Poor Mike Awesome works so hard, but the crowd doesn’t care about him because of all the rapid stupid gimmick changes and wishy-washy booking…The finish is that Awesome looks for an Awesome Bomb on Vampiro…Jarrett tries to KABONG Awesome, but Sting grabs Jarrett’s shoulder…Jarrett swings his KABONGing guitar at Sting, but Sting busts it to pieces with his baseball bat…Jarrett runs to the back, Sting chasing behind him, as Awesome completes the Awesome Bomb on Vamp for three…Show over… This is a short upload – only about an hour and thirteen minutes – so that means another interview got cut…I looked it up, and the interview that got cut was a Tenay sit-down with Shawn Stasiak…I read about it since it’s not on this recording or easily accessible online, but I have no need or desire to see it…It doesn’t move me either way on the surprisingly positive score for this wrestling-heavy episode (even with the cut interview)…WOO…There are only two "O"s in that WOO because the bad commentary and questionable shoot-bang-ish comments brought it down from earning a longer WOOO...

Power Wash Simulator is one of the elite podcast games.

"Just?"

I only knew that Awesome joined Team Canada or that Team Canada was still around in March of 2001 because Awesome/Palumbo is the background video that plays if you stay on the WCW Thunder home screen in Peacock for more than a few seconds. You know, there are only five months left of WCW programming, and I'm really wondering just how quickly WCW is able to become a consistently solid watch that seems to be building toward a clear future. I know we're only into November, but I'm wondering if my memories of WCW being good again are distorted by time. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to have to wait until after Starrcade and the beginning of the final quarter-year of WCW television before I'm going to get to the stuff that I remembered being so good.

Show #264 – 30 October 2000 "The one where even the crowd seems pretty much okay with WCW not existing anymore" Let's Nitroooooo from a train! Recap: Halloween Havoc was an event that happened. A limo pulls up, and Tony S. says that OUR NEW CEO has arrived. Does he intend to be calling out our kayfabe commissioner or is this some weird Time Warner deal with some suit who will show up once and then never grace our screens with their presence again? We get the intro reel, a bunch of fireworks, and an opener pitting the tag champs Jindrak and O'Haire against Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman (w/the Filthy Animals). Oh, by the way, Scott Hudson is back on commentary, and he stinks. Konnan joins the desk as well. Misterio slaps a disrespectful Jindrak and eats an immediate lariat. As Rey fires back, Konnan and Madden bicker over how good the tag champ Thrillers are. Oh, here's Tygress on the mic now. Lovely. O'Haire and Kidman have a nice sequence in which Kidman scores a counter-dropkick while Konnan thinks of every possible name he can call the rookies without getting suspended without pay again. This is the story of WCW; there's a good match going on that's being undercut by something else. In this case, it's Konnan being like THESE TWO THRILLERS ARE SO GAY TOGETHER and Madden feeding into it because he's of course going to do that. Madden is only as good as his partners at the desk, which bodes poorly for tonight. Jindrak and O'Haire score a couple of nice double team moves, but Rey is just too slippery and boots away a charging Jindrak, then scoots under him for a hot tag to Kidman. Kidman does his best to take both Thrillers on, but Jindrak lands an elevated neck breaker to stop all that. The match breaks down from there and O'Haire manages to backflip a charging Rey and Kidman, then land a double lariat on them. However, Jindrak whiffs on a springboard splash, and Rey and Kdiman connect on a Guillotine Nutcracker. Unfortunately for them, the Boogie Knights are super late to their run in, so the ref has to count at an incredibly slow pace before he's feasibly able to be pulled off the count by a charging Alex Wright; Disco sneaks into the ring on the other side and lands a Chartbuster on Kidman that Jindrak makes the cover on for three. After the bout, Konnan chases Wright away from a stomping out of Kidman. Well, there was a good match in there that was undercut by the commentary and the poorly-timed finish. Above Average Commissioner Mike Sanders is holding a casual conversation with Kevin Nash backstage when Scott Steiner barges in, goozles Sanders without so much of a glance in his direction, and then enthusiastically starts his own conversation with Nash about his performance against Booker T. at Havoc. Wait, is it really definable as a conversation if Nash never actually gets a word in? Steiner finally deigns to look over at Sanders for long enough to demand a title shot at Booker tonight upon pain of death. That's our Scotty! I totally forgot that Paisley ate a Roll of the Dice on the final Thunder before Havoc; Kwee Wee demands that Reno get out here and give him a title shot. He does so by incessantly quoting the '70s Incredible Hulk and asking Reno to join him to reminisce on their time together at the Power Plant when he routinely got his ass kicked by Kwee Wee. We proceed to have a smashy smashy, trashy trashy match that really drives home a larger point that the whole existence of WCW's sorry-ass hardcore division has emphasized again and again: Namely, good garbage brawls do take skill and talent and not just anyone can do them by getting a bunch of cookie sheets and trash can lids and teeing off on one another. While this mediocre garbage brawl treads on toward its end, let me circle back around to this "new CEO" thing for a second. Madden in fact indicates that the new CEO position is separate from Mike Sanders's commissionership. Now, if I know one thing about WCW, it's this: They routinely do a successful job of pulling themselves out of their creative doldrums by adding yet another on-screen authority figure to the mix. It never fails them! Speaking of on-screen authority figures, Sanders and a few more of the Thrillers jump Kwee Wee at the top of the ramp and put the boots to him. Kwee Wee rolls back down the aisle as Hudson calls for more changes to the hardcore division from the new CEO. Hudson, you rube, I think we're good on more tweaks to this division that WCW might as well never have started at this point. Let's just run with what we have. Reno picks Kwee Wee's bones in the ring and scores a Roll of the Dice for three. The Thrillers continue the beatdown after the bout as Tony S. calls for another authority figure to counterbalance Sanders. We had one! It was the Cat! What the shit! Gene Okerlund introduces General Rection's entrance to the ring for an interview. The crowd goes mild! I mean, seriously, no one gives a fuck about this dude. I remember being confused about the random Jerry Flynn push from months ago, but at least they didn't put the second-most valuable title on him! This is where I ONCE AGAIN note that they didn't put it on Booker back at the end of 1998/beginning of 1999! But they put it on this goof? FUCK. Anyway, the rest of the Misfits come to the ring to celebrate with him. Morrus rips the Canadian sticker off the gold as about eight people in the crowd applaud. Morrus proceeds to cut a shitty-ass MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY SAW ME REACH THE APEX OF MY CAREER promo. Okerlund gives the guy a verbal reach around and then tries to start a round of applause that barely picks up. A bunch of babyfaces walk out here to clap for him too. What the fuck? Why is Arn Anderson out here clapping? This is such a misguided attempt to get a zero of a midcarder over. Hell, even Booker T. and Goldberg walk out here! Goldberg gives the guy his own verbal reach around now about how much the BOYS and the fans appreciate him. You have got to be fucking kidding me. What in sweet hell is happening? I can't put this on the Absolute Dirt Worst list because it's executed well in a vacuum, but boy, it might be one of the most misguided things I've seen all watch through. Lance Storm appears on the TurnerTron and says that Rection still hasn't beaten him one-on-one before demanding a rematch. Morrus accepts the challenge, which will be at Mayhem instead of on tonight's show, unfortunately. I was hoping for a quickie title change on this show. So, as the babyfaces are led to the ring by Goldberg to celebrate Morrus's victory even though no one in the audience cares about the guy, I wonder: Is Major Gunns randomly going to turn at Mayhem? Dopey Davey Flair walks to the ring with a sealed envelope and, apparently, the results of the blood test. Anyway, the test says that it's not Buff even though Buff makes perfect sense as the father, which I pointed out a bunch of reviews ago (Thunder show number one hundred and thirty). M.I. Smooth (it stands for Mis Information, according to Tony S.) walks out to ersatz "Smooth Operator" and tells Dopey Dave that while Buff was on the tape with Stacy, he said nothing about it meaning that Buff necessarily impregnated her, which is a fair consideration regarding Buff being the baby's daddy, actually. Then, he gets in the ring to beat up Dave for the crowbar shot from a couple weeks back. Dopey Dave tries to beg off, but Smooth attacks him from behind and we get a short, insignificant match, the equivalent of a puff of air, that ends when Smooth lands a Bubba Bomb for three. After a break, we get a pre-taped interview from Jimmy Hart in which he challenges radio DJs of any and all genders to fight him on upcoming Nitros. Then, he reminds us of when he took down Andy Kaufman and cackles. This is depressing. I wish I was just watching '80s Memphis now. The Boogie Knights are back out to have a match of their own. This might be the most dead crowd that I've seen on a WCW show yet, or maybe I still remember the heated up Australian crowds from a couple of weeks ago that actually made WCW still look like a hot ticket. Disco says that the new commissioner sent them back out here, and he opines that it is for only good reasons related to his helping the tag champs out earlier or his impeccable abs. Actually, he just sent the Knights out here so that Goldberg could kill them off right quick. Goldberg kills them off right quick. No, wait, Goldberg just tossed them out of the ring for some mic time. Aw, he didn't want to pick up a couple of quick dubs before he started his interview? Goldberg proceeds to cut a promo in which he discusses his rediscovery as a wrecking ball badass and threatens the whole forty-deep roster with being next. So, uh, the camera accidentally catches that the new CEO is Ric Flair and quickly pans down to his feet while the desk tries to pretend that they didn’t see Ric Flair’s face so that they can play up the mystery of Sanders’s new adversary in management power struggles. Fucking whoever replaced Craig Leathers. Mike Sanders walks to the ring and crows about his tainted victory over the Cat at Havoc before inserting Scott Steiner into the Booker T./Mike Awesome world title match later tonight. Meanwhile, I realize that Flair is going to turn heel as an authority again by the end of Nitro's run via the whole alliance with Scott Steiner/Magnificent Seven deal. Sanders claims that the new CEO is not long for WCW, which is technically true as WCW only has five more months to live. Ric walks to the ring to retort. He says that WCW upper management put him in this position, which is certainly crazy considering that not eighteen months ago, Flair was a nutbar of a WCW President to the point that he was institutionalized. Did they not see the inevitable coming from this latest hire? That’s rhetorical; they are WCW upper management, which means that both in kayfabe and as a shoot, they are idiots. Flair and Sanders have a decent enough mic exchange, but I don’t want to see another one of these power struggle angles. Flair dismisses Sanders, but not before booking him against the Cat once more for later in this show. Sanders is bummed, but he huffily takes his leave. Flair talks about how much this company shoot sucks and guarantees that he’ll put WCW back on top. Flair praises Lex Luger because Flair asked Luger to watch out for Dopey Dave, which I suppose explains Lex’s attack on Buff Bagwell at Havoc. Jeff Jarrett walks to the top of the ramp, but his mic is also sick of this fucking power struggle angle nonsense and refuses to work. Alas, WCW's budget is still big enough to afford more than two microphones, so some tech hands Jarrett a replacement. Jarrett complains quite a lot about Ric being the CEO, peppering his complaints with a bunch of corny insults. Ric responds with nonsensical insults. Ric repeats that he's the boss even if Jarrett is a great wrestler and then undercounts the number of world title reigns Jarrett has had by two, but I can't blame him for that. WCW's booking of the world title in 2000 has been some damn nonsense, not to mention WCW in general in 2000. The Total Package Lex Luger - that's what he's going by now, but I'll stick mostly with Luger - walks to the ring to dead fucking silence, literally the exact opposite response that he got from the United Center crowd in July of 1997. Irvine, California doesn't give a single solitary damn about these wrestlers. Luger cuts a typical promo about his excellent physical shape and announce that he's back in the company as an active wrestler. Luger tries to blow off his attack of Buff Bagwell by telling Buff that it was only business, never personal. Luger then throws down the gauntlet to Bill Goldberg, which I guess plants the seed for Goldberg's eventual WCW retirement in a couple of months. Buff Bagwell's music plays; Buff walks to the top of the ramp to respond and also to pretend that he's deeply angered at the actions of his buddy Luger. Buff challenges Luger to a match tonight; Luger responds affirmatively, and Buff waves his other buddy Slick Johnson out to start the bout. It's short and dull; Luger yanks Slick in front of a Blockbuster and then sparks an obligabrawl. These obligabrawls are increasingly meaningless, especially with a mindless trash brawl also on every card. Luger beats Buff down with a chair and then rolls his future Totally Buff partner back in the ring, where he racks the guy for a submission that the recently revived Slick Johnson acknolwedges to end the match. Luger declares that Goldberg is the guy who is next, and yeah, he sorta is! Pam Paulshock interviews Coach Nash and The Perfect Event. Nash shows renewed confidence in Shawn Stasiak, which I think is a mistake. Stasiak is contrite. The dudes all swat each other on the ass and try to get Paulshock to join in. She rolls her eyes, but only acquiesces to lightly swat the one actual wrestling star in Nash. Alright, here is the team of KroniK to face The Perfect Event (w/Kevin Nash). TPE has a generic eurodance theme that is somehow less appealing than "Exodus Twice Removed." Nash joins commentary to talk about this team's prospects while the competitors in the ring have a nothing match and the crowd, half-alive for the first time all night, chants WE WANT SCOTT HALL. So, yeah, that's how this Nitro is going. Palumbo misses by about three feet on a kick that Adams would have barely sold anyway. My favorite spot in the match is Clark getting his ankle grabbed by Stasiak on a rope run, turning to Stasiak, pointing at him, and loudly muttering HEY, YOU LITTLE ASSHOLE. That was pretty funny, I must say. Stasiak gets clattered at ringside and Nash tells him to "walk it off," which Stasiak reads as "walk off." While Palumbo tries his best, it's not nearly enough; he gets slaughtered by KroniK as Stasiak stomps to the back. A High Times ends the bout; meanwhile, Nash plays Stasiak's walkout as something of a joke, so none of this matters. Inset ad: I still want this WCW CCG. Nash and the Thrillers go in search of Shawn Stasiak - well, except for Mike Sanders, who heads to the ring for his match. Booker T. cuts a typical babyface promo with Pam Paulshock. Catchphrases were said. Games rather than players were hated. You know the deal. Alright, let's get this match between Mike Sanders and the Cat going. There is no Ms. Jones in sight, which I suppose means no more Ms. Jones. WCW, all I have is the pretty ladies on this show. Their appearances can't cost that much. Help me out, dammit! The Cat insults Mark Madden and his considerable girth, and though most of it is a bit much, what kills me every time is the Cat yelling out an insistent I HATE YOU, MARK MADDEN. Sanders tries to shake hands with the Cat, but the Cat lands an overhand right and then goes to work. Sanders does make a bit of room for himself by landing a low blow and then tossing the Cat to ringside for yet another fucking obligabrawl, but the Cat quickly turns things around. Back in the ring, Sanders locks on a sleeper, but the Cat has zero issue fighting his way up and out of it and summarily lands a Feliner for three. After the match, Shane Douglas taunts the Cat from his place backstage, where he has kidnapped Ms. Jones. He gives her a backbreaker after she slaps him; after the break, the Cat calls a doctor to help Jones and then threatens Douglas's health and well-being into the nearby camera. Mike Awesome seems quite relaxed about Scott Steiner being shoved into his title shot as he macks on Pam Paulshock, mostly I suppose because he plans to team with Booker to take Steiner out before turning his focus to winning the title in a proper one-on-one faceoff. Alas, this is not typically how these things work. Let's just move on to the main event because this poor Nitro is making me sad. Even 1991 WCW television tapings had more crowd reaction than this show did. Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) faces Mike Awesome and Booker T. in a Triple Threat Match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Steiner asserts that he should be the champ right now, which is basically true considering the booking. I'm not sure why they waited another month to crown him. Steiner jumps Booker before Mike Awesome can even get out here. They have a solid opening sequence while I wonder why the heck Mike Awesome won the worst Royal Rumble Match I've ever seen just to be decentered in his own fucking title shot. At this point, I wonder if Awesome is going to make it out here at all, which further would make me wonder what the heck the point even was of giving him this tiny push. Steiner and Booker have a solid match out here for a little while before Awesome randomly runs out about three minutes in and joins the fray, just like the unimportant chump that he is. It's not hard to push someone strongly, and what Taylor et al. are about to do with Scotty Steiner as world champ proves it. There is a simple equation here! If you want to push Awesome, make him feel important by not downplaying his big battle royal win and title shot! We could have had a competitive one-on-one match with a Steiner/Booker post-match brawl! This match is actually decent for a Triple Threat because of the quality of the workers involved; it helps that the crowd actually halfway cares about this bout. They work this match at quite the pace with lots of cutoffs and big moves. Booker manages the win by Houston Side Kicking Steiner as Steiner has Awesome locked in the Steiner Recliner; he then quickly Book Ends Awesome for three. Steiner angrily beats up a few security mooks outside the ring, but he ducks Booker's post-match verbal challenge and chooses instead to back off. This show had some good parts and bad parts. It was nonsensical in some ways, but this was compensated for with good work or an entertaining line. I could neither condemn this Nitro nor suggest it. It was poor, but not negative number bad. It's a perfect 0 out of 5 Stinger Splashes candidate.

I'll die on the hill of Flair/Funk I Quit being his best ever match, too

Jollibee has the very best fried chicken of any of the national/global franchises, IMO. I feel like every state should have at least two Jollibee locations and two Waffle House locations.

I've had an insanely busy work week and will be out of town for the long weekend, which bums me out as I really want to get through Mayhem and see if the show settles down when its built around a hot heel. HOWEVER, on my trip, I am going to be able to get a tiny side list going that someone suggested I should have kept. It's a cool stats thing that I think will be fun to look at after I've compiled it. I just type this not because I think anyone is waiting with bated breath on my next review, but because I feel the need to mark this project NOT ABANDONED after the long gaps I had when I started it.

Capcom published Gunbird 2 in the United States. (The first Gunbird was published in the U.S. by Jaleco, interestingly enough.) I actually bought Gunbird and Gunbird 2 digitally as standalone purchases on the eShop, though, where they're also located. I just like my cool arcade collection packages, which is why I appreciate you mentioning the Psikyo collection. As a side note, Psikyo and Capcom had a strong developer/publisher relationship on Dreamcast. Cannon Spike is probably the best example - a shooter including Mega Man, Cammy, Arthur, Balrog/Vega, etc., but developed by Psikyo.

The frustrating thing about him is that he didn't have to be limited! He's clearly interesting when pushed out of his comfort zone. His stated disdain for hardcore wrestling is funny because he's, like, extremely good at that style based on the limited work we've seen him do in it, just as one example. He just has so little imagination that it's genuinely a bummer.

His entire philosophy is built around what he'd want to see from a touring champ as a fan. I am lower on Flair as a worker for this reason. He didn't even try to adjust to being on weekly television in the post-territories era. It's also why, IMO, his best matches post-territories are all as a babyface, when he was forced out of his same fucking heel routine that he ran into the ground. Unfortunately for him, he was much better on the stick as a heel. I also have limited love for guys like Flair who can't adjust as they get older and less athletic. Flair continues to try spots that he really can't do anymore deeper into the 1990s. I hope no one gets too mad at me for this, but old Flair is basically old Chris Jericho, but with better mic skills and a more limited sense of creativity.

It also undervalues the skill to laying out an epic match or executing one properly. I think that Randy Savage laying out a match with the Ultimate Warrior that made enough story beats and character beats click that people were crying with genuine emotion at the end of the proceedings is a monumental achievement and should be as valuable as, say, Rey Misterio Jr. reeling off probably two thousand awesome TV matches in his career. Both are amazing things in different ways, but one prizes a certain type of work over another in a way that I find unfair.

The John Cena spinner version of the U.S. Championship is great, actually, and the spinner WWE Championship is, too. Love 'em both. That's how you design a gaudy wrestling belt in a good way.

I think Ebert just thought the kid in Cop and a Half was adorable, really.

I don't know who the Outrunners are, but I don't think I've heard of Dice breaking out beyond Corgan's NWA, so I can see that. Starks was an incredibly boring babyface to me, so I just didn't get there on him when I was watching POWERRR back in those days. The guys I tuned in for were Kingston, Pope, and I guess to an extent, I became a fan of Zicky as I watched. Kingston to me was by far the best guy on that show, but to use an analogy that someone else earlier used in this thread, if his POWERRR run wasn't the exact equivalent of Patrick Stewart stopping by Bakersfield Community Theatre for a month to do a turn as King Lear, it was about as close as you could get. Per supremebve's point on this page, I can honestly say as a kid watching Austin in WCW that I was certain he'd be the world champ one day. No hindsight here. If there's one guy who made it pretty clear that he'd probably be great as the focal point of a major wrestling company early in his career, it was Austin.