zendragon Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 I'm eagerly waiting your review of the GG v Robinson match 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 All the little asides in the Nitro book are just jaw dropping when it comes to these shows. "Yeah, so Kevin Sullivan was busy having GHB overdoses and seizing on the floor instead of writing for the nightly show, so I just kept a truck the size of a house full of stuff we might happen to need in any given town... tables, chairs, upholstery for Flair, Scott Steiner's lions which we fed at $8000 a pop on a daily basis; you know, the usual." 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 7 Author Share Posted July 7 Thunder Interlude – show number sixty-two – 6 May 1999 "The WCW Gang goes home to Slamboree by going back in time for half of this episode" I’m not entirely sure what to expect from Slamboree…Even the things I’m most sure of – World and TV title changes, Piper beating Flair to end his WCW presidency – I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to be wrong about…Oh well, there’s only one more stop before Slamboree…So, let’s Thunder… Disappointing recap: Ric Flair, Piper, and Charles Robinson participate in a very bad angle…The WCW World Championship gets bounced around in the bargain…The recap ends up hyping Page/Nash at Slamboree… Slightly more disappointing recap: Flair goes bananas…Flair/Piper hype for Slamboree… We saw all this stuff, fellas…I guess WCW Creative was assuming that people missed half of this angle development because they were flipping over to RAW… Mike Enos upgraded his recent tag partner…Not much, mind you…He just went from tagging with Bobby Duncum Jr. to tagging with Scotty Riggs…They’re up against Raven and Saturn in the opener…Raven gets on the house mic…It doesn’t work initially, so he says WHAT ABOUT ME, WHAT ABOUT RAVEN until they fix it…He is assured of victory at Slamboree…He says his mom got on him for beating up those poor little guys Misterio Jr. and Kidman…Raven: “Pack your bags, we’re goin’ on a guilt trip”…Raven asks Riggs to stop looking in the mirror for a sec to listen to him…Riggs does…Raven says that they’re going to have to put a beating on them tonight…Riggs makes an irritated face, waves Raven off, and goes back to gazing into the mirror…That was all pretty funny!... Riggs is too busy admiring himself to start the match…This may the be the point at which Enos realizes that he made a mistake…It might be, as a partner who is too busy looking at himself to participate could actually be worse than Bobby Duncum Jr….Raven and Saturn nail a couple of combo kicks/leg sweeps on Enos…Enos hits a shoulderblock and takes control…Riggs is actually paying attention and makes a tag…Riggs tries to work Saturn’s heavily taped shoulder, but he gets reversed on an Irish whip, eats a knee to the back from Raven, and gets suplexed…Saturn tries to help Raven keep control after a tag, but hurts his shoulder…Raven ends up as the FIP… Enos uses a chair outside the ring to add to the punishment…Saturn continues to sell his injured shoulder (injured as a result of a Benoit and Malenko attack in kayfabe) and is not in position for a tag…Raven gets beaten up through the commercial break…Riggs hits a soft hip attack, then hits a Rick Rude hip swivel…Raven batters his balls while he celebrates…Riggs goes to a choke on Raven and dropkicks Saturn off the apron…Enos drags Raven over to help the guy make a tag, then asks WHERE’S SATURN?!...Saturn is, of course, writhing in pain on the floor…The FIP segment continues with some Enos and Riggs subterfuge and double-teaming…Enos has to get Riggs away from the mirror to get him to try a double-team chair attack…Riggs, of course, hits Enos when Raven dives out of the way… Raven makes a comeback and hits some chair-assisted offense…He gets two on a chair-assisted drop-toehold to Riggs, then gets two on an Evenflow to Enos which Riggs breaks up…Riggs feels good about his team’s position in the match, so he takes a quick glance at himself in the mirror…He misses Raven tagging Saturn and only barely is aware of Saturn coming from behind and hitting him with a one-armed DVD for the three-count…What a fun match with some enjoyable character work weaved into the proceedings… Bummer of a hype vid: Piper vs. Flair in 1999 sounds like hell…That’s because it is… Tired recap: Once again, if you watch Thunder, but not Nitro, maybe you missed DDP losing and then winning back the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on the same night…First, we gotta see how he lost it…A question, during this long recap: Where does DDP rank on a list of Sting’s greatest opponents?...Page is a great opponent for Sting and Hulk Hogan both, along with easily being Goldberg’s best opponent…Page might be historically underrated as a worker in general at this point… WCW Saturday Night has a generic new logo…The promotion for it is on a big screen in a rave area, which actually is more ‘90s than the previous robotic factory stylization for the promos… I cannot stand this fuckhead Rick Steiner…He’s going to get an inexplicable singles push for the next two years that they should have given to Scott Norton…Meng’s just a bit too washed, or I’d also have included him as a possibility…Rick kills Erik Watts (w/big-ass pants)…Larry Z. rambles about Cuban people…Larry Z. needs to get shoved off commentary already…This guy does a whole thing comparing main eventers wanting the title to babies wanting the same bottle…Meanwhile, Watts stalls…This is some rough television…Watts wins an armdrag, mocks Rick’s barking taunt, and then gets mauled…Watts’s leg is under the ropes on a front facelock, but that doofus Charles Robinson doesn’t notice…Or he pretends not to notice, whatever…Steiner continues a boring beatdown for a few minutes and wins with his Indian Deathlock/chinlock combination… Second half of the tired recap: Now we gotta see how DDP won the title back on the Nitro where he lost it… Hype video: Charles Robinson versus Gorgeous George…We are 42 minutes into this show and have had two [2] matches… Oh, it’s a third match…But it’s just Disorderly Conduct…They’re facing off against Crush and Horace Hogan (w/the other B-Teamers)…Do you realize how nutty it is that the black-and-white and “Rockhouse” are being used for a group headed up by Stevie Ray?...Whenever Bischoff says that he wanted to keep the nWo brand going as a money-making concern, I just think that he must be a fucking idiot…Because watering down the nWo this much is the opposite of protecting your big brand…This is a match that exists…DC gets blown away, but Tuff (that’s how it’s spelled on his tights) Tom trips Crush from outside the ring, and they get a bit of control…They lose that control soon enough when Crush hits a double-clothesline…This is another overlong beatdown…The B-Teamers finally win this slog with a spike piledriver… The NBA is bumping Nitro and Thunder the week after Slamboree…Actually, Thunder is off the air for two weeks after the PPV because of the NBA…Boy, the NBA is really helping Thursday Night Smackdown get a big head start, huh?... Hey, it’s Kanyon!...He’s thrilled about becoming a movie star (in the most generous sense of the term) and feels good about himself and his career prospects in general…He asks his question…He gets ready to freak out, but the crowd yells NOBODY!...Kanyon is legit shocked and quotes Sally Field after she won an Oscar…That was pretty funny!...Kanyon’s wrestling Rey Misterio Jr….Kanyon offers a hand before the match, and Rey thinks about it for awhile before quickly slapping it…Kanyon cleanly breaks after shoving Rey to the corner on a collar-and-elbow tie-up…Has Kanyon turned over a new leaf?...Kanyon eats an armdrag, but lands a shoulderblock and a back elbow…Rey explodes with offense and dropkicks Kanyon to the floor… Kanyon takes a powder and hits a double thumbs-up next to a guy holding a WHO’S BETTA THAN KANYON sign…They really do dig this guy!...Kanyon tries to leverage his size advantage and kills a Misterio rope-run by dropping him throat-first across the ropes…A follow-up cover gets two…Kanyon drops a guillotine legdrop for another two…There’s a commercial break…We come back to Rey in the comeback trail…He hits a headscissors and lands a few forearms, but gets caught and hit with a backbreaker…Kanyon sells hurting his own knee on that move and takes a while to cover…It only gets two…Kanyon struggles over a double-underhook suplex, but Rey doesn’t have enough weight to stop it…Kanyon gets two off that as well… Kanyon tries to ground Rey with a chinlock, but changes his mind and tosses the Cruiserweight Champ to the floor instead…They have an obligatory ringside brawl…Kanyon busts his nose while bumping forward off a whip into the guardrail when he banks a chair leg, nose-first…OUCH…Kanyon is legit hurt, though not badly…They should probably wind this down anyway…Kanyon wipes out on a top-rope splash…Rey lands a Bronco Buster…The camera struggles to avoid shooting that and also to avoid shooting a bloody Kanyon…Rey gets two on a guillotine legdrop of his own…Kanyon blocks a rana attempt with a sit out slam for two… Rey gets two by rolling Kanyon up to get out of a Kanyon fireman’s carry, but Kanyon tries the fireman's carry again and hits a big Northern Lights facebuster for two…Kanyon tries to finish Rey with a moonsault…Rey hits punches in the corner and a seated senton…Benoit and Malenko run in, but Rey dispatches of them and quickly victory rolls Kanyon for the win…Benoit and Malenko are able to catch Rey before he can escape and then destroy his knee…They wedge Rey’s leg between the ringpost and the steel stairs and take turns dropkicking the stairs… Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko turn right back around and come to the ring for a tag match…Their opponents: The Texas Hangmen…Wait, did Mean Mike and Tough Tuff Tom come right back out here in masks, or are the Hangmen two other chumps tonight?...The Horsemen target the knee of one of the Hangmen…This match is fine…It’s just a lot of Benoit and Malenko attacking one dude’s knee…The Hangmen have one final burst of effort, but one of them gets back suplexed and then locked in the Texas Cloverleaf…That ends that somewhat overlong beatdown…So many of them on this show… Show-ending recap: Page, Flair, Savage, etc., from the last Nitro…Wow, way to fire me up for Slamboree on the last show before the PPV, fellas… This show had so much footage from the past two Nitros that I almost might as well have just watched the past two Nitros again instead…That there were two good matches mixed in doesn’t help that most of this show might as well not have existed…You know, I think it’s fine that Thunder is going away for a couple of weeks…Maybe someone with some creative power will try to make it worth watching like they did for the two weeks prior to this show…This Thunder gets an OWWW for the woeful lack of effort in putting together a good, complete show…It’s too bad because the opening tag match and Rey/Kanyon were matches worth any wrestling fan’s time… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 7 Author Share Posted July 7 Slamboree ’99 notes: It’s Slamboree, which I am less excited about from a wrestling standpoint than I was Spring Stampede. On the other hand, the storyline possibilities coming out of it are interesting. Or they would be, if we weren’t talking about WCW in 1999. Oh, thank goodness! It’s a) a three-man booth and b) Larry Z. is nowhere near it! Would I rather have Dusty Rhodes in the booth than Bobby Heenan? Yes, but we can’t have everything we want. Tony S. calls Sting/Goldberg “the match you thought you’d never see.” We all saw it already! Both in one-on-one and Four Corners varieties! Gene Okerlund shills the hotline after hyping the show for a bit. I do not like that WCW does these extended openings with lots of talking before getting to the show. It only took five minutes this time to get to the announcements for the first match, but I hope they re-think this formatting of the show soon. The opener should be pretty good. It’s the WCW Tag Team Championship Triangle Three Corners match between Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko (w/Arn Anderson), Raven and Saturn, and Billy Kidman and Rey Misterio Jr. I’m not into this match type in general, but if they just make it a tornado thing where there’s non-stop action, that could work. There are so many South Park-themed signs in the crowd. So many! Eric Cartman is everywhere! OK, it’s not a tornado tag. Oh well. Kidman and Saturn take out Benoit and Malenko anyway for a little bit of early chaos. They face each other and Kidman takes a fucking INSANE bump when Saturn catches him on a rope-run and overhead belly-to-belly suplexes him straight to the floor. He gets up and breaks up a tag like thirty seconds later, but that’s bullshit. That bump looked like it killed him; he should have been out of this match for at least two or three minutes. Rey and Benoit end up in there together and have a great sequence before Raven jumps everyone. So, I should be clear about what a Three Corners tag match is because it’s actually consistent with how the past couple of Four Corners singles matches have worked; one man from each team is legal at all times, and you can only tag your own partner. Much, much better structure to this match than those 1996-era Nitro Three Corners tags. Anyway, there’s a good pace to this. Raven breaks up a Crippler Crossface attempt, then front suplexes Benoit and tags Saturn in so that Saturn can get some wild height on a splash. Right after that, Benoit flips Rey up toward the buckles, and he fucking lands on the top rope, perfectly balances, and hits a moonsault. The crowd popped for that bit of athleticism because it was so gorgeous, just a visual treat. The downside, of course, is that this match is really just a collection of spots. You can’t really have a FIP segment very effectively, though the Horsemen do control the ring for a period in the middle of the match and block everyone from intervening on their beating of Saturn. Honestly, this isn’t bad, but it also still lacks the structure to be something good. It’s just sort of weird. Enjoyable, but weird. I do think the Horsemen cutting off the other two teams as they try to intervene is an interesting substitution for a FIP segment, but even Tony S. on the desk points out the weakness in the thing: The ref just let these two in the ring at the same time, which is illegal, for literal minutes at a time. He never moved to kick one of these fellas out of the ring. Kidman is taking wild bumps out here before laying around to sell them; that’s pretty much his M.O. tonight. Meanwhile, Benoit gets two on Saturn off a Northern Lights with a bridge. The other competitors either lay around or brawl on the outside while Saturn tries to survive a Benoit beating. Saturn even gets two on a quick roll-up, but he mostly takes a beating and even takes the triple rolling Germans. Malenko controls Kidman and Saturn both. The ref admonishes Rey for illegally trying to face up to Malenko in the ring and the whole commentary desk points out how dumb it is. It is dumb! It’s sort of ruining this match for me, this inconsistency that only existed so that Benoit and Malenko could establish an admittedly interesting variation on FIP before then having a more traditional version of one in the ring. Kidman eats a Dragon Suplex for two, but is able to counter Malenko with a dropkick; Saturn finagles a side Russian on Benoit when Benoit tags in and tags Raven to break the FIP segment. See, they have an idea of what they should be doing because both teams keep trying to knock Rey off the apron or get him to come in the ring illegally so that he can’t tag out. There’s logic here. Anyway, Raven hits the tripe verticals before tagging back out so that Saturn and Kidman can go at it. Kidman finally tags in to Rey, who gets big pops, but not the explosion of sound that would have happened had he had a proper hot tag. Yeah, this is a rare match with a bunch of good-to-great workers where they do their best to work around the limitations of the match type and, in fact, have the best possible version of this match type, but the match still is just off all the way through. Rey gets a 2.9 on a rana to Benoit. Kidman tries to boost Rey for a top-rope rana on Saturn, but Saturn catches Rey and hits a diving powerbomb. Saturn looks for a DVD, but Arn jumps in the ring and hits him with a spinebuster. Someone comes to the ring in a Sting mask and a DDP shirt and trips Kidman as Kidman prepares for an SSP. Malenko locks the Texas Cloverleaf on Saturn, but Saturn is too out to even give up. Meanwhile, Raven hits an Evenflow DDT on Kidman. The ref jumps back in, frantically tries to figure out who to attend to, and then decides to go ahead and count the three on Kidman since Saturn hasn’t made a peep. The masked guy unmasks, and it’s Chris Kanyon! The gang is back together. What an interesting failure that was. The crowd anti-popped for the finish even though Raven and Saturn were over while coming to the ring. Raven and Saturn have been babyfaces lately, but Kanyon is still a heel (except for in Pennsylvania, I guess). This was a unique match that you should watch once, maybe twice if you want to see workers do their best to overcome the cards they’ve been dealt, but that’s about it. It ended up feeling very modern, actually, like a match straight out of the 2020s, right until the end – lots of cool spots, barely a structure to tie things together, feels like an empty exhibition of athletics by the time it’s done. Hype video: DDP is the champ! Woof, I am now being subjected to Stevie Ray (w/B-Teamers) vs. Konnan. Konnan declares that he is prepared to *ahem* have his ass eaten and balls sucked by a few B-Teamer members after he wins this match. I simply report this news to you, reader; I do not revel in having to write that sentence. Anyway, this match isn’t any good, but you knew that, right? Can you believe that this doltish ref stopped his count on a Konnan pinfall attempt because Virgil got on the apron and yelled HEY? Like, he didn’t even interfere or anything; he just yelled. The B-Teamers stack the deck against Konnan, but he fights up from a loose chinlock anyway, just like an ‘80s babyface. Stevie and Konnan have a weird exchange on a simple short-arm clothesline. Stevie’s trash talking is even sub-average tonight. Konnan makes his comeback after extended control from Stevie, fucks up a leapfrog, and then gets taken out of his comeback by Horace tripping him. Rey runs down for the save as Horace and Virgil mistime a missed clothesline spot. Rey stops Stevie from hitting Konnan with a Slapjack and helps leverage Stevie into a Konnan roll-up for three. Woof, did that match suck. But you knew that, etc., etc. Luckily, Konnan did not receive oral sex from anyone in the B-Team on camera. Hype video: Kevin Nash is a threat! He wants to beat DDP and become the champ! Rick Steiner is annoying while cutting an interview at the Compuserve desk. He’s mad that Stevie Ray is inserting himself into Booker’s matches, but he’s mad at Booker about what Stevie is up to. He also does not understand the word “estranged,” which I think is a shoot, actually. Hype video: Sting is very mysterious! DDP stops Bam Bam Bigelow backstage and has a conversation with him. It looks like Page is firing Bigelow up. I thought the Jersey Triad didn’t become a thing until 2000. Maybe I’m wrong. Brian Knobbs comes to the ring to face Bam Bam Bigelow in a hardcore match. Who is the King of Hardcore? Who the fuck cares? It’s WCW, not ECW or even the WWF, where I felt like the Hardcore Championship meant something for a hot minute before it became a joke. Here comes Bam Bam, doing the thing where he tosses crap in the ring. Half of it bounces off the ropes and back to the floor. Whatever, look, there are lots of weapon shots and Brian Knobbs in 1999 is like a billion times worse than Hardcore Hak is, so this match is here, existing, being sort of pointless. Tony S. and Heenan get mad at Tenay for talking or exclaiming when they just want silence to hear a trash can or cookie sheet bash someone in the head, which does make me laugh. Speaking of “no structure,” this WCW-style garbage match has zero structure. It’s just guys hitting each other with stuff until suddenly, it’s time for a finish. While I wait for that finish, I ended up wondering when Chris Jericho finished up with WCW. It looks like he’s done in July. I came into this watch thinking that I really loved Chris Jericho’s WCW heel run like everyone else, but that it was probably overpraised because of ‘90s nostalgia, as well as Jericho being shit now and everyone remembering back to when he showed such promise that (I'd argue) he never quite fulfilled. But no, it was a run that was even better than I remembered. I say this because these shows are much, much worse for not having Jericho on them. I would go so far as to say that losing Jericho to the WWF in 1999 is only behind the WWF losing Hall and Nash to WCW as the most impactful wrestler defections between the big two companies during the Nitro Era. I have it like this for the biggest big two company switches in the Nitro Era: 1) Hall and Nash to WCW, 2) Jericho to WWF, 3) Luger to WCW, 4) Madusa to WCW, and 5) Haku to WWF. Those last two I listed because they are almost like a perfect bookend to this era, with Madusa dumping the WWF Women’s title in a trash can at the beginning of the era to indicate that WCW was here to come at the king, and Haku showing up in the Rumble as the WCW Hardcore Champ just weeks before WCW was bought by the WWF. You can convince me otherwise about those last two, though. I just think there’s something poetic about them. I also think Syxx to WCW/X-Pac back to the WWF could fit in those last two spots. And yes, I know I’m leaving the Radicalz to the WWF out, and maybe I shouldn’t, but I just can’t quite place it over any of the other stuff I listed. Anyway, Bigelow slides off a table that Knobbs misses a diving elbowdrop onto over at the souvenir stand. Bigelow gets up and suplexes Knobbs through the table for three. Recap: Rick Steiner is a dick; Booker T. tries to mind his own business, but Stevie Ray is also a dick. Booker will have his revenge on the last WCW PPV, though! But that’s much later in this watch. Though I realize that we are closer to Booker beating Rick Steiner for the U.S. Championship on Greed (IIRC) than we are to the first Souled Out, which is kinda surprising, kinda sad. Rick Steiner faces Booker for the TV title next. I’m so irritated that Rick Steiner is getting a push. I guess I should have seen it coming as he’s the only guy to roll Scott Steiner in the ring since Scotty’s heel turn. I’m also bitter about the coming Booker T./Stevie Ray feud. This match isn’t great because Rick Steiner’s offense vacillates between interesting and deadly dull. So, yeah, there’s a barely watchable match here. It’s not bad, but it bores me badly. The pace is slower than usual for Booker T.’s matches. There are too many chinlocks and wandering brawls. The thing I like the most is Steiner throwing closed fists from top position and Nick Patrick rightfully stopping him and saying that he can’t use closed fists, then Steiner irritatedly throwing forearms instead as Patrick approves these strikes as legal. That was a neat spot. But Rick Steiner in control mostly stinks, and that’s pretty much what we get here. Booker makes a comeback, hits a Spinaroonie, and goes up for a missile dropkick after hitting a spinebuster. He hits it, and Scott Steiner runs down and breaks up the pinfall. Rick hits a lariat for 2.9, then goes for a whip that gets reversed. Rick and Scott clash, and Booker gets two off a Houston Side Kick. They run the ropes again, Scott trips Booker, and Rick hits a top-rope bulldog for three. Look at this hypocritical fuck Rick Steiner raising the TV title. But seriously, move Booker along to the U.S. title level by putting him over Scott again after Scott disposes of Buff Bagwell later tonight. Recap: Gorgeous George and Charles Robinson fight one another as the proxies for Randy Savage and Ric Flair, respectively. Rick Steiner drags his belt along in the backstage area, looking for his brother. He passes Buff Bagwell and wishes Buff luck in the U.S. Championship match later tonight, then continues on his journey. Charles “Lil’ Naitch” Robinson (w/Ric Flair and Asya) comes to the ring in a robe that says LITTLE NATURE BOY on the back and has totally bleached hair. It’s pretty amazing! Gorgeous George (w/Randy Savage, Mona, and Madusa) is dressed sort of like a competitive cheerleader, which is fine, but her attire's not exactly a robe with LITTLE NATURE BOY on it. She’s not even wearing a sparkly cowboy hat or anything! That attire is bullshit, actually, the more I think about it. 1999 Randy Savage continuing to live out a very obvious midlife crisis is sort of amazing television, by the way. Flair makes a proclamation using the power of his office before the match starts. He actually proclaims that he wants to bang Madusa and always has, and invites both she and Mona to his hotel room after the match. Ew. No. Ew. Then, Charles Robinson says that he’s going to bang Gorgeous George after he beats her. Ew. No. Ew. Savage responds by saying that George is going to “kick [Robinson’s] ass,” which gets a pop because a cuss word is in that verb phrase. Look, Lil’ Naitch even has stylized CR boots in the same font as Flair's RF-stylized boots. This is pretty funny. George is corpsing a bit at Robinson's Flair act, this is so dumb. Flair gets her to slap hands with him, then WOOs and slicks his hair back. Well, give Robinson a lot of credit for committing to the bit. George ducks a lockup, then puts on an arm wringer than Robinson reverses; George reverses the hold in turn. Basically, Robinson has one hundred percent decided to wrestle a typical Flair heel match and surreptitiously feeds George the next series of spots besides. I am very impressed with Charles Robinson right now. George reverses into a hammerlock, then puts on a full nelson and knocks Robinson into Flair when they consult one another on the apron. Flair and Savage face off in the middle of the ring while Robinson takes a powder. Both men consult their charges, and Flair grabs a chair and gives it to Robinson. Mona takes the chair away, so Robinson attacks her from behind and scoop slams her on the floor. I can’t believe that this dumb match has actually been entertaining. Johnny Boone, who has seen just about enough, gets in Charles Robinson’s face as Savage calls for some medical help for Mona. George gets back in the ring after checking on Mona and is met with a double axe and some chokes from Robinson. Robinson throws a weak chop and WOOs. Here’s where the match gets, dare I say, transcendent: George fires up, tosses Robinson into the corner, and lands some chops of her own. She shoots Robinson into the other corner, and he flips over the buckles, runs the apron, and goes up top, where George grabs his junk for leverage and presses him off the top and to the mat. Charles Robinson, Super Worker (?!?!), eats a lariat and then Flair flops; George covers for a 2.9. George hits a hair whip, but whiffs on a corner splash. Asya grabs George and trips her, then bashes her knee against the apron, but Madusa runs over and kicks Asya in the ribs. Still, Robinson starts to work George's injured knee with a leg bar, using the ropes for leverage. George kicks him away, but he goes right back to the leg bar. Geroge kicks away again, so Robinson hits a knee drop, yanks on the leg, and then locks on a Figure Four in the center of the ring. George reverses the move to a pop, but Asya distracts the ref. Flair runs in, but Savage runs in right behind him, dispatches of Flair, and low blows Robinson. Meanwhile, Mona has tangled up with Asya over in the corner, so the ref’s attention is still drawn away from the ring. Savage scoop slams Robinson into position and George goes up to the second rope for a Savage Gorgeous Elbow that - I cannot believe that I’m typing this – looks excellent. She gets the three before Flair can break it up. I enjoyed the heck out of that match. What is wrong with me?! George was actually pretty solid in there for a novice, but Charles Robinson leading her through things and pulling off Flair’s signature spots was kind of a revelation. Much respect to him for this performance. Let me welcome this match to the Charming Uniquities list, somehow! Boy, the opening Three Corners tag and the George/Robinson match were total opposites of one another. The first was a match with awesome workers doing their best to work around the limitations of a bad match type. The second was a match with less-than-awesome workers using the features of what a one-on-one wrestling match could be to make something greater than it logically should have been. Recap: Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell aren’t BFFs anymore, will fight for the U.S. Championship. Also, Buff Bagwell does a terrible Scott Steiner impression, and Scott Steiner has weird ideas about gender (as is the way of the Steiner Brothers, TBH). At least this Buff Bagwell/Scott Steiner match will have Steiner in heel control for long stretches. That should make it reasonably decent. Buff jumps Steiner before the bell and beats up Steiner before the guy can even get his title unstrapped. Steiner has to stop the onslaught with a low blow, then kicks Buff square in the balls again right in front of the ref. Steiner says some objectionable stuff to the crowd, hits an Oklahoma Stampede on Buff, and poses. Then, they go outside for an obligatory ringside brawl. Back in the ring, Steiner hits another Oklahoma Stampede and then does that cool spot where he slides outside and locks on a chinlock, yanking back against the buckles for some torque. Steiner is a nutbar, though, so he jaws with the crowd and gets caught from behind before re-taking control. Steiner chokes Buff and yells YOU PIECE OF SHIT, C’MON BOY and KISS MY ASS and maybe it’s good that we’re on PPV tonight, huh? Scott’s much better at doing cool offense from top position than his erstwhile bro Rick is, by the way. Steiner lands a pair of suplexes, then goes outside to grab a chair and yell SHUT UP, BITCH at someone. He gets in the ring and swings for the fences, whiffs, and gets the chair clotheslined back into his head. Buff makes a comeback, lands punches and a pair of dropkicks, then hits an inverted atomic drop and an ear clapper *sigh* before accidentally hitting a lariat both on Scott and the ref. Buff picks up the chair and prepares to use it, but Rick Steiner comes down, convinces Buff to win it cleanly with a Blockbuster, and then hammers Buff with the chair when he goes up top. Steiner locks on a Steiner Recliner for the win, and then Scott and Rick beat Buff down after the match. So, they feud for a year, a whole fucking year of shitty matches and angles and fake stretcher jobs, and then just get back together immediately after? OK, sure, thanks WCW. Hype video: Nash and Page meet later tonight for the big gold! Sting and Goldberg clash in their first second singles match ever! I’m watching the show, so I’m already as hyped as I'm going to get, but go ahead! Recap: Once a-fucking-gain, we see this "Ric Flair losing his marbles"package. It wasn’t good the first time I saw it in shows from two weeks ago! Alright, c’mon, let’s get this fucking Ric Flair (w/Arn Anderson and Asya) versus Roddy Piper match out of the way. I think their feud in 1997 was enough, but I guess we’re just doing to do this again two years later, a little bit louder, and a whole lot worse. Asya is named on the chyron now, so I guess I’ll say just one more time how low-rent it is to name her that. To double the cornball nature of WCW aping WWF, the WCW Hotline has a feature called The Ross Report according to Tenay. Tony S. is confused, so Tenay clarifies that it’s just the doofus who runs WCW Magazine, a guy named Ross, who does the report. This is all very pathetic follow-the-leader type stuff. Johnny Boone is the ref, but Ric Flair isn’t having that considering how Boone reffed the George/Robinson match, so he fires Boone ahead of time and makes Robinson the new ref. As I am rooting hardcore for Ric Flair here because I don’t want Piper in a position of power on television (or on television in general), I think it’s a great idea. Flair shit-talks Piper, who slaps him in response and starts the match. Logically, Robinson should call for a DQ at the earliest possible opportunity. Flair takes a walk and is calmed by Arn; Piper grabs the ref’s collar and again, Robinson should DQ him, right? This is the issue with this angle and this match from a logical standpoint. Piper does some awful offense, just the shittiest punches, and Flair flops. Dear reader, can we talk about the fact that Charles Robinson likely is going to work a better Flair match against Gorgeous George than Ric Flair himself is going to manage against Roddy Piper? Can we take this undeniable fact apart? Can your brain handle the truth? In fact, as I watch, this match is not nearly as good as the Robinson/George match. Is 1999 Gorgeous George a better worker than 1999 Roddy Piper? I think there’s an argument for it. Offense isn't everything in terms of work, but that Gorgeous Elbow alone looked better than all of Piper’s offense. Robinson looks the other way as Arn works over Piper outside; then, Flair works over Piper inside the ring. Asya hops in the ring and kicks Piper in the penis while Robinson casually talks to Arn. Piper fires back with strikes, but takes an eye poke. Piper fights through it and lands a back body drop for two. Arn helps out with strikes from ringside, and Piper does some goofy selling of Arn’s punches. This match is turgid waste water. It is mounds of dog poop baking in the sun. It’s bad, is what I’m trying to say through metaphor, and I looked at the progress bar and saw that there’s still too much time to go for my tastes. Dammit. Let’s just cut to the ending because otherwise, I’d be describing these dudes throwing mediocre-to-bad strikes at one another for another two paragraphs. Flair gets a Figure Four locked on, Piper fights out of it and pulls down Flair’s pants, Piper gets pinfall attempts that Charles Robinson is conveniently too distracted to count. Piper gets his own Figure Four on Flair in the center of the ring, so Arn breaks it up. Piper puts a sleeper on Arn, so Flair clubs Piper out of it, but gets put in a sleeper himself. Asya jumps in and forearms Piper; Piper kisses her and locks on a sleeper. Charles Robinson pulls Piper off and gets punched in the face, but Flair is back to his feet, loads his fist, and swings for the fences. He knocks Piper out and Robinson is aware enough to count the three. Let’s move on, please, I beg you. Oh shit, we’re not moving on. Here’s this fucking dope Eric Bischoff. He comes to the ring as a babyface even though he’s an extremely unlikeable person in almost every way. I guess Bischoff has the power to reverse this decision? I don’t know. It’s unclear. Piper and Bischoff hug while Flair has a conniption at ringside. Piper fires Flair. Who knows what the hell is going on. Flair yells YOU SHUT UP, I’LL KICK YOU OUT OF THE GODDAM BUILDING RIGHT NOW at some fan. Good thing we’re on PPV! So Eric Bischoff is the Dipshit Ex Machina that removed Flair from the presidency even though he’s not the President of WCW anymore and thus has no storyline power because he lost that position to Flair in the first place. Make it make sense! Hype video: Goldberg and Sting are gonna go at it NEXT! Goldberg and Sting go at it RIGHT NOW! They immediately fuck up a reversal spot on what looks like maybe a back body drop, or maybe Goldberg just didn’t grab Sting cleanly because they do the spot again and Sting gets powerslammed. Goldberg lariats Sting to the floor, and Sting takes an opportunity to walk around and reconsider his options. Back in the ring, Sting uses his quickness to hit a dropkick on a rope run, then lariat Goldberg to the floor. Goldberg lands on his feet and takes an opportunity to walk around and reconsider his options. Back in the ring, Goldberg blocks an arm drag and turns it into a sloppy cross-arm breaker. Sting reaches the ropes. This match is kind of shitty in the early going, actually, which surprises me. They knuckle lock, but Goldberg breaks the lock and shoots Sting into the ropes, who comes off them with a kick and then a face crusher. They run the ropes again and Sting dropkicks Goldberg’s heavily-braced knee, which was injured in kayfabe by DDP a couple weeks back. Heenan did a good job of pointing out the bracing a couple of minutes before Sting attacked it. Sting locks on a sloppy Boston Crab, but Goldberg powers out. It’s hard to tell who is responsible for what sometimes in a wrestling match, but Goldberg seems off tonight in terms of execution. Sting takes Goldberg over in a headlock, and yeah, this match is still shitty. Fellas, please don’t tell me that Charles Robinson and Gorgeous George are going to have the third-best match on this show at worst. Sting hits a vertical suplex when Goldberg works out of the headlock, but Goldberg no-sells it and hits his front-facelock suplex. He lands a swinging neckbreaker, but sells the knee and only gets two when he finally covers. Goldberg tries a spear and trips as Sting dives out of the way, which actually works even if he didn’t mean it. Sting hits a top-rope clothesline and two Stinger Splashes, but Goldberg catches him on the third attempt and hits a spear that looks more like a Spinebuster. Then, uh, Bret Hart (?!?!) walks down with a chair, clears out the ref, and destroys Goldberg with the chair. This match ends in a fucking DQ. Eat a bag of spoiled Rocky Mountain Oysters, WCW. The Steiner Brothers, who have been on this show far too much for my tastes, run down next and attack both Sting and Goldberg. This whole thing was just terrible. Who booked this crap? Oh yeah, I know the answer to that last question: Kevin Nash is in the final video package of the night. He and DDP are going to mercifully conclude this show, and not a moment too soon, either. Buffer’s out here to hype the crowd and announce the contestants. I have regressed to being un-hyped, but I am interested to see what Page does with Nash. This match could just be okay, or Page could get a minor classic out of Nash that no one talks about anymore because 1999 WCW is confounding and unappealing a lot of the time, or anywhere in between those two poles. They run the ropes to start; Page hooks a Diamond Cutter, but Nash pushes him away and lands a back elbow that sends Page tumbling to ringside. Page gets back in the ring and ducks a Nash punch, then another and another as he lands punches of his own. Nash decides that punching is stupid and lands a knee instead. He shoots Page to the ropes; Page is wise enough to slide out of the ring, but not wise enough to keep his eyes on Nash. He gets knocked off the apron as he jaws with the crowd, then eats the worst parts of an obligatory ringside brawl. Back in the ring, Nash corners Page and lands knees and elbows. Nash tries a Snake Eyes, but Page hops out and lands punches in the corner, then chokes. Nash shoves him away, but Page is persistent. Page keeps getting shoved away, so he just lands a boot to the junk, blocking Nick Patrick’s viewpoint as he does so. Stomp, stomp, choke, and then in a nice callback, Page uses clippers to take the cover off the buckles. But in a new, neat twist on an old Scott Steiner classic, he points out the uncovered buckle to Patrick and then, as Patrick checks it, beans Nash with a microphone for two. Page complains about the count to Patrick, then goes over to Nash, who grabs his tights and yanks him into the uncovered buckle. There’s a standing ten count that ends when Nash crawls over for a cover and only gets two. They stagger to their feet and trade punches. Page wins out and lariats Nash to the floor. Page sizes up Nash as he crawls up toward the apron and lands a baseball slide, then drills Nash with a Diamond Cutter on the floor. Page celebrates when he really should just get back in the ring and let the ref count to ten. But no, he asks for a count on the floor like a dipshit. He tells Patrick FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE, but they do not and never did. This was sort of a dopey spot, which is a rarity for Page, who has used some unique and cool spots in his matches lately. Page rolls Nash back in the ring and only gets two on a cover. He goes back to work, dropping elbows to Nash’s abdomen and landing a few shots to Nash’s knee before wrapping Nash’s knee around the ringpost. Page is too casual about posting Nash’s knee and gets posted himself while talking shit to the crowd as he holds Nash’s legs. Page recovers quickly, gets back in the ring, and lands strikes. He exhorts Nash to fight to his feet, which Nash eventually does; Nash punches and knees his way back into the match.Let me give Nash a bit of credit here, as he limped into a gimpy run to hit a running clothesline. Nash hits Page with Snake Eyes to the exposed buckle. Nash hits a sitdown splash against the ropes, then a big boot and a Jackknife. He covers…and Randy Savage comes in a drops an elbow on Nash, causing another fucking DQ. These motherfuckers booked TWO DQs in their heavily hyped double-main event. And for that matter, if you count Flair/Piper, they booked a stupid screwy finish involving Eric Bischoff and thus spoiled the three most hyped matches on the show with convoluted booking. Speaking of Eric Bischoff, he’s back out here again with Doug Dellinger and Dellinger's mooks. Dellinger escorts Savage out; Bischoff declares that this match MUST CONTINUE to Nick Patrick. This match went from “pretty good, actually” to “sucks” with this nonsense finish. It’s no DQ now, by the way, according to Bischoff, so we’ll see if this ends cleanly or not. Page gets two on a discus clothesline, then locks on a sleeper. Please just end this overbooked mess of a main event. Please. Nash reverses the sleeper, but Page hits a jawbreaker to escape it and gets two on the cover. Now that this is no DQ, Page smartly grabs a chair. He swings it at Nash, who is against the ropes, but Nash ducks and the chair rebounds into Page’s face. Nash covers, but only gets two. He grabs the chair and prepares to tee off, but Page hits a low blow and gets two of his own. Page grabs the chair and gets it big booted back into his face. Nash pulls the straps down and lands another Jackknife that gets three. There was a very good match possible if they had just fucking made it no DQ to begin with and extricated that doofus Bischoff from the proceedings. I think they had a good match around the false ending, actually, and had they been working a no DQ match from the beginning, a lot of the spots in this match would have worked better. I’d like to see this match again as a no DQ from the jump, as a matter of fact, which would be a logical booking direction. But no run-ins, please - just a no DQ fight. In conclusion, FIRE ERIC BISCHOFF, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO ASK YOU TO DO THIS, DR. SCHILLER? HELP A BROTHER OUT ALREADY! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 7 Share Posted July 7 That CR v GG match is so surprisingly entertaining (if maybe a tad to long) surprised you didn't enjoy the triple threat more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 7 Author Share Posted July 7 1 hour ago, zendragon said: That CR v GG match is so surprisingly entertaining (if maybe a tad to long) As someone who often complains about WCW having matches that are too long, I actually thought it was the perfect length. There were no wasted spots in the whole thing. IMO, the match likely being carefully laid out by Savage and Flair laying out all these spots ahead of time, combined with Robinson doing an admirable job of directing traffic in the ring, made it pretty much flawless from a length standpoint. It also might be the encyclopedic example of how a match with even below average workers can be good if you lay it out right beforehand. I've seen too many matches with "meh" workers end up good at worst because of some enterprising road agent. There was a point after 1995 that stretched for maybe five or six years where pretty much every main event and Royal Rumble in the WWF was baseline good because of the agent work. Quote surprised you didn't enjoy the triple threat more My dislike of triple threat matches capped how much I'd enjoy the match. It was the best possible triple threat tag possible, which is high praise from me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 8 Share Posted July 8 18 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Slamboree ’99 notes: even Tony S. on the desk points out the weakness in the thing: The ref just let these two in the ring at the same time, which is illegal, for literal minutes at a time. He never moved to kick one of these fellas out of the ring. I have it like this for the biggest big two company switches in the Nitro Era: 1) Hall and Nash to WCW, 2) Jericho to WWF, 3) Luger to WCW, 4) Madusa to WCW, and 5) Haku to WWF. Those last two I listed because they are almost like a perfect bookend to this era, with Madusa dumping the WWF Women’s title in a trash can at the beginning of the era to indicate that WCW was here to come at the king, and Haku showing up in the Rumble as the WCW Hardcore Champ just weeks before WCW was bought by the WWF. You can convince me otherwise about those last two, though. I just think there’s something poetic about them. I also think Syxx to WCW/X-Pac back to the WWF could fit in those last two spots. And yes, I know I’m leaving the Radicalz to the WWF out, and maybe I shouldn’t, but I just can’t quite place it over any of the other stuff I listed. Recap: Gorgeous George and Charles Robinson fight one another as the proxies for Randy Savage and Ric Flair, respectively. I can’t believe that this dumb match has actually been entertaining. Scott and Rick beat Buff down after the match. So, they feud for a year, a whole fucking year of shitty matches and angles and fake stretcher jobs, and then just get back together immediately after? OK, sure, thanks WCW. who knew that Benoit would set the template for EVERY YOUNG BUCKS MATCH, EVER!?!? i would very much agree with that assessment. My initial thought was that you missed the Radicalz, but upon reflecting, they just kind of existed the first couple years in WWF. And, despite Benoit being the WCW Champ, they didn't really feel missed in WCW. Which is a batshit thing to say. But i'm trying to figure out if i mean that full stop, or just relative to the other jumpers. yes, the GG/CR is basically a hidden gem for '99 WCW. it should be talked about in the same realm as the Bill Alfonso/Beulah match i thought there was some potential for a heel Steiners vs Harlem Heat mini feud, but in typical WCW fashion, that's not what happens. Not a huge loss, mind you, but i guess the fan dynamics swinging so wildly and the complete character makeover of Scott in particular could have brought out something. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 8 Author Share Posted July 8 3 hours ago, twiztor said: i thought there was some potential for a heel Steiners vs Harlem Heat mini feud, but in typical WCW fashion, that's not what happens. Not a huge loss, mind you, but i guess the fan dynamics swinging so wildly and the complete character makeover of Scott in particular could have brought out something. Personally, I think Booker and Scott are far beyond their tag partner brothers and should be moved as far away from them as possible. I'm glad they don't go the Steiners/Harlem Heat tag feud route myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 8 Author Share Posted July 8 Show #189 – 17 May 1999 “The one that definitively proves that whenever WCW tries to ape a late-night TV show sketch, they fail at being entertaining in immeasurable ways” One thing that I have not been looking forward to during this watch-through is Owen Hart’s neglectful manslaughter at the hands of Vincent K. McMahon. It’s on the Sunday after this show, unfortunately, that this happens. Even obliquely through WCW's programming, I’m bummed about having to experience that shit again. Ric Flair gets out of a limo, along with Arn Anderson, Asya, Charles Robinson…and Diamond Dallas Page. YOU’RE STILL THE MAN, some fan yells at DDP. Charles Robinson replaces Piper’s namecard on the WCW President’s door with Flair’s. Oh great, a contested presidency angle. You’re so on the nose, WCW, even though you did this 25 years ago. Gene Okerlund interviews Ric Flair and his brood (minus Page) in the ring. This angle has descended into a complete mess. It’s like someone gave Nash orders to book Flair as an increasingly demented authority figure, and he chose the dumbest way possible to do that. Arn guarantees that Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit will defeat Raven and Saturn for the tag titles later tonight; then, Flair yells a lot. He claims that Bischoff has no authority to make any rulings (true in kayfabe, I think) and that if Ted Turner doesn’t get Bischoff out of the company, he will *sigh* have sex with Jane Fonda. He books himself in a mixed tag match for later in the show: he and Lil’ Naitch versus Randy Savage and Gorgeous George. He also says that DDP is getting a rematch against Kevin Nash for the big gold later tonight since Bischoff re-started a match that he shouldn’t have been able to re-start. Page comes to the ring and lauds Flair’s strong decision making as WCW President. It looks like Page’s Hollywood Squares cap that he's wearing has been autographed. But by whom? Whoopi Goldberg? Bruce Vilanch? Tom Bergeron? The crowd tries to drown out Page with a GOLDBERG chant, but he powers through and introduces Bam Bam Bigelow as his backup. I mean, Flair is a raving lunatic, but he’s right about one thing: In storyline, Eric Bischoff should have zero power unless someone restored it to him. Eric Bischoff cuts a pre-taped interview in which he tries to be a babyface, but it’s like trying to make David Leisure as the Isuzu guy a babyface. This guy is totally untrustworthy and unlikeable. It doesn’t help that I listen to 83 Weeks sometimes and the guy is speeding into old age as (shoot!) unlikeable and untrustworthy as ever. Bischoff promises to make WCW the number one wrestling company in the United States again. See, I told you: You can’t trust these slimy fucks when they make unbelievable promises! Tony S. and Heenan talk about the Steiner Brothers being a working unit again (blergh) and whatever the hell Bret Hart is doing (ugh); then, they kick us over to a video package to hype Bret/Goldberg, which should be good, but which I know will eventually end poorly at the penultimate Starrcade. I think we are firmly in the Bad Place when it comes to WCW until about July of 2000, and even then, it’ll take two or three months after that for things to stabilize. As bad as WCW has gotten, I don’t think it was ever bad for more than about eight straight months of television – August of 1998 to about February/March of 1999. This is going to be a hellacious stretch of television, but if I can get through the next thirteen months of TV, I’ll have made it. Seventeen minutes in and here’s more of that fucking Eric Bischoff pre-tape. SHOW ME A WRESTLING MATCH, YOU DUMB FUCKS. Anyway, Bischoff continues to be entirely unlikeable. At least Bischoff is like, Uh, was I in authority when I re-started the Slamboree main event? Well, I didn’t consider whether or not I was before acting as an authority. OK, sure, bud. Bischoff dares his bosses to come get him for his actions. ONLY FOUR MORE MONTHS, YOU SHITHEAD, AND AS DDP WOULD SAY, THAT’S A SHOOT Tony S. tries to clarify how and why the decision from the Slamboree main event stands based on Bischoff’s words, and then we go right back into this sit-down interview with Bischoff. Bischoff does a worked shoot about how much he loves WCW and how he took his eye off the ball, but he’ll lead WCW back to the promised land. Look, if he had leaned harder on getting drunk with power because the nWo courted him and forgetting where he came from, this could have worked better. I mean, it wouldn’t have worked well at all because, again, it’s Bischoff, but still. Oh look, another limo arrival! It’s Roddy Piper and Eric Bischoff. Tony S. basically sums things up from the Bischoff pre-taped interviews like so: Nick Patrick was allowed to re-start the match no matter what due to his referee’s authority, so the Slamboree main event decision stands. Ric Flair is still the WCW President unless he is removed from office somehow because he won the Slamboree match against Piper. Now, I suppose that the President of WCW can fire the Commissioner of WCW, but that wouldn’t line up with how that role had been handled before. Piper has been the Commissioner of WCW for most of his time in the company, remember. He got the job because he had experience in that role filling in for Gorilla Monsoon in the WWF – this was, if not explicitly stated, obliquely stated as to why WCW felt that Piper was a good fit for the job. Yet, even though Bischoff was President of WCW during that time, he wasn’t able to fire Piper. So what gives? Oh, I know what gives: I’m looking for logic where there is none. Twenty-three minutes in: Still not a single, solitary wrestling match to be had. Mike Tenay called Bret Hart and Bret had some stuff to say that Tenay reports back to us. First off, Nash was on the Tonight Show, I think, though they didn’t show the clip. Nash made a million dollar challenge to Bret for a in-ring meeting on the Tonight Show. Bret’ll be on the Tonight Show this week and will answer the challenge there. YUCK. I mean, I'd rather that it happened because it was likely only dropped due to Owen Hart being callously sent out to die by his criminal boss, but in a vacuum: YUCK. Do you want to see some footage, not stills, of Charles Robinson/Gorgeous George at Slamboree No? You want to see a fucking wrestling match? Well okay, this footage isn’t too long, so we’ll get a match next. This HOT CRUISERWEIGHT OPENER opens the show 25 minutes in. Also, Evan Karagias is in the match. More like a LUKEWARM CRUISERWEIGHT MATCH NEARING THE HALF-HOUR MARK IN HOUR NUMBER ONE. Karagias is getting another title shot at Rey Misterio Jr. Karagias tries to headstand on a whip to the corner, fucks it up, takes a few seconds, and then leaps over the ropes and onto the apron, so that’s how this match is going. Why are we giving Karagias air time on Nitro that Psicosis or La Parka or Blitzkrieg could be getting instead? This guy is sixth of six in the Jung Dragons/Three Count feud! No, wait, seventh of six. I forgot about Leia Meow. Anyway, Rey could wrestle a pogo stick and get a decent TV match out of it, especially if it’s a short match. This is mercifully a short match; Rey lands a top-rope Frankensteiner in about three minutes for the win. Hype for the mixed tag match. Mona is so adorable. Ric Flair hires Buddy Lee Parker into an office job. Also, he promises to push David Flair “right down their throats,” just like Verne and Bill, etc. Look, Greg Gagne was a good tag wrestler! He was a dork who couldn’t cut promos and was purely a tag specialist, but he was good! I cannot defend Erik Watts as a worker or Joel Watts as a commentator in any way, however. Anyway, Flair says that Buddy Lee needs to take a dive at Arn’s signal in his match tonight against David to secure his new position. You know, being meta about pushing the promoter’s kid does not actually make the resulting angle any better. Saying HEY, WE’RE GOING TO PUSH A WRESTLER’S SHITTY KID, BUT WE KNOW HE’S SHIT *wink* *wink* doesn’t make me feel good about having to watch said shitty doofus kid wrestle. Flair brings David and Torrie out of his office where they're waiting and tells him that the fix is in. I thought Ric was mad at David? Did they make up? Oh, wait, Ric’s trying to steal Torrie from David, I think is what’s happening. Maybe? Who the fuck knows, actually. Fuck off, WCW. I don’t want to spend any time with Gene Okerlund. Fuck you. No, don’t have him call anyone down right now. Not even Booker T., who I am a big fan of. Well, Gene didn’t pay ME any fucking attention, so Booker’s down here for an interview now. Booker wants to beat up Rick Steiner tonight, but he really should set his sights higher. He also blows off any suggestion that he’ll be hooking up with Stevie Ray any time soon. Then, he calls himself the true People’s Champion. What next, is he going to start doing a Rock Bottom? Wait, I’m being handed a note…OK, look, this is all beside the point, other than to say that it’s low-rent. Booker quotes Blackstreet to end the interview. Why in the world does Nitro punt the first hour so often? You’d think they’d want to build an audience before RAW comes on. David Flair is out to wrestle Buddy Lee Parker. Charles Robinson refs in his trunks. This match is what you’d expect. Does WCW want to kill Cedar Rapids off as a town? Why would you subject them to this first hour of television? Gorgeous George is a better worker than David Flair, and I feel confident in saying that. If she’s decent in the tag match tonight, I’ll be upgrading that take to her being significantly better. Parker forgets himself a bit and pretty much rolls David, but eases up after reminders from Flair and Arn at ringside. David locks on a Figure Four when Parker misses a top-rope kneedrop and wins. “Thus Sprach” plays for the fiftieth time this hour: It’s time for the mixed tag match. Ric Flair and Charles Robinson (w/Asya) hit the aisle first. Flair grabs a mic and demands that Savage and his ladies show up immediately. Actually, Flair says that he’s going to wrestle Madusa and give her some of what Gorgeous George got, so I guess there’s been a change in the lineup. Ah yes, there is: George is on crutches, so it’ll be Savage and Madusa tagging up instead. Savage cuts a little pre-match promo. I would rather see Mona wrestle than Madusa, but that’s just me. I’m annoyed that WCW pulled off a fun comedy match at Slamboree and then went straight back to the well the next week to tell the same jokes, but with half the effectiveness. I do like the spot where Charles Robinson bounces off the second rope to escape an arm wringer, but gets flattened by a Madusa lariat, though. Macho tags in and the crowd is still behind him even though he’s helping DDP out at every turn. It’s a good thing that Savage still has those nice punches. I dig the rabbit punching he does. Savage punches Flair a whole bunch in an aesthetically pleasing way, but eats a nut shot. Charles Robinson tags in and Savage actually kinda sells for the guy for a second before eating his punches and tossing him across the ring by his hair. Madusa tags in and hits Robinson with a shitty piledriver, but Robinson gets his boot to the ropes on the cover. Robinson tags out, but Madusa hits Flair with a drop toe hold, rides him around the ring like a bull, chops the shit out of him, and hits a TERRIBLE back body drop because she doesn’t have the upper body strength to pull it off. Finally, Flair hits a back suplex to kill her offensive flow. You know what the absolute sicko writing this review thought after this sequence? Yeah, you guessed it: Man, I would pay good money to see Chyna vs. Ric Flair in 1999. Or 2000, for that matter. Chyna working a match in Ric’s formula as the babyface? That would be a classic. Flair starts working Madusa’s leg and then tries a Figure Four, but she wraps him up for an inside cradle that gets two. Flair bitches at the ref and shoves him; the ref shoves him back and he stumbles backwards into a Madusa schoolboy for another two count. Flair takes control with another back suplex and locks on a Figure Four that Madusa survives for a few seconds until Savage gets in the ring and stomps Flair to break the hold. Flair drags Madusa away from her corner when she tries to tag, but she nut shots him and gets a hot tag. Savage hits a dumb (in the best way) spot when both Naitch and Lil’ Naitch go up top for big moves and Savage press slams one, then runs over and press slams the other. Madusa throws forearms at Naitch while Savage drops a Savage Elbow on Lil’ Naitch for three. So, they actually told quite a few different jokes in this match than in the Slamboree match. I cannot fucking believe that this was actually enjoyable. Again, I can’t quite say that it was straight up good, and it wasn’t as good as George/Robinson the night before, but it was exactly the type of match you’d want from this combination, and the crowd was hot for it. I’m telling you, women beating up men in the ring is money! I know it, Ted Turner knew it, and it remains an immutable truth of American wrestling. Gene Okerlund brings Roddy Piper out to try and talk us through this frankly muddled angle regarding who the WCW President is and which guys have what power in the company. Piper claims to be the president, gets a cheap pop for mentioning the Iowa Hawkeyes in a good light, and then proceeds to cut a promo that is legendarily terrible rather than the usual very terrible promo that he typically cuts. Piper has a top ten list of reasons that Flair shouldn’t be president. Here they are: #1: Flair's broke (a fan helps Piper think of this one). If he can’t manage his own finances responsibly, how will he manage WCW’s finances responsibly? This is damned near a shoot. It’s also the only telligible (I'm still establishing this word!) point on the list, so of course it came from the crowd. #2. Flair dressed in women’s clothes once. Oh, let me stop here for a quick edition of Roddy Piper is a Pop Culture Wizard: Barbra Streisand, RuPaul (of course), Hillary Clinton, and a lot of other people and notable things: Dennis Rodman, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Pfizer’s well-known Viagra brand #3. Something about Charles Robinson stalking the previously mentioned RuPaul. #4. Charles Robinson or Ric Flair maybe, I don’t know, got KY Jelly and Y2K confused? #5. Flair thought “The Phantom Menace” was Hillary Clinton, and let’s just agree to avoid any follow-up political jokes and commentary on that one. #6. A naked Ric Flair chased himself around a desk once (???). #7. Flair is Dennis Rodman’s – no, you know what, I’m done trying to follow this gibberish. GET THIS OLD TIRED FUCK WHO CAN’T CUT A PROMO OR WORK A DECENT MATCH THE FUCK OFF MY TELEVISION. FUCK OFF, PIPER, YOU ARE ANTI-FUNNY. STOP GIVING THIS FUCKHEAD QUIETER AND QUIETER PITY CHEERS, IOWA! Do you like extremely awful extended segments? I hope you do! Piper calls Eric Bischoff down to the ring. Bischoff is penitent as Piper goes off about how miserable Bisch has made Piper for three years. Piper forgets the colors of all the different nWo offshoots, which is the one thing about this segment that isn’t his fault. Fucking nWo offshoots. Bischoff says he’ll be a better man going forward. Randy Savage comes to the ring to join the proceedings. His squad of ladies join him. Bisch tries to shake hands with Savage, who no-sells him. Savage wants a shot at Kevin Nash for the title because he had Page on the hook for one before Bischoff ruined that by ordering a re-start to the match. Piper says he’s the commissioner (look, again, I don’t blame him for being confused) and that Savage’ll have to wait in line, and Savage says he’s not waiting in line for a shot. Gorgeous George then hammers Piper in the back with a crutch and Savage piledrives him. Meanwhile, Madusa kicks Bischoff in the back of the head, and Savage slams him and climbs the ropes for a Savage Elbow. Kevin Nash comes down and stares Savage down; Savage climbs back down - oh yeah, Bischoff and Nash are conceivably still buddies in storyline – and grabs a mic and says that he wants a title shot because Nash is an “ass…with no guts” and a “geek.” Then Savage says that Nash should just give him the belt like he did to Hogan. You know, Savage was squeezed out of the Wolfpac, so his anger at Nash makes sense. Nash is like YOU BOUGHT THOSE WOMEN LOLZ and then accepts a match with Savage for the title. I’m assuming that Savage wins it because we’ve got to squeeze two more Savage world title wins into the next six months. Wait, I guess Nash is wrestling DDP for the title tonight because Flair gave him the shot to start the show, but my primary guess is that Nash wins tonight and then drops it to Savage in the next week or three. My secondary guess is that Savage helps Page win the gold back tonight and then gets a shot at DDP (who he owned back in 1997, so it makes sense that he’d want to have Page as his opponent over almost anyone else). Also, this was the long-form angle that went up against the opening of RAW. Wow, I can’t believe that this tone-setting segment only led Nitro to putting up a 3.8 against Raw’s 6.4. Hardcore Hak (w/Chastity) enter the gladiatorial arena. Of course, they enter said arena to talk. He says everyone in Iowa STINKS and that he’s SUPER HARDCORE. He yells about being a hardcore champ and embellishes his resume again. Then poor Finlay, who is going to damned near lose his leg in the next couple of months if I recall correctly, comes on the video boards and says that he’s coming to the ring to fuck Hak up. This fuckin’ sucks, man, just hurry up and have this same-y garbage match. Finlay requests the mic and uses it to hit Hak in the head instead of continuing the talky-talk. We proceed to get a match that starts out as a brawl with some weapon shots before descending into what I think of as the predominant U.S. match style today, which is a bunch of empty calorie-style spots to pop a crowd instead of an interesting and layered bit of storytelling. Unless you’re wrestling in a big match on a WWE PLE, I guess. I have seen maybe five WWE matches since late in 2016, but I know that house style. Anyway, they do some stunts for awhile, and then Brian Knobbs comes down and attacks them both. Hulk Hogan finally leaves TV injured for awhile, and they bring back Brian Knobbs on a weekly basis. Dualities, man. Eventually, they just call this a no contest. What a waste of time and energy on everyone’s parts. Rick Steiner has a little bleached blond streak in his goatee, which is actually a pretty good visual marker of his heel turn and re-alignment with his brother. Booker T.'s music plays, but oh look, Booker is laid out on the concrete in the back. Meanwhile, Rick Steiner talks too much and offers an open challenge for his title. This guy SUCKS. No one comes out after like fifteen seconds, so Steiner leaves the ring…and Sting meets him on the ramp. Sting slumming it for the TV title is kind of a bummer, as is Sting being relegated to a mini-feud with Rick fucking Steiner. Sting bashes Rick around at ringside before tossing Rick back into the ring. Sting misses a Stinger splash, and Rick settles in for some top control on offense. Sting fires up, so Rick clubs him back down. Steiner punches and hits forearms and chokes Sting in and out of the ring. Sting makes another comeback with an inverted atomic drop and a dropkick. He lands two clotheslines and a diving clothesline after that. Rick tumbles to the floor, and Scott Steiner comes out to join him. They surround the ring, but Lex Luger runs in. For the save? Yes, for the save. You never know when 1999 WCW is going to have someone make a random turn. Sting and Luger run the Steiners off. Did anyone reading this subscribe to WCW’s Slam Society? It was a short-lived thing, I think. If you did subscribe, share details, please. Konnan heads to the ring wearing an upturned visor and a Miami Heat Tim Hardaway jersey. If you didn’t know anything else about this show, you’d know it was set in the late 1990s just based on Konnan’s attire. Konnan shouts out Tommy Boy Records after hitting the ol' roulette. Konnan picks up his HOT feud from 1998 with Curt Hennig once more. Iowa chants MR. PERFECT at Hennig for some reason. It’s not an insult, folks. Hennig tries to show out with a somersault, but Konnan rolls him early, gives him ten punches in the corner, and causes him to Flair Flop and then roll out of the ring. Hennig stalls a lot. He waits until Konnan breaks his line of sight to slide in and attack, so the stalling had a point. Hennig hits some chops, but gets chopped in turn and bails. Hennig comes over to Heenan at the desk and complains about how his brand new wrestling boots are fitting, then wanders around some more. He checks his nipple for injury after that Konnan chop. We go to a break. Back from break, Konnan is dragging Hennig back into the ring to a pop. I actually think that Hennig’s stalling this match, while not top-level, is pretty good. Konnan hits a run of offense until Hennig is able to clothesline his way out of trouble. He lands stomps, punches, chokes, and a loud chop. Hennig snapmares Konnan over and then lands his signature neck snap before going back to choking and striking. Hennig locks on a standing knee bar for a short while, then generally targets the knee going forward. Hennig locks on, geez, what is that? A cross-ankle breaker? A cross-knee breaker? I genuinely don’t know what this move is. Mickey Jay breaks the move when Konnan gets the ropes, then backs Hennig down when Hennig gets in his face. Hennig goes back to a knee bar while Konnan tries to yank Hennig’s hair and neck to escape. They get back to standing, and Konnan fires up after Hennig disrespectfully slaps him; they trade slaps, and when Hennig goes up for a sledge, Konnan sticks a boot up to counter and starts his comeback. He blows off the knee work to leapfrog Hennig and hit a back kick and sit-out facebuster. Hennig barges into Mickey Jay, who bumps, and then Savage comes out and says that Konnan is going to be sent a message for his buddy Kevin Nash. Hennig comes from behind and knocks Konnan over the top rope; Savage tosses Konnan into the steps and puts him back in the ring. Hennig hits a Perfect Plex as Jay recovers in time to count three. That wasn’t a good match and it was way too long just to end with Savage interference, but Hennig’s stalling was at least somewhat entertaining. Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko (w/Arn Anderson) are taking their shot at Raven and Saturn (w/Kanyon) for the tag titles. Kanyon takes his first trip down the new ramp, stumbles, and then has an animated conversation with Raven about how bad the new ramp sucks. I think WCW debuting a new stylized ramp to fit their new logo, but not having it be safe or easy to walk down, is like the most late-stage WCW shit thing that could possibly exist. Malenko and Saturn start off with some slick chain wrestling. Saturn ends up forearming Malenko off the apron and to the floor, dispatching of Benoit, and then diving onto the floor and Benoit. Saturn and Raven hit their signature Total Elimination variant that replaces Kronus and a jumping roundhouse kick with Raven and a running lariat. Raven loses control soon after and Benoit tags in, but they have a nice rope-running exchange that ends with Raven scoring punches, then booting a charging Benoit and hitting another lariat for two. Raven and Saturn combine on a top-rope crossbody to Benoit in the electric chair spot, and the Horsemen sense that things are slipping away from them and reset the match by bailing and taking some time to re-gather themselves. The crowd chants HORSEMEN SUCK, and Benoit and Malenko (and Arn) are pretty good at garnering heel heat in this run. Benoit re-enters the ring and controls Saturn, then quickly tags Malenko. Malenko shoots Saturn into the ropes, but ducks down and gets kicked and overhead suplexed. Quick tag for Saturn: Saturn hits a drop-toehold on Malenko and sets him up for a Raven elbowdrop to the back of the head that gets two. I really like Raven and Saturn’s quick-tag style of offense. They’re a fun team with some enjoyable double-team moves. Saturn is back in after some more doubling up on Malenko and then sinks in a headlock that Malenko fights up from. Malenko tries to turn the tide, but runs right into a kneelift and then is punished on another quick tag. It looks as though the Horsemen are just never going to get on track, but Benoit sends an illegal boot to Raven’s chest to break a Raven chinlock on Malenko. That draws Saturn over, which gives Malenko time to get to Benoit and score a tag. Even that doesn’t help, though. Raven reverses a Benoit whip and then lands triple verticals for two. Raven works Benoit back into the corner and tags Saturn, then slams Benoit in place for a Saturn guillotine legdrop for two. Then, and this sucks, there’s a commercial break. It sucks because we come back to Raven being the FIP. We didn’t even see how that happened. It sucks because I really liked the extended shine segment for Raven and Saturn; I was drawn into this match. That break ruined it because now Raven’s already fighting up from a beating to get a hot tag, and it doesn’t feel like he endured enough because I didn’t see him have to survive. Raven gets a hot tag to Saturn, who gets backed into the Horsemen corner. He tries to fight his way out, but Benoit hangs Saturn over the top rope with a front suplex. Malenko tries to capitalize by yanking Saturn to the floor and holding him in place, but boy, the Horsemen cannot seem to get on track; Saturn moves as Benoit tries a baseball slide, and Benoit clears Malenko out. Malenko recovers quickly enough to land an illegal low dropkick to Saturn’s head after Benoit manages a drop toehold, though, and then he tags in and attacks Saturn’s knee. Benoit and Saturn now make a couple of quick tags and continue to wear down Saturn’s knee with strikes and kneebars. They double-wishbone Saturn and seem like maybe they’ve calmed things down, but Saturn hooks Malenko for a desperation overhead release belly-to-belly and gets a hot tag to Raven. Raven clears house and is handed a chair by Kanyon. Malenko takes a headfirst dive into the chair on a drop-toehold, but Benoit breaks up Raven’s cover at two. Raven and Saturn next hook up on a front suplex/top-rope splash combo, but that doesn’t get three, either. They pair off for Irish whips, and after a series of ducks and clotheslines, Benoit is the only one standing. He tries a top-rope headbutt on Raven, but whiffs. Then, the jibber jabber happens. Kanyon gets on the apron and Arn takes the chance to hit Raven with a tire iron. However, the ref turns toward Raven and Benoit spilled on the outside, and misses Kanyon shoving Malenko off the top rope and onto Saturn’s shoulders for a DVD. Saturn drills it and gets three as the ref turns back around and sees the cover. This was fantastic, and if we hadn’t had a chunk taken out of it, it might be on my Favorites list. They had minutes and minutes of time to do bad talking, but they didn’t have time to build up to the first hot tag segment? Stupid-ass WCW. Anyway, I could watch these teams wrestle one another a million, billion times. They have fantastic chemistry to the point that this is one of my favorite little feuds on my watch-through. We follow Raven and Saturn to the back, where Bam Bam Bigelow talks shit to the champs and challenges them. Kanyon tells Bammer to get a partner, and Bam Bam seriously considers it. Diamond Dallas Page comes to the ring with about eleven minutes left in the recording, so to my disappointment, this is probably going to be a short match that is filled with fuckery. As I said in the Slamboree review, I think there’s a lot of potential in a fifteen or twenty minute Page/Nash no disqualification match. Nash lands a few soupbones to start the proceedings. The crowd chants for GOLDBERG, who hasn’t been on this show, now that they mention him. Meanwhile, Nash clotheslines Page to the floor. Page wanders and yells at the crowd, then consults with Bam Bam Bigelow, who joins him at the foot of the ramp. Bigelow’s support doesn’t mean much, though; Nash punches him, hits him with Snake Eyes, and then gets two off a lariat. Bigelow hops up on the apron and Mickey Jay must still be concussed from getting cleared out a couple matches ago, because he just watches Bigelow and Nash trade punches without doing anything, then counts two for Page when Nash turns around into a lariat. Poor Mickey Jay, too out of it to remember the rules of professional wrestling. Bigelow chokes Nash (behind Jay’s back, at least); Page chokes Nash. This is a zero match, a null, and it’s a crime because Page is very good right now, maybe even great. Just get to the wonky finish already. Page gets two on a diving clothesline from the top. He locks on a chinlock, then grinds his elbow into Nash’s temple and covers for two before going back to the chinlock. Nash works to his feet and elbows his way out, but Page counters with a swinging neckbreaker for two. Page tries a side Russian, but only gets another two. Bigelow gets on the apron, again in front of the ref, to try and help out, but Nash shoots Page into Bigelow, then scores a couple of two counts off that bump and a follow-up lariat. Nash turns up the offense and hits a big boot, so Bigelow jumps in and gets cleared out. Randy Savage runs down and clobbers Nash in the back, and that’s when Mickey Jay decides that he’s seen enough and calls for the bell. Okay, sure. Nash eats a three-man beatdown. Page and Savage dap each other up. Why are they friends now? Explain. Savage tosses the ref out of the ring and then continues to attack Nash, then puts lipstick on him to indicate that he is very feminine, which is, as we have learned from '90s U.S. pro wrestling, a very bad trait to have unless you’re a woman wearing only a halter top and booty shorts, in which case it's good. A fan runs into the ring, throws up the bullhorns, and eats punches from Savage. I’d be honored to take a punch from Randy Savage. Savage goes right back to punching and stomping Nash, then drops an elbow on him and freaks out on the guys at commentary before the show ends. This show was ass, and two good matches were never going to save it. -2 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 8 Author Share Posted July 8 Thunder Interlude – show number sixty-three – 20 May 1999 "The WCW Gang convinces me that Team Madness is pretty great" We’re still a while out from a PPV, so Thunder is probably going to do more set up for the next PPV than replaying stuff to lead into the PPV like last time… Here’s Gene Okerlund in the aisle to start with an interview…Okerlund introduces Buff Bagwell…Buff’s stick work is awful…He loves poop jokes so much that I’m surprised that he didn’t get along swimmingly with VKM…Somewhere in there, he threatens the Steiner Brothers and also Randy Savage…He challenges Savage to a match later in the show… Recap: Slamboree happened…It was sort of a mess… Recap: The Steiners are back together again… I spoke too soon about Thunder being Recap Central, maybe…And these are looooooooooong recaps, too… Rick Steiner defends the TV title against Scott Putski for some reason…Rick wears a Wolfpac t-shirt…Yeah, the days of the Wolfpac as an over stable are dead and in the ground…The waste of the Wolfpac’s overness is a top five booking mistake in WCW’s Nitro Era…Putski eats his squash and is as bored by it as we are…Steiner wins with a top-rope bulldog and a shitty armbar that he can barely figure out how to put on after killing off a muted Putski comeback… Ric Flair and the Horsemen call Barry Horowitz over in the backstage area and ask him to take a dive for David…I kinda get a kick out of the growing disbelief on Horowitz’s face as he listens to the request…Ric forcibly shakes Barry’s hand…Arn and Ric ask if poor old Barry needs some more serious convincing from Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit…Ah, Barry now shakes Ric’s hand reluctantly, but willingly… Juventud Guerrera lasciviously signals for his Juvi Driver, then heads to the ring to face Billy Kidman…Tenay announces that Hulk Hogan will be on the next Nitro…Man, it’s only been a month…I just want Hogan to go away for a while…Vince Russo will forever be a super babyface in my eyes for making that happen…Kidman and Juvi stalemate on a couple of collar-and-elbows and give one another clean-ish breaks in the corner…They stalemate again and just go straight to forearms and shoves…There is a squee for Kidman, so Juvi goes to the corner and yells at the fans, drawing some solid heel heat…The pace quickens…Juvi flips out of a back suplex and lands a lariat…He can’t keep control and gets his legs kicked out from under him on a rope run…He wildly bumps and then stumbles right up into a lariat that sends him to the floor…Kidman follows with a crossbody to the floor as we head to break… Back from break, Kidman’s still leading Juvi…He lands a back suplex that he turns into a slam, then locks on a chinlock after Juvi kicks out of the cover…Kidman quickly gets Juvi back to his feet and shoots him into the ropes, but Juvi lands a facebuster and then walks around the ring, taunting the fans and peacocking while Kidman recovers…Juvi tries punches in the corner and predictably gets powerbombed out of his attempt…Kidman whiffs shortly after on a corner splash and dinks his head off the post, then tumbles all the way outside the ring… Juvi’s developed a solid heel character…He is consistently easily distracted by the crowd and would rather preen or jaw at the crowd than press his advantage…When he gets reversed – like he does here when he gets backdropped out of a powerbomb attempt – there is no doubt that he asked for it…Juvi does slam Kidman and go up for a splash, taking as much time as he wants…He dives into double boots…They reverse suplex and gourdbuster attempts until Juvi lands on the apron and snaps Kidman’s neck across the cables…Juvi follows up with a springboard headscissors and a diving crossbody to the floor of his own… Juvi dumps Kidman back into the ring and takes forever to follow…He dives right into a perfectly-shot counter dropkick that looks excellent…Kidman and Juvi flip out of one another’s moves until Kidman plants Juvi up top…Juvi forearms Kidman to the mat and preps for a 450…Kidman’s up early and crotches him…Kidman climbs back up and lands a superplex…He covers for 2.9…Kidman tries a powerbomb and gets rolled up, but that only gets two…Who will make the last mistake in this match?...It’s Juvi, who hits a missile dropkick and then takes a ton of time to motion for the Juvi driver…Kidman reverses that into a Sky High for two…He picks Juvi up and tries to slam him into position for an SSP…Juvi hops out and tries another Juvi Driver, but Kidman turns that into an inside cradle for three…Oh Juvi, had you just hit that thing ASAP the first time, you might have won…Very good television match, of course… I dig Kaz Hayashi, but I don’t understand two things…1) Why he’s still wearing Glacier’s gear…2) Why he’s earned a WCW World Cruiserweight Championship shot…Rey Misterio Jr. keeps being fed cupcakes when Psicosis should get a rematch already, dammit!...Kaz heels it up and disrespectfully slaps the champ to being the match…Well, as far as cupcakes go, Kaz is like a billion times better than Evan Karagias…They have a cool spot where Kaz snapmares Rey and sends a low dropkick to the back of his dome, so then Rey gets up and does the same to him, and an irate Kaz goes nose to nose with Rey after recovering…Kaz lands a lariat and slaps Rey again…Rey scores an armdrag and arm wringer on a rope run, so Kaz goes to the eyes… Rey is very over at this point, and it’s impressive to me that WCW’s apparently going to waste it all…Like, to the point that Rey is positioned back down the card and wrestling for the Cruiserweight Tag titles on the last show, if I recall correctly…Kaz takes over, lands an elbow, and then taunts the crowd…Rey uses his speed to dodge a Kaz corner charge and hit a diving headscissors…Rey leaps into a seated position to punch Kaz, and Kaz dumps him backward and over the top rope… And here comes Randy Savage and the ladies…Great, let’s treat this match like an afterthought…Savage gives Rey some props while Rey struggles in a chinlock…Savage accepts Buff’s challenge from earlier, then quotes a Prince Bangles song…Rey lays around in a resthold out here while Savage bigs up Rey for beating Kevin Nash…He tries to recruit Rey while Rey works out of a nerve hold…Boy did this whole segment fall apart [Editor's note: And then the segment comes right back together and makes some great television!]…Rey kicks out of a Kaz powerbomb at two…I guess Savage wants Rey to agree to a partnership with him on account of their shared dislike of Nash… So, there’s a commercial break in the middle of all this…We come back almost immediately to Rey drilling a top-rope rana to beat Kaz…Savage gets in the ring, boots Kaz out of the ring, and then pitches Rey…The fans want this to happen, and actually, as much as I complained about the match being an afterthought, I want to see Rey, Savage, and the ladies running around and causing chaos…Now, Madusa came out wearing caution tape like a sash…And now, she’s taken it off and tightened it up to make it something that you could choke someone out with…But I’m hoping that she doesn’t need to use it because Rey accepts… JOIN TEAM MADNESS, YOU IDIOT…Sorry, I’m now excited about the possibility…Aw, this little twerp isn’t going to do it…”I’ve got other plans?”…”I’ve got other plans?”…That’s like if eighteen-year-old me got asked on a date by Chae and said, Oops, no, I’ve got other plans…You deserve to get beaten up, dummy…Rey declines even after Savage asks him to reconsider, so George distracts him with a shove and Savage clotheslines him…Rey makes a comeback, but George and Mona run a distraction…Madusa kicks Rey in the gut and then Macho piledrives him…Kidman runs out for the save and has momentum initially, but Madusa gets in a kick that allows Savage to get control and hit a piledriver…They mark up these cruiserweight doofuses with lipstick… Konnan runs down for another save, and this crowd is now nuclear…Konnan goes for ten punches in the corner, and George wanders over and gives him a ball shot…Savage goes up and drops a Savage Elbow…Mona and George choke out Rey against the ropes…Mona’s out here throwing stomps in heels…Anyway, this segment fucking ruled, aside from treating Kaz/Rey like it was unimportant…I think it’s the combination of wrestlers in the ring who I never would have guessed would have crossed paths in a segment and the promise of Savage vs. Rey…I hope we get it, even as broken down as Savage is…Hell, give me Mona/Kidman or Mona/Rey while you’re at it… Recap: Raven and Saturn and Bam Bam, oh my! Horace Hogan and Vincent tag up against Raven and Saturn (w/Kanyon)…I sure hope Horace and Vincent aren’t getting a title shot…Oh who am I kidding, they obviously are…It’s WCW…For once, it’s the nWo that is outnumbered at ringside…THE FLOCK EXPLODES as Raven and Horace brawl…Saturn and Raven are so much fun…Saturn even has a fun sequence with the carcass of Virgil…The dude takes the modified Total Elimination, even!...This is the most fun Virgil’s been in ring since he killed some jobber on a random 1992 Superstars… Kanyon and Raven switch shirts and Kanyon gets on the apron to take the tag in Raven’s stead…OK, sure, why not, fuck it…Larry Z. enjoys the remnants of the nWo getting rolled by a pack that outnumbers them…I do too, actually…Horace and Virgil get a decent segment of control…Raven and Kanyon switch shirts again and Raven gets back on the apron…Saturn has to endure a couple of two counts and double-teams, but he never feels much in trouble…In fact, Horace and Virgil are in control for too long…They simply don’t read as any kind of threat…Saturn eventually gets a hot tag…Raven runs over both of his opponents, then introduces a steel chair into the proceedings…He gets two after hitting a chair-assisted drop-toehold…Horace gets the chair and swings, but hits Virgil…Virgil eats a DVD and gets double-pinned for three by Raven and Saturn both… Review: Ric Flair needs patsies to feed to his dopey son David… Dopey son David (w/Ric) faces Barry Horowitz next…The other Horsemen come down to make sure Barry does the J-O-B…They get on the apron to remind Barry of his duties when Barry’s got a little too much control of Ric’s goofy kid…Barry hilariously telegraphs a corner charge that he whiffs so that David can lock on a Figure Four…I hate this angle, make it stop… Recap: Randy Savage has beef with everyone except, somehow, Diamond Dallas Page… We’re going to squeeze a Disco Inferno match into this show even with a Macho/Buff main event on deck and only thirteen minutes left to go…Disco’s not wearing a Wolfpac shirt anymore…Boy, they just let the whole thing peter out!...I know I’ve written this before, but I can’t believe they did it!...There was money in having the nWo be defeated, and lots of it…Curt Hennig comes to the ring to face Disco…Tenay did mention that Disco is still in the Wolfpac, and he’s wearing black and red, but still… Anyway, the match…It exists for one purpose…To show how nutty and dangerous that Team Madness is…Savage and his pack of bad-ass ladies come down and attack Nash’s annoying friend who Nash only kinda puts up with, Disco…Disco actually jumped Savage as Savage entered the ring…Savage bailed and lured Disco near the ladies, who dragged him off the apron when he tried to chase Savage back into the ring…That allows Savage to get the drop…Savage posts Disco and drags his face across the cement under the ringside mats…Buff runs down for the save and to start the main event…Buff knocks Savage right into Madusa and knocks her down…The match before this happens was nothing worth discussing… So, Buff beats Savage around the ringside area and then continues the assault back in the ring…Gonna be honest, Savage made like three or four guys feel more important than they did before they ran into him on this show…If only Savage and not Hogan was the guy whom Bischoff fell in love with…Anyway, Savage fights back, but struggles to contain Buff…Buff hits a nice dropkick for two…Buff puts on a chinlock that is so ugly, even Larry Z. critiques his form…Savage grabs Buff’s tights and tosses him to the floor in desperation… Savage sends Buff into the guardrail and deposits him back in the ring…Buff gets a flash pin for two before Savage takes back over…Buff fights out of the corner and hits punches and an elbow for two…Buff chokes Savage against the ropes, so the ladies swing at him…Buff grabs Madusa, and Savage slithers out and drops an elbow to the back of Buff’s neck…Savage dumps Buff outside, beats on him, and chokes him by jabbing a chair into his throat as he lays against the guardrail…It’s a double count-out…Madusa slides the chair to Savage as Savage puts Buff back in the ring…Savage continues to choke Buff with the chair, and George and Madusa come in to hold the chair in place while Savage goes up for a Savage Elbow…Dellinger and his mooks come out to block the leap…Savage hops down and starts punching refs and mooks… Is it a hot take to say that Team Madness rules?...Because I think Team Madness rules…If we absolutely must do this whole “bust up matches, run in on every other segment” deal with anyone, then doing it with Team Madness is alright with me…Add to that a fun Juvi/Kidman match, and I dug this Thunder even with all the unnecessary down time for recaps…I give it a WOOOO… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 7 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Personally, I think Booker and Scott are far beyond their tag partner brothers and should be moved as far away from them as possible. I'm glad they don't go the Steiners/Harlem Heat tag feud route myself. you are correct, of course. the feud didn't need to be revisited, wouldn't have been good in-ring, and both Booker and Scott had outgrown their brothers. But for some reason, i was sufficiently intrigued. Perhaps specifically because of that last point. Seeing them build a tag match and short feud around the concept of the younger brothers surpassing the elders could really have meant something, in a 'we want the audience to connect that these two guys have outgrown their roots' kinda way. But, this being WCW, it would have been shit. They would have gotten none of that across. It's better off to let it live on in my head. 5 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Show #189 – 17 May 1999 Does WCW want to kill Cedar Rapids off as a town? Have you been to Cedar Rapids? It would be a mercy killing. This is the same town that hosted NWO Souled Out btw..... 1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said: Thunder Interlude – show number sixty-three – 20 May 1999 Is it a hot take to say that Team Madness rules?...Because I think Team Madness rules… you're not the only one. It is a stable that doesn't burn long, but does burn bright. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 You keep asking for Russo... hope you like "on a pole matched" (we are not that far from the return of Judy bagwell are we?) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 7 hours ago, zendragon said: You keep asking for Russo... hope you like "on a pole matched" (we are not that far from the return of Judy bagwell are we?) For the record, I think we need to clarify my thoughts on getting to the Russo era. 26.9% of it is wanting Eric Bischoff out of power, no matter the cost. 19.7% of it is wanting to get to the Russo era so I can get through it as quickly as possible and get to the good stuff on the back end of WCW's life span 18.5% is wanting to see the back of Hogan and Bischoff for good at BatB 2000. 16.3% of it is wanting to get rid of Kevin Nash in the head booking position. 14.2% of it is wanting to see if the Russo-headed booking period (not the one where he shared power with Bischoff) is creatively better than, worse than, or equal to the stretch that Bischoff booked from about August of 1998 through January of 1999. 7.9% of it is just for the sake of all the fuckery. I know that adds up to 103.5% and not 100%, but this is a review of late-stage WCW, so I think it's only right that I fucked up the numbers. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 I'm reminded reading these reviews just how much "not enough wrestling on the wrestling shows" was a common complaint (on RAW as well as nitro) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 5 minutes ago, zendragon said: I'm reminded reading these reviews just how much "not enough wrestling on the wrestling shows" was a common complaint (on RAW as well as nitro) RAW's issue was that most of the matches they did have were two or three minutes long. Nitro's issue is that they have too many matches that run eight, nine, ten minutes for no reason other than to have a long (for television) match. If you have a bunch of talking and recap, giving us (for example) Hugh Morrus versus Jerry Flynn for nine minutes is not the way to sate most fans' desire for wrestling. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 27 minutes ago, zendragon said: I'm reminded reading these reviews just how much "not enough wrestling on the wrestling shows" was a common complaint (on RAW as well as nitro) 19 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said: RAW's issue was that most of the matches they did have were two or three minutes long. Nitro's issue is that they have too many matches that run eight, nine, ten minutes for no reason other than to have a long (for television) match. If you have a bunch of talking and recap, giving us (for example) Hugh Morrus versus Jerry Flynn for nine minutes is not the way to sate most fans' desire for wrestling. i wonder if Bischoff & co. heard that people were upset about the short matches, and this was their way to be "better than"? Seems like their line of thinking. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 On the subject of Jericho leaving... Memory servers that I was in WWF's main event scene and WCW's mid card. But when Jericho goes to WWF (along with The Radicalz and Raven going to ECW) I was officially out 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 12 minutes ago, zendragon said: On the subject of Jericho leaving... Memory servers that I was in WWF's main event scene and WCW's mid card. But when Jericho goes to WWF (along with The Radicalz and Raven going to ECW) I was officially out Once the Y2J countdown stuff started on WWF programming, I was extremely hyped. That's probably my favorite build for an upcoming debut. Jericho was very over when he did debut, so I guess a lot of the crowd at WWF events were also watching WCW in 1998. Honestly, I don't remember any of the WCW stuff that I'm watching now. What I do recall is because I read about it at Rajah or Online Onslaught or DDT Digest, but I don't think I saw any of this either in the original run or when I watched about a decade back and tapped out in 1998 (I think in August or September, as I didn't re-watch the Warrior stuff on that run). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 14 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said: Once the Y2J countdown stuff started on WWF programming, I was extremely hyped. That's probably my favorite build for an upcoming debut. Jericho was very over when he did debut, so I guess a lot of the crowd at WWF events were also watching WCW in 1998. Honestly, I don't remember any of the WCW stuff that I'm watching now. What I do recall is because I read about it at Rajah or Online Onslaught or DDT Digest, but I don't think I saw any of this either in the original run or when I watched about a decade back and tapped out in 1998 (I think in August or September, as I didn't re-watch the Warrior stuff on that run). I was a huge Jericho fan and so excited for the countdown but ended up having to work that night so when I got home I asked my little brother and sister if it was Jericho and they told me it was about Jesse Ventura so I didn't even watch the tape, it took my brother and sister 24ish hours to talk me into watching Raw, so their little rise worked a little TOO well! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 Weirdly this is the WCW I remember (or if I don't remember it I was probably watching RAW) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 9 Share Posted July 9 People who bitch about the final season of Lucha Underground should have to sit through some of these shows 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 Show #190 – 24 May 1999 “The one that promises of a bunch of bad angles and crass promos to come, like a gateway to a year wandering the wrestling desert in WCW” For the second time in a couple of weeks, the ring bell tolls for a dead wrestler, this time for Owen Hart. Opening recap: The Steiners get back together, stomp dudes out, get a new challenge from Sting and Lex Luger, who (if it holds) has gone face -> heel -> face in five months and has barely been on television during that time because of injury besides. More opening recap: Ric Flair is still the WCW President for now, until Bischoff gets it back somehow. Also, Randy Savage is beefing with everybody. And so are the Steiners, but we just saw that in the previous recap! I heard on 83 Weeks that Randy Savage’s Savage Elbow on Charles Robinson last week collapsed Robinson’s lung. Um, ouch. Bam Bam Bigelow continues to tease the Jersey Triad forming up, first by telling an arriving Raven and Saturn that they’d never be tag champs without Kanyon, and second by jumping them along with Diamond Dallas Page. The Nitro Girls do some dancing. Kimberly’s back on the team now that Scott Steiner has moved on to harassing people who can actually fight back effectively. Tony S. gives his condolences to the Hart Family for Owen passing away after being tied to a zipline with a five-dollar clamp that wouldn’t hold a file folder closed by that piece of shit Vincent K. McMahon. We go straight to the desk after commentary is done talking. Van Hammer and Chavo Guerrero Jr. both get jobber entrances. Hammer’s dropped the hippie stuff and is now dressed in black. Hammer unloads early, but Chavo uses his agility to hit a dropkick and a drop toehold. Hammer goes to the eyes to regain control, but Chavo slides out of a press slam and goes on offense. That doesn’t last long; Chavo tries ten punches in the corner and gets reversed and bealed from his position on the second rope. Chavo fights back, but struggles mightily with the size disadvantage. Hammer can’t get three on a legdrop, then can’t get three on a Cobra Clutch slam. Hammer tries a bearhug next, and Chavo tries to punch out of it, so Hammer slides Chavo down his back and then hits a big spinebuster for three. That was a decent little bout. Chavo is sorely underutilized, though. Hype video: Randy Savage makes everyone a target, but especially the champ, Kevin Nash. Gene Okerlund calls Disco Inferno down for an interview. Disco looks pretty somber, with his face all black and blue from that Randy Savage beating last week on Thunder. Disco is very mean: He says that the ladies in Team Madness look like “three chicks…you pick up at a bowling alley at three in the morning.” As a bowler, let me assure you that some of us are attractive! Then he uses the phrase “Macho Man’s travelin’ show of pimps and hoes,” and yeah, WCW is trying very hard to be the WWF, except with longer TV matches. Disco declares that Macho targeted the younger talent on the previous Thunder because he’s threatened by them. Disco promises retribution from the young guys. ONE! TWO! ONE TWO THREE, HIT ME! That’s almost as good as the glass breaking or IF YA SMELL in my humble sicko wrestling fan opinion. Here comes Ernest Miller and Sonny Onoo to bust in on the proceedings. Miller runs down Disco for crying about Savage beating him down. Disco is serious for once and tells Miller to beat it. Then the Cat and Gene Okerlund, who have surprisingly good comedic chemistry as we’ll see from time to time in the rest of this watch-through, get into it. The Cat tells Gene to get his bird-legged ass out of the ring, basically, and shoves him a bit, while Okerlund threatens to sue and gets indignant over the Cat’s description of his aging body. The Cat gets in Disco’s face, so Disco punches him and then stomps a mudhole in him. Onoo grabs Disco’s leg and allows Miller to get on top. Miller takes off his shoe and beats Disco with it and then chokes and stomps Disco until a couple of refs can come down and pull him off. Tony S. agrees with Ernest Miller on commentary (?!) that hey, everyone gets beaten down sometimes and there’s no reason to cry about it. Um, that’s not the story I think you should tell on commentary. The Cat sticks around and wants to know if anyone else wants some of what Disco got. We cut to the back, and the B-Teamers are watching the Cat as the Cat rants in the ring, and I have to admit that I straight up laughed as they look at each other, giggle a bit, and then call the only B-Teamer not in front of the television, Scott Norton, and claim that the Cat called him out again. Norton wanders in right in the middle of a shave, which is just a funny visual for some reason, and I hope he goes out there and beats down Miller without washing off the shaving cream or getting any smeared on his face during the beatdown. Norton is disbelieving that the Cat would dare call him out again, but the B-Teamers convince him that it’s true. Norton leaves and the B-Teamers all crack up. That was genuinely funny. Ernest Miller has annoyed this live crowd so much that when Scott Norton comes out, Norton gets a pop. He chops Miller a couple of times and his him with a lariat. Miller claims that while his hands are registered weapons, they aren’t registered in this state, so he’ll have to leave. Onoo runs up and jumps in his arms, and they escape. Hey, some comedy that worked on a wrestling show! What an unfortunately rare sight! Mike Tenay knocks on Ric Flair’s door, then enters. Hype video: Kevin Nash is good at wrestling! No, really, I think he is. Ric Flair and Arn Anderson stand in the back and tell El Dandy that he is the true Latin great, not Rey or Juvi or anyone else. Flair promises to push Dandy to the moon if he lays down for his dopey son David, then says, paraphrasing: It’ll be no more tacos or peppers for you if you do it! It’ll be chicken and steaks and big ranch (whether he means a large property or just an extra-sized bottle of Ranch dressing, I cannot tell you). Um, has Flair been to Mexico? Has he ever had a dish with pollo in it? Does he not realize that cows dwell in the fields of Mexican farms? Actually, Ric's lunacy extending to weird racial and cultural ideas that don’t actually make sense in the real world is a nice character touch. Dandy takes no convincing to agree, and he leaves, but then Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker comes up and asks where the hell his promised office job is. Arn: “You’d better take the bass out of your voice.” Ric’s like, I haven’t had time to process your new job, but I did get you a Gold’s Gym membership. Flair decides that he’ll take a different tack with a still unhappy Sarge and promises that Buddy Lee will rub shoulders with the Horsemen; Arn says that Buddy Lee can face Chris Benoit later tonight. Arn and Ric agree that Benoit’s going to put a hurting on Buddy Lee, and then they tell the person rolling the camera to stop filming. Wait, so now we’re acknowledging the cameraperson again? Gene Okerlund talks to roving reporter Mike Tenay. Tenay says that Kevin Nash went to the WCW Executive Committee and demanded a match for the big gold against Savage, and that’s our main event for this year’s Great American Bash. Okerlund then calls out Flair and wonders if Flair agrees with the Executive Committee’s decision. Does he not have a say? Is he not part of the Executive Committee as the President of WCW? No, forget it, I’m trying to grab onto a small thread of logic here, and I shouldn’t bother. Flair promises to have sex with a woman in the crowd before claiming to have done so with the woman's mother – ew – and then Flair rants about Savage getting a title shot and hurting Charles Robinson. He declares that the Savage Elbow is an illegal move now, then craps on Eric Bischoff and Roddy Piper. The crowd is very behind him, actually, since we're in South Carolina. He defends his presidential record on creating new stars by having dudes lay down for his dopey son David, and then he yells at the camera crew for trying to wrap him up. Flair’s been quite fun on the mic since the heel turn. I do note, though, that this first hour has only had one true match so far. I will never understand why WCW punts the first hour of Nitro like this. I’ve enjoyed the first hour okay enough because the talking has been entertaining and the comedy bits they’ve tried to pull off actually worked, but even so, this is probably not how you want to book a full hour of television. Wow, Bret/Nash was supposed to happen on the Tonight Show later on this night. It wouldn’t have done anything to turn WCW around long-term had it happened, but man, the WCW/NBC relationship is just snakebitten, huh? El Dandy does the J-O-B for D-O-P-E-Y D-A-V-I-D. Dandy wrestles at half-speed and, unlike Buddy Lee Parker, is clearly throwing his one. He misses a dropkick so obviously and so badly that it makes me chuckle. Tony S., you moron, David’s not improving! Dandy is just good at throwing a match. Even that’s not enough because Dandy slaps David, and David goes down like a chump, which convinces Arn to jump in and hits Dandy with a spinebuster so that David can lock on a Figure Four. Tony S. mentions that David is on a win streak, and for a fleeting few seconds, I think: What if Goldberg beat Nash at Starrcade and kept up his winning streak until Flair, who starts to believe in his own dopey son’s wrestling streak even though he’s the one orchestrating it, puts undefeated Goldberg up against undefeated David Flair for the big gold on a Nitro? Goldberg walking through a stacked deck and killing David would have been fun, though knowing WCW, they’d have put the belt on David and had him end Goldberg's streak. Gene Okerlund’s on the ramp again to cut an interview, this time with Buff Bagwell. Buff is wrestling Rick Steiner for the TV title later tonight. Buff says that Savage isn’t as tough as he thinks he is, and agrees with Disco that the older guys are seeing the younger guys as a threat (no pop from this Flair-loving South Carolina crowd) and that he’d be glad to hook it up with Savage again. The crowd is back with him when Buff threatens the Steiners, though. Especially the ladies. The ladies are very with him. Video retrospective: About Eric Bischoff? Who gives a fuck? Fine, I’m sure some dipshit Eric Bischoff superfan does, but Bischoff is a zero as an on-screen performer in WCW. And look, no one gives a shit about Bischoff being the WCW front office hero for three years. Fuck right off. This is as self-indulgent as anything Vince McMahon has done. Mixing the kayfabe “he joined the nWo" shit in with all the onanistic “he brought WCW to new heights” stuff doesn’t make it any more palatable. This thing goes on for like six or seven minutes. Come on, now. Is it damning, obvious, or maybe both that the only time that Bischoff was an on-screen plus was when Vinnie Jr. was directing his creative? Juventud Guerrera pours a bottle of water over his head and then shakes it out as his regular rampway taunt. The new Nitro set ramp has almost wiped a number of wrestlers out since it made its debut. Now, consider those two facts at the same time and then make a guess about what happens now, at this moment I'm writing about on Nitro, when Juventud Guerrera makes his entrance. Now that’s how you synthesize information! Juvi sits there for awhile, gets up, and eventually mugs the camera. As for the matchup that he’s a part of, this is a bunch of cruisers congregating in the ring for a battle royal. The winner gets a shot at Rey Misterio Jr.’s Cruiserweight Championship next week. I’m not doing a whole WW3 Battle Royal-type rundown here. It’s a battle royal. You know how those look. I’ll tell you when we get down to the final four. I will note that Blitzkrieg eliminated both himself and Lash LeRoux kinda early, which bummed me out as I would have liked either one of them to get a high-profile Nitro match for the title. Tony S. also announced that EA is their new video game partner – BOO – and that WCW Mayhem will be out in August for N64 and PS1 – DOUBLE BOO – but AKI will make WrestleMania 2000 and No Mercy -YEAHHHH – so it’s all good. Okay, fuck your final four because Hugh FUCKING Morrus comes down here and clears out a bunch of the cruiserweights, including a press slam of Psicosis. Fuck right off, WCW. Why do I even bother to care about this division? Morrus is even able to powerbomb Kidman successfully. Kidman’s the last guy in the ring and takes said powerbomb and a No Laughing Matter. Rey Misterio Jr. runs down for the save, punches Jimmy Hart, and dropkicks Hugh Morrus off the top when Morrus tries another moonsault. In fairness, Rey got a massive pop, but this is my issue with the company’s booking of the division in 1999. First, let me establish that I love Rey. Rey is arguably the greatest pro wrestler, pound-for-pound, ever to do it. If I were putting together a top ten or twenty-five or one hundred best (not favorite, but best) wrestlers, Rey’d be in the top five with Liger, Funk, Breaks, and Regal or Steamboat, depending how I feel on that day. But the Cruiserweight Division, when it started, was this well-balanced decision anchored by Rey as the amazing-est of high flyers, Malenko as the base and the technical wizard, and then Eddy as a hybrid power/speed guy, and they sprinkled in some colorful luchadores and made it a competitive division that treated smaller wrestlers with some respect. Now, what is the Cruiserweight division? It’s a vanity division for Rey and occasionally Kidman, and luchadores are just trash to toss out of the ring for intruding heavyweights. It’s obvious that Nash booked this because we all know how little respect he has for smaller dudes not named Shawn Michaels or Sean Waltman (or maybe Rey, too, considering that he’s actually booked reasonably under Nash’s regime). However, the fact that Bischoff, a man who goes on and on about how the cruiser division was his baby, oh, what a brilliant idea that was, wasn’t it, went ahead and let Nash book this segment is proof that Bisch needs to fucking GO. Yeah, I know Russo will book this same luchador battle royal, except two hundred percent more racist, so I’m not saying he’s any type of answer, but neither is Bischoff the answer anymore. The Nitro Girls dance and are generally very adorable to me. Review: Savage and his squad of bad-ass ladies give Piper and Bisch the ol’ what-for. Gene Okerlund’s in the ring to inflict another Roddy Piper interview on us. Piper calls Bischoff “Opie Taylor,” which is a reference that I’m sure delighted old Ted Turner, and gets a cheap pop by mentioning either a now-defunct local pro hockey team or a current local softball team, based on a quick google of the team name. He calls out Randy Savage, but the ladies of Team Madness are the ones who enter the ring. I talk about Savage’s obvious mid-life crisis all the time, but let’s not forget Madusa, who got a new pair of boobs and is determined to outdo whatever Gorgeous George’s outfit is w/r/t showing skin. Piper is like HEY MOST OF YOU LADIES HAVE FAKE BOOBS, which is a weak insult because we all know most dudes who are wrestling fans would do a header off a diving board and into an unfilled swimming pool to get a shot at most women in general, big or small boobs, real or fake boobs. And probably most of the wrestling dudes would do that, too. Piper riffs. It’s dumb. I refuse to recount it. They let George speak. She’s fine. George is like, Savage isn’t here because he’s at a ceremony and getting an award for being awesome, which you aren’t invited to because you are not awesome. Fair. Piper’s like Savage is too old for you George, and I assume that this woman entered a relationship with Savage of her own volition, and I respect her adult choices and her agency in general. Piper says that he won’t hit George for that crutch shot from last week, but he wouldn’t mind doing it actually, just giving her a swat or two, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea, actually, and Ric Flair runs down, jumps Piper, and gets beaten up. DDP and Bam Bam Bigelow come down and get Flair out of the jam. They stomp Piper out and Bigelow drops a flying headbutt on him. DDP grabs a mic and says that Ric owes him for that save. Flair responds by saying, “Whatever your heart desires, DDP.” Page wants a tag title shot at GAB, and my foreknowledge of what happens tells me that they’ll probably be successful, and it’s all thanks to Kanyon! Page and Bigelow leave and then Ric, takes the mic out to ringside, where he stomps on Piper some more and says that he’s the boss. He also fires one medic and kicks another; finally, he makes another match between himself and Piper for GAB. I listened to the Slamboree ’99 episode of 83 Weeks, and Bischoff, who must not remember the time period very well, says they took the big gold off Page because his run had come to an obvious end. What the fuck is he talking about? Page only had good-to-great matches in his month as a cowardly champ, dropped the belt twice in that month, and then got shunted down into the tag title scene for his troubles. Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit stand with Arn in the back. They also know that there’s a camera nearby, so I guess we are now acknowledging the camera, at least this week. Malenko and Benoit are upset that Ric gave Page and Bigelow a tag title shot instead of them and are pretty much done with helping old dudes anymore. They’re being HELD BACK, you see. They leave, while Arn laments “get[ting] in the middle of all this,” which is fair! He didn’t want to! He tried to avoid it! He wasn’t interested in bringing back the Horsemen! Benoit and Malenko cajoled him into it! And these guys got like five or six straight shots at the tag titles and couldn’t win them back. They choked, so them being pissed about not getting another tag title shot makes no sense. The whole “old guys holding back the young guys” thing that eventually became the New Blood/Millionaire’s Club feud apparently has at least some grounding in what’s going on here. I’ve never really heard much about how that feud was developed by the Russo/Bischoff team or who claims to have had which ideas, but obviously either Bischoff or Nash was aware enough to make it a story thread here in 1999. Video retrospective: Luger and Sting were on World Championship Wrestling when it was the name of a show and not the name of a company, and now they’re together again! Maybe. It’s 1999, so people turn face and heel like they’re the Giant Big Show. Hype video: The Nitro Grill is now open for service! And by “now,” I mean in May of 1999, and you’d better have gone soon because it didn’t come particularly close to outliving WCW itself. Okerlund talks to Piper while he gets his ribs taped in the back. Piper says REALITY CHECK a couple of times and then promises to make himself known later in the night, FUCK, SHIT, FUCK. He wants a trios tag against Flair, Page, and Bigelow later tonight. He’ll declares that he'll be partnering with “Phantom” and “Menace,” and yes, the new Star Wars movie certainly was in the zeitgeist at the time. I saw it in theatres twice. Well, once. The second time, I made out for two straight hours with my girlfriend at the time. Look, we were in high school, and it was hard to get some space to ourselves. Tony S., as he reviews all WCW’s big moves: “WCW and Tommy Boy Records, down in Miami, have formed a new hip relationship…” I just want to repeat, he described the relationship as “hip.” Oh, Tony S. So, Curt Hennig joins the desk and gets a headset that may or may not work, then – OH NO, NO NO NO NO NO – starts complaining about the old rap music. Well, he’s an insta-heel in my house. Look, do I mind country and western music? No, if it’s good. But I don’t think most of it is really my taste. I appreciate your Cashes and your Burnetts and your Partons and personally think Elvis was mediocre as a Gospel or Rock artist, but actually quite good at Country Western. But am I going to let some dope from the Midwest complain about the new hippity hop sound? Yes, I am, but I’m also going to complain about that guy’s complaints! Video package: WCW visits Tommy Boy Records. Raven knows who Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation are, but doesn’t know how to pronounce that weirdo child predator Bambaataa’s last name. Also, I love Raven’s response to a question about liking modern rap, because it’s the diplomatic one that white folks give whenever they don’t want to outright say that they don’t listen to rap: They name a rapper from approximately fifteen or twenty years earlier and say they enjoyed them. There is a white person somewhere in this country right now gently stating that they don’t listen to the new rap sound, but they did enjoy Chingy back in college, and bless them for that. I love a good diplomatic answer. Whatever happened to politeness via cagey answers to these types of questions about what one prefers? Bring that social more back into style. Once again, I note that WCW programming is a great case study for racial, gender, and socioeconomic relations in the ‘90s. Curt Hennig’s still out here to watch Buddy Lee Parker get mowed down by Chris Benoit (w/Dean Malenko). I do like that Hennig still cannot fucking stand Ric Flair, by the way. Benoit’s wearing an arm band for Owen Hart, which Hennig points out, and then Hennig rants about the young guys not having respect for the old guys. Parker actually opens up on Benoit early, but charges into a boot and goes to German suplex town. Benoit doesn’t have too many more issues with Parker, and he beats the guy down while Hennig complains about the hippin’ and the hoppin’ and such. Benoit locks on a Crippler Crossface and wins it. Malenko tells the camera that Benoit is over, dammit, listen to the crowd! Hennig’s still out here to commentate the Rick Steiner (w/Scott Steiner) versus Buff Bagwell TV title match. Scotty rants a little bit before the match. He showed up in South Carolina to find a woman who might like to have very active sex with him, just in case you were wondering. He calls the crowd “rednecks,” and they give him a pop because he's over almost no matter what. He calls his brother the “U.S. TV Champion” also, which, you know, that’s Scotty! Scotty decries this whole Ric Flair and Roddy Piper power struggle as a sign that WCW does indeed suck and then, in a true heel move, gives the mic to his stupid-assed, no-charisma-having brother. Said brother hits an IF YOU DON’T LIKE ME, BITE ME for the first of what will be about five trillion times over the next couple years of WCW shows. Buff runs to the ring and clubs at Rick, so Scott helps Rick out a bit before the bell, which is pretty smart, especially for a Steiner. I feel like I’ve been watching this show for about five hours. I did stop for about fifteen minutes somewhere back during the first hour to make shrimp and grits, but still. Is there any wonder that I thought about how long this show feels during a Rick Steiner offensive control segment? Buff makes a comeback, but Scott grabs his leg as he runs the ropes, and Rick lands an Oklahoma Stampede. Rick knocks Buff outside from that position, and Scott takes his own shots before Rick follows Buff outside, punches him a bit, and then works on his neck. The crowd gets a STEROIDS chant going. Rick gets back in the ring and drops an elbow for two, then threatens Johnny Boone for not counting faster. He tosses Buff back to the floor, exposes the concrete, and then hits a very safe piledriver on the concrete. That’s good, of course, because Buff’s health is paramount, but also, maybe don’t do that spot at all if it’s so safe that it’s clear that Buff didn’t even get near the concrete. Suddenly, an engine starts up from somewhere and, in yet another fucking obvious spot steal from WWF, some guy in a Sting mask drives Sting’s monster truck to the ring. Oh, the guy is Lex Luger. He takes off the mask, and, uh, is Sting supposed to be somewhere around here now? Yes, he’s in the ring. These morons in WCW managed to make a “babyface drives a truck into the arena” spot, which should be pretty easy to pull off in terms of keeping the focal point on the action, a muddled and visually confusing mess. The Nitro Girls dance, and I think back to the first hour of the show, which I basically enjoyed even with the questionable layout. Boy, this show just hit a wall somewhere. I blame Piper. Hennig insists on complaining about the rap music. Actually, maybe I blame Hennig. I’m not sure this gets the right kind of heat on him for my tastes, in the sense that I would have turned it to RAW by this point if that were an option. Tony S. laughs at Hennig for asking to play some good ol’, and I quote, “Country Rhythm and Blues.” Yeah, I love nothing more than listening to some Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye singing to twangy guitar backing. Konnan comes out to the ring area, grabs Hennig and beats him up. Hennig tries to get away up the aisle, but Konnan chases him and continues a weak beatdown into the break. Why is Hugh Morrus in two fucking segments tonight? Fuck you, WCW. Maybe I blame Hugh Morrus for this show’s downturn, actually. I forgot about that battle royal that happened approximately seven hours ago. Tenay goes to the ring to see what’s up, and what's up is that Jimmy Hart wants Rey Misterio Jr. in the ring right now, dammit! Then, that bum Morrus complains about being held back, and thankfully, Rey gets down here to stop all that nonsense. Rey outmaneuvers Morrus, and only when Jimmy Hart trips Rey against the ropes does Morrus get any real control of the match. Morrus hits a couple running splashes in the corner as I wonder why the heck anyone thought this guy needed a push at all. Morrus lands a powerbomb, then Jimmy Hart brings a steel chair into the ring and prepares to help Morrus Pillmanize Rey’s neck. Morrus goes up for a No Laughing Matter, but Konnan comes back out and tells Morrus not to jump, which gives Billy Kidman enough time to wipe Morrus out on his own run in. They clear out Jimmy Hart and hit Morrus with a Bronco Buster and an SSP to what is admittedly a very loud pop. Seriously, these guys are over. Gene Okerlund interviews Hulk Hogan in the ring. I’d blame Hogan for the downturn in this show, but he didn’t come out here until there were about 35 minutes to go. Hogan’s on crutches as he makes his way to the ring. Hogan congratulates Kevin Nash on winning the big gold back for the Wolfpac. That’s still a thing, the ol’ Wolfpac, I guess. He threatens Page for a bit and then complains about the state of the wrestling business. He doesn’t like the “triple X porno wrestling on the other stations,” for one. He lets us know that he's the ultimate politician with the stroke, and what the fuck man, are we gonna do more of this fucking worked shoot nonsense? Really? I don’t want to. Don’t make me endure this. Hogan promises to re-assert his creative control when he comes back from his injury. Not if Vince Russo, super babyface, has anything to say about it! This was a pointless and shitty segment. There are still over twenty minutes in this show. How? I am completely over these three-hour Nitros. How do people do this with RAW every week? DVR it and fast forward? Kevin Nash comes to the ring now that he’s made it back to the arena from Burbank. Now Nash is going to chat for a little bit. People LOVE chanting along with IN DA HOUSE and TOO SWEET, let me tell you. Nash talks about Savage’s actions lately, and this show has been poorer for not having Savage on it and only having the rest of Team Madness on the show once tonight. Hey, just as I type that, it’s Macho Man’s music! The ladies are out, and George is on crutches again, but she’s a rookie. We already know it’s a ruse, so you can’t pull it off again. Try using a chest protector or wearing a cast instead; they let you get away with that for ages in pro wrestling. Nash riffs while they get in the ring. It’s somehow worse than Piper’s riffing. Nash is like SHOW ME YOUR VAGINA, MADUSA – seriously, I paraphrased what he said, I didn’t make that up, and also, ew – and then Madusa tries to slap him, but Nash catches it. George swings a crutch that Nash no-sells, but Madusa comes back with a ball shot, then leaps on Nash’s back, which creates a long enough distraction that Savage has time to make his way down, grab the big gold belt, and waffle Nash with it. Then, he does some lipstick art. *sigh*, someone time travel back to 1998 and tell Nash that with his promo style, in twenty years, he’s at risk of becoming Roddy Piper. Ric Flair (w/Asya and a despondent Arn Anderson) comes to the ring for this main event. DDP and Bam Bam are next to the ring. I think to myself that running Page/Savage now would actually be interesting. They should have left the belt on Page and done that match at GAB ‘99. Roddy Piper (with a whole roll of Ace bandages around him) comes to the ring and his partners happen to be Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko. I think it’s pretty great that they ran a “break up of the Horsemen” angle in Horsemen-crazy South Carolina. I love it. The audacity of it all. Why not stick it to your fans like this? The only way it could have been better is if they ran it in North Carolina. Winston-Salem, to be exact. Well, let’s start this five-minute long main event. Malenko’s not even in tights and boots. He won’t lock up with Page and asks for Flair. Flair gets in the ring, and then Malenko immediately tags Benoit. Benoit doesn’t have much issue taking care of Flair, nor with Bammer or Page when they jump in. This crowd is quite unsure of how to react because, you know, they like both Flair and Benoit. I’d like to take a second to talk about WCW’s, not just Nash’s, but WCW’s, contempt for its core southern fanbase. Is there any wonder that this fanbase stopped watching wrestling en masse once WCW died? That’s a market that still isn’t being served by a major company, and I think it’s just dormant and not entirely dead because pro wrestling is am important part of southern culture in America. I expect that sort of contempt for the culture from WWE, unfortunately. Do I wish that Tony Khan had spent more time watching Wahoo/Valentine and Steamboat/Flair and less time watching Kobashi/Misawa or NJ Juniors matches? A billion times yes, but that didn’t happen, so AEW’s not going to serve that audience’s desires. But WCW, in a moment when they’re losing the mainstream appeal that they were so desperate to gain, goes out of their way once again to poop on their core that was with them through thick and thin. Eventually Raven and Saturn run down and attack Page and Bam Bam while Piper and Flair do some stuff in the ring that I don’t care about. The show ends on Hulk Hogan in the back, waiting for his cue, holding a pose, holding it, holding it, until he gets his cue late and derides the face-down DDP, whom he apparently broke one of his crutches over when Page brawled to the back. This show was an abject failure! Fire Bischoff! Demote Nash! Get rid of that stupid-assed entryway ramp! -8 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 Tell me you've seen Ernest The Cat Miller's spot in the 2004 Royale Rumble? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 (edited) 14 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Show #190 – 24 May 1999 Yeah, I love nothing more than listening to some Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye singing to twangy guitar backing. Gorgeous George is on crutches again, but she’s a rookie. We already know it’s a ruse, so you can’t pull it off again. Try using a chest protector or wearing a cast instead; they let you get away with that for ages in pro wrestling. this is the closest i can get, but i think calling it "Country Rhythm & Blues" would be appropriate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISbkwLvrUDM for some reason, the combination of "Gorgeous George" and "chest protector" just doesn't mesh for me. Maybe it has something to do with Piper's earlier rant. what are your thoughts on Kevin Sullivan? Bischoff gets most of your booking ire (and rightfully so), and now we're seeing that shift to Nash, but has ol' K-Sull avoided your fiery wrath? Edited July 10 by twiztor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 10 Author Share Posted July 10 (edited) 1 hour ago, twiztor said: for some reason, the combination of "Gorgeous George" and "chest protector" just doesn't mesh for me. Maybe it has something to do with Piper's earlier rant. Gorgeous George wearing a chest protector that she uses as a weapon to protect the "girls" from both injury and from the eyes of you very UNmacho men in the audience is a solid heel move, IMO! Quote this is the closest i can get, but i think calling it "Country Rhythm & Blues" would be appropriate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISbkwLvrUDM I almost mentioned this song when name-dropping Stevie...though he can't maintain the twang all the way through. This is a fair point, though. Maybe Curt Hennig was a big Stevie Wonder fan? Quote what are your thoughts on Kevin Sullivan? Bischoff gets most of your booking ire (and rightfully so), and now we're seeing that shift to Nash, but has ol' K-Sull avoided your fiery wrath? The Dungeon of Doom and the interminable Sullivan/Benoit feud were his babies, so he's gotten raked over the coals quite a bit. It was two or three years ago that I made most of those posts, so they're easily forgotten by now. I do want to mention that I totally understand that booking is done on a team, so Bischoff and Nash are shorthand for what I see on TV. Bischoff himself says that he had veto power, so he gets blame for everything bad on TV as he should get praise for everything good. As for Nash, you can tell is the head booker right now because Nitro started aping WWF-style television with lots of backstage cutaways for conversations that would become integral to the plot later and a heavier emphasis on setting up matches for later in the night through talking segments in the ring or backstage. This is the most WWF-like programming that WCW has put on so far in my watch. Edited July 10 by SirSmUgly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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