SirSmUgly

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and twenty-one – 2 August 2000 "The WCW Gang continues to do its best to stabilize the quality of its television, and the main eventer appearances on this show being limited to Booker, Sting, and Jarrett really helped them do that" We’re three shows out from New Blood Rising and only a bit under eight months away from Nitro and Thunder being cancelled…It sort of feels like the barrage of angles, turns, and general nonsense has been slowing down a bit, but we still have Vince Russo becoming world champ in the next couple of months…It’s really too bad about Russo re-asserting himself as an on-screen persona more gradually after fucking off in the post-BatB aftermath… They’ve updated the Thunder opening to add more of the new (and more heavily pushed) guys and to take out the guy with the sign getting free promotion for his website… Triple champion Lance Storm walks to the ring doing his best Ultimo Dragon impression…Stevie Ray says that the last time he’s seen a multi-champ like this, he was ten years old watching Jose Lothario on television…Tenay is impressed at the history lesson, but again, we've all forgotten poor old Ultimo Dragon…Your doctors crippled the guy, too, WCW… Anyway, Lance Storm re-names the Cruiserweight Championship the Canadian 100KG-and-Under Championship…Nope, sorry, we don’t do the fucking metric system in these reviews…Imperial measurements or fuck off, that’s what I say!...Commissioner Cat is tired of Storm’s yapping, so he interrupts and tells Storm to defend his gold…Storm asks for clarification about which gold…The Cat deliberately screws up the new names that Storm has given each belt and then tells Storm to defend them all one at a time tonight…I’m into it!...We get Storm/Juventud Guerrera for the Cruiserweight Championship, Storm/Norman Smiley for the S.H.I.T., and what the hell, the Cat books himself against Storm for the Canadian Championship…The first match, Storm/Juvi, is now… Juventud Guerrera (w/the Filthy Animals) hits the ring…The Animals and the Cat boogie together for a bit before the Cat exits the ring…Lance Storm has handed over a booklet of Canadian wrestling rules to ref Billy Silverman…The rules say that all this “have a bunch of guys backing you up outside the ring” bullshit is un-Canadian!...Silverman just goes with it and sends the Animals to the back…It seems like giving Loco or Cajun the title shot instead would make more sense…They’re babyfaces…The crowd seemed to accept the Cat as a babyface when he was out here, but they’re just a little flat for Juvi working babyface to start this match… I’m going to stop here right now and say that Tony S./Stevie Ray/Mike Tenay as a team is what they should have stuck with on Nitro, much less Thunder…Tenay and Stevie have good chemistry working color back and forth between one another…Anyway, Juvi and Storm have a solid match that Juvi dominates…He scores a series of two counts almost uninterrupted…He even gets a 2.9 on a top-rope rana…Storm can’t get a counter move to stick…He gets countered out of every counter he attempts, practically…Juvi’s speed pesters Storm…Juvi hits a counter-bulldog, then goes up for a 450 that Storm rolls away from…Juvi lands on his feet and ends up drilling Storm with a tight DVD for another 2.9…Juvi runs at Storm again and leaps up for a rana, but Storm dumps him, locks on a Canadian Maple Leaf, and keeps Juvi away from the ropes for long enough to manage a tap-out victory…Gosh, that was about five-and-a-half minutes at most, but they packed a lot of nice work into it…That was definitely a match worth adding to a playlist of fun WCW TV bouts… Stevie says that the office told him that he’s on commentary and he’s got to stop interfering in the bouts…He says that he’s going to be cool…We’ll see how long that lasts… Nitro recap: The bad guys win at the end of Nitro all the time, eternally, always and forever…Except when the television feed ends and KroniK makes a save for the live audience…We’re getting a Survivor Series style match tonight based on that event: KroniK, Sting, and Booker T. against Jeff Jarrett, Vampiro, the Great Muta, and the KISS Demon…That should be a straightforward four-nil in favor of the babyfaces, c’mon… General Rection fires up his dipshit troops…They’ve swapped out Stash for A-WALL, by the way…Van Hammer is out of big-time wrestling for good at this point…Rection insults A-WALL while also reminding him that he’s got a match against David Flair tonight…Gunns asks Rection why he’s such a dick, and he says he saw it in a movie…You think Rection’s a Patton guy or a Full Metal Jacket guy? M.I. Smooth walks up to Skip Over and says he’s got a lot of talent, but a shitty name…CORRECT…Tony S. and Mike T. make fun of the name and the dipshit booker who gave it to him…Stevie makes me laugh by mumbling, “What would a guy with a name like M.I. Smooth have to tell someone else?”… Ms. Hancock walks to the ring with David Flair in tow and says that she’s not the type of girl to wrestle in mud, but she’s willing to do it if she can toss Major Gunns into the pit and maybe give her unfortunately undermoisturized face a mud mask treatment…SGT. A-WALL (w/M.I.A.) comes to the ring and pretty much bulldozes Dopey Dave while Tenay is astounded by Stevie Ray calling Ms. Hancock a YAK…Dave gets a chair punched back into his face; shortly after, he dives into a goozle and a chokeslam through a table that puts him down for three… There are three Nitro Girls standing around…I think they were the ones banging Billy Kidman on the previous Nitro…This dude with a braid walks up and asks Nitro Girl Siren (Syren?) where she was last Monday…It’s Reno…I guess the implication is that Reno and Si/yren are together…Shane Douglas walks by and stooges off Billy Kidman...Kidman didn’t necessarily know that Si/yren was in a relationship with someone, but then again, Kidman is a kayfabe piece of shit anyway, so it is what it is… Elix Skipper walks up to Terry Taylor and proffers an alternate list of names that he’d like to try out… Jeff Jarrett yammers on to Vampiro about strategy for their eight-man elimination tag, but Vampiro isn’t particularly interested in what he has to say… Tank Abbott excitedly tells Three Count about a song that he wrote for them to perform and tells them that they need to record it immediately…Tony S. says that the ladder match for New Blood Rising is still on, so I suppose that Karagias will be back sooner than later… Billy Kidman walks to the ring to wrestle Elix Skipper, whose nickname is now the “Primetime Player”…He’s also dressed like a blueberry…Skipper does the Matrix dodge, and Stevie mentions the movie directly…Kidman baseball slid into Skipper before Skip could even get in the ring, so this has been wrestled at super-high speed all the way through…Shane and Torrie come onto the ramp to observe the bout…Reno jumps in the ring from the other side and hits Kidman with a Roll of the Dice while Torrie distracts the referee…Shane has to jump in and get Reno to leave rather than stick around to pelt Kidman with punches…Skipper follows up with an ugly Play of the Day for three…It’s a pageant of shitty finishes!... The Cat tells Mike Awesome (with buxom lass) that he’s going to finish off Lance Storm…Awesome’s lady – Heidi – whispers something to Awesome, who asks about his title shot…The Cat assures him that he’ll receive it even if he gets that shot against the commissioner rather than Storm… In a hilarious segment, Shane and Torrie are walking down the hall when Judy Bagwell, walking the other way, bumps shoulders with Shane…It’s exactly like that random cutscene in WWF No Mercy for the Nintendo 64 where you bump shoulders with Taz in the hallway and he looks back at you with venom…Then, Shane calls Judy a “redneck ho,” and Judy is apparently fine with being called a “ho,” but will not stand for being called a “redneck,” which exactly the opposite of which terms I figured she’d be okay with or not okay with being called…Buff Bagwell flies in and attacks his former tag partner and co-tag champion (remember that?!)…Security breaks it up… The Perfect Event are in the ring…Speaking of things we might remember, remember when Curt Hennig suddenly joined Shawn Stasiak after feuding with him for weeks?...No?...Me either, barely…Jindrak and O’Haire are next out, and the Natural Born Thrillers PRE-EXPLODE as Stasiak faces O’Haire in a singles bout…Palumbo joins commentary and then breaks the last remaining headset so that Jindrak can’t also join commentary…Stevie and Palumbo crack on each other and their tag team specialist abilities on commentary…That manages to be more interesting than Shawn Stasiak in control on offense, though solely because of Stevie…Stasiak is a black hole of entertainment…On the other hand, Palumbo is awful on commentary, just vile, so maybe we should have switched who did what tonight… Palumbo orders Stasiak to sit O’Haire down nearby so that he can pop O’Haire with the Lex Flexer…Stevie physically puts a halt to that...Back in the ring, Stasiak hits a fisherman’s suplex with a bridge for two…Tony S. calls it a Northern Lights…O’Haire hits a Seanton Bomb for three shortly after that…Stevie gets back on commentary, insults the quality of Palumbo’s slacks, and then says that his expertise as a tag team specialist has once again exposed the flaws of an inconsistent tag team…Stevie was the star of that whole segment, which really shouldn't be the goal of any segment in 2000 WCW, as much as I enjoyed his work… A neck brace-wearing Gene Okerlund interviews Buff, who tosses a bunch of corny insults toward Kanyon, then tosses one toward Shane Douglas to cap things off…Judy goes off with a cavalcade of cusses toward Shane and Torrie, ending by telling Torrie not to get in her way tonight because **holds up fist with rings on the fingers** I’VE GOT FIVE REASONS YOU SHOULDN’T…Wow, Judy killed it there, not gonna lie… Tony S. calls Booker T. THE MODERN DAY WARRIOR, which, uh, at least he transferred that moniker to another wrestler also from Texas, I guess?...KroniK and Sting worry over the limping Booker’s knee injury, which is apparently a legit injury from when Goldberg clipped him in the knee on a leapfrog a couple weeks ago…Vito joins commentary to watch Lance Storm wrestle Norman Smiley for the S.H.I.T….Stevie puts Vito over as a student of the game whom he wrestled with in Japan…Vito and Stevie crack me up when Vito tells Schiavone to sit down for “O Canada” because he’s Italian, dammit...Then, he asks Stevie if he’s got a little bit of Italian in him…Stevie confirms that he's like 1/1000th Italian, and Vito approves…Storm hands the rulebook back over and says that Canadian rules say that hardcore bouts are to be wrestled a) without weapons and b) as submission matches, actually…That’s actually probably a worse situation for Storm since Smiley is - in kayfabe, mind you – kind of a shitty hardcore wrestler, but an awesome hold-for-hold wrestler… Hey, guess what!...We get a match centered on chain wrestling and submissions instead of a trashy trashy, smashy smashy match…Stevie Ray notes that Norm was a champ in Mexico (without mentioning that he went by the name Black Magic), and Vito helpfully chimes in that it was in CMLL…Holy shit, Vito is a student of the game!...This is a nice little televised bout…Storm puts knees up on a Smiley splash to cut off Smiley’s momentum…Smiley reverses a whip into the corner and hits a swinging slam, followed by a Big Wiggle…Storm bails himself out by bashing Smiley in the ankle with an American flagpole at ringside while the ref is distracted…He locks on a Canadian Maple Leaf for the win, and Vito has to chase him off… Shane Douglas remembers that he feuded with Buff Bagwell because he mentions it in an interview with Gene Okerlund…Torrie calls Judy a “trucker” and threatens to sue Buff's mom if Judy gets all physical with her tonight…Douglas insults Billy Kidman to conclude the interview… Buff Bagwell (w/Judy Bagwell) faces off with Shane Douglas (w/Torrie Wilson) next…Stevie says that the pro wrestling business is THE HURT BUSINESS, so Buff should leave Judy at home…Buff and Shane have a watchable match, which is all I can ask from these two…Torrie trips Buff on a rope run to give Shane a spot of control…Buff sparks a tiny comeback, but gets cinched into a powerslam for two… Douglas manages a Pittsburgh Plunge, but it’s a baby damage move at this point (even though commentary pretends that it isn’t), and it only gets two…Torrie slides a chair into the ring…Judy chokes Torrie on the apron…The ref is distracted and doesn’t see Kidman slide into the ring and dropkick the chair into Shane’s face…Buff scores an easy Blockbuster for three…After the match, Torrie jumps Judy in the ring and they have a CATFIGHT…Kanyon hits Buff with a Kanyon Kutter OUTTA NOWHERE, so Buff is indisposed…Shane rips the brace off Judy and sets up a chair…Kanyon hits Buff with another Kanyon Kutter onto the chair, but there is so much space between the chair and Buff’s head that I simply can’t buy that Buff’s neck injury has been reaggravated as the fellas on commentary try desperately to sell…Mike Awesome runs off the heels…Well, I was entertained!...That’s been my general experience with this show…I’m consistently entertained, even during a Shawn Stasiak singles match… Buff does a stretcher job…Buff makes to hop off the stretcher and go in search of Kanyon, but Awesome tells Buff that he’ll handle Kanyon… Sting tells Booker that it’s cool if he sits this main event match out since he’s obviously hurt, but Booker’s going to compete for the fans…And also for the purpose of throttling Jeff Jarrett… Well, I was promised a Vince Russo interview, but it’s been cut from this airing of the show…No, wait, it’s a work…Commentary apparently said that management nixed it because it was too hot for television, I guess…Whatever…We get Mike Awesome (w/Heidi) vs. Kanyon instead, which is way better than a Vince Russo shoot-bang special…Awesome likes to romance the larger ladies and makes that clear in a pre-match promo…Ah, he’s ready to beat up Kanyon because he finds Judy Bagwell to be pleasantly plump…OK, sure, I almost mentioned that he was probably sweet on Judy earlier, but yes, he made it explicit…Awesome also visibly strained while holding the ropes for Heidi, which is weird since she stepped through them…It’s not like she sat on them or anything…Anyway, Tenay and Tony S. hype what Russo said in the interview even though we didn’t see the interview…I’m baffled by all this and will simply move on… The match times are getting shorter and shorter since the Nitro after GAB, or at least it feels that way…Stevie is now talking about the Russo interview that we didn’t see and that a cursory search of the internet says that nobody saw on this episode…Apparently, it runs for us viewers at home on the upcoming Nitro…Sorry, I said that I’d move on, but I will move on only after saying that I never want to hear someone say, “That wasn’t [x] the on-screen character, that was [x] the REAL person” ever again, TENAY, YOU FUCK… Kanyon gets frustrated that he can only score two counts and goes full on FUCK IT by knocking out ref Charles Robinson…He leaves the ring and hits a ringside photog with a Kanyon Kutter…He yells YOU WANT ONE at the fellas sitting on commentary, then drops a couple of grips with Kanyon Kutters…Judy Bagwell runs down and bashes Kanyon with her purse…Hey, in a nice callback, she takes out a brick that she loaded the purse with and waves it to the crowd…Awesome snags Kanyon and lands an Awesome Bomb for a slightly slower-than-usual three count from Robinson...The segment was fine, but I appreciate the callback with the hidden brick coming back around to hurt Kanyon for once!... The Cat gives himself a Canadian Championship shot against Lance Storm next…Storm asks the Canadian National Anthem to play for a third time, hoping he can hear it in full at least once before he gets his “hat trick”…The Cat orders it turned off because the only music the fans want to hear is “my foot banging on your ass”…The Cat dominates early with kicks, then punches, though Storm manages to counter corner punches with an inverted atomic drop…Storm can’t keep control because the Cat forearms him in the nutsack… The cat kills a sunset flip with a chop, then lands a Boogie Elbow for two…It’s obligabrawl time!...Storm turns it around out there with a superkick to win the obligabrawl, then lands a springboard dropkick back in the ring for two…The Cat manages to reverse a corner whip and land a Feliner, but Storm topples back into the ref…This allows Muta to interfere…Muta manages to wrench the Cat's knee with a Dragon Screw, and Storm immediately targets the knee, ducks a desperation enziguri, and locks on a Canadian Maple Leaf for his third submission victory of the night…O CANADA…OUR HOME AND NATIVE LAAAAAAAAAND…TRUE PATRIOT LOVE…IN EVERYONE’S COMMAAAAAAAAAAND… The babyfaces in the main event cut a promo with Gene Okerlund…Booker plays catchphrase roulette, Adams sounds like a dork, Sting sounds like a lovable dork, and Clark says nada… Hype video: Hancock vs. Gunns…Nah, I’m good tho… The Dark Carnival cut a promo in the back…Really, it’s just Vampiro who does the yapping…They are not fans of the babyfaces…Apparently, they’re not really fans of Jeff Jarrett either…Jarrett, cutting a promo with Okerlund, is in turn not much of a fan of them… So, it’s main event time!...Booker, Sting, and KroniK face Jeff Jarrett and the Dark Carnival in what is certainly a WCW-ass WCW matchup, no?...This is going to be a match with a ton of quick eliminations, I suppose…We are seven minutes away from the end of this video and Jeff Jarrett hasn’t even shown up…Everyone brawls to start, but Jarrett and Booker are the only ones left in the ring…Booker lands a Houston Side Kick that sends Jarrett to the floor…Muta jumps in and attacks Booker with a corkscrew elbow…This match is a total mess with no structure…Let’s just chart eliminations… Muta is eliminated with a High Times to make it Team Booker 4 – Team Jarrett 3…I love that Muta is a huge star, but they’re just jobbing the guy out left and right in this latest stateside stint of his…I don’t care if he has no cartilage in his knees, treat him like the star he is!...Jobbing this man out to Tank Abbott and KroniK in three minutes or fewer…You crazy bastards who book and lay this shit out must be out of your minds…The Cat chokes the eliminated Muta and drags him to the back… KroniK puts another ref through the commentary table when Jamie Tucker stops them from hitting Jarrett with a High Times through the table…Slick Johnson, the new ref, disqualifies KroniK…It’s now Team Jarrett 3 – Team Booker 2…Now the match settles into a regular tag match…We’ve got five wrestlers in the ring and two-and-one-half minutes until the end of the show…Sting manages a hot tag to Booker after a double-clothesline spot with Vampiro…Jarrett barely escapes a Book End and decides that he’s good with any more of this wresting nonsense…Booker and Sting both hit a Book End and a Scorpion Death Drop in stereo on the Demon and Vamp…That ends the match even though Jarrett was never legal and didn’t formally get counted out…That’s WCW, folks…Team Booker 2 – Team Jarrett 0, I guess, even though technically the match should still be going right now… It's easy to overlook the dumb WCW stuff (bad finishes, not letting the crowd sit with anything and cutting away to something else too quickly for a big angle to have impact) or the dumb “wrestling in the year 2000 in the United States stuff” (all the edgelord sex jokes and most of the non-Judy cussing) when they balance their stars with their midcarders and have some fun, if all-too-short matches throughout the night…It also helped that the main eventers they centered on the show were enjoyable ones...This show was missing Goldberg, but otherwise, I was really happy with how the main eventers were used and which ones they centered on the show...I'd rather see Lance Storm wrestle three five-minute matches than deal with more bad Nash "comedy" even once...WOO…

Of course you are, you're an Xbox man. (Plz don't ban)

You can knock off like six or seven of them just by going to London. I basically have seen almost everything in London-Paris-Amsterdam. I wish I had known that the Rodin Museum a) was in Paris and b) had the original Thinker when I was there. I have seen a cast of David at the Vic and Albert, so that'd be a .5 to the total.

I have now seen thirteen of the forty-three paintings and sculptures in New Horizons in real life. Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergere" is the latest one, and it's a fun painting. I never noticed the trapeze artist in the upper-left corner until I stood in front of it. Turner's "The Fighting Temeraire" is my favorite, but I'm a Turner stan, so there's also that.

Bret Hart also talks Siki up in Bret's autobiography and relates a story he says Siki told him about wrestling Buddy Rogers for the world title.

Also, Nintendo having two major releases this year where the big bad's goal is to get rid of everyone and everything so they can be completely alone in the world, combined with last year's Super Mario Wonder having that multiplayer safety system where players could lay down markers to help others get through the levels, broadly tells me two things about Nintendo's creatives: 1. The pandemic really fucked them up mentally. 2. A lot of them played and appreciated Death Stranding for both it's gameplay elements and its ideas about human connectedness.

Show #251– 31 July 2000 "The one with a committed booking belief in heels always getting the last laugh and puerile sex jokes" Our long July of 2000 ends with one more Nitro… We get a ring bell salute for Gordon Solie, who passed away prior to this show… Hype video: Fighting champion Booker T. keeps getting his ass kicked, which makes the whole “fighting champion” angle a bit less effective at getting him over. Booker sells a lingering knee injury as his non-Sharmell wife (Lavinia, right?) helps him out of the car. After the short Nitro intro, Booker limps to the ring. He vows to fight on and defend his gold. Book’s wife, standing in the front row, seems unconvinced. Book hypes his upcoming match against Sting. Jeff Jarrett interrupts Booker’s promo time. He uses “slapatory” as an insult. SLAPATORY. What the fuck is he talking about? Is he mad at Jacob Rees-Mogg or something? Anyhow, Jarrett declares that Booker/Sting is not going to happen tonight. Booker disagrees with Jarrett’s assessment w/r/t the likelihood of the Sting match happening, and furthermore, he’s also down for a ringside brawl with Jarrett before that match happens. They clash in the aisle, and Book dominates until he throws his knee out on a Houston Side Kick. Jarrett takes the space to grab a chair and clang Booker in the face with it before hooking on a rope-assisted Figure Four. The lights dim and a hooded Sting runs to the ring and makes the save. Sting pulls off the hood and his face is fine, obviously. Jarrett escapes the ring and KABONGs Booker’s wife before he takes off. That was a hot opening angle, actually! Sting tells Booker to go to the hospital with his wife and promises to get back at Jeff Jarrett in his stead. Buff Bagwell (w/loving mother Judy) seems pretty psyched for a guy whose mom has eaten a trio of Kanyon Kutters over the past few weeks. She’s still in a neck brace, Buff! Why do you keep bringing her out here? I hate to say it, but I agree with Mark Madden on that last poin. Judy joins commentary for Buff/Vito. Then, Tony S. says it, he says the thing: JUDY BAGWELL ON A POLE MATCH. Vince Russo is going to get in a few more nonsense concepts and angles before he goes away for good at the end of September/beginning of October. Buff handles Vito early, but he’s distracted by the need to check on his mom's safety, which allows Vito to take control. Judy notes that maybe she’s hurting her son’s prospects by being present. Well, since Buff pulls away from Vito after regaining control and checks to see if one of the key grips is Kanyon in disguise, I think that assessment is correct! Buff gets two on a superplex, then walks through a Vito overhand right and lands a double-arm DDT. He looks like he’s headed to victory, but he pulls away again to threaten a cameraman who walks up for a close shot on Judy. Judy calms Buff down, but when he tries to re-enter the ring with a slingshot sunset flip, Vito manages to sit down on it and ekes out a three count. Kanyon’s waging a most successful psychological war here, but Buff could counter it simply by telling his mom to stay home until the PPV. Kwee Wee demands that Commissioner Cat book him in a match against The Artist. The Cat instead wants Kwee Wee to focus on his wardrobe job, so Kwee Wee takes off his pink bunny slipper and slaps Cat in the face with it, which cracks both me and him up. The Cat changes his mind and makes the match, that audacious slipper slap from Kwee Wee tickled him so. Kanyon tells Pam Paulshock that he’s going to win Judy Bagwell as his valet and make her his Kimberly Page. Pam is outraged about Kanyon hitting a defenseless woman with Kanyon Kutters, though I wouldn’t call Judy entirely defenseless – she's got that win over Roddy Piper, remember. Anyway, Kanyon decides to hit another defenseless woman with a Kanyon Kutter and hooks Pam; Gene Okerlund rushes over to try and stop him, so he hits Okerlund with a Kanyon Kutter instead. There was some half-decent camera work to hide Okerlund not actually taking the bump there. After some adverts, Buff Bagwell jumps Kanyon in the back, lands a double-arm DDT, and yells BANGGGGGGG. Meanwhile, Sting swings a bat around backstage, calling out Jeff Jarrett’s name. Kwee Wee gets his shot at The Artist (w/Paisley) in our next bout. TA is wearing jeans and a t-shirt rather than his fancy Prince getup, so I guess he’s basically about done with his gimmick and probably his WCW stint. The Artist meets Kwee Wee in the aisle and beats him up, then hits a guillotine legdrop and pulls Kwee Wee up from the pinfall attempt to administer more abuse. Paisley is not pleased about this; she is pleased, however, when Kwee Wee makes a huge comeback starting with a Thesz Press and punches. Kwee Wee lands strikes and dropkicks and a struggle back body drop, but TA manages to get control again…until he makes the mistake of mussing Kwee Wee’s hair. Kwee Wee fires up again, and though TA gets a two count in there, Kwee Wee rolls from there, hitting a tilt-a-whirl facebuster for three. Kwee Wee quotes the Incredible Hulk after the match w/r/t the consequences of making him angry. Scott Steiner busts into Commissioner Cat’s office with a lead pipe and demands a world title shot tonight. The Cat points out that a) Booker T. is not currently in the arena and b) he’s already signed to wrestle Sting. Steiner decides to go wait for Booker to show up so that he can swing the pipe at him, but we cut to Kevin Nash being the next guy to make his way into the arena before we go to commercial. Scott Steiner hits Norman Smiley with a pipe and then secures a fire exit so that he can make sure that he has fewer openings to cover. Pam Paulshock interviews M.I.A., and Rection announces his crew’s matches for the night: Lance Storm is about to win a third title, this time from Lt. Loco, and Major Gunns is going to wrestle a hardcore match against Ms. Hancock. That last one is total nonsense. As Lance Storm comes to the ring, they show a little shit-talking between he and Mike Awesome that they shot at a Nitro Grill appearance for both of them last week. That should be a good match, and I’m looking forward to it. Before the match, Lance Storm notes that people from CALGARY…ALBERTA, CANADA find hardcore wrestling to be garbage, so he’s now added a sticker to the hardcore belt that re-names it the Saskatchewan Hardcore International Title. Madden helpfully lampshades the acronym for the title instead of just letting the viewer get a tiny chuckle out of working it out themselves. He also would like to re-name WCW “World Canadian Wrestling” specifically when his matches are occurring. I, for one, do not find Lance Storm to be a boring personality. Lt. Loco rushes to the ring and throws chops as Scott Hudson announces that Booker’s wife is in the hospital and stable, so Booker is on his way back to the arena. General Rection and Corporal Cajun sit with commentary, where the wrestling gods smile upon me by making their microphones malfunction. Alas, some production tech gets them working after a little while. Loco has chopped Storm’s chest red at this point and is scoring two counts as Storm merely tries to weather the…um, weather the storm. Unfortunately for Loco, he backflips over a charging Storm and jams his knee. Storm immediately targets it, and though Loco manages a couple of flash counter pin attempts for two, Storm’s focus on the knee remains dogged. Storm tries a powerbomb, and when Loco tries to rana out of it, Storm blocks Loco’s flip, grabs Loco’s injured leg, and sits down on it for a quick submission victory and a third singles title. WCW World Cruiserweight Championship title change count: 9 (Madusa > Oklahoma > VACANT > TAFKAPI > VACANT > Candido > Daffney and Crowbar > Daffney > Chavo Guerrero Jr. > Lance Storm)… Wow, that list of cruiserweight champs at least looks much better after we get past Daffney. Let’s keep it up, WCW booking committee! Kevin Nash stomps to the ring because a fresh new guy is getting too much of a push and might be getting over, and he needs to squelch that shit right now, especially with Hulk Hogan not being here to do it! One big boot later, and Storm is dispatched unceremoniously from the ring despite the fact that he’s a triple champion. Can Vince Russo make fun of Kevin Nash somehow too, get the guy in his feelings, and pack his ass off to Scottsdale? After a break, Nash SHOOTS about WORKIN’ A WORK AND WORKIN’ ONESELF INTO A SHOOT. He warns Goldberg that he’s legit beaten up a guy in the WWF who didn’t work with him. He mentions that the guy is from Montreal, and I hazily recall Nash having beef with PCO in 1994 or 1995. A quick Google confirms this to be true. Nash says that football players are GAY, unlike basketball players who are so totally not, and he beat a lot of NFL players up when he was bouncing, so he’ll totes beat up Goldberg for real and for true. This Nash/Goldberg feud has slid into total stupidity, and it’s a real shame because I actually thought it was pretty solid, if a little goofy, when it was centered around Goldberg getting revenge for Starrcade '98 and the possession of Scott Hall's contract. Nash moves on to telling WCW execs that he’s going to continue pushing for them to bring back Hall, which ain’t gonna happen, but he’s cut off by Scott Steiner (w/Midajah). Scotty Steiner cuts a proper promo rather than doing shoot-bang nonsense by physically threatening Nash, calling him a PIECE OF SHIT, and then brawling with him until security swarms the ring. Kevin Nash walks into the Cat’s office and demands a match against Scott Steiner for later in the show; the Cat says Sure, here’s a straitjacket; whoever may so put it on his opponent wins the match and can freely beat the piss out of them. Boy, Jeff Jarrett sure is walking around with confidence that he’s not going to get murked for a guy who has made so many enemies! He comes to the ring and calls Sting out for a fight. He does it in the corniest way possible, of course. Sting obliges, and they have a short match which Sting works at pace. He even squeezes in a little obligabrawl victory. Jarrett takes over after my least favorite transition in pro wrestling happens. I mean, it’s barely even a transition. Jarrett hammers Sting’s knee with a chair and then uses a rope-assisted Figure Four that he breaks just before ref Mickey Jay counts to five. Sting no-sells Jarrett’s weak attempts at a few follow-up buckle bonks, so Jarrett back kicks Jay in the balls and then knocks Sting to the mat with a weak chair shot for 2.8. That’s as close as he gets to victory, as Sting slips away from a Jarrett move and lands a Scorpion Death Drop on the chair for three. Sting limps away, selling his knee injury to set up for his match against Booker T. later tonight. An ambulance pulls off, apparently with Jeff Jarrett loaded into it. Booker T. pulls up just as the ambulance leaves and asks Terry Taylor where Jarrett and Sting are. Taylor fills Booker in, and Booker goes looking for Sting. KroniK defends the tag team titles against the team of Jindrak and O’Haire and the team of Muta and Vampiro. The Perfect Event stinks it up on commentary while observing the bout. I haven’t said it in a minute, so I’ll say it again: IF A TAG MATCH WITH THREE OR MORE TEAMNS IN IT IS NOT CONDUCTED UNDER TORNADO TAG RULES, I DON’T WANT IT. Everyone brawls while TPE is completely awful, what with all of their attempted insults. One of them: “Jindrak and O’Haire are so green, they’re blue.” What? Also, you’re green! I get that they’re heels and therefore are supposed to be oblivious, but they’re so bad at heeling that they just come off as shoot oblivious and not kayfabe oblivious. Anyway, let’s shoot ahead to the end of this nonsense match that Muta and Vamp should be locked out of by all rights since they both started on the apron, but of course they tag in because the psychology of this match type is utterly fucked here in WCW. Everyone gets involved and a chair is added into the mix. Jindrak vaults up to the top rope and hits Vamp with a Frankensteiner in an impressive athletic feat, followed by O’Haire hitting Vamp with a Seanton Bomb, but O’Haire’s pinfall is not counted because a fraction of a second earlier, Adams covered a downed Muta, and the ref counts KroniK as the winners. KroniK goes at it with O’Haire and Jindrak, which gives Vamp and Muta a chance to recover. Muta and Vamp mist KroniK and confiscate the tag titles for themselves. The Cat makes fun of Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson; he even goes so far as to crumple up some paper and pelt Torrie with it, which made me laugh. The Cat books Shane against Billy Kidman in a *RUSSO ALERT* *RUSSO ALERT* Viagra on a Pole Match. That’d be a Blue Chew on a Pole Match if Russo were booking today, and WCW’d get a nice little promotional fee in the bargain. Booker thanks Sting for putting in work on Jeff Jarrett and then confirms that he and Sting will still be wrestling for the world title later tonight. Jindrak and O’Haire are not appreciative of KroniK daring to clatter them with the tag belts in their backstage interview with Pam Paulshock. It’s time for Pfizer’s now second-most-famous pharmaceutical product on a pole! The bottle of dick pills has a label on it that one would never find on an actual prescription for Viagra. Douglas angrily cusses about being a victim of revenge porn before the match starts, which, you know, yeah, I’d cuss too in his position. Madden runs down an illustrious history of matches contested over the possession of dick pills, and the list of wrestlers whom he mentions seem to imply that the men of All Japan in particular were very stressed and overworked and needed a bit of chemical help to maintain healthy sex lives. Uh, this match. It’s fine. Torrie trips Kidman on a rope run to stop his early offensive flurry. Madden makes a ton of dick jokes on commentary. He actually is so consistently juvenile in his riffing that I end up laughing after a one-two combination where Madden yells AGAIN AND AGAIN, DRIVING HARDER AND HARDER on Douglas’s triple verticals spot, followed by him reminiscing on Verne Gagne and Nick Bockwinkel having a famed Viagra on a Pole Match in Minneapolis. Even Cowboy Lang gets a mention from Madden, who is in full on “name some guys who I think it’d be funny to say wrestled to gain possession of a bottle of dick pills” mode. He doesn’t take any of this seriously, nor should he. Nor should any of us. Kidman makes a comeback after eating a Pittsburgh Plunge, avoids some more Torrie Wilson interference to hit a double-underhook sit-out facebuster, and grabs the bottle of Viagra. He gets down from the ropes and walks right into a Franchiser; Douglas then grabs the bottle as Slick Johnson turns around and sees him. Douglas is declared the winner of the bout. This was perfectly fine work and Madden made sure to make fun of this stupid-ass idea on commentary, so it doesn’t reach Dirt Worst level for me. The nominal heels stuff a bunch of pills in Kidman’s mouth after the match. Ms. Hancock squares up with Major Gunns in the M.I.A. dressing room, and they have a CATFIGHT that includes Gunns taking Hancock into the shower and turning the spout on her and her white shirt. It also includes a food fight at the catering table. This isn’t any good, but it’s fine for what it is. We suddenly cut to the ring, where SGT. A-WALL beats up Dopey David Flair. Hancock and Gunns soon join them there; Dave manages to hit a Cactus clothesline on A-WALL, and Hancock reverses an Irish whip and sends Gunns crashing through a table propped up in the corner. Hancock follows up with a slam, covers for three, and then dances over the downed Gunns before ripping off her shirt and leaving. Hancock’s victory got a small pop, by the way. Three Nitro Girls who saw Kidman eat all those dick pills want to bang him back at the hotel. Kidman says that he’s “had a hard day,” but then offers up a lascivious “wanna ride?” Tony S. cuts in to remind the viewer at home not to take dick pills if they have a heart condition. Twice. This was all pretty dumb! An enraged Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) cuts a promo in which he claims that his penis is the length and girth of John Holmes’s. Then he fights Kevin Nash in a Straitjacket Match. Oh, Vince Russo and his stupid match types: He’s definitely re-exerting some serious control over the direction of these shows. Nash controls, but as he boot chokes Steiner in the corner, Midajah hops onto the apron and rakes his eyes. Steiner hits a belly-to-belly suplex as Tony S. hypes a one-on-one interview with Vince Russo on Thunder. HE’S BAAAAAAAACK. I’m so done with this guy, seriously. He did his job and rid this company of Hulk Hogan, and it’s time for him to go the fuck home himself. Meanwhile, Steiner initiates and controls an obligabrawl, then brings it back to the ring and uses a boot choke of his own in the corner. Nash makes a comeback, lands a big boot and a Snake Eyes, and drills Steiner with a chokeslam. Midajah hops in the ring and hits Nash with a weak chair shot, so Nash grabs her and lands a gentle Jackknife. As Nash sets Scotty up for the same, Rick Steiner runs in and attacks. Nash handles Ricky and sets him up for a Jackknife, but Scotty grabs the chair and lands a much more effective chair shot than Midajah did. Scotty locks Nash in a Steiner Recliner while Ricky wraps the straitjacket around Nash; they drop Nash and hook the jacket the rest of the way onto Nash’s body, which ends the match. That was more entertaining a match than it had any right to be, I’ll say that much. Booker T. defends the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Sting in the Nitro main event. The babyfaces shake hands before locking up; Booker runs the ropes and wins a shoulder block, but runs them again and is hip tossed and hit with a lariat. Sting hits another lariat and looks for a Scorpion Death Lock early, but Booker twists his way to the ropes. Sting continues to attack Booker’s injured knee and seeks another Scorpion Death Lock, but Booker again reaches the ropes and bails. Sting follows and both men have an obligabrawl that Sting wins. Sting tosses Booker back into the ring and tries a top-rope splash, but Booker blocks it with knees. He’s second up, though, since, you know, he blocked it with his knees. He squelches an Irish whip with a knee to the gut and lands an axe kick, but he’s slow to cover since, you know, the impact to his own knees, and he only gets two. Both men run the ropes and they hit each other with cross body blocks. Sting rolls to ringside, where someone grabs him and drags him under the ring. After a minute, Sting is shoved back out from under the ring, all busted open. Still, Booker can’t control and has to manage a leapover sunset flip for two. Sting responds with a DDT for a two count of his own. They have a nice finishing sequence at pace in which Book squirms away from a Scorpion Death Drop attempt and lands a Book End for three. Sting beelines for ringside and peeks under the ring curtain; he finds the KISS Demon, and Vamp and Muta join the Demon at ringside and commence beating Sting into the ground. Meanwhile, Jeff Jarrett re-enters through the crowd and destroys Booker with a chair, then hooks a noose around – hold on, don’t worry too much about how I'm going to finish this sentence – Booker’s knee and hyperextends it. The Demon stuffs Sting in his coffin and sets it on fire. Jeff Jarrett KABONGs Booker’s hyperextended knee. Oh WCW, can’t you let a couple of babyfaces stand tall even once? Despite yet another downer ending and some goofy midcard angle stuff, WCW’s pretty much stabilized into something broadly watchable, so that’s good! 1.5 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

I decided to 100% Mario & Luigi: Brothership, and it took me nearly seventy hours over almost two months. This is a perfectly fun little RPG, but unlike the best Mario RPGs (SMRPG, the first two Paper Mario games), it doesn't have the most memorable side characters. It does, however, have a banging soundtrack that I hope is put on Nintendo Music sooner rather than later. I need to swing back around and finish Lego Horizon Adventures - it's a short game - and dig back into finishing the challenges for Balatro and playing through the remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn. But really, what I want to do is play more Astro Bot. The winter level was a blueprint for open-world Astro, and now I want more. I'm gonna need that new full-length 3D Mario as soon as possible because I need to scratch this itch in some other way than 100% the game for the third time since I bought it.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and twenty – 26 July 2000 "The WCW Gang is really trying to put on better television; they swear they are!" It’s just about 2025 and NBC Comcast’s deal with the WWE for their vast archives is now on the clock, so let’s Thunder ahead toward the end of this project, which I can actually imagine at this point… The Cat has actually called his mama to start the show…He tells her that he’s working on having someone else take revenge on Vampiro and Muta for him and lets her know that he’s got KroniK on the case later tonight…Just as he starts to let his mom know about his planned main event for Nitro, the Jung Dragons surround his limo and attack him…Yang swings a sledgehammer at the Cat and whiffs…Yang does, however, manage to bust a limo window, which enrages M.I. Smooth…Smooth demands a match against the Dragons for later tonight to exact some payback for the busted limo window… The Filthy Animals come to the ring as we see Tank Abbott totally fail to catch Evan Karagias on a dive from last week’s show…Karagias did, in fact, shoot destroy his ankle and will be out for at least a few weeks, which I suppose puts off that Three Count/Jung Dragons match again…The Animals do the WAZZUP deal from the Budweiser ad campaign…Were the Dudley Boyz already doing this or not?...Konnan hits every catchphrase that he has ever spouted…The Animals mock Karagias for getting hurt and present a teeny ladder that maybe Karagias can use in the future for greater safety… Tank Abbott walks to the ring, escorted by a crutch-using Karagias…Abbott says that he's the toughest man in pro wrestling, and he’ll show how tough he is by winning the most grueling challenge of all: a dance contest…This s a mere ruse, a distraction, and Helms and Moore jump Rey and Juvi…This is a nothing match; Disco draws Tank away from the ringside area as the Jung Dragons hop out of the crowd and attack Helms and Moore…Helms gets right back up and regains control about thirty seconds after the attack anyway…There are nice spots in here, but it’s nothing special as a bout…Also, both of these teams are heels, so except for one guy insistently chanting THREE COUNT, the crowd is pretty much muted…After a lot of MOVEZ~ at pace, Juvi hits Shannon Moore with a Juvi Driver way too close to the ropes, and Moore scootches…and scootches…and scootches…and obviously scootches into position to eat a 450 for a pinfall loss. Disappointing opener. Booker T. makes it to the ring to gab for a bit…Booker says that he expects to meet Goldberg in the ring again at some point in the future before turning his attention to Jeff Jarrett, his opponent at New Blood Rising…Jarrett strolls to the top of the stage to respond…He thinks he’s going to win at New Blood Rising, but he can wait that long to get it back…However, he would like to fight Booker tonight…He proposes a non-title Bunkhouse Brawl against Booker tonight…He doesn’t want to bother trying to get the Cat to sanction it…Booker suggests that they have that unsanctioned Bunkhouse Brawl now, and they throw hands until security breaks it up… Booker and Jarrett have been dragged backstage during the break, but they’re still trying to brawl…The Cat will allow them to have their match tonight, but they have to keep away from one another until then… Gene Okerlund manages not to stare down the very attractive Ms. Hancock as he asks her about the RotC match at New Blood Rising…Hancock challenges Major Gunns to an arm wrestling match later in the show with the stipulation that if any of the other M.I.A. members show up at ringside, their RotC match will be cancelled… The Artist (w/Paisley) wrestles Elix Skipper Skip Over…Like Sean O’Haire and Mark Jindrak, Elix Skipper is one of my favorite late-stage WCW guys…He’s also one of my favorite early-TNA guys, for that matter…The Artist squelches some energetic Skipper offense and dominates, but when he leaves the ring to get a chair, he opens himself up for a dropkick that bashes the chair backward into his face…He tries a springboard leapfrog, but gets slightly clipped and can’t stick the landing…Kwee Wee walks out…The pink-clad Svengali draws Paisley to him…Back in the ring, Skip hits a springboard wheel kick and then what could be the ugliest Overdrive/Play of the Day I’ve ever seen in my life to get the win….Not a great debut!... Okerlund stares at Major Gunns’s boobs, but she’s like the one woman in this company who seems cool with it…She plans to fire off her guns, and she clarifies for the eternally horny Okerlund that her biceps are what she means by “guns" and her boobs are better known as “bombs”…I didn’t make that up!...That’s what she said!... Judy Bagwell drags her dipshit twerpy son Buff toward the Cat's office… M.I. Smooth has yet another re-debut in a WCW ring…Kaz Hayashi and Jamie Noble drag a reluctant Jimmy Yang, the guy who actually broke the window, out there...Tony S. notes that Goldberg won’t be able to make a scheduled appearance for the fans, so they’re sending Lance Storm in his stead…I like Storm, but man, that’s a real come down…Meanwhile, Smooth survives a flurry of Dragon triple-teaming and drills Noble with a Bubba Bomb for three… Chris Kanyon makes it to the arena…Huh, he seems to be sporting a shiner… We get a preview for a Goldberg interview in which he basically says that he hates this stupid-ass heel turn that he’s doing and that he wants to be a babyface again…You and literally every other WCW fan, buddy… Judy Bagwell cuts off the Cat’s phone call with James Brown to demand a match against Kanyon…Here’s how she sells her idea to the Cat: I’M GOOD, YOUR RATINGS ARE DOWN, I’VE BEEN DIAMOND CUTTER’D TWICE, I’M SICK OF IT…Hilarious stuff, made even more hilarious by the auto-captioner interpreting Judy saying I’VE BEEN DIAMOND CUTTER’D TWICE as I’VE BEEN DOWN ON KANYON TWICE…This fucking auto-captioner…This is why having a human do the captioning is worth the time and salary costs…Judy knocks something off the Cat’s desk after her rant and glares at him, and understandably this charms and amuses the Cat…He gives her the match… Up next, Major Gunns meets Ms. Hancock (w/Dopey David Flair) in an arm wrestling match…Dopey Dave sports a referee’s shirt, so I suppose he’ll be the one to oversee the bout…Hancock thinks better of locking hands with Gunns, but Dopey Dave drags Hancock to the table and then helps her win the match…Hancock hits bicep poses for the crowd as Gunns whiffs a slap on Dave that Dave has to sell anyway…Gunns tries to attack Hancock, but Dave grabs her from behind…Hancock maces Gunns and then rips her shirt off…SGT. A-WALL, who was not explicitly banned from ringside, shows up, chokeslams Dopey Dave, and saves Gunns to a completely flat response from the audience… Gene Okerlund interviews Kanyon, who blows off any questioning about the shiner that he’s sporting…He says that on Nitro, all he did was “throw [a] bag in the trunk,” heh heh heh, and then tells Okerlund that the Cat has barred Buff Bagwell from ringside for Kanyon's match with Judy…He sure hopes that Buff enjoys the show later tonight… Hey, SGT. A-WALL is wearing a System of a Down t-shirt! Also, he’s getting his head shaved as an initiation into the M.I.A. Vamp and Muta have jumped KroniK in the back before they can even meet in the ring…They batter KroniK with kendo sticks and leave ‘em laying… Booker T. and Jeff Jarrett prepare for their Bunkhouse Brawl…Jarrett has a cowbell – good! – and a bin full of random plundah – bad!... Vampiro and the Great Muta wander to the ring…Vamp bigs up the Juggalo Army and then offers an open challenge to anyone in the back…Note for twiztor: Vampiro explicitly calls his crew THE DARK CARNIVAL, so yes, they are named on WCW television…Mark Jindrak and Sean O’Haire answer the call…Jindrak should have had a better career…He’s an excellent athlete who clearly had a ton of potential…I mean, becoming a soap opera and wrestling star in Mexico isn’t all that bad, mind you, but still… Muta takes over and completely misses a corkscrew elbow that O’Haire sells as if it landed…There’s been so much sloppy work on this show tonight…O’Haire eventually makes a hot tag…I love Muta, but he’s missed all sorts of offense tonight…He manages to Dragon Screw Jindrak and lock on a legbar for the tap out victory…After the match, the KISS Demon wanders out and attacks Jindrak and O’Haire as they stumble back up the ramp…The rookies catch a beatdown…Meanwhile, KroniK have revived and march to the ring, where they kick the hell out Vamp and Muta as the Demon observes it all…Muta breaks up a High Times attempt on Vamp, but Clark hits Vamp with a Meltdown and Adams hits Muta with a Full Nelson Slam…The Demon just rolls the hell up outta there… Outro: Goldberg asserts that pro wrestling was not his first choice for a career, but the tone of voice and facial expression that he uses as he says this indicates that it probably wasn’t his second or third choice, either!... Vito yells into a mic that Okerlund is holding...He asks for a hardcore rematch with Lance Storm…I was confused for a sec because he ends this bad promo by saying that he’s off to collect money and buy gifts because he has no time for “Mr. Canada,” but no, I think this challenge is meant for later tonight… What’s Judy Bagwell’s plan tonight against Kanyon?...I assume that tonight’s match between them is a Bagwell Family ruse…Kanyon has a mic, but it’s not working…Charles Robinson get him another one, and he does his DDP imitation…Someone in the crowd is holding up a sign that says POSITIVELY KANYON SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING MATERIAL, which makes me chuckle…Kanyon offers Judy the chance to leave before she gets hurt…Judy is not intimidated, which makes sense considering that she basically has a win over Roddy Piper…Judy punts him in the balls, but Kanyon shoves her to the mat and then prepares to hit her with a Kanyon Kutter….Buff Bagwell runs out, but Kanyon holds him off by threatening to break Judy’s neck…Kanyon says he’ll let Judy go if Buff agrees to the stip that she becomes his valet if Kanyon beats Buff at New Blood Rising…Absurd…Buff agrees, and Kanyon immediately drops Judy with a Kanyon Kutter and hauls ass away from the ring… Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson made their own sex tape to show off…Gross…Torrie says she dropped the tape off with production a few minutes ago…Cut to Billy Kidman, tossing a tape in the air and chuckling to himself…This angle has vaulted Douglas/Kidman onto the Worst Feuds list… Kanyon gets in his car and tears away from the arena…No, wait, he stops to Kanyon Kut a security guard…I mean, he’s not in so much of a rush that he can’t drop a random person with a Kanyon Kutter, right?... Great, here are Shane and Torrie to inflict themselves upon the home audience…What did I ever do to them, anyway?...Torrie calls Kidman a “lowlife piece of scum,” which is actually true in kayfabe…Douglas, with much fanfare, asks production to play their sex tape…The tape that plays is basically just Douglas being unable to fuck Torrie because he’s got ED…Might I interest you in Peacock sponsors Blue Chew or Hims, Franchise?...How’d Kidman get this footage, anyway?...Is this the return of the KidCam?... Lance Storm rebuffs Vito’s demand for a hardcore rematch and says that he’ll only give Vito a rematch if it’s based on technical holds of the sort that Stu Hart might use to wrap up an unsuspecting trainee down in the Hart Family Dungeon… Shane Douglas is upset because his dick doesn’t work, and furthermore, Torrie was supposed to destroy that tape, so what the hell, sis? Douglas drops a dreaded “I need some space” on Torrie, which is a soft dumping before the actual dumping, usually…He leaves and Kidman walks up to Torrie and reveals his little tape switcheroo gambit to her…Kidman still had a key to her place and went through what apparently is a whole-ass library of sex tapes that she’s been shooting with her partners…He broke into her house? And then he watched all of them until he found this one to share with the viewers at home?...What a fucking degenerate fuckhead pervert…Who is he, Gene Okerlund?...Douglas rushes back into the shot and furiously beats Kidman into the ground… Lance Storm stands at attention for “O Canada,” but he doesn’t stand for long because Vito jumps him and cracks him with a kendo stick before the match…The bell rings, and Vito has to now stick to actual wrestling moves…Mark Madden has been making ED jokes for the last five minutes, so I’m thinking about puncturing my own eardrums…Somehow, I don’t think muting this show is quite enough…Vito gets some decent offense in because of how he started the match, but Storm superkicks Vito into ref Jamie Tucker to bump him…Storm pays Vito back with a chair shot while the ref is groggy, but it only gets two…Vito counters one Canadian Maple Leaf attempt with a small package for two, but Storm manages to grab Vito’s leg on a rope run and lock on a Canadian Maple Leaf that does end the bout…This was a pacey match full of crisp counters…Storm is a very aesthetically pleasing wrestler to watch…Storm keeps the Canadian Maple Leaf on after the bell, so Mike Awesome sprints down the ramp to engage with Storm and send him bailing from the ring… Outro: A snippet of the Goldberg interview in which he talks about Kevin Nash booking himself to end Goldberg’s streak at Starrcade ’98…Oh nooooooooooo… Scott Hudson’s full interview with Goldberg plays next…Goldberg asserts that the only reason that Hall and Nash were initially nice to him was because they knew he’d be a big money player and they wanted to keep him close…Goldberg doesn’t appreciate how Scott Hall treats the fans and thinks the guy is a douchebag, generally…Goldberg loves the fans, on the other hand, which means he also dislikes this heel turn…Hudson: “You’ve played the heel for the last couple of months”…*sigh*…Goldberg says that “somebody” thought that turning him heel was a good idea…He paused for a long time before settling on the word “somebody,” which was interesting… Anyway, here are some other points that Goldberg makes…Goldberg says that he wasn’t initially a pro wrestling guy, but he appreciates pro wrestling because it gave him the chance to be someone prominent and make a difference…He loves doing the Make-A-Wish stuff…He says that Nash is correct that he doesn’t LUV DA BIZNESS, but he always brings his full effort and really does like making kids happy by being their hero… Goldberg, on fire and clearly shoot sick of hearing about paying dues: “Kevin talks about, ‘Well, y’know, you haven’t paid your dues;’ well guess what, Kevin’s paid his dues for fifteen years and he ain’t never gonna make it to the spot that I made it to in three *talks over a Scott Hudson follow-up question* SO KISS MY ASS, KEVIN; SORRY, JEALOUSY’S A BITCH, AIN’T IT? SUCKS, DOESN’T IT?” He pulled it back a bit and did a whole football-versus-basketball comparison that felt much more kayfabe trash talk-y to end that rant, but the first half of that rant came from the heart…Get the Mortal Kombat announcer on the tape to intone FATALITY after that one…So, Goldberg points out Nash’s IRL booking antics…I don’t get this, though, since now Hudson asks Goldberg if he’s excited to hurt Nash when they meet in the ring at New Blood Rising…So wait, is this a shoot fight, or is this still kayfabe?...If this is kayfabe, then Goldberg’s not getting in the ring to do anything more than work safely with Nash…If this isn’t, then is this the only shoot fight on the show and everyone else is working?...I only ask these questions on the off-chance that Vince Russo’s dumb ass stumbles onto this post somehow and maybe I can somehow get that dim bulb to get why this storyline is so dumb… Goldberg ends this interview by saying that the only way Kevin Nash will beat him in a real fight is to put himself on the booking committee…So, again, what the fuck?...Is their New Blood Rising match real unless Nash is able to exert his will on the booking, in which case it’s worked?...I mean, these are logical things that anyone who understands the worked nature of pro wrestling would immediately ask about this whole angle…Why doesn’t any of this get through Russo’s thick skull?... Before Jeff Jarrett faces Booker T. in the main event, the Cat walks out and verifies that their brawl is unsanctioned…In a neat little deal, they actually end the show, cut the lights out in the arena, and run the end theme and copyright notice for Thunder before turning the lights back up and allowing this unsanctioned fight to happen…Of course, they still have chyrons and graphics for Jarrett and Booker, and the commentators are still at the desk (and promoting WCW appearances), so it could have been done even better, but still, I appreciate what effort they put in… Over on commentary, this sequence occurs...Madden: “You’re off the clock – can we call you Ernie instead?”…Miller: “Hell no, can I call you Chubby?”…Madden, chastened: “Okay, we’ll stick with Mr. Miller”…That was a genuinely funny exchange…Meanwhile, Jarrett and Booker have a typical late-Nitro Era crowd brawl…The best part of this match is the Cat, who is hilarious…”Do you guys realize that this [match] is all ratings? And I’m not paying these guys a damn thing!”… The Cat announces that Sting will get his title shot against Booker T. for real and for true on the upcoming Nitro…That sounds like a fun matchup…They had a match at Spring Stampede that wasn’t as good as it could have been because Booker was working tweener-ish, but I have higher expectations for this Nitro bout…Plundah and clutter, clutter and plundah…I just want someone to put a cowboy boot over their fist and split someone open with it…Is that too much to ask for?!... Still, this is good for what it is, which is a typical garbage brawl on free WCW television…Booker almost manages the same exact counter-Book End that won him the gold at BatB, but Jarrett escapes with a thumb to the eye…Booker survives being choked with the cowbell and makes one more comeback…Book lands an axe kick and a Spinaroonie, but Jarrett grabs his guitar and bashes Booker’s knee with it on a Houston Side Kick attempt…Jarrett locks on a Figure Four, and ref Billy Silverman just takes it upon himself to call for the bell when Booker refuses to submit…Yeah, keeping Booker strong, I love it!... This show wasn’t objectionably bad, but this company just cannot get its booking right…It’s close, but ultimately, I’m not sure this accomplished much in terms of proper build to New Blood Rising, so it’s an OWW for me…

They were just regular ladies in frumpy dress. I cannot believe that Muta is in a stable with Vampiro and the fucking Insane Clown Posse. That is the most random late-stage WCW thing I've ever heard of. It was bad! Be glad that you don't!

Show #250 – 24 July 2000 "The one where nothing except for Lance Storm's t-shirt makes any damn sense" This episode shows the Nitro opening card immediately, with no recap as in past weeks. Lance Storm begins the show with a defense of his WCW Canadian Championship; before we talk about his opponent, let’s talk about his t-shirt. It says I AM CANADIAN in the center, right under a maple leaf flag, but it’s got all sorts of tiny little declarations in small type around that centerpiece. Let’s see: I BELIEVE IN PEACEKEEPING, NOT POLICING is one of them. HOLY SHIT, another one reads THE 26TH LETTER IS PRONOUNCED “ZED.” Hahaha, it absolutely is not, but I appreciate his moxie and his utter confidence in the inferior pronunciation of the letter "zee." Other declarations of what it means to be Canadian: I BELIEVE IN DIVERSITY, NOT ASSIMILATION, which is quite progressive; I AM NOT A LUMBERJACK OR A FUR TRADER, which seems like it’s probably untrue and that one of those two professions is a likely second job for the guy; THE BEAVER IS A PROUD AND NOBLE ANIMAL, which is true with only one exception (Oregon State grads are neither proud nor noble); and I also see I DO NOT OWN A DOGSLED, THE TOQUE IS A HAT, and I HAVE A PRIME MINISTER, NOT A PRESIDENT, all of which are broadly true. Tremendous. Anyway, Lance Storm’s t-shirt is the star of this show. I only wish I could read the rest of the declarations underneath the flag. This opening segment rules. “O Canada” plays. Madden knows some of the lyrics. I can pick up another declaration: I DO NOT EAT BLUBBER. Duh, dude, you don't eat it; you burn it for lamp oil. I PRONOUNCE IT “ABOOT,” NOT ABOUT, which, yes, you also pronounce the word “about” incorrectly. Storm cuts an “I’m a figure of moral excellence and also Mike Awesome sucks” promo continuing a gimmick that is quite the piss-take of Bret Hart. Vito answers Lance Storm’s open challenge for the Canadian title by yelling YOU CANADIAN PIECE OF SHIT, just as the stereotype of a crass American would. Dammit, Vito, you’re representing a whole country! Act right! Storm agrees to defend the Canadian Championship, but only if Vito defends the Hardcore Championship as well. Ah, we’re starting the “Lance Storm, Belt Collector” angle, and I’m all in for that! Vito agrees to do so, though he denigrates the great history of the Canadian Championship and also by connection the United States Championship as he does it. Storm fires off with punches, which is really not his game when compared to Vito; he picks up the pace and does a little running to take control, but Vito manages to post Storm on a counter to Storm’s corner charge, which gives him the chance to grab some of the plundah he brought with him into the ring. As Storm takes a traffic cone to the sack, I wonder why the WCW Championship Committee would allow Storm to win the hardcore title in a match that didn’t start in the backstage area. No, haha, I don’t actually wonder that. I’m honestly impressed that WCW kept that stipulation up with a bit of consistency for a few weeks without forgetting about it. Storm gets control with wrestling moves, but Vito lands a counter suplex and a Savage Elbow for 2.7. Vito even manages a Paisan Plunge, but his incredibly lax cover allows Storm to easily slip a shoulder up at 2.7-ish again. Vito tries to keep control of the match with a couple of kendo stick shots, but when he attempts a suplex on a go-behind, Storm ducks, grabs the leg, and rolls through and into a Canadian Maple Leaf to coax a tap out and win the hardcore title. Hot opener! It's interview time with Booker T.; he cuts a boilerplate fighting babyface promo in which he thanks the fans for being so nice and then threatens his opps (mostly Jeff Jarrett) and hits a few of his underwhelming catchphrases. I can’t believe that DON’T HATE THE PLAYER, HATE THE GAME manages a chant-along! Goldberg’s music hits and da man makes his way down to the ring to complain about Booker kicking him in the face last week. That kick might have jogged his memory about Booker promising to be a fighting champion; Goldberg declares that HE’S NEXT to get a title shot and YOU’RE NEXT to Booker himself. Booker accepts the challenge, which sparks Commissioner Cat’s interest. The Cat enters the ring and tells Goldberg that he’s not the guy to make the matches; instead, the Cat has decided that the fans will get to pick Booker’s opponent. Crowd, immediately: GOOOOOOLD-BERG. The Cat says that the fans’ vote will be open for the next hour on WCW.com, but come on, I think the winner is in the ring right now. The Cat says that there will be ten names in that poll, including Goldberg’s and Sting’s, and then he tells Goldberg to get to steppin’ out of his ring. Goldberg reacts to this order by trying to throttle the Cat, and Booker steps in and sends a few soupbones Goldberg’s way. Security rushes into the ring to split them up as the Cat swears revenge on Goldberg. Huh, a hot opener followed by a hot angle. Is this allowed? Billy Kidman joins commentary (Tony S., Mark Madden, and Scott Hudson tonight). Tony S. glories in the awesome communicative power of the burgeoning internet as he pimps the vote. Here are the candidates: Goldberg, Sting, Billy Kidman, Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, Kanyon, Buff Bagwell, Shane Douglas, Stevie Ray, and Vampiro. Sure, that is certainly a random smattering of names! Kidman says that “Today is Torrie Wilson’s birthday – that’s a shoot” and says that his gift for her is, uh, revenge porn. That’s our babyface! Meanwhile, Ms. Hancock dances in the ring while David Flair stands around looking like a dope. They argue about her dancing and his inability to win a title; you’re like two months into this relationship and already arguing like this? This is supposed to be deep into the honeymoon period, you two. I don’t think this is going to work out. Dave and Hancock are wrestling Lt. Loco and Major Gunns in a mixed tag match tonight. Chavo is good, and everyone else is who they are. Dave does a full back bump off a weak slap from Gunns, who is wrestling in super-high heels. That seems dumb. Hancock went full-on stereotypical Islander and decided to wrestle barefoot, which seems smart. She can jump off the apron and have a 372% smaller chance of blowing out an ankle. Hancock charges at one point and the M.I.A. members step out of the way; she stumbles and headbutts Dave in the balls. She also whiffs on a crossbody and crashes into Dave; Hancock blames Dave, who weakly defends himself (yelling, confused and upset: I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG) and watches helplessly as Gunns rolls up Hancock from behind for three. Hancock yells at Dave for being a woefully ineffective tag partner and then grabs Gunns from behind as Gunns prepares to revive Loco. Hancock pulls off Gunns’s shirt while Loco revives on his own and beats up Dave. This was nonsense, but I was entertained. Jeff Jarrett is extremely angry at the Cat for a) letting the fans choose Booker’s opponent and b) not putting his name on the list of choices. Jarrett wants a title shot tonight; the Cat wants Jarrett to fuck off. Jarrett threatens the Cat with a KABONGING, so the Cat gives Jarrett a title shot…against KroniK in a handicap tag title match. Jarrett fully deserves this because he antagonized the hell out of the Cat for weeks for no reason. The Cat was originally on his side! Jarrett is such a dickhead that the power of his dickheadedness is slowly turning the Cat babyface! A cloaked figure stands next to Pam Paulshock, who doubts whether or not this figure is actually Sting. It’s Sting. Or someone who is good at imitating Sting. No, it’s Sting, and he explicitly calls out the booking committee for making him wear this stupid mask on account of that time that Vampiro set him alight. So, uh, was that burning a “real” thing that happened in the context of this wrestling show’s storylines or not, as Sting indicated in this promo? You know what, never mind, I don’t care. Goldberg tells Mike Tenay that he’s pretty sure the fans are going to vote for him, but even if they don’t, he’s probably going to kick the hell out of both the person who wins the vote and Booker T. anyway. As Brian Adams leaves his dressing room, we hear an off-screen KABONGing and then see further into the locker room, where Bryan Clarke lays face down in the middle of a bunch of guitar pieces. Hilariously, we cut to Jarrett immediately walking onto the ramp right after that, and the fellas on commentary lampshade that there is absolutely no way that Jarrett could have KABONG’d Clarke, run past Adams and through gorilla, and walked onto the stage in what was literally about ten or fifteen seconds of time. OK, is WCW going to surprise me by revealing that Jarrett has an associate who is helping him out, or is this just WCW being WCW? Adams comes out by himself and beats up Jarrett in the early going, landing a tilt-a-whirl slam and a piledriver en route to a couple of close two counts. Jarrett manages to roll out of the ring after that second nearfall, but he struggles to gain any purchase in the resulting obligabrawl until he slips out of the back of an Adams running powerslam attempt and manages to post the guy. Jarrett bashes Adams into various ringside features and even returns the favor with a piledriver on the mats below before rolling Adams back into the ring and scoring a two count of his own. Jarrett gets on his bike and tries to use a blend of high-risk moves, counters, and shortcuts to keep control, but he gets a little too cute with it and tries a leapover on a corner charge that Adams stuffs with a full nelson slam. Adams scores two on a legdrop (Madden: “That move never wins”) and then tries to pursue Jarrett, but Slick Johnson backs him off. Jarrett grabs his guitar and sticks it into Adams’s throat, but it only gets two, and Adams goes back to using his size advantage to dominate Jarrett. Stupidly, he tries to use aerial moves to dominate Jarrett next and misses, but Clarke has revived and comes to the ring. Slick doesn’t let him use a sliver of the guitar that he was hit with, but he sticks a Meltdown instead. Adams sets up for a High Times, but Clarke stops him and requests that they do that move through the commentary table. Slick Johnson physically blocks this, so they hit him with a High Times through the table; Jarrett uses that distraction to hightail it out of there. Backstage, the Cat fucks around with a weird Spencer Gifts sort of deal, some sort of cheap rotating sculpture, and the camera pans back to see that Vampiro has been sitting there watching him try to construct the thing for what is implied to be more than a few minutes. Very funny. The segment gets even funnier when Vamp asks for a match against Muta. The Cat wants to beat up Muta himself as revenge for Muta misting him on the previous Thunder, but Vampiro counters with this proposition: “Follow me out there…like a ninja. Be my referee.” The Cat is charmed by the idea of being a ninja and asks Vampiro if he’s into ninja stuff. Vampiro’s response is fucking hilarious, as he declares WATCH THIS and then throws a jumping kick that knocks a bunch of stuff off the Cat’s desk. The Cat, excited: “Can you do that to Muta?!” This whole segment descended into absurdity, and I loved it. Pam Paulshock asks Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson about the babyface Kidman’s revenge porn gambit, and of course, Shane Douglas’s response is to support his partner and denounce Kidman for releasing a tape that Torrie made with him as part of their past relationship without her consent and as a way to embarrass her. Ooh, no, I’m sorry, I reported that all wrong. What happened is that Douglas mostly yells at Torrie for daring to make a sex tape with someone she was in a relationship at the time. Well, he is a heel. Now, what’s Kidman’s excuse? The fans, for one, are disgusted by Kidman’s (now-)felonious threats to unilaterally release a sex tape with an old partner for public viewing: He sits last in this title shot poll at one percent of the vote, a full three percent behind Stevie Ray, who hasn’t won a match on television in literal months, and one percent behind his current nemesis Shane Douglas. I assume that this poll was worked, but on the off-chance that it was not worked at all, I’ll be pointing to these results as an example of how badly Billy Kidman has been booked in the year 2000. Oh, who’s leading the poll, you ask? Sting, at thirty-five percent of the vote, a full five percent ahead of second-place Goldberg. The Cat enters the ring in his ref’s shirt to oversee the upcoming Vampiro (w/KISS Demon and the Insane Clown Posse) match against the Great Muta. Vamp finds the Demon to be as useless as Hancock finds Dopey Dave; Vamp lectures the Demon for a few seconds before kicking the Cat in the back and joining with Muta in one big face-painted stable. Uh, attacking the matchmaker to form an alliance with one another is a bold choice, but okay! The Demon tries to prove himself by pretending to shield the Cat before hitting him with a uranage. The ICP sticks around to celebrate; the Cat fires up and kicks the shit out of them. Pamela Paulshock asks Booker T. about Goldberg’s threats to bust up the world title match, but Booker is relaxed about that possibility before expressing confidence in his ability to retain his big gold belt. Let’s add Booker to the list of WCW guys who went to the WWF and immediately became much better on the stick with a bit of tutelage from showrunners who know how to talk. Booker enters the ring at the top of the second hour; his opponent and the winner of the poll turns out to be Sting, who is immediately jumped by Goldberg on the ramp. Can we discuss Sting’s booking this year? It’s also complete trash. Goldberg knocks out Sting and then squares off with Booker in the aisle. Good guy Booker helps the medics load Sting onto a stretcher as the desk sells Goldberg’s standing side kick, which he planted Sting with, as complete death. Goldberg gets in the ring and cribs a Ric Flair catchphrase in order to declare that he’s still the uncrowned champion; Booker accepts the challenge and rushes the ring. Booker lands a few blows, but Goldberg turns the tide and sends Booker to ringside after a press into a slam. Goldberg follows outside, and though Booker fires off, Goldberg quickly reverses a whip into the stairs. He also tells a fan FUCK YOU right as the camera’s in close-up on him. Book’s done a blade job; Goldberg gets him back in the ring and locks on an arm breaker, but Booker barely gets the ropes. Stevie Ray runs up and throws in the towel; the Cat declares Goldberg the winner, but not the champ since he wasn't on the contract for the title shot. I didn’t remember this Booker T. title reign being such a massive booking failure in which Booker looks totally outclassed at this level, but this title reign is a massive booking failure in which Booker looks totally outclassed at this level. After a break, Booker storms into the Cat’s office and yells about the match being ended even though he didn't quit; he says that if he doesn’t get another match against Goldberg tonight, he’ll quit this time around, except that he'll be quitting the company. The Cat reluctantly agrees to give it to him. Buff Bagwell (w/mother Judy) wrestles Kanyon in the next bout…or maybe not, as Kanyon doesn’t show when his music plays. The music cuts and then plays again as Hudson queries, “Another production miscue back there?” Well, we all know that Craig Leathers (or whoever is running production at this point) is a screw-up, but there’s no need to call it out so blatantly. WCW sure loves talking about how low-rent they are. Kanyon doesn’t show, so Buff gets a mic and instinctively craps on DDP before remembering that Kanyon is a) using DDP’s music, b) DDP is a babyface, and c) he’s feuding with Kanyon right now. He quickly corrects himself, but he looks like a clown. Judy, on the other hand, grabs the mic and demands CHRIS, GET YOUR CHICKENSHIT ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW, which gets a pop and adds to the evidence that Judy is the most charismatic Bagwell in WCW. Bagwell tells his ma that she can’t cuss on TNT, so Stone Cold Judy Bagwell takes the mic back and cusses some more, which gets another pop. So, here’s how Kanyon makes his entrance into the match: As Buff and Judy pose, the guy holding the corner camera puts it down and jumps Buff. This was an elaborate disguise that didn’t do much for him because Buff tosses him right to ringside, but Buff immediately turns his attention to his mother and eats a Kanyon Kutter from behind. Kanyon stalks Judy back up the ramp and to the backstage area, where in true Bagwell fashion, Judy tries to beg off after talking a whole lot of shit. Kanyon stuffs Judy in the trunk of his car and takes off. After a commercial break, we see Buff rush to his car and drive after Kanyon. This Nitro has been kinda batshit nutty, actually. Pam Paulshock asks Billy Kidman about his revenge porn plot. He mentions Pamela and Tommy Lee – that tape leak happened in 1999/2000?! – and then confidently asserts that everyone’s going to see a sex tape that, and I quote Kidman here, “[Torrie] didn’t want anyone to see.” The crowd pops. Everyone in this arena is earning Bad Place points. Are the bookers trying to make me feel bad for Torrie Wilson? Because as objectively shitty a thing this is to do to her, it’s not going to work. An irritable Shane Douglas (w/Torrie Wilson) cuts his remarks short before the match. Maybe he should be irritated more often. His opponent: Mike Awesome (w/a bevy of BBWs). I’m baffled by this sudden shift in character, but okay. Madden: “This is unbelievable! Sex tapes, fat women – this is wrestling!” Madden’s “Vince Russo, but a portly commentator instead of a showrunner” deal is deeply shitty. Awesome and Douglas have a decent bout; Torrie gets involved when Awesome asserts dominance and hangs on the guy long enough for Douglas to snap a distracted Awesome’s neck over the top rope. There’s quite a bit of obligabrawling in there as well. Douglas is back in control when the match reaches the ring; he hits a neck snap and then locks on a neck vise, but Awesome quickly fights up from it. Douglas stops Awesome’s progress with a knee to the gut, but he goes up top and gets caught and pressed to the mat, just like his hero Ric Flair. Awesome scores a series of two counts before going up top to try and finish Douglas off. Torrie again grabs Awesome, and Douglas has plenty of time to wrap a chain around his hand and punch Awesome in the solar plexus a few times. Douglas tries to follow up, but her and Kidman's sex tape plays on the TurnerTron, which distracts both Torrie and Douglas; Awesome easily handles Douglas from there, drilling him in the head with a rubber dumbbell for three. After the match, Kidman taunts Torrie from the rampway by waving around the thong she was apparently wearing in the video; Lance Storm jumps Mike Awesome in the ring, but he eats an Awesome Bomb in short order. We come back from ads to see Shane Douglas beat up a production tech for playing Kidman’s sex tape. Billy Kidman enters the ring and says that he’s got enough copies of the tape to give one to everyone in the crowd and tells Madden that he’s got a specially-edited copy just for him. Ew. The TurnerTron shows various wrestlers’ reactions to watching the tape backstage. The Jung Dragons seem excited about it, but in a way that indicates that they don’t understand the concept of human sexual relations and are astonished by what they are viewing. Kwee Wee offhandedly watches the video while ironing his clothing, though he does put down his iron and take notice at one particular part. It’s not particularly enjoyable to hear Kidman and Torrie moaning, by the way. Shane Douglas stands in the production truck and cusses at Billy Kidman. We’re getting a Caged Heat match now, I guess? Apparently, the Filthy Animals (Juvi and Rey, I assume) will face Jindrak and O’Haire, The Perfect Event, and General Rection and Cpl. Cajun in the cage. So, get this: Apparently, the last team not to escape the cage is out of the Four Corners tag at New Blood Rising, and the other three teams who escape first will face KroniK. Escape the cage? It’s a cell. It’s meant to make escape nearly impossible. Since Juvi and Rey are the only competitors in this match who are not already in the PPV match, they have nothing to lose. Whatever, this show is incredibly stupid, but I can’t say that I haven’t been entertained. Konnan is on commentary, jabbering on and on (“so many green guys in the ring it’s like an avocado farm,” “Mexican [wrestling] strategy…makes sense in the end. It’s like Pulp Fiction; it’s very Tarantino-ish”). After lots of merely okay brawling, Jindrak and O’Haire make it out of the cage first, propelled by Rey and Juvi. Palumbo and Stasiak get beaten up and then, uhhhhhhh, they just walk out of the cage with absolutely no resistance. Tony S. points out how little resistance they met, which isn’t helping. TPE locks the cage door; Cajun and Loco are distracted by the locked door and get jumped. Disco Inferno gets on top of the cell and stomps a panel out. This is absolute nonsense, which is pointed out at every step by a baffled Tony S. I can’t even say this is bad, though it obviously stinks. It’s just so fucking weird, folks. What a weird booking decision. Why did this match even need to be made? The finish is a mess; Morrus and Rey get out onto the roof, and then the cameraman misses Juvi and Cajun spilling out through the door after Konnan uses bolt cutters to unlock it again. Commentary doesn’t even know who has won the match or if anyone has won. Everyone is outside of the cell, but they’re all still wrestling. A table gets set up and a Morrus table dive gets teased; Cajun ends up being tossed through the table. Rey and Morrus end up dropping back into the ring, where Morrus counters a rana with a powerbomb attempt and crawls out of the now unattended door even though Juvi and Konnan should be out there patrolling it, considering they just tossed Cajun through a table that was standing right near the door. I didn’t hate this, but it’s such a nonsensical time sink of a match that didn’t need to happen, didn’t change the participants in the Four Corners PPV match at all since the Filthy Animals weren’t in it in the first place, didn’t have clear rules about having to touch the floor to be considered “out of the cage,” and in general it was a complete WTF? Moment. I’ll put it on the Dirt Worst list because of how little sense it made, but it’d be far more appropriate on a WTF? Moment list if I had one going. Booker and Stevie argue about Booker re-engaging with Goldberg; Booker is determined to go out there. During the break, Goldberg tossed Stevie through a window. We get our second stretcher job of the night. Booker jumps Goldberg in the aisle, and we get our seventy-second obligabrawl of the night. This is a four-minute Nitro special in the main event; Goldberg dominates Booker until Jeff Jarrett runs down and hits Goldberg with a chair, at which point Goldberg instead dominates Jarrett with a spear. The Cat runs down and pops Goldberg with a Feliner; Goldberg wobbles, but recovers with a counter-punch. Booker lands a Houston Side Kick and a Book End, which does actually get three in what is the most pointless fucking Goldberg loss to date. Goldberg immediately hits Booker with a spear and Jackhammer anyway. This was woefully ineffective booking in every fashion. VINCE RUSSO’s BACK IN THE HOUSE, Y’ALL. It’s fine, he’s just got to be world champ somewhere in the next couple of months and then we can get rid of his dumb ass. This Nitro stunk, but it was a compelling stink that was entertaining simply because trying to parse how anyone could possibly set themselves to the task of booking a major televised wrestling show and then come up with this as the result was an exercise in deep thinking. 0.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and nineteen – 19 July 2000 "The WCW Gang can work a shoot reasonably well - at least until Vince Russo starts giving directions" It’s another Thunder, baby!... Recap: We have a new WCW United States Canadian Champion and an interesting WCW World Heavyweight Championship scramble going on right now… Stevie Ray and Booker T. arrive in a Beamer, which I guess is what that world champion money buys you… Jeff Jarrett opens the show by joining commentary to complain about not being the world champ anymore while Crowbar (w/Daffney) and a debuting "Above Average" Mike Sanders…We creep closer to the beginning of the genesis of McGillicuddy the Natural Born Thrillers…Ah, that “genesis of McGillicuddy” reference that I do whenever talking about an upcoming angle probably needs to be retired about as badly as the WCW Hardcore Championship does…Lenny Lane is still wandering around in the crowd waving a USE ME sign… The match in the ring is okay, but there sure is a ton going on that distracts from it…The desk talks about Lane and Booker and Jarrett and everyone but the guys in the ring…Daffney finally interjects herself after Sanders shoves Crowbar off the top rope during a struggle…She lands a Latino Frankensteiner on a seated Sanders that pops the crowd…Crowbar lands a slingshot crossbody on a seated Sanders at ringside shortly after that…Sanders recovers, takes Jarrett’s guitar from the desk, and KABONGs Crowbar with it in front of the ref while Jarrett watches in disbelief…Jarrett: “What is this JAY-brone doing?!”…That guitar shot earns a three count for Sanders… Security carts Lenny Lane out of the arena after the match…Jeff Jarrett storms off because Booker T. won’t come to ringside and immediately challenge him…As Jarrett heads up the ramp, Booker’s music plays and Booker walks to the top of the ramp…Someone has a random Wesley Willis-themed sign at ringside…Rick Steiner walks up behind Booker and tries to attack, but Booker handles him…Stevie walks out to help Booker and Harlem Heat handles Jarrett and Ricky both with relative ease…Security busts things up as we cut to a commercial break… Daffney is angry about Sanders cracking Crowbar in the head…She grabs a chair, screams, and goes off in search of Sanders to exact a little revenge… The Cat meets Lenny Lane as he’s carted out…The Cat offers this jobber a position on the card if Lane snatches a pebble from his hand…Lane does it twice, so the Cat is like FUCK YOU, BEAT THE WALL, BROTHER IN A TABLES MATCH OR FUCK OFF FOR GOOD… Our new WCW Canadian Champion, Lance Storm, is up next…I actually think the shirt Storm's wearing tonight is pretty good…It simply has the words CANADA KICKS ASS printed under an image of a maple leaf flag…We get a full rendition of “O Canada”…Storm manages not to get jumped as the anthem plays…Storm lists a few past great United States Champions: Terry Funk, Ric Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Dusty Rhodes, and, um, Jeff Jarrett…He does all this to make the point that the U.S. belt is great for those guys, but it’s not enough for him, and then he puts a giant Canadian Championship sticker right over the middle of the belt’s main plate… Storm continues on to say that he appreciates the wrestling fans who enjoy serious wrestling action…He requests a fan enter the ring so that he can show his appreciation to them as a person who also takes wrestling seriously….They get a woman weighing over 170 pounds into the ring…I bet you can see where this is going…Storm says that he respects her as a fan, so much so that he's found it in his heart not to blame her for living in a shithole country that doesn’t pay her enough to get a gym membership…Mike Awesome is ENRAGED at the disrespect…He flies out here and beats Storm down…Kanyon sneaks into the ring and preps a Kanyon Kutter…Awesome manages to stop him, but the numbers game gets to him until Buff Bagwell makes the save and helps Awesome clear the ring… Jeff Jarrett catches up with Mike Sanders backstage, credits him for a solid KABONGing, and offers him tips for improvement…The tip is *KABONG* Don’t touch my shit, stupid!...I’m not sure that leaves much for Daffney to do, but maybe she’ll be happy to pick the bones… Dopey Dave thinks he’s in an equitable relationship where he can approach Ms. Hancock for sex and she’ll be happy for the approach…He is not in that type of relationship, though…It’s completely transactional…She tells him that he has to beat Lt. Loco for the Cruiserweight Championship later tonight before that’ll happen…Dopey Dave moans that he’ll be too tired for sex after having a match…Don’t whine, Dave…It’s unattractive… THE WALL, BROTHER beats up Lenny Lane for a while…Lane is able to knock TW,B to the mat after a couple minutes of a beatdown and follow up with a pretty solid Savage Elbow…TW,B is mostly unfazed, though, and reverses a corner charge by dropping Lane’s head onto the buckles…Lane tries to fight back, but generally gets countered into the ground…TW,B opens a table at ringside, but he’s so casual about it that Lane has ample time to recover…TW,B signals for a chokeslam and then gets on the apron to go grab Lane, but he’s met by a charging Lane, who rams him off the apron and through the table…Fine, if I have to endure another month or two of Lane before he gets released, let’s just do it…I’d much rather it be Lodi (whom I believe has been released by now) in Lane’s spot, though… Captain Rection fires up the Private Stash-less M.I.A… Elsewhere, Mike Sanders finally revives from the KABONGing he took and staggers up, which is when Daffney knocks him back out with a chair shot…She yells HOW DO YA LIKE THAT, ROOKIE and screams… THE WALL, BROTHER walks up to Lenny Lane in the locker room…Lane thinks that he’s going to get his ass kicked, but TW,B just shakes his hand and says something about the “buddy system”…I guess TW,B lost on purpose or something…Whatever… The Filthy Animals, who I forgot even existed, see KroniK preoccupied with a photo shoot backstage and decide to sneak into their locker room… Dopey David Flair (w/Ms. Hancock) faces off with Lt. Loco (w/the M.I.A.) for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship…Chavo gives way too much to Dopey Dave at the start of this match…Loco's offense is pretty fun, though!...He chops the shit out of Dave…This is actually a decent match, all down to Chavo, of course….Hancock hands Dave a chair, but Loco cuts him off…Next, Hancock tries to help Dave avoid a sunset flip with a bit of leverage, but Major Gunns breaks that up and chases Hancock away…Loco drills Dave with a tornado DDT onto the chair for three…Gunns decides to revive Dave after the match since she figures that Hancock doesn’t have the raw sexual aura to do it…Hancock runs back into the ring and there’s a CATFIGHT… We cut away from that to see the Cat angrily reinstate Lenny Lane and then fire TW,B for throwing the match…The Cat: I HAVE SPOKEN, FREAK…TW,B: *goes full-on Latrell Sprewell*…Security rushes in and yanks TW,B away from the Cat’s throat…I presume that SGT. A-WALL isn’t far behind… Mike Sanders finally revives from the Daffney chair shot and struggles to his feet once more…AHAHAHAHAHA, Kanyon runs up and drills him with a Kanyon Kutter…I should have guessed that would happen…Fantastic… The Cat holds his throat in pain as he stumbles through the hall…Uh-oh, a musical flourish plays that indicates the arrival of the Jung Dragons…The Cat’s not in the mood for a throwdown right now…The Dragons beat the shit out of the commissioner…Yang holds Three Count’s gold record while he throws kicks… I had zero memory of this late-stage WCW Great Muta run…None…Is this gonna be a thing for the next few weeks?...I sure hope so…Tank Abbott is Muta’s opponent…Somebody needed to toss a bag at Gary Hart to get over himself and cut promos for Muta for a few weeks…In general, more Gary Hart talking on these shows would be a great thing…The Jung Dragons run in on the match forty-five seconds in…Muta jumps a distracted Tank from behind and the Dragons beat Tank down…The Cat soon follows and gets revenge on the Dragons by beating them up and clearing them from the ring…Muta hits the Cat with red mist…The blinded Cat rolls around in pain…Meanwhile, Muta’s looking at the Cat and doesn’t see Abbott standing in his blind spot, throwing a right hand at his dome…Abbott gets three…What the fuck just happened?...It wasn’t good enough to be charming, but it was certainly unique… Gene Okerlund interviews Major Gunns…Gunns challenges Ms. Hancock to an ROTC Match at New Blood Rising…ROTC = Rip off the Camouflage…Gunns should never talk ever again, by the way…This perv Okerlund plans to get an improved eyeglasses prescription with which to see all the hot, hot CATFIGHT action… KroniK re-enters their dressing room after the photo shoot and finds it trashed…They ask a random tech standing nearby if he saw anything…The tech responds that the Filthy Animals were skulking around…KroniK storms off, with Adams ordering the tech to stand post at the room…He tries his best to stand post, but Kanyon runs up from off-camera and sticks him with a Kanyon Kutter…This man is a MENACE… Rick Steiner consults with Jeff Jarrett in Jarrett’s locker room…He and Midajah apparently have a plan…Well, they pulled a plan off on Nitro…Let’s see if they can make it two-for-two… The Filthy Animals come to the ring while wearing KroniK’s gear that they stole from the dressing room…KroniK stalks to the ring as Konnan joins color…Get this: KroniK is out here to win a handicap match against Juvi, Rey, and Disco…I remind you that Rey Misterio Jr. is a legitimate main event talent if only he is reasonably booked…Look back at these reports from 1997 and 1998…Rey was very, very, very over…He should be in the United States Championship mix as a fiery fighting babyface at this point, not doing jobs in the midcard as an unmasked, mediocre heel…I like to say that Chavo Jr. has an outside case for being the most misused talent in this era of WCW, but come on, it’s Rey…I’m not sure there’s another answer considering the level of talent in the worker combined with his limit of push/level of misuse…I mean, Rey, Disco, and Juvi’s version of a Zerg rush in this match is entertaining enough, but come the fuck on… Konnan: “The guy over there without the mustache [Adams], he looks like the less expensive, better working, less problematic version of Kevin Nash, so let’s get rid of Kevin Nash”…I see those former buddies still have heat!...I look forward to Nash’s snarky response on television at some point in the next few weeks…KroniK dismantles the smaller team, tosses Rey and Juvi to the floor, and then successfully lands the diving lariat/powerbomb combo on Disco even though Konnan tries to jinx it by saying that he won’t laugh if Clarke slips…Clarke doesn’t slip this time, and the move looks great…Konnan is unfazed by his team’s loss and keeps jabbering as we fade to… …Shane Douglas complimenting Torrie Wilson on her dress in a backstage hallway…Douglas has a duffel bag with him…Torrie inquires as to its contents, but Douglas tells her that it’s a surprise…They enter the ring after a commercial break…Douglas: blah blah blah blah blah…Hey, remember when Douglas was anti-American?...He and Lance Storm should pal up…Finally, Douglas goes over to his bag and pulls out a copy of a magazine titled Stuff…I guess Torrie had a feature in it…Oh no, he’s going to have her read an answer she gave to this magazine about wanting to fuck her man (kayfabe: Douglas; shoot: Kidman) after a workout…Gross… Now Douglas pulls out a dumbbell and pumps it while Torrie gropes his biceps…DIRT GODDAM WORST…It’s bolted onto that list no matter what happens next in this segment…What happens next is that Douglas and Torrie embrace, and Kidman runs in and attacks Douglas to complete fucking silence…Hey, remember when Kidman was way over as a babyface?...Torrie distracts Kidman and gives Douglas space to grab the dumbbell and clobber Kidman with it…That dumbbell is sledgehammer-like in its unbelievability as a weapon that wouldn’t kill someone if you struck them in the base of the neck with it as Douglas did to Kidman… Gene Okerlund stops The Artist in a hallway and asks him about his relationship with Paisley…The Artist says that “Paisley has issues” and then issues an open challenge to anyone in WCW…The Artist: “I’m a semi-main event contender”…HAHAHAHA, was that line meant to be intentionally funny or unintentionally funny?...So, Vito jumps TA from behind with a running kendo stick attack to answer that open challenge and spark a WCW Hardcore Championship match…They brawl over to an area where Kwee Wee is standing…TA knocks Kwee Wee down, and a lady who was standing in Kwee Wee’s salon area backstage on Nitro walks over to help him up… The match itself spills out to the ringside area and eventually to the ring…TA scores a couple of two counts in there, but after a lot of weapon shots, Vito gets control…He gets booed when Vito sets up a table and puts them both on it to hit a Paisan Plunge…Since the table is properly sawdusted, you can guess what happens…The crowd BOOOOOOOOOs after the table breaks before Vito can even motion to hit a Paisan Plunge, and they are bummed when he simply lands a regular old Paisan Plunge for three as a substitute… A distracted Mike Awesome is too busy feeding a cupcake to the lady that he saved from Lance Storm’s attack to focus on his upcoming tag match…Buff Bagwell tries to refocus Awesome for their upcoming match…Buff manages to divert Awesome from his plan to make the lady (apparently named Ruthie) their ringside valet… Kanyon and Lance Storm wrestle Buff Bagwell and Mike Awesome after the break…Storm and Kanyon don’t make it through the whole anthem this time around…Kanyon alternating between saluting and exhorting the fans to stand up is pretty funny, though…Awesome and Buff rush the ring…Buff chases Kanyon around the ring while Awesome clears Storm out and dives onto him at ringside…Buff catches Kanyon and lands a neckbreaker in the center of the ring, but Storm manages to knee Buff in the back as Bagwell bounces off the ropes to end the abbreviated shine segment and start the FIP segment…The FIP segment is also abbreviated, as Storm soon runs into a Buff boot on a corner charge…Buff follows up with a lariat and then makes a hot tag to Awesome… Awesome hits some nice explosive offense on his opponents, but Kanyon breaks up his pinfall attempt off a powerbomb on Storm…Kanyon gets tossed out of a Kanyon Kutter and Awesome hits a top-rope splash for two…Buff clears Kanyon out and Awesome goes at it with Storm…Storm manages to roll Awesome into a Canadian Maple Leaf, but that leaves him open for a Buff Blockbuster…Kanyon pulls the ref out of the ring before Awesome can get three on the cover…Buff tries to get at Kanyon, but Kanyon clocks him with the loaded book, then gets in the ring and hits Awesome in the abdomen with the loaded book as Awesome tries to land an Awesome Bomb on Storm…Kanyon lands a Kanyon Kutter on Awesome and gets three…That was pretty fun, but it was far too abbreviated to get beyond that level… Gene Okerlund interviews Rick Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, and Midajah…Ricky calls Harlem Heat “two rednecks,” if you were wondering how this is going…Jarrett follows up with a “Jurassic Slapass," if you were wondering how it’s continuing…So, I sort of ignored Jarrett saying that Midajah’s appearance with them is 'N.O.Y.F.B.," but we cut to the Cat in his office, having watched this interview and trying to work out what that could stand for…He gets four of the letters right, but initially considers “fast” as a possible word that fits for the fifth letter before he comes to a realization that no, it is absolutely not “fast”…Apparently, Jarrett's gratuitous stealth cussing annoys him, and he pledges to do something about it… After a break, Gene Okerlund stooges on Steiner and Jarrett for having Midajah with them in his interview with Harlem Heat…I do get a kick out of RE-FORM HARLEM HEAT being the single idea that any booker in that meeting room has for doing something with Booker T….Even when he’s the world champ, they’re like, What do we do with him now?, and some idiot in the room is like, What if we put him back with Stevie as a tag team?... Pre-taped interview: Scott Hudson sits down with Kevin Nash…Nash laments that WCW didn’t want Scott Hall back on television and were glad to let Scott Steiner interfere in his GAB match with Goldberg…Nash specifically names Brad Siegel as a guy who is done with Scott Hall…Well, yeah, Hall physically abused Siegel’s niece…Nash correctly says that Hall was out of this company no matter how his match against Goldberg ended…He says that the Outsiders popped the territory, but now Hall is gone…Nash: “The problem is that you have people who don’t know the wrestling business running the wrestling business”…Yeah, this is how you cut a worked shoot promo that actually makes at least a modicum of sense to viewers who aren’t terminally online…Nash tries to pretend that Hall is gone because HE TELLS IT LIKE IT IS and HE’S JUST BEING REAL IN A FAKE WORLD and basically acts as an enabler of his drunk, violent, shitty friend’s bad behavior… This is a compelling interview because I think Nash legit realizes that Hall’s tenure in this company is cooked and he’s genuinely upset about it, and we’re getting a promo in which he is being open and honest about how he feels about it…Nash says that after his contract ends, he’s going to sign his next contract for fun and not money…Come on, Nash, it’s always for money with you, at least a little bit, as it is for most people who work for a living…He basically says that if the WWF hires Hall, he’ll be glad to jump along with him…Now he shoots on Goldberg by saying that Goldberg was given too much, too soon and is now a political animal and a shithead…Nash: “[Goldberg] doesn’t like the business; he thinks he’s going to be an actor or something”…Nash claims that Goldberg is a backstage monster who took advice from the vets and is now working against them politically…He has nice words for his future TNA commentary partner Booker T., though… Finally, Hudson announces that Kevin Nash will face Goldberg and Scott Steiner in a Triple Threat Match at New Blood Rising, with the winner earning a world title shot at Fall Brawl…Here’s where everything goes off the rails…Vince Russo has his greasy little fingers jammed into this metaphorical pie because Hudson declares that the internet rumblings say that either Goldberg or Scotty Steiner is basically against the finish that’s currently booked for that match…Oh noooooooooo…Nash, who has done an excellent job of cutting a worked shoot promo so far, can’t keep that excellence up because Russo has punctured the thin veil of kayfabe by having Hudson refer directly to what’s on the booking sheet…Nash says that it doesn’t matter who has issues with how the match is booked, the finish is the finish…He implies that he’s booked to win that NBR match as he says this…He says that he’ll shoot beat them up if they don’t go along with the finish and then openly and emphatically states I’M GOING OVER… This interview was reminiscent of the Nitro and Thunder in the week before the Ruschoff reboot in that we got a ton of shoot honesty about the state of the company itself…Like Hulk Hogan in his interviews on that Thunder (show number one hundred and five), Nash is not entirely honest…He elides Hall’s incredibly destructive behavior, most significantly…But the references to booking sheets and finishes and who is determined to go over are more evidence that Vince Russo simply will never understand that worked shoots are only successful when they don’t directly highlight the real-world conventions around booking a card…You can allude to them, as CM Punk did when he talked about all the guys who were held back by Vince McMahon and the stuck-in-a-rut booking of the company…But nowhere in the Pipe Bomb promo did Punk say anything directly about finishes, etc….Hell, Vince McMahon managed to talk about Bret Hart’s creative control clause in the Bret Screwed Bret promo without directly discussing how the sausage gets made or the Hitman’s contract… I think as a fan who finds Punk to be mediocre in general and severely overrated as a talker and a worker, you can still see the gulf in understanding pro wrestling between a mediocre talker like Punk and an all-time-terrible talker like Russo…To be even a mediocre talker in pro wrestling, you still have to understand the conventions of pro wrestling and which ones you can and cannot openly transgress without breaking the seal of plausible believability around your topic…If you’re consistently reminding me that I’m suspending my disbelief, I’m going to stop suspending my disbelief…And then all I have left is a bunch of guys in spandex throwing pulled punches… And there’s still a main event to go!...Jeff Jarrett and Rick Steiner (w/Midajah) wrestle Harlem Heat…The Cat walks onto the ramp after the heels make it to the ring and announces that he’ll be overviewing the proceedings in the interest of fair competition…He then walks over and joins commentary, where Bobby Heenan is effusive in his praise of the commissioner (and therefore his kayfabe boss)…This is a WCW television main event special…The bell rings with six minutes to go on this recording…Midajah goes up top like thirty seconds in…The Cat orders her off the top rope and then handcuffs himself to her… Stevie controls Jarrett inside the ring and then tosses him into the rails outside the ring before grabbing a chair…The Cat pulls the chair away from Stevie, which allows Jarrett the space to sneak up and hit a side Russian leg sweep and take control…Stevie is FIP for a couple of minutes, but he ducks a lariat and hits a counter suplex, then scores a hot tag…Booker lands punches and kicks on Jarrett and Steiner…He hits Jarrett with an axe kick, Spinaroonies up, and then overhead suplexes a charging Steiner before hitting Jarrett with a spinebuster for two…The match breaks down as Stevie brawls with Steiner outside the ring…Booker goes up for a missile dropkick, but Jarrett trips Booker and then tries a superplex….In a weak finish, Booker reaches back and hooks Jarrett’s leg upon landing, which scores three for him…Jarrett immediately KABONGs Booker…He and Steiner stomp Booker out to end the show… This wasn’t a good show at all, but at least Kevin Nash got a little out there with it in his interview segment…Unfortunately at the behest of Vince Russo, he got way the hell too far out there with it by the end…OWWWW…

Show #249 – 18 July 2000 "The one with yet another 2000 WCW title tournament" And we’re back! Let’s march on toward the bitter end of WCW once more. Tonight’s Nitro originally aired live on Tuesday, for those of you interested in such things. Recap: Scott Steiner has lost his everlovin’ mind. Weirdly, Scott Hudson’s narration of this footage refers to Scott Steiner being a complete monster in real life – for example, beating the shit out of DDP and running Kimberly out of the company – as a way to highlight that what he’s been doing as a shoot has spilled over, and now he’s even doing it…um…in kayfabe? Hold up, shouldn’t that work in reverse? For example, as kayfabe-breaking as it would be, it’d make more sense if he were playing an unhinged character on screen, but then he started acting this way for real because he went a bit too Jeremy Strong or Daniel Day Lewis with his method acting. Look, maybe I shouldn’t think about this too deeply. I’ll just chalk it up to Vince Russo fundamentally not understanding how to blur the line between kayfabe and shoot. Outside the arena, Scotty Steiner bashes up a car with a pipe; Stevie Ray, on commentary, indicates that it’s his brother Booker’s new car. Rick Steiner and Midajah finally get through to Scotty and convince him to leave the scene. Holy shit, a Nitro Girls routine in the middle of 2000! Whoever the redhead is, she is spectacular. I have a serious weakness for natural redheads – or bottle redheads who choose shades that look natural enough, a la Christy Hemme, for that matter. Ah, back in the mix with these reviews, a mere three minutes into Nitro, and I already need to settle the fuck down. The Nitro Girls escort the Cat to the ring; Miller is still heeling and still getting boos, at least here in the Detroit area. The Cat announces a tournament for the U.S. Championship. Here are the listed matches for the first round (no visual bracket yet, which makes sense because the Cat is ostensibly only now revealing the tournament participants): Kanyon vs. Mike Awesome; Lance Storm vs. Buff Bagwell; Vampiro vs. The Great Muta (!!!); and Shane Douglas vs. Billy Kidman. Put the belt on the Great Muta. Or, you know, if he still can’t be convinced to live in the U.S. for an extended period, I guess Lance Storm would be an okay backup choice. Storm/Kidman seems like the right matchup for the finals, in all seriousness. The Cat insults the crowd and its collective girth while we cut to the back, where an enraged Scott Steiner tosses around a monitor. Scotty grabs his pipe - uh, literally, not figuratively - and storms toward the ring. The siren hits; the Nitro Girls scatter. Scotty is over as a babyface in Auburn Hills, obviously. Even security runs away rather than help the Cat out. Now, here’s where things go pear-shaped: Scotty demands a world title shot while throttling the Cat. Booker runs in for the save and gets 60/40 cheers and boos because Scott Steiner is in his hometown. That’s not really how you establish a top babyface, now is it? Rick Steiner and Stevie Ray quickly join the fray, and a ton of security mooks floods the ring and separates everyone. The Cat feels safe enough to call Scott Steiner a STUPID BITCH. He even tells Steiner to kiss his ass and then books Scotty against Goldberg. Huh. Sure, I want to see that match go down. Buff Bagwell and his mom Judy are WALKING; notably, Judy’s in a neck brace. Can a match where the best worker in the Bagwell family is hoisted onto a forklift be much farther away? Tony S. has Stevie Ray and Mark Madden as his color partners, with Stevie as the babyface color and Madden as the heel color. They formally open the show when out of nowhere, Jeff Jarrett jumps into the picture, KABONGs Stevie, and grabs a headset to threaten Booker T. and promise that the same will happen to him at New Blood Rising. Rough night for Harlem Heat! And we’re only thirteen minutes into the show! Ah, while help comes for Stevie, we do get a chance see the brackets for the U.S. Championship tournament. Storm and Kidman are on the same side, which seems inopportune. This is a one-night tournament, so we’ll have a new champ by the end of this show. The U.S. Championship has easily been the title that has been booked with the most stability in WCW during the year 2000. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s been well-booked! For one thing, no one who has dropped the U.S. Championship this year has dropped it to someone else and properly put them over. Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner have been stripped of the title in each of their combined three title reigns. Kanyon comes to the ring to face Mike Awesome, but well before the collar-and-elbow tie-up, Buff Bagwell leads his mom Judy to the ring to observe the match over on color. Awesome and Kanyon are working with the turbo button mashed down, so I doubt this goes on for very long. Counters and two-counts abound in this thing as both guys basically trade offense outside of any useful match structure. Fuck your feeling-out process, I guess. Two minutes in, Awesome is doing a dive while Madden yammers on about Awesome being THE FAT CHICK THRILLER, if you wondered how this was going. Awesome lands that dive, sets up a table, and then tries to powerbomb Kanyon off the apron, but Kanyon reverses with a low blow and lands a Kanyon Kutter off the apron and through the table. Kanyon celebrates, then wanders over and taunts Buff, who gets up and attacks him. Kanyon fights off Buff with a low-blow, but Judy attacks and actually gets a few more blows in than Buff did until Kanyon tosses her to the floor. At least this gives Buff time to attack again, roll Kanyon into the ring, and hit a Blockbuster. The ref is attending to mike Awesome and thus misses all of this, by the way. Awesome crawls back into the ring and gets only two on the cover. He and Kanyon trade a couple more counters until Awesome scores an Awesome Bomb for three. A hefty lady tosses her XXXL panties at Awesome after the match. I’m dead. This is me, dead. My soul is leaving my body right now. I’ve come back to the light. I’m still alive. Barely. Here’s Lance Storm ignoring Pam Paulshock as she tries to flirt with him. I’m as dead serious as Storm typically is when I type this: I’M FROM CALGARY…ALBERTA, CANADA is easily my favorite catchphrase in this whole company right now. Buff Bagwell enlists help from his brother John in getting their mother Judy safely to their car. M.I. Smooth cuts a deal with a hurting Chris Kanyon in the back. I assume that the car that Judy is loaded into won’t be too safe. Buff Bagwell turns right back around to wrestle Lance Storm for a spot in the semifinals of the U.S. Championship tournament. Before the match, Storm tries to justify his quickie heel turn by saying that Americans caused it due to their extremely rude dismissal of “O Canada.” Storm delights in Canada’s metrics w/r/t quality of life in comparison to the United States. Ah, as “O Canada” plays, let us indeed remember a time when half of Canada didn’t cross the border to buy up all the milk at the nearest American Costco. Scumbag Buff jumps Storm during the playing of the national anthem and mows him down. He hits a crappy double-arm DDT that looks better than usual because of how Storm bumps for it, and he then signals for a Blockbuster. Then, WCW makes sure not to put Storm over at all by having Buff lose only because he is distracted when he spots a TurnerTron video of M.I. Smooth telling John Bagwell that Buff needs help in the ring; Smooth coerces Buff’s bro into letting him load Judy into the car. Storm rolls through on a rattled Buff and locks in a Canadian Maple Leaf Crab for the quick submission. Buff hurriedly limps away to check on his mom; at least he sold the damage from Storm's finish! Ooh, is this Ms. Jones? I didn’t remember her starting out as a Nitro Girl. The Cat tries to seduce her, but is jumped mid-seduction by the Jung Dragons. A revived Stevie Ray storms into the office to ask for a favor and tries to kill the Dragons as a bit of help to the commissioner, but the Cat stops him and reiterates that the Dragons are his buddies; then, he agrees to honor the request of the angered Stevie for a match against Jeff Jarrett. Stevie leaves and the Cat re-starts the battle against the Dragons, deepening an oddball relationship between them that is strangely heartwarming somehow. We see the rest of the TurnerTron video from a couple segments ago after a break; Kanyon comes up to Judy as she struggles into the front seat of the car. He rips off her neck brace, hooks her, and conveniently yanks her off screen before (theoretically) landing a Kanyon Kutter. In real time, Buff checks on his downed mother in the parking lot. Midajah tries to calm an agitated Scott Steiner down in the backstage area. She fails. Steiner orders her to leave while he waits on Goldberg’s arrival, pipe in hand. Alright, let’s hit the mute button and queue up THE GREEEEEEEEEEAT MUUUUUUUTAAA’s theme from back in his JCP days. That theme is rad. Muta should have won the U.S. Championship about ten or eleven years before this Nitro originally aired, but whatever. Tony S. shows clips of Muta wrestling Sting and the Steiner Brothers in Japan from the early ‘90s to catch up any new viewers on why Muta rules, even during the later stages of his career when he’s sometimes boring and lazy and considering that has no cartilage in his knees. Muta wrestles Vampiro, who is backed up by the KISS Demon and the Insane Clown Posse. Sure, why the fuck not? This Nitro has the randomness of one of those bleak post-Russo, pre-Russo Nitros from earlier in the year. Muta, outnumbered, readies his secret poison gland in his throat. This match is also nonsensical, but Tony S. plants a few seeds by noting that Vampiro idolizes Muta. Vamp jumps Muta after Muta clears out Vamp’s backup and spits green mist into the air. Vamp controls until he misses a twisting corkscrew splash from the top. Muta lands a corkscrew elbow and then lands offense, hmm, let’s call it “methodically.” He’s methodical about it. Muta suuuuuuure is focused on his method! While that happens, Tony S. lets us know that the Cat is the referee for Steiner/Goldberg. Muta misses a handspring elbow and stumbles into a uranage for two. Vamp tries to follow up with a kick, but whiffs on the first one and gets caught and Dragon Screw’d on the second one. The Demon gets on the apron, but gets knocked right down; Vamp tries to advance, but Muta hits a rana (sorry, Scotty Steiner, but it was a flip directly into a pinning combination) for two. Muta quickly follows up with a moonsault for three; a frustrated Vampiro attacks the Demon for being totally fucking useless after the match. I really wish that Lance Storm was on Muta’s side of the bracket right about now. Norman Smiley and Ralphus walk through the door that Scott Steiner is sitting in front of, so Scotty destroys them with the pipe just for the heck of it. Shane Douglas (w/Torrie Wilson) wrestles Billy Kidman in our final first-round U.S. Championship tournament match. Tony S. calls Torrie Kidman’s former “lady friend,” which I find pretty charming, actually. It’s like when your grandma introduces your girlfriend in high school to other people. Douglas insists on cutting a promo before the match, but I simply do. Not. Care. Douglas is like, HEY KIDMAN, I MIGHT NOT BE IN SHAPE FOR OUR BOUT BECAUSE I’VE USED UP ALL MY ENERGY HAVING SEX WITH YOUR EX-GIRLFRIEND, BWAHAHAHA, REMEMBER WHEN SHE WAS YOUR GIRL BUT YOU LOST HER BECAUSE YOU GOT BEAT UP BY HULK HOGAN ABOUT FIFTY BILLION TIMES ACROSS A THREE-MONTH PERIOD AND SHE TOTES LOST ATTRACTION TO YOU AS A RESULT? What I typed was both the gist of the thing and also better than what Douglas actually said, trust me. Look, you all know my distaste for Torrie Wilson, but I still must emphasize it because now she starts talking in her annoying, nasal tone. So many dudes loved her back in the day, and I guess I get it from an objective viewpoint, but she has got to be, in my personal estimation, the least attractive valet that everyone else loves in the history of pro wrestling. I don’t think it’s even close. She says basically BILLY, OH BILLY BOY, I FAKED ALL MY ORGASMS. IF YOU LISTED OUT EACH ORGASM I HAD WITH YOU, I’D TELL YOU THEY WERE ALL FAKE JUST LIKE ELAINE BENES DID TO JERRY SEINFELD IN THAT ONE EPISODE. USUALLY, I WAS THINKING OF HAVING ANAL SEX WITH SHANE DOUGLAS WHILE I FAKED MY ORGASMS, JUST IN CASE YOU WERE CURIOUS. You might think my paraphrase is uncalled for and gross, but look, she said that she was thinking of, and I quote, “getting my ass Franchised!” I simply report the news; I don’t make it. Anyway, what I wrote was the gist and also better, etc., etc. Douglas jumps Kidman upon Kidman’s entry into the ring; Kidman turns it around as the action spills to ringside, but he is distracted by Torrie and Douglas manages to atomic drop Kidman crotch-first into the post. The match re-enters the ring, where Kidman takes over again. As Torrie grabs a chair, Kidman hits a top-rope Frankensteiner, then follows up with a headscissors takeover and a shitty-looking diving splash spot that is someone’s fault. Kidman runs the ropes, but Torrie trips him and Douglas hooks him for a Pittsburgh Plunge that only gets two. Torrie gets back on the apron; Kidman runs Douglas into her and then rolls the Franchise up for two. They run the ropes again, where Douglas pushes Kidman forward; Torrie is holding that chair up that she grabbed, and Kidman crashes into it headfirst. He kicks out of the resulting cover at two, though. These two manage an awful-looking spot where Kidman counters a press slam with a bulldog. Please end this match. Douglas hits a Franchiser shortly after that gets three. Thank you. Torrie slaps a down-and-out Kidman after the match. Guess who’s showed up to the arena?! Three Count, holding a ladder. Oh yeah, and also Goldberg. After the break, we see Goldberg greeting some dudes outside the arena; we cut to Steiner waiting in front of the door while holding a pipe. Tank Abbott is in the ring; he declares that N’Sync is in Detroit and playing to an empty house because everyone is in Auburn Hills to see Three Count. Abbott then dances his way over to Penzer and shakes his moneymaker in front of him while Penzer attempts to not bust out laughing. What the fuck? Who was the mad genius who figured out how to unlock Tank Abbott’s charisma, insofar as Tank has any? Give that person a whole ton of credit. We see Three Count’s gold record hanging from the rafters as Three Count sets up the ladder and dances in front of it. Tank is entirely off the beat while he shimmies in his spot down on the floor. Jamie Noble sneaks into the ring, climbs the ladder, and tries to get the record, but Three Count catches him. The Dragons and Three Count brawl; the ladder topples over and Karagias and Noble hang themselves up on the top rope. Helms superkicks Kaz while Abbott joins commentary and Mark Madden begs for his personal safety. We head back to the ring, where these fellas have a total car crash of a match, though I didn’t expect it to be a full-on match since they’re wrestling on PPV. Noble lands a superplex off the ladder as it lays across the top rope; everyone except Karagias follows with dives. Karagias puts the ladder on his neck and spins around. He clears out everyone in the ring, friend and foe alike, and then opens the ladder and climbs it. Tank leaves commentary to prepare for his victory celebration in his dancing square, but Yang and Kaz shove the ladder over and Tank can’t do much to catch Kaz as Kaz lands just short of him. Noble climbs the ladder and takes possession of the record while Karagias sells what could be a shoot ankle injury on the floor. Backstage, Scotty Steiner swings his pipe as Goldberg enters, but Goldberg ducks it and batters Scotty. They brawl back and forth, ignoring security, until actual pro wrestlers have to come out to break things up. WCW’s booking committee really should have just crowned Scotty in the past month or two. Booker comes off like an afterthought as world champ with this booking. Book is getting DDP’d right now. Or, you know, they could treat Booker better. That would be nice. Backstage after the break, Rick Steiner tries to calm his nutbar brother down. Mike Awesome is back in the ring for his semifinal matchup against Muta. This is a very short match, which makes me more certain than ever that Vince Russo is exerting more and more pressure on the booking. There’s an obligabrawl that wanders over to the commentary desk and freaks Madden out. Madden gets a faceful of green mist eventually. Wait, what does green-colored mist do? It just burns, right? Madden is wearing sunglasses, so he avoids the brunt of the damage. Back in the ring, Muta lands an okay-ish missile dropkick and then a top-rope Frankensteiner. He tries a very slow corner charge to press his advantage, but Awesome has what feels like an eternity to stick a boot up. He follows with an Awesome Bomb for three. Madden leaves the desk to change his shirt. Buff attacks M.I. Smooth backstage, but Kanyon enters the fray and bails Smooth out; they beat down Bagwell into the break. Out of the break, Mark Madden asks Kwee Wee for a little help getting the mist stain out of his shirt. Paisley bursts into their conversation and tries to awkwardly flirt with Kwee Wee, but The Artist quickly shows up and drags her away. Oh great, it’s Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson! I sure do love this act! Hopefully, Lance Storm will get them the fuck off my screen for the rest of the night after this match. While the former duo make their way to the ring, production fucks up and shows an image of Scott Steiner’s interview with a bodybuilding mag while Tony S. promotes a totally different WCW Magazine feature; Tony shares that production told him one thing and showed another, thereby cutting the promo itself short. He only once mentions the name of the bodybuilding magazine with the Scott Steiner feature. Never change, WCW. Let’s see if Storm can drag something decent out of Douglas in a short space. They quickly dive out to the floor and start an obligabrawl; Torrie manages to swing it in favor of Douglas by jumping on Storm’s back. Douglas takes it to the ring, where he gets two on a top-rope crossbody. Storm makes a comeback, slaps his knees on a dropkick, *sigh*, and is cut off by a clothesline and an emphatic CANADA SUCKS on the part of Douglas. Douglas lands two rolling verticals and a Falcon Arrow (!!) for two. Douglas shoots Storm in and doesn’t catch him with a lariat, but manages a powerslam for two. We cut to Kidman on the stage, seated, eating popcorn, and watching the match. The distraction allows Storm an opening to attack Douglas’s knee. Storm hits a superkick for a solid 2.9 from Douglas. Douglas tries a Pittsburgh Plunge and can’t get Storm up because of the knee damage; he manages a belly-to-belly suplex, but takes time to cover because his knee is hurt and only gets 2.8. Douglas tries another suplex, but Storm leverages it back into a small package for two – remember the knee damage - that gets reversed for two. The knee damage also comes into play on the finish, when Douglas is shot into the corner and leaps over a charging Storm, but doesn’t have the leg strength to yank Storm back into a roll-up. Storm plants himself, grabs Douglas’s injured leg, and flips Douglas into a Canadian Maple Leaf Half-Crab; he uses the nearby ropes for leverage to speed Douglas’s inevitable tap-out along. So the answer was a yes; Storm did drag Douglas to something pretty good. After the match, Kidman rushes the ring, dumps an injured Douglas to the floor, and drags Torrie over to the chair that he was sitting in at the top of the ramp. He sits in it and teases *sigh* a spanking, but Lance Storm still has beef with Kidman and attacks before Kidman can do anything. Lance Storm, our conquering babyface hero! Kidman dropkicks the chair into Storm’s face while Torrie escapes. Rick Steiner and Midajah confer in a backstage area. What may these two nefarious beings be plotting? If it’s a Rick Steiner-devised plan, probably something incoherent because Ricky’s a dolt. Stevie Ray, walking backstage before the break, heads to the ring after the break for his match with Jeff Jarrett. Tony S. promotes a Sting/KISS Demon match for New Blood Rising. Douglas/Kidman and a Four Corners Tag Title Match are also on the card. Just put the gold on Jindrak and O’Haire, please. Stevie and Jarrett go at it immediately. Jarrett is also good enough to manage something decent here with Stevie as his opponent, and as it turns out, they have a pretty good brawl! Unfortunately, it’s really short and has my least favorite transition in it. Stevie manages to win an obligabrawl and then regain control back in the ring, where he lands a spinebuster and a Slapjack. Charles Robinson doesn’t count to even one on the cover, though, as Rick Steiner draws his attention at one corner while Midajah dives onto Stevie from the other side. Jarrett follows with a Stroke for three. Booker makes the save to dead silence post-match. OK, I remember Booker T. being a credible and over babyface champion by this company’s demise. So, uh, when does that happen? Scott Steiner tosses a chair around a locker room while yelling invective about Goldberg. Meanwhile, Goldberg calmly stretches in his own locker room. That’s how you know who the biggest killer is. The killer yelling like a lunatic is dangerous, but the killer calmly stretching so that he doesn’t tweak a calf while he destroys you is even more dangerous. Lance Storm meets Mike Awesome in the finals of this U.S. Championship tournament. Storm grabs a mic and tells the fans that they have one more chance to respect both him and Canada as a whole before he wins the title and re-christens it as the WCW Canadian Championship. Awesome cuts in halfway through the playing of “O Canada” and declares TURN THAT SHIT OFF OR I’M GONNA COME OVER THERE AND TURN IT OFF MYSELF. Total heel move. Doesn’t Awesome end up as part of Team Canada by the end? See, he’ll eventually appreciate what is one of the best national anthems around! Storm and Awesome brawl outside the ring; Awesome uses a chair, and he dumps it in the ring before embarking upon my least favorite transition, though at least Awesome's delay to toss a weapon in the ring, combined with the kayfabe danger of said weapon, made this instance of my least favorite transition slightly less objectionable than it normally is. Storm controls in the ring with a bunch of nice looking moves. Storm’s low-end offense is what makes him so fun to watch, I think. He drops a couple of elbows that are more aesthetically pleasing than most of his high-end stuff. Awesome gets a counter powerbomb off a Storm rana attempt, then after a couple of two counts, he goes up for a top-rope splash and eats knees. Storm, after successfully playing possum, quickly gets up and tries a tornado DDT that is a weird botched spot because Awesome keeps standing when he should fall; Storm sells it as though he took the damage from the spot even though Awesome simply fell a good two or three seconds after he should have. Anyway, they fight over a move on the top rope, and Storm manages a superplex for 2.8. Awesome soon lands a counter belly-to-belly, but when he tries an Awesome Bomb, Storm flips out, grabs Awesome’s leg, and rolls through into a Canadian Maple Leaf Half-Crab for the submission and the WCW United States Canadian Championship. WCW United States Canadian Championship title change count: 6 (Jarrett > VACANT > Jarrett > VACANT > Scott Steiner > VACANT > Lance Storm) A couple of plus-sized ladies help Awesome to his feet after the match. This is well before the days of Ashley Graham or like a solid twenty-five, maybe thirty percent of the professional porn stars that people fap to, so we all have to pretend that there are no conventionally attractive plus-sized ladies on earth to make this extremely dumb gimmick work. I mean, we also have to make the idea that someone might be attracted to the average plus-sized lady an absurdity rather than a consistent and normal feature of reality, but that part's obvious. The Cat, dressed in overalls with no shirt like he’s a member of a mid-‘90s R&B group, knocks on Booker T.’s door while holding a referee’s shirt. Here’s the Cat, wearing that ref’s shirt, walking down the ramp. He stops to hold up a sign that declares that one should use 1-800-COLLECT if they desperately need to call their mamas, which is some adept sponsor shilling on his part. Booker T.’s music plays; Booker walks to the ringside area in street clothes and eventually joins commentary. Production gets the Ironman Scott Steiner feature up and properly shilled by Tony S. while Scotty and Goldberg make their way to the ring. Tony S. tries and fails to get an answer from Book about what the Cat met with him about; well, he’s no Mike Tenay, is he? Steiner backs Goldberg into the corner with knees, then shoots him in and lands a lariat. Steiner presses his luck with another whip and a duckdown, and Goldberg clobbers him and hits his front chancery suplex. Goldberg goes for a spear; Steiner moves and, though Goldberg stops himself before a crash into the post, is able to hook Goldberg in an overhead suplex. Steiner even has the moxie to do pushups instead of pursuing his advantage after the suplex. Goldberg takes over with a shoulderblock on another rope run and then hits a press into a powerslam, which is a spot that unequivocally rules. That and Davey Boy Smith’s military press spot are my two favorite press spots in wrestling. Anyway, these dudes throw bombs at one another until Steiner manages a belly-to-belly and then a Steiner Recliner. That last move is still illegal, so the Cat exhorts Scotty to break the hold. Scotty does, but only so that he can punch the Cat in the face. Booker checks on the Cat outside the ring while Scotty issues a totally calm and level-headed challenge to Book from inside the ring. Booker accepts said challenge; he ends up trying to leap a Goldberg spear that hits Scotty, but Goldberg clips him. He sells the impact to his knee, then works some feeling back into it so he can land a Houston Side Kick on Goldberg. Book stands alone, or at least until a beer-chugging Kevin Nash walks down to the ring and hits both Goldberg and Scott Steiner with Jackknifes. Nash and Book have a little face-off before Nash walks away triumphantly. Well lookie here, Book’s got a few legit challengers for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship! Now to, you know, build him as a guy who can maybe beat those challengers! 1.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Maybe a hot take only to the DVDVR/PWO crowd, but I've come back around on Angle and consider him a great worker. Angle's in-ring work signals basically that he's wrestling's Bo Jackson, such an absurd athlete who can do whatever he wants whenever he wants to his opponent. On that note, I find it wholly appropriate that he works like he's virtual Bo in Tecmo Super Bowl, doing the wrestling equivalent of running the length of the field three times before scoring. It's fun to marvel at this legit Olympic gold medalist going HAM in the ring at every opportunity. Through no fault of his own, he influenced a bunch of guys who are decidedly not Bo Jackson- or Kurt Angle-like to mimic him without understanding what made him special.

The Mona Lisa is rad. If you're with someone in a wheelchair, they let you get up close. Edit: The Muse d'Orsay is the better overall Parisian museum, though.

Peacock has the archives until 2026, and I should be done by the summer of this year. We'll be fine and won't need a kind benefactor who is smart enough to leave the Surge promos in his recordings.

Mick Foley's argument that, as a traditional Barnum and Bailey show will have acrobats, lion tamers, clowns, etc., so that every attendee will like at least one of the acts they see is my biggest complaint about modern wrestling shows. If almost everyone is trying to have a fiver-star match, that's a major issue. If almost everyone is trying to have the same type of five star match because they are beholden to someone's extremely narrow view of what makes good wrestling - whether Papa H's or Dave Meltzer's - that's the slow death of the art form, IMO.

Initially, I read the text above the video as Lash LeRoux and was confused for a good five seconds as the video began.

I started playing video games in the mid-late '80s, so for me, a highly-polished, high-budget mascot platformer good enough to be in the G.O.A.T. platformer conversation is enough. I 100%'d the game twice in a row and cleared the speed run DLC. I will fire up the holiday level when I have access to my PS5 again. If that doesn't even remotely describe you, then no, this game is not worth getting a PS5 for, IMO.

I'm not either, but I was never a strong focus of the demo when I was young and in the demo, much less now. My next hot take is that the Fantastics and Fabs are clearly better tag teams than the Rock 'n Rolls with the asterisk that I will be focusing on the Rock 'n Rolls' SMW run next year to see how it bolsters their case.

Astro Bot is also my GotY. Astro and Balatro winning so much this year pretty much fit with my perspective on games in 2024.

Even if I didn't think this was a good match, and I do, it would get nowhere near a list of the very worst things in 1997 WCW. The tape says that this isn't true; crowds were very behind Disco Inferno, fighting babyface.

Aw, Palumbo ended up being serviceable by the time he tagged with Billy Gunn, at least. As for Stamboli, the guy did win me over by ripping his undercarriage in half and struggling through the rest of his match with Terry Funk, so there's that!

I think Madden is still on Nitro. Nitro is Schiavone/Hudson/Madden. Thunder was Schiavone/Heenan/Tenay. Maybe Stevie is replacing Tenay on Thunder? Madden hangs on in the company until December. EDIT: Just on the off-chance that anyone cares, I'll be unable to review and post until after Christmas. I should be back before the new year on around the 28th or 29th. This year's "can't watch late-stage WCW, but still want to write about it" project while I'm gone will be continuing to build out my listing of all the Nitros and Thunders watched with original date of airing, title that I gave each episode review, and number of Stinger Splashes or WOO/OWW rating, as well as a tier ranking for all the PPVs from this era.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and eighteen – 12 July 2000 "The WCW Gang adds Stevie Ray on color and has me legit enjoying their commentary for the first time since Dusty Rhodes was part of three-man booths on WCW PPVs" With no more Hog/Road Wild PPVs in August, let’s Thunderrrrrrrrrrrr toward the sole New Blood Rising show… Recap: There’s a “we tried our best, but WCW production might have caused some of this show to be lost” warning before we review the scrambled WCW World Heavyweight Championship scene…Also, Muta was there…And Lance Storm was suddenly a heel… Kanyon laments his loss of a world title shot on Nitro, but M.I. Smooth whispers an idea into his ear that gives him a bit of hope… After the title card, we join Tony S. and Bobby Heenan at the desk…Mike Tenay is not here because he was kayfabe annihilated by Scott Steiner while conducting a pre-taped interview with him…We’ll see how Tenay set Scotty off later on this show… Three Count and Tank Abbott open the show…I’ll tell you who is wrestling after he gets done complaining about the Jung Dragons backjumping his favorite band on Nitro…Tank threatens the Dragons and Muta and tells them that he’ll be watching the stage with his back to the ring to make sure they don’t interfere…Well, there are a couple of problems with that…For one, the Jung Dragons attacked from the crowd, not down the aisle…Second, he’s now told them that this strategy will work again…I think Tank’s a kayfabe moron, which means that Stasiak and Palumbo are kayfabe super-morons for not being able to outsmart him… Tank dances on his square while the Dragons once again attack from the crowd…Tank finally turns around and is clobbered by an onrushing Muta…I think this is an eight-man tag like something out of a fever dream…Get this: The Great Muta and the Jung Dragons vs. Tank Abbott and Three Count…Only WCW would book a match like this…God, I miss this company so much…This is a fun little opener…There are a number of double- and triple-team moves…Muta comes in and hits Dragon Screws on all the Three Count members, but Tank blocks a misting with a dance circle, hammers Muta in the back as Muta walks away, then lands a right on a leaping Yang…Helms covers for three…Tank dances back down the aisle as Three Count recover in the ring…This wasn’t good, but it was weird…Why did Muta just turn around and wander away from Tank after Tank blocked the mist?...You know what, let’s not think too hard about this…It happened, and for that, I am grateful… Kanyon asks the Cat for a match against Jeff Jarrett…The Cat says that he’s booked Jarrett against Buff Bagwell, but Buff is always late to the show anyway – I see we’re SHOOTIN’- and then agrees to replace Buff with Kanyon if Kanyon will donate to him a signed copy of his book. General Rection huddles with the M.I.A. and lays out his squad’s matches tonight: Private Stash versus the Demon and…Oops, The Perfect Event walks in and takes out everyone but Gunns and Stash (the latter of whom has already left to prep for his match) with Lex Flexers…Gunns takes a flex bar, hits Palumbo in the nads with it, and then kicks a laughing Stasiak in the berries as well… It’s STEVIE RAY sliding into Tenay’s spot on color!...Have I mentioned how much I like WCW again?...A tiny STEVIE RAY chant starts up behind him…Stevie puts over Booker’s accomplishments at the desk…He blows off his most recent heel turn on Booker by saying that Booker’s title win made him realize that he was being a dick, man, and he really should be nicer and more supportive toward his brother… Vampiro has the KISS Demon in thrall…Vampiro’s shirt says something in French on the back…I think it’s Conformity is the death of the [???]…I can’t see that last word…Wait, it’s Ame…I’m going to guess that it means soul…Yep, Google tells me it means soul…Conformity is the death of the soul is the edgelord sort of thing that someone conforming to broad cultural ideas about how to be radically different would say…We’re back to super-short matches so far on Thunder…This one goes ninety seconds and ends when Stash leaps into a uranage (that Tony S. calls a Cobra Clutch Slam) for three…After the match, we cut to the catwalk, where a guy in a mask who we’ll just go ahead and stipulate is Sting points a bat at Vamp and the Demon… Lance Storm is from CALGARY…ALBERTA, CANADA, and therefore he does not tell jokes, as he explains to Billy Kidman backstage…They walk toward the ring, and Positively Kanyon hits a Kanyon Kutter on a random PA in the background…BANGGGGGGG…I don’t think he hit a random Kanyon Kutter on the previous Nitro, so I relaxed a bit and didn’t expect one there… Ms. Hancock has David Flair dressed in a suit that matches her suit’s colors…Dopey Dave doesn’t like it and wants to go back to wearing his Nitro Grill t-shirt and ratty jeans…But of course, he’ll sublimate his desires just to keep Hancock around… Billy Kidman is annoyed when his tag partner Lance Storm demands that “O Canada” is played…Stevie Ray: “Now this sucka gotta be crazy”…Kidman takes out a paper and reads it, gives Storm bunny ears, and dances around in the back like a disrespectful prick…Storm should beat this dude’s ass when the anthem ends...However, he just rushes opponents Jindrak and O’Haire…The rookies make a comeback, send Kidman to the floor, and land a dropkick on Storm… Stevie Ray is already the best color commentator in the company merely by doing the basic work that a color commentator should…He notes that Paul Orndorff must have given these stand-out students special attention because they don’t wrestle like rookies…Then, he gives them his stamp of approval from the perspective of a multi-titled tag team specialist…Wow, one guy got Orndorff, the Power Plant, O’Haire, Jindrak, and himself over in a couple of sentences…Are color commentators allowed to do that sort of thing?...Stevie analyzes this very short match like a legit color guy…He’s impressed when Jindrak and O’Haire overcome their inexperience to whip Kidman into Storm…O’Haire follows up with a Seanton Bomb for three…Storm superkicks Kidman’s stupid ass after the match, then tells the camera HE’S NOT FROM CALGARY…ALBERTA, CANADA…That’s as good a reason as any to superkick a guy, I guess… In a backstage area, Vampiro mumbles some nonsense to the Demon before threatening to rip Sting’s mask off his face on the upcoming Nitro… In his interview with Gene Okerlund, Vito declares himself the fightinest of fightin’ hardcore champs…We cut to Hancock and Dopey Dave elsewhere in the backstage area as Vito talks about all the dudes he beat…Hancock wants Dave to get her some gold, so Dave busts in on Vito’s interview and attacks the champ in the midst of the interview…Smashy smashy smashy…Trashy trashy trashy… Dave’s surprise attack gives him a considerable advantage, as he dominates all the way into the aisle before Vito is able to get his druthers and mount a comeback…Dave takes shortcuts and wrestles like his life (or maybe three minutes of disappointing sex for Ms. Hancock) depends on it…Speaking of Hancock, she angrily marches to ringside as the match is now eligible to reach a decision…Vito lands a Savage Elbow, but instead of covering, he celebrates and then smooches Hancock…Hancock bites Vito’s lip to get away…Vito hits his cone-assisted taint ripper spot on Dopey Dave…The hardcore champ sets up a table in the center of the ring…Wait, no, it’s broke…Vito still manages a Paisan Plunge through it and retains his title… The Cat chatters to someone James Brown (supposedly) on the phone, but Jeff Jarrett cuts in and says that he’s not working this show…A pissed off Cat tells him that no, actually, Buff’s not here, but Kanyon is now his opponent…Further, if Jarrett loses this match, he loses his title shot at New Blood Rising…Jarrett is aggy about this change in plans, but what did he expect?...He keeps antagonizing an equally vindictive guy who has matchmaking power… Earlier today, after The Perfect Event finishes practicing their new pose down routine in the ring, Kanyon’s stupid ass runs into the ring, Kanyon Kuts a tech, and then runs all the way up to the hard cam and yells BANGGGGG because this guy is fucking dumb in the best of ways… Speaking of The Perfect Event, they do their pose down business…Stevie is the embodiment of the JudgeJudypointingatherwatch,gif about it…Is this match happening in the vacuum of space, or is that just total silence for two guys who suck?...General Rection and Corporal Cajun (w/Major Gunns) are their opponents…There’s a lot of pace in this match…One thing I have to give TPE is that they can go at pace when need be…Stevie Ray goes off on Stasiak for posing instead of pinning someone, especially because he should know better as a second-generation wrestler…Stasiak and Cajun fall over, which sparks a Rection hot tag…I think Cajun raked Stasiak’s eyes while in press slam position, but the camera missed the counter… Stasiak and Palumbo get rid of Cajun and get to work on Rection…Rection counters with a double DDT, can’t get a tag, and endures a bit more punishment before landing a powerslam and getting a hot tag to Cajujn…Cajun enters the ring with a missile dropkick on Palumbo and gets two on a follow-up Bourbon Street Blues…Cajun manages a Whiplash 2000, but Stasiak makes the save on the pinfall attempt… Cajun is able to dispose of Stasiak with a headscissors, then drops Palumbo with a vertical suplex so that Rection can land a Savage Elbow for two….Rection goes back up and lands a No Laughing Matter, but Stasiak cracks the ref with the flex bar…Cajun comes in and takes it from him, but the ref turns around and accuses Cajun of having hit him and awards the match to TPE…Weak finish, but solid match… Booker T. steps out of an elevator before the break, and he joins us in the ring after it…Booker cuts a babyface promo on Jeff Jarrett…Mike Awesome views the promo on a monitor in the back…Book is not a fan of Jarrett’s shitty attitude and promises to do whatever he must to retain the big gold…He also declares himself a fighting champion who will actually defend the title unlike some orange fuckboi balding veterans who need not be named…Finally, he threatens Scott Steiner’s life for intimidating his wife on Monday…SAVE THE DRAMA FOR YA MAMA and DON’T HATE THE PLAYER, HATE THE GAME both seem moderately over with this crowd, somehow…A small contingent actually finished the second of those catchphrases themselves…Huh… Rick Steiner interrupts Booker’s interview…He pretends to think that Scotty Steiner’s actions on Monday were over the line…Now, if Booker thinks back a little over a year ago, he’ll remember that Rick Steiner pretended to be upset about Booker being in cahoots with Stevie Ray to keep the TV title before turning out to be in cahoots with his brother Scott so that he could win the TV title…Booker in fact does remember this and is reluctant to shake the guy’s hand….Rick’s NO SHIT, BOOK convinces him to reluctantly shake his hand…Rick Steiner makes to leave the ring before jumping Booker…Stevie Ray can’t take this and jumps in the ring, but Dellinger and his mooks swarm Stevie and just let Rick Steiner take Book’s belt and attack Booker with a chair…Mike Awesome shoots down the ramp and makes the save…After Awesome returns the belt to Booker, Booker and Awesome shake hands… Daffney, in a Stuck Mojo shirt (which doubles as a nice callback), asks Crowbar if she looks fat while wearing it…Crowbar assures her that she looks great, then silently berates himself for not explaining that she looks great in anything or nothing because she’s the most beautiful girl in the world…I mean, that’s the face he made…We cut to Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson, their opponents, prepping for the match, but I didn’t catch what they said because I was too busy rooting for Crowbar to figure out the right time to shoot his shot considering that Daffney just broke an engagement… The Cat cuts Billy Kidman off and warns him against interfering in the mixed tag match…The Cat insulting Billy Kidman’s relationship abilities is hilarious…“You couldn’t handle a girl like that anyway; I thought about taking her myself”…The Cat says that if Kidman doesn’t interfere in the bout, he can have a match against Lance Storm…Wait, he says it like this: “If you stay out of this match, you get Lance Storm; if you interfere, you get my foot”…Commissioner Cat is delightful… Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson face Crowbar and Daffney…The Franchise and Torrie do some annoying mic work before the match…Crowbar and Daffney rush the ring while Tony S. tells Stevie Ray, who has returned to his spot at the desk, that he was supposed to be cool about Rick Steiner jumping Booker…Stevie: “Tony, where I come from, that was cool”…In the ring, Daffney slaps Torrie…Torrie mouths YOU BITCH, then takes her shoes off, which means that there’s fixing to be a CATFIGHT… Torrie tags Douglas back in after the catfight…Douglas tries to get at Daffney, but she narrowly makes the tag herself…Douglas drops Crowbar and tags Torrie back in…She lands a splash on Crowbar for two, but is cut off from tagging back out…Crowbar tags Daffney back in, but Douglas blindly tags Torrie…Douglas prepares to hit some offense on Daffney, but she pops him in the penis and hits him with a jawbreaker… Crowbar tags back in and dominates…He runs into a back elbow on a corner charge, but is able to land a Mindbender for two…Crowbar and Douglas fuck up a Crowbar flip out of a powerbomb, which is hilarious as Douglas just drops Crowbar flat on his back, then stares down at the guy clearly trying to figure out who fucked this one up…They do the spot again, correctly this time, before Douglas lands a Franchiser for three…He also lands one on an attacking Daffney post-match… Booker T. finds the Cat in the hallway and demands a match against Rick Steiner tonight…The Cat says that he can’t do it because he already gave the match against Rick Steiner to Mike Awesome, who passes by and thanks the Cat for acceding to his request… We get an exterior shot of the arena before Tony S. kicks us to the Scott Steiner/Mike Tenay interview…In the distance of this shot, Kanyon lands a Kanyon Kutter on a random passerby and yells BANGGGGG…Heh heh heh… The interview goes off the rails from the jump...Tenay tries to get info about why Scott Steiner backstabbed Kevin Nash, but Steiner doesn’t give a shit about Nash or Hall for that matter…He exclaims that he fucked Nash over simply because he felt like it…Steiner wants to move past the discussion about Nash, but Tenay is insistent…Steiner is unhinged about Booker T. getting a world title shot when Steiner’s been wrestling for even longer than Book has, then suddenly and randomly starts ranting again about Tenay calling it a HURRACANRANA and not a FRANKENSTEINER…According to Wikipedia, a rana lands the taker on their back, but the Frankensteiner lands them on their head…Or it lands Scotty on his head, like at WrestleMania IX… Tenay tries to reason with this nutbar ‘roidhead, but he gets nowhere…Tenay wants to talk about Goldberg, but Steiner feels that Michigan men are better than Georgia men, and that's all that really needs to be said…Tenay asks Steiner about the fans being on his side, and Steiner really just wants the fans to fuck off…At the point at which Tenay tries to do some amateur psychoanalysis of Steiner, Steiner gets mad and Tenay gets PJ Carlessimo’d…I mean, have you been online and seen people diagnosing other people they’ve never met, or worse, diagnosing their exes?...I don’t condone Scotty choking Tenay for doing that, but I understand… The Cat keeps trying to make a deal to get James Brown back on WCW television, but this time, his phone call is interrupted by the Jung Dragons…They do an absurd comedy martial arts fight scene that the Cat easily wins… Lance Storm is walking back down the ramp, where he is immediately jumped by Billy Kidman…I have to give Stevie some criticism for contradicting Heenan’s claim that everybody is talking about Storm and his debut…I get it…You want to do the babyface thing where you contradict Heenan’s ridiculousness, but doing it there doesn’t help Storm’s mystique as a dangerous new talent…Anyway, Kidman and Storm trade moves at near-max pace…A chair gets wedged between the ropes, and it comes into play when Storm kicks out of a flash pin and sends Kidman head first into the chair…He tries to powerbomb Kidman on the chair, but gets obviously reversed out of it…Storm’s head comes nowhere near the chair, but he jobs to the facebuster anyway…Uh, I think Storm should have won that one… Buff Bagwell finally makes it to the arena…He was driven by his mom Judy!...Holy shit, Kanyon walks up and greets her…Judy, overjoyed: CHRISTOPHER!...Aw, Kanyon’s leading her off to hit her with a Kanyon Kutter…His aside glance to the camera is one of mischievous joy as he leads her away from the car… When we come back from break, Judy’s on the concrete in a neck brace as paramedics and Buff attend to her… Oh no, Rick Steiner insists on doing pre-match mic work before he wrestles Mike Awesome…A portion of the crowd also finishes the YOU DON’T LIKE ME, BITE ME catchphrase…You can get a 2000 wrestling crowd in the United States to sing along with anything…Awesome unloads on Ricky early, so he bails, then pushes the ref into Awesome as a diversion to take control…Steiner lands punches and almost drops Awesome on an Oklahoma Stampede…Ricky scores a series of two counts and gets rattled, barking at the ref instead of following up…This allows Awesome to make a comeback… Awesome goes up top, but he gets caught and super belly-to-belly’d…Steiner makes a delayed cover for two and yaps at the ref some more…Steinerline, complaining, delayed cover, two…Steiner chases the ref out of the ring and gets rolled up from behind for three…Wow, great job at making Mike Awesome look like a threat…Booker T. runs in and makes the save for Awesome…Buff Bagwell could learn something from Booker and Awesome getting each other back on those saves…Steiner bails and grabs a tripod to use as a weapon, but he backs into the commentary desk and is spooked by Stevie standing up…He instead dumps the tripod and takes off… Booker T. joins the desk for the main event match between Jeff Jarrett and Kanyon…Kanyon’s inability to resist Kanyon Kuttering Judy probably has doomed him in this one…Bret Hart still hasn’t been outright fired because he will be in Vancouver, BC when New Blood Rising tickets go on sale…This has got to be the only WCW show to ever be in Vancouver…Or maybe even Western Canada…I found out that Survivor Series was there this year because a couple of Saturday nights ago, the hotel I was staying at was flooded with dudes wearing replica titles and wrestling t-shirts… This is going about seven minutes, so again, it’s worked at a nice pace…Both men trade two counts and counter one another’s moves…Kanyon hits a top-rope Rocker Dropper after cutting off a Jarrett charge with a boot, but he spends time celebrating and doesn’t bother even pinning Jarrett…He wanders out to taunt Booker, and as Harlem Heat points out what a mistake this is on commentary, Jarrett recovers, rolls outside the ring, and instigates an obligabrawl that he easily wins because of Kanyon being distracted…Jarrett then makes the same mistake and is hit in the back with a chair by Kanyon while jawing at Booker…On commentary, Harlem Heat clowns both men for not keeping their focus… Back in the ring, Jarrett and Kanyon continue to counter one another’s moves…Kanyon hits a sit-out spinebuster after blocking a powerbomb, but it only gets two…Kanyon goes for the loaded book, but whiffs on the swing and gets DDT’d onto the book by Jarrett for 2.7…Jarrett goes for the EL KABONG, but the ref takes the guitar away and Kanyon grabs the loaded book and lands a shot for two after Jarrett puts his boot on the ropes… Kanyon knocks Jarrett back to the floor, but Jarrett disposes of Kanyon, then walks over a shoves Stevie and slaps Booker…Stevie punches Jarrett as security floods the desk…It’s a good thing they’re out here because they also are able to grab Buff Bagwell after Bagwell attacks Kanyon…Jarrett weasels away from security and lands a Stroke on a disoriented Kanyon for three…Security keeps Booker from getting in the ring to square off with Jarrett as the show ends…I liked this fuckery-filled finish…It felt appropriately chaotic… Decent wrestling tonight, but I genuinely enjoyed the commentary…I know Stevie will end up going all YAKS and FRUIT BOOTIES, but I love former wrestlers on color talking through the kayfabe logic of the match…It makes a show so much better, and it’s such a small thing for a promoter to add to their shows…WOOOO…