SirSmUgly Posted August 30 Author Share Posted August 30 6 hours ago, caley said: read this and laughed again. Not at the joke, which is poor. But at Piper's beyond-closeted obsession with drag. Reading these, he brings it up ALL the time. It's too bad he's not still alive because someone could just say "Just put the makeup on, wear the dress and stop being so repressed, Hot Rod!" It's like the Alan Partridge (Dated TV reference again!) episode where he keeps talking about "lady boys" and how "Disgusting" it is and how he's not attracted to them, it's just "Confusing" and at the end he finally gives up and asks the front desk to put the pornography on TV for him. Anytime someone brings something up this much, he's obviously harboring some hidden feelings. Alan Partridge references are never dated, dammit! I can't even hear Roachford's "Cuddly Toy" without thinking of ol' Partridge. Quote This sounds like one of the worst finishes ever. It was so random. An elbowdrop?! 4 hours ago, zendragon said: This is pretty much WWE 2006-2007 heel roster where every body was obnoxious good looking heel see Miz, Morrison ect this is how i'm imagining Jim Duggan playing piano Oh wow, neat that you found an exact GIF of that segment on the internet! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 So are these Nitro's better or worse than Bishoff's? We should keep a running tally of reused WWF segments THE BLOCK is clearly the boiler room brawl from a few years earlier I don't think WCW had NJPW's permission on the title switch so they simply don't recognize it as an aside I wore my EDDIE Guerrero IS MY FAVORITE WRESTLER to the matches tonight, I always feel that Chavo is a lot like Lanny Poffo. A supremely talented wrestler who gets unfairly compared to his all time great relative 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted August 30 Share Posted August 30 (edited) 10 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Show #216 – 29 November 1999 Tony S. tells us that the Filthy Animals have broken up. That was quick! Jushin Liger and Juventud Guerrera get jobber entrances, and I’ll be looking online for the return match in Japan where Juvi drops the title back to Liger that I hope and assume must have happened on the internet this weekend. Chavo Jr.’s on my short list of “favorite guys who became favorites after I watched through all these WCW shows.” We have a new TV champion, folks! It’s a random trash can! Here are tonight’s bouts, according to Tony S.: Goldberg vs. Nash; Scott Hall vs. Sid (for the U.S. and Television titles); and Bret Hart vs. Meng (for the World title). All of these bouts form a triple main that Tony says must have winners by pinfall or submission, no DQs or countouts. Sting will also face Jeff Jarrett and Chris Benoit in a triple threat for a number one contendership match for the world title post-Starrcade. This card sounds promising! Three matches that had to end with a winner by pinfall or submission, three jibber jabber bullshit matches that were overbooked to hell. -45 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. 1999 WCW: we not only drop angles, we drop entire factions with no payoff! PLEASE DON'T SEARCH FOR THE JUVI / LIGER MATCH. it will only lead to disappointment. Next week's Nitro is allthe follow-up to this you're going to get. Chavo Jr. also earned that recognition from me. I only remembered him from the "Eddy Guerrero Is My Favorite Wrestler" and 'submit to Stevie Ray on a handshake' angles, but he continuously makes his segments entertaining. Not just any trash can, it's a trash can in Denver! i wonder who will win the title next time WCW comes to Denver? Isn't that turnaround just typical? "Oh man, this match/these matches could be great! i better stick around and watch the rest of this show!!" two hours later, "well, that was disappointing". what killed WCW, indeed. holy shit. -45? is that a new record? Edited August 30 by twiztor 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 30 Author Share Posted August 30 12 hours ago, zendragon said: So are these Nitro's better or worse than Bishoff's? I think they're as bad as one another in different ways. With Russo/Ferrara, the bad jokes and segments are short, but they're plentiful. With Bischoff/Nash, there are less bad jokes and segments, but they're longer. With Russo/Ferrara, every match is short and most of them skip or truncate whole segments. Hell, I've seen tag matches (e.g. Konnan/Kidman vs. Creative Control) that go right to the FIP at the bell, no shine for the babyfaces at all. With Bischoff/Nash, a lot of matches are vaguely dull and go on too long. There are too many Hugh Morrus vs. Rick Fuller type matches that get eight minutes on television for some fucking reason. I still think Bischoff's August 1998 is the most wretched month's worth of weekly television in the bunch, but if someone wanted to argue that Nash's July 1999 or Russo/Ferrara's November 1999 are worse, I wouldn't put up much of an argument. The thing Bischoff has to his credit is the stuff that came before August of 1998 that was mostly pretty good. I suppose he has Kevin Sullivan and Terry Taylor or whomever to thank for a lot of that, though. Quote We should keep a running tally of reused WWF segments THE BLOCK is clearly the boiler room brawl from a few years earlier I actually don't hate the idea of running fight club-type matches in the boiler room, but yeah, it's obvious where Russo pulled this from. Quote I don't think WCW had NJPW's permission on the title switch so they simply don't recognize it 6 hours ago, twiztor said: PLEASE DON'T SEARCH FOR THE JUVI / LIGER MATCH. it will only lead to disappointment. Next week's Nitro is allthe follow-up to this you're going to get. Ah, good to see that Russo is re-building bridges with New Japan that Sonny Onoo burned down. Quote as an aside I wore my EDDIE Guerrero IS MY FAVORITE WRESTLER to the matches tonight, I always feel that Chavo is a lot like Lanny Poffo. A supremely talented wrestler who gets unfairly compared to his all time great relative It felt like Lanny didn't ever get quite the push he should have as a serious threat. When I watched Mid-South, I was excited to see him come in, but they just settled him into JttS mode within a few weeks. The Genius is a ridiculous character and probably made him some nice money, but he was actually very good in the ring and deserved better. Quote Chavo Jr. also earned that recognition from me. I only remembered him from the "Eddy Guerrero Is My Favorite Wrestler" and 'submit to Stevie Ray on a handshake' angles, but he continuously makes his segments entertaining. I'm excited because I still have that Chavo/Sugar Shane Helms feud to get to toward the end of this watch-through. I have more confidence than ever that my love for that feud, which I've only seen at the time it aired, will endure. Chavo is the man. Someone, maybe you, said pages and pages ago that Chavo's biggest sin is not being as good as Eddy. To jump off that last sentence, here's my hot take: I think Chavo Jr. has shown more than Eddy has in this WCW run. If I didn't know the future, I would guess that Chavo is probably more likely to break out as a star based on their work in WCW alone, which is all I knew at the time. Obviously, if you saw Los Gringos Locos, which I had not, you'd think I was crazy. But just their WCW work? Chavo has shown way more. I heard or read somewhere, and maybe someone who knows more about this can verify, that WWE thought that Benoit and then Saturn were the two most promising of the Radicalz in that order and saw Eddy as sort of a wild card. If that's true, I totally get why they thought that way. Benoit has massive physical charisma; Saturn has shown how flexible a character he is, moving between comedy and deadly seriousness with ease. Eddy has looked great in the ring, but some of his character work has been middling to awful, especially in this run with the Filthy Animals, but also his awkward babyface run when he entered the company. The best he's looked as a character or a talker has far and away been when he's been paired with Chavo, IMO. It seems obvious that Eddy would become a massive star and a great talker and character work guy in 2024, and it probably did if you were watching AAA in the early '90s, but as an American fan who first got acquainted with Eddy in WCW, I think it's a minor shock that he ended up being as great as he was on the character side of things. Quote 1999 WCW: we not only drop angles, we drop entire factions with no payoff! Russo and Ferrara's kill count is two so far: The First Family and the Filthy Animals. That's probably merciful death compared to the Revolution, who are sticking around to become seccessionists. Quote Not just any trash can, it's a trash can in Denver! i wonder who will win the title next time WCW comes to Denver? HOOOOOOOOOOOpefully an American (and then Canadian) hero? (Does no one working at the Pepsi Center/Ball Arena dump their trash cans regularly, or like what?) Quote Isn't that turnaround just typical? "Oh man, this match/these matches could be great! i better stick around and watch the rest of this show!!" two hours later, "well, that was disappointing". what killed WCW, indeed. I knew they'd all have overelaborate fuck finishes and was still disappointed slightly. Quote holy shit. -45? is that a new record? I think Bischoff and/or Nash produced a -50 in there somewhere. In exciting news (to me), I've started a document that just lists each show, its date, and the Stinger Splash or WOO/OWW score. I'm also planning to tier-list the WCW PPVs. If plans go to form, I won't have access to Peacock for a little over two weeks in December, so I'll use that time to put the list together and make it viewable here hopefully by early 2025 at the latest. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 31 Author Share Posted August 31 (edited) Thunder Interlude – show number eighty-nine – 2 December 1999 "The WCW Gang throws spaghetti at the wall, also probably does a lot of acid while throwing spaghetti at the wall" Thunder is live, and I note no opening intro with the HOLLYWOOD sign…Could our long-awaited revamp be coming?...This show moved to Wednesdays sometime around this point, maybe at the start of 2000, so it’s possible that it’ll happen then…Can you believe we’ve almost survived 1999 WCW together, dear reader?... Norman Smiley, in judo gear (including helmet) opens the show by defending his Hardcore title against THE WALL, BROTHER…Berlyn comes out almost immediately, even before the match starts…He joins commentary, actually…Boy, there are a lot of dudes wrestling in suit clothes in this company right now…Berlyn gets on the mic and says that he accepts TW,B’s apology that I’m pretty sure TW,B never made…TW,B kicks the hell out of poor Norm…Smiley gets boots up on a TW,B corner charge as TW,B holds a trash can in front of him…Smiley hits a flurry of weapon-assisted offense and does a Big Wiggle instead of pressing his advantage…TW,B hits a Hot Shot and gets back to beating down Norm…Norm tries to break a goozle and gets help from Berlyn, who clocks TW,B (accidentally?) with the Hardcore belt…Smiley falls on top of the wall while still locked in the goozle and gets three, then has to work to extricate himself from the woozy TW,B’s grip…Smiley’s character work is getting these hardcore matches just barely on the side of watchable… Tenay offers tonight’s lineup: The Total Package vs. Sid Vicious, with the Hitman on color for the main event; Chris Benoit vs. Jushin Liger (!!); and Jeff Jarrett and Mona vs. Evan Karagias and Madusa, in a WCW-ass WCW matchup…Glad to see those WCW-ass WCW matchups are still happening even in the Russo Era, even if the match ending (all the ladies get KABONG’d) seems obvious… TTP is upset about being booked against Sid, but he didn’t exactly deliver on that Liz-in-the-mud deal for Russo…Package storms into the production truck and has them play back what Tenay just said about the main event…That FUBU-wearing pillhead is in total disbelief… Silver King and Villano V (R.I.P.) bust in on Oklahoma and Dr. Death…Ah, Silver King wants his check back from the pinata match a few weeks back that he feels he earned before Dr. Death destroyed all the luchadores…Dr. Death and Oklahoma are annoyed, but not annoyed enough to fight until Silver King says the magic words: FOOTBALL IS FOR GIRLS…OK, this was actually funny because that is what gets Dr. Death and Oklahoma to hold one another back in rage…Oklahoma says that Dr. Death will challenge Silver King and Villano V to a handicap match later tonight… Kaz Hayashi does this dumb dubbed dialogue shit with Gene Okerlund in the back…Then, he heads out to face the Maestro…Tenay talks about meeting up later in the week with TPtB over that Jarrett guitar attack on Nitro…He’s planning to ask for Jarrett to be suspended and fined…Who knows what TPtB will decide?...They’re capricious…Maestro and Kaz have a perfectly decent match…Where’s Symphony?...Tenay next announces that Hitman/Goldberg at Starrcade will be no DQ…Gee, I wonder if there will be any run-ins during that main event…David Flair and his crowbar make an appearance…The Maestro’s music has set Flair off one too many times, I guess…There’s a ref bump because there always is, all the time, here in WCW…Flair whiffs on a crowbar shot and yams Kaz with it…The Maestro runs, chased by Dopey Dave…Dave wants to know where Symphony is…So do I; that’s what I asked earlier…Kaz wins by count-out…*sigh*… Disco Inferno and Lash LeRoux drive their nice car up to the show, and let me guess, we are getting that car bomb spot that I just knew would happen at some point under Russo and Ferrara [Editor's note: Not yet!]…Johnny the Bull and Big Vito pull up shortly after, looking for those two stupid gavones… Chavo Jr. gets a call backstage…He sells something to someone on the other end… Terry Taylor catches The Total Package trying to sneak out of the arena…Taylor takes Package’s duffel bag for safekeeping to keep him in the building…Package: “Thanks, Terrence, you’re a nice guy"…Ah, Package is unconcerned because he was holding that bag for Jimmy Hart, who was holding his bag in turn…For what reason these two would hold one another’s bags, I do not know…Just ignore things like “logic” and “sense” and revel in TTP getting away free and clear after he gets his rolling case back from Hart and tells Hart that Taylor has his bag…Package pops his bags in the car and, uh, notices that he has FOUR FLAT TIRRRRRRRRRRES [(tm) Johnny B. Badd]…Just call a taxi, stupid… Chavo Guerrero Jr. (w/product) wrestles Buzzkill, who comes out to a New Age Outlaws-theme knockoff and cuts a Shopify.com version of Road Dogg’s opening spiel…This isn’t second rate or even third rate…It’s, like, eighteenth rate…Buzzkill lectures Chavo on the evils of capitalism…Chavo opens his briefcase and shows that he has a lot of tie dye that he’s got to sell at a low price…That and a bundle of incense…Slick Johnson approves of the scent of said incense… Chavo opens a box and gets a lava lamp sort of deal out of the bag…And it doesn’t work when he plugs it in, HAHAHAHAHA…WCW fucking sucks…The crowd is booing, but I do get a kick out of Buzzkill trying to save it…He’s supposed to be enthralled by this lamp, but it's not cutting on, so he sits down and looks closer, asking how they can get this thing to work…Chavo puts headphones on Buzzkill, presumably with some Deep Purple playing on the Discman…Buzzkill lays back to vibe out, and Chavo covers him for two…Chavo tries to sell some tie dye to Slick, but Buzzkill picks up the suitcase and batters Chavo with it for three…Buzzkill feels bad afterwards, and he borrows some money from Slick to give to Chavo, then takes off with the lava lamp that doesn’t work and some of the tie dye…Chavo wakes up and is just glad to have sold something…This was very bad, but it was unintentionally funny because a) the crowd vocally hated it and b) the lamp didn’t work…That’s what saves it from being on the Absolute Dirt Worst list for me…And yet, it wasn’t nearly funny enough on its own merits to get on the Dumb, but Entertaining list… Okerlund interviews Chris Benoit about his upcoming match with Liger…Benoit talks about his past experiences facing Liger…He respects the guy, but still feels confident that he will take it to the cruiserweight/junior heavyweight legend… Lash and Disco go to Meng’s dressing room and replace the notice that it’s Meng’s room with a notice that it’s Lash and Disco’s room…Did we ever get any explanation as to why Lash and Disco are pals now?... Evan Karagias is still trying to get a little something something from Madusa in exchange for that title shot, but she’s A FRIGID BITCH, BRO, YOU KNOW HOW CHICKS ARE, BRO, THEY’RE ALL FRIGID, NONE OF THEM WILL SLEEP WITH YOU, THEY ALL JUST LEAD YOU ON WHILE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF YOU, BRO…I mean, that’s not my experience, Imaginary Russo who probably has the same views as IRL Russo, but you do you, champ… Nitro recap: This show is busy as hell…I guess they weren’t allowed to show video of the food fight by Turner S&P and are only allowed to show stills…HAHAHAHAHA… The Total Package is a coward backstage…He tries to fire himself up for his match against Sid by looking at his own muscles… Sid is hilarious…As Okerlund asks him about the Powerbomb Match that he’s booked for against Kevin Nash at Starrcade, Sid plays with a TTP action figure in a goofy manner, then creepily whispers about powerbombing Nash to hell…He wants Package to get a glimpse of what he's going to do to TTP while TTP “ponders what the rest of his life will be like as a vegetable”…Well, Luger is able to stand for short periods now, but that’s a classic “Harsher in Hindsight” TV Tropes example…Anyway, Sid tears apart TTP's action figure while cackling…We cut back to Luger, and the look of horror on his face induces laughter from the crowd…He hurriedly yanks out his cell phone and calls for a cab…That’s what I said that you should do a few paragraphs earlier, dummy… The wider internet wrestling commentariat complained endlessly about ’99 – ’01 Luger at the time, but the wider internet wrestling commentariat was wrong, as usual… The mobsters are looking for Disco and Lash…These dudes are awful, man…Everything about them sucks…They shove some security guys around… Dr. Death (w/Oklahoma) faces Silver King and both Villano IV and V in that handicap match for the 10K check…Oklahoma barges in and kicks an upset Larry Z. off commentary…Larry storms to the back…Oklahoma’s not doing the Bell’s Palsy sneer anymore…He claims that the healing power of his barbecue sauce that the Misfits poured on him cured his palsy…GODDAM, this moron Ferrara sucks…Vampiro comes out a minute in and bullies Oklahoma, who barely has time to promote the Dr. Death/Oklahoma vs. Vampiro/Jerry Only match that’s booked for Nitro…Silver King takes the now unattended check from where Oklahoma was sitting and runs off while Dr. Death finishes off Villano IV with an Oklahoma Stampede… SOMETHING’S GOING ON IN THE BACK…Something’s ALWAYS going on in the fucking back…The Total Package walks past the mobsters to try and catch his cab…The mobsters ask Package where Disco and Lash are, and he points the mobsters toward the locker room with Disco and Lash’s names on it…OK, this next bit is actually pretty clever, and I laughed…That little delay in which Package told the mobsters where to look for Disco and LeRoux gives Silver King enough time to burst through the back of the arena, hop in the cab with the check, and take off…That was actually pretty good!...Package futilely chases the cab as it peels off… The mobsters find Meng’s incorrectly-labeled dressing room and loiter around waiting for Disco and Lash to come out of it…If only they watched backstage monitors like TTP does!... Chris Benoit comes to the ring for his match against Jushin Liger…What if they just gave these two fifteen minutes with no commercial break?...HAHAHA, no, Juventud Guerrera comes out in a sling before they can even hook it up, followed by La Parka and Psicosis…Juvi joins commentary…Juvi: “I used to see [Liger] as an icon, but now I think he’s a con…He’s a con man because he doesn’t have respect for the Juice”…The caption, which dashes out minor cuss words like “ass,” reads Juvi’s accented pronunciation of the word “con” as the C-bomb (!!!)…And that’s not a word that’s dashed out; it’s clearly spelled out in the captions (!!!!!)…Uh, someone at the Network might want to manually review the auto captioning in this episode… Anyway, this match has a promising feeling-out opening…So, I haven’t mentioned this in these reviews yet, but Juvi is currently in a one-sided cross-company feud with the Rock…I think it all got set off during Chris Jericho’s WWF debut, when Rocky said this to Jericho: “You think you impress the Rock? Why? Because a couple of months ago, you were down south beating some jabroni named Juventud?!” Juvi, since then, has made oblique references to the Rock into the camera during his matches, like hitting a move on an opponent and then asking YOU SMELL THAT? or whatever…Obviously, that burner of a line hurt the guy's feelings IRL…The Rock was burying everyone on the mic in 1999 Juvi; you have to let it go…But now Juvi is out here dropping every one of the Rock’s catchphrases…Which, again, is something that Randy Savage was also doing earlier in the year…He drops an IT DOESN’T MATTER and is now calling himself the Juice… This match is presented as though it basically doesn’t matter and is actually a showcase for Juvi the Juice to get himself over on commentary…Juvi claims that he made the Cruiserweight division, and Tenay cuts in to announce that Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Nash has been made for Nitro and that Benoit will face Scott Hall in a ladder match for the U.S. Championship at Starrcade…Liger hits a dive to Benoit on the outside…I feel like maybe I’m hallucinating again at this point…These shows are straight up fever dreams…Liger locks on a surfboard…Liger rules, man…Liger hits a brainbuster as things finally calm down a bit on commentary…Liger’s got Benoit reeling, but Benoit blocks a tornado DDT and hits a lariat…There’s a standing ten count…Liger gets up and tries an enziguri, but Benoit ducks it and drops an elbow…Snap suplex, angled back suplex, cover for Benoit, but it only gets two because Liger gets his leg over the ropes… I think this match has been quite good…I’m not entirely sure, though…I’ve been distracted by all the other nonsense with the commentary and captioning and match announcements…Liger catches Benoit going up top for a headbutt and hits a superplex…Psicosis and La Parka jump in the ring and stomp out Liger, but Benoit gets up and helps Liger clear the ring…The crowd applauds as Liger raises Benoit’s arm…I think that was legitimately good enough to be on the good matches list even with the fuck finish, but trust me – watch it on mute to fully appreciate it… Buff Bagwell promises to be a road block rather than a speed bump to Meng’s recent domination…No, Roadblock is a road block…You’re an annoying babyface… Russo and Ferrara giving a million segments to Vito and the Bull on every show is the dumbest shit ever…The mobsters bust in on Meng and get their asses kicked… Luger has me cracking up…Now he puts on maybe the worst attempt at a stereotypical German accent I’ve ever heard and pretends to be “Dr. Lipschitz,” Lex Luger’s father's doctor, in a phone call to Terry Taylor…I mean, this accent is fucking hilarious…It’s like a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s real-life Austrian accent and Madeline Kahn's Germanic accent in Blazing Saddles...And of course, Package can’t hold the accent at all, which makes it even funnier…Unfortunately, Package makes this call right outside of the room that Terry Taylor is sitting in, so Taylor pokes his head out of the door and lets Package know that he appreciates the attempt, but it didn’t fool him… Can you believe that, as Buff Bagwell makes it to the ring to face Meng, we haven’t even made it fifty minutes into this show, less commercial breaks?...So much stuff has happened...My goodness...Buff tries to avoid the wrath of Meng by firing up with dropkicks and lariats…This is actually a solid little TV match because the crowd gets into Buff’s attempted comebacks…I mean, there are a lot of boot chokes, but if you can get past that, the layout itself is solid…Eventually, the mobsters come down the ramp…They jump both men in the ring…Meng destroys both mobsters, no help from Buff needed…Buff’s a little sneak fuck, though, and climbs the ropes…In an awkward spot, Meng and Vito both have to wander toward Buff so Buff can Blockbuster Vito after Meng ducks…Meng TDGs Buff when Bagwell gets up and the ref, who was earlier bumped, comes to and counts three… Okerlund interviews Mona and Jeff Jarrett…Okerlund’s eyes are locked on Mona's cleavage window…She notices…He tries to pretend that he wasn’t looking, but we all know he’s lying…Cleavage windows are almost impossible not to look at, IMO, so I can’t fault that skeezy bastard Okerlund for looking…But man, look away, give yourself some plausible deniability…And yes, Mona is scorching hot, IMO, but still, play it cool, Gene…You’re fucking it up for the rest of us who have the sense not to leer…Anyway, yes, Smellynetico has settled down... Mona is aggrieved that Madusa gets a Cruiserweight title shot when Mona won their Evening Gown Match…Jarrett’s like BLAH BLAH BLAH, STOP TALKING SO I CAN TALK and then complains that neither Goldberg or Dustin Rhodes are here and shares his plans to see them on Monday…He also tells Okerlund to watch himself when he conducts interviews, or he’ll give Gene some of what Tenay got… Why the fuck are we getting another Bull and Vito blipment?...These guys fucking SUCK…What is the point of watching them cough in pain and lust after cheese sandwiches?...There is none; that was a rhetorical question… Jeff Jarrett and Mona hit the ring for their bout against Evan Karagias and Madusa…Jarrett makes Mona wrestle Karagias because he’s a dick…This sparks a JARRETT SUCKS chant…Mona and Karagias have a very good feeling out process, to my shock…They do some smooth chain wrestling (?!?!)…Mona is good, obviously, but I didn’t expect that from Karagias…Mona does her best in this match, but she’s outnumbered with Jarrett refusing to even get on the apron… Madusa and Karagias kick the shit out of Mona…However, Madusa takes a long time to go up top and Mona recovers and presses her to the mat…Karagias tries to go up, but Mona crotches him and hits a top-rope Frankensteiner…Unfortunately for her, Madusa comes up from behind and lands a sick German suplex…Karagias follows with a corkscrew splash for three…What the fuck, that was really fun?!...Jarrett gets in the ring and dresses down Mona…Mona dropkicks Jarrett in frustration, so Jarrett clobbers Mona with the guitar…That looked gross as FUCK…There’s a lump forming on Mona’s forehead almost immediately after she takes that guitar shot…GODDAM…Was that good television?...I don’t think it was, but it did entertain the shit out of me…That’s one for the Charming Uniquities list…And maybe a great example of how Crash TV in pro wrestling can be entertaining, if not very nourishing… Review: Bret Hart’s career in WCW so far…I sort of dig the idea that Russo and Ferrara are going to build their big angles around the Hitman and Chris Benoit…Of course, the execution will involve the Hitman turning heel, so as usual, the idea doesn’t live up to the execution… Gene Okerlund talks to these dopey secessionists in the Revolution…What the fuck is up with this sudden turn in the Revolution's stated goals?...It’s so weird…Saturn has taken one too many hits to the head and thinks they’re really forming a country… The Total Package has been reduced to pleading with TPtB about unbooking this match against Sid…TTP wants to know what’s in it for him…A potential world title shot on Nitro is in it for him, at least based on Package’s end of the call…Someone in production got wise and cut off the Thunder outro music while Package was talking about halfway through the phone call so we could hear him speaking… Okerlund talks to Disco and Lash, who are facing a couple of Revolution members in a second…Disco thinks it’ll be easy to keep outwitting the mobsters…Lash is now on CATCHPHRASE STEALING ALERT after he actually dares to call himself the “Ayatollah of Shrimp Creol-e”…Also, you’re Cajun, not Creole…Ricky Starks is the Creole wrestling icon, dammit…Not you…Disco tells Lash not to do the Bourbon Street Blues since dancing is his gimmick… Lash LeRoux and Disco Inferno end up paired against Dean Malenko and Saturn (w/Shane Douglas and Asya)…Malenko does some sub-average mic work about how badly America sucks…Again, this twist in the Revolution's gimmick has come from absolutely nowhere…What a strange fucking twist…It makes no sense…Malenko is confused at how someone can be proud of being Cajun and American at the same time…Uh, what?!...My God, Douglas and Disco have a mic “battle” now…What the fuck, man…Douglas is like I HATE ITALIANS SO MUCH…Now the GODDAM MOBSTERS walk out here…The mobsters attack the racist secessionists…Disco and Lash roll out while Asya ball shots the mobsters…Wait, no, Disco and Lash jump the Revolution as security backs the mobsters out…I guess we’re having our match now… Shane unfortunately joins commentary…If you’ve ever played Divekick, you’ll recognize what I’m going to type about Mr. Douglas next: FRAUD DETECTION WARNING – FRAUD DETECTED *Certified 100% Fraud*…Might as well put this doofus in a dress shirt and tie and call him “Dean” again…He sucks…Douglas rants about his dead veteran father and how that gives him the right to hate on America…Larry Z. goes all “centrist who is actually just an embarrassed Republican" in commentary and I blame Douglas for setting off Larry's inclination to act like a guest on CNN's Crossfire…This segment has been pure hell, and Saturn and Disco having a nice match segment isn’t going to change things…But wow, as bad as this has been, I can’t say that I’ve been bored…It’s like watching a house collapse in on itself…This must be how it would feel to watch the House of Usher fall in on its creepy residents…It's horrible, but I have to look, you know?...In the finish, Asya distracts Lash at ringside so that Douglas can clobber him in the head with his cast…He rolls Lash back into the ring, where Malenko puts him in the Texas Cloverleaf for the submission victory…That was pure, uncut WTF?!... Sid Vicious and The Total Package meet in the main event…Bret Hart hits the desk before the competitors come out…It strikes me that this company is turning Bret Hart heel again in about two weeks…Now, Terry Funk must come into the company pretty soon because I feel like he interacts with the Hitman in some way and tells Bret that he’s probably badly concussed…I don’t have Bret’s book near me right now, but I think that’s what the Hitman wrote about his hazy post-Starrcade remembrance of things… Wait, hold on, The Total Package gets a mic and says that they can do it the easy way or the hard way…Sid wants to do it the hard way and then stops Package from using an international object that TTP had hidden in his tights…Sid controls until TTP lands a low blow…Liz walks to the ring maybe a minute in…There’s a weak double-forearm spot a few seconds after that…The crowd chants for SID, who unfortunately for them is sprayed with mace after Package takes it from Liz…Sid blindly powerbombs Charles Robinson while trying to defend himself…Package quickly rolls a still-blinded Sid up while a second ref runs in and counts three…I mean, Sid’s legs were in the ropes and everything…Sid powerbombs a celebrating Luger after the match… This show was straight fuckery…It landed matches in the Good Matches and Charming Uniquities lists…It also landed matches/segments in the Dirt Worst and So Dumb, It’s Entertaining lists…I don’t know, this has to be on the positive side of the ledger just for holding my rapt attention for ninety minutes…Even the terrible stuff kept me watching…Just barely, WOO… Edited August 31 by SirSmUgly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted August 31 Share Posted August 31 7 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: The caption, which dashes out minor cuss words like “ass,” reads Juvi’s accented pronunciation of the word “con” as the C-bomb (!!!)…And that’s not a word that’s dashed out; it’s clearly spelled out in the captions (!!!!!)…Uh, someone at the Network might want to manually review the auto captioning in this episode… That's amazing! My favourite unintentional AI vaginal reference was when my very straightlaced and completely modern respectful male friend asked his TV remote for something innocuous (It wasn't Food Network but in the same vein) and his wife walked in as the TV displayed the message "You asked for p---y and this system can't handle commands with that type of language" as he fell all over himself to plead with her that he had not just asked the remote for that! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 31 Author Share Posted August 31 Show #217 – 6 December 1999 “The one that demonstrates the unique challenges of doing comedy on a pro wrestling program and delineates key differences in the broad skillsets of the WWF and WCW rosters in 1999” Gene Okerlund is in the ring for what might be the first time in the RFE to interview the CHO CHO CHOSEN ONE Jeff Jarrett. What I hate about this dub is that it’s almost all twangy guitar, and the “Cowboy” knockoff, like most Kid Rock music from that era, liberally borrows from hip-hop. Also, why was Kid Rock called that when he is the progenitor of this awful-sounding modern country music that’s done with hip-hop production for the backing track? I digress. Jarrett conducts his own interview, drops the worst catchphrase of the Nitro Era, and complains about Dustin Rhodes screwing him out of the WCW World Championship while Milwaukee actually starts an asshole chant and Okerlund chuckles at their choice of profanity. Jarrett is annoyed enough to challenge Dustin to a Bunkhouse Match (that Dustin’s “old fat daddy” invented) at Starrcade. Huh. Wait, hold on, I vaguely remember Jarrett fighting legends around this time. Doesn’t Ricky Steamboat show up at some point? And I guess this tracks with Terry Funk coming in. I’m interested in some old WCW/JCP faces wrestling Jeff Jarrett, honestly. Bring it on. Jarrett says that in the meantime, he’s ready challenge the big stars like Bret Hart, Goldberg, or…Mike Tenay. Jarrett crows about bashing Tenay with his guitar and threatens to do it to Okerlund. This brings Tenay out to say that since TPtB is doing nothing about what Jarrett did to him, he’s going to bring matters into his own hands. Jarrett faux apologizes to avoid a lawsuit, but after he makes to leave, he comes back and knocks Tenay down, then puts him in a Figure Four until Goldberg runs down for the save. So Tenay is going to track down Dustin, use that connection to get in touch with Dusty, and get Dusty and his friends to come after Jarrett? Again, I’m actually interested in that. Tonight’s featured bouts: Kevin Nash vs. Chris Benoit; Scott Hall vs. Sting; Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sid; and Creative Control against Roddy Piper in an I Quit Match that Piper will also be assigned the ref for. OK, this sounded great until the last match. I note that this is what typically happens when Schiavone or Tenay lists the matches for the night. The first two or three sound really interesting, and then by the end, we’re getting stuff like Madusa vs. Evan Karagias in a Sex Toy on a Pole match or whatever. Tony Marinara and his mobster doofus buddies are already triggering the EWR-style “You overused these talents on the show” pop-up in my brain. We get a review of Finlay cutting Brian Knobbs’s hair before, what the fuck, we have Knobbs walking through a wooded area somewhere outside Milwaukee. Oh, no. OK, so last week, Knobbs called himself a “hardcore soldier,” but I didn’t think enough of the phrase to make note of it; I thought it was just more of Knobbs’s babbling. I didn’t even think enough of Finlay saying to the corner camera, after he’d cut Knobbs’s hair, that if Knobbs wanted to be a soldier, he’d look like one. But I should have mentioned those things, apparently! Do you want to guess why? Go on, guess! Yep, Finlay has Knobbs participating in Finlay’s own personal boot camp. Finlay is an IRA man, I guess? That surprises me; I always took him for a Protestant. I don't know, maybe Finlay’s a loyalist. Actually, who the hell knows Finlay’s politics or how he feels about the Good Friday Agreement and whether or not he voted for it. The point is, he’s using what he learned dodging and/or making bombs on the streets of Belfast to whip this chump Knobbs into shape. I’m pretty sure that’s the implication, but maybe I’m wrong. Probably not, though. Norman Smiley, in a Mark Chmura Packers jersey and a cheesehead, comes to the ring and declares that Fit Finlay is lucky that he’s in a forest somewhere and not in the arena, or Fit would see what it’s really like. Smiley offers up an open challenge to anyone for his Hardcore title, and Rhonda Singh answers that challenge. Actually, WCW uses what I think is the shoot spelling of her last name, Sing. I think they’re doing that with Knobbs’s last name too (Knobs). I’ll keep using the most well-known and oft-used kayfabe spelling of her name, though, as I do with Knobbs. Singh hits Norman with various plunder while he screams and she yells C’MON, BE A MAN. I don’t think you get to define manhood, ma’am. Milwaukee pops noticeably huge for Smiley clobbering her with a trash can, which I’m not sure how to feel about. Smiley is way over working this gimmick, even if I think it’s kind of a waste of him. Singh misses a corner charge and slumps over the ropes. The crowd begs for Smiley to hit her with a Big Wiggle, but she uses a fire extinguisher to shoot foam in his eyes before he can dance. Shortly after, Singh chargers herself into a propped-up table in the corner, and Smiley covers for three. WCW should stay in the Midwest forever because they love this company there. But maybe not in Milwaukee specifically, considering that the Maestro and Symphony try to tune their piano backstage while a contingent in the crowd chants a homophobic slur. Anyway, David Flair runs up, slams the top of the piano on the Maestro, and abducts Symphony. That hanger-on Virgil got himself another damn job. He’s there wearing a suit in Russo’s office, standing next to Curt Hennig and Creative Control. I’m sort of kayfabe impressed at his ability to keep finding a group to glom onto. Russo talks to Psicosis and La Parka about Liger being given a return bout for the IWGP Junior Heayweight Championship, but Juvi being too injured to defeng the title. Russo says that whichever of the two is still standing and able to walk out of the office first will stand in for Juvi. Psicosis wins that short battle. Psicosis/Liger sounds amazing in theory, but I know it’s going to be bullshit in practice. The Total Package tries to ply Liz with champagne, but she’s not interested. Package needs her, though, as he earned a shot at the big gold against the Hitman tonight by beating Sid on Thunder. He mentions the champagne as he tries to get her to be his manager again, and Liz relents, like some kind of secretly alcoholic wine mom who just needs one more glass of champagne to get through the day, or worse, like Chris Jericho. Pizza delivery for Tony Marinara! No, actually, it’s Disco and Lash, looking threatening. Jushin Thunder Liger tries to get back his IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (that he never really lost as far as New Japan is concerned) by beating Psicosis. This is the second title in like three months that Psicosis never won, then defended and lost in his first defense. It’s the third title in 1999 that Psicosis lost in his first defense, whether he actually won it or not. WCW, I’ll never forgive you for what you did to this guy. Nash is just Russo with height and a much more pleasant-sounding voice. We cut away from this opening to look at Buzzkill wandering around in the crowd, handing out flowers. You know what, showrunners, you’ve made it clear that this match between two awesome workers – one a legit top-ten guy ever in the history of wrestling – doesn’t matter. Liger and Psicosis barely get going before Liger induces Psicosis to take his signature bump off the ropes rather than in the corner and La Magistrals him for three. La Parka then runs down and crowns Psicosis with his chair. Tygress, Stacy, and Fyre talk shit about Spice while playing cards; the fucking mobsters show up and are fucking annoying. They eventually try to play strip poker with these ladies. I bet you can see where this is going. Package tries to woo Liz with this line: “What’s a train without the caboose? No, no, that’s not a good—Tracy and Hepburn? Sonny and Cher! What’s a bagel without the cream cheese?” This guy is really fucking funny. Anyway, Liz is still resisting Package's overtures. The difference between me never wanting to see these damned mobsters on my screen and me being open to The Total Package getting a bunch of blipments, in fact, is purely that TTP is funny and the mobsters are not. One major issue with Russo and Ferrara’s run is that they write a lot of comedy that is mediocre-to-bad, then expect the wrestlers to pull it off for them. You can get away with that in the WWF of 1999, where there are so many guys with awesome comedic timing and quick wit that it’s almost impossible to ask them to do something funny and have it fail miserably. In WCW, though, most of these guys can barely talk, and now you’re asking them to also be clever and funny on top of that. I wonder what we think of Russo and Ferrara’s run if WCW still had Chris Jericho and Raven under their employ. Those two would have been all over these shows saving these comedy sketches and making them work. I assume Russo and Ferrara still would have failed, but we’d think of their tenure somewhat more fondly because there’d be at least two or three promos or sketches that would still get endless views on YouTube and be mythologized as among the few classic things that late-stage WCW was able to pull off. The Maestro goes ballistic backstage screaming for Symphony. Gene Okerlund is still locked on Mona’s cleavage window. After she redirects his eyes, she promises to win this next Triple Threat Match between her, Evan Karagias, and Madusa for a Cruiserweight title shot at Starrcade. Since Evan is the champ, if he wins, neither of them get a title shot. They can’t find anything better to do with Mona? Come on, man. Some dude yells YOU’RE HOT, *wolf whistle* TAKE IT OFF right near the mic as she gets in the ring. This guy is annoying, man. Evan Karagias doesn’t even participate as Madusa and Mona wrestle. Instead, he walks over and gets on commentary, which he is bad at. Mona takes over and lands a missile dropkick, so he pulls Mona away from the follow up to protect Madusa. He leans over Madusa to check on her, and she cradles him for three. Jeff Jarrett runs in and tosses Karagias out of the ring; Madusa kicks him, and he KABONGs her, then grabs a mic and challenges Goldberg to a match. Disco and Lash tie up Marinara while the latter threatens to get his dad involved. Please don’t tell me that we’re expanding the mobster presence on this show. Package has finally convinced Liz to rejoin him for his title match tonight. He uncorks the champagne, and no, actually he hasn’t convinced her. She grabs the bottle, pours its contents over his head, and storms out. The Maestro looks for Symphony and fails to see Dopey Dave silently dragging her along the hallway behind him. Okerlund talks to Vampiro and Jerry Only; Vampiro threatens Dr. Death and Oklahoma, who will face them NEXT. Oh no, Oklahoma wears a headset to the ring so he can call the match as it happens. The worst thing about Vince McMahon taking bumps is that every goofy fuccboi writer and promoter wanted to do it, too. Vampiro stole Oklahoma’s cowboy hat last week, by the way, and he wears it to the ring. Here’s the bad thing about guys who aren’t funny trying to be funny, encapsulated in one match. I’ll give Oklahoma credit for firing himself up to start the match, then running to make a tag the second that Vampiro advanced on him. That’s the only comedy spot that landed at all. Dr. Death makes the hubristic mistake of pulling Vampiro up at two, then furthers that mistake by tagging Oklahoma in to finish off Vampiro…except neither move is a mistake. SWERVE, BRO, FUCK YOUR WRESTLING TROPES. Oklahoma hits a top middle low-rope elbow for three and reclaims his hat. DUD. I don’t even like Vampiro much, and I think this is absurd booking. The Nitro Girls divert the mobsters so they can yank cards out of their clothing and cheat to win, like some sort of female card-playing Eddy Guerreros. Lash and Disco prepare to tar and feather Tony Marinara. Gene Okerlund interviews the Outsiders. Hall threatens to put Sting in the trash along with the TV title and feels good about beating Benoit in a ladder match at Starrcade, especially with Nash softening him up beforehand in their match tonight. Bret Hart defends the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against The Total Package in our next bout. The Hitman has no time for Package’s unveiling and attacks him to a pop. We go right to an obligabrawl that Bret controls. I remember, oh yeah, Package destroyed Bret's ankle five or six weeks ago, so of course the Hitman is more aggressive than normal to start. TTP reverses a whip into the rails, but gets a post shot reversed and ends up right back where he started by the time Bret dumps him in the ring. Bret targets the knee and ankle after long; Package keeps trying to beg off, and eventually has to resort to raking the Hitman’s eyes as Bret tries a backbreaker. Liz comes down almost immediately, but Sting runs down behind her and asks her if she’s going to represent “garbage or…me.” Liz picks Sting, but this is an obvious future swerve, even if it cost Package the world title in the moment. Package watches Liz leave with Sting and is summarily side Russian’d and locked in a Sharpshooter that he quickly submits to. Wait, hold on, Hennig hasn’t quite gotten Virgil Vincent Curly Bill hired yet. Russo asks Virgil Vincent Curly Bill what his new gimmick idea is. Virgil Vincent Curly Bill: “One word. SHANE.” Russo is correct to say that he’s not sure if that or “Vincent” is worse, but takes Shane on at minimum wage anyway. I will note that Russo in kayfabe thinks that “Shane” is dumb, but he and Ferrara surely shoot giggled to themselves about that re-naming when writing this show. Rhonda Singh randomly busts into the room to demand an opportunity at the end of this blipment. She got one earlier tonight, so I guess she wants another one. Russo has decided that he likes La Parka even if Park is Mexican. Russo makes Parka his official chairman and tells him that whenever he gives the signal, Parka should clobber the person he points at with a chair. Harlem Heat (whom Midnight was walking around looking for before the break), comes in next, and you know what happens. After Russo gives Harlem Heat a tag title shot at Starrcade, he gives the signal, and Parka and Creative Control jump them. Roddy Piper gets out of a limo and screams incoherent insults about Russo. David Flair scrapes his crowbar on the concrete and muffles Symphony’s terrified cries. What the fuck is up with this David Flair gimmick?! Dopey Dave screams at the voices in his head, which appear to talk to him, but don’t seem to understand very well by the looks of things. I doubt they even bother to counsel this guy. Okerlund talks to an upset Jerry Flynn. Specifically, Flynn is upset about Berlyn breaking the rules of THE BLOCK by running in on his fight with THE WALL, BROTHER last week and makes another open challenge for this week. The Revolution comes out here dressed like they bought their clothes from Che Guevara’s catalog. This is so dumb, folks. It’s so, so dumb. What is happening right now? What are Russo and Ferrara’s major malfunctions? Asya is going to face Midnight, but not before Shane Douglas absolutely sucks on the mic. He threatens the American flag. Oh no, Shane! Don’t violate the Flag Code! That would make you as dastardly a heel as Madusa! Milwaukee just loves being crude, so they start an ASSHOLE chant. They actually have a flag with their logo on it. Saturn says they’re like the Black Panthers and throws a Black Power fist up. Saturn in the Nation of Domination…now I’m into that bit of absurd fantasy booking. Midnight shows up in the ring after the lights go out, and yeah, she’s rough, but she’s way better than Asya. She’s an impressive athlete. This match isn’t good, but huge swole (not Swoll) ladies hitting dropkicks and suplexes and stuff is pretty cool, even if the match isn’t great! They’re just very slow, especially Asya. Someone should have laid this match out better with more tests of strength and overhead backbreakers and shit. Anyway, the Revolution yank the ref out of the ring and attack Midnight. I suppose Harlem Heat are indisposed after that beating, but Hacksaw Jim Duggan makes and appearance with the foam 2x4. Milwaukee is very weird in that they pop for Duggan in general, but REALLY pop when he tosses Asya to the mat. This crowd is, like, super into dudes beating up women. Jarrett hammering Madusa with the guitar got a huge pop that stood out, too, and of course Norm cracking Rhonda with a trash can. Anyway, the numbers game gets to Duggan, and they knock him out and lay the Revolution flag over him. Larry Z. asks Mike Graham about this meeting that TPtB has asked him to attend, but Graham knows nothing about it. Piper is still ranting in an incoherent manner. Speaking of guys who can’t do comedy…wait, actually, Piper can do comedy when good writers write it for him and he sticks to reciting what they write, a la his appearances as the Mauler in It’s Always Sunny. But a Piper who is told to let his creative juices fly? Nope. Tony S. says that they’re bringing back Nitro Party tapes, and I’m like, really? And then this tape is from DAFFNEY! I fucking love Daffney! Daffney, AKA “Crowbar’s Personality,” hugs a stuffed animal while rocking back and forth; she looks like she might understand David Flair far more than the voices in Davey’s head understand him. And in fact, she says: “I just want to say that I think David Flair is totally cool” and, whoa, I now notice that she’s got a shrine to David set up behind her, something like Helga Pataki’s shrine to Arnold. Daffney fucking RULES; let’s get her on regular television ASAP. Roddy Piper doesn’t rule, and I hope we can get him off regular TV ASAP. He’s, if you’ll recall, the ref and competitor in this handicap match against these voids of charisma and entertainment Creative Control. Piper insists on talking before this match, unfortunately. He thinks that calling CC “Coneheads” is funny. Piper uses his ref powers to pat down both Pa/oG and Ga/oP. Milwaukee thinks this is funny. I guess Piper grabbing a guy’s junk is hilarious to some people. As Piper lays out the rules of this I Quit Match, I think about my favorite ever Looney Tunes short, “To Duck or Not to Duck,” and how it did the whole “crooked ref uses the pre-match period to abuse an opponent” thing to perfection. That short was hilarious when I was four, and it’s equally as hilarious to me now that I’m old. I don’t know whether the duck referee’s introduction of Elmer Fudd was funnier (“What a dog…what a tramp…you can have him” *cackling laughter at Elmer’s general pathetic nature*) or whether his introduction of Daffy was funnier (“That champion of champions, your friend and mine, Daffy ‘Good to His Mother’ Duck” *crawls into Daffy’s lap and affectionately nuzzles him*). I should have just watched that short again instead of enduring this segment. Piper does a lot of cheap shotting and trickeration to get the advantage, falls to the numbers game, and eventually is saved by Goldberg. Ga/oP that big goofy bastard, is like a lead weight as Goldberg tries to Jackhammer him. Meanwhile, Piper chokes out Pa/oG with a belt until Pa/oG quits. HOLY SHIT, THIS SUCKED. Piper raises Goldberg’s arm and kisses him on his dome, and Goldberg says that they’re now even for last week. We cut back to (too much) Disco, Lash, and Marinara. They muss Marinara’s hair and then tar and feather the guy. NO ONE CARES ABOUT THIS ANGLE. The annoying mobsters are getting washed at cards by the heel Nitro Girls. This is a sentence that I could only write in the Russo-Ferrara Era. The Maestro finds one of Symphony’s shoes. Recap: Dustin Rhodes throws off TPtB’s plans by hindering the title aspirations of their CHO CHO CHOSEN ONE. Dustin Rhodes hooks it up with Meng next. Young Dust still uses the Seven theme, which is funny. This match is what it is, which is to say that it’s below average. Jarrett runs down in a couple minutes anyway and gets the match thrown out. Dustin sets Jarrett up for a Shattered Dreams, but the Outsiders hit the ring and bail Jarrett out by jumping Dustin; Jarrett lands a guitar shot on Meng, but it takes a big boot from Nash to fully put him down. Nash then hits Dustin with a Jackknife. Larry Z.’s meeting with Russo goes poorly. Russo asks Larry why Thunder sucks, and Larry says that it’s bad because Russo sucks at booking. This is all SHOOT true. Russo agrees and says they’ll send more A-listers to Thunder, and while he’s at the business of making over Thunder, he’s going to replace a certain shitty-ass announcer. Larry’s like FIRE ME, I’M ALREADY FIRED BOOKED FOR EIGHTEEN HOLES AT A PENNYSLVANIA COUNTRY CLUB. Larry Z. says he’ll never stick around and be a puppy dog for TPtB like that washed up bum Curt Hennig. Hennig, standing right next to Larry, is not pleased with those words. Russo immediately books Larry Z. vs. Curt Hennig, and if Larry Z. loses, he’s out of WCW. Larry says that’s fine, as long as if he wins, Russo goes back to New York and fucks himself, and not necessarily in that order. He wasn’t nearly that harsh about it, but that’s basically what he intimates. Russo agrees. Well, I see The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Iaukea has gotten his new gimmick. Some knockoff Prince music plays while TAFKAPI allows a dove, which is not crying, to perch on his outstreched hand. Prince Rogers was an outsized personality, and Iaukea is not that, so this gimmick will never work. Did Sharmell get repackaged as Paisley, or was that someone else? Curt Hennig (w/Shane, *sigh*) faces Larry Z. next. Larry comes out to the classic Nitro theme. I MISS YOU, CLASSIC NITRO THEME *sob*. Uh, excuse me for that tiny breakdown. Anyway, Larry actually looks pretty good, but I guess he doesn’t have to wrestle that often, so he looks way fresher than washed-ass Hennig. There’s a ref bump maybe ninety seconds in, of course. Heenan: “Hennig is not employed by WCW; he works for The Powers that Be.” OK, but aren’t TPtB employed by WCW? Anyway, the ref is out on this simple corner charge for a long fucking time. Larry turns a Perfect Plex attempt into a guillotine choke, but Shane helps Hennig clobber Larry. Arn Anderson runs down with a weapon, batters Shane and Hennig, and Larry Z. covers Hennig for three. Alas, all the legal paperwork that WCW has to process means that TPtB will be in these positions until the end of January. No, wait, Creative Control run down and point at the replay for Charles Robinson, who knows where his bread is buttered and reverses the decision. Arn and Larry batter Hennig and Shane, but it’s too late. Now, hold on, shouldn’t Larry be the winner because Shane interfered first? No, never you mind, I’m using logic where none exists. Disco and Lash finish trussing Marinara by stuffing an apple in his mouth. At the poker table, Vito has lost his tighty-whities. I. Don’t. CARE. Did I tell you yet, dear reader, that Benoit’s new music starts with him yelling SILENT BUT VIOLENT? I never heard this theme before this watch-through of Nitro, since I wasn’t watching Nitro at all by late ’99, but every time I hear it, it gets worse somehow. Benoit faces Kevin Nash (w/Scott Hall, ladder). Hall joins commentary, but sits on the ladder instead of at the desk. Nash throws a few soupbones to start. Benoit eventually answers with chops and mudhole stomps. I can’t get too much into this match because we all know what’s going to happen. It doesn’t take all that long before, after an obligabrawl, Benoit snaps on a Crippler Crossface out of a Nash Jackknife attempt, and Hall runs in. There was a good match somewhere in here, though. They had good chemistry. Anyway, Hall attacks the ref with the ladder to induce a ref bump. Benoit fights both guys off for a bit, but his attempt at a diving headbutt gets diverted into a splash on Hall when Hall advances on him. That give Nash time to land a big boot and a Jackknife. Hall positions the ladder and puts Benoit in crucifix position, but Sid runs down and yanks Benoit out of the ring before Hall can land a Razor’s Edge across the ladder. After some dudes walk around backstage and a “Mayhem for the Holidays” sweepstakes is promoted by Tony S., we come back to Sting telling Okerlund that he’s trying to stay one step ahead of TTP by hiring Liz. Oh Sting, you fool. You foolish fool. Anyway, the Stinger steals a Scott Hall catchphrase and uses it to challenge Hall before their match later tonight. Vito and the Bull, and I guess I’ll call ‘em the Mamalukes now, come to the ring and are too damn much, man. Russo and Ferrara just love this gimmick and these performers, and I’m bewildered by it. Vito demands that Disco Inferno and Lash LeRoux get down to the ring, calling them two “John Travolta wannabes.” When did Travolta play a Cajun dude with sub-mediocre mic skills? Anyway, the twins from last week skip out here instead. The Bull plans to hit the ladies, but Disco and Lash jump them from behind. Tony Marinara apparently got free somehow; he runs in and attacks Disco and Lash with a pipe. The Mamalukes carry Disco and Lash out of the ring. After the Maestro yells a lot backstage, we see the Mamalukes stuff Disco and Lash into their car. They celebrate, but they are so busy celebrating that they forget the keys are in the car and Disco drives away. HARDY HAR HAR. Back to the Maestro, he accidentally wanders into the Block and gets into a brief brawl with Jerry Flynn. The way this is shot is almost fucking unwatchable, by the way. There’s a weird filter over the action and a shaky cam. Flynn quickly knocks out the Maestro, then walks toward a door to leave, and it opens; David Flair hits Flynn with the crowbar, drags Symphony over to a knocked out Maestro, declares YOU FOUND HIM, and then yells at her to shut up as he drags her away. Oh my goodness, so much bad television, so many shitty angles, such garbage gimmicks. Gene Okerlund talks to Nick Patrick backstage; Patrick says that the Outsiders and Jeff Jarrett have run in on matches way too often, and the refs are striking back! He bars everyone from ringside in the Sting/Scott Hall match unless they have a legal reason to be there. As it turns out, Liz just got her managerial contract with Sting signed and filed with WCW; she shows it to him as he makes his way toward the ring. There are two more Nitro Series videos out: One for Sid, and a second one for Sting. I’m actually interested in seeing those. Anyway, Scott Hall comes back to the ring with Kevin Nash at his side. Sting comes to the ring with Liz at his side. Nash gets on commentary, so I guess he can stay out here? I don’t know. Liz definitely can stay out here as Sting’s manager. Nash says that if Piper was allowed to search Creative Control before their match, “Scott should be able to search Liz with the same vigor.” Nash is absurd sometimes. He gets up from the desk early to attack Sting and is ejected from ringside. Hall goes with abdominal stretches and sleepers and chokes and punches. I’m not really into anything that’s happening right now. Sting eventually makes a comeback, lands ten punches in the corner, winds up a big eleventh one, and lands that, too. Hall gets control with an eye poke and lands a fallaway slam. Liz gets on the apron, so Hall walks over and crotch chops her; she maces him in response. Hall wobbles into the corner, blinded, and gets hit with a couple of Stinger Splashes and wrapped in a Scorpion Death Drop; he quickly submits. Commentary makes a point of noting that Sting didn’t see Liz commit that fuckery on the apron. David Flair drags Symphony behind him on his way to the ring, and Tony S. announces that Davey will face DDP at Starrcade (I think). Guess what kind of match they’re going to have. Go on, guess. That’s right, a CROWBAR ON A POLE MATCH. Russo is such a clown, man. Ferrara is too. I don’t want to forget him. Anyway, Davey comes out and yells into a mic that the Maestro had better get out here before he does something unspeakable to Symphony, but DDP’s music plays and Page walks out. Symphony escapes as Davey swings the crowbar at Page, whiffs, and eats a Diamond Cutter. Page insists on continuing to talk, this time about internet rumors. Apparently, the rumor was that Page wanted out of his contract with WCW to go to the WWF. Yeah, this vaguely sounds like something that got kicked around on RajahWWF back then. Page is a babyface again, maybe? He says he believes in loyalty, so he’s staying in WCW. That’s a babyface thing to say. But then, he says he’s only out for himself because people who were close to him have let him down, so that’s a heel thing to say. I don’t care, actually. I’ll find out soon enough, SHADES OF GRAY, BRO and all that nonsense. Tony S. announces that Dr. Death will face Vampiro at Starrcade; if Vampiro wins, he gets five minutes with Oklahoma. Harlem Heat will be joined by Midnight to face Creative Control and Hennig at Starrcade, but it’ll still be for the tag titles even though it's now a six-person tag. And yes, that Page/Davey match will be at Starrcade as well. My “Starrcade 1996 was the last good Starrcade” take becomes more apparently true by the minute. Page and Sid have like a ninety-second match that end when Sid blocks a Diamond Cutter, shoves Page into the ref to bump him while countering it, and hits a powerbomb. He calls for a second, and Nash runs down to interfere. So does practically every other main eventer in the locker room, and we get a giant schmozz. Security tries to break things up, but fails. Nick Patrick says that he’s sick of all the ref abuse, and they should just make Goldberg/Jarrett a lumberjack match because these refs have had it with the unsafe conditions and are walking out. Goldberg runs out to the ring as everyone brawls, and by that I mean all the main eventers and also Creative Control. The babyfaces rule the ring. As the only ref left in the company right now, Roddy Piper comes out and declares everyone out there but Jarrett and Goldberg LUMBERJACKS, one by one. YOU, LUMBERJACK. YOU, OUT, LUMBERJACK. Jarrett backs away from the ring, but a few linemen for the Green Bay Packers hit the ramp and bar his way; Dustin Rhodes comes from nowhere, jumps Jarrett, and tosses him in the ring. They should just run every show in Milwaukee, as this rotten piece-of-shit show has kept them pretty engaged all night! This Goldberg/Jarrett match is whatever. Jarrett gets beaten up, bails to the wrong side of town, and gets clobbered. Goldberg jumps into the heel side willingly to throw strikes. Jarrett eventually gets a spot of control on Goldberg by clobbering him in the head and back with a chair. The cover after those chair shots gets like 1.9. Jarrett slaps on a sleeper, but a mere sleeper won’t stop the supreme fighting machine that is Kama Goldberg. Goldberg fights up, avoids heel intervention, and eventually gets three with a Jackhammer on Jarrett to send the crowd home happy. But not me! I’m not happy with this show. Bad. -35 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted September 1 Share Posted September 1 I saw Daffney manage at an indy show not long before she passed. She was really good as a heel manager doing all these little interference spots behind the ref 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted September 1 Author Share Posted September 1 Thunder Interlude – show number ninety – 9 December 1999 "The WCW Gang welcomes Juventud Guerrera to color commentary; Juvi on commentary provides us with the good (shitting on Shane Douglas's mic skills and asking about how The Total Package got all those muscles), the bad (his Wish.com Rock impression), and the ugly (using a homophobic slur to describe TAFKAPI)" We’re creeping up on a hundred Thunder episodes…Around the close of the Russo-Ferrara Era or so, we should get there… Tenay says that TPtB is determined to Make Thunder Special Again…I sort of want to get that printed on a blue cap (to match Thunder’s color scheme, of course) in late WCW-era lettering and wear it around…I’m a proud MTSA supporter, but I wonder: Was Thunder ever that special to begin with?... The Outsiders tease discord with one another as Hall makes a sulky Nash help him carry a ladder to the ring for their opening promo…Hall shouts out Chris Benoit for his wrestling skills, and Benoit gets slightly booed…A kid yells BENOIT SUUUUUUUCKS…People love the hell out of Scott Hall, let me tell you…Hall gives props to Benoit, but says that he’s better than Benoit in regular matches, much less ladder matches…He says that Benoit needs to go check out those WWF’s Greatest Matches tapes at Blockbuster…His ladder matches against Shawn Michaels apparently earned him enough money to buy his first house… Nash takes the mic and is annoyed at the dudes in the back with chips on their shoulders…He says that Sid must think this is a video game if he’s out here calling himself the “Master of the Powerbomb”…Nash thinks he’s a much badder man than Sid…This gets a mixed reception and some silence, as the fans like both of these dudes…Nash turns Sid’s threat from last week against Sid and threatens to powerbomb him straight to hell… Now Sid comes out and, aw man, talks about Nash holding him down with political games…No one wants to hear Sid talking about office politics…We want to hear him talk about kicking the shit out of a dude in a whisper, then shouts…And then maybe top it off with a crazed cackle…Russo and Ferrara have gone over the top with the shoot-bang shit in this promo…Now Nash responds to Sid’s declaration of powerbomb supremacy by asking him why he’s so sure he’ll win…“Is Vader booked?”…Because, you see, Sid was booked to win a similar type of match against Vader back in 1996 WWF…Whoa, it’s a reference to match that I know about!...Mindblowing!...Nash referenced something from another company to talk about a guy’s push!...What a clever thing to do!... Sid thinks Nash’s response is some cornball shit (which it is), and attacks Nash…He wins their punch battle, then shoves the ladder over with Hall still on it…Sid prepares to powerbomb Nash, but Hall recovers and hits Sid with the ladder…Nash prepares to Jackknife Sid into the ladder, but Dustin Rhodes runs down for the save…Jarrett is out fifteen seconds after and KABONGs Rhodes…Chris Benoit comes down and attempts a save, but gets his whip into the ladder reversed…The heels stand tall…Well, I can take a wild guess at what tonight’s main event might be… Mike Tenay is alone at the desk…Oh no, are they going to send Oklahoma out here to replace Larry Z. for the night?...Matches: Bret Hart and Goldberg vs. Creative Control for the tag titles (?!?!)…Evan Karagias vs. Rhonda Singh for the cruiser title (?!?!?!)…I actually thought it’d be Mona getting the shot and started to type her name in before Tenay finished his sentence…Madusa comes down the ramp, yapping immediately about Singh not hitting the 220-pound limit for the division…Probably, but Disco’s over 220, and they let him be champ, so my point is that caring about the cruiser division is over and DONE, sis…Madusa says it’ll happen over her dead body, then tries to be sexy…She fails, IMO… Other matches: Diamond Dallas Page vs. Sting; The Total Package vs. Buff Bagwell; TAFKAPI’s debut…And yes, Sharmell becomes Paisley, which I’ll use as her name going forward since it makes sense in reference to the gimmick that she’ll be a part of… Juventud Guerrera, arm in a sling, comes to the ring with Psicosis and does the Rock’s shtick…Yuck…Why would you do something like this?...It makes you look fiftieth rate...Juvi joins commentary…Juvi continues dropping Rock catchphrases because the Rock made him get in his feelings while randomly name-dropping him in a promo on RAW three months ago…Tenay: “That’s original…is this a rib?!”…But Juvi does make me laugh by saying, “I’m the new play-by-play announcer” and then cackling like a goof… Nitro recap: This show was a steaming pile of shit...More specifically, it was the steaming pile of shit on the glass table that Jimmy Valiant was laying under as he pleasured himself… Sid, Chris Benoit, and Dustin Rhodes are looking for TPtB to get a trios tag match made… The Revolution comes to the ring and Shane Douglas cuts a mediocre promo while challenging Jim Duggan to a fight…Weirdly, “jabroni” is dashed out on the auto caption…Not the C-bomb, though!... Juvi is starts out terribly on commentary, no selling Tenay’s questions and talking over or under the guy…But as he starts to get comfortable, he drops a few gems…In this case, he gets warmed up as Shane Douglas, cutting this bland promo in which he challenges Duggan and three friends to a Starrcade eight-person tag in which the loser has to be janitors for thirty days, yells SHUT UP at the crowd even though they don’t care…Juvi giggles and says, “The people [are] already quiet”…Yes they are, Juvi…Yes they are…Juvi’s out here exposing this fraud midcard chump on commentary, and it’s hilarious…Douglas says some boilerplate heel shit, and Juvi mockingly BOOOOOOOOOs before scoffing and asking, “What else do you have, you’re killing me”…The man is not wrong about Douglas being a net-negative on the mic!... Oh, also, a correction: Only the Revolution have to be janitors if they lose…If Duggan and his guys lose, Duggan has to renounce his American citizenship…Douglas shows his watch to the camera and says it’s worth more than anyone in the crowd makes in a year…Juvi, talking under Douglas: “He [bought] that watch in a subway”…HAHAHAHAHA…OK, Juvi should be on commentary specifically for Shane Douglas segments…Fucking hilarious…He roasted that dude…Malenko hates Penzer for some reason…Saturn gets the “united we stand, divided we fall” saying backwards…Juvi, about Saturn's mixing up of the saying: “That’s pretty good for him”…Holy shit, Juvi's cracking on Saturn’s mic skills now... Booker T. (w/Stevie Ray) comes to the ring…Juvi: “I like that guy”…Me too, Juvi…Me too…Douglas and Juvi are now BOTH on commentary while Booker and Malenko have a match…Booker is over…Do something with him…Booker misses a Houston Side Kick, crotches himself, and gets clocked by Douglas in the back of the head with Douglas’s cast…Malenko locks on a Texas Cloverleaf and gets a KO victory…So much for doing something with Booker…Fucking Russo, that moron…Duggan runs down after the match…Juvi is a fan…I’m kind of turning around on Juvi’s commentary…Juventud yells HOOOOOOOO and then asserts how much he likes Hacksaw, then yells HOOOOOOOOO some more…Juventud basically MS3TK’ing this show is kind of entertaining, which I didn’t expect… Dustin Rhodes, Sid, and Chris Benoit kick the hell out of Creative Control and Shane outside of TPtB’s office…Hennig and Russo talk about Russo's boys getting washed out there from the safety of the office…Russo wonders why Hennig’s not out there with them…Hennig’s too busy supervising the ass kicking his guys are taking… Sid, directly to Russo after the light work he took care of outside the office: WE WANT A MATCH WITH THE OUTSIDERS AND JARRETT OR I’LL REACH IN AND TEAR YOUR THROAT OUT…Yeah, that’s more like the Sid talk I’d expect and hope for… So, it’s okay to have this “Purple Rain” knockoff theme un-dubbed, but we can’t give a few pennies to Jimmy Hart and Howard Helm for all their knockoffs?...Of which I assume this is one?...If this knockoff is okay, tell me how the Cat’s James Brown knockoff isn’t?...Juvi: “THAT’S Prince Iaukea?! *hoots* That’s a great gimmick for the worst wrestler in the company!”…Hold on, I think the guy is a solid worker…He’s not, like, Adrian Byrd or Buzz Stern or Luther Biggs, y’know?...Juvi undoes all of the funny work he’s been doing recently by calling TAFKAPI a gay slur…It’s wild that he just casually dropped that word on commentary…Tenay, floored, is silent for a couple of beats before moving on…Juvi bitches about Vampiro copying his Juvi Driver as Vamp walks down to the ring with Jerry Only…Oklahoma stomps out here next…Tenay wants Juvi to stop talking about "the juice" on top of maybe cooling it on the homophobic slurs…Oklahoma joins color… This show is a complete disaster, if you couldn’t tell from this review…Oklahoma, Jerry Only, and Juvi all talk over each other on commentary while TAFKAPI does a terrible Prince impression…Of course, then he takes a WILD corner bump to the outside, bashes himself off the stairs, and rolls into the guardrail…We cut away to see Roddy Piper showing up at the arena…Oklahoma tries to hit on Paisley…He propositions her, and she slaps him…Vampiro lands on his feet out of a TAFKAPI monkey flip and lands a superkick for three…TAFKAPI attacks Oklahoma for macking on Paisley after the match…Dr. Death runs up on TAFKAPI and lands a backdrop driver…Oklahoma stomps TAFKAPI while Dr. Death applauds… Russo fires Mona while Shane tries to hit on her…Rhonda Singh walks in and takes her place and Shane is bummed…Singh offers a secondary plan just in case she doesn’t win to juice the ratings…She whispers it to Russo, who recoils…Whatever, I don’t care…Wait, I do care about the fact that WCW couldn’t find anything cool for Mona to do (I believe she’s released in 2000 at some point)…She can work and she’s incredibly physically attractive…Those are literally all you need to have as attributes to do well in the pro wrestling business regardless of gender!...Talking well is optional if you have those two traits, no matter what people might otherwise claim… Piper and Nick Patrick yammer on about how ref decisions are final according to a Russo memo…Piper encourages Patrick to use his newfound power to annoy TPtB, then thinks about how he might do that as well… So, I guess that Stevie Ray and Saturn brawled their way backstage during the Malenko/Booker match at some point because they’re apparently "still" (according to Tenay) brawling backstage… The Hitman and Goldberg talk about their tag title shot against Creative Control…Of course we need to get the tag belts on two feuding opponents…This is a Russo special…And if I’m wrong, and if CC somehow walk away with the belts, that would be a true swerve… Juvi is excited to see, and I quote directly: “The Excellence of the Execution and The Excellence of…uh…of the Killing Machine”…I’m going to start calling Goldberg “The Excellence of the Killing Machine” now…That’s a tremendous nickname for the guy… Evan Karagias (w/Madusa) faces Rhonda Singh…No wait, Singh faces Madusa…What the heck; I thought this was a title match?...Either I was mistaken or Tenay was...Karagias joins commentary, to Juvi’s consternation…Juvi and Karagias squawk at each other over who is the better cruiserweight before Karagias gets on the apron and watches Madusa hit a trio of missile dropkicks…Madusa makes out with Karagias, dodges a Singh charge that knocks Karagias off the apron, then rolls up Singh as Juvi cackles…Singh goes to plan be and stripteases in the ring while Juvi cheers…The lights go out before Singh can get more than her gloves off…She’s jumped by someone while the lights are off, and she’s out when they come back on… Gene Okerlund tries to hold a conversation with David Flair…Oklerund asks about Flair clanging Flynn with his crowbar on Nitro and then asks for a few words from Flair about his upcoming BLOCK match with Flynn tonight…Flair goes nutty and destroys stuff with his crowbar… Roddy Piper talks to himself about Russo’s ref memo…Who is nuttier and more incoherent, Piper or Dopey Dave?... Stevie Ray and Saturn are still fighting…Remember, there’s no security because they walked off the job at the end of Nitro… David Flair enters the BLOCK…Dave misses Flynn walking past him and is about to get jumped when Buzzkill tries to stop them from fighting…Flynn then finishes jumping Flair, who gets his crowbar knocked away and then quickly choked out…Tank Abbott jumps Flynn from behind, KO’s him with a punch, and says this type of fighting is HIS WORLD in the flattest voice possible…I appreciate Tank, as shitty as he is at everything pro wrestling, because he indirectly got Russo fired after Russo suggested putting the big gold belt on him…That’s the one bit of usefulness that chump has ever had… Creative Control seems to have paid off Slick Johnson, who walks with them and acts like quite the agreeable referee!...Goldberg gets his security contingent, despite security not really bothering to do anything else on this show… Creative Control defend the WCW World Tag Team Championships against Bret Hart and Goldberg next up…Bret and Goldberg take about two minutes to polish off CC and win the belts…Once again, this match has NO shine segment and goes straight to Bret in FIP for a few seconds before he makes a comeback despite Slick Johnson’s quick count attempts…Piper comes down after Slick tries to cheat for the heels, takes out the crooked ref, and counts the three/calls the submission for a stereo Sharpshooter/Jackhammer on the CC members…Bret wishes his tag champion partner and world title opponent good luck in their upcoming Starrcade bout after the match… Russo demands that Hennig bring Piper in, and Hennig gets Shane to do it for him instead… Stevie beats on Saturn right past a merch table and through the crowd as Juvi steals the Rock's catchphrases some more…They end up in the ring, and I guess this is a match now…Creative Control run back out and jump Stevie, helping Saturn get the win…Booker runs out for the post-match save… YA KNOW, PIPA, lectures Russo to Piper backstage, as he laments Piper counting the three in the tag title match…Russo cracks his knuckles to signal La Parka, but Piper cuts Parka off before Parka can swing his chair…He makes Parka SIT LIKE A DOG in the chair and then slaps him…I can’t wait until Parka can get out of this company and go be a star in Mexico…Russo wonders if Piper is on drugs before saying that he’ll run Piper out of pro wrestling if the latter ever does anything like he did in tonight's tag title match again…Piper leaves something on Russo’s desk in supposed friendship, but maybe I missed something…That’s easy to do with this show… Sting and Liz stand in the back…Sting yells at Okerlund about Diamond Dallas Trash and The Total Trashy Package and such…Sting’s a really bad mic guy in the late ‘90s, isn’t he?...I get his Surfer Sting stuff…It fits the times…I get his wry veteran act in TNA…But late ‘90s WCW Sting…Woof… The Total Package is on his way to the ring…Juvi: “The Total Package, he looks good, but, mmmm, I wanna—I wanna see some JUICE”…Are you sure you’re looking closely enough at The Total Package, Juvi?...Hahaha, this dude Juvi says this when TTP unveils: “Is that genetic? Nah, that’s THE JUICE”…You know if Luger heard that shit and confronted him, he was copping pleas and saying that English wasn’t his first language… Diamond Dallas Page joins commentary as Buff Bagwell gets in the ring and prepares to hook it up with TTP…Um, is Buff still feuding with Russo and Ferrara, or what?...Juvi, about a silent DDP: “I think he’s mad; I think he’s angry”…DDP: “Hey. Shut the hell up”…Juvi: “OK. *quietly* See, he’s mad”… Fucking Juvi. When he stops trying to get his Dollar Tree Rock act over, he’s actually pretty funny a lot of the time…For some reason, Buff and Page end up brawling a minute into this thing during an obligabrawl…Did they have beef at some point?...Package holds back Page and we get a wide shot for some reason…That’s it, the match just ends after a couple of minutes...I’m baffled by this Buff/Page thing…Maybe it’ll get an explanation on Nitro… Russo admonishes Duggan for trying to wrestle again when there are toilets to be cleaned, but Duggan wants to stand up for WWE America…Russo clears the room of his cronies to talk one-on-one to Hacksaw…Russo says that Americans can’t possibly care about Duggan because they don’t buy tickets to see him or buy his merch anymore…Russo: “This country stands up for three things: me, myself, and I”…Sometimes even the heels have a good point…Duggan has faith in America and Americans, and Russo sends him out there to fail because he thinks otherwise… Asya (w/The Revolution) faces Jim Duggan in a match…Juvi and the crowd both love Hacksaw…The ref sends the rest of the Revolution away from ringside, but Russo’s cronies run in and attack Hacksaw…It’s a four-on-one beatdown…The Revolution come back out with their flag and a bunch of hot dogs and apple pie… They jam Duggan’s janitorial suit with hot dog buns and squirt mustard on him while Saturn eats the apple pie…Who booked this crap?...Harlem Heat run down for the extremely late save… Gene Okerlund interviews Syko Sid, Chris Benoit, and Dustin Rhodes before their trios match with the Outsiders and Jeff Jarrett…They threaten their opponents…Sid > Rhodes > Benoit in terms of speaking in this promo segment… DDP turns right back around and makes his way out to face Sting (w/Ms. Elizabeth)…There are fewer than nine minutes left in this Thunder when Sting hooks up with Page…Sting dominates and locks on a Scorpion Deathlock, but Page gets the ropes…Page and Sting slug it out and then, maybe a minute in if I’m being generous, Page takes out the ref…TTP runs down and clobbers Sting with a bat…Page makes to check on Sting, but hits him with a back elbow and a Diamond Cutter instead, then pins him for three even though the bell rang wildly for a no contest when Package ran in… This trios tag is booked for just under five minutes after entrances…What, that long?...They rush through the shine to get to the FIP segment…It really irritates me that babyfaces don’t get much shine, if at all, in tag matches during the RFE…Part of the fun of a tag match is getting hyped as the babyfaces dominate early and tricking yourself into thinking that they’re going to coast to victory even though you know they’re not because of the obvious structure of American tag matches…Anyway, Dustin gets a hot tag three minutes in and the finish is chaotic…Nash wins it with a pinfall on Sid after Jarrett KABONGs the latter… The thing about this show is that it was an entire car wreck, like most RFE shows…Matches are extremely short and don’t really matter…The humor is often puerile at best and slur-or-stereotype-based “humor” at worst…There are a lot of annoying personalities on this show…I’ve thought a lot about why Russo and Ferrara shows are typically scoring so much worse than the worst Bischoff-overseen shows even though I also think Russo and Ferrara shows, as low in quality as they are, are far more watchable than the lowest-quality Bischoff ones…Especially the Nash-booked shows under Bischoff…I’d rather watch Russo shows than those, I think, maybe… The big reason that Bischoff-era shows score better is basically a much greater volume of quality matches…For example, SuperBrawl IX was a mediocre show that culminated a bunch of poorly-booked feuds and came off the back of a bunch of bad Nitros, including Show #179, which featured Ric Flair getting destroyed, left in a field, and driven back to the show by a rando to get destroyed some more…And that show still placed four matches on my Good Matches list… So, are terrible Bischoff-overseen shows (we’re talking mostly post BatB ’98 here) scoring better than Russo-overseen shows?...Yes, BUT…It’s only because the former put on good, if often aimless wrestling matches…I love good wrestling matches, but in an episodic show, they end up being empty calories of sorts…Russo shows move way too quickly and are filled with nonsense, but I can’t say they’re boring…Irritating, sure…Nonsensical, yeah…Illogical, of course!...But they do hold my attention better than, say, Bischoff doing an awful, ten/fifteen-minute-long Tonight Show bit week after week…Still, this Thunder holding my attention ended up being bad for its grade…All that attention I put on it revealed the depths of its sucktitude more than if I glazed my eyes over for a neglected Thunder with two good TV matches on it in the Bisch Era…OWWWWWWW… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted September 1 Author Share Posted September 1 11 hours ago, zendragon said: I saw Daffney manage at an indy show not long before she passed. She was really good as a heel manager doing all these little interference spots behind the ref I have more trepidation for watching Daffney in WCW than I did Benoit. I feel it will be tough to see her take head shots and dangerous bumps in the hardcore division knowing that the long-term chronic pain she attributed to those shots and bumps caused her to take her own life. How I'll extricate from that the joy I get from watching her be a fun all-around personality, we'll see. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted September 2 Share Posted September 2 On the subject of humor in wrestling... I'm fine with A Santino or a Danhausen getting a couple of minutes for comedy relief not something like that attempting to take over an entire show. I liken it to the famous restaurant seen in Goodfella's as Ray Loita makes his way in we get a few minutes of henry Youngman on stage, a couple of laughs to break the tension and then its back to the serious movie, it doesn't turn everything in horseshit after than 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted September 2 Share Posted September 2 19 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Bischoff doing an awful, ten/fifteen-minute-long Tonight Show bit week after week… in my rewatch, these broke me. I had told myself that i would watch every segment on every show. No fast forwarding (except commercials). After the (i think) 2nd Tonight Show segment that was complete fucking garbage, i revised my rule to "no fast forwarding (except commercials and Bischoff masturbatory segments)". Those were SO DIRE. zero redeeming qualities. on a larger scale, sometime in this RFE is when i actually broke. You see, i was making it a point to watch EVERYTHING. WWF Raw, Smackdown, Heat, Metal/Jakked, but also WCW Nitro, Thunder, Saturday Night, Worldwide, Pro, and all the PPVs too. And doing it all in real-time (watching Raw & Nitro on Monday, Thunder/SD on Thursdays, and i would usually run through those weekend shows on Saturday mornings). I attempted to add ECW too (but thankfully realized my error and visited that later on its own). It was BRUTAL. i started to hate wrestling. But i powered through because i felt compelled to finish my self-induced hysteria. Because of all this, my memory gets extremely hazy from here on out. Most of it is due to burnout, but i have to think that Russo's machine gun-style story beats contributed heavily as well. so much stuff happens in so short a period of time, that it just blends together in a mess. Add in angles being dropped with alignments shifting on a dime, and it's just a blur. i say all of that to say that i appreciate you being able to keep a lot of this more straight than i ever did. From the throwaway lines like "i guess that makes sense because Luger attacked Hart 2 weeks ago" or whatever, to the "did Buff have heat with Page", thank you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted September 2 Author Share Posted September 2 Show #218 – 13 December 1999 “The one that sets in motion yet another pointless and stupid Bret Hart heel turn; if Russo and Bischoff ever want to bond over what they have in common, 'turning Bret Hart heel when everyone wants him to be a babyface'” It’s wild that Vince Russo just got into WCW, and we’re only like another five or six Nitros away from him being ousted for at least a little while! We open in media res, with Jeff Jarrett destroying Chris Benoit backstage before missing a briefcase toss, which allows Benoit to come back and whip him into a pile of boxes, then snot rocket him. Now we get the opener. The Artist Known Formerly as Prince Iaukea – TAFKAPI in the previous Thunder review and for as long as this guy is on camera in this gimmick going forward – comes to the ring with Paisley. I’m waiting for someone out there, maybe Russo himself in a backstage segment, to mention that her last name is PARK, BRO. Iaukea is trying to act like Prince Rogers, but Prince Rogers has flair and style, you know? It’s only replicable by comedians who have a gift for noticing his tiny quirks and adding them to an imitation based on the broad behaviors everyone associates with Rogers to make a full picture of their impersonation. In other words, effectively lampooning Prince as part of this gimmick is way beyond TAFKAPI’s talent in playing a character. Most people think of Dave Chappelle’s Prince impersonation in one of Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories sketches as a guiding example of what an over-the-top, but still realistic-feeling impersonation looks like (just the description you want for a pro wrestling gimmick), but you could also look at the comedian who played Prince knockoff “Charade” on Sherman’s Showcase as another reasonable example of what Iaukea would need to do to make this thing work at a bare minimum. Iaukea’s trying his best, but I just feel bad for him. We’re just going to get the obvious matchup – TAFKAPI vs. the Maestro (w/Symphony) – out of the way, I guess. These entrances with the music and such take legit like four or five minutes. I’m certainly that they’re going to be longer than this match, which has some energy and is perfectly fine for the length it gets. OF COURSE Symphony and Paisley get on the apron in tandem; each one slaps the face of the other lady’s charge. TAFKAPI rolls the Maestro up for three as he staggers backward from Paisley’s slap, but he doesn’t get long to celebrate because snobby country music star J E DOUBLE FF J A DOUBLE R E DOUBLE T, HA HA hits both of these musical frauds with guitars, then challenges Chris Benoit to a Bunkhouse Brawl later tonight. That sounds awesome, but again, it’s almost certain that twenty or thirty dudes will run in on that one just as it’s getting good. Other matches tonight: Tank Abbott vs. Meng; Syko Sid Vicious vs. Dr. Death; Sting and DDP vs. David Flair and TTP in a no-DQ tag match. I get a kick out of Tony having to promote the Jarrett/Benoit match since it’s part of the graphic that pops up to list out tonight’s big bouts and covering for it by saying that everyone just assumes Benoit will accept any challenge issued to him, so they put it on the list ahead of time. Evan Karagias is macking on Spice, which would be quite the upgrade on Madusa. Unfortunately, Madusa comes up on Evan and goes after Spice; security, back to work this week, swarms Madusa. Double champion Bret Hart, who is most of the way through being booked like an ace for a single month before Goldberg gives him such a terrible concussion that he has to retire, comes to the ring to cut a little promo in the ring about his Starrcade match against Goldberg. Hitman: “I’ve got nothing but infinite respect for Bill Goldberg.” Give it six days, buddy. The crowd starts a GOLDBERG chant while the Hitman speaks, and three guys try to counter with a GOLDBERG SUCKS *clap* *clap* *clapclapclap* chant, but it doesn’t take. Bret gets booed for guaranteeing that he’ll win at Starrcade, and I can only imagine Russo being certain that having Bret say that would cement that no one in the audience is predicting yet another Hitman heel turn. Goldberg comes to the ring to respond. He says that matches aren’t won on confidence level, then shows high confidence that he’ll win and that Bret is next. The Outsiders join this spirited discussion from the ramp. Nash facetiously feeds Hall his line, and Hall hits a HEY YO to rapturous applause. The Outsiders want the tag belts and make a challenge for them, and it’s a legit 60/40 in favor of the Outsiders when Hall makes the initial challenge. Hall quotes Something for the People’s single hit, then hands the mic to Nash, who says: “If you two can find it in your hearts to kiss and make up – I’ll wait, go ahead. Go ahead. *grins* How about a little embrace?” OK, that made me chuckle a bit. The Hitman accepts the challenge for his team. On another note, if Scott Hall could have stayed on the straight and narrow, he could have been the world champ in this company forever. He might be the most popular WCW wrestler in the whole Monday Night Wars Era. People love the hell out of Scott Hall. Since Mona got dismissed from WCW by Russo on Thunder, Gene Okerlund has now reduced himself to staring at Madusa’s cleavage. Madusa redirects his attention, then asserts that she’s going to wrestle Spice tonight. Ref Roddy Piper gets out of a car and yells about TPtB and New Orleans in general. Terry Taylor tells TTP the bad news about his match for later tonight. Luger: “The NITWIT David Flair in a tag team with The Total Package, *sigh*.” I again assert that TTP is really funny. This style of television really suits him - short matches as he gets worse and worse in the ring, but more speaking segments where he's asked to do comedy, which he's excellent at. David Flair, speaking of, scares a delivery person away with his crowbar. The delivery person drops a package for him that he picks up. Aw, that wacky Daffney has advanced to mailing things to her target. Soon, she’ll be shrieking in his ear and trying to scratch his eyeballs out. Madusa vs. Spice is next. Spice’s Eurodance entrance music rules. That’s some very ‘90s shit right there. Madusa jumps on Spice. Evan Karagias runs down and tries to stop Madusa, who wants Evan to punch Spice in the face. Evan doesn’t, and Spice ends up sandwiching Madusa into Evan in the corner, then covering Madusa while her body is halfway off the apron and somehow gets a three count. After the match, Madusa pretends to make up with Evan, slips behind him, and hits him with a German suplex, then kicks him. They bicker as they leave not-quite-together. Russo asks Shane if he’s got the remote control ready for use in Curt Hennig’s upcoming match, but before he can go over any more plans, Rhonda Singh jumps into the frame and boisterously asks for her next assignment. Russo refuses to talk to lower-midcarders and tells her that he’ll only talk to her agent. We know that’s a lie because Russo talks to Creative Control all the time. Russo sends Shane off in search of Roddy Piper. Recap: The Revolution has gone entirely off the rails as a gimmick. What the fuck?! Janitor Jim Duggan has had quite a few problems with the Revolution, and he gets interview time here in the Year of Our Lord 1999 with Gene Okerlund. In the ring, too, not just backstage. Amazing. The counterpoint to this complaint is that Duggan’s very over in the Midwest and South and especially over in Louisiana. He does his typical “for God and Country” shtick for entirely longer than he needs to before the lights go out and someone jumps Duggan in the ring. I guess this is Russo’s new deal for jumping guys in the ring and explains the remote control thing he was talking about earlier. Roddy Piper is given his next refereeing assignment: Curt Hennig vs. Buff Bagwell. Russo emphasizes that Piper should make wise decisions while reffing this match if he wants to keep his WCW career. The Total Package looks for Dopey David Flair, that nitwit. He’s just walking, but I get a kick out of Package’s frustrated insistence that Dave’s a nitwit. Roddy Piper comes to the ring to referee another Buff Bagwell/Curt Hennig match. I stopped to watch Piper’s best career match, which is against Keith David in They Live. Piper hit a gutwrench suplex to end that fight and force David to wear the sunglasses. I totally forgot about that; it was a sweet gutwrench suplex, too. That movie is more proof that Piper with some reins on him is pretty fantastic. That’s easy to forget after this Piper run where everyone got all laissez faire with him and let him just do whatever. Before the match, Piper declares this match a no disqualification match. A bunch of annoying kids are walking around on the hard camera side with huge signs that block the view of some frustrated fans. Where did they get that dumb idea from? Anyway, Buzzkill walks by the hard cam holding a sign that is at least smaller and blocks the views of fewer fans while Buff and Hennig have a match that is so bland that no one at this show probably even remembered that it happened the next day. Piper fast counts for Buff, who I guess he hates slightly less than Russo now that his heat with Buff over the summer has faded, and Piper slow counts for Hennig as the crowd, loving his antics, chants RODDY. Creative Control comes to the top of the ramp to survey the action; Buff makes a comeback, but leaps into knees on a splash. Piper makes Hennig break on his follow-up punches in the corner even though this is no DQ because it’s only no DQ for one of the men in the ring. Hennig gets in Piper’s face, and Piper clocks him. Buff jumps on top of Hennig and Piper counts a quick three. TTP, upon finding the door to David’s room: “Huh, he’s got his own locker room. [Takes after] his old man after all.” Package knocks, but hears weird noises coming from the room and cuts a very funny facial expression. Jeff Jarrett (w/prop guitar, barstool) comes to the ring for the Bunkhouse Brawl against Chris Benoit (w/ladder). Benoit is properly dressed for such a match: cut-off t-shirt and blue jeans. Jarrett goes with black jeans and no shirt, but he’s wearing elbow pads. Elbow pads? In a Bunkhouse Brawl? What a WUSS. This match has too many weapon shots and not enough punches. Further, in a proper Bunkhouse Brawl, the most commonly used weapon shot should be someone putting a cowboy boot over their fist and punching a dude with it until said dude is bleeding. In this match, a cowbell gets the most play. Acceptable, but not ideal. I also don’t think a ladder fits in one of these matches at all. Finally, there are ropes on the ring, which is fine, but I do prefer a ropeless ring in this type of match. Still, for a ‘90s style garbage brawl on free television, this is about as good as you’re going to get. You can see the clear step up from a random Hugh Morrus vs. Bam Bam Bigelow match of this type or whatever. Everything is just more crisp. Anyway, the finish: After Jeff Jarrett beals Benoit from the ladder by using the cowbell as a lasso in a cool spot, Dustin Rhodes runs in, punches Jarrett, and sets Jarrett up for a Shattered Dreams. Ref Charles Robinson blocks it, so Rhodes sets Robinson up in the other corner for a Shattered Dreams. Jarrett grabs another guitar and goes after Rhodes; he turns Rhodes around and swings it at the same time that Rhodes kicks his leg out. Rhodes gets bashed with the guitar; Jarrett gets punted in the balls. Chris Benoit gets back up, surveys the carnage, and heads up the ladder for a free diving headbutt on Jarrett. Benoit ends up taking a wild bump when Jarrett is able to recover and fling Rhodes forward into the ladder; Benoit lands flat on his face, and Jarrett sneaks away with a three count. TTP tries to discuss match strategy with David Flair, but Flair is too busy hugging the teddy bear that Daffney was hugging in last week’s Nitro Party video and apparently sent him in that package. Oh, I forgot two important details. One, Flair is creepily cackling as he hugs it. Two, the bear is now missing its head. So, a quick break here: I knew that Crowbar and Daffney were a pair, and I basically enjoyed them in 2000 WCW, but does Crowbar get his name as a result of feuding with Dopey Dave, whose signature weapon is a crowbar? I’m assuming something like this: Dave rejects Daffney at some point, and Daffney brings Crowbar in for revenge, giving him that name as a vestige of Flair’s once-preferred weapon. Also, Devon Storm had at least one or two matches on Nitro back in 1996, so it’s been awhile for him! He’s working WCWSN shows under that name right now, so at least he’s back on WCW television semi-regularly. Finally, which is the dumber weapon gimmick to try and work realistically: Dopey Dave’s crowbar or Hopeless Hunter’s sledgehammer? A nice Roadster pulls up. Who could be inside? WHO, WHO INDEED?!?!?!?! Russo tries to signal La Parka to attack Piper again, but Piper staves him off with a baseball bat. Unfortunately, he doesn’t see Curt Hennig coming and eats a chair shot while Russo crows at him. Tank Abbott stinks. Ken Shamrock is the perfect fit for WCW – can’t talk, but lots of physical charisma and is super-intense. Shamrock was never going to get very far up the card in 1998/1999/2000 WWF, which is flooded with great talkers, but he would have been a surefire main eventer in 1999/2000 WCW, I think. Abbott is like a facsimile of a facsimile of Shamrock. He has no physical charisma and can’t project intensity. He just looks like a dumpy dude in basketball shorts. He and Meng clubber one another to start this match. They clubber one another in the middle of it. They clubber one another to end it, as they clubber themselves out of the ring and into the aisle, where both men are counted out. So, here’s who was in that Roadster: Chris Kanyon, dressed up like a pimp; two ladies in low-cut dresses; and Clarence Mason. I didn’t make any of that up, I swear! I could have written anything about who got out of that Roadster, though, and it would have been roughly plausible in the Russo-Ferrara Era. But honestly, that’s really who got out of the Roadster. Piper got dumped out of TPtB’s office and is stopped by security before he can use a fire extinguisher to try and break the handle. Just like on Thunder last week with Stevie Ray and Saturn, Meng and Tank Abbott have an extended brawl through the arena. The Revolution is terrible. Also, they’re in the ring right now. I remind you once more, dear reader, that Saturn was over like rover after that Raven feud ended with their excellent Fall Brawl ’98 match. Then, he got over again by wearing a dress after doing nothing for a few months after that Fall Brawl match. I’m also baffled why he’s doing a slowpoke gimmick in the middle of a wider anti-American gimmick. Malenko tells Saturn that they have heat tonight, and Saturn blows off what “the boys in the back” are saying about them, but Malenko clarifies that he means that they have to wrestle Harlem Heat. Speaking of guys who are being bafflingly misused, here’s Booker T.! The lights go out when he and Stevie get to the ring, and I’m confused. OK, so Midnight shows up when the lights are back on, but Saturn is also pummeling Malenko. Was the idea that Saturn tried to attack in advance, but was too confused to tell that he was attacking Malenko? This is now a trios tag, I think, including Midnight and Asya. Or maybe it always was a trios tag. I don’t know. Stevie signals that he’s going to tag in Midnight, but Booker takes the tag instead. Oh great, more Harlem Heat discord! I love it! That hasn’t gotten old yet! Booker ends up as FIP, and I can say one thing: At least the babyfaces got some shine in this match. Booker uses a Book End as a transitional move to get a hot tag and end this truncated FIP segment. Book does get hung up on the ropes, but Saturn whiffs on a springboard forearm and takes out Asya. Shane Douglas, who was over on commentary, gets off commentary and tries to intercede, but he gets forearmed to the floor. Midnight leapfrogs Malenko, sells a knee injury on the landing, and Stevie gets rolled up by Malenko for three. Stevie is upset. *sigh*, let’s just do this fucking Harlem Heat feud. Again. Mike Tenay tries to interview TTP and David Flair, but Dave’s not very responsive and Package is more worried about getting an injunction against Liz managing Sting. Roddy Piper storms in after Package leaves, swinging a chair and yelling that he plans to get revenge on TPtB at some point tonight. Rhonda Singh runs down Clarence Mason (I know that won’t be his name in WCW, but I’ll go with that until we find out what his name actually is). She begs Mason to be her agent, but he declines. Chavo, who hears Singh claim that she can dance and is worthy of being represented by Mason, jumps in and tries to sell an interested Singh some dance outfits. Meng and Tank Abbott continue to brawl backstage. Hey, Paul Orndorff! I just remembered that Orndorff tried another comeback, got a stinger, and retired. Orndorff is greeted by Mike Graham and relays that TPtB have called him in from his position at the WCW Power Plant for reasons that he can’t fathom. The three heel Nitro Girls do a dance routine. Rhonda Singh jumps in on their routine in the dance outfit that she bought from Chavo and spoils the whole deal. Fit Finlay stands outside in that rural area which has apparently moved to New Orleans from Milwaukee and makes Knobbs do sit ups in a creek. Norman Smiley sports a Ricky Williams Saints jersey and a Saints helmet. He wanders into the BLOCK and gets his ass kicked. Meanwhile, Tank Abbott and Meng are still brawling, and they brawl into the BLOCK. Abbott and Flynn and Meng and Smiley pair off and go at one another and uh, the segment just ends? Vince Russo tells Paul Orndorff that he heard that Orndorff trained Midnight. Russo is apparently mad that Orndorff treated her kindly and fairly during her training, and probably even barely tossed racial slurs her way in the bargain. Anyway, because Midnight has turned out to be a pain in TPTB's ass, Russo fires Orndorff. Russo tells Orndorff to take his “Howie Long haircut” outta there, and Orndorff tells Russo to kiss his ass. Russo responds to that insult by booking Orndorff in a handicap match against Creative Control. Sid Vicious works out with a young man with Down Syndrome in the back; this young man named Seth is Sid’s ringside coach for tonight and shows supreme confidence that “[his] boy” Sid Vicious will kick the shit out of Dr. Death. YEAHHHHHH, Seth gets a front row seat for a chokeslam and hopefully a powerbomb, too. Dr. Death is out here with shitty-ass Oklahoma. Maybe we can get a powerbomb on Oklahoma for Seth, too. Anyway, Oklahoma craps on Saints coach Mike Ditka and then declares that this match has been made into a powerbomb-vs.-suplex match. Dr. Death jumps Sid while Sid escorts Seth to his seat at ringside. BOOOOOO, DR. DEATH, BOOOOOO. Oklahoma does his crappy Jim Ross impression on commentary while Williams tries and fails to hit a backdrop driver on Sid. Oklahoma gets up and slides his cowboy boot to Dr. Death, who clocks Sid with it. Vampiro runs out and chases Oklahoma around and then into the ring, where Dr. Death clocks him. Sid takes advantage of the distraction to try a powerbomb, and though Dr. Death gets away once, Sid big boots him and tries again, and that attempt is successful and ends the match. Sid follows up with a chokeslam on Oklahoma. The Outsiders run in, and the numbers game gets to Sid as the crowd begs for GOLDBERG. Alas, they get Nash landing a Jackknife on Sid. After the break, Sid sells a concussion and a neck injury backstage as medics check on him. Mike Tenay chastises the Outsiders for their attack on Sid, but they’re not particularly remorseful; in fact, they’re looking forward to defeating Bret Hart and Goldberg later tonight. The Total Package comes to the ring to tag with that nutty David Flair. Commentary hasn’t quite put together where that headless teddy bear Flair is hugging might have come from, which makes sense – it was a blip in a Nitro Party video that, in the context of these very busy shows, would be easy to forget a week later. Flair walks into the ring with his crowbar and his headless bear while Package poses and suspiciously eyes the dopey little guy. Diamond Dallas Page comes onto the ramp, and the way they switch camera angles, I almost suspect that Sting will jump him from the side. Page doesn’t get jumped, though. He makes it to the ring safely, with Sting eventually getting to the ring himself a couple of minutes later. Sting dominates Page even though they’re tag partners. Meanwhile, Package tosses Flair’s teddy away and jumps Sting, then grabs Flair’s crowbar while Flair scrambles for the bear in the crowd. TTP clobbers sting with it; Package tries to land another crowbar shot on Sting, but Liz runs down takes it away; then, she shields Sting with her body while Package tries to land a chair shot. Flair, miffed that Package tossed his bear away, sneaks back into the ring and hits Package in the lower lumbar with the discarded crowbar. Liz assesses the situation, then places Sting’s arm on top of Package’s body; the ref counts the three. Nonsense, busy nonsense…but entertaining busy nonsense, I have to say. If the whole show wasn’t just finishes like these, I actually would have liked that particular busy finish a lot more than I already did. Meng walks the halls, looking to re-engage with Screamin’ Norman Smiley, who is presumably hiding from him somewhere backstage. Chris “Champagne” Kanyon (w/ladies, Clarence Mason) thinks that his participating in the Ready to Rumble shoot has made him a bonafide movie star. Ah, I see, Mason is Kanyon’s Hollywood agent. Anyway, first Rhonda Singh clatters into the interview that Okerlund is holding with Kanyon to pitch her dance routine to Mason. She is very bad at delivering dialogue, even by WCW’s standards. Mason: “Who are you? Security! Get this woman out of here! Get this mad, crazed woman out of here!” Next, Bam Bam runs up, all excited to see his old Jersey Triad friend. When Mason cuts him off because he gets too close to the talent, Bammer turns on Mason and is jumped by Kanyon. Man, Kanyon used to be cool, but the money and stardom really changed him. Also, Mason’s WCW name is Biggs, I think. That’s what I’ll use for him going forward. After the break, Bammer storms to the ring upset that Kanyon did him like that. He calls out CCK (as Kanyon likes to be called) for a match, and CCK (w/Biggs and ladies) responds. Maybe this a take that no one ever makes because no one cares about Mason/Biggs, but I think Biggs is actually a fun little personality and a solid talker. I suppose if he actually defends cases in court in his day job as a legit attorney, he needs to have some good talking ability and solid charisma. Biggs gets a mic and prepares to set a few legal ground rules for this fight, but Bam Bam doesn’t have a lawyer on retainer and would rather throw punches than negotiate guidelines. Bammer dominates to start. He continues dominating, actually. He really kicks the shit out of Kanyon. Unfortunately, he slows down after the first minute or so and his shitkicking gets sort of boring. Well, at least until the point where Bam Bam drops a flying headbutt to Kanyon’s dick. I feel like that should get three, but Bigelow is distracted by Biggs getting on the apron, and Kanyon hits one entire-ass offensive move, a Flatliner, that gets three when Bigelow turns back to him. Wait, hold on, it’s not a Flatliner anymore. CCK wants it to be known as That’s a Wrap. Meng tracks Norman Smiley through the halls. Smiley is wise enough to drop pieces of his football uniform on the ground, breadcrumbing Meng down a long hall and away from the pillar that Norm’s hiding behind. Heh, that was pretty good. The Mamalukes make their first appearance on this show about ninety minutes in less commercials, which is a big part of the reason that I think I’ve had a better outlook on this show’s quality. Vito and the Bull plan to stuff Disco in a bodybag and dump it in a nearby river. Roddy Piper rants about how much he dislikes Curt Hennig and TPtB, then I guess challenges Hennig to a chair match? I think they’re wrestling one tonight? It seems like tonight, according to Tony S. Disco Inferno and Lash LeRoux are is wrestling as a tag team a singles match against the Mamalukes Big Vito in what is apparently a Body Bag Match as well as a tag team match. LeRoux is allowed to speak before the match because he’s in Louisiana, so the crowd is partisan and makes him come off like he might be more broadly popular. They even chant along with Lash when he speaks French Cajun. Smart move to let him talk in front of a crowd that is rooting for him. So, Vito and the Bull are not good at pro wrestling. I get it, the Bull crotches himself at high speed on a guardrail at some point, if I recall correctly, and tears his urethra. The dopey pro wrestler taking a super-dumb bump that isn’t on his head and neck is sort of novel, right? But these dudes STINK. Look, at this point in time, Elix Skipper, Kid Romeo, Mike Sanders, Sonny Siaki, and half the dudes in the future Natural Born Thrillers are getting in time on WCWSN. I’d rather watch any of those guys on Nitro than the fucking Mamalukes. This match is complete ass; I guess it is a singles match since Vito and Lash are the only guys to wrestle, so let me just fast forward to our finish. After some shitty control work from Vito – I don’t blame LeRoux for this part of things – Disco takes a chair and hammers the Bull with it, then hits Vito with it on a Vito rope run. The timing on this finish is WILDLY off. First, Lash forgets that to win the match, he’s got to put Vito in a body bag, so he covers Vito after the chair shot, and Vito has to kick out at one – the ref also forgot that this was a Body Bag Match – to avoid the dreaded WCW Special Finish (definition: the way the match ends is at odds with either the stipulation or the legal participants in the match). I give Vito credit for averting this even if he basically had to no-sell the chair shot to do it, but then he had to pretend to be hurt enough to lay there and get zipped into a body bag with no resistance even though he just kicked out at one. But, as Chavo might say if he were trying to sell someone backstage a set of knives, THAT’S NOT ALL! LeRoux also struggles to zip this bag up, so the Bull eventually has to pop up after selling the chair shot for fifty years and just club Disco in the back like he was probably supposed to do thirty, forty-five, maybe sixty seconds earlier. The ref sees this, and also sees the Bull entering the ring for the spot he’s very late to do at this point, and he calls the match for Lash even though Vito’s head and part of his torso are still sticking out of the bag because the Bull’s got to come in and club Lash from behind at some point, and they don’t have all damn night. The Mamalukes stomp out Lash and pop him with a chain, then bag his body and carry him out, presumably to dump him in the river. That was such badly timed and executed television that it can go nowhere else but on the Absolute Dirt Worst list. Truly an awful match in every fashion. After a break, we see the Mamalukes dump the bag and split off to find their car. They don’t recall where they parked it, you see. As soon as they're gone, Lash busts out of this poorly-zipped body bag. Paul Orndorff has his first Nitro match since (I believe) Show #15, when he defeated Disco Inferno. We hadn’t even made it to 1996 yet the last time Orndorff wrestled on this show. It’s a much different Nitro here in late 1999, four years and one Eric Bischoff firing later. Orndorff trying to come back in 1999 seems ill-considered even without knowing that he hurts his neck soon after. Orndorff dominates Creative Control for a while and even hits his Wonderful Elbow on Ga/oP. Then he lands one on Pa/oG. He even brought a rope to choke dudes with, as is standard for this devious old veteran. CC turns it around and chokes Orndorff with the rope, but Larry Z. and Arn Anderson come down and help Orndorff out by kicking the shit out of CC; Orndorff drills one of them with a piledriver and gets three. I assume that these three men might be helping Hacksaw Duggan in his quest to defeat the Revolution? Or maybe they’ll hire some other vets. Anyway, Slick Johnson is a heel ref again, so he runs out and overturns the decision. Hall wants to hit a strip club after the Outsiders win the tag titles, but Nash claims not to have any cash on him. Hall, accusatorily: “You never have any cash on you.” The Mamalukes come back to grab the body bag and check to see that Lash is still in it; he’s not, but Norm Smiley is, as he needed a more secure hiding place from Meng. Here’s this Piper/Hennig chair match. There’s been way too much Curt Hennig on this show, and in general, I’m just done with the guy. I’ve truly hated this WCW run. I talk all the time about wrestlers who have gone up in my estimation during this watch-through. Hennig is one of the guys who has gone way down in my estimation. So has Piper, obviously. They clash chairs before Piper goes low and swings high. Hennig gets knocked loopy as he bumps over the top rope, stumbles to his feet at around six, and walks away from the match. That’s it. It took under a minute, maybe. Tenay and Goldberg hover near the Hitman’s dressing room; the Hitman has been attacked! Or not so much, but you'd never guess that because no one is seeing this obvious heel turn coming. Hart fakes a concussion that presumably was given him by the Outsiders, for which Sid eating a concussion from the Outsiders has come in handy as a bit of extra cover. Aw man, the Hitman is out here faking concussions before getting a career-ending one on Sunday. This is some cosmic bullshit, ain’t it? Well, it looks like Goldberg might be about to lose match number three (not counting any losses in multi-man matches where he wasn’t pinned or submitted) tonight. In the back, Goldberg yells BRET, LET’S GO, then impatiently takes both tag titles and mutters, “I’ll handle this myself.” Uh, he’s the babyface, right? I mean, even though Bret is faking, he doesn’t know that. What a dick! I liked it better when he was polite to that doofus Jerry Flynn. Goldberg comes out here himself, and yeah, that superkick Goldberg hits looks stiff as hell. He hits Nash with one that looks sick. Goldberg dismantles Hall, gets two on a pumphandle slam, then goes back to forearming Hall until Hall falls backward and is able to finagle a tag. He pretty much dominates Nash, too, before a distraction from Hall causes him to turn around into a big boot. Goldberg plays FIP for a bit as he’s regularly doubled up on by the Outsiders. The Hitman charges out here to try and, uh, “help” Goldberg. Hart jumps in the ring and beats up both Outsides, then tries to put a Sharpshooter on Nash. He turns Nash over, but Hall clubs him almost immediately. Goldberg gets up and beats up hall as Bret stops Nash from landing a weapon shot on either him or Goldberg. Goldberg drills Hall with a spear, but Hart suddenly falls over “hurt” on that ankle that Luger worked over two months ago and that Hart is still selling lingering effects of. Nash covers Hart while Goldberg lifts Hall for a Jackhammer, and the ref counts the three and awards the tag titles to the Outsiders. We just saw Kanyon do this exact sort of spot before turning heel a few months back, so it's the first thing anyone who has been watching 1999 WCW regularly should think of after seeing this finish. WHYYYYYYYYY are Russo and Ferrara going to turn Bret heel a third time? And the crowd wants him to be a face! How do you turn a guy heel who was on the wrong end of the Montreal Screwjob and then the guy who did him dirty in that incident killed his brother through negligence eighteen months later? No one wants to boo Bret! Stop turning him heel! I hate it! Stop it! This show stunk, but it was way more watchable than the previous Nitro. -7 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted September 2 Author Share Posted September 2 5 hours ago, twiztor said: in my rewatch, these broke me. I had told myself that i would watch every segment on every show. No fast forwarding (except commercials). After the (i think) 2nd Tonight Show segment that was complete fucking garbage, i revised my rule to "no fast forwarding (except commercials and Bischoff masturbatory segments)". Those were SO DIRE. zero redeeming qualities. I watched every single one of them to accurately log them all for the Absolute Dirt Worst list. The payoff of DDP destroying Bisch and the set in the last of FIVE of these segments did not make up for the pain of watching them all. Quote on a larger scale, sometime in this RFE is when i actually broke. You see, i was making it a point to watch EVERYTHING. WWF Raw, Smackdown, Heat, Metal/Jakked, but also WCW Nitro, Thunder, Saturday Night, Worldwide, Pro, and all the PPVs too. And doing it all in real-time (watching Raw & Nitro on Monday, Thunder/SD on Thursdays, and i would usually run through those weekend shows on Saturday mornings). I attempted to add ECW too (but thankfully realized my error and visited that later on its own). It was BRUTAL. This is too much pro wrestling, and I love pro wrestling. Check that: This is too much 1999 U.S. pro wrestling. Quote Most of it is due to burnout, but i have to think that Russo's machine gun-style story beats contributed heavily as well. so much stuff happens in so short a period of time, that it just blends together in a mess. Add in angles being dropped with alignments shifting on a dime, and it's just a blur. Absolutely, though Russo has restrained himself so far on rapid-fire heel turns. I'm guessing that it only gets worse in his second stint. Quote i say all of that to say that i appreciate you being able to keep a lot of this more straight than i ever did. From the throwaway lines like "i guess that makes sense because Luger attacked Hart 2 weeks ago" or whatever, to the "did Buff have heat with Page", thank you. In fairness, I'm not also watching WWF C-shows or whatever the hell while I'm doing this. Just Nitro, Thunder, and PPVs. I find that I balance out remembering stuff I watched days or weeks ago with totally misremembering the stuff that I haven't gotten to yet, though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 Quote I get it, the Bull crotches himself at high speed on a guardrail at some point, if I recall correctly, and tears his urethra. If only! Here's the spot where he did it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7yDqXMDD1E 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 Its kinda amazing how popular Hall remains till the end 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 14 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Show #218 – 13 December 1999 Tank Abbott stinks. Ken Shamrock is the perfect fit for WCW – can’t talk, but lots of physical charisma and is super-intense. Shamrock was never going to get very far up the card in 1998/1999/2000 WWF, which is flooded with great talkers, but he would have been a surefire main eventer in 1999/2000 WCW, I think. Abbott is like a facsimile of a facsimile of Shamrock. He has no physical charisma and can’t project intensity. He just looks like a dumpy dude in basketball shorts. He and Meng clubber one another to start this match. They clubber one another in the middle of it. They clubber one another to end it, as they clubber themselves out of the ring and into the aisle, where both men are counted out. Tank was WILDLY popular in the mid-late '90s UFC. for almost all of my friends who were into it at the time, Tank was their favorite guy. Later supplanted by Tito Ortiz and then Chuck Liddell. But Tank was first. he was big, he was gruff, and he was knocking dudes out with absolutely zero fucks given. It would be easy to look at his presentation there and his following/connection with the fans, and believe you could easily translate that to pro wrestling. But yeah, that didn't work at all. you could tell that Tank didn't care about WCW or pro wrestling even the slightest bit. He was cashing in his popularity for a big contract. i'm not here throwing shade, he capitalized and probably made bank. But he didn't try, or just couldn't pull it off, it sure didn't make for great TV. curious how you will view his later antics. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted September 3 Author Share Posted September 3 11 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said: If only! Here's the spot where he did it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7yDqXMDD1E Haha, okay, I've seen this. It's even dumber than I remember, somewhat because he barely gets the springboard off in the first place. Mostly because that's a dumb bump to take on the floor, though. What a dope! 1 hour ago, twiztor said: Tank was WILDLY popular in the mid-late '90s UFC. for almost all of my friends who were into it at the time, Tank was their favorite guy. Later supplanted by Tito Ortiz and then Chuck Liddell. But Tank was first. he was big, he was gruff, and he was knocking dudes out with absolutely zero fucks given. It would be easy to look at his presentation there and his following/connection with the fans, and believe you could easily translate that to pro wrestling. But yeah, that didn't work at all. you could tell that Tank didn't care about WCW or pro wrestling even the slightest bit. He was cashing in his popularity for a big contract. i'm not here throwing shade, he capitalized and probably made bank. But he didn't try, or just couldn't pull it off, it sure didn't make for great TV. curious how you will view his later antics. Oh yeah, we used to watch those UFC tapes. I don't know that Tank doesn't care or that he just doesn't have the ability to project himself. I err on the side of giving him some grace. I think a lot of people don't really get pro wrestling and what an art/talent it is to project one's character outward in a believable way. They think it's all like Hogan and Macho yelling (which in and of itself is not just "yelling," but there's a cadence to how they do it, etc.) or spamming catchphrases like the Rock or Stone Cold (again, there's a cadence and art to it when done right). I think Tank came in and didn't understand that how to project his tough-guy KO artist gimmick because in a UFC cage, he just gets in there, throws heavy punches, and gets over. He's sort of like Kimbo Slice in that way. Sort of a boring, low-energy dude when not in a fight. Ken Shamrock got it, but I think Ken Shamrock is a special pro wrestling talent. If you stick him in WCW in 1997 and push him like Goldberg, I am convinced that he'd get over like Goldberg did in front of that crowd. Maybe not to Goldberg's extent, but not that far off. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 17 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Saturn that they have heat tonight, and Saturn blows off what “the boys in the back” are saying about them, but Malenko clarifies that he means that they have to wrestle Harlem Heat. Woof. What a terribly Russoriffic "joke". I'm amazed he never had a wrestler named Kay Fabe. And if he did, I don't wanna know about it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 34 minutes ago, caley said: Woof. What a terribly Russoriffic "joke". I'm amazed he never had a wrestler named Kay Fabe. And if he did, I don't wanna know about it. not Russo, but the 1987 Slammys: 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted September 3 Author Share Posted September 3 (edited) Thunder Interlude – show number ninety-one – 16 December 1999 "The WCW Gang manages to land most of their attempts at comedy, overbooked nonsense" It’s on to Thunder and then Starrcade…Let’s, as Tenay says, MAKE THUNDER SPECIAL AGAIN… Sid Vicious comes to the ring while Tenay moves on to promoting Starrcade…Scott Hudson joins Tenay on color…Cool!...Vicious is joined in the ring by Chris Benoit…They dap each other up…Sid drops the funniest HEY YO ever…They cut promos against each of the Outsiders…The talking is fine…Sid will powerbomb Nash to the core of the earth…Benoit’s seen those WWF ladder matches Hall had, and he plans to supplant Hall as the king of those matches…They challenge the Outsiders to a tag match for a little tune-up…Curt Hennig and Russo’s Mooks interject from the top of the ramp…The Outsiders are already booked for a House of Pain match with Goldberg and the Hitman…Also, TPtB doesn’t like all the demands…Hennig books them against one another tonight and says that Russo wants them to fight or they get suspended for six months with no pay…That’s how you know it’s a work…WCW would never suspend any of its wrestlers for six months without pay, no matter what they did… Tonight’s matchups, other than the ones I just mentioned: Vampiro vs. Buff Bagwell; Hacksaw Duggan and Midnight vs. Saturn and Asya; David Flair vs. Screamin’ Norman Smiley in a Hardcore Championship match; and Chris Kanyon vs. Diamond Dallas Page… Juventud Guerrera, still in a sling, comes out alone…Tenay describes his work with Juvi last week as “two hours of hell”…Juvi’s running gag is to shout out the town he’s in over the house mic, but of course he gets it wrong and shouts out the city Nitro was in the night before instead…Then, he yells IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE WE ARE…This is absurd…It feels like Thunder episodes give me tons of chances to talk about how the Rock basically has every other pro wrestler in the U.S. shook in 1999… Sting (or someone who is dressed like him) jumps DDP as the latter warms up in his locker room… After a commercial break, Page is up and looking around for Sting…Hudson seems confused about why Sting would attack Page…Have you not been watching Thunder or Nitro lately, Hudson?...They’ve been side-beefing since Page got a cheapie victory over Sting a week ago… Vampiro wrestles Buff Bagwell while Hudson works out his confusion…Oklahoma is out five seconds into this thing…He comes to the desk…Four people are now on commentary…Four people on commentary, one of whom is Oklahoma, and Vampiro wrestling Buff Bagwell in the ring…This is textbook 1999 WCW…If I asked someone to describe what a random terrible late ‘90s WCW segment might involve, it’s this…But even then, one cool thing happens in this bout…Buff ducks a kick and counters a Vampiro leap up with a sit-out powerbomb that looks great…Juvi: “Nice move! That surprised me; he never does that move”…Juvi’s out here describing how I feel about these pro graps spots… Adrian Aaron Neville is in the crowd…Vampiro confronts Oklahoma…Dr. Death confronts Vampiro…Jerry Only jumps Dr. Death…In a dumb finish, both Buff and Vamp go up top in opposite corners…Instead of jumping down since their opponent isn’t anywhere near them, they stand up there until Oklahoma can hit Vampiro with a bottle of barbecue sauce…Vampiro sells the shot by leaping down and stumbling into perfect position for a Blockbuster that ends the match…FAAAAAAAAKE…Post match, Dr. Death murders Vamp with a double-underhook suplex on the floor…Whew, that was pretty sick…Two good moves in that whole thing didn’t make it entirely worth watching, but that’s better than we get in a lot of these matches… Before the break, Spice flirts with Evan Karagias as she walks him to the ring to face TAFKAPI… After the break, DDP is still looking for Sting… TAFKAPI and Paisley cut an interview…Well, Paisley cuts the interview…Which is probably a good call…Paisley: “Tonight we’re going to party like it's *beat* 2000”…What a gimmick!... Juvi declares this match “The Jabroni Match of the Week”…HAHAHAHA…Juvi’s out here unnecessarily burying these dudes…Anyway, Evan Karagias (w/Spice) hooks it up with TAFKAPI (w/Paisley)…They do their little mic deal where Paisley asks what TAFKAPI’s creative juices have produced and then TAFKAPI answers with one mysterious word….The bummer is that TAFKAPI is a fun worker!...He has a nice headbutt to the groin lower abdomen here…But the match breaks down almost immediately when Madusa comes out here…Madusa, Spice, and Paisley all get in the ring and bicker…The ref is drawn by this and misses Karagias hitting a missile dropkick and covering…Karagias gets up to get the ref’s attention and TAFKAPI schoolboys him for three…Juvi is confused about whether or not TAFKAPI won the title, and that sets Tenay off…Madusa slaps Karagias, and he leaves with Spice…Wait a minute, are we gonna get a Russo Swerve where Spice helps Madusa at Starrcade and it’s like THOSE TREACHEROUS WOMEN ALWAYS STICK TOGETHER, BRO, YOU KNOW THAT… DDP finally runs up on Sting in the back and brawls with him…Oh great, there was a second Sting…Alright, so someone in Sting clothing attacked DDP and now there are at least two (maybe twenty, who knows) Stings running around out here…Was one of the fake Stings Barry Windham, perhaps?... The Revolution comes to the ring…Juvi is as bored by them as I am…You’re not supposed to say it, bud, but yeah, they suck…The lights go out before Shane Douglas can talk…Midnight is in the ring, and Jim Duggan quickly joins her…Saturn locking it up with Hacksaw is some WCW-ass WCW shit…Midnight tangles with Asya and is run over by Saturn…She fights back as Douglas gets all edgy by dropping a “bitch” on commentary…Harlem Heat walks down…Midnight is FIP…Hey, a tag match in the Russo Era with proper shine-heat-comeback structure…WHOA…Duggan gets two on a running clothesline, and Asya comes in to spoil the cover…Midnight enters the ring and the match breaks down… Harlem Heat checks on Midnight after she gets dumped to the floor, but Stevie just tosses her back in…Stevie and Booker argue about that, and Midnight soon joins them in their spirited disagreement…Meanwhile, Shane Douglas runs in and tries to land a cast shot…He misses and hits Saturn…Malenko tries to interject by using Hacksaw’s 2x4…Hacksaw plonks Malenko, gets the 2x4, and hits Saturn with it, then covers for three…Harlem Heat leave ringside while squabbling, so there’s no backup for Duggan in this post-match beatdown by the Revolution…They strip him to his flag boxers and kick the shit out of him…Aaron Neville jumps over the railing, grabs the 2x4, and clears the ring…What a segment!...That was the most enjoyable WCW/Russo/1999 segment so far, maybe…It was dumb and busy and full of stuff, but it all somehow worked and was pretty fun to watch… Gene Okerlund tries to talk to a pacified David Flair…Dopey Dave’s upgrading from Torrie to Daffney…Good for him!…David tells Gene to pet his headless bear in a placid voice…Gene does, and Dave yells NEVER DO THAT, NEVER and storms off…That was actually pretty funny!... Sting is swinging a baseball bat in the back…The real one…Apparently, TTP was dressed as Sting in that initial attack on Page… Screamin’ Norman Smiley (in Crimson Tide football jersey and pads) faces a crowbar-and-headless-teddy wielding David Flair…There’s a back body drop in this thing…Huh…Dave wanders around like a lunatic, then gets hit in the head with a can lid and swinging slammed…In a genuinely funny spot, Norm starts a wiggle, and Dave gets up behind him like some sort of goofball slasher flick villain holding a trash can…Dave does the worst Running Man in the history of dance as Norm initiates a Big Wiggle…Norm feels someone behind him, turns around, and sees Dave finish his dance before delivering a trash can shot…Dopey Dave cackles after doing that, and man, that was so fucking funny to me…Dave tries another back body drop, but Norm blocks it and knocks him down…Norm, who next grabs Dave’s bear, tosses it at Meng when Meng comes out to face him…Norm runs and Meng destroys the bear…Flair gets up and freaks out over his destroyed bear, rubbing the bear’s fluff against his face and shrieking…I think I enjoyed this match?!...I mean, it was a Russo Special…There wasn’t even a proper match ending…Things just wound down…That should annoy me, but this match had like two actual wrestling moves in it, which is novel for a hardcore match, and the Wiggle/Running Man spot absolutely killed me…Yeah, this somehow finds its way onto the Charming Uniquities list…Whether you get a kick out of it, dear reader, depends on how funny you find the spots that are supposed to be funny…That’s Dave’s first appearance on one of my good lists, I think… We come back from break to see Smiley running like Trent Richardson (but you know, with better cuts) out of the parking lot while he screams…That was also very funny… Sting hits the ring…He’s irritated at TTP mimicking him and then calls Package out for a fight right now because he doesn’t feel like waiting another three days…Package’s heel schemer character is top-notch…No one noticed this because it’s 1999 WCW and most everyone was watching 1999 WWF instead for one, and 1999 WCW hits you with so much stuff that it’s easy to lose the few good crumbs in the morass of junk, for two…But Package has done excellent character and segment work since his return from the bicep injury…Package runs in dressed as Sting and gets his ass kicked… Juvi is genuinely confused over who was dressed as Sting and why…“I thought [fake Sting] was DDP,” Juvi says with what I am pretty sure is SHOOT confusion over this angle…HILARIOUS…I am enjoying this Thunder for only some of the right reasons…Liz comes out here as Package takes over…Has someone asked Tenay if he was actually annoyed with Juvi on commentary?...I feel like he is shoot annoyed, which only enhances the fun…This time, he goes off about Juvi deciding to double down on his confusion over this fake Sting angle…Oh yeah, so Sting comes back, hits a Stinger Splash, and gets a boot on another one…Package tries to hit Sting with a bat…Liz stops Package…Sting tries to rack Package…Liz just happens to get in the way (HMMMMMMM) and gets knocked over…Sting drops Package to check on Liz, and Package grabs the bat and whales away on him… Paramedics check Sting and ask him how he’s doing after the commercial…Sting: I GOT HIT WITH A BASEBALL BAT LIKE FORTY TIMES…ahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA, what an annoyed response from Sting...Genuinely funny…The medics asks where it hurts…Sting, now super-annoyed: MY BACK…Meanwhile, as Sting tries to get up and look for Package, we cut to Package hastily stuffing his suitcase in his car and driving away… Dr. Death (w/Oklahoma) is out here…Oklahoma gets back on commentary…Poor Tenay has already had to deal with Juvi trying to make a coherent comment about Doc and failing miserably…Berlyn is Doc’s opponent…THE WALL, BROTHER is with Berlyn again…Um, last we saw, TW,B was chasing Berlyn out of the BLOCK…So when did they make up again?...Well, never you mind…Berlyn sends TW,B into the ring to face Doc…OK, so it’s Doc/TW,B…Sorry about that…Doc hits a stalling body slam…That’s actually a pretty cool spot…Oklahoma, after a TW,B big boot: BIG BOOT, BIG BOOT, BIG BOOT…Juvi, after TW,B follows up with another big boot: SECOND BOOT, SECOND BOOT, SECOND BOOT…Oklahoma, perturbed: “Stop stealin’ my gimmick, son”… OK, that got me to laugh, as did Oklahoma spotting Chavo shilling some of his wares in the crowd and saying, “There’s Chavo, the only guy in this company who sells”…When even Oklahoma gets me to laugh, that’s how you know it’s a magical night where most of the comedy, whether intentional or unintentional, is landing…I just saw caley pan another joke of this type in a post that popped up as I edited this review…The difference between this Russo-riffic joke and the one on Nitro is that Ferrara delivered the punchline way better than Malenko did…Anyway, the pocket of the crowd in which Chavo is working starts a CHAVO chant, HAHAHA…What is even happening right now?...Oklahoma tries to hit TW,B with his boot, but Berlyn takes it away…That’s good…However, Berlyn then hits Doc with the boot in full view of the ref, causing TW,B to get disqualified…That’s bad…TW,B punches Berlyn in the face for screwing up his trip to the pay windah…Doc clotheslines TW,B to the floor, then walks out with Oklahoma…Weirdly entertaining segment… Recap: Nitro advances some feuds for Starrcade… Buzzkill passes around a petition to fans outside the arena…OK, fucking BUZZKILL makes me (and the fans) laugh with the following comment…Buzzkill: “This petition is to stop…uh...what is this petition for again? *pauses, thinks a bit* I forget, but it’s a GOOD PETITION! It’s gonna work!”…HAHAHAHAHAHA, perfect line delivery… Curt Hennig and Dustin Rhodes hook it up next…Dustin grabs a mic and gets bleeped for calling Jeff Jarrett a “slap happy bastard”…It’s so weird what they choose to bleep or not bleep…Dustin promises to be Jarrett’s “fat daddy” at Starrcade…Oooooh, kinky!...Shane enters the ring like right after the bell rings and gets hit with a Shattered Dreams…That might be the first one Rhodes has hit in this run within the company, at least on Nitro or Thunder…Hennig uses the distraction to jump Rhodes…Dustin’s music starts again as Hennig cranks his neck…Someone is floated to the ring in Seven’s garb…It’s Jeff Jarrett, who bashes Dustin with a guitar…Russo’s Mooks help Jarrett kick Dustin’s ass…Jarrett lands a Stroke… After the break, Jarrett cuts a promo on Dustin backstage…Jarrett calls Dusty and Dustin “two old hornyackers”…Auto-caption hears this as “two old horny actors”…HAHAHA, even the captioning is unintentionally adding to the fun…Jarrett can’t say “bale of hay”…He tries twice…First, he says “bay of hale,” then tries again and only gets it wrong in reverse by saying “hale of bay”…This Thunder is semi-unironically hilarious… Even Roddy Piper showing up in a ref outfit can’t bring me down… Syko Sid Vicious wrestles Chris Benoit next…This is a good pairing, though I doubt they’ll be doing much in a TV match during the Russo-Ferrara Era…Sid gets a mic and says he and Benoit are cool with six months off…That covers at least three months of softball season in the spring…Sid says before they roll out for their suspension, they want to fight TPtB…Sid wants ‘em to take of their girly-girl weaksauce dresses that indicate their physical and moral weakness and come out for a real man’s fight…Hennig and the rest of Russo’s Mooks respond…It’s a two-on-five handicap match…Sid powerbombs Shane, chokeslams Parka, and helps Benoit beat down CC even though Benoit’s holding them off on his own anyway…Sid beats up Hennig in the aisle while Benoit sets up a ladder in the ring…Benoit pulls off a cool spot where he rolls under the ladder after being shot into the ropes, then pops up and shoves the ladder onto CC…Benoit gets a Crossface on one CC member, but is jumped by the other one…Hennig cracks Benoit with the ladder, drawing a DQ loss for Russo’s Mooks…Sid gets back in and tries to help Benoit, but gets jumped with a ladder shot…The babyfaces almost never stand tall in the RFE, have you noticed?...That’s kind of a bummer… Gene Okerlund interviews Roddy Piper backstage…Piper stinks at cutting a promo…He’s refereeing the House of Pain match in a few minutes… Chris “Champagne” Kanyon (w/J. Biggs and ladies) hits the ring…Kanyon lets the crowd know that he’s now a star and no one can beat him…DDP is up against CCK tonight, as a reminder…The Jersey Triad EXPLODES…Again…Biggs yells at Hudson off-mic, and Hudson gives his headset to Biggs…Page and Kanyon have a decent match for the Russo TV era while Biggs talks about how much of a huge star Kanyon is…Kanyon shoves his way out of a Diamond Cutter, but walks right back into a huge uranage…Tenay calls that last move a Diamond Death Drop, but isn’t a DDD a Razor’s Edge?...I guess Page is trying to reclaim that move name for himself… Juvi keeps insisting that Chris Kanyon’s nickname is “Shampoo,” and when Tenay corrects him, Juvi claims that the guy just needs some shampoo for that greasy hair of his…Biggs, calmly responding: “I’ve heard it through the grapevine from The Powers that Be that if Juvi has a repeat performance [on commentary] like he did last week – green card”…Juvi yells SHUT UP, JABRONI, LOOK AT THE MATCH…Biggs is such a dick, man…He gets up and tries to help Kanyon cheat, but his punch tags Kanyon after Page reverses a whip…Page gets two on a rollup, then gets up and hits a Diamond Cutter on his third try after Kanyon blocks a second one…Biggs talks to the ref, and therefore Charles Robinson doesn’t see David Flair run down with his crowbar and hammer Page with it…There’s a standing ten count when Robinson turns around, and Kanyon manages to cover at nine and win the match…Bam Bam runs out to tell the ref what happened, so Kanyon crushes a champagne bottle over Bammer’s head…Juvi is incensed because he thinks smashing bottles of alcohol on people’s heads is his gimmick… Piper knocks out Creative Control when they try to bar him from the building, then makes sure production will play his music when he cues them… BREAKING NEWS: According to Gene Okerlund, Scott Hall has been attacked in the Outsiders’ dressing room…Roddy Piper comes to the ring…They set up a cage for a match that is going to go fewer than four minutes, if it goes at all…As Goldberg makes his way to the ring, Creative Control and Jeff Jarrett jump Piper at ringside…Bret Hart and Kevin Nash go at it in the cage…The bait-and-switch doesn’t bother me…Goldberg finally makes it out here and helps Piper fight off Jarrett and CC…Goldberg rips off the cage door, which was locked…Nash tries to cut Goldberg off, but Piper gets in the ring and clobbers Nash with a steel pip that Jarrett had brought out here…Jarrett comes back and lands a guitar shot to Piper…Jarrett lands a second guitar shot to Goldberg, who just gets up and spears the guy…Nash hits Goldberg with the pipe as Goldberg prepares to land a Jackhammer…Jarrett and Nash cuff Bret to the cage to get him out of harm’s way…They also handcuff Goldberg and land a couple pipe shots…They land one to Bret just for plausible deniability’s sake…They cuff Piper next…Oh yeah, since both team members are cuffed, that ends the match…This is the same type of match the Revolution had against the Filthy Animals that I forgot about until now…This poor crowd just wanted Goldberg to stand tall…They’re too dead to even boo that much…Goldberg rips the cuffs off the cage and the heels run away... On to Starrcade!...I will say this: I genuinely enjoyed this Thunder…In the immediate aftermath, I can’t quite explain why it worked for me when most overbooked Thunders don’t beyond the fact that I laughed pretty much all the way through this thing…I give it a WOO (surprisingly!)… Edited September 3 by SirSmUgly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted September 3 Share Posted September 3 4 hours ago, twiztor said: not Russo, but the 1987 Slammys: LOL, that's *2* jokes ("Anita Mann") in the screenshot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted September 4 Share Posted September 4 7 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: The lights go out before Shane Douglas can talk…Midnight is in the ring, and Jim Duggan quickly joins her Imagining an alternate reality ECW where the lights go out, the crowd goes wild, the lights come on and Jim Duggan's standing in the ring with his 2x4 yelling "Hoooooo!" to a deafening pop. 10 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: The babyfaces almost never stand tall in the RFE, have you noticed?...That’s kind of a bummer… It's weird because I was thinking it was a McMahon thing that Russo inherited McMahon didn't do that so much early on, Austin and Rock often stood tall. It wasn't really until after Cena that he seemed to rarely let the faces stand tall. It was especially egregious after Lesnars return. I remember a couple times thinking "Wow if (random midcarder) stands up to Lesnar here, even if he gets destroyed after, it will be such a pop...oh no he's going to try to run...and still get destroyed". 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted September 4 Share Posted September 4 10 hours ago, caley said: Imagining an alternate reality ECW where the lights go out, the crowd goes wild, the lights come on and Jim Duggan's standing in the ring with his 2x4 yelling "Hoooooo!" to a deafening pop. It's weird because I was thinking it was a McMahon thing that Russo inherited McMahon didn't do that so much early on, Austin and Rock often stood tall. It wasn't really until after Cena that he seemed to rarely let the faces stand tall. It was especially egregious after Lesnars return. I remember a couple times thinking "Wow if (random midcarder) stands up to Lesnar here, even if he gets destroyed after, it will be such a pop...oh no he's going to try to run...and still get destroyed". yeah, the generally accepted history is that New York was always a babyface town (Hogan, Warrior) while the South was for Heels (Flair). That definitely continued for quite a while, as Austin would always have the deck stacked against him but usually outsmart McMahon. And Cena would just overcome every odd every time. And Lesnar's monster push definitely changed that, but it's also WHY it stood out so much. after '94, i don't think Atlanta was so much a "heel" territory as it was a "Hogan" territory. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted September 4 Author Share Posted September 4 11 hours ago, caley said: Imagining an alternate reality ECW where the lights go out, the crowd goes wild, the lights come on and Jim Duggan's standing in the ring with his 2x4 yelling "Hoooooo!" to a deafening pop. I would have loved that because, based on how Philly reacted to Sid, they would have absolutely loved Duggan appearing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now