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Posted
8 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

WCW stays undefeated with the bullshit, but when I read this, all I could think was that I would pay good money to be in the car while the Cat and Stevie Ray were riding together. 

He said they told David to shut up, sit in the back, and not say a word; when he tried to get in the conversation they told him again. He also said they were saying the N-word constantly and cursing up a storm the whole time. So yeah, that would have been a hilarious trip 😄

  • Haha 2
Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, zendragon said:

Hey Jim Fullington is still alive?

 

I know. That was a bad attempt at a "Bye Bye Lil' Sebastian" style eulogizing of Hardcore Hak, who should have been the centerpiece of this WCW hardcore division instead of Norman Smiley or Bam Bam Bigelow or Brian Knobbs.

I originally had written "R.I.P. in piece" to get across my facetiousness, but then I figured someone would point out that I repeated the "in peace" part, that I had misspelled "piece," etc.

Actually, let's just go with the Parks & Rec nonsense to get across my genuine disappointment that WCW didn't use Hardcore Hak properly at all. 

Quote

Have we had the infamous Nitro with a solid hour of no wrestling yet?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay the hell back in 1999 thanks to Kevin Nash, who swore that he could throw any old garbage up on the first hour and still pop the same rating as if he actually booked some decent wrestling matches. 

8 March 1999, Show #181: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9193-smelly-watches-every-nitro-era-nitro-thunder-clash-and-ppv-while-sitting-and-sometimes-maybe-standing/page/21/#findComment-1376450

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

He said they told David to shut up, sit in the back, and not say a word; when he tried to get in the conversation they told him again. He also said they were saying the N-word constantly and cursing up a storm the whole time. So yeah, that would have been a hilarious trip 😄

In their defense, they knew they were going to use some reclaimed English vocabulary when talking and didn't want a guy from the Mid-Atlantic like David to think it was okay to join in. 

Seriously, bless all three of these guys, and I'm off to see Stevie tell this story. 

EDIT: I hope that David Flair realizes what an honor it is to have two wizened older black men, like a couple of uncles or your dad and his friend, tell you to shut the fuck up because you're too young to know a goddam thing when you try to get in on their entertaining conversations with an attempt at sharing knowledge. 

Edited by SirSmUgly
  • Like 4
Posted

Show #255 – 28 August 2000

"The one that gets the motherfucking band back together, is also the very worst of the worst"

  • This Nitro uses footage to insinuate that nWo 2000 isn’t quite dead; they show all four members (including Bret Hart!) destroying the whole roster from back at the beginning of the year. But I don’t want the nWo to be back! No! NOOOOOOOO, FUCK, SHIT, NOOOOOOOOOOO

 

  • The nWo 2000 gets out of a limo. They have swapped Bret Hart for Vince Russo. I have newly discovered a tenth circle of hell, and this is it. Dante wouldn’t believe this shit if he were here to watch it and also to write an epic poem about it.

 

  • Russo fans be like: Pape Russo, pape Russo aleppe.

 

  • Vampiro and the ICP match up against Three Count; Muta joins commentary and spits out some aggressive-sounding stuff in Japanese. Madden unfunnily translates. Everyone in the ring dives on one another like thirty seconds in. An I-C-P chant starts up while Three Count hit a lot of nice double-team and triple-team moves. The Carnival members take enough of a beating that Muta freaks out and loads up his poison gland over at the desk, but the Carnival take over and Moore eats a Nail in the Coffin from Vamp, a press slam into a Samoan Drop (!!) from the tubby one, and a guillotine legdrop that the other two Carnival members did not pull Moore into position for nearly well enough from the slim one.

 

  • That ends the bout, though Tank Abbott marches to the ring immediately after that and beats down Three Count. The Carnival members jump Tank, and Three Count helps them out. The KISS Demon runs to the ring to try and help, but Muta hops in the ring and mists him. It looks bad for the, uh, babyfaces? Is Tank a babyface now? I mean, he did steal Three Count’s hard-won wrestling contract. Anyway, what happens is that Sting helps the (alleged) babyfaces out of a jam.

 

  • Vince Russo leads the nWo 2000 and the Natural Born Thrillers to the ring to bring this show down. Russo at least dimly understands that he’s got to get Nash and Steiner over as heels because they’re still getting cheered, so he demands that the crowd cheer him as much as they cheer Nash or Steiner. Of course, then he declares that THE BAND IS BACK TOGETHER, which is a bummer and a half. Anyway, some bad mic work ensues from Jeff Jarrett. I kind of zoned out a bit, so I had to rewind a few seconds to clarify that Jarrett blames Mike Awesome for screwing him in a recent match and books himself against Awesome in a Bunkhouse Brawl that will suck because it’ll be a typical WCW hardcore fight, except with a bullrope.

 

  • Steiner is both profane and solid in his mic work. I’ve mentioned this before, but Jarrett needs to get as far away from sharing the stick with Steiner as possible because the contrast makes it clear that only one of them should ever be the world champ in this promotion, and it ain’t Jarrett. Nash still gets cheers – a lot of high-pitched ones, in fact – and attempts to get over a heel turn by saying that he only pretends to be a babyface to get the fans to buy his t-shirts. He says that the merch has been sold out, so now he can act like he wants. It works! The high-pitched cheers die out, the boos amplify, and the crowd starts chanting for GOLDBERG.

 

  • Look at Nash being good at his job when he feels like it. I sure wish he felt like it more often. He even seems to like Booker T. enough to try and get him over because he responds with YOU CAN CHANT FOR GOLDBERG, YOU CAN CHANT FOR THE CHAMP BOOKER T. even though no one in this building has even thought for a single second about chanting for Booker T. Russo interjects and hotshots the Booker/Nash title match for later tonight with Jeff Jarrett as guest ref and Scott Steiner as the outside enforcer.

 

  • Booker walks onto the ramp and actually gets a nice pop, and that is actually down to the work of Nash and Russo, I think. Russo out-talking Jarrett on the mic in this segment should end any ideas of Jarrett running with the big gold ever again. Booker actually gets the crowd to chant along with SAVE THE DRAMA FOR YOUR MAMA somehow – what the fuck?! – and is even willing to walk to the ring to confront these fellas when he is interrupted by the Cat and the lovely Ms. Jones. Our fair commissioner reminds Russo that he’s got the kayfabe booking power on this show, and Russo responds by calling the Cat “Dolemite.” He’s wearing a cowboy hat because the show is in Las Cruces, not a pimp hat, stupid. Madden’s insistence on calling the Cat “Sisqo” is corny, but at least it’s based on an accurate comparison based on the Cat’s hair color.

 

  • The Cat sends Ms. Jones to the car to get his gi so he can beat some asses. He cusses a lot. The crowd loves it. He and Booker get in the ring, but they’re babyfaces, so they obviously get jumped. The Filthy Animals rush the ring and clash with the Thrillers, who of course destroy them and toss them in the ring to get an ass kicking from the nWo members. I LOVE IT WHEN THE HEELS WIN ALL THE TIME! IT’S LIKE 1997, BUT FAR WORSE!

 

  • As the heels leave the ring, Goldberg pops up on the TurnerTron, digging a grave somewhere in the New Mexican desert and threatening to destroy each member of the nWo before torturing and killing Russo, then dumping him in an open grave. FOR THE KIDS!

 

  • The Cat does a stretcher job after the break because this show is stupid; Russo freaks out about Goldberg killing him and asks the other nWo members to protect him. Of course, they do not, and Jarrett gets pissy about Nash getting a title shot over him besides. Goldberg does the whole threatening phone call thing to Russo that Hogan did to Bischoff like three months ago.

 

  • It’s a Triple Threat Match between Paisley, Tygress, and Major Gunns. Madden immediately talks about a menage a trois. I’m in the deepest, dankest pits of wrestling hell right now. The match lasts fifteen seconds; Paisley kicks Gunns into a jackknife pinfall attempt from Tygress that gets three, but ref Jamie Tucker says it was two, but everyone in the fucking building saw that Gunns didn’t kick out. The crowd chants TAKE IT OFF. Paisley angrily leaves the ring. Alright, fuck off, you’re on the list. I was going to move past this because it was so short, but WCW not being on the same page for the finishes of its own matches + the crowd chanting made this Dirt Worst material.

 

  • The Filthy Animals mace and club the Natural Born Thrillers, the latter of whom are standing sentinel outside Vince Russo’s office. Konnan opens the door and informs Russo that his last line of protection from Goldberg is incapacitated.

 

  • Jeff Jarrett directs a truck as it backs into the arena; it holds a bunch of KABONGin’ guitars that Jarrett apparently bought wholesale. Like, there are at least a hundred prop guitars piled into the truck bed. This raises further questions about where and how this guy secures his guitars.

 

  • What the fuck, Russo?! Mike Awesome interviews with Pam Paulshock while wearing a leisure suit. Awesome thought that, as a distant relative of Hulk Hogan, Russo deliberately booked him into the ground with stupid gimmicks that made no sense, one after the other. I’d have to concur with him. Where did this sudden obsession with the ‘70s come from in kayfabe? I guess Heidi being a turncoat has made him swear off heavier ladies forever? Wait, where did his sudden obsession with heavier ladies come from in the first place? Anyway, this is all deeply stupid. Shitty funk music plays in the background. Awesome calls the interviewer “Paula Pamshock,” and I can’t tell if that was a shoot or a work. Awesome accepts Jarrett’s challenge for Fall Brawl, and in turn he challenges Rick Steiner to a warmup Bunkhouse Brawl later tonight.

 

  • The House of Pain Match is back. If you’ll recall, you have to handcuff your opponent(s) to the cage to win. KroniK and the worthless-ass Harris Bros. go at it in the cage, and I’m hopeful that this means that we’re going to blow this stupid feud off. I will stand by my argument that KroniK is actually a team of strong tag workers, but who gives a shit about the Harris Bros.? They suck. In a preview of how our future world champ Vince Russo will win the big gold, KroniK tosses the brothers through the cage. Da/oR punches a plant at ringside. Security pulls these teams apart, so this was in fact not a blowoff to this feud. FUCK OFF, RUSSO.

 

  • Lance Storm (w/Elix Skipper) challenges General Rection someone from M.I.A. to a Prisoner of War match in which the winner gets to take captive one of the losing team’s members. Rection responds by yelling about the fighting spirit of THE AGGIES OF NEW MEXICO, but you’re on the campus of NEW MEXICO STATE, and you are getting them mixed up with NMSU’s bitterly hated rival THE LOBOS OF NEW MEXICO, stupid. The crowd did not cheer for his AGGIES OF NEW MEXICO line, by the way. Anyway, Rection agrees as long as it’s a Tables Match and A-WALL is the M.I.A.’s representative. Has Rection not noticed A-WALL’s poor record in these matches? Apparently not, as Skipper uses a flagpole shot to stop A-WALL from hitting a vertical suplex through a table; Storm then kicks A-WALL off the apron and through the table. He absconds with Major Gunns as the rest of the M.I.A. chases Skip.

 

  • We hear the commentators talk over Sting’s interview with Pam Paulshock. We’re getting a Sting/Muta match tonight, which is pretty cool! I don’t care if it’s eleven years later than their best stuff!

 

  • STOP LETTING RICK STEINER TALK BEFORE HIS MATCHES, DAMMIT. OK, here’s Ricky Steiner/Mike Awesome. Tony S. hypes the tours to Australia and England that WCW will be taking in October and November, respectively. This match is not a Bunkhouse Brawl. I really like the new Fall Brawl logo. If you’re going to do an edgy-ish logo, that’s a creative way to do it. Jarrett intervenes as Awesome plans to Awesome Bomb Ricky through a table with a bat to Awesome’s gut. Steiner suplexes Awesome through a table and covers for three. THIS MATCH WAS NOT A BUNKHOUSE BRAWL. That term has a specific meaning, fuckheads!

 

  • Midcard Booker comes out for another title defense in the middle of the show, this time against Kevin Nash. This show is fucking awful, man. It’s so bad. At least Russo is almost gone. It strikes me that we would have been better off had Booker and Steiner’s runs been switched because Steiner as rampaging heel champ would have been put over even more strongly under Russo than he already was by Terry Taylor et al., and Booker probably would have looked like he could actually win a match or three under Taylor, and it’s sort of insane that I’m depending on Terry Taylor to book Booker T. decently, isn’t it?

 

  • Anyway, Russo joins commentary, the nWo kinda sorta gets along, and who gives a shit about this stupid-ass fucking match that is centered around Jarrett being mad that he doesn’t get the title shot because Nash, who won it straight up at New Blood Rising, does get the title shot. Jarrett is a fair referee because SHADES OF GRAY, except that he is just being a selfish dick, and this doesn’t enhance the story in any way. Steiner clubs Booker in the back with his pipe on a rope run, and Jarrett kicks Steiner out of the ringside area instead of counting Nash’s pinfall.

 

  • The crowd on the hard cam side doesn’t know how to react, and I don’t blame them. The crowd settles on a BOOKER T. chant, but look, folks. Pro wrestling is simple. There are avaricious, shitty, mean wrestlers and there are decent, nice, and good wrestlers, and they oppose one another. That’s it. It’s an art meant to evoke one’s base emotions, and the viewer can’t do that when the wrestlers don’t clearly represent those emotions through simple archetypes. Booker scores his 5MoD on Nash, dispatches of an onrushing Scotty Steiner, and then lands a Book End on Nash. Jarrett  grabs a mic and KABONGs Booker instead of counting the pinfall.

 

  • So what was the point of appearing to be fair, then? It makes no sense and from a kayfabe standpoint basically allowed Booker to kick the shit out of Nash for minutes on end. Anyway, Nash lands a Jackknife and covers for three. What kind of booking is this supposed to be? I guess at least Nash pretty much got washed by Booker, who looked like a legitimate main eventer for the first time this whole run in this match. I assume that they’re going to put the belt back on Booker at Fall Brawl, but why not, I don’t know, just have Booker go over Nash strongly at Fall Brawl without this illogically-booked title change?

 

  • I’d like to take offense at the FURR’S SUCKS sign that someone is holding on the hard cam side. Furr’s was, in the context of cafeteria-style restaurants, a great cafeteria-style experience. Is Furr’s as good as Luby’s? No, but what cafeteria-style restaurant is? However, Furr’s was far better than your low-class Hometown Buffet experience. I’d even say Furr’s is better than pre-HB acquisition Ryan’s. Yes, I also have many opinions about buffet-style eateries even though they basically don’t exist in my neck of the woods anymore on account of rising food costs and an increase in calorie consciousness.

 

  • Kevin Nash celebrates with his nWo 2000 members in the back; he plans to take a shower and then celebrate by giving Chae oral sex.

 

  • Booker T. despondently rolls his wheelie luggage out of the arena; Hugh Morrus tries to cheer him up, but he’s basically like, Nah, I’m cooked until Goldberg walks in and tells Booker that they should do something about this shitty-ass nWo revival.

 

  • It was so nice not having Shane Douglas or Torrie Wilson on television for the past couple of shows, but alas, they’re back and standing in the crowd, insulting Billy Kidman. Douglas challenges Kidman to a *sigh* Pittsburgh Plunge Scaffold Match at Fall Brawl. Crowbar suddenly runs up and smashes Douglas with a trash can lid, then fights with Douglas along the railing before being distracted by the sight of Daffney and Crowbar Lite standing below him; this gives Douglas an opening to toss Crowbar over the railing and through a table on the concourse below. I hated everything about this.

 

  • Douglas rushes down the stairs, boots the fallen Crowbar, and then piefaces a screaming Daffney. Douglas then walks all the way down to the ring and starts talking again, GODDAMMIT. FUCK. WELCOME TO THE WORST LIST OF ALL. Douglas issues an open challenge and Goldberg answers it for some reason. It’s a quick spear, Jackhammer, SPLAT, and Goldberg is a true fucking star because even after months of completely nonsensical booking, he’s still insanely over.

 

  • What is up with Kevin Nash loving to shoot shower scenes on these shows? A nude Nash (with a blurry spot over his ass) gets in the shower and is jumped by Booker T., who bashes Nash with the big gold belt.

 

  • Speaking of callbacks, a worried Russo grabs Scott Steiner while fretting about how Goldberg has inspired Booker T. to strike back, and Steiner yells DON’T TOUCH ME, which got a chuckle out of me.

 

  • Reminder: Ms. Hancock and Dopey Dave get married on Nitro in a couple of weeks. This should be a disaster of the good kind. David Flair has been in a ton of trashy angles that have had misfires, but also genuine moments of fun. Here’s a wild take that I’m going to stand by: David Flair in general has been a lot of fun! He’s not a great performer, but he tries hard and is a surprisingly enjoyable character when properly used in midcard storylines, especially if they’re goofy relationship-and-marriage related ones. Dave stalking Kimberly is the only complete misfire that he’s been a part of; everything else has had at least some fun parts, and I thought that they didn’t get nearly enough out of the Dave/Crowbar/Daffney trio. A smarter booker slow-plays a love triangle between the neglectful and unthinking Dave, the put-upon Daffney, and the smitten-with-his-best-friend’s-poorly-treated-lady Crowbar over a few months instead of randomly having Dave cheat on Daffney with Ms. Hancock and then having to get a whole Crowbar Lite deal going on to do the love triangle stuff with Crowbar and Daffney.

 

  • I digress; Jeff Jarrett is in the ring for a match with Vito. This match is cromulent, but I just want this show to end. For a second show in a row, I got just past the hour mark (sans commercials) and desperately wanted to move on to something else. Even if Vince Russo was a good booker or his booking style worked, it would be so intense that you’d only bring him in for six months at a time maximum to avoid burning out the audience. Anyway, Vito gets a couple of close two counts with top-rope moves and even punches his way out of a Stroke. However, Jarrett blocks a Paisan Plunge and transitions into a desperation Stroke for three.

 

  • Mike Awesome is hiding under the pile of guitars in Jarrett's flatbed truck; when Jarrett walks up to refresh his supply, Awesome pops out and ends up slamming Jarrett into the truck bed full of KABONGers.

 

  • Mike Sanders plays spokesman for the Natural Born Thrillers, whom Mark Madden calls “young bucks.” Ooh, I wretched when he said those words. Huh, weird, I wonder why that happened? Anyway, Sanders calls out the Filthy Animals for a ten-man elimination tag. Stasiak joins commentary, where he’s awful, but somehow still better than if he’s in the ring. I’m just going to run down the eliminations because there’s not really much time allotted to this bout. Stasiak complains about trainer Paul Orndorff on commentary. Wait a minute, doesn’t Orndorff come back sometime soon for one more match and injure his neck? We haven’t seen that yet, I don’t think.

 

  • Anyway, we get NBTs tossing cruisers and cruisers hitting some nice aerial moves. Konnan actually gets in the ring and does two seconds of work. Everyone but Mike Sanders and Tygress gets counted out after a brawl at ringside. Tygress punts Sanders in the balls and then actually lands a pretty nice forearm before hitting a Bronco Buster FACE FULLA STUFF. Sanders gets right up and lands a 3.0 for the win. This was very stupid, but not quite bad enough for a certain list.

 

  • Goldberg busts into Scott Steiner’s dressing room and lays him out with a lead pipe.

 

  • Russo, with his fellow nWo members all knocked out, begs fellow NEW YAWKA Vito to help him out. Vito gives him the Mafia smooch of death, and Russo doesn’t get that it’s a Mafia smooch of death even though he seems to have seen like a million mobster flicks based on many of his past promo comments. This is going to go poorly for him.

 

  • Vince Russo (w/Vito) yaps in the ring. Russo calls out Goldberg with only Vito as his backup, which would be dumb even if Vito hadn’t signaled that he was going to murk Russo with that smooch of death. Russo managed the one useful promo of his whole lifetime earlier tonight, so he doesn’t need to talk that much here, please. He orders Vito to destroy “this piece of trash,” and Vito follows directions by breaking the kendo stick over Russo’s back while Goldberg enjoys the show. Goldberg tells Vito to continue taking out the garbage, and Vito prepares Russo for a trip to a random grave in New Mexico. Hey, wait, I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen someone getting buried in a grave on this show before…

 

  • The Great Muta and Sting hook it up while Russo gets driven out to that grave. They brawl in the aisle. I remember being faintly stoked about this match, but right now, I’m just hoping that we get through it, get Ric Flair Russo dumped into that grave in the desert, and then we can move on to what will probably be an equally shitty Thunder. Sting and Muta brawl on the ramp for a few minutes before Vampiro gets on the TurnerTron with a kendo stick and some smoke goes off for some reason. Vampiro then leaps down and attacks Sting with the stick, but Sting fights back. Vampiro tries to escape by climbing the scaffold; Sting and Muta follow. The ICP bust through the screen and yank Sting behind the screen for a four-on-one beatdown. Why was I stupid enough to get even a little bit excited for Muta and Sting? Why? I’m a fucking idiot. I’m Daffney believing David Flair’s lies that there is no one else but her. I blame no one but myself for my own gullibility.

 

  • Bret Hart randomly rolls up to the random spot in the desert where Goldberg dug his grave and yells REMEMBER SURVIVOR SERIES at Russo even though it makes no fucking sense that Bret would be on Goldberg’s side. He was clearly mad at Goldberg for the side kick that knocked him out of wrestling in kayfabe, much less as a shoot! He screwjobbed the guy at Starrcade ’99! He was part of the nu-nWo! In what world would Goldberg logically give Bret Hart a shovel and then turn his back on the guy?!

 

  • IT MAKES ZERO FUCKING LOGICAL SENSE THAT ANY OF THIS WOULD HAPPEN. HOW WOULD BRET KNOW WHERE GOLDBERG WAS? WHY WOULD GOLDBERG FORGET LITERALLY THE LAST TEN MONTHS OF BRET HART APPEARANCES ON WCW TELEVISION?! FUCK OFF, RUSSO.

 

  • I hated this show the most. -207 Octillion out of 5 Stinger Splashes.
  • Like 2
Posted
1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:

Jeff Jarrett directs a truck as it backs into the arena; it holds a bunch of KABONGin’ guitars that Jarrett apparently bought wholesale. Like, there are at least a hundred prop guitars piled into the truck bed. This raises further questions about where and how this guy secures his guitars.

Me 9/27/24:

Quote

Does Jarrett buy his guitars in bulk?  Does he have a guitar guy?  "Hey, man, I see what you do with my guitars, I'm not making any more for you.

!!!

  • Haha 1
Posted

So the wrestling free Nitro is a Nash idea that gets blamed on Russo? 

Putting the Cat in a position where he can show his personality but not wrestler much looks like a stroke of genius on these shows.

And apparently having a mullet got Mike Awesome the 70's gig 

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Me 9/27/24:

!!!

You can surely see that there is no chance I'll be tracking the number of KABONGs. This guy Jarrett probably has a contract with a Bangladeshi sweatshop to keep himself supplied. I'll never keep up. 

3 hours ago, zendragon said:

So the wrestling free Nitro is a Nash idea that gets blamed on Russo? 

I feel like Nash gets criticism for this already. Russo gets a lot of criticism for his two-minute match lengths, but Nash blowing off the first hour of Nitro generally and completely in that 3/8/99 Nitro entirely does get blamed on him. 

Quote

Putting the Cat in a position where he can show his personality but not wrestler much looks like a stroke of genius on these shows.

This might be the one triumph of the Ruschoff Era; putting the Cat in the one place where he's a considerable asset to these shows.

Quote

And apparently having a mullet got Mike Awesome the 70's gig 

Awesome believed that Russo just wanted to fuck with him because he was too close to Hogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqyef4vkCZU

I think Awesome is probably onto something here. 

He also claims that Russo fired Horace Hogan straight up after BatB 2000.

3 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

But the mullet is an '80s creation...

Fucking Russo

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), Russo is not the brightest bulb in the box. Note that Awesome does say in the above shoot that Russo was clear about Awesome's style being '80s and not '70s. 

EDIT: When I went to look for the Awesome shoot clip, I still had the Stevie Ray video where he told that ridealong story about David Flair and the Cat up. I glance over at the suggested videos to the right and what do I see? A Vince Russo pod clip titled the following:

AEW: Shock for the Sake of Shock

I mean, is this man trolling or is he really that deeply lacking in self-awareness and the ability to reflect? Tell me, please, someone, I NEED TO KNOW.

Edited by SirSmUgly
this mf russo be playin
Posted (edited)

Makes me imagine Peter Griffin saying "It's funny because it's not even '70s!" while barely holding in his laughter then finally cracking up.

EDIT: Actually, in retrospect, I was thinking of Mayor West

Edited by Curt McGirt
  • Haha 1
Posted
On 1/16/2025 at 2:08 AM, SirSmUgly said:

Russo isn’t funny and should stop trying to tell jokes…He sucks, his vision for pro wrestling sucks, and Dixie Carter must have been huffing glue to keep this guy on the TNA payroll for so long…

BUT THE RATINGS, BRO!!!!!!

19 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

Show #255 – 28 August 2000

  • Awesome calls the interviewer “Paula Pamshock,” and I can’t tell if that was a shoot or a work.
  • Douglas challenges Kidman to a *sigh* Pittsburgh Plunge Scaffold Match at Fall Brawl.
  • Mike Sanders plays spokesman for the Natural Born Thrillers, whom Mark Madden calls “young bucks.”
  • Why was I stupid enough to get even a little bit excited for Muta and Sting? Why? I’m a fucking idiot. I’m Daffney believing David Flair’s lies that there is no one else but her. I blame no one but myself for my own gullibility.
  • I hated this show the most. -207 Octillion out of 5 Stinger Splashes.
  • this was so great, it should have been a launchpad for Awesome. i cracked up so hard at that, because it's just so natural yet also dismissive. 
  • well, i'm confident that a technical WRESTLER like Douglas will be able to carry said gimmick match to new....heights? [i started typing with something else in mind, then i wrote heights, without the pun intended, then decided not to play that tired joke. but then doubled back and decided to go for it anway.]
  • haha, i remember having a similar WTF kind of reaction. Not as negative as yours, but still a bit of befuddlement.
  • the story of 2000 Nitro. and yet, your comparison makes significantly more sense, and deserves praise.
  • GODDAMN! is this better or worse than when shows were getting metaphysical ratings?
  • Like 1
Posted

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and twenty-five – 30 August 2000

"The WCW Gang is erratic in show quality for the better, ends up putting on a very fun Thunder"

  • It’s the last show of August 2000…Almost there…I counted, and including this Thunder, we are five Nitros/Thunders away from Fall Brawl and the final end of Vince Russo in WCW…The thing about WCW is that, while I would say they were still putting on consistently good shows into the middle of 1998 (which I have found is a slight hot take on the internet!), they have now been middling-to-bad for two straight years…This is why I can’t take Bischoff seriously about WCW being dead in the water no matter what…Even reasonably decent creative keeps the money machine going, probably…And very possibly to the point that WCW is too profitable to just dump from Turner programming…

 

  • But I am putting together a master list of all the shows, titles, and ratings, and you can’t be this cumulatively bad from a creative standpoint for the equivalent of two seasons and bring things back…Any other show is getting canceled no matter how popular it was, too…Nitro and Thunder remind me of Heroes, a show I didn’t watch, but which I know burned brightly for a season and then fell entirely apart (partially due to a writer's strike, admittedly) before getting axed three seasons later…Same thing here…Nitro, by the time it is canceled, is into what would be its third season after burning out as a creative concern…My analogy might not be perfect, but I think it works…

 

  • Recap: This past Nitro was the absolute worst one of the bunch…Every creative failure of an idea that Russo came up with across both his WCW runs reappeared for one last hurrah on this show…twiztor asked if my previous Nitro score getting into the negative octillions means that it was worse than the show that got an imaginary number for its score…I’m sort of sad that I’ve only scored one Nitro that way (as I think DangerMark anticipated I might)…Most of these Nitros are more bad than baffling than the reverse…And imagine how bad they must be considering how baffling a lot of the booking is!...Anyway, imaginary number score = more baffling than bad…negative number score that can be calculated = more bad than baffling…

 

  • It's Thunder at the Tucson Convention Center…I saw a mid-aughts Smackdown in that building…Booker T.’s pyro damn near singed my eyebrows off, it felt like, and I wasn’t even in the front row…Anyway, here’s Team Canada…Skipper is doing his direct rip of every line Rod Tidwell ever said in Jerry Maguire in his promos…Lance Storm lectures these dopey Tucsonans while Major Gunns rolls her eyes and languidly waves a Canadian flag in the background…Elix makes me laugh by signaling to her that she needs to wave the flag with more enthusiasm…Gunns drops the flag and rips off her shirt to reveal an American-flag pattered bikini top while “O Canada” plays…Storm and Elix are deeply offended by this disrespectful breech of anthem protocol and cover her up with the flag…

 

  • KroniK are Storm and Skip’s opponents…The babyfaces clear the ring by pressing Skip onto Storm after they toss Storm to ringside…The match falls into regular order after that, but mostly Skipper’s chest gets chopped into paste by Clark before he gets bealed into outer space…Skip attempts to come back by hitting the Matrix on a wild Clark lariat attempt…He tries his best, but just gets steamrolled by his much larger opponents…Skipper bumps like a lunatic, so this is fun…He manages to get out of a jam by tagging Storm on a rope run…His springboard body attack that he leaps off the ropes with right after tagging Storm gets caught by Adams, but Storm is legal and springboards into the ring with a lariat that scores…

 

  • Storm and Skip team up on a double-DDT that gets Adams in a little bit of trouble…Storm covers for two…Storm fires off elbowdrops and a suplex, but when he tags Elix back in and they try a double clothesline, Adams walks through it and hits a double clothesline of his own before tagging Clark…Clark gets two on a Meltdown after Storm makes the save…KroniK tosses Storm to ringside and sets up Skip for a High Times…Storm scrambles up and springboard dropkicks Clark away from Skipper, then tries to grab the flagpole from Gunns…Gunns steps back and pokes Storm in the gut with it…Storm stumbles back into a full nelson slam from Adams…KroniK lands a High Times on Storm and covers for three…

 

  • That match ruled!...What a fun opener…Everybody played their parts well…After the match, Elix Skipper chastises Major Gunns for her treachery…General Rection runs in, jumps Skipper, and sets him up for a No Laughing Matter…Storm recovers and attacks Rection…He and Skipper escape the ring without further incident when the rest of the M.I.A. rushes to make the save…

 

  • A limo pulls up, and the Natural Born Thrillers meet it…The nWo 2000 members step out of the limo…

 

  • I forgot to do this in the last review, so here’s a quick update, speaking of the nWo 2000…

 

  • WCW World Heavyweight Championship title change count: 20 (Hitman > VACANT > Benoit > VACANT > Sid > Nash > Sid > VACANT > Jarrett > DDP > Arquette > Jarrett > Ric Flair > Jarrett > Nash > Flair > Jarrett > Hulk Hogan > Jarrett > Booker T. > Nash)

 

  • Twenty title changes in eight months!...Complete insanity!...

 

  • Tony S. lets us know that Vince Russo has brought back WarGames…Of course, he fucks up the elegance of the match format with some sort of three-team, triple-cage nonsense…It’s WarGames 2000: Russo’s Revenge!...It's almost an inevitability that on his way out of the company, Russo would shit on WarGames…Then again, Bischoff already shit on WarGames with the 1998 version of the match…

 

  • The unholy nWo 2000/Natural Born Thrillers alliance makes its way to the ring…The Thrillers have useful pieces (Sanders, O’Haire, Jindrak), and of course the members of nWo 2000 have lots of use outside of the nWo angle…But together, they're not going to be a very promising storyline option…Steiner’s eyes are badly bruised after Goldberg hit him in the face with a pipe on Monday…He’s been advised by his doctors not to wrestle at Fall Brawl…”But I told ‘em to take their Ph.Ds, their M.D.s, their…O.B.G.Y.N.s, and stick ‘em straight up their ass!”…O.B.G.Y.N.s, AHAHAHAHAHA…I fell out…Scott Steiner is hilarious, even when he’s not trying to be…Maybe even especially when he’s not trying to be…

 

  • Nash talks about being champ again for the fifth time…Stevie says that “nobody remembers the other four,” and he’s actually not that far off…We mostly remember the first one in the other company…He says that he’s beaten four men to win world titles, but he’s never dominated anyone like he did Booker…That’s a nice line for the long time fans who will immediately remember him powerbombing Bob Backlund in about fifteen seconds to win his first world title…To those people, that line is a pretty good troll from a heel…For some reason, we get a shot of Daffney and Crowbar Lite in the front row, and they are displeased with these heels in the ring…Nash dreams of all the money he can make from charging little kids to get a picture with the gold, then says that he’ll be at the Marriott after the show charging fifty bucks for Polaroids…

 

  • I guess since the Cat is out after doing a stretcher job on Monday, the nWo is booking the show?...Whatever…Nash says he’s going to test the mettle of the NBTs in a few matches tonight…Nash wonders who will stop this gang of nefarious heels…We cut to Booker T. angrily tossing furniture backstage while watching this promo; then, his music hits…Book walks out to zero pop…Booker asks if Nash and his nu-KLIQ do everything together, including going to the restroom…Nash fucking cracks me up because we cut back to him, and he's resolutely shaking his head and mouthing NO…If he’s going to be a net-negative in the ring most of the time, the least he can do is be funny…Vito and the Filthy Animals back Booker up and everyone rushes one another…Booker walks through Scott Steiner and destroys Nash before security breaks it up…It sure is nice of them to finally present Booker as a threat a full six weeks after he first won the world title!...

 

  • Nash boots Terry Taylor out of his place in Gorilla and then rips up the format…LOOK AT ME…LOOK AT ME…I AM THE BOOKER NOW…Anyway, Nash calls out for Reno and makes it clear that he has expectations that Reno must meet in the ring…

 

  • Pam Paulshock interviews General Rection…Rection challenges Lance Storm to a Canadian Championship bout at Fall Brawl…I know this bum is going to win it at some point, but hopefully not anytime soon…Hmmm, does the U.S./Canadian Championship not get many more switches before the end?...Maybe Storm > Rection > Rick Steiner > Booker T.?...Wow, we really are in the end game, huh?...

 

  • Commentary speculates on whether any members of the Flair family will be showing up to the Dopey Dave/Ms. Hancock wedding, which is on a Nitro located in Charlotte…Wait, hold on…Doesn’t Ric reveal that he banged Dave’s bride-to-be?...OH NO…And then the big question is whether or not the child that she is (allegedly) carrying is Dave’s or Ric’s?...OH NO, THAT’S IT, ISN’T IT?!...OHHHH NOOOOOOOO…

 

  • OK, let me focus on this Mike Awesome/Reno match instead of Russo probably leaving me with one more distressingly stupid angle on his way out of the door…This bout is fine…Awesome is basically a good TV match certainty, with the exception of any match centered solely around ambulances or tables…Reno dominates, but leaves the ring to get in Crowbar Lite’s face…Awesome attacks from behind, but gets his ass kicked some more…They say that Daffney’s beau is named Ozzy/Ozzie, but no, fuck that, he’s Crowbar Lite as far as I’m concerned…Awesome manages to finagle control and land an Awesome Bomb for three…An angry Reno attacks Crowbar Lite after the match for some reason…

 

  • During the break: Jeff Jarrett attacked Mike Awesome with plundah backstage…Fit Finlay is working as a road agent, by the way…Glad he became active again in mid-aughts WWE as that run ruled so hard…

 

  • Tony S. held a sit-down interview with Paul Orndorff in the ring before the show…Here it is…They talk about the Power Plant and Orndorff’s role as an instructor there…He’s proud of “his kids” and how they have progressed…He says that his program is extremely challenging to pare down the classes and make sure that only the best survived…No way I’d be doing a thousand Hindu squats as Orndorff suggests his students do…I love me a Hindu squat as an exercise, but a thousand in one go?...Orndorff also makes his students clean the Power Plant, dojo-style…

 

  • Tony S. goes supernova in the next part of the interview, which involves him informing Orndorff that the Natural Born Thrillers say that he sucked as a trainer…Apparently Orndorff doesn’t watch the weekly television because he seems shocked…Orndorff can cut the hell out of a promo, so he’s excellent here…He’s shocked at Mike Sanders running him down because “Sanders was a nobody before I got my hands on him”…Orndorff tries to calm himself down by reasoning that “maybe they’re stressed” from being on television, but Tony S., this complete devious shitheel, riles him up by saying that when the NBTs see this interview, “they’ll be laughing at [Orndorff]” backstage…Also, he reports that Sanders called Orndorff an “old man,” and Orndorff’s eyes widen and his head tilts as he repeats in disbelief OLD MAN?!...

 

  • On a roll, Tony S. suggests that Orndorff should be “ticked off,” the clever little bastard, almost as if he knows what will happen when he deliberately helps Orndorff get ticked off…Tony S., stirring shit: “Everybody backstage knows about it, Paul; I just thought I’d let you know”…Orndorff: SO I’M A RUNNING JOKE, THEN?!...Tony: “Not with me, but with [the Thrillers]”…Orndorff works himself into the biggest shoot ever and decides to take it up with the Thrillers face-to-face, but not before asking Tony S. one more time, AND YOU’VE HEARD THEM SAY [disparaging things about me] TO OTHER PEOPLE?!...Tony, in a gem of an answer: “Relentlessly”…From a kayfabe standpoint, Tony S. is responsible for Orndorff getting that stinger, huh?...

 

  • I can’t emphasize enough how much I enjoyed this segment…It’s my favorite of these sit-down interviews so far, easily…When people shit on Schiavone for his performance in late-era WCW, I hope they remember that when everyone got out of his way after giving him a basic goal to achieve in hyping a match or setting up an angle, he nailed it way more often than not…It should be extremely clear that Schiavone being bad in late-stage WCW was about 85% WCW and 15% Schiavone being checked out…When you give him something that interests him, all of a sudden, wow, he’s a wonderful interviewer or excellent on the call again!...

 

  • The Thrillers apparently saw the interview and made some quick signs to run down Paul Orndorff, which they paraded around the arena during the break…Let’s see, we have: TOO BAD YOUR BEST MATCH WAS AGAINST VADER…Well, he won that one in a squash, fellas…CLEAN YOUR OWN DAMN TOILETS FROM NOW ON…ORNDORFF EQUALS J.O.B. (JEALOUS OLD BASTARD)…AREN’T YOU DEAD YET? (I, for one, don’t think it’s too soon to laugh at how mean this sign is, but YMMV)…NATURAL BORN THRILLERS = 6; ORNDORFF = 0…And finally, HEY PAUL, WE’RE GETTING PAID MORE THAN YOU…

 

  • Reno walks backstage with his sign, where Scott Steiner jabs him in the throat with a lead pipe for failing to beat Mike Awesome

 

  • Pam Paulshock asks Booker T. about being booked against Mike Sanders tonight…Booker says that Sanders will be no problem and that Nash knows this, but Nash is probably just hoping for a freak ACL tear…Book says it won’t happen, he’s coming for the big gold belt, DON’T HATE THE PLAYER, etc….

 

  • Goldberg is in some fitness mag this month…Here are Jindrak and O’Haire…They hand a note to Dave Penzer, who reads out that the following match against Juvi and Rey is now for the tag titles…Oh, wait, WarGames 2000 is on the upcoming Nitro, not at Fall Brawl…It’ll be Nash, Scotty Steiner, Jarrett, and Vince Russo himself against the Cat, Booker, Sting, and Goldberg…Should I just plunk this match on the Dirt Worst list in advance or what?...Konnan does his pre-match spiel…O’Haire gets a mic and makes fun of their short opponents by announcing that if anyone in the crowd has lost their kids, they’re right here in the ring…Then, he says that to make things more fair, they’ll allow Disco to join the tag champs as part of this match…I assume we are telegraphing Disco losing the belts for the Animals…

 

  • Konnan joins commentary and talks about his plans for Russo, who in turn has plans for the Animals…The Animals have a shine segment that peaks at a Rey Bronco Buster on Jindrak…Soon after, Jindrak plucks Rey out of the air on a springboard and hits a tilt-a-whirl slam…Rey is our FIP for the next little while…Soon enough, he gets a hot tag to Juvi…Juvi’s run gets stuffed, and of course, he gets bumped around with some nice power moves from Jindrak and O’Haire…In a GREAT move, the Thrillers beal Juvi from the floor and all the way over the top rope and back into the ring!...That spot was great!...I bet these guys could uppercut Juvi from the floor onto the top rope Mortal Kombat-style, even…

 

  • Juvi gets a hot tag…Disco and Rey work O’Haire over, but Disco eats a big boot when Rey leaves the ring…O’Haire goes for a Seanton Bomb, but gets crotched by Juvi…Juvi climbs up top and lands a top-rope rana…Disco and Juvi wishbone O’Haire, and Rey guillotine legdrops O’Haire in the nutsack for a surprising (to me) three count…

 

  • Nash is annoyed at the NBTs taking losses…He tells Sanders to take Booker out and piles the pressure on by telling Sanders that if he fucks things up, the NBTs might be the nu-nWo's next target…Jeff Jarrett walks in and hands Nash a booking sheet, saying that he wants a tune-up for Fall Brawl in an exceptionally dangerous, possibly career-ending match…Let me guess: Will Norman Smiley be his opponent?...I mean, I was wrong about what I thought WCW was telegraphing in the previous match, so maybe I’m not even close…

 

  • Mike Sanders fires himself up in a pre-match conversation with Jindrak and O’Haire…Sanders leaves for the ring, and Scott Steiner immediately runs up and takes Jindrak and O’Haire out with his lead pipe…

 

  • Booker T. faces Mike Sanders next…Sanders does some cursory mic work before Booker makes his way to the ring…Booker is too busy looking to kill a motherfucker to pose or anything…Booker slaughters Sanders, who doesn’t get an offensive move in before eating a Book End after a couple of minutes…

 

  • After a break, Booker slightly limps on his way back to his locker room…We cut to Mike Sanders trying to convince Nash that he was responsible for that limp…It doesn’t work…Scott Steiner clonks him in the head from behind with a lead pipe…Meanwhile, Jarrett gets his blood pressure taken before his super-dangerous bout tonight…If not Norm, maybe Kwee Wee?...

 

  • Vito faces Chuck Palumbo next…Vito does some cursory mic work before Palumbo (w/Shawn Stasiak) makes his way to the ring…Palumbo is too busy looking to kill a motherfucker to pose or anything…Palumbo fires off for a few seconds before Vito turns it around and kicks his ass because Palumbo =/= Booker…Stasiak is awful on commentary…Vito gets two off a Savage Elbow, but misses a follow-up diving headbutt…Palumbo gets two on a lariat, then two on an overhead suplex…Stasiak has been out because of a legit knee injury, but he does offer anyone in the back an open challenge for an arm wrestling match tonight…Vito and Palumbo reverse, reverse, and reverse again while Stasiak sounds off about being a part of the wrestling business long before Orndorff trained him…Vito wins the last reversal and lands a Paisan Plunge for three…

 

  • In a chuckle-worthy iteration on what we all could guess might happen next, Palumbo tries to hide somewhere backstage to avoid a beating with a lead pipe…Steiner arises from behind Palumbo’s hiding spot and clonks him, but he does appreciate Palumbo’s initiative in trying to hide…

 

  • Jeff Jarrett prays in his locker room before his match…He lit candles and everything…OK, that was genuinely very funny!...

 

  • The M.I.A. are next to the ring…They face the sorry-ass Harris Bros….Rection and A-WALL are the M.I.A.’s entrants in this tag match…This isn’t any good, but it’s at least pretty short…Elix Skipper walks a captive Major Gunns down the ramp as a distraction…The Harris Bros. take the opening and whip Rection into A-WALL on the apron…A-WALL takes a plunge through a table at ringside…Rection tries to fight back and even reverses an H-Bomb with a double-bulldog that Ra/oD bumps primarily on his knees for…Rection goes up, but Lance Storm runs down and hits Rection in the back with the Canadian flagpole…Da/oR covers for 2.8, and the angry Harris Bros. clear out the ref for not counting faster…KroniK enters through the crowd and beats down the Harrises…Ra/oD eats a High Times, and Rection follows with a No Laughing Matter for three…Storm is forlorn at this turn of events, but he takes initiative and tries to blow Rection’s ACL with a dropkick to the knee from behind and then a Canadian Maple Leaf…A-WALL manages to run Storm off…

 

  • Leia Meow works a domme gimmick as she demands to see some more winning and slaps the loser Jung Dragons around for being losers who aren't doing enough winning…She also promises, as a contrast, sexual pleasure if they do what she says…I’m shocked that the WWF didn’t run a domme gimmick until after the Attitude Era was over…Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t hire Kimona/Leia to do this gimmick in 1998…Well, not entirely surprised since Vince McMahon is apparently baffled that there is and always has been a legion of guys who would fund a hot Asian woman’s findom-themed OnlyFans into perpetuity if they could…Anyway, this sort of gimmick is a bad idea for mainstream wrestling, but if Leia is going to be wearing skintight leather for the next few months, I’m okay with it!...And yes, I’m settling down!...

 

  • Jeff Jarrett reluctantly but bravely walks out of his dressing room…Nash and Scotty Steiner tell him that he doesn’t have to risk his life like this, but Jarrett says that he must…Meanwhile, Midajah is in the same fitness mag as Goldberg…Tenay turns up the misogyny randomly as soon as this is promoted by Tony S., and Stevie supports him…Then, they go back to being babyfaces again after that random heelish behavior…Jarrett dedicates this next match to all of his slapnuts in the audience…Yep, it’s Kwee Wee (w/Paisley)…Paisley joins commentary while Jarrett takes Kwee Wee apart in the ring…Paisley and Stevie have an ongoing feud now…Stevie deliberately calls the guy Pee Wee…Paisley insinuates that Stevie is subconsciously thinking about his penis, but Stevie assures us all that “I keep my yaks intact”…Fantastic…

 

  • Kwee Wee makes a small comeback, but he splats on a missile dropkick attempt and is set up for a Stroke…Mike Awesome walks onto the ramp and distracts Jarrett…Kwee Wee gets a flash rollup for two…Jarrett remains distracted and gets rolled up again for two…Jarrett grabs a chair while the ref tries to back Awesome off the ring…Jarrett turns his attention back to Kwee Wee with a sunset flip that Kwee Wee reverses for two…Kwee Wee presses his advantage and even gets another two count, but Jarrett hops behind him on a vertical suplex attempt and scores a Stroke for three…Jarrett lauds himself after the bout… Jeff Jarrett “Slapnuts/Slapass” Count: 3, including the one uttered before the match started…

 

  • Oh joy, more TV time for Shawn Stasiak…Let’s see who answers his open arm wrestling challenge…Hey, Paul Orndorff is in town, which we established earlier, and he’s the guy who answers the call…Does Russo not book Thunder very closely?...I ask because this particular show is pretty logically booked…Orndorff flexes and is honestly in extremely impressive shape, even if he’s getting *ahem* medical assistance to get into that shape…

 

  • Orndorff even says that he’ll use his permanently injured right arm to wrestle if it makes Stasiak feel better…The desk points out the injury to get it over…Obviously, Stasiak is immediately in trouble…Orndorff could have used a pinky, probably…Stasiak tries to hang on, so Orndorff of course reaches into his deep bag of heel tricks and just socks Stasiak in the jaw with his free left hand…Stasiak tries to beg off and then tries to swing on Orndorff, who ducks the lariat and lands a boot to the gut and a piledriver…Huh, this segment was really good!...Orndorff gets a chair and clocks the onrushing NBT members with it…I’m not sure this helps the NBTs get over at all, feeding and bumping for a retired WCW midcarder and trainer, but I was so emotionally engaged that it doesn’t matter…Welcome to the Charming Uniquities list, Shawn Stasiak (somehow!)…

 

  • The lovely Ms. Jones steps out of a limo…Oh yeah, and the Cat is here, too…I swear, I really am settled down!...

 

  • It looks like we’re getting another angle to end the show…The Cat (w/Ms. Jones) enters the ring while the desk hypes this War Games 2000 match…OK, so a woman on the hard cam side earlier held up a BOOKER T. SUCKS: CAN YOU DIG THAT? sign, and I was going to lament how poorly Booker had been programmed to provoke this sort of reacton, but now, she’s holding up a VINCE RUSSO IS SEXY sign, so I’m writing that previous sign off to her being a fan with extremely bad taste in pro wrestling…

 

  • Ah, I digress...The Cat calls Kevin Nash out to the ring…It’s a whole power struggle thing about whether the Cat or Russo and his buddies get to book the show…The Cat books himself against Kevin Nash…He runs down Jarrett and Scotty Steiner in crude terms…Jarrett comes to the ring holding his KABONGing guitar…The Cat improbably fights off Jarrett and Scott Steiner both, which I don’t agree with…Steiner should not be getting worked over by the Cat, particularly in a situation where the Cat is outnumbered…Nash lands a big boot and Steiner terrorizes Ms. Jones as she is the nearest woman in the ring…Ms. Jones piefaces Jarrett, who KABONGs her…Booker has a baseball bat, which he brings to the ring and uses on the heels…The NBTs rush the ring and attack Booker…Oh, good, I was worried that the heels wouldn’t stand strong for once…There is no reason not to have Vito and the Filthy Animals make the save...

 

  • Well, despite the typical end-of-show downer that these Russo shows love so much, I really enjoyed this Thunder!...There is no way Russo had majority influence over how it was laid out...Other than the downer ending, everything else was pretty well-executed and landed segments and matches on multiple good lists…WOOOO
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Show #256 – 4 September 2000

"The one where no one will shut the fuck up already and WarGames is but a mere joke match"

  • We’ve made it through our final summer of WCW television and are moving on to our final autumn of WCW television. The end creeps ever closer.

 

  • Hype video: WarGames 2000 doesn’t look very promising! Why is Vince Russo’s goofy ass insistent on getting in the ring? Other than because he wants to book himself as champ just like Vinnie Mac did, I mean.

 

  • More hype video: We see the cage being constructed – wait, is this the go-home show for Uncensored 1999 again? Did I go back in time?

 

  • Hey, it’s a new opening video roll! I don’t remember this at all!

 

  • Jeremy Borash sits in for Scott Hudson on commentary because Hudson is in the labor ward with his wife and newborn child.

 

  • The Insane Clown Posse wrestles a tag title match against Rey Misterio Jr. and Juventud Guerrera (w/the Filthy Animals) for tonight's opener. Konnan does some annoying mic work before the match. He and Disco Inferno join commentary. Rey and Juvi dive onto the clowns. Juvi tries another dive and gets dropkicked in mid-air by Shaggy, but it doesn’t do much to swing the match. The clowns regain control after another run of Animals control and a Bronco Buster; Violent J press slams Rey once, but goes to the well once too often and gets dropkicked by Juvi as he hoists Rey in the air. Rey follows up with a nutcracker guillotine legdrop for three. This was fine.

 

  • Pam Paulshock stands in a gym and interviews Team Canada; Lance Storm and Elix Skipper break Major Gunns down by forcing her to run endlessly on a treadmill.

 

  • As a reminder, the WCW World Heavyweight Championship is on the line in this stupid-ass WarGames 2000 Match.

 

  • Vince Russo (w/the Natural Born Thrillers) bores the shit out of everyone with some shitty mic work. The gist of his yammering is to insult Dallas’s shitty sports teams and to explain his version of WarGames. Oh no, is he going to become the champ? Fuck, he is at some point, and maybe tonight is that night because he won it in a cage match after getting speared through the side of the cage by Goldberg. Anyway, it’s basically that triple cage match from Slamboree earlier in 2000 where you have to climb up to the third cage at the very top and grab the title with the added caveat that you must then exit the ring in possession of the belt to be the winner and champion.

 

  • Also, Russo got a judge to put an injunction in place on Bischoff’s deal that made the Cat the commissioner, so the Cat has no power at this point. Russo then books each of the babyfaces in qualifying matches to even make it into WarGames. He also announces that if Goldberg manages to qualify, he will be allowed to physically harm Vince Russo in the main event.

 

  • Russo declares that he will be the champ after the show is over; Kevin Nash walks out and responds in SHADES OF GRAY, BRO, saying that he doesn’t like the fans, but he also doesn’t like Vince Russo putting his title up in this match. Russo, of course, is like Hahaha, I do what I want, so GFY and then Nash goozles Russo in response. Before anything more can happen, Sting pops up from underneath the ring and faces off with Nash and Russo. Russo orders Nash to beat Sting down; Nash gets a babyface pop by doing an ol’ Stone Cold and giving Russo the double birds.

 

  • Sting gets in Russo’s grill and declares it SHOWTIME, FOLKS. Russo waits until Sting leaves to make a rude gesture at him, but Sting turns around and chases Russo up the cage. Scott Steiner (w/trusty lead pipe), Jeff Jarrett, and the NBTs all climb up after them. They corner Sting, but Booker T. and the Cat rush the ring and attack the NBTs as Sting tries to fight off Steiner and Jarrett. Sting manages to knock them down and chase Russo, but Russo is able to clamber down the opposite side of the topmost cage and make his escape. Alas, as Russo backs up the aisle, Goldberg steps out onto the top of the ramp and sends Russo scurrying away.

 

  • Scott Steiner and Jeff Jarrett yell at Russo for fucking over Kevin Nash. Um, didn’t Scott Steiner get Kevin Nash’s close friend Scott Hall fired from WCW like six weeks ago? Anyway, Russo demands that these two hotheads go calm down fellow hothead Nash.

 

  • Scott Hudson, Mark Madden, and the Nitro Girls shaved Jeremy Borash bald earlier in the day. Borash with no hair looks like Bam Bam Bigelow’s wimpy cousin. I didn’t catch why they shaved Borash’s dome, and I don’t care enough to rewind.

 

  • Alright, cool, we got the cage raised! Let’s have some hot wrestling acti—oh no, it’s the fucking Harris Bros. They demand that production show some video they shot in which they attack KroniK while Adams and Clark shoot pool in some shitty Dallas-area dive.

 

  • In Vince Russo's office, Shane Douglas demands to oppose Goldberg in Goldberg’s qualifying match tonight. Russo is dubious about Shane’s chances, so he waves in three of the Natural Born Thrillers as his tag partners, over the protests of Torrie Wilson. Why she is so upset about this prospect I don’t know. She shits on the Thrillers, so they leave because she is annoying, and Torrie makes this idiot Shane Douglas think he has a chance against Goldberg one-on-one. Russo gives him the match, but calls the Thrillers back and tells them to back Shane up after he and Torrie leave.

 

  • Tony S. shills new TNT drama Bull and TNTBull.com as Sting makes his way to the ring for a handicap WarGames 2000 qualifier against Vampiro and Great Muta. Sting dodges Muta’s mist, which hits Vampiro in the face, and lands a Stinger Splash and a Scorpion Death Drop on Vampiro for three in the time it takes me to find a shot of TNTBull preserved in the Wayback Machine.

 

  • Roving reporter Pam Paulshock is here to give us compelling footage of an exhausted Major Gunns doing chest presses while Elix Skipper leers at her sweaty boobs. Major Gunns doesn’t want to train hard just to be Canadian, but these Team Canada guys don’t give a single solitary fuck.

 

  • Vince Russo has called Stevie Ray into the show to be Booker T.’s qualifying match opponent. Stevie is against it, even when Russo threatens to fire him. The stick doesn’t work, but the carrot does; Russo implies that by beating Booker, Stevie can take his place in WarGames 2000 and have a shot at the title. Wait a minute. Are we finally going to get Booker beating Stevie in a very late blowoff of their off-and-on feud that started back in mid-late 1998?

 

  • Nash is mad that Russo has gone rogue, and Jarrett can’t convince the big man to relax. Nash threatens to turn his back on Russo and, um, join the babyfaces? So soon?

 

  • Stevie Ray comes to the ring and lets us know before his match with Booker T. that Russo has put him up to this. Stevie Ray promises that he and Booker will fight FOR THE ROCK FOR THE PEOPLE. Booker’s theme has a hook now: DON’T HATE THE PLAYER; HATE THE GAME. Booker also speaks before the match, and he repeats the same catchphrase that is the hook in his theme. Stevie jumps him from behind, in true Stevie fashion. Booker sells way too much for Stevie, though broadly, he doesn’t sell that much. After maybe a minute of selling, he fights up from a resthold and goes into his 5MoD. Stevie catches a Houston Side Kick and slams Booker, but Booker blocks a Slapjack. Stevie blocks a Book End once, but not twice, and Booker gets three. OK, that really was a smidge too much selling for Stevie. Booker is annoyed about Stevie jumping him, but Stevie is like, I was just reminding you to keep your guard up, dude, and Booker is like, Oh yeah, it’s another one of those learning tree things you’ve claimed that you’ve been teaching me over the last two years, and they hug.

 

  • KroniK makes it to the arena and tries to get intel from the Jung Dragons about whether or not the Harris Bros. are in the arena. Jamie Noble doesn’t just, you know, speak English and tell them, nor does Jimmy Yang for some inexplicable reason. Anyway, Kaz makes fun of KroniK’s accents, so KroniK kills off all three guys.

 

  • Three Count prepares to boogie, but KroniK stomp out here and murder them. Adams gets a mic and demands the presence of them Harris Bros., but Jeff Jarrett answers their call instead. Jarrett: LISTEN UP, YOU TWO MARY JANE BLONDE NUTS. What in the shit is this idiot talking about? Jarrett announces that KroniK will instead be wrestling the Cat to get into this off-brand WarGames Russo nonsense. Here’s the Cat now, with the lovely (and neck-braced) Ms. Jones. Jarrett joins commentary and, as a heel who has worked a misogynist gimmick, it actually makes sense when he says that women shouldn’t be in the ring, unlike when Tenay does it.

 

  • The Cat makes an argument that he and KroniK should just destroy Jarrett in partnership; he then rolls up Adams for two when Clark makes to leave the ring and attack Jarrett. The Cat gets clubbed by Adams and Clark, but escapes the ring, where he spots Jarrett advancing on Ms. Jones. The Cat grabs Jarrett and holds her in place for a Jones slap. Adams grabs the Cat and tosses him back in the ring as Jarrett stalks Jones with his KABONGing guitar. KroniK finishes off the Cat with a High Times for three, so I guess they’re in WarGames 2000 now?

 

  • Russo is excited about the Cat being eliminated, but Scott Steiner is like, Uh, I think that means KroniK is in the match now, which is way worse for us than if you just let the Cat into the match in the first place. He’s way more profane in how he says it, though. Anyway, Russo is like, Oh yeah, hey, I’m a fucking moron, though he only shows it with a facepalm. But whether work or shoot, Russo is, in fact, a fucking moron.

 

  • Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson do some incredibly annoying mic work before this Goldberg match. Holy shit, they have go-away heat with me. I would switch to the corresponding RAW that aired on this night if I were watching it back in 2000. Goldberg is a babyface again, I guess, because he is not mean to his security detail anymore. His heel turn was even shorter than Sting’s heel turn in 1999. Anyway, they have a long obligabrawl that Shane mostly loses before going to work on Goldberg’s forearm that he sliced up nine months ago.

 

  • Goldberg is doing a lot of selling for Shane fucking Douglas, IMO. Goldberg manages to power out of a shitty armlock and goes to town on Douglas. Palumbo, O’Haire, Reno, and Sanders try to intervene and get summarily destroyed; Goldberg even hits Reno with his own finisher. In a pretty neat spot, Goldberg has Sanders up in a press slam, so Douglas tries to sneak up behind him, but Goldberg turns around and drops Sanders before spearing Douglas in one smooth motion. A Jackhammer later, and it’s over. Goldberg killing dudes is still great, IMO!

 

  • Vince Russo is inconsolable backstage.

 

  • After a commercial break and a recap of what just happened, Russo decides that it’s a good idea to try and make up with Kevin Nash, but Nash is disinterested in a reconciliation.

 

  • We go back to Pam Paulshock, and I finally figure it out that the point is to have Gunns show off her body in multiple ways. She’s swimming laps in a bikini for this sketch. The M.I.A. spy on Team Canada. Paulshock decides to tell someone about how abusive Storm and Skip are being, so Storm tosses her in the pool. The M.I.A. rushes the pool – NO RUNNING, YOU’LL SLIP AND FALL – and then everyone ends up in the drink. Lance Storm was a pretty hot heel, and they shunted him into a feud with the vortex of mediocrity that is the M.I.A. Dumb.

 

  • Vince Russo is very upset at the poor results the Thrillers have offered up so far, so he tells them to beat up Vito in a Gauntlet Match. One of them yells AND THAT’S A SHOOT for some reason. I refuse to go back and find out who it was.

 

  • A damp Pam Paulshock interviews Arn Anderson (!!), who says this before he talks about whether or not Ric Flair will be at Dopey Dave’s wedding: “Pamela, you are soakin’ wet, honey, and that is OUTSTANDING. That is a GREAT look for you.” Okerlund wishes he’d been able to deliver a line like that. Anyway, Arn says he and Ric’ll be there.

 

  • Can Vito run the gauntlet? Let’s find out. No, Vito, shut the fuck up, stop talking, let’s just find out if you can run the gauntlet already. He cuts a lukewarm promo on Vince Russo before Mike Sanders responds on the mic. We don’t need everyone to cut a fucking promo before their matches. Sanders decries the economic and physical fitness levels of the citizens of Dallas, and Vito is like YA MAMA, and then Sanders responds with compliments about his compatriots’ bodies and then Vito responds by insinuating that they give each other handjobs in the shower and then Sanders is like YOU’RE FAT and then Vito is ready to fight them and then Sanders is like Yeah, we're gonna fight, stupid, this is a Gauntlet Match and then Vito is like Six-year-olds are tougher than youse guys and then Sanders is like Okay well, let’s fight, then and then finally, after an eternity, after I crossed the event horizon and was sucked into a black hole of terrible promo work, spiraling and spiraling into the inky blackness for minutes, hours, days, years, I finally come out the other side and Vito gets beaten up by six dudes in what is a six-on-one handicap match and not a fucking gauntlet, you stupid bastards, it’s like when you call a regular hardcore match a bunkhouse fight!

 

  • The NBTs easily win this thing. They bash Vito with Vito’s own stick bat after the match.

 

  • All the non-Goldberg babyfaces cut a promo with Pam Paulshock before this WarGames 2000 thing. There was too much talking from a bunch of people who I don’t need to hear talk all that much tonight (or most nights, for that matter).

 

  • It’s the final WCW WarGames! I mean, not authentically so because the only thing they kept as a feature from the actual WarGames bouts is the two-minute intervals for entry into the match. Vince Russo doesn’t even know what stipulations and layouts that half the match types in pro wrestling actually require.

 

  • Tony S. mentions that we are beginning a sixth year of Nitro’s existence. Or, looking at it another way, an eleventh (and final) half-year! Sting and Jarrett are in first. They brawl. They whip each other into the cage and a ladder. Scott Steiner enters next. As with the 1998 version of this match, there isn't the tension of team vs. team fighting because the title is on the line. Roddy Piper made the single good point he ever made in any of his WCW promos by pointing out the flaws in making a title (or title shot) a goal for the winner of a match like this one.

 

  • Sting gets beaten up for a couple of minutes before both KroniK members enter the match together, which erases any advantage the heel team would normally have, but this WarGames is fraudulent anyway, so I can’t get fired up about it. Steiner climbs to the second level. Vince Russo (w/hockey helmet, Harris Bros.) enters the match next. I don’t get this; Russo can freely cheat by bringing backup? OK, so why not just take KroniK out of the match altogether or make it clear that KroniK beating the Cat gets them nothing instead of going to the trouble of bringing a cheating crew to a match that they're not even signed for? Well, I guess at least the heels have the advantage back.

 

  • Sting lands a Stinger Splash on Russo, then locks him in a Scorpion Death Lock. Kevin Nash is next out even though a heel just came out and therefore, either Booker or Goldberg should be out here next. This show was terrible, but I think after last week’s show, even a show this bad mostly has me rolling my eyes. I mean, it’ll score in the deep negatives because Russo crapped on WarGames on his way out, but I can’t get too aggy about this show otherwise, no matter how deeply shitty it is.

 

  • Nash refuses to make up with Russo and even threatens his buddies, which kills clock so that Booker T. can come out after two minutes and beat all of them down before Nash sneaks up with a big boot. KroniK and the Harris Bros. have escaped the cage and end up brawling through the crowd even though the original point of this whole match is that no one escapes the cage and everyone fights until a submission or surrender.

 

  • Goldberg comes down and whatever passes for THE MATCH BEYOND begins, I guess. Booker scales the triple cage before everyone else and grabs the big gold belt, but remember this: Unlike in the previous triple cage match, you have to leave the cage with possession of it to win. Booker makes his way to the second cage, where Scott Steiner catches him from behind. Sting is handcuffed in there, so he can’t intervene when Jarrett KABONGs Booker. Steiner drops the belt to Russo on the first level. The Cat runs into the open door of the ground-level cage and kicks Russo, then takes the belt, but he drops it after Nash big boots him and lands a Jackknife.

 

  • Goldberg is also handcuffed in the bottom-level cage, but he breaks the handcuffs, which he’s done on some Nitro before, I’m pretty sure, maybe in late 1999, kills off the heels, retrieves the belt, celebrates, and casually walks toward the cage door…where Bret Hart is waiting. Bret slams the door into Goldberg’s head before Goldberg can leave, and the revived heels snag the belt and roll Goldberg back into the ring. Nash and Russo argue over who will be the champ, but then IT’S A SWERVE, BRO: They’ve actually been friends this whole time and Nash is handed the belt by Russo. This was a pointless fucking swerve! Pretending to be enemies a) did nothing to advance the plot in kayfabe, b) did nothing to help them win the match in kayfabe, and c) didn’t surprise anyone in the audience who had seen even a little bit of Vince Russo-run WCW creative!

 

  • I am apathetic about this Russo garbage booking nonsense at this point, but just for ending WarGames on the lowest possible nadir, I have to give it an extremely low score on principle. I spent a few minutes considering this as I edited, but I can’t even conceive of how low to go for a Nitro that feels like the true beginning of the end. My beloved WCW will soon be as dead and gone as its famed WarGames Match is dead and gone thanks to the abominations in 1998 and 2000, so I’ll let you fair readers create your own value for this episode with the help of a handy equation: 2x + 3y * 4z where x and y are negative numbers over 2.5 billion, but z is a positive number over 2.5 billion out of 5 Stinger Splashes.
  • Like 1
Posted
7 hours ago, zendragon said:

Harris Bros, Russo, Jarrett and JEREMY BORASH? Is this late period WCW or early period TNA? (that should be your next project!)

I'd rather eat paste.

  • Haha 1
Posted
3 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

How about ECW on TNN and dying days Hardcore TV?

You fellas know that I like watching and writing about consistently good pro wrestling, right?

1 hour ago, zendragon said:

Or WSX then Lucha Underground?

LU is probably about the only thing post-2001 or so that I would absolutely watch and re-review, but is it streaming anywhere? It was on Netflix, then Tubi, but I'm not sure it's available right now. 

I guess people have at least some of it up on DailyMotion. 

I was thinking of trying to find a fairly complete run of AJW in the '80s and working through that next. I've been kicking around ideas about the next watch-through project I'm going to do in the back of my mind, but I'm still unsure. 

  • Haha 1
Posted

Thunder Interlude – show number one hundred and twenty-six – 6 September 2000

"The WCW Gang sees Bret Hart go out in a blaze of truly great promo work"

  • Pre-taped angle progression: M.I. Smooth rolls up to the Power Plant in his limo and opens the door for the Natural Born Thrillers…

 

  • As I watch the typical Thunder intro, I wonder who is in charge of Thunder right now?...I see people online giving different answers, but Ed Ferrara and Terry Taylor are consistently mentioned, and I could see them being the head of a writer’s room that would produce uneven, but sometimes pretty good Thunder shows as have been common for the past couple of months…

 

  • Meanwhile, back in College Station, Kwee Wee (w/Paisley) once again opens a Wednesday Night Thunder…Commentary hypes the NBTs/Orndorff confrontation that they’ll show later tonight…Kwee Wee’s opponent is Lt. Loco, who has no backup from his buddies in the M.I.A….Tony S. sells this as a match for a 100-KG-and-Under title shot…Tenay is fucking weird all of a sudden…Elix Skipper frog marches Major Gunns out here in a Canadian flag-themed bikini and Tenay yells LOOK AT THOSE MAPLE LEAFS…So, uh, did Okerlund leave the company and now we need a weirdo perv announcer guy as his replacement?

 

  • For some reason, Skipper and Gunns join commentary and are predictably terrible at it…Loco rolls Kwee Wee for the first three or so minutes of this match, but can only score two counts…Kwee Wee escapes a slam attempt and assaults Loco with a series of fists and boots…Kwee Wee’s gimmick is that he likes throwing hands in a rage when he’s angered, which is most of his offense…Loco gets a flash sunset flip for two in there, then scores a flash small package for two to counter a body slam…He’s able to use Kwee Wee’s momentum on a Kwee Wee rollup attempt to dump Kwee Wee to the floor…He follows up with a successful dive and gets a small CHA-VO chant…

 

  • This is where I once again lament how poorly WCW booked Chavo after he legitimately got himself way over in 1998…Commentary is a nightmare right now, so let me just skip to the finish, where Paisley trips Chavo as he balances on the top rope…Chavo gets hung up on the ropes and is an easy target for a Kwee Wee hanging DDT that gets three…Major Gunns gets in the ring and attacks Paisley…Stevie: “Prime Time, uh, you’d better get a handle on your yak, baby”…Amazing, Stevie…Tygress comes to the ring and helps Paisley turn the tide on Gunns, so Skip gets up and gets a handle on his yak grabs Gunns and absconds with her before the M.I.A. can rush out here and get her back…In my oft-stated opinion, YOU SHOULD HURRY UP AND PUSH CHAVO, YOU IMBECILES IN WCW CREATIVE…

 

  • Bret Hart, wearing a Calgary Stampeders jersey, pops out of his vehicle in the arena parking lot; Goldberg is also in the venue tonight…WHAT WILL HAPPEN?!...Well, Bret Hart ain’t taking a bump; I know that’s out of the question…I am somewhat surprised that WCW hasn’t terminated Bret’s contract yet…I thought he’d be gone from WCW by September of 2000…

 

  • Recap: Bret Hart eats a legit superkick from Goldberg at Starrcade ’99, and we see it like four times in a row…First of all, no, I don’t want to see that again…Second of all, I still stand by my argument that Goldberg failing to hold Bret up on the ringpost Figure Four earlier in the match did most of the damage to Bret’s head and the kick was just the Maraschino cherry on top…

 

  • We’re getting interviews from Dopey Dave, Stacy Hancock, and Booker T. later tonight as well as a teased confrontation between the Hitman and Goldberg

 

  • Pre-taped confrontation-slash-angle progression: The Natural Born Thrillers walk into the workout area, where I once again spy an old-school Nitro logo and immediately wish we could revert to the aesthetic of those shows…They walk up on Mike Graham and a trainee…Graham locks a quick Figure Four on Mike Sanders, but the other Thrillers knock out the trainee, then stomp Graham out…O’Haire drops a Seanton Bomb on Graham before the Thrillers move on in their search for Orndorff

 

  • They knock out another trainee who is mopping the floors, then tap on Orndorff’s office door before entering…How polite of them!...Orndorff is baffled by how much his former trainees changed once they got onto WCW television…He tries to tackle Stasiak, but the Thrillers are ready and grab him…They drag him out of his office and bash his head into the mop bucket before trainees and security personnel back them off…I think we needed a slightly longer beatdown before it got broken up to build heat, but this is actually a pretty entertaining little angle…

 

  • Pre-tape madness: After a break and a quick shot of the Nitro Girls at the end of a routine, Tenay conducts an interview with dumpster fire of a couple Dopey Dave and Ms. Hancock…Tenay wants to know if Papa Ric will be there, but Dave says that he hasn’t talked to his pops in a while…Stacy tries to cut in, and Tenay immediately is like YOU GOLD-DIGGING BITCH, WHAT DO YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT ANY OF THIS FATHER-SON SHIT?...Tenay thinks that these wacky kids are getting married because of the baby and not because of true love, and then as Stacy answers again, he’s like YAK YAK YAK, THAT’S ALL YOU WOMEN DO, LET DAVE SPEAK…Tenay wants to know if Dave will be as shitty a dad to his kid as Ric was to him…Dave is annoyed at the questioning and reiterates that he’s cool whether or not Ric shows up to the wedding…Stace is over this interview, and she and Dave leave…Tenay snottily predicts a quick divorce, and while he’s not wrong about that, he’s now solidly an annoying heel in this household…I want the next person he questions to punch him square in his jaw…I really hope we’re building up to that…

 

  • Goldberg walks around the arena looking for Bret so he can give the Hitman another concussion or three…

 

  • Recap: The Harris Bros. attack KroniK in a dive bar…It might be nice to get a wrestling match soon…

 

  • Three Count wields golden baseball bats...They look kinda aggy this week…Evan Karagias speaks for the group…Three Count is hyped up off using those bats to bash out what few brains Tank Abbott had in his head…Karagias calls out KroniK for a little bit of the same…KroniK can’t just accept the challenge, no…They have to talk about it…Adams says that they’re going to shove those bats up Three Count’s little boy band asses after they’re done destroying them, but in a very cornball way…

 

  • Why did Three Count drop the bats as KroniK got into the ring?...They get worked over, but use their numbers to get a bit of control…The problem is that while two of them work over one KroniK member, the other one is at a steep disadvantage in a one-on-one fight with the other KroniK member…Clark dispatches of Karagias and then re-enters the ring to help Adams kick the shit out of Moore and Helms…Lucky for Three Count, the Harris Bros. run to the ring and attack KroniK…The feud partners brawl their way backstage, and Three Count earns a count-out victory…They dance after the match, though Helms sells a back injury and barely moves, which is pretty funny…Tank Abbott sneaks up behind them and knocks them out, but, uh, Tank stole the contract that they won!...He's the heel!.. Stevie agrees with me that Tank is the villain here…

 

  • Security stands sentinel outside of Bret Hart’s dressing room…

 

  • Crowbar speaks with Gene Okerlund before his match against Shane Douglas…Okerlund asks Crowbar about Daffney, and Crowbar manages a composed, “Daffney, I’m happy for you” before tanking this promo by calling Shane “Troy Martin” and himself “Devon” and saying that this is “the real man, not the entertainer, talking to you”…Suffice it to say that I checked out of the rest of this bullshit promo…

 

  • Well, we have a new talk segment for WCW…It’s Mike Awesome in the Lava Lamp Lounge…I don’t even like Mike Awesome that much, and I’m upset for him!...Awesome’s debut show has Paula Pamshock as the first guest…Paula Pam Double P corrects him…She says that she likes dudes with a sense of humor, and Awesome unloads with every bad pickup line he can think of to try and get a date…She predictably is disinterested, but she still wants to be friends…You’re trying too hard, Mike, relax!...Ladies can smell desperation on you!...Jeff Jarrett interrupts the interview, makes a John Travolta reference, also makes an Austin Powers reference (that gets a pop because those movies were popular for some fucking reason that I personally don’t get), and tries to attack Awesome…They destroy the set as they brawl…Jarrett prepares to KABONG Awesome…Double P tries to stop him, so he threatens her…Gene Okerlund tries to intervene, and that allows Awesome to grab Jarrett from behind...Jarrett reflexively KABONGs Awesome as he turns around…

 

  • Troy Martin Shane Douglas (w/Torrie Wilson) wrestles Devon Storm Chris Ford Crowbar. The Dynamic Dude Dean Franchise does some bad mic work in which he talks shit about Billy Kidman, Crowbar, and Goldberg…Seriously, Douglas is maybe the biggest example of a guy who relies on being a big fish in a small pond…He didn’t need the Kliq to sink him in the WWF because he wasn’t good enough to be anything more than a lower-midcarder in that company anyway…He can blame Shawn and Razor, he can blame the corny gimmick, but he was always going to be a failure there…

 

  • Meanwhile, the desk riffs on the stupid worked-shoot promo that Crowbar cut a couple segments ago…This match is fine, but it’s pretty clear that Crowbar should be the centerpiece of their hardcore division…WCW is so stupid…They had Hak and didn’t make him the centerpiece of that division, choosing to center Bam Bam Bigelow and Brian Knobbs instead…Now they have Crowbar, but they are centering Norman Smiley in that division as a joke champion again…I say this as Crowbar and Douglas work an ECW-lite style weapons-filled brawl that is far better than pretty much every one of these types of matches…Vito was okay at this style, in fairness, but he also got to work with Terry Funk during his reign…

 

  • Crowbar dives and gnaws Shane's forehead and dives some more, but Douglas drops his taped ribs over an upturned set of ring steps and goes to work…Back in the ring, Douglas locks on an abdominal stretch and grabs the ropes, which I assume would be legal considering all the weapon shots they connected on earlier…He treats it like Slick Johnson would break it up if he saw it, though, and Crowbar is able to leverage his way out with a hip toss because Douglas doesn’t want to trigger a rope break…Crowbar makes a comeback, then unhooks his belt, wraps it around his fist, and pops Douglas with it…Crowbar chokes Douglas with the belt and then lands a textbook Northern Lights with a bridge for two…

 

  • He lands a DVD (no VR) for another two count…Crowbar lands a reverse DDT, but Torrie jumps in the ring to prevent a pinfall attempt…Crowbar tosses her to the mat, but turns right into a Franchiser for three…Post-match, Douglas is so focused on taking the tape off Crowbar’s ribs that he doesn’t see Daffney rush the ringside area and slam Torrie…Torrie gets some offense in for some dumb reason, but Daffney turns it around by kicking the middle rope into Torrie’s pum pum when Torrie tries to enter the ring to follow up on her attack…Douglas grabs Daffney, which causes Crowbar Lite to try and attack Douglas…He fails miserably…Then, out of nowhere, Madusa (?!) slides into the ring and drops Torrie with a kick…She tries to kick Douglas, who catches it, but Madusa manages to score an enziguri…Douglas decides that’s he’s had enough action for the night and reconvenes with Torrie outside the ring as this array of strange babyface heroes controls the ring…Douglas in the hardcore division is probably the best place for the guy…That was a decent match and weirdly entertaining aftermath, just for the novelty of Madusa getting involved for some reason…

 

  • Goldberg tries to get into Bret’s locker room, where he is stopped by security…Oops, I mean, “temporarily halted by security,” as he destroys them and enters…Bret, of course, is nowhere to be found…

 

  • Ah, I see…The Hitman wasn’t in his locker room because he was on his way to the ring for an interview…Bret gets about a 65/35 babyface reaction…Stevie thinks that Bret’s wearing a 1969 Atlanta Falcons jersey, and Tenay has to correct him…OK, Bret’s WORKED SHOOTIN’, but he’s Bret, so he’s funny as hell about it: “What the hell happened to wrestling? Hey, Mike Awesome, you’re worth half as much as you were fifteen minutes ago”…Bret knows that Vince Russo has the stroke in this company…Not much longer, thank God…Bret calls himself the greatest pro wrestler ever and, uh, gets a babyface pop…He talks about getting SCREWED his whole WCW run, and Tony S. is like Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard this before, move it along, dude…At least GOLD-BERG gets a chant from the crowd after Bret does enough heelish ranting…

 

  • Bret asks WCW to replay “the mother of all potatoes”...As we watch the superkick from multiple angles once more, Bret complains that it cost him “millions of dollars in a supposed guaranteed contract”…He legit shoots here, folks, and I think it’s worth getting his exact words down: “I got ten percent permanent disability in my brain, possibly for the rest of my life; oh, I couldn’t buy that ranch that I wanted to; Diana Myers is waiting in Atlanta to put a slug in the back of my head, and everything I ever said about being a circus animal is TRUE”…Goldberg comes out, and Bret yells, OH, YOU’VE COME TO FINISH THE JOB, BILL?...Well, that was quite the worked shoot, but I’m not sure there was much of a work in there!...

 

  • Goldberg basically responds by saying, You might be wondering why I don’t give you another series of calamitous head injuries right now, but it’s because even though this is a contact sport and contact sport injuries happen, I do feel bad about hurting you, and sometimes, I wish it was me who was hurt…Bret wishes it was Goldberg who was hurt, too, and then notes that he didn’t get a phone call from Goldberg when he was convalescing at home…Bret is I'm pretty certain legit raging mad as he rants at Goldberg about how his career is over…I mean, I love Bret, but there’s just no way that he’s this good an actor…Goldberg is also kinda legit mad that Bret keeps shitting on him, but he’s going to let Bret leave without further incident…Bret calls him “kid” and basically tells him to fuck off…Goldberg goozles Bret, but Scott Steiner jumps Goldberg with a series of lead pipe shots…Bret crows about Goldberg being A BIG DUMMY SO STUPID that he fell into the trap…

 

  • Scotty locks a Steiner Recliner on a woozy Goldberg while Bret yells C’MON BILL, SHOW US HOW MUCH YA CARE, C’MON BILLY…Steiner releases the hold as Slick Johnson slides into the ring to check on Goldberg…Charles Robinson tries to follow Slick, but Steiner kicks at him and yells GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE…So that segment was amazing!...I didn’t expect something even remotely that good, but I should have known that giving Bret the directive to just say what he felt would make some magic....No one was watching WCW at this point or this would be commonly lauded as one of the final great WCW promo segments…

 

  • Scott Steiner and a random blonde lady roll out of the parking lot after the break…

 

  • Here come the Filthy Animals!...I presume that Scott Hudson and his wife had a daughter based on the name of their kid…That kid is 24 now, and yes, the wheels of time continue to turn and we’re all going to die someday…Konnan jabbers on for a bit before, oh no…Rey and Juvi are defending the tag titles against the Harris Bros.…Please KroniK, save us from another Harris Bros. title reign…PLEASE…It’s September now, and it strikes me that Juventud Guerrera is going to have a bad reaction to party drugs in Australia and end up out of a job in about a month…The Harris Bros. stink, but it’s almost impossible to have a bad tag match if Juvi and Rey are flying around and making you look good…Disco and Konnan have joined commentary, unfortunately…

 

  • Juvi is FIP, but he can only do so much because the Harris Bros. aren’t exactly great offensive wrestlers…Juventud hits a nice flying lariat, but can’t get a hot tag…He endures a couple minutes more of mediocre Harris Bros. offense…A springboard bulldog works better at getting him over to his corner for a hot tag…Do you want to know what it sounds like when St. Peter shoves you onto the down escalator to the Bad Place?....As you descend, you hear Disco and Konnan yelling FACE FULLA STUFF FACE FULLA STUFF FACE FULLA STUFF, just like they’re doing now as Tygress lands a Bronco Buster Face Fulla Stuff on Da/oR…KroniK comes down, beats everyone down with baseball bats, and then dumps Rey on top of Ra/oD for three…That was the quintessential piss break after a hot segment or match…

 

  • Recap: WarGames is dead, long live WarGames…

 

  • Pre-taped promo: Booker T.s extended family and friends came to College Station for the show…They’re backstage and cheering for Booker T. before he lands a couple of his catchphrases…They even support him by singing along to DON'T HATE THE PLAYER, HATE THE GAME...Now, that's what I call familial support!...

 

  • Feud recap: Sting and Vampiro have worked their way onto the Worst Feuds list over the past fifteen years five months or so…

 

  • Vampiro (w/the Dark Carnival) are here for what I hope and pray is a blow-off match…The ICP are doing their commentator characters at the desk…The clown commentators tell Tony S. that for this match, he’s a JCW employee, and “[Tony] will be paid three dollars” for his work…They list a bunch of JCW workers and say that because Sting hasn’t beaten them, he can’t get a shot at Vampiro’s JCW title tonight…We get an obligabrawl while the clowns do absurd commentary at the desk…One of the clowns warns everyone not to get Ringo Starr and Chicky Starr mixed up, if you need an example of the kind of stuff they’re saying…I appreciate the absurdity, especially because a) they are total motormouths who don’t stop saying random shit, and b) this match is a mediocre extended obligabrawl, mostly…

 

  • Sting makes a comeback and one of the clowns implores Vampiro, “You have to get up; you’re makin’ us look bad”…These fellas are pretty funny just through sheer volume of quips…At least a few of them land when they're making fifty quips a minute…One of the clowns accuses Tony of using the confusion caused by Sting tossing Vampiro over the commentary desk to pickpocket his food stamps…WCW should have just had ICP do alternate commentary over their weekly shows at WCW.com…Now that would make the Nash and Russo eras way more watchable…

 

  • Anyway, the match makes it back in the ring, where Sting eventually wins it with a Scorpion Death Drop…Vamp and the ICP beat Sting down after the bout…I just noticed that Muta isn’t out here, and in fact, he slowly wanders down the ramp during this beatdown…Muta pulls Sting out of the ring to save him from an assault…Muta then mists Violent J, but Sting attacks Muta even though Muta came out here to help him…Goldberg needs to get his rage out from taking that ass-beating a few minutes ago, so he walks to the ring and destroys Vamp and the ICP…

 

  • Goldberg grabs a mic and calls Bret Hart back out to the ring…Bret doesn’t answer, but Lance Storm and Elix Skipper pop up on the TurnerTron and say that since fellow Canadian Bret is injured, they’ll be stepping in to beat Goldberg down in his stead after the break…

 

  • That’s a late commercial break, by the way…There are maybe three minutes left in this show when we come back to Storm and Skip stepping onto the ramp…They require that everyone stand for “O Canada” before they get in the ring…Goldberg is very disrespectful toward the playing of this majestic anthem and yells at production to cut the music…Production, fearing Jackhammers for all (or being dropped on their heads while attempting a ringpost Figure four), does so…Storm and Skip are reluctant to get in the ring, and Storm shoves Skip into Goldberg…Skipper tries to use his speed and agility to confuse Goldberg, but Goldberg just lets Skipper backflip off the top rope and then spears him…Storm decides that discretion is the better part of valor, but General Rection stops him from making his escape and feeds him back into the ring, where Goldberg hits the ol’ spear, Jackhammer, SPLAT to end the show on, uh, a win for the babyfaces?...Is that even allowed?...

 

  • This wasn’t a particularly good show, but the Bret Hart/Goldberg/Scott Steiner angle was extremely high-level in terms of its execution…That, combined with good progression on the NBTs/Orndorff angle, makes me feel that this show was ultimately a positive…It just breezed by for me, and a show this breezy deserves a positive score…WOO
  • Like 1
Posted
15 hours ago, zendragon said:

Harris Bros, Russo, Jarrett and JEREMY BORASH? Is this late period WCW or early period TNA? (that should be your next project!)

 

5 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

How about ECW on TNN and dying days Hardcore TV?

 

3 hours ago, zendragon said:

Or WSX then Lucha Underground?

Why are y'all trying to give this man an ulcer?

  • Haha 2
Posted
18 hours ago, zendragon said:

early period TNA? (that should be your next project!)

here's your reviews:

TNA 2002 = HOT MESS. some good stuff, some bad stuff. WILDLY inconsisent.

TNA 2003 = (first half) FUCKING DIRE! Russo at his fucking worst. (second half) actually, this is pretty decent.

TNA 2004-2007 (TBF i'm only in March 2007) = this is way better than people give it credit for. Too much Jarrett, for sure, but largely enjoyable.

8 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

How about ECW on TNN and dying days Hardcore TV?

1998 was ECW's last great year. it gets progressively worse after that. Steve Corino is the last bit of awesomeness, with Jerry Lynn and Rhino being in the next tier.

7 hours ago, zendragon said:

Or WSX then Lucha Underground?

WSX is a short watch and is nonsense but i enjoyed it. the matches are all chopped to hell tho, so it's hard to get engrossed.

LU is, of course, fantastic. i hear season 4 is trash but i never watched it. maybe someday.

56 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

WE DEMAND XPW REVIEWS!!!

now this one i haven't watched, outside of one DVD that i owned for some reason back in the day. it wasn't good.

  • Like 3
Posted

I feel ECW has a bit of a final hurrah at the end with The FBI, The Unholy Alliance , RVD coming back York and Mathews

I also enjoyed WSX when I watched it a few years ago and I've watched much worse wrestling that S4LU

Posted
14 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

You fellas know that I like watching and writing about consistently good pro wrestling, right?

LU is probably about the only thing post-2001 or so that I would absolutely watch and re-review, but is it streaming anywhere? It was on Netflix, then Tubi, but I'm not sure it's available right now. 

I guess people have at least some of it up on DailyMotion. 

I was thinking of trying to find a fairly complete run of AJW in the '80s and working through that next. I've been kicking around ideas about the next watch-through project I'm going to do in the back of my mind, but I'm still unsure. 

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

  • Like 1

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