SirSmUgly

I wouldn't make a Lash/Blitz comparison myself. I was underwhelmed by Blitz, but Stefanie put his work in a framework that tells how important he was, and it was her historical contextualization of Blitz's WCW run that settled me on appreciating that run of his. Blitz and Kanyon to me are closer in comp in that they inspired a lot of people who are making a living in the pro wrestling industry today. Lash LeRoux is not even close to that level of influence. I also have a soft spot for Van Hammer and think that Horace is fine in the midcard. They comp like Jerry Flynn to me in that they're not great workers, but they do work hard and try to be interesting. Horace doesn't have to hit suicide dives, but he does it anyway, y'know? I think the real bummers in the midcard are guys like Rick Steiner, Konnan, or Bam Bam Bigelow who are lazy or broken down old vets stealing TV time from people who can be at least a little bit dynamic. Even Hugh Morrus tries, you know what I mean? I can at least give him that. Some of these midcarders wouldn't or couldn't do that much.

I focus on what we agree on, not where we disagree. **does the Mega Powers handshake with you**

I mean, that Joe Hendry song is catchy as fuck. I bet y'all vocally hated the Spice Girls as teenagers while also bobbing your head to "Wannabe" or "Say You'll Be There," two certified bops. (Besides which, his TNA songs about his opps are pretty funny. I do enjoy a good music-based wrestler gimmick, though.)

The Raven/Piper tease is a big one; I have no idea where that was going at all. They didn't even do anything with it but bring Piper back to mix it up with President Flair while Raven wrestled good tag matches alongside Saturn. Smiley/Glacier is a good one. I don't even remember the whole Glacier's helmet thing other than Wrath trying to used the ridged part to gouge out Glacier's eye, which was rad. Bad dubbing La Parka was less a storyline and more an example of Vince Russo being absolutely worthless in creative, IMO. Hugh Morrus's dad came back after like six months! Apparently, between January and July of 2000, Morrus decided that care costs were too high, so he'd bring the old man out on the road with him. At least he had a whole crew to keep watch over the old man (I bet they all made Major Gunns do most of the caretaking). I presume that Morrus's pops keeled over and died and that's why he stopped showing up again. The big Sid one in the NB era is that he came back and turned heel to join Bischoff and the New Blood, then left again and didn't reappear until he was revealed as the challenger to Scott Steiner's world title in late November/early December 2000. That's a really good example. Sid and DiBiase are the obvious answers to the first two you mentioned. I'm going to go back through these and pick out a few more notable ones. There were enough that it's obviously easy to forget them. On another note, if anyone has video of (or knows where to find video of) the full WCW Millennium Final Europe-only PPV, please let me know! I would love to add that show to my queue.

That is super-nice of you to say. I am a heavy fiction reader and have been since I was a child, which I suspect leads to my tendency to recall plot and character beats and to see narrative throughlines that may or may not be there. Mostly, I think WCW accidentally stumbled into the long-term character development that they successfully managed, but it's neat when you can draw those lines from things that happened three or four years prior to how a character is acting in the present. (I also love The Simpsons, but who doesn't?!) Most of these, I'm probably driving into the ground at this point, but I'll list a few: Trending up: Rey Misterio Jr. - He's now my working number one of all time. First of all, to be a great worker - not just a great high-flyer, but a great worker - by the time he was 21 is insane. He's not just pulling off athletic moves, but garnering sympathy, selling with his whole body, and has awesome timing on his comebacks. But beyond that, I think his whole maskless era is vastly underrated by the typical online commentariat. He manages to create what I consider the best short-term tag team of all time with Billy Kidman, teaming with him off and on from 1999 through 2001, and he elevates Kidman's game as a worker enough that Kidman in singles competition is far better by the time he's working with guys like Shane Helms in early 2001 than he was before he started tagging with Rey. Rey even is a pretty good opportunistic swarming heel as part of a heel stable in the Filthy Animals, when he works as pretty much a heel in late '99 under Russo and then as a clear heel in 2000. Rey was legitimately one of the very few reasons to watch WCW at all in 2000. Rey outputting so much awesome work in what might be the worst mainstream company run of all time in WCW '99-'00 is a monumental achievement. Seriously, build that man a statue. And then you add in young AAA Rey, the awesome stuff he did in his brief ECW run, how he adjusted around knee injuries and added bulk to be a great babyface worker in WWE, and his revival stint in LU, and for me, he's the greatest I've ever seen in my life. I don't love number rankings for this sort of thing; if it were up to me, I'd have tiers, and Rey is that S++ tier worker with guys like Terry Funk who were so good for so long in so many different roles and who knew how to adjust to aging and the style of their promotion that at that point, ranking them numerically seems pointless. If I had to rank them numerically, though, Rey's the guy I'd put at the top of the list, whereas before this run, he was maybe in my top ten, but I wouldn't have been sure if he'd have been number one. Raven - We had this conversation earlier, but I think that Raven is the opposite of Shane Douglas. Raven had all the stuff that ECW allowed him to do taken away from him and only got over as a heat-drawing heel leader of a midcard stable who was legitimately over enough that a nudge in his push would have been enough to make him a viable spot-main eventer. Douglas had all of that ECW style support taken away from him and was immediately exposed. Horace Hogan - Yeah, I know, I know, but he always worked hard and could be funny in skits that were meant to be funny (I still chuckle at how Jimmy Hart bullied him into joining the Junkyard Invitational and all he could offer up was an IF THE MONEY'S RIGHT that we all knew didn't mean anything by the way he repeated it). I don't think he's great or all that good, really, but he was actually a fairly useful piece in the midcard, whereas before this roster, I was maybe leaning too much on the online consensus that he was basura. Psicosis - I went from "like a lot" to "love" with this guy. He was legitimately one of the best heel workers on the roster for his tenure and is one of the bigger "they fumbled him badly" guys. Maybe not as badly as they fumbled Chris Jericho's 1998, but on that next tier of bad fumbles (La Parka, Raven) Kevin Greene and Mongo McMichael - If Greene had washed out of pro football and trained to wrestle in the late 1970s/1980s, he would have been a huge territorial star. That is not true of Mongo, but as mediocre and awkward as he was in the ring, he was a fiery promo and he had intensity that I thought translated well. He and Benoit are on my shortlist of favorite short-term tag teams ever. Mongo and Benoit tagging in 1992 - 1994 WCW would have been absolutely beloved by the old school WCW fans. Lex Luger - This is a guy who gets way more hate than he should. I really don't get it. His re-energized 1995 - 1997 run was great from an in-ring standpoint, and then after WCW couldn't figure out how to book him in 1998, he turns heel in 1999 and is quietly one of the few acts that is enjoyable in 1999-2000, largely from a skits and promos standpoint. His act with Liz was pretty funny, and he's got great comedic facial expressions and timing. He stayed useful all the way through his run, and even in late 2000, he did some great promo and segment work to build the Goldberg feud. Chavo Guerrero Jr. - It might be time to re-assess Chavo Jr. as a top-fifty talent of all-time. He's another guy with longevity who was an excellent babyface or heel and who has the additional merit of making things work that really shouldn't or wouldn't have worked with almost any other worker. The only thing he couldn't save through sheer talent and will was the M.I.A., and look, I don't blame him considering who he was working with in that group. But his ability to get stuff like Pepe over one year and then get over being a vicious opportunist after his heel turns on Kidman and Morrus the next year tells you something. And long-term, his WWE run and his excellent work as a fading veteran who was unable to adjust to the nuttiness of the Temple in LU just adds to his case. Someone in the thread long ago said that Chavo Jr.'s biggest sin is not being Eddy, and I think that's a fair point. I'd go one step further and say that Eddy didn't really become Eddy (at least in the United States) until he went up north; Chavo Jr. managed to be great in the middle of death stage WCW. That is an amazing accomplishment. Goldberg - I just saw your post in the general thread about him, so I have great timing placing him here! I agree that he was very much about himself - that's part of what happens when the Hulkster gets in your ear, brother - but I would gently push back on this idea that he had nothing other than intensity. I feel that the internet blows up some of this stuff about his in-ring work; the infamous Regal Nitro match looks more like a legit struggle and less like Goldberg has no idea what's going on in there, honestly. And I'm sorry, but I think the Goldberg/Sid Havoc '98 match is pretty much the epitome of a miracle match. A lot of credit goes to Sid for looking so badass there, but Goldberg did a fantastic job with not only selling intensity, but his post-match facial expressions where a) you can tell that he knows he only got that knockout because he attacked Sid backstage before the match, and b) his sense of growing respect as a wiped out Sid tries to struggle back in the ring and re-engage. That's not a carry job whatsoever. He also had good matches with everyone from DDP to Scott Steiner, and I don't buy that he was some sort of passenger in the ring. He also defied the myth I see online sometimes that he was losing his overness by the end of WCW. Shit, that dude was over with the WWF crowd in Cleveland on the last episode. They sure didn't have any love for WCW until Vince "forgot" to mention GOLDBERG. I feel like he's one of the last true megastars in pro wrestling who wasn't some flash in the pan and was just mad over forever and ever. Sid Vicious - Speaking of, I won't hear any "great presence, shit worker" nonsense about this guy ever again. He was generally watchable with flashes of actual awesomeness as a worker and deserves to be rated that way. He's also a better talker than people give him credit for, and that "half the brain that you do" thing that Sid says was written for him that way (and I believe him) has done too much shaping of what people think of the guy. Fucking RD Reynolds. Jeff Jarrett - His first WCW run so far surpassed my expectations to the point that his second WCW run didn't cause my heightened estimation of him as a worker to lower. I feel that I need to revisit his Double J era at some point to get a better sense of why I found that era so unappealing. On the other hand, I think I already know well enough why I find TNA-era Jarrett unappealing and don't plan to watch that nonsense again anytime soon. Tony Schiavone - Most of the bad work he did was in trying to make sense of the nonsense that WCW put up on the screen and when he was engaged or just having fun with a guy like Stevie Ray on commentary, he was solidly good at his PBP job. Mark Madden - zendragon put it best; he was trying to do an updated Bobby Heenan character for the Attitude/Nitro Era, and I found that he got better at it as he went along and had some pretty great moments. His issue is that he's funny and witty, but not as funny and witty as he thinks he is. Which some people might say about me, come to think of it, but I'd take it because that's better than everyone saying that you're not funny or witty at all, which was my impression of him before this watch. Idling in place: Scott Steiner - I feel that when people talk about WCW Scott Steiner, they remember a) the great tag stuff he did and b) 2000-and-beyond Steiner with the wild promos and Midajah. They forget that for over a year after his heel turn, he was nearly unwatchable as a promo or skit guy at times. Is part of that because he's stuck feuding with his brother for practically a year? Sure. But it's shocking how bad (IMO) that he and Buff Bagwell were as a pair. And then you throw Slick Johnson as nWo ref into the mix? Your chances of enjoying his work drastic go down. That 1998 of his was so bad as he scrabbled to find himself and his new heel character that my expectations about how much I'd love his final WCW run were dampened. Randy Savage - He was great in 1995 and 1996, wasn't my favorite addition to the nWo and had matches with DDP that I found disappointing contrary to their reputation, and he had that bad feud with Hogan during the nWo breakup in early 1998 before turning the corner and finding a way to sort of fit in as the crazy old dude in the Wolfpac. His knees went, and then he came back and was fully entertaining as a crazy old man desperately trying to hold onto his youth with Team Madness. Team Madness, as wonky as some of those promos and sketches got, was a huge plus to television in 1999 by my estimation. Diamond Dallas Page - His stick work never got consistently better outside of one or two awesome promos (the sit-down interview with Mike Tenay after Kanyon and Kimberly cut heel turns on him comes to mind). On the other hand, he went supernova as a worker in April of 1999 and was what I'd consider good enough to be labeled a "great worker" from about 1997 to the end. He's one of those few guys who remained watchable in 2000 (the SuperBrawl triple cage match with Jeff Jarrett was shockingly dope). It might be harsh to leave him idling here becuase my estimation of his in-ring abilities went way up, but his promo work was surprisingly bad even beyond my expectations. Trending down: Vampiro - I went from "don't enjoy" to "full-on dislike and disgust" as a result of his run here and his work in LU. Lash LeRoux - Why did people like this guy so much back in the day? He was young, sure, but so were Elix Skipper and Mike Sanders, and they were actually interesting and useful pieces of the roster as cruisers. Lash sucked in every way. Rick Steiner - The years of him being a good singles wrestler were far behind him by 1998. Heel Rick Steiner is one of the worst workers and talkers that I've ever seen in my life. He was an awful black hole of suck for most of this era. Shane Douglas - See the entry on Raven. Hulk Hogan - Is it piling on? Maybe. But he was even worse than I remember him outside of a short period post heel-turn in 1996 where he seemed reinvigorated. Between July and December of 1996, he was mostly watchable. Before and after that, he had what I would consider the worst run for any established main eventer in the history of televised wrestling in the United States. Eric Bischoff - He went from "okay PBP man, not a great on-screen heel" before my watch to "passable PBP man, one of the worst on-screen heels I've ever seen, and one of the worst babyface color commentators I've ever listened to" after it. WCW used him correctly before he came into power - milquetoast interviewer guy was about right for him on screen until he got to the WWE and became an actual excellent heel authority figure. Scott Hudson - This guy is the fucking worst. He comes off as dumb as a brick on commentary besides being reliant on cliches and generally having nothing going for him other than his voice. That's all I've got for now. I'll probably have more as I continue editing, etc., which I will definitely post when I think of them as I love sharing my opinions even when not asked! I thought that Shane Helms/Chavo Jr. was going to be a great feud, and it wasn't. That was my big one. Other than that, some of this stuff was really that I remembered only moments outside of context that, when added to the full context, made them more fun. Sid and the car stuff, for example, is funny in isolation, but it's really good as a pre-escalation of violence bit of comedy in that whole Goldberg feud. Or Ric Flair turning heel once again as CEO is absurd in isolation, but then you see his excellent character work and also have the added context that his old enemy Eric Bischoff is trying to acquire the company, so he feels he needs to consolidate power, and it all works way better and makes total sense. This is one I need to think about more as well, though. I absolutely love that your question about dropped angles goes unfinished. Perfect. I think I need to go back because some of these angles that got dropped I read as having implied finishes that satisfy me well enough (i.e. Buff impregnating Stacy, getting caught accidentally by a suspicious Billy Kidman who is unhealthily trying to track Torrie Wilson because he thinks Torrie is cheating on him with Buff, and David Flair spoiling the DNA test with contaminated blood so that Buff gets off scot-free; Stacy leaves TV for months, breaks up with David, and terminates the pregnancy before coming back after hooking up with Shawn Stasiak). Gosh, give me some dropped angles that you are thinking of specifically because I wonder if I have rationalized the finishes to most of them through making assumptions based on the way the narrative has been presented so far. This could be false memory, but I think the Monday Night War DVD painted WCW as an upstart company doomed to fail. I should probably watch it again, though - I have it, and it's on Peacock.

WORST FEUDS Good news: There has been no change from the last time that I updated this list!

BEST FEUDS Bad news: There has been no change from the last time that I updated this list.

THE ABSOLUTE DIRT WORST WCW slowing its run of bad matches, angles, and segments to a reasonable crawl for the first three months of 2001 is probably the biggest reason that the shows improved so much from 2000. It is only fitting that the last of those matches, angles, or segments on this list is focused on more McMahon family drama.

HOLY SHIT, THAT WAS DUMB (BUT ENTERTAINING) MOMENTS It was an eclectic group of people who added to this list in '01, and all of them were trying to be funny and dumb at the same time rather than trying to be cool or interesting and failing so miserably that they made me laugh.

Promos, Spots, and Skits that Aren’t Quite HOLY SHIT MOMENTS that Are Worth Watching/Adding to Your Playlist Ric Flair is responsible for driving most of the 2001 additions on this list as well. He nailed his heel CEO role.

HOLY SHIT, THAT WAS CLASSIC Promos, Spots, and Skits Ric Flair is responsible for 2001's only addition to this list, which seems about right.

Charming Uniquities On the other hand, the shrunk-down roster meant fewer WCW-ass WCW matchups and fewer matches that fit this list as WCW died, which is a shame.

Very Good (and Sometimes Pretty Great) TV and PPV Matches that Make Entertaining Candidates for a Nitro-era Playlist on YouTube The cruiserweights drove this list in 2001 and were absolutely the primary driver in general behind WCW's dying days shows being thought of fondly.

SmUgs’s Standouts – My Favorite Matches This company managed to double its output on this list from what 2000 was able to do in only three months! Also, the Cat and Buff Bagwell managed to sneak their way onto this list somehow. WCW in 2001 was sorta magical, at least sometimes.

Actually, I suppose it's not entirely over yet. I will be backfilling reviews for the major shows from the Nitro Era that I skipped when this thread was initially only going to be a review of Nitro itself. Those shows include: Fall Brawl '95 Halloween Havoc '95 World War 3 '95 Starrcade '95 Clash of the Champions XXXII SuperBrawl VI ('96) Uncensored '96 Clash of the Champions XXXIII A revised version of my truncated Slamboree '96 review, which was originally posted in response to Gorman's awesome review of that event. Millennium Final 2000 I might also do need to cover Clash of the Champions XXXII and revamp a post about Clash XXXIII as well, according to my records, so those are added to the above list. That shouldn't take long, maybe another three weeks or so, and I'll link the go-home and the night-after Nitros to each one to preserve at least a bit of continuity for anyone insane enough to read this whole thing through. Just in case you enjoy thinking about Nitro Era WCW as much as I do, I'm also doing final edits on every review in one document, which I will post here when I finish it. I also have a document full of match suggestions; a document that lists out each review number, title, and rating; and a document that will list every wrestler to show up in WCW on one of the major television or PPV shows during this era (thanks for the suggestion, Curt). I'll finish that stuff up over the spring and summer. And honestly, I like the idea of ending this thread's series of reviews on a PPV that is before the big nWo angle, when everything seemed possible and nothing was off-limits.

Show #283 – 26 March 2001 "The one in Florida that ends it all, causes my pro wrestling interest to hit a wall, and cements Southern-style pro wrestling’s fall" Shall we Nitro one last time, dear reader, you and I? I know the title of this review is a little dramatic. I can explain my perspective! Later, though. If there’s one person who I want to see when I pull up video of a WCW show, it certainly isn’t Vincent Kennedy McMahon, who has been the greater scope villain hovering in the background during this whole watch through. And yet, I am subjected to this kayfabe and also shoot scumbag opening our show tonight. This is some Black Saturday-ass shit, man. I don’t like it. And now, there’s no Ted Turner to stop this slimy fuck from ruining professional wrestling for me and for a whole region of the country. The Nitro opening plays now for the first time in weeks and maybe months, which is weird, man. These fireworks going off at this outdoor arena while Tony S. and Scott Hudson sell shock that WCW is owned by Vince K. McMahon sure seems like a textbook example of dissonance. CEO Ric Flair walks to the ring. I assume that he’s still the CEO, at least for the rest of the night. The CEO opens the show with an impassioned defense of WCW in the face of Vince McMahon’s declaration that WCW is held in the palm of his hands. He basically names all the people who came through JCP/WCW and declares that McMahon cannot possibly hold all of their fates in the palm of his hand. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, Vinnie Mac is already figuring out how to re-sculpt the history of all these guys and more! The bad guys won, Flair! It’s over! Flair declares that WCW (and by implication the major southern territories of days past that these guys wrestled in) has been equal to the WWF or any other wrestling organization for that matter. That won’t be a widely-believed concept after Vince gets a few DVD collections out there and the provincial WWF/E fans eat up the WWE perspective on the company. Flair reminds Vincent K. that his dad Vincent J. thought that Flair would make a dope NWA champion and declares that WCW and its wrestlers are truly the greatest no matter what issues the office has had with getting this show back on track.. Also, he’d like to wrestle Sting one more time just in case he doesn’t get another bite at that apple again. This is obviously a historically significant promo and will be on the That Was Classic promos list, but it just made me sad because I live in the future. I do think, and forgive me if I am wrong because I don’t follow the company much at all, that modern WWE has sort of nostalgically softened its revisional take of WCW to frame it as a scrappy but distantly second-place company that wasn’t nearly as good as WWE, though it had some classic angles and great wrestlers. Even if my understanding of how WCW's existence is framed by WWE/TKO in the New ‘20s is accurate, I’m not sure that’s much more comforting than how they treated it in the aughts with their DVD sets and their invasion angle that made it clear that WCW was a complete joke in their eyes. Promotional considerations: Cool, Randy Savage showed up on this final Nitro! Too bad it was only in a Slim Jim commercial. Also, Ricki Rachtman making it to the end of this company (he’s voice over for a 1-800-COLLECT and AOL ad read) is something that I completely failed to anticipate. It's title versus title as Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) puts the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on the line against Booker T., with Book’s WCW United States Championship also in the balance. Scotty Steiner’s reign of terror as champ has been pretty good. The matches haven’t all been there on pay-per-view, but he and Diamond Dallas Page nailed it at Greed as his finale. I also liked the first Sid match at Starrcade and probably slightly underrated the Booker T. match at Mayhem at the time. That was a better match than I gave it credit for in the review. We rush through the entrances so that Vince McMahon can get more time to shit on the company in a few bumpers. I must say that I haven’t actually seen one yet, so let’s see if they left them in this recording. Anyway, what do you know, but these fellas have a pretty good match in compressed time. Can you imagine that Booker T. gets an opening shine segment? As a babyface?! Wow, what a novel concept! It’s short, sure, but it’s longer than the one he got against Rick Steiner at Greed. Mostly, that’s because he didn’t get one at Greed. Booker fires fists and kicks at Steiner, but gets powerbombed out of ten punches in the corner and tossed to the floor, where Midajah swings on him. Steiner grabs the lead pipe and swings at Booker, who ducks. We get a WCW/nWo Revenge-style PING sound as the pipe smacks the post. Back in the ring, Steiner stays in control and demands that Nick Patrick count his push-ups, which is pretty funny. Steiner scores two on a belly-to-belly, then goes to the surfboard and yells at the crowd while he applies it. Booker fights up and manages a back elbow, but he gets caught on a duckdown. Steiner tries a back suplex, but Book hops out and lands a dropkick, then wins a punch-up. Steiner tries an Irish whip, but Book reverses it, lands a knee to the gut, and scores an axe kick, then starts rolling through more of his 5MoD. He lands a pancake, Spinaroonies up, and scores a Houston Side Kick. He looks for a Book End, but Steiner manages to get under Booker and reverse it into a Northern Lights with a bridge for two. Steiner looks for a powerbomb, but Booker rotates through it; when Steiner tries to regain control of the situation with a lariat, Booker ducks it, hooks Steiner, and scores a Book End for three. That was rushed, but I enjoyed it and found it to be a good match, which lines up with how I felt when I originally watched it. The bummer is that this should have gone fifteen-plus because it completes the storyline rivalry between the two that started back at Halloween Havoc 2000 and that had that big story beat at Mayhem when Steiner beat him for the big gold belt. But hey, we got what we got, and it was good, so I can’t complain too much. Promotional video for Spring Breakout that is entirely too peppy for the tenor of the proceedings: College kids help Ricki Rachtman pimp both WCW (it’s dead) and 1-800-COLLECT (it went into bankruptcy in 2002, but is still operational today). The WWF owns this company now and should have ordered the Undertaker’s first theme to be played over this fucking promo. PRO WRESTLING IS FUCKED promo: Vince McMahon hates Panama City Beach and the unsophisticated hick wrestling fans who just don’t GET IT down there. Why in the world are we having a Triple Threat number one contendership match for the WCW World Cruiserweight Tag Team Championships on this show? Shouldn’t this have been on Thunder? The Jung Dragons, Two Count, and Billy Kidman and Rey Misterio Jr. rush through a match full of spots. Every match tonight is rushed, of course, but this is a Triple Threat match, so whatever flow there might be in this type of bout is entirely gone. They get to the “dive onto one another” spot a minute in. Poor Kidman does his shooting star press to the floor and is absolutely dropped by the guys trying to catch him. He still manages to save Rey when Yang covers him after a Yang Time, though. A lot of guys hit a lot of finishers on one another at this point, but suffice it to say that the last move that matters isn’t even Rey Misterio Jr.’s regular finisher; he lands a guillotine legdrop while Shannon Moore hangs himself between the ropes and patiently waits for Rey to balance and launch. That earns a three count and a title shot later tonight for the Filthy Animals members. PRO WRESTLING IN THE UNITED STATES IS ON LIFE SUPPORT promo: Vincent Kennedy talks to someone over the phone about some of the WCW talent he’s thinking of keeping, but in the midst of all that, Trish Stratus shows up with champagne and he attempts to fuck her. Gross. Can Chavo Guerrero Jr. regain the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship from Sugar Shane Helms? In short, no. For one final time, we gets the Nitro Girls dancing Helms to the ring. Bless you, Chae. You are still and forever will be one of my very favorite Nitro Girls. Meanwhile, Chavo and Sugar Shane work at top speed. Speaking of “final times,” this will be my last chance until I review Lucha Underground at some point in the fairly near future to talk about how fucking awesome Chavo Jr. is. I’m going to declare him as the guy who most raised his stock with me through this whole watch through. I’ve always liked Chavo Jr. well enough, but after this watch through, I consider him to be a top-end talent who didn’t get enough chances to be in the midcard (and eventually upper-midcard) spots that his work warranted. He got over as a comedy character. He got over as a vicious veteran. He got over as a hard-working young lion babyface. Chavo is incredibly versatile in his character and in-ring work. What a talent. He should have been at the U.S. Championship level along with Rey Misterio Jr. by the time this show was cancelled. Oh yeah, the match! It’s a solid match with lots of reversals. Sugar Shane escapes a gourdbuster attempt and lands a Sugar Smack, but Chavo flips out of his first Vertebreaker attempt. Chavo tries a brainbuster, but Helms avoids that and a follow-up lariat attempt and hooks Chavo in a Vertebreaker for three, emphasizing that he indeed is the man in this division. We rush away from Helms’s celebration for… Bumpers: Team Canada vs. Palumbo and O’Haire; Ric Flair vs. Sting Post-match interview: Booker T. cuts a promo in which he feels pretty confident that he’s got a healthy career ahead of him after WCW is gone, which is correct. Alas, he steadily lost his athleticism and explosiveness as he got better at promo-ing and especially as he got better at being a singles heel worker. He closes out his promo by again advising us to hate the game. Way ahead of you there, buddy. Can you believe that a company traded in the market allows Paul Levesque to be in its C-suite? That’s absurd. Lance Storm and Mike Awesome stand at attention for “O Canada” one final time as we go into a commercial break, so good for those proud Canucks (and Canuck affiliates). PRO WRESTLING IS UNDERGOING A DISASTROUS TRANSFORMATION promo: Vince K. McMahon buttons up his shirt, having finished fucking Trish Stratus (ew), hopefully consensually (not likely). Michael Cole’s goofy ass interrupts to ask questions about whether or not WCW fans have reason to worry that, *sigh*, “they may never see their brand of sports entertainment again.” Also, WCW wrestlers are pressed about their jobs, obviously. Vince McMahon responds by threatening to fire Michael Cole unless he fucks all the way off. Tony S. and Scott Hudson are like, SHIT, YEAH, WHAT ABOUT THAT WHOLE JOB SECURITY DEAL?! I mean, firing Michael Cole for real and replacing him with Tony Schiavone would be a move that I’m in favor of. I have seen enough Botchamania recently to realize two things, by the way. First, I have gone from not being interested in modern pro wrestling to having an actual sense of antipathy toward it, which is something that I probably should unpack a bit because I don't believe in feeling that way about an art form without good reason. Second, Michael Cole was so young in 2001, and now it’s 2025 and he’s the old guy at the desk who can’t remember anything, so really he’s not only a mediocre-to-bad PBP man, but he’s also now a reminder that time comes for us all. THANKS FOR TRIGGERING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS WITHIN ME, COLE, YOU JERK. Sean O’Haire is tangling with Lance Storm when we cut back to the ring. It sure would have been nice to see the champs get an entrance, wouldn’t it have been? Tony S. and Hudson legit fret about how they’re going to pay the bills while these teams hustle through a watchable enough but incredibly rushed tag match. Palumbo slides out of the back door on an Awesome Bomb attempt before landing a Jungle Kick; Awesome is food for an O’Haire Seanton Bomb that hits three. We don’t get much of their celebration, but we do get a reminder of how Shawn Stasiak and Bam Bam Bigelow are beefing on video recap. Stacy Keibler slinks to the ring and asks the fellas if they want to see her dance. The fellas (and at least one lady in the wide shot) are like YES, WE WOULD REALLY ENJOY THAT. Stacy is like, Too bad because I don’t feel like it, so there. That’s your right, Stace, but you don’t need to then also inflict Shawn Stasiak on us as well. Can you fucking believe that Stasiak gets a mic and is allowed to speak even one line on this incredibly compressed show? Bigelow comes out with a case full of tattooist implements and wearing a shirt that advertises Gene’s Body Art World. Bigelow getting a quick plug for ol’ Gene in there is a nice thing to do. Alas, his shop in Asbury Park is now permanently closed according to Yelp. This match goes maybe a minute and ends when Billy Silverman is too distracted by Stacy Keibler to count a pinfall on Bammer’s post-flying headbutt cover. Stacy then yanks Stasiak’s legs from her spot on the apron and pulls him right out of a Greetings attempt; Stasiak hits a bad Rude Awakening for three and goes into the books as the only heel to score a victory on this final Nitro. PRO WRESTLING’S HOMOGENIZATION ROLLS ON UNABATED promo: Lord Steven William Regal is getting one final shot in at WCW, what with the WrestleMania X-Seven jersey that he’s wearing and the whole thing where he buries WCW as a “bloody awful place” that probably isn’t worth purchasing at all. Also, Lord Regal is the commissioner in the WWF, which yeah, I remember that being a thing. Vincent Kennedy McMahon takes Regal’s warning under advisement, but assures Regal that he’s got everything under control. Pre-show interview: Diamond Dallas Page sits on the beach, ponders his wrestling journey, and thanks the fans for their support throughout his career. He believes that his story as a wrestler proves that hard work and the love of the fans can take you farther than anything. He also thanks “[his] wife Kimberly,” though he also mentioned his real name in there, so this is a shoot and not a worked promo. But also, just because I can’t help myself, what do you think helped them reconcile in storyline after Kimberly and Page both left television in the summer of 2000? I think it was the influence of that damned Eric Bischoff and Dallas not supporting Kimberly enough in what she wanted to do that caused the issues. I’m sure they got some off-screen counseling in kayfabe and figured it all out. Anyway, DDP promises that he’s going to continue his story and “take it to the next level,” if the “next level” involves getting his ass kicked by the Undertaker’s completely uncharismatic wife. Hype video for the magic of Southern pro wrestling history: We see a video showing some of the great champions of WCW, JCP, Georgia, and the Carolinas as a way to promote this Nitro’s Night of Champions. I liked this little video, but they should have played it nearer to the top of the show. PRO WRESTLING CAN BE MORE THAN ONE THING, NOT THAT VKM WOULD WANT YOU TO THINK SUCH THINGS AS THEY MIGHT LEAD YOU TO APOSTASY promo: Vince McMahon talks to someone on the phone and declares that “it’s just about that time” before hanging up and putting on his jacket. I thought about watching the RAW that was being aired from Cleveland as an extra review on top of this show review, but to be frank, I’d rather watch more Battle Dome. Tony S. takes exception to Lord Steven William Regal’s comments about WCW while Elix Skipper, Kid Romeo, Rey Misterio Jr., and Billy Kidman hustle to the ring for their WCW World Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship bout. Tony S.: “We’ve had to do some crazy things including put your ass over on TV.” I like you both and will take no sides in this disagreement. That BISCHOFF, SUBWAY IS HIRING sign in the front row is mean, don’t you think? But also, fuck Eric Bischoff because that dude sucks. This match is notable for Skipper using the Matrix successfully to bridge out of a pinfall attempt. He should really use the Matrix only for that and not to duck strikes, I’d say from a kayfabe strategic standpoint. The hot tag comes barely two minutes in, if that. This match should have gotten more time and just been booked as a return match from Greed rather than having that Triple Threat clusterfuck earlier, no offense meant to the men of Two Count and the Jung Dragons. There is an awesome match hiding somewhere in this abbreviated bout, which ends with Kidman twisting away from a Play of the Day attempt and managing a Kid Krusher for the three and the gold. Pre-match promo: Sting stands in the midst of a bunch of hanging baseball bats. He reminds us that the only thing for sure about him is that nothing’s for sure – nice callback – but he does not take explicit responsibility for knocking all those Magnificent Seven guys (and also Midajah) out. I think the methods of blunt force trauma, sneak attacks, dire warnings written down for the heels to get freaked out about point directly at the Stinger, though. Furthermore, I take the fact that he was just standing there in the midst of a bunch of baseball bats for his final promo as implicit admission that he was committing all those attacks, though, so we’ll go with that as the answer to the mystery. A break here for other PRO WRESTLING IN THE UNITED STATES IS BEING THROTTLED INTO A COMA IN A CULTURAL SENSE; PLEASE, SOMEONE SAVE MY BABY promos: I note that we haven’t seen Vince McMahon fire Jeff Jarrett or Lex Luger on air, and we’re at the main event and then the post-main event establishing of the Invasion angle (and the establishing of how that angle immediately goes off the rails, but we’ll get there in a few paragraphs). I suppose those have been removed from this recording, but the internet never forgets! On the other hand, it is possible that maybe this only showed on RAW. I was definitely switching to RAW during Nitro breaks, which might explain why I saw this live. Anyway, G-DOUBLE O- DOUBLE N-DOUBLE E spells GOONNEE, you idiot Vince. I don’t think Jarrett has discovered a treasure map and is headed off on a grand adventure. Your point is that Jarrett isn’t good enough. Spell it right, stupid. I can’t find the Vince quip about the Lex Express running out of gas on Youtube, and you know what? I’m okay with working any harder to locate it. Tony S. says that Ric Flair “may be making the final walk to the ring of his career.” Absolutely not, Tony. Hell, you'll be there when it actually happens, but you've got a bit of time to kill. Sting soon joins Flair in the ring while Scott Hudson praises Sting’s loyalty to first Bill Watts's UWF and then WCW. Hell, the Stinger was even pretty loyal to TNA. That’s saying something. Sting and Flair have basically the same match they had the last time they locked up in a singles match on Nitro (by my account, on Show #198). However, whereas that was tired in 1999, it’s appropriate here in 2001 as a grand closing for WCW. For once, I am looking forward to seeing Flair hit every one of his typical spots. From that perspective, I enjoy it well enough. Man, Sting was over no matter how they booked him. The fans love the guy. I didn’t see any of his AEW run, but what I’ve gathered is that the fans also loved him there. He’s eternally over. These fellas play the hits, and Tony S. lampshades that this might be the last time we get to see them play the hits, but no, we will get to see them play the hits in TNA, including a match so bad in which Flair especially struggled to hit his signature spots that it bummed me way the hell out. Sting hits a superplex and his Scorpion Deathlock is academic; it gets a submission out of Flair, and then the men hug one another after the match. My reverie is interrupted by the extremely annoying voice of Paul Heyman, and also Jim Ross is on commentary as well. Vinnie Mac is held in reverence by the provincial WWF fans in the crowd who are pleased that his brand of pro wrestling sports entertainment has won out. Vince says that this show is being simulcast on TNN – TURNER NETWORK TELEVISION. Whoopsie! Vince crows about being the bestest and awesomest businessman and pro wrestling sports entertainment promoter ever. He will only sign the contract to purchase WCW from a desperate-to-sell AOL Time Warner, though, if Ted Turner walks the contract to him in the center of the ring at WrestleMania X-Seven. Vincent Kennedy glazes himself for a few minutes while the crowd intermittently cheers even though he’s a heel both because Vince believes what he’s saying and the crowd absolutely believes him as well. Vinnie Mac is still focused on Ted Turner, who doesn’t even have any power within his own company anymore, and talks about teaching ol’ Ted a lesson about destroying your opps no matter who they are by beating up his dopey son David – oops, sorry, his dopey son Shane, my bad, but it's a written tic at this point – at WrestleMania. He also plans to beat up Shane in front of his catatonic wife Linda, who is so out to lunch and so disconnected from any sense of reality that you could, say, make her the head of the Department of Education if you wanted to absolutely destroy it, as one random example of how out of it she is that I’m spitballing here. Vince makes fun of Hulk Hogan. The crowd loves it. Anyway, Vince metaphorically masturbates in the ring for like fifteen fucking minutes! Holy shit, move it along, you mouthy bastard! He asks the crowd whom from WCW he should hire and a light GOLDBERG chant starts up. The crowd doesn’t want Hogan back when Vince brings his name up, but they’ll change their minds. They are also out on Vince hiring Lex Luger, but are into the idea of Buff Bagwell getting steady work with the company, interestingly enough. They’d like Booker T. to be hired as well, and Scott Steiner gets a huge pop when he is mentioned. Then, since Vince doesn’t mention Goldberg and seems to be moving on, they chant GOLDBERG much more loudly for a little while. They are into hiring Sting and massively want a Goldberg run when Vince relents and asks about those two. This crowd is telling you who to make money with, you dumb prick! Do the things they’re asking you to do! Vinnie Mac is like FUCK THAT, I’LL FIRE ‘EM ALL! WCW WILL BE BURIED! Yeah, he did do that last one. Vince begs the crowd for an ASSHOLE chant and barely gets one. His rant about getting no respect from the crowd is interrupted by NO CHANCE. We cut to a view of the TitanTron and see Shane walk to the ring in Panama City Beach, where he gets in the ring and announces to the world that he has undercut his annoying father and purchased WCW right out from under Vince. Great, I sure do love nothing more than WCW ending with Shane McMahon in the center of the ring for the final Nitro. Frame it, hang it on a wall, have Extinction Rebellion splatter it with rotten fruit because it’s the worst kind of art. End fucking scene. GOOD NIGHT AND GOODBYE, says the final end card, as the old school Nitro theme plays. I don’t know how you can sum up Nitro’s run, really. When it was good, it was great. When it was bad, very few companies have put on worse weekly television. However, here’s what Nitro represents to me most of all. When Eric Bischoff decided to really refocus the company as a national, rather than a regional one, he changed a lot from both a production and a booking standpoint about what WCW represented. At the same time, there were still elements of the Southern style of pro wrestling sprinkled throughout, which is my hunch about why this company became a popular company in the Midwest and Western Plains states, as I’d argue that those cultures all share certain preferences and features that made them amenable to some of the features of Southern wrestling, including the emphasis on sound in-ring work and various cultural features of the characters and angles (e.g.: idealized manhood, cowboys being cool) that WCW managed to carry through to the end. Make no mistake; my personal dislike of, say, the West Texas Rednecks is entirely separate from the fact that I’m glad a national company was around for the WTRs to exist within. Barry Windham bringing a bullrope to the ring in 1999 and that being a thing that was over in the midcard was cool! Even to the last week, with that very Southern Dusty/Flair feud that wound up with Flair getting his face smushed into the hindquarters of a jackass is the sort of campy angle that is part and parcel of a specifically Southern style of professional wrestling. That’s why when WCW went away, so many fans quit watching pro wrestling entirely as well. The loss of WCW considerably shrank the amount of pro wrestling enthusiasts in this country and represents – and I am not kidding about this – a disastrous loss of what I think is an anthropologically interesting aspect of low culture i the States. The South in the United States did three things better than any other region in the country in my view: food, jazz, and professional wrestling. Jazz is a culturally fringe interest and Southern pro wrestling is dead on a national level in 2025. This genuinely makes me sad. And, if I look at this from the perspective of over two decades on, it marks for me the start of my dwindling interest in modern pro wrestling. I’ve mentioned before watching JCP with my grandma as a very young child on their satellite dish, so even though I also watched the WWF, I was not prejudiced against all other types of wrestling like many WWF fans were and (and seem to be even today, which is strange as I’m not sure pro wrestling has ever been more homogenized in the United States at a time when multiple national competitors were on major networks). So to me, WCW dying makes me wistful for what it was a continuation of – not just those entertaining studio shows in JCP that I watched with my grandma, but also the Mid-Souths and the UWFs and the Carolinas and the other promotions that were absorbed into the strange little amalgam that was WCW in the wake of the collapse of the territories. After Nitro ended (and the Invasion angle turned out to be the most disappointing thing that I'd watched in pro wrestling to that point), I dipped in and out of wrestling watching from thereon. A lot of what I did watch was guided by my lurking here at DVDVR. I saw the Super-8, early RoH, early TNA (when it was the one to get a spot on FSNet, which I was bummed didn’t happen for WCW in 2001), and followed as much new wrestling as I found interesting. I watched a little NOAH, I watched a little CMLL, but it didn’t scratch my itch. I was in and out on WWE programming, and I don’t think I ever got into it on a weekly basis again until I started watching NXT in 2014; that 2015 NXT run was the first year since 1997 that I was deeply into a full year of WWF/E-related television. But even as good as that was, it didn’t ever scratch my itch completely. Nothing will ever replace Southern-style wrestling for me. I am clearly not alone. WCW being sold to Vince McMahon was a devastating loss for pro wrestling in the United States that will never be remedied. Scoring this last Nitro was a challenging thing to do, but I decided to focus on honoring the meek whimper that was the death of Southern-style pro wrestling on the big stage rather than letting the antics of the McMahon clan drive this grade too much. 3 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. That was a fun ride! Thanks for following along!

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and fifty-three – 21 March 2001 "The WCW Gang was generally less bad and more enjoyable than they are often given credit for throughout the run of this show" Let’s THUNDERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR one final time, folks!... Recap: Nitro was full of big white asses and “season finale” announcements… Air Raid (Air Paris and AJ Styles) bought those snazzy new jackets for television...Bad news, fellas...They wrestle the Jung Dragons in our opener…Styles and Yang go to the mat and do some loose mat grapz to start…They get to their feet, where Styles manages a headscissors, but charges headlong into a belly-to-belly that crashes him into the corner…Paris hops in and superkicks Yang, but Yang manages a blind tag on a rope run…Kaz drapes both of his opponents’ necks over the top rope, then lands a springboard splash on both of them… Young novice Styles is still working at perfecting his moves in the lab…When Kaz runs at him and tries a rana, Styles catches him, lowers him, and steps over his arms for a Styles Clash that apparently isn't applied just right and therefore only gets two…Keep polishing up the execution that move, bud…I think it’ll be pretty devastating eventually…Paris tags in and has a fun series of switches and counters with Kaz before eating a headscissors…Yang tags back in and works over both Paris and Styles…A little misdirection (and a knee to Yang’s lower lumbar) allows Paris to land a DDT…Yang endures further two counts as the babyface in peril… Paris has only been in WCW for a short time, but he has quickly learned that when you’re caught with a flash pinfall attempt and you’re able to kick out at two, you should go to the lariat…It has near a one hundred percent success rate in this company…Yang manages to kill Paris’s punches in the corner with a running powerbomb…Kaz stretches his arm out and makes the hot tag, then lands an enziguri on a charging Styles and a Buzzsaw Kick on Paris…Styles tries to attack from behind, but eats a press slam and a Buzzsaw Kick of his own…Everybody hits each other with moves for two, including a nasty cradle driver from Yang… Styles eventually scores a back suplex and rolls through into a facebuster on yang, then goes up top for a dive…Yang dropkicks him out of mid-air…He then cuts down Paris and goes up to attempt a Yang Time, but Styles stumbles to his feet and shoves him off the top and to the floor…Kaz is left alone with both members of Air Raid, and they set up for a top-rope powerbomb…And we cut to a random shot of the crowd…And we come back to Styles down and Paris dropping Kaz with a lariat…Oh, WCW, I will truly miss you…Air Raid manages a double powerbomb, but Yang has had quite a bit of time to recover, so he yanks Paris out of the ring as he covers, then hits him with a cradle driver on the floor…Kaz manages to yank Styles’s neck out of joint with a running neckbreaker in the ring that finally gets three…It was a very good television match despite the questionable post-production job… Ass Watch 2001: Dusty Rhodes rubbed his ample posterior in the face of Jeff Jarrett at Greed before he and his son helped CEO Ric Flair and Jarrett nuzzle the backside of a slightly overstimulated jackass on Nitro… Speaking of Dustin Rhodes, here he is, a duffel bag in his right hand…He calls for the B-Roll of the Nitro jackass incident to play on the TurnerTron once more…He cuts a meandering promo in which he offers up a few items that he procured especially for CEO Flair…Prop-based promos are generally almost as bad as prop-based comedy unless the right person is doing the promo…Dustin Rhodes is not the right person…He’s got a game of PIN THE NAITCH ON THE JACKASS, some lip balm, and oh, who cares…This sucks…You can’t fool me, WCW post-production canned noise…I see the crowd sitting on their hands…I see their faces sporting bemused looks as Rhodes stinks it up in this segment…Dustin finally gets a pop by quoting the choruses of popular contemporary songs of the time…WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?! (crowd: WHO? WHO, WHO, WHO?!)…Then someone in the crowd yells something about BACK[ing] THAT AZZ UP, which Dustin repeats…I see Dustin is getting into Black Reign mode early with his promo work… CEO Flair pops up on the TurnerTron…He is being filmed by the BuffCam…The CEO fires off a bunch of questions to Dustin, who answers them…He didn’t answer them to CEO Flair’s liking…The CEO screams the following: I’M GOING TO MAKE LIFE SO MISERABLE FOR YOU…Uh, better pack all that misery making in there tonight, champ…Flair goes full-on self-aggrandizing before spitting out his point…He books Dustin against Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner in a handicap match for tonight’s main event…CEO Flair barely avoids having a coronary as he screams out threats at Dustin…I mean, this dude just hams it up entirely…He almost saves this segment by going full on THIS SHOW IS GETTING CANCELLED SO I WILL MAKE A MOCKERY OF MY ON-SCREEN POSITION in his hamminess… A confident Jason Jett works Kid Kash (!!!) in our final Thunder…Holy shit…I mean, his chyron only identifies him as “Cash,” but fuck that, I’m calling him Kid Kash…This is absurd, y'know…Kid Kash making his WCW debut on the final Thunder…WCW in 2001 was so fucking weird…I think that’s another element of why people remember this era in a favorable way…All the random guys showing up in this company fresh out of ECW or Wildside or wherever…Then again, since 2001 WCW is basically a preview of the first decade of TNA’s existence, maybe this era should be remembered slightly less fondly… This match is a perfectly enjoyable television match as you might guess…Kash scores a gorgeous senton splash off the top and to the floor…It naturally garners a small E-C-DUB chant…Back in the ring, Jett gets caught with a boot and then does a contrived roll right into a double clothesline…Kash manages to lock on an octopus hold, but only for a second…The men trade two counts over the next couple of minutes…They compact three of them into a series of flash pinfall reversals before Jett lands an Afterburner and tries a Crash Landing that gets reversed into a Moneymaker…Kash’s delayed pinfall gets two…That’s as close as he gets to victory, as he eats a boot to the gut and gets flipped by a Crash Landing that earns Jett a three count…The crowd got into that one by the end, which I think is indicative of how even with some of the parts that didn’t work as well for me, this is a match that would make me and most other viewers smile if it popped up while my WCW match playlist was set to SHUFFLE… Rick Steiner is befuddled by why CEO Flair has the BuffCam recording thier conversation…The CEO apologizes to Rick Steiner for the rest of the Magnificent Seven suspecting him as the guy who has been handing out all those sneak bludgeonings…Ricky is over the whole thing, man… The Cat and Ms. Jones try to talk strategy with M.I. Smooth before their match against Road Warrior Animal and Kanyon…I do get a kick out of the Cat, who warns that if Smooth doesn’t keep control of his emotions, he’ll be dishing out an asswhooping to the angry limo driver (Smooth is surprised and slightly put off by the sudden threat)…Then, after Smooth’s nervous energy leads him to slapping the Cat on the chest as the Cat makes a point, the Cat stops his patter and warns Smooth that he'd better “watch the chop” before going back to motor-mouthing out the rest of his motivational speech…The Cat is a funny dude sometimes… That match comes up after the commercial break…Kanyon and Road Warrior Animal make their way to the ring first…M.I. Smooth and the Cat (w/the always lovely Ms. Jones) soon follow…This tag match is perfectly watchable…The Cat wears out Kanyon with fists and feet to start…The Cat tags Smooth, and Smooth wants Animal…Animal has to leave his feet for his shoulderblock to knock Smooth down…Smooth and Animal no-sell one another’s offense, and honestly, it’s fairly entertaining…The Cat tags back in and eats an elbow, then a power slam… It appears that the former commissioner is deep in trouble, but he kicks his way right out of trouble and covers for two…Kanyon breaks up the pinfall attempt and is hit with a lariat by Smooth, but Kanyon gets up and sticks around in the ring, then helps Animal land a powerbomb on the Cat…It is now that the Cat ends up stuck in FIP jail…The heel control segment doesn’t make me want to go down to the kitchen for a snack, which I think is a win…That’s probably low-balling it a bit…It’s solid… Finally, Kanyon tries that contrived-ass top-rope Rocker Dropper Showstopper of his and immediately gets powerbombed right out of the attempt…The Cat fights back, lands his signatures…Wait, no, Animal clears him out as he shimmies before his signature elbowdrop…Ms. Jones yaps at Animal, who hops off the apron and confronts her…She backs off…In the meantime, Smooth can’t quite put away Kanyon…The Cat and Animal have an obligabrawl outside the ring…The Cat kicks Animal into the guardrail, grabs a camera cable, and trips Kanyon with it as Kanyon runs against the ropes…Smooth follows with a big splash for three…I enjoyed that bout!... Rick Steiner vs. Hugh Morrus (w/Konnan) is next up…I guess all the fun is over for the moment…As is his way, Steiner lands a nice move or two in there…There’s an impactful back suplex in the midst of Steiner’s plodding offense…Steiner loses control of the bout by, uh, taking a good forty-five seconds to stand around jawing at fans outside the ring while Morrus slowly revives in the ring…Well, that is a different kind of transition, I guess…This match absolutely sucks as you might have guessed…Steiner should get DQ’d for 1) yanking ref Mickey Jay into the way of a Morrus charge and then 2) smacking Morrus in the back with a chair right in front of Jay’s face…Steiner wedges Morrus’s wrist into the chair and then calls out Shane Douglas over the house mic…Douglas comes out and brawls with Steiner… Meanwhile, Morrus loses a tug-of-war with Jay over the chair…Douglas is getting beaten down until he swings his cast backward into Steiner’s head…Steiner stumbles backward into a Morrus release German for three…Morrus’s family is super excited about it at ringside…This was so dumb…It’s only going to get dumber, I suppose, as Douglas hands a tape to Dave Penzer at ringside…As it is, this match is going to take a little trip to the Absolute Dirt Worst list…I love that this booking committee couldn’t come up with anything reaching even the level of barely mediocre for a segment in which Hugh Morrus, Konnan, Shane Douglas, and Rick Steiner all appeared… After a break, we see what’s on that tape that Shane Douglas left with Penzer…It’s a promo in which he promises to make Ricky his “pet project” before moving on to take Ric Flair down once and for all…Uh, Franchise, have you noticed the whole company **waves arms frantically** and how it’s collapsing around you right now?!...Douglas challenges Rick Steiner to a match on the final episode before cancellation SEASON FINALE of Nitro…I did not remember these two wrestling on that final Nitro whatsoever… This trios tag pitting Elix Skipper, Kid Romeo, and Chavo Guerrero Jr. against Rey Misterio Jr., Billy Kidman, and Sugar Shane Helms should be pretty good!...Chavo Jr. is too focused on Shane Helms when he should be focused on legal man Billy Kidman to start, though he headscissors his way out of initial trouble before being corralled for a neckbreaker…Helms tags in and Chavo stumbles backward in surprise when he spots him…Helms lands a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, so Skip helps out by swatting Helms on a rope run and opening space for Chavo to land a lariat… Romeo and Helms slap each other in the corner…Romeo lands on his feet out of a leapfrog and follows up with a dropkick…No, wait, he dances…Then he turns into a Sugar Smack for two…Romeo manages to score a facebuster, and he follows up with a taunt, obviously…His very late cover barely gets two, and he immediately loses control of the bout again…Romeo is wrestling like he’s being controlled by someone who is bad at timing his taunts to get the Spirit Bar up for another finisher… Skipper is able to hit a tag and springboard onto Rey to stop the absolute beating that Romeo is taking, but Rey ducks a Skipper charge…Skipper spills to the floor and eats a dive from Rey, which sparks a series of dives from everyone else…In a nice little wrinkle, Romeo cuts Kidman off with a clothesline so he can cut in line and land his dive first…Rey lands a springboard crossbody on Skipper for two back in the ring…He gets caught with a nasty full nelson suplex, though…The heels distract the ref and stomp out Rey in their corner… Rey is a babyface who also just happens to be in peril…He eats chokes, boot washes, and a Gory Special from Chavo…Skipper lays in a few forearms from the apron while Rey is hung up there…Chavo dumps Rey and covers for two…Romeo cuts off a Rey comeback and scores a double-underhook facebuster for two…He goes to a chinlock for a second, but this has been such an energetic match that it’s fine…He doesn’t stay in it for long, anyway, because he’s too busy losing control of the bout by running into boots up on a corner charge and eating a tornado DDT… Shane Helms scores the hot tag and throws right after right at the heels…Helms lands a knee-assisted facebuster on Romeo, then tags Kidman in and suplexes Romeo into place for a Kidman Savage Elbow that gets two when Chavo makes the save…Kidman hops out of a Chavo pumphandle only to eat a missile dropkick from Skipper…Rey clears out Skipper and then combos on a baseball slide/Bronco Buster combo with Kidman…Skipper gets back up and tangles with Rey, where they spill to the floor…Meanwhile, Helms sets Romeo up for a Vertebreaker, but Chavo makes the save and tumbles to the floor along with Helms…That leaves Romeo alone with Kidman in the ring…Romeo tries a Last Kiss, but Kidman escapes out of the back and hooks Romeo for a Kid Krusher that puts Romeo down for three seconds…That match was a ton of fun and was one example of what I’ll miss about WCW television… Rick Steiner is tearing shit up backstage in anger and frustration… Pre-taped promo: Chuck Palumbo cuts a meh promo on Mike Awesome and Lance Storm; he promises victory over Awesome later on this show…O’Haire snarls threateningly in the background… Tony S. notes how enjoyable the cruiserweights have been tonight…Yep…They are a big part of stabilizing WCW’s show quality in 2001…Mike Awesome and Chuck Palumbo aren’t cruiserweights, but they typically work hard and even fly a little bit…In fact, in this very match, they work hard and fly a little bit!...Awesome doesn’t have time to sit in an arm wringer, so he throws a lariat and then goes to work…Palumbo fires back with rights, so Awesome lariats Palumbo to the floor, then follows with a crossbody lariat… The thing about Mike Awesome is that he’s my perfect idea of a video game worker…I like making guys who are six-five or larger with a ton of power moves and a couple of neat aerial moves…I don’t think he’s some great worker overall, mind you…However, I do find him to be consistently enjoyable to watch…Junk food is still pleasurable, y’know…Awesome controls, cutting off a Palumbo comeback attempt with a double-underhook suplex…He turns to the crowd to big himself up and gets chop blocked and rolled up…I think Palumbo tripped as he was trying to throw that lariat, actually…Anyway, Awesome is a heel who has just been schoolboyed for two, so after he rises to his feet and throws a successful lariat, he locks on a Camel Clutch... Palumbo tries to rise, but Awesome butt splashes him in the lower lumbar a couple times to stop that, then changes tack and tosses Palumbo to the floor…It’s obligabrawl time, everyone!...Palumbo again tries to fight back, though it’s a challenge for him because Awesome is in his element out here…He tries to bash Palumbo in the head with a chair, but Palumbo blocks it and swings it over Awesome’s neck and shoulders…He should be in control now, but my least favorite transition occurs as they get back in the ring… Awesome and Palumbo do a struggle leapover spot that ends with Palumbo hitting an overhead suplex on Awesome…Here starts Palumbo’s comeback…He dropkicks Awesome to the floor, then sparks another obligabrawl that he controls this time around…Palumbo dumps Awesome back into the ring and follows with a diving shoulderblock from the top for two…Boot to the gut, facebuster, lariat…Palumbo whips Awesome to the corner and gets caught with a rebound back suplex, then a flapjack and a bridge over for two…Awesome goes up for a top-rope splash that he badly misses…Lance Storm decides that it’s time for him to intervene…He attacks Palumbo and tosses him into the rail, then puts him back in the ring…Sean O’Haire quickly follows and fights with Storm at ringside… Meanwhile, in the ring, Palumbo slips out of an Awesome Bomb attempt and scores a roll-up for two…Can you guess what happens next?...I bet you can…So, Awesome has regained control, but he is delayed in his top-rope move attempt by O’Haire and Storm hopping up onto the apron and tangling him up…Palumbo catches him in no-man's-land and eventually scores a Jungle Kick for three…That match was kind of a mess, but I had fun with it… Now comes our FINAL WCW Thunder main event…Dustin Rhodes squares off against Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) in a handicap match that I would imagine will eventually draw someone to ringside who isn't booked in this bout…Well, let’s do this one more time since Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner cut pre-match promos… Jeff Jarrett “Slapnuts/Slapass” Count: One, which is restrained for the final Thunder in my opinion…He should have run up the count…Scott Steiner promises to finish off Booker T. on Nitro and make that his last match in WCW…I mean, yeah, that's doable…On the other hand, no, you will not be making it the last match in his career…At least you’ll be one-for-two on keeping your promises, Scotty!... Before the match starts, Road Warrior Animal is with the BuffCam guy backstage…He enters the office to talk to CEO Ric Flair, but Flair has been laid out…I do not remember Sting verbally owning up to being behind all these attacks on the final Nitro, but I sure hope he does to close this loop!... Dustin mostly gets his ass kicked for the runtime of this very short match, though he does make a comeback…Steiner probably was too focused on jawing at fans in the crowd to be at his most effective…He is, however, effective at taking the lead pipe from Midajah and hitting Dustin with it behind the ref’s back…Steiner locks on a Recliner and earns a tainted victory…After the match, Steiner locks on the Recliner once more, but Booker T. makes an appearance and saves Dustin from further punishment…Security holds Steiner back and Booker declares that he will be the final WCW champion after Monday night as the show ends… The final Thunder closes with Tony S. declaring that “it’s been a great ride on Thunder” and a picture of the Thunder production crew (and a message of thanks for their work underneath that picture)… And you know, while I wouldn’t use the superlative “great,” it has been a generally pleasurable ride here on Thunder…When Nitro was aimless, it was bad…When Thunder was aimless, it generally at least put out two or three solid eight-minute matches…I think that if you look at WCW's 1999, this best illustrates my point…While Nash was making a hash (heh) of the booking and every month that wasn’t April was filled with bad television, Thunder steadily chugged along putting on decent television matches…Even when it was, like Nitro, generally deeply awful during Russo’s reigns, Thunder was arguably responsible for the highest-quality episode of a Russo-booked WCW television show (show number one hundred and eight)…I think that should count for something... All that is to say as we wrap up our run of Thunder reviews that I am glad that I decided to include a watch through of Thunder as part of the ever-growing scope of this thread…Not only because it provided so much context and connective tissue between Nitros and PPVs, but also because in the end, it gave me enough solid wrestling to keep me from tossing my Chromebook into the lake after one too many terrible Nitro episodes…Godspeed, Thunder…I send you off with a WOOO for your final episode…

I made that comment because I'd just listened to the excellent Patreon pod from BtS on Terry Taylor's career between 1985 and 2001, which is why I made that comment. I should have explained why I made that comment, though! Thanks for filling in that background here.

I peeked into that running WCW channel three times in the first week they had it up, and I came across snippets of Greed twice and quickly clicked away.

Show #282 – 19 March 2001 "The one with Eric Bischoff taking one final L on the big stage (and also a cute lil' donkey)" I’ve tried to avoid sounding like Gordon Gekko, but dammit, I can’t: Greed was good. That was a fine show. Mockingly sad intro: While the show starts with a black title card with DDP R.I.P. on it this is also an actually sad intro as everyone has found out by now that Nitro has been cancelled (and so has poor, somewhat underappreciated Thunder). There are levels to this intro, and the sound of “Taps” and the U.S. flag flying at half-mast only emphasizes this. Holy shit, now the flag flying at half-mast is superimposed over images of trailer parks, which is rude and mean and sort of funny. Footage of a good match at Greed: No stills here! We get some shots of Scott Steiner finishing off DDP (no shots of any blood, though). While Scott Steiner walks to the ring flanked by Midajah, CEO Ric Flair, and Road Warrior Animal, Tony S. hypes a huge and momentous phone call from Eric Bischoff. I vividly remember hoping that Bisch had found a TV deal and that Nitro would be moving to a new channel. Alas. Scott Steiner does not particularly like either the fans or DDP, specifically because of their perceived socioeconomic status in his eyes. Steiner list all the other people he has directly or indirectly run out of WCW over the past few months. He demands that the crowd glory in his dominance, then hands the mic to CEO Flair so that Flair can crow about his champion’s effectiveness. Our unfair CEO turns his attention to the Rhodes Family, mostly to lie about how he and Jeff Jarrett soundly whipped them at Greed. Reader, they got their asses kicked by the Rhodes Family, if you’ll recall. The CEO says that he is so kind as not to demand that Dusty kiss his GATOR ASS, but Dusty and Dustin pop up on the TurnerTron; Dusty notes that Jarrett already got a face full of stuff ass at Greed, and CEO Flair will be next at some point tonight. The very tense world champion interjects and challenges Dusty to come to the ring, but Dusty blows him off because he’s focused on CEO Flair. However, he notes that there is one guy in the building who has everlasting beef with him. This is the point at which Booker T.’s music hits; Booker walks onto the stage and Steiner insults Book’s very dope twists. Booker’s like AYO STEINER, SHUT UP and the crowd is like, Yes, please do. Booker insinuates that Scotty Steiner has been dodging him since he’s come back and then lands a couple of his bad catchphrases that somehow land with this crowd. Booker says something cryptic about THE MAN demanding that Steiner meet him in the ring in an hour. Exclusive post-Greed footage: Yeah, it’s one more stretcher spot for the road! How many has DDP done in the past two years? Road Warrior Animal and Buff Bagwell yell at the guy running the BuffCam because they are frustrated about being jumped from behind by the mystery guy who is bonking Magnificent Seven members on the head. Animal and Bagwell consider Lex Luger as a suspect; Buff tells the guy behind the BuffCam to track Luger’s every movement tonight. Jason Jett looks to continue his singles winning streak in a match against Disco Inferno (w/Mike Sanders). Apparently, Mike Sanders actually likes Disco now for some reason. Disco yells at Alex Wright to watch closely as he does what Wright could not, namely defeat Jason Jett. He then proceeds to get outwrestled by the very speedy Jason Jett. Jett lands a high-angled powerbomb counter for two, which is when Mike Sanders decides to get involved. Sanders grabs Jett’s ankle on a rope run and then kicks him when Disco uses that distraction to knock him to the mats below. Disco Inferno takes over for a bit after that. He does a heck of a lot of dancing and clowning for a guy who loses intermittent control of the match, however. Mike Sanders does what he can to help from his spot on the floor, including getting a choke in there; he even gets in the ring and tries a dancing fistdrop, but Jett moves and then deposits Sanders to the floor, then makes his comeback with the springboard back elbow – the Afterburner – and then a nice standing moonsault for two. Jett tries to keep the momentum going, but he gets backdropped across the top rope after charging at Disco, who follows up with a DDT for a 2.85 that was nearly immaculately timed. Disco looks for another DDT and is reversed into a Northern Lights with a bridge. Sanders gets in the ring and tries to break it up with an elbowdrop that goes wayward when Jett moves. Jett dropkicks Sanders to the floor, then ducks a desperate lariat attempt from Disco and quickly hits a Crash Landing for three. This wasn’t the most crisp match, but it was fun watching the rookie be at a numbers disadvantage, but manage to outsmart his opps anyway. That last part was enjoyably executed and in my view, it pushes this match onto a certain YouTube playlist that I’m hoping to put together someday. Bumper: THE MAN, and by that I mean Eric Bischoff, will be on the phone in a few minutes! The fella running the BuffCam peeks in on CEO Flair and Jeff Jarrett freaking out about Flair having to pucker up later tonight. Most of Shane Helms’s elaborate entrance is cut off; Helms points out that he only got the cruiserweight gold by winning a title shot in place of Billy Kidman, who was attacked before that six-man match for a title shot. He calls Kidman out to address this in an impromptu title match. Cool, man, I want to see this! They had a fine segment in the Thunder gauntlet match (show number one hundred and forty-five). After a handshake, we get a nice little exchange that ends with a Kidman rana that sends Helms to the floor. Kidman tries to baseball slide after him, gets popped, and then is food for a Helms running plancha. Back in the ring, Helms follows up with a crossbody from the top for two. Kidman and Helms run again; Helms avoids a Kid Krusher with a knee to the back, but he gets slammed and then hit with a Sky High, both for two counts. Tony S. is suddenly all HEY, IT’S THE SEASON FINALE OF NITRO NEXT WEEK, which is verbiage that no one on this show has ever used in their lives and would have been more ominous at the time had I not still hoped that the rumored WCW pause and reboot might still be on track except on FS1 rather than on TNT. There are more exchanges in the ring, lots of countering into and out of holds that ends with a Kidman gourdbuster for two. Kidman shoots Helms into the corner and tries to follow in with some offense, but he eats a boot and a running neckbreaker for two. Kidman looks for a knee-assisted facebuster that Kidman avoids. Kidman runs the ropes; he stops short when Helms ducks and tries to hook him for a Kid Krusher, but it’s a really clever finish in which Helms has sold out to bait Kidman into setting him up in Kid Krusher position because that is also the setup for a Vertebreaker. Helms quickly lifts Kidman as soon as Kidman hooks his arms around Sguar Shane's torso and drills a Vertebreaker for three. This match was shorter than I would have liked, but I loved that finish and, for this one thing only, give a lot of credit to Johnny Ace assuming he was the guy to help craft it. That finish was so clever that it hits a good list as well. Anyway, Chavo Guerrero Jr. attacks Helms as soon as Helms rises to his feet. Helms tries to fight Chavo off, but Elix Skipper and Kid Romeo help Chavo bolster his attack. It isn’t until Rey Misterio Jr. rushes to the ring and Kidman revives himself that the babyfaces can rid the ring of the heels. I’ve spent a lot of time lamenting the loss of WCW for a few of these fellas in the ring, but I’m glad that Chavo and Rey are moving on to better things, especially Rey eventually getting the main event push that he's deserved since the calendar turned to 2000. The BuffCam guy catches Lex Luger laid out in his locker room. Promo: Bam Bam Bigelow talks to the camera about his loss to Shawn Stasiak at Greed. I suppose that I’ll interject here and say that it’s just like WCW to stop using Gene Okerlund a month or two before they close down, but at the same time four years longer than they should have kept using him. Bammer cuts an uninspiring promo about how the hair spray incident that cost him at Greed was not good and that he’ll be getting a rematch against Stasiak tonight. The BuffCam guy shoots Road Warrior Animal trying to work through the list of suspects with Buff Bagwell; they settle on Rick Steiner as their newest suspect. I’m always happy to see Stacy Keibler, who heels it up by teasing a dance, but then not doing it because she didn’t get enough cheers for her liking. She then tosses it over to a guy who couldn’t draw heat if he were dropped into an erupting volcano: Shawn “The Perfect Mecca of Starhood” Stasiak. A few guys in the crowd preemptively chant BORING before Stasiak’s music is even cut. Stasiak, much as Scott Steiner does, sees a lot of the crowd in his disliked rival from the Jersey Shore, and boy, he doesn’t like what he sees one bit! Bam Bam Bigelow walks out here and jumps on Stasiak, who grabs the ref for leverage and then lands a back kick on a Bammer go-behind. That should be a disqualification, dammit! This is a watchable match, probably because they work it like they’ve got somewhere else to be. Stacy doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes before she gets on the apron and tosses the hair spray in the ring. It lands nowhere near Stasiak. Bammer picks it up, but eschews its use to instead score a Greetings for three. The replay emphasizes how badly Stacy missed that throw. Stasiak gets on the mic after the match and unnecessarily sets up a rubber match for next week’s Nitro that would be better used on almost anything else. Stasiak says that he’ll put anything on the line to get Bigelow in the ring one more time, and – hooray! Let's drop this next recurring section in a review one more time! BITCH COUNT: One, as Bammer wants to tattoo that BITCH in the ring. Stasiak readily offers Stacy up, but Bam Bam clarifies that he was talking about Stasiak himself. Bug eyes! Shock! Who cares! But at least I got to do one more BITCH COUNT! Booker T.’s music plays over the Nitro interstitial before we come back from break; Scott Steiner, CEO Flair, and Midajah soon enter the ring to hear from depressed once-hopeful owner of WCW Eric Bischoff. Scott Steiner threatens Terry Taylor. Is his rage at Taylor kayfabe or is it a shoot? Who can tell?! Probably both, honestly. Booker T. soon follows onto the top of the ramp and introduces Bisch over the phone. A downcast Eric Bischoff informs everyone about the Fusient deal falling through and says that he would like to do something “befitting what could be very well the last night of wrestling on the Turner networks.” Aw, you don’t have to worry about that, Bisch. Genesis Tony Khan does what Nintendon’t Eric Bischoff can’t. Bisch announces a night of champions on the final Nitro in which all of the titles are on the line, including a title-vs.-title match between Scott Steiner and Booker T. on that very show. Bisch also invites any former WCW World Heavyweight Champion to join them on Nitro, but Kevin Nash’ll be at the Trader Vic’s drinking daquiris and sitting out his contract, thank you very much. Bisch also notes that since he has a little bit of power left, he’s going to require CEO Ric Flair to kiss Dusty Rhodes’s ass. Meanwhile, Scott Steiner signs the contract for next week's match when Taylor places it on a table and demands that Booker do the same. Steiner is wielding the lead pipe in his left, which he eventually uses on Booker’s formerly-injured knee when CEO Flair runs a distraction. A bunch of Power Plant dudes who are hopefully putting in applications elsewhere right now rush the ring in security garb, but they are battered. One is even put through the table. CEO Flair tries to hold Booker for a big pipe shot, but Booker breaks away, lands an axe kick, and Spinaroonies up before taking possession of the lead pipe. He spends too much time hyping the pipe beating that he’s going to give Scotty, though, and Scott’s able to roll out of the ring before he can. Steiner peacocks, but he wants no part of that lead pipe across his head. Booker finishes signing the contract and gets a nice little BOOKER T. chant before promising once more to get the world title back around his waist next week. I suppose that in kayfabe, Bischoff stopped sharing power with Russo, but when Russo left, Bischoff was ostensibly still in some form of power because he never formally departed the company on screen. He obviously didn’t have enough power to stop Ric Flair’s hiring as CEO, but he has enough to put together these championship matches. That's my headcanon, and I'm stickin' to it. Tony S. and Scott Hudson speculate on who might just come back for the final Nitro, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for anyone other than Sting (though at the time, I did hope that Goldberg would make a return). Strangely peppy promotional commercial that just feels sad, kinda like listening to Andre Benjamin singing “Hey Ya” and only halfway comprehending the lyrics: This WCW Spring Breakout 2001 promo sure makes it seem like it’s business as usual in WCW, but boy, is it absolutely not! We’re back to the BuffCam: Bagwell tells Jeff Jarrett and CEO Flair that Luger, Animal, and himself are going to confront Rick Steiner. CEO Flair and Jarrett do not care one bit because of all the ass kissing that Flair's about to have to do. Buff is disgusted at their lack of focus and senses the end of any shot at company-wide dominance for his group. His sense is correct. M.I. Smooth tries to quickly wrap up his mini-feud with Kanyon. He lands a nice powerslam out of a leapfrog, but he eschews the pinfall attempt and instead follows Kanyon to the floor to club on him. Kanyon scrambles for safety and eventually manages to mule kick Smooth’s balls, but that barely impedes Smooth’s offense; Smooth lands a big corner lariat, then tries another and eats a boot. Kanyon scores a side Russian for two and thus begins an offensive run of his own. A legdrop across the abdomen and also possibly balls gets two; a vertical suplex and springboard elbow combo earns another two count for Kanyon. In pursuit of victory, Kanyon bends over for a backdrop and is hair whipped to the mat. Smooth starts his comeback, mistimes an inverted atomic drop, but makes up for it with a nice powerbomb. Smooth hits a nice standing splash, but Kanyon sneaks a shoulder up at about 2.8 and moves when Smooth charges him in the corner. For some reason, Road Warrior Animal runs down and attacks Smooth, landing a DDT behind the ref’s back, and the Cat is too late to the ring to stop Kanyon from making the cover for three. The Cat does, however, manage to challenge Animal and Kanyon to a tag match against himself and Smooth on the final Thunder, which is exactly where that Bam Bam/Stasiak rubber match should have taken place. What a supportive son! Dustin Rhodes has another platter of bean burritos for his dear old pops despite the abhorrent odor of Dusty’s farts. Woof, Rick Steiner versus Konnan seems like a chance for me to mentally check out for a little while. You know exactly what we’re getting out of these guys. Obligabrawl. Mauling. Plodding offense. Tony S. says that next week’s Nitro “will be a fitting end and a great beginning” for WCW, which is the most incorrect statement that I have heard anyone make on any Nitro, Thunder, or PPV throughout this whole watch. Steiner’s modus operandi is to hit like one or two nice moves just to let the viewer at home know that he could probably be more interesting if he wanted to be. Konnan sparks a comeback and runs through his 3MoD before that gets stuffed so that Steiner can bore the shit out of everyone for a couple of minutes longer. Shane Douglas once again runs in and lands a cast attack, though this one is right in front of Billy Silverman, who throws out the match. Konnan argues with Silverman and gets clocked in the dome by Steiner, but Hugh Morrus makes the save. Buff Bagwell, Lex Luger, and Road Warrior Animal decide that it's optimal strategy to confront Rick Steiner about possibly having been the knock out artist who clobbered them right after the break, when a hurt Steiner finally stumbles back to his dressing room. I do get a kick out of Steiner’s upset denial: “There ain’t nothin’ goin’ on with me, Marcus!” Why is it so funny that he calls him “Marcus?” I don’t know, but it is. Promo: Lance Storm does the talking for both himself and Mike Awesome. Team Canada’s got a non-title match against Palumbo and O’Haire tonight, and winning that will earn them a title shot on Nitro next week. I was wrong; they will get their shot at the titles before WCW implodes for good! Jeff Jarrett tells CEO Ric Flair to assert his power as WCW’s Chief Executive Officer; CEO Flair takes that to heart, then notices the BuffCam guy filming and kicks him out of the room. Lance Storm and Mike Awesome managed to get past Konnan and Hugh Morrus at Greed and now look to continue climbing the metaphorical ladder toward the tag titles. Storm: “Tonight, we start our road to the world tag team titles. And believe me when I tell you, it’s not going to be a very long road.” I believe you, buddy. Sean O’Haire and Chuck Palumbo walk to the ring while riding the high of their demolition of Totally Buff the night previous. They don’t have nearly as easy a task tonight. Storm and Palumbo embark upon a feeling out process; Storm does an elaborate leaping floatover to get out of a wristlock. All that to get punched square in the jaw. I liked that spot. Palumbo dropkicks Storm to the floor, and O’Haire tosses Storm back in before tagging in himself. Awesome soon follows, and they do their athletic big man stuff. It’s enjoyable. I think Awesome’s offense looks much better and more hurty than O’Haire’s, but it’s all good. O’Haire is blindsided and tossed into the stairs by Storm, which puts him in FIP jail. Awesome and Storm are probably best suited for tag team wrestling in any other company that isn’t 2001 WCW, which is in need of midcard heavyweight singles workers who can go a little bit. They’re a perfectly fine heel tag team in control, however. Storm kills an O’Haire flurry with a sledge from the top; this has the added benefit of drawing Chuck Palumbo over and stopping the hot tag…for a few seconds. O’Haire catches Storm on a leapover and dumps him in a way that looked initially like Storm was countering with a DDT, but whatever. Palumbo gets the hot tag and has a nice run, including a counter-powerbomb and diving shoulderblock on Storm that gets two. The match breaks down from here, which is where a sneak thief like storm excels; he shoves O’Haire off the top rope and all the way to the floor on a Seanton Bomb attempt. He then tries to use a chair on Palumbo, and even though Palumbo kicks it away, Awesome comes from the other side with a chair, which he clatters Palumbo with even as Palumbo is standing right next to the ref (Tony S., exposing da biz: “How did [the referee] not hear that?!”). Awesome follows with an Awesome Bomb for three and a title shot that he’s got no chance to win since neither of his opponents are Bam Bam Bigelow. It's time for our main event! That main event is Jeff Jarrett and CEO Ric Flair being forced to kiss a donkey’s behind after they fight over who should do it. I was amused. Dusty claims to have fed the burro the platter of burritos from earlier. This lil’ donkey is adorable. Poor guy. It’s loud in this arena, and there are too many lights. This was very dumb, but entertaining. It is a difficult thing to try to wrap up a bunch of ongoing storylines in two weeks while also leaving time for Vince K. McMahon to figuratively spike the football and fire people on live TV, so I’m of a mind to be a bit more lenient to these last couple of Nitros. Plus, I’m sort of wistful about the fact that I’ve just about run out of Nitros, which I think has softened my critical brain into mush: 3 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Greed notes: I’d have more of that LAST PAY-PER-VIEW energy except that I have to go back and watch like eight pay-per-views that I skipped early on in this thread, back when I foolishly planned only to watch all the Nitro episodes. This was meant to be maybe a year-long project, and it’ll take about four years in the end. But the journey was well worth it! Intro: DDP IS STILL STANDING. For now. Tony S. welcomes us to the first Greed PPV. He manages not to sarcastically welcome us to the last Greed PPV at the same time. Kwee Wee opens the show against Jason Jett; Tony S. and Scott Hudson put Jett and his offense over big. Kwee Wee is all angry and shit, so he jumps Jett at the bell and the men throw hands at ringside. Jett does a backflip off a caught front kick, then throws a superkick and lands a dive before bringing things back into the ring. A springboard guillotine legdrop scores two. You can see where Jett would have been a big part of the cruiserweight division going forward just from his offense. Jett teases a stomp to Kwee Wee’s balls while Kwee Wee begs off, but opts for a surfboard instead. Kwee Wee finally gets some control and then, in a dope spot, hair beals Jett from the mat, all the way over the top rope and too the floor. He then whiffs badly on a suicide dive. Kwee Wee staggers to his feet and jett charges him; Kwee Wee instinctively backdrops Jett, who bounces back off the ropes and smoothly into a DDT in one motion. Jett is pretty good at making all these contrived spots come off as moves that are naturally happening within the heat of battle. After a front flip clothesline, Jett runs himself right into a backdrop with no ropes there to bounce off of; he goes all the way over the corner post to the floor, where he bumps wildly off a whip to the rail while Kwee Wee yells I’M GONNA KILL ‘IM. Kwee Wee theatrically threatens poor old Dave Penzer with fisticuffs (WHAT, YOU WANT SOME?) and then takes it back to the ring. Jett attempts to punch his way out of trouble, but is met with a Thesz Press and a slew of punches, Stone Cold-style. Kwee Wee’s problem is that he is too busy yapping at the fans to do much about following up on his offense, and he ends up merely putting Jett in a chinlock after quite a bit of time; Jett naturally finds a way to work to his feet pretty quickly as a result of all the rest time, but Kwee Wee violently yanks him back down and scores a lateral press for two. A follow-up vertical suplex gets another two count. Kwee Wee throws fists and forearms and forearms and fists, but when he sits Jett up top for a superplex, Jett throws a fist into his solar plexus and tries a super powerbomb that Kwee Wee very smoothly reverses into a rana on the way down (!!!). I’d expect that spot from Rey Misterio Jr., but not from either of these two guys. They eventually make their way to their feet, where Kwee Wee drops Jett on his face after corralling him on a rope run. That only gets two, so Kwee Wee calls for a jumping piledriver to finish him. Jett has to go low and pummel Kwee Wee’s penis. This leads to Jett hitting a springboard backflip elbow and attempting a Crash Landing that Kwee Wee leaps out of; Kwee Wee manages a sunset flip for two. OK, so Kwee Wee looks for another jumping piledriver, and they counter-counter-counter until Kwee Wee manages a Northern Lights with a bridge for two. Kwee Wee tries to follow up with a whip to the corner, but Jett leapfrogs over him, though when he walks forward to follow up, Kwee Wee is at the same time stumbling backward; their heads smack, and Kwee Wee tumbles to the floor. While Kwee Wee is near insensate out there, Jett rises to his feet and asks the crowd not to give away his game. His game is taking a plan from the great workers such as Bret Hart and Eddy Guerrero and playing possum; he lays himself out in the center of the ring and pretends to be knocked out. Kwee Wee never catches on and casually goes up top, where he misses an elbow drop. Jett quickly gets to his feet and scores a Crash Landing for three. This match RULED and the crowd got way into it; as is appropriate for the final PPV of the Nitro Era and indeed for the final PPV produced by WCW itself, it is only right that we started it out with a legitimate HOT CRUISERWEIGHT OPENER. Recap: Can you believe that WCW ran a tag title tournament that was straightforward in its execution and didn’t suck? They truly were turning things around! Elix Skipper and Kid Romeo are massive underdogs on paper, but they’re heels and have all sorts of underhanded tactics and chicanery on hand. Skipper walks the top rope and backflips into the ring as a statement of intent. Romeo dances like a goof, which is less of a statement of intent. Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman, my favorite short-term tag team, enter the ring. WCW in this era had a couple of awesome short-term tag teams. Mongo McMichael and Chris Benoit would fit that description too, for one example. There is at least one other tag team of this type that I’m forgetting, I know. Kidman and Romeo start with quick exchanges full of counters until Romeo manages an Alley Oop. This puts Kidman in quite a bit of early trouble, but he escapes a Skipper attack with a counter-headscissors and a dropkick, then tags Rey in for a leveraged springboard guillotine legdrop. Rey is absurdly quick and agile tonight, even for him. Rey scores a series of headscissors and ranas, then whips Kidman into a baseball slide after knocking Skipper outside the ring. Kidman and Skipper fight up the ramp, where they are joined by Rey and Romeo, and they do a sick pair of spots. First, Kidman hip tosses Skipper off the ramp and into Romeo on the floor. Second, they back way up and then hit a stereo crossbody/seated senton that clears the heels out. I like that they sojourned up the ramp here; it was a neat little obligabrawl that looked different than most of them, for one, and for two, it helps differentiate this cruiserweight match from the previous one. Romeo sticks a knee in Kidman’s back when the match returns to the ring; Kidman, who is knocked off his line on a rope run, is an easy target for a Skipper flying knee and finds himself as the babyface in mortal peril. Well, not that much mortal peril; he manages to lariat his way out of trouble before getting bulldogged right back into it by Romeo on a quick counter. Kidman fights out of a Romeo chinlock in short order, but he gets splattered on a sit-out front suplex; Romeo’s extremely cocky cover does not get three. Skip and Romeo spend some time choking Kidman against the ropes; Skipper throws forearms at Kidman from outside the ring before jawing at some Jacksonville chump in the crowd. Back in the ring, Skipper tries some sort of superplex or top-rope rana, but Kidman throws a couple of fists into Skipper’s ribs and then turns it into a super Sky High. This sparks a hot tag, and Rey is so fucking quick, y'know? He is incredibly aesthetically pleasing even beyond his high personal standards for aesthetics tonight. Skipper clears himself out on a corner charge and posts himself, then tumbles outside. Meanwhile, Rey lands a rolling senton splash on Romeo, rolls through it and right onto his feet, and keeps charging forward to successfully score a suicide dive on Skipper at ringside. That was an incredible spot, as is Kidman’s SSP splash onto the heels on the floor. Yeah, if you’re going to complain about AJ Styles using it, you’d better bust it out more often. Back in the ring, Rey looks like he’s approaching victory; he gets two on a sunset flip powerbomb to Skipper back in the ring, but Romeo makes the save. Skipper struggles to halt Rey’s onslaught of offense, and he does with a shitty reverse headlock takeover. Skip is selling his shoulder, though, which actually is probably pretty sore because he smacked the post earlier. He even manages to hold Rey in place for a Romeo guillotine legdrop. This match is super-pacey again. Rey powerbombs Romeo in place for a Kidman top-rope splash, but Skip breaks that up at two. Rey scores a springboard forearm on Skipper, followed by Kidman hitting a baseball slide to Skip’s nads and Rey scoring a Bronco Buster. The babyfaces set up for a Nutcracker Suite, but Romeo has made it back to his feet, and Rey dives onto him instead; meanwhile, Kidman still has a hold of Skipper and hauls him up, where they tumble outside to the mats while hooked together. Meanwhile, Rey is cruising…until the point at which he tries an Asai moonsault and gets plucked out of mid-air by Romeo, with no Kidman in sight to keep him from scoring a Last Kiss for a surprisingly clean three count and the WCW World Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship. These tag belts are somehow both kinda plain and a bit too gaudy at the same time; on another note, Romeo and Skipper hit a celebratory dance that is vile in the most heelish of ways. We are two-for-two tonight! That was another fun match! Someone else is behind the BuffCam tonight; Buff says that he hired a camera guy to film CEO Flair's documentary because he felt that he was not getting enough camera time. Yep, that seems about right. CEO Flair, Jeff Jarrett, and Road Warrior Animal all jabber on about Scott Steiner’s paranoia and the Magnificent Seven’s in-ring prospects tonight. CEO Flair is more confident than he should be, let’s say that much. The group goes back to talking about Scotty Steiner being incredibly paranoid; Buff Bagwell goes off to find him and the rest of the group. Honestly, I’m not even going to complain that much about this Shawn Stasiak vs. Bam Bam Bigelow match because Stacy Keibler is out here in the Ms. Hancock get-up. You want to mollify me when you’ve booked a shitty match? Haul Stacy Keibler out here in a short skirt. Whatever, I’m a simple creature. My T-levels have remained high throughout this Nitro Era watch. Anyway, Stacy tries to get this fucking goof over, and they’ve given him a new theme and a fresh entrance and multiple nicknames (“The Star,” “The Mecca of Manhood”), but when Tony S. says “What’s [Stacy] doing with him,” he’s saying what we’re all thinking anyway. Did Mark Jindrak take a shit in Terry Taylor’s shoes or something? Why isn’t he getting this push instead? Stasiak does his opening spiel with the insults and the 8x10s and all that. It stinks. Bam Bam Bigelow comes out here to stand up for the common people or whatever. This match is what it is, which is to say that it’s a one-way trip to Snoozeland. Who the fuck wants to see Stasiak stall and call for timeouts in a match with fucking Bammer in the year 2001? Look, I’m just skipping to the finish and sparing you all the basic-ass wrestling in this bout: Stace distracts both the ref and Bammer before Bam Bam can land a Greetings; she also manages to toss Stasiak a can of hair spray, which Stasiak uses on Bam Bam before quickly landing a Rude Awakening for three. Why bookers kept sticking Stacy with these bland tall dudes, I don’t know. Stacy, as the coolest person in this ring by far, reverses position while in a liplock with her man, dips a surprised Stasiak, and when he looks at her in shock for her bold move, she smiles and swats him on the ass. Spectacular. A security cam catches the Cat and Ms. Jones arriving; the Cat refuses to let Ms. Jones accompany him to ringside for his match with Kanyon, but she insists [Editor's note: And it's good for the Cat that she did!]. Elix Skipper’s in a celebratory mood: “This is MY BELT! I BUILT THIS BELT!” Heh. He and Romeo strap on their gold and have a nice bro moment in which they excitedly hug before their heelish homophobia takes over and they withdraw into a handshake instead. Heh heh. Lance Storm and Mike Awesome are wasted in a midcard tag match against Konnan and Hugh Morrus in Greed’s next matchup. Storm promises to dispatch of Konnan and Morrus before moving on to the tag team championships, but there won’t be any time for that. Sorry, fellas. Storm demands the playing of the anthem, but it doesn’t happen much to Lance’s chagrin. He asks for it once more, but all he gets is Hugh Morrus’s goofy giggling as the hook to Morrus’s theme. WCW creative really feuded Lance Storm with Hugh Morrus for like nine months, huh? This is the best they had for Storm? This match is watchable, but man, I just do not give a single solitary fuck about Storm/Morrus. Awesome and Storm have Morrus in the deepest of doo doo almost immediately; Konnan, who came out after Morrus had already charged the ring, is never anything but a waiting hot tag in the first half of this match. After Morrus and Storm bump heads, Konnan manages to get a hot tag, but his offensive run is cut off when Awesome lariats him out of a sit-out facebuster attempt. Awesome tags in and scores two on a splash; Storm makes a quick tag, but Konnan manages to fight back against him, thought Storm back elbows his way out of danger on a Konnan corner charge. Konnan is our second FIP of the night. This match is entirely too long. Konnan sitting in a Storm chinlock is not my idea of fun. Get some cruiserweights back out here already. The heels lose control on a Lance Storm dive that Konnan gets a boot up on; there’s a hot tag. Matters progress, and after Storm delays a Morrus No Laughing Matter attempt, Awesome scores an Awesome Bomb on Morrus for three…finally. These last two matches have cooled off the show after the first two matches heated it up. There is a security camera parked in the Rhodes Family’s dressing room. The word ASS is bleeped on PPV. Dusty has ordered a giant sack of burritos so that his bulbous ass can emit as many methane-laced poots as possible into CEO Flair's face later tonight. Buff Bagwell interviews Rick Steiner on the BuffCam, and Rick is self-assured that he will easily beat Booker T. and that his brother Scotty will chill out once he figures out who injured Midajah. Ricky also would prefer if the person holding the BuffCam were a hot lady as opposed to a nondescript dude. Palumbo and O’Haire are convinced that nothing short of being killed in the ring would keep them from leaving with the tag titles tonight. You don’t even need to worry about it coming close to that, boys. The Nitro Girls are here to dance Shane Helms out to the ring. Yeah, one more Chae sighting for the road! I love it! Helms got new tights, which is how you know he’s going to win the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship from Chavo Guerrero Jr. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the cruiserweights make it a clean three-for-three in getting onto my Good Matches list tonight. Chavo and Sugar Shane have a contentious collar-and-elbow to start, which sets a certain tone for the proceedings. Chavo grabs a headlock after the break and tenaciously holds onto it, pulling Shane’s hair to keep him from bouncing out of it if necessary. Helms finally makes it out, and they trade headscissors and takeovers to a standoff. Hudson is fucking awful on commentary, by the way, talking about these two respecting one another when it’s been clear in the build that Chavo only has contempt for the young rookie trying to use him as a come-up, and that the contempt has been returned in kind by Helms considering all of Chavo’s mind games and sneak attacks. This is only the first time tonight that I have negatively mentioned Hudson. Actually, while I’ve toned down my complaints about him in the last batch of reviews, that’s only because I just don’t feel like it’s worth continually reiterating how awful he is at this job. I feel like at this stage in the watch, I can definitively declare this opinion: Scott Hudson is the worst color commentator of the Nitro Era, and by a significant amount. I’d rather have Mongo being distracting but charmingly goofy or Madden misfiring on about half his witticisms and being fairly funny or insightful with the other half than listen to Scott Hudson lay on a professional commentator’s tone that belies his insipid attempts at wit and inability to understand the basic character and plot beats of ongoing storylines and feuds. Maybe as the braindead PBP man who just reports the action in the ring while two color partners add the intelligence and insight, he'd be perfectly fine. But man, he sucks real bad in this color position! Hudson won’t stop me from enjoying this match, however. The counter-counter-counter stuff continues until Helms can score a gutwrench suplex and a diving fist for two. Helms looks for a Nightmare, but we’re back to counter-counter-counter as Chavo slips away and lands a pumphandle overhead suplex for a two count of his own. The veteran slows things down with boot chokes and washes in the corner before locking on an octopus hold. Chavo does one of my favorite things that one can do while working holds; transition into other holds when they’re not working. He throws first, transitions to a knee bar, transitions from there into a, uh, Indian deathlock with a neck crank, and then goes back into the knee bar. When Helms finally works to his feet and manages a headlock, Chavo immediately dumps him with a back suplex for two. I’m really enjoying Chavo’s heel control segment. He’s doing a good job of keeping Helms grounded here, but in an interesting way rather than with endless chinlocks or other such nonsense. Chavo continues to pepper his control segment with two counts in between keeping Helms locked up and unable to counter. Tony S. very generously compliments Hudson on giving a couple Solie-like insights, and Hudson immediately comments with the equivalent of SOLIE WAS A FUCKING ALCOHOLIC for some reason; I think it's because he thinks he’s being witty. Goddam, Hudson is basura. What a slow-witted dolt. Chavo’s dominance continues; he hits a huge crossbody outside the ring, then gets Helms back inside the ring and tries a suplex that Helms blocks once, twice, and then a third time. Helms manages to hit a face crusher onto his knee, then switches out of a backslide attempt that Chavo is blocking and scores a reverse neckbreaker instead. Charles Robinson starts a standing ten count that gets all the way to eight before Helms covers for two. Helms tries to follow up, but Chavo reverses his whip to the ropes until ultimately, Chavo ends up on the apron, where he is hit with a Sugar Smack. He can’t roll down the ramp when taking that bump this time, unfortunately, as the ramp in this arena is slanted. Back in the ring, Chavo manages to hook Helms’s follow-up attempt at offense; he lands a reverse gourdbuster sort of deal for two. Chavo’s hunting victory; he tries a tornado DDT that is blocked, but when he tries to transition to pumphandle position once more, he’s gone back to that particular move too many times; Helms reverses into a Nightmare that he scores. His cover only gets two, however, as Chavo is close enough to the ropes to break the pinfall attempt with a boot across the bottom cable. Wearily, Helms whips Chavo to the corner, follows him in, eats a boot, and even with all that still manages to reverse Chavo’s own attempt at a corner whip. Chavo goes all the way over the top and to the floor, where Helms meets him with a froggy crossbody off the top. Helms dumps Chavo back into the ring and hits another crossbody for two. Helms goes to the well one more time, but Chavo cuts him off, and he takes a sick bump when Chavo knocks him down. Chavo covers with his feet on the ropes for only two, then tries a super back suplex that Helms elbows his way out of. However, Chavo recovers quickly and hoists Helms, still sitting on the top rope, into Vertebreaker position, which is like the most disrespectful thing that you can do. The conventions of narrative almost demand that Chavo is punished for his moxie, and indeed, he is. Helms easily reverses the move that he has mastered, then dumps Chavo on his neck in a Vertebreaker of his own for three. The Nitro Girls come to the ring to celebrate with the new champion after the match. Yep, that was a successful three-in-three for the cruiserweights. Two more quick thoughts before we move on: First, I remembered Helms/Chavo as a great feud. It was not. Funny enough, the two things that I’d point to as evidence that it was at least a good feud were two matches that I didn’t actually visually see until this watch, those being their Sin and Greed matches. Why I thought that the TV made for an excellent chase story between the two at the time, I cannot possibly recall. Second, WCW’s renewed emphasis on cruisers was never going to save it, but had it stuck around into the aughts and New Tens with such an emphasis, it would have led to another hot period for them when a handful of their smaller wrestlers caught fire. Can you imagine mid-aughts Bryan Danielson in front of wrestling-focused WCW crowds? My goodness. He would have replicated Chris Benoit’s natural ascent up the card even with stop-start pushes simply because WCW fans were into that sort of intense wrestling aura and crisp work. A number of guys who spent most or all of the aughts in smaller promotions would have made good money much earlier had AOL Time Warner simply held onto WCW and hired someone competent to run the show. Samoa Joe getting his TNA push in WCW instead would have been pretty rad. Samoa Joe vs. Goldberg would have been extremely rad (even if Goldberg would obviously be going over). Jeff Jarrett and CEO Flair pretend not to be concerned about Dusty sucking down bean burritos in his locker room on the BuffCam, but they are clearly quite concerned about Dusty sucking down bean burritos in his locker room. Pre-taped promo: Booker T. has no good catchphrases. No, wait, he has one: CAN YOU DIG IT, SUCKAAAAAA, but he refuses to use it anymore. Also, he’s going to beat Rick Steiner, or so he claims. And so he will! Hype video and feud recap: This epic Totally Buff/Palumbo and O’Haire feud has mostly been Totally Buff getting their asses kicked by the young lions, which augurs poorly for the vets tonight. I think Totally Buff saying FUCK IT and eating a quick and definitive loss to Palumbo and O’Haire to cap off this feud is neat. I mean, the point of the feud was that they were getting rolled by these younger dudes and were totally outmatched. I don’t know why some people who are too damned online persist in calling Totally Buff’s quick loss some sort of tantrum or WHO GIVES A SHIT move on their parts now that WCW is about to be fucked for good. Even if it was, who cares? Palumbo and O’Haire come off as legit after destroying them. I do get a kick out of Luger seeing himself on the big screen and posing with a goofy smile on his face, as do I get one out of their pre-match talky-talk going on far longer than their feeble attempts at turning back the tide of inexorable youth. Palumbo and O’Haire hand out Jungle Kicks and Seanton Bombs to Luger and Buff like candy to first-graders on Halloween night about as soon as the bell rings. One final note since there are no more Natural Born Thrillers left to work on this show: Am I the only one who is disappointed that the Thrillers just sorta split up with no real final resolution? I mentioned this earlier, but what even happened to Mark Jindrak, anyway? He doesn’t even hang out with Shawn Stasiak anymore. Hey, it’s Midajah! She counts reps for Scott Steiner, who rages out a threat toward Diamond Dallas Page when he’s done with his chin-ups. We get some B-roll of the Cat and Kanyon beefing, but we cut away because that match can’t start until they peel Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell off the mat. Hilarious. I love the overselling. Man, Buff’s hairline is in shambles. Remember when you were the bright young tag star, buddy? Your hairline barely does! Kanyon has new music that I sure hope is a dub because otherwise, yuck. He rises through the stage and, by the logic of “new entrance and theme means you’re going over,” I’m expecting him to go over the Cat (w/Ms. Jones) tonight. The Cat lobs childish insults at Kanyon while I take a peep at Ms. Jones; Kanyon leaps out of the ring, goes after Ms. Jones, and is cut off by the Cat for obligabrawl time. Tony S. points out the cast that Kanyon is wearing, which I feel is such an obvious giveaway to the finish of this match that I assume that Kanyon will be misdirecting me with its use. As for the match, it’s fine. The Cat should lose his nickname for being unable to skin himself after Kanyon tosses him over the top rope. What follows is watchable enough. It strikes me that these PPVs would be better in quality if they were two hours long instead of three, though obviously WCW wouldn’t want to recalibrate their pricing strategy to match. But there is a genuinely awesome show lurking in this PPV if only it had some editing. I will say that Kanyon at least has enjoyable heel control segments. It’s not just his unorthodox offense that I like; he has a nice vertical suplex, for example, and is very aesthetically pleasing with how he lands his offense. This is going to be a strange comp, maybe, but I see a bit of Scott Hall in him. He can wrestle big or small and he’s got quite a bit of really pretty offense. I actually think Hall’s offense is overall better and prettier because Kanyon has contrived offense that sucks, but he limits that stuff in his moveset pretty admirably for a guy with that sort of contrived offense component to his work. The Cat fights out of a sleeper hold with a back suplex, then manages to crotch Kanyon on the top rope. A follow-up superplex puts Kanyon down for about 2.8. The Cat proceeds to reel off his own goofy but endearing offense. A huge kick manages maybe a 2.85, but the best part about it is Kanyon’s bump making it look like death. Shortly after, Kanyon puts his boots on the ropes on a rollup and gets three, but Billy Silverman actually a) spots it and b) rescinds his three count immediately and tells Kanyon that he spotted the illegal pinfall attempt and that the match will continue. Looks like it’s a kayfabe certainty that someone decided to finally get himself together since he’s effectively auditioning for a job with another company! It feels like we’re coming close to the end here. Kanyon manages to twist the Cat into an ugly Boston Crab, which belies my compliments about Kanyon’s offense, but the Cat grabs the bottom rope, and shortly after, he reverses a corner whip and lands a Feliner on the rebound. Alas, he doesn’t reposition Kanyon before draping himself on top to cover; Kanyon gets a boot on the ropes before Silverman can count to three. Kanyon’s cast comes into play as he swings it at the Cat before loading his fist when the Cat ducks and slugging him. Kanyon knocks out Silverman as Silverman’s attention is taken up by Ms. Jones complaining about Kanyon’s cheating. The Cat grabs Kanyon from behind for Ms. Jones to kick him, but Kanyon moves, and she clears out the Cat. No matter! She squares up to Kanyon anyway, then lands a kick that wobbles him just enough for the Cat to recover and score another Feliner. Jones shakes Silverman out of his slumber; he counts to three, so I was wrong about that whole “new entrance and theme” corollary. Kanyon attacks the Cat after the match and then goes after Ms. Jones, but, hark, what is that sound? Pray tell, is that ersatz “Smooth Operator?!” It is! M.I. Smooth brings out the busted chair that Kanyon cracked over his head a whole bunch and chases Kanyon off. The person Buff hired to run the BuffCam catches Bagwell and Luger barking accusations at one another backstage after their loss, which is a moment that Buff is bummed has been captured for posterity when he spots his still-fiming employee! Dusty Rhodes demonstrates an important difference between having the shits and being the shits, Dusty of course embodying the former here and not the ladder. Let me tell you, there is not a single burrito left on that platter. Tony S., in response to Hudson’s redirection from discussing Dusty destroying those burritos with no Beanon chaser to Totally Buff possibly EXPLODING: “We just saw Dusty chow down on forty burritos, and you want to talk about Buff and Lex?” Tony S.: He’s definitely just saying what everyone is thinking! Hype video and feud recap: Booker T. is finally going to get revenge on Rick Steiner for Ricky's TV title shenanigans back at Slamboree ‘99. Let’s wrap up the journey of WCW’s version of the United States Championship, as I refuse to recognize the WWE’s part of its lineage. Booker T. is out first, followed by Rick Steiner. Steiner is fucking boring, and no amount of his tossing Booker into the front row is going to keep him from putting me right to sleep. He does hit a dope Tiger Bomb in there, but that’s sandwiched in between face gouges. I just want to see Booker hit some fun offense; he’s another guy whose offense I find aesthetically pleasing, though I wouldn’t put him on Scott Hall’s level in that or in most regards (nor would I Kanyon, though they do remind me of one another in some ways). The biggest issue I have with this match is that Booker didn’t get a shine segment to start, so we end up having too little of Booker dropping offense and too much of Booker firing up and then getting cut off. We even get the standard WCW heel’s response to kicking out of a flash pinfall. Oh, and one of the worst chinlocks I’ve ever seen in my life on the part of Ricky Steiner. This match is below average, and that is pretty much all down to Rick, who I am pleased didn’t follow his brother back to the WWE. Finally, Booker makes a comeback that sticks and scores his 5MoD, Spinaroonies up…and hits a Houston Side Kick on Mickey Jay when Steiner ducks it. Whoopsie! Jay’s eye is all hurt, so he can’t make a count when Steiner lands a back suplex and makes a cover. Shane Douglas randomly sneaks in from the crowd and hits Rick Steiner with a cast-covered arm for like the second or third time in the past couple of months; Steiner barely sells it as he stumbles into a Book End that ends the match and awards Booker T. the WCW United States Championship. It is such a WCW move to wait until ten days before the end of the company to finally put the United States Championship on Booker T. when they had a chance to do so at a time when it would have actually helped him back in 1999. Furthermore, WCW had a title holder in Bret Hart who was willing to put Booker over. Instead, they had Booker beat Bret in a Nitro match for a U.S. Championship shot that Booker never received. This happened maybe a week or so after Bret dropped the belt to Roddy Piper (!), who then dropped it to Scott Hall (!!), who then vacated the belt entirely (!!!). Just in case I don’t get to drop another one of these (though I might get a couple off when I go back and finish up the PPVs that centered all that Dungeon of Doom/Hogan and Savage nonsense), I’d like to write this one for the road: Fuck off, WCW. The BuffCam catches Road Warrior Animal standing over a knocked-out Buff Bagwell. Lex Luger suspects Animal as the perpetrator, though Animal reminds points out that he was a victim of a sneak attack as well. Luger seems skeptical about whether or not that means much regarding Animal’s innocence in this regard. Hype video and feud recap: No offense to Dustin Rhodes, but his final WCW run has been mostly bad and the best thing about it by far is that Dusty came back to tag with him. The “Jeff Jarrett, Main Eventer” experiment went about like you’d expect, and now Jarrett is safely back in the upper midcard where he belongs. Good thing that he won’t be tanking some other wrestling company’s main event scene in the future after this obvious failure in elevating him. CEO Ric Flair (w/Road Warrior Animal) walks to the ring in a Hawai’ian shirt and slacks. So much for the splendor of the Nature Boy and his fabulous robes, huh? Flair walking down here already prepared to get fuuuuuuucked up after the show signals just how dead WCW is. Dustin Rhodes walks out, but he stops on the ramp so we can get his crappy theme cut off by HE’S THE AMEHEHEHERICUN DREEEEEEEEEAAAAAMMMM, which is number one and the best. CEO Flair says that he’s not dressed to wrestle, so he’ll just leave things to Jeff Jarrett; he’s got a Bahama Breeze with his name on it that simply won’t wait. Charles Robinson, who I suppose is annoyed that CEO Flair hasn’t invited him to join the Magnificent Seven as their prized referee, is like YO, YOU GOTTA GET THAT BUM ROAD WARRIOR ANIMAL THE FUCK OUTTA HERE. The CEO is incensed, but finally, after Animal lumbers away from ringside, Flair deigns to get on the apron and maybe wrestle this match. I like this silly little match, and I don’t use “silly” as a pejorative or as a way to slate the work that these men do in the ring. Dustin and Jarrett do some really good connective work in this tag match and allow Flair and Dusty to do what they do best at this point, which is their signature spots that everyone wants to see. When Dustin gets away from Flair and tags his pops in, the crowd explodes. Dusty gets in and very cartoonishly waits for his tummy to stop roiling before he locks it up, then cuts a cheeky grin at Flair. I think of story in maybe Mick Foley’s first book, I think, about Mick and the other workers on some show in Japan killing themselves for a reaction, then standing in the back and watching the main event, in which Abdullah the Butcher hit a crane kick pose and got a bigger pop than any of them did diving onto the floor or onto one another. That’s the anecdote that comes to mind watching Dusty wiggle his ass and tease Bionic Elbows in this segment of the match. The crowd is like YEAH, HIT THE ELBOW and they’re maybe louder for that than all the good cruiserweight work from earlier in the show. Dustin does a fine job in the FIP role after Ric stops him from landing a Dustbuster on Jarrett by low blowing him from behind. I like that Jarrett works Dustin’s knee to help Flair set up for a Figure Four, but as soon as he tags out, Flair loses control of the bout and has to tag Jarrett back into try a Figure Four of his own. Dustin survives the ordeal and manages a hot tag to Dusty that is super enjoyable. The crowd loves it, and so do I, as Dusty throws punches and elbows at the heels. Dusty drops an elbow as Flair screams NOOOOOOOO, but his cover is broken up at two by Jarrett. The match breaks down after this; Dustin tags back in and works over Flair as Jarrett escapes a Dusty onslaught with a low blow. Flair and Jarrett prepare stereo Figure Fours, but both Rhodes boys kick out of them and launch the heels into one another. The only bad part of this match is the finish, in which there’s a weird, blown DDT/small package sort of deal that Rhodes scores on Flair. It looks ugly. Fuck that, I wanted another Bionic Elbow. Regardless, I liked this match a lot. It was perfect for what it was. It was well-laid-out, leaned on the younger guys to pull things together, and let the old guys do their spots. It’s on my good list, and I still don’t know why some folks online shit on this feud at the time. Tony S., after Dusty gets on the house mic and demands that CEO Flair KISS [HIS] BIG WHITE ASS, reports in a serious tone that “Dusty can pass gas on command, too. I’ve known that about him for a long time.” BWAHAHAHA. Jarrett tries to jump Dustin, but Dustin swats him in the balls and holds him in place for a Dusty Stinkface. Dusty doesn’t get the dude all up in his crack like Rikishi would, though, which I think is for the best. Before we head into the main event, I am pleased to report that Greed has been a pretty good show! Hype video and feud recap: Scott Steiner vs. DDP has been an enjoyable feud, but Page pretty much never beats Scotty, so even if I didn’t know the title lineage, I wouldn’t think that he had much of a chance. Tony S. mentioned this earlier, but I should note just in case I failed to when he said it at the start of the show that the main event match is now a Falls Count Anywhere Match. One final time, probably, here is Michael Buffer’s Ring Announcing Quality Control: Technically, DDP isn’t the LAST MAN STANDING since Booker is back in the company, but come on, that’s small beer. I have to tell you that other than that one disastrous “Bret Clark” incident and his insistence on calling the Jackhammer an INVERTED LIFT AND SLAM – one of Buffer’s favorite foibles – he's been mostly just fine at this job. His ineptitude is much overstated based on my viewing of the archival footage. Scott Steiner makes his way down with his FAVORITE FREAK Midajah and meets Page in the ring, where they throw hands. I am of two minds when it comes to this match. First, it’s quite good, which I don’t think is particularly surprising given the talent in the ring. Second, I think it would have been even better without the late additional stipulation of falls being counted anywhere in the building. There’s a smidge too much obligabrawling that feels aimless for my taste, though they work with anger and urgency, which helps. Most of the first few minutes of the match is back-and-forth brawling, with most of it happening outside the ring and eventually into the stands. There is a planted fanin a DDP shirt and on crutches very obviously hovering near the Spanish announcing table so that Steiner can yank a crutch from him and use it to attack Page. Page gets the other crutch and uses it, then puts Steiner on a table and topples off a nearby barrier with an elbow that drives Steiner through the table and puts him down for two. I’ll tell you this much; this is the best possible garbage brawl that you’re getting from this company in 2001, and in this case, I am not meaning to damn this match with faint praise. It’s a legitimately entertaining bout. Page is actually pretty good at these, and since he spent a lot of time wrestling Randy Savage and Raven in them in 1997 and 1998, I shouldn’t be so surprised. Meanwhile, WCW apparently has a litany of plants in and around the ringside area so that Steiner can take something from them, hit Page with it, and then have Page hit him with it in turn. It’s all faintly silly, but that’s okay! The match makes its way back to the ring, where Steiner controls. Steiner cuts off Page comebacks and scores a couple of two counts before going to his bearhug, which doesn’t look that great. It looks better than it used to, but I really think you have to be extra big and extra wide to pull off a good bearhug. Mark Henry-level big and wide is about right to me. Page keeps firing up and getting cut off, often with awesome belly-to-belly suplexes on the part of Steiner. Steiner, who was busted open by a weapon shot at some point, puts on a surfboard that also looks better than the norm. Page works out of it, then frantically tries to punch and elbow his way out of trouble, eventually scoring a DDT that puts Steiner down for a second. Nick Patrick counts to five on the standing ten count that follows; Page is up first, lands a discus lariat, and peppers Steiner with punches. Steiner topples backward into the buckles, and Page follows and scores ten buckle bonks. Scotty recognizes that he’s in trouble and tries an illegally leveraged pinfall attempt after back elbowing Page on Page’s corner charge. That doesn’t work, so Steiner has to go to a back kick to the nads to avoid a Diamond Cutter. He follows up with a DDT, but Page slips out of the back of a powerslam attempt and scores a counter Diamond Cutter. Scott is only saved by his brother Rick hopping out of the stands and yanking Patrick out of the ring on the count. Page manages to whip Scott into Rick while the crowd chants for GOLDBERG to arrive and even up the score; DDP’s roll-up as Scotty rebounds from the collision only gets 2.5. Steiner, again recognizing the danger that he is in, lands a belt shot; Page blades off the spot, but kicks out at 2.8 when Steiner covers. He’s too out of it to keep Steiner from stepping over on a Boston Crab; Page tries to leverage out of it and can’t, but he does work his way to the bottom rope. He’s entirely cooked at this point, though, and Scotty simply changes position and locks on a Steiner Recliner. Page actually revives when his arm goes down at the count of two and grabs the ropes again, but Page is outnumbered. Midajah slips the lead pipe in the ring and then draws the ref for some reason even though he’s not going to call for a DQ in a Falls Count Anywhere match that is at least implicitly being worked under hardcore rules. Scotty batters Page with the pipe, then locks on another Recliner for the knockout victory. That match was very good. This show was also pretty damned good. WCW managed to mostly nail their PPV swan song. As the B-roll reminds us of the results earlier in the night, all I can say is that this show is the perfect capper for the BBSHSWTL Era. So much promise, such a clear turn of the corner, and then oblivion. That’s life, huh?

Got a Switch 2 into my cart at Target and Wal-Mart, but no further than that. I'll try NewEgg tomorrow, but I have the My Nintendo invitation in my back pocket, so I'll get one near launch if not right on launch day.

I managed to finish Robocop: Rogue City a couple of days ago and went right into NG+ just so I could go through the whole game splattering craniums and limbs with the Auto 9. And I am. And it's great. I'll hopefully be able to complete the rest of the trophies this go-round.

Graham is in that Benoit, Snuka, Borga, Bourne tier of guys who I couldn't muster up any sympathy for at all from this show. Completely unlikeable and shitty human being. He was right about not putting the title on Backlund while he was so hot, though, and I do like Backlund. Also, Backlund was a terrible promo until his heel run in the mid-'90s, IMO, which isn't the craziest thing to think, right?

Jett/Kwee Wee at Greed has me considering a lot of "what if"s for his career if WCW had survived.