SirSmUgly

I think European football is the best sport on earth. The amount of nonsense that I've seen in European competitions is unparalleled, and I've only been watching for a decade. And just as I type that, Harry Maguire wins it. Probably.

This is an interesting conversation. A few things I thought (which may or may not be as interesting) as I read through it: Basketball has made so many inroads into Oceania, Europe, and South America especially, but also East Asia and Africa at this point that the NBA's dream of making more revenue than the NFL at some point in the future is probably a reasonable reality. I think the NFL has a host of problems that it'll have to navigate that the NBA doesn't share, but the NFL's attempts to expand worldwide when their league is all about tacky Americana and Americana is deeply unpopular across the globe right now for obvious reasons are going to put a harder cap on what sort of revenue it can generate from non-U.S. viewers. (As a side note, if this means that Canadians reinvest their interest in their domestic football game and maybe make the CFL pre- and post-game stuff less loud and full of shitty country music to contrast itself to the NFL, that would be very cool for me as a CFL watcher.) I think Luka and Jokic have been a boon because they are ethnically white, and frankly, the large amount of white American fans are generally rooting for them because they care about having white stars to root for in the league. They don't have to be Larry Bird or Bob Cousy. It wasn't that long ago with AI as one of the faces of the league and Malice at the Palace and David Stern demanding that his mostly black players dress up like they're in the C-suite at Amazon before each game that a lot of media and fans were using the same coded language about the makeup of the league that they were using back in the 1970s w/r/t player drug use, etc. I don't think that the lack of ethnically American stars dominating the league matters to a large chunk of the NBA fanbase. Jokic's numbers will be downplayed like Oscar Robertson's are; I think people will look back historically on this period of NBA basketball the same way they do the late '60s and '70s and claim that he got his numbers because of general offensive inflation. I'm not standing by that position myself, but I think that's the position a lot of people who don't like the modern game will take. The NBA should at least stop having its oldheads on their own programming shit on the young guys. Shaq and Charles are not helping sell this league, even if they are amusing. They don't have to go full dictatorial like the NFL does. (As another side note, fuck the NFL now and forever for many things, especially the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick, but also fuck the NFL for learning on ESPN to cancel Playmakers. I'm still heated about that.) To tie this back to wrestling, I think the point about Japan being generally monocultural/homogenous, which is why their wrestling companies need to lead with Japanese stars, is excellent. Beyond some of the racial reasons that the NBA can run with Luka and Jokic on top and be okay in America while also appealing to other countries, I do think that American multiculturalism (one of our biggest strengths as a country, if not our biggest) means that the NBA can make enough of its domestic fans happy at least some of the time no matter who is on top of the league. I think that's true of the wrestling companies here as well, for the most part. It's a definite business advantage, at least.

Show #280 – 5 March 2001 "The one with an unfortunate backslide into sub-mediocrity" A famous writer once wrote something in regards to the Ides of March and how one should beware them. I don’t think they were around during the Nitro Era or else I’d posit that they must have been a big WCW fan. We’re once again in media res to start the show; Rick Steiner stands in the center of the ring and defends the honor of his brother Scott by telling Booker T. to step off, dude! He claims that Booker hasn't beaten him straight up, which might possibly be true in the Nitro Era. I do appreciate that Ricky tells the crowd to SHUT UP as they attempt to sing along with his awful catchphrase. Booker walks onto the ramp and claims that he’s going to handle Scott after he gets done handling Rick. Well, he backed that boast up, didn’t he? Booker advances on the ring and basically calls his own U.S. Championship match; he even demands a referee, and Scott James hustles out here on command. Booker starts the match by dominating an obligabrawl before tossing Rick back in the ring, where my least favorite transition happens. Tony S. informs us on commentary that this is instead a non-title match as Steiner bores everyone to death with soulless clubbering and boring headlocks. Ol’ Ricky’s only good as a singles wrestler when he’s allowed to recklessly destroy job boys. After a mediocre-at-best heel control segment in which Booker sneaks a two count after shifting his weight and turning a slam attempt into a lateral press, Book makes a comeback that sticks. Actually, I’ll give Rick's heel control segment the full “mediocre” because he drilled Book with a sick sit-out powerbomb in there. That almost made up for the rest of that part of the match. Book crotches Ricky on the top as Rick goes up for a diving bulldog and makes his comeback. Book sequences his 5MoD a bit differently, then gets a Book End blocked, works a blown spot with Ricky that I think is supposed to be a reverse DDT counter of a Steiner slam attempt, and then gets another Book End blocked before Scott Steiner spoils the match. DDP makes the save as Scotty blows a spot where he’s supposed to tumble over the top rope. Meh. Security guards hold Scotty back, so he verbally challenges Page to a fight. Booker intervenes and promises to beat up the world champ instead before Page is like, HEY STEINER, I AM PLAYING MIND GAMES WITH YOU, STUPID. Scotty doesn’t get it. Page then suggests that the Steiner Brothers reunite to wrestle Booker and Page in the main event. Steiner clubs some security guards in response, which I think is his way of saying “agreed.” Tony S. and Scott Hudson run down the card: CEO Ric Flair has booked Jeff Jarrett to wrestle Dusty Rhodes, which is interesting. Will it be another segment full of mockery, or will it be an actual bout? Also up is at least one more quarterfinal match in the WCW World Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship tournament, which is next. AJ Styles and Air Paris enter the ring first; Elix Skipper doesn’t enter until after the commercial break. Skipper plays up the reveal of his partner. Wait, first he plays up how he built this house and therefore, it is a house that is in his possession. Then he plays up the reveal, and of course, it’s Kid Romeo. Romeo dances like an idiot at the top of the ramp; maybe he’s just excited to be back on a major WCW television show. Romeo has a nice arm drag, I’ll tell you that much. Styles’s arm drag is pretty good, too. I love a good arm drag. How much of a good arm drag is due to the giver and how much is due to the taker? I wonder. Styles knocks Romeo to the floor, tries a baseball slide, and gets caught and pancaked on the announce table. That was a pretty rad spot. Everyone dives onto everyone else after that. This match is basically the perfect example of the one type of cruiserweight match that Eric Bischoff seems to “get.” I have been reminded recently of Bischoff’s lack of understanding about why a lot of pro wrestling things work or don’t work because of this latest 83 Weeks listening stint, which will end after I listen to the show about Greed. I had to stop for a bit when Bischoff decided that he had to run down Lance Storm to defend Ernest Miller (which happened because Dave Meltzer thought that Storm carried the Cat at SuperBrawl, which, yeah, he did, and I say this as someone who digs the Cat a ton). Look at me, doing my Taz impression and digressing instead of talking about these guys in the ring basically doing as many dives as possible. Elix has got to be one of the most awkward, yet ultimately graceful divers I’ve ever seen. Styles, on the other hand, simply looks graceful. This match seesaws back and forth and has a nice mix of heel cheating, obligabrawling, dives, and counters. Paris is struggling to hit his spots, but the other three look very good in here. Chavo Guerrero Jr. comes out to watch the end of the match, which comes when Skipper takes out Styles on a dive, then gets in the ring and scores a dropkick-into-a-brainbuster combo (with Romeo on brainbuster duty) that pins Paris. Fun match! Pre-taped interview: Sean O’Haire swears vengeance against Lex Luger in their match later tonight. After a commercial break, Lex Luger and Sean O’Haire do indeed face off. There is a little graphic ad for TNT series Witchblade, which is apparently coming this summer, well after WCW is dead. It only made it two seasons. Witchblade is a comic book IP that I’ve never heard of, and it seems like a bad fit for WE KNOW DRAMA-era TNT, which really is more like WE KNOW COPAGANDA if you look at most of their originals they developed and shows they syndicated. Oh yeah, the match! O’Haire pretty much kicks Luger’s ass with fists, leg sweeps, lariats, and chokes. Seriously, Luger is completely defenseless for the first two or three minutes before he finally gets a boot up on an O’Haire corner charge. He immediately goes to the metal forearm – good move! – but then poses instead of following up – bad move! – and only gets two on a delayed cover. O’Haire attempts his top rope backflip to leap behind a charging Luger after being shot into the corner, but he sells a jammed knee when he lands. Luger attacks the knee, so Chuck Palumbo runs to the ring and beats up Luger while, uh, the ref starts counting Luger out instead of DQ’ing O’Haire? And this is because Buff Bagwell is going to run down and try to Pillmanize O’Haire, and we need an excuse for ref Billy Silverman not to see it? What the heck?! Silverman, who is kayfabe the dumbest fucking bastard in the company, spends his time yelling at Paumbo so that he misses Buff whiffing on a Blockbuster attempt and hitting Luger instead; O’Haire shakes off his knee injury to go up and lands a Seanton Bomb on Luger for three. That was extremely stupid. What is this, a Nitro from the middle of 2000? Buff manages to accurately land a Blockbuster on O’Haire after the match; Palumbo chases him off. This Nitro has not been very good so far! Wow, a limo! I’ve never seen one of those pull up to an arena before. Inside the limo, there’s a camera; Chris Kanyon has bummed a ride off Shawn Stasiak. Kanyon blabs about a plot to dress up as an orderly and attack Ms. Jones in her hospital room, and Stasiak offers Kanyon a signed 8x10 to take to Jones as a get well present. Of course, M.I. Smooth, driver and information broker, listens quietly in the front seat, then surreptitiously puts up the divider so no one notices that he was spying. Well, except for the viewers at home. For them, that was supposed to be a visual cue that Smooth was spying. Pre-taped interview: I guess Gene Okerlund is finally done with this company, at least on wekly television. He’d usually handle these. As it is, Chavo Guerrero Jr. says that he ain’t afraid of no ghosts Shane Helms. Lance Storm taunts Konnan for getting his ass beat by Mike Awesome on Thunder, but it’s a distraction so that Awesome can blindside Konnan. Hugh Morrus makes the save and then challenges the heels to a match later tonight. Jeff Jarrett, bedecked in his own wrestling tights rather than a fat suit, walks to the ring for this match against Dusty Rhodes that I am still skeptical will even happen. Jarrett yaps about finishing the Rhodes legacy off for good, which would make him a huge babyface if he did it since it would spare us Cody Rhodes’s career. He calls Dusty a FAT ASS, and Booker has also used the word ASS a couple of times tonight (PUNK ASS, specifically), so I guess the cursing moratorium has been loosened. On cue, Ric Flair comes out in a fat suit and with makeup that doesn’t really make him look much like Dusty at all. Jarrett beats up Dusty Flair with eye pokes and some of the worst Mongolian chops this side of the hemisphere. I feel like this killed the crowd, at least looking at the hard cam side. After winning a sham pinfall, Jeff Jarrett once again declares that Dusty will kiss his ass, but an enraged Dustin Rhodes makes himself known and beats up Jarrett for a little while. Ric Flair tries to attack, then bumps off a phantom punch. What is up with this crew tonight? Anyway, the heels double up on Dustin for a bit, but they are cut off by what is now my favorite Jimmy Hart knockoff theme ever, and that’s saying something! Actual Dusty makes the save with fists and bows. CEO Flair says that Dusty is not a WCW employee and therefore will be escorted from the building; Dusty responds with a solid promo in which he calls Jerry Jarrett a lecherous drunk. Hey, I guess that’s why Jeff is hanging out with Ric now; it’s a comforting and familiar relationship for him. He also calls Ric Flair FAT BOY, then laughs because he’s always wanted to call someone that for once. This promo isn’t incredible or anything, but Dusty is so charming as a babyface that I’ll listen to him cut face promos all day. The best part of this promo is when he says that Flair used to be the star of the Four Horsemen, but tells Flair that in the Magnificent Seven, “You’re nothin’ but an extra. You’re just an extra.” See? Dusty’s going half-speed on the mic and still dropped a cold line. CEO Flair responds by booking himself and Jarrett against Dustin and Dusty at Greed; Dusty responds by declaring that when he and his son win, Flair will be kissing his WHITE ASS, which will end up being true in the most literal sense possible. This last six weeks of WCW needed way more Dusty on the programming. Why is Chavo Guerrero Jr. so aggy tonight? He seemed pretty calm when he walked onto the stage to view that cruiserweight tag match earlier. For some reason, he’s wrestling Shane Helms two weeks before their PPV ,atchup, which is a move that WCW absolutely loves in its dying days. Sugar Shane has the Nitro Girls as his backup dancers now, which is the babyface Shane Helms entrance that I remember most vividly. The VERTEBREAKERRRRR song isn’t on the Network version, though, or maybe it is still to come because it existed only for the eight days that Helms was champion while WCW was still owned by the shambling Frankenstein's monster that was once Turner. Helms and Chavo proceed to work a good match, of course. You knew that. Helms takes over and hits a froggy crossbody to Chavo on the floor, so Chavo does the old “slam the guy’s lower lumbar into the apron move to get some space.” Shortly after that, Chavo struggles to keep control, but it’s okay! Kid Romeo and Elix Skipper come down and attack Helms, which allows Chavo a longer spot of control back in the ring. This is a good heel control segment, largely because Chavo looks like he doesn’t have much for Helms tonight, who fights up from his attacks regularly. Romeo and Skipper intervene again, and Charles Robinson walks over and ejects them from ringside. No, wait, sorry, he just gently admonishes them, Ralphus-style. Meanwhile, Helms scores a backslide that only gets two when Robinson finally ambles over and makes the cover. Helms continues his offensive advance and gets two on a Sugar Smack, but he makes a mistake and dives onto the heels at ringside (and takes them both down, too – bad look for your future tag champs). Then, in a nonsense fucking spot, Romeo ties up Robinson while Elix and Chavo attack Helms in the ring, and Robinson LOOKS OVER AT THE ATTACK and then quickly averts his gaze so that he doesn’t have to disqualify Chavo, and you know what I wonder is how this Nitro is so disappointing that it fucked up a Chavo/Helms match? Chavo wins with a brainbuster, and also, fuck off, WCW. Hype for Spring Breakout: HOLY SHIT, the shambling corpse of Riki fucking Rachtman is still in this company and doing pre-tapes for their final Road to Spring Breakout tour! AOL and 1-800-COLLECT are your sponsors for this final year. Well, this is at least better sponsorship than Tinactin. Kanyon, who it was established in the limo segment had hired a cameraman to film what he will do to Ms. Jones, admonishes said cameraman before waking up Ms. Jones and threatening her. This is sort of Russo-ific as a segment. So, the guy in the bed next to Ms. Jones was all wrapped up in gauze, but it turns out that it was the Cat. He and Kanyon brawl, but when the Cat goes to check on Ms. Jones, Kanyon backjumps him. Kanyon tries to attack Ms. Jones with a crutch; the Cat cuts him off. Honestly, Ms. Jones has been screaming for the NUUUUURSE for the last three minutes. Use your call button, woman! Finally, the Cat knocks out Kanyon with a glass jar and then defibrillates his ass. Did someone completely demotivate Taylor and Ferrara by telling them that WCW was being cancelled from Turner networks ten days earlier than they told everyone else or something? Did they make a bunch of monkeys chained to typewriters put together this show? This Nitro hasn’t been the blurst of times for the whole Nitro Era, but it has probably been the blurst Nitro all year. As much as I’ll miss these Nitro shows when I run out of them to watch by (probably) the end of next week, right now, I am Judge Judy slamming my desk table and pointing to my non-existent watch. Hugh Morrus/Mike Awesome sounds like a perfectly bland match-up. Guess what? It is. The point at which we get the obligatory ringside brawl is the point at which I check out. Lance Storm gets involved, but it doesn’t go well for him personally. If he finds joy in the successes of his friends, then he doesn’t even get that as a consolation because Awesome fails to capitalize on the distraction and falls to a No Laughing Matter headbutt. Storm attacks Morrus after the match; Konnan makes the save. The tag team bout between the Steiner Brothers and the team of Booker T. and Diamond Dallas Page gets a solid nine minutes after entrances and jabbering. Before the match, Rick makes fun of Booker for being in high school band back in Houston. Those Southern school bands are legit, stupid. Ricky challenges Booker to a one-on-one match. Scott is super annoyed that DDP thinks he’s the smarter one, let’s say that. He also says Page is TALKIN’ OUT [HIS] ASS. I guess Bisch decided that the word “ass” is okay. Scotty also doesn’t like people who identify as racially white and are under a certain economic attainment, just in case you were wondering about his troubling racial and class beliefs at this moment. Booker and Page walk onto the ramp; Booker accepts Rick’s challenge as long as Ricky’s title is on the line, so we’ve got another match for Greed. The babyfaces then rush the ring and kick the crap out of the heels, and the whole thing is very energetic. Scott Steiner avoids facing up with Booker at all costs, and it strikes me that Book is getting the push that he probably needed seven months ago. He’s been treated like a potential ace who gets the better of the heels more often than not on his return. Steiner only goes at Booker directly after cheating to knock him to ringside while he’s focused on Scott. Book is the primary face in peril (DDP and Rick worked a short FIP segment so that Scott could duck Booker on the hot tag earlier). Book tries one comeback, but that is aborted when he ducks down and is rewarded for telegraphing his next move by being overhead suplexed. Rick can’t keep Booker down, though, and when Booker manages a hot tag to DDP, Page comes in firing. Page drills Rick with a DDT, but Steiner makes the save on the cover and then hits Page with a belly-to-belly. However, he leaves Rick alone in the ring to instead go badly lose an obligabrawl to Booker, which is a mistake. He is only bailed out by the rest of the Magnificent Seven jump Booker as Book beats him around the backstage area, but he doesn’t make it back in time to save his big bro from a Diamond Cutter. Page scoots through the crowd before the Magnificent Seven can make it to the ring, but Steiner proves Page wrong about the lack of brains by going through the crowd on the other side and jumping Page from behind as the show ends. That main event was actually pretty good, but WCW’s commitment to booking bad finishes and a throwback Russo-ific segment killed this show for me. 1.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

I love Tony Atlas's crazy ass. No disrespect. What I love about him is that he's honest about the brutal realities of daily life as a black wrestler at that time even if half of his big stories are kinda out there. This show really made me want a Georgia Championship Wrestling roundtable on a new Tales from the Territories season.

Fair point. This probably explains why I am being bombarded with ads from state tourism boards lately.

Oh, I hear Heenan's voice, not Ventura's. I do remember Jesse using it now that you say this, but it's definitely a stock Heenan quote (usually followed by a stock Monsoon quote, i.e., "Will you stop!").

Visiting fans will be fine as long as they're on the right side of that Family Guy "terrorist skin color guidebook" meme.

Heenan checking out partially because Tony S. wouldn't share with him all the info Tony had about finishes, etc., with him is definitely a big part of his Nitro Era decline. The other part is that he failed to update his act for the '90s. It's always hard to tell how much of a commentator's subpar performance is being produced poorly and how much of it is simply not being a strong commentator.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and fifty – 28 February 2001 "The WCW Gang does their part to build feuds for Greed" Let us dispense with February Thunders forever and ever after this one final February show… Recap: Nitro absolutely ruled, in no small part because of the main eventers (with an assist from the always-awesome Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman)… Here’s our AKI-style intro… It looks like we’ve got the full show this week…It runs a full one hour and thirty minutes on the Network… Let’s open with another quarterfinal matchup for the short-lived WCW World Cruiserweight Tag Team Championships…Kwee Wee and Mike Sanders seem like a team that won’t have much chemistry…The Jung Dragons, having much more continuity, should pick them apart…OK, we get some exclusive footage from back on Nitro in which Sanders spit-takes upon finding out that he’s been jammed into a team with Kwee Wee…Now, I do think that WCW just tossing them together even though they ostensibly hate each other exposes how stripped down the roster is…On the other hand, I get a kick out of the idea that the Cat did this one last fuckety-fuck move to annoy Mike Sanders before stepping down from the commissionership…That’ll be my head canon… Anyway, Sanders and Kwee Wee are exactly what Eric Bischoff doesn’t like about cruiserweights…They are bases for the high flyers, but Bischoff is not a fan of cruiserweight matches that are worked like heavyweight matches and tends to argue that the bigger bases who wrestle in the division aren't wrestling like he expects when they go a bit slower and throw more than a couple of punches…I think this is an area where Bischoff doesn’t entirely get pro wrestling…Like, you do need a base to catch all that flippy stuff…Dean Malenko did it, but he also wrestled at a super-high pace while doing it, which I think is what Bisch wants out of his cruiserweight bases…Having listened to his 83 Weeks shows on Sin and now SuperBrawl Revenge (which I’m halfway through), sometimes he has interesting insights about what makes wrestling work, and other times, he has opinions about this that I feel are maybe muddled. I digress…Yang and Kaz manage to endure a bit of damage after their opening offensive onslaught…The match settles into a pattern by which Yang and Kaz are quicker and shiftier, consistently avoiding the power move attempts from Sanders and Kwee Wee…Sanders finally manages to hit an overhead pumphandle slam on Yang to stop him…I have to stop here and note that when I type “Yang and Kaz,” half the time I write “Yang and Yun”…I played way too much Street Fighter III back in the day…Back in the day of this match, actually…Though as a matter of fact, Yun is Yang's legal first name, right?... Yang gets himself out of FIP jail with a dropkick on Kwee Wee for a second, but Sanders cuts him off after a tag…Can you believe that Yang is only 19 here?...He had been signed and released and signed and released and signed again by WWE all by the age of 25…Kwee Wee once again loses control of the match, and this time, Yang scores a tag to Kaz…Kaz goes off before hitting an assisted powerbomb sort of deal for two…Sanders breaks up the pinfall attempt…Kwee Wee lands a facebuster for two, but he is isolated when Kaz dives onto Sanders outside the ring…Kaz hops back into the ring and scores a jumping roundhouse on Kwee Wee, then directs Yang to dive onto Kwee Wee outside the ring…Yang does so successfully, then trips Sanders as the former commissioner runs the ropes…Kaz snaps off a Buzzsaw Kick, then tags Yang back in to land a corkscrew moonsault – Yang Time, I think - for three…Solid match!... M.I. Smooth still works here?!...He pulls up in a limo that has Shawn Stasiak in the back…Stasiak talks to Jindrak over the phone and calls himself *sigh* the Mecca of Manhood…Stasiak plots on someone with Jindrak, then tips Smooth with a signed autograph…You’re not Johnny Cage, Stasiak…Smooth gladhands Stasiak, but he crumples the picture as soon as Stasiak turns his back… Booker T. figures that with only four more Thunder episodes left, he might want to show up for one or two of them before the end…He cuts a babyface promo that mostly focuses on how Scott Steiner kicked the crap out of him at Mayhem…It’s boilerplate babyfacin’ that ends in a world title challenge to Steiner…Book is overmatched on the mic at this point…Scott Steiner would prefer to use his fists and lead pipe to solve this issue, but CEO Ric Flair stops him or at least tries to…Booker continues taunting Scotty, so CEO Flair makes the match, but he makes it non-title…I do believe that we have our Thunder main event!... Chavo Guerrero Jr. rudely cuts in on a conversation between Johnny Swinger and Jason Lee…He wants Swinger and Lee to put Shane Helms out of pro wrestling when Swinger faces Helms later tonight… Aw man, more of Shawn Stasiak talking?...OK, so he’s preparing to do to Johnny the Bull what he did to Vito last week…I have to say that Stasiak looks pretty solid in this extended competitive squash…He’s not great, mind you, but he lands some nice offense in this bout…The Bull hits some desperation offense, including a big DDT to kill a Stasiak slam attempt…They do have a boring and overlong obligabrawl in here, unfortunately…I think what this match shows is that Vito is much better as a worker than Stamboli is…Jindrak punches the Bull from his place at ringside, just as Stasiak planned…Vito storms the halls to come help the Bull, but he bumps into Rick Steiner…Why is Ricky reading his newspaper right in the middle of the hallway?...Doesn’t matter…The point is that Ricky brawls with Vito and no help comes for the Bull, who falls to a Rude Awakening…Stasiak does Johnny Cage’s OG Friendship after the match…Meanwhile, Vito and Rick Steiner yell invective at one another backstage while security holds them apart… Pre-taped promo: Shane Helms declares himself to be that dude in the cruiserweight division and shares that his mentor Jimmy Hart advised him to take advantage of every shot he gets…Well, except for the shot he got at Sin, I suppose… Disco Inferno dances through the halls…Then, he calls for security after Chuck Palumbo shoves him around…Palumbo says that Alex Wright told him that Disco was talking shit about him…Disco, as usual, is baffled and clueless…Alex Wright gets his revenge!... Lance Storm and Mike Awesome talk about beating up Konnan tonight…Awesome is still mad about, oh yeah, the fact that Konnan cut his hair and tagged his bus a few weeks ago…I totally forgot that these events even happened… Shane Helms needs to manage the numbers game against Johnny Swinger (w/Jason “Banky” Lee)…Chavo Jr. is probably lurking nearby as well…Helms runs rings around Swinger, then wins a punch-up…I forgot that Johnny Swinger ever came back to WCW, where he looks much better than in his first little run…Helms is simply too quick for Swinger…He hits a wicked neckbreaker while hopping behind Swinger on a rope run…Lee trips him when he tries to follow up with a dive from the top rope, which allows Swinger to dominate the match…Swinger does an ass-grinding choke move that is pretty absurd…I mean, he grinds his ass while using it to choke Helms against the ropes…It’s weird!...Lee also cheats liberally behind the ref’s back… Helms makes a comeback, of course…He beats up Swinger, dives onto Lee outside the ring, then tries to finish Swinger with a diving crossbody that Swinger rolls through for a 2.5…Swinger can’t capitalize…He whiffs badly on a slingshot legdrop…Lee tries to cut off a Helms follow up Vertebreaker and gets a Nightmare on Helms Street for his troubles…Helms then goes back to Swinger and counters a swinging neckbreaker attempt with a Vertebreaker for three…Chavo Jr. tries to jump Helms after the match, but is rebuffed…Chavo angrily drills Lee with a brainbuster for failing to injure Helms, then slaps a downed Swinger for good measure… Palumbo and O’Haire let Konnan know that CEO Flair has barred them from ringside, so they can’t watch his back when he wrestles Awesome…Konnan is insistent that he shall get the job done in the ring anyway… After a break, Konnan SPEAKS ON DIS and really just hits a few catchphrases...That’s all for SPEAKING ON DIS…Mike Awesome comes to the ring alone…Someone on the hard cam side hoists up a sign that quotes the great Bobby Heenan: WIN IF YOU CAN, LOSE IF YOU MUST, BUT ALWAYS CHEAT…That is one of my favorite Heenanisms…This match is fine, honestly…None of the matches have been particularly notable tonight, but we’re now at a baseline where the talent level + booking + match layout + match length is going to make it hard to put up Dirt Worst level bouts…There are still too many damned obligabrawls, though… Awesome survives an initial flurry of Konnan offense to take over and score an array of two counts…Awesome’s offense is enjoyable enough to keep this match from sucking…It’s overlong, but I have lived through the overshort (we’re making it a word, just as with telligible) matches era of Thunder, and I much prefer this…Awesome whiffs on a top rope splash, and Konnan makes his comeback…At least insofar as a comeback can be one move and a celebration…Awesome big boots Konnan as Konnan finishes celebrating and then lands a running Awesome Bomb for the clean victory… Totally Buff is genuinely funny…They’re complimenting (and complementing) one another in a hallway backstage when Disco walks up, hand out, and heartily greets them with a HEY, TOTALLY BUFF…He shakes hands with Bagwell, and Bagwell gives Disco a phony smile and says, “Heyyyyy! What’s your name?” Disco reminds him, and Buff responds with an “Ohhhh, Disco”…They are annoyed by him, but they do like his idea about them helping him beat up Chuck Palumbo…They send him away in agreement before deciding amongst themselves to get Rick Steiner to handle the workload… Hype video: Booker T. is back and on the hunt for gold…He is absolutely going to find quite a bit of it in the next few weeks… Here comes Disco, wearing a fluffy vest and stealing Kevin Nash’s catchphrases…Disco pretty much says this about Chuck Palumbo: YOU ARE STUPID. YOU ARE STUPID. AND DON’T FORGET: YOU ARE STUPID. Then he proudly claims that he’s GOT IT LIKE THAT. Wow, does being an annoying prick come easily to Disco. It’s almost like he’s not acting! I will say that Palumbo/Disco is an interesting matchup. Palumbo has an excellent dropkick. He’s a pretty aesthetically pleasing wrestler in a lot of ways. Much like the previous Nitro, Disco thinks it’s 1996 again…He gets a tiny advantage and dances…This, of course, catches up with him… I actually feel like Palumbo probably shouldn’t have given Disco even the offense that he did…Palumbo shouldn’t be struggling to beat Disco at this point unless Disco’s got a ton of help outside the ring…Totally Buff surveys the proceedings from ringside once we are deep into the bout…Palumbo scores a Jungle Kick to put Disco down for three and is immediately attacked by Totally Buff, but Sean O’Haire makes the save, or at least they do until Rick Steiner backs up the heels…Vito then re-evens the odds by running in…It’s a veritable melee!... The ring was cleared during the break so that Rick Steiner and Vito can go at it, which they do…This is a pretty dull brawl…Vito mostly gets his ass kicked, but fires up and lands as much offense as he can in as short a space as he can, but he simply can’t get a three count…He delays a bit on making the cover out of a successful Savage Elbow, and only gets two…That’s about it for him, as he eats a Steinerline, a diving top-rope bulldog, and two DVDs before going down in defeat… Hype video: The Cat and Kanyon are in a blood feud, which is one of the most WCW-in-2001 feuds that anyone could conceive of…This is a pretty lengthy hype vid, actually!...It recounts the whole feud so far… Let’s have a pretty big main event for a typical Thunder…Booker T. goes at it once more with Scott Steiner…I don’t feel that Booker/Steiner is a good enough feud to get on my Best Feuds list, but I do feel that it is one of the best long-term rivalries throughout the Nitro Era and has a shout for being the best one…It started in the tag ranks, continued for secondary titles, and is now culminating in a long-term feud over the big gold…That’s actually what WCW needed to do…Push some fresh main eventers…They just did it way too late and after blowing up their creative direction and salting the earth behind them… These fellas throw bows and fists at one another to start, and also Steiner trash talks a lot, so that’s fun. Booker elbows Steiner to the floor, but let’s be honest: We are only seven minutes from the end of this show, so I’m really waiting for all the fuckery to end the show. These fellas club each other quite a bit before then and even hit some actual wrestling moves in there along the way. It’s enjoyable, of course. No one can quite hold control of the match for very long. Booker puts an elbow up on a Steiner corner charge and tries to start his 5MoD sequence, though he only gets a Houston Side Kick in before getting cut off on a missile dropkick attempt. Book blocks Steiner’s super belly-to-belly attempt, knocks him to the mat, and lands that missile dropkick for two…Steiner elbows his way out of a Book End, then blocks a roundhouse kick before attempting a German suplex that Booker blocks with elbows…Steiner shoots Booker in, but that gets reversed and Booker lands an axe kick…Rick Steiner puts an end to all that when he runs in and immediately gets the match thrown out even though Booker had things under control…Booker ducks Rick’s wild Steinerline attempt and knocks him down before landing a Book End on Scotty…Rick recovers and attacks, but DDP shows up and puts both Steiner Brothers down with Diamond Cutters…The babyfaces take off through the crowd before the rest of the Magnificent Seven can make it down to back them up…That was the best match on the show despite the DQ ending… Thunder keeps ambling along, all pleasantly watchable and stuff…I know that the news that Fusient is pulling out of the deal to buy WCW because the television is being cancelled will put a damper on Greed and all, but I’m still kinda looking forward to that show based on the build…WOO…

I also love that it's clear either Germans or Austrians made the game because they use commas where decimal points should be and write the number one in that weird way, almost like an upside-down "V" at an angle. The lack of polish in all facets is endearing, especially because the core game is very good. If the game stunk, that'd be another story.

Here are some books I have recently read: Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night - Kawakami writes some of the most beautiful sentences in literature, and I suppose that I have to give credit to her translators for preserving that beauty in English. This book is essentially a character study of a closed-off, traumatized woman who has isolated herself. She works from home and struggles to connect with her own humanity. Then, some stuff happens. It's fantastic. I thought that Heaven was also amazing, but I think I prefer this book (maybe it's the hope that I have for Fuyuko at the end of this particular story that elevated it for me). I have read one Kawakami book a year over the last couple of years, and I think I'll stick to that schedule. I'm excited to read Breasts and Eggs next year. Jason Schreier, Press Reset and Play Nice - Schreier does a fine job of showing how unstable the video game industry is outside of the C-suite, and his strategy of tracking a series of shuttered studios and canceled games that directly impact the next set of shuttered studios and canceled games is a good one. Play Nice, on the other hand, is a story about many things. How greedy your C-suite execs are, for one. How gender imbalances in the industry are harmful, for another. How games are art and not some sort of factory line widget that you can just crank out on a conveyor belt year after year for another. I loved both of them and would think that anyone into video games and how they are made should read them. Next up: I'm finally going to read All the Pretty Horses, and I got a Lucy Worsley book on sale! I adore her and am excited to read her meticulously-researched biography of Agatha Christie.

I was going to play Blue Prince, but I got sidetracked by Robocop: Rogue City, which is right up my alley. A slightly janky FPS with a skill tree and a hub world that throws in a few Telltale-style "[x] will remember that" moments in the dialogue trees? Yes, please.

I have the faint sense that AEW does this. They've been at Hammerstein, right? How often do they do stadium cards? I do think that the general aesthetic idea behind a show like Shotgun Saturday Night would be neat for a company like AEW to do or maybe even TNA.

Show #279 – 26 February 2001 "The one that looks back at Nitro in early 1996 and successfully strives to replicate it" We’re in media res to start Nitro, where KroniK is laid out in the backstage area, an ambulance has pulled up, and the heels standing around the attack scene are vociferously denying that they did anything even though they’re conveniently chilling out right there next to the bodies. CEO Flair tries to calm them down as they continue their pitched denials and asks them to go meet Scott Steiner as he arrives; he then tells accusatory head of WCW's security forces Doug Dellinger basically to fuck off and leave his guys alone. Then, uh, um, we cut to a camera shot of a door. Who is going to come through it? Oh, wow, it’s Scott Steiner Eric Bischoff just some lighting guy with an OH SHIT look on his face as he realizes that the camera light is on for some reason that he can’t understand because the truck should be cutting to the crowd right now. The truck immediately panics and cuts to the crowd. Fucking Craig Leathers or Annette Yother or whoever the fuck is back there running things now. Hey, look, we cut back to that door again after a few seconds of a crowd pan, and now Scott Steiner is walking through it along with the rest of the Magnificent Seven. God, I’m going to deeply miss this stupid company all over again. Scotty Steiner beats up some security dudes who don’t seem to know where Diamond Dallas Page is located. DDP is in the crowd, taunting Scotty, which the champ sees on a monitor. He destroys said monitor, then marches through Gorilla and out onto the ramp. Steiner gets in the ring and, well, I’ll let him say it in his own inimitable way: PAGE, HEY PAGE. I SEARCHED ALL THE TRAILER PARKS HERE IN NEW ORLEANS, AND I CAN’T FIND YA. NOW I COME TO THE BUILDING, I CAN’T FIND YA. FINDING YOU HERE IN NEW ORLEANS IS TRYING TO FIND A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK, ‘CUZ ALL I SEE IS WHITE TRASH. DDP is still in the crowd, where he tells Scott Steiner that he’s just playing mind games with him, which I think goes against the whole ethos of playing mind games in the first place. Half of the effectiveness of mind games is that your target can’t be sure if mind games are being played on them or not. Then, he stumbles over his words a lot, calls a “funeral” a “dead man’s walk” even though I don’t see the Undertaker anywhere around, and then says that one of the guys that Steiner thinks he’s killed off isn’t entirely dead yet. Page says that this guy is showing up tonight to get back at Scotty Steiner. It’s either Booker T. or Sting, and I’d guess Booker since he’s going to end up feuding with Ricky Steiner into Greed before beating Scott Steiner on top of that in what will be the best booking he’s gotten since his TV title days. Steiner rushes into the crowd to attack Page, who is long gone by the time he gets there. Production miscues aside, I enjoyed this opener. Bumper: Jeff Jarrett will wrestle Dustin Rhodes tonight, with CEO Flair appointing himself as the special guest ref for that bout. Wow, we are only six shows away from Greed including this one. I’m not sure that’s enough time to build to the matches on that card. One thing that I didn’t remember that I am now realizing is that a lot of these feuds were hastily put together and not consistently followed up on. For example, I remembered Chavo Guerrero Jr./Shane Helms as a three-month-long Helms chase where he got closer and closer to winning before finally doing so at Greed. I was thinking it might be a feud that gets on my Best Feuds list. Instead, there was the build to the Sin match, then mostly nothing except for Chavo distracting Helms in a qualifying match for SuperBrawl, and then after that, creative needs to pick things back up between them because there are only three weeks until Greed. Chavo Jr. doubling back to a feud with Hugh Morrus for a month was a mistake; Chavo and Helms should have been feuding more directly and more consistently even if the plan was to pivot to Chavo/Rey for February’s PPV. Anyway, Chavo/Helms has a very low chance of making that Best Feuds list at this point because of the lack of interaction, which means that in my opinion, the last great WCW feud will likely have been Goldberg/Sid Vicious. That would have sounded completely off if 2025 me had told 2021 me this very thing back when I started this project. Tony S. and Scott Hudson ponder which of Scott Steiner’s victims will be returning tonight. Well, it won’t be poor Syko Sid, that’s for sure. Brackets! There are brackets for this WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship Tournament! Get yer fresh brackets here! Quadrant one quarterfinal matchups: Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman vs. Johnny Swinger and Jason Lee; Two Count (Karagias and Moore) vs. Jamie (K)noble and Scotty O. Quadrant two quarterfinal matchups: Elix Skipper and Kid Romeo (though the latter is not revealed yet and just has a “???” in place of his name) vs. Air Paris and AJ Styles; Jung Dragons vs. Kwee Wee and Mike Sanders. I am blanking on Jason Lee (assuming he’s not the guy who played Earl or POTUS’s deadbeat brother on The Residence). The same goes for Scotty O. You can see how these teams don’t make sense in many ways, and it’s another tally in favor of twiztor’s point that this tournament was simply too rushed to make any sense. It’s a great idea, but they needed to actually hire more cruisers and establish them. Why are Kwee Wee and Mike Sanders teaming together when Elix and Sanders would make more sense based on past history of aligning against the babyfaces? How did guys like Johnny Swinger and Jason Lee get into this tournament? Why not simply keep Crowbar to the end of March and have him tag with Kwee Wee in an odd couple tag team since they just broke up their only other odd couple cruiserweight tag team in Noble and Karagias and now have a spot open for that type of gimmick tag team? Let’s start this tournament immediately. Johnny Swinger and a guy who does not look like Azrael from Dogma at all wrestle Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman in the quarterfinals. Jason Lee, Cagematch tells me, had a sixteen-year career working mostly in the Midwest, especially in OVW. This is his one and only WCW match, it seems. Of course, we all know who Johnny Swinger is (heh heh heh). Rey walks out here wearing a half mask, and it looks pretty dope. These fellas pinball around to start. The match settles down when Lee lands a sit-out uranage for two, which is pretty impressive, but his fun doesn’t last long. He is quickly double-chickenwing’d and hit with a springboard missile dropkick. Rey tries to follow with an Asai moonsault, but Lee gets knees up. Lee and Swinger front suplex Rey over the ropes before Swinger scores a nice side Russian that is a bit overelaborated in its set up and then hits an even more overelaborated swinging neckbreaker. They hit each other with crossbody blocks and there’s a hot tag. Rey and Kidman dominate on the hot tag, with an assisted baseball slide to Lee’s nads followed by a Bronco Buster. Swinger tries to attack, but Rey dumps him outside and then hits them with a diving double-clothesline off the apron when Lee and Swinger regather themselves outside the ring. Kidman follows with a shooting star crossbody, which I guess he has to re-establish since Styles showed up and started doing it for a bit. Back in the ring, Kidman tries to hit Swinger with a Kid Krusher; Lee rushes Kidman to break it up, and Kidman releases Swinger and lands a Sky High on the onrushing Lee. Swinger is quickly dispatched of by Rey once again, who helps earn a victory for his team by going up top and scoring a Nutcracker Suite on Lee. Kidman closes the door entirely with a follow-up Kid Krusher on Lee for three. The babyface team is way over and the crowd was into everything they did. This was a fun sprint and a good example of what this division could have been. It’s on a good list. I’m going to make the argument that Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman are the greatest short-term tag team ever. They tagged together regularly for a few months in 1999 and semi-regularly for a few months after Juventud Guerrera was fired in late 2000. I have to place them at number one on my list of short-term tag teams. They have incredible chemistry together. Bumper: The Cat’s got a huge announcement! Rhodes/Jarrett is later in this show! CEO Flair’s up to some fuckery! Tony S. promotes Spring Breakout ’01 while B-roll of people partying in New Orleans plays in the background. Here is the Cat, much more somber than normally now that Ms. Jones has been Kanyon Kutter’d off of WCW television. He is quite displeased with Kanyon for said Kutter on Ms. Jones, which we quickly find out. He swears revenge on the dastardly Page impersonator and declares that to get this revenge, he needs step down as WCW’s Commissioner because he cannot possibly enforce the rules while also breaking every rule he needs to in order to destroy Kanyon’s life. That is some incredibly stupid babyfacin’. OK, you have the power of an office that you can use to destroy a guy’s life, and on top of that, you’re the only guy who is even remotely a check on the maniacal CEO…and you give it up because you’re trying to be noble about getting revenge on the guy who put your close friend and assistant out of wrestling? Look, I also have to say that this is the dumbest possible way to get rid of the commissionership position and that the Cat giving up a position he fought to get back twice after losing it just for this angle doesn’t actually carry the weight that I think creative believes it might. On the other hand, I’ve been asking for this very stupid position to be liquidated, so I’m getting what I want. Maybe I’ll just accept it and move on. No, I’m going to make a little fun of WCW for how they end that on-screen power position first. Then, I’ll move on. Anyway, CEO Flair decides to make his appearance and consolidate a little bit of power. The CEO is like, I was gonna fire you anyway even if you didn't resign, so why the fuck didn’t he do that in the first fuc—no, forget it. I’ll move on! CEO Flair books Cat/Kanyon at Greed, but only after telling the Cat that he can’t beat or join the Magnificent Seven and is now an order-taking peasant rather than an order-making pest. The Cat threatens to kick the CEO in the face, which riles up our nutty CEO. Flair takes off the Rolex, squares up, and then remembers that he can just legislate the Cat into oblivion. That’s smart. I’m surprised that Flair had enough composure to ju—no, wait, he sucker punches the Cat, struts, gets his ass kicked, and Flair flops. Yeah, that seems more like it. WCW’s security mooks save Flair from a further beating and drag him to the floor, where he embarks upon a very entertaining, full-blown, red-faced rant on the mic: HEY, HEY, NOW YOU’RE A DEAD MAN, NOW YOU’VE DONE IT, NOW YOU’VE GOT ME MAD. YOU WANT A MATCH TONIGHT? YOU’VE GOT RICK STEINER TONIGHT, BUDDY. AND THEN IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THROUGH STEINER, YOU’LL GO TO GREED WITH KANYON. STEINER’S GONNA KILL YOU, STEINER’S GONNA KILL YOU, STEINER’LL KILL YOU, *WOOF* *WOOF* *WOOF*. Aw, now it’s Konnan cutting a pre-taped promo in the back. From high highs to low lows with the mic work. Basically, Konnan says that the rest of the wrestlers in the company will unite against the Magnificent Seven and that he shall lead them. Yeah, I don’t think CEO Flair is worried about the Konnan-led troops toppling his regime. Chuck Palumbo and Sean O’Haire continue tonight's run of tag team action, which I heartily approve of. O’Haire does his typical meathead-style promo in which he blames Mike Awesome and Lance Storm for attacking KroniK and then challenges them to a match. Hey, it’s more in media res Nitro, as we went to a commercial break with Storm and Awesome walking through the back, and we come back to Awesome getting worked over by the babyfaces, managing to get a spot of control, and then losing it again. Storm tries a leapfrog, but jumps right into a fallaway slam from Palumbo; Awesome runs a distraction to allow Storm to recover with a superkick. It looks like Palumbo will be FIP, and I’m bummed that we missed some of the shine segment to open. Storm and Awesome keep Palumbo trapped in the corner, but they – and everyone else in the ring – are distracted by Lex Luger’s TurnerTron playing. Everyone looks to the entrance and doesn’t see Kanyon hop out of the crowd, drag O’Haire off the apron, and land a Flatliner on the mats. Palumbo, all alone, manages to dodge a couple of double-team attacks from the Team Canada members, but the numbers game quickly catches up to him. Storm locks him in a Canadian Maple Leaf for a quick submission before O’Haire can recover enough to get back onto the apron. Storm and Awesome back up the ramp, where they are blindsided by Konnan and his army of wrestlers. No, wait, it’s just a solitary Konnan, no army. You know the midcarders in the back were like, Nah, we’re no feeling all that talk of you being our leader; go away, Konnan. There is a break, and then we come back to Sean O’Haire doing his best Scott Steiner “juiced up meathead on the mic promo” impression: KANYON. I WANT A PIECEAYOU PUNK. THUINKUCAN JUMP ME, YOU BIT OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW, BOY. I WANNA SEE ABOUTCHU TONIGHT. We cut back to CEO Flair instructing Kanyon answer the challenge and finish off O’Haire for good, then buttering him up by asking, “Hey, Chris. Who’s better than Kanyon?” Pre-taped interview: DDP promises that he won’t be put out of wrestling by Scott Steiner, mostly on account of Scotty being dumber than a box of rocks and therefore easy to outmaneuver. I mean, that’s not the most unreasonable kayfabe position that Page could take, now is it? Alright, Rick Steiner wrestles the Cat in our next match, and by that, I mean that it starts with an obligabrawl and generally is full of strikes and mauling. I would like another tag match with cruiserweights in it, please. There’s a chinlock spot in there. This goes on for quite a while. The Cat has a couple of aborted comebacks before one sticks for more than a couple moves. This isn’t good, but it’s not an abomination. The Cat uses a foot sweep! That’s kinda cool. He then accidentally bumps the ref with a wayward Feliner. That’s the opposite of kinda cool. Totally Buff take the opportunity to attack the Cat, though Hugh Morrus soon follows. Morrus takes out Totally Buff from behind before swinging for the fences and battering Ricky in the head with a knee brace. Rick stumbles forward into a Feliner; ref Scott James has enough wherewithal to count the pinfall. Scott Steiner immediately runs down and helps his troops beat Morrus and the Cat up. DDP is next out; he knocks Steiner down as Steiner has Morrus in a Recliner, but he’s overmatched until Booker T. makes the ultimate save for the babyfaces. The crowd seemed to enjoy this, and actually, the heat generated by all of this gaga was good enough to justify the whole match leading into it as well as justifying the post-match segment itself. Scott Steiner, after everyone is separated: HEY PAGE, I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU WERE GONNA BRING SOMEBODY. BOOKER, YOU’RE NOBODY. Booker responds by challenging Scotty and Totally Buff to a trios tag against himself, Page, and Morrus the Cat before claiming that the recently-freakless Scotty (I guess that WCW purged every last woman, huh?) will now be his freak when it’s all said and done. Scotty demands that CEO Flair, who has joined him on the ramp, make the match; the CEO agrees. OK, so this match seems to start, maybe? The bell clangs wildly while the faces and heels go back to punching one another. After a short brawl, the match does settle down; Buff beats up the Cat. CEO Flair joins commentary while I think that as little as I rate Hugh Morrus, it would have made more sense for him to be in the Cat’s spot, which is what I assumed would happen. If they’re trying to get him over, you’d want to put him in this match to give him something of a rub teaming with two guys who are placed above him in the pecking order. Buff mostly gets his ass kicked in there, first by the Cat and then by Page. He swings a leg into Page’s balls to get free and make a tag to Luger (Flair: “Smart wrestling”). Page quickly puts Luger down with a discus clothesline and tags Booker in, the latter of whom seems over again after the time away from that long run of television in which he looked like a complete dope each week. Booker really wants to go after Scotty, but he dispatches of Luger anyway before tagging back out to the Cat, who is our FIP for the long heel control segment of the bout. I’m not sure any of the commentary work CEO Flair is doing is even that hard for him. He just seems like he’s out there having fun. Steiner hits an elbow, covers, and pulls off for pushups, and Flair is ecstatic: THAT’S ATHLETICISM! THAT’S CONDITIONING! THAT’S THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD! In general, Flair is quietly stringing together some of the best character work of his later career in this dying company. If I were putting together a list of things that have made the BBSHSWTL Era a positive memory for the fans who were still watching, that would be on the list alongside the Sin PPV and Scott Steiner’s world title run. This ends up being an extremely good trios tag in which the Cat’s hot tags are well-teased and shut down before he finally manages a tag to Page. Page is too focused on Steiner and is caught from behind by Luger. Buff eventually tags in and works a double-lariat spot with Page that leads to another hot tag. Flair is an absolute lunatic on commentary. By the time he admonishes Hudson for noting that Page almost pinned Buff after that double-lariat spot by growling out that CLOSE ONLY COUNTS IN HAND GRENADES AND HORSESHOES; THIS IS PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING, I’m entirely ready to just put this whole last twenty or so minutes of television on the list. It started out slow with Cat/Rick Steiner, but everything that built upon the seemingly nondescript foundation of that match has been quite fun. Anyway, Booker manages to bail Page out with a hot tag and reels off quite a bit of offense until the point at which Buff ducks a roundhouse kick and lands a double-arm DDT. The match breaks down as Steiner clatters the Cat with a chair outside the page. I think Luger might have done the same to Page on the other side of the ring. It’s only now that Scotty, having a clear advantage with Booker down, agrees to tag in and face him. CEO Flair cackles as Steiner lands chops on Booker in the corner. Book kicks out of a belly-to-belly, tries to make a comeback, but has it aborted when Steiner sticks an arm out and lands a clothesline. Things go to the floor, where Booker controls an obligabrawl. Totally Buff attacks Booker, but Page and the Cat have recovered and attack Buff and Luger. Book tosses Steiner back in the ring, gets about 2.7 off a missile dropkick, and scores a pancake and a Spinaroonie. Luger jumps Booker as he stands up, and everyone else jumps in the ring and attacks one another. Steiner overhead suplexes the Cat and helps Buff beat down Page. Steiner tries to put the Cat in a Steiner Recliner, but Booker hops on the apron and punches him. Stunned, Steiner stumbles backward into a Page Diamond Cutter. Page pops up, feeling celebratory, and turns around into a Buff Blockbuster. Buff gets up from having landed it, swings at an advancing Booker, and gets hooked for a Book End when Booker ducks his punch; Booker drills it. Meanwhile, Steiner is still disoriented and just getting back to his knees; Booker turns to him and lands a free axe kick that finally earns a three count and ends the match. That was an incredibly hot finish. After the bout, some other Magnificent Seven members rush down the ramp to attack the babyfaces, but our conquering heroes escape through the crowd. OK, you are not going to believe this because I scarcely can: That match had so much energy and was so fun that I think I’m putting it on my Favorite Matches list. That was the first time in a long time where all the stars in a match actually felt like stars. Even when one considers the annoying extra post-production noise machine sweetening in the background, the crowd was also super into this. CEO Flair’s commentary enhanced the whole thing. The best way to put it is that this felt like the sort of hot WCW match you’d get back in 1996 or 1997, from match layout to in-ring work to crowd reaction to everything else you might consider. As inconsistent as this part of the Nitro Era has been, there are more than enough segments and shows that make me recall why I enjoyed it so much back when it originally aired. After a break, we come back to see Scott Steiner throwing quite the tantrum. He shoves a ladder into the camera that is filming him on his current rampage, so that’s pretty rad. The babyfaces are congratulating one another in a separate part of the building. Hype video: Dusty Rhodes is back to support his prodigal son Dustin against CEO Ric Flair; the CEO has enlisted the support of a very mean and cutting Jeff Jarrett in response. Pre-taped interview: Dustin Rhodes says that if Jeff Jarrett is going to bring daddies into this, he’ll call out that cheap bastard Jerry be Jarrett’s daddy tonight. I actually did think he was going to shit on Jerry Jarrett before he opted for the weak insult, though. Shannon Moore (w/Evan Karagias) wrestles Shane Helms in a grudge match, and did I miss something? When did Helms and Moore decide not to be friends anymore? Moore wasn’t pleased about Helms being Kidman’s replacement in the SuperBrawl opener, but they never really followed up on that, did they? Helms controls for a while, but he’s tripped and held by Karagias while on a merry chase around the ring to catch Moore; this allows Moore to get a spot of control in the bout. That spot of control doesn’t last long; Helms takes over again, so Karagias drags him outside the ring, and then that poor bastard Evan gets crushed when Shannon tries to plancha onto Helms, who ducks just in time for Karagias to eat that plancha. Back in the ring, Helms sets up for a Vertebreaker, but Karagias manages to climb onto the apron to distract him. Helms releases Moore and deposits Karagias right back off the apron, but Moore recovers and attempts a Bottom’s Up. “Attempts” is the key word here as Helms easily twists out of that and back into Vertebreaker position, then executes the move for three. He barely has time to take a breath after the match because Chavo Guerrero Jr. sprints down the ramp and attacks him. Chavo directs the Two Count members in a three-on-one beatdown of Helms. Promo: WCW’s Road to Oblivion Spring Breakout 2001 is headed to South Carolina next week! I wonder if Hugh Morrus was legit injured and that’s why the Cat was in that trios tag because commentary briefly notes that Morrus was hurt during that segment and had to be helped out. Kayfabe or shoot? I wonder. Meanwhile, Sean O’Haire backjumps Kanyon by entering through the crowd as Kanyon stands in the ring and looks toward the entrance. Ah, that was a nice callback to Kanyon’s distraction gambit earlier in the night. He rolls Kanyon in what sort of feels like a WCW-ass WCW matchup, doesn’t it? O’Haire earns a couple of two counts, but when he goes up for ten punches in the corner, Kanyon forearms him in the sack, then climbs the ropes and hits an elevated side Russian to take over. It is now Kanyon’s turn to score an array of nearfalls, but he celebrates for far too long after a super Showstopper, and O’Haire pops right up and scores two on a reverse DDT. O’Haire shoots Kanyon into the ropes, but he ducks down right into a fish hook neckbreaker for two. Kanyon tries a chinlock that O’Haire immediately works up from; Kanyon quickly lands a swinging neckbreaker for two to stop his momentum, then goes up for a top rope splash. O’Haire hits the Undertaker sit-up, and Kanyon crashes out. Both men get to their feet, but O’Haire hits a kick and then a couple of lariats before simply dropping Kanyon to the mat out of a vertical suplex position. He tries to follow up, gets caught on a leap over, and is hit with a sit-out spinebuster for two; these fellas are landing offense back and forth. The last offense to hit is a Seanton Bomb after O’Haire regains control with an inverted DVD (no inverted VR) and goes up to finish it. That move gets three and is a pretty big win for the guy, all things considered. This was a solid little back-and-forth match. The truck errs and shows Booker pinning Steiner instead of O’Haire beating Kanyon on the replay. WCW, everybody! And I type that with genuine affection in my heart for this dopey company. Let’s find out if CEO Ric Flair has collected himself backstage; he was completely apoplectic after that trios tag result. He walks down the ring looking slightly irritated, but you know, considering his usual mood, he’s at least subdued enough to function again. Alright, Jeff Jarrett is going to wrestle Dustin Rhodes. I am very hopeful and excited for a Dusty Rhodes appearance, which I will note that I now expect because Jarrett uses part of his pre-match mic time to tell Dustin that he's “outmanned and outnumbered.” After one final commercial break, Dustin Rhodes comes out to a terrible dub. Hold on, while Rhodes blows Jarrett away before being distracted by referee CEO Flair’s admonishments, let me see what his actual theme was. OK, apparently it was a knockoff of some Kid Rock song that I don’t know. As a wrestling fan who otherwise would never be caught dead listening to the cultural black hole that is Kid Rock, I know exactly two of his songs: “Cowboy” and “Lonely Road of Faith.” This main event is fine and I am enjoying it, but I feel like the trios tag pretty much sucked a lot of the energy out of me and maybe also a lot of this crowd. It probably should have ended this show instead. Jarrett and Rhodes brawl up the ramp before coming back to the ring. Rhodes lands a superplex and covers; CEO Flair’s count is comically slow. Rhodes pulls up and gets in a shoving match with CEO Flair, who soon enough pulls the top rope down as Jarrett shoots Rhodes in. Jarrett goes outside and hits Rhodes with a chair shot to the dome, then continues this obligabrawl. I just want a Dusty appearance, please. Back in the ring, Jarrett locks on a sleeper that he thinks will make the result academic, but he doesn’t know his babyface fire spots because Dustin manages to fight up to Jarrett’s surprise; a vertical suplex puts both guys down for a standing ten count. Jarrett is up first, but he gets punched after shooting Dustin into the ropes; Dustin hits a series of nice rights before dropping Jarrett with a power slam. He prepares to go up top, sees that Jarrett is not moving in his direction, and chooses to hop down and land a piledriver instead that gets a slooooooooooooooow two count from the ref. After Flair pulls Dustin off a series of punches in the corner, Dustin hands out bulldogs to both of them; he tries to control Flair’s hand to slap the mat while covering Jarrett, but Flair recovers and holds up his hand before it can come down for the third time. Dustin then hooks Flair up in the corner, gives him a Shattered Dreams, and then ducks Jarrett’s KABONG attempt and puts Jarrett up in the corner as well. Dustin grabs the guitar and prepares to swing on Jarrett instead of kicking him in the gonads, but Flair is able to crawl over and junk punch him; Jarrett hops down from his position in the ropes and quickly lands a Stroke for three. He and Flair consider sticking around and celebrating or maybe attacking Dustin after the match before Booker, DDP, and the Cat chase them away to end the show. I think that had I gotten a Dusty appearance that helped Dustin get the win over Jarrett and Flair, I would have gone another quarter-Stinger Splash higher. Still, the heels actually taking multiple losses tonight against a re-energized set of babyfaces, plus that hot trios tag and energetic tag opener in general, are more than enough for me to score this Nitro highly. We are seeing right now what WCW looks like when it is anchored by a hot heel world champ who can talk. I’m not sure WCW has had that this whole Nitro era since early 1996 when Ric Flair was the champ and having a hot feud with Randy Savage; yes, I am arguing that Hollywood Hogan wouldn’t fit that bill (he was very over as a heel in 1996 and part of 1997 despite his inability to talk). Since WCW is the progeny of JCP, a company that relied on hot heel world champs who can talk, this feels only right. Ah, yet another reason that I think I remember this period warmly; it brings me back to my earliest days when I would watch the Four Horsemen run roughshod on TBS with my grandma. Anyway, that was a heck of a show for WCW. I wish they could have just stayed in this holding pattern for, oh, another year. I don’t really have interest in Bischoff’s “hang out in Las Vegas and feature Hogan again” vision for nu-WCW, and obviously Vinnie Mac’s ideas for WCW were complete garbage. As it is, I’m going to enjoy the rest of this late period of the Nitro Era while I still have any of it left to enjoy: 4.25 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Speaking of Rude, I know that a lot of folks around here have Manny Fernandez and Rick Rude as their favorite/the greatest short-term tag team. Personally, I had Brad Armstrong and Brickhouse Brown as my favorite (if not the greatest by amount of production) over the past couple years. However, I now feel like my hot (lukewarm?) take is that Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman are the greatest short-term tag team. They didn't get to a full year of tagging regularly together, so I think they should count. What an incredible undersized babyface tag team. If you plunked them back in the 1980s, they draw money in every territory they go to. I just wrote this take down elsewhere, but I thought I'd throw it out here. I'm not sure who is beating those two as a great short-term tag team.

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and forty-nine – 21 February 2001 "The WCW Gang features the promo work excellence of Shane Douglas (and with nary a cuss, too!), and no, I did not conjure that title up to mess with you, reader" Let us enjoy the magic of WCW Thunder while we still have WCW Thunder around to enjoy… Recap: Scott Steiner is fixing to hold another funeral for DDP…Meanwhile, Jeff Jarrett’s got jokes (and insults) for Dusty Rhodes… Here’s our fresh new intro… Pyro!...Ballyhoo!...Tony S. and Mike Tenay hyping DDP/Scott Steiner for Greed!... Kwee Wee would have been better off doing that Double A tribute gimmick that he was doing on Worldwide a year ago in television time…Kwee Wee, to CEO Flair: NOTICE ME, SENPAI, basically…He says that CEO Flair “will regret having the Kwee Wee on his team”…Well, no he won't, because he won’t be letting you on his team in the first place…I know, I know, he just forgot a word in there…He issues an open challenge to someone actually on the WCW roster rather than just trainees masquerading as security hguards…Kaz Hayashi takes the challenge as Tony S. corrects Kwee Wee’s verbal slip on commentary…Kaz hits a beautiful dive to the floor, then throws punches at Kwee Wee besides…Kwee Wee gets boots up on a Kaz charge, then lands a Thesz Press…He hits a nasty-looking vertical suplex on Kaz that sends Kaz back-first into the buckle… Kwee Wee leverages his power to keep control of Kaz, scoring a couple of two-counts in the bargain…They bork a dropkick spot in which Kwee Wee bumps weirdly even though I’m not sure Kaz even touches him…They’re suddenly struggling to work a bit, as they need two takes for a vertical suplex spot…Hayashi flips out of a back suplex and lands a kick…They work a spot on the apron in which they tease a vertical suplex to the floor and a sunset flip powerbomb before Kaz finally ducks out of the way of a Kwee Wee suicide dive…When the action makes it back into the ring, they continue to work a bit awkwardly together, but they soldier through… They work a sequence that ends with Kaz rolling out of a sunset flip and landing a Buzzsaw Kick…Both men trade two counts in the lead up to the finish…Kaz finally ducks a Kwee Wee lariat while on the apron and launches himself back into the ring with a slingshot DDT that keeps Kwee Wee down for three…That was reasonably watchable, if rough…Kwee Wee goes all Angry Allan after the match and drills Kaz with a piledriver… Disco Inferno joyfully greets Alex Wright in the back…Wright is like, Please fuck yourself off to Fuckoffland, Disco…Disco is undeterred...He says that he has gotten them a match against “two cruiserweights”…Wright is disinterested, but Disco pretty much ignores him, pushes through, and leaves a resigned Wright preparing to suit up again as a Boogie Knight… Hugh Morrus looks to pay Rick Steiner back for Ricky's beatdown of Lash LeRoux on Nitro…Morrus cuts an annoying babyface promo about how he doesn’t turn his back on his friends…He yells STEINER a lot and refuses to leave the ring until STEINER gets there…Well, a STEINER does walk out here…Thankfully, it’s the entertaining one, who opens his response with a HEY, FATSO as is his way…Scott Steiner isn’t a huge fan of Hugh Morrus claiming to be the inspirational leader for ALL THE OTHER JABRONIES…Steiner promises to break Morrus’s back and spirit before Rick Steiner jumps Morrus from behind and brawls with him while Scott leaves to prepare for his bout against Morrus…He rushes back out here when Morrus fights off Rick Steiner, and a bunch of wrestlers rush out to back this inspirational midcarder up…Scott Steiner, confused: WHERE’D THEY COME FROM?!...I think they came from the locker room, buddy… Scott Steiner is still confused about where everyone came from as he passes a lead pipe to his big bro backstage…Meanwhile, CEO Flair fires up most of the rest of the troops…He wants Buff Bagwell and Kanyon to put a hurting on Diamond Dallas Page in their tag match against DDP and the Cat, booked for tonight’s show…Lex Luger is asked to take out his opponent Chuck Palumbo later tonight… Big Vito is back on television again…He’s looking for Johnny the Bull backstage…Shawn Stasiak stops him and says he saw Johnny borking Vito’s sometimes-sister, sometimes-lover Marie/a…That's obviously not true at the rate WCW is firing all the women...Anyway, this leads to a round of challenges and an upcoming match between Vito and Stasiak...Of course, Mark Jindrak jumps Vito before a pull-apart happens… AJ Styles and Air Paris will get a shot at defeating former WCW World Tag Team Champions the Boogie Knights…Wright looks at Paris like the young guy is fresh meat…Then he chops and kicks him with no trouble, so maybe he was right...Disco taunts Styles, then whiffs on an arm drag and gets superkicked…Styles tags in, but quickly loses control of the bout… More kicks and a few European uppercuts follow from Wright…Wright and Styles seesaw control back and forth between one another…Wright dances a bit when he’s in control…Disco tags in, hits a side Russian, and also dances…Styles squirts away from an unfocused Disco and gets a tag, but Paris misses a high knee in the corner…Disco hits a WOO, drops a knee across Paris’s hamstring, then does a terrible Fargo Strut… The veterans control the match fairly easily…The rookies get a few moves in, but continue to let control quickly return to the vets…The only way the veterans are going to lose this is by playing with their food…Disco lands an elevated missile dropkick on Paris…He misses a corner charge when he takes so long that Styles just walks over and yanks Paris out of the way…Styles tags in and scores his team’s longest run of offense on Disco…Styles and then Paris score an array of covers on Disco, but they can’t manage a three count… Styles is absolutely not caught by either man on his senton splash from the top to the floor…He then takes a wild bump after being whipped into the guardrail…Paris dives onto Wright, then heads back in the ring…He can’t do much to stop Disco, but he’s not the legal man…Styles is, however, and he climbs the top rope and crossbody blocks Disco for three after Disco rids himself of the pesky Paris…The Knights argue with one another in the ring as the babyfaces roll out with a bit of momentum for the cruiserweight tag title tournament…Though I fully agree with twiztor that the cruiserweight tag division has been hastily constructed with no leadup, I am so happy that WCW is doing more to center the cruiserweights who have been underutilized that I’m okay with it… Hype video: Kid Romeo is not into the ladies…I suppose that he’s into the fellas?...Or maybe he’s just very picky… Shawn Stasiak walks to the ring, grabs a mic, and orders the crowd to shut up…No, YOU shut up, you promo terrorist…Here's what this dope has to say: Too many hicks, too much inbreeding, hates New York, hates Alabama (where the show is tonight), hates filth, and apparently New Yorkers and Alabamans have poor dental health…This guy sucks…Vito is fine, though…The guy works hard and actually doesn’t suck…He vaguely annoyed me in ECW and he was useless in his WWE run, but in this depleted WCW midcard, he definitely has his uses… Tony S. shills something called “enhanced TBS” as a way to see Thunder in some sort of new multimedia-assisted way…Did anyone reading actually use this on TBS’s website while watching a Thunder show, and if so, what was it like?...Vito drops a Savage Elbow for two in there…He looks as though he’s building toward a victory before eating a back elbow…They trade pinfall attempts in a watchable enough match…Vito kicks out of a PerfectPlex (Tony S.: “A version of the Pittsburgh Plunge, if you will,” but I will not)…Vito doesn’t kick out of the Rude Awakening that Stasiak executes, though…In my humble opinion, all reverse neckbreakers in that style should be called by the name Rude Awakening…Just like every top-rope elbow smash should be called a Savage Elbow…Stasiak runs down Vito on the mic after the match… Pre-taped interview: Well, though I see no sight of Daffney, here’s Crowbar, completely not released from WCW at this point in time, to complain about the online internet smark nerd douchebags who found Jeff Jarrett’s imitation of Dusty Rhodes to be funny…Crowbar found it shameful…I see that Crowbar is going to do a quick job on his way out of the territory…He challenges Jarrett to a match for Thunder… Buff Bagwell and Kanyon, preparing to wrestle DDP, laugh about Kanyon landing a cutter kutter on Ms. Jones… Annoying hype video: Stop trying to get Hugh Morrus over as some sort of beloved star and locker room leader, WCW… Speaking of annoying, here’s Buff Bagwell…Chris Kanyon is tagging along behind him…Kanyon asks the question…The crowd does not answer it to his liking…He defends his record as a dangerous competitor by claiming victory over both Ms. Jones and DDP in the last week…He is also confident that Scott Steiner will beat DDP at Greed…Buff Bagwell drops a dad joke before challenging the Cat to a fight next…That fight will happen after the break, as the Cat and Diamond Dallas Page will tag up to face off with them… The Cat and DDP use some trickeration and the threat of chair shots to jump the heels, then clear the ring by whipping them into one another…The match immediately settles down after this…In a funny spot, Buff mockingly does Page’s taunt, so Page turns around and punches Kanyon, standing over on the apron…What makes it funny is Buff’s shocked face as he watches it happen…After that, we get a solid tag match because at least two of the four guys in it can work…Kanyon gets pinballed between the Cat and Page after the Cat tags in…Kanyon pulls out a swinging neckbreaker to stop the onslaught of offense… The Cat is a babyface who also happens to be in peril tonight…Bagwell gets a couple of two counts before the Cat manages a desperation lariat…There’s no hot tag…The Cat simply tags out to Page and combines with him to put Bagwell down…I guess maybe Page will be the babyface in peril after eating an ugly double-arm DDT…Buff’s version of that move is vile…Kobashi has a great one…Mick Foley has a good one…Buff Bagwell has one that he should have retired immediately… Kanyon tags in and lands some actually-watchable offense, including a nice slingshot elbow, before settling into a front facelock…The heels run a distraction on ref Slick Johnson, and he misses a legitimate tag from Page to the Cat…I mean, why are we letting the previous nWo ref be in charge of Buff Bagwell matches anyway?...That seems hinky…Page finally lariats his way out of trouble and lands a hot tag…The Cat scores offense on both opponents…Kanyon finally cuts the Cat off with a lariat after the Cat blocks a sunset flip with a chop…Page hits a diving lariat on Kanyon, and they brawl outside…Buff and the Cat are left alone in the ring, where the Cat finally pins Buff Bagwell with a Feliner…Wow, you left that first pinfall victory over Buff a little late there, commissioner… The Chosen One with all the stroke around here Jeff Jarrett will be choosing to land one Stroke on Crowbar in our next bout…I do not like Crowbar’s new music without Daffney screaming as its hook…This match is a decent watch for a late-stage Thunder show…There’s actually quite a bit of back-and-forth…Neither man can keep much control…Crowbar’s unorthodox offense (™ Jim Ross) keeps Jarrett off-balance…Jarrett eventually back suplexes Crowbar over the top rope to escape a sleeper attempt…Crowbar sells a knee injury, which means that he’s extra hurt after sidestepping a Jarrett baseball slide and landing his running splash off the apron…He gets up after Jarrett to emphasize the extent of the injury… Jarrett uses the ring steps to destroy Crowbar’s knee before tossing the erstwhile former gas station attendant back into the ring to continue the punishment…Crowbar fires up one more time after dodging a corner charge…He even gets two on a bridging Northern Lights…However, when he jumps up for a rana, Jarrett tosses him away…Crowbar lands on his feet, but grabs his knee and hunches over in pain…Jarrett quickly goes behind and lands a Stroke for three…After the bell, he sets Crowbar up for a Shattered Dreams, but Dustin Rhodes quickly makes his way to the ring and puts an end to the attempt…I liked this weird WCW-ass WCW matchup…It’s landing on a good list… In a conversation between CEO Flair, Road Warrior Animal, and Rick Steiner, they discuss keeping Scott Steiner focused on DDP and not getting too caught up with Hugh Morrus…Animal and Ricky promise to help Scotty stay focused… Pre-taped interview: An injured Shane Douglas cuts an interview on how magical he found pro wrestling as a kid and how riddled with political bullshit he found it as an adult…I think you can guess whom he calls out as Political Animal #1…This is actually good promo work because Douglas isn’t trying to cuss every three seconds to be edgy…He instead talks about his experiences with Ric Flair as a young worker…He talks about asking Flair to maybe watch his matches and give him feedback…Of course, he claims, Flair said he’d do it and then didn’t, but puffed him up with generic positive feedback anyway…He’d ask Flair about a crossbody he didn’t do in the match and get puffery in response…He talks about the ire he developed for Flair and says that it even drove him to make it to the top of ECW (though he doesn’t mention the company by name)… Douglas says that when he came back to WCW in 1999, Flair gladhanded him instead of fighting him…This led him to letting his guard down (which he did in fact do in kayfabe) and trying to befriend Ric again…Of course, Ric’s buddy Ricky Steiner then took his gold and put him out of wrestling…Douglas, describing Flair’s initial reaction to him when he came back as “disarming,” ruefully looks at his cast and says, “Well, Ric, you’ve disarmed me”…Is this a fever dream?...Is Shane Douglas cutting an excellent promo to get over how two-faced and evil CEO Ric Flair is?...Douglas promises revenge after his cast comes off…He says that he’s got the same never-quit heart that Ric Flair had when he came up against his opps back in the day…Douglas: “You made me, Ric, and that’s your cross to bear”…This poor bastard never did get his big Ric Flair feud, did he?...Anyway, uh, somehow, let’s welcome a Shane Douglas promo to our good promos list!...And not one single, solitary cuss!... Doug Dellinger and his security mooks tell Sean O’Haire that he is barred from ringside when Lex Luger faces his tag partner…O’Haire presumes that CEO Flair decreed this, then thinks that maybe Luger himself is soft enough to call for the ban…A revived Buff Bagwell – in his street clothes, I should note - walks over and basically tells O’Haire to stuff it, then sucker punches him…We come back from a ghost break to see security backing them off of one another… And here comes Lex Luger now!...With WCW coming to a close, so is Luger’s career in big-time professional wrestling…It was probably about time, huh?...Actually, he’s a good talker, but because he tends to trip over his words, you probably don’t want to stick him on color…Speaking of Luger, he grabs a mic and manages to mostly enunciate his words as he talks about how great he is and reminds everyone that Chuck Palumbo came into the company on a bum copycat rap biting his style…Hey, yeah, he did!...I forgot about that, and it was only like eight months ago in TV time…Luger freaking out about GOLDBERG chants is always hilarious…Luger: GOLDBERG’S NOT HERE ANYMORE! BUFF AND I PUT HIM OUT! HE'S FIRED, HE’S GONE, HE’S OUTTA HERE, SHUT UP!...He promises to put Palumbo out of wrestling along with Goldberg… Palumbo answers that verbal assault with sweet right hands when he makes it to the ring…Tony S. notes that Palumbo was probably mocking Luger rather than looking up to him (as Luger claimed) when he came in with replica The Total Package tights and a Lex Flexer…True, but either way, that was one bum copycat rap…I’m sorry, but that phrase is the funniest thing that Hulk Hogan has ever said, intentional or otherwise…What a buffoon…Anyway, this match is what it is…Luger takes control after an obligabrawl and is all stomps and forearms…Tony S. calls it VINTAGE LEX LUGER…Michael Cole, probably: THAT DAMN TONY S., WITH HIS BUM COPYCAT RAP…Luger looks for a Torture Rack, but he spends so much time calling for it that when he bends over to pick Palumbo up, Palumbo small packages him for three…Luger racks Palumbo after the match, but O’Haire is now available to hit the ring since the match is over and beats up Luger until Buff Bagwell – not in his street clothes anymore, but dressed as he was in his previous tag match earlier in the night - can make it to the ring and pull Luger to safety…That didn’t do much for Palumbo even though he won… Pre-taped post-match interview: O’Haire is in the same clothes that he was wearing in both the pull-apart with Buff and the post-match with Luger as he threatens Totally Buff, and I appreciate his attention to detail… Road Warrior Animal and Rick Steiner sure have some nerve as they look for Hugh Morrus…Animal: “Where’s he at? Three hundred twenty pound guy. Can’t be hiding too many places, not enough places that’ll hide him”…Ricky pipes in with a “Big fat tub of”…Uh, fellas, have you seen yourselves in the mirror?...You’re not that far off…Anyway, Morrus locks these men who notice only the perceived flaws in others within one of the rooms they are scouring for him… Alright, let’s get Scott Steiner vs. Hugh Morrus in the ring for our Thunder main event…This is at least a pretty stiff bout in spots, if that trait improves a match's quality significantly for you…Steiner yelling I’M JUST WARMING UP, PEOPLE, I’M JUST WARMING UP after his elbowdrop > fake pin > pushups spot is amazing…He yells WHO DA MAN? At the crowd and gets back a few responses of YOU DA MAN…Wow, look at this dude aping Sid on some bum copycat rap…Steiner beats the crap out of Morrus for a decent chunk of this match, which is pretty entertaining… Morrus does manage to swing momentum by winning an obligabrawl…When it gets back in the ring, though, he eats a jawbreaker and goes back to being an attack dummy for a bit…A Morrus powerslam does get two…He tries a No Laughing Matter, but gets caught in an Electric Chair Drop…Morrus manages one more comeback after hitting a standing switch and a release German…Morrus lands a Savage Elbow for two, then sets up for a No Laughing Matter again…Unfortunately for him, Animal and Ricky bust the locked door open…Morrus whiffs on the No Laughing Matter in the meantime and is cooked entirely…Steiner lands a super belly to belly, then locks Morrus in a Steiner Recliner for the knockout victory… Brother Ricky brings the lead pipe to Scotty…Scotty grabs a mic and demands DDP’s presence, threatening to do his dumb legbreaker deal to Morrus if Page doesn’t sho…Page walks out and is like SO THE FUCK WHAT…I agree wtih DDP…No, wait, Page feigns a lack of caring as a diversion…Instead, he brawls with Scotty in the aisle, though of course Rick jumps him…They bring him to the ring, but he slips away and helps Hugh Morrus escape through the crowd because, as he tells Scotty from the stands, I’M STILL STANDING…I mean, from a certain perspective, running from superior numbers as a babyface is, um, smart?...Noble (not Knoble) or lion-hearted (not Chris Jericho), no, but smart, yes… Shane Douglas had the best segment on this show…I’ve seen it all now…Shut it down, Thunder, there is nothing more for you to show me…WOOO…

Certainly, but this conversation started with attacking employees specifically, including implying the hypocrisy of an employee for exhibiting different values than her boss, which is very different than criticizing fans for continuing to spend money with harmful companies. I don't spend money on either of these companies, though come to think of it, I must do so obliquely since I have Peacock Plus as part of my Comcast subscription. Anyway, yes, that is very different. If you want to bag on fans for choosing that entertainment over some other form of entertainment that is somewhat less problematic, go for it. There is almost nowhere to work where you will make enough to exist in the modern world and not be deeply tied into a lot of evil stuff, though, and that includes in non-profits and for the state. It does not make a worker trashy to hold an opinion that is diametrically opposed to the leadership of their company and still work there.

It's not really whataboutism, buddy. I'm not trying to deflect from the fact that WWE is run by monsters. That would be whataboutism. But the system is the system. I think the moralizing about a group of people working for monsters while also ignoring the various ways in which we in the west prop up those same monsters to lead the lives we do is just old at this point. It's such a "too online" position to take to me, no offense to you personally. You know I appreciate your posts and all. I actually think it's a bit more monstrous to be quietly propping up the monster to keep your customer base happy than it is to be out-and-proud about it. Is the wolf in sheep's clothing really any better than the wolf who declines to disguise itself? I do sense that I'm well across the NO POLITICS line at this point, though, so I'll leave it at that.

Good for you! I'm glad that you can live with yourself using devices that rely on underpaid and abused labor which scars the earth and accellerates climate change that will kill millions in the Global South to share with us how morally upright you are! Seriously, I am genuinely happy that you think so well of yourself. It's good to have a sense of self-esteem.

Good for you, buddy. I'm pretty certain that wrestlers aren't staying up at night worrying about whether or not (BP) respects them for it, just as sure as I am that whatever you do for a living profits some evil people and that whatever device you typed this response on definitely profited some evil people.

Literally everyone here needs to follow a trade to make money, and monsters run the show at all levels of those trades. I think it's exceptionally silly to tell a worker that they're a hypocrite for getting a job in their field and disagreeing with the monsters who make money from their labor. That's my hot take. Did the Khan family not give money to Trump for at least one of his inaugurations? Does that make anyone who watches or works for WWE amoral? I mean, if you want to argue that we need way fewer billionaires and way more worker-owned companies to avoid this issue, I'm right there with you.

I listened to 83 Weeks for the first time in a very long time to hear the episode on Sin, and I don't know if these things were common knowledge, but Bischoff said: That Chris Kanyon scouted and suggested that WCW sign Three Count and Jimmy Yang. That he gave Terry Taylor and Ed Ferrara directions for toning down the language and violence a bit after the Fusient deal was announced, but that no one else in WCW (except for probably Brad Siegel) knew it was him making these directives. Ferrara has been booking Thunder in full or in part for the past few months with a steady hand and, I believe, was a part of the Nitro committee as well, so his reputation as a WCW creative should probably be reconsidered at this point. At least for my taste, he's probably been responsible for a bunch of the show-to-show stuff that I have found joy in for the last half-year or thereabouts.

Stan Hansen looks great for his age and with all the damage he's taken in his career.

Show #278 – 19 February 2001 "The one with heels being mean and salvaging the show" We’re six Nitros from the season finale bleedin' end, so let’s gooooooooooo! Hyped-up recap: SuperBrawl was watchable enough. Stuff that you didn't see on the PPV: The wrestlers in WCW sadly watch Kevin Nash leave the building after being ejected from WCW for some reason, even though he showed up to destroy this company. DOES NO ONE REMEMBER THIS?! Now we shall have a eulogy for Kevin Nash’s WCW career. I already gave my own eulogy in the PPV review, but I’m sure the heels will have something different to say tonight. Buff Bagwell asking Animal to help him straighten his tie makes me chuckle. Hey, I just realized that from a certain perspective, Ric Flair finally got one over on the nWo! Good for him. In fact, Flair mentions those original nWo members in his remarks, and I think, hey, WCW finally rid itself of all of them! And now they only have six weeks to exist without them! That’s the most WCW way possible to “survive” the nWo. The Main Event Mafia has pre-exploded, and Scott Steiner is glad to have caused it. He crows about how he sent Kevin Nash packing. If anyone says anything funny or otherwise notable, I’ll let you know. I do get a kick out of them showing all the guys who Steiner has put out up on the TurnerTron. Sting is first. Steiner: STING, I’VE CALLED THAT HOSPITAL [that you were staying at]. YOU’RE NOT THERE NO MORE. YOU’RE JUST TOO AFRAID TO COME BACK. It’s almost insulting that all he says about Booker T. is this: YOU WERE NEXT, AND YOU WERE EASY. Steiner even takes credit for sending Goldberg packing. You barely beat the guy at Fall Brawl with a ton of help, and that didn’t send him anywhere for another four months! It’s fine, though. He’s a heel. He’s supposed to embellish his achievements. Anyway, Steiner promises revenge on Nash for a side slam that Nash gave Midajah last night (NOBODY TOUCHES MY FREAKS!) which I’m not sure I mentioned in the finishing run of their match because I stopped caring about the finishing run of their match. Steiner is very good at this whole talking thing as you well know. Steiner ends his diatribe by informing the fans of his next target, and he does so by opening the top half of the casket. Kanyon and his bad wig sit up and throw up THA ROC. Come on down, DIAMOND DALLAS WHITE TRASH! You are next on Scott Steiner’s list! Other news: Buff Bagwell has a match against the Cat tonight, as does Jeff Jarrett against Dustin Rhodes [Editor's note: Eh, not quite!]. Finally, Steiner wants Kanyon to put a hurting on Diamond Dallas Page in the Nitro main event. This segment has worked so far because Scott Steiner has done the bulk of the talking. Obviously, DDP has to respond (which he does from the crowd), but his response is fine! Scott Steiner’s response to Page’s response is to kick stuff and threaten to murder someone. The lovely Ms. Jones congratulates Commissioner Cat on winning the commissionership back; Commissioner Cat congratulates the lovely Ms. Jones on kicking Mike Sanders in the dome. This particular chance to get his hands back on power has reinvigorated the Cat, who was inspired by the terrible work in the SuperBrawl opener to create a WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship division. I love this idea, and again, Bischoff wanting to re-establish the cruiserweights as an attraction specific to WCW is a great idea for a rebooted version of the company. I also note that most of the new hires who have leaked through after the hiring freeze was relaxed are cruiserweights, so Bisch clearly had a plan to rebuild that division. Shannon Moore dances to the ring. The only way I could have loved this Three Count gimmick more is if one of them could actually sing. Joe Hendry is the best possible version of this type of gimmick. I have a soft spot for that guy. Anyway, Jamie (K)noble (w/Evan Karagias) is Moore’s opponent. I have to say, as Moore and Noble trade offense and two counts with one another early on, that the last three or four months of the company are the ones that have been consistent at opening the shows with pacey cruiserweight matches. WCW always leaves it late. That’s what I’m getting from all this. I should tell you more about this pacey match as it works its way to a middle and a conclusion. There are lots of counters and they almost never stop running. We get our first dive when Moore hits a lovely plancha to Noble on the floor. Karagias tries to blindside Moore with a lariat, but Moore feels it coming and ducks it, then dropkicks Noble into Karagias, who crashes backwards into the ring steps. Still, Noble is able to block a Moore move on the apron and roll Moore back into the ring, but Karagias is mad about Noble knocking him back into the stairs and hits him with an apron DDT. Moore immediately capitalizes with a Bottoms Up on Noble for three. Karagias and Moore shake hands and put the boots to Noble. Three Count is, uh, back together? Is Helms a babyface yet or not? Well, at the very least Two Count has a new configuration, and just in time for this cruiserweight tag tournament! Konnan and Kidman talk before the show about the machinations of Chavo Jr. and Road Warrior Animal. The long and short of it is that the former issue a tag challenge to the latter for later tonight. Mike Awesome faces Bryan Clark(e). The chyron adds the extra “e,” which I think WCW has done off-and-on or something because I was adding the extra “e” at one point in my spelling. There is much editing work still to be done with these reviews, and I have enough of a Type A personality that I am going to do it. All of it. Clark goes right at Awesome with boots and knees and chops. This doesn’t last long; Elix Skipper tries to attack Clark and gets slammed nearly through the mat. Lance Storm is next into the ring, but can’t do much except distract Clark enough so that Awesome can hit a release German on Clark. Brian Adams makes the save. Um, Lance Storm hasn’t been pushed as a real threat in months now, which is a shame as he established the rolling half-crab as a death move that could be locked on from anywhere over the summer of 2000 (and also because he's a fun worker). Since Elix is going to work the cruiserweight tag tournament with Kid Romeo, I’m assuming that KroniK vs. Awesome and Storm is on deck for Greed. The Cat gives orders to security as he walks purposefully toward the ring; the main order he gives is to keep Storm in the ring so that he can speak to him face-to-face next. We come back to the Cat lecturing Storm on how he messed with a lot of guys and their livelihoods in his six days as commissioner. He has decided to give a cackling Hugh Morrus another shot at Storm tonight. He tells Storm’s “fake Canadians” that they’ll be fired if they interfere in that match. Morrus already beat Storm and took his gold, dammit! He did it twice! I never wanted to see that matchup again. The commentary desk runs down the card for tonight. Tony S. also introduces a Kid Romeo hype video. Hype video: It’s Kid Romeo! The guy has had matches on both Nitro (Show #224) and Thunder (show number ninety-six) before along with quite a few C-show matches, but he’s been in New Japan for the past year or so. WCW World Cruiserweight Champion Chavo Guerrero Jr. walks the ramp for a tag match that I’m not sure will ever get started because Konnan and Animal have a trash brawl with one another somewhere backstage. Chavo Jr. watches the brawl on the TurnerTron and doesn’t see Kidman – in a black tank top this week – attack him from behind. Chavo begs off as we go to a ghost break. Bumper: This WCW World Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship division is going to have a ton of longevity; I just know it! We come back to Chavo and Kidman going at it in the ring; meanwhile, Konnan and Animal have brawled onto the ramp. Chavo drills Kidman with a tornado DDT in the ring, then goes outside to help Animal attack Konnan. This whole mass of humanity ends up making it back to the ring, and the match settles down into a proper tag. Kidman easily controls Chavo Jr. in the ring until he eats mat on a top rope splash. Konnan is able to tag in and stop Chavo from making the tag, but he tries to wrap Chavo in a submission hold, and Animal breaks that up illegally and allows Chavo to take control. Konnan is stuck in FIP jail, but he posts bail pretty quickly with a rolling clothesline and a tag. Animal hasn’t been able to tag in legally, so he once again illegally jumps Kidman. Konnan and Kidman team up to knock Animal silly and lariat him to the floor. Chavo is isolated; he and Konnan badly mistime a sit-out facebuster; Animal pulls Chavo to the floor before Kidman can follow with an SSP. The match breaks down again; Konnan and Animal brawl outside the ring. Inside the ring, Kidman lands a Sky High on Chavo, and Rey Misterio Jr. sprints down the aisle and lands a Nutcracker Suite on Chavo while the ref is focused on the brawl outside the ring. Kidman follows with a Kid Krusher for the win, but Animal dispatches of Konnan and successfully powerbombs Kidman after the bell. That’s how you know Animal is getting a push: no Kidman powerbomb reversal. Next up: Buff Bagwell vs. the Cat (w/the lovely Ms. Jones). The Cat makes a brief proclamation before the match. That proclamation is actually more of a plea for Buff Bagwell to be a babyface again. Like me, the Cat notes, Buff does love his momma, after all. Buff looks like he’s considering it. He’s not considering it. The crowd full of Alabamans are into the idea, and they are summarily disappointed when he cheap shots the Cat. Now, my rooting interest here is the Cat because Buff politicked his way out of a loss to him at Road Wild ’99, and I would get a huge kick out of the Cat beating him in 2001 just to cement how little traction that Buff's career has managed in that time. This is a Cat/Buff match. That it is watchable enough would be a victory. There’s a shitty Buff chinlock in there. Wait, there’s another shitty Buff chinlock. Hold on, there’s a third fucking shitty Buff chinlock. They were three separate chinlock spots. Kanyon comes out and helps Buff cheat to win while Ms. Jones looks like an absolute doofus telling Slick Johnson to turn around and look at Kanyon while on the apron and drawing Slick’s attention for what feels like three segments’ worth of time. The Cat jobs to Buff again. Bummer. Ms. Jones slaps Kanyon for his cheating after the match, so Kanyon hits her with a Kutter, and I would assume that this is the last we’ve seen of the lovely Ms. Jones. How could Kanyon do that to one of his ladies from back in his movie star days? Ms. Jones does a stretcher job as we go to what normally would be a break… …and after that break, we see her get loaded into an ambulance while DDP tries to comfort the Cat, who gets in the ambulance with her. Lash LeRoux gets marauded by Rick Steiner after all that. I mean, seriously, he kicks the shit out of this dude. We’re squarely in the “Rick Steiner is stiff as fuck to his opponents because he doesn’t give a damn anymore” section of his title run. Some guy yells YOU SUCK at him while he’s in the midst of an obligabrawl, so Steiner looks at him, yells YOU SUCK, and then tosses LeRoux over the railing and onto him. If you want to see a guy hit people really fuckin’ hard, this Rick Steiner match - and pretty much all of Rick Steiner’s matches for the next month - are for you! Steiner hits LeRoux with a DVD, challenges a guy in the crowd to come in the ring and fight him, calls the guy a homophobic slur, and then hits LeRoux with two more DVDs before getting the pinfall. Bumper: At least Dustin Rhodes got a few licks in on Rick Steiner at SuperBrawl last night! Commercial: The recently deceased George Foreman shills the excellent shock replacement work from his local Meineke mechanic. Lash LeRoux is hurt as hell backstage; Scott Steiner would like Kanyon to do to DDP tonight what Ricky Steiner just did to LeRoux. He gives Kanyon a pretty good pep talk (PLAY WITH HIS MIND, HURT HIS BODY, BREAK HIM DOWN!) and also the same pair of brass knucks that he used to knock out Kevin Nash at SuperBrawl. That latter one is probably slightly more helpful, no matter how good the pep talk was. Hugh Morrus is displeased about how Rick Steiner abused Lash LeRoux backstage; he challenges Rick Steiner to a fight at some point in the near future before turning his attention to Lance Storm and pointing out that the whole LAST ENCOUNTER thing where they were never going to wrestle one another again doesn’t apply here because Storm is wrestling Hugh Morrus and not General Rection. Dammit, that’s a legitimate loophole. Speaking of Lance Storm, he enters the ring and pooh-poohs all of General Hughton William Morrus Rection-Demott’s alter ego nonsense before listening to the long version of “O Canada” so we can be taken through a commercial break. Alright, let’s get this Storm/Morrus deal over already. Morrus eats a few of Storm’s chops for lunch and then sends him spilling to the floor on a lariat. Storm doesn’t fare much better when he gets back in the ring, but since he’s from CALGARY…ALBERTA, CANADA, he knows how to play possum. Morrus goes for an early No Laughing Matter, but it’s far too early, and Storm hops up from where he’s laid out and trips him. Morrus bumps so that his heavily-braced knee is caught in the ropes. The story now becomes whether or not Morrus can overcome the injured knee to win it. Storm does a neat little spot in which he’s got Morrus trapped in the corner, throwing strikes, and he stops to open up wide, point at his chin, and yell HIT ME! HIT ME, YOU SONUVABITCH, HIT ME! Morrus fires up, rears back, and…Storm jabs him in the eye with his thumb before the punch can hit home. That was really good heelery. Storm soon loses an obligabrawl anyway and takes a beating inside the ring. This feud would be nowhere near my Best Feuds list, but as bored as I’ve been by it, it wouldn’t be anywhere near my Worst Feuds list either. It would, however, be number one with a bullet on a Most Milquetoast Feuds list. Anyway, Storm manages a Canadian Maple Leaf, but Morrus gets to the ropes and soon after lands a No Laughing Matter for three. Great. Now never again. Someone is dressed up in a lot of padding and a shirt that reads THE AMERICAN DWEEM. This screams “Jeff Jarrett,” doesn’t it? Holy smokes, I do not remember this knockoff of Dusty Rhodes’s WWF theme! The lady singing this hits an HE’S THE AMEHEHEHERICAN DREEEEEEAM as the hook for the song. Tony S., flatly: “What.” OK, here are the lyrics to this thing: He’s the heartbeat of America/He’s workin’ hard for all of us/He stands up for the common man/Who’s tryin’ to do the best they can, YEAH/ Jimmy Hart, you absolute madman! Oh, and it is a Jeff Jarrett thing. He cuts a promo in which he eats a bucket of chicken and does a mean impression of/runs down THE AMEWICAN DWEEM, IF YOU WEEL, &c., &c. I have to say that Jarrett’s impression of Dusty is genuinely funny, though. When he talks about “the fruit of his loins” and grabs his crotch while creepily moaning out an OOH, IF YOU WEEL, I mean, what am I gonna do? Not laugh? He beats up four guys with exaggerated elbow drops as an exhibition. At one point after dropping an elbow, Dusty Jarrett struggles to get to his knees, wriggling helplessly like an overturned tortoise. RUDE. This is the funniest that Jarrett has been since he made Dave Penzer read that announcement out to the crowd before KABONGing him last year. OK, this was so dumb, it’s entertaining. After Dusty Jarrett tells his opps to kiss his “big fat ass,” Dustin Rhodes attacks. Rick Steiner follows closely behind and is able to distract Rhodes the Younger for long enough so that Jarrett can get his guitar and perpetrate a KABONGing on Dustin. Tony S. and Hudson give a hearty R.I.P. to Dale Earnhardt before our main event, which pits Kanyon against Diamond Dallas Page in this eternal feud. Kanyon expresses confidence in his chances against Page considering that he beat him the night before. DDP rushes Kanyon down as soon as the match starts. He brutalizes the guy until getting hit with a counter Snake Eyes when going for punches in the corner. Hey, did that happen last night, too? I’ve seen that spot pretty recently. Kanyon scores a couple of two counts with a side Russian and a super Showstopper before Page fights back by working out of a chinlock, then a sleeper. Charles Robinson counts to seven before Page rolls over and covers for two. Here is the endgame of this match, which honestly might be the first time in Nitro history that a Nitro main event might have claim to being the best match on the show. It’s this or the opener. Page unloads with offense, capping things off with a back suplex before calling for the Diamond Cutter. He walks over to apply it, but Kanyon hits him with a low blow and lands a Kanyon Kutter for a solid 2.8. A frustrated Kanyon grabs a chair and brings it in the ring, but it’s misdirection so that he can land a shot with his loaded autobiography while Robinson gets rid of the chair. That also only gets 2.8, so Kanyon tries to use the knucks next; Page ducks his wild swing and hooks a Diamond Cutter for three. Scott Steiner immediately leads the Magnificent Seven to the ring to beat Page up, but Page leaves through the crowd and informs Steiner that he’s STILL STANDING as an enraged Steiner batters the ring steps in what must be a disappointing substitute for DDP’s skull. The wrestling on this show was mostly no bueno, but surprisingly, there was enough decent talking to keep the show afloat. This final era of Nitro is quite uneven, and what I’m feeling now that I didn’t feel when I saw this during the original air date is that there aren’t enough wrestlers on these shows and they’re running back too many combinations of wrestlers and feuds from 2000. Since I avoided WCW in 2000 for much of its run (until last year, at least), things felt much fresher than they do now. 2 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

SuperBrawl (XI) Revenge notes: It took me until booting up this very last SuperBrawl right now to realize that it got its name because when spoken out loud, it sounds somewhat similarly to the words Super Bowl, a big sports event that also takes place in February. I am very quick on the draw! Of the five guys on the SuperBrawl logo, guess how many of them are booked for this show. Go on, guess! Yep, the answer is one (Scott Steiner). The other four (Syko Sid Vicious, Booker T., Sting, and Goldberg) are out for multiple reasons, but it’s a bummer not having any of them on this show. I’m glad that Booker will be back after this show, and in truth, he certainly needed time to heal his injured knee, but I’m increasingly worried that Sting won’t show up until the Panama City Beach Nitro. Hype video: CEO Ric Flair was given too much power in this company and has quickly gone off the rails while wielding it. Um, again, I mean. This is not a board glitch, and this post is not being repeated from last year when I covered WCW’s 1999. Production struggles with playing Evan Karagias’s old theme music on cue. WCW: A production mess to the end! Apparently, Billy Kidman was knocked out of our multiman scramble opener after Road Warrior Animal beat the shit out of him on the pre-show, so he’s OUT and Shane Helms is back IN. The storyline reasoning – that Chavo Jr. wants Kidman out of the way so that he can wrestle a less experienced opponent instead – makes logical sense, though Hudson does not make that connection on commentary very clearly. Karagias’s new music plays to bring him onto the ramp, and then Jamie (K)noble is second out to the ring. Note that the autocaptioner, being of sound AI mind, spells it “Noble.” The other qualifiers are to the ring in short order, excepting Kidman: Kaz Hayashi (seen beating Helms to make it into the match in a replay, but without the context of Chavo Jr. running a distraction on Helms), Jimmy Yang, and Shannon Moore. Now, the flaw in Animal knocking Kidman out, but the CEO/heel commissioner choosing Helms as Kidman's replacement, is that Helms took Chavo Jr. to the limit at Sin. The CEO (or commissioner, come to think of it) have been wiser in kayfabe to choose Air Paris. Anyone who has read enough of these reviews will know exactly how I feel about this match: This will probably be good for what this type of match is, but it will be worse than if we just had a one-on-one match. This multi-man match is an elimination match, at least; ECW-style eliminations is the correct way to do these types of multi-man matches, and it is unfortunate that WWE codified the one-fall standard for them. If AEW and TNA aren’t already doing ECW style in their multi-mans, they should do that as an easy way to differentiate from the market leader. There are some nice double team moves and stereo dives and such. I am simply hugely biased toward the ebb and flow of one-on-one matches. Yang and Karagias fuck up an exchange; Karagias gets a whole handful of Yang’s junk, which enough fans see to elicit a low, tiny group chuckle. Their exchange is where the match breaks down a bit as they are by far the least of the workers in the bout; they start blowing moves in short order, and when moves are the whole point of this type of match, that’s a problem. OK, Tony S. passes along the rumor that Chavo wants no part of Helms, so his inclusion in this match is completely undermined. If their plan all along was to have Chavo screw Helms, but then overplay his hand and have Kidman taken out before the bout, the Cat should have kept the commissionership for the week so that there is a storyline reason for Helms to be chosen instead of someone like Kwee Wee, who the CEO’s office clearly does not respect. Or it could just be a rumor, I suppose! Everyone whiffs on dives in a contrived series of spots, and I think it’s about time to start cutting dead weight in there, fellas. They opt to do a lot more moves instead, specifically some more dives to the floor. OK, this is basically a circus act, not a pro wrestling match, and yes, I am aware that the two forms of entertainment share a close familial bond. Of course, the former is supposed to be presented explicitly as an act and the latter is supposed to be presented as explicitly not an act, wherein lies one of my problems with this match. Finally, we almost get a Noble pinfall on Kaz, but Noble and Karagias fight over the pinfall attempt as they did on the go-home Thunder. What’s worse, Yang attacks Noble from behind – that goes well, at least – and then attacks Karagias, who doesn’t sell it because he’s too busy yelling at Noble as Noble tries to recover outside the ring. To top it all off, (Elimination #1) Yang hits Karagias an ugly reverse piledriver for three. Yuck, that shit was awful. Yang is generally passable, as is Karagias, but Yang and Kaz together is complete garbage in the ring. Thankfully, the two worst workers in this thing are out in short order as (Elimination #2) Noble re-enters the ring and lands a jumping Tombstone on Yang for three. I am entirely bored by this nonsense and would like it to end already, or at least get down to a one-on-one match so that we can maybe get a good finishing run. The road agents who helped put this match together should have both had the eliminations happen more quickly so that we could taper down to a conventional match and also avoided Yang wrestling Karagias as often as possible. We speed toward the end of the match; soon after he eliminates Yang, Noble is in turn pinned (Elimination #3) after Moore catches Noble as Noble goes up top and hits him with a super Rocker Dropper Showstopper Bottoms Up to eliminate him. The Two Count members turn their attention to Kaz and do that dumb spot where Moore backslides his opponent into a pinning position, but the ref doesn’t count it so that Helms can dive off the top with a guillotine legdrop. Ref Scott James finally thinks, Y’know, I really should count this pinfall attempt even though I know it’s a planned spot, and he finally gets down there and counts to one before Helms busts Kaz with the legdrop. This match has been Vince Russo-like in its attention to logic so far, and it sure as heck doesn’t quit that approach now. Helms prepares to eliminate Kaz with a Vertebreaker, but Moore lands a Bottoms Up on Helms as he bends over while twisting Kaz. Explain to me how not letting Helms pin Kaz first, then jumping Helms right at the three-count and landing a Bottoms Up wouldn’t make more logical sense. In an even dumber spot, Kaz tries to break up the pinfall and kicks the ref (and by that, I mean “slaps his thigh really hard and misses James by a few inches because the cameraman is standing right there at ringside and filming from an illusion-breaking perspective"). Why the hell would you stop someone from eliminating one of your opponents? I must modify what I said at the start of this match review: This is a very bad type of this match, made infinitely worse by the fact that we didn’t just get Helms/Kaz or Helms/Moore one-on-one for the title shot. Moore and Kaz team up before Moore does a fucking stupid spot where Kaz is going to moonsault onto a prone Helms, but Moore moves Helms out of the way so that he can lay there before himself rolling away in order to cause Kaz to wipe out. What the fuck psychology is there behind that spot? It’s not like Kaz looked back to check and see if a guy with lime green pants was still laying there before he dove; he blindly dove. The switcheroo made no sense. Is Moore supposed to be kayfabe stupid? Finally, fucking finally, Helms (Elimination #4) eliminates Moore by hitting him with a Nightmare on Helms Street as Moore is setting Kaz up for a Bottoms Up. Hurry it up, fellas; I am done with this match and don’t want you to even try to have a good finishing run. Alas, they try to have a good finishing run with lots of counters, and in truth, it’s pretty good because they are good at pro wrestling. My point that this opener should have just been twenty minutes of Helms/Kaz stands. Sugar Shane (Elimination #5) eventually hoists Kaz up for a Vertebreaker and gets three. This match will just barely avoid my Dirt Worst list because of that finishing run and because Helms, Kaz, and Noble don’t deserve it for their work in this bout. It sucked, though, I assure you. It’ll be Helms/Chavo Jr. at Greed (as long as Chavo Jr. survives his bout against Rey Misterio Jr., which you and I know he will because from a certain philosophical perspective we are TIME TRAVELLERS, and isn’t that rad? I think it is). Security cam footage: CEO Ric Flair and Road Warrior Animal are chilling out and chatting in a loading dock; Chavo Guerrero Jr. walks up and pantomimes that he would like Billy Kidman out of that multi-man match we just saw. CEO Flair pantomimes that he will send Animal to do the job. And yes, they got the date and time correct on the video (6:33 PM on 2/18/01); Tony S. proudly (at least to my ears) points it out as we watch the video. Kevin Nash was injured by Scott Steiner at the end of the go-home Nitro. Will he be here? Yes. He’s got to lose and then fuck off home until the nWo revival in the WWF. Pre-match promo: Hugh Morrus is like, Man, that General Rection was such a good dude to THE WALL, BROTHER, but I’m Hugh Morrus, and I hate that motherfucker! CEO Flair interrupts Scott Steiner’s pre-match massage with an envelope in hand that he indicates will bode ill for the injured Nash’s attempts to match up with Steiner later tonight. Commissioner Lance Storm stops KroniK at the front door, but before he can send the injured Bryan Clark home, Clark pulls a doctor’s release from his coat pocket. He also slaps Storm in the face with the release before handing it over, which is genuinely funny, especially Storm’s barely-restrained reaction to it. Commissioner Storm says that he’s not clearing anyone until the WCW doctor clears them. Adams doesn’t like it, but Storm insists. However, he won’t led Adams escort his partner to the doc. At least KroniK are smart enough babyfaces to know that the fix is in, but will they be able to subvert the heels’ nefarious plot against them? THE WALL, BROTHER and Hugh Morrus are probably going to have a bad match. I’ll try to keep an open mind. They have a boring obligabrawl. Morrus kicks the stairs into TW,B’s head, but it doesn’t make a sound or look painful, so he just dumps the steps on TW,B, which definitely hurt like hell. Morrus tries to work this with intensity, but the Misfits in Action were meaningless. Let’s be honest. They were a mostly-forgettable stable that existed during the worst year in company history (pending my full 1991 comparison project that I hope to do one day). I cannot in conscience call this match bad, though. It’s bland and dull, but not bad. Both guys try as hard as they can; they’re just not any good without gimmicks or superior tag partners to lean on. This crowd tries to manifest a table spot into existence, chanting for TABLES at various points. They don’t get one. They get Morrus hitting a back suplex and a No Laughing Matter headbutt for three, then another one after the bell. I’m not lying; he lays in a headbutt as he lands both times. It's kinda gnarly. Konnan storms up to Road Warrior Animal and attacks him for Animal’s attack on Kidman. Oh no. Do not add Konnan/Animal to this card as a “bonus” match. Retrospective-slash-hype video: The Natural Born Thrillers are no more, and Jindrak, Stasiak, O’Haire, and Palumbo are at each other’s throats over the tag titles. I’m hopeful that our first good match of the night is on the way, and I say that with the knowledge that Shawn Stasiak is a part of it. Stasiak and Mark Jindrak try to wrest the WCW World Tag Team Championships away from Chuck Palumbo and Sean O’Haire. Stasiak tells this Nashville crowd that unlike the Tennesee Titans, he and Jindrak will be defeating the St. Louis Rams winning a title when one is on the line and the pressure is on. O’Haire responds by yelling like a ‘roided-up malcontent, which I guess he actually was in real life, come to think of it, and the match is on! Stasiak goes at O’Haire and lands three lariats, then tries to score a quick three count. He only gets two. I will say that Tony S. makes me feel a lot better about the balance of this show by letting us know that Konnan has been removed from the building, *phew*. Palumbo and O’Haire quickly regain control of the situation and double up on Jindrak; Palumbo lands an assisted sit-out splash on Jindrak that gets a two count, then locks on a sleeper. Jindrak manages to escape that, but he can’t do much to avid a slingshot that knocks him right into Stasiak. I guess it’s not a legal tag because they didn’t intentionally touch one another. This is a mistake on Palumbo’s part as he has to try and follow up by going into no-man’s-land, and they turn the tide on him and put him behind bars in FIP jail. This heel control segment is what is. Stasiak in heel control is a total snoozefest, which I know that you know that I strongly believe is a constant state of existence for this guy when he's in the ring as a heel. Jindrak is fine, but at the point where he runs out of ideas and cinches in a chinlock, I’m about ready for the babyfaces to make a comeback and hit some dope offense, as is their way. After a smidge too long for my preference, Stasiak misses a top-rope splash and is countered out of a sleeper with a jawbreaker before Palumbo can get a hot tag to O’Haire. O’Haire hits everyone with his weird-looking lariats, but Stasiak mows him down from behind. The match breaks down as Palumbo breaks up Stasiak’s pinfall attempt. O’Haire knocks both Jindrak and O’Haire down, then prepares to hit Jindrak with a Seanton Bomb. In a neat little finish, Stasiak recovers and drags Jindrak out of the way, but he’s lost track of Chuck Palumbo. Palumbo waits for him to turn around and hits a Jungle Kick; Stasiak topples into perfect position for O’Haire to complete a Seanton Bomb and score a three count. That was solid enough work. I wouldn’t classify this match as “good,” but it was enjoyably decent. Pre-match airing of grievances: Dustin Rhodes was jerked around by CEO Ric Flair, but he’s going to try and get back at Flair by beating Rick Steiner for the United States title tonight. Rey Misterio Jr. attempts to wrest the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship from Chavo Guerrero Jr. next. They get right to it; no need for pre-match chatter here. Rey out-speeds Chavo and dropkicks him to the floor, but Chavo avoids Rey’s dive attempt by sliding back into the ring and catches him on the apron. He tries a sunset flip powerbomb out to the floor, but Rey ranas his way out of it. OK, I might be breathless here if they keep up this pace. Back in the ring, Chavo rolls through a sunset flip and catches a charging Rey with a gutbuster, then hangs Rey across the top rope. Feeling good about himself, he covers a bit too early in kayfabe and only gets two. Chavo lands a lariat as the crowd chants ED-DY, and Tony S. tries to pretend that the crowd is heckling Chavo instead of communicating what we’re all thinking: PUSH LOS GUERREROS. Yes, I am aware that they don’t work in the same company right now, but still! Chavo seeks a superplex, but is shoved away. Rey flips his position to attempt a moonsault, but Chavo is quickly to his feet; he trips Rey, who falls into the Tree of Woe position and spends the next few seconds getting boot choked and shoulder charged. Chavo backs up to make one big charge at Rey, but Rey pulls himself up and out of harm’s way; Chavo’s momentum takes him shoulder-first into the post. Rey manages to sunset flip Chavo successfully for two, but Chavo is a heel in WCW and gets up first, then lands a lariat. This match already feels like it’s had a lot, but now it has a Gory Special! Rey kinda-sorta coutners into an arm drag in which Chavo flips himself, really, but Rey runs the ropes and leaps…back into a Gory Special that Chavo immediately turns into a Gory Buster for two. Chavo sends Rey sliding on his stomach under the bottom rope and to the floor. It’s obligabrawl time! Chavo slows his attack down so he can jaw at some dudes in the front row, then tosses Rey back in the ring, looks back to tell said dudes I’M THE MAN (he’d better be glad that Sid isn’t around to contest that statement), and trades hands with a revived Rey. Rey goes on the run and tries an Asai moonsault; he is caught, but when Chavo tries to hit a Crucifix Snake Eyes, Rey slides out of the back, shoves Chavo into the corner, and lands a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. He rushes to the apron to try a springboard move that is cut off by a Chavo dropkick. This match is an awesome finishing run away from true greatness for me. Chavo is out here twisting Rey into knots and trying to wrench Rey’s knee ever since that Tree of Woe attack; now, he’s got Rey in a stepover toehold facelock. Rey manages to twist his way back to standing, shoots Chavo into the ropes, and scores a wheel kick. He tries to advance on offense…and is once again grabbed and slung out to the floor. Rey sells that his knee is wearing down; Chavo drops him face-first across the railing, then runs his knee right into the steel steps. Chavo snatches a Rey mask from a fan and puts it on his head, mocks him a bit, and then runs him chest first into the corner before landing a belly-to-back suplex on the rebound. Whew, this match is so awesome. Chavo locks on a chinlock, and these two have earned a short rest; it quickly ends after they communicate their next sequence of spots. Chavo slams Rey and goes up, but Rey trips him, puts the mask on Chavo, and lands a top-rope rana that earns only two. Chavo reverses a whip and shoots Rey in, and they reverse one another, maneuvering into he corner; Rey gets the last reversal and lands a headscissors that sends Chavo to the floor. Rey, though, sells that he can’t follow up because of his injured knee. Chavo thinks about his next move and then decides to grab his title belt, but Rey hits a clean somersault senton over the post and wipes out Chavo in what is the prettiest dive of the night. I love this match. I knew that I would, but it’s worth mentioning here. Even the little technical errors end up working; Rey goes into hyperdrive, but slips off the rope on an Asai moonsault attempt. The botch works into the storyline of the match, as he immediately grabs his knee and Chavo quickly rushes over and tries to steal a leveraged pinfall while hooking that knee, but it only gets two. Yes, if your knee was actually hurt, you wouldn’t hit moves cleanly. It wasn’t planned that way, but they worked it right into the overarching narrative of the bout. I think in DVDVR parlance, what I’m saying is that it was supposed to suck (it absolutely wasn’t, though). Tony S. does a great job of pointing out the effects of the earlier knee work that would have kayfabe led to that slip, too. Rey manages to regain control and violently lariat Chavo to the floor. The champ has had enough and goes for a chair, which he tosses into the ring. Rey stops him and then tries another springboard move, but Chavo simply Hot Shots him before going back over and grabbing the chair, which he wedges into the corner against the ref’s warnings. Chavo tries to shoot Rey into the chair, but Rey slides under the ropes and sends Chavo on a merry chase that ends with Chavo eating a post. Rey joins him on the apron and slips on the top rope before trying again and only somewhat cleanly landing a FUCKING NASTY springboard rana. Chavo bounced upon landing like he was hit with an Up + B while on 100%+ damage in Smash, GODDAM. Rey gets Chavo back in the ring, then scores a falling top-rope headbutt for two. Rey runs again and catches Chavo with a tornado DDT on a Chavo duckdown. Rather than going for a cover, Rey stomps Chavo out in the corner, backs up, and hits a Bronco Buster. Rey unwedges the chair from its spot in the corner; Jamie Tucker takes it from him and deposits it outside the ring, but he’s so occupied with that last task that he fails to notice Chavo slide out the other side of the ring, grab another chair, and swing it right into Rey’s forehead when Rey finally walks over to hit some more offense. Chavo re-enters the ring with a successful tope con hilo and scores a brainbuster to get out of dodge with his gold. When a match is so good that even the technical errors work within the greater framework of the bout, what else can you say? This might mark the point at which I welcome a match to my Favorite Matches list for the final time in this watch-through (at least chronologically speaking). I do have high hopes for Chavo/Helms at Greed, though. As I put that match on the list, I noticed that SuperBrawl has placed two other cruiserweight title matches on that same somewhat exclusive list (Dean Malenko vs. Syxx at SuperBrawl VII and Chris Jericho vs. Juventud Guerrera at SuperBrawl VIII). SuperBrawl: A show for cruiserweight awesomeness! Commissioner Storm orders his match to be scheduled later than a couple of other matches that he needs to insure the outcome for; he tells Brian Adams that he’ll be up sooner than he thought. Adams wants to know where his tag partner is, but Storm relates his relative lack of fucks to give about the status of Bryan Clark. Hype video: Dustin Rhodes and Rick Steiner are having a brief feud to get the United States Championship on the card. If you wanted to know how we got to this point, here’s your refresher! Rick Steiner drops the title on his way to the ring, which I think is a visual representation of how this title has been booked since the end of 2000. Dustin Rhodes jumps Steiner at the bell and gets two on a DDT; they go right to obligabrawling, and let me tell you, this company loves its guardrail spots. This is the fifteenth one tonight, and actually, that might not be an exaggeration. Back om the ring, Steiner ducks a crossbody that sends Rhodes to the floor, and there’s, uh, another obligabrawl. And another guardrail spot. I believe that this sequence of spots has essentially revealed to you the tenor of this mediocre yet watchable match. Rick Steiner’s control segments are what they are. If you like eye gouges and face gouges and chokes and chinlocks, boy, are you in for a treat! I’ll give Steiner for using a single crab, at least. That’s different. Dustin jawbreakers his way out of trouble after about four minutes and starts a comeback that is quickly aborted by a Steinerline. Dustin in turn manages to stop that fresh onslaught from Ricky with a lariat. Dustin scores a couple of two counts before scoring a bulldog, but Steiner rolls right out to the floor to avoid being pinned. It’s obligabrawl number THREEEEEEE and while I liked all the lariats in this match, I could leave everything else by the wayside. Dustin tries to use a chair, but Billy Silverman stops him. He is easily distracted, just as Jamie Tucker is, so he misses Rick Steiner exposing a turnbuckle while he lectures Dustin about the chair. Dustin finally walks over and tries to land ten punches in the corner, but at eight, Steiner drops him head-first into the buckle and gets a pinfall with his feet on the ropes. He hits Rhodes with a DVD for good measure after the bell, then insists on saying his dumbass catchphrase. He once again tries to attack Dustin by swinging his belt at him, but Dustin ducks it, sets Steiner up for a Shattered Dreams, and lands it. Lance Storm prepares for his match against the Cat; he is interrupted by CEO Flair, who asks him to eject Flair’s enemies from the building after their matches. He also wants Storm to make official that KroniK vs. Totally Buff will now be a number one contendership match for the tag titles, and **SPOILER ALERT** Totally Buff lose to Palumbo and O’Haire at Greed in about thirty seconds or so, just in case you were wondering what might be the outcome in advance. As the Cat shadowboxes, DDP tries to inspire him to win the commissionership back. Totally Buff faces KroniK next. Actually, let’s see if they face KroniK or merely Brian Adams. Actually, if Bryan Clark isn’t with him, he’s really just Crush. Luger talks up Totally Buff while the crowd chants for GOLDBERG. Luger and Buff declare that Goldberg IS NOT HERE ANYMOOOOOOOORE, HE’S FIRED! FIRED! FIRED! FIRED! HE’S GOOOOOOOONE!!! Fantastic stuff. This is a solid way to fill time, though there are over seventy minutes on this show and only four more matches by my count, so I suppose letting Buff and Luger cut a Nitro-esque promo for five minutes is probably necessary. Eventually, Crush walks out here and tries to beat up these two goofs in Totally Buff. No, wait, there’s Bryan Clark behind him! Luger and Buff rush the ramp and attack Adams and Clark. Buff hits the post with a chair while the lights are still down for KroniK’s entrance so that Clark can sell being concussed again for the rest of the match. No stretcher job for this one? Hmmmm. Crush tries to fight both guys off while the crowd continues to chant for GOLDBERG. There’s yet another obligabrawl. Death, taxes, and obligabrawls in post-1998 WCW. This match isn’t any good, but it’s not terrible. It is what it is. Crush makes a comeback, but falls when Mike Awesome, dressed as the facedown Clark on the floor, hops up and attacks Adams from behind. The real Bryan Clark limps down the ramp, but he doesn’t get there in time to stop Totally Buff from winning after a Buff Blockbuster. That was a strange and convoluted finish, but obviously Clark is actually hurt, so they went with it to keep this PPV matchup. Lance Storm tries to get a bunch of security mooks to escort KroniK from the building, but they beat up the mooks while Storm flees for the ring. Commissioner Storm makes it out here to wrestle the Cat as Scott Hudson updates us that the fuzz hauled KroniK out of the building. The Cat (w/the lovely Ms. Jones) doesn’t even let the anthem start before he walks out here and says that he would like to be the commissioner again, and also he’s still calling Lance Storm a Power Ranger. People do really like the Cat, though. The fans do the YEAHHH/BOOOOO thing as both men take turns posing in the corner. It's so silly that we’re still wrestling matches for a position of authority on this show. I finally put it on the list, so I shouldn’t still complain about it, but this is absurd. The Cat is the Cat, so Storm has to do some work to put together connective tissue for this bout. How he chooses to do that is by initiating an obligabrawl. On another note, I feel like it’s okay to take a detour here and say that when I looked at this card, I thought that it looked pretty iffy outside of Rey/Chavo and maybe Jarrett/DDP, and while I was right, I did think that maybe they’d built enough to these matches that they could maybe be better than I expected. They did not. Storm attacks the Cat’s leg, and I must say that the Cat is pretty awesome at this fiery midcard babyface thing. I remember liking the Cat, but I am surprised at what a useful piece of the roster he became. You never would have guessed that 2001 Cat would end up like he did just looking at 1997 Ernest Miller. The Cat makes a fun little fiery comeback, but Storm catches the Cat’s Feliner attempt and turns it into a Canadian Maple Leaf. Unfortunately for Storm, the Cat is near the ropes and forces a break. Mike Sanders walks down here to insert himself into the proceedings, but Ms. Jones slaps him and then high kicks him, which is awesome. WCW hasn’t had enough women beating men up for my taste lately. Lance Storm, distracted by this commotion, never sees the Feliner that puts his lights out. We have a new commissioner, folks! Again! The Cat kicks Mike Sanders after the match because he’s jealous that Ms. Jones got to do it, but he didn’t. Fair! Hype video: Jeff Jarrett vs. DDP should be good, but Jarrett is sinking further into relying on those gaga-ful match layouts that he loves so much, so we’ll see. Also, I would expect Kanyon to show up if I were you considering that he gets a bit of highlighting in this hype package. We get some more talking before this Diamond Dallas Page/Jeff Jarrett match. The amount of stretching for time on this show is remarkable. Jarrett has put together an annoying video in Max Headroom style that consists of the part of DDP’s promo from the go-home Nitro in which he challenged Kanyon to a match “anywhere, anytime!” Ah, that’s how we’re going to get an extra match in here to fill out the time! OK, so DDP/Kanyon is up first; Kanyon crawls out from underneath the ring and ineffectually attacks Page from behind; Page shrugs off Kanyon’s attack and uses Kanyon’s shirt to toss him over the top rope and to the floor. Let’s do the obligabrawl agaaaaiiiiiiin! This one is short; Page gets back in the ring and hits a diving lariat for two. Kanyon can only stop Page’s offensive onslaught by forearming him in the peener, and then Let’s do the obligabrawl agaaaaaaiiiiiin! Kanyon manages to land a Rocker Dropper Showstopper onto the ring steps, so that’s one of the better moves that you can drop in an obligabrawl, at least. Page blades off that bump. I get a kick out of the fact that Marty Jannetty hasn’t been seen in WCW in years, but commentators still insistently call all non-Shannon Moore version of that move a Showstopper. So, the middle of the match is enjoyable as Kanyon unloads with offense, cuts off Page comebacks, and scores an array of two counts. Page actually manages to duck a heel lariat off of his flash pin for a two count (!!) and hit a lariat of his own. Billy Silverman starts a standing ten count that makes it to eight before both men make it to their feet; Page blows Kanyon away in a punch-up, then manages a uranage for two. Page can’t follow up effectively; Kanyon hits a sitout flapjack powerbomb, I think you might call it, for two of his own. I like these finishing runs where each guy trades two counts and there are a ton of reversals, which this is. Page looks for Diamond Cutter, but Kanyon dips out and into a backslide, then lands a Kanyon Kutter of his own that Page barely kicks out of on a well-timed 2.9. It was a 2.85 at worst. The finishing run has elevated this match’s quality quite a bit. Jarrett, seeing that Kanyon hit his best move and still didn’t win, gets on the apron, but Kanyon crashes into him on a reversed Irish whip and is rolled up by Page on the rebound for two. Unfortunately, as soon as I praise this finishing run, there’s a bad ref bump spot in which Page has to hop sideways to land on Billy Silverman as Kanyon kicks out. Oh, well, this is still WCW. We can’t have it all. Jarrett hops in the ring, lays Page out with a Stroke, and leaves him open for a Kanyon Flatliner that scores him a victory upon his return to pay-per-view here in WCW. Kanyon asks WHO’S BETTA THAN KANYON?! After the match before doing the ring intros for the next match between DDP and Jeff Jarrett. Kanyon gets the number of DDP world title reigns wrong (he’s a THREE-TIME champ, not a TWO-TIME champ), but I can’t blame him. He also flippantly declares that this match has a TWO-HOUR TIME LIMIT, which was very funny, especially considering how long this show has felt. Jarrett walks to the ring and we get a wandering brawl that is fine. I think the point of this match being that Page is tough enough to take waves of abuse, so he might be tough enough to outlast Scott Steiner makes a ton of sense and sets up nicely for the main event of Greed. It doesn’t need to be particularly entertaining to get the job done and build interest in seeing the babyface survive from underneath. I’m not saying that this match sucks! But if it did suck, it would be supposed to suck. There is a long Jarrett sleeper spot, but Page is so good at sympathetic selling from underneath. He was a much better heel than face in the ring four years ago, but at this point, he’s good at everything. It stands to reason that if you’ve heeled for years, but you haven’t done much babyface work, you’d need some time to calibrate, right? Anyway, Page fights up and then lands a DDT, which sparks another standing ten count. Page rolls over and covers Jarrett at seven, but it only earns him a 2.8, maybe a(nother) 2.85. Page makes his comeback with a flurry of buckle bonks, a belly-to-back suplex, and a two count. A Page belly-to-belly suplex earns another two count. Page is looking for the Swerve Strickland killshot. A huge pancake looks like it might do the job, but Kanyon rushes back out here and pulls Page off the cover, then distracts the ref for long enough that Jarrett cracks him right in the dome with a chair. You’d think that the veteran would follow up with a Stroke or at least drag Page to the center of the ring, but he repositions Page into the ring right near the ropes, so Page reaches out and grabs them to break the count. The heels’ contingency cheating plans have worked out exceptionally well so far, but nothing last forever! Jarrett signals Kanyon to get on the apron and pass the guitar to him for a KABONGing. Good news for Jarrett! The KABONGing does happen. Bad news for Jarrett! Page moves out of the way, Jarrett cracks Kanyon, and Page quickly hooks Jarrett in a Diamond Cutter to manage a three count. I almost feel like I should pair this with the Kanyon match even though in a vacuum, only the Kanyon match was good enough for one of my good lists. I don’t see how you can separate them; Page’s performance across both matches was excellent. Maybe an interesting note: It is now twice in eight months of WCW PPVs (Bash at the Beach 2000 being the previous time this happened) that Jeff Jarrett has helped Kanyon beat his opponent and then gone on to lose to that same opponent later in the show (the previous opponent of course being Booker T.). If WCW had continued to exist past March, I would have hoped that Jarrett might have figured out that teaming with Kanyon to attack his opps only managed results for Kanyon. Hype video: Kevin Nash spent his last couple of months in this company trying really hard, at least! He exits WCW television for good after his match with Scott Steiner tonight. The nattily attired CEO Ric Flair joins commentary after setting up a chair at ringside. I wonder what that’s all about. Tony S. asks CEO Flair about what’s in the envelope that he was telling Scott Steiner about earlier in the show, but the CEO replies with a No comment, pretty much. Michael Buffer is here damn near until the end, too. I wonder if he works Greed. Scott Steiner (w/FAVORITE FREAK Midajah) wrestles Kevin Nash in our main event. Hilariously, Buffer gets an early night off after Steiner sends him out of the ring, and I quote: DO YOU REALLY THINK I NEED YOU TO COME OUT HERE AND TELL ME HOW GREAT I AM?! GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE! Wow, all those superlatives, all those plaudits, all those compliments from Buffer, and that lunatic asshole still hated on him. Wait, that reads as familiar. More Steiner: Y’SEE, WHAT MICHAEL BUFFER WAS TRYING TO SAY: I TOOK OUT STING, PUT HIS ASS IN THE HOSPITAL; I TOOK OUT BOOKER T., AND I GAVE GOLDBERG THE WORST THE WORST DEFEAT OF HIS CAREER, AND HE WASN’T TOUGH ENOUGH TO TAGISNAY DA SPORT. I think TAGISNAY = TO STAY IN, but your guess is honestly as good as mine at what he was trying to communicate. Aw, man, then they run the video of Sid’s leg snapping. NOOOOOO, fuck! At least there’s a ton of warning so I don’t have to look at that shit. Steiner continues ranting about beating down Nash with the lead pipe on Monday last (AND HE CRIED LIKE A LIL’ BITCH) and is just a detestable piece of shit, though he has enough charisma to be a babyface to half of the audience. Hold on, that really reads as familiar. Steiner hails CEO Flair, then invites him into the ring to make a proclamation. Flair obliges because we have to fill time, dammit! There are still seventeen minutes on this recording, but Nash is going ten, maybe twelve max. Flair’s proclamation: This is now a Loser Leaves WCW Forever Match as well as a title match. I mean, they definitely held to the stip! That’s something! Steiner prepares to defeat Nash by count-out, but Nash’s music hits about halfway through. Nash got his nurses from January of 2000 to wheel him out. Honestly, I don’t recognize whether or not these are the exact same nurses, though probably not. Steiner gets a kick out of Nash being wheeled out, and then he says it! He says the thing! The thing, as directly quoted: YOU KNOW WHAT KEVIN NASH, YOU TRY TO COME OUT HERE AND GET THE SYMPY OF THE PEOPLE, BUT YOU DON’T GET MY SYMPY AT ALL. Steiner bumbling through his sentences like he’s having brain atrophy is as entertaining as it is troubling. Wait, now I know that reads as very familiar. Nash is faking, by the way; he gets in the ring while Steiner celebrates his impending victory and whacks him with the title belt, then covers for three. CEO Flair freaks out at the desk as the crowd thinks that they’ve seen a title change. They have not. CEO Flair, instead of simply telling the ref to disqualify Nash for attacking Steiner with the belt right in front of his fucking eyes, pulls yet another Over the Edge ’98 and screams IT’S A TWO-OUT-OF-THREE FALLS MATCH, NO DQ; I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT EARLIER. Goodness, you know that your leadership is historically poor when there’s consistent instability, people changing the way things work on a whim, a clearly unfair process of rule-making where not just a finger but multiple hands are tipping the scale toward the most evil scumbags in the co—okay, this is a textbook definition of déjà vu; I’ve definitely said something similar to this recently. Anyway, let me shake off that unsettling feeling to report that a limping and battered DDP has had enough and makes his way through the backstage area to come support Nash. Unfortunately, Totally Buff cut him off with a sudden attack and lock him in an equipment trunk. I don’t love this booking, by the way. Steiner should look dominant, not like a cowardly heel who needs tons of help to win. He should be booked more like Brock Lesnar and less like 1998 Chris Jericho. What happens instead is that Nash rolls Steiner for a long time before Midajah fucks up a spot where she’s supposed to roll the lead pipe toward Steiner and then attack Nash as a distraction. Instead, she puts the pipe down next to her, moves to attack, and then remembers that the spot won’t work unless she rolls the pipe toward Steiner first. Then, *sigh*, Steiner gets a pinfall outside of the ring when CEO Flair declares this Falls Count Anywhere Match as well. Fuck off. Over the Edge ’98 worked ONCE. I mean, it could work again, but give it at least a decade. The OtE match was legitimately legendary and is still one of the four or five best main events of the Attitude Era. I get it; you want to portray the CEO as the sort of crooked bastard who well might bankrupt the company because he’s so incompetent at his job, but try being more creative about it, WCW Creative. I’ve checked out of this match. I’m not going to plunk it on the Absolute Dirt Worst list, but it would live on a list that was titled the Almost Dirt Worst list, right alongside the opener on this show. Also, Steiner’s pre-match mic work was fantastic, so that helps salvage this main event. Rather than me running through the nuts and bolts of the final fall, let me wax prosaically about Kevin Nash’s run, which is probably the most consequential run in the company outside of Bischoff’s himself. Nash a) sparked a new wrestling boom as part of the nWo, b) represented a possible saving grace/offramp to the nWo storyline with the insanely over nWo Wolfpac, c) booked the show into the ground so badly in 1999 that Vince Russo got the opportunity to bury WCW entirely with his booking, and d) even with all that, he was never quite as over as his running buddy Scott Hall. Nash exists as this bizarrely indefinable entity for me as far as this run in the company goes. He hit amazing heights and plummeted to incredible lows. He had a hand in both making WCW so profitable that in 1997, they looked like they might become the new number one promotion in the country over the long-term and booking it so badly in late 1998 and most of 1999 that they lost millions of dollars right after posting their most profitable year ever (and fuck your EBITDA excuse as a way to paper over creative failures, Bisch). I’m even less sure of what to think about Nash after this watch-through than I was when I came into it. Anyway, Steiner gets help from his cronies at ringside; he hits a brass knuckles shot and a chair shot before locking on a Steiner Recliner to win the third fall by knockout; Nash is out of WCW and Steiner is still the champion. I should tell you that this match might well be worth watching for Tony S.’s commentary; he is excellent, especially when he gets the chance to express both his anger and his bafflement at the heels’ continued fixing of this bout. I am so glad that AEW exists if only so that Tony Schiavone can still work commentary. Imagine how much less annoying aughts WWE would have been if Tony S. had replaced Michael Cole’s aggressively sub-mediocre ass. This show wasn’t very good, but it wasn’t what I’d class as “bad.” It was simply uneven, which I would have guessed had I taken the announced card for what it was and not expected too much. It wasn't nearly the quality of Sin, but Sin was legitimately very good, so those were lofty heights for WCW to reach for a second-straight PPV this late in the game. At least Rey/Chavo managed to deliver upon my hopes, and it probably wasn’t even remotely the best match they’ve ever had with one another, either.