SirSmUgly Posted May 18, 2024 Author Posted May 18, 2024 This is unfortunately a shorter list than the next one. BEST FEUDS Spoiler ü Eddy Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr. (1997) ü Raven vs. Diamond Dallas Page (1998) ü Raven vs. Saturn (1998) ü Chris Jericho vs. Dean Malenko (1998) ü Booker T. vs. Chris Benoit (1998)
SirSmUgly Posted May 18, 2024 Author Posted May 18, 2024 Some of the new entries on this list made me long for the days of Hogan fighting off the Dungeon of Doom or Benoit beefing with Kevin Sullivan. WORST FEUDS Spoiler û Nick Patrick vs. Chris Jericho (1996) û Kevin Sullivan vs. Chris Benoit (1996/97) û Hulk Hogan vs. Sting (1996/97) û Eric Bischoff vs. Larry Zbyszko (1997) û Eric Bischoff vs. Ric Flair (1998) û Scott Steiner vs. Rick Steiner (1998) û Ernest Miller and Sonny Onoo vs. Kaz Hayashi (1998) û Bret Hart vs. Sting (1998) û Rey Misterio Jr vs. Eddy Guerrero [lWo feud] (1998) û Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash (1998) û Jay Leno and Diamond Dallas Page vs. Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff (1998) û The Ultimate Warrior vs. Hulk Hogan (1998)
zendragon Posted May 18, 2024 Posted May 18, 2024 I disliked Spoiled Rich Kid Raven but it makes sense in hindsight given that ECW acknowledged that Raven and Johnny Polo where the same person 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 18, 2024 Author Posted May 18, 2024 9 hours ago, zendragon said: I disliked Spoiled Rich Kid Raven but it makes sense in hindsight given that ECW acknowledged that Raven and Johnny Polo where the same person I mentioned in another post that I loved that Scotty Flamingo, Johnny Polo, and Raven are all clearly the same dude and that there's a connective narrative tissue that explains how Scotty Flamingo ended up as Raven. In the abstract, this is theoretically a neat angle with Raven's emo nature being sort of fraudulent (if you think that upper-class teens and twenty-somethings can't have ennui or be disaffected, that is). But I agree with you in practice that it's not doing much for Raven, and there are surely better things that you could do with a guy who got over as your number three heel at worst (with an argument for being number two).
twiztor Posted May 18, 2024 Posted May 18, 2024 23 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: I haven't had a chance to look yet, but will 100% take you up on this generous offer if I can't find it. https://dai.ly/k14KH0In2XUix3AGaxG it's been years since i've seen this. i don't even remember when/where i originally downloaded it from. quality isn't that great and the picture is pretty washed out, but it's definitely watchable. 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 18, 2024 Author Posted May 18, 2024 (edited) Show #173 – 4 January 1999 “The one with the Fingerpoke of Doom” Welcome to 1999. Let’s start it out right with a huge title win that people are just going to love! Wait, I’m being handed a note here about that huge title win… Oooh, uh, well, maybe you might want to just re-watch the 1/4/99 RAW and skim this 1/4/99 Nitro review afterward instead. Just a suggestion! Some doofus whose name I missed interviews the Nitro Party winners in a Georgia Dome skybox. The doofus wants to meet "some of the guys and some of the ladies," but I see one [1] woman in that crowd, so maybe he should amend that statement by half. Glacier opens the first Nitro of 1999 against Hugh Morrus (w/Jimmy Hart). That’s certainly going to set a tone of some sort for the rest of the year! Tony S. tells us that Hogan is back in the house tonight, but just to talk about running for POTUS, don’t worry, he’s still retired. They’re definitely not going to do something crazy like put the World title on him. This match is a match that exists. No one in the crowd cares about it until Jimmy Hart hops up on the apron and Glacier grabs him. Morrus charges and Glacier moves; Hart takes a big bump. That doesn’t help Glacier win the match, though, as he’s too busy hitting crane kick poses to press an advantage, gets drilled with a lariat, and eats a No Laughing Matter for three. Larry Z. gets up to salute the crowd, which does not care about him. Larry moves like they’re cheering wildly, though. Respect. Fake it if you’re not currently making it, I always say. The desk talks about Flair running the show for the next three months and introduces a long package covering last week’s Flair/Bischoff confrontation. Watching Savage come to the ring again, I have two thoughts. First, Savage spent his time at home making Scott Steiner’s dealer a wealthy man. Second, what a weird way to re-debut a guy who is still one of your biggest stars on the show, just surreptitiously walking out while a bunch of other WCW guys run past him. Ric Flair, the other Horsemen, and Flair’s brood are escorted into the arena by Doug Dellinger. I suddenly have a third thought about Savage. Someone who posts at this site, and sorry for not remembering who it was, lamented Randy Savage’s change of dope ‘80s attire with the bandana and the tri-star trunks to much less dope ‘90s attire with the garish colors and the cowboy hat. Whoever that was pointed out the hat in particular as a testament to Savage’s “body image issues” w/r/t his growing bald spot. I think that theory of why Savage changed his attire in 1989 or whatever is confirmed by Savage showing up in 1999 while on all the steroids that are known to man. This dude just needed to preserve what was left of his knee by not dropping anymore Savage Elbows; he didn’t need to get so swoll that he’s even more immobile than he already is with a ruined knee. You're aging, dude, accept it. Oh yeah, Flair and the Horsemen! Gene Okerlund interviews them in the ring. Flair doesn’t waste too much time in calling Eric Bischoff on down to the ring for a little meeting with the new president of WCW. So wait, I thought Bischoff was kayfabe removed from that position by Dr. Schiller? No, you know what, I could be wrong – maybe it was a nebulous “suspension” – and even if I ain’t wrong, it doesn’t matter at this point. Flair promises to marginalize Bischoff after feeling that Bischoff had marginalized him for the past few years. He does that by making Tony Schiavone Bisch's immediate supervisor, which is a pretty good insider callback to what might have happened back in 1993 had Bischoff not shown Turner execs a few well-made presentations full of glossy pictures and charts. Also, Flair cuts Bischoff's pay in half since that’s a non-wrestling role. Non-wrestling role? Wow, is Flair the greatest babyface ever?! Eric Bischoff is very proud of that angle where he fired Randy Anderson from his refereeing position, so they play video of that again. It still stinks, but Nash facetiously sobbing out the line, “Do it for Tiny Tim, God bless us every one,” cracked me up. Nash is hilarious to me. Anyway, they bring Anderson out and Flair hires him back at double the salary. Thank goodness, that’s a quality kayfabe move. Now kayfabe fire Billy Silverman. Flair thanks Page, Booker, and even Savage for coming to the ring to help out last Monday, and finally books himself in a handicap match against Curt Hennig and Barry Windham at Souled Out in fewer than two weeks. Is that Charlotte standing in the back, or is it Flair’s other daughter? If it’s Charlotte, I think to myself maybe we should let her tag up with Ric Flair at Souled Out instead of David Flair, who steps up and asks to be his dad’s partner. Uh, sorry David. One of the Flair kids definitely has enough talent to work a big match on PPV, but it ain’t you. So, this is some legitimately funny stuff: We cut to the desk as we go to break. Bischoff is sitting there cutting a vile look at Tony S., who tries to smooth things over regarding their new working relationship. While Tony’s doing that, Larry Z. cuts in and boorishly demands HEY, GET ME SOME WATER and Tony S., in the middle of his conciliatory speech, stops to point and tell Eric, “The water’s over there.” Perfect, and I don’t mean Curt Hennig. I’m down for a Booker T. match! Tony S. is still being nice to Bischoff on commentary, but in the most disingenuous way possible. It’s cracking me up. Bisch is just miserable over there and refuses to participate, and Larry eggs Tony on to be more outwardly mean to Bisch, not realizing that Tony being fake-nice is the worst thing that he can do to Eric. Booker squashes Emery Hale in about 45 seconds, finishing him with a missile dropkick and barely breaking a sweat in the process. Tony S. threatens to report Eric to Flair if Bisch doesn’t do some commentary, but he says it like he doesn’t actually want to report Eric. Larry Z. is like FIRE HIM, again not understanding that getting let off easy with a firing is what Bischoff wants and that Tony S. is slow-playing Bisch’s torture. Bisch won’t say anything, so Tony S. says, in mock consternation, “Well, not a word out of you…I gotta write this down.” Norman Smiley and Chavo Guerrero Jr. are out here for a rematch, but Tony S. doing an extended squash on Bischoff at the commentary desk is the real contest that I’m engaged with. I admit that this is the one case in which commentary ignoring the match in front of them has actually delighted me. Tony S.: “I know you’re upset Eric, but this is your job. And jobs are hard to come by, especially on television.” Can you believe this smug bastard? Can you? This is the sort of smarmy lecture that usually makes some middle management fuckhead at a Fortune 500 a mega-heel. Smiley lands some slaps on Chavo’s chest, dances a little, and gets a pop. Smiley dominates the match for the most part, in fact. Chavo makes a comeback and they have a nice series of exchanges. Chavo ends up getting sent outside the ring, but he has plenty of time to sneak up to the top rope and attack Smiley since Smiley gets a lascivious look on his face and does a Big Wiggle. Chavo attacks Smiley and Smiley tries to Wiggle again, but falls backward like a tree. Chavo tries a springboard move, but sends himself through the ropes, and does a professional job of saving it by landing on the apron and smoothly slingshotting himself back over and into a roll-up for two. Smiley goes for a Norman Conquest shortly after, but Chavo wheels away from it. Chavo steals a schoolboy for three shortly afterward and then is immediately attacked by an irate Smiley post-match. That was decent stuff! Chris Benoit gets a jobber entrance…so that Horace Hogan can get a proper full entrance. The hell? Horace tries hard as usual, and Benoit is Benoit, so the match is solid, but the use of Benoit since he’s come back from injury has been awful. This company spent the first half of 1998 getting Booker, Benoit, Raven, Saturn, Eddy, and Chavo over and then the second half of that year doing questionable things with all of them and their newfound momentum. Benoit lands a flying headbutt, but it scrambles his brains so much that Horace is the guy who gets up and throws offense after that. Horace gets a shoulderbreaker for two, but he gets caught hooking Benoit for a suplex and is reversed into a Crippler Crossface right in the middle of the ring. He has no choice but to tap. And here’s where the show goes off the rails. Some cops arrest Goldberg for ra—uh, “stalking.” It’s stalking that he’s arrested for. Goldberg looks like a real asshole telling the cops that they can’t arrest him, followed by the cops being like, Uh, we have a warrant? So we are wielding the power of the state to arrest you? Goldberg responds by being like WELL MACE AND SHOOT ME THEN, BITCH, I AIN’T GOING ANYWHERE, which is a bold move considering that they are American cops and probably don't need nor want the permission to do either of those things. So, they finally arrest Goldberg, but unlike Steve Austin, who is usually frog marched out while talking shit and looking like a badass, Goldberg just looks like a doofus who meekly finally allows himself to be cuffed while yelling THIS IS WRONG. Spoiler alert: This will be the lowest-scoring show of my Nitro watch so far on merit, and while the show up to the previous segment was perfectly cromulent, that segment marks a point at which it slides inexorably toward disaster on multiple fronts. There’s a break, and we come back to Goldberg getting put in an unmarked car while Kevin Nash yells about his match getting ruined. Hulk Hogan arrives at the building, laughs about it, and declares Goldberg to be guilty. He enters the building and keeps walking right past Elizabeth, who is claiming that she was ra—uh, “stalked” by Goldberg to the cops. I know one thing: In real life, cops absolutely arrest wealthy and famous men after judges issue warrants from the bench for a lone woman claiming that she was stalked by said wealthy and famous men. So this story has a very real-life sort of logic. Chris Jericho is marking time here in WCW, just waiting for his contract to run out. He’s got a match against Saturn tonight. Tony S. makes sure that Eric knows that Bischoff needs to be in on Monday in Smyrna at 9AM sharp for the announcers meeting during this opening. The opening picks up shortly after that comment; Saturn outfoxes Jericho and scores a number of kicks after a leapover. Jericho struggles to run with Saturn, but is able to dump him onto the apron and hit a corner dropkick. After a commercial break, Jericho’s back in the ring and trying to run with Saturn again, which gets him caught in a sleeper that he has to quickly break with a back suplex. Jericho wisely grounds Saturn with a chinlock, then unwisely tries to get Saturn running again and gets suplexed and nearly DVD’d. Jericho escapes that, but eats an overhead suplex for two. Jericho is about done with all this shit and smacks the ref, then drags him into Saturn’s way as Saturn flies through the air. The ref, who is Scott Dickinson, calls for the bell. Oh no, not to DQ Jericho, but to signal a Saturn submission that never happened. Oh joy, another “ref feuding with a wrestler” angle. How exciting. We watch Goldberg getting interrogated at a jail across the street from the arena. Keep this in mind. The jail is across the street from the arena, according to Tony S. himself. The cops are like Elizabeth Lubetsky accused you of aggravated stalking and Goldberg is like Who the fuck is that?! and then the cop is like It’s Miss Elizabeth and then Goldberg is like I don’t even talk to her!, and it’s some real compelling television, let me tell you. Jimmy Barron is the doofus interviewer’s name from earlier. He interviews some other doofuses in this Nitro Party skybox. A guy in a Wolfpac shirt yells that his favorite part of the show was WHEN GOLDBERG WENT TO JAIL. KEEP HIM THERE. Oh yeah, buddy, just wait until the main event angle! We’ll see if you’re so joyous then! Some cops talk to Miss Elizabeth. She makes the case that Goldberg being in the same place as her so often is not easily explained by them working together in the same company. She also makes a case for Goldberg being a creep at work and maybe also in some hotels after work. I am riveted. There’s an lWo pre-taped promo with some ladies mamacitas in lowriders. They have a party. Eddy makes Dandy park the cars before Dandy’s allowed in. Basically, this is an overlong sketch in which Eddy is a tyrant who hogs the attention of the ladies and orders the rest of the lWo around. It is a very, very bad promo. Tony S. says that the lWo “is united as ever” after the piece plays. Uh, did he miss the part where Psicosis and a couple of other members were quietly talking with palpable disappointment in their voices about how Eddy's attitude had changed for the worse? I suppose he did. lWo members Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis come out to face Billy Kidman and Rey Misterio Jr., but – great news! – Tony S. says that it’ll be a tornado tag! Bobby Heenan makes a terrible dad joke about Bischoff and Ernest Miller on commentary, but the actual punchline is Tony doing a heh heh that indicates that as dumb as it is, it’s a joke at Bischoff’s expense, so dammit, he'll laugh at it. The match starts, and it’s not a fucking tornado tag. Fuck you, WCW. Tony S. even said that all four men would be in the ring at the same time. This match is fine, but in protest of it not being a fucking tornado tag, the announcement of which got me all hyped up for nothing, I’m not going to bother recapping most of this. There are counters. There are counters to counters. There are a couple of double-team moves. It’s all decent enough. Rey plays FIP before getting a hot tag to Kidman. That shouldn’t have happened because this should be a tornado match. No, I will not let this go! Then, get this – GET THIS – Tony S. says there are no rules and all four men can go at it at any time even though we just saw Charles Robinson enforcing tag rules for the last five minutes! Juvi hits a Juvi Driver on Rey, but Kidman makes the save and is ordered out of the ring in this regular-ass, not-a-tornado tag match. Kidman, for no reason that I can tell, decides to randomly throw a missile dropkick that accidentally hits Rey even though the timing of his dropkick is off and he should really have been able to stop himself from leaping. Psicosis follows up with a guillotine legdrop for three to end this incredibly disappointing tag match. The cops relay Liz’s claim to Goldberg word for word. Goldberg is incredulous, especially when he hears that he’s been stalking Liz at Obake Gym. Mostly that’s because she’s a paying member and he owns the gym. I think the implication is that Liz is fibbing, folks. If this were Steve Austin, he would have kicked like the whole precinct full of cops in the guts, found the key, uncuffed himself, and made it back to the arena parking lot to get in his giant-ass truck and drive it down the ramp to run Liz over with it. Kevin Nash talks to Gene Okerlund on the ramp. Nash is apparently bummed about not beating Goldberg cleanly at Starrcade and accuses Hogan of getting Liz to press false charges. Nash then asks Flair to make him a match with Hogan tonight before his match with Goldberg. Flair comes out to agree with Nash’s demand. This is very much the sort of subterfuge-based World title angle that Vince McMahon and the Rock pulled off at Survivor Series a couple months back, but this is an example of how to do that sort of booking in a completely ineffective and shitty way. The cops hound Liz for more accurate and detailed answers. They ask the sorts of questions that no one who was actually getting stalked would be able to answer, either. What person who is actually getting stalked would remember what clothes their stalker was wearing at each confrontation? I’m also confused by the angle. So, was Liz filing reports in the leadup to this arrest, then? I assume yes, and that this particular reformation of the nWo was decided between Nash and Hogan before Starrcade, so they had Liz put the wheels of this scheme into motion. But in that case, why would the cops wait until tonight at the show to act on these reports? What evidence did Liz fabricate and give the cops that was convincing enough for a judge to issue an arrest warrant? Am I thinking about this too much? See, the Deadly Games booking just gets better the more you think about the logic. This angle is full of holes. I will say that if not Bisch, I feel certain that at least one or two people on the booking committee saw that Deadly Games tournament and admired it because I think you can draw a line from it to the Fingerpoke of Doom booking. Gene Okerlund interviews Hulk Hogan. Man, Hogan sucks. I think it’s apparent that Hogan is getting the belt back just based on how they’ve ostentatiously jammed him right back into the World title scene out of what feels like nowhere. I wouldn’t have guessed how they were going to do it had I not been watching RAW at the time this originally aired, but were I watching it, I would have had a feeling of wrestling fan dread as soon as Hogan interacted with Nash. It doesn’t help that Hogan’s interview pretty much screams “title switch.” This guy has the opposite of boo-boo face on in his interview. Tony S., who has been having a great night on commentary trolling Bischoff, immediately not only undoes the effect of all his good work but also immortalizes himself as a total dolt by spoiling the RAW main event, but also insulting the idea that anyone would want to see Mick Foley win a world title with the ignominious “Ugh, that’s gonna put a lot of butts in seats” remark. Let me stop here and indulge myself with a little ranting for a second. That comment reveals the underlying reason why WCW sucked for much of the Nitro era. Over on WWF programming, Vinnie Jr. and his bookers still have to be competitive against another major company, so as much as they tended toward sending crowds home disappointed (and sometimes outright trolling them) after WCW was dead, in 1999 when WCW was still alive and kicking, they got that what kept the fans coming back was that more often than not, they’d leave the arena or cut off the TV after the show feeling good about what they watched. For whatever reason, no one in WCW got that. Why in the world wouldn’t a fan want to see Mankind, who had been expertly built as a sad sack loser whose best was never good enough for anybody, finally reaching ultimate success with help from a few allies who took him in and backed him up in his moment of personal and emotional need? I was just talking about feeling dread that Hogan was surely going to win the title in his interview, but at the time I watched the 1/4/99 RAW, I got that familiar wrestling fan feeling of excited anticipation that they were actually going to crown Mankind, a guy who I always liked, but who won my undying love as a wrestling fan at the time for the KotR cell match. Some people forget at the time that Mankind yeeting himself off (and also through) the cell made him on a meta-level a guy who would kill himself for his craft (not a good or healthy thing, but a lot of us were younger back then and, at least of the wrestling fans I watched with, we found something about that idea noble, if crazy). It also, in kayfabe, made him infinitely rootable for, a guy who would get half-murdered, but who would drag himself back to his feet and carry on for another day. You know, the fact that WCW wouldn’t understand this to the point that they directed their own fans to join the celebration for a wrestler who found the power to keep going after every setback, some of them life-threatening, and finally reach his ultimate goal tells a lot about why it was never going to work out under the Bischoff regime. He just fundamentally does not get professional wrestling on a macro level. He doesn’t get it on a micro level in many ways either, even if he shares quite a few ideas about what makes an enjoyable wrestling match with me. But on a macro level? He really doesn’t understand wrestling. He didn’t then and he doesn’t really now, in my humble opinion. I guess someone dug up some video of Chris Jericho gassing up Scott Dickinson in the back before tonight’s match. Good for them, but they did it like an hour too late to matter. Scott Steiner defends his newly-won TV title against Konnan in a rematch, but before that, Scotty gets the stick and drones on. He promises to say some wild shit on the mic in upcoming weeks. Buff does the Dirty Bird touchdown dance, and I suddenly remember that Jamal Anderson exists. Konnan is too fired up to hit the Catchphrase Roulette, and after Buff tries to shove him, he attacks Buff and ends up going at it with Steiner as the bell rings. Tony S. yet again promotes the RAW main event for the opposition with a disbelieving, “I mean, [Mick's] gonna be their World Champion.” Sounds good to everyone, Tony. Reach over and smack that dolt Bischoff in the back of the head for telling you to do this. This match is okay, actually. They move at a pretty good pace. Konnan survives a beating and hits a tornado DDT, then gets boots up on a corner charge. They botch the timing on a facebuster badly, but look, you expect at least one ugly botch in a match between these two. Konnan wraps on the Tequila Sunrise, but Buff jumps in the ring and eventually we get a no contest or maybe a DQ as Konnan loses the numbers game. Steiner destroys Konnan with a chair and then poses while Buff chokes the utterly destroyed Wolfpac member. Bischoff finally says something on commentary: “Goldberg’s jailbait.” Huh. It would have been better if he stayed totally silent the whole night until the exact moment that Hogan pinned Nash and was awarded the title, at which point he shouldn't say a single word and just start laughing hysterically. Anyway, Wrath is here in the ring and on the mic. He says that he’s been killing everyone (except Kevin Nash) and wants some real competition for once. Bam Bam Bigelow walks out to be Wrath’s real competition. This is a crappy TV match between two guys who are usually solid workers. Most of the match is a cursory ringside brawl at half-speed. Finally, the ref calls the match a no contest as the half-speed brawl slowly crawls up the ramp and into the backstage area. That was not good. The cops hem Liz up because, uh, she got Coke and Pepsi mixed up. Then they threaten to charge her with a felony, which is when she recants her statement. What’s hilarious is that she recants it by saying that she must have gotten him mixed up with someone else because “there are a lot of these bald-headed wrestlers running around.” That is genuinely funny, but for many reasons that I’ve talked about and many other reasons that I won’t even get into, this was one of the worst series of segments that I’ve ever seen on a wrestling show. Crush and Virgil walk out here next so that we can squeeze DDP doing a typical Lex Luger babyface TV match onto the show. Virgil interferes liberally, there’s a commercial break, and Page overcomes chicanery and drops Crush with a leaping Diamond Cutter from the second rope for the dub. The cops tell Goldberg that Liz dropped the charges. Goldberg has about twelve minutes to get back across the street. Surely, it won’t take him that long, right? Well, maybe having already been arrested once tonight, he doesn’t want to risk a second arrest by jaywalking against the very long green light. Here’s Michael Buffer to pander to the Falcons fans in the crowd and bring out Kevin Nash and Hulk Hogan to face off for the World title. You know what happens next. Hall comes out in a Wolfpac shirt, which is ominous in the context of things, there’s a faceoff, a fingerpoke, a reformation of the nWo under the Wolfpac banner, and Goldberg taking all twelve minutes to make it back across the street (he drove his car back even though it’s across the street!) and into the arena so that he can catch a *sigh* nWo beatdown after Lex Luger joins Kevin Nash in turning heel. I’m going to stop here for a second and complain some more, so my apologies. The Wolfpac formed based on a bogus, out-of-nothing feud between Nash and Hogan. The catalyst? They couldn’t agree on whether to hit Roddy Piper or Randy Savage with a foreign object first. As dumb, as bogus, as shitty as that is, the Wolfpac got way over! The whole state of Indiana creamed their jeans over Lex Luger joining! Even after Sting and Savage were sidelined for huge stretches of the Wolfpac’s existence, they stayed mega-over! So what do we do with the Wolfpac, which the crowd clearly sees as the edgy version of the nWo that they were promised back when the black-and-white was first formed and before Hulk Hogan and a bunch of cornballs watered it down into just another goofy stable? We book it as an ineffectual group that doesn’t run as a pack and that loses a lot of beatdowns to nWo Hollywood. Then, we sideline Luger and have Konnan work a bunch of nothing TV matches even though everyone in it is way over as babyfaces before finally putting the belt on Nash so that Nash can transition it to Hogan, with the bonus of Hogan now getting to be in the cool version of the nWo so that he can water it down like he did with the last version of the nWo he eventually ruined. WCW had an off-ramp from this company-killing nWo storyline. They had Goldberg, they had Page, and they had the Wolfpac. They had a perfect storyline in which Goldberg and Page reluctantly join up with the Wolfpac to destroy nWo Hollywood before tensions lead to that marriage of convenience ending with Goldberg and Page destroying the remnants of the Wolfpac. It’s so easy! You just have to wean yourself off of pushing a 45-year-old Hulk Hogan as your lead heel for the third straight year of your booking tenure. That’s all. I had more to say, but I’m belaboring the point because I’ve complained about how the Wolfpac has been booked for I don’t know how many months. Suffice it to say that while there have been shows as roughly as bad as this one in quality and there will be more in the future, this show looms large in the minds of wrestling fans who saw it for one reason. It, when viewed alongside the competing RAW episode from the same night, is the booking thesis statement for why I’m not reviewing 1999 WWF RAW episodes that I watch on the WCW Network, now streaming on MAX. -20 out of 5 Stinger Splashes Edited May 19, 2024 by SirSmUgly 1
twiztor Posted May 19, 2024 Posted May 19, 2024 2 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Show #173 – 4 January 1999 -20 out of 5 Stinger Splashes i'm sorry you were (re-?)subjected to this episode. in positive news, this reformed nWo doesn't last more than a few months. Plus, as @Stefanie pointed out, you get to see Blitzkrieg soon! in less positive news, good luck following title lineages from here on out. 1 1
zendragon Posted May 19, 2024 Posted May 19, 2024 Bobby Heenan freaking out over Blitz is a great wrestling memory
SirSmUgly Posted May 19, 2024 Author Posted May 19, 2024 12 hours ago, twiztor said: i'm sorry you were (re-?)subjected to this episode. in positive news, this reformed nWo doesn't last more than a few months. Plus, as @Stefanie pointed out, you get to see Blitzkrieg soon! in less positive news, good luck following title lineages from here on out. I think it's now a bit over a decade ago that I did a Nitro re-watch, but I am pretty sure that I stopped somewhere in 1998, I think around Road Wild because Bischoff drove me away with his Leno shit. This is the first time I've seen this episode since the replay the day it aired. Now, I stopped watching WCW in its original run regularly somewhere in 1999, so my memory of that stuff is spotty. Some of it, I won't have seen at all. I only dropped back in to regularly watch Nitro and Thunder after Booker won the World title and stuck with it until the end. I'm heading into some uncharted territory here, but at least there's the promise of Blitzkrieg!
SirSmUgly Posted May 19, 2024 Author Posted May 19, 2024 Thunder Interlude – show number forty-five – 7 January 1999 "The WCW Gang finally destroys any remaining value in the nWo as a stable until the WWF Gang got a minor amount of value out of it in 2002” I’ve watched about half of the Macho Man video that Twiztor so kindly threw up a few posts ago, and man, that Vegas crowd at the Clash was utterly confused by the reviving Savage Elbow spot… In general, a lot of that pre-nWo WCW main event stuff was hokey, but Flair/Savage really was a feud for the ages across two companies…I’ve said it before, but Flair being so upset at getting embarrassed at WM XIII that he did everything he could to ruin Savage’s life in WCW…For example, attacking his father…Or having Liz buy him shit with the alimony money from her divorce…All that stuff was a great way to use a feud from a past company to fuel a current feud… I will always think that the (probably unintended) storytelling that Flair got a little too obsessed with getting revenge, drove Savage to insanity, and then was infected by Savage’s madness is one of the two or three best storylines this company pulled off in the Nitro era...After Savage joined the nWo and had bigger backup than Flair did for once, the Horsemen fell apart…It didn’t help that Flair was so focused on Savage that he failed to put out all the fires in his own group that were started by Mongo, Debra, Jeff Jarrett, Chris Benoit, and Woman…It got so bad that the Horsemen were disbanded for a year due to Flair’s failure to keep the group focused and on the same page…Savage might have lost more than his share, but he definitively won that feud because the madness was real… Sometimes, you get a great bit of long-term storytelling like that…But more often, WCW has long-term storytelling like the Wolfpac/Hollywood split…I listened to the 83 Weeks episode about The Fingerpoke of Doom, and Bisch is still delusional about it being a good storyline…He also bitches about people who complain about his own inability to produce a show…He’s mad that even that slowpoke dolt Bryan Alvarez realizing the ridiculousness of how Tony S. went out of his way to make a point that the police station was across the street, but it apparently took Goldberg fifteen minutes to get back into the arena…Bisch was like We loaded him into a police car to show that the station was actually far away…OK, so first off, produce your announcers so that what they say at the desk matches what you show…Like, you know, when they say we’re getting a tornado tag match, but I end up watching a regular tag match instead…I WILL NOT LET THIS GO… But second off, how did Goldberg get his car to tear back into the arena parking lot at the end of the main event if he was carted away from the arena in a police car?...But no, it’s just Alvarez and other nitpicky wrestling fans fabricating bullshit to tear down his genius idea for giving Goldberg heels to chase…Bischoff is a somewhat dopey and uncreative man who failed his way upward until he couldn’t fail upward anymore and then had to start a podcast to survive…Even his podcast has now devolved into a bunch of episodes where he tries his hardest to neg Tony Khan until TK gives him a cushy job… Maybe I should save my fullest of Bischoff critiques for the Nitro before he gets sent home…But at this point, I have a hard time giving him credit for much of anything creative…I liked the World title scramble in late ’95, early ’96…And convincing Hogan to turn heel and join the nWo was an excellent move…Otherwise, his successes were mostly in getting WCW to turn a profit from where it was in 1993 after just a couple of years…Turner execs should have let him just try to cut as many distribution deals as possible and left the creative to people better suited for it… But you probably just want to read about this first Thunder of 1999, huh?...Let me get to it… We get a Flair/Bischoff feud recap video to open the show…Man, this recap is long… The crowd in Richmond chants for Goldberg…Incontrovertible proof that the nWo reformation just got him even more over, I’m sure, if you ask Bischoff…Now the crowd can’t decide on whether to do a WEASEL or a WE WANT FLAIR chant…They sort of half-and-half it for awhile, but the chant for Flair eventually wins out… We get some Fingerpoke of Doom footage, followed by some "Goldberg getting jumped by Luger and beaten up" footage…I forgot to point out how awful Bischoff is with the sound effects on commentary during this segment…We should call X-Pac Heat “Bischoff Heat” instead because his performance genuinely made me want to cut this video off and do something, anything else…After the show, Goldberg eventually got to his feet and challenged Nash and the nWo, then was backed up by a bunch of Atlanta Falcons…The crowd was hyped for their Super Bowl threat Falcons, at least… Gene Okerlund interviews the WCW Prez in the ring…Flair is annoyed about how untraditional it is to lie down and hand a title to someone else…Yeah, but if you do it and it’s funny, like Triple H/Shawn Michaels for the European Championship was, it’s fine…Flair goes into conniptions…He does raise a good point…Why would Nash just hand the belt to Hogan?...There is nothing in Nash’s characterization that says he’d do that…He left the nWo because he thought Hogan’s leadership skills sucked…What logical reason would there be for him to decide eight months later, Nah, this guy seems to know what he’s doing, let me just hand over the most prestigious title in the wrestling world to him?...Flair demands Bischoff attend a meeting with Dr. Schiller and Ted Turner when Flair gets back to Atlanta…He is not pleased about the whole “Nash laying down” thing, to say the least… We are now reminded of Scott Dickinson being influenced by Chris Jericho in a video that I guess the heels were cool with having a cameraman take and distribute over the air?... It’s our first wrestling match at the 22-minute mark…Ernest Miller (w/Sonny Onoo) faces Saturn in a Starrcade rematch…This match is fine, but did we need it?...This feud wasn’t exactly popping…Saturn gets two on a suplex and goes after Onoo, who hops on the apron…Miller can’t take advantage of the distraction and eats a wheelbarrow suplex and a Falcon Arrow…Chris Jericho runs down and pulls Mickey Jay out of the ring so that Scott Dickinson can run in and fast-count Miller sneaking up behind Saturn and hitting a rollup…I am baffled that Bischoff and Company are going back to the “heel ref” well…What a wretched run creative has been on… Hey, it’s the Giant!...He has a tense discussion with a few nWo B-Teamers…I guess the Giant and the B-Teamers were left out of that whole “nWo reformation discussion”…The Giant wants to know what even is going on right now…Hogan blows him off before heading off with the rest of the *gag* Wolfpac…The Giant is about five weeks out from tossing Steve Austin through a cage on the final non-NXT (as I found out when looking it up) In Your House show, and I think his last WCW appearance will be on the upcoming Nitro…Yeah, sorry for the preachy nature of these last few reviews, but I’ve got something queued up about the Giant’s WCW run that I guess I’ll save for that show… The NEW NEW NEW new nWo Wolfpac wanders through the building while we once again see video of Luger turning heel on Goldberg…Then, I guess they’re not coming to the ring like I expected…We get Psicosis (with pre-lWo theme) facing Billy Kidman instead…They have a nice rope-running opening that ends when Kidman’s dropkick sends Psicosis to the floor…Kidman wins a slingshot splash as we go to break…When we come back, everybody is dead on the outside, so we missed a heck of a spot...Tenay describes said spot to us...Shortly after that, Kidman counters a powerbomb with a facecrusher and then goes up for the SSP…Juventud Guerrera runs down and attacks Kidman before he can drop it…Kidman falls to the numbers game, but Rey Misterio Jr. comes down for the save… At this point, the Wolfpac comes to the ring…Nash powerbombs Psicosis and the Wolfpac clears the ring…Rey faces off with Nash before leaving untouched…The Wolfpac tazes Psicosis and destroys Psicosis’s lWo shirt…In fairness, that’s a reasonable pro wrestling reaction to gimmick infringement…Hogan is trying to dress like someone who isn’t a 45-year-old dork, but his beanie is a Harley-Davidson beanie, so he failed…You should genuinely see this goof in his baggy jeans and open flannel…This guy looks like the biggest asshole on earth…Do you think Nash and Hall ribbed him by telling him that he looked trendy before he showed up on camera like this?...The Giant brings some black-and-white B-Teamers to the ring…The Giant feels left out, which irritates Hogan… Hogan invites the other B-Teamers into the Wolfpac, but he blames the Giant for not killing off Flair two Nitro main events ago…Hogan declares that the Wolfpac only has room for one giant, and they all kinda decided it’d be Nash…The Giant protests, so Hogan says they’ll just run Nash/Giant back one more time on Nitro, and the winner gets to be the Wolfpac’s lone big man…So we get the birth of the B-Team and two Hogans + Crush in the Wolfpac…This is some vile shit… Sorry, zendragon, but these “Raven and his mother” sketches are hilarious to me…They’re a bad creative direction for Raven, sure, but they are executed perfectly…Chastity is the only person in their nicely-furnished living room who even wants to listen to what Raven has to say…She rightly points out, when Raven’s mom says that Raven will only listen to her, that it’s because no one else in the family listens to Raven…Commentary misses the nuances of Raven’s overbearing mom ruining her own relationship with her son and instead blames Raven for how he feels…That’s what the kids would call a boomer take… Bam Bam Bigelow kills off Jerry Flynn with a Greetings from Asbury Park in about thirty seconds… Gene Okerlund interviews Barry Windham and Curt Hennig, whose tag team for Souled Out is, I’m pretty sure, a pre-cursor to that West Texas Rednecks stable that comes straight out of the bowels of hell…Windham cuts a decent heel promo, and I think that inspires Curt Hennig not to suck badly when he talks next…Man, they spent the first two weeks after Starrcade setting up just about a billion angles and character developments that I remember hating deeply when I saw them in real time… Oh, lovely, Gene Okerlund is back on my screen and asking Juvi Guerrera, who is rushing out of the arena, to stop speaking “Mexican” to him…That’s what the kids would call a boomer comment…Juvi rushes out of the arena so the Wolfpac doesn’t kick his ass for all the lWo gimmick infringement and implies that they have already gotten to Eddy Guerrero, who in real life flipped his car and injured himself earlier in the week…Well, as much as I hated the lWo angle, let me understate things by saying that I would have preferred that it ended in some other way than Eddy nearly killing himself while driving under the influence…. Disco Inferno got his own t-shirt!...You’d never catch me wearing it outside, but cool!...I do note that he took off the ol’ Wolfpac shirt, which is probably a good move from him…On the other hand, as I’ve said before, I do want to acquire and wear that Chavo Guerrero Jr. t-shirt…As Chavo and Disco both dance after they attempt moves, I think about how dancing was such an easy way to get over in late ‘90s American pro wrestling…Norman Smiley got over by dancing…Too Cool should never have gotten over, but by a) dancing and b) being paired with Rikishi, they got over…Speaking of Smiley, he comes out here and, uh, simulates nastily fucking Pepe by Big Wiggling while Pepe’s between his legs…That distracts Chavo and causes Disco to sneak in a Chartbuster for three…I’m here for a Smiley/Chavo mini-feud… During that match, the fellas at the desk did some worked shooting about how much Eric Bischoff hated tag team wrestling and treated the division like crap…They say that Prez Flair is going to run a tag titles tournament…So, uh, hold on, are they stripping Rick Steiner of the title?...I need to take a second and look up who gets credited as co-champ with Steiner without spoiling the outcome of this tag titles tournament…Wikipedia tells me that it’s both Kaos and Judy Bagwell who are credited…Well, since Wikipedia is basically a modern-day Library at Alexandria, I guess that’s how it went into the books… While Super Calo and Lizmark Jr. come out here to participate in the first round of this tag titles tournament that I would like to see a bracket for, dammit, WWF always shows a bracket graphic and then they have to actually stick to following it unlike WCW’s bullshit tournaments…Oops, I went all Frank Costanza there, let me get back to my train of thought…While those two come out, let me say that I am baffled that Bischoff and Company didn’t start using the tag titles to, you know, get some midcarders over instead of having a bunch of nWo members pass them around before Rick Steiner made a mockery of them…This company broke up all of its tag teams and is now in the position of running a tag titles tournament with pretty much no regular tag teams to put in it…I can’t wait to see who actually participates in this thing…We’re already getting off to a dumb start with Calo and Lizmark randomly teaming up for the first time that I can recall in a fucking tag titles tournament… It's a Dave Taylor sighting!...He’s tagging with Fit Finlay in this first round matchup for which I remind you that there is no bracket, so I can’t see the long-term planning (*snerk*) that WCW’s Booking Committee is doing with the tourney…Finlay and Taylor don’t have a ton of heat now, but they would be great as a bully heel team holding the line against a bunch of plucky babyface tag team challengers…Calo’s botch counter hits one after he fucks up a run up the ropes…Lizmark gets in the ring and the quality of the work gets much crisper…Taylor wins by hitting Lizmark with a double underhook suplex into a floatover… Oh, FUCK OFF, WCW…The Wolfpac comes out and attacks all the guys in the ring after the match is over…Like GODDAM everything about how this show is being booked sucks…Some of the worst creative I’ve ever seen in my life…I again state that Vince Russo is probably not going to be appreciably worse than anything that Bischoff and Sullivan have put up over the past six months…Hall basically says the Wolfpac is going to spoil every match in this tournament because they don’t like Flair and because no one could be a better tag team than the Outsiders anyway…Please just silo the nWo off in the main event and leave the middle of the card for acts that don’t suck, I’m begging you, Bisch…And Sullivan and Nash, I suppose… Does La Parka not, like, watch a monitor backstage or anything?...He comes to the ring to Eddy’s music while wearing an lWo t-shirt…Let’s see if he survives this match against Booker T., and if he does, if he’s able to avoid another ponderous Wolfpac gang beatdown…La Parka dances, as one does if they want to get over in 1999…Booker responds with a flying forearm…Book takes a few blows, but is never much in danger…They do have a fun contest, though…We get an unexpected wandering brawl when it looks like Parka is cooked…Park manages to clothesline Booker to the floor to escape an onslaught, then follows Book outside to bash him around…Parka brings a chair into the ring, but never gets to use it…Booker Houston Side Kicks it into his face for three…That was a nice little match in the middle of a pile of dog shit show… We’re back at Raven’s house and it’s Sandman Hardcore Hak/James Fullington! Kanyon hits Hak with a “Hello, Jim” like Hak was Newman and Kanyon was Jerry Seinfeld…Hak shoves Kanyon into the pool and the ladies (except for Chastity) laugh…Hak schmoozes with Raven’s mom and grandma, which irritates Raven…Hak eventually goes into the house to try and talk Raven out of his funk… Now, there's a video replay of Konnan beating Chris Jericho for the TV title, followed by Jericho (w/Ralphus) coming to the ring for a rematch…Before the match, we get a backstage shot of La Parka face down in the back with the lWo logo on his shirt crossed out with spray paint…See, La Parka needs to watch his damn monitor more often!...There’s a break, and we come back to the Konnan music video, which cuts partway out to play the Wolfpac music…Konnan comes to the ring, and if you’ll notice, he hasn’t been involved with any of the Wolfpac stuff since the Fingerpoke of Doom…He grabs a mic and speaks on this and is very over, but Jericho jumps him before he can actually say anything about the whole Wolfpac situation… The match is acceptable, but oh no, Scott Dickinson is the ref…Mike Tenay fills us in on Dickinson’s past history with Saturn and their training together at Killer Kowalski’s school…I assure you that I don’t give a single solitary fuck about any of that, Tenay…Konnan scores a couple of two counts while the desk yammers on about tradition…Jericho shoves Konnan into Dickinson, then loads his fist and nails Konnan…Saturn runs out to the ring, pulls Dickinson out of the ring before Dickinson can count, and then, get this – GET THIS – counts the three himself…He’s not a referee, as Heenan points out, but I guess it doesn’t matter because Penzer rings the bell and Konnan celebrates the victory while the Wolfpac music plays…This is just nonsense…Why do we have to do this ref angle shit that I honestly didn’t even remember happened and wish never did happen?... Barry Windham versus Chris Benoit is the main event…Tony S. talks about how he gave Eric Bischoff a shitty employee review…It was funny how Tony was trolling Bischoff at the desk on Nitro, but, like, we don’t need to do a whole performance review/supervisor report thing over the next couple of weeks…Let’s not drive a rare bright spot that happened on that show into the ground…He talks about this through the first couple minutes of this match…The match is aesthetically pleasing enough, but it leaves me hollow inside…I just don’t care about heel Barry Windham in 1999, sorry…The ref gets accidentally knocked down so that Curt Hennig can run in and change the tide of the match…Where are the rest of the Horsemen?...Mongo runs down well after Windham is able to cover Benoit for three…The babyface Horsemen should run just like the heel Horsemen instead of looking like overmatched doofuses… This show sucked real, real bad…Bisch swears that Oh, this was supposed to be a whole deal where WCW would get Thunder and the nWo would get Nitro…Yet all I see so far is the nWo all over both shows, per usual…The nWo also definitely isn't popular enough to get its own show by this point...They killed it off by diluting the Wolfpac with Hogan and the B-Teamers…The Wolfpac got booed tonight, but not in a venomous way...The booing was pretty muted to my ear...Everyone is done with heel nWo rampages at this point...Understandably, as it's been going on for two-and-a-half years now... Most everything else sucks, too...The Horsemen suck because they’re impotent babyfaces even though one of them is the Prez of WCW in storyline…The tag title division sucks because it’s been obliterated by bad booking for the past year…As Scott Steiner will memorably assert on one of these shows coming up in my watch, WCW SUCKS…This Thunder gets an OWWWWWWWWWWWW because it hurt so bad… 1
twiztor Posted May 19, 2024 Posted May 19, 2024 (edited) here's a bracket for that tag team tournament. (i stole this graphic from the internet and then redacted the later names): https://ibb.co/mHzcCyV edit (these thoughts are spoilers): Spoiler Hoo boy, i forgot about this tournament. After the Thunder results you mentioned, these tournament matches happened on Saturday Night: SN 1/9: Disorderly Conduct vs. Finlay & Taylor Bobby Eaton & Kenny Kaos vs. La Parka & Silver King SN 1/16: Bobby Duncum Jr & Mike Enos vs. Eaton & Kaos i was really curious how the hell this tournament was going to flesh out, since Duncum & Enos won a rd2 match but never had a rd1 match. i was getting serious Cruiserweight Title Tournament flashbacks from '95. i remember being upset because i had tried to keep track of all the results and put together a cohesive bracket and then that was all for naught. the end result? the nWo keeps attacking teams, so they completely scrap the tournament and then put a new one together, double elimination this time. Good luck Smelly Edited May 19, 2024 by twiztor 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 19, 2024 Author Posted May 19, 2024 20 minutes ago, twiztor said: here's a bracket for that tag team tournament. (i stole this graphic from the internet and then redacted the later names): https://ibb.co/mHzcCyV edit (these thoughts are spoilers): Reveal hidden contents Hoo boy, i forgot about this tournament. After the Thunder results you mentioned, these tournament matches happened on Saturday Night: SN 1/9: Disorderly Conduct vs. Finlay & Taylor Bobby Eaton & Kenny Kaos vs. La Parka & Silver King SN 1/16: Bobby Duncum Jr & Mike Enos vs. Eaton & Kaos i was really curious how the hell this tournament was going to flesh out, since Duncum & Enos won a rd2 match but never had a rd1 match. i was getting serious Cruiserweight Title Tournament flashbacks from '95. i remember being upset because i had tried to keep track of all the results and put together a cohesive bracket and then that was all for naught. the end result? the nWo keeps attacking teams, so they completely scrap the tournament and then put a new one together, double elimination this time. Good luck Smelly I didn't read the spoilers, but looking at the bracket, I think I vaguely remember the winners. Were they Spoiler Benoit and Malenko? A foggy memory of a feud between them and the West Texas Rednecks over the titles has suddenly been jarred from the recesses of my mind.
twiztor Posted May 19, 2024 Posted May 19, 2024 2 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: I didn't read the spoilers, but looking at the bracket, I think I vaguely remember the winners. Were they Hide contents Benoit and Malenko? i'm not going to tell you whether you're right or not. There's lots of ways it could play out. hell, maybe Rick Steiner even shows back up and Freebirds the belts with Judy and Kaos? None of them ever lost, after all. Or we could bring in a referee's kid to win one of the belts? Now that Randy Anderson is rehired, bring in his kid and give him a nepo title run. Oooh, how about we have two singles wrestlers team up to win them, and then split up and feud over them in singles matches? while the Rednecks were a pretty terrible gimmick and a waste of Hennig (even 1999 Hennig), i remember that feud was at least decent. the spoilers were more a rant about how the tourney plays out than any actual results.
Stefanie Sparkleface Posted May 20, 2024 Posted May 20, 2024 24 minutes ago, twiztor said: i'm not going to tell you whether you're right or not. There's lots of ways it could play out. hell, maybe Rick Steiner even shows back up and Freebirds the belts with Judy and Kaos? None of them ever lost, after all. Or we could bring in a referee's kid to win one of the belts? Now that Randy Anderson is rehired, bring in his kid and give him a nepo title run. Oooh, how about we have two singles wrestlers team up to win them, and then split up and feud over them in singles matches? while the Rednecks were a pretty terrible gimmick and a waste of Hennig (even 1999 Hennig), i remember that feud was at least decent. the spoilers were more a rant about how the tourney plays out than any actual results. How did WCW not pair Judy Bagwell and Randy Anderson Jr.? Hashtag missed opportunities. 2
zendragon Posted May 20, 2024 Posted May 20, 2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperBrawl_IX this page has the whole bracket if one is so inclined to look at it 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 21, 2024 Author Posted May 21, 2024 Show #174 – 11 January 1999 “The one with the last of the Giant” I wish that someone would pay me to write self-indulgent write reviews of decades-old wrestling shows so that I could do this more often. Just more proof that life isn’t fair. Aw hell, let’s Nitro. Gene Okerlund’s in the ring to talk to Ric Flair. Flair reinforces his political mandate by saying MEAN BY GOD GENE a ton (it makes sense in context), then shouts out Tennessee football and women’s basketball since he’s in Knoxville. He calls his son “Big Dave.” Somewhere in the distance, Batista hears it and has a well-timed facial response that is a credit to his willingness to train hard as an actor. Flair says that Hogan’s deal runs to 2001, so that means he’s going to be on all the shows to earn his contract. Then, he hires back J.J. Dillon. What the hell, I thought Flair was supposed to be a babyface?! Let’s get Vince Russo in here to fire Dillon again and then point out Hogan’s bald spot. J.J. Dillon lets Hogan out of defending the World title until SuperBrawl, but he does force Scott Hall into a ladder match against Goldberg at Souled Out. There’s no title suspended above the ladder, though; instead, there’ll be a taser hanging up there. Flair closes his remarks by calling out the lWo, led by Juvi Guerrera since Eddy Guerrero is unavailable for television. Flair blames Eddy’s broken leg on the Wolfpac and then says that if the lWo takes off the shirts and rejoins WCW, Flair will give them raises and also lady limo drivers like he did J.J. Dillon, I guess. Flair manages to creep me out with all of his somewhat strangely suggestive promises, but whatever, the lWo is dead and that’s good. Flair caps all this off by booking himself against Curt Hennig for later in the show. That’s how life goes, huh? I get shed of the lWo, but J.J. Dillon is back on television. Well, you can’t have everything. Oops, on replay, we see that Rey Misterio Jr. is also creeped out by Flair and leaves rather than take off the lWo shirt that he is wearing tonight, but that he hasn’t been wearing the last couple of weeks that he’s been tagging with Kidman. To say that Misterio’s booking during this angle has been inconsistent would be understating things. Flair talks about tradition in this video package of old NWA wrestler images set to his promo from a week ago, but for a modern WCW fan, “tradition” is all “nWo beatdowns” and “main events that start at four minutes until the end of the show.” Tony S. lets us know that Eric Bischoff was reassigned within the company since he wasn’t much of an announcer last week. We’re going to get video of Flair meeting with Bisch in his office and also probably video of Bischoff pushing a broom and complaining or something. Saturn’s transitioning from a feud with Ernest Miller to a feud with Chris Jericho. That seems interesting from an in-ring standpoint, but poor Saturn is going to get mauled on the mic during this feud. Okerlund interviews Saturn in the ring; Saturn calls Jericho out. Jericho and Ralphus respond from the ramp and, uh-oh, Jericho says that Saturn’s crying over his losses like a girl, which means that he should appropriately be wearing a dress. From somewhere in the foggy recesses of my mind, I recall Saturn wrestling in a dress around this time. Saturn says that he’s not into drag, but Jericho says that he has to risk wearing a dress to get his rematch. Saturn agrees, and I think, here’s a chance to actually get RuPaul into the company. Saturn loses and then we get sketches of an annoyed RuPaul fending off the awkward advances of Roddy Piper as he tries to help Saturn find his inner fabulous queen. Oh, now there's another Ernest Miller/Saturn match that Scott Dickinson refs because Randy Anderson, who was supposed to ref this match, is suddenly summoned to the back by J.J. Dillon for no discernible reason. After some scrapping, Saturn hits a Frog Splash, but Scott Dickinson chooses to go have a discussion with Sonny Onoo. Saturn gets up from his pinfall attempt and is hit with a shovel by an onrushing Jericho. The shovel shot knocks Saturn backward into Dickinson, who disqualifies Saturn for touching him. Jericho tries to put a knocked-out Saturn in a dress in a hilarious spot where they can’t do it even though the supposedly knocked out Saturn tries his hardest to help. It was exactly like Elaine May not being able to get the toga over her head while Walter Matthau did his best to help her in A New Leaf. Well, not exactly like that, but both this and that scene made me laugh. If you weren’t aware that the program you were watching was WCW Monday Nitro, the opening to the show that plays next should have clued you in. Wanna watch video of Eric Bischoff getting kayfabe embarrassed by his bosses? Let’s watch video of Eric Bischoff getting kayfabe embarrassed by his bosses. I hope they have video of Bisch getting shoot embarrassed by Schiler to show us when we get to September. I do note that the office in Smyrna has a TV with an N64 set up on it, two controllers, and Revenge on screen. Flair makes Bisch wait for hours, but dude, you have a working N64 right there! Any one of us reading this would love to kill a few hours playing some N64. Bisch insults Jim Ross’s ability to book a wrestling company, craps on Janie Engle when she comes to bring him back to Flair’s office, and then endures a humiliating meeting with Ric Flair in what used to be Bisch’s office. This actually is a decent segment. It’s not making me want to see the next step in the storyline, but it’s a longer segment full of talking that doesn’t drag. For WCW in general and WCW in 1999 specifically, that’s a huge win. Flair puts Bischoff on ring duty and sends him up to Knoxville in a truck so that he can help build the set. I appreciate that Bisch acknowledges the camera that is recording this whole ordeal, and in fact did so immediately to establish that Flair has the cameras there to capture his humiliation. Gene Okerlund brings Chavo Guerrero Jr. and Pepe out to the ramp for Pepe’s birthday celebration. There’s a cake. You can probably guess where this is going. Chavo wishes Eddy well and then gets the crowd to sing “Happy Birthday” to Pepe. Did they have to pay royalties for that? Norman Smiley cuts in before they can finish the song, maybe to dodge paying royalties, and then complains about not being invited to the party. Can I give some love to the cake design, which says HAPPY BIRTHDAY and then has an image of a stick horse on it instead of Pepe’s name? That made me laugh. Norman says he wants to make good with Chavo and Pepe, but of course, he ends up clocking Chavo and beating him up before destroying Pepe’s birthday cake with Chavo’s face. He hits Chavo with his stalling body slam onto the table. Finally, Smiley kidnaps (rustles?) Pepe and leaves. We follow him backstage, actually, as Smiley rides Pepe through the arena and to a woodchipper set up in the parking lot. In a moment reminiscent of William H. Macy’s memorable scene in Fargo, let’s just say that Pepe died as he lived: A stupid stick horse. Pepe (1998-1999): HE WAS A STICK HORSE This wrestling show has been low on action, but at least the long promos and sketches have been decent. Speaking of, Raven and Hak play parcheesi while Hak tries to convince Raven to ditch Kanyon just like he ditched Saturn. Raven complains about not being able to find his yearbook to his mom, and when Hak suggests that he be more respectful to his mom. Raven responds with a dismissive, “Shut up, Jim.” I laughed. Raven roots around in the garage for his yearbook, but he finds a series of Rowdy Roddy Piper promotional pictures and contemplates them as the sketch ends. The Wolfpac shows up to the arena surrounded by…*sigh*…a bunch of doofuses on Harleys. Completely uncool. I was thinking of buying a Wolfpac shirt because I actually liked them a whole lot on this rewatch, as imperfect as the group was, but boy did they ruin any ounce of coolness the group had. Chuck Zito looks like a doofus on his bike with the rest of the cornball Hell’s Angels. Also, no one had written or thought about Chuck Zito since the airing of this show right until he reminded us all that he was still alive earlier today. I guess Knoxville is at least somewhat excited for the bikes, which is fine, but that’s a look for the black-and-white, not the black-and-red, dammit! As you might guess, the run of decent promos and sketches comes to an end here. Hogan cuts another terrible promo. I honestly can’t remember the last time he’s cut even a decent promo, much less a legitimately good one. Nash talks, Steiner talks, and we get promo time for Nash/Giant and Steiner/DDP later tonight. Steiner promises to have sweet sexual relations with Kimberly after beating Page. So you know, par for the course. Hogan is still dressed like a complete asshole. So, the bookers have a chance to get everyone out of this lWo gimmick cleanly, and they didn’t take it; Rey Misterio Jr. has now decided to come to the ring with Eddy Guerrero’s music and in an lWo t-shirt. *sigh*, so Rey is wrestling Kaz Hayashi. This is only the second TV match of the night even though we’re just about at the hour-mark of the show, but at least it’s pacey and generally entertaining. Kaz takes a Hamrick bump and then eats a somersault plancha. See, this is just a bunch of moves, but sometimes, that’s okay, especially when the guys doing the moves are so goo—oh, look, here comes Lex Luger to take out Kaz and cause a no contest so that he can confront Rey for keeping the lWo t-shirt on. *sigh*, this fucking show, man. Rey refuses to take the shirt off, so Luger beats him up and rips it off, though Rey uses his speed to make a comeback. Rey’s got Luger reeling, but Luger reverses his rana attempt into a backbreaker and beats Rey down, then racks him. So, Konnan comes down to the ring. Knowing Konnan, he’s going to attack Rey. He’s done it before, for one. For two, Konnan is the king of heel swerves. But no! Konnan actually defends Rey and questions what Luger is doing. Nash brings Hogan, Steiner, and Buff down to the ring and we get a *sigh* nWo beatdown. Man, it sucks. There was potential in this Konnan schism with the rest of the former Wolfpac, but we just got the ol’ nWo beatdown instead. The crowd chants WE WANT STING as Nash signals that Sting isn’t here. I’m pretty certain that Konnan does end up back in the Wolfpac, though. I guess they felt that they couldn’t really turn him heel right at this moment since he’s so over as a babyface, and I understand that. The criminally underused Giant comes to the ring to cut one final WCW interview with Gene Okerlund. That dolt Eric Bischoff swears that no one can name a single great Big Show match, I guess because he somehow missed Show carrying Floyd Mayweather Jr. to the greatest pro wrestler-versus-athlete match in the history of the business at WrestleMania. Anyway, this promo is dogshit. Lenny Lane comes to the ring, and I wonder if he’s ever played a fake Sting before. I bet he does it when Jeff Jarrett deploys a bunch of fake Stings at some point in the not-too-distant future here in WCW. Booker T. is Lane’s opponent, but as the match starts, I’m too busy thinking, Wow, Jeff Jarrett’s on his way back into WCW not too long from now for a much more kayfabe successful, but much less shoot artistically successful run in the company. Lane gets steamrolled. There’s a nice spot where Lane gets knocked outside, turns to jaw with some front-row fans, and then Booker comes out, grabs him, and slams his head against the railing in front of the fans, who cheer wildly. Lane actually scores a bulldog in this thing, but mostly he gets clobbered. Booker wins it with a Houston Side Kick. Creative tries to go back to the well with black-and-white nWo promos. In this one, Hogan and Nash facetiously talk about the Fingerpoke of Doom as a great match. There’s way too much Hogan on this show already. I still don’t get what would motivate Nash to hand the belt over to Hogan. Scott Steiner (w/Buff Bagwell) faces Diamond Dallas Page next. Both guys, and Page especially, bring some heatedness to this match early on. Page rightfully gets a huge pop for firing up when Steiner slaps him, slapping Steiner back and dominating him in a sequence that ends with Steiner scurrying for safety outside the ring. Buff tries to help out, but Page takes care of them both – Charles Robinson is correct not to call for the bell – and goes up for a superplex that Buff helps Steiner block. Steiner takes over from there. Buff grabs the mic and mocks the fans. If I was listing the top five things that I’ve changed perception on after watching them again during this series of reviews, it’d be Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell as an entertaining heel duo. They’re putrid together. They should work as an annoying duo with Buff as a loudmouth peacocking dickhead, but I think their run of awful segments and the feud with Rick Steiner pretty much killed off any chance that I’d be able to enjoy them. Their act tonight is fine, I think, but subjectively, I just cannot find any feeling for it beyond mild annoyance of the “I’d rather scroll the internet than pay attention to this Steiner control segment” type. Page eventually makes a comeback, but there’s a whole series of run-ins and a ref bump, and there’s also a powder toss besides. Eventually, Page fights off Vincent with a Diamond Cutter, but Steiner whacks a blinded Page with a chair and wraps Page in the Steiner Recliner for the win. Once Steiner got control of the match, it stunk, and I am over all the nWo run-in nonsense. Meh. Goldberg cuts an okay promo about the Nash incident on a pre-tape. If you wanted to see video of Eric Bischoff doing manual labor, then I have quite the treat for you! Actually, though this segment runs on too long, the guy supervising the job is funny and Bischoff’s irritated snark also makes me chuckle a couple of times [Editor’s note: As a bonus, we even get a well-executed Chekhov’s Gun when Bisch uses a wrench that he’s brought with him to tighten the ring ropes; this was actually the epitome of a useful segment, which is rare for WCW!]. I hate the Wolfpac theme now! It’s rapidly become the new “Rockhouse.” Scott Hall faces Bam Bam Bigelow in a match straight out of 1994 WWF. I’ve never seen a WCW crowd this dead for Scott Hall coming to the ring. They’re not even booing. They’re just kind of silent. They do at least pop for the HEY YO. Hall hassles Goldberg on the mic a bit. Then Bammer comes out and these fellas work an okay television match…straight out of 1994 WWF, in fact. Just with a few more crotch chops. Bigelow hits a stalling vertical for two, but the crowd is distracted by Disco coming to the ring. Disco is able to slide a taser to Hall while Wrath runs down and attacks Bigelow on the other side of the ring; Hall uses the Taser when Bigelow picks him up for a Greetings from Asbury Park. Bigelow falls backward, Hall landing on top of him for three. I have zero interest in Bigelow/Wrath as a feud and am just waiting for KroniK to become a thing. Come to think of it, though, that team might be a Russo initiative. Also come to think of it, they're based on the Acolytes, and the Acolytes don't even exist until later in 1999. I suspect that I might have some time to wait. Goldberg runs down Hall, Nash, and Luger in another pre-taped promo. It’s less okay than the previous promo. Tony S. lets us know that we’re getting Bigelow/Wrath at Souled out in a few days. Hooray. I think the Ric Flair/Mr. Perfect Loser Leaves the WWF match from 1993 is a minor miracle match. When you have two guys whose best qualities are bumping and stooging have a legitimately hateful grudge match that looks grueling, I think that counts as a miracle. They should never have worked against each other again after that. Alas, they did, and alas, I am being subjected to this very same matchup in 1999, roughly six years after the Loser Leaves the WWF match. Though actually, they did have a decent grudge match in ’97 at Havoc. There’s some cursory opening wrestling before Barry Windham and David Flair both come to ringside to observe the proceedings right before a break. We come back to a tepid bout. Hennig tries to beat Flair with Flair’s own signature move; alas, Flair knows how to break the move because he has perfected it. Did he turn it over? No. Did he get to the ropes? No. He just poked Hennig in the eye. Okay, that was pretty good. They chop each other for awhile, and Flair does some more of his signature spots. They do some ringside brawling. Since Flair’s best style as a wrestler is brawling (and his second-best style as a wrestler is straight-up garbage wrestling), that’s the part of the match that I enjoy the most, as short as it is. Flair tosses Hennig to the floor at David’s feet; Windham clobbers David for no reason. This enrages Ric, who beats down Hennig and locks a Figure Four on back in the ring. Windham jumps in and draws a DQ while that dope David stands there and watches his dad get beat up. At least he trips both Windham and Hennig as they run the ropes. David and Ric stand tall. Ric tells David to take his shirt off and get fired up. David does. He looks like a doofus. Goldberg cuts one more pre-taped promo that is too short for me to have much of an opinion about. Kevin Nash (w/Scott Hall) puts the Giant out of WCW for good in the main event. Eric Bischoff is adamant that letting Paul Wight go to the WWF made sense. He doesn’t think Wight was able to be the next Andre for many reasons. I mean, he’s right, but it’s not really a knock on Paul Wight that he doesn’t have Andre’s insane charisma, is it? But this idea that Bisch has that you can’t get heat on a large babyface and that a heel must cheat to be a proper heel is so limited. First of all, he had the whole fucking nWo running around and doing gang beatdowns every week. You telling me that fifteen guys torturing the Giant with mass run-ins and violent muggings every week can’t draw babyface heat? But the idea that the Giant needs to cheat to be a proper heel is the biggest issue. Did Brock Lesnar get to a new level of heat as a heel main eventer by cheating to beat Cena or cheating to beat the Undertaker at WrestleMania? No. He got to a new level of heel heat by beating the dog shit out of a couple of fan favorites who almost never got the dog shit beaten out of them. There is more than one way to be a heat magnet of a heel, but Bisch does not seem to understand this. He's also nuts for acting like no one can name a great Big Show match, but I already went over how wrong he is about that. Basically, Bischoff blames the Giant’s size for his lack of creativity and then hides behind Vince McMahon Jr.’s failure to properly push the guy as a way to justify his own inadequate creative capacity. And let's be clear about this: He blew it when the Giant turned face in 1997 and was mega-over. He had a legit star on his hands and blew it with the booking. The Giant is about to be off WCW television and Mongo McMichael is soon to follow. Aw, that first Nitro is finally starting to lose some of the key players that were there at the beginning. Other than Mongo, WCW is steadily going to bleed talent from 1995 and 1996 that got their reps in on Nitro and were mostly- or fully-finished products for the WWF to come along, scoop up, and exploit in higher-profile positions. And all I'm going to be left with is Shawn Stasiak. Fucking Bischoff. What I’m going to miss, besides the Giant being an excellent talent who fits right into the WCW lineup, is Scott Hall doing the Frankenstein taunt. I hope he finds a way to keep doing that even though the Giant is gone. This match is just here as a way to write the Giant off of WCW television. It’s not to the quality of their Souled Out match (before the botched Jackknife, of course), but it’s not meant to be. Nash body slams the Giant and sells a back injury so cartoonishly that, you know folks, maybe this whole pro wrestling thing isn’t entirely on the up-and-up. Nash signals for a Jackknife, but the Giant’s not having that shit again because he can’t afford to be on the shelf for the next few weeks. He reverses; Hall jumps in, but the Giant beats up both Hall and Nash and gives ‘em both the ass butt in the corner. Giant then Chokeslams Hall, but Nash takes that time to grab that wrench that Bisch used to tighten the ropes from the spot they agreed he’d leave it, and he swings it backward and into the Giant’s head when the Giant comes over. Not bad, Bischoff, I give you credit for that one. Bisch celebrates his plan getting pulled off on commentary. Hall tases Giant and the Wolfpac spray paints him. Glad you’re off the sinking ship, Giant! This show had too little wrestling (two matches in the first hour-plus!), but just for successfully and logically using the time-honored trope of showing a gun wrench in the first act and having it go off using it to hit the Giant in the noggin in the last act, I’ll be charitable. Even if Hogan needs to stop dressing like he’s a twenty-something Mexican American dude from Los Angeles already. 2.5 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 21, 2024 Author Posted May 21, 2024 Thunder Interlude – show number forty-six – 14 January 1999 "The WCW Gang should reconsider how they're booking this tag title tournament” Let’s go on home to Souled Out ’99…WCW trying to dodge the Royal Rumble in January led to very short gaps between Starrcade and Souled Out… Bam Bam Bigelow rolls Scott Putski in the opener…Bigelow is one of those guys who would have been far better off coming around in 1970…He showed up to ECW and treated it like a territory he was just passing through, and that was his best stateside run in his career…His act gets old quickly because he’s not a good enough worker to match his look…Looking like that, I expect Vader, but I get something far, far less than Vader…This is an extended squash…It didn’t need to be so extended…There are multiple long headlock spots…Finally, a Greetings from Asbury Park…Thank goodness…Suffice it to say that I would have preferred a fabled HOT CRUISERWEIGHT OPENER in that spot… Fresh off his brutal murder of Pepe, Norman Smiley comes to the ring…He faces Prince Iaukea, who barely even tries to do his whole entrance routine…That’s a man who is out here to do an efficient job to a pushed talent and then get back to catering…Iaukea’s mat game is passable, so this match ends up being a novel one with a lot of mat exchanges that, while not the most crisp, are pretty fun to watch…The crowd wants the Wiggle, dammit…Smiley teases it and gets a visible pop… There’s a commercial break…This must be a taped Thunder because we’ve had two straight long (over five minutes in air time) wrestling matches…Smiley sends Iaukea outside and then Big Wiggles…Wow, I’m shocked that Turner execs haven’t run into the ring and shut everything down by now…I guess simulating doggy style is the epitome of what you’d want on your show if you were trying to capture the child demographic…Tenay notes that this is a return match from Starrcade…Oh yeah, it is…Man, was Starrcade a forgettable show in 1998…Outside of the finish to the main event, of course…This is another match that is longer than it probably needs to be, though it’s easier on the eyes than the opener…Iaukea tries to make a comeback, but gets clubbed on a duck down…Smi-LAY hits a stalling underhook suplex and locks on a Norman Conquest for the win… Gene Okerlund is here, which is a bummer, but you know what’s not a bummer?...He brings out Jimmy Hart!...Hart is wearing a Dungeon of Doom/Faces of Fear jacket…Leave the memories alone, Jimmy…Hart actually is wearing his jacket because he’s here to announce that he’s convinced Meng and the Barbarian to rejoin forces as part of his currently-rebuilding First Family…The Faces of Fear are in the tag team tournament…Put the belts on them, you idiots!... We get Prez Flair/Bischoff/employment recap stuff on a video…Honestly, they did well enough with the office meeting, Bischoff getting sent to put up the ring, and the Chekhov’s Gun introduced in that sketch showing up in the main event later that night that I’m actually not dreading more Flair/Bischoff segments with Flair sending Bischoff on increasingly more shitty jobs…I’m sure I’ll be taught my lesson that I should always dread angles centered around Bischoff over the next week or two of television, though… Chris Jericho and Ralphus walk to the ring…Jericho tries to get over his “you don’t have the legs for” it line w/r/t Saturn wearing a dress…It wasn’t all that funny the first time you said it on Nitro, bud…Van Hammer is Jericho’s opponent…He walks down chugging water and looking faded…Hammer mocks Jericho’s big walk taunt thingy after some offense…Hammer hits a huge beal to reverse a monkey flip attempt…This is the first time that Hammer’s gotten much offense on anyone in weeks…Saturn walks out onto the ramp to observe the contest…This is actually a decent contest…I’m probably the high man on Van Hammer on all of DVDVR, though…Hammer hits a stalling superplex (!), but it only gets two…Hammer hits a Cobra Clutch Bomb that also gets two…Hammer tries an enziguri next, but Jericho ducks the kick and holds on for a Walls of Jericho that gets the win…Put Hammer and Juvi in a tag team together and have them wrestle the Faces of Fear in the tag tournament final, you idiots! We get another “Goldberg sits in a dark locker room and talks about the nWo” pre-taped promo. They aren't new ones; they just run a couple of the ones they showed on Nitro. I’m glad that the Faces of Fear are back together and here to compete in a first-round tag tournament match against Mike Enos and Bobby Duncum Jr….Duncum?...What, was Wayne Bloom not available?...Seriously, I wanted a FoF/Beverlys match…We get some decent Enos/Barb clubberin’…But ultimately, this match isn’t much…After a ton of fists and elbows, Meng fires off a sunset flip that almost gets three…See, that’s using the element of surprise…There’s a nice struggle over a piledriver between Meng and Duncum that Meng finally wins, and that’s a nice spot…Oh joy, it’s the Wolfpac to spoil another tag match…This sucks ass…Please just let us, the viewers, the wrestling fans, have something nice for ourselves, please… Oh great, Hogan’s going to talk now…At least he’s wearing a biker jacket instead of a flannel shirt this time…Hogan cuts a…wait for it…shitty promo…The only thing I like about this segment is that the B-Teamers aren’t allowed black-and-red shirts…They have to keep wearing the black-and-white, which we have established are the cornball, uncool nWo colors… Let’s see if Wrath can complete a squash tonight before Bam Bam Bigelow runs in on him to extract some revenge…C’mon, El Dandy, just hold out long enough for the cavalry to arrive…Wrath is unimpressed by Dandy’s strikes…Wrath hits a Rock Bottom, sets up for the Meltdown, and…and…Bam Bam slides into the ring and lets Wrath hit it before attacking…Geez, nice way to help Dandy out, man…Wrath repels Bigelow’s attack with a lariat as we go into a break… There’s a video recap of Hogan destroying the Wolfpac’s aura on Nitro after we come back from break…That and the nWo dominating Nitro like it’s 1996 all over again…There’s another commercial break after this overlong recap… Disco Inferno is desperately trying to curry favor with the Wolfpac, still…He faces Super Calo…Disco controls with little trouble from Calo…Scott Hall walks to ringside to observe…Has there been one match since the opening that no one has come out to observe or ruin?...Yeah, the second one that Norman Smiley won…Other than those, a lot of run-ins and saunter-outs on this show...Calo makes a comeback, but Disco never is in much danger…Hall surreptitiously tases Calo behind the ref’s back, and Calo stumbles forward and into a Chartbuster for three…Hall gets the mic after the match and teases that he’ll taze Disco, but actually, he just lets Disco know that the Wolfpac doesn’t forget people who do favors for them and that Nash and Hogan want to see him in the back…The potential of Konnan getting dumped from the Wolfpac and then having to see Disco be initiated into the colors is actually pretty good… Hall sticks around to crap on Goldberg a bit…Hall assumes that the still inexperienced Goldberg doesn’t know what a ladder match is…He advises Goldberg to go to Blockbuster (R.I.P. except for in Oregon) and rent a couple of Hall’s past ladder matches to see what that’s going to be like… Barry Windham and Curt Hennig face off against Chris Benoit and Mongo McMichael…Now that McMichael is about to leave the company, let me re-assert one more time that Benoit and McMichael made for a fun tag team…Much better than Benoit and Malenko did, unless Malenko convinces me otherwise on this re-watch…Bischoff said that Mongo’s closest buddy after the shows was Scott Hall, so maybe it was good that they got this guy off the road, actually…Especially considering Curt McGirt’s comment, I think it was, about Hall discussing Mongo’s briefcase full of cocaine… This match is fine, and Windham/Hennig as a tag team is fine, but I am just not into these guys as a heel team…Like here, this is a perfectly acceptable heel control segment, but I do not give a single, solitary fuck…Mongo is actually an okay enough FIP, too, so it’s not that…We go to break, and the heels are still on top when we come back…The hot tag comes soon after the break, though…Benoit manages to get Windham in the Crippler Crossface…Hennig breaks the whole match up with chair shots, so Ric Flair runs down for the save…It doesn't go well...We close on David running down and covering Ric’s body to protect him, and the heels grabbing David and preparing him for a chair shot… That didn’t feel much like a go-home show…I think if I cared more about the Flairs vs. Windham and Hennig, it would have felt more like one…Souled Out ’98 was sort of a miracle show and easily one of the better PPVs in the Nitro era…I have a hard time seeing that possibility for Souled Out ’99, but maybe I’ll get a nice surprise?...This show gets a WOO for being adequate, despite the nWo getting in the way of my ability to just enjoy a straightforward tag tournament…
SirSmUgly Posted May 22, 2024 Author Posted May 22, 2024 (edited) Souled Out ’99 notes: Well, here we are at Souled Out once again! Surprise me, WCW. In a good way. There’s an opening with Ric Flair crowing about WCW having total control of Souled Out at a White House-style briefing. I think WCW probably should have just killed off the Souled Out branding altogether at this point and introduced Sin two years early. Tony S. runs down the card, notes that Jericho will also have to wear a dress if he loses his match against Saturn, and then shills the WCW Hotline in lieu of Gene Okerlund. We cut to the back, where Goldberg is down selling a knee injury. I don’t think this is necessary; Scott Hall is already a threat because a) he has access to a taser and b) like twenty guys backing him up. Mike Enos on a WCW PPV? I like it, but maybe we should have pushed him first? Maybe made him mean something? He had that brawl with Finlay on a Thunder a few shows ago that would have made a solid starting point for a nice midcard feud between the two. He faces Chris Benoit in what will be a perfectly fine match. Benoit got injured and that totally killed his momentum. I mean, this’ll be a good match, but he’s in an opener against a lower midcarder on Souled Out. Ouch. As for Enos’s appearance here, which comes a couple of weeks after Jerry Flynn randomly tagged with Finlay on Starrcade, I think we have mounting evidence that the WCW midcard has been booked into oblivion over the past five or six months. The desk yammers on about Goldberg and the ladder match for the opening of this match, a match which is perfectly fine in quality. Enos presses his size advantage; Benoit counters by being a determined little sociopath. Honestly, I think these fellas have a better match in them. This is a Thunder Special. Benoit fights up from a subpar Enos control segment, ducks a lariat, and drills two rolling German suplexes. He follows up with a diving headbutt which knocks himself silly and which gives Enos space to try a vertical suplex. Unfortunately for Enos, when he hooks Benoit, Benoit transitions into a Crossface for the win. This was completely forgettable, which is too bad considering the participants. Norman Smiley walks to the ring carrying an urn. An urn in pro wrestling? Either that thing is holding the Undertaker’s ethereal soul or the remains of poor, poor Pepe. Chavo Guerrero Jr. is so good and I wish WCW would deploy him better. Yes, he can do some solid comedy, but he’s got so much more to offer than comedy jobberdom. Smiley pretends to ride Pepe and flees from Chavo and basically stalls a bit to open the match before finally getting in the ring and getting beaten up for awhile. Smiley has to duck out of the ring and then back in to get any offense in, but Chavo is undeterred. This is a decent bout that is built around two things. First, Chavo being fiery in the face of Smiley killing his pet stick horse. Second, Smiley teasing the Big Wiggle, but not actually doing it - exactly like a heel should do. He fakes the Wiggle, then shakes his finger at the crowd and slaps Chavo instead. He does a little dance, but cuts it off and puts Chavo in a headscissors. Heh, that’s pretty good. Some folks in the crowd chant CHAVO CHAVO and are answered by a NORMAN NORMAN chant. I mean, Smiley got way the fuck over just by simulating a sex act! 1999, y’all! Smiley locks on a gross-looking armbar, then transitions to a surfboard. Smiley is so fun on the mat. Let’s just drop him in 1977 onto a World of Sport broadcast if we ever discover the technology of time travel. Smiley spends most of his heel control segment tying Chavo in knots. Chavo reverses a kneebar, but Smiley reverses that into some sort of surfboardy-cravat looking deal. Bischoff is right that he should have put more effort into pushing Smiley. Someone in the crowd holds up an OH MY GOD! NORMAN SMILEY KILLED PEPE! YOU BASTARD! sign. 1999, y’all! Chavo fights back, but Smiley lands a superplex that sparks a standing ten-count. Norman gets up dancing a bit and then hits the Big Wiggle to a pop. He follows up by launching Chavo in the air and starting a HOO HOO HOO chant. This guy is a charisma machine, and he can wrestle to boot. Why did the WWF fail to pick up his contract after WCW was sold? He would have fit right into the midcard on early-aughts Smackdown. Anyway, Chavo makes a comeback, but Smiley is always one step ahead of him. He even pops Chavo into a Gory Special like a total dickhead. Chavo gets out of that, but as he tries to sunset flip Smiley, ol’ Norm catches him and smacks dat ass. The crowd enjoys it immensely. Chavo does his best and even hits the finest Superman Punch in the history of the business, but Norman Smiley blocks a tornado DDT attempt, tosses Pepe’s ashes into Chavo’s eyes in clear view of that dunce Billy Silverman, and locks on the Norman Conquest for the win, which gets a pop even though he’s the heel. I enjoyed this! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Lee Marshall not being on the CompuServe desk is a downgrade. That’s because he’s been replaced by Mark Madden, who is the absolute worst. Finlay’s in another random match on a WCW PPV for the second straight month, this time against…Van Hammer? What the fuck? So Finlay and Enos are both on this show, but not facing one another. Hey, let me immediately make this card better by building off of Enos/Finlay on Thunder by adding in three weeks of mutual run-ins on their other TV matches to get a viable mini-feud going, then switch the contestants in the first and third matches so we get Benoit/Hammer and Finlay/Enos. It’s not rocket science, folks. This is another Thunder Special. It’s fine. It shouldn’t be on pay-per-view, though. Finlay dominates Hammer in the early going, which is pretty entertaining. He works this like he’s wrestling to make a point about kicking the ass of a bigger man. Actually, Heenan sells that Finlay’s one of those dudes motivated by taking down bigger opponents, which is a nice way to get Finlay over. Finlay simply never feels like he’s in any real danger. Hammer does what he can to leverage his size advantage into control of the match; he even gets two on a floatover powerslam. Hammer gets caught and hoisted up for a forward roll slam on a rope run, though, and then Finlay spikes the guy with a Tombstone for three. Not bad, but not fit for PPV. After some hype for the Flairs vs. Hennig and Windham, we get the Wrath/Bam Bam Bigelow matchup. Yuck. I’d much rather see them tag up together than wrestle one another. But you know, there is a thread of a story here, supported a bit by Mike Tenay on commentary. It’s that Bigelow used to be the huge, but speedy and agile dude who surprised everyone by doing cartwheels and shit, but now Wrath is that guy and Bigelow has to deal with that. I don’t think they quite pull that story off in the ring, maybe because only Tenay and I are onto that prevailing narrative of this match, but the faint specter of a meaningful narrative makes this match better than I would have guessed. Now, it’s still got its problems, chiefly that Bigelow in offensive control is passable at best. And if he’s passable in this role, it’s by the barest of margins. Wrath plays his part well enough, though, hitting dropkicks and diving lariats on offense and basically being the more athletically-impressive big man. It’s actually Wrath’s athleticism that loses him the match as he tries a corner splash and leaps himself right into the post. Bammer quickly grabs Wrath in a Greetings from Asbury Park and gets three. The wrong man won that match. Bam Bam is cooked. I suppose the bookers reasoned that he needed that win to eventually build him for a loss to Goldberg, though. Konnan was wise to do his rap video because he got dumped from the Wolfpac and immediately had an appropriate theme to replace the Wolfpac theme. See, this was the Giant’s problem. He never figured out a replacement theme when he got booted from the nWo. Konnan uses his powers to get a ton of West Virginians to chant a bunch of stuff that West Virginians would never otherwise say. Then, uh, Konnan tells his opponent for the night Lex Luger that after he ("he" being "Konnan") wins this match, Luger’s going to toss his salad and peel his potatoes. Seriously, did no one backstage know what that meant?! I have a lot of love for this last WCW run of Luger’s. I think Luger is probably fairly underrated as a whole by most people, or at least most casuals who have heard of him. He was legitimately awesome for the back half of the ‘80s and then somewhat improbably revived his career and was good again from the end of 1995 through about the middle of 1997. But this is 1999, and there is almost no chance that this match will be any good. Luger grabs a mic and says that Konnan’s just not good enough for the new Wolfpac, but he’s gracious enough to let Konnan walk away instead of getting his ass kicked. But you see, Konnan’s loins are heated with desire for Luger’s special brand of sexual healing, as you’d think Luger would have figured from Konnan’s pre-match shpiel, so Konnan just throws a flurry of punches in response. Konnan blows Luger away, who bumps and stooges and wobbles around, and I think for a second that maybe I’m wrong; maybe there is a real chance that this match will be good. And you know, Luger seems energized working heel again and shows some fire himself while throwing strikes at Konnan. Yeah, I’m not going to say this match is good, but both guys do work hard and with some solid intensity, and the crowd is hot for it, so it’s a success as far as I’m concerned. Luger continues to work over Konnan’s back, targeting it for a Torture Rack. I think to myself that I’m really interested in what happens when Sting gets back and how he’s going to deal with his wayward buddy Luger breaking bad again. I’m genuinely interested in that storyline beat even if I know it’s probably about 80/20 that WCW will tell that story poorly (or not at all). Konnan turns the tide of the match and Liz walks out here and uh, wow. Teenage me would have fallen right the hell over if he’d seen this live. Konnan pops on a Tequila Sunrise, so Liz sprays Konnan in the eyes with paint, and Luger quickly pops up and locks on the Torture Rack for the win. As I said, this wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad, either. It was cromulent, and both guys tried their best, which I appreciate. Saturn faces Chris Jericho in this Loser Wears a Dress For the Rest of Their Wrestling Career Match that they put together because they had no idea what to do with Saturn after he got over once the Flock feud ended. Jericho and Ralphus are excited about the cute little number they’ve brought down in a paper sack for Saturn to wear. Jericho rips up some fan’s pro-Jericho sign. I’m pretty sure the person he took that sign from just proudly claps in response. The ref for this match is Scott Dickinson, which spoils the ending of this thing. Also, me remembering that Saturn wrestled in a dress for awhile spoils the ending of this thing. Does Ric Flair not assign referees to bouts? Is the midcard just too boring and unimportant to be under his purview? Why would WCW officials let Scott Dickinson keep reffing Saturn matches? Am I asking too many stupid-ass questions? Probably. Dickinson makes a show of being fair, but it’s all a ruse. Tony S. natters on about a Four Corners Cruiserweight Title match. I can’t wait to see what ungodly match rules they have for that bout. The crowd briefly spins up a RAL-PHUS chant. Jericho works a headlock, but Saturn eventually hits a bunch of offense. And misses offense that Jericho sells, like a spinning kick that misses badly even as Jericho bumps off of the whiffed move. Ralphus takes a leopard-print dress out of the bag and considers how it might hug the blocky contours of Saturn’s body. Boy, there’s a lot of sexual innuendo on this show, huh? Uncomfortable sexual innuendo. This match is fine. This is probably me making the mistake of analyzing things with hindsight, but Jericho just feels like he’s marking time until he can head out of WCW and get a decent push toward the main event. He’s not bad or anything, but the chaotic energy that he brought into every segment and match in 1998 has mostly dissipated. If you’d told me that Saturn and Jericho were having this match in the fall of 1997, now, that would have been something. In fact, that’s what should have happened after Saturn dispatched of the Flock. Jericho has an okay control segment; Saturn fires up and scores a two-count off a suplex, but Jericho regains control. He tries a dropkick, but Saturn stops short and then – ugh – slingshots him over the top and to the floor. Saturn follows up that immersion breaking move with a baseball slide, then tosses Jericho back in the ring and drills a Frog Splash for a well-timed 2.9. They have a series of pinfall exchanges for two counts, then they have a weird top-rope back suplex exchange where I can’t quite tell if Jericho was meant to land on his feet or not. Saturn quickly hooks Jericho in a small package, but Scott Dickinson reverses the leverage and quickly counts the three for Chris Jericho. Jericho hands a nervous Dickinson the dress and slaps him to make him go over to Saturn and give it to him. As we may remember from a few months ago with the whole Lodi ordeal, all Saturn has is his word, so he pops the dress on. He looks ugly in it, but that’s because he, like pretty much all men, is ugly. Saturn really does need some style advice from Roddy Piper’s favorite person. Anyway, this is a very dumb stipulation and an even dumber angle. Not-Mark Madden interviews David Flair at the CompuServe desk. David has the charisma of a bag of fertilizer. Why in hell is Ric Flair inflicting his boring, crappy son on me? Up next is this Four Corners Cruiserweight Championship match. There was a coin toss to determine the first two guys in the ring, who are Billy Kidman and Juventud Guerrera. Psicosis and Rey Misterio Jr. are going to stand on the apron and wait for tags that should logically never come because of this dumb-as-fuck match type and its non-existent logic. Tony S. has reversed himself three times on who is starting in the ring, and actually Kidman and Misterio work the match to start. I don’t really get this; Rey should be getting a one-on-one match against Kidman that he still hasn’t received. Instead, we have this clusterfuck full of moves that just exist outside of a logical framework. I’m not going to bother to do much other than tell you the finish. Oh, other than that Rey tags Psicosis and Psicosis refuses to get in the ring. Even commentary has no idea what the fuck Psicosis’s problem is. Kidman does the same to tag Juvi in, and Juvi apparently would rather not win a title than fight his old lWo buddy. The desk is incredulous at this. I am too. WCW just never learned with these four corners and triple threat matches where tags were involved. I don’t get why they keep doing this illogical shit. Fuck this match. The West Virginia crowd enjoys the high spots, so it did achieve something positive for them. I have to give it that. They work the thing almost like it’s a tag match. It makes me wonder why they didn’t just have a tag match if they wanted to jam all these fellas into it. Whatever, I’m thinking harder about this than Kevin Nash or Eric Bischoff did. The guys who are tag partners in everything but name get wires crossed and hit one another, and they react like it’s a tag match and not like it’s an every-man-for-himself title match. Poor commentary is trying to follow this thing, but they can’t even identify the legal competitors at one point, and as much shit as they get for being bad, I can assure you that it’s not their fault. West Virginia starts U-S-A chants at a couple of points, so I think I’m in wrestling hell. Finally, after about ten years, Rey is too busy doing some crazy athletic shit to stop Kidman doing some much less athletic shit and hitting an SSP on Juvi for the pinfall to retain his title. I think this is the WCW match that I’ve hated the most relative to the incredible talent of all these workers. Wait, I mean the incredible talent of all these workers except for Billy Kidman. I suspect that Bischoff put Kidman up against Hulk Hogan in 2000 to make a point that the fans who were loud about Kidman deserving a push toward the main event scene about how wrong they were. Booker T. is not on this card for some dumb reason, so they have him talk to Mark Madden about how Jericho cheated Saturn. Jericho storms over, calls Booker “Mr. T.” (of course), and sparks a challenge from Booker for Nitro that Jericho accepts. That seems like a match that could be good, but Jericho is coasting right on toward New York by way of Greenwich, Connecticut, so we’ll see. Barry Windham and Curt Hennig face Ric and David Flair (w/Arn Anderson) in the semi-main. I mean, David looks entirely clueless out there. Why are we doing this, really? Come on. Hennig wants Arn banned from ringside, so Flair threatens to fire him if he doesn’t stop all that stalling. Well, West Virginia is into this, at least. Windham negotiates a start to the match against David, who is wearing a Four Horsemen t-shirt and basketball trunks as his wrestling uniform tonight. Am I being trolled? The thing about David Flair is that he’s okay for a guy who has the bare basics down, but he has no idea how to act like a fired-up babyface. Like at all. Look, if you put me in a wrestling ring at nineteen and told me that I needed to be a babyface that showed fire, I could do that. It would look dumb, but I could do it, even with my thimbleful of athleticism. David’s other problem is that he’s built, well, like me at nineteen. I was taller, I think, and therefore skinnier more lithe (never call a man “skinny,” call him “lithe"). But I digress. My point is that Karl Malone looked far better in his match than David Flair did in this match and had a much better hip toss to boot. Ric plays FIP. The best move in this match is Hennig’s: He hits his signature neck snap on Ric, then pops up, rushes to the opposing corner, and chops the shit out of David, which knocks David right off the apron. OK, that spot ruled. But the rest of this match depends on getting excited for a David Flair hot tag, and bubba, that’s just not going to happen. But if you like Hennig and Windham laying in chops, there’s something here for you. I just think I would have preferred this to be an actual handicap match. I do need to give a lot of credit to Windham and Hennig for busting their asses to put on a good heel performance. As much as I love Windham’s 1988, I’m not a huge fan of the guy. I find him to be an aesthetically pleasing wrestler who doesn’t give me much reason to give a shit about anything he's doing, but he turned on some rugged heel charisma for this match. Hennig’s a guy who I’ve revised my opinion of downward after re-watching not only Nitro-era WCW, but also a lot of ‘80s and ‘90s WWF (though I do think he really was very good in Portland and the AWA). However, he brought some meanness to this match that I appreciate. There’s a solid heel control segment that makes up the bulk of the match. David tries to jump in and is cut off by the ref, and David looks like a goon trying to tell the ref that his pops is being double-teamed. MOVE YOUR BODY LIKE A REGULAR HUMAN BEING WOULD, DAVID. Arn gets involved and throws some punches. David throws a boot to Windham's balls from outside the ring, which causes Hennig to bring him into the match. Hennig brings David in the hard way. Uh, and after that, Arn bashes Hennig with a tire iron. And after that, um, David falls backward onto Hennig for the three count even though David’s not the legal man. Immediately after this huge babyface victory for WCW, the Wolfpac runs down and beats everyone up. *sigh*, this sucks, but let us recall that Hennig and Windham did their best and should be credited for it. The Wolfpac bullies David, who attacks Hogan and gets beaten down. Let’s stop trying to get David Flair over, fellas. I think I was rooting for Hogan there for a second. They whip David with the weight belt while Ric is handcuffed to the ropes. This should get heat from me, but I don’t give a fuck about David fucking Flair, so let’s empty the ring and move it along, fellas. This beatdown goes on forever, but the crowd liked it, so who am I to say that it didn’t work? Well, except for the fact that it didn’t draw more viewers to their TV show because no one gives a shit about the nWo beating everyone down anymore. In fact, by mid-February, Nitro’s viewership has dropped a solid point or so in the ratings. So you know what, I say this didn’t work! After a quick montage of all the L’s that Goldberg has taken lately, we get our main event between Scott Hall and Goldberg. Hall talks before the match because I guess we need to stretch this show out. Hall basically says, Goldberg went pee-pee in his pants, slipped on his piddle, and hurt his knee. Woof. Even for goofy heel nonsense, that was dumb. Hall says that Goldberg is injured and is going to forfeit, but before he can get the ref to raise his hand in victory, Goldberg’s music hits. This is overcomplicated booking. Goldberg is wearing a knee brace, and so we’re going to do a “can he climb” sort of deal, but we can just do some nWo run-in shit during the match to hinder Goldberg from going up the ladder instead of all this knee attack nonsense? Whatever, I don’t care enough to complain any more than I already have. Buffer calls Goldberg’s Jackhammer “[an] inverted lift and body slam.” ConfusedNickYoung.gif I want to start by giving Goldberg some credit here. He moves gingerly on the knee and does a good job of not dropping the selling of his injury. He blocks a Hall body slam early and hits one of his own, then hobbles a bit and tests his knee. When he gets up from the mat, he rolls up to his feet to avoid bending his knee. I don’t think that this match is particularly good, and I think it’s because the knee injury hinders it more than if Wolfpac members are running in and smashing ladders into Goldberg while he tries to climb. But Goldberg does his best to do long-term selling, and actually, he’s pretty good at it. I think the desk also does a solid job of cluing in the audience to Goldberg’s selling, which is basically that he explodes through the pain to hit a big move, then sells the injury. They point out Goldberg’s fortitude and toughness. This is one of those matches where the ideas surrounding the match construction make sense in theory, but in practice, most of this thing until the finishing run isn’t very fun to watch. Hall is acceptable in control, but this is a plodding match. The crowd is also oddly silent. I mean, Goldberg is out here busted open after Hall baseball slides the ladder into him, and the crowd is standing, but everyone is silent. Hall does do a pretty neat spot where he hits his elbowdrop while falling off the ladder. But yeah, mostly this ladder match doesn't have a clear identity. You can do wild bumps off a ladder (E+C vs. Hardys) or you can use the ladder to commit violence that goes well beyond the norm for a typical match (Rock vs. HHH). You can even do targeted limb work to try and cripple an opponent’s odds at even getting up the ladder (Razor vs. HBK II). But the first option doesn’t suit this match, and they don’t quite commit to either the second or the third option. That’s the issue. The workers try, though. The layout is just crap. They take awhile to do much in the way of climbing attempts; toward the end of the match, Hall tries to go up and takes a pretty stout bump when Goldberg shoves it over. Goldberg tries to go up and Disco runs out and shoves the ladder over; Goldberg takes a pretty sweet bump in which he snaps his neck against the ropes. Disco helps Hall up the ladder and Hall gets the taser, but Goldberg ducks a few taser swipes and hits a side kick on Hall that knocks the taser to the floor. A helpful fan who is very invested in Goldberg’s success yells this as Goldberg looks to see where the taser went: GOLDBERG! GOLDBERG! IT’S RIGHT HERE! IT’S RIGHT HERE! RIGHT HERE! RIGHT HERE GET IT GETITGETITGETITGETIT WOO! WOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! GET IT! WOOOOOOOOOOO! That fan ruled and she actually had the spot of the night on this whole show somehow. Anyway, Disco tries to intervene when Goldberg manages to locate the taser; Disco gets tossed aside. Hall begs off. Goldberg tosses the taser in the air, and as Hall tracks it, Goldberg spears him. Then we get a Jackhammer, a SPLAT, and a BZZZZZZZZZZT of the type that the Mountie would love as the crowd shrieks with joy. I guess you just needed to tase the guy to win, which I'm not sure I realized coming into this match. Goldberg is announced to be the winner as Bam Bam runs out and attacks Goldberg. Hall recovers the taser and tazes both guys because this is WCW and the babyfaces never stand tall for long! The post-match was so awful. Can we not just have some babyfaces win every once in a while? Bischoff and Nash’s nonsense about Goldberg needing strong heels to face doesn’t make sense when all the heels at the top of the card are strong because they always win, even when they lose. This show wasn’t good, and heels always dominating the main event and looking like they have zero weaknesses is tiresome. Flair and the rest of the Horsemen knew how to show ass when they dominated JCP. The heels at the top of WCW in 1999 can’t or won’t do that, and it makes every one of these major feuds feel like a hopeless exercise in watching the guys that everyone likes step on rake after rake. That’s why Goldberg was so refreshing, pre-Starrcade. He was able to avoid that fate. Now, he’s like every other dumb or unlucky WCW babyface. And Bam Bam fucking SUCKS, get him the hell out of high-profile feuds that he doesn’t belong in. Edited May 22, 2024 by SirSmUgly 2
SirSmUgly Posted May 22, 2024 Author Posted May 22, 2024 Show #175 – 18 January 1999 “The one with Scott Steiner and Konnan seeming to think that they're cutting promos on Monday Night RAW and not Monday Nitro" I’ve been energized lately to write, but with the holiday weekend coming up and that Paper Mario: TTYD remake coming out, let’s see how that holds up in the next week or so. I snarked about it in an earlier post, but once I got to 1999, I really did see the end of the project in the not-too-far distance, which is exciting because I want to finish this before the archives disappear from Peacock. Tony S. breathlessly narrates stills of the Flairs and their tag match. We get tape of an enraged Flair stomping around backstage and yelling about killing Hogan while the other Horsemen stand around and watch him. Then we get tape of the nWo laughing about beating up the Flairs. The Horsemen run up on the limo immediately as it arrives and Flair bashes a limo window out with a tire iron as the limo drives right off. The nWo’s got their own cameraman filming from inside the limo, and Wolfpac members are basically like, Geez, what’s wrong with him? Ric Flair stomps to the ring and cuts a crazy old man Flair promo. Flair and Hogan are going to feud, which is fine if they want to do that in their own pocket universe away from the stuff that has potential to be good. But I still am pretty sure that Hogan turns babyface in 1999, and I’m also pretty sure that Flair’s going to do a double turn as part of that Hogan babyface turn. Flair books himself in a title match against Hogan at SuperBrawl, which seems improper considering Flair's position in the company, but the guy is pissed, I get it. Flair does have a nice line in which he says that Hogan’ll have to kill him to keep him from killing Hogan. Flair always sneaks a nice line into even the most deranged promo. Flair is also pissed at Bischoff, which seems like a reasonable thing to be in general, as the guy is shoot unlikeable. Flair calls Bischoff down, and Bisch denies having anything to do with the nWo attack at Souled Out. The crowd is hot for all this, so cool for them. Flair books Bischoff in a match against him tonight. Bischoff declines, so Flair puts his hair on the line. Then he elbowdrops the mat. Bisch is still a "no" on that proposal, so Flair puts his hair and control of the company up. Bisch seems to like that idea better. I don’t, though. Here comes David now, and why does he always have a look on his face like he’s gotta take a shit? This guy sucks, man, take him off television. David yells like a dumbass and places himself into the match instead of Ric, which Bischoff really likes. I hate it a lot, though. Ric says he’ll make the match between Bisch and his spawn, but only if Bischoff also puts up his hair. Look, the point is that Bischoff was tired of dyeing his shit, so he’s going to lose this match, or at least that’s what I vaguely remember from around this time. Stills. Dancing. Fireworks. Stills. Chris Jericho and Ralphus walk to the ring, looking quite proud of themselves, in fact. A bunch of people in the arena hold up a RALFUS’S [sic] KIDS banner. A lady holds up a sign that says I WANT TO HAVE RALFUS’ [SIC] BABY. Ralphusmania is runnin’ wild, folks! Jericho faces Booker T. in the opener, which was a match made on Souled Out the night before. Some fans start a JERICHO SUCKS chant, so Jericho makes Mickey Jay use his hands to cover Jericho’s ears. Jericho stalls. Jericho freaks out. Seriously, Jericho is insanely over. Booker scores a clothesline after Jericho barely clears a kip-up, and they proceed to have a nice, pacey exchange that ends with Booker landing a spin kick. Jericho misses a dropkick, so Booker catapults him (boooooooo!) and hits a back suplex for two. Jericho is one step behind Booker and has to use Booker’s momentum against him by dodging a side kick that hangs Booker on the ropes. Jericho follows up with a springboard lariat. This is a pretty entertaining bout. Jericho slows it down a bit. He hits a stalling vertical and tries a wimpy pin that doesn’t work. He hits some strikes in the corner, almost gets caught on a corner charge as Booker leaps over and sunset flips him for two, and then goes to a rear chinlock. Book fights up, but eats a knee to the gut on a rope run and spills outside. It’s time for our typical wandering brawl; Jericho uses the steps and a cable to attack Booker, then tosses him back inside and hits a springboard elbow and a senton splash for two. Jericho holds onto control for a bit longer, but he tries another corner charge and this time eats a boot. He’s back up first and is able to slam Book, but when Jericho goes to the top, he dives right into another Booker boot. Booker makes his comeback, hitting an axe kick and countering a Jericho leapover attempt into a spinebuster for two. Jericho manages a flapjack, but Booker Spinaroonies right up while Jericho celebrates and levels Jericho with a Houston Side Kick, then goes up and drills a missile dropkick for three. That was a very fun and quite hot opener between two highlights of these shows, even though the guy in the front row with a CAN YOU DIG IT, G.I. BRO sign is giving me some really bad vibes. I blame him for willing Booker’s stint in the M.I.A. into existence, somehow. J.J. Dillon tells Gene Okerlund that Scott Dickinson is suspended for a month. Dillon continues on and shares that he’s planning to book a Scott Hall/Bam Bam/Goldberg triangle match for later tonight. I’ll try not to complain about this egregious Bammer over-push too much. You know how I feel about it. Dillon then goes over the David Flair/Eric Bischoff stips again. There's an extensive amount of recap of all the opening non-wrestling stuff for the latecomers. Wait, I suddenly felt a pang of horror: Are we stuck with David Flair on WCW television until the end of Nitro?! [Editor's note: I refreshed the page to add this review and saw zendragon's post that Ed Leslie is now off television. I checked this, and he comes back toward the end of the year and works the secondary shows! This is his final WCW match against Jim Duggan, which sounds like a fresh hell that I am glad they didn't make me experience on Nitro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_7wt1zj43g. But even if Leslie were off WCW television through the end of the company, I think I might just rather have him stick around and haunt Worldwide with the occasional Thunder or Nitro appearance rather than having David Flair in angles on WCW's major TV shows.] Now it’s back to Okerlund for a sit-down, pre-taped interview with Rey Misterio Jr. Why is Bischoff so bad at laying out a show that isn’t like a billion promos and recaps for the first hour? So, this interview, which is very bad, sets up for Rey Misterio Jr. losing his mask. Now, wait, so Misterio suddenly LOVES the lWo shirt and those are his colors, even though he spent the last three months or whatever trying to shed the shirt at any and every point. He suddenly refuses to take it off because he loves it so much. I guess it just took Eddy exploding his leg to turn him around a hundred-and-eighty degrees on the lWo. Okerlund asks Rey about the shirt, then immediately is like SO WHAT ABOUT THAT MASK, HUH? and Misterio responds with something like, Yeah, this mask is as important to me as this lWo t-shirt is and I can guarantee you that I’m never taking either of them off for any reason, no way, no how. Is it really foreshadowing if they beat you over the head with the future plot turn until you have a migraine? Rey comes off like a complete asshole with the flipping and flopping over the lWo shirt, honestly. Misterio challenges Lex to a match if Lex has a problem with him. And remember, the rest of the lWo took off the shirt because Ric Flair gave them what they wanted in storyline. Also remember, Eddy started the lWo because Bischoff had all the luchadores on lower pay and stuck under a glass ceiling. Flair calls the luchadores out and says that they were right, and he’s giving them raises and more opportunity. They won! But it’s only now that Rey decides that nah, he needs to wear the colors. I’m rooting for him to get his ass kicked at this point, his character’s motivations are so petty and twisted. OK, I’m done complaining about that. Time to instead complain about this David Flair/Eric Bischoff match, which at least we’re getting out of the way early. I’d like to credit the fan with the BISCHOFF IV JANITOR sign. That’s pretty clever, fella! Anyway, this doesn’t deserve much commentary, but man, why did they send David Flair out here like this? Bischoff has said that sticking Horace Hogan with Hulk in the nWo only hurt Horace, but Horace can work, at least. David Flair can’t even make a face besides his normal “I’m constipated” face. So anyway, Bisch has the ref check David’s kneepads and pockets, but he forgets to ask Randy Anderson to check David’s hands. David has a roll of quarters packed into a fist, which he uses to one-punch Bischoff for a three count. Truly, this man has learned how to play dirty from his dad [Editor's note: No, he didn't]. Now, if only he could learn how to emote, cut a promo, or wrestle a competent bout. The Horsemen walk out and shave Bischoff’s head. It’s riveting television. Bisch is out while he’s being shaved, but he should have done like Jeff Jarrett and yelled abuse at the ref, who saw David Flair empty the roll of quarters on Bischoff after getting the pinfall and didn’t reverse the decision. Bischoff wakes up with a half-shaved head and screams. I was going to move on, but I did need to note that Randy Anderson didn’t check David’s hand because Anderson was the guy who palmed David the quarters in the first place. Well, I’m sure the viewing public has been waiting two years for Anderson’s revenge, so thanks for giving them catharsis. I do get a kick out of Bischoff managing to pay off the story where he fired Randy Anderson, though. He really was proud of that storyline idea, huh? Well, Anderson is not long for the referee's shirt because of his cancer battle, so I'm glad he got a little shine in this angle, at least. Chris Jericho gets over that ass-kicking he took earlier tonight in a promo that isn’t pre-taped, no sirree, by bitching at J.J. Dillon that Saturn needs to be wearing a dress while he's in the arena based on their Souled Out match agreement. Jericho and Dillon are actually a funny pairing. Jericho starts off pretending that he’s glad to see Dillon back in his job while Dillon rolls his eyes, then ends the segment yelling DO YOUR JOB, JOJO as Dillon apologizes to Saturn for having to enforce their match agreement. Low-key, one of the best things about Jericho’s run in WCW is that he had such a good rapport with Dillon that Dillon was actually entertaining. Making J.J. Dillon a fun promo partner is some miracle shit. Konnan comes to the ring and gasses himself running through his Catchphrase Roulette. Konnan is displeased at Luger and Nash and does not appreciate their subterfuge w/r/t the re-shuffling of Wolfpac membership. He cuts a decent promo because he’s a good talker, but in 1999, I’m not sure “I love the fans and will stick by you” is a great approach. Threatening to shoot your opps in a drive-by is definitely more a 1999 babyface move, as is telling a bunch of dudes to service your twig and berries, so Konnan gets it back on track soon enough. Over an hour in, we’ve had two matches, and one was David Flair/Eric Bischoff. WCW is so bad at playing the WWF’s game. Just awful at it. Mike Enos and Bobby Duncum Jr. walk to the ring for a match in this benighted tag titles tournament. As you’ll recall, the Wolfpac limo took off when the Horsemen attacked it at the start of the show, so the Wolfpac wasn’t around to stop Eric Bischoff from getting his shit kicked in. I hope they’re still circling the area so we can get an actual finsh to this tag tournament rematch from Thunder between Enos/Duncum and the Faces of Fear. Barb and Enos clubber one another outside while Meng and Duncum go at it early on. This is a disjointed match, but there’s a lot going on, like a spike piledriver on Barb and like Meng kicking Duncum backwards onto Barb for a two-count. Enos accidentally ducks a kick that he’s supposed to take, but Meng saves it. What a curious little match. It’s not good enough to be a charming uniquity. It’s just sort of a uniquity. The match breaks down and man, is it terrible. Oh no, here’s the Wolfpac limo. So we had to have these guys have a tepid brawl for this long so that the Wolfpac could show back up. The B-Teamers rush up to the limo that they’re not allowed to ride in and tattle on Flair cutting Bisch’s hair. Bisch whines about wanting Hogan to get revenge for him and then, fucking hell, the Wolfpac blow up this bad tag match that doesn’t get a winner, so they’re probably going to run it back again. I’ve never seen four men have such awful timing as these two tag teams did tonight, so you know what, let’s just call this one a no contest and eliminate both teams. I guess we’re going to let Nash and Hogan cut a promo. Nash quotes R.E.M., the hands the mic to Hogan like the rotten, dirty heel that he is. Hogan yammers. I don’t care. I don’t know if the double-turn happens at SuperBrawl. It doesn’t seem like we’re anywhere near able to turn Hogan babyface; he’d have to be off TV for months (maybe years) to make that a possibility as far as WCW’s audience goes. But whenever it does happen, it’s going to be the most obvious failed double-turn ever. Hogan is a toxic asset to WCW at this point. On another note, I’m going to just stick the tag titles tournament onto my DIRT WORST list right now. Disco Inferno faces Wrath. Huh, sure, let’s see how this ends. I’ll assume it’ll end because of SCOTT HALL at RINGSIDE with the TASER. It ends because of SCOTT HALL at RINGSIDE with the TASER. Before that happens, we get a solid match. Wrath looks to be on track for a win after hitting a Death Penalty, but Hall threatens Wrath with the taser and Disco sneaks up behind for a quick Chartbuster and a three. Tenay tries to say that this is a bigger win for Disco than his TV title wins, but, uh, no. How quickly we forget the miracle that his win over Saturn actually was. Scott Steiner sexually harasses Chae in the middle of a Nitro Girls routine. Kimberly backs him off and, hooray, we’re going to get a Page/Scotty Steiner feud over Steiner harassing Kimberly. Having a heel sexually harass women could potentially work in the abstract, but for obvious reasons, I don’t trust WCW to get any of this right. Steiner chases the Nitro Girls to the back. Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell head back out to the ring, unfortunately. I think what happened was that I dipped out of watching WCW regularly in late ’98 and then came back in the middle of 2000, so I saw a more fully-formed heel Steiner by that time without living through his growing pains. Steiner challenges Perry Saturn, whom he snarked “nice legs” at back when he finally got out of the limo with the rest of the Wolfpac a couple segments ago. Saturn comes to the ring, and I personally don’t think this leopard-print dress would be flattering on anyone of any gender. Steiner calls Saturn gay, so Saturn punches him. *sigh*, and we’re off! Saturn wins a bunch of shoulderblocks and scores a springboard legdrop for two. Steiner is in trouble, so he fires off a back kick right into Saturn’s nads and takes control. Steiner clubs Saturn and hits suplexes while Buff sprinkles in some offense from outside the ring. There’s a cursory ringside brawl in there. In a neat spot considering that we’re in Columbus, a brave soul in the crowd is wearing a Michigan cap, and he gives it to Steiner when Steiner requests it. Steiner tosses Saturn into some steps, gets in the ring, parades around wearing the cap, makes a rude gesture to the booing fans, and yells YOU SUCK at some dude in the front row. Now, that’s the kind of unhinged dickhead heel shit that I want to see more of! Saturn makes a comeback, covers Steiner’s head with his dress, and hits ten punches in the corner. Saturn tosses Steiner to ringside and then hits a dive. He goes back up top and drills Saturn with a splash in the ring. Buff tries to interfere and is knocked away. Saturn goes for a DVD, but Buff gets back on the apron and grabs Steiner’s leg to pull him off of Saturn’s shoulders. Saturn clocks Buff, but Steiner has the space to nail a suplex and lock on the Steiner Recliner. Against all odds and after all that gay panic bullshit and sexual harasser angle stuff, Steiner and Saturn had a very fun TV match! We get a recap of Rey Misterio Jr. refusing to take off the lWo shirt that he loves and has always loved and getting racked by Luger as a result. They actually had a nice little physical exchange in that segment, so I’m interested in this upcoming Luger/Misterio match. Luger comes to the ring with Nash and Liz as the desk talks about Sting and what he might think of Luger’s heel turn. Tenay asks, “Where is Sting?” and now I’m thinking, hoping, praying that Sting comes back soon, and maybe also he comes back healthier and more focused than he was for most of 1998. Nash mocks Konnan’s Catchphrase Roulette. Huh, Nash is the first guy to drop an OIL OF OLAY. I'm a bigger fan of Nash than most, but I have to say that Nash typically vacillates between “amusing” and “annoying” when he cuts promos, and tonight, he chooses “annoying.” Luger mushmouths a promo about Liz being great and Rey Misterio Jr. being a tiny little annoying guy. Luger promises to take Rey’s mask if Rey dares to challenge him. Alright, that’s enough talking for tonight’s show. Scott Steiner harasses a Nitro Girl, busts right into the Nitro Girls's dressing room, in fact, and fails to impress any of the ladies in the room. Security backs him out. There are thirty more minutes of this show. Woof. It’s just too much, man, especially because they are now filling the extra hour with mostly subpar talking. I can’t wait until Nitro goes back to two hours during the Russo regime, if I recall correctly. Psicosis faces Juvi Guerrera. This is a decent match with an early commercial break baked into it that probably hurts it a bit. Psicosis heels; Juvi is a babyface again, I guess. Actually, I can believe that Juvi’s just an impressionable young man who did all that gang attack stuff because he looks up to Eddy. Maybe someone should have made that case on commentary? Psicosis scores two on a leveraged vertical suplex, but misses a corkscrew splash shortly after. The desk talks about Scott Dickinson being suspended, and Tenay mentions that Dickinson works for the USPS. Here's where I will drop the Slam! Wrestling article from back in 2000 that talks more about Dickinson being lucky enough to have a steady government job to go back to after WCW started cutting costs (and refereeing positions): https://slamwrestling.net/index.php/2000/08/22/wcw-ref-dickinson-on-the-outs/ It’s kind of wild that Slam! Wrestling still even exists in 2024. The match in the ring goes back and forth. Psicosis drills a suicide dive, then hits a missile dropkick back in the ring that gets a 2.7-ish, maybe a 2.8. Juvi has learned from Kidman; he turns a powerbomb into a facebuster. Both men miss splashes in the corner, and Psicosis hits his signature corner bump to boot. Juvi goes up for a 450, but Psicosis blocks him. Psicosis tries a guillotine legdrop, and Juvi returns the favor. They fight over a superplex, and Psicosis turns the move into a huge facebuster, then drills a guillotine legdrop for three. That was a solid finish. The desk noted that Psicosis hasn’t won the Cruiserweight Championship yet, which is a massive oversight, and now that he’s won this match and Rey is occupied with losing his mask to Luger or Nash or whomever, let’s rectify this error by having Psicosis beat Kidman for the gold. I don’t care if he has no heat on him and Kidman is actually popular. Lex Luger and Rey Misterio Jr. finally hook it up. No, wait, Lex talks first. Lex gives Rey a chance to avoid a beating if he hands over the shirt and the mask both. Rey doesn’t take it. Now, as someone who recently saw Rey/JBL and loved how the smaller Rey didn’t look completely overmatched against a big dude like JBL, I’m not super into Rey being treated like he has no chance against the heavyweights. Yeah, part of that is that Rey is, uh, much wider when he’s in the WWE, so I’m sure people would argue that visually, it makes more sense. But part of that is just that they booked Rey to be the ace of all aces as a high-flyer. Rey gets tossed around, makes a comeback, and gets two off a split-legged moonsault. Luger reverses momentum with a powerslam and controls while Nash walks to ringside to observe. Luger hits a stalling vertical suplex and celebrates. He presses Rey over his head, slams him, and celebrates. Then, he makes a mistake many a man has made; he goes for the mask instead of putting the man away. Rey makes a fiery comeback. I knew this would be a pretty good match. Rey’s got the crowd behind him, but Luger is able to swing a metal elbow and knock Rey down. Lex wants to take the mask again, but Rey fires up again and looks like he might have Luger in trouble in the corner. That’s when Nash jumps in and attacks Rey. Rey manages to fight back a bit, but the numbers game gets to him and he gets Jackknifed and Torture Rack’d. Konnan runs out with a chair to clear the ring and make the save. If this were like ten minutes longer, it would have made one of my “good match” lists. I’m way more interested in a Rey/Luger rematch than Nash slipping on a banana peel for Rey in one match and then unmasking him in the next, which I must have seen at some point because I feel pretty confident that it happens that way. The Nitro Grill is opening in a few months from the original airing of this show. The age of pro wrestling-themed restaurants: What a time to be alive! DDP hypes the restaurant’s construction in a taped video on location in Vegas. Did anyone reading this ever eat there? Scott Steiner is still harassing Kimberly and trying to get with her even though she is entirely uninterested. I feel so bad for Eric Bischoff, having to greenlight babyish angles for the kiddos like this because Turner execs wouldn’t let him chase the 18-39-year-old male demographic anymore. Scott Hall (w/Disco Inferno, taser) faces Bam Bam Bigelow (w/very 1980s wrestling attire) and Goldberg (w/suddenly terrible booking) in a triple threat match. Bam Bam’s not even out here, and we’re four minutes from the end of the show. Bammer chugs out and double-clotheslines Hall and Disco. Bam Bam and Goldberg just kick the shit out of Hall for the first couple minutes until Hall spills from the ring. Bigelow goes at Goldberg next, but Goldberg weathers that storm and gets two off a standing side kick. Hall gets back in the ring and helps Bigelow double up on Goldberg, but Goldberg fights them both off. Because of the compressed length of the match, this has been a rare all-action triple threat match. Goldberg tosses both guys into the corner and spears them both when they stumble out of it. Goldberg tries to Jackhammer Bam Bam, but Hall blocks it, so Goldberg Jackhammers Hall instead. Crush runs out to break it up, and the rest of the Wolfpac eventually jogs down to try and beat down Goldberg. The Horsemen run down for the save and run off the Wolfpac. Wow, this is a great setup for the Horsemen getting a few WCW guys who the Wolfpac has pissed off like Goldberg, DDP, Konnan, and Misterio to temporarily align with them so they can destroy the nW—no, what am I saying, the nWo is a brand, not an angle that has gone on about a year longer than it should have. My bad for even thinking of ending this nightmare of a stable-slash-storyline. I actually put two matches from this show in my Good Matches for a YouTube Playlist, but a lot of these angles are bad, and WCW trying to pull off the crude nonsense that the WWF is doing is so hokey and pathetic. I think you could absolutely take Scott Steiner and Konnan and dump them into 1999 WWF, and what they’re doing would fit right in with the rest of the nonsense (and man, would I love a Steiner/Austin or Konnan/Rock promo battle from that era, as, uh, unfortunate as some of their promos would be w/r/t gender, orientation, and also possibly race). On this show, however, it just stands out as try-hard. I’m also not into these Nitros lately only having like two matches in the first hour on top of the typical abbreviated main event. Nitro fails to play to its strength, which is the wrestling, and when it does that and has a couple of good matches and a couple others that could have been good with more time, it just makes all the poor skits and interviews and the questionable, talk-heavy layout of the first hour stand out all the more. 1.5 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. 1
zendragon Posted May 22, 2024 Posted May 22, 2024 I wonder where Jericho jumping rates in comparison to other WCW missteps like Finger Poke of Doom or Starccade 97 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 22, 2024 Author Posted May 22, 2024 Thunder Interlude – show number forty-seven – 21 January 1999 "The WCW Gang does some light comedy with the B-Teamers” I’m baffled about where this Flair(s)/Bischoff/Hogan angle is going…I say that because of the hype video for the Ric/Hogan World title match…Something feels off about the build…And somewhere in the back of my mind, I have a growing feeling of certainty that we’re getting a double-turn at SuperBrawl…At the time that this originally aired, I was watching RAW in first run and only intermittently watched Nitro or Thunder on replay…But I was online reading the news and punditry at your places like Online Onslaught, et al. and keeping up with WCW's storylines...And I remember vaguely thinking at the time that this Hogan/Flair feud was weird and had multiple twists that didn’t make any sense… So, the double-turn must happen in the next month or two because though it could be a false memory, I definitely remember Flair being in charge of WCW at the time he turned…It happened in a Flair/Hogan match, so that points to SuperBrawl…I don’t remember Ric being World Champ at this time, but he must win it the big gold in a way that turns him heel…At the same time, though, didn’t Ric feud with David, too?...Is that in later ’99 or 2000, or is it sooner?...I’m pretty sure we’re going to get some screwball shit, and as I watch these shows, a vague memory tugs at the back of my mind about this angle that I otherwise hadn’t thought about since it happened… Stevie Ray stands in the back with the B-Team, who are stuck wearing the old black-and-white t-shirts…He feels disrespected and decides to rally the troops…Stevie’s not even wearing the black-and-white shirt…Stevie goes so far as to say that he didn’t “sign on for this B-Team crap,” so thanks for officially naming yourselves, Stevie…Hogan sent these goofs a telegram (sealed in a WCW envelope for extra disrespect) that says the Wolfpac leadership has been detained in Tampa…Crush complains about having to fly to the arena in coach, in a middle seat, and in the smoking section, hahaha…Virgil gets up on a table to rally the troops and hits his head on a light fixture, HAHAHA…That was about the funniest that this angle will get, but I can’t deny enjoying that segment… Disco Inferno faces Jerry Flynn in the opener…Disco starts out hot, but gets leg swept and ankle locked…Disco takes a powder and manages to hang Flynn’s throat on the ropes…Disco pretty much rolls from there…Flynn manages a cross arm breaker after eating a ton of damage, but Disco scrambles to the ropes and continues to score offense…Flynn has one more burst of offense in him, but he misses a corner charge and gets caught with a Chartbuster for three…That was cromulent… Norton and Horace test some walkie talkies…It’s a contentious process…The rest of the B-Teamers send him off to look for the Wolfpac limo’s arrival and to let them know via walkie talkie when Hogan the Elder is on the scene…Norton and Horace yell at each other through the walkie talkies while standing right next to one another, which is funny…But Stevie Ray has the line of the segment…“Walkie talkies?! I’m flabbergasted!”…Please, I ask you, WCW, put this man on color right now… We come back from break to more B-Team shenanigans…Stevie Ray seems to want to put his foot down on being boxed out like this, but Virgil advises staying patient…Virgil says he has the numbers of Hogan, Nash, and Hall…Crush accuses him of looking them up on the internet (heh)…Virgil tries Hogan, says he got voicemail, and tries Hall almost immediately in a single button push…Stevie accuses him of faking those calls because he barely had to dial, but Virgil claims that he has everyone on speed dial…I can’t believe that this B-Team stuff has been successful comedy so far…They’ll probably run it into the ground, but they’re off to a fine start… Horace buzzes in over the walkie talkie from his spot near the loading area of the arena and says that the nWo limo has arrived…As we find out, it’s actually the Horsemen limo…They beat the shit out of poor old Horace for awhile…Ric Flair peels off to go to the ring and address the crowd…Ric addresses Hall and Nash and their determination to ruin this tag titles tournament…So, uh, let me go ahead and summarize what Ric and Okerlund, who is interviewing Ric tonight, say about this tournament and the tag titles… First, Ric flubs a line about the Outsiders thinking they’re the rightful champs, and that causes Okerlund to ask if Flair is stripping the Outsiders of the tag team titles tonight even though they haven’t been champs since early 1998…Second, Flair says that we’re starting the tournament for the tag titles tonight…Uh, didn’t Fit Finlay and Dave Taylor already win a match in what was supposed to be this tournament?...Do they get a bye, at least?...Ric says the finals will be at SuperBrawl, which is a long, long four-and-a-half weeks away… Flair continues to cut a shitty promo, a rare case for him…He points out that he was working the last match on shows in the ‘80s and Hogan was done by intermission…True, but without the context that would explain why Hogan would be on at intermission, it's a pointless comment...And I don't think it's a particularly effective line for people who wouldn't know to ask for context…Anyway, Flair cuts a “you’re not a real wrestler, you’re a WWF Superstar” promo that I find deeply unimpressive… The B-Teamer skits are genuinely funny…We get another one where the rest of them find a downed Horace…Norton yells, “Why didn’t you call me on the walkie-talkie?!”…Well, uh, Norton, he was getting clobbered, so he couldn’t call you for help at that moment…Virgil is very worried about Horace’s health…Oops, no, he’s actually concerned about Horace’s shirt…He requests a new shirt for Horace while everyone yells at him about his priorities. They play video from Nitro of Jericho yelling at Dillon about making Saturn wear a dress, and I missed a funny spot where Jericho tosses the dress on Dillon’s head while complaining at him…Dillon is busy reading the contract and totally no-sells the dress as it drapes his head and then slowly falls off of him…He just keeps contemplating the contract… Perry Saturn’s got a new look in a little dark red number…Saturn takes some time to pull his dress back down after leapfrogging his opponent Al Green…That allows Green to club him with a lariat…Green does some inappropriate touching and Saturn gets mad and superkicks him…Why do some dudes see a dress and immediately get handsy?...Restrain yourself, Green…Saturn cruises to victory from there and lands a DVD (no VR) for the win… This Wheatley Vodka commercial is driving me out of my gourd…Can I please pick the ads you show me, Peacock?...I’m getting that Comcast bundle with Apple + and Netflix, because that bundle gives you Peacock with no ads…Uh, anyway… Raven has been hanging out with his annoying mom in Florida, and we get a montage of some of the moments from those sketches next…When do you think Raven and Sandman/Hak made up?...I would assume that Raven corrupting Tyler Fullington would have left a bigger schism between them…The only bad thing about these sketches is the promise/threat that Roddy Piper has some dates to burn off and will be back on television soon… Kenny Kaos tries to shrug off his troubles with his tag partner Robbie Rage and instead focus on his match against Glacier…This match exists, but you know, it’s not the shits or anything…Kaos tries hard out there…He scores the win with a springboard lariat…Kaos shouts out his boys back home in New Hampshire and also Robbie Rage, but the cameras are more interested in the B-Teamers…They cut away from him for more B-Teamer bickering… Virgil tries to fire the rest of the B-Teamers up and inspire them to find the Horsemen and beat them down…They walk off, and he promises that he’s coming along with them in just a second…Actually, he sticks around to take off his black-and-white shirt and sport a black-and-red one, just to see how it looks on him… Stevie Ray leads most of the B-Teamers to the ring…Vincent comes out behind the group, still sporting his black-and-red t-shirt…He gets a mic and makes some moves...First, he enters Crush and Horace in the tournament…He also challenges the Horsemen to a six-man tag later tonight…He enlists Stevie Ray and Scott Norton to join him in said match…Stevie Ray and Scott Norton understandably don’t get why they’re taking orders from fucking Virgil…The viewer at home feels the same way, fellas…That promo was bad, but because Virgil is supposed to be an incompetent dolt, it ended up having a good effect… It makes sense that the nWo leadership would downsize a bit after the merger…They probably fucked up not keeping Konnan, but dumping most of the B-Teamers makes sense…The leadership should probably all change their phone numbers and forget to tell Curt Hennig, too… Norman Smiley declares that IT’S SPANKING TIME…He’s facing Booker T., which I think is an interesting matchup…Smiley is the superior chain wrestler, but Booker hangs with him to start…After one hip toss attempt exchange, Booker lands a lariat to use his size advantage…Smiley takes a walk, collects himself, and wins the advantage with strikes when he re-enters the ring…Booker is explosive, so Smiley has to lean on his wits and his escapability to slow Booker down…He also wins quite a few strikes…Oh, and he teases the Big Wiggle effectively… Smiley hits his swinging body slam on the bigger Booker in a nice spot…Smiley controls enough that he hits the Big Wiggle successfully…He sure did give Booker a lot of time to recover, though, and Booker hits a power slam…Smiley tries to maintain control, but Booker kicks his way out of trouble and then lands a spinebuster for two…Smiley bails, but Book follows him this time and bashes him into the rail a few times…Book tosses Smiley back in the ring, and Smiley begs off…He gets an eye poke in on Booker, but can’t do anything with the temporary advantage…Booker lands an axe kick and goes up for a missile dropkick…Smiley is able to get to his feet and dives through the ropes to escape before Booker can launch…Smiley’s had enough for the night and takes the count out loss…That ending was sort of a bummer, but I did like the match… Scott Steiner, Human Lady Repellent and his adventures in the harassment of women just trying to do their jobs are replayed in a video package…Steiner is truly on his scumbag shit as a character… Horace Hogan and Crush have their tag team tournament match against the makeshift team of Billy Kidman and Chavo Guerrero Jr….THE FLOCK EXPLODES as Horace stomps Kidman to start…Horace and Kidman have an okay sequence, though Kidman is so awkward and their timing is off a bit…You look at Kidman and you look at Chavo, and the gulf in quality of strikes, of timing, and of balance is obvious…This match is worked like one where the much bigger team almost expects to win on the face of it…They don’t expect Chavo and Kidman to work so well together or to use their speed to such effect… There’s a break in the match…We come back to Kidman playing FIP, but getting a hot tag to Chvao…Chavo gets cut down after a bit of an offensive explosion…Crush controls, but he puts another lax cover on Chavo after a backbreaker…Wait, hold on, Tony S. says that this tournament is now double elimination?...What the fuck?!...They are just making this shit up as they go along…It’s like the dumbest possible version of Vince McMahon changing the rules on a whim in the Steve Austin/Dude Love match at Over the Edge…Chavo tags to Kidman and they roll Horace and Crush…Vincent has to rush in and clobber Kidman with a slapjack while Mickey Jay’s back is turned…Crush gets the three off that bit of interference…Stevie comes to the ring mad that Vincent took his slapjack without even telling him… I am tempted to look at the bracket for this stupid-ass tag titles tournament, just to see how it handles the double-elimination aspect that randomly was just included…Does that mean that Super Calo and Lizmark Jr. are still in this thing?...Because I feel like it’s 50/50 that WCW remembers that they wrestled in this tournament once already and lost…Nah, I’m going to wait until SuperBrawl and THEN look at the tournament bracket once the tag title tourney final happens… Virgil is excited about his success in managing Crush and Horace to victory, but Stevie’s mad that Virgil went through his bag to grab the slapjack, and everyone is upset about Virgil’s Wolfpac shirt….Virgil swears he got it from some fan and just threw it on…It looks like the B-Teamers are mollified…For now, at least… La Parka versus Rey Misterio Jr. has some potential…Yeah, this is fun…Parka is a good bully, and he slaps the shit out of Rey and throws quite a few strikes…The problem is that he dances, which gives Rey space to fly around and show off his insane balance and agility…Rey goes up to hit a facebuster and gets slammed face first into the mat…Man, Parka should have gotten a push…He’s the best possible base for the smaller wrestlers who can work the Cruiserweight division…Rey is too quick for Parka, who eats boots on a dive and then eats post and buckles respectively on two straight corner charges…Still, Parka hits a spinebuster and looks like he’s in control…Unwisely, however, he goes up top instead of immediately pressing his advantage and gets tripped…Rey takes the opportunity, leaps onto Parka in rana position, spins around Parka’s body, and drills a bulldog that gets a three count…That was a textbook good television match… Gene Okerlund interviews Diamond Dallas Page in the ring…Page is serious, as any person would be if a loved one was being harassed by a 'roid monster dickhead…In fact, he doesn’t go visit the crowd because he’s feeling some kind of way…Hey Okerlund, no need to qualify your criticism of Steiner harassing Kimberly by saying, “She is very attractive,” you rube, you moron, you idiot…Page is cutting a catastrophically bad promo, but he sort of saves it by playing off his mush-mouthedness by acting like he needs to recover his composure…That gets him back on track…It strikes me that Kimberly hits Page with a chair and turns on him at some point in time…Did I imagine that, or is it possible that she turns heel in this program?... Virgil tries to fire up the troops…Oops, Vincent…Oops, Vince…He wants to be called Vince because he’s the colonel on the mothafuckin’ tank…Vince tries to drink some RAW eggs before leaving the locker room, but he chokes on them…Get it?...Vince notices a camera tucked away above the lockers while he’s putting the glass down…As it turns out, the Wolfpac leaders have been watching the whole time!...Hogan and Nash decide that “it’s time”…For what, I can only imagine… They got Buffer out here to do ring introductions for this six-man tag?!...Virgil…Er, Vincent…Er, Vince shouldn’t be getting these Buffer intros…Buffer calls him THE MASTER OF THE VINCE VICE…Um, what?!...This is either the worst or the best ring introduction that I’ve ever heard in my life, I can’t tell which… The Horsemen run their three healthy members out for this match: Mongo, Benoit, and Ric…There’s not much of a match to this one…Stevie is tired of Vince’s RAH RAH attitude and tags him in…Vince gets beaten up, and I almost expect the Horsemen to never let him tag out again…Vince does tag to Norton…OK, I see…The point is that when Vince is in the ring, things go poorly for the B-Teamers, but when Stevie or Norton is in, they have a chance…Norton has been a legit good addition for the nWo…They should probably march down and give him a black-and-red shirt if they want to keep the most useful guys…Oh yeah, Ric locks Vince in a Figure Four and gets the win…Benoit locks Vince in the Crippler Crossface after the match while Stevie and Norton walk away disappointed… The B-Team stuff is probably going to get old quickly, but building a Thunder around those goofs not being able to manage themselves worked out alright…A surprising amount of the stuff that was meant to be funny was actually funny…This show was a decent watch as a result…WOOO… 1
SirSmUgly Posted May 22, 2024 Author Posted May 22, 2024 (edited) 38 minutes ago, zendragon said: I wonder where Jericho jumping rates in comparison to other WCW missteps like Finger Poke of Doom or Starccade 97 They were never going to push him properly, and you'd have to also put it in the context that they also let Eddy go, but in a world where WCW is well-run and stays on television as a result, they're wrestling at Greed in 2001 for the Big Gold Belt. They built multiple main eventers for the WWF on their own dime and camera time and then just let them go over there and be plugged into the upper-midcard with no need for much further development. This isn't like when they let Austin, Foley, and to a lesser extent Dustin go and the WWF had to make it work with those guys, but to WCW, they were a luxury. In 1999/2000, WCW desperately needed Eddy, Jericho, and Benoit (and I would argue Raven to an extent - he was massively over as a heel in 1997) and none of those guys are in the company by February of 2000. The WWF didn't need the first three of those guys on the list at all, but they took them all in and built a mega-talented midcard to underpin their shows and support their crowded main event scene. There was no one thing that killed WCW, of course, but they found themselves in the position of having to build a bunch of guys over a period of time that they didn't really have to waste in mid-2000 once Bischoff and Russo were mercifully gone. If they have Jericho, Eddy, and Benoit to pair with Booker and Scott Steiner, they are in a much better position to quickly recover. Edited May 22, 2024 by SirSmUgly 1
zendragon Posted May 23, 2024 Posted May 23, 2024 That little discussion we had about the tag tournament a few posts ago... I think that was more thought given to it than WCW initially did 1
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