[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

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.

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

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.

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

This is my first pre-review of a show: SuperBrawl is two hours and fifty minutes long. It does not need to be two hours and fifty minutes long. It probably only needed to be two hours long. The downside of cutting all your midcard talent is that you can't fill your undercard with enough variety or interesting matchups. 

Also, Rey Misterio Jr. and Chavo Guerrero Jr. are still super great. 

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

On 4/4/2025 at 3:29 PM, zendragon said:

PAULUMBOS BOOGIEING UP!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGKiC2suCHQ

I regret that I didn't come up with this myself. Kool and the Gang never steers anyone wrong. Well, except for that weird late-stage rap era they went through. 

14 hours ago, zendragon said:

yes Earth Crisis is a straight edge Metalcore band 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU4BVJfkaIg

Just based on their combined array of random band shirts, I would have loved it if Scott Levy and Jerry Tuite's times in the company had overlapped enough to have a short five-minute section on WCW.com where they talk music, and I'm sad that it was never a real possibility. 

14 hours ago, zendragon said:

Ballyhoo is a word that really needs to come back into public use.

This is a very good opinion. 

Quote

Also I just saw a clip of AJ Styles talking to I believe CVV saying that he got told to not do the SSP because it was Kidman's move so he invented the spinal tap

Funny because Kidman is using the Kid Krusher/Unprettier and stopped doing SSPs much, if at all, back in 2000 at some point. I think he did them less after hanging himself on the ropes on Nitro after a bad whiff, but even that tapered down to almost nothing by the time he was feuding with the (non-Jason Bateman and Sandy Duncan) Hogan Family.

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and forty-eight – 14 February 2001

"The WCW Gang is like AJ Styles: a good match machine"

• It’s Valentine’s Day here in WCW, and that means two things…One, I must profess my undying love for the pro graps…And two, a new Thunder intro!...Seriously, this new Thunder intro looks like something AKI would have put together for their own version of a WCW Thunder game…

 

• AJ Styles and Air Paris make their in-ring debut here in WCW in a tag match against Evan Karagias and Jamie (K)noble…The winning team gets the final two slots in that multi-man contendership scramble at SuperBrawl…Styles is one of those guys who I enjoy well enough, but whose career success somewhat baffles me…Not in the sense that he was successful at all, but in the sense that he was as successful as he ended up being…He’s one of those guys whose matches I generally like, but who I wouldn’t rate as having had many, if any, great matches…He’s more of a steady good match machine in my view…Like this match here…Even at only 23, he’s going to help produce something fun…On another note, Styles and Paris are my favorite tag team to mega-push on Extreme Warfare Revenge…Give mega-pushes to them and to Onyx (stick the latter with a rapper gimmick before you push him) and your company will rake in the dough and win the ratings war…

 

• Anyway, this match constitutes an enjoyable opener…Styles and Paris get a lot of offense…The heel-face alignment is confusing…Styles and Paris were heels helping to set up DDP last we saw…Karagias and Noble heeled it up on the Jung Dragons after losing at Sin…Styles ends up in FIP jail…Noble even pops Styles into a surfboard, which of course rules…Surfboards should be used as submission moves of death in my humble opinion…Styles and Karagias crossbody one another, but Noble cuts off the hot tag…However, he gets popped up into a powerbomb shortly after, and Paris is able to make the hottest of tags for his team…Paris goes off, even dropping a faux Burning Hammer (in that no one’s neck gets exploded) before Karagias re-enters the ring and the match breaks down…

 

• Styles and Karagias end up on the floor, where Karagias dispatches of Styles and then puts Paris on his shoulders…Noble hits a Doomsday Device (!!), but Karagias pulls him off the cover to steal the valor, and Noble does the same…This allows Styles to recover and break up any pinfall attempt…Karagias manages to hit a 450 on Styles, but Paris makes the save…Everyone dives onto one another, but Styles whiffs on a shooting star bodypress and hits Paris…Noble and Karagias double dropkick him in the head, then put him back in the ring and land a missile dropkick/powerbomb combo that finally ends the match…See, Styles is a good match machine (as is Noble)!...This will make that Good Matches list I am keeping, in fact…

 

• Tony S. says that the Thrillers' breakup involves “a lot of ballyhoo”…Very little pyro, though…Sean O’Haire wrestles former tag partner Mark Jindrak next…O’Haire and Jindrak like to go to the air much more than their tag partners, and that’s always fun when big dudes do it…Well, not always fun…Some big dudes over-rely on that…I think that’s a possible critique of these two, but I don’t think they do too much flying myself…There are all sorts of punches and chokes and kicks and slams in there, too…O’Haire loves the hell out of his overelaborated kicks…Was Jindrak any good in Mexico?...Would it be worth seeking out a few Marco Corleone matches?...

 

• They have an obligabrawl outside the ring that is pretty fun…And both guys go to the air by using the ring steps as a springboard…Jindrak lands a crossbody, and O’Haire lands a running senton bomb (!!)…OK, I can understand any arguments that these fellas might go to the air a bit too much for bigger dudes…Jindrak catches O’Haire up top and lands a Frankensteiner for two, then a springboard clothesline for two more…They roll under and leap over one another until O’Haire lands a lariat for two…These fellas have worked really hard in this thing…They struggle to get some of their more intricate spots cleanly done in the end, but it’s not immersion breaking or anything…They just seem like two big, tired dudes who aren’t crisp after six minutes of pacey action…

 

• Shawn Stasiak walks to the top of the ramp as the match moves toward its end…Jindrak tries to superplex O’Haire, who pushes him away, fluffs his landing while flipping over Jindrak when he charges, and then sorta kinda flapjacks him…O’Haire goes back up top and lands a Seanton Bomb for three…I think that was a novel match and the pace in it was especially impressive for big guys, though O’Haire might want to hit that Stairmaster and up that cardio…We’re two for two in good matches that make one of my lists tonight…

 

• I suppose that it's back to cut content on Thunder uploads as we come back from break to Tony S. talking about Commissioner Lance Storm making some ruling about Rick Steiner and Jeff Jarrett that we totally missed…I’ll tell you more about it on the back end of this review as usual…It looks like we’re about eleven minutes short of the usual run-time for these two-hour shows…Anyway, Former Commissioner Mike Sanders wrestles Kwee Wee…Tony S. points out that Sanders might be Kwee Wee’s opponent because CEO Flair wants to see if Kwee Wee has **Konnan voice** got it like that…

 

• Sanders mockingly blows a kiss to Kwee Wee and then slaps the guy, who beats the crap out of the guy…Sanders occasionally scores counters, but any control that he might derive from those counters slips away in an instant as Kwee Wee comes back with more offense…A WCW photographer gets in the way of a Kwee Wee diving sunset flip and makes the whole spot awkward…Back in the ring, Sanders is the epitome of down bad…He finally slides under Kwee Wee and hits a weird pumphandle back suplex…Sanders hangs onto a headlock for dear life, but Kwee Wee back suplexes his way out of it and goes right back to beating down the erstwhile former Thriller…He pays Sanders back with disrespectful slaps of his own…Kwee Wee looks like he’s coasting to victory, but Sanders dives out of the way of a Kwee Wee charge…Kwee Wee posts himself and is in too much pain to kick out of a Sanders roll-up (with a cinch of the tights for extra leverage)…This was perfectly decent pro wrestling…

 

• It makes no sense that Mike Awesome is the “Canadian Killer”…He’s on their side…He’s not out here killing Canadians like he was killing careers earlier (or at least trying to kill careers, considering the mediocre push that he received)…Anyway, he wrestles the Cat (w/the lovely Ms. Jones)…After shaking hands, kissing babies, and standing around, he finally gets onto the apron and immediately gets clobbered…The fellas on commentary let us know that we missed a massive brawl on this recording, but suffice it to say that Commissioner Storm made at least one match as a reaction to it…

 

• I love the Cat dearly, but this match has a lid on its quality because he’s a part of it…It’s perfectly okay, though…The Cat is just fine as a fiery underneath babyface…Awesome hitting dynamic offense is a good time as well…I mean, he does a headlock and kicks the guy in the balls as well, but there’s enough good offense in here to work for me…Anyway, it looks bad for the Cat’s chances at SuperBrawl because he kicks the ringpost after Awesome ducks…The Cat can’t run the ropes or land cleanly after hopping out of a move…Awesome clips the damaged leg just for kicks, then drops a top-rope splash to earn a three count…Awesome continues to destroy the Cat after the bell…

 

• THE WALL, BROTHER is wearing a confounding shirt…It has a Harley-Davidson Style logo, but instead of the name of said company, it says STRAIGHT EDGE EARTH CRISIS…I have no idea what the heck that means and can only assume it’s some band-related thing that I don’t understand…He’s teaming with his running buddy Chavo Guerrero Jr. to answer Hugh Morrus’s tag challenge from Nitro…Rey Misterio Jr. hops onto Morrus’s back for a ride since Konnan’s nowhere around to lug him to the ring…I’ve decided that I want to wear this incredibly poorly-designed Hugh Morrus shirt as an ironic statement…They sold exactly zero of those at WCW.com…

 

• Rey is so fucking good, and yes, I know that you know this obvious truth…He is also the only truly over midcard babyface on this show…He ends up as FIP, of course…Chavo manages to cut him off at the pass a couple of times when he tries to flip the momentum of the match…However, Chavo makes the mistake of going up top after crotching Rey…Rey manages to maneuver his way into a rana before making a hot tag…Morrus chugs into the ring and clears out the heels…Rey tags back in, gets on Morrus’s shoulders, and hits a toppling splash for two…Rey then ducks a double clothesline attempt and tags Morrus in again…Morrus catches a Chavo leapover attempt and lands a sit-out powerbomb…He goes up for a No Laughing Matter, but he takes so long to do it that TW,B calmly gets in the ring, rolls Chavo well out of the way, and then steps back onto the apron to watch as Morrus crashes and burns…

 

• We get another hot tag, but TW,B is quicker into the ring and forearms Rey as Rey tries to leap over the top rope…Rey lands on the floor, but Morrus sets up TW,B for another No Laughing Matter…Chavo grabs at Morrus and lures him out to the floor…Rey, who is still the legal man, tries to springboard back into the ring, but is plucked out of mid-air with a goozle by TW,B…One chokeslam later, and the heels are victorious…They beat up Rey and Morrus after the bell because Mike Awesome did it earlier, and it seemed to work out well for him…Call this Thunder “AJ Styles” because it too is a good match machine…

 

• Unfortunately, the good match machine is going offline for a segment because Konnan (w/Catchphrase Roulette, weird gendered remarks) is wrestling Buff Bagwell…Check what I said earlier about over midcard babyfaces…Konnan also seems to be an over midcard babyface tonight…This is boring, but not complete shit or anything…It’s fine to have a lull in the card so that the audience can come down a bit…Konnan eventually starts a comeback after a long heel control segment, but Lex Luger has a rooting interest in this match and comes to ringside…He attacks Konnan after Buff dumps the guy to ringside…Brian Adams runs down and attacks Luger, but he can’t keep Buff from landing a Blockbuster on Konnan for three…In a funny spot, Adams kicks Luger right into the rail where two hyped kids are sitting, and they get very excited about Luger landing in front of them…Totally Buff heads for the hills without further incident after the bell, which is notable considering that most of the heels tonight have preferred to stick around and amplify the damage after the match…

 

• Tony S. tells us that Scott Steiner has been aggy tonight, but I sure as heck haven’t seen any of that…Speaking of, it seems like main event time, so here we go…This week in stuff the morons at the WWE Network cut from this episode of Thunder: Commissioner Storm books his new crony Mike Sanders to take out Kwee Wee…Okerlund interviews Palumbo and O’Haire about their feud with their former tag partners…Jeff Jarrett and Rick Steiner ask Lance Storm to book them as a tag team for tonight’s main event…Chavo and THE WALL, BROTHER make plans for their tag match later in the show…Commissioner Storm sends Bryan Clark out of the building because he’s too injured to wrestle, and when Brian Adams objects, Totally Buff attacks him; Konnan wanders up and helps Adams fight off the heels…Mike Awesome promises to  Gene Okerlund that he will break at least one, if not many, bones in the Cat’s body in their match tonight…Diamond Dallas Page and Dustin Rhodes are Jarrett and Steiner’s opponents, and they share their belief that they shall win with Okerlund…Totally Buff shares their belief that blah blah blah with Okerlund…Scott Steiner flips a few tables and demands the presence of Kevin Nash…

 

• So yeah, the main event is Jeff Jarrett and Rick Steiner vs. DDP and Dustin Rhodes…Jarrett does some pre-match mic work, unfortunately…He says that he’ll give Page a KABONGing that will be “a guitar solo so good, even Limp Bizkit will be envious”…Limp Bizkit?!...It’s the year 2001…Alternative rock bands are still a thing…You can’t pick a better contemporary ba—no, whatever, it’s Jeff Jarrett, I should have low expectations for him in this regard…Dammit, now Rick Fucking Steiner is out here talking…Rhodes and Page make their way toward the ring both into and also after the break…

 

• This match is about nine-ish minutes, which I feel is too long to be a Thunder Special…I think seven minutes or fewer in the main event constitutes a Thunder (or Nitro) Special, though your mileage may vary…Both teams brawl at ringside for a bit before Jarrett and Rhodes end up in the ring and the match settles into the distinct pattern of a U.S.-style tag team match…Rhodes finds himself in trouble, but Page makes a blind tag twice and leaps into the fray with a diving lariat on Steiner that gets two…The desk sells that Scott Steiner’s pipe attack from Nitro has injured Nash badly as we head into SuperBrawl during this bout…

 

• Rhodes loses control of the bout as soon as he tags back in…He’s the babyface in peril in this bout…Someone in the crowd is screaming so insistently that I almost wonder if Daffney is out here…But no…I check and find out that Crowbar and Daffney both got released in February…BOOOOOO…That news bums me out enough that even Page on the hot tag can’t pick me up…Steiner stuffs Page’s comeback and lands a diving bulldog, but Rhodes breaks up the pinfall attempt…Steiner eventually shrugs off Rhodes outside the ring, then forearms Page in the face after Jarrett shoves Page out of a Diamond Cutter attempt…Page stumbles back into a Stroke and is pinned for three…Scott Steiner comes to the ring with his lead pipe and attacks Page, but Brian Adams and Hugh Morrus hit the ring to make the save…Steiner turns his attention to beating up all the security mooks that flood the ring with his pipe instead…They work a hokey broken leg gimmick on one guy wearing long pants as the show ends…

 

• I like good matches, and this Thunder was chock full of them!...WOOOOO…

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

Show #277 – 12 February 2001

"The one that showcases CEO Ric Flair's elite mic and character work skills and thus manages to successfully drive some hype for SuperBrawl Revenge"

• We are in media res again as Dustin Rhodes throws punches at Rick Steiner in the middle of the ring; Tony S. fills us in that the Cat booked Rhodes against Steiner before the broadcast started. Rhodes wins that punch up and Steiner slides out of the ring to stop the beating. This is the point at which CEO Ric Flair, Road Warrior Animal, Mike Sanders, and a bunch of security mooks come to the ring to haul Dustin out of the arena. Ricky recovers, circles the ring, gets back inside, and knocks Rhodes to the floor, where security narrowly avoids a beating from Rhodes the Younger before safely carting him out. CEO Flair being an annoying dickhead of a boss is pretty amazing stuff, especially when he switches his tenor from threatening Rhodes (I'LL SUE YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT) to giving Steiner some love (HOW’S IT GOIN’, CHAMP?!). 

 

• It's probably smart to let CEO Flair do tons of talking if you’re going to try to do more talk-heavy segments, which this show has been attempting again lately. If you’re going to ask your heels in particular to do a lot of gabbing, the gulf between “Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff” or “Vince Russo and even more fucking Vince Russo” and “Scott Steiner and Ric Flair” is bigger than the gulf that would be created if you smashed the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf together.

 

• The Cat (w/the lovely Ms. Jones) walks out to inform CEO Flair that he used his commissioner powers to reinstate Dustin Rhodes and would like to reinstate his own foot to the CEO’s ass, but CEO Flair counters by booking the Cat against, uh, I think Lance Storm tonight for the commissionership? I think it’s Storm, who is shown arriving on the TurnerTron, but at first, I thought CEO Flair was referring to Rick Steiner as the Cat's opponent. Anyway, the CEO appoints Mike Sanders to be the referee for that match, but since Mike Sanders is working a gimmick where he’s a total fuckup, I’m guessing that won’t go particularly well for the Magnificent Seven [Editor's note: Well, it didn't, but not in the way that I assumed it wouldn't].

 

• The Cat/Storm match starts in THREE MINUTES, our apoplectic CEO yells, and we cut to the desk so that Tony S. and Hudson can more formally introduce our show and send us to break in that time.

 

• Back from break, the Cat wrestles Lance Storm a whole six days before he’s supposed to work him at SuperBrawl. I really don’t get WCW running their PPV matchups multiple times before the PPV.

 

• Wait, before that match, we get promotion for WCW’s upcoming road to Spring Breakout shows in New Orleans ("Pardi Gras!") and their very final Spring Breakout – and final Nitro entirely – in Panama City Beach. We also get Chavo Guerrero Jr. chewing out CEO Flair putting him up against El Nino (not El Niño) when it was really just Rey Misterio Jr. under the mask. Chavo Jr. asks, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m the Cruiserweight Champion!” Somewhere from the northeastern part of the United States, Johnny Swinger thinks HEY, THAT’S ALMOST MY LINE, I USED THAT LINE IN WCW, HE’S ALMOST STEALING MY LINE TO GET HIMSELF OVER! CEO Flair says that he’s sick about what happened to Chavo Jr., just sick about it, and supposes that Rey got wind of his plan and hijacked El Nino’s mask and body suit. However, he promises to make it up to Chavo Jr. at some point tonight or on Thunder or maybe at SuperBrawl Revenge.

 

• Okay, now we shall see the Cat wrestle Lance Storm. The Cat clocks Mike Sanders with a right before the match even starts, which should be a disqualification. Instead of calling for one, Sanders attacks the Cat, who double DDTs both he and Storm, then tries to count his cover with the groggy Sanders’s hand. Hold on, I have to stop here and ask why the Cat wouldn’t use his commissioner’s powers to just declare himself the winner. Instead, the heels screwjob the Cat by calling for the bell when Storm backjumps the Cat and puts him in a Canadian Maple Leaf that Sanders declares to be an immediate submission victory for the irascible Albertan.

 

• CEO Flair and the Magnificent Seven walk to the ring in a celebratory mood to beat the shit out of the Cat some more, but they are interrupted by Kevin Nash’s appearance on the TurnerTron. Nash advises them to back off the Cat; CEO Flair notes that he’s got his guys with him and counts out – uh-oh, six of his Magnificent Seven. Is Scott Steiner isolated and in trouble? The answer is no, of course not, he’s Scott effin’ Steiner. But Dopey David Flair is definitely gigafucked! Nash has beaten up and bound Flair the Younger and holds him hostage to make some demands, like Flair signing Cat/Storm match for the commissionership at SuperBrawl that was already signed anyway.

 

• I suppose that the CEO loves his oldest son again because he is clearly shook and quickly agrees to that demand. He also agrees to the demand that Dustin Rhodes be brought back for a proper match against Rick Steiner and that if Rhodes wins, Lil' Dust is reinstated, and Kevin Nash will be able to burn off his SuperBrawl title match against Scott Steiner tonight. CEO Flair’s mic work here is fantastic, by the way. By the end, he’s softly pleading with Nash not to punch his kid again, mumbling over and over, “Please, Nash. Please.” Then, after his compatriots surround him to commisserate with him, he despondently says just off-mic, “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll talk to Scott” while hanging his head and wiping sweat from his brow. Ric Flair has been absolutely fantastic tonight on the stick, just killing it with his performance.

 

• This show so far, and the power struggle segments that have structured it, have me in two minds. The first mind hates this illogical commissionership nonsense that has stretched on for far too long. Why is this office transferable through matches? Why can’t the Cat simply cancel out the CEO’s matchmaking? Why would a CEO be overseeing the show each week rather than in an office somewhere doing CEO shit? Shouldn’t the Commissioner’s Office be making matches and handing out rulings by design? Where is a representative of the new ownership to shield the Cat from having to wrestle every show to keep his position? This is so illogical, and has been so since the Sanders/Cat commissionership feud. As each week of television passes, I am increasingly bothered by how WCW Creative is handling this storyline executive position. I’m putting the whole run with the commissionership drama on the Dirt Worst list because I completely hate it. Nothing about how they’ve handled this storyline position of authority makes any fucking sense, even by the extremely low standards of most authority figure storylines.

 

• On the other hand, as much as I initially found Ric Flair’s umpteenth heel turn to be ill-advised and entirely contrary to how the fans want to react to him as the last few Flair heel turns have been, he has been anywhere from very good to truly great in this role. I’ve almost certainly underplayed how good his interview and promo work has been since the night after Sin, looking back on things. Because the turn is also logical instead of out of nowhere as I (vaguely) remembered it, that helps me to enjoy this heel Flair run as well. I think I definitely have to put Flair’s work in tonight's opening segments on a good promos list, but I think heel CEO Flair as a whole might just make an appearance on a good list as well. He’s been doing great work to anchor these late-stage Nitros with his talking.

 

• After a commercial break, CEO Flair demands that Mike Sanders find Dustin Rhodes immediately.

 

• Totally Buff talk up the tag champs Palumbo and O’Haire and invite them to join up with the Magnificent Seven. The champs look at one another and appear to be lukewarm on the idea after Totally Buff walk away.

 

• Mike Sanders tracks down Dustin Rhodes and lets him know the deal: Beat Rick Steiner and be reinstated! Rhodes, who is surrounded by monitors, saw that previous segment, knows what’s up, and refuses to help the CEO save his goofy son. He sends a stressed Sanders packing to deliver the bad news to his boss, then sits back to watch the fireworks.

 

• Bumper: This one asks if Dustin Rhodes will meet Rick Steiner in the ring TONIGHT? and shows clips of Dopey David Flair throwing weak chops while Tony S. intones WILL DAVID FLAIR MEET HIS MAKER?! That was a very enjoyable bumper.

 

• OK, we should probably have some more wrestling at twenty minutes into this show. Lash LeRoux wrestles Jimmy Yang, and I wonder if this is a qualifying match for that multi-man match at SuperBrawl, and finally, after talking about Nash and the Flairs for the first minute of the match, Tony S. tells us that it is. He further lets us know that we’ll get the three other qualifying matches divided between tonight's Nitro and that week's Thunder. Meanwhile, LeRoux and Yang seem to fuck up a leapover counter, but Yang eye pokes LeRoux as the latter tries to complete a Bourbon Street Blues, which actually is my favorite spot in this bout and makes me forget that earlier botch. That idiot Lash did the splits and a spin only to have Yang standing there, thumb at the ready.

 

• They also do dives and such, and in general, the match is perfectly acceptable. Lash does better in kayfabe when hitting power moves (like a nice running powerslam that gets two) than he does trying to go to the air with Yang. They seem to visibly tire in there toward the end; Yang lands a visually ugly tornado DDT to stop Lash’s onslaught and spark a standing ten-count, but LeRoux gets up first and lands a dropkick, then hooks a pumphandle into a sit-out powerbomb and signals for a Whiplash 2000 that he lands for, uh, 2.9? I didn’t expect that. Come to think of it, Hudson mentioned a time limit earlier, so maybe they’re going to work a draw here? Nope, Yang hits a forward roll slam out of a fireman’s carry and then nearly pulverizes LeRoux’s head with his knee on a corkscrew moonsault that scores him a three count.

 

• Mike Sanders interrupts a CEO Flair phone call to deliver the bad news about Dustin Rhodes. CEO Flair warns Sanders to get Rhodes under contract by any means necessary, though not in those exact words. He warns Sanders that if this doesn’t happen, he’s going to throw the former Thriller to the wolves, and by “the wolves,” he means “the Steiner Brothers.”

 

• After a break, Sanders is literally on his knees attempting to get Rhodes to sign that contract and wrestle Rick Steiner. Rhodes decides that he will do it with the added stipulation that if he wins, not only will he be reinstated, he gets another shot at Rick Steiner at SuperBrawl, except that the United States Championship will be on the line at the PPV. Wait a minute, why wouldn’t he roll that title shot into his match tonight? Why not kill two birds with one stone? Why don’t the showrunners just think a bit more about logic when putting together these shows? Just run two title switches if this is the route you’re taking, but you want the belt on Rick Steiner after SuperBrawl; it’s not like you’re going to devalue the United States Championship more than it already has been!

 

• I get a kick out of the look Mark Jindrak gives Gene Okerlund as Okerlund declares that JEALOUSY TORE APART THE THRILLERS. Jindrak agrees with Shawn Stasiak that it was the stupidity of the current tag champs, rather than jealousy, that tore apart the Thrillers. Well, the Thrillers just sort of petered out as opposed to being torn apart, but okay. Stasiak tries to get over NOTE TO SELF and DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT as catchphrases during this promo in which he guarantees victory over Chuck Palumbo later tonight. It’s almost needless to report this, but he fails.

 

• An upset Cat is consoled by Diamond Dallas Page; DDP offers an inspirational quote from Muhammad Ali to perk the Cat up, then brushes off the Cat’s worries about Page having to deal with both Jeff Jarrett and Chris Kanyon.

 

• CEO Flair has Road Warrior Animal double-handed choke Mike Sanders while demanding TELL ME, TELL ME IT’S DONE because CEO Flair is such a good character; allow me to once again reinforce for you how good he is. Sanders gasps out a confirmation that Rhodes has agreed to the contract, so Flair orders Animal to release Sanders, then hugs his coughing protégé and says, “Good. I’m sorry; you’re my pet project again. Hey…thank you.” That is amazing. Finally, he turns to Animal and asks him to watch Ricky Steiner’s back in that match tonight.

 

• Hype video: The Steiner Brothers are back together and are on a rampage (as narrated by Mike Tenay).

 

• I’m loving that Peacock never bothered to seed ads into these late-WCW Nitros and Thunders. We are right back into the fray after a ghost ad break; Rick Steiner faces Dustin Rhodes next. Dustin picks up where he left off to start this show, so Ricky has to go low to take control of the match. Steiner follows up with a Steinerline for two, but my favorite part is that after Rhodes kicks out, Steiner corners ref Billy Silverman and politely asks him to re-think his count cadence, and by that, I mean that he yells ONE-TWO-THREE! I KNOCKED THE SHIT OUTTA HIM!

 

• Rhodes and Steiner have an obligabrawl that Rhodes fires up to control for a bit before Steiner takes over again and tosses Rhodes back into the ring for face gouges and belly-to-belly suplexes. He still can’t get three, though, and gets quite agitated at Silverman, then peppers Rhodes with punches before getting a bit lax and being caught in a sleeper. Steiner escapes that predicament with a jawbreaker and goes back to his slow mauling style that put crowds to sleep through the balance of 1999.

 

• Steiner works an illegally-leveraged chinlock that is so weakly applied, there is space for Dustin to just yank his head and be free of it. Instead, Rhodes takes the long way around and fights back up, then manages a backslide for two before being struck down with a mean lariat. That lariat scores two, so Steiner tosses the ref to the floor – that should be a DQ – but instead the match continues so that Dustin can *sigh* run into him on a leapfrog. Shortly after that, Dustin hits a bulldog for a visual three count, but the ref is out.

 

• Road Warrior Animal runs to the ring and draws Dustin’s attention, which allows Steiner to recover and land a belly-to-belly. Tony S. exclaims NOT LIKE THIS as Steiner continues his assault. Somewhere from the northeastern part of the United States, Michael Cole thinks HEY, THAT’S EXACTLY MY LINE, I USE THAT LINE IN THE WWF, HE’S STEALING MY EXACT LINE TO GET HIMSELF OVER! Anyway, Shane Douglas walks out and clobbers Rick Steiner with his cast-wearing arm; Dustin follows up with a DDT to earn a three count. Poor Shane Douglas. He seems like a nice enough guy in real life, but I hate his work. Hopefully, Steiner obliterates him in the next week or so of television and runs him off of TV.

 

• Dustin sees Road Warrior Animal and Rick Steiner attempting to Pillmanize Douglas’s other, cast-free arm as he makes his way back up the ramp; he tries to make the save, but cannot. OK, maybe that’s it for Douglas’s final WCW run right now, which is also fine by me. Sorry, Shane. I just deeply hate your work.

 

• Scott Steiner is mad, obviously. That is a state in which he tends to exist. In this case, he’s mad about having to defend the gold against Kevin Nash later tonight. He catches sight of Nash popping up on a monitor and (though it’s almost impossible to hear) saying that he’s going to keep David as a hedge against the Magnificent Seven trying to fuck him over. Steiner’s response: THAT’S IT, I’M GONNA DO THINGS MY WAY. CEO Flair counters by asking the question, “What about David?!” Steiner’s response: I DON’T CARE ABOUT DAVID; I GOTTA PROTECT THE BELT. Maybe they should call this group the Magnificent Two (On the Stick).

 

• Or maybe Magnificent Three (On the Stick) because Luger, while not on Flair or Steiner’s level, is a clear level or five above everyone else who isn’t those two in the group.

 

• I sure hope Elix Skipper is coming to the ring to wrestle a qualifying match for the SuperBrawl cruiserweight multi-man, and I especially hope that he wins said match. He runs down the slowpoke Americans in the audience before facing his opponent Billy Kidman; dammit, he’s probably going to lose. Kidman, like Rey Misterio Jr., seems like he should be competing in another division, specifically the United States Championship division. Instead, he’s stuck in Cruiserweight division jail, which isnt a bad division, but is indeed a restrictive “jail” if you’re never really allowed to break out of it. At least let Kidman and Rey become a legendary long-term tag team, which we were on the path toward two years ago! There was a point in 1999 where WCW had the pieces for another great creative run, folks. I’m telling you. They had Rey and Kidman as babyface tag champs, DDP on an absolute heater as world champ, and entertaining heel authority figure Ric Flair, and they fucked it.

 

• Anyway, this match is solid, as you’d guess. Kidman gets some early shine before Skipper takes over and scores a lot of punches, forearms, and chokes. Kidman tries to make a comeback, but Skip hits the Matrix right under a Kidman crossbody that sends the Filthy Animal to the floor. Skipper follows with a twisting body press and controls an obligabrawl on the floor. Back in the ring, Skipper scores a couple of close two counts, but when he puts Kidman up top for a high-risk move, Kidman lands a couple of punches to his ribs and uses the space he creates to land a super Sky High for 2.7 or so.

 

• Wait, I take it back; this match is now straight-up good, not just solid. Kidman tries to follow up, but Skipper manages a go-behind and hits a full nelson suplex with a bridge for two. Skipper is the next to try to follow up with more offense, but fail: He whiffs on a strike and eats a reverse gourdbuster for two. Skipper reverses the match’s momentum with a weird hangman’s neckbreaker-ish sort of deal for two; Kidman reverses that reversal of the match’s momentum by hopping out of a powerbomb attempt and hitting a sit-out driver for two. Look, all you need to know is that neither man can keep control for very long until the finish, in which Kidman spins his way out of a Play of the Day attempt and twists Skipper into a Kid Krusher that lands and earns him a hard-won three count. Kidman and Skipper are both good match machines - give either of them eight-to-ten minutes on television, and you’ll have something fun – so I feel no surprise that they had a good eight-to-ten minute match against one another.

 

• Gene Okerlund informs Hugh Morrus that the retired general has got THE WALL, BROTHER one-on-one at SuperBrawl. On cue, Morrus cuts a mediocre promo. During said mediocre promo, he challenges TW,B and Chavo Jr. to a tag match against himself and Rey Misterio Jr. on Thunder. Morrus reverting to this bad character that never got over even a bit in three years seems like a dumb creative direction for him.

 

• Scott Steiner trashes a Power Plant trainee/WCW tech who cannot tell him where Kevin Nash and David Flair are located.

 

• Beth Flair is not pleased with Dopey Dave being held hostage, but Ric tries to calm her down over the phone before opting to hang up on her mid-argument so that he can bury his head in his hands.

 

• Hype video: Kanyon and Diamond Dallas Page have long-term beef that they need to resolve, which apparently started on account of Mike Awesome tossing Kanyon off the triple-decker cage at the final Slamboree as this video retrospective has us recall.

 

• Shawn Stasiak, as I was reminded yesterday, got another run in the WWF after WCW closed down in which he irritated everyone backstage, tripped over his own feet an awful lot as a gimmick, and then attempted to launch another gimmick called Planet Stasiak (that part, I very vaguely recalled after I read about it) before leaving the pro wrestling industry entirely. Finally. Mercifully. Alas, we are still in early 2001, so I have to watch Stasiak wrestle Chuck Palumbo. At least Palumbo is a solid worker. Also, he hits Stasiak with a fallaway slam. Fallaway slams rule, and WCW television has sorely missed them since Scott Hall left television. The match so far is perfectly fine. Stasiak in control sucks and has always sucked, but Palumbo is enjoyable when he’s on offense.

 

• Part of the issue is that I’m waiting for the tag partners of both men to show up for the finish, so I don’t buy any of the near falls, or at least I buy them even less than I normally do. Palumbo hits a flapjack-style spinebuster (that’s what I’m calling it; Tony S. makes up names for moves sometimes, so I will too) and an armbreaker, then drills Stasiak with a diving shoulderblock from the top and, uh, tunes up the band? Well, he calls it a Jungle Kick and not Sweet Chin Music, so it's not tuning up the band. He, um, let’s see, riles up the baboons? No, that’s not any good. I need to workshop something for that spot.

 

• Anyway, Palumbo stomps the mat and tries a Jungle Kick that Stasiak ducks; they embark upon a series of reversals that is supposed to end in Stasiak rolling Palumbo up and leveraging the ropes for a pin, but they fuck up the spacing and referee Scott James can’t count it credibly, so Stasiak has to stand Palumbo up and roll him up again before yanking Palumbo’s tights halfway down his ass to get three. Stasiak demands Palumbo’s tag belt and then tells Palumbo that the result of this match proves that he carried Palumbo in The Perfect Event. This was genuinely a pretty good match, blown finish (and involving Stasiak in the first place) aside.

 

• Diamond Dallas Page makes his way through the crowd and kicks a guy’s drink out of his hands as he jumps over the ramp. The guy is visibly bummed about his drink ending up on his clothes, which makes me laugh. Then again, karma rears its head because after taking pleasure in that guy being bummed, now it's my turn. DDP is here to talk rather than wrestle – bummer. He declares that he and Jeff Jarrett will have a good match at SuperBrawl before starting his own Diamond Dallas Page “Slapnuts/Slapass” Count: 1. Double bummer.

 

• This promo gets slightly less bad when Page turns his attention to Chris Kanyon. Page is annoyed that Kanyon spent a huge chunk of the year 2000 doing a bum copycat rap biting Page’s style (this callback might be a bit too deep, maybe, but it amuses me and I’m glad that I was able to bring it up again at least once before these reviews ended). Page promises revenge on Kanyon, but is quickly cut off by Jeff Jarrett walking onto the top of the ramp. Jeff Jarrett “Slapnuts/Slapass” Count: 1. Triple bummer. Now we’re getting a promo battle between these two – quadruple bummer – but Kanyon tries to backjump Page, which ends the talking. Hooray! Page fights Kanyon off and drills him with a Diamond Cutter, but Jarrett blindsides Page with a KABONGing and a follow-up Stroke to punctuate his attack.

 

• Scott Steiner, as the unquestioned brains of the Steiner Brothers, follows the camera cable that Nash was using all the way into the room where Nash was. I say “was” because Steiner spots Nash dragging Dopey Dave to the ring on a monitor and quickly goes after them.

 

• It’s time for our weekly Nitro Special! Nash punches Dopey Dave, who begs off, as CEO Flair steps to the top of the ramp with security and pleads with Nash to send his son safely back to him – “This has not been an easy job tonight. Please! I’ve done everything.” Nash responds by gently ushering Dave back to his dad. Oops, no, he Jackknifes him while the CEO screams NOOOOOOO. That was rad. Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) storm down the aisle and we get a pretty intense little scrap from Nash and Steiner. Steiner quickly figures out that he’s in deep doo doo as Nash quells his attempts to turn the tide of the match. Is it strange that I have a little hope for Steiner/Nash at SuperBrawl to be good? It seems like it shouldn’t be a very good matchup, but I think the build got me to the point that I want to see it.

 

• We cut to the back, where CEO Ric and the rest of the Magnificent Seven load David into a limo. Lex Luger asks, “What are we going to do?” CEO Flair: WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?!?! KILL NASH! I WANNA KILL NASH! This guy is so good at doing pro wrestling-style acting. His performance tonight was impeccable and made this whole Nitro-long storyline work for me.

 

• Back in the ring, Steiner has managed to post Nash outside the ring and get a bit of purchase in the match. He goes to work on Nash with purpose. He is angry enough to take time out and yell at the fans, though, and he does feel comfortable enough to do situps after an elbowdrop. At this point, the heels try to storm the ring, but are cut off by KroniK and the Cat. Nash makes his comeback in the ring; a Nash side slam gets two. Nash senses that his moment is now, follows up with a big boot, and drops the straps. CEO Flair storms out here, walks right up to Nash, and punches him to no effect. This match is thrown out as the CEO takes a Jackknife; Steiner takes the lead pipe from Midajah and clobbers Nash in the head, then attacks Nash’s knee as the show ends.

 

• I really liked this Nitro and feel like it is almost certainly the best go-home Nitro for a PPV since 1998 and maybe, once I get to the point where I’m doing a fuller edit on those 1998 shows and am reading my recaps, it could be the best one since 1997. This Nitro being such a successful go-home bumps it up an extra .25 on the Stinger Splash scale for me, largely thanks to the work of Ric Flair: 4 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

[The Viceland Wrestling Documentaries]

I found this episode a bit silly. Jim Ross talking about needing to have better vetted Halme and how Jewish wrestlers in the locker room felt about his fondness for the SS, but the Harris Brothers were working there for years. 

Or Chris Jericho talking about Halme with a serious intonation when they almost certainly share a number of the same political beliefs.

I mean, the stuff about what Halme did after he left the company was interesting, but I found the tenor of the episode faintly absurd considering who was involved in making it. 

 

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and forty-seven – 7 February 2001

"The WCW Gang passes some time en route to SuperBrawl Revenge"

• We open Thunder with a recap of Nitro…The babyfaces failed miserably at their gambit to strike back at the heels, if you’ll recall…

 

• There isn't a usual opening beyond that recap…We’re hitting the ring instead…Shane Helms, a personal favorite of mine, is in the process of being elevated to the top of the cruiserweight division…Now, Kaz Hayashi should lose to this guy pretty quickly considering that he couldn’t manage to put even a scratch on Scott Steiner with the help of three other guys last Monday…Tenay lets us know that this is a qualifying match for a, um, “six-man Four Corners Cruiserweight Elimination match” at SuperBrawl…I’m not even going to ask how the math works out on that one…The point is that the winner of that match will receive a title shot at some unspecified point later on…Shannon Moore won a match in the past week that has landed him a spot in the match…

 

• Meanwhile, Helms and Kaz have a solid match around Kaz trying to take out Helms’s wheels, but I’m sorry, you can’t push a guy as the ace of your division and have him struggle against the hapless Kaz, which he does…Kaz takes entirely too much of this thing, just kills Helms for most of this bout…This was the wrong match to have for the people involved…Kaz lands a nice dive in there, at least…Helms scores a Sugar Smack, but is distracted by Chavo Jr.’s arrival at ringside…Kaz can’t capitalize, and Helms preps a Vertebreaker…Chavo Jr. hops onto the apron, and Helms breaks away from his Vertebreaker attempt and goes after Chavo…This allows Kaz to land a back suplex with a bridge for three…Then why send Kaz out there on the previous Nitro to get killed by Scott St—no, whatever, forget it…

 

• Norman Smiley asks Glacier not to wait and join him at ringside earlier before closing Glacier’s dressing room door…For whatever reason, Palumbo and O’Haire soon follow, beat up Glacier, and leave…What the heck?...Why would Palumbo and O’Haire do that?...Did I miss something?...This Thunder runs an hour and twenty-eight minutes, so there shouldn’t be much cut from it, if anything…

 

• CEO Flair and his Elite step to the top of the ramp to crow about how rad they are…Oops, forget that CEO Flair’s Elite name…CEO Flair dubs them the Magnificent Seven…Scott Steiner takes the mic and is pleased to have Rick Steiner back on his side…He notes that Rick wanted to join him openly a while ago, but Scott surmised that someone would try to use Rick against him and told Rick to hold out until the time was right…I’m not surprised that Scott Steiner has once again proven to be the brains in that outfit…Ricky hits his catchphrase…

 

• The Wolfpac theme hits, but there is no Kevin Nash to be seen at the top of the ramp…Nash, KroniK, DDP, and the Cat instead wander around out in the crowd…Nash wonders whether he or Rick is dumber…It’s Rick, no doubt…Nash says that his stupidity for trusting Rick might be almost as deep as Rick’s stupidity for double-crossing him, but no, it’s not close…Adams once again challenges Luger to a match tonight, which CEO Flair confirms…Nash then ups the ante by demanding that the Steiner Brothers wrestle the Insiders later tonight…CEO Flair gives Scotty Steiner the night off even though Scotty seems game for it…DDP counters with a suggestion that Jeff Jarrett fill in for Scotty, and CEO Flair agrees…

 

• CEO Flair sets his sights on the Cat next…He’s decided to allow Lance Storm to name the Cat’s opponent tonight, and of course, that match will be for the Cat’s commissioner’s position…Why wouldn’t Lance Storm name himself and get two bites at the commissionership apple?...OK, that’s it for all the talking…For now, at least…

 

• I spoke too soon...After a break, we get a bit more talking…CEO Flair tries to get Scott Steiner to stop trying to fight everyone all the time…He butters Scotty up by saying that Scott’s the crown jewel of the Magnificent Seven and needs to let his backup put in some work on his opps while he rests and prepares for the PPV…

 

• Norman Smiley, eternally wasted by his bookers, walks to the ring for another loss, this time against Sean O’Haire…I suppose that explains why Palumbo and O’Haire beat Glacier up…This match is pretty solid for what it is…It would have been better if Norm were presented as even remotely competitive, though…Norm does hit a sweet hop-over arm drag, though…What an aesthetically pleasing move that was…Anyway, Norm lands a swinging slam, but looks up the ramp for Glacier instead of pressing his advantage or even hitting a Big Wiggle…There is no Glacier, nor is there any hope for Smiley, who falls to a Seanton Bomb shortly after…

 

• Mark Jindrak walks to the ring after the match, with a look of what I can only describe as mild confusion on his face…Shawn Stasiak enters the ring from the crowd and attacks O’Haire…Stasiak loses a punch-up, but his buddy Jindrak blindsides O’Haire…They toss him from ringside, but O’Haire springboards back onto them…O’Haire is once again overwhelmed by the numbers game, but Palumbo casually walks to the ring and easily makes the save…

 

• Road Warrior Animal tries not to crack while CEO Flair talks about how awesome it is to be CEO…Mike Sanders interrupts and gives the CEO his dry cleaning…CEO Flair apologizes for putting all the blame for Nash attacking him on Sanders's decision to book two limos instead of just one…He does say that in his Monday night rage, he booked Sanders against Konnan again, though he tells Sanders that there won’t be any substitutions this time around…Sanders takes the news in stride…

 

• The Cat (w/the lovely Ms. Jones, who is grabbed for too long by some doltish fan while giving a high five) enters the ring for his match to defend his commissionership…Lance Storm erases Roddy Piper from commissionership history again – fine by me – and reminds the Cat that he beat him at Starrcade a couple of months ago before announcing that Elix Skipper will be the Cat’s opponent tonight…Other than the fans off to the right side of the hard cam who are waving around a maple leaf flag, this partisan crowd hates on Canada for no good reason…The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?...

 

• Skipper ragdolls the Cat a bit to start, then dumps him outside and immediately loses an obligabrawl…Wait, no, Skip reverses an Irish whip into the rail and wisely takes the action back into the ring…Elix settles down into an extended chinlock spot in which he liberally uses the ropes for leverage…The Cat fights up anyway, but his comeback is cut off by a boot…Skipper needs to stop wrestling in Jordans…He’s stumbling around out there…I’m not sure how he ever completes a high-risk move…Speaking of, he drills the Cat with a fantastic-looking guillotine legdrop that only gets 2.5…

 

• The Cat tries to make another comeback, but Skipper clips his knee to stop all that nonsense…It’s only when Skipper tries a sunset flip that he loses control of the match…Trying to hit a sunset flip on the Cat is about as wise as trying to powerbomb Kidman (unless you’re Kevin Nash or Syko Sid in the latter case)…The Cat makes a comeback with a Boogie Elbow…Tony S. calls it “the elbowdrop from the jiggedy jiggedy move” which I found to be extremely charming…Elix hits the Matrix to duck a Feliner, but then stumbles while rising because, you know, high-top Jordans…

 

• Elix tries to follow up with a Play of the Day…The Cat tries to counter it into a powerbomb, but Elix lands a rana and covers for two…Skipper goes up for a double-axe, but dives into a kick to the solar plexus…He’s food for a Feliner that gets three…I thought nothing of that match until it got back in the ring,  which is when it got good, and then the finishing run elevated it to a match that I would suggest to anyone who was interested in mainlining old WCW matches on YouTube…Lance Storm cuts into the Cat’s post-match competition to challenge him once more…Mike Awesome attacks the Cat from behind to punctuate Storm’s challenge…

 

• Totally Buff interviews with Gene Okerlund…Okerlund reinforces the idea that there was a time limit in Buff’s match against Brian Adams on Nitro…Come on, man…Anyway, Bagwell disagrees with Okerlund’s assessment that the time limit saved Buff from defeat…He is also confident that Lex Luger will finish off Adams later tonight…

 

• Chavo Jr. interrupts THE WALL, BROTHER’s pump-up routine to exhort him for help against Rey Misterio Jr….TW,B agrees to assist Chavo Jr. by destroying Rey…They leave together, and all that is left in their locker room is the sound of cacophonous laughter from a life-long midcarder who inexplicably gets too much television time…No, not Jerry Flynn…I'm talking about Hugh Morrus…

 

• Kwee Wee walks past some jobbers and challenges them to a fight…He picks on the shortest of the three and invites him to one-on-one combat in the ring...

 

• Scott Steiner is getting antsy backstage…He wants to bust a few heads…CEO Flair has to remind him to stay focused on SuperBrawl…

 

• Lex Luger wrestles Brian Adams in another matchup that was probably slightly better on a random Coliseum Video release from early 1995…Wait, no, these fellas are working for their next contract with the Bischoff-Fusient Regime, so in actuality, this Thunder bout is probably better than “All-American” Lex Luger marking time against Japanese turncoat Crush until he could show up on the first Nitro…This match exists…It will be forgotten tomorrow, at least on my part…It’s not bad…It’s just two slow veterans having a low-impact match…Honestly, they do pick it up as the match goes along, especially on the finishing run…Adams wins it with a Full Nelson Slam…Luger’s out here doing jobs and not giving one fuck about it, and I respect that…Buff Bagwell attacks Adams after the match, but Bryan Clark quickly makes the save and sends the heels stumbling away…

 

• Rey Misterio Jr. is out here alone…Hmmm, did Tygress get let go?...THE WALL, BROTHER walks the ramp alongside Chavo Guerrero Jr., who acts as his second…TW,B yells at Tony S. and Tenay about how much bigger he is than this twerp Rey while the desk tries to shoo him away already…Finally, TW,B enters the ring…Rey actually opens up on TW,B before getting caught on a too-early springboard…TW,B hits a one-handed press, which is pretty rad…Rey locks on a sleeper right after that because TW,B is too lax about his follow-up…TW,B breaks it by backing Rey into the corner…TW,B chokes Rey for a bit, then tosses him into the crowd….Obligabrawls against larger opponents are not Rey’s forte, and he gets bashed around (and takes a nasty running bump into the ring steps)…

 

• I think Rey is giving just a bit too much to TW,B…He’s an elite cruiserweight and TW,B can barely win his own specialty match…I’m fine with Rey selling for big opponents landing power moves, obviously, but he needed a longer shine segment to start…WCW never quite figured out how to book their cruisers against bigger opponents…Honestly, Vincent Kennedy was better at this than WCW creative leadership ever was by a longshot, and I wouldn’t expect that he would be…TW,B gets cocky and tries a dive, but misses…Rey makes a comeback, though he is diverted by Chavo Jr…He tosses Chavo to ringside and dives on him…This draws the ref’s attention, and though Mickey Jay's eyes are diverted, his ears and general nerve system apparently don't work...He somehow does not hear or notice Hugh Morrus running in, attacking TW,B, and landing a loud and resounding No Laughing Matter on his former compatriot…Rey follows up with a moonsault for three…Tony S. had a nice, energetic call on the finish, and the crowd actually popped pretty big on the hard cam side for Rey winning…Misterio is a fucking star, so push him like one, WCW!...Morrus and Rey clear out the heels after the match…

 

• Here's Kwee-Wee, no Paisley in sight…Wait, did WCW let her go, too?...Hold on, while Kwee Wee beats up a planted fan and pins him for three, I look it up and see that Paisley did get cut in February and immediately signed with the WWF…I can’t find anything on Tygress, but I will assume that she’s also gone and that a few of the ladies got released at the start of the month…Anyway, the short dude from backstage runs out, hits a pretty nice missile dropkick on Kwee Wee, and then is summarily destroyed…A piledriver gets another three count for Kwee Wee, but CEO Flair is still unaware of your existence, bruh!...

 

• Can Mike Sanders overcome Konnan (w/o Tygress, w/same old Catchphrase Roulette) this week?...After the Catchphrase Roulette, Tony S. punctuates Konnan’s outburst by saying WORD…Amazing…Tony S. was good, people!...I won’t hear a word against his work on PBP, dammit!...Konnan does some slow mat work to start…Things pick up, and the match that follows is perfectly acceptable televised wrestling…Konnan fights out of a rest hold and makes a comeback with a rolling clothesline and a couple of hip tosses…It’s academic from there…Konnan lands a sit-out facebuster and wraps Sanders up in a Tequila Sunrise to score a submission victory…

 

• Dammit, I forgot that the Harris Bros. were still on this show…Gene Okerlund reads these two dipshit brothers the riot act because of their cheating ways…Da/oR has received a manager’s license…Come on, that license is absurd…It looks like he won that shit from a crane game…Did he send five UPCs from 12-packs of Surge in to get that thing?...Ra/oD challenges the whole roster to a fight before the interview mercifully ends…

 

• CEO Flair is having a heck of a time keeping Scott “When the bell rings, I’m goin’ NUTS” Steiner relaxed…

 

• Alright, let’s have ourselves a Thunder main event!...Jeff Jarrett and Rick Steiner wrestle the Insiders…The babyfaces clear the ring almost as soon as they get there…When the match settles down, Page controls until Ricky Steiner runs a diversion and Page walks right into a Jarrett DDT…It’s FIP time!...This is your typical Nitro Thunder Special of a main event…Here’s the finish…After a DDP hot tag to Nash, Nash gets in and steamrolls his way to a Jackknife of Ricky and a victory…Hey, the babyfaces won!...And they stand tall at the end of the show, no less, after KroniK enters the ring to back them up!...

 

• This show was almost totally forgettable other than Elix/Cat…That initial burst of energy that WCW's shows got with the Fusient announcement has dissipated somewhat, but things are still watchable and, of course, are much preferable to anything from the last couple of years…WOO…

[April 2025 Wrestling Discussion]

I finally got around to watching Duggan/DiBiase All-Gimmicks Match in 1985 that someone posted last month. I had seen it before, but never within the context of the television, and with that context, my opinion on it is much more aligned with the general consensus. The two best spots in that thing are 1) Duggan finally landing a haymaker with the coal miner's glove, which was appropriately cathartic and b) some fan yelling TED DIBIASE, GET YER ASS OUTTA HERE after DiBiase was pinned and sent packing for an All Japan tour. 

[Upcoming Video Game Releases (2025 & Beyond)]

56 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

That's also, now that things have been announced, probably why the Japan-only price is drastically lower compared to everywhere else.

I thought it was to stop people from exporting them to take advantage of the weak yen.

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

21 hours ago, twiztor said:

• How did we never get a "Bam Bam Slam"?

He should have straight stolen it, but the Greetings is a good finisher already. 

Quote

Scott Steiner has become at or near the top of my list of "guys that WWE failed miserably on". Like, i remember this late stage WCW run, and remember it being pretty batshit crazy and awesome, and my rewatch cemented that. And i remember his WWE run being fucking terrible. He had a couple shit matches with HHH, then got midcarded with Test for seemingly a year. But what i DIDN'T factor in was how good he was in TNA after that WWE run. Yeah, yeah, the "he's fat" and "steiner math" promos got lots of play, but he's still putting on watchable matches and has that same intensity in everything he does. How did WWE miss that badly with him?

I think Steiner's ability to put on solid matches even with his consistent foot injuries and while being very immobile speaks to what a good worker he became. 

He was also probably much better off in TNA and away from Vince's increasing scripting of promos. You don't script a Scott Steiner promo. You give him a couple of talking points and then let him rip (and apologize to your sponsors later if necessary). 

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

Show #276 – 5 February 2001

"The one that is a Nitro from February of 2001, but feels a bit too much like a Nitro from February of 2000"

• Eric Bischoff must be back in a position of oversight because we start the first show of February in media res for the first time in a long time, with CEO Flair (flanked by Road Warrior Animal) and Kevin Nash in the midst of a mic battle. The talking soon transitions to physical attacks as Nash easily disposes of Animal. The CEO tries to beg off, but eats a big knee and a boot choke.

 

• In the back, Mike Sanders runs up to the arriving limo with Flair’s Elite in it and lets them know what’s going on, but they’re too late to keep Flair from taking a beating. Then, even though he’s supposed to be a babyface, Nash declares that he’ll be stripping the wrinkly old CEO naked on live television. Yuck. I will say that in what I personally think is a pretty amazing callback, Flair is wearing those Florida Gators boxers from back when he was last stripped to his skivvies while in an authority position on Nitro (Show #186) and that he was still wearing while being an authority figure who was also committed to a Central Florida mental hospital (Show #187). Tony S. seems like he has an inkling of those boxers being maybe notable, but he doesn’t quite make the connection on commentary.

 

• OK, so Nash prepares to Jackknife our Gainsville-loving CEO when Scott Steiner and the rest of Flair’s allies rush onto the ramp. Nash holds the heels off by threatening to destroy Flair and then checks on if the CEO would like to negotiate for his safe release. The CEO: ARAGARAYYYAYESSSS, which I think is an affirmation that he in fact would like to do so. Nash calls out the Cat (w/the lovely Ms. Jones) as his negotiator; the commissioner is smart enough to come through the crowd and avoid the crowd of heels on the ramp.

 

• Totally Buff have a lot of work to do to hold an irate Scott Steiner back. Meanwhile, Nash holds a neck vise on CEO Flair while the Cat checks to see if the CEO will transfer power to him for one night. The CEO: AUHAUTAYAYAHAYUAHA. That’s another “yes,” I do believe. The Cat books Scott Steiner to a) kill off four cruiserweights in a handicap match, b) wrestle mortal enemy Diamond Dallas Page, and c) work a main event bout in which he defends his world title against Kevin Nash. Wait, this is dumb. Nash is wrestling Steiner at SuperBrawl already, so there's no need to burn that match now. The Cat adds the stip that Flair has to resign from his position as CEO if Steiner loses and also that Nash gets a partner for this match, so at least they’re not doing a one-on-one match. The crowd really wants GOLDBERG, but no, that’s not happening. I am going to guess that Rick Steiner will be Nash’s partner. I keep predicting this Rick Steiner heel turn, and it keeps not happening, but we're running out of runway here. I have to be right eventually!

 

• I don’t love cruiserweights being used as fodder, I have to say. Bischoff wants to remake this division because he rightly understands how important it is to WCW’s modern profile as a company, but he still is fine with having heavyweights just murder them when he needs to get one over as a threat. The Jung Dragons, Evan Karagias, and Jamie (K)noble get wasted for some fucking reason. Kaz and Noble especially should be treated better than this. I don’t give a fuck how awesome your champ is; he should not be kicking out of a dogpile pin (unless maybe he’s the Giant, but even then), and four second-level cruiserweights should be probably managing to defeat him instead of getting stack-Steiner Recliner’d and losing. BOOOOO, this is going on the Dirt Worst list on principle. Fuck off, WCW.

 

• Bumper: This main event is going to be as swerve-filled as the roads in the Monaco Grand Prix.

 

• CEO Flair and his crew yell at one another about whose fault it is that Steiner is in this predicament and settle on Mike Sanders for booking two separate limos instead of one big enough to bring them all to the arena at the same time. Heh.

 

• In the babyface locker room, the Cat continues to book the show. He agrees to pit Brian Adams against Buff Bagwell later tonight at Adams's request.

 

• According to Gene Okerlund, the Cat has also booked Rick Steiner and Shane Douglas in a return match for the United States Championship tonight rather than waiting until SuperBrawl (at Steiner’s request, as we find out in this Rick Steiner interview with Okerlund). Hmmm…

 

• Bryan Clark is out tonight on account of Road Warrior Animal bashing him in the back of the head on Thunder and then getting banned from the building tonight by CEO Flair’s lawyers, so Brian Adams is here alone, but he’s not sweating it. I assume Clark is legit injured [Editor's note: Nope!].

 

• CEO Flair and Totally Buff laugh about Bryan Clark being out for the next three weeks because of Animal’s home run swing; then, they suggest that the CEO book Totally Buff vs. KroniK for SuperBrawl with the caveat that neither team can substitute a member, obviously hoping that it will be a defacto handicap match. Isn’t SuperBrawl almost exactly three weeks out, though? Clark will probably make it back in time, at least from a kayfabe perspective based on what the announcers are saying about his injuries. Anyway, CEO Flair cackles at such a devious idea and then books it.

 

• OK, let’s get this belt off of Shane Douglas. At least Rick Steiner will recklessly kill young boys for the next six weeks, which is at least potentially entertaining. Rick Steiner is actually quite over as a babyface, so turning him heel is probably a mistake at this point. This fraud Douglas has a cast on his wrist to augment his strikes, but he’s still just Shane Douglas, so it’s not going to win him this match. Neither are these chair shots. The thing about it is that Rick Steiner’s mental function is already so low that these shots aren’t even rattling him. This match sucks, by the way, as should be obvious. Most of this is an extremely slow wandering brawl. When it gets back into the ring, it’s better, but that’s not saying much.

 

• Ricky kicks out of a cast shot and a Franchiser, then wins the gold shortly after with a DVD. I watch Rick Steiner strap on the gold and wish it were Scott Norton in his place. Steiner fucks up his own catchphrase after the match: YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES! YOU WANT ME—YOU WANT SOME? COME GET SOME. Pair Ricky Steiner and Major Gunns together as a power couple who can’t say their own catchphrases properly, please. Just for funsies! It’s not like this show will exist in two months anyway [Editor's note: There was no Major Gunns with Team Canada tonight, so I checked and she was released in February. Missed opportunity!].

 

• Boy, this Nitro has harkened back to the bad old days from May 1999 to mid-October 2000 so far. Let’s pick it up, WCW.

 

• Chavo Jr. and CEO Flair talk each other up in the CEO’s office; CEO Flair promises Chavo Jr. an elite opponent for tonight whom he and Chavo Sr. have personally scouted, but he’s distracted when his monitor shows the image of Dustin Rhodes walking onto the ramp. He takes off to confront Rhodes the Younger. Meanwhile, Dustin gets a decent reaction, but we are in Tupelo, so I'd guess that they’re more likely to recognize those early ‘90s WCW stars. Dustin gets completely lost in there while talking, awkwardly pauses a few times, cribs his Goldust catchphrase, and then is saved by CEO Flair popping up on the TurnerTron and going into conniptions while firing Dustin and demanding his removal. CUT THE TRUCK, CEO Flair yells, so they do. When we come back from break, they show a replay of his removal, but that gets cut, too. I actually think the idea for portraying CEO Flair as a power-hungry nut is neat, but probably it wasn’t done with the right guy – no one really cares about 2000 Dustin Rhodes – and at the right point in this show. I also feel robbed because I was hoping that Dusty would show up, but I suppose that won’t be happening tonight.

 

• Diamond Dallas Page is next up to face Scott Steiner. This, if I recall correctly, is also our main event at WCW Greed. That’s not the worst way to close out the final WCW PPV. This matchup is pretty good, too! They work really quickly, and Page avoids Midajah’s feeble attempts to grab his ankle to dominate early. The match goes outside the ring, which is probably a mistake on Page’s part from a kayfabe standpoint; in fact, he briefly loses control of the bout here, but is able to take over and dump Steiner in the ring. Page goes up to follow him in with a diving lariat, but Midajah manages to somewhat less feebly trip Page as he stands on the top rope.

 

• Steiner takes over from here, but he does an awkward pose as he pins DDP and gets rolled up for two; Steiner kicks out and gets back on top with an inverted atomic drop and a rib breaker for two. Clothesline, elbowdrop, pushups, and Steiner’s mouth is busted open. Page continues to score flares of offensive activity, but Steiner manages a belly-to-belly to stop one flare. It only gets a two count, so Steiner clubs ref Billy Silverman down before turning around and getting hit with a floatover Diamond Cutter. Silverman calls for a DQ victory for Page. As Page escapes through the crowd, Jeff Jarrett and CHRIS KANYON jump him and stomp him out. Wooo, Kanyon is back! It’s nice that they didn’t forget how much Page and Kanyon detest one another, by the way. Back in the ring, Steiner sells that the Diamond Cutter rang his bell.

 

• After a break, the babyfaces help DDP into the hallway, where he sells a kidney injury and gets some help from a trainer.

 

• Jeff Jarrett and Kanyon flee the scene in a limo.

 

• Alright, so Chavo Jr. is going to wrestle the body-suited El Nino. Not El Niño. El Nino. I don’t want any of you Spanish speakers thinking I fucked this up when it was WCW that fucked it up. I fuck up a lot of things, as I am finding as I edit these earlier reviews yet again, and I refuse to take heat for the stuff that isn’t my fault. So, as soon as El Nino – not El Niño – takes a bump, that combined with his height reveals that it’s Rey Misterio Jr. in the suit. Misterio tried to hide himself by moving differently on his entrance, but once the match started, it was obvious. I think this sort of gimmick only works when you hide the guy in a multi-man match. Like, I had no chance to even register that Ciclope was actually Dean Malenko because in a battle royal, a) you can mostly just punch dudes, which makes it easier not to reveal yourself and b) there was so much to focus on that I wasn’t laser-focused on Ciclope. And I suppose that c) Ciclope being an established worker on the show already definitely helped.

 

• Anyway, Rey and Chavo have a decent television match, as you’d guess they would, but why are we giving away another PPV match two weeks before it actually happens on the PPV? Strange. The bottom half of Rey’s mask comes loose, so yeah, that’s another strike against this whole deal. How do Tony S. and Scott Hudson not notice that it’s Rey? Chavo is a good base for Rey’s offense. The commentators finally figure out Rey's ruse at the point where Rey lands a bulldog and a springboard dropkick for three. Rey pulls off the mask, celebrates a bit, and then metaphorically spikes the football by dodging an angry Chavo Jr. and then landing a Bronco Buster. Solid match, but I didn’t like the execution of the gimmick-slash-angle at all.

 

• Lance Storm (w/Mike Awesome) and Team Canada are in good with CEO Ric Flair, and Storm takes some time before his match to remind everyone that he supports the CEO in all his endeavors. Then, he asserts that after he beats the Cat at SuperBrawl, he will be WCW’s first Canadian Commissioner. Nice try, Storm, but you won’t make me forget those horrible days when Roddy Piper was in charge. The Cat responds on the TurnerTron: He books Storm and Awesome against Sean O’Haire and Chuck Palumbo for RIGHT NOW. This seems like it’ll be pretty fun, and yeah, it is. O’Haire throws some terrible chops, though. My gosh. Throw a forearm instead, please, and lay it in.

 

• Anyway, I like watching big dudes punch and release suplex one another and do the occasional dive, so this is enjoyable stuff. Palumbo does a Chris Jericho-style corner springboard dropkick at about the same level of smoothness that actual Chris Jericho did it at the time, which is impressive for a guy that big (and entirely unimpressive for a guy Jericho’s size). Lance Storm, as the smallest guy in the ring, ends up taking quite a bit of punishment from the (former?) Thrillers members. Storm hits an eye poke like our previous Canadian commissioner, but runs himself right into a huge powerslam and re-thinks his strategy. He tries a flash pin for two, but gets up and is put back down by a Palumbo overhand right.

 

• Weirdly enough, the (former?) Thrillers are working like the heels, bullying Storm, doing a little light illegal double-teaming behind the ref’s back, and keeping him as the guy in peril. Since Tupelo isn’t a fan of people from the United States – especially ones proud to be from somewhere else – this match doesn’t really get the reaction that the work warrants. Storm finally tags out, but Awesome struggles against the (former?) Thrillers until he bails himself out with a springboard back elbow that he practically yells out is coming before the spot actually happens. Shortly after that, the match breaks down and in a stupid spot, Awesome gets whipped into Storm, and Storm blindly rolls through the collision and locks a Canadian Maple Leaf on his own partner. That was just awkward, man. Anyway, shortly after Storm finally realizes his mistake, he is ejected from the ring with extreme prejudice, and Awesome is easy pickings for the champs. A Jungle Kick/Seanton Bomb combo puts him away.

 

• Shawn Stasiak and Mark Jindrak watch this dominating performance on a monitor backstage and try to convince themselves that they’ll be winning the titles at SuperBrawl, but honestly from a kayfabe standpoint, that match made Palumbo and O’Haire look a clear level or two above their former tag partners.

 

• Well, the show stabilized a bit, and I’ll tell you that Palumbo and O’Haire are at the point where they’re a clear and constant positive in-ring and have the ability to go out there and perk up a mediocre show by having a good tag match at will. That makes this Brian Adams/Buff Bagwell match that follows it easier to live with. DDP, Scott Steiner, Chavo, Rey, Awesome, Storm, Palumbo, and O’Haire really saved this show from putting up January of 2000 numbers in the final rating. Buff and Adams have a watchable match even though Buff puts on one of his shitty chinlocks at one point. It’s not as bad as Bam Bam’s chinlocks, but it’s not that far off. Adams makes a comeback after that chinlock, so Lex Luger walks out to help his buddy Buff, but Bryan Clark hops out of the crowd and cuts him off.

 

• Clark and Luger brawl outside the ring while Buff tries to finish off Adams inside the ring. Road Warrior Animal blindsides Clark, which frees Luger up. I’m fairly certain that the timekeeper fucks the finish up by calling for the bell before Luger gets in the ring and causes the DQ; Mickey Jay freezes for what feels like a long second, then points at his watch like there was a time limit on this match. Not the best save – when are there ever time limits on random matches between heavyweights? – but look, you work within the parameters that you have, and WCW’s parameters are often fucked.

 

• CEO Flair is worried about Scott Steiner’s ability to win in tonight's main event, but Scott Steiner isn’t worried. He indicates that he's not worried because of his peaks, but he's also probably not worried because he's got his idiotic brother in his back pocket.

 

• Brian Adams should not be allowed to talk, but alas! Here he is, cutting a bad promo on Totally Buff while Gene Okerlund holds the microphone. Adams challenges Lex Luger to a match on Thunder. OK, sure, that's a suboptimal match, but I can live with it. Maybe Luger will have some funny facial expressions and beg off in a way that makes me chuckle.

 

• Let’s have a Nitro Special of a main event! Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) defends both the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and Ric Flair’s CEO position against Kevin Nash and Rick Steiner. You know the drill: The Steiner Brothers are back together! Again! They beat each other up a bit first to make it look legit or something. I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you immediately backjump Nash if you were in their position? Anyway, Nash looks like he might win it after a Jackknife but Rick Steiner drops an elbow on him as he covers and that's enough for Scott to get the pinfall and Nash challenges them after the match and then DDP walks down with a chair to help attack the heels and WE’RE OUTTA TIME, FOLKS! That sentence reads more breathlessly than I felt as I watched it all unfold.

 

• I wish pro wrestling would put a moratorium on one heavyweight being equal to about three cruiserweights or overly-complicated finishes. This show would have been badly helped by ditching those particular wrestling tropes. 1.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

[Upcoming Video Game Releases (2025 & Beyond)]

The most offensive pricing in the whole presentation was making their tech demo for the console a paid game in a post- "Astro's Playroom as a free PS5 pack-in" world.

[Upcoming Video Game Releases (2025 & Beyond)]

1 hour ago, dogwelder said:

Well about that...

 

So some 'physical' games will really be download only...

That's been true for a while. NBA 2K on Switch, for example, is partial download, and a number of smaller games on cart at retail are keyed to download completely.

 

[Upcoming Video Game Releases (2025 & Beyond)]

1 hour ago, dogwelder said:

So if you don't get the Mario Kart World bundle and want to get it separately, it'll cost you $80.

I'll pay the extra thirty bucks for physical because I prefer it.

Nintendo games hold re-sell value anyway.

[Upcoming Video Game Releases (2025 & Beyond)]

No price info, huh?

People who grew up on N64 are losing their minds over a new 3D Donkey Kong, that is for sure.

[April 2025 Wrestling Discussion]

Watching through these Botchamanias makes me I think I'd like Excalibur, Taz(z), and Tony S. to commentate everything all the time. 

[March 2025 Wrestling Discussion]

2 hours ago, Roman said:

Were those, uh, three different dreams?

Since we're at the end of the month anyway, I will go ahead and suggest that the more pertinent question is whether or not Natural was using the word "fucking" as an interjection or a verb.

[March 2025 Wrestling Discussion]

5 hours ago, SovietShooter said:

Probably something from ECW or WCW featuring two guys not on good terms with WWE.  Like a Taz vs Bigelow match, or something featuring Benoit

 

EDIT: Just doing a quick look thru Meltzer's Five Star list... Fantastics vs Sheepherders from '86 Crockett Cup appears to be the most recent. Everything else WWE owns since then has at least one HOFer. 

 

1 hour ago, Happ Hazzard said:

They are in.

I wonder if there is one in the Meltzer newsletter era, then.

[March 2025 Wrestling Discussion]

I'm surprised that the Bushwhackers aren't in the WWE HoF.

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and forty-six – 31 January 2001

"The WCW Gang attempts to put on a solid show, careens wildly between 'good' and 'kinda stinks,' but is okay in the end"

• The Thunder intro seems a bit different this week, too, maybe?...I think they’ve reshuffled the sequence a bit…There’s no more Tank Abbott or Juventud Guerrera, to be sure, but were they taken out earlier or not?...I think I see more Sean O’Haire in this opening as well, so let’s just call it a reshuffle…

 

• Shane Helms should be in Thunder openers for the rest of WCW’s existence as a Turner entity, in my opinion…His opponent is Billy Kidman (w/Tygress)…We get flashbacks to last week’s Gauntlet Match to show highlights for both men…Note that Kidman knocked Helms out of the match last week…Tony S. mentions a ten-minute time limit almost off-handedly, so I’m guessing that we’re going to get a time-limit draw and a rematch at SuperBrawl...Yeah, Tony S. is now pushing that these two are the next men up for a shot at cruiserweight gold…

 

• Would you believe it, but these fellas have an enjoyable and energetic opener…Helms even takes a bump over the guardrail…Kidman follows with a springboard dive over the rail and onto Helms…Helms reels off a run of offense back in the ring after turning things around with a big knee out of TKO position…Kidman sneaks a schoolboy for two in there, but Helms controls with a front facelock and then a regular old chinlock…Well, they can’t run for ten minutes straight, right?...Helms at least switches it up, moving to a headscissors…I like this way of working rest holds…It reminds me of how Ultimo Dragon would transition from hold to hold because if one wasn’t getting a submission, another might…

 

• Kidman back suplexes his way out of trouble, but eats a shoulderbreaker and is then locked in a weird-looking underhook chicken wing…He fights out of that and trades rights with Helms…After winning that battle, Kidman manages a Sky High for two…Kidman next tries a lariat that initiates a series of counters which finally ends with Helms blocking a superplex and hitting a super front suplex, then diving onto Kidman with a sunset flip that only gets two…Helms, hunting victory, sets Kidman up for a Nightmare on Helms Street, but Kidman twists out of that and reverses into gourdbuster position, which he successfully executes…Kidman attempts a Kid Krusher, but helps reverses into a Vertebreaker that Kidman hops out of…They both hop out of back suplex attempts and end up in the corner after Helms hoists Kidman up top, then uses that leverage to once again put him in Vertebreaker position and this time drop him for three…I really liked this!...I actually sort of wish it did go to time limit, though, as now I wonder what Helms and Kidman will be doing at SuperBrawl…They both need to be on that card…

 

• Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) was barely on Nitro, which I suppose is because they wanted to save an appearance or two for Thunder and not burn the crowd out on him…Steiner runs down Dustin Rhodes’s decision to go against the CEO with a nice line, and I quote: “Dustin Rhodes, Ric Flair made you an offer that quite frankly, I don’t think you deserved. And now that you’ve listened to your father, you have no job, no career, no American Dream”… C’mon, that’s a cold line…Steiner rips up Dustin’s contract to punctuate his point.

 

• After that, Steiner says that Nash looks pretty confident to go against him, but he notes that Sting, Booker, and Sid were all confident before they wrestled him as well…He also claims that Goldberg knew better than to even try to fight him…Steiner is cutting a really good promo right now: “So Kevin Nash, I’m gonna tell you to change your strategy, change your gameplan. Stop thinking about winning and think about surviving”…I mean, it really is too bad that this guy was an incorrigible douche with a lengthy injury history because they needed to rocket him to the top earlier…Yes, I know I’ve said this many times before, but it’s made more apparent with each show…

 

• KroniK interrupts Scott Steiner, and let’s just say that Brian Adams comes up with a response that makes me once again wish someone would stick a manager with these guys to do all the talking…Anyway, they offer a challenge to Steiner, who points out that he has backup with him just as Totally Buff jumps KroniK in the aisle…Rick Steiner wanders onto the ramp to check things out, but Jeff Jarrett sneaks up behind and drills Rick with the ol’ EL KABONG…The heels stand tall…

 

• After a place where ads would normally be, CEO Flair and his elite celebrate their victory in the previous segment…Jarrett thinks that he’s done a job on Rick Steiner that will keep him out of their match later tonight…They all plan to go visit DDP in the county jail after they’re done terrorizing this show…

 

• Spaceman Spiff mentioned that while I shot down (heh, see what I did there, Spaceman Spiff?) that Starrcade 2000 opener, he saw it as a “man, what if” sort of match…I agree completely about that…Shane Helms especially would have been better off in WCW had it kept existing, but Shannon Moore, Jamie (K)noble, and Kaz Hayashi are also “what-ifs” for me…I know that the latter two did some stuff in Ring of Honor and All Japan that people enjoyed, but still…There’s another guy coming to the ring right now who I don’t see as a big “what if,” but whose career really hinged on WCW continuing to exist, and that’s Lash LeRoux…I actually think that the only guy to come out of the Misfits in Action better off than when he went into it is Chavo Jr….It’s especially wild that the MIA was created to get Hugh Morrus over and completely failed to do that…Lash seems completely lost in the shuffle at this point, but who knows how he would have been deployed in Fusient’s WCW...I think there probably would have been a fairly prominent place in the cruiserweight division for him…

 

• As it is right now, Lash is just here to get Twin Magic’d by one or both of the Harris Bros….I don’t get why these two are still on television…One of them talks about having a doctor’s note, and I don’t give a shit…Just hurry up and get this over with…The ref draws an X on one of their hands to keep them separate, but then he drops the marker and the other one gets hold of it…Why is television time being spent on this shit?...Anyway, you know how this ends…It goes on entirely too long before it does, though…There’s an audible BOOOOORING chant for a huge chunk of this segment…It’s not quite bad enough to make a bad list, but the Harris Brothers’ Twin Magic gimmick might just earn itself a spot as a whole if it goes on much longer…

 

• Wow, Gene Okerlund interview segments are allowed on these Network versions of Thunder episodes?...Actually, this is the longest Thunder episode on the Network since maybe November, so maybe they cut out less than they normally have been…Okerlund asks Palumbo and O’Haire why their buddies Stasiak and Jindrak are all aggy…Palumbo thinks that it’s a case of professional jealousy…O’Haire, who is a more than a little goofy in his delivery and needs to be produced by the WWF to come off as threatening rather than somewhat corny, suggests that they have an all-Thrillers tag title match…Mike Sanders views this on a monitor backstage…He looks worried, but CEO Flair walks up to reassure him…The CEO has booked Sanders against Konnan to help train him at getting out of jams by being wily and out-thinking everyone else…

 

• Norman Smiley is another guy who was hurt by WCW going under, though I’m not sure that WCW was ever going to use him well anyway…Maybe he’s better off working as a trainer for the WWF, but we lost out on a lot of awesome Smiley matches…I again apologize for repeating myself, but the WCW World Television Championship was made for a guy like Smiley…I don’t know why Russo was so hellbent on getting rid of that belt…Actually, since it was a belt made for a good worker to have solid ten-minute matches on all the weekly shows, I do know why Russo was so hellbent on getting rid of it, come to think of it further…

 

• Anyway, Smiley gets mauled by Bam Bam Bigelow…Norm desperately wants Glacier to get out here and give him a bit of inspiration…That doesn’t happen, though Norm does manage to dropkick a chair into Bammer’s face…Smiley gets some momentum, but is gently Boss Man Slam’d…Glacier finally walks down the ramp as Bigelow lands a Greetings from Asbury Park and scores a three count…Tony S. is disgusted at the front row fan holding a GLACIER IS MY HERO sign, hahaha…Glacier only hops in the ring after Bigelow is long gone, of course, and then reiterates his continuing support of Smiley before doing his routine while Norm writhes in pain on the mat…

 

• Jeff Jarrett always talks before his matches for reasons that I still can’t quite grasp…He never says anything memorable… Jeff Jarrett “Slapnuts/Slapass” Count: 2…Jarrett wants ref Mickey Jay to count Rick Steiner out if Ricky can’t make it out here for the match, but Steiner doesn’t have a brain to concuss, so he’s out here to wrestle Jarrett before the count of six…Jarrett jumps the elder Steiner as he comes through the ropes, but it’s not enough to stop him from getting worked in an obligabrawl by Ricky…Back in the ring, Jarrett and Steiner proceed to have a decent match…There is, of course, a ref bump when Jarrett nails Jay with a forearm…Shane Douglas tries to interfere, but accidentally hits Jarrett with a chain-assisted punch…Steiner clears out Douglas and puts Jarrett down for the count with a DVD as Jay recovers and counts three…WANT SOME, COME GET SOME, etc., after the match…

 

• Kwee Wee (w/Paisley) beats up jobber Scotty O…Paisley is GORGEOUS tonight…I’m settling down, I promise!...CEO Flair is never going to notice your punk ass, Kwee Wee, so stop trying…Apparently, Scotty O. laughed at Kwee Wee backstage in some cut content because Kwee Wee tells him to try that shit again…Scotty O. does, which brings out Angry Allan to squash him…Scotty gets a boot up on a corner charge in there, but otherwise, he’s cooked…Kwee Wee ends a slightly-too-extended squash with a piledriver that scores a three count…Kwee Wee sure hopes that this performance convinced CEO Flair, but I’m not sure the CEO even knows that this guy exists…

 

• Let’s get some tag action going…The Mamalukes wrestle Chuck Palumbo and Sean O’Haire as Tenay narrates the wrong B-roll footage (it’s supposed to be of last week’s DQ win over Stasiak and Jindrak, but it’s actually of KroniK winning last week’s Thunder main event)…I will say that I agree with whoever posted in this thread that they like Palumbo’s punches…He does throw a sweet right hand…This is a solid match…It goes back and forth, with the current tag champs and the former tag champs trading offense…I don’t know if it was laid out like this on purpose, but the Mamalukes derive their early advantage from dominating with double-team moves, which makes sense since they’ve tagged together longer…I don’t think the champs get a double-team move in until they are able to sneak one behind the ref’s back…

 

• If you take someone by their legs on a leapover and slam them back-first to the mat, is that a spinebuster or a flapjack?...I ask because Palumbo kills a Johnny the Bull leapover in this way…Either way, that move finally puts the Bull in FIP jail…Not for long, though!...The Bull quickly works out of a sleeper with a back suplex and scores a hot tag…Vito reels off a series of moves on the champs…I’d say the match breaks down, but it never exactly gets back into order after the hot tag…The Bull and O’Haire brawl at ringside while Vito drops a Savage Elbow on Palumbo for two…Vito tries to follow up with a Mafia Kick, but Palumbo ducks it and drills Vito with a Jungle Kick…O’Haire has dispatched of the Bull in the meantime…He’s able to leap to the top rope and follow with a Seanton Bomb on Vito, then cover for three...That was a good time…

 

• After the bout, here come Shawn Stasiak and Mark Jindrak…Stasiak mockingly congratulates the winners before claiming that they deserve a title shot on account of having carried their former partners to gold in the past…These teams proceed to be awful at working a mic, but look, it’s okay…The point is that the tag title challenge is made for SuperBrawl…Stasiak and Jindrak pretend to walk away, but everyone sort of fucks up the spot, so they telegraph that they’re going to jump them before they’re actually supposed to…Anyway, the champs deposit the challengers outside the ring with extreme prejudice…

 

• We missed something because Konnan (w/Tygress) is supposed to be wrestling Mike Sanders, but Tony S. intimates that Sanders won’t be in this match…Konnan informs us via his opening mic work that Sanders outsourced his in-ring work to Reno at some point earlier tonight…If you want to know how this match is going, just imagine Konnan and Reno doing V E R Y S L O W mat work to start…That’s pretty much an indicator for this whole deal…Konnan is V E R Y S L O W and A W K W A R D, which puts a hard cap on this match…At least it’s short…Konnan wins it with a Tequila Sunrise…Mike Sanders walks out to the top of the ramp and draws Konnan’s attention…Reno tapped out immediately for the purpose of jumping Konnan and hitting a Roll of the Dice…Uh, okay…Losing a match is apparently how to be the NEW DIRTIEST PLAYER IN THE GAME in Sanders’s mind, I guess…

 

• This week in stuff the morons at the WWE Network cut from this episode of Thunder: Even before the opening montage, the Cat gives Rick Steiner another U.S. Championship shot at SuperBrawl, but he asks Steiner to keep it on the down low…I mean, CEO Flair can just watch a recording of this show and find out about it, but whatever…Scotty O. insults Kwee Wee and is in turn challenged to a match later in the show…CEO Flair’s Elite (minus Totally Buff) leaves for a trip to the local jail…Mike Sanders switches up the participants in the Konnan bout…

 

• Totally Buff meets KroniK in tonight’s main event…This is very brief because we still have that jailhouse segment to get to…Basically, KroniK tosses Bagwell around (Buff, after taking a gutbuster: AWWWW SHIIIIT)…Luger doesn’t fare much better until Buff is able to help out with a bit of light cheating from his spot on the apron…Bryan Clark does a bit of selling while in peril, but that comes to an end pretty quickly…Adams gets a hot tag, and eventually he and Clark set up Luger for a High Times…Buff clips Adams’s knee…Luger and Clark fight along the railing, but Road Warrior Animal has actually stuck around and hits Clark with a chair from a spot in the crowd…Adams is left alone to try and survive, but he can’t hang on long enough for Clark to make it back to the ring…Buff manages to land a Blockbuster and score three…

 

• We end Thunder with our little jailhouse visit…DDP has already made bail, so Scotty Steiner threatens to beat the cop at the front desk with a lead pipe…The heels go check out the cell…Page left a note behind to mock Jarrett…Of course, another cop comes up and slams the door on all of them, telling them that they’ll need good lawyers…I mean, this was hokey as hell, but at least a babyface got one over on the heels to end the show…

 

• This was one of the more uneven Thunders lately, but it was still generally easy to watch…WOO…

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Where was Hawk this whole time? Rehab? 

At home with a heart issue until later in 2001, based on what I can tell. 

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

Show #275 – 29 January 2001

"The one that wisely brings the eternal Dusty/Flair feud into a new millennium"

• They have switched up some of this Nitro intro as we head out of January, including more Sean O’Haire and a lot more Crowbar, if I’m seeing right.

 

• I see that I was wrong a few reviews ago: Tom Brady and the Patriots won next year – right, that was the 9/11 season – and oh yeah, Trent Dilfer was carried by his elite defense headed by Ray Lewis and Ed Reed to a Super Bowl victory to cap off the 2000/01 NFL season. We’re in Baltimore tonight, and it's almost needless to say that there are quite a few Ravens jerseys visible in the crowd pan.

 

• Jamie (K)noble wrestles Shannon Moore, Elix Skipper, and Jimmy Yang (w/Leia Meow) in a Four Corners match, which would be good except that there are tags, which makes it bad. My enthusiasm for this bout has been dampened. Everyone does many dives and counters to start, but man, I don’t get why WCW had three hot Four Corners bouts in the spring of 1999 in which all four men were legal at the same time from the jump and then went away from that style of Four Corners bout again. Who is even legal now? All four men are in the ring and attempting pinfalls that are being legally counted.

 

• Shannon Moore fucks up a spot while trying to use Skipper as a step stool, so he makes up for it by taking a mean back bump all the way to the floor. That sets off another round of dives to the floor. Baltimore, feeling themselves, chants NEW YORK SUCKS. This show actually could use Vince Russo, who I’d hope would have the wherewithal to tell this crowd that he doesn’t care about the Super Bowl because he’s a Jets fan anyways. Wait, what am I saying; this show couldn’t use Vince Russo at all. No wrestling show could.

 

• Meanwhile, the rules of this match that were set out at the start don’t matter anymore. Shannon Moore lands a Super Showstopper on Noble while Skipper and Yang are indisposed at ringside; that move gets three. That was a nice, mindless MOVEZ exhibition to start this show.

 

• CEO Ric Flair and Road Warrior Animal are here for the CEO’s weekly proclamation. The CEO tries to show the camera the Armani label on his tie before he gets in the ring and attempts to heel on the Ravens. It’s weak heeling. He finally moves on to complaining about Commissioner Cat; he’s going to send opponent after opponent after the Cat in matches for the commissionership, which honestly, I almost hope the Cat loses because they need to retire that position already.

 

• The CEO moves on and, can you believe this, pillories Nash and Page for being hungover and maybe even still a bit drunk at Thunder. Now, that’s heel hypocrisy! He shows selective footage of Page and Nash laid out last week on the TurnerTron, which he pretends is proof of his accusation. CEO Flair feels that this sort of behavior is a demerit against Nash’s status as a number one contender, so he books the big man against Totally Buff in a handicap match to keep that number one contender’s position; any interference on Nash’s behalf, the CEO declares, will lose him that title shot. We cut to Nash tossing stuff around in anger in his dressing room.

 

• Finally, Flair addresses a WCW contract that he’s been holding the whole promo. He says that he’s going to offer someone an important opportunity to join his team, but he doesn’t say who that person will be; instead, he heads back down the ramp and to his office, WOOing and claiming that he will sleep with many of the mothers of the fans in this crowd all the while.

 

• Promo: SuperBrawl: Revenge is coming, and it’s probably going to be pretty good!

 

• Bischoff really settled on Tony S. and Scott Hudson as his Nitro team going forward in the short term? Insanity. This is a mediocre team on its best day [EDITOR'S NOTE: Hudson was flat-out awful all night once again in my humble opinion]. Tony S./Tenay is somewhat better on commentary over on Thunder, but I would hope-slash-assume that Bischoff was planning on Tony S./ almost anyone else for the Nitro reboot that he was planning.

 

• Jeff Jarrett does a classic Aaron Sorkin-style walk-‘n-talk with CEO Flair and Road Warrior Animal; he wants DDP on Nitro tonight, but CEO Flair wants him to wait for the PPV. Jarrett is an irritable guy though, so he refuses.

 

• Some unconvincing WCW tech awkwardly bumps into Midajah and even more awkwardly checks on her just so that Scott Steiner can do his shitty leg breaking maneuver with the pipe. The tech, woodenly: AW, MY LEG. Let’s stop it with the bad pipe leg breaking deal, WCW creative team. It’s not working for me.

 

• Commissioner Cat (w/Ms. Jones) defends his commissionership next; why wouldn’t he use the power of his commissionership to alter the match rules as he goes along to counter CEO Flair? Oh, here we go, he gets on the mic and says that if anyone comes out here along with his opponent, they’re suspended for thirty days. OK, that’s fine, I guess, but the issue is that CEO Flair would immediately reverse that suspension after the Cat lost. Sean Stasiak comes out here with Mark Jindrak; Stasiak is allowed to talk for some reason; he's the Cat's opponent and says that when he becomes commissioner after winning this match, he’s giving himself and Jindrak – who “carried those damn teams anyway” – a tag title shot at SuperBrawl. Boy, this is a sudden breakup of the Thrillers, which is a shame. They’ve been together long enough that something more long-term in the build to the breakup was probably needed.

 

• As Stasiak tries to get the catchphrase AW, DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT over, you and I both know that shit would never have happened even if WCW stuck around for a million billion years. Ms. Jones gets so agitated by his shitty stick work that she kicks him right in the head; the bell rings, and we cut to a monitor, where an unhappy Palumbo and O’Haire are annoyed with Stasiak’s pre-match boasting. As for this match, it’s Stasiak/Cat, so it’s not good or anything, but they try hard, have an entertaining obligabrawl with a couple of spots around the commentary table, and then work a solid finishing run. There are a couple of close two-counts, the Cat stuffing a sunset flip with a hip swivel and a chop, and a Stasiak counter of a Feliner with a nice lariat. Can Stasiak actually put the Cat away and become commissioner? No. He whiffs on a senton splash from the top and gets drilled with a Feliner for three. I mean, maybe it was kinda good, actually? I enjoyed it well enough, at least.

 

• Bumper: Nash vs. Totally Buff, later tonight and a Randy Savage sighting in a Slim Jim commercial.

 

• Hugh Morrus jumps THE WALL, BROTHER as TW,B stands sentinel outside Chavo Jr.’s locker room. He tosses TW,B right through the door itself, cracking it into splinters, and laughs maniacally as he leaves. Chavo Jr. hears the noise and finds his bodyguard decimated. Well, not literally. He hasn’t lost ten percent of his bodily functionality. But you know what I mean.

 

• Supreme toady Mike Sanders tells Crowbar that he’s blown his chances to join the CEO’s elite team so far, but Sanders has gotten one more chance for Crowbar to impress the elite: a match against Lance Storm.

 

• Earlier today: DDP has an autograph signing for his book, and in his WCW debut, AJ Styles DESPERATELY wants to skip to the front of the line. Acting like a dopey frat boy sure does come easily to ol' AJ. Styles tangles with another person in line - Air Paris, I’m thinking, though it’s kinda hard to see his face - but it’s a whole insurance fraud sort of deal where the presumed Paris takes a dive when Page comes over to break things up. Styles loudly claims that Page punched Paris. OK, sure, let’s see where this goes.

 

• The guy CEO Flair signed to that contract shows up, but we cut to break before we can see him. When we come back, Chavo Jr. freaks out about not having a tag partner now that THE WALL, BROTHER is incapacitated, but Totally Buff try to settle the guy down. They tell him that they have a partner for him and that he just needs to trust them. If I’ve learned anything from Jake Roberts, whenever a wrestler tells you to trust them (whether as a shoot or in kayfabe), you probably should do the opposite [EDITOR'S NOTE: "Probably" does not mean "definitely!"].

 

• As Gene Okerlund opens his interview with Jeff Jarrett, he reminds Jarrett that CEO Flair has warned Jarrett away from DDP until SuperBrawl. Jarrett blows off Gene's concern trolling and then challenges Page to a fight in the middle of the ring tonight.

 

• Billy Kidman and Rey Misterio Jr. (w/Tygress) walk the ramp to face Chavo Guerrero Jr. and someone. Who might that someone be? It turns out to be Road Warrior Animal, actually, which surprises me. Flair's elite didn’t screw over Chavo. Chavo, upon finding out who his partner is, goes from nervous to thrilled in the space of a couple seconds.

 

• Still, these are the former WCW World Tag Team Champs in the other corner. They are a formidable foe, and they get off to a quick start against Chavo Jr., culminating in a Misterio springboard legdrop for two. Chavo reverses a whip into the corner and tries to slow things down, but he soon finds himself pancaked, baseball slid right in the groin, and hit with a Bronco Buster.

 

• Chavo is in deep trouble; he tries to slow Kidman with chops and European uppercuts, but he runs again, eats a Kidman lariat, and then has to kick out at two after Misterio tags in and immediately scores an Asai moonsault. Discretion is the better part of valor, it finally dawns on Chavo, and he does the Eddy knee scootch over to Animal to hug his leg and get a tag.

 

• Now, look, Animal killing these smaller dudes is necessary considering Animal’s role as the heavy in this angle, and Rey and Kidman do some excellent bumping for him, but he should have a bit more trouble with the former tag champs, though they do double up on him, take out his knees, and land a double dropkick to his head. Animal survives that, dispatches of Kidman, and counters a Rey springboard rana attempt with a sitout powerbomb. All that’s left is for him to tag Chavo back in so that Chavo can get an easy three count. That match was fun as hell, I must say. I think this counts as a WCW-ass WCW matchup, too, so it sits right in the center of that awesome Venn diagram that charts good matches and WCW-ass WCW matchups.

 

• Outro tease: Who will sign with CEO Ric Flair's elite group?

 

• Outro reminder: CEO Flair has stacked the deck against Kevin Nash…again. I see that Bischoff being back in charge of these shows has led to all these outros and bumpers coming back. Bisch really liked using them in 1995 and then updated them and put them back in the rotation in 1999 when they changed to the new logo and set, so I’m not surprised that they’re back once more.

 

• CEO Ric Flair (sans Road Warrior Animal) re-enters the ring to unveil the CEO's new signing. Speaking of Road Warrior Animal, after his reveal at Sin, my expectations are extremely low. But wait! CEO Flair leapt right over that low bar by bringing out Dustin Rhodes! Well, I know that Rhodes and Flair end up feuding, so this alliance won’t last long. Our crooked CEO harasses Scott Hudson for a pen while Rhodes peruses the contract and endures a few GOOOOOOOOOLDUST chants. Maybe those chants put him in a bad mood because he informs the CEO that he thinks the CEO is an unworthy partner, much as his father does.

 

• The CEO suggests that Rhodes leave the ring immediately rather than put hands on him, which of course leads Rhodes to put hands on him. CEO Flair is like, Unhand me, you brute, and Dustin is like, Nay, I shall give you quite the beating, and then here is Road Warrior Animal. Hey, Animal is using Vince Russo’s theme, I just noticed, as he runs to the ring and brawls with Rhodes. Eventually, the numbers game gets to Dustin, but he actually fights back and turns the tide before Animal is able to punt him low. The heels start putting in work on Dustin until papa Dusty Rhodes comes to the ring for the save (and gets a very nice babyface pop besides).

 

• I remember some of the online discourse at the time lamenting another Dusty/Flair feud in 2001, but I think this is a poetic feud upon which to wrap up WCW’s existence, and I both enjoyed it on original run and am looking forward to watching it again now. Dusty winds up Bionic Elbows for everyone’s heads while the crowd chants DUSTY DUSTY DUSTY. I wonder if Dusty remembers that when Ric Flair was WCW President rather than WCW CEO, Flair (allegedly) promised him a lead commentary position and then failed to come through on that promise in storyline.

 

• Baltimore thinks that RIC FLAIR SUCKS as Flair throws a conniption outside the ring. Dusty says that this feud AIN’T ABOUT [HIM], so I guess he won't be referring to his beef with Ric in '99. Dusty instead indicates that Dustin has been sidelined by the same WCW brass that CEO Flair is buddies with and warns the CEO that the new ownership isn’t going to be having any of that “holding the Rhodes Family back” stuff. He also goes against Eric Bischoff’s directive and drops a cuss when talking about kicking CEO Flair’s ass in Baltimore throughout the ‘80s. Baltimore loves the hell out of Dusty, who is a walking charisma machine. The heels hit the ring again after Dusty dresses them down, and the heels get their asses beat again. That segment ruled. Say what you will about Dusty and Ric, but they can still talk, and when they turn it on even a little bit on the mic, they are compelling.

 

• Bumper: More Nash/Totally Buff hype.

 

• Lance Storm (w/Team Canada) gives the office of World Championship Wrestling’s CEO his full support. Then, he stands at attention for the Canadian National Anthem, which Crowbar (w/Daffney) figures is a good time to get the jump on him. Alas, the bell has not yet rung, so Mike Awesome and Elix Skipper stomp him out and Storm doesn’t get disqualified for it. Once the bell actually rings, Crowbar and Storm proceed to have a fun little bout. This contest seesaws back and forth; the end comes after a fairly lengthy display of counter wrestling for television. Both men counter into and out of Tombstone piledriver attempts and Crowbar ends that exchange of counters with a reverse DDT. This gets a close two count, as does Crowbar’s follow-up back elbow and springboard splash/springboard moonsault combo. Crowbar is on the hunt for a big win; he even drops that running apron splash to the floor which has to have destroyed his knees by now.

 

• Back in the ring, Crowbar stuffs Storm's attempt at multiple Germans and then looks for a super Frankensteiner that is countered (in a fairly ugly spot) into a Canadian Maple Leaf that induces a Crowbar tap out. Ending aside, that was fun stuff.

 

• Outro bumper: You can probably guess what’s being hyped for later tonight by now.

 

• CEO Ric Flair wants Lance Storm, after that showing, to wrestle the Cat for the position of WCW Commissioner at SuperBrawl. Storm agrees, pleasing the CEO, but that pleasure turns to consternation when Jeff Jarrett walks by and shares his determination to confront DDP tonight no matter that CEO Flair wishes otherwise.

 

• Here is Jeff Jarrett now! I’m looking forward to Jarrett/Page, which will probably get about fifteen minutes at SuperBrawl and almost guarantees to be good. However, Jarrett as a character is just so lost in this WCW run. It’s funny that he looked more like a guy who might belong in WCW’s main event in 1997 than he has at any point since he came back to be cemented into that position in 1999. Anyway, Page comes down, but some cops cut him off and cuff him, which explains the whole setup that Styles and Paris were in on earlier. Air Paris is pressing charges, y’all! Jarrett demands that the ref count Page out as the cops lead Page to the county jail.

 

• Moments ago: CEO Flair loves the inequitable policing system that is taking DDP to jail for no fucking reason, just like a true heel. 

 

• HAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Shane Douglas has to defend the WCW United States Championship against Rick Steiner tonight. The Cat apparently booked this match, and CEO Flair probably still hates Douglas deep down, so this match stands! Douglas tries to insult the Ravens, but he can’t effectively heel on a team that just won, you know, the fucking Super Bowl, so his heeling falls flat. Wait, hold on, CEO Flair apparently changed this to a non-title match. Remember how the United States Championship was the least badly booked WCW title in 2000? Well, it’s ending its run in WCW proper (I don’t count the WWF Invasion version) like so: Hugh Morrus > Shane Douglas > Rick Steiner > Booker T., with three title swaps in three months. Bless your hearts, WCW bookers.

 

• Rick Steiner walks down here and beats unholy hell out of Douglas. Douglas gains control on an ugly counter inverted atomic drop spot in which he pushed the ref in the way of Rick Steiner to delay Steiner’s dive. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy isn’t this a DQ? They soon fuck up another spot, this time a simple hip toss. Shane Douglas sucks, man. He’s just awful. I don’t see how that second one was Rick Steiner’s fault at all. The earlier spot just seemed like everyone was slightly off.

 

• This match is too long. That’s really the issue here. Ricky kicks out of a Pittsburgh Plunge and counters a chain-assisted haymaker with a Steinerline and a diving bulldog for, uh, 2.9. Why are we wasting a kickout on that move, which has been treated like death, on Shane Douglas of all people? Ricky Steiner follows up with a Death Valley Driver (no VR) for three, and no, I am not calling it a Steiner Driver no matter how much you insist upon it, Tony S. and Hudson. Steiner plays call-and-response with the crowd after the match.

 

• Outro bumper: It’s almost time for the main event!

 

• It’s time for the main event! Totally Buff duels Kevin Nash, with Nash’s title shot at SuperBrawl on the line. I forgot to mention earlier that Totally Buff were wearing Ravens jerseys when they were talking to Chavo Jr. backstage, and they come out here in those jerseys, waving Baltimore Ravens pennants. Lex Luger finally heels on Baltimore's football team properly by passionately arguing that actually the Cleveland Browns won that Super Bowl and that the Colts left town in the first place because Baltimore sucks. Then, he points out that Ray Lewis stabbed a dude to death and shouldn’t have even been able to anchor that championship defense from his home in Cell Block D (true, actually). The Ravens’ Special Teams Coach comes over the railing to confront the heels, but he doesn’t even get on the apron and throw a punch. Finally, a heel actually managed to tick off the crowd by effectively insulting their championship team tonight!

 

• By the way, these fellas are complete idiots in the best of ways. Luger: “I’m the Total Package!” Buff: “And I’m Buff!” Luger: “And that’s why we’re called…” Buff, with a stupid look on his face: “TOTALLY…BUFF! **cackles like a dipshit**” Apart from a short period of time right after he injured his neck, Buff should never have been anything but a heel past 1996.

 

• After ads, Kevin Nash walks out for this six-minute Nitro Special. It’s not a great match, nor does it need to be. It’s just a short match for Nash to endure punishment and overcome it so that he looks like a threat against Scott Steiner. In fact, Nash avoids a Luger Torture Rack, makes a comeback, and hits Luger with Snake Eyes and a Jackknife. He covers, but Buff Bagwell hits a double-arm DDT on the ref. A new ref comes to the ring, which is good for Nash. On the other hand, Alex Wright is the ref, which is bad for Nash.

 

• Wright refuses to count to three and then attacks Nash, but Nash is able to fight him off, dump Luger to ringside, and Jackknife Buff for three. The Cat runs to the ring, having wisely assigned himself as a backup ref, and counts one…two…and Alex Wright yanks him out of the ring. The Cat quickly tosses Wright into the guardrail, then slides right back into the ring and completes the three count. Pretty good gagaful finish, and if Nash is going to kill off dudes in a one-on-two, Buff and Luger are the right guys to kill off. Nash hits a Scott Hall catchphrase to celebrate after the match and then calls out Scott Steiner for a show-ending brawl that we don’t even get to see as the show fades to black, dammit!

 

• I wish WCW could have stayed in a Fusient-might-acquire-us holding pattern for a full 2001/2002 season of Nitro on TBS. It might have all fallen apart at some point, but Bischoff overseeing this show again with a fresh look at the television and a clear direction for Nitro's production and presentation and giving generally solid directions to the creative team – establish the cruiserweight division again, mix legends into midcard angles for the older fans in our audience alongside some of the newer faces that are to be pushed – makes for a decent show. The problem is that if Fusient had bought the company and Kellner had given Nitro a spot on TBS for a year to see if it was worth keeping the show for the longer term, Bischoff would surely have brought his old buddy Hulk Hogan back and ruined this very nice moment that WCW is having right now. 3 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

[Smelly watches every Nitro-era Nitro, Thunder, Clash, and PPV while sitting and sometimes maybe standing]

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and forty-five – 24 January 2001

"The WCW Gang is adept at building threats again"

• A Peacock glitch keeps kicking me back to the page full of 2000 WCW shows on both Nitro and Thunder’s landing pages…Even this app doesn’t want it to end…Let’s Thunder, folks…

 

• After our opening, Tony S. welcomes us to another Wednesday night of wrestling on TBS…Wait, is this 2001 or 2025?...Anyway, I guess the “Stevie Ray on commentary” experiment is over, and WCW is worse off for it…

 

• Ooh, a Shane Helms/Elix Skipper opener!...No, wait, this is a Gauntlet Match for number one contendership for the cruiserweight title…BOOOO, maybe? [Editor's note: No, it's YAAAAAY]...Helms and Skipper start, and after one is pinned or submits, another contender comes out and takes his place…Skipper and Helms work at the speed of the WWF Royal Rumble game built on NAOMI for arcades and a faithful Dreamcast port…I just wanted to see these two wrestle each other for ten minutes…Helms twists away from a Play of the Day attempt and hoists Skipper up for a vertebreaker that gets three…

 

• Evan Karagias is the next guy out…Helms knows that he needs to end it early, so he immediately scores a Vertebreaker for three after Karagias misses a crossbody…Billy Kidman is our next competitor…Helms and Kidman work a series of quick counters…Kidman escapes a Nightmare on Helms Street and gets two on a Sky High…Helms hits an X-Plex (bridging German with arm trap) for two…Kidman and Helms do nice work to reverse into and out of a Kid Krusher > Vertebreaker > Kid Krusher finish that moves Billy Kidman into a match against Jimmy Yang (w/Leia Meow) after a ghost commercial break…

 

• This has been pretty enjoyable stuff. I am surprised that Helms isn’t getting a return match against Chavo Jr. at SuperBrawl, though…My memory had them feuding for three months straight, not off and on for three months…What I liked about Helms’s run in this match is that he looked like a threat and really established that Vertebreaker…If I were booking this, I might have flip-flopped Yang and Kidman and had Helms beat Yang with one of the secondary finishers that he’s trying to establish before eating a pinfall…

 

• Yang trips Kidman and drives his head into the buckles, giving him control, but Kidman turns things around with a double-underhook sit-out facebuster…They trade close two counts and a series of counters…All of these matches would be interesting ten or fifteen minute matches…The cruiserweight division looks interesting for the first time in a long time…After a struggle on the top rope, Kidman hooks Yang and drops a Super Kid Krusher for three…

 

• Jamie (K)noble rushes down the aisle and immediately unloads on Kidman scoring a couple of two counts, but Kidman manages to land a gourdbuster after flipping behind Noble on a slam attempt. Kidman goes up, but Noble is simply too fresh…He quickly recovers, catches Kidman, and lands a Super Frankensteiner for two…They do a fun as hell reversal sequence around swapping in and out of Kid Krushers and jumping Tombstones before Noble wins that battle and lands one of the latter for three…Rey Misterio Jr. (w/Tygress) is the next man out…There are ten men in this thing, by the way…I think Rey is number seven, and I fully expect him to make it to the end, at least…The ace of this division drops Noble with a bulldog and hits a springboard diving headbutt to cap things off and win a pinfall…

 

• Alright, I can confirm that I very much like this match…Lash LeRoux is next out, but he doesn’t last long…Rey puts him away with a split-legged moonsault before Mike Tenay can even hype a potential Chavo Jr./Lash grudge match…Here’s Shannon Moore…We’re at nine right now, so there should be one more cruiserweight left after we get a pinfall here…Rey, as the ace of this division, counters a Shannon Moore dropdown attempt and leaps on top of Moore, bridging over for three..

 

• OK, so Kaz Hayashi is the last man out…Kaz buries Rey with a spinning sitout powerbomb for two, but Rey uses his pace against him…He induces Kaz to charge and then dodges...Kaz wraps his shoulder around a post; then, Rey sits Kaz up top and lands a super bulldog for three…This was a really well-booked scramble that accomplished a number of things…It showcased this diverse group of cruisers, established a pecking order, and got a couple of midcarders who they might want to push more later on some shine (Helms winning two straight matchups, Noble getting a pinfall on Kidman and having that be treated like a big deal at the desk)…This is the type of thing that helps people remember this final era of WCW fondly…They’re actually bringing structure and coherence to this division, which we haven’t really had since Nash was put in charge of the booking…

 

• Glacier is here to help Norman Smiley find his way in WCW again!...Glacier: “Norman, always remember – I WILL WATCH YOUR BACK”…I was a teenager when I originally saw this, so I will respond to Glacier’s proclamation while watching it here in 2025 by using the colloquialisms of today’s teens: That’s straight cap…Glacier’s cappin’…

 

• The Cat and Ms. Jones enter the ring to discuss how he is (kayfabe) building the SuperBrawl card, which honestly sounds (shoot) awesome: Scott Steiner vs. Kevin Nash, Jeff Jarrett vs. DDP, and Chavo Guerrero Jr. vs. Rey Misterio Jr….For tonight’s show, the Cat books Jarrett against Hugh Morrus and Steiner/Road Warrior Animal vs. KroniK…The Cat is so proud of the cards that he’s booking that he dances before leaving…We cut to CEO Ric Flair’s office backstage, where he tells everyone in his Elit not to worry because they have a master plan to counter the Cat’s booking…Someone sticks a middle finger right in the camera as the segment ends…

 

• OK, I think I hazily recall watching this Thunder on original run now…That Gauntlet Match seemed vaguely familiar as I watched through it, and I definitely remember this Norman Smiley match against Mike Awesome (w/Major Gunns)…Smiley has enough confidence to dance right in front of Awesome, whose face shows consternation before he just decides to lariat this guy…Norm basically gets rolled out here…Awesome lands a bunch of aesthetically pleasing offense, but cannot put Smiley away…Awesome pelts Smiley with punches, but here’s Glacier to watch Norm’s back!...

 

• Norm gets so excited to see Glacier that he forgets that Awesome is behind him…Awesome lands a huge release German…Glacier is too busy slapping hands and taking pictures at ringside to even notice that Norm is getting his ass whipped in there…Awesome tosses Norm to the floor right at Glacier’s feet, but Glacier is waving at a few fans and doesn’t notice…I mean, I love this dumb angle…Glacier is busy shaking hands with Tenay and Tony S. while Norm fights for his life...Norm is again distracted as he begs Glacier for help, so Awesome simply plants himself up top, drops a diving lariat, and then scores an Awesome Bomb for three…

 

• After the match, as Awesome is all the way back up the ramp, Glacier jumps in the ring and strikes a battle pose…He’s all like YEAH, YOU BETTER RUN…Then, he congratulates himself for watching Norm’s back and does his whole kata routine, I think is what you call it…Smiley tries to get Glacier to help him up, but Glacier shoves him away so that he can continue his routine…I don’t care what anyone says…I unabashedly love this soon-to-be-aborted angle…

 

• Totally Buff runs down Crowbar for losing to Chavo Jr….That’s not elite, dammit!...But they offer Crowbar one more chance tonight…They encourage him as he walks off, then immediately shit-talk him as he leaves…Luger is not a fan of Crowbar’s look, which is almost needless to say…

 

• Alright, we have Kwee Wee and not Angry Allan tonight…He’s all lovey-dovey with Paisley…Kwee Wee still wants to be part of CEO Flair’s Elite…He offers an open challengeanyone in the audience…Some plant in a Goldberg shirt wants to take the challenge…Kwee Wee goes all Angry Allan and beats the shit out of this fan while Paisley pleads for him to stop…I don’t think this fella's character work is quite good enough to pull off the dissociative identity disorder gimmick…I don’t hate the idea itself, but it’s not right for him as a performer…I don’t buy it when his personality changes at all…

 

• Next up: Jeff Jarrett KABONGs Hugh Morrus, probably, which is going to give the big guy another (kayfabe, this time) concussion…Tony S. teases the unnamed Eric Bischoff’s plans on commentary by asking no one in particular what the new ownership thinks about all the KABONGINGs and then musing on what they must think about this Goldberg forced retirement deal…Maybe they might want to address that issue, Tony S. ponders...Meanwhile, Jarrett cuts a mediocre promo before the mach…Apparently, in stuff we missed on his show, Morrus attacked Jarrett backstage…We’ll collect any and all cuts together in a list later on in this review…

 

• This match is a cromulent televised bout…Morrus takes advantage early, so Jarrett baits him into an obligabrawl outside the ring…Jarrett kicks his ass, even jabbing him in the ribs with a chair...Jarrett continues his assault inside the ring, stuffing a couple of Morrus comeback attempts with quick counterattacks…Morrus gets a boot up on a diving fist and finally gets a comeback to stick…He goes up and drops an elbow as THE WALL, BROTHER sneaks his way down to the ringside area…TW,B tries another chokeslam as Morrus goes up for a No Laughing Matter, but Morrus blocks it…However, he doesn’t block a chokeslam that the ref doesn’t see because he's wrenching Jarrett’s guitar away from him…Jarrett’s like, OK, fine, ref, I’ll put down the guitar; you’ve convinced me that this is wrong and an unsporting thing to smash my opponent with, then simply walks over and drills a down-and-out Morrus with a Stroke for three…The heels prepare a Morrus KABONGing, but DDP runs in from the crowd and makes the save…Aw, I wanted to see Morrus get KABONG’d, dammit!...

 

• There’s a Tenay interview that addresses Sid’s injury that I bet the morons at the WWE Network cut from this Thunder of episode…I am interested in that…Crowbar (w/Daffney) wrestles Da/oR (w/Ra/oD)…You can guess what happens in this match…Wait, before the match…Daffney: *screams into a (broken, or the spot would have been even better) megaphone*…Ra/oD: *walks over to rip that megaphone out of her hand and stomp on it*…Daffney: *screams even louder, runs away*…My comparatively dull description doesn’t do justice how funny I found that little spot…Daffney does her little call-and-response spot where she screams at the crowd and the kids in the crowd scream back…I just really like Daffney…She’s a fun character…Oh yeah, the match…Crowbar gets killed, makes a comeback, gets Twin Magic’d, takes the L…Just as you probably guessed…

 

• Here is Bam Bam Bigelow for a match against Rick Steiner…Ugh…Honestly, this is fine for what it is…It’s not good, but Steiner throws a mean forearm in there…Bigelow sells the shot throughout the match, though he probably doesn’t need to sell it all that much…OK, there’s a neat spot where Steiner hoists Bigelow into an overhead suplex…Yeah, this match is just fine and didn’t deserve my initial ugh reaction…Steiner eventually finishes Bammer with a couple of DDTs and a diving bulldog from the top…He threatens CEO Flair after the match…

 

• The heels come out of a dressing room, having given someone the business…When the Cat walks up to see what’s going on, CEO Flair pretends to mollify him…While he’s pretending to do that, he slips some brass knucks on and sucker punches the Cat…The camera shows us that the Insiders have been laid out…After a ghost break, Rick Steiner and KroniK are checking on the Insiders…Steiner tells KroniK to go to the ring for their main event, and he’ll watch over the fallen Insiders…KroniK leaves, and that’s when Shane Douglas pops in and hits a chain-assisted rabbit punch on Steiner…

 

• This week in stuff the morons at the WWE Network cut from this episode of Thunder: Jeff Jarrett makes fun of Hugh Morrus for being a sad sack fruit booty; Morrus responds by attacking Jarrett…Shane Douglas asks Bam Bam Bigelow to take Rick Steiner down, saying that he’ll put in a good word for Bammer with CEO Flair if Bammer pulls it off…Gene Okerlund interviews a delusional Glacier and his “deserves better even though this is a funny angle” sidekick Norman Smiley…KroniK tells Gene Okerlund that they’ve got their own elite running buddies and are joined by Kevin Nash and DDP…Rick Steiner promises Bigelow a beating in an interview with Okerlund…The Sid medical segment happens; Tenay interviews Sid’s doctor…I’m still sad that Sid is done in big-time wrestling as a result of this injury and WCW’s death…

 

• Alright, our Thunder main event pits Scott Steiner and Road Warrior Animal against KroniK…Steiner gets a mic before the match and laments KroniK’s choice to align with the Cat over aligning with both he and CEO Flair…Then, he promises to put Kevin Nash out of wrestling at SuperBrawl…This is your typical WCW major TV show main event…I do like that Clark hits his apron senton and takes out both Steiner and Animal…That’s a lot of meaty men crashing into one another on that spot…There’s some good work in here, especially between Steiner and Clark…They do a neat Meltdown > overhead suplex reversal spot…Clark does hit a Meltdown on Animal, but Steiner makes the save on the cover…I feel like this match, and what Steiner has given to KroniK during it, has made KroniK legit look like they’re at that upper level more than any of the midcarder squashes they’ve done…Totally Buff and the Cat run down…I don’t love that Animal elbows his way out of a High Times, but whatever, you’ve got to make him seem capable and not like a face-painted Virgil…Scotty is distracted by attacking the Cat outside the ring, so he can’t save his tag partner when KroniK traps Animal again and completes a High Times the second time around that gets three…However, the numbers are not on the babyfaces’ side, and they’re destroyed by the heels after the match…

 

• This was another breezy show that actually accomplished building guys as threats…(K)noble, Helms, and KroniK all came out of this show looking stronger…I genuinely enjoyed it, with my only complaint being that Chavo Jr. didn’t get booked…WOOOOO…

[2025 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD]

I just want a new 2D Rayman. Or a new 3D one. Go ask Nintendo to help you fund one, Guillermot.