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

[Curt McGirt]

LU is actually replaying on some channel on Dish weekends, unfortunately every time I check on it they're on season 4. 

[SirSmUgly]

Show #257 – 11 September 2000

"The one with your typical wrestling wedding that of course goes off without a single hitch as they always do"

• Dopey David Flair is met by Crowbar as Dave steps out of his limo. Crowbar's wearing a tuxedo tee with the sleeves ripped. Will no one listen to my pleas and push this guy already?! Crowbar wants to put all his beef with Dave behind him and is happy for Dave’s impending marriage. Aw, these two dudes bro-hug it out. I love that for them, man.

 

• Daffney and Crowbar Lite are also here to congratulate Dave! Daffney has moved on because, I mean, she’s Daffney. She’s not going to have problems finding some other guy to be smitten with her, the little blue-haired weirdo. They make up, but Dave does ask Daffney if she’s seen Papa Ric at the venue. She has not.

 

• Jeff Jarrett thinks this whole wedding is absurd; “sheer outlandish Vaudeville” are the exact words he uses. He grabs his guitar and wonders if they need a band – or THE BAND, maybe – for the wedding.

 

• Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera (w/the Filthy Animals) open the show in a defense of their tag titles. Konnan’s singalong is over; somehow, he garners a call-and-response of THAT’S ENOUGH after he asks Tygress to feel his hat. Disco’s stupid ass takes the mic from Konnan and guarantees that Rey and Juvi will destroy KroniK, then yells GET YOUR FAT ASSES OUT HERE as the rest of the Animals panic. KroniK’s name is finally stylized as such (except that the second “K” is backwards) on the chyron now to match the way it is stylized on their new t-shirts.

 

• The big fellas roll early; Adams plucks Juvi out of mid-air and hits an F5, but gets dropkicked in the knee by Rey and double vertical suplexed. Madden asks if we’re going to see a FACE FULLA STUFF, but Konnan says that KroniK told them in the pre-show meeting that they didn’t want to sell that spot *sigh*, so the answer is no. Rey and Juvi end up getting caught and tossed around with some nice impact moves, but Tygress pulls the ref’s attention and Da/oR pulls a camera away from a cameraman and spikes Adams with it. Meanwhile, Disco hits Clark with a Chartbuster outside the ring and pushes him back inside. Rey scores a springboard guillotine legdrop and Juvi lands a weak 450, but Clark counts out at two and starts a brief comeback that is quickly mooted when he eats dual dropkicks to the knees and a nutcracker guillotine legdrop for three.

 

• We cut quickly to the back, where two people who may or may not be Stacy Keibler-Hancock’s shoot parents, but who definitely are her kayfabe parents, help her out of the limo.

 

• Your episodic reminder that WarGames is fucking dead: This match from last week wasn’t good and no amount of showing me only the “highlights” will make me change my mind, WCW.

 

• Apparently, Russo got another concussion from last week’s match, almost like he’s not a trained wrestler, this dipshit New Yorker with stupid ideas about pro wrestling. Speaking of, he came up with a dumb “brain surgery” skit around said concussion. I mean, this is a case of having choice paralysis due to too many options because there are so many possible jokes I could make here. I’ll let you make the joke yourselves, dear readers.

 

• The Cat (w/the lovely Ms. Jones) lets us know that the injunction just happened to be thrown out in time for the Cat to be at this show while Russo is in a hospital or whatever. He decides to make Booker/Nash at Fall Brawl a cage match and books Nash against Scott Steiner in a title match tonight. As the Cat prepares to make a match for Jeff Jarrett, Ms. Jones seizes the mic, books herself against Jarrett, and then asserts that her delicate foot will punish Jarrett’s ass with a mighty kick. Jarrett is immediately in the ring to take the challenge up and even says he’ll handcuff his wrists together to really make clear his, and indeed males in general, superiority over the ladies when he wins.

 

• Jarrett tells the Cat that the nWo is still running this show; the Cat disagrees and wins a brawl with Jarrett, but is caught from behind and hit with a Stroke when Scott Steiner gives the heels the advantage. Steiner locks the Cat in a Recliner as we go to break.

 

• Terry Taylor rushes up to Sting and Booker as they arrive and implores them to back the Cat up in his power struggle against the nWo.

 

• Vito comes to the ring as Tony tries to manage an introduction the B-roll of him getting his ass kicked with announcing another booking decision that the Cat has made. I regret not counting all the “on a pole” matches that Russo booked in his time within this company because Vito announces that he’s going to wrestle Reno (w/Chuck Palumbo) in a Stickball Bat on a Pole Match tonight. They go at it while Tony finally gets around to announcing that the Cat has decreed Booker T. to be tonight’s special referee in the main event and Goldberg the special outside enforcer in basically a mimic of what the heels did a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, there’s a ref bump a minute into this thing, which along with the stickball bat on a pole tells me that Vince Russo is booking this show post-concussion, though you can’t tell a post-concussed Russo show from a Russo show where he hasn’t had a damaging brain injury before he booked it.

 

• Anyway, Johnny the Bull runs out here with a stickball bat and the desk totally forgets that Vito fucked Johnny the Bull over when they were supposed to be dual hardcore champs. This isn’t even remotely a swerve, no matter how much the Bull tries to pretend that he’s going to be helping his old running buddy Vito. The Bull lands a bat shot on Vito; Reno hits a Roll of the Dice and the referee wakes up and counts three. Vito tries to fight back, but the rest of the Thrillers rush the ring and kick the shit out of him. Again. I mean, the Bull getting back at Vito doesn’t really make him a heel! Vito was the heel in their feud! It’s okay, though, whatever, Vito is a noble babyface now, so what he did to the Bull was basically memory-holed. On commentary, Tony S. did his best to soften what happened by saying something like, They split up when Vito decided to establish his singles career. Not quite, Tony!

 

• The Cat is angry at Booker and Sting for arriving at the venue late and wants them to get together and fire back on the nWo. They leave Ms. Jones alone and walk off, which makes me worried for her safety. I hope she’s got good KABONG insurance.

 

• After a break, Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner giggle with a just-arrived Kevin Nash over what they did to the Cat, but Booker, Sting, and the Cat bust into their locker wielding weapons (Steiner, managing to show surprise and fear while still sounding like a violent maniac: HE’S GOT A BAT). The heels are immediately contrite and cede the booking of the show to the Cat.

 

• Madusa tries to explain her issue with Torrie Wilson to Pam Paulshock. No wait, she insults Pam’s height first like the apparent babyface she is. Then, she complains that Torrie is terrible whenever she comes down to the Power Plant because of a combo of a lack of brains and athleticism while Paulshock makes meme-able faces at her rant. Madusa doesn’t like the girly-girls like Torrie, is the long and short of it.

 

• Well, I suppose that not having to endure a Shane Douglas promo is reasonable compensation for having to watch Torrie Wilson. Madusa dominates for the first thirty seconds; Shane Douglas runs in and tries to stop her, so she kicks him. Shane sidesteps a Madusa missile dropkick and then Franchises ref Slick Johnson after Slick calls for a DQ. The long and short of it is that Douglas locks a crossface on Madusa and yells BITCH a lot into a microphone that Torrie holds for him until Kidman makes the save. Madusa, who like Douglas thinks that cussing a lot makes for a dope interview, grabs a mic and – oh, Russo, bless your stupid little heart – makes that Fall Brawl Pittsburgh Plunge Scaffold Match a Fall Brawl Mixed Tag Pittsburgh Plunge Scaffold Match. Between Madusa and Shane, they dropped the word BITCH like six times in a minute's worth of talking.

 

• I sort of hated that segment, actually. If you want to argue that some of the really bad segments that I’ve written about recently should have made the Dirt Worst list before this segment did, I could see where you were coming from. I just think that this WCW watch has made me deeply despise both Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson separately to a point that Russo pairing them together and giving them lots of television time pushes a “nearly bad enough to get on the Dirt Worst list” segment over the line to Absolute Dirt Worst for me when they are in it.

 

• Crowbar helps Dopey Dave prepare for the wedding in one room; in the other room, Jimmy Hart drops off a registered letter for Stacy Keibler in another room, but she’s too excited about getting dressed to open it. Hmm…

 

• Another limo pulls up to the arena, and behind that, a colorfully-painted bus. Methinks that a certain clown-faced rapper is going to take quite the slide off that bus after eating an Awesome Bomb! Maybe it won’t be tonight, but it’ll be some night soon! Mike Awesome, who is indeed rapidly losing value on the market, word to the Hitman, steps out and sings C’MON, GET HAPPY. He is terribly off-key.

 

• Scott Steiner tosses chairs around in his locker room while Nash chills out. Steiner is mad, and let me just let him tell you, word-for-word, what he’s mad about:

 

• DAMMIT! I CAME HERE TO FIGHT GOLDBERG AND NOW THAT DUMBASS IS FIGHTIN’—ME FIGHTIN’ YOU…WHY YOU SO CALM, MAN, YOU AND YOUR JIMMY BUFFETT-WEARING SANDALS AND ALL, WHY YOU SO CALM?!?!

 

• Nash considered corpsing for a second there, but held it together and proposed a Fingerpoke Light Shove of Doom instead. Scotty expresses repeated confusion at the idea of laying down, and Nash pulls a Fresh Prince, looks into the camera, and asides to us at home, “This gonna be a chore or what?” He cuts the monitor in their room off to focus Scotty and tries to explain, but Steiner still can’t wrap his head around the concept of taking a dive, causing Nash to roll his eyes. This ended up being a very funny segment.

 

• These crazy broads out here, Jarrett complains in the ring, keep trying to compete with the men; now I’m not a chauvinist, but I love embarrassing women! Very well-executed sexist twist on the old “I’m not a racist, but I don’t like [insert race of people here]” canard! Ms. Jones (w/the Cat) is his opponent. The Cat offers to handcuff Jarrett rather than having the ref do it, and it’s nice for once that a heel does something incredibly dumb and pays for it. The Cat lands a few rights on Jarrett before Ms. Jones stops him and proclaims that she will fight this match herself; she even sends the Cat to the back with an I HAVE SPOKEN.

 

• Oh man, I loved Ms. Jones when I watched this show in first run, and I am remembering why. She lands a snapmare in heels, wins a short obligabrawl with Jarrett outside the ring, and then punts the ref in the balls when he tries to back her off. She smashes Jarrett in the balls with a forearm and dances, but unfortunately, when she grabs Jarrett’s KABONGing guitar, he’s able to land a boot in her gut, then takes the guitar and cracks it over Ms. Jones’s head for three. Jarrett prioritizes grabbing a chair over getting his hands uncuffed, so Mike Awesome makes an easy save. So, in a reasonably well-done callback, Madden and Borash note that Nash and Steiner aren’t aware enough to make a save because Nash cut their monitor off, remember?

 

• Speaking of those two, holy shit, we cut back to their locker room, and Nash has drawn a stick figure version of himself on the whiteboard in their room. Funny: The stick figure has been given carefully-drawn long hair to match Nash’s. Unfunny: Nash draws his penis as though it were a third leg. Still, the overall joke here that Steiner needs a fucking diagram to understand this plan is hilarious to me. Steiner gets mad at his stick figure being too short, and Nash apologizes, then draws him both taller and with bigger delts. Anyway, Steiner wants to be the champ and draws a belt on his figure, and of course these two argue about who should be the champ, and there’s a reasonable chance that this sudden discord ends up in a SWERVE, BRO anyway.

 

• After a break, Jarrett storms into the locker room and asks Nash why the hell he got no backup after beating Ms. Jones. Nash says it’s because their buddy Scott Steiner is [unfortunate slur for people with mental disabilities] and asks Jarrett to try and talk Steiner into his Fingerpoke of Doom plan for tonight.

 

• Hacksaw Jim Duggan comes to the ring; Madden asks if the toilets need cleaning because otherwise, he thought that WCW was trying to cut payroll, which is pretty funny! Now, I do believe that Duggan turns babyface and supports Canada as part of Team Canada. Or, I suppose you could say, he turns heel by joining them, if you look at it the wrong way. The last time we saw Duggan, he was being surprisingly effective as a mini-feud partner to get Goldberg over as a violent heel, so I must admit that I’m okay with him being out here as part of a midcard angle.

 

• Duggan says that he beat cancer, but he can’t beat the steady march toward oblivion, and on that note, he prepares to retire. Duggan’s reached legend status, so he gets support and applause from the crowd. Ol’ Hacksaw says that he wants to pass the torch to someone before he retires and calls General Rection to the ring. I mean, this is going to be a nonsensical swerve whenever Duggan turns – I assume at Fall Brawl – but as nonsensical as Russo’s consistent swerves are, at least this one will be novel.

 

• Hacksaw hands his American flag to Rection and hugs him, but Lance Storm (w/Major Gunns) cuts in and is like LOL, America sucks and so do you, Duggan. Then, he challenges Rection to a non-title match tonight even before their Fall Brawl bout. Okay, so Duggan could possibly turn tonight, I suppose. Storm jumps Duggan, and we get an impromptu match. Tony S. informs us that possession of human being Major Gunns is on the line at Fall Brawl as well as possession of the Canadian Championship. Duggan joins commentary while Rection turns the tide on an obligabrawl outside the ring.

 

• Inside the ring, Storm reverses a suplex and hits a neckbreaker for two. We cut to Gunns cheering, which is either a bad cut or an indicator that Gunns is getting Stockholm Syndrome. Or maybe Saskatoon Syndrome? Anyway, Rection gets a couple of two counts, but whiffs on a No Laughing Matter and is locked in a Canadian Maple Leaf. Storm’s ring positioning is uncustomarily terrible, so Rection’s hand is underneath the ropes. Duggan gets up from the desk to point it out to the ref, and Storm breaks the hold and decks Duggan. Duggan gets revenge by whacking Storm in the back with his 2x4 when Storm goes up top; Storm plummets into Rection’s arms and is pinned for three on a floatover powerslam. Gunns cheers for Rection. The rest of the M.I.A. floods the ring to celebrate with their dipshit leader.

 

• Stacy remembers that letter that Jimmy Hart delivered for her; she reads it, and apparently it contains some shocking news! Who would have guessed?

 

• Well damn, as Tony S. and Jeremy Borash hype themselves for this Dopey Dave/Stacy Hancock wedding, Madden drops this line: There’s no doubt about it; marriage and wrestling go hand-in-hand. Ask Randy and Liz! Mongo and Debra! Kevin and Nancy! It always works out perfectly, Tony!” WELP.

 

• This crowd is extremely silent for this wedding thing, and I am reminded that I obviously also grew up on WWF because unlike this Mid-Atlantic wrestling audience, I absolutely love wedding angles. I know, I know, but I’m going to say it anyway: Stacy Keibler is so pretty. I saw a picture of her with no makeup on a few weeks ago, and she’s still impossibly pretty. She’s going to be an impossibly pretty old lady. Anyway, before the wedding, Dopey Dave asks Arn Anderson to come out for the proceedings and apologizes for treating his honorary uncle poorly for the past eighteen months. It’s so nice that everyone made up with Dopey Dave to attend this wedding, isn’t it? I think it is.

 

• Arn gives Dave some terrible marriage advice while Stacy also cuts some extremely meme-able faces in which she glares suspiciously at Arn. I mean, I would assume that Arn is doing some sneaky revenge advice shit for how Dave has recently treated him if I didn’t know any better that Arn was just not suited for marriage (in kayfabe, at least).

 

• Dave asks for one more person to join them, and Ric Flair comes out to a somewhat quiet reaction and his hair gelled just like his son’s. So much has happened since he last was on WCW television, so it takes me a second to remember that Dopey Dave retired Ric with Vince Russo’s help. Anyway, Ric says that their past feuding is water under the bridge! The family is back together!

 

• Daffney, that nut, is still sore enough at Hancock that she throws up rabbit ears behind Hancock’s head. Before the minister can get very far into his spiel, some cops come to the ring and the head cop tells Ric that he has to leave because Russo put out a restraining order against him, but since Russo isn’t here, how would that work? No, you know what, it doesn’t matter. They cuff Ric and walk him off (the crowd chants BULLSHIT) and Stacy suddenly leaves the ring and chases after them.

 

• After a break, Ric is loaded into an unmarked car; Arn tells Ric that he’ll take care of Dopey Dave and not to worry about things in the arena.

 

• Russo did have, according to him, a few shoot concussions, so I suppose that he's going to work a shoot and shoot a work or whatever dumb shit he thinks makes for good television. We see a package that tries to get over Ric, Vito, and the Cat as causing those concussions. Now, get this: We go to a package in which a doctor tries to sell that Russo had a blood clot in his brain. OK, so they show a brain scan that purports to show this clotting. On the brain scan is the name of the patient – Arthur Flanagan – and the date of the scan – 13 August 1987. Thankfully, they don't play this straight; only Madden believes this package’s veracity, and Tony S. makes it clear that he smells bullshit. I would further like to make it clear that this video package was a violation of Mr. Flanagan’s HIPAA rights.

 

• For some reason, Sting is wrestling the Harris Bros. in a handicap match. Okay, Madden tells us that Russo booked this match before he "had brain surgery" and before the Cat re-took control tonight. Sting rolls both guys, but when he Scorpion Deathlocks one, the other one uses a chain to punch Sting, who then bumps for a series of chain shots from these shitheads. KroniK bring their own chains to the ring to make the save. KroniK bashes out the Harris Bros. with their chains and then dump Sting on top of one of them for three.

 

• Scotty Steiner is not mollified by Jeff Jarrett’s pleas for sanity.

 

• Stacy Keibler is pressed backstage; Dopey Dave wants to do the marriage in the next segment, but Stacy would prefer to maybe do this another time. Dave insists, and she drearily goes along with it.

 

• There’s a new Slim Jim commercial with Eli Drake, Jey Uso, and archival footage of Randy Savage, and let me tell you, these modern Slim Jim commercials continue to illustrate that Savage was a singular charismatic talent.

 

• Okay, it’s wedding redux. How will this wedding be ruined this time around? Dave smiles in anticipation and love; Stacy reconsiders her choices and stares into space like a Bluth brother thinking that they’ve made a HUUUUUUGE mistake. She decides to protest her own wedding when the minister asks if anyone has anything to protest before these two crazy kids tie the knot. What Stacy has to protest about this wedding is that the lil’ bun in her oven isn’t Dopey Dave’s. She does not, however, indicate who the father is. Stacy takes off while Dopey Dave looks, you know, like a dope, as is his way.

 

• After a break, we see Stacy clip-clop out to the limo in her heels, hop into it, and take off as Dave chases after her. Meanwhile, Mike Awesome brings a lady out to his bus – is that Paulshock? - but is jumped by Jeff Jarrett. Awesome holds his own until the Thrillers surround Awesome and kick the shit out of him. They prepare to hoist Awesome onto the top of his own bus as we go back into a commercial. [Editor’s note: We never see what happens to Awesome once hoisted, at least on this show.]

 

• In this (modern) H&R Block commercial with the two young ladies, the one who figured out how to use H&R Block for easier filing of her taxes is dressed like Wario. I think that’s an error in the marketing, as Wario is the type of guy who wouldn’t do his taxes because he thinks that taxation is theft.  

 

• Scott Steiner threatens Goldberg and plans to be the new world champ in his short interview with Gene Okerlund. Scotty also talks about his penis and biceps, claiming both to be so large that women experience celestial pleasure when he has sex with them. It’s Scotty, folks; he’s as crude as he is entertaining.

 

• The Cat makes his way back out for tonight’s main event and joins commentary; Booker T. enters the ring as maybe the swollest ref possible. These wrestlers always dress in ref shirts two sizes too small. The Cat calls Madden A WHITE FAT ALBERT. Booker gets a small chant before he cuts a quick promo on Kevin Nash. I will again note how much better Booker got at cutting promos when he went over to the WWF.

 

• The contestants in this title match come out here before Goldberg does. I should note the shirt that Kevin Nash has been wearing tonight: It says HEY YO, but the “O” is an olive with a toothpick in it, as one might place in their martini. This is a shirt with a WCW logo on it, by the way, so someone in marketing decided that even though Scott Hall was an IRL abusive alcoholic, selling a shirt that makes light of his shoot drinking problem was a good idea.

 

• Goldberg makes it out, and in an ADORABLE moment, he lightly slaps hands with a girl in the front row, and the girl busts a huge smile and then holds the hand that Goldberg slapped in her other hand. You can see in that moment that she’s decided not to wash the hand that Goldberg touched ever again. I’m sure she eventually did it, but I bet she had to be heavily persuaded.

 

• Nash tries a fingerpoke, but Scotty doesn’t bump. Scotty tries a fingerpoke, and Nash is bummed. I’m just waiting for a SWERVE, BRO, but Nash actually attacks Scotty. Booker is casual about counting for Nash’s cover, but he outright pretends that Nash’s shoulder is up when it isn’t after Steiner covers. Nash and Steiner decide that this farce has become too much for them and attack Booker. Goldberg takes his sweet time before hopping in the ring and kicking both dudes. Steiner does catch Goldberg with a fist, though, and then grabs a chair to attack Booker with. Charles Robinson is out here for some reason. The babyfaces get their asses kicked. Of course they do. The Cat just watches and shakes his head. Someone tell stupid-ass Russo that it’s nice to see babyfaces win scraps in the run up to the PPV sometimes. This overlong beatdown SUCKS.

 

• Goldberg finally knocks Steiner off the apron and into the Cat after a few years of taking a beating; Booker manages to hit Nash with (I think) a Book End that we miss. We also miss his Spinaroonie, so nice job, production. Some fan did something to Goldberg, maybe pelted him with something, because he scares the SHIT out of a group of fans when he points at a guy standing behind them and yells GET HIM THE FUCK OUTTA HERE. The babyfaces are finally on top when the NBTs drive Mike Awesome’s bus down the ramp, pour out of it, and make sure that we’re not going to have a happy ending.

 

• This show wasn’t good, but again, it went by quickly enough. I mean, it’s getting a negative number of Stinger Splashes, of course, but I’m not all that fired up about it. Maybe Fall Brawl coming up and signaling the coming end of Russo’s creative reign (though he’s going to be an on-screen character into early October, unfortunately) has softened my feelings about this stuff. This Nitro wasn’t particularly worse than a typical Nash-and-Bischoff production from the middle of 1999, to be honest. -20 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Edited January 20 by SirSmUgly

[SirSmUgly]

17 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

WE DEMAND XPW REVIEWS!!!

I mean, you could just tell me what I did to make you so mad! I apologize! I didn't mean it!

7 hours ago, zendragon said:

https://www.cineverse.com/watch/1000000003359/Welcome-to-the-Temple

I am going to do a review thread for LU's four seasons at some point, so thanks for this.

Between work and my personal writing projects (including this one), I wrote close to a million words last year, which is something that I want to keep up, so rest assured that if you need wrestling reviews to read when you're on the toilet or bored at work, I'll continue to be your guy! 

[SirSmUgly]

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and twenty-seven – 13 September 2000

"The WCW Gang prepares for Fall Brawl and to descend to their lowest run of ratings ever before eventual cancellation"

• Shall we Thunder on home to our final Fall Brawl, folks?...

 

• Ms. Jones gets out of a car and tries to reassure the Cat about something…She says that someone will be here tonight…Jeff Jarrett runs up on her, rips her phone away, and drags Ms. Jones off…

 

• Dopey Dave has gone nutbar again, this time accosting random fellas backstage to ask threateningly if they put their limes in Stacy Hancock-Keibler’s coconut and shook it all up…

 

• After the Thunder opening, we get fireworks here in Roanoke…I assume that at least one DVDVR legend was in this building, even though it’s a late 2000 Thunder taping…The nWo 2000 marches Ms. Jones to the ring…I can scarcely believe that once again, this show is being terrorized by the nWo…Nash thinks Booker, Goldberg, the Cat, and the fans are all easily SWERVEable, but no, the fans all saw this shit coming because Russo SWERVES, BRO all over the metaphorical road when he books these angles…Nash is confident that he will beat Booker at Fall Brawl while Tenay is pseudo-heelish on commentary…Tenay is very bad at it, by the way…

 

• Scott Steiner (AKA “Sir Pump-a-Lot” according to Nash) takes the mic next, insults someone in the crowd’s date for the night, and talks about his freaks, peaks, penis, etc….He’s also not impressed with Goldberg…Jarrett, our final speaker, simulates his victory over Jones in the ring – we cut to the babyfaces getting out of a car in the back – and Tenay is basically like I’M THE ONLY GUY WHO HATES WOMEN MORE THAN JEFF JARRETT DOES in a confounding bit of character work…

 

• Jarrett prepares to KABONG Ms. Jones, but Booker’s music hits and Booker and the Cat walk onto the ramp…Booker tells them that they pulled a good SWERVE, BRO on Monday, but they absolutely did not…Don’t give them credit for their lousy SWERVE attempt, Book…Booker cuts a boilerplate babyface promo per usual…In a babyface comment, the Cat basically says that if Jeff Jarrett’s mom were here, he would lightly and playfully brush his testicles against her face; then, he books himself and Booker in a tag match against Nash and Scotty, with the winner of the fall getting the big gold belt…Jarrett, on the other hand, is booked against Sting…Sting chills out in the crowd with a spotlight on him…Said crowd pops big…When the lights come back up, Sting and Ms. Jones have both disappeared…A frustrated Jarrett KABONGs Dave Penzer for the fuck of it all…

 

• The Filthy Animals try to have a conversation without Disco getting involved…Disco walks up and cuts in on their conversation to let them know that he booked Rey and Juvi in a non-title Triple Threat Match against KroniK and the Harris Bros. so that he could get them a victory that would impress some magazine editors…He is informed that his idea is stupid, and he is somehow a cranberry according to Konnan, but he also has no juice according to THA JOOCY ONE, which I guess means that he’s a dried cranberry?...Oops, I mean a Craisin™…Sold to you fresh by Ocean Spray…(I'm looking for paid corporate sponsorship for this thread, if you must know)...

 

• I’m interested in this Mike Tenay sit-down interview with Ric Flair…I hope it ends with Ric slapping a Figure Four on Tenay…

 

• Pam Paulshock is our ring announcer for the rest of the night, so Mike Awesome will not find her free to join him in his (as Tony S. calls it) Boogie Bus…Awesome gets out of the bus and expresses to the camera his anger at the damage the heels did to it at the end of the previous Nitro, including cuffing Goldberg to the grill and beating him and tossing Booker through a windshield…

 

• The annoyed Filthy Animals find out in an interview with Okerlund that, in preparation for a ten-man tag against the Natural Born Thrillers at Fall Brawl, Disco has gotten himself and Konnan booked against Jindrak and O’Haire tonight….Konnan begs off because he doesn’t like being bossed around by Disco and still is healing from his tricep injury…Disco asks Rey or Juvi to pull double-duty, but they are not interested…Rey, annoyed: “Ask Gene”…A tone-deaf Disco actually does ask Gene, who responds, “Hey, blow it out your ass, I play golf”…I guess he retired from WCW undefeated after beating Madden a few weeks ago...Disco drags Tygress behind him, deciding that she’s going to be his partner, as the Animals protest…

 

• Pam Paulshock is extremely not-good at ring announcing…Sanders talks as the Thrillers congregate on the ramp…He claims that he wasn’t at Nitro because he was suspended for leading the attack on Paul Orndorff last week…He’s cool with that because he spent his evening rounding up some ladies for a post-Nitro party at the hotel…Sanders introduces Johnny the Bull as the newest member of the Thrillers…They let the Bull talk…He enjoyed beating down Vito, just in case you were wondering…

 

• As an aside, the problem with Russo trying to book multiple feuds at the same time for different individuals or groups, as he’s done with the Thrillers, is that he’s not consistent at keeping up progression on each feud...Orndorff was put into focus the past couple weeks (and the Thrillers supporting the nu-nWo) and their feud with the Animals was backgrounded…This means that their Fall Brawl match feels like it has no momentum…Even if Orndorff joins the Animals at Fall Brawl to pull those two threads together, I think it would have been better if Orndorff had been introduced as the Animals' partner during this last week of shows going into the PPV...Disco actually tags Tygress into this match, by the way, and I will say that she has a nice forearm…It’s not quite Nikki Bella level, but it’s pretty good…Disco ditches Tygress to go find help…Tygress dodges a Jindrak Bronco Buster, botches a *sigh* Face Fulla Stuff, and then is hit with a Seanton Bomb for three…The Animals are very late to the save, and they’re beaten down by the Thrillers, chasing right behind them, besides…Stevie, dropping wisdom about Disco's foolish attempts at creating team spirit amongst the Animals: “Like my mama used to tell me all the time, you gotta know your beans from your cornbread”…I will be using that saying going forward, so thank you, Stevie…

 

• Dopey Dave threatens Slick Johnson…Slick denies parentage of Stacy’s child, but says that “it could have been anyone” (not true because Stace has standards, even considering that she lowered them temporarily for Dopey Dave) and that if he did nail Hancock-Keibler, much like anyone else who did, he’d be singing it from the mountaintops (also not true because most dudes would be trying to dodge the eighteen years of child support)…Dave hits this idiot with a mop, which I am in full support of…

 

• Lance Storm and Elix Skipper have a backstage conversation, but Gunns cuts in to ask about going out there and doing something tonight…Gunns: “Can I please go out there?”…Storm: “Is that how a Canadian asks? Have you learned nothing?”…Gunns, sighing…”Can I please go OOT there, EH?!”…It’s an obvious punchline, but the execution was genuinely funny, so it worked…I actually get a small kick out of Gunns as a reluctant member of Team Canada, honestly…Storm gives his permission and tells her to do Canada proud…

 

• The babyfaces are fired up in the Cat’s office…Sting wants to be in the main event again after months of fooling with this midcard bum Vampiro, dammit, and he asks Booker if he can get a title shot after Fall Brawl if Booker leaves the cage as the champ…Booker is happy to oblige…

 

• The Animals argue backstage…Actually, in a pretty funny bit, Rey and Disco argue back and forth and Konnan moves his head between them like he’s watching a long tennis rally…

 

• Mike Awesome is once again hosting the Lava Lamp Lounge…Ah, Major Gunns is his guest, which explains her pleas a couple of segments ago…Awesome wants five and then wants five on the backside, so Gunns considers that last request after giving him a high five the regular way and swats him in the ass…In spite of myself, this stupid segment has me laughing…Awesome: “You’re finer than Farrah Fawcett, and I’m feelin’ like the Six Million Dollar Man”…Gunns, sweetly: “Thank you, Mikey!”…It’s so stupid, just so dumb, but I can’t help myself…Gunns is pissed off at Lance Storm being a controlling weirdo…Awesome, seeing a chance to make his move, says that he’s into Canadian chicks, but bummer, man, it’s a turn-off to her…Gunns doesn’t want to be Canadian at all…Awesome recovers by offering to give her a massage to lessen her stress…Gunns hits her O-Face (not Athena’s O-Face, mind you) and basically is a human cold shower with her unconvincing OOHing and AAHing…

 

• Lance Storm and Elix Skipper bust up the show…Storm declares the segment over and drags Gunns away while Skipper moves to attack…Awesome presses Skipper into the set background…The M.I.A. walk out and surround Storm and Gunns…Rection declares this P.O.W. stip expired, but Storm refuses to relinquish Gunns to the M.I.A. unless Rection and Duggan can beat Storm and Skip in a tag match, with the rest of the Misfits barred from ringside…Rection agrees and the M.I.A. leaves…Meanwhile, Jarrett sneaks up on Awesome while disguised as a member of WCW’s ringside crew and hits a Stroke on Awesome that drives him through the set’s table…

 

• After commercials, Rection begs Duggan to put his newspaper down and tag with him…Duggan declines until Rection says that Storm specifically wanted to "get a piece of the old man”…

 

• Nash and Steiner walk into the arena with the big gold belt…Nash is often not very funny, especially without Hall, but as inconsistent as his sense of humor is, he still has some gems…Like tonight: A father and son are waiting backstage for him…The son wants a photo with Nash and the gold…Nash solicits payment…The father stuffs some cash in Nash’s hand…Nash, disgusted: “Forty bucks? Is this only a black-and-white photo? Is he your blood kid?”…Pops ups the payment to sixty bucks, and in a solid punchline, as Nash and Steiner get in the camera shot with the kid, Steiner waits for the dad to count down from three and poses his bicep right in front of the kid’s face as dad takes the picture…OK, that was excellent…

 

• Aw, well, the laughter had to stop sometime, right?...Take three guesses why I typed that previous sentence…Your first two don’t count…

 

• So, Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson hit the ring, and Douglas starts yapping before his music even cuts off…Douglas won’t shut the fuck up already, but finally, he challenges Kidman and Madusa to a regular non-Fall Brawl Mixed Tag Match tonight, only four days before the Fall Brawl Mixed Tag Pittsburgh Plunge Scaffold Match at the PPV…

 

• Torrie stands around uselessly while Kidman and Madusa beat up Douglas…Oops, let me be clear…Torrie is always useless, whether standing around or not, but in this case, she doesn’t help in the tag match…Kidman randomly chases Torrie through the crowd…Douglas rolls through a Madusa crossbody and locks on an STF, but can’t get a tapout…Kidman stalks Torrie into the crowd and against a railing on the second level…She goes over the railing and hangs on for dear life as Douglas manages to chase Kidman down, knock him away, and pull Torrie back up…

 

• This whole time, Tenay has been hating on every woman who pops up on camera…It’s time for his shitty heel act to go onto the Dirt Worst list, lest I let this awful series of Tenay performances pass without being singled out for how truly awful they are…

 

• After the commercial break, Okerlund interviews Kidman and Madusa…He asks them about Shane Douglas guaranteeing victory in the Fall Brawl Mixed Tag Pittsburgh Plunge Scaffold Match, only four days away at Fall Brawl 2000!...He and Madusa both respond…It stinks, but Kidman opens by asserting that WCW hasn’t done one of these matches in nine years because they’re so dangerous in a way that makes me think that he SHOOT thinks the booking is stupid…

 

• Pre-taped interview: Mike Tenay sits down with Ric Flair…Tenay asks about Hancock’s baby not being Dopey Dave’s…Ric responds by saying that WCW has been a hellscape for him over the past five years and then expresses his disappointment over Dave and Stace's wedding falling apart…THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR CHEATING ON DAFFNEY, YOU DOPEY DICKHEAD DAVID FLAIR…*ahem*…Tenay asks what Ric Flair is even doing here since he was retired three months ago…Ric: “I’m here because you asked me to come out here and talk to you. Let’s get that straight right now. You’re not talking to Midajah; you’re talking to Ric Flair”…It was nice of Ric to give Tenay a verbal warning, but I think he should have just punched the guy…Where is Mankind to stick Tenay with a Mandible Claw while warbling out a reprimand for the shitty line of questioning when you need him?...

 

• A contrite Tenay says that he respects Naitch, but lists only retired greats as Ric's opponents…Ric lists off a bunch of still-regularly-active wrestlers from Sting to the Undertaker to prove that he can still mix it up with the best of them if he gets the chance…Tenay wonders how Ric could beat all of those guys, retired or active, but get bamboozled by wimpy-ass Vince Russo…Ric says he’ll hook it back up with Russo somewhere down the road, but for now, he’s retired…Maybe in TNA, buddy…Tenay questions Ric about involving his family in all this pro graps nonsense, and Ric agrees that it was a bad choice and that he compounded his own issues…Ric admits that Russo managed to get to him where other wrestlers or promoters did not…

 

• Tenay ends this interview by reiterating that as much as he respects Ric, he’s got to ask the question…The question, of course, is whether or not Ric is the father of Stacy’s child…Ric is like, Dude, people are passing along that rumor because of my reputation, but would I really bang the fiancée of my own son? Don't answer that question. But the real question is this: What happened to you, Tenay? You used to be cool, but now you’re just a tool for Vince Russo. Friendship over! Etnertaining response, but Tenay’s heel character is annoying in a bad way…He’s been instructed by Russo to emulate a trash talk show host asking DA TUFF QUESTIONS, but he can’t pull it off and is a massive channel-changer…Or he would be if I had a channel to change to…

 

• Dopey Dave is dumb enough to accost Fit Finlay in the back…Finlay reminds Dopey Dave of who he’s grabbing, then says that he loves his beautiful wife and has no interest in Dave’s “beanpole bride,” which is mean, but funny…As someone who was a skinny lithe dude, I winced at first, but it’s not the same if you call a lady a “beanpole”…I still work out regularly because of all the jibes and comments about being skinny that I got when I was a kid and a teen, and come to think of it, in my early 20s...At least I used it as a motivator…Finlay suggests that Dave should chiggedy check himself before he wrecks himself (R.I.P. in Piece, Robbie Rage, you were gone from WCW too soon)…Dave sure doesn’t wield a mop to attack this time around…I guess he’s not that much of a dope, huh?...

 

• Does Jeff Jarrett ever take an L in a feud build?...Seriously…He wrestles the Stinger next in a Two-Out-of-Three-Falls Match…I missed that the Cat decreed this match to be best-of-three, but okay, cool…Tony S. lauds the final rating for the previous Nitro as Sting enters…OK, let’s go look that up…Uhhhhhhhhh…It was a 3.2, down from a 3.6…Also notable: It was the last rating above a 3.0 that Nitro would ever get…

 

• Actually, this is interesting…After a run of a month in the 2s, Nitro went 3.5 (8/28), 3.6 (9/4), 3.2 (9/11) before dropping to 2.75 post-Fall Brawl and then hovering in the mid-to-low 2s until cancellation…Did the Booker/Nash and Goldberg/Steiner feuds pop a surge in the ratings?...Or maybe the promise of a revived nWo 2000?...I will note that if you look at the ratings back in January of 2000, they rose from the low 2s back into the 3s for that first month of nu-nWo as the heel centerpiece of the television…Once Bret and Goldberg went off television with injuries and the angle began to peter out, the ratings dipped back into the 2s and stayed hovering within the high 2s/low 3s for months…As much as I think the final nWo revival sucked, was the nWo name still enough of a draw to attract at least a small, but significant portion of long-term WCW viewers?...

 

• I’m going to contemplate that that three-week Nitro blip means and also laugh at Tony S. and Tenay thinking that the ratings are trending upward and will be heading through the roof soon…Jarrett was watching this show on a monitor in the back, so he tells Sting that he might as well forget that title shot that Booker offered because Nash is going to win at Fall Brawl, and Nash promised Jarrett a title shot on the upcoming Nitro…

 

• Sting calls Jarrett “Jeffrey,” which makes me chuckle, and then “Slappy,” which doesn’t…Sting proposes to take number one contendership out of Booker and Nash’s hands and make this match for number one contendership no matter who wins…Then, Sting turns heel by leading a SLAPPY chant…Jarrett considers it, then steals Sting’s catchphrase back by saying that it’s SHOWTIME…Tenay informs us that there will be a ten-second recovery time between falls…

 

• OK, maybe this match could be good?...I expect nothing, but it’s Thunder, so there’s a possibility…Commentary tries to remember the last two-of-three-falls match in WCW…Stevie thinks Wahoo/Dusty was the last one, but Tony S. is certain that they’ve done one in the Nitro Era, at least…Sting wins a shoulderblock, then another…Jarrett is frustrated…The crowd chants SLAPPY at him..

 

• Jarrett score a couple of punches, but he again can’t do anything when running the ropes with Sting…Sting ends up clotheslining Jarrett to the floor and then slamming Jarrett against the commentary table while Stevie complains…Tony hands Sting a bottle of water, but Sting just pours it on Jarrett instead of requisitioning Sid’s spot and smashing it against Jarrett’s head…Sting drags Jarrett up the ramp and suplexes him on the stage…Jarrett continues to get absolutely rolled, eating punches back down the stage and into the ring…Jarrett gets control by using my least favorite transition in pro wrestling…Stevie says that maybe Sting “shot his load” by coming out on fire…Heh heh…Sting makes a quick comeback and lands a diving clothesline, then goes back up and hits a top-rope splash for 2.7…

 

• Sting looks for a Scorpion Death Drop, but Jarrett reaches out and grabs Mickey Jay…That should be a DQ victory for Sting, but of course, logic has no home here….Sting yanks Jarrett, who yanks Jay, and then Jarrett breaks away from Sting and lands a low blow, followed by a Stroke to win fall number one…As usual, I was right not to expect anything of this match…

 

• After ten seconds, Jarrett jumps right back on Sting…He stomps the Stinger to the floor and initiates another obligabrawl…They go back over to the commentary table, much to the chagrin of Stevie…Sting re-enters the ring with a sunset flip attempt…Jarrett tries to punch his way out of it, but Sting hangs on and yanks Jarrett over for three to even the falls count at one…

 

• Jarrett is up first and stomps at Sting as the ten-second rest period ends…They fuck up a sleeper-and-reversal-sleeper spot, but eventually, Jarrett slaps one on…Sting’s arm goes down twice, but not thrice, and Sting fights up and reverses the sleeper again…Jarrett immediately counters with a back suplex…Jay starts a standing ten-count…Jarrett rolls over and covers, but only gets two…

 

• Both men stagger up, and Sting wins a punch-up…Jarrett runs the ropes and crashes into Sting…Jarrett topples, and Sting topples over a second later, smashing his head into Jarrett’s *sigh* slapnuts…Jarrett gets up again and tries to buckle bonk Sting, but Sting fires up and lands a few punches…Sting attempts a Stinger Splash, but Jarrett pulls Jay in front of him for a ref bump…Slick Johnson runs down and doesn’t call the match for Sting because of DQ like the rulebook indicates that he should…Therefore, I don’t feel bad when Jarrett pulls Slick in front of him and Sting hits a Stinger Splash anyway…

 

• Sting locks on a Scorpion Deathlock and Jarrett taps out…There’s no ref…Sting lifts Jarrett’s arm three times…It drops three times…Sting just calls his own victory, and the timekeeper is like, OK, sure, fuck it…Of course WCW can’t just run a simple bout and has to have all sorts of ref bump fuckery that clouds the result…This sort of convoluted nonsense is par for the course in Nitro Era WCW, no matter if Bischoff, Sullivan, Nash, or Russo is in charge of the television…

 

• Gene Okerlund interviews Hacksaw Duggan and the Misfits in Action…Duggan says that his wife, kids, and doctor aren’t excited to see him put the boots on one more time, but he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do…The Misfits HOOOOOOOO to end the interview…

 

• Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera (w/the Filthy Animals) walk the ramp…I want Konnan’s Spider-Man shirt…The desk debates the stupid finish to the previous bout…The Harris Bros. and KroniK soon follow…Disco wanders over to the desk and harasses Stevie Ray when he should instead be booting Tenay’s annoying heel act off commentary…Stevie and Konnan both shit on Disco for being a dumbass…

 

• Meanwhile, KroniK and the Harris Bros. go at it while Rey and Juvi casually view the proceedings from ringside…They do attack a Harris Bro, but then slide right the hell back out and eventually head up the ramp, chased by the other Harris Bro…KroniK hits a High Times on the Harris Bro in the ring for three…The other Harris Bro comes back to the ring and hits KroniK with a chain-wrapped baseball bat…Commentary was a complete mess during this segment…

 

• Disheveled and looking on edge, Dopey David Flair walks to the ring holding a microphone…Dopey Dave heard Ric say in the Tenay interview that Dave was a MAN, which is all Dave ever wanted…He asserts his MANLINESS by demanding that Stacy walk out here and tell him who the baby daddy is…Stacy walks out with a hangdog look on her face…Dave is all like, Look, I love you baby, but I have to know, but then he’s like You better look at me, woman, and then after that, he’s like All I need to know is whose baby it is and we can move on, sweetie, trust me, I won’t be mad, I love you, sweetie….I want an answer too, but no, Arn Anderson interrupts before we can get one…Stevie,as  irritated as I am at not getting an answer from Stacy: “What does Uncle Double A want tonight?”…Tony S.: “Uh, maybe…nah. Can’t be”…Tenay spoils the humor of Tony’s unspoken thought process by spelling it out immediately afterward (“Is he coming out here to confess?”), but I still laughed, dear reader…

 

• OK, so Arn is trying to calm Dopey Dave down…Arn’s like, The baby isn’t yours, so does it matter who the dad is?...Dave, who again, isn’t entirely a dope, finds Arn’s dismissal of the need to know immediately suspicious and asks if Arn’s the daddy…Arn tells him to get the bass out of his voice and then tells him basically that women are like buses and another one will be around the corner, then sends Dave packing…Arn lectures a sad-looking Stacy on being a person of low morals, which is entirely laughable to me considering the guy delivering that message…

 

• We cut to the back, where Hacksaw is laid out, the American flag covering his prone body…Things sure look HOOOOOOOOOOpeless for that dipshit General Rection!...

 

• Lance Storm and Elix Skipper (w/a despondent Major Gunns) enter the ring for their bout with General Rection and Hacksaw Duggan…Storm tells Gunns to get comfortable with her spot in Team Canada before standing at attention for the Canadian National Anthem…Production is so disrespectful…They cut into it with the M.I.A. theme…Rection runs out and beats down Storm and Skip…This is nonsense…Rection sucks…He rolls these guys, and I hate it…Storm is a heel, yes…He cheats yes…But he also should be portrayed as the elite wrestler that is part of his gimmick…He mostly just gets his ass beat in practice…

 

• Storm and Skip finally get in control…Skipper hits a sweet wheel kick after launching himself from the top rope…The HINOs (Heels In Name Only) control, stuffing Rection’s feeble comeback attempts…Skipper pops Rection in the back with the Canadian flagpole…Storm locks on a Canadian Maple Leaf…Hacksaw’s music plays and Hacksaw crawls out to the ring…He’s just a bit too late to get there before Rection taps, though…Skip and Storm drag Gunns away as the M.I.A. rush the ring…

 

• It's round two of A Conversation with Gene Okerlund for Hacksaw Duggan and the M.I.A….Rection promises to defeat Storm at Fall Brawl and says that if he loses, he won’t seek another title shot…And yet, we unfortunately end up with this bum as the U.S. Champion at some point, don’t we?...

 

• Tonight’s main event: Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner vs. Booker T. and the Cat, with the big gold belt on the line…WCW loves putting singles belts up in tag matches, huh?...Stevie Ray calls Pamela Paulshock “Paula Poundstone,” which is AMAZING…I see that Stevie is a regular listener to NPR’s Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me…This only makes me like Stevie more than I already do…This is a four-minute special…The heels take out the Cat and destroy Booker in the ring because of course they do…The crowd chants for GOLDBERG, which of course they would…Goldberg is the only effective babyface in the company…

 

• Booker makes a couple of aborted comebacks…Steiner and Nash keep hitting the Cat with stuff at ringside…Nash goes out keep the Cat down with a chair shot while Steiner locks Booker in a Recliner…Goldberg drives down the ramp on a motorcycle…He takes off his helmet and the crowd goes absolutely bananas…He gets in the ring and spears Steiner, then Jackhammers him to a nice pop…That’s how our show ends…

 

• You know, they should just put the belt back on Goldberg and let him roll through the nu-nWo…It’s not an angle that will save the company, but it probably could have kept the ratings in the 3s, at least…Anyway, this show was fine, mostly because of the character work and angle progression and not so much due to the wrestling…That’s not WCW’s most effective long-term approach, but it worked out okay for this Thunder…WOO…

[zendragon]

I once heard Jim Cornette say that Russo once told him that he had only been with one women in his entire life which might explain somethings about this recent run of shows

[twiztor]

17 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and twenty-seven – 13 September 2000

• A tone-deaf Disco actually does ask Gene, who responds, “Hey, blow it out your ass, I play golf”…I guess he retired from WCW undefeated after beating Madden a few weeks ago...
• This whole time, Tenay has been hating on every woman who pops up on camera…It’s time for his shitty heel act to go onto the Dirt Worst list, lest I let this awful series of Tenay performances pass without being singled out for how truly awful they are…Where is Mankind to stick Tenay with a Mandible Claw while warbling out a reprimand for the shitty line of questioning when you need him?...Tenay’s heel character is annoying in a bad way…He’s been instructed by Russo to emulate a trash talk show host asking DA TUFF QUESTIONS, but he can’t pull it off and is a massive channel-changer…Or he would be if I had a channel to change to…
• Tony S. lauds the final rating for the previous Nitro as Sting enters…OK, let’s go look that up…Uhhhhhhhhh…It was a 3.2, down from a 3.6…Also notable: It was the last rating above a 3.0 that Nitro would ever get…Actually, this is interesting…After a run of a month in the 2s, Nitro went 3.5 (8/28), 3.6 (9/4), 3.2 (9/11) before dropping to 2.75 post-Fall Brawl and then hovering in the mid-to-low 2s until cancellation…Did the Booker/Nash and Goldberg/Steiner feuds pop a surge in the ratings?...Or maybe the promise of a revived nWo 2000?...I will note that if you look at the ratings back in January of 2000, they rose from the low 2s back into the 3s for that first month of nu-nWo as the heel centerpiece of the television…Once Bret and Goldberg went off television with injuries and the angle began to peter out, the ratings dipped back into the 2s and stayed hovering within the high 2s/low 3s for months…As much as I think the final nWo revival sucked, was the nWo name still enough of a draw to attract at least a small, but significant portion of long-term WCW viewers?...
• Jeff Jarrett wrestles the Stinger next in a Two-Out-of-Three-Falls Match…I missed that the Cat decreed this match to be best-of-three, but okay, cool…Commentary tries to remember the last two-of-three-falls match in WCW…Stevie thinks Wahoo/Dusty was the last one, but Tony S. is certain that they’ve done one in the Nitro Era, at least…

• Gene actually ends up going 4-0 in his professional career. 2 in WCW and 2 in WWF. I'm mildly surprised that he didn't have an AWA moment teaming with Hogan too.  https://ibb.co/XVJMV7C  That's better than most of the guys who used to get WCW TV Title shots!
• I know his stint in TNA is not his high point, but Tenay actually keeps this "antagonizing interviewer" bit up in that company as well, although it's more sporadic. It never works there, either, and always seems out of character. I'm a huge Tenay fan, but this whole bit is a terrible misstep. And that's not even addressing his blatant misogyny (which largely does NOT carry over to TNA)
• or perhaps it was because of Goldberg and Bret Hart? Look, i'm as big an nWo fan as anyone, but anything after the Fingerpoke of Doom is bullshit NWO. I even appreciated the entirety of the 2002 WWE run, but this is hot garbage. 
• hmm, you know, that's a good question. The last one i can find in my records is Flair/Arn vs. Hollywood Blondes at CotC23 (June 1993). There seems to have been a few of them in early summer '92 on TV, but i haven't watched those to verify. That is fairly surprising that there wasn't one during the Nitro era. 

 

[SirSmUgly]

Fall Brawl 2000 notes:

• I was looking back at these Fall Brawl PPVs and their main events as I prepared to write about this show, and wow, almost as soon as this show came into existence, the WarGames matches that were traditionally a part of them until 1999 stunk, huh?

 

• Opening hype video: Production grabbed action figures for Goldberg, Nash, Steiner, and Booker T. and had them do moves to one another in stop-motion, intercut with the real-life build from the past month. It’s a bit goofy, but I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the creativity.

 

• In this hot cruiserweight lukewarm 100-KG-and-Under opener, Kwee Wee (w/Paisley) faces Elix Skipper (w/Major Gunns). I wonder if y’all know who built this house? If you’re unaware, Prime Time did. If you show him the green, just watch him go! However, Prime Time’s skills don’t do much for him to start, as Kwee Wee blows him away and sends him out of the ring.

 

• Skipper immediately hops back in the ring, but gets shoved out of an arm wringer, elbow dropped for two, and arm dragged. The opening pace on this match is maybe a step below “torrid” and does a good job of emulating Eric Bischoff’s original ideal for this type of match. They fuck up a leapfrog, but Kwee Wee just rushes down Skip, so it’s fine.

 

• Kwee Wee loses control of the match when Skip tosses him chest-first into the corner and leaps into him with a flying forearm. He shakes his arm, which is kayfabe damaged by Kwee Wee targeting it early on, and then flips up and around Kwee Wee to land a forearm to the back before bridging on a Full Nelson Suplex for two. He covers again and then again, but only gets two.

 

• Skip lifts himself into the air by grasping the top rope and lands a guillotine legdrop for two; he goes to a chinlock that unfortunately slows things down, though at least they’re moving while they work it. Kwee Wee tries to fight up and attempts a crossbody that spills both men to the floor. Kwee Wee gets up first and gets on the apron, but Skipper reaches up and trips him, then scores a GORGEOUS springboard backflip dive that takes out both Kwee Wee and the nearby camera.

 

• Kwee Wee follows Skipper into the ring, barely beating the ten count, and gets his boot on the ropes to stop a pinfall attempt. Skip looks for a Play of the Day, but Kwee Wee hoists Skip into the air and powerbombs him. Well, I was enjoying this match, so I was waiting for the fuck shit, and here are the Natural Born Thrillers milling onto the ramp as Kwee Wee makes a comeback with a kneelift that Mr. Wrestling II would be moderately impressed by as well as a barrage of punches. A follow-up dropkick lands and earns a two count for Kwee Wee, as does a Kwee Wee back body drop.

 

• Kwee Wee tosses Skip outside, and Skip rolls into the guardrail and bangs his shin; Kwee Wee then hangs Skip up on the guardrail. Paisley harasses Skipper outside the ring, which draws the ref; Mike Sanders runs to the ring and takes Kwee Wee out with a stickball bat shot to the knee. Skip re-enters the ring with a top-rope crossbody that Kwee Wee reverses for two. However, Skipper targets Kwee Wee’s injured knee, Matrixes (Matrices?) underneath a Kwee Wee lariat, chop blocks the erstwhile fashionista, and then hits the first decent looking Play of the Day that I’ve seen an opponent bump properly for to earn the three and keep the gold. You can tell that Skip and Kwee Wee came up wrestling one another from the Power Plant and onto television because Kwee Wee actually knew how to make that PotD look like it had some impact.

 

• That was a pretty good match, and I suppose that the Sanders intervention might be part of a deal between the heels that will lead to a title match between them. I think it was good enough to scootch its way onto a YouTube playlist of fun WCW matches myself, which I had to consider for a little bit. It’s the second time in just over a month that this matchup managed to qualify for that particular list of mine, in fact.

 

• Hey, it’s Three Count (w/dance circles)! They don’t get enough television time. Evan Karagias promises us a well-choreographed dance routine, but of course those killjoys in the Misfits in Action spoil that. It would have been nice to get a little build for this match between Three Count and the trio of Cpl. Cajun, Lt. Loco, and SGT. A-WALL, y’know? The same goes for the opener. Why not have Loco get the cruiserweight title shot since Team Canada and the M.I.A. are beefing already? Then, you are naturally building between the two instead of having Kwee Wee win the shot and memory-holing him for two weeks until the PPV.

 

• Anyway, Shannon Moore is a little off tonight, as he has an awkward exchange with Loco before hitting a struggle springboard moonsault on Cajun. A series of quick tags between the teams leaves Shane Helms in the ring with A-WALL; Helms is an underrated worker, no? He embarks upon a well-worked sequence with A-WALL that ends up with all his dodging and diving getting him gorilla pressed into a spinebuster in a nice spot.

 

• Everyone floods the ring after that spot, and eventually when it clears, we end up with Cajun as the FIP. Moore redeems himself by landing a nice Rocker Dropper Showstopper. I love that Scott Hudson, back from what was a very short paternity leave, is insistent upon using Marty Jannetty’s name for that version of a leg lariat facebuster. This FIP segment is pretty good, with all three heels scoring some fun offense and quickly tagging in and out.

 

• Helms loses a punch-up with Cajun, but Cajun makes the mistake of getting Helms running again; Helms slips to Cajun’s side and lands a side Russian. Moore gets in, manages a two count, and does the ol’ Ric Flair “shove the ref, get shoved to the mat” spot before inciting the babyfaces on the apron and choking Cajun. Moore is too hot-headed to keep control and misses a splash, then eats mat on a Cajun springboard sit-out facebuster.

 

• Cajun gets the hot tag to A-WALL, who uses his size to destroy the smaller Three Count members, at least until Helms forearms him in the sack. Meanwhile, Moore forearms Cajun to the floor and lands a pescado over the table that A-WALL set up outside the ring. Loco and Karagias also hit dives, but A-WALL goozles Helms from his spot on the apron when Helms tries to dive. Karagias and Moore grab at A-WALL’s legs from either side; A-WALL lifts Moore halfway into the air by his hair (!!), but Helms superkicks A-WALL right in the jaw; A-WALL plummets through the table, as he always does every match, it seems like.

 

• Back in the ring, Helms and Karagias try to team up on another Helms superkick (which he calls the Sugar Smack, as I forgot until just now), but Loco ducks away from Karagias’s grasp, and Helms lays a boot into his partner’s temple. Moore tries to dive onto Loco, who plucks him from mid-air and lands a sit-out powerbomb that only gets two when Helms breaks it up. Three Count grabs Loco and Cajun and try a triple suplex, which is blocked; Loco and Cajun try to double-suplex Karagias, but Moore and Helms kick Loco and Cajun in the quads and help Karagias reverse it and lands a double-suplex of a different type. They go for pinfall attempts, but A-WALL has recovered outside and drags them both to the floor.

 

• If you couldn’t tell from what I’ve written so far, this match has been fun as hell and would have been an even more appropriate opener than the (fun in its own right) opener that we got. Loco and Cajun are left in the ring with Karagias, who is outnumbered and dumped to the mat with a Whiplash 2000 that ends the match. Hey, maybe you should feature Three Count on television more, Russo? I mean, if you weren’t getting booted from the writer’s room after this show?

 

• The nu-nWo should have done more “kids seeking autograph” skits because they’re two-for-two in my humble opinion on them. Here’s another kid backstage by himself. He asks for an autograph. Jarrett: “Get lost, kid.” Steiner: “Hey, you got a mother? *points* Is that her right there? *moves off-screen with the goal of harassing this poor woman*” Nash: “You have any money?” The kid has a buck fifty, so Nash says that about all he has money for is a Coke and a smile before walking away.

 

• Well, two matches and one sketch in, and I’ve really enjoyed this show! Of course, thirty minutes into a WCW PPV in this era is about when things start going to pot, and on cue, the Harris Bros. walk out for their Chain Match with KroniK. Adams talks before the match. It sucks, but it’s short. Russo decided that he needed to overdo the stips on this match because Adams declares this a First Blood Chain Match. No, wait, it should properly be called the Fall Brawl First Blood Pittsburgh Plunge Chain Match at Fall Brawl!

 

• These guys punch and choke each other while chained together. I don’t blame KroniK for the dullness of the match, especially Bryan “I’m actually a pretty fun worker, I promise” Clark. At least it, much like Adams’s pre-match stipulation update, is relatively short. There’s a ref bump, obviously. The punches are so weak. Guess what? One Harris Bro bleeds while the ref is out, but the heels bust open Adams next, and the ref sees it and calls the match. Again, it was relatively short, and I can tell you that this was by far this match’s best quality. KroniK hits ref Billy Silverman’s dumb ass with a High Times after the match. Eh, Silverman’s had it coming for a long time as the kayfabe dumbest ref on the roster.

 

• Hugh Morrus cuts a shitty jingoistic promo on Lance Storm in the back with as Pam Paulshock holds the mic. Morrus dedicates the match to Jim Duggan, who is here as the special ringside enforcer for the Canadian Championship bout and is maybe the most obvious SWERVE, BRO in the history of SWERVE, BROs.

 

• Before the Canadian Championship match, Lance Storm openly wonders why everyone living in Buffalo hasn’t split for Toronto or Hamilton or even Ottawa. Improve your visa program, dammit! It’s too late now; Canada’s headed the other way on passing out visas. Anyway, we actually get all the way through “O Canada,” which is nice.

 

• Van Hammer is still in the M.I.A. TurnerTron video. I love that Rection gets barely any reaction on his way out here. This is a completely unearned push for this clown. As Storm unloads on Rection, who no-sells it, I recall wondering a lot of reviews ago if Rection would be easier to watch as a babyface selling heel offense in between the shine and the comeback than he was as a heel in control. My conclusion is that he is, but the improvement is marginal.

 

• Rection stuffs everything Storm tries, from forearms to crucifix pins. Storm manages to dodge a repeat corner charge and hit a body slam, but even then, he gets caught going up top and superplexed for two. Storm continues to get rolled until he lands a desperation back kick to Rection’s all-American jewels. Storm follows up by managing to superkick Rection on a rope run and score a two.

 

• Madden makes me chuckle by demanding that the ref count from one directly to three when Storm covers and then declaring that the metric system eliminates even numbers for a faster count. Storm dives onto Rection at ringside, but he’s too busy jawing at Duggan to keep their ruse going to keep control of the obligabrawl; Rection takes control and wisely tosses Storm back in the ring, the only place where the title can be won.

 

• A Rection floatover powerslam gets two; a Rection gutwrench powerbomb to counter Storm’s crossbody attempt gets two as well because Rection takes some time to go for a lateral cover instead of just attempting a pinfall attempt from where he lands on his seat. Storm struggles to hit an ugly looking Dragon Screw, but Rection kicks away from a Canadian Maple Leaf attempt and scores a nasty-looking release overhead German before hitting a lariat that sends Storm to the floor.

 

• This is another short match that has benefitted deeply from being brief. Duggan tosses Storm back in the ring, where Rection goes for a No Laughing Matter, but Gunns draws the ref's attention for some stupid reason, which allows Duggan to hammer Rection in the base of the neck with a 2x4. Storm’s Canadian Maple Leaf is academic and earns a knockout victory. Duggan rips off his shirt to show that he’s wearing another shirt bearing the ol’ maple leaf; then, he uses his foam stick of wood to take out the onrushing M.I.A. members. I must say that Rection took a nice bump off the initial 2x4 shot, bashing his head into the turnbuckle as he slumped toward the mat. This was about as good a midcard PPV match as anyone anywhere is getting out of General Hugh Morrus-Rection.

 

• Do you think that Duggan left Glens Falls for a few days’ vacation in Toronto and Hamilton, then thought, What was I thinking, Canada rules? That’s my headcanon, at least.

 

• Okerlund’s feeling feisty as fuck tonight, and probably Mike Sanders’s shitty Konnan singalong impression only made his mood worse, because this is the famous interview where he shits on the Natural Born Thrillers: “Hey, real good impression there, YA PRICK. What about the rest of you pissants, anybody else wanna do impressions?” When O’Haire tells Okerlund to shut up, Okerlund tells him to blow it out his ass and threatens him with a parking lot beatdown from some guys he knows. The best part of this whole thing was actually Tony S. hearing the “pissants” remark and quietly asking in disbelief, “What did he call them?”

 

• The Filthy Animals (Rey, Juvi, Disco, Konnan, and honorary members for the night Vito and Paul Orndorff) face the Natural Born Thrillers (Sanders, Jindrak, O’Haire, Palumbo, The Bull, and Reno) in a twelve-person elimination tag match. This match isn’t going to get an ending because they’re going to have to cart Orndorff and his extremely dodgy neck outta there before too long. The Animals escort a towel-wearing Orndorff from his car to the ring. I’m not going to get into this too much because of Orndorff’s injury, but I will say that Stasiak is terrible on commentary and that the match is full of solid work leading up to the impromptu ending.

 

• Eliminations: Disco blindly hits Konnan with a Chartbuster when he means to land one on O’Haire [Animals 5 – Thrillers 6]. No one will tag Disco in after that, so he falls prey to a Reno Roll of the Dice [Animals 4 – Thrillers 6]. Vito then stumbles into a Reno Roll of the Dice when Johnny the Bull hits him from behind with a stickball bat [Animals 3 – Thrillers 6].

 

• The Animals regroup, talk strategy, and manage to eliminate Reno with a Rey nutcracker guillotine legdrop [Animals 3 – Thrillers 5]. Juvi tries to fly to keep up the momentum, but he gets caught and posted on the guardrail and then bealed from the floor into the room; O’Haire follows up with a Seanton Bomb that eliminates the tag champion [Animals 2 – Thrillers 5].

 

• Orndorff is in and manages to land one piledriver without shocking his spine; Johnny the Bull is the recipient and is eliminated in short order [Animals 2 – Thrillers 4]. The crafty vet Orndorff manages to dodge a couple of Thriller dives, but the second piledriver to Jindrak leaves him laid out, and O’Haire pins the guy [Animals 1 – Thrillers 4]...and the match continues?! What the fuck?! Maybe stop this match. We don’t need a Bronco Buster or a Face Fulla Stuff. Madden talking shit about Orndorff hurting himself on his own piledriver was a terrible look, too. Why in hell are we still doing spots in the ring? WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT THEE FUUUUUUUUUCK.  

 

• Well, this is on the Absolute Dirt Worst list because they kept working around this injured dude laid out in the ring. Like, Raven sees that a guy has a bad neck injury, stops the bout, and stabilizes the neck of his Villano opponent; these fellas, including a vet like Rey who should know better, do spots around a laid-out Orndorff in the ring. What the shit, man. Finally, the match is called off  These camerapeople show Orndorff’s fucked up, pained face as they put him on the backboard, and even Madden is disgusted by the production truck's decision in that moment.

 

• Let’s see if anyone else gets hurt in this Fall Brawl Mixed Tag Pittsburgh Plunge Scaffold Match, about which Kidman and Madusa and Paulshock all stumble through an interview before it happens. BITCH COUNT: 3. Madusa, of course, got two of them out.

 

• Wait, hold on, the BITCH COUNT is back on because this stupid-ass Shane Douglas is on the mic before this match. Douglas promises to send Kidman to the hospital along with Orndorff, and then ups the BITCH COUNT: BITCH COUNT: 4. Also, I’d like to make the claim that THAT’S A FACT, THAT’S A FACT, THAT’S A FACT, JACK…ASSSSSSSS is the single worst catchphrase in this company. For context, this company includes Rick Steiner yelling IF YOU WANT SOME, COME GET SOME; IF YOU DON’T LIKE ME, BITE ME before each of his matches, if you’ll recall! 

 

• Tony S. is the absolute best tonight. After Madden makes a jokey comment about Madusa’s bust, Tony impatiently responds, “Look, I’d like to sell this match a little bit, so get your boob jokes out now.” Madden thankfully only has the one boob joke. For now, at least. We get this humorous exchange while they raise the scaffold and the heels hit some terrible facials about how high it is up there. This is one of those scaffold bouts that is won by climbing down the opposite ladder of the scaffold than the one your team climbed up to start the match. 

 

• These always suck. The ladies try to climb down the ladders on the opposite sides of the scaffold; Douglas hits Kidman with a Franchiser. Douglas chases Madusa and kicks her in the head, but she low blows him, though Douglas recovers and boots Madusa right into a crash pad. Apparently, this isn’t enough to win the match because Madusa didn’t climb down under her own power. Torrie runs back onto the scaffold and low blows Kidman so that Douglas can toss him and he can do a stage dive. Remember when Kidman was way over in 1998 and most of 1999? They sure had the chance to push him like a perennial U.S. Championship threat. I don’t even like the guy all that much, but this last year or so of his push has been malpractice. The heels climb down and win the match.

 

• I guess that Sting calling his own victory on Thunder stuck because Okerlund announces that he gets a title shot on Nitro as he interviews the Stinger. Oops, wait, no, here’s Jarrett to bash Sting in the head as Sting talks about beating Muta tonight and becoming champ tomorrow. Jarrett swears that he’s going to get the title shot and be the champ instead.

 

• Pre-taped interview: I don’t think this segment fits on this show, but Mike Tenay harasses David Flair at Flair’s home for an interview. Dopey Dave is paranoid. Well, he’s even more paranoid than usual, to be totally accurate. Dave’s living room is a mess of discarded newspapers, half-eaten pizza, cigarette butts, and empty boxes of saltines. There's a beer keg decorated with band stickers right next to his couch. Ah, this man is living the bachelor’s life!

 

• Tenay riles Dopey Dave up by running down his shitty, failed life and asking how it affects Dave’s mental health. This dope is too busy peeking out of his blinds and chain smoking to focus on Tenay’s line of questioning. Tenay wonders who Dopey Dave suspects; this dope Dave’s number one suspect is Reid. Tenay thinks that it’s actually Ric who is the baby's daddy, but Dave ignores that suggestions and considers that actually, it’s probably the mailman, whom he bursts out of his house to attack during the daily mail drop-off. Yes, this sketch was more of a Nitro thing than a PPV thing, I think, but it was fine.

 

• This interminable Sting/Vampiro feud rolls on with Muta jammed into the middle of it for this Triple Threat Match. The ICP join commentary, kicking Tony S. and Hudson out of their seats in the bargain. I’m baffled as to what issue Muta has with Vamp. I played Muta’s old late ‘80s JCP/WCW theme during this shitty ringside brawl that started the match. This theme rules.

 

• Sting gets beaten up in the crowd, then back at the ringside area. Muta and Vamp continue to beat up Sting, so I guess they’re buds again? I don’t care to know, actually. In the crowd, a guy in a mask has a conversation with the well-dressed older couple that he’s sitting between, which was my favorite thing about this match. My second-favorite thing about this match was that it was short. Vamp and Muta fight over who will pin Sting. The ICP tries to calm things down, which allows Sting to roll outside, retrieve his bat, use it to destroy the Dark Carnival, and hit Muta with a Scorpion Death Drop for three. DUD. After the match, Sting saves Muta from a Dark Carnival thrashing.

 

• Mike Awesome asks Pam Paulshock if she wants to have sex make whoopee with him in his bus. Pam’s still just looking for friendship and a hot scoop or two, and also Gary Coleman is on the bus? What is happening right now? Everyone on commentary is laser-focused on Paulshock’s boobs. I’m not sure what exactly just happened, but I refuse to dignify any of that last interview with a rewind.

 

• Jeff Jarrett is going to ride this cheap heat deal where he wears a Frank Wycheck jersey in Buffalo for as long as he possibly can, huh? Some then-current Bills players are in the crowd. They are displeased with Jarrett’s nonsense. Jarrett names every Bill from their Super Bowl runs that he can think of – Scott Norwide Norwood, Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith – and then goes on and on and fucking on about Mike Awesome liking stuff from the ‘70s. Finally, Awesome lugs a table out. This is an obvious dub, so let’s go hear what he actually had at this time. Aw man, it’s a “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” knockoff! Well, this Hart/Helm knockoff is way better than the shitty dub, as is true of every non-DDP, non-Raven dub on the Network.

 

• This match has an unlit branding iron and a noose in the ring as weapons, but none of this is properly used. It’s just another smashy smashy, trashy trashy match. Also, the punches are mediocre. Awesome takes a dive through a table when Jarrett backdrops him out of a top-rope Awesome Bomb attempt, but unfortunately, it’s not the end of the match. Jarrett takes a leap into some rubber-tipped barbed wire, but there’s no blood or puncturing, so what is the point? Just hit each other with a cowboy boot instead, you idiots.

 

• Jarrett taunts the Bills at ringside, so they surround the ring. This is the hottest that the crowd has been all night. The bulls shove Jarrett around and snap his neck over the ropes, then shove him into an Awesome Bomb for 2.9, which is dumb, as this should have been the finish. The crowd was very hyped for that spot to be the finish. Jarrett back kicks out of another Awesome Bomb attempt and grabs his KABONGing guitar, but Gary Coleman runs down and punches Jarrett in the nuts, then celebrates to a standing ovation. What in the hell is this shit? Jarrett gets up and KABONGs Coleman because nothing makes sense anymore and everything is random noise. Sting runs up and hits a Scorpion Death Drop on Jarrett; Awesome covers for three. I mean, is that peak WCW overbooking? I don’t think it can get any weirder or more overdone than that match was.

 

• Hype video: Goldberg/Scott Steiner is actually interesting, even with a lot of bad Midajah-and-Beth involved build. They never did put Scotty over the Hulkster clean, but there is a great argument that Scotty should be maybe the only guy in the company to go over Goldberg clean, at least at this point.

 

• Gene Okerlund had better not mouth off to Scott Steiner during this interview session. Steiner expresses confidence in his ability to beat Goldberg and will be having celebration sex with many women, according to him, after he wins. Okerlund waits until Steiner leaves to mouth off, calling the guy a "bastard," I think.

 

• OK, let’s see how this Goldberg/Scott Steiner match turns out. Steiner and the Bills players yap at one another while Goldberg gets the police escort out to the ring. Steiner starts by offering up a dish full of soupbones, but Goldberg enjoys them and hands out a gorilla press into a powerslam as a snack. Steiner is full and heads to the floor instead, where he initiates an obligabrawl that he wins before getting Goldberg back into the ring.

 

• A clothesline/elbowdrop combo only scores two for Steiner. He tries to press his advantage with more forearms, but runs into a boot on a corner charge and goes over on a double-underhook suplex. Goldberg mounts and throws punches, then shoots Steiner into the ropes; he ducks down and gets clubbed and hit with a neckbreaker. Steiner’s follow-up belly-to-belly suplex earns him another two count.

 

• Steiner looks for a Tombstone, but Goldberg reverses it and just drills Steiner with a powerslam from the Tombstone position for two. Goldberg tries a spear; Steiner moves, but Goldberg stops before posting his shoulder and is able to catch Steiner on a dive from the top rope and dump him. Steiner realizes that he’s in trouble and goes back to the floor, initiating another obligabrawl that he once more controls.

 

• Midajah walks to ringside holding Scotty Steiner’s lead pipe as Steiner attacks Goldberg with a chair. Steiner tosses Goldberg back in the ring and nearly drops the guy as he hangs him in the Tree of Woe position; then, he jabs at Goldberg with the chair. Steier jabbers at some front row fans who flick him off, lands an overhead suplex, and does some pushups. Steiner hits a backbreaker, but covers extremely nonchalantly and only gets two. My man Steiner looks gassed, honestly.

 

• Goldberg back elbows his way out of a Full Nelson suplex attempt, but turns right around into an overhead belly to belly. Midajah gives Steiner the pipe, but Steiner turns around and gets speared. Goldberg sets up for a Jackhammer, but Vince Russo runs in and lands a series of foam baseball bat shots to Goldberg's kidneys. That foam bat sounds AWFUL when it lands. It totally takes me out of the moment. Steiner covers for two, then tosses Goldberg to the floor and once again controls the third obligabrawl of the night.

 

• Steiner slams Goldberg through a table and slaps high-ten with Russo. Wow, he’s so fired up that he allowed Russo to touch him! Steiner puts Goldberg back in the ring and locks on a Steiner Recliner. Goldberg gets to the ropes, which shouldn’t matter in a no disqualification match like this, but Midajah kicks his hand away anyway. Goldberg manages to instead escape with an electric chair drop that, oh WOW, he just dumps Scotty straight down. Holy shit, what a dangerous way to dump a guy!

 

• Scotty is back up first and clubs Goldberg, then sets him up top for a super belly-to-belly; Goldberg knocks Steiner away with headbutts, but Midajah and Russo hit foam pipe and foam bat shots, which gives Steiner a chance to get back up there and land the super belly-to-belly for a poorly-timed 2.9 that looked like three to me. Steiner goes back to the Recliner, and at this point, I feel like if this doesn’t put Goldberg down, what possibly can? Goldberg uses his momentum to toss Steiner off; Steiner tumbles to the floor, grabs a chair, comes back into the ring, and whiffs on a chair shot. Goldberg lands a neckbreaker.

 

• Russo gets in the ring and Goldberg goozles him, but Steiner whacks Goldberg with the lead pipe a couple of times and goes back to the Recliner, which finally ends the match. I sort of wish Steiner had gone over more cleanly. Also, Russo rips off his shirt and poses his skinny-fat ass over Goldberg's prone body, which bums me out. Russo getting involved considerably harmed the match quality. Steiner and Awesome needing everyone else to help them win really blunts the impact of their victories tonight! Anyway, the Bills escort a revived Goldberg out of the ring.

 

• Hype video: Sting is undergoing a transformation at this year’s Halloween Havoc, brought to you by Electronic Arts and WCW Backstage Assault for the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation consoles. Seriously, they hype some sort of weird Sting transformation deal.

 

• Hype video: Let’s recount Booker T.’s botched first world title reign in preparation for what will probably be an equally botched second world title reign!

 

• Paula Poundstone answers a question from Peter Segal about Sir Keir Starmer…no, sorry, wait, Pam Paulshock interviews Booker T. about his upcoming match with Kevin Nash. My mistake! 

 

• Michael Buffer stands inside the cage to introduce the combatants for our main event. Kevin Nash gets inside the cage and immediately starts working on a turnbuckle in one corner of the ring. Mark Madden thinks that someone should help Scott Hall out, but Hall needs to want to help himself first, fella. Buffer’s introductions pass without incident or need for a quality check, by the way.

 

• This match is going just under ten minutes, which seems about right. Nash overpowers Booker to start, but he makes the mistake of shooting Booker in, and Booker uses his speed and agility to land a forearm. Nash goes back to power, landing a running clothesline and a few fists. Book dodges a framed forearm, but gets caught charging Nash in the other corner after a few rights and a whip; Nash boots his way out of trouble and lands a lariat for two.

 

• Nash works Booker’s shoulders and back in a rest hold, then cuts Booker off when Booker fights out of it and lands a side slam for two. What if Booker got a little more shine to start this match? It’d be nice. Nash walks over and finishes uncovering the buckle he was working on before the match; he tries a Snake Eyes into the buckle, but Booker slips out of the back and shoves Nash into the buckle. Booker looks for his 5MoD, landing a Houston Side Kick, an axe kick, and a Spinaroonie before Nash escapes his Book End attempt and goozles him for a chokeslam.

 

• Tired after eating offense from Booker, Nash takes time to cover after that chokeslam and only gets two. Nash bashes Booker’s noggin into the cage once, twice, and thrice. Booker blocks the fourth cage shot and fights over a cage shot of his own; Nash manages to block that, so Booker changes tack and knocks Nash’s head into the exposed buckle. Booker unloads with overhead rights and then smashes Nash’s head into the cage; Nash has bladed at this point. Huh, Nash at least somewhat tried to get this guy over, huh? Even the desk is like, Buh, Nash is bleeding?!

 

• Nash low blows his way out of ten punches in the corner, but maybe the loss of blood has him kayfabe disoriented because he tries a Jackknife while still in the corner; Booker flips up and grabs the cage, kicks Nash away, and lands a missile dropkick for two. Booker looks for a superkick, but Nash catches Book’s boot, spins Booker around, and hits a diving lariat for two.

 

• Both men get up slowly, and Booker wins a punch-up that Nash once again escapes with a ball shot. Nash manages to get to his feet first and shoots Booker into the ropes for a big boot. Nash pulls the straps down and sets up for a Jackknife, but Booker flips out of it and hits a Book End for the three, the gold, and a nice pop.

 

• I mean, that was the best possible sub-ten minute cage match between Booker T. and Kevin Nash that anyone could possibly hope for. I think it’s a Charming Uniquity match just for a) being enjoyable and b) Kevin Nash actually trying to get a guy over in 2000?!

 

• WCW World Heavyweight Championship title change count: 21 (Hitman > VACANT > Benoit > VACANT > Sid > Nash > Sid > VACANT > Jarrett > DDP > Arquette > Jarrett > Ric Flair > Jarrett > Nash > Flair > Jarrett > Hulk Hogan > Jarrett > Booker > Nash > Booker)

 

• This wasn’t a good show, and it certainly got weird in the middle of the thing, but two good opening matches and a novel main event make it one of the more watchable PPVs of 2000 so far. I have faith that with Russo out the door, it can be topped in the next three months, though!

Edited March 15 by SirSmUgly

[zendragon]

Sounds like Nash found his 94-96 working boots, I'm curios to see if they try to explain Hacksaw joining Team Canada. I though that was a stip to a match

[SirSmUgly]

On 1/21/2025 at 8:24 AM, twiztor said:

• I know his stint in TNA is not his high point, but Tenay actually keeps this "antagonizing interviewer" bit up in that company as well, although it's more sporadic. It never works there, either, and always seems out of character. I'm a huge Tenay fan, but this whole bit is a terrible misstep. And that's not even addressing his blatant misogyny (which largely does NOT carry over to TNA)

 

I like Tenay in the very specific role that WCW initially hired him for, but unfortunately, I don't think I've liked him much outside of that role. 

If you don't mind me asking you to elaborate on this, what makes you such a fan of Tenay, and where would you rate him historically as a PBP man?

Quote

• or perhaps it was because of Goldberg and Bret Hart? Look, i'm as big an nWo fan as anyone, but anything after the Fingerpoke of Doom is bullshit NWO. I even appreciated the entirety of the 2002 WWE run, but this is hot garbage. 

This is also a possibility. I mean, Goldberg is still massively over in September of 2000. No matter what anyone thinks about him, he is a huge draw and his return from injury spiked ratings before he went through a dumb heel turn and then wasn't given the big gold belt again before the company shut down. 

I mean, it's bananas that this company wasted a bunch of title reigns on Nash and Jarrett in 2000, but took until November to crown Steiner and never gave Goldberg another run. 

However, I do think that the nWo revival is the key. The ratings after the nWo officially re-formed went up for three weeks, but Bret and Goldberg both went off TV and they died. However, the recent reforming of the nWo 2000 then led to three weeks of ratings over a 3.0. I suppose Bret was on television again for it and people might have hoped that he would reveal that he'd be ready to come back, though. 

Let's say that it's inconclusive, but some combination of Bret, Goldberg, and the new nWo seems to be the driver for the brief upticks in ratings.

Quote

hmm, you know, that's a good question. The last one i can find in my records is Flair/Arn vs. Hollywood Blondes at CotC23 (June 1993). There seems to have been a few of them in early summer '92 on TV, but i haven't watched those to verify. That is fairly surprising that there wasn't one during the Nitro era. 

We got twenty different "[X] on a Pole" matches before we got one two-out-of-three falls match. Oh, Vincent Russo.

11 hours ago, zendragon said:

Sounds like Nash found his 94-96 working boots, I'm curios to see if they try to explain Hacksaw joining Team Canada. I though that was a stip to a match

Between the match where he won the title from Booker and the Fall Brawl main event, Nash clearly made a decision to try and get Booker over. In fact, Booker hasn't looked like a legit main eventer so far except for in those two matches. Nash must actually like the guy; they do have some solid chemistry, actually (especially in sketches together, like Booker singing about himself to the tune of HBK's theme and legit causing Nash to laugh or the Chet Lemon/Black Snow commentary team). 

[twiztor]

7 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

I like Tenay in the very specific role that WCW initially hired him for, but unfortunately, I don't think I've liked him much outside of that role. 

If you don't mind me asking you to elaborate on this, what makes you such a fan of Tenay, and where would you rate him historically as a PBP man?

i think it was probably his earnestness. When he first came in, he had a knowledge and enthusiasm for the product that i'd never seen or heard in pro wrestling before. He just seemed excited to be presenting these lucha matches, you know? And that probably fed into my desire to learn everything i could about this sport that i found enthralling. There were all these characters, and masks, and backstories that he was so innately familiar with. He was the absolute perfect person to use to educate the audience about this new presentation of wrestling (so much so, that they tried that formula again with Lee Marshall and women's wrestling, to.....lesser results)

I think by the time Tenay made it to TNA, he was feeling the pressure to carry the program. He's more than just the PBP guy. He's also teaching Don West on the job, live (remember, this is a guy who didn't know wrestling or broadcasting, at all!) Plus trying to establish this new brand, get people to buy a PPV every week, AND make sense of sometimes nonsensical storylines. Dealing with the insanity of an inconsistent roster sure as hell didn't help. People tend to just shorthand all of that to "Tenay's not good at PBP", which is a semi-fair thing to say, but it really discounts everything else that he was involved with. So he ups the ante and goes over-the-top with everything. He winds up shouting significantly more than he should, and the broadcast is lesser for that. But i think under normal-ish circumstances, he would be at least average as a PBP man. He could easily lead an experienced 3 man booth and do a perfectly acceptable job of it. 

[SirSmUgly]

Show #258 – 18 September 2000

"The one with Vince Russo burning the house down on his way out of the front door, Part I"

• We get a long five-week build to Halloween Havoc, and we’re going to dump Vince Russo in the bushes along the way!

 

• WCW IS BACK, FOLKS

 

• Also, since I realized that I forgot to update this a few shows ago while I was updating the WCW World Heavyweight Championship Count:

 

• WCW World Tag Team Championship title change count: 10 (VACANT > David Flair and Crowbar > The Mamalukes > The Harris Bros. > VACANT > Buff Bagwell and Shane Douglas > KroniK > The Perfect Event > KroniK > Vampiro and Great Muta > Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera)…

 

• I bet if you asked a random person on this very board to recite all the WCW tag champs in 2000 from memory, nobody could do it, including the people who comment in this thread and also me, a person who has spent the last few months watching through all of WCW’s major programming in the year 2000.

 

• We get the new Nitro opener straightaway.

 

• WCW’s really been working on opening up markets outside of America: They’re back in Canada tonight, this time in the eastern part of the country, and they are headed to Australia and England. If only they’d started doing this two years earlier.

 

• Our opener is an official continuation of Fall Brawl’s twelve-person tag. Last we left things, it was [Animals 1 – Thrillers 4], but actually, Tygress is a legal participant, so it’s [Animals 2 – Thrillers 4], and wow, it’s impossible to care about this. Anyway, Jindrak, O’Haire, Palumbo, and Sanders are the legal Thrillers, if you wanted to know. Rey dodges an O’Haire Seanton Bomb that hits Jindrak instead and then, uh, Rey and Tygress pin one of each of those last two Thrillers at the same time because it doesn’t matter who is legal, does it [Animals 2 – Thrillers 2]?

 

• Shawn Stasiak is back out here on commentary, but he gets involved as Billy Silverman is just like, Man, that’s not cool, but since it was six-on-seven with Tygress being legal, I guess this evens things up. You know what, this stinks and I don’t care about it, but I will update that it is now [Animals 2 – Thrillers 3]. Kwee Wee and Paisley run down and Kwee Wee hits Stasiak with a chair even though Sanders is the guy who hit him last night. Then, get this, Tygress pins Stasiak while Palumbo pins Rey and both of them get three [Animals 1 – Thrillers 2]. Palumbo gets up and celebrates, but is quickly schoolgirled by Tygress for three [Animals 1 – Thrillers 1]. What.

 

• Oh wow, get this: Rey helps Tygress hit a facebuster on Sanders for three. Tygress basically rolled these “Power Plant Elite” dudes, huh? Madden insults the Ph balance of Tygress’s vagina even though he is basically a walking ball of smegma and Cheeto dust. Paul Orndorff shat out his own spine for this?! Head to the Absolute Dirt Worst list, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

 

• Kevin Nash shits on the Thrillers while watching them on a monitor; he thinks that they need for a coach. I bet Buzz Stern is available!

 

• After a few ads, Kevin Nash lectures the Natural Born Thrillers for sucking at pro wrestling. He diagrams a play on a chalkboard. The Xs and Os spell out a simple message: YOU SUCK. The Thrillers wonder which one of them sucks after Nash leaves the room. *whispers* I think he was talking to you as a collective, fellas.

 

• Goldberg’s music gets a heel reaction from these Canadians, which makes sense because, you know, he’s been pushed as the guy who retired Canadian hero Bret Hart with a superkick. Also, he legitimately retired Canadian hero Bret Hart with a superkick (that followed up on damage caused when he also retired Canadian hero Bret Hart by not holding him up on a ringpost Figure Four). That really undercuts Vince Russo being the one to walk out to Goldberg’s music since the idea is that the crowd is meant to be excited until they see Russo come out, which should then disappoint them and causing them to boo.

 

• What actually happens is the crowd initially booing at the music, then being dead silent, then booing again when they see Goldberg’s pyro. As commentary tries to sell the crowd being disappointed to see Russo, they POP when Russo steps through the sparks because Russo opposes Goldberg, the latter of whom is the guy who opposes their hero Bret Hart. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I love this. Russo is so fucking stupid that he couldn’t predict a Canadian crowd reacting like this. Production desperately tries to find a Canadian who isn’t cheering for Russo and has to hit a couple of quick camera cuts before they can find one.

 

• Russo does some shitty talking. He calls Kitchener “Kirchner.” You know, the M.I.A. could really use the support of that guy. Russo reads a registered letter from Goldberg that isn’t from Goldberg, which is way shittier than Chris Jericho reading a registered letter from Ted Turner that is kayfabe from Ted Turner. The crowd chants ASSHOLE at him until he pretends that Goldberg has quit the company in shame, which gets a huge pop. I think there’s something poetic about Vince Russo shitting on Goldberg and getting massive babyface pops and a RUSSO chant even though he’s supposed to be heeling. This guy just has no critical thinking skills or understanding of his audience at all. Honestly, this might make it on the So Dumb, It’s Entertaining list.

 

• Well, now that Russo introduces Scott Steiner and Midajah, I’d hope that Scotty says some dumb shit that helps this sucker really entrench itself on that list. Steiner gets a massive babyface pop; he shits on Goldberg and sparks a long GOLDBERG SUCKS chant that commentary doesn’t know how to react to. Steiner then challenges whoever the WCW World Champion is, either Sting or Booker T., to a title match on next week’s Nitro. Russo seems surprised by Steiner’s claim to a title shot, and of course, Jeff Jarrett has something to say about that. Usually, this sort of discord between the heels is a SWERVE, BRO, but Russo is on his way out, so they might actually break up the group and end this nu-nWo nonsense this time around.

 

• Russo tells both these fellas that he makes the matches, but does he anymore, really? Anyway, Kevin Nash walks out and demands a rematch for the gold. Tony S. realizes that he’s in Canada BIZARRO LAND and finally acknowledges the crowd's reactions on commentary. Russo’s solution to this issue is making a tag match in which the person winning the pinfall gets the title shot: Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner wrestle Kevin Nash and Vince Russo later tonight. Also, yes, Russo is still making the matches in real life because next week’s Nitro is in Long Island, and he can’t help but crown himself in front of his goofy-ass friends and family. SOMEBODY STOP THIS MANIAC ALREADY.

 

• Well, I knew Russo becoming champ had to happen at some point, right? So, Goldberg won’t be on this show, I’d guess, but he’ll be showing up to get his revenge next week when he spears Russo through the cage and to the floor before Booker can stroll out the cage door.

 

• Steiner, as Russo stalks away: YOU’RE NOT AN ATHLETE; YOU DON’T EVEN BELONG IN THE RING. MY JOHNSON’S BIGGER THAN YOUR ARMS. Heh, he self-censored by calling it his Johnson.

 

• After a break, Jarrett and Scotty Steiner yell at Nash and implore him to go talk some sense into Russo, but Nash lives up to the derisive moniker of “Big Lazy” and refuses.

 

• Oh joy, it’s Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson! Do both of these black holes of joy and fun make it to the end of this company? Douglas keeps it short and challenges a random couple in the back to a mixed tag match. Kwee Wee and Paisley answer the call. The thing about these two that rings so true is that, like in real life when two people cheat on their partners with one another, they’ve just totally memory-holed their previous partners. I assume The Artist has reverted back to his previous persona of Prince Iaukea and is sitting alone in his studio apartment, too lethargic to go out to that singles event he signed up for because he still can’t see how his previous relationship ended. Meanwhile, Papaya is having a ball matching with about five million dudes on Tinder oops, it’s only 2000, so let’s say at speed dating events, but she wakes up next to a different random dude each weekend and suddenly feels painfully empty inside.

 

• It could be worse, though. Iaukea could have made an ass out of himself like Billy Kidman did with Torrie Wilson after their relationship ended. Kidman’s been totally killed off at this point. Kwee Wee controls Douglas; Torrie tries to grab him, and Kwee Wee instead grabs her, back kicks Douglas in the junk when Douglas walks over, and kisses Torrie. Paisley is heated about that even though really, Kwee Wee is the one who kissed Torrie and not the reverse. Douglas hits a Franchiser, but Paisley demands that he tag Torrie in instead. Douglas pulls up off the pinfall, drags Kwee Wee over, and forcibly tags Paisley with Kwee Wee’s hand. Alas, this guy is a real bastard in the Barthian sense, man, and he short-arms his tag to Torrie, then hits Paisley with a Franchiser and rolls her up real sexual-like for a requested five-count. I’m pretty sure this is the Nitro that finally convinced Brad Siegel to send Vince Russo home for good because it has been vile, man, just a terrible display of televised professional wrestling so far.

 

• Russo does the whole “do three pushups, pretend I did a thousand other pushups before someone else walked into the room by counting a-thousand-and-one, etc.” thing and tells Kevin Nash that he’s got a plan for that night’s match when Nash walks in.

 

• After the break, we get Russo doing the chalkboard thing. It’s a bummer that these idiots realized that Nash and Scotty’s whiteboard deal last week was funny and decided to do worse versions of that gag this week. Russo does the penis stick figure gag and Nash does his whole diagramming thing that he did a few segments ago to write out BITE ME. Oy vey.

 

• Pam Paulshock interviews Booker T. and Sting backstage. Booker claims that it’s all about babyface respect and attempts at establishing catchphrases, the latter of which irritates Sting as much as it irritates me. Booker’s like, What, I like all my catchphrases, that’s rude as hell to hate on them, man and he punches Sting square in the jaw. There’s a pull-apart punch-up.

 

• Disco brings a plastic duck into the Cat’s office. Well, it’s a goose, not a duck, which the Cat recognizes, but which Disco does not. Disco tells the Cat that he sucks at commissioneering, and the Cat challenges Disco to a match. The stakes: If Disco wins, he’s the new commissioner. If the Cat wins, Disco declares that the Cat can strip Rey and Juvi of the tag belts, which the Cat could do any-damn-way as the commissioner, but whatever. Anyway, I suppose it was timely that I shared the tag title update with you at the beginning of this review, huh?

 

• The best thing about this show so far was the lovely Ms. Jones in that last segment, particularly considering the dress she chose to wear for this Nitro.

 

• Sting and Booker are very angry at one another in their respective locker rooms.

 

• Before he goes out there to get rolled by the Cat, Disco tries to reassure the Filthy Animals that he’s got everything under control. Disco does not have everything under control. The Cat immediately bans the Animals from ringside under threat of suspension without pay. WCW’s spelling Disco’s name “Disqo” now for some reason, but I refuse. The Cat wins it with a Feliner in about fifteen seconds. Welp.

 

• WCW World Tag Team Championship title change count: 11 (VACANT > David Flair and Crowbar > The Mamalukes > The Harris Bros. > VACANT > Buff Bagwell and Shane Douglas > KroniK > The Perfect Event > KroniK > Vampiro and Great Muta > Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera > VACANT)…

 

• Ms. Jones comes out and revives the Cat with his revivin’ cape. She also shimmies a little. What if every segment tonight had Ms. Jones in it somehow? That would be dope. She could probably carry this thing to a score in the low negatives, maybe even a zero score!

 

• Nash comes back to the nWo 2000 locker room and decides that he’s going to take the night off, maybe hang out with the Thrillers and see what’s happening around Kitchener. Jarrett and Scotty Steiner are baffled by his decision.

 

• The Animals chase Disco out of the building; Disco escapes in his vehicle.

 

• Video that we already saw the other night at Fall Brawl: The Tenay/David Flair interview at Dopey Dave’s place of residence gets a replay for the other 99.2% of WCW’s dwindling fanbase that sure as hell didn’t bother to purchase Fall Brawl the other night.

 

• We get a bit of ersatz “Smooth Operator” when the video ends; M.I. Smooth is in the ring, where he claims that he has a bit of info on who the father of Stacy’s baby is. Dave runs out with his trusty crowbar in hand. Smooth blanks on the word “crowbar,” tells Dave to “put down that pipe…or whatever you call it,” and then holds up a video tape.

 

• OK, so, do you remember when the white Hummer randomly came back, driven by Kidman, and smashed a car-bound Hogan like nine months after it smashed up Nash in the limo? Well, Kidman’s two-for-two with participating in long-dropped angles that randomly popped up again because Smooth, without mentioning the KidCam directly (that I thought was stolen and used to harass Buff Bagwell, right?), says that Billy Kidman got some video tape of the guy who shtupped Stace while he was sitting in the back of Smooth’s limo. Smooth offers to come up off the tape for some cash.

 

• Tony S. mentions the KidCam directly on commentary as everyone tries to figure out when the last time was that they saw it on WCW television. It was earlier this year, I think, but Kidman and Torrie didn’t have possession of it – or so they claimed. So are we to believe that Kidman and Torrie were lying and Kidman (or Torrie, who is a pretty vindictive person herself) was the one videotaping Buff as he struck out with practically every lady who worked for this company outside of that one nWo girl whom Jarrett fired from her position as nWo girl? Actually, it’s moderately shameful that I remember exactly what happened to the KidCam from like seven months of television ago or whatever it’s been.

 

• Forget that trip down memory lane (not to be confused with Lenny Lane’s finisher); you were probably wondering how this segment ended. Well, Smooth and Dopey Dave make the exchange. Dopey Dave grabs his pipe or whatever you call that thing and hits Smooth with it while Smooth counts the money, but he inexplicably doesn’t take his money back, which would be the point of hitting the guy after you've paid him and taken possession of the item that you've paid him for.

 

• Scott Steiner and Jarrett bust into Russo’s locker room and yell at him. Russo was looking at something that he quickly hides in his bag when they bust in, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Scotty is fucking hilarious. First off, Russo quickly picks up a FLEX magazine and pretends to read it after he hides whatever it was that he hid. Steiner rips it out of his hands and tears it up while yelling, WHAT ARE YOU READING?! YOU’VE GOTTA HAVE MUSCLES TO READ THIS! Then, after Russo randomly asks them what they think about KroniK, Steiner stops yelling and thinks he’s talking about weed. He even calms down a bit, maybe because he assumes that Russo might be able to offer him a bag of good. When Russo clarifies, Steiner yells, I THOUGHT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT THAT GOOD STUFF. ADAMS AND CLARK, THEY SUCK! What if you just made Scott Steiner the champ and put him in a bunch of segments? But, uh, keep Ms. Jones away from this savage and in totally separate segments.

 

• Dopey Dave clubs production dudes with his crowbar while trying to get them to play the tape.

 

• Terry Taylor sends Mike Sanders to see Vince Russo; Russo hid a tape recorder, which he pulls a cassette from and tells Sanders to deliver to KroniK. Sanders readily agrees to carry out the task and is pleased to be called an elite ass kisser by Russo. Man this dude Mike Sanders is a shameless social climber.

 

• OH NO at this promotional video: Stacy Keibler is going to be interviewed on Thunder. Let’s hope it’s Tony S. and not Mike T. who conducts the interview.

 

• Sting faces Booker T. for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship smack in the middle of the show. Sting gets the babyface pop; Booker gets booed. Tony S.: “These fans in Kitchener are a different breed.” BIZARRO LAND INTENSIFIES. There’s an early feeling-out process that establishes Sting as slightly craftier and stronger, but Booker as somewhat more agile. Sting lands a lariat on Booker as Booker tries an axe kick, but Booker gets knees up on a splash attempt.

 

• Book shoots Sting in and lands a Houston Side Kick for two, then lands a boot to the gut and scores an axe kick for two more. There’s a really nice sequence in which they counter-counter-counter from a Booker vertical suplex into a drop behind and a Scorpion Death Drop attempt; Book squirms back into suplex position, but Sting latches onto Booker’s arm and hits an arm breaker. Booker gets to the ropes, but stands up and eats two Stinger Splashes before being locked in a Scorpion Death Lock that Jeff Jarrett breaks up for a DQ. Hmm, I can guess why Booker is getting booed. He only ever looks even remotely capable on the PPVs that no one is fucking watching, but he gets rolled on free television every goddam week. Jarrett KABONGs Sting with some help from Scott Steiner, who puts Booker in the Recliner. Terrible segment, but I sure would like a twenty-minute Booker/Sting match on PPV.

 

• Bryan Clark listens to some rad tunes on his Sony Walkman™, which sure is convenient as that’s when Mike Sanders walks up and delivers Russo’s tape to him! Clark takes it without harming Sanders, maybe because he's hoping it's Stone Temple Pilots or something. 

 

• Nice guy Jimmy Hart suggests to Dopey Dave that Dave go pop his videotape into the VCR in the back of Smooth’s limo. Dopey Dave thanks him with a fifty-dollar gift card to Macaroni Grill. No, wait, he thanks him with a crowbar shot to the back. My mistake.

 

• KroniK smell like that citrus spray from Trader Joe’s that people use to cover up the smell of weed, which is how the Cat knows that they’re walking into his office before he actually lays eyes on them. The recording of Scotty yelling about how bad Adams and Clark suck convinced them to ask for a match against the nWo 2000 members. Ms. Jones, who made this segment better merely by being involved in it, is sent to inform Scotty and Jarrett that they have another tag match to deal with.

 

• Team Canada enters the ring to an obvious pop. They introduce their newest member, a “former Toronto Argonaut” according to Lance Storm, which I don’t think is true, is it? But also, do people from Kitchener root for the Argos or the Ti-Cats? Anyway, in the first truly tremendous thing I’ve seen on this show all night (apart from Ms. Jones, that is), Jim Duggan walks out in a maple leaf-decorated track suit and with NO FACIAL HAIR AND A CREW CUT. He yells OUTTA MY FACE, WOMAN at a disappointed Major Gunns and then claims that he defected to Canada because American fans think he sucks. I mean, I do, but most fans think he's pretty rad. Actually, he specifically says that fans chanting for GOLDBERG after Goldberg mauled him a few months ago made him change his mind on America as a whole.

 

• Here’s a thing that I never thought that I’d ever type: Hacksaw Duggan has been a net positive on WCW television in the year 2000. Wild.

 

• Anyway, the corny-ass M.I.A. rush the ring and clear it. I guess this is a multi-man match, actually. Hacksaw Duggan looks like Rip Torn’s younger brother now that he’s cleaned up. Hudson is deplorably terrible on commentary. Duggan tags in and Oklahoma Calgary Stampedes Lt. Loco. In an absolute rarity, A-WALL puts someone else – Elix Skipper specifically - through the table he’s set up at ringside with a chokeslam rather than going through it himself. Rection motions Duggan to hook it up with him in the ring, but Storm superkicks Rection from behind. Duggan grabs his 2x4 and destroys everyone with it, then pins Rection in the middle. Storm and Duggan Pillmanize Rection’s leg post-match. This was all dumb, but in a very entertaining way.

 

• Steiner and Jarrett burst back into Russo’s locker room, suspecting that he was behind the Cat booking them against KroniK. Just watch the show back after it’s over, fellas, and you’ll be able to suss out what happened. They leave, but Russo mumbles about hoping that his newly-chosen tag partner will show up for him later tonight.

 

• Mike Awesome and Gary Coleman pull up in the love bus. Gary Coleman thinks that Mike Awesome set him up for the KABONGing he took last night and then storms off to get revenge on Jarrett. Awesome walks toward the arena, upset that Coleman thinks that he got him KABONG’d on purpose, and he’s so absorbed in thought that he fails to see Vampiro and the ICP sneaking up on his bus.

 

• KroniK come to the ring, but before their nWo opponents can join them, Nash and the Natural Born Thrillers step onto the stage. Nash asserts that KroniK need to level up before they get to wrestle Scotty and Jarrett and then says that he’s going to be taking the Thrillers under his wing. He calls for two volunteers to fight KroniK; the Thrillers shove Sanders and the Bull out in front. They go to the ring and get destroyed. KroniK demands some fresh meat and get Reno and Palumbo, who also go to the ring and get destroyed. KroniK demands some even fresher meat, and Jindrak and O’Haire walk to the ring, but don’t bother getting in the ring because Jarrett and Steiner jump KroniK from behind; a Jarrett Stroke to Clark ends this segment, which was dumb in a way far less entertaining than the Team Canada segment was!

 

• Three Count lets Mike Awesome know that his bus is fucked. Awesome walks out and sees the bus tagged with messages such as ICP RULES, ‘70s SUCK, and MIKE MEDIOCRE. Ouch! Awesome, enraged: “I paid top dollar for this bus!” Awesome’s pretty funny sometimes. An I-C-P chant fires up among a portion of the crowd.

 

• Russo proposes a partnership for later tonight with Sting. Sting goozles Russo, who manipulates Sting by asserting that if he’s not willing to team up with him for another shot at the big gold and revenge on Jarrett, he must have lost his heart. Sting readily agrees to tag with Russo because he’s a dumb babyface.

 

• Yeah, we get ersatz Barry White when Mike Awesome enters the ring! I love it! I’m hoping that the WWF Network crew just gave up on dubbing the rest of these shows because Russo wore them out. Commentary pushes some bikini contest and Howard Stern’s Wack Pack showing up to judge it on next week’s Nitro. Fuck off, Russo. Awesome challenges Vampiro to a hardcore bout, alone, no “sissy lookin’ clowns,” please. This is your typical nonsense hardcore match, though with a few more decent wrestling exchanges than usual for this match type. Vampiro does a crowd dive. These simple Kitchenerites are easily amused.

 

• Awesome sets up a table at ringside, and is it kind of odd that Awesome and A-WALL have both been working the “table specialist” gimmick at the same time for months now? Anyway, there must be something in the water here in Ontario because like A-WALL, Awesome also successfully lands his signature move through a table on his opponent, this time an Awesome Bomb from the ring to the floor that breaks the table and ends the match. Vampiro’s willingness to kill himself made this fairly watchable.

 

• Booker T. confronts Vince Russo in Russo’s dressing room, but we don’t see what Booker has to say to Russo.

 

• This Nitro won’t fucking end.

 

• Dopey Dave steps out of Smooth’s limo and is freaking out, man, he’s upset. I hope Stacy stays away from WCW arenas and also her house for a while because this guy is a mess, yelling STACYYYYY and swinging his crowbar like a lunatic. He deserves this emotional turmoil for screwing around on Daffney.

 

• Finally, this godforsaken main event. Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner face Vince Russo Booker T. and Sting. I suppose that Booker has taken Russo’s place, assuming that of course, he’ll win this thing and then easily dispatch of Russo next week. That’s not a bad bet outside the context of WCW television, but if Booker were more genre savvy, he’d realize that with Russo skulking around these shows, there is no way a babyface’s plan will possibly bear fruit, even if it appears to be bearing fruit at the end of the episode.

 

• Anyway, this match is a mess, but when Midajah tries to attack Booker with a pipe, Ms. Jones runs out, trips Midajah, and slams her outside the ring, which means that this main event has been improved simply by the lovely Ms. Jones's presence. Booker is the FIP, I guess, considering Kitchener's not a huge fan of the guy? He fights up from a Jarrett sleeper with an excellent stalling vertical suplex, actually. Then, he goes right back to taking a beating from Scotty Steiner until he and Steiner work a nice sequence that ends with them double-lariating each other. Book makes the hot tag to Sting while I consider how nice it would be if Booker got to wrestle these guys for fifteen-plus to clean finishes sometimes. KroniK rushes out and helps Sting beat the shit out of Jarrett outside the ring; inside the ring, Steiner locks a Recliner on Booker (of course), but Russo stumbles out with a baseball bat and a ripped shirt. Steiner drops the Recliner and attacks Russo, who tosses Booker the bat. Booker waffles Steiner from behind, then tosses Russo on top of Steiner for three. Ah yes, the babyface was once again in his opponent's submission hold when a more competent heel broke it up before he could lose. Brilliant match layout!

 

• We’re coming to the end of Russo’s reign of terror, and he’s finding new ways to book incoherent programs. Since I’ve been promised a bikini contest judged by a bunch of Howard Stern guests and Russo winning the world title next week, let’s just make sure I leave a little room for myself in the grade this week, just in case: One Number Less than Negative Infinity out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Edited January 23 by SirSmUgly

[zendragon]

Regrading the spelling of Disco's name; I believe this must have been around the time "thong song" was a huge worldwide hit

[caley]

5 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

I bet if you asked a random person on this very board to recite all the WCW tag champs in 2000 from memory, nobody could do it, including the people who comment in this thread and also me, a person who has spent the last few months watching through all of WCW’s major programming in the year 2000.

https://www.sporcle.com/games/buttscounty/wcwtagteams (not my quiz)

I ended up 4 short of getting them all (And one was definitely in 2000 and I think the other was in WWE)

[SirSmUgly]

16 hours ago, caley said:

https://www.sporcle.com/games/buttscounty/wcwtagteams (not my quiz)

I ended up 4 short of getting them all (And one was definitely in 2000 and I think the other was in WWE)

OK, I went 163/174.

I couldn't get one in WWF/E. 

I couldn't get one that I haven't gotten to yet in this watch through (in October's programming, so I'll be coming up on it pretty soon). Otherwise, I got every champion that I've seen so far in the Nitro Era. Even the pesky

Spoiler

 Bret Hart/Goldberg

short-lived reign that I was wracking my brain trying to come up with. 

The rest of my misses were centered back in 1991 and 1994, which screams that I should do yearbook threads for those years in WCW. I have another little WCW thread planned before I move away from the promotion altogether and look at other stuff, but I'll be back someday, and I'll probably do something with one or both of those years. 

I avoided seeing the answer to the one title change that's coming up, so I'm ready to be surprised (but not that surprised since it's another two-title-changes-in-one-show deal, I think). 

 

Edited January 24 by SirSmUgly

[SirSmUgly]

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and twenty-eight – 20 September 2000

"The WCW Gang is determined to punish me as much as possible before Vince Russo finally gets sent home"

• Let’s Thunderrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

 

• Recap: Nitro saw a number one contendership scramble that convolutedly ended up with Vince Russo in the catbird’s seat…

 

• After the opening title sequence, Vince Russo and some security mooks walk to the ring…Russo is an awful promo cutter…He’s in a dead heat with his old pal Eric Bischoff in terms of terribleness on the stick…Unfortunately, Booker is getting the show off tonight, which is all of any consequence that Russo shares in this promo…Oh, and I guess Russo has a tune-up match tonight…Stevie Ray has been vocally annoyed this whole time, and Russo challenges him…Of course, he begs off by threatening to fire Stevie if Stevie advances and then kicks him off commentary, so we’re stuck with Tony S. and Mike Tenay tonight…

 

• We cut to the back, where Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, Midajah, and Steiner’s trusty lead pipe all screech up to the show…Apparently, Stevie not being allowed to walk out using the ramp is a big insult or something…Man, I loved it when Russo had apparently lost interest in this show…Scott Steiner and Midajah storm out here to a babyface pop…Jarrett and his KABONGing guitar aren’t far behind…Scotty, Jarrett, and Midajah clear the mooks and corner Russo…Russo tries a mace attack, but Scotty’s wearing shades…

 

• Steiner wonders why they don’t just let the babyfaces beat the shit out of Russo, then complains about having that Nitro main event won when Russo jumped him from behind…Russo gives some sort of nonsensical explanation for why he did what he did…This has been ten minutes of total garbage…Russo eventually talks these two dopes down and books Jarrett, Scotty, and Sting in a Triple Threat Match so they can work out their frustrations on the latter…Russo backs out the ring and then tells the heels in the ring to fuck themselves, basically…He runs up the ramp and right into Booker T., who steps onto the stage…Book says he’s going to be scouting Russo's match tonight…Sting comes from somewhere off screen and initiates a brawl with Steiner and Jarrett…Booker helps Sting out…What an incoherent and shitty opening segment…At least the babyfaces left the heels laying for once…

 

• Oh, wonderful…We’ve downgraded from Stevie Ray to a brown-nosing Jeremy Borash who plays the Russo supplicant tonight…We kick it over to a preview of Mike Tenay trying to be all Springer-y in this Stacy Hancock-Keibler interview…I’m in hell…Just make Jeff Jarrett the world champ again, and we can cancel WCW programming early and let TNA start putting on shitty Wednesday shows on PPV already…

 

• Seventeen minutes in, and we finally get a match...We also get Leia Meow walking the Jung Dragons out here…Their opponents are the Natural Born Thrillers (Mike Sanders, Sean O’Haire, and Mark Jindrak)…Guess what…This is pretty fun…Sanders overhead pumphandle slams Kaz all the way back into Kaz's own cornercorner and is so proud of himself that he joins commentary to talk himself up…The Dragons do a couple of silly and not-particularly-funny comedy spots in there, but it’s fine…Noble saves Kaz after a Seanton Bomb by diving onto O’Haire and breaking up the pinfall attempt…

 

• Noble then tags in and gives a bit of work to Jindrak and O’Haire both…Sanders decides that he should probably get back on the apron at this point…Noble and Sanders work a nice sequence that ends with a Noble neckbreaker, then lands a side Russian before Jindrak intervenes and ends up baiting Noble into a dive that is caught by O’Haire…Jindrak and O’Haire beal Noble from the floor and over the top rope, right into a Sanders powerslam after Sanders plucks him out of mid-air (!!!!!!)…What a dope spot!...Jindrak and O’Haire then walk over to commentary to talk about how dope that spot was…

 

• Sanders dominates all three Dragons and dumps Noble to the floor…Leia’s not pleased with the Dragons’ performance, so she lays a couple of kicks into Noble, then pulls her boots off and gets on the apron…She calls Yang over and slaps the shit out of him, then climbs up top and hits a seated splash on Sanders that gets three…Jindrak and O’Haire jump back in the ring and destroy the hapless Dragons while Leia angrily tut-tuts the Dragons for getting their asses kicked at ringside…Mike Sanders’s big weakness in the ring being “any sort of offense from women” is pretty funny…This match randomly ending with a pinfall from someone not in the match is pretty dumb, on the other hand…

 

• Disco tries to make things up with the Animals…They are disinterested in his overtures of friendship…

 

• It’s another edition of the Lava Lamp Lounge with Mike Awesome…So, I guess the women in the bikini contest on Nitro include Paisley, Tygress, Gunns, and Torrie, and they’re all guests on this show…All these ladies hate each other, but love showing their hot bods, fellas!...Awesome intimates that he might be a judge, so they all hit on him to curry his favor…HAHAHAHA, Paisley asks Torrie what makes her think that Awesome would want a dumb Barbie blonde like her, and Awesome cuts in with an “I do” while they squabble…

 

• Chae is still in this company…She and another Nitro Girl whose name I don’t know – wait, it’s Chiquita – are like WE’RE IN THE CONTEST TOO, AND ALSO MIKE AWESOME IS NOT A JUDGE…The ladies destroy the set because they think Awesome tried to con them...Awesome had initially hoped that the ladies would probably not cause his set to be destroyed for the third straight show, but alas…Awesome being a funny dude aside, this segment also sucked real bad…

 

• It's interview time with Gene Okerlund…He interviews Scott Steiner (w/Midajah)…Steiner prepares to continue beating up babyfaces tonight…He gets all aggy and decides that he needs to calm down via orgasmic sex with Midajah…He spit in Okerlund’s face a whole lot as he promo'd, so Okerlund wipes his chin with his tie…

 

• Vince Russo has Pam Paulshock read out an absurd ring introduction for his opponent the Masked Heel…We get the return of Booker’s (no T.) Disneyfied theme…Russo does the worst Fargo strut ever…I won’t dignify this nonsense with a bunch of words…Suffice it to say that the Masked Heel is Stevie Ray, which everyone in the crowd realizes, but which Russo somehow does not…Tony S.: “I think [Russo] is calling spots in there”…Stevie pulls off his mask, hits Russo in the gut with a slapjack, and shit-talks Russo before leaving…I like Stevie, so this won’t go on a certain bad list…

 

• Preview: Tenay’s all GOD, YOU ARE SUCH A SLUT, STACY, THIS BABY COULD BE PRACTICALLY ANYBODY’S, YOU DUMB BITCH, YOU DUMB SLUTTY BITCH…So that’s how this show continues to go…

 

• Russo isn’t all that hurt because after the break, he yells at KroniK to beat up Stevie Ray on threat of being fired…

 

• The Animals hate Disco and are annoyed at Konnan for letting Disco hang out with them, though Konnan notes that they love using Disco for money or free car rides…Anyway, they all make up and agree to prepare for a number one contendership match of some sort…

 

• Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson are out here now…*sigh*…Tenay says there’ll be a tag battle royal for the tag titles on Thunder…So, it’ll be Jindrak and O’Haire, the Jung Dragons, KroniK, and Rey and Juvi…Rey and Juvi will be facing each other tonight, so maybe that contendership match is for the Cruiserweight Championship?...Anyway, I think Jindrak and O’Haire win the titles…Douglas joins commentary…*urgh*…Paisley and Kwee Wee are next out, and we’re subjected to a Paisley/Torrie match while Kwee Wee and Shane Douglas bicker on commentary…Stasiak and Palumbo walk onto the stage while Douglas beats up Kwee Wee, but they do nothing otherwise, and the camera never cuts back to them…Paisley pins Torrie with a bridge…Douglas gets in the ring…Paisley slaps him…Douglas hits her with a Franchiser, then sets up for another one…Tygress tries to make the save, so Douglas attacks her…Konnan saves Tygress from a Franchiser…Welp, Stevie wasn’t in this segment, so he’s not going to save it from a certain bad list…

 

• Oh, Jeremy Borash’s performance on commentary tonight is on that list, too…

 

• Russo puts Mike Sanders on standby for some plan that he needs executed…

 

• Team Canada enters the ring…We’re back in the States, so the crowd isn’t a fan of Lance Storm’s moralizing…Duggan heeling is pretty novel…Duggan plans to trash the American flag, but the M.I.A. attack…Team Canada has weapons, so they win that little brawl…Rection is protecting the flag like a true patriot...Which is good, since that dumbass true patriot leaves his Pillmanized leg open for an assault…

 

• Mike Sanders gets in a forklift and drives it right in front of Booker’s locker room door to barricade him in…

 

• Okerlund interviews Jeff Jarrett…Jarrett calls Okerlund a Jurassic Slapass…Okerlund tells Jarrett to blow it out his behind…Jarrett threatens a KABONGing…You know, it’s the same ol’ deal between these two…

 

• Stevie Ray is out here again, still wearing his Masked Heel getup, to wrestle KroniK in a handicap match…This match is what it is…Stevie takes out the slapjack, but having spent a lot of time with this guy in the B-Team, Adams anticipates the move, comes from behind and stops Stevie, then tosses the slapjack away…KroniK thinks about hitting a High Times onto an open chair, but choose not to…I guess Russo wanted them to use the chair…They just hit a regular one and pin Stevie for three…

 

• After the break, Russo yells at KroniK for not doing what he said and threatens them with a firing the next time they don’t do exactly as he orders…

 

• Juventud Guerrera (w/Konnan and Tygress) wrestles Rey Misterio Jr. (also w/Konnan and Tygress)…Konnan and Tygress join commentary…I get a kick out of Tony S. being smitten with Tygress…I feel like she and Chastity have had Tony’s number in particular…Can you believe that I’m not even excited for Rey/Juvi at this point?...I’m just waiting for Disco to interfere or something…Konnan does a great job of adding flavor to this match on commentary…He discusses Rey and Juvi’s history in Mexico and calls out the Gory backbreaker that Rey does (and that Juvi counters with a DDT)…This is actually a nice little pacey bout, though…Yes, the winner does get a shot at whoever is holding the cruiser title…Ah, it’s Elix…I forgot for a second…

 

• A couple of goons in the front row yell in these super-annoying voices about how much Juvi and Rey suck…They absolutely do not, of course…Ah, Survivor is a thing now because Tenay exclaims YOU’VE VOTED DISCO OFF THE ISLAND?! when Konnan says that Disco is an ex-member of the Animals…These shrill, annoying front row dudes are yelling YOU’LL NEVER WORK FOR MCMAHON, which is incorrect in Juvi’s case and extremely incorrect in Rey’s case…They work a nice 2.9 on a Misterio bridge pinfall attempt…Juvi picks Rey out of the air on a springboard moonsault attempt and hits a Juvi Driver that also only got a close two count even though I fully bought it as the finish…Rey hits a powerbomb that Juvi manages to grab Rey on and flip him into a pinning position for three…Good match!...Not nearly enough to save this show from the bad list, but good match!...Disco walks out to celebrate with the Animals and catches a beatdown…Disco swears revenge after being tossed into the aisle…

 

• Sting yells a lot and sounds like a dork in his interview with Gene Okerlund…However, he calls Jarrett and Steiner “dimwits,” which is a hilarious insult, so I’m ultimately positive on this interview performance…

 

• Here’s Three Count, but their dance routine is cut off by the theme of the worthless-ass Harris Bros….Shannon Moore dives onto the Harrises, and they kinda fail to catch him…This is a short bout, but not short enough…Shane Helms would have jobbed to an H-Bomb by now, but that moron Ra/oD looks under every side of the ring to find a chain-wrapped baseball bat that he’s supposed to use…KroniK runs in to attack, and Jindrak and O’Haire soon follow… A bunch of teams that were mentioned (and some that weren’t) to be in the tag team battle royal all run out here and brawl…

 

• Alright, let’s get to Tenay hounding the shit out of Stacy Keibler already…Stacy implores Dopey Dave to forgive her…Tenay’s like HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, YOU GODDAM HARLOT…Tenay thinks that even he actually would have had a shot at Stacy…Ah, the hope of the totally delusional heel is unbound by reality...I’m hoping that Stacy punts Tenay in the balls, but no, she is too beaten down by life to do anything but say that she only slept with one guy other than Dave, though she won't say who that guy was…Anyway, I hated this and will be putting it on a certain list…Tenay is utterly misused in this role…

 

• The lighting person damn near drops a light on Jeff Jarrett as Jarrett walks down a hallway…A WCW tech tracks down the forklift that he’s been looking for and drives it away from in front of Booker’s door…

 

• My deep antipathy toward this episode of Thunder only deepens further as Vince Russo joins the desk for the main event…I don’t care anymore…Let me just tell you the finish…Wait, before the match, Scott Steiner tries to say that the only drama is that Booker doesn’t know who his mama is…That is an attempt at making a “fatherless” insult that, in fact, doesn’t work when you say it about a mother for obvious biological reasons…Whatever, everything is stupid, though Scotty is probably even stupider than that…OK, back to the finish…Sting gets dumped to ringside and Booker runs in dressed as Sting while Tony S. yells THAT’S NOT STING…IS THAT…IT’S BOOKER T….It took you long enough to recognize Booker, you dolt…Booker destroys the heels…Russo tries to intervene, but Sting locks Russo in a Scorpion Death Drop…Jeff Jarrett KABONGs Sting to end the match…Booker comes back in and sets Jarrett up for a Book End, but Steiner attacks with a lead pipe…Believe it or not, the heels stand tall at the end of this show…

 

• Dreadful fuck shit pro wrestling nonsense, that was…OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, I WANT RUSSO TO FEEL SIMPLY A FRACTION OF THE PAIN THAT I FELT WHILE ENDURING THIS SHOW…

Edited February 9 by SirSmUgly

[Spaceman Spiff]

Point of order, but it's Jamie Knoble while in WCW, the K wasn't discarded until he's in WWE.

Edited January 25 by Spaceman Spiff

[SirSmUgly]

7 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Point of order, but it's Jamie Knoble while in WCW, the K wasn't discarded until he's in WWE.

True! I really should be calling him Jamie-san right now, but I'm lazy. 

[SirSmUgly]

Show #259 – 25 September 2000

"The one that definitively answers the question, 'Which episode of WCW Monday Nitro was the absolute worst?'"

• Before we start this Nitro, I have terrible news: Spice has been let go by WCW at this point in our watch. She’s not a great actor, but she has a lot of charisma and probably would be well utilized in Pam Paulshock’s backstage interviewer role.

 

• Regrettably, that also means that she won’t be in this bikini contest. Hey, if we’re going to have this thing, I at least want to get the most out of it!

 

• Recap: Toadie Jeremy Borash recaps Vince Russo’s meteoric rise in the WCW Championship scene, but it pales in comparison to David Arquette’s rise earlier this year.

 

• A limo pulls up; Borash and Russo exit and are escorted into the building by WCW security. Borash is told to shut up by Russo, so he stops his vocal jabbering about Russo becoming champ, but ramps up on the pantomime to compensate. It’s not funny.

 

• Let’s just get this thing over and done with.

 

• I started this watch-through back in 2021, and I was spotty about getting reviews in until about 2023, when I finally started getting regular reviews done (partly because I’d seen the 1995 and early-1996 stuff recently at the time I started, so going back through it wasn’t as engaging as seeing stuff that I didn’t remember). Anyway, I knew this dark and unfortunate day was coming, but it seemed so far off four years ago. Hey, that sentence seems relevant to more than just this Nitro review.

 

• Vito comes to the ring; we see a pretty olive-skinned lady in the crowd who is apparently Vito’s sister Maria. Vito and Johnny the Bull have a hardcore match. There are kendo stick shots. There are stickball bat shots. There are so many kendo stick and stickball bat shots. I mean, imagine a large number of stick shots. Then, triple that number. There are even more than that in this match. Reno runs out and hits offense which basically consists of, you guessed it, stick shots. Maria jumps into the ring and covers Vito; Billy Silverman calls the match off. Rousing start to this godforsaken Nitro!

 

• Borash (vocally) hypes up Russo backstage.

 

• It occurs to me that September is almost over, and a lot of WCW talents will be heading out of the company soon; most, if not all of the Nitro Girls, for one, and bad trip Juventud for another, but also Mark Madden himself. I am surprised to say that I wish it were Hudson on his way out instead.

 

• Dopey David Flair shoves a dude away from a phone booth to check the phone book for an address. He doesn’t know where in the city the address is, which would imply that it’s not his dopey dad. Then again, maybe Ric has a flophouse where he brings his victims sex partners.

 

• Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) walk to the ring to a surprising amount of silence, if you ask me. Jarrett stumps for Russo winning the big gold belt tonight. Scott Steiner is in love with himself and thinks that he’s way better than either the Giants or the Jets. Jumbo Elliott is in the crowd, and apparently he and Jumbo were at Michigan together. Scotty yelling YOU USED TO BE SOMEBODY, JUMBO is pretty entertaining, as is him telling this NEW YORK WHITE TRASH TO GET READY TO STAND UP AND KISS MY ASS. He introduces Russo, and I’m thinking that it’s bananas that they waited until the middle of November to make Scotty the champ.

 

• Russo walks out and, uh, kneels like he’s doing his evening prayer toward Mecca, basically, but has he done his ablutions first? He says that he kissed the floor because he loves Long Island so much, which gets a pop. What a stupid thing to say. Russo lists former Net Julius Erving and some old athletes I’ve never heard of, which he plans to place himself in the same breath as when he wins tonight. He hates Atlanta, where he has to live, and he hates the culture there, which includes NASCAR and COUSINS MAKING BABIES WITH COUSINS, and the way he said that last part actually got a chuckle out of me. He said it so disgustedly, but also he enunciated it very deliberately so that everyone could really sit with the discomfort of that statement.

 

• Anyway, Russo bigs himself up, but is cut off by Sting’s theme. I’ll note that Russo got himself over as a babyface just now, so obviously that’s going to be tough for struggling babyface champion Booker T. to deal with in the main event. Sting and Booker are on the TurnerTron, and it’s hard to hear what Sting is saying because Sting’s music is still playing, but basically, he tells Russo to turn around. Russo does so and spots Goldberg standing in the crowd, getting less of a pop than he should because Russo just cut a babyface promo. Ohmigod, send this guy Russo home already.

 

• Mike Sanders walks up to KroniK and calls them “cupcakes.” Adams grabs his shirt, and Sanders squeaks out an ow, that hurt before telling KroniK that Russo has removed them from the tag title battle royal because they didn’t use a chair to injure Stevie Ray on Thunder like Russo asked. Clark has a plan, though.

 

• We cut to the ring, where all the teams except for one are in the ring. Leia Meow disrespectfully slaps Yang. Rey and Juvi come to the ring and the match starts. Konnan joins commentary. This match is a sub-mediocre battle royal, so here’s the important stuff: Both members of the team have to be eliminated to be fully eliminated. Helms takes a dive through a table outside the ring for some reason. Konnan says the Misfits are dorks who are relegated to masturbating because they get no girls. KroniK walks out and eliminates the Harris Bros., then sticks around to beat the shit out of the cruisers. Wow, what an elaborate plan, fellas. They eliminate every team except Jindrak/O’Haire and Rey/Juvi before WCW security runs in the ring, maces them, cuffs them, and drags them away while Konnan yells THEY’RE ACTUALLY SELLING THE MACE and FACE FULLA MACE. Disco runs to ringside and bashes Juvi with his goose, knocking Juventud to the floor. The timekeeper rings the bell even though the match is still going. Eventually, Jindrak and O’Haire get rid of Rey as well and become the new champs. Bad stuff.

 

• WCW World Tag Team Championship title change count: 12 (VACANT > David Flair and Crowbar > The Mamalukes > The Harris Bros. > VACANT > Buff Bagwell and Shane Douglas > KroniK > The Perfect Event > KroniK > Vampiro and Great Muta > Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera > VACANT > Jindrak and O’Haire)…

 

• Everyone on commentary is all hot over Torrie Wilson oiling up for the bikini contest. But *Big E voice* NOT ME.

 

• Gene Okerlund stands in the back with the Wack Pack and Pam Paulshock. Paulshock is in a coat, hiding a bikini. I’m pretty sure I heard somewhere that she campaigned to win this bikini competition because she had won actual real-life bikini competitions before. Anyway, suffice it to say that I am not a Howard Stern fan and I find his shit and the shit of his hangers-on and regular guests to be corny as fuck. Kevin Nash and the Thrillers walk in and Nash complains that the Wack Pack is getting interview time instead of the new tag champs. On his way out, he shakes hands with Beetlejuice and says, “Elix, nice to see you.” *sigh*, well, at least this segment is over and we are one segment closer to no more Vince Russo.

 

• The ICP come to the ring. Violent J blames Mike Awesome for injuring Vampiro, then lists off guys who he thinks are way more hardcore than Awesome, including Mad Man Pondo and Tommy Starr. He uses the “r” word to describe Awesome’s bus and then demands a hardcore handicap match against Awesome. Awesome drives the bus into the arena, and a certain ICP member is going to take a certain slide off a certain bus and onto certain concrete. This match sucks and is all smashy smashy, trashy trashy. J takes a tumble through a table before Awesome Awesome Bombs poor Shaggy 2 Dope and Shaggy goes sliding off the bus in a fucking stupid spot. Bless Awesome for trying to catch Shaggy’s leg; when he doesn't manage to save the guy, he hustles off the bus and goes over to cover Shaggy for three, probably checking on the poor bastard as he does. Tony S. sort of enjoyed watching Shaggy slide to the floor, the sick bastard.

 

• Major Gunns shows a ton of sideboob while prepping for the bikini contest; Ms. Jones has a new hairstyle and is soooooooooooo pretty tonight. Also, she’s walking next to the Cat, but I didn’t really notice him in the shot originally. I know, you think I should SETTLE DOWN already, but pretty ladies on this episode is all I have considering, you know, Russo booking this company into oblivion around them.

 

• How did a camera get into Dopey Dave’s car? This dope gets lost, pulls up to a Chuck E. Cheese, and goes inside to harass an underpaid teen about where Oglethorpe Road is. He dives into a ball pit to, uh, search for Oglethorpe Road? I don’t know. Dopey Dave really needs to be paired with Daffney and Crowbar to have maximum effectiveness as a character on these shows…hey, wait, where have Crowbar, Daffney, and Crowbar Lite been lately? That’s literally the only storyline in this company that I have much investment in.

 

• The Cat and Ms. Jones come to the ring. The Cat gets booed for saying that he wants to make a ruling to help Booker T. beat the hell out of Vince Russo, but gets a solid pop for calling Mark Madden fat and claiming that he hates him. Anyway, the ruling is that the nu-nWo is banned from ringside in the Russo/Booker match under threat of firing. Mike Sanders walks out holding a bat in one hand and a mic in the other to respond to the Cat. The exchange between the Cat and Sanders is whatever, but Ms. Jones is fine as hell, man, keep the camera on her. Sanders is appalled by the ASSHOLE chant he gets and eggs it on by asking the crowd to repeat themselves. Then he tries to attack the Cat and gets his ass kicked, which brings Kevin Nash and the rest of the Thrillers onto the stage. Nash huddles up with the Thrillers and then sends him to the ring to execute his plan. They do, if their plan is to get their asses kicked until Sanders can attack the Cat from behind with a bat shot.

 

• Tygress and Paisley are sure they’re finishing one-two in the bikini contest tonight.

 

• There’s a WCW Bikini Competition. The booked winner is Pam Paulshock. The actual co-winners (at least as far as this reviewer is concerned) are Leia and Tygress, but they’re all winners, really. This segment takes about five trillion years to play out and has a lot of unfortunate comments from Okerlund and Madden and some light groping from one of the Wack Pack guys. Also, Duggan intruded on the contest to cover up Gunns, who is violating the U.S. Flag Code with her bikini, and that’s honestly the most patriotic thing that Duggan has ever done. Leia Meow tries to attack Pam after Pam is declared the winner by the Wack Pack, but her assault is interrupted by Midajah (?!?!) for some reason, and they roll around on the mat. It was terrible television except that I enjoyed the co-winners wearing it well.

 

• Mike Tenay is interviewing Scott Steiner in the back, but not for long because Goldberg jumps him and kicks the shit out of him.

 

• Disco and his goose are back in the ring to pretend that he kicked everyone else out of the Animals rather than the reverse. Disco has decided to get a new partner to join him, but Scott Steiner walks out when Disco tries to introduce said new partner. I was hoping for an Alex Wright appearance just then, but no dice. Scotty tosses Disco to the floor and then demands the presence of that BALD-HEADED BASTARD Goldberg. Goldberg hates taking Ls because he almost never does, so he immediately walks onto the ramp and says that he’ll be glad to rematch Scotty Steiner in the Hell in a Cell Caged Heat that is already set up to be used for Russo/Booker. Steiner is like, Ehhhhh, no and tries to escape through the crowd, but Goldberg catches him and kicks the shit out of him some more. Then, he tosses Scotty into the ring as the cage comes down and continues his assault.

 

• Steiner finally makes a comeback and is so desperate that he even goes up top, which tells you something about how badly he was getting killed. Midajah walks to the cage holding a lead pipe and, uh, walks right through the cage door? And hands Steiner the pipe? *sigh*, so who even cares anymore about this stupid-ass cage that means nothing at all. Jumbo Elliott blocks Steiner as he tries to leave the cell. Goldberg spears Steiner and walks out of the cell to win even though this is a cell match and escape rules make even less sense than they do in regular cage matches. In fact, they make no sense at fucking all because Russo doesn't understand the purpose of the cell. Even Vinnie McMahon, he of the "escape the cage" stip, understood that the Cell is for keeping guys in so they have to confront one another to the bloody end (even if the very first match featuring one had a cell escape). Goldberg yells that Russo is next.

 

• Backstage, Beetlejuice calls Jarrett SLAPNUTS and Jarrett KABONGs him and I want my sweet little rasslin’ show back already, dammit.

 

• Pam Paulshock interviews Booker T., who says that he has plans for Scott Steiner and Jeff Jarrett if they try to interfere in the main event, then gets singalongs going on two of his many catchphrases.

 

• General Rection sucks, but unfortunately, he’s on his way to the ring. Jeff Jarrett doesn’t suck, but at this point, he’s very inconsistent, and his mic work is total ass most nights. This match exists as an inoffensive thing that I won’t remember by the time I post the next Thunder review. Lance Storm tries to interfere while Elix Skipper draws the ref; Rection is able to avoid falling to their machinations, but he doesn’t avoid a Duggan 2x4 shot. Jarrett follows up with a Stroke for three. The heels all attack Rection’s injured leg after the match, and the M.I.A. fail to make the save while Jarrett locks Rection in a Figure Four. It takes Sting and his trusty rubber bat the clear the ring of the heels. Storm challenges Sting to a non-title match. Sting accepts for right after the commercial break.

 

• Sting and Storm go at it even before we come back from commercial; Storm is taking it to Sting before he ends up feeding for a trio of Sting lariats. Storm cuts Sting off up top, but gets shoved to the mat and hit with a diving lariat. This seems like a neat matchup, but it’s really just a blip of a thing, promise unrealized. They work a nice series of near falls in there, including Storm rolling through a Scorpion Death Lock and into a Canadian Maple Leaf. That last spot actually got the crowd going a little bit; these two work really well together. Sting gets to the ropes, and when Storm tries to Dragon Screw him, he hits an enziguri. They struggle over a Scorpion Death Drop, and Storm escapes once, but Sting lifts Storm for a body slam and then eases him right into Death Drop position a second time for three. This should have been longer and on PPV because I was very into what we got.

 

• Dopey David Flair finally pulls up to a house, but we don’t see him enter or even ring the doorbell before we get adverts.

 

• After the break, Dopey Dave knocks on the door and storms past the confused homeowner to try and find some guy. He’s one house over, though, and after the homeowner points this out, Dopey Dave walks up to the door of the next house and pounds on it. The homeowner says that his neighbor is out of town, and Dopey Dave says that he’ll be back when the guy gets back home. They’re really drawing this reveal out in the least interesting way possible.

 

• Gene Okerlund interviews Vince Russo. It’s nonsense.

 

• After beating Booker down with a bat and getting a visual escape victory two minutes into a Caged Heat match, Vince Russo wins the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Booker T. when Goldberg spears Russo through the cage. It’s nonsense. 

 

• WCW World Heavyweight Championship title change count: 22 (Hitman > VACANT > Benoit > VACANT > Sid > Nash > Sid > VACANT > Jarrett > DDP > Arquette > Jarrett > Ric Flair > Jarrett > Nash > Flair > Jarrett > Hulk Hogan > Jarrett > Booker > Nash > Booker > Russo)

 

• Final notes: Lex Luger made his return as an ally of Russo. Ric Flair made his return as an enemy of Russo. I note that since Ric showed up in Long Island, that means that he's currently away from the secret home at which he impregnates impressionable young ladies. Finally, Goldberg speared Russo through the cage, and Russo's head bonked hard off the guardrail. I smirked. Sure, it makes me a bad person. Sue me. But this guy shouldn't be on camera, much less taking spots in the ring! 

 

• I’m glad that I graded Nitro the way I did last week; at least I have some foresight. Here’s to the worst episode of WCW Monday Nitro in the whole sometimes stellar, sometimes sordid history of WCW Monday Nitro: Negative Infinity out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Edited January 26 by SirSmUgly

[twiztor]

On 1/24/2025 at 12:34 PM, SirSmUgly said:

OK, I went 163/174.

I couldn't get one in WWF/E. 

barely squeeked past you with 165. I missed probably the same one from the WWF run, and also ones from 91/92 (which i haven't seen. i need to get back on my old WCW watch!) Struggled with the 2000s teams, but honestly if i hadn't been reading this thread i would have done way worse on that era.

i was surprised that: 

Spoiler

the Amazing French-Canadians

Mongo McMichael (with either Benoit or Jarrett)

weren't on the list. I definitely would have swore that first name were champions, and i spent way too much time trying to type variations of the name(s) in. And the second one had me perplexed trying to remember if/when it would have happened.

 

edit: i tried to do a WWF Tag team quiz from the same guy. it was broken into 2 parts, beginngin->2000 and 2000->current 2011, so i chose the former. Missed 2 teams dating back to 'Mania 1, so i'm happy with that too! but trying to go forward would be the most difficult. 
double edit: ok,i went back and did the more recent run too. It was named current, but only went to 2011. I went 119/168, which is significantly better than i expected. missed an obvious 2001 team that i remembered from pre-2000. Gets spotty after 2003, which lines up with my interest level.

Edited January 26 by twiztor

[SirSmUgly]

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and twenty-nine – 27 September 2000

"The WCW Gang ends September of 2000 on an interminably boring note"

• So, they didn’t even announce a winner of the main event on the previous Nitro…It just ended on commentary being confused while Vince Russo shoot tried vainly to remember where he was located after that spear…Let’s see if they explain things on this Thunder…

 

• Recap: We have new tag and world champs…And a new bikini-wearing champ, I suppose…

 

• Maybe we’ll find out who Disco Inferno’s new tag partner is?...I’m not calling him Disqo unless he puts some peroxide in his hair…Disco tries to do Konnan’s pre-match spiel, but worse…Pam Paulshock tries to feed him for a line, but her house mic is nearly dead…Disco does a whole deal where he talks about being from the ‘burbs…I sure would like an Alex Wright appearance already, but Konnan comes out here after Disco once again fires the rest of the Animals from their own group…Konnan loves making Richard Gere gerbil remarks like Roddy Piper loves making RuPaul remarks, and they all suck equally as badly…Konnan is like LOL YOU HAVE SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH YOUR PLASTIC GOOSE and then tries to get all fired up before punching Disco…

 

• This is a match now, I guess…Konnan is generally a useful talker on television, but at this point, his shtick is utter dreck, totally irritating stuff…I think his work with LAX in TNA was well regarded, and I liked him on LU…No one can tell who Alex Wright is because Wright is completely bald now…The guy runs out here and hangs Konnan up on the ropes…Disco follows up with a Chartbuster on Konnan for three…The Boogie Knights are back!...The rest of the Animals chase the Knights away from ringside…

 

• A suit-wearing Mike Sanders checks to see if the Cat is in and finds that he is not…He checks Russo’s office, and as Russo is too busy recuperating at home, he is now in charge of the show…Doug Dellinger walks up to kick him out of the office, but he produces a letter from Russo that indicates that he’s running shit tonight…

 

• The Thrillers watch Jindrak and O’Haire’s tag title victory on repeat…Mike Sanders says that Norman Smiley isn’t in the building to defend his hardcore title, so he’s stripping Norm of the title and making it the prize of a tournament that he implies will be rigged toward Reno and Johnny the Bull…

 

• A pipe-swinging Scott Steiner angrily looks for Booker and Goldberg…He bashes Disco’s abandoned goose with his pipe…

 

• SGT. A-WALL is checked out completely…When General Rection asks him where the rest of the Misfits are, A-WALL says they got lost on their way to the building…He can’t figure out if he rode to the arena with them or not even though he clearly is not lost before recalling that he rode with Penzer…All these attempts at comedy tonight suck and are bad…

 

• Now that Jeff Jarrett is transitioning into a feud with Sting, I soon expect to see two things that I remember from my original watch…One is Jarrett dressed as Sting and shilling a (fake) credit card…The other is a PPV match between the two with *sigh* multiple Stings showing up to affect the finish…Jarrett cuts a shitty promo on Sting…He basically says that Sting is as checked out as A-WALL is…I wouldn’t blame him…The Total Package (or is it Lex Luger again?) comes through the stands and is over as a babyface, I guess…

 

• Jarrett teases discord with Luger, who is being called Luger by both Jarrett and commentary, by the way…Luger says that he did what he did on Monday because that was the only way that Russo would let him back on television…General Rection wanders out during all the bickering…Rection supports Luger and Luger’s apology…Stevie is still rightfully suspicious on commentary…Lance Storm rushes the ring and chop blocks Rection…Storm and Jarrett beat down Rection and Luger…

 

• Interview teaser: Another Vince Russo interview…Bummer…Tony S. is still teasing that we don’t know who the world champ is…

 

• Luger and Rection pledge to team with one another in the back…

 

• Leia Meow is summoned to Mike Sanders’s office…Sanders pulls her from her guest spot on the Lava Lamp Lounge for pinning him last week…

 

• Gene Okerlund says that Disco sucks and that “the best part of him ran down his momma’s leg” before Rey and Juvi tell him that they’re going to do a best-of-five series for no particular reason…THA JOOOOOOOOCY ONE is up one-nil…

 

• This hardcore championship tournament includes four men and no brackets…A-WALL and Johnny the Bull are in the first match…The finals will be next week on either Nitro or Thunder…It’s the hardcore championship, and it’s about three months from heading up north along with Meng, so who cares?...This is your typical hardcore bout…So many kendo stick shots…When it comes to WCW, stick shots in hardcore matches are as eternal as that one video of the cage being built from the Uncensored ’99 build…Stevie likens A-WALL to Jan Stenerud after A-WALL kicks the Bull, is called “That ’70s Guy” by Tony S. in response, and warns Tony against essentially calling him old…A-WALL wins by chokeslamming the Bull through a table…A-WALL is busted way the hell open….Scott Steiner walks down and destroys both guys after the match…Steiner yells at the commentators, which pisses off Stevie Ray…Steiner jumps Stevie with the lead pipe…

 

• This show has sucked something fierce…The crowd agrees…They’ve been passively viewing the “entertainment” all night with little cheering or movement…

 

• Mike Awesome pulls up to the show in his bus…He doesn’t yet know that he’s down a guest for the Lava Lamp Lounge tonight…

 

• The Bull limps back into the office, bummed that the other Thrillers were too busy watching the tag title battle royal on replay to help him out…Sanders tells the Bull that they need to make sure Kevin Nash doesn’t find out about his loss…I’m sure he’d never lower himself to watching Thunder, so they’re definitely safe…

 

• Stevie pushes a trainer away in the locker room and threatens Scott Steiner into the camera…

 

• I guess Awesome got a replacement guest, and it’s Midajah, which is hinted at in advance because production hits the sirens before Awesome can even talk…Awesome does a deal where he backs away from Midajah when he hears that Steiner is in the building and is especially angry tonight, but scoots closer to her when she indicates that Steiner’s too busy working out away from a monitor to see this sketch…Awesome lands one of the all-time awful pickup lines: “Did you know that there are 206 bones in the human body? How’d you like to have one more bone in your body?”…Steiner walking out here, beating him up, and bashing up his set would be deserved, TBH…

 

• Instead, Leia Meow walks out and gets in Midajah’s face, then slaps her…They kick each other and then pull hair…Awesome breaks them up, and they ball shot him and shove him into the set before tearing it up a bit…Why is this segment so long?...Midajah puts Leia in a Steiner Recliner…So, Leia lost that fight…Will she punch herself in the face as punishment?...This segment was dreadfully unfunny, but it was still miles better and considerably briefer than Bischoff’s “Tonight Show” nonsense, so there’s that…

 

• Crowbar mopes his way into the building…He asks a peppy Jimmy Hart where Daffney is, and Jimmy says that Daffney has already flown to Australia with Crowbar Lite…This puts Crowbar in a worse mood than he already was, of course…

 

• Russo thinking that having Gene Okerlund make blue remarks as a regular part of every backstage interview is another reason that Russo is a dipshit…Okerlund is irritating at this point…Anyway, he interviews Scotty Steiner and Midajah…Scotty tries the “motherless” insult again, but he’s so stupid that he doesn’t get why that insult doesn’t work…Anyway, I guess he accepts Stevie’s challenge…

 

• Jim Duggan goes off at the WCW.com desk…Chad Damiani is shocked by Duggan’s violent anger toward the United States…

 

• Konnan is back out to take over for Stevie at the desk…

 

• Duggan is done getting all that anti-American vitriol out of his system…He walks to the ring with Elix Skipper and Major Gunns…No, wait, Duggan’s got more vitriol for everyone…Tony S.: “I don’t know what’s going on; Okerlund’s got a toilet tongue [and] Tenay’s turning heel”…*sigh*…So, Jindrak and O’Haire are the opponents for Skip and Duggan…They’re also the defacto faces, sort of, but they’re still heels, so obviously the crowd reactions are muted…I agree with the WHAT? NO PENZER? I FEEL ROBBED! sign, as an aside…Skip is the guy in peril…This match is fine, but I don’t get why the bigger heels are getting the hot tag…Who books these matches?...There is a reason that we have faces and heels in American pro wrestling…Pairing them is by design, especially considering standard tag layouts…

 

• Konnan cracks on Duggan’s incessant chinlocks…Duggan and Skip switch places behind the ref’s back…Skipper lands on his feet off a missile dropkick, which is neat…Now Jindrak is the guy in peril…The Thrillers make a comeback…Duggan dodges a splash and tags Elix…Gunns tries to hit Skip with the 2x4, and when Duggan takes it away, she simply crotches Skip…A-WALL walks down all bandaged up and chokeslams Elix from his place on the top rope while the ref jaws at Duggan…Duggan chases A-WALL…Jindrak and O’Haire connect on an elevated neckbreaker/Seanton Bomb combo for the win…This was surprisingly decent…

 

• During the adverts, A-WALL and Duggan brawled in the back…Mike Sanders walks up and has WCW security kick them both out of the building…He then catches Elix walking back to his locker room and let’s Skipper know that he’s been double-booked…Sanders is wrestling Elix for the 100-KG-and-Under title on Nitro, so he’s got a warmup match for Skip…The warmup match is a handicap bout against KroniK…Skip tries to leave the ring, but Gunns grabs his ankle…Elix’s next move is to play dead…It works, and KroniK is about to leave, but Elix pops up, tries to dive on them, and tumbles to the floor because KroniK absolutely does not catch him…He gets killed…Meltdown, Full Nelson Slam, High Times, three…

 

• There are still thirty-seven fucking minutes in this show…SHIT…

 

• Jeff Jarrett and Lance Storm make plans for their main event tag match later tonight…

 

• Rey Misterio Jr. (w/Tygress) wrestles Juvi in the second match of this impromptu best-of-five series that I guess Russo is booking because annoying-ass wrestling fans keep asking for more wrestling matches between good wrestlers…Tony S. who no-sold Konnan’s lascivious comments about Major Gunns last match, greets Tygress joining commentary with a “How are you, sweetie?”…I continue to get a kick out of Tony’s obvious crush on Tygress…I’m glad that he’s got someone to have a harmless crush on since Chastity left the company…

 

• Rey and Juvi do some mat work to start…I’m just going to talk about Juvi a bit since he’s only got a couple more weeks in the company…I think he, like every other Mexican cruiserweight in this company, was underutilized…Actually, he’s one of the guys along with Rey and Kidman whom the ladies found very attractive, and WCW never really took advantage of that…WCW (and its progenitor JCP) were partly built on tag teams of paired dudes whom the ladies in the crowd thought were cute…I will stand by the argument that the Juvi/Van Hammer team that looked to be forming in 1998 would have had fun matches and gotten very over with the women in the audience…Anyway, I could go on a bit more about the untapped potential THA JOOOOOOOOCY ONE had in WCW, but this match ends prematurely when Juvi legitimately injures his knee getting monkey flipped into the ropes…So much for that best-of-five series!...

 

• Crowbar’s got to work through his sadness here if he’s going to survive Reno and move on to the Hardcore Championship finals against A-WALL…I assume that Reno is winning this tournament…Crowbar busts out his pretty Northern Lights with a bridge in the midst of all this trashy and smashy, for which I appreciate him deeply…Konnan is hit-and-miss on color…When he’s giving history or filling in the psychology of a match, he’s great…When he’s trying to be funny, not so much…Crowbar eventually splashes Reno through a table, but for some reason, he gets a ladder instead of just covering his opponent…This is a mistake…Crowbar only gets two on a Mindbender and then has the ladder smashed into his face by Johnny the Bull…A Roll of the Dice ends the bout…The heels attack Crowbar after the match and hang him with the tape around his ribs…Mike Awesome chases the heels away…

 

• After the break, Crowbar has a tiny emotional meltdown in the back about his problems with Daffney throwing off his focus…Awesome, as a self-described “love doctor,” pledges to help him out…

 

• Finally, we get this Mike Tenay interview with a neck brace-wearing Vince Russo…Briefly, Russo is the new champ…Russo is now retired…I guess that means a certain great champion of the past, VACANT, is about to be the champ again…We have to wait until Monday night to make it official, though…Blah blah, I hate Goldberg…Blah blah, I’ve got dirt on Ric Flair…We all know what it is, stupid…Stop acting like you’re teasing something mysterious…Blah blah, I know nothing about why Lex Luger showed up to Nitro and helped me…Russo is like, What the hell, Tenay, I’m not some broad you can hassle, and I don’t like the line of questioning, so I’m booking you for a match on Nitro…Again, that’s a babyface move!...I’ve wanted to see Tenay get destroyed for weeks of television!

 

• The Thrillers congratulate Reno on his victory in the back…Why are they trying to get the acronym SOL over as some sort of punchline?...They shouldn’t bother…

 

• We’re getting an angle where Luger is fired or not under contract or whatever, so this match is unsanctioned…He and Rection threaten Lance Storm and Jeff Jarrett in an interview with Gene Okerlund…

 

• This show absolutely refuses to end…I forgot that Scott Steiner is wrestling Stevie Ray tonight…I was so excited that it was finally main event time, but nope…Stevie sells being concussed as he walks to the ring…After an overlong and dull beatdown, Scotty quickly squelches a Stevie comeback with a pipe shot…He locks on a Steiner Recliner to end it…

 

• Please just get us through this main event already…Storm does some cursory mic work with eight minutes to go…They play all of “O Canada,” practically…Tenay worries over his upcoming match…Konnan probably spoils the "surprise" by saying that he predicts Tenay vs. Scott Steiner…I sure hope they’re not booking that matchup because that was the obvious guess, especially considering that Tenay started this “hard-hitting, woman-hating journalist” gimmick by crapping on Midajah…

 

• After entrances, there are only five minutes left before the video ends…It starts out as a tornado tag, but settles into a boring old regular tag match soon enough…Konnan talks about Luger’s limited moveset, which seems a bit pot and kettle, no?…Storm saves Jarrett from a Torture Rack…Luger is FIP…He gets a hot tag to Rection, but Luger immediately moves Storm out of the way of a Rection moonsault…Whoa, couldn’t see that SWERVE, BRO coming!...Who would ever have guessed?!?!...Rection is dead weight for a Torture Rack, so Luger just drops him, stomps him, and leaves…Storm wins with a Canadian Maple Leaf...

 

• This show was a smidge more boring than it was outright bad, so it’s merely an OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW…

[twiztor]

i feel like i must have memory holed this entire run from Booker's title win until Russo's exit. There's only a few things that spark any sort of memory: the awful WarGames, Russo's title win, '70s Guy Mike Awesome, Lance Storm, and ICP.

earlier, you mentioned a talent exodus alongside Russo. Who else leaves? i'm guessing Tank Abbott is gone now, as we haven't seen him in about a month. Does Daffney get released? I'm hoping, for your sake, that they finish out the Crowbar angle, but i have no recollection if that ends up happening or not. 

[SirSmUgly]

3 hours ago, twiztor said:

i feel like i must have memory holed this entire run from Booker's title win until Russo's exit. There's only a few things that spark any sort of memory: the awful WarGames, Russo's title win, '70s Guy Mike Awesome, Lance Storm, and ICP.

earlier, you mentioned a talent exodus alongside Russo. Who else leaves? i'm guessing Tank Abbott is gone now, as we haven't seen him in about a month. Does Daffney get released? I'm hoping, for your sake, that they finish out the Crowbar angle, but i have no recollection if that ends up happening or not. 

I feel like I saw at least a little of this, but I really don't think I was entirely locked in and watching every Nitro and Thunder until October. I vaguely recall the booking sort of turning me off enough that I dropped out when Booker wasn't champ, but watched when he was. 

Yes, Tank is sent home to ride out the rest of his contract at this point, which means that the feud with Three Count has been aborted. 

I believe that Crowbar and Daffney make it to the end (and that they end up together with Crowbar as the Hardcore Champ at some point before Meng gets it, which is a memory that is strong in my mind, so if I'm wrong, I must have just wanted it to happen really badly).

Obviously, Juvi goes in a couple weeks. Hall is officially released in November, I think. Bret goes in October or November as well (man, Russo really wanted to use the guy pretty badly). If Hart isn't on WCW television again, he left it by cutting the best worked-shoot promo of either of Russo's tenures and maybe the best one in WCW's Nitro Era, by the way. 

DDP and Buff Bagwell have been chilling at home because Russo has no use for him, so he should be back soon. 

It's hard to know who is gone and who is just sitting at home collecting a paycheck considering that it's WCW, really, but a cursory look shows that they did a ton of cost-cutting over the summer and early fall to get costs down for an eventual sale and continued to do so through 2000. Everyone from Juvi to Heenan to Iaukea to Christopher Daniels to Asya gets cut, basically. They went from, what, 200-ish people on their active roster at their peak in 1997/1998 to fifty or so by the end of 2000?

[twiztor]

14 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

It's hard to know who is gone and who is just sitting at home collecting a paycheck considering that it's WCW, really, but a cursory look shows that they did a ton of cost-cutting over the summer and early fall to get costs down for an eventual sale and continued to do so through 2000. Everyone from Juvi to Heenan to Iaukea to Christopher Daniels to Asya gets cut, basically. They went from, what, 200-ish people on their active roster at their peak in 1997/1998 to fifty or so by the end of 2000?

i legit thought Scott Hall was actually released over the summer sometime. Forgot about Bret Hart, but does it even matter if he's under contract or not? he's not wrestling or even on TV most of the time. I'm mildly surprised he didn't get one of those Turner contracts instead of a WCW one. 

good call that they've been scaling back for some time. it's hard to really notice in real-time, but even glancing at PPV cards from six months prior shows a whole host of talent that has disappeared.

[SirSmUgly]

1 hour ago, twiztor said:

i legit thought Scott Hall was actually released over the summer sometime. Forgot about Bret Hart, but does it even matter if he's under contract or not? he's not wrestling or even on TV most of the time. I'm mildly surprised he didn't get one of those Turner contracts instead of a WCW one. 

They kept Hall around until the lawsuit with the WWF was settled and then immediately released him. They sure didn't mind teasing his return a bunch of times before they did it, though. 

I agree with you on Bret; he should never have been in the position to get his pay reduced or to get cut. His agent borked him on that one. 

Russo was in love with the Hitman, and I've thought about it and realized that he loves Bret's ability to reel off good worked shoot promos. We don't think of Bret as a great promo man, but his 1997 on the stick probably made Russo love him forever. 

Quote

good call that they've been scaling back for some time. it's hard to really notice in real-time, but even glancing at PPV cards from six months prior shows a whole host of talent that has disappeared.

Somehow, the talent deficit in early 2000 feels far more dire than the talent deficit that exists now. I think it helps that they put a bunch of Power Plant kids on the main shows and covered for the loss of all those midcarders who'd been milling around for the past three or four years. 

[SirSmUgly]

Show #260 – 2 October 2000

"The one where Vince Russo gets the rest of his shit in before leaving, including another Goldberg streak angle and a match with four items on four poles because he just can't help himself"

• It’s October of 2000 – under a half-year to go for WCW.

 

• Recap: Vince Russo booked himself as the world champ. Yep.

 

• It’s the intro: BRAMP BRUMP adrenaline BRAMP BRUMP adrenaline. Actually, the breathy “Adrenaline” singer might have been replaced by a dude yelling in this version of the opening theme. I occasionally let out a BRAMP BRUMP when the opener plays at this point and will often think to myself, “Hey, I’ve got time to BRAMP BRUMP” when I think about writing a review. Funny, considering how bad this Nitro theme is.

 

• Konnan, in cow-patterned dress (we’re in the Cow Palace tonight) and holding the disco goose, comes to the ring with Rey Misterio and Tygress. Juvi is already in Australia, I guess, looking for PCP-laced joints to smoke. Konnan does his tired DISCO, U FUCK THIS DUCK, ORALE nonsense and they hang the duck in the air for a ladder match. Well, at least this episode mathematically can’t be the worst episode of Nitro ever. I have that going for me.

 

• Honestly, Alex Wright and Disco wrestling Konnan and Rey in a ladder match isn’t the worst way to open a show. Disco and Alex Wright doing some decent double-team spots with the ladder, dancing, and then getting beaten up is some decent television. Rey rides the ladder onto Wright; then, he hits a Bronco Buster before going up and hitting a chair-assisted legdrop onto the ladder, which is sandwiching Wright and placed on top of Disco.

 

• Rey just goes off at this point, landing a double nutcracker guillotine legdrop and then lightly hitting a rolling senton bomb off Disco, who is trapped by Konnan, before smoothly continuing along and diving onto Wright outside the ring. Disco manages to Chartbust his way out of a Konnan facebuster attempt, but Rey catches him halfway up the ladder and hits him with a sunset flip powerbomb, then ranas Wright away from Konnan as Konnan climbs the ladder and grabs the goose. That match was laid out in a way that amplifies that Rey is a star and probably should be much better positioned on this show! After the match, the Boogie Knights jump the Animals and take their goose back, which sorta negates the whole point of having a ladder match, but whatever.

 

• David Flair pulls up to the show and drags a hooded and cuffed person out of the back who he thinks is the baby’s daddy. Hmm…

 

• Vince Russo reads a statement on the TurnerTron, Jeremy Borash flanking him, in which he basically says that he proved his point about becoming champion, but he’s not an athlete and shouldn’t be in the ring, so he’s relinquishing the world title. Borash does the uncomfortable shoulder massage thing that Buster Bluth does, and Russo tells him to knock it off. Russo declares a title match between Scott Steiner and Jeff Jarrett to crown a new champion for later tonight and then pops off on Goldberg.

 

• Russo forgets himself, actually, and all that stuff he just said about not being a wrestler or an athlete, because he opines that he could kick Goldberg’s ass. This brings Goldberg to the ring. He makes a tortured YOU’RE A PIECE OF SHIT insult in the most oblique way possible, and then Russo says that he’s got plans for Goldberg and that he will be out there to inform him of them post-haste.

 

• In a half-decent gag, Russo comes out in a makeshift Popemobile driven by Borash. Goldberg smashes up the security dudes around the car. They have a dumb mic battle that sucks. I mean, holy shit, it sucks. Anyway, before Russo gets sent home, he sets up one more incredibly stupid angle that gets “paid off” at a random PPV by Totally Buff: Russo says that Goldberg’s got to bet his initial streak and go 177-0 (I guess 176-0 was where we kayfabe ended up on his initial streak) to get a title shot ever again, but if he loses even once before getting to his hundred-and-seventy-seventh win, he’s fired.

 

• Goldberg kicks the window of the truck and scares Borash away, but Meng – opponent number one in the nu-Streak for Goldberg - jumps Goldberg from behind and Tongan Death Grips him.

 

• The idea for this nu-Streak angle, by the way, isn’t bad in general, but in the context of a) fluffed original streak numbers making the streak a bit less meaningless and b) no consistency in WCW's creative leadership, which because of the constant creative upheavals makes it nigh impossible to book a well-planned long-term angle, it’s a terrible idea.

 

• Russo fires Meng up for battle in the back; then, he puts Mike Sanders in charge, which I guess means that the Cat isn’t at the building. Though Russo gives Sanders a glowing assessment, he tells Borash to keep watch on Sanders when the Thriller happily and confidently leaves the room.

 

• Chuck Zito’s confused ass joins commentary for some reason. SGT. A-WALL and Reno compete in the finals of the hardcore title tournament. Smash. Trash. The BEST BUY SUCKS sign in the crowd isn’t entirely wrong, but there’s one nearby and it’s nice to get physical video games or necessary cables. Plus, my current TV and current all-in-one that these reviews are mostly written on are both from Best Buy, bought at competitive prices. Reno gets in Zito’s face, but is hit in the back with a stick by Vito when he gets back in the ring. A-WALL chokeslams Reno through the table for three; Mike Sanders suddenly decides that there are "no interference" rules in hardcore matches and reverses the decision. Reno is the champ. OK, sure.

 

• Pam Paulshock lets us know that the Cat has ruled Booker T. to be the actual champion after last Monday and declares that Booker T. vs. Sting will be tonight’s world title match.

 

• Is this where we get that San Francisco Gold Miner match or whatever the hell it was called? I think we’re getting a cameo photo of Scott Hall that might be his last ever “appearance” on Nitro tonight. I vaguely remember that match and also the belt falling out of the box and Penzer having to grab it and give it to Booker.

 

• Hmm, the guy that Dopey Dave has handcuffed looks familiar…

 

• Well, it’s been a nice week’s worth of shows with no Shane Douglas or Torrie Wilson, but alas. Guess what? This guy cuts a terrible promo in which he challenges Konnan (and I guess Tygress?) to a match at Havoc. Then, he further challenges Mike Awesome to a match tonight. Oh God, now he gives the mic to Torrie. TAKE IT BACK. I guess Shane Douglas just wanted to remind me that it could always get worse than him cutting a shitty promo.

 

• OK, here’s Mike Awesome. Douglas jumps him at the bell as the desk talks about this new Goldberg Streak angle. I find it baffling that this stupid company never put the world title on Goldberg again after he lost it to Kevin Nash. This is staggering, right? Torrie flashes Awesome to stop an impending Awesome Bomb. Douglas lands a Franchiser for three. Tygress comes to the ring after the match and attacks Torrie. Douglas attempts to hit Tygress with a Franchiser, but Konnan makes the save.

 

• Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner harangue Mike Sanders to go fix things with the Cat. Scotty threatens Sanders physically, but Coach Nash walks up and backs up his young charge Sanders. Borash surreptitiously takes notes in the background while this all happens.

 

• After the commercials, Nash coaches Sanders up and sends him into the Cat’s office. Borash is unfortunately (for him) locked out.

 

• Hype video: For Meng, and is this the same one that they played in 1999 or a different one? If you look closely, you can see quite a few released former WCW stars all up in the videos.

 

• Whoa, this is amazing: Pam Paulshock interviews Meng about his big chance that he’s getting against Goldberg. Meng puffs up his chest a bit, opens his mouth, and here’s what comes out: “Pam, downsizing and cutback is part of business. Now, they bring me here to wrestle Goldberg. I have no choice; this is my last chance. In order for me to stay with WCW, in order for me to keep my career, [I must] destroy Goldberg. This is my life. Goldberg, you must die so I may live.” And those last few lines, he delivered with genuine emotion. I LOVED IT, PUT IT ON A GOOD LIST.

 

• Sanders steps out of the Cat’s office, where he tells Nash and the Thrillers that he’s negotiated an agreement with the Cat. He doesn’t, however, say what exactly that agreement is and distracts everyone from the details by convincing them to go watch Goldberg/Meng and see whose career is cooked.

 

• Meng’s career is cooked. Goldberg easily lands a spear and Jackhammer in about thirty seconds. Well, if by “cooked,” I mean “becomes hardcore champ and then gets a nice paycheck to take the belt up north.” KroniK must be about to start their Acolytes Protection Agency phase because they jump Goldberg after the bell, probably for some weed money. It’s funny: KroniK is over as babyfaces, so the crowd is legitimately bummed.

 

• Jarrett and Steiner confront Sanders, who says that he negotiated Jarrett/Booker vs. Steiner/Sting for later tonight, with the winning team getting the title shot against one another at the end of the show. Sanders argues that this guarantees that at least one of them will be in the title match. Ah, I was wondering how we got to Jarrett versus Booker and Penzer picking the belt up off the ground.

 

• Dopey Dave tortures his hooded prisoner by heating the room, offering him water, and then dumping a bucket of water on him. What is this, Abu Ghraib?

 

• Our mix-‘n-match tag bout is up next: Jeff Jarrett and Booker T. wrestle Scott Steiner (w/Midajah) and Sting. Wait, I need to do an update:

 

• WCW World Heavyweight Championship title change count: 23 (Hitman > VACANT > Benoit > VACANT > Sid > Nash > Sid > VACANT > Jarrett > DDP > Arquette > Jarrett > Ric Flair > Jarrett > Nash > Flair > Jarrett > Hulk Hogan > Jarrett > Booker > Nash > Booker > Russo > VACANT)

 

• I think, actually, we might be finally slowing down on title changes. In fact, we might be down to our last three in the company’s history (I don’t count anything that happened during the Invasion angle in my headcanon, but if you do, then they are the last three in the Nitro Era). I think we go back to Booker for about six or seven weeks, then on to Scott Steiner about eighteen months later than optimal before Booker wins the thing back on the last Nitro.

 

• I will again note that the U.S Championship has been booked the best all year, and even then, it’s a title in which the guys who lost it have still not lost it directly to an opponent and have instead vacated it or had it stripped from them. I don’t think we’ll get a proper "contender is put over by the former champ" title change this year unless and until Lance Storm loses to General Rection. I also think I know that title’s movement for the rest of the era (Rection > Rick Steiner > Booker), but we’ll see if there are any twists along the way.

 

• Scotty talks about his physical prowess before Sting gets out here. When Sting does make it to the ring, he outsmarts Jarrett while running the ropes, lands a fist on a Jarrett duck down, and continues rolling Jarrett after that. He scores a facebuster and a Stinger Splash, but Jarrett pokes Sting’s eye when the Stinger tries a Scorpion Death Drop, and a double clothesline sends both men scrambling to their corner for a tag.

 

• Steiner, who is still wearing a mask to protect the orbital bone that Goldberg broke with a forearm shot, jaws at Booker and the fans for a good minute or so before finally locking up with Booker. Steiner works Book back into the corner and unleashes with strikes, but he makes the mistake of running the ropes and runs himself right into a Booker roundhouse kick.

 

• We get another tag and our first Sting/Booker encounter in the match. Booker works a headlock and is more over in San Francisco than he’s been anywhere else in the past month or two. They have an awkward exchange on  rope run, but Sting gets a hip toss in. Steiner spits at Booker when Booker resets himself, but the distraction doesn’t throw Booker off too much, who scores a couple of punches, a back elbow, and a lariat. Book shoots Sting in; Sting reverses, and Steiner pulls the rope down so that Book tumbles to ringside. Sting follows, but not before punching Steiner; Jarrett jumps in and stomps Steiner while Sting initiates an obligabrawl with Sting.

 

• Steiner handles Jarrett and then Booker when Booker is able to get back to the ring. Booker eats an elbowdrop and an overhead release suplex; Steiner tries to isolate Booker and keep him away from a tag. Heck, Steiner even scouted Booker’s leapover in the corner and catches him; he hits one Oklahoma Stampede, but Book wriggles away from a second and lands a lariat and a spinebuster.

 

• Booker tags to Jarrett, who opens up on Steiner with rights, but runs himself into a boot in the corner and is quickly belly-to-belly suplexed. Steiner looks for a full nelson, but Jarrett back kicks Steiner in the nuts; Steiner topples over and tags Sting.

 

• You know who loves obligabrawls tonight? Sting loves obligabrawls tonight. He starts another one with Jarrett; Steiner comes over and clubs both guys, then gets in the ring and exchanges offense with Booker T. Book comes out ahead and scores an axe kick and a Spinaroonie, but Steiner hides behind the ref when Book launches a Houston Side Kick; Booker takes them both out.

 

• With the ref out, Jarrett grabs his KABONGin’ guitar. Booker looks up from where he’s at, trying to revive the ref, and sees Jarrett about to swing on Sting. Book stops him, but Jarrett shakes Booker off and swings at him; Booker ducks and Sting eats the guitar. Steiner blindly tackles Booker, who can’t do anything but lay there and watch Jarrett cover Sting for three. This was a decent match, but the crowd was a bit dampened because it’s hard to cheer with a babyface hits a hot tag to a heel!

 

• Promo: Halloween Havoc is gonna get weird with it.

 

• Elix Skipper comes out to “O Canada,” and though longtime readers will know my love for the Canadian national anthem, they will know that I love knockoff “Party Up” even more, so yeah, that’s what I’m playing right now. They’re going to let Elix talk, bless his squeaky-voiced heart. He’s upset about how Mike Sanders played him on Thunder and that unnecessary “Elix, nice to see you” comment from Kevin Nash to Beetlejuice. He demands that Sanders bring Nash with him so that he can give them both quite the beating.

 

• So, yeah, we’re getting a title change in a few minutes, aren’t we? Nash and Sanders are unperturbed; Sanders bars Team Canada from ringside, says that you have to powerbomb your opponent to win, and finally that this is now a handicap match. Nash bops Skipper in the head when Sanders has the ref check Skip’s shoes. Skip quickly makes a comeback when Sanders tries to powerbomb him, but he forgets about the whole “has to powerbomb his opponent” deal, and Nash clubs Elix on a rope run.

 

• While Lex Luger watches from the stands, Nash tags himself in and lectures everyone on how these damn kids are out here doing top rope moves even though no one does top rope moves in a bar fi--*gets missile dropkicked by Elix*. Elix actually beats up both guys for a bit before Nash is able to swing on him from behind. Nash does some more riffing, this time on the still-pretty-strong (at the time) Canadian dollar, then Jackknifes Elix so that Sanders can pin him for the title.

 

• WCW World Cruiserweight Championship title change count: 11 (Madusa > Oklahoma > VACANT > TAFKAPI > VACANT > Candido > Daffney and Crowbar > Daffney > Chavo Guerrero Jr. > Lance Storm > Elix Skipper > Mike Sanders)…

 

• Boy, Team Canada was not a very big or effective stable, which I don’t think I remembered before this watch-through!

 

• Terry Taylor catches Goldberg as Goldberg makes his way to the parking lot and lets the big guy know that Mike Sanders booked him in another match tonight.

 

• Coach Nash leaves his Thrillers to take a quick shower, and the rest of Team Canada runs up and attacks all seven Thrillers, and effectively, too!

 

• Goldberg peels off his motorcycle jacket on his way to the ring to kill off the worthless Harris Bros. He pins Ra/oD with a spear and Da/oR with a Jackhammer, so he’s 3-0 instead of 2-0 somehow. Oh, because Goldberg's streak numbers should never be taken seriously, that's how.

 

• Sanders yells into the shower room, hoping to get some ideas about booking the main event title match from Nash.

 

• Dopey Dave Flair walks his captive toward the ring.

 

• Mike Sanders sends a note to Tony S. via David Penzer that decrees the title match a 49ers Match. The 49ers suck ass, which I guess means they have a lot in common with WCW right now. There are four boxes on poles; one holds the big gold belt and the other three hold items that can be used as weapons. So many poles! Russo is such a dolt.

 

• It took Dopey Dave the time that was filled with Tony S.’s announcement and a repeat of the Havoc promo to walk his captive out here from the backstage area. Dave swats his captive’s hooded head while yelling YOU RUINED MY LIFE. San Francisco is very bored by this. They’ve been bored by everything that isn’t Goldberg, Booker, or Sting. Anyway, Dopey Dave uncuffs the guy, who yanks off his own hood and turns out to be Buff Bagwell. Wait, Buff scored with one of the ladies backstage for once? Buff hits Dave with a Blockbuster and walks away. Huh, so it wasn’t Ric. Well, that’s a pleasant surprise.

 

• Also, does that mean that Kidman was recording Buff striking out all those times considering that he was explicitly identified by M.I. Smooth as the guy who taped Buff nailing Stacy? I almost want to go back to the reviews earlier this year and remind myself of all those KidCam segments. I do remember that Kidman and Torrie acted as though the camera was stolen from them, but Kidman could totally have concealed it from Torrie and lied to her that it was stolen. I shouldn’t desperately want this angle to link up logically with a seemingly dropped angle from months ago, but I desperately want this angle to link up logically with a seemingly dropped angle from months ago.

 

• It's time for our San Francisco 49ers Match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. I don’t know – how is four boxes on four poles a 49ers Match? When Bill Watts had Jim Neidhart and Butch Reed put on actual football helmets and charge one another, now that would be reasonably called a 49ers Match. Well, no, actually, it’d more reasonably be called a Saints Match. I guess the idea is that you’re panning for gold by opening boxes instead of slowly sifting through a bunch of sediment, but no, this is dumb. Anyway, I want that Booker T. shirt that Book’s got on. That’s a pretty dope wrestling shirt. I like my wrestling shirts minimalistic, generally.

 

• Jarrett jumps Booker while Booker hands his t-shirt to a nice old lady plant in the audience. This match gets very wonky very quickly, starting when Jarrett gets shot into the corner and a box falls onto the floor. Jarrett just says FUCK IT, smashes it open, and finds, um, a blow-up doll for sexual congress, *sigh*. Booker takes over, gets the second box, and shows the crowd a picture of Scott Hall. Actually, the look on his face when he pulls it from the box and then shows it to the crowd is pretty funny.

 

• Booker cracks the picture over Jarrett’s head, which wakes the crowd up a bit. He goes for the third box, but Jarrett jumps him and hits him with plundah. Jarrett controls an obligabrawl until he tries a piledriver on the commentary table and is reversed and stuck with a piledriver by Booker instead. Booker opens up the third box and some joker wanted to reference SPIN THE WHEEL, MAKE THE DEAL because there’s a coal miner’s glove in there.

 

• Jarrett has recovered at this point and trips Booker, then posts his crotch and rips away the coal miner’s glove. Jarrett puts it on and loads up a punch that scores. He decides that he likes to smash Booker with shit more than he likes climbing for the fourth and final box for whatever reason, and though he actually lands a box shot to Booker’s dome, he’s too lackadaisical about just getting up there and grabbing the belt. Booker stops him on his climb, and not even another gloved punch and a sleeper can put Booker down for long enough to allow Jarrett to reclaim the big gold belt.

 

• Oddly, Slick Johnson does the raised arm count in the middle of a match where the only way to win is to get possession of the belt. Madden points this out, and Hudson fails to logically cover for the error. Jarrett is boring the shit out of me in this control segment; please just let Booker come back and get the belt already. Jarrett goes up for a diving gloved punch and leaps right into a Book End. Booker is caught while climbing for the final box, but he escapes a Stroke attempt and lands an axe kick, a Houston Side Kick and a Spinaroonie.

 

• Book goes back up for the final box, but Jarrett crawls over and lands a low blow. Poor old Jarrett crawls outside and tries to slide a KABONGer from under the ring, but it’s stuck. He has to hit Booker with an electric chair drop and then go back out after the guitar, which is still fucking stuck, and Jarrett is faintly annoyed that he can’t do his fucking spot with this fucking guitar that is wedged into something else under the ring. Madden points out that Jarrett should just go get the belt, which, yeah, but you really should stop pointing out logical flaws in the match, stupid.

 

• Anyway, Booker wins the belt when Beetlejuice runs out and punches Jarrett in the balls. I suppose that Beetlejuice was supposed to give a return KABONG to Jarrett, but he hits an apron splash, so it’s okay. Booker gets the fourth box, which breaks immediately upon him grabbing it. Penzer picks up the belt and hands it to him, but he has no time to celebrate because Scott Steiner attacks him with a pipe and then puts Beetlejuice in a Steiner Recliner immediately after the match.

 

• WCW World Heavyweight Championship title change count: 24 (Hitman > VACANT > Benoit > VACANT > Sid > Nash > Sid > VACANT > Jarrett > DDP > Arquette > Jarrett > Ric Flair > Jarrett > Nash > Flair > Jarrett > Hulk Hogan > Jarrett > Booker > Nash > Booker > Russo > VACANT > Booker)

 

• This Nitro was less bad than last week’s worst Nitro ever, so that’s good! On to Australia! -3 out of 5 Stinger Splashes.

Edited January 29 by SirSmUgly